#it's a gunn thing on that level and every other one

[exploding-goobery]

RE the tags

Yes it's very fun then bam emotional devastation

G.I. Robot and Nina Mazursky Creature Commandos Season 1 Episode 3

[the-cat-and-the-birdie]

Also don't think anyone has said this (thats a joke) but like, art styles aside:

The animation, expressions, movement, everything of ATSV is IMPECCABLE.

Like insanely, ridiculously, almost mind bogglingly good.

[This is a MEDIUM length post]

The main strength is the Emotion -

In terms of animation, the range of emotions Miguel is capable of expressing is like... crazy good. Gwen's emotions ARE UNSPEAKABLY IMPRESSIVE.

LIKE...ANIMATING HER FUCKING BREATHING???? AND BLINKS!! AS AN EMOTIONAL CUE. HELLO???!!

And the movie hinges on this - almost every scene has an emotional cue that HAS to hit. Whether is Jess's looks of hesitation or Peter B.'s looks of horror.

And this may seem like the most ridiculous comparison ever made but like...

The Bee Movie and Across the Spider-Verse came out FIFTEEN YEARS APART.

THE BEE MOVIE...THIS MONSTRASITY that has plagued humankind - was made less than two decades from THIS:

The fact that we progressed that far as a society (pun intended) in that short of a time will never not baffle me.

I genuinely cannot name any other animated movie that:

Has multiple styles throughout the duration

Can seamlessly change styles without the viewer immediately noticing (like Gwen returning to her universe)

Show two or more animation styles on screen at the same time (and no, Roger Rabbit and Space Jam don't count - that's half live action lol)

Just off the top of my head - ATSV shows up to three styles in one scene: I'm mainly thinking of the scene that shows Hobie (customized - style 1), Peter B. (standard - style 2), and Miguel (a light stylized - style 3).

It can be brought to four if you want to count Miles/Gwen, though their style isn't visible.

I can think of a couple scenes that genuinely blew me away in terms of animation -

One being Rio's 'What-EVER?!' because of the little stance correction and head bob she does, because it's such a natural thing to do. And it adds so much to an already perfect line.

It's something someone would genuinely do IRL without even noticing.

Another I LOVE is Pavitr and Hobie roughhousing.

Like, I can't yell about these five seconds of animation more.

It's SO fluid it looks like Motion-Capture and I left the theatre googling is any Mo-Cap was used in the movie (and from what I can tell - no, it's all original animation).

The way Pavitr falls to the side and bumps them - This not only being a natural reaction to Hobie and his weight, but it also LOOKS natural. So much so you can see it affect Hobie's model too. The movement has kinetic energy on both models -

Which is AMAZING CONSIDERING THEY'RE ANIMATED ON LIKE FOUR DIFFERENT TIMES.

In this shot alone, there's the guitar, vest, AND Hobie, all of which have their own animation rules. Plus the outline on his guitar AND him. And then there PAVI too, who's running at a higher frame rate, touching and interacting with Hobie.

So much so that Hobie's model nearly wraps himself around Pavi. Pavi's hair is moving, Hobie's guitar is moving, there's movement in the background - and it looks GREAT.

PLUS THE CAMERA IS MOVING AND GOSTLING. IT'S NOT A STATIC SHOT. The models and camera are moving AS IF THEY'RE REAL when they're not.

That's - My..I CAN EVEN COMPUTE THAT.

But by far, I think the range of expression used on Miguel is like... Chef's kiss.

(of course I was gonna trick you into reading another post about Miguel. Uh-huh that's what's about to happen)

Like... are you kidding me?

NAH DEADASS ARE YOU KIDDING ME?????

The whole later half of the movie hinges on Miguel looking buckwild crazy insane and they NAIL that. And like-

Oh my god what the actual fuck

?????????????????????????? I........ I have nothing to add. After that picture......Nah... LMAOOO

(left: actual photo of Moche watching this happen)

But Anyway chile, This movie is like.. genuinely a modern marvel.

If Marvel gave Tim Gunn 4 billion dollars and five years, whatever live-action rendition he would have made would not even compare to ATSV on any conceivable level - that's how good it is so jot that down.

And like...don't even get me started on Hobie..his design..his representation...girl I will start crying in this Arby's do not play with me

I just felt that needed to be said.

you get what I'm saying yall know what I mean iight coo

Here's a picture of Hobie to cleanse your palette.

Bye.

[sarcasticace]

Episode 7. Little bit of a live reaction. The opening, very tragic. Very emotional. But the dialogue, I can't help it, its so funny. "Doctor, this is beyond me, but you are the worlds leading most expect. So smart and handsome. And cool too. If anyone can save her, it would be you." I'm exaggerating just a bit like I do, but really.... they were laying it on real thick.

But that's not what I want to talk about. I love how every member of the creature commandos, more or less, are different kinds of monsters. Either literally, they are a robotic killing machine or walking, talking corpse. Or it their nature/origin story are metaphors for what 'a monster' means in our society.

Nina is an outcast. The whole group are a bunch of outcasts, yes, I know, but Nina was born into the world of humans. As was Dr. P, but unlike him, Nina never fit in. Dr. P lived most of his life as part of the human world. He had a childhood. Fell in love. Had a daughter. Then as an adult, he was pushed to his limits. Broken. Had everything taken from him. By the greedy and corrupt who didn't see him as an equal. As lesser. Someone who they can inflict harm onto because who gives a shit about anyone who isn't on their level. Everyone else is less important than the pursuit of profit. And how dare he threaten that profit. Everything was taken from him until the only thing left was his rage.

On the other hand, Nina never fit in. She was bullied. Rejected. Other-ed. Her being a monster is a very obvious, not at all subtle metaphor for how society treats people who do not fall within the expected standard of how we should look, act, etc. I could go on but I think a lot of us here get it or know what that's like. To be treated like a freak for being different in some way that someone doesn't like or thinks is abnormal. Nina never connected with other humans. She connected with other 'monsters'. That is where she finally fit in.

And then, MAJOR SPOILER ALERT, Nina dies. Seemingly. Most likely. Yeah, she's dead. No coming back from that. And as much as I'm sad that she's gone, in terms of the narrative, it was necessary. She was a casualty, an unnecessary casualty, of the actions of humans being awful to one another. Nina was never a monster. Waller was the monster. The princess was the monster. But Nina was an 'other'. She was expendable in Waller's eyes. That's why she was put on the Creature Commandos. Sent off to fight wars that weren't hers to fight. To suffer on their behalf so the humans don't have to. Die on their behalf. also of course nina dies and GI robot turns out to have been rebuilt. now its his turn to mourn her fuck you james gunn. Humans keep on being awful and we monsters pay the price.

Except this one time where the bride says fuck you.

[everygame]

Lococycle

Developed/Published by: Twisted Pixel Games / Microsoft Game Studios Released: 22/11/2013 Completed: 17/01/2025 Completion: Finished it.

Picked this one up because I saw Coury from My Life in Gaming recommend it, somewhat out of nowhere on the channel’s “The Games We Played in 2024” episode (always extremely enjoyable). It caught my eye particularly because it features FMV with James Gunn (filmed basically seconds before he’d take off with Guardians of the Galaxy), Tom Savini and Lloyd Kaufman, and that’s… really weird! It feels like something I’d have noticed at the time, not least because Twisted Pixel were on my radar as one of the teams of the “Xbox Live Arcade” era (thanks to releases like ‘Splosion Man.)

Well, I learned I’d missed not just Lococycle but a lot in the last decade, because not only had they moved on from being a Microsoft Games studio, they’d actually become part of Meta (boo!!!) and have spent their time making VR games for an audience of I assume very few, which is a bit of a bummer. Their last release was short VR beat-em-up Path of the Warrior in 2019, so I hope they’re doing alright (trying to destroy Meta from within, preferably.)

Anyway, I have to remark that it’s absolutely hilarious that I’d somehow manage to play two games in a row that heavily feature a character called Iris, except in this case she’s a sentient motorbike that can’t speak Spanish. 

Yep, there’s no throughline with 1000xRESIST here [“no one would have imagined there was”--Ed.] though I have to say I’m impressed with just how stupid Lococycle is willing to be. It feels like a game where everything about it was decided based on the phrase “it would be funny if..” and then no one bothered to check if it that was actually that funny or not. I mean, this is a game where the main gag is that you’re controlling a bike that has a mechanic being dragged behind it because his trouser leg is tangled on the bike’s exhaust! And then the guy is played by Freddy Rodríguez in the FMV! That guy’s a real actor!

The game itself is pretty simple, but I’m going to go ahead and say it’s a pretty clever way for them to do a narrative game without having to resort to making something that’s not much more than a visual novel–or making it possible for the player to mess too much with the pacing based on how they play. Because every level has a constant forward momentum (you’re on a bike!) each level essentially runs on a timeline–waves of enemies and narrative hit when they want it to.

But it doesn’t entirely feel on-rails; you have to control the bike, and there’s just (just) enough variety to cover the game’s four hour runtime. You have the basic, Spy Hunter “chase and shoot enemies”, then a take on the classic Arkham Asylum counter combo system, and finally a bunch of quick time events that are (thankfully) easy and I believe impossible to actually fail. There’s a few other mini-games (one to repair the bike via on-screen inputs, etc.) and a mild upgrade system, too.

It’s nothing that special, and I think it could still have been a bit shorter (you’re definitely done with it at the end) but it’s all rewarding enough in the moment. The FMV videos really stand out because they have the strange pacing of low budget regional filmmaking and the non-sequitur dialogue is, if not improvised, amusingly non-professional. I can imagine lots of people being turned off by this, but I’m someone who seeks out things like Shower of Screams and is in heaven for the entire running time (seriously, watch it) so the entirely “off” nature of all the FMV here is a rare pleasure–it’s not intentionally bad in a way you’re meant to enjoy ironically, it’s just… awkward, and that awkwardness gets you on side. You find it charming.

