#it WILL be a huge pain in the ass overall and i am acknowledging that

[starbuck]

me last semester: i am NOT taking four courses again! no way!

me now: *clown shoes jingling as i go to sign up for my fourth course*

[djemsostylist]

Every once in a while a show sort of creeps up on you, you know? You don't really expect much of it, and then it sort of quietly wows you. Ada Masalı is that show.

At its surface, AM is about a city girl who falls for a small town boy, and all the clichés that entails, and that is the core of the story. I think that's part of why it's so good--bc this story had a premise and it's kept that premise solid. City girl moves to small town and falls in love with a local and everyone learns lessons along the way.

But AM takes the tropes and clichés and does them well. I've written before about how they take the basics and give them just enough "oomph" to make them special. I'll quote myself here, if I may:

Haziran and Poyraz both seem to fit into pretty typical roles: gruff, silent man and bubbly, talkative woman. But they’ve given each character enough nuance to move them out of the typical mold. Yes, Haziran is bubbly and talkative and a little overly loud, but she has a reason for it–silence in her childhood meant anger and fighting with her mother, and she learned how to fill the silence with talking. She is also very competent at her job, genuinely kind, smart, and driven. Poyraz is the “strong, silent” type, but he manages to subvert the “asshole” which far too often comes with the role. Like Haziran, he has some difficulties in his past, but he also seems well adjusted, smart, genuinely kind, focused, and again, competent. He and Haziran are true equals in this show, which is rare in romcom couples, particularly Turkish ones. They both are in similar financial situations, they both seem to have similar philosophies and outlooks, and, perhaps most importantly, they are both head over heels for each other and they both know it, even if they are unable to say it out loud just yet.

At the time when I wrote the above piece, I believe we were just before episode 6 or 7, so the secret hadn't been revealed yet, and at the time I speculated that it was likely to drop before their relationship started, and I was correct. This show continues to take the obvious and turn it on its head.

Poyraz and Haziran are one of the few dizi couples, and certainly the only romcom couple, I've seen where they have entered into a relationship that isn't built on a fragile house of cards held together by mutual attraction. This couple is completely and totally all in, and it makes sense. They've had conversation upon conversation about their parents, their past, their fears, their insecurities, their concerns. They've seen each other vulnerable and hurting and scared and been there for each other at their lowest. They have complete and total trust in each other, in their love for each other, in their relationship.

There is attraction yes, certainly, god is there ever, but there is also a deep affection. They like each other, which may seem a silly thing to fixate on, but so many times with couples I ask myself "okay, but do they even like each other though?" and in this case, they genuinely do. Poyraz loves her rambling and her overreactions and the way she hops from one idea to the other but somehow always manages to make it work. He loves that she works hard and never pawns off the hard jobs and he loves how genuinely kind and caring she is. He memorizes everything because he liked her before he loved her, and that's huge. And same for her. She loves his kindness and his empathy, his ability to fix broken electronics and his stubbornness when it comes to getting his way. She loves his honesty and his pride and the way he can't ever really say no to her. I think she also really loves that he doesn't let his past affect who he is. There's a connection between them that started with a spark but grew into something actually real.

The best bit, though, is that this is the first romcom couple I've seen (there may be more) that enter the relationship on completely equal terms, no secrets, and no uncertainties. All their secrets from each other were cleared up long before they ever said I love you. They are both in a similar place life wise--financially they are both probably around equal in terms of overall assets, they both have equal romantic histories (probably a series of short term relationships but nothing big or long lasting), they both value hard work and honesty and kindness, they are both mature adults who have been "out" of their parents house so to speak (yes, both still live with their respective parents, but neither play the typical "kid" role--they both are honestly more in the caretaker role), they are both college educated with business acumen. They both have had difficulties in their past, but neither allow those issues to hurt others--they both possess enough self-awareness to know how their issues effect them personally and they both work to ensure their issues don't become someone else's burden. Poyraz helping her with her fear of water or Haziran talking him through his mother are not them burdening each other, or using their issues as a reason to avoid a relationship--on the contrary, they build their bond by supporting each other through their pain. And, and this one is perhaps most important, they both love each other equally, and they both knew it before it was ever said outloud. That Poyraz could say "I love you" and Haziran could say it right back, no hesitation, speaks volumes to where they are both individually and as a couple.

Perhaps what's been the most refreshing is them communicating, constantly. When these two fight, they share their issues, their anger, their irritation, and then they work through it. The way they talk through their issues, every time, is honestly stunning for how completely refreshing it is. When they get mad at each other, they don't act like everything is fine while actively treating the other like crap--they explain the reasons behind their anger/irritation, they listen, they talk. The scene this episode of their banter after their fight on the first date was incredibly refreshing--bc it wasn't actually fighting. Haz was upset bc Poyraz ruined their first date--which he acknowledges, apologizes for, and then makes up to her, and she accepts. Their playful flirting in the kitchen the next day is just that--fun and playful and both of them are in on it. It's not Haz treating him like shit under the guise of "comedy", it's not him purposely being an obnoxious pain in the ass. It's them being cute and flirty and light after their fight the night before, which they already solved with a text conversation.

What I love most about their relationship is that I buy it. Completely. These are two people who aren't going to run when things get tough, who aren't going to play coy about their feelings, who aren't going to fight just to fight. We've seen them be honest and straightforward in their feelings, good, bad or otherwise. We've seen them fight for each other and their relationship. We've seen them encounter problems (whether in their relationship or in life) and work through them, together. And perhaps the greatest part of their relationship is that they allow each other to be exactly who they are. They are both allowed to feel the things they feel, and the other lets them. They are given a safe space to be themselves, and to know that they will always have the support and love of the other person, no matter what.

I said I thought this show was about love, at it's core, and all the ways love manifests, and I still think that's true. But I think this show is also about happiness--and about the idea that we can't always know exactly what is going to make us happy. True happiness can't always be predicted--what you think might make you happy isn't always what actually does, and sometimes that's a hard thing to accept. All of the characters on this show have a view of the world and what will bring them joy, and one by one I think we are seeing that change. Sometimes what makes you happy is the thing you didn't expect.

This show is hardly perfect. It's a dizi, and it has it's flaws. And without knowing how long it's set to run, the chances of it losing focus is not an impossibility. But this show continues to delight and surprise--from introducing new characters like Batu who are far more than they appear, to continuing to keep us guessing with old ones, I think AM has the chance to be a romcom people remember as being special. I'm hoping right now for between 20-25 episodes, which would allow us to explore their island and it's story in the detail I think it deserves, without leaving too much room for nonsense to creep in.

I think I'll leave this here for now--sometimes a show is more than it seems, and sometimes a show is exactly what it seems. AM is both and neither, and I'd be willing to argue that it's the summer's best. The focus in the diziworld seems to be entirely on the summer's other two romcoms, but AM stays quietly getting better by the week. I look forward to what these writers have in store for us in the weeks to come!

[messiisgodibeliveinhim]

Taeyong

I just wanted to rant about everything that happened. So here I am.

So initially I didn't want to watch the concert because of the obvious lack of Taeyong. But i did watch it (ill*gally) on Twitter Live Stream, to see who would cover for Taeyong and how.

Okay, first of all, is it just me or was there an actual lack of preparation and production for the concert??? Like, compare it to SuperM's Beyond Live. The VCRs, the camera direction, the stage, the AR effects... Everything looked so good and exciting. But for this one, they didn't even try. The production was lacking severely and the AR effects were barely used. Everything looked rushed as if they didnt actually plan it set by set. The VCRs were just all the footages from other videos clamped together. There was nothing new or cool about this Beyond Live, even with the increased price. Overall, it looked cheap. I think, the only saving grace of this online concert were the boys themselves.

Secondly, the boys who covered for Taeyong did a good job. Obviously, no one can come close to even performing and delivering like Taeyong but the boys did fine, considering that they had to practice his parts for only 2-3 weeks. And it's a daunting task to fill such huge shoes. The pressure that the boys felt, especially the newbies Shotaro and Sungchan, to try to fill that gap, must have been immense.

But of course, NShittyzens took this as an opportunity to sh*t on Taeyong, saying stupid things like 'XYZ ate Taeyong up', 'ABC made Taeyong's song his own', 'MNO killed Taeyong's part and I think he should've been part of the original line-up instead of Taeyong', 'I hope my bias gets to shine now', 'My faves really took this "opportunity" and showed the world' etc.... Like??? Are you really that dense or just spewing bs like this cuz y'all want attention??? The same thing happened when Taeyong missed the KBS mid-year festival and the other boys covered for him for Kick It.

If y'all truly believe that you're bias only shines when Taeyong is absent, then it shows how insecure you are about you're faves talents and abilities. If you truly think Taeyong's injury is an "opportunity" for your fave, then there is clearly something wrong with you. If you think you're fave ate Taeyong up in any manner, then it shows that you just hate Taeyong. If you think Taeyong is replaceable, then you're doing piss poor job of convincing yourself. Taeyong doesn't need NCT, but NCT needs Taeyong.

He is not just the leader, but also the main dancer, main rapper, sub vocalist, the center of the group and the face of the group. He has also contributed to the group with over 30 songs and has choreographed for some of NCT songs. He is NCT's idea bank, with the numerous times he has come up with something new and interesting for their concepts or choreography (For Example: The Jungle Gym for Neo City tour, the epic finger move and Mark stepping on Taeyong for the Kick It choreography, the chandelier scene in MAW, etc) . Many professionals have constantly praised Taeyong for his creativity and excellent inputs.

Taeyong was there from the very beginning of NCT and has carried the group on his back for 4 years now. And he has always remained kind and humble, even with all the misdirected hate that he faced for years. He always puts himself down and praises all the members, no matter what. He has juggled between groups, 5 comebacks and numerous concerts, this year alone. His schedule list looks like the Bank Statement of one whole year. The way the man has worked for the past 2 years is insane. And upon that, the burden of being the leader of a group with 23 members??? Can y'all even imagine the amount of weight on Taeyong's shoulders???

And yes, the injuries he has constantly sustained for over 4 years now. We have seen various footages of him having neck braces, holding his waist and limping. He has also talked about the continuous back pain or how he was sick for 3 days after shooting a MV. SM had known exactly the extent of his injuries and still overworked him to the bone. Now his waist disc injury has relapsed and we still dont have a statement on his health or time of recovery on ANY of the SM Official Accounts. Not one word. We had to find out through a platform that's barely used and most non-twitteratti NCTzens didn't know about this whole ordeal until after the concert began.

What boils my blood is that SM knew about the relapsed injury way before, gave the boys enough time to practice Taeyong's part, but announced the concert by advertising Taeyong all over it, last Monday. And they literally only made the announcement after the concert ticket cancelation period was over. F*cking money whores! F*ck SM!!!!

The worst part of it all are the NShittyzens. Most of you didn't care about the fact that SM not only neglected the leader's health but also scammed Taeyong's fans. When TyongFs began to get refunds for the concert, some of you accused them and started dictating what they should do with their own money, pulling sh*t like- 'Taeyong as a leader, wants his group to do well. Now he would be sad knowing that fans dont care about the group cuz y'all are getting your refunds'. Really? Cuz most y'all who said this watched the concert illegally, makes it even more funny to me. And its none of you're business, how anyone else spends their money. And if you think Taeyong cares about SM losing money, then you're just stupid. If it's anyone in the whole group who'd say 'F*ck Capitalism!', it's Taeyong. So STFU!

Also, when TyongFs started demanding an official statement from SM about Taeyong, some of y'all went- "You're just a fan. Y'all dont have any right to cross the boundaries of Idol-Fan relationship and ask for personal stuff. Other artist fans didn't get any official statement, so why should you?'. We didnt ask for his f*cking medical records. We just want a statement from SM's official accounts about his health and his time of recovery. That's it. SM has refused to acknowledge the injuries of other artists before, doesn't mean that this pattern has to continue. And as fans, we are entitled to know about the artist, cuz WE CARE...! Cuz a waist disc injury relapsing aint a small thing. The amount of pain that Taeyong is probably enduring right now.... We dont even know the extent of it. We dont know how long he needs to recover or even how long SM will give him to rest. We don't know anything and we are scared. So just wanting a statement about it, isnt 'crossing the boundaries' as you put it. So again, STFU!

Y'all don't care about Taeyong, fine. The least you can do is respect him and not discredit his hardwork. After everything he has done and continues to do for NCT, y'all keep going with the 'Taeyong is the villain' narrative. He isn't stealing your faves lines or screentime. He isn't pushing them back to 'shine more'. He isnt the bad person you think he is. Y'all rejoicing now that he is injured, happy that your faves got to take up Taeyong's part or just hateful saying your fave was better than Taeyong.... It just ain't it.

No other group leader gets the kinda hate Taeyong does, even though he does 5 times the work for the group than any other leader. Yes, Taeyong has multiple positions the group, all deserved. Yes, he is a very charismatic and an amazing performer on the stage, that lures new fans in. Not his fault that he grabs everyone's attention. Yes, he is very talented in so many aspects. But that doesn't mean you get tobblame you're faves mistreatment on him, cuz he himself is being mistreated by SM. So don't come at me with you're 'SM's golden boy' bs! I will taze your ass and watch supernanny as you crawl under the carpet!

Maybe you're right about how you're faves dont get to shine enough when they're on the same stage as Taeyong, cuz his charisma and aura is very magnetic, you can't help but watch him and him only. I thought only TyongFs have this kinda tunnel vision but apparently, all of you have it as well....

Here's the thing. You don't like it when Taeyong gets praised all the time, whether its his dance or rap or anything at all. Cuz you don't like Taeyong. So why are you even focused on him and TyongFs. If I don't like anything, i simply ignore it. So instead of focusing on Taeyong, focus on hyping up your fave (again, by not dragging Taeyong, not even subtly). It ain't hard, trust me.

At least have the human decency to not rejoice over the fact that he is injured. The sh*t i see online everyday, some of y'all have totally lost it.

And lastly, no one can eat up Taeyong. No one can do his part better than him. Hell, no one can even come close to doing what he does. So get that delusion outta your heads. Its embarrassing.

[weilongfu]

Wei reads 2gether (Vol 1+2)

Written by JittiRain, Translated by maggiemae Vol 1 available on MEB and Amazon Kindle Vol 2 currently available on MEB (6/19/2020)

Well 2gether has been done for a few weeks now so why not write about the novel? Plenty of people have already made lots of comparisons between the two, but here’s my perspective on the novel itself and maybe some things it did better or worse than the drama, especially considering that the drama was “updated” according to some peeps by JittiRain who publicly acknowledged that some parts were very much so lacking by today’s standards so to speak.

WARNING THIS RANT/REVIEW WILL HAVE SPOILERS SO EVERYTHING OTHER THAN SYNOPSIS IS UNDER A CUT.

Weilongfu’s Synopsis: Tine Teepakorn is a first year Faculty of Law student, chic and handsome in many ways and a tumultuous love life that such a disposition would cause. He resolves, in his freshman year, to finally find a love that will be perfect and chic, just like him. Things go awry when Green, a freshman from the Faculty of Humanities, starts to pursue him and won’t let go. In desperation, Tine turns to the most popular student on campus, Sarawat Guntithanon and asks him to be his fake boyfriend until Green leaves him alone. The problem? Tine can’t STAND Sarawat. And yet... There is something else Tine feels in his chest the more Sarawat “flirts” with him.

Original Synopsis: My name is Tine (a super chic guy), and I’ve gone out with all kinds of girls. A nerdy girl, a cute, innocent girl, or even a super grouchy girl, But then my joyous life has to come to a stop when the mighty god in the form of university admission sends me to a northern university where I get to meet...

“Tine, Teepakorn, first-year Law student, I like you!”

Just the beginning of the first semester, someone already confesses to me. Am I surprised? Am I excited? Nah. Well, I’m such a cool guy, you know. But am I horrified? Hell yes! Because the one who just confessed to me is a dude! My heart...

The mission to shake off this huge gay dude out of my chic life starts with finding someone hella hot to be my fake boyfriend. And nobody fits the role as much as Sarawat, the nations’s husband of our university. But things aren’t’ as easy as I expected. This guy is a pain in the ass. He’s playing hard to get, not cooperating with me. Ha, I won’t give up that easily! Constant dropping wears away a stone. I’ll stick with him like a suckerfish. Just wait and see!

But... as I’m pestering him, why the heck is my super chic heart starting to flutter when I’m with this straight-faced dude...?

Overall Plot Assessment and Summary: If you’ve seen the drama, the original skeleton of the novel plot is very obvious. Tine, who has always seen himself as straight and interested in girls, gets hit on by an openly gay man, Green, and engages in a fake dating scheme after wearing down Sarawat in order to get Green off his case. Sarawat is initially this very cool and aloof person, uninterested in lots of things and very introverted. However, as he starts this fake dating scheme with Tine, he changes and tries to be more open, social, and even tries to use social media (IG mainly. Sarawat never gets any other social media). 

Over time, as Sarawat flirts with Tine for the sake of getting Green off his case, Tine’s feelings for Sarawat start to change until he slowly realizes that he does like Sarawat. He eventually tries to break things off with Sarawat because he thinks Sarawat is still faking, but Sarawat eventually tells Tine that he likes him for real and has liked him for a long time. Along the way, Sarawat’s enemy/rival Mil tries to flirt with Tine.

The two eventually start dating and even move in together. The two overcome the burden of Tine’s older brother Type, but one last hurdle must be overcome. Sarawat’s past love. Tine finds out that Sarawat had one other person he loved before, a girl named Pam. The more Tine digs, the more he sees how similar he and Pam are, culminating in a series of doubts as Pam visits with a bunch of other friends of Sarawat’s. It is at this time that Tine gets sick from eating bad tasting, but cheap food with his friends and Mil tries to take him to the hospital, but Sarawat intervenes and Mil warns him not to hurt Tine like this again and to take better care of him.

Eventually Tine and Sarawat talk about Tine’s insecurities after getting Tine home and Tine finds out that Sarawat loves him and only him. Pam may have been a crush, but Sarawat never wanted to understand her the way he does Tine. 

Afterwards, Sarawat fulfills a promise he made to his friends during the end of the year music festival and plays the song he wrote for Tine after meeting him last year at a Scrubb concert. 

Across both books/volumes, you have 25 chapters plus 11 bonus chapters and one set of 50 facts about the novel and the inspiration behind it. The first two bonus chapters are about DimGreen. The second set are about ManType. SarawaTine actually also get a set of bonus chapters of them starting their second year. The last set of three bonus chapters is about MilPhukong. 

Overall, would I say the plot of the novel is... much more straightforward than the plot of the drama. There’s a very clean line from start to end with the relationship between Tine and Sarawat. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have it’s rising, falling, loop-de-loops, and some steps back. But it’s not as messy or unsure as the drama was. 

