#can you guess what happened after the first unmasked event. can you fucking guess

[tearlessrain]

I will never not be pissed about how covid has been handled. I don't really talk about it anymore because it's not going to change anything and I'm just gonna end up being That Guy evne more than I already am in general but. I'm just terminally pissed about it. the fact that so many people died who didn't have to, the fact that disabled and elderly people were so blatantly thrown under the bus to the point that a lot of people weren't even pretending to care, the CDC straight up lying multiple times and making it abundantly clear that the economy is more important than human life (or quality of life). the fact that everyone acts like long covid doesn't exist and "you won't die stop worrying about it," the fact that everyone (mainly the government and corporations but I see it on an individual social level too) is so desperate to get back to "normal" that they threw out a bunch of things that were actively improving lives like normalizing wearing masks during flu season/in doctors offices, and making more jobs remote, and respecting peoples' goddamn personal space. the fact that for some reason the prevailing opinion is that it's been long enough now and we should all get over it and accept it as a part of life and purposefully do nothing to mitigate the risk from this still very present and dangerous illness because you're harshing everyone's vibe.

it just really sucks man idk there's no point to this.

[wrestlingisfake]

Triplemania XXIX preview

This is traditionally the biggest show of the year for AAA. For the first time since the pandemic started, AAA is doing an indoor show with fans in attendance. The show starts at 9pm EDT tonight, but it's only being streamed within Mexico, because AAA's international broadcast rights are tied up in a lawsuit. Noted lucha libre reporter thecubsfan plans to get around that, though, so you might want to check out his Twitter for more info.

Psycho Clown vs. Rey Escorpion - This is a lucha de apuestas, so if Psycho loses he must unmask and reveal his true identity, and if Escorpion loses he must have his head shaved in the ring. There are no higher stakes in Mexican wrestling that putting your mask on the line, and the only thing that comes close is risking your hair. So if you're wondering why this is the main event and not Kenny Omega vs. Andrade, that's why.

The backstory here goes all the way back to 2013, when Escorpion was in CMLL and defeated Psycho's father, Brazo de Plata, in a hair vs. hair match. That was supposed to lead to another of Brazo's sons, Maximo, getting revenge on Escorpion, but the match never came together. Escorpion ended up going to AAA in 2017, starting a long-running feud with Psycho. So now Psycho has a chance to do what his brother couldn't, and avenge his father. Coincidentally, Brazo de Plata (aka Super Porky) passed away a few weeks ago, and I assume that will be incorporated into Psycho's motivation here.

I don't follow AAA closely enough to keep track of the regulars, but I know Psycho Clown is one of the biggest stars in the promotion and he's no pussycat. I would expect a wild brawl between two guys who can't afford to lose. Of course, in a match like this, I tend to think the favorite is the guy defending his mask, since hair grows back. So look for Escorpion to finally get his comeuppance after all these years.

Kenny Omega vs. Andrade El Idolo - This is Omega's fifth defense of the AAA mega championship since he won it in October 2019. Kenny went on to win the AEW men's world title in December 2020, and the Impact/TNA world title in April 2021, becoming a triple champion with four belts. However, he lost the Impact and TNA belts to Christian Cage yesterday, which has him looking particularly vulnerable. If Andrade wins the AAA title tonight, Omega will have lost three of his four belts in about 24 hours.

Andrade was best known as La Sombra in CMLL until he joined WWE/NXT in 2016. After requesting his WWE release in March 2021, he appeared on a May 2 AAA show and challenge Omega to this match. A month later he debuted on AEW, in a baffling storyline where nobody seems to understand how anything works. As far as I can recall, AEW has never once mentioned that this title match is happening, even though Omega, Andrade, and the AAA belt appear regularly on AEW programming.

Andrade's post-WWE career has not impressed the pundits, raising questions about whether he can reclaim the greatness that got people to care about La Sombra in the first place. If he can't have a great match with Omega, that discourse is likely to dog him for a long time.

Within the world of AAA, Omega has planted seeds for a match with Hijo del Vikingo, and Andrade has teased the idea of a match with Psycho Clown. I would think AAA would rather have the title involved in Andrade vs. Psycho, but that doesn't necessarily mean they'll go that route, or that they'll start setting it up right now. I'm leaning toward a title change happening, but either outcome won't surprise me much.

Faby Apache vs. Deonna Purrazzo - Apache is the AAA women's champion, and Purrazzo is the Impact women's champion. Both belts are at stake, so it will be champion versus champion, title for title. Deonna is already booked for a title defense on August 28 against Melina Perez, so it's not clear what would happen to that match if she loses here.

There's not much of a story here--Purrazzo just wandered into an AAA show to confront Apache and issue the challenge. This comes across as AAA's big idea to get their belt on international TV by putting it on a top foreigner, similar to what they did with Kenny Omega. It doesn't really feel like Impact is even involved, outside of their office approving the booking. I'm not sure Impact has promoted or even mentioned the match, although I haven't kept up with it lately.

Apache is a big star for AAA, but Purrazzo looks to be the heavy favorite to win. She's gotten a lot of buzz for her in-ring work, and Impact recognizes that and presents her like a big deal. It feels like they've got a destination in mind for her later this year, and I can't believe they'd disrupt that to have her lose her title in Mexico. I can believe, on the other hand, that AAA would send their women's title to the US and forget about it for six months.

Pentagon Jr. & Rey Fenix vs. Hijo del Vikingo & Laredo Kid vs. Taurus & ? - Hey, remember when the Penta and Fenix defended the AAA tag team title in the ladder match at AEW All Out 2019? They've had those belts this whole time! I totally forgot. Anyway, they're defending them here in a three-way, so whoever scores the first fall will win the title for his team.

Vikingo and Laredo were once teammates in Los Jinetes del Aire, but that was a couple of years ago. Taurus normally teams with Crazzy Steve on Impact Wrestling, and he holds the AAA trios title with El Texano Jr. and Rey Escorpion, but for this match he's got a mystery partner. It remains to be seen if this is the kind of mystery partner that's a big surprise, or the kind where it's just some guy that wasn't worth advertising ahead of time.

I don't keep up with AEW's Youtube shows, and Penta and Fenix haven't teamed on Dynamite in months, so I haven't seen those two really go nuts in a long-ass time. Vikingo and Laredo have a lot of buzz, and I keep assuming they're about to sign with a major American promotion, but they still haven't from what I can tell. So this could get pretty flippy and wild, especially with Taurus there to, like, be huge and catch people and stuff.

If I thought AAA gave a damn about keeping their belts on regulars, I'd expect Vikingo and Laredo to win. If I thought the priority was to deliver a big surprise to pop the fans, I'd expect a win for Taurus's mystery partner. But as it is, these belts belong to the Lucha Bros., and I expect that's where they'll stay.

Pagano & Chessman & Murder Clown vs. Puma King & DMT Azul & Sam Adonis - Azul used to be Diamante Azul in CMLL, but he recently jumped over to AAA to team with Puma and Adonis, who are also ex-CMLL guys. Together they're La Empresa, an unofficial CMLL invasion group. So the other team is fighting for the honor of AAA, but Pagano and Chessman are nuts and hate each other, so the big question is CAN THEY COEXIST~? My guess is that they can't, and La Empresa will pick up a win to build steam for this storyline.

Copa Triplemania battle royale - This is basically an undercard battle royale featuring everybody that isn't booked for some other match. The rules are kind of like WWE's Royal Rumble, but frankly I've watched several of these and I've never been able to figure it out. "Copa Triplemania" translates to "Triplemania Cup" but I can't remember if there's an actual trophy or any kind of stakes to this. As I recall it always comes down to a babyface and a heel and then somehow the heel referee is always in there, but somebody clobbers him and the good guy wins anyway.

Marvel Lucha Libre something something - For some reason Marvel has a promotional deal with AAA, wherein AAA books matches featuring wrestlers dressed up as Marvel superheroes. It's hard to believe this is going to sell even one extra ticket to a Marvel movie, but okay. Anyway, I remember seeing one of these with Captain America and Spider-Man vs. Thanos and Venom, which you'd think would be awesome, but it didn't really hold my attention. I don't know which characters will be represented this time, although if AAA wants to book the Loki and Sylvie vs. Kang and Renslayer, I promise to mark the fuck out.

[snowdice]

The Things We Never Mentioned (Part 2 of 3)

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Relationships: Logan/Patton

Characters: Logan, Patton, Remy

Summary:

“Believe it or not, academia and relationships are not mutually exclusive.” That was likely true, Logan knew. It was also not the problem.

The problem was his ability to move things with his mind, a blue suit he kept in his bag, and the mountains of red files he kept hidden in his apartment. No one knew that Logan was Bluebird, the cities resident superhero. He hadn’t even told his parents and he wasn’t planning on doing so. Sharing such a secret with anyone was a danger to everyone involved. He refused to do so.

At the same time, he knew that starting a romantic relationship with anyone who didn’t know the truth, was unfair to that person. Inevitably they would find out and there would be a disastrous fallout, but beyond that, starting a relationship on a foundation of lies was a horribly cruel thing to do to another person.

These two conflicting rules Logan followed had never posed an issue for him before recently, but…

But he did like Patton.

This is a three-shot dealing with events set before my story Sometimes Labels Fail set about a month and a half after the mini fics A Coffee Shop Meet Cute and A Coffee Shop Incident Report.

Notes: Superhero AU, Surgery, Medical Procedures

Fair warning, I found while writing this that I actually have no idea how emergency surgery works and so had to boldly guess.

Things to not have be your last line of a chapter if you’re an Emergency Room surgeon  “I’ll, um, see you later. Probably not today, but later.”

Things to not have be your last line of a chapter if you’re a secret superhero  “Somebody kill me.”

Part 1

It was calm night at work. Which, Remy thought with a wince, was probably not a good thing to think when one worked in an ER. He’d definitely just jinxed it. If some vengeful god decided to crash a bus of innocent people because Remy dared to have the thought that it was a slow night, then that god was an asshole and Remy refused to feel guilty about it.

Remy had only been working in this ER for a few months, but he’d already gotten a feel for how things worked on most nights. It was only about 9pm, but Remy knew he had a long night ahead of him and there was a nice break in his duties, so he was gallivanting off to the break room to snag himself a cup of coffee (the break room coffee was horrible, but it was a necessity) when the city alarms went off.

Most places had televisions set up so people could see the drama unfolding when supervillains attacked the city, but the Emergency Room had one in just about every room that staff frequented which were linked with the alarms so they turned on automatically when the alarm sounded. The staff had to be prepared for the possible influx of patients after all. So, Remy got a first-row seat to the newest super powered fist fight.

The scene on the screen was a fight between two very well-known supers. The villain, Telemonger had been around for almost a decade at this point. She had telekinesis and had a tendency to show up to cities and rain down destruction. She was an A level B in Remy’s book.

The hero, Bluebird, had the same powers but was much newer. He’d only been on the scene for a little over two years, but he was pretty good and had a good standing in the city he protected. People loved him. Beyond the fact that statistically the body counts when he was the one fighting were the lowest in the country, he also just seemed like an okay dude to most people, Remy included. Superheroes weren’t always as heroic as people would wish and sometimes it seemed like they were more going out for notoriety than a desire to help people. Bluebird, on the other hand, didn’t seem to give a flying fuck about statues, keys to the city, hero turf wars, or publicity stunts. Remy could respect that.

So, someone might forgive the nurse if he felt a little nervous about the fight where for most matchups, he’d just be eating popcorn and hoping civilians didn’t die.

They were on the outskirts of the city near the six-lane highway coming into town, both hovering only slightly off the ground and facing each other. The cause of the conflict was clear. There was a passenger train hovering over Telemonger’s head. There wasn’t a train track anywhere near that location, so Remy imagined the people on that train were having quite the fucking day. Bluebird was clearly saying something to her, but this part of town wasn’t set up for this sort of drama and news casters were desperately trying to get the cameras and the long distant microphones working so Remy couldn’t understand what he was saying.

He did, however, very easily understand the response.

She tossed the train right toward the highway. It slowed in midair and stopped only a few feet from crashing on top of the turbine interchange. Remy winced in sympathy. He had never used telekinetic powers himself, but he knew enough theory. Bluebird was strong and had clear potential to get stronger, but he was relatively unpracticed and that had to be quite the strain. While he was distracted, Telemonger sent a piece of concrete directly at his unprotected stomach. He was bowled over by it. Remy could see the train shudder in the air, but somehow it remained there instead of crushing the cars beneath it. Telemonger waved her arm at his face and there was nothing the eye could see, but by the way Bluebird went careening backwards onto the ground, Remy could guess the strength of the hit. The train still didn’t fall though, and she landed to stalk forward toward him with focused intensity.

Oh, Remy realized with sudden clarity. She was here for Bluebird, wasn’t she? This was targeted. As Remy said, he had clear potential and a hero’s will. She was here to nip that in the bud. She didn’t give two shits about the civilians. They were tools for her to get to Bluebird because she knew they weren’t tools to him.

Bluebird suddenly shot straight up in the air flying fast enough that the cameras set to focus on him couldn’t track him. The train was jerked up suddenly and moved a good distance away from the highway over a field before being let down gently.

Telemonger chased after him, tossing ripped up concrete and other objects at him while he did his best to dodge. One he managed to catch as it zoomed by him and redirect in a circle to whip back at her. She just barely dodged. She appeared to grow frustrated with that and spread out her arms before clapping her hands hard in a move Remy recognized from news casts. A wave of force slammed into Bluebird, but Bluebird did something Remy and surely Telemonger had not been expecting. Instead of getting distracted cushioning his own fall, his own hand lashed out and, distracted, she went flying. Telemonger’s head slammed against one of the interstate ramps and she fell. She did not get up.