I mean they managed to get Robert Patrick to play an evil motorbike and read some of the daftest dialogue he’s probably ever had put in front of him, and watching it you just think how lovely it is that he doesn’t take himself too seriously.

Anyway. Sure, Lococycle isn’t the greatest but I appreciate that there’s nothing else out there like it!

Will I ever play it again? I can’t imagine that I will.

Final Thought: For any historians out there, something really wonderful about the release is that there’s so much behind the scenes documentation in the game, with videos of all their shooting days and loads of photos of concept art and renders. I don’t get the sense that this did particularly well (it was an Xbox One launch title, oof) but I love that if you want to know literally everything there is to know about this game, it’s all right there!

Every Game I’ve Finished 14>24 is OUT NOW! You can pick it up in paperback, kindle, or epub/pdf. You can also support Every Game I’ve Finished on ko-fi! You can pick up digital copies of exp., a zine featuring all-exclusive writing at my shop, or join as a supporter at just $1 a month and get articles like this a week early.

[rock-and-compass]

Angel Season 5 - Episode 19 – Time Bomb

(I wrote this series of essays many years ago, probably around the time that the season 8 comics were being published. The were originally published on my LiveJournal and I'm re-posting them here, mostly for personal archival purposes.)

A time bomb, as any of us who’ve watched cartoons or action flicks would know, is an explosive device that is designed to go off at a particular set time. It is also a colloquial saying that is used to describe a person (or situation) that is expected to explode or go pear-shaped at any moment. There are many time bombs in this episode; Illyria, on the point of atomic-level molecular breakdown; Angel and his situation, yeah, the one that has had him careering towards breaking point all season long, and Team Angel itself, fractured, bruised, depleted and with trust in very low supply. Time Bombs each and every one all going tick, tick, tick…

Time bomb opens in Gunn’s torture basement. He’s lying there on his slab waiting for dissection, just as he’s done every day since he took up residency there. But today is different. Today, with the subtlety of an earthquake, Illyria comes to his rescue. She makes short work of the torturer demon, rips the necklace from Charles’ neck causing the return of memories and self-awareness. She orders him to move. Although not averse to the idea of leaving, he tries to explain the conundrum of the chamber; that a void cannot exist, that someone must wear the necklace in his place to facilitate their departure. Illyria is perplexed for a mere fraction of a second. The solution presents itself as the dungeon master charges towards them. Illyria cocks her head sideways and knows precisely what to do; let the beast be the bearer of the pendent.

Back at the office Wesley and Angel bicker over Illyria’s ‘mission’ to rescue Gunn. Wesley denies ‘sending her’ and really, as if he could wield that kind of influence with the hell-God, to give directorates and make her do his bidding.  Angel is suspicious – why would she help them out? What could it possibly have to gain by taking the risk? Wesley doubts the task poses much danger:

Wesley: She has the power of a god. Angel: She has the ego of a god. Wesley: She was ruler of the world, after all. This sort of thing goes to one’s head.

Wesley! Is this a subtle dig at your master and commander? At Angel, who is ‘king’ and ruler of his little domain and doesn’t like anyone to forget it? Nah, he hasn’t let it go to his head at all (oh, and in case you couldn’t tell, that was my sarcastic voice. Love Angel to bits, but he does like to be the boss and for everyone to know it.). Maybe it’s a case of power-envy?  Wesley, on the other hand is all too aware of his place. He knows he is nothing to Illyria; an amusement, a novelty whose appeal could wear off without notice. Angel doesn’t disagree but suspects that she’s attracted to the power that Wolfram and Hart exudes and theorises that she’s out to get back what was once hers. He doesn’t trust her. She’s too dangerous to have in his kingdom. But Wesley can see potential. If they could just find some way to integrate her into the fold, harness her power – what an asset, what an ally she could be! Wesley is her pseudo-Watcher, she his Potential, he is her teacher and mentor and he’s trying desperately to think of ways to school her into elegant submission. Angel is dubious. He doesn’t see Illyria as a team player. Her priority is power not integration.

The discussion is interrupted by the appearance of a portal through which Illyria pushes Gunn before following herself. She picks Gunn up by the throat, strangling him as she dangles him before Angel and Wes. Angrily, Angel demands that she let him go but Wesley approaches with caution and understanding:

Wesley: Illyria, stop. Illyria: It holds value, worth beyond price. Angel: I said let him- Wesley: Yes, great worth. A great debt, you’re talking of the debt, aren’t you… of what we owe you?  [She drops Gunn to the floor once she is understood] Illyria: Of what you owe me.

She is trying to assert herself; she’s putting her ducks in a row, jockeying for position within this group of lowly beings, biding her time until she can make a move, maneuvering them into her debt. 

Angel: Go team! 

Gunn, completely divested of his usual business suit and tie and now attired in his traditional street wear, goes to his office and sees a pile of files waiting for his attention. The sight is not inviting so he goes to visit Wesley instead. Wesley’s office is in an altogether different kind of disarray; books and papers and charts litter the floor. Wesley is wild and unkempt and completely absorbed in his quest to know what makes Illyria tick. There is a certain awkwardness between Wes and Charles, what with the stabbing and all. They don’t want to rehash the past, besides Gunn’s experience in the holding cell has given him new perspective:

Gunn: I ain’t looking for sorry. Don’t know if I’d accept it. Besides, I just got my heart cut out of my chest everyday for two weeks straight. Compared to what, a little jab in the gut? Kinda over it.

Wesley wonders what he is looking for, but Gunn isn’t entirely sure:

Gunn: I don’t know, a compass maybe. The thing that killed my friend just saved my life. No one knows why. This place just went Poseidon on my ass, I don’t know which way is up.

Wesley says that it’s all about adjustment. Man, have we heard that a lot this season! ‘Adjustment’, ‘it’ll just take a little time’, ‘we all need to adjust’- but that’s the problem in a nutshell!  Each time they nudge themselves a little this way or a little that, each time they make tiny, infinitesimal adjustments to the way of life at Wolfram and Hart they inch further away from their goals, lose sight of their original objectives, become distanced from who they were before they moved in and succumb to the senior partners strategy for nullification. Adjustment is compromise. Compromise, in this situation is corruption of the soul.   

But the boys aren’t seeing the bigger picture. Gunn can’t help but agree that Illyria requires some adjustment. Wesley knows exactly what he means:

Wesley: You can’t…look at her without seeing…her body’s former owner.

And Lorne too:

Gunn: Guess It’s still the headline around here. Lorne: Front page news and a walking obituary. Strange times huh?

God, no wonder they’re verging on crazy! Illyria is Illyria, who killed Fred, Illyria is Fred, an animated corpse, Fred is the woman Wesley loves, they all loved, so beautiful and she looks exactly like… Except that she’s not. She’s Illyria, who thinks she’s still God-king of the universe, who makes this patently obvious by the ‘pure, unadulterated vertigo’ that spills from her mouth every time she opens it. They see them both, at the same time, all the time and, not surprisingly, the effect is completely unsettling.

But Spike has no such issues with identity confusion. As he spars with Illyria he doesn’t hesitate to give as good as he gets. He sees through the façade of physical resemblance, so it doesn’t cloud reality for him. This is not Fred pure and simple. This is something else entirely, he can smell it, and he has no problem hitting it.  Spike has made progress since we last saw them fight. Now he can anticipate her moves and actually land a punch here and there.

Illyria: You’re adapting. Spike: We do that. 

She’s talking to a master of the art here. Spike sees adaptation as learning and takes pride in his progress, it reinforces his humanity.  Illyria sees adaptation as compromise, an admission of weakness; it denies pre-existing omniscience and so therefore should be avoided at all costs.  All season long, adaptation has meant compromise; we’ve been shown that time and time again. So, what is different between Spike and Team Angel’s versions of adaptation?  In short, Team Angel is lacking Spike’s vital ingredient – learning. Team Angel adapted but never learnt. They adapted; they adjusted to life in the firm, but they never learnt to wield the weapon once thought so promising. They didn’t learn what they could about exploiting weakness, anticipating moves, instead they fell for the company line that Wolfram and Hart was all powerful with no weakness whatsoever and so they let themselves be amalgamated into the conglomerate whole. Adaptation without learning is just adjustment.

Spike is not in awe of Illyria. He likens her vertigo, her hyperbole, “when the world met me it shuddered and groaned, it knelt at my feet” to the exaggerated fantasy of a correspondent to a girlie magazine, her self-centric world view as outmoded. Times change and if you don’t change with it then you risk irrelevance (hmmm, didn’t Senior Cinco teach us something incredibly similar?). Despite all his progressive thought, Illyria is still the one with the tricks up her sleeve. She can still bend time, still has almighty power and wants to crush the world like an ant. She scoffs at the pretensions of the humans, even the wealthiest amongst them she considers paupers.

Illyria: To never die…and to conquer all, that is winning.  

Angel calls Spike away from the ‘training session’, Illyria kindly gives him permission to go. Angel says the sessions must stop. Spike objects, says he’s just starting to make headway in figuring her out (though that time-stop thingy is a royal bitch), but Angel is insistent:

Angel: We’re not testing her Spike, she’s testing us.

Angel understands her thirst for power, he knows they ought to be suspicious of her every move and that they shouldn’t be handing her free access to data. She’s too dangerous to have around. At that moment Illyria appears before them, just as suddenly she doubles over as pain grips her. Spike takes credit for the injury:

Spike: Got her winded at least, didn’t I? That’s right little Shiva; reckon you’ll think twice next time.

