#guys LOOKIT MY FATHER IN-LAW

[frozenhi-chews]

Gosh- I love Solomon so much! Like he looks he gives off warm and gentle and firm hugs, has a loud laugh, and just enjoys being around others. He's such a lovely guy!!!

[ruthlesslistener]

You literally want gender non-conformity erased and medicated out of existence. A feminine male must be a girl! A masculine girl can't use she/her anymore! That girl doesn't want to play with dolls? Better put her on puberty blockers! You enforce traditional gender roles, not the feminists who believe we are defined by our individuality, not gender stereotypes. You also sound just as braindead as those who call ex-Muslims Islamophobic, because your tiny brain cannot wrap itself around the idea that not all atheists are white and organized religion is deserving of criticism.

Lmfaooo lookit this fuckin terf out here in my inbox making a complete and utter clown of themselves.

Okay, apart from the fact that you’re completely ignoring the fact that nonbinary people exist, and that the concept of two genders is a western thing- you do realize that you’re literally fucking contradicting your own shitty ideology, right? You’re literally fucking saying that you want people to be shoved into binary gender roles, while I’m out here saying that people don’t have to fucking conform to ancient-ass behavior rituals just because they were born with a dick or not (which isn’t even coded entirely in your chromosomes, it’s based on a melting pot of different factors and works on a sliding scale). Like, you’re literally fucking enforcing gender roles WHILE claiming that I’m the bad guy here, and also claiming that you’re a ‘real woman’ because you happen to have a pussy and gush blood out of your fucking vagina once a month.

Also, guess who happens to be an ex-Muslim? Guess who happens to not be white? I was born into that religion because my father was an Iranian immigrant, and I quit it, because I frankly hate most of religon and think it’s stupid; hell, my dad himself isn’t really religious, he just acts it out bc the government forced everyone into prayer. Hell, I’ve been to Iran several times, I’ve had to act according to Muslim law, I’ve seen my family grouse about it and tell stories about how they threw away all of their makeup after the Revolution because people who looked like they were wearing it were being thrown in jail! I, of all people, know that religion is the cause of a lot of suffering- but again, that is a form of Islam enforced by a religious extremist group for political purposes, not the religion itself. The religion itself speaks of peace and love and respect for others; it’s the fucking extremists that strayed from Allah, and the vast majority of Muslims aren’t extremists, you piece of dogshit. There’s nothing wrong with it, I just left it because I consider the idea of a benevolent god to be fucking stupid.

(I should also mention that critiquing ‘organized religion’, while alright for christianity and the extremists America put into power, is also fucking antiseminic as hell. Jewish people follow an organized religion and they’ve literally done nothing wrong in history, other than, idk,,,have a culture? Fucking hell your argument is a goddamned mess.)

Also, guess who had to fucking deal with islamaphobia my entire fucking life? Guess who had to deal with racism and shit because of my physical features? Guess whose grasp of Farsi is broken because my dad was terrified I’d be killed if someone heard me speaking in public? (Because, for context, I was babbling mostly Farsi when 9/11 happened, and people are fucking insane). Guess who spent many nights of my life literally crying because I was terrified that my family still in Iran were going to be nuked? Because it wasn’t just scary in January, that happened on and off throughout my life. I bet you’re one of those girls who called me a hairy ape with a unibrow in elementary school and then turned right around and got fucking participation prizes for showing ‘girl power uwu’ during group projects

Keer amo bokhor, terf

[coffeebeannate]

Nate Watches Things: A Saga

Or in this case, one thing. One thing that was far too long of a thing, but such a bizarre venture that I felt rather compelled to put an actual review of said thing together.

Why? Because I can and because others HAVE to experience this..this journey. A nice lil journey called Die Pfeiler der Macht/ A Dangerous Fortune. And I watched it solely because Luca looks cute in Victorian clothes, and I was intrigued by the gifs.

Curiosity has always been such a great human motivator, eh?

And..guys. I just. I don’t know what the 3-4 hours (it’s two movies, and I took a couple days to watch it) WERE, exactly, but they were..a thing? I know that it’s based on a book by Ken Follett and that this production is German. Despite being based in England. 

Oh, and Luca’s character Mickey Miranda, is uh, Spanish. Make of that what you will.

So the summary is this:

A shocking secret behind a young boys death leads to three generations of treachery in this breathtaking saga of love, power and revenge, set amid the wealth and decadence of Victorian England.

And no it does not do this thing justice whatsoever.

Review under the cut. It’s too long *again, two movies here*, and I took far too many screencaps of this absolute wtfery, and uh, it’s probably better suited for a real-time live blog but nah. You can have this instead.

Some images under the cut are NSFW because nefarious boning is a key point in this..thing.

SPOILERS. So many spoilers. This thing is a spoiler fest. The caps have a very obvious Luca bias, I know why we’re here everyone. Hehe. There’s also some triggering stuff in this thing, so be warned there too.

BEHOLD:

So, a point I want to make is that the costuming in this movie is LEGIT. If absolutely nothing else works? Note that the costuming absolutely does.

The opening credits are very nice, Luca’s very pretty, this cap serves purely to showcase that because I’m a very serious man doing a very serious review.

Pretty.

So the beginning is..confusing. We have a girl, Maisie Robinson. (Around 10-13 here?) Her father is very poor and it’s her and her two siblings. He works for a man who is part of our main characters, the Pilasters?  and they run this bank. The head of the bank commits suicide, since they’re having financial troubles and he cannot repay his workers. He pens a note to his young son *under 12 at this point*, Hugh. 

Hugh never finds out about this letter, but anyway. At the moment, it’s 1866. Maisie’s father was one of those employees. Destitute, he leaves Maisie to..raise her siblings, and goes to America.

We never hear from this man again.

Hugh goes to live with his aunt (Augusta/Augustina?), uncle Joseph, and cousins, Edward and Clara.

THEN IT’S 1877 (we jump ten years)

Maisie’s two siblings have died, and she has a daughter, Rachel now. Who is also dying. This movie is very keen on people dying. I’d also like to point out that there is like, endless plots all happening alongside one another, and it took me until mid-way into part two to even really grasp what the main plot is.

The movie has a LOT of bank talk as well. I cannot express this earnestly enough, there is SO MUCH bank chatter. SO MUCH. This thing does not have to be as long as it is but again, bank stuff.

Anyway, the one plot is that Maisie is from the poor area, she’s had a horrible life and has struggled from day one. She’s in a constant battle with Hugh, and they argue a lot. A lot. (They like each other, they met as kids, but they’re from very different worlds. Hugh has money, she doesn’t, but Hugh has suffered as well and basically it’s your normal class struggle social commentary thing).

Maisie and Hugh in 1866, as kids, after Maisie’s father left for America. This is the funeral for Hugh’s father. So that’s the theme I mean.

Anywho.

Back in 1877, this is Samuel *left*, Joseph *middle* and Edward. The Pilaster’s get marched into work like they’re freaking army Captain’s and not just rich ass bankers. Imagine saluting your CEO. At work. Outside of the military. WHERE IS THIS A THING? Maybe this was a thing in Victorian England I have no clue I’ve certainly never come across it in my studies. Ffs.

Anyway.

So while all this is going on, there’s this man that wants to marry Maisie. 

And his name is,

(That’s Rachel, Maisie’s daughter). Anyway, Solly here loves Maisie and wants to marry her. But Maisie loves Hugh, and neither of them realize this yet. Solly is a himbo and we mostly like him, but stay tuned because that doesn’t stick. Sorta. Depends on how-

Nevermind I’ll just keep going.

ANYWAY, more plot.

Here’s Edward again, doing drugs, being gay, and overall..useless. Edward is..Edward is kind of like a person who would make an interesting wall decoration. Fun enough to look at, but utterly freaking hopeless, and useless, and so dumb. Just so dumb. This character is given the substance of ash fault. Kinda like, only vaguely solid enough to be entertaining. Kinda.

I don’t know guys, BUT LOOK!

It’s his good old pal Mickey! And he’s slapped Edward awake out of his drug coma (okay he grabs his face and shakes him rather than slapping but given how much slapping happens in the rest of this movie I think I can be forgiven) and he has PLOTS.

Mostly it’s his dads plot, but it’s a plot. A very devious scheme and he needs our favourite wallpapers assistance!

(Sorry Edward, but it’s true)

So keeping in mind that the ‘theme’ of this movie is bone-and-soul crushing sadness paired with periods of intense chaos and insanity that  you never see coming, our plots continue to thicken.

What Mickey means here, is that Edward’s family denied Mickey’s father what he wanted *weapons deal*, and beat the crap out of Mickey in a carriage. But that’s fine that’s fine Mickey is not deterred! BECAUSE.

*sigh*

So.

OK.

This scene.

Remember what I said about how this movie goes from being incredibly boring to so off the walls bonkers without actually WARNING YOU that it is going to do this? Yeah.

Edward, you see, really does not ‘do’ women. He’s gay. He’s extremely gay. Edward’s mother wants him to marry Florence Stalworthy for idk rich people reasons.

So..Mickey. Uh. Mickey’s solution is..this.

What is this, you ask??

Fuck if I know.

Anyway, no, uhm. This is a brothel. So (not) pictured here (I can’t post the scene on tumblr guys we have a ban) is Edward on a couch across from mask-and-feathers MIckey and this tied down woman, with another woman who is not tied down. And this is Mickey..showing Edward..how to.have sex with women. Apparently. Sort of. His lesson falls very flat. It is not a good scene, Mickey’s ‘instructions’ get increasingly louder, and he at one point makes this noise that sounds like a Joker laugh.

It is...it’s something.

(Also note there’s some extremely uncomfortable, misogynistic name-calling on Mickey’s part here..so yeah).

Oh, and it doesn’t convince Edward. At all. IMAGINE.

Around all this time, the Hugh/Maisie/Solly plot is also ongoing. And that also encompasses bar fighting (bare knuckles boxing and wrestling I think? And gambling)

Hugh has gambling debt we’ll get back to this. (He’s also obsessed with getting Russian bonds into the bank, again, the banking plot losses me a LOT)

So meanwhile, Mickey meets up with Edward’s mother.

But why Edward’s mother, you ask??

Well. *sigh*. Something I didn’t mention earlier is that Mickey likes Ed’s mum. A lot. A lot a lot. Mickey wants to take that woman to town and then some, is a very basic way of me putting it and-

Fuck it. Mickey wants to bang Ed’s mum. BADLY.

