#it's one of those ones with the implied tragedies i mentioned about earlier. like obviously there's the very big tragedy | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

cybernaght · 4 years ago

Text

Guardian rewatch: Episode 3

First of all, wow. When I decided to post those online, I was expecting that they would be read by two people, both of whom I personally know. It was in equal part surprising and terrifying that so many of you ventured here. Thank you for reading, I really appreciate it.

Episode 3 is probably my favourite case. It’s not perfectly strung together, there is little actual investigative work in it, but it’s a beautiful story of boundless love and devotion, which echoes through the relationship between our protagonists

Professor Shen is looking at some materials that are looking suspiciously like research into something supernatural, when Zhang Ruonan makes an appearance at his office, claiming that she is absolutely fine, while clearly being very far away from fine. This is something Shen Wei can certainly relate to, because he is the king of hiding his ailments from others.

Zhu Hong’s one-sided affection for Zhao Yunlan starts to show already in this episode: while he has the cold, she nags him to take care of himself, shoves tissues into his hands, and presses him to drink his meds. It’s easy to imagine even this early on that she will be the woman drunk dialling him one day.

I know this could be seen as straightbaiting, but I honestly thing that the actual purpose it serves in the show is the opposite; I’ll talk more about it when we get there.

Zhao Yunlan spends a lot of this episode in Shen Wei’s office, starting with this scene, in which is obviously flexing. Not only does he sneeze all over the office, he goes to eat Shen Wei’s cake after specifically being told not to eat it. He also takes his opportunity to mix questioning with flirting, as is his usual way. He keeps eye contact while spooning cake into his mouth, as he explains, jovially, that another mysterious death on his campus cannot possibly be a coincidence. And, to be fair, he is not really wrong. We are meant to believe that this is all set in motion by Zhu Jiu, aka the least scary villain in the history of villainy, and an owner of your staple baby goth wig. I will not mention him again until the plot makes it impossible for me not to do so.

Zhang Ruonan comes in, and Zhao Yunlan introduces himself as Shen Wei’s good friend. Which is half-way between a flex and an act of kindness. On one hand, he could have said he was from the police - which would be absolutely true - and risk tarnishing the professor’s good name. On the other hand, he could probably look less pleased with himself. Shen Wei, at the very least, looks neither grateful, nor amused.

Zhao Yunlan asks her if she new the victim and she looks incredibly shifty as she flees. He is right to think that something is up, and he correctly assumes trauma, rather than guilt. We can now start to see that he is very very good at reading people. It must be equal parts thrilling and disconcerting for him to have met something who he decisively cannot read. Shen Wei vouches for the woman, partly, surely, because his Hei Pao Shi sense is tingling, letting him know that someone is eavesdropping.

Despite feeling uneasy, Shen Wei still offers Guo Changcheng, who is left to collect various paperwork from his desk, a little smile. He has a reason to like Xiao Guo, of course: he was the one to see the young man’s kindness and understanding, and he is already growing protective of him, way before he will start seeing members of the special unit as his people. This reminds me of how many months later, he will subtly, but decisively stop a barrage of verbal abuse against Xiao Guo by dropping a pair of chopsticks.

Zhao Yunlan is taking Xiao Guo with him on the case rather than anyone else, partly, supposedly, because of Guo Changcheng’s familial connections. The young man looks more sure of himself, asking correct questions, dutifully records answers. He also tries to look after his Chief by asking him to go home and rest. He does phrase it badly, but Zhao Yunlan has a thing against his own health and well-being, so he reacts extra poorly.

Soon after, Zhao Yunlan’s at Shen Wei’s office yet again, as Shen Wei tries his best to ignore him, in the hope that he… well, maybe not goes away, but does not ask him anything that will require him lying. Instead, Zhao Yunlan is asking Shen Wei why he is bad at reading people, which is a very strange thing to ask. Shen Wei answers his question with a question, “Will seeing through people really lessen the hurt and disappointment?” Adding, “Many tragedies were destined from the beginning”. He looks well.. like this as he says it.

This is loaded. On first glance, it’s a pretty good set-up to the way this story will unfold, as a tragedy of two individuals who let their devotion to each other nearly ruin each other’s life. A fragile human and a dangerous powered Undergroundian: what else is that, but a tragedy, waiting to happen? But this story - this one right in front of us - will not end tragically, at least not for the two people it enters around. It could do so, but it will not. Maybe, this truly is the first hint that this entire narrative, so carefully set up from the very first time Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei meet, is destined to be a tragedy. Moreover, that it must be one, for some cosmic reason.

(… I apologise while I go have a little cry in the corner. Damn you, Guardian, why do you make me hurt so much?)

Da Qing inexplicably morphs from black cat to a human in white t-shirt while doing night shadowing, and promptly falls asleep on patrol. Why is he being sent to stake anyone out? He is least suitable for it. He is literally a cat. He sleeps 16 hours a day.

Surprisingly, when pressed, Zhang Ruonan comes clean very easily, revealing that she was a victim of the three students she failed (two of which are already dead and one one standing right next to them), who lured her out at night, which left her vulnerable to be attacked. Zhao Yunlan listens to this story, and instead of… oh I don’t know, perhaps asking her the identity of the third student, leaves to go find that out for himself. It is heavily implied that he does it on purpose, which is definitely not okay.

Moreover, he goes and... asks Shen Wei. This makes me suspect that he’s not really thinking with his head at this point. As he does so, he is brandishing a letter opener.

Shen Wei is looking even less impressed with him than he did during their last few conversations.

Zhao Yunlan is a little bit flippant when it comes to students’ lives this episode. And yes, they have done something really quite horrible to another human being, but that's not a very good excuse to let the last of them just die. As it happens, the situation Yunlan created - perhaps on purpose - did lure out Zhao Ruonan’s murder girlfriend, but it also cost a student his life. Which is far from ideal, but is somehow never even mentioned. Instead of being aghast, he sits on the table as he goes into full interrogation mode. (As he will continue to do a lot. Sometimes he crouches on tables instead. There is no further point here, apart from: I like this character quirk. It’s a nice character quirk.)

He brings some of his team in at this point, and asks Zhu Hong to continue interrogation. It would be a nice gesture is he did not interject two questions in.

“How do you regard your relationship with Wang Yike?”

“We are family.”

They are definitely, decisively not going for sisterly bond here. Which is kind of incredible. This is one of the moments the amorphous being that show is looks at the censors, wiggles its battered low budget eyebrows at them, and then proceeds to flip them off. Well done, Guardian.

Wang Yike calls Zhang Ruonan, saying there is one more victim she needs to take care of, and Lin Jing traces the call back to campus. Zhao Yunlan, who did not even bat an eyelid at a dead student earlier, now looks decisively worried

“Oh no. Professor Shen.”

The only reason Shen Wei is attacked is jealousy. Wang Yike does not know this of course, but trying to kill him is a bad move, because a) he has long ago given his heart away, and is definitely not interested; b) this is probably the only thing she could do to make the man on the case very very upset; c) Shen Wei’s immune to her powers.

“Someone like you will never understand what she means to me!” Wang Yike shouts eventually. “As long as I can protect her, my life has worth!” And, even as Wang Yike has no way of knowing it, these are the words that ultimately save both her and her loved one. Because Shen Wei does in fact understand what Zhang Ruonan means to her. His own endless and ultimately self-destructive devotion is his main driving force.

Shen Wei pretends to be hurt, again, which earns him a half-hug from the object of his devotion. If Zhao Yunlan does notice that Shen Wei should really come out of this attack grey haired and dead, and not just mildly inconvenienced, he chooses not to say anything.

Worried about her murder girlfriend, Zhang Ruonan rushes in and accidentally touches her. Zhao Yunlan Freaks The Hell Out. Shen Wei does, too, but in his own, reserved, way. They are both emotionally invested in those two people, although for very different reasons: Shen Wei is acutely feeling resonance of his own past in their story, and Zhao Yunlan, I think, wants to fix it, he wants to be able to make it better. Instead, Shen Wei fixes it for him, turning the tide on this tragedy, and giving it a happy ending. He heals Zhang Ruonan right in front of the officers of SID, albeit with much subtlety. (“Have someone saved her right under our noses?” Zhu Hong will snort the very same evening, and she will be 100% correct.)

Shen Wei also lets Wang Yike go despite the undeniable fact that she did kill three people. Here, he is looking at the picture of this human/Undergroundian couple, surviving despite all odds, and touches his only reminder that Kunlun really was in his life.

He then burns the picture as the only evidence that Wang Yike was not punished by him for her crimes.

In the end, Guo Chengcheng is making first of his many diary notes about the events, recounting a conversation between Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan we had not witnessed, in which Shen Wei mentioned a relationship based on devotion that can last a thousand years, and Zhao Yunlan called such a relationship “guarding”. Finally, Guo Changcheng hopes that he can become a guardian of all.

And this is making me think that this absolutely should be a set-up for him becoming a wick of the guardian lantern, as per every single other decision that was made prior to the last two episodes. Right? This is a perfect foreshadowing, and mentioning it here, so early in the show would not make any sense if it were a deliberate subversion. So, was Guo Changcheng meant to become the wick after all before... what, some rewrites happened? What made the final episode be what it was in the end?

(This is a genuine question by that way, if anyone has any insight on the matter.)

The episode would end here, if this was a western show, with a familiar monster of the week structure, but it does not. At least, the way it ends is reminiscent of a cliffhanger, with Zhao Yunlan catching Shen Wei in a middle of a crime scene, and looking betrayed.

Next episode: Lynchian Nightmare, aka people without faces.

PS.

I did not have a seamless way to stick this in anywhere but... Shen Wei’s technological ineptness at the max: he does not know how to use a Polaroid camera. Help him, he is so lost.

——

Second point of housekeeping to say a few things:

I don’t think I will be consistent with certain things being transliterated versus translated. I am more likely to use Hei Pao Shi rather than Black Cloak Envoy (because the later reminds me of Tuxedo Mask, which makes me inwardly giggle every time) but at the same time I am also more likely to use Underground/Undergroundian rather than Dixing/Dixingren. I am more likely to use Xiao rather than Little, but have called Chu Old rather than Lao before. I hope that’s not grating, but do tell me if it is

My recaps are Shen Wei-heavy. I have no real explanation for this, apart from.. I like Shen Wei.

I realise that there will definitely be things here that are head canon and speculation rather than flat observations; this show is a work of fiction and a work of art, which cannot be interpreted objectively. If you have alternate takes on anything I write in the future, let me know!

#guardian #shen wei #zhan yunlan #recap #rewatch #I still don't know how to tag

46 notes · View notes

rothane · 4 years ago

Photo

TRIGGER WARNINGS: Gang violence, violence against women and violence in general. Nothing super graphic and it’s honestly mostly just fade to black and implied, but just to be safe. References to arson and housefires in part one.

NOTES: Technically the first half should have been posted a week ago but I did not get that far lmao so now it’s just all in one. I didn’t proof read so good luck ig.

TLDR; The man Georgia shot last week approached Ro for help in the hospital parking lot and she turned him down; a week later the Rogues beat her ass.

FEBRUARY 5, 2021 / MIDNIGHT

With fires breaking out all over town, the medical center had been all hands on deck. Rowan was sure she broke every traffic bylaw in the book on her way there, hastily dropping all four children off with her parent’s and barely managing to give them a rundown on what was happening. Her heart felt like it was in her throat when she left, unsure what kind of fresh hell she was going to be walking into when she got there and trying to plan for the absolute worst case scenarios. House fires are always tricky. She has a hard time putting herself in her patients shoes, finding herself walking a balanced line of emotional and professional while she keeps it together for all of their sake, even if she knows she’ll cry when she gets back in her car at the end of the night. It’s getting exhausting --- every day seems like it just brings a new battle for them, and honesty she isn’t sure how much longer the town is going to be able to stay standing.

Her shift at the hospital goes by exactly as she thinks it will. She holds herself together amongst all of the tragedy, delivering care to her patience with professionalism and empathy for their situations. It’s difficult to leave them at the end of the night, knowing that they’ve just had their entire lives ripped out from under them. Harper doesn’t have a home to go back to tomorrow when she’s released, the last memory she had of her fiance having literally gone up in flames right in front of her. Her niece will be staying at the hospital for at least a week, if not longer. Her little body has taken far more damage than it should have, leaving her lungs compromised and her breathing in need of assistance. Rowan knows, sadly, that this is only the start of a long journey of recovery for the little girl not to mention her brothers and her mother, who are all sure to have some sort of PTSD from the ordeal. Part of her doesn’t want to leave at all, knowing that her best friend and her sister could both use the support of her there but honestly, she’s running on fumes and she just can’t stay there any longer. So she makes her rounds and says her goodbyes, promising to be back in the morning and takes her leave.

When she finally makes it down to the parking lot, she’s so tired she isn’t paying attention to her surroundings. It’s something that she can practically hear her husband scolding her about, but in the moment all she can think about is going home, taking a shower and sinking into bed for the next six hours. She’s pulled from those longing thoughts, however, at the feeling of a hand on her shoulder. She nearly drops her keys, letting out a yelp as she spins around to see who it is. She doesn’t recognize either of them. A man and a woman in cuts she can only assume say Rogues on the back of them, the man clearly in need of medical attention as what looks to be a bullet wound on one of his arms seeps blood onto the concrete around them.

“He needs help.”

Rowan barely hears the words over the sound of her heart beating in her chest and she’s already mentally calculating how long it will take her to turn around and get into her car. She’s pretty sure she can outrun them, given the state the man is in but she has no idea if they’re armed or not -- though she has a feeling it’s leaning more toward the former.

“He needs to go inside. The doctor on call will take care of him.”

The response that comes is what she had been expecting, but she backs up enough that her back is against the SUV when the woman begins speaking again. “We’re not here to have a paper trail followin’ us. We know you work for the club off the books. You’re gonna do the same for us.”

Before Rowan has a chance to properly respond, the man makes a noise of pain. His partner is distracted, giving Rowan a window of opportunity to make her move and within a split second, she’s slamming the door behind her as she gets into her car. A second later, the door handle is being violently yanked on, and she glances out the window to see the man slumped against a car a few rows away and the woman banging on the glass.

“If you leave now you’re gonna regret it.”

But it falls on deaf ears, shaking hands moving to put the car into drive, tires screeching as she flies out of the parking lot and watches her figure get smaller in the rearview. For a moment, she wonders if the whole thing had been some kind of exhaustion induced hallucination, sure that something like that couldn’t have actually just happened. But the blood streaked handprint on her window is a difficult reminder that, unfortunately, it had been very, very real. A string of curses leave her lips before taking a deep breath, fighting off the urge to vomit and while she wants to head straight home, Rowan knows better. While she had only seen two people, who really knows just how many members of the Rogues had been there and she picks up her phone to call Ryder while taking random turns on the off chance that someone is tailing her. Ten minutes later she finally gets home, Ryder having met her in the driveway and his presence is more than enough to keep her from completely losing her shit.

FEBRUARY 14, 2021 / 7 PM.

Rowan is late --- something she doesn’t do very well with. A follow up appointment with a patient from a few weeks ago having gone over time and left her scrambling to change out of her scrubs and into her dress in her office bathroom. When she finally comes out, still struggling to get her shoes on, she can tell the prospect who has been stuck with babysitting duty is anxious. It’s clear in the way he checks his watch for the third time since he sat down in the patient’s vacated seat, and the way he can’t stop bouncing his leg.

“You got a hot date waitin’ on you, Todd?” She teases him gently, and his cheeks flush with embarrassment.

His voice is higher than usual when he answers back, sheepish and uncharacteristically shy at being called out. “My girlfriend. She made dinner tonight, and she’s not a real patient lady.”

“Sounds familiar,” she snorts in response, finishing the buckle on her shoe and slipping her jacket up and over her shoulders. Todd is still just a prospect and obviously has a ways to go before he actually finds himself patched in and able to give his girlfriend the Old Lady title but if she’s as impatient and stubborn as he has lead her to believe over the weeks, Rowan has a feeling she’ll be able to hold her own more than well enough. “I’ll make you a deal, once we get down to the parking lot we can part ways. I’m just goin’ over to the restaurant anyways, there’s no need to follow me.” It’s clear that he’s about to protest, surely going over the laundry list of threats her husband has made over the last month and Rowan is quick to interrupt. “It’ll be our secret. If you make it home on time maybe you can still get lucky tonight.”

And that has him embarrassed enough that the poor kid doesn’t bother arguing anymore. Instead, they take the elevator down to the main floor where Rowan signs out and they take their leave. His motorcycle is parked next to her car, and they exchange goodbyes and Rowan gets in one more teasing jab about him having a goodnight before the two of them take separate exits. The drive to the restaurant is less than twenty minutes, and Rowan figures if she speeds, she can make it in twelve. But judging by the flashing lights behind her, she has a feeling that hadn’t been her greatest idea. She curses under her breath, pulling over to the side of the road as what she assumes is a police cruiser pulls up behind her. She fumbles to get her license and registration out after rolling the window down and she’s already spewing an excuse when someone approaches the door.

“I know I was speedin’. Sorry, office I---”

But it dies on her lips when the person leans forward and she sees the same woman from a week earlier. “Hey sweetheart. Remember me?”

The words have her blood running cold, but before she can think of an escape plan the familiar feeling of fingers tangling in her hair pulls her back to the moment, her face coming down with a harsh blow to meet the steering wheel. “You should’ve just helped us when you had the chance.” Rowan’s already disoriented, though she begins to fully panic when her door is flung open and she is pulled from the vehicle. After that, everything seems to be muted and dark, she’s barely aware of what is going on around her and she passes out after only a few moments. Two hours later, she wakes up back at the hospital --- this time finding herself in a paper gown and a hospital bed, a heart monitor beeping steadily beside her.

#the header literally is so irrel i just wanted it 2 look Pretty on the dash NSAIDABNJ #selfie002

8 notes · View notes

a-student-out-of-time · 4 years ago

Text

April Fools Special Review: Part 1

I had some ideas regarding this day. I initially was going to do a spoof review of a hypothetical Session 3 arc, but given that its looking that the Puppetmaster is gonna be a big wham arc, I think I’ll hold off because if I write say how Kana manages to deduce where Iroha’s family hideout is located and then she freaking dies, that kinda kills the joke. Then I was going to do a spoof review on why Oncoming Storm is the best arc ever, but then it would be too obvious that this was a joke. So instead, because I said I was going to do a new ‘style’ of reviewing, how about a test drive of that? After all reviews aren’t just about the Arcs overall, you can also do reviews on various characters.

So, this is going to be a non-jokey review on an individual character. This is just a test run to see what general reception of these character reviews are. If you guys like them, I have a few characters lined up for this to sprinkle in if the Mod feels like they want a break at some point. If not well…you just get a one-shot character review and that’s that. With that out of the way who is going to get the honours of getting the character review treatment?

Let’s start things off with a strong one. It’s widely accepted that the best Arc overall is the Concert Arc, so naturally the focus should be on one of the Otonokoji Twins and because Kanade looks like she is still got more to bring to the table, lets focus on who’s had the best character development by far, the would have been Ultimate Vocalist, and Death herself; Hibiki Otonokoji!

Important Note: This review is factually accurate up to Connections. As Puppetmaster, the current Arc is still in progress I’m not counting that so if something big relating to Hibiki occurs there it won’t be included in this.

