#heck I’m not even that much of a hunter fan and the conclusion of his arc still annoyed me

[kiwisandpearls]

thinking about it now…I can kinda see what the toh writers might have been trying to do by having Hunter basically turn into Caleb by the end of show (he reverts to his old haircut, has a thing for wood carving which Caleb was seen doing in the portraits, has the same eye color as Caleb). I think they were trying to imply that Hunter kind of…accepted the fact that he’s a clone of Caleb. Which, if that is what they were trying to do:

that is a horrible idea considering everything else about his arc up to WAD.

Up to WAD the writers have shown how Hunter clearly did not want to be like Caleb. Heck the thing that caused Hunter to try and cut his hair was seeing a glimpse of Caleb in his reflection of the mirror in TTT. He gets his old hairstyle back when Belos possesses him. Belos made Hunter and all the other golden guards to be basically clones of Caleb and he says this himself. Everything up to WAD is basically screaming at us that Hunter being like Caleb is not something Hunter wants and is what Belos wants of him, and is not a good thing.

so for the TOH writers to then turn around and give him Caleb’s eye color, give him back his old hairstyle and technically also Caleb’s hairstyle (which I cannot reiterate enough, he tried to cut in a panic because he saw Caleb in his reflection), and give him the hobby Caleb was seen doing in the portraits (wood carving), it not only in a sense gives Belos what he wanted (to make a ‘better version of a friend’) it’s a major slap in the face for everything Hunter’s arc was clearly building up to, refusing to be a clone of Caleb and showing that he is his own person.

so, if it is true that they were trying to do a thing where Hunter accepts that he’s a clone of Caleb (which, I did not say this before but I’ll say this now, is just speculation); 1. That’s a terrible idea and goes against everything Hunter’s arc was building up to and 2. They did not do a good job of hinting or implying this, they hinted everything in the opposite direction of this, that Hunter learns he is his own person.

[darkzorua100]

In works of fiction, one of the hardest things to do isn’t so much as writing a solid story but trying to find a way to end it with a satisfying conclusion. It could be a happy, sad, or all of the above as long as it fits the story that you have building up to at this point. After all, this is the last thing your viewers are going to be seeing. The last big take away before they have to move on. What is going to be the legacy of this fiction? A ending can make or break a series after all. Just look at Yu-Gi-Oh ARC-V for example. Looking back at it, it was such a groundbreaking entry into the Yu-Gi-Oh franchise for being the first series to make all the Extra Deck Summoning Mechanics relevant to the story instead of pushing them off to the side for the newest one in Pendulum at the time. It was a huge nostalgia trip by paying homage to the past series that came before it from using their locations for the different dimensions to bringing back past characters, in a way anyway, to the forefront. There is just so much more I could say about that spin-off but to put it in a nutshell, ARC-V just did so much right at the time but of course we all can’t forget that damn ending. The way that ARC-V ended just left pretty much everyone who had watched it from the very beginning with such a sour taste in our mouths. I don’t think I need to explain why, anyone who has seen the final knows exactly what I’m talking about, but yeah, it goes to show that a finale leaves a lasting impression and is pretty much why, even to this day, a majority of people consider ARC-V to be the worst Yu-Gi-Oh series to date. 

So with all that being said, how did Yu-Gi-Oh Vrains finale do? Was it able to wrap everything up into a perfect little package with a nice bow on top? Well honestly, the package itself was a freaking mess and a half but I will say the bow on top wasn’t half bad for what it was worth. We all knew with Vrains ending way to early compared to the previous series that things were going to be getting rushed at the end but I will say that even if things were rushed, and it wasn’t the most satisfying ending they could have given us, what they did give us still left me feeling fulfilled and with Vrains being the absolute train wreck that it was, at the end of the day, I’ll call that a win. 

So let’s start off with the final part of the Playmaker vs Ai duel. These two really were just full on neck and neck that it literally came down to their aces (because yes, Decode Talker is Playmaker’s true ace monster of show) batting each other, once again like from the opening, with Yusaku only being able to pull out the win in the end because Ai wanted to make sure that he was going to be able to finish him off during his turn. If his greed didn’t get the best of him, he would have actually won. That is actually really crazy to think about. At one point, just before Playmaker summoned Accesscode Talker, I seriously thought he was going to summon a Link 8 since he had the total Link Rating on his field with his three monsters plus Darkfluid being a Link 5 but nope, he summoned basically his new combination of the six Ignises in the form of a Code Talker (which all seem to be model after an Ignis anyway). I mean how he was actually able to summon out Accesscode was kinda BS but that’s just normal BS when it comes to the final duels in a Yu-Gi-Oh final. I’m still questioning how in the actual world did Yusaku not deck himself out during this duel. Seriously just how many cards did this boy go through? Way to many from the looks of things.

Now let’s talk about Playmaker and Ai scenes. My god, those shouldn’t have hurt as much as they did. Just at the beginning when Yusaku was telling Ai about how the bonds between others were the things that created the future, not predetermined simulations, and how Ai just couldn’t understand it just hurt right off the bat because I can understand why Ai can’t think that way. Just like he told Yusaku, he is data. To find a situation to a problem is all he knows. To base something with nothing to support it makes no sense to him especially when he can’t chance it. He has seen the alternative and my god, Ai. We didn’t even see the full simulation play out (but what we did see is definitely getting censored in the dub no questions there) but I could already tell what exactly played out. If Dr. Kogami was right about anything, it is that it is inevitable for humanity not to turn against artificial intelligence out of fear that they would one day surpass humanity and try and take us over or just kill us on the spot. I think the future we saw in that simulation was just that with Yusaku trying to convince them that Ai was no danger to humanity and well....we all saw how well that ended. Honestly I lowkey wished we got to see more of that simulation just to see the moment that Ai snaps and murders anyone. Because lets face it, Yusaku literally is the only family that Ai had left at that point. If something happened to him, Ai was actually going to snap. And it wasn’t even if something terrible would happen to him. Yusaku is still human while Ai is an artificial intelligence. If nothing happened to him, Yusaku would have just aged over time and eventually pass away while Ai would always remain immortal which once again would probably lead to a snap. I honestly don’t blame Ai for picking the path that he did in the end. Even if Lightning never showed him the first simulation, I don’t think it would have been long before Ai would have put the pieces together and start doing his own simulations. Ai was just a goner since the moment he was created as a A.I. with free-will. As for his death scene, I almost did start crying because things shouldn’t have had to have ended this way. I don’t care what Yusaku said. You should have took the fusion deal, young man. It worked out pretty freaking well for Judai and Yubel. Heck, regardless how stupid it was, the Yuu Boys and the Bracelet Girls were all still their own individual people too. I don’t see how that would be any different for you two, especially considering that Ai came from you, Yusaku. I have a lot of feelings about this but I will say that the moments that really hurt for me was when Ai asked Yusaku if he was a good partner, to which Yusaku answered “yes”, and when Yusaku explained to Ai that his name meant “love”. I actually didn’t think they were going to explain the meaning of Ai’s name in the show but I’m so thankful that they did but damn, that freaking hurt! Also Aiballshipping is canon. I actually find it hilarious that Ai stole Yusaku from Ryoken at the last second XD