Also DimGreen, who are surprisingly cute in the drama, are really not... that... great in the novel. MilPhukong which were terrible in drama are... better in the novel? And ManType are actually about the same.

But I do understand that for TV, you need something more... sensational in order to get them views. But I think that the things that were added and the things that were taken away... don’t exactly balance out. Which leads us to...

The Gripes: Let’s get the biggest one out of the way which is that while JittiRain admits that some parts of the novel are just plain bad for today’s audience, namely misogyny from really bad sexual jokes about women and some of the way that Green is viewed as an openly gay man by Tine (sort of, not entirely sure how much of it is the stereotype vs just what makes Green Green and how much of that is actually a stereotype... but you know, Tine never actually has a problem with Green being gay other than the fact that he’s being hit on), Sarawat and Tine’s first time having sex is EXCEPTIONALLY AWFUL.

Any credit I want to give JittiRain for at least doing somethings right (condoms, lube, medication for any potential irritation/injury afterward, cleaning of the anus before sex, someone seriously did some reading!), they did A LOT of things wrong (Sarawat, what the fuck.). 

It bears repeating again. SARAWAT. WHAT. THE. FUCK.

Let’s provide some context for people that want to know but haven’t gone looking and FYI, if non-con/dubcon/what the fuck even was this scene is something that might cause you distress, please skip to the next set of asterisks.

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After Sarawat and Tine move in together, Sarawat immediately makes it clear that he wants to have sex with Tine. Tine is initially on board, but starts to get anxious and freak out when he considers all the things they’ll need to get and do. The two eventually do some research (I guess) and go shopping for supplies. Sarawat asks Tine what he likes as they go through the condoms and lube. Tine gets more and more embarrassed that they’re having such a frank discussion in public.

Then Man and another friend of Sarawat’s enter the store and spot the couple. They pull Sarawat away to talk to him about something, but it’s just a set up to freak Tine out. TO HIS CREDIT, this was not Sarawat’s idea, but it was Man’s. They make it sound like Sarawat will go out to a bar with them to meet up with a very attractive woman. Tine, being the poor, insecure bean that he is, freaks out in worry that Sarawat will cheat on him. It’s implied that he’s worried that this is because he isn’t immediately jumping into the sack to let Sarawat bone him.

Tine sweeps up all the supplies they were looking at and gets everything and Sarawat and Tine go home. Sarawat asks if Tine will let him go to the bar, but he ends up staying home instead because Tine says they should have sex. If you take it in the context of the previous scene, it feels like Tine is pressuring himself to have sex with Sarawat so that Sarawat won’t leave and/or cheat on him. 

Tine takes a shower to clean and prepare himself. He comes out dressed in a robe and the two make out. Sarawat enjoys it and clearly Tine enjoys the making out as well. However, Tine starts to have second thoughts about taking that next step and tells Sarawat they should stop. Sarawat refuses to listen and instead starts kissing Tine everywhere, leaving hickies. He eventually even gives Tine a blowjob, but at Tine’s insistence, finishes Tine by hand instead of with his mouth. 

Sarawat then tries to prepare Tine. Tine says it hurts and is uncomfortable and asks Sarawat to stop some more. Sarawat then remembers his discussions with Dim about how if you stop when the person on the bottom complains when it hurts, then you’ll never get to do it. And so Sarawat PUSHES FORWARD ANYWAY with preparing Tine despite his requests for Sarawat to stop. Tine starts crying A LOT because it hurts and Sarawat gets kind of frustrated because he really wants to have sex and he’s not good at comforting a crying Tine and a bunch of other BS.

Sarawat eventually thinks Tine is ready and tries to stick his dick in and this causes even more distress, crying, and pleas for Sarawat to stop. They change positions a bunch of times because Tine thinks it might help, but it doesn’t. (Mostly because he probably wasn’t prepared properly because Sarawat rushed it.) Sarawat eventually decides to forego Tine’s immediate comfort and just fucks him anyway. There is a mention of rectal tearing and blood. Sarawat continues fucking Tine anyway. Particular attention is paid to the fact that Tine is crying and that his moans and sobs are both in pain and maybe in pleasure. Sarawat’s sadism is also brought up several times because he acknowledges that Tine is in pain, but he doesn’t want to stop. Several times he also keeps mentioning the “Spartan way” and how they wouldn’t stop either. 

After Sarawat finally gets off, there’s a breather of a moment and then he decides to fuck Tine AGAIN. Except this time, he’s too lazy to get the box of condoms, so he goes in raw. And without more preparation except to slap some more lube on his dick. He does get Tine off again first before he engages in this next round of sadistic fuckery. I believe they go a total of 2-3 times that night until Tine is so wiped out that he can’t even move. Sarawat then puts Tine in a bath to clean up. It’s noted how much blood is on their fucking bed sheets. Tine refuses to let Sarawat bathe with him but five minutes later, Tine is in tears when Sarawat checks on him because he can’t get all of Sarawat’s semen out of his ass on his own and so Sarawat has to help him. 

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Description of sex scene over.

This is not helped by how Sarawat takes care of Tine the day after because Tine gets sick from their incredibly rough and painful sex session. Sarawat calls Dim for help/advice and Dim is clearly not so great a guy either because after hearing how sick Tine is from Sarawat’s shitty technique, he announces that HE IS HORNY and goes to fuck Green, possibly in the same shitty way. 

On that note, let’s talk about how shitty DimGreen is in the novel. They were always a mess, but HOLY SHIT is Dim an asshole in the novel. Green just wants to be loved and Dim uses him as a slave. Green does a ton of chores for Dim (although Dim does complain that while Green starts plenty of chores, there are plenty of times that he must FINISH the chores that he assigns Green). All of this is apparently so Green will not have time to flirt with anyone else or feel like he can leave Dim. 

I don’t know about you, but personally I’d like to keep someone from leaving me by not being an asshole and being a good person and a good boyfriend, but maybe that’s just me and I’m the odd one out.

Green even says in the main chapters that he can’t leave Dim because he can’t think of really being with anyone else. Oh and because Dim will beat him up. (WOW GREAT. ABUSE.) But then this is also IMMEDIATELY followed up with a line about how Dim and Green have shared many joys and sorrows together and that’s all Green really needs, someone who can share all these things with him. 

UM EXCUSE ME GREEN. I’M PRETTY DAMN SURE YOU CAN ASK FOR MORE THAN THAT OUT OF A RELATIONSHIP. HOW ABOUT BEING TREATED LIKE A PERSON.

At the end of their special/bonus chapters, you do see that Dim says he really loves Green and that he should improve on being able to tell Green that instead of being so closed and sadistic all the time, but that Green being Green, it’s not easy. Um... No? Pretty sure Green would be less... Dying for affection if you actually gave him some, bro. And you know, maybe if the sex was actually good. Just putting that out there.

Aside from these VERY GLARING FLAWS, many other gripes about 2gether are relatively small. Tine’s friends aren’t really the massive interfering dicks they were in the drama and they don’t do much in the novel. Boss and Man, and all of Sarawat’s other named friends, are actually the bigger shits and annoyances, but even they aren’t that terrible. Unless it’s in reference to the sex scene.

I mean, fucking hell, even Sarawat’s COMPLETELY BAD photo taking of a drunk Tine dressed in only a soccer jersey and boxers is minor in comparison to that sex scene. Jesus.

Pros? Cons? Would you recommend?

Honestly? If you skip that shitty sex scene (MEB version of Vol 2: pg 55-63 of Ch 20 and pg 1-37 of Ch 21), the novel is only mildly bad and not an awfully difficult or complex read. If you read the sex scene, it’s not great and brings the entire work down because it’s... so oddly out of character and yet in a very very very strange and deranged way in character.

Sarawat is so weirdly aloof that clearly there’s some sort of repression going on, I’m sure. And then Sarawat later admits while asking Tine to have sex with him that he was jacking off every day during their semester break just thinking about it. And I mean, we all KNEW Sarawat was horny, but where did this INSANITY come about where he’s driven entirely by sexual lust and no concern for the boy he claims to love? Are we sure Sarawat wasn’t just lusting over him the entire time? 

If you keep reading, it’s very obvious that Sarawat loves Tine, but that blip is so stupendously jarring, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this was the thing that made people decide to say novel!Sarawat doesn’t get to exist.

To the novel’s credit, what few credits there are, there is no drama about coming out to parents and them demanding to break up Sarawat and Tine. We actually see Tine meet Sarawat’s dad and Sarawat admits he’s dating Tine and there are no objections. Instead, his dad says:

“You don't have to protect women to be a man. Protecting the one you love is enough. Why do you have to worry about that?”

Wow, if only all parents could be so accepting.

Tine’s mom finds out off screen, and apparently she’s very pleased by Sarawat, so no issues there either. 

Another credit is that the MilPhukong bonus chapters are actually a lot sweeter than the actual drama version. Phukong is already a freshman when he meets Mil and Mil is already over Tine by then. Phukong isn’t trying to get into Architecture to chase after Mil. A lot of emphasis is put on how much Phukong actually resembles Sarawat. (He’s more of a shit though and just as perverted if not more.) Phukong tries to slowly worm his way into Mil’s life and succeeds by being an asshole. It’s all surprisingly cute and low drama. Now if FrankDrake had gotten to play out this kind of MilPhukong romance, I’m sure everyone would say they got the shot they deserved. 

ManType are basically the same except their first meeting is a lot more... punchy. Man meets Type at school because of Type visiting Tine. When Type gets an internship in Chiang Mai (in the novel, the uni is in Chiang Mai and not Bangkok unlike the drama), Type spends 3 months bothering the FUCK out of Type. The scene with Type’s end of internship party goes pretty much as we saw in drama. Type ends up staying in Chiang Mai for another month after his internship and finds Man avoiding him. In the end, he confronts Man, asking why he’s avoiding him and Man tells Type that he has nothing to offer him and Type says he knows, but he can’t help but feel something anyway. And so the two end up together like that. It’s noted after those chapters that Man devoutly defers to whatever Type says because Type is a very stern and serious person and he doesn’t want to get in trouble with Type.

Also, why do I feel like JittiRain was getting out some not only sadistic urges, but also some sort of weird side fascination with vore? I’m very aware of the saying, “You’re so cute/hot/sexy, I just want to eat you up.” But I’ve never heard someone say, “I want to swallow you whole and keep you in my stomach.” That’s just a step too far, JittiRain.

Overall, I find it difficult to recommend 2gether’s novel. Even if you are a fan of the drama, I’m not sure there’s much for you here. Many events were rearranged for the drama and I found that the novel’s version of events worked much better. But if you’re looking for more SarawaTine content? Just read fanfiction. I’m not sure anyone really wants to read their bonus chapters just to see the two be jealous for no real reason. If you want to read the bonus chapters to see how the side pairings really panned out? I’m not sure it’s worth the money to buy the novels just for that (they’re about $14 a piece, but all side/bonus chapters are in vol 2).

Speaking of which, if there’s only approx 25 main chapters, why the fuck is it two books. Might as well have just published the main chapters as the SarawaTine story in one book and published a mini-novella about everyone else. At least then, a novella about the side pairings would be cheaper for anyone who just cared about that, but hindsight is 20/20. 

Anyway, if you’re really so curious, go ahead and read the novel, but I don’t know how many of you will find it worth your time.

[shewas-agaystripper]

The Dungeon Pt. 3: One of My Turns

The Dungeon, Part 3A: Brian wants to speed up the process of being fully inaugurated into Master John’s Dungeon. Whether taking matters into his own hands is a good idea remains to be seen.

Hi lovelies, here is an update for the Dungeon – in which Brian decides it’s time to take matters into his own hands when he finds his Master being too careful with him. It goes down both well and not so well at the same time ;)

So this thing turned out to be uhhhh 25000 words long so I decided to split it into two parts; the first 7000 words or so first and the rest following in a week. Have fun reading!

Notes and warnings: Sex, BDSM, degradation (sort of), overall sinfulness. You’ve been warned!

‘Do that again, Roger.’

‘Yes, Master,’ Roger obeyed instantly to the authoritarian voice of their superior. Brian, in the meantime, did all he could – which wasn’t more than take in a deep breath and close his eyes – to prepare himself for another round of punishment that was carried out by one of his fellow slaves. A low groan escaped Brian when Roger first completely pulled out- and then pushed in the dildo again, and the guitarist felt a drop of sweat dripping off his forehead and falling onto the pillow beneath him. Being forced on all fours while having all of your fellow BDSM enthusiasts either participate in- or watch you getting punished was quite a source of stress and embarrassment to Brian, and the instrument of penalty was not exactly comforting him in any possible way either. John had decided that the kind of crime he had committed was a perfect reason to bring out a heavy tool – read: one of the biggest dildos they owned – to punish him with. Which was fair, even Brian had to admit. Being caught not wearing a cock ring was considered to be a brutal violation of the rules, and even Brian himself acknowledged that it had been a very wrong decision to ignore this law. He was reminded of his poor choices with every time Roger pushed the huge silicone cock so devilishly far up inside of him that it made him want to peel paint off the walls. He knew that the burn was going to feel good later, but while in the process of getting punished, it was anything but pleasurable to feel the tool twisting inside of him.

‘And, Brian? How do you reflect on your disobedience now?’ John asked him bittersweetly.

‘Ah! I’m sorry, Master, I really am!’ Brian squeaked. ‘Please, forgive me, I-I’ll never do it again!’ he added breathlessly – to no avail, unfortunately. The second Roger momentarily stopped the punishments and carefully looked up at John, he was immediately reproved for doing so with a strong grip around his upper arm.

‘Did I tell you to stop, Roger?’ John barked at him.

‘No, Master. I’m sorry,’ Roger answered.

‘I don’t think he’s shown enough remorse yet, so if you dare to stop again without me giving you strict orders for doing so, you’ll soon find yourself in a situation ten times worse than this. Understood?’

‘Yes, Master,’ Roger answered obediently. Brian knew for a fact that Roger probably wouldn’t mind undergoing the same strategies of punishment he was being pulled through now, but they also both knew that distracting John from punishing another slave by being disobedient oneself, was something he really did not accept; something that would get you to face the most painful and most frustrating punishments. Something way worse than ‘just’ this. Brian could picture rope harnesses, cat o’nine tails, and Deep Heat lathered onto naked bodies; floggers and ball gags, blindfolds and dripping candle wax, but even with all of this he was afraid he was underestimating the extent of the punishment. It was to be torture and abstinence, teasing and denial, desertion and humiliation of the highest degree. They all knew that if anyone among them would be able to handle this treatment without breaking down at the soonest convenience it would be Roger, but even he was probably not looking forward to getting himself in such a situation. Brian assumed that this was the reason Roger was quick to obey John and to apologise for his unauthorised halt of actions.

‘I’m sorry, Master.’

‘You better be. And now you just go on until I tell you to stop. Am I clear?’

‘Yes, Master,’ Roger agreed blindly. Brian yelped helplessly when the dildo was forced into him again, and he rocked forward with the force behind the thrust. It took all of his (will)power to retain his balance and not simply letting his body collapse on the mattress beneath him, but knowing that John would probably punish him even more if he would do that, he forced himself to stay his ground and not give in to the punishment that he was sure of would leave him unable to properly sit for at least three days. He could definitely curse Roger for pushing in so hard, but he knew it wasn’t Roger’s fault, nor was it Freddie’s, nor was it John’s; he only had himself to blame for being given this punishment. After all, he had been the one to deliberately disregard one of the fundamental bedroom laws that had been established way before he joined the secret BDSM-community, so as a newcomer to this world, he was the last person to be allowed to cross one of the strictly guarded borders. No, it wasn’t the fault of any of them; he could only blame himself for it. Though in all honesty, he didn’t exactly blame himself for enraging John and provoking punishment from him; he secretly praised himself for doing so.

‘That’s okay for now, Roger, thank you,’ John eventually said, and Brian sighed jerkily when Roger carefully let the sex toy slip out of him, probably knowing by experience how painful a quick removal of a dildo could be after just having been thoroughly plugged up the ass with it.

‘Are you done with him, Master?’ Freddie asked carefully from the sideline, eying Brian’s sweaty body going up and down.

‘Almost. Just a quick spanking to finish it off,’ John told him.

‘Master, please!’ Brian gasped, but John was relentless – he simply grabbed Brian’s wrist to make him land on his front side on the bed, then grabbed his sides to manoeuvre his naked body closer to the edge of the bed so he could deliver the punishment from the place where he was standing.  

‘Five sets will do,’ John said, more to himself than to his victim. Brian however nearly lost it at the thought of having to endure fifty blows against his already badly mistreated bottom, and he objected as much as he thought was safe to John’s painful sounding idea.

‘Please, no!’ he whimpered desperately, ‘Master, please, don’t do that! Not so many-’

‘Objecting? That makes six. Would you like any more?’ John asked bittersweetly, and Brian shook his head feverishly, biting down his bottom lip. The first slap landed and Freddie was ordered to count them out loud for his superior, but Brian could hardly hear the voice of his friend over his own begging whines and the noise ringing in his ears. He writhed around on the bed, until John ordered Freddie to grab his arms and Roger to get a hold of his legs and force them still.

After that, he was unable to do more than wriggling helplessly while John saw no reason at all to go soft on him with his flat hand that stung sharply every time it crashed down on the bare skin of his bottom. Brian soon found that his attempts of straining against the grips of Freddie’s and Roger’s hands on his limbs only made matters worse for him when John extended punishment twice more with another set of ten spanks. By the time he threatened to add a fourth sentence, which would bring the slaps to a total of an even hundred, Brian could already not distinguish one slap from the other anymore; his whole body felt like one collectively throbbing and burning mass, including – especially, rather – his badly neglected cock. When John delivered the last set of ten spanks, Brian was simply bonelessly sprawled out all over the mattress, eyes drawn close and body too weak to move when John put even more force behind his final round of slaps. All he could do was groan in pain and bury his tear-stricken face in the pillows.

‘Forty-seven…’ SMACK! ‘Forty-eight-‘ THWACK! ‘Forty-nine- almost there, Brian. Almost!’ Freddie comforted him. Then the very last blow fell, firm against the lower side of Brian’s bottom where cheek meets thigh, and with a pitiful howl he let his tensed muscles unclench and pressed his face deeper into the pillow. He could hear the heels of John’s platform shoes on the floor, telling him that he was backing away from him to make space for Freddie and Roger. Still, without John’s explicit permission his fellow slaves did not move; their fingers remained closed around his wrists and ankles, until Roger was the one who eventually dared to raise the question.

‘Are you done, Master?’ Roger’s voice was higher than usual.

‘Yes, it’s over. You can go ahead - call me when you need me,’ John allowed, knowing that Freddie and Roger had been waiting for his sign to be allowed to help Brian out. They waited for another second or two for their master to leave the Dungeon and close the door behind him, after which they instantly let go of their manhandled friend and sat down on either side of him, Roger stroking his sweat-slicked back and Freddie massaging his huddled shoulders.

