#like was he making a lot of pop-culture references that no one in the brotherhood understood?

[multifandom-traveler]

If Macaque can hear the future (Six-Eared Macaque and all) do you think he was listening to modern media before it was created? Like, was he listening to soap operas and dramas and stuff before they were even invented?

[qqueenofhades]

Hi, I hope this isnt annoying to ask but w the old guard ive seen a lot of people mixing up catholic and christian when it comes to nicky. when by todays standards theyre not interchangeable as catholic is a specific strain of christianity. i was kinda under the impression the crusades were a purely catholic thing since the pope. is that right or were other christians involved??

Hmm. Just to be clear what you’re asking, are you wondering whether it’s a mistake to use “Catholic” and “Christian” interchangeably when talking about this time period or describing Nicky’s faith? And/or asking for a basic religious primer on medieval Europe and the crusades more generally?

First, it’s not a mistake to use “Catholic” and “Christian” as synonyms during the crusades, especially since a) Catholics are Christians, no matter what the militant Protestant reformers would like you to think, and b) until said Protestant reformation, they were the dominant and almost (but not quite) singular Christian denomination in Western Europe. Our source material for the period doesn’t describe the crusaders as “Catholics,” even if they were; they call them Christians or Franks. (Likewise, the word “Frank,” i.e. “French” was often used to describe Western European crusaders no matter which country they were from, since so many crusaders came from France and that was where the crusades were originally launched, at the council of Clermont in 1095.) To call them “Christians” points us to the fact that the crusades were viewed as a great pan-Christian enterprise, even if the reality was more complicated, and nobody would need to specify “Catholic,” because that was implicit.

In short, medieval Europe had two major strands of Christianity, which developed out of the centuries of arguments over heresy, the contents of the biblical canon, the nature and/or divinity of Christ, their relationship to Judaism, paganism, and other religions of late antiquity, and so forth. Eventually these two competing branches took on geographical, cultural, and linguistic associations: Western (Latin) Catholic Christianity, and Eastern (Greek) Orthodox Christianity. The Great Schism in 1054 split these two rites formally apart, though both of them had at least some thought that the internal divisions in Christianity should be healed and dialogue has continued intermittently even up to the present day (though they’re still not actually reconciled and this seems highly unlikely to ever happen.)

The head of Western Catholic Christianity was (and is) the Pope of Rome, and the head of Eastern Orthodox Christianity was (and is) the Patriarch of Constantinople. Both of these branches of Christianity were involved in launching the crusades. To make a long story short, the Byzantine (Greek) Emperor, Alexios Komnenos, appealed to the Catholic (Latin) pope, Urban II, for help in defending the rights of eastern Christians, territorial incursions against Greek possessions by the Muslims of the Holy Land and North Africa, and the city of Constantinople (and Jerusalem) itself. So although the actual French and Western European participants in the crusades were Catholic, they (originally, at least) joined up with the intention of helping out their Orthodox brethren in the East and “liberating” Jerusalem from the so-called tyranny of Islam. To this end, the accounts of the council of Clermont focused heavily on the brotherhood of western and eastern Christians and the alleged terrible treatment of these Christians by the ruling Islamic caliphate in Jerusalem. At that time, that was the Isma’ili Shia Muslim Fatimids (who had replaced the Sunni Muslim Abbasids in the early 10th century -- there are many names and many dynasties, but yes.)

However, despite this ecumenical start, relations between Western and Eastern Christians started to go bad very quickly over the course of the crusades, indeed within a few short years of Clermont. Alexios Komnenos wanted the crusade leaders to swear loyalty to him and pledge to return formerly Byzantine lands that might be recaptured from the Muslims, and the crusade leaders did not want to do this. There were deep cultural, linguistic, religious, social, and political differences between Greek and Latin Christians, even if they were both technically Christians, and these caused the obvious problems. The Greeks were obviously located in a different part of the world and had a different relationship with their Islamic neighbors (they fought them often, but also traded with them and established diplomatic ties) and this caused constant friction during the crusades, since the Westerners always suspected (not entirely wrongly) that the Greeks were secretly in league with the Turks. Albert of Aachen, writing his Historia Ierosolimitana in the early 12th century, referred to “wicked Christians, that is to say Greeks,” and our primary source for the Second Crusade (1145--49) is Odo of Deuil and his De profectione Ludovici VII in Orientem (Journey of Louis VII to the East.) He spent the entire time grousing about “treacherous Greeks” and blaming them for the crusade’s struggles (though the Second Crusade pretty much sabotaged itself and didn’t need any outside force to blame for its failure). There was some truth to this accusation, since Byzantium was then engaged in a war against Sicily (Louis VII’s ally, though it had its own connections to Muslim culture and indeed had been Muslim before the Normans conquered it in 1061). The Greeks had thus been working with the Muslims to undercut the invasion of Western Europeans into this contested territory, and this was not forgotten or forgiven.

The best-known example of Western-Eastern relations during the crusades going catastrophically awry is in 1204, at the sack of Constantinople as the culmination of the Fourth Crusade. Basically: the crusaders were deeply in debt to the Venetians and had already attacked the Catholic city of Zara (Zadar in Croatia) in hopes of getting some money back, then got involved in the messy politics of the Byzantine succession, went to Constantinople, and eventually outright attacked it, sacked and destroyed the city, and raped and slaughtered its inhabitants. This obviously poisoned the well all but permanently between Latin and Greek Christians (frankly, in my opinion, it’s one of the worst tragedies of history) and Constantinople never regained its former wealth and pre-eminence. It declined until it was captured in 1453 by the Ottoman Turks and Sultan Mehmed II, and has been an Islamic city ever since. (It was renamed Istanbul in 1923, under Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the “founding father” of modern Turkey.) Obviously, Latin and Greek Christianity still had to work with each other somehow, but the crusades were actually the single biggest factor in driving the two branches further apart, rather than reconciling them.

The words “catholic” and “orthodox” both have connotations of universality, overall correctness, and all-encompassing truth claims. Therefore, in some sense, to a Catholic Christian or an Orthodox Christian, defining themselves as such, with both words, is repetitious; they are Catholic/Orthodox and therefore the correct sort of Christian (even if their theological opponents would disagree). However, historians obviously do use that convention to distinguish them, since the identity is important, and makes a big difference as to what religious landscape an individual is living in. As for heresy, it was an equally complicated subject. Numerous “heretical” (i.e. not mainstream Catholic Christianity) Christian sects existed in Europe for this entire period, most notably the Cathars. (They got their own crusade launched against them, the Albigensian Crusade of 1209--29 in southern France.) The lines between heresy and orthodoxy (small-o orthodoxy meaning in this case, confusingly, Catholic Christianity) could often be blurred, and religious practices were syncretic and constantly influenced each other. A big problem in the Albigensian Crusade was identifying who the heretics actually were; they looked like their Catholic neighbors, they lived in community with them, their friends and family members were Cathar and Catholic alike, both rites were practiced, and plenty of towns were just fine with this hybrid arrangement. Hence it was not as simple as just pointing and going “get those guys,” and indeed, one of the leaders of the Albigensian Crusade, when asked by a knight how to tell them apart, advocated to just kill them all and God would know who the good Catholics were. Welp.

Northern and eastern Europe also remained pagan relatively late into the medieval era (into the 10th and 11th centuries) and the Northern and Baltic Crusades were launched with the aim of converting them to Catholic Christianity. (You will notice that the crusades have a complicated history as both a vehicle of religious warfare and as an attempted theater of conversion.) Heresy was a constant preoccupation of the Catholic popes, especially Innocent III (the progenitor of the Fourth, Albigensian, and Fifth Crusades). Especially in the thirteenth century, splinter religious groups and localized sects of “heresy” were popping up like crazy, and it was a constant point of contention as to how to deal with them, i.e. by force, persuasion, reconciliation, dialogue, etc. No, the medieval Catholic church was not the stereotyped instrument of fear, oppression, and tyranny, and could never enforce its views universally on all of western Europe. Church attendance on the parish level could be so low that in 1215 at the Fourth Lateran Council, Innocent issued an order requiring Christians to take communion at least once a year. So yes. The standard was very far from “everyone believed Catholicism fervently at all times and if they didn’t, they were immediately punished/burned alive.” The idea of burning heretics at the stake wasn’t even introduced until the early fifteenth century, and even then, it required an often-months-long formal church trial and wasn’t just something that the local village priest could hand out on a whim.

There were also monastic orders, and these (at least in Western Europe) were therefore Catholic, but they had different ways of practicing it and what their orders emphasized. The most common order were Benedictines (founded in the 6th century by Saint Benedict), who adhered to the Rule of Saint Benedict, which is still the basis for the following monastic orders. There were also the Cluniacs (founded in 10th-century France at Cluny Abbey) and the Cistercians (founded as rivals to the Cluniacs at the end of the 11th century, also in France). In terms of the crusades, the Cistercians were by far the most involved with/zealously supportive of them (Bernard of Clairvaux was a Cistercian) and took part in directly financing, preaching, and launching the Second, Fourth, and Albigensian Crusades alike. The better-known monastic orders, the Franciscans and Dominicans, weren’t founded until the thirteenth century, on the tail end of the crusades, and didn’t take much direct part in them. The Dominican inquisition, however, took over the business of dealing with the Cathars after the Albigensian Crusade petered out, and their concern was often with heresy thereafter.

Anyway. This has gotten long, as per usual. But I hope this gives you some introductory sense of the religious landscape of medieval Europe, the divisions within Christianity, and the fact that it’s entirely accurate to use “Catholic” and “Christian” interchangeably when discussing Nicky’s crusades-era faith and counterparts. The crusaders themselves did not specify themselves as being Catholic, and the crusades were (at least initially) viewed as a pan-Christian movement, even if eventually fatal tensions with Orthodox Christians left a permanent scar. The idea of identifying the precise denomination of Christianity is also another Protestant Reformation-era innovation, and wasn’t, at least in this case, necessary to do.

[earbuds-and-hightops]

An Open Letter to Supernatural

[ Spoiler warning for 15x20, obviously ]

I understand that a well-contemplated complaint about this ending cannot be made without first reading the original, pre-COVID, script of 15x20, but in the long run, the initial plan is not what will be remembered. 

What will be remembered is what this show created. What it became beyond two brothers driving around the country, hunting monsters. Characters were introduced and developed, and in that, Sam and Dean Winchester become so much more than two kids living on the road. In the past 15 years, the cast, and thus the family, grew to something that would be unimaginable to those who started this project back in 2005. Not only did the characters and their stories become meaningful, but the show itself grew into, well, a family. The fans who have kept this show alive since Day 1 have come together to form what I believe is the greatest community in pop culture. 

What hurts the most is that this finale did not do any of that development justice. 

The finale (and consequently the episodes leading up to it) reverts back to the story between only Sam and Dean. While some see this as an ode to who they are--their brotherhood and familial bond being the heart of their values and the root of their characters--I cannot help but see this as a rejection of their experiences this past decade and a half. 

What’s worse, episode 15x18 confirmed one of the most pure and powerful and goddamn beautiful romances that television will ever see. This story of an angel who abandoned his family and the only beings he’s known for thousands of years, all for one person. I knew from the instant the screen faded to black on November 5 that the story of Castiel will always be remembered, even if his feelings were unrequited. Castiel will always be remembered. 

And then there’s Destiel. I was genuinely impressed that this show would even grow to include a queer angel, more importantly, a queer character in a leading role. The queer-baiting and the “bury your gays” trope both make this confession and its lack of acknowledgement that much worse (and is worthy of an entirely separate open letter for another night). It matters less if Dean does or doesn’t reciprocate these feelings and more that it’s wrong that he completely ignores it. Cas’s love confession, this beautifully tragic and tragically beautiful emotion coming from a being who wasn’t supposed to feel emotions at all, is something that, unfortunately, will become a secret that dies with Dean Winchester. 

It’s truly a shame that the writers of this show let that happen. 

We haven’t even touched the fact that Castiel’s death was an act of sacrifice to save Dean. Dean’s limited reaction and lack of mourning* tears apart this phrase that has become pivotal to the entire show and fanbase: “Family don’t end in blood.” While it would be a lot to ask that Dean rescue Cas from the Empty and resume their cycle of rescue and resurrection, I think it’s only fair that Dean take the time to fully accept Castiel’s actions and words for what they mean instead of simply moving forward as if they never happened.

What’s more, Misha Collins is one of the greatest and kindest people in this world, and he’s poured his heart and soul into Supernatural, just like everybody else. He’s spent 12 years on this project, and the final two episodes hardly mentioned his character. He didn’t deserve this. It’s heartbreaking that his last credit on this show will be a prank call from someone trying to impersonate him, and not something that pays tribute to such an important character and important actor**

The most devastating part of this ending is what happened in 15x19. Pardon my French when I say that that episode, the ultimate climax of the season and latter half of the series, was a piece of dog shit. It’s incredibly frustrating to invest in 15 years worth of television and look forward to this ultimate battle between two average boys and God the Almighty Himself and to instead watch a 6-minute long fist fight on the beach with the only dialogue being variations of “seriously guys, stay down.” 

My issues with 15x19 lie less in the storyline that was chosen and more in how they were presented. I am completely on board with Jack taking God’s power and eventually becoming the new God, but the episode was far too quick to have any real meaning, and, as stated before, Castiel’s sacrifice, which allows Sam, Dean, and Jack to do what they do in 15x19, is hardly mentioned.

Most fans agree that 15x19 was far too quickly paced. The plot with Michael and Lucifer was questionable to begin with, but should have been an episode on its own if it were to be perused at all. Michael’s story in particular could have been fleshed out to reiterate this theme of overly loyal sons and their fathers, as well as their relationships with less loyal siblings, but was instead reduced to about 20 minutes of screen time. 

Though this is less important, Lucifer’s plan to make a new Death felt like a cheap cop-out just to close the storyline with Death’s book, but we can finish that discussion another day. 

The general fan reaction to this atrocity of an episode was that this was meta, and according to Becky, the ending was supposed to be dog shit. This, along with the untouched storyline started when Cas died, gave fans so much hope that the finale would be this amazing piece of art that puts Supernatural in the history books. 

While it’s obvious that an hour cannot perfectly tie up every single event and arc with a pretty little bow, it can at least...try. Any finale should, at minimum, pay tribute to what the show started as (which 15x20 did well) and what it became (which 15x20 failed to do miserably). 

In addition, a reference to character back in season 1 is incredibly frustrating when recurring characters with actual, well, character go unnoticed. I mostly reference Eileen here, but this also applies to Jody and Donna. Nobody even mentions the other wonderful friends who have helped Sam and Dean along their journey to Heaven. If family doesn’t end in blood, then why doesn’t it extend to include Castiel, Jack, Mary, Rowena, Charlie, Kevin, Jody and her girls, Donna, and so many others?

Dean’s death was sad, I’ll give them that (and honestly, I was expecting it). However, considering that this man has defeated apocalypses, killed Death, and taken down God, his death via nail in the wall was incredibly anticlimactic, and something that could literally have happened at any point over the 15 seasons. While Dean’s death was obviously not my ideal ending, I think it could have worked if it were done properly, and in this case, it was not. That said, I do appreciate that Sam did not try to bring Dean back, as that would indicate literally no growth at all.

Dean’s funeral was...pathetic, to say the least. Sam being the only person there was depressing considering that Dean had lots of other close friends (and you’d think that Jack would pay his respects, but apparently not), however, this is likely a scene that was impacted by COVID and the availability of some of the cast, so I will not dwell on that scene.

