#for a character who is relatively minor i love how the creator made him really understandable and sympathetic like damn

[shidoukanae]

I would like to make an addendum to this piece with the new chapter out and say that I was wrong about Phillip, he's great, 10/10 he went from being a giant red flag of a character to being genuinely relatable and man do i feel bad about side-eyeing him for that line he said last chapter

Also this chapter finally wrapped up another plot thread I was waiting for it to return to and waaaaaah seeing someone else's POV on Helene is so nice (and we finally got another flashback of OG Helene for like,, the first time in literally forever). Helene being called out as a lonely person who hides her kind feelings behind a cold expression...man suddenly my fondness for Helene is increasing thousandfold

Like literally how the fuck does this manga keep making Helene better and better there's literally nothing disappointing about her character and im STILL shook about it

[greysfall]

My 4444-word review of NEO TWEWY (with personal illustration + heavy spoilers)

My overall critical score for the game is 7.5/10, while my personal enjoyment score is 8.5/10. This review is posted as I have 80% completed the game, got the secret ending and achieved the Angel psychic rank. I’ll first start with the main pros and cons as follows.

PROS:

-        Enjoyable as a whole, still upholding the first game’s spirit in world building and sharing the same backbone - which was mostly revealed in the Secret Reports, it’s impossible to grasp the story without reading them.

-        The new cast and new game is charming in their own way

-        The old cast’s return is one of the biggest highlights for sure, it was fun and impactful. Everyone stays true to themselves and also had their own stories wrapped up nicely.

-        Boss designs are cool, new pins are fun to use and collect

-        The connection between the old and new cast is well written and executed, including but are not limited to the tension between the old and new protagonist, the weird but fun interaction between the 2 Composers, the new friendships revealed and formed

-        Sho being in the main cast is something so uniquely TWEWY and uniquely Sho

-        Still good music

-        Still many fun side quests, some of them really uphold the same quirky spirit of the old game and some are surprisingly touching

-        Many new nice stores and yummy looking foods to explore

-        The map is really easy to memorize for me, it’s fun to travel around the “current” Shibuya to see all the differences compared to the past

-        The social network is crazy and interesting to read through

-        Has an anti-frustration system to help 100% complete the game more easily and earn money faster, so post-game is relatively managable.

-        Overall, I really feel the efforts the team poured into making this as their passion project, not just during the development process but for all the last 14 years. They showed the vision of what they wanted to make, at the same time giving something to both the old as well as new fans.

CONS:

-        The biggest problem with the game is scenario writing. The story is so heavily back-loaded. The director himself thought it would be better to balance out the tension flow by adding more at the beginning but gave in to the scenario writer in the end, probably due to time pressure. This results in an underwhelming execution of characterization and lots of wasted potentials for the first half of the game.  

-        I struggle to view it as a stand-alone game, since the backstory and the old cast both play such an important role in the core of the game. If someone plays this game without having played the OG, they can only enjoy it on surface value at best.

-        The new cast is nice but most of them aren’t quite as intriguing as the old cast, maybe it’s cuz they’re all too nice deep down that they lack a little bit of an edge, of that batshit craziness that everyone in the OG used to have? I think some characters (Fret, Nagi) ended up weaker in terms of characterization because the writer is too afraid of making them unlikeable – which kind of backlashed cuz they only became likable in the most expectable way to cater for a specific group of fans. I would have wished for the other team leaders to be more crazy too, had they not suffered 30+ loops of the Game…

-        The CAMERAWORK IS HELL.

-        Gameplay does get tedious at certain points with all the time travels.

-        Shiba is so badly written as a villain, some Shinjuku characters should be given more screentime cutting into Shiba’s– like Hishima or Kaie or even, Hazuki (though his limited presence also solidified his importance).

-        Some of the main character designs, for example Beat’s hairstyle and his food reactions are hilariously bad. What’s the point of covering up most of his unique facial features?

-        Some of the minor/side characters’ design are too cool for them to have such a small role (eg: Ayano, Eiru). Ryoji did get much screentime but is nowhere as fun as Makoto was.

-        Overall the scope of this game is made a little too big for the team to handle as perfectly as the last game that was very compact, it felt somewhat rushed in development too so the missing pieces are clearly there in the final picture

The entry fee versus paying for it all in the end

An important difference between the Neo game and the original Shibuya game was that the Shibuya rule asked for an entry fee that is the Player’s most important asset, stated as a chance the Composer gives them to reexamine themselves. Meanwhile, the Shinjuku rule neither encourages nor allows personal growth and ultimately aims to erase as many Players as possible. It’s a pity we were never introduced to the full Shinjuku rulebook, as it seems like the system there focuses more on building up power and a grand government to compare with the individuality-driven system of Shibuya.

When you have to compare the new game and the original game (OG), this is an important factor to consider. Also, the OG has a serious storyline running through and through, locked with a different partner/GM creating unique atmosphere for each week and you don’t get to see your old partners again until the end. NEO’s team system does not allow such deep insight and communication between the Players. All of your teammates are always there throughout, the dynamic does change with each new addition but it is not as prominent as a partner change.

Another important factor is how the OG was built from scratch for a new platform as “something no one has ever seen before”, while Neo recycled a lot of old unused ideas from the previous development (check out this interview for more details). The development team for NEO lacks 2 key members and had a change of writer so the final product is not as strongly bound together as the last game.

The new cast is definitely inspired by today’s teenagers (from the view of creators), compared to the old cast they’re more sociable and always seem to take whatever works for them despite feeling unstable inside. They are all innocent and genuinely nice kids, avoiding to hurt each other to a degree that they end up keeping some sort of distance. They’re also unable to communicate at deeper levels, always stagnant at this half-baked stage of equilibrium without any motivation to get to the core of things. That is the cost of entering the game without an entry fee, without even dying or having a reason to be there/to fight seriously. These kids were stolen from the RG into a Game that was decidedly the worst environment for them to change or develop, just wandering around cluelessly to find a way “out” until tragedies started to unfold one by one and they ended up being charged the total sum of the price for their actions – ultimately losing everything in the end.

That is, I believe, a story arc which can resonate more to the youth of today rather than of my generation. If the message of the old game was to “listen”, enjoy life to the fullest and accept to trust others, the message of the new game is to “speak up” from the inside, trying to understand yourself and take actions instead of just going with the flow and finally, to take responsibility for such actions.

If Neku was handpicked by the Composer for being the special one with an all-dense soul to ensure victory of the game then Rindo was just a normal kid chosen out of random by Kubo to be his back-up plan, who just happened to have a high enough imagination to awaken the incredible power from his pin. Rindo was then officially chosen by the Composer as Josh picked up and handed the pin to him again, this time not as Josh’s personal Proxy – but as the Proxy to represent the normal people of Shibuya and via whom he could gamble if humans can fight for their own fate.

The underworld heroine and the hero with little of his own

Shoka is for me a refreshing and layered heroine. She’s the kind of character that took at least 3 trials of creators to form as a complete individual – that included Nomura who gave her the base design and Reaper background, Gen who gave a more cunning touch and the writers who made her English dialogues more punchy. Dishonesty equals “tsundere” is such a cliché, so the English writers tried really hard to avoid that trope in my opinion, while still letting her good intention come through.

She serves as the character who is informed of everything the players should have known, and there was almost nothing she could do about it. Almost. Until she met Rindo.

They were drawn to each other by sharing a state of “not having anything of their own”. They both started out with not being able to truly know themselves, Shoka even hated her RG life but also managed to mature from that stage before Rindo. She must have vibed with Shiki’s love and passion in the Gatto Nero threads, initiating her connection with Shibuya and understanding herself more. With Shoka as Swallow, they were able to open up to each other and offer mental support… but was still not getting to the centre of their problems because for all this time, Shoka could not tell Rindo the most important things about herself.

How did Shoka feel when she met Rindo at the UG? She probably didn’t want to hope that he would live the day until she witnessed the Twisters’ potentials. From the very beginning, they were both incredibly conscious of each other and also constantly frustrated that the person they happened to “notice” was such a condescending bitch/a clueless loser. The Shinjuku Reapers are overall quite drunk in power and uncompassionate to Players, Shoka included. She is also a master of dissociation, which results in her constant boredom, tone swings, haughtiness and subconsciously distancing herself from the friend – the boy she cares about – from false hope, as she judged from facts that it was a hopeless situation where nothing could ever be. Maybe she is naturally a bit of a chameleon just like her name suggests (Shoka 紫陽花 = hydrangea, the color-changing flower), so putting on an act and always dissociating herself from what’s important was easy, while hiding her contradiction was impossible. It was the ex-Reaper Beat who broke it out to her, that she should decide whether she really cared and wanted to do something for a change. He knew how it felt like to cross that line, and knew she wanted to too.  

Shoka is endeared by many of the Shinjuku Reapers and has shown independent acts of kindness (the Shinjuku ghost), proving that her kind and truthful side is as real as her harsh and dishonest side – which makes her a nice mirror to the previous heroine Shiki, who also embraced a dichotomy of self-complex and self-love within her character. In the end, she was the first of the new cast to ultimately accept all that is important to her and independently made the decision to help save Shibuya despite all costs.

She was jealous at Rindo’s interaction with Tsugumi and Kanon but remained silent cuz she wasn’t at a place to have any say about it. She also didn’t reveal about Swallow because that would only add an awkward irrelevance to their current situation, as she was too ready to face erasure at the end of the Game. She only wished to “play a game” with him, be it FanGo or the Reapers’ Game. The tension that the team could only feel at the end, she’s felt it the entire time. The song “DIVIDE” is applicable to not just one bond in the game, but it always makes me think of theirs. There is always a “divide” between her and Rindo throughout the course of their journey, as the living and the dead, as a Player and Reaper, as someone who has a place to return to and someone who doesn’t, someone who knows little but wields too much power and someone who knows a lot despite not being able to do much.

“If only I had the chance to connect with you on the other side

But time goes on, and without us realizing it

The battle is getting heated

Time goes on, and without us realiazing it

Divided again”

To be honest, maybe I didn’t grow any affection for the new main cast from Rindo’s perspective but from Shoka’s. Since I started to sympathize with Shoka, I started to see the boy in a more “real” way. The real Rindo, behind his peaceful façade with others, would lash out on Shoka for her unfairly harsh attitude while none of the others cared. He could also subtly feel that mantle of unspoken secrets from her, her own contradictions, the unresolved chemistry between themselves – and not knowing what to do with it rather than to feel angry with all the unfairness he could not process. (As a Libra too, he’s triggered the most by unfairness!)

It is actually a positive development as he’s at least “reacting” to something strongly now rather than to keep evading his problems. During my replay, I clearly saw the difficult situation Shoka was in, her remaining harshness after the Motoi incident was due to her internal struggle with a mission to save her own life, versus a chance to really be with the team. Her decision was to do both at the risk of losing favour from both sides. Rindo started to accept her layer by layer, as the person who resonated the most to her contradicting nature from the start and knew that via learning her resolve, he has learnt his too.

Later into the game, she even got too much of his attention. Maybe even without knowing she’s Swallow, he’s familiar with her thinking direction and Swallow had always been closer to him than any other friend. It was only after she had to betray her important ones twice that she could start being truly honest. The scene when she died a 2nd time left a strong impression in me, the little reveal let Rindo know that he is also losing Swallow as he’s losing Shoka – and that only death could drive the last secret out of her. Her final “Later, loser” echoed through Rindo as it was the final truth, with only him remaining to hear it: they had actually, already lost everything.

Rindo was the boy who never dared to face all that matters to him until he lost it all, fighting an unfair battle in the faith that they would somehow still win. Shoka was the girl who always knew what was dear to her, but never dared to think she could be together with them ever after and still threw her all into a battle she knew was losing. I think they stir each other on naturally to fill out their gaps, similar to what the Shibuya game partner systerm would have aimed for. The end reward was a little divine intervention to help close up the divide between them once and for all.  

During the game there was not enough space to process anything personal so at the ending when they officially became “friends”, it was an important affirmation of their bond. Some people complained it was friendzoning but it’s not, they just have arrived at the perfect place to start something more. “From now on, we will truly be together” – I read it as that kind of message.  

The heroine from a lost battle, with her story taken away

After reading the secret reports and playing the game to be surprised of how small a role Tsugumi had in the main game despite being the “Hype-chan” thought to be a major character of the next TWEWY installment, many fans would feel sad at a missed opportunity to see the Shinjuku arc in full depiction.

It was shown clearly that, a Shinjuku arc was very carefully planned out and is a vital part of the whole story, yet it could not be made due to various circumstances behind the development scene. I would assume, that the team were not able to make a TWEWY game that ended on a despairing note, but it already happened in their mind, thus becoming a mental burden that forced them to break away from it and started the game anew with NEO. A significant part of NEO became the healing arc for the Shinjuku characters, especially for Tsugumi though I really wished more emphasis should have been placed on her rather than Shiba. We didn’t even get to see her brother – Shinjuku’s Conductor who had a vital role and instead was given the clueless Shiba, who had absolutely no idea what’s going on all the way until the last day in NEO. It’s as if Tsugumi has had her story stolen away from her, because her own battle ended with a saddening loss.

I think every time the game creators look at Tsugumi, they would feel that sadness too. Maybe to them, she is a bigger character than what is seen by the fans, as despite their failed effort to depict her story, she’s lived in their mind for all these years through periods of destruction, healing and rebuild.  Though it is a pity we could not get to experience the full scope of the Shinjuku story, the creators was clear about the place they wished for it to arrive at.    

Individuality, connection and the social network

The team system adapted from Shinjuku rulebook does not allow much room for personal development, as the team dynamic is closer to a work relationship forced to bear results, than a spiritual bond to max out all corners of understanding as found in the partnership system. The old Shibuya system allowed only 1 winner and 1 week limit per game, while the new rule declares for a 1 winning team and only the team at last place will be erased – the other teams will enter another loop. Furthermore, whichever team to challenge the unwinnable Ruinbringers will face the risk of ending up dead last followed by erasure. As a result, the longest-standing teams are most likely not the strongest ever recorded, but the ones who have figured out a strategy to simply survive until something changes, enjoying their newly found social constructs while they are at it. Basically, it is a system to hypnotise players into the illusion that they are still “living”.

Therefore, we as players would not get to the core of each Player individually as fast and directly as we did in the last game. The Twisters were able to stand out not because they’re powerful, they only started to have a real chance after growing enough to each form a meaningful and personal connection to another teammate. It did not come as a team, nor did it intiate from the existing friendship between Rindo and Fret. In fact, I did not find much solidity or anything truly note-worthy about the main team and new characters within themselves until they started clashing with other team members, Reapers and new recruits from week 2 onwards. Rindo found his personal development with Shoka (via a clash with Motoi and pretty much a mini dating sim between them), then via the confrontation of his role with Neku; Fret found his with Kanon then Nagi, the team learned about the real Neku via Beat, Neku entered the UG via Coco’s wish to save Tsugumi… it was not the team but their personal links that empowered them to fight and solve each of their problems.

The other team leaders may have failed because they did not form such personal links, after 30+ hopeless loops Fuya’s team all fell apart to pursue their own interest even at the cost of erasure, Motoi quit his KOL façade to work like a dog for the Reapers (probably to save just his own ass not his team), while Kanon dropped her tricks to find changes via honest cooperation in acceptance of a fair loss. The despairing note in that is huge without making much of a scene because their failure didn’t happen at their best effort to “win”, but in their last attempt to find a way “out”. Even Shiba got his way “out” in the end thanked to his personal friendship with Hishima and Tsugumi.

Something has shifted in the mindset of the game creators in the last 14 years, as both games are about “connection vs individuality” but the last game focuses more on connection between just individuals and this one on the overall network that is formed out of those individual connections.

The introduction of Beat into the main cast was truly the bridge between old and new, they helped each other out in several turns before officially recruiting him. Beat is a character whom a lot of fans including myself have felt somewhat concerned about after Neku disappeared from the RG, so when the new kids welcomed Beat with warm and organic interaction and Beat seemed happy, I started to feel like I wanted to help them out too! I think the overall team chemistry is enjoyable enough for new players, but I could warm up to the new kids more from the pov of a returning character – whom I’m glad to be Beat, as the older brother figure who is genuinely kind, fun, serious and upbeat at the same time; who is needed and needs the kids in return.

The social network is a fun and refreshing feature. You can read all of the crazy tidbits about Shibuya and the links each character have formed with the town people, it’s also fun to visualize how the characters act off screen. Characters’ profiles provide extra insight into their background too, like how it reveals Tsugumi has been friend with Coco during her time in the RG. During the game when not all characters have showed up, you can sometimes guess which empty spot will belong to whom. For example there is a 1 character linking to Neky that is not linked to anyone else, so I could guess that was Joshua, and that another character linking only to Joshua was probably Hazuki, hinting that the 2 Composers are related before either of them even showed up.

Hazuki only showed up for 5 minutes, but his presence is so vital and true to the game that I think he is the most memorable out of the new cast. The two Composers have such an intriguing bond, with their yin/yang or phoenix/dragon themes, opposite color design, the sempai/kouhai tone and the way they keep some sort of distance/work relationship as if it’s mandatory between Higher beings, yet at the same time they can talk so casually because they are truly equal – and different from one another. I have written a separate meta on them here.

Some people pointed out, that all Shinjuku characters’ names and themes are based off Hanafuda cards and the Phoenix in Hanafuda belongs to the Paulownia suit – which is Joshua’s name flower. This is so interesting because it feels like the creators somehow saw it as a sign to interweave the Shibuya and Shinjuku storylines together. Though it doesn’t come out much on the surface, it’s fascinating nonetheless considering both Josh and Haz had at some point interfered with the other town’s affairs.

“Shibuya tour with Haz” was such a special scene, as it happened between 2 characters who do not/no longer have a reason to care about Shibuya, on the subject of what is worth saving about Shibuya. Hazuki carried out the purification of Shinjuku and stepped in to restore Shibuya just as part of his job and unlike Hanekoma or Joshua who both possess profound understanding of humanity, he really didn’t know humans at all. Rindo’s irrational wish invoked in him a sense of curiosity, to try gambling on something irrationally and learning a bit of what his senior have experienced. With all the pieces put together, it provides an overview on Higher beings as a whole, and that Joshua and Hanekoma are really the odd ones out with Hazuki being somewhere in between them and the rest.        

