#how many episodes in boyhood

[cinderella-ish]

Yuki, Kakeru, and the boyhoods they never had

So, I was talking with my partner the other day about how Kakeru and Yuki are always touching each other (one of many reasons they're the most popular non-canonical furuba pairing on Ao3). Anyway, it got me thinking-- if we don't read all this physical contact as necessarily romantic, what are some other possible explanations? An examination:

When Yuki first meets Kakeru, he immediately gets up in his face talking about his favorite Super Sentai character, then walks him out of the student council office with an arm around his neck, despite Yuki's obvious discomfort.

When Kakeru puts a hand on his shoulder soon after, he teases Yuki about his feminine features. Yuki bats his hand away and decides he already hates Kakeru.

In Kakeru's next appearance, he puts a hand on Yuki's shoulder, removing it when Yuki gives him a death glare.

When Kakeru stays behind that day to needle Yuki about Tohru, Yuki is the one to initiate touch this time. This leads to the two of them sharing a moment of vulnerability and the true beginning of their friendship. Kakeru putting his thumbs up on Yuki's shoulder is also a change to the way he's touched Yuki before - it's perhaps a bit more comfortable for Yuki, who's reacted negatively to all touch from Kakeru before this. Kakeru's communicating in his own way that he'll try and consider Yuki's needs from now on.

Next, we have the Kyoto trip, in which Yuki is still not fully comfortable with Kakeru (shown by his embarrassment when he tells Kakeru they wouldn't be friends anymore), but is starting to consider him a friend and spend time with him intentionally. We also have some sweet moments like this exchange between Haru and Kakeru, which Kakeru takes very seriously.

After this, Yuki finally learns (some of) Kakeru's backstory when he goes to help Kakeru clean up after Machi destroyed the student council office again. Yuki gets context for why Kakeru is the way that he is, learns about the successorship conflict, and then tries out some Kakeru chaos for himself. We also see Yuki initiate touch for the third time. I think this episode is where the real shift in their relationship happened. Yuki sees that there's a wisdom to Kakeru that he wasn't seeing without that context of Kakeru's oppressive childhood-- something to which Yuki can relate all too well. In a way, Kakeru's impulsiveness and sense of fun is his own way of either reclaiming or living out the childhood he didn't get to have, along with other traits like his love of Super Sentai.

And now, a brief aside.

We see pretty clearly that the other three cursed Sohma boys around Yuki's age are all pretty comfortable interacting with each other physically. Kyo will roughhouse with Haru and give Momiji noogies, Momiji will hug or lean on both Kyo and Haru. These sorts of interactions began when they were young boys, and are pretty typical of boys through adolescence. Yuki, being shut in a room with Akito or alone, didn't get to have that experience of boyhood. All his physical interactions with Kyo are negative, and his physical interactions with Momiji are neutral-ish (Momiji jumps on him at the culture festival, Yuki dabs his tears in Kisa's first episode, and Yuki scolds Momiji a handful of times). (Aside within the aside: while Haru sometimes reciprocates the affection from Momiji or rough play from Kyo, he clearly has a special way of physically interacting with Yuki in the T-shape and shirt pinch, or the stroking of his chin, etc..., and he initiates touch with Yuki much more often than with the other two, likely because he noticed that as one more thing Yuki was missing out on and wanted to include him in a way that would be comfortable for him.)

So when Kakeru tells Yuki about his childhood, and Yuki gets stuck in the storage room later that episode and has a flashback to his own terrible childhood, he's already primed to open up to Kakeru about his own childhood and to start looking at the world more like Kakeru does.

So, after that day, their friendship becomes much more physical. Yuki no longer bats away Kakeru's hand and even initiates touch more often. They roughhouse and Kakeru often puts his arm around Yuki in a gesture of affection. To me, it's a way of reclaiming those experiences they didn't get to have in their childhood-- especially the type of friendships neither of them got to form when they were younger.

[daydreamer-in-reverie]

I think one of my biggest gripes about S3 of Bridgerton is that I am utterly unconvinced that Colin and Penelope started as friends.

Now hear me out. I believe that Eloise and Penelope are friends. I believe that they grew up together, having lived across each other. I believe that Eloise loved Pen so much, Penelope was always welcomed to the Bridgerton home. I believe that by virtue of Eloise loving Pen and having her as a best friend, the Bridgerton family loved Pen as an extension.

But I’m unconvinced that Colin ever saw Pen or loved her as more than his sister’s best friend.

