#i figure it would be funnier if i posted this here instead of my main
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Don't worry guys. Missing link won't be missing for much longer. Nomura won't know what hit him
#mod seasalt#i may have just got back from a trip to Japan#this was the first thing i did the first full day we were there#kingdom hearts#square enix#kh#i figure it would be funnier if i posted this here instead of my main
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So I still haven’t posted my engagement story so for anyone who cares, here’s how it went
My boyfriend tells me we have a reservation for a surprise dinner he had planned is at 6 but he wanted to leave by 5 so I could see the beach at sunset. (This should’ve been the tip off but I’m very oblivious)
We talked earlier about when we needed to leave and I was for sure was told we need to leave by 5:30. No matter what, he didn’t rush me because I already had trouble to start off our evening because my hotel card key wasn’t working and he went to the store to buy me a new pair of tights for the night since I accidentally ripped mine. But I got into my room and was quick to get ready while he was out. He got back and got ready quickly and me manage to leave around 5:10 pm. The estimator advised we would be to the surprise around 6 ish (California traffic is no joke btw)
He said on the way that the beach that was close to the restaurant was closed per the maps so that idea was a bust. So instead we got to the restaurant early. And this place was beautiful. I’ve never been to a fancy steakhouse before, like one that serves like Japanese wagyu, and this was his surprise; he wanted to treat me fancy steakhouse since I’ve never been to one. He took me to “Mastro’s Ocean Club”


It was so beautiful inside. It even had a live performer singing requests and all. We were almost sat in a corner, which made it feel like our own little alcove. We were chatting talking about the restaurant and joking to each other. We were also trying to figure out what to have the live performer play.
We were just having fun and doing like…what I could only describe it as our thing; when our minds kinda connect and we joke and be giggly with each other, it feels like we’re thinking the same thing so the jokes get funnier. I had jokingly said he should’ve brought a ring with him and fake proposed for a free dessert. We ordered our drinks and he told me I could pick out the sides because he already had the order for our main course picked out (things I’ve never had before like that Japanese waygu).
But we were just enjoying the atmosphere of it all. Our giggly conversation and our ooey gooeiness of saying how much we loved each other led him putting a white box on the table without another word. Before I could process what was happening he told me how much he loved me and asked if I would marry him. I stared at the box with the sparkling ring in shock as tears filled my eyes. My mind caught up to what just happened and i was telling him yes. I was crying in happiness but I was trying so hard to cry and ruin my make up because our dinner hadn’t even start yet. We had just ordered. But I kissed him in happiness and every time I looked at him I couldn’t stop crying because a woman who was made to believe she was never going to get to this point finally had it.
I had to go to the bathroom to ensure I didn’t ruin my makeup so him and I could enjoy our night and I figured out how to request a song from the live preformer. I got him to play “The Way You Make Me feel” by Michael Jackson to celebrate.
We got our food and our server who was kinda in on it congratulated me (because the reservation that was made told them he was going to propose). I got to eat super yummy (and freaking expensive) food and enjoy the night with my fiancé.
All in all, it was the best night of my night and I wish I could relive it so many times. My fiancé kicks himself because he still wanted to propose to me at the beach during sunset which was something I told him I would’ve loved. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.
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Okay, I'm sorry again Medieval and Biblical Latinists, but this post popped up in my notifs again and the more I look at it, the more revolted I become. Wheelock's love for Republican and legible Latin is possessing me from beyond the grave, so let's go.
"Pro Jupiter, puer, ecce bibendum!" Where the fuck do I even start. The sentence is straight up an incoherent collection of words. The literal translation is "Before Jupiter, boy, lo! about to be drank." What the fuck were you even trying to type??? Were YOU drunk doing this? I thought the Vatican was supposed to be full of monks with nothing better to do. You're shaming your 9th century copyist predecessors.
"Pro" is used wrong. It usually takes an ablative, because "before" is temporal, not spacial - it doesn't usually mean "in front of [object]" so much it means "[in the period of time] before [event]". If you're looking to say something like "by god", then a more natural invocation would in vocative or ablative of agent - "O Jupiter" or ""Ab Jove".
"Ecce" is bizarrely out of place. It should be at the beginning of a sentence because it's not actually a word, it's an exclamation. You wouldn't place "behold!" or "huzzah!" in the middle of a sentence, you heathen.
"Bibendum"? Bibendum??? You can't have a participle in a complete sentence without a normal verb. Participles can't ever stand on their own. If you're using this as a substantive ... why??? Just use the word for whatever this liquid is. Even as a substantive it barely makes sense. It's the equivalent of holding out a cup and saying "liquid" with no further context. Why are you making this so hard and ugly to read???
I don't think the sentence is even salvagable because I cannot figure out what the fuck it was even trying to say. If I had a gun with one bullet in it, I would use it to shoot this sentence. Hang the translator by the nipples unless they're into that.
I can't read most of the second panel, but the last phrase "dubito quin sciat" is clearly meant to stand on its own by the way the punctuation is placed. And that is a damn shame because it's horrific. It reads "I doubt why he would know."
Students, please note that "quin" is an interrogative adverb meaning "why?" The question mark is non-optional. It's literally only a question word - why is it in a passage that does not contain a question???
"Sciat" is weird here. Subjunctives can be used as a clause verb, but scio in particular usually takes an accusative noun to make sense. The word means "to perceive with the senses" but can also be used as shorthand for "to see/to know/to understand".
The sentence would read better as "dubito ut illum sciret" or "I doubt that [he] would see this [thing]."
0/10, broke ass original construction. Lock the translator in a basement with Wheelock's textbook until one or the other breaks.
"Heu, Timothee, mater tua delapsa est ob cutem arienae et P. S. mortua est." Fine, this one isn't technically wrong, but it is brutally literal in a frankly uninspired way.
"Delapsa est"?? Have you no imagination? No creativity? No sense of good Latin prose? Delabor does mean "to fall/to descend" but it also means "to fall to ruin/to be destroyed". A much better (and funnier) word would have been "cado", which means "to fall [down]" too, but crucially also means "to be cut down/to be slaughtered/to die". It would be a way better play on words with the "mortua est" following after.
His name needs to be Romanized. Do you think the Romans had names like Vergilius for fun?? No! It was so the fucking thing could be declined. Fix Timothee's name.
I don't like "ob". It feels wrong, like a skinwalker. It's not meant to be here. It can technically mean "on account of", but it's more prominent meaning is "toward". It should probably be replaced by a dative or ablative of agent/means here instead.
"Cutem" should be cuto, to be dat./abl. of agent/means. An accusative doesn't look right when the sentence's main verbs are passive, since passives are reflexive.
"et P. S. mortua est." Ugly, disfiguring little addendum. Why is it in the same past tense as delapsa? Repetitio is only fashionable in poetry. This is prose - you need variatio. Cicero and I hate it here.
It would read better as "Tua mater, Timotheius, cuto arienae casura est, cepitque morti." - "Your mother, Timothee, fell [by means of] the skin of a banana, and [she] was seized by death."
These panels only get more offensive to the Latin language the longer I look at them. This translator would get roasted alive by any ancient or Medieval scholiast who read this and they would deserve it. Even poets would vomit.
today i found out that if you have library access through ur school, you almost definitely have a copy of the vatican’s latin translation of diary of a wimpy kid and i am currently reading Commentarii de Inepto Puero thank you
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FULL REVIEWS: “Enchanting Grom Fright”
The hype for this episode was unreal. We got the crew telling us that we weren’t ready on social media. It was a madhouse. To think that the little ship that could would have this big a leap in canon is unreal. Let’s just get to it.

The cold open starts with Luz trying to find more glyphs in her off time. I thinks it really shows her development so far. Now she’s willing to do the work to figure out her kind of magic, as oppose to say episode two where she just wanted to be great because she was “chosen.”



“My glyph skills are blossoming”
But then reality ensues...
Using the portal to let the wifi signal into The Owl House is not the dumbest reason I’ve heard to open an interdimensional portal between worlds but it is one of the most mundane. SOMEHOW, Luz can still receive texts from her mom FROM ANOTHER WORLD. Not that it makes too much of a difference since Luz barely answers them.
As much fun as it is to focus on the magic and the shipping and the friendship and the curse, Luz still knows that she’s still lying to her mom. The guilt is there, but luckily being a main character keeps her too busy to think about it.
“Luz, time to fill that darling head of yours with...huuh huuh huuh HAKKK, mmm, mmm, mmh, delicious knowledge.”
Never change, Hooty.

It’s that time of year again that Luz doesn’t know about yet, Grom: The Boiling Isles’ weird version of prom. Every fantasy world has one.

*hiss*
Amity bumps into Luz, and I know this is going to sound weird, but I really like Amity’s “Watch it, nitwit.�� Amity’s character has changed and developed from our perspective which is the perspective of Luz and The Owl House fam. But she’s not a completely different character. Amity still has a bit of a temper and gets agitated easily. It makes sense to me and I’m glad I haven’t found anyone be like “Hey if Amity is nicer, why did she get mad when she bumped into someone?”
Amity is nicer to Luz and co. because she’s gotten to know Luz and co. You don’t treat everyone in your life the same. Amity is one of those people that you need to defrost with first. Belief is backed up by experience and so are people’s personas. (Not that persona. I’m being serious here.) Because of Amity’s experiences, she’s believed that in order to survive she has to put people at arm’s length, then when she gets to know you, she’ll decide if she wants to let you in or not. So I guess that means that based on her interactions with Luz, Amity has decided...
You know what? I’ll save that for my Lumity meta.
The popular theory is that Amity was going to put her note in Luz’s locker, hence why she bumped into them. But actually seeing Luz and being announced as grom queen probably made her lose her nerve.
“Embrace your dreams...”
Amity is announced to be this year’s grom queen. Luz is happy for her before Amity runs in shock and embarrassment. Okay.
Luz discovers the gym’s weapons cache (not a thing I thought I would ever type) and Amity explains grom. Since Luz is from the human world and all that.
Grom is a monster that lives under the school and needs to be defeated every year so it doesn’t invade the town. It’s a classic shape-shifting fear monster. Odd are I have (and so have you) at least seen three or four of these in our lives already. Amity doesn’t want to show the entire school her greatest fear, especially since she already knows what it is. Luz suggest talking to Bump and Amity says she’ll try.
Another scene of Eda and King laughing and mocking Luz. Because I liked it so much the first time.
Eda gets dressed up herself because she’s volunteered to chaperone grom. Luz tells her that Amity is grom queen but wishes that she could take her place. We get...you know and Luz walks off.

“I think we should kiss to ease the tension.”
Luz randomly meets up with Amity in the woods because I guess Amity had the same idea to take a walk to clear her head. Whatever. Amity tells Luz that Bump wasn’t going to change his mind unless Amity found a replacement. Luz volunteers because...she’s Luz, friend to all.
Except maybe that spider.
Top 10 Anime Betrayals
The Blight Siblings try to help Luz train against grom only for Eda to find out about their little plan. Here’s where we find out why Eda volunteered to chaperone a Hexside event even though she hates that place:
“What’s the fun in watching a kid get eaten by a monster if it’s my kid?”
That’s hilarious. To me.
Luz and Amity have a moment before Luz’s debut and Amity thanks Luz for everything she’s done. They have more adorable banter before Luz takes the stage.
“Wish me luck.”
“Luck.”
I’m guessing that’s not an expression in The Boiling Isles.
Luz faces Grom and it seems to be going better than everyone predicted until...you know
“Mija, this would be such a good shot for the trailer.”
Yup, we all predicted this. Luz’s greatest fear is her mom finding out that she’s been lying to her. Luz panics and takes off with Eda and Amity to chase after her.
Eda comes in for the save when Amity bursts in the scene saying “Boy let me tell you what.” She doesn’t really I just like saying that. You know, in my head. I mean, if you heard the way I was saying it out loud you’d probably think it was funny too but you know...text.
Grom gets a hold of Amity and transforms into her greatest fear. And we see why Amity didn’t want to face Grom in front of the whole school. She didn’t want everyone to see that Amity’s fear is very...emotional. Not physical. She’s not afraid of a giant spider or anything. It’s a little closer to the heart.
Amity clutching at her dress like a little kid is both the cutest and the saddest thing. This fear of hers is so bad it makes this fourteen year old feel like she’s four. I’m so sure she was about to cry right there. Or maybe that’s me. Could be both.
Luz picks up the note and discovers that Amity was trying to ask somebody out before she was announced as grom queen. Amity was afraid of being rejected. Luz tries to ease her fears by asking her out to grom.
Trying seeing it from Luz’s point of view. She has no idea who Amity wants to ask out. Luz doesn’t even consider that it could be her because again, belief is backed by experience. Luz was considered a weirdo with no friends in the human world. She even said earlier in the episode that she got kicked out of her last school dance for dressing like an otter. Luz has no reason to believe that someone would like her romantically. She would like to. It is a fantasy of hers, but her experience tells her that other people don’t see her that way so she doesn’t consider that Amity wanted to ask Luz out.
I’ll save the rest for another blog post, although I did talk about this last year too.
But since Amity did want to ask Luz out and Luz asked her out instead, Amity’s fears are eased. Grom does what every fear monster does when their target overcomes their fears and says “Screw it, I’m just going to kick your ass!”
And then this happens:
As a Star vs the Forces of Evil fan, let me just say this is our Blood Moon Ball moment. The moment that the show tells the audience in John Oliver’s voice, “Yup this is the ship we’re doing so strap in folks.”
Luz and Amity work together to combine magic to take down Grom. It also helps that they eased each others’ fears. Luz can’t think about her mom if she’s focused on helping Amity.

Luz and Amity defeat Grom in a blaze of glory. Luz being Luz, decides to ask Amity who she wanted to ask out just to see if she would tell you. Amity brushes it off.
“It doesn’t matter. After all, I already got to dance with the girl I like.”
Everyone celebrates but when Luz gets home she’s more tired than anything.
Maybe it was Grom, but Luz decides to give her mom a real answer. It’s been tough but it’s also been fun. There are good and bad days. Sometimes she feels like she doesn’t belong. But she has friends. They care about her, she cares about them, and that’s more than enough reason to stay.
THEN THIS SHIT HAPPENS!
Yeah, the Meteora moment in Star vs the Forces of Evil. The moment where the show went “Never mind that shit. Here comes a complete change in the status quo.”
Someone or something is sending Luz’s mom letters. It’s Luz’s handwriting, but it’s clearly not Luz since she can’t spell her name right. Season one already finished and we still have no idea what this is.
I was all happy a second ago. Now I’m nervous as all hell. It’s a madhouse I tells ya. A madhouse!

FINAL SCORE: 5 - LOVED IT!
Wow. Just wow. This episode had everything. Jokes, plot, romance, character development, cameos, dancing, girls, MOM(?), crashing on your couch because technically I’m homeless.
I shipped Lumity before this, but this was the episode that told me that yes it was going to happen. We’re all in.
But it’s not perfect.
Yeah, did any of you noticed that I didn’t even mention the B-plot? I’m going to be honest. The reason is...
I hate it.
I hate the B-plot so much that I skip it every time I watch this episode. I still don’t think Gus is that funny or interesting. Hell, Skara’s mini plot with her date and/or boyfriend was funnier.
But everything else about the episode more than outshines the B-plot so I still give it a five.
Next time we finish up the lumity trilogy next time.
Dammit I said next time twice.
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This is so real Zak, I 100% agree on this!
I wanted to make an addition because there were different parts that stood out to me and I thought I would just talk about them here instead of on a separate post:


There is something so tender to me about Luke and Aaron's pseudo-father-son dynamic. Aaron is a voice of reason, but he also asks, do you want this? He cares about Luke's feelings and goals, he respects Luke's choices even if they come with risks and negative side effects. Above all, even if Luke's choices end up hurting both of them, Aaron is rooting for Luke.


