#medusa steals that whole episode.

[heteromerous-rhyming]

usually i don't look at writers of specific episode, but can we take a moment to appreciate that episode three, medusa's episode, had a female writer of color? Monica Owusu-Breen really went i'm going to speak directly to the discourse surrounding medusa and ATE, and Jessica Kennedy took the script and ran

[asmodeusstahl]

So, I have a lot of problems with the latest (sixth) episode of Percy Jackson and the Olympians. I’m just going to start from the beginning and work my way through the episode to the end.

Firstly, the episode title is “We Take A Zebra to Vegas.” Do we *see* a Zebra? For all of two seconds. That’s it. So much for a plot-relevant episode title. It’s a nitpick, sure, but if you’re going to make something an episode title, it should have SOME relevance to the plot. I understand that that’s the only chapter where we see the Lotus Casino, so it makes sense to use that chapter title as the episode title. But is it *really* that much more effort to add a scene featuring Percy and/or Grover chatting with the Zebra? There’s certainly run time and almost certainly budget for it.

Then we get to the casino itself and, as loathe as I am to admit it, the movie did it better without question. Even the smallest of details — like the look and vibe of the casino are done so much better in the movie. The casino is designed to trap children, so it’s filled with water parks, roller coasters, and all that makes a kid lose their mind. We see that in the movie. In the show, it’s just a regular old casino filled with a bunch of adults of all ages. There’s only like 2 or 3 shots where you really see groups of children. And that’s not even mentioning the exterior architecture of it. It’s a nitpick, but the show version doesn’t even look Greek-inspired. In the movie, it’s basically a knock-off Caesar’s Palace with Greek Columns and everything. It’s great. The giant Lotus Blossom with a roller coaster coming out of the side just… isn’t.

Much like with Medusa, all the suspense was just thrown out the window. Once they enter, Grover does the whole “wait, Percy, did your mom read you the Odyssey?” shtick and the trio figures out it’s the Lotus Eaters that Odysseus faced. Consequently, Percy and Annabeth do not lose themselves in the casino. They stay sane the whole bloody time. What annoys me even more about this is that Percy even says as they enter the casino “what if we just chilled here and played some games for a bit.” It got my hopes up that we’d actually see a competent drug trip scene — I was wrong. Annabeth immediately shuts him down and he’s like “yeah, no, I was joking.”

Anyway, they go to look for Hermes. I’m not sure why the fuck Hermes loves hanging out in this casino. The show’s explanation is that he just likes chilling there and nothing more is said on the matter. It feels weird to be that an Olympian would just be chilling in a casino run by monsters without a care in the world. Whatever.

Once they enter, Annabeth decides Grover should split off so they can cover more ground. Um, hello, if you’re trying to cover more ground why not have EVERYONE split off, not just Grover? So Grover goes off on his own, finds a Satyr that used to know his Uncle Ferdinand and starts talking to him about the Search for Pan. The Satyr is like “oh, yeah, Pan. I think I found him here. Come follow me.” Grover follows and eventually forgets who he is (and ends up playing VR). Sure, great, one of the trio lost it, but that doesn’t account for the other two and we really didn’t need to shoehorn more Pan stuff in just for the sake of getting Grover to split off from Percabeth.

Meanwhile, Percabeth have found Hermes and he takes them aside to chat after they mention they’re friends of Luke’s. There’s a few things here that annoy me. Firstly, Hermes lore dumps all of the trauma that is May Castellan — something which doesn’t appear until the 5th book. We could have — and should have, imo — gotten the backstory behind Luke’s failed quest to the Garden of the Hesperides to steal a Golden Apple. The quest he failed when Landon gave him the scar on his face. The quest *Hermes himself* assigned to him. There’s plenty of resentment for Hermes that comes for that — we didn’t need May Castellan. Not yet.

Turns out, Hermes is just stalling them because he doesn’t want to help. Fucking dick. So, Annabeth goes invisible and steals his car keys — which Hermes absolutely knew about. They rescue Grover after a brief spell of forgetfulness. Annabeth reasons that they didn’t lose it like Grover because they were together and it’s harder to forget when you’re with someone. Sure, great. How do you explain the DiAngelos? I highly doubt that Bianca would willingly let Nico wander off on his own. It just doesn’t make any sense to me.

I really hate that the movie casino somehow managed to include Disco Darrin — the kid from the 70s that triggers Percy realizing something is fucked up — and that the show doesn’t. Darrin really helps reinforce the idea that the casino is full of kids out of time, which helps set up the reveal that the DiAngelos were in the casino for 70ish years and didn’t age at all. I hate that the movie did something better, I really do. But it’s just unavoidable when comparing these two scenes.

The trio then “steal” Hermes’ cab, which just so happens to have a letter addressed to the trio that supposedly tells them a back way into the Underworld. We’ll see how that turns out next episode, but I will be UPSET if we don’t get DOA Recording Studious and all that jazz. As soon as Percy (shoddily) drives the trio out of the parking garage, Hermes’ travel magic transports them to the beach in Santa Monica. That’s the one redeeming thing about this episode for me. That’s actually a really cool application of Hermes’ powers as the God of Travelers.

What I do have a problem with, however, is Percy’s experience in the ocean. Instead of meeting Poseidon, as was promised to us, we meet the Nereid from St. Louis. She tells Percy that “surprise, the summer solstice already happened. Poseidon waited for you as long as you could, but now he has to go marshal his forces for war. Go home now, your quest is done.” Um, what? The summer solstice passing makes no sense to me as a creative decision. The solstice is the reason that all the gods were on Olympus when Percy returned the bolt. You can’t expect the gods to just be chilling on Olympus 24/7 especially when war is about to break out.

Plus, you cannot tell me that Zeus wouldn’t have immediately started fucking shit up. His symbol of power was stolen — allegedly — by Poseidon. He’d want that back ASAP. In the book, it’s stated in no uncertain terms that, if Percy+Co. failed, Zeus and Poseidon would be fucking up the weather. Massive storms and natural disasters everywhere. The sky and the sea would be at war with each other. It would be like Armageddon. There’s 0 sign of that. At all.

Then, before Percy leaves, the Nereid gives him *four* pearls. Not three. Four. This takes away Percy having to sacrifice Sally for the sake of the world (even if she comes back eventually). This change just doesn’t make any sense to me. The explanation in the show is that Poseidon cares about Sally. But that makes 0 sense because there’s been an overarching narrative that All Gods Are Bastards. Additionally, even in this episode, Hermes mentioned that it was Poseidon’s advice to stay away from the lives of demigods/their mortal parents. That it’s awful watching them struggle and feel powerless to stop it. Why does Poseidon suddenly have the power to help Sally now? It just… doesn’t make any sense to me.

Another issue I have with this is that if the Nereid is telling Percy to go back to camp, why is she giving him *four* pearls? Assuming a retcon that the pearls transport the user to CHB, there’s no need for four. If Percy is supposed to return to CHB immediately, he doesn’t go to the Underworld to rescue Sally and therefore does not need a fourth pearl. If that isn’t a plot hole, I don’t know what is.

The episode ends with Percy being like “no, I’m seeing this quest through to the end.” Which is great and all, but the teaser for next episode worries me with how much it includes. We’re going to see Crusty’s Water Bed Palace, the Underworld, AND the fight on the beach with Ares. I don’t know how they’re going to fit that all into like 35 minutes of show time (accounting for the “previously on” segment and credits taking up 5 minutes of the 40 minute runtime). Crusty was the obvious cut from this episode so that it doesn’t feel rushed, but it *wasn’t* cut and that worries me.

And, furthermore, I think Crusty is going to have to be heavily modified for the screen. I see no way Disney allows Percy to go full medieval torture and stretch Crusty to death. Which is disappointing, if I’m being honest. It’s really the first indication of how Percy acts when he’s snapped/in the zone. Stuff like summoning hurricanes while fighting or overwhelming the weather barrier at Camp also falls into this category. That’s a nitpick, sure, but whatever.

Look, I didn’t want to be a hater. And I still don’t. I would love to love this show, but the problem with it is the marketing and the writing. It was marketed by Rick and the critics as a “faithful adaptation.” This is not that. This is a rewrite of the book that’s honestly worse than some fanfics I’ve read. Which says a lot because the PJO fanfic community is not known for having well-written works.

And the trio themselves just aren’t clicking as their book counterparts for the most part. Percy, especially, just doesn’t act like Percy. We’re missing his sarcasm and biting humor. It’s not Walker’s fault — anyone who’s watched The Adam Project” knows he can pull it off. Annabeth has lost most of her character development and had that screen time given to Grover. I was alright with it last episode with Ares, but it just did not work with Augustus this episode. The trio just doesn’t feel like the trio and I don’t think it’s the actors’ faults.

Like I said earlier, Walker can absolutely pull off Persass. The script just isn’t letting him do that and that disappoints me. I watched Leah in Beast and absolutely could see the Annabeth in her, but all of her moments and character traits are either being given to Percy and Grover or cut entirely. Taking away our knowledge from the books, we know the least about Annabeth’s character out of the trio. The script just isn’t making her click in my mind as Annabeth like the script in Beast did. I can’t really say much about Aryan, since I haven’t seen him in other works, but I do like that he’s being elevated above comedic relief. So… that’s a good thing, I guess.

Overall, I have a lot of issues with the show. Especially with this episode. I also have a lot of fears with the direction this show is going for the final two episodes and I’m nervous to see where Rick and the writers take this. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

[hotchocolatewithoutsex]

Ok this is a Slightly more coherant version of this post. In which I go (as I remember, drunkenly) insane about an almost forgotten TV show. BBC's Atlantis (2013). But now with pictures!

once again if you know it I'm in love with you and kissing you on the lips.

Spoiler warning if you care abt that, but its only 2 series, watch it this afternoon and come back :D

Ok this show is a blatent Merlin profit chaser and apparently had alot of crossover of crew but I have no source for this. There are alot of comparison that can be drawn.

First for all my Trekkie pals, Alexander Siddig who is Julian Bashir in DS9 plays King Minos. He is beareded, a wife guy, kinda a dilf. pop off.

The second, even for famous face is a very young Anya Taylor Joy. Yeah, ANYA TAYLOR JOY is bald in this? she plays Cassandra the cursed prophet. She is phenomenal, but you have to stick through to season two.

they are the two who stick out to me but take the time to look at the IMDB and you will see some one you know.

In the modern day, Jason (yeah, as in of the Arognaut), the protaganist of the show, pilots a one-man submarine to investigate a deep sea disturbance that resulted in the disappearance of his father when he was a child. When he discovers the location, the submarine begins to fail and he wakes up on the shores of the kingdom of Atlantis He is given shelter by a couple of locals: Pythagoras Herculse

Along the way, they pick up allies including Medusa, a palace maid; Ariadne, daughter of the King and heir to the throne; and a mysterious Oracle. - abridged form wikipedia

All of that in the first paragraph happens in THE FIRST 10 MINUTES OF THE FIRST EPISODE. This summary leaves out in that 10 mins he runs naked across a beach, steals some clothes from fishermen, fights a two headed dragon, and is chased by Palace Gards.

This show is a wild, nonstop, rollacoaster.

If I havent revolted any classistis all ready, or convinced you to watch it let me hit you with the kicker. CANNON GAY RELATIONSHIP. and it is the friends to lovers, betrayal to lovers arc all you tumblrinas love so much. Between Pythagoras and Icarus.

Pythagoras and Icarus.

This isn't even the scene where they get together, Pythagoras - left, Icarus - right

The payoff is not till the last episode but the build up is lengthy, obvious and worth it. and as I said in my first post, more than you Merlin bitches got.

So. Go and watch this trainwreck, rollacoaster of a show and scream at the blattent shitting on greek myths that is oh so infuriating and a whole lot of fun.

watch and enjoy, i beg you.

[shychick-52]

Observations about Grimtrix and the Order of the Wand in Sofia the First

I can't believe it didn't hit me until now that Grimtrix likely organized the "first annual" Conjurer's Conference at Hexley Hall in the episode 'Day of the Sorcerers' for the whole purpose of secretly recruiting sorcerers from around the world to join the Order of the Wand!

And I can't believe that Cedric and Sofia didn't think something was fishy about the Conjurer's Conference in the first place, especially because it happened to take place shortly after they stopped Grimtrix from stealing Sofia's amulet in the episode 'Hexley Hall' (Sofia was worried that Grimtrix would be at the Conference, tho Cedric assured her he wouldn't dare try stealing her amulet with so many other wizards around, but it's a shame they didn't actually consider the whole thing might be some plot or trap).

After the s3 episode 'Hexley Hall', which took place two episodes before the s4 opener 'Day of the Sorcerers', why the heck didn't Cedric and Sofia tell anyone that the headmaster of Hexley Hall had become evil and was determined to overthrow the royals of the world??

...Maybe Cedric and Sofia figured it was doubtful he would ever actually succeed without the amulet, which they stopped him from stealing, but still! His treacherous ambitions still made him a very dangerous wizard! Besides, they should have realized Grimtrix might find another way to overthrow all the royals, which he did with the Medusa Stones in 'Day of the Sorcerers'... and obviously, the other way he became even more dangerous was by recruiting other wizards to join his cause to take over the world.

...And there was the huge possibility that Grimtrix could have made Sofia and her amulet a target ever since he tried to steal it (if he hadn't somehow gotten his hands on the Medusa Stones instead)! For all they knew, there was probably nothing stopping him from coming after the amulet sometime in the future! She could have been in danger!!

In fact, Grimtrix might not have gone as far as he did with his plan to overthrow the world's royals in 'Day of the Sorcerers' if Cedric and Sofia had alerted somebody right after the episode 'Hexley Hall'!

@bettathanyou @fantadym @moonypears-blog @majoresca @mushroomsie224 @sweetmariihs2 @ushsblog

[the-gayest-show]

S4E1: Day of the Sorcerers Review/Analysis

So recently I got to this episode in the show and not going to lie, I LOVED IT!

I’ve always been a sucker for Cedric’s character and his arc, so it was nice to see this episode essentially become some kind of turning point for Cedric, at least in the bigger sense. It was established as far as episodes like Cedric’s Apprentice and Cedric Be Good that Cedric isn’t without a heart, and this episode is the ultimate dilemma for him, choosing between good and evil, taking over the kingdom or succumbing to his more developed self. God I had some good emotions out of this.