It had been a decision, clear as day. Remy could see it. She could have easily won that fight and when she did, she would have hurt people. Bluebird had seen an opportunity to take her out. He took it.

Bluebird hit the ground, probably not with as much impact as a person without powers would have, but with more force than someone who could fly should have. He also didn’t move after he hit.

It felt like the whole hospital, no, the whole city, went silent for a long moment.

Then, pandemonium.

People started rushing every which way, preparing for the inevitable conclusion of what was still happening on screen as first responders scrambled onto the scene. Remy hadn’t been here long enough to know what to do in this sort of situation and ended up just allowing himself to be pushed out of the way as things were prepped. Somehow all of that pushing managed to get him right smack dab in the middle of everything.

“You!” one of the higher ups said pointing to him. “In trauma room 2. They need a nurse. Now.” And Remy was definitely not going to argue right now. He scrambled to obey.

When he’d gotten in the correct outerwear and washed his hands, he entered the room. There were a couple of people already in the room that Remy vaguely recognized. There was an anesthesiologist and a surgical tech prepping the room as well as a surgeon. He’d met the surgeon once when he’d given Remy a cookie a couple months before. By reputation, Remy knew that, despite being pretty young, barely older than Remy himself, he was probably one of the best surgeons in the emergency room that night.

“Good,” Dr. Sanders said when he saw Remy come in. He did not look like the friendly, bubbly man who had offered Remy food and a smile. He looked serious, calm, and ready for whatever life could throw at him. “If he’s conscious at all when he gets here, get any information you can,” he told Remy and oh, oh shit. Was this what Remy thought this was?

Well, he couldn’t chicken out now.

He nodded at the doctor and the doctor nodded back before turning to the surgical tech and continuing to help prep everything right.

It was probably less than a minute later when the patient arrived. Bluebird was wheeled in by two other nurses and someone who seemed to be a first responder judging by the uniform.

“I’m with the mask,” the first responder said. She was an older lady with a serious face.

“Get washed up in there,” Dr. Sanders said pointing, “there’s scrubs and a window. Everyone else non-essential out.”

She nodded and rushed over to the indicated room. Being ‘with the mask’ meant she was one of the first people on the scene and was responsible for making sure the superhero wouldn’t be unmasked in medical procedures. It was called the masking courtesy and while all medical professionals were supposed to adhere to it, not everyone could be trusted to do so. She’d made the choice to take on the legal responsibility to protect Bluebird’s identity until such a time as he could make decisions himself or was dead.

Oh god. Remy really hoped not dead. The bitch had probably just saved the city from being razed down and eaten pavement for his efforts. Remy didn’t particularly want to watch him die after that.

He could feel the first responder’s eyes drilling into his back as he approached Bluebird, and he very carefully kept his hands far away from his face and in view of the window. Bluebird’s eyes flickered to him when Remy leaned over him a bit. He was still conscious, but it seemed just barely. “Hey buddy,” Remy said. “We’re going to let you sleep in a minute, but I need you to stay awake for me for just a bit. We don’t have any medical history for obvious reasons and I’m not going to ask you who you are, but is there anything we need to know? Allergies, blood conditions, stuff like that?”

Bluebird thought about it for a long moment and Remy wasn’t sure if he was going to get a response. “No,” he finally gritted out, his voice clearly pained.

“Okay that’s good. We’re going to take care of all of that okay. We’ll fix you up. You know what’s happening? We’re going to have to do some surgery”

“Yes,” he said. “You have my permission.”

“Okay, good, that’s good,” Remy said. Apparently, those words had taken a lot out of him because his eyes started to drift closed. “Hey, hey, come back for a sec. Do you know your blood type?”

There was a slow blink and his eyes didn’t focus, but he still said, “A positive.”

“Possible drugs in your system?”

No response. He was still awake, but he wasn’t fully aware.

“Hey buddy, stay with me.”

“…No.”

“A DNR?”

“No.”

The first responder had gotten all washed up and was in scrubs. She came back over to them. Remy gave her a tight nod. “I think we’re good to go,” Remy said. At least as much as they could be.

“We’re going to get you started on some pain meds now,” the anesthesiologist told Bluebird. He made a sound in response to the new voice, but he seemed to not be quite all there anymore even before the drugs started to hit his system.

Dr. Sanders finished whatever prep he’d been doing and came back over to lean over and address the superhero. “Hello I-” but he was interrupted when Bluebird’s eyes managed to focus on his face

“Patton?” Bluebird slurred, eyebrows crinkling in confusion as he blinked up blearily. “Why are you a doctor?”

Dr. Sanders went still. Remy went still. Everyone in the room went still. He didn’t know, clearly, Remy thought. Whoever the man was behind the mask, Dr. Sanders knew him, but he didn’t know he knew him.

For a long moment, the only sound in the room was the heart monitor.

“This,” Dr. Sanders said softly, but there was something hard and deadly in his tone, “never leaves this room.” He looked up and met each of their eyes one by one. “If it does, I will personally make sure your life is ruined.” Remy believed him.

The anesthesiologist nodded, fear in her eyes and Remy followed suit along with the surgical tech. The first responder pressed her lips together and inclined her head. Dr. Sanders took a breath to steel himself. “Then we have a surgery to perform.”

 No one in that room ever said a word about that night to each other or anyone else (at least not for many, many years and even then it was only Remy and the surgeon with the superhero himself in the room). Yet, Remy found himself eating lunch with the surgical tech often over the years to come and always got a birthday card from the anesthesiologist once she’d moved away. They all showed up at the first responder’s retirement party a few years later and her funeral a few years after that. As for the man who was called “Patton” by a man in a mask that night, well, Remy would find, he ended up knowing him very well.

Want to read more? Click below!

AO3 Part 2 Part 3

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Z Movie 12:  Fusion Reborn (3/6)

So Janemba’s messing with King Yemma, cutting off his authority over the boundary between the living and dead.  Yemma knew this would have dire consequences for the universe, and we see that manifest on Earth, where dead people are suddenly back from the grave.   For example, this family is at a cemetary to visit their grandfather’s grave, only to find him alive and well in his burial clothes no less.    He’s not a ghost or any other sort of apparition either; he has feet and everything.

Elsewhere, an older man named Romeo has a similar experience at the grave of his deceased lover, Juliano.   Or Julianne?    I don’t know.    You’d think they would have called her “Juliet” to play in with Romeo, except in the play they both died young.    Here, Romeo survived, and he’s and old man.

But Julianne hasn’t aged at all in the past sixty years since her death.   It kind of makes for an awkward reunion.   

Incidentally, Romeo has a crucifix, so this marks the first official appearance of Jesus Christ in Dragon Ball.  We’ve seen crosses and the name “Jesus Christ”, but this is an actual image of the Son of God Himself.    “But Lord, why are there no footprints in the sand during the most difficult parts of the journey?”  “Because that was when I Instant Transmissioned you, lol.”

Speaking of crosses, here’s Dracula, and I guess he was dead, until he came back today.   But he still has a wooden stake in his heart, which... okay why does he want it removed if it’s not killing him?  Why can’t he just take it out himself? Also, if Janemba’s powers are causing dead people to come back to life, shouldn’t Dracula turn back into a human?   

Meanwhile, some horde of invaders on horseback marches through traffic.    I think these are supposed to be Mongols, but I dunno.

They kind of get their thunder stolen when a second army of tanks shows up, let by Adolf Hitler.  I mean, it’s not quite Hitler.  His uniform is bright purple, and the real Hitler wouldn’t be leading a battalion of tanks into action.  But this movie never bothers to give him a satirical name, like “Dunkoff Shitler” or “Adenoid Hynkel” or whatever.   So I just refer to this guy as Hitler.   Same as that vampire from a minute ago.  

In any event, this guy’s obvious resemblance to Hitler is why his scenes were edited out in several countries, which have laws against depicting Nazi imagery.  For what it’s worth, the movie doesn’t really lose much with these scenes taken out.

Also, there’s just straight up zombies running around, which I don’t really understand, since Hitler and Julianne are fully alive.  But that’s the chaos of Janemba for you.  He’s not purposely doing any of this.   This is just the result of him cutting off King Yemma’s power to regulate the dead.

But don’t worry, folks, Gohan’s here and he’ll save the day, right after he finishes eating.

Goku may be dead, but his legacy lives on in his sons, Gohan and Goten.   Chi-Chi doesn’t mind doing all the dishes from the boys’ meals, but she does miss her husband at times like these.

So Videl offers to help with the dishes, but Chi-Chi’s like, no way, you’re a guest in this house.

But somehow we end up with Videl doing the dishes in the next scene.   This is one of my favorite animations in this movie.   With the sound effects, I could watch a loop of this all day. 

Chi-Chi is impressed, so she tells Videl that she’ll make a fine wife.  

And Videl’s all “Marriage?  Gawrsh!”   This is adorable.  She’s so worked up that she drops a dish.

But Chi-Chi doesn’t mind, because she still thinks Videl is cut out for married life.  In the manga, Chi-Chi wants Videl to marry Gohan so she can get a chunk of that sweet, sweet Mr. Satan fortune, but in this movie, I almost feel like she’s proposing to marry Videl herself.   “Marry me, Videl, so I may never have to wash a dish again!”  “Wh-what about Gohan?”  “What about Gohan?”

Then Videl breaks more dishes, but before she can clean them up, she gets a call from the Satan City Police, who inform her that the dead have risen and are overrunning the town.   Also, they ask her to contact Great Saiyaman.  Videl’s like “No problem, I’m at his house now.   I think his mom is coming on to me.”

“Stay away from my mom, Videl.”

Meanwhile, in Otherworld, Goku and Pikkon’s championship match is interrupted when a giant crystal sprouts out of the ring.

The Grand Kai believes the disturbance is coming from King Yemma’s domain, and he sends Pikkon to investigate.   But Goku doesn’t want him to go, since that would mean he’d win the tournament by forfeit.   So the Grand Kai orders Goku to go with Pikkon, and that works out, since Goku can teleport there.

When they arrive, they find everything all messed up.

Yemma somehow contacts them from within the barrier around his domain, and he points out Janemba on the roof.

Pikkon tries to ask Janemba to cut the shit, but Janemba either won’t cooperarte or he can’t understand him.   When Pikkon loses his patience, Big J flicks him into one of those floating jellybeans he made.

This catches Goku’s interest, and now he’s happy that they left the tournament for this, since Janemba seems like an even greater challenge.

Janemba seems to agree to tangling with Goku, so he suggests that Pikkon see to Yemma while Goku lures Janemba to hell, where he’ll be out of the way.

I’m not sure if there were already jellybeans in hell, or if Janemba brought a bunch down with him.  

Otherwise, Hell has experienced its own bizarre changes.  I’m not entirely sure what’s changed, since we only saw it twice in the entire run of the anime up until now, but I’m pretty sure all those humanoid-looking figures weren’t there before.

Janemba grabs a few and turns them into mini-clones of himself.

Goku thinks they look cute until they all start ganging up on him.

Fortunately, Goku can just beat them away with a few roundhouse kicks, and they all vanish.   The bad news is that the big Janemba won’t be that easy.

Back on Earth, Gohan’s having tons of fun clobbering zombies. 

Videl’s doing pretty well against them too, but the real question is: Why is this happening, and how do they stop it?   Gohan isn’t sure, but he’s confident that it’ll all work out with the two of them together. 

Videl’s charmed by his answer, but then--

Some jagoff intrudes on their moment.

Oh look, it’s this asshole.   Yeah, Frieza’s back and he’s in this movie too, along with Dracula, Hitler, and Jesus.  For those of you keeping score, that means Steel Ball Run, Hellsing, and Resurrection F were all inspired by this movie.

Frieza is surprised that anyone on Earth knows him by name, so Gohan unmasks to reveal that he was the kid with the bowl-haircut on Namek.        

Videl’s completely smitten here.   “Wow, he’s wayyy dreamier than his mom!”

So Frieza’s decided to kill Gohan as revenge for Goku defeating him.   You’d think he’d be mad about Future Trunks killing him, but he was friends with Gohan too, so it still works.   The part that doesn’t work is this punk-ass bitch running around in Movie 12 like it’s still Movie 3. 

So Frieza sics a surprise army of henchmen on Gohan to soften him up.  Of course, it makes perfect sense that all the top Frieza soldiers would be here, and that they’d still be loyal to Frieza, but there’s also a lot of Movie 1-5 henchmen too, and most of them don’t even know Frieza.  Still it’s not hard to believe that they could be persuaded to join his side.

But Bojack seems pretty hard to swallow.   Out of everyone in this scene, he’s definitely stronger than Frieza ever was, so why isn’t he calling the shots here?

Anyway, waves of henchmen, Frieza’s invincible, what will Gohan do now? 

FREE-ZA FREE-ZA FREE-ZA FREE-ZA

Hadou ooana GALAXY Yudan wana PARASITE

FREE-ZA FREE-ZA FREE-ZA FREE-ZA

Obienaku wa warera min

DIE!DIE!DIE!

So yeah, everyone sees Gohan END Frieza with one fraggin’ punch, and they all turn chickenshit and run away.  Even Bjoack, I guess, which only makes sense, because Gohan punched a hole through him in Movie 9. 

Videl’s like “Wow, it’s kind of weird how all of these dead people came back to life, and presumably we can’t kill them again because they’d just come back, and yet Frieza was the only jerk in this whole movie who got exploded and stayed dead from all of this.”

