#in hindsight based on my new idea for him. it makes sense that nobody showed up except for immediate family and no one else.

[neverendingford]

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[thepetulantpen]

Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind

(My blind!Geralt fic. I already posted this on my ao3, but I decided to put it up here, too. Enjoy!)

Plenty of boys are blinded in the Trials. It’s the price paid for tampering with vision enhancements, and it almost always ends with more boys dead- succumbing to complications, or put out of their misery.

Geralt is not one of those unlucky few. No, Geralt lived through the Trials- lived through more trials than most- and came out the other side mostly whole. 

So, of course, a fucking Bloedzuiger is what does it.  

Afterwards, he barely remembers the battle. His clearest memory is of getting acid in his eyes, followed closely by him blindly stabbing the damned thing to death and then stomping it into a pulp. In hindsight, it was probably already dead, but he hit it until it stopped making any sounds whatsoever, because he deserved a little overkill when it felt like his face was on fucking fire.

He doesn’t even feel panic in the moment of fading adrenaline. He’s made for survival and killing at the detriment of everything else- he feels nothing as the world fades away, filtering out everything save for the next steps, the next move. Just like a fight.

He finds Swallow by weight and smell, and drags himself towards the sound of a nearby river. Downing the potion and splashing water in his eyes does absolutely nothing, which is frustrating, but he’s not going to fix it by sitting around and cursing Destiny. It’s time to figure out how he’s going to make it to town and find someone competent.

He trips seven times, but finds Roach by her heartbeat. She’s a good horse, a smart horse, and with a bit of urging in the right direction, she follows the path towards the sound of people without issue. 

The healer he finds by smell alone, because he can’t be bothered to ask for directions in this state. It’s not a difficult trail- the potent herbs act like a beacon and Roach keeps them carefully on the road. 

The walk gives him time to acclimate somewhat, pushing through any remaining shock and pain to the calm clarity of a mission, same as any hunt. There’s a world of sound and smell around him, his senses just as strong as they’ve always been- possibly stronger when his attention is not drawn away by sight. It forms a map of sensations, coloring a world gone dark. 

A healer’s hut is in front of him. He can hear the wind- strong today, it was annoying until now- hitting the wooden walls, prompting little creaks of protest. The shape of it becomes clear in the places he hears resistance, the motion of the wind halting, and there is an outline where the wind whistles through the gap between the door and its wall. 

He leaves Roach to her own devices, trusting that she’ll behave, and finds the door, knocking loudly. Louder than necessary, but he thinks he can be excused on account of the spectacular evening he’s had.

The woman who answers- he assumes it’s a woman, based on the length of her hair, which he can hear brushing her shoulders, and the smell of flowery soap- only comes up to his shoulder, the subtle displacement of air giving him her approximate height in a blurry silhouette of awareness. 

“How can I help you, witcher?” She must not have been looking at his face because there’s a second of audible movement and she gasps. “Oh, dear. Come in.”

She takes his arm to guide him, which he probably doesn’t need, but he can’t be bothered to correct her. He’s had a long fucking day, and he’d rather not trip over a dining table, failing his newfound navigating abilities. 

The wet cloth against is skin is shockingly terrible, he feels each individual scratchy fiber. There’s more water on his face, in his eyes, and a smell of herbs that stings his nose. It hits him full force, and when he inhales, trying to identify them, he can practically taste them.

The woman’s heartbeat is loud, saying what her expression might’ve. He’d known that he could hear heartbeats, but had little cause to listen to them before, no reason to do anything but block them out on a daily basis. It takes him a minute to remember the rhythm of a human heart, gauge what’s fast, and decide what that may mean. 

She swallows and Geralt hears that in horrifying detail now that he’s concentrating, now that his senses are scrambling to compensate. 

“I’m not sure there’s much I can do.” 

The careful step process in his mind reaches its end, leaving him without anything to hold onto for a moment, scrambling for calm in the realization that there’s nothing to be done. He pushes down panic with a sigh, willing his mind to clear.

There’s always another step, always something to do. He just needs somewhere to recover, like any other injury. Somewhere safer than the floor of a stable, ideally.

He’ll be making an early return to Kaer Morhen, then.

“Wait,” the healer puts a hand on Geralt’s shoulder as he stands, a low note of concern and fear making her voice shake, “take this. I’ll show you how to use it.”

A wooden cane is pressed into his hands and he has to fight everything in him that protests the idea. Taking a breath, he allows the woman to lead him through the motion- tap, tap. Left, right.

It’s not sustainable- too visible, too obvious. Nobody will hire a blind witcher, but he can keep it strapped to Roach for emergencies.

At least until he figures out how to hear cracks in the ground. 

...

It’s pure luck that he happened to be close, planning on starting his winter early for lack of work. The trip up the mountain is a challenge, but it gives him a good idea of what his remaining senses can and can’t do. 

Everything has a sound, and that sound echoes until it hits something. With practice- and he has plenty, tripping over rocks and nearly falling off cliffs- he learns how to map out his surroundings in an array of newly audible shapes. Rain and wind make it easier, constant sound that cuts off when it comes in contact with something. More obvious than echoes. 

He uses the cane occasionally up here, where there are no witnesses. It eases the mental burden of processing every single sound, but it’s not something he could rely on in battle- or around people, for that matter. There’s not much kindness in this world for witchers or cripples, never mind a crippled witcher. 

The echoey halls of Kaer Morhen present a unique challenge in wide open spaces, sound that seems to stretch out endlessly. He stops at the threshold; head tilted to try and make sense of the room in front of him. He’s been here so many times, but now that he has to, he’s struggling to remember its precise layout. 

“Geralt? What the fuck are you doing here?”

Telling Vesemir what happened is the part he’s dreaded most. He forgets how damn quiet the man is, and it irritates him now, with no face to read. The pause after his story is extensive, leaving him straining to hear any clues. He catches the brush of hair against Vesemir’s collar- turning his head, maybe?

Finally, a sigh and Vesemir steps up to put a hand on Geralt’s shoulder. “Surprised you didn’t kill yourself on the way up here. Could’ve just sent a message, you know.”

Geralt isn’t so sure he could’ve- his handwriting was bad when he could see, and he doubts he could’ve gotten hold of a bird in his state. 

“I happened to be in the area.”

Another pause, he thinks Vesemir is giving him a look, then Vesemir is moving. “Come on, let’s sit down. Do you need help finding anything?”

“I’ll manage.” He moves steadily after him, hands forward when he senses an obstacle. Muscle memory helps, a little, in the most familiar parts of the keep. 

Vesemir doesn’t seem impressed, watching him feel for a chair in his room. 

“Do you need a cane, or something?”

“Already got a stick. Left it on Roach.”

A new sound- is that Vesemir rolling his eyes? He did not need to know there was a sound for that, but there it is, the unmistakable movement of eyeballs. “Of course you did.”

They sit. Geralt gets a sense of the size of the room first, then uses smells to fill in a few blanks- the paper and ink denoting books on the shelf, soap residue from a bath, Vesemir’s general musk clinging to the bed. He grounds himself on Vesemir’s heartbeat, a steady rhythm. 

“You could stay here.” Vesemir leans against his desk, making the wood groan. “Help out around the keep.”

Geralt snorts at the idea of cleaning or doing chores in this empty, lonely place. There’s barely enough for one man to do, let alone two irritable witchers. He doesn’t know how Vesemir does it without going mad- and he has books to read. 

There’s not much for him here, just an exasperated, and secretly worried, Vesemir. He could stay, and- not quite retire, but... make use of what life and skill he has left. 

It’s an offer that falls on deaf ears. Geralt can’t sit here and wallow, can’t sit here when he knows he could still be out there. 

“I just need the winter to adjust. Then I’ll be out of your hair.”

From the sound of his head shaking, Vesemir already knew he was going to say that. He thinks, if he spends enough time around the old witcher, he might find a smell for exasperation. 

“I’ll have to see you hunt, before I send you out there again.”

“Worried about me, old man?”

Vesemir doesn’t respond but his mouth moves- a frown? Definitely a frown. 

Beasts, it turns out, are the absolute least of his concern. 

The heartbeat, the smell, they may as well be announcing their position at all times. He has a feeling hunting at night is going to get significantly easier- no more Cat for him. 

The Kikimore’s legs creak with every movement, its jaws click before every bite, and Geralt learns, in the span of a battle, to recognize the near-silent gurgling sound as a precursor to the beast spitting venom. He feels a strike coming before it lands, the air moving subtly in warning, and finds himself ducking hits that might’ve been out of his line of sight. It’s like having eyes at the back of his head, except- well, he doesn’t actually see.

Vesemir nods his approval when he successfully takes down the Kikimore that’s acted as a pest too close to the grounds of the fortress, and brings them home dinner on the same hunting trip in record time, tracking heartbeats to bypass natural camouflage altogether. Geralt hears the movement, but Vesemir grumbles a verbal affirmation a minute later. Adjusting to more audio-heavy communication- for politeness sake. 

“Next test is gutting it. Think you can find a liver blind?”

...

“Any monster trouble?”

The bartender scoffs and turns to Geralt- presumably glaring. “We’ve got a notice board for a reason. Why don’t you check there?”

“I can’t read.” It’s a simple enough lie- not even a lie, really. He can’t, not anymore. 

The man mutters something to the effect of witchers being no better than beasts, but directs him to the alderman, who’s desperate enough to explain. Someone is sent to show him the main site of attacks, guiding him unwittingly- though, he could have found it faster by smell.

From there, it’s the same as it’s always been. The only challenge in the hunting process is harvesting the useful alchemical bits afterward. He can thank Vesemir for forcing him to spend the last several winters drilling on butchering blind, so he knows, intimately, the difference in smell between a heart and a liver. Dodging toxic parts to reach the valuable ones is still a little tricky- he’s been burned by acidic insides more times than he can count- but practice makes perfect, and he’s getting there. 

Hefting proof of kill on one shoulder, he puts his other hand on Roach. To anyone else, it looks like he’s leading her, but he relies on her to take his general direction and follow the road. He can hear where the town is, but finding the distinction between grass and dirt path is another issue altogether. On his own, without constant concentration, he’d wander off in a more direct diagonal, cutting through rougher terrain and calling unneeded attention to himself.

Reaching town requires bracing himself for the barrage of sensory information that crowds bring. With so many people around, navigating is far harder, but he lets the assumption that witchers are rude cover any vision-related blunders- bumping into people, cutting people off, ignoring people shouting at him.

Getting humans to believe he can see is shockingly easy, more likely due to the stupidity of humanity than any skill of his own. Nobody wants to get any closer to a witcher than they have to, so it’s a simple thing to keep his head turned away, avert his eyes, and mind his own business. 

The scars have faded to faint burns around his eyes- or so Eskel told him- leaving nothing for chatty whores or curious townspeople to ask him about. Most physical indicators of his condition have been wiped away; the only remaining obstacles being his inability to make eye contact and occasional struggle to not trip over barstools. 

He’s been discovered a few times, all of them equally unpleasant, but ultimately unremarkable. He can handle mocking and rocks- especially now that he hears them whizzing through the air, before they nail him in the back of the head- but he counts his blessings that he’s never had an incident notable enough to add Blind to his Butcher epithet. 

His routine doesn’t change much, sticking to his usual strategy of staying out of sight, as far from people as he can manage. He gravitates towards the dark corners, feeling the slight absence of heat in the sunless parts of the tavern. Blindness never becomes a weakness- there’s nothing to exploit, if they never even realize something is different. Being a witcher makes him uniquely invisible.

Nobody bothers him and he makes sure they never will.

Unfortunately, he underestimates the pushiness of a certain bard. 

He doesn’t even realize the bard lingering nearby is looking at him, or talking to him, until he’s sliding into the bench in front of him. He sensed his presence, sure, but he thought he’d be looking at someone else, talking to any number of other people in the tavern.

The bread in his pants is stale, and smells like it. It squishes and crumbles as he moves, probably getting bits stuck in the folds of silk so numerous he hears every slight shift, every wrinkle forming. He thinks the sharper, almost clicking sounds, are sequins against each other- another ridiculous, new sound to add to his catalogue.

“You must have some review for me.” His smile is wide enough that Geralt hears it without trying particularly hard. “Three words or less.”

For all he listens closely to his surroundings, he’s pretty sure he didn’t catch a single word of that song- much less enough for a review, were he inclined to give one. Once upon a time, he may have glared him away, but he fears his aim wouldn’t be good enough now, so he settles for tense silence.

Jaskier does not take no, or an implied no, for an answer.

...

Having Jaskier around is not nearly as annoying as he thought it’d be. At first, he was sure he’d have to dump him somewhere- the noise would be too distracting- but now, the sound has become something of a blessing. 

Like the wind or rain, it creates consistent feedback, bouncing off obstacles and forming a mental image of the area around him. It wraps around their campsite, chatter and music traveling into the forest behind them and dancing around tree trunks until the sound is out of even Geralt’s range. 

It makes nights like this, of Jaskier talking constantly and playing his lute intermittently, pleasant. As close to seeing as he ever gets, giving him a complete picture the world. 

Jaskier breaks his litany of nonsense with an abrupt, “Geralt?”

He actually waits for a response, which is a new and alarming development. Geralt hums and hopes that’s enough. 

“I was wondering- and I hope this isn’t too personal- what’s wrong with your eyes? They never really focus.”

Geralt hears Jaskier’s heart beat a little faster- nervous- and the more subtle sound of him biting his lip. As a rule, Geralt doesn’t disclose his condition to anyone who hasn’t figured it out, but Jaskier-

Jaskier could be sticking around. There’s no point keeping it. 

“I’m blind.”

A silence that he’s come to equate with facial expression- something too subtle to guess, he’s never cared to be precise enough for specifics- follows.

“Is that one of your weird jokes?”

“No, Jaskier. I’m really blind.”

More silence, a steadily fast heartbeat. It’s accompanied by the familiar, frustrating feeling of missing something, an irritation he’s trained to ignore, but has never quite mastered. Geralt sighs and turns fully to face Jaskier, meeting his eyes as well as he can.

“What are you doing?”

A creak of wood, Jaskier startling on the log and shifting too fast. “What do you mean?”

“You got quiet. Usually that means I’m missing something.” He tilts his head, considering. “You’re making a face, probably.”

Another moment of silence. He never thought he’d grow tired of these- let alone become annoyed by them. 

“Huh. I guess I just looked surprised, if my face matches my thoughts as well as I think it does.” Jaskier leans in, for a better look, maybe. If he squints enough, he might be able to see the scar.  “How long have you been, uh...”

“A long time.” He’s not being difficult- despite what Jaskier, and the inhale of breath preceding a scoff, might think. He doesn’t exactly track the date. “A decade, maybe more.”

“How-“ Jaskier clears his throat and Geralt hears the movement of his sleeve as he waves. “How do you do all this?”

“Witcher senses are much better than an average man’s. I use my hearing, mostly.”

The sound of fabric rustling and stretching as Jaskier scoots forward on the log, sliding as close to Geralt as he can without getting up. “How good? If you don’t mind me asking, that is.”

