#but thematically on the question of morality maybe??? the song *is* that good

[maganne-bonete]

Also listening to the Horse and the Infant makes me think of Laurent but I guess it's because of the whole singing abt your loved ones while being away in war, having them as one of your drive to live and fight, but still having that softness inside you. But also, he's really smart when it comes to fighting. He was still well taught under his father's house despite being illegitimate. Just without the baby killing part.

[gnomeniche]

it’s dhmis week day 4 which means i get to talk about dhmis s1e4 friendship and how interesting it is

so a lot of people’s analytical opinion about friendship has been “it’s funny but i don’t know if it really has that much to dig into, lore-wise or thematically”. i disagree. if you will indulge me, i will present the reasons that i find this episode persistently interesting in an easily digestible numbered list.

warren’s incompetence reveals more blatantly that the world’s reality can be and is manipulated by the teachers. we had hints of this before, but the shifts in reality were well-hidden with elements like the jobs song, which established a “teleporting” stylization to drop them into the factory, or the trip to the family house being built into the episode’s storyline. you could plausibly argue that maybe their world is just like this and nobody’s actually manipulating anything. however, warren dispenses with any kind of subtlety and straight-up pauses the show. because he’s bad at what he does! this is the episode that comes immediately before the two final episodes, which make the manipulation of the world explicit, so you could take this as setup for the idea’s full reveal.

the question of what the other two actually said to yellow guy: did they insult him? the bleeping happens immediately before warren starts his spiel. since the episode is riffing on the after-school bullying special, that is the kind of moment that would be built into a storyline as a segue for that kind of moral, and the recurring element of traditional kids’ show storylines with nice, pat morals being forced on the characters leads toward the bleeping possibly being a mislead. combined with the blatant world manipulation i discussed, the bleeping could have been added by warren to imply something harsher than they actually said. even the lead-in of “it’s not your fault. you’re just a—“ could plausibly set up a non-insulting phrase; part of the humor of the sudden bleep is derived from the expectation that it would be some kind of reassurance. still, they COULD have genuinely insulted him, but they just as possibly could have not. this ambiguity is compounded by…

the way the “being a good friend” message slips away to reveal a message of “insecurities can ruin your relationships” and how neither of them seems fully accurate: what is even up with the message? it starts with warren’s poorly delivered anti-bullying program, but it slowly transforms into being about how insecurities can get the better of you. warren styles himself as a teacher, but at some point, he becomes an embodiment of and metaphor for insecurity. with this in mind, if warren’s influence caused the bleeping, it becomes even more plausible that the other two did not necessarily insult yellow guy. was his impression that they insulted him really just a “worm in his brain,” an insecurity that he thinks his friends hate him manifested literally in the episode plot? HOWEVER. IT IS STILL MORE COMPLICATED, EVIDENCED BY…

the fact that his friends ACTUALLY do not respect him: there is repeated evidence in the rest of the show that his friends DON’T see him as an equal! i do believe that they genuinely do not hate him, but they certainly do not always treat him well either. red guy and duck don’t always respect each other, but both of them seem to see yellow guy as being on a slightly lower level than the two of them, and they treat him accordingly. he may have had a worm in his brain, but in the plot of the episode, they were the ones who encouraged warren to get into his brain, and they had to fix their fuckup. they may or may not have insulted him in the bleeped instance, but either way, they do not think about the behavior that could have led him to believe they would. the ending message of “your friends love you; don’t let your insecurities get the better of you” is then misleading; they are making it all about his insecurities and not about their behavior. sure, they love him. sure, insecurities can ruin your relationships. but neither of those facts negates that even when both are true, there can still be genuine problems within a friendship that need resolving. and boy do these guys have friendship problems.

the ending fight: peak television. funniest moment in the show. but also it adds to the weird ambiguity of it all. what DOES friendship even mean here? in a world like this, where nothing is ever really true and the enforced narrative is you and not you at the same time? can you ever really understand each other? or maybe it just means that sometimes you do need to call your friend on being a dick for no reason instead of trying to be the bigger person. and sometimes that means hitting him with a glass bottle and a katana and a gatling gun and also a chainsaw. who even knows

anyway that’s all the reasons i find dhmis s1e4 friendship interesting. and also it’s just really funny? the jokes do not stop coming and there’s a bunch of really subtle tiny gags that are just delightful. dhmis is always making you feel several levels of weird complicated emotions at once and this episode really does that to me. all of the lessons it gives have Something within them or in the surrounding context that complicates them or throws them into question. friendship is not the most emotionally devastating episode by a LONG shot (the one-two punch of transport and electricity kills me instantly every time i rewatch), but it is the one with the most weird shit that i keep trying to puzzle out.

[adultswim2021]

Moral Orel #37: “Help” | November 5, 2008 - 12:15AM | S03E07

“Help” is a flashback episode whose flashback takes place in the moment after Orel asks his mother why she married dad, and after she begins answering “Well…”. We flashback to a time in Bloberta’s life when she was younger and her peers were all getting married. Her family is cold to her, because she lacks pitch and can’t contribute to the family choir. Her father is a henpecked drunkard who slightly resembles Clay, THAT dang old gag!

Bloberta meets Clay (for the first time, I mean) at a wedding and the man is a teetotaler. He tells Bloberta his parents are dead. He has no intention of marrying a woman, even her! Bloberta browbeats Clay into getting drunk. Earlier in the episode we see Bloberta is a sneaky drinker. After seeing Clay make an ass out of himself she suddenly declares that she doesn’t drink, and starts obsessively cleaning the bar (manned by Figurelli, voiced by I’m not sure who, but it’s not Jay Johnston). Basically what we see is Bloberta transferring her drinking onto Clay.  

Bloberta clocks Clay cold for being a jackass on the dance floor, but is also there when he wakes up. She assists his recovery from the floor. She HELPS him, like the title of the episode, a thing she yearns (or at least is supposed to yearn) for; being of help. These two pathetic losers pair up. We cut back to Orel’s bedroom during that pivotal scene in Nature part two, and she answers Orel (to the question of why she married Clay): “Why not.”

This is another solid one. But, I still think it sorta gets a B in both the humor and pathos department. It feels important enough that I’m glad it exists, but this one never really made me do big laughs or big cries. But it’s got a great Mountain Goats song in it, is secretly about Scott Adsit’s parents, maybe? And has some “really great dancing”. Look, I just jammed in all the 44 Nights of Orel tidbits into that last line.

44 NIGHTS OF OREL

The 44 Nights of Orel was a special event where they aired the entire series in a special order over 11 weeks (episodes monday-thursday)

Before this episode we got God-Fearing, which isn’t so much a continuity thing but a nod to the fact that the night it aired was the evening before Halloween. After that we got The Blessed Union, which introduces Stephanie. Not that Stephanie appears in Help, it’s just the most notable thing about that episode, I guess. But The Blessed Union is thematic, because it’s about Orel’s desire to be a good husband, and getting his dick pierced.

[thaliajoy-blog]

Personal best ASOIAF quotes (no particular order) :

⭐ "A man will tell you poison is dishonorable, but a woman's honor is different. The Mother shaped us to protect our children, and our only dishonor is in failure." (Lysa Tully)

👉 I love what it implies thematically about honor, which is a very important theme of the book ; implicitly, the question "what is honorable/what is dishonorable" is often asked (and many answers given). Lysa tells something very meaningful & powerful there about the constructed differences between genders, suggesting also that women's honor is both a adherence to a law set by the Gods, to a certain nature, and a defiance towards the systems set by men. Women's nature essentially defies men and the society they've built for themselves.

⭐ "Is it how it goes, round and round and round forever ? I ask you again, where does it end ? Here is [Oberyn's / my lover's] killer. Can I take a skull to bed with me, to give me comfort in the night ? Will it make me laughs, write me songs, care for me when I am old and sick ?" (Ellaria Sand)

👉 maybe a pretty heavy-handed way to insert morals into the story but man is this heartfelt. Man does it hurt. Ellaria doesn't just talk about vengeance and it's deadly consequences (in a way that generally goes against most of the Dornish sentiment we get from ASOIAF and F&B, but it's all the more meaningful that a Dornish woman say this, cause vengeance is a core theme of the storyline in that corner of Westeros) - but makes a loving portrait of a loving relationship that she mourns.

⭐ "I rose too high, loved too hard, dared too much. I tried to grasp a star, overreached, and fell." (Jon Connington)

👉 just love that quote for how poetic it sounds. How it is also very heartfelt and melancholic. So much of ASOIAF is people thinking about the past, about their mistakes & about how "things were better back then" and there's a bit of both there.

⭐ "Love is the bane of honor, the death of duty...what is honor compared to a woman's love ? What is duty against the feel of a newborn son in your arms...or the memory of a brother's smile ? Wind and words [...] We are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love." (Maester Aemon)

👉 again there's kind of the idea that there's a contradiction between human laws & human nature. That men have burdened themselves with a system that might be somewhat necessary, but that it is also something that takes a bit of their deeper, more authentic humanity.

⭐"How much can a crown be worth, when a crow can dine upon a king ?" (Jaime Lannister)

👉 I'm stating the obvious but if course, reflexion on the shared humanity of men, the most common denominator being death. And again, it's freaking poetic ✨.

⭐ "- I am a man. I am kind to my wife, but I have known other women. I have tried to be a father to my sons, to help them make a place in this world. Aye, I've broken laws, but I've never felt evil until tonight. I would say my parts are mixed, m'lady. Good and bad. [...] It seems to me that most men are grey."

- "If half an onion is black with rot, it is a rotten onion. A man is good, or he is evil."

(Davos Seaworth & Melisandre)

👉 Get to learn about the complexities of good & evil with Davos & Melisandre ! The exchange is a way of giving material for thoughts to the reader, showing Davos' view on the question is all about the "and", the nuance (he's a rather average man who's lived the highs & lows of life, and his answer actually tells us that he is very moral, has a sense of honesty and truth - admitting what he's done & how he feels - truly evil persons generally don't feel evil, have no moral sense). It's about what you do, and what you do has nuance, and a context. While Melisandre (a fanatic of a very binary religion) responds by an ultimatum, the "or". There can be no nuance. I think she does regard Davos as a good man though, and that his transgressions just can't be categorized as evil. That his good outweighs the evil, so much that the evil just isn't. Same for herself ; her "necessary evils" mentality drives her to consider them as no longer evil since they serve the good she works for.

⭐ "Mother of dragons. Mother of monsters. What have I unleashed upon the world ? A queen I am, but my throne is made of burned bones, and it rests on quicksand. Without dragons, how could [I] hope to hold Meereen, much less win back Westeros ? I am the blood of the dragon. If they are monsters, so am I." (Daenerys Stormborn)

👉 the dragons are both wondrous and terrible, by making the world more magical they also make it more dangerous and incertain, which is the stuff magic is made of really.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Psycho Analysis is a series that looks at villains across various media in the hopes of coming to something of a consensus on the overall quality of the character. Are they performed well? Do they enrich the narrative? Are their motives fleshed out? Are they voiced by Tim Curry and thus a sex icon? 

There are a lot of important questions that I look into, but ultimately, Psycho Analysis boils down to asking one simple little question: How bad can a character be?

Thankfully, there’s one villain who decided to answer that question for me... in song form.

Psycho Analysis: The Once-ler

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

Yeah, I’m finally talking about everyone’s favorite greedy bastard who, back in some of the darkest days of Tumblr history, ended up being the premier sexyman on the website. People were thirsting over this twiggy weirdo, acting as if he were God’s gift to women and shipping him with alternate versions of himself. Much like the movie he’s from, he is now incredibly hard to take seriously.

But hey, speaking of alternate versions of himself, I’m going to be covering him from the original book and the animated short film as well. Might as well just knock it all out of the park at once, right? Now let’s see how ba-a-a-ad this guy can be.

Motivation/Goals: The Once-ler is all about biggering. He’s making thneeds (things that everyone needs) and he is gonna stop at nothing to craft these things. Not even the power of the Lorax, Danny DeVito or otherwise, is going to stay his hand from getting that sweet, soft Truffula fluff to make his wares. This is ultimately a little unrealistic, at least for the Illumination version; if Danny DeVito asked me not to do something, I’d listen, no questions asked.

Performance: In the animated special, Bob Holt does double duty, as he is portraying both Once-ler and the title character. It works really well for what they’re going for, and the double casting is interesting because it highlights the ultimate role of the Lorax as the Once-ler’s conscience given form.

In the film, Ed Helms portrays the Once-ler, and he’s fine. He’s certainly better casting than Audrey, but that’s not particularly saying much considering that’s a non-singing Taylor Swift (when Cats is able to utilize Taylor Swift better than your musical, you know there’s trouble). I don’t know, Ed Helms is fun and all, but I’m just not sure his take on the Once-ler is all too compelling overall.

Final Fate: In the original book and the special, the Once-ler wins… but even he realizes it’s a terrible, pointless victory, and all he has achieved is ruin, his family leaving him, his business ultimately collapsing, and the environment permanently damaged. He’s left as a miserable, jaded hermit, broken by the bleak consequences his greedy actions have sown upon the world and only able to tell his story and pass on the last Truffula seed in the hopes that maybe, maybe someday the trees can regrow and the Lorax will return. The Illumination version follows this but then tacks on a happy ending  where the Lorax and Once-ler reunite because as we know ambiguity and bittersweet endings cannot exist in children’s films.