Then Gohan does his victory poses, and Videl swoons off-screen.  In the dub, they changed the ending dialogue to suggest that Gohan and Videl made out shortly after this scene, and Goten and Trunks saw it.   It’s not in the Japanese script, but come on.  How was Videl not al over this dude after this?  We know it happened.  

Meanwhile, Mr. Satan is punching zombies someplace else, and he’s pretty pleased with how well he’s doing, except there’s no one around to watch him in action, so he moves on to find his grateful public.

Fortunately, he won’t run out of zombies anytime soon.  

Meanwhile, Goten and Trunks are helping out by gathering the Dragon Balls,   They find the seventh one on a golf course.

But Goten gets hit with a golf ball while he’s there.   Irritated, he decides to hide the ball to get payback on whoever sent it his way.

But he hides it in the hole, so the golfer thinks he made a hole-in-one and he’s sobbing with joy.   This doesn’t have much to do with the movie, but what’s great about Fusion Reborn is that you can expand on almost any scene and make it part of the wider story.   Maybe this guy’s a dead Frieza Soldier who got the call to mobilize and he said “Fuck that, if I’m alive, I’m gonna hit the links one last time.”  Or maybe he’s just a regular dude, but the lady there is his dead wife, who’s come back to tell him that the accident wasn’t his fault, and it’s okay for him to move on with his life.    Or they’re both alive, but the golf course gets destroyed by Cell during his epic battle with Tiencha.

Back at Capsule Corp.  Gohan summons Shenron.  For some reason,  in the dub, she tells him he’s “the only one who can,” and I’ve never understood that.   Maybe she means that Gohan’s the only one who understands the crisis well enough to make the right wish to Shenron, but she could still call the Dragon.   She’s done it before several times.

It’s funny how this is the first time Goten and Trunks have seen Shenron, even though the plot of Movie 10 was them gathering Dragon Balls specifically to see Shenron.  That’s how big a disappointment Movie 10 was.  Meanwhile, Movie 12 is so awesome that it pays off ideas from other movies.    

Videl might have wished for a handsome BMF with cool shades...

But Shenron can’t grant a wish that’s already come true.  Let’s just pause here to drink in this majestic shot of Casual Friday Great Saiyaman.   

...

...

...

Nice.

I’m just gonna put it here again.  It’s great.   

So Gohan explains the situation to Shenron and asks him to put all the dead people back where they belong, which Shenron says is a simple task. 

But then he says he can’t do it after all.  Goten complains, and Trunks silences him before Shenron can take offense.

Now, in the dub, Shenron gives a more thorough explanation.   He can move the dead back where they belong, but with King Yemma out of commission, there’s nothing to stop them from simply coming back.  I think that logic is strongly implied in the subtitles, but it’s not quite so clear.    In any case, this is beyond Shenron’s power.  It wouldn’t be if Yemma were on the board, but if that were the case, there’d be no need to involve Shenron in the first place.   

So that leaves everyone feeling pretty dejected.   The problem lies in Otherworld, and if Shenron and Gohan can’t fix it, then they’re out of options.  

And while they ponder what to do next...

...Shenron awkwardly asks if there’s anything else he could do for them while he’s here.

[pluckyredhead]

Daredevil 101: The King of Hell’s Kitchen

And we’re back! Last time, Matt beat the crap out of Fisk, unmasked in Josie’s, and declared himself the new Kingpin. We pick up a year later, with Ben explaining to an unseen companion at a diner just what’s been going on for the past twelve months. This is gonna be a long one, guys, sorry. (Bendis/Maleev, DD v2 #56-60.)

[Content Warning: There is a passing reference to Squirrel Hill, as in the Pittsburgh neighborhood - no connection to the recent tragedy there, as this comic is about 15 years old. I just didn’t want anyone blindsided.]

Basically, despite Matt unmasking in front of a room full of criminals, everyone is too terrified of him to actually admit that they saw his face, which means that he’s been able to keep up the double life game, even though fewer people than ever believe he’s not Daredevil anymore. This is all stuff Ben has gathered through hearsay, since Matt told him to stay away for his own protection and they haven’t spoken directly since before Josie’s.

Matt even had time to grow a horrible goatee!

It’s SO BAD, MATTHEW, WHY.

He also won his lawsuit against that one tabloid, meaning that currently, in the eyes of the court, Matt Murdock is not Daredevil. He donated the enormous amount of money he won to neighborhood charities. Please note this line: “See, Matt’s new girlfriend, Milla Donovan, actually works at the Hell’s Kitchen housing commission.” Just hold onto that for a minute.

Matt’s so popular, in fact, he’s approached to run for mayor!

“I am dizzy from you.” Wow, Franklin. WOW.

Not everyone is happy with Matt’s recent choices, though, as evidenced by an intervention from some of the local superheroes:

Do you think Luke got all the way to that fourth panel before realizing he was the only one here without an alliterative name and felt suddenly self-conscious? Do you think he had a split second of “Should I try to go by Carl Cage just for right now? Could I pull it off?”

Anyway one of the things I really love about Maleev’s art is the specificity of his...well, either photo referencing or just drawing from life. I could take you to the exact spot they’re standing in Bryant Park. (It’s a logical meeting place for this group, too, since it’s centrally located and walking distance from - but not inside - Hell’s Kitchen.)

Anyway, the others are pissed because Matt saying “Get out of Hell’s Kitchen!” to criminals just...made them do crime above 59th Street and below 34th, which was a pretty foregone conclusion. Matt’s unsympathetic:

Who wants to tell Matt that Hell’s Kitchen, Harlem, and the Village are all in Manhattan and his little plan here doesn’t make sense? Like, Matt and Luke covering neighborhoods while the other three, who can travel further and faster, cover the city as a whole, does make sense, but also “go do crime over there” doesn’t stop crime. As Peter points out, while wearing a very strange facial expression.

But Matt ignores the warnings, and ignores the growing tension in Hell’s Kitchen, and then, just a few days before Ben’s telling this story, he and Milla are attacked by like a hundred Yakuza assassins. He sends Milla running for safety...and hasn’t been seen since. And that’s all Ben knows.

And that’s when we see who he’s been talking to:

I want to clarify that Ben’s explanation of the past year of events has taken two full issues. That’s like five bucks worth of comics that is Ben mansplaining Milla’s own recent history to her, including explaining to her what her job is. They should have killed 616 Ben instead, Jesus.

Also, Milla and Matt are married! Hey, how about that?! She goes on to explain to a stunned Ben (who, I guess, didn’t ask her any questions before he started talking for two entire months holy shit Ben what is wrong with you) that they got married about four months ago, and we later learn that Milla’s the one who proposed. So she proposed to a man she’d known for eight months, who is...sort of a crime boss? An anti-crime boss? Anyway, keep that in your pocket for a bit.

(I’m sorry, I’m still so angry about these two issues. Anyone who wants to hear me rant about decompression, the ask box is open.)

Uh, Milla, that’s not a compliment. You want Matt to be in love with you as a human being, not the abstract concept of you as a conglomeration of eight million people and island real estate.

Anyway, Matt told Milla that if anything went wrong, she should contact Ben. She and Ben are both baffled by this, so Ben goes to see the actual person most likely to know where Matt is:

Take the money and just make shit up, Fogy! Anyway my poor beautiful tired boy has no idea where Matt is, and is also rather wounded that Matt had a contingency plan in place for Milla but a) not for Foggy and b) didn’t tell Foggy about it. Especially since the Yakuza are out in full force and Foggy has been sleeping in his office because he can’t safely leave it.

My heart. Foggy has never really gotten to grieve on page for Karen, given that he was in jail for her funeral, but he knew her as long as Matt did (technically slightly longer) and he loved her too.

Ben tracks Matt to the Night Nurse (who, remember, is not Claire Temple in the comics) and floats a new theory by him:

I’m very sorry Matt but i can’t take you seriously with that facial hair.

Matt stops crying long enough to deny it, but by now Ben knows he’s right:

I’m...pretty sure this is the first time someone has seriously said: “Matt, your behaviors are unhealthy and I’m concerned about your mental health.” And, like, itemized them (including explicitly saying that flaking on Foggy and leaving him in these crisis situations is cruel!). People have said “you’re crazy” or “you’re being a jerk” but it’s always been said in anger. This is uncompromising but compassionate. This is “a terrible thing happened to you and I know that you’re still in pain.” No wonder Matt cries.

And Matt’s not the only one who’s listening:

Wow, Foggy has a good memory. And the face of a man who is contextualizing the past few years of his life and doesn’t like what he sees.

(A+ for the frazzle of of hat hair, Maleev.)

Matt goes to a safehouse. Foggy goes...somewhere undetermined. A spa? Everyone gets naked:

No, seriously, I have no idea why everyone needed to be SO NAKED in this scene (although I’m not complaining). Anyway please enjoy FOGGY’S TATTOO (WHAT???) and also Matt calling him both “Franklin” and “good boy” in a single page.

If you want to, like, read the actual words and pay attention to plot, I GUESS, Matt promises to deal with the Yakuza situation. Foggy’s still not happy:

YES I HAD TO INCLUDE THIS DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD, IT’S IMPORTANT. Text if you can’t embiggen:

Matt: Are you breaking up with me?

Foggy: I don’t think you’ll let me.

Matt: I need you, Foggy. I’ll fix this. I’ll make it right.

Foggy: Yeah, okay. So just do what you have to do.

Matt: I need you to bring me something to wear.

Foggy: Something red?

Matt: It’s red?

Foggy: What?

Matt: I thought it was yellow.

Foggy: ...Are you serious?

Matt: No.

Foggy: That was pretty funny.

IT IS A VERY GOOD AND IMPORTANT EXCHANGE and it is only slightly marred by Milla draped in silent nakedness over Matt the whole time because...of reasons? Ugh.

Matt goes to get backup and finds himself being dragged for like the third time in 24 hours:

Haha! Pregnant women! So hysterical about being lied to by their friends and employers who they are risking their lives for! Hormones, fellas, amirite???! LOL.

(Seriously, fuck this shit.)

Anyway. Main Yakuza Dude Whose Name I Forget is still pretty confident about moving on Hell’s Kitchen now that Matt’s out of the picture:

Oh man, sorry about your life, Main Yakuza Dude!

“Are you guys sure you want me to do this pose? It feels more ‘boy band’ than ‘badass.’“

“Yeah, Luke, definitely!"

“Yeah? I don’t know, I kind of feel like...”

“No, dude, it works, it looks totally cool, I promise!”

They beat up the Yakuza. Meanwhile, Foggy joins Milla at the safehouse:

Why is Milla still in her underwear???????????????? #cancelmen

When Matt returns to the safehouse after defeating the Yakuza, Foggy is gone, and Milla is finally dressed...and very unhappy. She tells him what Foggy told her:

Here are the things that jump out at me about this page:

1. Milla says “this Karen Page person,” which implies that she has rarely or never heard Karen mentioned before. Considering that Matt (and Foggy!) knew Karen for, as Ben pointed out, almost all of his adult life, and that she was intrinsically tied not just to Matt (and Foggy!) but Daredevil and Nelson and Murdock, this is stunning. How do you spend a year with your wife and almost never mention someone you were intimately close to for at least a decade? I know Matt is secretive by nature, but this makes me think that Matt and Milla essentially never had any real or deep communication. Which, honestly, checks out.

2. We don’t see the conversation between Milla and Foggy. Theoretically, he could have said “LOLOLOL MATT NEVER LOVED YOU HE STILL LOVES MY DEAD FRIEND SUCK IT” but that seems...out of character, to say the least. I suspect, given how confused and distressed Milla is, that he said something more like “I think the reason Matt is acting like this is because he is still processing his trauma over the death of someone he loved very much.” Which shouldn’t be a surprise to Milla, considering that one of the very first things Matt told her was “Two women I loved have been murdered.” But apparently this is a great betrayal somehow??? Because:

And this is why I just can’t with Milla. So much of what doesn’t work with her character, like the thin personality and the helplessness and the fact that she’s IN HER UNDERWEAR ALL THE TIME FOR NO REASON, is because of sexist writing and drawing, and I’m not laying that at her feet. And I’ll be the first person to declare that Matt Murdock is a shitty boyfriend/partner and has been to literally every single woman he’s dated.

But the compassionate response to “the person I love is having a nervous breakdown because he lost someone he cared about” is not to scream “SHUT UP!!!” and accuse him of lying. I’m not married but I’m preeeeeetty sure the vows don’t include “I swear that I definitely never loved anyone else and if I did, I don’t love them anymore.” Matt broke no promises here (for once!) and, as I’ve said before, Milla went on two highly dangerous dates with Matt Murdock and then he declared himself Kingpin and then she proposed. She had all the evidence she needed that life with Matt is dangerous, bizarre, and full of ethical pitfalls and the ghosts of murdered girlfriends, and as an educated, intelligent adult woman in charge of her own business, she decided to sign up. This one is absolutely not on Matt and it pisses me off that it’s treated like it is.

Anyway. *breathes*

Next up: Black Widow returns!

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

The Civil War Novelization is trash

Spider-Man’s role was such garbage in the Civil War Novelization. Not of the movie, I mean of the comic story.

 It’s particularly bad when it comes to the changes made to the story.

 Like Spider-Man was written badley during Civil War anyway (he’d never agree with Tony’s side, never unmask, never be convinced by the flimsy arguments made for him to do that, never go on the run, etc) but this was in it’s own way worse.