But if this was the case then the reaction was mighty delayed. We suspect that something is not quite right. Angel calls a team meeting. Illyria is top of the agenda, how to get rid of her, to be precise. 

Spike: So are we talking pasture…or slaughterhouse?

Angel takes the ‘she did it first’ argument. She had no problem killing Fred, so why should they have a problem with terminating Illyria? Wes comes to her defense. What Illyria did was not malicious; he likens the transaction to the detached randomness of a viral infection. Angel accuses Wes of not being able to think clearly because he’s ‘bonded’ with her. Wesley instantly falls into line, sees the situation from his commander’s perspective, or seems to.

Wesley: But she’s unpredictable, dangerous, too powerful a being, too close to being an enemy. Yes, Angel, it’s self-evident. 

Angel wants to find a weakness, vulnerability and a way to kill her. When questioned if he has a problem with this strategy Wesley looks Angel right in the eye and tells him, no, there is no problem. Because they have more than enough problems to worry about. Like the apocalypse that they are right in the middle of, that evil is winning and, oh yeah, they’re playing for the winning side, and they don’t know how to fight an invisible war against an enemy they can’t pin down.  Hamilton arrives at the meeting not at all happy with the astronomical cost of the collateral damage caused by Illyria’s rescue of Gunn and advises that reimbursement will be coming out of their division’s profits. To make matters worse he also has a task, a special request from the Partners, that he’d like Angel to personally oversee. It’s a simple matter but with some very big players. Angel is not overly concerned with getting back into the Senior Partners good graces and says so with belligerent bluntness. Hamilton waves aside Angel’s insolence and recommends Angel to keep his mind on profit making:

Hamilton: Its profits that let you keep this plucky little boatload of good above water. It’s a business boys, not a bat cave. 

It goes right back to the ‘catch’ that Eve told them about right back at the start. To make the business run, they have to make the business run. The rule still applies, same situation and nothing has changed. The senior partners and their liaison are indulgent to a point – as long as they remember there is work to do in between their personal woes and crusading ideals, work that keeps them busy, keeps them distracted from the real game.

Illyria pays a visit to Wesley. She wants to know what day of the week it is in the human cycle. Wesley tells her, after a long moment’s consideration, that it is Monday.

Illyria: This conversation, we’ve had it before

Wes thinks she means they’ve talked about this information before, that he’s taught her about the systems that govern human existence. Illyria is edgy, she seems upset about something; she accuses Wesley of being her betrayer, of wanting to re-write history when he shattered the Orlon window (in Origin). Wesley admits the truth – he wanted Fred back but all he got was more painful memories. 

Wesley: I’ve come to understand how irreversible the works of time are.

Illyria is stung by the betrayal, that to get Fred back he would destroy her, but nevertheless she argues against these foreign feelings:

Illyria: Betrayal was a neutral word in my day, as unjudged a word as water or breeze. No. Or perhaps…I am only bothered because I’m bothered.

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? It sounds suspiciously human to Wesley, and he tells her so. The comparison only irritates her further and she lashes out at her adoptive species:

Illyria: Motes of dust! Mayflies who die so soon after they’re born they might as well not live at all! Wesley: Now, now, manners.

Wesley reprimands her surly behaviour with a flick of his pointed finger. He is not without some power in this ‘relationship’ after all. She may possess physical strength and special abilities, but Wesley can halt her with his words. 

Illyria gets increasingly neurotic. Time doesn’t exist till it cracks apart and Wesley’s concern and opinions weigh less than sunlight. Suddenly she bends over, grips her stomach in agony but when she rights herself again, she is suddenly in the training room. Wesley is pointing a large, futuristic weapon at her; Angel orders “Do it now”. Pain grips her again, abruptly she finds herself back with Angel and Spike 

Spike: Got her winded at least, didn’t I? That’s right little Shiva, reckon you’ll think twice next time.

And we begin to understand that haunted look in those azure eyes. Time is coming unstitched; she’s losing control of her command over time. Time doesn’t exist till it cracks apart…

Another spasm of pain propels her back to Wesley’s office. Another seizure and she lurches forward knocking a glass of water to the floor as she reacts to the pain. Illyria is worried and vexed. She takes it out on Wesley:

Illyria: You tried to murder me! Again.

She lashes out, kicking Wesley’s desk with considerable force, sending it flying across the room and pinning its terrified occupant against the wall. Wesley has no idea what she’s raving about or why she’s so furious. He’s in utter confusion; they’ve already discussed this, and he doesn’t know what she means by ‘again’. He tries to calm and placate her. “I don’t want you dead, believe me.”  But Illyria is unconvinced:

Illyria: I was there; I saw it.    

Gunn goes to see Angel about the Senior Partners special assignment; he needs the boss’ signature on some documentation. Angel inquires as to exactly where Gunn and Hamilton met before (as implied by the liaison at the earlier meeting).  Charles explains that Hamilton visited him in the holding cell and offered him a way out.

Angel: And what’d you say? Gunn: Do you really have to ask me that? Angel: I really do.

That’s how thin the trust is now. Gunn is cut to the quick that Angel even has to ask but trust is not a given at Angel Investigations anymore. Betrayal, whether it be witting or not, is too commonplace now to foster unconditional faith between the remaining members of the team.  Gunn swears he’s not going to make deals anymore – and he doesn’t mean lawyer-type deals, that’s part and parcel of his occupation – he means deals that result in compromise of self, friends and principles. 

Enter a very pregnant young woman. She is there regarding a demon pact, the special project the Senior Partners have sent their way. It seems the baby that the woman is carrying is special, a chosen one named in prophecy and significant to The Fell Brothers, a powerful demon sect. Consequently, the demons are most desirous to arrange to take custody of the child once it is born. Gunn advises that they need to tread carefully; demon law can be tricky and tends to be filled with double talk and obscure clauses. And that’s all well and good except that as representatives of Wolfram and Hart, Angel and Charles are there to represent the interests of the Fell Brethren, not the lady and her unborn child.  

Despite their professional obligation, Angel and Gunn take Amanda (the expectant mother) aside to try to talk her out of giving up her child; but, contrary to expectation, she is quite determined to go through with the deal; she can’t afford the baby, they are living off welfare, her husband has been seriously injured at work and the Brethren have promised to make him well again, plus, they seem to dote on the child and it isn’t even born yet. They can give him a life that she never could.

This sacrifice can’t help but resonate for Angel. He understands, he who gave up his only son to normality for very similar reasons; to give his son something he never could and the faint promise of a medical miracle for a person he loved. Angel knows that these things rarely turn out the way we expect, Connor is no longer protected from ugly past memories and is in full possession of the truth and he didn’t get Cordelia back either. But he understands.

Playing both sides of the fence doesn’t sit well with Charles. He leaves the conference unable to willingly assist this woman in giving up her child. He likens the situation to his holding cell. The fake upstairs life with the wife and the kid and all the icing on the family cake and the nagging certainly that it was all lies designed specifically to hide the ugly truth underneath.

Gunn: Is that what we’re doing here – just hiding the horror? 

Angel denies that this is the case, but Gunn knows better, he’s lost his faith in their work, he can sense the truth. He knows you can’t live on both sides of the fence at the same time. Angel doesn’t want him to give up now. He needs Charles to keep his chin up:

Angel: You have to listen to me Gunn, I need you to get through this, to get through all of it so we can figure out the big picture and plot our next move.

This is revealing. It shows that Angel has been thinking, really thinking about what they are going to do next. Lindsey’s words have been successful, he finally gets it, gets the whole thing – why he was given the job, what the Senior partners wanted to achieve and how he’s played right into their hands. And so, he’s been thinking about how to get out with their skins intact and he needs them all to act like everything is business as usual so that he can plan the great escape. He’s big picturing. Gunn isn’t:

Gunn: Angel…. she is our next move

Wesley is working in the lab when Hamilton pays him a visit. He’s passing on the concerns the Senior Partners have about Illyria. It seems they are no keener on her than Angel is. She makes them nervous, she’s unpredictable and dangerous. They want her dealt with and they expect Wesley to be the one to do it. Hamilton leaves Wesley with a tip; check out the low-emission scanner read-outs, might just be important.  Wesley follows the tip and is surprised to see that a glowing dot is moving through the Wolfram and Hart corridors unchecked. That ‘glowing dot’ is Illyria. This can’t be good.

Angel and Gunn are now in conference with the Fell Brothers and Amanda. And once again we are confronted with a contradiction; the ugly, wizened demons are thoughtful and sweet. They seem to genuinely care for the unborn child. Maybe this is not such a bad thing after all? It’s just like adoption, right? Signatures are about to be exchanged, and everything is going along swimmingly until Gunn comes across the term ‘gordabach’. This is his way out of this deal. He tries to explain to Amanda what this means; that on the eve of her child’s thirteenth birthday he will be ritualistically sacrificed in accordance with the demon’s custom. He is prevented from completing the elucidation by his client angrily demanding to know whose lawyer he is anyway! The demons are the icing on the family cake – all sweetness and nice on the surface with their pretty lies about prophecy and healing, but underneath the real story is something completely different, ugly and abhorrent.

Illyria chooses this inopportune moment to interrupt proceedings and demand Angel’s attention. Angel is understandably peeved but concedes to the hell-god’s demand. Illyria insists on knowing what they are doing to her. Is it poison or magic? She admits that she is impressed by the power of it but remains defiant:

Illyria: Whatever you’ve done it can’t save you. To do anything but bow to my will is absurd yet you conspire—

Angel has no idea what she’s talking about and tells her so as a fresh wave of pain ripples through her.