Dean’s time in Heaven complicates matters even more. Firstly, Bobby confirms that Castiel is no longer in the Empty and has been in contact with Jack. I would have loved to see this reunion; Cas is essentially Jack’s father, and I would have loved to see how their upgrading/remodeling of Heaven brought them closer together. I understand that the writers were trying to focus this finale story on the brothers, this goes back to my earlier point that you cannot simply ignore everything that that this show has grown to include. Bobby’s explanation also begs the question of why Dean had no intention of seeing Cas (or Jack, for that matter) again now that he has the opportunity.

Secondly, Dean’s instinct to go directly for the Impala was very in-character, however, the editing implied that driving was all Dean did until Sam died. As we know, Sam dies of old age, likely (completely guessing here) upwards of 40-50 years from Dean’s death, and that is a very, very long time for Dean to simply driving around the mountains. It would have been nice to see Dean reunite with other family and friends who are also in Heaven, however, again, COVID restraints.

Sam’s ending was similar to what I and a lot of other fans imagined (not necessarily wanted, but predicted) it to be: kids and a wife, living a normal, monster-free, life. I hate to believe that he doesn’t end up with Eileen (to my recollection, his wife was a blur in the background, and it is unclear if she was meant to be Eileen) however that might just be my bias and appreciation of Shoshannah Stern. While I’m glad that this storyline gave Sam the room to grow and develop without his brother, it also completely ignores everything that he’s been through this past decade and a half, and that is something that should not happen. Sam grew and changed so much since he left Stanford and leaving that life, the life of a hunter, behind feels very counterintuitive.

Let’s not even discuss the wig that Jared wore. It reminded me of the Cain wig that Rob wore in the Hillywood parody.

What shocked me the most at the beginning of this episode was the lack of a “The Road So Far” compilation. I hoped for the full song with a recap of all 15 seasons, or, at minimum, the typical single-season recap. “Carry On My Wayward Son” is such an important part of the show and the culture of the fan base, that it seems almost sacrilegious that the season finale not begin with this song and a memorial to the events in the past season (or series).*** I’m very happy that it was included at all, but I was shocked when Neoni’s cover took over.

No disrespect to Neoni; those girls are incredibly talented and I love their music, however, a series finale of a 15 season long show does not feel like the place for a cover when they already have the rights to the original, and the original is so iconic.

Lastly, I want to acknowledge Jensen Ackles’s reaction to this conclusion. At a con panel about a year ago, he said that he needed to be talked into agreeing to this script by Erik Kripke himself, because the ending just wasn’t sitting right with him. So many fans took this to believe that he was homophobic and afraid that of Destiel becoming fully canon, and he got so much more hate than he deserved, because ultimately, he was right in his first opinion. This isn’t the way this story should have ended. Jensen explained that he had been “too close” to the story, and that it took a more holistic view from a step backwards (the audience’s perspective, as he puts it) to agree on this ending, but honestly, nobody knows Dean Winchester better than Jensen, and he knows what’s best and what would be the best way to finish this character’s arc. I think fans and Jensen alike agree that this wasn’t it.

I sympathize with all of the cast and crew members who disagree with how this show ended but are bounded by contract to support this show no matter what. Especially Misha and Jensen.

Over all, I believe that Supernatural will go down in history (in internet communities, at least) as one of the greatest shows ever. While I do agree that the writing quality in terms of both dialogue and plot declined as years passed, the community, the family, that this show created cannot be ignored because of a poorly written/planned ending. I think that the fandom will collectively let go of this disaster of an ending that we were given and will, just like Sam and Dean, write our own stories. I have full faith and confidence that Supernatural will not be represented by this finale episode, but by the beautiful stories, amazing characters, and the family that this show created and what the fans have chosen to do with it.

Sincerely,

A Fiercely Frustrated but Fiercely Loyal Fan

* I do not count that last clip of Dean crying on the floor as mourning. In my mind, that was a reaction, not an emotional healing and overcoming, if that makes sense. I argue that if Dean were to fully mourn and process everything (like Sam did in 15x20) we would have seen at least a bit of that on screen. 

** This is where I would have loved to see some of the original scripts. I hope that the writers initial intentions were to have Misha more involved in these last two episodes than what was likely a voice memo created in 10 minutes tops at Misha’s house.

*** The strange montage at the end of 15x19 makes so much more sense. I still would have preferred that montage at the beginning of 15x20. This also shines light on the video that Misha posted. What would we do without him :)

[ofclaires]

⌠ MAYA HAWKE, 21, CISFEMALE, SHE/HER ⌡ welcome back to gallagher academy, CLAIRE WALSH! according to their records, they’re a FOURTH year, specializing in THREAT ELIMINATION; and they DID go to a spy prep high school. when i see them walking around in the halls, i usually see a flash of (chipped black nail polish, a leather jacket with boxing gloves slung over the shoulder, bandaged knuckles, and a wicked smirk). when it’s the (aries)’s birthday on 3/31/99, they always request MAC & CHEESE from the school’s chefs. looks like they’re well on their way to graduation. ⌿ kati 22, she/her, est ⍀

STATS / PINTEREST / CONNECTIONS / CLASSES

INSPIRATION.

Rosa Diaz - Brooklyn 99

Kat Stratford - 10 Things I Hate About You

Faith Lehane - Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Mandy Milkovich - Shameless

Akane Owari – Danganronpa

Arya Stark – Game of Thrones

Kim Kelly – Freaks and Geeks

Kyo Sohma – Fruits Basket

BACKGROUND + CLICK FOR BIO.

pre-gallagher.

her parents were young as hell when they had her so she was raised by her grandma in her earlier years ! claire gets a lot of her values from her grandma, mainly her biting sarcasm and devil-may-care sort of attitude. she tells claire stories of her grandfather, who was a champion boxer and it ignites claire’s interest in the sport from a young age. she grows up without a tv and plays outside a lot.  

her grandma dies when claire’s about eight years old and she goes to live with her mom, who spends the money from the will about as fast as it lands in her pocket. her mom dates a lot of unsavory dudes. 

she and her mom actually grow quite close over the years, but a lot of times it’s claire taking care of her mom and not the other way around. the entrance to their trailer is like a revolving door for shady dudes and her mother drinks too much and sort of acts like an overgrown teenager, never ready to let go of her youth. claire learns a lot of responsibility and independence as a result of this. 

her mom finally lands a dude that seems like a genuinely nice guy that makes her want to settle down and become a housewife. claire likes seeing her mom starting to act like an adult, and their lives start to turn around. he’s rich and they wind up moving in with him after the wedding, but things change shortly after, and he reveals a darker, more manipulative and abusive side of himself. 

he takes claire out of her passion, boxing, because it’s not ladylike enough, and he starts talking to claire’s mom about boarding school. it’s then that he starts fighting your mom more physically as they disagree.

the climax of the drama is when he hits claire ( she’s sneaking around and still boxing ) , but claire knows how to hit back hard. claire’s mom gets caught in the fray, it’s a huge fight, and claire nearly kills the guy ( tbi for sure. ) 

as a result of the incident, claire is recruited to a spy prep school in new york at age 16, her sophomore of high school. claire’s angry and closed off, and has a difficult time making friends in high school. but she does go through a lot of anger management and such. 

gallagher academy.

YEAR ONE: claire gets adjusted to school at gallagher academy, determined to prove herself among some of the world’s best. she quickly gains a reputation for her prowess in combat and spends long hours in the gym training. she slowly starts to open herself up to the idea of making friends. 

YEAR TWO: even though claire’s made friends, she still keeps secrets about her past, keeping her guard up. she receives letters from her mom about a new guy she’s seeing, and an invitation to her mother’s wedding. she ignores it. she and her mom still haven’t spoken since she was sixteen. near the end of the year, she gets a postcard that her mom is moving to iceland, but she does nothing about it. 

YEAR THREE: ( where our story started ) 

boys come to campus and claire feels like she has to fight harder for her reputation as THE BEST, isn’t pleased with their presence due to a longstanding distrust when it comes to men. 

claire’s ego is boosted after she’s been chosen for a MISSION, to explore the abandoned boys’ school, blackthorne academy. there, she and mary sakamoto discover that it was a school for assassins. explains why claire keeps getting her ass kicked – these boys have been trained to kill. 

witness protection kids come to campus, resulting in the death of one of them and gallagher student, amelia taylor. claire feels helpless as a result, always thinking of herself as a protector and gallagher has always been her stronghold, her safe place, and it all feels threatened. 

claire has a falling out with a friend and feels super alone with all this shit going on and winds out reaching out to her mom. i wrote a self-para here, but her mom invites her to come stay for the summer. 

when a brotherhood member is discovered on campus, she teams up with a group of...unlikely allies, and sneaks into the sublevels to kick his ass. his current status is unknown, and he’s quite possibly dead. either way, as far as she knows, they were never caught. 

claire visits her mom in iceland for the summer (details here) and they sort of mend things. she meets her moms new husband and actually likes him. 

PERSONALITY.

DETERMINED – when claire sets her mind to something, she will stop at nothing to accomplish it. she’d probably even risk death to accomplish her goals, she simply can’t accept failure.

HARD-WORKING – claire can pretty much always be found in the gym, trying to make herself better. it’s honestly a running joke how often claire is working out, but there’s a basis in it. honestly, claire thinks her only value is her muscle, so if that’s what she’s good at, she’s going to be the best. she’s that kid in your gym class that’s going way too hard for no fucking reason like calm down. 

BRAVE – there’s little that claire fears, and even her fears don’t generally stop her from accomplishing her goals. you could chalk up some of her bravery to determination, but she’s been through enough that she doesn’t really stop to consider what she’s going to lose. so maybe it’s also stupidity!

LOYAL – it’s really challenging for claire to form connections, but when she does, she latches on. when she cares for someone, she really cares for them, and she’s pretty ride or die. this sort of loyalty can be a burden for some of her friends, because she can be somewhat overbearing. 

ANGRY – claire’s probably best known for her anger, it’s like she walks around with a fuse waiting to be lit at the slightest inconvenience. funnily enough, her training has made her better at controlling it, but she’s still known to snap. 

RECKLESS – claire often acts impulsively, says the first thought in her mind, does the first thing she can think to do in order to solve a problem. act first, ask questions later is usually her mantra, and sometimes it saves her ass – and sometimes it comes back to bite her in it. 

DISTANT – claire finds it hard to open up or form connections with people, not often readily sharing her feels with people. she’s really averse to personal questions but she’s gotten better about sharing things about herself since making more friends at gallagher. still, she’s somewhat hard to get to know. i will refer you to this musing. 

BRASH – she’s pretty cocky to a point that often comes off as rude, but the positive spin on it is that you’ll always know where you stand with claire. whether it’s good or bad, she’s up front, but most people she trains with are probably sick of her arrogance. 

HEADCANONS/RANDOM FACTS.

can usually be found exercising. she’s really into sports and fitness and prior to the berlin internship, she used to spend her summers working at summer camps for athletes-in-training. she’s a pretty good coach, and tutors some of the other students that need help with their athletic prowess, although she’s described as a bit intense.

identified as bisexual until fairly recently, realizing that she doesn’t care or have much interest in romantic relationships with men ! so, now she identifies as a lesbian. 

cannot sit through a movie to save her life, claire’s easily distracted and bored, always needing something to do. she didn’t grow up with a television set in her home either, so she hasn’t seen many movies and is a little out of touch with all things pop culture. 

takes pictures like a mom, if you ask her to take a photo of you it’ll probably a) be a little blurry, b) have her thumb in it, or c) both.

really likes podcasts! she listens to them a lot during her workouts, while she runs the track, or anything else. claire’s not exactly known for her intelligence ( among the astronomical iqs of other gallagher students at least ) but she can spout some knowledge on things you wouldn’t expect. 

generally a hard-ass but she’s a softie around animals, particularly dogs or cats, but catch her cooing and talking in a baby voice around puppies, she’s like a completely different person, pretty much. 

drink of choice is whiskey, neat. 

despite her preference for hand to hand combat, threat elimination has given her a multitude of skills. she keeps two knives on her at all times and sometimes wears a bulletproof vest for kicks. she’s prepared for anything.

[scarletwitching]

(sorry it's about the mcu) It's always interesting to me that in the beginning of the films, the twins were not just eastern european but also heavily coded as romani, but as the movies went on, wanda became less and less "eastern european" and more americanized to the point that her next appearance is slated in a classic staple of american pop culture (a fifties tv show). it's been said before but wanda is like a new character each time she appears, and that's not said in a kind manner.

I feel like the MCU is about to become an unavoidable subject because… well, not to stomp on anyone’s fun, but I heard the Jaws theme song when I saw this. I have stuff to say about this subject that I don’t think anyone else has touched on yet and it’s the middle of the night and my sleep pattern is ruined.

There seems to be two things going on with MCU Wanda’s ever-changing everything: 1) No one was especially on-board with Whedon’s ideas and more broadly, no one can agree on who this character is supposed to be. 2) The post-Ultron movies have tried to mold the character to fit the actress better.

The latter is easy enough to explain. The very dark hair in Ultron didn’t suit her, and red is a better fit for her natural coloring. There’s a reason red hair and green eyes is such an iconique combination. They ditched the accent because, well, she’s no good at it. I think the changing wardrobe is partly this and partly an attempt to show character evolution.

The former reason, though, is where we can get into the weeds. Age of Ultron was a troubled production. One of the sticking points between Whedon and the studio was the dream/nightmare/mind control sequences, which the writer-director was attached to and which executives hated. Not a shock that they haven’t reappeared since. That the telepathic powers as a whole vanished is more curious, but I feel like the Russos, Markus, and McFeely don’t care about Whedon’s version of Wanda. They weren’t involved, and they don’t like it.

There was more back and forth with the accents than people remember. In 2013, The Wrap reiterated an earlier rumor that the twins would have British accents in the MCU. At first glance, that’s jarring, but sometimes, people who aren’t from Britain have British accents. It’s not my favorite choice for these characters, but it happens. Aaron Taylor-Johnson said he was the one who pushed for the Eastern European accents and for Pietro to have his white/silver hair (originally it was supposed to be brown). But he wasn’t sure, even while filming, if they were going to leave the accents in or ADR over all their dialogue. Once he was gone, there was no one to advocate for the inclusion of the accents, so everyone said, “Fuck it. She learned to talk with a US accent.”

There’s also the parts of their backstory that were cut, supposedly for time. Namely their Romani background (which seems to have been in the script) and any specific references to the US military being the ones to bomb their apartment building (something we can figure out from interviews and from context). Both things that were either already causing controversy or could have caused controversy, which were cut “for time” and for no other reason. Totally. Definitely. I suspect the later movies don’t pick up those threads for the same reason they drop the telepathy stuff. They’re not anything M&M and the Russos care about, and their stance is, “We don’t want to get into that.”

And then... there’s the Hydra backstory, which fits into the same category of “a thing that was dropped and it’s not hard to figure out why.” I have no clue what Whedon was thinking when he did that, and I don’t know how any future writer could incorporate it without doing an outright retcon. That wouldn’t be hard since there’s a reason most people thought those characters were held captive. The cinematic language in the Cap 2 end credits scene is at odds with what Whedon was trying to convey. When you have characters in cages looking drugged (complete with injection sites), what am I supposed to think?* “Wow, spooky”?Probably. Whatever he was going for, it didn’t work, and who is surprised that it was ignored? They should have fixed it, but this is another case of the later writers and directors looking at what Whedon did and not even caring enough to either acknowledge or contradict it.

That’s the theme here. That Markus, McFeely, and the Russos didn’t care about what Whedon did, but that they also didn’t replace it with anything. The stuff they did with Wanda was all plot-essential. Somebody’s gotta cause the superhero civil war, and guess who’s the easy choice. Somebody’s gotta care when Vision dies, and guess who’s the easy choice. You get where they’re coming from. They have 375 characters to worry about, and she’s not one of the popular ones. The end result is a character who isn’t really anything.