So the episode starts off with the Day of the Sorcerer’s festival, where Sofia is invited to as Cedric’s apprentice to help perform spells. This all takes place in Hexley Hall, where we previously met Grimtrix who tried to steal Sofia’s amulet in Hexley Hall, the episode (confusing, I know). Sofia worries that this time he might make another run for the amulet, but Cedric says he probably won’t due to the various people there.

We get some nice scenes, one of them foreshadows the Mystic Isles (an episode pack/miniseries [?] I have not seen yet but I know Mystic Isles is gonna be relevant soon because I looked at the episode titles on Disney+ already) as this place where magic comes from, and I guess that princess from Wei-Ling and Wu-Chan are also there. Wu-Chan makes sense but honestly idk why they bothered to include the princess for like 3 seconds since they literally never speak of her again after that scene. Maybe when Sofia is running for the secret room but that’s literally it?

Then Grimtrix’s weasel appears and subverted my expectations almost immediately by NOT going for Sofia’s amulet. Like believe me, I was fully expecting the long creature to just swipe that girl’s amulet but the creature just spawns an envelope, likely Grimtrix doing the spawning, with an invitation to some secret greatest sorcerer’s meeting that she gives to Cedric. Cedric, being the guy who bends over backwards at the chance to be called anything but insults, immediately runs for it, and Cedric follows the Shusher ghost thing into that room. Looking back, shouldn’t that have been clear evidence to Cedric that Grimtrix is involved? As far as I was convinced (confirmed properly by the scene where the Shusher traps the good wizards in the library), the Shusher is literally just a 2nd hand of Grimtrix. Shouldn’t that have been a clear sign? I suppose Cedric could’ve overlooked that in his excitement, but I knew from the start that maybe Grimtrix was coercing Cedric into it simply bc the hand was there, can’t get it off my mind ya know? Anyways.

Sofia, wondering where Cedric has gone, follows him into that secret sorcerer meeting, where we find out that Grimtrix is leading the pack (of course he is, I called it!) but we also see villains like that music guy, merlin’s enemy, Greylock, among others. There’s always benefits in watching absolutely every single episode of Sofia the First it seems. Basically, they’ve invented something called the Order of the Wand (most badass name ever btw!) where it’s just a coalition planning to overthrow the royalty of their respected palaces, saying that they refuse to be treated like jesters and entertainers, essentially saying they’re wiser to rule the kingdoms than the current rulers.

Cedric is kinda sitting there processing this, it’s a dream come true! The one thing he’s wanted since season 1, handed to him by the power of the medusa stone! But we see he’s clearly hesitant, due to the aforementioned character development led by Sofia herself. Speaking of Sofia, she overhears that whole plan and wonders what Cedric is even doing there or why Grimtrix would call him for a meeting of evil sorcerers, which leads to a scene where we almost get Cedric confessing to his various stealing attempts but he just kinda shoos her out and gets on with it.

We get THE MOST. FUCKASS MUSICAL NUMBER. EVER!!!!!!!!! Like Jess Harnell my bro THOSE VOCALS WERE SO RAW!!!!! NOT TO MENTION THE VISUALS?!??!?! IT WAS AMAZING!!! The electric guitar in the BG was unexpected and was so good damn it. I really like how you can see Sofia’s dark purple-y shadow (of goodness I would presume) looming around him, and generally the movements and animation, VIVID. The way he threw all those people aside! The scenes with him in the chair! Ackk I love it! SYMBOLISM!!!

I personally see this song as the spiritual successor to Cedric the Great The themes of both songs tie together perfectly, going from a very confident “I am going to take over this kingdom someday, this is me imagining what I’ll do when that happens” to “I have the opportunity to take over the kingdom and achieve my dreams but something feels wrong now”. Also, the note he sang that final lyric “Cedric the great” in this song sounded literally the same as from the original Cedric the Great song, that’s what got me thinking this to begin with. Throughout the song, Wormwood (successfully) argues that while Sofia was nice to him, everyone else wasn’t, and thus everyone else should get the karma, while Cedric wonders if maybe taking over the kingdom isn’t exactly what he’s wanted, now that he has the chance to do it for real.

Cedric also talks about how people had made fun of him ever since he was a kid, and I believe that’s essentially the entire reason why he’s ever wanted to take over the kingdom. Sure, power is a bonus, but he’s always had magical power, but he’s never had someone who believed in him. To me, it’s been quite clear since the beginning that his main motivation was not truly power, but rather respect and authority, someone who can’t be made fun of. While other members in the Order of the Wand want the power and control of being Kings/Queens of their respective castles, Cedric seems to want the respect and dignity. Even in the musical number Cedric the Great, it’s obvious that that’s his main goal. Lyrics in that song like “…But that won’t last for long”, “those who used to tease me will be at my command” and “Soon everyone will know my name” feels more motivated by wanting to be known, and living up the expectations of the royal sorcerer family.

My Evil Dreams lyrically contrasts with “But now the day has come… so why am I so gloomy…”, “but I’m not sure I want them to”. I also like the lyrics about his dreams being his friends when he was alone and his schemes making him feel like he had a home. So essentially there’s the crux of him being evil: filling the void of no friends (because of how bullied he was) and no home (yeah I wouldn’t have a home either if my own parents and family didn’t fucking believe in me). In Sofia, he essentially found those things (home is a debatable one but friends for sure), which makes the evil stuff like a coping mechanism for him being alone. If that’s so, then someone like Sofia who filled that void of evil schemes and dreams, brought him some new purpose, to an extent. Should he go back to his old ways or revel in the new is the question, and it’s VERY compelling.

Over the rest of the episode, we get to see Cedric taking over the kingdom, and then there’s this scene where Sofia spies Cedric talking and laughing to Grimtrix, who tells him good luck with the kingdom takeover or something. Sofia confronts him and Cedric, having already made up his mind, admits to Sofia that he’s always wanted to go through with the plans of taking over the kingdom and Wormwood even adds the bit that Cedric has been plotting to steal that amulet from the beginning, something I was wondering when it’d happen (in universe it’s been 3-4 years now HOW has no one gotten the hint before?). Cedric ultimately says that Sofia and Cedric were never friends and runs off to freeze people with his Medusa stone.

He goes and freezes basically every guard and royal he spots, and changes up the décor a bit (honestly he’s got some great style choices), but Sofia is determined as ever to stop him. I really like that scene where she floats in on a broom and Cedric points the wand at her and tries to freeze her but is so hesitant that he lets her grab the wand. Like I said before, he still doubts his decision to take over the kingdom, if not for the fear of hurting the only other person who’s ever really seen him in a positive light.

Eventually, once his stone is destroyed, everyone unfreezes and Cedric is so cooked, as the kids say. The guards seize him and jail him immediately, which is pretty understandable for an act of treason like that. Sofia, however, is still determined to see the best in him because she saw that he was willing to not freeze her, so that means he must have a good heart in there somewhere. She encourages him to take the stand against Grimtrix and that he does. He frees himself and Wormy (RIP Wormy’s head, bro was head bashed into the ground for freedom’s sake, oof), and goes out to fight Grimtrix. Grimtrix, thinking Cedric was on his side, gave him the wand, thinking Cedric would finish Sofia off, but he double-crosses him and freezes Grimtrix instead, and essentially the plot of that ends.

But then we cut to Cedric on his knees begging for forgiveness (funniest shit ever tbh), and you could tell he was really sorry, but the royal family was hesitant to accept the apology, considering what happened. Sofia basically brings up Amber and her development (yippee Amber arc mention woohoo). Excuse me if I’ve forgotten how, but the royal family just figured out his backstory and realized, yeah, maybe we shouldn’t be belittling the guy who works for us and has a history of being belittled. History aside, yeah they’d serve to be a bit nicer, it took them fuck knows how long to come to that conclusion.

After all that, they let him in to work for the kingdom again, but on the condition that Cedric remembers that Sofia is the only reason he was even let back in and that he wasn’t just banished forever. Bro totally owns that debt to Sofia like he wouldn’t believe.

Essentially that’s the end of the episode. Overall, one of the best episodes in this series and everything about it is so, so noteworthy. I would rewatch this episode again. 1000000000/10, purple robed man did it, he fucked my psyche for real this time.

Shout out to the amazing writing of this arc and this episode that had me bawling over a show made for the 2-7 year old demographic...again!

[constellaj]

have you ever read/watched Superman/Batman: Public Enemies (comic from 2004, adapted into an animated film in 2009) and if you have which part do you think was most blatantly copied into Phantom Planet?

no but im going to guess all of it

long ramble in the tags might screenshot later idk

[gloriousmonsters]

next morning pickman’s model (cabinet of curiosities ep) review

good

- ben barnes really seemed to be doing his best i think. of course it’s hard to tell for sure but the weird moments he has seemed more to do with the script and however the fuck he was being directed than personal acting flaws. still don’t think he was the right man for the role but yknow. gold You Tried sticker

- crispin glover was kind of in the same bucket. not the right man for Pickman, not the best performance ever and they barely gave him three scenes altogether, but he seemed to be doing the best he could with what he had, and he was somewhat entertaining to watch

- that one moment where thurber sees one of pickman’s sketches for the first time and does a weird spasmodic hand flex while his hand is still dripping from the sink actually made me hope that the episode was going to be way hornier and weirder than it wound up being

(and bad is under the cut because it’s. Far, far longer :))))

b a d

- the way it was trying to be every recognizable lovecraft story so hard???? the incredibly awkward comment that pickman is a ‘wet fish’ who comes from ‘old new england’ blood and the random sea creatures popping up, the yog-sothoth references and shub-niggurath imagery, the sudden references to what I can only assume is cthulhu at the end (because we aren’t given any other explanation!!!), the switch of the setting to Miskatonic in Arkham for the first bit instead of the whole thing being set in an art club in Boston--Pickman’s Model was one of Lovecraft’s most effective semi-standalone stories! make a couple references if you like but don’t wreck it because you want it to be a Lovecraft™ mishmash instead of a good horror story!

- fuck i feel like we could argue it shouts out Medusa’s Coil, the way it adds an Evil Depraved Witch-Woman when it really didn’t fucking need to 🙃 and speaking of, love that the already ‘we should treat this reeeeeally carefully and think about it hard’ element in the original story of ‘the creature race steals human children sometimes to add to their numbers’ is replaced by ‘the evil beings and evil crazy women associated with them EAT BABIES, let’s show an art of long-nosed ugly witches giving a baby to a monster’ 🙃🙃

- ‘well the original story’s horror derived from how clear and realistic the pictures of horror were (which beautifully led to the reveal that pickman is drawing from life when he draws malevolent inhuman beasties)... let’s throw out that ‘pickman draws from life’ setup by having him draw a normal model with two arms and rotting flesh in scene one, make a lot of the sketches and smaller pieces more spooky and fantastical looking, and whenever we have a big painted piece--well, art can’t scare people on its own! we can’t trust the actors to carry this! quick, shake the art really hard in front of the camera, animate bits, and play really loud child crying and monster growling sound effects over it. perfect.’

- ‘what do you mean it’s about doghuman fairy-ghouls living under boston and eating corpses? that doesn’t sound scary!! it’s about a depraved witch-woman--wait no, it’s about big ol’ monsters that eat babies! both? idk, we don’t have time to really connect the two properly, throw in some witch imagery, we have to get to the bit where pickman’s art survives a fire with no explanation and suddenly starts converting people who look at it to self-mutiliation, fantastical Insanity, and Cthulhu worship. we’re so good at creating coherent horror narratives’

- ‘i see the original story is somewhat homoerotic. well, that won’t do. give thurber a girlfriend, have him be repulsed by pickman 5 minutes into their acquaintanceship, then give him a wife and son and make the horror all about the perfect little hetero family setup being threatened. perfect! none of that nasty ‘horror and tragedy derived from a devastating revelation about someone you were not only a close friend too, but deeply admired the art of and were utterly dazzled by’

- ‘of course this doesn’t mean we’ll have developed female characters! just an Evil Witch-Woman, a Generic Girlfriend, and later a Perfect Little Wife.’

- I ranted about this in my first tags but this episode was just a badly made story. The brief ‘happy normalcy’ scenes (which are always the painfully heterosexual ones :)))))) are awkward as hell and jar against the other scenes, not in a ‘oh no good things but now bad things’ way but in a ‘is the director aware of how a tonal shift properly works?’ way. Things will happen where the payoff kind of matters and then we just don’t see it. The writing is mediocre at best; when it cribs a few lines from the original story, they now don’t really make sense in context, and the writer’s seen fit to only use the first half of some lines and chop of the second, more interesting half. Ben Barnes goes to Lovecraft Madness stage 4 after one encounter with a scawy picture and then I guess. Gets over it??? there’s a timeskip of 17 years with no note on whether anything’s happened during that time. He then nearly stabs himself in the forehead when looking at another scawy picture and is dissuaded by someone saying ‘sup?’ to him. everyone else looking at the pics either doesn’t react except with ‘ew’ or they go completely Fake Fantasy Mad. why is the protagonist different????? who the fuck knows!

- all in all the writer and director clearly didn’t understand the actual horror of Pickman’s Model or like, care about adapting the story, and didn’t have the chops to make something different but good, and elided an ounce of racism to include a bucket of antisemitism and make it more homophobic and sexist, so my overall conclusion is kind of like that Persuasion review. everyone should be in jail for just a little bit to think about what they’ve done

[percyjacksonfan3]

The Last Olympian Thoughts

So because I have absolutely 0 self-control or restraint when it comes to this series and its characters, and for The Last Olympian in particular, I could not put TLO down. Because of this I figured I couldn’t do the usual photo reaction posts I have been so far, because the spam would just be ridiculous, so I am stealing the idea from @yourstrulytaaay​ to do a masterpost instead. (Adding a Read More cause this got ridiculously long)

Fun fact, TLO came out right after i finished reading the series for the first time so it's the first PJO book i bought  and my only hard cover one for the og series. I checked the year and turns out it was published 2009, which means i was actually 9 when i read the series for the first time. I realize this is not really a fun fact but i thought i was older when I first read the series so it's blowing my mind a little ‘cause now I’m 21 and everything hits different and i still have so much love for this series and the characters Okay onto book thoughts: - i was right that this book is gonna destroy me, the first line alone made me so excited and nostalgic it's ridiculous - I love Rachel and Percy sm tbh. Her being a bit of peace and normalcy in his life without always reminding Percy of who and what he is is so good for him. Just a little escape

- of course by the end of the book that's not the case any more but by the end he's lived his prophecy so he doesn't need it as badly, plus he and Annabeth are solid again - Percy saying Annabeth has been hard to be around lately... Ouch my heart. Luke really is the last thing that keeps them from being together and Percy is so jealous and Annabeth so torn and in pain, i feel so bad for them both

- Beckendorf 🥺🥺 - the telkhine with the Lil Demon lunchbox!! I forgot about him. Percy: 'i left him alive, partly because his lunchbox was cool' is one of my absolute favourite lines tbh - Paul taking Percy crabbing and being imperative in helping Percy kill the giant crab 💖 Paul Blofis is important and deserves the world, okay? - aw Percy, you can't save every demigod bb

- 'i had to fight him eventually. Why not now?... What difference would a week make?' Oh Percy you have no idea - real talk tho, the fact Kronos possessed Luke's body would also mess me tf up. Percy keeps forgetting it's not Luke anymore and yeah, that would be so so hard and confusing af, like what another smart little mind game for Kronos to pull on top of everything else - the fact Percy fights Kronos before getting the Achilles Curse and actually doesn't die within seconds is... Astounding. He kicks him in the chest! And yeah Kronos is weaker and still adjusting to Luke's body, but Percy is having trouble fighting Luke cause they used to be friends - Percy breaks Kronos' time magic!! Like?! Boy is POWERFUL.