As for everyone else’s endings. As much as it is still the most convenient bullsh*t ever, I am happy that Jin was able to move on after freaking years of being tormented by his PTSD and by Lightning in season 2 and is now happily working with his brother at the hot dog truck just like Kusanagi always wanted. I’m glad that they are slowly starting to make up for all the time that they have lost together because of this one incident. Aoi seems to be doing okay but I won’t lie, I was bit salty that Miyu wasn’t with her when she was visiting the brothers since it seemed like the perfect opportunity for them to be together and to show that their friendship is still strong after all of these years. Like what the heck? If they are going to force this stupid storyline on us, at least commit to it damn it! It has been three months and wait? Is she still in the damn hospital? Like we literally don’t know what happened to Miyu after all of this and I just find that infuriating but what’s new there? Akira is now CEO of SOL Technologies and I’m kinda mixed on how to feel about this. I mean we all were expecting this since the very beginning but again it is one of those things like what happened to Queen? Vrains threw away the rest of the Chess Pieces long ago but Queen was still a character. I mean I like to think that Queen just up and give Akira the company out of fear of being attacked again by someone else in the future but it is still one of those things that you wished you knew what happened to her as to how Akira got this position. It seems that Vrains has continued to grow and expand during this three month time skip and I don’t know if it was intentional or not but all the connections make it look like The Arrival Cyberse @Ignister and if that truly was the case that was a really nice detail to add, Vrains. Emma and Kengo seemed to have teamed up as a brother and sister bounty hunter team in the network which is fitting. Go is back to being his entertainer self to please his younger fans. I’m planning on giving my full thoughts about Vrains sometime later this week hopefully so I’m get into more detail about him and everyone else there. The Knights of Hanoi are taking Takeru’s declaration to heart and are watching over Link Vrains from Ryoken’s freaking cruise ship apparently while Ryoken and Spectre are watching over everything inside of Link Vrains. Now that Vrains is over, I officially have to ask. Where the actual hell is Ryoken getting all of this money from? Correction, WHERE IS HE GETTING ALL OF THESE BOATS FROM?! Geez and I thought we as a fandom were the shippers. This boy has a freaking navy of them in hiding.

HOMURA TAKERU GOT HIMSELF A GIRLFRIEND! MY BOY IS GETTING LAID TONIGHT! 

No but seriously, before they showed the duel disks and just them sitting on the bed, my brain went places. The dialogue did not help. Yes my brain is extremely dirty but that’s besides the point. 

ENTRUSTSHIPPING IS CANON! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

I like to think that wherever Flame ended up in the A.I. afterlife, he is looking down at Takeru with a proud smile during this moment. I also just find it fun that since Kiku doesn’t have an avatar, if anyone knows her in real life sees her in Link Vrains with Soulburner, they are obviously going to put the pieces together real quick about who Soulburner actually is. I’m in just such amazement right now over this even though I had any idea that something like this was going to happen. During the closing interviews from the VAs, Kaji Yuuki made a comment about how we were going to be seeing Takeru getting “unmasked” during the finale and I just knew that something like this was going to happen and I was not disappointed at all. I’m sorry but I just have such a huge sh*t eating grin across my face because of this. 

THIS IS AWESOME!!!!! I CAN’T BELIEVE THEY ACTUALLY MADE THIS CANON!

How is it that Kiku, a freaking SIDE CHARACTER, ended up being my favorite female of Vrains? I don’t know, I’m just going to move on before I start freaking out again about these two being so freaking adorable. 

I do like how Naoki, as soon as he saw these two, makes it his new goal to get himself a special someone of his own. I don’t know how that’s going to work out for him but hey good for him.

And as for Yusaku, the shows ends with him going on some kind of journey, leaving his final fate obscure which is pretty normal for a Yu-Gi-Oh series as they did the same in the past with Judai and Yusei. My guess he’s going around the network to try and find a way to bring back Ai and maybe the rest of the Ignis.

Speaking of which, the last scene we get of this series is that Ai is apparently alive. Maybe. Who actually knows. He could be in A.I. heaven for all we know but if that’s the case I feel they would have shown us a scene of him being greeted and welcomed by the rest of the Ignis but what we got of him instead was him in his eyeball form looking to be restored. Man Ai is literally like a cockroach and I am saying that in the nicest way possibly. He gets his data eaten by a dragon, tore to pieces by a Data Storm, destroyed by a powerful program, and even kills himself by his own hand and yet he still lives. I am very curious to know if anything is going to come from this reveal, such as if YGO 7 actually is a crossover series, or if this was just the writers giving us a break and letting us know that Ai is still alive and there is hope of him returning. I mean I’m happy he is alive, don’t get me wrong, but I feel like it would have just been fine keeping him dead with the rest of the Ignis. Because if he is still alive, won’t Ai just try and kill himself again? Seems kinda counterproductive but I digress.

So yeah, I very much enjoyed the final episode of Vrains. The series had a lot of problems, and I mean A LOT of them, but it had its shining moments, such as this. Like I said, I’m planning to go into more detail about my full thoughts about the series but when it comes to its ending, I think it delivered what it needed to. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you Yu-Gi-Oh Vrains. You were a freaking struggle to watch at times but you were a joy to have around all the same. I guess the best compliment I can give you is that you literally are Ai. You are insufferable at times but you had your charm that kept me coming back for more and I’m sad to see you go just like I was with Ai.

Now it is onto Yu-Gi-Oh 7th and who knows. If it actually is a crossover series, Vrains might just be back sooner then we expect. I hope so because I’m not ready to say goodbye to my meme-lord and my fire child and his new girlfriend yet! I don’t think it has fully hit me yet that Vrains is actually over and it is going to suck when next week comes around and there is just no more episodes.

[flyingcatstiel]

Salty Ask list! 

@60r3d0m said on this ask:

hmmm particular arcs...maybe purgatory? human cas? mark of cain? how did you feel about those?

I didn’t mention these because either I think they’re popular enough or I don’t like them. Let’s see. I watched the show live, with tumblr fandom, since 8x01. So, my opinion of all these arcs is tinted by our expectations at the time and how they matched up with the show. The problem with Supernatural is, that the show never lives up to fandom speculations, never surprises me in a good way. I love good story. I can enjoy a good, clever story even if Cas is not there. Unfortunately, the show never delivers on its potential. 

Purgatory. The idea was marvelous - Dean and Cas alone in purgatory, so much potential for talks, adventures. What if they meet some old adversaries there? Gordon, Emma? The reality - obligatory chaperone and new best friend Benny spent more alone time with Dean than Cas. I think, that was our clue, our hint, that the show will never deliver proper deancas, only tease it. They were pretty honest about it, promoting Benny more than Cas at SDCC. But we didn’t see it at the time. I think Purgatory arc is popular in fandom for it’s aesthetics and very sexy Dean. I know that the other half of fandom has successfully bleached out “”Where’s the angel?” lines out of their brains and they think that Dean spent all time there eager to get back to Sammy. So, they also like it. In conclusion - purgatory arc was too short. Another example of how the show created something they didn’t expect fans to like so much. 

Human Cas. First of all, a supernatural being losing their powers and adapting to human life is a staple of genre TV. When you see this trope, you have expectations - jokes and philosophical musings about human nature, insights in what makes us human. Parallels with people having hard time to adapt in other cultures or coming back from war. It’s a treasure trove of genre TV. Some TV shows are based only on this trope. Third rock from the Sun. Spike in season 4 of Buffy, etc, etc. Add to this the fact that for years TPTB told us that the only reason why Cas is not around more, is because  he’s too powerful. In season 9 Cas was human and bros had bunker. My and fandom expectations were very high for human Cas arc. But when you are SPN, all you get is urination jokes and most of human Cas happening off screen. I was so pissed of about urination gag because it excludes women - Cas is experiencing this huge paradigm shift and it is male body coded. Cas centric 9x03 is an atrocity and the only episode I tag with ”for ts”. With years, my opinion is changing about 9x06 as well. I love Steve!Cas if only for his blue vest, but the episode was another successful con by Carver. Let’s just say that framing the episode around ”jilted lover” note was a very clever way to misdirect fans from the fact that 9x06 didn’t tell us anything about how Cas survived after 9x03 or if even Dean gave him a bit of money&ID cards before kicking Cas out. This was another clue that the show is not interested in telling Cas’ story for Cas sake or developing proper, sub textual deancas story where Dean actually cares about Cas. In conclusion - I was interested in human Cas story at the time, but, after seeing how the show executed it, I’m against it. 

