#more directly I think the first season is such a fucking disaster at exploring the role of women and power on the imperial scale

[sforzesco]

Hey what’s your opinion on the show domina if you have seen it?

I don’t like it!

[constelationprize]

can you tell us about any wips that are kevjean or kerejean?

I loved the snippets for the gothic horror au and I’d love more of your writing about them

I do have a kevjean WIP there's very near and dear to my heart that I haven't talked much about before. Or maybe I have I honestly don't remember and it's two am and I should be looking at trees so bear with me, okay?

quiet out loud is my Raven exposé kevjean fic. I started writing it before TSC was even announced so I had a very specific vision for kevjean's future I still intend to stick to, but there is a planned plot point I suspect the second book will touch on, so I'm waiting to see how that turns out so I can spin it in this AU.

But anyway it's about reuniting with your ex crush/best friend/trauma bonded cat on the absolutely worst circumstances possible. It's also, not exactly my two cents because I'm not that self important, but a exploration of scandals involving famous people (especially when it's around traumatic subjects) and how the public reaction to that can often be Fucking Weird.

Anyway here, have a snippet of Kevin Day taken five seconds before disaster struck:

He remembered looking over his shoulder in the last quarter and seeing one of the PAs whispering something at Coach Marinho’s ear, and how her eyebrows nearly disappeared on her hairline. Kevin had a second to frown, and wondered if maybe Park’s sprain on the first quarter ended up more serious than it looked, but then Celia was rebounding the ball his way and he had to move on. The Dragonflies won, as expected, 8-5. Kevin scored three of those goals, and his shoulder was only faintly aching when they filed out of the court and into the Away locker room. He had gotten a bad check on the first game of the playoffs that had him worried for a minute, there. He was just toweling off his hair when he noticed the uncommon silence around him. His team is usually quite chatty, even if he himself doesn’t participate very often. Seven years out of the Foxes taught Kevin some manners, and he learned to keep his post-game opinions to himself when not directly asked, which mainly meant not talking at all. Still, he liked to listen to the friendly chatter of his teammates as background noise, and its sudden absence was jarring. So was looking up to find them all staring at him. “Can I help you?” No one seemed inclined to talk, and all eyes turned to their captain. Jordan Park, backliner, main draw of the Dragonflies’ strong defense line and one of the only players with seniority over Kevin in the team. In fact, he had been a senior with the Jackals when Kevin was in his freshman year – the Ravens won their match, but Park was a good share of the reason why it was only by a hair. Eleven years was on the longer end of a pro backliner career, and with the frequency which minor checks on Park turned into injuries lately, he likely didn’t have a lot of seasons left in him. Kevin tried not to flex his shoulder. “Uh, Day,” He stammered, and if Kevin was on edge before, the hesitant tone made him want to hurl. “Maybe you should check your phone.” Kevin's first instinct was to think, My dad. He was fishing his phone out of the locker, powering it up and watching with fascinated dread as the notifications poured in. The ‘06 Foxes (and Robin) groupchat was exploding. Nicky had tried to videocall even though it was an ungodly hour in Berlin. Neil had sent him ten messages that were differently worded pleas of “call us when the game is over” and “no matter what you do, DON’T READ IT”. What it meant was left unhelpfully out of the texts. Most damning of all were his top notifications. Andrew had called him twice, five minutes after the bell rang. If Kevin had hit his locker before the showers, he would have catched it exactly. Andrew never called anyone more than once. According to him, if someone didn’t pick up the first time, it was no longer his responsibility. Checking his phone did nothing to answer Kevin’s doubts and he could feel the panic setting in his lungs. And then Andrew called the third time.

[sarah-dipitous]

Hellsite Nostalgia Tour 2023 Day 87

Good God Y’all/Voyage of the Damned

“Good God Y’all”

Plot Description: While Castiel goes in search of god in the fight against Lucifer, Sam and Dean help out an old hunter friend of Bobby’s

Would I Survive the First Five Minutes??: No one died

Cas’s faith is fascinating. Both in the “god is boppin around and CAN be found” way AND the “and I CAN find him. I’ll be the one to find him so you don’t have to become Michael’s vessel” way

NO HE’S NOT ON ANY FLATBREAD

He really has sacrificed a lot already for these boys…there’s so much overlap in the devotion he and Ruby have/had to their creators that I wish could have been explored more

Welcome back to relevance, Ellen!

You can tell how American this show is when the most logical, most reasonable solution to the problem in this town is more guns. Arm everyone that’s left

Sam?? SAM DONT DO IT. Do not drink the demon blood.

YEAH, I wouldn’t be too trusting of him either, Dean

I can definitely understand the struggle of the desire to exorcise demons without killing the person they’re possessing but knowing that the only way to do that is a GIGANTIC betrayal

Imagine if Ellen had been able to be around to smack some sense into the boys the whole of last season

Wait. What??? So…who’s actually possessed?? Or is this all some weird delusion? Because Jo and Rufus seem to think Sam and Ellen are the possessed ones while we’re shown that THEY have black eyes

Who’s THAT guy? What’s HE doing??

With every sentence she says, I’m more and more convinced they needed Ellen to keep them in line.

Oh…that guy was War of four horsemen fame (the Good Omens one is better, imo)

WHAT A FUCKING LIIIIIIIINE. He’s talking about how he didn’t need to do much to turn this town against itself. “I’m like Jell-O shots at a party. I just remove the inhibition”

He’s a terrible, manipulative son of a bitch but…he’s good at his job, I’ll say that

Oooooooo, Ellen comin in with Jo’s middle name

Omg…he came into town in a red Mustang???