(She’s not opposed either, at all)

So their little scheme here is that Ed’s mum wants Ed to take control of the bank, but with the father-in-law alive, that’s not going to happen. So they’re plotting to take down the next person in charge who would succeed said father in law, (Samuel) who is in a relationship with the secretary mentioned above, Michael.

Yes, another GODDAMNED PLOT.

(Samuel is fairly unpleasant like all of these people, so I don’t feel that bad for him. He also kinda treats Michael like garbage, and is called out for this by Joseph later in the movie)

So the scheme here is to get rid of the father-in-law, and get Ed married. Cake walk!

(Also, while ALL THIS is going on, Mickey’s got his own mini-plot about doing these things for his father, the weapons and stuff but we don’t actually find out about the main goal of that whole thing till the end, you’ll see)

Oh, and since we’ve not had a good dose of ‘WHAT THE FUCK’ lately, Solly proposes to Maisie with an honest-to-god Alice in Wonderland party.

Yeah.

Meet the Mad Hatter! He’s a guide, he says nothing. Other people are in costume too, but you know-I have enough caps as it is.

So anyway, Maisie and Solly get engaged, Maisie and Hugh meet up at some point and bang instead. 

And while that’s happening, Edward is convinced by Mickey to marry Florence.

So he does.

Lookit this shit faced smug ass grin.

(Also ahead is Samuel again, and Hugh)

BUT THEN the bank finds out about Hugh’s gambling debts. So he leaves. Taking his cousin Clara (Edward’s teenage sister-at her insistence) to the USA. And just like Maisie’s dad, another man abandons her for the States.

So the father in law is still alive, so! 

It’s murder time.

Perfect wedding time event yeah?

So Mickey murders the father-in-law. (He jumps on him, suffocates him with a pillow, gets caught by Augusta and then they do this..weird ‘tensely make the bed thing’)

Murdered.

And then, exactly five seconds or so later..

Nothing like some murder pre-boning with the dead guy two feet away amiright?

Anyway at this point I was just:

And yelling at my ceiling. Not pictured.

I was a Hannibal fan and I STILL went !?!?!?

END PART ONE.

Part two starts out in 1912, and then cuts back to 1882. So in this messy timeline, note it has been six years since part one. And Hugh is married now to Nora, an American singer, and Clara is older and pregnant. (Father is never determined, but he’s a married man and that’s why Clara didn’t stay)

SO the three of them are returning home. Maisie and Solly have a son, David, and Maisie is depressed and distant, so Solly is the one who spends all the time with David. He’s shown as a legit good dad and it’s quite cute watching them.

(The kids Hugh’s, btw, he and Maisie both know this, Hugh does not, it’s revealed dramatically later but we still have so many plots)

Edward and Florence are childless. Edward doesn’t sleep with her. Everyone knows this.

(At this point I kept asking myself when this would end, I cannot stress how LONG this thing feels at times)

So Hugh and Nora meet up with Maisie and Solly, and they chat and there’s more love plots, more bank plots and a masquerade party where at some point Maisie thinks a little girl at the party is Rachel (who died in the end of part one, sorry!) and there’s a fire and Maisie and Hugh make out and Nora and Solly are both upset and it’s a whole thing.

Samuel now does something of a side business that’s unspecified with Michael, and pregnant Clara is being persued by the only man who might be a good match for her (she’s not keen on getting married. But he’s also..really old.) PLOTS.

And Mickey and Augusta are..still a thing. And Edward being chlidless is becoming an issue. So what is the solution dear friends??

*BANGS HEAD INTO A WALL*

Why the fuck not.

Absolutely flawless! Eddie will NEVER notice.

SO with this plan in motion, Mickey sets out to seduce Florence, Eddie’s neglected wife. He starts in a church, and I have to admit, this one line he gives is quite funny.

“I don’t go to church.”

Cannot begin to imagine why.

Also, around this time is when we get the infamous scene about how he fcked the wives of the three men and then made the guys suck his dick one by one. I didn’t cap that since it’s in gif form, but yeah.

Hugh and Solly and Nora and Maisie are still having their love issues. And there is still bank stuff as all this is going down.

But while on his Florence quest, we see Mickey beat up a guy who was abusing a small boy, and Florence see’s him do this as well and:

He looks so baffled. 

‘Me? GOOD? I really don’t think so.”

She’s also holding a baby, and he gives the infant this face:

“Eugh, what is that?”

He also finds her in church again at some point and comes alongside her like this:

”Sup? Whatcha prayin’ about?”

Anyway, while doing all this, he’s still having some issues. He needs Eddie’s signature for a bank transfer (for his father, his father’s plot is STILL a THING) and so it is time to seduce someone ELSE. This time it’s Edward. This won’t be hard. Edward wants him so bad you could probably see it from fucking space.

Mickey is well aware of this.(I don’t think it’s one sided either, he looks at Edward all wide eyed half the time, but he’s so manipulative it’s hard to judge).

Actually me right now tbh.

So that’s this followed by the infamous gif set.

Edward takes him up on it.

‘Come along my dear there’s nefarious boning to be done’.

Absolutely vital screencap below (which is the most we get anyway and I didn’t cap the line about the freaking signature because fuck plots over nice images okay)

Vital

Anyway Edward gives him the bloody signature. And then Mickey goes along to talk to Augusta. But at this point Mickey is very much beginning to unravel. His goal seems to be more centralized to finishing whatever long ass convoluted job his father has been making him do for the last six years (possibly more tbh) and he’s sort of done with everything.

And Edward see’s this exchange. Le. Oof.

SO! IN BETWEEN ALL THIS. There’s some party where there’s drama and then basically Nora..willing gives up Hugh so he can be with Maisie and Solly just..I don’t even know, single dad for life and all. Edward knows that his family has basically been doing shit all around him, and Mickey STILL seduces Florence. He has her meet him outside that night at two am and they get together, but when he’s with her he kinda has these doubts but she wants him anyway so they bang.

Yeesh.

AFTER that there’s Edward again, because Edward knows shit is up, Mickey goes to a room to grab a bag and see’s Edward there. He tells Edward goodbye, but Edward pulls a gun. Mickey just...drops the bag, tells him to shoot. Edward doesn’t, instead he turns the gun on himself and then Mickey shoots himself in a chair.

Yeah.

DEATH! SADNESS! REMEMBER-THIS MOVIE LOVES DEAD PEOPLE~!

At some point in all this, Augusta goes to her daughter, Clara, apologies for being an absolutely evil mother for her entire life and then the movie sort of begins to wrap up.

Maisie and David were going to leave for the States together, but David wants to stay with Solly, who well DID raise him despite him being Hugh’s kid. So Maisie and Hugh are alone and David lives with Solly and the Pilaster bank has discovered the ACTUAL FREAKING PLOT OF MICKEY’S DAD AND THE ENTIRE BACKGROUND THING. Which was this:

THIS DIDN’T NEED TO BE ALMOST FOUR HOURS, GERMANY.

SO Hugh lets the mob inside. We don’t see what happens after that, but Augusta comes in to tell Joseph Edward shot himself.

Lots of sadness.

So the movie ends in 1912, with David and Hugh meeting up. David never saw Maisie again *she’s deceased now, as is Solly.* they talk, there is some moral lesson or something about love. The goddamned end.

OOF.

SO overall?

I don’t know.

It’s a movie. It has a script and plot and..it was put on screen? The costumes are legitimately amazing. They might be the best thing about this thing. But it REALLY feels like Ken really wanted to make a movie about banking, noticed that’d be boring and tried to make it spicy.

It’s so bizarre. So depressing. So many people are horrible. So many bad things happen. So much slapping, so much weirdness. There’s nothing happy in this thing. Not one. The so called ‘good’-ish ending falls flat amongst a sea of depression and I re-iterate, IT DOES NOT HAVE TO BE SO LONG.

I distinctly recall lots of clock watching at times, wondering how I could POSSIBLY have more to go. It then goes so completely off the rails that you just don’t know what is happening and it’s just WEIRD.

At times that weirdness makes it fun, but overall it’s really not great. I probably would never rewatch it, and I can say that it’s an uh, experience in movie-watching.

A good one? I don’t know. But an experience, none the less.

[storm-dragoness]

An incomplete list of birds I think are cool and why

Up first is a real good bird its crows

I like crows a lot, and not just because theyre cool black birds and i like and appreciate the goth *~*aesthetic*~* though that is part of it to be sure! They're also really smart! They use tools, they do things for fun, they have a sense of value and exchange, they dance and play in the snow, they wear hats (pictured above!) and in general are very cool. They’re considered bad luck but that’s just because they’re scavengers and are smart enough to see something doing something stupid and go "that’s gonna be dead soon and then i can eat it." Fucking superb you funky little death omen.

Up next is another good bird, its Crow 2 electric boogaloo, aka the Raven

Its bigger its stronger its smarter too the next member of the corvid crew.

This is as good a time as any to mention that I just like birds I don’t actually know how verifiable any of my information is. I’m aware of that. But i like ravens! They’re like crows but more! I remember reading a story about a raven who scared a small mob of crows and then laughed about it. And another about a raven who fed its mate who had a broken beak so she didn’t die. They’re smart, and have emotions and that’s cool.

Next is the other side of the goth bird aesthetic its the albatross!

Lookit that bird! Lookit those wings! Long thin wings for gliding and cruising on ocean winds. I think they’re neat because they’re (the only?) Birds that can lock their wings and fly while they’re asleep! They do this and cruise long distances over the ocean. That’s cool! Additionally, symbolism. Any bird ripe with symbolism is good in my book even if the symbol is regret. They’re good birds that do nothing to harm anyone so killing one is "a sin" and anyone who does so wears regret around their necks. I haven’t read the rime of the ancient mariner in a long time but i remember enjoying it.

Next bird!

Red-tailed hawk! These friends live in my area of New York and they’re really cool. They’re also the first bird I ever looked at and went "oh shit that’s a cool thing i think i like birds" because when i was in 4th grade this girl whomst i hated, her father was like. A wildlife person and he did a demonstration and he brought in one of these fellows and i was awestruck. They are very neat and even if i don’t know a lot about them, i like them. And they were the first bird i was able to identify in the wild going "that bird has a red tail and it looks like a hawk i bet its that!" And then being right. Also i think its the bird that tobias animorphs got stuck as. And i liked those books even if they’re fucked up as hell. 10/10 good bird though.