Even within his own movies, the characters Whedon was allowed to introduce into the MCU are half-baked. What if Vision was Adam Warlock? What if The Colonel meets Jean Grey? What if Quicksilver only existed to die? It’s a lot of stealing from various sources without thinking through the meaning and significance of what you’re stealing. James Gunn gives zero fucks about adhering to comics canon, but at least, he has concrete notions of who his versions of the characters are. They may not be what I wanted (#JusticeForMantis), but they’re cohesive entities on their own. Can you say that for Ms. “Let’s join Hydra and kill random South Africans and oh no, I’m scared of fighting”?

Lastly, the 1950’s housewife thing is more about the extremes of character interpretation. Whedon focused on Wanda’s past as part of the Brotherhood and used Ultron and – for fuck’s sake – Hydra as stand-ins for that (while ignoring that Wanda’s time in the Brotherhood was defined by the abuse she suffered and not by random murders she committed by mind controlling the Hulk). To quoth the man himself, “They’re interesting to me because they sort of represent the part of the world that wouldn’t necessarily agree with The Avengers.” He envisioned them as the kind of Radicals With a Point that superhero films love, but his execution didn’t match his vision. (Maybe it was better in the script, idk.)

In creating that godforsaken tv show, Feige is leaning on the perception of Wanda as a conservative figure. That idea comes from the fact that so much of her story is wrapped up in family and babies and sexist stereotypes. It feels mismatched with the former. (Not denying the realities of human complexity, just saying you should have a clearer vision for a made up person.) We’ll have to see how it plays out, but it seems like a case of no one agreeing on what this character believes or how she views the world. Or maybe it was Nightmare/Chthon/Mojo all along. Lotta maybes going on.

Anyway, the Americanization issue comes down to treating your own culture and worldview as default and trying to work around miscasting, and the overall issue is that you shouldn’t make characters who only exist to be sites of tragedy.

*They also look drugged at the beginning of Age of Ultron, when they’re with Hydra, and at no other point. Does Whedon associate that aesthetic with menace/villainy? (If so, yikes!!) Additionally, I’m gonna leave this here with the reminder that it is from the same movie.

[reanimatedrenaissance]

The Renaissance Used as Symbolism

Animation likes to utilize artworks and literature from the Medieval/Middle Ages era (476-1299) as well as the Renaissance era (1300-1700) due to not only the fact it is part of the public domain (meaning anyone can use it without legal repercussions) but also due to its significance upon the present. Animation tends to make use of the Renaissance as a way to quickly develop characters or settings by showcasing elements that resemble the Renaissance or simply act like they are of that period.

One of the blatant ways animation uses elements of the Renaissance is to name characters after well-known people from this time. The Disney TV series Gargoyles during the 1990s many references to Shakespeare’s plays, and characters are no exception. Creator Greg Weisman introduced characters such as Macbeth, who plays a major role throughout the series as an antagonist. This character is a direct reference to Shakespeare’s powerful tragedy Macbeth (1606).

Gargoyles (Walt Disney Animation, 1994), character Macbeth

Along with that namesake, Macbeth acts fairly similarly to the character he was named after. He is very suspicious of everyone he encounters and resorts to violence more often than not. He also deals with the twisted torture of three witches who have watched over his actions during his life thus far. As Weisman is a huge fan of Shakespeare, his references continue, as is showcased during an episode in which the character/mythical spirit Puck is introduced. Puck was a character who appears in Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1605).

Gargoyles (Walt Disney Animation, 1994), character Puck

Puck is also very similar to the character of his inspiration, and thus is very mischievous to those who try to take control of his magic. What is similar between both Macbeth and Puck is that instead of having to spend a lot of screen time showing exactly what the personalities of these characters is, Weisman instead chose these Renaissance names due to the weight they already had in pop culture. People more than likely expected Macbeth and Puck to act similarly to the way they were portrayed in their Renaissance equivalents and that is certainly true in Gargoyles.

This kind of exposition through previously established, historical recognition is seen in other shows besides Gargoyles, such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles T-shirt merchandise (Murakami-Wolf-Swenson, 1988).

The four main turtles in this franchise are named after four prominent artists of the Renaissance: Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello, and Michelangelo. While these turtles are more warriors than artists and are vastly different in personality than their namesakes, their names serve a purpose to give them a kind of historical influence to their character that would have been lost if they were simply named “originally” without reference to previous works. Funny enough, the creators Eastman and Laird are history fans and landed upon the idea of the turtles having the name of Renaissance artists by chance (Tucker, “6 surprising facts”). Even though this may have been a seemingly random decision, the creators none the less gave the turtles a meaningful backstory, where their caretaker, Splinter, chose to name them out of a history book found in the sewer. Thus it emphasizes that these names are of important historical figures.

A kind of animation that takes historical recognition to a more interactive level though is the video games of the Assassin’s Creed Franchise. The games in which the most Renaissance references occur are Assassin’s Creed II and Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, in which the player travels through Renaissance Italy. Along the way the player encounters characters who are also people from history, such as Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), and Rodrigo Borgia (1431-1503). Besides looking like their namesakes, these animated characters also have some of their most notable personality traits.

Assassin’s Creed II (Ubisoft, 2009) and Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood (Ubisoft, 2010) characters Machiavelli, Leonardo da Vinci, and Rodrigo Borgia, respectively.

Leonardo da Vinci is particularly interesting as they make him obsessed with inventions which end up aiding the player through the game. This kind of detail did not need to be added, but because it did, players who enjoy history likely would feel more engaged as it would feel as though these characters are living up to their perceived expectations of how they should act. Pop culture has told us that these Renaissance men are extremely complex and cannot be fully understood due to the lack of evidence of their everyday existences. However, providing interactive, animated experiences such as Assassin’s Creed has given consumers a new way to analyze the past and pose questions that will lead to further dialogue (Sheppard, “Historical References”).

Besides being relatable by name, other works can show a clear symbolic connection to the Renaissance through visuals. During one class session, my classmates and I were introduced to an image from Disney’s 1959 animated film Sleeping Beauty in which two kings, the fathers of Princess Aurora and Prince Phillip, are shown talking together throughout the film.

Sleeping Beauty, dir. Clyde Gironimi (Walt Disney Animation, 1959)

The stout king on the right, named Hubert, is shown to be a slight reference to King Henry VIII as Hubert’s stature and clothing mimics the visual look of the Holbein portrait. From the poofy sleeves to the facial hair, Hubert exudes the kind of flair that the Holbein portrait conveys. Artists take these historically recognizable characters into consideration when creating character designs, as it can make a rather complex role suddenly simply to understand. Instead of having him look like a completely original king with no base in historical fashion, the artists went with a design that would instead conjure up this kind of kingly appearance that continues to permeate our society.

One of the last examples that comes to mind when discussing historical recognition is Disney’s 1973 film Robin Hood which tells this classic tale using anthropomorphic characters. 

Robin Hood, dir. Wolfgang Reitherman (Walt Disney Animation, 1973)

Besides sharing the title character’s namesake, this fox version of Robin Hood also carries with him the signature bow and arrows that the legendary figure was told to have as his trusty weapon of choice. This Robin Hood therefore is similar to Gargoyles’ Macbeth in that the characterizations as well as the name are integral parts of the way the audience gains an understanding of the characters.

Whether the symbolism in animated media is blatant or subtle, it is important to recognize that imagery and historical figures are and will more than likely continue to be an important part of this medium, as it gives this era a chance to continue to influence the world of today. This is due to the fact that as a society we continue to claim the Renaissance as a crucial era of human history. We believe it should be remembered and built upon, even if our cultural understanding of the true nuances of this era happens to be very skewed into the belief that the Renaissance exemplified perfection in every way.

Sources:

Omar, Mohd and Ishak, Sidin. “Understanding Culture Through Animation: From the World To Malaysia.” Malaysian Journal of Media Studies, vol. 13, n. 2. (2011): 1-9.

Sheppard, Sally. “Historical References in Video Games: The Italian Renaissance.” Academia.edu Database. vol. 1 (2008): 1-6.

Tucker, Reed. “6 surprising facts about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.” NY Post, (2014).

[wheremytwinwatches]

[Where My Twin Watches]: Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood Episode 41

Last time: Armstrong the Great got a promotion, Beardless grew a beard, and Teacher got a surprise surgery. Onwards!

The Mining Crew is still going through the tunnels towards Fort Briggs, it looks like Al hasn’t caught up to them yet. Whoops, Winry just tripped over a box of - gah, dynamite!

[Yoki]: “Nah, these are all sopping wet. Relax, they wouldn’t blow up even if we wanted them to.”

Wow. Yoki being the Voice of Reason. Times sure have changed.

Scar snaps at them to keep moving, “they could already be after us.” Yeah, but if you dwadle long enough then Al can catch up! So please May, keep up with the freakouts!

Back in Baschool, the storm’s passed so Sideburns is back to plotting against Kimblee. Aw, come on. I get shooting Kimblee from the get go, but why do you have to kill his other two guys (I’m assuming Chimeras like Toad and Boar). Keep them alive, they can join Al’s Chimera Army! Ed is understandably shaken at these KOS orders being thrown about.

Episode 41 - “The Abyss”

See, I hear “The Abyss” and I immediately think about the staring quote. Is Sideburns going to get a last-minute change of mind about killing all three, decide to be better than Kimblee? Not like that’s a high bar to clear, but still.

Ed’s trying to argue for taking Kimblee alive for questioning, Sideburns says he’ll never talk. As for his men? Maybe they’re being forced to serve Kimblee, but Sideburns thinks it’s too big a risk to bet on that. First Law of Briggs: The Careless are the first to die.

[Sideburns]: “We aren’t going to be careless. We’re killing Kimblee. And the two men with him.”

Walking down the hallway, Sideburns and the two Briggs soldiers talk about how Ed’s chosen the more difficult path of trying to keep his enemies alive. Their attitude seems to be “Admirable, but foolish.” Come on Ed, prove them wrong!

Back with the Mining Crew, Marcoh’s getting translations from Scar (finally), seems the current passage is about a “miracle drug” that extends life and transforms all metals to gold. Damnit, so it’s the Philosopher’s Stone, so much for the notes giving an alternative. Ooh, Xing culture lesson! Apparently Xingese refer to immortals as “a true being” oh Leto DAMN IT it’s right back to that smirking Truth. Whatever. Anyways, “True Beings” are considered perfect souls so they’re compared to the perfect metal gold (yeah, Winry and the Chimeras are totally lost by this point).

[Marcoh]: “So in other words, an immortal person is seen as a golden being.”

[May]: “In a sense…”

*camera shifts to Beard*

Oh. OOOOOOOOHHHHHH!

Keaton said:One thing of note is that all the people of Xerxes have gold hair and gold eyes. And I do mean gold, because there's no black outline that blonde people in the series have.

[May]: “It comes from the man who brought Alchemy to Xing.”

Wait, where are you going? Beard you’re walking away from one of the most badass fighters in the entire show and her husband, team up with them and you’ll be unstoppable! Whyyyyy.

Winry remarks that the Xing teacher of Alchemy having golden hair and eyes sounds like Ed and Al… hold on, I need to check something.

*rewinds to Ed standing in room* *returns to Winry, pausing at Beard along the way*

Huh! So Beard has the Xerxes no-outline blond hair, but Ed has almost this blend between Xerxes and Amestrian hair, he has an outline but it’s not as pronounced as Winry’s. Neat!

Finally, the exit! Scar must have been feeling a bit cooped up since he just kicked the door down. Yoki relishes his newfound competence and takes the lead nope instantly falls into massive snowdrift. I knew it couldn’t last. Aw, Boar sees how deep the snow is and immediately offers to give May a piggyback ride! And Toad says they’ll go first to make walking easier for the rest.

Walking through a winter wonderland… wait, is that Al? It is Al!

[Winry]: “That’s Al!” [May]: “THAT’S MY HUSBAND?!”

Jeez May, chill. No I didn’t mean rub your face on Al’s arm, Winry may have frostbite-proof earrings but Al was literally just buried in a snowdrift, you’re gonna lose your cheek at this rate! Al reports on the occupation of Fort Briggs, they’ll be walking right into their hands. So now what, do they just go back to the mine? Wait a minute, Scar just walked off and is staring all mysterious-like at the mountain range… are they going to Drachma? Scar says there’s a mountain village nearby (no idea how to spell that name), there are some Ishvalans living there. Toad and Boar are skeptical, but Yoki’s all too eager to give leadership back to Scar.

Oh shoot yeah, Al did kind of just run off on Kimblee. Do they even have an excuse for that, or is Sideburns just banking on Kimblee being dead before the absence of an Elric brother becomes an issue?

...Ed literally made another suit of armor and is making a Briggs soldier puppet it around. Wow. And the voice? Kimblee, come on. I was just starting to think that you were a valid threat again. Stop disappointing me.

As “Al” struggles with stairs, Sideburns is trying to set up his assassination. Seems Kimblee’s suspicious of the Briggs soldiers (gee, I wonder why) and is planning to search the mines with just his two flunkies. As Sideburns prepares the snipers, Ed runs ahead.

Kimblee orders his guys into the mine to look for tracks as a sniper lines up his shot… until he sees Ed approaching. Ed tries claiming that Kimblee would get lost searching the tunnels- nope, Kimblee’s already clued in on the assassination plan. With an attitude and past like his, he can practically smell the murderous intent. Sideburns tells the sniper to line up the shot and nope Kimblee pops a steamcloud.

Ooooh shoot he’s going into the building with Sideburns and the snipers, isn’t he? Quick Ed, I’m totally ok with the mass murderer getting sniped but if you can still take him alive then never mind, that was a claw strike and a nonhuman fist, flunkies confirmed as Chimeras.

Hey, it’s the Lion and Gorilla from the end credits! New potential recruits for Al’s army, please don’t kill them Ed. Also, I am having major OPM flashbacks now.

Mid-ep pictures of Kimblee (wait, didn’t he already get one of these?) chewing on a Stone, and Edward getting ready to pummel some Chimeras.

While Ed is otherwise occupied, Kimblee strolls down into the mineshaft and wait what? How are there tracks? The Mine Crew left right before that huge snowstorm that Al could barely read street signs in, how on Leto’s depressing planet were these tracks now obliterated by that storm?

Fighting Music starts up as Ed faces down Lion and Gorilla, he can’t see them but at least they can’t see him but animal hybrids, remember? They’ve got superhuman senses and if sight fails then they can probably hear and smell him with ease. Yup called it. An armknife to the Lion gets Ed free to dodge Gorilla’s attacks, the Briggs troops reach the street but can’t see through the steam to help Ed. Not like they could do much against the Chimeras.

Whoops, Ed dodged a bit too much and walked straight into the mineshaft. Ouch. Now he’s going to stunt his growth even more!

[Ed]: “Dynamite, huh? There’s one perk to fighting in a mine.”

Aw, Ed baby. You’re about to try something that even Yoki knew wouldn’t work, aren’t you?

The Chimeras jump down to continue fighting Ed, who brandishes the sticks in their direction. But they just laugh at him? Aw, they know about dynamite being worthless when damp. So much for that attempt-

Nitroglycerin. Nitroglycol. Ammonium Nitrate. Nitric Acid and Ammonium. YES

By the power of Chemistry, Ed with his silly little nose-plugs and shit-eating grin has turned your superhuman sense of smell into a tactical disadvantage!