Mark of Cain. I actually don’t have much opinion about this. It was too long, to convoluted, too many threads. We got very short demon!Dean arc, we got Sam doing very bad things that were never mentioned again, we got what the heck they’re trying to do with Cole arc, we got Cain and Colette parallels that went nowhere, we got Cas and Crowley parallel nobody was asking for, we got Dean beating the shit out of Cas that was resolved by Cas beating the shit out of Dean. We got random drunk hunter Rudy getting spot next to Cas in Dean’s mirror of regrets. We got Dean killing Death and that changed nothing in the show universe. A whole season and half and it ended with the worst season finale IMO, 10x23. That’s when destiel meta community fell apart and we lost some really good meta writers. Hiatus after season 10 is when ”anything goes, let’s just have fun fun” approach to meta started. So you could definitely say that Mark of Cain left its mark on destiel meta community and we are still living in its shadow. 

The way I see SPN the show now is something like a random collection of lovely things, precious stones, marbles = great actors, lovely character scenes, some great cinematography. They’re catchy, precious. Then fandom comes in and weaves a tapestry and incorporates all these trinkets. Fandom makes story, connects the dots, fills in the gaps. The problem with SPN is that fans have to spend way more effort to make a coherent picture than the fans of some other shows. SPN elements are so self contained, that you can make a destiel tapestry while other fans make their wincest tapestry from the same bin of  trinkets! It’s just a matter of picking and choosing right trinkets and ignoring the ones that doesn't fit. 

[sssssssim]

Can you please write a review for Thor : Ragnarok?

oh my god

I CAN SURE TRY!

Spoilers ahead, obviously. Also, a few disclaimers. This are my own personal hella subjective opinions. And I read the last Magnus Chase book right before seeing the movie. Magnus Chase is a Norse demigod and in the last book, he stops Loki from starting Ragnarok, and I really think the series influenced me a little. Still, you asked, I shall deliver.

Let’s split this review into several parts, nine points of interest: general plot, intrigue and shock value, funny vs drama, visuals, character personification and development, character relationships, actors, integration in MCU and miscellaneous.

(This has 2700 words. oops.)

1. General plot

The plot of this movie was a pretty complicated one, I think, in the sense that a lot happened. The action takes place on three different planets, but to be fair, the action is linear, mostly, (except for the two flashbacks). There are just a few scenes that Thor isn’t a part of, a couple from Hela’s POV, from Skurge’s or Heimdall’s.

I found the start a bit… boring. Until Thor ends up on Sakaar, the plot was used to explain things, to update the viewer at where the world is at, in that moment. While this was needed, I found myself yawning, a little, thinking they should hurry things up.

But then, the action did change its pacing, or maybe I just got more interested in the actual plot of the movie.

I can’t really say anything too bad about the general plot. It was okay, it was entertaining, it was simple enough to understand but complicated enough for it to not be boring.

I’ll say two things, though.

It may have been a little obvious. I mean, I kinda figured out the main outcome of the film a little earlier than they expected me too. I knew they weren’t going to stop Ragnarok from happening since Loki made it to the final fight on Asgard.

They never actually said the whole Ragnarok prophecy out loud. Granted, had they done so, the major plot twist at the end wouldn’t have been so shocking. Cause, as far as I know (from Magnus Chase, maybe it’s different in the actual Norse Myth), there are a lot of “steps” that need to happen before Ragnarok, and Loki triggering it (with the helmet and the fire) is one of them.

2. Intrigue and shock value

When it comes to this, Thor: Ragnarok delivered, and it delivered a lot. There were a lot of times I gasped out loud (or acted like a child and hit my friend’s arm in excitement oops), and not just at the big, major plot twists. There were times when I realized a reference, when I made a correlation to mythology or to something else from Marvel, and so on.

In my opinion, the smaller intrigues were a lot better than the big one.

In most stories, there is one main plot twist, the intrigue which leads to the final outcome. In this movie’s case, it’s the fact that Ragnarok is triggered. That Thor makes a choice and doesn’t stop Ragnarok from happening, urging Loki to actually start the apocalypse.

And like I said before, I saw that one coming.

But. A lot of the smaller intrigues, the mini plot twists, those I hadn’t seen coming, the ones that made me gasp in excitement, I enjoyed the heck out of them. Hela being Odin’s daughter, the quinjet showing Nat, Heimdall stealing the sword, Loki actually joining the fight, and so on and so forth.

And the best one, the one shocking scene that pushed all of my buttons, is the one when Thor, one eye down and presumably killed by Hella, lands on the bifrost ready to fight. Ya know the scene I’m talking about. The one where there’s electricity coursing through his veins and lighting up his eye, the scene that made you think more of Zeus (and Jason Grace) before you remembered that Thor is the God of Lighting and that you’re finally seeing it. The scene where Immigrant Song started playing in the background, as Thor was more badass than ever, and you, as a fan, completely lost it in the movie theater. That scene. I loved it.

3. Funny vs drama

Thor: Ragnarok is a funny movie. There’s no doubt about that.

You have various types of humor, be it situational (Thor screaming his lungs out while he’s in the chair on Sakaar, Valkyrie falling off her ship) or intentional (I’ll be Tony Stark).

Some of the humor is cheesy, some of it is cringy, some of it is amazing (Korg was the absolute best).

Bottom line, it is a comedy. It makes you laugh.

When it comes to the drama, though, it’s a bit… weird. Because, for me at least, the moments that were supposed to be dramatic and were supposed to make me Feel Things didn’t do much (Odin’s death, Valkyrie’s last battle). Not immediately, any way.

I feel like when it comes to drama, Thor: Ragnarok is a film that delivers it like a saline drip. Drop by drop, over a long period of time.

For example, Odin’s death scene didn’t affect me as I was watching the movie. But as I started thinking about it afterwards, holy fuck did it hurt. Because Odin wanted both of his sons there, and Loki finally got the recognition he always desired from Odin. But Odin was still Odin, and he left them with the biggest problem they ever faced, a problem they knew nothing about. And the worst thing, the thing that made me cry when I realized it, was the fact that Odin, as opposed to Freya, he chose when to die. Which must have been such a horrible feeling for Thor and Loki, wasn’t it?

And another example I wish to mention is a scene with Thor and Loki on the ship, at the end. Thor saying I’d hug you if you were here, and Loki responding with I’m here. That was brilliant. I’ll get back to that on a later chapter.

4. Visuals

The visuals are 100% the best part of the movie. They were absolutely brilliant.

The CGI was incredible, have you seen Fenrir? The Hulk really got an upgrade, the scene with the Valkyrie’s last battle was breathtaking, the fight between Hulk and Thor was badass (was anyone else having flashbacks of Gorilla City, then? Of Barry vs. Grood?). I mean, hell, scene 1, Thor meets Surtur, the evil dude was beautiful. And don’t get me started on Korg and all the other aliens we catch a glimpse of.

The cinematography was incredible. Well done slo-mo just when you needed it, cohesive framing throughout the movie. There were a couple of scenes that were above the else. Like Hela walking into the Throne Room where Thore is waiting, the camera panning to the ground, we just see her shadow growing horns. The Valkyrie’s last battle was a Renaissance painting come to life.

The sets were incredible, Sakaar especially. A weird combination of steampunk and trash, with a little wannabe class inserted into the higher ups of society. Honestly, I loved the whole 80s vibe it had going on.

The costumes were incredible. Not just Thor’s armour. Not just the Valkyrie’s battle gear, Loki’s fighting suit, Hela’s sinful curves. But also the Grandmaster’s outfits, the people’s outfits when they were celebrating the Hulk, the suit Loki wore on Earth. All the clothes of the hundreds of extra in the background of Sakaar scenes.

The makeup was incredible. While Hela was wearing a full on black smokey eye, it was made special by its shape. The white symbols the bounty hunters wear on Sakaar were different from person to person and from day to day.

Thor: Ragnarok might just be the best good looking Marvel movie. There’s a clear 80s vibe all throughout it (not just in the visuals, but music as well) and I didn’t hate it. I actually kind of freaking loved it.