The old friends

It’s easy to have returning characters overshadow the new cast as they have already matured out of their personal story arc and stayed in our hearts for all this time. In the end, I have managed to enjoy both the old and new cast separately and altogether, and they will both find their own place in our memory of this game for the long term.

Sho is truly as crazy as ever, the game wouldn’t be the same if Sho is any less of what he is. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like Neky or Beat is younger than Nagi at all, with moments when it seems like Neky has aged 14 years instead of 3 years. His friendship with Coco surprised me pleasantly, and their interaction together with Beat was fun to watch. Rhyme’s found a new dream and her friendship with Kaie is precious too, especially considering that she can still talk to him online after the game ended. Josh and Neku’s interaction suggested that they have resolved the past and are on equal terms now, they even parted ways in good spirit and I don’t feel any worry about them like I did before.

Neku and Shiki’s reunion scene was beautiful, theirs is such a special bond that it has grown and supported them even without being able to see each other. I am so happy to see them all again and that they stay true to who they are, albeit looking more grown up, cooler and happier than ever before.  

Overall, NEO can’t become a classic on par with the OG, but is definitely a good sequel and a good game in its own rights. I’m happy with whether or not there will be a 3rd game to complete the 3 monkeys theme, but if there will be – I hope the creators can really find the time to learn from the last 2 games and start over with a fresh mindset and strong core.  

[katsukikiss]

I FUCKIN HATE YOU

CHARACTERS ARE AGED UP // MINORS DNI // EREN X F!READER

Warnings: NSFW 18+, fingering, unprotected sex, alcohol use, noncon touching(ish), hate fucking?, creampie m, idk what else

AN: This is a collab for @bordemm bunny’s rager! It had to fit the theme/vibe of a song and mine was ‘IFHY’ by Tyler the Creator! Give it a listen when you’re about halfway through!

Big thanks to @morelikebaku-no for beta reading this for me!

WC: 5.2K

Masterlist

How did you two get to this point? Why did you hate each other? He would always shove you into walls when you got too close to him and you’d slap him across the arm in retaliation. He would mock how eager you were to please and achieve on missions, and you’d scoff at his selfishness. You threw insults and jabs back and forth whenever you two were near, which wasn’t too often anymore. Although, you weren’t the one who started this all. He used to be so nice, asking you if you needed help, giving you his food, riding your horses side by side. You were both so fond of one another, a bond you had shared since childhood. You thought you might’ve even loved him, but something snapped in Eren one day. You couldn’t understand why he changed so much after that day.

Eren remembered the day perfectly. You both got ready that morning before you set off for what would be a horrible evening. Your squad had a relatively easy mission to complete, but something felt off to you. Eren rested a hand on your shoulder, reassuring you that everything would be okay, and that he’d protect you. He always stuck close to you on these missions, fearing that he’d lose you like he lost everyone else.

You set off on horseback together. You were a skilled cadet, well seasoned in using your ODM gear. Eren hated when you’d get cocky and push yourself too far, but thats why he stuck so close, but not this time. Levi sent you and Jean forward in a group of two, despite Erens pleas to be paired up with you. You shot him a reassuring smile before you and Jean pushed forward and to the right. Eren had to stay in the center with Levi and Armin, his eyes trailing off to watch you descend further away from him.

You and Jean easily took out five abnormals, you killing three and him taking out the other two. You were in a state of euphoria, zipping through the trees. Jean admired your strength and confidence, but they all still saw you as someone that needed protecting, and it royally pissed you off. You slung off to the left, Jean quickly losing sight of you.

“Y/N! WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING?!” he howled out to you. He swiftly maneuvered around to try and follow you. Then he heard you scream.

Your blood curdling screams echoed through the forest. ‘T-Thats y/n’ Eren thought to himself.

“EREN WAIT!” Armin loudly pleaded, but Eren was gone, slashing his way through the trees to where your voice came from. Rage was radiating through his body, how could Jean have lost you, let you get hurt. He swore he was going to beat him half to death for letting something happen to you. He moved at an inhuman speed, frantically looking around for where you might be. Then he saw a 15 meter titan, with a tight grasp on you and your neck. Blood was dripping from your nose and lips, you lacked the ability to scream anymore.

Without thinking, Eren transformed. It was dangerous for him to go into his titan form, with you so close and vulnerable, but his body acted on its own will. He lunged at the titan, his mouth clamping hard onto the arm in which you were trapped in. The arm came tumbling to the ground, with you hurdling down with it. Eren was too blinded by rage that he failed to realize you were about to splatter on the ground. He continued to thrash at the titan that once held you. You looked down and your eyes filled with fear. Why wasn't he going to catch you? Suddenly you heard quick sipping noises and you were caught by Jean. He glanced down at you nervously, his breath heaving. He perched up onto a large branch and sat you down against the trunk of the tree.

“Oh my god y/n are you okay?!” he asked in a panicky breath, cupping your face in his calloused hands. You shook as you looked over his shoulder to see Eren still on a rampage, but now he was running towards you two. You lifted a quivering finger to point to him, your throat bruised and unable to form words, and Jean quickly turned his head. A large hand was coming down at you two. Jean scooped you up and slung the two of you away as the branch snapped. Eren let out a shrieking scream that sent shivers down both of your spines. Jean never let up his tight grasp on you as he navigated his way through the forest, trying to get as far away as possible. Eren hadn’t lost control in so long, and now he was trying to kill you.

You got back to the rest of the squad, and Jean explained what had happened. Armin, Mikasa and Levi all went back into the forest to find Eren. He was in a clearing, sticking out of the nape of his now disintegrating titan form, sobbing uncontrollably. They approached him with caution. He hysterically screamed at them, “I'M A MONSTER, I ALMOST KILLED HER!”

You had spent three months in the infirmary, healing from the broken arm and bruised windpipe you had suffered. Everyone came to visit you regularly, except Eren. He never came by to see you, and shuddered when Armin finally recommended that he should.

“I dont want to fucking see her” he muttered under his breath. Armin stopped speaking, not wanting to push his friend over the edge again. You were finally strong enough to go back to your own room, eat in the dining halls, and train. Much to your dismay, Levi wasn’t going to put you back on missions for awhile.

Your first day back in the dining hall, everyone beamed a smile at you.

“Hey y/n! Why dont you come sit over here?” Jean shouted to you. You smiled and looked away, opting for your usual table instead. You made your way to Armin, Mikasa and Eren with your tray. You plopped your tray down and scooted your way over to Eren. His head was low until you sat down. He looked up at you with anger in his eyes.

He was never angry at you, but at himself. He feared being anywhere near you. You almost died at his hands and he could never forgive himself for that. You were so sweet, never once holding a grudge for what happened that day. He hated how forgiving you were, it made it all so much harder. He made a promise to himself that he needed to stay away from you, make you hate him if it meant you’d be safe.

“Long time no see Eren!” you exclaimed. Mikasa and Armin both looked at Eren anxiously. He slammed his fist on the table, standing up and walking away.

“What's his problem?” you asked the other two who were looking at you with doe eyed expressions.

“Not sure, but I think it's best if you keep your distance for a little okay y/n?” Armin said in an apologetic tone. He could see the pain and worry twist its way into your face. ‘What did I do wrong?’ you asked yourself. Tears flooded down your face as you ran out of the dining hall back into your room. You told yourself this wouldn’t last long and things would be back to normal but you were so wrong.

Six months later and now you and Eren thoroughly hated one another. You couldn’t take his insults and cold shoulder anymore so you threw it back at him, making the divide between you two grow larger with every passing day. You let your feelings from before the mission drift away and all you were left with was resentment and anger. You never understood why he turned so cold but you didn’t care to figure it out anymore, he never wanted to be around you and that was it. But little did you know, someone else had really convinced him to stay away from you. He wanted to try and talk to you one day but Mikasa coerced him out of it, telling him that it would make things worse and that he would only end up hurting you again. He believed her and vowed to stay away from you.

It was a crisp Saturday evening. The regiment was going to be drinking and celebrating a successful mission outside together later that night, even Levi and Erwin would be attending. You made your way over to Sasha’s room to talk and get ready. It was nice to finally have a day to let loose and have fun. You and Sasha decided to take some sheers to old shirts and create sexy twist tops; neither of you had attire for a night out like this. You took an old black t-shirt of Erens that he had given to you one night, looking at it you felt a pang in your heart, before you shook it away and began to cut. You twisted it in the middle, giving your breasts little fabric hammocks to rest in. You pulled the straps up and over your shoulder. You shoved yourself into some high waisted jeans before heading out with Sasha.

It was a lively sight. People hugging and laughing, ignoring the horrible world they lived in for a while. Connie waved you and Sasha over to him and Jean who were seated around a high table. You jumped up onto a stool between the two boys and across from your friend. Jean had a pitcher of beer on the table and four glasses for you all. You finished three pitchers all together in the matter of 30 minutes, talking and cracking jokes the whole time.

You looked around and spotted Armin red faced, blabbering off to Commander Erwin, whose face was also flushed red from the alcohol he had consumed. It was a pleasant surprise that made you smile, seeing the two blonde men letting loose for a bit. Then you saw Eren and Mikasa, sitting at a table together getting belligerently drunk. You were never jealous of her, he always told you she was like a sister to him, but then you shook your head. ‘What? Why would I even be jealous anyway…’ you looked away from the pair, cursing at yourself for even feeling that way. ‘He hates you, you hate him’ you reminded yourself.

Your attention was snapped back when Connie placed four shots onto the table. You were no stranger to drinking, you actually really enjoyed it; maybe too much. You all nodded, tapping your shots down on the table, bringing them up, clanging them all together, then slamming them back onto the table before throwing the clear alcohol back into your mouths. Sasha groaned at the foul taste, begging Connie to go get some food with her to wash it out of her mouth. They headed off towards a table of food, leaving you and Jean alone. You looked back over at Eren, but he and Mikasa were both gone. Your mind started racing, but you kept your calm on the outside. You were pretty drunk at this point, vision a bit distorted, but your words still came out presentable. Jean laughed, he watched you sway in your seat before gripping tightly onto the table almost falling.

“You alright pretty girl?” Jean asked in a flirty voice. He was always super kind to you, especially after the accident, but he also learned not to baby you anymore after that. Sure, he was mad you ran off on your own, but he understood why you did that in the moment, you felt like you needed to prove something. You didn’t mind him taking a coy tone with you tonight.

“Oh yeahh don't worry about me” you said, dragging your words a bit in a teasing voice. You winked at him and he blushed. You were typically sarcastic when Jean flirted with you but not now. He was cute, maybe not ideal but you can’t be that picky when you weren’t dealt a great hand in the Scouts. He slid his hand across the table and grabbed onto yours gently. You looked up at him with a wide eyed, innocent look on your face. You looked to the side to see if Eren came back around, but to your frustration he was still nowhere to be found. You looked back at Jean.

“You know, I’ve always thought you were so beautiful y/n” he confesses, his grip on your hand tightening. You probably would have blushed under normal circumstances, but your drunken state left you smirking at him with an insatiable gleam in your eyes.

“So why don’t we…” your voice trailing off, you nodded your head to the side, signaling to Jean that you wanted to ditch the party and be alone. His entire face flushed red and his pupils dilated. He was so eager to finally have you to himself. He stood up briskly as did you. He held onto your hand, walking forward without saying a word to you. You started to feel a bit intimidated by the tall handsome man as he led you away from the crowd and into the dark of the night. But someone was watching you two, never stopped watching.

He pushed you up against the stables and began ravenously kissing at your neck and squeezing at your breast. Being touched deprived and drunk made you moan at his every touch.

“You look fucking incredible in this shirt” he huffed out. His lips came back to yours, shoving his tongue into your mouth. He started to move his hand lower and lower. You started to get nervous, you didn’t want to go this far, you weren’t ready to. You grabbed at his arm and whimpered out, “I-I don’t wanna do that right now, okay?” Jean kept moving his hands down. You weren’t sure if maybe he didn’t hear you or was too drunk or was just flat out ignoring you. Then his hand was forcefully pulled out of your pants as he fell backwards into the ground.

“Get the fuck off of her and get out of here. Now” Eren demanded in a fierce tone. He was standing above Jean, looking down at him. Any haziness you had in your head was washed away when you saw the scene unfold in front of you. Jean scrambled to get to his feet before looking Eren right in the eye.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he challenged. Eren was seething with anger. They both burned holes into each other's eyes. You didn’t want to see anyone get hurt because of you, so you spoke up.

“Jean, it's okay, I'm okay, I’ll catch up with you later okay?” you tried to reassure him. He looked at you confused then back at Eren with a grimace before turning away from the two of you.

“Alright whatever” he groaned, disappointed. You looked at the man in front of you for a second, before you lazily lunged at him with a fist. You were so angry and emotional when you saw him leave. Your coordination still wasn’t functioning at its best, he easily dodged and grabbed your wrist.

“What the fuck were you doing back here? Was he trying to..?” he manically questioned before letting go of his grasp on your arm. You were surprised to see how riled up he was over seeing you with Jean. You decided to push your luck.

“Why do you care Eren? And yeah, we were going to fuck until you came and ruined it” you spat at him.

“I heard you y/n, and I saw him ignore you. Don't play tough when I know you aren’t” he hissed back at you.

“What is wrong with you? Why were you watching us, you freak? Weren’t you off fucking Mikasa?” you sneered at him. You were embarrassed that he caught you lying, but even more embarrassed that he watched Jean touch all over you.

“You should be grateful I was here, who knows what we would’ve done” he answered, ignoring your comment about Mikasa. It gave him pleasure knowing you still cared a bit, that maybe you were even jealous.

“Grateful? I have no reason to be thanking you, I can handle myself just fine now leave me alone” you said, shoving your way past him. He grabbed your arm and yanked you back.

“What the fuck Eren. Get off of me…don’t you have another girl to harass?” you scoffed at him.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about” he stated in a shadowy tone.

“Don’t play dumb, you and Mikasa left together”

“We didn’t..but why do you care hm?” he asked, slightly smirking. He was lying, but he didn’t want you to know that just yet.

“I don’t give a shit, fuck whoever you want but don’t ruin my sex life too”

“I actually never left the party”

“Yes you did”

“Maybe you didn’t see me, but I was there, watching you,” he confessed.

“Eren what the fuck” you said, afflicted by what he had just said. Over the last year he spent everyday avoiding you, your gaze, your touch, and when you were around he was nothing short of evil to you. But here he was, hands on your wrists, having the longest conversation you two had ever had since the mission. You felt your emotions being pulled in every direction. ‘He still cares. He hates you. He’s an asshole. Does he miss you?’ You couldn’t figure out what to think, but one thing you knew was that you couldn’t forgive him for the way he had treated you.

“I don’t know why you were watching over me, or why you’re even talking to me right now, but I want to leave. I don’t want anything to do with you” you stammered. It wasn’t entirely true. You missed him so much, but that was the old him. You don’t even know who you’re looking at anymore.

“Y/n, I know that isn’t true” he said, inching closer to you. You could smell alcohol on his breath and the scent made you dizzy. You backed up, trying to pull your hands from his grip but it was of no use. Your back was up against the wood of the stables.

“I've missed you so much, you have no idea” he remarked, with a hint of sadness in his voice. You looked up at Eren, finally locking eyes with him. You hadn’t looked him in the eyes in so long. Despite everything, his eyes were the same as you remembered. They looked at you sympathetically, with love and tenderness, the way he used to. However, your fleeting moment of empathy turned quickly back into anger

“How could you?! How could you just cut me out of your life, treat me like a fucking stranger? And you have the audacity to pull this little stunt! ” you screamed at him, hot tears streaming down your cheeks.

“I-Im sorry, I-“ he was cut off by your hand sharply smacking him across the face. He stumbled back and away from you.

“Get the fuck away from me. You don’t get to just walk back into my life, no, fuck that and fuck you” you refuted. Your reply hit him harder than the slap. He couldn’t let you go, never again. The brief compassion he had was gone. He was done trying to be gentle, you had awakened something that had lied dormant for months. He spent so long trying to stay away from you, his thoughts tormenting him, but you were different now. He was going to go easy on you, slowly open up to you to see if you could accept him into your life again, but it seemed he couldn’t take that approach anymore. He slammed you back into the side of the stable, trapping your arms behind your back and gripped your jaw with one large hand.

“I did that all for you. You don’t know how hard it was for me to be mean to you, to stay away from you. But here you are, and I'm not going to hold back anymore” he revealed with a low predatory voice, sending an aching chill to your core. He slipped his free hand under your little makeshift shirt and ferociously clutched at your breast. He aggressively pressed his lips against yours, his heart fluttering as he finally felt your soft pretty lips against his own. A low whine vibrated in your throat. You wanted to be stronger, to push him away from you but your resolve crumbled.

“I don’t want to see you around Jean or any other guy here, do you understand me?” Eren murmured, his throat rasping with the low tone he took.

‘Excuse me, what did he just say?’ You couldn’t just take orders from him, not after all he put you through. You snapped out of the trance he had you under. You looked at him with scalding eyes and spit onto his face. It was risky, but you weren’t thinking straight. Again, you were conflicted between screaming at him or accepting him, hating him or loving him. He looked down at the dirt and slowly dragged his hand across his face, wiping your saliva from his cheek. He creeped his head back up, his vile look tormenting you.

“Who the fuck do you think you are Eren? Trying to tell me what to do with my body? Fuck off” you hissed back at him. You tried to move away from him but his hand was encasing your fragile throat.

“I know you miss me baby, I know you want to let me back in, but you have too much pride, you were always too stubborn. Let me show you what you’re missing” he muttered. You wanted him to be wrong but he was so right. You desperately wanted to forgive him and bring everything back to the way it used to be. His free hand unzipped your tight jeans and tugged them down to the ground. His thick digits started to rub against your folds through your pink lace panties. His other hand moved from your neck to the back of your head, grabbing a fistful of your hair and yanking your head back. He bit and sucked at the tender flesh of your neck, leaving little territorial marks all over you. Your lips parted to let out soft mewls. The last few months suddenly flashed before you, bringing anger back to the forefront of your mind.

“I h-hate you!” you screamed. Despite enjoying the way he was making you feel, you still had so much to let out.

“Don’t say that” he growled. His hands were under the fabric of your panties now, two fingers pumping in and out of you. His thumb reached around to swirl erotic circles on your sensitive nub.