Okay, just a silly little tangent because remember that one post where Zak talked about MC and Luke not having normal boundaries and in the Lukeout, Fire! event, Luke gave MC a bracelet to monitor his vitals?
Well, Luke is exactly the same in this timeline--by proving he is exactly the kind of person who expresses love via giving access to information about his physical conditions. Aaron's reaction just makes it even funnier, not just because he is a doctor, but because he's like, "FINALLY. I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS". It's a very enthusiastic response to Luke's "fine, you can have my personal info I guess 😔"

I just wanted to end on this screenshot. Aaron is SO GOOD for Luke. He keeps him accountable, he's working overtime because he cares, his arms are always safe and open for Luke to fall into.
If Artem is watching his father figure suffer in this chapter, Aaron is watching his son figure suffer in this one. But the biggest difference between Artem and Neil and Luke and Aaron is that Aaron is able to be here for Luke, right here, right now. He is an anchor, an unexpected but welcome source of stability.
I think about the Luke of Main Story 9 and how desperate he was to keep everything to himself, and I think of the Luke in Main Story 13 and how he is choosing to get better, choosing to be more open, choosing to shut himself out less because of the two people in his life who make it a genuine point that they care so deeply about him. Aaron's presence is a comforting one. Whenever he's with Luke, he doesn't sugarcoat things. But just being there for Luke and talking through things does a whole lot of good.
/ tot main story 13 spoilers
im really emotional about a Lot of things in this chapter, but i was MOST EMOTIONAL at how we saw just the sheer extent that aaron cares about luke. aaron cares SO DAMN MUCH ABOUT HIM
aaron's profound fear that he wont be able to make a difference for luke's health is heartbreaking. hes working overtime trying to keep luke alive and healthy, so much so that hes even willing to keep oedipus' illegal experimental drug a secret from the NSB, because it helps luke.
hes willing to break the rules just as much as luke is, because he cares. because he doesnt want to lose luke, because he doesnt want luke to be alone in any of this
IM VERY EMOTIONAL ABOUT THEM
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Alex ze Pirate Mini Review 4: The EED: Emotional Exposition Dump. Or why THIS is not friendship
So here we are. The last part of this 45 page three parter, meant to be about what Sam really means to the crew. And what have we seen so far in the previous parts? That Sam is not just their underappreciated, but downright exploited slave (yeah, did you know that in ancient Greece slaves supposedly had more rights than Sam in this one? At least they could buy out their freedom one day), that Dobson has no idea how to genuinely pace a story, turning what could have been a decent 100 page story if planned out and presented with more care into a 45 page short snore fest and that Hat Andy’s idea for jokes are either based on abusing token buttmonkeys, turning annoying memes into even more unfunny jokes or making dark comedy with dead orphans.
At least when South Park makes jokes about children dying, they are appropriate in that dark setting and the death is still in some way handled or refered to as a horrific event. In Dobson’s case however, it just leaves a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.
Sorry, I just can’t get over the orphanage thing. If Dobson wanted the reason for Sam leaving be that he finds out someone he cared about from his old life is dead, that is one thing. But did this asshole have to destroy an entire building with countless victims to do it? Couldn’t he just have one person die and the rest be still at that place? Honestly, I think it would have been funnier and more meaningful emotionally, if Alex and Co actually interacted with people from Sam’s past and in doing so learn more about him as a person, by genuinely visiting a still standing orphanage. Give the comic some meat on the bones and in doing so actually create the impression this comic is truly about Sam and not just about characters doing random stuff in relation to finding him. Instead Dobson goes for a literal overkill, which he then does not even treat as a tragedy but as a joke.
Dobson, THIS is a better and more dignified joke about orphans than the shit you did.
youtube
You got outclassed by Chuck Lorree of all people on this planet, you disgrace of a storyteller. A storyteller who can’t even keep his own barely existing continuity in the Alex-verse straight, now that I think of it. After all, according to Legends, the orphanage was closed and all the orphans were sold out to others, with Sam being the last of the litter

Which again is just unintentionally more horrific than Dobson likely intented. But you know, dumb people don’t know when they do dumb shit.
But I digress Let us just get into the last part. In which we finally see the “emotional” pay off of everything that happened so far.
Spoilers, this is my reaction to that pay off.
And here is what everything led up to now.


Sam ran away, because he wants to say his final farewell to his sister figure, we never knew about at all and about whom we do not learn one single thing really.
Where do I begin with how this revelation fails?
Let’s start with the fact that this in execution does not have the emotional impact that was intended. And why is that? Because Dobson doesn’t bother to actually introduce us to the sister as a character.
If I may digress a bit to talk about One Piece here: In the manga, oftentimes Oda will “interrupt” an ongoing story arc to feature flashback chapters, through which he tells about past events referenced in the “present” chapters prior. Through those flashbacks he further gives meaning to why in present time the characters facing certain foes or having to win in their current situation, is so important, even on an emotional level. In short, those flashbacks are no interruptions, they are integral in giving those story arcs emotional weight.
Because now we are not just “told” why we should care about things and people, we have been shown why we should care. The old rule of “show, don’t tell” being followed on.
A good example from a more “recent” storyline I can think of, is through the flashback chapters of the Dress Rosa story arc, where we are not only being shown how De Flamingo took over the kingdom of Dress Rosa and brought pain and misery over its people for years to come, but also the past of characters such as the gladiator Rebecca and Mr. Soldier, her father figure that raised her up from the time she was 10 and De Flamingo took over… only for the flashbacks to also reveal properly how Mr Soldier is not just a father figure for her that took her in, but her biological father Kyros, who had been turned into a toy by one of De Flamingo’s henchmen via a power, that also took Rebecca’s memories of her dad away so she never identified the toy as her dad.
This way Oda achieves multiple things at once; Among other things, he establishes how evil De Flamingo is, how tragic Mr Soldier and Rebecca’s lives really are, adding to us the readers wanting to see them and Luffy beat De Flamingo into a pulp and it makes the later “present day” moment when Mr. Soldier and many other victims turn back to normal and Rebecca regains her memories and is reunited with her dad so much more sweeter. Cause now we care.
Truth be told, I myself believe that Oda is one of few storytellers on this planet, who truly has “mastered” the technique of emotional flashback storytelling.
A technique Dobson could have used in this part of the story, but didn’t. Cause honestly, the way he tells how Sam’s sister was “important” to our poor cabin boy is not emotionally engaging from a storytelling perspective. We are told she is important, but we learn genuinely nothing about her, not even what her name was and what she looked like except from that one picture in the locket from over 15 pages ago. Nothing about how “close” she and Sam truly were is revealed through showing, only telling and as such we don’t even begin to care for her relationship with Sam and how her loss is genuinely important to him. So the main goal of this story, to make us the readers feel something for Sam aside of pity for how he is treated by his supposed friends, has not been achieved.
… Dobson, you are a hack. You can’t even use flashbacks, a basic technique in the realm of storytelling, to show us why we should “care” more, heck, even at all, about Sam and his loss.
If you just had adjusted a few things, you could have had something good here.
By adjustments I mean the following: Take the first page of this chapter as well as the first panel of the second page, and combine them into the final page of the previous chapter. In doing so creating a proper cliffhanger for part two. Then start chapter 3 of with a few pages (lets say 6 or so) showing young Sam and his sister interacting in the orphanage in doing so turning her from a nameless plotdevice into a genuine person to care about. And then use content of page 2 and 3 of this chapter, to elaborate on their relationship, potentially with small cuts always between present day Sam at the grave explaining himself and saying his farewells, with pictures of the past showing what they meant to each other.

But nope. This very basic idea a fanfic writer now has come up with, a fanfic writer who never studied literature or took writing classes by the way, something I doubt you did at college the more I read your work, has never crossed your “superior” mind.
Also, I find Sam’s text on page 3 really, really backwards in a way. Like, I get that we are meant to consider it a good thing Sam is this way. You know, being genuinely selfless and wanting to make others happy. And don’t get me wrong, generosity and selflessness are virtues I hold in high regard. But the way Sam talks about how he just wanted her to be happy while sacrificing any fulfillment of basic needs for himself feels more like a pathological disorder in that case than something to reach for. In fact, psychology speaks from different forms of generosity and the thing Sam describes here is likely “compulsive giving” or “unrelenting generosity”, a pathological variant that can be highly toxic for all people affected by it.
Funny how Dobson, a person who wants to claim he is all for mental healthcare, is essentially “promoting” the positivity of a psychological disorder via Sam.
Then again, this also feels more like Dobson putting words into Sam’s mouth (in a literal sense) to retroactively make Sam’s treatment look less horrid. Cause now Sam doesn’t just do all the work because he is ordered around, he deep down is “happy” doing all of the work and gain not even some basic respect in return, because he cares so deeply for his friends.
… I feel myself get livid again here.
And the next few pages don’t really help me “calm down”.



Cause now the “justifications” just go on. The thing that is meant to be a heartfelt farewell turning into Sam “justifying” that hey, it must be good that he ended up with Alex and her crew. Cause after all, by being abducted years ago and being treated as a slave who in the ginger’s eyes is worth less than lint, he likely avoided dying of shitting his pants and a crushing roof. Ignoring the fact that he was going to be sold out anyway back then and would have potentially ended up with a more generous master than the crew of non Captain Syrup.
Also, just all of the shit going on in page 6. Sam asking his “sister” to be at peace, when likely, if the girl could still talk, she may even just ask Sam the following: Who the heck are you. Cause really, if you think about it, if Sam did all the nice things for her in secret, did the girl even realize she had a “big brother” figure to watch over her? Also, him saying he is happy and he is doing quite alright for himself?
All the pictures of him sighing and looking in misery in this story alone, plus the cavalry of strips I posted about how Sam is abused in the first part of this post series tells me another story.
Finally, Sam’s message “At least now, we are both free”? Sam, she is dead, likely having died in pain when a house crushed on her, weakened by a deadly disease and traumatized by other children around her dying of said disease. And you are stuck with a bunch of people that haven’t shown to care for you up until this story and the only reason they may even care for you now is out of “sympathy” because you lost your sister figure, not because they genuinely love and care for you as a person. As far as I am concerned, you would be better off being the slaveboy of some nymphomanic pirate princess in the world of Berserk than you are on this plane of existence.
And now that the “emotional” farewell is out of the way, Dobson can go back to focus on the characters he really cares about in this shit anyway: Little Bitch Annie, lesbian chocolate rain Miroku and Deadpool’s pubes.


Oh Alex, you are such a rascal. You really make me want to shoot you with a crossbow, stab you in the eye, hurl you out a window and shove explosives where the sun won’t shine.
Yeah yeah, you are a pirate, but that doesn’t mean you need to be that awful as a person or even protagonist.
Christ. For someone who complains how toxic Walter White is to the point he believes “sympathizing” with the character turns you into a nazi, Dobson certainly is blind to how awful Alex really is, particularly as protagonist in a comic series intented for little kids. Compared to her, I can think of freaking slasher movie villains with more of a moral compass. Like say what you want about Jigsaw, at least he never victimized genuine children or teenagers.
And Talus, thanks for ruining the “emotional” moment Sam “earned” by pointing out how weird it is he kissed a gravestone. Also, I am glad I know what happens in the next pages or else I would assume Alex’s great idea includes to dig up his sister and turn her into a life sized doll for Sam to cuddle.

No, their ideas to assure he is emotionally save and to redeem themselves for years of taking him for granted/hurting him, is to throw him a surprise party.
… you know, I think you may be the only individuals in fiction, that Pinkie Pie would think do not deserve to throw a party or get one thrown for.


But I guess Sam is just so nice, he even throws you a party for no apparent reason.
Either that or now that his “sister” is dead he will overcompensate even more and this is the next destructive stage of his compulsive generosity.
… Sam, I am sorry for your loss. But you need to get help. Once by the authorities who will hopefully get rid of Alex and then by some psychologist who helps you redefine your own self worth.
By the way, I find it funny that the banner he made also actually only mentions Talus, Atea and Captain Daphne with a bad hair day. It just confirms that Peggy either never bothered to join the others or that Dobson developed an early onset of dementia and totally forgot about the fact that the midget is a genuine character in this trainwrack. And I am convinced the later is the case, which really just makes me wonder how someone is able to do that. To forget a major character of the thing they create and want to turn into a money making franchise. Imagine if Disney did e.g. a sequel to Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, only to forget about the god damn dwarves themselves.
At least Talus finally realizes he is unworthy to get a party thrown or be Sam’s friends. Good. Now jump into a wood chipper and free ourselves from your existence you dog beaver thing.

Content of the next page in a just alternate universe… Alex: You are a better human being than I could ever be and this is all because my creator is a hack who does not know how to create genuinely likable personalities.
The reality:

FUCK YOU, ALEX! FUCK YOU AND THE BIKE PUMP YOU FLEW IN ON! Atea and Talus have learnt more than you about what it means to be a friend and they don’t even bother to punch you in the face for still being the biggest red haired raging cunt since Asuka from Neon Genesis Evangelion.
If this is how Dobson thinks “friends” should treat each other, it is no wonder he has a friendless background. Hey, Hat Andy, if you want to emulate manga, may I suggest you just become even more blatantly about it and simply copy paste One Piece? Cause Luffy at least knows how to be a friend. How much does he care for his friends, strangers and even at times former enemies of his?
He cares so much, that e.g. when a special military force that beat the crap out of him got hands on his crewmate Nico Robin, he did THIS:
youtube
He declared war on the world government. Fuck, even Jack Sparrow, who is an opportunistic jackass, in a movie where everyone stabs the others at least three times in the back, was less selffish than Alex, when he gave up his chance on immortality as Captain of the Flying Dutchman, just so Will would live in some form.
Metalbeard from the Lego Movie cared more about doing the right thing than anyone in Alex the pirate did. You created the worst friends and “heroes” I have ever seen in a webcomic since the entirety of sinfest. Congratulations for that accomplishment, Dobson. It really takes a special kind of anti-talent to show such level of not understanding the power of friendship as one of the most basic tropes in storytelling, to the point a show about pastel colored equines managed to profit of it for nine years.
WOOOOO! We are the worst, we are the worst!
And look, Uncle Pennywise’s scrotum is back.
Anyway, here are the last two pages of this thing, to end on what is meant to be a whimsical note because Sam actually gets something from Alex that is not a beating or verbal abuse.


Too bad anything that would feel heartwarming about this is drowned by a) me actually remembering all the shit Alex, the crew and the writer pull to get to this point (from abusive neglect of the characters to pathetic emotional manipulation on a narrative level) and b) the weird rapey face Uncle Peggy makes in the picture. Like Jesus, did Dobson try to emulate the Burger King here?
But hey, this story is over. And who knows, perhaps from this moment on, Sam will actually be treated better overall in the comic and Dobson will spend time actually developing an overall plot and the world of this com-
Tom Kenny: ONE COMIC STRIP LATER

And it is back to business as usual.
... How much would I need to pay for someone on the internet to write an alternate ending to the story where it turns out Sam actually poisoned the food at the party and while Alex is slowly dying, a now evil Sam who has finally broke under years of abuse, is going to become a genuine threatening pirat? that is after he villain monologues to Alex how much she sucks before scalping her?
Wow, I am entering a dark place right now. I think I need to take a break.
So I am going to give my final verdict on this story with the next post around the weekend most likely. Cause that is how much time I will now spend rereading One Piece and watching the Pirates of the Carribean movies in addition to playing the Pirates level of Kingdom Hearts 3, in order to forget this shit and remind myself why I think pirates are cool.
#andrew dobson#alex ze pirate#fuck you#hat andy#tom preston#so you are a cartoonist#syac#comic#webcomic#pirates#sam the cabin boy#atea#talus#one piece#magic of friendship this is not
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Writing Meme
Thank you darlings @feuillesmortes @louisxivsrestingbitchface for tagging me in this. Since I wrote so few fics (despite how lengthy they are), I wanted to wait until the Ficathon reveal so I could gush about my only other written work XD.
Name: Lady_Plantagenet on AO3 (same as my tumblr but with an underscore). It used to be Defiantly_Definitely or something, I don’t know what the reasoning behind that was. Naturally, definitely was spelled wrong so I got locked out of the account at one point XD. As for my current name, well, it’s this username I use for all my internet entities which I concocted when I was 13 and haven’t changed since. I like it, it’s pretty iconic.
Fandoms: Currently 15th Century CE RPF/Richard III/The White Queen e.t.c. I tag them all for exposure reasons but the only two canons I can be said to follow are Shakespeare’s Richard III and 15th Century CR RPF. At one point (and buried deep down in my displayed is an ASOIAF/GOT fic but I wouldn’t call myself a writer for that fandom since 6 years. It was kinda a phase. Although, I do occasionally read fics from that fandom.
Where you post: Only on ao3 atm, although until this summer I used to cross post on fanfiction but when I noticed no one there is really interested kinda gave up. On fanfiction.net I have a different username which I won’t tell anyone because it’s an account full of terrible Tudors/TWOTR fics, which I wrote when I was about 12 and the writing and everything is so atrocious I even got flamed for it XD.
I’ll give you guys an excerpt though so you can laugh:

This was my 12 year old’s self attempt at a Cecily of York fic. There’s three others: one AU about Elizabeth Woodville surviving into HVIII’s reign and (oddly enough) a story also about Isabel Neville which is equally horrendous.
Most Popular One-shot: I don’t write one-shots. However, I guess the ‘Acts’ I wrote for These Giddy Hatchings (the George of Clarence AU I was commissioned to write for the Ficathon) constitute as one-shots (though I made them more that way to not get disqualified for submitting incomplete work for the Ficathon). Act 1 is, therefore? the most popular oneshot by one kudos. It is the first part of this AU series following the Richard III Shakespearean canon. It centers around what would have happened if George Duke of Clarence survived his murder, got pardoned and got a chance to go up against his younger brother. Since it’s the first part, it ends at George getting released from the Tower (thanks to his wife hhh god the joys of AUs and the freedom you get XD).
Most Popular Multichap: This is by far ‘A Bygone Era’. Nothing that I’ve ever written had ever gotten as many reviews and subscriptions. It’s my only serious piece of work (These Giddy Hatchings excepted), and it’s the one I go on about a lot (you know instead of actually updating hhh). For those who don’t already know (and for those who do, I apologise for repeating this info), it started out as a story about Isabel Neville and her only - it was only meant to be like 10 chapters or something. It all changed when during my research I uncovered this really interesting fact about Isabel and before I knew it, I realised I had a real-length story on my hands.
After perusing the range of published historical fiction, I realised no one had really done George Duke of Clarence, Richard Earl of Warwick (The Last of the Barons aside) and Anne Beauchamp Countess of Warwick any justice either, so as it turned out... Isabel wasn’t the only figure about whom no one had really written. So the story kind of became more centered around Isabel, George and Warwick (heavily featuring the two other Annes as well). The story also focuses on some of the (criminally underrepresented) issues of late medieval society eg the collapsing system of feudalism, bastard feudalism, the northern renaissance, the printing press, the wane of chivalry among others... I also shift POV around a lot so sometimes I write through the eyes of people who aren’t the main characters eg Cecily Neville. What else can I say? Please read it if you’re ever bored I thrive off reviews good or bad.
Favourite story you’ve written so far: This would actually be These Giddy Hatchings. A Bygone Era is far more dear to me, but, with the quality being a bit dodgier in the first chapters (since it’s been a year and I had barely started writing again after a very long time back then and had yet to learn the history in more detail), These Giddy Hatchings is technically speaking my favourite because the quality (whatever that is) is on an average better. This one I’m less ashamed of advertising. Please please read it, I’ll provide a link in the reblog. Unlike A Bygone Era, the focus is more on plot and themes than actual historical accuracy. Though of course, I did my best to imbed historical references in there (together with the Shakespearean ones). I also went a bit wild with the prose there, taking the fact that it’s written for Shakespeare-Richard III as an excuse XD. This piece just like the other does not aim to make my historical faves (George, Isabel and Warwick) into saints, just to make that clear. Although I admit the want of a more favourable portrayal of them when it comes to historical fiction does possibly affect the way I see these figures and interpret the source material. So yeah, does George kill the princes in the tower? Does he become the next king? Does he even manage to defeat his brother Richard? Read to find out XD.
Fic you were nervous to post: I was nervous about These Giddy Hatchings because it was a commission for someone (@malvoliowithin 🤍) I didn’t know at all and I was lowkey worried they wouldn’t be interested enough to read a 15K (and counting) word story about a prompt they were probably not that invested in XD. But now the anxiety is gone 😁 thanks to their kind words).
Otherwise, I’m generally worried everytime I update because though I don’t think very highly of my work, I’m scared of ruining something decent with a bad update haha. Not to mention I don’t want to put my reviewers in an awkward position because I know they’re too kind to say if they hate something haha.
How do you choose your titles: ‘A Bygone Era’, as a tile, I’m very proud of. If I may say so I’m more sure of this title than even other features of the story itself XD. After I decided I wanted to write a story about Isabel Neville, it took about 5 min for this title to enter my mind. It was inspired by my perception of the late 15th century England as a period that marked the end of the Medieval Ages on an aesthetic, cultural and political level. I was always struck by how Isabel (and George) lived and died in this small epoch (1450s - late 1470s) that was characterised by the wane of the chivalric age, the fact that heaviness and death hung in the conscious (something which many writers including Huizinga talk about). I wanted something which conveyed nostalgia and the idea of a story beggining at the end of something much larger than the story itself, ergo here we are.
‘These Giddy Hatchings’ was much more easy to come up with. It’s a line from Clarence’s monologue in Richard III. Since the prompt was about the two brothers butting heads, I thought it was a good idea to title this fic after what was supposed to symbolise the shallow, misleading base that forms the two’s brotherhood in said monologue. As in Clarence’s dream, Richard pushes him off the ‘Giddy Hatchings’ and into the sea (as is apparent to the audience but George in his dream thinks it’s by accident). I titled each oneshot ‘Act #’ to mimick the play’s format.
Do you outline: I tried outlining for A Bygone Era to estimate how long it will be (spoiler alert I expect about 25 chapters total). But since I keep finding new information, the story keeps getting thrown and so I just keep a list of plot ideas and turns of phrases that randomly enter my mind without my permission. I now only outline each new chapter at a time, plot-wise and copy and paste the applicable details from the random idea list and then see what happens XD.
The same goes for Giddy Hatchings, sort of. I initially planned for only three ‘Acts’ but it turned out to be four (one I am yet to write), but when I was randomly thinking about it yesterday I realised it might turn into 5 Acts XD.
Complete: Nothing is complete. Though I suppose the Acts from These Giddy Hatchings count as three completed one-shots.
In progress: Everything lmao. Though not that one ASOIAF fic, I’m certain I’ll never return to it. I don’t even know why I still keep it around.
Coming soon/not yet started: I have written like half a chapter for this AU I haven’t yet technically speaking started. The premises is: What if Elizabeth Woodville was the daughter of Jacquetta and John Duke of Bedford. In this story she still meets and falls in love with Edward IV, still has Warwick as her enemy, among other things. Her mother still marries Richard Woodville and uses Elizabeth’s inheritance to pay off the marriage fine so the girl is no wealthy heiress but still becomes Margaret of Anjou’s lady-in-waiting. It’s such a wild AU and I have so many ideas for it, but I would like to advance a bit more in my other stuff first so I don’t lose steam. There’s an excerpt here:
Otherwise, I dream of one day writing some funnier oneshots on ModernAUs, wild AUs, wild crackships, parodies and others. Of course all still centred around the 15th century. I’ll title this series ‘The Rose of Ruin, The Duke of Claret, The White Bore and other tales’.
Prompts?: Sure, I enjoy this type of stuff. Though of course I cannot make any promises. I prefer making up the prompts XD. Can’t wait until the next Ficathon though!
Upcoming work you’re most excited about: I suppose the Elizabeth Woodville AU is the nearest thing that can be called an ‘upcoming work’ but it’s quite far into the future. At the moment I’m looking forward to updating my two other works (the next update being for A Bygone Era).
Oh god did I blab! Thank your for indulging me you two <4. Tagging: @malvoliowithin (my prompter), @seethemflying (the lovely fulfiller of my Ficathon prompt), @richardgloucesters @nuingiliath @branloaf @kafkastan @shredsandpatches @allegoriesinmediasres @unheroyouracademia
#🍷❤️#got tagged ages ago but wanted to wait till the Ficathon reveal#I’m sorry if I tagged someone who already did this#im sure some of your did it just slips my mind#Im sorry everyone for going on and on afshsj#this is what happens when I get provoked#a bygone era#ao3#george of clarence#isabel neville#richard neville earl of warwick#anne beauchamp#anne neville#richard iii#edward iv#the white queen#the wars of the roses#sunne in splendour
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Hey guys! Since we’re all at home, why not practice your target languages a bit? Here’s a list of movies, tv shows, as well as variety shows in Chinese! For those of you who don’t learn Chinese, this is also a great way to entertain yourselves while learning a bit more about the world and Chinese culture(s). I’m not sure where you can watch these cause that would depend on the country you are in and etc. Anyways, let’s go!
那些年
(10/10) Iconic. A true story too! From what I remember, it follows the love story of a guy who tries his best to get better grades in order to get the girl. Eventually they go to college and they split because of this stupid fight. It’s a great story revolving around the idea that when you love someone you just want them to be happy, even if it isn’t with you. There is a book for those of you who are interested, but from what I heard many details were left out of the movie.
我的少女时代
(7/10) Another iconic one, however I feel like it’s too similar to 那些年. It’s about a good girl that pairs up with this bad boy (cliche I know) just to split up their crushes who *seem* to be together. There’s also this whole backstory about how the bad boy and the girl’s crush were friends until an unfortunate event. Unlike 那些年 it has a happy ending! (But personally it was too idealistic)
快把我哥带走
(10/10) God I love this movie so much! I literally cried at the end! It’s a heartwarming movie about a girl who wishes that her older brother, who annoys her a lot, doesn’t exist. She wakes up after this and enters a world where her brother is now her best friend’s brother. By observing her brother and her best friend, she starts to miss having a brother. Eventually, she learns that everything her brother does was for a reason and tries to reverse her wish. (I really don’t want to spoil it please watch it it’s so good!!)
小小的愿望
(8.5/10) Mainly about friendship and a brotherly bond. Two best friends try to grant the last of the trio’s dying wish. Which proves to be quite hard hahaha... it’s quite comical but the ending is what really hits you. I cried in this one too... would definitely recommend to watch at least once! (Oh right, and one of the actors is the brother from 快把我哥带走 and another is the main guy from 我的少女时代)
少年的你
(8/10) Not really my type of movie, but it’s still pretty good. It talks about bullying, shows the repercussions of it, and mixes in the kind of romance you have in your youth. It was really popular when it came out here, so watching it may give you some convo topics with natives~
小欢喜
(11/10) I’m serious. This is one of the best shows I’ve seen. It focuses on three families and their children in their last year of High School. Each family has their own problems which they eventually overcome: separated parents, parents who were absent, pressure on grades and school, depression, etc. The children also mature and grow as the story progresses. It’s a pretty modern tv series, so it’s easy to follow. It shows modern culture pretty well, but keep in mind that it takes place in Beijing, so it’s gonna be different for other regions. It’s also loosely based on the series 小别离 that focuses on middle school instead of high school, so check that one out too!
亲爱的,热爱的
(7.5/10) Ok if you like those mushy, cringy, romance type of stories, this one’s for you. As long as you survive the first 2 or 4 (?) episodes, the story gets better. It’s a pretty interesting series that revolves around this competition called CTF (I really don’t remember what it’s called sorry!) that’s basically like defense and hacking. So Guy 1 was a famous player but is now the CEO of a company/agency for young boys who are in the competition now. Enter Girl 1, a college student (masters I think) that’s smart, pretty, kind, yep. All that. It’s a story about how their each other’s first love and how they both navigate their lives after that. Honestly, I watch it when I’m in the mood. It’s not that bad.
最好的我们
(7/10) Some of you may have watched the movie but my sister swears that this one is better. From what my mum says it’s based on a book too?? If you like school dramas, like 那些年, then you’re gonna like this one. Follows the characters through their 3 years of high school, and shows how they grow, mature, and figure out their lives. Some falls in love, some realizes that the ups deserve better. And then there’s our main couple...SLOW BURN. YES ITS SO SLOW. BUT ITS SO GOOD. So check this one out if you have the time
闪光小女
(8.5/10) I didn’t like this one at first, but it got better. It’s about a group of kids in a music school and how they want to perform on stage. They major in Chinese traditional instruments, but the school prefers those who major in western instruments so they don’t get any opportunities at all. Also, most people nowadays learn western instruments like the piano more, so less and less kids are learning traditional instruments. It’s a story about growing up, the pains of it, staying true to yourself, and also standing up for yourself. It may seem weird at first, but it has a lot of life lessons that you can take form it. There’s also a movie too, but trust me, this one is better.
向往的生活
(10/10) YASSS THIS ONE RIGHT HERE. Ok so I mainly only watched the 3 season since it has the actors for 快把我哥带走 in it (yes I like it that much). For the start of every episode, the 嘉宾 (the ones that are invited to film... what are they called....I can’t remember it in English..) of the previous episode leaves in the morning, then in the afternoon, new ones come!! It’s like farm life in China. The 嘉宾 tells the hosts what they want to eat, then once they come, they have to help the host prepare the dish by harvesting the food, catching the fishes, etc. It also has a lot of life lessons from it. So I recommend this to anyone who likes foods, culture, and wants to take a break from busy lives (... well I don’t know if that would have the same effect now since we’re all at home...)
中餐厅
(9/10) I also only watched the 3rd season for this one. So the third season is about a group of celebrities (and one chef) that travels to Italy, and starts a Chinese restaurant there. It shows them managing it, buying ingredients, cooking, designing a menu, and basically trying to survive. They have a quota that they have to reach by the end of the season. Oh and they also get wages, which is pretty cute since they use it for treats when they’re not working. Another one for the foodies!
密室大逃脱
(9/10) Oh yessss, ok so my mum, my sister, and my sister’s classmates are obsessed with this one. For those of you that don’t know, 密室s are like escape rooms, and it’s like a whole culture here. It’s what you would go play with friends, and each has a different theme and mystery that you have to solve to get out. It’s also pretty creepy cause of how real everything is. But anyways, there are two versions of this show: a pro version that shows how the pros solve it, and the celebrity version. Personally I haven’t seen the pro version, but my sister says that the celebrity version is funnier and more realistic cause most of the time they can’t figure it out and gets trapped in a room for hours (then one of the members starts to eat the props, those that are food btw, not like plastic). So this one is great for those who likes suspense and comedy mixed together.
Extra:
朋友请听好
(?/10) This one is pretty new. My mum has been watching this one lately and she says it’s great. It’s a show about a group of celebrities that starts their own radio show, I believe. From what my mum says it has a lot of life lessons in it. Check it out.
(This is my Week 4 post for the langblr activation challenge, you can find my other post here: Week 1, Week 2, Week 5)
#langblr#languages#language#language learning#studyblr#movies#tv shows#tv series#variety shows#recommended#recommendations#polyglot#culture#chinese#chineseblr#中文#food#study#mine#madarin#langblractivationchallenge#covid 19#quarantine
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Alright! Let’s get started!
This is actually copied and pasted from my main blog, where I posted this last night. From here on out, though, I’ll be posting them on here first and then re-blogging them on my main blog, because I can.
And, fair warning, I get very excited and very into this show, so the reactions list will probably be pretty long. XD
And now, without further ado, let’s watch 15x14: Last Holiday. <3 <3
Oh we’re starting!
...did I miss the “then” title card?
Oh wait there it is.
Dude we’re going FAR back on this “then”. I wonder what that means?
My poor baby crying again. :(
DEAN’S APRON OH MY GOD I’M DEAD! XD XD <3 <3
“It was. In the 50s.” Point taken.
My poor baby. :( :( :( :(
Oh so killing Amara is officially a plan? Okay then.
“I’ve killed Hitler.” I can’t believe he’s still talking about that! XD
Actually I can believe he’s still talking about it, I take that back.
DEAN WITH THE MARIO BROTHERS OMG!!
Okay, I know this episode has something to do with them celebrating holidays because of a fairy or nymph or something like that, and this is already feeling like a light-hearted, fun, domestic Winchesters episode. I hope it stays that way. <3
Have you tried turning it back off and turning it on again? Hit reset.
HE READ MY MIND!
MEAT MAN!! XD XD
Ummm...okay then.
Also SCOOBY-DOO UNDIES!!! DEAN YOU DORK!! XD XD <3
In case you haven’t figured it out yet, Jack is my favorite and Dean is my second-favorite.
“Language!” “That’s it I’m getting my gun.” XD XD
I can already tell that so many of my reactions are probably just gonna be me quoting and then laughing. XD
They don’t seem very concerned? Shouldn’t random people not be able to get in?
This lady is such a mom omg.
Mrs. Butters? XD
Wood nymph. Got it.
“Shouldn’t you be in the woods somewhere? Nymphing?” XD XD (P.S. That was my mom’s favorite line in this episode. XD)
You what now?
Necessities of life?
Hmmm….I like her, but she weirds me out. Something is off.
Dean’s “oof that’s awkward” face. XD
“2020.” Hearing that year said out loud just feels...oof. Just oof.
Poor nymph…
Wait, haven’t we seen those symbols before? Maybe I’m making that up.
HA! “It’s kind of been one apocalypse after the other.” He’s not kidding.
OOOOH!! HERE COME THE HOLIDAYS!!!
WAIT WHAT IS THAT TELESCOPE THING?
WAIT WAIT WAIT WHAT??!! A MONSTER radar??!! Dude WHAT?! Man, they’ve needed something like that for YEARS!
Wait wait wait...relatively nearby….it’s not gonna ping because of Jack is it?? SHE’S NOT GONNA HURT JACK IS SHE??!!
Oh okay nevermind. Just a vamp nest.
Say what now?
We can...that just...umm...okay then??
“Heck...heck yeah.” XD XD XD
Yeah I’m with Sam on this one. She seems innocent, but, like…
Dean does have a point though.
But also things like this never last. It’s too good to be true.
MY BABY!!!
“She’s probably harmless, but just in case, watch yourself”?? Dean that was a terrible way to do that but okay.
Snickerdoodles. XD
My poor baby looks so lost. :(
I mean...Dean makes a good point there. But also the son of Satan is adorable and she’s suspicious. But anyways.
“Ignoring your trauma doesn’t make you healthy.” SOMEONE FINALLY SAID IT OMG!!! XD XD XD <3 <3 <3 <3
...Jack is hiding something? IS JACK HIDING SOMETHING?!
...do we know what Jack is hiding??
The only thing I can think of is that he knows about Cas’s deal with the empty, but he had a soul when that happened, and it wasn’t really eating at him then. Is it eating at him more now for some reason??
IS JACK HIDING SOMETHING??!!
Jesus christ this is gonna bother me…
Okay but when has that ever actually worked, Dean?
Awww….
I’m guessing they didn’t tell her he’s a nephilim? If they don’t really trust her--which they don’t--they shouldn’t. Is there a chance she knows already? I feel like she wouldn’t be acting like that if she did.
Vamps watching a movie with vamps. Classy. XD
...ew…
At least they’re drinking from bags instead of from humans I guess?
Nice slicing at the same time, boys.
Huh. Well. That was easy. Too easy?
CHRISTMAS! XD <3
THE TRAIN OMG!! XD XD <3 <3
Their faces. XD
HER DANCE!
Okay she’s kind of adorable not gonna lie.
“We are so keeping her.” XD XD
DEAN’S LITTLE EXCITED HANDS ON THE RAILING OMG I’M DEAD!! XD XD <3 <3 <3
If I can’t get adorable Jack right now, I’m okay with adorable Dean. XD <3 <3
Sam is still suspicious, but Dean is totally into it.
“Enjoy the world you’re fighting for.” That was really quick and so subtle, but d*mn that’s a good line.
MY BABY!!!!
HIIIII JACK!!! I MIIIIISSSSSED YOOOOOUUU!!! <3 <3 <3
Uh-oh. I don’t like the way she said “what are you”. DON’T YOU DARE TOUCH MY BABY!!!
“He’s a millennial.” XD XD
DEAN IN THAT NIGHTGOWN OMG!!! I know it was in the promo photos, but seeing it in the context of the episode is even funnier. XD
Sam’s gagging at his bro’s “down there” bits lol.
Oof. She is VERY absentminded by Jack and whatever he is. No likey.
...hmm. I still don’t trust her with Jack.
“Poppycock”???
HA!! “I’m worried about your cholesterol.”
And Sam and Jack’s little smiles at that omg. <3 <3 <3
“We got one!” IS THAT A HILLYWOOD PARODY REFERENCE/GHOSTBUSTER REFERENCE??!! Because IT FEELS LIKE ONE!!!
The way they’re running to their rooms to get ready omg.
And that cut to them being dressed and going.
LUNCHES!! XD
Their faces! XD
The cinematography in this episode is AWESOME. Go Serge Ladouceur (and yes, I looked that name up. XD)
No crusts. Blessed knives. “I just waxed it.” She IS a mom!
Wait no. Take Jack with you. I don’t trust her with him.
“What shall we do with you.” LEAVE HIM ALONE IS WHAT!
Oh. They’re doing dishes.
WAIT DON’T TELL HER THAT JACK!
...I don’t like the way she’s talking to him.
Oof. Mary. *gags*
Jack you’re adorable and I love you but please stop being so gullible and stop sharing so much personal information.
WAIT NO! I know you feel guilty, but DON’T TELL HER YOU KILLED HER!
...dangat.
...oh. That was actually super sweet, and honestly the EXACT thing Jack needed to hear. ...maybe she’s not so bad?
...wait what? She just...pulls those out of thin air?
Ha! Another hunt
THEIR FACES WITH THE LUNCHES! ESPECIALLY DEAN’S!! XD
Aww! Thanksgiving! <3
Where is Cas during all this? Talking to his angel friends I guess?
That finger gun at Sam omg.
It’s so EASY for them wow.
Halloween! Fitting given our current season.
Their little smiles awww!!
THE BEERS TOGETHER HOLY FRICK!!! IT’S JUST LIKE WHAT TEAM FREE WILL 2.0 DID WHEN JACK CAME BACK! AND what the boys and Mary and John did in Lebanon! NEVER GETS OLD!! I LOVE THIS FAMILY!! <3 <3