“You’d ask anyway.” Geralt swings back the last of his drink and turns back to the fire. “Really good. I can hear heartbeats, movements. The way air and sound move around things makes... an outline, almost.”

Jaskier’s heart beats a little faster. Geralt isn’t sure what that means; he strains to hear, but he doesn’t think Jaskier is smiling or frowning. 

“That’s amazing.” A grin- lips sliding over teeth. “No wonder you’re such a good hunter.”

There’s a jab comparing him to a wolf in there somewhere, but Jaskier doesn’t make the connection so Geralt just hums and picks up his swords, content to spend the rest of the night sharpening and oiling. He’ll keep the fire going, enjoying its heat, if not its light. 

They lapse into a silence that feels more comfortable, less tense than it was the first time. Then again, it’s not really silence- Jaskier is humming almost silently under his breath. Quieter than usual. 

“You don’t have to be quiet, Jaskier.”

Surprise, in the quickened heartbeat and sudden inhale. Shifting, as he sits up straighter. 

“Sorry! I thought it might bother you.”

“I’ll be fine.” Sensing- not through any particular sound or smell, but through his increasing familiarity with Jaskier- Jaskier’s disbelief, he tacks on, “I would’ve stopped you before now, if it was.”

Jaskier nods, then narrates, “Sorry, I nodded.”

“I can tell. I can hear your collar scrunch.”

His mouth falls open and he adjusts his collar. Geralt dutifully does not smile, and keeps his smugness to himself.

“Right, of course.” Jaskier pauses, then looks up again. “Could I ask you a question you probably won’t like?”

Geralt raises an eyebrow. “You’ve never asked permission before.”

“I was wondering, is there anything you can’t do? Anything I could help you with?”

He’s tempted to say no. He should say no. Jaskier probably wouldn’t even argue- too unbalanced around this subject- but he doesn’t want to. 

He wants to say, Keep humming. He wants to ask, Guide me. He wants to demand, Stay by my side. 

He doesn’t do any of those. Instead, he says, “Reading. I can’t read print on contracts. If you could-“

“Of course.” The buttons of his doublet clink together as Jaskier adjusts it, straightening it and puffing out his chest. “I’ll be your agent, of sorts. A very intelligent, shrewd negotiator, taking only the best monster hunting jobs. I’m brilliant at public relations, too.”

Geralt nods, and leaves it at that. 

...

“Make way! The mighty White Wolf is gracing your town with his presence, clear a path!”

The townspeople mutter amongst themselves, confused, but move right away at Jaskier’s tone, lingering curiously at the edge of the street through town. 

Geralt hates the attention, but he can’t deny that Jaskier’s little show is helpful. Particularly since this town is more crowded than most and Roach is struggling to guide him through without trampling anyone. 

Helpful. Unnecessary but- nice. Against his better judgement, he’s started to let Jaskier help more and more often. It’s dangerous, carrying the threat of developing dependency, but Jaskier never oversteps any boundaries and, sometimes, he’s just too tired to refuse. 

There’s been a distinct difference in the time he’s spent with the bard, bisecting his life into the uneven parts of before and after Jaskier. For one, his headaches have decreased, not having to strain to guide himself as often. People are nicer with a human- and a charismatic one, at that- around. They get to stay at better inns if Jaskier performs, and enjoy quality meals outside of rations or burned rabbit. 

He’s happier. There was a time when he thought happiness had been burned out of him, but he’s reminded of its fleeting presence in those special, few and far between moments that prove him wrong.

Well. Previously few and far between. 

“The man at the bar,” Jaskier starts in a dramatic whisper, still loud to Geralt, “is wearing an absolutely ghastly outfit. Geralt, we’re talking multiple primary colors, ruffles, and feathers.”

It’s easy to identify the man based just on his smell, wearing enough perfume to kill. “I imagine it matches his taste in perfume.”

“Gods, yes. I can smell it from here- I don’t know how you can stand it.”

It’s a test of his willpower, certainly, but then, on a few desperate occasions, he’s shoveled shit for coin. This, however, ranks right below those incidents, and right above the stench of a necrophage. 

Jaskier’s color commentary on the world fits right in with his usual chatter and fills in a few, albeit unnecessary, blanks on the decor, the attractiveness of barmaids, and other visual odds and ends. It transitions, at some point, into a story that’s so exaggerated he may as well have made it up and ends in musings about his newest song, which, inevitably, leads to him needling Geralt for details. 

Geralt just hums and tunes him out, focusing on the noise of the street outside. It’s a challenge to pick apart the individual moving pieces of a crowd but it’s enough of a distraction until Jaskier throws his hands up.

“You know, all of this,” Jaskier waves generally at Geralt’s eyes, “explains why you’re such a shit storyteller.”

He senses there’s more to this, can feel Jaskier winding up to something. It’s a quiet evening and a nice tavern, so he indulges. “Does it?”

“Well, I suppose much of the blame falls on me.” Rustling, and the clinking of several unidentifiable objects in Jaskier’s bag, as he fishes out his notebook. “I wasn’t asking the right questions.”

Geralt can’t tell what he’s writing, but he hears a few long drags of the pen and figures he might be drawing something. A box, maybe? A chart, a probably. A series of shorter scratches, for letters. 

Jaskier grins, wide enough that Geralt hears it without concentrating. “Right. Are you ready?”

“For?”

“Your role in the creative process. Now, what did the rotfiend smell like?”

Geralt scrunches his nose and braces for a complicated answer. “I’ll need a few more drinks before I get into that.”

Wordlessly, Jaskier waves for another round and the questions begin. It seems like Jaskier is determined to pick apart every aspect of his sensory experience and, as they get deeper in drinks, Geralt is willing to play along. He’s never talked about it, at length, like this and it’s fascinating to hear the things Jaskier can’t detect, the parameters of human senses that were lost to him long before his vision was. 

He talks until the candles stop giving off heat and his words start to slow, having detailed every smell, sound, feel, and taste that he can articulate. Sleep comes easy, after he lets Jaskier describe the pattern of the quilt and climb in beside him, warm and tired. 

Jaskier’s heartbeat, though faster than his own, forms an easy rhythm to follow into unconsciousness, sinking into a darkness he no longer registers. 

The next time they’re in a tavern, he listens carefully to Jaskier’s new song, lyrics filled with more sounds and smells than he’s used to hearing described. Where there was once brilliant colors and hideous monsters, there is now rich smells and vicious growls. 

He can’t help but smile, hiding it behind his tankard. 

How Jaskier worked rotting flesh into a chorus is beyond him, but it earns a clap. 

[prorevenge]

Steal our money and abuse your children? Good Luck with life.

I would just like to put this out there that while I still am a minor, this culminated only last year. Also, I am based outside the US, Canada and Europe, so perhaps some laws may differ. I also suck at languages. Sorry if it gets too long. NSFW tag is needed for details further on. This is a new account, so there will be people who call this fake, and I apologise if this comes off as so.

During the 2008 financial crisis, my father had (ironically) received a promotion based on a project that had rolled out worldwide a few months ago. While his salary only received an increment upgrade, he received a healthy stock bonus (I think that is what they called). As a form of celebration, he decided to buy the apartment we were (and still are living) in and give it a fresh coat of paint (i.e. renovate the house completely). He bought it at well below the market price and the previous owner was more than happy to get the home of his hands so that he could pay off the loan on it. All done and said, my father looked around for a renovator who would work at a reasonable price.

He eventually found one who was ready to do the work at a fraction of the cost the others were doing it at, and after settling on designs and material choices, we moved out of the house and into a service apartment while they began to do the work over 6 months. Now, my father is a very naive person. He believes in the good every being, and will give everything if it means it will help you. The renovator, who we shall name as James, seemed a pitiful character at first. He claimed to be severely overworked by the owners, and had been looking for a way to set up his own business. He non directly was insinuating that my father lend him some money, but, as it was the midst of the financial crisis, my father assured he will try his best to help James out.

Over the 6 months, my younger sister and I got very close to James' two children; twin sisters (Violet and Bella) who were of my age. We would meet often at the local playground, while my father and James would discuss how to help James out with his idea for a business. My father would always recommend a lender, but James would always refuse, stating some bullshit excuse about how he does not want to be tied up. Eventually, my father gave in, and scrubbed together $10,000 to help James bankroll his own renovation business (which in hindsight makes no sense because how do you set up a renovation business with only $10,000). James was very grateful for this and promised to return the money back, and my Father had a contract created with the help of a lawyer, and both James and him signed it.

After the 6 months was over, we moved in. The house was in a great condition, and us kids loved it. But strangely, right after we picked up the keys from James, we never heard a word from in. Days turned into weeks, weeks into months, and finally months into years, and yet we could never trace James or his kids (he had no wife), and my father did not get his money back, which was a severe strain on us for a year and a bit more. We lodged a police report, but found that this was only one amongst many cases that were against James, and the name and details we had received from him were fake. They were ghosts.

This really depressed my father, because it opened his eyes to the type of people that were around him, and the fact that even if he wanted to look for the good in people and help them, he would always be taken advantage of, regardless of whether it was in the office or in social life.

Fast forward a few years to around March of 2017, and I had just entered the final two years of my schooling education. At the time, I was 15, while my classmates were between 16-17 (I skipped a grade when I was younger, and thus, will still, legally, be a minor when I graduate this year). During the first day of orientation, I picked out two familiar faces in the crowd, that at first I could not put my finger on who they were, and this was strange because I had been in this school for many years and could easily recognise anybody. It took me a few days, and looking at them carefully during classes, to realise that the two new girls who had joined were Violet and Bella themselves, albeit with completely different names and in a bad shape. I approached them at first, thinking they would recognise me, but they never did (and had), and were kind of apprehensive the first few weeks. They did not make many friends at school.

But over time, I managed to get through their armour, and, while they were still not entirely comfortable with me, it was miles better than how the rest of the school treated them. And this was when I actually got a good look at how they had turned out. There were many scars on their hands, any time parents or family were mentioned in the conversation, they basically turned off and went ghost white, and if a boy came even within 2 metres of them, they would turn as white as a sheet or become very agitated. The school counsellor had also notice this, and asked their parents (James essentially) about this, but he played dumb when asked questions and claimed he did not know why these were occurring (just a note, I found this out later but added it here because it helps the flow of the events). I realised something was horribly wrong nearly the instant I saw them but this confirmed it.

Over the same time, my friends and I tried to include them in as many activities as possible, and we took as many pictures with them (and every time somebody took out a camera they would shudder) as possible under the guise of memories, but I mostly kept them as evidence because I had a feeling this was not a good story. It is also important to note I had not told my father that James' children were in my school as it would only trigger bad memories for him and I did not want him to go through the same phase again.

After collecting these pictures, my friends and I made a beeline for the counsellor. The pictures showed in greater details the type of scars that the two sisters had on their hands and feet, which aren't visible in school uniform as our uniform consists of long pants and a full sleeve shirt. I am pretty sure the counsellor and us had a good idea where these scars had come from, but the pictures only was not really great evidence to James arrested, but it was enough to have our country's CPS equivalent get involved. And let me tell you, these guys do not mess around. They have their own division of military trained "police" officers and are relatively well funded, will go to any lengths to thoroughly investigate a case, and will ruin your life if they even doubt you.

After submitting the pictures, and learning a case was opened, we were not involved in much else as we were still minors. That was, until a few months after (December of 2017), when my friends and I were pulled out of class by the principal, and were taken to the local police station were a representative of CPS was waiting for us. They were very polite, and wanted to know more information about the case. Apart from what were in the pictures, and what we gave, my friends could not provide much else. Neither could I, but I saw the representatives eyes light up for a second when I mentioned about who the father was and how he had cheated our family. But apart from that, we did not hear much after that, other than they might need us as witnesses (I am sorry if this comes off as wrong but this is what I recall) if the case proceeds onto court.

Some weeks later (January of 2018), my father received a call from the police to come down for the case on James (I don't think it was ever closed due to the sheer magnitude of number of cases against James). Apparently they had let him know that there was a new lead on where James might be and he might be needed later on. They also let him know that CPS was on the case too, so he should expect a call soon on them for their case on James (I think they now believed that James was behind the scars). My father had known by know that I had gone to the counsellor with pictures of Bella and Violet being potentially abused, as the principal had called him up on the day CPS had pulled me out of class for an interview, so he had fully expected this, and was seething with anger because a man he had thought to be good had stolen his money and abused his own daughters.

After that, I do not know what happened for a long time. Bella and Violet remained in school, more drawnback than ever, and my friends and I were not contacted any more. Until one day, around June of 2018, just before we broke for summer, when they were met outside of school by a representative of CPS. I was a close friend of them by now, so I was walking with them to the bus stop, when we were met by the representative. He asked me to continue on, as he had to ask them a few questions. I moved on, fully expecting what was to happen. It didn't take long.

Around end September of 2018, CPS contacted my father and I, as well as my friends, regarding the case, They needed some things (I could not go that day as I had been hospitalised for a compound fracture), so my father went for the both of us (he could sign for me as I was still a minor and he was a legal guardian). When he came back, he was truly shocked. It turns out the problem was far more than I expected. My father had signed an NDA, as had my friends, and even though I had been involved, I could not get much out of them except that my friends and I had started something huge.

Come December 2018, and finally I found out just what we had started. The entire article was printed in the papers (James, Bella, Violet, my friends and I, and my father were not named due to a gag order to protect the identity of the victim; other than us lot, nobody else in the school or society, to my knowledge, knew who the children in question were).

Bella and Violet had not only been physically abused by James with the use of pipes and belts, but they had been raped by James multiple times, and their reaction to the camera, which I mentioned earlier, was due to the fact that James had been recording his rapings of his Bella and Violet, and had been trying to sell them to snuff sites on the dark web. In addition to this, he had cheated nearly 15 victims (including my father) out of nearly $200,000.

The book was thrown at James, mainly due his treatment of Bella and Violet, as well as due to another incident which had happened when he was being arrested, but I will not mention it because it, on its own, will give away where I am from. He was given multiple life sentences, no chance of parole, and was also given another punishment that is not used in other countries, but I will not mention it because it identifies where I am, but I am guessing the smart people here will be able to find out just what it is anyway.

I am also pretty sure the people in prison will do not take kindly to child rapists, so he is in hell. Which is good. Because that is all he deserves.

I do not know where Bella and Violet are, they were pulled out as soon as court proceedings began.

(source) story by (/u/TakeRevengeAsALiving)

[softlywithhissong]

KS Meta & Ending Predictions

Let me try to address what I think provides foreshadowing and clues to the KS ending. Koogi weaved a lot of symbolism, imagery, parallels, themes, and straight-up meta style hints throughout KS. Sure, some of it might be coincidence, but all of it? I think not! Koogi loves drama and she definitely planned the story out way in advance, which allowed her to plant the foreshadowing. My thanks go out to Koogi for all of her effort and hard work. :)

There are several recurring themes I have noticed throughout KS. Themes which I think could help us predict how the story will end.