“I mean it” you softly moaned out.

“No babygirl, you don’t. You can’t lie to me” He cooed into your ear. His fingers pace inside you abruptly quickened causing you to let out a pleasurable cry. Something about this new Eren was making your mind go crazy, he had an intense hunger for you and a depraved way of fulfilling it.

“Come back to me y/n, let's start over” he groaned into your ear, and you had a feeling he wasn’t suggesting that, but rather demanding. He tried to reach for your hand.

He desperately wanted you to touch him. You held your arms behind your back the entire time, by choice. You didn’t want to make him feel good, you didn’t want to feel his body, his face, his hair, or you knew you’d completely come undone.

“N-no Eren” you stammered. You were pushing his buttons, seeing how far you could go, how much he could take. He was starting to get angrier, revealing his deep sinful nature. He flicked his two fingers up, hitting your spongy spot every time they prodded back into you. His talented digits made your chest rise and fall quickly, letting short strained breaths and cries out.

“Wrong answer. You don’t get a choice. You will be mine” he demanded. Just as these words left his mouth your walls began to involuntarily clench around his fingers, your juices releasing all over them. You scraped your nails into the wood behind you, desperately trying to offer yourself some comfort. His possessive words should be scaring you, making you uncomfortable, but they only make you long for him more. Something about his controlling nature was truly intoxicating.

“I knew it, you do miss me, don’t you babygirl? I knew I should’ve done this earlier” he insinuated, a shameless smile creeping up on his face. He pulled his fingers out of your sobbing hole and brought them up to his mouth. He lolled his tongue out and slowly dragged his fingers down, savoring your sweet taste. You watched him in the lewd act, but thought about his words for a moment. ‘I knew I should’ve done this earlier’ you want to ask him what he meant but before you could speak his mouth was on yours, lips meeting once again. He gave you a wet kiss before pulling away to look at you. He pet your face and swept your wet strands of hair off your sweating forehead. Even all hot and messy, you still looked so adorable to him.

“Please baby, I can’t take it anymore. Put your arms around me” he begged. You gave the slightest nod of disapproval, pissing him off again.

“When I try to ask nicely you refuse. What is it with you?” he scowled at you. He yanked your arms from behind your back, making you yelp. He put them on his shoulders and pressed his body flush to yours. You stopped trying to fight his advances, wrapping one hand behind his neck and the other snaked through his hair.

His clothed bulge was firmly pressed against your exposed cunt. You began to buck your hips forward into him, forcing a low moan to escape his lips. He placed his hands on your thighs and hoisted them up and around his waist. You continued to kiss and explore each other's mouths with your tongues. You twirled yours around his, as if they were always meant to dance with one another.

He picked up your pants and carried you a few over to a shed. He kicked the door open, removed a hand from your ass to pull a light on. You looked and saw an old steel table with miscellaneous tools and blueprints all over it. Eren used a hand to shove everything to the side and sat you down. He stood between your legs, your neck angled painfully high to kiss the man towering above you. His hands moved down to his crotch as he meticulously unbuttoned his slacks. His throbbing member sprung from his boxers as he lowered them down his legs. Your mind was racing as you thought about what was actually happening. He pressed his cock against your needy hot cunt, sweeping through your puffy lips with it. All inhibition left your body from the touch. You pulled him close to you, the heat radiating between your legs.

“Fuck me Eren, please” you begged him. Your words made his blood hot.

“About time” he groaned. He aligned his cock with your tight entrance. He firmly grabbed your ass cheeks as he slowly advanced himself into your sobbing cunt. Your walls clung onto his swollen tip. He bucked his hips before completing bottoming out inside of you, gently grazing your cervix. His thrusts turned into brutal ramming, the entire table shaking with ever hard pound into you. Your lower stomach was bulging with every assault, your head hanging back from the feeling.

“Do you still hate me now?” he spat at you. His eyes transfixed on your bouncing tits. You couldn’t think straight, the pleasure of his cock hitting you in all the right places scrambled your brain.

“N-No no Eren fu-uck just fuck me, faster please!” you squealed out. He was already savagely slamming into you, but he answered your calls and quickened his pace. He grabbed you by the neck, forcing your head forward to look into his eyes.

“Tell me, tell me you’re mine” he whined into your ear. His eyes looked primal, as if he would devour you if you didn’t answer him correctly. You could tell he was close, his thrusts were getting sloppier and all he could do was let out husky breaths and little moans.

“Ah fuck I’m all yours Eren!” you cried out.

“ONLY mine”

“Y-yess ONLY yours”

Your legs wrapped around him as your orgasm shocked your entire body. You gripped his dark locks and looked up to see Eren’s eyes looking at yours, admiring the way your face contorted with pleasure. His knees buckled as his cock twitched inside you, releasing his warm thick cum all over your walls. He slowly dragged himself out of you, huffing heavy breaths out. Your legs fell down to dangle off the side of the table again. You rested your head onto his chest and he wrapped his arms around you, placing his head on top of yours. You both laid there, chests heaving in unison. You abruptly pulled away, startling him, and you looked up.

“Why d-did you leave me Eren?” you asked, tears welling up in your solemn eyes. He looked to the side, saddened by the question, and trying to find the right words.

“Because, I didn’t want to hurt you. I thought you’d be better off away from me after the mission and I-“

“Why would I be better off that way? You hurt me even more by doing that…”

“I nearly killed you y/n! I almost lost you, and everyone made me feel like I would be a danger to you” he whispered. Anguish and hurt flooded his voice when he spoke to you. The once domineering man was crumbling as he gave his confession to you.

“Why did you wait so long? Why now?” you said, pulling aggressively on his shirt. You recalled him saying he wanted ‘to do this sooner’ but never got to ask about it. He rubbed the back of his neck before looking down at you.

“I…well…Mikasa told me to stay away from you too…and I did leave the party before with her..but only for a little and that’s when I realized her intentions…but I came right back to find you and talk to you after that” he said, searching your face for a hint of how you were feeling. Your expression was blank, eyes were now dried and void of emotion. You jumped off the table and started putting your pants on. Eren started to grow worried as you neared the door.

“Y/n? Where do you think you’re going?”

“To find Mikasa”

[anarkhebringer]

Idk if you’ve looked more into it but I think the monster high girls look significantly better in doll/animated form. Like that picture of clawdeen is unjustifiably whitewashed, she looks washed out/ashy/grey but the actual doll and cartoon character don’t look like that, I’m almost positive she’s around the same shade as before. I don’t love how light her hair is but it is dyed like most of the characters and hopefully she’ll have more prominent dark hair in other dolls/looks. Cleo looks much better, like she’s actually inarguably a WOC now and not just a white girl with a tan and bandages. Draculaura and Frankie have really minor differences overall like I don’t think that matters much. But lagoona was the least popular of the og dolls and and they clearly gave her a big redesign to hopefully change that? I’m sure she’s pink because ghoulia/Frankie/deuce are all blue/green to set her apart. And she went from a white (blue n blonde) Australian to a Latina like I think that’s a relative improvement? I wish her hair was still curly but I love her new facial features

I’m not even trying to play devils advocate I think the new dolls are much better than the og ones in terms of racial representation, realistic body shapes, and even outfits. Like these characters look a lot more like actual high school girls and not like. Lingerie models in heavy technicolor makeup

Okay, but hear me out, I looked into this stuff and a lot of the changes are WORSE. They basically retconned EVERYTHING in already decently-diverse-for-the-time lore. Just give the new body types to the old stuff that used to be, it would've been fine. Not to mention they're MONSTERS, they don't NEED to be set apart and fit into a humanoid bubble with their makeup, skin/fur color, and all that other stuff if they weren't human-like monsters like Cleo de Nile and such. The entire POINT is that they AREN'T humans. Also sure the outfits could use more variety, but that DOESN'T mean completely ruin and get rid of the styles they had established. Also, don't get me started on the lore issues.

They made Clawdeen straight after the creator said she was lesbian after some initial thought on it and liking the idea for her, but Mattel wouldn't let him roll with it and he told fans to run with it and celebrate it. They literally Thanos snapped her siblings from existence, siblings of which were large impacts on who she is. A majority of the other characters are just Gone. There are already people saying shit about how Draculaura would fit the gothic lolita style, which she was literally styled around in the past but that was taken from her. Oh and why the fuck would they whitewash Lagoona if they wanted to be "racially diverse" with her? She went from "white" to Actually White despite supposedly being Latina. She is a white girl. She's not a light-skinned WOC, she is WHITE.

This isn't just about the damn dolls, this reboot is the epitome of "corporate diverse", AKA "shoving every diversity brownie point they can think of onto characters to make people happy" that they do with EVERY decent series that lasts too long and gets modern reboots, because they know people will eat it up. Not to mention the live-action movie is gonna be directed by Todd Holland, notable racist. I'm not even gonna go into every issue because even just reading this ask gave me a headache. Just know I refuse to budge.

[sepublic]

Happy Birthday to The Owl House!

           Honestly, I’m… REALLY shocked to think back on how it’s been a year? It’s been a full, actual year, since that first episode?

           I remember when The Owl House was first announced around early 2018. Something about it, the premise, the characters from that one poster we got; It really drew me in, and I kept track of the show’s progress in eager anticipation. Whenever Dana released art of Luz, Eda, and King, I was ecstatic- And when the show was delayed to 2020, I was dismayed.

           Then we got our teaser trailer; The opening them, the end credits, even a little sneak peek! I remember speculating a lot about Luz and all of the other new characters we were introduced to, such as Willow, Amity, and Gus- And then we got more and more trailers in the days leading up to the show. I wondered about Luz’s home back on Earth and where her family was, I listened intently to the Hooty and the Parliament music video, finding an almost melancholic, weirdly nostalgic (despite having never watched the show yet) vibe to it- Whilst also avoiding looking at the screen and seeing all of the various clips it offered, because I wanted to be surprised! It was two years of anticipation, two years of wait for this show- I’d never looked forward to a series before like this, last I can recall… So having this content FINALLY come out, seeing these characters in animation, hearing their wonderful voices! My soul was vibing, it was time, it was coming after all this time…!

          Eventually I finished Infinity Train Book 2, the same day that The Owl House premiered… I was blindsided when I woke up to the first episode’s release online, in full- I was already planning to wait until later to watch it on television, so having it permanently accessible from the internet was such a pleasant surprise! And the show… The show, man- That premiere caught me off-guard with how much I enjoyed it! I knew I was looking forward to this show, but still…! It blew away my expectations, and even now, has continued to; It was like my personal investment and attention had paid off so patiently well! I even got a DisneyNOW subscription so I could watch each new episode ASAP, the day it premiered, hours before it aired on television!

           I remember scouring Tumblr before the show officially premiered, and there was understandably very little- A few pieces of fanart here or there. And when the show DID premiere, for a while there wasn’t really much of a fandom- There was barely anyone, in fact! But I can remember a few notable blogs who have been around since the beginning… Me, I got invested into this show. I found myself really enjoying Lumity as a ship, especially since I resonated with both characters in it; Luz was such a ball of sunshine that brightened my day, and Amity really spoke to me with her more introverted, top-scoring personality. When the show hit its mid-season hiatus, I remember not handling it too well, as I got impatient and frantic in my speculations- I wanted so badly to learn more about these characters, see what happened- Get a look at Emperor Belos (then known as Bellows by the fandom), etc.

          I wrote my Bile Coven piece in preparation for Halloween, even got to know a mutual or two over shared theorizing! I kept track of Dana’s updates, and even had people come to my blog, of all places, to send asks! It was and still has been such an engaging part of fandom for me… I recall impatiently waiting for the Owl Pellet shorts and freaking out over them- And when Adventures in the Elements leaked early? I LOST MY MIND, I remember postponing something I was supposed to go to, just so I could watch the episode- And it was so good! Then I started wondering and hoping the rest of Season 1 would come out, and well- It took a while…

          And when Season 1B’s trailer came out, I was all over it; Scouring every possible frame, freaking out over the Grom screenshot, and appreciating the influx of new fans! It was amazing to watch The Owl House go from a relatively minor and obscure fandom, to becoming so much more mainstream and populous! I got into Rebecca Rose’s channel, I began writing more meta and posts about the show, as well as little recaps for each new episode. I feel like my blog really took off from here, as I got to interact with more and more people who shared this mutual love of The Owl House, and I was so ecstatic to see more content and buzz about it!

           My mind was solely focused on The Owl House, it was one of my huge hyperfixations, even moreso than during Season 1A’s run- I remember being anxious about Enchanting Grom Fright, wondering if we’d get queerbaited… But NO, Amity was in love with Luz! She canonically had a crush on her, a girl in love with another girl- And I loved it because Lumity was a special comfort ship of mine! Then Amity was confirmed lesbian… It was amazing! And I found myself SO invested, so inspired by the show and its characters, and all of the little allusions to things, the foreshadowing, the moments here or there that made so much more sense after a new episode.

           This show inspired me creatively- It got me to write some of my personal favorite fanfics, and I was and still am so touched by whatever feedback I get from them! The Owl House really got me to write, to obsess over characters and analyze them, to look at motifs, to think about worldbuilding… It��s been such an artistically enriching experience, both the show and the fandom! I remember despairing so terribly when Agony of a Witch came out, the genuine betrayal I had when Lilith revealed the truth- Because I’d been legitimately endeared to her character beforehand, even formed a sort of ‘trust’ in a sense… And like many others, I agonizingly anticipated the season finale, the much-needed emotional reconciliation!

           I remember how the episode titles were revealed, bit by bit, and how I and others speculated on what they’d spell out! I remember when the fandom obsessed over the Witch’s Apprentice game and its relics, for clues and new lore after each episode, the little hints here or there! I was freaked out by characters like Belos, who lived up to my hopes and expectations- First being alluded to by name, then his amazing appearance… And then his voice and mannerisms and everything about him! And when the Season Finale came out…

           Well, there was relief. But there was a bittersweet emptiness- That it was over! The first season was over! There was a celebratory triumph, of course- We finally wrapped up the first, major arc of the show, the first batch of episodes that had been worked upon, the whole thing now unveiled and appreciated! But I was a little dismayed because a part of me KNEW a hiatus much longer than the previous one was ahead of me, and I did not handle the mid-season hiatus well. Of course, then Dana had her Reddit AMA, and the charity livestream; Both of which NOURISHED me creatively, and have helped to fill out the wait! To carry out my momentum, to not flounder about in hiatus; I invested myself into more meta, into various posts, etc. I read fanfiction that genuinely floored me, obsessed over fanart, etc.

           I supported the show’s release on Disney Plus, ecstatic to get this kind of ready access. I revisited past episodes and characters, looking at them in a new light, appreciating things; Like Luz’s relationship with fantasy… King’s surprising development, all of Eda’s little hints and clues. There’s been an emotional catharsis with these characters for me- And I genuinely feel like I’ve been a lot happier lately because of this show! I’ve met so many other blogs and gotten to know them, seen their ideas and displayed mine as we appreciated one another… I even remember doing another blog’s fanart prompt prior to the show’s release, in preparation!

           I feel like The Owl House has genuinely given me a new appreciation for meta, for fandom and analysis… For headcanons, for writing my own stories and contributing my own ideas and speculations, etc.! It’s contributed SO much joy to me as a hyperfixation, and rapidly risen through my blog as my most frequent tag! And even as I explore other fandoms and hyperfixations, both then and now, especially to pass on this crippling hiatus… This show holds a VERY special place in my heart for me. It’s really made me feel for these characters, the love and sadness, the excitement and sense of comfort… Its love and emotions, angst and found family, lore and speculation, it hits so hard to me in a way that other media hasn’t!

           It’s provided representation- Such as canonically queer characters, or protagonists who speak so well to the neurodivergent experience for many people! I’ve had delight in seeing people suggest Amity as autistic, when before Season 1B, I lowkey headcanoned and saw her as such- So seeing more evidence for this resonated deeply in my heart! I remember all of the discussion about King as a character, the confusion and talk about whether or not he WAS a King of Demons, when that first announcement in 2018 had made a similar claim… I looked forward to Eda and Lilith’s relationship, speculated on who cursed Eda, and remembered when I’d considered the Blights as a potential culprit! I remember thinking about Hooty, wondering what his deal is- And thinking then and now about that Owl Deity mural in the Owl House! Watching Luz’s development as a character and as a witch, seeing her become more proficient with magic until it finally pays off with her squaring up against Belos, and wounding him- I’d never felt so proud of a character and their progress before!

           There’s still so many more questions and mystery, lore… as well as just genuine character interactions, to look forward to! I think The Owl House is one of my favorite shows of all time… It’s deeply touched me as a person and creator, and I genuinely strive to create something even close to this one day. This show has inspired me, made me laugh and cry, compelled me to creatively make content; It’s introduced me to a wider fandom that I genuinely feel like a part of, had me meet other mutuals… It really is something special to me. And while I am eager for Season 2, I also want to appreciate what Dana Terrace and her crew have already established. I love this show’s art style and animation, the designs and overall weirdness of its characters- I love speculating and thinking about them, getting more and more details, and so forth.

           If it’s for a better product, I’m fine waiting for Season 2. And honestly, I love what we already have, and I’ve done a lot with so many people. I’ve even looked over supplementary materials and stuff posted by the crew or news articles, in my need for content… And I love every bit of update, art, and/or acknowledgement of the show’s hiatus, and Season 2’s development! There’s so much to look forward to… And there’s so much that I’ve enjoyed, after plenty of anticipation!

           Thank you @danaterrace, and everyone who worked on this- For everything. It really is crazy to reflect on this entire year, to realize it’s been a full year since that first episode, since that first premiere that lit up my world like Luz’s light spells; And it feels like such a milestone that we’ve reached! I look forward to what comes next, and I also intend to keep appreciating and cherishing what we’ve already gotten. Here’s to this show’s second year, people- It’s been such a journey to look back on and remember each step, each phase, each particular moment and stage… And I can only imagine what will come next! This show has SUCH a special place in my heart, and has made me feel in so many ways I haven’t before!

           Happy Birthday, The Owl House! You’ve earned it!

[fandomshatewomen]

Lovecraft Country: Race, Colorism, and Family Pt 1. Colorism

Hey y’all, I’m Mod C and I have thoughts on HBO’s Lovecraft Country. Because i have so many thoughts, I’m going to make this a bit of a series.

