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pixelwisp-archive · 4 years ago

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Itadakimasu!! | Part 5: I Didn’ Ask (Written Chapter)

word count: 1.7k

Atsumu Miya was handsome, that was an undeniable truth. So naturally it would make sense that his identical twin brother would be, well, identical - and yet, you couldn't help the state of shock you found yourself in as you stood before him, your once buckling knees relieved of their pressure as his very large arms grab the box from your hands with a grunt ('lemme take that, looks heavy'). In all honesty, the fact that he was that good looking pissed you off, and watching him be kind, albeit taciturn, to you after bullying you for a month straight on Twitter (okay, fine, it was a mutual bullying, but he definitely started it) only made your scowl deepen. Your eyes narrowed at his back and you turned toward the van with a huff, finding another, perhaps lighter box to take inside.

"This place has been collecting dust for years, ya sure you guys can make it work?" Miya's voice was deep and rich, every syllable dripped with his Kansai accent. The unfamiliar sound made your chest bubble and you had to stop yourself from outwardly groaning in frustration. You crossed the threshold of the new place and your mouth fell open as you took in the shops current state.

The shop was- well, let's just say there was a reason it was so cheap. Even still, your eyes glittered at the potential you saw. The exposed beams looked in near mint condition as the sun filtered through the windows and soaked the unstained wood in a warm morning glow. It was empty, save for some appliances that definitely looked antique (the thought of being able to restore them made you drool), but the space had more than enough room for café style seating, and maybe even a section for a corner library or a stage for live music. The stairs to the two bedroom apartment that resided directly above the shop space, where you would be living, was tucked away in a hallway off to the side. You made a mental note to make sure it was a bit more livable than the current shop situation downstairs, and motioned for him to settle the boxes along the main counter.

"We're planning on restoring the kitchen within a few weeks, then setting up a pop up stand out front to make revenue while we renovate the rest. Hoping to be fully open come summer." He merely hummed in response as he brushed off the dust left on his hands. You were caught up in your own world, detailing in your brain every minute detail you planned on changing when Kuguri stumbled in through the front door, giant box obscuring his vision as he tripped over the step. "Ah, careful, looks fragile." Miya rushed over to help, taking the box and allowing Kuguri to steady himself. Kuguri blinked, warmth hitting his cheeks as he mumbled a small thank you.

“Don’ mention it,” came Miya’s slightly strained reply as he set the box down next to the others. The room fell into a less than comfortable silence and you tried to look anywhere other than at the man currently standing in your dining area. Kuguri cleared his throat and tightened the grip on his suitcase as he made his way over the stairs. "I'm gonna go check out the apartment. I'll be back in a bit." You shot him a pleading look but he mouthed a quick 'sorry' and scurried off, leaving you alone with the Other Twin.

More uncomfortable silence. You felt warmth rush to your face as you grew more flustered with each beat, neither of you willing to break the tension that had been slowly pervading the air around you like a dense fog. The suffocation ended up winning out over your stubbornness and you turned your head to look at him, embarrassment flooding at the sight of his eyes already on you.

"Uh, thanks, you know, for the help." He gave you a tight, forced smile, uttered a quick 'yer welcome', and began to make his way towards the side entrance. Arms crossed in front of you as you watched him open the door, the tiny alleyway and side entrance to his own shop coming into view. Miya paused at the open door and turned his head to look over at you, a smirk settling on his face.

"By the way, little creepy of ya to stalk us and rent out the space next to us. What are ya lookin' for here? I hope you know this new development doesn't change anythin' between us." Your eyes widened at the sudden change, your brain working overtime to try to process what he said. Once you had caught up to the moment, you scoffed.

"Oh please, Miya, as if. The world doesn't revolve around you. We bought this place over a month ago." His eyes shone with something you couldn't quite place and he let out a small chuckle, one that sounded far too innocent in comparison to his hard gaze. "Whatever you say, Paradis." You scrunched your nose at the familiar nickname, shaking your head.

"Don't call me that; I have a name, you know." Miya turned around to face you fully then, the smirk ever present as he leaned against the frame, his hand still grasping the handle to the shop door. "Ah yeah? You guys don' mention names on your Twitter, and I was always too (again, petty) lazy to bother lookin' it up," he drawled, deepening your frown in response.

"It's L/n Y/n." Miya's lazy smile upturned ever so slightly.

"Ah, I didn' ask, but thanks."

Embarrassment crashed over you once again and you felt the heat creep up your neck and ears. Your glare seemed to be filled to the brim with hellfire as you bore holes into his back. He turned to leave, and you followed after him, taking hold of the doorknob and watching him make the short distance back to Onigiri Miya's side entrance.

"I noticed you call me Miya, it's quite formal of you,” he noted, now at his own door. You let out a less-than-ladylike snort and waved your hand. "I wasn't being formal - coincidentally, I just also didn't bother looking it up." He laughed then, and it was a nice laugh, and you hated how nice it was with every fiber of your being.

"Osamu," he said, the smugness oozing off him, as if you were just dying to know his name and he decided to humor you. You stepped backward to make room for the door.

"Ah, I didn' ask, but thanks," you mocked, accent and all. You threw a shit eating grin and a quick wave his way before promptly shutting the door. When you saw what seemed like the five stages of grief cross his face in a span of a few seconds, you knew that putting Osamu Miya in his place was going to become your favorite past time.

Based on the way you two had tweeted each other over the last month, Osamu had deduced that you were probably a woman. What he wasn't expecting, however, was just how cute you ended up being. If you had been anyone else he probably would have been nothing short of a perfect gentleman; carrying all the boxes, smooth talking his way through conversation, and working himself up to asking you out. Unfortunately for him, though, there was just something about you that got under his skin, and he genuinely couldn't figure out what it was.

Osamu stood alone in the alleyway, giving himself a moment to process the last forty-five minutes of his life. Paradis Bakery, the company he's been openly beefing with on Twitter for the world to see, not only opened a second location in Osaka, but moved directly beside Onigiri Miya, in the place he had been looking into purchasing for at least six months now. The abandoned café was supposed to be a plan B in case Tokyo had to be pushed off for a few more years - being able to expand Onigiri Miya would have been huge for them if they couldn't swing the Tokyo location, and Kita had been more than open to the idea of expanding. When you said you purchased the café over a month ago, he remembered inquiring about the place at least two weeks prior to Atsumu's visit to your bakery, and the owner mentioning that someone had put in an offer. The sheer coincidence honestly creeped him out more than anything; he didn't like the feeling that fate was behind this because if it was - why?

Osamu shook off the goosebumps and decided he'd worry about fate intervening when it actually decided to do so. Turning toward his own shop, he hustled into the store with tense shoulders and a furrowed brow. Why was he so worked up? He's well aware that he's the one who started the whole social media war between you, and it's not like you guys actually had any reason to hate each other - you were just doing it for the attention. So why does he have this familiar feeling of contempt coursing through him at the mere thought of you?

"Osamu, are you okay? Ya sleep well?" Osamu snapped his attention to Kita, who was standing in the kitchen, already beginning food prep for the day. Kita's knife paused its assault on the spring onions as he waited for an answer.

"Ah, yeah, I slept fine Kita. Ya meet the new neighbors?" Kita nodded, resuming his ministrations. If you didn't know Kita, you would have just assumed the polite smile was just that - Osamu knew better though, and the slight upturn had a hint of what looked like mischief behind it. He gulped at the thought of Kita plotting.

"I met L/n. She's very nice." Osamu face scrunched at the mention of your name, which didn't go unnoticed by Kita, who's eyebrow shot up in surprise.

"You don't like her?"

"She's...fine." Osamu walked into the kitchen, putting on his apron as he washed his knife in preparation for the salmon.

"Honestly, I'm surprised, I thought you'dve taken a likin' to her if anything." Osamu grunted in response. "I dunno what it is, but there's just somethin' that rubs me the wrong way."

"Give it time, she may warm up to ya."

Osamu doubted that.

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Fun Facts -

Tendou got an earful when you called him that day, and he bit back a laugh every time you angrily mentioned how hot Osamu was (’Oh my god his face??? his arms??? Why’s the universe gotta have favoritism for the worst people’)

After hours, Kita also got an earful from Osamu - and he also had to cover his smile with his hand whenever Osamu angrily mentioned how cute you looked when you scrunched your face up. (’-and then she snorted, actually /snorted/, at me and while it was adorable it was rude as hell. She’s rude as hell, Kita.)

Kuguri rushed upstairs partly because he couldn’t stand the tension, but mainly because he wanted first dibs on bedrooms.

A/N: ahhh I’m SO sorry for such a long wait, I never intended to take nearly a whole ass week to post - I started a new job this week with weird hours so I had to adjust, plus this chapter actually gave me a little bit of grief haha (thank you lark for pulling my head out of my ass multiple times). But exciting things happen!! Y/n finally meets osamu and its awkward and annoying and they’re both so hot what do we do oh no~ I’m very excited to see how their relationship progresses through the next few chapters lol. Anyways I hope you guys enjoy, feel free to pop into my asks if you want to talk about the fic, or your day, or would like to be added to the taglist!! As always, thank you so much for reading, I love you guys!

Taglist -

@larkspyrr @oikawaandkuroostan @fucktheworlddude @doctorspencereid @keiarma @cherriechurros @halesandy @k3nma-fairy @jewlmin @tabipleats @kaleidoscopekai

#Itadakimasu!!#osamu x reader #osamu miya smau #osamu smau #haikyuu smau #haikyuu x reader #hq x reader #hq smau #osamu miya x reader #hq!! smau #hq!! x reader

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florrickandassociates · 3 years ago

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TGF Thoughts: 5x10-- And the violence spread.

So, that’s it for season five. I’m still trying to sort out how I feel about the season as a whole and Wackner’s arc. I’m hopeful that writing this will help me decide.

This episode has a Previously, and it’s rather conventional. I’m guessing it’s here to bookend the season, with conveying information being only a secondary objective.

Did we see Rivi scream, “You’re done, Wacko, you’re done! Canceled! Canceled!” in the last episode or is that new to this previously? I feel like I absolutely would’ve had things to say about a) Wackner being called “Wacko,” which has been RIGHT THERE this whole time, and b) the use of “Canceled,” which is a thing Rivi would never say but is VERY thematic (you know, cancel culture and also Wackner having a TV show and also this being a TV show that’s wrapping up* Wackner’s arc).

* The way things end this episode, I’d say we’re done with Wackner. The Kings have said they aren’t sure about the plan for season six, so never say never, but I think that if we see Wackner again, it will be as part of a different arc.

I went back to 5x09 and while we do see the same shots of Rivi screaming, whatever he’s saying in 5x09 is in Spanish. So either he was saying this in Spanish or the dialogue here is totally new.

I’m a little sad that I knew in advance Robert King had directed this episode, because I want to know how long it would’ve taken me to guess. I’d like to think this first shot, of Diane flopping down on her bed in a very pretty floral print dress, then Kurt flopping down in the opposite direction, would’ve given it away. We usually don’t get shots that are both striking and kinda balanced unless RK’s directing.

This also has some big season three opener vibes—the scene where Diane turns to Kurt and says, “I’m happy,” thus jinxing the entire season.

Diane and Kurt are about to go on vacation, which means, of course, that Diane and Kurt are definitely not about to go on vacation. I’ve watched 12 seasons of this show; I know all the tricks!

If I didn’t get it from the initial staging of the opening shot, the camera panning to Diane and Kurt’s suitcases and then back would’ve been another clue that RK directed. He ALWAYS has the camera in motion.

I love that Diane’s travel outfit is a dress you could wear to a fancy party and a statement necklace. Of course it is.

And if I needed evidence that RK and MK wrote this episode (which I didn’t; it is a finale so I knew they wrote it), Diane quoting Waiting for Godot is a clue there.

I really should read Waiting for Godot, shouldn’t I?

“Wow. Educated and a good lay,” Kurt responds. I know that the political stuff between Diane and Kurt can get more than a little murky, but banter like this reminds me why they stay together and why politics never drive them apart. Also, it’s really nice to see Diane and Kurt have some fun banter that isn’t about politics.

And Diane making kissing noises and asking Kurt to meet her halfway! This just feels like I’m spying on someone’s private life and I love it. Not in a voyeuristic way, since this is actually a little uncomfortably private, but in a, “ah, yes, these do feel like real people” way. This is the kind of “a little goes a long way” character moment I always want more of, and Kings episodes ALWAYS include stuff like this.

And there it is. The phone rings as Diane and Kurt are about to start out for the airport. Diane thinks the call must be for Kurt, but it’s for her. It’s a very flustered Liz, informing her that STR Laurie’s execs are on their way to the office for a surprise visit.

If the Diane/Kurt scene didn’t tell me that Robert King directed, I almost certainly would’ve gotten it from the sudden cut to Liz, walking through the hallways and doing a million things at once with a ton of background noise. No one loves chaos the way Robert King loves chaos.

This episode STRONGLY reminds me of the Wife season five finale. It is equally chaotic and also spins a ton of plates. But, mostly, the similarity I see between the two episodes is that they are both extremely fun and captivating to watch because of how much momentum they have, but everything just feels slightly hollow and not exactly focused on the thing you want to see.

(Shout out to my friend Ryan, who messaged me the 5x22 comparison before I could message it to him!)

I decided I should rewatch the first few minutes of 5x22. I am now 15 minutes into 5x22 of Wife and 2 minutes into 5x10 of Fight. Oops.

Apparently, STR Laurie planned a surprise visit because they heard RL was dysfunctional. You don’t say!

I felt like 5x09 concluded with STR Laurie being won over by Allegra and the RL team, so this is a bit of a surprising place to start the episode. But, since Diane seems surprised too, I’ll allow it.

Now Liz and Diane have 90 minutes to agree on a financial plan! Kurt’s on the phone with the airline before Diane even hangs up with Liz.

Diane is determined not to lose out on her vacation and asks Kurt to change the flight to 8:00. “Kurt, we are going on this vacation if it kills me!” is a line I would worry was foreshadowing on basically any other show.

The RL/STRL PowerPoint template is pretty ugly. They want to call 2021 their best year yet, thanks to the deal between Rivi and Plum Meadow Farms we saw last week. Even though we saw champagne and signatures, the deal isn’t done yet because Plum Meadow can back out if Rivi goes to jail.

RK also loves close-ups more than any other director on the show; I do not love close-ups.

The Plum Meadow deal is such a big deal that for the quarter, they go from $45 million to $5 million without it. They should just not say numbers. I can believe it’s big enough to take them from a modest profit to being behind projections or whatever, but I can’t believe that they have $5 million in other business and $40 million on this one deal.

It seems that Rivi was arrested. I don’t think it is ever said in this episode why. I assume the arrest relates to his behavior in Wackner’s court, since there were police officers there, and I suppose that Rivi is a big enough deal the police would actually take him to real court, but are we not going to address the weirdness of Rivi being arrested in a fake court where his employees are being tried, then taken to a real court by the same people who just an episode ago were disillusioned with real court? This seems like a plot point.

Carmen on a frantic phone call in the backseat of a car feels very 7x22.

Who is James that Carmen has in her contacts!? And why does everyone always put Liz in their contacts as “Elizabeth Reddick” when everyone calls her Liz?

Carmen calls Marissa to go argue in Vinetta’s court since she’s on Rivi duty. Carmen doesn’t take Marissa’s job in Wackner’s court seriously and then notes that this instruction is coming straight from Liz, so Marissa falls in line.

Wackner’s case of the week is about rural Illinois wanting to form its own state separate from Chicago. There’s a farmer who feels like his tax money is only going to the big city and he wants it to stay in his community.

They’ve just now added stage lighting to the set of Wackner Rules, dunno why they wouldn’t have done that earlier!

I don’t know what standing you’d have to have to bring a case about wanting to divide the state in two to court, or if this is even something a court would or should decide, but, sure, Wackner and Cord, go for it. There are no rules!

This map splitting Illinois into two new states that Cord is holding is a dumb prop because Galena, where this farmer is from, is in the same section as Chicago. Do I pause every reference to Chicago on this show and then google information to see if the writers bothered to look it up or pretend they’ve ever set foot in Chicago? You know I do.

“Secession!” the audience screams. Does the audience of Wackner Rules really want to see this?

A Good Fight Short! And it really is short: “Stop this obsession with secession and breaking up the Union. It’s boring and it’s dumb, end of song.” I feel like that’s the thesis statement for this episode, or one of them (that this episode seems to have about ten thesis statements is kind of my problem with this episode, tbh). This episode is very much about danger of things becoming too fractured—the COTW, the copycat courts, the firm drama—and I feel like the writers come around to just saying no, this is enough, we need structure and consistency.