WARNING! IT’S VERY LONG! Things I Noticed, Theories, and Predictions:

The Joker and Two Face - I think KS was influenced by these famous comic characters, and also by The Dark Knight (the film, which features both characters).

Examples of The Joker theme in KS:

Both Sangwoo and Bum are associated with story elements and imagery that invokes The Joker. In chapter 9 - in the “cops and robbers” card game where the stakes are their lives and “the one who holds the Joker at the end is the robber,” note that the Joker card shown is peering through binoculars and by representing a robber, this could be a reference to Bum’s stalking, robbing possessions from those he stalks, and breaking and entering into Sangwoo’s home. “You’re going to be the masters of your own fate! What a joke! But it’ll be exciting, like a rollercoaster,” Sangwoo says, but by calling it a joke, he indicates sarcasm, a lack of sincerity, and reveals that he either finds it amusing knowing their fates are subject to him or he finds the whole idea of anyone mastering their fate (or controlling it) a joke. He turns things around in chapter 10 so even though it looks like the “cop” wins, the “Joker” actually survives/wins/”gets away” - a very Joker thing to happen. In the Summer Special (chapter between 29 and 30) there is killer clown imagery, where Sangwoo is a clown with a knife chasing Bum but instead of killing Bum, he turns back into Sangwoo. This Sangwoo as the killer clown imagery appears again in chapter 37, when Sangwoo puts on a killer clown mask - one with a gruesome smile and green hair - in the amusement park gift shop and says, “You’re supposed to scream when you’re scared. We’re here to relieve stress, not make things worse. [...] Telling you to scream on purpose feels weird.” Most of you probably know, but The Joker is also referred to as the Clown Prince. And in hindsight, the sledgehammer - a type of “mallet” -  used in chapter 2 could be an incredibly subtle reference to the mallet weapons used by Joker or Harley Quinn. The abusive relationship between Sangwoo and Bum is another similarity, with the Joker and Harley Quinn’s relationship being an abusive one, as well as the fact that both relationships feature two criminals committing crimes together. The Joker is also known to laugh hysterically and maniacally and Sangwoo would often display hysterical laughter (often while crying) but Bum has also been shown to laugh hysterically at the end of chapter 66 while hiding his face (and possibly tears) in a bouquet distinctly featuring the colors purple and green (The Joker’s colors). And Bum and Sangwoo’s outfits tend to usually have an element of purple or green. Bum’s also shown getting therapy in chapter 66, which brings to mind how the Joker and Harley first met. Bum also expresses an interest in seeing Sangwoo in the hospital where he is under police custody, which if you remember in The Dark Knight, sneaking into a hospital and escape from police custody are both things the Joker does. Also prominently featured in the film is the two boats social experiment - a social experiment that KS also features at least twice (though arguably more). It’s based on game theory and the “prisoner’s dilemma.” It’s shown twice in KS where two people are pitted against each other with each having to choose between rational self-interest or what’s in the best interest of the two collectively. In the police station in chapter 34, Bum chooses the latter and even though the police lied about Sangwoo pinning a murder on Bum, Sangwoo also refused to incriminate either Bum or himself. In the film, a prisoner steps up and chooses to preserve the lives on the civilians’ boat at the risk of his own life, proving that moral choices are not limited to only the so-called “good guys” - people are complex and “bad” people can do good things and “good” people can do bad things. Both boats refused to explode the other to save their own lives, and in doing so, both boats survived. Given that as of chapter 66 in KS, Bum and Sangwoo are possibly set on a course of mutually assured destruction, they face a similar dilemma. The facial damage Sangwoo endured in chapter 65 and 66 is also a similarity with Joker, The Joker typically having facial disfigurement - his clownish visage a result of toxic chemicals, the brief stint where his face was removed before being returned, and his scars that feature significantly into his character’s story in the film. The Joker and Sangwoo are also both an intelligent psychopath with a warped sense of humor. Both are adaptive, able to create new personalities to fit the situation, and often utilizing misdirection to outsmart their opponent. This can be seen when the Joker character has a twin, or when he utilizes costumes to get his target to mistake his identity for that of someone else, or happen in card games where there are two jokers and when jokers are “wild,” they can represent other cards. Sangwoo also utilizes disguises, changing what he wears and his appearance in order to not be recognized. Remember that time in chapter 11 and 12 when Seungbae got involved in a traffic accident, only to realize much later that one of the drivers was Sangwoo whom he had met already. He observed, “The atmosphere and the way he spoke was completely different from when we first met... I didn’t even recognize him.”

Sangwoo in KS ch 41 quote: “I don’t think. I don’t plan.“

The Joker in The Dark Knight quote: “Do I really look like a guy with a plan? [...] I just do things. The cops have plans. They’re schemers. Schemers trying to control their little world. I’m not a schemer. I try to show the schemers how pathetic their attempts to control things really are. [...] I just did what I do best. I took your little plan and I turned it on itself. You know what I noticed? Nobody panics when things go ‘according to plan.’ Even if the plan is horrifying. [...] Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order and everything becomes chaos. I’m an agent of chaos. Oh, and you know the thing about chaos? It’s fair.”

The Joker in The Dark Knight quote: “You just couldn’t let me go, could you? This is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. You truly are incorruptible, aren’t you? You won’t kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness and I won’t kill you because you’re just too much fun. I think you and I are destined to do this forever.” B: “You’ll be in a padded cell forever.” J: “Maybe we could share one. They’ll be doubling up at the rate this city’s inhabitants are losing their minds. [...] I took Gotham’s White Knight and I brought him down to our level. It wasn’t hard. You see madness, as you know, is like gravity. All it takes is a little push.”

Examples of the Two Face theme in KS:

Again both Sangwoo and Bum have imagery that associates them with Two Face. In the Summer Special (between chapter 29 and 30), Bum’s gallery image had color blocking, which at first made me think of Harley Quinn, but it’s actually more like Two Face’s typical costume. Sangwoo’s facial damage shown in chapter 66 is obviously reminiscent of Two Face’s scars, as seen in The Dark Knight. In the film, Two Face gets severe scarring over half of his face from an explosion. Also in the film, he escapes from a hospital. Similarly to Sangwoo who had an abusive father and Bum who had an abusive uncle, Two Face suffered mental health problems before he was scarred. He had an abusive father who would play a cruel game with a rigged outcome. His scarring served as a turning point, giving him more of a split personality. “Two Face” also refers to when a person lies a lot, and given that Bum’s gallery image resembled Two Face, this could be in reference to his lies - both early in KS out of self-preservation while trying to endear himself to Sangwoo and recently in chapter 66 where he lied to police. Something also worth noting is that Two Face outed a girl, thinking that with no one else to turn to, she would have no choice but to love him, which is clearly similar to what Bum did in his flashback in chapter 19. However, there is another KS character who displays an awful lot of similarities to Two Face and that’s Seungbae! He works in criminal justice - Harvey Dent (Two Face) as a district attorney and prosecutor and Seungbae as a police officer (demoted from detective based on bad behavior at a previous precinct). They both have horrible tempers, often flying into fits of rage. Seungbae displays this frequently throughout KS with his many overreactions, his use of excessive force, his horrible abuse of Bum in chapters 28, 29, and 35 - where even though he thought of Bum as “the victim” he still grabs him harshly by the wounds he himself pointed out. And then, even though he is basing all of his wild accusations on the flimsiest of coincidence, his own stalking of Sangwoo and harassment of Bum, and no real evidence, he attacks Sangwoo and physically assaults him in chapter 35, pulling him out of the van by his ankles in a disturbing reminder of how he grabbed Bum’s legs on the wounds and building a pattern of abuse and violence. One half of his face gets burned in chapter 63 and 64 like Two Face’s did. Both Seungbae and Two Face cite police negligence in the death of a loved one. Will Seungbae go bad in the end like Harvey Dent (Two Face) did? We’ll see.

Bum in KS ch 29 quote: “Ugh... LET GO!!“

“I’m saying I’ll save you!” Seungbae yells, while squeezing Bum’s clearly wounded wrist hard enough to make it start bleeding again. :(

Bum: “HA... HAHA. You’ll save me? How?”

Two Face in The Dark Knight quote: ”You think I want to escape from this? There is no escape from this. [...] I’ve done plenty wrong, Gordon. Just not quite enough. Yet. It’s not about what I want. It’s about what’s fair. You thought we could be decent men in an indecent time. You thought the rules could be bent but not break. You were wrong. The world is cruel. And the only morality in a cruel world is chance. Unbiased. Unprejudiced. Fair.”

The Bait and Switch - Misdirection! KS is filled with misdirection, a trick to get the reader to pay attention to (or believe) one thing so that they can be surprised by a different thing. A common form of misdirection shown in KS is mirroring, where many characters wear the same clothes as other people - taking on someone’s identity and leading to cases of mistaken identity. In chapter 41, a girl at the ski resort happens to be wearing the same outfit as Bum, causing Sangwoo to briefly mix up the two. Sangwoo will sometimes deliberately create this effect, though - like when he dresses up Bum in chapter 3 or when he dresses up Jieun’s corpse in chapter 22, and possibly even in this latest confrontation with Seungbae where he was wearing a very similar outfit. He also will change his demeanor and appearance sometimes with a hat and glasses, like he did in chapter 11, when Seungbae failed to recognize him.

Metamorphosis - There are several examples of symbolism in KS which represent change, a transformation that is not always for the better. Butterfly symbolism appears in chapter 34, frog symbolism shows up a couple times, and the poison apple symbolism is prevalent throughout. Acquiring a new identity could also count as metamorphosis, whether by living under a new name or adopting a new (possibly murderous) outlook on life.

Escape - This theme includes escape through mistaken identity and misdirection which could very well happen. But escape has also already been hinted at in KS. In the Christmas Special that came out before chapter 36, there are several methods of transportation that are associated with escape shown, including 2 hot air balloons, 2 (possibly 3) sailing ships, the helm wheel on the mantle (imagery of a sailing ship). Season three of KS sees Sangwoo take Bum on a vacation trip, first to an amusement park “to relieve stress” and then to a ski resort to “enjoy” the break, escaping the stress of home. In chapter 51, Sangwoo shows Bum the movie Fantastic Mr. Fox, which is about not being able to escape your nature (like in the scorpion and the frog) as an animal at heart, and embracing it to escape.

PREDICTION: I think that at least 2 of these themes will be featured in the ending of KS. Any 2. So, maybe a Bait and Switch and Escape, or Two Face and a murderous Metamorphosis? Which 2 themes do you think have the best chance of showing up in the last chapter? And who do you believe is The Joker of KS and who is the Two Face?

And if you know of any examples of these themes that I missed, feel free to share them! :) And THANK YOU for reading my incredibly long post. XD

[wunderlass]

I have a theory

…it might not be bunnies

Nah, this theory is about that mysterious fourth alien. I’m actually kind of committed to this one, though if it is true could potentially be a little underwhelming, for reasons I’ll explain. Buckle up folks, this is a long one.

First, what do we know about the fourth alien? As of episode 10, that he’s not white, and he’s male (based on what Racist Hank says, and what possessed!Isobel says in the cave). Now, either of these things could be walked back, but I think the latter is the most likely to be definite. Out of the horse’s mouth and all. And if it’s not a character we’ve already met it’s going to be the worst reveal ever, produced by people who don’t understand how to construct a drama series. I’m pretty sure that’s not the case.

We actually have quite a few non-white male characters (yay diversity!), but some we can rule out quite easily. Alex and Kyle, we’ve seen too much from their POV for it to make sense as them. You’d have to spend an entire episode trying to explain how it made sense. Plus, Rosa wasn’t exactly Alex’s type.

Then there’s Papa Ortecho, which is extremely ridiculous, and Jim Valenti is ruled out on account of being dead. I guess surprise resurrection/fake death isn’t impossible but we’ve already established that Jim wanted to help Rosa because she was his daughter, not because he wanted to bang her (ye gods).

So who does that actually leave?

The obvious answer is Noah. And this is still a possibility, though I don’t want it to be true, and I don’t think it will be. But the show has written Noah with enough of a clean slate about his history to make him being an alien possible. There are questions about some of his behaviour that has people uneasy.

It would be easy to explain why Noah married Isobel but never revealed himself to her. Plenty of other people have pointed out the dropped breadcrumbs over the course of the series so far, and I noticed in this last episode that we cut from Racist Hank telling Max that the mysterious man (i.e. murder suspect) he saw was not white, to a shot of Noah at the beginning of the next scene.

Classic foreshadowing. We’ll all watch this back and go “of course!”, of course?

Maybe. We might even get a double twist, where Noah is revealed to be the fourth alien…but then, actually no he’s just being possessed by then.

So if I don’t think Noah is the fourth alien, who is left? Who’s my suspect?

Well, some of you might not even remember this character, because he’s only been seen in one episode.

Let me take a step back here. We have some basic physical characteristics of the fourth alien but precious little else. For his motivation, we only know that he’s obsessed with Rosa. And therefore must know her before he started possessing Isobel to get close to her.

Why do that? Why hide as somebody else instead of trying to be with Rosa in your own body?

Because she already knows you. And she already cut you out of her life.

Frederico is old news.

Rosa and Frederico were an item, we don’t know for how long, and when Rosa decided to get clean she cut Frederico out. We’ve only really heard about the relationship from her, and it suggests that maybe this was a pairing that was as much about the substances they took together as any deep connection. Rosa certainly wasn’t mourning the break-up. But we have no idea how he feels about it.

Rosa’s speech on the gazebo in episode ten talks about people not being willing to see you in a different light if you’ve changed. In context this seems to be very much about Rosa herself, and possessed!Isobel seems to be agreeing. But there might be a deeper meaning here, in hindsight, where the fourth alien wants Rosa to see them in a different light, to give them another chance, and the only way they can do that is by becoming someone else.

You’re probably wondering how the hell I jumped to this conclusion, and the answer is because of that cave scene. The one where Rosa is frantically searching for her backpack, and possessed!Isobel confirms she’s hidden it, so Rosa can’t leave town.

This means the backpack is not in that cave when Rosa dies. We also know that after Isobel passes out, she doesn’t have another blackout, meaning she did not go back to put the bag back into the cave. Yet Frederico turns up in episode four with this backpack he supposedly found in the turquoise mines (the spot where Rosa died).

I believe he had it all along.

I think he loved Rosa, was devastated when she chose rehab over him, and discovered a way of spending time with her without her realising, in order to win her round. To prove that he wasn’t who she assumed he was.

It’s strange that he would return the bag to Liz when she contacted him, but it’s likely he thought Liz still believed the cover story about Rosa’s death. The mention of a 12 step programme might even be true, possibly very recent. He may even feel genuine remorse about Rosa’s death—in fact, I think the murders are probably a grief-stricken bender, since they started when she died. If he imprinted onto Rosa like Max and Michael did with their human loved ones, then killing Rosa has not done his psyche any good.