The season is over, but not everyone has access to HBO, so if you don’t want significant spoilers don’t read below the cut.

General Overview: So, Lovecraft Country is set in 1950′s America, post WW2 and follows Atticus “Tic” Freeman. Tic is just getting back home from his time abroad during the war. He’d received an odd letter from his dad about an inheritance from his mother’s side and has to go searching for him with the help of his Uncle George and a neighborhood friend Letitia “Leti” Lewis. Uncle George runs a travel magazine a la The Green Book, which tells people of color which areas are safe to visit and Leti needs a ride in the direction of where they’re heading so she joins them. On their journey they face racism and  monsters, but they eventually find their destination, where Tic learns that he is descended from a family of Wizards. This family is White and owned one of Tic’s ancestors who was pregnant with the child of the Master, making Tic have magical blood and the wizards want him for some advanced magic. Tic and his friends manage to escape and spend the next several months entrenched in a magical adventure trying to learn more about his family history, magic, and trying to figure out how to stop the wizard’s plans.

This time, I’m gonna talk about the colorism i found in Lovecraft country and about how different characters were portrayed based on their skin color,

Keep an eye out for the next installment about the weird family relationships in the show and let me know what you thought about the colorism and characterization in Lovecraft country

Now for the review and analysis. Tw for mentions of: rape, body horror, racial violence, and general gore

I believe one of my biggest issues with Lovecraft Country is that the series is so short. There has been a trend recently of having short seasons in a series. Seasons with 12 or less episodes has become more and more the norm, but this presents the creators of shows with an issue. They need to tell a complete story as quickly as possible. The creators of Lovecraft country needed to set up, expand upon, and complete the story of Tic and his learning about magic in 10 episodes.

Because they only had 10 episodes to tell this story that dealt with race, family, the unknown, the past, and the future so much was lost. Character development wasn’t too common, (minor) time skips happened fairly frequently, and the Lovecraftian horror element of the show felt like it was relegated to the background for most of the show. I’m not the biggest horror buff, but I know Lovecraft’s stories were about the horrifyingly unknowable, situations and creatures that defied understanding which left those who experienced them broken. Taking this concept and applying it to the black experience is honestly perfect imo and I would have liked to see it played with more, but the creators of this show seemed to have instead gone for a story about gore and pain and I take major issue with how this pain and gore was portrayed.

This post was sparked by conversations about colorism in Lovecraft Country. Most of the cast is made up of dark-skinned black people, some white people, some asian people, and one significant light-skinned character, Letitia Lewis as played by the incomparable Jurnee Smollett. Letitia is the love interest of Tic, and while the other female characters get their chance to shine, it is very interesting that Letitia never really experiences the same type of gore and pain that the other dark skinned and/or plus sized characters do.

There are three dark skinned women who are side-characters in the show, Ruby Baptiste  (Letitia’s older half sister), Hippolyta Freeman( George’s wife, Tic’s aunt), and Diane “Dee” Freeman (Hippolyta and George’s daughter, Tic’s cousin).

Ruby is a singer who manages to embody the Mammy, Sapphire, and Jezebel stereotypes all at once. She is Letitia’s older sister and is shown to be sensual but serious and is always fighting with Letitia about her relationship with the family and Letitia’s past mistakes. Ruby wants to do better in life, but is held back by racism. When Ruby meets William and Christina (two white wizards trying to use Tic in their magic unbeknownst to Ruby), she agrees to work for them in return for a potion which allows her to shapeshift into a white woman. The first time she shapeshifts is after being drugged by them and she wakes up in the body of an unknown white woman and becomes enamored with the power and ease of life as a white person. The transformation between Hillary (her white persona) and Ruby is always a gore-y and almost painful looking one. Ruby has to literally peel off her skin to become Hillary and vice versa to become herself again, leaving chunks of blood and skin and hair behind whenever she does so, but she takes the potion in order to feel powerful and to have her successes recognized by the wider world. She fights with Letitia a lot, but obviously puts a lot of importance in family, and in the end this gets her killed by Christina, who then transforms into her in order to trick the others.

It’s unclear exactly what Hippolyta does, whether she is a stay at home mom or if she assists George at his car shop/travel magazine business, but it is made abundantly clear how smart and strong this woman is. OMFG Hippolyta is truly everything, but she also faces a lot for seemingly no reason. George dies on the first trip he takes with Tic and Letitia, killed by the white Wizards. Understandably, they lie to her about the cause of his death, but she also doesn’t believe them. So, she sets out to learn the truth, finding magical artifacts in the course of her investigation. At some point, she gets sucked into a space/time machine and sent to a universe where she is turned into part machine?, imprisoned, then sent into a simulation where she is able to experience any and everything she wants. This process is meant to educate her and make her a god, but she decides that she would rather be a mother and wife and goes back to her universe to take care of her daughter Dee. At some point after her return, she needs to use the space/time machine again, but because it was damaged the first time they used it, she has to power it using the technology implanted into her in the other universe, causing her to be electrocuted with Magic.

Now Dee. Poor, Poor Dee. Quick Rundown of events from Dee’s POV. 1. Her dad goes on a trip to save her uncle. Uncle returns, but her dad is dead allegedly because of racial violence. 2. About a month later, her mom goes a bit insane and starts investigating the cause of her dad’s death, in the course of this, she goes missing. 3. After her mom goes missing, her friend goes on a trip and ends up getting killed by racial violence. Her friend is Emmett Till. (side note: I’m so fucking upset that they used Emmett Till like this. The way they hinted at who he was was well done, but completely unnecessary. The story line could’ve been about anyone else, but they had to use Emmett Till. I can’t).

While all this loss and death is going on, there’s racist magical cops (they’re part of the order of wizards trying to use Tic) who start harassing her. The cops want info on her family, but she bravely stands up to them and gets cursed. The curse is of two creatures following her trying to kill her. The creatures come in the form of two racist caricatures based on the character Topsy from Uncle Tom’s Cabin (pictured below)

(image description:

image 1: Topsy from Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a dark skinned little girl in a red dress with her hair in twists and with white bows standing on end on her head

Image 2: two little girls, one dark skinned, one light skinned standing next to each other, dressed like Topsy, but with white dresses and red bows. their lips are open gashes on their faces, twisted into a smile)

These two creatures slowly chase after Dee all the while smiling and playing and dancing, they’re obviously a commentary on the horror of stereotypes and the way they haunt us all (and they make me immmmeennnnselly uncomfortable, holy shit even looking up pictures of them has me on edge. )Eventually, they catch Dee and beat and bite her, causing her to become like them. So, now we have this sweet, traumatized little girl turning into a monstrous, stereotyped version of a black person. The gang rally together to find a way to cure her and manage to do so, but her arm is destroyed in the process, and Hippolyta replaces it with a robotic arm.

These side characters go through absolute hell and also do some things themselves, because it seems like one of the messages in the story was that nobody is perfect/horrible situations for people to do horrible things. In the simulation, Hippolyta engages in war, as revenge for the racism and sexism she and other black women face, Ruby sodomizes a white man with a stiletto high heel shoe, and the final scene of the show has Dee using her robotic arm to choke and kill Christina.

Meanwhile Leti, the one light skinned character, walks away from her experiences relatively unscathed. She almost dies during the initial trip with Tic and George, but is brought back with magic, and Christina pushes her off a tower, but she was protected with magic and walked away perfectly fine in the end. During the show she fights monsters, ghosts, and racist cops, but always comes out fine and is shown to be right in every situation despite being characterized as a bit of a fuck-up. Like, she moves to a white neighborhood with a group of other black people, breaks a bunch of white people’s properties, and is perfectly, she walks out of the show with no significant trauma or pain, in a show all about gore and pain. She also never does anything horrible to others, especially for no reason. I am grateful that at least one character was saved from this, but the fact that it was the one light skinned character, that there was no real character arc or growth for her, that she was always right despite the narrative setting her up to be wrong a lot, it puts the other characters struggles in sharp contrast.

[whetstonefires]

i haven't seen the harley quinn show and don't care to watch it, but i am curious about what it did that was antisemitic. is it a thing that happened in the story or background details or both?

Okay, and keeping in mind I am not in any way an authority on this subject, so first there was an episode where the Penguin is suddenly for some reason Jewish.

This is already not great; there’s been a lot of Discourse about whether (how much) he was negatively Jewish-coded in the film where his rich parents threw him away as an infant for...having too long a nose? And he was raised by...sewer...penguins...shit, I haven’t seen that movie since I was a child. I don’t remember how it goes. I may have to subject myself to it again.

Anyway for the most part, normally, he is not a Jewish character or even Jewish-coded on purpose, he’s just a wretched social climber with a beaky nose that ties into his penguin theme. Originally he was just a guy who wore suits to go with his arsenal of trick umbrellas.

ANYWAY the point is on the Harley show Cobblepot’s nephew (not a person who has ever existed before) was having his Bar Mitzvah and because they are a Family of Criminals who Love Money they had it at a bank, by breaking into the vault, and gave out sacks of stolen cash as party favors.

A lot of people said ‘what the fuck’ and a lot of other people said ‘it’s satire...i think?’ and i said ‘holy shit did they at least acknowledge their main character is Jewish?’ (they had not. dc usually doesn’t.)

So there was controversy about that for a bit, and then the people making the show decided that apparently they’d been too subtle if people couldn’t tell for sure who their money-grubbing bar mitzvah joke was meant to offend, and had an episode heavily featuring two actual Jewish characters, ex-spy dude with lotta prosthetics and the lol punny yiddish-y name of Sy Borg, and his wife. Idk the wife’s name.

They found Harley and her friends paralyzed, mistook them for dead, and decided to cremate them in a pizza oven because it was the cheapest way to dispose of the bodies and they were very stingy. ___*( ￣皿￣)/#____

They had a bit where they dance around singing about bodies in ovens.

The dialogue made a point of tying Sy to joint (minor, relatively speaking, but good as shocking sound bite) US-Israeli war crimes.

Later on in the series the writers apparently decided to acknowledge that Harley is Jewish, and in fact more emphatically Jewish than she’s been written as at other times since her mom is, apparently, often Catholic.

They did this by having her mom say she wanted ‘what any Jewish mother wants,’ for Harley to marry a doctor. Harley points out that she is herself a doctor; her mom doesn’t care; very funny.

Impossible-to-satisfy-Jewish-mother jokes are an old New York staple by way originally of the major Jewish subculture there, and in another context where the creators had some goodwill and credibility to burn this last one might get under the wire as mildly offensive humor that isn’t really hurting anyone, even if it’s not their joke to make and thus in poor taste. Although the way it doubles down on projecting heightened sexism onto the Othered group in a time-honored gentile fashion makes it a pretty nasty example of its type, so maybe not even then.

So yeah, it was a shock-comedy show so they went out of their way to make jokes that were Terrible, and one of the ways they chose to do this was Being Antisemitic. It wasn’t a good look.

If there were any other instances I missed them due to having tuned out in disgust!

[theradioghost]

hey, can i pester you for some podcast recs? something with a good dose of humour and not too many episodes to catch up on. a sprinkle of queer romance would be a nice bonus. my fave so far is tsco starship iris, and i also loved greater boston, wooden overcoats, the bright sessions and caravan. and thanks always for all your great recs! you’ve brought many hours of joy into my life :)

We Fix Space Junk -- Two intergalactic repairpeople -- a knowledgeable cyborg veteran and a former socialite on the run -- travel the universe meeting people and fixing things at the behest of the terrifying intergalactic corporation they’re trying to work off their debts to. Hilarious British sci-fi sitcom featuring Evil Space Capitalism, many many wonderful AI characters, and an absolutely delightful teenage space wasp-human-cow hybrid princess who is probably off accomplishing her grandiose special destiny somewhere offscreen while the main characters deal with things like their bosses possibly trying to kill them (again).

Death by Dying -- People have a tendency to die in odd ways in the small town of Crestfall, Idaho. Luckily the town also has an Obituary Writer, an eccentric and nameless but impeccably stylish fellow whose closest friend is the Angel of Death, and who has a knack for solving murders even though that’s definitely not his job description. Throw in walrus haikus, extremely rude ravens, Something Mysterious And Malevolent Lurking In The Dark Woods Outside Of Town, disappearing childhood homes, silent nuns, ghost bicycles, and three man-eating cats, and you get something like a delightful cross between Wooden Overcoats and Lemony Snicket. (Also, OW is peak Canonically Bisexual Dumbass.)

Less is Morgue -- Riley is a paranoid, reclusive teenager with a fondness for conspiracy theories who lives in their parents’ basement. They’re also a predatory ghoul who feeds on human flesh. Evelyn is a cheerful, outgoing young woman with questionable tastes in media. She’s also a ghost, ever since she was killed by a falling stage light at a Nickelback concert 16 years ago. And since Riley dug up and ate Evelyn’s corpse, they’re roommates! Will they ever manage to record a coherent episode of their podcast without something going ridiculously wrong and/or Riley eating one of the guests? Probably not!

Victoriocity -- The steampunk buddy-cop comedy-mystery thriller you never knew you needed but definitely do! Featuring Inspector Fleet, a grouchy, extremely driven policeman looking for the murderer of the Empire’s greatest inventor, and Clara Entwhistle, an even more driven and unfailingly upbeat rookie journalist who has just arrived in the island-spanning, bizarre cityscape of alt-history Even Greater London. Come for some of my favorite sarcastic British narration since Adams and Pratchett, stay for characters-are-begrudgingly-forced-to-work-together-until-they-come-to-genuinely-and-deeply-care-about-one-another-as-friends trope. (Also for Tom “Eric Chapman” Crowley as the aforementioned grumpy detective.)

Quid Pro Euro -- From one of the other leads of Wooden Overcoats, this doesn’t have a typical plot as such but has made me laugh so hard I pulled a muscle despite the fact that I know nothing about the EU. Which is what this near-surreal, Look Around You-style comedy is about: Felix Trench’s vision of a simultaneously hilarious and terrifying alternate European Union, seen from the perspective of a serious of educational tapes from the ‘90s predicting what the EU would look like in the 21st century. It’s hard to describe this show in any way that does it justice, but it’s incredibly funny.

Time:Bombs -- A miniseries by the exalted creators of Wolf 359, which (because they are madmen) was written, recorded, and produced in the space of one week. Also, a comedy about an NYC bomb retrieval squad on New Year’s Eve, most of whom are just trying to get through the night while their leader attempts to break a record for most bombs cleared before the calendar ticks over. Chaos and hilarity ensure.

Superstition -- Wisecracking, bi, Jewish, definitely-a-private-eye-just-don’t-check-her-qualifications Jacqueline St. James receives a message from her father, which is weird, because her parents disappeared years ago. Following the trail leads Jack to Superstition, Arizona, a town in the middle of the desert where everyone’s got secrets, assorted ghosts/monsters/cryptids harrass the locals, and the missing persons rate is the highest in the nation. As a protagonist Jack is Looking For Trouble And If She Cannot Find It She Will Create It, so while Superstition isn’t a comedy per se, it’s got a fair share of laughs and is also just so, so excellent in general.

Standard Docking Procedure -- A self-declared hopepunk scifi workplace comedy about the somewhat dysfunctional staff of Pseudopolis Station, effectively a high-tech interstellar truck stop. It’s funny and heartwarming, nothing truly bad happens, and Julia Schifini is there.

Solutions to Problems -- A morally-questionable human named Janet who has defintely never done any illegal time travel and an easygoing, physically indescribably alien who likes to go by Loaf host an intergalactic advice podcast. Are you tired of your species’ insistence on solving everything via ritual combat? Not sure how to talk to your partner about whether body-swapping has a place in your sex life? Dealing with being a superpowered teenager summoned into being by the collective will of an apocalyptic groupthink cult? Janet and Loaf have you covered! Provided that Janet’s on-and-off girlfriend, the AI who supplies the air they breathe, doesn’t kill them all first. Oddly heartfelt comedy in the form of a relationship advice radio show from the Space Future.

Middle:Below -- This show’s tagline is “Remember: bad things WILL happen,” and that is basically a lie. This is actually a short, incredibly heartwarming and frequently funny show about Taylor Quinn, the only human with the ability to pass between the land of the living (aka the Middle) and the land of ghosts (the Below). Meaning, of course, that the dead call on him to fix all their problems, with the help of a girl named Heather, a ghost named Gil, and a cat named Sans. (Also, some of the most comparatively wild live shows I’ve ever heard.)

Inn Between -- Ever wonder what fantasy characters get up to between adventures, during all that time they seem to spend at inns? This show skips all the adventuring, question, and action, instead focusing on the quiet moments between where what is Definitely Not A D&D Party meet and progress from bickering strangers brought together by circumstance to close-knit found family -- all at the inn, of course. (Lots of queer folks in here also, although there’s no romance at least in the first  couple seasons.)

The Godshead Incidental -- A relatively new but very exciting and so far really enjoyable show!! Following a young woman who writes an advice column through her life in a familiar, and yet strange city where anyone might be a minor god -- your editor, your landlord, that weird guy on the street who was shouting about how he’s the God of Memory and you got into a fight with him and now you keep forgetting everything? Also, your apartment is full of pigeons now because you found out the aforementioned landlord is secretly the god of doorknobs and he’s panicking. Good luck! (Starring Ishani Kanetkar, aka Arkady from Starship Iris!)

Gal Pals Present: Overkill -- Madison, a middle schooler at a Girl Scout camp, agrees to play a game with a somewhat tastelessly bright-pink Ouija board. However, Madison doesn’t know that she’s a natural medium, and now sarcastic mid-2000s 19-year-old Aya Velasquez has joined the many ghosts who are for some reason haunting scenic Harding Park. Aya, however, will not rest until she can solve her own murder (and possibly get to know that other ghost girl a bit better, who says romance has to stop when you’re dead?). Absolutely hilarious writing of a narrator who is almost definitely wearing spectral Uggs during the entire show.

Dark Ages -- The Rivercliffe Museum of Mostly Natural History is one of the finest museums anywhere! Or it would be, if anyone ever actually visited it. Or maybe if the staff weren’t a disastrous and dysfunctional collection of criminals, weirdos, wannabe immortals, idiot bisexuals who can’t just admit they like each other, and one extremely uptight elf with no people skills. Also, it would probably help if the legendary and fearsome Dark Lord, finally returned from his millennia of dormancy to complete his prophesied conquest of the world, wasn’t hanging around watching the chaos unfold because they’ve got his crown on display. (Fantasy workplace comedy with a theme song that did not need to go that hard?)