‘Goodness me, Brian! What were you thinking?’ Freddie cried, running a soothing hand through his soaking wet curls.

‘I have no idea – ugh…’ Brian moaned when Roger covered his naked lower body with a blanket, just the sheer feeling of fabric against whacked skin making him groan already. He was positive that his buttocks must be redder than the ruby candle wax that had been dripped a mere centimetre next to his private areas as part of his punishment, and the bruises they would form into were likely to become deeply coloured also.

‘Don’t talk - you’ll exhaust yourself,’ said Freddie, who kneaded his shoulders in light, circular movements. ‘Love, get him a glass of water, will you? And maybe a wet towel.’

Roger sprinted out of the room for these requested items, and Freddie continued to rub and massage Brian’s shoulders and upper back while the guitarist helplessly panted into the pillow beneath him. He was terribly sore and out of breath - and although having his fellow slaves darting around him to take care of him in his moment of need was great, he knew that he simply required time and rest more than anything to really recover to a normal pulse and healthy complexion. For now, however, he tried to focus on his breathing and listened dimly to Freddie fussing around him.

‘Oh, this is going to bruise for sure… And you’re still panting like crazy. Damnit, Brian this was the third time this week!’ Brian was dimly aware of being scolded by Freddie for carelessness, and he was glad Freddie could not see the smile tugging at his lips into the pillow. ‘First talking back to our master, then refusing one of his orders, and now being caught not wearing one of the requirements!’ Freddie summed up. ‘You’re playing a dangerous game for sure! Are you suffering from a death wish, my dear?’

Make that a punishment wish, Brian thought dimly, his face retorting in pain when Freddie lifted the blanket and paced a cool yet heavy hand on his left buttock.

‘Really though, what is wrong with you lately? Roger is supposed to be the number one provoker, not you,’ Freddie continued just as the dismissed person returned.

‘You called?’ Roger’s head peeked around the door.

‘Just told Brian that he’ll take your title of biggest provoker if he carries on like this,’ Freddie said. Roger grimaced.

‘I need to step up my game, then.’

‘What if you both behave for a change instead?’ Freddie suggested, patting the empty spot on the mattress next to him. Roger tiptoed back into the bedroom and settled down.

‘Says the guy who has to sleep on the floor for three days for his attitude during a session.’

‘I can’t help it that my voice naturally sounds sarcastic!’ Freddie defended himself.

‘It wasn’t your voice, Fred, and you know it,’ Roger reproached him. ‘Did you honestly think that ‘I can escape this string of rope so easily that it will put Harry Houdini to shame’ was an acceptable answer to John asking you how his new rope skills were working out on you?’

Freddie rolled his eyes. ‘Just give him some water and let me do the rest.’

Brian was dimly aware of Roger kneeling down next to him and bringing up his chin just enough so he could sip from the glass he had brought for him. Brian greedily started gulping it down, but Roger retracted the glass from his lips and tutted at him.

‘Not so fast. The last thing you’ll want now is coughing up your lungs.’ Brian mewled something unintelligible in reply, and Roger sighed. The glass was put back against his lips again and he was given tiny sips of water from it. Freddie, in the meantime, had taken to wiping the sweat off of his back and lower legs; he hummed something to himself as he did so.

‘You’ve seen the lotion, Roger?’

‘Should be in the wardrobe,’ Roger replied without looking up to face Freddie. The frontman darted away and, after having taken a long look at the hopeless amount of bottles and tubes displayed on the shelves, he returned with his item of choice.

‘This should be nice for your skin. Very cooling, if I remember correctly,’ Freddie said. Brian nodded without knowing which item Freddie was talking about, but he trusted him to know what he was doing. Besides, the exact brand or collection didn’t matter too much to him: any sort of crème would help the burning stings torturing the skin of his body and upper thighs subside. He waited somewhat impatiently for Freddie to squirt the substance on his fingers and to rub it in show circles across his palms, which he then, after what felt like an eternity, pressed against the whacked skin.

Brian hissed at the feeling of it. He wasn’t sure if it was the cold of the lotion or the pressure of Freddie’s hand or just the mere concept of contact to his skin in general, but he guessed it had to be a combination of all factors. Roger, who was sitting next to him and must have noticed the pained expression on his face and the way he clamped his fingers into fists around the pillow, placed his hands on his shoulders and massaged them with circular motions of his thumbs. Brian dimly wondered if he did this to comfort him or to keep him steady in one place now that Freddie was touching the most sensitive parts of his thoroughly smacked body.

‘So, there we go,’ Freddie said when he applied the last remains of the lotion to Brian’s lower thighs. It was both a relief and a disappointment to Brian when Freddie’s hands left his body once their task had been completed. Regardless of how painful it was to be touched right when you had been manhandled long and painfully, there was something comforting about having someone take care of you and rub your shoulders when you came back from your high - or low, depending on your view on punishment. That of Brian, at the moment, was more confused than it had ever been before.

Freddie and Roger waited for a few minutes to let the cream do its work. They shared some small talk that Brian did not pick up on, too busy focussing on the feeling of his own body. He gradually felt the burn starting to fade and trade places with the pleasant tingling sensation that would soon spread through his whole body after having been spanked this intensely. Receiving a hundred smacks was painful, yes, but it was not without its rewards.

‘Are you feeling better yet?’ Freddie asked after a handful or so minutes when Brian made the first attempts at rolling over to his side. He nodded as much as his body allowed him to do, and let Freddie and Roger help him turn on his back. He hissed at the feeling of the mattress against his ass, but was soon distracted by Roger pressing the glass of water against his lips again so he could down the remains of it. Freddie in the meantime wiped down the sweat from his chest and the dried candle wax from his lower body, but he stayed clear of Brian’s mildly hard cock. No one wanted to bear the punishment of touching a fellow slave in places only their master was supposed to have full access of.

‘This should be better. All nice and clean,’ Freddie gave Brian a smile, which Brian struggled to return. Roger pulled the fleece blanket back over his body, but upon seeing the redness that continued to coat Brian’s cheeks, he leant in to place a hand on his forehead.

‘You’re burning me up, mate,’ Roger said, withdrawing his hand. ‘Do you even want this blanket?’

‘Hm-hmm,’ Brian mumbled in agreement. ‘I do. ’M cold.’

‘How can you be cold when John literally just gave you the spanking of the century?’ Roger pondered out loud. ‘You should be on fire.’

‘It’s the adrenaline rush fading out, honey,’ Freddie said. He took the blanket from Roger’s hesitant hands and spread them out over Brian’s body. ‘When it builds up your body grows hot very quickly, but when it breaks down again your body temperature drops down to normal.’

Roger, not seeming to know how to react to this piece of medical knowledge Freddie dished out to him, said: ‘I thought Brian was supposed to be the science nerd here.’

‘Someone’s gotta take his place when he’s not up to it,’ Freddie flashed Brian a rare toothy grin, and Brian did his best to smile back. His eyes, his limbs, his body, they all felt terribly heavy now that he was lying there in the middle of the double bed, having had something to drink, his body washed and treated with lotion, a blanket folded around him, and the knowledge that he could always rely on the people around him to take care of him even when he got himself into stupid situations like these.

Freddie, who seemed to notice that he was tired, stood up from the bed. ‘Anything else we can do for you, love?’

Brian thought for a second, then shook his head. His fellow slaves had done all they could have done for him - the rest was his to deal with.

‘Alright, then. We’ll leave you to it,’ Roger said, following Freddie’s example of getting up from the mattress and making his way to the door. ‘Have a moment to think about what you’re going to say to Master John. He’ll probably be in here soon to have a word with you.’

Brian nodded, and waited until the door closed behind his friends to before he allowed himself to sigh deeply. He had a lot to think about indeed. Having been caught not wearing the cock ring which John had personally equipped all of his slaves with the night before was not something Brian was going to be able to explain away too easily. Whatever excuse he came up with was not going to make matters any better for his cause. If he said he’d taken it off because it hurt or made him feel overly embarrassed, he’d be put in his place for not communicating his boundaries to his master; and if he said he’d done it for just a moment and slip it on again later he’d be punished for sneaking around and seeming to think that he could outsmart his superior. What remained was telling John the truth, but this was something he simply could not do. Admitting he had been misbehaving on purpose would defy his entire purpose of convincing John he was ready for more extensive, private punishment through showing rather than through telling.

Even if he did come up with a sensible excuse to explain his unprecedented disobedience, he had too little time to work out a decent plan and figure out answers to follow-up questions that John without a doubt was going to ask him. A knock on the door distracted him from his thoughts, and he felt his heart pound in his chest.

‘Yes?’ Brian called.

‘John here. Can I come in?’ The voice sounded faint but familiar from the other side of the door.

‘Yes, of course,’ Brian replied. He ran a hand through his hair and pulled the blanket a little higher above his hips in an attempt to make himself decent for no particular reason at all - John had seen him naked a myriad times before, yet Brian still had the tendency to cover himself when he was faced with his master. The fact that in aftercare John did not come to him in the role of his master but as his equal did not seem to change the situation for Brian.

The door opened to reveal John, still dressed in all black, but with a softer expression on his face now. It gave Brian the tiniest hint of relief as the bassist walked over to the bed. Through heavy-lidded eyes he saw an unidentifiable object tucked under John’s armpit.

‘Hi, love. Have you come down a little?’

Brian nodded carefully, watching how John placed a new glass of water on the bed next to him, and took the thing he had carried with him into his hands.

‘Freddie said you were cold, so I brought you a hot water pouch,’ he explained when he saw Brian eying the object curiously. He moved in closer and lifted up a strip of the fleece blanket, and put the source of heat snugly against the curve between Brian’s hip and ribcage. The knitted cover around the rubber pouch was a little itchy against his naked side, but the heat was nice and comfortable, and Brian moved a bit closer against it. John smiled and sat down on the edge of the mattress, close enough to rub his thumb over Brian’s shimmering forehead to wipe off a remaining drop of sweat.

‘How are you feeling?’ he asked his slave.

‘Sore,’ Brian groaned.

‘As you should,’ John grinned, but then his expression turned more serious. ‘But other than that? Any pain somewhere? Muscle ache, headache, anything that might need treatment?’

‘No, ‘m fine. Just cold.’

‘I’ll get you an actual duvet in a second,’ John promised. ‘Furthermore? You need any cream?’ he offered.

‘Freddie already did that.’

‘Great. Mind if I have a look still?’ John asked.

‘Uh- no, go ahead,’ Brian said, although he did blush a little as John helped him roll over to his belly again. Sure, it was common practice for his fellow slaves and him to give aftercare to each other if one of them got punished, and then have their master come up to said person afterwards to finish up any work that might need to be done still, and have a little chat with them. Brian personally enjoyed being taken care of by Freddie and Roger, or being able to take care of them, if they had earned themselves a sentence of some sort, rather than having John do it himself. Perhaps it had something to do with feeling odd when John switched from being their sadistic Dungeon master to soft caretaker in the matter of a minute, or maybe it was just the moment of bonding with his equals. At any rate, Brian was happy with their arrangement, but could not prevent a blush creeping up his cheeks when he felt John pulling the blanket down to the back of his knees to have a good look at the damage he’d brought upon his body.

John indeed took a good look, Brian assumed - he certainly took his time, at any rate. Brian tried to distract himself from the idea of John’s eyes preening his discoloured bottom and swollen upper thighs by trying to count to a hundred in Spanish, but much to his disappointment and embarrassment he did not make it any further than sixteen. He then focussed on his breathing and tried not to make any sound when John’s fingers ghosted over the curve of his ass - something he did not succeed in when John’s hand slipped between his buttocks to check if plugging him up the ass had left any serious damage.

‘All seems to be in order,’ was eventually John’s conclusion when he’d finished checking Brian’s thighs and lower back, after Brian had been turned around to his original position again. Perhaps not so much his original position - one that had him lean more on his side than his back, as was explained by the advice John was about to offer him. ‘But you might want to avoid lying on your back for too long or sitting on a wooden chair for the upcoming days.’

‘Yes, Master,’ Brian said obediently.

‘Good boy. I’ll get you another blanket.’ John leant in to press a kiss on his forehead, and then stood up to leave the room. Brian could follow the sound of platform heels clicking against the laminated floor of the hallway and the bedroom next door; he heard John going through a closet and then returning to the Dungeon again.

‘So, this should keep you warm,’ John said, spreading out an old-fashioned patched quilt on top of the fleece blanket. He tucked the sides of it below the mattress, and gave the shoulder that still poked out from underneath the quilt a comforting rub. ‘All good?’

‘Perfect,’ Brian said.

‘Great. Can I sit down for a second?’

‘Of course, Master,’ Brian agreed. He was used to John staying a little longer whenever one of them had been singled out for punishment - to talk to them and to comfort them, to tell them they had been forgiven and yet to sternly admonish them to behave better in the future.

‘No need to call me Master now,’ John said. ‘I’ve got a few questions to ask you, not as a Master and slave but as equals, want you to be open and honest to me.’

‘Eh- okay, Master. John,’ Brian corrected himself. But before he could get himself used to the more casual setting John was apparently aiming for, John’s straight-forward question to him made him pale despite the lingering flush on his cheek.

‘Why are you doing this?’

Brian’s eyes grew wide as he looked at his Master, but he could get no further explanation from the face of the man sitting next to him on the mattress. John’s expression remained completely neutral, and Brian’s mind spun to put this question into context.

‘Ex-excuse me?’ Brian asked, even though he had a feeling he knew where this was heading. He turned out to be right when John explained himself.

‘Being disobedient like this. First talking back to me, then refusing to do your domestic chores - which isn’t even part of the Dungeon per se, but just part of living together under the same roof with four people,’ he said sternly, ‘and then not wearing the cock ring I told you to wear. I’d like to know why, because it’s not like you.’

In the heat of the moment - the tension of having one’s master ask one to explain oneself to him, and the stress of being unable to come up with a reasonable answer that would not give away his hopes for a private session with John - Brian felt himself grow a little giddy and ask: ‘Is it not?’

In a Dungeon session, he now would have slammed a hand across his mouth and beg his master to forgive him for his improper reply. However, as they were outside their Dungeon headspace, Brian simply waited for John for a reply to this question.

‘It’s not, and you know that,’ John said in a mildly chastising tone that made Brian face away from him. ‘Freddie can be haughty, Roger can be bratty, but you’re not like that. You’re much too good to tease and misbehave as they do.’

‘Maybe I’m not as good as you think,’ Brian shrugged.

‘You want to know what I think?’ John asked. Then, without waiting for Brian’s response, he added: ‘I think you did it on purpose.’

‘Sorry- what?’ Brian stammered out, feeling the blood rush to his ears now that John had correctly guessed what he’d been up to in just one go. If he would also guess his intentions behind misbehaving on purpose, Brian was sure he’d die of embarrassment.

‘You heard me,’ John told him sternly. ‘I think you misbehaved on purpose and hope we’ll notice.’

‘Why would I- do that?’ Brian asked him sheepishly.

‘You tell me,’ John said. ‘Perhaps to get attention. Perhaps to show Freddie and Roger that you’re one of them. Perhaps to support them in teasing me to show them where your sympathies are. Come across a little bolder than they know you to be,’ he summed up. ‘I can keep listing reasons why you might do this, but I think it’d be better that you tell me what you’ve been doing lately.’

Brian opened his mouth, and then closed it again. He felt more than a little embarrassed to find himself stuck in this conversation with John. His goal with misbehaving was to be singled out by John to receive private punishment without the others buzzing around them, not to be sat down to have a talk about his attitude lately. Then again, perhaps he should have known better than to expect John to just go with it right away; the bassist, both as their friend and their bandmate and their master, always seemed to be able to read them like an open book. And, in the rare case that he did not instinctively know what was troubling them, he’d take them apart for a chat like the one Brian was currently finding himself stuck in.

‘Come on, Baby,’ John said, leaving Brian unsure whether he used this nickname as a form of endearment, or as his slave name in the Dungeon. ‘You can tell me. I won’t look down on you, and I won’t think any less of you if you’ve been trying to impress the others.’

‘I didn’t do it for them, or to be noticed,’ Brian mumbled, threading his fingers into a loose thread from the patched blanket. He had a feeling that it was gonna be little use keeping the truth from John, so he took a deep breath and admitted: ‘I just- I… wanted you to see me misbehave.’

John was silent for a second or so. ‘Why?’

‘Because I- felt like- ugh, this is awkward,’ Brian said, covering his face in his hands. The words were on the tip of his tongue, and yet he could not get himself to pronounce them out loud.

‘It’s okay. Take your time.’ John leant back in his spot a bit as if to give him space, but his eyes did not stray away from Brian, who by now massaged his forehead with his fingertips.

‘I just- I hoped you’d punish me,’ Brian mumbled. He waited for John to either remain silent for a long time, or to indignantly ask why on earth he would do this - wasn’t he strict enough to him in the Dungeon? Did he need tougher sentences and longer exposure to his dominance? - but neither of these happened. In fact, John did not blink an eye or skip a beat.

‘As I did. And yet you don’t seem satisfied yet, because you’ve been misbehaving on purpose thrice within a week. Which tells me you were looking for more still,’ John said with an audible question mark behind his last sentence. He was obviously waiting for Brian to tell him more, which he did.

‘I was hoping… you’d take me apart,’ Brian said, as softly as before. ‘For a private session.’

Now John was silent for a second or two before repeating the request. ‘A private session.’

‘Yes. Like- when Freddie or Roger misbehave, and you tell them to come to your room or to the Dungeon on their own so you can - can focus on punishing them with all of your attention,’ Brian explained, pulling at the loose thread to avoid having to look at John.

‘I know what a private session is, I was the one to introduce them to you,’ John said, but there was no malice or sarcasm in his voice. Rather, he seemed surprised by what his subordinate was asking of him; seemed to be trying to wrap his head around the idea of Brian, his newest and usually most obedient slave, asking him for a private punishment session. ‘I just didn’t think you’d be ready yet.’

‘I am,’ Brian said, then corrected himself: ‘I mean - I think I am.’

‘Do you know what happens in private sessions?’ John asked.

Brian paused for a beat. ‘Er… Well, I know what Freddie and Roger told me about it,’ he admitted.

‘Which is?’

Brian blew air out through his mouth. He had never been particularly comfortable with talking about sex or punishment, let alone a combination of the two. But if he wanted to convince John that he could handle being alone with him, then he had to step up and show it.

‘That it usually takes place in your bedroom, or in the Dungeon, in the evening, and the others are told to stay away. Then you’ll usually- eh, restrain us with the usual tools and punish us for bad behaviour. Sometimes you’ll also use other forms of punishment, like Deep Heat or ice cubes, or leave someone hanging for a while. And sometimes there’s sex involved, but it’s more- more destined to teach a lesson,’ Brian managed. He looked up at his master’s face and was met with what seemed to him a look of moderate approval.