Kimblee looks up to see a stinky explosion and his two flunkies down for the count, now without a hostage in play it’s just the Fullmetal Alchemist and the Crimson Alchemist. Ed demands that Kimblee spill the beans, but Kimblee isn’t inclined to cooperate. Saying he’ll speed things up, he pulls out a Philosopher’s Stone.

Alright, here we go! Ed vs Kimblee, the Stone Seeker against the Butcher of Ishval, our hero facing against the very power he once sought, and a true Philosopher’s Stone at that unlike Cornello’s pale fragment. This is gonna be

are you fucking kidding me.

Kimblee. Kimblee, you stupid incompetent trash-talking eternal disappointment. I thought your “fight” with Scar on the train was as low as you could go, I thought that with you easing back into my good graces you would earn recognition as an acceptable villain. But nooooo, you have to boast that you’ll end this quickly and then stand there like a dolt as Ed nyooms around you and kicks your Stone into the mineshaft. And then he slices your palm so your TC tattoo is useless.

You. Utter. Failure.

Don’t bother trying to continue dude, I know that you’re just gonna pull out your second Stone to try and keep fighting but come on. That was just embarrassing. Just stop, please.

Alright so now he’s got those glowing red eyes like Bradley had when he was blabbing at The Great Armstrong, boasting about how Ed’s mercy just gives him another chance to kill. He spits out his second Stone and wow ok that was a big explosion. The tower over the mining shaft collapses in a huge cloud of smoke, the Briggs troops are knocked back and the Chimeras fall through the shattering floor (noooo, come back, Al hasn’t had a chance to recruit you yet!).

We’ve got the Somber Music playing as the last pebbles fall in the ruined mine shaft, Ed is down at the bottom a little worse for wear. Hey, it’s Lion and Gorilla! Quick Ed, rescue them from the pipes that have them pinned so we can… uh… that’s a lot of blood. You feeling ok, buddy?

OW. Uh, so when Ed fell down into the mine shaft he landed on a beam. And the beam went through him.

The camera’s shaking and going in and out of focus as Ed tries to pull himself off the beam, but the shock’s setting in and he collapses twitching on the ground eye rolling up and getting obscured by his hair Leto this is not good

Al just collapsed?! Aw hell no he’s getting another pull from his body? Bad timing, Al’s body! The girls are panicking and the Chimera’s are wondering what’s wrong with General Armor Guy, Winry’s doesn’t know what to do and Al’s motionless in the snow not even with his usual glowing eyes stop it

Ed? Ed’s not moving and there’s too much blood finger twitch! He’s still breathing but he really needs to figure out Roy’s flame technique to seal his wound soon.

[Ed]: “I won’t make her cry…Especially not over something this stupid!”

Ok so through the Power of Love Ed is overcoming the shock to Transmute part of the beam away, then Earthbend the rubble off of the Chimeras. They’re not too happy with their boss destroying the building they were in, so heck might as well join up with the kid who dug them out.

So Ed’s helped up by the guys he was enemies with five minutes ago, Lion notes that if he pulls the beam out then Ed’ll bleed out. But Ed has a plan, bioalchemy! He totally read about it before, he’ll be fine. But with all the damage he’ll need the power of a Philosopher’s Stone

well isn’t it convenient that he knocked one down the mine shaft just a little bit ago, huh?!

Wait what, he’s going to “use his own life force”? Take a few years off his lifespan what. Ok, so I’m supposed to just go with the idea that the kid who has no real bioalchemy experience beyond the failed Human Transmutation is going to manage to concentrate as a beam is pulled out of his guts and harness the power of his own soul in a way that’s never been done before. Just spend a minute or two looking for the shiny red gem that’s down there with you! Fine whatever, Protagonist Powers away.

Look I’m sorry I know that this is a moving scene and all with Ed accepting the cost of his mercy and screaming as the bloody beam is yanked from his intestines and visualizing himself as a Single Soul Philosopher’s Stone but come on we clearly saw the Stone fall down and you’re just going to ignore it. Fine whatever I’ll try to move past it. So Ed grits his teeth and managed to ok thank you for not making it perfect, he’s patched up his organs and stopped the bleeding but it’s only a temporary fix, he’ll need some professional help. Not that he plans on getting any, he’s up and raring to keep fighting Kimblee nope he’s out for the count.

Lion and Gorilla look over their rescuer, knowing that he can’t fight their former boss as beat up as he

there it is!

Apologies for the rant about the Stone earlier, Lion just found it and decided to not give it back to Kimblee. They’ll just head out and let the madman think they died in the explosion. As for Ed? They’re off to find the kid a doctor. (Oh please let this go where I think it’s going… *knock knock* [Lion]: “Hey, so we hear you’re a good doctor, and we’ve got this kid who’s a bit beat up…” [Doc]: “Oh come on!” pleasepleaseplease)

[krahka]

The KleskizhAUs and their Poetic Styles

Under read more because lomg

SWTOR Kleskizhae

Ridiculous Sith Juggernaut. Excessively proud of his Sith ancestry but also ridiculously light side and somehow doesn’t see this as a problem. Loves lightsabers, loves the Empire but is a little less clear on whether he likes the Empire as an institution or the Empire as the people, and hint, it’s the people, he’ll pick the people if he had to.

Poetry: ALL CAPS HAIKUS FREE VERSE ASTRONOMY METAPHORS EXTREMELY VIOLENT REFERENCES TO ANCIENT SITH HISTORY BEAUTIFUL WORDS BEATEN STRAIGHT OUT OF HIS HEART OF DARK PASSION

DS!SWTOR Kleskizhae

Ridiculous and awful Sith Juggernaut. Believes himself morally and genetically superior to all others. Delights in toying with his inferiors, especially in breaking their hearts with his charm and facade of kindness. 

Poetry: Flowery and romantic and flattering. More or less copies of ancient Sith poems, but with the words changed a bit. They’re mostly for showing off how cultured he is and how much he loves you babe, so he doesn’t put in much effort. 

ESO Kleskizhae

Altmer Battlemage. A scion of the Direnni but not on great terms with his family due to his allegiance to the Aldmeri Dominion and his marrying a Bosmer because of Spinner shenanigans. Ambassador of the Queen and definitely not one of her Eyes nosir. Got pressganged into the Buoyant Armigers after impressing Vivec by exemplifying all of hir favorite virtues and vices just by accident.

Poetry: Sonnets. Ballads. Sexually explicit but it’s so purple that you can hardly tell just how sexually explicit it really is. Mostly about his own adventures and the people he knows. Melodramatic as fuck. The stuff he wrote when Vivec specifically was taking an interest in him is his best work, since he starts getting more experimental and tones down the silliness without losing that red hot emotional core that really elevates the verse to something that so many people try and fail to replicate in the future that it’s become its own genre. 

DS!ESO Kleskizhae

Altmer Battlemage what dabbles in necromancy. Believes himself the rightful king of all of High Rock with the Bretons as his rebellious subjects. Allied with Mannimarco because he promised him that when Planemeld happened, he could have his ancestral holdings all to himself, with all the people there living only to glorify him. The kinda guy you end up killing in the Daggerfall Covenant quests or in a Balfiera focused dungeon DLC. 

Poetry: Pretty similar to light side ESO!Kleskizhae, but if he thinks you didn’t appreciate his work he’ll torture you until you do. Try and critique it and he’ll just plain murder you and raise your corpse to grovel for his forgiveness and admit that you were wrong. Also his poetry is his annoying boss mechanic somehow. Didn’t read the books in his dungeon? Too bad because that’s how you defeat him. 

GW2 Klejskizae

Norn Herald. Skald, champion of Wolf, Lightbringer of the Order of Whispers. A Delight unto all people of Tyria! Your new best friend who is not using your friendship with him to learn your secrets! Come and listen to him channel the spirits and the Legends next Dragon Bash!

Poetry: Actually more into prose. Veddas. Stories about heroes, exaggerated for effect. Tales that he keeps in his mind that he tells differently each time he’s asked to tell it, depending on what he thinks his audience needs to hear. The poetry tends to be more personal, often taking the form of prayers to the Spirits that are between him and them. Also will write songs, also about heroes, with calls to action for the Pact. 

TES!Specifically Klejskizae

Nord Skaald. Traveling yeller. Delighter of audiences all throughout Tamriel. Follower of the Old Ways. Probably also in the Blades. 

Poetry: SCREAMING TAVERN SONGS. Great heroes, sometimes gets kicked out of taverns in Skyrim because he’s performing songs about non-Nord heroes but how can you not be excited by EVERYONE

SWTOR!Specifically Klejskizae

Mandalorian what will scream battle poems in your ear as he faces you in glorious hand to hand combat. Has some very weird ideas of what being Mandalorian is, but they’re closer to reality than his Sith version’s ideas of being Sith. 

Poetry: You thought Sith Kleskizhae’s poetry was gory and violent? You haven’t heard Mando Klejskizae. They are ridiculous. Everything ends with lovers embracing for the last time as they die in battle and their death is described in excruciating detail.

FFXIV Kleskizhae

Ishgardian adventurer. Dragoony Bard. Got kicked out for being way too scandalous for the theocracy and for talking too much about how he thought that maybe we should just smooch the Dragons? 

Poetry: The poetry isn’t why he’s not liked back in Ishgard, though that poetry was a means to transmit his unpopular and scandalous ideas and activities. The poetry specifically is why he’s distrusted in Gridania after he met an elemental and challenged it to a rap battle and it went very poorly. (Kleskizhae won and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise or that that’s not the point and there is no winning because he definitely won)

West Coast Fallout Klaus K. Zheng

Paladin of the Brotherhood of Steel. Sort of into the whole BoS thing of keeping dangerous tech out of people’s hands but also he’s into protecting people in any way he can, since they must protect those who will inherit the past, yes? That is what we’re doing, right? Right?

Poetry: He found a book of poems about Arthurian legends and they changed his life, as did Grognak the Barbarian which he’s sure is in the same canon. He’s also read a bunch of Shakespeare and only sort of understands it. So yeah, sonnets that are Shakespeare ripoffs. Casting modern topics into medieval terms. Sometimes it’ll get weird and his BoS worldview will come in and make them anachronistic but it’s unintentional because he just wants to write like the knights of yore. 

East Coast Fallout Klaus K. Zheng

Enclave soldier, later deserter once he sees that oh shit killing everyone wasn’t supposed to be what they were going to do! He wasn’t listening to the quiet part! Ends up aiding synths because it pisses off the BoS and also saves lives. Still believes in America but it’s one that maybe never existed. 

Poetry: The Enclave did preserve a lot of good American literature in their databanks, though they’re kinda sketchy about distributing it to their soldiers since even before 2077 they realized that a lot of the American canon contains like, anti-war, anti-corporate ideas and they couldn’t have that in their new society. He read Leaves of Grass once and it blew his mind. He might just surrender to the Brotherhood if they let him have access to their books, because he needs those. But also he might not because they would probably kill him and he’s also spending his post-Raven Rock time helping synths out of the Institute and that’s something they’d kill him for. And probably also kill a lot of other people if they realized that the Railroad had ex-Enclave in there. And the Institute doesn’t care for the humanities, which is why they had to create machines to teach them how to be human and then proceed to do such terrible things to the humans they’ve created; because they are less machine than they are and they resent them for it. 

Modern Vlogger Klaus K. Zheng

Relationship advice vlogger, specifically as a counter-voice to all those shitty misogynist PUAs that are targeting lonely straight men. Also here for the lonely women and the lonely queers since he’s a queer man himself. 

Poetry: He’s got a Master’s in Poetry and he feels it was time well spent, even if he didn’t care as much for academia as he did for the writing and the reading. One of the rewards for donating to his Patreon at a higher tier is a short poem written just for you about whatever subject you wish. (Assuming that it’s not extremely objectionable. He’ll gladly write poems about all sorts of sex acts, but he won’t write one about the virtues of white power.)

HZD Kleskizhae

Carja Warrior. Participated in the Red Raids because that was what the will of the Sun was but he couldn’t take the violence and the genocide and ended up joining with Sun-Prince Avad to overthrow the murderous king literally as soon as he could. Has been on a tour of goodwill ever since. 

Poetry: Overuses the words “glinting”, “scintillating”, “resplendent”, “radiant”, “brilliant” and other words that mean A LOT OF LIGHT because he’s really into writing ridiculous songs about the Sun. A lot more personal and emotional than a lot of Carja poetry, since it’s more about love than about praising the Sun or the King. It’s a new dawn, and what the world needs is love’s shining rays to heal her wounds. With the help of some Oseram who wanted to promote the newly invented phonograph, manages to become the first real pop star after the apocalypse.

DA Kleskizhae

Tevinter Battlemage. Was sent off to the front lines against the Qunari to keep from embarrassing his family and his master. Accidentally ended up embarrassing them anyway. 

Poetry: So he’s really into bringing up the Old Gods in his poems. He doesn’t worship them, he’s a good Andrastian, but you know how in the Renaissance everyone was a huge Greeceaboo? Yeah, it’s like that. 

WtA Klaus K. Zheng

Fianna Galliard. He’s a werewolf poet who sings ballads of his pack’s glorious battles and lifts their spirits in the name of Gaia and Stag!

Poetry: He’s got a soft spot for dirty limericks. All of the Kleskizhaes will make improv poems upon request when they’re drunk enough but Fianna!Klaus is the master of the drunken on-the-spot poem. Like they get way better when he’s drunk and they’re improvised, as opposed to the usual thing where they’re charmingly bad.

VtM Klaus K. Zheng

Toreador. Got the vampire bug some time in the Victorian era, I dunno if he was actually British or what.

Poetry: Lord Byron himself once called his poems “a bit maudlin.” His sire was certainly fond of his work, but if he had more time in his peak living creative years he would have probably been a better known figure in the Romantic movement. As it is he’s fairly irrelevant and forgotten by all but a few intense scholars of the period, and even they consider him a minor figure. 

Shadowrun Klaus K. Zheng

Elven Street Samurai. Just wants to make the world a better place through the power of love and also katanas. Probably unfortunately involved with Aztechnology which is gonna end badly for him probably. 

Poetry: Machines and corporations have not yet conquered the metahuman soul, and that is why he writes. Has been banned from a couple of Runner BBSs for constantly posting about his latest runs in the form of epic poem, and that’s not what these boards are for, @GLORIOUSSAMURAI, please turn off your caps lock

Star Trek Kleskizhae

Romulan Tactical Officer. Fought in the Dominion War, joined the Romulan Republic after Romulus asplode, because they wouldn’t let him quietly desert and because he believes in the true Romulan spirit that can never be repressed!

Poetry: He’s trying to revive ancient pre-Awakening Vulcan poetic traditions whilst failing to recognize that lots of it doesn’t work in the modern Romulan language. He’s always been super into poetry but after the destruction of Romulus, he becomes obsessed with writing the perfect series of poems to describe it for the future, so that people will remember what it’s like long after everyone who remembers it is dead. He hasn’t been successful yet and it’s upsetting him but he can’t just not do it. He owes it to the dead. 

Bionicle Kleskizhae

He's a proud Skakdi warlord of Fire who is trying his best to unite his proud and noble people against the wicked deprivations of the Makuta and might also be in the Order of Mata Nui because sometimes Kleskizhae is a spy? But always he is very loud. 

Poetry: Extremely long and elaborate war chants with 40 verses that he’s trying to get his guys to chant into battle but no one else but him can remember it all and he keeps adding more verses. But also he’s written love poetry that’s gone all the way around Greg and made romance canon again! He’s done it! With the chiseling of the tablets he’s made love real!

[solonerdbird]

My review of the first 12 episodes of the anime Carole and Tuesday, the English dubbed version, currently on Netflix.