- OUCH - honestly Luke, Thalia and Annabeth's family breaking the way it did... Don't talk to me. Poor Annabeth, Luke betrayed them, Thalia joined the Hunters because of Luke's betrayal so she's pretty much AWOL all the time and then Luke dies. Like Rick wtf, my heart can't take it? -Percy and Tyson having each others backs when talking to Poseidon in the underwater palace is the brother-brother relationship we love to see - Percy trying to stick a sand dollar in the vending machines at school 🤦🏻‍♀🤦🏻‍♀ - the whole underwater interaction at Poseidon's palace? Perfection. Awkward family drama and all - Connor falling out of the tree when he sees Percy because he's so excited 😂😂

- 😭💖

- k, ik Clarisse isn't perfect but tbh if i was a child of Ares whose father was disrespected and hated by my fellow campers (ares deserves it but still) and that disrespect trickled down to how the other campers treated ME (which if Percy is reliable here, it obviously does) then i would also be irritated at being used for muscle and nothing else? And just expected to fight with the people who act as if they'd rather not have Ares kids around the rest of the time. Like Clarisse isn't totally wrong - Percy reading the prophecy, seeing he's meant to die and just being like 'i do not see it' and refusing to outright think about it makes me so sad for him - (but it taints every action after and he's super reckless afterwards bc of it- including finally breaking and accepting the Achilles Curse) - (also him taking this as the last straw and finally beginning to show Annabeth how he really feels, cause fuck it, he's dying anyway) - Give me more info about Rachel's backstory and family Rick!! -  how did i forget Percy willingly eats chocolates that taste like cardboard because 'i didnt have anything against cardboard' like sir? Ik Silena didn't want them but still? - 'she'd always been cute, but she was starting to be seriously beautiful' STOP, MY HEART CAN'T TAKE IT - Percy staring at Annabeth and forgetting what they're talking about cause hes so distracted 👌🏻

- hmm yeah... For some strange reason.... - i forgot how Percy totally bombs this convo bw them and now want to cry 😭 Annabeth is trying to talk about what's important and Percy, you sweet oblivious man, you're shooting her down without even realizing - love that they're both on the same wavelength tho. Percy two lines before, hmm it's cool to date ppl from other cabins, wonder why im thinking that around Annabeth, my best friend in the world, and then Annabeth a beat later, hmm, let me bring up Silena and Beckendorf and how it's important to be with the people you love when you have the chance, no way Percy will miss this huge hint right? - they're the best - k i honestly forgot Percy full on physically intimidates Leneus like that - luke telling his mom if he ran away the monsters wouldnt get her..i can just imagine luke crying when he says good bye before running away because he thinks it's his fault his mom is like that and he cant take care of and protect her anymore because it's too hard - uh oh now i have angsty pre-lightning thief luke fic inspo... Him, Thalia and Annabeth on the run... The ANGST -  Rick holds absolutely nothing back in this book and i am in pain - HESTIA!! 💖💖🥰 - actual loml - i love that Rick titled this book after her and that he wrote such a great series about the importance of family (biological, found or otherwise) and home, and that he said actually Hestia is the most important bc shes the most humble and keeps the peace and knows when to fight and when to yield and you protect what you love, which is your home - i just... Adore Hestia - Grover! Missed you babes - Hades is so so horrible to Nico, always comparing him to Bianca :/ - but i do love Hades, Persephone and Demeter together they make me laugh - oh god the River Styx - Achilles 🥺 - Annabeth being Percy's lifeline is, and continues to be, A Lot™ - 'my name was Percy Jackson. I reached up and took Annabeth's hand.' LOL Why am i crying? - Like the fact there is no Percy without Annabeth, and that remembering her literally reminded him of who he is in his very soul... It's fine im fine - i won't even get into the parallels of her being his lifeline now and then later when Hera takes his memories but leaves the memory of Annabeth for Percy to fight to get back to (anyone who wants to yell about it with me... Feel free to message) - badass Percy is my fav Percy tbh - him defeating Hades?? Like? Hades is arguably the most powerful god, okay - i feel bad for Nico but if i was Percy I'd do the exact same, Nico, sorry man but this is a high stakes time crunch deal and Nico is literally the only hope of persuading Hades and distracted by his own internal stuff - flashbacks to Luke, Thalia and Annabeth hurt, ow - George and Martha are the best - damn i forgot Hermes full on nearly kills Percy here, yikes - Luke stop cockblocking Percabeth challenge

- i love!! Percy's love for New York!! So much!! - Percy leaving to live in New Rome in HoO is a lie and this is all the proof i need for why - the fact the entire last half of the book is the battle and aftermath... Such great buildup and pacing. All the tricks and twists and battles in this War of Manhattan? I would not take out a thing, Rick, you legend - of course then the final battle in hoo with the gods is what? Two pages? Ugh, don’t talk to me about my hatred for BoO and HoO - 'no detours you two' is still the cutest thing!!! - THE HUNTERS!! Thalia i missed you - good job Percy, you finally spent your sand dollar - Minotaur!! - 'dont i get a kiss for luck? Its kind of a tradition right?' Percy finds out he's gonna die and is out of fucks to give and honestly I support him - also Michael just standing beside these two while they're flirting like umm 👀 👀 while a monster army marches towards them, nbd - Annabeth taking Ethan's knife meant for Percy!!! Cause she just knows his weak spot without him even telling her! They literally invented love - Feral Percy is so scary omg, i love how well Rick incorporates the Achilles Curse in this novel, with the whole heightened weaknesses and stuff ans the parallels to Achilles arrogance being what killed him and Percy's loyalty, fierceness and protective instinct being his own heightened weakness - the fact that Percy is the one who inadvertantly kills Michael Yew tho, I'll never recover from that - the fact Hades offers Maria di Angelo a golden palace by the Styx like how Poseidon offers Sally a palace under the sea tho. Let's talk about that parallel - the entire talk with Prometheus is so so good - not me picturing young Luke hiding in the closet to get away from his mom when she has an 'episode' -i love callbacks in stories and all of the callbacks to the rest of the series in this book make me very happy (medusa, minotaur, the underworld, Rainbow!! My baby!!, Daedalus and more) - Percy summoning a wholeass hurricane against Hyperion - the Party Ponies! They're so chaotic, i love it - Dionysus! 😁 I can't help it, i love him - Percy absolutely losing it when he sees Sally and Paul asleep in the car 🥺 - Rachel telling Percy he's not the hero screws with him so much :( poor bb - although i really really love how Rick wrote this, it's so refreshing to not have one chosen one save the world, but a combination of people - the drakon, Silena and Clarisse make me cry - the Patrochilles references, im not okay - Annabeth giving up on Luke after hearing what he did to Silena and Percy telling her that doesn't make him happy 😭 that whole interaction makes my heart ache - Percy giving Hestia Pandora's pithos 🥺 - and Hades, Nico and the others coming for a final attack is so badass, i love it - listen im glad the og trio were the ones to confront Luke on Olympus but the fact Thalia got so close and then pinned by a statue of HERA makes me so sad. Ik her and Luke were finished and she coped by cutting him off completely and giving up all hope but i would pay money to know what they would have said to each other to say goodbye - Ethan 🥺 - Poseidon joining the fight against Typhon is so cool, such a great scene - 'PEANUT BUTTER!' - Annabeth you brilliant badass you - RIP Luke, you werent great but you werent the worst either - the gods just rolling up seconds too late, wondering wtf happened in Olympus and who the dead body is - the chapter where the Olympians meet and give out rewards is one of my absolute favourites (again i am incensed we didn't get anything like this in HoO) - will Percy turning down immortality ever not make me scream in glee? No? Alright then - Annabeth being relieved like Percy was relieved at the end of Titan's Curse tho - oh Hermes :/ - its so hard reading all this and knowing what comes in HoO... Like it's such a cathartic, earned and mostly happy and peaceful ending and then HoO comes along and undermines it all - aww Rick let Paul see Olympus somehow pls, he deserves it, he killed a dracanae - (i would also love to see it) - Percy being more upset Rachel took his pegasus than her going to Camp and possibly dying, lol, priorities dude - i honestly think that Rick had other ideas for the second Great Prophecy and how things would go down in BoO, cause the prophecy like... Barely applies to BoO, Doors of Death are in book four, and explabations of it is all so unclear when Rick is usually pretty good with that stuff - PERCABETH - lol Percy complaining about privacy when he and Annabeth are caught kissing literally in the middle of the very open and public dining pavilion, okay - BEST UNDERWATER KISS OF ALL TIME - that's it and im a glass case of emotion - very happy to say that this series remains my favourite of all time 💖

 If anyone ever wants to come gush about anything Riordanverse related feel free, because as you can see I have a lot of thoughts about it all

[midweekblues]

The Terror, Géricault and a bit of Julian Barnes: a rant

Part 2 /?

Hello, it's me again! With more random data about a certain 19th century nautical tragedy! Come for the trivia, stay for the cannibalism!

I dunno, man, I just dig these stories. Which is weird, having worked and lived at sea, but whatever. The Terror connects to a very primal part of my brain, the same part that buzzes when I read about the wreck of the Essex, the Donner Party, Scott's final expedition or the Edmund Fitzgerald. There's a theme going on here. So back to the wreck it is!

On the first part of Chapter 5 of A History of the world in 10 1/2 chapters, Julian Barnes gives us a summary of the ordeal on board the Medusa. To summarize even more:

- French frigate Medusa struck a reef off the coast of Senegal in 1816.

- Not everyone could fit into the boats, so a raft was built. 17 people decided to stay on board the half-sunk frigate, rather than brave the ocean on that construction.

- The raft was so overcrowded that it was actually underwater in the beginning. To lighten the load so it wouldn't sink completely, they had to discard most of the food brought on board, and all of their water, leaving only wine to drink. Most of their food (mainly flour and biscuits) was at some point submerged and thus ruined by the saltwater. .

So all our supplies are either spoiled or will make us prone to delirium?  

- The raft was expected to be towed by the boats, but during the first day, "one by one, whether for reason or self-interest, incompetence, misfortune or seeming necessitty, all the tow-lines were cast aside", and so the raft was left adrift.

- On the second day, three men gave up and, "convinced that there was no escape from death, bade farewell to their companions and willingly embraced the sea".

- On the second night, there was not one but two mutinies on the raft. After the struggle, 60 remained on board.

- On the third day, they started eating some of the dead.

- After the third night, 12 more people had died. 11 of them were cast into the sea, but one body was kept on board, "reserved against their hunger".

- On the fourth night, yet another mutiny. After all the violence, a total of 30 survivors remained on the raft.

- On the seventh day, two soldiers were caught stealing wine from one of the remaining caskets. They were executed by throwing them to the sea. 

-That left 27 survivors, only 15 of them healthy enough to survive more than a few days. Their resources were extremely limited, with less than a cask of wine for drinking, and only human flesh for food. "To put the sick on half allowance was but to kill them by degrees. And thus, after a debate in which the most dreadful despair presided, it was agreed among the fifteen healthy persons that their sick comrades must, for the common good of those who might yet survive, be cast into the sea", Barnes tells us. "The healthy were separated from the unhealthy like the clean from the unclean".

There’s been a vote, Edward

- After that, the survivors decided to cast all their arms into the sea, except one sabre, "lest some rope or wood might need cutting".   Fun fact: the equipment of modern lifeboats includes not only food, water and a first aid kit, but also 1 (one) boat axe. And the reason for this is exactly the same: just in case some rope or plastic/fiberglass might need cutting . 

(My face during that particular safety training)

- And then

wait for it

a white butterfly showed up.

Now of course, that would be a good sign, right? Not because it works great as a symbol on an artistic level (looking at you, Peter Jackson), but in this case it does work on a logical level: How far away can a freaking butterfly fly? It must mean that land is near, right? Just like, dunno, same way that an arctic bird, preying mainly on fish, wouldn't stray too far away from open water, so it must mean there are leads relatively nearby, right?

Right? :____(

The survivors of the Medusa did not spot land anywhere. And our Cold Boys didn't find any leads. Life is a bitch like that sometimes. Géricault could have chosen to depict this moment in his painting, but he didn't. "First, it wouldn't look like a true event, even though it was," says Barnes. As viewers, we know this. We are ready to accept a white butterfly showing up somewhere in the Misty Mountains over Khazad-dûm to save our favorite wizard, but on a real story, a real tragedy, it wouldn't work, it would be too on-the-nose. And so the butterfly and the bird both fly away, and nothing changes, and the tragedy goes on.

- On day 10, eight of the survivors of the Medusa, convinced that land must be within reach, built another, smaller raft, from pieces of the first one, upon which to escape. But as soon as they tried it, they realised it was too frail, and gave up on the plan.

- On day 13, they sighted the Argus. This is the moment that Géricault depicts, when they first spot a ship on the horizon.

See it there? Just look where all the guys are looking (well, not all of them, but more on that later)

Yep, that's a ship, that tiny little thing on the horizon, against the rosy sky (is it dawn, or dusk, by the way? What do you guys think?), not bigger than a butterfly. Pretty impressive to have the whole composition of this massive painting, and the attention of everyone depicted, gravitate away from the viewer. Literally no one in this painting gives a flying fuck about the viewer because their eyes are fixated on their only hope, a ship that looks like it might just disappear at any moment...

Which is exactly what it did.

My dudes, this painting, and the story behind it, is peak Romanticism. The drama.