5. Character personification and development

This wasn’t something I particularly paid a whole lot of attention to as I was watching the movie.

But as I thought about it afterwards, I came to the conclusion that that happened because of all characters acted so well, so organic, nothing bad caught my attention.

In this movie, we see Thor, finally!, as what he’s supposed to be: a king. Everything we see before he takes the throne in the end of the movie, is to make us realize that Thor will be a good kind. He evolves in this, of course he does. From the moment he loses his father and his hammer, he starts to mature, heading towards the responsibility of being kind.

… Not all the way, though. He still bickers with Loki and has no idea how to talk to a woman (poor Valkyrie), so he’s still the Thor we know and love.

But he is something more. He’s a new king, which is a job he took even before he took the throne. There have been discussions about how Thor manipulated Hulk/Banner into doing his bidding. I kinda agree with that statement, and it was a crap thing to do, but it was a necessary crap thing Thor needed to do in order to save his people. Honestly, most kings screw up like this, sooner or later.

Now, let’s talk about Loki. He had the most evident character development, considering he finally redeemed himself.

If you know me or you’ve been around here for a while, you know I usually don’t like redemption arcs. And I still don’t.

But this one, I liked this one. Probably because I liked Loki a whole lot since his very evil begining, but not just because of that. I also enjoyed it because it didn’t happen instantly. After the first Avengers, Loki got two movies to redeem himself.

And he did so by still being an asshole, by still stealing and cheating and being kind of horrible.

He stole the Tesseract, but he did redeem himself in Ragnarok. And I feel like his redemption story isn’t over yet, it’s still at the start.

And, I’ve mentioned the scene before. Thor and Loki on the ship towards the end, I’m here. That was such an emotional scene for me, because for the first time in what felt like forever, Loki actually showed real affection for his brother. And the fact that he was there means so much, in terms of his development. Honestly, I left the movie thinking “I can’t believe Loki’s there”.

Valkyrie needs a mention in terms of character development, it’s pretty evident. I thought it was nicely done, too. I won’t say too much about it, it really is hella obvious, and I enjoyed watching it. Because we got to see a glimpse of how awful her story was, but we also got to see what a Valkyrie is supposed to be, a strong (amazon-like) fighter.

If I start talking about Banner, I’m gonna start crying. I don’t want to do that, so I’ll just say this: you should think about Banner’s state of mind. Waking up after 2 years of Hulk brain, the terrifying thought of never changing back to Banner again, but he still decided to do it. For Asgard and for Thor. The way he play-fighted with Valkyrie in Hulk mode, that was a first, we never saw that side of him before. Bruce’s development is too complicated to explain in words and I just wanna hug Bruce, really.

6. Character relationships

The relationship between Thor and Banner is a tricky one. I’ve mentioned before, the manipulation Thor does with Hulk and Bruce both. But, in the end, they’re still Avengers. They still fight together, side by side to defeat evil. Maybe this relationship wasn’t portrayed in the most healthy manner, but all the Avengers are various levels of fucked up when it comes to mental health. You can’t really accept healthy relationships.

I don’t know if I should be shipping Valkyrie with Thor or with Banner. I don’t wanna ship either, to be honest.

But in terms of relationship development, I feel like it was nicely done, in the sense that it was organic, going with the flow of their own character development.

And I most definitely ain’t shipping her with Loki. I mean, if you do, you do you, boo. But I don’t wike it.

7. Actors

Honestly, I don’t feel like I can say man, this person was absolutely amazing in this scene. I’m not saying the acting was bad, cause it was not. It was good, constantly, everyone did their characters well. But I don’t feel like the scenes gave them an opportunity to showcase their incredible acting scenes. Ya know? I hope that makes sense.

8. Integration in the Marvel Cinematic Universe

First thing first. I think it was the first time a post credits scene was actually included in the next movie. The Doctor Strange post credits scene was a part of Thor: Ragnarok, they just expanded the scene. Which was a very nice touch.

It was also a nice point of start, for introducing Doctor Strange to the Avengers.

The thing is, I was kind of frustrated by my lack of information. If you’ve been here a while, you know I don’t know shit about the comics. All my information comes from the MCU and random wiki pages.

So I just knew enough to know I didn’t know enough. I’m positive I’ve missed so many things. Especially on Sakaar, there were so many aliens and characters I knew nothing about. And it frustrates me, because I know there were probably hella cool references to the extended Marvel universe.

I need to mention the post-credits scene. The first one. The ship one.

I screamed, not gonna lie. Because I was expecting something for the Black Panther, and when I realized what it was, who it was… Yeah, I screamed.

I can’t fucking wait for Infinity War. It’s going so hella epic and I am so not prepared for it, it’s ridiculous. But I loved that we got to see it. How it starts.

9. Miscellaneous

Let me tell you a few other random reasons why I liked Thor: Ragnarok.

The 80s type of music and Immigrant Song.

I recognized Kree writing on the prison on Sakaar.

KORG is the best comic relief in Marvel (and he’s voiced by Taika Waititi, amazing).

We saw Thor on Asgard’s throne (even if it was brief).

The running gag with Thor throwing things at Loki to check if he’s really there.

Loki in chains was a direct reference to the Ragnarok myth.

So was the story Thor told, about Loki and a snake. Kind of.

The fact that Thor said I love women, a little too much sometimes (or smthg like that). Thor confessing he’s a player, bless.

I’ve been waiting to see Thor actually be the God of Thunder since 2011. You don’t understand how much I enjoyed seeing it.

I equally enjoyed seeing Thor in The Helmet. I MEAN.

Thor and Valkyrie destroying those ships, in the sky, while flying was so fucking epic.

Thor and Hulk fighting was even more fucking epic. Great use of slo-mo.

Valkyrie’s flashback was amazing, another great use of slo-mo.

Hela. Everything about her. The costume, the makeup, the hair, the head piece, the transition between the hair and the head piece, her takenobullshit attitude, her badassery.

I laughed a lot when Zachary Levi died, cause they announced he signed a contract with DC just a few days before Thor premiered.

Karl Urban’s ridiculous accent.

Cumberbatch and Hiddleston getting on each other’s nerves.

Thor’s new look.

The whole Valkyrie/Hulk I feel like I know you gag.

Thor. Getting. Powers. Without. The. Hammer.

Let me tell you a few other random reasons why I didn’t like Thor: Ragnarok.

It ended.

I wanted to see more of Bruce, actually talking and dealing with his trauma.

Odin dying a peaceful death. I feel like a god isn’t supposed to die like that.

When they first announced Bruce is gonna be in Ragnarok, I was very excited about seeing him interact with Darcy. … Nope.

I know I missed a lot of things. But… yeah. I loved Thor: Ragnarok. It’s the best of the Thor movies. It might not be the best Marvel movie, but it might have surpassed Guardians when it comes to light and funny Marvel movies.

[junker-town]

Tom Brady’s 6 possible landing spots, ranked

Photo by Adam Glanzman/Getty Images

All eyes are on Tom Brady during free agency.

In the midst of a global pandemic, the NFL marches on with its business. The new collective bargaining got ratified early Sunday morning, with an announcement later in the day the 2020 NFL league year will begin as planned. That means we are full speed ahead on free agency.

In between the CBA news and the league year announcement, the Titans re-signed Ryan Tannehill to a four-year deal, making him their franchise quarterback. This move has ripple effects outside of Nashville, too, as it eliminates one potential destination for Tom Brady.

We’ve discussed Brady’s free agency for months now, and it should be reaching its conclusion soon. So, where does Brady end up now? I ranked the possibilities, from most to least likely.

1. New England Patriots

I’ve said from the start that New England is still the best option for Brady. He trusts the franchise. He’s got a head coach who matches his drive to win and if the Patriots add a few pieces on offense, they will be back in the AFC Championship Game.

