#however. had it been on the show. would they have still been able to namedrop macys.com

[koheletgirl]

insane that there's a cxg song about everything. except for masturbation

[brandnewfridge]

re: the leaks, but honestly just the entirety of s2

Listen, I really liked the first season. Even though I think it had some pacing issues that could be solved by using that material for two seasons instead of craming everything into just the one, and despite the fact I found it sloppier than GoT in its prime and I disliked the way they were messing with the family trees. I have rewatched it multiple times. I have discussed it extensively with my father and my friends. I waited eagerly for s2.

And despite everything, I am feeling very disenchanted with the writing for this show. I feel like the problems it suffered last season have increased tenfold, and they added some new ones as well. I understand taking liberties from the source material, and in fact I think its part of the point of the show, since its a heavily biased history text with multiple unreliable sources, but I think there's a difference between that and whatever the hell it is that they're doing.

A good example of this, I think, presents itself very early in the season: Blood and Cheese.

I think having it come from Daemon and a "misunderstanding" is a good idea. Specially with the way it was treated after the fact: the conversation with Rhaenyra, how the other lords + Alys treat Daemon in the Riverlands, etc. It also makes sense that it would be portrayed in F&B the way that it was. However, how they adapted it pales in comparison with what actually happened in the book, which I think makes Halaena's character arc suffer in turn. I think this happened because they didn't show Maelor in the first season and they didn't want to add him in now? Even though I think he wouldnt be that difficult to introduce, and the audience would be able to accept his existence quickly, as Aegon's and Halaena's children weren't discussed that much in the first place. I'm not even sure they're mentioned by name in s1. And also, they're fine with giving a similar treatment to Daeron? Which I think it's strange, since the bulk of relevant characters in the conflict is mainly comprised of Viserys' children, and the complete absence, even in mention, even in passing, of one of them just to namedrop him in s2 is much more jarring than just, showing Jahaera playing with Maelor when Aegon comes in asking for Jahaerys. I don't know.

This is to say, it's not that I'm a book purist and dislike every single new thing they add. I like that the source material gives the adaptation room to breathe, and some of these new additions I do enjoy, at least in theory if not in practice. But they're making very strange changes, to characters, to plotlines, to family trees. The whole Rhaena/Nettles issue, for example.

A point that one of my friends has made is that oftentimes they treat the time that has passed between the airing of s1 and s2 as the time it has passed in-universe, which is very much decidedly not the same. There have been a very busy couple of weeks (as stated by Alicent in that one conversation with Larys in 02x04) in universe, and I think they're not giving the incredibly important things that have happened enough room to breathe per se. If it was time that they worried about, why shorten the season to eight episodes instead of the original ten the first season posessed? While simultaneously adding new plotlines or scenes like the Alicole affair, Daemon getting the Spirit Halloween experience at Harrenhall, or Rhaenyra going to KL to see Alicent, or Alicent frolicking in the woods. I have nothing against these things per se, I think they could add a lot to the story, the characters and their tragedy, but if I'm being honest I'd rather they used some of that runtime differently. It's like they want to stretch this show for as many seasons as they can but they also want to get to the next cool thing as soon as possible while the last one is still happening.

GoT started to shorten the number of episodes in s7.

GRRM has stated in his blog that he will not be attending the writers room for s3.

It's just a shame. Just a damn shame.

[stillness-in-green]

I felt like the plf war was rushed

1.Plf advisors getting hype but no payoff

2.Only miruko, Momo, and Kirishma got time to shine

3.Machia got defeated to easily

4.The war felt more like a raid

I don't know if I feel like it was rushed, per se--it's by far the longest arc in the story so far by number of chapters, and would be even if you cut off the Tartarus jailbreak and the entirety of the hospital aftermath. What it absolutely does feel like to me is unbalanced.

You note that the "war" feels more like a raid, and you're right. As a caveat, it's worth keeping in mind that "Paranormal Liberation War" as a name for the arc in question is entirely an invention of the fanbase. To the best of my knowledge, the reasoning for the name was that big action shonen series like BNHA (Naruto, Bleach, Hunter x Hunter, etc) always have a war arc, so what we were seeing in the lengthy, mass combat confrontation with the PLF had to be HeroAca's equivalent. It's not a term that's in the manga itself, however, not called as such by the characters, not referred to as such by Horikoshi or his editors, not even namedropped in chapter or volume titles. If it feels like a raid, that's probably because that's what it was intended to be.

And that's the problem, really. This arc shouldn't have been about a couple of raids; it should have been about a war.

(Below the cut: a bunch of fired-up complaining. Uses some harsh language, and talks about both injuries and deaths we did see and some we logically should have.)

From the outset, we were told that the resources Shigaraki had amassed were "on par with, or even stronger than" the resources of the hero-saturated society. Yet, we're expected to believe that a force that strong is so easily taken down by a single coordinated set of raids? Yes, the heroes had the benefit of surprise, but there's just so much that doesn't work for me.

First off, and to get this out of the way, it's ridiculous that the heroes even had the benefit of surprise. The MLA had an unknown number of hero double agents. They had people in the government; they had people in the infrastructure. This is an organization that had been living undercover completely unsuspected for multiple generations--how did the HPSC ever manage to carry out a massive, country-wide investigation on such a secretive group and coordinate multiple simultaneous, comprehensive raids without a single person finding out and alerting the higher-ups over a period of only three and a half months?

When exactly did Hawks have time to go and revive Best Jeanist--which he tells us he did personally--such that none of the bugs and micro-cameras he was covered with picked up on it, and both he and BJ could be back in the positions they needed to be in for the raid to begin?

How did Skeptic find out about the raid such that he only discovered it at the last possible second and not minutes, even hours, before it kicked off? How did hundreds of heroes (and even "hundreds" is being conservative, given the fact that they had seventeen thousand people to detain) close in on the villa without anyone from the PLF noticing, either Skeptic with his information network or mundane precautions like people on watch?

Even granting the heroes their surprise advantage--which I don't want to--if the advisors were all supposedly "stronger than the average hero," why didn't we see any of them winning? Okay, yes, Hose Face beat Midnight, but he had every possible advantage in that "fight"; I hardly count it as some big impressive defeat that shows us that the villains were holding their own.

Here's another thing: the MLA styled themselves as an army--they were demonstrably trained in troop tactics. When we saw them in Deika, even their nameless on-the-ground people were capable of coordinating with each other on the fly in response to the movements of the enemy, as we saw come up repeatedly:

Yeah, they were off-guard at first, but as soon as the advisors made the front line (which, you'll note, was immediately), that disadvantage really should have begun eroding. Certainly once Geten--Geten! The number one MLA member most willing to disregard collateral damage! And there he was being a proper leader!--got to the front and started yelling orders, we should have seen the PLF rallying, and I can't imagine any sensible justification for the tides not turning when a) Re-Destro showed up to occupy the highest-ranked hero on the field, b) a bunch of heroes peeled off to try to stop Machia only to get trampled for their efforts, and c) Trumpet got dug out.

You know who don't style themselves as an army, though? Heroes. Oh, they get some basic lessons in cooperation as students, but the extent of such lessons we see is stuff like "why it's important for heroes to have signature moves"--so that on group missions, their reputations will precede them and fellow heroes will already know their shtick. U.A. teaches the odd lesson plan that involves the kids fighting in groups, but there's a huge difference between you and 3 to 6 of your buddies fighting a similarly-sized group in a practice fight, or a handful of heroes teaming up to take down some criminal low-lives, and the mass combat scenario that was the raid. For heaven's sake, look at our closest other equivalent: the raid on the Hassaikai base. At every turn in that encounter, the heroes let themselves get split up and picked off, winnowing down their numbers. It's even explicit in the narrative that hero team-ups were, in the age of All Might, uncommon, and heroes are only just beginning to adjust to fighting in teams. The erstwhile MLA should have had the advantage there.

As to Machia's defeat, I think the big problem with it is not how it happened, per se, but the timescale involved. The plan itself was sound enough, and even with all the kids' efforts, it still took Machia reaching Shigaraki and not getting any new orders to follow to really do him in. Given what we can extrapolate about his movement speed, though, I just don't think the kids should have had time to set all those traps, especially given how much of that equipment would have had to be fabricated by Momo on the fly. I know she's gotten stronger and all, and good for her, but you're telling me that in the four months between Joint Training and the raid, she went from passing out because she created a bag of goodies and one (1) cannon to being totally fine and still able to coordinate her fellow students while cranking out 23 jars of sedative, dozens of feet of rope/cable, multiple fire-resistant coats, explosives they somehow had time to bury, and three cannons?

For fuck's sake, Jirou gave Machia's ETA as under ten seconds. Yeah, Mount Lady slowed him down, but "only a little"--how much time could she possibly have bought them, that the kids were able to to coordinate and enact everything that plan involved?

You guys, go read this post by @codenamesazanka. Machia is so fast. So unbelievably, incredibly fast. "Twice as fast as the fastest train in the world" fast. "Horikoshi clearly did not stop to think about the distances involved here" fast. Three miles in ten seconds fast. It would have been hard enough to square with the needs of the plot that the kids were sufficiently far from the villa to have the kind of time they needed to swing Momo's plan at all, but Horikoshi explicitly letting Machia get right on top of them before the kids even start just makes it completely impossible for me to credit. Machia clearly being slower aboveground than he is when burrowing does not make that much difference to my suspension of disbelief.

My other big complaint? More people should have died, for real. The PLF warriors would not have been holding back. They were ready and willing to kill anyone they came up against. The heroes did have to hold back, because heroes, as we're told over and over again, are not supposed to kill, no matter how dire the circumstances. That difference in ability to exercise force should have been yet another significant advantage for the PLF. I could write an entire list of characters that I think could have reasonably been killed during the raids. That wouldn't be to say that I think any individual, specific character on that list should have died, just that, based on the parameters as they were presented to audience, some number of them should have.

I mean, honestly. How did Horikoshi wanna show us Gang Orca's unmoving claw in the wake of Machia's passage and not have Gang Orca on the list of the dead? How did Fat Gun run right into a mass melee and still have enough fat left over afterward to survive getting trampled by a walking mountain? How did Thirteen survive not getting pulled out of the hospital basement when Shigaraki's Decay hit? How did Trumpet survive getting a staircase dropped on top of him? How did Gran Torino survive a fist through his tiny old man chest cavity?

I could go on and on, but it's not just about the deaths, either. I'm not saying that Kamui Woods necessarily should have died by swinging himself face-first into a blast of blue fire, but I am saying that he should have been out of commission for longer than three goddamn days. You bet your ass I'm saying that after telling us that Hawks' weak point is fire, making us watch him spend at a solid minute or more with his wings wholly enveloped in Dabi's 2000 degree flames, and having Dark Shadow exclaim that his back is completely burned away, Hawks should never have grown his wings back, much less so quickly that they were already visible under his shirt a single day later.

More deaths, more maiming--heck, even more retirements. I'm not saying I love that kind of thing in my fiction--I don't, actually. I think an overreliance on it is a sign of edgelordy nonsense. But the scenario that we had demanded to be treated with the kind of gravity that would have led to such an outcome. To set up a conflict like the raid and have the villains only barely be able to scrape a partial escape, to try to tell us that Shigaraki's victory in Deika granted him such a terrifyingly powerful force only to have them lose every battle they got into, to tell us this was a blow that shook Hero Society to its core, only to be so unwilling to kill or retire any heroes the audience cares about that Midnight is literally the only significant loss… It doesn't work. None of it works.

I don't have much to say on which characters did or didn't get a highlight. I think there were a few more people than you listed that got some good scenes--Tokoyami and Uraraka both got material I liked quite a bit; Dabi famously out-trended the U.S. presidential election on Twitter when he (literally) came clean, and Mr. Compress gave us some wonderfully interesting and characteristically opaque material to chew on. On the whole, though, adding more character moments would only have been dragging out the problem: the scale of the PLF's threat and the HPSC's chosen method of dealing with it are simply incompatible with the feeble "neither side truly won or lost" resolution we got.

And that's my rant on that--thanks for the ask!

[365days365movies]

April 4, 2021: The Great Dictator (1940) (Part One)

So, Charlie’s been having an...interesting few years.

His marriage to Lita Grey has resulted in children, and a BITTER-AS-FUCK divorce, with Grey alleging that Chaplin had subjected her to “sexual perversions”. Other than the whole “she was 16, he was 35″ thing, which is...bad, obviously, Chalin was also a fan of orgies, fondling, and...pies. Yeah. Pies. Warning here, the next paragraph is...uncomfortable.

Dude would allegedly audition actresses having then sit on a couch, strip naked for him, and then he’d grope them on said couch. Then, he’d have them stand up against the wall, and he’d...well, he’d throw pies at them. Yeah. Um. He, uh...yeah.

I know, Matt Mercer, I know. And Hollywood agreed, because they didn’t really see to care? This info, amongst other stuff that I can’t seem to find out more about, was enough for grounds of divorce against Chaplin, and Lita Grey was gone from his life, taking the kids and a lot of money with her.

Film fame continued for Chaplin, though, and his 1927 film The Circus was a huge hit. But now, the “talkie” had been invented, and Chaplin HATED it. He believed that it was an unartistic addition to the medium, eliminating the need for his pantomiming. And, uh...he was technically right about that last point. He chose not to give the Tramp a voice, and made the film City Lights, which came out in 1931, and is considered one of his greatest films.