Frederico’s past as an addict also means he will have connections among the people he’s been killing. The Wild Pony as a place to hangout will come from his time as Rosa’s boyfriend, and if he spiralled into further addiction in the years since her death, then going to the nights with free food is where he met his victims. He’ll have been one of the regular crowd.

Everything that’s happened recently is him covering his tracks, especially if he thinks the truth about Rosa’s death is starting to unravel. He’s probably behind Jim Valenti’s death and Mimi’s illness too.

Now, as to why I think Frederico is a disappointing choice: he’s only appeared in one episode and most of us have forgotten about his existence. Not the strongest twist. He could have made a few more appearances, even just in the background at the Wild Pony, to make it less “who he?” if it is him.

As for where he came from: another pod, we just don’t know where. I will add a sub-theory here that I am less convinced about.

The pod squad were very young when they emerged and obviously barely remember it, if they remember it at all (Max needed to ask his mother about that time period). We know there were three children in the group home when the Evanses went to adopt a child, one of which was a little boy who was drawing the beacon symbol on the wall. Max and Isobel were adopted, and Michael went into the foster system, to become the victim of neglect and abuse. He didn’t reconnect with Max and Isobel until years later.

I suspect Frederico is also a product of the foster system, and it led him down a path of addiction himself. His only shining light was Rosa Ortecho.

It’s also possible that the little boy Mrs Evans remembers meeting – the one drawing the beacon – was not Michael. It was Frederico.

Possessed!Isobel drew that beacon on the bandstand. We’ve never seen Michael inclined to replicate that symbol, nor Isobel. Just Max and the fourth alien. Maybe Michael grew out of it. Or maybe it wasn’t him at all. And that’s why Mrs Evans never made the link between the little boy she left behind, and the curly-haired man her children forged such a connection with as they grew older.

I still think Michael was found with them, and was in that group home at the time. But I believe that the boy Mrs Evans noticed was Frederico, who perhaps had been languishing there even longer. And where Michael had a small family he was able to return to, and find strength in, even when his life was at is worst, Frederico had nobody. He thought he was all alone, until he met and fell in love with Rosa Ortecho. But even she turned her back on him.

It’s almost enough to make you feel sorry for him. The murderous bastard.

[botchbatch]

It’s Kind of a Funny Story Movie Review: SPOILERS!!

     It's Kind of Funny Story had its ups and downs. Although it is reviewed as a better book than movie, in hindsight, the movie had its moments. There were times that were absolutely ridiculous and odd, but that was the spirit of it. Based off of the novel by Ned Vizzini, the film takes place in modern times for youth suffering from these kinds of problems.

     In the film we follow Craig Gilner as he bikes home, the opening scene jumps straight into it as we watch our main protagonist about to jump off of a bridge to his death. After that fleeting idea, he decides to put himself into a mental hospital because of the main reason of, “I want to kill myself.” For the next week, he finds himself sandwiched between odd people with their own problems and issues, realizing that being normal and perfect isn’t as ideal as it should be.

     Craig is, as we assumed, awkward. Whether it’s the comedy of the film or his natural state, Craig manages to make the audience cringe at his way of conversing with people, just for the sole factor that we too, have been in these awkward situations, saying the wrong things. He has a crush on his best friend’s girlfriend, tries to impress his family but fails horribly, and is the kind of guy to stand on the side during parties. Despite this he finds his own ways to connect with others, with art or music-- a skill that Noelle, his new friend at the hospital, helps him rediscover. Going through his depression, he learns a few things about friendship while staying at the mental hospital, which starts to feel like a home.

     The film touches a lot of rough topics. Depression, self-harm, insecurities and being at rock bottom. There is always a fair amount of criticism for people going through a rough patch, as people don’t really humanize them and sympathize with their problems. An example of this would be the character Bobby, who helps Craig throughout his stay at the hospital, and Craig finds himself confiding in the older man. Bobby ended up in the hospital for drug abuse, his relationship with his wife is rocky, and he doesn’t get to see his daughter as much as he wants to. He’s someone who is at a low part of his life, but is trying to make things better. Usually, people who are stable and well-off don’t really empathize enough with people like him, saying they put it upon themselves. With Bobby, you will find yourself feeling his pain, and understanding his motives. Although he sits at rock bottom, he is still trying to make things better. Whether that is by trying to find a job and apartment, or simply through living his best life. It goes to show how people who have flaws and mental illnesses aren’t lost causes or basket cases.  

      Many people may critique the film for its ridiculous way of portraying scenes, (i.e The cast in their rendition of Under Pressure by Queen) but in fact, the weird humor is almost fitting. In such an odd setting, moments like those had lifted the movie to feel more light despite its dark underlying tones. Mental illness shouldn’t always be dramatized. An important line during the movie is when Craig talks about why he is suicidal, “Sometimes I wish I had an easy answer for why I’m depressed. That my father beat me, or I was sexually abused. But, my problems are less... dramatic than that.” Craig is the result of a burnout kid trying to live but having trouble enjoying it. He sees the worst in things and feels the pressure of applying for a smart university, cracking under the pressure of expectations set by his parents and himself. He didn’t need a clear reason to be depressed, and told the story how it was. In a way, he gained all of my respect for simply facing what was in front of him and calling it out with the intent to change.

     The most inspiring moment is Craig’s monologue at the end of the film, explaining how resilient he had become.“I can tell this is just the beginning. I still need to face my homework, my school, my friends. My dad. But the difference between today and last Saturday is that for the first time in a while, I can look forward to the things I want to do in my life.” You can tell he’s found a path to get to his motive for living. Although he isn’t entirely healed-- as expected, he is clearly trying make the most out of things. Nobody gets better in the span of a week, but for Craig, he is clearly picking himself out of the hole he had dug. He found his reasons to hold on and decided he was going to do something about it. In a way, the ending was beautiful. Critics will say it is far too picture perfect, but they didn’t see it in a different light. Things aren’t happily ever after. Craig is still a burnout, but he decided to channel that negative energy into something positive, and drive out the thoughts. Noelle, his girlfriend that he had met in the hospital didn’t miraculously recover. She was an abuse victim and all, it’s not something you can get over overnight. But in the book and movie she does grow more resilient like Craig, and one could say they helped each other out.

      In the end, It’s Kind of a Funny Story, really does end up being, a funny story to look back on. Craig wanted to die, but in the span of a week, he found love, friendship and a better sense of self. This helped him feel like he should deserve to give life a chance. He forgot why he even wanted to die in the first place and instead got so caught up in wanting to find ways to live that it didn’t even matter anymore. The little things meant so much to him suddenly, and all he wanted to do was live, not survive.

[thebigladjake]

AX2002 - Dimensions Group Project: Storyboard and Script

The Dimensions project is an animation where each 30 seconds, the animator switches. The aim of this brief is to get us to communicate with one another and be able to present a cohesive chase sequence with a clear narrative.

When it came to planning this out, we needed someone to be at the front and set up the narrative clearly. Before anyone could, I put my hand up. I was starting this off, I had the perfect idea that established Vasyl as a strong no-nonsense character and Skip’s more easy going and laid back approach. I knew how to set up these characters, so the rest of the class would know what to do, understand the relationships and mechanics of the characters.

First Storyboard Draft

The first impression I got for an introductory segment was to set up a tense narrative with multiple things going wrong at once. Setting a tone where our characters HAVE to get Guffyn back or it’s absolute disaster for everyone! So, immediately the ideas came flooding in and I scribbled down a rough storyboard. The visuals came to mind first, linking them up with a loose narrative. There wasn’t a definite script yet at this stage.

So, this animation “begins” with Guffyn opening a portal in time and arriving into a quiet alleyway in the night. Here Guffyn is rather confused, giving the impression that Guffyn doesn’t really know where it’s going. This was supposed to be the ending shot to the whole animatic, where it loops back to the last frame of the film will mirror the first.

This is where my segment really begins, with Guffyn looking off at the moon for a few seconds before a portal opens to Guffyn’s side with them looking at it in confusion. I always wanted this shot to be the opening shot, have the alleyway there with a little entrance and the moon in the sky.

A foot zooms through the portal, hitting Guffyn and slamming them into a wall! This violence was to establish a more urgent tone because who would want to stomp on a small cute creature like Guffyn? Not unless it was absolutely necessary, showing the audience that this character means business.

An aggressive hand came in, grabbing the Guffyn tight causing it to let out a squeak! A huge gun is then pointed in Guffyn’s face, with a closeup of Guffyn’s shock! This was to make Guffyn look that much more innocent and small in comparison to the huge hand and gun. 

Finally, we see the aggressor, Character A! Not named at the time. Pointing the gun at Guffyn in a POV shot, we get to see their rather intimidating appearance and are only left with vague answers on who these characters are. Then, a hardcut to Character B! Taking out some boxes, the designs here are both simple just to block out the scene and what’s happening. We hadn’t finalised any designs or even discussed them before this, so kept it to know what I’m doing. In hindsight, not a fan of how little Character B is actually in this, and so this was changed in the next scripts and storyboards.

Character A shoots out a portal to take Guffyn back. This establishes the whole narrative of things going wrong when Character B trips up and accidentally stumbles into the portal, much to Character A’s dismay.

Seeing a chance to escape, Guffyn transforms into liquid and melts out of Character A’s hands.

Guffyn then flies into the portal as Character A tries to grab them before they go, but fails... Character A groans saying something like “Not again...”

Summary

This storyboard was a perfect foundation to build upon, the setting was something I really liked and Character A’s reactions where perfect for setting up that there’s more to this story, however this draft has several problems.

My biggest being the portal Guffyn escapes into, would not have been a random dimension as Character A shot the portal, it would have been to go back to the facility which Guffyn had escaped from. Thinking from a story standpoint, Guffyn would have gone back to where he escaped from and Character A would follow, catch them without a chase and also return Character B home without any mad chances between dimensions! This would have also meant that Bee would have to have set her animation in the WTF facility and that wasn’t exactly fair in my opinion.

That was my major problem, but I also didn’t like how Character B hardly interacts and I don’t get a chance to set up Character B’s personality. So, back to the storyboards, I had to find a way where Character B plays just as much of a role in the setup, where Guffyn manages to escape by it’s own rules and an animation that won’t conflict with Bee’s aims and wants in her own segment.

Second Storyboard Draft

So, working on my problems with the first board. This version actually begins with Character B taking out the trash, the same sort of shot of the alleyway with the walls, entrance and moon in the background. Suddenly, a portal opens up that catches his attention.

Guffyn flies out and into the arms of Character B, very fast and conveys the impression that Guffyn is escaping. A small level of urgency established as Guffyn takes comfort in Character B’s arms and we get to see that Character B is a kind and caring character...

While Character B is preoccupied with Guffyn, a gun points into view which causes them to jump and look up in shock! It’s Character A! Looking all intimidating and menacing while pointing an alien device into Character B’s face! Quietly and calmly telling Character B to let go of the Guffyn...

Character B turns away, claiming that Guffyn is harmless and that it likes him! Character A establishes that Guffyn is actually capable of many things and that it has the capacity to destroy dimensions, not once lowering their gun. Showing how contained and composed they are.

Character B steps back claiming that it might not want to destroy worlds. As they argue, Guffyn melts through Character B’s hands.

Character B reacts in disgust, letting Guffyn drop to the floor giving it a chance to escape! I’m quite a fan of how I got to keep the melting effect.

I’d noticed how flat this might have been laid out, so I decided to do this high angle shot to show the portal forming under Character B. Not only to be visually interesting, but to challenge myself by drawing at that angle. It also shows where the portal is formed and also accidentally brings Character B into the adventure!

Now alone, Character A reflects on what just happened and simply wonders why their job can’t be easy.

Character A quickly jumps after and my segment ends...

As you can see, it’s almost the same. However, just simply rearranging certain aspects to make a much more refined film. Elements like Character A being left alone and Guffyn melting away to escape. The violence and urgency much more toned down and in a sense reversed, since Guffyn is all cute and cuddly until it’s revealed that Guffyn can be weaponized. Making him more of a threat rather than make him innocent throughout and making Character A the aggressor.

With this rough draft done, I then began to write a script and create a much more refined product.

Script Development

With my new foundations, I began development on the script and storyboards. This time however with my artstyle in mind and something that will be much much closer to a finished product. 

When writing the script, I had to keep in mind the character’s personalities. Character A, a headstrong, determined figure that has no time for nonsense. Character B, a lighthearted and accepting guy that won’t hesitate to show kindness to the most dangerous creatures. 

With these attributes in mind, I gave Character B the name, Skip. His last name was going to be Anajump because what I was originally going for was a name based on the phrase, “A hop, skip and a jump away“. But, that wasn’t necessary.

Character A became Vasyl, a name in some languages that means leadership and independence. I felt it was important to give them a foreign sounding name since they are an alien.

When I pitched these ideas forward in the group discussions, nobody seemed to object and the names stuck!

These characters went through a bunch of developments, character-wise and visually. Both Vasyl and Skip had lines where they swore in initial scripts, while it felt in line with Vasyl’s character, it didn’t feel right for Skip, plus it made him less endearing. He just seemed like any old teenager than a kind hearted youth!

Their personalities remained the same, but when the brief asked for a sudden detail to be revealed that changes the dynamic, it definitely got me thinking. A rough idea I came up with was have Vasyl grow a bond with Skip because she knew a relative of his who had died on their adventures, seeing those key traits she saw in them. Specifically in regards to his kindness. And just before they part ways, Vasyl would make a comment like “The boy’s just like you”. This idea was soon shot down as it was a little complicated and to keep characters down to a minimum, I didn’t want to restrict people into including certain details. 

Another idea I entertained was Vasyl knowing everything that was going on while Skip had no clue, so when she first appears it’d be like “Not again! No time to explain, follow me!” This didn’t really work for me and I preferred having them meet for the first time.

Storyboard Development

Now I had names, designs and direction for the story to go in. All that was needed was to rebuild my vision and get it more clearly across...

So, we establish that Skip is just a regular human with a regular job in his regular routine. Just having him sigh establishes he is a little bored of his usual life.

Skip’s reaction to the portal opens also establishes that the wacky adventures that he will embark on throughout everyone’s animation would be completely new and mind-boggling to him.

Guffyn flies out, straight into Skip’s arms. Making it seem defenceless and innocent.

Skip’s reaction to Guffyn is nice, we see his open-mind and kind heart. His and Guffyn’s shock when confronted with a big tall alien woman with an unusual device gives the audience the initial expectation of Vasyl being the antagonist.

A small pause to let the bizarre-ness sink in, building tension as Skip refuses to answer her. We see Skip takes a few seconds to pluck up the courage to say know.

Vasyl’s gun was changed to look more like a taser and device, make her look like she’s using a tool rather than a weapon.

Vasyl’s rant and expression shows the audience that there’s more to Guffyn than it seems, maybe it is not to be trusted.

Taking advantage of the situation, Guffyn melts into Skip’s hands in an attempt to sneak away unnoticed. This is set up into the ending of Alex’s animation, where Guffyn takes advantage of the situation to escape.