Moving on! Secretary Bird!

Secretary bird is cool! The guy who named it called it that because his secretary put pens in her hair, and he thought the feathers sticking out back looked like pens. Which is pretty funny. But funny names aside, these are cool birds! They stomp on snakes to kill them for food. Which is kinda badass. Don’t get me wrong i like snakes, but these fuckers see a snake and go "oh shit, food, and just wail on that motherfucker til its tenderized and ready to eat. They’re also fast, and really distinct looking which are both bonus points.

Next bird is Owls! Specifically barn owls, tyto alba.

Pros: very pretty bird. Look at those patterns. They've got the moon for a face. Theyre kinda spooky

Cons: kinda hard to draw. They all look p similar tbh.

Barn owls are among my favorite birds for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is the guardians of gahoole series. I loved those books and at one point read the first like. 13 in a single day. Soren was my favorite, and then coryn too. And nyra was a good villain. Idk its a good series about owls! Barn owls are silent fliers and have very good hearing because their ear holes are not symmetrical on their head which allows them to triangulate more accurately. And as previously stated, v pretty.

The next bird is a common friend, and to be honest not very popular, but i love pigeons

Pigeons are rad! People hate them, because they're plentiful and kind of a nuisance in cities and they poop everywhere, but non public pooping is a human concept and birds aren’t bound by your laws! Pigeons are beautiful, look at that iridescent plumage. I also think they’re pretty cute as far as birds go. It used to be the case that people kept pigeons as pets in cages on rooftops and they were showbirds, bred for ornamentation. I forget why this fell out of common practice, but for some reason people just stopped doing that and now everyone hates the city chickens... :c

Speaking of chickens... Chickens!

Chickens are great birds, they’re the mom friend. I think they’re just like, pretty funny as birds in general, but at the same time they’re pretty cute sometimes. And they’re friend shaped! Which is a plus. Besides that I love reading all sorts of different stories about how people will put different animals in a chicken’s nest and she’ll just. Adopt them. Like, oh I sit on you and therefore I am your mother. It’s a very fun instinct that they have and I find it really endearing. 

I don’t have a smooth transition to this next one, but next is the Peregrine falcon!

These little fuckers are cool for what I think is a pretty well known reason: their ability to become a perfectly aerodynamic little bird bullet and dive at impossibly high speeds. They’re not big birds, but if I’m not misremembering (and no I will not take 10 minutes to search for the video I’m about to mention) but I believe I saw a video of a peregrine taking out a bird at least twice its size, a fellow raptor who was encroaching on its territory, by diving out out nowhere at blazing speed and raking the fucker in a high speed flyby. Now I hate to see birds be taken out, but that’s nature, and frankly that ability is kinda cool.

There are more birds I like! But these are some of them!

[letterstothemidnightsociety]

THAT’S RIGHT BITCH! It’s October and I am still watching and inexplicably blogging about Supernatural - a dinosaur of a television show that’s been on the air longer than most children I know have been alive. 

I know I’m An Old because I don’t think kids these days understand the struggle it was watching television before streaming. We had to wait for episodes. Hell, I don’t think kids these days even really have to wait for seasons. I mean, Voltron premiered on Netflix in 2016, capped off their seasons at 13 episodes a piece and, oh yeah - aired seasons 5 - 8  all in 2018. Was I mad about that? No of course not. Do I also say phrases like “kids these days? Yes, so who even knows if what I think is relevant anymore. 

Alright, so speaking of seasons, last time I looked at pilots and pilot seasons and how the streaming era is changing everything we know about starting a TV show. But once you’ve got your pilot down, now what? 

Not this kind of pilot. Also, based on the prerequisites for demon possession, we’re all agreed this co-pilot’s like, an alcoholic, right?

There’s a rule in TV (sort of) that the first six episodes (some might argue the first season entirely) should be a kind of rehash of the pilot. The pilot sets up your premise and once you’ve got your pilot down, your job as a TV writer is to re-establish that premise over and over again. You’re building your world, you’re writing it’s rules. You’re setting up a template, a formula for how your episodes are gonna play out. This helps your audience get to know the characters, get familiar with your world, get comfortable spending time with them. Essentially, you’re getting your audience to trust the show that they’re going to be tuning in to for at least the next 20-some-odd episodes. 

I’d also argue that this is important so that later, you can break that format later. I’m not saying you should break the trust your audience puts in you, and that’s probably a real fine line of distinction. But if you break your rules right, it can hit the audience with a big emotional sucker punch. Or, it can stand out as a real breakout, tentpole of an episode - I’m thinking specifically about Ghostfacers! In season 3, or Once More, With Feeling, from Buffy. Those episodes work, really work, because they deviate from the formula, but they only work because we know the formula so well.  And these aren’t big changes to the way episodes are done, they’re just shifted ever so slightly that they felt new again.. 

So what is the premise of the first four episodes Supernatural? What’s the formula they set up for the rest of the series? 

Brothers. I said it in my last post, I’ll say it again, Sam and Dean/Jensen Ackles and Jared Jared Padalecki are what makes this show. Full stop. I think we could have gotten 5 seasons out of a show starring two other dudes. I do not think this show could have gotten 15 seasons with two other dudes. So from the pilot through Phantom Traveler, we learn that Sam and Dean have a sh*tty home life - their mother was killed by some mysterious evil thing and their father raised them to be little demon-hunting child soldiers while they look for the killer. Oh yeah, and Sam’s girlfriend died the exact same way which we will never forget because Sam’s gonna have a dream about it almost every episode from here on out. We set up the tension between the brothers - that Sam got to go to college while Dean stayed with their dad like a good boi. We learn that everybody hates each other probably because they are deeply and unhealthily codependent love each other so damn much. 

Next we get the basic rundown of the season arc: 

Dad’s on a hunting trip and he hasn’t been home in a few days. The Winchester brothers are looking for him and by extension, looking for answers as to what killed their mom/Sam’s girlfriend. We also get the basic rundown of every episode: dad is a mysterious and elusive sonuvuabitch, so every episode they go about, say it with me now:

“The family business.” I would also accept “Killing as many evil sons of bitches as I possibly can,” but why can’t I find a gif for it?!? 

Backtracking on this but you know what else gets hecking established with the Winchesters? Sam is the cute one with the people skills and the puppy dog face, so you’d naturally assume that he’s the soft one. No. Not the case. Dean is the Sofffft Boi. The SOFTest boi. Dean wants Sam to talk about his feelings, Dean wants Sam to not keep things bottled up, Dean is the one who desperately wants to keep a hold of his family and also is just deeply broken and traumatized on the inside and oh no, I told myself I wouldn’t do this but I did it anyway. Sorry not sorry. This watch, I’m really picking up on the fact that Dean is, weirdly, the Mom Friend in this first season. Like, he’s basically a Trailer-Trash-Teen-Pregnancy Mom who’ll give you spaghettios five nights a week and a shot of whiskey so you’ll quit yer bitchin’ and go to sleep faster, but he’s the Mom nonetheless. Later in this season and in other seasons, I think you even see him do his dumb-baby-best filling in as the Mom when John went off the deep end. Anyway, I have a lot of feelings and we don’t have time to unpack all of that so I’ll just move on.

RUDE.

Next we set up our Supernatural Bag of Holding - what’s in it? What are the mystical artifacts they use to kill those evil sons of bitches? First up is The Car. Damn, I am not a cars girl, but that 67 Chevy, it does things to me. 

This car has some weird pavlovian trigger for me, it’s not NATURAL. 

The journal. 

John Winchester, you journal the way I imagine a psycho killer journals and I would just really appreciate it if you could be ANY MORE ORGANIZED THAN THIS.

The Trunk Full of Weapons - I love that in these first few episodes (and possibly the rest of the series???) they give this HELLA conspicuous look every time they open the trunk full of weapons. It’s hilarious EVERY TIME.

No, you’re not being obvious at ALL, guys.

The Fake ID’s - from credit cards to impersonating feds, these boys are not afraid to break the law to save some lives and I feel like that’s...that’s the theme of the show maybe? They’re here to save people and they’ll do what they have to to do that? In a world that clearly establishes a dark vs. light/good vs. evil dichotomy, the Winchester make it their job to live in a world of grey? Basically? 

Next on the checklist for this first season of Supernatural - it’s spoopy. *Spoop mileage may vary.* I said it last time, but I’ll say it again: this first season aired at 9:00pm at night. That means it’s primetime stuff for the 18 - 25 year old crowd, but they don’t want to risk some 13 year old watching it and getting too scared before bed. 9:00pm is X Files time slots, Fringe time slots. 9:00pm says you’re gonna get something a little more gruesome and gory and shocking than at 8pm. 8pm is for Friends. Vampire Diaries aired at 8pm its first season. 9pm is for the real adult content (but not too adult because the audience is still mostly children). 

SPOOP!

But yeah, let’s look at the real horror vibe that you get off of these first four episodes. We talked about La Llorona from the first episode - this is a legit ghost that they fight. The kids at the end that literally drag their mom to hell? Pretty spooky stuff. The Wendigo in episode 2 is a literal monster of the week and so for me personally, it’s not that scary, but it is a cannibal monster that eats human flesh. Dead in the Water has vibes from both Jaws and Friday the 13th. Everything from the lighting to the sound design let’s you know this is a horror show, or as horror as you can get on network television. Listen to the scenes just before somebody dies and you get a nice creepy “Come play with me” whisper coming out of the water. I’m a little spooked just thinking about it now. Yes I know I’m a chicken, and I’m OK WITH THAT. And if we go past my season 1 disc 1 into episode 5, Bloody Mary is STILL terrifying and I STILL watched that episode with half my face covered. That’s where I am these days. It’s 2020 and the world is a nightmare but imagining Bloody Mary creepin’ out in my mirror does not need to be a part of it. 

SHE F*CKIN CLIMBS OUT OF THE MIRROR GUYS! I DIDN’T KNOW SHE COULD DO THAT!!!

Then we get Phantom Traveler and our very first case of black-eyed-demonic possession. Watching this episode now, it’s like watching someone’s home movie of their first steps as a baby. They’ve never even done an exorcism before guys! They have to read the exorcism rite out of the journal! It’s so cute!!! Let’s not think too hard about how they got that full sized bottle of holy water past TSA in a post-9/11 world. And try to ignore how poorly these special effects have aged - the smoke from the demon possession?? OMG! THIS EFFECT! I’m pretty sure I could make that effect with my first ever graphic design software on my, like, 2009 mac book pro. So cute and soooo good! I’m gonna leave that CG plane alone, they’re doing their best. 