But the writing was VERY MUCH on the wall at this point, and silent films were a thing of the past. Still, City Lights did really well, and was Chaplin’s favorite of his films. Then, in 1932, he met Pauline Goddard (who was 21), and she would eventually become his third wife. He made his next major (still silent) film, Modern Times, in 1936, and it didn’t do quite as well. That’s because Chaplin had started to become more politically conscious, and used the film to make commentary on the industrialization of the USA, which he disliked. And that, interestingly enough, was a sign of the end for Chaplin.

Still, the film was good, as was still popular then and now. But in the years to follow, something else would rear its head and plague Chaplin...something with the same mustache.

Hooooooo boy. Yeah, Hitler was rising to power in the 1930s, and Chaplin fuckin’ HAAAAAAAATED HIM. At the time, remember, Hitler’s fascist policies definitely weren’t universally derided, and he didn’t show his true monstrous colors in the early 1930s. But, Chapin still understandably disagreed with his politics and character, which was interesting for a few reasons. The two were bourn FOUR DAYS APART FROM EACH OTHER, had similar rags-to-riches origins, and both used that same toothbrush mustache. But Hitler was a feverish militaristic nationalist dictator, and Chaplin was...not that.

However, this would inspire Chaplin’s next ambitious film, considered to be one of his greatest films ever, and his first ever talkie film. And one that would age interestingly, considering what would come afterwards. In 1939, Chaplin began making this film, the United Kingdom declared war of Germany, and Europe became embroiled in the Second World War. And then, in 1940, Chaplin’s controversial (at the time) film, The Great Dictator was released. And...oh BOY, this will be Chaplin’s high and low point, lemme tell you. 

But enough history (for now)! Let’s jump into this movie; I’m very excited! SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap (1/2)

WAR!!! A world war has ended, and another is about to begun! The small (fictional) country of Tomainia is preparing for war by testing their gigantic anti-aircraft gun, Big Bertha. Helping with these efforts is a Jewish Barber (Charlie Chaplin), and YES. THAT IS HOW HE’S CREDITED. After some comedic hijinks with the gun, and with one of the large shells, enemy aircraft is sighted ahead.

The Barber gets aboard another anti-aircraft gun (which he has no control over), but soon falls off of it. He’s directed into the trenches with the others, and is given a grenade, which he has no idea to use, and Chaplin shows that his physical comedy is as funny WITH sound as it was without. 

On the battlefield, the Barber encounters and rescues a downed pilot, Commander Schultz, and helps him back t his plane as the enemy approaches. They get on the plane together, only for the pilot to repeatedly faint in mid-air. In the process, they begin to fly upside down for a period, and once again, Chaplin shows that he’s just as funny speaking as he was silent.

Despite their attempts, the pair crash as the plane runs out of fuel, but both men survive. The country has lost the war at this point, and the Barber is now unconscious and brought to a hospital. 20 years pass, and he’s finally able to leave, unaware of how his country of Tomainia has changed in the process. Now, they are ruled by a ruthless dictator, Adenoid Hynkel (Charlie Chaplin).

And i case you were wondering what the phrase “on the nose” actually meant...GODDAMN, this is an on-the-nose parody of Hitler. I mean, it’s very funny, of course, but HOT DAMN is it not even a little bit subtle. Also, living in a post-Trump world...Jesus, this is eerie. Anyway, the other reason this film is great is the fake German. And yeah, honestly, this is a very funny scene, even with the dark undertone, and the knowledge of what would be to come in World War II under Hitler’s regime.

Alongside his primary aides, Minister of War Herring (Billy Gilbert) and Secretary of the Interior (and Minister of Propaganda) Garbitsch (Henry Daniell), he makes a speech that’s clearly a parody of Hitler’s speeches. He also namedrops the Jewish population in the speech, which immediately makes them a target by his stormtroopers. This is noted by Mr. Jaeckel (Marice Mossovich), an elderly Jewish man who lives in the ghettos of Tomainia.

Mr. Jaeckel bemoans the fate of the country under Hynkel’s rule, and also notes the fate of those like his tenant, a young woman named Hannah (Paulette Goddard) who lost her parents since the last war. He also mentions the Barber, who writes every few weeks to say that he’ll be back soon. Just then, the Barber actually DOES wake up, completely unaware of what’s occurred in the last few years.

He heads to his barber shop, which has been boarded up, with the word “Jew” painted on the boards. Did I mention that this is a very on-the-nose satire? Anyway, he attempts to reopen his shop, only to be savaged by stormtroopers following Hynkel’s orders to control the ghetto. He fights back against two of them, and is saved by Hannah, who had attempted to stand up to them earlier with little success. They bond over this, and become friends.

But Hynkel’s savaged even more by a crowd of stormtroopers next, and they grab him with the intent to hang him from a lamppost, only for him to be saved by Commander Schultz, the pilot from the plane! He guarantees that he will never be attacked again, and that courtesy extends to his friends. He barber reopens his shop, and begins to fall in love with Hannah in the process.

Back to Hynkel. He’s enduring Herring’s introductions of military technology, including a bulletproof uniform and a parachute hat. Neither work, to hilarious effect. He then speaks to Garbitsch about the financial state of affairs in the country, which aren’t great. Gabitsch sugggests speaking with a banker, Epstein, to finance the money.

Garbitsch, by the way, is a massive Grima Wormtongue figure, and basically just fuels his megaloaniacal fervor, convincing him to extend his desires to the world at large, not just limit them to their small country of Tomainia. Soon, well...soon, the world will be in the hands of Emperor Hynkel; an Aryan world in the hands of a brunette dictator. And that starts YET ANOTHER of the most iconic scenes of the film. But only one of the most iconic.

It’s darkly beautiful, in and out of context. And eventually, the inflatable globe pops, which makes this even more poignant. Meanwhile, in the ghetto, the Barber is doing his best Bugs Bunny impression and cutting hair to a classical music piece (Brahms’ Hungarian Dance No. 5). Bugs did the whole Barber of Seville routine WAY after this in Rabbit of Seville in 1950. One of the best Bugs Bunny shorts ever.

Back in the palace, bad news arrives. Epstein, the banker, has refused to give Hynkel any money, as he’s Jewish, and is protesting against the persecution of his people in the ghetto. Hynkel immediately decides to double down on his attacks on the ghettos, which he calls on Schultz to perform. But he refuses, noting that the persecution of an innocent people will only serve to demoralize the entire country. Hynkel sends Schultz to a concentration camp as a result, and proceeds on his path.

In the ghetto, people have been doing OK, as the stormtroopers had been lightening up their attacks on the ghetto, to attempt to please Epstein to get more money. But no more of that. As Hannah and the Barber are about to go on a date, loudspeakers broadcast an angry speech from Hynkel, in fake German. And while it’s never translated...the reactions from the populus, Hannah, and the Barber, aren’t difficult to read. Hynkel just waged war on the ghetto and the Jews.

Well, will you look at that; a halfway point! Let’s stop here, then head into a Part Two. See you there!

[inmyarmswrappedin]

There’s something that I’ve never really been able to square in my mind and I’d love your thoughts on it. I should start by saying that I’m not from Norway and I wasn’t around when Skam s2 was airing. But from what I have heard, the season was wildly popular locally and that sexual assault reports actually went up after that storyline aired (which is a really good thing, obviously). Since then, however, the general consensus across the fandom has +

become that s2 was really problematic and that it depicts a toxic relationship. So I guess the thing I have a hard time understanding is how that seemed to be missed in Norway in 2016? Are viewers there just not as “woke” as the wider international audience? Or do the people now looking back on it just have the advantage of hindsight, not to mention how much things have changed culturally over the last four years? Not that four years is a great deal +

of time, but we are post-‘Me Too’ now and things like misogyny and sexism are called out much more freely and loudly in the year 2020. I definitely feel that I’ve certainly become more attuned to the problems with the way that female characters are portrayed in recent years. Anyway, if you feel like it, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Hi anon! ✨ This is a really good question, and while I will try to answer it to the best of my knowledge/educated guessing, I have to say that I’m also not from Norway nor did I live there in 2016 to be able to speak about the nuances of feminism.

I do think that, to a certain extent, Norway has a very casual approach to safe sex. As far as I understand, girls and women are expected by their sexual partners to be on the pill or some other kind of birth control. As a result, condom use isn’t great. Community transmission of chlamydia is so common that Norwegian 7-11 made an advertising campaign advising tourists to buy condoms, because having sex with locals would likely lead to getting it yourself. Hence the Skam girls constantly talking about chlamydia, William and P-Chris gave them chlamydia, Vilde is afraid of getting chlamydia in the eye, Linn has had chlamydia tons of times... One of Josefine’s (Noora) projects after Skam, Dear Condom, was meant to promote condom use, and lack of condom use in lovleg leads one of the characters to need an abortion.

So, to start with, someone like William who goes around pressuring naive girls into condomless sex and then discarding them (someone who might have even given chlamydia to half the school, as the Rad Girls speculate about him), can still be a romantic lead in Norway, because the attitudes are different. Like, he’s not the problem, Vilde is the problem because at 16 she’s not on birth control, you know?

I also know that the reaction to William was mixed even in 2016. Julie Andem once gave an interview to an (I believe Swedish) outlet, sometime after Skam aired, and she mentioned that in Sweden, where Skam was also available, William was not popular and she’d get very negative feedback about him after certain clips became available.

But ultimately, I think the reason that Norway was more receptive to William in 2016, than fandom has been of him subsequently, is that international fandom became aware of William once Isak’s season started airing. And the thing about Skam is that both NRK and Julie were willing to do a very different show with each season. Eva’s season is less romantic and more rooted in self-affirmation, a self-help show if you will; Noora’s season is a Wattpad bad boy/good girl enemies to lovers romance; Isak’s season is a LGBT escapist fantasy; and Sana’s season is more concerned with Russetide and who it excludes and how, than the romance storyline. So when people found Skam during Isak’s season, they thought the entire show was like Isak’s season, but it’s not, really. Isak’s season wasn’t going to necessarily appeal to straight Norwegians, just like Noora’s season wasn’t conceived to appeal to sad gay people worldwide. The thing is, NRK/Julie weren’t afraid of switching gears with each season, because rather than make a show with the most mainstream appeal (like some remakes), they were trying to make seasons that would appeal to the people who they felt needed to heed the messages therein. (Of course they fucked it up in s4, but you know.) 

And essentially, the people who needed to heed the messages in Noora’s season were girls who weren’t woke. Who didn’t know what had happened to them was not normal, or their own fault for blacking out or not being on birth control or because they had sex too young or not saying no when the guy got too rough or... The list goes on. And how do you get those girls to watch the show? You give them a bad boy/good girl enemies to lovers storyline that rivals even the American TV shows Gossip Girl (it’s not a coincidence that Eva namedrops it), One Tree Hill or The OC in plot twists and good-looking people making out. Cause if you remember, NRK asked Julie Andem to develop Skam because older teens were watching American TV shows instead of Norwegian ones.

In stan language, Isak’s season appealed to (white, mlm-centric) fandom because it was about two white dudes in love. But Noora’s season was made to appeal to locals. And it did. Even in 2020, bad boy/good girl borderline toxic/abusive storylines are popular (see: Euphoria, Nate/Jules shippers), because regardless of #MeToo or public consciousness struggling with sexism and misogyny, these dynamics keep appealing to women. (Same with Twilight, 50 Shades of Grey, etc.) Both because not every woman is part of this conversation, and because sometimes people just want to turn off their brain and enjoy some trash. 

As for Noora’s season, while I get all of this, my personal issue is that by mixing the fun trashiness with the educational messaging, while it did do good and led to an uptick in SA reports, Skam ultimately couldn’t keep the trashiness outside of the messaging. That’s why Nora’s season is the only good Noora season to me.

[flashofg]

Reconguista in G II: Bellri’s Fierce Charge (1/4)

I’m late, but I finally started to watch the second movie. I will describe it and summarise the plot. I’m writing and such as I go, so this will take some time to complete.

As expected, the movie begins where Go! Core Fighter concluded, with the Megafauna leaving the atmosphere for space. We’re greeted by an extract from Dreams Come True’s ‘G’, and shortly by this glorious new shot of Steer:

It’s just this kind of movement that I love about G-Reco. Characters are so lively and animated, I find it authentic. This kind of thing can be seen in the Tv version, as well. I feel that they took a lot of care to make the world feel ‘alive’.

I believe there’s a fair amount of brief new footage spliced in this area ahead of the battle, but I felt it was somewhat choppy in comparision to the previous work. Pre-existing cuts and dialogue were also rearranged, which probably contributed to this impression. However, this was a brief stage, so not to worry.

Incidentally, there’s the charming revision of this joker.

I wish you could hear the “mwhmm” noise he makes in this picture.

A random Doubey pilot of the Gironde Team, I’m afraid I haven’t learned his name; he was absent from the Reconpedia in G. However, I took to thinking of him as Neo Mashymre, for the rose he’s so fond of. Well, he appeared for about five seconds in the original version. Ultimately, his presence only helps to expand our perspective of the upcoming battle, but he’s just so ‘Tomino’ that I had to bring him to your attention. Incidentally, our man namedrops La Vie en Rose, a dock ship from 0083: Stardust Memory, as a guardian angel. It’s a nice, subtle reference.