The Argus was visible for about a half hour. It gave no sign of having spotted the raft. And then it disappeared.

Ok but wait a minute, so didn't they get rescued? Well yes they did. That's how we know what happened.

The survivors watched the ship disappear, fell into despair and decided, like many of us do on one of those days, that a nap might help. So they "rigged a piece of cloth as a shelter from the sun, and lay down beneath it"

And then a couple hour later, one of them went to the front of the raft, out of the canvas, and saw the Argus half a league away (that's less than 3 km), "carrying a full press of sail, and bearing down upon them".

If this wasn’t real, we’d call it lazy writing. I mean, typical cliffhanger, our hero is gonna die, all hope is lost, finish episode there. And then next week, boom, of course the hero is saved within the first five minutes. Ugh. But life is badly written like that sometimes.

And so they were saved. Well, five of them died in the days after their rescue. Which leaves us with a total of 10 survivors from the Raft. 

Géricault read the account from Savigny and Corréard sometime in the winter 1817-1818. The painting was finished in July 1819. And sometime in 1820, Captain Crozier saw it in London, while he was on leave before joining Parry on an Arctic expedition in 1821.

And this is getting long, so I'm gonna leave it here for now. Next part will be about the parallels I see between the actual painting and the show.  If you made it all the way here: Thanks for reading! 

(here’s part 1 and part 3 )

[pinkysfaultorbrainsfault]

animaniacs - s3e6: hercules unwound

yeah it’s season three now. sorry. season 1 had sixty five episodes in it and season 2 had..... four. i don’t understand it either. but none of those episodes had mice, so i guess we’re here now!! (if i’m wrong, and they did have mice, feel free to get back to me, but i definitely didn’t see any mice on the wikipedia page.)

episode summary: inexplicably existing in ancient greece, the boys plan to steal zeus’ lightning bolt. which is the source of his powers, i guess? i don’t know. this episode makes no sense.

the rundown:

so here’s the thing.

they introduce ancient greece.

they introduce hercules.

they establish he’s a crybaby who has twelve (12) chores to do today, which... seems like an excessive amount of chores, sure, but he’s literally just rolling around on the floor and having a tantrum about it.

zeus gets pissed off and electrocutes him.

and then the warners show up. “i’m lost,” says wakko, “is that our cue?” they have no idea. they’re confused. i’m confused. this short has gone in like eight different directions since it started.

still, they potter down to where hercules is crying, introduce themselves (left; yakkoles, right; wakkonemnon)

(above, the goddess of cuteness, aphrodottie.)

and then dot goes and lays on the floor and decides she doesn’t want to do it.

“you wanna just skip this cartoon?”

“yeah.”

“alright, see ya, pal.”

and off they go, i guess.

that’s.... as accurately as i can summarise it. none of what happens there has anything to do with the mice or the future plot, so i’m just gonna skip past it, if that’s okay.

poor hercules. having to clean out the stables all by his lonesome.

meanwhile, after a sudden jumpcut, we see aristotle desperately trying to teach his class the source of zeus’ powers. it’s the lightning bolt, you goofs! the lightning bolt equals unlimited power!

none of them care.

good thing someone does! so we can get the review started already, christ. this is how they’re arranged at first, but it’s only for a couple of frames, so i’m highlighting it because it’s very funny! and also very easy to miss.

“we, pinkus, shall steal zeus’ lightning bolt, overthrow the kingdom, and

TAKE OVER THE WORLD.” good thing they managed to squeeze another closeup in there, huh. just can’t have an episode without them.

“but how do we get to the tippy-top of mount olympus, where zeus lives?”

“i have that figured out, pinkus. behold, across the street, the agean stables, where legendary, famed and godlike horse pegasus spends the day.”

calm down, brain. jesus. i thought pinky was the one with the Horse Thing. brain goes onto explain that every night, pegasus flies back to mount olympus,

okay.

and they’re just gonna hitch a ride. climb on his back without him noticing. steal the minivan, except the minivan is a flying horse.

so off they go to do that, i guess!

it immediately cuts to them being chased by cerberus, with a “run, pinky, run!” from brain, which is cute. his name is pinkus, in this interation, but brain calls him pinky for short. did the writers intend that to be cute? probably not. do i find it cute? absolutely.

it’s very peatb-esque. still, they outrun it eventually.

“in future, pinkus, let sleeping guard dogs lie. especially when one has three heads.”

“funny. the middle head seemed so friendly.”

honestly? the animation here is cute. and it kind of sucks that they gave the good animators whatever this episode is. is there something i’m not understanding? it’s just been completely threadbare random throughout. they always seem to give the good episodes to the guys who draw them weird. it’s upsetting.

but the stables are there, so off they go.

so while hercules cleans out the stable and whines about it,

medusa gives pegasus a makeover. she is just dying to braid his tail, for no extra charge. this would probably be a lot funnier if i knew who they were trying to make fun of, here? but it’s all good. (that’s one of the problems i have with this show, sadly. all these celebrities stopped being quite so famous literally before i was born. hoo hoo. i’m sure there are like, 30-40 year olds who appreciate the humour far more than i do.)

the mice have found their target. soon, they will strike.

“there he is, pinkus. in all his wing-ed glory.” he puts the stress on the “ed” and it’s uncomfortable. nobody says words like that, brain! or i guess he does? whatever.

so they climb this conveniently placed shovel, ready to jump right on! because, yknow, it’s right there.

except hercules decides that, yknow, he needs a bigger shovel to... clean out the stables with, and--

look. guys?

i have so much anxiety, okay? real talk for a sec. you see my head? nothing up there makes sense. this is why i run a cartoon mouse blog. one of the ways that manifests is in incredibly nervous coprophobia. i don’t like to talk about it. it makes things difficult for me. this episode makes things difficult for me. i barely made it through the stupid... garden of mindy. you don’t want to see this, i don’t want to see this, i do not want my comfort characters to have to deal with this, and i do not want to put myself through the heart attack of trying to transcribe it like the... bad children’s tv jokes bible. okay? i’m skipping this section because it doesn’t add anything and i’ve had enough.

hercules uses the shovel. the mice get dirty. presumably, between scenes, they go take a bath. let’s just say that happens. whatever. cartoon logic.

but nobody takes a bath without hercules’ sayso, so he decides to beat them to death. this is just the first frame i skipped to. i assume this is what’s happening.

i’m not enjoying this episode.

homeboy decimates a wheelbarrow. it has good faces, i’ll give it that. this episode has good faces. is it wang? why on earth would they give wang this bollocks.

“be gone, manure sprites!”

yeet.

thankfully there’s nothing weird in this barrel. it’s whatever medusa was doing pegasus’ pedicure with. dish washing liquid, i think? whatever that means. i’ll be honest, too many gross things have happened in this episode and i’m not sure i could handle anything e--

ah.

what.

thankfully, pegasus decides this is a good time to get the fuck out of dodge.

the mice agree.

hercules grabs bucket girl and also gets out of dodge.

that was weird and random and not needed.

but like, it’s fine. it’s good. they’re on the horse. the horse is flying directly towards mount olympus. yknow. it worked out.

conclusion:

as zeus mopes about his son’s work ethic, the mice get on with their own, tiny mouse jobs.

“upon that table, pinkus, is zeus’ mighty lightning bolt.”

“gee, i hope he has it charged up.”

with a LIGHTNING CABLE!! hoo hoo. hee. those were definitely not a thing when this came out.

brain doesn’t find it quite so funny, sadly, but he chooses to ignore it in favour of hustling his little mouse ass onto the table.

“all power is ours, pinkus. now to-- take over the world...”

bonk.

this is not the first time this has happened. (or maybe it is? chronologically? who knows.)

but oh no! zeus looks through his big old zeus telescope that he has and works out that the stables are worse than ever, actually, and hercules has no intention of cleaning them.

he’s off having a coffee break with medusa! typical. time to electrocute him.

so zeus reaches for his trusty lightning bolt.

pinky’s so chill about this. he’s just vibin.

yeet.

he just straight up throws the whole thing. does it respawn? y’all. i don’t get it.

“i sense the pivotal moment of failure quickly approaches.”

unfortunately - or perhaps it is forunate, depending on how you look at it - zeus just straight up misses.

the mice rebound.

aaaaand that can’t be good.

sploosh.

of course, whether or not this was zeus’ intention, the upshot is that the stables are nice and clean, finally.

so hopefully we never ever have to go through that again.

on the downside, the mice did drown, so i guess that’s the end of this blog.

brain: 3 ½ pinky: 5 ½ outside influence: 8

“as your reward, you get to marry a goddess.”

“the goddess of love? the goddess of beauty?”

“no!”

“the goddess of cuteness, aphrodottie.”

(so we iris out on child marriage. goodnight, everybody.)

[atamascolily]

lily liveblogs: BBC Atlantis 1x03, “A Boy of No Consequence”

Welcome back to the BBC Atlantis liveblog! Previously introduced:

THE HERO: Jason. Originally from Atlantis, raised on Earth and recently returned. Confused as hell about everything. Killed the Minotaur and now on the royal shitlist. Daddy issues and a mysterious macguffin amulet. Shirts optional. 

THE LANCER: Hercules. 'Nuff said.

THE SMART GUY: Pythagoras. The triangle guy. NERD. I love him.

THE BIG BAD: King Minos and Queen Pasiphae, rulers of Atlantis. The Minotaur is supposedly Minos's fault, but so far the show has been mum about bull-fucking, so it's not clear how true the show is going to stay to the myth.

THE LOVE INTEREST: Ariadne, daughter to the above. Smitten with Jason on account of his good looks (because let's face it, they haven't had much time to talk yet). Maybe she and Jason can bond over daddy issues?

SOURCE OF CRYPTIC EXPOSITION: The Oracle. Knows more than she's telling Jason... for his own protection. Prone to cryptic utterances and killing chickens.

ATLANTIS: A city that is NOT under the ocean, despite the fact that Jason traveled there in a sub. (I really hope it was called the Argo, but I forgot to check.) Has no leash-laws for two-headed dragons, an abundance of watermelons in the marketplace, and guards with surprisingly good aim--also, hunting lions, because why not?

I had to skip episode 2, so this is going to be fun. Let's see what I missed!

In the marketplace, Herc is crushing on Medusa [introduced in the last episode] and Pythagoras and Jason are trying to bring him down gently. They stop to help an old man with an overturned cart, and an Asshole Authority Figure I don't recognize shows up and smacks the old man around for blocking his way (just in case we were wondering whether we were supposed to like him). Jason intervenes and they fight, but the other guy has guards, so Jason gets arrested. Just another day in Atlantis!

All of the credits are still backwards and I hate it, but at least there's an actual opening sequence this time!

Cut to Pythagoras and Herc standing in the jail along with Jason. Pythagoras introduces the Asshole Authority as "Heptarion" so I'm forgiven for not knowing who he is. He's Pasiphae's nephew.

Cut to the three of them kneeling in front of the throne in chains, and Ariadne's standing there watching, and I think... she finds this hot. Minos and Pasiphae are all like "You again?" because this probably is going to happen every episode.

Minos threatens Jason with a death curse. Jason yells, and it doesn't go well. Herc tries to explain Jason's a tourist and doesn't know any better, and then calls on the whole Minotaur business as a chance for mercy. So Minos claims he's going to leave it to Poseidon.

Pasiphae asks if Ariadne likes Jason. Ariadne lies, and Pasiphae calls her on it. Ariadne says "You're not my mom," and OH SNAP, this explains A LOT, ACTUALLY. Ariadne's promised to Heptarion, so this is SUPER AWKWARD. Ariadne asks if Pasiphae would intervene with Minos, and Pasiphae punts and says it's up to the gods. Ariadne says she'll pray for Jason, then.

Herc claims that was the last time he'll ever help Jason, but he is a LIAR and also a HUGE SOFTIE, so I call bullshit.

IT'S THE RUNNING OF THE BULLS. Or at least of some sort of matador thing in a ring with a giant bull and people leaping over it with epic leaps. Everybody on a "team" has to survive in order to be free. Pythagoras talks about probability, because he is, as I've mentioned before, a NERD.

Their other team members are an African warrior who gives Pythagoras the side-eye and a girl who doesn't want to eat her food, so Herc steals it. There's also a random dude who picks a fight with the warrior.

Heptarion and Pasiphae meet for plotting and gossip about Ariadne and Jason. The team practices leaping over a practice bull. Herc trips and doesn't make it over, as Heptarion and Pasiphae watch. Pythagoras says that the queen is rumored to be a witch. Jason leaps perfectly, and everyone's amazed, no less Jason. Heptarion realizes his rival is harder to kill than he thought, but Pasiphae plans to help.

The girl cuts Jason's hair while he sleeps, which the random dude on their team sees. VOODOO MAGIC TIME.

The next day, the team watches someone get killed in the practice ring. The random dude baits the warrior, and we learn he's a Nubian prince! Jason tries to play peacemaker and suggests they band together, but nobody's buying it. They go into the ring and Jason tries to strategize but nobody listens.

Jason calls the bull to him and it LISTENS. Jason does his run thing and falls to the ground. The girl yells at the bull  and so do the others to keep him from a fallen Jason. TEAMWORK. Pythagoras and Herc carry Jason off the field and it turns out it was all a ruse to get the team to work together. Jason, you little schemer.

Herc hides under the table rather than let his ex-girlfriend catch sight of him. The Nubian prince says he has 3 wives and 7 kids, and he wishes he could go home. Jason tries to talk to the girl who won't eat and give her food and a pep talk. She starts to spill the hair thing and then runs away. Pasiphae does some VOODOO MAGIC.

The random dude, Cyrus, confronts the girl about the hair thing. The guy in charge interrupts before she can tell him anything. Cyrus tells the guy in charge what he saw, and gets stabbed for his trouble. So I guess there's only gonna be five people on the team?

(Note: all of the other characters have names, I just can't always understand what they are without subtitles.)

The trio know foul play when they see it. Jason goes to comfort the girl, and she confesses what she did in exchange for her freedom. (I assume they're going to double-cross her and kill her, because that's what happened to Cyrus.) Pythagoras has to explain the whole voodoo thing to Jason.

Herc mocks Jason's tase in women, specifically Ariadne. Jason protests they have barely talked, and I agree, but those long soulful gazes SPEAK VOLUMES. Herc calls Pythagoras "a fool with no knowledge of women" and this show is really not helping with the slash shipping here.

Heptarion tries to chat up Ariadne at the dinner table and it fails because Ariadne is such a killjoy and doesn't enjoy watching people die in front of her. You know, she's a weirdo like that.