...I still don’t necessarily trust Mrs. Butters. BUT I LOVE SAM AND DEAN AND JACK!
Those faces for the lunches just get better and better.
GRENADE LAUNCHER!!
MJOLNIR OMG NO WAY!!! I CAN’T BELIEVE HE STILL HAS IT!!! THIS EPISODE HAS SO MANY EASTER EGGS OMG!!! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
Also that is an AWESOME shot.
BIRTHDAY!! Awww… <3 <3
OOF. Poor Dean. XD
Jack’s laugh and then immediately being like “oop” and bringing his head down but still chuckling when Dean glares at him I CAN’T. XD XD
I LOVE THIS FAMILY!! <3 <3 <3
AWW!! She made extra for him!
Okay, I like her. But I’m still cautious.
Oh. THERE it is.
What’s she doing??
Jack’s got you lady.
My mom is wondering why she has to walk away to make another smoothie when before she was just producing them. I’m wondering if maybe she has to near the ingredients to whip it into a smoothie magically, but that seems weird...continuity error?
Get her, Jack. My smart boi. <3 <3
My Mom: “You better hurry it up there, Jack.”
Oh it’s evil Men of Letters dude. NOW I get why we went that far back.
Oh! AND the Thule. NOW I get why Dean mentioned killing Hitler again. Wow. Nice connections on this episode all around. Go writers.
...she did what now?
WTF??!!
HOLY FRICK!!!
HOLY S*** HOLY S*** HOLY S***!!!
Do NOT ask about tea or cookies after you just pulled sh** like that.
On a more positive note, the way Jack just said “son of a bitch” out of nowhere like that is so adorable because he, like, NEVER swears, but also that’s Dean’s saying and it just proves that he’s taking after his dads and just already growing up and AHHHH I LOVE HIM!!! <3 <3 <3 <3
Also Jack please go tell your dads what you found.
Okay so during the commercial break, my mom and I looked up wood nymphs and had this big discussion and here’s kind of what we came up with:
So we were trying to figure out if wood nymphs are supposedly evil, and we didn’t find much, but they do have super strength (which explains her ability to rip off that dude’s head…), and the ability to control wood and nature, which might explain why she can pull smoothies out of thin air.
So then we saw on the SPN Wiki page for this episode that part of the description mentions that the wood nymph would do anything for her family, and that makes me wonder if she has, like, ulterior motives to protect her wood nymph family? But also, she said the Men of Letters were her family, so that translates to Sam and Dean now, right? So theoretically, she wouldn’t hurt them, she’d be trying to protect them. Which means they should be fine, because she only hurts threats. But then my mom pointed out that maybe she considers Jack a threat and that’s a really good point, so now I’m worried all over again. She’s still acting weird with him, and even though I did like that little advice she gave about second chances, maybe it’s all an act? My mom thinks she, like, poisoned his sandwich or something with anti-nephilim juice in order to try to hurt him, but that was before she knew he was a nephilim, right? I don’t know. I think my mom makes a really good point. I hope my baby winds up being okay. :(
Okay. Back to the episode now.
Ahhhhhhhh noooooo. Where are the boys when we need them?
Wait, DATE?? EILEEN??!!
No. He isn’t. Go away.
Sam look at yoooooooouuuu. <3
But also please take a moment to notice how uncomfortable your son is and ask him what’s wrong please and thank you. (And yes, I will keep saying son thank you very much.)
Ha! She wants him to get a haircut just like Dean does. The joke’s about Sam’s (and, by extension, Jared’s) hair will never not be funny.
Ha! “Language.”
YES!! EILEEN!!!
YES SAM!! GO GET YOUR GIRL!!
DEAN! XD
Okay the Sam and Eileen thing is adorable, and Sam and Dean’s banter is hilarious, but guys...look at your son please and thank you. :(
I’m so torn between wanting Sam to just be happy and enjoy himself and wanting him to help Jack ahhhhhh.
Sam can go on his date. I’m sure Dean can handle it.
Roses! Nice touch.
Ha! Dean with the supportive big bro action.
Such. A. Mom.
“Boys.”
Wait nooooooo.
Okay but Alex’s acting right there...tip top. So subtle. Jack is trying so hard to be sneaky and warn Dean about what he saw, and the way Alex is conveying pure panic but also showing how sneaky he’s being is AWESOME.
Also that little “sh*t” or “da**it” or whatever it was that he mouthed? Somehow so cute and makes me so worried at the same time.
“The Dean Cave”?? XD XD
Dean I am BEGGING YOU, please take a cursory glance at your son.
...da**it...
The subtitles say “suspenseful music plays” XD XD
Wait Jack noooo. Don’t go after her alone! Chase Dean instead!!
NOOO!! NOT IN THERE!!!
She’s totally gonna trap him in there.
...what?
She’s being so condescending shut the fudge up.
What? No.
Does he still not have a soul? Is that what he’s hiding? That wouldn’t make sense.
Oh wait. I get it now.
HE IS NOT!!! SHUT THE FUDGE UP LADY!!
LADY STOOOOOP! HE DOESN’T NEED YOUR SH**!! HE ALREADY FEELS GUILTY WOULD YOU QUIT IT??!! :’( :’( :’( :’(
HEY! NOT COOL!
I HOPE SOMEONE RIPS YOUR HEAD OFF B***H!!
They’re not. They know he won’t now.
SHUT UP LADY!!
HEY!!! STOP IT!!! LEAVE HIM ALONE!!!
TAKE HER DOWN JACK!!!
He IS family!
...ummm...what??
GOD DA**IT!!
...my mom literally just said “told you so” about the poisoning. ...which also explains why she walked away to make another smoothie, because she WANTED him to find the video, says my mom. And yes, my mom was right, AND I HATE IT!! SCREW YOU LADY!! LEAVE MY BABY ALONE!!
It IS safe you B**CH!!
HE’S NOT A MONSTER!!! :’( :’( :’(
DA**IT!! DEAN PLEASE DO SOMETHING!!
Ha! He’s so excited about the sandwich and it’s adorable.
But also save your son!!
...wait what?
She’s...she’s really just gonna out herself like that?
Ha! YES!
Aww...Dean’s so disappointed. :(
BUT! He’s sticking up for his son! Because even if he’s mad at him for everything that happened to Mary (but also get over it, because she sucked anyways, Dean XD), of course he’ll still protect him.
Ha! The way he just takes it away…
Aww...poor baby. :(
He’s so disappointed. He deserves better. I feel bad for him. :(
HE IS NOT! SHUSH!
Aww...looking at the sandwich, but making the right call.
AWW! He’s trying. Best of both worlds.
Take the deal, lady.
DA**IT!!!
SERIOUSLY?!
SERIOUSLY???!!!
Screw you, lady.
HEY! NOT FAIR!
He is NOTHING like his father, thank you very much!
Well...now what??
Oh thank god, Sam’s home. He’s smart. He’ll find a way to get them out.
Her calling him Samuel is both hilarious and annoying, somehow. I think it’s only annoying now because I hate her with what she just did to my boys. XD
OOOOF.
She gonna out herself again?
Sam’s face when she said that about good news and bad news. XD
I suppose the benefit of having a bad guy who thinks they’re doing the right thing is that she’s not trying to hide it. So hopefully, if she outs herself again, Sam can deal with it a little better than Dean did, knowing Dean was not very successful lol. Dean let his love of her food get in the way. XD
She DID out herself!
Ha! “You were always the smart one.”
YES! Good job, Sam. Starting off strong. <3
YES! GOOD JOB SAM!! Nice manipulation.
Ha!
Can’t believe she’s asking about the date.
Actually yes I can. XD
Wait, why don’t WE get to hear about the date? I WANNA HEAR ABOUT THE DATE DA**IT!
Well, DUH, Sam, you think they don’t know that?
Dean OMG!! XD XD
SUPPORTIVE BIG BRO!! XD XD
In Dean’s defense, he knew she’d wait for Sam, so...it’s not like they were REALLY in danger.
Do NOT try shooting her. Are you kidding me right now?
...really Sam? REALLY?! You’re going to try to SHOOT her?? You’ve seen what she can do, and you’re going to try to SHOOT her? She got the jump on JACK. POWERED UP Jack. Really? Call me crazy, but I feel like that’s not gonna work.
Yes. Yes he is. ...so much for Sam being the smart one.
I want to be mad at them for getting distracted by the holidays, but also I can’t exactly blame them given their childhoods, so…
Ha! The way they both react to the Boxing Day breakfast. Such brothers. XD
There ya go. Good plan. MUCH better than shooting her. Thank you boys.
WAIT WAIT WAIT!! Is this where we’re gonna get the “you sure this is gonna work” “let’s say yes” scene from the promo?? I THINK IT IS!! (Okay, so I MAY have watched that particular five second scene a million and one times because it had my boys in it, but I love them okay?? Sue me.)
Hey. Chill, Dean. Don’t yell at him.
Aww baby. :( :( :(
He doesn’t think you’re a monster. He’s just upset. :(
...uh oh. This convo is gonna be bad, isn’t it? :( :(
:’( :’( :’( :’( :’(
WAIT! “For a while” YES! THAT’S A GOOD THING!!
Oh wait. “Still am a little bit.”
“Evil Mary Poppins” XD XD
AWWW!! SEE JACK?! He DOES love you!! <3 <3 <3 <3
OKAY NEVER MIND THAT CONVO WAS ACTUALLY REALLY GOOD!!! I need to break that down for a second.
That convo was short and subtle and to the point, but it says SO much about Dean and Jack’s relationship.
First of all, the fact that Dean decided to be honest with Jack instead of continuing to pretend everything’s fine shows how much he really does care about Jack and how much he still trusts him and loves him. He doesn’t open up often, and I’m glad he finally did.
Second of all, he may have been blunt, but there was so much affection hidden in the way he addressed all of that. I mean, he tells Jack that he used to be really mad, and he still kind of is, but then he reminds him that just because they’re in a rough patch right now doesn’t mean he wants to lose him. Yes, Jack made a mistake, and yeah, Dean’s finding it hard to get over it, but Jack’s family through and through, and that means that, no matter what, Dean’s going to look out for him. It’s the same way he treats Cas and, more notably, the same way he treats Sam. He’s giving Jack the family treatment. And THAT is a BEAUTIFUL thing.
All of that said, between all of the OG Team Free Will, Dean’s relationship with Jack will always be my favorite (probably mostly because they’re my two favorite characters, but also because they’re amazing together), so this convo makes me so freaking happy. <3 <3 <3 <3
Sam you are being not very sneaky.
SERIOUSLY SAM??!!
I take that back. Sam is not being smart about this. *eye roll*
UGGGGHHHHH.
WHERE IS CAS WHEN YOU NEED HIM?!
Actually quick side note, one that I’m adding now that I’ve finished the episode: not having Cas around TOTALLY makes sense. Explanation included in the review.
“Because you are my favorite.” XD XD XD
She shouldn’t still be making me laugh, but dangat she’s too funny. XD
Wait noooo. No torture allowed.
I KNEW IT!! I TOLD YOU!! I CALLED IT!! SCENE FROM THE PROMO!! XD XD <3 <3 <3
I LOVE DEAN AND JACK SO MUCH!! <3 <3 <3
Ha! Fixing his hands.
YIKES!
...but did the cuffs break at least?
HA! She actually converted him to not swear.
I love how Dean makes a point of swearing extra loud after he realizes what he did. I love him. XD XD <3
Oh frick, that didn’t break the cuffs? Are you kidding me? Stupid powerful magic…
OOH! Dean’s got an idea!
THOSE LITTLE SMILES I LOVE THEM!! <3 <3 <3 <3
OH SHUT UP LADY! Are you still talking??
...okay so...trauma.
Please listen to Sam.
YES HE IS SHUSH!
Just because he has blood on his hands doesn’t mean he’s not a kid. Just saying.
Okay so I kind of feel bad for her knowing what she’s been through, but also that does not excuse her behavior. However, I will take back what I said about someone ripping her head off. I suppose that isn’t really necessary.
That said, someone please do something. :( :(
WOULD YOU QUIT IT WITH THE FINGERNAILS SUPERNATURAL??!! I STILL HAVEN’T GOTTEN OVER IT FROM THE CHRISTMAS EPISODE IN SEASON 3!!!
My mom and I are both turning away owwwwwww.
STOOOOOOOOOOP!!!
Jesus Christ lady!!
“Pain is just weakness leaving the body.” Dean what?! XD XD
HEY! Smart! Way to go you two!! <3 <3
And still helping his son up YES! <3 <3 <3
Okay that could not have been a more in character moment between Dean and Jack right there. Between the “not so bad” and the helping him up and the helping him walk down the hall and Jack just following him along and I just...I LOVE THEM OKAY!! <3 <3 <3
AHHH!! SHE TOOK OFF SO MANY FINGERNAILS JESUS!!
SHUT UP LADY!!
YES!
...Dean honey that was the reset button…
There’s no way that did the job. Too easy.
Problem not solved!! Problem DEFINITELY not solved!!
Creepy green eyes!!
Oh she looks maaaaad. That’s not good.
HEY!!! What happened to not hurting family??!!
LEAVE THEM ALONE!!
Which family??!! Cause YOU’RE the one destroying them!
No he won’t.
“You hurt him, you hurt us.” GREAT line!! YES SAM!! <3 <3 <3
Oooh!! He’s getting to her!! <3 <3
Oop. There’s our backstory. Mr. Cuthbert wouldn’t let her go back. Not that I’m surprised, given what he did to Dean all those years ago.
Yes. Yes he did.
YAY! Dean jumping in to save his son. <3
NICE! Good call, Dean! <3
THAT FACE!! Jack’s face!! <3 <3
YES!!!! YES!!! GOOD JOB BOYS!! <3 <3 <3
Awww….poor Mrs. Butters…
Okay now I feel really bad for her. And a little guilty that I called her a b***h. I’m still kind of mad at her, but...her motives make sense.
Hey yay! She healed him!
Wow, this nymph is POWERFUL. Now that she’s nice again, can we, like, actually keep her? Cause that’d be an awesome ally to have.
Aww...Jack being the one to voice their forgiveness. So pure, especially since she was after him all that time. <3
Awww….Dean wants her to stay. He’s so upset. XD
But he also gets it. :) <3
OMG!! That shot with all three of them looking at her and those sweet little smiles they give her as she’s talking about home. There was just so much...genuineness in that! I loved it! <3 <3
Jack being the voice again. <3
Okay, she looks hecka cute in that outfit.
Oof. That makes sense lol. It would be way too easy if it didn’t revert back.
...inter what now?
Oh shoot...that just proves Chuck destroyed all the worlds...lovely….
Awww!! <3 <3
Ha! Her little words of wisdom to them! To reiterate: SUCH. A. MOM. XD XD <3 <3
Sam and Dean’s smirks at each other when she tells them to do the same things they’ve been telling each other to do for years--eat your vegetables and cut your hair. XD
Awww….that little extra nose crinkle and smile at Jack when she tells him to save the world. <3
I also just realized that this breaks my theory that anyone who meets Jack instantly falls in love with him because of how adorable he is. Though, I guess she’s a little different given that extra little motivation to protect her family in the only way she knows how. Plus, trauma.
Oof. Bye bye extra magic.
Aww...this convo between Jack and Sam. <3 <3
Aww Jack… :( :(
You weren’t stupid, baby. You all fell for it. :(
Aww….he’s looking for faith from Sam.
And Sam just gave it to him. <3
I know the line seems desperate, and in a way, it is, but the way that Sam gave him a little smile shows that it’s more than that. They are desperate, and Jack is their only hope, but also, Sam knows Jack can handle it, because he does have faith in him. It’s a short convo, but it says so much.
That tin has a birthday cake for Jack, made by Dean. Calling it right now.
“He loves that apron.” XD <3 <3
I KNEW IT AND I LOVE IT OMG!!! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
THAT’S SO ADORABLE!!! And that is ONE HUNDRED PERCENT Dean’s way of telling Jack that he still loves him, and that he forgives him. <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
THEIR LITTLE SMILES!! <3 <3 <3
I’M SCREAMING!!! ALL OF THEIR SMILES AT EACH OTHER I FREAKING LOVE THIS FAMILY!!! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
I SERIOUSLY LOST ALL FUNCTIONALITY JUST NOW TO THE POINT WHERE I’M ADDING THIS COMMENT LATER BECAUSE AHHHH!!! <3 <3 <3 <3
AWESOME ending shot. It’s a great way to end a much more light-hearted episode while also setting us up perfectly for knowing that things are about to get heavy and serious. I bet whatever Jack wished for, it has something to do with taking on God.
Okay, so...those reactions were a lot longer than I was anticipating, and I want to apologize, but also, I did warn you. XD That said, review time!
I loved this episode! It was absolutely hilarious, but also sweet and touching. It mixed some crazy and fun moments with some of the most subtly emotional ones, both negative and positive. I absolutely loved all the Easter Eggs, and I loved watching the boys have a chance to celebrate holidays in a way that they never have before, especially with Jack. The facial expressions in this episode killed me. Between all of the little smiles and dorky excitement, I was laughing and smiling right along with the characters. Some stand-out moments/things for me:
That convo between Dean and Jack. I already broke it down above, but seriously, I love how they did that. As a huge fan of Dean and Jack and their relationship, the way that those two interacted this episode was beautiful and really sets up the fact that they’re going to need to lean on each other for support as a whole family in the coming fight, and I loved that. <3
Sam going on a date with Eileen! <3 Initially, I had a theory that Sam and Eileen would end up together at the end of all of this, but when she left a few episodes ago, I threw that idea out the window and it made me sad. So the fact that they went on a date and got to see each other again--even if we didn’t get to see it--makes me so happy and brings back my hope that they’ll end up being together. <3 That said, I am 100% going to write a fanfiction of that date, since Supernatural chose to keep it from us. XD
The acting really stood out to me in this one. Maybe it’s just because it’s been so long since I’ve seen them doing something new, but I honestly feel like J2 and Alex nailed it even more than usual. I mean, their facial expressions were seriously so amazing in this episode. Between the really dorky moments and the subtle emotional moments, I felt like their faces were always saying so much and I loved it. <3
One thing I want to address is the lack of Cas. I know a lot of people were upset that he wasn’t in it, especially since the boys were celebrating so many holidays with Jack, and while I agree that it would’ve been beautiful to have him there, it makes perfect sense that he wasn’t there based on the trajectory of the episode and everything that happened. For starters, if Cas had been there, the wood nymph business would’ve been solved INSTANTLY. Cas is always extra suspicious of people, so if she didn’t trust him because he was an angel, the odds of her getting the jump on him would’ve been slim. And yes, she did poison Jack with the smoothies, but, as this episode continued to point out, Jack is still a kid, so he’s still much more naive and gullible. Plus, he’s upset and guilty and confused and just generally vulnerable now that his soul is back, so it was easy for him to trust and be manipulated. But if Mrs. Butters had tried to do the same thing to Cas, (and I’m picturing that one scene with the milkshake in Peace of Mind here) there’s no way he would’ve fallen for it. More importantly, with how worried he is about Jack, he would’ve been really vigilant about the way she was talking to him and everything, and he probably would’ve caught the poisoning long before it could really hurt him. And you can argue that Sam and Dean probably should’ve picked up on it, which is true, however, even they admit that they get distracted in the fun of it all. While it would’ve been great to see Cas in on the festivities, he wouldn’t have been quite as distracted by it as the boys were, and with his vigilance, there’s no way any of them would ever have gotten hurt. He’d be watching Mrs. Butters like a hawk, and the second she did something suspicious, she’d be gone. That said, I can understand if people want to say that’s dumb, because if they didn’t want Cas to defeat the villain so easily, they shouldn’t have had a villain that could be so easily defeated by Cas, and I’m sure some people feel like that’s a stupid excuse. To which I also offer this. After seeing those convos between Dean and Jack and Sam and Jack, and knowing that the episode ends with the three of them celebrating Jack’s birthday, Cas’s absence makes even more sense: this episode wasn’t about him. I love Cas, but it didn’t need him. See, Cas already has an undying love for Jack. While Cas definitely saw Mary as family, he never had the same emotional connection to her that Sam and Dean did--for obvious reasons. But he definitely had--and still has--a very strong emotional connection to Jack. He’s always been the most involved in being Jack’s father--again, for obvious reasons. But even after the Mary incident, it was Cas who went to find him, who tried to help him, and who wanted to protect him. Cas always loved him and always trusted him, and he always will. But Sam and Dean lost a lot of trust for Jack after what happened to Mary...and this episode fixed that. Because Cas wasn’t around, it gave Jack a chance to prove himself to Sam and Dean again. Sam had already pretty much forgiven him, but Dean was definitely on the fence. He even says it. But the fact that Dean had that conversation with him and said everything he did proves that Dean still loves him, and it gave Jack the reassurance he needed that, while Dean is still mad, he doesn’t hate him, and he doesn’t think he’s a monster. And while Sam and Jack were on pretty good terms, Jack was still worried that Sam couldn’t trust him--that Sam didn’t have faith in him anymore. But when Sam tells him that he knows he can defeat God, Jack gets confirmation that Sam does still have faith in him. And after all of that, after celebrating all of those holidays together, and having both of those conversations, to then end that with Sam and Dean celebrating Jack’s birthday? That’s what this episode was about. Sure, it was a silly monster of the week episode. Sure, we got some adorable and hilarious moments. And sure, we got to see them celebrate things that they never got to celebrate in a real way before. But underlying all of that, we got to see Jack become part of Sam and Dean’s family again. We got to see them bond. And knowing that this is right before they all prepare to take on God--Jack needed that. The boys needed that. They needed to all trust each other again. And the fact that they celebrated his birthday at the end proves that they do. They’re a family again. They have each other’s backs. They trust each other. And they love each other. And as much as I love Cas, and as much as I would’ve loved to have seen him be a part of their holidays, he didn’t need to be. But those three did. And that’s why Cas wasn’t in the episode. So, frankly, full points to the writers for making that happen. While they gave us a fun episode, and they may have left out a fan favorite character, it created an underlying theme that’s really going to matter as we get into the big stuff of Season 15. And that’s awesome.
All in all, I thought this was a great episode, and I’m so glad that this is how we get to jump back into the season. Not only was this episode hilarious and fun, but it was also a great set-up for the coming battle and for all the hard and serious things that are bound to come in the next several episodes.
Rumor has it that this was the last “silly” episode of the show, and while that’s a sad thought to think about, it totally makes sense with what they did with the episode, and frankly, I think it’s a beautiful silly one to have ended on and a great way to lead into everything that’s coming next.
My Rating: 10/10