The battle between the Capital Army and the Megafauna is expanded. I feel Instructor Dellensen had a better showing in this version. He benefits from being able to better display his prowess with the additional screentime. Bellri also shows a greater understanding of his machine; where he previously expressed confusion about what the G-Self was doing, he now deliberately executes techniques with the machine’s functions. Furthermore, the G-Self’s critical strike was clarified, although it’s still lightning fast. I willl break it down later.

It’s here that I really took note of the rerecorded lines. The urgent, hasty voices of the two pilots recognising each other outstrips the simple surprise of the original delivery. Bellri’s tearful protests in the wake of the Elf Bull were similarly well delivered, but for “because you resorted to cheap tricks like that!”, which I felt carried more shock the first time around, which I preferred. At any rate, the stress carries forward.

The following meeting is entirely different from the original version. There, he went straight from the battle to a summary meeting, with only Aida asking to excuse him for his exhaustion. Here, he’s barely in attendance, distraught and being comforted by Noredo, Raraiya innocently playing with his hair. Whilst Aida is clearly concerned, Captain Donyell asks Noredo to take Bellri back to rest. We see her kindly support him, rather than merely make her appearance at the end of the episode. Just like the first movie, his grief is properly depicted. They’re really addressing all the criticisms I have for the original version.

I’m actually only about 12 minutes in, but it’s taken me a long time to do only this much. This would have been a long post anyway, and I’d have hit the image count before long. I’ll continue tomorrow. Please look forward to it.

[rwby-redux]

Deconstruction

Worldbuilding: Semblances I

Remember in the Worldbuilding: Overview when I called Semblances magical? Technically speaking, that’s not actually true. The fact that I have to even qualify that statement tells you just how much of a headache RWBY’s magic system—excuse me, pseudo-magic system—is in practice. Unlike the last topic (Aura) where I focused on just one critical flaw, today we’re going to cover as many of those flaws as we can. Given the huge number of talking points we’ll be discussing, Semblances is going to be split into two parts.

You might want to get comfortable; we’re going to be here for a while.

Let’s first start by establishing what, according to canon, a Semblance actually is. If Aura is the manifestation of the soul, then a Semblance is the form that manifestation takes. Broadly speaking, a Semblance is a skill or ability that transcends the normal biological limits of what a person is capable of—a superpower that’s uniquely-tailored to its user. Despite taking on a wide array of forms and functions, all Semblances share six basic traits:

A Semblance draws upon Aura as its source of power. When this fuel source is depleted, a person can no longer use their Semblance, and must wait for their Aura to regenerate before it can be used again.

The specific ability or nature of one’s Semblance is alleged to be an expression of the user’s personality/character/soul.

Overuse of a Semblance can adversely affect a person and cause physical side effects, such as fatigue [1], headaches [2], or fainting [3].

Semblances can interact with Dust in such a way that their skills are augmented, resulting in the temporary acquisition of new subskills or secondary characteristics.

Through training and regular usage, Semblances can gradually become stronger or more advanced.

The intensity of certain emotions, such as stress, panic, despair, or rage, can cause a person to subconsciously activate their Semblance.

Your first reaction when reading this list might’ve been, “Oh, you mean like the Quirks in My Hero Academia.” Now, I’ve never personally watched the show or read the manga, but after briefly consulting the Wiki page I can safely confirm that yes, Semblances are very similar to Quirks. However, given my lack of familiarity with My Hero Academia, I’m going to avoid drawing too many comparisons between the two. This is partly because I don’t want to provide incorrect commentary on a franchise I know little about. The other reason? The longer I read the Wiki page on Quirks, the more embittered I become toward Semblances and the wasted potential they have by comparison. I’m already biased; I don’t need any help in that arena, thanks.

I think the best way to discuss all of the various flaws with Semblances is to break this topic into two parts, and deal with the meta and in-lore aspects separately.

Meta, Production, and Development

When I started doing research for this topic I went on the RWBY Wiki to track down sources and dates, as one typically does when preparing to excavate a salt mine. I knew what a Semblance was, but I decided that, for the sake of empirical evidence, that I needed to have a reference for that definition. (And a good line of defense against potential critics. It’s hard to argue with primary sources.) Fans can give a definition when prompted, but I’m willing to bet most of them couldn’t name the episode where we first got that information. That’s all right; I couldn’t either. In fact, the more I thought about it, the weirder it seemed that I couldn’t pinpoint the exact episode, let alone the volume, where Semblances are first explained. So I did some digging.

Here’s what I found:

The first time Aura is explained on-screen is Volume 1, Episode 06: “The Emerald Forest - Part 1.” This exposition is delivered to us by Pyrrha, whose explanation serves as a learning moment for us, the viewers, and Jaune, the audience-surrogate character.

The first time the word Semblance is mentioned (not explained, mentioned) is Volume 1, Episode 14: “Forever Fall - Part 2.” Take a moment to let that sink in: we’re fourteen episodes into the series, and despite seeing multiple characters use their Semblances on-screen, we still haven’t been told what these powers are. I think some viewers were able to extrapolate what our cast was doing based on a sense of genre-savviness, but that’s really bad. As a writer, your job is to find a way to organically explain the core aspects of your story. I know that CRWBY tried to use Jaune to fulfill this role (but why that ultimately failed to work is a discussion for another day), but even then, it shouldn’t take fourteen episodes to start addressing major worldbuilding elements.

At this point you must be wondering, okay, so if Aura didn’t get its first proper introduction until episode six, and Semblances were only namedropped at episode fourteen, then when were they properly explained? At least somewhere in Volume 1, right?

Would you like to know the answer?

The first time Semblances were formally explained was in World of Remnant, Episode 4: “Aura.” The fourth episode of this spin-off series debuted on November 14th, 2014. The fourth World of Remnant episode aired a month after Volume 2 ended. To give you some context, the very first episode of the main series aired on July 18, 2013, and the first episode of Volume 3 was released on October 24, 2015.

It took twenty-eight episodes, a runtime of 04:26:04, and a full year before we finally had an answer. An answer that was delivered in a spin-off series meant exclusively to supplement crucial worldbuilding and lore.

Do you see how fucking insane that is? How badly do you have to fail at writing to not explain to your audience one of the fundamental aspects of your story? Not only does this not make sense from a writing perspective, but it makes no sense from a development or production standpoint, either. At the time, Kerry Shawcross was an editor for Red vs. Blue Season 9, while Miles Luna was the writer for the Red vs. Blue miniseries Where There's a Will, There's a Wall, and co-writer for Red vs. Blue Season 10. While Monty Oum himself wasn’t necessarily a writer, he was part of a three-man team that together did have a background in writing and editing. (Mind you, neither of them are necessarily good writers, but it’s still better than nothing.)

To reiterate: There were three creative leads working on this project. Three. How is it that none of them, at any point during production, noticed this massive flaw with their story?

I don’t work for Rooster Teeth (obviously), and I’m therefore not privy to any of the decisions that were made behind the scenes. Whether the focus was more on animating RWBY than emphasizing the worldbuilding, whether the lighthearted tone made the team think that exposition wasn’t as important as being entertaining, whether there were deadline crunches and budgeting constraints that limited the quality of the final product.

While we can’t decisively say why this is the case, we can see how these choices had major consequences for RWBY’s plot—not just in retrospect, but going forward as well. Next time in Part 2, we’ll cover topics that focus more on the lore of Semblances than the storytelling nitpicks, and discuss how those oversights impacted the series.

-

[1] Volume 3, Episode 12: “End of the Beginning.” During Salem’s monologue, Glynda can be seen using her Semblance to try and reassemble a storefront in Vale’s shopping district. Eventually, she tires from overuse of her Semblance, and the building collapses back into debris while Glynda hunches over gasping.

[2] Volume 3, Episode 7: “Beginning of the End.” Immediately after Yang is framed for attacking Mercury, Emerald complains about a headache from casting her Semblance on two people simultaneously.

[3] Volume 5, Episode 14: “Haven’s Fate.” When Yang claims the Relic of Knowledge and returns from the Vault, Emerald conjures an illusion of Salem. Performing her Semblance on nine different people at the same time consumes what little energy she had left, and causes her to pass out. Hazel has to carry her while he and Mercury flee from the battle.

[ryder616]

Rewatching The Magical Place

If Jemma Simmons excells at preparation, Daisy Johnson is the queen of improvisation.

Completely on her own, still several months away from being able to call herself a field agent, her original superpower neutered, and working within a very tight time frame - Coulson’s been gone for 36 hours already and she has a tracking bracelet, at some point S.H.I.E.L.D. would have sent agents to retrieve her - she manages what a small battalion of agents can’t (and, partly, won’t, as Hand’s priority is taking down Centipede), planning and executing the crucial step to enable Coulson’s rescue in a matter of hours.

And in true Daisy’s fashion, she does it with complete disregard for her own well-being and, oh, legality😁 

Let’s review:

She ditches S.H.I.E.L.D.’s debriefing (which sounded a lot like low-key arrest), steals and crashes a car, trespasses on private property, impersonates a federal agent (or whatever kind S.H.I.E.L.D agents are), assaults two security guards, takes three people hostages and hacks a financial institution (via human proxy😎), stealing sensitive data.

Then she snatches another car, drives to Bad Guys Central where superpowered soldiers might be keeping watch (and they are) and starts snooping around without even waiting for the others to show up.

This glorious escapade, besides demonstrating her fierce attachment to Coulson and how insanely good she is at making it up as she goes, suggests that Skye may still be a ill fit for the current protocols-obsessed S.H.I.E.L.D., especially if Hand’s attitude is prevalent among the higher-up agents (I can’t imagine Fury not loving her, tbh).

But, as it happens, S.H.I.E.L.D. is about to go up in flames and its next iteration will be completely illegal and run by her adoring surrogate dad. So...thanks Hydra?

Appropriately, considering Coulson has been going against S.H.I.E.L.D.’s grain for most of the season, while Skye is busy with her bad girl shenanigans the rest of the team displays similar roguish tendencies.

May plays Hand into unleashing Skye in the wild, clearly confident the hacker can replicate - and then some - the exploit of The Hub (and isn’t this just the greatest compliment, Melinda May trusting her, with Coulson’s life on the line?).

Ward eggs Skye on and employs very questionable and unauthorized interrogation tactics. Sure, it’s Ward, but he’s still pretending to be the good S.H.I.E.L.D. agent here, so that’s still significant (However since he actually works for Garrett, can his dedication to find Coulson really be as genuine as it seems? Did he actually believe in Skye or did he send her out thinking there was no chance she’d succeed?🤔).

And FitzSimmons have no qualms with any of it, to the point they cheerfully paper-scissor-rock for the privilege of opening the cage’s airlock to scare Vanchat into talking. However, while Jemma doesn’t want to risk killing the enslaved Centipede soldiers, Fitz is in a more “by all means necessary” frame of mind. Jemma’s outlook prevails - the dendrotoxin is refined to incapacitate the soldiers - but we should file their argument for future reference.

No single agent is that important. -- Coulson is.

I think “Project” Coulson was a failsafe. Someone Fury trusted completely, placed in a position that is not directly involved with the agency’s politics and inner workings as Hill’s is, for instance. So he gave him his dream job, quite the substantial latitude to operate as he sees fit, and a team that can - and does - function as an independent unit. Just in case.

He is also a delicate, and potentially revolutionary, experiment and no one can learn the truth behind it, not just Coulson himself.

Stuff that crossed my mind:

Vanchat was namedropped in the Pilot and Eye Spy:  he was the owner of the Chitauri neural link Ward retrieved in Paris and Amadour had been captured during a raid against one of his gulags.

Speaking of raids, the elaborate setup of Vanchat’s capture seems...unneccessary? They have a full tac team on the roof, wouldn’t it have been easier to just storm the meeting room with them in tow?

Oh Joy. Agent Hand is giving another briefing. And thus it begins. Nobody ever likes the substitute teacher. Hand here, then it’ll be Gonzalez and his “Real” S.H.I.E.L.D. pals, Jeffrey Mace and, yup, even Daisy.

You’re the consultant, the one that shot Agent Sitwell. I’ve always wondered how May got them off the hook for the Sitwell Incident. Did they blame it all on Skye, who, as a non-agent, couldn’t be court-marshalled, and then people were too busy laughing at Sitwell to care about the already electronically-tagged consultant?

I know I’m not some badass field agent. Give it time, sweetie. For now, the right choice of wardrobe can do wonders!

All this protocol crap doesn’t matter to me. All it matters to me is Coulson. Diplomacy, thy name is not Skye.

Needless to say, if they had let Skye do her thing or if she hadn’t been wearing the damn bracelet, this episode would have ended in 10 minutes. Even back then Daisy was like the ultimate OP class: nerf her or she breaks the gameplay balance narrative. Here is well done.

I would never use force to bend a man to my will. Raina simultaneously shading Po’s crude methods and the gullibility of men everywhere.

You don’t have to assume the worst of me. Putting aside the irony of Ward assuming the worst of other people, he is not alone. Skye was assuming the worst of May for most of 1x09 and does so again here (though it’s hard to blame her this time. But I bet someone tried😁). And of course Coulson himself will assume the worst in the near future.