Shattering the Bird Cage

Out of all the SDRA2 characters, the character who got robbed the most in terms of development was Hibiki. I’m not happy with Nikei’s ultimate fate or the fact that Iroha got zero character development but overall, I do feel satisfied with their character arcs, and can see what LINUJ was trying to do. Hibiki never got that chance as she died in Chapter 3, y’know that one chapter which has a notorious reputation for robbing characters of their character developments? *Taka, Hiyoko and Tenko coughs* I already had bad feelings that something was gonna happen to the twins because I seriously thought LINUJ was going to kill one off, and then the other would be a survivor. And it could have worked both ways, Hibiki being offed and Kanade learns to be more assertive of herself, or Kanade dies and Hibiki realises she needs to mature as an individual. As the game progresses though, you get the sense there’s something wrong with the twins. Kanade seemed too calm and too useful and as I mentioned in a previous arc review, I thought that Kanade was lying about her talent as that’s a common occurrence in Danganronpa. But Chapter 3 changed all that. After realising the previous two murders were indirectly caused by her immaturity and that she needs to take responsibility for her actions, Hibiki starts to go through some character development and becomes more useful to the group overall. But then the motive videos and her bitch of a sister slam-dunked that.

Point is, Hibiki couldn’t break away from her sister even if she tried. Heck, the Otonokoji Twins share their FTEs so you CANNOT do Hibiki and Kanade individually. As I pointed out to the Mod, I understood from a lore perspective why this was done, but I still found it very frustrating. But one of the main goals of ASOOT is that characters who got little to no character development or were done dirty, got their redeeming chance. And by heck did we get it. Nikei may have been the first Another character to make an appearance, but he wasn’t the first Another character mentioned, heck he was only the 4th character, as the Twins and Kanata came before him! When Hajime was searching information on people who would get caught up in the Tragedy during the Practical Exams arc when recovering from his ankle injury, he came across information that the Otonokoji Twins as part of their nationwide tour, were planning to visit Tokyo on July 5th. After hearing from the Anons how much of a bitch Kanade was, he made notes to do something about it but nothing much came from it. But as we know the Practical Exams had a heck of a fallout as Hajime revealed his superhero persona Kasugano for the first time to the general public, and the fallout of his exposing the teachers’ abuse meant that a third of the facility staff got fired, including the school’s guidance councillor. This meant Hope’s Peak brought in more people, mainly alumni from previous classes, and among them was Yoruko Kabuga, the former Ultimate Hostess. She requested to see Hajime which seemed very unusual. Sure, Hajime had a bit of a reputation in Hope’s Peak at that point as his preventing of Natsumi and Sato from killing themselves was extremely well known in the school and he has a few friends from the Main Course, but a newcomer like Yoruko wouldn’t have known that, it’s got to be more than that. And when talking to Yoruko, she accidently slipped and called Hajime ‘Kamakura’, but she shouldn’t have known about Hajime and Izuru being linked. Firstly, knowledge on the Project shouldn’t be known to her, and secondly Hajime cancelled his participation in said project. The only way that Yoruko could have known is if she is like Hajime and came from the future. A quick trip to the Physics building and a scan from Umeko confirmed that yes, Hajime isn’t the only time traveller around and Yoruko is another fellow resident from the OG Timeline.

Yoruko now being a fellow time traveller, obviously meant she threw her lot in with Hajime and joined the Quantum Crew. With that Hajime was able to get more details about the Void Killing Game from her, trying to persuade her that Void CAN be redeemed, and said they are no different from him and his friends, who did more fucked up shit then they did. Yoruko was relucent but she did relent in the end. And with Yoruko, Hajime was able to get precise details and after hearing how deprived Kanade truly was and that Hibiki was the biggest victim in all of this, he decided to go to the concert for two reasons. Firstly, to expose to the world Kanade’s true nature and get her arrested, and secondly to rescue Hibiki.

Naturally things didn’t go to plan at first as Kanade showed precisely WHY she gotten away from killing for so long as she tricked Hajime and Chiaki into eating poisoned chocolate and they died slowly and painfully. But little did Kanade or Hajime know is that he had a special power. When bathing with his girlfriends, yes plural, they noticed that Hajime had 9 glowing dots on his back and they are emitting concentrated Tachyonic energy that Umeko couldn’t figure out why this was going on. But when Kanade killed Hajime, he suddenly found himself outside of the hotel with Chiaki and the twins a few hours earlier. He hastily changed his plans and once back at the hotel he looked in the mirror and saw that his once 9 dots are now 8, implying he has up to nine lives, and he used one up. It’s a cool mechanic and it makes sense because whatever power bestowed Hajime with this ability also knows that Junko is a very tough opponent to defeat. It also gives Hajime a bit of a safety net so if things go really wrong, he can just reset and try again.

But eventually Hajime and co succeeded in nailing Kanade and getting her arrested, and Hibiki’s worldview just shatters. Imagine if you are Hibiki for a second. Throughout your entire life your parents have neglected you and all you had was your twin little sister. You did a lot of activities together and eventually discovered you two are really good at music, and thus decide to put a band together, and it became so good and popular that you decided to hit the idol industry. Your band, Melody Rhythm, topped the charts and your nationwide tour is a huge success. Sure, there is that annoying ‘curse’ rumours about how everyone close to you disappeared or committed suicide, but those are dumb rumours by haters, you don’t let that bother you. Then in Tokyo, you meet up with some students from Hope’s Peak Academy and they are looking to scout you and your sister for the prestigious school that graduation guarantees success for life. Hajime, the Ultimate Detective, said that those ‘curse rumours’ aren’t mere rumours, there is in fact a stalker that is after you and your sister and they are responsible for all the disappearances and suicides that have plagued your life. That’s…worrying but surely with the Ultimate Detective on the case, the stalker will be caught, those nasty curse rumours will disappear and you have new friends in Hope’s Peak Academy, right? And you get along really well with him and his girlfriend Chiaki, the Ultimate Gamer. Then one day you and Chiaki are shopping and meet up with some of Chiaki’s friends, who also seem like nice people. You are a bit worried where Kanade is but Chiaki said she’s with Hajime so they will join up with you two shortly. And then Chiaki goes to the bathroom and suddenly, the speakers in the shopping mall come to life. A conversation between Hajime and Kanade is broadcasted across the entire mall, and the truth comes out. All those disappearances…all those suicides…all those accidents…all of them were caused by the one person you trusted above all else, and worst of all, she did it because she had an incestuous lust over you and would kill anyone who gets close to you in order to degrade your mind into a subservient ‘puppet state’ where you do EVERYTHING she asks for. And just like that life as you knew it was OVER.

Unsurprisely Hibiki does not take the news well, so badly she takes it she immediately turns into the ‘puppet state’ where in her catatonic state, Chiaki and Mikan had to carry her to Yoruko’s car, thankfully, Hibiki is a short and light girl so this task is a lot easier than it could have been. I mean if Iroha of all people was able to carry Kanade back to the Monocruise in SDRA2, then I’m sure the combined efforts of Chiaki and Mikan could cope. After Kanade is tied up having been beaten to near unconscious by Sonia, clearing up all evidence that Hajime was there, and Gundham having finished leaving the evidence behind for the police, everyone then heads back to Hope’s Peak, where Hibiki is brought before the psychologists of the school, Koroko and Miaya. Neither of them could make heads or tails of the ‘puppet state’ and for the first few days, Hibiki was stuck in the Puppet State, being fed IV drips to keep her alive. Despite all the best efforts of Koroko and Miaya, they couldn’t snap her out of it, or even figure out what it was. Yoruko though had an idea to restore Hibiki. According to Kanade, the Puppet State does wear off after a while but we don’t know what the time limit is at the moment, or if the shock of finding out her sister’s true nature regressed to into a permanent Puppet State. Yoruko then over the course of the next few days, went through various interviews that the Otonokoji Twins had and got some voice clips of Kanade together in order to digitally construct a command for Hibiki to wake up. Once she got it together, it worked and Hibiki was now awake, having been in the Puppet State for 3 days.

//And so it begins!

#mod talks #a student out of time #submission

5 notes · View notes

professor-tammi · 5 years ago

Text

sometimes I just want to discuss felix/dimitri at 4 AM

I feel like Felix and Dimitri’s dynamic is quite easy to misunderstand if you’re used to FE games where most relationship development happens in supports, because there’s a lot about them you only learn outside of their supports... so let’s discuss those bits of dialogue! in fact, why don’t we discuss all of it?

- Felix and Dimitri’s ancestors, Kyphon and Loog, were very close friends (to the point that legends were passed down about their friendship), as were their fathers. this is far from the only “destined friendship” FE3H has to offer (a milder example is Linhardt and Caspar, whose fathers are described as being good friends with a similar dynamic to their sons), but it’s almost certainly the most poignant one

- early on in the game, Felix has a monastery conversation where he talks about how he wishes Dimitri would just take up the throne already; at this point their relationship is obviously still very rocky, so it’s more likely that Felix wants Dimitri to do his duty and fix the chaos in Faerghus more than anything, but it’s worth noting nevertheless!

- their first dining hall conversation has Dimitri reaching out to Felix and offering him meat as he remembers he used to like meat when they were children, which Felix is having none of. it sets the tone for their dynamic at the start of the game: Dimitri trying to reconnect, and Felix stubbornly refusing it’s also incredibly easy to make a bad joke about offering meat here but I’ll refrain

- their second dining hall conversation takes place after their B support, where Felix makes it quite clear he doesn’t want Dimitri speaking to him... so, instead, it’s Felix initiating the conversation, mentioning how Dimitri “eats like he hates the food”, with Dimitri apologizing. this one’s a bit curious, but I interpret it as Felix being observant enough to notice that Dimitri has lost his sense of taste, which suggests he worries about him despite what he claims :’)

- I’ve actually yet to see all of their group task dialogues (missing the B rank ones?), but the first one is Felix grumbling about having to work with Dimitri (”you again”) and Dimitri telling him there’s no use complaining. if they get a mediocre result, Felix says to not make him work with the boar again (iirc), but if they get a perfect result, Felix makes some amusingly suggestive comments about how “the boar is useful if you know how to handle him”, and Dimitri seems surprised by the praise, but returns it (aw he’s happy Felix said something nice to him :D)

- near the end of part I when Dimitri is starting to unravel, Felix has a monastery conversation where he comments on how his spearwork is getting sloppy and says to “cage the boar before he gets himself killed”. the crux of the conversation isn’t Felix’s apparent anger at Dimitri, but rather his fear of him dying (but, with Felix being Felix, he cloaks his concern in insults, as always)

- if you recruit Felix to BE-E, he will say he’s become the exact same monster he once berated Dimitri for being if talked to in the monastery. he will later comment on how he still believes Dimitri is a monster, but more curiously, while he says he’s resolved to go against his friends and country in an earlier conversation (notably saying he’s “prepared to kill a man [he] once called friend” -- ie, Dimitri), he also says his “sword arm feels heavy”... because he’s forcing himself to go against everything and everyone he cares about to justify the murders he’s committed

- Felix is the only member of the Blue Lions whom Dimitri has a unique boss fight conversation for. Dimitri seems shocked Felix would go so far as to kill his own father, but Felix responds he’s ready to cut down even his father and his friends (with a sad portrait... maybe not as resolved as he thinks he is!). Dimitri says that’s all he needed to hear to work up the resolve to kill him, which, well... I’m glad he admits he needed to work up the resolve to kill Felix specifically, but I’m also still crying

- if you recruit Felix to GD instead, then once Dimitri dies, Felix has a monastery conversation where he’s very shaken-up: he talks about how their “relationship started before [they were] born”, a nod to the friendships of their ancestors and parents, and says he once considered Dimitri his best friend (this is notable, as it’s one of several implications Dimitri and Felix had a closer bond with each other than the rest of the Lions childhood friend group). he then goes on to admit he didn’t understand his friend’s anguish, and blames himself for failing to be there for him: “could I have saved him? could I have stopped him?”

- in a latter GD monastery conversation, Felix wants to deal with the Slithers so that Dimitri can rest in peace, and for the first time in this particular route, he actually calls Dimitri by his name (stopping himself before referring to him as a boar again)

- in both BE-E and GD, Felix’s negative character development mirrors Dimitri’s (which I wrote a quick post on), which makes a lot of sense when you consider they’ve been through similar hardships. this ties into Felix relating his way of dealing with the deaths of those close to him to Dimitri’s method of coping in their A support; despite his sharp tongue, he does understand!

- all of Felix’s endings change on the non-BL routes, as Dimitri’s death impacts him very negatively. I wrote a post on this, too! with Felix having been raised to be the king’s right-hand man, this makes a lot of sense: if Dimitri dies, he’s essentially lost his purpose in life and, from his point of view, failed to save his best friend from himself, and so he “copes” by devoting himself to the sword, becoming a death-seeking mercenary

- post time-skip on the BL route, Felix has surprisingly little to say after joining up with Dimitri, but does point out he’s “like a completely different person”. his monastery dialogue is more interesting: he’s in the cathedral for the first time, specifically to watch over Dimitri, and tells Byleth to do something about him, as he can hardly bear to look at “it” (apparently, he’s not even willing to refer to Dimitri as a boar anymore). despite his apparent anger, it’s, as always, a way for him to mask his concern, as he’ll gain support points if Byleth promises to help Dimitri.

- after Rodrigue’s death, Felix is harsh with Dimitri, but (assuming you have them at the appropriate support level) nevertheless promises to help him in his father’s stead and finally calls him by his actual name, implying he acknowledges the Dimitri he considered his friend did not truly die with the Tragedy of Duscur and is no longer just “the boar”

- after reaching A rank, Dimitri’s dining hall dialogue with Felix has him say “you used to whine unless you could do everything with me” (with Felix reacting in an appropriately tsun manner). when paired with Sylvain’s comments about Felix coming to him crying whenever he had a fight with Dimitri, we get a good picture of younger Felix as a bit of a clingy crybaby who couldn’t stand being apart from Dimitri, which is very telling: he probably retains a bit of that clinginess deep down, even if he’d do everything in his power to deny it :D (I also feel it makes it quite clear Felix was closest to Dimitri!)

- their group task dialogue at A rank has Felix still being quite tsundere, but Dimitri seems to be very much unaffected and tells Felix it’s assuring to have him there. if they get a mediocre result, you (iirc) get some rather cute dialogue where Dimitri tells Byleth to praise Felix for having worked so hard, to which Felix goes “stop it, boar. I only worked hard because you made me” (still tsundering, I see!); with a perfect result, Felix comments on how they “work so well together it’s eerie”, to which Dimitri agrees, but also says it makes sense as they were childhood friends

- in a latter monastery dialogue, Felix comments on how his father would be proud if he could see the progress Dimitri’s made, then hastily adds, “don’t you dare tell anyone I said that”. sure, Felix

- before the final battle, if you have Felix and Dimitri at A rank, Felix has this to say: “go and win. be the boar that you are, and don’t you dare look back.” this shows an implied reconciliation that their A rank by itself didn’t really offer, and is also rather sweet as Felix is using “boar” as more of an affectionate nickname than an insult here, acknowledging Dimitri’s two faces. (during the final battle, Felix and Dimitri will also have a short conversation if you defeat Myson, where Felix chides Dimitri for getting distracted!)

- Felix’s solo ending has him become Dimitri’s right-hand man, which is referenced in a majority of his endings on the BL route (so even if you choose not to support them, Felix still ends up dedicating his life to serving Dimitri), and, finally...

- Felix and Dimitri’s paired ending mentions that their friendship rivaled that of Loog and Kyphon’s, mentioned above, but also has this lovely line: “their lifelong bond grew so strong over time that, when Dimitri finally passed, it is said that Felix's grief was more potent even than the queen's.” yes, Dimitri having a queen is brought up... but only so we can learn that Felix cared more for him than his own wife did. a fitting ending! :’)

#fire emblem #fraldarddyd #felix hugo fraldarius #dimitri alexandre blaiddyd #text post #text: fodlan #fe16 spoilers #felix #dimitri #sometimes i wish i used less organizational tags :')#ship: don't you dare look back

610 notes · View notes

promethes · 4 years ago

Text

Grief is as human an emotion as joy or melancholy. To live is to grieve and be grieved. If other emotions are ponds, grief is the Mariana trench. More “common” everyday emotions (happiness, sadness, excitement) can be expressed in a myriad of slightly differing ways. With one word, we can distinguish not only an emotion but specify how that emotion is felt. The umbrella of “happy” covers everything from pure joy to cheerfulness to contentment. “Sadness” can come in forms of melancholy or sorrow. Grief, on the other hand, is such an all-encompassing experience that it can’t be boiled down into a single simple word. While that may work to describe other feelings, no one word will ever be able to come close to describing grief. No matter what, any word used will fall short of capturing the profound feelings of loss humans can experience. Grief is immeasurable and indescribable which is why it is such a powerfully poetic experience.

Just like there is no one way to experience grief, there is no one way to write a poem. Poetry has no limits or qualifications. Ten-page ballads can be just as poetic as single word expressions. As long as it has a root in something innately human, almost anything can be described as a poem. The humanity of it is what sets poetry apart from prose, which is why such a deeply human experience like grief is poetic.

Perhaps one of the best examples of the duality of grief is Yusef Komunyakaa’s “The Towers”. Though the poem is explicitly addressed to his deceased son in the first line, most Americans who read it can relate to the hopelessness conveyed in the poem. Komunyakaa’s focus is on the death of his son which was a deeply personal occurrence. No person on this planet felt his son’s death the same way he did. However, he framed his son’s death with an event so widely felt that it’s still remembered every year almost two decades later. 9/11 is so ingrained into American culture that even people who were months old when the tragedy occurred still feel the residual grief from the massive amount of deaths incurred. We can see that Komunyakaa made a deliberate choice to frame the poem this way since his son didn’t die during 9/11. If he was confined to using prose to describe his son’s death, Komunyakaa wouldn’t have been able to tap into the grief of an entire nation to compare to the grief he felt like the father of a dead child. By moving away from the literal emotional pain of losing his child and using the more abstract pain felt from a national tragedy he made his pain clearer to a wider audience. Not everyone has experienced the loss of a child, but we all feel the effects of 9/11.

Using poetry to convey his grief was a perfect choice for the audience to truly understand what he was going through. It was also a good choice for Komunyakaa himself. By tapping into his emotions and putting them into words, he must have relieved some of his grief and come closer to closure. By the end of the poem, it seems as if Komunyakaa is finally letting go of his son when he writes “No, I’m not Daedalus, but I’ve walked miles in a circle, questioning your wings of beeswax & crepe singed beyond belief.” He acknowledges that he is still mourning, comparing it to walking miles but ending up in the same place again and again because he is stuck in the cycle of grief. His use of past tense (“I’ve”) shows that he’s since stepped out of the circle, perhaps because he’s finally found the answer to his son’s singed wings of beeswax and crepe. Like Daedalus, Komunyakaa, too, had to work through his grief to keep flying. He lost his son so early that he used the poem to breathe life into him one last time. For Komunyakaa to get closure, he’d at least need to see his son thrive in some way before the child was finally laid to rest in his father’s mind. He gave his son “wings… agile & unabashedly decorous,” literally letting his son soar and thrive in poetry the way he wasn’t able to do in life before his wings turn to “beeswax & crepe singed beyond belief” and his life ends.

Poetry is so profound that even just a couple of lines detailing a simple step by step routine can be turned into a deep look into severed relationships. Robert Hayden’s “Those Winter Sundays” is really about just that: his speaker’s routine on Sunday mornings during the winter. It could be read as prose, but that would be doing an injustice to the work. Yes, the basis of the poem is the literal things he and his family would do, but the spacing of the lines combines with the tone of his poem to create the scene of an emotionally strained family. In a way, Hayden’s speaker uses the poem to mourn his relationship with his father. Though he is not literally dead, his son still grieves his father’s life, one that has been spent on labor so grueling that his “cracked hands… ached”. We know that the speaker is talking about the past, and he acknowledges that he did not have a close relationship with his father. Instead, he’d speak “indifferently to him,/ who had driven out the cold/ and polished [his] good shoes as well.” Though at the time the speaker did not mourn his father and their relationship (which we can ascertain from his indifference towards his father), we can see that he feels that he should have been mourning the relationship at the time, maybe just so he could appreciate it while he had it. Obviously, he did not understand the father who would wake so much earlier than his son simply to warm the room and polish shoes. At that time in the past, the speaker couldn’t comprehend that that was the way his father showed his love. Later in his life, he finally understands, but perhaps too late. He ends his poem by saying“What did I know, what did I know/ of love’s austere and lonely offices?” implying that he never was able to understand his father’s displays of affection in time to return the feelings. Though we don’t know that his father is dead, we can glean that he is no longer in contact with him. With the short, blunt sentences Hayden uses, he casts a bitter tone over his wasted relationship with his father. The way he ends the first stanza sets the tone for the entire poem: “No one ever thanked him”, “him” being the speaker’s father. All of these factors come together to show a man grieving not only his separation from his father but the life his father lived with a son who spoke with him coldly and didn’t consider the sacrifices that he made for him. The son mourns the relationship that could have been if only he had seen how much his father cared for him earlier. This poem is a perfect example of how poetry can be used to work through several kinds of grief, including grieving what could have been: a healthy relationship with one’s son, a life spent on the kind of love that inspires community rather than isolation, or maybe even simply a life that consists of more than hard labor and waking up early on your days off for an unappreciative son.

