#my favorite war criminal <3 is the exact same way but likes to talk more

[cosmicmakos]

imagine relaxing with your f/o, maybe it's at home in bed with them or in a park sitting on a bench. both of you enjoying the happiness being so close to one another brings.

[cleansingreflections]

I ranked all 24 episodes of Polygon’s Unraveled because I couldn’t sleep last night

‪I’m not here to express an opinion, but merely to state a fact, and I take absolutely zero criticism for this ranking‬;

In case Brian posts another unraveled next week i’ll just pretend to not see it‬ (or i’ll just edit this post I guess? Brian please don’t post any Unraveled tomorrow i’m begging you)

For legal reasons I don’t think any Unraveled is bad, I love all of them as if they were my own children, some of them I just wish I loved more,

I guess **spoilers** for every single Unraveled ever

24. Find your Kojima name with my simple 11-page form

I just,, I just don’t see this video as an Unraveled in my brain. As a Brian video, I love it, I love the idea, I love the work that Brian put in it, it’s entertaining, but as an Unraveled,,,, man I don’t know it’s just off for me. My Kojima name is The Lewd LIckable Turtle btw;

23. I fixed Fallout’s music by creating a totally new genre

I don’t know a single thing about either Fallout or Ska, and I would’ve liked to keep it that way (plus i got the final twist “spoiled” by accident so during the entire video I was just waiting for it to happen and it made it less entertaining for me personally)

22. I built the perfect gamer space

Good episode, but not my thing, I guess? Like yeah it’s good, but at the same time I didn’t enjoy it as much. I feel bad putting the latest episode so low but that’s just how it is, maybe it’ll grow on me

21. Which Dark Souls boss is the best manager?

I generally don’t care about Dark Souls, and I care even less about having a job. The ending with the best boss being yourself though,, that was a nice touch, I’ll admit it

20. Scientifically calculating the game of the year

I don’t even have an explaination for this one, I liked it but not a lot I guess

19. Smash Bros. owes millions of dollars in OSHA violations

Nobody likes a snitch; but the jokes were on point, this episode has a few of my favorite bits so it’s not a bad one

18. How to make a perfect E3 press conference (or drinking game)

Overall it’s fun but it’s not like special to me, like it’s good I liked it I enjoyed it but nothing more than that

17. Calculate your pet’s HP with my 100% legitimate formula

Again, a good episode, I liked it, higher than the previous one because of the intro, I loved that intro, I’ve used “as if that means fucking anything” as a meme more times than I’d be proud to admit

16. Understanding Kingdom hearts (and every other story)

The build up to that beautiful neverending climax of chaos holds a small spot in my heart

15. When can Mario retire?

Again, the build up to the final twist is just great , higher than Kingdom hearts solely because of the realism of it all (and for the “mario inflation” bit)

14. How to tell apart all 596 Fire Emblem characters

I don’t even know what Fire Emblem even is about, it’s up here only because he references “Commedia dell’arte” and having grown up in Italy and studied at an italian high school, I have this weird emotional attachment to italian theatre

13. Bowser’s military hierarchy

The entire episode shifting from simply analysing Bowser’s military to exposing Mario as a war criminal was just great, I loved that twist, plus the “stus” bit is one of my favorite things in the world

12. Ranking all Mega-Man robots

It’s just good. Just that, just good, the jokes are on point, filled with most of my favorite one liners, gets real in some points too

11. I used The Sims to perfect my apartment

Seriously a good, well built episode, the final message made me almost cry and it really struck a chord, this low only because of that lighting,, what is that lighting Brian,,,,,,,

10. Solving the Zelda Timeline in 15 minutes

I don’t know how to explain this honestly, it’s just great. I don’t know a single thing about Zelda and he doesn’t even explain most of the stuff he says, yet I understood everything perfectly. I loved it and I rewatch it on a weekly basis

9. How to increase your stamina with terrible video game tactics

Exactly what I needed to hear at the exact moment that it came out. Not to be emotional but it came out about two weeks before the most important exam of my high school career, right after months of stress and mood swings because I felt like I was always wasting time instead of studying and doing my school work, I think this episode is seriously the reason why I managed to stop worrying too much and ended up doing so well during my exam. thank you brian, really

8. No one asked but I found Mortal Kombat’s best cuddler

Chaos, pure unfiltered chaos. The fact that he talks about each character as if he has actually cuddled with them. The entirety of the “What is a good cuddler” bit with Pat’s voiceover. There’s Red Bull in this mug *kicks air*. Art, if I say so myself

7. We made al 78 Breath of the Wild recipes in one day

The pain. The suffering. The regret. The confusion. The bread in a pan. The ambulance siren. The occasional Pat commentary. The fruitcake that looks like a brain. The porgy. “If I can’t be accurate *almost cuts and entire finger off* I sure as hell am gonna be extra”. Almost a cinematic masterpiece. Almost.

6. Every Sonic game is blasphemous

I don’t feel like I even have to explain this one, just interpret it as you wish

5. I wasted 3 weeks of my life finding Castlevania’s hottest monster

I love sexy monsters, I have nothing to add

4. I read all 337 books in Skyrim so you don’t have to

Just the drama of it all. “Riveting” and “My second reaction to this was what the fuck? Hey Todd, what the fu-” are things that I’ve started saying irl at this point. The fact that he got a flu shot in the middle of filming. The reenactment with Pat at the end of the episode.

3. Kirby

Maybe it’s the fact that he filmed it in two seperate moments, and he looks like two completely different people.Or maybe it’s how much passion and dedication I feel coming from this video, and the utter desperation and later resignation in his voice, it’s truly poetic. The entire episode is just one big love letter to Kirby and I am here for it.