Pleeeeease tell me they’re not STILL trying to push Dean/Jo

Oh Deeeean, making the VERY obligatory lord of the rings reference after cleaning up War’s magic ring, and it’s just a plain gold ring

This feels so wrong. Y’all should not be splitting up. Why do you think this is a good idea. Unless Sam was going to go with Ellen and Jo, which he’s NOT.

“Been On My Mind…”: no. 7

“Voyage of the Damned”

Plot Description: When disaster hits the Titanic, the Doctor uncovers a threat to the whole human race

I’d be unnerved by those angel statues even BEFORE they moved

Why on Earth (or really in space) would you name a ship the Titanic AGAIN??

Oh! I know this guy!! I’ll see him again in a month when he goes to Sherlock for help. I feel like he doesn’t make it out of this episode

Tired of the Capricorn = greedy business man stereotype. The cruise line owner’s name is literally Max Capricorn…….

I love when he goes out of his way to make friends with those of the lowest social standing.

Omg these “ancient” Christmas myths are fantastic

WILFFFF 🥰

I mean, yeah, you can’t save the Titanic from getting hit

I love that the angel robots do NOT move like robots but like the humans who are very much in the costumes

CONVENIENT that the TARDIS falls directly to the UK/really, to London

Mmmmm but he IS rather dashing when he takes charge of a situation while in a tux

Good on you, Bannakaffalatta not letting him shorten your name to make it easier for him!!

Morvin and Foon are so sweet together. I love them

The only person worse than Rickston was the captain…I take that back. The captain still did what he did to take care of his family, this dude is REALLY only out for himself

Of COURSE the Doctor was there at the first Christmas…

Morvin!!!! NOOOO!!!!

He could disarm them this … oh, but at the cost of his own life. Poor Bannakaffalatta

Not Foon, toooo

Why does Rickston get to live when the three who gave their lives deserved it SO. MUCH. MORE.

“You can’t even sink the Titanic!” Is a great line

This is not very OSHA compliant, Astrid. I can’t believe only Mr Copper and Rickston Fucking Slade are gonna walk away from this, from the Doctor’s lil crew

The way his hair did not budge as they flew up to the bridge

Omg…I forgot Midshipman Frame’s first name was Alonso, so the Doctor got to say “Allons-y, Alonso!”

Ok, Mr Copper DOES deserve this

I love that he thinks he’s gonna travel alone and Donna’s gonna track him down anyway

[zalrb]

Do you ever wonder how tvd may have looked or developed if Kevin hadn’t left at some point in season 3(I believe his only writing credit was for the first episode)? I feel like even in season 3 the show was still building. Just overall s1 had the distinct dark aesthetic with decent world building as it found footing, s2 was a little more established and developed but polished, s3 expanded the world while bringing back some of the dark vampyness.... and then *disaster*. I guess I just wonder if we could have gotten more witch/vampire/werewolf and angst and darkness(especially since Kevin has spoken about SE, and wanting Bonnie to finally master who she is in the finale, as if he had ideas of plot points to hit and end with). I feel like the universe expanded but Kevin would have dug deeper and tvd may have had more to give and build story wise. I often feel like we got half of what the story of the show was meant to be if that makes sense? And I know you talk about ending theories and such which made me think of this, but I just mean even season 4 with Katherine or even Damon, and the love triangle, and the originals, and KC/TC, SE, vampire Elena, and the supernatural lore in general...I feel there was room to grow and I wonder what that may have looked like with Kevin? I hope this makes sense as an ask (pulled a finals season all-nighter) and not just a ramble statement. 😅

Early seasons TVD were definitely the superior seasons of TVD and that’s a direct result of KW’s involvement but to be honest with you, the world building in seasons 1 and 2 are still incredibly superficial. There is a lot that KW and co started in those seasons that don’t get properly established:

when Stefan talks about desiccation as a form of punishment he mentions that it’s an ancient way, there could’ve been a lot more rules and history to vampirism

“I thought vampires were supposed to hate werewolves” “That’s a leftover idea from another time” except, like, Stefan you and Damon didn’t know werewolves existed until 9 episodes ago so this whole idea of a legacy of hatred that they want to escape feels ridiculous because it’s not like they became vampires understanding that they were supposed to hate werewolves, we’ve seen nothing that suggests that werewolves and vampires hate each other in the series except for the fact that the Lockwoods were minding their own business and Damon was Damon and started something. It’s not even like Jules came to town explaining the history of vampires and werewolves and why they hate each other or showing them like a member who was maimed because of a vampire. In Being Human, vampires legit call werewolves lesser beings.

I’m always kind of “ehhh” about TVD and humanity because it’s applied inconsistently and it’s characterized inconsistently because they conflate humanity with emotion

but this isn’t actually true, Damon spent over 100 years pining over Katherine and waiting for a comet to release her from the tomb, that’s feeling something. And in season 5 they retconned that he flipped his switch after leaving Enzo to burn and didn’t get a flicker of “humanity” until he saw Lexi in episode 8, which is why he killed her, which means without his humanity he was still in love with Katherine. That directly contradicts the above statement, then he goes on to say this:

which isn’t the same thing as having an instinct not to feel, it’s having no conscience or no sense of morality so that if you do something terrible you don’t care about the consequences.