Best Scene: Obviously it’s the scene where he shakes his ass to seduce Jack Frost, in one of the greatest gay romances ever put to film.

Joking aside, it is undoubtedly his villain song. It has become such a meme, but real talk? “How Bad Can I Be” slaps. This is a really good song, probably too good for the movie but you know what, I’ll take it.

Best Quote: HOW BA-A-A-AD CAN I BE? Yes, I’m using a line from his villain song. Sue me.

Final Thoughts & Score: What can one really say about the movie version of the Once-ler that hasn’t already been run into the ground? Well, how about… He’s not too bad, honestly? Like, yes, he has next to nothing to do with his book counterpart and they really go way too far into trying to make a capitalist pig sympathetic… but the animated special from the 70s did that too. I think the Once-ler honestly works better when there is a dash of complexity to him and he isn’t just a simple-minded Captain Planet villain.

Of course, the issue here is that the 70s version took a simpler approach, kind of less is more. The 70s Once-ler brings up some valid points to the Lorax about his work, and the Lorax can’t help but agree that there’s no easy answer while also stressing that the environmental devastation is still really, really bad. It works, it feels complex, and it arguably helps the ultimate point that we need to protect the environment better than even the book did (and I love the book, don’t get me wrong, but its take on the Once-ler is a bit too simple for its own good; it almost runs into the Femme Fatale problem by being a bit too much of a strawman). The movie version has a bit too much going on, especially with his family. His family are much more blatantly evil, greedy, and manipulative, but they’re relegated to the background for much of the film and don’t effect things all that much. The whole narrative would have been infinitely stronger if they were the greater scope villains behind Once-ler and were who needed to be defeated and maybe taught a lesson, but instead they are ignored in favor of someone I’ll address very shortly.

All of this leaves movie Once-ler feeling extremely disjointed, but not irredeemably so. As I said before, his villain song is unironically awesome, and as lame as it is compared to the more haunting, contemplative ending of the book and the special, I’m not so much of a curmudgeon that I didn’t at least smile when he finally reconciled with the Lorax. Ultimately though, him being memed to death really didn’t help his case, but it means I’m not giving the movie version anything less than a 3/10. He might in fact be the best “so bad it’s good” villain ever, or at least up there. He’s just so undeniably enjoyable even if the narrative isn’t making him as complex as it thinks it is. The animated special version gets a 9/10, the book version is a 7/10, and the Once-ler’s family gets a 5/10 for being an interesting concept they sadly do little with, which will now be elaborated on as I follow up on the foreshadowing from the last paragraph...

Psycho Analysis: Aloysius O’Hare

Remember how I said the Once-ler’s family gets ignored in favor of someone else? Here he is, Aloysius O’Hare, one of the absolute lamest villains ever put to screen.

Motivation/Goals: He’s greedy. That’s it. I’m not kidding. He’s just a cartoonish caricature of a rich person, which still makes him a realistic portayal but also makes him boring as sin compared to the wacky dude with a big musical number about how bad he can be.

Performance: Rob Riggle does a decent job, but there’s really not much for him to work with here. This character is a cardboard cutout who exists to be as cartoonishly greedy and evil as possible with no nuance so the kids know who to root against and so that Once-ler doesn’t look bad in comparison.

Final Fate: Look, he’s a blatantly evil corporate villain in a kid’s movie about the environment. Of course he gets defeated and everyone turns on him. What’s especially funny though is that, on the brink of learning his lesson, he rejects any form of redemption and just goes whole hog on being a villain.

Best Scene: I will absolutely give him this: in the face of his ultimate defeat, after having the virtues of trees sung to him and the entire town turning on him, he for a moment contemplates turning over a new leaf… and then absolutely rejects the thought and instead decides being evil is just too much fun, at which point he tries to get everyone back on his side by seeing a funny little song about death while wavedashing. If more shitty villains did this, I don’t think there would be shitty villains.

Best Quote: LET IT DIE, LET IT DIE, LET IT SHRIVEL UP AND DIE! Yes I’m quoting a song again.

Final Thoughts & Score: Look, I’m not gonna mine words here: O’Hare sucks. Big time. He is a prime example of why The Lorax failed as an adaptation. In a story that is dealing with a moral grayness with no easy answers, O’Hare is just a big, blatant target, a dark shade of black in terms of black-and-white morality. He’s like a reject Captain Planet villain with Edna Mode’s haircut.

The movie would have been infinitely better if, instead of him, the Once-ler’s family were in control of the town, and they needed to learn the lesson about saving the trees instead of simply vanishing from the story. They were shown to be overbearing, manipulative, and greedy, and they had a much more personal connection with Once-ler being, you know, his actual family. The fact they abandon him and never really get any sort of comeuppance despite being perhaps the most evil people in the move, egging on Once-ler and taking full advantage of him, makes O’Hare all the more egregious, because there could have been some strong thematic elements that would have tied the film together and made it come off as much less preachy and more nuanced.

But we don’t live in a world where that happened, we live in a world where we got O’Hare. Aside from some genuine hilarity from him at the end, O’Hare really adds very little to the film. I gotta give him a 2/10, but I will say he’s a lot closer to a 3 than he is to a 1; there’s no denying his absolute rejection of learning a moral is absolutely hilarious. I love when villains do that. It’s just a shame those funny moments are wrapped up in something monumentally unimpressive.

[pionoplayer]

I keep having this really dumb idea in my head of like... overly long undertale style genocide run? But in a setting specifically constructed in such a way to keep the serial escalation of it going without derailing/diluting the thematics. I dunno if it's a particularly good idea but since one of Everhood's songs put another fight concept into my head for it I decided I might as well post the original idea that came with it here to tumblr.

Steps echo down a ruined corridor, worn down by calamity and time both. At the far end, a figure slouches against a pillar, notices the newcomer, and stands up straighter to face them.

"Hey there. Didn't expect someone to make it this far.

Let alone for that someone to be you, of all people.

Guess this is the part where I give my little speech, yeah? That's usually how these things go.

There's a line I've heard said, quite a few times in fact. It goes something like…

'Do you believe that even the worst person, no matter how horrible, can change if they just try?'

I've always considered it a tacky line but in the end, I believe it. The answer was 'yes' for me after all…

But here's the thing, buddy.

After a certain point, the question stops being "can this person change" and starts being "how many people will they hurt if we give them that chance again".

Because a person can change, no matter how horrible… but only if they decide to.

And you've been given more chances than anyone could possibly earn at this point.

Some people would draw a line in the sand and dare you to cross it.

Not me. You've already crossed every line that mattered.

Some people would give you one last chance to drop your weapon and surrender.

But you already killed them all while their guards were down.

And some people are like you. Ruthless, cold, downright psychotic.

I'd say it turns out they were right but uh, you didn't really leave any of them lying around either did you?

So I'm gonna ask this question one, final time. Just for nostalgia's sake. Back when there were beautiful days outside, when there were flowers left to bloom and birds left to sing.

Are you ready to have a bad time?

Because you don't get a choice anymore, as far as you've come down your path the only thing left waiting for you is the worst time of your life.

NOW STAND STILL AND DIE LIKE THE CREATURE YOU ARE."

The newcomer - no, the challenger - steps forwards instead, sending an attack towards the figure at the end of the hall. The strike is rendered harmless.

"Yeah, I figured that would be your response. Let's get started then, shall we?"

The defender begins his own assault, attempting a pace to keep the challenger from launching their retort.

"You know, it's kinda funny. Looking at you, you don't look like the kind of person that would be responsible for everything happening."

A gap in the onslaught, another quick and precise strike, followed by the defender resuming his barrage.

"Hey now, that's not a jab at your height. I don't waste jokes on an audience like you. Just a statement of fact, ya know?"

Another opportunity, another missed shot.

"If it weren't for all the bloodstains and equipment stolen from the corpses of people better than you, I'd think you were just some poor sod looking for their way back home."

A gap, a strike. The pattern is established.

"Wherever your home was, it's probably not there anymore. A lot of homes aren't there anymore, thanks to you.

Doesn't that bother you? That wherever you started you can't go back? That everyone you might have ever cared about in whatever times and places you could've been…

Are just gone? Vanished? Obliterated so thoroughly that even we can't bring them back?

Look, kid. I don't know what your deal is. I know you by reputation alone, and even if my job is dealing with 'problems', I was really hoping I wouldn't wind up here. With you.

But every single one of them, even the psychopaths bent on breaking everything over their knee…

They still had something they wanted to see through. Something they wanted to protect, even if it was just their own sorry hides.

I look in your eyes, in your past, I see nothing. Oh, I see a house, and parents, maybe friends. But I don't see anything real. Real to you. It's like you've erased it, severed all your own ties on a conceptual level.

It's almost like you're just as gone as everything you've taken away."

Something changes. The strike lands a little closer, shaving off something small, insignificant. The constant barrage of destruction falters.

"...That fast huh? Go on, do it again. I dare you, kid."

Another strike. Another impossibly near miss.

"I didn't think you'd actually be dumb enough to do it. Guess my little ramble actually paid off yeah? Now I know exactly what you are. Approximately."

Another strike. This time the sound of it hitting the far wall seems to shake the very foundation of the world itself. And then the room fills with death.

"Let's see how you deal with phase two, buster."

The pattern resumes, just with more noise and violence.

"You know, I really don't know why I'm still talking to you. A friend of mine would tell me to stop wasting my energy…

But, you know, it calms my nerves. Pretending I'm talking to a real person.

Now, I'm sure you know the whole catastrophe, inside and out. You were right at the heart of it after all.

To get things straight though? You got lucky. We were busy, other problems were cropping up, and it didn't look like you were the threat you are until suddenly everything was collapsing.

And with what you are… do you think maybe in another branch of causality we could've maybe been coworkers? Maybe friends?

You've got the moxie to be one of us, I'll tell you what. A bit lacking on the 'morals' side of things though.

Guess it doesn't matter anymore. Even if I, if we, stop you dead in your tracks, in a way you've already won.

Can't go back from where we are now after all…

Speaking of 'not being able to go back', I'm getting a little bit tired of this endless back and forth. What do you say I… speed things up a little?"

Abruptly the pace picks up, what was already an assault leaving so little untargeted space it was frankly unreasonable that the challenger had gotten this far - and gotten this far unscathed no less - becomes an unrivaled, personally targeted cataclysm.

"...You know, even knowing what your deal is... watching you brush off one of my best tricks like it's a laser pointer is infuriating."

The challenger lashes out, a set of frantic, angry strikes that are abruptly cut short by a resumption of hostilities from the defender.

"So you know what? I'll take a turn at your game. Go ahead, hit me with your best shot before I can charge up something better. Let's see how this goes for you."

The hall is silent for the briefest of moments, before the challenger lets loose the first noise they've made throughout the entire confrontation; an infernal, blood-curdling shriek. Power ripples through the hallway, searing away pieces of it in a barrage of strikes meant to bring gods to their knees.

Everything freezes. The challenger, the collapsing hall, everything but the defender.

"Wow, you're really ready to have this be over with, aren't you? I'm sure you almost got me, try harder next time and I'm sure you'll get to see what comes after."

There's a crunch and a soft cry of pain. The challenger is forced to their knees.

"I've got a little piece of advice for you though, assuming you haven't gotten it from me already."

Another crunch, a steady pace of dripping liquid can be heard.

"Your little 'quest' doesn't end with me. I'm just the wake-up call. If you get past me somehow, things are gonna get a whole lot worse for you than you realize. You might wanna turn back now before things actually get ugly."

There's no sound besides the slow drip of blood to the floor of the ruined hall. Or something approximating blood at least.

"Now get lost."

GAME OVER

...You aren't getting rid of me that easily.

>RETRY

[aceadmiral]

To Live Without

Some family friends getting married had a cute idea: with the RSVP, they asked guests to suggest a song for the reception. When discussing possibilities with my mother, we pulled up the most famous scene of My Best Friend's Wedding (1997), when the cast spontaneously breaks out into Dionne Warwick's "I Say A Little Prayer" at brunch. The top YouTube hit for a clip also includes the reprise(?) at the end, and it reminded me what a deeply weird movie it is. Circumstances being what they are, I decided to take the opportunity to re-watch the full film, and well. Spoilers for a 23-year-old movie?

My Best Friend's Wedding is first and foremost analyzed as a deconstruction and repudiation of the standard way the Love Triangle plays out in the mainstream RomCom, and I'm not sure the movie would even work if you were somehow unaware of the tropes associated with it. We're primed to expect the love rival will be evil or selfish or somehow bad, and it only comes on gradually that our protagonist is, in fact, the villain of the story. But then, weirder still, you kind of still want the villain to succeed because it turns out the love interest is pretty much a jerk and, karmicly, their inevitable acrimonious divorce contrasted with love rival's marriage to someone who would actually value her has a better ring to it.

The other thing that is peculiar about the film's structure is George, the main character's editor-slash-gay-best-friend. Originally a very small part, it was beefed up to include the iconic scene and also a completely different moral framing device--and ending--in reshoots.