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Mumble Jumble Transcription:

Hi, this is K.S. Garner and you’re listening to the Solo Nerd Bird Podcast and today I want to talk about Carole and Tuesday, the first twelve episodes that are on Netflix, currently. [This is] part one of the [review] since there’s only twelve episodesI believe as of today September 26th of 2019 is only 23 episodes it maybe 24, I'm not sure as of right now so we’ll jump straight into the Introduction which is actually the production of the show just to give everybody their credit so no one gets upset with me.

So the original story was created by Shinichiro Watanabe, the same creator of Samurai Champool, Space Dandy and my personal favorite Space Cowboy. Like I have the ship, I can't name it right now but I have it [tattooed] on me right now and I’m thinking about getting another one I'm not really sure yet. So it was produced by Bones Studio which they've also done Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, My Hero Academia, Mob Psycho 100 just to name a few and the music is by flyingDog Studios or Productions I’m not really sure what they will go by and it was founded in 1997 and if you ever Google flying dog the studio or Productions that does music it’s actually stylized as a lowercase ‘f’ and a capital ‘D’ all one word. Yeah, it took me awhile to actually find it. But like I said, Netflix is airing Carole and Tuesday and they bought the international distribution rights to it and so they're airing the English dubbed version of it and they aired it August 30th of 2019 but the original show in his native Japanese Ashley are April 10th of 2019 like I said we're sticking to the American or English dub version currently on Netflix.

So, let’s get straight into it. Who are Carole and Tuesday. So I'm going to recite the blurb that's on of their official website which is, ‘A chance meeting brings them together. They want to sing. They want to make music. Together they feel like they might just have a chance.’ Carole herself she is, I guess you can say the African-American, I'm not sure if she was even American but she talks with an American accent she's the African-American character on the show she's an orphan works odd part time jobs to make ends meet while living in her landlord's former storage unit. Tuesday, obviously if Carol was the black girl Tuesday is the white girl who’s family considers her to be lazy, unmotivated, with no aspirations in life other than to create and play music. So they both meet on this bridge, like Carol just got fired from one of her odd part time jobs again and being on this bridge while playing her piano and Tuesday’s just captivated by this girl and they all girls,they’re both teenagers in America they’re both still minors. Anyway, they are girls so I'm going to be referring to them as girls or maybe ladies or women but they are technically still anyway when they both me on the bridge. Like I said Tuesday's just captivated by Carole while she’s playing her piano but then they get run off byt security because they’re not supposed to be playing on the bridge. But they meet back up at Carole’s apartment and they just start exchanging their vastly different upbringings, right, and it's just, this is just the beginning of this very beautiful, loyal friendship and quote on quote “the driving force behind the Miraculous 7 Minutes”. There’s just visions of the miraculous 7 Minutes in the beginning of every episode. it's like Gus who’s actually their manager, you'll get to see where he comes into play maybe what I want to say about the second, the second episode, it's not a spoiler, I promise. But he comes into play and he describes, you know,it was this miraculous time it those 7 minutes and you know we'll get into that part but right now we have to go all the way back to how they met and how I met them and how we got to this point, right. 

In my opinion, this whole thing would be my opinion so in my opinion, as of right now I love this show. The World building combined with past but the ever so relevant pop culture in music from Earth to the current lifestyle and environment on Mars has Shinichiro written all over it just like I said I'm getting a lot of Cowboy Bebop feels I'm actually getting a lot of Steven Universe feels too which is probably why I really like this show. It has those musical elements I think combined with the action adventure and the loyalty of the friendship and friendship is tested at some point not even at some point like throughout these 12 episodes, the first twelve episodes and if this is what it is in the first twelve episodes I wonder what they’re going to do in the next 12 right. 

The Musical part, like I said just give me a lot of Steven Universe feels. I'm not really big into musicals as I would like to be but this is definitely, you're scratching the surface of musicals so the musical part, there’s supposed to be a soundtrack release it actually just got pushed back there was a post on their Instagram page that is going to be pushed back I think like maybe another month but there is no official release date. I personally don't skip into the next episodes like you wouldn't, like with other shows you just skip right into it instead of waiting for it to count down for a bathroom break like I don't need a bathroom break. These episodes are only like 20 minutes long if you just skip straight into it. I don't even bother doing that. The opening sequence, the opening theme song just me and the closing theme song “Hold Me Down”, I mean, “Hold Me Now” I sorry. They’re super, super catchy and I find myself…

[horrendous singing] 

I can't wait for the soundtrack I'm going to be going to get in my car I just I can't wait anyway the main vocalist are as follows Carole is played by I believe you pronounce her name is Nai Bri.XX Tuesday by Celeina Ann. I believe her name is Alisa, she voices Angela, she’s like their musical rival. You have Crystal who’s voiced by Lauren Dyson and Skip was played by the musician Thundercat. I don’t think I ever heard of that before Thundercat before this show but I'm definitely following him now and I'm definitely getting a lot of Thundercat in Skips cuz at first I thought okay Skips is kind of like a muscular Childish Gambino who doesn't rap. He just kind of like does all the singing parts and he plays an electrical guitar. But once I looked up Thundercat and his music, I was like, okay, was this character actually made for Thundercat. I'm getting a lot of Thundercat in Skips,  Skip. Skips is from Regular Show, not to be confused. But then again he's the one that probably wrote the songs so it makes a lot more sense. And then with Crystal she's like the Beyonce of Mars. Beyonce has transcended onto Mars and this is what it is, you know. So I just, that's what I'm getting with them. Like I said before I even found out about Thundercat, I was referring to him like a Childish Gambino even like Pharrell again that doesn't rap he just does all the singing parts and he plays the guitar like maybe [coughs] excuse me, like Lenny Kravitz. I only picked those artists cause those are the ones that I like, come straight to mind for me they just happened to be black artists. I think I picked black artists because Skip is black (??) but you can watch, just go and watch the show. I highly recommend watching it that's why I'm doing this for you. Highly recommend you watch it and it's alright. 

So there’s another part of the show that made me a little bit hesitant with watching it. It was the fact that Carole, the black girl is African American or black like I just said and she's one of the title characters. I was kind of afraid of how they were going to portray her, like she has dreadlocks and she's not Bohemian but she kind of skips to her own beat. And I like, erm, I kinda wonder how they’re going to do this but there is no type of racial prejudice on this show I guess because it’s the martial environment is on its humans and AI with or like robots whatever you want to call them. That's pretty much it on this show. It’s not like humans and a variety of creatures like on Star Trek or Star Wars, you know, living together anything like that it's just humans and AI. But I, from what I can see there’s no real prejudices. I mean, there’s gender that comes into play, like the scale of gender that varies or that could possibly very. I don't want to touch too much on that because then that would be a spoiler and we don't do spoilers, no we do not! But like I said, they did a really good job. There was at one-point where there was like, like a gangster rapper or that he was going to try to do something like that but then it was like the exact opposite. That's what I was hoping for and that's exactly what they did. He did the exact opposite of what he physically, what he visually look like, what he tried to portray himself because I'm pretty sure other people of color other black people specifically since the title character is black can relate to this about how they'll watch something that they're interested in but then they get into it and the characters being betrayed as one of those stereotypes. You know big lipped, overly sexualized, lazy, pipe smoking, hip-hop loving & ghetto fab, baggy clothed; co-worker, mistress, hobo or a dangerous person that the protagonist is told to avoid at all times or you see them, cross the street every chance you get but thankfully this isn't it. 

Shinichiro roll portrays Carole as strong-willed, self-sufficient, optimistic, silly and resourceful even from her lack of connections money from a familial network. She isn't bitter, she isn't jaded by being, I guess, being left behind of our family. She's been unable to find a way to get by and live her own life and pretty much define herself. She doesn't throw Tuesday up, Tuesday's up bringing back at her face, like, oh you come from money hey can, I can I get some, you know and you can't do nothing so you might as well on back home like I haven't really no need for you. Whereas Tuesday's ignorant of the world around her and is easily compromised, Carole count steps in I don't even think as a big sister, I kind of see them as equals in a way but Carole shows Tuesday that independence and confidence in herself can bring more competency... competency into her life than the abundance of wealth and connections through her family could ever for her. Like this, this is so much better like with or without money if you're confident in yourself if you understand you know...how to wash your own clothes, how to cook food for yourself, how to finesse your way in and out of these various part-time jobs like Carole has you'll go further in life, you know. You'll do better, maybe not further but you'll do better and you’ll appreciate everything a lot more than just with the use of your money. Just like, you just threw your money at whatever to get whatever you want like this is better than that. Shinichiro, the animators and all of the creators, they've done a wonderful job, right. 

I would like to get more into the musical aspects unfortunately, like I said we (clap) don't (clap) do (clap) spoilers (calp) so highly recommend you watch the show. You know really getting into it like I have watch, listen, decide for yourself. A lot of this like I said he's my own opinion of it, of the characters, of how they have been portrayed, how other characters have (inaudible), have been portrayed. Watch, listen, make up your own minds. If I missed anything, if you want to comment, question, please go ahead and, and send me those comments and questions (laughs). Maybe some concerns maybe you want to expand a little bit more yourself just go ahead and, and shoot me an email my social and my email will be up. And like I said, the show has been great, I can't wait to watch the next 12 episodes. I'm not sure if they're available on, on uh, Crunchyroll yet or if I have to wait another year. I mean so be it. If I have to I will but this show has been really interesting and it's helping me get back into anime slowly so like, I, I can't wait. I tell as many people as I can about this show Carole and Tuesday, is amazing. And when I put up my interest in doing an episode about Carole and Tuesday my Instagram just blew up and so I was like okay let me hurry up and watch the rest of this so I can go ahead and put up my review. So as of right now, this is only the first part. Once I'm able to get my hands on the, um, next 12 episodes I'm going to go ahead and just film the next one for you guys. 

So thanks for listening. This is KS Garner and you have been listening to the Solo Nerd Bird Podcast. 

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[lesbioniccommando]

As much as I love classic fallout and go to bat for it, it’s funny seeing people condemn Bethesda “Bastard” Softworks for like, permanently soiling the /LORE/ (even if they did get pretty messy in a lot of places) as if the originals are like, shining beacons of perfection. Are they iconic marvels of RPGs? Yes! Do I love them? Yes! Should more people play them, should they get some sort of remake? Yes! But like.. it was never a bitingly smart takedown of american imperialism and the like. There’s some brilliant stuff in the games, especially in the first game, but there’s sooooooo much nonsense people either forgot about or like to forget about on purpose - stuff that ranges from kooky and fun to “this pop culture reference was dated then, and it’s even more dated now”.

Stuff like . . .

- The protagonist in fallout 2 is literally known as ‘The Chosen One’ with zero irony

- There is a faction called ‘hubologists’ that exist to serve as a giant joke about Scientologists; their leaders in game is named.. Juan Cruz. Like Tom Cruise. Get it? They return in Nuka World because who even knows.

- There is a rat god named Keeng Ra’at capable of speech who can mind control other rats to do his bidding. He has a brother named Brain who can also speak.

- Some deathclaws in Fallout 2 show enough signs of intelligence that they’re practically people instead of just bloodthirsty animals. One of them, Goris, can join your party. Deathclaws are said to possess telepathic abilities and can sense if their kin are in danger. I wonder why they didn’t decide to keep it up with this!

- There is a dungeon that serves to exist only as a long-form Terminator reference. You actually get a companion out of it that is straight up named SKYNET. 

- The President of the Enclave has a secretary who only exists to reference Monica Lewinsky because that just happened and it was topical.

- There is an intelligent radscorpion very skilled at chess who wears glasses. You can take his glasses and offer it to a mafia boss while saying a quote from the Godfather because why not.

- Dozens of random encounters in the game where random pop culture references happen. They didn’t have Wild Wasteland as a perk, so you just had to kinda see it no matter what. Star Trek, Hitchhiker’s Guide, South Park, Star Wars, Jay and Silent Bob, Monty Python, Doctor Who.. anything geeky and/or popular in the 90s, it had a reference, even if it was jarring. Especially if it was jarring.

- Riddick from the Chronicles of Riddick is a party member in Fallout Tactics.

- They made a Diablo-clone Fallout spinoff titled “Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel”. This was the last non-Bethesda Fallout title to be released. Instead of Nuka-Cola, there is Bawls Guarana energy drink as product placement. It also features a soundtrack with Slipknot, Celdweller, and Killswitch Engage. It looked like this.

Fallout has been through a lot. My closing point I want to make is that the series wasn’t perfect, shining, sparkling,. unmuddied etc. before Bethesda came along and RUINED EVERYTHING UGH THANKS TODD

[dragonnan]

Big, Ginormous, Awesome, Epic Fic Rec!!

I’ve decided to share a pile of some of my favorite fics from multiple genres.  There’s no way I’ll get them all here but I’ll do my best to fill this post with as many as possible!!

Also, I’m gonna include a few of my own works at the bottom :D

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Anime:

The Lucky Ones by Terri Botta (Isilwath) (Inuyasha) Sometimes Fate hands you a gift you never thought you’d ever get, and it’s up to you to accept it for what it is. [Hand’s down the BEST Inuyasha post-series fanfic I’ve EVER READ!!! One note - this series was begun before the anime was completed so there are a few canon divergences.  As it is, I prefer the way this story brought things to a close so I have no problems with that.  Also, this is a MATURE story with good reason! Lots of sexy times throughout - but wonderfully written and absolutely crucial to the story progression.  I never felt the sexy parts were thrown in purely for the smex.] 

The Coyote Child by Terri Botta (Isilwath) (Inuyasha) Sequel to The Lucky Ones. Inuyasha and Kagome are asked to adopt a coyote-hanyou baby from Arizona. [WIP but worth it!!!!]

You're not Alone by Of Memories Past (Inuyasha) After the final battle with Naraku the well seals, forcing Kagome back to her time for good. Only Inuyasha knows a way for them to be reunited again, and it doesn't involve the well...

Always My Soul by dragonfly-rising (Inuyasha) Why is it always my soul people mess with? Kagome asked herself in a moment of hopeless annoyance.The attack had come with no warning. And in the end Kagome could find no reason why she, Inuyasha, or Miroku should have seen it

Stricken by Scribe Figaro (Inuyasha) A single blow fells Sango and reveals to Miroku a nightmare to which the Kazaana cannot compare.

Purity by Sueric (Inuyasha) Naraku is gone. Kagome has the jewel. After seeing InuYasha's torment, Kagome faces 'the truth' of his feelings. Kagome does the unthinkable, and in a final act of love, Kikyou offers InuYasha one chance to fix it. But is he too late? [Explicit rating but not pwp.  Excellent first story in a long series.]

Two Good Legs by Harukami

Balance of Power by multiple writers (Fullmetal Alchemist) Full disclosure- I am one of the writers, though I joined the project well into its creation.  Look, this thing is MASSIVE.  And still has 3 arcs to go - though its been on indefinite hiatus.  Still, what is there is basically complete and SOOOOOOOOOOO worth the read!! I assure you!! Time travel. Conspiracy theories. Leylines. Pop culture crack and bad movie references. Hackers, ghost hunters and detectives, oh my! When crossing the gate, be sure to look both ways...

Taken by Confusedrambler (Fullmetal Alchemist) An Ed!Torture fic with actual plot; A hurt-comfort story that explores the underbelly of Central. No Yaoi/Yuri. No inappropriate language. Rating changed to 'M' as of Chapter 6 "Turn" for violence and mature situations. Brotherhood/Manga-verse.

Giving Tree by Chrissy (Fullmetal Alchemist) ‘“Can you give me a house?“ asked the boy. “I have no house,” said the tree. “But you may cut off my branches and build a house. Then you will be happy.” And so the boy cut off her branches and carried them away to build his house. And the tree was happy.’ –The Giving Tree, Shel Silverstein

Heroes Don't Exist by Brigidforest (Cowboy Bebop) A multichapter story following the oneshot: It's 2072, four years after Faye woke up to find out the world of Cowboy Bebop was all a dream. Ch 12: Spike Spiegel hated Earth.