Skip notices Guffyn leaking through his fingers and reacts accordingly! Vasyl jumps back in surprise due to Skip’s sudden recoiling. 

Vasyl’s attempt to save Skip is the start of their alliance, showing the audience that Vasyl doesn’t want to drag innocent lives into her job.

But, alas, Skip falls into the portal. Getting dropped feet first into the conflict, Vasyl can only react in disappointment...

Her casual reaction sets up a drier side to her personality, showing how these unusual situations are a regular occurrence to Vasyl.

Vasyl jumps in after Skip and straight into Bee’s animation with them falling down. Which further goes onto establish Skip’s kindness and Vasyl’s casual attitude to this situation.

Summary

Being sure in my vision, I simply continued in this direction and made some animatics with test audio. Hardly anything story-based changed from now until my final animation unless it was purely visual. I was really happy with how this turned out and I was even more happy about bringing this to life.

[legendary]

Making a Comic Into (Virtual) Reality

A conversation with the creative team of Schell Games, who brought Grant Morrison’s Eisner-nominated series Annihilator to life as an immersive virtual reality experience.

Legendary VR was established to extend the worlds of our films in exciting new ways - as seen with Kong: Skull Island, Warcraft, and Pacific Rim. At the same time, the VR team has been at work on dozens of experimental projects pushing the boundaries of storytelling within virtual reality. When Legendary Comics published the psychedelic Annihilator series by Grant Morrison, we saw a fun opportunity to expand and experiment with a new medium: comic books. Annihilator had its initial run as a 6-issue series in 2014, following the character of washed-up screenwriter, Ray Spass, as he begins to lose his grip on reality, leading him on a mind-bending sci-fi adventure alongside of his own fictional characters. Hailed for its zany creativity and Frazier Irving's stunning artwork, Annihilator earned a Best Writer nomination at the prestigious Eisner Awards for Grant Morrison.

When deciding how best to tackle this ambitious experiment, Legendary VR partnered with Pittsburgh-based Schell Games to help them bring the comic to life. "I wanted to see how we could translate the uniqtue panel-by-panel experience of reading a comic into Virtual Reality without just creating an animated short. It was important to maintain the pacing of a comic book," said Ethan Stearns, Vice President of Legendary VR. "After we saw how Schell Games approached their title, I Expect You to Die, we became excited to work with them to merge these mediums. Grant Morrison's source material is so cerebral and has such wonderful character dualities. This allows you, as the viewer, to project your character into the scene and maintain the continuity of the narrative." Legendary Backstory had the chance to talk to Art Director Ben Greene and Project Director Tim Sweeney from Schell Games about the process of adapting Morrison’s surreal subject matter, what it was like to literally lift a comic straight from the pages, and the future of VR as a medium. See what they had to say and take a look at exclusive concept art and stills from the experience below.

Q: For starters, talk about what the concept of the Annihilator VR experience is for those who haven’t tried it and discuss how it relates to the source material.

TS: We took the first issue of the series and we isolated a few key moments inside that, putting you into the perspective of Ray Spass, the narrator inside the comic book. You get to experience his apartment, his meetings with his agents, his mental conceptions of the work he is working on from inside his point of view. Those are things he is working on inside the comic book but the environment and interactions are unique to the VR experience. It’s those things unwitnessed, implied, or obvious in hindsight that foreshadow things deeper into the series. BG: What was initially engaging and worked really well was the fact that it was comic material and especially since we were targeting the Gear VR, we knew what our limitations were. Because of that, we could say “Hey, it would be neat if we just kind of placed you in the center of all of this crazy activity.” What’s cool about the Annihilator universe is that it’s this kind of this constant head-trip and you’re never quite sure what’s going on. So, that was immediately inspiring to be in the middle of being able to play with transitions and elements within the environment that would morph and change and surprise you in a first-person way. You are there, you are present, these elements are there with you and this isn’t something you would get from an amusement park attraction or even a funhouse. We’re able to manipulate the space around you so organically, the material in Annihilator gave us a lot of room to play with for the experience.

Schell Games’ 360° concept art mock-up of the cafe scene, mapping out the full visual experience for the user.

Q: Can you take us through the process of how this came to be from inception to the final experience?

BG: It’s been almost a year and half now since we first had that meeting and there was a lot of great material being thrown around during that brainstorming session at Schell. Somebody pulled the Annihilator book out of the box and said “Hey, this is something new that Legendary has on its shelves that they’re really excited about.” So, right from the beginning it was sort of highlighted amongst the materials we had to look at. I think that Jonas Quantum was sitting there and maybe some Pacific Rim, all of which are neat, but Annihilator pushed the possibilities of the experience a bit farther and more immediately. There was just more to play with, more to daydream about and brainstorm over. There were many connections and we decided to attempt to pursue it in a roundabout way and let the guests organically experience it from the main character’s space and point of view. His sort of descent into madness and what that is like. TS: Ben put together an animatic of the experience that gave everyone a clear impression of how we were going to approach doing this. It was shot-by-shot thinking about how the visuals stack up and with the medium being so new and the headsets being limited in technical capabilities, You always are thinking about if this is going to be something that can actually be accomplished. There were several things that drew us to this property, one of which being that, at its core, it’s playing with perception and crossover between realities, like what VR does as a medium. The medium is all about virtual reality and playing with stories about virtual reality. The other thing is that most of the environments and scenes we are seeing are very familiar to people coming in off the streets. So even if the virtual reality is new and terrifying, you get a gentler introduction than if you were to just dropped right into a roller-coaster. BG: I think that for me, VR represents a doorway into providing experiences that you might read about in a comic or might watch somebody experience in a film. Yet, it’s in a way that puts you in a scenario that you would never have any other way of experiencing.

Q: If this is any indication, VR seems to be an interesting medium for comics to continue experimenting in that’s not at all like “adapting” the comic to film or TV. The Annihilator experience shows you can create a fully immersive comic book to step inside of. What do you think about the unique blending of these two mediums and are you working on anything else in this realm?

BG: We’ve kicked around several ideas and ways of approaching a combination of literature and the environment you experience that literature in. Different ways of breaking out of the sequential way of telling a story in this new space. Currently, we aren’t working on anything but it’s always in our back pocket. We like to show off Annihilator when we have guests that’ll come through and be curious about what is possible with VR. TS: I think there is something unique about VR being a newish medium and there are fewer expectations placed on it. There are certain things we can get away with because we can create things like an immersive 2-D environment and what it looks like. We don’t have to modify the original artistic vision of the comics to make it work with animation or live-action or to make it work with 3-D. There is a purer interpretation of the art at a basic level and that isn’t something that can be done immersively, sequentially, interactively outside of VR. I think people are more accepting of the novelty of it all because the medium itself is so new. BG: We try to be aware of what else is going on in entertainment production, especially in games. When we started to wrap our heads around this, we researched if others were doing something like this. We jumped on the internet, asked our friends and we found a couple things encroaching in the same direction, but nobody had really jumped into it and we felt that we had something special by how we approached it. The VR experience is another way of more deeply understanding the universe of Annihilator. Ultimately, I hope that other developers interested in VR and comics can look at Annihilator VR and be inspired by it to create the next step in that direction.

Q: One of my favorite parts of the experience is how interactive it is, utilizing the gaze function to not only advance the narrative but also to add some unexpected and strange details that really flesh out the world it takes place in. How difficult is it creating such an interactive story world as opposed to a more straightforward “on tracks” approach and how did you go about deciding what details to include in the environments?

TS: When we do an experience like this, we need to make sure the critical path is obvious. People shouldn’t feel like they are going to get stuck at any point. Once that happens, we say “what else makes sense to add interest to this?” A lot of what happens then is figuring out other things to put in. Some of those decisions are very late in the game, but every piece of the environment is sort of a blank page for us to brainstorm what in the property could fit there. BS: There’s no mobility, just 360 degrees of world. We didn’t want to beat you over the head with all the details. We took basically the first issue and brought in elements to each of the scenes that expanded the story in a more organic and discovery-oriented way. If you just went through the main path, you’d get the gist of the experience, but if you go through a few more times there are new things you have the opportunity to find. Typically, people find three interactions per scene, but in reality, each scene has five plus things to discover. Each one tells a bit more about the story, or at least builds on the character. Even details like when you are sitting in the office, like on the table is his license and business card that tells you a bit about who he is and what he does. We have this piece of paper from the hospital that says “brain tumor”, which sort of highlights the information available throughout the experience. The more you go through it, the more you begin to explore. We were finding people would discover more about what was going on, but it still maintains the mystery a bit. TS: It doesn’t need to stand on its own. This really is an introduction companion piece to the comic. All the questions that people raise, we expect them to be answered by picking up the book.From the standpoint of what is going on in the experience, you want to immerse yourself in the graphic novel and we tried to get that out through the VR experience.

Q: It seems like every time someone tries the experience, there are new details and easter eggs to find. What are your favorite easter eggs that might go unnoticed the first time through it?

BG: I have a favorite that is hidden in the environment. It’s more for your subconscious to pick up on. Annihilator has an unsettling theme throughout the book, and we wanted to make sure that there was a not-everything-is-right feel. If you are in Ray’s study and you look around, there is a bookshelf off to the left of the desk. You’ll see it a few times throughout, but something throughout the experience that I added is that behind the books are all the dead haunted faces from the space station. There are all of these cursed victims on that station with him and I put their faces in the shelf peering out between the books. If you ever catch it, it is unsettling. TS: (Production Manager) Jeff Outlaw’s favorite is in the Annihilator scene, if you poke around the left desk drawers, one of the little cute andcreepy creatures will emerge and warn you about the danger. That’s something few people get. Only a handful of people will see it. My subtle touch to realism is that the chair will rotate to catch up with you and squeak even though you can’t see your body in VR. BG: When we were building the scenes, audio was super important. It builds presence in VR which is cool because it takes you into these spaces. It can totally help anchor you in the scene.

360° concept art from Schell Games, laying out the experience’s space sequence.

Q: Where do you think VR is headed as a medium and where would you like to see it go?

TS: We are very future-facing as a studio, and there is a lot of on-the-horizon talk. I hope that the technology catches up with the intentions of the creatives behind it. I would hope that even if something were small, that we wouldn’t have to agonize over it. There is a lot of constraint working in VR right now, especially in mobile content. Between that and the adoption of it, I think that I just want to see all of that stuff thrive and grow and expand. I want it to drive the numbers and I don’t want people to worry about the constraints. BG: Even just general budget constraints and all of those concerns should ease up as players/guests start to increase and more people are using VR. There are a couple cool things recently where 7 hour long immersive games are used in VR and consoles. I’m interested to see the numbers from that and how that inspires next year’s VR development in similar platforms. There are lots of cool things happening, but I’m holding my breath trying to see what people jump on. TS: One of the things we try to do here is figure out the best strengths of the medium and leverage those to help. That’s an area where there is still uncertainty. What are people going to get into? What will they take from it? It’s the best period for experimentation because it is an open field right now. I think that it should continue that way for as long as possible to avoid things getting trapped. If you take a look at some areas of technology, we enter a cul-de-sac where the evolution has metastasized. I just would like to see mediums reach their full potential before they become very solid.

After all the hard work, the experiment between Schell Games and Legendary VR has paid off as the Annihilator VR experience is now available for download for Oculus and on Google Play. Grant Morrison’s Annihilator is available as a complete collection on Amazon.

[flauntpage]

DGB Grab Bag: Goodbye Jagr, Hello Whalers, and Brad Marchand, Comedy Star?

Three Stars of Comedy (All-Star weekend edition)

The All-Star weekend is weird. It's pretty much the only time all year that NHL players are allowed to show any personality, or at least try to. Some jump at the opportunity. Most don't. And the results are always hit-and-miss.

It's been especially tough to find a good laugh at the event ever since the NHL dropped the breakaway challenge that had some of the stars playing dress-up or otherwise getting creative. And no, we're not going to go with this year's Wes McCauley's offside review announcement, because the fact that the NHL had an offside review in an all-star game was just sad. But even if we're grading on a curve, we'll hand out some points for effort at this year's event.

The third star: Erik Karlsson and Victor Hedman – Their pirate costume routine was fun, at least as long as it wasn't foreshadowing a Karlsson-to-Tampa trade that would basically guarantee the Lightning a Cup. But the real star was this quote from Karlsson.

The second star: Brian Mach's grandmother – Mach is an NHL linesman who got to work all-star weekend for the first time. Grandma was not impressed.

The first star: Brad Marchand – Yeah, he wouldn't have been my pick to steal the show either. But by embracing the heel role, Marchand at least looked like he was having fun. From his sarcastic waving to to his over-the-top injury faking, Marchand came across as… well, not remotely likable, but at least vaguely self-aware. In the NHL, that's something.

Overall, we'll give the weekend a C+. Ah well. While only a few of their All-Stars were all that interesting, at least we still have Jaromir Jagr, right? Now to take a big sip of water and move on to the next section…

Outrage of the Week

The issue: Jaromir Jagr has been released by the Calgary Flames and signed with a team in the Czech league, all but certainly spelling the end of his NHL career. The outrage: NOOOOO! Is it justified: We knew it was coming. We had plenty of time to prepare. We should be OK with this.

We are not OK with this.

And I feel pretty safe saying "we," because over the years Jagr somehow morphed into a universally beloved figure among hockey fans. He'd basically taken over Teemu Selanne's role as the guy that just about nobody disliked. Even Penguin fans who weren't over the whole 2011 bait-and-switch, or Capitals fans still trying to figure out how he went from perennial Art Ross winner to "guy it makes sense to trade straight-up for Anson Carter" overnight were mostly OK with him by now.

That's a weird twist on a memorable career, given how Jagr arrived in the NHL. Back in the early 90s, when he arrived as Mario Lemieux's sidekick and immediately won two Cups in his first two seasons, plenty of us didn't like him. He was the poster child for a certain kind of flashy European player that we were having trouble getting used to. The NHL was a league where you weren't supposed to smile if you scored a goal; having your own trademark celebration was basically a felony violation of The Code. So even when he took over from Mario as the league's best player, we loved seeing him get his comeuppance.

He just didn't get it very often. The Washington debacle seemed to spell the end of him as a legitimate superstar, but then came his rebirth with the post-lockout Rangers. Little did we know he had another dozen years left. He spent a few of those in the KHL, and that and the two seasons' worth of time he lost to Gary Bettman's lockouts might have cost him a run at the all-time goals crown. The fact that we can even conceive of that for a guy who played 80 percent of his career in the Dead Puck era is ridiculous. Even better, he emerged as one of the game's better personalities, and both he and we loosened up over the years.

But now it's over. Probably. Nobody would be completely shocked if Jagr showed up again some time next season for one more run. We've been here before, after all. But this time feels different. This really does feel like the end.

So thank you, Jaromir. Father Time catches up to us all eventually, but you sure made him work for it. We'll see you in the Hall of Fame in three years or so. And until then, we'll always have your awkward draft day and your ridiculous highlight-reel goals and yes, the image of your injured groin slathered in peanut butter. It's been a trip.