Poetry can even be used to grieve one’s own self. The previous two poems mentioned both showed the grieving of those who have passed away and the more abstract relationships that could have come to be. Mark Strand’s “Keeping Things Whole” is much more poetry-like than “The Towers” and “Those Winter Sundays”. The first two detailed things that actually happened and arranged them into a way where they were more poetry than prose. If a few of their words were moved around and rephrased, their poems could possibly lose the strangeness that makes them poetry and become simple prose that doesn’t come close to conveying the emotions they convey in their poetic forms. “Keeping Things Whole” is pure poetry. If there was a physical scale of the literary versus the literal, his poem would drop the literary side faster than a brick. Every poem has some sort of “strangeness”, and when it comes to this one, that “strangeness” is basically the entire poem.

“In a field

I am the absence

of field”

can’t be twisted into something that actually happens. The fact that it is untouched by the literal makes the poem so purely melancholy that it inspires weeping in some readers (including, as you know, the author of this paper). When I try to think of the thoughts that would inspire poetry like this, I picture someone who feels grief so deep that no real-world comparison will do. Though it’s never explicitly stated, Strand perfectly conveys the emotions of someone grieving themself. Technically none of it makes sense, but the second one starts thinking poetically, the lines scream that the poet feels like he is someone who is fundamentally missing. He grieves himself, and the fact that he cannot seem to find himself, and “This is/ always the case”. The final stanza is especially raw and wrought with emotion:

We all have reasons

for moving.

I move

to keep things whole.

Not only does he convey the grief that he feels, but he also makes the reader grieve him. The image of someone who feels so empty that they see themselves as what is missing is so profoundly sad that I can’t come up with words that do it justice. The reader’s mourn along with Strand for the selfless person who never lets themselves stay in one place too long and find himself for fear of being “what is missing”. Someone who keeps moving to allow the air “to fill the spaces/ where [his] body’s been” is so self-sacrificing that they would rather never find themself to keep the world whole for others rather than cure his sense of self-loss. The way that he mourns himself paints the picture of someone who could be so valuable to society if only he would allow himself the chance to find a community. It’s hard to stop one’s self from grieving along with Strand for someone who so obviously cares about others but can’t find enough of themselves to know, let alone care for.

Poetry is perhaps the best way to put grief into words. For Yusef Kamanyakaa, he was able to change his son’s death from a “sad” event to something that inspired the image of “throbbing searchlights”, conveying a hopeless tone that the literal words with the same tone (like “hopeless”) would never be able to convey the same level of loss he was experiencing. He was able to not only work through the literal grief for his son but also to put it into words. Hayden grieved his relationship with his father and Strand his relationship with himself, both leaning into the poetic to fully convey the depth of their grief. No amount of technical language would ever be able to come close to even a single line of poetry describing profound emotions, especially grief. To mourn is to tap into humanity, and to write poetry is to let that tap run.

#jfc this is actually so bad i wrote it day of #but the idea behind it was spicy #written one yr ago #og #emptying notes #essays #long post

13 notes · View notes

theangrypokemaniac · 5 years ago

Text

Contests Part 2/2

6. Loser Jessie

Screechy harpie Jessay has even more of a raw deal than Mavis and Dawn of the Dead.

From the outset I knew she'd never be champion, but she ought to rise above the tiresome berks clogging up procedure.

Sufficient popularity at Pokémon Towers ensured the girls were allotted coverage of all their award ceremonies. They had a moment in the sun.

What has Jessie in comparison?

I can't recall Hoenn, but I don't expect it was much.

Sinnoh however carried naught but a single paltry episode.

This for a main character.

This for someone there from the beginning.

This for an ardent fan favourite.

This for a wench who, should we include all her various mutations, has featured in more installments than either of 'em.

But no, treat Jesseee as worthless, even lower than Dawn's groupies. It's not like anyone watches it for her.

Looking back, it's obvious what they were intending to do come Unova.

What's the score then?

• One paltry Contest on screen.

• A couple happen elsewhere, marked by a few seconds per mention when the script oh-so generously moves away from the thrilling main plot.

It's gotta be the small-town concerns for Jessuhleenuh, nothing major. She deserves no better.

• One won by James, so not hers. Press her inadequacy upon us!

• One obtained as a gesture of pity from Kate Middleton.

And how did that work? What's the good of allowing 'Dawn' entry again?

She'd already qualified. If winning here, that gives her six, therefore there aren't enough Co-ordinators for the culmination.

And when Jessie showed up with a Ribbon recorded as belonging to Dawn, how was she taken as fulfilling the quota?

The slapdash way these Contests are run!

God forbid Jess should be shown as excelling at anything. It must be scraping into the final undeservedly.

Bitch gotta know her place.

7. Bumpkin Jessie

...

Ain't no description I can give that don't rhyme with 'hit', or variations of the theme.

You thought the shafting Jessica got coverage wise was bad enough? Yer ain't heard the 'alf of it.

Sinnoh was a period of peak Moron Team Rocket, where the one surprise was how stupid they could be.

You may remember an early episode when James designed her clothes for the catwalk. She thought it'd complement his work by applying lipstick all across her mug.

Obviously Jessie would do that, clueless as to how make-up functions.

Come on kids, she's thick!

Even at that numskull nadir it's difficult to comprehend anyone choosing this get up without severe duress.

Picture the scene: you debut on stage, before an audience of thousands and television cameras, in an event preoccupied with superficiality.

What do you wear?

• Giant, oversized glasses out of fashion since the Seventies.

• Bootlace tie last worn in the nineteenth century Wild West by a barman serving sarsaparillas.

• Colour scheme of brown and orange, the nation's favourite hues.

• A man's old shirt fraying at the cuffs.

• Voluminous apron dress.

• Massive yellow bows last seen decorating an Easter Egg. Always a winner.

• Heavy, clod-hopping boots.

• PIGTAILS!!!

Even the name is unattractive.

Ah yes, very common for those under six. Unheard of later.

You have reached puberty haven't yer Jessie? I can't tell anymore.

They couldn't get enough of that combination in Cosmo, which is why it's no longer in print.

Not only is Jessie denied success, she's deprived of the chance to be pretty in a realm where nothing but that carries weight.

Worse, given how her face disintegrated, this is the best she's been for five generations.

Yeah, because the inbred milkmaid style is such a good look, eh?

SEXAY!!!

8. So Long, Tsundere

Remember tsunderes? What happened to 'em?

The curse of Pokémon was draining the well of inspiration too quickly, throwing away interesting characters as mere guests.

This is particularly noticeable regarding the ladies. Back then, we got Misty, Jessie, Jessibelle, Cassidy, Aya, Giselle, Tyra, Sabrina, assorted crones Brutella, Nastina and Lacy, plus Joy, Jenny and Dame Ketchum provided parental authority.

How did a series that began with ball-breaking birds like that end up with insipid, glassy-eyed dullards like Zuhreena, Banana Lana, Marsh Mallow and Lilliput?

Ooh, Zuhreena is a pwincess!

Ooh, Banana Lana bwows big bwubbles!

Ooh, Marsh Mallow wuvs phallic waddishes!

Ooh, Lilliput won't pwet wanimals bwecause of Secwet Pain!

Can you imagine such weak specimens finding any place in the anarchic atmosphere of the classics?

It's SO boring!

Where's the punch? Where's the human spirit?

Where's the entertainment gone?

This squishy attitude began in Hoenn. Misty left, Jessie's hair symbolically changed from volcanic red to pink, and Contests introduced a cuddly theme where glitter glue and sequins are top priority.

Every sharp corner, every jagged point has been filed smooth. Now its substance hasn't the hardness to even develop edges, not when it's all cushions and candyfloss, where catching Pokémon rests on them deigning to grant permission, rather than 'avin it out.

Tsunderes, exuding untamed charisma and independence, besides a soupçon of danger, simply don't fit the cardboard box we habit now.

Nor do yanderes, kuuderes, tsuntsuns, or even derederes. It's just nothing but smiley-smiley creeps.

I wouldn't mind any of these tropes as long as there was some sign of colour to be had.

9. The Sacrifice of Misty

Misty bid farewell under the feeble justification that the lack of a longterm goal made her vulnerable to sacking.

Such a line uttered as if her own choice, being beyond them as writers to invent a purpose.

This implied her replacement would have an exciting quest aiming for excellence, something just beyond Misty's capabilities.

What did we get?

Dressing up and collecting Ribbons!

Is that...is that it? Is that the great idea? Is that all the girls are worth?

I lost Misty for THIS?!

Perhaps it makes no difference. By Hoenn they'd rendered her a leaden blandness sucked dry of all that made her special.

Going by the greasy-toothed bastardisation that swanned up in Alola, Misty was simply too wild for the safe, stifling atmosphere of today.

Her departure ensued she remains frozen as a funny, beloved presence, unlike those she left behind.

Now there was a lucky escape, as once the fanny-flapping starts, the bints have it on the brain.

May had Max to beat on the side, but Dawn developed monomania.

Hardly an episode went by without some reference to Contests, or how today's plot spurred her on to the next opportunity.

Yer need help, love!

Rather than Ash's new friend being a fascinating person who so happened to enter vanity projects, the competition defined them to the exclusion of life.

It is but moths drawn to the candle flame waiting to engulf them.

Contests are this world's version of Tom Riddle's diary: they promise sympathy and validation, but they eat your soul.

Like Tumblr.

10. Completely Unoriginal

Seems to me it wasn't so much Misty had no goal, it was more that Contests were the supposedly hot concept wedged into an existing property.

If earlier aspects failed to accommodate the invader, the onus certainly wasn't on the new kid to change. Oh no, stuff it in and chop off whatever gets in the way.

In the eyes of the post-Shudo regime, Misty was too volatile to last, and so had to go.

What idiots.

She's a tsundere. The softer, more feminine side is a defining component.

Would it really have been so problematic to retain her as an entrant? If Jessie can, why not?

Even if failing to fit, so what? Since when was established characterisation a barrier?

Isn't twisting likeable folk into unrecognisable pods the modus operandi of the writers?

That canon is immaterial, and must always give in to whatever fancy they currently have?

Well then, what's the big deal in infantilising Misty to promote it rather than pensioning her off?

Viewers will be more invested in the challenges awaiting a familiar face rather than a stranger.

What reduces the above to the risible is the original Misty and Jessie both participated in the Princess Festival.

All Contests are is that very scenario on repeat and robbed of all meaning.

Think about it:

• Beauty round

• Battle round

• Jessie loses

Same bloody thing.

Not only have I got to suffer this draining spectacle, it's got the nerve to possess not one iota of fresh ideas!

Contests are a low rent rip-off. The Princess Festival had a worthy reward in the shape of one-of-a-kind Dolls.

It'd already been revealed that ordinary Princess Dolls were ruinously expensive, therefore the special Pokémon edition have to be priceless.

What d'yer get for the trouble of a Contest but a bit of plastic tat taped to bargain basement frippery?

And they demand you get five of 'em!

Contests themselves were then resurrected as Showcases, although mercifully slimmed down to only three, with the emptiness ramped up in compensation.

Perhaps ironically, Princess Versus Princess is one of my favourite episodes. I love its critique of female avarice and accurate portrayal of clothing sales as reminiscent of the zombie apocalypse.

I don't mind the Festival as a single adventure, but I may have felt less favourable had it been a constant presence.

Except it isn't the competition at stake. This is a framework to explore Jessie and Misty as people.

Through its device we learn their history and therefore how they came to develop as the girls we know.

The setting serves as an opportunity for both to confront the misery and isolation of their childhoods, with the promise of overcoming that old torment with the balm of victory.

In the final, they aren't so much battling an opponent as fighting to be free of the past.

The tragedy is only one can be granted that reprieve. The other must remain unhappy in the ruins of memory.

It matters, unlike vapid Contests, where posturing is king. What depth can they provide in comparison?

Despite identical content, they are inverse counterparts, with the Festival presented as merely a light affair concealing a rather dark tale of neglect.

Contests however are paraded as this worthy nourishment for body and mind, a major point in one's journey towards enlightenment, when all they really amount to is an organ grinder and his monkey arsing about for the slack-gobbed plebs.

Bread and circuses.

Best of all, Misty won, not some side twat, as it should be.

Note how Jessie dressed: in delicate, vivid robes and golden decoration. The boys thought her beautiful.

Not as a gormless dweeb you'd cross the street to avoid!

And why the need to disguise herself anyway?

The Twerps had no issue with Jessie of Team Rocket joining the fun back then, so what happened?

At least she received the consolation of gaining Lickitung as a friend, with James and Meowth desperate to comfort her.

What do Contests bring? Sod all!

#pokémon #team rocket #contests #misty #jessie #kanto #princess versus princess

5 notes · View notes

hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger · 6 years ago

Text

Symbiote Spider-Man #1 Thoughts

Tl:dr version: Screw Ahmed’s ASM annual, THIS is a black costume story done right!

I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect with this book.

In spite of the back pages from editor Devin Lewis (who I am shocked to discover is about my age...Jesus) this is a title clearly existing because

a) Venom had a movie last year

b) Mysterio will be in a movie this year

c) Venom is perennially popular

d) The black suit is perennially popular

e) There is an event coming up centred around those who were hosts to symbiotes, Spider-Man being the most famous

And as a side note the Spider Office/Peter David himself seem keen to maintain a PAD led title of some sort. No complaints from me, older creators shouldn’t be thrown away, especially one as talented as PAD.

However in this issue PAD has delivered quite frankly his best Spider-Man work in YEARS, possibly a whole decade. His 2099 book? This blows it out the water. His Scarlet Spider work, lol please.

I attribute this to 3 key factors:

a) PAD is writing a character he honestly likes which wasn’t the case with Ben Reilly

b) PAD is writing the character in the status quo he’d obviously prefer which wasn’t the case for 2099

c) This being an untold tale series that’s also a mini, this title cannot be derailed by crossovers which was the case in...pretty much everything Spider related he’s written since 2005

This issue was magnificent.

It is essentially Peter David doing Untold Tales of Spider-Man but set in the Alien Costume Saga.

Untold Tales’ writing intended to evoke a bygone era (coincidentally 30+ years before its publication, just like this series) but with a dash of modernity.

This series is much the same.

The dialogue is mostly modern but leans a bit more towards the past, is happy to use editorial captions for comic references (something most modern comics are afraid to do for some reason) and is doesn’t feel all that out of place with the stories of 1984!

The same cannot be said for the art which is obviously nothing like what Frenz and (to a less extent) Leonardi were doing back then.

However even then, maybe I just didn’t notice but the art honestly seemed...okay. Considering this is Greg Land this surprised me. Maybe someone will do a breakdown to prove me wrong but I didn’t notice anything that wrong with it.

Well that is until Felicia turned up then you realize he was obviously tracing. She looked a little like Pamela Anderson to me but god knows who he was ‘basing’ her on.

The only REAL art problem I noticed was the miscolouring of Felicia’s hair. She was a regular blonde as opposed to the platinum blonde she is supposed to be, but you could just say that was artistic licence.

Though it becomes harder to ignore since she’s supposed to resemble another blonde woman earlier in the story. I guess she was platinum blonde too?????

ANYWAY, the story itself is solid.

It’s a Mysterio character piece first and foremost and you can tell PAD loves this character a lot. I was worried it was going to be another origin for Mysterio contradicting his canon one but it wasn’t. It honestly felt very much like a story we might’ve gotten from back in the 80s had anyone been that interested in Mysterio.

It brings up the good point that, IIRC is entirely true, that (at least at this point in time) Mysterio never killed anyone and has him have a crisis when he inadvertently leads to a woman dying.

Honestly the main problems with this story were the woman arguably getting fridged and how maybe lame the set up for it was. She was literally introduced, established as having a family and axed within the same scene. Okay that scene plus Felicia concluding the costume was alive. I guess you can No. Prize it away but it seems kinda weird that neither Peter nor Felicia brought up how she called it right that day. Maybe they just forgot. Also maybe it was a bit of a continuity error that Felicia calls out Peter for being angry that she doesn’t accept his normal life. Then again I think you could massage continuity to make it fit.

Speaking of Felicia PAD likes the character, PAD likes this era for her and for the series (no shit, this was around the time he began writing Spider-Man so he’s very much at home here) and along with Spencer and Marvel over all he seems to be throwing Felicia much love now Slott is done abusing her.

Unlike in Ahmed’s shitty ass Annual last year Felicia is on point here and entirely within character (love her flirtation) with PAD throwing us a moment that I’m sure must’ve happened off panel at some point but we never get to see it.

Felicia basically confronting the ghost of Uncle Ben. PAD nails the tension between the Peter/Spidey/Felicia love triangle but does it correctly. Too often people oversimplify that she simply wholesale rejected his life as Peter Parker when the truth is whilst that was Felicia’s initial reaction, she did TRY to accept that side of Peter.

Going to Ben’s grave formally meeting Aunt May (she’d previously done so in costume) does that. She likes Aunt May, she’s sympathetic towards Peter (she lost her Dad too remember).

This is good drama no one ever milked!

Plus it, along with many other moments in the issue were just funny, you could tell PAD was having a good time and he’s a witty writer in general.

I think a key component of this issue’s success is that it’s well researched. I’d somewhat forgive PAD for not re-reading the Alien Costume saga since it was around the time he was working on Spider-Man, but apparently he re-read both trades collecting the Alien Costume Saga and you can tell.

Unlike Ahmed who clearly didn’t read these issues because he made blatantly obvious mistakes, apart from the teeny tiny nitpicks I mentioned NOTHING in this issue is out of place.

And I know because I double checked!

Numerous times I thought I’d spotted an error.

- Aunt May knowing Peter dropped out of college

- The Human Fly being alive

- Spider-Man’s aggression which I thought was being implied to be the symbiote’s fault

Nope. Nope. Nope.

PAD danced between the raindrops of continuity expertly. Aunt May found out Peter dropped out in ASM #253 DURING the Alien Costume Saga. The Human Fly was in fact alive, seen in a story shortly before Peter went to Battleworld. Peter’s aggression has an entirely different and logical explanation.

It was a job worthy of Busieck. Much kudos to PAD! Much shame on Ahmed.

Okay now let’s talk about the elephant in the room, or rather the twin set of elephants.

Yeah in this story...the Twin Towers are just fine.

There is a very interesting explanation at the back of the issue as to why this was.

Essentially PAD and Marvel were in two minds (ironically) about including the Towers for obvious reasons, PAD even having an alternately written scene in mind.

Now from a reader point of view it was a shock, I felt something so that’s good. And PAD being in New York when it happened I think lends him a certain degree of licence to touch on the tragedy. He actually already has in his 2099 book, a character revealed as a latent Inhuman comments that her life was shaped by the tragedy. That was maybe the first time ever since the ASM tribute issue that I recall a Marvel title using 9/11 as a piece of history as a story element much as they use WWII all the time.