SO cute and SOOO good!

You want to know what my favorite established staple of Supernatural season 1 is? The extras. LOOKIT these guys - 

Wendigo you have Cory Monteith who later goes on to star in Glee. 

You have Alden Ehrenreich, Debatable Han Solo, doing a lot of face work with very little dialogue. 

You have Gina Holden who is in SO. MANY. Spooky-type things! My personal favs are Blood Ties and Harper’s Island, but she’s in Fringe, she’s in the SAW franchise, she’s in the Final Destination franchise, she was in some deleted scenes on an episode of Teen Wolf! I LOVE seeing Gina Holden, anywhere she pops up. 

And speaking of Harper’s Island, you’ve also got Callum Keith Rennie who played John Wakefield in Harper’s Island, a show that was A+ Great and I highly recommend if you like Agatha Christie and/or murder mysteries. 

Honestly, Rennie looks like he’s about to murder a bitch in this episode of Supernatural, it is not a stretch to believe he’s a psycho killer.

Dead in the Water you’ve got Amy Acker, a regular in Joss Whedon and Whedon-adjacent type shows.

Good LORD, this wardrobe was SO 2000′s WB and it PAINED me.

And finally in Phantom Traveler, you have Jaime Ray Newman who also shows up in a lot of the shows that I like to watch. She was in Eureka, she was in Midnight Texas, both kind of terrible shows that I love because they are terrible, but she was ALSO in Bates Motel and Veronica Mars, which are generally considered to be more quality, so there’s that. 

This still implies that they actually LIT scenes, which is a SURPRISE TO ME. 

Point is, seeing these actors in Supernatural back in the early 2000’s felt like I was seeing the start of their careers. That may or may not have been the case, but as a viewer it was exciting to see them pop up again in other things.

So what about TV now? Do we still use those first 6 (sometimes more) episodes to re-establish the premise? Well, it certainly hasn’t gone away. Look at any network show that still produces 22 - 24 episodes a season and you’ll still see that the pilot season just keeps re-iterating the premise established in the pilot episode, specifically in anything that’s procedural - that’s you’re monster/problem-of-the-week shows. Think sitcoms like Brooklyn 99 or Superstore or dramedies like Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist. The reason being that these shows play in the traditional model of television - on a network, once a week. They are not releasing episodes all at one time or relying on their audiences to stream a whole season in one sitting. These are shows that still assume that someone out there is going to tune in or stumble across their show one night while they’re surfing channels (lol) and need to be told, no matter what episode they’ve just turned on, what the premise of the show is. They need to be formulaic so that people can pick it up anywhere at any time.

But what about shows that don’t follow this traditional model? I mentioned in my last post that seasons are getting shorter and shorter, so when you’re writing a show that only has (8) episodes instead of 22, how much time do you really want to spend establishing the premise? Because of these short seasons, you’re also dealing with shows that are more serialized and less procedural than their predecessors - meaning, you’re dealing with a show that focuses on a season long story (think Game of Thrones or Stranger Things where each episode is an important chapter that you can’t skip) vs. a procedural (think the shows I mentioned above or any cop drama really) where each episode is it’s own contained story, neatly wrapped up at the end. These are shows where you can skip an episode and still know where you are in the show no matter where you start or stop watching. Supernatural is a little bit of both - procedural with their monsters of the week AND serialized with a season long arc. We’ll talk more on that in a later post. 

Not only are we getting shorter seasons, but we’re also dealing with shows that are not released over long periods of time. A few streaming channels, like Disney+ and HBO Max, make a deliberate point to slow-drip their seasons, but most streaming channels will release entire seasons in one shot. You don’t need to worry about your audience missing an episode because they have 24/7 access to all the episodes all at once. And for the most part, they’re designed to be binged. They start at full speed and they don’t slow down to keep driving you to the finale. 

Do I think the procedural is ever going to go away? No. As much talk as there is about dropping the cop drama from TV all together, I think audiences still love a good mystery series. And you can’t just think of procedurals as cop dramas either - a procedural also covers most if not all sitcoms. New Girl, Letterkenny, Parks and Rec, Superstore - these all have a premise that doesn't change from week to week. They may make tiny shifts away from what they set up in the pilot, but by and large, you know what you’re getting into any time you turn on an episode. I think we as an audience still like that kind of familiarity. We may be seeing a bigger swing towards more serialized content, but that doesn't mean that the procedural is dead and gone. 

So that’s what we’ve got for Supernatural - two dudes, driving around in a car full of spears and hand guns, killing bad guys. Some day, they may even find that father that’s missing. What could possibly go wrong? A lot. Stay tuned. 

[killian-whump]

OUAT 2x14: Rewatch Blog

Hey everybody! Here I am, once again, with a liveblog post for a Once Upon a Time episode! This one’s called “Manhattan” - which strangely enough, I had to look up to make sure of, because I could’ve sworn that 2x15 was the one called “Manhattan”, but when pressed to remember what 2x14′s name was... I could only come up “Also Manhattan...?” which seemed wrong.

Anyway! Let’s settle in and watch Manhattan Part 1...

Hmmm.  Okay, so Rumple’s all “I wanna fight!” and Milah’s like “Oh, no, the war” and this just seems weird to me, all of it. I’m making that Fry face at my screen right now. Not sure if full of shit or full of shit...

Emma asking, “Is this the right place?” AND HE SAID YES. Like, how does he know?! That globe was a hell of a lot more useful here than it was in Neverland. Or did they just toss the globe overboard when they went through the portal? “Welp, we don’t need this plot device anymore.”

Hahaha, Emma. “Well, who doesn’t love a surprise?” Should I start the list, or is someone else gonna do it? Rumple’s face is hilarious. He looks like he’s thinking, “Me, actually. I don’t like a surprise...”

That’s a really boring title card, Once. Really boring.

“Back? From where?” OH MY BABY. Incidentally, I forget he’s in this scene every single time I see this scene, and then I hear his voice and I’m like “OH, MY BABY” like, you know, what literally just happened 2 sentences ago.

Aww... You vengeance-hopped-up bondage bunny, listen to your Dommes and be a good boy <3

CHASE SCENE, IT’S A CHASE SCENE

RUN, EMMA, RUN

CRASH!!!!!

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH PLOT TWIST

I always did like that plot twist. One of the better ones, I thought.

“I am the only one allowed to be angry here!” Yeah, you tell him, Emma.

This face is great:

Kinda sums up the entire scene, doesn’t it?

I love the subtle AND COMPLETELY OBVIOUS change in Gold and Henry’s interactions now that the audience is thinking, “Oh, wait... If his dad is... and his son is... OH MY GOD.” A gentle approach as always, show.

WHY WOULD HE NEED AN ENTIRE TYPEWRITER IN A FANCY WOODEN BOX WITH A SINGLE SHEET OF PAPER THAT SAYS “I KNOW YOU’RE BAELFIRE” ON IT? HOW FUCKING EXTRA CAN YOU BE?!

Pictured Above: THE LITERAL HEIGHT OF FUCKING EXTRANESS

“...because Pinocchio told you to?!?!” One of the best lines ever XD

Oh, come on, Neal. Man up for once and just talk to your father. Geez.

Like, I know he’s pissed that his dad didn’t follow him into the portal, but all of this hiding and nonsense? Acting like he’s terrified of the man? Like, did I miss the part where Rumple EVER presented an actual threat to Baelfire? Because I don’t remember that. Honestly, if I’m forgetting something from S1 where Rumple threatened or harmed his son, someone please remind me. Shitty dad? Sure. Dropped the ball? Definitely. Worth running and hiding from for fucking centuries? You’re a goddamn pansy, Neal.

“Rumplestiltskin...” Oh, that’s not a creepy voice at all.

Oh, that’s not a creepy girl at all.

Oh, that wasn’t a creepy scene at all.

Can I go home now?

“The truth about your parents - Emma, you of all people should know how important that is.” Umm... yeah. That’s a really good point.

“Are you sure this is about protecting Henry... and not yourself?” Aw, Snow... Such good advice in this phone call. Also, nice sweater. Very soft.

Ahhh... And good acting by Jen in here, too.

AW, GEEZ, EMMA, SNOW JUST GAVE YOU SOME GREAT ADVICE AND NOW YOU’RE JUST GONNA IGNORE IT ALL. GOSH DARN IT.

Oh, look. It’s the mild-mannered mayor here to visit the amnesia-stricken woman in the hospital. There’s no way this could go badly!

Umm... Regina, I love you and I love your magical ways, but you could’ve just, like, rifled through her purse. “Magic always comes with a price” but apparently not if you just want to wave some objects through the air instead of, like, reaching in and moving shit around like a normal person. That shit’s free.

Like, there is just no reason for this. It’s pointless. It’s weird.

Library scene. One of my favorites :D Well, not this one. The next one.

Hahaha, this “touching” mother daughter moment is so weird and dysfunctional and borderline creepy. I love it.

Seriously, Hook, you’re so fucking impatient. Just cool your heels, bro.

Hey, Gold, here’s an idea. Maybe when you’re hiding your dagger somewhere, and your arch nemesis is a pirate, maybe don’t leave a pirate map to where it’s hidden for that pirate to find and follow. I mean, you might as well have left it in a toolbox in the garden she- Nevermind. Let’s not talk about this.

Emma: Don’t do this. There are things called laws. Henry: I’ll be lookout. :D

“I don’t think he’s listening.” Henry is brilliant in this episode.

YEAH, THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT, NEAL. You finally manned up. Must've found some balls in the alley and tried ‘em on for size.

Aw, geez. I’m just... Wow. I really shouldn’t say anything about this whole scene, but... Yeah. Wow. I honestly can’t like Milah after some of the stuff she says in this scene. Sorry, guys. Like, she is literally telling her husband and the father of her child that the kid would’ve been better off if he was dead - and not just once, but, like... It’s like she’s engaging in a single-person competition to see who can find as many different ways as possible to say the same terrible thing over and over again, and it somehow manages to sound worse every time.

AHHHHH HIGH DRAMA!!!

I really do like everything about this scene with Emma and Neal and Gold and Henry and everyone trying to figure things out and/or hide things and/or... Oops, now it’s all out in the open and we’re all a big happy family fucked.