Obscure Former Player of the Week

Today marks the 41st anniversary of one of the weirder record-breaking performances in NHL history: Maple Leafs defenseman Ian Turnbull's five-goal game. Not surprisingly, it's the only time a blueliner has ever scored five times in a single game; even hat tricks by defensemen are relatively rare, with only 42 players managing the feat in the last 30 years. Many of those names are the ones you'd expect, like Al MacInnis, Paul Coffey, and Shea Weber. A few are not, including this week's obscure player: Deron Quint.

Quint was a second-round pick by the Jets in the 1994 draft. He made his debut during the 1995-96 season, the team's last in Winnipeg, and held down a regular roster spot in Phoenix before being dealt to the Devils for Lyle Odelein at the 2000 deadline. His stay in New Jersey didn't last long, as he was dealt to the expansion Blue Jackets that offseason. He'd spend two years in Columbus before bouncing around the league for several seasons, making stops with the Blackhawks, Islanders, and Coyotes (again). His NHL days ended in 2007, but he continued his career in Europe for another decade, earning all-star honors in the KHL.

Quint was never much of a goal scorer, at least at the NHL level; he had only 46 in his career, and his high for a single season was just seven. But he briefly found his scoring touch on March 9, 2001, recording the hat trick in a 7-6 Blue Jackets win over the Panthers. All three goals came in the second period.

Oddly enough, that's not even the strangest Deron Quint goal-scoring feat. As a rookie in December 1995, Quint matched a six-decades-old NHL record by managing to score two goals in four seconds. How does a defenseman pull that off? As you'll see below, a little bit of luck helps.

The NHL Carolina Hurricanes Actually Got Something Right

The Hurricanes have a new owner. He's a 46-year-old billionaire named Tom Dundon, and so far he's been saying all the right things about wanting to win and keeping the team in Carolina. That's a positive development for a long-suffering fan base, but for the most part it doesn't really matter much to anyone else. The Hurricanes will continue their playoff push, they'll keep being that one team you always forget is in the Metro, and Canadians will continue to make up stories about them being on the verge of moving to Quebec. New ownership is a nice enough development, but that's about all it is.

Well, until this week. Because now we know that Dundon is toying with the idea of bringing back the Hartford Whalers.

Well, not the actual team. But Dundon would apparently like to reestablish the team's ties to its own history. That means selling Whalers merchandise, and maybe even playing games wearing the old uniforms (which were recently voted the league's second-best ever).

And, by far most importantly of all, the glory that is Brass Bonanza. It's back.

Hell yeah. In a sports world where retro is all the rage, this just seems like common sense, and it's a surprise that the NHL's various relocated teams don't do more of this sort of thing. You can understand not wanting to jump into right away, when fans in your old city are still recovering from the loss of a team; you don't want to wipe their face in it. And in cases like the Coyotes and Stars, where the old city eventually got another team, then you may not want to step on any toes.

But at this point it feels pretty safe to say that the NHL isn't heading back to Hartford anytime soon. So bring on the green and white. Find out what Pucky the Whale is up to these days. And by all means, blare that beautiful Brass Bonanza every chance you get.

(And be sure to crank it up extra loud whenever Brian Burke and the Flames are in town.)

Classic YouTube Clip Breakdown

We're one week away from the start of the Winter Olympics, which won't feature NHL players for the first time in 24 years. That's disappointing, and it's going to make the tournament a tough sell, no matter what those intellectual eggheads in the New York Times try to tell you. Still, we might as well make the best of it. So today, let's look back at the last pre-NHL gold medal game from 1994, as Canada and Sweden face off in one of the most memorable games in international history.

Oh yeah, we're doing this in Swedish. I probably should have mentioned that up front. Or not mentioned it at all, and just let you go through the whole clip thinking you were having a stroke.

But yeah, this is the clip from the Swedish broadcast, because everything sounds better in Swedish. Don't worry, though, I'm sure the announcers will be professional and stay impartial.

Our clip begins with about two minutes left in regulation. Everyone knows this game for the shootout, but not many remember that Canada had scored twice in the third period to take a 2-1 lead and were less than two minutes away from winning gold. Poor Derek Mayer. He scored the second Canadian goal that would have been the winner if the lead had held. Mayer was two minutes from being a national hero. Instead he's the guy who played 17 games for the expansion Senators. This sport can be cruel.

Sweden is on the powerplay because international hockey is always rigged against Canada. Man, those benches are in a weird place. One of those Team Canada players could reach over and grab the Swedish guy as he works the boards. Probably should have, in hindsight.

Sweden ties it on a goal by defenseman Magnus Svensson, which is 100 percent the name you'd come up with if you had to make up a fake Swedish identity for the cops and you panicked. It's very subtle, but you can pick up a little bit of excitement from our announcers, one of who screams a very aggressive "YEAH." Or I guess it's "JA." Either way, he seems happy.

We cut ahead to the shootout, and it's Magnus Svensson again. Or maybe it's not the same guy and most of the Swedish roster was just named "Magnus Svensson." I kind of hope it's that. Anyway, he scores on a gorgeous deke, leading to another "JA."

Wait, a defenseman got to take a turn in the shootout? What kind of Olympic coach would ever let something like that happen?

Next up is Forsberg, although this isn't the famous shot we all remember. He does score, though, beating Corey Hirsch on a nifty move. It's so nice that we skip the traditional "JA" and go straight to "OY YO YO YO." I don't care what language you speak, that's a flat-out fun thing to yell. I'm using that in my everyday life.

Next up is Forsberg again, because the Swedes snuck him in for a second shot even though it's against the rules and they should have to forfeit and Canada retroactively wins gold WHOOO! [checks earpiece] OK I'm being reminded that international hockey allows players to shoot more than once. You win this round, Sweden. Literally, as it turns out.

Forsberg beats Hirsch with the Peter Forsberg Move, which… I mean, how do you not see that coming, am I right?

This is the famous goal that would wind up on a postage stamp. Fun fact: The goalie in that stamp is wearing blue instead of Team Canada red because Hirsch refused to let them use his likeness and threatened to sue. He's since said that he regrets that, but I always liked it. It's the equivalent of making your friend delete that embarrassing photo of you looking stupid, except at an international level. I can respect that.

Needless to say, Forsberg's goal gets an extended OY YO YO YO from our two announcers as we head to the replays. I forgot how close Hirsch was to stopping that. Usually when The Forsberg works, it's into a wide-open net. But Hirsch is right with it the whole way and gets his glove down in the perfect spot. He's just a fraction of a second too late. Hockey, man.

That's it for our clip, which doesn't show Paul Kariya's game-ending miss and the subsequent celebration, presumably because our two announcers dove out of the booth to join it. It was Sweden's first ever gold medal; they'd win another with (mostly) NHL players in 2006. Can they do it again this year? Nobody knows, because we have no idea what to expect from this tournament. But if it's as entertaining as the 1994 gold medal game, will it be worth watching? I'm going to ahead and say ja.

Have a question, suggestion, old YouTube clip, or anything else you'd like to see included in this column? Email Sean at nhlgrabbag@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @DownGoesBrown.

DGB Grab Bag: Goodbye Jagr, Hello Whalers, and Brad Marchand, Comedy Star? published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

[amtushinfosolutionspage]

DGB Grab Bag: Goodbye Jagr, Hello Whalers, and Brad Marchand, Comedy Star?

Three Stars of Comedy (All-Star weekend edition)

The All-Star weekend is weird. It’s pretty much the only time all year that NHL players are allowed to show any personality, or at least try to. Some jump at the opportunity. Most don’t. And the results are always hit-and-miss.

It’s been especially tough to find a good laugh at the event ever since the NHL dropped the breakaway challenge that had some of the stars playing dress-up or otherwise getting creative. And no, we’re not going to go with this year’s Wes McCauley’s offside review announcement, because the fact that the NHL had an offside review in an all-star game was just sad. But even if we’re grading on a curve, we’ll hand out some points for effort at this year’s event.

The third star: Erik Karlsson and Victor Hedman – Their pirate costume routine was fun, at least as long as it wasn’t foreshadowing a Karlsson-to-Tampa trade that would basically guarantee the Lightning a Cup. But the real star was this quote from Karlsson.

The second star: Brian Mach’s grandmother – Mach is an NHL linesman who got to work all-star weekend for the first time. Grandma was not impressed.

The first star: Brad Marchand – Yeah, he wouldn’t have been my pick to steal the show either. But by embracing the heel role, Marchand at least looked like he was having fun. From his sarcastic waving to to his over-the-top injury faking, Marchand came across as… well, not remotely likable, but at least vaguely self-aware. In the NHL, that’s something.

Overall, we’ll give the weekend a C+. Ah well. While only a few of their All-Stars were all that interesting, at least we still have Jaromir Jagr, right? Now to take a big sip of water and move on to the next section…

Outrage of the Week

The issue: Jaromir Jagr has been released by the Calgary Flames and signed with a team in the Czech league, all but certainly spelling the end of his NHL career.

The outrage: NOOOOO!

Is it justified: We knew it was coming. We had plenty of time to prepare. We should be OK with this.

We are not OK with this.

And I feel pretty safe saying “we,” because over the years Jagr somehow morphed into a universally beloved figure among hockey fans. He’d basically taken over Teemu Selanne’s role as the guy that just about nobody disliked. Even Penguin fans who weren’t over the whole 2011 bait-and-switch, or Capitals fans still trying to figure out how he went from perennial Art Ross winner to “guy it makes sense to trade straight-up for Anson Carter” overnight were mostly OK with him by now.

That’s a weird twist on a memorable career, given how Jagr arrived in the NHL. Back in the early 90s, when he arrived as Mario Lemieux’s sidekick and immediately won two Cups in his first two seasons, plenty of us didn’t like him. He was the poster child for a certain kind of flashy European player that we were having trouble getting used to. The NHL was a league where you weren’t supposed to smile if you scored a goal; having your own trademark celebration was basically a felony violation of The Code. So even when he took over from Mario as the league’s best player, we loved seeing him get his comeuppance.

He just didn’t get it very often. The Washington debacle seemed to spell the end of him as a legitimate superstar, but then came his rebirth with the post-lockout Rangers. Little did we know he had another dozen years left. He spent a few of those in the KHL, and that and the two seasons’ worth of time he lost to Gary Bettman’s lockouts might have cost him a run at the all-time goals crown. The fact that we can even conceive of that for a guy who played 80 percent of his career in the Dead Puck era is ridiculous. Even better, he emerged as one of the game’s better personalities, and both he and we loosened up over the years.

But now it’s over. Probably. Nobody would be completely shocked if Jagr showed up again some time next season for one more run. We’ve been here before, after all. But this time feels different. This really does feel like the end.

So thank you, Jaromir. Father Time catches up to us all eventually, but you sure made him work for it. We’ll see you in the Hall of Fame in three years or so. And until then, we’ll always have your awkward draft day and your ridiculous highlight-reel goals and yes, the image of your injured groin slathered in peanut butter. It’s been a trip.

Obscure Former Player of the Week

Today marks the 41st anniversary of one of the weirder record-breaking performances in NHL history: Maple Leafs defenseman Ian Turnbull’s five-goal game. Not surprisingly, it’s the only time a blueliner has ever scored five times in a single game; even hat tricks by defensemen are relatively rare, with only 42 players managing the feat in the last 30 years. Many of those names are the ones you’d expect, like Al MacInnis, Paul Coffey, and Shea Weber. A few are not, including this week’s obscure player: Deron Quint.

Quint was a second-round pick by the Jets in the 1994 draft. He made his debut during the 1995-96 season, the team’s last in Winnipeg, and held down a regular roster spot in Phoenix before being dealt to the Devils for Lyle Odelein at the 2000 deadline. His stay in New Jersey didn’t last long, as he was dealt to the expansion Blue Jackets that offseason. He’d spend two years in Columbus before bouncing around the league for several seasons, making stops with the Blackhawks, Islanders, and Coyotes (again). His NHL days ended in 2007, but he continued his career in Europe for another decade, earning all-star honors in the KHL.

Quint was never much of a goal scorer, at least at the NHL level; he had only 46 in his career, and his high for a single season was just seven. But he briefly found his scoring touch on March 9, 2001, recording the hat trick in a 7-6 Blue Jackets win over the Panthers. All three goals came in the second period.

Oddly enough, that’s not even the strangest Deron Quint goal-scoring feat. As a rookie in December 1995, Quint matched a six-decades-old NHL record by managing to score two goals in four seconds. How does a defenseman pull that off? As you’ll see below, a little bit of luck helps.

The NHL Carolina Hurricanes Actually Got Something Right

The Hurricanes have a new owner. He’s a 46-year-old billionaire named Tom Dundon, and so far he’s been saying all the right things about wanting to win and keeping the team in Carolina. That’s a positive development for a long-suffering fan base, but for the most part it doesn’t really matter much to anyone else. The Hurricanes will continue their playoff push, they’ll keep being that one team you always forget is in the Metro, and Canadians will continue to make up stories about them being on the verge of moving to Quebec. New ownership is a nice enough development, but that’s about all it is.

Well, until this week. Because now we know that Dundon is toying with the idea of bringing back the Hartford Whalers.

Well, not the actual team. But Dundon would apparently like to reestablish the team’s ties to its own history. That means selling Whalers merchandise, and maybe even playing games wearing the old uniforms (which were recently voted the league’s second-best ever).

And, by far most importantly of all, the glory that is Brass Bonanza. It’s back.

Hell yeah. In a sports world where retro is all the rage, this just seems like common sense, and it’s a surprise that the NHL’s various relocated teams don’t do more of this sort of thing. You can understand not wanting to jump into right away, when fans in your old city are still recovering from the loss of a team; you don’t want to wipe their face in it. And in cases like the Coyotes and Stars, where the old city eventually got another team, then you may not want to step on any toes.

But at this point it feels pretty safe to say that the NHL isn’t heading back to Hartford anytime soon. So bring on the green and white. Find out what Pucky the Whale is up to these days. And by all means, blare that beautiful Brass Bonanza every chance you get.

(And be sure to crank it up extra loud whenever Brian Burke and the Flames are in town.)

Classic YouTube Clip Breakdown

We’re one week away from the start of the Winter Olympics, which won’t feature NHL players for the first time in 24 years. That’s disappointing, and it’s going to make the tournament a tough sell, no matter what those intellectual eggheads in the New York Times try to tell you. Still, we might as well make the best of it. So today, let’s look back at the last pre-NHL gold medal game from 1994, as Canada and Sweden face off in one of the most memorable games in international history.

Oh yeah, we’re doing this in Swedish. I probably should have mentioned that up front. Or not mentioned it at all, and just let you go through the whole clip thinking you were having a stroke.

But yeah, this is the clip from the Swedish broadcast, because everything sounds better in Swedish. Don’t worry, though, I’m sure the announcers will be professional and stay impartial.