‘About right,’ John nodded. ‘It’s also more intense, because unlike normal sessions, I won’t have to switch between all three of you. You have my full and undivided attention, which may not be as good as it sounds. You realise that?’

‘Yes, Master.’ Brian didn’t bother to correct himself this time for calling John by his formal title; the strict tone in which he spoke was something he simply associated with the Dungeon.

‘And you think you’re ready for that?’ John asked him just as sternly.

‘I think so, yes,’ Brian said. Then, realising that this might not come across as determined as he wanted to sound like, he added: ‘I know I’m ready for it.’

John looked at him with a hint of doubt on his face, but he eventually gave in. ‘Well, you know yourself best. And because I mean to encourage you showing me your limits and desires, I’ll allow it.’

Brian felt his heart skip a beat in anxious excitement. ‘Really?’

‘Yes,’ John confirmed. ‘If you still want to, you can come to my room at nine tonight.’

‘I do want that. I’d love that.’

‘You will be punished, though,’ John reminded him.

‘I know,’ Brian said, unable to wash the smile from his face. He had accomplished his goal - not in the way he had originally planned to achieve it, but it turned out that many roads led the way to Rome. He was going to have his private session with John that night, and he knew he was ready for it.

‘Well, I’ll leave you to it, then,’ John said as he stood up from the bed. ‘You need to get some sleep and strengthen up, because I’m not going to be easy on you tonight,’ he warned. Brian felt his cock stir slightly at these words, and he nodded obediently. John pressed one more kiss against his forehead, tucked the duvets tighter around his previously exposed shoulders, and walked to the door of the room. Just before he left, he turned around one more time.

‘And Brian?’

‘Yes?’

‘Bring a pillow with you to dinner,’ John instructed. ‘You’ll be sitting at my feet eating that mushy broccoli we’ve got left from last night.’

Brian was not exactly excited about the prospect of his upcoming meal, but something trivial like this could not suppress the sense of accomplishment he felt. ‘Yes, Master.’

‘Now drink some more water and go to sleep. We’ll wake you at dinnertime.’

The lights were turned off, the door was closed behind him, and Brian sighed contentedly. His first session with his master and no one else around was going to be upon him in a matter of hours, and he couldn’t be more excited. He took the glass of water for a few more sips, as he had been instructed by his superior, and then carefully turned around to get himself settled for a nap. It did not take long before the darkness pulled him into a world filled with promises of what was to come.

Thank you for reading! The second (and final) part of Chapter 3 will be up in a week or so. In the meantime come talk to me about The Dungeon or other universes/fanfic ideas!!!

[starsweepersold]

                MY HTTYD 3 THOUGHTS

please keep in mind i didn’t love the film so don’t come here if you want a fluffy, in depth analysis of the good points.  and also note that these are my opinions ( on a movie which means this isn’t a big deal ) so, like... if you don’t agree, that’s fine lol.  i’m not here to draw fists, i just want to explain my side so that how i approach threads with ruffnut post the movie might make sense ( even though this rant is far from ruffnut centric ).

also.  uh.  this is long.  like.  really long.

first, let me clear up two things.  one, the plot, while my BIGGEST issue, isn’t really a bad plot overall.  it’s just... not what i think the third should have been and, ultimately, was a huge letdown for the franchise.  so i’m not surprised people like it and enjoy it.  it’s not... a terrible plot, it just.  in my mind.  ruined so much potential.  and could have been handled way better. a few changes, and i think it could have been what i wanted.  but how they approached it was just.  nah.

two, i’m going to probably address the light fury in a way that makes it seem like i hate her.  i don’t.  in fact, i liked her more than i anticipated.  character wise.  i was worried she would be rude, bitchy female who refused to even acknowledge toothless because h00man friends and found him dumb and uninteresting until he majestically saved her and they fly to the moon in loving happiness.  but she wasn’t.  she was balanced with her caution of humans while also seeing that the ones with toothless weren’t a danger so she didn’t completely and utterly avoid them.  she was interested in toothless and not just the other way around.  plus, she was just kind of cute.  so i have nothing against her as a character.  i have every problem with her as a major aspect of the plot which i do not think she should have been.  aka i think crappy writing did her wrong.  so if it seems like i ever hate or am throwing shade at the light fury, that’s not true, it’s how she’s being treated or used.  which isn’t her fault.

okay with those out of the way, one last thing.  super brief.  the animation and music was ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY LUSH.  no issues with that.  smooth, gorgeous, stunning, next to lifelike.  the imagination of the movie was a+++ so despite my other issues, i have no complaints on that.  stunning.  i would watch a thousands times over just to look at all those details tbh.

to le rant... dissertation... thing.

the hard part is figuring out how to start this.  because there are a couple... many... problem areas i just have with the movie.  so i’mma just go and hopefully i’ll get some formulaic or at least coherent explanation down.

i think my biggest disappointment was just.  the complete and utter disregard for the friendship between toothless and hiccup for sake of pretty, dragon lady ( here’s where i’m saying i’ll sound like i hate the light fury.  i don’t.  but i’ll call her being used poorly as “pretty, dragon lady” a lot because that’s essentially her entire plot use sadly ).  i get what dreamworks was trying to do, but shit did it fall flat.  did it just crumble.  it was painful for me to watch because it felt like toothless just fucking did a 180 and everything he had with hiccup was completely sidelined until the goodbye where we finally get some semblance of emotion from him about the idea that he’s leaving hiccup.

it was like watching hiccup being a foster parent and knowing he’s about to send toothless to his forever home and toothless being the happy, slobbery puppy who is just happy to be there and will love whoever he’s with.  literally like.  hiccup lets toothless go to find light fury and is like “bring her back :D” and toothless just had no plans of coming back from what we can see in his behaviors.  which is where i see what dreamworks was trying to do.  they were trying to do hiccup and toothless parallel growing up and finding their places in the world and toothless’ was to go lead the dragons while hiccup’s was to remain with berk as chief.  except for while toothless was like “yep, cool, i’m good,” hiccup was the one still thinking and worried about him ( as a decent friend would ).

they tried to explain this by using hiccup’s insecurity.  that he’s nothing without toothless, right?  and then they just.  never instill confidence in him.  even to the end he relied on toothless or the light fury.  like.  at some point they just sort of pretend like hiccup found himself, but there was really no turning point.  sure, he learns he needs to let toothless go but.

he never... finds his confidence in being a leader without toothless.  and then their friendship for the sake of all this is just.  reduced to him riding out on a boat to see the dragon and pretty, dragon lady one day when he has small children.  we had two amazing movies with these two growing together and as one and learning and developing and then in this one.  toothless just.  goes on and hiccup faces a thousand and one problems and only solves like one ( again... i understand they were growing up and moving on and it’s a story about that and how friends can last forever despite that but it just felt like they erased the deep friendship to have one move on quickly and the other just be trapped in insecure land and never give him a way out ).  it was such a “we just want to get a tear jerker” ending by that goodbye scene.  gotta make the dragons leave, gotta separate the two except the two felt on opposite ends of the spectrum the entire movie.  like the only time toothless and hiccup really felt still connected like they were in the first two movies/the beginning of the third before pretty, dragon lady was when toothless would look to hiccup while he needed help trying to do mating dances.  and even then it was more just, like... “help me win pretty, dragon lady because she’s more important!!!”

which i get it, love is love and wonderful and great but.  you didn’t... have to toss hiccup in the pit for this, you just didn’t.  and they stopped being friends but “hiccup doesn’t know how to lead without toothless” and... uh.  well.  toothless was moved on, “peace out, bro, i got pretty lady <333″

their friendship was just so incredibly special to me.  so so so so special.  it was what made me fall so in love with the first.  and hiccup breaking through drago’s control to toothless was so touching.  forgiving his friend for indirectly killing his father.  their bond.  was THE integral parts of those movies.  and in this one.  it was played off as more of a hinderance for toothless’ chance at love and freedom.  so that just.  hurt to watch.

what i wished: light fury wasn’t the massive, major plot point she was.  a side plot of them finding out there’s a light fury and hiccup trying to help toothless win her would be great.  it would have also been intriguing to see grimmel realize he missed a night fury and light fury and it would give both hiccup and toothless more incentive to fight strong and fast together to protect this new friend of theirs.

speaking of grimmel.

what a bloody letdown.

he started off so cool.  he was the night fury slayer.  he had these awesome dragons.  he could play three steps ahead.  he wasn’t phased at all by these three other... hunter warlord people.  he wasn’t this emo-looking stereotype like drago.  he was cold, manipulative.  calculating.  deadly.  went inside hiccup’s house and everything.  i was digging it.

but then his entire evil plot started to revolve around pretty, dragon lady and his... fear factor just.... diminished?  like.... badly.  like.  he knew exactly where hiccup and the tribe was going and yet somehow... lost them?  he let the light fury go... to... what exactly?  like... it was never fully explained what letting toothless and light fury meet accomplished for him.  like if toothless had just stayed with light fury in the hidden world and hiccup hadn’t come with astrid, what could grimmel have done?  he just.  lost.  he only had a chance again because hiccup’s needy, ex girlfriend like status got him and astrid caught and toothless had to save their asses.  and then somehow he needed ruff to lead him to them?

...he literally pointed at the islands the berkians could be at on a map.  how did he just suddenly lose them.  how did he not know they were on an island without ruffnut where did his excellent tactical skills go?

oh, wait.

he had to get made dumb and weaker because if he actually remained a decent villain then pretty, dragon lady would get less screen time in favor of a decent fight.  and they made him call it a “waiting game” and that the time was what made it fun but.  it was just an excuse to forget about him for a bit so we could get back to toothless trying to mate.

you have the guy who wiped out the night furies and he just.  sits back and lets them have fun dance time and go find the hidden world and literally never leave the first island they settled on and he does.... nothing....... until they go to him.

i’m sorry, what.

the killer of night furies?  more like the killer of a decent villain plot :/

don’t even get me started on his “death” scene.  his dragons are detained carrying the cages.  wow.  no cool fight with them.  captures light fury who he already had and let go ( if he knew toothless and light fury were gunna love love then he could have just used her from the start like he really could have and he also just... seemed smart enough to know toothless and hiccup wouldn’t sacrifice her so he just.  yeah.  she should have been a side plot, would have been more exciting for him to realize he missed two because his anger could have become beautiful with the fight and will to conquer ).  oh and even better, the poison which prior to this final scene only put night furies to sleep suddenly can be used to control pretty, dragon lady.  so now we’ve got that typical fight where toothless can’t actually fight or wah wah, he’ll hit his girlyfriend oh no.

cue dramatic scene from hiccup which was almost nice because asking light fury to save toothless was such a hiccup/toothless relationship moment and, briefly, reminded me of how close they are and that toothless is his best friend, but then it just becomes dramatic fall where of course we know she’ll save toothless and hiccup.

and then grimmel is just in the ocean and buh bye and that’s it.

the infamous night fury killer, y’all.  fucking falls in the ocean after the worst plan he’s probably ever thought out.  actually, just kidding, he probably didn’t think it out.  it was bad and his three steps ahead turned into like seven steps behind because the fact he wants to kill the night furies and deliver all the dragons to his accomplices is just.

put on the backburner for the pretty, dragon lady plot.

man i just really wanted light fury the side plot, hiccup and toothless’ strong friendship to lead them forward into defeating grimmel and protecting her and the other dragons and then just.  learning through each other that they both are powerful people/dragon even independently of each other and they have their own tribes of sorts to lead and toothless is needed there and the dragons can have a better life orsomething.  toothless having to leave “because humans aren’t ready for dragons yet” was dumb, y’all.  and not at all encouraging or lively.

the final lesson was basically humanity sucks, hiccup never learns that he’s strong on his own but he just has to let toothless go anyway, toothless takes 75% of the movie to even care about hiccup and having to say goodbye...  grimmel was the most unimposing villain ever.  overall lessons: love means letting going ( cough just fucking forgetting your friends cough ), growing up requires sacrifice...  basically getting older sucks.

the flashbacks were almost okay.  the one with stoick crying over valka was actually amazing but... the one with the hidden world?  way to just shit all over how stoick was in the first movie.  makes his intolerance in the first movie seem... less so?  like.  “oh, i just wanna make the dragons go back to their land so we can be safe and they can be safe.”

no, stoick, y’wanted to fucking murder them all.  i guess his motives could have become worse over the years but.  then that just makes him more a bad character because he just gives up the idea of harmony and becomes “fuck it, kill them all” and uh........ yeah.

( the irony of this all is that hiccup ends up becoming the one to be like “well, guess we should live separated :///” )

i could get more in depth with these explanations probably but idk is it worth it, this post is already long enough.  i’m getting the basics across.  i think.  if you’re really curious, you can ask for more info on something.

a final thing.

other than, like. eret, valka, tuffnut, and astrid, why did all the characters.... suck?  they took... literally nothing seriously.  tuffnut didn’t either but, tbh, his “guy talk” stuff with hiccup was so great that i’m okay with him lmao.  but... fishlegs was barely there, snotlout was creepy with hitting on valka, and ruffnut was literal hell.  sure, her scene with annoying grimmel and all was “funny” but man did it make me cringe.

as a ruffnut stan, she’s... not that fucking dumb.  she would have looked back, she would have made sure she wasn’t being followed.  even in the show she wasn’t that bad.  and the show ruffnut was... bad.

like i just don’t know what to say.  they were all useless.  there were two solid scenes were they felt like they were there and actually friends with hiccup and part of the gang.  the first scene with the raid and then when toothless is, like.  practicing his awkward dancing and hiccup is telling them all about the light fury ( fishlegs is running around trying to draw her and the twins are interacting and everything like they all felt there and part of the group, it was awesome, and then they just never play a role again other than ruffnut’s absolute stupidity which was just a horrible moment for her and a weakass moment for grimmel because we’re reminded he went from being in total control to not knowing wtf he’s doing because oh, letting pretty, dragon lady go is actually and problem since she and toothless just flew off bye bye ).

...also tuffnut and ruffnut were HORRENDOUS to each other?  wtf?  and forgetting his sister?  uhm.  their whole relationship was just.  awful.  and just for laughs.  it was.  cringe fest.

okay lied.  now a final thing.

the ending.  i get dreamworks wanted to show the kids but just.  end it sooner.  i didn’t want to see hiccup and toothless reunite.  i didn’t.  especially not after how bitter everything just made me at least let me be sad and stay sad.  you have.  all this buildup, you have an actually decent scene with them saying goodbye and being the friends we know them to be.  and then you’re just

“lol just kidding here they are again.”

like.  have the kids, see hiccup sailing off with them.  end.  and it just reinforced the idea that hiccup never actually got over the idea that he’s nothing without toothless.  i wanted it concluding with strong, hiccup power and the knowledge that we know toothless is off being a badass somewhere with light fury.  it would have been much more impactful.  if you’re going to commit to the dragons leaving, full on commit.  him seeing toothless again would have felt more right if toothless and the dragons had left just for their betterment of lifestyle and not because “humanity no goo.”  idk it just.  was dumb and dragged on.  see the kids, see them sail.  end.  like i said.  i can’t even remember what hiccup was saying over all of it because it hit me it went from something that could have been awesome and learning about letting go and building life and all that to “lol but yay i found my dragon again :D”

also hiccup’s older model was just his same with a beard?  at least astrid’s looked better.  and then kids were just.  baby hiccup boy but with blond hair and little pig tail girl ( isn’t she a model used in one of the other movies?  her model was super familiar ) but with brown hair.  pretty uh.  yeah.  and the nightlight babies....................

personally.... not impressed lmao.

and, well.  that wraps up my major thoughts for now.  i’m sure i had others but it’s been like three weeks since i saw the movie so.  i’m going off what fiery embers managed to keep burning during this time.

in regards to ruffnut, you can see i didn’t like how she was portrayed.  so for the most part, i’m erasing that section in her canon.  she will have looked behind her and been cautious.  i’ll do the plot a flavor and just go with how grimmel should have been and that he was actually an intimidating villain who knew where they were and was waiting for the chance to strike.  so my ruffnut didn’t fuck up like that.  also she escapes by better wit than just being obnoxious :/

and also happy to just ignore a lot of how the movie was handled but.  for the sake of partners, i will otherwise accept canon as it is.  just.  now you can might see why i didn’t care for the canon as is.

ps i haven’t 100% read over this because it’s late, forgive any horrendous typos that i’ll fix later hopefully when less sjklfas;d

[yasuda-yoshiya]

So, KH3 is over.

Wow. That sure was a thing.

Closing reflections on both the game and the series as a whole below.

I guess I’m not even really surprised that Xion pretty much got a whole five minutes of screentime in the end after all that build-up. Don’t know what else I expected, Nomura...

You know, KH has always been terrible at pacing, but I still can’t quite believe just how much nothing happened in the first ~20 hours! The Disney filler is fine and all (I mean, the game wouldn’t sell without it), but I have to admit that the initial rush of childish excitement at getting new KH content started to wear pretty thin after four or five worlds of it. Games like KH2 and BBS at least tended to break things up with some big plot events halfway through, right?! I feel like this game really would have benefited a lot from having some kind of breather somewhere in the middle, even if it was just a matter of moving things like the Aqua/Ventus rescue up a bit earlier. They really had to cram a lot into those last few hours, and a lot of things ended up feeling more rushed than they really needed to be as a result. But for all the game’s flaws, in the end I still felt like I was able to leave the characters I cared about most on a satisfying note, and I think I’m content with that.

I really loved the way Axel was portrayed in this game! I feel like they hit a pretty good balance with him in the sense that, yes, he’s obviously realised that he messed up horribly and wants to do better, but he still totally feels like Axel. He’s still very much an obviously flawed and self-centered person who still habitually puts his own emotional needs above others, still wants to frame himself as the hero of the story who will obviously be the one to save Roxas in the end - and I love that the game itself never really buys into that framing. There is honestly not a single scene in this game where I felt like the emphasis was on what a cool and good person Axel is. His constant apologies to Kairi feel incredibly uncomfortable, like he’s very clumsily trying to finally hold himself accountable for what he’s done but still has absolutely no idea to actually handle it. His boasts about being a Keyblade wielder feel like empty arrogant bluster that never really gets backed up. When he pointedly interrupts the big cast reunion to scream “Um, hello, what about ME?!”, it seems more petty and ridiculous than anything. And when we get to the final battle, he repeatedly and consistently fails, on every count. He tries to have a big badass moment rebelling against Xemnas, but Xemnas totally beats his ass, and in the end it’s Roxas and Xion who have to jump in to save him, not the other way around. He has absolutely nothing to do with saving Roxas, or bringing him and Xion back, or even dealing with Saix, despite how much he heatedly promised that he was going to totally do all those things.