And there are just questions like why exactly wouldn’t the council indoctrinate their children into hating vampires the way they did, what’s the point of having journals if they’re not going to be a part of your familial heritage, why would you start getting them ready at 16/17? In Ready Or Not (which is a great and fun horror movie) the children get involved in the hunt

The tomb vampires come back to get revenge on the descendants of the people who had tried to kill them but to be quite honest, with the exception of Stefan, Lexi and Pearl, vampires as threats is something that is frankly reasonable when we see what carnage they pile up so we need to see in a different way how fucked up it was that the council did that, like I’ve always said, have vampires be pillars of the town, have them be accepted and admired and then the town just turns on them and it’s vicious and cruel, like Kevin spoke about this stain on the town and on their history, this bloody, violent past and he doesn’t really do much with that and also that’s just a euphemism for enslavement when enslavement had already happened but anyway, so I suppose my point would be that things would be explored with Kevin deeper than they had been with Julie at the helm but I wouldn’t expect depth on its own.

[carolynpetit]

Reason to Play, a Journal--Entry One: Fortnite, MGSV, and Finding Ourselves in the Act of Play

Hi. 

This is the first entry in what I hope will be an ongoing journal of play. I wanted to start by explaining my thinking behind this project.

Right now, I’m looking for a reason to play. I’m always wary of games that seem to offer nothing beyond a mildly pleasant occupation of my time, and right now, I find such games downright inadequate. Unworthy. These are horrifying times, and yet, like so many of us, I find myself exhausted by it all. Unable to maintain the levels of rage and resistance that the actions of the current administration demand. I see it all becoming normalized and I feel powerless to stop it. And as the days and weeks and months go by, I feel as if this numbness accrues. I become increasingly detached, not just from the horrors of the moment but from myself. I start to wonder where the person I believed myself to be has gone. 

I believe that art is most vital in times like this. I love this quote from Kafka: 

“I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for?...We need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief.”

If a game isn’t going to be the axe for the frozen sea inside me, if it isn’t going to cut through the numbness, shake me up, break my heart, fuck me up, do something to rehumanize me, it is not worthy of this moment. 

But I might find what I’m looking for anywhere. I’m not talking just about games that explicitly comment on fascism or racial injustice or economic inequality. Yes, I think it’s essential that we have art, including games, that confronts these things directly, but it’s also true that a game can have the noblest aims and leave me cold, while a throwaway moment in a big-budget mainstream game of the sort that certain gamers like to call “apolitical” can crack my heart wide open. 

Like most of my writing about games, this journal will be a place where I fully embrace the subjectivity of my own experience with the games that I play.

Okay. Here we go.

Testin’ My Mind, Shakin’ My Body in Fortnite

Yeah, okay, Fortnite’s a Battle Royale. That’s just a fact. If you’re playing solo, which I almost always am--I’m uncomfortable teaming up with random players, though on occasion I’ll play duos with a friend, which makes for a completely different, really exciting dynamic--you drop onto the island with close to a hundred other players, and the way you win is by being the last player standing. Now, I encourage conversations about the violence inherent to the format, as well as about all the other aspects of Fortnite that people rightly raise concerns about--the way in which it’s monetized, Epic’s pattern of repeatedly profiting off of dances associated with artists and communities of color without compensating the artists or communities that created them. All of it. But if we’re gonna go to the mat with Fortnite on these aspects (and we should), let’s also at least have a full, multifaceted conversation about why we play Fortnite, how it feels, and the moments that can emerge from a fully invested experience of the game.

Did you know that earlier this year, a massive beast that had been frozen in ice under Polar Peak broke free, that huge footprints showed it had made its way to the sea, where it’s occasionally been spotted, roaming the waters around the island? Did you know that right now, a towering robot is being built in the remnants of the volcano? It seems inevitable that soon, a massive Pacific Rim-style fight between them will take place, almost certainly resulting in a new wave of major changes to the island. Indeed, the island is always a place in flux, changing in big and small ways. It’s alive in ways that I’ve always wanted my game worlds to be alive. Landing near Loot Lake a few weeks ago, I was excited to see that the massive power cable that runs through the area was shredded and sparking, as if perhaps the monster had taken a bite. 

But the life of the environment wouldn’t mean much if it weren’t for my encounters with the lives of other players. The other day, I was trying to complete a challenge that required me to get a certain score on a balloon board at one of the numerous little beach party setups that currently dot the map. Jumping from the bus, I swooped down to a spot in the desert, opened a chest, grabbed the weapon, and made my way over to the nearby board. Another player got there just before me, and I stood still, hoping to indicate that I didn’t want to stop them from completing the challenge. They froze for a moment, but then proceeded, and when they hit the necessary score, a little celebratory explosion of confetti occurred, and I got credit for the challenge, too. 

Basking in the glow of our shared little moment, I wanted to walk away then, wishing them nothing but the best in the match ahead. But then they took a shot at me. In that instant, a sinking feeling ran through my whole body, a physical expression of “Aw, why’d you have to go and do that?” and in an instant, I obliterated them. It wasn’t a victory. It was more like putting someone down. I didn’t feel good about it, but it sure was a real feeling. Something surprising and immediate that emerged from my encounter with another living person. And that’s what I’m here for. 

Yes, Fortnite is a Battle Royale, but so much of the experience of Fortnite is about unexpected occurrences like this, and about the things we do in the stolen moments between the shootouts and build battles. The other day, I got so caught up in playing a silly memory game I stumbled upon that I wound up getting caught in the storm. Not long before that, I danced with John Wick to raise a disco ball in an abandoned lair so we could snag a fortbyte, one of this season’s collectibles. These are the things I really remember, not my win-loss ratio or all the times I’m eliminated by players much better than I am before I quickly hit play and hop on the battle bus all over again.