Ugh. Now it’s Greg. I really, really don’t care about Greg. At all.

Regina, goddammit, I told you to just rifle through that purse like a normal person. SEE what happens when you don’t listen to me?!

Actually, I totally forgot about this moment entirely, and now I’m laughing... Leave it to the show to put a “Why the fuck would you do this in this way?” moment into the show... that turns into a convoluted plot twist.

Son, I am disappoint totally not surprised, actually.

That map really DOES look like a child’s scribbles, though.

HOOK, WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING TO DO WITH THAT... keyring? scissors? dohickey? I don’t know. WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT THING?

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, it’s time for one of my favorite things ever!!!!

SUPER CASUAL VIOLENCE!!!

They’re both just so... so casual... and so flippant... and so... oh gosh, hahaha. He’s all upset and angry and foaming at the mouth, and Cora’s just like ~fling~! and LOOK AT THAT FUCKER FLY The violence is so ultra super casual and amazing, hahaha. And then they just walk off like Mean Girls: Storybrooke Edition and I fucking love them and I’d better rewind and watch it again. Hold on a second, guys.

ARE THOSE FUCKING TONGS, THOUGH?! why?

The books falling over like dominoes, haha, they always make me laugh. Better rewind again. I love this shit so much.

Old-fashioned compass, I guess? Some kind of... dohickey? I’m gonna go with dohickey, guys. I mean, it looks like a dohickey to me. Still, like, dafuq you think you’re going to do with that dohickey against two ladies with magic, boo? You adorable fucking idiot. IT DOESN’T EVEN HAVE A SHARP EDGE.

WHOOP, THERE HE GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOES

See, there. Bae had no fucking reason to be running and hiding from Rumple for fucking centuries. He just handled him just fine right there. 

“Or what you did to me.” Valid point, Emma. Well made and- ARE YOU FUCKING LAUGHING, YOU LITTLE SHIT?!? Where’d that fucking dohickey go?! YOU ARE SO GETTING RUBBED, YOUNG MAN.

Well, what do you know? The seer who said the future was hard to discern clearly has now given you her powers... AND YOU’VE LEARNED THAT THE FUTURE IS HARD TO DISCERN CLEARLY. Shocked. I am shocked.

PLOT TWIST. The boy will be his undoing!!! Except... umm... I mean... he kinda never was, though? So, I mean, I don’t... uh...

Aw, fuck it. Let’s rewind and watch the super casual violence again.

WHEEEEEEEEE LOOKIT HIM FLY!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D

[chokefriends]

Pit-town Strays, ch.2

Kidlaw softness and redneck shenanigans in a northern mining town. Everything’s fucked but whatever.

Rated T, no big warnings. Ch 2: The boys hang out some more, they are stupid baby dorks and nothing happens, thanks for coming by.

Ch. 1 - [Ch. 2] - Ch. 3 - Ch. 4 - Ch. 5

Read on Ao3 too, I’m Ossicle

Bellamy arrived back from partying just as Law was on his way out the next morning.

“So can I have the fucking car then?” Law asked, not holding out much hope.

His bull-necked brother eyed him with wary hostility. “You’re a fucking gay,” he accused Law.

“I can also drive.”

“Shut up. I bet you're not actually, though. You're just tryna make people think you're special.”

Law snorted. “Bellamy, obviously I'm ‘a’ fucking gay.”

“No,” he denied it doggedly. “I'm your brother, I'd know already.”

“Dellinger, help us out here, buddy,” Law summoned their youngest brother, who was just then coming down the stairs with a pop-tart sandwich and his guppy jar. He was wearing a wetsuit, for some arcane reason.

“He's too young to hear about that stuff,” Bellamy warned off Law under his breath.

Law ignored this and addressed Dellinger. “Deli-man: Am I, in your estimation, fucking gay.”

“Uhhh, obviously you're fucking gay?” Dellinger rolled his eyes with all the snotty certainty of a thirteen-year-old boy.

“See?” Law raised his eyebrows at Bellamy.

“Pff. Every punk seventh-grader says that about literally everything,” Bellamy pointed out, fairly. “Last week he said gym shoes were gay.”

“Gym shoes are very gay,” Law confirmed.

“Not gay as Law’s gay self, though.” Dellinger met Law's fist bump with the guppy jar and went to claim the cozy recliner spot for his Shark Week marathon. Of their parents’ two biological sons, Law was definitely closer with this little blond weirdo.

Bellamy grouched, “Dellinger, turn that off, don't you got school?”

“Uhhh, it's summer?” the squeaky brat reminded him. “Law's only in school cuz he's a gay, gay nerd.”

Law covered his smile and went away up the stairs.

Bellamy's scowl deepened. He followed Law, accusing him, “You been keeping stuff from me. I’m your brother.”

“Why the fuck would I tell you shit. Thought you’d have figured it out already, anyway… I only been dating guys since I was like, fourteen.” Law rolled his eyes even more heavily than Dellinger had.

Bellamy stood there and glared for a full minute as Law tried to relace his sneakers with the remaining strand of snapped shoelace.

“...does Dad know?”

Law hesitated at the question, and looked over his shoulder reflexively, though he knew their father was gone on a business trip. He shrugged in response, confidence blown.

His ornery brother hissed suddenly, “This is fucked up. I'm not getting involved in any of this sick shit. Got that? Don't bring home any more Pit-town meth head tricks, I'll fucking kill em!”

“Where the fuck are you going? Gimme the keys,” Law complained.

“No, I gotta use the car today!” Bellamy stormed off.

---

Fucking pointless drama. Law shook it off and messaged Kidd with an ETA, then went to the highway to hitch a ride again. He'd forgotten all about the morning’s tense exchange by the time he'd made his way over and climbed the same bare rock outcropping as the day before. Kidd, the bike, and the Pit were all waiting below.

“The whole place is on high Goose Alert,” Kidd grinned. “Kevin is unavailable for comment.”

Law laughed and swung his leg over the back of the black-painted motorcycle. They roared through the village to Kidd's place in the far corner of the grid, past pursuing dogs and staring neighbors but no geese. Much better way to see the place, Law thought, dismounting in the driveway. Getting a little feel of Kidd's tight physique had been a bonus.

He followed Kidd up the step, where the little pink bike was once again lying in the way.

“Oh hey, you went and throat-punched the bike-thieves’ dad already?” Law joked.

“Oh, yeah, heh, stopped by his place last night. Guy tried to fucking sell it back to me, you believe that? Barely past check day and he's tryna scam people… Fucking drunk. Had to knock him out and give his kids a chicken bucket to show me where it was.” Kidd stepped over the bike and tried the door. Locked. He jiggled it and tried again.

Law frowned. “Okay? That's… good. Good job.”

“Yeah, chicken works. Nami! Open the fucking door! NAMI.”

A pouting little face was pressed against the window over to their left, watching them and not budging.

“Shoulda got chicken,” Law suggested.

Kidd growled in irritation. “God, it's always gotta be something. Every fucking time she figures out I'm going somewhere for the day… Nami, I gotta get to work! And look: Law's here!”

Nami's pout deepened.

“I can just get the door,” Law offered, reaching into his pocket for a card to jimmy it.

“Nah it's fine, I got it…” Kidd drove his boot into the door in an angry burst and it swung open. He stomped inside.

“Uh,” Law looked at the splintered bolt slot. No wonder there was no stop left.

“I'll fix it later. Nami: c’mere.” Kidd shouldered the duffel bag that was waiting on the hall floor, and then squatted down to call his sister over to him. “C'mon, gimme a kiss, I'll be back really soon.”

She kept her face stuck to the window, blowing clouds onto the glass and drawing shapes in them.

He sighed and went over to plant a kiss on the top of her head anyway, and she made an angry sound but kept ignoring him. “Don’t be like that. I'll be home before you go to sleep this time, okay? Babygirl?”

Her face stayed stuck to the glass.

“Nami.”

“Best not to draw it out, right?” Law suggested.

“... … …Yeah.” Kidd waited a moment longer, but Nami was set on being mad. He stood with a scoff.

“We’re good,” Law assured him, “And I'll text if there's something.”

“Kay, yeah. Bye.”

Kidd left abruptly.

Law frowned after him. Outside, the bike roared to life and then faded into a distant hum. Law went to close the open front door, bringing the bike inside as an afterthought. Nami was wiping away all her window-fog designs when he came back. She looked at him warily.

Law held out his hands. “Hey, witchygirl! I said I'd come back, right?”

She didn't reply. She walked around the far side of the room and then past him. In the kitchen, she took a box of Sugarbombs from the cupboard and then sat at the table, waiting.

“...Want cereal?” Law asked.

“Yah,” she huffed.

Law got her a bowl and blue plastic spoon and got her all set up. He sat down with a sigh as she dug in.

“Nami, can you say ‘thank you?’”

“Ya.” She kept chewing.

Law stifled a laugh at this. Law's father would have given her a real quick correction if she'd tried that in his presence. And Law probably shouldn't encourage her sass, but hey. He looked around and his eyes fell on his Stats assignment, forgotten there the previous night.

It was finished.

“Holy, what??” Law looked it all the way through, and then again. He studied the formulas, rubbing his temple. “How… do you even…? Ughhh.”

He looked up when Nami heaved a heavy little sigh of her own. She was watching him, imitating his concerned slouch and terse sounds.

“Hi,” she finally acknowledged him.

“Hi, Nami. We cool?”

“Ya,” she decided. “You can haves some cereal too.”

“No, thanks, not my favorite,” Law went back to decoding the paper.

“It is, it is not what witches can eat?” she wondered.

“Witches can eat what they want,” he told her distractedly.

A few moments later Law looked up to find her gone, and he had to run before she tried eating something bad. He found her in the bathroom, selecting cleaning supplies from the cupboard. He diverted her to coloring at the table, and spent the next hour organizing the bathroom and sorting the cleaning stuff into a high place.

The day went on much the same as before, Law alternating between coursework, cleaning and Nami management, while Nami went about her witchness. By the time it got dark, though, she was whining at the window and trying to break small things of Kidd's. Law took a guitar tuner away from her and she had a full-on meltdown. Law was starting to watch out the window too, wondering if he should text Kidd for an ETA… The guy had said he'd be back before dark this time, right? Law finally convinced Nami to lie down and watch Toy Story, but she would only stay put if he sat where she could see both him and the TV.