Kids need someone they can look up to. In the middle of everything, Skye gives parenting advice to Lloyd Doucheman. In season 5, she will tell Talbot: if I would've known that my dad cared growing up, it would've made a big difference😢

You Shield guys don’t mess around. That satisfied smirk and the raised eyebrow of boosted ego...somebody clearly enjoys this badass secret agent business.

The people you work for are just as capable of using cruel means to reach a justified end. She’s not wrong but there’s also some false equivalence BS here, because while S.H.I.E.L.D. is hardly a shining example of spotless morality, they don’t enslave people and  Centipede’s end is anything but justified. However, given that a good portion of S.H.I.E.L.D. is currently Hydra...yeah, she totally called it.

Go to your account history [...] Lloyd? What is happening here? -- Account history, where is that? Skye's frustration with Lloyd Rathman’s computer illiteracy should feel familiar to every computer nerd ever. One of the few times I completely identified with Daisy😁

Raina pushes all the right buttons with Coulson. We know she had access to his psych eval file thanks to Garrett but her manipulative brilliance is undeniable.

Manscaping? Oh, I shouldn’t have said that. Now, why would you two have a safeword, mhm? And more importantly, why has the show never called back to it? Imagine them in a middle of a super serious situation, some bad guy rambling, and Simmons signaling to Daisy “Manscaping” to everyone’s dumbfounded looks. And then asskicking ensues.

I’m taking my team. Uh? Your team? What? Ward is second in command? How? What? How?😲 

Did they learn anything -- No -- Did you? [...] It wasn’t real. They were just messing with my head. Skye obviously doesn’t believe him and to be honest Coulson isn’t very convincing. But she doesn’t press. S2 and onward Daisy probably would have.

Nice jacket. *heroically refrains from making mother/daughter jokes*

Evening doctor. I swear for half a second I thought he was going to kill him. The scene is so spy movie, waiting in the back of the car, eye-contact through the rear view mirror, and there’s a quiet fury radiating from Coulson that feels very menacing.

Good news! Mike is alive. Bad news! He’s been enslaved by an evil tech corporation affiliated to a neonazi organization. Hey, it’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. There’s no happy outcome that won’t be successfully tainted by a bad one.

[houkagokappa]

Sarazanmai dish 11 thoughts

I suppose it’s time for me to talk about Sarazanmai dish 11. For the last time, let me watch the episode again and give you my thoughts on it.

This got absurdly long so I’ll put it under a read more for once.

The episode starts with Tooi having followed the Chikai-otter into Dark Keppi to go outside of the circle, to the place where there’s no beginning, no ending and no connecting. The Chikai-otter tells Tooi to cut of all his connections by shooting at his past self. His gun gets a coating of Dark Keppi to make this possible.

Kazuki, Enta and Keppi rush after Tooi and enter the same world inside of Dark Keppi. Tooi has been visiting scenes from their past together, erasing himself from them. Kazuki figures out that they need to go all the way to the beginning, when Tooi gave Kazuki the miçanga four years ago because that’s when they all first connected. Kazuki finally remembered! That’s nice and oh how convenient for the plot...

Suddenly the otter appears and fills the space with liquid. Luckily Keppi farts out air bubbles and “saves” Kazuki and Enta. I think I would’ve rather drowned. I don’t know if anyone finds this funny because I don’t. At least it fits in with all the other butt stuff compared to say, Keppi blowing bubbles with his mouth, so I gotta give them that.

Keppi sends Kazuki and Enta off to save Tooi and stays behind to fight the otter. Dark Keppi was born when Keppi threw away his desire (and split his shirikodama into two in typical ikuni fashion). Now he needs to connect with him again to get rid of him. The otter wants to see Keppi engulfed by despair, although I’m not entirely sure why (simply because they’re on opposing teams?).

I already mentioned this in my PV post, but I really appreciate the Osamu Dezaki styled painted freeze frame we get of Keppi and the otter. It reminds me of how I began watching Oniisama e... this spring before I had to abandon it in favor of Sarazanmai’s second half. Now with Sarazanmai ending I can finally get back to my tragic lesbians. Ikuhara has named Dezaki as one of his inspirations and it’s fun to see such blatant references, especially when Ikuhara’s been shady about what’s inspired him before (what do you mean Utena took inspiration from The Rose of Versailles?) 

Tooi has reached Azuma Bridge four years ago. All he needs to do now is shoot his child self and then he’ll be outside the circle. As he’s walking towards his past self he’s talking about the dream he used to have of becoming a soccer player. Too bad Chikai is there to dump the cold harsh reality on him. His life turned around when their parents died and he shot a man. All Tooi had left was his brother, but he only used him. Well that’s what the Chikai-otter tells him. I want to believe that the real Chikai truly cared for Tooi. I think their moments have been some of the sweetest in the entire show, although I do realise that Chikai is a bad guy and that Tooi’s life would’ve been better without his involvement... That’s how some relationships are, especially familiar ones. 

Tooi claims that he knew about Chikai’s “use” of him and that he was okay with it. Tooi went along with everything because he believed that’s what had to be done for their survival. Then he shoots Chikai stating that this was a connection he chose for himself, meaning he can chose to end it too with his own hands. When Chikai falls to his death (again) bills blow up all around him (AGAIN). Money is what his life was about and what he died for. I think this is a really nice scene. Tooi gets to say goodbye to his brother and move on. Granted he’s about to move on outside the circle, but I still think it’s important that he got this moment because it’ll help him later on.

Kazuki and Enta make a sudden appearance and stop Tooi from shooting his past self. However the bullet scratches the miçanga and it breaks. Then Dark Keppi shows up. He was in the gun that he now uses to shoot past-Tooi which destroys the miçanga. The subs threw me off a bit here. Enta calls him an “imposter” which to me sounds like Keppi betrayed them, when he’s in fact referring to how Dark Keppi was disguised.

Kazuki’s showcasing his strong will when he refuses to let go of their connection. Him tying that miçanga again speaks to Tooi who wavers.

Next thing we know of the boys are falling down in the white space we see after a zombie has been defeated (with the rings that say “butt”). The image of the three boys falling down head first matches the one in the third teaser PV! I’ve been wondering how that fits in. It’s a lot of fun to look back at the old promotional material now when we know what happens and can spot the references. It also makes me incredibly nostalgic. The Sarazanmai twitter account posted the Tsunagaru PV’s again as a countdown for the last episode and seeing them again brought me to tears.

Back to the episode, the taiko drum of no beginnings, no endings and no connections appears in front of them and they get thrown into the circle that appears on it.

This next part is super cool when they all reflect on what they were like at the beginning of the series and how they’ve grown. They have new connections and hopes and dreams! The scene screams “last episode”. The highlight is Tooi admitting he’s grown fond of Kazuki and Enta, he even starts calling them by their first names!! (Shout-out to the anon who sent me an ask about a possible name switch over a month ago, I always think of you when this topic comes up).

The three boys connect through Sarazanmai one last time. Keppi appears looking like a superhero (with a cape and everything) and there are a bunch of ア signs in the background - just like when he first appeared!! Our last shirikodama extraction sequence consists of a simple black screen stating the action, then the three boys get spit out of Keppi at the same time. Thank you black screen for protecting us from the horrors of those shirikodama extraction visuals. They’re now back in the grey world four years ago and go to Azuma Bridge, the stage for the zombie fights.

It’s time for one last Sarazanmai no Uta. I love the insert songs so much, whenever they don’t play in an episode I end up missing them and I have to seek them out elsewhere. This version is extra cool because they all sing together. I’m so incredibly hyped! The fight is more intense and there are more random moments than usual with the otter appearing and singing about being an abstract concept (thanks for that ikuni). Keppi’s successful in capturing his desire and fusing with Dark Keppi.

THEN KEPPI’S SHELL OPEN AND REO AND MABU’S CONNECTED RINGS COME OUT AND I START SCREAMING AAAAAA!!!! ReoMabu get turned back into humans clad in their military uniforms. It’s such a sweet moment!! This is exactly the kind of content I want from a final episode. I also love the background song here, it’s a violin version of Kawausoiya and I’m sad that it’s not included in the OST album. I hope I can get it, along with this new version of Sarazanmai no Uta from somewhere.

There are some callbacks to Ikuhara’s previous anime. The gates that open up remind me of the duelling arena in Utena and the stairs look like the ones in the Crystal World in Penguindrum. It’s very cool and again, just what I want to see in the finale.

Next up the trio is successful in giving the miçanga to Kazuki from four years ago and thus they’re able to secure their connection and defeat the otter.

Keppi gets an upgrade. He’s now a humanoid character. I think he looks exactly like some of the creatures in Moomin (my home country’s pride and joy). He says to pass over the river of desire, which is another phrase that appeared in the third teaser PV (I want to make a post looking through all those PV’s again, someday).

There’s one final leak which shows the boys their future. It’s another really satisfying scene, because the boys namedrop all the episode titles when they’re talking about their wants and fears. The future isn’t all happy. Kazuki seems to get injured (like Haruka did) which hinders him from playing soccer, Tooi’s has to do time for his crimes and Enta has to see Kazuki quit soccer and leave him again. They’re still dealing with similar issues as before, not being able to communicate properly, feeling lonely etc. But while they see themselves argue in the future, a future together is something they’re aiming for nevertheless.

Sara warns us that life comes with pain (things with form will break and be lost someday). Reo and Mabu joins in and tells us that what the boys saw was a possible future for them. The CR subs are subbing their own thing here, Reo says "what they boys saw was themselves someday” and Mabu adds “that was a future someday” and “just one possibility”. While the leak obviously ties in with what happened in the past, they didn’t see anything of themselves from the past? With all sorts of crazy things going on in this episode, more accurate subs would help a lot to make more sense of everything...

Anyway, Keppi joins in as well with the same line of thought saying that the future won’t necessarily be bright. He has learned his lesson that both hope and despair is part of life and that you shouldn’t throw away either.

While all this talking is taking place Sara’s broken sara (ha!) gets turned into two crowns for Keppi and herself. Reo and Mabu put the crowns on them as the good vassals/dads they are :) I was not prepared for Sara to turn into a Moomin-creature like Keppi. She looks quite frightening to be honest. Haruka’s there, which I suppose is nice. The subs aren’t the best during this part either. I haven’t seen anyone else complain about them so I don’t know if this is just me needing to work on my comprehension skills, but I’m much happier listening to the Japanese lines or checking out Asenshi’s subs instead. 

The final message is to connect with others for a better future and to share both sadness and joy.

Stand By Me starts playing and I’m not ready. I’m not ready at all. At least the song and credits are playing over some final shots and not the regular ED. Tooi’s cutting all his hair off and my first reaction is to shout out that it’s a crime, but then it turns out it’s because he’s going to pay for his actual crimes at a juvenile detention center. Forget my love for long hair, this is amazing! Completely unexpected, but so good for him!

I find it amusing how it’s almost like Tooi’s the main character now, with how much focus there’s been on him this whole episode. He got all the best moments in it.

Tooi spends three years at juvie, which means he’s now 17 and aaah this is cool to see! He’s grown up, not only mentally but physically as well! Once he’s out he goes to checks on his family’s soba shop, but doesn’t enter it. Instead he walks around Asakusa and repeats Kazuki’s lines from the first episode (and the PV’s!). The CR subs are different which is annoying, but everyone should still be able to recognize the lines, they’re iconic. 

The Asakusa Kero TV cracks me up. Now we have an actual frog as our new mascot and not whatever Keppi and Sara were.

Although Tooi was told his life start here, he claims that it’s already over. Which tbh you can’t blame him for feeling that way. He jumps down into the Sumida River. Outwards it might look like a suicide attempt, but he’s actually at a good place in life. He’s come to terms with having lost everything and having to start again thanks to the support from Kazuki and Enta.

The ア signs appear and pierce him like they pierced Kazuki in the first episode, except the other way around (since he’s falling down and Kazuki was standing up). I’m not sure what to make of them. The ア signs represent connections (among other things). One idea I have is that these scenes represents times when their futures get changed thanks to their connections. Tooi could’ve jumped to his death, but thanks to Kazuki and Enta he chooses to stay with them in Asakusa and will live a happier life. In the first episode Kazuki’s connection to Haruka is what set everything in motion. The fact that Tooi turns around (as he’s falling) could also represent that their lives and their future changes into a better one (compared to how Kazuki’s life got worse). I’m looking forward to read what everyone else thinks or what the staff has to say about this. Multiple rewatches are also in order.

Tooi’s sinking down all gloomy when Kazuki and Enta jump in as well. They have also grown up and it feels so rewarding to see them like this. I love seeing characters through the ages. They’ve been waiting for Tooi! Once they all surface Tooi gives them the biggest smile ever and it’s perfect. Absolutely perfect. They sing Sarazanmai no Uta again, there’s a clipshow with them playing soccer and the other characters appearing looking very content with their lives.

The final episode title is “I want to connect so Sarazanmai”. How incredibly fitting.

Then the opening plays. Ikuhara, I love the opening, but you know you could’ve used this minute and a half to show us what happens to Reo, Mabu, Sara and Keppi instead. I’m very happy with their quick appearances, but I still have heaps of questions about them!! 