But more on that later. MUCH more on that later.

Marissa is swearing more because “the world has required it.” She notes this to Wackner as she calls him out on the secession case. Cord barges in.

Take a look at the employee of the month poster on the back of the door at 5:39. Then at 5:40, look at what’s in the box just to the right of the center of the screen: it’s an employee of the month poster with Wackner on it! Cute easter egg. (Would Marissa definitely notice this and have questions? Yes. Is this here as a cute easter egg for eagle-eyed fans? Almost certainly.)

“Insane is just one step away from reality if you get people to believe, and you know what makes people believe? TV.” Cord explains when Marissa asks how they can possibly be litigating this case. That’s thesis statements two and three, folks. The first is that if you get people to believe, then anything is possible, which sounds like a tagline for a Disney movie but is actually super dangerous; the second is that reality TV is a way to persuade people and change opinions.

So we’ve got: (1) Factions are bad. (2) People are persuadable and the rules don’t actually matter. (3) Reality TV changes minds. Let’s see if there are more.

(Yes, these theses do kind of add up to a whole—The rules don’t matter, so if you persuade people, through reality tv, you get factions of people believing their own sets of rules and facts—but what I'm interested in tracking throughout this episode is how well the writers actually bring these theses together.)

(And this is setting aside that key themes in previous episodes, that I think many of us were looking for resolution on, included outlining the flaws with the extant “real” justice system and exploring the role of prison in the justice system. From this episode, I don’t think the writers ever intended to really tackle either of those issues. That’s fine—I'm not sure that TGF has something to say about prison abolition and I don’t want a thought experiment where the writers actually try to fix the legal system—but feels a bit disjointed. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, but 5x08 and 5x09 needed to do a better, clearer job of setting up this finale. The key themes of Wackner’s arc were always present, but they needed to slowly narrow the scope so the resolution felt inevitable and clear. Instead, we spent time on things like parking spaces (when we could’ve had a real plot about how Wackner’s court gains legitimacy through violence, incarceration, and playing on people’s frustration with the real systems) and Del’s focus groups (when we could’ve instead done a plot about Wackner gaining fans who wanted to use his methods to do ill). Everything I just mentioned in the parentheticals is in the show! It’s not subtext! We see it all! We see Cord use violence and prisons to enforce Wackner’s rulings; we see the cops turn to Wackner out of frustration; we see that the people drawn to Wackner Rules and to Wackner’s court are increasingly sounding more and more like right-wing populists! I can’t be too hard on this arc because, again, all these ideas are there. I’m not coming up with them on my own!)

I’m just saying: this ending would’ve been a lot clearer and a lot more interesting had the writers focused on what I mentioned above instead of the distractions of the last two episodes.

Whew, that was a ramble. Hope you’re ready for more rambles.

On a similar note, I’d like to reiterate my problems with how the writers used Marissa after the private prison reveal. I don’t have much more to say than what I wrote last week, but it’s another example of the same problem. Marissa objecting to Wackner’s court because she notices what it’s becoming and how Cord plans to use it for political gain (two Illinoises (??) changes the Senate and the Electoral College...) always was going to be part of the endgame. Marissa only seriously objecting after the fourth or fifth line Wackner crosses feels bizarre.

Cord does NOT like that there is another court, and wants to protect Wackner’s IP. Wackner, as we saw last episode, does not feel threatened by the other court. In fact, he seems to be excited by it.

I love Liz questioning Diane’s outfit like it’s unprofessional. It’s a little low-cut and showy, but I don’t think unprofessional is the word I’d use for it.

Now they have 45 minutes to decide The Future Of The Firm and Diane wants to be considered a name partner. Oh, that debate is still raging?! Every time I think it’s done it comes back, which should probably be a sign to Diane that her options are to leave and start something new, jettison Madeline and the others, or step down. Staying on as name partner and calling it a black firm is just not an option.

“Diane, there is a split in the firm that...” Liz starts, before asking some associates to leave the room. Ha! The reveal Liz and Diane aren’t alone is a pretty fun touch.

“The Black equity partners don’t want to be in your work group,” Liz informs Diane. “Because they think they’ll be punished by this firm?” Diane asks. “No, that’s paranoia. We don’t punish here,” Liz responds. “Of course you do. My fracking client. My union client. The Black lawyers who work on those cases—they're considered traitors” Diane says. “Because those CEOs are racists,” Liz counters.

Lots going on here, and I’m not sure I understand it all. Why would the equity partners—who are partners—feel like they’re being punished by being in Diane’s work group? (And also what does a “work group” mean and why haven’t they talked about it in the past?) When Diane starts talking about the lawyers who staff her clients, she’s not talking about equity partners; she is talking about associates.

And people are giving associates shit for working on Diane’s clients whom they happen to be staffed on!? That’s sad, though believable.

“So what do we do? Only bring in clients who can pass the racial smell test?” Diane asks. I mean, actually, yes. IF the goal is to be a black firm and to have that designation mean something in moral terms rather than marketing terms, then yes.

“It’s okay if you’re a drug kingpin like Rivi, but it’s not okay if you want me as lead attorney?” Diane says. Also, yes. Diane makes good points here.

“Diane, this is not about you,” Liz counters. Um, sure, but it has to be about something, Liz. Unless you’re trying to build a firm you don’t control that makes 88% of its revenue from a drug dealer (40 million out of 45 million this quarter = 88%; I told you they shouldn’t give me numbers) but happens to have black people in charge, you have to grapple with this question. I don’t think anyone who’s fighting for the firm to be a black-led (not owned, bc STRL) business is the type of person who thinks that having a black-led firm that does all the same shit as any other firm is in itself a good thing, so you NEED to address your client list. Madeline is anti-Rivi, anti-Cord, anti-Wolfe-Coleman (the rapist guy), pro-social justice, and pro having a black led firm.

“I mean, why... why do white people personalize this?” Liz asks. “Oh, now I’m just a white person?” Diane responds. I... don’t know what to do with this! Liz is right that Diane is taking this personally; Diane is right that Liz needs to deal with the rest of the client list. But no one is saying the things that REALLY need to be said: That all their decisions are meaningless in the shadow of STRL, and that deciding to be a black led firm isn’t the end of the discussion if they haven’t decided what types of clients they want to have.

“What happened, Liz? Last year we were intent on an all-female-run law firm,” Diane starts. Oh, THIS AGAIN! Diane never learns, does she? She never seems to realize that no one she’s approached with this idea is NEARLY as in love with it as she is. She probably still wonders to herself why Alicia—who partnered with her at the end of season seven basically just because it was the easiest, most frictionless thing to do—didn't seem more committed to their firm.

“Diane, there is history here that we are trying to...” Liz says, but Diane cuts in to note that women (women like Diane Lockhart!) have history too! In fact, she’s spent “35 years fighting gender discrimination to get to this position.” “And we have spent 400 years fighting racial discrimination to try and, you know...” Liz starts, before cutting herself off to get back to the ticking clock.

Sigh. Just talk about the actual thing instead of talking around the thing, guys. Diane is obviously deserving of A name partnership, in the abstract. This is an undeniable fact. And while Diane is definitely making this about herself rather than the big picture, I don’t think Liz trying to trump Diane’s 35 year career with the history of black people is going to win her any arguments? Like, just say what you mean and say it clearly. What Liz, I think, wants to express is that Diane’s individual accomplishments aren’t the issue here and everyone thinks she’s deserving (though Liz suggested Diane was not deserving a few episodes ago, which I didn’t understand then and don’t understand now). The problem is that Diane is trying to fight a battle that’s about something much larger than herself with, “but I'm a good lawyer!”

And that’s KIND OF what Liz is saying here, if I add all her sentences up and read between the lines, but, again, why not just say it?

“Alright, now we have 43 minutes to fix race relations, gender relations. STR Laurie’s gonna fire our asses, and you know it,” Liz says. I am curious what that would look like. Wouldn’t that just mean that STRL wouldn’t control them anymore? I’m sure being fired would be bad and all, but wouldn’t it free them from the contract they wanted out of last year?

“Let’s split the firm down the middle. I hire half the lawyers, you hire the other half,” Diane suggests. What does this mean? Why are you hiring your employees? Huh?

“You hire the white associates, and I hire the black associates?” Liz confirms. This seems like a very bad idea that would make things a lot worse and open them up to lawsuits! I also still do not know what they’re even talking about. And I don’t know why Allegra isn’t a part of this conversation.

“I’m not saying it’s good. I’m just saying it’s what we’re left with. It's what we can agree on,” Diane says. I really wish I understood what “hire” meant in this context because I don’t understand why they have to split anything or why this has to be done now and I don’t understand why this would possibly be a good solution. Can you imagine the backlash when people realize all the white people report to Diane and all the black people to Liz and that people were taken off of the accounts they’ve worked on for years to accomplish this? And this must be something that the employees would know about eventually; otherwise they could just randomly assign half to Liz and half to Diane.

I’m sad Madeline isn’t in this episode because I feel like we needed to see more of her POV as well as the associate POV. I don’t really understand the divides at play within the firm or what the staff and other partners are asking for, but I suspect it isn’t this.

Hallucination Jesus is back, and at least there’s actually a point to him this time (he shows up when Jay is in Vinetta’s court and reminds Jay that Vinetta will rule based on her religious beliefs). I still dislike the hallucinations.

Jay advises Marissa, who is Jewish, to talk a lot about Jesus in her defense.

Charmaine Bingwa is really great as Carmen, and obviously she is not fluent in Spanish, but it’s so funny to me that the only time you can hear that she’s Australian is when she’s trying to say Oscar like she’s speaking Spanish.

"I know you’re hiding something when you speak English,” Rivi says to Carmen. Heh.

“Community court” is such a nice, unthreatening term for referring to Wackner and his copy cats. Thanks for that, Carmen!

It’s a smart plan to mention Jesus a lot, I guess, but Jay and Marissa both should’ve realized that Vinetta is too smart to tolerate obvious pandering. I’m a little surprised Jay doesn’t get up and argue since Marissa is, obviously, not familiar with the New Testament.

Marissa wins this round with facts and logic.

Why is the judge who was handling Rivi’s previous charge now in bond court? Make it make sense.

I like that Carmen calls out the ASA for swearing hahaha

Why... would this Matteo kid just casually mention he was holding a gun, omg.

In Vinetta’s court, you can be charged with murder and tried because... you had a gun and also there were murders at other times. Coolcoolcool no problems here.

Community courts for civil cases? Sure. That’s basically arbitration. Community courts for criminal cases? Bad, bad, bad idea.

Vinetta’s reasoning: “Those murders happened on our street, and the police haven’t convicted anyone because they don’t care. We care. This is self-defense. And how is it different from your court?” Aside from the whole imprisoning people in her basement thing, Vinetta’s not wrong. I almost brought this up last week but hesitated because I couldn’t remember the details enough to decide if I wanted to recommend it, but there’s a book I read a few years ago that seems relevant here: Ghettoside by Jill Leovy. Again, been a while so don’t take this as a wholehearted endorsement or anything, but from what I remember, the central issue at the heart of the book (it’s non-fiction) is that a poor black community (I think in LA?) doesn’t trust the police (in part) because the police don’t solve murders, and then with no way of getting justice through the court system, there’s more violence as a stand-in for justice. https://www.vox.com/2016/8/26/12631962/ghettoside-jill-leovy-black-crime

I’m not sure if that’s QUITE what Vinetta is saying but it seems similar, and it’s a decent point (though not a justification for her court). Why should she trust the system to improve her community when it’s ignored her community for years?

I like that the writers chose two very different, very understandable characters for their community courts. It’s easy to see why Wackner and Vinetta feel the need for alternative courts; it’s easy to see why others would trust them. This arc doesn’t really work unless there’s a legitimate frustration with existing systems...

Marissa calls Wackner’s court a “joke,” which she should understand by now isn’t the case. (Marissa’s smart; she knew it wasn’t a joke the second she saw David Cord get involved.)

Vinetta accuses Wackner of copying her court, which alarms Marissa. This isn’t addressed again, and I don’t know if it’s true! I could really go either way on this. On the one hand, I absolutely believe that Wackner saw/heard about it, liked it, and did it himself without thinking much of it—and if this is the case, then the ending where Vinetta gets in trouble for violating Wackner’s IP is a lot more of a gut punch. On the other hand, I don’t really feel like the seeds for this were planted. We see Wackner innovate a lot and try new things and he has an explanation for why he does everything—how much of that is Vinetta? And Vinetta clearly watches the show and likes it or she wouldn’t have recognized Marissa, so it’s a little hard for me to just believe her claim when literally all I know about her is she has a court that looks like Wackner’s and she is aware of and feels positively towards Wackner rules. Also, Wackner knows about Vinetta’s court (from Marissa) and sounded excited about it last episode. Sure, he didn’t necessarily know which one it was, exactly, but I assume if he’d copied the idea and then heard about a case involving people from the exact same community where he found the idea... his reaction would be different. So IDK. My reasons for doubting Vinetta’s claim are probably based a little too much in things I’m not meant to spend that much time paying attention to.

“I fucked up. It’s in the same court, but now it’s a murder case,” Marissa tells Diane. I do like hearing characters admit when they fucked up!

Diane hears that STRL is delayed, so she heads out to help Matteo. When she goes to change into her pantsuit, she finds that she’s grabbed Kurt’s bag by mistake. “Of course. That makes sense,” she reacts.

Diane pushes her flight to the next day, also telling Kurt, “And yes, for some reason, I took your suit instead of mine, so fuck it.” I love it when the characters feel like real people.

I am not sure why Kurt is getting to the office when Diane is leaving or why Kurt is there—to pick Diane up on the way to the airport, maybe?

Carter Schmidt walks into RL at the worst possible time, threating to blow up the Plum Meadow deal. Another 5x10 to Wife 5x22 similarity: he’s in both episodes.

Liz heads out to help Carmen with Rivi, and then STRL arrives. Oops.

Credits!

One thing about Wackner’s court that should definitely be a warning sign even though it seems noble: he ignores just about every warning sign, like this rowdy crowd screaming WE LOVE YOU WACKNER or the potential interests at play in a case about secession, because he thinks his fair judgement can overcome these obstacles. If the world worked that way, there’d be no need for his court in the first place.

Is anyone representing the State of Illinois in this trial? If not, then... how is it happening?

Dr. Goat, some dude who claims to have some hidden historical document about how Illinois is actually two states, is clearly making stuff up and yet Wackner indulges him and Cord. I feel about this the same way as I feel about the Devil’s Advocate: That Wackner would not allow this to go on for more than five seconds before calling bullshit and therefore there is no reason I should have to sit through it.

Why is some guy screaming, “No taxation without representation” like dude you absolutely have representation. But of course, I’m expecting him to be logical, and the point is that he is not.

Dr. Goat’s Latin phrases—shock!-- don’t actually translate into anything like what he said. Even though this information is verifiable by a quick google search, the crowd starts screaming “Liar!!!!” at Marissa. If only I could say this felt unrealistic.

Wackner asks Dr. Goat to bring in the document.

“You look like you’re heading to the beach,” Vinetta says to Diane, who looks like she’s heading somewhere but definitely not to the beach. Vinetta asks where Diane was headed on vacation. Diane says she’s headed to Lake Como, and unnecessarily clarifies that “It’s in Italy.” She assumes Vinetta doesn’t know that... but Vinetta does.

“So you’ve been there before?” Vinetta probes when Diane says it’s beautiful there. “Just once. We don’t get away often. We thought we’d splurge,” Diane says. Vinetta stares at her and smiles, and Diane hits her head on a basket that’s hanging in Vinetta’s kitchen. If I just write out the dialogue here, it sounds like a perfectly average conversation, but everything about this conversation is so charged: Diane is afraid to look like a wealthy white woman; Vinetta’s pleasantness is pretty clearly also a way of sizing up Diane.

Vinetta shows Diane pictures of neighborhood children and young adults killed as a consequence of gang violence. You can see she’s not trying to do anything other than help her community, even if her methods are highly questionable.

Diane argues that Matteo should be given over to the police; Vinetta disagrees: “The police haven’t arrested anyone for those murders, any of these. Since the BLM movement, they’ve pulled back from our streets. No one’s coming to help. That’s why I started this court. It’s not a joke to us.” Wait I’m sorry did Vinetta just blame lack of good detective work in black communities on... the BLM movement?!?!?! Is there any foundation to this!? Why can’t it just be that the police weren’t actually doing a good job of policing/finding justice and were being antagonistic towards the community instead of being helpful and no one trusted them?? That explanation is literally right there.