In the end, the real crux of his arc feels like that moment where Xion tells him to step back and leave it to them, and Axel just smiles and admits that, yeah, when it came down to it, the two of them were always stronger than him. They don’t need him, and they never did. I love that so, so much. I love the way that when the three of them are left alone together after the battle, he’s just so obviously awkward and uncomfortable and has no idea what to say, until the three of them all just finally break down crying and hugging each other. It felt so totally genuine and powerful and heartfelt, and I couldn’t have asked for more. I really appreciated Axel’s acknowledgement at the end that they had a lot to sort out, and I expect they probably still do, and a lot of it’s probably going to be messy and painful and difficult - but I’m also fine with us not getting to see that onscreen or with the game dwelling on it too much, because in the end, what’s really important as far as the series’ themes go is that they’re all finally here and alive and free to be themselves, and the ending rightly puts the final emphasis on that - on the sheer joy and wonder of them finally being able to live in the world, as people, to be happy and confident in themselves and who they are. Xion showing up at the tower in those beautiful clothes was the point where I pretty much just started crying my eyes out and couldn’t stop for the entire credits sequence. I love that the framing of their final scenes doesn’t really put any real special emphasis on Axel at all; it makes it feel like their happy ending isn’t really about them reuniting with him as a trio (in the way that, say, the BBS trio’s ending is very much framed), it’s about a much broader sense of them being able to live, and to experience the joy of living, with all that entails - that he’s just one of many friends for them now, and that the days of their messed up co-dependent relationship where they all had to desperately cling on to each other to feel human are hopefully over. The only thing I don’t really like about it in the end is Saix being there, but hey, nothing’s perfect. I do wish that things like Xion’s return had been a bit less rushed, and that her and Roxas had more screentime than they did, but all in all, I feel like I definitely got the closure I wanted, and I’m overjoyed with it.

As for the rest of the game... well, I’d be lying if I said the overall plot wasn’t pretty much a giant incoherent mess overall - the finale had way too much crammed into it, a ton of the antagonists seemed to do sudden 180s at the end for no reason, and it was an absolutely terrible choice to spend such a huge amount of time on obvious sequel hooks and cliffhangers (the black box, Subject X, Marluxia and co secretly being ancient keyblade warriors or whatever the hell Chi is doing) in a game that should really have been firmly focused on giving closure to the existing arcs after all these years - but... well, it’s Nomura, and it’s Kingdom Hearts. I don’t think I really expected anything else. But I did feel like the game was generally charming and enjoyable on a moment-to-moment level, the quality of the dialogue and cutscene direction felt like a big step up for the series, and I did actually enjoy the sheer scope and ambition of the final boss rush for what it was. It was absolutely a mess, but it felt like a sort of final celebration of the series and its characters that made me feel really excited and nostalgic in a sort of “bringing out my inner twelve-year-old” way, and there were a lot of great individual moments in there - the RXA reunion, Repliku’s sacrifice, Sora apologising to Namine - that genuinely did manage to hit hard and leave an impact. I guess at this point, KH has been ongoing for so long that it’s just inevitably exciting to see all these stories finally coming to a conclusion instead of just stalling at the same point forever, however weird the execution.

The one big thing I’d say they totally dropped the ball on was the BBS trio; their resolutions just felt completely empty to me, way too easy and simplistic and without any real consequences or acknowledgement of things like Aqua’s fall to darkness and how it impacted on her, or Terra’s rock-bottom self-esteem and the ways Aqua and Eraqus contributed to that. (Hell, when Ansem and Xemnas’s last words gave me much stronger Terra feelings than Terra’s actual resolution did, something must have gone terribly wrong!) They weren’t really ever my favourite characters, so I’m not too upset about it, but I still think they deserved better than they got. And I pretty much just tuned out all the nonsense at the end with Kairi’s unbelievably transparent and cynical fridging (”You require motivation” oh my god get lost!!) and the drama over Sora being separated from her again becuse I just...really didn’t care any more. I’m sorry, I just didn’t. Those two can keep cycling through their same old boring plot forever if they want to, I just don’t care!! I actually barely even noticed Sora disappearing at the end because I was too busy crying over Xion, lmao. Thank god my favourite characters don’t have to live inside those two losers any more. They are free from their nonsense now, and so am I.

So, how do I feel about the series as a whole, coming out of KH3? I’ve spent quite a bit of time revisiting and reflecting back on the older games in the run-up to KH3′s release, and honestly, I think my opinion coming out is more or less the same as it was coming in. I can’t really honestly say that the series as a whole is good, and it’s probably not at all worth the investment for anyone new to the series trying to get into it now - but I do feel that there is genuinely a lot of good stuff in there among all the nonsense, and I’d have to say that my personal experience growing up with the series and following it all these years has been an overwhelmingly positive one, overall.

KH1 was a very conventional shounen story, but a charming and beautifully told one. CoM was a genuinely unique and unsettling game that pulled apart KH1 in a ton of interesting ways, and even if the series didn’t have the guts to really keep going with the ideas it set up, I still feel that it was really interesting and cool as a standalone. KH2 was a mess, but it was an epic mess that I totally loved and obsessed over as a twelve-year-old, and it set up some genuinely fascinating concepts with Roxas, the Nobodies and the Organization which 358/2 Days went on to capitalise on incredibly well. I genuinely find 358/2 Days to be a game that still has a lot of power and resonance for me even now; it’s probably the only KH game I’d say I wholeheartedly respect and admire from a writing perspective, and I still love how comprehensively it tears apart everything KH2 was trying to say (in a way that the series totally was willing to run with and expand on, unlike CoM, which even 10 years later is still kind of unbelievable to me). BBS’s writing was a big step down from Days, but there were still a lot of really cool and interesting characters and concepts in there, and even if KH3 ultimately failed to stick the landing on them, I’d still say that a lot of what the game tried to communicate with Terra’s character in particular has continued to stick with me. Re:coded and DDD were both pretty silly, but they were still totally fun and addictive games (debugging system sectors was great fun, and I can’t hate anything as transparently Pokemon-derivative as the Dream Eaters), and I loved how they both so unapologetically continued down the path Days set up in kicking KH2′s original conclusions about Nobodies to the curb. And KH3, for all its missteps, still managed to cap off the character arcs and themes that I most cared about in a way that was ultimately satisfying to me. The overarching plot might have been absolute nonsense, and the series more often than not a ridiculous and filler-bloated mess, but in the end I really can’t feel anything but happy and positive memories when I look back on any of these games. I can’t really hold the series’ flaws against it too much when it’s brought me so much joy over all these years.

I think the one thing I love and appreciate most about the series, looking back now, really is just how willing they were to scream from the rooftops that the sacrifices Roxas and Xion were pushed into making were categorically wrong, that they deserved to be their own people, right through to the very end. In the end, the series was already pretty much irreversibly going down the path of bringing them back and giving them their own happy endings by the end of DDD - which was amazing - so in the end all KH3 really had to do for me to love it was to just complete that obvious final step, and I was more or less guaranteed to be okay with whatever other nonsense it might do. But even so, there was a part of me that still couldn’t quite believe it seeing their happy ending at the end of KH3; I still almost couldn’t process that this was actually real, that they actually seriously did it. KH2 so obviously wanted its players to uncritically take Roxas’s choice to go back to being part of Sora as a good thing, and even Days left a heck of a lot of wiggle room for people to read Xion’s willingness to sacrifice herself as a positive choice, rather than something she very clearly did not want but was forced to convince herself was okay because she simply wasn’t given any other viable options.

And this kind of goofy shounen-adjacent series having a lot of disturbing and uncomfortable subtext beneath the surface of its seemingly conventional plotlines isn’t exactly a rare thing in itself, but I feel like it’s pretty uncommon to see a series like this go so far in explicitly bringing out that subtext and making it into text - unambiguously shouting from the rooftops and making it outright unavoidable canon that, no, Days was in fact not just a tragic story about people with no hearts who were always just tragically doomed from the start to sacrifice themselves and return to the “real people” they came from, but was in fact a story about perfectly real and complete and valuable people being subtly and systematically brainwashed into believing that they had no hearts and were less real and valid and important than others, about the horrible things those kinds of beliefs can do to people and about force them to willingly dehumanise both themselves and others to cope. Xion’s story was not a beautiful tale about accepting her true nature as a part of Sora’s memories and willingly returning to him, it was a story about a person who absolutely deserved and wanted to live for herself having her entire identity and self-confidence crushed and destroyed, about her being pushed into becoming actively suicidal even by perfectly “well-meaning” people. Roxas’s tragedy was in fact not just that he “didn’t get to meet Sora himself” before getting assimilated back into him - him being assimilated into someone else in the first place was the tragedy, because giving his own independently developed self up should never have to be something anyone has to do. Namine merging with Kairi was not a beautiful happy ending, it was an incredibly depressed and guilt-ridden person taking the first excuse she had to fade away because she no longer saw any value in herself and her existence, and Sora and Kairi uncritically validated that perception of herself by accepting her merge with Kairi as right in a way that they absolutely shouldn’t have.

None of this is reduced to subtext or interpretation, KH makes it all outright canon by implication - and not only makes it canon but actively sets up the entire main thrust of its epic multi-game arc to be about setting these mistakes right and bringing these people back and validating them as full human beings in their own right. And honestly, I just think that’s incredible. I love it, and I’ll always be grateful for it, and a huge part of what lets me keep coming back to games like 358/2 Days and still being able to fully appreciate them even now is having that knowledge that these interpretations are not just me reading too much into the text, but that they have been outright objectively confirmed as the correct readings within the series itself, over and over again, and only more and more and more explicitly and unavoidably as time has gone on. I honestly can’t express how much it means to me that KH is so loud and unambiguous about how much it loves and values and holds up these people as real and important, whatever their origins, whatever the fanbase might have to say about how bringing them back is “fanservice” and “ruining their original conclusions”. It’s so important to me, and I’m so thankful for it.

So yes, overall, I think I’m content with this game, and with the series in general! As long-awaited series finales go, I’ll definitely take it over things like Homestuck and Zero Escape’s efforts any day. I feel pretty much happy ending my time with the series on this note, and while I probably will still end up checking out whatever Nomura does next, I think it will probably be more out of vague curiosity than any strong investment by now, which is fine - the plotlines I cared about most within the series have now been pretty definitively closed, to my satisfaction, and I doubt anything else it does will manage to interest me nearly as much, but I’m sure I’ll still be willing to pop in again in a few years anyway for old times’ sake. For now, I am free, and I’d have to say that feels pretty good! I’m willing to forgive Kingdom Hearts a lot just because it’s brought me so much joy over the years, and I can’t think of any other series that has managed to stay emotionally significant to me for as much of my life as this one has. So in the end, all I can say is: thank you, Tetsuya Nomura! Keep on co-opting those beloved Disney movies to indulge your absurdly convoluted shounen anime nonsense, you wonderful, ridiculous man.

[maythefanfictionbewithyou]

The Long Sleep

Summary: Lana takes AJ to see Archer for the first time after the coma.

The hospital loomed over her, like a scary fortress in one of AJ’s books. She had already been inside the fortress, she had already seen the monster inside, but AJ hadn’t. AJ hadn’t been exposed to the quiet, lifeless form of Sterling Archer. The last time she had seen her father, Archer had been bubbly and goofy, he had been blowing raspberries on her tummy, booping her nose and had been an overall goofball, ignoring Lana who had still been mad at him at the time.

    Lana glanced in the rearview mirror and saw AJ playing with the teddy bear Archer had given her for her birthday. He had bought her an exuberant amount of gifts, but this was the only one that he had actually put effort into instead of just buying the most expensive gifts off the shelf, and AJ could tell. She pressed the front paw of the bear, and Archer’s voice saying, “Danger Zone,” with his usual theatrics, rang through the car, causing AJ to burst into a fit of giggles.

    Lana and Archer had been at a low point of their relationship when he had bought the bear, and he had said that he wanted AJ to have a piece of him no matter what state his relationship with Lana was. Lana had thought it was sweet of him at the time and had fallen back into his bed that night, she was eternally grateful now that if anything happened to him, AJ would still have the bear. The giggling had died down in the back, and Lana turned around to see AJ clutching the bear to her chest, “I miss daddy,” AJ said sadly.

    “Me too baby,” Lana told her, placing a comforting hand on her knee, “Do you know what we are doing?” Lana asked her, she had tried to go over what had happened with AJ, but she had not seemed to grasp the idea.

    “Like in general or here?” AJ asked, Archer’s dumb face written all over hers.

    Lana shook her head and tried to force herself through the next part, “Here. Daddy got very injured and his body is having a hard time fixing itself. He is still okay, but he is going to be asleep until his body can fix itself.”

    “How long?” AJ asked, looking up at her mother with big hazel eyes.

    “I don’t know, baby,” Lana said truthfully, her heart hurt as AJ’s eyes filled with tears. She pulled the bear away from her chest and pressed the little paw again.

    “I love you AbbieJean, I hope you are having a badass day,” Archer's voice said. Lana had originally been furious that he had cussed in her teddy bear, to which he had argued that ass was not, in fact, a cuss word. She couldn’t find it in her to be mad at now, especially as her baby was now full on crying.

    Lana got out of the car, swinging AJ’s backpack onto her shoulder before freeing AJ from her car seat and pulling her into her arms. All of AJs limbs wrapped around Lana, the toddler crying into the crook of her neck, “It’s going to be okay baby, we just have to be brave until daddy wakes up,” she told her, stroking the toddler’s hair, trying to push away her own tears. AJ nodded into her neck, but kept crying, “We’ll be okay baby.”

       The room was like any other hospital room: quiet, bland and sterile. Malory was sitting in the chair beside the bed, not getting up to greet them, she barely nodded to acknowledge their presence. Lana sat down in the chair beside her, AJ in her lap. AJ paid little attention to Malory, her focus entirely on Archer. Lana tried to make small talk with Malory: “Any improvements? Have you gotten any sleep? Do you need food?” the usual. AJ had been antsy the whole time, squirming in Lana’s arms. She would glance between the two of them occasionally, but her attention always snapped back to Archer. After some struggling, AJ finally broke free of Lana and crawled on to the hospital bed. Lana went to stop her, but Malory put a hand up to stop her, “I don’t think she can do any more harm to him.”

    “Daddy...” AJ said quietly, barely a whisper as she looked for a sign of life. She poked him, lifted his hand just for it to fall back into place, “Daddy...daddy,” she repeated, louder each time, trying to get him to react. Lana swore she could hear her heartbreaking, Malory was outright sobbing beside her. AJ was getting upset now, she took a deep breath, scrunched up her face, and yelled, “DADDY!” at the top of her lungs. Lana felt a small smile break through the pain, she was definitely Archer’s daughter, but her baby girl was starting to sob, and that had to be her first priority.

    Lana motioned towards her and AJ crawled back into her lap, crying into her neck. Lana tried to console her, but nothing seemed to be working, even Malory was rubbing her back, trying to help. “Hey baby, do you want to show grandma what you brought daddy?” Lana asked her. She nodded slightly and Lana handed her off to Malory. She was still hiccuping but seemed to be doing better.

    “What did you bring?” Malory asked her as Lana dug through the backpack. She pulled out a framed picture and handed it to AJ.

    “Me and daddy,” AJ said showing Malory the picture. The picture had been Archer's favorite, AJ’s as well. Lana always claimed that it was an okay picture, but she loved the picture as well. The picture was of Archer holding an eighteen-month-old AJ, he was in the middle of booping her nose, and she had broken out into a fit of giggles. Lana didn’t know what deity had allowed for the picture to be taken, but between the giggling AJ and Archer’s broad smile, she was sure she had never seen Archer happier.

    “That’s nice dear,” Malory said, and Lana could hear the tears in her voice, as she looked at the picture of the pair. “What else did you bring?” AJ looked at Lana and opened and closed her hand towards Lana, asking for the next thing. Lana smiled at her and handed her the picture she had drawn for Archer. It was mostly just two sticks, one considerably shorter than the other and a bunch of colorful scribbles, but Lana was sure the message still came through.

    “Drew daddy and me,” AJ informed Malory, pointing at the tall stick as she said daddy, and the short stick when she said herself, Malory was definitely crying now. “You okay grandma?” AJ asked, reaching up to touch Malory’s face.

    “I am fine, princess,” Malory told her, forcing a smile. Lana had known her for long enough to know she was not okay. “Did you bring anything else?”

    “Yeah I brought a book,” AJ said, again motioning towards Lana. She handed her the book, and she hugged it to her. “Read it to daddy,” she told Malory, showing her the book.

    “Do you want to go ahead and read it to him?” Lana asked AJ.

    “Yes!” AJ said excitedly, nodding her head dramatically. Lana picked her up and sat her down next to Archer. AJ quickly made herself comfortable and started dramatically telling Archer her story. She was mostly rattling off nonsense, saying a few words that she remembered from the story, but it was cute nonetheless.

    “So how are you really doing?” Lana asked Malory once AJ was absorbed in the book. Malory didn’t answer the question but instead went to pour herself a glass of bourbon from the bottle on the side table. She took a few sips before downing the rest of the drink.

    “Not great,” she finally answered, staring at her son and granddaughter.

    “It’s been a rough time. I hate that AJ has to see him like this,” Lana said, watching her daughters arms wave and flail as she told Archer the most animated version of her story possible.

    “Well, at least he didn’t completely suck at everything,” Malory said pouring another drink and taking a huge swig of it and staring at the picture of Archer and AJ.

    “He has done alright with that one thing. He may be a giant shithead, but he was patient, kind and just an overall good father when it came to AJ. I swear she gets a different Archer than anybody else in the entire world did,” Lana said, willing the tears in her eyes to go away.

    “I told you it was a good idea,” Malory told her, a small smile on her face.

    “And to think, I thought you were crazy. This is the one and only time I will ever tell you, you were right,” Lana told her.

    “You know, I don’t think there is a single picture of Sterling and I, plenty of him and Woodhouse, he was there for every aspect of Sterling’s life, but I wasn’t,” Maloy said tracing a finger down the picture.

    “Well, you are here now, and at least AJ won’t be able to say the same,” Lana said putting a comforting hand on Malory’s shoulder, surprised when she didn’t shake it off. She just continued staring at the picture, probably reliving all of the moments that she had let Archer down, though that would be literally every moment. Lana looked back at her little girl and the man that she hated to admit was the love of her life. AJ was excitedly talking about princesses and astronauts, the book discarded. Lana had known that using Archers sperm without his permission had been a bitch move, but she wouldn’t change that decision for anything in the world.