Pythagoras suggests enlisting Medusa to steal the hair back. Herc objects because Love. Pythagoras has another idea, and it's Herc's ex-girlfriend! Herc chats up his ex, and convinces her to take a note to Medusa. I guess people can read in this show? News to me, but okay.

The next morning, they go out to the ring. Jason's not wearing a shirt, because... reasons?  Medusa sneaks in to the queen's bedroom and there's so much furniture I'm pretty sure that's not period, only to get nearly caught by the queen. But she does spy the secret ritual room, so there's that.

Epic sandal montage/power walk into the bull ring with the Squad. No, Jason is not wearing a shirt, why do you ask? He and Ariadne make eyes at each other, as Minos makes a speech about how this is totally not rigged. They chant the ritual phrases and get to it. PLAY BALL.... or PLAY BULL, rather.

Pasiphae stabs the voodoo doll and Jason crumbles in pain. The Nubian prince does a badass leap! And he's not even the protagonist! Herc yells at the bull to keep it away from Jason and does a less badass leap... but he does make it, and the crowd cheers anyway. The girl distracts the bull and leaps! The crowd cheers. The guy in charge looks pissed.

Just as Pasiphae is about to stab Jason's head, Medusa makes a noise / sets something on fire? Pasiphae runs out, and Medusa grabs the poppet. Now Jason is better! Jason gives Pythagoras a pep talk, since he also has to leap in order for them to win. Pythagoras's leap has no grace whatsoever, but he does it... which is better than I would do under the circumstances, let's be honest. He's so thrilled!!

Of course, Jason goes last because DRAMA. His flip is the best, because he's the LEAD, but I argue that the Nubian prince is more impressive because he's actually, you know, PRACTICED, instead of being just MAGICALLY TALENTED AND ALL.

They win! Ariadne loves Jason even more! Group hug for the five members of the team! Atlantis loves them! Minos tries to put a good face on it. They're free! Medusa yells out to Hercules and waves. She saved them all and didn't get caught! Nice!

Pasiphae tries to be nice to Ariadne, and she's not buying it. Pasiphae's all like, This is why being nice never works.

The Nubian prince is going to return the girl to her village and then go home. He invites the trio to visit, so I guess we'll see him again?? I hope so, I like him. The marketplace is still full of watermelons and Herc is convinced that Medusa returns his affections because she saved their lives and... sigh. Okay, then.

Anyway, all's well that ends well (I guess), but I have so many questions. Do any of these characters actually have jobs? What do they do for money? Are they going to get hauled before Minos and Pasiphae for not paying rent in the next episode? What does the Oracle think about all this? What happened to the two-headed dragons? Where are all the watermelons coming from? Does anybody in Atlantis actually buy them or do they just sit on that one dude’s cart and that’s why it’s always so full? Are the main characters going to go back to square one by the end of every episode or will the plot actually build on something? Will Jason and Ariadne actually talk to each other, or will they continue to gaze soulfully across the throne room while Jason’s a Very Naughty Boy Who Must Be Punished?

Apparently, the preview for the next episode makes it very clear it will be A BABY EPISODE, so we’ll see how many of these questions are answered.

[rael-rider]

Ewing GotG Interview: Thoughts about what he said in regards to Star-Lord

I originally wanted to write all of my thoughts on everything that Ewing said on his SYFYWire GotG Interview but it got too long and I realized I mostly just wanted to talk about Peter and Rich since he provided more new info about them than anyone else. But here’s what caught my eye. Going to make this a post only for Peter (and Rich’s will come out later) or else it’s going to get long (with bolding done by me for emphasis):

A lot of what I do involves going right back to the first appearance of a character — not because I think that's the best they've ever been and deviating from it is blasphemy, but because I think there's usually a nugget of primal mojo that you can find there while the idea's fresh and not fully coalesced.....Star-Lord's first appearance is weird as all get-out, set in some alternate future and 100 percent not in continuity, so you'd have thought that technique wouldn't work this time — but when I looked back at it, it did have one of those little globules of primal magic in it that I'm going to be making a lot of use of over the first year.

Oh, Peter's a total mess. All the old guilt is back. Old false memories, strange dreams where he's asked if he feels the purpose of his life is wrong. He's got his support system, his found family is around him, but as we'll see, he's still got that deep-down need to atone for the past. Put simply -- he can't sleep at night. We've got a journey for Pete to make over the course of this book -- it's a journey that's been waiting patiently for him for a very long time, and it's a journey he might to have to make alone.

This is really interesting to me considering the talk of false memories and weird dreams and Peter‘s first appearance being in a then alternate future (it was the 70′s when his comic came out and his story took place in the 90′s IIRC) and I want to see how Ewing will incorporate all of that to the character for his GotG run.

Now Star-Lord’s 616 introduction happened in a Thanos mini (now collected as Thanos: Samaritan) by Keith Giffen and we didn’t get much about his backstory other than he was in the Kyln for something horrible that he did (which I’ll get into later). Annihilation Conquest expanded a bit on his backstory but it was still pretty vague as to what stuff from the original comics was still canon or not. We knew Peter still had his old Star-Lord outfit at some point and had a sentient ship that he called “Ship” but that’s pretty much about it what was said in the comics.

The Nova corps files companion comic for Annihilation describe his backstory as being pretty similar to his original one except it took place in the 616 universe but still how much of what he did in his original comic was canon other than the origin itself (Meredith gets killed by aliens, Peter goes to space when he’s older seeking revenge and he becomes Star-Lord) was still up in the air. Around the time Thanos Imperative came out a companion book that had character bios (supposedly written by Rich himself) called The Thanos Sourcebook also came out and it added something interesting to Peter’s backstory. The Thanos Sourcebook entry for Star-Lord mentions that Peter’s father was a “time traveling space man”. It’s an odd little thing that really doesn’t get addressed anywhere else but could have been a nod to Star-Lord’s original story taking place in the future or an explanation as to why young Jason of Spartax was in an Inhuman story when Medusa and Blackbolt were young too. However in Dan Abnett’s Guardians 3000 we meet the Star-Lord from the year 3000 who is related to present time Peter but there’s something odd about him. He wears an outfit similar to the one Peter used to wear, he has the space ship Peter used to have, and he's even named Peter Jason Quill just like him. It’s assumed he’s our Peter Quill’s descendant but there’s a twist in their relationship. I made a post which goes into more detail about it but basically future Peter Quill from the 30th century is present Peter Quill’s Great-Great Grandfather.

The reason I bring this up is because Ewing is a writer who really does his research when it comes to the characters he’s writing and said research usually inspires new ideas and dictates were he’s taking his characters and informs him of who they had met or not and what relationships they already formed (his tumblr is full of posts of comics he’s reading that tie into his Hulk run and you can really see what’s inspiring him and what he’s looking at when he makes a story) . Like with Rocket he mentioned the way he changed as a character from who he was to who he is right now reminded him of Noir characters so he’s writing Rocket as a noir character. As weird as that may seem for someone like Rocket it’s something new for that character and it’s not retreating to the same stuff. With Rocket most of his stories post-Bendis have been that he’s angry and he’s a thief who loves to steal and he's violent but in Ewing’s Rocket mini he takes those elements and tells a noir heist space story and he gives us a look into Rocket’s past and tells us why Rocket went from a sort of space sheriff into someone who steals (and it’s a story that really makes you sympatize with him). Old stories and concept are used by Ewing to build up new ideas and stories from existing ones.

Going back to Peter, Ewing mentions that he’s going to have elements from his original comic in his GotG run and that there’s some sort of journey “that's been waiting patiently for him for a very long time ” and I can’t help but think about what Steve Englehart once said about his unrealized Star-Lord story before Claremont took over the book:

Englehart said he’d planned for Quill to evolve, to become an “enlightened being”.

“I envisioned it as a 12-part series, moving Quill from asshole to Star-Lord,” Englehart explained. “Horoscopes have twelve houses, and it would have been a twelve-part series. But the real distinguishing feature between chapters would have been Quill moving outward through the solar system, having an episode on each planet in turn. Each episode would be keyed to the astrological meaning of the planet, so that on Mercury he would have a fast-action story involving twins, on Venus he would have a love story, on Mars a war story, etc.,” Englehart said.

“As he passed through these different realities, he would discover his humanity, so that when he passed by Pluto he would have experienced all facets of life and be ready to take his place among the stars.” [x]

Could this be what Ewing was referring to as the journey that’s been patiently waiting for Peter for a very long time? Will Ewing have Peter go on a similar journey to the one that Englehart had planned? Is Peter going to reach some sort of enlightenment/revelation from it? Will Star-Lord have a new meaning for him? How will Peter Quill’s character grow from this?

Also the whole “old false memories” and dreams Peter has been having were he’s asked if he feels his life purpose is wrong, could that be Ewing just retconning everything from the Bendis and Humphries run? Will we see Peter’s true origin and the real Jason of Spartax who might possibly be a time traveler? (and is the J’Son that we know a fake?) I don’t think Ewing is much about retconning as he is about connecting and making sense of things but I wouldn’t be opposed to him doing away with everything Bendis and Humphries did when it comes to Peter Quill because it was awful.

The one last thing I will talk about is the mention of Peter “old guilt” and need for atonement. It’s an aspect of the character that’s been a thing since Giffen’s Thanos Samaritan all the way through Thanos Imperative. It wasn’t something that was present in Bendis’ run and we know from Nicole Perlman that the Creative Comittee (which Bendis was in) wasn’t that interested in a Peter Quill who was seeking redemption and found that idea “a bit boring”. Ewing seems to want to touch it, and the one big source of Peter’s guilt and need for atonement has always been his fight against the Fallen One and the 350,000 people in a Mining Colony that he sacrificed to defeat him. It’s such a big source of guilt for Peter that he stopped being Star-Lord over it, turned himself to the Nova corps, and he even tried to lose his humanity because of it. He also refused to talk about it (even Rich didn’t know for a long time but Peter eventually told him because he wrote about it in his files in the Thanos Sourcebook). So I’m thinking that someone that had a loved one in that mining colony or escape its destruction is seeking revenge on Peter and it’s part of what sets him into his journey. Because all this time and I really can’t believe anyone hasn’t tried going after him for 350,000 people that died.

Also seeing how Peter was in charge of Hala’s security in Annihilation Conquest and he was the one that let the Phalanx infected Space Knights into Hala and that caused more deaths and seeing how Ewing’s has plans to involve the Kree in his GotG stories... Peter’s guilt over what happened in that event will definitely come into play. It’s also those events and the Kree still having faith in his Star-Lord persona that makes him go back to being Star-Lord (and they also pushed him into it) and it’s also what makes him form the new Guardians of the Galaxy.

I’m very much looking forward to what Ewing will do with Peter.

[acsversace-news]

One year ago “The Man Who Would Be Vogue” aired

The murder of Gianni Versace turns the eyes of the world onto Miami Beach.

Listen to Vanity Fair’s “Still Watching: Versace” review of episode 1 along with an interview with Ricky Martin

Reviews

A hypnotizing, wordless first act, backed by a rousing string-heavy score, gives a Shakespearean start to the whole endeavor, echoed, of course, in the horror of the murder by gunshot that left Versace bleeding to death at the front gate of his home in 1997. - The Daily Beast

Murphy delights in showing monsters up close, as he does in American Horror Story, but he’s most poignant when he probes how real-life monsters became that way. The Assassination of Gianni Versace allows Murphy to do what he does best: make viewers understand — but not empathize — with the devil. And only Murphy could achieve the delicate balance of vilifying a person without vilifying an entire culture — exactly what kept the case from having the same kind of cultural impact that O.J. had. That long overdue impact can now finally occur in Murphy’s dramatic retelling. - TV Guide

Ryan Murphy’s latest season of his pop procedural anthology, American Crime Story, covers the 1997 shooting of Versace in nine fifty-minute episodes; and yet so un-boring is the pilot that we see the murder seven minutes in. The twinky killer, Andrew Cunanan, is a fantasist played with a cold and twitchily unreal demeanor by the android-perfect Darren Criss. Introduced as an unreliable narrator, then a Ripley-esque savant at social climbing, he creates two big impressions: one in a scene that shows him covering his mouth in a pantomime of horror when he’s really smiling, and another that’s a bona fide showcase for his ass. He’s closeted around his straight friends, gay around his gay friends, and completely unashamed to say out loud that his objective is to “tell people whatever they need to hear”—a primo marker for a sociopath.  - Garage

“The Man Who Would Be Vogue” was quite simply one of the best first-episodes of a show I’ve seen in a while. Relying on sweeping visuals over dialogue, and allowing gaudiness to exist beside sincerity, it gripped me right away. While we know this is not a happy story and it doesn’t end particularly well, it does feel as important and timely as ever, much like its predecessor The People v. O.J. Simpson. It remains to be seen whether this season will catch on with viewers and critics like that one did, but either way it’s hard not to be grateful for something this special. - Yahoo

The performers of The Assassination of Gianni Versace are all acting at the top of their game. Just like how The People v. O.J. showed us actors and actresses in a new and interesting light, Assassination captures the spirit of Versace’s loving sister and business partner, Donatella, through a strong performance by Penelope Cruz. Musician Ricky Martin acted in Argentinian television programs at the start of his career, and his appearance in Assassination is enough to make you think he never left the craft. Darren Criss is versatile in his intense portrayal of serial killer Andrew Cunanan. The first episode shifts between a couple of different moments in time, and Criss’ Cunanan is sometimes enigmatic, sometimes detestable, and always engaging. In one moment he shares with Ramirez’ Versace, I could have sworn he was channeling Christian Bale’s portrayal of Patrick Bateman in American Psycho. And that’s one of the major things that sets Assassination apart from O.J.: it’s clear that Assassination will be spending much more time inside of the suspect’s head. In O.J. there were so many fascinating characters and so many unusual things going on that we often only viewed Cuba Gooding Jr.’s O.J. from other characters’ perspectives. Trust me: Assassination is not lacking in fascinating characters, but it does seem to be taking much more time to dwell on the actions of Cunanan than O.J. ever did with, well, O.J. - Horror News Network

Penelope Cruz, who is apparently a friend of Donatella’s and has her blessing, has a tall order to serve. First, the voice. Anyone who knows anything about Donatella Versace knows that her distinct looks comes with an equally distinct accent. Cruz has to play it believably, without dipping into caricature or being so true to life that the audience can’t understand her. Second, she finds herself playing the day to day villain for much of this. She’s the one who dislikes the boyfriend that we’ve all fallen in love with after the cops are so rude to him. She’s the one who cancels the IPO. She’s the one with a sizeable reputation preceding her. And yet, Cruz’s Donatella comes across as powerful, stricken, at a lost, and completely unwilling to lose an inch of her brother’s legacy. - Den of Geek