And that ending. Apparently, she was originally supposed to meet some new guy at the wedding reception and hit it off, but instead George drops everything to fly out to Chicago for the second time in one weekend to be a good (great, honestly) friend. I actually saw the ending once on TV first without the context of the full film. Maybe if I hadn't known what was coming, I could have bought in to the idea that the main character had realized some until-then obscured True Love for love interest, but I kind of doubt it. The film goes out of its way to question her motivations for wanting to stop this wedding, which I appreciate because I probably would have died of rage if it asked me to accept at face value all these events on the basis of a one-month relationship nearly a decade prior. Her actions make it clear she's not interested in a serious relationship/marriage. She also tells us as much before this whole crisis starts. And thankfully, thankfully, the ending confirms it.

Regardless of if you want to take an aromantic reading of the main character (and you certainly could), I feel like the movie is affirming to me and my ilk in that late-90s kind of way. Like, as long as you don't actually think about it and just feel, it's great to see a female character at 28 express indifference about marriage, go through a crisis about it, and then not be proven wrong. When does that ever happen? Aside from real life, I mean.

Because, statistically speaking, people seem to know what they want out of marriage by their late 20s. Despite the meme of the young person changing their mind--especially women as their "biological clock starts ticking"--it doesn't seem to be reality, in either direction. By 28? Your brain is fully formed and more than ready to make decisions that will impact the entire rest of your life.

So, thanks for the deeply, deeply weird ending, movie: perhaps one of the only times reshoots have made a film more thematically coherent, although apparently by accident. Maybe there won't be marriage, and I was never big on sex, but I am 100% on board to keep on dancing.

[Cross-posted to Wordpress]

[yinnezha]

tragic book otp recs? i’m thinking of starting the poppy war so any recommendations to things similar like that would be great :)

sorry but for the otp question i was referring to books and preferably adult books, if you can :)

oh god please do read the poppy war it is amazing and if you enjoy tragic stuff that book is filled with it lol and is very good with gray characters and relationships and the morality of it all is very interesting to read. now about the recs, it kind of put a big limit on what i can rec to you by asking for only adult books so sorry i cannot be of more help because most of my tragic otps are from ya books or television. but i have read a few adult books with very real and touching relationships with a tad of sadness to them that maybe could be something that would interest you? not sure because they’re not fantasy but here goes anyway:

landline by rainbow rowell (had to include one of my favorite authors)

the goldfinch by donna tart (just finishing and loving everything)

one day by david nicholls (absolutely wrecked me)

atonement by ian mcewan(to-list read but god this story)

a song of ice and fire by george rr martin (sorry but is the most tragic and thematically beautiful fantasy so i just have to rec it lmao)

the scorpio races by maggie stiefvater (ya not tragic but very melancholic fantasy and my favorite book)

tiger lily by jodi lynn anderson (ya but very good quite sad)

sorry that i can’t be of more help also please when you finish the poppy war/the dragon republic come talk to me about it if you like, i’d love to know your thoughts!!

edit: check the replies for more recs :))

[lexxaven]

Writing Prompts

Hey guys! Thank you for all the writing prompts! I appreciate the inspiration and hope to incorporate some of the ideas, although I can’t make promises to write all of them, because not all are my style or something I like writing. I write for enjoyment and as a sort of therapy, so if it doesn’t catch my interest, please don’t be offended or think I’m not keeping my word or am ignoring you. What you sent me may just not be my thing.

More under the cut!

A few things you should know...I’m not big on writing about pets or kids. Just not my thing. And I don’t like dealing with imbalanced power dynamics in relationships or BDSM stuff. So like anything that touches on that, even thematically like a suggestion I got about Lexa being the commander who kidnaps Raven and then Raven falls for her... not my thing but no shame to those who choose to explore this in fic or enjoy reading this. I just can’t write it and it triggers some of my own issues that I’m not willing to explore. Also, I like pets and kids, but I do not find them enjoyable to write for some reason. And I write purely for enjoyment and as a type of therapy almost (at least at this point in my life), so if you send me an ask and I do not write it, please do not be offended or take that as a rejection in any way. Keep sending me those asks and prompts anyway, and if something sparks my interest and inspiration you may get lucky!

Also since I am new to this whole prompt filling thing, I ask that if you do send prompts please send what rating you are okay with (K, T, M, E). I can’t always promise I will be able to write an M or E, but I don’t want to write an M or E for someone who is looking for K or T. And I also find it helpful if you put songs and a lot of details about things. Again, I can’t promise to write all those details if they don’t work for me, but I find it basically impossible to write a fic if all I get is — Enemies to lovers modern au, astronaut Raven and Lawyer/CEO Lexa. Like, what? That is way too broad and I will have not clue what to write. I liked this high school au prompt because it gave me setting, a little character description and kind of a goal for what the end/resolution would be.

Here’s an example of the high school au prompt that I am currently working on below, along with some other info the anon sent that I found helpful:

They also responded when I asked more questions, which I really appreciate! The more details you can give me the better! Even if I don’t use all of them, reading other people’s ideas and their reactions and feelings about the things I’ve written inspires my own feelings and ideas. Otherwise I’ve got nothing to go on a lot of the time.

I’ll let you in on a helpful secret: If you want more Lexaven content and fic, then leave me nice, long comments on my fic and stuff I already have out there. Even if you’ve already read them, go back and do that. I frequently make edits to old fics and old chapters and add new parts in, so you may get lucky to find something new. And I feel especially if you go back and reread chapters for enjoyment, but have never left a comment, that’s kind of rude. Not a lot of people comment and it makes me feel sad and uninspired to write and like all of my hard work and care I put into my writing is not being appreciated or noticed. It can feel like you’re being taken advantage of.

Like I said, I write for enjoyment and use it as a type of therapy, so I can easily just write this stuff and enjoy that all on my own without having to post it and do all the hard work that comes with making a work presentable for others to read by connecting details, narrative threads, themes, setting, tenses, timelines, accurate and in character dialogue and actions. It’s HOURS of work that I do for you guys, and the lack of comments and responses is why you guys don’t see more content from me. The only thing that motivates me to do all that extra, icky work is when I know people are actually motivated to give back to me in a way with their feedback about what they like, their favorite parts....leave me long paragraphs about what you think or feel. Ideas you have. Things you hope to see. Things you’re wondering or curious about. How you felt. Copy and paste your favorite line of dialogue or quote. Talk about the themes you like, or what you like about the setting and characters. I do not judge punctuation or content or grammar or think you will sound stupid at ALL! I love raw, unfiltered and non put together reactions. One time I got a comment that was just a lot of emojis and screaming letters and it made my week! Although, don’t just do that because I need to feel like what I’m putting out there is being seen and noticed and appreciated.

Anyway, I know this kind of rabbit trailed, but I feel this is important for you as fandom and readers to understand. Since I’m not getting paid to do any of this, it’s all just based on my enjoyment and how much I’M getting out of writing and posting this. Lately responses and comments have been so low I’ve been tempted to stop writing my story altogether, so please keep that in mind.

Every time I post a new chapter for This Feels Like Falling In Love, I get around 300 hits/views, and have 80 subscribers.... But this most recent chapter literally had 4 comments left for me. The most commenters I think I ever got for a chapter was maybe 11. It may look like when you get to the bottom of the fic and see how many comments there are that there are a lot, but that’s usually from me going back and forth with the same handful of comments. Which I love those commenters and am so grateful to them, and they know that, and you should thank them because they are probably the only reason I’ve posted as much of the story on AO3 as I have (they know who they are too). BUT REALLY????

I spend hours upon hours writing that one chapter, that was 10,000 words mind you, even went through getting a beta to read through it before posting it. Then 300 people read it and enjoyed it for free, and then 4/300+ people actually left comments??? WHAT???? Comments and feedback are the ONLY thing I personally get enjoyment from by posting. Like I said, I can write for enjoyment for free and it’s a lot less work.

I DON’T WRITE FOR THE AUDIENCE OR FOR REVIEWS. I WRITE FOR MYSELF AND MY ENJOYMENT. HOWEVER, I DO EDIT AND POST FOR YOU AS THE AUDIENCE! I DO NOT LIKE THE PROCESS OF EDITING OR POSTING! THE ONLY THING THAT MOTIVATES ME TO DO THAT IS YOUR RESPONSE AND APPRECIATION. YOUR COMMENTS AND FEEDBACK. So when I don’t get that, I’m just like, meh, not much in it for me, no one really seems to care if I post this anyway, and even if they do, not enough to give back or positively add to me. It feels too imbalanced and like a toxic relationship where all you do is give and never receive, and I don’t put myself in those situations anymore because I know better now. So that’s what it can feel like for fanfic writers, and I need to get something out of this experience of posting too. I’m not that much of a saint, sorry.

So moral of the story, if you want more content that’s free for you and a lot of work for me, then you need to make sure that I as the writer am getting what I tell you I need to stay motivated to post. Which is in my case—but for most writers honestly—is very specific and thoughtful feedback that lets me know you notice and like what I’m putting out there. This is something I’ve repeatedly mentioned in my notes, but few have actually done. If I don’t get more of a response with good comments after making this post, then I will probably discontinue posting TFLFIL because I’m not getting joy out of doing it anymore. I go back and read those comments for motivation and inspiration before I open a document to write. So think about that and what kind of comment you’re leaving. A “please update!” Or “great” or “thanks”.... While I appreciate those a lot, are not particularly inspiring. Please do not take this as me discouraging those types of comments at all because I really appreciate them! But I rarely even get those types of comments, and would rather get those than none. Although, please never leave a comment that asks when I’m updating or just tells me to please update. Especially if that’s all you say or the only comment you leave without expressing any appreciation. I have ongoing chronic health issues that limit my abilities to move my body and type, and I will update when I am capable and feel like it. And I do understand social anxiety and shyness or people not knowing what to write or language barries or worrying about being judged. But please keep in mind that I have social anxiety too, and I had anxiety even posting my fic but pushed passed it for you guys, so maybe you can do the same for me??? You can even look at other people’s comments from other fics you read and basically copy them word for word if you have no ideas of your own... I’m just letting you in on my process as a writer and what I find motivating and what you as a reader can do to motivate me and get more content. Or not even to get more content, but just for me to keep the content out there for you that you already have, and to be a kind human being who adds to other people lives.

I hope some of you actually take the time to read this and take action afterwards, and don’t just brush it off as something boring. This is something I’ve wanted to address for a long time because the issue has been building up for me and getting worse, and I am just now hitting my breaking point with it. I get very frustrated when I see people complaining about the lack of Lexaven content but then don’t do anything to show appreciation for the content I do create or the content they do have. Again, I’m not a robot and need to get something out of this posting business too. Otherwise I will just keep all of my messy and narratively confusing stories that don’t always connect or make sense to other readers, for myself to enjoy :)

[crawl-out-through-the-callout]

Holiday Headcanons

A collection of headcanons for the Fallout 4 Companions + Faction Leaders!

ADA

Jackson made it a point to make sure that ADA understood the holidays all of them but she still has questions and will make inquiries to that effect. She's respectful about it.

She doesn't quite get the concept behind some of them, and not all of the settlers are as happy to get her holiday presents (junk, of course!) as the Sole Survivor is, but she really puts her metaphorical heart into it. One of the gifts she manages to find and give Sole is one massive knot of Christmas lights, which she will offer to assist in disentangling.

Subsequently, a gigantic ball of lights is shoved onto a traffic cone as the Christmas tree. No one can get those things untangled.

Best gift: Junk

Cait

Never really had fond memories about the holidays due to her upbringing. 

Still, she's happy for the excuse to knock back a couple of extra pints.

And will absolutely go out of her way to pick up a gift or two for Sole once made aware that it's a tradition, even though she doesn't celebrate herself.

Of course, she swears it's just something she ran into, nothin' too special, but Sole knows better.

If Sole manages to get enough drinks into Cait to actually get her a little wobbly, she may allow a more spiritual conversation about her own beliefs of which she apparently has many.

Best Gift: Drinks, fun

Codsworth

Decorates everything. Everywhere. For every holiday. Tastefully, of course.

Which brings up some questions. Where did he find so much garland? Are the candles in that menorah *new*? Is that an actual, live turkey?

A butler has his secrets, ma'am/sir.

And his regrets. He laments that he never had more time to spend holidays with young Shaun and the Mister/Missus, of course, but also that he cannot do more for Sole now. Holidays are meant to be a day spent with your family, the one gift he cannot give. 

He'll try to lighten the mood with a joke about needing to clean up after holiday feasts, but Sole can tell he's still hurting.

Even if the Sole Survivor is too bitter or angry around the holidays to celebrate, Codsworth will still try to find a small act to try to make the day pass easier.

Best Gift: A "holiday" event as a family

Curie

Curie has loads of questions even more than ADA  and the enthusiasm to try absolutely every old tradition. She considers the emotional enjoyment from holidays every bit as important as regular exercise and a normal diet! She encourages Sole to at least try to take part in a vacation during these days. 

She also absolutely adores any and all decorations and, while shy, is very curious to learn any and all songs and how to sing them. Of course, she also cares very much for their cultural significance and origins and would adore a book regarding such topics, though it isn't quite her field of expertise.  

New Years' Eve, especially, is a delight to Curie. She takes her resolution very seriously and is exasperated to discover most people don't. 