Illyria: Jealous. Plankton envying the ocean that holds them

Gee, overdose on the megalomania pills much? Her ranting fails to enlighten Angel as to what she’s upset about, but Illyria calms and comes to a realisation:

Illyria: You do not know yet. It’s too early

Perplexed, he watches Illyria’s sudden departure then makes his way to the lab where he finds the Wesley and Spike in deep collusion. Angel confides that he thinks that Illyria is out of her mind and thinks that he is trying to kill her. ‘Aren’t you’, Wesley challenges, then back peddles his defiance, explaining that Illyria is…unstable.

Wesley: Overloading to be more accurate. The fusion between her demon essence and her host’s body seems to be deteriorating. It’s as if the human part of her can no longer contain the demonic power within.

Illyria is going to self-destruct, violently and at any moment. She is in essence a ticking time bomb.

Angel: And you were going to tell me this when? Wesley: I wasn’t. Spike and I were dealing with it.

Trust or the lack of it rears its ugly head again. Wesley deliberately side-stepped Angel with this Illyria issue so that he could do it his own way without Angel’s opinions or interference and brings Spike in as the muscle for good measure. Its Angel’s worst nightmare coming true – his team turning to Spike instead of him. Wesley brings out a large gun-like weapon that, in a nutshell, will send her powers into another dimension.

Angel: Will it kill her? Wesley: Yes. [To Spike] Shall we go?

The three of them head to the training room, Wesley revealing that Illyria’s destruction is likely to cause considerable continental damage. Not good, must be avoided. 

Despite the computer indicating with its glowing, um, actually violently radiating dot that Illyria should be in the training room, there is no sign of her. Spike is just in the process of telling them that that’s the problem with Illyria when he suddenly explodes into a cloud of dust. As the debris settles, we see Illyria brandishing a stake, though she’s unsettled with pain. Angel cries “Wes, do it now!” exactly as we’ve already seen him do before, but it is too late. Illyria is already in action kicking Angel across the room, brutally stabbing Wesley, sending an angry fist clean through Lorne before finally decapitating Angel, turning him to dust too. Illyria stands triumphant victor over the carnage; a god-king in all its glory…until she is once again gripped by pain. She clutches her stomach and suddenly finds herself back in the hallway mid confrontation with Angel. They go through the same conversation again, jealous plankton, certain death, yadda yadda yadda. The spasms of pain come more frequently now, and each wave sends her on a different tangent of time. To the glass of water that has just been knocked off Wesley’s desk but this time Angel is with them and decidedly freaked by the experience. His presence has an unsettling effect on Illyria too.

Illyria: You weren’t here before. An aberration in the time line, it wasn’t like this-

Agony clenches and suddenly she and Angel are in Gunn’s cellar. Illyria begins to understand that Angel has been swept up in her wake, that she has been ripped out of linear progression and crammed back into a non-sequential pattern. She thinks that Angel and Wolfram and Hart are responsible, but he denies having access to that kind of power. Illyria starts speechifying but Angel’s not in the mood to listen to her crap. He tells her to shut up. He tells her what’s what. He tells her that they are looking for a way to control her and he claims this world as his kingdom.

Illyria: Your kingdom! I am Illyria, god-king of the primordium, shaper of things! Angel: Yeah, well, that was then… this is now.

Before he can finish the sentence, they’re back in the training room, the bodies of Wes and Lorne pinpointing their location in the timeline precisely. Angel is in horror-struck disbelief; Illyria rubs salt into the wound:

Illyria: These are the fruits of your attempt to murder me. Your kingdom turned to ash and stale wind. I slew the white-haired one first and then Wesley as he raised his weapon and your demon clown as he wilted in terror. Angel: And I’m next. Illyria: No vampire, you were last.

And she throws her battle axe onto the pile of dust that once was Angel. 

Angel begs to know why, and Illyria explains:

Illyria: You learn that when you become a king, you learn to destroy everything that is not utterly yours. All that matters is victory. That’s how your reign persists. You’re a slave to an insane construct. You are moral. A true ruler is as moral as a hurricane, empty but for the force of its gale. But you…trapped in the web of the Wolf, the Ram, the Hart. So much power here and you quibble at its price. If you want to win a war, you must serve no master but your ambition.

As she speaks, she realises the truth of her words, there is no way that Angel could be responsible for her predicament – he doesn’t wield the power with enough expertise to achieve such a feat. It’s her, she’s broken. Her power is too great to be contained. The skin on her face fractures and cracks, blue energy emits from within. The fissures spread across the fragile shell until it literally explodes with tremendous force sending Angel flying with the power of the eruption.  

He lands back in the hallway, Wesley and Spike are ahead discussing Illyria’s potential for continental destruction should she self-destruct. Angel tries to tell them what’s about to happen as he follows them into the training room. This is not good; everything is just as it was before. Lorne makes the same statement about not seeing Illyria leave, Spike is about to tell them about her tricky time manipulations…Angel knows what is about to happen. He remembers Illyria’s narrative; she slew the white-haired one first…

Angel rushes at Spike, physically pushes him out of the path of Illyria’s unseen stake and puts himself in Spike’s place. The splinter of wood that would have finished Spike pierces Angel’s side instead. Even though he’s in considerable discomfort Angel uses the time and opportunity to try and negotiate with Illyria. He tells her he knows what happens, that they all die, that she explodes, that her domain is gone, swallowed by time. He will kill her before he’ll let her death blow away his ‘kingdom’ and he won’t apologise for trying.  But it transpires that Wesley’s weapon will not kill her, just reduce her power. Illyria is not convinced. This is not the first time he’s plotted her demise causing Wesley to concede:

Wesley: That didn’t work. It was a failure. But now I know you’re all that’s left.

Wesley would rather have Illyria around with her Fred-like appearance than have no piece left of Fred at all. Illyria doesn’t want to capitulate; she is her power; without it she would be a vacuum. She fights back; she won’t go down without a fight. Spike lands a couple of hits; she resorts to her time shimmy, but pain descends once more, and her magic is broken allowing Angel to attempt reason:

Angel: Illyria, the future can change here. You can choose a different path Illyria: And be nothing Angel: And be what you are. Fighting to hold onto what you were…. it’s destroying you.

Illyria hears his words, knows there is no alternative end. She gives one last vitriolic speech and blames her demise of the fragility of her human shell. Wesley points the weapon at Illyria discharging a beam of light that draws the glowing blue energy from within her. It’s over in a matter of seconds. She collapses to the floor in defeat.  But hey, she might just make the team after all, if she can learn the rules of the game and adapt to her reduction in status.

Angel heads back to his meeting to find it in chaos. Gunn is arguing with the Fell; he doesn’t want to represent them. Hamilton is also there trying to smooth ruffled feathers. The demons are promising retribution to all who cross them. Angel steps in:

Angel: Gunn. The baby belongs to the Fell

and invites them back to the conference room to formalise the deal. Charles is stunned at this sudden turn of events:

Gunn: Angel, what are you doing? Angel: What we’re supposed to. Serve our clients.

It’s an uncomfortable end, seeing Angel willing to sacrifice an unborn child. It's here we start to worry if Angel is irretrievably lost because babies have long been symbolically significant in Angel’s redemptive journey. The souled, confused Angelus was spurred into action, finally turning his back on the idea that he could somehow be what he once was by rescuing a baby that Darla had challenged him to kill in order to prove himself of being her companion.  He couldn’t do it. Instead of feeding he snatched up the child and escaped turning his back once and for all on his sire and all that she stood for [Darla, A2.7]. Then, it is through his assistance of a young woman and her unborn child that Angel develops his affiliation with the term ‘champion’, he ‘champions’ a helpless woman when no one else will stand up for her [Judgement, A2.1]. And yet in this episode, four from the end of the series, we have Angel willing to sacrifice an unborn innocent to a demon cult because this is the will of his over-lords.

This is how it seems…

There is so much more going on here than meets the eye. The viewer realises this after watching the penultimate and final episodes. In hindsight Time Bomb is monumentally important. It is an episode in which a decision is finally made about what to do with this catch22 they’ve got themselves trapped in. Mortality smacks Angel between the eyes – a novel experience for an ageless immortal. The narrow aversion of their deaths at Illyria’s hand and the near miss of the hell-god’s continent-threatening destruction causes Angel to open his eyes, put his thinking cap on. Suddenly he sees that, even for one who never dies, life is short, it holds no guarantees and this, taken into account with Lindsey’s revelations makes Angel question if they can really afford to be marking time, be willingly nullified into irrelevance while their mission goes unfulfilled. Besides which, the reason for them being there at Wolfram and Hart is void; Connor knows the truth now, there is no need for secrets and lies and deals anymore. So, Angel realises that the time has come to act but also that his next steps must be executed very carefully if they are ever to escape from the greedy clutches of the Senior Partners. He walks into his office, makes a deal that disgusts him purely to give the impression that he’s playing ball with the big guys. He’s being that ruthless leader that Illyria told him he had to be. He’s serving no master but his ambition; all that matters is victory, he becomes that immoral hurricane. 

But more than anything, one passage of words spurs him into action, words he spoke to Illyria but heard for his own account:

Angel: Illyria, the future can change here. You can choose a different path Illyria: And be nothing Angel: And be what you are. Fighting to hold onto what you were…. it’s destroying you.