They tried so hard to convince us that it was Colin and Penelope who met first and that theirs is a stronger bond than what Eloise and Pen have by virtue of this but I just remain skeptical. In S1 and S2, we never really see them interact without the intervention of a ball or a social gathering. Eloise and Penelope actively seek the other person out while it was only Pen who looked for Colin and never the other way around. Colin only ever stumbled upon Penelope. He never scanned the room the find her, never tried to pull her away from Eloise so they could have their own conversation. I always felt like Penelope was such an afterthought to Colin while Penelope always made space for Colin in his life. Even while Colin was writing letters to Pen, and it was only Pen who consistently read and replied to his missives, it felt so one-sided. Penelope was eager to know of Colin’s adventures but Colin never asks Penelope about her own life and hobbies.

In all honesty, I think this could have easily been remedied by a good flashback. In Bridgerton S1, S2 and even in Queen Charlotte, flashbacks were the mediums used to fill in the gaps of the story. To inform the readers of a character’s history, and why the choose to do the things they do.

In a single episode, we saw how horribly Simon was mistreated by his father. In a single episode, we saw how deeply Edmund’s death wrecked Anthony’s boyhood and broke his mother’s heart. These flashbacks told us why Simon refused to procreate or why Anthony didn’t want to marry for love. We saw how deeply these core memories hooked themselves into these characters psyches, forcing them to become the people we know today. Without these integral flashbacks, we’re left with words said in passing to convince us of the story they’re trying to sell.

And don’t tell me flashbacks in the Bridgerton-verse are unimportant. Flashbacks have always been Julia Quinn’s method of choice when trying to inform readers of a character’s decisions. In Book 1 and 2, we got the same flashbacks as S1 and S2. In Benedict’s book, we got Sophie’s flashbacks. How her father treated her and how much her life changed after he died. In Book 4, which is Polin’s book, we still got flashbacks on Pen and Colin’s relationship and how much their friendship actually meant to the other. Book 5 showed us Philip’s backstory while 6 showed Michael’s and Francesca’s and John’s friendship, and 7 showed Garett’s and 8 showed Lucy.. While these flashbacks maybe used to showcase the love-interest’s past, they were still utilized by Julia Quinn to give us insights on the characterizations that make up their respective relationships.

I feel like this season, while having its moments, wasn’t what I was hoping it would be. There were so many changes that I feel the original plot of the story got lost. Polin didn’t feel like the main couple, just a couple with a story to be told. There were so many plots told in such extended ways that the main event was sidelined. The Mondriches, Benedict (who by the way is my favorite character), Francesca were all put on spotlight more than Polin was. In the books Francesca barely gets a passing mention of her marriage until her actual book (an act I believe to be intentional on Quinn’s part. It fits that the black sheep of the family who prefers the quiet didn’t have all of the fanfare that came with marrying an earl) yet her time at the marriage mart was put as a spotlight. In fact, when Francesca and John marry, it doesn’t happen with the series and happens much in the same way as Prudence’s marriage is (by this I mean it happens off screen). Don’t even get me started on her character assassination and deviation from the books (I can write a whole essay on this without even mentioning Michael/Michaela). All of these plot points, were put as main focuses when they shouldn’t have been. A waste of Polin’s amazing love story, if you ask me.

[culttvblog]

Denis Shaw Season: The Avengers - Requiem

Next in our series of shows in which actor Denis Shaw had a role we have this magnificent final-series Avengers episode, which I don't think I've ever blogged about. It happens to be one of my favourites so that was probably to keep it in reserve and not waste it.

The plot is that Miranda Loxton is the chief witness against Murder International, who are obviously rather inclined towards murdering people, so she has to be kept safe from them. The Ministry does this by secluding her with Steed in a secret place known only to Steed and some boyhood chums. Murder International try to discover this hiding place by setting up Tara King to think that Mother has been killed and it is imperative she draws on any mention Steed has made of his childhood den, so that the security services can get to Steed so that he can help with the assassination of Mother.

You have to love this episode, simply for the way Mother, in his run of peripatetic bases in this series, spends the entire episode drinking his way through Steed's drinks cabinet in his flat.

It's also the perfect vehicle for Denis Shaw, who of course plays one of the baddies, much more the sort of role he normally had and far from the amiable shopkeeper in The Prisoner. He actually repeatedly appears throughout the episode, and honestly the role is done in true Avengers style and made as theatrical as possible. His first appearance is when Tara drives off in Steed's car - he appears from under the convertible roof with a gun and tells her drive. Despite her (and us) presumably having already seen his face in the mirror in the next scene, when they arrive at their destination, Shaw has a stocking over his head like any other theatrical bank robber! Otherwise our attention is repeatedly drawn to a tattoo on the character's hand. All I can say is that Murder International can't have that many stooges because he then reappears as a nurse when Tara is also supposedly injured and in 'hospital' - she recognises him by the tattoo. Shaw's character is used to draw Tara's attention away from the rest of the baddies by making her think the other baddies he's working with are pukka.