It’s a lot of fun to watch the OP again being able to pick up on all the references. There’s also one slight change, the final scene (with Ikuhara’s credit) is now blue instead of yellow. The three shadows are back together. Reminds me that we’ve been seeing the seagulls that also represent the three boys throughout the episode, AT the start there was just one to represent how Tooi was alone, but they’re also back together again by the end.

The final scene, because Sarazanmai just keeps hitting us with more and more scenes is of one of the river boats passing under Azuma Bridge. The three boys are sitting on it in kappa form, heading towards the future.

I think this was an amazing last episode. It was a proper last episode with tension running high, countless of amazing moments that felt very rewarding and tied up the episodes, such as the part where they name dropped them or seeing how the ending mirrors the beginning of the first episode. My only complaint is that there are still lots of questions left unanswered, but for the most part Sarazanmai has been a fairly straightforward story that’s been easy to follow along.

I hope that the last chapter of the second novel will explain what Tooi went through at the end some more and I really hope there’ll be a short chapter telling us what happens to Reo, Mabu, Sara and Keppi. It’s also unfortunate that we never found out how the Reo to Mabu manga ties in with the anime. Let’s hope the novel answers that as well.

This post has been incredibly difficult for me to write, I hope you enjoyed reading it and I congratulate you for getting through to the end. From here on out I’ll continue blogging about Sarazanmai as long as I still have things to say about it. 

[afterpinkdiamond]

Catch and Release S2E18

Y’all getting bombarded with Peridot today.

Steven gets ready for bed, saying good night to all his toys and the shadowy triangle at the end of his bed. Moments later Peridot has kidnapped him and warped back to the Galaxy warp. She demands he fix the warp pad because he was able to fix Lapis’ gemstone. Steven, in a not so bright move, agrees to try. Imagine if it worked and Peridot had immediately warped them both back to Homeworld. Yikes. It doesn’t work (as his healing spit hasn’t worked since “House Guest”) and Peridot crumbles into a mess, realizing she’s stuck on Earth with no back up from Homeworld. Steven recognizes that she’s very scared and asks why she dislikes Earth so much. Peridot starts to reply just as the Crystal Gems show up.

After a quick coordinated attack, the gems manage to catch Peridot. She starts screaming about knowing something about how the Earth is in danger before Garnet poofs her. Her limb enhancers fall to the ground while the rest of her retreats into her gem. Steven thinks the limb enhancers were actually part of her body and as Garnet bubbles her away, Amethyst tosses the mechanical parts  into the ocean. Steven tells the gems that Peridot was scared and seemed to know something but Garnet reassures him she was just desperate and trying to escape once she was caught. 

Steven is still worried, and later wonders what she would have said if she had been able to finish her sentence. His gem glows and Rose’s Room in the temple opens up. Steven happily walks in and asks to speak to Peridot. He asks what she was trying to say and the room repeats everything he had heard up until she was poofed. Steven then asks for the way into the actual basement as he pieced together  that there was a path through this room to that room back in “Together Breakfast” The room shows him the pipe connected to the crystal heart, and he slides down, completely failing the landing. Steven quickly locates Peridot and climbs to retrieve her in her bubble. He pops the bubble and she immediately reforms, yelling about the Cluster. She tries to attack but finds she doesn’t have her limb enhancers anymore. Steven finds her smol stature absolutely adorable. 

Steven tries to question Peridot, asking why she’s so scared, asking what she knows. She tells him she knows everything about the cluster that’s about to hatch and calls him a pebble. We of course meet the real pebbles in “Familiar” but Steven is confused by both terms. 

Steven sits down with Peridot to get on her level and ask more questions about the cluster. She attacks him and starts slapping him with her hands, devoid of fancy weaponry and tech. She keeps slapping him and eventually makes a break for the door. Steven yells for her to come back as the gems will see her. 

Outside the temple, we find all three Crystal Gems chilling in the kitchen. They quickly cut off all of Peridot’s escape routes and she ends up cornering herself in Steven’s bathroom. It seems the gem’s only weakness is a locked door and respect for Steven’s privacy. Peridot refuses to leave and the CG’s determine that keeping her unpoofed and under surveillance until she explains the Cluster is a better course of action. Pearl does suggest tying her up with a leash outside, which will be used later. Peridot attempts to flush herself to escape, the peak of this show’s physical comedy 😜 

Steven attempts to reason with Peridot, as he needs his bathroom, despite her captivity. He offers to give her back one of her limb enhancers and gives her the foot they captured during “Friend Ship”. She sarcastically comments that it’s just a memento of the other time they assaulted her and stole her tech. However she holds onto it tightly and proceeds to ask Steven if everything in the bathroom is a weapon or not. Instead of saying no, he points out ways things like towel and toothbrushes can be used as weapons and tries to calm her down to get her to talk with the Gems. And to end the episode he awkwardly asks her to move so he can use the toilet, to which she asks “for what?”

This episode has a lot of nice call backs to previous episodes and sets in motion the whole Cluster arc, where Peridot gets her education in the more important aspects of Earth as a place when species can live. We get small bits of info about Homeworld, including namedropping harvesting, pebbles and Yellow Diamond.  Confession Time: I hated Peridot for a really long time during my first watch through of the show. It happens when Peridot is your birthstone but green isn’t your favorite color, right? She annoyed me and I couldn’t understand why Steven would be so nice to her, despite how often she insults, demeans and flippantly takes advantage of the CGs. This time though, knowing where she’s going and just how much the CGs will face in the future, it’s fun to see her treated as a threat and how Steven’s kindness and willingness to listen actually helps make powerful allies out of her and the Cluster.

[loquaciousquark]

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E18 (May 15, 2018)

@eponymous-rose​ is out tonight, so here I am instead, tiny-footed in her enormous...shoes? This metaphor’s escaped me.

Preshow is the crew filling a whiteboard with chat-directed drawings. It includes Mollymauk covered in pyramids, Jester’s lollipop, and Caleb on fire. You know, as it happens. Liam smiles very convincingly next to it.

Anyway, tonight’s guests are Liam and Sam, who arrives late and brings his Emmy. This fool.

Tonight’s announcements: new website! Critrole.com. It’ll have updates, news, events, and Sam suggests a daily vlog from BWF. The hardcover version of VM Origins will have its launch date announced this Thursday morning on said website. Liam pulls out a copy of the thing and it looks great. Also, everyone except Liam will be participating in the Stream of Many Eyes livestream in LA June 1-3, which will include multiple live D&D games. More information and tickets here. 

Crit Role Stats! Nott currently has the most kills of the MN with 16. Her HDYWTDT on the hill giant puts her at 5, tied with Molly for the most.

Caleb has cast the most spells of the group with 146. The next closest is Jester with 100. Liam: “It’s that ritual casting, yo.” However, Jester’s cast a larger variety of spells (22 to Caleb’s 20). This doesn’t include the Wand of Smiles (Caleb: 1, Jester: 4).

Sam is still stuck in character creation in Pillars of Eternity. Liam calls BS since he asked how to walk, but Sam reminds him you walk before going into the CC. He’s spent an hour and a half making a Cipher. BWF made Pike, but picked the wrong voice. Liam suggests picking Grog’s voice in his remake. Liam played the opening nine times and eventually had to reinstall the whole thing to unlock the VM portraits. Sam has a traumatic realization that he has the same problem & will have to reinstall as well.

Caleb is strongly regretting entering the Victory Pit due to the exposure it’s gotten them. He didn’t think there would be any bigwigs this far out, but he was “shocked” to find he was mistaken.

Nott isn’t happy with the notoriety either, but she’s conflicted; “she enjoys the supportive glances of her comrades, her teammates, but every once in a while is reminded other people are watching too.” Both agree the afterparty went badly.

Re: the Trent namedrop, Liam: “I can’t believe he’s here, this far out... I didn’t take in a lot of what happened for the next twenty minutes.”

During a discussion of distractions during an episode, Sam talks about how he and Laura were drawing a shared picture last episode whose arms and legs became dicks over the course of the episode.

Nott was surprised to find she was of value to the team during the hill giant fight. She’s still getting used to her abilities, but being so small and taking down something that big was a confidence boost. “She’s super jittery and nervous about everything and she drinks to compensate. I think this is going well for her, helping the team.”

Frumpkin happened post-asylum, so there was no danger of Trent recognizing him. Liam: “He was tapped for school at 15, meets Ikathon at 16 & goes with Astrid & Aeowulf, goes home for the first event with his parents about a year later, burns the house at age 17, and then was in the asylum until age 28. He ran and was totally alone when he got out; the first step was a cat, the second step was a goblin, and the next step was a group.” Sam: “Your guy was institutionalized for over a decade? I should reconsider who I travel with...”

Nott doesn’t necessarily believe Yasha is a spy, but she doesn’t know why she keeps disappearing or what she’s doing. She doesn’t even know what Yasha is, just that she’s super powerful and scary.

GIF of the week: @trisail. It’s the Trent reveal moment with overlays of Caleb shorting out. Heh.

Lengthy discussion about the “leave the table” moment. Liam found the scene super satisfying as it played out and doesn’t regret it. However, it’s a game for his friends first and foremost, and the primary purpose must be to entertain his friends and make them laugh and gasp, and this way robbed them of their reactions. He doesn’t think there would have been an issue with them being at the table--they’re all respectful audience members, and they’ve all been present before at other reveals. Plus, his story is very complicated, so “what am I gonna do? Spill it out all over again for Fjord, for Jester? It just didn’t seem feasible.” Caleb’s story has been in Liam’s head for a long time, so he was glad to get it out. Liam got the most responses on Twitter ever after his first tweet that he’d told his friends to go back and watch.

None of the other cast members aside from Ashley & BWF have watched the Caleb scene yet. Ashley found it pretty crazy and “a lot.”

Liam reminisces about seeing Vex’s heartbreak at Percy’s death and Grog’s privy conversation with the sword, even though he wasn’t part of those scenes, and wishes he hadn’t excluded his friends from his reveal. “I didn’t get a cat o’nine tails out of Taliesin’s closet and flagellate myself, but...a small course correction.”

Caleb’s reveal clarified some things about how Nott views Caleb; neither Sam nor Nott are dumb, and they both knew that he was suffering from something terrible. This just confirmed that & fleshes out the details. Nott’s views of Caleb’s victimhood, and her wishes that he no longer have to suffer, have not changed. 

 Liam points out that the intimacy of the show has changed over time, allowing them to pursue deeper conversations between characters instead of just the wacky hijinks they started with. As an example, he points out the difference between the first Liam/Keyleth scene where people hid behind hats vs. later Percy/Vex scenes where everyone was respectful and quiet. Sam enjoys that they can now have fun-fun (getting out of tricky situations and fighting together) alongside adult-fun (deep conversations and new relationships). BWF points out they’ve spent more time with these characters already than a full 5-season primetime show.

Sam became addicted to playing D&D precisely because of the level of depth you could reach with these characters, which you can’t achieve anywhere else.

In the thirty minutes before the Caleb conversation, Liam was wildly conflicted about what he was going to do (reveal everything, reveal only parts, lie). At the same time, “it’s killing [Caleb] to keep it all bottled up,” and even though Caleb’s really smart, he’s not a mastermind, and it may have still been too soon. However, Liam was also ready to stir the pot--he’s getting antsy that so many backstories haven’t been revealed, even though they’re theoretically a sixth of the way through the show. He also points out that Caleb has achieved his goal of finally getting into the library, so there’s nothing keeping him from leaving at any time. “That’s Caleb talking, not Liam.”

Laura & Travis interrupt to Facetime in & pretend they meant to call BWF’s mom for Mother’s Day. It’s pretty darn funny, and they confirm they totally watch this show from home when they’re not on it. Nerds.

Sam also takes a moment to loudly, angrily remonstrate Laura & Travis for taking pho home to eat. “You do not take pho home to eat. You eat it at the restaurant. It does not travel.” Discussing Sam’s food snobbery, Liam reminisces about how proud he was of some homemade blueberry pancakes he made after his kids were born. He shared a picture of them with Sam, who then sent back a picture of pancakes Sam’s wife made that “looked like something out of a magazine, there were raspberries, and everyone was like OHHHH, OHHHH, and I was alone and tired in my kitchen.” Sam: “I’m the worst person.”

Sam had guessed that Caleb’s backstory had something to do with fire, but had thought maybe he’d accidentally hurt/killed someone. “It’s pretty bad to accidentally hurt someone with fire. It’s super bad to intentionally kill someone with fire who is related to you.”

Caleb has no idea what happened to the other two children. The last thing he remembers before hospitalization was the house. Liam still thinks of Caleb as young since he’s essentially lost eleven years.

Sam asked Liam why he wanted to play someone so dark after Vax instead of someone more lighthearted. Liam’s just attracted to these kinds of stories; “this is what I want to do with my spare time.” He’s fine with other people being jovial instead of him.

Fanart of the Week: This gorgeous thing by Wesley Griffith. Apparently, Travis said this is his favorite representation of Fjord so far.

Nott doesn’t think she can do powerful magic; she’s just excited to be able to do small things. Liam’s dying to know Nott’s backstory: “She’s like a little bag of knives who’s hyperintelligent and drunk.”

Sam pauses to plug a new organization, Nerds Vote, a nonpartisan encouragement to register to vote.