I’m eager to return to the island because the island itself feels vibrant and alive, emanating a kind of Spielbergian Americana and optimism, but also because of the vigorous bodies and exuberant identities I get to inhabit while I’m there. The mix-and-match nature of Fortnite’s customization means that one round I might be a sprightly female wizard with a sleek laptop on her back, and the next a nerdy, purple-haired gamer girl with a satchel full of potions and spellbooks. “Fun” may be overemphasized in some of our conversations around games, but it certainly has its place, and playing as these colorful characters, well, it’s just fun.

Every character in Fortnite plays exactly the same, but they don’t all feel the same to me. I just unlocked a black variant of the character Sentinel, a robot or power suit that looks like it might have appeared on Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, and I think it looks kinda cool, but I sure don’t want to be it. On the other hand, playing as Elmira (pictured above) feels good. And oh, do I love the way that some emotes make me feel. Tweeting recently about an emote called the Laid Back Shuffle, I wrote:

I’m almost always pretty uncomfortable in my body, for a number of reasons related to my appearance and my transness and things. The easygoing physical exuberance of this emote, the way that the avatar performing it, whatever avatar that might be at any given moment, appears to feel so loose and free in their own body, makes it really appealing to me, like a virtual experience/expression of a sensation that I’ve never known IRL. I think emotes have some kind of power beyond whatever power we often think of them having, perhaps particularly for those of us who never really feel comfortable in our own skin. 

And all the kids playing Fortnite that we’re so worried about, let’s remember that their experience of this game isn’t as simple as just trying to slaughter everyone else on the island. Setting aside whatever value there may be in the particular type of complex thinking and skill-building that it requires to try to simultaneously outbuild and outgun your opponent, there’s also the fact that they, too, are experiencing the life of Fortnite’s island, having encounters with other players that play out in unexpected ways, and experimenting with self-expression. Yes, their opportunities for that exploration and expression are gated by money, and that’s a real issue, but that doesn’t change the fact that a young person finding that they feel particularly cool when playing as a woman in red with a bionic arm is valid, and maybe even valuable. 

II. MGSV and What I Know Is True

I set The Phantom Pain aside for a few years after hitting a mission that I found maddeningly difficult, but something called me back to it. Now I’ve powered through the mission that gave me so much trouble, and I’m making progress again. I enjoy the geographical roughness of its environments, and the way you really have to deal with that roughness, often lying flat and crawling along the ground. The truth is that I spend far too much time alone in my apartment, and though it’s no substitute at all for the real, natural world, when I take my time being rooted in one spot to scout out locations and tag enemies before making any dangerous moves, I feel the shape of the space around me in a way that I rarely do in games. 

The other day I fought a grueling boss battle and then, finally, when it was over, hopped onto the helicopter to return to base, exhausted by the ordeal. Just as we were about to lift off, Quiet hopped on, hanging off of the side of the chopper as the rotors above her head spun faster until we lurched up and away from the ground. She held my gaze the whole time. I think a lot of games look at the player too much. They want you to feel like the center of the universe, the only person who really matters. But that wasn’t the feeling I got from this moment. I’d just fought for my life, and the way she looked at me, without malice or sympathy for what I’d just been through or anything, made me feel like I was being sized up. Looked at in a real way. Seen.

Do you know that feeling--Does this happen to everyone or just me?--that feeling where, for a moment, your awareness kind of spreads beyond yourself and you’re suddenly very aware that what you’re experiencing is something real that is happening in physical, three-dimensional space at this exact moment in time? It’s a feeling I get sometimes when I’m in a moment that I wish I could make last, or that I really want to remember. Sharing a last drink with a friend before they move away, that sort of thing. This feeling of momentarily being very much rooted in myself but also outside of myself and acknowledging, This is real. This is something that happened. That moment where Quiet was looking at me in the wake of the momentous battle I’d just fought felt something like that. 

It didn’t happen in real, physical space, but virtual space is a valid space, too, a space where real things happen. Sometimes when I’m playing Fortnite I’ll see the hillside where a friend and I once sped away from attackers on a Quadcrasher, bullets whizzing past our heads, and I’ll think, We were there. That happened. These moments become part of my relationship with the ever-changing island, just as my memories of San Francisco become part of my relationship with the city.

On another recent mission, I was sneaking my way through an enemy outpost when, from a nearby building, I heard the familiar sounds of Spandau Ballet’s “True.” To be honest, I never liked “True” much. The Phantom Pain takes place in 1984, and as a kid in the suburbs of Chicago in that year who sometimes saw the video on MTV, the song felt too airy and ethereal to move me. But recontextualized in The Phantom Pain, I heard it differently. That precise ethereal quality made it such an effective contrast to the grim military seriousness and the tactile terrain that my heart began to ache. 

The presence of 80s pop songs in the isolated military outposts of the game is politically fascinating to me. It says something about how American and British cultural exports are absorbed by the entire world, but it’s largely a one-way street. A Pakistani friend of mine in high school had grown up with Sting, Bruce Springsteen, Elvis, but I’d never heard Pakistani music in my life. I don’t understand why so many players are so intent on not considering all the political dimensions of a game like this. They only make the experience infinitely more fascinating, even if and when they reveal the game’s failures.

The songs also allow for the creation of some great moments. I snuck into the building where the song was playing just so I could snag the tape, and the next time I was in the helicopter, I played it, and as the opening notes of “True” played, I panned the camera slowly around Big Boss, creating a very short music video that I honestly found exciting.