Brimstone Valley Mall -- It’s mid-December 1999, and at one mall in South Central Pennsylvania, a group of demons are going about their evil work -- namely, working at various dinky kiosks and restaurants, hoping of achieving every demon’s dream of getting to work at Hot Topic, trying not to do too much evil because Earth is way more fun than Hell and no one wants to get promoted back home, and preparing for their band's triumphant opening performance at the upcoming Y2K party. Just one problem: their lead singer is missing. Another absolute masterwork from The Whisperforge.

Arden -- 10 years ago, Hollywood starlet Julie Capsom vanished into the woods of northern California, leaving behind a car containing a human torso that may or may not have belonged to one Ralph Montgomery. Now, private eye Brenda Bentley and reporter Bea Casely, both of whom were among the first at the scene and both of whom have their own very strong opinions on the case, are setting out to solve the mystery on their true crime podcast, Arden. Providing, of course, they can stop arguing with each other long enough to solve it. (Or, a not-really-parody-but-definitely-comedy “true crime” podcast where the crime is a retelling of Romeo and Juliet -- and even knowing that, it’s still a genuine mystery with twists and a surprise ending! -- and the hosts are wlw Beatrice and Benedick from Much Ado About Nothing. In other words, it’s perfect. Season 2 is upcoming soon and is adapting Hamlet!!)

Alba Salix/The Axe and Crown -- Another high fantasy workplace sitcom, this one a medical comedy about the titular not-very-personable witch who runs the kingdom’s House of Healing and the various shenanigans she gets into, between her somewhat scatterbrained sister and brother-in-law the king and queen and her assistants, an overly-whimsical fairy and a wannabe monk forced to do community service. The same feed contains The Axe and Crown, a spinoff set in the same world that manages to simultaneously be a sitcom about the staff of a local pub trying to stave off foreclosure and come up with schemes to beat their business rivals, and a heartfelt story about gentrification and recovery starring a gay veteran with PTSD? Which is possibly one of my favorite podcasts? (Also contains one of the most unbelievable crossover cameos possible: Leon Stamatis.)

The Adventures of Sir Rodney the Root -- Also a high fantasy comedy! When a witch transforms heroic Sir Rodney into a small piece of wood, his closest companion Sir Gilbert must set out to cure him by collecting several highly powerful and dangerous relics, accompanied by a snarky dwarfen thief, an imperious princess, a slightly creepy human child raised by fairies, a picky elf sorcerer, a dead unicorn possessed by the ghost of a stoner, and a bard who breaks the fourth wall too much for his own good. So far as I can tell, nobody is straight.

The Amelia Project -- A dark comedy about a secret organization that helps people fake their deaths. Which is honestly a pretty full summary, barring the two important points that 1. this show contains possibly the most continuity-warping crossover event of all time (it’s the center point of this absolutely chaotic diagram), and 2. in one episode Felix Trench plays a character named Bartholomew Fuckface Chucklepants Knucklecracker.

[angst-for-the-angst-queen]

Getting Permission

Jacksepticeye Egos Fanfic

Originally posted on Wattpad on November 27th, 2019.

Summary: Seán McLoughlin has a very special video ready to be posted on Halloween of 2019. Now all he has to do is ask for Jameson Jackson’s permission to post it.

Warning(s): Angst.

Seán sat on his couch, scrolling through Tumblr while anxiously waiting for a sign that someone was at his front door. When he heard the doorbell ring through his home, he called upstairs to Evelien “I’ll get it!” before rushing to open it. After fumbling with the lock for a second, the door swung open to reveal a well dressed man. This man’s appearance would’ve been relatively ordinary if he didn’t look like he was Seán’s identical twin who just stepped out of the 1920s.

“Hey Jameson!” Seán greeted with a nervous smile. JJ replied with a huge grin and wave, followed by a hug.

Seán hesitated for a second before his smile became more genuine, hugging the dapper ego back. “That was a very enthusiastic greeting. Why’s that?” 

Jameson pointed at his mouth, opening and closing it, before gesturing towards himself and Seán. “You’re happy because we’re getting to talk and hang out one on one?” Seán guessed. He had been getting better at understanding Jameson’s movements, but he still had trouble every so often. Jameson nodded happily in confirmation.

“I’ll do my best to find the time to hang out together more,” Seán promised. Jameson beamed before gesturing inside. “Oh, yeah! Come on in!”

Seán stepped out of the doorway and walked inside, Jameson trailing in after him. He sat down on his couch and motioned for his ego to do the same. “Do you want anything to drink?” Jameson shook his head and then tilted his head slightly to the side, waiting for his creator to begin speaking.

“So, I bet you’re wondering why I wanted to talk to you today,” Seán began. Jameson nodded.

“Well, as you know, Halloween is in a few days. Oh, happy early birthday, by the way!” Jameson gave Seán a broad smile before doing a little half bow of gratitude. 

“Marvin’s throwing the party at his house, right?” Jameson hesitated, nodding his head slowly, as if he was unsure of the exact location. “Wherever it is, I’ll be sure to be there. Anyways, you know how I usually do a spooky ego related video for Halloween. There’s one video that’s very important to the plot that I think would make for a good video to post on the thirty-first. You would be the main character but...”

Seán was interrupted by Jameson, whose face lit up with happiness. “Hold on. Before you start celebrating, there’s a catch. A very big catch.” Jameson settled back down and waited patiently. 

Seán hesitated. There was no way to sugar coat his next few words, so he decided to just rip the bandaid off. “The video would end with you as Anti’s puppet.”

He glanced at Jameson to see his reaction. To his credit, he looked thoughtful, his finger tapping on his chin. After a few seconds of that, his face lit up and he pantomimed writing on his hand.

“Oh, you need some paper! I’m sorry, I should have thought of that before.” Seán shot up from his couch and went into the next room, grabbing a pad of paper and a pen before returning to the living room. He handed it to his ego, who began scribbling his thoughts down. After he was done, JJ presented the paper to Seán.

You mean puppet as in temporary control, right? Like what happened to Schneeplestein at the end of “Kill Jacksepticeye” and me at the end of my first video? That’s alright with me, chap!

Seán winced. “No. I mean a legitimate puppet. With strings and everything.” He examined Jameson’s reaction. It was the most serious he had ever seen the dapper ego. JJ was usually very animated and was always either moving his hands or doing some sort of exaggerated facial expression. But now he was just sitting there, eyes vacant, lost in thought.

There was an uncomfortable silence permeating throughout the room. Jameson reached for the notepad and pen he left beside himself on the sofa, hesitated, and then reached out again. The sound of pen scratching on paper reverberated throughout the area and then Jameson presented his paper again.

Do you have to do this video, or is there something else that you could post for Halloween?

Seán sighed. “I probably could film some other video for the thirty-first, there’s other plot points I could use.” He began muttering, more to himself than to his guest. “But I’d have to rewrite large sections of the story, and I don’t know how doable that is...”

More scratching on paper.

Rewrite the story? How much would you have to change?

“A lot. Everyone knows about Anti’s obsession with puppets, that’s such a big part of who he is and how he achieves his goals. You becoming his puppet is a huge catalyst for so many different plot points, and I don’t know how I would get to them otherwise.

“I came up with the idea for this story long before I ever knew that the characters I created could come to life and be impacted by what I came up with. And now all of you are real, and it’s such a huge responsibility. It’s my job to keep all of my egos safe, which is really hard to do when the story that created you all in the first place is also going to hurt you!”

I’ll do it.

The words on the paper didn’t register for a little bit in Seán’s mind. “You’ll what?”

I’ll do it. The video. It’s fine with me.

Seán began shaking his head. “No, you can’t be fine with it, Jameson. I don’t know how it would impact you! It’s been proven that the new videos I put up impact the other egos in real time. Anti, Schneep, and Chase all have more prominent facial hair and brown hair now, much to Anti’s disappointment and disgust. Schneep’s become more tech savvy and Chase has somehow become even more depressed than he already was. But those are just minor changes. We’re talking about possibly turning you into a f***ing puppet!”

Jameson pouted and shook his finger at Seán, who sighed. “No swearing? Fine... You might turn into one of Anti’s hecking Minecrafts in real life!”

Then that’s just a risk I’ll have to take.

Seán stood up abruptly and began pacing around his living room. “You can’t take that risk! Your entire life could be ruined! Your free will could be gone in a split second! And even with all these risks, you still want me to go through with the video?!”

You started up this ego story for your community, to give them interesting characters to fall in love with and hints that they could theorize about. This means that I was created for the community, and I’m not going to get in the way of that. This is my purpose, what I was made to do.

Seán turned away from the paper. “But I can change the story! I can make it so you don’t actually need to suffer!”

Jameson’s eyes narrowed as he wrote furiously on his paper, his handwriting becoming sloppy. What’s so special about me? Isn’t Chase suffering right now because of you?

Seán stopped in his tracks. “That’s different...”

How is that different?! He didn’t choose to be depressed. He didn’t choose to have his wife take the kids. He didn’t choose to have that scar on his temple! That was all you! Why are you giving me a choice and not him?!

“Because it was too late!” Seán blurted out. “All of that happened in his first ever appearance. He didn’t get a choice because I was naive. I thought that it would be fine, that he would be fine. I was wrong, and by the time I realized my mistake, it was too late to save him. But it’s not too late to save you.”

Jameson let out a silent sigh. I still want you to post the video. You’ve been working on this story for years. You’ve known about my existence for two. If you couldn’t think of an alternate storyline in all that time, you never will.

It was quiet while Seán read over this latest paragraph. He opened his mouth to respond but Jameson shook his head, writing more.

I’ve seen it. The fanfiction. About us getting turned into puppets. Most of them are about me. Jameson’s hand trembled, causing the next few sentences to look a bit more messy than his usual neat handwriting permitted. It couldn’t possibly be that bad, could it? I mean, Anti isn’t as nice as some fanfictions portray him to be, but he also isn’t the devil incarnate he is in others. And if anything does go wrong, I still have you and all the other egos.

Seán began giving up on possibly convincing Jameson otherwise. “Jamie…”

Jameson held up his index finger, making the YouTuber pause. Nothing will change my mind. And if you don’t post the video, I’ll go make my own video and post it on the channel. It’s for the good of the community.

Seán sighed defeatedly. “Okay, fine. You win. I’ll post the video. But we need to put a few rules in place and let the other egos know, excluding Anti.” Jameson smiled, bouncing slightly on the couch, though his grin wasn’t as broad as normal.

“Do you want to watch the video? I’ve already filmed it and everything.” Jameson nodded and followed his creator upstairs to his recording office.

This is going to have a second part, so please let me know if you want to be tagged in it when it’s released!

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Michael in the Mainstream: The Chris Columbus Harry Potter Films

Here’s a bold stance to take these days: I actually still really love the Harry Potter franchise.

Yes, this series hasn’t had a huge impact on my own writing; my stories I’m working on draw far more from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure and the Percy Jackson series than they do Harry Potter. And yes, the author of the franchise has outed herself as a transphobic scumbag whose every post-script addition to her franchise has been an unprecedented bad move (save, perhaps, for allowing Johnny Depp the opportunity to work during a very trying time in his life). But while the author is a horrendous person and the story hasn’t exactly given me as much to work with as other stories have, there are so many great themes, ideas, and characters that even now I’d still say this is one of my favorite series of all time. The world of Harry Potter is just so fascinating, the usage of folklore is interesting, and it has one of the most menacing and disturbing villains in young adult literature and manages to play the whole “love prevails over evil” cliché in such a way that it actually works.

And, of course, then we get into what I’m really here to talk about: the adaptations. The movies are not entirely better than the books; while I do think most of the films are on par with their novel counterparts, and they certainly do a good job of scrubbing out some of the iffier elements in Rowling’s writing, I still think there’s a certain, ahem, magic that the books have that gives them a slight edge. But, look, I’m a movie reviewer, and these films are some of my favorites of all time, and as much as I love the books I’m not going to sit around and say the books surpass them in every single way. There’s a lot to love in these films, and hopefully I’ll be able to convey that as I review the series.

Of course, the only place to truly start is the Chris Columbus duology. Columbus is not the most impressive director out there – this is the man who gave us Rent, Pixels, and that abominable adaptation of Percy Jackson after all – but early on in his career he made a name for himself directing whimsical classics such as the first two Home Alone movies and Mrs. Doubtfire. Those films are wonderfully cast and have a lot of charm, and thankfully this is the Columbus we got to bring us the first two entries in Harry’s story. 

One of the greatest strengths of the first two Harry Potter movies is just the sheer, unrelenting magic and wonder they invoke. They’re so whimsical, so enchanting, so fun; they fully suck you into the world Rowling created and utilize every tool they can to keep you believing. Everything in these films serves to heighten the magic; practical effects and CGI come together with fantastic costuming and set design to make the world of wizards and Hogwarts school feel oh so real. And of course, none of this would be even remotely as effective if not for the legendary score by John Williams, who crafted some of the most iconic and memorable compositions of the 21st century for these films. In short: the tone of these films is pretty perfect for what they are, and every element in them works to make sure you are buying into this tone at every moment.

The other massively important element is the casting, and by god, the casting in these films is simply perfect. Of course, the title characters and his peers have to be unknowns, and thankfully they managed to pluck out some brilliant talent. I don’t need to tell you how good Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson are, even back in these films, but I do feel the need to say that Rupert Grint is vastly underappreciated; I really don’t think the films would work quite as well without his presence, because he does bring that goofy charm Harry’s friend group needs to balance it out. Matthew Lewis is the adorable coward Neville Longbottom and Tom Felton is the snotty brat Draco Malfoy, and though both of their roles are fairly minor in the first two films they manage to make their mark. The second movie pulls in Bonnie Wright as Ginny, and again, I’m gonna say she’s rather underrated; I think she did quite a fine job in her role.

But of course, the real draw of these films is the sheer amount of star power they have in terms of U.K.  actors. You’ve got Maggie Smith (McGonagall), Robbie Coltrane (Hagrid), Warwick Davis (Flitwick and, bafflingly, only the voice of Griphook, who was played by the American Verne Troyer in the first film for… some reason), John Hurt (Ollivander), Toby Jones (Dobby), John Cleese (Nearly Headless Nick)… and this is only the first two films. The movies would continue pulling in stars like it was Smash Ultimate, determined to tell you that “EVERYONE IS HERE” and be the ultimate culmination of U.K. culture.

Of course, even in the first few movies there are those who truly stand out as perfect. Smith and Coltrane are most certainly the perfect embodiment of their characters, but I think a great deal of praise should be given to Richard Griffiths as Uncle Vernon; the man is a volatile, raging bastard the likes of which you rarely see, and he is at once repulsive and comical. He’s pretty much the British answer to J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson. Then we have Jason Isaacs as Lucius Malfoy in the second film, and he is just delightfully, deliciously devilish and dastardly. Isaacs actually came up with a lot of Mr. Malfoy’s quirks himself, such as the long blonde hair, the cane wand, and the part where he tries to murder a small child in cold blood for releasing his house elf (which came about because he forgot literally every other spell and had just read Goblet of Fire, so...). Then of course there is Kenneth Branagh as Gilderoy Lockhart, and… well, it’s Kenneth Branagh as Gilderoy Lockhart. I don’t think you could find a more perfect casting choice (except perhaps Hugh Grant, who was originally cast but had to drop out). He just really hams it up as the obnoxious blowhard and helps make him much more tolerable than his book counterpart, though he does unfortunately have the lack of plot relevance Lockhart did in the book, which is a problem unique to Lockhart. Fun fact, he is the ONLY Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher in the series to not ultimately matter in regards to the main story.

Of course, the greatest casting choice of them all is most certainly The late, great Alan Rickman as everyone’s favorite greasy potions professor, Severus Snape. I think Rickman goes a long way towards helping make Snape one of the greatest characters of all time, with everything about his performance just being perfect, and what makes it even better is how it would ultimately subvert his typical roles (though that’s a story for a different review). I don’t think either of the first films is really his best outing, butt he first one definitely sets him up splendidly. Snape barely has a role in the second film – something that greatly irritated Rickman during the movie’s production apparently – but he still does a good job with what limited screentime he has. Then we have Richard Harris as Dumbledore. Due to his untimely death, he only played Dumbledore in the first two films, but he really did give a wonderful performance that had all the charm, whimsy, and wonder the Dumbledore of the first few books was full of. The thing is, I don’t know if he would have been able to make the transition into the more serious and darker aspects of Dumbledore that popped up in the later books. I guess we’ll never know, which is truly a shame, but at the very least he gave us a good showing with what little time he had.

My only problems with the first two films are extremely minor, though there is at least one somewhat big issue I have. You see, while I do like everything about these films, I feel like they’re a bit too loyal to the books, not doing enough to distinguish themselves as their own thing like films such as Prisoner of Azkaban would do. But if I’m being honest, this is seriously nitpicky; it’s not like this really makes me think less of the films, because they have way more going for than against them. Stuff like this and the cornier early performances from the kid actors are to be expected when a franchise is still finding its legs. It really is more of a personal thing for me; I prefer when creators allow their own vision to affect an adaptation so that I can see how they perceive and interpret the work, but at the same time the first two Harry Potter books are all about setting up and the main plot doesn’t really kick off until the third and fourth books, so… I guess everything balances out?

It is a bit odd looking back at these first two films and noting how relatively self-contained they are compared to the denser films that were to come; you could much more easily jump into either one of these films and really get what’s going on compared to later movies, where you would almost definitely be lost if you tried to leap in without an inkling of the plot. But that is something I do like, since the first two films have really strong plots that focus more on the magical worldbuilding and developing the characters, setting up an incredibly strong foundation for the series to come. There are a few trims of the plot here and there, but it’s not nearly as major as some things that would end up cut later.

But, really, what’s there to cut? Like I said, these movies are more about the worldbuilding and setting up for later plotlines. They’re relatively simple stories here, and I think that’s kind of their big strengths, because it lets the characters and world shine through. The first film honestly is just Harry experiencing the wizarding world for the first time, with him going from scene to scene and just taking in all of the magical sights. Most of the big plot stuff really happens towards the end, when they make the journey down to the Philosopher’s Stone. The second movie is where things get a lot more plot-heavy, with the film focusing on the mystery of the Chamber of Secrets and all of the troubles that the basilisk within causes. Despite how grim the stories can get, especially the second one, these films never really lose that whimsical, adventurous tone, which is incredibly impressive all things considered.