Our clip begins with about two minutes left in regulation. Everyone knows this game for the shootout, but not many remember that Canada had scored twice in the third period to take a 2-1 lead and were less than two minutes away from winning gold. Poor Derek Mayer. He scored the second Canadian goal that would have been the winner if the lead had held. Mayer was two minutes from being a national hero. Instead he’s the guy who played 17 games for the expansion Senators. This sport can be cruel.

Sweden is on the powerplay because international hockey is always rigged against Canada. Man, those benches are in a weird place. One of those Team Canada players could reach over and grab the Swedish guy as he works the boards. Probably should have, in hindsight.

Sweden ties it on a goal by defenseman Magnus Svensson, which is 100 percent the name you’d come up with if you had to make up a fake Swedish identity for the cops and you panicked. It’s very subtle, but you can pick up a little bit of excitement from our announcers, one of who screams a very aggressive “YEAH.” Or I guess it’s “JA.” Either way, he seems happy.

We cut ahead to the shootout, and it’s Magnus Svensson again. Or maybe it’s not the same guy and most of the Swedish roster was just named “Magnus Svensson.” I kind of hope it’s that. Anyway, he scores on a gorgeous deke, leading to another “JA.”

Wait, a defenseman got to take a turn in the shootout? What kind of Olympic coach would ever let something like that happen?

Next up is Forsberg, although this isn’t the famous shot we all remember. He does score, though, beating Corey Hirsch on a nifty move. It’s so nice that we skip the traditional “JA” and go straight to “OY YO YO YO.” I don’t care what language you speak, that’s a flat-out fun thing to yell. I’m using that in my everyday life.

Next up is Forsberg again, because the Swedes snuck him in for a second shot even though it’s against the rules and they should have to forfeit and Canada retroactively wins gold WHOOO! [checks earpiece] OK I’m being reminded that international hockey allows players to shoot more than once. You win this round, Sweden. Literally, as it turns out.

Forsberg beats Hirsch with the Peter Forsberg Move, which… I mean, how do you not see that coming, am I right?

This is the famous goal that would wind up on a postage stamp. Fun fact: The goalie in that stamp is wearing blue instead of Team Canada red because Hirsch refused to let them use his likeness and threatened to sue. He’s since said that he regrets that, but I always liked it. It’s the equivalent of making your friend delete that embarrassing photo of you looking stupid, except at an international level. I can respect that.

Needless to say, Forsberg’s goal gets an extended OY YO YO YO from our two announcers as we head to the replays. I forgot how close Hirsch was to stopping that. Usually when The Forsberg works, it’s into a wide-open net. But Hirsch is right with it the whole way and gets his glove down in the perfect spot. He’s just a fraction of a second too late. Hockey, man.

That’s it for our clip, which doesn’t show Paul Kariya’s game-ending miss and the subsequent celebration, presumably because our two announcers dove out of the booth to join it. It was Sweden’s first ever gold medal; they’d win another with (mostly) NHL players in 2006. Can they do it again this year? Nobody knows, because we have no idea what to expect from this tournament. But if it’s as entertaining as the 1994 gold medal game, will it be worth watching? I’m going to ahead and say ja.

Have a question, suggestion, old YouTube clip, or anything else you’d like to see included in this column? Email Sean at nhlgrabbag@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @DownGoesBrown.

DGB Grab Bag: Goodbye Jagr, Hello Whalers, and Brad Marchand, Comedy Star? syndicated from https://australiahoverboards.wordpress.com

[murasaki-murasame]

Yuri on Ice Rewatch: Episode 3

Time for episode three! I remember this being when I got even more invested in the show than I already was before, so this will be fun to revisit.

Thoughts under the cut.

Not much to say before I sit down and watch the episode itself, other than that this was the episode that fully hooked me into the show, as I said above, but I’ll get more into that later in this post. I can’t remember exactly what my feelings and expectations were going into this the first time around, but I imagine that I was pretty curious to see how the whole Onsen on Ice competition would play out, and how it’d handle the already-emerging themes of love. 

This was also around when I got really into the fandom, or at least when the fandom really took off, especially in terms of discussion and analysis and whatnot.

Anyway, time to sit down and watch this.

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I imagine that most of this post will be me talking about Yuri and his Eros performance, so I may as well talk about the other parts of the episode first.

As yet another part of the show taking on a whole new tone once you get to the ep10 twist, I can’t help but laugh at the entire concept of Yuri saying that his eros is katsudon, and Viktor then doing out to drink until dawn that same night. That must have been a bit of a whiplash-y moment for him. But he took it in stride.

It’s interesting to look back at Viktor saying that to him, agape is ‘just a feeling that he doesn’t know how to put into words’, and in general being kinda flippant about it, considering how depressed and listless we now know he was. I wonder if agape was a difficult concept for him to truly engage with and understand, at the time.

I still quite like the part where Viktor says that his role is mostly to help Yuri with his self-confidence, since he’s already a perfectly good skater who’s just hampered by his emotions. It’s a really important part of their dynamic as coach and student. I’ve always found it interesting how, even among the anti-YoI crowd, I’ve never seen anyone genuinely complain about their relationship on the basis of the power imbalance they have as coach and student, and I think this is a major part of it. They might be coach and student, but their dynamic is much different, and much more balanced, than that of a ‘regular coach and student’, for lack of a better term. For one thing they’re both adults, so that erases like half of the problems that come with most ‘power imbalance’ relationships like this, and most of all, they’re at a similar level of knowledge and skill. Viktor isn’t really teaching him anything about skating itself, in terms of skills and abilities, he’s just there to mostly be an emotional support for Yuri. So their relationship as a whole has basically none of the bad parts you usually get out of stuff like ‘teacher-student romances’ or whatever. And I really think it’s a testament to how well the show’s written, and how much it sells the idea of them being on more or less equal ground as people, that even the antis don’t complain about it. Also, if you’ve ever seen that one interview quote from Otsuka, the CEO of Mappa [I think it was him] where he was like ‘Yuri and Viktor are coach and student, but they’re also partners’, that’s basically the gist of what he meant. They might have a relationship that’s technically defined by a fundamental power difference, but they’re still equal partners. And of course this is also all further supported as the show goes on by the fact that not only is Yuri emotionally supported by Viktor, the reverse is also true, so even on an emotional level they have a two-way relationship.

It’s also interesting, in hindsight, to look at everything he says about the Eros routine, and how he made it. To put it pretty simply, it’s a fairly common fan theory that aspects of the Eros choreography, if not the entire concept of it, were based on Yuri’s whole pole-dancing routine at the banquet. In general, the whole context of Eros, and Viktor’s desire to see Yuri’s true Eros, changes a lot, and becomes more clear, when you understand that Viktor has already seen his Eros, in all it’s champagne-fueled glory, and is actively seeking it out again.

Oh, and while I remember, on the general topic of Viktor, I still love and adore the post-credits episode preview where he says that he’d be happy to see Yuri naked on the ice. It’s so great. Although part of why I love it, beyond the obvious part of how incredibly gay it is, is that I have no goddamn clue what the context for it is meant to be. Like, where did it even come from? Nobody ever suggested Yuri be naked on the ice, so him talking about it comes out of absolutely nowhere. So it just exists as a canon conversation in the show even though it has no real reason for being there, and that’s amazing. It feels almost like it was meant to be a reference to a part of the episode’s script that got cut before the episode aired, but they kept this part in even though it didn’t make sense anymore. I can imagine how the concept of Yuri being naked on the ice COULD have come up in this episode, but it didn’t. I might sound like I’m criticizing it, but I’m really not. I genuinely love this damn conversation and how completely out of nowhere it is. Yamamoto didn’t need to have Viktor canonically say that he’d love to see Yuri be naked on the ice, but she did that, for all of us.

I don’t think I have a whole lot to say about Yurio in this episode, but I actually really like his scenes in this episode, since he’s at his most introspective, isolated, and vulnerable. That’s basically when his character’s at it’s best. Which is part of why I’m really sad that the show leans more into validating his cocky attitude rather than knocking him down a peg. The whole ‘tell him that I’m gonna be the one to win at the GPF!’ line comes across kinda weirdly when you know in hindsight that he DOES win the GPF. It feels like he was meant to sound petty and defeated when he said it, and that tone gets kinda warped when it turns out he was right about it.

I really do love his relationship with his grandpa, though. It’s a consistently heartwarming and adorable aspect to his character, and it goes a long way to make him sympathetic. I kinda wish we got more insight into his childhood and home life in general, but there wasn’t time for it, and I’m honestly glad that the show cut out a lot of his backstory in order to focus on more relevant and important things. I know we’ve learned a few details about his backstory via staff interviews and such, but I only have a vague memory of it since I don’t really seek out extra info on his character, and I don’t usually care enough to remember, if I’m being blunt, but I think that his mother is some sort of a famous singer, or at least was one, and that she doesn’t have much time for her family, which is vaguely alluded to in this episode.

His whole thing of being frustrated with himself during his agape performance because he’s putting too much energy toward performing the physical actions of the routine, and being unable to focus on the emotional side because of it, was also nice. It’s good to see him at least striving to improve upon himself.

Anyway, time to talk about the real star of the episode, Yuri! I dunno if this’ll actually be the biggest part of this post since I talked a bit more about Viktor than I thought I would, but still. I’ll try.

I should probably say in advance that I kinda struggle at times to talk about my positive feelings toward something I like, because I feel embarrassed about the idea of seeming overly obsessive or dramatic or obnoxiously pushy with my raving, so I tend to hold myself back and talk about things from the most analytical and ‘objective’ perspective I can, which I think leads to me seeming overly critical at times, and it also kinda sometimes leads to me not talking much about the things I like about something. So I just wanna make it absolutely clear, while we’re still relatively early in this rewatch series, that I fucking ADORE Yuri Katsuki. So much so that I would honestly call him my favourite fictional character of all time. He means the absolute world to me. Which means that I might end up not talking much about him or his scenes because I don’t want to spent Literal Hours [tm] raving about this wonderful, incredible man. But I still love him to pieces, and even though I loved him from the start, this was the episode where I began to feel truly invested and connected to him to a degree that I hadn’t been expecting.

The Eros sub-plot/theme/whatever-you-want-to-call-it is where we really start to get a deeper look into Yuri’s feelings, and it’s also where the show begins to really get into the overarching themes and concepts that it’s going to explore over the course of the story. It’s no wonder that this is where there was a bit of an explosion of meta and analysis and speculation within the fandom. This episode provides us with ideas and frameworks that are explored throughout the rest of the show, and at the time, they really got the fandom thinking about how it was going to go. From the very start people had their apprehensions about Viktor, mostly because in the early episodes he has an aloof and emotionally distant playboy vibe to him, and the whole playboy/beautiful woman story presented in this episode really ignited people’s fears and concerns, and sparked a lot of discussion in general. Especially since the Eros story explicitly mentions the idea of the playboy abandoning the beautiful women once he’s done with her [which, yet again, gains new context when you realize what happened during and after the banquet. Not that Yuri himself could have known about it]. I still kinda wish the show could have explicitly brought up the Eros story again later in the show, but oh well.

But we can’t talk about the Eros story without also talking about how Yuri actively subverts it by choosing to adopt the role of the beautiful woman and spin it into a seductive force that can go up against the playboy. It’s no surprise that this was around where it really dawned on us all that this show had a lot of things to say about romantic narratives and interpersonal dynamics. A lot of it is explored somewhat implicitly, in the ways that Yuri and Viktor’s relationship naturally plays out, and how it subverts expectations and narratives and tropes, but there’s still some explicit discussions of and references to these concepts, like in this episode. I definitely think it was very intentional on Yamamoto’s part that this show explored and subverted a lot of romantic narrative and tropes, which I’ll get into as I get through this rewatch. This is a good time to recommend her earlier anime, The Woman Called Fujiko Mine, which very actively and VERY explicitly discusses and subverts the way that we create narratives about women, and how damaging they can be. The wonderful Vrai Kaiser has their own series of posts about each episode of that show on their blog, where they go over the themes in that show much better than I ever could. Their posts are made with the entire series in mind, though, so don’t read it if you haven’t watched it all. They also have a really good essay about one of the characters in that show, and how, through that character, the show explores the negative and stifling ways that we create [or don’t create] narratives about gay men. The latter in particular being a topic that I think is very interesting to explore in the context of Yuri on Ice. I’d love to make my own essay post about the concept of ‘how we write stories about gay men’ in relation to Yuri on Ice, and how Yuri on Ice compares and contrasts to The Woman Called Fujiko Mine in that area, but that’ll be it’s own separate post I do later.

That was kinda off-topic and half of it was just me giving a shout out to Vrai because I love their posts and want to have more people read them, but the other half of it is that it supports what I mean about how Yamamoto seems very intentional about how she writes about the idea of narratives, especially narratives to do with gender and sexuality. I’ve also heard similar things about Michiko and Hatchin [the first anime she directed], but I haven’t seen that so I can’t comment on it.

The basic idea of how it’s subversive for Yuri to both adopt the feminine persona in that narrative and to also frame it as an active, dominant sort of role, is pretty obvious. I don’t think I even need to go too deeply into it. But I do like the way that the show as a whole explores and embraces the idea of men, well, exploring and embracing their feminine side. We also see in this same episode how Yuri’s Eros outfit, which was itself previously worn by Viktor, was intentionally designed to evoke both male and female genders. I think it’s a really wonderful and positive message to send. Framing femininity as something that can be empowering is great, and fits in nicely with Yamamoto’s other works and their messages [from what I’ve seen at least]. But, as I’ll get into in episode six’s post, it’s sort of a crutch, or a stepping stone, for Yuri in this episode. He steps into a very actively and aggressively feminine role in this episode, to the point of using the pretty much exclusively-feminine pronoun ‘atashi’ during his performance, and later on he dials back on it a bit and reaches more of a middle ground that reflects his more true self. It’s a part of the story that I truly love, and I’ll have a lot to say about it during episode six. [In general I’m probably gonna have a lot to say about episode six, and I want to give it a lot of attention, especially because it’s by far one of the most under-appreciated episodes in the show, which is still sad to me, since it has one of my most beloved scenes in it]

It’s also worth noting, in terms of what the fandom was talking about back then, this episode sparked a whole lot of headcanons about Yuri [and to a lesser extent Viktor] being a trans woman, or nonbinary to some degree. I think that headcanon kinda died out as the show went on, though, to the point where I feel like more people at this point headcanon Yuri as a trans man. Either way I don’t really think it’s my place as a cis guy to comment on this much, so I’ll just move on.

I really love Yuri’s entire Eros routine here, and his confident and sexy attitude in it. I remember the fandom as a whole being really surprised to see that sort of a seductive side to him as well. In general a lot of the fandom experience as the show was ongoing involved people being continually surprised by Yuri’s many layers as a character, and the escalating ways in which he gets more and more seductive. I still love the little kiss he blows Viktor at the start of it, and Viktor’s wolf whistle that he does in response. It’s great.