I tweeted the clip, jokingly commenting that I’d “won Metal Gear Solid V by creating this beautiful moment,” but it had really felt this way to me. Creating this moment had been as fun and rewarding to me as anything else the game offered. Playing MGSV isn’t just sneaking and shooting, or at least for me it isn’t. This, too, is play.  So obviously, I get frustrated with the “Git Gud” players, those who feel that games are at their best when they’re perfectly calibrated tests of raw skill, that the only thing that matters is having an awesome KDR, or earning the highest possible rating on missions, or whatever. 

But the truth is that it’s not just hardcore gamers who set limits on our notions of play by talking about games like this. A lot of us do it, even a lot of us who consider ourselves emphatically opposed to the “Git Gud’ brigade. We do it when we look at a game like Fortnite and see it only as one simple thing, a struggle to be the last remaining survivor, without at least acknowledging all the other things a player might go to the game for. We do it when we deny the possibility for moments of strange beauty to emerge from even a grim, ugly, grossly misogynistic game like MGSV. We do it whenever we, ourselves, adopt a limited, conventional understanding of what it means to really play a game, rather than fully engaging with all the different ways that we can find ourselves and each other in the spaces that games create.

-----

I’m currently looking for work. If you enjoy my writing and are in a position to do so, please consider supporting me on ko-fi.

[statusquoergo]

Alright, let’s do this.

As to be expected, we open on the afterglow of the Season 8 finale. I personally found this scene to be pretty cringy, but I have actual criticisms of the current Darvey relationship that’ll come up later, so I’m going to leave it alone for now; the only thing I’ll say about the scene with Louis is that I found the heavy-handedness of the sexual innuendo to be extremely childish and tediously predictable. Oh, and the whole “Wait let’s not tell anyone right away” thing is pretty much letter for letter the same rationale that Mike and Rachel used for keeping it a secret that they had moved up their wedding date; that is to say, little to no forethought and almost guaranteed to end up Not How They Planned. No, wait, one more thing: I can only assume that Harvey’s panic about Louis finding him at Donna’s apartment is the result of sleep deprivation and delirium because dude, if you need a place to hide out for awhile, the bedroom is right down the hall. Or fuck, crouch down behind the kitchen counter, I don’t care. Hide in the bathroom. You have options.

(Okay, one more thing: “You didn’t see what was right in front of your face for 12 years.” What. I mean… Seriously, what. Does time even exist in this universe?)

Next up, Alex introduces us, in a very much not-off-the-record encounter, to what I can only assume will be the driving conflict of this season: the New York State Bar Association (NYSBA) has caught wind of the Ethics Committee hearing that ousted Robert Zane, and now they’re taking it upon themselves to restore the integrity of the firm currently known as Zane Specter Litt Wheeler Williams, by any means necessary, starting with the removal of Zane’s name from the letterhead.

This is bullshit.

The NYSBA is a voluntary agency with no actual legislative capability. As per the association’s website, “it does not license, regulate nor investigate an [attorney’s] ability to practice law.” New York Rules of Professional Conduct Rule 7.5 (Professional Notices, Letterheads, and Signs) prohibits Robert from representing himself as a practicing member of the bar, or a current partner at the firm, but it permits the firm to continue representing itself with his name, if they so choose. So the Bar Association has zero capacity to back up this stupid request, but more to the point, I have no idea why they even care. There are over 9,800 law firms currently operating in New York City; statistically, the probability that every single one of them represents the pinnacle of legalistic integrity is insanely low, and considering the amount of turnover and increasingly public turmoil at GSVD/PH/PD/PDS/PS/PSL/SL/ZSL/ZSLWW, it must be years since it’s been a remotely reputable institution.

Moving on! Samantha and Harvey land on a tangible outcome of Robert’s decision to take the fall for Donna and Harvey: The firm is hemorrhaging clients. Samantha determines that Eric Kaldor is responsible for the sudden turnaround, but honestly, I��m surprised the firm has any clients left at this point anyway. Thomas Kessler has the right idea when he walks out the door with the casual reminder that Harvey manipulated him into lying at the hearing (which, by the way, was conducted by the New York State Legislative Ethics Commission, not the Bar Association); instead of freaking out about this frankly inevitable outcome, maybe Harvey et al. should take a minute to appreciate the fact that Kessler isn’t seeking to have them all disbarred.

Special shout-out to Louis’s stellar one-liner: “I wanna check and see how bad our reputation is.” (Spoiler alert: It’s very bad.)

As it happens, Samantha is right about Kaldor because of course she is, which leads to a semi-violent encounter set at a hockey rink, for some reason, where we get to see some cracks in the purportedly strong allegiance between Samantha and Harvey, and Samantha reminds us the viewers that she’s a badass with a short temper as she shoves Kaldor up against the boards and I’m forced to wonder exactly where these claims of a unified front are coming from all of a sudden. Basically all of Season 8 was spent drawing battle lines up and down the firm, but now that Robert’s gone, they have some magical allegiance to one another? If it’s a direct result of Robert’s actions and subsequent departure, I have to assume these amicable feelings are going to fade as the adrenaline rush dies down; otherwise it’s just a convenient plot device, but to be fair, that’s pretty on-brand, so I can’t give them too much shit for it.

You know what I absolutely can give them shit for?

Darvey.

(Please, you knew this was coming.)

The first of my actual criticisms of them for this episode: Donna’s breakup with Thomas, and Harvey becoming an unwitting enabler of unfaithfulness. Way back in February, at the end of Season 8, one of the concerns aired about Donna and Harvey hooking up was that Donna was still in a relationship with Thomas, and infidelity, if I recall correctly, is a bit of a sore spot for Harvey. Korsh admitted that an explicit breakup scene was filmed for s08e16 and removed from the final cut, but the implication as I read it was that as far as the showrunners were concerned, Donna and Thomas had come to a mutual understanding that they were done and he was out of the picture, the poor guy. Not so! Now, retconning for the win, we have the privilege of watching them break up over the phone, which is of course the epitome of class.