Part 2 Part 3

[cloudywithachanceofarashi]

so constance wu, star of the highly anticipated new film crazy rich asians (out now!), appeared on the late show with stephen colbert tonight. I didn’t get to watch the episode live, and I really would have only watched for constance, so I just decided to view her interview on the late show’s youtube channel.

and well… I’m not entirely pleased by what I saw. (this is going to be long, sorry)

as for the interview itself, the main thing I was bothered by was how the first / primary topic they talked about was constance’s outfit for the premiere ; they focused so much on that, and didn’t even bother to elaborate on constance’s very confident, no-hesitation answer on why she Knew that Crazy Rich Asians was going to be a huge deal, and a huge success.

they could have talked about - they could have let her talk about - why the world needs this movie, especially now more than ever, and how she knew the asian(-american) community had been waiting for a movie like this for years, and that they were ready for it. how the world was ready for it. they could have let her talk about the concept of POC and other under-represented minorities “Building Their Own House”, a concept introduced to her by Ava DuVernay, as mentioned on Constance’s twitter page.

but no, they didn’t mention any of that. instead they skipped over it entirely and zeroed in on constance’s premiere dress. of all things.

yes, I did watch the rest of the interview. no, that was Not the Only thing that they talked about. I am fully aware of that. it just bothers me that they focused on it so heavily, even going so far as to name the title of the whole interview after it, as well as putting it as the video’s sole description.

on a brighter note, I do appreciate that they mentioned the source material of the movie - the series of Crazy Rich Asians books by Kevin Kwan. I appreciate that Constance got to shout out director Jon M. Chu, how she acknowledged Fresh Off the Boat, and how she recalled her process of signing on to Crazy Rich Asians.

I also appreciate Constance getting to tell her unique (funny) story of an audition anecdote, and I especially appreciate her making it clear that yes, she is Asian, and she auditions for Asian roles (and even ambiguous ones like extras), but just because she is Asian does not mean that she speaks every Asian language. I appreciate that she made a point of saying that she is not Korean, and does not Speak Korean. she speaks Mandarin Chinese. (and that’s why it was a problem for her in that audition situation.)

its just that the urgency to talk about her outfit sets the conversation back further again, where interviewers were notorious for only discussing fashion with their female guests/stars, while men got the “harder questions”. whether that was the real intention or not, I believe that that part of the interview could have been conducted better. but anyway.

that was not the worst part of what I saw.

what really prompted me to write this was the youtube comments underneath this particular interview.

the vast, vast majority of the comments are disgusting - and I know what you’re thinking, it’s a youtube video, the youtube comment section is almost always trash. and you’re right. but this is even more so than usual.

the (negative) ones I’ve seen range from catcall-like, objectifying comments about her appearance, to criticising her interview outfit, to blatant racism and fetishization, along with saying she’s talentless and “sounds like a pain in the ass”.

again, I know what you might be thinking. it’s just a youtube comment section, most of the people commenting are probably lowlives anyway, it’s such a tiny corner of the internet, it doesn’t matter. and again, you’re probably right. maybe it doesn’t matter. but also, here’s why it does.

this is exactly why a movie like Crazy Rich Asians NEEDS to happen, and why it MUST be successful. because people don’t see enough people who look like Constance Wu on big screens, on late night talk shows, in big budget Hollywood movies, on red carpets - people don’t see enough Asian people being respected and highly regarded, and treated with class.

and yes, I absolutely know this extends way past the asian community too. this applies to all people of color, all non-binary/gender-nonconforming folks, all people of the lgbtq+ community, all people with disabilities, and all underrepresented minorities. this is why representation matters.

because people need to see more diverse people being respected and treated with dignity and human decency. people need to see more successful asians, and other successful minorities. seeing minorities highly regarded in media is a start, because that’s where it spreads. once people start seeing more Asian people (for example) being respected and successful and highly regarded, that’s how it becomes normalized, and more widely accepted overall. after all, people lead and learn by example. people will learn to accept and respect more minorities, and evolve to treat them as they are - valid, respectable human beings. they’ll learn to accept and treat each other decently. this is how the perpetuation of racist stereotypes and fetishization begins to end.

as anna akana says, the only way to start is to start.

(of course, another obvious upside to representation is that those minorities who begin to see themselves onscreen and in media being portrayed and treated as heroes, or generally respectable and successful citizens, will further believe that they are capable of the same success too. representation inspires more of the respective, underrepresented people to aim even higher than the ones who came before them.)

as for the comments claiming constance is “talentless” or wondering “what she’s doing here”, one might say that race - and/or gender - has nothing to do with it. people can and do comment stuff like that about anyone. but you can’t tell me that when there’s this beautiful, successful, funny, and empowered Asian Woman, a rare occasion of its kind, perhaps the first in a long time, sitting right there on a late night talk show couch, and expect me to believe you without a pound of salt.

when this one woman of this particular ethnicity and heritage and success gets this many dehumanizing comments on a 6 minute interview, race (and gender) are always part of the conversation.

yes, I am aware that she has had many other talk show appearances and interviews, and while I have not watched all of them, I’m sure that there are many great, enriching, engaging interviews out there too, ones with positive feedback and support. but this is always something that needs to be talked about. this still needs to be talked about, and will be an ongoing conversation for years to come.

in the meantime, please go watch Crazy Rich Asians in theaters now. please support this movie, and these creators, and all underrepresented creators like them. educate yourself, keep the conversation going, and treat others with respect. and don’t be afraid to stand up for yourself too, if circumstances are safe. stay strong, stay empowered, and stay safe out there.

[poipoi1912]

Carisi-centric thoughts on Ep 19x05

(a tiny bit late, because I’m already working on my new Barisi episode tag and I got distracted)

:D

Overall Thoughts

A half-decent episode, a strong vibe of “been there, done that,” and some very solid acting by regulars and guest actors alike. Not a complete snoozefest (though it did get progressively worse, somehow), but too predictable to be truly entertaining. I am sensing a bit of a slump, but right now we’re at a comfortably mediocre level I could live with, lol. Still, I’m hoping the show will bounce back with episodes that are a little more creative.

Case-Related Thoughts

Uh. Yikes? They see what is effectively a stick figure-like age progression sketch and immediately they’re all “IT’S HER!!!” and then they see footage of her taking the subway and immediately they’re all “WE’VE MADE A HUGE MISTAKE!!!” and then the brother’s story is a little off and they’re all “HE’S THE KILLER”.

Like, maybe show some restraint? Y’all are cops?

All of the drama could have been avoided, which is just poor writing. I mean, I laughed my ass off at “there are no orange groves in Pennsylvania”. That was their other big clue? Not the fact the girl refused to give a DNA sample but SVU released her into the custody of some random family regardless?

Speaking of, why on earth did they allow that girl to move in the family home literally 5 minutes after she was found? Was she even stable enough? And the continued refusal to give a DNA sample was certainly suspicious. Sure, the dad was covering up a crime, so his refusal to get the girl’s DNA tested rang true, but by that point it was already too late. They should have tested her DNA before they ever told the family. Why would they risk the emotional damage? To protect her, or respect her own privacy? Okay, but how about protecting the family as well? How about protecting the mother from the pain of losing her “daughter” twice? That’s the one parallel the episode failed to draw between the main case and Liv/Noah. Liv would never want to give that mother false hope.

Also, the son was acting way too creepy from the start. The dad did that a lot better (then again, Paul Schulze is always fantastic); his reaction was part creepy and part “maybe he’s being weird because he doesn’t believe that’s their daughter, but he doesn’t want to hurt his wife by saying that out loud”. Meanwhile, the son was practically all, “Yep. I did it. I don’t know who this random girl is, but she sure isn’t related to me. My actual sister is dead because I personally murdered her.”

Sonny and Continuity

Sonny crossing himself when finding dead bodies is a lovely touch, and I love that the show hasn’t forgotten his faith or his reverence for human life.

We got yet another random and unnecessary tidbit about Sonny's family life. All I’m gonna say is, I sure hope somebody in the writers’ room is keeping track of all this, because they're giving us 3 new tidbits every week and I feel like we're going to start getting conflicting info by episode 14. "So, when my pops was in the hospital for a month back in 2007, and I was in the waiting room, but also doing a student exchange program in Italy at the same time, and my oldest sister was pregnant with her first, but she also had a 3-year-old at home, and my mom was baking cookies for the nurses every Tuesday, but she had already been dead for 2 years, and...."

What is the point of all that? I appreciate the fact they’re trying to fill in some blanks, and Sonny has always been the type to overshare, so it does fit his personality, but it’s still kind of strange. Is Sonny stuck in the past, reminiscing literally at all times? Or do the writers want us to get to know him a little better? If so, why can’t he talk about his current life? Fill in those blanks? Or, even better, why not show us that current life? Lord knows we’re seeing enough of Liv’s life, but all the other characters have gotten nothing. Sonny and Barba especially had their one and only “personal” episode (one each) back in Season 16. It’s nice to hear about Sonny’s family, but it’d be nicer if we actually saw them :D

Sonny and Continuity Vol. II - Emotion

As I’ve said countless times, Sonny is always hit hard when the victims are younger, and I love the idea that a young-ish Sonny would have followed a missing child case even a decade ago (which would have made him how old? And was he a cop at the time? In college? In the Academy? A rookie? What year is it?) Especially since he was going through something emotionally traumatic, like having an ill parent. The ICU means his dad didn’t have it easy, so Sonny was probably worried and was trying to find an outlet for his stress (I’ve been there. Hell, I am there, that’s partly why I write these posts lol).

That said, I also loved seeing that Sonny’s sensitivity and attachment to children led him astray. It gave him false hope, and an overeagerness which is typical of him in general, but uncharacteristic of him as a cop; he usually has good instincts, but he’s also the cop who will triple-check every possible explanation before forming a working theory, so I liked seeing him get carried away. As sad as it was (because it was totally obvious he was wrong, since it was totally obvious the brother was guilty), I liked seeing him falter.

Not that he really faltered, or not that it was acknowledged.

I sincerely thought Sonny was going to get in trouble with a reporter (lol just kidding, of course that ended up being deleted) because he spoon-fed the girl various details she might not otherwise have known. There’s helpful questions and then there’s leading questions. Sonny was so excited about finding “little Em” that he let his emotions cloud his judgment. Again, that made sense, because he had a special attachment to this particular case, but I kept waiting for the payoff. I thought “Emma” would parrot the info Sonny fed her during her TV interview, or something. I kept expecting him to be reprimanded, later on. I wanted to see him acknowledge his mistake, and maybe even get punished for it. In a subtle way, maybe in a conversation with Liv, who would respect his guilt but would warmly yet sternly tell him not to get so easily excited in the future.

Except Sonny was punished via carrying a dead child. And I don’t know if that was even intentional (as a punishment) or accidental (most likely).

Sonny’s Punishment

As strong of a scene as it was, and not to get gory on ya, I gotta say, carrying a corpse like that after all those years? Wouldn't that girl be, like, a pile of bones at that point? And, dare I say, wouldn’t it have been more jarring and tragic if we had seen Sonny carrying an actual lump of remains, instead of an identifiable human shape? I would have gotten chills. But then, they wouldn't have been able to do the dramatic "carrying the body of a child" shot which...

Thank God Peter is such a good actor, and such an understated actor, at that. He is always given these dramatic-ass moments, but he never overacts, so he is able to bring some truth and some honesty to these otherwise melodramatic scenes. His performance is what grounds Sonny. I love how he goes big when the moment is more comedic, but he always shuts down and gives us these small, numb and nauseated expressions when the moment is tragic. The writing is heavy-handed enough, so a “bigger” performance would hurt its emotional impact.

I swear, sometimes it’s like the writers are trying to turn Sonny into this tortured, “vulnerable” version of a Gary Stu, since he has been the de facto male lead for so long, and there’s no one else around to do that sort of stuff, but Peter is valiantly playing him as a three-dimensional human being, because he’s a character actor at heart. As a viewer, I appreciate that.

If I had written this episode (which I wouldn’t have), instead of that entire “finding the remains” scene, I would have had the mother talk to Sonny after the trial, not Liv. I would have had the mother coldly tell Sonny, “I wish you’d never found her,” which would have been a great juxtaposition to “I look at you and I see the angel who found my daughter.” That would have been a more subtle way of punishing him, but just as much of a gut punch, and I’m sure Peter would have given us a reaction which would have been equally heartbreaking.

(WAIT SHOULD I PUT THAT IN MY BARISI EPISODE TAG? WHICH I’VE ALREADY STARTED WRITING? HELL YEAH I WILL. I don’t only fix the lack of Barisi, I also fix the missed opportunities for closure :D)

Stray Thoughts

Sucks that Fin was off for two weeks in a ro... wait he was in this episode? Oh okay.

Barba was underused again, but his face (and his voice!) when he asked if Liv was okay made his entire appearance worth it not really though, he needs more to do.

What was the brother convicted of? Wasn’t he a small-ish child when he killed his sister?

Girl: “Don't touch me!”

(Sonny approaches her with the clear intention of touching her)

Girl: “I said don’t touch me!

(Sonny keeps moving in her direction with his hands literally outstretched)

Girl: I SAID DON’T TOUCH MEEEE!!!!

*DUN DUN*

Oh, SVU, will you never learn? A “dramatic” moment doesn’t work it if it’s based on total contrivance.

The Noah storyline is getting predictable. Liv is going to start grudgingly trusting Sheila, despite her original (and correct) instincts, and then Sheila is going to pull something intense; kidnapping (in time for February sweeps, perhaps), or maybe making her case (to somehow vacate the adoption, which, lol) more legitimate by gathering “evidence” Liv is unfit to be a mother. You know Liv is going to get into trouble eventually, with a perp or a long case, and Off-Screen Lucy will be conveniently busy for once, and Sheila will volunteer to babysit, etc etc. That said, I loved that first courtroom scene. It’s always nice to see Langan, and Brooke Shields is very good (in setting up the fact she’s possibly deranged and will go awf later in the season)

Continuity has been better this season, but apparently it doesn’t reach back to the Stabler years, just to SVU 2.0. So I guess it’s understandable that they virtually redid an entire episode from SVU 1.0 and no one had any memory of it happening.

Amanda: “Liv’s going to bring in a reunification specialist.” (cut to Liv doing the reunification her own damn self) I love this show and its unintentional hilarity :D

Sonny’s sweet face when the parents thought they recognized their daughter? Peter is so good. He really broke my heart last night.

[icyxmischief]

Thor: Ragnarok Review

The strength: the brothers’ chemistry. The weakness: tonal disjunctions and choppy pacing.  Overall rating: B/B+.  I was both disappointed in ways that I expected to be, and pleased in ways that I didn’t.   If you are a Loki fan, see this movie.  If you are a Thor fan, see this movie. If you are a Loki’s Resistance member or someone who has suffered from family bullying, abuse, or neglect, maybe be careful about seeing this movie.  It could trigger.  

See under the read-more for a breakdown. 

--Before I say another thing: I am SO PROUD of Loki.  Even though he is STILL LOKI, who deceives, changes, and shifts convictions, he also REPEATEDLY, thanklessly and without recognition tried to save Thor’s ass, both when Thor was first forced to be a “contender,” and when he arrived on a giant ship that boarded the Asgardians safely from a Surtur-burned Asgard, AND when he risked his life to release Surtur at Thor’s request.  Loki, who is not a hero, still did heroic things. And the tension between his trickery and his capacity for goodness remains.  And that delights me.  

--The recurring motif of Thor and Loki and Loki casting a doppleganger/illusion, the idea of him “being there” and “not really being there,” is wonderful, and is indexical on a deeper level of Loki’s willingness to let down barriers against trust, out of love for Thor.  More on that Later.  

--The only thing that I miss about Loki’s characterization is his ferocity.  He seemed a little TOO benign in this installment.  It’s subtle but Loki is vicious and I missed the viciousness.  The only time we catch a glimpse of it is when he’s talking to Bruce (which is a brilliant moment).  

--I DESPISE that we were never given an explanation for Loki’s “death” or how he could “fake it” so profoundly well.  I also feel like it might have been nice for someone to recognize that what he did, whether he faked his death and ran off to take the throne or not, was still done out of love for his brother. 

--The entire Dr. Strange scene was pointless advertisement for another MCU character, done I am convinced because Dr. Strange did hideously in the box office and needed a signal boost, and was implausible given Loki’s lifetime of training in sorcery.  Given that Loki fell to his attempted death of suicide in the  first film, it is insensitive and unnecessarily cruel to make him “fall for thirty minutes.”   The worst part is that it interrupted the narrative flow and took time away from Odin’s death scene.  

--I’m on the fence about Hela being Thor and Loki’s older sister.  It drastically alters the sibling dynamic. This may be something I just still need to get used to as I’m fresh from the movie.  I wanted to see more of a thing pushed where Thor realizes that Loki, UNLIKE Hela, is still invested in the welfare of their family and home.   --I am surprised and ultimately pleased at Odin’s gentler, more redeemable characterization.  I am pleased that Frigga talked to Odin through the separation between Valhalla and earth and obviously got through to him about a number of things.  I am pleased that Odin called BOTH Thor and Loki his “sons” (which obviously had a positive effect on Loki) and said he loved them and failed them, finally owned up to his culpability in the family’s messed up dynamic.  And I loved that he went to Norway and that Norway is probably where “New Asgard” will be.  At the same time, I feel like it was too little, too late.  Did he really have to be so rigid and machinating through his whole life and leave both his sons so scarred?  So it’s bittersweet. 

--Odin to Loki: “Your mother would be proud.” :’)  --Thor losing an eye was shocking, but I ultimately like it, and hope that it implies that he will follow in Odin’s footsteps but with greater compassion.   --Heimdall also finally won me over in this installment, rescuing and caring for the Asgardians after Hela took over.  