The Story of Us by ChiisanaAnisa (Cowboy Bebop) This is a sweet song written from Faye's point of view on one year she spent with the members of Cowboy Bebop.

Avengers (and related MCU films):

Best Laid Plans by Sholio (Guardians of the Galaxy) Post-Vol. 2 fixit fluff, with blankets and huddling for warmth.

Hugs in the Aftermath by F-117 Nighthawk (Avengers) Following the Battle of New York, Tony Stark ends up with a penthouse full of Avengers and a damaged arc reactor. But everything's instantly bearable when Pepper arrives.

Break by blewoutthestars It’s Thursday and the last time he looked at the clock it had just gone three in the afternoon, but the rainclouds are making it dark and it feels later in the day than that. Tony’s been sitting in this armchair by the window for a good two hours, flipping the pages of a book but not really reading anything. Hell, he doesn’t even know what book it is, but turning the pages gives his hands something to do as he stares at the words and then stares out of the window and doesn’t see a damn thing in front of him.

Of Directions and Morning Runs by DinerGuy Alternatively titled, “Why Only Natasha Will Work Out with Clint Anymore"

Something Old, Something New by Sokaless It's been weeks since Sokovia and Tony has accepted that JARVIS is gone. Really, he has. Barring a few nightmares and sleepless nights, he's fine.Or, he thinks he is. And then, one night, the Vision shows up in his tower with an offer that's too good to be true.

Unscheduled Meetings by roboticonography A chronicle of the early years of the career of one Virginia "Pepper" Potts.

Finite by cat_77 (Avengers) It was right and logical and the math, as always, worked. That, at least, was something he could rely on when all else failed.

Human Resources by OracleGlass Perhaps she should have asked what the nice man at Stark Industries' HR to define what he meant by "eccentric."

Blind Opening by Skysalla When Clint's undercover assignment goes to hell, he finds himself thrust into a new mission without SHIELD's permission or approval.

Remaking by MusicalLuna I bet Clint was on a mission.

Next New Message by fabrega "YOU HAVE THIRTY. SEVEN. NEW MESSAGES," Clint Barton's phone announces. That can't be good. Spoilers for The Winter Soldier.

Comrades by Nefhiriel Five times Thor defended his friends from people who should've been on their side, and one time his friends defended him.

Give You Shelter by MusicalLuna Tony doesn't really understand what Steve's doing.

What Here Shall Miss by sheafrotherdon Tag to Iron Man 3: spoilers throughout. Warning for description of anxiety attacks and discussion of PTSD.

Gone Too Soon by Zelos A victim should not grieve his murderer, however unsuccessful the attempt.Tony Stark, and the process of grieving Obadiah Stane. (Or, five times Tony grieved for Obadiah, and the one time he stopped pretending to.)

9/11 by spockside Pepper Potts had only been working for Tony Stark six months when she found herself running away from the destruction of the World Trade Center.

All the Anger That They Eat by ClawR Tony agrees to see a therapist for his, you know, fairly obvious issues. No one is more surprised than he is. Written pre-Avengers, but remarkably canon-compliant.

Live Through This (Every Day) by tessercat (nekonexus) Tony Stark lives through a lot of shit, every day.

Survival Instinct by roguewrld When Tony leaves to get coffee, Bruce is eating breakfast. When he comes back, Bruce is gone and the Hulk is sitting on the floor.

Take a Drink by cydonic Tony's always wanted to prove to his father he was worthwhile. He never got the chance.

Five Times Pepper Potts Took Care of Tony Stark (and One Time Tony Stark Took Care of Her) byzauberer_sirin In Pepper's defense she really did try to keep things professional.

come on friends, get up now by jumpfall It won't be easy and it won't be pretty, they don't say. You're going to hurt faster than you heal and lose more than you win. The Avengers have one thing in common. They all sign on.

Eleven Other Bathrooms by PutItBriefly "It's our five week anniversary," he says, like its the most plainly obvious thing in the world. It isn't even true. They agreed to try this experiment in romance on a Saturday and today is Tuesday. Their five week anniversary was three days ago.

Leader of the Pack by windscryer During a fight, Steve goes down and Tony has to step up. It’s about as hard as he expected it to be (which is not hard at all) but he’d still rather never have to do that again, is that understood, Steven?

Crossovers:

The New New Yorker by kattahj (Doctor Who & Beauty & the Beast original series) The Doctor and Donna visit New Earth and are saddled with a responsibility they don't quite know how to handle.

Holosuite Avengers by marmolita (Star Trek DS9 & Avengers) Julian has a new holosuite program that he wants everyone to try.

Pay No Attention to the Men Behind the Curtain by JeziBelle (X-Files & Avengers) Phil Coulson died to save the world. Now he needs a place to start over, a cold beer, and some eggs.

Fishing Job by amcw177 (Burn Notice & Avengers) Michael gets some help and an unexpected offer.

It Starts Out Like an A-Word (As Anyone Can See) by Amy (Avengers & Sesame Street)  This fic is brought to you by the letter Y, the number 12, and the Avengers' decision to help fix what Loki and the Chitauri did to destroy parts of Manhattan. (Mostly that last part.) [No, seriously, this is precious!!!!]

Blown Away by Maryilee (X-Files & Early Edition)

Patchwork by Lynse (Quantum Leap & Doctor Who - has multiple sequels) Sam's leaped again, but this time things are different. The original history's in flux, and Sam is left trying to puzzle out the mystery of one Doctor John Smith who seems to be caught up in the middle of it.

An Unexpected Partnership by Riverfox237 (Kim Possible & Danny Phantom) Kim gets a mission one morning to find a stolen 'interdimensional portal'. She ends up getting more help than she expected.

Like Paper In Fire by Calico (X-Files & Silence of the Lambs) Agent Starling is asked by an old friend in the FBI for some help. It may or may not lead to Dr. Lecter.

Danny Phantom:

Beyond Beasts by CatalystOfTheSoul Danny's abilities are getting less reliable by the minute, Tucker can barely keep up with damage control, and it doesn't help that Dash decided to tag along. There's something fishy about this vacation, and it's not the lake. The forest is playing tricks, water is appearing in places it shouldn't, and evidently there's a vacancy expected at Algernon's Summer Camp for Boys.

Phantom of Truth by HaiJu Locked away in a secret government lab with Phantom as her subject, nothing stands between Maddie and the truth... except, perhaps, herself. 

Shadow of a Doubt by HaiJu The truth was supposed to save Danny. Fix things. The lab, the experiments, the lies, those were all in the past. Weren't they? Sequel to Phantom of Truth.

Doctor Who:

Time With Mother by Laurawrzz The newly regenerated 10th Doctor finds himself trapped and injured with Jackie in the stairwell of a shopping centre on Boxing Day, where they find they've got a little more to talk about than the sales. Maybe Jackie doesn't come at face value.

A Step in the Right Direction by flutterflap Back on the TARDIS, the Doctor needs a rest after the events of “Midnight.”

Voiceless by Veldeia "What if that thing took his voice with it? What if whatever it did was permanent?" An AU that branches off from Midnight.

Beneath the Midnight Sky by HiddenTreasures for badwolfrun The Dimension Cannon finally locks onto the Doctor’s position. When Rose makes the jump to him, she finds herself in for more trouble than she bargained for.

Vacation, Interrupted by shyday He closes his eyes, wishing for the TARDIS. Wishing for Donna. In his mind, the creature that was Sky screams as she's torn out into space. Missing scene for Season4 "Midnight."

Novi et Veteris by IuvenesCor She had the shadows of memories from times when every face he wore was hers, but not this face. Not whomever it was that she would now discover behind those beautiful, sad eyes. Change is a shockwave— and Clara is caught in its wake.

Spinach Shock by Goldy, mrv3000 The Doctor has a bad reaction to spinach.

Were He Not Romeo Called by Butterfly Human society does require a name more specific than 'Doctor'.

The Devil You Know by rosa_acicularis Better the devil you know. Rose and the Doctor after Journey's End.

The Difference by themuslimbarbie "He isn't you!" Rose cries. "He looks the same, sounds the same, usually he acts the same, but he isn’t you. He isn’t the Doctor. Not really." The Doctor suddenly looks so very old. She can see all of the love and pain and regret flashing in his eyes. "But," he answers slowly, "I'm not him."

The Old Have Bad Dreams by kashinoha Rory makes a late-night discovery. Takes place in season six, some unspecified time between Night Terrors and The Girl Who Waited.

Transfixion by tardisjournal After their latest adventure nearly gets him killed, the Doctor goes into a healing trance, but neglects to tell his Companions what he's up to. Nurse Rory tries to help. Things go terribly wrong.

What Is Essential by eve11 Rory has to put his trauma skills to use when he and the Doctor are trapped on the front lines of a planetary conflict.

Let Her Under Your Skin, Into Your Heart by starlingnight  Someone’s figured out a way to save lives that involves painkillers, regeneration, and a lot of surgery. It’s not much fun for the Doctor - but it's saving people, and isn't that always worth the price?

Balance of Power by eve11 The Doctor has a plan to save a xenophobic society from itself. If only he could remember what it was.

The First Attack by DW_NuTs The Doctor is bitten and suffers excruciating mental attacks, but he doesn't know who his attacker was. As he grows weaker, it's up to Rose to find the cure. 

The Scientist by orange_crushed He can barely remember that apartment; just the sensation of the neon lights from the deli across the street, glowing green and blue through the bedroom windows at all hours, soaking into his eyelids and coloring his skin.

How to Train Your Dragon:

To Save a Rider by  nightfurylover31 

Leið by AvannaK Astrid and Hiccup's "romantic flight" comes to an abrupt end when the Red Death follows them out of the nest. Following an unexpected and desperate fight, Astrid finds herself stranded on an island, injured, with a crippled and comatose Hooligan heir and his overprotective Night Fury. She's going to get them home—all three of them—or die trying.

Occupational Hazard by MidnightEternal During the failed siege of the Edge, Hiccup is hit with an arrow. Stoick knew his son was reckless, brave, but reckless. He just didn’t know how much. Until he saw the scars.

A weary leader by MidnightEternal Hiccup’s leg is hurting after a busy week, Snotlout is there.

Get Well Soon by Eastofthemoon Since arriving on Dragon’s Edge, the teens of Berk have had to face many challenges...but none as hard as attempting to care of a sick Hiccup.

A Normal Snoggletog by wingedflower When Hiccup somehow manages to break his other leg on Snoggletog Eve, he is sure the holiday is ruined. But that's what friends are for, right?

Small, Thin Fingers by LenleG Hiccup, 20 and suddenly the chief of Berk - exhausted, bruised, overworked and just generally having a really, really bad day (the whole ridiculous yak problem notwithstanding). He can't help but think his Father would have handled all this so much better. He tries to hide from it all in the forge, but he was never counting on Gobber being so... Gobber.

Growth Spurt by Eastofthemoon After getting a growth spurt, Hiccup had to make a new foot to go along with it. However, the kids realize that's not the only thing that has changed about Hiccup.

Lost and Found by sanctuary_for_all He had to make sure he wasn't dreaming.***Spoilers for "How to Train Your Dragon 2"***

Most of Him by Elfpen The battle is over, the day has been won. The Green Death is dead, the three-hundred year long war has finally ended. But even the greatest of victories always come with cleanup, and sometimes it can be rather gruesome. Follows directly after the battle sequence in the movie. Rated for gore.

Psych:

Latent by InsaneTrollLogic (deathfic) In Shawn Spencer’s six-year tenure as SBPD’s psychic detective, they’ve solved cases that wouldn’t be closed anywhere else in the country. But in a missing persons case with no leads, it looks like their luck might have run out… with Gus.

Never could get the hang of Tuesdays by Liviapenn The thing about Shawn is that he's brilliant, but you can never tell him that.

There’s A Sixteen Percent Chance That At Least One Of Us Is Going To Die by lapsus_calami The bad guy from their recent case forces Shawn and Gus to play a game of Russian Roulette. It’s about as fun as it sounds. Which is to say not fun at all. 

There's A Thirty Two Percent Chance That At Least One Of Us Will Need Therapy by lapsus_calami In the weeks following the events in the basement Shawn finds his usual coping methods less than effective and struggles to admit that he might actually need some outside help.

The Last Man At The End Of The World by watanuki_sama It's 3:30AM and yet again, Carlton has no idea what Spencer is talking about.

A Whisper to the Living by Xparrot Ten years after the Psych agency closed, Shawn Spencer returns to Santa Barbara.

You Say My Brain's Bleeding Like It's a Bad Thing by Kansas42 This is what Shawn would be saying, if Shawn wasn't too busy having his skull sliced open.

For more of my Psych faves, visit the following link to Psychfic

Star Trek (various series):

Lessons by pimpmypaws As much as McCoy appreciated being given a project, did it have to be this one? Someone in Starfleet had gotten the damned fool idea that a machine would make a better doctor than a human. aka McCoy contributes to the EMH program by teaching him to be grouchy.

Is This the Real Life by halloweenjack21st What might have happened as a result of the events of the episode "Eye of the Needle".

New Beginnings by Jacks Post-Endgame, the Doctor finds life in the Alpha Quadrant very different from life on Voyager.

The Price Of A Memory by Marauder-In-Disguise There's only one thing in the world that the Doctor really wants...

Circle by VesperRegina Communications officers. A look at Hoshi Sato and Nyota Uhura.

Sisters by Orangeblossom If you took all the recurring female characters from TOS, TNG, DS9 and VOY, you'd have a whole command crew. Wouldn't *that* make an interesting show?

Supernatural:

Until It Sleeps by Scribblesinink (Scribbler) Who knew cravings for Cheetos and a turkey sandwich could be dangerous? When Sam and Dean stop off at a gas station to stock up, they pick up a teenage runaway – and a whole heap of trouble.

Lost by CIFan812 (PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO WARNINGS) This was the only way to make sure that Sam lived and that they would both be okay without me dragging them down. *Final Chapter is up.* Rated for sexual & nonsexual violence, rape & language. No Wincest.

The Woods are Lonely, Dark and Deep by Zatnikatel (WARNINGS FOR NON-CON) Missy Bender was three things. She was obsessive. She was insane. And she was in love – with a tall, beautiful stranger who looked real purty when he was hurting. But unfortunately for Dean Winchester, one thing she wasn’t was still locked in the closet…

One Night In Pasadena by Tempestt A woman targets Dean, but they soon find out who is the more dangerous predator. Rated for violence and sexual content. DARK FIC

X Files:

The Ghost in Her Life by Joyce (Alysswolf) An accident radically changes the partnership between Mulder and Scully while opening Scully up to extreme possibilities.

Seasons: Fight The Future by: BeshterAngelus The work of five years for Dana Scully and Fox Mulder is gone. As they face what this means for their partnership, Scully becomes a tool yet again to strike Mulder the final blow in his quest for the truth.

My Works:

Asgårdsreia by dragonnan (How to Train Your Dragon WIP) Berk is preparing for the annual Fyr Bal. With the Dragon Riders back home for the festival, it's sure to be fun for everyone! However, between Stoick's awkward prying into his personal life and the pure boredom of being away from the Dragon's Edge, Hiccup needs a vacation from his vacation! Turns out, there are, actually, worse ways to take a break.

The Big Stink by dragonnan (Supernatural WIP) Monsters, demons, rouge angels, the Devil, freaking Leviathans. Whatever comes down the pipe, we can handle it. Gank it or box it up for later. This is no different. Same crap, different day, man. But, dude, for the record? This freaking sucks.