True, that was tactless, but the real sticky wicket here is Harvey and Donna’s conversation about the breakup once it’s over and done with. Harvey is rightly alarmed at his role, but the thing that gets me, aside from how quickly he seems to just go with her assurance that everything is fine and he “didn’t do anything wrong,” is that his response to her revealing that she and Thomas were still a couple when he came over isn’t “Why didn’t you say anything,” it isn’t “Why didn’t you stop me.” It isn’t “You know how I feel about cheating.” No, it’s “I would never have.” It’s an apology.

Now, maybe this is narrow-minded of me, but I always figured that Harvey’s whole problem with cheating was the whole…cheating part. Apparently not; it seems that issues only arise when Harvey is the one doing the cheating (see: Paula [s07e11]), or in a position to accuse the cheater directly from a third-party perspective (see: Lily [s02e10], Mike [s02e12], Marcus [s08e05]). (For real, he almost beat the shit out of Mike without knowing anything beyond “there was infidelity involved here”; Mike, who was exactly in the position Harvey is in now—the third party sleeping with an otherwise involved woman—refuses to tell him how he got beaten up with no explanation but that it’s because of the story Harvey told him about Lily cheating on Gordon, and Harvey’s response is “You got off easy.”) The otherwise unattached participant gets a free pass. BUT WAIT! Harvey was furious with Bobby when he saw him with Lily (s05e10), and tried to throw him out of his parents’ house; there must be some other explanation. Maybe Donna is just the prettiest princess in all the land and the fact that it’s her doing the cheating is enough to relieve all of Harvey’s built-in trauma? Well if that isn’t just the laziest goddamn rationale I can think of. Oh, so maybe, just maybe, Harvey is going to get some real, actual therapy this season and do some honest exploration of his apparently much-more-complex-than-previously-anticipated relationship with infidelity!

Right. I bet that’s it.

It’s possible that this will come back again later in the season, but I can’t tell yet what direction they’re planning to take the Darvey trajectory, so I don’t want to start throwing out assumptions. Now that they’ve confronted it so blatantly, I hope they don’t abandon it like this, but who knows.

In the meantime, Louis is still trying to boost recruitment efforts, this time by badgering Professor Gerard into letting him be the keynote speaker at Harvard’s upcoming Ethics Conference. I don’t really have much to say about this subplot except that it’s one of the stupidest and most illogical things they could’ve come up with; can you just imagine Louis speaking at an ethics conference? Gerard is right that Harvard students won’t be snowed by Louis making some pretty speech about the firm’s integrity, and the Q&A would be a disaster! Not to mention, the conference probably has a keynote lined up already, and it’s not like there won’t be other speakers there; Louis doesn’t need to be top billing to get his five minutes, assuming anyone would listen to a single word he has to say. Oh, and am I seriously supposed to believe that they’re experiencing a sudden drop in top-tier applications now? As opposed to…the past, what, three years? Four years? However long it’s been in this nonsense timeline since Mike went to prison (after which point they were also bemoaning a lack of applicants). But actually, why wouldn’t students be applying here? If the firm is desperate for interviewees, it’s practically a sure thing that everyone will get through to the first round, so even if the students have no intention of accepting an offer, having the interview is great practice for firms where they actually care about getting a job.

Part II

[blueskittlesart]

My hot take on vld season 6

Because I’ve seen a lot of discourse about this season so I figured I’d do my opinions in an episode-by-episode breakdown. It’s pretty log sooo:

Episode 1: Omega Shield

Okay. So upon first seeing this episode I was MAD. (Mostly because of how close Lotor and Allura seemed to be) But I get now why that had to be done and I actually like the direction they chose to go with Lotor, but I’ll get to that later.

I’m a bit annoyed that this seems to be the “Hunk development” we were told we were getting. (Heads up, vld, one episode does NOT count as full development.) However, it was really refreshing to see him be the focus of an episode, and we really got to see the growth that’s been going on for him in the background these past few seasons. Like, at the beginning of the show he was this timid little teenager who couldn’t fly without getting motion sick, constantly tried to take the easy way out, and generally avoided confrontation at all costs, not because he was cowardly, but because he was, understandably, really fucking scared of space. (And I don’t blame him. Space is huge and terrifying.) But now, we get to see him being a commanding force. We see him take charge of a situation and whip others into shape, using his capacity to learn new material (arguably his most important trait) as a weapon to get his job done. It was amazing to see that side of Hunk, even if it was just for one episode.

And then of course we have Lance just fucking dying. As much as my allurance heart wants to appreciate that scene, I can’t entirely ignore the fact that Voltron continued its pattern of having a life-changing, traumatic event happen to a character (other examples include Lance almost getting sucked out into space through the airlock in season 2(?) and Keith being ready to sacrifice himself for the greater good in season 4(?)) and then never address it or the trauma it may have caused again. Lance died. He fucking DIED, and two scenes later we see him smiling in the background as if nothing happened. Maybe they’ll use it for some angst in the future, but it honestly just feels like bad, neglectful writing to me at this point. They want dramatic scenes without having to address the way those scenes will impact the characters and the story. 

Episode 2: Razor’s Edge

Finally, the Keith and Krolia development we’ve been waiting for!! There’s very little for me to complain about in this episode. I loved the subtle details, like the way Keith’s dad wore the jacket that was later given to Shiro. I think Keith’s parents’ backstory was done really well, and I’m really happy that he gets to reunite with his mom again.