Best gift: Knowledge!

Danse

Before Blind Betrayal, Danse insists that the Brotherhood of Steel has more important things to attend to than holiday shenanigans and revelry, but does acknowledge that they are important for squad morale, and so will engage in such activities for their benefit. 

It's actually super easy to rope him into most of the holiday stuff, though he is not at all amused to have his power armor decorated for the occasion. 

Despite his words he doesn't exactly take off the paint, though lights will have to go. For safety reasons. 

After Blind Betrayal, grows very melancholic around the holidays. Will tell stories about Rhys's postNew Years' hangovers or, more fondly, about Haylen's talent with hand-carving dreidels. 

If they're still alive, Sole can go see Haylen to get a gift for Danse, though it's never explicitly stated as such. There's a moment of tension as they realize Rhys has overheard their conversation, but after staring at them for a long moment he makes it a point to purposely misconstrue their talk as something entirely unrelated, giving them an out. 

They all know. 

When Sole makes touching gestures for Danse, especially for the holidays, he never has the words to express how it makes him feel. This is a good way to get a very intense hug. This is also a very good way to collapse a lung, so make sure he's out of the Power Armor first. 

Best Gift: Reassurance

Deacon

Takes great pride in claiming he is of the heritage or religion to celebrate every holiday as it comes up, inexplicably has all of the information and customs down to celebrate them accurately. 

Especially enjoys singing carols offkey in the HQ because he knows it gets on Glory's nerves.

She mostly seems to be faking the exasperation, though, so it just seems to be a thing with them. 

Will sometimes hum the same songs while out with Sole, but seems a little more in his own head when he does so.

Makes it a point to celebrate Sole's preferred holidays in whatever manner they would and to rope them into it under the guise of them doing *him* a favor, not the other way around.

By the time they've maxed out his affinity, Sole can pretty clearly tell that Deacon just doesn't want to be alone and thinking of his past on these days. He'll never outright say it, but he's grateful when they let him stick around.

When it comes to group celebrations, however, he has a habit of sticking to the edges of the crowd, if he shows up at all. It's a good place to gather intel, he says, but it's just more of him separating himself from others to avoid getting hurt.

At a high enough affinity and having spent the holiday with Deacon, Sole might get a brief but serious conversation in which Deacon thanks them again for putting up with his shit. It means a lot. Seriously...And then he defuses the tension by trying to deflect their response into a joke. 

Gives Sole a gift by initially insisting it's something they just dropped with a straight face, especially if it's something they've never seen or couldn't have possibly been carrying. 

Best Gift: Feigned Ignorance

Dogmeat

Has no idea what is going on, is extra happy to have more people around.

And the attention! So much attention! And kids to play with!

Loves the extra food, too.

And yet, still seems to find the loneliest people at the party to hang around them at their lowest points of the night. 

Is a good boy.

Best Gift: Attention!

Hancock

Gets even more self-destructive around the holidays, probably due to a mixture of guilt and the betrayal from his "brother's" actions. 

Will escalate until the holidays are either over or Sole talks him out of it, at which point he'll go into a rant and manage to work out his feelings through that.

There's a revelation in there somewhere, and the chance to talk about moving forward instead of looking back. Sole can encourage Hancock in considering the people of Goodneighbor and Sole themselves as his new, weird family, and he's grateful for the talk.

With that behind them, of course, he's now down to party without the motives of just getting through it. 

Best Gift: Mentats, a comforting talk

Longfellow

Makes a lot of dismissive remarks about the holidays, avoids people and towns during them...

But also seems to fiddle a ribbon in his pocket a lot. The hairpiece of a long-lost child, perhaps?

He won't answer questions about it, only snorts or gruffly tells Sole they have better things to do. 

Still, he doesn't mind some time in a bar or together, away from everyone else, to just slow down and reminisce. 

Best Gift: Oddly enough, something small and kind of silly, like an old holiday-themed keychain or something. He snorts at it, but Sole never sees him without it.

MacCready

Pretends he didn't even know the holidays were around. Explains why he's so darn cold. 

But he totally knew, he's been giving Daisy all kinds of stuff to send back to Duncan, and sulks when he thinks Sole isn't looking.

If the cure has already been found and sent along to Duncan, Sole can arrange for a special trip and explain to MacCready that there's something they really, really need outside of the Commonwealth, and they don't trust anyone else to have their back.

It's kind of like taking a puppy to the park; it doesn't fully sink in until he recognizes where they are, and then he's all excitement and has no idea what to do with himself.

Bringing him home is as much a gift to Duncan as it is to MacCready.

Best Gift: Getting to see Duncan again.

Nick Valentine

Swears all he needs for the holidays is for things to stay calm for a few minutes, but we all know how that works out, don't we. 

But he makes it a point to drop back by Diamond City more than usual, to check on everyone and make sure their days are going well. 

Gets torn between wanting to solve his cases faster to help out those that need the emotional lift and actually taking time off so Ellie isn't too alone for the holidays. 

Probably gets a dramatic and thematic case just before the holidays that Sole can help him with. It kind of plays out like a Christmas movie, and Nick clearly takes a lot of pride in it.

Best Gift: Repairs made to his torn-up trenchcoat and hat. He doesn't want new ones, of course, but if they were sewn and patched up, it'd mean a lot to him.

Piper

Goes out of her way to make sure everything is perfect for Nat, even though Nat's getting to the age where she isn't quite as into the holidays and wants to do her own thing.

Piper wants to be cool and let it slide, but she's also hurt because she has issues dealing with the fact that Nat is growing up. By the end of it, of course, Nat is at least willing to have their traditional family dinner of mostly candy and playing mad libs in exchange for Piper accepting that she doesn't want to spend the whole day home. Sole is invited.

Piper also gets a gift for Sole, and though it isn't something Sole thought they wanted, it turns out it's something they needed. She's observant like that.

Best Gift: A good holiday for Nat (and maybe a killer frontpage story!)

Porter Gage

Swears up and down the holidays are bullshit, just like the whole damn park. If you can figure out how to turn them to the Raiders' advantage too, by all means, but until then he just wants to focus on expanding your operation and keeping things running smoothly.

Not that anyone can keep the Pack, Operatives, or Disciples form their own celebrations during the holidays. Porter looks especially tired this time of year.

There's probably a quest for keeping them under control or dealing with the fallout of them getting too crazy. 

Best Gift: He says it's shit running smoothly, but the best gift is actually something utterly saccharine that he initially scoffs at. Maybe a specially-modified gun just for him, or a cheesy holiday card made out of a collage of NukaWorld ads. He'll say something to the effect of "You goin' soft on me, boss?" but like Longfellow, he always seems to have it on him.

Not that you'll ever see it outside of him trying to sell it to you alongside everything else you've given him.

Preston Garvey

Works himself to the bone trying to make sure everyone can at least enjoy the simple pleasure of a safe sleep over the holidays. Will also ask Sole to help him unite families and bring kids gifts. 

Will absolutely push himself too hard and fall asleep the moment he sits down at a bar or similar establishment for a break.

Somehow ends up surrounded by gifts from all the settlers, needs help unburying himself from gifted blankets and coats put on him while he slept. Is very embarrassed by it, also unsure as to whether or not it's rude to redistribute the gifts to the settlers than need them.

Still, can be caught just smiling at all of the celebrations, so proud to have helped Sole in rebuilding the Commonwealth and giving people something to celebrate.

Best Gift: Safe settlements, happy settlers, a mandatory break.

Strong

Very confused.

Wants to fight Santa. And Krampus. And the Easter Bunny. 

You know, to prove himself Strong and probably absorb their power through their defeat.

Will camp out all Christmas night, falls asleep, is infuriated to wake up to Santa's gifts. He'll catch Santa next year, for sure.

Best Gift: Fistfight with someone in a mall Santa outfit. It'll ultimately prove disappointing, but at least he'll move on.

X6-88

Is very dismissive and cold in regards to the concept of the holidays, remarks that they greatly reduce productivity. 

But if he notices a particularly distraught Sole, will instead remark that not celebrating them appears to be negatively affecting their efficacy. Recommends they get their affairs in order and then return when they can focus, which is horribly phrasing for what is actually supposed to be "hey, go take a break". 

Eats SO many cookies and snack cakes when no one is looking (he thinks).

Deacon was totally looking, and is absolutely going to make a bunch of very casual remarks about how *everyone* at the party must be loving them with how many of them are missing.

Surprisingly, X6 gets Sole a gift that isn't totally utilitarian. He makes no affectionate remarks to accompany it, only gives it to them with no fanfare and then continues about his work. It kind of comes across as a gift of obligation, but no one told him he needed to. 

Best Gift: Snack Cakes, dedication to your work

Bonus:

Desdemona

Makes it a point to arrange for a small but quiet celebration for the Railroad to ease internal tension, though it mostly seems to be because it's a tradition. Tinker Tom makes a cake everyone is scared to eat, Deacon brings eggnog no one questions the origins of, and Glory raises morale by being a badass (which is, you know, what Glory always does). 

Des will also take the time to insist everyone take a moment of silence to acknowledge the agents they've lost over the years, and then to look at the progress they've made and how proud those agents would be of them now. 

Des isn't one of the ones that end up sleeping off the nog, but does Team Mom it up by making sure all of her agents are safe and comfortably tucked away when they do.  

Best Gift: Taking the time to thank her for the work she's done. She's surprised, but touched.

"Father"

Respects the Institute's traditions for holidays, which mostly seems to involve briefly acknowledging them before going back to work.

But can also be caught staring out his window. If caught, will clear his throat and attempt to ask about something else but if pressed, can be made to admit that he was reflecting on his life and how holidays might have been if things had gone differently. If the war had never started, if the other parent had survived, if they'd been brought out with him...Even if he'd taken the time to make a family of his own.

Not that he ever wanted to get married or have kids, but it's hard not to wonder what it might have been like around the holidays even for him, and especially in a place like the Insitute where everyone seems to have an invisible barrier keeping them apart from one another. 

May make the gesture of giving Sole his baby blanket, which he has held onto all these years. 

Best Gift: "World's Best Father" mug. Doesn't laugh, but privately puts it up alongside his awards just as proudly as any of the others because of who it's from.

Maxson

Has fond memories of the holidays as a child, of venturing out with Sarah and getting to speak to Elder Lyons at dinner. 

Drinks heavier around the holidays, which is saying something given all the bottles in that room. 

Throws himself into focusing on his work, however, which often gets on the nerves of his followers...But they expect it at this point.

On the other hand, he also seems to have a harder time keeping track of things, and grows frustrated with himself for it. He's too distracted.

Sole can help him deal with it by sneaking him out for a mission, something he initially considers a waste of resources but soon ends up fully throwing himself into and enjoying. He'll reluctantly admit that it was a good idea after the fact, but insist that it was a onetime thing. 

It isn't. It happens every year.

Best Gift: Completing your missions in a timely manner. Ad victoriam, or something.

[nellie-elizabeth]

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: I Will Help You (4x07)

Guess what? I liked this episode.

Cons:

There were great things about the songs this week, for sure. I liked Naomi's song, I liked the joke start to a song that Darryl and Josh had, and I liked Naomi and Elayne Boosler's camp song. All that said, though, this season has not delivered with quite as many winning songs as seasons past. In all of the first three seasons, I can only think of a handful of songs that didn't interest me enough to go back to several re-listens. This season, there are already quite a few that I thought were just... fine, but not really worth repeating. I think this is a product of the longer episode order. Maybe they only have the budget for one full production number per episode.

I've seen another reviewer complain about this in the past, and it's always bothered me a little bit too, so I thought I'd say something: everybody being on Josh's case about moving out of Hector's mom's house feels a little strange to me. Clearly their relationship is meant to be comedic and inappropriate, but whenever the rest of the gang starts telling him to move out, I always think about the money question. Nobody ever seems to put together the idea that Josh might not be able to afford a change in circumstance. That feels like an odd misstep on this show, and it highlights the degree to which money is not really examined as a moving force in people's lives. Sure, we all know Nathaniel is rich and he is judged for that because it enhances his privilege. But other than the necessity of having roommates as adults, we don't see the characters ever struggling or worrying about paying the bills. Remember when Rebecca was totally broke? Well, since then, she hasn't exactly been bringing in a steady income, and yet she seems to have no trouble staying afloat.

Pros:

I love that we haven't seen Naomi since Rebecca's suicide attempt, and I love that when we see her now, she hasn't really changed. There are plenty of stories out there about evil abusers, and there are plenty of stories out there about complicated people who get redeemed. Here, we have something a little unique - it's a story about a complicated person who is not getting redeemed. I think this is an important point for many people who have been victims of abuse from their parents. Naomi does love her daughter, and we see her express real concern on several occasions for Rebecca's well-being. But just because Rebecca has started to heal and make progress towards living her best life, doesn't mean that Naomi is suddenly going to change as well. As the episode progresses, we see that Naomi is the same interfering, manipulative, and abusive mother she has always been. The change comes when we see Rebecca stand up to that.

In a less brilliant show, Rebecca's constant backslides into bad behavior would feel like an excuse to keep retreading the same familiar ground again and again. Here, I trust this show, and I know that Rebecca's sometimes questionable or unhealthy behavior is simply a realistic representation of mental illness. She can't suddenly flip a switch and be better, and yet we see how much better she is, how hard she's working all the time to improve. At the end of this episode, Rebecca tells her mother what her boundaries are, and for the time being, it seems Naomi will accept that. Huge and important progress!