Also, while this might seem like a small detail, Brady can miss offseason workouts with the Patriots. He probably can’t with a new team. Previously, I wrote Brady has gone through this free agency process because he wants the Patriots to show him some love and with the Titans off the market, that might be tougher now. The leverage has swung back to the Patriots as the other landing spots for Brady aren’t as appealing as the Titans. So the Patriots can offer Brady a deal they want, which would be under market value and for fewer years.

2. Los Angeles Chargers

Throw out the news of Brady opening up a production company in Los Angeles — he can run that remotely during the season. He’s going to a new team to win, and the Chargers have pieces to do just that. They just traded their aging and oft-injured left tackle (Russell Okung) for a young Pro Bowl guard (Trai Turner). This opens up their No. 6 pick in the draft for a left tackle. This draft class is ripe with tackle talent, maybe the best in years. The Chargers could also snag themselves a right tackle in free agency to complete the upgrade on their offensive line.

The Chargers used their franchise tag on tight end Hunter Henry and re-signed running back Austin Ekeler. They have the outstanding wide receiver duo of Keenan Allen and Mike Williams. On top of the weapons on offense, the Chargers have a terrific pass rush and a pass defense that’s good when healthy. The Chargers are in Los Angeles, which is an area Brady and his family would likely enjoy living.

However, the Chargers’ new stadium might not be ready to open on time. They are also the least important professional team in LA, and even less important than the USC Trojans football team. There are no Chargers fans in Los Angeles, though maybe with Brady there would be some bandwagon fans. LA loves its stars, and it’s no surprise the Chargers are interested in him.

That said, the Chargers play in a division with Kansas City, led by head coach Andy Reid and the best quarterback in the NFL. Brady played 20 seasons in the AFC East, with opposing quarterbacks who weren’t remotely as good as him. Does he want to play in a division where he’s not the favorite, has to face off against Patrick Mahomes twice a year, and is on a team that the city does not care about? It seems like a tough sell, but it’s the still the best option, in my opinion, after New England.

3. Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Tampa Bay has been a fringe destination for a while now, but it’s picking up steam with the Titans out of the mix. The Bucs can give Brady the weapons he’s always wanted, with receivers Mike Evans and Chris Godwin. The offensive line has some good pieces, while the defense is surprisingly stout.

The coaching staff in Tampa Bay is quietly one of the best in the league. While head coach Bruce Arians has been a heck of an offensive playcaller and quarterback developer over his career, I’m not sure he and Brady would be a fit. Arians is passionate about the game and puts in the work, but he’s often said that he expects his coaches to be home for dinner and to never miss a child’s event. I wholeheartedly agree with this, as I think coaches spend too much time in the facility.

This philosophy appears to be the opposite of Bill Belichick, and I’m not sure Brady would mesh well with these ideas. Maybe Brady is ready for a change, but this feels like a drastic change.

Lastly, Arians has always preferred a big-arm quarterback who can push the ball downfield. That is not Brady at 43 years old. I wonder if Arians would have to change his passing offense to something that relies on more spacing and quicker passes to accommodate Brady.

4. Indianapolis Colts

Although the Colts are a long shot, their setup is perfect for Brady. The Colts return all five of their starting offensive linemen. They have T.Y. Hilton, and the money and picks to add more weapons. It’s a WR-heavy draft, too.

On defense, they have a young, skilled core, but will need to continue to work to build up talent there. The best selling point for the Colts is head coach Frank Reich, who runs an offense that is a match for Brady: quick, precision passing game mixed with an efficient rushing attack. Brady would respect Reich, and they would fit well together. General manager Chris Ballard is aggressive and savvy. His personality would mesh with Brady, as well.

5. Las Vegas Raiders

As I’ve said before, I do not believe Jon Gruden is 100 percent in on Derek Carr. With that being said, I don’t think the Raiders are going to ditch Carr via a trade for Brady. The price just seems so steep for the Raiders when Carr just had a good season. The Raiders have the pieces on offense that would make Brady happy, but their defense is not good.

And while this didn’t matter until now, Las Vegas is shutting down over the coronavirus, which means it’s possible the Raiders’ new stadium will be delayed just like the Chargers’. I can’t see Brady going anywhere with that much uncertainty.

6. San Francisco 49ers

Never say never, but this is a never. It was reported the 49ers have moved on from Brady, but in reality, they were probably never in on Brady to begin with. It’d make sense why Brady would want to play in San Francisco, his hometown team. However, there never seemed to be the interest from the 49ers, who just got to the Super Bowl with Jimmy Garoppolo.

[marredbyoverlength]

Super-Roundup: June and July 2017

I was out of town during June Roundup Week, so I pushed it all into this super-roundup.  Buckle up.

The Mummy (2017) Dir. Alex Kurtzman. Starring Tom Cruise, Sofia Boutella, Annabelle Wallis. For a cynical cash-in, The Mummy had a lot of cool ideas. I liked the history surrounding the evil mummy, and the monster-hunter group led by Dr. Jekyll (Russell Crowe), and even parts of the silly conclusion. There’s probably a good movie in there somewhere. But alas, those good ideas were stifled under a thick, grey blanket of unfeeling money-grubbing. Why is Tom Cruise in the film? Because Tom Cruise Makes Money. Why is every shot the same dull grey color? Because the Marvel and DC movies are grey, and those movies Make Money. The film isn’t bad exactly, but it is soulless. 5/10.

The Book of Henry (2017) Dir. Colin Trevorrow. Starring Jaeden Lieberher, Naomi Watts, Jacob Tremblay. A true cinematic disaster, magnificent in its ability to fail in ways I never dreamed possible. What begins as an inane precocious-kid flick rapidly morphs into one of the more baffling movie plots I have ever experienced, all while clinging to a totally inappropriate feel-good tone. Ever wanted to see a movie where Sarah Silverman kisses a preteen boy on the lips? This is the film for you! 2/10.

Baby Driver (2017) Dir. Edgar Wright. Starring Ansel Elgort, Lily James, Kevin Spacey. Nobody shoots action like Edgar Wright. Baby Driver is a fast-paced, high-energy car flick with a surprising amount of heart. It gets a lot of mileage out of its terrific supporting cast, especially a deranged Jamie Foxx and a slick Jon Hamm. Sometimes the dialogue gets a little hokey, and the ending stretches credulity, but overall it’s well worth the watch. 8/10.

Okja (2017) Dir. Bong Joon Ho Starring Ahn Seo-Hyun, Tilda Swinton, Jake Gyllenhaal. A semi-entertaining story about a girl and her genetically-engineered superpig. I guess this is supposed to be satire, but I’m not sure who it’s directed at. Is this anti-corporatist? Pro-vegetarian? Anti-GMO? Its total lack of focus leaves it with a toothless The Answer Lies Somewhere In The Middle message barely worth the film it’s stuck to. Not that there aren’t funny moments—Paul Dano is especially great as an animal rights revolutionary—but they don’t add up to much. The film has way more ambition than intelligence. 4/10.

I Don’t Feel At Home In This World Anymore (2017) Dir. Macon Blair. Starring Melanie Lynskey, Elijah Wood. Macon Blair’s directorial debut is a lot of fun and has some impressive flashes of style: one scene stands out in particular, where a painkiller-addled Melanie Lynskey watches a garish reverend lip-sync the soundtrack. But these stylistic efforts felt constrained, or maybe unconfident, which makes sense for a first-time director. Worth watching just for Elijah Wood as Lynskey’s weirdo neighbor. 7/10.

Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) Dir. Jon Watts. Starring Tom Holland, Michael Keaton, Jacob Batalon. Easily the best of the MCU movies for a simple reason: it’s consistent. Spider-Man is a fun IP, and Homecoming is a fun movie, nailing the inherent humor of a high-school superhero. And Michael Keaton’s Vulture is a strong contender for Best MCU Villain (though I think Ultron still beats him). But while the film hints at some interesting class-conflict themes, it instead centers on an underdeveloped coming-of-age story that left me wondering what Peter actually learned. 7/10.