Honestly the second they saw that giant space fish thing I thought “lion turtle.” A huge animal with a forest on its back where the characters get trapped for a while?? Come on. I’m glad Keith and Krolia got that time to bond, even though it hasn’t really been addressed yet. Also I’m in love with Keith's dog (I had him pegged as a cat person but hey, at least I know Shiro is still on my side.)

Plus we finally!! got!! the “boy from Cuba” line!!! and yeah, it was in reference to Allura, but it suggests a lot more Lance in the seasons to come, especially since they’re going back to Earth soon. That line, at least to me, seems to really put a lot of emphasis on how connected Lance is to his Earthen heritage, and I really, really hope that will be explored more in the coming seasons. 

Also side note, but that Lance scene where he knocks over the metal thing (tool of some sort?) and just kind of stares at it as it clatters to the ground was so fucking funny?? That was one of the top comedic moments of this season, not gonna lie.

Overall I was really happy with this episode. It was plot-driven and interesting, and everything seemed to fit really well.

Episode 3: Monsters & Mana

I have never once played D&D in my life, and I’m just gonna state that now so no one comes after me for this section

I’ve seen some complaints that this was a filler episode, and yeah, maybe you’re right. But it was a GOOD filler episode. It was engaging, realistic given the timeline and story, and provided a lot of subtle foreshadowing in an interesting way. 

It makes sense that everyone on the team would need a fucking break after all this excitement. At that time in the story, they were relatively inactive, since they were working with Lotor and all that. They couldn’t have been working on the castle at every waking moment, and playing a game like M&M is a great way to pass their time. 

I’m gonna get into some elements of the characters that I found interesting here too. Namely, Shiro and Hunk’s backstories. Shiro’s “master” in his little cutscene had one messed up eye, dare i say Iverson? yeah, we don’t know much about Shiro’s life on Earth before Voltron. But the parallels from what we DO know suggest to me that there’s correlation between the M&M character backstories and the main-story character backstories. Which bring me to Hunk. His character Block’s backstory was that his “village was turned to stone by an evil sorcerer.” I don’t know what this means, but I have a few speculations:

1. Hunk’s hometown was ravaged by some sort of natural disaster while he was in space (we know he’s a Pacific Islander, right? So I don’t think this is too far off base)

2. If the Earth has already been invaded by hostile aliens (Sendak’s “I know your weakness: you value the lives of others”) Hunk’s family or home were directly impacted (this one seems to be the most logical to me, since Block’s quest is to “save” his village, which Hunk could easily do by defeating the Galra/other hostile aliens on Earth)

3. Some other form of disaster has and/or will affect Hunk’s family/home and he’ll have to either save them or deal with the after-effects of it 

Either way it’ll be interesting to see how next season plays out back on earth!

As for some of the other foreshadowing, I take you all now to the way Shiro keeps fucking dying. Shiro’s “twin brother” was played off like a joke in this episode, but thinking about it, I see it as a subtle reference to the whole clone Shiro ordeal. the original Shiro, now dead, was the clone Keith killed, and “Gyro” (his “twin brother”) is the Shiro who was revived at the end of this season. And judging by the big role he played in defeating the boss at the end of the episode, the newly-revived Shiro will be extremely important in upcoming seasons.

Episode 4: The Colony

“But even if they do reach the quintessence field, then what? The last time anyone got in there, it turned Zarkon evil.” THIS IS WHY YOU FUCKING LISTEN TO LANCE.

I honestly really, really love the direction they decided to go with Lotor. they totally brought him back around into the interesting, dynamic villain I knew he could be and I’m so happy about that.

On to what specifically I noticed about the plot of this episode. One big thing for me is the revelation that quintessence can, in fact, be extracted from other beings. This only brings up more questions, though: What did Lotor want the quintessence for? The Galra Empire already seems to have plenty of fuel. How was he harvesting the Alteans’ quintessence? Did he have druids helping him, or did he discover another way to do it? Did anyone else in the Galra Empire know about this? The whole operation raises more questions than it answers.

And when Allura found out and just fucking YEETED Lotor across the room? I may have watched it at 3 am but I was still screaming at the top of my goddamn lungs, at least on the inside. She gave him exactly what he deserved with no goddamn hesitation and I love it.

Shiro going full clone was crazy, but we all expected it. I’ll admit that his being used to steal Lotor was not what I would have guessed, though. It kinda turned out to be a pointless use of him in the end though since Lotor escaped immediately

Another thing about Lotor’s plot that stuck out to me: He knew that there were living Alteans. He knew how much Allura wished she could have her planet and her people back, and how much it hurt her that she’d never be able to see them again. And he still kept this place secret from her. He still took her people and exploited them for his plan, and then was stupid enough to think she’d see that he was doing it “for the greater good?” Even if it WASN’T such a despicable fucking thing to do, those are Allura’s people. She’s wanted nothing but to see more Alteans for the past year at least. She’s not ever going to see things his way. 

another side note: i want romelle to snap my neck

Episode 5: The Black Paladins

Holy mcfuck is there a lot in this episode. First off, as an artist and animator I really need to take a moment to appreciate how fucking beautiful everything was in this episode. The shadows, the movement, the colors, the cinematography, everything about this episode was artistically stunning. The animators really outdid themselves with this one. 

Okay, since there’s so much to talk about with this episode, I’m gonna break it up. We’ll start with what happened on the castle.