Jay suggests the Jesus strategy, again.

“It’s women! We could just move on, install men,” STRL guy says. I don’t know if he’s joking, but ugh. Also, what is RL if it has neither Diane nor Liz? A bunch of lawyers who will all promptly quit when they see their bosses get fired and a few opportunists?

Kurt is watching golf in Diane’s office, and the STRL people love it. Of course Kurt accidentally makes friends with them.

Court stuff happens. It’s not good for Rivi, and then Liz and Carmen come up with a theory: Plum Meadow is stalling the deal so they can find Rivi’s more stable second and make a deal with them instead.

Wackner giving Dr. Goat a single point on his stupid little board, for any reason related to his obviously fake totally unverified document, is dangerous. Why would you signal to a crowd that’s clearly not interested in fact that they have a point? That’s basically egging them on.

I know Wackner’s judgment is obviously not 100% sound—need I remind you of the PRIVATE PRISONS?-- but I thought it was more sound than this.

Wackner shows off his knowledge of paper and proves that Dr. Goat’s document is a fake. Why... did he just give Dr. Goat a point???

Or is he moving the point from Dr. Goat to Marissa?

Dr. Goat sounds like a fake name I would call a character in my recaps long past the point of anyone other than myself remembering the joke. (See: Mr. Elk)

“The truth is ugly. The only thing uglier is not pursuing it,” Wackner tells Marissa. How is taking on a case about very obvious falsehoods, funded by someone with a vested interest in the case, that gets people riled up, some noble pursuit of truth?

STRL and Kurt are now drinking and discussing hunting, while Diane’s arguing for Matteo in Vinetta’s living room. Vinetta is—as was always obvious, sorry Jay—far too smart to fall for this patronizing bullshit. She screams at Diane and plays back a recording (on a baby monitor) of Diane coaching Matteo to lie about his faith.

Soooooo yeah no you can’t do that, that is bad, recording conversations between lawyers and their clients is not good even if it leads to you exposing their schemes...

Then Vinetta places Diane under arrest, which obviously isn’t going to end well for Vinetta.

Liz and Carmen suggest a post-nup to Rivi to see if Isabel is planning on turning on him.

“I’m going to have to kill her,” Rivi says sadly. I don’t think Rivi will ever kill Isabel because we already did that with Bishop.

I’m going to assume that Diane chooses to stay in basement prison instead of calling one of the many, MANY, MANY people she could call to get her out/take down Vinetta because she doesn’t want the situation to be publicized or further deteriorate. That said, it’s really not clear why Diane just accepts being sentenced to basement prison with a cell phone.

Love the STRL man looking at that picture of Diane and HRC. They’ve gotten so much mileage out of that photo.

Wackner’s court has no rules, but at least since it has no rules, I can’t complain about how its rules make no sense!

What is this, debate practice?! Ugggghhhhh I can’t deal with this case for much longer.

Marissa takes a breath, then decides to pursue a strategy she knows could blow everything up.

“Then why care what Judge Wackner decides? Why should you defer to him? Why defer to anyone?” Cord says that’s the point—the people have decided to trust Wackner. “So if you don’t like this court’s decision, you’ll just start a new one?” Marissa asks. “I guess,” Cord concedes.

“So then why does this matter? This court?” “It matters only insofar as we continue to agree that it matters,” Cord says. “So if you don’t like Judge Wackner’s rulings, you can just ignore them and create a new court?”

Good point, Marissa. Good point. (Does this count as a thesis?)

“I’m guessing that I will like the way the judge decides,” Cord says. Well, that’s basically a threat.

Wackner takes a break and heads to chambers—without Marissa.

Kurt goes to visit Diane in basement jail. He’s granted a conjugal visit, which means Matteo gets moved up to the bedroom so Diane and Kurt can have some alone time.

Diane is staring at an image of Lake Como in her cell. I thought it was odd she brought a printout of her vacation destination with her, so I LOVED the line where she explains that Vinetta printed it out for her. COLD. (You know who also would’ve done this if they’d for some reason had a basement prison? Bree Van de Kamp. You know what show DID do a basement prison arc I’d rather forget? Desperate Housewives!)

I love how Diane responds to basement prison by making jokes non-stop.

“I thought the craziness would end with 2020,” Diane says. Nope.

Kurt brought alcohol; Diane brought pot gummies.

I love that Kurt has never had pot before. I was going to say that I bet Diane’s had a few experiences with recreational drugs when I remembered we had a whole damn season of Diane microdosing.

Christine and Gary’s acting and their chemistry really bring these basement prison scenes to life. The writing and directing are really sharp, but it’s the actors who make these scenes something special. You can tell Diane and Kurt love each other a lot. You can tell they’re disappointed about their vacation and exhausted by the chaos of the day. You can tell they’re in disbelief over this situation but also find it funny.

Didn’t Rivi and Isabel have an adult daughter who died of COVID a few episodes ago? Weird she isn’t mentioned in this scene. Maybe from a different marriage/relationship?

Isabel called the SA’s office because she thinks Rivi’s a threat? I think this is a power play.

Heh, Carmen saying, “Shut a black woman up!?” in disbelief in court. Love it.

Isabel instead flips her story and supports her husband and fights for his release. With no intervention from Plum Meadow, this gets the judge to free Rivi. I don’t really understand what’s happened here or why. I get the resolution, but I don’t get why Isabel called the SA or why this went away so quickly. I still don’t even get why Rivi’s been arrested.

Diane and Kurt put up Christmas lights for ambiance and talk about how they never go on vacation.

“I wanna see the pyramids on this coast!” drunk & high Kurt insists, hilariously. “I mean hemisphere. I like the Aztecs. They, they care about people.” I’m not going to transcribe the rest of the dialogue because it loses its magic when you’re not watching the scene.

After some fun banter about travel and movies, Diane changes the topic. “I should quit, shouldn’t I? That judge upstairs? She looked at me like I was the most entitled white bitch on the planet. And that’s the way they look at me at work.”

Kurt tries to say that’s not true, but Diane knows it is: “Yes they do. I’m the top Karen. And why do I care? I mean, I... I could find another firm. I could quit. I can’t impose my will on people who don’t want me.”

YES. I see a lot of debate over what the “right” thing to do is here. But I think we are long past “right” and “wrong.” At a certain point, this stops being about absolute moral truths. If Diane doesn’t have the respect of her partners and employees, that is a very real problem for the firm and for Diane. How can she continue to impose her will on a firm that doesn’t want her, all the while claiming to be an ally? (The back half of that sentence is the most important part.) Forget whether or not Diane “should” have to step down. Forget what’s “fair.” If the non-Diane leadership of RL thinks the firm should be a black firm, and the employees of RL think so too, and Diane just doubles down on her white feminism, she’s creating an even bigger problem for herself and ruining her reputation in the process.

Kurt stands up on the prison cot and warns Diane she might make a decision she’ll regret. This scene is so cute. Why can’t other shows do drug trips where the characters just act silly and have great chemistry? Why does it always have to be some profound meditation on death whenever characters get high?

“I think I like starting over. I like the chutes and ladders of life. I mean, I want the corner office, but then I wanna slip back to the beginning and fight for the corner office. I mean, I think maybe it’s better that I don’t get the top spot,” Diane says. LOVE to hear her admit this. I’m not sure I would’ve come to this conclusion on my own, and it sounds like it’s a bit more about how the writers like to write (you know, the “we love our characters to always be underdogs��) than Diane, but... you know what? I believe it. I fully believe it. Diane LOVES to fight, LOVES to feel like she’s in the right, LOVES power plays and to be making progress. She LOVES winning. The fact that she isn’t just choosing to retire right now, even though she’s past retirement age and has a great reputation, is in itself enough for me to believe that she would find it fun to repeatedly start over.

Plus, it’s a fun new direction for the show to take in season six, because they’ll get the same sense of conflict without the actual conflict. This season’s arc was firm drama and resulted in a firm name change... but it didn’t feel like a knock-off of Hitting the Fan. Diane trying to work her way back into power (I assume by becoming a better actual ally, otherwise doesn’t she just end up in the same exact situation?) should also provide conflict without being repetitive.

Hahahahahaha Kurt immediately reacting to this serious statement by being incredibly silly and horny and then Diane singing “I Touch Myself” to him, man, I love these two. I want to know the story behind this song choice.

Wackner emerges from his chambers. The score is tied. Wackner calls Cord corrupt and notes that they can’t just decide to call Downstate Illinois a new state based on his ruling. Now it’s thesis time!

“I was taken by Mr. Cord’s arguments of individualism. So much of our country has been built on people finding their own way, not being held back by bureaucracy. Yet, if we only follow individualism, that way lies chaos. And that was not the point of this court. Or at least not my point. Judgment for the defense. There will be no Downstate Illinois.”

“If we only follow individualism, that way lies chaos.” is probably the clearest of the many theses of this episode. To recap, we have:

(1) Factions are bad. (2) People are persuadable and the rules don’t actually matter. (3) Reality TV changes minds. (4) Institutions only exist when we collectively agree they exist (5) Individualism = chaos.

But let’s put a pin in this for now and let the chaos of individualism play out.

The crowd does not like Wackner’s decision, and decides that an appropriate way to express their displeasure is to make anti-Semitic remarks towards Marissa and then start throwing chairs. What nice people.

As the crowd goes totally 1/6 on Wackner’s court (thanks for pointing this out to me, Ryan—I cannot believe I didn’t make the connection myself!), the door slamming into the desk finally pays off since Marissa and Wackner are able to use it to keep the crowd from reaching them.

They immediately turn to the police, or they would, if they could get service. I’m sure it’s not a coincidence that as soon as things get bad, they want to involve the existing system.

Wackner Rules is, somehow, still taping in the midst of all the chaos. I don’t know if I think they’d air this, but someone certainly would. (I wonder if any of the cameras we see in these scenes are actually the cameras filming the other angles of the riot.)

Cord shakes his head and walks out, unharmed.

“You think they’ll kill us?” “I think they might,” Marissa and Wackner fret.

“My dad said the whole world would be a better place if everybody realized they were in the minority. ‘No matter where you are,’ he said, ‘Make sure you keep an eye on the exits, and make sure you’re closer to the exit than the Cossacks are to the entrance.’” Marissa says. Love Eli Gold coming through with thesis number 6 (and maybe thesis number 7).

“Your dad sounds a little paranoid,” Wackner says, correctly. Remember how I mentioned I accidentally wound up watching 5x22? Eli calls Alicia and responds to her hello with, “DISASTER!!!!” I miss him.

“He was, but he wasn’t wrong. He said, ‘Stay away from parades. They’re cute until they’re not. And don’t trust any pope who was Hitler Youth.” “What’s that law called?” “Godwin’s Law. My dad said anybody who argued for Godwin’s Law has never been near an actual crowd. Crowds love you, they hug you. Then they grab a gun and try to kill you.”

“Why? Why do they do that?” “I don’t know. Hate is fun. It’s clear-cut.”

I really like all of this. It is a little preachy, but it isn’t wrong and it’s self-aware. And, more importantly, it’s in character. I absolutely believe that Marissa would tell lots of stories about Eli in a moment of extreme stress. It’s nostalgic, probably comforting, and it also helps her feel like she’s on the right side with the right arguments. So, even backed into a corner, she’s still a winner: she has theory on her side.

Wackner speaks a foreign language (I do not know what language but I wish I did) and says, “A guy could get killed doing this,” which makes him and Marissa laugh as things crash around them.

Idk about you all, but I couldn’t really get myself to actually worry about their safety during this scene. Maybe Wackner’s, just a little, but I got the sense we were supposed to focus more on the chaos and destruction and monologuing than on the actual danger. That’s not to say the stakes didn’t feel high, but rather to say that this didn’t feel like an action sequence where you don’t know what’s going to happen next. The point was to watch the court fall and think about why it fell, not to worry about if Marissa would live.

Diane and Kurt are woken up by sirens and loud noises. The cops arrive and are shocked to find professionally dressed white people in a basement cell. They let Diane and Kurt out with compassion, but scream, “don’t you fucking move” to the people on the floor.

“It’s okay, they didn’t do anything,” Diane says. This is, as I theorized earlier, probably why Diane just sits there until her punishment blows over instead of escalating things.

If the cops weren’t there to free Diane, why were they there? Why, because they like David Cord and David Cord has gotten Chicago PD officers to protect Wackner’s IP.

If I had to say one thing in favor of Vinetta being the originator of the community court idea, it would be that it’s SUCH a gut punch to watch Diane and Kurt walk away from their bizarre little adventure as Vinetta gets arrested in the background, and it hits ten times as hard if Vinetta’s only being charged because some white guy is claiming IP that’s actually hers.

(I think Vinetta is probably, at this point, actually being arrested for imprisoning people illegally, but, still.)

“Pfft. Some judge,” one of the cops who adores Wackner says of Vinetta. Racist much?

Marissa and Wackner emerge from the backroom. “I think I better get back to work,” she says, meaning her RL job. "Me too,” Wackner says, grabbing a Copy Coop apron. He’s an employee of ten years.

I don’t think this lands as well as it’s meant to. I think the point is supposed to be that Wackner’s just some guy—not a billionaire, not an academic, not a judge, not a lawyer—with an idea. But it’s a little too neat. And it doesn’t explain how Wackner financed his court initially, nor does it explain why he has basically unlimited access to Copy Coop space and resources. I’d buy it if he were the OWNER of Copy Coop, but I have so many questions about him being an employee.

Diane tells Liz she’s actually going on vacation this time, and they laugh about how Kurt bonded with STRL.

“I want you and Allegra to be name partners. I’ll be an equity partner,” Diane says. “Why?” Liz asks. “Five years ago, when I hit rock bottom, this firm took me in. So I don’t like the idea of splitting this firm in two. And I can’t lead if no one will follow.” “And your clients?” “We’ll manage them together.” YES! I love this. I don’t love it because I necessarily think it had to go this way, but because it’s so refreshing to see Diane say that she actually is willing to take a step back because she cares about the firm and the people there more than she cares about being a name partner. This isn’t something we usually see. When we hear “this firm took x in” it’s usually being said incredulously against someone who’s decided to leave and steal clients (cough, Hitting the Fan, cough).

It’s been pretty clear for most of this arc that Diane and Liz like working together and they like their firm, but that no one (other than Diane, I guess) is willing to let RL lose its status as a black firm, and that the employees and equity partners weren’t going to be satisfied until Diane stepped down. Diane really had three options: Stay and piss everyone off and claim the whole firm for herself, quit and go somewhere else and totally abandon the good working dynamic she had, or step down and put her money where her mouth is.

Also yeah the clients were never actually going to be an issue! They were only an issue because Diane intentionally went about informing them she was stepping down in a way she knew would make them worry!

“I think I need to prove myself,” Diane says. I’m not sure that’s the key issue or that she can ever prove herself fully, but we’ll worry about that next year.

“I missed you,” Liz says. “I’m here,” Diane replies. “I know. Thank you,” Liz says.

Diane decides she’s going to move downstairs so Allegra can have her office. I think there’s another office on this floor, since she, Adrian and Liz all had offices. This feels a little bit like Diane’s in love with the idea of making things difficult for herself and maybe hasn’t fully grasped the point, but, you know, I’ll take it.

Diane tells Kurt her decision and he asks if it was the right thing to do. She says she doesn’t know—but she says it with a smile. Kurt notes he’s going hunting next month with the STRL folks and will put in a good word for her. Ah, yes, because STRL still controls all of this and all of this is moot! Thanks for the reminder Kurt! Diane says she wants in on the hunting trip. Of course.

And the elevator doors close. Remember how closing elevator doors was a motif earlier this season??? It’s back!

Then we get a little coda with Wackner Rules airing a new episode that’s just violence and destruction. This sequence seems to straddle the line between being there for thematic reasons for the viewers and there to show what happened in the show’s universe, but I think it’s main purpose is theme, so I will not go on a full rant questioning why Del would want to air this.

A white blonde lady in an apron watches the destruction of Wackner Rules. She looks concerned. “That was violet,” she says with dismay. And then we see she’s holding a guy in a jail cell in her kitchen.