 Check this.

 In the novel Spider-Man isn’t married. I don’t mean he and MJ are in a committed relationship but just not married.

 I mean they are not dating period.

 The novel starts with Peter as Tony’s new Iron Spider costume wearing protégé/stooge and has him reveal his identity to Aunt May IN the novel. She doens’t already know. And during that conversation Aunt May gives him a talking too about his bad luck with women. Because ya see he and Mary jane broke up recently.

 So maybe this is in continuity with the equally shitty novelization of the first New Avengers arc which literally cut out Mary Jane’s minor ass role and supplanted her with some random woman Peter isn’t even into and later on has Peter say something like ‘Take THAT Mary Jane’ in one of his inner thoughts.

 THEN Peter has to go see his ‘ex’ MJ in order to bring her into protection following his unmasking. Shit they don’t even include the goddam scene where Aunt May spouts BS nonsense to convince him to do that. He just somewhat reluctantly agrees to it because Tony wants him to do it. As OOC as it was in the actual story at least in that they paid lip service to how Peter was considering just NOT doing it. The scene made no sense when you look at it but the nonsense was at least well written in terms of pacing and dialogue and this Novelization just wiped it out so Peter could be infantialzed by going to his teenage bedroom in Aunt May’s house, eat cookies with her and hug her with the narration literally saying it was like when he was a kid.

 Like fuck dude.

 It’s so goddam stupid. Like putting aside how up the ass of Marvel’s anti-marriage agenda it is for Peter and MJ to not be married why the fuck do May and MJ need to not know his secret and be broken up from him respectively in the first place? Wouldn’t it make MORE sense to just have them in broadly the same status quo from the original story. Like okay they don’t like with Tony Stark and MJ and Peter are not married but WHY does Aunt May need to be ignorant of the truth and MJ need to be broken up with him?

 Why is their break up the defining aspect of their relationship in this goddam novel? Why couldn’t they just be in a non-married living situation or at least dating?

 What is the point of this to the narrative? What is also the point of trolling fans?

 Bear in mind when this novel was published Peter and MJ were not dating but Slott in 2011-2012 was clearly shipping them hard so WTF this wasn’t even proper synergy. Like the events of OMIT apparently still happened because Peter left MJ at the altar but in this continuity they just apparently broke up shortly after that which is NOT what happened in post-OMD continuity.

 It’s literally just DEFINING MJ and her relationship with peter through the FACT that they are not married. Like Peter literally wonders if HE could ever be as close to someone the way Reed and Sue are close to one another.

 And yet they STILL lean hard on how much Peter is in love with her.* So WHY define them through the lens of being broken up? Why the Hell not just HAVE them be in a relationship and adapt ACTUAL scenes from the Civil War era stories?

 Oh and mischaracterizing MJ beyond that.

 You get the usual utterly bullshit post-OMD crap of MJ just refusing to marry Peter if he is Spider-Man, but taken up a notch because whilst MJ from BND and beyond essentially refused to be in a relationship with Peter if he was Spider-Man at least in their revised history she WAS with him for years before that, just unmarried. In this and the New Avengers novel though she not only breaks contact with him after she gets jilted but she resumed contact only for the express purpose of making it clear she will NEVER be with him if he is Spider-Man. So MJ made the selfish ass ultimatum of her or the thing that saves people’s lives that she obviously knew about and accepted when agreeing to marry him.

 But then you just get mind boggling stuff too. Like check this out, the first scene she is in (more than half way through the novel btw) pushed the idea that she’s super into gardening. Yeah she says it’s because she ‘just needed a project’ after she got jilted at their wedding.

 But like...what? Has the author even READ any Mary Jane stories? First of all if MJ needed a project GARDENING wouldn���t be it. She’d open up a club, go travelling, go partying, some shit like that? This novel has her talking about possibly drilling a geothermal well into her backyard. Why is gardening like this even remotely big deal to her character? It’s like if you introduce Lois Lane and she’s defined through her love of knitting. Like wtf!

 And the idiocy doesn’t just stop there. In this version of the story Peter has Mary Jane and Aunt May go on the run without him. Granted he did this BEFORE he turned on Tony and it was oly a precautionary measure.

 But it’s still asinine.

 As asinine and irresponsible as it was for Peter to go on the run at all in the comic version of Civil War, keeping May and MJ close once he had gone on the run did make sense. Because the government had proven themselves totally untrustworthy.

 Oh and...it gets worse.

 Because the LAST thing that happens to Spider-Man in the novel is him having a tearful phone conversation with MJ in which the following shit happens.

 ·         He continues to insist that she and Aunt May stay in hiding for an indefinite amount of time...without him...with him not even knowing where they are.

·         He REFUSES to take amnesty from the government when it is offered to all heroes (which was not the case in the original comics to my recollection, they were all just fugitives) and his reasons are that they’d make him do training and he’s ‘just a loner’. In other words Spider-Man when genuinely offered the chance to keep his aunt and beloved ex safe and NOT live as a known criminal opts to NOT do that for shallow selfish reasons. He even outright tells MJ he’s lost his job, doesn’t have a home, has no clothes, cannot talk to any of his friends without endangering them, the cops and Jameson are after him and his life has been blown apart

·         Oh but this is all okay because as he says ‘But you know what I can sleep at night.’ And MJ says ‘”Well I guess that’s what matters” WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU SERIOUS!

·         MJ says that what she was REALLY angry about when Peter missed their wedding (she literally says she used to ‘wake up screaming at night’) was that she was worrying about him. Which is again utterly mischaracterization of her even in post-OMD continuity because she STILL entered into a relationship with him.

 Ah but don’t worry we end on a postitive note because even though Peter has fucked himself, his friends and his family over and refuses to fix the situation because he just wants to sleep well at night he still suits up and goes to stop a mugger cos he’s just the gosh darn amazing spider-man don’t ya know.

 Ugh.

 I don’t know what is worse. This novel the New Avengers novel or the travesty of the Kraven’s Last Hunt novel. 

 P.S. The novel does BS with other characters’ relationships too. Like they talk about Reed and Sue Richards’ sex life.

Like...why?

Why do we need that?

You can’t even say because some of it was in the original story because as Spider-Man’s situation reveals the novel was happy to just overhaul stuff entirely.

 P.P.S. The novel says that MJ is the ONLY person Peter truly trusts. Like first of all screw Aunt May I guess. Second of all if that is true it makes Peter just NOT consulting her about unmasking even more asinine. And it was already asinine because he didn’t consult Aunt May about it either, he just came clean that he was going  to do it.

*Which makes scenes like him trying to kiss her then her stopping him, then him hugging her ‘like a sister’ royally messed up.

[sleemo]

Edge of Darkness

From the Marines to the Emmys to the most powerful cultural force in the galaxy, for ADAM DRIVER, finding his path has been a long, hard battle. Now, for STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI, in a role he never imagined could be so complex, the brooding face of millennial angst faces his toughest fight yet. Spoiler alert! 

—British GQ, December 2017

His face shrouded beneath a hood, Adam Driver strides toward me. Shoulders hunched, fists jammed into jean pockets, he lets out a low whisper, “Hi. I’m Adam.”

The mixed messages – simultaneously worrying he’ll be recognised and that he won’t – hang in the air awkwardly as Driver surveys our spot, a near-empty New York City café. Neither fear is well-founded; there is no flock of fans to notice him and yet there is no mistaking the actor, his grey hoodie notwithstanding.

“I try to disguise things, but it just doesn’t really work for me,” Driver says, shedding the sweatshirt. “I honestly just look the way I look and it’s difficult to blend in because I’m tall and I look strange. I shouldn’t put a judgment on it.”

Others have judged his appearance more favourably. Driver has been dubbed a “cure for the cookie-cutter leading man” and “a millennial sex symbol”. Which may or may not be a compliment. Although few phrases are as loaded as “unconventionally attractive”, it’s as if those two words were combined expressly to describe Driver. Exaggerated ears; hooded, slanted eyes; long nose with a boxer’s bridge; broad mouth and lips – his disparate features coalesce into a surprisingly appealing whole.

“I guess I never think about it like ‘I am a leading man’ or ‘I am a sex symbol.’ It’s strange to hear that stuff. I don’t think I could have imagined it,” says Driver. Yet, there was his visage on Gap billboard ads; in American Vogue with a black-horned ram slung across his shoulders; in a close-up at the Emmy Awards, where he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor three years in a row for his part in HBO’s Girls; and cast eternally in plastic as a Kylo Ren action figure for Star Wars: The Force Awakens – masked and unmasked versions available. (“Not bad,” he says of the likeness, “but my head and face are a lot bigger.”) Passers-by who once stopped him to ask, “How could you do that to Hannah?” in reference to the bad-boy behaviour of Driver’s character in Lena Dunham’s runaway-success television series, now ask, “How could you do that to Han Solo?”

“It’s a lot,” Driver says, “every part of my life. If we rewound to ten years ago, I would not have said that this is what my life would be.

“And now this music,” he waves his hands at the piano composition streaming through the café like pretentious Musack, “is making that sound so emotional. It isn’t helping, you know?”

Far from angry, the brooding face of millennial angst is smirking. At 33, Adam Driver’s signature intensity hasn’t wavered, but interest in being a tortured artist has. He’s aware of his tendencies – toward anxiety, analysis and absolutism – and is taking steps to temper them. Still, it’s a struggle, seeing good fortune as anything but a cause for self-flagellation.

If we did rewind ten years, we’d see why. Driver was a Gordian knot of clenched intensity. Enrolled at New York’s Juilliard performing arts school, he was so aggressive that his comments made fellow students cry. Every morning he would have six eggs for breakfast, then run five miles to the school from his home in Queens. He would eat a whole chicken for lunch and, during his day at the prestigious drama school, perform random feats, such as 1,000 push-ups.

“That must’ve been an obnoxious thing to be around,” he says, shaking his head. “I was trying to make it as extreme for myself as possible. Now it just makes me so tired and annoyed.”

I’ve met Driver in a peaceful, leafy corner of the Brooklyn Heights neighbourhood that he and his wife, Joanne Tucker, call home. It’s a square precinct full of baby strollers that belies the borough’s hipster cred. “I like sleepy, quiet places,” Driver explains, “because my job is very loud.” Right now he’s savouring a respite from work, the first in a five-year sprint to stardom and even letting himself idle a little. Driver, who has made a career of ill-at-ease eccentricity, is starting to feel comfortable in his own skin.

He genuinely enjoyed himself on the set of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, which will be released in cinemas this December. “The first one was all ‘You can’t fuck it up,’ you know? There was a lot more hanging out this time,” Driver says. “Then there are just practical things, like I have a lightsaber. That’s fun.”

Whatever the outcome of the larger battle between good and evil, the Resistance and the First Order, never underestimate the power of Driver’s light side. ”I had heard about Adam’s intensity before I worked with him, but he’s also really fun and funny,” says Rian Johnson, The Last Jedi’s director.

There was one emotionally charged scene that they shot over and over. “Every time the guy holding the clapper marked each take, Adam just starts trying to steal his shoe,” Johnson recalls. “It was hilarious. And then Adam goes straight into it with all the intensity of Kylo Ren. He just added a sense of play that made the process really click.”

Neither Johnson nor Driver can say what the scene was about or who else was in it. They are acutely aware of the cone of silence that surrounds the Star Wars films, suitably enough, like a force field. “There’s probably something in my contract, I don’t know – but it’s kind of unbelievable that no one has told me, ‘Don’t say anything,’” Driver explains. “It’s just implicitly understood.”

With plot points guarded like state secrets, even the tiniest perceived leak sets off an online feeding frenzy. Internet scribes grab at every quote, often misreading them. “You have to clarify truthful things you’ve said that people read these false things into,” Driver says. “It can be frustrating.”

After several years of sidestepping spoilers, Driver is practised at the art of obfuscation. His evasive manoeuvres are near perfect.

On whether he enjoyed acting opposite Daisy Ridley, who plays Rey: “That’s hard to answer. I mean, people assume that we’d spend time with each other. Maybe our characters see each other in the movie?”

On whether he had scenes with Carrie Fisher: “It’s hard to answer without being vague.”

On whether the lightsaber scar on his face, which came courtesy of Rey in The Force Awakens, was moved for the new film: “I noticed a lot of things.”

On whether Kylo Ren’s story has a happy ending: “Not saying yes or no. But continue.”

On whether Han Solo might have known Kylo Ren would kill him: “That’s interesting.”

On whether he appears with his mask off: “Yes, I can answer that. You’ll see it off in the new trailer, so I’m not giving anything away!”

Other times, Driver playfully embraces the absurdity of it all. “I can’t say anything, but what if I signal you,” he jokes. “If I just start sneezing uncontrollably…” He fakes a loud achoo and exclaims, “Bingo! Harrison Ford’s ghost returns!”

When I ask him about Kylo Ren’s mysterious order of Dark Side disciples, the Knights of Ren, he waxes whimsical. “We can talk about them. Peter, Paul, John… No, I was thinking of The Beatles. Except wait – there’s Peter. He was too ambitious on the tambourine. Now you know: the last Knight of Ren is Ringo Starr!”

On this particular mid-September day, the internet is abuzz with new speculation that Ridley’s character, Rey, is the daughter of Princess Leia (also Kylo Ren’s mother). This theory would take any romantic tension between her and Driver’s Kylo Ren into the realm of incest – territory that the first Star Wars trilogy explored with a kiss between Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker and Carrie Fisher’s Leia.