It was past 11pm again by the time Kidd came through the door. Nami got up and went to peek around the corner at him, but ran back to bed when he tried to get her to hug him.

“Girl, what the fuck,” Kidd grumbled.

“She's been waiting a while, I guess,” Law suggested.

“Yeah well. If I get offered a few extra hours at rate, I'm gonna take em.” The big redhead kicked off his boots and headed for the kitchen.

Law looked over at the little blanket lump, but it wasn't budging, so he followed Kidd.

“Didn’t get to the sushi place this time,” Kidd apologized.

“It’s cool, takeout every night gets expensive. I made this soup thing, there was leftover chicken in the fridge.” Law pointed to the pot on the stove and Kidd went to look.

“Oh sweet, like from scratch?”

“Yup.”

“Whoa, lookit that. Fancy brown stuff…” He made himself a bowl and sat back at the table.

“That’s what they call me,” Law joked to himself.

“Huh?” Kidd paused, spoon in hand.

“Oh I was just… talking to myself, uh… n-nevermind. Didn’t expect you to be listening.”

“Well I’m right here. Anyway, hey, I got these,” Kidd fished in his bag and threw Law a can. Hard lemonade.

“Hah, thanks…?” Law was cautiously grateful. He cracked it and took a sip—hmm, not bad. Not bready, anyway.

There was the quiet sound of bare feet from down the hall.

“There she is,” Kidd lifted his arm to find a sleepy Nami hugging his waist. “Yeah, hi. Good girl. Go the fuck to bed.”

He gave her a kiss and a coin, and she padded off again.

Law took a long drink from his can. “Soooo uh, I was gonna ask. You did that Stats sheet I left?”

“Um. Guess so…”

He was treated to one of Kidd's full face-and-neck blushes again. The unfortunate paleface ducked his head and concentrated on his bowl.

Law stretched and pretended to be fascinated by the ceiling light. “I was just gonna ask ya—”

“I was just bored or whatever,” Kidd told his soup.

“Yeah, but I don't know anybody else who just does math when they're bored,” Law wryly addressed the ceiling.

“Not trying to show you up or whatever. It's probably wrong. You can just erase it.”

Law snuck a glance over to see that the blush had safely passed. “Yeah but actually maybe you could show me what, um. When you… Like, which. How.”

“...Oh, yeah? Really? What part.”

“Most parts…” Law admitted.

Kidd laughed again, startlingly loud. Law jumped a little but laughed too.

“If you want,” Kidd grinned, pleased.

Law scraped his chair up next to Kidd's. They studied the offensive bit of paper for an hour, grabbing the pencil back and forth and talking overtop of each other. It didn't take long for Law to grasp the concept, but he let Kidd take him through a few more examples. They were getting louder and messier as the cans disappeared, and pretty soon the lesson was forgotten.

“But what if I take the p-value, and divide it by its own ass.” Law held two pencils like chopsticks and drew a little asterix, earning an ear-splitting guffaw from Kidd.

“Sshhh, sleeping baby!” he shushed Law in a whisper-shout, still laughing.

“You're the one screeching!”

“Not even!”

An irate Nami appeared in the doorway. “SHUT THA FUCK.”

They both looked over at her in alarm, then burst out laughing even harder. Nami's scowl deepened, and she came over to swat her brother as he held up his hands in defense.

“Holy shit Nami, okay okay, hahaaa…”

“Kidd! You come put me a bed!” Nami ordered.

“I will after, I have to take Law home first.” Kidd sat her on his lap and looked over at the oven clock. One in the morning.

“Oh shit…” Law checked his phone. No messages from his father, but one from Bellamy.

Dad's home, was all it said.

He ask where I am? Law texted back, and waited anxiously.

“Unless, uhh, you wanna crash?” Kidd mumbled to Law with a cough.

Law scrolled through his messages another couple times. “I don't really wanna get in a crash, no… I guess you've had a few drinks, eh.”

“Nono, I mean like, crash here.”

“Oh!” Law looked up from his texting. “Like sleep here. With you.”

“On the couch,” Kidd clarified, cheeks flaring up again.

“Well…” Law considered his phone.

“Or I can take you home on the bike. It's fine, I ride it around all blasted all the time, haha. But I only had a few this time.”

That was not super reassuring, Law reflected. He fiddled with the little bear dangle on his phone case. A strident bzz-bzz, and Bellamy's reply popped up:

No he just went to bed…

Law breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe he could play it off like he'd come home late and gone back out again early, if his father asked.

“Yeah I'll stay,” he decided.

“Awesome!” Kidd gathered up Nami and made his way down the hall. He got a sheet out of the dryer and an extra blanket from a stack, then headed to the living room to make up the couch. Nami hung around his shoulders, over-tired and whining.

“I’m sharing with you tonight, Tinygirl,” he told her.

“You're not taking the big bed?” Law wondered.

“That's Dad's room.”

This seemed like all Kidd was gonna say on that topic, so Law let it go for now. Weird but whatever.

Kidd shucked off his outer layers and got into the little single bed on the floor, shoving aside all the furry little pillows. His feet hung off the end. Nami settled in under his arm with much squirming and fussing. Law laid himself out on the couch, still fully clothed in the stuffy room.

“You want some shorts to sleep in?” Kidd offered.

“Nah I'm good.”

“H’okay…” Kidd was probably thinking, weird but whatever.

“You working tomorrow?” Law asked.

“Yeah. But after that, it depends on when they need me.”

“Okay, I'll be around tomorrow, but Thursdays and Fridays I have class, so I can't come by til later.”

“We'll figure it out,” Kidd waved it off. “Worst case, I find another unlicensed daycare some yoga-pants MILF is running in her shed. Pit-town is good for those.”

Law snort-laughed into his pillow. “MILF-town! So where's the DILFs?”

“Well they sure as fuck ain't here,” Kidd muttered.

“What, no D's you'd like to F?” Law teased. A furry blue pillow flew at him.

“God no. No one wants to F these D's. The M's just do it for the B's, which stands for Baby Bonus.”

“Oooo… harsh.”

“True though,” Kidd chuckled darkly. “Not that I blame em. Baby bonus is about all the income to be had around here if you're non-union.”

“Huh…” Law was about to ask what Kidd had found, job-wise, but Nami interrupted to let them know she was asleep.

“I ASLEEP.”

“Okay,” Kidd whispered. “I guess me too.”

“Hey Kidd,” Law whispered. “You’re basically like Nami's dad, right?”

“...yeah. More than our actual dad is, anyway.”

“So,” Law struggled to keep his voice even. “You're one.”

“One what?”

“The one and only, the lone DILF of Pit-town.” Law stuffed his face into the pillow to muffle his giggling fit. There was no response and he looked over with a wicked grin to see that Kidd had pulled the blanket over his face. Probably blushing.

“You hiding?”

“Shut up… I'm asleep.”

Law chuckled quietly to himself and watched the odd pair on the floor. They were both out in a matter of minutes once they'd settled down. Kidd looked even bigger when he was trying to fit into a small space, with tiny Nami tucked between his side and arm. His protruding brow stayed creased, even while asleep, but the sarcasm had lifted from his lips. He looked worried.

Law settled down too, and scrolled aimlessly through his phone until it slipped out of his hand and he fell asleep without realizing.

[scammydoesstuff]

Yoooooo! Good to know we’re all on the same page here!

Now, since that’s the case (and forgive me cuz I got another ranty addition a-comin’ cuz I have a lot to say about this fuckin’ show), can someone please explain to me how Ralph was supposed to be ‘so much worse than Gabe’? Cuz I went into this episode with that in mind after Alex’s live signings where he said as much. Like, he literally used those words and I was like, ‘Hot damn — what?! Fuckin’ how can anything be worse than Gabe?!’ Cuz I’m not exaggerating when I say Gabe was fuckin’ terrifying. I have tried on several occasions to go back and watch even just that courtroom scene that’s available on YouTube and fuck me, I cannot get through it because it’s just so uncomfortable and his performance so unhinged and unsettling and then he starts to get violent right up until he’s literally dragged away and you can hear him still screaming for her in the halls and GAHH! He’s just so goddamn good at being terrible and I was so hype to see him be even worse in this episode, only to be disappointed because Ralph wasn’t that bad. He was just some dude, at least as far as what the show gave us. So where does him being terrible come into play? The confession? That he's supposedly a misogynist because they said as much? We’ve been over this; I don’t believe it when you can only present me anecdotal evidence. Gimme something substantial, ‘Blue Bloods’!

Speaking of, ‘Law & Order’ gives us a clear example of how you have your guilty party confess and make it believable. Cuz it’s a similar situation in that he admits to doing it and, at least at first, you might have to just take him at his word. Especially when he looks as soft and adorable as Alex is naturally. You think (or at least I thought), 'Noooo. There’s no way this precious lil bean could do the bad, right?! I mean, yeah he just…admitted it, but surely there'll be a twist that he was taking the fall. Lookit his face — he's just so adorable!’ However, where it differs from ‘Blue Bloods’ is that they don’t just force you to take his word for it and leave it at that. His behavior throughout the rest of the episode reinforces that confession. The way he creepily goes through her apartment at one point or visits her father in the nursing home, all while never denying he did it — just that he believes it was consensual when it so clearly wasn’t — all reinforce the narrative that was given to us. That’s why you believe — nay, that’s why you know he did it. You have to show your bad guy being the bad guy you’re insisting they are.

So yeah, I’d kill to see the script Alex was handed that made him think Ralph was somehow worse than Gabe, cuz we as the audience sure as shit didn’t get to see it play out in the episode. @heresathreebee said it perfectly; ‘Blue Bloods’ didn’t care about this plot line at all. It felt horribly rushed, like they wanted to squeeze it in, but they didn’t care how. Frankly, every plot except for the political stuff felt super rushed and squeezed in. Maybe they should’ve stuck to just 2 of those plots and separated all 4 into 2 episodes. That way all of them can breathe and be expanded upon and maybe not feel so paint-by-numbers.