The New York plot thread had a lot of good laughs, especially the scenes with Audra Levine and her mother. I loved that Elayne Boosler showed up, and instead of being a moment where Naomi expressed real gratitude to her daughter, the emotional core of that moment was between Valencia and Rebecca.

I'm so glad that we got so much of Valencia and Beth! Their tiny apartment with the fridge/bed hybrid made me laugh. And more than that, Rebecca gets so much moral support and genuine affection from both of them. Rebecca knows she needs help, and she makes sure to ask for it. She has great friends who are willing to be there for her and support her throughout her difficult moments. They are there for her as she struggles to be honest with her mother about her new career, and they're also there to support her when she finally has a moment of triumph.

Just as Rebecca is successful in establishing boundaries with her mother, our two subplots also involve moments of success, albeit much smaller ones. I like that there are some thematic resonances between the three stories.

Paula and Nathaniel spend the episode helping out the women that Rebecca met in prison, and Nathaniel realizes that doing nice things makes him feel good. He also spends the episode being nice to Jim and Tim, which confuses and frightens them a bit, but Paula sees that he really does seem to have changed. With Nathaniel, it's not that he's never done anything kind before, it's just that it never felt like anything more than an exception to the rule. Here, Paula flat-out asks him if his newfound generosity is a ploy to get Rebecca back, and Nathaniel admits that this was part of his original motivation. But now? He really does want to do the right thing.

Josh is staying at Rebecca's while she's away, and while he at first makes a mess of things, he later learns how to take care of himself and live on his own. This is a small thing, but it fits with Josh's ongoing thread of becoming a responsible adult. Also, Darryl's "song" about how to clean the house was hilarious. As the episode ends, Rebecca makes the rash decision to offer Josh the second bedroom in her house. Remember what I said about Rebecca making mistakes?

As the episode ends, Rebecca confronts the fact that she just felt glitter exploding inside of her about Josh, and also Nathaniel. She has put the idea of romance on hold for quite a while, even counting the messy back-and-forth between her and Nathaniel. And now, she's feeling good about her life, she's doing good with her recovery, and she is thinking about her exes. Cue... Greg's re-entrance into the story next week? Maybe? I'm very skeptical about this whole new actor business by the way. We'll see how it goes.

Like I said, I loved this episode a lot. I am missing the songs that just blow me away and make me want to re-listen again and again, but I bet we'll get some more good ones soon, and for the time being I can just play "The Group Mind has Decided You're in Love" over and over.

9/10

[cupidsbower]

Let me tell you people that I found a new way

Supernatural 13x06, “Tombstone,” 13x07, “War of the Worlds,” and 13x08, “The Scorpion and the Frog.”

Something very interesting is happening this season, relating to Dean’s position in the narrative. Over the course of 13 seasons, it’s been proven over and over that Dean’s hunches tend to be right. He thinks someone’s a rotter, and they are a rotter. He thinks something’s hinky and it is hinky. He does sometimes make mistakes, but generally speaking, when Dean makes a moral pronouncement, he is right about the morality, even if events don’t play out the way he anticipates.

At the start of season 13, Dean made the moral pronouncement that he thought Jack was evil. He may still prove right about this of course, as the season is still young (for me, I know you are all far ahead), but so far it’s looking like he was wrong, and that Jack is more like a blank slate trying to figure out who he can be rather than intrinsically good or evil.

Does this matter? Does Dean’s hunch about Jack count in the same way it counted when Dean knew Ruby was rotten, but tried to give her the benefit of the doubt because Sam asked? When it comes to Jack, is this just Dean being a jackass due to grief and it’s not really what he thinks?

The tension arising from Dean’s distrust of Jack has so far been used to complicate Jack’s arc, but a larger thematic question arises. What does it mean for the story if Dean’s moral compass is wonky? And what does it mean if it’s not?

Okay, cards on the table. I think Dean is wrong about Jack. I’m sure Jack will do a bunch of stupid shit, because that’s how growing up works, but so far he doesn’t seem to be intrinsically evil. So why was Dean so insistent about it? Was it because Cas’s death had him so turned around his instincts were awry? But if that’s the case, you’d expect his instincts to be back to normal with Cas back... but the text is hinting that they’re not.

I enjoyed Tombstone. Cas is back, Dean plays cowboy, and Jack gets a hug, screws up, and runs away from home. All the drama!

Tombstone is a title with a lot of meanings. The primary meaning is the headstone on a grave, but in a text where cremation is the Hunter’s way, whose tombstone is it referring to? Is it literally just talking about the location of the ghoul’s lair? Or is it talking about Jack’s use of his powers that goes horribly wrong? Then there’s the movie reference. The film is the fictionalised (and often romanticised) story of the West... when “cowboys were the law”! And as we know, Dean is all about cowboys, especially the ones in the rogues gallery up on their hotel room wall. Later he prompts Cas to act like he’s in the movie, and Cas quotes Val Kilmer to assure Dean he’s his Huckleberry, which just about makes Dean tear up. All a boy wants is a partner who fondly goes along with his cosplaying fantasies... looking good in a cowboy hat a definite bonus. And Dean gets it good here -- he wears the boots, fixes Cas’s hat, and does a slo-mo power walk to the song Space Cowboy:

Steve Miller Band - Space Cowboy

I told you 'bout living in the U.S. of A Don't you know that I'm a gangster of love Let me tell you people that I found a new way And I'm tired of all this talk about love And the same old story with a new set of words About the good and the bad and the poor And the times keep on changin' So I'm keepin' on top Of every fat cat who walks through my door

I'm a space cowboy Bet you weren't ready for that I'm a space cowboy I'm sure you know where it's at Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah (x)

I mean this is hilariously silly, and Dean is having so much fun, but he’s also completely embarrassing with his whole cowboy nerdgasm and forcing Cas to play along, amirite? This is Jensen Ackles showing off his physical comedy chops like the pro he is. But here’s the thing. The song scratches out the minute they find the law, because the old romantic version of the West does not hold true. In this version of Dodge, the law is not a cowboy, it’s a Native American. What’s more, Dean is not really the Space Cowboy either. Surely, surely, Cas is the space cowboy (but is Cas the gangster of love??? And if so, who’s heart did he steal???).

The frisson of not-quite-right continues throughout the rest of the episode. While the ghoul realises there are Hunters after him and tries to “get out of Dodge” -- the line the lawman Marshall Dillon of the TV show Gunsmoke used to say to interlopers of Dodge City -- it’s Jack who is proved to be the interloper in the end, and it’s the Winchester posse who leaves town. Except for Dean, of course, who ends up Hunting someone wearing the face of one of his cowboy faves.

I could go on, but you get the point.

Thematically, this episode is all about undermining Dean’s moral authority. It does it in several ways, many of them funny, but the intent is quite clear. He even straight up says that he was wrong at the end:

JACK: Good? How is that good? I killed someone. What was his name? The guard? Did he have a family? CASTIEL: Jack, don't do this to yourself. JACK: No, did he? DEAN: Yes, he did. SAM: Jack, look, this life, what we do, it's… it's not easy. And we've all done things we regret. JACK: Just don't. You're afraid of me. CASTIEL: Jack, no. JACK: No, maybe you're right. Maybe I'm just another monster. DEAN: No, you're not. I thought you were. I did. But… Like Sam said, we've all done bad. We all have blood on our hands. So if you're a monster, we're all monsters. JACK: No, you don't… Every time I try and do something good, people get hurt. I thought I was getting better. I'm not… I don't know what I am, but I know I can't make the world a better place, not like this. I can't even do one good thing. And I know that if I stay, I'm gonna hurt you. All of you. And… I can't. You're all I have. SAM: Jack, listen… JACK: I have to go. CASTIEL: No, Jack. JACK: I'm sorry. (x)

Winchester through and through, that boy. Unintended lesson well and truly learned! Oh, the irony.

(My pet theory is that Jack isn’t actually gone, he’s just invisible and lurking around the Bunker. Don’t tell me if I’m wrong, please. I’m going to enjoy thinking about it until canon bursts my bubble.)

Before watching this ep, when I was talking over 13x05 with my viewing buddy, I said, “I wish monsters recognised Hunters more, and especially the Winchesters. It seems dumb after so many years that so few of them do.” And lo, in all three of these eps, people do recognise Hunters and/or the Winchesters. I’m very pleased by this, although as always it isn’t playing out quite the way I hoped. In the case of our ghoul, even though he quickly recognises that Hunters are after him, and makes plans to escape, he fails because he doesn’t take the threat seriously enough. More importantly, it’s not a Hunter(/cowboy) who kills him, it’s the Law(/Native American).

There were a lot of other things to like about this episode, but the other thing I find most notable in terms of meta is something on the meta-textual level. This episode starts upbeat, after five episodes of unrelieved grieving, with Cas back, and Jack finally seeming to be finding his place. That doesn’t even last one episode before the emotional apple-cart is knocked over again. If I were writing this season, this emotional beat in this place in the story arc would mean I’d be aiming for either a happy or ironic climax, rather than a tragic one. I’m leaning towards ironic, and I think Dean’s moral wonkiness will have a part to play in the ironic twist.

Anyway, that was Tombstone. The next two eps put away the myth-arc for a bit, and move on to monster-of-the-week stories full of mirrors for our protagonists. This season they are very much focused on fathers and sons.

War of the Worlds is an interesting title to choose for this episode. It’s obviously referring to H.G. Wells’ book, one of the first stories about aliens invading the Earth and trying to take it from Humanity -- a colonisation narrative in other words. It’s pretty easy to see that Michael in this case is the alien/coloniser.

By the way, I’m now calling alternaEarth “Mordor” because of that fiery eye in the opening credits, and also it’s much easier to type. Interesting, isn’t it, how the Mordor angels managed to screw up the Apocalypse, the implication being that it’s because God, Lucifer, the Winchesters and Castiel were all absent, and so The End wasn’t just a figment of Zachariah’s imagination, but what really happened. And with Lucifer dead in that world, not around to be the antagonist and keep things in check, Michael has basically gone crazy.

Chuck really did a spectacularly bad job as Father to the angels. They only need a bit of spite to energise them and they flower into the most noxious of weeds, smothering everything else around them during their self-absorbed tantrums. What does Michael even want with ParadiseEarth? Does he know, or does he just want it the way a baby wants a toy, and so he thinks it’s his to take? He’s not wearing a Winchester either (not one we know, anyway), so that also brings us right back around to the question of Dean being the Michael Sword. Methinks it’s a really bad time for Dean’s moral compass to be going wonky.

I found Lucifer interesting for the first time in ages in this ep. If I remember correctly, he was always ambivalent about the idea of the Apocalypse, because he liked Earth and having all those Humans to corrupt. But now he also has a son in the world; in other words, a stake in the continued existence of the world. I’m finding that super interesting. How will it change the choices he makes? I’m not expecting a redemption arc or anything like that, but I do think we’re going to see a different set of choices now Lucifer has someone he’s invested in as family. Can even Lucifer learn some humility once he’s the Father rather than the rebelling son?

To go back to the title of the ep, though, my favourite version of War of the Worlds is actually the musical. I see quite a few thematic similarities between some of the tracks and this season of Supernatural. Forever Autumn for instance, reminds me very strongly of Dean at the start of the season. The Spirit of Man I can easily see as a riff on what could happen if Michael actually gets out of Mordor. It does beg the question though, of what the equivalent of the deadly microbes would be. I have this horrible feeling it might be something like “love”, which has a pretty good track record of corrupting angels, but I can’t see many good ways of getting a shot of it inside of Michael. Maybe Rowena sticks some kind of magical bio-weapon in a vessel (Dean) and then they (Dean) says yes to Michael... because TFW does like to re-use strategies, and they never did get to play that one out with Amara in the end.

Why else bring back Ketch and potentially Rowena, reminding us of the whole secret-power-inside-a-body possibility at the same time? I mean, I know resurrection is a theme this season, and I’m always happy to see Rowena back, but UGH. I’d rather NOT end the season with Michael wearing Dean, and Dean wearing a crown of blackberry thorns, if you get my drift.

In other news, Dean’s moral compass seems to be working again this ep, as he spotted that Ketch was sketchy right from the start, and he picked up on Cas being weird on the phone too.  Could it be a fake-out that pays off later? If his moral compass is still on the fritz after all, it means Ketch was probably saying some truth in this bit of dialogue:

KETCH: I believe you're familiar with the witch Rowena MacLeod? She was captured by the British Men of Letters some years back. I discovered she'd sewn a powerful charm into her body that could bring her back should she be killed. I struck a deal wherein she did the same for me in return for allowing her to escape. SAM: So after we dumped your body, you- KETCH: Good as new. Only problem is, one the device is used, it needs to be recharged. DEAN: Which is why you're hunting for Rowena. Well, sorry. Lucifer burned her up. She's dead. KETCH: Is she? DEAN: Why'd you come here? You could've run. KETCH: Did it ever occur to you, Dean, that I might actually be one of the good guys? DEAN: No. Not even once. KETCH: You and I were soldiers in opposing armies who were at war. DEAN: Well, the thing about war is, one side wins. KETCH: I suppose you're right. (x)

So which bit is the potential truthiness? Is Ketch a good guy? *quietly gags, please nooooooo* Or is Rowena alive *yis pls*. Or... can you have a war in which one side doesn’t win?!?! Morder, I’m looking at you.