The rationale behind doing it at all was that it was more immersive in the period, because obviously in 1984 the Twin Towers were still there. Although I wasn’t sure if PAD’s implication was that if you backtracked from this point in Spider-Man’s life to the point when he had the black suit that the Towers would still have been there. Because the latter would not be true since at most Peter would’ve been 17-18 and that’s if you accept he’s 35 NOW!

Regardless I think it worked well, I think Marvel handled it tastefully and I respect that they made the effort to justify it as opposed to just throwing it out there.

It’s also very much in line with the ethos of Untold Tales because IIRC whilst the stories were not EXACTLY set in the 1960s they were effectively set in the 1960s and had the same fashions.* Along with the Towers PAD also throws out references to the Muppet Babies and Power Pack who were huge in the 1980s.

All in all I can’t recommend this title highly enough.

BUY IT!

P.S. the only other complaint I have is that we’re apparently getting the Spot later and the Spot didn’t show up until after the Saga. So...we’ll see what happens there.

*Even though nobody in the actual 1960s looked or talked much like Stan Lee wrote Peter and the gang to but you catch my drift.

#Spider-Man #Symbiote Spider-Man #Peter David #peter parker #alien costume saga #Mysterio #Greg Land #Quentin Beck #Felicia Hardy #black cat #the black cat #Kurt Busiek #Aunt may #may parker

29 notes · View notes

visionsofus · 6 years ago

Photo

Field Trips, Infinity Stones, and oh mY GOD IS THAT SPIDER-MAN?

CH1 | CH2 | CH3 | CH4 | CH5

| CHAPTER 6 ~ sudden surprises and sombre sentiments |

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Peter unveils the last gift that Mr Stark left him along with an emotional message that he isn’t quite ready to hear.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Peter tried to avoid his classmates' gaze as he slowly made his way over to the CEO of Stark Industries. He had been looking forward to catching up with Pepper, Morgan and Happy but it seemed she had other plans. Peter wasn't entirely sure what he'd done to earn such a cold reaction from her but he had an inkling it might have something to do with him sneaking the iron spider suit into SI earlier that morning. Not that Peter bringing his Spidey suit to work had ever been a problem before.

"Peter!" A little voice cried and the sound of small shoes could be heard tapping against the polished floor of the lab. As Peter slowly rounded the group of students and interns he came face to face with Morgan Stark.

"Oh hey!" Peter said immediately breaking into a smile and dropping to his knees to hug Morgan once she reached him. "How you doing kiddo?"

"Good." Morgan replied sweetly, hugging Peter back.

Growing up Peter had never had the experience of having a younger sibling, or even cousins, given that May had never had kids. Though he had only met Morgan a few times, Peter already doted on her like an older brother. The first time they had met at the funeral, Peter hadn't been able to keep himself together knowing that Morgan was going to have to grow up without her dad. Peter had gone through that first hand and knew how difficult it was and he was determined to be there to help if Morgan needed him.

"Morgan." Pepper said sighing, her poker face dropping immediately in favour of fond exasperation. Peter looked up at the CEO again and took in her all black attire, a clear mark of the tragedy she was still recovering from. Peter couldn't help noticing the faint bags under her eyes and the red that rimmed her eyelids. It seemed the last month hadn’t treated her well. Knowing that Pepper was here at SI helping the rest of the world get back on its feet even though she had just lost a core part of her worldfilled Peter with endless admiration.

A couple of quiet 'aww's had broken out amongst Peter's classmates as Morgan took his hand in her small one and dragged him over to her Mom.

"Sweetie, Mommy said to wait outside with Happy." Pepper said taking Morgan's other hand once the two had reached her.

"But Happy said I could come in and see Peter." Morgan said beaming up at Peter.

"Of course he did," Pepper said shaking her head, "Abigail, Mr Harrington, please excuse Peter until lunch, I have a few things to discuss with him regarding his internship.

Peter glanced at his teacher whose eyes were flicking between Peter and the CEO, betraying the confusion he was obviously experiencing. "Of course, we'll see him again at lunch time then…" Mr Harrington said trailing off.

Deciding that the adults had finished their business, Morgan took the lead and pulled Pepper and Peter behind her as they left the lab.

"Sorry if I was a bit cold back there Peter," Pepper said once they were clear of the lab, she let go of Morgan's hand and pulled Peter in for a warm hug.

"Oh it's no worries at all." Peter said returning the hug with one arm, given that his other hand was still held in Morgan's tight grip.

Pepper drew back again, "I got Friday to keep an eye on you and it seemed that you were having a few issueswith some of your classmates. Particularly, after that run in with Dr Banner, Ms Maximoff and the Princess of Wakanda, I don't know why they had to stop at that floor, they should have just come straight up to the lab… Anyway," Pepper sighed, "I figured me coming in and acting all friendly wouldn't really help things if you're still trying to fly under the radar re the whole Spider-Man thing. But little Morgan had other ideas." Pepper said taking her daughter's hand again and squeezing it.

Before Peter could reply he was clapped on the back by the strong hand of Happy Hogan.

"Happy!" Peter said, not realising how relieved he was to see his 'babysitter' again, though it had been little more than a month.

"It's good to see you kid." Happy admitted with a smile, quite unlike the unbothered front he used to put up around Peter.

"Let's head up to my office and we can talk more there." Pepper said calling an elevator down. It arrived within seconds and the four of them got on.

"I'm hungry." Morgan said rubbing at her eyes.

"There's food up in Mommy's office, we'll get you something tasty." Pepper assured, smoothing Morgan's hair down and tucking it behind the little girl's ear.

"So how you been kid?" Happy said turning to Peter and leaning casually against the glass interior of the elevator.

"Oh you know." Peter said shrugging, "I'm getting by, trying to do homework again, thinking about the future and where I am going for college. Those sort of things." He knew that Happy was probably trying for a deeper answer to his question but didn't seem inclined to push Peter any further. "What about you?"

"Eh," Happy said shrugging. "Helping out where I can, sometimes I'm at SI, sometimes I'm babysitting squirt here," he said looking fondly at Morgan, "other times I'm doing recon with the Avengers. It's all Pepper though."

"You're very helpful Happy." Pepper said smiling.

"I feel like I should be doing more…" Peter said looking at his feet. "But after everything that's happened I just haven't been able to bring myself to…" He didn't like how quickly he was ready to fall apart as he let the sentence die off and tried to breath slowly.

"You did so much, Peter." Pepper said smiling sorrowfully and taking a deep breath. "We're all just trying to do our best, sometimes that's all we can manage."

Peter swallowed and nodded, looking down at his feet once more. He wasn't sure how much Morgan understood of their conversation but she seemed to feel the sorrow that was now emanating from them. To fill the silence she started to chatter, telling Peter about one of her toys that she had pulled apart and put back together again. There was definitely a large part of Tony in her.

Eventually the elevator reached Pepper's office on the top floor of the building and the four of them got out.

"I hope you don’t mind me pulling you out of the tour, I figured you've probably heard and seen a lot of what they were talking about anyway." Pepper said walking across the open plan office space towards her desk which looked out over a stunning view of New York City. Happy took Morgan off to the kitchenette in search of the food she had been promised.

"Oh no it's completely fine." Peter replied following Pepper. "This gives me a break from some of the uncomfortable questions I've been getting today too." He'd no doubt have more once he returned though.

"From what I saw on the feed they were more like accusations." Pepper mused, shifting a few files on her desk as she searched for something. "I saw what Wanda Maximoff did to one of your classmates, I only hope that he doesn't make it into a problem."

He deserved it though. Peter had to bite his tongue from saying that out loud, he really didn't want to say anything that would disappoint Ms Potts. Implying that a weak and defenceless human like Flash deserved an ass kicking from the Scarlet Witch, no matter how much Peter would have paid to see it, wasn't right. Right?

"He won't cause any problems, he's probably too embarrassed about it anyway." Peter assured her.

"Let's hope so." Pepper said absentmindedly as she continued to search through the papers on her desk before picking up a faded envelope with scrawled writing on the front.

"Is this about what you mentioned in your email?" Peter asked, his curiosity besting him.

"It is." Pepper said extending the envelope to him.

Peter took it in both hands, it was too heavy to just hold paper but from the outside it didn't seem to be anything more than an ordinary envelope. There was one thing about the envelope that Peter noticed as he held it in his hands. It was old. The corners were slightly worn as though it had been handled a fair bit. The writing on the front, Peter's name and address, was slightly faded as though it had been written a long time ago.

"What is this?" Peter asked, shadowing Pepper's movements as she walked over to the window and turned her gaze out to the overcast skyline. The clouds had hung over New York for the last three days though it seemed that there was finally a bit of sun starting to creep through the dense, grey cover.

"A gift," Pepper said quietly, folding her hands before her, "from Tony. He meant to give it to you for your 19th birthday but then the Snap happened and… well he never got the chance."

Peter looked down at the envelope and turned it over in his hands, feeling the frayed corners. It seemed uncharacteristic of Mr Stark to write a letter so Peter wondered what on earth the envelope could contain, it had to be important for them to have kept it for five years.

"Go ahead and open it." Pepper prompted.

Peter did so, slipping a finger under the flap in the corner and tugging the paper apart gently. It tore easily and Peter carefully shook the contents out onto his palm. A thin, shimmery card, a slip of paper and a SI hard drive tumbled out.

"A clearance card…?" Peter said in confusion, picking up the first item that drew his attention. "But Mr Stark gave me a Platinum X card for my 18th birthday."

"This one is different, specially made, it's one of a kind."

Peter held the card up to the light and admired it. It was indeed different from his current clearance card. There were no details embellished on it, no ID number or clearance level. There was however, the Spider-Man logo on one side of the card and it shifted depending on how you tilted it, making the spider seem almost holographic. Peter flipped the card over and sighed sorrowfully. The Avengers logo took up the back of it with a glittery red and blue finish.

"There was a letter with it as well, but Tony burnt it after the Decimation." Pepper said quietly. "He almost snapped the card too but I don't think he could bring himself to."

"I don't understand." Peter said, his voice thick, he hadn't realised he'd been getting emotional. "This? What is this? What does it open?"

"Check the piece of paper." Pepper said indicating the slip of paper that had fallen out of the envelope but not answering any of Peter's questions.

Peter picked it up and turned it over. The date '21 April 2023' followed by 'level 27' was written messily, as though it had been done in a hurry.

Peter turned his attention to the third and heaviest item. The hard drive. It was a simple black but had a piece of paper stuck on its back with sticky tape that read 'PETER PARKER' in capital letters. Peter frowned in confusion and bit his lip.

"Still don't understand?" Pepper said smiling in sad amusement.

"Not quite." Peter said looking back at the piece of paper. The 21st of April was just over a month ago but what was so significant about that date? Level 27? Peter wasn't sure he had ever had any reason to go to level 27.

"He wanted to show you round himself but since that's not possible now I'm guessing that there is some sort of explanation for you saved under that date." Pepper explained turning away from the window. "Head down to 27. The key card is designed specifically for your use on that level and at the moment none of the other employees have been granted access."

Peter remained standing by the window and looking at the dated piece of paper a moment longer. "Tony was confusing at times but I know he would have wanted you to have this no matter what. Go down to 27, have a look around and then we can talk later about your future at Stark Industries and potentially your future role in the Avengers too." Pepper told him.

"And the hard drive?" Peter asked holding the object up in his hand and turning it over.

"You'll understand everything down there." Pepper said shepherding Peter towards the lift.

"Ok…" Peter said quietly, walking with her. He turned his attention to the key card again and flipping it over a few times, marvelling at how the light danced on it's shimmery red and blue surface.

"Have a look around 27 and when you're ready head back down to get some food, we'll see you again later at the memorial." Pepper said pressing the button for the elevator. Peter craned his neck to try and catch a glimpse of Happy and Morgan before he left. "Don't worry, they'll both be there this evening." Pepper assured him warmly.

"Alright, thank you." He said looking up at Pepper one last time before he go into the elevator.

"Oh and try not to blow anything up while you're down there ok? We'll need to run through all the safety protocols as well, if you decide to start working with us." Pepper said cryptically.

"Umm ok." Peter said nervously, his voice cracking slightly. What on earth was there to blow up on floor 27?

The elevator doors slid shut and a bot spoke up from the receiver to his right, "Please input level."

Peter looked down at the slip of paper that he had clasped in his hand and shrugged. "27?"

"Please scan the appropriate clearance card." The panel on the side of the elevator lit up, indicating where Peter should scan his card.

Out of habit Peter immediately retrieved his Platinum X card from his pocket and scanned it. The panel flashed red, denying the access card. Peter frowned, that had never happened before… unless…

Peter waved the new Avengers x Spider-Man card in front of the scanner and this time it flashed an affirming green.

"What the heck." He mumbled, returning both key cards to his pocket. He then thought better of it and put them in the back pocket of his backpack for safe keeping, alongside his phone and wallet. Ned was going to lose his absolute mind when Peter told him all about this later.

Peter felt the unpleasant feeling of his stomach dropping as the elevator went down. He bounced on the balls of his feet nervously as he watched the screen above the door counting, 33….32…. There were only six levels that it had to go and soon the elevator came to a stop at level 27.

"Welcome Spider-Man." The elevator bot said as the doors opened. Peter jumped in surprise, that had definitelynever happened before.

"Hello?" He asked hesitantly, looking at the corridor that now stretched out in front of him, the only way in or out of the elevator.

Naturally there was no answer. Feeling that he had no other choice and slightly overwhelmed with curiosity, Peter stepped into the corridor and strode quietly towards the door situated at the end, his sneakers whispering against the white floors. He thought about retrieving his ear piece so that he could talk to Karen but decided he was being a baby and didn't need the comfort that the AI probably would have provided. Besides, she was no doubt observing what was happening from the security cameras positioned in the corners of the hallway.

"Please state your full name." A bot asked when he tried to open the imposing stainless steel door.

"Peter Parker?" Peter said thinking how MJ probably would have teased him for the way he managed to make his own name sound like it were a question.

Slowly, and somewhat ominously, the door slid open. Peter breathed in deeply, noticing how the air felt different behind the door. It seemed old and undisturbed and he could almost smell the thick dust already. Whatever stretched beyond the doorway was somewhat difficult to tell. Even with his enhanced sight the room extended so far and faded into such deep darkness that Peter struggled to make out anything past the first 7 feet.

Peter stood up to the threshold and strained his ears, listening for any sign that the room was otherwise occupied. He relaxed a little after a few seconds, finding relief in the fact that he was truly alone. He loved being around his friends and May but there was definitely a part of him that had missed having some alone time to think this last month. He'd always gotten that little bit of solitude through being Spider-Man and watching over the city at night when he did his rounds. But that was before and this was now. Peter turned his attention to the situation at hand.

As he stepped over the threshold he triggered a censor above the doorway that resulted in all the lights being turned on. Peter heard the hum of energy in the walls as it coursed towards the overhead lights. He quickly raised a hand to shield his eyes from the bright light above that made the corridor behind him seem positively dark in comparison.

Peter expected to be met with the same, insistent ringing sound of the fluorescent lighting strips that he was all too familiar with at SI. Instead the lighting was somehow softer, and while he could still hear the electricity thrumming through the room, it was a lot easier to sound out. For some reason the type of lights in this room were different to the rest of SI.

As Peter tried to take in the room before him he felt his stomach drop to the floor.

The entire left wing of level 27 appeared to be open plan, Peter could see it stretching around the corner of the wall he was standing in front of. The space was wide and open unlike the rest of Stark Industries that was divided into labs and corridors and conference spaces. Peter ran his eyes from the wall all the way on his left over to the window to ceiling windows, currently shielded by thick black-out blinds. The main feature of the room he was looking at was the work space, defined by the rubbery black mat it was built around, reminding Peter of Mr Stark's lab which he had got to work in a few times. The black mat always made Peter feel like he was bouncing when he walked but it was actually so that the floor beneath didn't get damaged, the bouncing was an added perk though. Though Mr Stark hadn't been exactly pleased with Peter jumping around the testing area. Dotted around and on the work space were long metal benches and holo-tables, covered with dusty plastic sheeting as though they had never been used. Over to Peter's right was a sort of living space with two long couches, a coffee table and a huge flat screen television, again, all of it was covered up to protect it from the dust.

One part of the space drew Peter's attention above all else and he strode over to the back of the room. Against the wall stood three large cases that reminded Peter of the one's he had seen Mr Stark keep the Iron Man marks in. Peter reached up hesitantly, glancing around though he knew that there was no one else in the room with him. Peter grabbed a corner of the plastic sheet covering the third case and tugged firmly, sending it cascading to the ground along with what seemed to be a years worth of dust. Peter coughed and waved a hand before his face so he didn't inhale anymore than he had to. Peter tried not to gape at what the case was holding. It was entirely black, combat looking suit with two eyes on the headgear. Peter tilted his head, there was no arachnid that marked the suit as a Spider-Man suit but those eyes were definitely-

"File name: 21st April 2023." A disembodied voice said from built in speakers in the roof above Peter's head, cutting off his train of thought.

Peter spun around to see that a large holo-table, at least two times the size of the ones the interns used, was lit up with a blue file waiting to be opened. Peter walked around to the other side of the table and set his backpack down at its foot. Glancing down at the piece of paper he was still holding he confirmed that the date was indeed the same, 21 April 2023. Hesitantly, Peter extended a hand and opened the file.

Peter yelled in surprise and jumped back, falling to the grown as the hologram burst to life.

Tony Stark leant casually against the holo-table.

"Mr Stark?" Peter said, his voice cracking with emotion as he slowly picked himself up. Hologram Tony wasn't moving but was looking down at his hands folded before him.

"Hey kid…. Hey Peter." Tony began after a few seconds and looked up to somewhere past Peter's head. "I don't know if you'll ever get to see this."

Tony paused thoughtfully and then shook his head, "Hell, I don't even know why I'm filming this video… I'm probably just being paranoid." Tony rubbed at his eyes with the palm of his hand and sighed. "What do I even say?"

Peter scrunched his hands into fists to keep them from shaking as he hung onto everyone word that the recording of Tony said.

"Its been five years… things are very different now. I'm so sorry kid. I - I never thought that it would end this way, I never meant for-" Tony broke off abruptly and looked down at his hands again, seemingly collecting his thoughts before speaking again. He sighed loudly and pushed himself off the holo-table.

"What am I talking about right now…. Yes right, the Lab. This whole space was supposed to be for you. Surprise?" Tony said gesturing behind him with little enthusiasm.

Peter's resolve was beginning to crack and he could feel his eyes pricking as tears threatened to spill over.

"I was going to ask you to come work here at SI, at least part time while you were at college, maybe we'd get you in on the whole avengers gig too? And that hard drive? All of my work since 09 is stored on it so look after it and don't go showing it off to your friend… Nick? Niall?" He waved a hand, "Buttttt…. If you're watching this video it means that something happened to me which is why I can't be hear to show you round myself- who am I kidding… everything is going to be fine." Tony said, more to himself than the camera that was recording the message. He nodded firmly to himself.

Peter gave up and let the tears trickle down his cheeks, one hand pressed against his mouth to silence sobs.

"We’re gonna try something crazy kid… I don't know if it's going to work and I gotta be honest with you… I'm scared."

Tony was quiet for a moment and looked down at the floor before speaking again. "You know that photo we took together for the internship? Well I picked it up again a few days ago and it all sort of hit me. I've been so, so lucky these last five years. Looking at that photo… it just made me realise that I have a responsibility to do whatever I can to bring you back, if we have a chance, even a tiny change to bring everyone back then we have to try. Whatever it takes."