As a vehicle for Shaw's acting and personality it's perfect. I see that in my introduction to this series of posts I blithely copied the biographical information I found online that he died suddenly at a relatively young age. One of the things which is very apparent in this appearance is how very overweight Shaw looks (he appears much more overweight than in The Prisoner) which would suggest that possibly his health wasn't that good.

I always try to be critical and it's very difficult with this episode, because the plot is essentially a straightforward double cross plot, played quite straight yet Avengerfied. I have seen some internet criticism that the only thing it needs is we need to see the criminal kingpin of Murder International so we have a baddie to focus on. In an attempt to find some possible criticism of my own on this episode I have literally wrung it out and have been reduced to saying that casting John Paul as a doctor is confusing and makes it look like Doomwatch. When you reflect that Doomwatch hadn't even started yet, it's clear how good this episode and what a hopeless criticism this is!

Excellent episode in itself, but Shaw fits right in with the Avengers ethos as a sinister servant of Murder International.

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[heyho-simonrussellbeale]

A Piece of Work — Simon Russell Beale on a career spent playing Shakespearean roles

Simon Russell Beale’s memoir of a career spent playing some of the great (and many of the minor) Shakespearean roles, is as much a work of criticism as of autobiography. It is a better read for that.

By Cordelia Jenkins August 30 2024

“It is not the fashion to see the lady the epilogue,” says William Shakespeare’s heroine Rosalind, breaking character to speak to the audience at the end of As You Like It, written in 1599. Neither has it been the fashion, since then, to see the actor play the critic. In fact, the whole idea of character analysis in Shakespeare studies was out of fashion until relatively recently. But Simon Russell Beale’s memoir of a career spent playing some of the great (and many of the minor) Shakespearean roles, is as much a work of criticism as of autobiography. It is a better read for that.

At the age of 63, Beale can claim to be one of Britain’s most prolific and revered stage actors. The book is a patchwork of episodes from his life and sketches of the characters he has played over the years, starting with the lonely Roman, Cassius, and moving through some of the great comic and tragic heroes, Benedick, Richard III, Macbeth, Leontes and Lear.

While Beale is careful to avoid making claims to be “an academic, or even a genuine amateur specialist”, he confesses that he finds it impossible not to think of the characters he plays “as less than living, breathing men and women”. And when he breaks off from telling the story of his own life to deliver his observations on a particular role, the insights feel truer for being born of emotional, rather than purely intellectual, labour.

Beale is honest about the pitfalls of this approach. His interpretations are partial and deeply subjective. His chosen characters are typically loners or outsiders in some sense, looking for acceptance and, above all, redemption. And the themes he draws out from them are reflected in the telling of his own life story. It is easy, for example, to see what the appeal of joining a company of actors might have been to the son of an army doctor who had a peripatetic and often isolated boyhood.

His meditation on the crippling grief of Leontes, the jealous king who is responsible for the death of a beloved child, turns upon Beale’s memories of the death of his younger sister, Lucy, who suffered from a congenital heart defect and died at the age of four.

Readers may flag at the level of detail with which Beale describes his early career at the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre. But 30 years working in British theatre have given him an unusually acute understanding of the relationship between what he describes as the “work in the study and the work on the stage”.

He interrogates the centuries-long scepticism that actors have had for scholars, and vice versa. “I have met scholars who believe that Macbeth and King Lear should never be performed, because any attempt to do those plays justice will fail,” he writes, gearing up to dismantle that argument in his account of his own performance of Lear in Sam Mendes’ production of 2014.

In an interview with the FT this year about playing the part, Beale remembered a game with a fellow actor in which they habitually ranked “our top five favourites and our bottom five” of Shakespeare’s plays. “The bottom five were always the same. And the top five used to change, but Lear was always in them,” he said. It’s a revealing anecdote that hints at how consistent a presence Shakespeare’s plays have been through his career. A life’s work in fact — irrespective of the changing fashions.