How You Get There from Here by dragonnan (Avengers & related films) A collection of missing scenes from Avengers and related films. Many will be Tony-centric. I write a lot of hurt/comfort so expect a lot of those types of stories.

Fades to Gray But Never Away by dragonnan (Avengers & related films) Written for a prompt/request involving Tony Stark and sexual harassment.

Did You Make it to the Milky Way to See the Lights all Faded by dragonnan (Avengers & related films) If anything it was peaceful. All that black filled with stars. This other world. And vicious eel riding aliens. Couldn't forget those. Like literally couldn't forget them.

Simple Math by dragonnan (Avengers & related films) Had Obadiah hated him that long? Years? His whole life? Or was it an absence of emotion? Was he just... inconvenient?

Obie's Dilemma by dragonnan (Avengers & related films) Never should have let others do the job for him. This was his responsibility. He'd been there at the start. It only followed that he should end it too.

Not the Hero Type by dragonnan (Avengers & related films) Maybe that was why he hadn't been paying attention. Or, maybe he'd been looking for this. He didn't know. He rarely cataloged his reasons for anything. He fired from the hip and most of the time it struck dead center. But when he missed, oh it was a spectacular miss.

Of Bonding and Baking by dragonnan (Avengers & related films) Welcome to the Island of Misfit Toys. Here's a cookie.

Play Me Some More of that Old Blues by dragonnan (Cowboy Bebop) Some things forgotten, some things remembered. Faye and Jet thought they were all that was left. Something from the past returns.

Find all of my Psych stories HERE

[samosoapsoup]

Hushidar Mortezaie and Jiyan Zandi, The Brotherhood, 2018. 

5 Photographers Show What It’s Like to Be a Young Iranian Today

Jacqui Palumbo, Feb 22, 2019

Labkhand Olfatmanesh and Gazelle Samizay, Bepar, 2018. Courtesy of the artists.

What is like to grow up as an Iranian today? The third edition of Focus Iran, a biennial exhibition presented by the Iranian arts-and-culture nonprofit Farhang Foundation, hopes to provide an answer through photography and video that explore contemporary Iranian youth culture.

3 ImagesView SlideshowThe juried show—selected by Iranian photographers, filmmakers, and curators such as Babak Tafreshi, who shoots for the likes of National Geographic, and documentarian Maryam Zandi—features works by more than 40 image-makers and runs through May 12th at Los Angeles’s Craft & Folk Art Museum.Here, six of the exhibiting photographers (two of whom work as pairs) share the backstories of their works.

Hushidar Mortezaie and Jiyan Zandi

Five years ago, when Hushidar Mortezaie’s father passed away, the Iranian-born, American-raised artist began a collage inspired by his father’s collection of 1970s Iranian sports, pop culture, and political ephemera. He created textiles from the design, which later became the basis of his collaboration with Jiyan Zandi, who was born in the U.S. but has roots in Iran’s Kurdish region, as well as Mexico. The pair titled the resulting, deeply personal body of work “The Champion Series” (2018).One image from the series, titled The Brotherhood, features two men, crowned with roses and outfitted in Mortezaie’s textile designs; one man slings his arm around the other, their outward gazes soft but direct. Mortezaie said they created a set for the photograph that would be reminiscent of a retro photo studio in Kabul or Tehran. Family heirlooms provide a backdrop onto which Mortezaie said he and Zandi placed their “champions”—subjects in the series who represent the beauty of overcoming adversity—“onto a heroes’ shrine of roses.” The work overflows with vibrant colors and celebrates masculine beauty in Iran and its diaspora, paying tribute to the designer’s father; Mortezaie, who is gay, said that his father accepted him unwaveringly, something he said is still uncommon in his culture. The image, he said, honors his “father’s gentle, yet strong spirit founded in love of all humanity, including his gay son.” And the diversity captured in the image is a microcosm of Iran itself, Zandi said—something frequently lost in Western narratives of contemporary Iran. Together, the two photographers and two models represent Assyrian, Chaldean, Kurdish, Mexican, and Persian backgrounds. Zandi also hoped to highlight the key role that young Iranians play in shaping the country’s future.“Young people make up the majority of the population [in Iran], and are defining the future, a future that will look very different from what we see today,” Zandi said. She sees this new narrative of the Middle East as one that “celebrates multicultural diversity, erases gender norms, and promotes LGBTQ acceptance.”

Milad Karamooz

Milad Karamooz, The Kiss, 2016. Courtesy of the artist.

At the foreground of Milad Karamooz’s image The Kiss (2016) stands a man, shirtless except for a black harness, his closed eyes seemingly in a state of calm pleasure, despite metal shears that press against his mouth. Another man stands in shadow behind him, his gloved hand cradling his lover’s head the moment before he presses the blades together.Karamooz, who was born in Tehran but now splits his time in the northern coastal city of Bandar-e Anzali, was initially asked to create this image for a group gallery show in the capital city entitled “The Kiss.” At the time, Karamooz said he was preoccupied with the idea of the pull of attraction toward painful or cruel relationships. When the photographer submitted this image to the show, he was told he couldn’t exhibit the image because it was too sexually suggestive, and he was asked to modify his idea. Instead, Karamooz shot an entirely new image.“I thought that if I did compromise the work by changing it, it would be the same as destroying it,” he said. Karamooz held onto his original photograph, hoping to exhibit it elsewhere in the future.Iran is a dichotomy of “tradition and modernity,” Karamooz said. “On one hand, we are forced to maintain our traditions and conservative values, but on the other hand, the young generation is thirsty for freedom of thought, expression and open-mindedness.” The contradictions and tensions that result from growing up in Iran can inspire more creativity in how its residents find happiness. He added, “As an artist, this inner conflict is demonstrated in our art.”

Hamed Kolahchian Tabrizi

Hamed Kolahchian Tabrizi, Smoking Machine, 2017. Courtesy of the artist.

On May 18, 2017, the eve of Iran’s presidential election, photographer Hamed Kolahchian Tabrizi was searching for a taxi on a busy street in his home city of Mashhad. As he recalled, “A lot of people were in the streets to support and promote their candidates, and this gathering usually turns to a happy festive carnival or cars and pedestrians in the street.”Unable to find an available cab, Tabrizi agreed when a nearby driver offered him a ride and got in the backseat. Waiting in the stand-still traffic, they saw the passenger of an adjacent car had begun smoking hookah in the backseat. He soon offered it up to Tabrizi’s car, and snaked the hose from their backseat to the passenger sitting in front of the photographer. Tabrizi stepped out of the vehicle to capture the scene, as the man in his car released a billow of smoke out of his window. He said he found the image particularly strange and unexpected because it captures a moment of respite in an otherwise restricted life. “[On this] specific night, people were free to enjoy their time in the way they could,” Tabrizi said.

Hadi Safari

Hadi Safari, The Holy Healing Pole, 2015. Courtesy of the artist.

A young man climbs to the top of a wood pole rising from the ground, a stretch of low-hanging clouds behind him as he breaks the horizon line in Hadi Safari’s black-and-white photograph The Holy Healing Pole (2015). Next to his discarded shoes, another boy waits for him below; they are seemingly alone in a vast expanse of open land, except for Safari, who stands back to observe the scene.The pole is located in Iran’s Golestan Province, and the Sunni Iranian Turkmens who live in the area believe it has healing powers: Climb to the top and bite down on it, and your toothache will be cured. The ritual has been performed so many times, the wood has become smooth and difficult to climb. Safari was born and raised in Mashhad, the busy metropolis in northeastern Iran, but is now based out of Irvine, California. The image this series is from, “Dab Diyar” (“dignity and status”), is a four-year project in Iran that captures the diversity of its population. Echoing Mortezaie and Zandi, Safari said the series intends to capture the myriad cultures that live under one flag. “Many different nationalities and ethnicities live within Iran, and they each have their own cultures and traditions,” he said. It’s a country brimming with singular opportunities to “showcase images that are very far, exotic and unreal to the world.”

Negar Latifian

Negar Latifian, Simin, 2017. Courtesy of the artist.

This photograph is from Negar Latifian’s series “Simin,” which means “silver” in Farsi. It’s a reference to both the gelatin-silver photographic process Latifian uses in the series, as well as the photographer’s subjects—Simin is a common name for girls in Iran. Latifian, who grew up in Tehran and remains based there, highlights the clothing and style of the new generation of Iranian girls. Following the Iranian Revolution in 1979, women and girls were required to cover their hair with a hijab and wear loose clothing.“Since there are hijab dress restrictions for Iranians, for many years, many women didn’t have any individual style and all looked similar in dress,” she explained. “But in recent years, the young generation has pushed [for] change and have developed their unique style, while still adhering to the hijab rules.” In this portrait from 2017, a young woman stands resolute with round sunglasses resting on the bridge of her nose, her hands tucked into her pockets just out of the frame. Though her headscarf is wrapped loosely around her head, each end hanging low against her shirt, her hair remains wrapped and concealed beneath it.Latifian said that growing up immersed in Iran’s rich history and culture has shaped her work in ways both intended and subconscious—and has compelled her to represent the culture of her home country to a wider audience. 

https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-5-photographers-young-iranian-today

[caveartfair]

5 Photographers Show What It’s Like to Be a Young Iranian Today

Labkhand Olfatmanesh and Gazelle Samizay, Bepar, 2018. Courtesy of the artists.

What is like to grow up as an Iranian today? The third edition of Focus Iran, a biennial exhibition presented by the Iranian arts-and-culture nonprofit Farhang Foundation, hopes to provide an answer through photography and video that explore contemporary Iranian youth culture.

Linda Dorigo, Volleyball Iran, 2010. Courtesy of the artist.

Maseeh Ganjali, A Boy in Shiraz, 2011. Courtesy of the artist.

Samira Roostaie, The Veil And Minarrets, 2016. Courtesy of the artist.

The juried show—selected by Iranian photographers, filmmakers, and curators such as Babak Tafreshi, who shoots for the likes of National Geographic, and documentarian Maryam Zandi—features works by more than 40 image-makers and runs through May 12th at Los Angeles’s Craft & Folk Art Museum.

Here, six of the exhibiting photographers (two of whom work as pairs) share the backstories of their works.

Hushidar Mortezaie and Jiyan Zandi

Hushidar Mortezaie and Jiyan Zandi, The Brotherhood, 2018. Courtesy of the artists.

Five years ago, when Hushidar Mortezaie’s father passed away, the Iranian-born, American-raised artist began a collage inspired by his father’s collection of 1970s Iranian sports, pop culture, and political ephemera. He created textiles from the design, which later became the basis of his collaboration with Jiyan Zandi, who was born in the U.S. but has roots in Iran’s Kurdish region, as well as Mexico. The pair titled the resulting, deeply personal body of work “The Champion Series” (2018).

One image from the series, titled The Brotherhood, features two men, crowned with roses and outfitted in Mortezaie’s textile designs; one man slings his arm around the other, their outward gazes soft but direct. Mortezaie said they created a set for the photograph that would be reminiscent of a retro photo studio in Kabul or Tehran. Family heirlooms provide a backdrop onto which Mortezaie said he and Zandi placed their “champions”—subjects in the series who represent the beauty of overcoming adversity—“onto a heroes’ shrine of roses.”

The work overflows with vibrant colors and celebrates masculine beauty in Iran and its diaspora, paying tribute to the designer’s father; Mortezaie, who is gay, said that his father accepted him unwaveringly, something he said is still uncommon in his culture. The image, he said, honors his “father’s gentle, yet strong spirit founded in love of all humanity, including his gay son.”

And the diversity captured in the image is a microcosm of Iran itself, Zandi said—something frequently lost in Western narratives of contemporary Iran. Together, the two photographers and two models represent Assyrian, Chaldean, Kurdish, Mexican, and Persian backgrounds. Zandi also hoped to highlight the key role that young Iranians play in shaping the country’s future.

“Young people make up the majority of the population [in Iran], and are defining the future, a future that will look very different from what we see today,” Zandi said. She sees this new narrative of the Middle East as one that “celebrates multicultural diversity, erases gender norms, and promotes LGBTQ acceptance.”

Milad Karamooz

Milad Karamooz, The Kiss, 2016. Courtesy of the artist.

At the foreground of Milad Karamooz’s image The Kiss (2016) stands a man, shirtless except for a black harness, his closed eyes seemingly in a state of calm pleasure, despite metal shears that press against his mouth. Another man stands in shadow behind him, his gloved hand cradling his lover’s head the moment before he presses the blades together.

Karamooz, who was born in Tehran but now splits his time in the northern coastal city of Bandar-e Anzali, was initially asked to create this image for a group gallery show in the capital city entitled “The Kiss.” At the time, Karamooz said he was preoccupied with the idea of the pull of attraction toward painful or cruel relationships.

When the photographer submitted this image to the show, he was told he couldn’t exhibit the image because it was too sexually suggestive, and he was asked to modify his idea. Instead, Karamooz shot an entirely new image.

“I thought that if I did compromise the work by changing it, it would be the same as destroying it,” he said. Karamooz held onto his original photograph, hoping to exhibit it elsewhere in the future.

Iran is a dichotomy of “tradition and modernity,” Karamooz said. “On one hand, we are forced to maintain our traditions and conservative values, but on the other hand, the young generation is thirsty for freedom of thought, expression and open-mindedness.” The contradictions and tensions that result from growing up in Iran can inspire more creativity in how its residents find happiness. He added, “As an artist, this inner conflict is demonstrated in our art.”

Hamed Kolahchian Tabrizi

Hamed Kolahchian Tabrizi, Smoking Machine, 2017. Courtesy of the artist.

On May 18, 2017, the eve of Iran’s presidential election, photographer Hamed Kolahchian Tabrizi was searching for a taxi on a busy street in his home city of Mashhad. As he recalled, “A lot of people were in the streets to support and promote their candidates, and this gathering usually turns to a happy festive carnival or cars and pedestrians in the street.”

Unable to find an available cab, Tabrizi agreed when a nearby driver offered him a ride and got in the backseat. Waiting in the stand-still traffic, they saw the passenger of an adjacent car had begun smoking hookah in the backseat. He soon offered it up to Tabrizi’s car, and snaked the hose from their backseat to the passenger sitting in front of the photographer. Tabrizi stepped out of the vehicle to capture the scene, as the man in his car released a billow of smoke out of his window. He said he found the image particularly strange and unexpected because it captures a moment of respite in an otherwise restricted life.

“[On this] specific night, people were free to enjoy their time in the way they could,” Tabrizi said.

Hadi Safari

Hadi Safari, The Holy Healing Pole, 2015. Courtesy of the artist.

A young man climbs to the top of a wood pole rising from the ground, a stretch of low-hanging clouds behind him as he breaks the horizon line in Hadi Safari’s black-and-white photograph The Holy Healing Pole (2015). Next to his discarded shoes, another boy waits for him below; they are seemingly alone in a vast expanse of open land, except for Safari, who stands back to observe the scene.

The pole is located in Iran’s Golestan Province, and the Sunni Iranian Turkmens who live in the area believe it has healing powers: Climb to the top and bite down on it, and your toothache will be cured. The ritual has been performed so many times, the wood has become smooth and difficult to climb.

Safari was born and raised in Mashhad, the busy metropolis in northeastern Iran, but is now based out of Irvine, California. The image this series is from, “Dab Diyar” (“dignity and status”), is a four-year project in Iran that captures the diversity of its population. Echoing Mortezaie and Zandi, Safari said the series intends to capture the myriad cultures that live under one flag.