And then we see other courts, as America the Beautiful plays. One’s in a garage debating kicking someone out of the neighborhood; another is across the street about the same case. There’s one in Oregon about secession. There’s one among Tiki Torch Nazis deciding only white people can own property. There’s (inexplicably) one about pronouns. There’s one with arm wrestling, one that happens while sky diving, and a bunch of others. It’s pretty ridiculous, and not necessarily in a good way. It feels at once like the natural extension of the Wackner Rules show and like an over the top parody you’d see on another show. Tiki Torch Nazis screaming “only white people can own property!” is the opposite of subtle writing. Tonally, this sequence feels more like the zany humor of Desperate Housewives or the insanity of BrainDead than anything TGF has done before (and TGF’s been plenty surreal), and it doesn’t quite work for me. It feels like it is trying to prove a point in the corniest, most on the nose way possible. It almost feels like it’s parodying its own plotlines.

On my first watch, this ending for Wackner left me stumped. I knew the writers were making an argument against individualism (Wackner’s speech + the repeated references to The Apprentice) and cults of personality. But I couldn’t figure out a real life analogue to Wackner’s court, and since this ending was so obviously trying to be About Something, that bugged me. Sure, that last sequence could be an argument against people making community courts, but WERE people making community courts? I didn’t see the urgency.

And then I talked to @mimeparadox. And as soon as he said that it was about factions and people playing by their own sets of rules beyond the justice system, it clicked. I’d been looking for Wackner’s plot to be a commentary on the legal system. It is much broader than that. It’s a commentary on the weakening of democratic systems (the Big Lie, etc.), more broadly, and Wackner and his common-sense approach are just a way to get liberal viewers to go along for the ride.

Now that I understand the point, or what I think is the point, I like this conclusion. Circumventing the system leads to chaos; that’s why we have institutions and bureaucracy, and I think the show is arguing that these institutions should still be respected despite their flaws. The many theses of this episode all come together to make this point (though the reality TV stuff is a little more tenuous and I'm a little shocked we got through all of this without any commentary on social media?): If we stop having a shared belief in institutions and instead follow individual leaders (whom we may learn about through reality TV), the rules will stop mattering and we’ll end up with a fractured country and widespread violence.

But, and maybe this is just about me being upset I missed both the obvious 1/6 parallels AND the point of the arc the first time through this episode (my defensive side feels the need to also note I first watched this episode at like 5 am when I was barely awake), I don’t know that I actually think this episode does a great job of driving its point home. There are SO many moving pieces to the Wackner plot and SO many references. There are so many threads we never return to from earlier in the season, and there’s so much that strains credulity (like Wackner taking Dr. Goat seriously for more than a split second). It’s pretty clear what the themes are—even though I’m saying I missed the point my first time through, I've hit on all these themes separately in past recaps and posts—but, I dunno, something about this episode just feels scattered. Maybe it’s all the moving pieces, maybe it’s all the moments where it sounds like the characters are voicing related ideas that don’t quite snap together to form one coherent picture, or maybe it’s that Wackner’s plot gets two endings (the actual ending + the coda) and it’s up to the viewer to put together how they relate.

I really don’t know. At the end of the day, I think there was a little too much going on with Wackner and that the writers needed to use the episodes between the private prison reveal and the finale to narrow—not broaden—the scope of what they were trying to do with Wackner. But I also think that what they were doing with Wackner was really, really smart and original. I don’t think I can overstate how impressed I am that the writers took an idea that sounded, frankly, awful when I first heard about it and turned it into something captivating and insightful that I was happy to spend nine weeks watching.

Overall, a few bad episodes aside, I thought season five was the strongest season of TGF yet. I haven’t seen this show be so focused in... well, maybe ever. Having two overarching plots that received consistent development and felt like they were happening in the same universe at the same time REALLY helps make season five feel like a coherent whole, and I can’t wait to rewatch it.

#tgf thoughts #the good fight

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stina-is-a-punk-rocker · 4 years ago

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books i actually like

A solid 97% of my ‘book reviews’ (for lack of a better term) are bound to be just me bitching about said book for way too long with way too many expletives, because books I genuinely adore rarely invoke the visceral reaction within me that causes so many of my ‘reviews’ of books I don’t like to be so impassioned and long-winded. Here’s to kicking this dumpster fire off with a little positivity, because that will be little and far in between henceforth.

Harry Potter – J. K. Foul Thing I never understood how someone could appreciate the art and not the artist until Harry Potter. JKR’s dead to me, but the seven original (and only, because I refuse to accept the flaming pile of dog shit that was The Cursed Child as canon) books remain i c o n i c. And you’ll probably witness a LOT of Harry Potter-inspired shitposting on my part if you decide to stick around, because Harry Potter trivia makes up a solid chunk of my personality, and I like to shove my fandoms in other people’s faces. Again, I’m cute like that.

The Diary of a Young Girl – Anne Frank By some odd coincidence, my mum got me Anne Frank’s diary for my 13th birthday, and I always felt like a Super Special Snowflake because of that. Obviously, I can’t relate to being Jewish and in hiding during WWII, but there’s a lot of Anne’s views and thoughts that… resonated with me (ain’t that the most basic-ass description of a book, ever). There’s always the lingering sadness while reading because you know how her story comes to an end, but it’s a book that’s still stuck with me six years later, and for the rest of my mortal life.

The Book Thief – Markus Zusak Why Must I Adore Books That Give Me Naught but Pain: An Autobiography.

Freak the Mighty – Rodman Philbrick Ditto.

Bad Alice – Jean Ure When I first saw the cover, I expected a lighthearted, cheery book. I was very much mistaken. Duffy, a self-proclaimed ‘oddball’, and Alice, another self-proclaimed ‘oddball’, are easily two of my favorite fictional characters, ever. The subject matter is pretty damn dark and rereading the book as an adult is actually kind of scary, but it’s so well-written and engaging and this sounds like I’m an elementary school teacher writing a report card so I’m just gonna stop here.

Tiger Eyes – Judy Blume A true Relic of the angst-riddled phase of my adolescence (I say as if I am not still going through said angst-riddled phase). I’ve been a fan of Judy Blume’s work since one of the girls in my third-grade class bestowed upon me Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing; growing up, I’ve become more detached from Blume’s work but Tiger Eyes is a book that’s never gotten old for me. Davey, the angst-riddled adolescent protagonist, is also stubborn and headstrong and angry and scarily relatable to myself at her age, though under wildly different circumstances.

Changeling – Philippa Gregory I’ve read a couple of Goodreads reviews on the Order of Darkness series, and I’ve garnered that Philippa Gregory fans (Philippans? Philipinos?) are not fans of the series. I can’t vouch for that, given that I’ve only ever read the said series, and I’m admittedly not a fan of books two through four (which is basically every book of the series published to date, exempting the first), but Changeling is a book I liked enough to attempt to handwrite it in a notebook back when I was 12 (I gave up after, like, two sentences because my hand started cramping), and also to try and write a ripoff, featuring an angsty young preteen girl with (short) wavy black hair and eyes like limpid tears (gee, I wonder who that could be) (my eyes are brown, though; I dunno why I wrote the self-insert to be blue-eyed).

The Secret History – Donna Tartt My first foray into dark academia; sadly, reading The Secret History before any other books in the (sub?)genre made every other book pale in comparison. What’s so special about The Secret History for me is that I hate every main character, with passion. Each and every one of them; not just Bunny, but Richard and Henry and Charles and Camilla and Francis and Julian can all go fuck themselves for all I care- but I find them so fascinating. The story and the way it’s written is pretty over-the-top dramatic and my struggling bilingual arse had to look up every tenth word or so, but I adore it with every fibre of my being. Well, the leftover fibres of my being that aren’t simping over Kim Seungmin.

A Series of Unfortunate Events – Lemony Snicket Does this count as the first step of my emo phase? Shoutout to the girl in seventh grade I sat next to for, like, two weeks, who lent me The Wide Window and got me hooked on the series.

Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll This entire book feels so trippy.

The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett It’s corny and Everything Works Out Swell for the Goody Guys in the End! in period-typical book fashion, but it got me through many a boring class in the spring of my ninth year of personhood, so I’ll always have a soft spot for Mary and Dickon and Colin and the rest of the gang. It also inspired me to Cultivate, and there are two pretty bougainvillea plants in my garden thanks to one Mary Lennox.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post – Emily M. Danforth Cameron Post: the lesbian baddie we all aspire to be.

Vicky Angel – Jacqueline Wilson Yet another shoutout to my seventh-grade seatmate for lending me her copy of Vicky Angel, which I read under my covers like it was a bloody nudie mag.

A Song of Ice and Fire – George R. R. Martin Where’s Winds of Winter, George?

Turtles All the Way Down – John Green Paper Towns used to be my favorite John Green book until I read Turtles All the Way Down last year. I adore John Green’s writing style (maybe not the #deep #woke #sadboi #middleclass #white #male #cisgender #heterosexual #personalityofabreadroll leads in a solid chunk of his books, though) and okay, so maybe Davis fits all of the above, but my true faves are Aza and Daisy and their dynamic.

To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee I keep calling this ‘HOW to Kill a Mockingbird’ in conversations and it gets really fucking inconvenient.

Coraline – Neil Gaiman I just wish I’d read this sooner than I did.

#book review #harry potter #coraline #john green #changeling #turtles all the way down #to kill a mockingbird #game of thrones #cameron post #vicky angel #the secret history #a series of unfortunate events #the book thief #anne frank #lgbt #historical fiction #fantasy #books

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ramble-writes · 4 years ago

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So here comes another valentine's gift for the glorious @franks-mixtape ! If y'all remember the 2 Franks that are brothers and werewolves that I wrote some time ago, this is going from that again because I thought about it randomly and felt like I then needed more of it sooooooo yeah! If you DON’T know, the gist is being that his Frank and my Frank are half brothers. Father being a werewolf to both which resulted in his Frank being a halfling, while mine is whole werewolf due to different mothers. 19 years apart until both came to Ormond where they met up and figured out they’re brothers. So there ya go!

Warning(s): probs just standard cussing, buuuut that’s it lol

Don’t forget to like, reblog, and follow if ya wanna see more! (◍•ᴗ•◍)❤

A Wednesday. Worst day for the 14th to fall on. Especially since it’s in the middle of the school week. Frank James Morrison sat there in the last class for the day, English. The teacher decided to focus on how Valentine’s day started from some dude who got executed in Rome or some shit. He wasn’t paying attention, finding it useless to learn about. Emerald green eyes lazily gazed around the room till they landed on his brother’s russet hair.

Frank Fenik Morrison was there a few seats to James’s left, amber eyes were trailing over the printed paper the teacher had passed out previously. As much as he was into literature, if he wanted to learn history on a subject of a man who was killed for trying to teach his religion to the Romans, he would’ve in his history class.

Fenik really was just idly taking his pencil to scribble a random design on a blank spot on the paper, the teacher’s voice seeming muffled in the background. Darkening some lines on the drawing, he felt a nudge in his mind, like someone nudging him with their arm. He lifted his eyes up and flickered to the side where gemstone eyes met and locked.

‘Dude. This shit is boring. Can’t we just.. skip out on this?”

‘I wish. But we can’t or shit’ll go down. Plus, they’ll know it’s us since we have the same exact name, minus the middle name.’

This made the raven-haired Frank sigh out loudly. He slightly scrunched his face up at hearing his other half chuckle both from a distance (thanks to his heightened hearing) and in his mind. Since figuring out the two had the same father, name, preference in tattoos, music, and other things, it made for the two getting along pretty easily. It resulted in a sort of bond to form. Since their father was a werewolf, it resulted in an animal like bond to form, that ran deeper than a standard sibling bond. Emotions, feelings, and thoughts were connected. It resulted in a mind link to have basically silent conversations.

‘Jesus fuckin Christ we have thirty minutes left of this bullshit. Feels like it’s taking foreverrrr!’

Fenik had to cover his mouth to stifle the laugh that bubbled up. Hearing him complain like a child made for lightening the boring mood. The internal complaining actually helped pass the time till the bell rang. Kids instantly got up with grabbing backpacks and shoulder bags alike and hurried for the door as the teacher called out that their homework from 2 days ago is due by Friday. Most likely, no one paid attention.

The two Morrisons waited at the bottom of the steps of Fairview, waiting on the other three of their odd pack in the snow. It didn’t take long for Julie, Susie, and Joey to come out. Julie adjusted her coat she has on as she hurried a bit down the stairs, being mindful of the snow-covered steps as she went over to the russet-haired Frank and planted her lips to his. This drew a very pleased growl from him as he kissed her back. Thankfully, those dreaded words to the holiday weren’t uttered.

“A’ight sluts! What’s the plan for today for shit to fuck up?” James asked, the name making Joey chuckle. “I’m lookin’ for chaos to burn down the grossness I feel from all this love shit.”

“I second that. There’s this jackass that’s been trying to feel Susie up in history when it comes to turning in work,” Julie huffed out. This made Joey look at the pinkett with concern on his face.

“And ya haven’t said anything?” Susie looked away at the tallest’s question which made him sigh. “Sus, ya gotta tell us when this kind of stuff happens..”

Her head only lowered before she pulled her hood up to hide her face. Joey had let out a sigh and draped an arm over her shoulders before looking at the other three. Amber, emerald, and brown eyes met and they all shared the same thought.

‘Trash the fucker’s place’

To cut things short, finding where the guy lives wasn’t hard. They did the standard: Egging the house, toilet paper thrown and draped over trees and parts of the house. But the brothers took it an extra step by managing to get up on the house with wadded up toilet paper, where they then shoved it down the chimney to block it up since smoke was coming out of it. And they were out as quickly as they came with a job well done.

They all split to head to their homes, hearing distant sirens meaning the house called the fire department which was sweet music to them. Of course, the russet-haired teen snuck over to Julie’s place after her father passed out for their... usual time together. Raven, as another nickname to call James rather than by his middle name like Fenik, was laying there in bed till about midnight he heard his name being called through that mind link.

‘Thought you were busy bangin’ up Jules.’

‘Shut up and get your ass out here.’

‘Fiiine. But I still wanna hear about your adventures in the pussy caaaave!’

James snickered when he bet the other was rolling his eyes outside, but he got out of bed to get dressed in his usual letterman with an extra layer underneath since it is midnight and it’s still winter. Out the window he went and onto the ground below where his brother is standing and waiting.

“Alright, whatcha want butt sniffer?”

“Don’t. Anyway, thought it be nice to hang out since school has been riding out asses with work to get us “prepared for college” which I could care less for.”

The raven-haired teen nodded. “Yeah. It’s a lot of bullshit. Ffffuck I hate being a senior.”

“I feel that,” Fenik agreed with a nod of his head. As usual, the two headed into the forest since it is their escape, and the only way that the wolves within the both of them can be let out. It’s a nice reliever since a lot of the times going out was never an option and it would make them feel cramped.

Usually, they don’t speak when out in the forest unless they do their usual practice. But for now, it was nothing but a run. Fenik in full wolf with James keeping up at an easy stride. Surprisingly, there was no clouds which let for the moon to shine bright in the sky and reflect off the snow, practically lighting their path.

They didn’t know how long they’ve been running, but they did come to a stopping point when the two Morrisons came across a big tree. It was there they stopped and flopped down at the base at the big roots, James leaning on Fenik and a hand running through the rust-colored fur in slow strokes.

“Ya know... I’m a bit jealous you can shift and I can’t..”

“Seriously? I dunno. I’d be pretty happy with just the heightened senses n shit.”

This made for emerald eyes to look at the wolf, which in return, amber looked back at the halfling. Concern was felt on both sides. Concern for how one felt left out of things, and concern for how the other didn’t care if shifting was a thing or not. James scooted himself a bit close to be able to wrap an arm around the back of the head of the large wolf and pressed his forehead to his, letting silence overtake the quiet between he two of them.

Something happened since one moment the raven-haired teen was small in comparison to the wolf with clothes on, to suddenly not and... the same size. It was like his body just relaxed for him to suddenly shift, but the realization got for the two to jump up onto their paws and look at each other.

James now was suddenly the same height, same build. Black fur made him look like a shadow o the white snow. Vibrant green eyes stood out like unknown lights in the darkest parts of the forest. The two were quiet, before sounds of excitement left them and they became nothing but giant mounds of fur and limbs with barks and yaps leaving them.

What felt like hours of nothing but romping around in the snow, they both flopped down panting with tongues hanging out of open mouths and tails swishing in the snow. Two sets of gemstone eyes gazed up at the night sky, the moon nothing but a white orb to the side of their vision.