Cordelia Jenkins is deputy editor of FT Weekend Magazine

A Piece of Work: Playing Shakespeare and Other Stories by Simon Russell Beale Abacus £25, 288 pages

[eazy-group]

YouTube bushcrafters want to teach you how to survive in the wild

New Post has been published on https://eazycamping.net/youtube-bushcrafters-want-to-teach-you-how-to-survive-in-the-wild/

YouTube bushcrafters want to teach you how to survive in the wild

It might be hard for us to imagine, but for the majority of human history, people had to figure out how to live in the wild. Our ancestors built shelters, cooked food, and fought off the occasional bear, using nothing more than their wits and the tools they created with their own hands. Sure, a lot of them got eaten by animals or died of exposure, but on the upside, they never had to worry about getting kicked out of a cafe because the barista decided buying one small coffee didn’t justify four free hours of Wi-Fi.

Nowadays most of us couldn’t start a fire without matches, let alone build an entire shelter. Fortunately, there’s a small, but growing, group of people setting out to change that. They’re using some of humanity’s latest inventions, namely digital video cameras and the internet, to show us how to make early inventions like stone axes and rope.

The wilderness skills they’re teaching are collectively known as “bushcraft,” and there’s been an explosion of these YouTube “bushcrafters” in the past few years. Their videos range from six-minute tutorials about how to properly split wood all the way up to full series with 45-minute episodes detailing how to make large multi-person shelters.

“Survival Lilly” teaches her subscribes how to make a windproof torch using pinecones and resin.

  Stephaine Margeth of “A Girl in the Wild” demonstrates how to construct a raised log bed

One of the main things that set these bushcraft videos apart from something like a camping video is their use of simple tools. Watching hours of these videos make it clear that the average YouTube bushcrafter prides themselves on using minimal tools, and the more primitive the better. Many of the hosts of these channels bring little more than a knife, an ax, and a little bit of food into the woods with them—often for days at a time.

The most extreme version of this obsession is a channel called “Primitive Technology“. The channel features host John Plant of Queensland, Australia constructing things in the forest using only his bare hands and the tools he’s already made in earlier videos. While the videos have lengthy descriptions detailing his work, Plant never speaks while one camera. “I get straight into the project instead of wasting the viewer’s time,” he told the BBC in a 2018 interview.

One of Plant’s earliest videos begins with him sitting bare-chested in the forest banging two rocks together. Eventually, after enough banging and scrapping, one of the stones becomes sharp. He then uses a different stone to chop down a small tree. He uses a stone chisel he also constructs in the video, along with fire, to shape and harden the tree trunk into a handle. After four minutes of screen time, and who knows how many hours of actual work, he presents the stone ax that will show up again and again in his later videos.

Using the ax and other handmade tools, Plant has managed to construct everything from an adobe hut with a ceramic-tiled roof to a furnace capable of producing iron.

Along the way, he’s also managed to pick up nearly ten million subscribers. Which brings us to the other important aspect of YouTube bushcraft videos: the money.

It’s doubtful that any of these hosts got into bushcraft for the cash. There are, after all, easier ways to make money than chopping wood and lighting fires with a bow drill, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t money to be made by those with the know-how and personality to run a popular channel.

Joe Robinet, a YouTube bushcrafter with over a million subscribers, says that YouTube allowed him to turn his boyhood hobby into a full-time job.

“Its changed everything, for not just myself, but my extended family, and also my wife’s family,” he told the Daily Dot via email. “We moved to our dream home, my wife does not have to work, we are fortunate enough for her to do what she wants, and that is being a full-time Mom. More and more opportunities are coming up all the time because of the channel.”

Robinet outside of an unfinished shelter he constructed from a fallen pine tree.

These YouTubers are not making money solely from ad revenue. They also sell merchandise. Pretty much every popular YouTube bushcraft channel also has its own line of clothing, with some hosts partnering with companies to create things like custom designed bushcraft knives.

Mike Pullman of TA Outdoors selling his “Bushcraft Brotherhood” hoodie.

While almost all of the bushcraft videos you’ll find on YouTube are made by people who call themselves amateurs, that doesn’t mean just anyone can go out into the woods and start building themselves a cabin. Time and time again the hosts of these channels emphasize how important knowledge and experience are when you’re trying to stay alive in the woods. Even an experienced bushcrafter like Robinet can find himself in trouble from time to time.

“I almost flipped my canoe three days into the wilderness in the spring,” he told the Daily Dot when asked if he was ever seriously worried about his safety while making these videos. “It rained for the whole trip. Not only did I almost flip, but hypothermia was a real threat throughout the whole trip. I’ve almost been crushed by falling trees. It’s always weather related.”