"Mr Stark." Peter said wiping at his cheeks and hiccupping slightly. "You should've just stayed with you family, now they're all here but you're not and Morgan is going to have to grow up without you and-"

Peter was interrupted as the recording proceeded. "The thing is… even though I have my family here I know that there are plenty out there that are divided and broken. Hell, even though you could be a real pain in the ass sometimes you were a really great kid Peter. Oh god here I am getting all sentimental, who would've thought." Tony said frowning. "Point is… we have to do this. We have to try. And I'm probably over thinking this all and it'll all turn out well and we'll bring everyone back and I'll delete this stupid recording and be able to show you the lab myself. You'll be able to meet Morgan, god she'd really like you." Tony mused, resting his chin on his hand and smiling to himself.

Peter's resolve had well and truly broken and he was now sobbing quietly, his breathing hiccupping here and there. He crossed his arms in front of his chest in a weak attempt to contain the sound. The crying won out and he let out a heaving sob as his breathing hiccuped irruglarly. God… he hadn't cried like this since the day it happened.

"But… you know just in case I don't- if something goes wrong or- if I'm not there… I want you to know that what you're doing… it's all enough. My dad never told me that, and I really needed to here it, so hell maybe you do to." Tony paused after that and stared at the ground thoughtfully before looking up again. When he did, Peter, though his view was significantly obscured by tears, felt as though his mentor's eyes were looking directly at him and it only made him cry more.

It wasn't fair. Why had everyone else gotten their loved ones back but Tony wasn't here to see it. Peter's heart ached for Morgan and Pepper and Colonel Rhodes and Happy and Harley.

"You're good enough, kid." Tony said simply shrugging.

Peter's heart ached for every single person that had needed Tony Stark in their life, including himself. He cried because he'd never get to see Tony again. He'd never be able to go to Tony with dumb questions about science or slightly more serious moral dilemmas about being a superhero. Peter had lost the one person who truly understood him, both his brain and his alter ego. He'd lost the one person he'd wanted to make proud above all others, not just as Peter Parker but as Spider-Man.

"I know I could be harsh on you. But you've always been enough, I hope you know that kid. I know this super-hero thing can be a lot but no matter what, you areready to be an Avenger… I feel it, " Tony tapped at his heart earnestly.

"But I'm not.' Peter said through tears. He tilted his head back, trying to force his sobbing to stop. He was so sick of being sad and wanting to cry all the time. Peter hated being in this weird limbo of happy and sad where he could laugh easily at a joke but then feel so hopeless a moment later. He'd give anything to go back to life five years ago, hell he'd probably even rather go back to life before the Avengers, before he met Tony and before that damned spider bit him.

"I'm sure things aren't ideal right now but know that whatever life throws at you, you have the strength to get through it all, no matter what I know you-"

Peter lunged forward and paused the video not able to hear any more. They were the words of a dead man talking to Peter's past. Things were different now.

Peter took a few deep breaths and bit at his lip so hard that he wondered if he had drawn blood. The tears had stopped but they had only been replaced by a deep ache that made him want to lie down and go to sleep.

Peter looked back at the holo-table and sighed. He shut the video down and turned the table off , retrieving his backpack from the side. He was angry. He hadn't felt angry like this in a long time. But he couldn’t help it. He didn't need any of those fancy words, as comforting as they were… he just needed Tony here to tell him in person that everything was going to be alright.

Peter didn't want to be in the lab any longer. It wasn't his. Not now. He didn't want… or deserve it.

He turned away from the holo-table and made to walk for the exit but stopped as he felt the weight of his bag bumping against his back.

With a burst of irrationality, Peter stalked over to the glass cases he had been looking at and pressed the touch pad on one of the empty ones. He pushed the open button and it hissed slightly as the glass slid back. Peter tore at the zip on his bag, lucky he didn't carelessly tear it off, and pulled the iron spider suit out.

He wasn't sure what he was doing anymore. Everything was so confusing at the moment and he had no idea what direction his life was going in. Before the Snap he had had all these amazing plans and different paths he could choose, but now he wasn't sure what to do. It was all too confusing and overwhelming and carrying this suit in his bag just made him feel like a fraud. Why had he even brought it with him today?

Peter pushed the suit onto a similar metal stand as the one that supported the black suit to his left and somehow the contraption locked the suit in with a click. Peter let go and watched as the suit unfurled into its full form and the glass hissed shut in front of it.

"Peter…" Karen's voice said through the speakers, it seemed she had been observing what had been happening in the lab. "Peter, listen-"

"I'm sorry Karen but please just leave me alone." Peter said tiredly, righting his bag on his back and stomping towards the exit. "I really don't want to be lectured right now."

"As you wish." He heard her say as he left the lab, the door sliding shut firmly behind him.

"Hey Peter, what floor can I take you to?" Friday asked, surprising him once he had made it into the elevator and scanned his Platinum X card.

"7." He said flatly. He might as well get lunch now.

"Sure thing."

Peter sighed and let his body fall against the side of the elevator. He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes and tried to get a grip. Why was he letting himself fall apart like this? He'd been keeping it together for a month and one stupid video was all it took for him to break.

"What am I doing?" He said to himself, his voice thick from all the crying. Peter closed his eyes and pressing his head against the cold glass of the elevator wall.

"Can I be of service?" Friday asked in response.

"No that's ok, just talking to myself." Peter said shaking his head and opening his eyes again, they were no doubt puffy and red now.

"Anything you need Peter, just let me know."

"Thanks Friday." Peter said getting out at floor 7 and looking down the corridor to where the communal lunch area was for SI. He really didn't feel like facing anyone at the moment. He just wanted to go home, sleep for a bit, maybe watch Star Wars with Ned, maybe ask MJ to lunch… just normal things. He could do normal, he'd been so good at normal. Just look how normal he'd been in the last month!

Peter gathered his thoughts and headed reluctantly for the cafeteria. He was really starting to feel tired now, as though all the energy had been drained from him. He was well and truly exhausted, at least in the emotional sense.

Peter reached to open the door to the cafeteria and jumped when it was pushed outwards by someone leaving.

"What the heck." Flash said almost walking into Peter. "What's up Parker, finished getting fired from your internship?"

"Not right now Flash." Peter said quietly, not bothering to come up with a retort. What shitty timing, of course Flash was leaving just in time for Peter to bump into him as he arrived.

"Oh get off your high horse-" Flash began and then caught sight of Peter's face, which must have looked a good deal worse than Peter had thought. "Oh…. Um are you ok?" Flash asked uncomfortably.

"I'm fine." Peter snapped turning his eyes away.

"Are you sure? Do you need me to-" Flash began, his tone so reluctant that it somehow made Peter feel bad, even though he had no reason to.

"I said I'm fine." Peter said angrily and pushed past Flash into the cafeteria.

He just had to get through the rest of this day. Get through this damn tour and the memorial tonight and then he could rest.

#avengers endgame spoilers #spiderman fanfiction #spiderman field trip #field trip to stark industries trope #field trip trope #Peter parker #Michelle jones #Peter x mj #a little irondad and spiderson #more mentor Tony than fatherly but still wholesome #a little sad #visionsofusfics

12 notes · View notes

sol1056 · 6 years ago

Text

repetition creates weight

The EPs seem pretty adamant they had no idea of the Keith-Lotor parallels until after the seasons aired and someone else pointed it out. That’s huge sign of their inexperience as storytellers -- that, and the places where they do use repetition intentionally.

Repetition is a writer’s neon sign. What gets screen (or page) time is relevant; ergo, something that gets repeated screen or page time must be not only relevant but important. The more a story reminds the audience of some detail, the more the audience is going to think, “aha! that’s the eighth time the story’s mentioned the character’s blue eyes. It must be a clue. It must mean something.”

There are different ways to repeat. You can use the same phrase, stage a visual with the same composition, or highlight an object or theme or motif via constant reference (ie S1/S2 hand-on-something motif). You can create parallels so strong they become almost mirrors. There’s also using repetition in planting clues, adding the Important Message in the middle of seemingly irrelevant details, each list different but for that one element.

And then, of course, there’s the kind of repetition noted in this ask:

So I heard a theory that suggested season 8 may mirror seasons 3-6 since season 7 mirrored seasons 1-2. What are your thoughts on that?

Behind the cut.

At the end of S2, each character answers the question of ‘what do we do after this,’ which becomes four repetitions of the same theme. Obviously they’re not going home yet ‘cause we’ve got four more seasons to go.

On some intuitive level, a lot of viewers perked up: aha, there must a reason for Keith to respond in that particular way. After all, Keith could’ve said, “I could train with the Blades,” see more of the universe, etc. (And remember, what comes last is what gets the emphasis; if Pidge had answered last, we probably would’ve assumed she’d find Matt or Sam in early S3.)

When S3 begins and we meet Lotor, Keith is immediately on that. His focus on Lotor, to the exclusion of all else was probably meant to be single-mindedness. Overdone, it became another neon sign. There must be something here, some other reason Keith is so obsessed.

There’s a repetition, too, in the wording: “I could look for my family” to “I have to find/catch this guy.” Unintentionally or not, that look-for/find/catch established another link. Even once Shiro/Kuron arrives, Keith doesn’t lose that focus, and it becomes the source of a few arguments between Keith and Shiro.

We’re now at the level of about sixteen neons signs, each one the size of a billboard. That much pushes everything to the level of implying something intensely personal. It practically screams, pay attention.

Add in a few repetitions of the quintessence motif -- Lotor’s search for it, Keith’s sensitivity to it (and apparent shapeshifting abilities related to it) -- and the parallels were all right there. Had we started S5 with Keith discovering he’s Lotor’s long-lost brother, we might’ve considered that twist obvious in hindsight. (The only detail required for a snap reveal would be explaining the presence of the knife and/or a Blade being on Earth.)

What the EPs seem to like to do (and this makes sense, as storyboarders) is visually echoing previous compositions. Most often, echoing a previous composition is done not as strict repetition but as a motif. It’s only repetition in the loosest sense, because each use must modify or expand the tone of the original resonance.

Frex, the Black Paladins music. Say the first time had been a minor key with eerie strings, evoking the tragedy of the fight. The second use -- where now, instead of wanting Shiro to lose, we want him to win -- it’s same melody but with trumpets instead, faster-paced, a major key. Still recognizable, but its entire mood has changed. that’s a motif’s layering: the melody has become tied to high-stakes, high-emotion one-on-one fights. But it contains elements of tragic and heroic, layering them so that one reflects the other.

Without that variation, it’s not a motif, it’s a signature. And signatures, like a pose or a phrase or a fighting move, gain their strength from repetition.

At the end of S2, Allura stands against Haggar’s blast.

At the end of S7, Atlas stands in exactly the same way.

It’s not just the exact same defensive position. It’s also a similar situation; defending Voltron from a powerful opponent mostly on instinct, untrained and mostly untried. That visual repetition is why some people see Atlas as meant for Allura, not Shiro. The only variation is in scale.

I’ve lost track of all the places in S7 where the storyboarders re-used imagery or composition from an earlier scene. It can be a powerful maneuver, but like a motif, it must change, in one degree. And more importantly: the new scene must have an emotional resonance in its own right.

What you cannot do is duplicate a previous scene with the purpose of tapping its weight, as if this will get around the lack of emotional resonance in a later use. All that does is frustrate viewers (or readers). It’s too obviously an attempt to shortcut providing genuine meaning, by manipulating a pre-existing connotation. It’s a cheap repetition.

That brings me around to the repetition in the overall story, where the EPs are hitting the notes in S1/S2 throughout S7. Which... I guess for some people, that’s a cool trick they don’t see very often. Thing is, there’s a reason you don’t see it very often: because it generally doesn’t work unless you have a really deft touch, enough that most people will miss it.

The more the season hit the same notes as S1/S2, the more bored I got. It’s a failure of imagination; we’ve gone beyond repetition a literary or filmic device and into something like mimicry. When the pinnacle of your story amounts to a redux of your own story, it’s verging on self-parody. I’ve seen S1/S2, after all. I came to watch S7 for a new stage in the story, not a bunch of visuals practically traced right over those earlier two seasons.

It may be cynical, but by that point, I couldn’t help feeling disgusted, too. Could the EPs/writers not think up anything new? Was the only thing they could think to do, was to cut and paste the emotional beats from the first season? Especially when they couldn’t even manage that much -- from Shiro’s showdown in S1 to the letdown in S7. Or Allura’s startling but asskicking fight against Haggar, including the surprise power-up... to the Atlas over-powering and doing not much of anything against Haggar’s proxy.

In the end, I was stuck with two possible reasons for the repetition. One, the EPs/writers couldn’t figure out how to structure a successful seasonal arc, so they looked back and just copied a previous season, beat for beat. Or, worse, they took exec permission and re-litigated S1/S2, which frankly is much worse. Yes, their interviews make clear they chafed at exec oversight. But is that any reason to destroy your own story by driving the same ruts for the nth time?

All I can say is: at the very least, S1/S2 had a solid structure, so while copying it felt lazy and amateurish, it didn’t make things worse. If S8 is another redux of S3-S6? Not good, because those 26 episodes, in terms of story structure, are a meandering hot mess.

#vld #voltron #story structure #literary devices #analysis #sol thinks about stuff #come for the sugar stay for the salt

57 notes · View notes

alexistitania · 7 years ago

Text

TOKYO GHOUL ENDED AND I AM EMOTIONAL

Like, it legitimately ended. That’s it. No Part 3. I mean there IS material for potential Part 3 but this is the definitive closure to the story.

AND GUESS WHAT? IT AIN’T A TRAGEDY?!

I know people are always gonna be divided on this, like I’m seeing actual hate in the tag, and I guess that’s to be expected, this always happens when a popular series is ending. But I don’t think this particular ending deserves so much hate, and hopefully there are more people who are happy with it. Personally, I will FOREVER be thankful for this chapter! It’s not perfect, but then again, no ending is. Yes, it could’ve wrapped up more loose ends, but I think it did enough. What’s more important is that it’s not bad (in MY opinion ok chill thanks). No, it’s SO far from bad! For me, it’s an overall GREAT ending, more or less along the lines of how I always imagined TG ending. I just never really believed it WOULD end this way, like I was legit afraid Ishida would go for the tragedy thing instead, but hey, thanks anime gods!

I think most people expected a tragic ending with Kaneki dying and everything being hopeless or bittersweet at most, but we actually got an extremely pure and happy chapter, with a neat bow on top, and I for one am LOVING it! Because I’ve been following TG since 2014, and I’ve wanted a happy ending for Kaneki and all of these characters for so long, and now I’m finally getting the payoff for all those years of suffering, don’t TOUCH ME I AM FRAGILE!

It still feels kinda weird though, seeing genuinely happy things happen in this manga, it’s like a dream I never thought would come true, but it did! Obviously, you can’t please everyone, and there will always be people who will hate this ending because they envisioned it differently, but I think at the very least the ending shouldn’t ruin the rest of the story, for anyone! Of course, people will have to take some time to recover before they decide exactly how they feel about the series after its ending, but I mean, we all stayed for the ride, didn’t we? And although this final arc - for whatever reason - felt rushed toward the end and stuff, I think Ishida made the most out of the final chapter, considering where the previous chapter left off!

So we have TSC instead of CCG now, and good riddance, I hated that organization lol, although I loved a lot of the characters who were a part of it. I really like how it’s emphasized in this chapter that nothing is really over yet, the fight still continues. The difference is that there’s a new enemy of both humans and ghouls now. As expected, for the two species to finally coexist, a mutual enemy was necessary. But even though a lot of ghouls are now living peacefully with humans, thanks to the two races’ joint effort, it’s not like everyone is willing to make peace. Speaking of peace, I like how we have the title “peacekeepers” now instead of investigators (it reminds me of one of the home worlds from the Spyro the Dragon game, but that’s just my own nostalgia speaking), although it’s just in Tokyo, because apparently, other branches of CCG are still active and fighting the ghouls that are disrupting the peace. Hopefully the investigators have a new policy now, and they don’t attack friendly ghouls nowadays. Of course, there are always gonna be bad feelings from both sides, but hopefully the hostility isn’t as strong anymore. I actually wish the chapter had gone into a bit more depth and explained the nature of an investigator’s job in this new world, since some of the characters we know stayed investigators, but oh well.

Basically, both species have obviously made incredible progress in the past six years, but it’s not all flowers and rainbows, not EVERYONE is happy with this new world. And that’s so very like real life. What I think is great about this chapter is how it builds this new society as broadly as possible, and tries to explain as much as possible from different angles, because so many things have changed, it’s practically entirely new worldbuilding. It’s surely only a glimpse of what this new world looks like, but I believe it’s as detailed as the 30-page format allows. And I actually LIKE how we aren’t given everything, I feel like that’s very much Ishida’s style, leaving some things open. Because, nothing is really concluded, this fictional world didn’t just magically reach Nirvana, nor did it completely crumble down; it’s just transformed, it’s still transforming, PANTA RHEI MY DUDES! The overall theme of this chapter goes perfectly with the message of Kaneki’s speeches about the world and the never-ending change. I just really, REALLY like how the chapter emphasizes that constant change. And I like how you get this sense of cause & consequence from the chapter, as it’s made very clear that, while the Dragon war was definitely horrible, it actually allowed for new technologies to develop, which ultimately led to a better world, a changed world. We’re definitely meant to see this chapter as a closure, or actually more of an afterword, but we’re also urged to realize this is not the end of the story; the story goes on, and we were only shown a fragment of it. Like, that’s real poetic stuff right there my man.

Now, I also have a few things to say about some of the characters featured in the chapter. There are so many, I can’t even remember half of what was said about most of them, although I reread the chapter three times. It’s just extremely text-heavy. So I’ll just list the things that were important to me personally, mostly the things concerning the main characters. Otherwise, this post would get waaaay too long.

We actually got these little notes about pretty much every character I can think of (man this manga has so many CHARACTERS), telling us what all of them have been up to during the six-year timeskip. My only real complaint is that there was no mention of Eto, even though the previous chapter didn’t really bother to explain what exactly happened to her. It would’ve been fine if she’d never even come back at all, but this way, it kinda feels like the author just forgot to mention her lol. Maybe I’m just reading too much into it, it’s probably just that when the Dragon died, so did she. I was also hoping for a Rize mention, since she was such an important figure in Kaneki’s life, but at least we got a mention of the Washuu clan. And that was actually really sad, but it’s a fitting outcome, the main branch going extinct. Because first Furuta died, and then Rize shortly after, although her destiny had already been sealed much earlier. The fate of these two, and especially Rize, foreshadowed this outcome; Rize & Furuta equals Washuu inside the narrative, and when they disappeared, the Washuu they symbolized had to disappear as well.

Ok, I lied, I have another real complaint, and it actually bugged me much more than the lack of Eto mention. And that is, we only got a cameo of Akira and Amon, and no textual explanation of what was going on with them. We actually didn’t even see their faces, when literally 384576 other minor characters made an appearance. Like, they’re super major characters, what’s up with that? I guess we’re just supposed to assume they got married and lived happily ever after, but other than that, what else? Like what do they even do these days? Even just one sentence for both of them would’ve sufficed, and I really hope it’s included in the volume version of the chapter. Like, it didn’t really ruin the chapter for me, but I kinda felt like I was left hanging. And they deserved to have their faces shown one last time for closure, why all the mystery? They were both pretty important in the final arc too. Maybe we’ll get an omake about them in the final volume, who knows, but they still should’ve been shown in the last chapter. Well, I’ll admit it IS kinda poetic how we only see their backs and how it’s implied they live peacefully nowadays, and this closure IS kinda fitting for them, but still, I’m a little salty. Another thing I felt was missing was a note about Touka. I was really looking forward to learning where she ended up, other than being a mother and a wife. I mean, it’s still amazing that she was blessed enough to be able to have a normal life with her family, but the girl also wanted to do things. So yeah, it’s another thing that I hope will be added in the volume version.