“I hate valentine’s, but this? This is the greatest fuckin’ gift nature let me have haha!” James boofed out, letting his paws stretch out in front of him. It felt like all his limbs were sore from being contained, and finally was allowed to be out.

“Oh trust me. Being this way is heavenly. Feels like what freedom from the system should be. And now that you can shift, we can do this a hell of a lot more. And no one can stop the hell we’ll raise.” Fenik let out a chuff, a canine version of a chuckle. The black pelted one chuffed as well before rolling onto his side and laying close to the rusted pelt one and pressed close.

They were content like that, black mixing with rust, emerald and amber. It took only a nudge from Fenik to say that it’s best they get going. James got up and shook the snow from his fur, waiting for his brother to get up. Both standing, they trotted off to the edge of the forest where they shifted back to their human selves.

“This weekend. Can... we go running again? And... maybe teach me some wolf stuff since now I can shift?”

“Hell yeah man! I’ll be waiting ‘round seven. Sound good?”

James nodded with a slight smile before it fell. There was hesitation, but Fenik could feel it and brought his brother close for a hug. He melted into it and hugged the other back. They stood like that for some beats before breaking it off and headed to their homes with goodbyes through the link. Days and nights for now on were gonna be different, but they were gonna be hella enjoyable and that feeling of being left out vanished. Everything felt right, just as it should be.

#frank morrison #wolf frank #brother franks au #franks-mixtape #legion dbd #dbd #dead by daylight #my writings #HERE'S TO YOU YA TWINK HAPPY VALENTINE'S

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radramblog · 3 years ago

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Radiohead Retrospective Part 6: Ripples on a Blank Shore

Hail to the Thief was Radiohead’s last album with the record label EMI. This is probably good, seeing as EMI are a massive conglomerate, one of the biggest record companies in the world, and that doesn’t really suit Radiohead’s image. It’s not like they needed them to get big anymore.

With that lack of contractual obligation to make new music, the band was able to spend a fair bit longer on the next album, as well as do a few things on the side. Thom made The Eraser, Jonny did some soundtracks. They went on tour between recording sessions, because they weren’t really getting anywhere, and tried some of their material live. It sounds like it was a lot less stressful than the previous, label-driven work. While they would eventually resign onto XL Recordings, that’s a much smaller, independent company, and the band’s next album would be self-released anyway.

In Rainbows had a very interesting release. Much like what many a Bandcamp artist does now, the album was released as a pay-what-you-want online download, with paying 0 dollars being an option you could take. This wasn’t really a thing back in 2007, so it stirred up quite the fuss. It also helped that it was an excellent fucking album, which many hail as equal or greater than OK Computer at the top of the Radiohead Totem Pole.

I suppose, then, it’s only fair to actually talk about the album.

The album opens with 15 Step, and what a way to open an album. We’ve got the mix of real and manufactured percussion, we’ve got calming falsetto and we’ve got those absolutely lovely guitar chords. The handclaps are back, and unlike We Suck Young Blood they’re genuine and optimistic rather than sarcastic- in case the kids going “yaaaay!” wasn’t obvious, though it’s not hard to be in a higher mood than WSYB. Considering how melancholy Hail to the Thief, not to mention the other albums the band’s made, have tended to be, this feels light, airy, and refreshing.

A mix of electronic and acoustic that is a great way of introducing the album- considering the constant comparisons the record gets to OK Computer, opening with a track that demonstrates everything the band has learned in the 10 years since is just great. I’m just going to get this out ahead of time, this album is very good, and held in such high esteem for a reason.

The second track is Bodysnatchers, one of the rockier songs the alleged Rock band released in the 2000s. It’s a pretty significant contrast to 15 Step, a bass-driven, driving rock song that screams paranoia. It’s one kept moving at a forward pace by its uptempo percussion and acoustic strumming, while the other instruments just chug along in quite the satisfying manner.

Bodysnatchers’s energy feels really unique on this album, to the point where I wouldn’t be surprised if people thought it didn’t really fit. It’s harsher and edgier, somewhat reminiscent of a King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard track at times, manic and energetic and layered. I’m not going to agree with the idea that Bodysnatchers doesn’t belong on In Rainbows, because the song fucks, but there is a fair case to be made for its difference.

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Anyway, next up is Nude. It’s not quite as fun as it sounds. The effects on this instrumental opening make it feel almost film-soundtrack-like, somewhat reminiscent of Motion Picture Soundtrack (that might be a bit of a stretch, though). The bulk of the track is largely built around the vocal track, ethereal and dominant, with the instrumental being a relatively simple guitar/drum piece to back up Thom’s impeccable falsetto. The song rises a lot for it’s bridge, crescendoing just like back in the old days with strings and effects, with lyrics that almost chide the listener for poking fun at the song’s name, like I just did. I’m sorry to disappoint you, lads!

Nude is not a song I often find myself in the mood for, to be frank. It’s unquestionably gorgeous, but also simultaneously too much and not enough? Too much as in like, that vocal track is a little overblown sometimes as is the intro, and not enough as in, the bulk of the song is a touch boring? I don’t know, I’m ready to be strapped to a wall for that one, but I’m sticking with the take.

On the other hand, I’m basically never not in the mood for Weird Fishes/Arpeggi. I’ve always found this track extremely soothing, an absolute unparalleled vibe. The simple but sweet guitar lines just feel nautical in a way I can’t describe, comfortable in a way the actual ocean very doesn’t get me. The bass is extremely subtle, but it helps a lot to keep the track moving between modes as it builds and builds and builds and builds and just falls away…

I’ve gotten some pushback before when describing this song as “chill”, and considering the way it builds up so much in the middle third, I guess I can see how one would disagree. But I can’t describe how or why the song makes me feel the way it does, it just, does. Something about those clean drums piercing through the haze of the track, the lyricism, the vibe. It’s the vibe.

Next up is All I Need, a smooth, slow, dark track with a much lower mood than the songs we’ve heard so far- even moreso than Bodysnatchers. This is the album’s low point moodwise, pretty much inarguably, and some might argue also as far as songs go.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s far from a bad song. The piano chords are simple but effective, contrasted against the….xylophone, I think, but that only happens for a relatively small portion of a pretty long song. Which is largely just low percussion and vocals. I will say, the bridge is excellent, a rising cry of keys and drums against the void, which wouldn’t work nearly as well if the rest of the song isn’t the way it was. But as a whole, the song isn’t the best Radiohead has to offer, if you catch my drift.

I think the next song, Faust Arp, is kind of underrated. I mean, I know it’s the least listened to song on the album on Spotify, I’m looking at the numbers, it’s not close. That’s kind of to be expected with a song that, at least for Radiohead’s scales, very short, at just over 2 minutes long. But it’s a beautiful little acoustic/string piece that I really enjoy. Short and sweet, I suppose. You can call it interstitial all you want, and it’s not going to compare to song number 7, but it’s a good song, dangit.

Oh right, song number 7. Reckoner. A couple weeks ago, I mentioned that I didn’t think Radiohead captured quite the beauty of Pyramid Song again for a few more albums. Reckoner is that lightning captured in a bottle once again. This song is incredibly emotional, and undeniably excellent.

The song feels like it’s on separate layers, spaced and airy drums with a very light guitar strum, Thom’s vocals meandering somewhere in between, struggling to be heard. And then you get to 1:20, and the piano kicks in, and it brings the tracks together, giving the song an incredible fullness as the lyrics “You are not to blame…” begin. The song keeps going like this, adding in background vocals for a bit, before dropping almost entirely, for the bridge. The rising string, the backing vocals singing the album’s name, and the way the song’s mood subtly shifts afterwards- it’s so beautiful.

Anyway fun fact the bit where the background lyrics start singing “In Rainbooooows” is apparently exactly 61.8% of the way through the album, and that’s the golden ratio, baby. It has apparently been confirmed to be accidental, but it’s still really fun. I do enjoy when silly maths things end up in songs- Lateralus by Tool, for example, is pretty much completely written around the Fibonacci Sequence, from its lyrics to its chords to its time signature.

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Tangents aside, our next song is House of Cards, a song I’ve kind of fallen off of as of late. It’s a lot like a less melancholy All I Need, or a less tightly wound Faust Arp (but without them strings), though the reverb on this song gives it a much spacier feel. There’s something really tense about the ambient noise in the background as well, making it hard to truly settle into the song’s groove. I don’t know, I used to like this song, but I’m not sure what it is about it that’s missing now. Sorry to disappoint, I suppose.

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By contrast, Jigsaw Falling Into Place is one that took me a while to get into, because I think I just never gave it a chance. I dunno, I think much like with In Limbo it just kinda slid out of my brain every time I heard it. Well, it’s bloody clung on now, hasn’t it? This song is loads of fun! It’s a real groove, fun lyricism and great drums and Thom very notably not singing in falsetto for like half the song before it shifts gears and oh there it is! It’s another one of those great songs with a slow build, what with the backing vocals slowly getting louder and rowdier and the guitars getting more intense and yeah.

Oh also, that video is fun, if a little disorienting. I still can’t believe how many of these music videos I just…missed entirely.

Our final song, Videotape, is significantly less fun. Let me put it this way, lots of people think it’s a suicide note in song form, and it’s not, it’s just someone’s last message as they pass away after a long long life. On the other hand, it does fit the word Mephistopheles into the lyrics, and I think pulling that off is pretty fun.

Videotape has relatively simple instrumentation- piano chords, with a syncopated percussion coming in about a third of the way through. Much of the soundscape is dominated by that piano and the backing vocals. The song is tragic, undoubtedly, but it’s a warmer kind of tragic than previous albums have gone out on- the soft piano giving it a heart that tracks like Street Spirit (Fade Out) and Motion Picture Soundtrack somewhat lack. It’s sad, yes, but peaceful, and comforting. The closing line is beautifully haunting- I know today has been the most perfect day I’ve ever seen.

Not so much on my end, weather was shit and my brain decided to have a depressive episode in the afternoon.

Thus ends In Rainbows. Unless you count the bonus disc, something I desperately need to acquire in CD form despite the fact that it appears to barely if ever have been released in that format. I brought up comparisons to OK Computer earlier, and I’m not entirely certain that they’re that justifiable, conspiracy theories about a threaded playlist notwithstanding. Yeah, it’s deliberately the 10 to OKC’s 01, but the style and tone are just so utterly different. 10 years is a long time for an artist, let alone a musician, and let alone a band that did Kid A.

I’m not going to comment on whether I think In Rainbows is better or worse than OK Computer. It’s the eternal question, seemingly, and you’re not going to find an answer here. They’re not really comparable, in my eyes- apples and oranges. The cold technology of a late 90s PC and the natural beauty of a cascading rainbow.

But if In Rainbows is OK Computer, then The King of Limbs must be Kid A. This comparison I think I can understand better, which I suppose we’ll discuss next Tuesday. Adios?

#ramble #music #radiohead #in rainbows #taaaaaake me wiiiiiiiith youuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

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thewebcomicsreview · 4 years ago

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Normally I open up the Homestuck 2 liveblog with a tongue-in-cheek comment about how reading HS2 is pain, but I just watched the debate and HS2 looks incredible by comparison, so let’s see if this good mood carries over. Looks like we’re on Candyland, too, Candy updates tend to be better (or at least bad in a funny way) than the oft-boring Meat updates, and personally, I think “The Omega Kids fuck around” is the best part of HS2 by yards.

Man, that lamp is almost perfectly positioned to draw a line through the image separating the two scenes (the dialogue for which is on two separate columns), but it’s just the tiniest bit off-center. I wonder if that was intentional and mobile-responsiveness is just a cruel mistress. It’s a cute touch, if so. I suppose the door (and the photos, which are the same height as the door) also serves the same purpose of having the two scenes be sectioned off. I don’t really know a lot about “scene composition” so maybe I should stay in my wheelhouse, but I think it’s divided very nicely

HARRY: and some of us aren't gods and shit. JOHN: i'm detecting a hint of judgement in your voice, there, harry anderson JOHN: don't you enjoy being a part of all this? finally getting to be in the thick of it all?

John, always dense, has not picked up on Harry Anderson’s demotion to Harry. He’s also inserting a lot of his own desires onto Harry, here, too. Vrissy is the one who wanted to be in the thick of it all (thematic idea to stick a pin into to see if it plays out: John should be mentoring Vrissy and Vriska should be mentoring Harry. Some evidence that HS2 is building this idea, but not a lot yet)

HARRY: now YOU look like you're hiding some extra commentary. JOHN: oh, i don't need to burden you with all the bureaucratic stuff, it's boring.

You gotta subscribe to John’s $20/mo Patreon tier for that, Harry.

JOHN: because here i am, sitting in the dugout, same as you. HARRY: in the dugout? JOHN: oh, or, uh... JOHN: what's a metaphor you might like better... HARRY: no, JOHN: i'm like the uhh...understudy. HARRY: dad. no, jesus, you don't have to do this. JOHN: or i got cast in as babysitter number 2 when i had auditioned for, i dunno, HARRY: yeah, please, i got the baseball metaphor. HARRY: i'm not a complete fucking nerd.

John doesn’t really “get” theater kids, I get. It makes me think a little of how John’s dad thought John was massively into clowns. Also, this is a cute.

JOHN: it's been really nice to get to spend so much time with you. HARRY: um. yeah, it's not so bad. HARRY: anyway, before you ruffle my hair or anything, it looks like things are getting a bit heated between the vriskas over there. HARRY: maybe we should offer them a snack to bring the mood back down? JOHN: me, mess up your hair when you’ve worked so hard on that look? i do know you at least that well, harry anderson HARRY: thank god.

This is also cute. Harry maybe the only person in the entire cast of Homestuck or Homestuck 2 to have a semi-normal relationship with his parents.

Speaking of semi-symmetry, the line where Harry says how happy he is to stay home almost lines up perfectly with Vriska being furious that she has to stay home. I wonder again if that’s a coincidence of if someone had a really clever idea that didn’t make it fully intact through editing (or was considered not worth the effort).

VRISKA: How are you so calm right now? Your lusii were training you, right? And you’re a troll, you’re definitely five times stronger than a human! And if you’re my clone, you are way more 8adass than little miss Fussy Fangs.

Vriska is making several false assumptions here, but the most interesting one is that Vrissy is Vriska’s clone. She’s not. She’s descended from Vriska, and takes after Vriska very strongly, but it’s not a one-to-one thing.

VRISSY: 8ut I guess this Situation is Kind of Serious? VRISSY: There’s a whole Plan and Stuff Like that. VRISKA: Clearly not a good plan, 8ecause then I would 8e part of it!

Vriska.jpg

VRISKA: That’s just even more indication that they don’t know what they’re doing! Lalonde and Maryam have had however many sweeps to get older and stupider, 8ut from where I’m standing, it was literally only a few days ago that I was their commander! I am primed for the 8attlefield!

Okay, this line is across from John saying he’s in the dugout. There is absolutely an intentional, if not one-to-one strict, mirroring of these two conversations that’s actually really neat. I should go back to the other times HS2 has had conversations formatted like this to see if this mirroring has been happening all along. It’s a really good use of the format! I like this a lot!

JOHN: so anyway, as you can see, this would have worked just fine! HARRY: no i think karkat’s right. this looks like shit, dad. JOHN: you know, me letting your earlier use of the word "fuck" slide wasn't a blanket approval for all cursing in front of me. HARRY: sorry. HARRY: try not to make such a shit plan, and i won't call it that. JOHN: haha wow.

The other thing I like is the John/Harry dynamic.

HARRY: it's not like i think i'm any better! HARRY: i mean, i still can't believe i told vrissy and them to bring a dead celebrity to school. HARRY: what was i THINKING. JOHN: you were thinking it sounded hilarious! JOHN: but yeah, in hindsight, maybe not the best call. JOHN: maybe it’s genetic? HARRY: yeah. HARRY: i kinda can’t believe we’re all still alive, actually. HARRY: and how did YOU make it this far, being so bad at this? JOHN: i had my friends with me, i guess.

John your friends repeatedly tried to kill you and succeeded at least twice.

He’d spent so long seeing mostly the best parts of Roxy in Harry Anderson. He forgot, he guesses, to look for himself in there, too. And if what they have in common right now is a lack of strategic foresight, hey, he’ll take it.

I’m slowly developing a theory that John is subconsciously the narrator of Candy, given how everything suddenly started going John’s way after Calliope left (and how the narrator seemed to really hate Gamzee last chapter). Remember, John has spoken in narration before in HS1, but never seemed to realize he was doing it. I probably need to essay this theory out at some point, but not now.