“Many different nationalities and ethnicities live within Iran, and they each have their own cultures and traditions,” he said. It’s a country brimming with singular opportunities to “showcase images that are very far, exotic and unreal to the world.”

Negar Latifian

Negar Latifian, Simin, 2017. Courtesy of the artist.

This photograph is from Negar Latifian’s series “Simin,” which means “silver” in Farsi. It’s a reference to both the gelatin-silver photographic process Latifian uses in the series, as well as the photographer’s subjects—Simin is a common name for girls in Iran. Latifian, who grew up in Tehran and remains based there, highlights the clothing and style of the new generation of Iranian girls. Following the Iranian Revolution in 1979, women and girls were required to cover their hair with a hijab and wear loose clothing.

“Since there are hijab dress restrictions for Iranians, for many years, many women didn’t have any individual style and all looked similar in dress,” she explained. “But in recent years, the young generation has pushed [for] change and have developed their unique style, while still adhering to the hijab rules.”

In this portrait from 2017, a young woman stands resolute with round sunglasses resting on the bridge of her nose, her hands tucked into her pockets just out of the frame. Though her headscarf is wrapped loosely around her head, each end hanging low against her shirt, her hair remains wrapped and concealed beneath it.

Latifian said that growing up immersed in Iran’s rich history and culture has shaped her work in ways both intended and subconscious—and has compelled her to represent the culture of her home country to a wider audience.

from Artsy News

[latestnews2018-blog]

Why face tattoos are going mainstream

New Post has been published on https://latestnews2018.com/why-face-tattoos-are-going-mainstream/

Why face tattoos are going mainstream

From Justin Bieber to Post Malone and Kat von D, an increasing number of stars are getting their faces inked, squashing stereotypes

At Chicago Tattoo & Piercing Co., which has been in business in that city since 1973, the employees have a name for tattoos on the hands, neck and face. “We call them job stoppers,” said Joel Jose Molina, a tattoo artist at the shop. “Your possibilities are cut down. You’re going to be working at the Trader Joe’s putting groceries away or working that bar job.”
Or then again, you might be cutting platinum albums and performing at this year’s Lollapalooza Festival, like Post Malone. Or broadcasting your amazing pop star life to your 101 million Instagram followers, like Justin Bieber.
Both musicians have tattoos on their faces, a once taboo area to ink.
Post Malone has “Stay Away” in curly script on his forehead and the words “Always” and “Tired” below each eye, while Bieber has a tiny, under-eye cross. Other artists with inked faces include 21 Savage (a knife on his forehead), Lil Xan (the words “xanarchy” and “candy,” the number “1996”), and Tekashi 6ix9ine, who was reportedly kidnapped and beaten last month (the number “69,” a red flower, the face of Jigsaw from the Saw movies).
But marking one’s face isn’t limited to rappers, or men, or celebrities. Kat von D, the tattoo artist and model, has a wash of blue stars trailing down her forehead and cheek. Instagram, predictably, is filled with photos (#facetattoo) of people, most of them young, showing off their new face ink.
For decades, tattoos in highly visible areas, especially the face, were considered the extreme in body art, at least in Western culture. It wasn’t only members of polite society who were put off. Even among tattoo aficionados, the face was sacrosanct, a canvas of last resort when the rest of the body was covered.
Over his 12-year career, said Molina, 34, he has done only three face tattoos. “Two were on tattooers, and one was on this gangster from Florida who sold a bunch of weed and wanted his eyelid tattooed,” he said.
JonBoy, a New York-based tattoo artist who gave Bieber his cross and who has tattooed many other celebrities, half-joked that in the past, if he spotted someone with a face tattoo, “I’d walk on the other side of the street.”
Indeed, one saw a face tat and thought: Aryan Brotherhood or gang member or sideshow performer. Famous face tattoo wearers of the recent past, like Mike Tyson, Charles Manson and the drug-addled skateboarder Jay Adams, conformed to the stereotype of the rough character.
All of which makes their current popularity more striking — or perhaps not, at a time when tattoos have become ubiquitous.
Anna Felicity Friedman, a scholar who runs the website Tattoo Historian, said that starting in the 1990s, it became common to see athletes and celebrities with tattoos. Soon, reality TV shows (with titles like Best Ink and Tattoo Nightmares) and magazines began covering tattoo culture, and Americans embraced body art like never before.
Tattoos, as a result, began losing their renegade status. Hence, the creep upward, past the neckline.
“If you want to be transgressive — and a lot of rappers want to create a transgressive character — the last frontier is the face,” Friedman said. “Some of it is to give them a rebel/criminal allure. And some of it is a more artistic or free-spirit reference.”
Post Malone has offered a simpler explanation to reporters for his face tattoos: anything to upset my mom. But with the notable exception of Lil Wayne and Wiz Khalifa, two heavily inked established artists, many of the hip-hop stars with face tattoos are so-called SoundCloud rappers — young, unknown artists who post their music on SoundCloud for free.
Getting Anne Frank’s portrait etched on the side of your face, as the rapper and producer Arnoldisdead did, is one obvious way to attract attention.
“A lot of kids are doing it to make themselves bigger on social media,” said Travis Hardy, 30, a creative director in Los Angeles who works with musicians. “It’s kind of corny.” Last month, he a got a lightning bolt tattooed under his left eye.
“I don’t need that,” Hardy said, referring to others’ quest for attention. “This isn’t for followers or comments.” (Though there is, in fact, a thoughtfully composed shot on Hardy’s Instagram.)
“There’s no turning back. There’s no normal job or whatever,” Hardy said. “I’m going to continue to creative direct or write treatments for music videos or stage design. I’m not going to turn around. This served as a stamp: I believe in myself.”
Hardy’s tattoo is so small as to be easily mistaken for a birthmark or go unnoticed in public. It is what JonBoy, who did the face tattoo, considers “classy.”
Harder to miss is the tattoo that Kerwin Frost, a member of the Spaghetti Boys DJ collective, has on his face: a realistic pencil that runs the entire length of his right cheek. Reactions to the pencil have been all over the map, Frost said. “Some people scream at me,” he said. “Some people also get super-angry because life is working out for me right now, so it’s, what can I call out? A lot of people really love it and ask me if I draw.”
He has no regrets. “It’s honestly almost made my life better having it, not going to lie,” Frost said. And if at some point he wants it gone (as Gucci Mane appears to have done, erasing the ice cream cone tattoo off his face), laser removal technology has become better and more affordable.
Still, don’t expect face tattoos to become commonplace anytime soon. Molina, the Chicago tattoo artist, says that those getting face tattoos are generally young and work in untraditional jobs. For what it’s worth, he has no plans to get one himself. “I know if I drop my kid off at school and I have face tattoos, the teacher is going to judge me,” he said.
Echoing many in the tattoo community, Molina also believes that a face tattoo should never be someone’s first time getting inked. When an 18-year-old woman recently asked him for a tattoo on her ear, he saw she had no other visible tattoos and talked her out of it.
“You have to earn it,” he said. “It’s a rite of passage.”

[kentuckertv]

the deuce hbo porn david simon

The Deuce, James Franco, Maggie Gyllenhaal

‘The Deuce’: HBO’s big, ambitious porn drama It’s safe to say very few HBO subscribers are going to wish they’d been around for the heyday of 1970s Times Square, the site of the channel’s new prestige product The Deuce, premiering Sunday night. Show creators David Simon and George Pelecanos have, in the tradition of previous collaborations such as Treme and The Wire, done their due diligence in research. Over its eight episodes, The Deuce –possible alternate title: Game of Condoms–takes you for a tourist stroll down New York’s 42nd Street to gawp at strolling prostitutes, strutting pimps, small-time drug dealers, addicts, X-rated bookstores, massage parlors, peep booths, and your random street person peeing in a phone booth, all of it wreathed in swirls of the rank, uncollected garbage that overflowed the neighborhood, thanks to the blind eye averted by then-Mayor John Lindsay. The Deuce is an anti-nostalgia trip.

The central characters are a pair of twin brothers, Vincent and Frankie Martino. Vincent is a decent fellow, a bartender who falls under the patronage of a notably kind-hearted organized-crime figure who sets him up with his own Times Square bar, the Hi-Hat. Frankie, more of a disreputable hustler, gets involved in the then-aborning massage-parlor business. The brothers are both played by James Franco, and if you want to yelp, “Please, one Franco is more than enough!” I hear you: I had the same thought, but the actor and the producers manage to pull off this twin act with a minimum of over-Francofication. All by her lonesome is Maggie Gyllenhaal as Eileen, a prostitute who uses the street name “Candy” and who, from the start, is presented as smarter—more savvy and independent–than the sea of female flesh around her. She’s the only hooker here who isn’t under the command of a pimp, and as the series progresses, she evinces an interest to move from a porn actress in front of the camera to a director and producer behind it. The Deuce has a full assortment of prostitutes, nearly all of them heartbreakingly deluded and under the firm control of pimps who work them to exhaustion. The pimps themselves are also vividly portrayed, and some of them, such as Method Man and Gbenga Akinnagbe, are familiar faces from The Wire.

Simon is working in prime Balzac mode here, cramming lots of vivid characters and sub-plots into the show, from Vince’s romance with Abby, a posh WASP college student (Margarita Levieva) to the plight of an honest cop (Lawrence Gilliard, Jr.) who watches his blue brotherhood skim profits off of local businesses. Simon has long approached his TV work as a realist canvas upon which he can explore issues of economic oppression and the exploitation of labor in the class-bound society America refuses to admit it is. One thing that made The Wire one of the greatest achievements ever on television is the way Simon found a way to address these themes within a different institution each season (schools, city politics, the newspaper media, etc.) with rigorous arguments fleshed out by bright, vital characters from every level of society. There was a warmth, a passion, an allowance for humor even amidst tragic circumstances, that ennobled The Wire, and which is somewhat lacking in The Deuce, which seems oddly squeamish about making enjoyable what was indeed enjoyable about Times Square in this era: its democratic approach to entertainment (this is hinted at in the show’s glimpses of 42nd Street movie houses, where mainstream movies like Patton and M*A*S*H ran alongside cheesy exploitation flicks) and its complication of sex as something more than furtive, shameful pleasure.

I don’t want you to read this as a pan, or a negative review, however. I gobbled down all eight episodes of The Deuce as quickly as I could, and I was drawn in and fascinated by every minute of it. The Deuce is an admirable piece of work. The novelists Richard Price, Megan Abbott, and Lisa Lutz wrote scripts for the show, and half the episodes are directed by women including the mighty Michelle MacLaren (Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead), who oversaw the pilot and season-ender. There are some terrific performances here, from Gyllenhaal most of all, but also Franco, Dominique Fishback as a bookish prostitute, and Chris Bauer as a construction worker who finds his true calling as a massage-parlor manager. There are a number of excellent smaller roles as well. David Krumholtz, for example, is terrific as a porn director with a heart of gold. (Additional value: Krumholtz looks like a legendary porn actor of that era, Ron “The Hedgehog” Jeremy.)

But any fair review of The Deuce must grapple with the tricky position Simon finds himself in here. He is obliged, for instance, to present the violence pimps visit upon their charges, yet he’s also well aware of the glorious mythos that numerous African-American writers and filmmakers have constructed around the pimp-as-rebel-adventurer, as one way black men took back some authority from white law-enforcement and racism in general. (Just look at movies set in the same era as The Deuce such as 1973’s The Mack, the raucous Dolemite in 1975, and most of all, Melvin Van Peebles’ revolutionary Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, from 1971.) The Deuce nods to these influences in its numerous, entertaining scenes of the show’s pimps sitting around a coffee shop discussing the exasperating minutiae of pimping. But there is a level on which Simon also knows damn well that if he depicts that violence too vividly, without punishment to its perpetrators, his enterprise will probably be labeled exploitive. Given his progressive politics, it’s relatively easy for Simon to limit his portrayal of sex workers as female bodies reduced to a commodity (which is, of course, prostitution’s brutal economic model), but since when has Simon ever gone the easy route? The Deuce cannot be removed from the current cultural climate, and in particular the one HBO inhabits just now. It’s been said that HBO needs another Sunday-night hit to take the place of Game of Thrones, whose next season won’t appear for, possibly, a number of years. You remember Game of Thrones—the fantasy show that was harshly condemned by social media for the way it depicted violence against women, condemnation that made its producers so leery of further criticism, they softened their storytelling considerably. You can feel a similar constraint against which Simon and his writers, consciously or unconsciously, are pushing during key moments in The Deuce.

The Deuce, Dominique Fishback and Method Man

The series is set during that brief moment when pop culture and the entertainment business thought porn might break through as mainstream entertainment. The skin industry began imitating its artistic betters, holding—and depicted here in all their tawdry glory–red-carpet movie premieres and industry parties to celebrate the openings of Deep Throat and the gay-porn milestone Boys in the Sand, which insisted on referring to itself as “erotica.” Of course, we know that this breakthrough never ultimately occurred; that Throat star Linda Lovelace would eventually write an autobiography about her captive exploitation. And that the Times Square scene probably peaked with the opening of Show World, on 42nd and 8th Avenue in 1977, a multi-story Tower of Babe-el combining porn-loop booths and live sex shows conceived as a 24-hour, non-stop semen-exploiter.

There was no middle-American embrace of porn as legit entertainment, only the nation-wide success of skin-mag publishers like Al Goldstein (Screw magazine) and Bob Guccione (Penthouse), along with an underground explosion of pornographic films, initially sold on sticky VHS tape for the privacy of one’s own home pleasure. Which is one of the reasons why Gyllenhaal’s character is constructed around a false premise. Her character arc insists that women, if they had drive and ambition, could break through to make explicit sex movies that had an inherently female point of view, that women could labor shoulder-to-shoulder with men to create a more equal-opportunity industry. But we know that never came to pass. There were no highly successful female porn directors, and has there ever been an accomplished director, female or male, who graduated XXX-rated porn (as opposed to R-rated exploitation films)? The most that women achieved when not being filmed and ogled were production credits in less-popular films (Nina Hartley, for example) or the editorships of soft-core mags (Gloria Leonard and High Society; Dian Hanson’s Juggs and Leg Show). Thus, Candy/Eileen is really a fantasy, a largely unrealistic character placed at the center of David Simon’s super-realist project. Candy/Eileen is the idealist dream demanded by the proper authorities of pop culture nowadays. Intelligent yet abused, Candy is The Deuce equivalent of The Wire’s Bubbles, equally intelligent and abused, a street person doomed to tragedy. The difference between the two is that Simon was able to grant Bubbles varied scenes that showcased his street-smarts and his wry sense of humor; his weaknesses as well as his moral strength. Gyllenhaal inserts that wry humor and wily acuity where she can into her performance, but Candy’s trajectory as a character is limited to a predictable fall-and-rise success story pattern, as more or less demanded by the current cultural atmosphere in which no female protagonist in a prestige project can be depicted as weak or vulnerable or less than a triumphant figure.

More broadly, The Deuce implies that pornography is always grim, degrading stuff—common wisdom in the 21st century. Banished from the current scene are the sorts of feminist, pro-porn arguments once made by the great radical cultural critic Ellen Willis, who in her essential 1979 essay “Feminism, Moralism, and Pornography,” argued that to deny the pleasures of porn is to “make a lot of women ashamed of their sexual feelings and afraid to be honest about them.” The Deuce gets at a little of this in its final episode, when Gyllenhaal’s character finally throws off her Candy image to become Eileen the director of porn scenes from a woman’s point of view. That it took eight episodes to get there suggests two things: that The Deuce is rather muddled in its sense of purpose, and that this show really deserves a second season, to show us whether the series can take Eileen and her sisterhood into a more complex realm.

The Deuce airs Sunday nights at 9 p.m. at HBO.