“Yeah, my uncle and my mum made out,” Driver says, with a laugh. “Which Mark still talks about. He’s like, ‘Luke kissed his sister. How could he do that?’ I guess he hasn’t seen Game Of Thrones, you know?”

The Last Jedi marks the final film in Fisher’s storied career. Like the rest of the cast, Driver was shaken by the actress’ death last December at age 60. “It’s hard to talk about it without saying generic things,” he says. “Like, ‘It’s shocking,’ but it was. Or ‘It’s incredibly sad,’ which it is. I mean, it is all of those things.”

Driver brightens as he recalls Fisher’s wit on display at Comic-Con before the release of The Force Awakens. “The whole cast was downstairs in a conference room, talking through what’s supposed to happen at this big event. She was like, ‘Just pretend you’re down to earth. People love that shit.’” Driver pauses for a moment then laughs. “So now I pretend I’m down to earth and you know what? People really do love that shit. They eat it up.”

The image of Driver that people have consumed is not so much down to earth as intense and uncompromising, the all-or-nothing avatar of millennial manhood named Adam Sackler, Driver’s character in Girls. Ever since Driver landed the part, originally a cameo called simply “Handsome Carpenter”, the notion he really was that id-driven artist has, like the life of another charismatic carpenter, been taken as gospel.

In the public consciousness, Driver’s backstory is as extreme as his alter ego’s: a Midwestern misfit enlists in the Marines after 9/11, then studies acting at Juilliard – and finds he’s an outlier in both worlds. The truth is both less and more dramatic.

Born in San Diego, California, Driver is the son of a preacher. When his parents divorced, Driver moved with his mother back to her native Mishawaka, Indiana, where she was soon remarried to a Baptist minister. As a teenager, Driver was a poor student who dabbled in pyromania, trainspotting and climbing radio towers. A fan of the film Fight Club, Driver started one with some friends. “Just seeing the angst, I thought it would be a good idea to emulate it.“

Acting offered Driver a way out of the tiny town he called a shithole. “I applied to Juilliard when I was graduating high school and didn’t get in, so I was like ‘Well, fuck it. I won’t go to college, then.’” Instead, he set off for Hollywood and what he thought would be overnight stardom. “I’d always heard the stories of people striking out and finding success,” he says. “Why not me?” The dream lasted as long as his hand-me-down 1990 Lincoln Town Car did. After it broke down outside Amarillo, Texas, the repairs cost Driver nearly all the money he’d saved. When he finally limped into Los Angeles, Driver spent two nights in youth hostels. The only agent he signed with was a real estate agency, which took him for the rest of his savings. Having landed neither an apartment nor an acting gig, Driver arrived back in Indiana a week after leaving.

Following the 11 September attacks, Driver did not, as some retellings suggest, march down to the recruiting station. Instead, he enlisted in the Marines several months later. “My stepfather pushed me into it a little bit, which was good – I was grateful for it,” Driver says. “It followed an argument where he was like, ‘You’re not doing anything!’ I’d gotten this brochure in the mail. He was like, ‘Why don’t you just join?’ I was like, ‘No, I’m not going to join the Marines.’ Then I thought about it more. I had this sense of patriotism and wanted to get involved. I also had no prospects. I was living in the back of my parents’ house, working as a telemarketer.”

From the start, Driver’s time in uniform had a profound effect on him and his worldview. “The patriotism, the idea of country, doesn’t go away necessarily, it just turns into something else,” he says, reverently. “Not a big, sweeping idea, but this group of people you’re serving with, and that becomes your world, and it becomes sacred.”

Going into the Marines, Driver had a seemingly straightforward goal: “I’m going to be a man.” But rather than reinforce clichéd concepts of masculinity, military service put the lie to them. “You have to put implicit trust in the people to your left and right, and when they demonstrate that they’re looking out for you, that their own safety is secondary to yours, then all that kind of guy shit goes away and there is no ego,” Driver says. “There is no posturing, no need to say how much of a man you are, whatever that even means. You prove it with your actions.”

When Driver was not allowed to deploy to the Middle East with his unit, after suffering a broken sternum in a mountain biking accident, he was despondent. Although he fought to stay on active duty, Driver ultimately received a medical discharge.

He decided to apply to Juilliard again and this time got in. The transition from the Marine Corps to a New York City drama programme was jarring. During Driver’s second year, in an effort to bridge his past and present vocations, he launched a non-profit called Arts In The Armed Forces with his then-girlfriend, now wife, Tucker. Driver was able to carry a discipline and teamwork into his studies, but it didn’t stop him from feeling he’d gone soft. “I was like, ‘What am I doing? I’m wearing pyjamas doing acting exercises where I’m giving birth to myself or being a plant or moving around in jelly,’” he says. “Then again, even now, I’m like, ‘What am I doing?’”

After a brief fallow period after graduating from Juilliard, Driver says he learned to hate everyone in the audition room. He didn’t like TV and almost skipped his audition for Girls entirely. Instead, he dazzled the show’s creator, Lena Dunham, and the one-episode part Driver had read for was expanded into a central one. In audition after audition, Driver made a similar impression on a series of noted directors. Even before Girls aired, Steven Spielberg cast him in Lincoln, in which he played a telegraph operator opposite Daniel Day-Lewis. “He was very nice to me,” Driver says of the legendary method actor. “He would still talk in character, but very nice.”

In particular, Driver’s unusual, instinctive style made him a favourite of indie filmmakers. He landed meaty roles in the Coen brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis and a series of films by writer-director Noah Baumbach: Frances Ha, While We’re Young and The Meyerowitz Stories (New And Selected). He played the lead in Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson and shared top billing in Steven Soderbergh’s heist comedy Logan Lucky. When Martin Scorsese was finally able to make his passion project, Silence, after two decades, he sought out Driver. Similarly, Driver recently wrapped shooting on The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, which Terry Gilliam had been trying to make for 17 years.

And yet nothing Driver had done remotely prepared him for Star Wars. He had grown up a fan of the original trilogy, but had little faith in outsized film franchises. “I’m leery of big movies – a lot of them sacrifice character for spectacle,” he says. “When they’re bad, it pisses me off – you can just tell it’s made by a bunch of executives somewhere.”

Despite his initial trepidation, the complicated nature of Kylo Ren put Driver’s concerns to rest. “It was all about story and character and playing someone who doesn’t have it all together. Making him as human as possible seemed dangerous and exciting to me.”

Driver was drawn to an idea that JJ Abrams, who wrote and directed The Force Awakens, had. The man behind the mask was not a man at all, but rather a young person struggling to come of age. “I remember the initial conversations about having things ‘skinned’,” Driver recalls, “peeling away layers to evolve into other people, and the person Kylo’s pretending to be on the outside is not who he is. He’s a vulnerable kid who doesn’t know where to put his energy, but when he puts his mask on, suddenly, he’s playing a role. JJ had that idea initially and I think Rian took it to the next level.”

Driver is on a roll now, discussing what excites him: character and narrative and cinematic influences. The original Star Wars was an homage to Akira Kurosawa’s 1958 film The Hidden Fortress, he says, and the link lives on in the new trilogy, in which concealed identities drive the narrative. Then he lets it slip. “You have, also, the hidden identity of this princess who’s hiding who she really is so she can survive and Kylo Ren and her hiding behind these artifices,” Driver says, apparently dropping a massive revelation about Rey’s royal origins.

Perhaps he’s unconcerned and Rey’s parentage is less dramatic than imagined by fans, who posited that her father is Luke then trumpeted that her mother is Leia. Or it could be that, in passionately holding forth, Driver is simply unaware he’s revealed anything, much less a major spoiler. In any case, he doesn’t skip a beat. “The things that made it personal to me,” Driver continues, “I’ll keep to myself, but I think everybody can relate to the idea of almost being betrayed.

“Wow, this music is killing me.”

As the café’s latest piano piece reaches its crescendo, I ask Driver if he tapped into his own experiences with his dad and stepfather and he reverts to evasive manoeuvres.

“I may leave that one. I have strong convictions about not talking about family, for many reasons,” Driver says. “It’s not as if the answers for Kylo are found in my relationships with my parents.”

In The Last Jedi, director Rian Johnson saw Driver go light years beyond his own experience. “Adam was always pushing the context of the character,” Johnson says. “He’s put in this unhealthy environment and goes through the worst of youth, the selfishness and volatility, he’s representing that side of adolescence.”

Of course, these days immaturity and insecurity are no strangers to power. “It makes complete sense how juvenile he can be,” Driver says of Ren, who prefers lightsabers over Twitter for his tantrums. “You can see that with our leadership and politics. You have world leaders who you imagine – or hope or pray – are living by kind of a higher code of ethics. But it really all comes down to them feeling wronged or unloved or wanting validation.”

Even more topical and even more touchy was the decision to play Kylo Ren like a radicalised extremist. “We talked about terrorism a lot,” Driver says of his early conversations with Abrams and Johnson about his character. “You have young and deeply committed people with one-sided education who think in absolutes. That is more dangerous than being evil. Kylo thinks what he is doing is entirely right, and that, in my mind, is the scariest part.”

The demagoguery drives him to the most famous film patricide in galactic history, as Kylo Ren kills Han Solo in the shocking denouement of The Force Awakens. “When I watched the premiere, I felt sick to my stomach,” Driver recalls. “The people behind me, when the scroll started, were like ‘Oh my god. Oh my god. It’s happening.’ Immediately, I thought I was going to puke. I was holding my wife’s hand, and she’s like, ‘You’re really cold. Are you OK?’ Because I just knew what was coming – I kill Harrison – and I didn’t know how this audience of 2,000 people was going to respond to it, you know?”

One person in the crowd who appreciated that scene was Han Solo himself. “We were sitting on this catwalk in between takes,” Driver recalls, “and Harrison was like, ‘Look what we get to do. Just look what we get to do.’ Meaning, look at how lucky we are that this is our job, you know? To see someone at that point in his career still get excited like that hit me. It’s like, ‘Oh, right. I need to take this in more.’”

As if on cue, a couple stop and introduce themselves. “I love everything you’ve ever done,” the wife says. “Everything.”

“Thanks a million. Yeah. Hi, I’m Adam.”

As fan encounters go, it is respectful and pleasant, but not even a whimper of what will soon follow come the release of The Last Jedi.

For all the ways in which he’s made peace with his success, Driver, who is almost pathologically private by nature, remains uncomfortable with notoriety. “I’m not in the world the same way I was before,” Driver says. “It’s completely changed my life. My anonymity is gone. But who I am as a person is the exact same. I think. Or, I hope.”

Soon after, we exit the café, as Driver is heading home for some quiet time. He stops in front of a bicycle locked to a fence. “It only looks bourgeois-hipster because of the saddle,” Driver says, adding that he’s only just added the leather Brooks seat. “I bought the bike for $200 back when I was at Juilliard,” Driver says. “Besides the seat, it’s the same crappy bike I’ve had for forever.”

Driver pulls his hoodie up over his head and as he starts pedalling off turns back to me. “Remember,” he says. “Pretend you’re down to earth. People love that shit. Right?”

The Last Jedi is out on 15 December.

[takingacloserlook]

Scriniarii

I didn’t want to write this at first - simply because Scriniarii is clearly on our side and any attempt at “unmasking” him would probably be counterintuitive. I assume he’s keeping his identity a secret for a reason. But I have no conclusive proof further than some speculation and anecdotes, so I feel a little more comfortable about this. Besides, what harm can I do? From the sounds of it he’s already deep in the shit.

Scriniarii first stumbled onto our radar halfway through last year. He made a couple dubious posts on the mostly-dead TribeTwelve subreddit asking in very vague terms for assistance in something we didn’t understand. Expecting him to be another roleplaying teenager chuuni convinced they’re a Collective member, they were warned and had their posts deleted.

I’m not that familiar with how Reddit works, unfortunately, but from what I understand, he kept begging for help, claiming we were making “him” angry, and eventually, started messaging members of a Discord server people were using to discuss Noah’s videos.

Again, I’m not that familiar with these Web 3.0 kind of social media - my skills are in information gathering, problem solving and brainstorming, not sitting in a cacophonous chat of teenagers screeching at each other. Eventually, Firebrand finally stepped in and told us we were being awfully mean to his confusing friend and hit us with a rather rude jumpscare in return. Thanks, asshole. You could have just made this clear from the beginning.

Since then, Scriniarii has led us through hoop upon hoop of typical clue-cracking nonsense that otherdimensional entities usually enjoy luring us through with the carrot-on-the-stick being further information that nobody else is giving us. I don’t know why this guy is privy to so much, and I don’t know how he’s friends with Firebrand, but the codes aren’t what we’re here to discuss. We’re here to talk about the man.

THEN MAKE SURE WE KNOW HE’S YOUR FRIEND NEXT TIME, JERKASS

Somehow having access to The Journal, Scriniarii has explained that his purpose is to guide us through unlocking various “nodes” and helping us upload them to The Archive - a chronological timeline managed by people such as myself that care deeply about what’s going on with Noah Maxwell. In my opinion, it’s rather short-sighted - it doesn’t mention any of the significant events we know about from other YouTube channels and other people, such as the Order’s history and the Princeton Experiment, but whatever. I’ll let it slide.

Scriniarii is apparently trapped in a Groundhog-Day-esque time loop where every time he fails to guide us through the nodes, he is forced to reset and live through whatever trauma he has experienced over again. From what he says, he’s been at it for a while, but there is hope because we’re doing better than most of the recursions he remembers.