Oh, hey! Jane does have goons! And they’ve slightly change the way they draw Rose’s hair, so her head isn’t a perfect circle with lines on it. This looks much better.

JANE: I haven't given a political speech in years, Ms. Lalonde. I don't know what you're referring to. I'm just a simple business woman. JADE: right with her own talk show JADE: and multi billion dollar merchant company and lobbying groups! JANE: That's what a business woman is, Jade, dear.

I know that this is supposed to be Capitalism Bad, but “You claim to be a businesswoman when you own a merchant company!”. Jade. Come on. This reads less as Jane going “Of course I’m evil, I’m a CEO” and more that Jade literally doesn’t know what a business woman is.

JANE: You are on my territory, in the presence of my secret police, laying your hand on my investment.

Jane you don’t own “territory” do you not know what a businesswoman is either?

JANE: Your ship is in contested airspace. You will land, whereby it will be confiscated by the Royal Human Guard. After that you will be taken into custody.

CONTESTED BY WHOM, JANE? WHO THE FUCK IS THE WAR BETWEEN?!

JADE: shut the fuck up for a minute and look up!

There’s a BIG-ASS spaceship like ten feet in front of you! Did you not notice until Jade pointed it out?

Also why does the Rebellion ship have the Crockercorp prongs on it?

JANE: Or have you forgotten who has been paying for her schooling and taking charge of her introduction into society? JADE: i never asked you to do that! JADE: you offered! JADE: so stop calling me ungrateful for not sucking your dick over things i never asked for!

Sorry again, Jade, are you implying that you wouldn’t have given your daughter an education had Jane not offered? “Rose and Jade entrusted their daughter to Jane, who they were at war with” is an enigma of a plot point.

The world is watching her be dressed down by a couple blood traitor rebels, one of which has very prominent dog ears. Jane wonders if either of them are even recognizable to the assembled as two of the old gods. One of her PR managers had recommended that she keep her look as static as possible, so that people can always recognize her as Jane Crocker, Captain of Industry, Creator of Earth C, Maintainer of Peace and Plenty.

Jade has always had dog ears what the fuck? I guess this is supposed to be Jane’s warped thinking.

So, anyway, Kanaya fake-holds Tavvy hostage, Jane buys the threat as real and they build up like Jane is going to sacrifice her own son for PR points but she ultimately stands down and lets everyone go. It’s left intentionally vague whether or not she was always going to do this, or if she didn’t want to do it in front of Jake, or if the presence of Jake stirred something in her that made her change her mind. I like the ambiguity.

This was a very “Homestuck 2″ update. The plot of kind of nonsense, but it’s carried by the character interactions and a bit of cleverness.

#Homestuck 2 #Homestuck 2 liveblog #Homestuck

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thebibliomancer · 4 years ago

Text

Essential Avengers: Avengers #230: THE LAST FAREWELL!

April, 1983

“Yellowjacket no more!”

Aw, dang! Hank got raptured!

Captain America, Thor, and Hawkeye is a weird collection of characters to be staring forlornly at the empty Yellowjacket uniform.

Thor hasn’t really expressed much about the Yellowjacket situation in comparison. You think they could squeeze Wasp into the shot. Just her ex-husband is all. She’s just the team leader is all.

Put Wasp on the cover, you cowards.

So last times on Avengers: Hank Pym got himself kicked out of the Avengers and out of his marriage and pretty much deserved it. He was tricked into committing treason by his arch-nemesis Egghead and sent to jail. He sat in jail for, like, a really long time. The wheels really spun on the arc.

He was kicked out of the Avengers/walked before he could be kicked out in #213. He was arrested at the end of issue #217. His trial was in issue #228.

He was kidnapped from his trial by the Masters of Evil. Then in #229, he turned the tables on them all in quite a satisfying manner and slugged Egghead in the egg head.

Then Hawkeye manslaughtered him. He’s dead.

Hawkeye arrowed the science gun to stop Egghead from shooting Hank in the back and then the science gun backfired and microwaved that egg.

This makes Hank’s victory a little bittersweet for him.

Hank Pym: “I defeated the Masters of Evil single-handed... but more than anything, I wanted to bring Egghead to justice. He was a thorn in my side for so many years. I was never able to defeat him for long, not when I was Ant-Man... and not even after I became Giant-Man! He bedeviled me in every identity I assumed. He did me the greatest wrong when I was Yellowjacket. I’d already ruined my Avengers career, when he tricked me into committing a federal crime!”

Hawkeye too is set to thinking by what happened. Maybe humming a bit of Bohemian Rhapsody to himself too.

Hawkeye: “This is unreal! I’ve never killed a man before! I never planned on anything like this happening! Yeah, but I can’t feel sorry for Egghead! If anyone deserved this, he did! My brother Barney bought the farm, stopping Egghead from killing the Avengers. And if I hadn’t acted when I did, Hank Pym would be dead! If I had to do it again... I would!”

Hawkeye: ‘Eh, fuck ‘em!’

hah.

But Hank laments that with Egghead dead, so goes his chance of proving his innocence by turning him over to the law.

Hank Pym: “Egghead was always getting away from me, Hawkeye. It’s almost as if he’s pulled the ultimate escape!”

Fun fact: There doesn’t seem to be an Ultimate Egghead! Why would there need to be? Even more than in the 616, Ultimate Hank Pym is by far his own worst enemy.

Hawkeye basically tells Hank to buck up and that there’s basically incriminating evidence lying all over the place.

He doesn’t say it but even Egghead’s dead deceased corpse is kind of like evidence. Evidence that he wasn’t dead until recently.

Captain Marvel shows up because someone finally came looking for Hawkeye.

Hank is surprised, much like others have been that this is Captain Marvel. He knew the old guy, the super saiyan. And I guess he didn’t hear there was a new one.

Hawkeye: “We’ve had a few changes since you went in the slammer, Hank. C.M. is an Avenger in training.”

Huh. Captain Marvel doesn’t even react to the dead body. Then again, there’s a lot of bodies lying all around the place.

And while Hawkeye is introducing the new Captain Marvel to Hank, one of those bodies stirs.

Moonstone has regained consciousness and assesses the situation. She could blast Hank, Captain Marvel, and Hawkeye with her coherent light pew pew but that’d just weaken her.

Like in the previous issue, Moonstone is one of the few supervillains who knows when to fold ‘em.

So she decides to skeedaddle while the getting is good but whoops.

Getting wasn’t good.

The rest of the Avengers have shown up and cornered her while she was pondering.

So Moonstone decides ‘eh fuck it’ and promises to spill all the beans if it gets her a lighter sentence.

So days later, the mostly off-screen trial of Hank Pym finally ends.

A loooot of new evidence suddenly popping up led the prosecution to withdraw all charges.

The lead prosecution witness, Trish Starr, suddenly reversing her testimony after putting on Tony Stark’s magical mental-scan helmet kind of tanked the case, really.

Wait, they really did just admit the use of the helmet in the trial when its new, unsubstantiated technology whose inventor disappeared?

Damn, I knew the Marvel legal system was wild (considering comic books as legal documents as explored in Dan Slott’s run on the character) but still!

Although it makes sense. Egghead got Trish to incriminate Hank by using the bionic arm to alter her memories. The helmet Tony invented undoes that kind of alteration. This connects the dots quite reasonably. Glad Stern was paying attention when preparing to finish this arc.

Moonstone and Beetle confirming that Egghead was using Hank as a tool also helps.

In fact, not only did the prosecution drop all their charges, the judge also dismissed all the charges. Which feels redundant? I dunno much about law, really. Just the She-Hulk version of law. Which, again, uses comic books as legal documents.

Apparently happening at around the same time, Hawkeye also had his day in court.

Literally a day.

It wasn’t a trial, just a hearing to investigate whether he was guilty of wrong-doing in the death of Egghead.

Newsman with a newsplan: “Though he was threatened with contempt-of-court charges a number of times -- Hawkeye was found innocent of any wrong-doing in the death of Dr. Elihas Starr -- the self-styled Egghead.”

Yeah, I bet Hawkeye was threatened with contempt-of-court a bunch. And I bet you anything that at least one of the times he rejoined with “No, you’re out of order! This whole damn courtroom is out of order!”

And then the judge probably just sighed.

I mean, look at that unbelievable Hawkeye in the bottom left panel.

Anyway, I think Stern must have felt a little pent up having to start his Avengers run finishing off someone else’s story, especially having to devote a recap issue to it since the plot had been interspersed with fill-ins.

Because in the middle of concluding this arc, he throws in two plot beats that I have to assume are to set up stuff of his own.

A day after the trial, the Beetle is being escorted to a cell in a Western Pennsylvanian federal maximum security prison when he bumps into another prisoner.

What neither the Beetle or the guard notices is that the bump to “Sam Smithers” has peeled off some skin on his arm and revealed THAT HE IS ACTUALLY MADE OF WOOD!

Suspect possibly a living puppet.

And elsewhere but samewhen, IN SPACE, specifically on Saturn’s moon Titan, Thanos’ brother Eros is basically complaining about being bored.

When Captain Mar-vell died of having a lot of cancer, he asked Eros to look after Mar-vell’s... uh... -google- robot girlfriend?? Elysius.

Eventual mom to Genis and Phyla-Vells.

Soooooo, Eros has done as Mar-vell’s deathbed wish was and spent an agonizing several consecutive months hanging out in Titan’s beautiful inside forests and just having a real hard time caring about one thing for such a long period of time.

I’m not even being unfair to him.

Eros: “This is the first time in ages that I’ve spent so many consecutive months on Titan! I have ever been a wanderer! I’ve sought out adventure across the wide cosmos. Frankly, I have known romance on more worlds than most sentient beings could imagine. That’s part of the problem. Our friendship has been wonderful, but I’m having a hard time adjusting to it. My previous relationships have all been of a fleeting nature.”

‘Look its not you, its me’ except for attempting to dump someone as a friend, instead of romantically.

Not dump, even. He just kind of wants to ditch her and is asking in a roundabout way if she’s emotionally stable enough to ditch.

She goes, yeah sure, go off and have fun. And maybe she’s getting tired of his company too.

Elysius: “Look... you’ve been a great comfort to me these last few months, but now I need to be alone for a while with my thoughts.”

Geez, how clingy has he been this whole time while desperately wanting to be anywhere else?

Anyway, since she’s fine with him fucking off, he does fuck off. Right to the Hall of Science.

Where Eros’ dad is like ‘oh ffs’ when Eros tells him that he needs to use the LIVING COMPUTER Isaac to look up planets with the highest adventure potential.

Mentor of Titan is a man deeply disappointed in both of his sons for very different reasons.

Anyway, would you really be surprised if I told you that Earth was in the Top 3 planets in known space for adventure?

You wouldn’t, right?

Meanwhile, back at the plot, Hank Pym is on a boat with Trish Starr.

She wants to apologize for that time she incriminated him but Hank isn’t going to blame her for being as much a pawn in Egghead’s scheme as he was.

Trish: “Yes, uncle was like that all of his life. I think he really enjoyed using people.”

And she remembers the first time they met in Marvel Feature #5, where Egghead tried to drain her mind to power his machines. Because. Batteries hadn’t been invented? Because he’s just not happy unless he’s screwing over someone else?

Second one sounds likeliest.

She also remembers the time he car bombed her car but siphoned out most of the gas first.

Trish: “He didn’t want to kill me... only maim me. Nice guy, my uncle.”

Yeah. Its stories like that why its only Trish and Hank also Fred Sloan on a boat at Egghead’s funeral. Yeah, by the way, this is basically Egghead’s funeral.

Fred is only here for Trish.

Hank reacts to Fred so I wondered if he’s important in some way or if Hank recognized him but I checked the wiki and his main importance seems to be... this issue? So I don’t know why Hank reacts to the guy.

So Fred is just here for Trish. Trish is here out of duty, since she was Egghead’s only known family. And Hank is also only here out of duty but more archnemesis ‘can’t believe that asshole is dead and I don’t even get to feel good about it’ duty. I assume.

Hank even gets the honor (?) of laying Egghead to rest. By dumping his ashes into New York harbor.

Mostly because it doesn’t seem like Trish wants to?

So Hank quotes some Mark Twain and dumps the ashes.

Hank Pym: “‘Death... the only immortal who treats us all alike, whose pity and whose peace and whose refuge are for all -- the soiled and the pure, the rich and the poor, the loved and the unloved.’ Farewell, Egghead.”

Trish: “It’s awful to say this -- but I can’t find it in myself to be sorry. I think I’m glad he’s dead.”

And that’s Egghead’s legacy. Mourned by no one. And his death is only not cheered because the only people that cared feel shitty about feeling glad he’s dead.

ANYWAY, there’s some other loose ends to tie up.

So Hank takes a taxi to the Avengers Mansion and I guess finally explicitly explains why the mansion has seemed to change positions over time?

Hank Pym: “I never thought I’d be coming here again. The place has certainly changed since the day Jan and I met here with Iron Man, Thor, and the Hulk to draft the Avengers charter and by-laws. And I still recall the time Iron Man and Thor moved the mansion back from the street to give us more privacy. What a project that was!”

Sounds like a heck of a noodle incident, Hank.

... Why just Thor and Iron Man? Did they... did they literally just shove the mansion back from the street? ... There’s... basements and caves under there. How does that work? That seems like a massive architectural project.

Hank, pls, I need to know more details. You can’t just drop that information and casually stroll away. HANK!

Captain Marvel meets Hank at the door and escorts him inside, captain marveling at how calm Hank is despite everything he’s been through.

Hank shows up to the Avengers meeting and-

Oh god, She-Hulk looks like she wants to punch the suppressed emotions right out of Jan. She-Hulk, pls.

So, Wasp is super formal, calling Hank Dr. Pym and telling him that they want to use the mento-scan helmet to see if he was under outside influence when he did all the very bad things he did.

All of the Avengers are harboring their own concerns.

She-Hulk: “I’ve read legal briefs that were more informal! She’s cool on the surface, but inside -- ! Jannie, why are you doing this to yourself?!”

Are you guys already at the cute nickname stage of your friendship or is that just the way She-Hulk be?

Cap is worried that this is rough on Jan but that she’s doing what she needs to do as the Avengers chairwoman. But he’s more worried about the absence of Iron Man who is still missing and who ignored three calls to assemble.

Thor is just internally like ‘just do the helmet, my dude.’

Hawkeye is literally biting his lip at the tension.

Hawkeye: “Jan divorced Hank after his last breakdown. If we find out that he wasn’t to blame, what’s it gonna do to the both of ‘em? I hate this! That stupid court hearing was a breeze in comparison.”

Huh, Hawkeye has a point. Even if outside influence is proven, its not as straightforward as Jan and Hank instantly getting back together, no harm no foul. There was harm. And the problems with their relationship were deeper than one incident. But it would also create this possible expectation that they should get back together because the specific incident wasn’t Hank’s fault.

And Captain Marvel is still looking at this from an outsiders’ perspective.

Captain Marvel: “They’re really hurting over this... all of them! They all care so very, very much. If I ever become a fully active Avenger, I pray that I can live up to their example.”

So Hank very calmly agrees to use the helmet. But...

Hank Pym: “Sorry... no outside influences. It would have changed a lot of things if there had been, wouldn’t it? But no, I made my own mistakes... and I have to live with them.”

Thiiiiis was the best decision for the story arc. It may seem, in retrospect, the worst decision in the long run, but I can respect the story for standing by what it has done and standing by the growth Hank has had as a result of everything that happened.

I think a lot of more modern marvel comics have gone a little wild with letting the heroes do all kinds of dubious things and also die because it can be easily undone. It was a Skrull, they were being mind-controlled, it was an AU Nazi version of them created by a cosmic cube child. Or by giving the hero some big redemptive moment like Iron Man wiping his mind to make up for doing Civil War. Or Iron Man dying to make up for Civil War 2. You can explore whatever scenarios you want without worrying about dealing with the consequences long-term.

But in this era of Marvel, they were concerned with the long-term. Not to say that there weren’t cop-outs back in this day too. But since books were expected to keep going indefinitely instead of being cancelled and relaunched, there’s less of a sense of ‘this thing is only here to play with for a little while.’ If you wrote a thing, another writer was expected to follow up on it.

And I miss that a little.

So not giving a cop-out bullshit thing that undoes Hank’s actions was bad in the long run for his image as a character. But that’s a long way from now problem, exacerbated by writers like Chuck Austin and Mark Millar who wanted to wallow in it.

For an arc where Hank fell from grace and proved himself again, taking ownership of what a garbage fire his life can be was necessary.