Seriously, though, this first episode of Versace is absolutely gorgeous. Just think about all of the lush images that pop out of the screen like an IMAX version of a Vogue issue. There’s the elegant pool of the opera singer’s sequin dress as she belts on stage. There’s Gianni Versace (Edgar Ramírez), delicately sipping his espresso from a black gilded cup, shot from above so his breakfast table is just off center of the Medusa logo that he made famous. There’s the hollow chime of crystal champagne flutes clinking together on the set at the opera. There’s Gianni’s sister Donatella (Penélope Cruz), with that famous platinum hair and doorknocker of a nose standing at the top of a little portico. And let us not forget that perfect peach emoji of an ass as Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss) strides into his roommate’s husband’s closet to steal a suit. - Vulture

Season two, by contrast, packs a gilded punch. The first episode bounces between the slaying of Versace to his first encounter, in a San Fransisco gay club, with Cunanan. The future killer is a Walter Mitty-like social climber whose life is wallpapered with so many habitual lies it’s unclear whether even he knows truth from fiction. Preppy of manner and soulless of gaze, he gives Murphy something the Simpson case lacked – an unambiguous villain scary even when he isn’t shooting dead international fashion designers. - Telegraph UK

But there’s pain in Andrew, too. Recall how he screams into the ocean water during his pre-slaying swim, how he vomits into a public toilet as he works up the nerve to pull the trigger. When he bullshits his way into Versace’s presence and winds up attending the opera for which he’s the costume designer, the music moves him to tears. After the show, he clearly wants to believe all the kind, supportive things Gianni is saying about him as they hang out on stage together. (And there’s every reason to believe Gianni means every word, him being such a mensch.) Andrew sucks people in with lies and sucks life out of his resulting proximity to wealth, glamour, sex, and power to fill a hole in his heart, yes, but his heart really does exist. He’s a vacuum, not a void. It’s a subtle distinction, but so far it seems to be a crucial one. - Decider

It is, rather, a bold, ambitious, riveting wrestling match between cultural shame and communal pride, in which glittering wedding gowns and glossy magazines, club hits and tank tops, are emblems for which we choose the meaning, just as we might choose to adopt as our own that unutterable word, that unforgivable commonplace, that useful descriptor—that reclamation. As the designer says of the “Versace bride,” preparing for a fashion show, “She won’t be dainty. She won’t be timid. She will be proud and strong.” I realize now, upon finishing what may be Murphy’s riskiest and most radiant gambit to date, that as I grow older, and more comfortable in my own skin, I’m not only able to hear the sentiment, but also to identify with it. - Paste Magazine (warning for slurs)

Other links:

Ricky Martin on ACS: Versace, Coming Out, and ‘Normalizing’ Open Relationships

Yahoo Entertainment’s meme recap

ACS Versace Soundtrack and Score Spotify Playlist

Fandom score: 9.255

Episode rank: #5

Behind the Scenes

[thecityonthemoon]

I never posted my planed commentary on the Darkhold comic, so let’s do it now:

Let’s start this by saying I just vaguely know the context of the comic. I will read the full thing one day, but this time I just wanted to see BB post-cursed comic. I do know this is… AU? some nightmare dimension? Anyway

I think I said it before, but getting BB narrating the whole thing in first person was such an experience! I guess it doesn’t happen more often to keep his air of mystery, and I kinda like the air of mystery, but I like getting to know what he’s thinking too.

“The thing about spending a lifetime in silence is that you often forget you have a voice”

Hmmm 🤔🤔🤔

This is a lot. First, are those two guys with Maximus and Medusa those two that eventually became Maximus’ minions? The blond one in red looks like Leonus, and the tree guy might be Timberius (I think there were other tree guys at some point too but if that’s Leonus, it makes sense this one is Timberius)

It looks like Max just took his friends to bully his brother. Or maybe they got curious and he agreed to show them. Anyway this could mean that this is the first time Medusa and BB saw each other! And Max was the one to introduce them! He played himself!

(Also note how Medusa is the only one that isn’t being mean. That’s cute.)

And BB’s narration highlights another thing I love in well-written siblings conflict: both parts are jealous of each other. Max is jealous of BB’s powers and him being the heir to the throne. BB is jealous of Max being free (and maybe also having friends). They’re both right that the other has something they don’t.

Also:

BB would gladly give up on his power for Max

Except his power is no gift, but a burden

He wouldn’t wish this burden on Max

Because he loves Max

Since we don’t get to hear from BB often, there are not many times in which we see him viewing his power as a burden, and I am in love with each of them. Also, had we ever seen him directly saying he loves Max before? Of course, his actions showed, but to read it makes me go 🥺

Also let’s not forget to mention Lockjaw being a good boy and loyal friend to BB

Lastly, if I recall correctly, both Leonus and Timberius were already criminals before becoming Max’ minions, so I wonder, if they were really Max’ friends in his youth, did their crimes have anything to do with him? Did they remain close as they grew up? Or did they only meet again that day when Max helped their group and made them his minions?

This shows BB’s memories, I think I recognize some battles. And the one in front not only has him and Medusa being super cute, but I think it’s from when she told him she was pregnant 🥺

And in the back there’s a teen BB with Lockjaw

I just love that both of these are there together with fighting Galactus

“Welcome to the world, brother. It is your world after all.”

Ouch.

Agon and Rynda (with a very accurate design to her original one) just smile as they watch it, probably missing the bitterness in Max’ tone. Another thing I love in fiction is parents who don’t realize the people their children are becoming.

Plot twist? What plot twist?

Just kidding. I felt like I was watching an episode of Twilight Zone. Wouldn’t it be fucked up if- yeah, it would, it fucked me up. Interesting that Max and BB have swapped places before (recently in Royals, when Max got BB sent to the space prison, and at least once before back when Attilan was on the moon and Max was believed to be dead), but never like this. Never in a way so permanent. So it feels in character for Max to come with a plan like this but it still manages to be chilling in a way the previous times weren’t.

Really like it. Canon or not, I am so stealing the flashback stuff for fics.

[xhellnhighheelsx]

List the angsty times she’s extra! Do it! Do it! Also, would you take meta prompts? I guess that’s just questions...but your metas are my fave, and I would read them all day everyday. P.S. still any plans to provide receipts for the Doctor’s and River’s irrevocable love? (Yes, that was my ask too ;)

Okay so here’s my emo companion to this post. 

I only picked a handful of moments cuz I wanted to get this to you quick so you don’t think I’m ignoring you lol and I will gladly accept all the meta prompts. Always. 

Let’s start at River’s beginning for this one, shall we?   

Kid Melody calls Nixon for night terrors. He ends up being entirely useless, but that’s government for you. I mean, technically the suit defaulted to the highest authority, so not exactly her fault, but lbr, River would. This gets glossed over a lot, and maybe that’s because it’s so sad.I don’t even have to dig for the angst here. Orphan girl, terrified, alone, cared for by a man whose sanity is unraveling before her very eyes. She watched him graffiti walls and his own skin, warning himself to get out, to get away. How much guilt does that put on a little girl? Unwanted. No friends. Nothing but isolation and a dusty room with paint chipping off the walls. Owned rather than loved. Swaddled by a suit meant only for murder. Other kids want a puppy, but little Melody begs the President of the United States, please, don’t let it eat me. She learns early on that going big is the only way to not be overlooked. 

Now I’m just wondering if the Silence fixed that little issue? If little Melody can call for help, did River? When she was trapped in that suit at the bottom of the lake, did she try to call the Tardis to warn the Doctor? Did he not answer his phone AGAIN? Did she leave a voicemail begging him not to come? Does 12 or 13 find it but can’t do a damn thing about it cuz these faces have to be a secret? Sorry, I spiraled.

Anyway, after she escaped, kid Melody also found an audience to regenerate in front of. She scared the daylights out of some poor homeless man because she was sick and, for once in her life, she didn’t want to die be alone. Think on that.

I won’t get into it too much cuz we’re all well aware, but friendly reminder that home girl actually broke time just to prove a point. She did it for love, yes, but she also did it for herself. She was done being a puppet. This is River saying the decisions she makes will happen on her terms and the universe learns it the hard way. While we’re at it, River has another go at changing time by that lake side by physically shooting at herself. And you know she tries because she is blinking back tears as she says, “of course not.” If the shooting is just for show, why does she say that? This scene is the cause of a lot of diverging headcanons because it either means, River doesn’t remember the events that took place in the aborted timeline and is still trying to change time and create another paradox. Or she does remember and she’s just that self loathing. Or secret option C, she’s faking it for the Ponds, which is it’s own brand of ansty extraness. Basically, pick your poison. They’re all bitter and hard to swallow. 

There’s a lot of controversy around The Big Bang and what River remembers and what not, but let’s consider this for a second: assuming she does genuinely think the universe will close with the Doctor on the other side, she’s agreeing to let her whole life be rewritten. Mind, this is the same woman that later DIES to protect her life and memories with the Doctor. Amy, Rory, and 11 don’t realize it at the time, but when River lets the Doctor climb into the Pandorica and fly it into the heart of the TARDIS, she’s taking the risk of never existing herself. She says, he hardly knows her and now he never will, but what she means is River Song will disappear and Melody Williams will take her place. She is literally self sacrificing at every opportunity. 

Another casual reminder: Remember that time she broke her wrist and tried to hide it because heaven forbid she be mortal for five seconds? And then slapped her husband because he has the audacity to love her? Yup, extra. The entire episode of THORS. If you want a crash course on how to make a scene, this is the ep for you. She makes her entrance by wearing a bright red Mrs. Claus cloak and threatens to remove peoples vital organs. Iconic. And then she follows it up with an overdramatic display of how her “love” will rise again. Meanwhile her medusa hair is just tingling with excitement over how close she is to murdering this sucker of a king. 

Anyway, back to the angst. Her speech is the obvious choice here and we’ve all cried over it a thousand times. She could have ranted about anything to kill time before the meteor strike. She could have laughed about how you can’t trust that slippery fellow, Jim, the fish. She could have listed the inaccuracies of the Byzantium movie, gone on for ten minutes of how it really went down and oh by the way, I’m one of only three survivors and I hunt weeping angels for fun. Forget the Doctor, I’m far more dangerous than he is. She could have bragged about her significant history of escaping. That would have made the most sense, considering that’s literally what she’s about to do. hahaha here’s my master plan and you can’t do a damn thing to stop it. Toodaloo suckers. Enjoy being deep fried.  

But she doesn’t. She talks about the Doctor, as if convincing a room full of strangers he doesn’t love her will save him from danger. Maybe she even convinces herself because she feels responsible for her parents. Maybe she steals diamonds and acts like a thief because she is one. Maybe she feels like she stole something from the Doctor and she tells herself he doesn’t give a damn because he’s better off without her. Moral of the story, he’s always her first thought in a crisis. How can I protect him, how can I save him? Even when he’s not around to see it. She’s so damaged affected by their love affair that it’s second nature for River to scream into the void that the people she loves most don’t give a damn about her. It doesn’t matter (that they’re her parents). You don’t expect a sunset to admire you back. is it a defense mechanism because everyone she loves leaves her? Probably. But only someone who’s extra shouts about their insecurities to a room full of criminals. 

And on a slightly less obvious note, when River and 12 first land on Starship Super Villains R Us, was it really necessary for her to blatantly incriminate herself? She tells what she thinks is some random guy about how this ship is full of despicable people, planet burners and murders and criminals. And then she gives him an icy stare and says, do try the fish. A neon sign of I come here often. In no way was it necessary to inform this guy that she has no qualms with murder. But she does because if she wants to believe her own lie, that she’s heartless and cold, she has to convince others first.    

And last but not least, she straight up haunted her husband’s ass. Ex👏tra👏. Now whether you believe the haunting was full time or just in TNOTD, you can’t deny that the look on her face when she says he left her like a book on a shelf. She didn’t have to follow Eleven and Clara through the tomb explaining things to Clara, but she does. She doesn’t have to flirt with the Doctor and give him the come hither eyes even though she thinks he can’t see/hear her. But she does. Cuz she’s extra.

[furederiko]

The third and final 'Lucky Seven' date of the month (07.27.17, right?)! And the final Random-News-Digest for July! Today's R-N-D is also Part 2 (of 2) of the San Diego Comic Con International 2017 related coverage. This time around, they are all things Marvel-ous. Excelsior...!!!

NOTE: Since the whole page will be entirely Marvel related, it will be written chronologically to their SDCC schedule. Each title will also be assigned in its own category, not grouped into 'Marvel Studios' and 'Marvel TV' like I've always done. Oh, and the images used above are obviously courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter and Marvel Studios Visual Development Team (that one's Ryan Meinerding's art to be precise). All credits goes to their respective owners! Long story short, I suffered a blackout TWO times when I was writing this. Forcing me to start over and over again all day. That's why I haven't had time to actually proofread it (as well as the 1st Part). I'll try to do that as soon as possible, but please pardon for any tipo or grammatical error if you happen to stumble into any. Thanks in advance!

Marvel's Inhumans

Marvel TV and ABC Studios led Marvel's SDCC 2017 big panel on July 20th, by headlining "LEGION", their collaboration with FX Network. A bit odd if you ask me, considering that's a FOX product... but never mind that. Marvel TV Head Jeph Loeb then continued the presentation on 06:15 PM PST, by bringing the cast of the upcoming "Inhumans" series to same venue, Ballroom 20.

Loeb reentered while wearing that hideous Medusa's wig, a clear but hopefully unintentional attempt to spite those fans who have been criticizing it. To be honest, that was NOT a cool thing to do, especially for someone who would received an award by the SDCC commitee the day after. He welcomed showrunner the almighty Scott Buck, drector Roel Reine, and actors Anson Mount, Iwan Rheon, Serinda Swan, Eme Ikwuakor, Isabelle Cornish, Ken Leung, Ellen Woglom, Sonya Balmores, and Mike Moh, who were all holding a stuffed Lockjaw doll in their hand. The panel then showed several exclusive footage from the first couple of episodes. Some bits of those would later be released online via Marvel Entertainment's channel as a new trailer. Now about that new trailer...