I don’t know if these recursions have anything to do with the spacetime-bubble-of-fuck the EMH crew are stuck in, but I’ll assume not for simplicity’s sake, and because I’ve seen no evidence of anyone outside of EMH’s little bubble being an important part of it. Whatever.

When he isn’t dangling what was supposedly forbidden knowledge in front of our faces like a taunting cat, Scriniarii is having mental breakdowns because of his traumatic past.

Evidently, he’s been through a lot. From what he says, Henka Visæ is the root of all of his problems. All we know about Henka is the one who recruited Mary Asher and her young son into the Order. He also saved Noah’s life as a kid, but unless Scriniarii is one of the many who was dragged into the whirlpool surrounding Noah that pulled in all that were remotely close to him, I don’t see him blaming Henka for that as opposed to Noah himself. Doesn’t add up.

So, barring things we don’t know about, Henka Visæ’s recruitment of Mary Asher and Milo could be what kickstarted this downward spiral for Scriniarii. Who stood to lose the most from this? Robert Asher, Mary’s husband. Mary apparently, according to Milo himself (though considering this was Mr. Scars, he could have been lying or wrong, but it fits her character so let’s assume he’s correct) killed his father, Robert. Mary was willing to cut loose everybody to save herself from the Collective - it’s why she’s called The Selfish. Most assumed she killed Robert out of demented paranoia, much like she did John Fletcher.

I would like to propose a different theory. Those I’ve known that tried to or did join the Order were given a task to prove their loyalty. Is it not within the realm of possibility that, in the depths of the Alabama wilderness, where no law nor man could defy their will, that Henka Visæ could have asked Mary to kill her husband in order to join their cult? She was already justifying the joining of the cult in the first place as a way for her to hopefully protect herself from Mr. Slim, the man who’d haunted her since childhood, the one her father told her about, she was willing to sacrifice her only son in Milo in order to buy herself more time, why not her husband? I would propose this is where her dark path started - where she first made the compromise to feed others to the meat grinder in order to keep herself afloat.

This may seem like a fantasy I myself am projecting upon an incredible lack of facts, but we have one node of information currently tying this lose string of deduction together. Something mentioned on Noah’s only upload to the Maxwell Archive, where he was planning on posting Milo’s journal before...whatever came over him lately came over him.

You were so ready to keep going, Noah...you had decided this was your path, and that you knew what you needed to do. What happened? Why did you let the darkness take you back? Why did it take losing your medication of all things to get you back in the fight? This isn’t going away if you ignore it!

I am getting sidetracked. Noah mentions a dead father back from the grave - I assume, this means Robert, Milo’s father. He even mentions Mary being a terrible woman for good measure. So, to sum up my current theory: Henka Visæ sees Mary and Milo, touched by his God and carrying his mark, wanting to join the Order. However, he needs them to have nothing to run away to - no life to anchor them outside of the Order. Cults in general will encourage their members to cut all ties with their families in order to devote themselves to whatever they’ve joined. The Order is no exception to this, in fact, I’d say they’re worse. Visæ convinces Mary to join the Order, leaving Robert behind, upending his life and taking his son from him. With the Order, Milo’s blood is drained for rituals, and he lives a horrific, bleak life of misery and torment with the shadow of the Administrator hanging over his head. Robert somehow tracks Mary down, but before he can take Milo back, she kills him, having finally drunk the Kool-Aid and devoted herself to this cult.

From what the New Jersey Overseer said, Mary didn’t lose contact with the Order til Milo died. This could mean she - and perhaps Milo too - were members even as recent as 2010. I doubt she was a properly practicing member all the way until Milo passed - she did have SOME kind of relationship with the Maxwells after all - but the thought that she was in very deep to the organization is not one without merit. Mary was (is?) the type of person to be willing to do anything to save herself. I could see this as an eventuality.

Somehow, Robert has returned from the dead, possibly through our friendly “Rogue God” Firebrand. The Collective have proven that death is not an obstacle for them before, and Firebrand has been bragging about his power long enough to convince me he’s capable of it. And now, the two of them are working together to feed information to us today. The reality of Scriniarii’s “loop” could be a side-effect of his resurrection - he gains the ability to defy those that took his son, but in the process must die again and again every time he fails.

This is what I have guessed from the information I have available. I could be completely wrong - it’s happened before, and will happen again. But please, tell me what you think. I believe having an understanding of what our ally has gone through will only make it easier to help him. He may not be able to tell us who he is, but if he keeps dropping hints, we should be able to piece it together.

[asksythe]

Nobody convo - FtGoG

Holla, 

Recently I had a discussion regarding a what-if scenario in FtGoG with a friend (@nobody11112). It results in a very interesting possible scenario (good enough for me to consider maybe writing an alt draft snippet for it specifically). I figure I should share. So here it is with some small edits for better readability (and some cuts in between when we talked of other things including embarrassed looking cats and truant college students..... hahahahahahaha). Anyhow...  

...................

nobody11112

You know. Reading the last ftgog makes me want them to give Jiraiya a surprise in suna. They know why he is there. They know he is going to try everything to see Kagome and they can't force him out due to diplomatic reasons. So why not do the unexpected. Surprise jariya by having Kagome go and greet him. Have them meet under their terms when Jiraiya is not prepared instead of having Jiraiya discover who knows what while he is doing his search to meet Kagome and instead have more control over the situation. Also i really like the mental shock image that comes to my mind when Kagome knocks on his door and he discovers who preemptively came to him

asksythe

heh! That's an idea

that would be a shock to Jiraiya alright

only problem is that it goes directly against Rasa's characterization

this guy is too paranoid for something that high risk

and with fairly dubious rewards too

nobody11112

Well i didn't mention booting. I specifically said they can't. So instead take the initiative and prepare the field and information that Jiraiya can get by arranging a meeting on their terms

nobody11112

The base premise is that due to political reasons they can't interfere with Jiraiya actions within reason. They have to wait for his and konoha move. And instead of waiting for inevitable moves from the sennin which can result in a who knows what against their stretched out man power they arrange a meeting the idea is that such a meeting can be fully monitored and timed. And prepared for with what information you want to share... And give them enough information to somewhat satisfy konoha and have Jiraiya called back while also doubling as a supposed act of good will among ' allies'... Honestly the more i think of it the more holes i find to iron out so i guess I haven't thought it out enough

Guess i might have wanted it for the sake of comedy

asksythe

Nah , I think it's a very interesting and valid premise . It merely needs ironing out

It needs the right time and place

The right factors

Give me 10 mins for me to walk home

And then I'll type out a possible scenario

nobody11112

Think of it along the lines of what they did for the counter espionage by spread a lot of informations some of it false, except now they aren't dealing with spy network, they are dealing with a great ninja that they cannot dislodge sitting in their village, no matter how great of watch they keep, the bottle will eventually leak, this is a known fact with information and spies and what I think fueled their entire counter espionage strategy, so instead they lure him with the truth and feed him a selected maybe mixed truth.

asksythe

ok, so the premise here is that instead of a complete block of info and a wall of misinformation, it's more control the flow of actual information

Suna understands that it's a matter of time until Konoha gains concrete, actionable intel on Kagome

perhaps with other villages, they could have avoided it

because of distance

and because of the lack of actual diplomatic relation with the other villages

but Konoha is not only Suna's neighbor, but also is supposedly its ally

so we are looking at a political move

so, if the information is going to get out anyway, better it be on their own terms and under their control correct?

nobody11112

that was my thought process, yes.

asksythe

so, the way for this to happen is that Suna must come from a position of strength, and it must have an end goal for this meeting

the end goal here: soft intimidation

Suna shows Konoha that yes, it has a superweapon

and yes, it has complete control

but at the same time, they needn't be enemies

after all, they are allies

so in allowing Jiraiya to meet the real Kagome, Suna acknowledges their alliance

but underneath that

is a message

we are strong now

our dynamic has changed

you are no longer the stronger village, capable of taking our things, our jobs, infiltrating our royal court with impunity

look at our super weapon

and think carefully of the consequences

should we one day cease to be allies

that's the end goal

that is worthy enough to let Konoha have solid confirmation on Kagome's existence and the sheer scope of her power

after all, Suna has to think carefully of relations with other villages

competition is unavoidable

nobody11112

reminds me also of what Jiraiya was thinking when he saw the grass when he entered suna

is this just a show of power

or are they really trying to terraform

asksythe

the answer is both of course

Suna being who they are

nobody11112

yup

asksythe

however, as political statement, it's not quite enough

sure it's creation power is great

but they are warriors

if it doesn't destroy or has the capacity for destruction

it's not going to send a strong enough message

for someone like Jiraiya, he would understand the significance of being able to grow grass and micro terraform the desert

but for your everyJoe

your average ninja

they aren't going to give a crap

so if it's a political statement and grandstanding show

then showing her with her power unmasked

is the better statement

instead of... oh hey, this girl can grow plants and trees in the desert

it's now... look at this super weapon in human form with energy enough to have Biju for breakfast

do you want to face this thing in battle?

you can barely hold yourself against a normal Biju

let alone this thing!

so Suna letting Jiraiya meet Kagome

is basically a unspoken statement and a warning

it's basically: now if we go to war, you are the one who is fucked, not us anymore

so think carefully the next time you try to bully us

because that's what happened in Canon

Konoha bullying Suna out of jobs

and out of political clout... in their own royal court.

the one major flaw I see with this premise however

is that it's next to impossible at this point in the story

see, this all hinges on an image of power

Suna shows off their new super weapon

as well as the fact that they can control this super weapon

unlike those unwieldy Jinchuriki that go berserk once in awhile

problem is...

... at this point in time, Suna... does not have that level of sway over Kagome

sure she'll grow whatever plants they want

but to release her power willy nilly?

and meeting this foreign person in a meeting with obvious intention?

out of the question for Kagome at this point in time

if they try it, high chances are Jiraiya detects that they don't actually have complete control over Kagome

that means that perhaps she can be swayed to defect

unlikely of course, but entirely possible

so that statement from a position of strength is no longer a statement

but more showing Konoha an opportunity

so at this point in the story, impossible

however, if this meeting were to take place at another point in time

when Kagome is much more attached to Suna

say... after she enters into a relationship with Rasa

and is closely connected to his children

that is when this scenario becomes possible

but of course, to make that time line possible, it will require the complete rewrite of the progression of Rasa and Kagome's relationship

and a massive part of the plot line as well

not undoable

but certainly fairly intensive

nobody11112

Mmm, nice fleshing of the premise and dissecting it

I guess my mental image did have Kagome too cooperative to the plan now that you point it out

considering the current point in the story

asksythe

exactly

Kagome at this current point is an asset that needs very careful management

she is not that attached to Suna just yet

if she feels disenfranchised enough, she may just up and leave

especially if she feels like she's being used to harm others

and this Kagome, if she really wants to leave, nobody in Naruto verse, with the possible exception of Kaguya, will be able to make her stay

so Suna really cannot chance it right now

this is a major part of why Rasa is keeping her in controlled isolation

he doesn't want her to get ideas

or to start feeling curious about the world beyond Suna

it is still a very interesting premise though

it takes a lot of work

but it certainly is fun

like a scenario in which Kagome is a hundred percent committed to Suna and Rasa way earlier

so then it becomes Suna's slow but inevitable soft conquest of the world

heh... probably not something she necessarily likes

but if Rasa produces results and shows that he's making the world a better place (for a measure of better)

then probably she will go along

the ideal scenario for that meeting to happen is not only for Kagome to be a hundred percent committed

nobody11112

Well, you can present it to Kagome in a way that she would co-operate with such a scheme without being fully committed, a protective act for the village and herself from outside possible hostilities.. but that has its own stretch

asksythe

but also for her to also be pregnant with the first child of this new super power bloodline

nobody11112

and still risks being revealed

so thats a no go as well probably

this isn't guile Kagome we are talking about :p

asksythe

hmm.... it depends

it requires series of events

and timeline

and for Rasa to preset things in certain ways

but it is doable

also fun

I like fun!

that is the sort of scenario in which I say 'screw canon' and go full throttle for AU

the world of Naruto is very much a crapsack world

nobody11112

maybe if she was revealed to some of the outside cruelty toward suna before.

asksythe

the idea of slow and soft world conquest may not be acceptable to us

but in that kind of world

if it's for a better world

Kagome maybe up for it

exactly

when you think about it, Naruto verse really is a very bad place

where the good guy village has state sanctioned child soldiers

and 12 years old children can kill each other without anyone batting an eyelash

for such a world, taking it over and forcing it to develop in a different way

really isn't so bad, is it?

Rasa needs only let her see that

and tell her, if you want the world to change, then become that change yourself

then... well... our Miko is going to be a hundred on board

after all, in a sense, that's what she's doing in FTGOG AU

soft world conquest

conquest does not necessarily require soldiers

or for wars to be waged

at the end of the day, conquest is about making the world develop the way you want it to

for the laws of the land to be the way you want it to

you don't actually need soldiers and wars for that to happen

if you are sophisticated enough

..........................................................

... So, who wants to read about world-conquering Sunagakure like the scenario above described? 

[sarazanmai]

Thoughts on the MP100 English dub. Episode 12.