We’ve known since the beginning of the season that Angel has been fighting to hold on to what he was. The first thing we saw in Conviction (A5.1) was Angel working the street, helping the helpless even though he was now also CEO of Wolfram and Hart. He tried to convince himself that they could turn the situation to their advantage, use Wolfram and Hart resources as a weapon against everything it stood for. But in reality, it was a constant battle between old and new, what he once was with what he had become. Self-doubt, fears of irrelevance and loss of hope were the outcome. And that prophecy, the one about a vampire with a soul? Angel fought to believe, to prove to himself that he was still ‘the guy’, still the one that it was about but only ended up convincing himself that he wasn’t. Spike came to town and shook up that already fragile self-belief; Spike had saved the world, loved the girl, chose the soul, and spurned the reward. He’d done everything Angel had only somehow . . . better. In the end it was easy to be convinced that Spike was the one, and not him. It was painful to admit, it hurt. So, there’s a fear at the back of his mind, if he’s not the fabled ‘vampire with a soul’ then what the hell is he? The horrible answer that echoes endlessly is nothing. He would be nothing. This is what he thinks. Until he responds to Illyria’s exact same fear:

 And be what you are

He hears the words and realises the truth and comfort in what he’s saying. It’s not so bad after all; he’s still a champion, a leader. He’s still a good man even without the promise of the prophecy. Fighting to hold onto what he was is destroying him and the time has come to make a different choice. Angel got them into this situation and it’s up to him to get them out. The future can change; it can if you make it.

Up Next: Angel Season 5 - The Girl in Question

[etherialises]

── ( rachel zegler, gender apathetic, she/they. ) ＊ ︰ alicia grace jimenez. chiron often praises their ardent temperament, but mr. d’s always going on about how they can be pretty venomous. that comes as no surprise, knowing that they’ve been at camp now for fifteen years and they turned twenty-three this year.

BASICS.

FULL NAME  alicia grace jimenez NICKNAME(S)  ali, al AGE  twenty three DATE OF BIRTH  february 21 PLACE OF BIRTH  fort lauderdale, fl CURRENT LOCATION  long island, ny ETHNICITY  white latine GENDER  gender apathetic PRONOUNS  she / they ORIENTATION  bisexual & biromantic RELIGION catholic EDUCATION LEVEL  high school, ged LIVING ARRANGEMENTS  cabin 10 FINANCIAL STATUS  lower middle class SPEAKING VOICE AND ACCENT  south floridian, “long vowels” SPOKEN LANGUAGES english, spanish, greek

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE.

FACECLAIM  rachel zegler HAIR COLOR AND STYLE  dark brown, usually long COMPLEXION  cool, mid-toned tan EYE COLOR  dark warm brown EYESIGHT  poor, typically seen with glasses on her head HEIGHT 5'2 BODY AND BUILD  petite, lithe, delicate TATTOOS none PIERCINGS  ears, singular CLOTHING STYLE  ecclectic, primarily feminine, flow-y and loose cuts, lots of skirts DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS  large mouth SIGNATURE SCENT  suntan oil and various, cheap body sprays

PERSONALITY.

LABEL  the chameleon POSITIVE TRAITS  passionate, lively, friendly, adaptable, curious NEGATIVE TRAITS  vitriolic, spiteful, irresolute, irritable, unsteady TROPES manic pixie dream girl, the broken bird, cute and psycho, damsel errant, beauty brains and brawn, the ophelia TOUCHSTONES molly gunn (uptown girls), holly golightly (breakfast at tiffany's), sally bowles (cabaret), juliet hulme (heavenly creatures), penny lane (almost famous), jenna rink (13go30), daisy buchanan (the great gatsby), cordelia chase (btvs)

BEFORE CAMP.

triggers parental death

mateo jimenez meets aphrodite much like he would have met any other woman — in the crowd, at one of his rock shows in a little divebar. he doesn't think much of it at the time. beautiful women are a perk of his job, as it happens. a false name, a pseudonym of hers, and he's never the wiser for their brief love affair. a child, much less one that he didn't ask for, was never part of the plan. a gift, she calls it, though he's less certain of that. when he recounts the story to his daughter a few years later, her eyes wide and bright, he'll tell her it was because he had so much love to give and her mother knew that he needed them. and a loving father he is, while he can be. he gives up his music, he starts working in real jobs, moving them to where the work is, turning their travel into games so alicia, named for his mother, will never suspect it was because they have to. demigods are distinctive, and she is no different. he does what he can to protect her while he's there, though that does not last as long as either of them would have liked. she's only six when he passes, an accident, she's told, when the gentleman who informed her is asking where her mother is, the answer one she doesn't have. her mother's not there, her mother's never been there for her. no extended family that she knows, only seven with no answers. their answers will change everytime she's asked, but she knows to travel on her own now, using some of the same tactics her father did to evade danger — both human and monster. she gets used to relying on only themself for safety, occasionally taking up with others, but rarely sticking with them for as long as it would take for them know her, see her do her little rituals of protection every night, pray to a mother they're certain has never listened or cared. she gets by through asking for things, an explanation that earns her confused glances from others without homes, something they haven't had luck with. she doesn't know her persuasion is magical, only that it works. it isn't long, however, before some of these friends are not quite so normal, either. she knows they aren't like her, not exactly, but they seem to know more than her. one of them tells her there's somewhere she can go, where she wouldn't have to keep on the move as much anymore, where her mother's other children are. indignation strikes her more than desire, that her mother has other children and has not brought them to the same place after all this time, but the desire to have a family again wins out.

CAMP.

after her satyr friend explains everything about the gods, she isn't sure what to think, whether to believe them. she chooses to, for the sake of meeting siblings she may have, but there's a suspicion in her at the concept of gods outside of the god that her father raised her with. it's hard to disagree once she reaches camp, though, and sees the magic for herself. she spends the bulk of her time there — mostly training, which she liked, but also learning, which she liked less. she doesn't feel the same need to keep moving, feels safety finally for the first time since her father passed. aided by having friends with similar abilities, who understand what she means when she says she can just do something, or that the words on a page swim around for them the way alphabet soup does in the pot. it makes it easy to feel at ease there, to sink into comfort they haven't had before, and they rarely leave as a result, becoming a long term resident and one of the friendlier faces for new campers. her upbringing doesn't get brought up much, certainly not by alicia themself, and any mention of parents usually gets a swift subject change. their trust in her siblings and other demigods does not extend to the gods, to the mother who neglects. despite her comfort at camp, the distance she creates by letting few people in is a safety measure. fifteen years, longer than she had been on her own or with her father, and she does not want to risk not living up to the image they have had of her for so long. so she shapes herself to what she thinks people want to see, an image of perfection as they see fit, with little to no room for error. she wants to be everything to everyone, craves approval like it's water. she just wants to be enough.

tldr pathological people pleaser with abandonment issues, a different person to everyone

[vacantgodling]

🩹 for any of your ocs? and also 🎻 for any paramour oc because I'm curious about that world's music scene

hey!! thank you for asking :) — sorry this gets very long LMAO. tw for tagetes being an abusive piece of shit.

🎻 VIOLIN — does your oc play any instruments? what is their skill level (beginner/intermediate/advanced/virtuoso/etc)?

tagetes can play instruments however they refuse to—they’re one of those “i never do anything for free” and the idea of performing for someone else is SUPREMELY offensive and degrading to them personally lmao. they do often hire musicians and ask them to perform extremely complex versions of symphonies to flaunt that they can hire such talented performers, but also as a cruelty. they found a particularly difficult movement by some bigwig composer and asked for one of their harem girls who’s talented in violin to play it for them. every time she messed up she’d have to start over and she wasn’t allowed to stop until her fingers bled. yknow. cuz they’re so normal ��

iberis can play the piano passably but he isn’t particularly musically inclined. he dabbled with the idea of learning violin because violin prowess has some research showing it’s association with mathematical proficiency and because he’s a scholar he liked the idea of that. but he never ends up having enough time; getting a doctorate and all.

narcissus has no talent for music whatsoever though she does greatly enjoy it. large orchestral performances or showings are some of her favorite kinds of balls to attend because they make her feel refined and she loves to get lost in the way music sounds. clematis gunn (the shitty father of all these assholes) spent a considerable amount of money on tutors on a number of different instruments however she’s just tone deaf, bless her.

hyacinthus was never taught any instruments, not even in his tenure of living with tagetes. hya would’ve refused regardless—he and tagetes are somewhat alike in the idea of performing for someone else is not ideal. hya, unlike tagetes though, does appreciate the arts—he’s just more fond of books and things he can do quietly on his own.

lavendula is the most musically gifted among the gunn family’s lot. she is proficient in “pretty” instruments as her mother calls them; flute, violin and harp. she doesn’t enjoy them as much as her other proficiencies but when asked she can perform rather well.

aloe has a lovely singing voice but he prefers to sing in temple choruses or praises for The Shepherd. he doesn’t usually engage with secular music.

in terms of lower class characters, music is very eclectic and more down to earth; working with what’s available and learning proficiency in that than any sort of formal training. i would say that terian is the most musically inclined of lower class characters because he can play the guitar and his voice has an amiable timber to it.

🩹 ADHESIVE BANDAGE — does your oc have any physical and/or mental disabilities?

i haven’t diagnosed many of my characters in the mental illness realm just bc it can get a bit dicey with the whole “representation” vs demonization debate and i’d rather not get into the weeds of that if i can avoid it sorry. i think the only character i have truly diagnosed for anything is jenna in the liminal space series because her being autistic is a very important part of her character. you can definitely see where some of my characters may or may not have certain dx’s but yknow. it’s more up for the reader to decide than for me to be forthcoming about.

though a good number of characters have ptsd tbh bc of the horrors.

physically disabilities wise, tcol has the most characters with disabilities just because as many of them are adventurers and fighting yknow. Creatures and the like, it can fuck ya up basically. off the top of my head:

eryn would be considered legally blind because she’s chaos touched in both eyes. it’s somewhat of a toph situation from atla where she has a sort of “sight” but not for just everyday stuff. she can essentially see the aura of chaos around things which is why/how she’s able to still be a ranger—a sight heavy class—she’s able to aim using the aura of chaos, which is something she teaches forte. it makes her shots more accurate and deadly tbh. i haven’t fully worked out how disabilities devices work in tcol yet (it’s on my tcol todo list but there’s so much worldbuilding on that thing i need to do LOL) but id imagine she has some sort of sight cane or something similar.

spoilers (but idc sorry), forte also becomes chaos touched in one eye after an Incident which leaves him partially blind in one eye and deaf in that ear on the side of the attack. he also develops a limp after this situation

karenza, from the same Incident also becomes physically disabled however i haven’t decided how quite yet lol

erebos (for this universe) has a skin condition where he is essentially albino; he was basically dead for 30 minutes due to a childhood accident and all the color drained out of him. he was able to be revived but he has a higher sensitivity to the sun and is immunocompromised for all intents and purposes. in a similar vein, helix, charissa, and altair have a similar condition but slightly Altered because of the special circumstances of their existence and the fact that they were able to be partially healed. after the fact it looks somewhat like vitiligo and the immune-issues are somewhat there in some ways i haven’t fully fleshed out how completely yet.