Seriously?!! For the love of Lockjaw, it was indeed better with the VFX, but worse with all the ridiculous corniness and campiness that made me feel... embarassed as I seen it. And here I thought The CW's Arrowverse were already somewhat corny. And THAT song choice? Others might... like it, but it was totally NOT my cup of tea. Clearly, it was an attempt to emulate the style of James Gunn and the retro tune aspect of "Guardians of the Galaxy". But... one that failed miserably in my dictionary. It was grating so much on my nerves all through the trailer, that I had to put it on MUTE the second time I played it again (with the intention to get some screengrab, but decided to lose that thought and rinse it out of my head right away). Not only Scott Buck is faulty as a showrunner, I do think he has poor taste in style and music.

Fans got what they wanted, as in to see the VFX effects on Medusa's hair in action. Unfortunately, I have a weird STROOONG feeling that those effects, as well as the others' abilities, will be most of the VFX we'll see in the show. Why? Remember "Iron Fist"? That series had waaay too many chit-chat and dialogues, that all the cool scenes were already spoiled in its trailers. I'm concerned the same thing is happening with this show too. Since we're speaking about VFX, I wonder if this is the final product? For some reason, this felt cheap and fake. I'd be VERY surprised if Mark Kolpac and his team are the one behind this, considering the ones he developed for Marvel's "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." looked way sophisticated and believable. I'd gladly take Robbie Reyes' Ghost Rider transformation scene or Daisy Johnson's quaking anytime, over what this series had shown me so far.

Apparently, this extended trailer would be played alongside Christopher Nolan's "Dunkirk" screenings on IMAX theatres. Personally? I'm not sure if that's even a wise decision, considering this didn't even scream IMAX-worthy. Then again, IMAX is paying for this show, so of course, the studio has to deliver one, right? But if you ask me to pay to see it? I'll totally pass. Once again, no disregard, but... just not my cup of tea. Marvel's "Inhumans" will debut on September 1st, 2017 on IMAX Theatre for two weeks. The same footage will then premiere with additional scenes on September 29th, 2017 on ABC.

Marvel's Runaways

This one didn't actually arrived on SDCC 2017, but the news hit the market the same day the "Inhumans" panel took place. Coincidence much? I doubt. "Runaways", the show that was once reported to be released in 2018, will be arriving MUCH sooner than expected. Hulu unveiled the Fall Premiere dates for their exclusive shows, and guess what? "Runaway" is among them, set to be released in November! Of course, it's a good news, even if I won't be able to see it. From the looks of it, this series will be even more faithful to the source material than say, "Inhumans", notable because the comic writer himself is involved directly in it. So assuming the worse happens, that "Inhumans" turns out to be a bad show, Marvel TV already has something to counter the possible negative impact by delivering this in just two months after. Who knows, this might be the show that Marvel TV and Marvel fans in general has been waiting for. I think it's safe to say we can expect that (once leaked) trailer to officially arrive very soon. All (?) 10 episodes of "Runaways" Season 1 will premiere on November 21st, 2017.

Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite

Let's take a quick detour to the game zone now. This time, for Marvel's popular crossover fighting game with CAPCOM. Yes, the highly anticipated but sadly much criticized franchise had its own dedicated panel on July 21st, 11:15 AM PST at Room 6BCF. CAPCOM used the opportunity to announce four more playable character to the core launch roster. Friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man as representative from Marvel, while Frank West of "Dead Rising", Nemesis of "Resident Evil", and Mike Haggar of "Final Fight" entered the arena from the CAPCOM side. A gameplay video featuring these characters was later debuted through the game's official channel.

It's actually a bit ironic that only ONE Marvel character was revealed in this event. Not to mention, one that is partially a SONY property. I would've expected Marvel to ask CAPCOM to at least, deliver more Marvel characters, particularly new ones that hasn't been part of the franchise like Gamora or Black Panther. Instead, all four of these characters are known to be 'veterans' in the franchise, having been featured in at least one iteration in the past. So yeah, not really a wise decision if you ask me. But who am I to argue, right? "Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite" will be released for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on September 19th, 2017.

Marvel's The Defenders

Netflix held their 2nd grand Hall H presentation on July 21st, 05:15 PM PST, and of course, it's for one of their most popular series: the Marvel Netflix-verse. Before the panel got to its big event, Loeb became the star of show as he was awarded with "Inkpot Award" for his excellence in comics and television. I'm not too keen on the guy anymore, but it was a good moving moment, and I'm happy for him.

It didn't take long for the spotlight to be taken away from him though, because actor Jon Bernthal showed up, stealing all attention as the panel's first surprise. He also delivered the first exclusive footage from his upcoming series, Marvel's "The Punisher" (is it... this one?). From what I've read online, the team behind this show had successfully and also faithfully continued Frank Castle's arc from Marvel's "Daredevil" Season 2. I got the feeling, that they have managed to create an amazing balance to Castle's dual emotional struggle. One of his loneliness and grieve over losing his beloved family, and one that is anger and vengeance and he mercilessly track down those who are responsible for it. Sure, the big boss of said violent operation was already executed in "Daredevil", but he DID bring an army to do the crime. That means more people for Castle to hunt!

I still think it's a fatal mistake that he's not included as a fifth member of "The Defenders". He could have added an entirely new dark and gritty color to the team, especially because everyone knows he's waaaay more welcomed than one of its core members. I can't help but wonder though, was Bernthal's presence in the panel, served as a subtle confirmation that he would be in it after all? Not to mention, that recent Netflix Korea featurette (that felt special because it's personally narrated by the great Stan Lee) also included his character. I think he'll be a great addition to the team-up mini-series, and I'd be pretty disappointed if he doesn't even show up... at least for a minor supporting role. Oh well, fans of Castle can still wait for "The Punisher" when it arrives in November.

Cast for "The Defenders" then reclaimed their stage, alongside showrunner Marco Ramirez. All four lead actors, Charlie Cox of "Daredevil", Krysten Ritter of Marvel's "Jessica Jones", Mike Colter of Marvel's "Luke Cage", and Finn Jones of Marvel's "Iron Fist" were obviously present. Deborah Ann Woll from "Daredevil", and Jessica Henwick from "Iron Fist" represented the supporting cast. And Elodie Yung of "Daredevil" was there with Sigourney Weaver as the mini-series antagonists. They teased some bits of the plot, but more importantly debuted a new official second trailer for attendees to see. This one felt more clearer, as Weaver's Alexandra dished out her goal and intention to New York. It showed more ass-kicking action, and more importantly, the characters bouncing off one another in their personal quirks. That's actually the highlight of this trailer, IMHO. By the way, the trailer's already available on Netflix's official channel, in case you've missed it somehow.

But this is Marvel, and even if it's a TV divison, it's not their habit to not show exclusive footage for attendees. So they did, but rather than showing a clip or two, they actually screened the entirety of the first episode for the audience! This wasn't a new thing for Marvel TV, but THAT's what I call exclusive. Several sites have since published their early review for the mini-series after SDCC 2017 ended. These journalist have been allowed access to the first half, or first 4 episodes in advance. In general, they praised the chemistry between the heroes, one that rivaled even the Avengers. But they also unanimously pointed out that Marvel TV hasn't really learned from their mistake: it took TOO LONG to see them finally teaming up. Apparently, it will take a while to catch up with what they are doing after their respective series, which is a bit odd, since the benefit of Netflix is anyone can always re-watched those previous series anytime they want. Oh, and that Jones' Danny Rand is the weakest link and lamest part of the series.

Aaaah, yes, speaking of Rand, the panel delivered a news that I found to be... quite unbelieveable. "Iron Fist" is getting a Season 2. Yay... I guess? I'm quite shocked to see that Netflix actually has faith for this show, even if it's among the lowest Rotten Tomatoes score for a TV show. And particularly, when other Netflix-exclusive shows with higher scores were getting cancelled one after another. It's pretty much the most hated entry of the Marvel Netflix-verse, and it... actually shows.

On the bright side (or... is it? Hmmmm), since the Unparalleled-Talent Scott Buck is busy ruini... I mean, messing aroun... er, WORKING with "The Inhumans", Raven Metzner of the recently cancelled (oh... no...) "Sleepy Hollow" has been assigned to take over as the new showrunner. That means we can at least expect some drastic improvement to the series. Perhaps, we'll be seeing the actual DRAGON (not bulbs) form of Shou-Lao? Lest we forget, "Sleepy Hollow" is an actual SUPERNATURAL show! Simone Missick's Misty Knight has even been hinted to be part of it, and hopefully form "Daughters of the Dragon" with Henwick's Colleen Wing. That fact alone is enough to make me rethink my decision to not give it a HUGE PASS prematurely.

On the down side? There goes my wish for a "Heroes for Hire" team-up. Even if it MIGHT end up happening in the future, perhaps as a direct continuation of both 2nd Seasons of "Luke Cage" and "Iron Fist", the soonest it would arrive is in 2019. I'm not even sure I'm still onboard with this Netflixverse when the time comes. Oh well, let's just worry and rant about that later. For now, we can anticipate to see Danny, along with the other Defenders very soon. All 8 episodes of "The Defenders" arrives on August 18th, 2017.

Avengers: Black Panther Quest

I actually didn't planned to venture into the Marvel Animation category, but since it has an interesting news, I've decided to include a quick one. Yes, the animation division took the Room 6A's stage on July 22nd, 12:30 PM PST, to talk about their future works. One of it, was of course the upcoming Marvel's "Spider-Man" series (premiered the next day, on July 23rd), that's clearly heavily inspired by "Spider-Man: Homecoming". What I didn't expect though, is that they've already announced a renewal the "Avengers Assemble" series! The current 4th Season entitled "Avengers: Secret Wars" had only started airing last month!

And yes, if the new announced subtitle wasn't clear enough for your, the 5th Season will be focused on T'Challa. Does this mean, he will be the leader of the New Avengers in the series? Or this new season will take place entirely in Wakanda, you know, as a synergy to the live action movie that will be premiered in the same year? I can't really tell. I even wonder why they aren't focusing with the Avengers, to coincide with "Avengers: Infinity War". Curious indeed...

LEGO: Marvel Super Heroes 2

One more side mission before we move on to the movies (which is arguably the best categories of all Marvel's participation in SDCC 2017, of course). It's... video game time again! The gang from TT Games this time, as they took over a July 22nd stage at Room 6A, on 01:45 PM PST. In their pannel, they delivered a brand new trailer that featured... Kang the Conqueror. Does this mean, the time-travelling super villain is the culprit behind the game's reality and timeline mash-up? Very likely. Can he top the menace of Galactus from the first game, though? We'll see. "LEGO: Marvel Super Heroes 2" will be released on November 14th, 2017.

Ant-Man and the Wasp

Pheww, now we've arrived on the main menu, as Marvel Studios completed the July 22nd Marvel ride with their grand Hall H presentation starting on 05:30 PM PST. It started 15 minutes late though, due to previous panel running off schedule.

Sequel to 2015's beloved "Ant-Man" got the privilege to kickstart Marvel Studios' panel this year! And yes, that's the official title now. It's no longer "Ant-Man & the Wasp" like was shown in the Disney D23 Expo. Turns out that's merely a placeholder title. Unfortunately, the cast couldn't make it to SDCC 2017, because they are busy in Atlanta filming the movie. Actress Evangeline Lilly had already confirmed this via twitter when SDCC began. But that doesn't mean, it didn't bring anything to the panel. Marvel Studios President, Kevin Feige himself delivered a humorous video by Paul Rudd and Michael Peña, to make up for their absence.

Rudd is a natural-born comedic (not to mention, charmingly adorable) actor, and Peña also has been hiding a bonafide comedic talent all these time (not to mention, equally adorable LOL). So obviously, this exclusive video that has them narrating Marvel Studios' movies since the first "Iron Man" was an easy crowd-pleasing hoot. You've really got to hand it to these guys, because reading the description (via ComingSoon live blog) alone was already making me giggling like crazy. All those meta jokes! Seriously, if there's any exclusive footage from this panel I ever want Marvel to release online, it's definitely THIS one.

But best of all, just like any Marvel Studios' movie, even this footage brought a twist of its own. Because it was later revealed that the duo was NOT dishing out this Marvel Cinematic Universe 'recap' to the SDCC audience (of course they are, but you know the drill). Nope, apparently they were 'educating' a third person in front of them, which was... Michelle Pfeiffer!!! ...Who was officially unveiled to be playing Janet van Dyne. SAY WHAAAT??!!! Dang, this was definitely the coolest casting reveal that the studio ever pulled off. Nope, make that 'yet another cool reveal', because remember when Chadwick Boseman was announced as T'Challa? Or Josh Brolin as Thanos? Last year's Brie Larson? Yessss... Marvel Studios is indeed the king of showmanship. No wonder their Hall H panel is always highly anticipated. In case you're not Marvel educated, Janet is the wife of Michael Douglas' Hank Pym, and the mother of Lilly's Hope van Dyne/Pym. Similar to Pym, she was the original Wasp before the suit was naturally passed down to Hope. She was absent in the first movie, because she was lost in the Quantum Realm, and the subplot between Hank and Hope in that movie was the side-effect to that incident. In the comics, her Wasp was the actual founder of the Avengers! Getting Pfeiffer to portray her is a dream come true for fans, and also the actors. Marvel Studios had truly done it again!

That's not all. There's another surprise from this movie. Feige confirmed that both Hannah John-Kamen and Walton Goggins are in the movie, and they are playing comic book character. The former is a famous Marvel antagonist called the Ghost (who as far as I know of, is never unmasked in the comics), while the latter plays Sonny Burch, a CEO of Cross Corporation with connection to... Obadiah Stane. Ouucch!! He already screams antagonist for me. But wait, there's another one, and it's the famous... Laurence Fishburne! Guess who he's playing? Dr. William Foster, a.k.a the superhero Black Goliath. I know that Foster's name has come up in the rumor circuit prior to SDCC, but who would've imagined Marvel Studios would be getting Fishburne to play him. After "Doctor Strange", and then "Black Panther" with their stellar casting, now this movie joined the parade with its truly giant cast!

According to Feige, MCU's Foster will be Michael Douglas' Hank Pym associate. Easy money says that he's the one responsible for Rudd's Scott Lang's Giant-Man ability in "Captain America: Civil War". Perhaps, that stunt displeased Foster, and caused a rift between him and Pym? Goodness, the potential for drama is exciting! And speaking of Pym, could we be seeing him donning the shrinking suit into action? Recent behind the scene reports seem to be hinting that direction. Imagine how great it would be, if he's using Darren Cross' Yellowjacket costume. That would be a neat faithful nod to the source material! Beside, the movie can even debut their own size-shifting Avengers team, assuming Foster gets to suit up as Goliath as well.