My foreshadowing senses are tingling. Let me just float this idea now and get it out there where I can poke it with a stick... maybe all three of these things will be true. For a certain value of true. And that would definitely mean Dean’s radar is still wonky.

This ep we have another character who recognises the Winchesters/Hunters. The witch who got away from Ketch fears them, but rightly considers them the lesser of two evils as long as she’s the victim. I’m liking this theme a lot, and I wonder where they’re going with it? I kind of hope that maybe we’ll get some more references to Carver Edlund’s books if this plot thread unspools for more than a few episodes. I’ve never felt that the villains really used that resource enough, you know? I kind of want Michael to get his hands on them, or maybe Kevin.

Which brings me to the final thing about this episode’s title -- the Orson Welles radio play of Wr of the Worlds. It’s famous for causing a panic when it aired, as people thought it was real. Or did they??? Wikipedia tells me:

The first two-thirds of the 60-minute broadcast were presented as a news bulletin and is often described as having led to outrage and panic by some listeners who had believed the events described in the program were real. However, later critics point out that the supposed panic seems to have been exaggerated by newspapers of the time seeking to discredit radio as a source of information. (x)

Ahhhhh. I did not know that. I’m starting to understand why my story brain is so hung up on the reputation of the Winchesters this season, and why it’s important that other characters have heard of them or of Hunters more generally. Propaganda and misinformation are an important part of any war, and they can play out in unexpected ways. We got a bit of this last season with how woefully wrong the BMoL’s intel was on the Winchesters, and I wanted that to pay off more than it did in the end. But I’m more than happy for it to pay off this season instead, with Michael and his posse. Supernatural’s story-within-the-story could use a good shake-up at this point, and giving us some new insight into the stories people tell about the Winchesters would be a clever way to revisit the Metatron arc without resurrecting him too.

For an ep that focused so much on characters I’m not that fond of (Lucifer, Ketch), I enjoyed it quite a lot for the way it’s opened up the narrative in new directions. It’s actual plot wasn’t that strong, but I was happy to be carried along by the revelations.

The final thing I want to say about this ep is that Dean and I are brain-twins on the Evil Colonel Sanders front -- it’s a perfect name for him.

I like heists if they do something fun, so I found the plot of The Scorpion and the Frog episode enjoyable enough. The way Sam and Dean disarmed the booby-trap made me laugh out loud!  Zoooooooom, zwot, thwop-thwop-thwop. Classic.

As this isn’t a myth-arc ep, the most interesting meta stuff arises from the title and theme. I’m sure you’ve all heard of the parable of The Scorpion and the Frog, so I won’t repeat it here, except for the axiom it ends with: “When the frog asks the scorpion why [it stung him], the scorpion replies that it was in its nature to do so” (x).

This title pretty directly evokes the show’s current major theme -- nature vs nurture -- and this season’s variation on it -- who’s your daddy?

As you’d expect at this point in the season, the ep raises a lot of questions about the theme: Do people really have an essential nature, or can they change their spots? Who in the episode is the scorpion and who is the frog? Is the scorpion the demon who can’t help but lie and use people? Is it the father who can’t help but try and save his son, and then turns bitter when he fails? Is it the Hunters who can’t help but hunt, even when they don’t intend to? Is it the victim who takes her shot at ending her suffering when offered the means? I could ask a similar set of questions about who is the frog.

Not to mention:

What qualities make for a good father?

Can somone overcome their (or their father’s) nature?

How do stories about the Winchesters affect they way people interact with them?

Hunters gotta hunt?

Can a frog be a scorpion in disguse? And if so, is that how they’ll sting Michael?

Is Dean’s moral compass wonky or not?

The more I think about all these questions, the less sure I get. Must be getting close to the middle of the season. :)

Barthamus the Crossroads Demon is another character who has heard of the Winchesters, and thinks he knows everything he needs to about them in order to get to the other side of the river on their backs.

Much as Evil Colonel Sanders is Lucifer!lite, Bart is Crowley!lite. He saw how Crowley worked with the Winchesters, and decided to take a leaf out of his book, but doesn’t understand the larger consequences of that choice. So far Crowley is the only antagonist who has ever realised that the Winchesters are always more dangerous than their enemies think -- they have taken down Gods and monsters, and even Death cannot stop them for long. It was almost inevitable that they would hunt Bart, no matter what was at stake (does that make them the scorpion?). Add in Smash, an actual victim, who Dean uses his supernatural bonding skills on, and that outcome went to a 100% certainty. This dilemma is prefigured early in the episode:

DEAN: You know, this could be a trap. I mean he could work for Asmodeus. SAM: Yeah, but what if he's telling the truth? DEAN: You know, after Crowley, I told myself, no more demons. SAM: Dean, we don't even know what this guy's deal is. DEAN: Yeah, we do. He's a freakin' demon. SAM: Yeah, but you said it yourself, we need a miracle. And maybe this is it. DEAN: You know what "miracles" are called from demons? I don't know, but I'm pretty sure it's not "miracles". SAM: How about this? Let's hear the guy out. DEAN: All right, and after that, we kill him.

They enter the Smile Diner.

Did anyone else hear the name of this diner and think of Hamlet and the whole, “one may smile, and smile, and be a villain” speech? It really made me think of Crowley too -- if you go read the speech, you’ll see what I mean: http://nfs.sparknotes.com/hamlet/page_66.html.

BARTHAMUS: The famous Winchesters. DEAN: Some random demon. BARTHAMUS: Barthamus. Bart's fine. Please, sit. I ordered cherry pie. DEAN: Well, Bart, don't know what you've heard about us, but… BARTHAMUS: Everything. I've been following your careers a long time. You're a real pain in the pitchfork. And the halo. Natural disrupters. We have that in common, you and I. DEAN: Mm. Yeah, we're twinsies. (x)

Dean was a much better demon than this, and Dean was basically a shitty demon. Dean’s moral compass seems to be working perfectly here, though: some random demon, indeed.

Except... there’s the way the episode ends.

DEAN: You okay? SAM: Yeah, not really. Not exactly the best day, you know? DEAN: Well, it's not the worst. We did save somebody. That felt good. SAM: Yeah. Yeah, it did. But… [Sighs] back to square one with Jack. DEAN: We'll figure something else out. And if that doesn't work, then we'll move on to next, and then whatever's after that. We just keep working, 'cause it's what we do. SAM: It feels really good to hear you talk like that again. DEAN: I'll drink to that.

Sam and Dean clink their beer bottles and take a drink. (x)

So is Dean right here, too?

“It’s what we do,” Dean says about Hunting, as though he and Sam are only and entirely defined by Hunting, and that they do have an essential nature that can’t be changed, despite Dean’s recent bout of feelings.

If that’s really true, it’s an enormous problem, both for themselves and for Jack. Toxic masculinity is part of what they always do. Abusive fathers, the MoL’s sexism, the Angel breeding program, Mary/Dean making a deal, John/Sam sacrificing themselves...

If a person’s nature can’t ever be changed, all of these patterns are what the Winchesters are made up of and will always remain. That isn’t a very hopeful picture, so I kind of hope Dean’s wrong about he and Sam being nothing but their work.

Can people change?  Can they make different choices? Will the Winchesters make the same mistakes all over again at the end of the season -- will they sting the frog and doom themselves? Or will they try out new and better mistakes, and make it safely to the other side of the river along with the frog?

I guess we’ll find out soon enough. I’m hoping for something new, but I gotta say, I’m starting to think that Castiel and Jack are the frogs.

Previously:

I never opened myself this way (13x01 and 13x02)

You say you've only got one life to live (13x03, 13x04, 13x05)          

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Is It Really THAT Bad?

Dr. Seuss is no stranger to cinematic adaptations, and even less of a stranger to animation. And whenever Seuss gets animated, you can typically expect good things, as opposed to when his work is live action, in which case you can expect…

Yeah…

Anyway, imagine the excitement people must have felt when the creative team behind Despicable Me and the writing team behind the underrated gem Horton Hears a Who got together to do a fresh new take on The Lorax! This was in Illumination’s heyday, before they ended up showcasing that they’re more interested in churning out cheap products for maximum profit, so there was plenty of hope that this could be good. Then came all the commercial tie-ins.

Now, this alone shouldn’t be indicative of the final product. Maybe stuff like this is just a bunch of suits horribly missing the point of the original story! Maybe the actual film will be better! Well… while the film was no flop, and while it certainly got a better reception than most of the films I’ve talked about here, the film was derided by many for being an extremely shallow and lacking adaptation that adds unneeded junk to a story that didn’t need it in such a way that ultimately dilutes the message. It turns a story that operated on shades of gray and turned it into a cartoonish spectacle that would make even Captain Planet blush. Not helping was the rabid fanbase on Tumblr who shipped the Once-ler with… himself… or Jack Frost… forever tainting the film in the eyes of those on the internet.

Things got so bad eventually even the [REDACTED] Critic reviewed the film in his usual over-the-top, accentuate the negative style, and as some people still treat his word as gospel, this has most likely colored the perception of the film. So while it’s certainly not to the same level of infamy as the usual subjects of Is It Really THAT Bad? I still wanted to put this movie on here and ask one simple question:

How ba-ah-ah-ad can it be?

THE GOOD

So let me just get it out of the way: the movie’s villain song, “How Bad Can I Be,” legitimately is awesome and is frankly one of the best villain songs ever. No, I’m not kidding. It’s just a fun, rocking number with some neat visuals, and while it’s a shame the cut rock opera-esque “Biggering” is probably the better song, this one is definitely more fun and meme-worthy. Shake that bottom line!

Now, the casting is, for the most part, pretty fantastic. Minor characters like the grandma played by Betty White are a lot of fun, but really, the main piece of awesome casting is Danny DeVito as the titular Seuss creation. DeVito as the Lorax is just so incredible, perfect, and inspired that it boggles the mind how anyone could possibly come up with such amazing casting.

As far as antagonizing forces in the film go, the Once-ler’s awful, vile family are enjoyable in a “love to hate” sort of way. While it’s certainly kind of iffy that they felt the need to give the Once-ler more of an excuse for his actions beyond just simple greed, it isn’t so bad that what they came up with was familial pressure. In fact, they’re actually much better at antagonists than O’Hare, the actual villain of the film, and the fact the movie give him so much focus despite having such fascinating characters that would have had a really great thematic purpose; hell, they should have been the rulers of Thneedville instead og O’Hare! There’s so much untapped potential with these, quite frankly, very interesting characters.

I guess I should say the Once-ler is a pretty decent character in and of himself, but he very much suffers from the same problem the Jim Carrey Grinch does – he’s a good, enjoyable character in his own right, but he’s not a very good Once-ler. In fact, he at points borders on “in name only” territory. Still, he does have a pretty solid arc, and that villain song slaps, so… I think he’s solid, and Ed Helms does a good job voicing him.

THE BAD

Jon Lajoie, while in character as his misogynistic moron rapper MC Vagina, said this:

When I first heard this lyric, I didn’t understand it… but his words were a prophecy, because that is, in all honesty, the plot of this film. Our flavorless protagonist Ted really just wants to get the Truffula trees back so he can get into the pants of the local smoking hot redhead hippie, Audrey. It gets to the point where Ted’s motivations are so boring and shallow that Audrey actually would have made a far more interesting and compelling protagonist, seeing as she already has an inexplicable knowledge of the trees and cares about nature. When they already changed so much in the story I don’t see why they couldn’t just make the protagonist a girl while they were at it. As it is, she barely has any presence and feels like a waste, which becomes all the more awful when you know she’s being played by a stunt casted Taylor Swift instead of an actual voice actor or even an actor period. At least Ted is Zac Efron, an actual actor, though he doesn’t do a particularly good job himself.

Then we have our villain, O’Hare. O’Hare has all the subtlety of a Captain Planet villain but none of the cheesy goodness and fun. Sure, Rob Riggle does some good delivery and gives O’Hare some memetastic moments, and sure, his selling of canned air is oddly prescient of things that happened in real life in India (though technically President Skroob Spaceballs beat him to the punch by a few decades) but it doesn’t really redeem O’Hare from being an excessively weak villain who is shoehorned into the plot solely to turn the story into a black and white morality tale. It… doesn’t work at all. What also doesn’t help is that O’Hare has an absolutely repugnant character design, looking like if Edna Mode got mangled by a sixteen wheeler and left in a ditch on the side of the road.

Finally, this movie just doesn’t really respect the story to any great degree. As mentioned above, it waters down a story that presented arguments from both sides and, while still ultimately showing the Once-ler to be wrong and shortsighted, did have him make some valid points. Here, the story is presented as there being a clear cut good and evil in a horrendously unsubtle and unpalatable way. Yes, we get that extreme deforestation and overuse of resources is bad, you don’t need to beat us over the head with it. It doesn’t help that the film also crams in a bunch of cringeworthy pop culture humor that really doesn’t add much to the story; say what you will about the anime scene from Horton, at least there was a bit of substance and reason for it. Having characters sing the Mission: Impossible theme is just making a reference for the sake of making a reference.