But, frankly, I think I know why these plots felt so contrived and so forced. Again, this could be some conspiratorial part of my brain that’s coming to this conclusion, so I could be wrong, but I sincerely don’t think the show runners had any faith in Alex (or any other actor guest starring in this episode, tbh) to bring in a good performance since they use him (and those other characters) so little. This is a team/show that strikes me as so goddamn pretentious with its characters that — in Alex’s case, at least — I genuinely think they got this incredible actor and were like ‘*scoff* Broadway? There’s no singing here, so clearly he’ll be too out of his element for our superior programming. Just give him some bit part in this thrown together murder case while we put our vastly more talented television actors into the spotlight where they belong.’ Again, I could be wrong, but that’s how it felt. I don’t think they realized what a goddamn powerhouse of an actor they had on their hands.

‘Law & Order: SVU’ knew how talented their Broadway actors were and knew to step down and write the episode around them. They knew they’d get one helluva performance out of these two, so they took their characters (characters who’ve been around way longer than ‘Blue Bloods’, if I’m not mistaken) and said, ‘you guys are great, but we’re introducing our audience to some incredible actors, so y’all need to just sit the fuck back and watch the magic.’ Like, I gush about Alex a lot, but Eva Noblezada’s performance was just as chilling and you felt for her from minute one. She felt like a real person with real problems within a quickly escalating situation that left her feeling more and more helpless in a system that is designed to believe him over her. They were both so good and the show runners at ‘Law & Order’ clearly knew what they were working with enough to let them do their thing. Sure, that show is more structured around the cases, but they could’ve let their characters take more of the spotlight to drive the narrative, but instead knew to back off and let Alex and Eva direct the plot. Hell, the rest of the cast felt like fucking footnotes when compared to them. They were not important, the conflict between Gabe and Zoey was.

‘Blue Bloods’, by comparison, did not care about telling compelling stories so much as they just want to show off their own characters who were borderline unlikable. I’m sorry, ‘Blue Bloods’, but I don’t care about your ‘white savior’ cop being a piece of shit or the lady cops who were given busy work because y’all didn’t know what else to do with them in this episode, which seems to be why you gave their plot less than 5 minutes of screen time. I care about the cases that you’re dangling in front of us and not allowing us to sink our teeth into. Stop doing that.

Speaking of stopping; that’s probably what I should do too. I could rant and rave about how much I hated this episode forever. It makes me so mad to think about it for too long because the missed opportunity is just that upsetting (to me, anyway).

But I’m at least glad I’m not alone in this thinking! Great minds, indeed!

So about that 'Blue Bloods' episode…

I recently saw something come across my dash regarding Alex Brightman’s guest appearance on the season 11 episode of 'Blue Bloods' (The Common Good) and it reignited the vehement response I had to the episode as a whole. And, since I have this blog now, I figured…fuck it. I need to rant about it.

So that's what this is.

Take what I say with a grain of salt, of course. This show is so clearly not for me and I acknowledge that, but I went to school for and got my degree in creative writing and so much of this episode pissed me off from a narrative perspective and I just really need to talk about it. Putting it under a Read More, though, so you can ignore me if you’d like while I rage to no one in particular. Apologies in advance if you choose to read on. I'm super long-winded. Luckily I don't have pictures and this is more of just a lot of text, so…it could be longer?

So, to begin, I’ll freely admit that I’d never seen an episode of 'Blue Bloods' before this and I’ve not watched it since. I mean, if the rest of the episodes are as badly written as this one, I have no interest to either, but I digress.

Overall my main problem with the episode was how desperately it avoided ‘showing’ over ‘telling’ and, as a visual medium, that’s kind’ve a big deal. We were told pretty much every detail that was presented to us. These people love to hear themselves talk, but do little to actually show things as they happen and I believe a part of that has to do with the focus of the show itself, which is definitely unique to this brand of television. By that, I just mean that it’s not the format I might’ve expected from a show like this. Most cop shows give a lot of focus to the cases, and the intrigue you get with the characters is how they apply their own skills and knowledge to solve them, with the hi-jinks they get into along the way being more of a bonus.

This is not that kind of show.

No, 'Blue Bloods' as a show is way more interested in the cops and their familial ties than it is about the actual job that they’re doing, as shown prominently with the political plot of this episode which was also very focused on the relationship between Tom Selleck’s character and his daughter and the wholly unrelated dinner scene where they talk about lent for 2 and a half minutes and acknowledge nothing else that happened in the episode. This show doesn’t care about the job of being a cop so much as it cares about the cops themselves.

Which would be fine if I gave a shit about cops, but I don’t.

You could argue that the mentor plot is the exception to that, but that entire situation had no real consequences for the cop in question, Jamie, abusing his power. It was entirely focused on how the situation affected him and how it was fine that he’d nudged this kid to get information which ultimately led to the arrest of Dion's brother, and Dion quitting the program. Hell, if Jamie had, in his final scene with Dion, owned up to his abuse of power and left the program — to then urge Dion to rejoin so that he can have that positive outlet in his life without him there — I would’ve been way more okay with it, but Jamie faces no consequences past ‘I don’t wanna see you anymore’, which I was never convinced he actually cared about in the slightest. There's nothing cathartic about it, it's just shitty and left me feeling frustrated at the lack of consequences for the cop.

But hey, you prolly don’t wanna read me going on and on about those parts. You prolly wanna know why I hate it despite Alex’s plot — which I fully expected to love because he’s perfect and gorgeous even when he’s playing a bad guy and he was just so adorable in his lil suit and they let him keep the scruff this time, and he was all handsome an— I need to stop. That could go on forever.

Anyway, to put it simply; it was bad, but I'll definitely explain why.

Now, I don’t think any of the guests in this episode necessarily did a bad job. They still acted well enough for what they were given. I just think they had a shit script that wasn’t interested in that story line. I mentioned at the top of this that this show cared more about telling than showing and that’s a huge problem when you want me to buy a character being the culprit in your murder plot. I need evidence, not anecdotes. Cuz, yeah, by the end of the episode, I didn’t buy for even a second that Ralph did it. And it’s not because he was played by Alex who is just charisma incarnate. I can believe him playing a bad guy. I also watched his 'Law & Order SVU' episode where he scared the shit outta me. He can play a creepy and violent character very well, he just wasn’t convincing to me as a bad guy in this show.

And here’s why!

First of all, he confessed at knife point. That confession would be thrown away IRL. It’s the same problem with using torture to get information. If a person’s life is threatened or they're being harmed in some way, they’ll usually say whatever it takes to get you to stop threatening them/causing them pain. Same deal here. You can’t convince me with a confession like that.

But they didn't seem to be interested in convincing anyone as far as I could tell. They just expected you to believe it because, ‘no, didn’t you hear? He said he did it, so he did it.’ They had so many opportunities to portray this character as the shitbag that we’re told he is. Hell, great way to really implicate him? Give him a female assistant that Donnie Wahlberg and his partner overhear / walk in on him berating for something small like getting him the wrong coffee or something. Then have them talk to that assistant later on and her mention some weird behavior from him on the night of Andrea’s death. It's cliché, but it's more than what we got.

Or you could have him talk to Meghan in a super condescending voice when he approaches her after her interview later on. Or, hell, have him refer to the murder victim in a condescending way even as he talks about her death. But no. The most we get out of him is that he's maybe a little snarky and smug when talking to the cops, but that’s not enough to convince me he’s a bad dude. Frankly, his producer buddy came off as more of an asshole, if I'm being honest. Just cuz (we’re told) his character did shitty things to her in the past doesn’t mean he’s still shitty. Show me he’s still shitty. I wanna see it and I know Alex is capable of a performance like that.

Second, it’s also just…obvious to make him the culprit if we're to believe everything we're told about him. He and Andrea are described as having had beef a little while before the murder with him being abusive mentally and physically. He’s known in the community to be a misogynist and an abusive person overall. He’s the obvious suspect, but if there’s anything that Scooby-Doo taught me, it’s that it’s never the most obvious person. Like, once in a blue moon, sure — but it’s rare.

So yeah, I don’t believe that Ralph did it. You wanna know who I do think did it?

Meghan.

Alright, so bear with me. This'll prolly sound a little conspiratorial, but hear me out:

She had the motive. She confirms in the beginning of the episode that she’s also a female gamer like the victim, but that she was ‘no Andrea’. Andrea was her competition. They were (supposedly) friends and stuck together as female gamers, but Andrea was still competition. With her out of the way, Meghan’s able to rise in the ranks, if even a little bit.

She had a scapegoat in Ralph — again, the obvious suspect given his tumultuous relationship with Andrea sometime prior — and an obvious grudge against men in their community in general. And, don’t get me wrong, men in gaming can and often are hella toxic — I’m not, in any way, denying that — but she got way more emotional when talking about the men in their community than when she was talking about her supposed friend lying dead in the adjoining room.

Speaking of the adjoining room, how did she not hear the murder happening? It couldn’t have been when she was down in the bar, cuz we see Ralph there too in the crappy CCTV footage that was supposed to show him being an asshole, I think (hard to really see). Was she just fucking around somewhere else when it happened? She doesn’t mention as much that I recall (correct me if I'm wrong on that, of course). And Andrea was strangled to death. I would assume that there would’ve been a struggle with that. Are you seriously telling me she wouldn’t hear that in her adjoining hotel room? Those walls aren’t that thick. I find that kinda hard to believe. And that she wouldn’t have found her till the next morning after that, also strikes me as a little odd.

Going off on some previous points, she shows very little grief over her friend’s death. Not just in the intro scene, either, but later on as well. (Side bar: that intro scene itself was very misleading. Don’t lead with a murder plot if it only takes up less than 10 minutes of the overall runtime, kay?) The show did a pretty bad job at indicating the passage of time, but it’s implied that the convention is still happening when Meghan gets the confession out of Ralph, so it would’ve had to have been the same weekend, or possibly the same week (though most conventions I’m aware of don’t last that long — it’s usually a weekend thing, at most Thursday-Sunday — but it could be similar to AGDQ, which seems to last about a week). So, if this is only a day or so later, why would someone who is supposedly grieving over their dead friend do interviews like nothing is wrong? Wouldn't you, like, reschedule or just politely decline and say you need time to process the shock? Like, when we cut to ol’ Donnie Wahlberg calling her after her interview, she doesn’t look upset — as I imagine she might if they’d likely asked her questions about Andrea / her feelings about the murder — and she seems cool as a cucumber when she asks Ralph to go somewhere private. In fact, the look on her face indicates pretty clearly that she’s planning to do something. Specifically, not that she's scared, that she's angry.

Finally, she’s the one who’s attacking Ralph when Donnie Wahlberg and company arrive on the scene. She doesn’t seem to have any marks on her indicating that he made any move to harm her (again, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't remember seeing her with any marks / cuts), but he’s got a clear, bleeding cut on his face. She attacked him first and was going in for the kill.