(spoilers idc sorry), erik loses an arm bc of a different Incident. like the whole thing unfortunately so. he does end up going to marthveil to see if he can get a prosthetic eventually.

aside from tcol i think the only other character i have that i can think of rn would be lennon from gothica bc spoilers idc but her legs get Fucked Up after the Big Incident with aurora and so she uses crutches and has a wheelchair later on in the second book.

[sivavakkiyar]

you seem to like it so I’m gonna ask you, what is up with Persona 5 and jazz memes? why does it piss bros off so bad lol

in a sense it’s just standard gatekeeping stuff, but I’ll make an argument for it. Jazz has a kind of unique status in the 20th century as being a genre of music that’s simultaneously popular music and art music, though from about the mid 50’s on it starts to move more towards the latter while still having a relevance to the former. In the late 50’s there was this show called Peter Gunn that you definitely know the theme music for: the soundtrack for it, explicitly jazz, was a kind of gateway for a lot of people to look into the genre as a whole. When I was a kid and I think still today the score for Cowboy Bebop did the same thing. Persona 5 is less distinctly ‘jazz’ than either of those, but it has a distinctly ‘jazzy’ feeling in that kind of post-nujabes way that seems to get a lot of people interested (tho I think often in later forms, like jazz fusion or jazz hip hop or acid jazz. Whatever, jazz)

So all three are great, right? In my opinion, anyway. On the one hand what makes them ‘gateways’ are that they’re associated with other media that renders connecting to the music easier. On the other hand, the fact that they’re primarily *scores* means that from the perspective of the genre they’re very direct—-the medium of scoring means that you have about a second to set the mood, which means the stuff is generally “simpler” from the perspective of the music that is made to be primarily music: primarily textural, immediately melodic, short, immediate constant hooks. In truth it’s a different form, it wouldn’t be as successful if it wasn’t like that—-but it is what it is.

anyway what winds up happening of course is that as people get into the genre they get very defensive and argumentative for what got them into it, and so for every person saying ‘that’s not even real music’ you’ll have 3 or 4 people saying that it’s actually a masterpiece of the form, perhaps superior to the standard material of the form they might not have down yet (no joke: there’s a famous review of Coltrane’s Giant Steps where the reviewer explicitly says that the Peter Gunn soundtrack is superior on every level for all the above qualities mentioned: at least people like listening to it, only the pretentious could possibly prefer Coltrane or Bird, this is old stuff)

essentially standard fandom stuff, except it’s with music so people get particularly weird about it. Don’t sweat it. Like what you like and keep and open mind, keep in mind different things have different goals, don’t pay too much attention to memes

[starmora]

I think Gunn cared about all the characters but he cared about the finale he wanted even more. The difference in character building, paying attention to smaller details and giving more equal space to each individual dynamic in vol 1 & 2 compared to what we see in vol 3 is pretty noticeable. Even with its flaws IW balanced muiltple characters and smaller plot points better than vol 3. As others have said in vol 3 you'd think IW and EG never happened. You have barely any idea about what happened after EG either except Peter clearly fell apart and Gamora somehow ended up a ravager who was somehow keeping up Nebula for some undisclosed amount of time. That's not good storytelling. We don't even know if the characters think Gamora was ressurected with no memory or if they know she's from the past. I'm also confused because the film treats it as if Gamora herself wasn't in EG

Gamora finally got to connect with the guardians and at least feel something for Peter but that's it. She's back with the ravagers like she didn't just go through a pretty emotional experience that opened up a whole new view of herself and what had happened before. I get the ravagers are who she's been with but there's too much that's went on to act like things hadn't changed.

I don't know what happened behind closed doors and I'm sure there were more details to all of this than we will know. But I do think people had enough self awareness to realize Gamora shouldnt stay dead dead but not enough to realize just being alive and present wasn't enough. Add to that Gunn having zero flexibility to work with the complexities of a shared universe and sexism/biases and everything became disjointed. There's good stuff for Gamora in vol 3 but there needed to be more and I think whatever small details played a part in larger decision making need to be talked about by Gunn away from Twitter so there aren't vague answers running amuck or a dozen different types of responses to the same question that are similar enough to not be a complete contradiction but different enough wording to cause confusion.

You’re right, maybe it’s unfair to say he doesn’t care about Gamora but it just feels like he cared about Rocket and his story the most and Gamora is unfortunately the one who suffered the most for this, for some odd bizarre reason, when it really didn’t have to be that way.

It’s funny you mention that about not knowing anything after eg, because I went with my mom to see the movie again (this was her third time seeing it with me, and she has seen every other movie the guardians are in multiple times, so it’s not like gotg is new for her) and she turned to me and told me she was confused about pretty much everything that happened in the opening of the movie and asked me what happened for them to have gotten to the point where they all have this base on Knowhere and Gamora is a ravager and everyone doesn’t seem to really care what she’s been up to and she asked me to explain it to her and I just. Couldn’t, because there wasn’t an answer. Like you just have to use your imagination I guess and that’s fine but it also feels like he just kind of wanted to jump to the end and tell his rocket story and get out.

I truly believe he thought about it and considered what would be best for her but it’s just clear to me he didn’t give her the same level of attention he gave Rocket or Peter, and honestly probably didn’t even consult anyone or get any sort of second opinion on it because he just doesn’t seem like the kind of guy to do that with all his talk about having complete control lmao. And like in a perfect world where infinity war had never happened to her, I don’t think that would have mattered AS much but it did and she needed a little more love and attention from Gunn because of it that he seemingly just didn’t wanna give

[dilfdoctordoom]

Since you have so much knowledge about the comics do you think there was any way vol 3 could have incorporated the ravagers into more of the plot based on something from them?

I wasn't a fan of the ravagers and would have preferred vol 2 be the last time we saw them. Definitely didn't like Gamora being made part of their crew and that being where she ended up. That said if they're all James Gunn wanted I wish he had connected them to the main plot better and Gamora's old and new life felt merged by the end. It's like she's not on the level of the other guys now because he concluded her arc without ever giving her more tangible relationships with everyone. The description of the Strange Tales you mentioned sounds like it would have been the best story to adapt for vol 3, but since ravagers are what we got I'm trying to figure out how it could have been stronger.

Also this is a little off topic but reading your posts about Gamora have made me realize how badly we all need to go back the the drawing board when it comes to ideas about feminism and strong female roles. Not wanting to see every woman in a relationship or only being a love interest should never have become every lady needs to be single and alone. That's not equality or complexity. It's just as limiting as the things people are fighting against. There desperately needs to be much more understanding for the fact that white women are not the default of womanhood. Not every woman has been portrayed the same throughout the history of film. Gamora doesn't have to have a boyfriend but it will never be feminist that she lost her relationship because she was murdered. It's not lost on me that many fans have far less issue with white women being loved by popular male leads. Especially if those male leads are white. That needs to change. It's also not a win for the ladies that Nebula got a good arc because she was gifted Gamora's leading role on the team and Mantis wasn't even considered for a more leading role. That means James Gunn cared so little for all the women that he didn't bother to create enough space in his story for all to be on the team together in more equal prominence and no one losing the spots they previously had. Furthermore it's going backwards to have Gamora missing from Legos, funko's, marvel legends etc. Nobody is winning here when I can find multiple versions of all the men and Gamora is left out.

See, the thing is, there's a very obvious story with Gamora & the Ravagers and it annoys me endlessly that it wasn't taken, as it's a wonderful way to respect 2018 Gamora's legacy.

And that's this: Gamora is the heart of the Guardians. She's their moral center. Vol 1 & 2 established this and Vol 3 could've continued it with the Ravagers.

It's clear that the Ravagers are meant to be an homage to the original Guardians team that debuted before the modern revival. They just.... never get to act very heroic.

Gamora's how you fix it. It'd work her into the plot better too; 2014 Gamora did join the Ravagers... and she's slowly turned them from a band of thieves to a group of freedom fighters.

High Evolutionary is evil, we know this, the galaxy knows this-- so instead of Gamora joining up with the Guardians for money, it's a matter of the Ravagers and the Guardians working the same damn job.

It makes it clear that wherever Gamora goes, a family forms around her, one that's good and heroic because of her influence. It can be done to parallel the original Guardians. It gives the Ravagers their proper due and lets this Gamora establish herself while also respecting 2018 Gamora's legacy.

Of course, that's not what we got.

"Gamora doesn't have to have a boyfriend but it will never be feminist that she lost her relationship because she was murdered" EXACTLY Gamora didn't fall out of love, they didn't drift apart, she didn't grow out of that relationship-- she was violently murdered by her abuser. It was never an act of feminism to take away her love interest for the crime of being fridged.