--I do not agree with or understand why Loki was portrayed as a glory hounding lazy monarch.  It’s antithetical to the fastidiously hard working obsessive character we’ve seen before. Yes, the big statue was funny, and yes, the play was (mostly) funny, but I cringed a little bit at how OOC it was, just to provide a joke.  I was also disappointed, though I knew I would be, that Thor and Loki’s reunion was rushed and made funny.  At the same time I loved how Thor was perceptive to Loki’s deceits; in an odd way it shows how close they are. More on that later.  --Also, a thing about the play that rubbed me the wrong way was the part where Loki’s written or sanctioned it so that the Odin actor openly discusses his real racial heritage???? Because he’s???? A very private person, and used to be utterly ashamed of that part of his identity???? And I mean don’t get me wrong, I’m GLAD he’s evidently learning to move past his internalized racism, but it also seems like a huge jump in four years????? And also not something to joke about in the first place?????  --Which leads me to the humor for which this film has been praised. I both agree and disagree.  The humor was largely effective, but in parts, felt like an unnecessary strain on a scene that should be serious.  For instance, things that brought the epic characters down to a relatable level, like Thor hitting himself with the ball he threw against Hulk’s wall, or Hulk’s disappointment at not being allowed to kill Surtur, or Valkyrie being so drunk that she fell off her hovercraft, were hilarious and great.   --My main complaint is that there were too many flashy fancy action sequences, which make for a fun movie, but crowd out potential scenes to show character background and development.  All the scenes we got with Thor and Loki were solid gold, and yet they went by at 30 second to 2 minute intervals and I was left thinking “wait? what? it’s over already???? come back!”  --Hela was a badass with so much potential but her characterization was extremely flat.  We were shown that she was ambitious and iconoclastic, but we got no window into what made her that way, or the nature of her relationship with Odin.  And I attribute that flaw to the issue above.  --Same goes for Valkyrie. Wonderful potential. Adore her.  Also think she’d be better shipped with Bruce than Thor but that’s neither here nor there.  But I wanted more than Loki’s magical mind-reading flashback of her last battle with Hela to see what sort of person she’d been and could be.   --Bruce’s scenes were touching and enjoyable. I’ve always loved Bruce and his self-sacrificial act of Hulking out again during the battle with Fenrir was deeply moving. --I love Jeff Goldblum, he was delightful, and his portrayal of the Grandmaster was a salient and much needed satire on political leaders who are really greedy glorified entertainers (read: Donald Trump) but I also felt like he was over-utilized at the expense of other characters, and, again, for the sake of humor, when both jokes and action sequences were already well covered.   --I found it contemptible that Volstagg, Fandral, and Hogun were killed so quickly and unceremoniously--again, to cram in more flashy action sequences.  That was jarring and sad, even though I know it fulfills the events in the comics. Skurge’s death was made more meaningful than theirs and that felt wrong. Also, why was Sif missing???? 

--I love the notion that “home is not a place but a people.”  Personally, I really needed to hear that.  

Now to the most controversial issue: Thor and Loki’s relationship: I believe that Thor was frequently unfair to Loki and did not recognize how his own hasty words and actions precipitated Loki’s now hardwired bad habit of dodging and double-crossing.  When he blamed Loki for Odin’s death and Asgard’s fall into disarray, that was unfair.  Let’s not even go into how Odin’s parenting directly contributed to Loki’s depression, caustic jealousy, and instability.  Beyond that, Loki did not kill Odin or even make him uncomfortable; he left him in an old folks’ home with a benign memory loss spell. And he sure as fuck did nothing to release Hela; Odin was dying already because IT WAS TIME FOR RAGNAROK, NO MATTER WHAT, AS THOR HIMSELF LATER REALIZES. LOKI DID NOT PRECIPITATE RAGNAROK.   And that Thor never acknowledges this later is poor writing.   The fact that Loki reaches out verbally to comfort Thor in that moment, when a storm is brewing, and Thor responds with that overblown accusation, is also kind of awful.  

Later, when Thor is trapped in the room with the other warriors, and Loki appears in doppleganger form, and Thor throws objects through him while he’s telling him that he put a wager on him, and to be careful, and survive so that eventually the two of them can assassinate the Grandmaster and get out, that whole scene is a nice touch.  

You already all know what I think of the elevator/lift scene and “Get Help.”  It’s painful but it also shows that for centuries these two have worked together and know each other inside and out.  Same goes for the anecdote of Loki turning Thor into a frog and the anecdote of eight year old Loki turning into a snake and Thor picking it up and Loki surprising him with a knife lol.  

The very worst moment for me was indeed when Thor used the shocking implant on Loki.  It wasn’t even that Thor did it, because yeah, Loki was gonna sell him back to the Grandmaster (though I doubt Loki thought Thor would live out his life and die on Sakar).  What bothered me was HOW LONG he left him lying there writhing in EXCRUCIATING AGONY.  I also found it ironic that Thor is preaching on about how Loki “could be better but doesn’t want to change” (though it’s true, I admit!) when Thor literally could say the same words verbatim to and about himself. :/  And the way he was taunting Loki, it was....very cold and ooc for Thor.  

It’s important to note how Loki tried to bring attention to other people so they could empathize with his situation.  He isn’t even asking people to feel sorry for him, he JUST WANTS THEM TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE UNFAIR ODDS.  From “feels bad to be lied to, doesn’t it?” to “THAT’S what it’s LIKE!” about the Hulk smashing. 

I teared up and laughed happily when Thor conducted all his lightning into blasting Hela off the balcony of the palace, and Loki looked up mid battle and smiled with such knowing pride. I DIED!!! In that moment!!!! <3 BROTHERS!!! 

Also, note that Thor says “You’re late!” to Loki, which implies that even though he slowed Loki down on Sakar, he never expected Loki not to eventually join and help him.  Loki does NOT deny it, he simply says, with a bit of fussy concern and amusement, “You’re missing an eye!” 

You can argue that their relationship is salvaged later, and certainly by the end of the film, they are in a better place than they’ve been since before the first Thor movie.  The only thing that bothers me is that Thor seems to take that for granted, as the way it always should have been, without acknowledging how far they’ve come, or how often Loki has tried to meet Thor halfway without compromising his own agency/selfhood.  

However the whole movie was worth it for me for a scene in the last five minutes.  “I’m here.”  What more do I need to say about that wonderful moment? When throughout the film and all the implied earlier films a major point of their friction has been Loki’s absence, his evasion, his two-faced deceit, and instead, here, he chooses to make himself vulnerable, to be honest, to be present, in order to comfort his big brother.   <3  The hug DOES happen, guys. It’s just off-camera.  :’)  

[dgarski]

​This Journey (Part XCVII)

Fearlessness and starting to remember things.

I don't know if it's because I had a stroke, that I don't remember much about what happened to me last year in March, or if it's just that my mind has suppressed the pain so far down, because it might be too much for me to acknowledge. I think that this "unknown" has been the most difficult struggle for me, out of everything I've had to deal with in a year and a half. Sometimes, I get flashes in my head of certain moments when I either collapsed, or after I collapsed, or when I was in the hospital, or the rehabilitation, or the traveling to Wisconsin, or just being in my parents house those first few weeks and really not understanding why I was there.

These flashes come and go so quickly that I lose them almost immediately. The majority of them happen when I finally relax and go to bed. Prior to me falling asleep, I will get these images in my mind, and sometimes the conversations that go with them. Many of them are repetitive. I get the same ones over and over, but I struggle to remember what they are or were. Lately, there has been one memory based on a feeling that came to me last week, about the original fear I had, while I was in the hospital and a few weeks after I was released. It was the memory of the feeling that any day, I could collapse again and I might simply die. The feeling was solely based on everything I was being told by my family. I was constantly being bombarded with their combined fears.

I didn't really understand why the fear was there, I had nothing to compare it to. Since there was so much that I didn't remember, I just couldn't grasp why this fear was being perpetuated as a sort of brainwashing by the people who were closest to me at the time. Not knowing why the fear was there, I remember deciding that maybe I should pay attention to what everyone is saying, and live my life, walking on proverbial eggshells, for the rest of my life. That decision felt like more of a loss than anything else. It was sort of like I was giving in to the notion of death at any time, and I should simply give up anything and everything about my life prior to my collapse. My fear was not the same fear that everything else had. Mine was fear of the unknown and uncertainty. I didn't know what I should think or feel. The fear everyone else had, was based on an overall consensus based on limited information. I can't really blame them for that, although it pisses me off that simple unconditional support and understanding was very sparse and limited. It's easy to say that now, but at the time, I didn't know that my fear was different from the fear everyone else had. Why did they all have that same fear? All I ever heard was how I should forget about any notions about moving back to Florida any time soon, because "What if it happened again?" Then this would be immediately followed up with the "If something happens to you while you're in Florida, we're not coming down to get you again." I think that's when I started to realize that the fear they had about my well-being wasn't based on my well-being. It was based on their own fears and inconveniences. It wasn't about the things I didn't know that I should be aware of, with my health. It was about the anger and resentment they had for having to come and get me and completely uproot my entire life, in the first place. Once this stuff started to make sense to me, I realized that I was mostly okay, and that the fears I had were not based on things I didn't know. They were based on the things I wasn't being told.

A few weeks after being in Racine, I had been to a few doctors appointments, got my medication regulated and began to reach out for ways for me to get my life back. I began to feel better, mentally as well as physically. I went for walks around the neighborhood, and did a great deal of thinking while I walked. I walked down to the lake a few times, and sat on the bench and stared out at Lake Michigan, wondering how long it was going to take me to make enough money, make a plan and get my ass back down to Orlando. I remember feeling a tremendous sense of catastrophic failure on my part. I felt like I somehow, let this happen to me. Somehow, I was to blame for me losing everything.

I began doing a lot of arguing with my parents, especially my mother. Then, my two youngest sisters began to become people I didn't know anymore. Suddenly, I felt like almost everyone except for my oldest sister, was against me. Nobody could understand why I was so hell -bent on returning to Florida. I couldn't understand why they couldn't understand, or why they couldn't at least be supportive of my trying to get my life back. It was a very upsetting realization for me. I had no idea how dysfunctional my family was. All of this, only motivated me more to figure out a way to do something to get the hell out of Dodge, as quickly as possible. I have never been someone who has ever felt the need or obligation to explain myself to anyone. Yet, my family sure didn't see it that way. They were quite insistent that I explain my decisions. That blew my mind. I most certainly didn't owe anyone a reason for the things I said, or thought or did. How absurd it was that they would think that this insistence would somehow be okay with me. My family is based on anger, arguing, resentment and never getting anything settled by talking it out.

In a way, they all did me a huge favor by revealing the insanity that I wanted no part of. I began to understand why the chaos existed in the first place. It is all dysfunction that has been around since the early 1970's, and it never got better. It got tremendously worse over the years. Well, in those years, I wasn't there to participate in the madness. I got thrown into the river of insanity, began to drown and all they could do was describe the water. I stopped everything. I limited everything I said, thought and did, on a need-to-know basis, to only a very few number of people.

I no longer felt fear. I felt determination, like I never felt before. I pictured myself back in Florida, at the beach, at my new apartment, at work and at my old life. Nothing and nobody on this planet was going to stop me. Anyone who got in my way, was going to be eliminated from my life. Yes, I have that in me to do those kinds of things. Like I said, I no longer have any fear. It's about survival and knowing what is best for me, no matter the cost.

Some people never learn how to not always be fearful. I'm vigilant and aware. Short of me jumping out of any airplane at 10,000 feet with a parachute, I can't imagine anything that I would be fearful of now. I've done so many things in my life, that any fears that may have been, have all been replaced by confidence. I am lucky enough to know what I am capable of doing. I have tested my limits, I have seen what I am capable of doing with my life. Trusting others who only know fear, was a learning curve for me. That will never happen again.

[words-writ-in-starlight]

So i recently read books 26 and 27 of animorphs and i feel like you are a personi can talk about the chee to? Like. . . I can sort of respect them making the decision to not be able to kill people, but them living as humans while still doing their whole nonintervention thing bugs me because they will be fine regardless of how bad humans mess each other up. They are basically immune to the consequences of their inaction, and they are fine with that as long as dogs are also fine

Oh my God yes darling heart let’s talk about the Chee because I feel like if I ever met a Chee I would inevitably break my knuckles on their face just.  Purely on principle.  Dear Rest Of Tumblr, you may want to just scroll right past this post if you don’t want to hear My Angry Thoughts on the matter.

Some highlights of my past commentary on the Chee include:

i have complicated feelings about the chee but mostly i'm annoyed with them, EVEN IF YOU'RE GOING TO STAND BY YOUR PACIFISM WHILE THE ANIMORPHS ALMOST DIE A LOT, YOU COULD, IDKGIVE THEM A LIST OF KNOWN CONTROLLERS WHILE YOU SPY ON THE YEERK POOL, JUST OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD, THAT WOULD BE LIFE-CHANGING FOR THE KIDS

from the tags on this ask

And then there’s:

seriously the chee could do plenty of things that don't include homicide, also how do their 'injury' calculators even work, like, okay, they can't kill stuff, FINE, bring information, hack the yeerks, BUT DOES THAT COUNT AS HARMING THE YEERKS BY ENABLING THE ANIMORPHS TO FIGHT THEM?, IF YES: DOESN'T REFUSING TO TAKE THOSE ACTIONS COUNT AS HARMING EVERYONE THE YEERKS INJURE?, SHOULDN'T THE CHEE SUFFER A LOGIC SHORT BECAUSE OF THIS?, IF NOT THEN WHY AREN'T THEY CHANNELING HUGE AMOUNTS OF INFORMATION TO THE ANIMORPHS, G O D

from the tags on this recap of Book 10 which is 95% complaining about the Chee in case you want to read my short essay on the matter of why one of the Chee should have just taken it in the teeth and reprogrammed themselves with the Crystal

So, yeah, we can talk about the Chee.  First of all, because I’m getting exasperated with the people being snide about my breakdown of why Rogue One dying works narratively by saying “well, they die because they’re not in the original series” LIKE SOMEHOW I’M NOT AWARE, let me just say this.  I understand on a Doylist level why the Chee don’t do anything dramatic.  It would make the series very short.  The fact that they don’t do a goddamn THING to help the Animorphs on the argument of ‘nonviolence’, however, means that I reserve the right to dislike them.

Second of all, I am strictly pro-choice in terms of violence against oppressive individuals, whether it’s real-world Nazis or fictional brain-stealing aliens.  You always have the choice to not get physically violent, and my judgement against the Chee has nothing to do with that.

My judgement against the Chee is this: you do not have the option to stand the fuck back and do nothing while a bunch of fucking teenagers fight and risk their lives every day!!!!!

Like!

No!  No, you do not get to do that!  And like we hear about the Chee acting as spies from time to time, but WHAT DO THEY ACTUALLY DO.  They bring the Animorphs additional problems to deal with at the last second, but offer extremely minimal help in dealing.  Like, fuck, the whole Anti-Morphing Ray debacle in Book 33?  The Chee totally could have just smashed a motherfucker.  It’s a piece of fucking machinery, it’s not going to do anyone any harm if they just slip in and destroy it and wipe the hard drive containing the plans.  They could bring the Animorphs a list of known Controllers.  They’ve already comprehensively infiltrated the Sharing--they could tell the Animorphs who the important players there are.  They could hack the Yeerk communications and keep the Animorphs updated, or, hey, hack the Yeerk communications so that the Animorphs could more effectively harass Andalite High Command into bring in the big guns.  Jesus Christ, if those are too close to ‘doing harm,’ they could just bother to show up when the Animorphs are going to major battles and provide holographic cover for their retreat--NOPE, NO HUMAN CHILDREN HERE, ONLY A WALL.

And before anyone gets on my ass about “well, if they brought the Animorphs a list of Controllers, the Animorphs would use it to do harm to the Yeerks in question so the Chee can’t” like excuse the fuck out of me, but no.  If that’s true--if the Chee are prohibited from doing things that can cause harm at a degree of remove like that--they’re fucked and should have closed up shop due to a logic paradox years ago.  Sure, helping the Animorphs leads to harm being done to the Yeerks, but by not taking that step when they are fully capable of doing so, the Chee are allowing the Yeerks to do harm to human beings, living sentient creatures who should be protected under that mandate.  So quod erat demonstratum and kiss my ass.

AND BOOK 26.

Right, now, I love Book 26, it’s actually one of my favorite books for Erek, because it actually acknowledges that just because he can’t kill the Howlers himself he still very obviously wants them dead and it’s maybe the best of the Chee’s books for showcasing that nonviolence does not equal moral right.  

HOW SO, VODKA TIA, HOW SO.  

Well, actually I prefer gin, but I’m so glad you asked, because listen: the Howlers are all children.  That actually has very little impact on the overall morality of the Animorphs’ fight against them--they’re fighting for their lives and self-defense covereth a multitude of sins--but it’s a crucial detail.  The Howlers are monsters and murderers, yes, but they’re also victims of their own creator.  Their life span isn’t three years, Crayak kills them after three years--they’re grown to fight his battles and then he executes them en masse before they can hit any sort of morality development.  It’s actually a brilliant way to keep his army of killers ‘pure.’  The Howlers do not reproduce and thus do not evolve, they are not raised and thus do not learn, and they are killed at three years old and thus do not live long enough to discover morality.  But especially for the Animorphs, who fight against Controllers every day--Controllers who might have agreed to this, but who might be prisoners and puppets and victims--that information has a lot of weight.

And clearly, clearly, Erek knows this.  Otherwise why would he keep the information from them?  He knows that discovering that the Howlers are children will affect the way the Animorphs fight them--and he’s right, it’s definitely a factor in why they try to find an out that doesn’t require them to kill the Howlers, even though that kind of backfires.  And Erek keeps that information from the Animorphs because “they killed my creators” and honestly he wants to see them pay.  

Erek knows the Animorphs well by this point.  He knows that the Yeerks came to their home world and, despite all the pain and nightmares and trauma, the Animorphs have diligently rained Hell down upon them in retribution.  And he wants that.  He wants the Animorphs to take his revenge for him, and I think that’s a lot of how the Chee look at the situation.  I think that they don’t see kids (if they did, they would take steps accordingly, because oh my God they are children please offer them literally any help), they don’t even really see soldiers (SEE THE ABOVE RE: WHAT DO THE CHEE EVEN DO)--they see a weapon.  Not one that the Chee themselves would use, no, Heaven forfend, but if the weapon fires itself...  If in firing the weapon benefits them...  If the weapon takes their vengeance and does their violence and protects their interests....

Well, then, are the Chee really doing harm at all?