The Beguiled (2017) Dir. Sofia Coppola. Starring Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst. A creepy Southern-isolation aesthetic and strong performances from the entire cast, especially Kidman and my perennial favorite Elle Fanning, aren’t enough to save this movie from itself. It’s a character-driven movie where the characterization is inconsistent, making it difficult to care about anyone, much less divine a sense of purpose from the film. The last act in particular feels totally out of nowhere. 5/10.

Dunkirk (2017) Dir. Christopher Nolan. Starring a bunch of interchangeable white guys and Mark Rylance. This is Nolan’s best movie in a long time, but boy was I still bored stiff.  Between the film’s confusing temporal structure, its cast of indistinguishable actors, and its allergy to characterization, it’s difficult to figure out what the heck is going on in any given scene and even harder to care about it. But the film deserves praise for its stunning visuals and flashes of something approaching emotion. Nolan is at his best when tethered to reality. 4/10.

Atomic Blonde (2017) Dir. David Leitch. Starring Charlize Theron, James McAvoy, Sofia Boutella. Very cool, to the exclusion of all other substance. Charlize Theron is a great action hero wasted on a character and story with no depth. But it’s entertaining, despite its lack of ambition, because of the wonderfully choreographed action sequences and visual sense of Cold-War paranoia. 6/10.

A Ghost Story (2017) Dir. David Lowery. Starring Casey Affleck, Rooney Mara. Absolutely beautiful. If you can swallow the premise (Casey Affleck is a ghost wearing a bedsheet with eyeholes), you’re rewarded with an emotionally gripping extended visual metaphor of enormous power, exploring grief, loss, and the very human habit of tethering emotions to places and things. But don’t go to this movie expecting a plotline. 9/10.

The Emoji Movie (2017) Dir. Tony Leondis. Starring T.J. Miller, James Corden, Anna Faris. I want to die. 1/10.

The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015) Dir. Marielle Heller. Starring Bel Powley, Kristen Wiig, Alexander Skarsgard. Believable, authentic, but ultimately not much more than a run-of-the-mill coming-of-age story. Bel Powley is great as a 15-year-old girl who has a sexual affair with her stepdad, but the rest of the film doesn’t match her personality. 6/10.

Calvary (2014) Dir. John Michael McDonagh. Starring Brendan Gleeson, Kelly Reilly, Chris O’Dowd. Calvary is one of those rare films that manages to balance comedy and melancholy without detracting from either. Brendan Gleeson is excellent as a small-town Irish priest of a wayward flock, and Kelly Reilly is just as good as his daughter (from before he donned the cloth), who struggles with depression. Each individual scene is excellent, and they’re gorgeously framed, but the lack of fluid transition between them makes a thematically consistent film feel disjointed. 8/10.

Mallrats (1995) Dir. Kevin Smith. Starring Jeremy London, Jason Lee, Shannen Doherty. Defiantly juvenile for a film that tries sometimes to be emotionally serious. Where the heroes of Clerks felt like vulgar adults, these characters feel like immature kids. They’re difficult to root for, and the overall amateur look of the film doesn’t give you much to grab onto. But it does pick up a bit at the end. 4/10.

Slacker (1991) Dir. Richard Linklater. Starring: Nobody in particular. Slacker is a series of conversations between mostly unrelated characters in Austin’s early-90’s counterculture. The film is almost purposefully ugly, shot on grainy film with bad equipment, sometimes with the boom mic in the shot. With no characters or visuals to lean on, the film lives and dies by its conversational vignettes. Some are strong: I am particularly fond of the two women who pass out cards from Brian Eno’s “Oblique Strategies” deck to passersby as an art piece. But others totally miss, including the vignette at the very beginning starring Linklater himself. 6/10.

The Conversation (1974) Dir. Francis Ford Coppola. Starring Gene Hackman, John Cazale. A film that survives entirely on tension and suspicion, heightened by one of Hackman’s best performances and an all-time great score. But the plot is a little too thin to sustain the runtime, making the conclusion feel abrupt. 7/10.

[natsubeatsrock]

Looking Back at Fairy Tail...

It’s basically common knowledge that this current arc is not the best Fairy Tail has to offer. I’m not going to waste my time listing reasons why so many people, myself included, don’t like this arc. In fact, many people have preemptively declared this arc to be the worst arc in the series. A lot of people I’ve come to know through this fandom has lost interest in the series altogether.

One of the most interesting things that I’ve seen during this arc is people wanting a return to the “good old days.” People wish for a time when the series was less dark, had better villains, characters didn’t die only to be brought and was overall better written.

You probably already know where this is going.

I don’t get how people come to the conclusion that Fairy Tail has gotten to where it has within the past few years. In fact, I’d argue that Fairy Tail has, to some extent, always had many of the elements that people complain about it having now.

It was around the time of the Tartarus arc that people were saying that Fairy Tail was getting darker. However, Fairy Tail has always had dark elements to it. In Chapter 1, Lucy’s almost sold into the human trafficking ring and branded. By the time we get to the Morning of a New Adventure, we’ve dealt with stuff like childhood slavery, demonic activity, childhood neglect and torture. We know about the utter mess Gray’s backstory is and how it’s affected Lyon and Ultear, Wendy’s first guild is revealed to be a lie, and Happy and Carla was tricked into thinking they were originally supposed to kill their Slayers.

You know, light-hearted stuff. Mind you, that’s not even everything bad that happened before Tartarus came and Fairy Tail “got dark”.

The villains in the series were kind of better in the past, but not by much. Consider that most of the memorable villains of the early series (Gajeel, Juvia, Jellal, Lyon, Laxus and Oracion Seis) end up being good guys by the end of Tartarus. All they needed was a good beating (two if you’re Oracion Seis) and they’ve ready to change their ways. Of course, that’s kind of an oversimplification of the situation of multiple characters and, depending on how you see Laxus or Jellal’s case, kind of not entirely true. 

That said, how many memorable villains are there that stayed villains? Zeref and kinda Ivan. We don’t see all of Raven Tail and Flare has a change of heart after getting beaten by Laxus. Aside from the anime-exclusive stuff, what do we know about Erigor other than “he wanted to kill the council”? Duke Everlue was an evil rich guy who imprisoned Kaby’s dad to make him write a novel for him and that’s pretty much all we know about him. I’m not seeing a huge following for any of the other Element 4 in this Fandom. 

And that’s not even mentioning fights. There have always been terrible fights in this series. I feel like Gray has had fairly consistent fights throughout the series, and some people have definitely had worse fights as the series progressed. But there have always been terrible fights.

You’re not going to see Lucy winning a ton of fights on her own with no outside help. The only exception to this is probably when she beat the robbers in Love and Lucky. I’d count the first fight against Sherry, but Erza takes out her mouse thing.

As much as I love Natsu, he’s had some pretty bad fights. You might be thinking of his fight with Zancrow or his solo bout Sting & Rogue later on, but I’m not even sure the fight against Jellal was all too fair. Even knowing everything we know about Natsu now, it still feels weird that he was able to go into the spirit world and come back to help beat Virgo and the Duke. And going in to beat Brain after taking a beating from Cobra wasn’t all too bright of him. He got fire from Jellal to help, but even that feels weird to see.

Speaking of Natsu, he hasn’t had that consistent of a character. I feel like this is more relevant for another post (that I’m working on for another day), but Natsu hasn’t had much of a character arc. There isn’t a whole lot of growth he goes through in the series. There were amazing times for it to happen, but nothing does.

People complain about fan service being bad now and they’re right in that it’s more prevalent. But there have been some pretty bad fan service moments in the beginning. Our introduction to Lucy includes a failed attempt to seduce a shop owner before we even know any of her personal aspirations outside of wanting a somewhat useless key. The second armor we see Erza in is basically a fancy bikini top with a fancy skirt made of metal.