It’s not really criticisms, but there are a few things that make me a bit sad didn’t happen in the first couple of films, or at the very least offer up some interesting “what could have been” scenarios. I think the most notable missed opportunity is the decision to axe Peeves, despite him being planned and having Rik Mayall film scenes with him only to have said scenes left on the cutting room floor, never to see the light of day; Mayall had some rather colorful words to say about the film after it came out. Sean Connery passing up on playing Dumbledore is another missed opportunity, but Connery has always been awful at picking roles and hates fantasy, so this isn’t shocking to me in the slightest. Terry Gilliam being straight-up told by Rowling she didn’t want him directing is another sad but necessary decision, as was Spielberg dropping out; neither guy would have been a very good fit for the franchise, honestly. Alan Cumming turning down the role of Lockhart because Grint and Watson were going to be paid more than him is a bit… lame, but also I don’t think he’d have been as good as Branagh in the role; as much as I love Cumming, Branagh has this grandiose stage actor hamminess that Lockhart desperately needs. There’s a lot of fascinating trivia facts I learned writing this review, and a lot of it paints some pretty weird pictures of how this franchise could have turned out in another world.

Chamber of Secrets and Sorcerer's Stone are both absolutely fantastic, whimsical fantasy movies, and I’d definitely recommend both of them to anyone who likes the fantasy genre. It’s a great jumping off point for younger people who may not be able to handle something as intense or heavy as, say, The Lord of the Rings making it a very useful gateway drug into fantasy, though it still manages to work perfectly as fun, engaging fantasy on its own. I’m personally more of a fan of the third and eighth movies but I can definitely hear arguments for either of these two being someone’s favorites or even the best in the franchise, because they invoke a lot of nostalgia and charm just thinking about them, good memories of seeing them with my family when I was a kid.

Some have come to view Chamber of Secrets less positively over the years, seeing it as an awkward transitional phase between the lighter, more whimsical adventures and the darker plot-driven ones, but honestly, Between the Columbus films, Chamber is definitely the superior one. It takes everything that was great about the first film and builds on it, and also gives us Lucius Malfoy, Dobby, Gilderoy Lockhart, and way better special effects and a more consistent narrative. The first film is still a classic, of course, but it’s almost episodic in nature and a lot more focused on showing Hogwarts to us than delivering a story. Still, it definitely has the plus of having way more Snape than the second film did, and there’s no arguments against that from me! Both films are very good at what they do, and both definitely deserve a watch.

[doktorpeace]

I respect you and your right to have opinions, but also fuck you, Xenoblade 2 is good

I’d rather not spend any time discussing the minor up sides of a Singleplayer Offline Only RPG that has a fucking Gachapon mechanic built in. A Gachapon mechanic that’s a soft buffer for combat progression and also is used to completely remove organic rewards and genuine player experiences based on  exploration compared to 1 and X. Meanwhile it tells a story that is just a stock standard shonen anime plot while sprinkling elements in from a story that desperately wants to be a harem anime but is stuck being in a relatively mainline AAA game instead of some game nobody’s heard of on PSVita or whatever.  Yeah I sure do love going from the themes, environments, and characters of Xenoblade 1 and X which are well written and delivered, if not over the time from time to time, to a game with such classic moments as “Mythra sleepwalked into Rex’s bed haha, I wonder what wacky hijinks will happen now ;)” “Nia randomly falls in love with Rex for no reason and then demoting herself from party member to literally a tool for him to use” and who could forget “ “The Child Robot gets forced into a nearly naked adult styled body with huge tits by her incel creator who all game has forced her to call him master and wear maid outfits.” The game literally never fucking explains shit. It sets up things like the conflict between Uraya and Mor Ardain and then just fucking completely abandons it. Mythra and Malos just have orbital destruction lasers they’re tied to for no fucking reason with no explanation ever. Jin pulls the line “This ability lets me move faster than the speed of light” out of fucking nowhere and it’s meant to be taken seriously. It then bullshits in a fucking 30 minute exposition dump at the end how it’s somehow connected to Xenoblade Chronicles 1 by Fucking Retconning It in a way that has no buildup whatsoever and doesn’t fucking make sense. It constantly tries to string you along by simply leaving out details so you hope it gets explained or resolved later but they never fucking do! They just get dropped or resolved in a flaccid, meaningless way! Jin, the ONLY villain in the game worth anything in terms of intrigue dies unceremoniously with his motive and story largely unexplored and unexplained when Lora dies offscreen in an explosion. Sure makes me want to play Torna, The Golden Country, knowing that it’s just going to lead to that ultimately huh!? Not to mention all the times it just pulls beats or ideas from either previous game without understanding what made it work. You start in a semi-secluded area, go on a job where then something Bad Happens but this time the main character almost dies instead of a girl, then go to big fucking grassland and then go to a fucking swamp that glows at night. Then you go to the only actually unique environment concept in the game with Mor Ardain and wow! That area is actually fun and memorable and I like Mòrag Ladair and Brighid they deserved to be in a good game! Then you go to a series of floating islands and then you go to a Cold Place That’s Really Vertically Built And Has Ruins In It! LIKE XENOBLADE 1 GUYS, REMEMBER THAT GAME!? “Mythra can see the future a little bit” *nudge nudge* Just like Xenoblade 1 remember! Remember that game!? “Malos has the Monado in these two fights for no reason.” GET IT, JUST LIKE XENOBLADE 1 REMEMBER!? THE ARCHITECT IS KLAUS, YOU KNOW, THE GUY FROM FUCKING XENOBLADE 1, REMEMBER!?!?!? The scene where Vandham dies is so fucking forced. I had had my misgivings before this but was still hoping it would improve but then I got to this scene and knew the rest of the game would just be Like This. Both Mythra AND Nia could have just fucking done something to prevent it. Nia is at least given a LITTLE BIT of a reason to not have (even though she IMMEDIATELY AFTER THIS REVEALS HER FUCKING SECRET TO EVERYONE BUT REX NULLIFYING THAT REASON) but Mythra sure fucking don’t have one. Oh and speaking of Vandham this game goes out of its way to stop literally every fucking story important boss and tell you Why You’re Actually Losing This Fight midway through even if you’re busting their fucking ass. Anytime a boss fight gets interrupted by a cutscene in Xenoblade 1 the boss either Escapes or Fucking Dies except for Dickson. Dickson is the ONLY ONE where that isn’t what happens so it at least feels SOMEWHAT earned. If the game wants you to lose a fight for story purposes it actually supplies a mechanical reason to the gameplay so you, the player, can feel the powerlessness that the characters do in that moment! I have never in my LIFE, hope against hope, wanted to enjoy a game more than I did with Xenoblade 2. It was meant to be a sequel to a game that I could easily put in my top 3 of all time, any day of the week, so I wanted to fucking like it even if the early trailers and art style had me worried! I tried so fucking hard, I ended up doing most of the game’s content and beat all the superbosses and shit trying to ultimately come out with a positive view on it and I fucking couldn’t! NEVER has a game or piece of media disappointed me in the way Xenoblade 2 did by simply being a bad fucking experience that has no business associating with its alleged IP. It is so severely different from not only the other to -Blade games but from the entire Xeno- franchise that it boggles my fucking mind that it’s even considered apart of the same greater IP. Ask any of my friends, I play video games to have fun. I love diving deeper into their themes and discussing the comparative merits of different entries. I make it a point to try and enjoy games for what they bring to the table, even pretty mediocre games I can sit down with and have some fun by learning more about its mechanics and just having a nice little time! But not this fucking game! Not fucking Xenoblade 2. 

And, I know this was a long post. I know it was and I know it’s scathing because after a few years I still can’t let this shit go. But I’m not trying to make it so you, anon, or anyone else who likes this game, feels like they are obliged to agree with me or not like the game. I don’t want to take away what good experiences others have had with it but I do think it’s completely fair for me to be able to express the experiences and feelings I had and have kept with me after playing it. Have your fun, that’s fine, I won’t and don’t want to stop you. But in the same way I despise this game and I’m not gonna shy away from saying so.

[amillioninprizes]

An entirely too long post on how to fix Veronica Mars

So, anyone who has followed this blog for any length of time knows: 1) What a massive Veronica Mars fan I was and 2) how distraught I’ve been over the most recent season that debuted on Hulu in July. I’ve been pretty angry about it since it dropped, but the first month after I was pretty occupied with real life stuff. Now that I’m more settled, I’ve found myself getting sadder and angrier over time with just how terrible S4 was and what an obvious fuck you to longtime fans it was. It feels dumb to be so upset over a tv show, but this show got me through a lot over the past 8 years, and I feel like it’s been taken away from me.

 It’s anyone’s guess as to whether there will be a new season. Ideally it would end here with maybe an alternate ending filmed to avoid alienating fans further. On the one hand, the botched release, overwhelmingly negative response, and silence from the creators after initial interviews don’t look good for renewal chances. On the other hand, Hulu doesn’t have a lot of streaming hits, it probably did relatively decent numbers, and there are rumors floating around that its pickup chances look good. On a personal level, I hate the idea that this is where the legacy of Veronica Mars ends, while at the same time being extremely wary of what the creators have planned. I think a big part of the disappointment with S4 was that the movie and books set up what could have been some really interesting storylines and situations, all of which RT and co. squandered for cheap drama and to apparently turn the show into an entirely new vehicle; additionally I had hope that S4 would be a chance to rectify some problems the show has long had, but again, S4 exacerbated them. At this point I don’t expect anyone higher up in the creative process or at Hulu to give a fuck about the fans or making the show better as long as they hit streaming targets, but here are some suggestions:

Fire Rob Thomas

 While he created the show, it’s become clear that not only has he lost touch with the audience and the original spirit of the character, he doesn’t seem too keen on putting much effort into writing the show (as I will discuss below). Then you have his clear misogyny: his views that women in relationships can’t be interesting, that what makes Veronica interesting as a character is her trauma and how much she can endure, and the fact that basically every female character in the history of the show has a history of sexual victimization. He thought that making the Mexican cartel hitmen “philosophical” was subverting expectations (which says a lot of what his expectations of Latinx characters are). Then this is the way he essentially exploited his long term fan base to earn a new season of the show, only to turn around and tell us that we don’t matter. From a business perspective alone keeping him doesn’t make sense; selling a streaming platform on your loyal fanbase and then proceeding to purposefully piss ~80% of them off would be pretty questionable to me as someone in charge. The sheer cruelty with which he treated not only the fans who have supported him for 15 years (I fucking used to liveblog iZombie y’all. iZombie!), as well as how he callously dismissed long time cast members in favor of celebrity guest stars should not be rewarded. He’s admitted in interviews that he would be ok with younger writers doing a reboot many years in the future; why not just let him have a producer credit and then hand the show over to someone who’s invested in making it good?

Put a woman in charge and diversify the writing staff

A big problem with a) Veronica’s characterization in S4 b) RT’s ideas about what makes female characters interesting c) the show’s long history of problematic treatment of sexual assault is that it comes from a man’s conception of the female experience. The Veronica showcased in S4 and that RT wants to write in the future is very much a male fantasy: hates marriage and children, traumatized, DTF, and is too cool for other women. RT stated in interviews that he wanted to show Veronica at a “crossroads” this season in a way he claimed had been shown for men but not women; many female viewers found this depiction to ring false (few women are spending their time fretting about how committing to marriage after five years in an established relationship will bar us from strange sex going forward). In addition to having RT at the helm, most of the show’s writing staff for the majority of its run has been white dudes, which doesn’t bode well for telling the story of a female PI in a diverse community in today’s political climate. Putting a woman in charge would hopefully help rectify these issues to make the character feel more true to life and put a damper on the misogynistic storytelling. The show has a natural candidate in RT’s second-in-command Diane Ruggiero-Wright (despite her problematic history, never forget #KeisterEggGate), who has admitted to not being able to watch the last episode. Jennifer Graham, who wrote both of the books, would also be a worthy addition to the writing staff; while the books had a mixed reception, most fans agree that she got Veronica’s character right. And with the show’s problematic historical treatment of minority characters, adding more POC writers going forward is also necessary.

Bring back Logan (alive)

You don’t have to be a LoVe shipper to recognize just how integral Logan has been since the inception of the show, not just as Veronica’s partner but as a character is his own right. Logan’s journey in many ways parallels Veronica’s, and shows a contrast in how different characters respond to similar trauma. The most critical plot line in the show’s history, the mystery of who killed Lilly Kane, simply doesn’t work without Logan’s importance to Veronica. RT and his defenders like to claim that Logan was holding her back from true growth, which is frankly bizarre as he is the only character to consistently challenge her, like when he tells her that she obviously isn’t happy this season. Additionally, Logan’s scenes this season were the lone highlight of what was otherwise a painful slog of a season. Of the people who have said they would watch a potential S5, a good portion are only interested because they believe that the ambiguity of the last 10 minutes of the season means he’s not really dead (despite what RT has said in interviews). Then there’s what Logan’s death does to Veronica’s character, effectively cutting off what would have been an interesting character arc and stagnating her forever. No matter how much they try to shove Leo the pedo creep and other milquetoast RT self-insert love interests on us, no one else can possible measure up to Logan’s level in terms of being able to match Veronica as a character, intellectually or as a result of shared history.

Plus, the fact that we haven’t had a Weevil/Logan interaction since S3 is a goddamn travesty and should be rectified immediately.

Bring back Veronica

As sad as I am about Logan’s death, for me the most upsetting aspect of S4 was the assassination of Veronica’s character. For many viewers (including myself), the character we saw Kristen Bell portray in S4 wasn’t Veronica Mars but a different character with the same name. Between her abusive behavior towards Logan, her general indifference to her father’s medical condition, her dismissal of Wallace, and her racism towards Latinx characters (using a kid’s lawyer to threaten deportation: not a good look!), she was lacking the marshmallow-y center that always balanced out the pricklier aspects of her character and made her compelling. This change in characterization was especially jarring given that she was not this way when we last saw her in the books, where she mused about having children and sent her half-brother Hunter to summer camp (side note, but does he even exist anymore?). Many of us who had grown up with Veronica were hoping to see her grow with us as a character; instead we got an extreme regression lower than we’ve ever seen her. It would be one thing if they were trying to depict a PTSD storyline, which would make sense given her background, but since her change in behavior is never addressed by the narrative, it just makes her look like a cruel asshole and makes it impossible to root for her. This is exacerbated by the fact that RT has made it clear he has no interest in portraying her inner life, as shown by his wanting to avoid showing her grief over Logan’s death because it would be a real downer compared to the entertaining but ultimately hollow banter and quips he wants to focus on. Veronica this season was also just plain dumb: you mean to tell me that the girl who nearly got killed by Aaron Echolls in her back seat wouldn’t think to check her backseat every time she gets in a car?  (And let’s not even start with RT’s bizarre assertion in an interview that she apparently votes Republican). Not helping matters was Kristen Bell’s performance, which felt very flat for me this season compared to S1-3 and the movie; I don’t know if this was due to personal limitations or a reflection of the bad writing. Writers of future installments and KB herself would be wise to revisit S1, the movie, and the books to figure out what makes sense for Veronica’s character, leading me to my next point:

Get reacquainted with canon, develop a show bible, and hire a continuity director

This show has long had a problem with dropped plots, timelines, and continuity issues. Shelly Pomroy’s party has two happened either in the summer, or the fall. Then we have the movie paradox: Veronica graduated high school in 2006, which means her 10 year reunion should have taken place in 2016. The movie was released in 2014 and the books seem to keep to 2014 dates. Then S4 states that Keith’s movie accident took place in 2013, and mysteriously ages Veronica up to 35 when she should be 32 in 2019. Logan mentions an Aunt Naomi in S4--why didn’t she take care of him after Aaron was arrested (and what happened to Trina)? How the hell is Leo working as an FBI agent when he presided over the disappearance of the Lilly/Aaron tapes? Veronica is shown to be tentatively forgiving of Weevil taking the settlement from the sheriff’s department in Mr. Kiss and Tell, but is then shown to be extremely angry towards him for it in S4. This is just a small selection of the inconsistencies within the show. Plus there is the problem of repeated plot lines: Veronica rejects Leo in favor of Logan in S1, then rejects Leo in favor of Logan in Mr. Kiss and Tell, only for her to...reject Leo in favor of Logan in S4 (and RT says he wants to leave the high school plots behind). This sloppiness doesn’t bode well for a series that is supposed to be about mysteries, which require tight plotting. It would behove TPTB going forward to once and for all determine a timeline of Veronica’s life, keep a detailed record of past plot and character points, and have at least one person on staff who thinks to remember this stuff (RT notoriously has only a “solid, not spectacular” memory of the show, no matter what Kareem Abdul-Jabbar says).

Make an effort (and do your fucking research) 

Moving on from continuity issues to more general problems with the laziness of RT’s writing. He has basically admitted that he doesn’t care much about facts or characterization when writing plots--he shoehorns details to fit the plot rather than have it evolve organically from the characters and prior canon. I know that when writing it’s often impossible to make every story detail 100% accurate, but the extent of RT’s sloppiness is alarming. This excellent Reddit thread details a lot of the problems with S4 in particular, but this has been a problem since S2. Did anyone ever understand exactly why the Fitzpatricks were invested in framing Logan for Felix’s death? In the movie, it makes no sense that if Cobb and co. wanted Carrie silenced, they would add the complication of framing Logan for her murder--given her history, it would have been a lot easier just to make it look like she had accidentally overdosed. Given his previous patterns of villain writing fans were able to guess the identity of the S4 bomber based on casting alone. The mysteries in both Mr. Kiss and Tell and S4 are both ripped from the headlines, which indicates that RT wants to turn VM into the next Law and Order. Meanwhile, he complained about how hard including Logan in the story in S4 was, while Logan arguably had the best lines and most interesting scenes this season--apparently when you put an effort into things, they work out! This laziness extends past storyline issues and into factual problems that detract from the quality of the plot. Longtime fandom pals are probably tired about hearing me go on and on about how there’s no way Aaron’s lawyers could have gotten Veronica’s medical records due to HIPAA laws. Logan’s career change from naval aviator to intelligence is highly unlikely (and unnecessary, given that they changed it only to fridge him at the end of the season). Meanwhile, I know fanfic writers who have spent hours on the phone with strangers in order to research what type of firearm would cause a specific type of bullet injury. It’s very puzzling to me that RT wants to take the show in the direction of being mystery-only when apart from that one time he is piss poor at writing mysteries and puts no effort into them. I shouldn’t have to tell television writers to, you know, do their job but this is what we’ve come to in 2019.