The first official concept art poster courtesy of Andy Park, was later released on the Marvel booth. And it was amazing! Lang is clearly Giant-Man, adding further connection to Foster's inclusion in the movie, while Lilly's Hope van Dyne shows her moxie as the fierce superheroine Wasp. Gotta love that new hairdo too! I personally loved the first movie, and I'm totally crossing my fingers that this sequel will more amazing. "Ant-Man and the Wasp" arrives on July 6th, 2018.

Captain Marvel

"Captain Marvel" was up next, and boy... this one sure unleashed its own might. Still flying solo without the accompaniment of any cast members (since only one has been cast), Feige unveiled a few concept arts from the movie, starting with one of Brie Larson's costume. It was faithful to the modern comics' version, but has some tactical elements that resemble those of Captain America's suit. That fan-artist rendition that hit the internet long ago? That was almost accurate.

He then confirmed the report that Samuel L. Jackson will be reprising his role as Nick Fury in the movie... but with both eyes open. Wait, how? Does he get an eye implant or something? Courtesy of Tony Stark, perhaps? Nope. Because the movie will be set in... the 1990s. This reveal undoubtedly sent tidal wave of surprise throughout the audience, as well as the internet. But it got even better, when Feige unveiled that Larson's Carol Danvers will be dealing with... the Skrulls. This namedropping was purely unexpected, because many (including yours truly) thought that the shape-shifting alien-race belongs to FOX, having been heavily associated with their Fantastic Four franchise. And Feige was not lying, because a concept art of the antagonistic species was then shown to the attendees. It IS indeed the Skrulls! Feige later hinted that the movie will address why this alien race hasn't been seen until now.

Fans of the comics would easily understand the connection to Skrulls and Captain Marvel. Danvers received her powers from Mar-Vell, who is a Kree alien. And the Kree and Skrulls have been fighting wars against each other for centuries. Interestingly, this whole reveal has raised numerous questions among the fanbase. Like: Why the Skrulls? Does this mean, the origin story secretly serves like a pseudo-"Secret Invasion" movie? Does this mean, among the characters we've seen until now, some of them might NOT be the real ones, and purely Skrull disguises? Or does this serve as a hint, that the 2019 Avengers movie will in fact be... "Avengers: Secret Invasion"? More importantly, if Carol Danvers has been active since the 90s, WITH her cosmic powers and all... why hasn't she been around? What has she been doing in almost 30 years? Why didn't Fury call her when Loki rained down Chitauri in 2009 (Fun Fact: "The Avengers" was set a year after "Iron Man")? And also... why is she NOT part of "Infinity War"? Or... she is? Hmmmm...

So many questions, and still 1,5 years for answers. If you ask me, then my personal speculation is... Danvers is basically NOT on Earth. Perhaps, in the aftermath of her solo movie, she was given a mission deep in space? Perhaps she joins the Kree and help fight the Skrulls... in their home planet? Or perhaps... captured? Or... have fun and funky galactic adventures? The temporal differences between Earth and other planet, will provide a valid science that she's aging slower. Perhaps, one hour there, is one year on Earth? Through this scenario, she'll work as the second Captain America figure, being 'lost in time'. Even better, she could have lost her powers all these years, which has happened before in the comics, and Fury helps her to regain her power in "Avengers 4". What I'm trying to say is, this fascinating choice of setting just opens up worlds of possibilities. "Captain Marvel" is set to start production early next year in California, and will arrive on March 8th, 2019. And just be honest, we are all intrigued about it, right? *grins*

There's a quick break following this part of the panel, because SDCC director of programming Eddie Ibrahim arrived on stage to deliver a surprise. Yes, just like Jeph Loeb, Kevin Feige was awarded an "Inkpot Award" for achievements in movies. No offense to the other guy, but this one is far more appropriate IMHO. Not only Feige has delivered the first fully-working Cinematic Universe in Hollywood, producing beloved critically-acclaimed movies every year, his move has inspired other studios to... create their own Cinematic Universe. That's a massive accomplishment, if you ask me, and he clearly deserves it. So bravo, Feige, hope you'll keep on working in the MCU for more many years to come.

Thor: Ragnarok

After the dust had settled, and cheering crowd had subsided, Feige and moderator Chris Hardwick continued the presentation by summoning... the Asgardians to the stage. Director Taika Waititi arrived with lead actor Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Tom Hiddleston, Tessa Thompson, Cate Blanchett, Jeff Goldblum, Karl Urban, and surprise addition in Rachel House. By the way, this was likely just a small set of core cast members, because there might be more actors having brief supporting roles in the movie. Considering Waititi is famous for his eccentric style of comedy, this part of the panel... was another round of hoot. Hemsworth said that he's bored after playing the same character five times, and wanted to... push himself. Either that's the truth or a joke, is rather unclear. Waititi then replied that he decided to tackle this movie, to help 'a friend in need', which was a fun jab towards Hemsworth. Blanchett added, that she also got the part because she lives in the same continent to Waititi. LOL. Then came Urban, who's a fellow New Zealander to Waititi, with another Australian neighbour joke.

Ruffalo revealed that his green giant persona Hulk prefers to stays that way, and not return into puny Bruce Banner in this movie. Hiddleston said that ever since the ending of "Thor: The Dark World", his Loki has been masquerading as the All Father Odin. That proved to ignite problem, particularly with Blanchett's Hela. Goldblum confirmed that his character The Grandmaster, is the brother of Benicio del Toro's The Collector. They are the oldest being of the universe. His tournament on Planet Sakaar? It is called... "Contest of Champions". Hulk is his champion, and Thor will be called "Lord of Thunder" in the ring. House, also a New Zealander (she voiced Gramma Tala in Disney's "Moana", in case her name sounds familiar) is a frequent collaborator of Waititi. In this movie, she played the assistant of The Grandmaster, named Topaz. Apparently, her character has some hidden beef with the other assistant, who is Thompson's Valkyrie. Thompson also teased the enigmatic nature of her character.

The cast kept bouncing off one another. So suffice to say, it sounded like a fun and warm set of people, that you totally want to hang out with. Just look at the photos of them on stage, and one can easily tell that seeing Hemsworth bromancing with Ruffalo and Waititi was indeed a delight. And the chemistry between these cast members easily infected the movie itself, as proven by several exclusive footages from the movie, exclusively shown for the attendees. The first showed Thor's first meeting with The Grandmaster. He then was tossed into a holding cell, where he encountered Korg, a rock-shaped character with a gentle voice, who was played by Waititi himself. The last footage, showed Thor's first encounter with Hulk in the arena. That last one then transitioned into a new trailer, that has since been made available online via Marvel Entertainment.

That trailer was pure amazing, it brought Hall H to their feet. It confirmed the appearance of both Fenris Wolf and Surtur, as both of them will be dealt by Ruffalo's Hulk. If in "Spider-Man: Homecoming", Michael Keaton had his Adrian Toomes so grounded that he felt like that ordinary neighbour you occasionally ran into every now and then, Cate Blanchett gets to hamm it up with so much sass and slurr for Hela, to the point of turning her into genuine scary and intimidating. The bromancing rivalry between Thor and Hulk, would easily be the gem of the movie. But what I truly love about this trailer, is the vibrant vivid colors that made your eyes glare in awe. Yes, not unlike that psychedelic new official poster. Thor might have had a rough time with his first two solo movies, but this time around, he (and Team Thor) seems to be having lots of fun and a blast. Even Variety has included this panel as one of their best highlight of this year's SDCC.

One last thing, Collider caught up with Waititi after the panel, and asked some bits about the movie. It was there that Waititi revealed, that "Thor: Ragnarok" might be... the SHORTEST MCU movie to date. He stated that "The cut right now, I reckon it’s about 100 minutes. It’s not gonna be a very, very long film. I think that stories are better when you leave them wanting more, and this film moves at a clip, it’s got stuff happening all the time. I think people are still gonna feel exhausted by the end, they’ve been on this big journey and stuff, so I don’t think we need the film to be three hours.". But rest assured, because he said that there would be plenty of "Great scenes. Funny, funny moments" that will go as 'Deleted Scenes' in the home video version. For now, look forward to the movie itself in theatres, November 3rd, 2017.

Black Panther

As the Asgardians exited stage right, a horde of Wakandan claimed their land!

Ryan Coogler brought his A-list stars to the stage. Lead actor Chadwick Boseman lead the pack of Lupita Nyong'o, Danai Gurira, Michael B. Jordan, Daniel Kaluuya, Letitia Wright, Winston Duke, and two veteran actors in Andy Serkis, and Forest Whitaker. Coogler opened up about his first experience with the character Black Panther, admitting that he's usually on the other side of the panel, sitting as audience (he did, he was present during WB's panel). Similar to the "Thor: Ragnarok" side, each actor shared their experience in the movie, as well as tidbits of their character. Jordan in particular, revealed that his Erik Killmonger returned to Wakanda, to reclaim her role as a Prince. And why is that? Because the movie will be set directly after the fallout of "Captain America: Civil War". So in a way, similar in timeline to "Spider-Man: Homecoming". With King T'Chaka gone, turmoils began to grow from the inside, as Boseman's T'Challa isn't deemed ready to be a king. Perhaps, a consequence of to his avenging stint in "Civil War"?

Coogler then delivered a completely exclusive footage, that was only shown for the SDCC 2017 attendees. The first one featured a James Bond-esque operation, where T'Challa, escorted by Nyong'o's Nakia and Gurira's Okoye, attempted to take down Serkis' Ulyssess Klaue who has been smuggling Vibranium from Wakanda. Clearly, "Avengers: Age of Ultron" was the solid proof to that. As well as Klaue's prosthetic hand, of course. Martin Freeman's Everett Ross was involved in this scene, as he hillariously screamed himself into hiding. Another footage showed T'Challa, suited up as the Black Panther, in an epic car chase. Wright's Shuri was also seen designing and perhaps weaponizing the Panther suit. Killmonger, was also seen donning his own black/gold color battle suit.

The entire footage had the audience floored, as they immediately jumped to their feet to praise and cheer as soon as it ended. Not just them, the cast hasn't had the chance to see it either. So the stage equally erupted in joy and thrills, as each cast members began embracing one another, celebrating the massive work they've just witnessed. The reaction was magical if you ask me, but also completely real that it actually moved me the first time I saw it. The expression of joy and achievement was genuine! Suffice to say, it was special, and the movie IS going to be special. Not unlike that grand looking poster that was handed out for each attendees.

Obviously, I couldn't commented more since that footage was exclusive for SDCC audience. Yet it's more than clear, that Coogler, his actors, and Marvel Studios weren't playing around. Having long standing ovation was a true sign of greatness, and I hope this movie is as worthy as T'Challa to be the king. Let's cross our fingers, with the hopes that that truly will be the case. "Black Panther" arrives in February 16th, 2018.

Avengers: Infinity War

After a brief teasing by Feige, director Joe Russo appeared on stage to wrap up the panel. He delivered the official trailer for "Infinity War", that had previously been screened to the D23 Expo audience. Remember, the attendees of SDCC 2017 Hall H might not be the same 6500-7000 people. I believe only a very a small portion of those audience showed up in both events, and they are mostly journalists. The reaction on Hall H, was pretty much the same, as everyone got carried away emotionally. It was a perfect way to end the successful panel.

On the other hand, the reaction online was... somewhat opposite. Some fans immediately began complaining because unlike another studio (like... WB?), Marvel Studios did not release this trailer online. A leaked trailer has even surfaced for a few span of time on social media! Yes, this IS the internet we're talking about, so I'm not even surprised. But honestly? I think this was still NOT a good attitude. A bit unfair, even. When you think about the effort and hardship the SDCC attendees had to endure, spending all those long hours lining up, just to be a part of a giant panel like Marvel Studios'? It would make sense that they are given an exclusive first look for the trailer, right? And that's precisely what Marvel Studios was doing. HAS been doing for years, to be precise.

Unlike other studio that instantly released the footage online, Feige and his team were treating their guests as VIP customers. Thus allowing them to experience exclusive footages first hand, meeting the cast, and receiving official posters. Logically speaking, that was actually something to be applauded for. Beside, as I said last week... I'm not sure my heart is literally ready to see "Infinity War" trailer just yet. I did check out that poor-quality leak, but immediately stopped halfway because I couldn't handle it. This movie might signal an end of an era, and it might also be the final time we'll be seeing some of our favorite characters in the big screen. So yeah, to be completely honest... I'm VERY anxious about it instead. I would rather see that comedic Rudd x Peña video over such suspense!

Regardless, there was one thing that I actually felt disappointed about. In a way, I was half-expecting some if not all of cast to show up, just like what happened in Disney D23 Expo (that was just 1/3 of them all, apparently). Perhaps, the then-absent actors like Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, and more would take turn and showed up this time. Especially when we realize the fact that "Infinity War" will be released a few months BEFORE the next SDCC next year. Such a wasted of opportunity, right? Alas, that's not the case, so my wish of seeing another massive photoshoot of the cast like last year was too good to be true. Oh well, I guess I'll have to make do with the Asgardians meet Wakandans family photo above. Can't help but wonder though, is Marvel Studios going to held an exclusive private event prior to the movie's release? Next year's the studio's official 10-Year Anniversary celebration, so it would be cool to see all the cast reunited in one huge gala. That might be a bit of tall order, eh? LOL.

Anyways, we did get a few bits and teases about the movie after the panel. That's because the directors and cast members had a quick interview session with the journalists, as has always been the case. Boseman said, that Black Panther will be an important factor in the movie. According to Joe, the movie's final act will be so massive, that he considered it to be a staggering level of scale. He also revealed the necessity of the Black Order, as they serve as some sort of mini-bosses prior to Thanos. At the same time, he's also hoping Thanos would be the new Darth Vader for the modern era.

Oh and yeah, the movie might be among the longest MCU movie to date. "The current cut is over 2 ½, yes. Most of it is a movie you can show. Still a lot of work left to be done... It's certainly going to be a film that lives in the two and a half, two and a half plus range", he said. Make perfect sense really, since it will be dealing with soooo many characters. Even that special SDCC interconnected posters (courtesy of Ryan Meinerding) felt jammed-packed with characters (I didn't see Ant-Man though, I wonder why). We can even expect "Avengers 4" to be the same, since it will also be packed with LOTS of characters. Wow, I need to take a deep breath just hearing that! "Avengers: Infinity War" will be released on May 4th, 2018. I hope when the time comes, my heart would be ready... *sigh*