As terrible as this arc is, it’s not like stuff from the past was always spot on. I’ve held for the longest time that the worst arc was Galuna Island. Other than helping Gray’s character arc, the entire thing was kind of pointless. About the only other thing to come out of it is Lucy getting Saggitarius’ key, but that could have been done in a number of other ways.

Mind you that’s before any of the filler arcs in the anime (which I don’t seem to hate as much as everyone else) and Grand Magic Games, considered by many to be one of the worst arcs.

And do you really think that this arc was the start of characters coming back from the dead by terribly explained means? 

It might shock you that this post didn’t start as the revelations of a disillusioned fan realizing a series he’s enjoyed for so long isn’t good. I started thinking about this as I worked on a post involving characters dying and coming back even before Lisanna. All this other stuff came to mind later.

Look, I love chapter 100, but I’m not a huge fan of the way Erza was saved. It seemed very clear that she died, but apparently, she wasn’t because Jellal redirected Etherion into the sky with his body. Kind of weird on its own and weirder if you consider the only thing Jellal got out of it was a bad memory for four arcs in the manga.

Heck, you could even count discount Shikamaru as the first death fake-out. He gets stabbed and they think he’s dead. Natsu brings him along with them and we think he’s stupid for it. Why would he bring along a dead person? Well, he wasn’t dead and we learn Natsu was wrong for doing it for another reason.

Now, I know what some of you guys are probably thinking. “Okay, Fairy Tail was probably always bad, but Rave Master was definitely better than Fairy Tail.” As someone who has read Rave Master, let me tell you that you are right.

Kinda.

Rave Master is no doubt better than Fairy Tail. However, many of the problems that are present in Fairy Tail also show up in Rave Master. There are weird fan service moments in that series as well. Some of the arcs weren’t well written. And don’t even get me started on characters coming back from death. And while Fairy Tail does most of those things worse than Rave, they are in fact in Rave. You’ll also see them in Monster Soul, another series Mashima made.

As much as I love and enjoy Rave, the more I think about it, I get the feeling that this series was good enough to be considered a cult classic, but nowhere near required reading for manga fans. There’s no reason that someone should necessarily put this next to stuff like Hunter x Hunter, Fullmetal Alchemist, Berserk, One Piece or the like as something you definitely need to read.

And if I’m perfectly honest, I think the worst arc in Rave Master was probably also its last arc. I don’t want to spoil a whole lot of it because I know better, but, as I think more about it, I can’t believe that certain things that happened during the arc were canceled out and I didn’t think much of it when I first finished it.

I joked about Monster Soul awhile ago, but there is a huge disconnect between the two volumes of the series. Again, not trying to spoil much, but it's clear that Mashima wrote the content in one volume without thinking much about the possibility of a second volume. And some of the problems you’d probably have with Mashima are also in this series.

In Conclusion:

A lot of the problems that people have with this arc have been problems long before this arc. They’ve extended throughout this series and throughout Mashima’s body of works. They’re probably worse now, but they’ve always been around one way or another.

[shirtysleeves]

From Musæum Clausum

OR

BIBLIOTHECA ABSCONDITA

CONTAINING SOME REMARKABLE BOOKS, ANTIQUITIES, STATION & MOTION PICTURES & RARITIES OF SEVERAL KINDS, SCARCE OR NEVER SEEN BY ANY MAN, WO OR OTHERWISE, NOW LIVING

18. “Asexual Healing” (1981).

While it is more or less widely known that in the interval between his separation from Janis Hunter in 1979 and his death in 1984, Marvin Gaye was almost monastically chaste, practically nobody knows the extent to which he had adopted chastity as a modus vivendi by the beginning of this interval, let alone the extent to which this selfsame MV was seminal (an admittedly inapt but no-less-admittedly infungible adjective) to the composition of his chart-topping quasi-swansong “Sexual Healing.”  The history of this seminality reads as follows: within weeks if not days if not hours if not minutes of his last-ever meeting with Hunter, Gaye happened to be vouchsafed a viewing of Chaka Khan’s promotional video for “I’m Every Woman” and was immediately struck (or stricken) by this video’s simultaneous presentation of four fully mobile clones of Ms. Khan—and struck (or stricken) by that presentation not, as might be expected, in appreciation of it qua electronic Kunststück, qua virtually guaranteed elicitor of an ejaculation of Wonderful what we can do nowadays! but rather in appreciation of it qua presumptive first-bringer-to-mind of the potential gratuitousness of sexual coition to biological reproduction.  Chaka can do it on her own, he is reported to have murmured in presumptive émerveillement whilst spectating on this video; she don’t (sic) (sic) need a man to help her.  This viewing was the genesis of a hymn to parthenogenesis, “Asexual Healing,” which Gaye categorically envisaged being released in tandem with a promotional video essentially identical mutatis mutandis to the one for “I’m Every Woman.”  But alas!: the Havana-puffing fatwigs at Columbia (the record label, not the U.S. state-capital or U.S. federal district) put their collective foot down on this envisagement.  The videodisc [for so music videos were then quasi-universally called, incredibly appalling though this may sound to present-day LaserDisc gourmandizers and Martha Quinn-stalkers alike], quoth these foot-downputters, is the most-prestigious music-presentation genre of the immediate future; we can’t have our flagship male soul-cum-R&B artist releasing an instantiation of this genre that simply echoes what Chaka Khan has already done, that in visual terms effectively merely proclaims ‘I’m every man’ in an erotic, non-Hofmannsthalian sense.  Whereupon Gaye is reported to have consternatedly cried: Shia, Neroni! I already done (sic) (sic) recorded the whole damn song.  Do you fatwigs really expect me to toss the whole damn thing in the skip (sic) (sic) and book the Fellas [“the Fellas” being Gaye’s priceless nickname for his powdered coke-powered team of session musicians] for a whole ’nother weekend? Faute de mieux, the fatwigs expected him to do just that, and entirely on his own dime.  But ever-resourceful and ever-adept at the most minute minutiae of electronic studio w****dry, not to mention acoustic English prosody, Gaye quickly concluded that via a deletion of the unaccented a from each occurrence of asexual in the main vocal track, the song could be salvaged in its entirety, admittedly to the utterly fatal detriment of its potentially What’s Going On-eclipsingly revolutionary denunciation of the entire world-governing coitional dispensation. But Gaye, being at heart and bottom more of a Stoic than a stoichiometrist, took a philosophical attitude to the entire artistic debacle.  When they finally let me both make the video I want to make and restore that unaccented ‘a’, he mused, the true message of the song will be all the more devastating for having been so vociferously heralded by its antithesis. Sadly, on April Fools’ Day, 1984, Marvin Gaye, Sr. put paid to all hopes for the making of that video, and consequently “Asexual Healing” has finished up being the last thing in the world its composer ever wished it to become –viz., the ultimate hookup track.

 19. “(Don’t Fear) the Umlaut” (1976).