#spn#spn season 15#supernatural#supernatural spoilers#15x14#last holiday#supernatural season 15#spn spoilers#season 15#spn reviews#spn reactions#my opinion
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Okay this is for like, 3 people
Please check it out in the phone, my layout is shit to read but it’s been 12 years since I’ve changed any of my blog settings and I no longer have energy to relearn how to do it
I promised (umprompted, on my own) to make a Scum Villain review, so here it goes:
in short, I liked it (aaaand there’s where the 3 people I wrote for get all the information they actually wanted, but whatever. You girls don’t get a say)
Obviously it’s hard to not compare it to mdzs, and they do feel like they were written by the same person, at least. The style of story, I mean. The writing style is completely different - because the main character is a millenial internet dudebro, and his thoughts are always there to remind us of this. In fact, I’m very curious to know how the original is written, since this genre tends to be written a bit more composed than THAT, right? XD (mxtx herself was worried that people wouldn’t like mdzs because it is very different of this 1st work of hers)
Anyway, it’s far more satirical than mdzs, and funnier than sadder. I still think mdzs is better overall, but that’s not to say Scum Villain dissapoints. In fact, I knew a bunch of mini spoilers, and still everything was a wild ride. I could hardly predict the turn of events. In fact, I predicted nothing. Thrice I made stupid faces in the subway to try and contain my laughter, so if nothing else, it’ll be fun. But remember, it’s still mxtx!
If there’s one thing that was annoying was the sheer volume of footnotes each chapter has. Shen Qingqiu, Why So Many References. But it’s cool that I had to read chapters of different translators, unlike mdzs, and compare their styles of translations, sometimes even with a chapter translated in two different sites, hah
Also... there’s a fine line between mxtx’s naming sense and the in-universe’s authors naming sense. Whenever you see a ridiculous name, mxtx is probably getting a kick out of it. In fact, the whole novel makes some remarks about webnovel publishing, fans and anti-fans receptions, not to mention an author deciding to give in to demands instead of writing a good story.
And have I mentioned the protag is an internet dudebro? A lot of the novel comes through his pov, so expect a more gendered language. tbh I don’t know what’s more surprising, that he was quick to accept Luo Binghe’s feelings once everything was said and done, or that he had been kissed in his previous life. You’re not gonna hear anything much about his previous life either btw, which is a bummer but maybe it’s the point. He was still pretty fun and engaging to me, maybe because like him I tend to think more than feel, have a terribly dry humor and value being practical. He’s still a kind person and a surprisingly loved father figure, LOL. (is it a spoiler if I say that we have an entire cast of scum villains, protag aside?)
Please, don’t skip the extras. They’re not easy to find but they’re all great
Also... the main pairing is otp alright, but unlike mdzs, I can see the appeal of a bunch of side pairings for the main character, too... There’s a lot of people romantically interested in the main characters too, which didn’t really happen in mdzs and ruka will probably find this as fun as I did
Now, I feel obliged to give the usual warnings of what one would find, which is like... mxtx being mxtx. Gore, blood, terrible deaths, characters having horrible fates, understandable but disastrous misunderstandings, house arrests happen (?), implied rape, dub-con (non-con?) - and this one isn’t their kink, so it’s for real. Aaaand painful sex. Painful, honest-to-god bloody sex. This one is a squick of mine, so when I read this chapter I was mentally screaming AAAAAAAAA all the time. This one time is written in a very un-sexy way, me thinks
One last thing: Holy Shit, Luo Binghe exists to suffer
since visuals are everything:

And for self-organization, might as well put the links here
UNEDITED version, up to ch40: https://cnoveluv.wordpress.com/projects/the-scum-villains-self-saving-system/
bcnovel’s version: http://bcnovels.com/the-scum-villains-self-saving-system/
succubi extra: https://faelicy.tumblr.com/post/180154270882/a-memory-fighting-succubi-with-great-master-liu
Luo Binghe turns into a child extra, Shen Jiu’s backstory, and others: https://pizziccato.tumblr.com/post/180786497951/translation-masterpost
EDITED version, ongoing: https://faelicy.tumblr.com/post/185035206852/scum-villain-table-of-contents
eh, I feel like I’m still leaving something out.
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saturday morning was cloudy. the whole day was cloudy, but to start, i woke up to a sunrise that didn’t exist. so i ate breakfast and went back to sleep (if i had to define what a vacation was, it would have to include that activity: going back to sleep). then i went to meet nadège, jenn, and haidee at their flat.
i’ve always stayed in a hotel when i’ve visited, specifically the hotel. part of it is because i know how the hotel works, and i heavily weight the value of the familiar. it also was part of the rewards program with sas. it isn’t anymore, and i think they’re going to be doing construction next year, so i’m starting to consider different options for stays for my next trip. i’ll probably stick to a hotel because i heavily weight the existence of room service too, but now it doesn’t have to be the radisson blu. i’ve ridden that elevator enough times.
but uh, the point of this consideration is because they were staying in a really nice flat, which was like an extended stay suite but through airbnb. i was super anxious about using airbnb last summer because it was someone’s home, but this flat was not that, which was appealing to me. i would have to pack much less if i were to go the walk-up route though. um, so i met them there and we walked to get kabobs. jenn had to catch a flight that afternoon but she hadn’t gotten her kabob fix yet, so it was a necessary spot. we met jenni’s group there and then walked down to the river for a moment to eat and chat. nadège and i kept walking along the river since we weren’t eating, and we had a chance to talk through some of the stuff that was bothering me from the day before.
it was really helpful to have that chance, both to let me express myself as well as hear her perspective. most of the time, even though i’m constantly keeping up with people on my dashboard, i’m still very much in my own head about it all. i’m not using a soundboard, just letting my own opinion boil up until it causes problems, spilling negativity into other people’s lives. this has been happening more often, probably because i’m talking to fewer and fewer people as the fandom shrinks and i get more stubborn, so i really appreciated this chance to both be very much in the fandom (in oslo, with human beings) as well as take a step back from it. i still need to work on how i balance my sense of self that i get from the internet with how i express myself in person, and it seems like that just means i need to take a walk and talk to someone. like, every day.
anyway, that’s what we did, going down to the dick swan and back, visiting the barely-canon tree and syng. when we got back to the girls we figured out where we were going next, and we broke up for the afternoon.
a couple of days ago jasmine and silvia had mentioned the nrk studio tour as a thing to do, and i impulse bought (is there any other way?) a ticket for saturday. nadège and haidee were interested in going, so we decided to press our luck and head over to the office to see if we could squeeze two more people onto the tour (it was listed as sold out for saturday when they checked). taru gave us helpful tips for getting to the office but between my struggle with google maps and the front door, we were still too late. the guide was nice enough to come to the front and answer some questions though, so we just went back to the website and bought tickets for sunday instead.
by then the clouds were releasing a week’s worth of weather, and we were all the way out in marienlyst with a couple of hours to kill. so we went through our lists of things we wanted to see, if there were any sites left that hadn’t been toured even though we’ve all been to oslo a few times at this point. and there were! we were actually kind of close to the university campus where parts of “all stories are echoes” are set, so nadège wanted to find an important statue from the fic. she and haidee had read it, and while we walked to campus they did a recap for me, so i would understand the significance of the statue.
at that point it was raining heavily and we were lost but i didn’t really mind it because we were just walking and talking. there was a general goal that we were trying to achieve, but it felt very relaxed, and it was fun listening to all of the things that really excited them about the stories they read. after all this time i don’t think i ever did that, like really find out what attracted them to this fandom, so it was a fun and enlightening conversation. it also passed the time well, as we were walking through the campus and then trying to find a bus back to sentrum.
oh wait, not sentrum. next we looked up kjærlighetskarusellen, because that post about it from the header had recently circulated, and it was another canon detail that sort of defined these trips that we take. we come to oslo because we are fans of a show that is set here, and we love it so much that we seek out every little detail in appreciation. that love has grown to encompass the whole city, so we were looking for this show detail as well as monument to the city’s history and its relationship with homosexuality. we lingered outside of it for a bit, because there was a man actually using it as a urinal, and then we snapped our photos once the coast was clear. now i am no stranger to being creepy but that was probably a top five moment for me, taking a picture of a public urinal. i loudly talked about how it was a cultural heritage site as if that would convince random people passing by that i was truly interested in the city’s sanitation efforts instead of, like, men peeing. for the record i’m not particularly interested in either.
then we went back to the flat for a bathroom break, and on to eat waffles. oh boy! i was excited because i had never had one before. i was still shy in terms of trying one, and chose the nugatti topping instead of the jam & brown cheese classic (pictured is haidee’s waffle). mine was super sweet and...gummy? like the hazelnut paste and the soft waffle was just cement in my mouth, and i got a work out just trying to clean off my teeth with my tongue. but it was delicious. i’d probably eat one every day if i had daily access to haralds.
after our waffle we went to meet jasmine and silvia. we shared a pizza for a late lunch/early dinner, and then went back to the hotel so i could change out of my wet clothes. we recapped each other’s dramas and activities from earlier in the day, and talked about fandom and the internet and how people change, if they do. at this point we’ve known each other for at least a year, if not longer, and it’s interesting to see how we, and the rest of the fandom, have evolved as the show has faded into the distance.
some of the stuff we talked about got intense, or we got wrapped up in drama (what else is new), and we had to take a break by watching the bloopers. that was an instant mood lift, and fun to do with people in the same room. everything was a little bit funnier or cuter or sillier when i could hear everyone else laughing at the show too. someday i’d love to rent out a cinema theatre and project season three for a marathon viewing (with bathroom breaks) for a group of fans. maybe for a seven-year anniversary, when you could time it so it would play on a friday evening, and at exactly 21:21 in real time you’d watch isak walk across the courtyard at school to save the man of his dreams.
but back to saturday. it wasn’t raining, but we took the metro to the park next (baby’s first metro trip!). we were going to meet jenni, taru, and kati, and figure out a good place for jasmine and silvia to hang out outside to listen to karpe. we said our goodbyes at the gate and shifted to the other friend group. i think we were kind of early but there was already a decent crowd going in, and going right for the main stage. i don’t think we bothered with food or drink this time around, mostly because we’d just eaten and it was starting to drizzle, which meant everything would get wet anyway.
jenn mentioned a few times that it was a shame there wasn’t any festival merch to purchase while we were walking around, because we kept seeing all of the volunteers with their t-shirts and bags from previous years. it felt like a missed opportunity. i wondered if it was on purpose, to give more weight to the merch that the volunteers got, as a draw for them to sign up and return to work. limited merch would make that experience more special. but i was wrong, because after jenn had left we finally found out that there was a merch tent with apparel for sale; we just hadn’t found it. so before we joined the crowd for karpe we went up the hill and bought tote bags and socks. i’ll deliver jenn’s tote to her on friday, at the sigrid show. i’m mostly mentioning that here so i don’t forget. i was so excited to find socks because i’m getting used to wearing more funky options (mostly due to haidee’s lovely gifts!) but also because they were um, featured on the festival issue of natt & dag.
we moved closer to the stage, but it was actually the farthest we’d been from it the whole week, simply because the crowd was already packed in. while we waited ronny from nrk p3 walked past, and that was my only celebrity sighting at the whole festival. on thursday i thought i saw axel bøyum walk in front of me, but i’m not sure. it was fast, and i thought i noticed his sharply-angled face and deep eyes, but he was also wearing a hood so i didn’t have much else to compare. he was short though, which also made him stand out to me. anyway, that was the extent of my sightings: 1.5 people. there were others there, of course, because i saw their instagram posts, but i either wasn’t paying attention or wasn’t in the right places to see them. since i myself prefer not to be seen, i tend to treat everyone else the same (at least not on the internet), so i default to ignoring the people around me unless they acknowledge me first. i need your explicit consent before i let myself stare at you.
here’s a brief pause to note how sad i am about heimebane. aaaaaand moving on!
the karpe crowd was huge and...different. saturday had a different vibe in general because it was the weekend, and if someone was going to just pick one day to go to øya this would be that day. also it was raining, so there was this anticipatory buzz that was like, 80% for the show and 20% for getting dry again in a couple of hours. our group kind of slowly shifted and morphed as we were pushed closer to the stage and trying not to lose our footing on the sloped ground. but then the show started and the crowd exploded and you just had to fuckin’ roll with it.
i had to read up on the show afterward to understand some of what magdi and chirag were talking and singing about. despite talking about it with fryd months ago, i didn’t get into their new album like i’d wanted to. so i didn’t understand most of the message in the moment; i was just enjoying the beats and the intensity of everyone else. there was a group of younger guys in front of us who sang every damn word and it was just a really...fulfilling thing to witness? norway came out for norway, and the crowd was exactly what karpe deserved for the show they put on. the guys chatted with nadège and sang at me to get us hyped, and i still felt slightly removed from the crowd but that was okay. i enjoyed this outsider place. i didn’t have to understand or be part of it because it was big enough on its own. i could simply bask in the overflow and dance in the rain.
i knew one song from when i had it on repeat summer 2017, the result of following ashley’s obsession with karpe on tumblr. i also still connected it to skam, from when i was more passionately following the actors’ lives and seeing them go to their concert in oslo, which i think cengiz was also dancing for? these are very weak links but links nonetheless, and it still felt like i was ticking off boxes on my unwritten “experience skam” list. it’s also a testament to how far i’ll twist something to justify it, make it fit my personal narrative. i must still feel guilty about my trips to oslo.
(side note: i’ve been meaning to look this up but i am fascinated by their use of the sas brand in their album and shows, like...they are aggressively shaping the brand and i’m curious as to whether they have permission to do it or if they don’t need it or what level of control the brand has over its use. the relationship between a brand and an artist these days is fucking fascinating, and i’m sort of aware of the rules that we need in america but is it different in other countries? i’m already a fan of sas, in that it’s my airline for my trips to oslo, but would i have been influenced more toward or against it if i were approaching it from a karpe angle, if the duo were introducing me to it? anyway, just some mind wanderings there.)
at the end the crowd was lighting up their cups again. we were surrounded by different people than how we started and couldn’t find the ones we knew. we made the same walk away from the stage, bouncing along with the flow, until we got to the festival sign to catch up with everyone. we took a group pic and said goodnight, not entirely sure what the next day would bring but quite satisfied with the one that had just ended. it was funny how used to the exit walk i’d become, after just a few days, and i felt a little nostalgic about even that, as we did it for the last time. and even though we were all soaked and exhausted, i didn’t feel a particular rush to leave. but it was over. just like that. the volunteers were collecting cups from the crowd as we went, but i took mine home.
#this took way too long to write and now i’m so behind it doesn’t matter anymore#i’ve queued it for a random dag in october#who knows if i’ll be back or still on lockdown#kerryinoslo
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Episode 1 Review, Part I: Welcome to Maljardin
{ YouTube: 1 | 2 | 3 }
{ Synopses: Debby Graham | Bryan Gruszka }
{ Screencaps }
What to write about the pilot? How should I begin the introduction to the first real post on this blog? I don’t wish to write a detailed synopsis, because other people have already done so, and I feel neither the need nor the desire to comment on everything in this episode (or, indeed, in any episode). Also, funnier writers than I have already written detailed reviews of it, and I don’t feel I can compete with them, especially if I focus too hard on trying to be funny. So this will be a different kind of review series, focusing on analysis of what I think is important/interesting instead of recapping everything. And I promise that my other posts won’t be as long as this one. There’s just a lot to cover in this first post.
One of the main questions that I intend to explore in this post series is what makes a TV show “bad.” Obviously, this is purely subjective, and most of what I write will be my silly personal opinion, but we are dealing with a show that many people consider “bad” and that, arguably, is “bad” by most mainstream TV watchers’ standards nowadays. Today, we live in an era where TV dramas have increasingly higher budgets and production values, where viewers expect realistic acting and special effects, where streaming and binge-watching are increasingly the norm, and where making a single continuity error or retcon will inspire scorn from your entire fanbase (and God forbid one of the actors forgets to throw out their Starbucks cup). TV today is almost the polar opposite of TV in 1969, when shows were much lower budget, special effect failures were far more acceptable, and streaming on demand probably sounded more absurd than using science to bring a frozen woman’s body back to life. As such, people today expect different things from television from the soap opera viewers of fifty years ago, and are quick to dismiss a show as bad.
I agree that continuity errors and retcons are signs of mediocre writing, but do high production values and good special effects really matter? Is realistic acting necessary for drama, or can drama be just as effective with artificial, stylized, hammy or campy acting? How do we separate a genuinely bad show from one that is merely dated, or that has a few minor problems? If you ask me, the answer lies in the writing and the effectiveness of the acting--and it is the writing that will be the primary focus of this blog.
The pilot, like the 43 episodes that follow, was written by Ian Martin, an actor-turned-writer for soap operas and later Gothic romance and horror. He is most famous for writing over two hundred episodes of CBS Radio Mystery Theater in the 1970s. (While I only recently discovered CBSRMT and therefore haven’t listened to most of the episodes yet, I can say that those of his that I’ve listened to are very good. I particularly recommend “And Death Makes Even Steven” and “Time and Again.”) For the plot of Strange Paradise, Martin seems to have drawn on his own life experiences: namely, the tragic early death of his first wife, the actress Inge Adams. According to Curt Ladnier, “Though no one can claim to know what was going through Ian Martin’s mind as he wrote the scripts laying the groundwork for Strange Paradise‘s basic plot, it’s not hard to conceive he may have felt some familiarity with the story of a man who lost the love of his life to an untimely death.” His grief shines through every speech that he has Jean Paul give to Erica. Indeed, his episodes have far more heart in them than later Maljardin episodes or Desmond Hall, and most of my favorite episodes were his work. They also have a lot of snarky humor and better dialogue than most of the later episodes, so, if you imagine a sliding scale going from “good” to “slightly so-bad-it’s-good” to “David Wells,” most would be on the “good” side. (Most of Desmond Hall, in contrast, is decidedly on the other--which is a given, considering that David Wells plays a prominent role in that arc, and most of the time he’s hilariously bad.)
This is not to say that Martin’s writing is perfect. Some of his episodes drag and he is not exactly subtle about many things. He has characters (especially Raxl) repeat themselves perhaps more than is necessary. Also, many of his episodes contain a certain subplot that I find boring and pointless and that the show could have done without. (More on all these things when we get to them.) The early Maljardin episodes are not masterpieces, but they’re a hell of a lot better than most of what came after. And it’s clear that Martin was trying to do its own thing, rather than copy off Dark Shadows.
So, anyway, enough about Ian Martin and onto my thoughts about Episode 1, which is what you presumably came here for:
The obligatory first-episode title card screencap
The show opens on the fictional Caribbean island of Maljardin, which roughly translates to “garden of evil.” Jardin is French for “garden” and mal for “evil (noun).” Mal can also be used as an adverb to mean “badly,” but it is not an adjective. “Evil (adjective) garden” would be Mauvaisjardin, which doesn’t sound half as cool. The exterior shots are of Casa Loma, a mansion in Toronto surrounded by trees that look nothing like anything in the Caribbean, but I can forgive them because the Château de Maljardin is awesome both inside and out. I would say I want to live on Maljardin, but I don’t like the heat and I’m sure the air conditioning costs for the château are extravagant--and, although they never mention it on the show, you know that filthy rich and frequently overdressed Jean Paul Desmond would have had air conditioning installed.
Jean Paul Desmond (Colin Fox) is the master of Maljardin and he is grieving the death of his wife Erica (Lara Cochrane), whose body he is preparing to freeze in order to bring her back to life at some point in the future. Erica has apparently only just died, and he is already having his servant Quito (Kurt Schiegl) carry huge blocks of dry ice--with his bare hands (WTF?)--to line her coffin. Jean Paul must have spent a while preparing for this, and one wonders how far in advance he had to decide to do this, especially since he has already arranged for the Cryonics Society to professionally freeze her and they state in the first episode that he does not have a phone on his island. I’ve watched this episode three times and, each time I watch it, the whole situation seems a little more suspicious. But maybe he and/or Dr. Menkin (Joe Austin) predicted her death far in advance and planned accordingly? Surely a man as besotted with his wife as Jean Paul couldn’t have murdered her, right?
I love the scene where he makes his grand entrance carrying Erica. It's so extra. He's so extra.
I’m not speculating about all this because I don’t like Jean Paul, but rather because of certain clues in the narrative that might reflect a once-planned plot twist that writers after Martin ignored. (The keyword is might; I have no evidence that Martin was planning one, but one can always speculate.) In fact, I adore Jean Paul. His actor, Colin Fox, is the main reason why I’m obsessed with this show and can’t stop watching it. I have a huge crush on him thanks to this show, even bigger than my previous #1 crush, which was on King Henri III of France. Jean Paul is exactly my type: super-tall (he looks about 6′6″/2 meters), dark, handsome (more so when he’s not brooding), graceful, elegant, and very, very extra. He also has a beautiful voice, and I love listening to him talk. Yes, I know I’m attracted to him for mostly superficial reasons, but Jean Paul’s a fictional character, so does it matter? There are only a few problems with him, most notably some megalomaniacal tendencies:
I suppose, though, that it’s inevitable to become somewhat of a megalomaniac when you own not just an isolated private island, but “a brokerage house, a department store, three newspapers, a football franchise, motion picture and television interests, and real estate holdings,” to quote another character. Jean Paul thinks that he can bring Erica back to life by spending millions of dollars on cryonics, which other characters--most notably his housekeeper Raxl (Cosette Lee)--insist is playing God. Only one other character approves, and he even applauds him for it:
This is Jacques Eloi des Mondes, Jean Paul’s identical ancestor from the 17th century and my favorite character on this show. His surname literally means “of the worlds,” which I think is an awesome name for a character in an urban fantasy/horror series. According to Raxl, who is highly knowledgeable about both the des Mondes family history and the supernatural, Jacques Eloi des Mondes was THE DEVIL. (It is never clear whether she means this literally or figuratively.) He is also, in my not-so-humble opinion, the single hottest male character in the history of television. No exceptions. If you gave me the choice between Jacques and the entire cast of every other show in existence, I would choose him. He is charming, charismatic, seductive, and hilarious, at least in Ian Martin’s episodes. Most of the writers after Martin, however, ignore his superficial charm and focus instead on his evil, which Martin mostly only hints at. Anyway, Jacques talks through this portrait--a surprisingly good one compared to other “period” portraits from other shows and movies--which glows when his spirit talks to Jean Paul in this episode and which disappears when he (mild spoiler alert)
possesses him.
Jean Paul realizes that he and Jacques have a lot in common, including both having lost their wives at a young age. It is implied that he may even be a reincarnation of Jacques, who calls him “the man you are, the man you might have been,” before making him have a flashback to Jacques’ wedding reception three hundred years earlier. I will cover the flashback in another post, because, despite being only a minute and a half long, there is a lot to unpack and I want to critique the costumes in addition to analyzing the content. But I will say this now: Martin has Jacques mention “the cliff heights at sunset” in a rather ominous way, followed by a glance at the camera that suggests a much darker intent than just showing them to his bride:
This is the face of a very handsome man who is contemplating murder.
After this flashback, Jean Paul finds a glass of brandy in his hand that wasn’t there before: something which only Debby Graham’s synopsis mentions, but which is the first of many instances of Jacques literally making him drink. Jacques offers to resurrect Erica in return for Jean Paul setting him free, which involves finding his effigy in the crypt in the basement and removing a silver pin from its head. Jean Paul does this in a scene interspersed with clips of a singer performing a bad cover of “That Old Black Magic” (somewhere between slightly so-bad-it’s-good and David Wells on the sliding scale), and, as soon as he removes the pin from the doll’s head, Raxl freaks out because she senses what has just happened:
Jacques: *bows* “Bonjour!” *smirks as show cuts to brief shot of blank portrait* “The voodoo spell is broken.” *taps on doll’s head with pin* “I no longer have any need for you. Now...”
Raxl: "YOU DEVIL OUT OF HELL! OH! YOU FOOL! HOW DID YOU EVER BREAK THE SPELL THAT BOUND YOU TO-" *stops in archway and gasps*
Jacques: *in both Jean Paul’’s body and clothes now* "Why, what's the matter with you, Raxl?"