Know your audience

A majorly annoying thing about the promo for this season is how in every single interview Rob Thomas did he was always talking about how he wanted VM to be like other shows and movies: Fargo, True Detective, Game of Thrones, Chinatown (which is apparently the only noir movie he’s ever seen). The thing is, if I wanted to watch those shows, I would; I watched Veronica Mars specifically because I enjoyed its unique qualities, and I would say most fans agree. The general perception within the fandom is that with this season Rob Thomas seems to have been aiming to dump the old, majority female, CW fanbase in order to achieve what he perceives as a cooler prestigious male fanbase; the issue is, new people aren’t going to take up a show in its fourth season if they didn’t watch or didn’t like earlier seasons. Also, trying to write a prestigious show doesn’t make your show prestigious. Considering that based on anecdotal evidence most of the people who like S4 seem to be male, he may have succeeded in the first part of his aim. However, this majority female fanbase he was so willing to cast aside are the ones who have run fansites and rewatches during fallow times (i.e. between S3 and the movie and then between the books and S4), so drumming up interest among fans (and therefore streaming views) in the future may be a challenge. Plus, women are a better advertising demographic since they are more likely to be in charge of household purchasing decisions, so maintaining us as a fanbase makes business sense as well. He may have tricked enough people into watching S4 that S5 is given a go, but I wouldn’t be surprised if streams are weak beyond that. If the show is to succeed as a commercial endeavor, better to go with appealing to a known quantity than trying to make a generic show that very few people have expressed interest in watching.

Bring back the mystery of the week

This is a more minor thing I felt was missing from S4. I think after the criticism of S3 not having a season-long arc RT overcorrected in focusing on one mystery. However, the mystery of the week had the following benefits: 1) giving chances for the characters to interact and telling us more about them 2) helping to modulate the pace of the season-long arc. With better writing a season-long standalone mystery could maybe work, but in the case of S4 specifically the mystery was kind of dull and repetitive and could have stood to include a couple of diversions in the form of a smaller case here and there.

Re-evaluate the creators’ interpretation of the word “adult”

Much of the promo and reviews for this season noted the more “adult” content to be expected this season now that Veronica’s grown. Many fans hoped that meant seeing Veronica act like, you know, an adult with adult problems rather than a teenager less mature than the actual teenager she was. Unfortunately, the show’s interpretation of the word seems to be more in keeping with a television rating sense of the word--meaning sex, drugs, and gratuitous violence (But apparently not the word “fuck.”). Look, it was expected that as the show moved to a streaming service and given the overall dramatic scope that there would be an upgrade in some of this sort of content (and I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t looking forward to steamier LoVe moments, which were sorely overpromised), but the way it was included this season felt like RT and co. included this stuff just because they could and not to serve the storyline. For me, personally, the biggest example of this was Veronica’s drug use, which I know didn’t necessarily bother everyone. Given her history as the daughter of an alcoholic as well as someone who had been the victim of two roofie attacks, not to mention the fact that her character never seemed to be into partying, I found it very out of character (and book writer Jennifer Graham agrees). It felt like RT included this just bc they thought it would be funny to see Veronica on drugs without considering whether it made sense for her character. Also, were the beheadings strictly necessary? Plus there’s RT’s little temper tantrum over not being able to use curse words this season--they weren’t present in the original show, no one was going to miss them now, and the “cuss” thing was just annoying and reminiscent of The Good Place. 

Dealing with a parent who maybe has dementia--that’s an adult storyline. Too bad RT ended it with a dumb excuse about “mixing meds” (another factual error! Pharmacy software would have caught it!) rather than actually exploring what it would mean for Veronica to see her father in decline and take over the family business (and give Rico Colantoni the exit he appears to want). This is the kind of adult content I would hope to see in future seasons.

Adult is not a synonym for “unrelentingly bleak” either. The original show, while dark, always had an element of hope that was completely removed from S4 (no matter what KB might claim). And would it have killed the writers to show Veronica wearing disguises and going undercover like she used to? There was nothing fun about this season (and no, I don’t count the multiple partying scenes as fun, more like sad).

Kill your darlings

It’s cliche, but it’s true. Another issue the show has long had is the writers keeping around characters or inserting jokes and references for their own personal amusement rather than for the story. The most notable example of this is the continued presence of Dick, a highly problematic character considering he pushed Beaver into the room with Veronica the night of Shelly Pomroy’s party, among a whole host of other racist, sexist, and generally obnoxious actions over the years. But because Ryan Hansen is so widely beloved among the cast and crew, so he stays. Then there’s the matter of the infamous Keister egg in 3x08, which the writers and KB have all expressed love for, despite the fact that said Keister egg is an example of sexual assault--which, even if the victim is a douchey fraternity president, is never funny. 

Also the constant Big Lebowski references are tiring. Watch a new movie.

Improve Neptune’s gender ratio

Veronica Mars, despite having a female lead, has always been a male-dominated show; other than Veronica herself, the only consistent female character over the original show was Mac (and she didn’t even come back this season). This is unacceptable in 2019, for any show. The books introduced promising female characters in the form of Marcia Langdon and Petra Landros, but Marcia’s character was was watered down for S4 and Petra was nowhere to be found. Additionally, Veronica and Mac have always been written as “cool girls” who looked down on other women for their femininity, which isn’t a great message. Almost every other female character, even the innocuous Parker, is portrayed as somehow bad or incompetent. I would love nothing more than a season centered on the women of Neptune and their interactions with each other. While we’re at it, stop giving every woman on this show a background of sexual victimization.

Treat VM as an ensemble show, not a Kristen Bell vanity project 

A major complaint from Burnt Marshmallows and S4 defenders alike was how little time was given over to the original core cast this season. While Veronica may be the protagonist, a large part of how the show became so beloved was her relationships with the other characters. Yet RT has decided that going forward VM will be a KB solo project, with her traveling town to town quipping and sleeping with strangers. This seems strange, given Kristen’s recent interviews talking about how difficult it is to shoot VM and how she never wants to be first on a call sheet ever again, not to mention how she asked for less screen time all the way back in S2, which resulted in the Weevil-Logan storyline, which was way more interesting than Veronica’s storylines during the first half of that season. (The traveling detective thing also seems weird considering that KB is pretty insistent on shooting in LA to be near her family.) Additionally, if this is truly the last season of VM with all the original characters, then no one got a proper sendoff. 

I’m not sure how willing much of the cast will be to return for future iterations, given how uncomfortable many of them seemed during promo as well RT and KB’s treatment of them (insensitive at best, deliberately mean at worst) this season (shout out to Tina Majorino for recognizing what a shit show this was going to be), but bringing back all the original characters into the fold and giving them significant storylines would go a long way to mending fences with fans, improving the show from a character arc perspective, and would also give KB the break she apparently wants. 

Recourt the fanbase

What has VM always been renowned for above all else? It’s incredibly loyal fandom which not only got it renewed twice during its original run but also put up their own money to get the movie made--I know many people who donated when they really couldn’t afford to. RT basically owes the last 6 years of his career to VM fans--the success of the Kickstarter arguably got him the iZombie show running gig, and the fourth season likely wouldn’t have even happened if not for it. Thus, the blatant cruelty and disregard with which RT and KB have treated fans during the promotion of S4 has been incredibly insulting and hurtful; I still can’t fathom what in the world possessed RT to think that throwing away this 15-year relationship was a good idea. It’s not a good sign when the 2 fansites most active during the post-movie period (VMHQ and VM Confessions) cease operations in the wake of S4, and when at least 3 out of 8 board members of the oldest running fan group, Neptune Rising (who were dormant during the post-movie period but played a critical role during earlier fan campaigns and in the S4 promo) resign. A fandom this loyal that was betrayed will not stand idly by if the S5 RT wants to make goes ahead; given the number of tweets the official Hulu VM account has had to delete in the wake of S4 due to the overwhelmingly negative response as well as the controversy over editing out Logan from S4 promos, I imagine that S5 will be a PR nightmare. Even if future seasons are amazing the trust can probably never be fully repaired, but it would be helpful for RT (or fingers crossed, a new show runner) and KB (as star and EP) to go overboard in reaching out to fans and at least admitting they made a misstep with the entirety of S4. Back in the day, the old Mars Investigation fansite was invited to set to conduct interviews; maybe do that again. Also someone should get KB some sort of VM fandom-fluent media trainer because I don’t think she has conducted a single interview during her entire stint on the show that didn’t anger fans (it might help if she actually bothered to watch the show).

Map out an endgame

Look, this can’t go on forever. As long as RT keeps leaving every installment open ended with the hopes of maybe getting renewed again five years down the line, the story is going to keep running into the issues the movie and S4 faced with having to shoehorn the characters into nonsensical plot lines to reconcile those endings and deal with actor availability issues. Either plot another 2-3 seasons to wrap the show up with a satisfying conclusion, or map out a greater timeline of Veronica’s life with spots where a mini series or movie here and there could fit in.

[aion-rsa]

House of Dark Shadows: The Craziest Vampire Movie You’ve Never Seen

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This article contains House of Dark Shadows spoilers.

In 1970 House of Dark Shadows flipped the vampire subgenre on its head. While certainly a B-horror in the Hammer mold, this chiller wasn’t satisfied with one bloodsucker, or even two. Instead Dark Shadows would turn nearly its whole cast into the ravenous undead, indiscriminately slaughtering beloved heroes and heroines, not caring for a second that they were also the stars of a daytime soap opera—one that was appointment TV for millions of kids across America.

Clearly it was a different time. And therein lies its charm.

When the television series Dark Shadows premiered in 1966, it wasn’t an instant pop culture phenomenon. Creator Dan Curtis was savvy enough to see the appeal in a daytime melodrama draped in a Gothic aesthetic, but he didn’t yet have the necessary hook for his central character as she stepped off a train in New England. Sure, mysterious Victoria Winters (Alexandria Isles) would meet the Collins family, who more or less ruled over the town of Collinsport from their ancestral home of Collinwood, but the reason to stick around only came about a year into the series’ original run.

That eureka moment turned out to be the dapper and effortlessly suave Jonathan Frid. Cast as Barnabas Collins, the Canadian theater actor was initially hired for a single storyline (a set number of episodes) as the heavy: Barnabas was an ancient and forgotten vampire, who’d been buried alive like the family’s dirty little secret after a curse condemned him to drink blood in 1795. Now he was out and wreaking havoc by feasting on the locals and obsessing over Maggie Evans (Kathryn Leigh Scott), whom he was convinced was the reincarnation of his lost love Josette—a fiancée who threw herself off a cliff in the 18th century rather than become Barnabas’ corpse bride.

It was morbid, obviously, but also romantic at a time when vampires were defined by the coldness of Christopher Lee or the goofiness of Scooby-Doo. Instead here was the most pitiable of creatures, one who doesn’t wish to be a vampire, and through impeccable manners and courtesies revealed a soft love for the Collins family, even when he preyed on them. Rather than create a great villain, Curtis inadvertently invented a tragic hero who audiences flocked to, both the typical daytime target demographic and also, surprisingly, kids and teenagers, who’d rush home from school to be lost in a melancholy land of eternal loves, ancient curses, and of course fangs.

Thus Dark Shadows became a blender for all things Gothic. Following in the success of Barnabas’ introduction, the series would go on to add ghosts, werewolves, séances, multiple stints of time travel, and one particularly devilish 18th century witch named Angelique (Lara Parker). It also appropriated every classic horror trope from Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, the Brontë sisters, and Edgar Allan Poe, and synthesized them for an audience that was now consuming it along with kid-friendly board games and trading cards.

So why not a movie, too? As early as 1968, Curtis began pursuing the idea of making a Dark Shadows movie, even while the series was still going. Eventually, House of Dark Shadows was the result. Released 50 years ago this week, this toothy amusement was the chance to do everything Curtis wanted with the series, but was prohibited from by Broadcast Standards and Practices censorship, budget constraints… and maybe even audiences’ good taste.

“Blood flows,” actor Roger Davis observed in The Dark Shadows Companion: The 25th Anniversary, which was edited by Scott. “It’s not like the serial. You have a few dabs of blood and the network brass have apoplexy. TV does a mock-up on life. This is in living color. And the vampires really bite.” 

Whereas Dark Shadows, the television show, was appointment TV for those still in middle school, House of Dark Shadows was aimed directly at the drive-in crowd with its emphasis on blood gushing from neck wounds and stakes violently going into almost every character’s heart. As Scott’s book surmised, the film was “entirely the child of its creator,” who would at last have his evil Barnabas. And at a glance, it is an American riff on what had already become kitsch by 1970 thanks to Hammer Film Productions’ seemingly endless line of Dracula movies, plus the knockoffs.

And to be sure, House of Dark Shadows is in many ways a Dracula movie. It’s also insight into how Curtis originally viewed the Barnabas character before Frid went on a charm offensive. Playing almost like a CliffNotes version of Barnabas’ first several storylines on the show, the vampire is awakened during the film’s opening moments because of the foolishness of groundskeeper Willie Loomis (John Karlen). Barnabas then forces poor old Willie to become his living slave and creates a fictitious narrative about being a distant cousin descended from the original Barnabas Collins, whom family lore claims sailed away to London in 1795, never to be heard from again.

Bringing back the “original” Barnabas’ family jewels to ingratiate himself, the Barnabas of 1970 is free to attend family gatherings, fix up an old ruined house on the estate, and even feed on cousin Carolyn (Nancy Barrett), a dear relative who becomes a dead ringer for Lucy Westenra in Bram Stoker’s famed novel. Even so, Carolyn cannot displace Maggie (still Scott) in Barnabas’ eyes, who he is sure is the reincarnation of Josette.

It very much has the narrative beats of a traditional vampire movie, but the charm that lingers a half-century later comes in part from seeing these actors, who are intimately familiar with their characters, going through the paces with better production values. That quality also manifests in Curtis’ sense of atmosphere, now liberated from the stage-bound quality of daytime drawing room drama. I would even argue House of Dark Shadows is one of the more satisfyingly atmospheric vampire movies to come out of the 1970s.

Curtis filmed in the upstate New York’s Tarrytown area, mostly on the actual Gothic Lyndhurst Estate, built in the 1830s, and shot much of the exteriors in the legendary Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Whereas Hammer films tended to rely increasingly on sets during this period, and most B horror movies had no budget for evocative locations, House of Dark Shadows was filming its sequences in between tours of the Lyndhurst Mansion and in the same atmospheric cemetery that helped birth the myth of a Headless Horseman.

Regarding the filming location, screenwriter Sam Hall remarked, “It’s a wild house. I’d hate like hell to live in it.” 

This is only accentuated by the fact Curtis knows how to drain a spooky location dry. Images like vampire Carolyn standing in a window, draped in white, beckoning her lover to become one of the damned is a better use of Lucy iconography than any Dracula movie made before House of Dark Shadows. And the film’s ending sequence reaches an operatic opulence rarely seen, even in vampire cheapies. Barnabas, bathed in a blue light and shrouded in inexplicable fog in the interior of his decrepit home, beckons Maggie, now in a wedding dress, toward him as the famous melody of Josette’s music box twinkles, only now in a weeping minor key.

The corruption of that wistful melody is intriguing. An original part of the Dark Shadows television series, Josette’s music box, and Frid’s soliloquies about it, is what first gave Barnabas his soul, distinguishing him from the general depravity of other pop culture vampires. One could even say Barnabas is the first significantly sympathetic male vampire in fiction. In House of Dark Shadows, he has a more sinister mean streak, but the pathos remains.

Hence why the film plays at times like a gonzo delight. It may feature the original, more wicked Barnabas, but it is still derived from the genteel series, and many of those elements carry over. Take Dr. Julia Hoffman (Grayson Hall) spending half the movie trying to cure Barnabas, a subplot that eventually ends happily for the pair on the show, but less so here. It’s soapy pulp, yet it’s given as much stone-faced gravity as the Collinsport Police Department unquestioningly agreeing to patrol around town with standard issue police crucifixes. One might ask if they keep silver bullets in every squad car too?

The overall effect is bizarre, but endearingly so. It’s also fairly influential, as confirmed by what happened after Dan Curtis dropped Barnabas in favor of another vampire.

Read more

TV

Dark Shadows’ Witch Was As Influential As Its Vampire

By Tony Sokol

Movies

Bram Stoker’s Dracula and the Seduction of Old School Movie Magic

By David Crow

In 1974, following Dark Shadows’ cancellation, Curtis wrote and directed a Dracula TV movie for CBS that within its opening titles billed itself as “Bram Stoker’s Dracula.” Far removed from Stoker’s novel, the little remembered television film nonetheless starred Jack Palance as the vampire, and introduced several significant elements to the story by overtly making Dracula an undead version of historical figure Vlad the Impaler (which he is not in the novel) and turning Lucy into the reincarnation of his great lost love.

Curtis was in essence trying to recast Dracula as Barnabas Collins. Like House of Dark Shadows, Curtis even sought to build a Gothic atmosphere by filming in real locations, albeit now Eastern Europe. The result was effective in those scenes, even if the rest of the movie failed in no small part because Palance could never wear the tragic cloak so well as Frid.

In spite of its shortcomings, many have fairly speculated on whether Curtis’ Dracula influenced James V. Hart, the screenwriter of Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Hart was certainly more successful at turning Dracula into a lovelorn prince, and Coppola made that idea permanent in the pop culture imagination. Yet, at the end of the day, they were still remaking the pop culture image of Dracula so as to be closer in line with Barnabas Collins, instead of the other way around.

I would even argue that Coppola’s film is closer in tone with Dark Shadows, at least in its romantic moments, than Tim Burton’s big budget Dark Shadows movie was in 2012. Burton of course attempted to avoid some of the mistakes of House of Dark Shadows, namely by keeping Barnabas as the good guy who is trying to save his family instead of ultimately destroying them, as well as retaining the other fan favorite character, the witchy Angelique (who like all other non-vampire elements was omitted from House of Dark Shadows). But Burton also played her and the whole concept as pure camp, making the Collins’ a subject of ridicule, and their problems a punchline.