Blue Öyster Cult recorded this track for both inclusion in or on their album Agents of Fortune and release as that album’s first single. Reportedly, the principal impetus to or catalyst of its composition was lead guitarist Donald Bruce “Buck” Dharma’s annoyance at thousands of queries and complaints from fans, critics, and compositors alike regarding the band’s surmounting of the second vocable in its name with an umlaut that admittedly flouted English orthographical conventions to no apparent phonological purpose, inasmuch as not a single BÖC-member had ever been heard by an interviewer to pronounce that second vocable as anything other than an exact phonological copy of the famous upmarket first pronunciation thereof in the Gershwin brothers’ “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off,” let alone as even the vaguest approximation of the Franco-German œ, to which it, the umlauted o, was and ever had been appropriated by default. (Impetus-aut-catalyst-wise the remonstrations of compositors in particular must not be discounted, inasmuch as back in those footy days of pre-desktop publishing, the acquisition of the so-called supplemental Eurotrash grid comprising the first tier of diacritically enhanced cast-lead forms could set the purchaser back several thousands of those days’ dollars, an imponderably large sum for all but the largest metropolitan newspapers [and hence {perhaps damningly?} well beyond the reach of such college rags as the Stony Brook Statesman, whose concert-review page had undoubtedly contributed a good meganewton or so to the initial rocket-boost of publicity that had thrust the ’Cult {not to be confused with the transpondial and as-of-then-not-yet existent cult-ensemble The Cult} into the Billboard-bathing limelight].  What I meantersay here is that vis-à-vis the compositors’ particular case, Dharma may very well have been reacting defensively—i.e., in preemptive disavowal of all remorse at any financial hardship he may have occasioned the poor sods.)  Perhaps not quite needless to say, the audio-rushes of this song were not favorably received by the Havana-puffing fatwigs at Columbia (yes, the same record label referenced in the preceding entry in this catalogue and presumably presided over by an executive team of H-PFs exactly three-fifths identical to the one that were [sic] destined to put the kibosh on the tune-video referenced therein [the three-fifths figure is extrapolated from data presented in that now-classic 1996 analysis of the actuary actualities of corporate boardrooms The Silver Ceiling by the eminent Anglophone sociologist of undetermined national passportship, Brad Macpherson Caputo]): dreading to the depths of their hobnailed jackboots a backlash from Anglophone consumers of virtually every shape, nationality, and stripe [for this was, after all, a mere 31 years after the conclusion of the so-called Second World War, when every umlauted vowel was instantly evocative of Nazi Germany and hence resuscitative of potentially lethal cardiac-arrest-or cerebral hemorrhage-inducing memories] those selfsame fatwigs reportedly required each and every such transcript to be ingested by a goat that was to be cast immediately thereupon into the core of a nuclear reactor lest some intelligible trace of the lyrics survive in its excreta.  This requirement having been completely efficaciously fulfilled, no complete transcript of the lyrics of the song survives, but a Tonemaster C-60 cassette comprising the otherwise worthless so-called session diary of Seth Meyers (no, not that or the Seth Meyers [at least I think not that Seth Meyers, but who the heck can be arsed to check]), the Agents of Fortune sessions’ coffee-gopher, affords us the following tantalizing glimpse of but a few of the presumably umpteen-trillion glories contained in the Liedertext of “Don’t Fear the Umlaut”: Nietzsche and Strindberg / Are united in eternity / Ninety million people every day / Like the Germans both East and West / Not to mention the Swedish / (Albeit not the Danish) / All use the umlaut / We can be like them.  Inasmuch as here in contrast to the otherwise consubstantial case of “Sexual Healing,” the crux of the fatwigs’ beef hinged on the lyrics of the song, and especially on a portion of those lyrics that contained an accented syllable, any circumvention of the fatwigs’ fiat by studio w******y was absolutely out of the question, and even if it had not been, the band were [sic] then so inured to being led about by the nose-ring by their producer, David Lucas (so Bob Sedule, music critic of the abovementioned Statesman), himself a notorious fat- wig chattel, that they would not have lifted a finger, let alone fingered a lift, in demurral at the fiat.  And so Dharma dutifully penned what he only-decades-afterwards, and only after much Jello-shot-fueled plying, described as a “dull-as-dishwater knock-off of a Black Sabbath death ode,” an ode to whose poetic and prosodic niceties he reportedly (i.e., via the reportage of the above Jello shot-plyer, who must remain anonymous) devoted so little attention that he managed to Bic or Biro “the f**king execrable scrap of doggerel” out in its entirety with his left foot onto a discarded square of toilet paper while employing his right-cum-writing (albeit cum-non-onanizing) hand exclusively in a game of darts, a game in which he solidly won via a hat-trick of bull’s eyes despite reportedly (i.e., via the reportage of the abovementioned Mr. Sedule) being the worst darts player west of East Hampton-cum-east of Westport.  In the light of all o’ the above, it will readily and correctly be inferred that the notorious once-per-beat cowbell-clunking of “Don’t Fear the Reaper” was also part of the soundscape of “Don’t Fear the Umlaut”; and in the light thereof it will perhaps at least be queried whether the  notorious prominence of the cowbell vis-à-vis the first song enjoyed some rationale in “Don’t Fear the Umlaut” that it lost in being recast as “Don’t Fear the Reaper.” The answer to this query is an unqualified if ultimately disappointingly prosaic Yes.  You see, the abovementioned David Lucas, having enjoyed a holiday in the prevailingly Germanophone Bavarian-cum-Swiss-cum-Austrian Alps, and almost exactly contemporaneously purchased and listened to Karajan’s recording of Mahler’s Sixth Symphony, concluded that there was something inalienably Alpine and consequently umlautine about the cowbell and thereupon insisted upon that instrument’s accentuation in the instrumental mix.  And as they say the rest is [far too abominable a(n) SOA to be denoted by mere farting noises].

20.  The Pope of Greenwich Village (1984).  Not to be confused with a certain film of the same name shot on the same location in the same year by the same production crew with the same cast.  The scene is the eponymous Village in ca. 1950.  Lex (Mickey Rourke) is a struggling garret-dwelling poet who obdurately insists on composing exclusively in metrically unimpeachable heroic couplets as if it were still ca. 1699.  Dick (Eric Roberts), an unmistakable if corporeally unlikely stand-in for Allen Ginsberg (although he reportedly gained 96 pounds and had 98 percent of his head hair transferred to his face for the role, the results of this exercise in De Niro-esque hyperMethodism are ultimately unconvincing), is an unstruggling ground floor-dwelling poet who prosodically (not to mention extra-prosidically) lets everything hang out to resounding critical and financial success.  The all-too-memorable climax of the film centers on Lex’s disruption of Dick’s reading of his epoch-making narrative-cum-epic poem Ouch! at the GV Brentano’s, as follows: “Though as self-styled King you may rob and pillage / I’m the only proper Pope of Greenwich Village” (to which Roberts all-too-deflatingly retorts: “Yes, you are indeed the only Pope of Greenwich Village, inasmuch as you are the Village’s only avowed imitator of Alexander Pope.  But what of that?  Can I get on with my reading?” and Rourke counter-retorts in abashed Pindaric non-numbers, “Yes, by all means. / Please do continue.”). Geraldine Page garnered a second best supporting actress Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Djuna Barnes, the Queen of Patchin Place, in a grand total of thirty seconds of screen time spent haggling mutually unintelligibly over the price of a shorty of Southern Comfort with a Basque liquor-store proprietor, portrayed by an impeccably vocal-coached Bill Macy (not to be confused with William H. Macy, then still a struggling garret-dwelling stage actor).  Although the film postdates the nascence of so-called rap or hip-hop by a full half-decade, it has been name-checked, as they say, at least once by every so-called rap or hip-hop so-called artist who has since emerged into provincial, let alone national or international, prominence, owing to its implicit promulgation of metrical monotony and copularly sequestered rhyme as prosodic norms.  For example, in 1993 the self-styled Dr. D** ejaculatively opined, That bitch, what’s his name, played by what’shisgoddamnmuddahfuckin’name—brother o’ that bitchess Hotlips Julia [here he is obviously confusing Roberts’s performance with Rourke’s]—the one that played that high-class ho opposite Richard Gere back in nineteen-naughty-ought…well, anyway, never mind that goddam bitch’s name: the point is, I done learnt everything I know about rhyme-hemorrhaging from that muddafuckin bitch, from the way he hemorrhaged rhymes in that movie from way back in the first Reagan administration…Shiah…what’s it called? etc.  The circle of influence came full circle in the most appalling fashion in 2015 with the unkenneling of the unspeakable hip-hop pseudo-musical Hamilton, wherein brutalized sub-sub-sub-approximations of heroic couplets were placed in the mouth of a near-contemporary of Alexander Pope whom the latter presumably would have smothered in his crib like the Heraclean serpent (had chronology permitted) on account of his manifestly Whiggish political orientation.