[poquizbee09-blog]

                                                   Whiplash

                                               The Movie Summary

The film starts with a beat of drums played by Andrew Neiman, the main hero of the movie, who is an aspiring drummer to give greatness and retain passion. Andre trains himself with his drumming styles and suddenly stops when he sees a band conductor, Terence Fletcher appearing himself in to the room and surprisingly asks George of his personal information. When he stops playing Terence asks him why he stopped. And when Andrew starts playing again, he is asked why he started again when he is not asked to do so. While Andrew plays, Terence leaves and closes the door but he comes back to retrieve his forgotten jacket.  The next day, Andrew enters one music class and there he meets Ryan Connelly. Then, the professor came in and the band performs a piece. Andrew curiously sees a man in silhouette looking through the glass door. After class, he peeked in to one room and there he sees band training and also sees Fletcher and gets surprise when Terence looks at him. Later, back at the studio, while Andrew is playing as a core drummer, Fletcher breaks inside the studio and starts evaluating every bassist and cellist and all, and finally, the drummers. After, Terence asks Andrew to come at his room tomorrow at 6. Then Andrew meets Nicole, a girl working in the cinema, and asks her to go out with him. The next day, Andrew thinks he is late and leaves for class. Struggling and running, he enters an empty room. He waited for hours and the band members enter the room for the practice. And at exactly 9 am, Fletcher enters and conducts and seems everyone is horrified of him. The band plays a piece and Fletcher observes that there is one instrument ha is played out-of-tune. He yelled at the musician to go out of the room and continues practicing. And again continues the practice with the song entitled “Whiplash”. Andrew plays the core drummer in a piece and unfortunately he plays out of tempo. Until Fletcher lost his temper, he throws a chair at Andrew, fortunately he dodged it. Terence slaps Andrew at every 4 of 12 counts and brags him about his personal matters, slaps him again and yells about his broken family and tells him to shout that he is upset, louder in front of the band mates. Andrew fees nothing but embarrassment. Andrew keeps practicing until blood comes out of his fingers and still beats he drums despite of all his pain. In a music competition, a core drummer, Tanner, gives his music sheets to Andrew. He puts the music sheets on a bench to buy a can of coke in an automated vending machine. Tanner arrives, asking for his music sheets and mysteriously disappears. Tanner can’t play the drums. So, Andrew becomes the core drummer onstage for he believes he knows the beat of “Whiplash” by heart. The next day, the practice begins and Andrew wins Tanner’s spot; he is now the new core drummer. He next song to practice is entitled “ caravan” and there is a par ha needs a fast speed for the drums part. Andrew screwed up and then me meets Ryan Connelly, a drummer from other class. Fletcher evaluates Andrews skill on the he doesn’t get the beats well and as for Conelly, he played well. And so, Fletcher gives the spot for Conelly as the core drummer but Andrew disagrees for he believes that he did the hardest to earn that spot. Andrew breaks up with Nicole, explaining that his ambition would be just a hindrance to their relationship. At home, he practices every piece they practice at school and prepares a pitcher of water with ice in case he bleeds. Without further depression due to the required tempo not being reached, he punches slams the drums and we could see he dips his hand covered with blood into the pitcher.  At the studio, Fletcher reveals about the death of one of his students due to car accident. And as they start practicing, Andrew and other candidates for the core drummer show Fletcher their skills for the required tempo for the piece but failed. And when it is Andrew’s turn, Fletcher observes carefully and he sees the failure of  Andrew, he throws a drum away and yells at Andrew to speed up the tempo until his fingers reveal blood. Then Fletcher announces that Andrew earns the part. Another music competition came. Andrew rents a car to be able to come at the venue, and as he arrives he then forgot to bring with him his drumsticks, and so, he goes back to the car rental to retrieve his drumsticks. And as he drives, a truck crashes on his car. He then goes out of the car while gripping his drumsticks, and then he runs to the venue and enters the stage covered with blood all over his face. The band performs and suddenly his drumsticks fell. Fletcher says that he is done. Andre attacks Fletcher in front of the audience. Andrew is expelled from his school and the lawyer of the student involved in a car accident explained to Andrew that he actually hung himself due to depression and that he is in Fletcher’s class. Andrew agreed to testify against Fletcher. Later, Andrew goes in to a bar and sees Fletcher playing a piano harmoniously. Fletcher finishes his piece and as he exits the stage, he sees Andrew. He talks to Andrew about stuffs and gradually invites him to play for his band. Andrew thinks it would be fine and so he agrees. On stage, Fletcher tells Andrew that he knows that he testified against him. And so, Andrew, shocked seeing the band mates holding a music sheet of a piece he doesn’t know. As a result, he messes up the performance. Fletcher insults Andrew and Andrew, being confident of what he is capable of, shows off the required tempo of the drums and the band mates join him.  Fletcher is mad at first but when he witnesses the solo part of Andrew, he finally nods, signature of accepting Andrew who is achieving greatness. With that nod, the film closes.

                                              The Movie Review

“Struggles are real, bear and deal with it otherwise you will gain nothing.”

With the cinematic adrenaline type of film that is giving me strong chills inside and out of my perspective that I could barely watch how the main character suffers before reaching his dream; to become an acknowledged drummer. Cheers for the worth and him being able to do everything he is capable; whether it is struggling, suffering, or and so.

From the day everybody was born, each already has the dream that is inside of us, though we aren’t aware about it, it is there.

 Say it for instance, a child takes her/his first steps by first thumping and falling on the ground then cries. These are the boundaries to the child being able to walk. Generally, in life, one must struggle and get hurt first for it may become a lesson to everyone to strive better and get our acts together and do whatever it takes for our dreams.

With the film’s shocking twists and turns each and every scene, one folder made the whole dream and effort go upside down and dragged everyone down.

Pity is he who lost the part in the show which was given to other person. With that scene, I believe that to get a grip of your dream is to get a grip of yourself through its hindrances.

Personally I don’t have a character that caught me much interest in but I probably choose Charlie as my favorite character in the movie. It is because he is very well fit to his role as the antagonist. Commonly, antagonists are known as the badass roles in every film, novel, etc, but in the end of the film, he finally notices and acknowledged the protagonist’s potential as an aspiring drummer. With his deep voice and intimidating look, he made his overall appearance deserves a huge thumbs up.

Being scolded in front of so many people can makes you think you wanna get swallowed by the ground. It might be the scariest horror story of life you could ever have. Remembering the time I felt embarrassed due to mistakes I have done unnoticeable. So apparently, everything went smooth until I was called by my name (mic’s on; heard by the entire student body) telling me well scolding me for what I did wrong. As I junior high schooler back then, I cried due to depression and thought I should be more careful to avoid mistakes. Never let anyone drag you down because the only person who could help you follow your dreams is you, yourself.

I won’t ask any question to this character but I would just want to congratulate him because he made me mad from the first time I saw him till the end of the film. Mr. Fletcher,you really made me want to kick your ass not to mention I really like your eyes. Congrats!

Well then that is how I view the movie entitled “Whiplash”.  At first, I honestly thought this is related to a beach or sea type of film which everyone wants to get drown whenever they want to but unfortunately what I predicted didn’t click. But still I liked the movie. Two words for this movie and the characters, Right Decisions. Wanna see blood onstage? Watch Whiplash, it’s insane.

[lovethediseasedkillerpuppy]

12x22 recap

The good, the bad & the ugly. A lot of ranting & a lot of Dean feels & Ackles praise. No sugar to be found in my coating. 

Ahoy lazy writing! That spell stuff. Smh. Ok Dean ilu but “Let's Shawshank this bitch” really? Ya do remember how that took years to do. This idea was ridiculous. Why are the writers hell-bent on making the brothers look incompetent this season?

“How did this happen?” ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME RN SAM I HAVE AN IDEA.

“Blaze of glory...sonuvabitch.” Now THAT is my Dean. A crazy as shit idea, but one that actually has a chance of working.

DEAN FINALLY GETS TO USE THE LAUNCHER HE IS SO HAPPY I LOVE IT.

On the other hand; “big, beautiful & dumb” fuck you, writers.

“yippee ki yay mother...” BOOM. This is why Jensen was excited abt 12x22. Nothing will convince me otherwise.

“Aww, ya wanna play mother to my son? He's all yours.” Ik I've said this half the season now, but DIE MARY.

Sam's speech: Y'all weren't dumb enough to fall for the BMOL bullshit like me & my mom but now they're trying to kill us all so let's team up & take them down. WHO IS WITH ME!1!11

Dean: “I'm not going.” In an extremely long list of shitting on Dean S12 has done THIS FUCKING TOOK THE CAKE. Oh yeah, go ahead Sam, go to your possible death, I'm gonna sit back here & deal with mom..smth that could totally be dealt with AFTER THE MAJOR SHOWDOWN YOU'RE GOING TO, but for Reasons I am, for the 1st time in 12 seasons, going to just chill on the bench voluntarily. It's not like I've spent the entire series protecting you at all costs...nah, I'll send ya off on your own, you got this. Yeah, sound totally in character, the Dean we all know. Great job bo bo. At least now that nickname makes sense bc this writing is nothing short of a joke. Oh but by all means, throw in an old line to garner nostalgia & a bro hug to distract us from this horse shit. All better now.

Dean & Mary scenes. All.The.Feels. At first Dean is trying to get her attention, thinking she's trapped...but then everything shifts when he realizes she wants to be in there. “I hate you.” AHHHH I screamed at my TV, seriously. That was sooooo huge for Dean, so hard & so needed to be said. Then it just gets so much more painful from there…

Tbh I'm too bitter that Dean was benched to give any fucks abt any of this BMOL shootout so moving along…

Back to Dean...ok this dialogue was a lot of shit. But I'll focus on Jensen's phenomenal performance before I complain abt that…

Dean calling Mary on her shit *standing ovation* Tell that bitch, Dean! “I had to be a father and I had to be a mother. To keep him safe. And that wasn't fair.” I HAVE WAITED 12 SEASON FOR THIS!

But here's where things go to shit…

“I couldn’t do it.” Seriously? You’re gonna put the shit that happened on him. Okay, sounds fake, but ok. I guess it’s fitting with the shit hole speech ya had him say next.

Sam this...Sam that...Sam Sam SAM. DEAN IF I'M NOT MISTAKEN YOU WENT TO HELL & YOU WERE TORTURED THERE YOUR LIFE WASN'T FREAKING PUPPIES & RAINBOWS EITHER. Would it have been that fucking difficult to put WE went to Hell, WE were tortured??? SOME acknowledgment that Mary ruined his life too??? It's Dean, so yes the focus is always going to be on someone else's hardships more than his own but leaving every other word the same & just switching WE in those 2 parts would have made all the difference in the world. But no. Dean doesn't matter. He isn't of import to these writers.

Back to Jensen's performance…

“I hate you. I hate you...and I love you. Cause I can't..I can't help it cause you're my mom. And I understand bc I have made deals to save the ones I love. More than once. I forgive you. I forgive you..for all of it..everything.”

The way his voice breaks on the 2nd I hate you /gross sobbing!!! This was so utterly heartbreaking on a number of levels. Dean, the guy who has put his family before everything else, who's mom was the one pure relationship he had-his go to happy place...and he's admitting out loud that he hates her. That was huge...& monumentally difficult. And his follow up “I love you bc I can't help it, ur my mom” that's part of why it was so hard on him. It's beaten into us by society to love our parents but society never factors in that some parents DON'T deserve our love. Kids don't wanna tell their parents they hate them, no matter how much the parent earned it. We're bombarded from an early age to love our parents & if not, if a child dares to question that love then THEY are seen as the ones in the wrong. In general, society doesn't account for horrible parents & kids who have them end up feeling shame &/or guilt over not loving them but they don't have to. You don't have to love a shitty parent any more than you have to love any other person who mistreats you.

The forgiving part. I've seen a lot of Dean fans unhappy he forgave her when she clearly didn't earn it but I have to disagree. The forgiveness had nothing to do with Mary & everything to do with Dean. Look how relieved he is when he says it. Dean had been carrying that bottled up hatred towards Mary his whole life & it got so much worse after her return. That's not good for anyone. Him saying “I forgive you” wasn't letting her off the hook or making everything she'd done ok, it was taking the weight off HIS shoulders of hating a parent. Having hate for someone you also love. That shit fucks with your head. Openly forgiving her was beneficial to HIM. If it made Mary feel better idgaf, the point is that Dean needed to do it for his own sake & that's why I liked it. That's why I won't add it to the list of “Dean apologizing to everyone” bc in this case it was in his best interest & that's what matters. As for Jensen, what can I say that won't sound like a broken record lol. He continues to amaze. He brought you right into that scene & you felt everything right along with Dean.

The Dean & Ketch fight. I waited so damn long for Dean to be able to his this asshole! But of course Mary kills him bc S12 Dean is a pacifist. WTF was that shit, seriously? Ketch is supposed to be a match to Dean but a little bullet to the shoulder & he's on his knees whining?? This is the killing machine the season built up as the big scary bad?? Lemme go vomit, brb. And what was with the “I knew you were a killer, you both are.” crap? Did he get some satisfaction in the last few seconds of his life to say I told you so? Lame ass end to a lame as plot.

Back to w/e the hell Sam was doing…

The umbridge bitch wasn't happy. Sam why the hell haven't you shot her yet? You dumb shit. He just stands there listening to her bullshit. SERIOUSLY SAM WHY IS SHE STILL ALIVE? Oh take out the scary computer, that helped a lot. At least Jody was around this time or Sam probly would've joined her team again.

Mary: blah blah a lot of excuses & justifying blah blah blah...BUT STILL NO GOD DAMN APOLOGY. I know “I'm sorry” is just words & actions speak louder but it's a damn start.

Oh but by all means, throw in another hug to distract the fans. Group hug=all is well with them. Sure, Jan.

Overall this ep was mediocre...which is an improvement on most of the season, but other than Dean finally getting to use the grenade launcher & Jensen killing us with the Mary flashbacks, it was poorly written & rushed.

[purgatoryandme]

Really though, I didn’t want to go off too much about good teachers and parents cause like...most people on here aren’t old enough to try and be those sorts of things themselves? But it’s also A Big Important Subject to me.  Good teachers have been the only reason I have progressed as far as I have. I’ve fluctuated wildly between between an average student to the top of my class. I’ve been a fantastic athlete who then immediately dropped the sport. I’ve half-learned dozens of things. My successes, the things I stuck with, all hinged on good teachers.  I don’t just mean the kind of people who teach material well. I mean the people who teach PEOPLE well.  I hated physics in high school. I was bad at it right from the start. I’m a perfectionist, so I wanted to leave the subject in the dust and never come back to it. But my PHYSICS TEACHER was a huge pain in my ass.  You see, after fucking up innumerable times, I finally went to his desk in near-tears and asked him to explain something to me. He tried in like...three different ways. It didn’t work, I got angry (with myself), then I tried to leave.  Now listen, this man had made fun of me and everyone else in my class on countless occasions. He was kind of an asshole. But he stopped me from walking off and asked me to work on my homework in the room while he trained the rowing team after school. He said he’d check on it for me.  I wanted to say no SO BADLY, but his offer was clearly genuine and I just...I wanted to stop screwing up.  I did everything wrong lmao. I would start off right, then wander completely off course with the problems. He wouldn’t let me say I was bad at it, though. He also wouldn’t make excuses for me. Instead, he pointed out what I did right, found the first thing I had done wrong, and went back through the problem with me from the beginning.  I’ve never forgotten how to do kinematics. It’s been years and I still know how to do it right. Because it was important to him, it was important to me.  I loved that man. I was a surly, bitter, stressed-out teenager when I started that class. By the end of it, I treated that man like he was my father. I still remember when he offered popcorn to the class, a kind of “congrats on the end of the semester” thing, and nobody took it. As I said, he was kind of an asshole.  But I remember the look on his face when I took some. And when I gave some to other people.  He was absolutely delighted. He really just wanted us to be happy and I’ve never gotten over it.  He was even happier when I took the next level of his class.

I had a math professor in my first year of university who was just...in love with teaching. He was awkward and nervous and so new to it...but he got to know us. He put in the effort to learn all of our names, apologized when he messed up (and would come into class the next week with determination to get it right), and tried to tell us about movies, music, and all the math things he thought were cool.  Math was a puzzle to him, so he never ran out of approaches. When someone didn’t get something, he took it in stride. There was never a,  “But it’s easy!”  Or a frustrated blank stare. Instead, he’d talk about the goal and all the many valid ways to get there.  “This equation isn’t wrong.” I remember him telling us,  “It’s not what I taught you, but you see how it fits in here? It’ll give you the right answer, though not in every situation.” His class was a class on ingenuity. He learned how all of us thought because of it. When it came time for exams or assignments, he knew our own process as well as we did.  I’ve never had a professor give me personalized hints before or after him. I still hope there’s someone else like him out there. I worked hard for him and my marks were astoundingly high. (He knew I love walling off problems with brute force, finding all the limits and closing in on them, and used my own wording to help me remember something. I’m never going to forget that) 

In organic chemistry, I hadn’t been taught a series of concepts correctly in the previous semester. I tried to express this to my professor, but wound up just saying, “I’m bad at this.” I was a little offended at first when he told me not to talk about myself like that and, admittedly, was pretty unhappy with him when he told me to stay back after lecture. It was embarrassing to go through something simple with him again and again... But he identified all my problems with the concept. Then he reworded, redrew, and generally twisted the concept this way and that until I got it.  “You see,” He told me,  “You aren’t bad this. It just wasn’t speaking your language.” He would speak to me occasionally after lecture, toying with my knowledge of his lectures, poking at the gaps that I had. He designed all of his assignments to hit on mechanisms from as many different angles as possible.  He catered to the individuals in the room, not a set average.  Nobody ever skipped his class, even though it was at 8:30 am 3 times a week.  I might not’ve done amazingly on his exam, but I have never been more proud of my performance. Having him congratulate me on the way out meant more than a 90 ever could’ve. 

I came out of my first year of university angry. I walked into my second year hopeful, then tried to walk out of it bitter beyond belief. I still think I would have crashed and burned absolutely if it hadn’t have been for the two people who proved they cared.  You see, a lot of personal interactions with authority figures in my university...wasn’t good. It was oppressive in ways that would take too long to discuss.  But there were two professors who cried when they saw me break down in tears. Who listened to my accusations and who, though they flinched away many times, asked what they could do.  Ms. S did whatever she could to encourage my work in the things I liked. She talked about her own work with me, prompted my interest in history to continue, and tried to give all the feedback she could.  Mr. H entrusted us with his heart and soul with this program. His emotional attachment to it, to us, was the only thing keeping me in class some days.  I’m still grateful to them both.

When I was still a teenager, I used to fence at a club. I think I wanted to build arm strength? I can’t remember why I enrolled. 

The instructor was a oddball who kicked my feet whenever they were out of line and jabbed at my shoulders when my stance slumped. He’d manhandle us all into position and drill us with basic concepts one by one, distracting us with stories of his blues band.  I was still so argumentative back then. Always ready to get into a fight, always a sore loser, always frustrated when I did something badly.  He’d make me practice with him one-on-one whenever I got too worked up. Tired me out with basic drills. Switched them up on me whenever I got too cocky. Ended it with a salute that said he respected me, a hand on my shoulder, and a question about my day. I was an absolute sucker for it. I worked hard to impress him, to make him proud, and I got good. And now, I’ve come back to the sport years later. I wouldn’t have if it wasn’t for him.

My teachers in high school let me roam free. They let me goof off because they saw I was trying. They let me gossip with them because they saw how much I benefitted from adult interaction. They indulged my projects, set me up with advanced materials, and let me...be me.  Sure, sometimes their concern was overbearing. Sometimes their advice was unsolicited. Sometimes they straight up didn’t understand me.  But the fact that they LIKED me, wanted me specifically to do well, and acknowledged my needs brought me from a 70% average to tying for the top mark in science overall. It won me scholarships. It got me into a top university program.  Without them, I wouldn’t have been able to continue moving forward.  Good teachers are so important. Support systems mean so much more than “natural intelligence”.