One among many reasons I probably won’t like the Crossing when I get to it, haha.

With Hank’s actions proven as being Hank’s actions, Hank says there’s one more loose end that he wants to help tie off.

He wants to participate as witness when the Avengers hold a court of inquiry for Hawkeye killing Egghead.

This comes as an absolute surprise to Hawkeye, who I guess never read the bylaws. Which honestly, is very in-character for him.

But it being brought up, he insists that all he has to do is enter the findings of the state judge and be done with it.

Hank insists he participate though.

Hank Pym: “Hawkeye is faced with charges because he acted in my defense. It’s only right that I act in his.”

So, the Avengers go to the first floor library, which is apparently the court of inquiry room. I feel like we’re suddenly getting a lot of details about the layout of the Avengers Mansion in recent issues.

So Wasp convenes the court all formal style, so formal style that Hawkeye thinks that stickler Cap(tain America) couldn’t have done a better job. The purpose of the court of inquiry is to determine the validity of the charge of “unreasonable use of deadly force” and determine what if any proper disciplinary action should be taken.

I think Hawkeye is annoyed at having to go through with this (read the bylaws, my dude) because when Wasp asks if he has anything to add to his claim of innocence of the charge, he says he already gave the court copies of the court transcript that cleared him of the same charge, but also decides to speechify a little, because he wasn’t accused of contempt of court enough today.

Hawkeye: “I have already given the chair copies of the transcript of a hearing of the state courts... a hearing which found me not guilty of the same charge. And I have something else to say as well!”

“I don’t deny that my actions caused the death of Egghead. But in no way did I use undue force! I found Hank Pym in mortal danger, and I used the necessary means to save him... period. After all, we are supposed to be the Avengers, right?”

Luckily for Hawkeye, the Avengers are more willing to put up with him than a state court so Jan just goes ‘ok, noted.’

Captain Marvel also has a minor change of heart on Hawkeye. I don’t think we’ve gotten her in-depth feelings on him before (although he did get pissy about her joining the team, we didn’t see her response to that) but she’s impressed because she thought he had more wind than conviction but is seeing that isn’t so. And she’s also impressed by Serious Mode Jan who she thought was kind of flighty.

Captain Monica Marvel seeing all kinds of new sides of the Avengers lately.

Also, this isn’t important and you won’t be able to see what I mean unless I included more caps than I wanted to, but in the panel establishing the court of inquiry, Monica is just standing off to the side. But in the next panel she appears in, she’s moved over to sit on a couch instead.

I think its a framing thing but its still kind of funny to imagine her going ‘wait why am I standing up’ and heading for the comfy couch.

With Hawkeye’s statement given, Wasp invites Hank Pym to speak his piece.

And Hank gets up and gives an entirely unnecessary but probably appreciated defense of Hawkeye.

Hank Pym: “Ladies and gentlemen... I have not always been on the friendliest of terms with Hawkeye. Point of fact, we nearly came to blows a number of times... back in the days when I was an Avenger. But in all the time I’ve known him, Hawkeye has never used undue force.”

“I realize that this inquiry is little more than a formality. I have no doubt that you will find in his behalf. He did, as he said, act only in my defense. Unlike my own recent case before you, there is not the slightest hint of misconduct or negligence. The only thing Hawkeye is guilty of is being a good Avenger.”

“When I last spoke before this body, at my court-martial, I was not in a rational state of mind. I was unfit to be an Avenger. You wisely expelled me. I never expected to speak before you again. And now, I can think of no finer final statement than this... It has been my sincere honor to have known Hawkeye’s fellowship... as it has to have known yours.”

Okay. So. Half a defense of Hawkeye. And half... just a general good-bye and a demonstration that he actually does know how to deliver a defense at a court-martial. Cool.

I imagine if he had a mic, he would have dropped it.

Probably not, actually. Hank isn’t that exact blend of cool and inconsiderate for a mic drop.

Jarvis intercepts Hank on his way out and asks that he come with him to the second floor study. Jarvis has taken the liberty of gathering up the personal items Hank just kind of left in the mansion and packing them for him.

One suitcase has a bunch of Hank’s clothes that he had stashed in the mansion over the years. Including some wacky ties for wacky tie Fridays and a shirt that Hank had just plumb lost.

The other suitcase is a spare Yellowjacket outfit. In case Hank ever needs it.

Then Hank and Jarvis shake hands, Hank thanking Jarvis for everything that he’s done for him and the Avengers. He asks Jarvis to take care of himself because he knows he doesn’t have to ask him to take care of the Avengers.

This is a very touching scene. Its so touching that Jarvis excuses himself to go get misty eyed.

This is a Jarvis appreciation blog because I appreciate Jarvis as well.

Then, as Hank heads back down the staircase, he is intercepted by Thor, Captain America, and Hawkeye.

Yeah, the court of inquiry resolved off-screen because of how forgone a conclusion it was.

The three Avengers basically fall all over themselves to pat Hank on the back. Hank actually looks somewhat panicked by the positive affirmation.

That’s some mixture of funny and sad that I can’t identify.

Hawkeye tells Hank how much he appreciated his unnecessary defense. Thor clasps Hank’s shoulder and tells him he’s a class act, but in Thor-y words. And Cap extends an offer for whatever the Avengers can do to help Hank get back on his feet.

Hank thanks him for the offer but he’s already received an offer from a small research foundation in the Midwest.

Seems like getting exonerated of a treason charge is the best resume of all. That and Hank’s actual impressive resume.

But Cap has some stuff to work out re: Hank because he starts off on the stuff he put on the back burner back in that Ghost Rider issue.

Cap(tain America): “Hank... I know Iron Man would agree, if he were here, that we’re all sorry about the way things worked out. We should have realized the pressures you’d been under, prior to your breakdown. I was group leader at the time! I should have -- !”

Hank Pym: “Hold it right there, Cap! What I did, I did to myself! If I could have admitted that my problems existed... If I’d been willing to open up to you folks... Well, ‘if’ can be a big word sometimes. The fact of the matter is, I screwed up. And you did the only thing you could do! I don’t blame any of you.”

Hank has boarded the personal responsibility train and goddammit he’s riding it to the end of the line!

Good for him. Good clarity for the arc to have in its last issue.

But having started to slightly shout at the Avengers that he’s taking responsibility dammit! (he looks a bit pissed when he’s responding to Cap) Hank awkwardly excuses himself.

Cap tries to stop Hank from leaving because he has reached the bargaining stage of grief, I guess.

Cap: “Hank, wait! It doesn’t have to end like this! We could make a special amendment to the by-laws! We could reinstate you as an Avenger! You could be a special reservist -- !”

Hank: “Thanks, Cap. But no thanks. Trying to play super hero was the biggest mistake I ever made with my life! I was only fooling myself in ever thinking otherwise. But if you ever really think you might need a Yellowjacket again some day...”

He hands Cap the Yellowjacket suitcase.

Hank: “... Here! All you need is a good man and what’s in this case!”

I would hope, anyway. It’s going to be awkward if he opens it up later and its full of wacky ties.

The funny thing, although not really funny ha ha, is that Yellowjacket is the one codename of Hank’s that never really catches on outside of him.

You have multiple Ant-Men, a couple Goliaths, at least one other Giant-Man. There was a second Yellowjacket, eventually. But she didn’t make a big splash.

Despite Hank’s attempt here to pass the torch, Yellowjacket is a codename that remains inextricably tied to him. Which might be the problem. If there were another, more successful or at least more endearing Yellowjacket, Hank’s infamy in the role would not stand out so much.

Alas.

She-Hulk and Captain Marvel try next to intercept Hank. They don’t know him very well but they wanted to say their goodbyes too, despite not really knowing him that well.

Its the thought that definitely counts, probably.

But Hawkeye has some social awareness for a change and draws their attention to Wasp who is hanging back, but who clearly wants to talk to Hank.

So the rest of the Avengers quickly vacate to let Hank and Jan finally have closure. Or re-closure. “I want a divorce and to never see you again” is a kind of closure.

The situation has changed, however.

They both try to apologize to each other and then laugh at the awkwardness.

Hank: “Janet van Dyne, you are one in a million! After all that I put you through, you want to tell me that you’re sorry?”

Wasp: “I think we both made some mistakes along the way, but there were some good times... weren’t there?”

Hank: “Yes. But you can’t base a marriage on just a few good times. I fell for the young lady who reminded me of my first wife... and you thought you’d found the strong, silent hero. But I was never that strong, Jan. You know that now.”

Wasp: “Uh-huh.”

Damn, his prison time really did bring Hank a lot of clarity. That or the pile of therapists Tony kept throwing at him.

Hank also kind of talks over Jan here. Or at least steers the conversation. I don’t know what Jan would have said because Hank tells her that they both have other lives to lead and tells her to take care of herself.

Maybe its for the best, if, like Cap, she was going to try to shoulder all the blame for Hank’s bad decisions.

Hank walks out the door and finds Trish and Fred from the boat waiting to give him a ride to the airport. And then he is gone.

Like in the final image of the COURT-MARTIAL issue, Jan watches at the window.

“The last time Henry Pym left these walls, Janet felt like crying... but couldn’t find any tears. Today, at last, she has found the tears... for her former husband... for her team... for herself. Today, there is pain and remorse and release. There will be time enough for joy and hope tomorrow.”

Emotional catharsis can be like that.

In that the book kept going ‘Jan is really holding her emotions in and that’s probably not overall great for her’ its good that she can let it out now.

Kind of laughing at Captain Marvel and She-Hulk who only recently just met Jan being the ones going there there while the men she has known for years are just awkwardly standing in the background.

And that’s the fall and rise of Hank Pym. Apparently collected in trade as The Trial of Yellowjacket, which is a decent enough name too.

Overall, a good arc. That is kind of hampered by the need for filler and a writer change near the end. But honestly, Stern catches the ball and runs with it. He concludes the arc just as good as Shooter would’ve.

This arc is all kinds of iconic for Hank, although, unfortunately, most people are only aware of the beginning and maybe have a hazy understanding of what the ending does.

Although. This is a really good send-off for Hank. A really, really good send-off that would have worked best if he did like he said and quit superheroing forever.

That’s not to be, obviously, not in a perpetual narrative machine like Marvel. But it feels like it could have been and maybe should have been the last word on his character.

I enjoy Hank in Busiek’s Avengers and in Avengers Academy. And also, conceptually, Hank telling Reed “it’s on, bitch.” I very don’t enjoy Ultimate Hank Pym. So its a balancing act. The perfect exit for the character vs but I like some stuff when they brought him back.

Anyway.

After this, Stern gets to move on to his own material. Which he already planted the seeds for in this issue.

That’s a pun.

Follow @essential-avengers because of my bad puns. Also like and reblog, if you like to reblog.

#Avengers #Egghead #Masters of Evil #Hank Pym #Hawkeye #the Wasp #Captain America #Thor #She Hulk #Captain Marvel #Monica Rambeau #i did a lot of quoting because the comic has some good quotables here #essential avengers #essential marvel liveblogging

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surveys-at-your-service · 3 years ago

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Survey #374

“doctor, doctor, won’t you please prescribe me something? / a day in the life of someone else...”

Does someone have a crush on you but you don’t feel the same way? No. Who do you feel most beautiful around? No one. What’s one makeup item you cannot live without? I could live without any makeup. What’s the most expensive thing you own? My snake, I think. Or my laptop, idr. Are you more of a book person or a TV person? Book. Relationship status? Single. What color are most of your clothes? Black. Did you french kiss before you were 16? No, I was 16. Last song you listened to? "The Heretic Anthem" by Slipknot. Would you ever go back to any of your past relationships? Yes. What’s your favorite thing about life? That's a big question. I guess seeing acts of mass love and kindness, reminders that we're all in this together through all hardships. Who pays for the first date? Whoever asked the other person out, imo. Who has always been there for you? My mom. Have you ever written on a wall? No, at least not to my memory. Do you play any computer games, if so, what ones? I think anyone who reads these by now knows, haha. I don't much play anything else. I prefer console games. What would you name a baby boy if you had one? Probably Damien or Victor. What would you name a baby girl if you had one? Alessandra, no questions asked. What lyric means the most to you? I mean there's tons, but the first one that came to mind is "for such a little thing, you sure are in your own way" from "Get Up" by Mother Mother. Like in the big picture, we humans are so so so minuscule, but with brains that are too complicated for our own good. It's my own head that creates so many obstacles for me. Who is the smartest person you know? Probably my friend Girt. Have your parents ever been to jail? No. Do you share a bed with anyone? My cat, haha. Does it flatter you when guys open doors for you? It's flattering if anyone does, not just guys. Do you enjoy taking naps? Yeah. That's like part of my daily routine. If your friend asked you to hold their drugs, would you? Nope. Is there anyone you try to be a good influence for? My nieces and nephew, but I don't feel like I am. I'm a poor example of an adult. Do you own a pair of fishnets? No, but I have a pair of fingerless fishnet gloves. Which do you prefer: french toast, bagels, pancakes, waffles, bacon or cereal? All are great, but french toast. Yes or no: eyebrow piercings? I'd actually have one if I didn't have glasses. I think I'd look weird with one as I look now. When I say "The Beatles," what is the first song that comes to mind? "Hey, Jude." In your opinion, what is the very worst type of weather? Extremely hot and humid. You can only listen to one band for the rest of your life, who do you pick? Ozzy Osbourne, of course. Can you snap with both of your hands? Yeah, but it's harder with my left. What is something that you had to learn the hard way? For some people, promises don't mean shit. If you could re-paint your bedroom, what color would you paint it? Maybe like a light peach. When was the last time you got butterflies? I think not since Sara told me I look really pretty in eyeliner. ;_; <3 When was the last time you felt like your heart was actually breaking? There was this one time I was listening to "The Ghost of You" by MCR a while after finding out about Jason's mom's death and I just like... broke. When’s the last time you were in a line? When I was getting my second COVID shot. Do you trust the media? HA! Fuck no. If you could kill off one species of animal, which would it be? At first I was appalled by this question, but like... do wasps serve a purpose? Of all fauna, they annoy me the most. I mean bees are already endangered enough, and they prey on them. They don't pollinate, so like... why are you here. I may be mistaken and they have a valuable role, in which case I take all this back. Who’d you last say I love you to? My mom. What’s the most overpaid job in your opinion? I have on idea. Most jobs are underpaid. What’s the last thing you wrote down? I was doing some paperwork at the TMS office on my first day there. When’s the last time you heard a gunshot? I don’t know. What are you looking forward to? Now that my tattoo (which looks fucking stunning, by the way) is out of the way, I can focus on other things. I'm particularly looking forward to hopefully seeing the results of TMS manifest (which should take 3-4 weeks). It sounds horrible, but I'm also keenly awaiting this dog we're stuck with to go somewhere... The person who gave her to my sister to give my mom won't take the dog back, and we can't find another option that doesn't risk her being euthanized, which we absolutely do not want. We just don't know what to do, but she's driving Mom and me INSANE. Do you listen to online radio stations? No. Have you ever done something sexual that you regret? No. Have you ever said anything to the last person you kissed that you regret? Multiple things. Have you ever ate so much you puked? Ugh, no. That sounds awful. Do you care about what others think of your physical appearance? Very much, sadly. Would you rather eat cookies or brownies? I gotta say brownies. Which YouTuber have you learned the most from? I mean, this depends on the subject. From Mark, I've learned most about life and how (I think) to be a good person, but there's a lot of pet channels I watch that have taught me loads about proper husbandry. This answer just depends on what knowledge you're talkin' about. Who would you want to be the flower girl at your wedding? Probably a niece. Do you want to be married within the next ten years? It'd be nice. Do you feel like your life is too fast-paced, or do you wish it were busier? Ugh, I wish it was busier. My days are a COMPLETE, routine drag. What are some hobbies which you want to pick up? I want to just be more artsy. I wanna draw and write more, and I'd love love love to be in healthy enough shape to handle going on walks with my camera. There are sometimes I miss editing videos, too. I'm unsure about completely new hobbies. Does anyone encourage you to go after your dreams? My family and a few friends. Oh, and definitely my psychiatrist. What group are you most active in on Facebook? None, really. I mostly just observe. Are you ashamed of anything? A number of things. Primarily not having a job at my age or even being in school. What were your favorite Disney rides as a kid? I loved Splash Mountain, I think it was called. What were your favorite rides at Cedar Point? Never been. What are some places you want to visit that you’ve never been? South Africa, Alaska, Canada, Yellowstone National Park, Bahamas, Venice, Rome... What are some places that you’ve been that you’d like to go to again? Disney World, Chicago, and this one super clear lake I swam in once a few hours away that I don't recall the name of. Have you ever owned a succulent? No. While they're pretty, I've never been much of a plant person. Do you support small businesses? I REALLY want to start doing that more when I have the option to buy my own stuff/have my own income. As someone who wants to be a freelance photographer, I get it. Starting an independent business is hard as hell. If a brand were to sponsor you, which brand(s) would you prefer? Uhhh I dunno. Have you read the entire Bible? No. Do you make bucket lists for each season? No. That does sound kinda fun, though. How old were you when you first dyed your hair? I have no idea. Do you dye your hair regularly? No. :/ I desperately want to, though. It's just not something we can afford to spare cash on. What is the most comfortable type of pants, in your opinion? Pajama pants? haha Do you think you could ever be famous? No. I'm way too boring and don't want to be anyway. What are some jobs you’ve had in the past? Sales associate, cashier, and deli worker. None lasted long whatsoever. What are some jobs you want to or would like to have? List five. FIVE? I don't know. I just know I want to be a photographer. Well, being an artist or poet would be very cool. And a reptile breeder, maybe tarantulas, too, but that makes me kinda nervous with JUST how many babies they have. What are some jobs you have considered? In rough order from youth to now: paleontologist, vet, movie director, game designer, author/poet, artist, music video editor, wildlife biologist, photographer... Maybe there's more that just aren't coming to me. Are you thankful for social media, or do you wish it didn’t exist? Depends on the day for me, but I'm generally thankful for it so I can keep up with the lives of people who are important to me. It's just that it's a breeding ground for self-doubt and rampant comparisons that can easily depress me when I see some people are "further ahead" and more "established" than me. What are some of the best medications you’ve ever had? The combined efforts of Latuda and Lamictal saved my life. What was a video you watched over and over as a kid? There were lots of movies, like The Lion King, a certain Barney one when I was very young, and I watched Finding Nemo like crazy. Do you know a lot of people who were loving, and then turned cold? Jason????????????????? Is that you??????????????????????????????????????????? Do you own anything plaid? Ha, what a coincidence, I'm wearing my red plaid pj pants. Are you good at remembering names? Definitely not. Have the cops ever gotten on to you for anything before? No. What email thingy do you use? (yahoo, gmail, rock) ... Rock? lol anyway my main is Hotmail, but I inevitably have a gmail to have a YouTube account. What game system(s) do you own? PS2, Wii, Nintendo DS Lite, and a GameBoy Advance. Are you any good at Guitar Hero? I used to be; I played most songs on Expert, then some really tough ones on Hard. I was soooooo addicted to those games. I remember when I got the first one for Christmas, I literally played it all day. Have you ever played Call of Duty? Nah, not my jam. What is your favorite/most visited website? YouTube. Is your bed comfortable? Sure. I've definitely had way worse. Do you have a garage? No. Fun fact, I've never lived in a house with one. Should you be doing anything right now? What? There's a number of things I could be doing that are definitely more productive, like finishing decorating my damn room. Do doctors or dentists make you more nervous? Not really. I only ever get nervous to hear my weight at the doctor's. Did you ever think you were about to die before? I don't quite know. When I ODed, it was more like I didn't care if I did. Have you ever really had a near death experience? Was it cool? "Was it cool." Literally fuck off. I guess you could technically consider my OD a "near death experience," especially given how many pills I took, yet I somehow experienced almost no ill symptoms. Maybe because we got to the ER for fluids quickly enough, idk. I'm just glad I didn't die. What is your favorite kind of weather? Snowy! Like a steady snowfall of large flakes with no breeze and total silence. *chef's kiss* Ever tasted beer? Ugh, no. Just the smell makes me sick. It was my dad's drink of choice when he was an alcoholic so I just have a very negative association with it. Have you ever seen a dead body? Yes, at an open-casket wake. Ever poured salt on a slug? As kids, my sisters and I would get our parents to do it because they grossed us out. So, so cruel. I still have this weird but pretty extreme phobia of them, but I wouldn't torture the things like that.