Is It Really THAT Bad?

So I’m gonna say that I don’t particularly find this movie to be good, per se. It’s very dumbed down and more than a little undermined by the various brand tie ins. It is a poorly executed black and white morality tale that was crafted from a very deep and engaging piece of children’s literature, and on that level, I don’t think this movie works even a little bit. Still, there’s some enjoyment that can be mined from this, particularly from some of the more so bad it’s good moments, as well as DeVito’s performance and some actual good moments of story and character. There’s some stuff to like here if you dig a bit, but really, I don’t think you really should have to do a deep dig into The Lorax to get some enjoyment.

Overall, I wouldn’t really say this movie is totally bad, but it’s definitely not good, either; it veers more into the territory of “so bad it’s good,” which is a shame but also kind of refreshing. It’s definitely an interesting film to talk about, and there are a few things about it that work, but ultimately it’s not enough to really raise the film to the level of the classic animated Seuss adaptations or even to the level of Horton. At its best, it’s okay, and at its worst, it actively undermines its own messages. I think the 6.4 it has is pretty fair… maybe a bit too fair, if I’m being honest. I’d give it something like a 5.7 or 5.8.

Again, it’s not the worst thing ever like some might tell you; hell, the adaptation of How the Grinch Stole Christmas Illumination would go on to make is probably a worse movie. But it still doesn’t really do anything that adds to the story its telling, and it ultimately comes off as saccharine, forgettable childish fluff. It’s really a harmless movie, but it’s still probably gonna grate on anyone who holds the original story in high esteem. The {REDACTED] Critic was a bit hyperbolic in his review, but I do think he was right in principle. This movie feels like a calculated, corporate adaptation meant to be as inoffensive and marketable as possible much like every Illumination film post-Despicable Me. And if there’s one thing The Lorax shouldn’t be, it’s “inoffensive and marketable.”

[ahouseoflies]

The Best Films of 2019, Part I

On one hand, I fear the direction of American cinema, and I feel more personally distracted from great art with each passing day. On the other hand, my viewing was up 5% from last year despite my belief that I’ve gotten choosier. I even approve of most of the films nominated for Best Picture. Are the offerings just top-heavy this year? Are my standards declining? Answering questions like those is part of why I present a paragraph or two on everything I see each year, though I can’t even imagine someone sitting down and reading all of this.

Full disclosure: I haven’t seen Just Mercy, Monos, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Good Boys, Frankie, For Sama, or An Elephant Sitting Still. The tiers, as always, are Garbage, Admirable Failures, Endearing Curiosities with Big Flaws, Pretty Good Movies, Good Movies, Great Movies, and Instant Classics. GARBAGE

129. Cold Pursuit (Hans Petter Moland)- A film professor of mine showed us Wings of Desire and City of Angels, its American remake, in order to show us how a film can technically cover a story while losing the essence that made it special. I can only hope that Hans Petter Moland's Norwegian original is better than his stab at an English language remake, which fails completely at balancing violence and comedy. The movie almost announces its own boredom with the protagonist as it shifts focus first to the villain and then to cops on the case, all of whom have artificial quirks to try to give them life where there isn't any. The Neeson character's journey toward revenge is empty, so the film drifts from him, but it doesn't have anything to say with the other characters either. 128. Domino (Brian De Palma)- Seeking revenge, a Libyan informant roughs up a potential terrorist by throwing him over a restaurant bar. Cut to two cops driving wordlessly. Cut to the Libyan guy dunking the other guy's head in boiling soup. That interruption spells out what the rest of the film does: De Palma could not be less interested in his replacement-level actor's shoddy policework, especially in the self-parody of the last twenty minutes. Any intensity the movie has comes from terrorists (or Guy Pearce over-salting a salad), and then the police drain the momentum. Just make a movie about terrorists, Brian! And, as I've urged you for years, get rid of Pino Donaggio. 127. Beach Bum (Harmony Korine)- Moondog, the spacey, Floridian hedonist poet at the center of the film, is supposed to be "brilliant" and "a good guy" at heart according to his daughter. But at the daughter's wedding, he shakes the hand of her fiance, whom he usually calls "limp-dick," and he says, "What's your name again?" The line got a laugh in my theater, but is it likely that he didn't know the name of his daughter's fiance? Especially if he's a good guy who doesn't hurt people on purpose? It's one example out of a thousand of Harmony Korine making the goofy decision instead of the one that would benefit character or story. I thought that Korine had taken a turn for the lucid with Spring Breakers, but he just isn't interested in making anything consistent enough for me. There's an hour of consequence-free episodes to follow, though I did cherish Jonah Hill's three improvised scenes, for which he tries a sort of Tennessee Williams voice. You can admire how audacious some of the choices are--describing Zac Efron wearing Jncos makes the film sound more fun than it is--but looking at the poster gives you about 70% of what you would get out of the long ninety-five minutes. Yes, McConaughey's shoes are funny, but what else have you got? 126. Fyre Fraud (Jenner Furst, Julia Willoughby Nelson)- Half as good as the Netflix one. Please, by all means, explain to me what a millenial is again. 125. The Kitchen (Andrea Berloff)- One of my mentors stressed that Shakespeare worked in "cultural touchstones," truisms that weren't difficult to prove but served as a sandbox for all of the juicy stuff. So we all know that, say, too much ambition is a bad thing, but having that North Star at all times allows Shakespeare to ply his trade with character development and imagery and symbol. I know that The Kitchen isn't funny or cool or original, but it also doesn't really have an emotional or thematic core. It's a movie with neither the window dressing nor the window. I don't know what I'm getting at, but I watched the last five minutes twice to make sure that it actually was as anti-climactic and inert as I thought.

124. Climax (Gaspar Noe)- Ah, to be a provocateur who has made his best work already and took all of the wrong lessons from it. I don't envy Noe, who insists on formal rigor even when it adds nothing, who goes to greater, more desperate lengths to shock. A third of this film, embedded somewhere between the three openings, is gross young people talking, lewdly and clinically, about whom they want to bone. I thought I started watching French art movies to get away from locker rooms. 123. The Best of Enemies (Robin Bissell)- The supporting cast of Anne Heche, Wes Bentley, and John Gallagher Jr. avail themselves better than the finger-wagging, scenery-chewing leads, but that hardly matters in a movie this fundamentally broken. Apparently no one saw the problem with making a Ku Klux Klan president the dynamic hero of a school integration that he fought against, but that's how the story functions. He's the guy who casts the deciding vote and gives the speech at the end, but it's a bit anti-climactic for an audience that assumes, yeah, the White race is not morally superior to any other race. Congratulations on your realization, buddy. Long before that, Sam Rockwell’s character is inconsistent. Neither the Rockwell performance nor the Robin Bissell script can thread the needle between showing the heinous terrorist that a Klan member is and revealing the depth that foreshadows the character's change. The answer is to show the character being nice to his developmentally disabled son, which, again, doesn't get all the way there. That's cool that you love your own son, but, uh, that has nothing to do with the hatred that made you shoot up a girl's house because she has a Black boyfriend. Of course you can show these contradictions and changes in a character incrementally--lots of good movies have--but this one ain't going on the list. 122. The Intruder (Deon Taylor)- Probably the most two-star movie of the year. Prototypical in its two-starness. Instructive to me as far as what I give two stars. There’s a point of view error in the first twenty minutes that ruined it for me. ADMIRABLE FAILURES 121. Little (Tina Gordon Chism)- We're all good on body swap movies for a while. This one, otherwise undistinguished in its comedy or storytelling, is notable for just how specifically 2019 it might look in a time capsule: Here's a joke about transitioning as we're on our way to our job developing apps; there's a kid doing The Floss and talking to Alexa. Whoops! Bumped into a guy wearing a VR headset! 120. The Kid Who Would Be King (Joe Cornish)- I appreciate that somebody is still making movies for 9-10 year old boys, but I checked out hard and kind of just left this on until it was done. I don't like lore. Much less funny and urgent than Attack the Block, and it's crazy that this is the only project that came together for Joe Cornish in the intervening eight years. 119. Godzilla: King of the Monsters (Michael Dougherty)- Exhausting and joyless in its large-scale destruction, Godzilla: King of the Monsters pitches everything at the same volume, and even the end of the world ends up not mattering as a result. Despite (or maybe because of) the presence of such great actors, the screenplay dilutes the characters by having three fighter pilots or three scientists when all the lines really could have been given to one of these interchangeable figures. That's first draft stuff, homie. Still, Kyle Chandler is kind of awesome as the weathered one shouting about how everyone else is playing God. He reminds me of Larry Fitzgerald toiling away with professionalism on teams that would never sniff the playoffs. 118. Blinded by the Light (Gurinder Chadha)- I made it about twenty minutes into this movie before flipping the switch and making fun of it relentlessly. It tries to strike the heart-on-sleeve authenticity that a Springsteen song does, but if The Boss never overwhelms you with language, almost every line of dialogue in this film spells out what the character is thinking. The overbearing father is especially intolerable: "What is this music? You need to get rid of distractions and focus on getting a good job so that you don't end up a taxi driver. Like me!" I'm only sort of paraphrasing. Blinded by the Light is too well-meaning to be offensive, but it's absurd in its spoon-feeding. LMK, ladies: On the third time that I have headphones in my ears during a conversation with you, and I start buttering you up with lyrics to "Jungleland," will you still love me? 117. Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (David Leitch)- What a summer, huh? The go-for-broke final setpiece redeems the film somewhat, and Vanessa Kirby is a welcome addition to the universe. But Idris Elba's first line, responding to a question about who he is, is "Bad Guy," and the characterization doesn't go too much further. I feel as if I have honed the requisite disposition to enjoy a Fast and Furious movie, but that doesn't mean that the most cliched thing has to happen at the most cliched time in the most cliched way.

116. I Lost My Body (Jeremy Clapin)- Not for me ultimately. The film presents itself as above the tropes of cinematic romance but sure seems to circle around them. Clapin is willing to set up the pins of, say, "I'm actually the pizza delivery guy but have kept it a secret for a year," but he is unwilling to knock the pins down with anything resembling catharsis. I don't know if the French bowl, but feel free to substitute whatever kind of metaphor they might get offended by.

115. The Lion King (Jon Favreau)- I saw the original Lion King when I was ten: old enough to think that Disney movies were beneath me but young enough to know nothing about art or the world. And I remember the way that the songs transcended reality: "I Just Can't Wait to Be King" turning into a Busby Berkeley number, "Be Prepared" taking on an expressionist green tint. It was mass entertainment that was far from experimental, but I remember thinking, "Can you do that?" As an artistic experiment, this remake is kind of confounding, to the point that I don't know whether to classify it as an animated or live-action film. The final scene starts upside down, and your eye adjusts to the idea that you're looking at a reflection in a stream, but that stream is a Caleb Deschanel-aided, computer-generated reflection of a reality. However, I return to my original point: You're missing something if you think The Lion King is a better story if it's more realistic. Capably made as The Lion King 2019 is, no one is referencing 42nd Street. These Disney remakes just reference themselves. 114. Stuber (Michael Dowse)- The critical community has been pretty forgiving of Stuber; I guess because it's a type of studio film that used to be common but now is not. Judged on its own merits, however, it's labored. The screenplay circles around questions of masculinity, but not in a way that hasn't been done better in other recent comedies. Perhaps most disappointing of all, I've seen Iko Uwais and Bautista fight before, and it looked a whole lot cooler than the way they're sliced and diced here. The ending's sweet at least. 113. After the Wedding (Bart Freundlich)- Think of what Julianne Moore could have accomplished in the time it took in her career for her to shoot four crappy movies with her husband. This is the type of melodrama that makes more sense after all of the revelations have cleared the air, but that doesn't mean the preceding hour and a half was any more fun because of the aftermath. 112. The Goldfinch (John Crowley)- One day someone's going to figure out how to coherently adapt a Dickensian novel and actually do that thing Crowley is trying to do: condensing two hundred pages of back story into 1/8th of a page here or a line there. Somebody's going to be able to figure out the little moments that are important and the big moments that aren't. And you'll all be sorry. The movie is ultimately hampered by the bad ending of the novel, in which a person who isn't a mystery writer has to solve a mystery. Perfect casting for Luke Wilson though. He definitely looks like a whiskey-faced dad who would steal your social security number. 111. The Souvenir (Joanna Hogg)- This movie is autobiographical. The protagonist has the same initials as Joanna Hogg, and she's attending film school at the same time Hogg did. But what a self-own it is for your hero, based on you, to be this inexpressive and restrained and deferential. The film is mostly about a cold romantic relationship--and I guess what the character learns through that experience--but when her beau's friend asks what she sees in him, she can't really say. Neither can the audience. I guess it's a skill to write a scene in which a family is having an argument that is so clenched-jaw reticent that the viewer can't even discern the topic of conversation for a few minutes, but it's not a skill I appreciate. 110. The Dead Don’t Die (Jim Jarmusch)- Jim Jarmusch must be a very good friend.