I can’t believe we’re DONE what?

before getting to the episode I can finally cite so many voices

Shou is voiced by Casey Mongillo and she is a co founder of the website GTAGaming and has been in games like “Star Trek Online″ and “Red Dead Redemption”

she is also transgendered and has posted some youtube videos about her experience

Koyama’s voice actor is Kieth Silverstein who voices Hisoka in the HXH dub, Speedwagon from Jojo, and Vector from the Sonic franchise

Ishiguro with the mask on is played by Cristina Vee who is the current voice for Sailor Mars and plays Killua in HXH

Sakurai is played by Xander Mobus who was the narrator and voice for Master Hand in Super Smash Bros. for the Wii U and 3DS

I have no fucking idea why it took so long for this info to be on MP100 wiki, but I’m glad I can finally give them credit

also I thought I had mentioned this before, but Reigen’s voice actor Chris Niosi has a tumblr account @kirbopher if you’re interested

anyway its time for the final episode (at least until we get a season two)

Teru really does look like Naruto with this hair

at some point we’ve all said it, but the foreshadowing in this intro is overwhelming

I mean Mob doesn’t even get the broccoli seeds in this arc

“Honestly I really don’t wanna hurt people.” I like how Sakurai seems surprised by this, like he can’t fathom pacifism

Reigen’s just like “bitch you THOUGHT”

I feel like I’ve made this clear, but Reigen is just adorable to me

“listen, REAL adults don’t have time to play with toy swords. its time to grow up!” OOOOOHHH

“that’s it? what a weak ass punch, are you a plushie?”

meanwhile Ritsu is in the corner pondering reality

“wow I’m in great shape today”

the “Mob had successfully run away” part is one of my favorites

something I like about this episode is how much blue they chose for the palette

Ishiguro you are not ambitious, if you were then you wouldn’t be subservient to a man who doesn’t even grant you access to his name

for real what is Touichirou doing this whole time?

“get up, nobody wants to hear you monologue”

oh my God here it comes, tragic backstory time

I do like the paint on glass animation for young Sakurai

“back when I was in grade school, it was around fourth grade, I forgot to tell my parents that it was sports day at school. so I was the only one with nothing to eat”

beautiful, marvelous, spectacular, I wept

this is one of my favorite moments in the series, its so perfect

jokes aside I do think about how there’s probably more to Reigen’s past than we’re aware of, especially knowing his childhood ambition was “to be somebody”

gun

again I like the constant reminder that these Claw people are fundamentally being childish

God I love that our big climax is a sweaty man in a cheap suit roasting the bad guys

“look I’m a commoner! and I’m much more powerful than any of you will ever be! so tell me, what the hell does that make you!?”

“he dragged them out of their illusions and back into reality, shattering their dreams and putting them in their place.” when will your faves?

“I actually thought he was a girl this whole time” I’m not gonna lie I kinda wish Ishiguro really was a ten year old girl

 okay unmasked Ishiguro sounds familiar and the only voices that are listed for him in both languages are his voice with the mask on, of coarse

“wrong. having psychic powers doesn’t make you popular” Mob just summed up the whole show

“see? there you have it. you’ll never be popular, so give it up.”

I’m just realizing....what was Shou doing this whole time?

Shou’s voice really has grown on me, I like how youthful it is, its a shame the bulk of his screen time is after the events of this arc 

generally speaking when it comes to the esper kids in this series both languages did a great job at making sure they still sound like kids and I appreciate that because I am really bored of adults trying and failing at playing teenagers

not just in anime, in general

“and as for you, listen up. I’m disappointed in you, you coward.” whatever Shou you’re like twelve

ah yes, the famous Shouritsu look

I never understood what Shou was doing with his hand when he teleported away, it looks dirty

congrats Reigen you can now see Dimple!

and...that’s about it

I like this “return to moderate normality” sequence, its soothing

I love Mob’s surprised reaction when he’s looking at Tsubomi, someone broke it down frame by frame and they put a lot into it

“you are such a spaz” do kids still say this?

I still hate Shinji, but I guess he learned his lesson

why is Ritsu still hanging out with him though? and outside of school too

I still feel bad for Tenga, but at least he found a place in the Body Improvement Club

“JUST GIVE ME A DAMN MINUTE!!!!”

I like how Ritsu’s having his nice brother speech and then Mob legit passes out

again Teru REALLY looks like Naruto with this hair

I love the animation on Reigen rolling up the newspaper, its these small character animation moments that really give these characters personality

“did I do something he thought was lame?” yeah but he’ll get over it in a few arcs

I still don’t like the Kageyama parents, they really bother me

aaaaand there he is, the next great Asshole Anime Dad

he doesn’t sound like I imagined

then again I imagined him sounding perpetually unimpressed

“yes, I’ll return very soon” COUGH COUGH

this omake just makes me so happy, I’m really thankful that Bones didn’t see ONE’s art as inferior or not good enough

in fact this really drives home that ultimately the anime took his style and cleaned it up a little, softened the edges, they didn’t flat out change it like what happened with OPM (again not to knock Murata’s illustrations because when I read OPM I do read the version with his art)

I love the way they drew the forest

“its hUGE!”

for real this is such a nice omake

and with this we are finished

overall I went into this dub not expecting much, but I love MP100 so much that I figured I’d try it out and I’m impressed. I like that Funimation didn’t fill the cast with their bigger name actors, not to knock them but its nice that they gave these opportunities to voice actors who aren’t as established and I really do hope we get season two. when we do I definitely will watch the Japanese and English versions. everybody did good and I’m even willing to say that its on par with the Japanese. I’m impressed that they pulled through and I’m definitely going to keep my eyes peeled for when they release the Blu-Ray set in America. I really want to be able to watch it on my TV in glorious HD at my own convenience. 

I had fun doing posts like this and I kind of want to do this for other dubs of anime I love, I’m thinking I should give the OPM and BNHA dubs a try. as far as which one I’ll do first I’ll think about it but stay tuned for that

[tartaricing]

Doctarded: Act 4 - Gustave Kateb vs The People

With any remaining dregs of audacity gone, Doc faces Team Rainbow.  This was originally made from a larger so I split it up for dramatic effect. R&R!

"Okay, from the top…"

"SHIT!"

"ASS!"

"FUCK!"

"HAMBURGERS!"

"Fuze, hamburgers is not a curse word," Tachanka gave critique, "It is something we call the Americans, yes?"

"But doesn't most instances of this condition have only benign words?" Fuze stood his ground.

"While that may or may not be true, we need to put our backs into it. Kapkan, flail more excessively! Glaz, make that shuddering believable!" Tachanka continued, having his claps echo in his tiny room, "Okay, again, from the top-"

"Tachanka, dear what are you doing?" Finka burst into the room, jaw dropped.

"Ah, Finka!" Tachanka bellowed a greeting, "Have you heard about what happened about the Spetznaz?" He motioned to give a bear hug, but was rebuffed by the younger woman.

"No, I have not but this is not acceptable," Finka's jaw hadn't lowered, pitch increasing, "First Doc loses his mind, but now this?"

"Love, we are just trying to show that our brothers and sisters back home need the money."

"By deceit? What is going on here?" She still stood, shocked.

"Oh…" The man's voice went monotone at the realization, "Love… We have received bad news. The Spetsnaz is losing funding from the UN."

"That makes no sense…"

"We're all aware here, Finka," Kapkan spoke up, "But yes, it's happening."

"What is your plan here?" Finka asked, "Are you going to deceive the UN by by doing a charade of a poor excuse of Tourette's syndrome?"

"Well… yes." Tachanka was blunt, "But we are proving a point."

"What kind of point?"

"Well, the UN has a soft spot for the disabled. And if we make light of the fact that we have the disabled in our ranks, maybe they'll retract their decision. It's not wrong, is it?"

"Technically, you are not wrong," Finka put her fingers on her chin, and whispered in Tachanka's ear, "I am one of them."

"See?" Tachanka whispered back, "And we'll posture ourselves as such, so you don't have to."

"…Fair enough," She blushed, "It's not the most moral decision, but speaking of morals, Lion's been injured."

It was CQC practice in the boxing area and Lion and Bandit were duking it out. Bandit was incredibly ferocious today, taking more punches than usual. Lion dodged back and forth and landed a few on the other. Bandit didn't care, as he shook them off and kept punching.

"What's up your ass?" Lion chuckled, dodging in rhythm.

"You're awfully slow," Bandit tersely replied.

"Oh, come on," The atoner chuckled some more, "What is it? You can tell me."

"You already know."

"No, really I don't."

"No."

"Please?"

"I will not."

"Pleeeeease?"

"NO." Bandit gave an undercut to the atoner's shit-eating face, causing him to collapse onto the floor, giving a loud, dry, echoing smack, "You already know." He came in closer to his face, and then unceremoniously walked away.

"I don't think he's breathing," Sledge casually said, checking Lion's face, "Oh, wait, there it is."

"Well I did my part," The German walked away, wiping the sweat off his brow. He then turned to Blitz, who was on the bench, unmoving, "I'm… sorry, Elias."

"I don't need your fucking pity," Blitz droned, monotone.

"Hey, hey," Bandit gave a mild pat on the shoulder, "You'll get through this. On the bright side, at least I saw it loud and clear. God knows what schisse you'd do if you saw it."

"That doctor's gonna pay…" Blitz started with a growl.

"It's unfortunate, but he's going to be the one to heal Lion here," IQ joined in, wearing her green dance uniform.

"Good."

"Greetings, brahtan!" Tachanka burst into the room, with the rest of the Spetznaz following him.

"Ooooh Lion's fucked up," Fuze laughed. Glaz took out his sketchbook, went into the ring, and started to sketch out Lion's form.

"…Pugilism," Kapkan scoffed.

"Where is the doctor; he should be coming any time soon?" Tachanka asked.

"My question exactly," Sledge agreed.

At Mute's notification, Doc rushed out of his office. Lab coat and medical bag in hand, he went towards the boxing room. Mute then locked the door behind him. Doc then asked everyone to clear out of the way, hopping into the ring. As much as his relationship with Lion was rocky, he wouldn't neglect him. He started to check his vitals: blood pressure, pulse, breathing, heart rate, and eyes. Seeing that it was all normal, he started to drag Lion out of the ring.

Only for him to suddenly wake up and give him an uppercut. Doc landed on his back, swearing all the way down.

"Merde! Of course you'd fake it!" He looked up at Lion, who was now standing up and pounding a fist into his palm.

"I've been waiting for this day, Gustave!" Lion cackled, now picking Doc up and holding him up by the arms, "I swear the day you slip will be the best day of my life, and here it is!" He broke into an evil laugh, "Anyone care to take a swing?" There was a glint in his eye as Doc struggled to get out, but Lion's strength restrained him.

"Me first!" Blitz got up and undid his jacket, revealing a wifebeater and sweatpants. He turned to Doc, "What kind of logic do you have to sleep with Rook? The Rook I'm with? Did you think fucking him would solve your problems?"

Doc's eyes widened and he stared wordlessly at Blitz, "I needed him. I'm sorry."

"THE HELL HE DOESN'T!" Blitz snapped, letting out a barrage of punches, "HE WAS MY FUCKING BOYFRIEND AND YOU FUCKED HIM! YOU FORCED YOURSELF ON HIM! Yet you think you're hot shit because you're a rich doctor who did Doctors Without Borders. Doubly so that you're Rook's best friend. Well guess fucking what? YOU AREN'T! You fucking aren't… You act like you're the savior of Team Rainbow. WELL BULL FUCKING SHIT!" He then gave a variation of Bandit's uppercut and a swift kick in the groin, voice starting to break as he inhaled, "You're not fucking sorry, and all these mistakes, they just pile up… And worst of all, Rook was so open and so kind. He doesn't let me love him anymore. You ruined your best friend. You sir, are a shit altruist…"

Blitz turned his back and walked to a dark corner of the room, suppressing his sobs. Bandit and IQ joined him, soothing him.

"Well, who wants to go next?" Lion bellowed.

"Me," Tachanka said, getting into the now bloody and beaten Doc, "You caused Lera to almost die. That makes me angry," He gave a direct gut punch, causing the doctor's eyes to snap open and his mouth to cough blood. The Russian walked away.

"…I think you were too harsh with him," Glaz followed him, "I don't feel like drawing anymore."

"Nyet," Tachanka disagreed, "After all the shit he did, it was coming."

"Infidelity is pretty shit," Kapkan added, "Even though Blitz will be fucked for even breaking fraternization policy. I'm surprised you didn't do more."

"I think it's fitting."

Twitch emerged from the shadows, unmasked. Everyone started to whisper, shocked. She blew the stray strands of hair out of her face and walked towards Doc, head held high. Holding his chin, she looked up at him. His eyes were near death. Hers were warm with pity and contempt. She let go of his chin and knelt down to his level.

"Gus," Twitch began.

"…Emmanuelle?" Doc weakly replied. His eyes fluttered, "Are you angry?"

"Not really," Her warm smile made it sincere, however, "Mira and I fixed it."

"…I'm… sorry," Doc started to cough, "…I was being selfish. I felt neglected."

"…That's the thing. I looked up to you as a paragon of ethics. We all did. It's not that you were deprived of whatever that was. It's not how you casually let all these mistakes pile up on your person. You taught us all that all life is precious and everyone has inalienable rights. In effect, it's you. I don't know what's wrong with you and I'm afraid to guess, but… it's all you: you shooting a child, you swapping Finka's medication with said child's, and now you having sex with Rook even though he's with Blitz. I know this is a tired sentiment from your conscious, or whatever's left of it and from the rest of us at Team Rainbow, but…" Twitch put a palm up to her head, leading into a deep sigh of consequences, "You need help. Professional help. World class help. Because that's what you are to us. World class. It's still in there somewhere, you just need to find it." She stood up and walked away. Her head was buried in her hands.

Somewhere in the dark and the empty space between the operators, there was a jiggle of the lock. The jiggling went faster and faster. Until it fully stopped.

A blanket of light emerged from the door.