Gunn's refusal to make space for women is especially glaring considering the run he chose to adapt. GOTG2008 isn't perfect by any means, but it did average 3 women in leading roles at a time, with arcs & forward-facing relationships. Phyla, Mantis, Gamora, and Heather were critical to the team's foundation & their dynamic. It's telling that Gamora was the only one allowed in the first movie, that a dumbed down and stripped-of-competency Mantis was let in for the second, & Phyla was only allowed a glorified cameo as a child.

The removal of women & their importance from this franchise is always gonna be an issue for me. I don't care how well done Nebula was, the women of color & queer women shouldn't have had to lose out for her existence. Ideally, they'd all coexist with the ease that all the men were allowed to.

But that'd mean giving a shit about women & at this point, I doubt that Gunn's all that capable of that.

[caatws]

I do not know if I am the only one, but can they just make starmora get back together off screen if anything similar to other couples they have done? I dont think Gunn was debunking the first part, I mean he doesnt know that since he is not working at marvel anymore. I know that the "real" comment might seem weird but I think he just means that Gamora is back with the family she is deeply attached to, but that doesnt mean she doesnt consider the guardians a family to her in a way, after all Gunn said if you understand groot then tou are part of the family.

I know Pratt said he might be back but I doubt its anything big in the future, as for Zoe I could see her in pretty small stuff like cameos or small roles since she said she would like Gamora to continue. I highly doubt they will pair them up with someone else.

off the top of my head, the only time i can remember the mcu making a broken up (not just in the literal sense of "they broke up" but like in general a ship that was canon and then not canon) ship canon again off-screen was between cacw and homecoming when they had pepperony go from broken up to seemingly back together again offscreen, at least enough to get engaged for the media when peter parker decided not to join the avengers, and then next time we see them ~2 years later in iw they're planning a wedding

i'd love to see starmora get together again off-screen in some way like this too, but being realistic, i just wouldn't get my hopes up. bc idt ppl, on both the studio and audience level, rly care abt peter quill or his relationship with gamora the way they do with tony or pepperony

it makes sense that they did it for pepperony bc it's tony mf stark. the dude was practically the face of the entire mcu, along with steve, for a decade. the entire avengers franchise centered him, and his relationship with pepper was part of both his solo films and every avengers ensemble film. the story of his relationship was one that you could probably find countless casual viewers of the mcu to know abt and be fans of etc. if pepper ever died we would've gotten tony probably going berserk (understandably so) in canon, followed by countless irl thinkpieces and tweets and more abt how tony was justified, tony is grieving, tony this, tony that, ad nauseam. in other words, it doesn't surprise me that canon, fandom, and general viewers would all bend over backwards to keep pepperony together, even if just for the sake of forwarding tony's arc, pepper as an individual be damned lol

with peter and gamora...i just don't see that same energy rly happening for them. i mean, even yesterday i accidentally came across an article abt how iw "rushed" peter and gamora's romance bc it was so much more serious in iw than where the two left off in vol 2 and it's like...do ppl even know 4 years passed between those 2 films? so if the general audience isn't rly that invested in starmora does marvel need to make an effort to make it canon again later?

i'm sure there will be opportunities for cameos and all that in the future for some of the gotg depending on where things go. i was just going off of the final screen of text at the end of vol 3 which suggested our next iteration of peter is gonna be a little more removed from the gotg we know, including gamora, since it Only said him. maybe he'll join up with the avengers again since he's back on earth for now and there will be some avengers characters who still remember him? idk

so to wrap this up bc again i got super wordy lol sry...i don't think anything's ever impossible, i just wouldn't be surprised if this is truly the end of the line for starmora being together "again" in canon. like i think what it is for me is i don't rly expect anyone at marvel studios to care more abt starmora than gunn, and this is the route gunn took with it (understandably) and now gunn's done, so i think things are just generally pointing more toward starmora ending here than not

[dragon-snoots-a-boopin]

As someone who is still watching and, for the most part, enjoying the Arrowverse, I found some interesting things about the co-creator, Marc Guggenheim from an article.

“I’ll be honest: I would have like to have gotten at least a meeting. Not a job, mind you. A meeting. A conversation. A small recognition of what I’d tried to contribute to the grand tapestry that is the DC Universe. I’d only spent nine years toiling in that vineyard, after all. And then there was some other stuff which basically boiled down to me lamenting that although working for DC had been creatively fulfilling, it involved a lot of adversity, challenges, and personal sacrifices-none of which seem to have accrued to any professional benefit. Simply put, the Arrrowverse hasn’t led to any other gigs, so if feels-at least on a career level-that I really wasted my time”.

Now, as someone who is enjoying the Arrowverse, it’s kind of jarring to read that someone who is the co-creator of it having felt like they wasted their time making it. Sure, not every show is perfect, not every season is perfect. Some seasons of shows are good and some are not. But I also feel like Marc should be proud of what he accomplished, even if James Gunn and the other new heads of DC are not going to recognize what Marc did.

I mean, if there’s one thing that I feel the Arrowverse nailed is the casting. Stephen Amell is perfect as Oliver Queen/Green Arrow, Grant Gustin as Barry Allen/Flash, Melissa Benoist as Supergirl/Kara Zor-El, Cress Williams as Jefferson Pierce/Black Lighning, Tyler Hoechlin as Clark Kent/Superman and everyone that is in Legends of Tomorrow because I’m lazy and don’t feel like listing out all those actors. I do wish that Grant’s Flash or Amell’s Green Arrow go to appear or were in the their own movies about their characters. We also can’t forget some of the star power that Marc was able to pull on to these shows like having Tom Felton appear on several episodes of Flash, Ezra Miller appearing in the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover, Danny Trejo as Breacher on Flash and so on.

So while it almost feel insulting as a fan to hear that Marc feels that he wasted those nine years in the Arrowverse, I also do agree that he deserves to be recognized for what he accomplished.         

[cress-meadowforge]

flashback; fall/winter 107 before the 136th biannual hunger games

ft. @cain-gunn

The streets of the Capitol may have been distinctly carved, paved flawlessly and level, but their names blurred. Glory Lane, Valor Circle, Victory Street– Cress searched down each one. The issue with District Zero was that it operated like a vascular system, veins stemming from the core out and up. Though the city stretched miles, so did the vast expanse of catacombs beneath it. One end and the farthest other would always be connected, and so there was no telling where Cain had ended up. But eventually, in the eerie early hour when all was silent and dead and dark, Cress saw an odd shape: Cain, hunched and rounded, his blonde hair tinted blue-black, slumped body leaning against a wall. 

“Cain?” she called, stepping quicker through the stagnant night. They were alone, but the notion wasn’t comforting. Something felt deeply wrong. 

Cain had all but forgotten he’d called by the time Cress showed up. Her face hovered in the distance, her voice fuzzy and far away. Nothing seemed to reach his senses in real time, and the world around him was still spinning wildly. “Cress?” He asked, looking up at her with his brow furrowed. “You’re really here?” He questioned, because Mack had been honest with him about being a figment of his mind, so Cress probably would be too. If she wasn’t real, she would tell him. 

“I’m really here,” she promised, though it seemed a strange thing to assure. Cress knelt at his side, fingers brushing the hair – clumped and damp with sweat – from his forehead. 

“I-” he started, his head lolling back onto the brick wall with a thud, though the pain didn’t register. He sucked in a steadying breath, hoping it would be enough to keep him both semi-upright and not sick on the ground. “You didn’t have to come here,” he told her apologetically. Even beneath the haze of drugs and alcohol, Cain felt a flash of guilt for having pulled Cress out of bed. “I’m good. I’m good,” he assured her as he started on the painstaking task of trying to stand up. Cress pleaded for him to stay, to still, but he persisted. With each inch he managed, Cress followed suit, hands splayed to keep him steady, though it was a doomed feat from the go. Cain made it nearly halfway before he tipped forward and fell shoulder first back to the concrete below him.

“Oof–” Cress stumbled beneath the weight, the force bringing them both to the ground. Her body broke the fall, hands grasping for his clothes, his limbs, something firmer than the core of him, which seemed unable to support itself. “It’s okay. You’re okay–” Cress tried to shift him upward, upright, but there was little give. She was strong – Career strong, trainer strong – but she’d been bedridden and then healing. Now, she was just struggling. “Stop it,” Cress wrestled against him, tone firm in a way reserved rather solely for Slate (who was, by all accounts, an unreasonably stubborn being). Here, it seemed fitting. “I need you to work with me.”

“Okay, okay,” he mumbled, trying to shift so his weight wasn’t pressing down on Cress. “Sorry,” he added, realizing he’d knocked them both over. He moved slower this time, letting Cress lead the charge on getting them both standing. His limbs were heavy, so every motion needed to be deliberate or he’d fall over again. He brushed gravel off the fresh scrape across his palm, blood blooming in pin-prick dots over his skin. Cain tried to take a step, but directionless, he ended up stumbling forward and then overcorrecting back. His back collided with the brick wall, so Cain just stayed there, resigned to leaning against the structure which was much more steady than he was. “Cress?” He asked, tugging at the collar of his shirt in a feeble attempt to relieve himself of the waves of heat that seemed to be rolling over him. “I want-” Cain wanted to be home in his own bed. “I need to-” he needed to puke, he was pretty sure. “I’m just gonna lay down for a few minutes, okay? Standing is too hot. I’m just gonna-” He could feel himself tilting, losing his war against gravity. Cress was losing too. “Just gonna lay down. Five minutes, I’m gonna be on the ground right here.” She adjusted her approach; instead of trying to keep Cain up, she shifted to cushion beneath. If he was going down, she couldn’t stop him, but she could prevent him from crashing back onto concrete.

So Cress sat back against the wall, and Cain sprawled across the sidewalk, his head held in her lap. He tried to find Cress’ face through the darkness, but focusing on anything was an impossible task. “Tomorrow,” he decided suddenly. “We can get pancakes, and everything will feel good again.”