In re: Beau’s reaction to Caleb’s reveal, Liam discusses his other options. He thinks Fjord is very intelligent but an unknown who might be evil. Jester he thinks would be the most likely to be repulsed or run away. Yasha’s her own kind of stranger who always leaves. Molly’s a 24/7 party animal that’s wildly different from Caleb. He feels Beau was the best choice; Beau had something he wanted anyway (and had shared a secret with him) so he didn’t have second thoughts acceding to her request.

Even though Nott has forgiven him, Caleb’s not looking to be forgiven or have anyone pat him on the back. He doesn’t believe “it’s going to be okay or it’s not his fault.” He knows he’s absolutely to blame and there’s a massive degree of self-loathing, so Liam feels Beau was the absolute perfect person to tell since she was going to be dry, pragmatic, and real. “No fluff, all...elbow-corners.” He didn’t want someone to coddle him and she was the perfect person for that.

He recognizes that they’re both Empire kids and share that history. Caleb also has been paying attention to everyone, and he feels Beau is clearly not happy with the Empire regardless of what she says, which aligns with Caleb’s feelings as well. Liam thinks it was a great choice to break it to her first, & he feels it wouldn’t have been fair to exclude Nott if he were to finally spit it out.

Nott’s not concealing anything from anyone about her backstory; it’s just that no one’s asked. Caleb never asked about anyone’s backstory because he didn’t want return questions.

Sam likes Liam’s story choices and calls them brave.

The original idea for Caleb stretches back so far that Liam thought of the name Astrid even before Matt introduced Pike’s cousin, Astrid. When they started discussing character creation for the new campaign, Matt okayed repeating the name. The German accent came much later in character creation (i.e. after the development of backstory). To Liam, Caleb’s backstory reads more like KGB or Pet Murderer over Hitler Youth, since as far as he knows it was only the three children involved, not an army.

Of the choices available to the group, Sam most wants to go back to the Gentleman. Liam wonders if Pumat has skeletons in his closet. (How many closets does Pumat have, I wonder?)

Sam segues into his difficulty remembering the difference between the Soltryce Academy and the Cerberus Assembly since they both have “C-A” sounding names. Liam: “Look, folks, he can either be really funny, or he can know the details.” Sam: “And that’s... where Ikathon is? And then there are the Halls of Erudition? There are too many things!” I have never identified more with him than this moment right here.

I have a brief, violent heart attack when an accidental keypress navigates me away from this page and I think I’ve lost it all. False alarm, please reduce heart rate to under 100bpm.

After Dark: Emmy and a lovely mace for Pike Edition

Liam elucidates the difference between a mace and a morningstar. Sam just about knocks his Emmy off the shelf getting the aforementioned mace for demonstration.

Sam’s asked which 90s Disney Afternoon show his character would like best. Sam: Darkwing Duck, Talespin, Gummy Bears, Fraggle Rock. Liam: Duck Tales.

Does Nott regret saying she’s Caleb’s mother after knowing what he did to his last mom? Sam: “Oh, wow. I didn’t even think about that.” Liam: “How could you not? I’ve been thinking about it for weeks!” Sam: “Well, it’s not like he’s a Terminator-style hunter of only mothers...” Finally--no, it hasn’t crossed Nott’s mind, but Sam will inform her soon.

The ultimate food sin for Sam--transporting pho is pretty high on his list, but he decides on ten-dollar wine. (Two-buck chuck, you know what you’re getting, swillwater flavored like wine; ten-dollar wine is actual wine that is terrible.) He recommends splurging for the fourteen-dollar wine. Sam loves cheap Chinese but Panda Express doesn’t count as Chinese. “No good Chinese restaurant ever advertises, ever.” Salted vs. unsalted butter is also a big thing. This is all because of Sam’s wife, he says; Liam points out that a year after they first met, when Sam moved to LA, Liam went over to Sam & Sam’s wife’s terrible apartment where they made very fancy salmon wrapped in that clear waxy rice paper stuff I can’t remember the expensive name for.

Caleb had very little left offensively in the hill giant fight. All he had was Sleep and Shield and a weak cantrip, so all he could do was gamble and guess on the timing. When he first cast it, Sam told Laura it was a big mistake. 

A viewer question tries to goad Liam & Sam into a tickle fight. Liam threatens BWF with the mace instead. 

Sam agrees to grow a small beard for Liam’s birthday, a little “chin music.”

And that’s all for the night! Is it Thursday yet?

[aion-rsa]

A Tale of Two Pietros: Explaining the MCU X-Men Problem With a Mutant Speedster

https://ift.tt/3jFtUYS

This article contains WandaVision spoilers.

Since his creation by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee in the mid-60s, Quicksilver has been a fairly important part of the Marvel Universe. The mutant speedster started as a member of Magneto’s Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, then became one of the earliest members of the Avengers. Over the decades, he’s married into the Inhumans, joined various X-teams, been a mentor to the Avengers Academy, and had his parentage retconned several times over.

He’s never been the most popular character in the Marvel Universe, but due to some legal complications, he became the focal point between two rival movie studios. It’s those complications that make his appearance in the fifth episode of WandaVision such a huge deal.

But let’s get to where this all started. As hard as it may be to believe now, b ack in the ‘90s, Marvel Comics was on the verge of bankruptcy. One way to get some money together was to sell the movie rights of its various characters to whatever studio was willing to pay. After all, shared cinematic universes weren’t really a thing back then.

Not every movie got made, of course. There were instances of studios sitting on rights and not doing anything for so long that they had to give them up. For instance, New Line Cinema had the rights to make a Venom movie, albeit one where they couldn’t reference Spider-Man directly in any way. Such an idea was worth a laugh in the ‘90s, but Sony actually pulled it off 20 years later, so go figure.

Studios would only have so much time to make a movie before the rights would revert to Marvel. By the time Marvel decided to get into the movie making business themselves and kick off the MCU concept, the field had settled. Sony had the Spider-Man franchise and had just finished Sam Raimi’s initial trilogy, preparing for a fourth movie that didn’t work out and would ultimately be replaced by a reboot. Universal had a complicated hold on the Hulk that lent itself to a unique partnership with Marvel. Fox was able to make the X-Men a successful franchise, but had less success with two attempts at the Fantastic Four franchise.

Essentially, the entire Marvel Universe had to be categorized into different properties. A lot of these were pretty easy. Doc Ock? He was clearly part of Spider-Man’s corner and could only be used in Spider-Man movies. Dr. Doom gets around as a villain in the comics and fights just about everyone, but at the end of the day, he’s grouped in with the Fantastic Four and could only be handled by Fox. But it wasn’t as simple for other characters.

One major complication was what to do with Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. Which corner of Marvel did they truly belong to? They were technically under the X-Men umbrella as the mutant children of Magneto. Quicksilver himself was a major member of X-Factor. 

On the other hand, the two were also huge staples of the Avengers. They were Avengers longer than the likes of Hulk and Black Widow. Scarlet Witch was even the centerpiece in one of the most important Avengers storylines of the early 21st century.

20th Century Fox and Marvel Studios finally came up with an agreement. Both sides had the rights to the Maximoff twins, but the Avengers movies couldn’t describe the two as mutants or mention Magneto and the X-Men movies couldn’t bring up the Avengers or, uh… Yeah, this was pretty much on Marvel’s side to be creative.

Around the same time, each studio cast their Quicksilvers. Marvel had Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Fox had Evan Peters. Marvel cast Elizabeth Olsen as Scarlet Witch while Fox declined to actually use the character, likely due to how hard to write her powers could be at times. The most they did was include an unnamed little sister for Quicksilver, but director Bryan Singer insisted she wasn’t Wanda.

LAP 1 – CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER

Fittingly, with each studio having their own speedster, there was a race to be the first to get their Quicksilver on the big screen. It was really Fox’s race to lose, considering X-Men: Days of Future Past was the seventh X-Men movie and the most the character has ever gotten beforehand was an Easter egg namedrop on a computer monitor in X-Men 2. At least Days of Future Past was going to be released nearly a full year before Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Marvel still won the race, though. Weeks before the release of Days of Future Past, Captain America: The Winter Soldier hit theaters with a post-credits scene that revealed Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Quicksilver and Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff to the world. And while they were indeed showing off their powers in those brief moments, it wasn’t because they were mutants, but rather had been altered by Baron Strucker and HYDRA using Loki’s scepter from Avengers.

LAP 2 – X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST

Fox got their chance later that year with X-Men: Days of Future Past. Overall, Evan Peters’ Quicksilver didn’t get too much screen time, but he was definitely considered a highlight by fans. 

Referred to as Peter Maximoff in this continuity, the speedster is a little more laid back than other characters in the X-Men series. Not only does his power give him a feeling of casual superiority over others, but the unbelievability of it all makes him feel almost untouchable. His high-speed crimes would come off as more of a myth that nobody with authority would logically believe. He’s recruited by Xavier, Wolverine, and Beast to break Magneto out of the Pentagon, which he does for the sake of the challenge.

It’s there that he shows his stuff in a slow-motion segment set to Jim Croce’s “Time in a Bottle,” displaying seemingly endless charisma as he protects his allies from armed prison guards and spends his perpetual head start straight-up fucking with their would-be killers. It’s a fun moment in a film about dystopian genocide and Peters makes Quicksilver really likeable.

He doesn’t really get to do too much otherwise, though he does make a remark to Magneto hinting that the Master of Magnetism is his father, but that’s as far as it ever went.

LAP 3 – AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON

2015 gave us Avengers: Age of Ultron, which opened with the Avengers crushing the remnants of HYDRA while Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch got away. Still, Quicksilver was able to scrap with the Avengers and start up a rivalry with Hawkeye while Scarlet Witch could screw with Iron Man’s mind and increase his paranoia to dangerous levels.

In the comics, Quicksilver has been best defined in an issue of X-Factor where he described his demeanor by comparing himself to someone stuck in line at the ATM, having to wait behind an idiot who doesn’t know what they’re doing and keeps taking forever. That’s his every waking moment and Taylor-Johnson certainly tapped into that with his performance.

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In terms of action, Taylor-Johnson’s Quicksilver wasn’t quite as fun as Peters’, but he had his moments. The closest thing he really had to the slow-mo rescue scenes was a short sequence that had him punch Captain America and foolishly attempt to pull Mjolnir out of the air. There was a feeling of playfulness underneath the character’s resentment at times, but he wasn’t quite the goofball of Peters’ version.

He also didn’t come off as ridiculously fast as the X-Men Quicksilver, even though that was probably for the better. Sometimes a speedster can be impossible to write for and believe in. Taylor-Johnson’s version was still impressively quick and a danger to any enemy, but he didn’t come off as unbeatable.

Unfortunately for this version of Quicksilver, his relationship with Scarlet Witch was arguably his undoing. The Quicksilver of the X-Men films wasn’t held down by his siblings and got to stand on his own, but MCU Quicksilver was treated as an extension of Wanda and her story. That made him expendable by the time the movie was ready to wrap up.

The Maximoff twins went from being Ultron’s lackies battling against the Avengers to betraying Ultron and joining the good guys. In the end, Quicksilver sacrificed himself to save Hawkeye, and despite his gift for speed, it was a believable death, and felt far weightier than the way such character exits had been approached in the past. 

As far as the MCU was concerned, Pietro Maximoff’s story was over. Wanda, however, had a new life waiting for her as an Avenger.

LAP 4 – X-MEN: APOCALYPSE

In the X-Men universe, Quicksilver showed up again in 2016’s X-Men: Apocalypse. It took place about a decade after Days of Future Past, reminding us that Peters’ Quicksilver is like thirty years older than Taylor-Johnson’s Quicksilver. Ah, these X-Men movies and their screwy timeline.

Quicksilver’s arc in this film ultimately showed the innate problems of the later X-Men movies. When Magneto joined the mad mutant Apocalypse as one of his Four Horsemen, Peter Maximoff finally realized that Magneto was his father and tried to find him. This led to another fantastic slow-motion scene where he single handedly evacuated the X-Men’s school during an explosion to the song “Sweet Dreams” by the Eurythmics.

But Quicksilver’s larger arc in the movie remained unsatisfying, and he and Magneto never came to terms with the question of their relationship. Peter may have survived the final battle with Apocalypse, but he also was ignored in what should have been his big moment. Magneto and Quicksilver’s relationship was a card only Fox could have played and they fumbled it. It remains a missed opportunity for both characters.

Funny enough, around this time, Marvel Comics was going the opposite direction and placed a narrative wedge between the characters when Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver discovered that Magneto wasn’t actually their father after all. Though at the same time, it came across that Scarlet Witch may have altered reality to make that true. Regardless, it looked like Marvel was trying to go out of their way to sever Magneto from the twins’ existence.

FINAL LAP – DARK PHOENIX

Outside of a hilarious cameo in Deadpool 2, the Fox version of Quicksilver next appeared in 2019’s Dark Phoenix, the final film in the main X-Men franchise. Quicksilver only has about two and a half minutes of screentime. Halfway into the movie, he makes a slow-motion run at Jean Grey, loses his footing, tumbles, and is forgotten about for the rest of the picture. And his connection to Magneto? Never even mentioned.

Back in the MCU, Pietro remained just a memory, one more trauma stacked upon trauma in the life of Wanda Maximoff. There was already the death of her parents and the horrible experimentation. Soon after, there was the trauma of the innocent blood on her hands, her incarceration, and her role in the death of Vision. It wasn’t until the third episode of WandaVision where Wanda even talked about her long-lost brother.