109. Velvet Buzzsaw (Dan Gilroy)- If the film were funny, I wouldn't mind the lack of narrative drive. If the film had narrative drive, I wouldn't mind the lack of atmosphere--glaring for a film that circles around to horror eventually. If the film had more to say, I wouldn't mind how pedantically it says it. If the protagonist's change of heart made sense, then I wouldn't mind that his conversion apparently happens off-screen. At least most of the actors seem to be having fun. I wasn't. 108. It: Chapter Two (Andy Muschietti)- I started squirming in my seat during a sequence somewhere in the circuitous second hour. Bill sees his old bike in an antiques window, haggles with a Stephen King shopkeeper cameo, and finishes the scene on a triumphant note, believing that his old bike will ride like the wind. Cut to the bike falling apart on the road, deflating his pride with comedy. Cut to a flashback of him riding the bike with young Beverly, serene and warm. Cut to him riding the bike again with determination until he stops, terrified. Within fifteen seconds, the film jerks us into four divergent emotions at a whim. The overall tone felt just as arbitrary to me, and that's before we get to the always-unclear line between fantasy and reality. And this time, the flashbacks of each young character's encounters with Pennywise are less scary because we know they all live into the present. Andy Muschietti just does not have a light enough touch to make this movie work.The last forty-five minutes are interminable. But I had all the same gripes with the first chapter, so personal taste is a factor. 107. Trial by Fire (Edward Zwick)- Perfect example of a true story that could use some poetic justice. I don't want to give away anything that the first line of the imdb summary doesn't already, but this ending could have been much more satisfying by changing one or two lines. This is a movie that recreates, multiple times, babies burning alive, but the ending is somehow more punishing. It's also one of those films that should have just begun at the halfway point. If we can praise special effects when they're done well, then they should be fair game when they're this embarrassing. Zwick definitely put his flash drive into the Lifetime computers for fire.exe.

[obsidianmichi]

HELLO!! ohmahgad im so giddy im disgusting. Am I disgusting? Definitely disgusting! Hahahahahahaha. Okay I'm sorry. I just can't help myself. So I just want to ask about Dirthamen and Eirwen is that okay? okay! 1. uh oh so in my headcanon both of them frequently doing intimacy you know *cough sex cough* does that make Eirwen pregnant? 2. its a spoiler for The Lady in Blue and White, um i want to ask bout vallaslin, dirthan said about marriage? what do you mean by that?

ITS ME MARIO! err i mean me. hehe the continued ask 3. does the vallaslin illicite some kind of pleasure? like dragon age version of vibrator thingy. lmao.  4. and this is stupid but i want to ask your opinion about these song and if they’re kinda related to their relationship? Dangerously - charlie puth, Treat you better - shawn mendes and Feels - calvin harris 5. the last question! Does Dirthan get obsessive/have obsession towards Eirwen?  thanks for answering and sorry for weird grammar :’)            

I’m actually kind of glad you’re so into the pairing. So, to answer your questions.

1) There are no plans for an Eirwen pregnancy at present, but who knows.

2)Vallaslin in The Lady in Blue and White:

I’ve gone back and forth about how I headcanoned this working in Arlathan, and I finally settled on there being a bunch of different vallaslin versions. The traditional ancient elvhen vallaslin works like a patron/protector relationship as a system for energy transfer. This can be Master/Servant, Lord/Knight, but the way it worked on the whole in Arlathan is as a patronage system. They join the rank and file of a lord, the lord acts as the receptacle, and then shares their strength back to their followers thus strengthening them beyond what they’d be able to achieve on their own.

Like all immortals, age plays a huge factor in Arlathan about who is at the top. The society had little to no upward mobility since those at the top never die except by non-natural factors and there was no real meritocracy. There were those who distinguished themselves, but it was incredibly difficult when management had a few 1,000 years on them.

However, every system has an initial stage. The elves were once spirits who transitioned into the bodies they now have. Blood magic seems to be a natural counter to that of the Fade, serving to aid in tying a spirit to the physical plane as they adjusted. The vallaslin Dirthamen put on for Eirwen is very similar to that original version, he understood the patron/client relationship between them wouldn’t be acceptable unless it was reversed. So, he intended to take on a role closer to advisor and siphon off the strength she couldn’t control as a way of quickly regaining the strength he’d lost. He also did it to save her life. He saw it as a way to even out the power imbalance by putting himself in a vulnerable position. He could’ve forced her to work with him but he decided against it. He’d rather give her a reason to trust him. He went with the tightest, strongest bond he could think of. He wasn’t trying to strike up a sexual relationship.

That’s not what he got.

He remarks on it being like marriage because in some ways it is, their mystical energies are bonded. They intermingle, forged in an unbreakable partnership that exists between the Evanuris and their oldest, closest seconds. However, because he’s also Evanuris, it becomes a bond similar to marriage (though not marriage the way we think of it, more like an arranged marriage. A formalized agreement between two people about X, who’ve bonded their magical energies in order to jointly strengthen themselves.) And now, suddenly, they must deal with a sudden closeness neither of them were prepared for.

On a basic level, Dirthamen’s vallaslin acts as a symbol of the union between the modern elves and the elvhen.

Dirth meant well. He also knows what the vallaslin means to him and to her are different, so what binds one way doesn’t necessarily bind the other. Eirwen gets to make her own decisions about how she sees their relationship.

3) Vallaslin in Sex

Vallaslin is a direct, magical blood link between two people. So, yeah, it can be used for pleasure and in a myriad of different ways.

4) Deirwen songs:

Deirwen is incredibly fluffy, so here’s some songs from their playlist.

Ever The Same - Rob Thomas, I Think We’d Feel Good Together - Rob Thomas, Heaven Help Me - Rob Thomas, Taking On the World Today - O.A.R., Accidentally In Love - Counting Crows, Untouched - The Veronicas, Just Say Yes - Snow Patrol, The Safest Place - LeAnne Rimes, The Stranger - O.A.R, Disarm You - Kaskade, Hang On -  Plumb. Steal Your Heart - BRKLYN, Did I Say That Out Loud? - Barenaked Ladies.

World Like That - O.A.R. is Eirwen’s personal theme, really. She’s had a lot, but that one’s stuck. She picks up Scream It Out - Ellie Goulding, and Wake the Giant - Tommy Trash, and Fight Song - Rachel Platten. Oh, and The Last Unicorn - America. (If that doesn’t make you worried, it should.)

The irony is most of the songs for Eirwen to Solas like Strange Sight by KT Tunstall work for Dirthamen except it’s in reverse. He’s the one stretching out his hand and pulling her out of the dark, offering her the acceptance she’s been looking for and doesn’t know what to do with. Thematically, he’s there offering her the home she offered to Solas.

Dangerously by Charlie Puth and I Can Love You Better by Shawn Mendes are ironically great picks for… dun, dun, dun SPOILERS… Falon’din… shh. (Also Think Twice by Eve6.) I initially envisioned him as the charismatic version of the fandom’s Dark Fen’Harel so he is territorial, obsessive, possessive, boundary pushing, and… lots of other things.

5) Is Dirthamen obsessive or get obsessive about Eirwen?

No, Dirthamen is not obsessive. He is protective, devoted, dedicated, and above all: patient. He’s willing to take what he’s given. He’s in no hurry. He’s an immortal, one of the eldest of the Evanuris. One concept he grasps better than any other is time. For him, relationships are not static. What one feels one century could be very different in the next. Eirwen may love Fen’Harel now and have residual feelings, but she won’t forever. She’s going to change, grow into herself, and may come around to see him as a good alternative. She also may not. Dirthamen understands, perhaps better than the others, that there are many different kinds of love. Their partnership isn’t reliant on a sexual bond, though that bond is nice.

He isn’t is possessive, or insecure, his willingness to put on the vallaslin for her was a sign of his willingness to give up control. He’s able to set aside his ego and his pride for what is necessary, because he knows who he is. Whether he wears vallaslin or not, it doesn’t change who he is or where he’s been. He’s willing to let her sort out the speed at which she wants their relationship to move, and be there as an advisor, counselor, or moral support.

He doesn’t see himself in competition with Solas, because he doesn’t need to be. There’s room in her life for both of them, really. He’s overseen and experienced a parade of ever changing relationships between himself and his siblings. Falon’din has been linked to Andruil, and countless others. Fen’Harel has been linked to Andruil. Andruil has been linked to Ghilnan’nain, Dirthamen has been linked to (though never in a serious relationship with) both Ghilnan’nain and Sylaise. Sylaise is also with June. His approach to relationships between immortals is that they’re fluid, and sometimes it’s necessary to take breaks. For him, real love is about who we return to and not who we sleep with.

He’ll probably end up worrying more about the way Solas affects her mental health and the fallout of their past relationship than he will Solas himself.

He has his dark side and he is ruthless, but he isn’t proprietary and feels no sense of ownership. He gives what he wants to give, and expects no reciprocation. She’s free to give him what she can, that’s enough.

There are those who make him feel insecure (*cough* Falon’din *cough*), and those he’s actively concerned about (*cough* Sylaise *cough*) should they ever find out. On the whole though, he doesn’t see Solas as a competitor. A screw up worthy of pity, maybe. He will not compete with a ghost, or place himself at the disadvantage of time. The new provides opportunity, he’ll focus on differentiating himself and building a relationship between them that isn’t reliant on Solas’ shadow.

See her in danger though or under threat, and you’ll see his knives come out. One thing you don’t ever do is hurt the bae. If he’s got a bone to pick with Solas, it’s that. Funny to say, maybe, but he’s disappointed in Solas.

He expected better.

I hope that answers your questions.

Thanks for asking!

[garden-ghoul]

post mortem, s3 spoilers. mostly just archiving answers for future reference. edit: no there’s lots of editorials in here, the format is bullshit though. I just like to read my own liveblogs, like, way more than is probably necessary.

wait so it’s 10 000 years between the death of samothes and the erasure?? why the hell did he break up with samot then. what was samot doing. he has so many... irons.... in th

what. samol is the original pattern.

what! wizards did ordenna! austin stop saying these things like we were supposed to have figured them out!! apparently this was some kind of a ploy to build stuff out of h&d

they are talking about character consistency in decisions and everyone who did a bad job is just like staying guiltily silent

his children are all red jack. they’re all him and they’re his spores??? he doesn’t want them to grow up because then there will be two red jacks?? what does that mean???

I’m actually MORE pissed off about the fantasy antisemitism thing now that I know austin was framing that explicitly as a thing about the oppression of indigenous people.... like.... who do you think.... dude....

“donald trump is the heat and the dark”

wait the sword is the jar inside the jar of bees. it’s “heaven” because there’s no bees in there. which is bullshit, there’s no use in having heaven without bees. actually I’m listening to warmth of love now and I hate it, I absolutely despise heaven and all heavens. the only good thing about that song is that in defiance of the entire rest of the piece it resolves on a minor chord.

speaking of music, maybe relisten to corsica’s theme. it’s really fun, I wish the character themes in fatt were more explicit. you know who does really good explicit character themes? sorry, but it’s homestuck. I fucking adore the way homestuck does it. anyway my favorite track this season was red jack, obviously. I’m excited about jack’s growth as a composer.

but I am VERY interested in “for every inside there is an outside” as a season tagline. I just don’t see how that comes through in a uhhh like broader thematic sense. or is it more of a motif than a theme?

I love everyone ripping into neutral aligned characters. neutral characters are the worst! lem is! really bad! I’m so glad to hear jack saying that lem is terrible for all the reasons I think he’s terrible. like we are on the same page here in re lem. the soft boy trap. last weekend I was trying desperately to get someone to define soft boy for me because of the soft boy controversy and they were ahead of the curve when they made this a month and a half ago. table friends have always had great soft boy meta.

“I’m less interested in being sweet than being good.” (this is jack but I think austin like, quoted him on twitter recently)

jack and austin talking about how pattern magic isn’t just goofy, it’s scary too! but not talking about what semiotics is. get a. dictionary guys.

am really enjoying the apparitive magic junk. it’s scarier if fake things can become genuinely real instead of falling apart! they split the atom and now they’re bombing people! possibly!

I love austin’s implication that if he and jack were RPing a sex scene without six other people listening it would be great. they seem like maybe they are that kind of friends.

I want the sun rings to be iron rings though. the sun is made of iron.

breath and love samothes vs breath and force samothes! breath and force was a good song. and it’s really good to hear it clarified that maelgwyn was actually working to bring the heat and the dark, because I did not get that in text. haha and if ephrim had become a samothes, oh MAN. it would be hilarious. what would he even do. he does not know. I’m really interested in where he’s going to go from here. what does it look like for him to not be in the shadow of a god any more? where will he get his authority? will he still be able to enchant people?

hahaha oh man were arrell and alyosha a samot/samothes parallel. I had no idea but now I am really seeing it, that’s amazing.

ecological yearning deeply linked to the divine. oh shit this is SUCH a good fucking question. like to some extent I think making a sharp distinction between technology and nature, and assigning moral value to one over the other--is bullshit. on the other hand I am so all the fuck about utopias being all about green things. I like the comment of “we never got to see a beautiful world in friends at the table.”

overall I am feeling kinder toward this season hearing how happy the players are with it. it’s probably because I absorb other people’s emotions like a sponge, I am a sellout. or maybe publicly caring about something is just a really cool thing to do?? and character development is really hard, especially in the moment.

all right that’s everything wow that’s so many huh