#survey #surveys #questions #lyrics: ''don't let me get me'' by p!nk

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anboringday · 4 years ago

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Tracey x Franklin: Just Friends

Summary: Tracey De Santa, a college freshman, has a crush on the most popular boy on campus, Chad Dillington. Determined to win his heart, she turns to her best friend Franklin Clinton for help. However, she never expected to start developing feelings for her best friend instead...

Word Count: 5.8k

Tags: Fluff!! And more fluff!! Slow burn. Friends to Lovers. (Post Ending-C)

Read on Ao3

Franklin barreled through the door of my room.

Carefully applying my eyeliner in the mirror, I glanced at him. Chiseled jaw clenched and hands balled into fists, a frown marred the space between his arrogantly shaped brows. His strong, muscled arms wired tight beneath his white T-shirt, he stood at the ready for battle.

His cognac-brown eyes searched my room from top to bottom for unknown threats. “Tracey? You good?”

“Um, duh. I’m always fine.” I returned my attention to my makeup. “I’m gonna need you to tone down some of that masculinity. It’s totally uncalled for, super distracting, and it’s ruining my good vibes—”

His warm hand came down on my shoulder. I stiffened, his eyes shrewd and accessing as they bored into me. “You sent me a text saying that you were dying, that you needed my help. You sure you good?”

His voice was soft, filled with concern. My gut kicked. Maybe I shouldn’t have sent that overly dramatic text, but desperate times called for desperate measures. I needed help. Badly. Dad was always busy doing movie director stuff, Mom was too preoccupied with shopping and yoga, and Jimmy was a complete idiot, so Franklin was the only person I could rely on.

It’s been that way for months. He picked me up from school, assisted with my homework, helped me take selfies for Bleeter, talked me through every one of my frequent mental breakdowns—he was a life saver, literally. Because he was so selflessly awesome, I decided to keep him around. Mostly because he did stuff for me, but he also had a nice personality to boot.

And we looked hella good together. Whenever we were out and about in the city, people would stop and turn their heads to gawk at our beauty. I was a celebrity after all, the sexiest girl in Los Santos according to my Bleeter stalkers. And Franklin was powerfully built, dark-haired with stunningly amber eyes. He was a man who looked absolutely gorgeous just about every day of his life. It seemed effortless for him, and I would’ve resented that if weren’t besties.

I confessed, “I lied to get you here, okay?”

“Tracey…” Sighing, he pinched the bridge of his nose. “You scared the shit outta me, girl. What were you thinking—”

“Don’t be mad. I’m sorry.” I hugged him.

The tension in his muscles relaxed beneath my touch. I took his hand and flopped down on my bed. He sat beside me, our fingers intertwined. “A’ight, Trace. I’m here now, so what’s going on with you?”

“I have news,” I smiled. “The best news. You’re not gonna believe this, but Chad Dillington asked me on a date!”

He stared at me, his expression blank.

“Well?” I tapped his shoulder. “Say something! Aren’t you excited for me?”

“Who the fuck is Chad Dillington?” he asked.

“Are you kidding me?” Energy thrumming through me, I jumped to my feet. “He’s like the hottest, most popular guy at my university! He’s a quarterback for the football team, a committed member of the Alpha Omega Theta Pi—”

“The Alpha Omega what?”

“It’s a fraternity, Frank! Chad Dillington is a big effing deal, literally every chick on campus wants to bone him. He has the prettiest blue eyes and the cutest smile ever.” I twirled on my heels. “I can’t believe he chose me of all people to go on a date with. This is so, like, amazing!”

“That’s cool, I guess.” He shrugged. “You called me over here just to tell me that?”

“No! If there’s any hope in winning Chad Dillington’s heart, I’ll need support. Your support and guidance, in particular.”

His brows furrowed. “Uh…why?”

“Because you can help me understand him! Guys know what other guys are thinking, right? You and Chad have so much in common too. You’re both around the same age, you both like getting sweaty at the gym, you both like getting high—”

“No offense, Trace, but me and that preppy ass frat boy ain’t got shit in common. I’m sorry, but I’m finna pass on this one. Maybe one of yo’ friends at school can help you.” He stood and took off for the door.

“Wait!” I swerved in front of him, blocking the exit with outstretched arms. “You’re right, there are some stuff you and Chad don’t have in common. Like, for example, he’s way smarter than you and his parents are filthy rich.”

Franklin glared a hole into me, a muscle in his jaw twitched. Yikes. Probably shouldn’t have said that.

“But you’re sane,” I complimented. “Sensible, wise beyond your years, and levelheaded. You’re playing with a full deck, Frank. That’s a rarity in Los Santos, you know? Everyone here is crazy.”

“Including you,” he snapped.

“But you love me.” I hugged his muscled arm. “You’re like the ping to my pong, the yin to my yang, the butter to my bread, the chocolate to my milkshake…”

“That was cute until you mentioned the part about chocolate. Now it’s weird.”

“Frank, you have to help me!” I pleaded desperately; my mouth set in a pout. “I’m your best friend, you can’t abandon me when I need you most. It’s not fair! I’ll hate you forever if you do—”

He smothered my mouth with his palm, silencing me. “Fine, I’ll help you on one condition. No more whining and crying like a damn baby, it’s embarrassing. Makes my ears bleed, it’s horrible.”

I smacked his hand away. “Deal. Now shut up and listen.” Standing on the tip of my toes, I spoke quietly into his ear. “Chad invited me to a masquerade ball. It’s a top secret, invitation only party the fraternity is hosting at some old, underground speakeasy—”

“Girl, why you whispering?”

“Because it’s a secret. Mom and Dad can’t know about this, they’ll freak out. Promise me you won’t tell them. You know how overprotective they are, they never let me have any fun.”

“It’s all good, relax. Your secret is safe with me.”

“Swear on it.” I rose my pinky.

“I promise.” His finger curled around mine. “So the most popular douche bag motherfucker in school invites you to an invitation only masquerade ball…”

“Could you refrain from calling him a ‘douche bag motherfucker’, please?” I rolled my eyes. “Anyway, all the cool kids are gonna be there. The party is happening this weekend. Friday night. I only have two days to prepare. This is so short notice, I haven’t even picked out a dress.”

“Hey, you could always cancel.”

“No! A date with Chad Dillington is a once in a lifetime opportunity. I can’t back out now. I have to do this.” My stomach grew queasy and my hands wouldn’t stop shaking. I paced the room, my fingers laced taut until my knuckles turned white. “What if I screw everything up? What if he doesn’t like me?”

Franklin appeared in front of me. I jerked to a halt, riveted to the spot as his searching gaze burned into me, glimmering with golden flecks. Lost in the intensity of his eyes, something shifted in the air between us.

As he stared back, he changed…as if the impalpable wall he kept between us began to chip and splinter. His tough, guarded demeanor crumbled before me, revealing a soft vulnerability in his eyes. A tenderness I had no clue he was capable of.

He patted my shoulder and squeezed lightly, affectionately. My skin tingled from the warm, steady pressure of his touch. “Of course the frat boy is feelin’ you,” he said softly. “He’d be crazy not to.”

My cheeks heated. Since when did he become so flattering? “You’re just saying that to make me feel better,” I mumbled.

“Nah. I mean it.” He reached into his pocket for his phone and started tapping away at the keyboard.

I peeked at the screen. “What are you doing?”

“If you’re going to a ball, you gotta know how to dance.” He pulled up a Bleeter video of dancers clad in silk doing the Waltz. “Think you can do that?”

“Uh, I dunno. Last time I tried to slow dance with a guy was at high school prom. I slipped and twisted my ankle in front of everyone. Super embarrassing.”

“Let’s make sure you don’t trip this Friday, a’ight? We can practice together.” He propped his phone on my desk and took my hand in his, the other rested on the small of my back. “You ready?”

Our eyes locked, I nodded weakly, my breath coming in short and fast. The contact was electric, I could feel the edgy energy radiating from him—like a magnetic pull that grew harder to reject by the second. He started moving, his strapping body gliding across the carpeted floor with confidence and easy rhythm. Jeez, when did he get so good at this? He was a natural! My knees wobbly, I followed his lead to the best of my ability.

I felt so small and insignificant in comparison to him, my movement stiff and awkward. And it didn’t help that I was petite, barely over five feet, and he was huge—a tall, deep brown slab of solid muscle and well-exercised strength. The force of his presence was difficult to ignore in a crowded room, and doubly so in an enclosed place like this, so close to me…

After a few beats, the heat of his direct, prolonged gaze became overwhelming. I lowered my head shyly.

“Chin up,” he instructed, tipping my head upward with a gentle push of his thumb under my chin.

Sucking in a harsh breath from the mind-boggling intimacy, I lost my footing and tripped over my own feet. He caught me in his arms just before I collided with the floor, his strong-featured face hovered over mine. Hit with all that striking masculinity at eye-level, I could only stare. Stunned. His beard was well-groomed, complimenting the hard lines of his square cut jaw, and his lips were like the icing on the cake…the fullness gave his rugged good looks the perfect touch of sensuality.

He helped me to my feet. “That wasn’t part of the dance, Trace.”

“No shit, Sherlock.” Pinching my lips together, I kicked a tube of old nail polish across the floor. “I’m never going to get this right. I’m so screwed.”

“It ain’t the end of the world. You still got time. Don’t give up, girl.”

“I wish I could be as optimistic as you are.” I sighed. “I’m sorry for being a bitch. There’s a lot of pressure on me and I’m taking it out on you.”

“It’s all good. I’m used to you being bitchy. I’m used to the screaming temper tantrums—when you beat yo’ fists against the floor and your legs start flailing like a fish outta water …” He grinned.

My stomach dropped. “It’s not funny.”

His laughter quickly faded. “My bad.”

An awkward silence filled the room. Twisting a finger around the hem of my blouse, I broke the quiet. “I’ve been working on my temperament with Doctor Friedlander. Do you think I’m getting any better?”

He leaned against the wall, his hands tucked casually into his jean pockets. “You haven’t had any episodes recently.”

“Because you calm me down right before I snap. Every time.”

“So why are wasting stacks on therapy, then? You’ve been seeing a therapist for what? Years? And you were still having panic attacks until…”

“Until you came along,” I completed his sentence. “I don’t want to become so dependent on you, Frank. It’s like, totally unfair to you.”

“Shit, I don’t mind. I ain’t going nowhere, unless you want me to—”

“No!” My heart lurched at the thought of losing him. Shocked by the fury of my reaction, I took a careful step away from him. “You wouldn’t leave me. You’d miss me too much.”

He stared at me for a moment, silent and thoughtful, his brow quirked.

I tensed. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Uh, no reason.” He lifted the brim of his black Los Santos snapback to scratch his head. “I should probably bounce. It’s getting late, and you got class in the morning.”

“Wait.” I passed him his phone and gave him a brief good-bye hug. “Do you think you could give me some guitar lessons after school tomorrow? Music class is kinda kicking my ass. I could use the extra help.”

“Yeah. Of course. No problem.” He chuckled, seemingly nervous for some reason. “I ain’t the best with the guitar, but uh, I know a few things so…”

“Are you kidding? You’re way better at it than me.”

“Slightly better.” His teeth gleamed in a smile. “A’ight. I’ll hit you up tomorrow.”

I was a little bummed about him leaving, but he was right. I needed the rest so I could wake up bright and early tomorrow. I returned a smile. “Bye, Frank.”

“Bye, Trace.” He turned to leave but stopped at the door, his gaze shifted to me. “By the way, you don’t have to lie to get me here. You ain’t gotta send no dramatic texts or nothin’ crazy like that. If you need to see me, whatever the reason, just…call. I’ll be here in a heartbeat.”

A pang struck my heart. I swallowed deep, fumbling for words. Before I managed to find my words, he was gone.

With a heavy sigh, I collapsed on my bed. What was the matter with me? Why were my brain cells starting to fry around Franklin? I had a huge date planned with Chad Dillington, but for some reason, I couldn’t stop thinking about my best friend.

My phone vibrated on my nightstand. I grabbed it and found two new texts from Franklin.

Still thinking bout how tripped over your own damn feet earlier.

Girl, you clumsy.

Oh my god. With an embarrassed grin, I texted him back; Wow. You sure know just what to say to boost a girl’s confidence :P

He responded a minute later. What if I told you that I like when you’re clumsy? I get to pick you up whenever you fall.

I read the message with wide eyes and then powered down my phone, my nerves danced wildly in my stomach. There was an ache in my chest, and I rubbed at it. Jeez. Pull yourself together, Tracey…