Pidge... is fucking amazing. That’s all I can even say about this kid. This is a fifteen year old girl, she’s literally a couple months younger than I am, and she’s dealing with all this shit and pulling through. That’s amazing. She has literal adults looking to her for help in a life-or-death situation, she had to be under insane stress during this episode, knowing that what she does could mean the difference between life or death for all of them. And she pulls through. Pidge Holt is so fucking strong and I love her with all of my heart. Someone get this kid a peanut butter cookie.

It’s interesting to me that not only did she instantly recognize the code from Shiro’s arm, but also had a program ready to destroy it. It reminds me of that Voltron comic where she’s able to take down her fellow paladins because she observes them and knows their weaknesses. She watches, She listens, and she prepares for every possible contingency, no matter how badly she wants to believe they’ll never happen. And that’s why she’s dangerous. 

Okay. now for all the mess that happened with Shiro.

Mother of god, I am SHOOK. Even the SETTING of the damn thing was so goddamn thought out and interesting I don’t know where to start.

There were so many other clone Shiros. Why were there so many other clone Shiros??? Were they planning to release more at the same time, or were they backups in case the original clone was compromised? Were they tests? What???? Were???? They??? For???????

And that Galra form Keith. Is that something he discovered in the two years he spent with Krolia? Something he can consciously activate? Or did it just happen to come out because he was in a moment of high emotion and adrenaline? It also seemed to give him a boost of strength, because Shiro was only able to push him off after the form deactivated. I hope we’ll get to see him use it again!

“I should have abandoned you just like your parents did. They saw that you were broken. Worthless. I should have seen it, too.”

Holy fuck clone Shiro is MEAN. I can’t even begin to imagine what it must’ve felt like for Keith to hear that from Shiro, who’s basically the one person he’s been able to rely on dependably for his whole life. In his vlog he even said that his trust issues are BECAUSE Krolia left him, and having his older-brother figure, who he looks up to and trusts like no one else, reaffirm those doubts he already has must have been devastating, even if he learned later it wasn’t really Shiro. I doubt that’s an image he’ll be able to get out of his head quickly.

All those flashbacks of little Keith... he had that mullet his whole life I guess (I mean he probably learned how to cut his hair from Shiro so like. is anyone surprised). But in all seriousness, does the Garrison take middle school aged students too? because he looked way too young to be a high schooler. (Side note: Are they letting the middle schoolers fly the goddamn spaceships?? Who the fuck decided this program was a good idea??)

Keith also told Shiro he should “send [Keith] back to the home already.” By “the home” did he mean the shack his parents lived in? That’s doubtful, since without Shiro he’d be living there alone. I would assume Keith was put in foster care of some kind, most likely an orphanage, which is probably what he meant by “the home.” It’s a minor detail, and just something I noticed, but I figured I’d point it out anyway. 

I really, really loved this episode. It’s probably one of my favorites in the whole series. 

Episode 6: All Good Things

(My klance obsessed ass feels the need to point out that the blue and red stars are still in the astral plane, and were shown in the very first scene of the episode. Just saying.)

So did this episode just confirm that when a paladin dies in their lion, their consciousness stays within the lion? Because damn, that sets the stage for a LOT of angst fic. (Fic writers, get on this.) 

Lance supporting Allura is my goddamn aesthetic honestly. Friends, lovers, siblings, I don’t care, but I’m happy their relationship is getting development!

KEITH GOT A STRONGER CONNECTION WITH THE BLACK LION!! HE CAN USE ITS WINGS!! This gives me so much hope for black paladin Keith again in season 7 because he’s clearly got such a strong connection with Black... he deserves this. also black deserves a paladin thats a real fucking person and not a fake bitch

Coran development?? In my Voltron?? It’s more likely than you think

Then of course, we have Lotor going full Azula. I said this before, but I am so, so, so fucking happy they chose to make him a villain in the end after all. I was so worried after last season that they’d throw away all his potential as a villain in order to go for a shitty redemption plot, and I was completely fooled up until the last second, just like the paladins. And that’s a big part of what I love about it. We were in the paladin’s shoes. We didn’t know what to believe, we either liked Lotor or were suspicious, but most people truly believed the plan was for him to be redeemed. The writers really did a great job of making us feel the way the paladins did, seeing Lotor’s betrayal and eventual descent into madness, and that’s truly the kind of thing that makes me love Voltron. 

anyway lotortron (aka whoretron) is fucking ugly and im glad its stuck in the quintessence feild for all eternity

Episode 7: Defender of all Universes

Beautiful fight scenes, insane dialog, wonderful storyline. All in all, it was a perfect conclusion to the season. 

The fight in the quintessence field? Absolutely beautifully done. Suspense, beautiful cinematography, and it all tied back to the show’s underlying theme of teamwork in the best way. I have no complaints in the slightest about how this was done. Honest to god, I loved this whole fight. (I am curious about what will happen to Lotor, though. will he be literally destroyed in the quintessence field when the power gets to be too much for him, or will he just kind of stay there festering until someone manages to travel in there again? Maybe the paladins will go back and get him later in the series.)

The castle is gone now I guess?? rip (More Coran development?? in my Voltron???? It’s more likely than you think) BUT ALSO if they do plan to make another ship like they said, they’re gonna need another Balmeran crystal to power it, which means more Shay!!

So now... that scene at the end. Shiro’s revival.

When Lance started crying, so did I. Literally, I saw his tears and I just fucking broke... my Lance stan heart couldn't take it...

and finally shiro’s white hair is ugly as fuck lmao

so TL;DR: This season was a big win in my opinion. I can’t remeber feeling this good about Voltron since maybe season two. I’m 100% ready to see some Lance and Hunk-centered storylines in season 7 if my predictions are right, and to hopefully see some main villain Haggar (FINALLY)

Thanks for reading!