I don’t really want to get too deep into movie speculation until my episode twelve post, at least [I’ll probably make a separate post afterward about my speculation for it], but I’m really interested in seeing it again, at least if the movie covers what I think it will and thus he’ll be doing the same routines. Each new Eros performance we got in the show was different in some way to the last, and reflected certain aspects of Yuri’s growth throughout the show, so I can’t help but be curious about how it’d go in the movie. Not gonna lie, I kinda desperately hope that at least one time he just straight-up kisses Viktor and leaves him blushing and breathless before he does an Eros routine. Even if it’s a bit of a pipe dream. At least we got an indirect kiss of sorts during episode 11′s Eros routine, lol.

I also really like how Yuri asked Minako for guidance, and employed his history in ballet, in order to figure out how to go about performing Eros. It ties in nicely with what I said above about him connecting with his feminine side.

I know I basically haven’t said anything at all about the whole katsudon topic in this episode, and that’s just because I don’t have a whole lot to say about it. It’s another aspect of how he explores certain ideas on his road to understanding his true eros, which comes to a head in episode six, but I feel like the aspect of him connecting with a feminine role is more interesting to talk about. The katsudon thing is more of a running gag than any serious plot point worth discussing. Though it does kinda highlight how much Yuri hasn’t really thought about sexuality before, and is really clumsy about figuring out how to explore and express his own sexuality. But I also mostly feel like Hot Topic’s aggressive approach to plastering the ‘I’m a sexy pork cutlet bowl’ line on like 90% of their Yuri on Ice merch has kinda left me burned on the whole thing to some degree. [They didn’t even use the ‘katsudon fatale’ line! That’s, like, the one genuinely interesting and discussion-worthy part of the whole katsudon thing!]

Anyway, since I’m running out of things to say, I’ll just comment on the whole resolution of the Onsen on Ice competition. It caused a whole lot of discourse in the fandom about whether or not it was a case of favouritism, with the competition being rigged against Yurio because Viktor already had a vested interest in Yuri. I think I mentioned this in the last post, but this discourse still comes up from time to time, but thankfully not as much as it used to, especially after the minor resurgence it got after ep10 when it became even more clear how much Viktor was into Yuri by this point in the show. Either way, my stance is that it wasn’t rigged, and that if Yuri had truly been unable to find and express his Eros, Viktor probably would have packed up his bags and left, though he obviously wouldn’t have been happy about it. I think that, mostly, Viktor wanted to make sure that he wasn’t mistaken about that inner flame of passion and Eros that he’d seen in Yuri. He wanted to know that he’d made a good choice in disrupting his career so much in order to pursue it. So if he had ended up feeling that he wasn’t going to be able to find it, and that Yuri wasn’t going to be able to give him what he wanted, he would have been fine with leaving, though I doubt he would have actually left unless an option like Onsen on Ice came up, even if Yuri hadn’t been able to express his Eros. I’m not entirely sure about it, but I imagine that he would have stuck to his word and continued to coach Yuri for the rest of the season.

I guess my way of phrasing it might come across badly, but I don’t think that Viktor was being, like, shallow or manipulative in wanting to rediscover Yuri’s Eros, and basically creating a scenario for it to happen in. I think it was fine. I can’t blame him for being kinda desperate about finding passion and love and happiness.

Oh, and that reminds me, the scene in the rink where Viktor gets up in Yuri’s personal space with his thumb against Yuri’s lips and says that he wants to see Yuri’s Eros is kinda interesting, since it was used at the end of either the first or second PVs, and was one of the main, if not the only, ‘fanservice-y’ scenes used in the PVs. I still feel like the framing of it is kinda weird, like they were trying to make it seem sorta uncomfortable and almost predatory, and so it’s still a bit weird to me that it’s the main fanservice-y scene they used in the PVs. It kinda created a bit of a misleading atmosphere that made me think that the show was going to be more weird and exploitative about it’s portrayal of sexuality. I’m glad that wasn’t the case. Either way, I feel like it’s the sort of scene that really illustrates the gap that existed between them at the start of the show, and how so much of it was about Viktor being aggressive with his flirting while Yuri didn’t know how to respond. It kinda superficially plays into stereotypes and tropes, but it’s one of the things that gets subverted and flipped on it’s head as the show goes on, so I can’t help but wonder if it was intentional, in terms of showing these trope-y and kinda unhealthy and unbalanced scenes at the start, to contrast them with how their relationship develops as the show goes on.

Anyway, next week we’ll be getting to episode four, which is a real turning point in Yuri and Viktor’s relationship, and is the beginning of them truly connecting as equals. So that’ll be nice to revisit.

[flauntpage]

DGB Grab Bag: Goodbye Jagr, Hello Whalers, and Brad Marchand, Comedy Star?

Three Stars of Comedy (All-Star weekend edition)

The All-Star weekend is weird. It's pretty much the only time all year that NHL players are allowed to show any personality, or at least try to. Some jump at the opportunity. Most don't. And the results are always hit-and-miss.

It's been especially tough to find a good laugh at the event ever since the NHL dropped the breakaway challenge that had some of the stars playing dress-up or otherwise getting creative. And no, we're not going to go with this year's Wes McCauley's offside review announcement, because the fact that the NHL had an offside review in an all-star game was just sad. But even if we're grading on a curve, we'll hand out some points for effort at this year's event.

The third star: Erik Karlsson and Victor Hedman – Their pirate costume routine was fun, at least as long as it wasn't foreshadowing a Karlsson-to-Tampa trade that would basically guarantee the Lightning a Cup. But the real star was this quote from Karlsson.

The second star: Brian Mach's grandmother – Mach is an NHL linesman who got to work all-star weekend for the first time. Grandma was not impressed.

The first star: Brad Marchand – Yeah, he wouldn't have been my pick to steal the show either. But by embracing the heel role, Marchand at least looked like he was having fun. From his sarcastic waving to to his over-the-top injury faking, Marchand came across as… well, not remotely likable, but at least vaguely self-aware. In the NHL, that's something.

Overall, we'll give the weekend a C+. Ah well. While only a few of their All-Stars were all that interesting, at least we still have Jaromir Jagr, right? Now to take a big sip of water and move on to the next section…

Outrage of the Week

The issue: Jaromir Jagr has been released by the Calgary Flames and signed with a team in the Czech league, all but certainly spelling the end of his NHL career. The outrage: NOOOOO! Is it justified: We knew it was coming. We had plenty of time to prepare. We should be OK with this.

We are not OK with this.

And I feel pretty safe saying "we," because over the years Jagr somehow morphed into a universally beloved figure among hockey fans. He'd basically taken over Teemu Selanne's role as the guy that just about nobody disliked. Even Penguin fans who weren't over the whole 2011 bait-and-switch, or Capitals fans still trying to figure out how he went from perennial Art Ross winner to "guy it makes sense to trade straight-up for Anson Carter" overnight were mostly OK with him by now.

That's a weird twist on a memorable career, given how Jagr arrived in the NHL. Back in the early 90s, when he arrived as Mario Lemieux's sidekick and immediately won two Cups in his first two seasons, plenty of us didn't like him. He was the poster child for a certain kind of flashy European player that we were having trouble getting used to. The NHL was a league where you weren't supposed to smile if you scored a goal; having your own trademark celebration was basically a felony violation of The Code. So even when he took over from Mario as the league's best player, we loved seeing him get his comeuppance.

He just didn't get it very often. The Washington debacle seemed to spell the end of him as a legitimate superstar, but then came his rebirth with the post-lockout Rangers. Little did we know he had another dozen years left. He spent a few of those in the KHL, and that and the two seasons' worth of time he lost to Gary Bettman's lockouts might have cost him a run at the all-time goals crown. The fact that we can even conceive of that for a guy who played 80 percent of his career in the Dead Puck era is ridiculous. Even better, he emerged as one of the game's better personalities, and both he and we loosened up over the years.

But now it's over. Probably. Nobody would be completely shocked if Jagr showed up again some time next season for one more run. We've been here before, after all. But this time feels different. This really does feel like the end.

So thank you, Jaromir. Father Time catches up to us all eventually, but you sure made him work for it. We'll see you in the Hall of Fame in three years or so. And until then, we'll always have your awkward draft day and your ridiculous highlight-reel goals and yes, the image of your injured groin slathered in peanut butter. It's been a trip.

Obscure Former Player of the Week

Today marks the 41st anniversary of one of the weirder record-breaking performances in NHL history: Maple Leafs defenseman Ian Turnbull's five-goal game. Not surprisingly, it's the only time a blueliner has ever scored five times in a single game; even hat tricks by defensemen are relatively rare, with only 42 players managing the feat in the last 30 years. Many of those names are the ones you'd expect, like Al MacInnis, Paul Coffey, and Shea Weber. A few are not, including this week's obscure player: Deron Quint.

Quint was a second-round pick by the Jets in the 1994 draft. He made his debut during the 1995-96 season, the team's last in Winnipeg, and held down a regular roster spot in Phoenix before being dealt to the Devils for Lyle Odelein at the 2000 deadline. His stay in New Jersey didn't last long, as he was dealt to the expansion Blue Jackets that offseason. He'd spend two years in Columbus before bouncing around the league for several seasons, making stops with the Blackhawks, Islanders, and Coyotes (again). His NHL days ended in 2007, but he continued his career in Europe for another decade, earning all-star honors in the KHL.

Quint was never much of a goal scorer, at least at the NHL level; he had only 46 in his career, and his high for a single season was just seven. But he briefly found his scoring touch on March 9, 2001, recording the hat trick in a 7-6 Blue Jackets win over the Panthers. All three goals came in the second period.

Oddly enough, that's not even the strangest Deron Quint goal-scoring feat. As a rookie in December 1995, Quint matched a six-decades-old NHL record by managing to score two goals in four seconds. How does a defenseman pull that off? As you'll see below, a little bit of luck helps.

The NHL Carolina Hurricanes Actually Got Something Right

The Hurricanes have a new owner. He's a 46-year-old billionaire named Tom Dundon, and so far he's been saying all the right things about wanting to win and keeping the team in Carolina. That's a positive development for a long-suffering fan base, but for the most part it doesn't really matter much to anyone else. The Hurricanes will continue their playoff push, they'll keep being that one team you always forget is in the Metro, and Canadians will continue to make up stories about them being on the verge of moving to Quebec. New ownership is a nice enough development, but that's about all it is.

Well, until this week. Because now we know that Dundon is toying with the idea of bringing back the Hartford Whalers.

Well, not the actual team. But Dundon would apparently like to reestablish the team's ties to its own history. That means selling Whalers merchandise, and maybe even playing games wearing the old uniforms (which were recently voted the league's second-best ever).

And, by far most importantly of all, the glory that is Brass Bonanza. It's back.

Hell yeah. In a sports world where retro is all the rage, this just seems like common sense, and it's a surprise that the NHL's various relocated teams don't do more of this sort of thing. You can understand not wanting to jump into right away, when fans in your old city are still recovering from the loss of a team; you don't want to wipe their face in it. And in cases like the Coyotes and Stars, where the old city eventually got another team, then you may not want to step on any toes.

But at this point it feels pretty safe to say that the NHL isn't heading back to Hartford anytime soon. So bring on the green and white. Find out what Pucky the Whale is up to these days. And by all means, blare that beautiful Brass Bonanza every chance you get.

(And be sure to crank it up extra loud whenever Brian Burke and the Flames are in town.)

Classic YouTube Clip Breakdown

We're one week away from the start of the Winter Olympics, which won't feature NHL players for the first time in 24 years. That's disappointing, and it's going to make the tournament a tough sell, no matter what those intellectual eggheads in the New York Times try to tell you. Still, we might as well make the best of it. So today, let's look back at the last pre-NHL gold medal game from 1994, as Canada and Sweden face off in one of the most memorable games in international history.

Oh yeah, we're doing this in Swedish. I probably should have mentioned that up front. Or not mentioned it at all, and just let you go through the whole clip thinking you were having a stroke.

But yeah, this is the clip from the Swedish broadcast, because everything sounds better in Swedish. Don't worry, though, I'm sure the announcers will be professional and stay impartial.

Our clip begins with about two minutes left in regulation. Everyone knows this game for the shootout, but not many remember that Canada had scored twice in the third period to take a 2-1 lead and were less than two minutes away from winning gold. Poor Derek Mayer. He scored the second Canadian goal that would have been the winner if the lead had held. Mayer was two minutes from being a national hero. Instead he's the guy who played 17 games for the expansion Senators. This sport can be cruel.

Sweden is on the powerplay because international hockey is always rigged against Canada. Man, those benches are in a weird place. One of those Team Canada players could reach over and grab the Swedish guy as he works the boards. Probably should have, in hindsight.

Sweden ties it on a goal by defenseman Magnus Svensson, which is 100 percent the name you'd come up with if you had to make up a fake Swedish identity for the cops and you panicked. It's very subtle, but you can pick up a little bit of excitement from our announcers, one of who screams a very aggressive "YEAH." Or I guess it's "JA." Either way, he seems happy.

We cut ahead to the shootout, and it's Magnus Svensson again. Or maybe it's not the same guy and most of the Swedish roster was just named "Magnus Svensson." I kind of hope it's that. Anyway, he scores on a gorgeous deke, leading to another "JA."

Wait, a defenseman got to take a turn in the shootout? What kind of Olympic coach would ever let something like that happen?

Next up is Forsberg, although this isn't the famous shot we all remember. He does score, though, beating Corey Hirsch on a nifty move. It's so nice that we skip the traditional "JA" and go straight to "OY YO YO YO." I don't care what language you speak, that's a flat-out fun thing to yell. I'm using that in my everyday life.

Next up is Forsberg again, because the Swedes snuck him in for a second shot even though it's against the rules and they should have to forfeit and Canada retroactively wins gold WHOOO! [checks earpiece] OK I'm being reminded that international hockey allows players to shoot more than once. You win this round, Sweden. Literally, as it turns out.

Forsberg beats Hirsch with the Peter Forsberg Move, which… I mean, how do you not see that coming, am I right?

This is the famous goal that would wind up on a postage stamp. Fun fact: The goalie in that stamp is wearing blue instead of Team Canada red because Hirsch refused to let them use his likeness and threatened to sue. He's since said that he regrets that, but I always liked it. It's the equivalent of making your friend delete that embarrassing photo of you looking stupid, except at an international level. I can respect that.

Needless to say, Forsberg's goal gets an extended OY YO YO YO from our two announcers as we head to the replays. I forgot how close Hirsch was to stopping that. Usually when The Forsberg works, it's into a wide-open net. But Hirsch is right with it the whole way and gets his glove down in the perfect spot. He's just a fraction of a second too late. Hockey, man.

That's it for our clip, which doesn't show Paul Kariya's game-ending miss and the subsequent celebration, presumably because our two announcers dove out of the booth to join it. It was Sweden's first ever gold medal; they'd win another with (mostly) NHL players in 2006. Can they do it again this year? Nobody knows, because we have no idea what to expect from this tournament. But if it's as entertaining as the 1994 gold medal game, will it be worth watching? I'm going to ahead and say ja.

Have a question, suggestion, old YouTube clip, or anything else you'd like to see included in this column? Email Sean at nhlgrabbag@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @DownGoesBrown.

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