Staying alive in the woods can be hard enough, but trying to shoot a well-produced video on top of it makes everything even more difficult. While most campers are trying to keep their packs as light as possible, YouTube bushcrafters are cramming cameras, lights, and tripods into their bags, hoping they have not only enough food, but enough battery power to last for days in the forest. Once you realize that all of that stuff also has to stay dry the entire time, you begin to see what a challenge filming can add. A host may struggle for twenty minutes to get a fire going in snowy conditions, only to find out their camera wasn’t correctly focused and they lost the shot.

“It’s just second nature to me by now,” Robison says of filming. “I’ve been doing this for what feels like forever, it adds time, stress, more work, but I’d be bored if I didn’t have to worry about filming.”

Maybe it makes sense that as we become increasingly removed from our primitive roots, these bushcraft videos are becoming more and more popular. We all like to think that, if we really wanted, we could drop out of society and fend for ourselves, somewhere wild and beautiful, and best of all quiet.

If you’re interested in trying out some bushcraft yourself, Robinet says to go for it but start slow. “Just have fun,” he said. “Read Mors Kochanski’s book Bushcraft, try camping with a wool blanket and a tarp in nice, bug-free weather, take it slow, work your way through skills, figure out just what part of bushcraft you enjoy.”

As far as running a successful YouTube channel goes, Robinet is even more succinct. “Do it for fun, not to try to get rich,” he says. “Be yourself and have thick skin.”

That last bit of advice seems like it would apply to both internet trolls and mosquitoes, which are probably equally as annoying to YouTube bushcrafters.

READ MORE:

[type-three-djinni]

January in media

📚 reading

A day of fallen night (part two): what's stumping me is the logistics of having to hold such a chonky book. I need to plan the occasion to sit down in specific positions and timeframes. Story still going strong though!!!!

The Jaunt (King): it felt like watching a trainwreck and not being able to drag my eyes away. Oh, the hubris of mankind (and the rash bravery of boyhood)

Chew (Muir): sticky and sickening AS IT SHOULD BE

Where are you going, where have you been? (Oates): not as scary as many others I've read recently, but the ending bit was anxiety inducing

A jury of her peers (Glaspell): I loved the plays in the different layers of conversation, and all the unsaid painting the true picture.

The monsters are due on Maple Street - script: perfectly linear in the slippery slope that suspicion is

🎥 watching

Home alone: upon rewatching, I'm even more convinced that Kevin grew up to be Saw. Or the creator of some reality show. I mean, he was justified, but a little too gleeful about it.

Three thousand years of longing: wonderfully shot story about stories and storytellers. I am mesmerized.

Cinderella (live action): caught only a little bit of it but I needed to reiterate how much I carnally desire the costuming department of this movie

Around the world in 80 days (ep 5, 6): rotating the three of them in my mind. Top tier ot3.

Titanic: it's been 84 years... Since I promised myself I'd watch this movie start to finish. And now it's done. And Jack and Rose were the part I cared least about. Everyone was doomed and so nothing mattered, or everything did. But the violins kept playing.

Where is that post with the story of the Carpathia. I need to heal.

One piece movie - Red: UTAAAAAAA in my heart she lives. Also. The songs are on fire? Whoever dubbed Uta what's with your voice? Did [divine being of your choice] themself come down from the heavens to bless your vocal chords and give you a little kiss on your forehead???

Ocean's eleven: heist! Heist! Heist!

Last night in SoHo: when I say I was GRIPPED. The visuals, the pacing, the use of light and mirrors, the horror of it all

Haikyuu!! Battle of the garbage dump: it was so good to see this part animated but I'll be forever bitter at how underwhelming and rushed such a pivotal moment for Yamaguchi and Tsukishima was.

Tokyo godfathers: such a chaotic and lovely found family story, where love is everywhere but especially in the most desperate places

The Personal History of David Copperfield: as fast paced as the novel and the cast is fantastic

Gloria!: really pretty visually, the cast is very good and the exhibition scene is soooo cathartic and such an ear candy

My cousin Vinny: Marisa Tomei is a godess and Mona Lisa Vito in the court scene will feature heavily in my dreams

9-1-1 (s. 8 ep 6-7-8): almost quicker for the show to come back from the hiatus than it was for me to catch up with the last three episodes. I need to see Buck crash and burn because of Eddie's decision to leave AND I NEED IT NOW

She's all that: comfort movieeeeee

One piece: a handful of random episodes I felt like. For my heart

Poor things: I honestly don't know if I enjoyed the movie or not. Mmmh.

(Note: January apparently lasts four thousand years judging by the amount of stuff I've seen. Incheresting.)