Or…was she? Cuz right before Donnie Wahlberg pulls her into that bear hug to stop her from the attack, she doesn’t do a great job of actually trying to kill Ralph. She was close enough that a quick dart at him would’ve probably been enough to at least injure him pretty significantly — maybe even fatally — and would’ve surely led the cops to pull them apart to secure him, but she kinda just hops around a bit and screams before lunging for him. That’s a really weird way to attack when you actually want to kill someone.

But, then again, I don’t necessarily think she did want to kill him. I’m convinced she wanted that confession, but that she also wanted him in jail and was playing the part of the super sad and hysterical victim who was just so overcome with her grief that she wasn’t in her right mind. I think that’s what they were going for in regards to her character in general, but it came across as less sincere in the performance and more like the character was putting on an act. They then cart Ralph off while comforting her — despite the fact that she disobeyed a direct order from police, which should lead to her being detained as well! — and that plot ends.

So, she gets what she wants in the end. A person she despises is now in police custody, her competition is out of the way, and the publicity she might get for bringing that ‘murderer’ to justice might eventually lead to her own career getting a nice boost. I dunno, it just strikes me as her having a great reason to have initiated this over Ralph just being a misogynist who 'was really trying to kill Meghan and just got the wrong girl'.

So yeah, with what the show presented to us, I believe Meghan’s the real killer. Again, if they’d done more to show me that Ralph was a bad dude or that she was more affected by her supposed friend’s death, or if they'd just given that plot more room to breathe to show those things, I might’ve been more inclined to buy the narrative they were pushing but…as is, I don’t believe it.

That’s pretty much all I wanted to say on the matter. I had a lot of issues with the domestic abuse plot line too, but they barely gave that 5 minutes of the overall runtime, so does it really matter in the long run? This is just…my thought process of the only part of the episode I watched for and how disappointing it was for me. And yes, I timed each section of the episode to figure out how much time was given to each of the 4 plots, plus the dinner scene at the end, but not counting the intro theme, and the murder plot got just over 8 minutes, of which Alex was on screen for half of that time. He got less than 5 minutes of screen time. It was definitely worth it just because he’s wonderful and I just like seeing him on these shows, but from a narrative standpoint, it felt pointless.

Okay, I’m done. Thank you for coming to my TED talk. Unless y’all wanna talk about this some more, cuz I’m so down for that.

[markoftheasphodel]

On Delmud. Dermott. DIARMUID. Whatever.

All right.

Today we're gonna talk about the member of the Hezul bloodline that everyone including the script forgets about. (ETA: and given where he placed in the FE Heroes polls, everybody really has forgotten about him.) I have recently received some positive feedback on how I write this guy, so I figured I may as well lay out my thoughts on the matter.

So Diarmuid (as we're now calling him) is the son and elder child of Raquesis/Lachesis, princess of Nordion. She drops him off with Oifey and/or Aideen and then goes off to Leonster because Reasons, which means Diarmuid grows up in Tirnanog completely cut off from his relations-- no siblings, no cousins, no parents.

Lookit that punk-ass haircut (upper left, duh). He looks like a mook for the bad guys.

Better.

He's kind of a flashy dude. He's got his hair slicked back, he's rockin' this red-white-black color scheme that evokes other members of House Nordion as well as the guy (right) who presumably taught him how to use a sword. And my, that's a big sword he carries. Honestly he looks a little menacing, like a member of greaser street gang, plus he's a Free Knight/Forrest Knight and the Gen1 example thereof was Beowolf, a blade for hire who talked funny.. who is quite likely to be Diarmuid's father... so you might get the impression that Diarmuid is a bit of a handful. This would appear to be wrong; Oifey helped raise him, after all.

So, we meet Diarmuid in Chapter 6; Oifey's taken him and Lester out on a recon mission and as he doesn't appear to be one of the eldest kids in Tirnanog, this might speak to Diarmuid's emotional maturity. He also comes in as a LVL 3 unit rather than a LVL 1 utter scrub.

In Chapter 7, he has a brief exchange with Oifey:

Oifey: “Delmud, I heard you have a sister in Lenster.”

Delmud: “Yes, we got separated a long time ago. I heard she’s with a knight of Lenster named Finn.”

Oifey: “Oh… Finn. I bet you can’t wait to see her again.”

Delmud: “You got that right!”

Oifey: “Well, you’ve got your work cut out for you. Here, I’ll give you some tips on using that sword.”

Delmud: “Wow, that’d be great!

This is one of the two-- TWO-- event conversations Diarmuid gets prior to the Epilogue and it causes a little bit of a problem. This is the same chapter where Finn and Nanna can have a optional father/daughter conversation. Diarmuid's dialogue never changes, even though FE4 elsewhere allows for situational variations in "events" (see: villages). The net effect is, if Lachesis and Finn were paired, then Diarmuid doesn't know who his father even is... despite being raised by three of the people who were around during Gen1. A lot of Finn's pairings cause that kind of short-circuit, but we're concerned with Diarmuid here and as far as he's knows, he's got a long-lost sister who's with some knight dude and it's all good.

Except when Diarmuid meets Nanna we find out it's not all good:

Delmud: “Is your name by any chance Nanna?”

Nanna: “Yeah. And who are you?”

Delmud: “Yes! I found you! I’m Delmud, your brother!”

Nanna: “Huh? Is this some kind of joke?”

Delmud: “Here, let me explain everything Levin told me. During the last war all us kids fled to Isaac. But then our mother, Lachesis, brought you here to Lenster just after you were born.”

Nanna: “If you’re my brother, then where is she now?”

Delmud: “You mean our mother?”

Nanna: “She left me when I was around 3 to meet up with you in Isaac, but she never came back. I’ve waited for her to come home ever since…”

Delmud: “Mother came for me? But… but I never saw her!”

Nanna: “Oh, no! What could’ve happened to her…”

Delmud: “Well, first of all Yied Desert is no place for anyone to be traveling alone.”

Nanna: “Oh, no… Poor mother!”

And following this dramatic revelation that his mother died in the desert, the script drops him until Endgame. Diarmuid never says another word-- he never has a scene with his cousin and technical head of house, Ares. He never has another scene with Nanna wherein we see the progression of their relationship (Nanna is way more interested in chatting up future kings. Priorities.) He has no predestined lady loves to make small-talk with. And he (notoriously) never exchanges words with his potential father/default stepfather, Finn, the way Lewyn and Ced have a significant scene together. He just disappears entirely from the dialogue.

Now, come the Epilogue he does have a few things to say...

Delmud : Lord Celice, I’ll be going to Agustria along with Prince Aless. I’m going to lend my strength toward rebuilding my country.

Celice: You will, Delmud? I see. Your mother’s the young princess of Nodion, wasn’t she?

Delmud: Yes, sir. My lady mother Lachesis was King Eltoshan’s younger sister, so it only follows that there’s not anybody else closer to him. I’ve decided to pledge my life to this cause. For my mother and King Eltoshan’s death wishes, and for seeing Agustria united.

A minor character from first to last, Diarmuid has no arc. He's an earnest and pleasant fellow who exits the stage on the same positive tone that he entered. If he takes a wife, Seliph gushes that they're perfect for one another.

FE5 gives him a little more exposure-- a recruitment scene with Leif and then a tweaked version of the reunion with Nanna in which Diarmuid is more self-assured and knowledgeable, Nanna is less prickly and more gracious, and Lachesis is 100% less dead. And FE5 rather infamously gave him the Beo Sword, broadcasting to the world "Yo, this is Beowolf's son!" so that Lachesis fans could have two decades of arguments over it.

And therein lies the essential weirdness of Diarmuid. He's a static character with little screen time who exists in the glare of far more significant characters and has a shipwar swirling around him. Consequently, when fans want to do something with Diarmuid, there's a temptation to make the Beowolf/Lachesis/Finn fan-fueled shipwar drama Diarmuid's own drama and to ground his character in that. You end up with a Diarmuid who harbors clear resentment at a father who won't give him the time of day, or--even more dramatic-- a Diarmuid aware that he's a mercenary's bastard, stashed in Tirnanog while his mother went to play house down in Leonster and with a great deal of rage aimed at the world in general and his stepfather in particular.

...

There's, like, no support for this in the actual text? FE5 gives us a look at Diarmuid on a very bad day, if you attempt to recruit him and Nanna happens to be dead.

Delmud: “Greetings, Prince Leif. I am Delmud, one of Lord Celice’s troops.”

Leif: “Delmud!? Then are you Nanna’s brother?”

Delmud: “Yes.”

Delmud: “I was hoping to see Nanna, but…”

Leif: “I’m sorry. If only I were stronger…”

Delmud: “No, it isn’t your fault. I think… I think Nanna was happy to be at your side.”

Leif: “Delmud…”

Delmud: “Lord Leif, here is a letter from Lord Celice. Please read through it…”

Leif: “Hmm… He says it shouldn’t take too long to take down Alster…”

Delmud: “Yes. No more than a few days…”

Leif: “Then let’s head for Alster. I want to see Lord Celice!”

Delmud: “Of course, Lord Leif. I shall escort you.”

He's gracious. He won't join Leif-- he goes back to Seliph's army-- but he's not throwing a tantrum. He tries to find some consolation for both himself and Leif in the tragedy and withdraws. Maybe he's inwardly thinking "To hell with you, to hell with Thracia, and to hell with my stepfather for letting this happen" but it's not coming out. He could be stewing in his own rage for Chapters 8-Endgame of FE4 but that's not coming out, either.

It's easy to take a teenaged boy in a war zone, plop him in the middle of Family Drama, and let him explode. It's a lot harder to examine the kind of young man who doesn't explode, who doesn't seethe, who accepts bad news with grace and tries to offer comfort to someone else who's hurting in spite of his own pain. It's a hell of a lot harder, because a lot of us would not, in fact, be that gracious in such circumstances (Nanna, for one, is not). But that's the Diarmuid we have, the charming prince. He's left behind by his mother, ignored by his stepfather, overshadowed by his sister, cousin, and brother-in-law, and he's here and willing to serve.

The challenge with Diarmuid lies not in making him "interesting" but in actually taking him at face value and making something plausible out of that. And it is indeed a challenge, when there are more accessible characters in Jugdral’s dated sandbox.