Other than that.... I think pretty much everyone else was mentioned, but then again, I am not a machine and I’m pretty sure I’m forgetting a lot of characters already, so I’ll just talk about what really made me happy personally. I really liked how the narrator of this chapter was Hide, it allowed for a kind of outside look at the very end of the story. It wouldn’t be the same if it were Kaneki who was narrating, and anyway, having slept for weeks, he wouldn’t even be able to tell us the full story of the events that took place right after the Dragon war. Hide was the perfect choice for the narrator, because he’s so involved with everyone and everything. We even got Hide’s very summarized backstory, and although I believe he deserved to be exposed more thoroughly much earlier, I’m thankful Ishida didn’t completely forget about it, and that he told us basically all we needed to know. It would’ve been nice to know more, since Hide is one of the main characters, he could’ve been given a more meaningful backstory, but as it stands now, it seems that his story isn’t really crucial to his character or the series overall, so I guess I’ll take it. One thing that made me extremely happy about Hide’s ending is that he’s literally travelling and changing the world, he’s like some kind of hero history books will talk about. That’s the ending Hide deserved! And DAMN, he deserved to stay Kaneki’s friend for the rest of his life! They’re finally together, and together they’ll stay, and my heart is so full right now! Oh and another thing. I’m pretty sure the part of the translation where it says Hide was adopted by fatherS was just a typo or a mistranslation, since there is no plural form of nouns in the Japanese language (so you can’t always tell if it’s father or fathers), but it was nice believing Hide had gay dads for a while, even if it was a short while lol rip.

I like what Tsukiyama ended up doing, he’s helping rebuild the society and his family, basically being super important and leading the entire ghoulkind, more or less. The boy will go down in history! I knew he had it in him, his character growth has been incredible, and he’s finally getting the recognition he deserves! But I still think wedding planning would’ve been the ideal career choice for him.... Also, the way he spoils Touken’s daughter later in the chapter is ADORABLE! And he has different hairstyles in these two scenes, I like the second one better. And there’s Banjou, awww he’s also a really important figure now, I’m happy for him! Old man Marude got a new hairstyle too, and a beard, why am I not surprised? And he’s still the boss, so that’s cool. Ah, Kiyoko being such a forever single mood lmao. Ui boy’s doing his best and I am proud of him, but he’s missing his girlfriend rip... As for Hirako, damn, the boy looks so distant, I hope he’s doing ok. Well, he’s finally living a normal life, even if he’s detaching himself from his comrades. And wow Yusa really out here at the top of his game, both his career and his looks, damn.

The Qs also got their own satisfactory endings, I believe. I nearly sobbed at Urie searching for Shirazu’s body, this boy’s amazing development and how he constantly goes back to Shirazu in his mind has seriously cost me a few years of life. And then him visiting Shirazu’s grave, with Shirazu’s sister there! I was hoping to see her, we finally know what her condition is, and can sleep peacefully knowing Shirazu would be so incredibly happy that she’s all up and healthy again! It’s kinda sad how Mutsuki seems to not be around as much, but at least he chose his own path that hopefully fulfills him. And it’s super sweet how he sends Touka apples, like I was totally not expecting that, but I am so glad they are on good terms now and Mutsuki is doing much better emotionally and mentally. Also, I was totally expecting like a Moment™ between Mutsuki and Urie but I guess not lol... I don’t really like actively ship it, but I like their relationship, they could have gotten more of a wrap-up, so there’s that I guess... And then there’s Saiko, who has just... become so beautiful? Like what the hell, she’s just so gosh darn pretty? And is apparently living her best life, so you go Saiko! And she’s such a CUTIE when they’re visiting Touken family, calling Touka “mama-wife” and everything, baby you are my ANGEL!

And then comes the Suzuya squad, and they’re all doing fantastic, bless. And then Suzuya and Shinohara and I jUST! I’ve been waiting for this scene for so long, and I am SO glad it didn’t just happen off-panel during the timeskip! We actually got to see it, got to experience it first-hand, the full emotional impact of it! And let me tell you, this is the scene that FINALLY made me sob! Wtf so many years of suffering paid off, and Suzuya crying at the top of his lungs, but out of happiness, paralleling that panel where he was crying out of despair in Part 1 of the manga? I’M CRYING! AND THEN! Suzuya’s also like the literal star of this whole TSC project, YOU GO LITTLE MAN! AND THEN! And then Naki and Miza, and just... WOW! Miza, how much D can you even take?? NINE KIDS??? I mean good for you, I love you both, but DAMN! Man, I’m just so happy they’re both alive, I seriously thought Naki was a goner until a few weeks ago, so seeing him and Miza happily together like this is so surreal. And then we have another very important ship, Nishiki and Kimi, and damn Nishiki is either having a bad hair day or that’s simply a bad haircut lol. Like dude seriously, go back to the fantastic hairstyle you were rocking before. But anyway, I’m so happy seeing him and Kimi together and MARRIED? BLESS! Been waiting for that for literal years! Kimi is doing such an amazing job, helping create a more peaceful society, even though she’s using her boyfriend as test subject in the process lol. LOOK AT MY GIRL CHIE YO! She be going PLACES! SEIDOU! DUDE! Why you gotta be an Edgelord like that, please come back! Well, he’s probably too broken to fit into this new society, so he’s working out ways to live his life the best he can, helping in his own way. But don’t make such a sad face Seidou! I was hoping to see a bit more of him, but I guess we’re not meant to know much. He’s a loner, a mystery even for the readers.

And now... AYAHINA IS CANON MY DUDES! THAT IS ALL! Listen, I don’t even like... hardcore ship it, but it’s just plain obvious, it’s just right THERE! Hinami is playful, Ayato is tsundere, and love is in the air! PEACE! Also, Ayato sure saved his brother-in-law’s ass back there, just like we’d hoped he would, he really does care! Hinami is a teacher *sobs* Kaneki you taught her well, and Ayato’s this cool Main guy, look how far he’s come! I’m just so happy for both of them, I’ve been rooting for these kids for so long, Hinami is finally free from all her burdens and is genuinely Happy, and being Ayato is no longer suffering, can y’all believe??? And then we have Yoriko and Takeomi and a new addition to their family, how precious is that! Now, I would’ve liked for those notes about each character to say something about Yoriko’s relationship with Touka, I mean they were best girlfriends! And their friendship was kinda huge, I think it deserved at least a mention. Just something like “She visits Touka regularly” would’ve been enough. Ishida probably just forgot lol, the poor man, having to think about so many characters and their entire lives, I don’t blame him for just randomly forgetting to include some things. I just think this is one of those things that are kinda hard to forget, considering how meaningful this friendship was for Touka, and how it even played a big role in the final arc of the manga. But hey, maybe there’s hope that it’ll be included in the volume version lol. Or maybe in the omake! Ishida you have the opportunity to give us such pure, domestic omake, you’ve never failed us before, do your magic!

YOMO!!! RIBBONS! YOMO WITH RIBBONS IN HIS HAIR!!!!!! This transcends all the levels of adorable of anything ever! We were right, Yomo is the most doting uncle in existence, and it’s all I ever wanted! And damn, he still bangable af. AND THE SMOL TOUKEN BABY! Well, she’s actually like six now, BUT BABY! THE TOUKEN BABY IS A GIRL is this Ishida spoiling the shippers again? And she looks like a tiny Haise, can y’all believe?! Even Haise practically made a cameo, through this precious child. Amazing. I guess she has no name, so we’ll just keep calling her Pleasure-chan, sorry baby, it’s your parents’ fault. And I guess the Clowns are just doing their thing as usual. Clowns always have the last laugh, so of course this new society has nothing on them, they’re just laughing at everything and gathering for drinking games on Friday nights. Uta is still the Sasuke to Yomo’s Naruto, I guess some things never change.

AND THEN TOUKA MY LOVE! She looks so pretty, so beautiful, so dazzling, so fresh! I am so happy for her and so proud! She finally has a peaceful home and a happy family she’s always dreamed of having, IT’S WHAT SHE DESERVES! And on top of that, she has all these amazing friends who come to visit her! So many good things for my favorite character, thank you Ishida for my live! Again, I would’ve liked to know more about what she’s doing in life, but I can still hope the omake will tell me that lol. I’m just satisfied knowing she’s living her absolute best life, after struggling so much through life, suffering from such an early age, having to deal with abandonment issues her entire life, and then selflessly waiting, AND IT PAID OFF MY GIRL IT ALL PAID OFF!

AND THEN COMES OUR BOY! OUR BOY! The lonely boy who has gone through so much pain, lived his own tragedy for most of his life, never even imagining he would ever find joy or fulfillment or that he would ever heal. YET HERE HE IS! HERE IS THAT BOY WHO ONLY WANTED TO GO ON A DATE BUT GOT HIS LIFE TURNED UPSIDE DOWN INSTEAD! And now his life is finally, FINALLY fixed and things are OKAY and he is so LOVED and has a FAMILY! And yes, he’s definitely not 100% ok, and he never will be, but he has matured so much and come so far in life, he’s able to at least be at peace with himself and live a somewhat normal life. IT’S WHAT HE DESERVES! Like, I know we were all expecting Kaneki to face the consequences of his actions. From the narrative point of view, it seemed logical. But looking at it now, it wasn’t really necessary. Kaneki’s already learned his lesson. And he’s not living a life free of burdens either. He’s still an active part of the collective effort to recreate the world, and the chapter gave us a glimpse into his mind and his feelings. He is still unsure and conflicted, and it’s frustrating not being able to do anything, but he has to live with it. Finally, Kaneki has to settle for “there are things I cannot do”. He has to settle for a new and different life, and learn to live with himself and everything his actions caused. The consequences follow him every day, in the form of this new conflict. He has already suffered enough, is torturing him more really that necessary, just because he’s “the tragic protagonists”? Characters have gotten away with worse things, just saying. Also, judging from the marks on his face and neck, it seems he’s still having some trouble with his RC levels and healing and stuff, I just hope it doesn’t affect his body in bad ways. I mean he’s damaged his body so many times, it would be unrealistic not to expect consequences, but at least it’s not serious. Otherwise it would’ve been addressed. I mean, judging from Touka’s round tummy, it appears he managed to fill her up yet again, so yeah, he fine. (All the condom jokes can end now, Touka and Kaneki are nothing compared to Naki and Miza.)

In the end, Kaneki’s story ends on a positive, hopeful note, although still somewhat bittersweet. And it pulls the whole narrative, with all the other characters’ individual stories, along with it. The cycle of tragedy is finally broken. And personally, I just couldn’t be happier! I’ve been hoping for this kind of ending for so long, I literally never really wanted a tragic ending! And don’t give me that “Happy ending = Bad ending” NAH! You can’t deny that happy endings can be good if written right! It’s true that the general profile of Tokyo Ghoul screams “TRAGEDY” but that’s exactly why I think this ending is a beautiful twist! You might have expected it, you might have not, but it’s certainly a neat contrast to the rest of the story, but instead of ruining the “vibe” imo it worked unexpectedly well! Now, if your problem doesn’t lie with the type of ending we got, but the execution of it, then I guess we’re just not on the same page lol...

Now, this ending certainly wasn’t 100% happy, which is GREAT, but it’s still very hopeful and kind of bittersweet. All in all, I’d say it’s a beautifully positive closure to an incredibly sad story. It gives a positive message, that things can sometimes work out even if life seems hopeless. We may not always have control over it, but we can damn well do our very best! And it’s not unrealistic, it’s just real life! And it’s not your typical “happily ever after “ type of ending either, because, as I said earlier, the story isn’t actually over! The author simply decided to stop telling it at this particular point. And by teasing some future events, he made this chapter feel not just like an ending, but also a new beginning, a very hopeful one at that. And one that leaves infinite possibilities for potential Part 3, if Ishida ever feels like writing one, though right now I doubt it. I think he’s done with this series, and what an amazing job he’s done, for seven years!

Well, I think that’s probably all I wanted to say lol. My emotions are all over the place and I’m practically slamming my keyboard in excitement right now, so I’m probably forgetting a lot of other thoughts that were going through my mind as I was reading the chapter. But this encapsulates most of it, probably.

Tokyo Ghoul has been one of my main fandoms for four years now, and I’m so thankful for all the time and effort Ishida put into this work! It’s so unique and means a lot to me! It has helped me through some tough times in life (which is probably hard to believe since the story itself is sad but yeah...), so seeing that all the suffering wasn’t in vain, and that it all led to THIS, is just so amazingly fulfilling and satisfying!

Thank you for everything Ishida-sensei, get some rest now!

#tokyo ghoul #tg spoilers #I have #FEELINGS #long post #excuse any typos I wrote this in life 15 minutes #I'm easy to please lol

11 notes · View notes

boombitxh · 7 years ago

Text

The Tragic Toxicity of Scandal’s Abuse

I was severely triggered last night by the Olitz scenes, but even more distraught by the audience response if that’s even possible. I kept reading people’s takes and my mind was blown. In fact, I even opened my DSM just to double-check if what I was seeing and interpreting made psychological sense. The last Olitz scene cemented it for me in terms of all the psychological damage that these two people have endured, how they are opposite sides of the same coin, albeit a toxic one, and how we as the audience can be misled by appearances.

Abuse is intergenerational. Olivia & Fitz are doomed to repeat the behaviors that are ingrained in them from childhood because we as humans repeat what we are shown, and in partners we tend to attract people that are like us. At first I only realized this about Olivia’s character, in fact her verbal abuse of Fitz is what prompted me to open the DSM. The scene in which Olivia implies that Fitz is not worthy of being her friend triggered my thoughts and I raged when I saw the first leg of the Olivia Apologia tour.

I saw comments ranging from “this is unconditional love” to “yes, she is abusive but what can he do? He knows this and loves her” Made me feel like I was taking crazy pills on a trip over to crazy town. Wooooooooooh. The scenes last night were nothing different from what we have seen before, Olivia yells, Olivia breaks down, Olivia goes to Fitz, the don’t communicate and then proceed to have sex. She has displayed vulnerability before, only to arrive back at square one.

None of this is meant to imply that I don’t understand that Olivia is hurting or that she’s a victim, but last night was a full display of dysfunction on both their parts. I don’t care to make excuses for her behavior anymore because I see no changes within her and I see no intentions of introspection yet. I can’t for the life of me think back to an episode in which she wasn’t self-righteous, or condescending, especially towards Fitz in the past 2 seasons. I don’t mean to equate his acceptance of her treatment as weakness on his part, which I admit I may have incorrectly interpreted at first, but after thinking about it and observing the last Olitz scene I got a sense of what’s going on.

The last scene was intentionally awkward. Awkwardness mixed with familiarity. Olivia and Fitz both come from similar backgrounds. Both suffered at the hands of their fathers, had no maternal presence in their formative years, and as such have gravitated towards one another.

It’s often said they are two sides of the same coin, and last night was just that- a meeting between an active victim and a passive victim. Also, you know what they say about familiarity: it breeds contempt.

Olivia is the active victim of abuse. She seeks to control, she always has, and this is a direct mechanism of trying to recover from her victimhood. Every aspect of her life has her as the decision-maker, but how much is she living if she doesn’t allow any room for life to organically happen instead? We know the answer. She is a mess, the disaster we are witnessing is the culmination of her quest to control, arrange, dictate, fix… EVERYTHING. Even love, which as we know is irrational and unpredictable, so to control love is an exercise in futility. Every reunion, and every breakup has been on her terms, there is only one exception to this: Defiance, which is understandable. Olivia resumes her relationship with Fitz when she wants, and he is a willing participant which only makes him an enabler not only to the misery that this brings him when the relationship ends once again, but an enabler of her control issues. Fitz isn’t helping.

@tied-knots and I were having a conversation the other day and she mentioned to me something very important. I want to thank her for triggering my train of thought. She mentioned how earlier in this season we established that people believe Fitz’s value lies in how he can help you climb the ladder of success. Fitz is borderline transactional.

I mentioned a passive victim of abuse and that victim is Fitz. After I thought about it for a while I realized that Fitz clearly has low self-esteem, otherwise how could he still be here pining after all the verbal abuse and heartache he receives? We accept the love we think we deserve- this is him. His history of being on the receiving end of diatribes confirms this for me. He was emotionally neglected by his father, as was Olivia, he was emotionally neglected in his marriage to Mellie, and he is out here getting scraps from Olivia’s love whenever he can.

Fitz’s own validation comes from how he can be of service (thanks again @tied-knots ) while Olivia’s validation also comes from that but in an active manner, i.e. taking control and fixing. Two sides of the same coin. A fatal attraction at this point if you will. Fitz only knows how to interact with people when they are somehow extracting something from him (read transactional), and Olivia at this point is herself depleted, and has actively emotionally depleted Fitz over the course of their relationship as well. Don’t worry, he was an active participant. These two people didn’t happen to one another.

Now I’m not saying all this to be negative or anti-Olitz, but I think that last night I realized just how dysfunctional these two people are in their attraction and love for one another, in a way that is deeply unhealthy.

@tied-knots used the word “addicts” in our conversation and she is entirely right. It is a consistent and established pattern that they keep falling back into. They just don’t know how to functionally be in each other’s orbit, both failing miserably time and time again because they love each other but without an understanding of their true selves. Tragic. If you cannot contend with your inner demons or at the very least have a basic understanding as to why you behave a certain way, then it is impossible to progress in your own life. I say this from personal experience.

In no way, do I want to imply that Olivia is not deserving of love or compassion, she certainly is. I have a feeling that the audience tends to conflate any criticism of Olivia’s behavior as a denial of her personhood, but it isn’t that at all, everyone on this show is flawed, but none have been taken to the extreme as she has. We all are deserving of love and compassion, but there was a lot more than met the eye last night, and making these excuses for her behavior as the audience makes us enablers as well. We can understand her, her issues and where she is coming from and still demand accountability from her, it’s not hard to merge those two things, they can coexist in us as viewers.

Last night we watched two very complicated people fell back into the same pattern. Of course, they’re so, so, soooooo pretty to watch, but the reality is that until Olivia allows room for some introspection, nothing will change. Fitz has established boundaries with her since S5, but obviously not enough if he crumbles at her every whim. At first when she arrived at his house (?) he just stood there, without touching her, and that reticence on his part, which he eventually gives into, tells me that try as he might he just can’t help himself. That’s addiction. This is the tragedy of their relationship.

#scandal #scandalabc #olivia pope #oliviapope #olivia and fitz #scandal7X08 #Tony Goldwyn #TonyGoldwyn #Fitzgerald Grant #Olitz #fitzgrant #kerry washington #KerryWashington #scandal abc

202 notes · View notes

aion-rsa · 4 years ago

Text

Star Wars: The Mandalorian Season 2 Episode 6 Easter Eggs Explained

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This STAR WARS: THE MANDALORIAN article contains spoilers.

The Mandalorian Chapter 14, “The Tragedy,” brings together a whole host of bounty hunters in an episode with some connections to the Legends canon. Mando and Baby Yoda have found the seeing stone on Tython that will put the kid in touch with other Jedi. But when other hunters and the Empire find them, it becomes a race against time as Din Djarin tries to protect the child.

Stream your Star Wars favorites right here!

Here are all of the Star Wars easter eggs and references we’ve found so far:

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Tython

– In the old Legends continuity, Tython had long been known as the location of the first Jedi Temple. It’s still an active location in the The Old Republic MMO, and was re-canonized in RPG sourcebooks and the Doctor Aphra comics. Although a lot of previous art of Tython includes impressive mountains and purple-tinted skies, the version in The Mandalorian is a bit more down to Earth, with the seeing stone stated among desert scrub.

You can read more about the history of the planet here.

– We’ve seen architecture like the Seeing Stone in various ancient Jedi sites before, most notably the round motifs in Knights of the Old Republic‘s Jedi temples and audience chambers. It also looks a bit like the Sith nexus from that series.

– Butterflies, specifically blue ones like the one that delight Grogu on Tython, have appeared in various Star Wars stories before, including on Endor in Battlefront and in The Clone Wars.