Jacques Eloi des Mondes, THE DEVIL, has possessed Jean Paul and is loose on Maljardin! And the episode ends shortly after.
While not one of the best episodes, the pilot is definitely interesting. The acting is somewhat campy and cheesy, especially in the flashback and in all of Raxl’s scenes, so this episode is definitely so bad it’s good. If you have read any of the synopses I linked to earlier in this article, it will be obvious that I didn’t write about everyone and everything in this episode (notably, I didn’t cover Alison and Dan’s scenes), but that is out of a desire to focus on Jean Paul and Jacques rather than a lack of interest. I do wonder, though: is this the first time that Jacques has spoken to Jean Paul? And just what is the true, original story behind Erica’s death?
{ <-- Previous: Introduction || Next: Episode 1, Part II --> }
#strange paradise#gothic soap opera#week 1#episode 1#maljardin arc#review#analysis#ian martin#cbs radio mystery theater#cbsrmt#conjure doll and silver pin#jacques making jean paul drink#magical costume change#on this island i am god#sliding scale of episode quality#speculation on ian martin's original story
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taehyung x reader // fuckboy!taehyung // 2k words
You stare at the piece of paper before you. You’re so close. All you need is the middle tile and you would hit double bingo.
Wait, bingo? Why did you care for bingo?
See it wasn’t just any game of bingo. It was a special one. Each tile was a specific challenge, one you would have to complete and post on social media as proof. The challenges ranged from correcting your professor during lecture to kayaking to the middle of the enormous lake on campus to scaling the beloved statue right in the middle of the quad. Granted, you’ve picked the easier ones to complete but you think you’ve done pretty well so far. You’ve already managed to complete 8 of them. 4 straight across and 4 up. Almost forming a cross but you needed that middle tile, badly. Why? Well, this game of bingo boasted a prize of a semester’s supply of free burgers and fries. If that isn’t music to a broke college student’s ears, you’re not sure what is.
So, you’re one away from double bingo, only the middle tile standing in your way and maybe right now, you regret choosing this formation. Perhaps you should have gone for one of the rows or columns that didn’t have the middle tile… but, striking the middle tile meant you had to do one less challenge. Considering the fact that your professors are really beginning to pile on the coursework, you didn’t have the time to complete any more than one silly challenge. You groan about your predicament to Lisa, your closest friend who was this close to throwing you into the lake herself if you make her film anymore of your stupid videos for the bingo challenge.
“But that’s easy,” She laughs looking at the paper in your hand.
“Easy? It’s the middle tile for a reason,” You grumble.
Get 3000 likes on an original post that has some academic relevance.
Now how were you going to do that? It’s been weeks and you and well… the 10 other people who still bothered participating are still trying to nail that very tile. Considering that only 5 people follow you on Instagram, 3 of which are spam accounts… you don’t think you’ll be getting 3000 likes on anything, much less a post that was academically relevant.
“Just get a picture with Taehyung,” She hums. “He rakes in likes by the thousands.”
“It has to be academically related, you ninny,” You grumble, poking her in the forehead. “Taehyung and academics don’t really go hand in hand.”
See, Kim Taehyung is Beta Tau Sigma’s beloved fratboy. Loved, or rather lusted after by many, but also hated by many… usually, scorned women, of course. You’ve heard stories of him, many in fact, but they’re all the same. It’s always the same story about how they had a one-night stand with the handsome boy, how he oozed confidence, how he had them crawling back for more and of course, he obliges but it’s never really more than sex. The boy wears his fuckboy badge loud and proud and you guess you always found it quite ridiculous that the girls would come crying, bawling over the fact that he didn’t want to be exclusive. Of course he didn’t, you snort. It was practically written on his face. But you don’t understand, they would say. He was so sweet, he was so… different. But fuckboys are fuckboys, you smile. If you had a face like his, you’d probably do the same.
“Okay, but what’s the criteria? You just have to look like you’re doing homework or something, right?”
“Yes.”
“Then that’s easy! I’ll get you your 3000 likes so I don’t have to follow you around campus and watch you make a fool out of yourself anymore.”
“Okay, but how? How does Taehyung fit into this? Just so you know, me roleplaying a schoolgirl while Taehyung smacks my ass doesn’t count as an academically relevant post.”
“That’s… actually better than what I had in mind but, you know that’s what Pornhub is for and unless you’re thinking of delving into amateur porn, I think we can skip that idea,” She laughs. “Just bring your notes with you to Beta Tau this Saturday and I’ll sort the rest of it out.”
“You’re not going to make me flash a tit in front of him are you? Because I absolutely won’t—”
“It’ll be PG, sort of… anyway, don’t worry,” She huffs. “Just, remember to be there, okay?”
You say yes and she reminds you a few more times during the week but as usual, when the day comes, you’re nowhere in sight. It’s only when your phone rings, the bass thumping in the background of Lisa’s call that you actually remember where you’re supposed to be.
“Please tell me you’re on your way here.”
“I… Yeah, I am,” You mumble, as you answer one of the last few questions on your online Chemistry quiz. “But look, I need to finish this quiz first because once I start it, there’s a time limit and—"
“You better get here in 20 because Taehyung is getting awfully antsy about being held back from his usual… activities.”
“Yeah, I’ll be there!” You yell as you attempt to change your outfit and answer the quiz questions, all at the same time.
There’s only 20 minutes left on the clock and you struggle to answer the quiz while you’re sat on the bus heading towards a frat house of all places. With one question left and only 8 minutes to go, you arrive at the front door of Beta Tau Sigma, pushing past the front door, ignoring the freshman that attempts to stop you from going in.
Lisa spots you instantly, dragging you towards the couch where Taehyung is seated. He looks absolutely annoyed, a deep set frown on his face with a solo cup in one hand and phone in the other. When you stand in front of him, he barely gives you the time of the day. He puts his phone away before he taps at his thigh, as if he was asking you to sit.
“Are you just going to stare at me all day or are we going to get this thing moving?”
“Sorry?” You question, unsure what he had meant by that and you turn to your friend for help. “Lisa, wait what are we—”
“Where are your notes, Y/N?” She asks before her gaze lands on the laptop in your hands. “Oh my god, you idiot. I meant like bring your physical notes not your online lecture slides,” She groans.
“Lisa, you said this would take 5 minutes,” Taehyung grumbles from behind you. “It’s been almost half an hour.”
“Okay, okay. 5 more minutes, I promise,” She sighs. “Anyway, quick introduction. Taehyung, this is Y/N. Y/N, this is Taehyung. Okay, now sit on his lap.”
“I’m supposed to do what now?”
Lisa doesn’t even answer you, simply pushing you onto his lap before she snatches your phone from you. Taehyung lets out a soft groan of pain before his arms circle your middle to keep you from falling off.
“You want your 3000 likes, don’t you? Well, we’re gonna get them.”
You don’t even know what to say because first, you didn’t even know what the hell was going on. You look down at your screen and you almost let out a scream as the countdown timer shows 3 minutes left.
“Look, I just need to finish this quiz question real quick and then we can—”
“Neat, you’re already in character,” Lisa smiles as she begins recording. “Yeah, just focus on your laptop. Pretend you don’t care,” She directs, to which you nod to, albeit a little confused.
Her friends stand behind her with their phones out and their flash on to provide lighting Lisa says. It’s certainly a bizarre sight to say the least. You’re in the middle of a dimly lit living room, everyone around you already half past drunk and the soft bass thumping from the basement where the main party is happening does little to help you concentrate on your quiz.
“There’s no need to be nervous, babe,” Taehyung whispers and you assume it’s because you’re practically shaking in his lap but what he doesn’t know is that it had absolutely nothing to do with him but everything to do with the fact that you now only had 1 minute left and you can’t quite figure out the question.
You hear Lisa say something akin to alright, action! but you have no idea what she’s really talking about. It doesn’t take you too long to figure it out though because within seconds, Taehyung is pressing open mouth kisses from your collarbone to your neck, his tongue leaving behind a trail as he slowly works his way up. You gulp, when he nips at your skin and you shut your eyes in an attempt to focus on the question instead, softly mumbling to yourself but it’s a mistake because you hear him let out a low groan as he presses you down harder into his lap, his hips grinding upwards. It’s soft but Taehyung smirks because he swears he hears you stifle a moan. His hand pulls you closer to him, his thumb just under your bra and he grumbles because he finds all the layers between you and him… annoying. Lisa is practically laughing as panic flashes across your face, obviously enjoying this more than you, but seconds after, it’s like you have a lightbulb moment and you smile as you move your finger across your trackpad, selecting your choice before you hit submit.
You turn your screen towards the camera pointing at your score as you grin.
“Ten out of ten,” You beam, surprising Taehyung who pulls away with his eyebrows furrowed.
“What?” Lisa asks, confused. “What do you mea—”
“I only had 20 seconds left too!”
“Oh my god, was that a real quiz?” Lisa queries as she steps closer. “You dumbass! You should’ve just used a screenshot and faked it! I can’t believe you—”
“Well I was trying to tell you that I had an actual quiz to finish but you didn’t want to listen,” You frown and Lisa doesn’t even look at you, simply typing away at your phone.
“You know sometimes it feels like I’m the only one with functioning braincells in this friendship,” She sighs. “Anyway, you’re welcome. That’s going to be 3000 likes easy,” She hums as she hands you your phone.
“Really?” You question as you watch the video, the clip starting with just Taehyung’s lips on your neck, your head thrown back as you have your eyes closed, eyebrows furrowed but it gradually zooms out to show your laptop in your hands and finally, you pointing to your screen and Lisa midway scolding you before it cuts to black and repeats. It’s oddly a lot funnier than you expected… even if maybe that wasn’t quite what Lisa was going for originally.
“Just the thumbnail alone would probably get you 1000 likes,” She smirks, but the way her lips curl up has less to do with her statement and more to do with the way Taehyung seemed to be undressing you with his eyes.
“Nice. Here’s to hoping we get our free burgers,” You grin, shutting your laptop before you tuck it under your arm. You tap at Taehyung’s hand that’s still around your middle, holding you in place. It’s a silent gesture to ask him to let go but he only clicks his tongue at you.
“And where do you think you’re going?” He asks, his lips ghosting the shell of your ear, his thumb smoothing out against the fabric of your crop top.
“Well, home, preferably,” You smile as you pull his hand away to stand up, hoping you look confident despite the way the low timbre of his voice had sent shivers down your spine.
“But what am I going to do with this?” He questions as he points to the tent in his pants. The boy was absolutely shameless.
“That seems more like a you problem and not a me problem.”
“But you caused it,” He frowns.
“From what? Sitting on your lap?” You question before you turn to Lisa. “So this is the fabled Kim Taehyung?”
“Fabled?” He asks. “Tell me, what do they say about me?” He smiles, hands resting at your waist, as if he was waiting for permission to pull you onto his lap again.
“I’m sure you know,” You sigh. “Though they neglected to mention that you’re the type that would come after just one stroke.”
Lisa lets out a low whistle, laughing silently at the way Taehyung’s jaw ticks. “I’d be careful if I were you, Y/N. This one doesn’t do too well with jokes.”
“I’m just playing,” You smile, patting the hand he had on your waist before you peeled it off. “I’m sure you’re everything they say you are,” You wink, taking a seat on the arm of the couch as Lisa hands you a drink.
“Why don’t you come find out for yourself?”
“I should, shouldn’t I?” You hum, sipping on your drink. “But there seems to be quite the line for that,” You laugh, using your cup to point towards a few of the many girls who were currently eyeing him up and down.
“Well, looks like you’re first in line to me though.”
You smile, loving the attention. The boy is smooth, you’ll give him that.
“Maybe next time,” You smile, before you lean down to whisper. “You’ll wait for me, won’t you?”
You don’t stay to hear his answer, sauntering off before he gets the chance to reply.
“Make sure to like the video, yeah?” You say, turning back just to flash him a grin and he simply answers with a thumbs up.
He smirks to himself as he watches you walk away, your hips swaying from side to side. Hmm, Taehyung wasn’t exactly a patient man… but, he’ll wait. In any case, you’re refreshing. It’s been a while since he’s had some fun.
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Gill and I may not live together anymore but we can still Do Damage
Kat: me, working on the alpha kid portion of my AU and also watching she-ra: Dirk.... Entrapta.... (does he still have prehensile hair? You Decide) Gill: Anime spikes are now real spikes I'm also happy to give him Doctor Octagonapus arms Hedgehog man Kat: someone: so it's the princess alliance right actually we had to change the name because we THOUGHT it was the princess alliance but uh Gill: Junior Royalty Alliance Princex Alliance? The Gay Agenda Kat: lmao addendum: Jake is sea hawk Gill: Who's Glimmer, telling him to set his boat on fire Also: Dirk stop experimenting on the planet Kat: Jane Jane is glimmer trying to be responsible and controlling people Gill: That is perfect and I love her Kat: Is Roxy bow? I'm not sure Gill: Also she'd be adorable as a blue sparkly glitter fairy Who's Adora and Catra Also autocorrect I understand correcting Adora to Adorable but Why did you change Catra to "Avatar" Kat: I mean Adora and Catra do have some pretty strong Vrisrezi vibes Also that way if Adora is Terezi you can have Janerezi if you want it Gill: I am resistant to Vriskerly Actions and yet I cannot deny that it works Also Glimmerdora is a rly cute ship... Kat: Catra is like Vriska done well Gill: And now Vriska has a friend who is a scorpion lady It's fitting Kat: god who's scorpia omg NEPETA cat scorpion switch Gill: And DIRK WHY ARE YOU HANGING OUT WITH VRISKA TO HACK THE PLANET, I DONT APPROVE OF HER SHES A BAD INFLUENCE Mr Strider go to your room Kat: I was going to say how long could dirk possibly tolerate Vriska Doc Scratch is prob shadoweaver Gill: Instead of getting a mask knocked off it's just His whole head Kat: ok I fixed it Dirk makes Hal and Hal gets left behind and Hal is much more bitter about shit and so more willing to join up plus Hal would take Vriska-Catra in stride just like lmao check this DSMIV entry out Gill: Have both, Dirk is acting like an Actual Captive while Hal is having a good time with the girls Kat: Hal: I know why you're in the Horde. You've got a complicated relationship with your pseudo parental figure and feel abandoned or treated as less than by your former friend. Vriska: And why are YOU here smart guy Hal: Absolutely none of those reasons. Gill: Hal: you know I can ask them to let you out Dirk: I will not stoop to the level of a traitor Hal: w/e Nepeta and I are gonna go watch anime Kat: Hal: Hey Dirk if you hadn't cut your hair you could use it to pick the locks on those shackles. Dirk, who chopped his hair off years ago bc #dysphoria: Eat shit Gill: Dirk: I replaced it with robot arms for a reason Hal: yeah thanks for the extra arms by the way Is Dirk's hair bubblegum pink naturally, does he dye it Kat: oh god Dirk has anime hair Gill: I feel like he'd either Constantly be trying to act like the main character he thinks he is, bc he knows what pink hair means Gill Or trying to AVOID his calling as a Main Character bc he will not be pigeonholed into your limiting archetypes He is a main character of his own narrative conventions Kat: Can Entrapta's hair feel pain?Would cutting or bleaching it hurt it the real questions Gill: He dyes it red and It comes out orange and it's a fair enough compromise because bleaching it doesn't feel Pleasant Most AUs: Nepeta, tiny fluffy cat girl She-Ra AU: Nepeta, enormous buff scorpion cat girl who is the tallest character in the cast Some day if and when I need background Nepetas for the Dreambubbles I'm adding Scorpeta to the Nepeta Squad Kat: I always imagine Terezi as shortish so Terezi suddenly becoming 8 feet tall is hilarious to me Gill: Giant... dragon woman... Oh no it's everything I ever really wanted Kat: so Jade's probably perfuma Rose is Frosta. She's still 12 years old and angry Gill: Can Jade's Kingdom be full of furries I politely but firmly request furries Kat: god i guess???? so is this trolls = horde humans = alliance where are john and dave Gill: Terezi: I have a sword. It's sharp. Dirk, probably: ...I want a sword Oh man we're out of male characters already Kat: i mean there's dudes in the horde Gill: Unless John is Bow... but Bow is the Power Of Heart dude... Yeah that was my other thought Kat: John and Dave WERE the patronees of Terezi and Vriska Gill: They're Background Horde Dudes, the one guy who immediately latches onto Bow when he's taken prisoner is Very Dave What was his name Steve Kat: get wrecked I thought it was Kyle? Gill: KYLE Kat: it's funnier if Bow is Roxy latches onto his mom Gill: It was very much an Inherently Funny Plain Dude Name If and when I draw this I'm giving Jake (Sea Jake... Jake Hawk...) a terrible pubescent mustache A pubestache, one might call it Kat: ew Gill: Jake Hawk sounds like a Generic Action Dude name, like what you'd call Solid Snake if you were writing a novelization of Metal Gear and knew nothing about Metal Gear Kat: i'm formatting this for an initial tumblr post Gill: Excellent We Have Done It Again, My Dudes Kat: our trail of devastation knows no bounds Gill: The Crossover Gremlin's reign of terror has yet to be stopped
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Three’s a Crowd Preview 3
And its the last one I’m gonna give ya’ll but imo my sweet fusion son is such a delight that I couldn’t resist giving ya’ll a taste of him since oh god i’ve missed him so much and he’s so GOOD and ahhhh see for yourself:
“I-I’m ok!” the fusion announced, using both sets of arms to pull himself up into a sitting position. He let out a gasp, however, upon noticing the very fact that he did indeed have four arms in the first place, stars filling his eyes as he burst into a delighted smile. “No, I’m even better than ok! I-I’m back! We did it!” Stepper broke into another round of cheerful chuckling as his upper arms pulled himself into an excited embrace once more. “And it feels better than ever before!”
“STEPPER!” Mabel’s ecstatic shout caught the fusion off guard, especially as she plowed right into him, knocking him flat onto his back as she locked him into a heavy hug. “Oh my gosh, its so great to see you again! It feels like its super long since the last time you were around!”
“Aw, come on, Mabel,” Stepper chuckled, sitting up as he returned her hug. “You technically see ‘me’ all the time. Ok well, maybe not me me, but Steven and Dipper me… Oy, this is getting kind of confusing… But still, it is pretty great to be back together like this!”
“Ooo, I am lovin’ those super harmonious vibes you guys got goin’ on there!” Mabel exclaimed as she effortlessly climbed up to sit atop the fusion’s shoulders as he stood. “That’s it! Operation ‘Find the Harmony’ is officially a success! Now we just need to come up with a new mission for you! Now let’s see… hm…”
“I know,” Stepper spoke up with a bit of a wry grin. “How about Operation “Who Said You Could Sit On My Shoulders”?” He asked playfully as he used both sets of arms to hoist her off his shoulders and hold her out in front of him.
“Hey! Its not my fault that you make such a good lookout post!” Mabel protested, sticking her tongue out at the fusion.
“Oh, so you’re finally admitting that I’m taller than you then?” Stepper asked with a knowing smirk.
“Ha! Not a chance!” Mabel shook her head triumphantly. “I’ll never admit defeat! Never! NEVER!”
“Mabel, I’m literally double your height right now,” Stepper pointed out, still grinning.
“…And your point is?”
“Heeeeeyo!” Amethyst called as her and the other Gems began to venture over to the pair. “There he is! Our four-armed main man Stedip!”
“Uh… actually, Amethyst, its Stepper,” the fusion pointed out with a bit of an amused chuckle.
“Oh, yeah, I know,” the purple Gem remarked. “I just think Stedip sounds funnier.”
“Heh… right…” Stepper said a bit sardonically before Pearl spoke up.
“Well, it certainly is a treat to see you again, Stepper,” the white Gem said, gently pushing the chuckling purple Gem aside. “You know, while you’re here, we might just have to fit in some combat training if at all possible. I’d love to see what you’d be able to pull off with Steven’s shield, Dipper’s sword, and that special journal of yours all at the same time…”
“Oh my gosh, that’d be so much FUN!” Stepper exclaimed with an amazed gasp. “I’d be unstoppable with all three of them! Plus, I got plenty of hands to hold them all in,” he grinned, waving three of four of his hands before raising the final one enthusiastically. “And one to spare!”
The others all shared a warm laugh over the fusion’s humorous quip, though it gradually died out as Garnet approached Stepper next. However, the fusion simply took in a deep breath and straightened his posture, offering the Gem leader a solid expression as he allowed her to silently inspect him. “So, Garnet? What do you think?”
It took a rather expectant moment of apparent scrutinization from the Gem leader, she finally broke out into a small, pleased smile accompanied by a nod of certain approval. “I think you’re looking pretty stable, Stepper,” she confirmed warmly.
“YES!” the fusion cheered loudly, only to quickly catch himself and reign his excitement back in. “O-oh, I mean, uh… that’s cool. Ya know… just like I am. Cool and stable all the way!”
“DORK!” Mabel shouted teasingly, letting out a rowdy laugh as Stepper spun around to face her in faux offence.
“Hey!” he snapped, grinning himself as he geared up to chase after her as she ran off. However, before he could, his attention was quickly diverted by a very loud, very angry yell from a very perturbed green Gem.
“YOU!” Peridot shouted, her tone and expression both burning with fury as she stormed up to the somewhat startled fusion. “You’re that four-armed abomination that destroyed my attack robinoids with your information log-based projectiles!”
For a moment, Stepper simply regarded the green Gem with a bit of confusion before he realized exactly what she was talking about. “Ohhhh right, the… dumb robot things,” he said, boredom filling his expression briefly. “Well… I’m sorry about breaking them, Peridot, but—actually, wait, no, we’re not sorry because you tried to use those things to destroy the Gems and Mabel!”
“Well, it’s your fault that I even came to this doomed planet in the first place, you malformed pebble!” Peridot retorted harshly. “I would have never requested an envoy to Earth if not for your destructive actions against my beautiful machines!”
“Ugh, whatever, Peridot,” Stepper scoffed, rolling his eyes as he scowled down at the green Gem. “What matters is that you’re here now, so you might as well try to make the most of it by helping us build that drill.”
“I will not take orders from the likes of YOU!” the green Gem ranted, furious. “I should have figured all along that you were merely the despicable fusion between the Steven and that irksome Dipper given that they’re both just smaller clods coming together to make one bigger one!”
“Alright, that’s enough,” Garnet interjected just as it seemed as though Peridot was reeling back her first to strike the fusion’s legs since she couldn’t really reach the rest of him. So instead, the Gem leader easily lifted the green Gem into the air, even despite her angry struggling as she tried her best to even so much as land a hit on Stepper. “I think its time for you to go cool down… again.”
“Honestly, that’s like the third tempura tantrum she’s thrown today alone!” Pearl remarked as her and the other Gems began to take their leave, with Peridot sending hostile, though ultimately empty threats Stepper’s way all the while.
“I’m not finished with you yet, you four-armed… whatever it is you are!” she yelled fiercely as she pounded against Garnet’s secure hold on her. “You’ll pay for ruining my precious robinoids, you hear me? PAY!”
“Pfft, yeah, sure,” Stepper remarked with a small smirk as he crossed his upper arms. “I’d like to see you try.”
#i love this new confident pure bb stepper#he's such a dork i love him#jen writes#universe falls#three's a crowd#uf preview
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DCAU #14: I’ve Got Batman In My Basement
“Say, Batman, you wouldn’t be single, would you?”