"What the hell is going on?"

The entirety of Rainbow Six was in the debriefing room. Six was at the main podium while Doc was at the left podium. Doc was taken immediately to the hospital, with Finka as the residing physician. After a few hours of rest and treatment, he sat up bandaged with an eyepatch. Everyone else sat in chairs facing them, with those in the gym at the front.

"Is everyone present?" Six called to order. A flurry of whispers, chair squeaks, and cell phone noises filled the room.

It all came to a hold as Vigil and Echo rushed into the back, holding hands.

"I see everyone is here," Six continued, "So we'll proceed with the hearing." She cleared her throat, shuffling documents in hand, "Today, we are all here to discuss the elephant in the room. Starting with today's events." Blitz shook in his seat, "From witnesses in the boxing area, we have a beating of our doctor, Gustave Kateb. Callsign Twitch, would you give your account please?" Twitch got up to the right podium.

She had bags under her eyes and her hair was messy. With a heavy sigh, she began her testimony, "Apparently Lion, Tachanka, Bandit, Mute, and Blitz had planned on this. Bandit and Lion were having a boxing match and Bandit knocked out Lion. Mute asked for medical help and Doc came. He then locked the door. Lion apparently faked being unconscious and hit and restrained Gustave. He then offered him to anyone who wanted to punch him. Blitz came in with a flurry of punches while Tachanka punched him once. I talked to him only about his issues. He came in my scrapbook… I don't want to talk about it any further-" She started to hyperventilate and ran back to her seat. Mira held her as she broke down.

"A clear witness account. Before we let the men plead guilty, I want to know what drove this premeditated beating," Six replied, "This month has been rough on all of us. Mute, I'll let you come first." Mute took his place on the podium.

"If you want to know my motive," Mute mumbled through the mask, "Doc shot a child. Who the fuck shoots a child?"

"For your information, that was already fixed! The child is alive and healthy," Doc defended himself.

"It doesn't matter Doc! That's unacceptable at any angle!" Mute countered, "The media would kill us quick if they learned. That's a goddamn liability-"

"Enough, Mute!" Six cut him off, "Do you plead guilty?"

"Yes!" Mute curtly answered, "It's a violation I'd take." He threw his hands up in the air and sat down.

"Lion, you're next."

"You see, mademoiselle," Lion took Mute's place, starting with a haughty air, "I do not have the best relationship with ze doctor here. So I was willing to aid in this beating of justice-"

"Lion, NO!" Rook interrupted, "Doc's actions don't excuse yours, Lion!"

"Shut it, fuck toy!" Lion hurled the insult loudly. Rook sat down heavily in a huff, arms crossed and fuming.

"Language!" Six intercepted, "Of course you're guilty, Lion. Sit down."

"At least I own my sins," Lion walked off, tagging in Tachanka on the podium.

"…And what is it this time, Tachanka?"

"…He swapped Finka's medication for the child's. He's the reason why she froze in Mosul. I'll take whatever charge," Tachanka sat down. Bandit went up next.

"What is your issue here Bandit?"

"I…" Bandit stammered, eyes on the ground, "I witnessed infidelity and felt incredibly offended on Blitz's part. I felt like I had to do something. Why are you punishing us, Six?"

"…I understand the host of issues that Doc has stirred up, but in this environment, mob justice isn't the solution," Six gave a heavy sigh, "I'm conflicted, but regulations are regulations. Blitz, you're up next."

Bandit walked off the podium, only to have it filled by Blitz. "I know Rook and I are a violation of the fraternization policy. But it's so goddamn obvious. You even see it." Blitz breathed through clenched teeth, "It's not right that Gustave here had his way with Rook. It's not fucking right."

"Elias, I'm sorry but it isn't like that," Rook interrupted again, "As Twitch said, he's not completely bad."

"You didn't have to cheat, Julien!" Blitz yelled back, "It hurt to see you and Doc in the same bed after I come back from Munich."

"There was some issues that I solved wrong, yes-"

"THEN WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T YOU DO IT RIGHT?"

"ENOUGH!" Six moderated with an iron fist, "All of you are guilty. Lion, Tachanka, Bandit, and Mute for a count of premeditated assault. Blitz for premeditated assault and a fraternization violation. And Doc… Where do I begin with you? Sexual misdemeanor, fraternization violation, assault, and negligence!"

People burst into a gossipy whirlwind, with them whispering to each other.

Six put a swift end to it with a few pounds from her gavel. People went silent. "As I was saying, as severe as these counts are, they don't take away from your abilities as operators or your accomplishments. You are still valuable. However, the punishments need to be served. Lion, Tachanka, Bandit, and Mute have kitchen and janitorial duties for three weeks. Blitz, you have kitchen and janitorial duties for four plus house arrest for the first week. Doc, you have kitchen and janitorial duties under house arrest for six weeks. You are only allowed to practice within the halls of Herefordshire and even then, you will be monitored by a medic. You are all dismissed."

[sleepymarmot]

Notes I’ve taken during the Double XP weekend and forgot to publish, as usual

self care is staying in Mystery Heroes all day and never worrying about team comp

I love how you learn this game by watching and copying the enemies. I steal all positioning ideas for snipers and turrets from the read team. And reading about counters on the internet is one thing, but personal experience is more memorable. Today I played D.Va a lot and Symmetra (unsurprisingly) always wrecked me, so later when my D.Va met her red team double I switched to Symmetra and we won. I even got a POTG, though it looked unimpressive; I  also learned that the shield generator is awesome on a control map. (Earlier in the day I tried the same with Roadhog, but for some reason it didn’t work. I wonder if it’s just a general lack of skill or there’s some specific mechanic I’m not getting.)

I want to start recording the kill cams when the enemies take advantage of my mistakes in a cool way. Like when my Mei tried to chase after enemy Sombra who lured me right into Bastion’s line of sight. Or when my healer (Zenyatta, maybe Mercy, don’t remember) went through a choke ahead of the team for some reason and an enemy Mei walled me off of them.

After a couple of hours with Symmetra I now learn her teleporter is limited to six people. Whoops... 

We got absolutely demolished by a group of six on Gibraltar. They didn’t even let us out of spawn. I’d never experienced a game like this, it was like playing against aliens from Mars. When our team tried to mimic them next turn, of course someone sneaked out and they won again.

Over the weekend, my playstyle shifted from always “contest the objective!!” to “well let’s hold back and group up. okay it didn’t work. let’s group up? nope again. oh, the timer ran out”. Neither are productive. 

It’s actually one of the reasons I’m getting sick of playing healers. I want to initiate! I want to contest! I want to be! on! the! damn! objective! But how am I suposed to do it with no communication? When I’m a tank there’s at least a hope that when I rush in, the others would follow. (Which can be painful as Rein, because you can’t even turn around to check if they’re really backing you or have scattered elsewhere.) As a healer? Well, maybe Lucio, but I haven’t played him much because I can’t get the hang of wallriding and I need to be near my teammates which is not always possible. It’s so pointless to jump on the payload alone as Mercy. Or for a moment yesterday I pushed the payload as Ana, though it was in Mystery Heroes. Look, as a healer and a sniper, I don’t think I should be alone up here...

Also if I’m the only healer I can’t just switch to try and counter a particularly troublesome enemy. When I’m the only tank it applies too, but to a lesser extent.

Satisfying games I had in the same night:

Riding the payload as Bastion on Dorado attack. Never tried it before. The red team was not prepared. I don’t think the payload was ever deserted.

Tank-to-tank standoff on King’s Row, both attack and defense. I was Orisa, the enemies had Orisa too both times, and D.Va at least once. Stand your ground and spray bullets to your heart’s content. Shout out to the awesome Mercy who made this possible and rezzed me immediately, I think it was a multi rez too.

I got sick of the teams on defense standing too far from the pont, and then letting someone through and trying to rush back before they can capture it but being too late. So I went to Hollywood as Bastion, parked in a corner with my back to the gate and my barrel parallel to the wall with the chokepoint, and could shoot at anyone coming through without even aiming. The other teammates stayed on the point too. Everything went well -- until the enemy D.Va sent her mech over the wall and wiped everyone off the point at once. We couldn’t recover and they won. Now that was a POTG. I really should have expected that, though...

Speaking of D.Va -- I face so many strong ones but my own skills are still garbage :( I can’t even ult properly, like sometimes I try to use boosters but instead explode it immediately with nobody around. And I always get ejected from the mech so soon. I dunno what dark magic Defense Matrix management skills other people have.

Symmetra out-DPSed my Bastion several times and it was bullshit. She jumped around me faster than I could turn. Of course, when I play Symmetra, half of the time the enemies run away too fast and I run after them in a straight line providing an easy target, or they don’t even bother and overpower me without moving.

Me: It’s just cosmetics My obsessive brain: Makes me grind until the last hour of the event in late morning

Seriously it was kind of a hell... I waited for the new week in Arcade to unlock and couldn’t leave until my nine victories. And that night, the final night of the event, I discovered that 3v3 is the most efficient mode. No waiting/setup time, no stupid skirmish. We moved there at the suggestion of a teammate of a particularly torturous game in Total Mayhem that lasted 20 minutes. Zaryas on both sides, ults going off all the time but not killing anyone... 

And when I got all the lootboxes, they didn’t even give me anything but dupes. I had 3245 gold and was faced with a terrible choice: one skin or four dances. I’d wanted Zen and Rein’s dances all this time, Tracer and Sombra and some others are super cute too. But the skins are more prominent, while emotes can only be used occasionally and I might want to replace them on the wheel. Thankfully, I got Symmetra’s skin as loot, so the choice was between Pharah, D.Va and Lucio. I’m so terrible at Pharah I’ve stopped trying, so that skin might have been wasted on me. I looked up D.Va’s voice lines in the new skin and didn’t particularly like them. I like D.Va’s default skin, and theoretically I’d love to get my hands on the Lunar one if it’s ever available again, but I’m indifferent to Lucio’s default and the purchaseable skins are worse. So I was left with the choice between Lucio and four dances. I watched the video with this skin’s alternate songs and spent some time trying to figure out whether I like them or not.

I wasted so much time torturing myself over this I realized it could take less to earn some more gold. So I bought Lucio’s skin and went grinding again. At this point I didn’t particularly care about winning, just getting through the matches for the xp. The first lootbox was kind to me and dropped 50 gold... so I was only 5 gold away from an emote. In sleep-deprived desperation I sat down to grind another level. By the time it was over, I think it was a bit past 10am aka the official ending time. But I got my gold. I bought Zen’s dance, and I was finally free to log off and try to get rid of the adrenaline and finally get some sleep. I’m so sorry, Sweethardt... I wish we could be together :(

I’m still not sure if the Lucio skin was the right decision. The songs are indeed kind of distracting, and the speed one is badly mixed: starts with a new jazzy melody and then for some reason fades into the default beats (of a totally different style). And it bugs me that the hat completely covers his eyes. Ah, well. Any decision would have resulted in buyer’s remorse in this situation.

Highlight of the 3v3 grind session: sleepymarmot gets POTG for sleeping. My Lucio boops Ana, she shoots him with a sleepdart, and that’s all that happens. Entire chat went “wtf lol”. Clearly the game was sending us a message. It’s 7am, you know what’s the best thing to do right now? Going to fucking bed.

I pocketed Pharah a lot in those matches. I feel guilty about letting the third person die... But when my healer instincts got the better of me and I dropped down to feed a red cross, it didn’t end well. Fall off of Pharah once, and without communication, good luck trying to attach yourself to her again... Tbh I wouldn’t like to play this regularly -- it’s not very interesting to literally spend all the time literally riding on one person’s coattails. Though I guess in a normal game the fun is in the jumping back and forth between Pharah and the team -- like in a normal Mercy game but with more flying.

I also played Pharah myself in this duo a couple of times and actually didn’t do badly. I guess it’s easier on these smaller maps

After I wrote this entire post, I discovered that this event, like the free weekend, is still mysteriously active for me hours after the end date. So I went to grind again. Got Tracer’s dance (good), I think McCree’s too (don’t care). And you know what was in the final lootbox, which I opened after the event finally ended? Lucio’s goddamn skin! Of. Course.

I feel seriously burned out after playing so much in a short amount of time, especially because in the final hours I’ve stopped caring about winning at all. I lost concentration so badly -- I didn’t think about my abilities or teamwork or countering enemies, constantly attacked them head on even with characters not meant for that... What if this attitude stays and I won’t be able to play the game normally? What if I just ruined it for myself? Ugh. Why do I always have to be like this.

The best thing about this session was when I accidentally clicked on 1v1 and managed to win 5-1. It was pretty stressful so I went back to 3v3 immediately. But it was really fun to think strategically about hero selection, trying to quickly compute which of the three available characters is not only easiest for me to play, but the strongest against any of them.

Another good moment was in Mystery Heroes, when I got Reaper and on my way to the point was lamenting my inability to play him and the aforemetioned lack of concentration. The point is under attack, I teleport in, kill Zen and two others who were about to get onto it, help kill Winston in the middle of it, overtime runs out, I get POTG. Wat?

One night after playing a lot I had a dream that the Roadhog nerf came through and also changed his name (don’t remember to what) and portrait to an unmasked, civil-looking, clean-shaven 30-40 year old blond white man, and just as I went to see what his skins look like now I woke up

I finished the event at level 89. Considering that I only played during the free weekends and bought the game after the second one, that’s pretty fast leveling up.

I started recording a lot during the weekend, and have several videos in the drafts, but on second thought I don’t think anyone would be interested, there’s nothing remarkable going on in them.