Boba Fett

– “I’m a simple man making his way through the galaxy, like my father before me.” Fett’s reply to Din Djarin’s question about whether he’s a Mandalorian references two saga movies. The first half is a Jango Fett line from Attack of the Clones, and the second is a riff on Luke Skywalker’s dialogue in Return of the Jedi. There, Luke says “I am a Jedi, like my father before me.”

– Boba Fett’s knee pad rocket launchers have been a long-standing part of the character’s arsenal. In Legends, they held toxic darts.

– After his struggle on Tatooine, Fett has taken some of the natives’ weapons in place of his lost arsenal. He carries a long rifle and a gaffi stick typical of the Tuskens.

– The “spice dream” Fett mentions is a drug haze from spice, Star Wars‘ generic recreational drug stand-in. Han Solo mentioned he was running spice back in A New Hope, and most recently we’ve seen spice mines in Solo: A Star Wars Story and Rebels. Spice is a mineral that can have medicinal properties.

The concept of spice as a drug is actually ripped right out of the novel Dune by Frank Herbert.

– Boba Fett’s chain code appears to be written in the Mandalorian language, which could be fully translated in Legends.

– Boba mentions that Jango Fett fought in a Mandalorian Civil War. Unsurprisingly, there have been several civil wars fought on Mandalore. We’ve even seen a few of these civil wars on The Clone Wars and Rebels. The one referenced here happened much earlier than those, though, in 42 BBY (Before Battle of Yavin). It pitted the New Mandalorian group that eventually took control of the planet as a pacifist government and the war-like traditionalists.

– Fett’s famous starship Slave I is intact after its master was eaten and escaped from the sarlacc on Tatooine.

The Battle

Any show could have included the neat action sequences where Fennec Shand kicks a boulder onto her attackers, but a Lucasfilm product especially means this comes off as a reference to the famous Indiana Jones boulder chase, which opens Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The Empire

– Several different stormtrooper rank markings are visible in the big battle scene, including the orange shoulder pads for officers.

– What we guessed a couple weeks ago was true: the new Imperial enemies are Dark Troopers. It’s unclear for now what exactly they are, though, as they seemed to have some organic components but are also quite obviously droids. If they’re Force sensitive, we haven’t seen any sign of that yet. They may end up being closer to the cyborg super-soldiers from the Dark Forces video game.

– The Imperial Remnant has once again brought out the big guns: specifically, the E-Web heavy repeater.

The New Republic

– The Karthon Chop Fields are where former mercenary Migs Mayfeld was sentenced for his part in the prison break last season. This is a brand-new location, the existence of which implies the New Republic sends prisoners to do hard labor.

– It’s revealed at the tail end of the episode that Marshal Cara Dune has accepted the invitation to join the New Republic. She now has rules she needs to follow.

The post Star Wars: The Mandalorian Season 2 Episode 6 Easter Eggs Explained appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3orkj9o

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

0 notes

theotherscarmanthewoman · 8 years ago

Text

Series 2 Episode 3: Fight the World You’re In (and other stories)

As I mentioned in the recap of the first episode of this serial, I’m going to be sticking to episode three as broadcast, unless watching the reconstructed episodes three and four throws up any gems OR INDEED SCENES THAT ARE CRUCIAL TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENTIRE SHOW, in which case I’ll mention it. Otherwise I’m not going to bother summarising cut scenes, as many of them are boring as hell and have no giant plugholes in them. Also, you should be warned that there is a LOT of caps lock going on this week. (Also, I watched the reconstructions after having done the review, so there may be some...er...inconsistencies of tone and trajectory where I talk about the cut scenes. I've tried to go back over it to iron it out, but if this week's review feels like a bit of a hodgepodge, that's why.) Anyway, Susan and the Doctor are about to be drownded because they’re hiding in the sink and the murderous scientist washing his hands of his deeds is about to pull the plug. Quick! Into the overflow pipe!

Back on the workbench, Babs reckons the Space Fam must indeed be drowned; Ian, because he doesn’t have x-ray vision, determines to find out. Cut Scene of Interest: the cat drank some water and died, and the Space Baes go into morbid detail describing its dead body. R.I.P., Jurassic Cat. As they both climb back down into the surprisingly dry sink, Ian tells Babs she needn’t come if she doesn’t want to, but when indeed has that ever stopped Barbara Wright doing a thing? I should also warn you at this point that I once again have the InfoText on, which informs me that there was a retake of Ian and Barbara climbing down the plug chain because Jacqueline Hill’s hand was in shot before she climbed down. Whoops. But the important thing is that they actually came into shot from a stepladder off-camera, which gives me funny pictures in my head. Ok, so here’s the first scene that ABSOLUTELY SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN CUT, because in it Barbara and Ian discuss what they would do if the Doctor and Susan really were dead:

Barbara: What do we do? I mean, that’s it, what can we do? Ian: Go on living. Fight the world we’re in. Make something of it. Barbara: You never give in, do you? Ian: If it were only me… Barbara: It wouldn’t be any different.

ARGH this really, really shouldn’t have been cut, because it gives us a little window into Ian’s head that was sorely needed round about the time he thought all his friends were dead in The Reign of Terror and threw himself into the English spy ring subplot rather than allowing himself even a moment (well, an onscreen moment anyway) to mourn the apparent death of Babs, Susan, and the Doctor. It also makes sense of what I thought was an odd choice for Ian given his mostly left-leaning political stance: when all else is lost, you just fight the world you’re in. And actually, despite Ian’s implied protest that the only reason he never gives in is essentially for Babs’s benefit, we’ve already seen that fighting the world he’s in is exactly what he does when he thinks in is only him left in it. (But seriously, why was this cut? JUSTICE FOR IAN’S CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT.) Also, though obviously I’m delighted that the Doctor and Susan aren’t drowned, a small (ok, a large) part of me would like to see a spinoff in which Barbara and Ian become Borrower-sized superheroes, fighting injustice and saving the planet from deadly chemical weapons with a reel of cotton and some paperclips. Like The Girl Who Waited, but with teeny-tiny sixties schoolteachers.

Babs, Babs, Babs of the Plughole, strong as she can be!

Anyway, in the broadcast version, of the episode, Babs and Ian only momentarily believe their friends are dead, and Babs’s somewhat panicky ‘what do we do…what can we do?’ is cut short by Susan and the Doctor in full-on troll mode gloating over how difficult they are to kill. Everyone is delighted and the Space Fam is reunited and oh it is lovely indeed. Though there is an even lovelier (cut) moment in the plughole where the Doctor jokes about the Space Baes planning their lives without them. He knows those fuss-pots so well. Oh and here’s another crucial yet inexplicably cut scene: the humans reckon no government in their right minds would ever put an insecticide like this on the market, and there’s nothing they can do about it, so they may as well scarper. And then there’s this gorgeous little meta moment from the Doctor that grows into something HUGELY IMPORTANT:

Doctor: Our roles seem to be reversed for once. Barbara: What do you mean? Doctor: Aren’t I usually the one to condemn meddling? To urge that we leave well alone? But you see, my friends, this isn’t just a minor little tragedy in some forgotten backwater. Some person has invented a way of destroying a planet. Totally destroying it. I cannot, will not, stand by an allow a whole planet to be emptied of life. Barbara: But Doctor, we’re one inch high. What can we do like this? Doctor: At the moment, I don’t know, but we’ll find something. Let us start from one basic premise and hold on to it with all our determination: we will stop this chemical from being spread all over the world.

OH MY DAYS WHY OH WHY OH WHY OH WHY OH WHYYYYYYYY DID THEY CUT THIS? This is the first time in the history of the show that the Doctor actually draws a line and decides that this, THIS RIGHT HERE, is what he will fight for. This is where he takes a stand. That he will not sit idly by and allow a planet to be destroyed. It also explains why the hell they all keep wandering about on the workbench instead of just getting back to the ship. Some idiot cut the beating heart out of this serial and I shall never forgive them. Plus the fact that the Doctor has actually put his foot down and rallied the (very reluctant) troops to save the world makes Barbara’s continued infuriating silence on the subject of her IMMINENT DEATH more understandable, in that it suggests that from this moment on she’s hoping they manage to foil the baddies and still make it back to the Tardis in time to effect a miracle cure. Even though, as we shall see, the Doctor is ultimately ok with her choosing to risk her life to give them all a chance to try to save the planet. (I should also take this opportunity to note that they guy doing the William Hartnell impersonation for the cut scenes is phenomenal and should have many prank phone calls with Culshaw!Four.) We skip back over to Forester and Smithers. Forester is planning to ring the murdered Farrow’s department and impersonate him. What could possibly go wrong? We go to what appears to be a rural post office, where the woman operating the telephone switchboard is hilariously un-fooled by Forester’s muffled voice (courtesy of a handkerchief over the mouthpiece). Though the guy Farrow works with is totally conned.

(I do feel a bit bad skipping over the cut scenes at the switchboard, as Hilda the operator basically saves the day by being nosey and not being idiotic enough to believe that Forester talking through a hanky is actually Mr. Farrow. But life is short, and these cut scenes are long. Hilda, you're great, and you deserve more time than I'm giving you.) We cut to a giant notebook that has chemistry things in it. Susan spots that it’s a formula, and Ian tells her she’s right. IAN, REMEMBER THAT THIS YOUNG WOMAN IS CLEVERER THAN YOU. Babs reckons that if it’s the formula for the insecticide, they might be able to find a cure. Ian is, however, almost aggressively dismissive: ‘A cure? What’s the good of that?’ Barbara, instead of taking this opportunity to mention that she is dying, plays it casual: ‘I dunno…’

Susan channels her inner Audrey Horne

TELL THEM YOU ARE DYING, BARBARA, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT’S HOLY. Going back to that cut scene for a moment, you do forget that in Classic Who in the very early days, it’s not just the normal thing for the gang to discover something amiss and to take it upon themselves to right a wrong. There has to be something in it for Team Tardis before they’ll meddle. Which is why none of these scenes by the notebook make any sense without that earlier scene in which the Doctor puts his foot down. Ian reckons if they’re going to do anything at all they should stop the insecticide (a bit of dialogue that makes no sense without the aforementioned decision to meddle); as Susan points out, they only need a cure if someone’s infected. LIKE BARBARA. How has nobody spotted she’s ill yet? The Doctor reckons the more they know about their enemy, the better, so he gets Ian to mark out sections of the notebook with his feet while Barbara and Susan read what they see, so that the Doctor can write down what’s written there on a smaller scale. Just to reiterate: the Doctor is using Ian as a bookmark in this scene. There’s some cut material in which they read out shit from the notebook followed by yet more cut switchboard shenanigans, and then the Doctor has the formula. Ian is rather sweet trying to understand it, but then admits that he’s reached his Sciency limit. It’s ok, hun, you don’t need to be a specialist in insecticides to teach O Level Chemistry. What is Ian’s specialism, anyway?

A less-than-captive audience

The Doctor takes over in layman’s terms: the inventor has made the insecticide EVERLASTING. Which, as Susan and Ian point out, means it’ll get into the soil and the water and stuff. Babs asks whether it’ll be fatal to humans; the Doctor says yes, in sufficient quantities. She asks whether that’s just from ingesting it, but the Doctor reckons that contact with the skin will also do it. SHIT. Ian rubs it in a bit, going on about it penetrating the skin and all that, and Babs, WHO HAS BEEN IN CONTACT WITH THE INSECTICIDE AND IS DYING, stamps her foot and demands why they’re all just sitting here. Ian and Susan stare at her, and Susan at last asks whether she’s all right. Babara, FOR NO OTHER REASON THAN TO MAKE THE VIEWER TENSE (if we're talking about the broadcast version rather than the uncut version, at least) still doesn’t tell anyone she’s been in contact with the insecticide, but mentions she feels giddy and tells them some bullshit about just being hungry. The Doctor raises the issue of food (which they can’t eat) and Ian reckons the less they talk about food the happier he’ll be. Looks like someone is prone to hanger. Ian volunteers to go and fetch safe tap water for everyone, but the Doctor also wants to go in the direction of the sink on account of there being something over there that may be the answer to all their problems—A TELEPHONE. (Which will be useless to them on account of the sound thing he was explaining last week.) A cut scene explains that the Doctor wonders whether the sound thing will be the same over a load of telephone wires. In another cut scene, they are all nearly choked by Smithers lighting a cigarette and blowing smoke all over them. Which would have been a cool thing to keep in an environmental serial. The gang makes it to the telephone, and Babs and Susan have found a bung (or a cork?) from some of the Sciency equipment to prop up the receiver; Babs, looking knackered now, has been doing the heavy lifting. At last Ian seems to have noticed that all is not well with the now distinctly-out-of-breath Bae; possibly because the others are watching, she tells him not to make a fuss. And it’s adorable. Although… …BARBARA. FOR THE UMPTEENTH TIME. INFORMING YOUR COMPANIONS THAT YOU ARE DYING IS NOT MAKING A FUSS, IT IS GIVING THEM ENOUGH TIME TO PREVENT YOUR UNTIMELY DEMISE.

Ian is making his confused puppy face, but has clearly decided that maybe these are Lady Things that require his discretion and pulls himself together, and ‘tactfully’ suggesting that he and Susan do the climbing up to the telephone as he, the Doctor, and Susan pass the bung upwards; Babs sits at the foot of the telephone with her head in her hands. The Doctor, however, gives zero fucks, and merely asks Barbara (politely) whether she minds getting another one of the bungs; she nods and staggers off. He watches her go with some concern, and when Barbara returns, the Doctor observes that his dear looks very tired; she agrees, and he suggests she go and sit down for a bit. Which is considerate. But SERIOUSLY this is not like Barbara at all, so can someone please ask her whether she’s been in touch with anything deadly? Once the bungs/corks are up at the top of the telephone, Ian calls the others up to give him a hand with his Atlas act, attempting to heave the world receiver onto his shoulders. As Susan and the Doctor come up, the Doctor asks Ian whether he reckons the three of them can manage, seeing as Barbara doesn’t look quite up to it. I feel like I am forever bringing this up, but I do love that the Doctor now has her back completely, in contrast to his willingness to leave her to die in an alien city. Ian sounds disgruntled, saying they’ll try, but Barbara seems determined to overcompensate for DYING and scrambles over to help; she, Ian, and the Doctor lift up the receiver while Susan wedges a cork under it. They’re all knackered…AND NOW THE OTHER END! Barbara looks bloody shattered, but she’ll get no sympathy (ok, marginally less sympathy) from me because she’s still being stoical FOR NO GOOD REASON (in the broadcast version at least yadda yadda you get my point that cutting that earlier scene in which the Doctor takes a stand means that Barbara's motivation for this entire serial is a nonsense). And OH SUCCESS! The switchboard has been alerted! Ian, Susan, and the Doctor bellow into the receiver very slowly, but ugh I don’t even have time to explain. The Doctor has forgotten his own lecture about how they’re probably audible only to dogs, and the whole thing is bloody pointless. Barbara listens to the unintelligible rumbling coming from the other end with an expression on her face that clearly states ‘FML’. And then she collapses again. BARBARA, YOU ARE LITERALLY DYING. YOU NEED TO TELL YOUR FRIENDS. Who have not noticed that she has collapsed. Indeed, Ian is sulking: ‘We can’t have failed after trying so hard!’ he wails. The Doctor and Susan are resigned, but Ian is determined to try again and goes off to tell Barbara…who is still kneeling on the floor, shaving attempted to blow her nose with Ian’s handkerchief. Ian does not find this fucking weird but merely tells her she’s been overdoing things and offers to get her some water. He reaches for his handkerchief, and Babs goes all Gollum on him, becoming increasingly distressed as she insists that he mustn’t touch it, that no-one must touch it; she passes out.

Everyone crowds around, and the Doctor finally twigs, holding the handkerchief to his nose via some manner of stick and comments on the aroma of insecticide. WHICH CANNOT BE THAT DISTINCTIVE OR YOU WOULD HAVE REALISED BABS PROBABLY REEKS OF IT. The Doctor surmises she got insecticide on her hands, and Ian is hilariously indignant and defensive, seeing as she never told him and he never saw her do it; his entire attitude is essentially ‘DAAAAAD IT’S NOT MY FAULT’. And then the penny drops; she did borrow his handkerchief over by the seeds. Sheepish Ian is sheepish. Susan asks whether they can do anything for her, and the Doctor muses in silence…ROLL CREDITS. Or not. Babs wakes, is informed she fainted, and mutters about the insecticide…FINALLY OH MY GOD. The Doctor chides her indulgently like an idiot child. Which is what she has indeed been this serial (blah blah if you cut that scene blah-de-blah). For which I will never forgive Louis Marks. Or at least the dunderhead who cut that scene. As Babs chills with Susan by the phone, panicky Ian asks the Doctor what they can do; the Doctor says she has to get back to her normal size, at which point the insecticide will be 70x less dangerous. I HAVE (slightly gross) QUESTIONS: even if it’s less dangerous, the inventor made it everlasting, so assuming she manages to…er…get it out of her system, I hope the Tardis waste disposal can deal with it, or else there will be a teeny-tiny amount of deadly insecticide in the Tardis water supply forever. Anyway, they must get back to the ship; ‘what are we waiting for?’ asks Ian, grimly. He makes his way over to Babs and adopts his best bedside manner; Babs says she feels ‘a bit ropey’. I heart understatements. Anyway, they’ve got a long way to go, so best get moving. Ian asks the Doctor whether he can in fact get them back to normal size:

Brim-full of confidence, there, Doctor. Meanwhile, Forester is having trouble with the phone, which is obv still off the hook. But enough of that. We go back to the regulars and another scene that should never, ever have been cut because without it, nothing makes sense:

Ian: Well, come on, Barbara! Barbara: No, Ian, I won’t go any further. Ian: Barbara! Don’t be ridiculous! Doctor: Yes, you’re being stupid. Wasting time. Susan: Come on, Barbara, please! Barbara: No! For the last time, no! I’m not important any more, can’t you understand? Susan: You’re important to us, Barbara. Barbara: Will you listen? The amount I’ve got on my hands would be just a tiny speck to a normal human being, but suppose a full-sized person covered their hands with it? Aren’t they going to start feeling dizzy, start fainting and blacking out? Susan: You won’t die. Barbara, we’re here with you now. That’s all we can see or understand. Doctor: Yes, I couldn’t let it happen. Not if there was one chance in a million of stopping it. Ian: Doctor, for heaven’s sake, make her see how wrong she is. Barbara: You said yourself it was our duty to stop the destruction of a whole planet. Doctor: Yes, I did, Barbara, but our immediate concern is you. Barbara: Our responsibility hasn’t altered, Doctor. Ian: The longer we stand here arguing, the greater hold that poison is going to get on you. We are taking you back to the ship, and that’s final. Barbara: How? Carry me over your shoulder? All the way down the chain to the sink and then down the pipe to the outside of the house? You couldn’t. Even with my cooperation.