“Alright,” Cress conceded, brushing the hair from his eyes and off the back of his neck. He was warm, flushed, sweating. “Let’s breathe for a bit, and then we’ll try again. Some rest, a shower, and then pancakes,” the words meant to entice. “You’ll be alright.” But Cress felt like that was a lie. Tomorrow would come, yes, but Cain wouldn’t be feeling better.

Things wouldn’t be alright again for a long time.

[thepanicsquid]

I’ve thought about this a lot…this wound up being longer than I expected, so I apologize. Throughout Guardians, it is a theme that we do not have to be defined by shitty parents (the “hands that made us”) and that those same parents are not Gods, nor do they have to dictate the course of our lives.

HE’s arrogantly claims: “There is no God; that’s why I stepped in!”

Loki to Thanos: “You will never be a God”

Ego: “Small g, son”

It could mean that there is a “capital G” God out there, who has a plan, who set things in motion. Who brought Rocket into Peter and the Guardians’ life so that they could save him and lead him to his greater purpose.

But I think it also works on another level that vibes with my own sense of spirituality more too. The “hands that guide the hands” were Rocket’s. He was the one who could solve the problems the HE couldn’t figure out. He was the one who guided him towards a less violent creation. Rocket is the one who has the power to create a more compassionate world through his actions.

I don’t know if this is what Gunn meant, but I really love this because it works on different levels depending on who is hearing it. If you believe in God, it is comforting to remember that He is out there, He has a plan. He brought Rocket into Peter and the Guardians’ life so that they could save him and lead him to his greater purpose.

But even if you were to remove that religious/spiritual element, she is saying that we as individuals have the capability to shape the world through compassion and kindness. We can be the hands that guide. We see Peter’s love and empathy, represented through the music that was passed down to him from the people who loved him, influence everyone around him. Every Guardian was his enemy who tried to kill him at one point, but because he treated them with compassion, they became family. That compassion saves Rocket’s life, and also Peter’s in in the end. We see in Vol. 2 and 3 that Rocket is the one who is most affected by Peter’s music. Going back for his Zune seems like a silly reckless Star-lord move, but at this point Peter knows he’s going to leave and that Rocket needs it. He is symbolically passing his love and empathy on to Rocket, leaving him with the Zune and a sense of compassion that is greater even than his own to guide others.

Peter is off to Earth where there are a million new songs for himself to discover, and Rocket is left to guide a new generation of Guardians. Whether the “hands that guide the hands” are those of a higher power or our own, we do not have to have the course of our lives dictated by those who were cruel to us, even if they were the ones that created us.

Hey.

What do you think Lylla meant when she said, "There are the hands that made us, then there are the hands that guide the hands."

How did you interpret that?

Does that phrase impact you as much as it does me?

[ordinaryschmuck]

Alright, last time ever that I’ll talk about Velma. I promise.

Because I’ve been extra salty towards this show all week, and I don’t want to take it further than that. Talking nothing but bad stuff about this show for the entirety of its run is exactly what the writers want. They want us to hate watch it so we can talk about each new atrocity the show brings up week after week, and call us haters or anti-woke propagandists. When, in reality, they don’t give a FUCK about any of that. They don’t care about other races, genders, or sexualities. They just WANT you to think they do. Know how I can tell? Because I’ve SEEN genuine attempts of representation.

THIS is a genuine attempt of representation. Matt Braly, the series creator of Amphibia and a Thai-American, felt like Thai culture was underrepresented in media. So, he not only made his main character and her Thai, but he also dedicated subplots and entire episodes showcasing the culture he wanted to represent.

THIS is a genuine attempt at representation. Dana Terrace, series creator of The Owl House and open Bisexual, wanted a main character that was explicitly bi to finally help kids feel like they’re seen. To help give the representation SHE always wanted.

But when I look at Velma? None of it hits the same.

This isn’t a genuine attempt for representation. This is Mindy Kuling turning a character into a self-insert to make herself look smarter than everyone else and the most important person in a narrative. Truth is, this Velma is nothing more than a sociopath, narcissistic dipshit who thinks she’s better than everyone else but is actually more aggravating than endearing.

So...Good job representing YOURSELF there, Mindy.

And this?

This isn’t representation. This is a shield.

A way to protect the show from any criticism because it couldn’t possibly be bad. They have gay characters! Gay characters are good in everything!

Except that is the LAST reason you should include gay characters! Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE more LGBTQA+ representation in media. What I don’t love is obvious attempts to pander to audiences just to avoid criticisms. And keep in mind, this is NOT the first attempt a creator wanted to make Velma gay.

James Gunn wanted to make her gay in the live action movie, but WB said no.

Scooby-Doo: Mystery Incorporated (the GOAT of the Scooby-Doo franchise) wanted to make Velma gay, but could only imply it because Cartoon Network didn’t greenlit Steven Universe yet.

THOSE are genuine attempts to make Velma gay, to represent people because the creators of both products agreed that it was the least they could do.

But making Velma and Daphne a thing just to protect a show is nothing more than shallow and inconsiderate of the hard fight dozens of people put up with for the sake of representation.

And, honestly, I’d be a little more forgiving if the writing in Velma was good. But it’s not.

Within the first minute, this show features...

Cockroaches having sex...

And fifteen year olds taking a shower to make a joke about how over-sexualized a series’ pilot can be.

First of all: FUCK YOU FOR MAKING ME FIND THIS SCREEN SHOT FOR A POINT!

Second: You lose every ounce of credibility that you actually care about people when one of the first moves you make in your series is to sexualize minors for the sake of a joke.

A joke that doesn’t make sense at that. Point me to a series pilot that’s over-sexualized. If you get more than ten, I’ll say you have a point. I won’t say that sexualizing minors to make it was a good thing, but I’ll at least say that, “Yeah. You’re right. So many pilots do this. SO STOP DOING IT!”

That’s the level of writing Velma has. And it’s why they have their “representation” to protect themselves. Meanwhile, you want to know the level of writing you’ll find in The Owl House and Amphibia?

Villains who prove that the most dangerous people are the ones who make the rules.

Jokes that are actually funny.

Likable main protagonists who are kind and caring to the people around them.

Protagonists who have heartfelt relationships with other great characters, to the point that it breaks your heart to see them leave each other.

And on top of that, actually good representation. But here’s the thing: The representation isn’t only genuine. It’s a bonus. Something great to add onto everything else the writers and the creators do right.

What it isn’t is an attempt to protect a show from what it does wrong.

And that’s it. That’s the LAST time I’ll ever talk about Velma. I really mean it this time.

Talking about this show past it’s premier is already more attention it deserves. And if you were smart, you would not only stop watching, but stop talking. The best attention to give something you hate is NO attention.

If you really want to waste time, waste it by watching something good, like The Owl House and Amphibia. They may be kids shows, but they have more maturity than a single second of Velma.

[theconstitutionisgayculture]

I really, really wish everyone on the right would stop pretending certain people are awesome and on our side and everything they've ever done has been good actually just because they do one or two things that are pretty cool now.

This is mostly about Tulsi Gabbard, who despite being pro-government healthcare, pro-DACA, pro-Green New Deal, and pro-gun control, among other positions we wouldn't accept from people who have actually run as Republicans, is being turned into some kind of populist right wing hero just because she calls out the extreme left sometimes and left the Democrat party.

But it's also about Mel Gibson, who is apparently part of a group that stops human trafficking (which is good, if true), which means some people are now trying to pretend he's been using his movies and his public statements to expose truths and fight for freedoms forever, when mostly he's just been going on drunken anti-semitic rants.

It also applies to a lesser degree to people like James Gunn, who has about 30 tweets joking about being a pedophile but because he calls out cancel culture after being fired for five minutes because of those tweets he's suddenly based. Or Chris Pratt*, who has never publicly spoken about his political beliefs on anything, but because he's publicly religious and didn't want to film a campaign ad for Biden, we assume he's a secret right wing Hollywood guy and it's "safe" to watch his movies.

I'm not saying we shouldn't admire or respect someone for doing a good deed or supporting a righteous cause. Far from it. One of my other problems with the right is, paradoxically, how they'll sometimes cast someone who is right 99% of the time away like they're stale bathwater because they did something we don't agree with once. That kind of attitude doesn't win anyone over to our side. But that's also my point. We're way more willing to put horribly imperfect leftists (or potential leftists) on a pedestal just because they're on "our side" once or twice, while we demand ideological perfection from anyone we already think is with us at all times. Keep perspective. I know Trump worked out really well for us, but populism and populist euphoria, while at least somewhat necessary to politics these days, is a dangerous thing to indulge in too much. It's how you end up with cults of personality around people who end up destroying movements.

*So Chris Pratt doesn't really fit into the theme of this post, but I wanted to put him here anyway because it startled me how quickly people went from "He's just another Marvelshit actor" to "OMG he's just like us!" It's disturbing because, A, we don't know what his beliefs are and it's weird to assign him ours just because we like one thing he was public about, and B, because it shouldn't matter what his beliefs are. We rightfully disdain Hollywood and the culture it breeds and the people who thrive in that culture, but the moment a Hollywood lifer says something that even remotely sounds like they might not be left of Stalin we freak out and start acting like twitter stans? Come on, guys. Don't worship celebrity. And don't be so quick to assign virtue to people who have never publicly shown it. Someone at Chris Pratt's level, if he is truly "on our side", should be using their money and influence to do something about it besides going to church and mentioning God every so often. If someone from Hollywood shows up publicly at the March For Life, or publicly donates to a reputable pro-2A advocacy group, or does something like pay the legal bills of the Jan 6 political prisoners, that's who I'll respect and praise. But just not publicly being a raging leftist shouldn't be enough to get us creaming in our pants.