Admittedly, there is something faintly camp about the 1960s daytime series and its ‘70s drive-in remake; plots turn on ludicrous developments like Julia falling in love with Barnabas, and then intentionally sabotaging his vampire cure when she realizes he loves a younger woman. But they were sold with absolute sincerity, and in the case of Frid, a palatable conviction.

House of Dark Shadows continues that conviction, no matter how batshit things become. Thus the ending where, accepting he’ll never be cured, Barnabas transforms family patriarch Roger Collins (Louis Edmonds) and even the film’s version of Van Helsing (Thayer David) into vampires. And we get to a finale so madcap that it turns “Renfield” into the last remaining hero. Madness, indeed.

Ironically, House of Dark Shadows was blamed by some for the eventual death of the series. Every character in the film, including Barnabas, had to be written out of the show, for some weeks at a time, so the actors could go shoot a movie upstate (another reason Angelique and other significant characters were left out). This correlated with some of the series’ weaker storylines that lost audiences’ attention.

Additionally, it’s believed parents who went with their children to see the movie in October 1970 were appalled by the amount of blood and sensual subtext in the film. As a result, some may have forbidden their kids from watching the series further… with the show getting cancelled in April 1971.

“The TV ratings fell after the movie,” Scott’s The Dark Shadows Companion revealed. “It has been suggested by some that House of Dark Shadows led to the series’ eventual demise. Perhaps it was the audience’s reaction to seeing their hero Barnabas in an evil light. Perhaps it was because parents attended House of Dark Shadows with their children and, seeing the amount of blood spilled across the screen, discouraged their children’s choice of television viewing material.”

Star Frid was even more unsparing in his final analysis.

“[The film] lacked the charm and naivete of the soap opera,” Frid said. “Every once in a while the show coalesced into a Brigadoonish never-never-land. It wasn’t necessary to bring the rest of the world into Dark Shadows, which is what the film did.”

Nevertheless, both the series and movie left a few marks on the throat of pop culture. The series certainly paved the way for more multidimensional portraits of vampires to be explored, opening the door for, yes, the Coppola Dracula movie, but also Anne Rice and True Blood. In fact, even if House of Dark Shadows might’ve been considered too brutal by parents in 1970, decades of pop culture refinement would find a way to make the sympathetic vampire archetype much more tolerable when instead of drinking from his cousin, he sparkled in the daylight and told his prey they needed to wait until marriage.

Without Barnabas, his series, and his slice of bananas role is House of Dark Shadows, we may never have gotten Lestat, Edward Cullen, or Gary Oldman’s Dracula. At least not as how we know them. Fifty years on, that’s a bloody good legacy for a daytime drama and a B-movie you’ve never seen.

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[dyde21]

Rick Thoughts

My feed for like a week now has been super heavy on Rick Riordan crit from multiple people. I’m adding my thoughts, but it’s going under the cut so people can ignore it if they want. TL;DR Relatively neutral on it, but I hate how half the crit is done towards him. Probably not popular opinions FWIW. Got a little worked up towards the end so fair warning.

Okay, so. A lot of crit towards him seems super valid. I’ve seen a lot of discussions on some poor choices he made when it comes to representing different groups of people. Which is fine. A lot of great points have been made that change how I will write/describe the characters moving forward. 

Yes, some of his responses have been a bit immature, do seem a bit harsh towards fans. But on that note, as with any content creator, it’s not like he’s just receiving simple, polite suggestions or critiques. There are TONS of fans out there, as with all major series, some will be toxic, rude, immature etc. Just go to any panel at a con, people have no filter when it comes to asking creators about stuff. Is it wrong when he lashes out? Yes. Period. But like with the Reyna comment, I literally can’t imagine how many comments he’s gotten from people, online, etc asking him about it, critiquing him for how he handled her relationships, the fanart, the fanfics etc. Tumblr makes up a tiny fraction of his audience so yeah, I have a little sympathy for anyone who has to deal with that many fans, especially when a lot of fans are younger and don’t know better/are emotional/impressionable. That’s a volatile age group too. I.E. The craze around any boyband or twilight back then. So yeah, that comment seemed a little passive aggressive, but heavy shippers have always been... intense for any fandom. Not excusing it, but I understand it.

I’m not really in any position to comment on how he handles minorities, I’m a while christian male, and my only leg to stand on is I’m bummed he hasn’t really shown many christian characters but given the context of his books I know it’s not too likely. So yeah, I’m not going to defend or critique how he writes minorities. I do know though, that, obviously, people see things differently. groups of people aren’t uniform thinkers. Just because there is one part of a community saying this thing is wrong/bad, doesn’t mean everyone in that community agrees with that. So when people shit on Rick for writing something some way, you can’t ignore the fact that a lot of time there are plenty of people in said community that agree with/love the idea. He’s literally in a damned if I do/damned if I don’t situation a lot of time. For a personal example as I grew up Mormon. The book of mormon play. A Lot of Latter Day Saints really hate that play because they feel it mocks their faith. A lot of people also love it and find it in good fun and hilarious within the church. Neither side is more “right” than the other, so depending on where you stand it’s either a horrible or funny thing. Same with people who dress as Jesus on tiktok to make funny videos. 

Don’t get me wrong, it is very possible there are some things that are just plain harmful that he could have written. That’s absolutely a possibility, and not my call to make. I’m just trying to say just because someone offered a critique doesn’t mean they were “Right” or he has to agree with them. Listening to one critique can mean ignoring another, and still ends with him being called out for ignoring his fans.

In the end, the real thing that pisses me off I guess is people who are putting thoughts and meanings him his mind for him. Saying he doesn’t care about the fans, the books, the characters etc really gets under my skin. We have the right all day to critique the content in his books, disagree with his choices, think that they could have written better/differently. (I hate some of Annabeth’s actions towards Percy, like the flip, myself so I get it.) But we have NO RIGHT to say how he thinks or acts. I don’t care how worked up we get over the series, or the frustration we feel when we feel like we’ve been misrepresented. We’ve all had situations where people make assumptions about us and it hurt. When you said something that was misunderstood and people looked down on you, or when something you did was taken out of context and you were wrong condemned for it. So yeah, rick doesn’t seem to respond to criticism the best, and some of his choices may have been poor when writing the character, but stop assuming what he is thinking/meaning with his writing. Stop assuming how much/little he cares. Stop assuming you know HOW he made the choices he made, what research he did or didn’t do. He’s a human being who deserves the same respect as everyone else. I can’t even imagine how much it’d hurt if I made a series, over years of work, writing, and research to hear fans just say “oh he doesn’t care about the series” or he has a “ghost writer” just beause they disagreed with my choices. Imagine if people said that about the favorite thing you’ve made, it’s incredibly rude to me.

Also, since I’m already worked up I’ll just throw this out there. Just as good things he wrote/included don’t erase the mistakes, mistakes don’t erase the positive choices he made too. The actual good implementation or characters or traits that we take for granted. The fact that for a lot of people, myself included, our perception of kids with ADHD or dyslexia was changed when we were young, or the utter destruction fo the dumb blonde troppe by Annabeth, etc. It’s easy to get frustrated when we feel slighted but shit, stop saying entire books or series are complete trash when there are plenty of positive aspects in them too that deserve praise as well. If it was easy or even possible to write a perfect book, don’t you think it would have been done by now? Then again the Prodigal Son is my favorite parable so maybe that’s why I think that way.

[veryangryhedgehog]

Man of Medan: AKA Let me Throw my Money at your Face Supermassive

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these little analysis things, and I doubt this one will be very long (just kidding I lied), but I’ve been playing Man of Medan, the first episode of the new “Dark Pictures” anthology by Supermassive games, and I think you can tell by the title exactly how I feel about it.

(As a note, I will be discussing the contents of the game, so SPOILERS ahead)

First of all, let me just start by saying that I am a huge fan of horror in general, but especially of horror anthologies. There’s just something about the format that fits in so well with this particular genre, one that is often more about eliciting a certain kind of emotion or feeling from the audience vs. any grand character studies or morals to be shared. Don’t get me wrong, those things are great as well, as a writer becoming known for my massive amounts of character (a large number of which I kill off) I understand entirely. But horror in particular is a genre best encapsulated by its brevity. The shorter and more visceral it is, the less you have to explain, and often the more terrifying or thought-provoking. 

Another benefit of the anthology format is the ability to explore a larger amount of ideas in a shorter amount of time. And horror is of course, all about its ideas. So the instant I heard that Supermassive was going to create a series of shorter horror stories in the format of its previous game “Until Dawn” I was immediately excited. I held back a little, holding onto the fear that sequels are often worse off than their predecessors, and that lightning doesn’t often strike twice. I am pleased as punch to admit that my caution was entirely unwarranted.

Keep in mind, I have never actually played “Until Dawn”. I have seen two different Let’s Plays of it, but I feel as if I can’t truly judge a game without actually having played it myself. That’s kind of the purpose of a video game. Thusly I will not be making a whole ton of comparisons between the two works, but rather discussing “Man of Medan”, or MoM as I will abbreviate it as, on what I have observed and its own merits.

However, the one point of comparison I will have to make is between its two “framing devices,” mostly because I think it’s interesting to compare these two with the themes of their respective games. Until Dawn had a psychiatrist character, and many of its themes were related to the characters and their interpersonal relationships. I think people who claimed that the “choices didn’t actually matter that much” in the game were incorrect, as the choices weren’t so much based on how the story went moreso than how many characters made it out and how their relationships with each other changed. 

A lot of this theme of character interaction carries over to MoM, but at the same time I feel like there’s a much larger emphasis put on the concepts of the tales, as horror anthologies are wont to do, and the plays and twists on tropes that the creators can make. Thusly, MoM trades out the psychiatrist for the Curator. I will say that personally, I like the Curator better as a character. The psychiatrist was meant more to scare you, whereas the Curator has a deeper sense of disquiet to him. It’s more subtle, and it shows that while MoM does have a lot of “jump scare” moments to please the masses, it also contains that hint of genuine creativity and understanding of its genre. Also, for those of you who read Ede Valley, I think it will be obvious to you why I like this character so much. Or maybe not quite yet.

On the topic of its creators, I was incredibly impressed with the writers’ understanding of tropes and their uses in Until Dawn--I always hated when people complained that its characters were “weak” or “annoying” because once again, they completely misunderstood the creators’ intentions--and Man of Medan continues to impress on that front. To be fair, my friend (an actor) and myself (a writer) were able to guess what was really going on within about ten minutes of the game’s beginning, but even with that knowledge, it was still utterly fascinating for us to go through the game and seeing what the creators did with it.

Have you noticed that all of the characters see different things? (Special thanks to @allimiece for pointing this out.) Alex and Brad see pretty generic things, but Julia (who is unsure of her relationship) sees Alex trying to attack her, Fliss (who is relatively superstitious and cautious) sees cults and rituals, and Conrad, most interesting of all, has his own hornyness turned against him in the form of a pretty pinup girl turning into an ugly crone and hunting him down.

I am sincerely impressed with the amount of thought that went into the writing of this tale. As with its predecessor, these characters are not the smartest people. They are a little older than their wendigo-chow counterparts, in a slightly different phase of their lives, but still kind of idiots. But that’s the point. Sure, there’s some incredibly cheesy lines here or there, but all of it is done with this knowledge of “yeah, we know this is really stupid too. Look at this fucking idiot. You wanna kill him, right?”

But not only that, I am even more impressed with the thought and care that went into absolutely every detail of this game. I decided to go and watch some of the small featurettes that came with the game, as I’ve always been a sucker for behind-the-scenes stuff. This is actually what prompted the writing of this essay. Because in those featurettes, the creators talked about the amount of thought and love that went into every aspect of the game, down to hiring a costume designer and getting swatches for the Curator’s potential clothes, down to the details on his fucking desk and the hours of thought about the lighting in his repository, and I was utterly astounded (and honestly a little cowed, I wish I could write some of my stories with as much effort). 

I’ve always held the belief that if you put a lot of love and a lot of effort into a work of art, it will really show. And sometimes this will elevate a work from great to stellar, and now if I ever need a ready example of this, I can point to Man of Medan. You can truly tell that everyone involved with this project really cared about what they were doing, and about making something truly great, and every second of screentime just bleeds it.

I’ve played through the game about 2 and a half times now, once in multiplayer, and once in single, and it ran so smoothly and wonderfully and I only ever experienced a few minor graphical glitches (which are slightly worse in the multiplayer, but that’s most likely out of Supermassive’s control). Even my friend who is a professional business man was highly impressed with it, so much so that he was wondering how much money it would take to buy Supermassive (keep dreaming, Wimdy, keep dreaming).

So yeah, Man of Medan is absolutely fantastic and if you haven’t experienced it yet, you should really just go buy it. It’s available on Steam for only $30, and is worth every penny. I understand that it’s very easy to simply go watch Lets Plays, especially of games that play mostly like movies such as this one, but Supermassive is not a huge AAA studio. They certainly don’t get the sales figures that say Call of Duty or even Assassin’s Creed receives. So if you can, please, please go support them in any way you can. MoM is an incredible game and I’m so excited to see what they come out with in the future.

(Also, Allimiece and I are so excited for Little Hope. The Crucible is our shit and we are over the moon about it!)

[calamity-bean]

I just need some reassurance that Mad Sweeney will be revived, what are your thoughts? I mean, SURELY Laura will use her potion to bring him back... it would kind of parallel how he put the coin back in her in season 1. But him being in a new tv series is giving me doubts :(

I know how you feel, anon. I’m trying not to fret too much while waiting for 2.08, but it’s a scary time. And though I always want to be happy for the actors I like when they get work, I too felt a stab of worry when I saw that announcement about Pablo joining Defending Jacob. But I’m not giving up yet! Actors can and do manage to be in multiple projects simultaneously, and the way I see it, the show has given us solid reason to hope. 

Major spoilers for 2.07 and some minor details from the novel below the cut (which for some reason isn’t working on my blog page, sorry, but should still function in reblogs and on the dashboard).

1. The potion is, narratively speaking, a Chekhov’s gun ready to be fired as soon as Laura finds that blood. Personally, I can’t imagine that Laura’s actually going to get resurrected. Being dead is a pretty integral part of her character, and it’s just difficult for me to imagine that that’s going to change, especially this relatively early in the overall story. And who else would she use the potion on? I think it unlikely she’s gonna keep carrying it around long enough for someone else she cares about to die — it seems like the sort of gun that ought to go off within this season, or in early season 3 — so Sweeney’s the obvious choice.

2. In terms of whose blood she might need… There are options. I’d originally wondered if Laura might use her own blood, but then it occurred to me that they drained all that when they embalmed her, so. (Also, although I think she’s drawn to Sweeney, at this point I don’t think she loves him.) But Sweeney’s own blood is, perhaps, a possibility? Or perhaps help might come from an unexpected quarter; at any rate, I’m sure that somehow that blood can be found.

3. We know Laura has arrived in Cairo by the end of 2.07, meaning that she (and her potion, and Sweeney’s lucky coin) should be arriving at Jacquel & Ibis’s place in 2.08. This shot is from one of the promos released before the season:

It’s clearly Laura carrying Sweeney… somewhere. For some reason. I don’t know where she’s taking him or why, but getting him out of the funeral parlor (which is where Jacquel, Ibis, and Shadow hold Sweeney’s wake in the novel, in which he does not come back from the dead) and into the arms of someone who cares about him / feels a connection with him seems like a good start to me.

4. Death definitely does not have to be permanent for gods, and there has been much discussion on that subject this season. Media died and was reborn in a form that’s distinct from the old Media, yet can still feel the old form inside herself. According to both Czernobog and Sweeney, Zorya Vechhernyaya will not come back to life because she has no believers left. Thor/Donar can never come back because he committed suicide. Although the latter is arguably the case for Sweeney in the novel, it’s not the case in the show, and I don’t think the world is completely bereft of belief in him, either. Laura claims (in 2.03) that the belief Ibis senses inside her is belief in Shadow… but as Mama-Ji points out in 2.07, the power inside of her was given to her by Sweeney; it’s not truly Shadow whose power sustains her and gives her strength. Given how intimately their relationship has evolved this season, perhaps by 2.08 she will realize that she believes in Sweeney too.

5. And then there’s 2.07 itself, which gives us the story of Sweeney’s life, yes — but also a story of all his pseudo-deaths. It’s true that he was prophesied to be undone and abandoned west of the sunrise, his fate sealed by a dead woman’s bauble, and to die by the spear. That’s happened now, as foreseen. And yet… he was also prophesied to die at Magh Rath, which is not to the west and involved no baubles from dead women. And some legends say that he later died at the hand of St. Moling, or the swineherd, or the cook. And wasn’t he supposed to have died, in the first place, when Balor drowned all his grandchildren in the lake? And yet, as Ibis said… “You survived. Like you always do.” The legends about Sweeney, the various forms he’s taken over the millennia, from sun god to pagan king to mad bird to fairy to leprechaun, are sometimes mutually contradictory and yet all simultaneously true, and a common theme in his long life seems to be that death never quite keeps its hold on him or gets him the way it’s supposed to.

6. As for the dead woman’s bauble that seals his fate… Sealing one’s fate doesn’t necessarily have to mean death, or permanent death. It just means a big, profound impact is made.

I tend to be cautious about getting my hopes up these days, and I can’t guarantee anything. I think the cast and creators all love Pablo/Sweeney, and I think they know that the fans love him too, but popularity and affection do not necessarily outweigh the needs of the narrative. And I won’t lie: if not for the Madwife subplot, 2.07 would feel like a very appropriate place to say goodbye to Sweeney for good. It wraps up his backstory and gives him the redeeming battle he’s been looking for all series; a tragic yet triumphant end.

But the way they’ve built up Laura and Sweeney’s relationship feels like… Something that got off to a really intriguing start in s1, and has been deliberately built up in really intriguing ways in s2, but has not yet reached its conclusion or even its climax (though I hope Laura and Sweeney both did in 2.05 lmao). Knowing that Sweeney’s body ends up in Laura’s possession in 2.08 gives me hope that this show is not done with Laura/Sweeney or with Sweeney in general. I don’t know where it might go from here, what the consequences of resurrection might be, or how profoundly changed Sweeney might be if/when he comes back, but I feel like the show has given itself the ability to keep him around and reasons to do so.