Wanda could puppet Vision’s android corpse and surround herself with people forced to be friendly to her, but the horrible loss of her brother was something she couldn’t undo. Or it was something she refused to undo. While we still don’t get the reasoning behind what’s going on, the Evan Peters version of Quicksilver popped into Westview, NJ to see his long-lost sister, all while acting like Uncle Jesse from Full House.

We have four episodes to go, but we’re left wondering what this truly means. Will Peters’ Quicksilver outright be a replacement for the disgruntled counterpart who died at Ultron’s hand? Will the joke run its course and he’ll be sent away where he came from? Will this be the big moment that instigates the existence of mutants in the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe, giving credence to the overused internet joke of Wanda demanding, “No, MORE mutants!”?

Whatever it is, it’s a special moment. The Evan Peters Quicksilver not only finally has a super-powered relative who seems to give a damn about him, but as the first link to the X-Men in the MCU (big or small, we’ll see), he finally gets the spotlight he deserves.

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Now let’s see how long until Deadpool finally shows his scarred face.

The post A Tale of Two Pietros: Explaining the MCU X-Men Problem With a Mutant Speedster appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[mermaidsirennikita]

Victoria 2x01 Review

In many ways, I feel like this episode set a really good feeling for what the central conflicts of the season will (probably) be, and in some ways it was accurate.  But there were moments in which the writing seemed a bit tone deaf.

I loved the conflict between Albert and Victoria--because as much as some might dismiss it as petty, as much as they might call Albert an ass (and he was at points) it’s a pretty human conflict.  He’s a guy in an era in which men were raised to be the head of the household; he knows he’s never really going to be that, but he at least wants a role.  She’s insecure about her own role because she has PPD and really doesn’t *want* the role that’s being thrust upon her (that of mother).  Their fight scene, as I mentioned in another post, was great because both had good points and both acted the way they often did in real life, which is part of the reasons why their fights got so nasty.  It wasn’t so much what they were fighting about, but that their anger was expressed so differently.  Victoria’s passionate and has always had the privilege, really, of being able to fly off the handle and interprets silence as coldness.  Albert was raised in an intensely messed up household, was encouraged not to show emotion, has had the “lower hand” for most of his life so he disguises his emotion as stoicism.  He interprets Victoria’s emotion as over the top drama because he’s rarely been around people who express emotion that way, and feels the best way to diffuse it is to walk away.

(Which I kind of relate to because I do the same, shoutout to Ice Queen Albert.)

I hope we also see more of how their respective adjustments to parenthood also would feed, however unintentionally, into Victoria’s insecurities.  She’s worried about bonding with the baby; Albert is not only doing her job for her but is bonding with the baby very well.  And it’s not like he shouldn’t or should be chastised for that, Albert just is on the show and was in real life a more natural parent and loved babies, this first baby most of all. Victoria holds the baby awkwardly, he coos over her blue eyes and pushes the pram.  She can’t yell at him for that, but she probably feels undermined as a parent as well.

The Coburgs seem to maybe have a bigger role this season, as Leopold is sticking around to help with the royal marriage, and I can’t be happier.  First of all, I love their Dramatic Evil German Intros, and I frankly feel like Leopold is one of the greatest characters on the show.  He was doing needlework while talking politics in this episode, I love him.  It’s funny because I feel that this show favors the English monarchy soooo much but the Coburg family comes off as more of an actual family for all their flaws, and you get a better sense of who they are as characters.  There are hints of Ernst’s dissolution--he’s drinking more, that silly little niece of Diana Riggs is probably going to be seduced and despoiled by him this season--but David Oakes plays the role with such sympathy and he comes off as a bit tragic.  I know that he and Harriet can’t end well, but I’m really feeling their chemistry this season and wish they would.  They also act as great foils for Albert and Victoria.  Their passion is quieter because it has to be, they can’t be together, they can’t have petty squabbles.

In all honesty, the show falls flat in terms of how it handles Afghanistan.  Not only because I feel this is an issue they haven’t explained well (it’s not as famous in terms of global history, imo, as Elizabeth I’s conflict with the Spanish armada for example) but because it’s really too heavy for this show.  Like... great.  More white people fucking with Afghanistan when they shouldn’t be.  Albert and Peel pay lip service to this fact, but it’s also mentioned that Melbourne got them into Afghanistan (I’m not sure how accurate this is but I’m assuming that in the grand scheme, he did have a lot to do with it) and Melbourne is alwaaaaays right, mm?  We see a British soldier weeping about his fallen comrades, and it’s hard not to think about the fact that we’re still in Afghanistan and Afghans have been suffering in the long term while white imperialists are doing much better.  Left a bad taste in my mouth.

And there’s the other thing: Victoria wasn’t a great queen.  She was a great symbol, sure.  But ruling wasn’t her thing.  And I don’t just say that because Albert took over--he did in many ways, but Albert didn’t rule either.  He kept himself informed about foreign policy, but he didn’t control it and most of his contributions towards it had to do with the alliances he made through his children’s marriages.  He largely handled things like great PR moments for England, like exhibitions.  Or he handled everyday nitty gritty things, like “plumbing” as Victoria put it.  (It kind of irritated me that they brushed that away, because Albert was concerned with making cities cleaner for the average person and that was a big deal back then???  Like people were dying because England was filthy???  And Albert really did a good thing by cleaning it up???)  Monarchs were transitioning from ruling to reigning, and Victoria also just wasn’t that interested in things like sanitation and the poor.  She did try to stay involved in the government, but to be frank, I think a lot of that was less about trying to take care of the practical things Albert took care of and more about pride.  What she did in the show was what she did in real life: showing up and looking pretty and symbolic and saying pretty pro-England things.  But that’s not ruling.  That’s drumming up PR.

Again, things like plumbing aren’t interesting but they are important.  The helmet thing was a joke and it was funny, but he also had a good point--something pretty was actually keeping soldiers from having complete vision, and that... is important for soldiers.  So the show adds some music and some words about how Victoria needs to be supported, but what is she really DOING?  What is she accomplishing?  Albert is still doing the work that matters, while Victoria is doing the same sort of thing the Windsors do today, and they don’t get sweeping music and proclamations of their greatness because they aren’t... doing much.  They’re not doing bad things, but they aren’t ruling the country.

It just made Victoria’s sweeping moments a bit silly and “grrrl” power-y.  And it was ultimately about giving the audience things that they wanted even if it made no sense.  Let’s talk about Lord Melbourne understanding~ Victoria, while acknowledging that his shitty work as PM has led to a really bad situation.  It’s kind of like Daisy Goodwin wants to have her cake and eat it too.  She wants to promote Victoria and Albert’s relationship as the crux of the show, and ITV has done a lot for that--they’ve had Daisy’s quote comparing V&A to Burton and Taylor all over the place, they’ve talked up Jenna and Tom’s chemistry (and relationship) and so on.  There’s support for the ship all over Tumblr, viewership remained good after Lord M. left and they became the focus; but Twitter loves Melbourne so you promote his (brief) return all over the place, remind people about his existence by namedropping him in the first episode.  They want to give people these grrrrl power moments as well, despite the fact that the plot itself isn’t giving Victoria *real* political power.  There’s such an effort to prop her up that suddenly, Wellington is on her side despite being a major villain of last season and rooting for Victoria to keel over and die.  You’d think that he’d get a line in about how Victoria’s child is only a girl, and she needs a son to *really* cement her reign.  Are we suddenly supposed to like this guy because he’s smiling at her?  If they’d had a couple episodes of easing him into a more paternal role, I’d get it.  But they haven’t.

Victoria was a fascinating woman for who she was: a symbol of the nation who had to maintain an appearance of purity while loving sex; a mother who loved her children and resented them; a wife who adored her husband and fought with him quite frequently.  Just because Albert did a lot of the administrative work for her doesn’t mean she isn’t worthy of a TV show.  She doesn’t have to be proto-feminist to be worthy of our interest.

Basically: the show needs to stay in its line.  I don’t mind fanservice-y bits like Lord Melbourne’s reappearance, and I’m fairly sure that I know where that’s going.  I don’t mind the tension between Albert and Victoria; I love it.  But the show needs to remember that faux feminism is easily seen through, and the monarchy--and Victoria’s time in particular--has a history that it should either gloss over entirely or confront.

[simply-suggesting]

Journal 01

On first meetings and the casual mention of fighting dreadlords. Charnel Corps namedrops, implications that Atlas is up to no good, and the merits of sexing demons.

Two days into my assignment with the Charnel Corps, and it’s been eventful. The very first day I arrived in casual clothes not expecting to be fighting any dreadlords.

Needless to say, we fought a dreadlord.

Maybe more accurate to say the Corps fought the dreadlord and I wrestled with an inability to control my magic and my form. The demon’s mastery of shadows must have been disrupting my ability to cast. I’ve never had such an issue, spells fizzling like I was an amateur. It was embarrassing. The demon did quite a bit of damage to us, but nobody died and I was able to heal a few of them despite the disruptions.

Executor Maulfalcon took a hit for me despite the fact that I’m sure he dislikes me. I brought it up to a few of the Corps and none of them seemed surprised at all. I won’t expect any more of it going forward, but it was a surprise to me. Pleasant? Not pleasant because he was wounded for his troubles, but not a negative surprise. I’d also like to note he’s a very brave person, and organized enough in combat. He ordered his team with confidence and physically threw himself at the demon to stop it. Though his attitude out of combat is repugnant, I think he’s going to be a better leader than reports suggest. This may be a decent assignment after all.

Arcanist Thor’del did not show any grace or gratefulness for me healing him. I should have expected it. Not sure why I didn’t. I’d like to say I won’t heal him again, but I know I will. Wish I wasn’t like this.

The man who introduced himself to me as ‘Zyandahl’ seemed friendly, I’m making a note to meet with him as soon as possible. Know nothing about him aside from that. Likewise, the deathstalker, the tauren, the death knight with the runic jaw.

Last night met with Mr. Atlas. He has the emotional range of a teenager, which makes sense, because he looks 17 or 18. No clue on how long he’s been dead, but I imagine it hasn’t helped him mature. Speaking with him was an extreme exercise in restraint, as he was incredibly opinionated. He doesn’t like mentalism. I promised him that I won’t ‘scramble any brains’ on the team (I did clarify on the team) and he flippantly promised “If he remembers” to not cast the Light on me unless it’s life or death. I’ll say this much: If he conveniently ‘forgets,’ the deal is off. Not that I was ever going to mind control any of these people, except for the moment when the Arcanist and the Executor told me I ought to. (They were joking. Potentially?) If I have to rearrange anyone’s thoughts it will only be at the Executor’s orders, and then I can completely shift the blame onto him. Still, I haven’t seen any evidence that anyone here needs to be retrained in any way. They’re all very sincere and tried their hardest. It was good to see.

Interestingly, Mr. Atlas became incredibly upset when I suggested that I can do helpful things with my abilities, such as returning memories to people. He immediately demanded I not do so. Red flag. I’ll be keeping an eye on the situation. Strongly believe he has already tampered with their thoughts and does not want me to see evidence of such. Hesitant to put that into any official report without proper evidence, but recording here for posterity. Could explain why he dislikes me so much. (Note self: He did not find humor in my joke that if I were here to mind control people I would have made him less obstinate. What wasn’t funny about that?...)

Harborym, Rey, and the associate Mr. Ironsol: All very good people. Mr. Ironsol has a wealth of knowledge, and I wouldn’t mind learning more about what he knows. And he lived in Dalaran before the bubble! Very exciting. Pleasant to talk with him about it, if only for a moment. We will have to get together again soon and reminisce. Light-caster. Do not touch him. (As an aside, and if I might be so bold, I think he’s a sexually inexperienced young man, because he was absolutely incredulous at the notion that people would have sex with demons for the thrill and with no care to the ‘health hazards.’ Then again, aren’t I the one who was scandalized when Harborym mimed oral sex? Though it was very funny in hindsight...)

The death knight ‘Rey’ was very quiet, well-mannered, mostly listened. I learned that he has another ‘entity’(?) inside of him, which he calls ‘Reya’ and describes as more friendly than himself. Another soul? Another mind? Unsure. He told me that he does not want me to enter his mind, so I might never know. Said that Reya might take me up on violin lessons, which is exciting! Next time I come around I’m bringing my violin to play for the Corps.

Harborym, the Illidari, is probably my favorite – not that I would ever choose favorites. Sincere, forthright, slow to anger or offend, casual, calm. However, did burp in my ear as goodbye. Did not appreciate and did not mean to smile. He taught me quite a bit about the Illidari and being a demon hunter, which was very interesting. They consider themselves predators of demons. Very different from warlocks, I think. I thought he seemed a very selfless man despite his humility and insistence that he was not. He touched my claw without my permission, but after being so open about himself I couldn’t begrudge him his curiosity. I did not mean to scratch his head after, make note not to do so again in public – or ever.

I think the greatest part about meeting with those three was... Joking. Humor. I feel like I haven’t heard a joke that wasn’t at my expense in ages. It felt so normal. I didn’t know how much my soul missed a little laughter, a little friendly conversation. Thinking about it is making me embarrassingly emotional. I think I’ve written enough tonight.