NYAAAAARGJSSPDOISLTKEUWKRJFHSDNJKJHSDHFSDJF WHY DID YOU CUT THIS YOU ARTLESS BASTARDS!?!?!?!?! The only—and I mean only—reason you can even begin to attempt to justify putting Babs through all that idiotic ‘secretly dying’ bullshit is by NOT CUTTING both this scene and the scene in which the Doctor picks his battles. With these scenes in place, of course the problem remains that she is being used as a plot device to a) rack up the dramatic tension and b) make the 'to intervene or not to intervene' dilemma personal. I mean, I think this is the first time 'save the girl or save the world' crops up in the show. However, what you also get is Actual Character Development that makes this entire serial crucial to the development of the show itself rather than an entertaining but otherwise pointless romp through various cool-looking sets. And apart from anything else, this scene is actually pretty good for what it is. Even the Doctor calling Barbara stupid (which would normally piss me off) actually works because a) it puts me in mind of the time Barbara yelled at him for being a stupid old man, setting the scene for another epic argument in which Babs challenges him to be a better person and b) because his initial knee-jerk reaction is one that is entirely based on fear, so he insults and belittles her, but then he actually listens to what she has to say and she convinces him of her point of view. The Doctor, Ian, and Susan are absolutely shitting themselves because they really don't want Barbara to die, but Babs digs her heels in like a pro and everyone's so in character it hurts. The way in which Ian reverts to paternalistic bullshit to mask his fear has never been more evident: the foot is down, but Barbara isn't having any of it, and BOY does she hit him where it hurts. He may be able to fireman's lift her out of the way of a giant fly, but he couldn't carry her back to the ship if he tried, and she categorically will not consent to it and refuses point blank to cooperate, making it perfectly clear that the only way she's going back to the ship is kicking and screaming. The sooner Ian realises that Barbara Wright has never done anything just because he said so, the happier he'll be. Susan, meanwhile, is right on the money with her analysis: Barbara is important to them, and they're all being blinded by their immediate priority of not letting her die, which is 'all we can see or understand'; Susan is her own best therapist. But the best thing about this is Barbara and the Doctor, in a clear development of their conversation about not getting swept away with the tide of history in The Reign of Terror. Though I maintain that Barbara's willingness to sacrifice herself for the greater good marks the beginning of a bothersome trend that culminates in the whole Impossible Girl who was Born to Save the Doctor thing (which DOES MY HEAD IN), the first time this sort of thing happens on the show the fact that Barbara holds the Doctor to his own moral standards is a meaty consequence of her own actions (and her own realisation that there is something she is literally willing to die for). Her raison d'être isn't to give her life to allow the Doctor to become his best self because she thinks he's some sort of godlike entity, she just happens to change him for the better while she travels with him and learns about herself (through learning about others). And she absolutely floors him when he tells her he wouldn't let her die if there was a one in a million chance of preventing it and she tells him that none of this alters their responsibilities. Indeed, when Ian appeals to the Patriarchy Doctor to make Barbara see she's wrong (like that would ever work), it backfires spectacularly because what she does is make the Doctor see she's right. I mean I'm still mad at this whole 'Barbara is dying but doesn't tell anyone' subplot, and as I say, putting Babs in danger specifically so the Team gets put into a 'save someone you love or save the world' dilemma is the thin end of a very problematic wedge, but with this scene in place at least Babs gets to spend a little more time having the moral high ground for her trouble. And at least it's her dilemma, too (rather than her fate being the Doctor's choice, as it so often is in later serials), in which she actually has her own agency after a fashion. BUT THEY CUT ALL THAT, so what we get instead is Ian talking into Barbara’s face, telling her she’s ill and that they have to get her back to the ship. When Barbara appears to refuse, Ian appeals to the Doctor (again), who OH MY GOODNESS tells him there’s nothing he can say, dear boy, because Barbara’s quite right. Ian appeals to Susan, who breaks my heart again when she merely cuddles her stoic Space Mum. The camera focuses on Ian’s referred pain as Babs comes up behind him and tells him they must stop the baddies. And as broadcast, it makes zero fucking sense. The butchery that has been done to this serial makes me hopping mad. Meanwhile, Forester decides to try the other phone, while Smithers goes off to look at Farrow’s notes. But enough of that! Because the Doctor has a plan, and that plan is…CAUSE TROUBLE. Start a fire, to be precise. Ian seems to think this will work, but wants to know if they’ll be able to start a really big one to do some real damage. Then this happens:

GLEEFUL ARSONIST DOCTOR IS THE BEST. Ian asks Barbara for her opinion; she agrees it’ll attract people to the house, and OH MORBID SUSAN HOW I’VE MISSED YOU! For at this point our favourite little weirdo delightedly points out that someone will find the man’s body. Never change. Smithers and Forester wander about outside a bit. And OH Ian has had a brainwave! Which I’ll give him, seeing as how he teaches in a Science lab. If they can only turn on the gas tap…but oh no that’ll have to wait because NOISES OFF! Enter the bad guys. Apparently you can see the dead cat prop in this bit, too. As our heroes sneak about, the switchboard gets back in touch. During this time, apparently Smithers freaks out about the dead cat and no longer believes Forester’s bullshit, but all that got cut. Anyway, the switchboard lady (Hilda) asks to speak to Farrow, and Forester tries the same bullshit hanky trick again. Which fails to convince Hilda in any way, shape or form, as she gleefully tells Bert the policeman (who also happens to be present). Bert the policeman reckons he ought to go and see what’s up. Which means that Hilda at the switchboard pretty much alerted the world to the dodgy goings-on at the farmhouse and that Team Tardis could have just scarpered back to the Tardis to de-poison Barbara. But that’s not the point, is it? Over at the gas tap, the Team is trying to turn it on. And OH HELLO MATCHBOX AND MATCHSTICK. Reusable props for the win. Ian has wedged the matchbox in place, and gets Susan to help him light the match by running at it. ‘Like a battering ram,’ enthuses Susan. I have missed this. Meanwhile, the Doctor has managed to get a pressurised container in front of the gas tap, which he has to explain to Babs, who apparently can’t read the giant writing that says ‘highly flammable’ on the side. Then this happens:

LET ME LOVE YOU. Though if it really is going to be the equivalent of a thousand pound bomb to them surely they need to find a better way of avoiding the blast than hiding behind the gas tap. And oh, Smithers has finally figured out that DN6 kills literally everything. Which he apparently didn’t realise while he was making the stuff. He is a terrible Scientist. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Barbara are being armchair critics and Susan and Ian attempt to light the match. ‘CHARGE!’ cries Susan. But seriously, never change. Success! The Doctor and Barbara cling with delight, presumably infecting the Doctor with insecticide from her riddled hands. Ian shouts a few instructions for adjusting the gas tap, tells Barbara and the Doctor to hide behind the tap, and he and Susan light the gas tap! Elsewhere, Forester is confessing to Smithers. He also has his gun out. Nobody cares. Meanwhile, the Doctor is tittering gleefully at the imminent explosion. As the gas tap blazes, the team huddles, and Ian warns Susan about metal flying everywhere; Susan is reminded of an air raid. According to the InfoText, this isn’t a reference to the Blitz but to WWI, where Germans used Zeppelins for air raids, which the Doctor terms ‘infernal machines’. Give me the Doctor and Susan in a WWI historical THIS INSTANT. Susan seems to think of this as a happy memory. Because that’s how Susan rolls.

As Smithers enters, protesting about DN6 being more deadly than radiation, we see what the soon-to-explode container is. Well bugger me if it isn’t a spray can of insecticide! Poetic justice! But also probably very dangerous to the time travellers if it’s going to be exploding everywhere. IN FORESTER’S FACE! LITERALLY! Is he blinded, or does he actually have DN6 all up in his eyeballs? Nobody cares. But Smithers has now got the gun…which is taken off him by Bert the Bobby from the switchboard. THE LAW HAS BEEN ALERTED, ALL IS WELL. The Doctor sends everyone running back to the ship. Well, he gets Susan and Ian to drag Babs along at any rate. The Doctor also takes one of the giant Sugar Puffs with him under his cape. That'll be easy to get back to the Tardis. Then again, there's always gravity. The Bobby tells Smithers to turn off the gas tap, and justice presumably takes its course. Back in the Tardis (after what I’m going to guess was a long, difficult, and generally hellish journey during which one can only assume they just threw Barbara down the drainpipe and hoped for the best), there’s more cut stuff in which Ian fusses over Babs, and the Doctor has to repair the scanner before they get back to normal or else they’d be blind. Back to uncut stuff, the Doctor aims to replicate whatever happened when they landed. Or something timey-wimey like that. Ian asks whether there’s anything he can do; why yes, he can wrap that seed in the Doctor’s cloak and put it on the table where everyone can see for maximum theatricality. Oh and apparently William Russell had the lurgy whilst filming this episode. Thanks, InfoText. Babs is pretty-much unconscious in the chair as Susan stares at her in morbid fascination concern. The lights go down, the Tardis dematerialises, and as Ian badgers the Doctor, the latter gleefully informs him that whatever it is is working! Joy! The seed on the table is shrinking! How does that make sense? I have no idea! But the seed is now teeny-tiny, and JOY OF JOYS Barbara is awake and in desperate need of a drink. Of water. Which she had no idea could taste so good. The Doctor delightedly pets Barbara’s face, as is the way of all Gallifreyans when confronted with pestilence. Ian is relieved; the Doctor bows theatrically. The Doctor recaps the plot for Barbara’s benefit and then sends everyone off for a good scrub.

Gallifreyan nursing at its finest

Alone in the Tardis control room, the Doctor remembers the scanner is buggered and fusses over how irritating it is that they have no idea where they are. Maybe they’re…AT WORLD’S END! WHERE HAVE OUR HEROES LANDED NOW? WILL THERE NOW BE DN6 IN THE TARDIS WATER SUPPLY FOREVER? WHAT ARE THE TARDIS SCRUBBING FACILITIES LIKE? CAN WE PLEASE NEVER MAKE BARBARA STUPID JUST SO WE CAN SPIN OUT A SERIAL EVER, EVER AGAIN (OR INDEED A PLOT DEVICE IN A MORAL DILEMMA, DEPENDING ON WHICH VERSION OF THIS EPISODE/THESE EPISODES YOU'RE WATCHING)? LIKEWISE IAN? WHY HAS NOBODY ADDRESSED THE FACT THAT THEY ACTUALLY MADE IT HOME BUT WERE THE WRONG SIZE APART FROM IN PASSING? IS THE SCANNER NOW PERMANENTLY BUST? WHAT HAPPENS TO SMI- ACTUALLY I DON’T REALLY CARE BUT WERE THE CREATORS/ABUSERS OF DN6 EVER BROUGHT TO JUSTICE? Summary (as applicable to this episode)

Does it pass the Bechdel test? Errrm...do Babs and Susan actually exchange words this week? I think not, actually. Or only in passing. Is the gaze problematic? Nope. Is/are the woman companion(s) dressed 'for the Dads'? Nope. High necks and dungarees all round. Save the girl or save the world? Whose decision is it? Save the world. Barbara's decision, backed up by the Doctor. Does a woman fall over/twist her ankle (whilst running from peril)? See collapsing. Does a woman wander off alone for the sole dramatic purpose of getting into trouble so she can be rescued later? Nope. Though Barbara getting poisoned is a variant thereof. Is/are the woman companion(s) captured? No. Does the Doctor/a man companion/any other man have to rescue the woman companion(s) from peril? Babs needs saving from poison. Is a woman placed under threat of actual bodily harm? Yup. Babs is now dying. Does a woman have to deal with a sexual predator? Nope. Is/are the woman companion's/s' first/only reaction(s) to peril gratuitous screaming? No. Does a woman faint at the sight of peril/horror or generally lose consciousness (discounting normal sleep)? Yes. Babs collapses. Does a woman companion go into hysterics over something reasonably minor? No.

Is a woman 'spared' the ordeal of having to do/witness something unpleasant by a man who makes a decision on her behalf/keeps her deliberately ignorant? Nope, this week it's Babs not letting on. Does a woman suffer in silence (to further the plot)? AND HOW. Does a man automatically disbelieve or belittle something a woman (companion) says happened to her? No. Does a man talk over a woman or talk about a woman as though she isn't there? A bit.

Does the woman companion have to be calmed/comforted by the Doctor/a man companion/a man? Ish.

Is a woman the first/only person to be (most gratuitously) menaced by the episode's antagonist(s)? Yup.

Is a man shamed into doing/not doing something because the alternative is a woman doing/not doing something? No.

Does the woman companion come up with a plan? No. Though Babs does dig her heels in about the Doctor's plan. And the arson is Ian's doing/the Doctor's brainchild.

Does the woman companion do something stupid/banal/weird which inspires a man to be a Man with a Plan? No.

Does a woman come up with a theory and is it ridiculed by the Doctor/a man? No.

Does a woman call the Doctor out on his bullshit? Babs yells him down over sticking to his responsibilities.

Does a woman get to be a badass? Babs.

Is the young, strong, straight, white male lead the person most often in control of the situation? Yes and no...the Doctor has the final word, but Ian is mostly floundering and Babs is the one who insists the remain to help.

Is there past/future/alien sexism? It's the present day, so N/A.

Does a 'present'-day character call anybody out on past/future/alien sexism? N/A. Does an past/future/alien person have the hots for a woman companion and is it reciprocated? N/A.

Did a woman write/direct/produce this episode? No/No/Yes.

Verdict Well. As broadcast, this episode does my head in, because it makes very little sense and robs Babs of agency/believable motivation. They cut scenes that are crucial to Ian's character development, the Doctor's character development, and Barbara's character development, and I shall never forgive them. I remain irritated that Babs got infected with DN6 specifically to engineer a 'save the girl or save the world' dilemma, but with the cut scenes reinstated, we at least get to see pivotal moments in the history of the show: the first time the Team chooses to intervene for moral reasons rather than making getting out of Dodge their main priority;,the first time the Doctor takes a stand, and the first time a companion is willing to die for something bigger than themselves. And that something is not the Doctor's life, as is so often the case in New Who. The Doctor is delightful this week, as is his relationship with Babs, and I am delighted at the return of Morbid Susan. Next week...DALEKS!

11 notes · View notes

ambiguityisnoonesfriend · 7 years ago

Text

Chocolate Box 2018 Letter

Dear Cupid,

I am very easy to please. All my prompts and ideas are vague suggestions. As long as the relationships I request are the focus, I’m going to be thrilled with whatever you come up with.

The Silmarillion

Nienor/Turin:

I am deeply into the tragedy of these two doomed characters. I eat up the identity porn aspect and the places where things could have gone differently. What would have happened if Niënor's enchantment was never broken? What if it was broken after their child was born? How would they have dealt with what they did and didn't know if they didn't suicide out of their problems? I am not interested in AUs where they aren’t related. I am heavily interested in AUs where everything went very differently, either in a happily ever after where they never find out (I know, I know, no one gets a HEA in the Silm and I am okay with that), or one of their near-misses of finding each other earlier on didn’t miss, or even Turin didn’t fuck up one of the several times he fucked up, and everything went in a different direction.

Star Wars Prequel Trilogy

Depa & Mace, Depa & Mace & Obi-Wan:

I am ridiculously obsessed with Depa, and her interpersonal relationships with others. Mace was her Master and her best friend once upon a time, and it's implied heavily in the Kanan comic that Obi-Wan was also good friends with her. I'd love to see more about her younger days, maybe back when she was a Padawan to one of the greatest Jedi Masters of all time, or spending time with her fellow younglings, or both. As an art prompt, I would be ecstatic for something like Little Depa in her robes beside Adult Mace with or without goofy Little Obi-Wan.

I'd also be interested in seeing her as an adult, and how that transition went with Mace from teacher and student to friend and equal. I'm open to either Legends continuity or the new continuity, and I'd be fascinated to see a reimagining of the Shatterpoint plot or fallout in the new continuity. Not the whole novel, obviously, but maybe a scene of what went differently between them to make her ending what we got in this continuity instead of the old one.

I'm more interested in the friendship aspects of these three characters but I also don't mind if it gets mildly shippy.

Star Wars Sequel Trilogy

Rey/Kylo:

I went into TLJ expecting to get nothing for this pairing except maybe one dream sequence. I came out loving them even more. I love this pairing for all the potential. They are opposites. They are exactly the same. Each is incredibly jealous of the other. They keep being drawn together like two ends of a stretched spring, and the only question is if they’ll fuck, fight to the death, or both. My fondest hope is both. I love all variations of dubcon for these two, from The Force Made Them Do It and Sex Pollen, to Forced To Work Together For Reasons. I tend to believe Finn is the most important person in Rey's life, which could be wonderfully angsty for her as she can't figure out why she's linked to Kylo instead, or a situation where Kylo is forced to save Finn to make Rey happy. Force bond sex also very welcome!

Leia & Ben, Leia & Ben & Han: The pain and the angst and the love in this broken family is the gift that keeps on tearing my heart out and I love it. Ben didn't hate Han, so what caused the rift that led to everything between/among them even before he went away with Luke? What would the final fallout be between Leia and Kylo after TLJ?

Luke/Leia: I was ready for this ship to be sunk in the movie. I was not expecting to walk out shipping it even harder. I want all the angsty history post-ROTJ. Luke Denying his feelings. Leia denying hers. The times denying those feelings failed. I ship the trio, so Han can know, or he can be in the dark, or he can participate, or he can be completely absent. Emphasis on how they know it's a bad idea but they can't not love each other, whatever twisted form that love winds up taking. Were they also Force bonded, and did this turn into Force bond sex, which might be why Luke went oh hell no later?

Star Wars Rebels:

Let me begin with saying I am deeply into "Everybody lives and everything is fine and no one has to die I can't hear you" right now as the final ending for this series. For ships, I am super committed to Kanan/Hera or else no mention of ships at all for either. For background ships, I prefer Sabine/Ketsu and Zeb/Kallus, otherwise please no other ships. Rebels specific DNW: no character death, except for what was canon in ANH (Alderaan, Obi-Wan, etc)

Kanan/Hera, Kanan/Hera & Chopper, Hera & Chopper:

It's strongly implied that Chopper was Hera's only friend before Kanan came along. She would have met him when she was around eight to ten years old, and given the timing and the history with Cham, Chopper was likely her only support when her mother died. If this were an 80s movie, the pair of them would have a heartwarming relationship where he was her cuddly friend. Instead he's an astromech who swears all the time and she's a driven, closed-off radical intent on overthrowing the government. How did they grow together, and what happened when she brought aboard an alcoholic drifter who is suddenly competing with Chopper for her attention?

Kanan & Hera & Sabine & Ezra, Hera & Sabine, Kanan & Sabine:

I appreciate the complaints about found family tropes in fanfiction, and how it's frequently substituted with a severe lack of boundaries and unrealistic closeness. That said, this show went there first from the pilot. I love the semi-functional family unit where at any one point someone might act as parent, sibling, or military direct superior. I love how Hera and Kanan are very hands-on with Ezra and very hands-off with Sabine. I'd love to see more of them interacting on this level, especially now that there's so little time left for them to just be together. The show has given us plenty of Kanan & Ezra, so more of a focus on how Kanan and Hera have parented Sabine or the two kids together is preferred. Zeb and Chopper are more than welcome to come along.

Kanan & Depa:

They had less than a year together as master and student. What would have happened without Order 66? How would their relationship have grown? What would he say to her Force ghost considering the life he's lived here and the choices he's made? How would she react, and would those reactions surprise him or put him on the defensive?

Ezra/Leia, Ezra/Luke, Ezra/Luke/Leia:

I love the idea of Ezra and Luke meeting up after the original trilogy and finding someone who understands what it's like to be them. I love the idea of Leia and Ezra dating briefly during the early Rebellion days with an emphasis on bad dates or failsex. I love the concept of the younger Rebels post ANH all living on the same bases and dating one another.

Likes: toppy women and partners who are turned on by toppy women, humor, endings with hope intact, functional relationships, dysfunctional relationships, secret relationships that aren’t really a secret, canon divergence AUs such as what if they got there five minutes sooner, porn, fluff, friends with benefits, kidfic and pregnancy including mpreg and fpreg (do not like: pregnancy or kidfic with Rey and Kylo, do love: weird preg “because aliens”)

Specific porn likes: failsex including interrupted during or instead of sex, cunnilingus, both slash and het anal, light bondage, sex pollen, aliens make them do it, the Force or similar makes them do it, mental connections during sex, mental connections as a substitute for sex, using the Force during sex including light Force choking, Force ghost sex

Specific art likes: two or three panel simple line comics, playing card or tarot card type imagery, setting a scene, magic and metaphor

Do not want: noncon (as above, yes for dubcon and sex pollen), scat, watersports, omegaverse, unrequested ships except as mentioned, non-canon AUs such as coffeeshops, Poe, DJ, Holdo, Lux, Fëanor

#chocolate box 2017

0 notes