… Let’s just do this.
Villain: The Penguin Robin: No Writer(s): Sam Graham, Chris Hubbell Director: Frank Paur Animator: Dong Yang Airdate: September 30, 1992 Grade: F
So my original plan for this episode was to write a really sarcastic review where I would jokingly praise every aspect of the episode and write it up to be some kind of masterpiece. I was even going to give it an A++++++ grade, but then slip in the real grade at the end (and as a reminder, I’m not a professional, skilled, or trained critic. The grades simply mark my general enjoyment of an episode for those who are into that type of thing). Well, I tried a few times to write the damn thing, and I just couldn’t do it. Truth be told, it’s even difficult to jokingly praise this episode because it’s not like it’s entertainingly bad, minus one scene where we see Batman using a screwdriver as a weapon (ugh, puh-lease). It’s just kinda dry and unentertaining to watch, so it does not make for any kind of decent comedy. Instead, let me start with a little story.
Back before I owned this series on DVD (and hopefully Blu Ray soon), I would watch it everyday on The Hub network. This is how I got back into the series after a long time of sort of forgetting about it (Nostalgia Critic helped re-spark my interest as well). I got exposed to many wonderful episodes this way, such as Sideshow, You Scratch My Back, and Vendetta. I was starting to figure that this show could do no wrong, and so when my dad sat down once when an episode was just starting, I got pretty excited! I was happy that my dad would get to see what great cartoon possibilities could be produced out of a superhero that he mostly remembered from the Adam West TV show (I would argue that this show is great too, but in a very different way). Well, guess what episode came on that way. No, seriously, I want you to just take a guess. Ayup. Now this is before I had ever seen or heard of I’ve Got Batman In My Basement. And with a promising title and title card (although Char thought that the title sounded a little bit creepy, and not in a good way…I will admit, I do get some BDSM vibes), I wasn’t worried. And then the episode started. Wow! Then Penguin! Hadn’t seen him in an episode yet! But I did have his action figure (from the show), and I had heard that Birds Of a Feather was absolutely fantastic. I wish I could even say that there was more buildup before the unfortunate letdown, but really, this episode doesn’t even start out good, particularly if you don’t have any expectations about the Penguin. Hell, if you’re an outsider, I wouldn’t say that the Penguin looks particularly exciting in the slightest. Yeah, he’s got those flipper-fingers, but paired with the sloppy animation of this one, I’m pretty sure Char thought that it was an animation error or something at first. And by the time we get to the two main characters of the episode which are a couple of children, and especially when Batman gets knocked out, I started to realize that not every episode of Batman The Animated Series was perfect. In fact, I knew then that there was at least one that I never wanted to watch again. And this was the one episode my dad happened to see! I almost wanted to change the channel, but I was holding onto a little bit of hope that things would improve. Even if it wasn’t until the end. But, well, you saw the rating. Now, I’ve since seen this episode twice more, via my own decision, merely for the sake of watching the entire series. I’m assuming that if I ever watch through again, I’ll skip this one, but for right now, this is business, and I’ve gotta get the word out about this episode, even though I’m apparently far from the first. Don’t watch it, man. It’ll break your spirit faster than the ground will break an egg from 5 feet up. Oh. And to make things even better, my dad caught another episode a little while later. It was The Forgotten. Yeah. I’ll leave it at that.
So one of the things that I see constantly complained about is that this episode is supposedly pandering to kids, and overall taking a show that was evolving to become more adult and wonderful for all ages to watch, turning it into a typical Saturday morning cartoon. And yeah, I won’t necessarily disagree with this all the way. It certainly does feel like a more typical Saturday morning cartoon. But let’s not throw Saturday morning cartoons under the bus here. By this point, we did have some established quality in cartoon-land. Ren & Stimpy, The Real Ghostbusters, Ducktales, and Tiny Toon Adventures had each been airing prior. Yeah, the episode does focus more on being aimed for kids, but this isn’t inherently bad, and only explains the problems on a very base level. There’s a difference between being aimed at kids yet still being god damn awesome, and talking down to your audience so that the only ones able to enjoy it are kids who a lot of the time will watch anything that moves. This episode seems kiddish because of two main factors; as stated it talks down to the audience, and the two main characters are children (and I swear, they look like they could be Velma Dinkley’s kids). I guess to add a bonus reason, it simply was not approached with love. The team behind the show has basically come out and said that the writers and storyboarders of this one didn't care, and Frank Paur, the reluctant director, tried to shape it up a little bit, but when you have deadlines, there is only so much that you can do. Keep in mind, we are less than 20 episodes into the series. Not everyone they were hiring was necessarily going to be on the same page. When this episode was started, it’s very possible that not a single episode had even been aired yet. After the show was watchable, that’s probably where new writers (and old ones) could watch other people’s work and determine what would work in this newly created DC Animated Universe. I’m a little interested in what Sam Graham and Chris Hubbell could have done with more knowledge of what was expected, but hell, for all I know, Bruce Timm could’ve gone over the series bible 234 times over to them. Lazy work is lazy work. Hard to redeem that because, well, often times the person is too god damn lazy! This is all just some speculation based on things that I know about the show, but ultimately I don’t even care that much. Only watch this one if you’re a completionist like I am.
Now, if held at gunpoint (and maybe I am, given that I really wanna move on to Heart Of Ice instead of finishing up this post) and made to find some positives, I would first tell you that the screwdriver fight is so stupid that it has to be seen. I’d rather just search that scene up on youtube or fast-forward to it, but hey, I didn’t say these were positives that turned that F into an A, did I? Ha ha haaaaa, I don’t think so. But the fact that Batman would wage a tink-tink battle with the Penguin in such a way, oh my god. it’s baffling. This is straight-up Adam West territory, guys. But y’know, I’m probably talking this scene up to much. I always say that it’s ridiculous, that it’s hilarious, that it’s so awe-inspiringly bad, but then I watch it, and it's never quite as entertaining as I remember. Not quite. Maybe being one of the only action sequences (and the only memorable action sequence) causes this effect on me or something? I don’t know. I feel like as goofy as this is, it’s soooo much funnier on paper when it’s purposely comedic. And alright….another positive quality before Sam and Chris push that big red button… Well, Roberta was actually pretty likeable, surprisingly. She was Char and I’s favorite character from the episode, believe it or not. Weird how even though episodes about kids don’t often end up stellar, they can still create a big strong kid character. It’s a case of personalities vs scenarios. Being delicate when it came to children-related plots was maybe a requirement? Then again, Robin’s Reckoning, guys. Robin’s Reckoning. And lastly, uhh, there were a couple of lines that made me chuckle a little bit, and in a way where the line was meant to be funny. Batman’s “Ma’am” at the end was perfectly in character, and Sherman’s response was great. Penguin gets a few good lines as well, despite such a lackluster debut. This episode went ahead to turn Char completely off to the Penguin, which is reluctantly expected, but hopefully after a nice long break from the character, a future episode can turn her around on him. We shall see. This debut is pretty hard to shake.
It embarrassed me a little bit when I first watched it, and it made Char want to vomit. Now that is some quality…Sherman. (Kill me)
Char’s grade: F
Next time: Heart Of Ice Full episode list here!
#batman tas#batman the animated series#i've got batman in my basement#dc animated universe#dcau#the penguin#penguin#batman
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