[allurehq-blog]

blood status: halfblood clubs: beater and captain for the hufflepuff quidditch team, slug club, chess club pronouns: up to player sexuality: up to player

BIOGRAPHY

to be written by player

CONNECTIONS

hestia jones; the shared blood. it had always just been gwenog and her mother, forever. there was no other family in the picture, no other relatives around - the two were all that they had. gwenog learned of the fact that her mother was a witch early on in her life, as her mother would enchant things around the house to make it easier for her to be able to get things done, as she would have to work long hours to provide for the two of them. so if she could enchant the dishes in order for them to clean themselves, or the laundry to put itself away, it meant that she could spend that time with gwenog instead. and because of this, gwenog grew up with a sense of loyalty to her family. questions of her father never rose, as she wasn’t that concerned. her mother provided all that she could need, and she had no interest in meeting or even knowing of the man. when she was still early in her adolescence, however, her mother told her that the man who was her father was interested in getting to know her better, and would be starting to come around more. and though it was clear that things became easier in the financial aspect of their lives, gwenog wasn’t the type to look forward to the saturdays in which the stranger would show up on their doorstep with an uncomfortable smile and a bag full of things for her that she didn’t want. he would tell that these clothes or toys or trinkets were things that his other daughter liked, and so he assumed she’d like it as well. and though gwenog’s mother told her to be receptive and nice, gwenog could only hear one thing from those sorts of conversations - that she had a sister out there somewhere. her initial views of loyalty to her family were thrown out the window, and replaced simply by loyalty to her mother. the man who was her father asked her numerous times if she’d like to meet her sister, for her could arrange it, but she refused every single time. not only was it an insult that she was the second choice daughter - only having to see a father once every few months, the man not caring enough to find out what she liked and using the other one as a guide - she was resentful that this other girl seemingly had it all. a stable family, a stable life, a stable household. it wasn’t until they were both enrolled in hogwarts that they finally met face to face - and gwenog’s sure that she’s had enough of hestia for the rest of her life. 

benjy fenwick; the reputation booster. everyone knew who benjy fenwick was. whether it was fellow hufflepuffs, or people from other houses, gwenog could see that his reputation spoke for itself, with little to no need for explanation. all she needed to do was to namedrop him in a conversatoin, or say it loudly enough in a crowded corridor, and she could easily catch half a dozen people giggling or going pink with embarassement. and that’s exactly why she sought him out. she wasn’t a stupid girl, she had a good head on her shoulders and knew exactly what she was doing when she began flirting with him. and even though she wasn’t really attracted to him in the slightest, there was the appeal of knowing that with the rumors of his name and who he was hooking up easily swirling around the school, now hers would be included in this conversation. gwenog had a reputation that preceded her as well, but it wasn’t nearly as favorable as most - she was seen as tough and unyielding. her status as the quidditch captain, and the captain who had ‘stolen’ the position from everyone’s favorite sweetheart edgar bones had left her in a less than popular opinion. and it didn’t help that hestia had the sort of respect from their classmates that gwenog was looking for. hestia could be mean and insulting, but she still managed to be looked more favorably upon than gwenog, and that was something that gwenog knew she needed to put a stop to. when the rumors of her hookups with benjy didn’t start travelling the school as quickly as she’d hoped they would’ve, she started to grow frustrated, and tried to prod him into telling people. if it meant stroking his ego that clearly didn’t need to be boosted anymore, she could do her part and swallow her pride. after all, what was the point of her dealing with this whole situation if she didn’t get her end of the bargain and reap the benefits of it all. benjy was only good to her for one thing, and if he couldn’t prove useful for even that, gwenog would make sure that she’d do it one her own. 

edgar bones; the sore loser. getting in a disagreement with someone from one of the other quidditch teams is something that she expected to happen when she became captain. becoming the captain of the hufflepuff team was something that excited her, and she was more than prepared to deal with the other captains to show her getting in disagreements with people from her own team, however, was not in the plans. and yet, edgar has made it clear that he’s going to be anything but cooperative around her during this season. she doesn’t understand where his resentment of her has stemmed from, or how he got the idea in his head that he was going to be able to swoop in and take the position of captain with no fight from her. gwenog has been on the team since her first year, having devoted countless hours to bettering the team and making sure that the hufflepuff team is taken just as seriously as the team from gryffindor or slytherin. she put in her time and her work, and it only made sense that when the position of captain opened up last year, that she would be the one to receive it. however, when she heard that edgar was trying to take that from her, and that it seemed like some people from the team supported him as well, it felt like a slap in the face. gwenog was not going to let something that was this important to her turn into a popularity contest. and though the results did end up with gwenog being voted as the captain, edgar decided that it was her fault, rather than the fault of the rest of the team who had made the decision. ever since the decision was made, he’s been stubborn and refusing to listen to her, and gwenog can see that it’s beginning to cause issues within their team. they luckily have yet to lose a game because of this, but she feels that it’s just on the horizon, and the moment that it comes - she’s ready to deal with this head on.

xenophilius lovegood; the whack job. because of the way that she was brought up and the environment in which gwenog lived, she’s always been a no-bullshit type of person. she sees things in black and white, without the need or want for any other sort of explanation to be added. because of this, people either tend to like her for her honesty, or they hate her for her outspoken nature. there’s no inbetween when it comes to her personality or her way of handling things, and she’s fairly unapologetic in nature. for that reason, she has no patience for people like xenophilius lovegood. xenophilius is known by just about everyone in the school for their eccentric personality and their different views on things. whether they’re seen handing out their own newsletter on their obscure beliefs, or speaking of the conspiracies theories that they waste their time on, gwenog cannot fathom why anyone would give them a second out of their day. it’s clear to her that xenophilius is doing this for attention, and it drives her mad. there is no way that someone can honestly believe the things that they speak of - whether it’s the imaginary stories that they make up, or the theories that they weave in their head and tells to people who will listen. right now, she listens and bites her tongue, for it seems like lately she’s at odds with just about anyone who crosses her. but she’s not sure how much longer she can stand listening to people talk about how professor mcgonagall might actually be celestina warbeck in disguise, or that the food being served on fridays is made from blast-ended skrewts. there are more important things to talk about and focus on than this garbage, and she’s hoping that soon people will get over this nonsense. 

GWENOG JONES IS PORTRAYED BY PARINEETI CHOPRA, AND SHE IS OPEN FOR APPLICATION.

[thekeegzter]

10 Things I Learned While Being Homeless

(Scroll Down To The Bottom If You're An Impatient Fuck)

Yes, you read that correctly. For the last four months I have been homeless. No, I was not sleeping on the streets, and thankfully only one night was spent in my truck, but I have been bouncing around between friends couches and taking the occasional male suitor up on their offer to eat a hot meal and sleep next to a warm body. 

Why didn't I just move home? Because I don't have a bedroom at home and my mother's crafting projects take up the living room that is couchless. Although I could have slept on my 14 year old brother's couch, I think that would have been a little weird for the both of us. Also, my mother lives a 45 minute drive outside of the city and if I wanted to find a job, I needed to be in the city and interview ready at all times. 

That being said, as soon as I got back to Toronto, I was applying to jobs like CRAZY. But my resume was clearly not standing out to anyone seeing as I only had two interviews (one of which was over the phone) during the months of July & August. I was, however, getting auditions left, right, and centre. 

I was broke, jobless, and homeless. BUT I had just recorded an EP; I had been asked to sing at a charity concert for Ovarian Cancer; I was booking paid acting gigs; I was asked to return to Vancouver Fashion Week as their Show Choreographer - which was paid; my guitarist and I were booked to play at a music festival* - also paid; and my family was just a short drive away if I wanted to see them. It was heaven. But I realized this lifestyle wouldn't last forever and couch surfing got tiring, so the universe finally provided to me, at the time I was ready to receive it, my dream job, and an apartment downtown Toronto with a place to park Bertha.* 

How did I end up here? Well, frankly, I fell in love. I fell for the idea that:

"When you meet the right person, you'll know."

I was honestly convinced that I would meet someone one day and everything would change. I would get butterflies in my stomach and I would know: this is the person I'm going to spend the rest of my life with. The fact that he lived across the country was somehow romantic, that he valued me for more than my body was new and made me feel like it was different this time. In retrospect I can count on one hand the amount of times someone has made me feel this way. Actually, it was one time, and his name was Chris Tulipano, and it was like 7 years ago.

So I fell in love, packed my truck, and drove from Toronto to Vancouver by myself. Well, I suppose my fish, Fuego Fire Le Poisson, counts as a passenger. I had spent the last of my savings on gas to get there so despite my better judgement, but mostly because I was desperate for work and didn't have time to look for something better, I went back to the hospitality industry as a server. I knew that this would bring me great unhappiness but I thought I'd be okay. I also had a feeling that monogamy was not for me, but I was so head over heels for this guy, I had to give it a shot. I had no social life, and I missed my family more than I thought possible. I had just started rebuilding a broken relationship with my brother and the guilt I carried for having left at such a crucial time made me feel sick. I couldn't even pick up the phone and call because I feared bursting into tears. This, coming from a girl who doesn't say "I miss you" because I'd never felt that feeling for anyone other than my dad ever since he passed away. I was having anxiety attacks regularly, and if I'd made it through the day without crying, I considered it a success. In a teary mess at work one day, I actually told my manager that I felt trapped. I had admitted it out loud. Which made it all too real. I sought help from a medical professional who told me I was crazy for moving out there. That was helpful 🙄. 

I had planned a trip home in June but as the dates approached and my bank account remained empty I thought it was never going to happen. Thankfully with the help of my incredibly patient and generous boyfriend at the time, and my aunt, I was able to fly home to Toronto and stop in Calgary to visit some family on the way. I spent a lot of the time up at my nana's cottage helping her pack as they were in the process of moving and felt incredibly grateful to her for a safe, peaceful space for me to sort through my emotions. On my first day back my nephew said, "Can I give you a kiss tía kiki? Cause it's been a long time since I could give you a kiss." A few days later my other nephew said, excitedly, "Are you gonna be here when I wake up in the morning? And when I come back from school? You should stay for five weeks." I realized that I missed them as much as they missed me. I didn't think the distance would affect them at such a young age, but it did, and my heart broke for all the months I'd spent a way. After a few weeks it was clear that I needed to move home. My family needed me, and honestly, I needed them, too. 

I called my boyfriend to let him know I needed to move home and he wasn't surprised. My mental health was not in a good place; I knew I needed my support system back. So I flew back to Vancouver - borrowing money from a dear old friend - packed up my truck, and found a few people on craigslist to share the financial burden and driving responsibilities of road-tripping back to Toronto. It was a wild drive and I made some incredible friends. 

When I got back to Toronto, my friends and family welcomed me with open arms. I overstayed my welcome at a number of homes but the most incredible thing happened: my friendships blossomed. When you live in a big city and everyone has a job or kids or whatever, it's hard to find time to spend with each other and you end up spending most of your time catching up on life's events rather than creating new memories. Crashing on my friends couches (sometimes I even got to sleep in their beds 😏 - shout out to Nicole, Katelyn, & Aisha #namedropping) meant that we spent so much more quality time together. I will be forever grateful for this experience because of the friendships I've strengthened. 

It would have been so easy to look at things from a negative perspective, like, I was fucking homeless. People who live on the street would ask me for change and I'd be like dude, I'm rollerblading to work because I can't afford the TTC. I met with my financial advisor when I got back to the city and he said "Wow! You look really thin!" I was like "Thanks! I can't afford to eat, so......😅" 

I chose to find the silver lining* in the same way that I looked at my debt in a positive way. To the people who leant me money (and to whom I still owe money) - shout out to Mom, Aunt Bonnie, Nana, Jamie, & Kirsten - I will pay you back, I appreciate your patience, I love you, and your generosity showed me that you really have my back. I am so incredibly grateful to the kindhearted circle of friends and family I have cultivated over the years and I hope you know that I would do the same for you. In a heartbeat. No questions ask. I'll even help you bury the body. 

SO - The Kohl's Notes, for those of you who won't bother to read this whole post.

Sleeping in your truck requires layers. The nights are cold and the sun is hot. 

Accepting invitations to go on dates is a great way ensure you eat that day.

Co-parenting a fish requires trust and communication.

Seeking therapy is healthy, but sometimes doctors are assholes.

Alone time is greatly underrated and under appreciated .

It's okay to owe people money, but make sure your debts are paid before going on vacation.

Living out of your truck is great for last minute weather related wardrobe changes.

Sleeping on your friends' couches is how drunken rap songs are made.

Being homeless for four months means you get to eat four times as much at Thanksgiving.

Family is irreplaceable and should always come first. #familyfirst

*Bertha is my truck. I basically inherited her from my grandfather. 

*The festival ended up cutting us from the list without even telling me. I was heartbroken. I also got on the wrong bus that day and ended up going an hour in the opposite direction and then missing my flight to Vancouver in the morning because the volume on my alarm was set too low that I didn't hear it. Then I got to Vancouver and the next morning spent 30 minutes trying to hail a fucking cab. Needless to say that little piece of news set things in a turbulent direction. 

*I probably couldn't do that in Vancouver because they don't have Uber. Just saying. Getting a taxi in that fucking city was the bane of my existence.