2. The Perfect PokéRap

It was live. He had to do an entire 20 minute comedy routine and then perform a nearly 10 minute long song on top of that. The writing, the dancing, the singing, the Kevin Punt subplot. The Pat just sitting there quietly clicking through thee slides. Just everything. It’s nearly perfect.

1. Waluigi

Why is there a comma instead of a | in the title? I don’t know, you don’t know, I don’t think even Brian knows. This is the perfect build up, not only throughout the episode itself, but throughout the entirety of the season 2, that worked perfectly to culminate into the final not one, not two, but three twists. The dedication to growing a moustache for months only to shave it in front of the camera as an act of complete and utter despair. The shirt change, the light change, the hue change, the Realization. Look, if you don’t think Waluigi is the best episode you’re just wrong. This. This is The Unraveled Episode. It doesn’t get better than this, it never will. This is a cinematic masterpiece. This is where “videos about a game” ends and “Performance Art” begins. This is an entire piece of artwork and if I could tattoo a video on my forehead this would be my choice. This is the Hill I’m willing to Die on. This is the Greatest Creation in the History of Mankind. This is what Makes us the Superior species in the Entire Universe. I Used To Main Waluigi In Mario Tennis

[itsnothingofinterest]

PLF Advisor Headcanons (’cause why not)

So I’ve been thinking a lot about the PLF advisors, probably more than I should be about characters we barely have faces of. All of this stuff’s probably gonna get flushed down the drain sooner rather than later, and I have been meaning to start actually posting stuff on this site. Might as well share, am I right?

I’m sure I shouldn’t need to tell anyone this at present, but just to be safe, or in case of future readers: the latest chapter was 276 & we know next to nothing about any of these guys except Slidin’ Go, so most of is baseless conjecture. Most of it mine, but I’ll source where I’ve borrowed some ideas. The closest thing to a basis for any of these is “this is probably the kind of quirk I could see someone in this position having” & “these motives and backgrounds sound like what Horikoshi would give to a long-term ally of Shigaraki”. We clear? Everybody got their proper expectations in place? Cool, now let’s get to the fun bits.

Black (Tactics)

Twice Advisor #3 (PLF Granny)

I won’t lie, I’m organizing this list this way to talk about her first.

Contrary to her appearance, PLF Granny actually used to be a super dangerous criminal and wanted hero killer, before disappearing off the face of the country (see Spinner Advisor #3 for more on that).

Now she’s the PLF’s resident mother/grandmother figure (depending on how old you are).

(She’s secretly not that old though.)

Always willing to help a fellow PLF soldier out of a problem no matter how minor, but would also lecture them for the smallest misbehavior.

Greatly appreciated because not a lot of high ranking PLF members have the greatest motherly figures in their lives rn.

Her quirk is something like Overhaul’s, but a bit weaker and a bit more gruesome. She can fully manipulate any human body she’s touching besides her own; allowing her to close up wounds, lock up muscles, contort limbs, or even just blow you up.

Illegally experimenting with her quirk caused her to accidentally kill someone in her youth, and she’s been on the run ever since.

She’s working with the PLF to improve quirk counseling, believing a society more accepting of quirks would allow kids with dangerous quirks to understand them better & know how to use them safely, so none of them will end up like herself.

Twice Advisor # 2 (Scary Canadian)

“Scary Canadian” really sums up his personality. He’s actually quite nice and polite to hid friends & allies, or otherwise in his downtime. But also you really don’t want to mess with him. Or else.

Needless to say, he and Twice got a long real quick once the underlying tension of their 2 groups going to war had (mostly) passed.

His quirk (along with a funky entire-upper-torso) allows him to energize himself with stored up energy, making him a bit strong, faster, and tougher.

He can also use a lot of energy at once for laser eyes. A useful skill, but it usually puts him out of the fight afterwords.

The energy stores up during sleep, which means he sleeps for an extra few hours each night and leaves him uncharacteristically grumpy in the morning.

He can also build up energy while awake, but it leaves him lethargic so he doesn’t do it while he has paper work to do.

He never wanted to be a hero as a kid, but as he grew older he found that meant people didn't like him using his quirk so much.

He joined the MLA for the simple reason of his experiences making him feel quirks should just be treated as a normal part of a person, instead of an aspect only heroes should be allowed to use/acknowledge.

Twice Advisor # 1 (King Bradly looking guy)

You remember in chapter 258, they mentioned a guy named Sanctum; oldest member in the MLA and believing all the League members are just in puppet positions? This is him.

He doesn’t really mean to come across as that unapproachable & rude, but he finds making sure everyone takes their jobs seriously is more important than being friendly.

As a result, while he & Twice come at odds quite often, they actually work quite well together. He keeps Twice on track and Twice appreciates that.

Much like Yotsubashi, his family has been in the Liberation Army for generations. Their cause is all he’s even known, but he has no regrets, especially now that Shigaraki’s livened the cause up.

I used to headcanon this guy’s quirk as making portals, but that might be someone else’s quirk no so...Earthbending, his quirk is earthbending.

He’s pretty good with it to, what with training with it since he was a little kid. The amount he can move is between that of Pixie-Bob & Gigantomachia, but he outshines them both in control.

He could make a perfectly square, finely-detailed hall a foot underground and no one above it would even feel the earth shifting.

Violet (Guerrilla Warfare)

Dabi Advisor # 3 (Ana)

So most of this is borrowed from @possessedfuzzybear

To catch everyone up: he’s named Ana (which means ‘hole’), he’s Dabi’s emo friend, and his hair is neon green.

See their blog for more info, but be warned: Fuzzy is horny AF. 18+ only, understand children?

His quirk has already been shown: It’s either making holes in stuff, or possibly making portals.

Needless to say, he and Dabi combo well together.

When he was a kid, one of his parents were arrested by heroes and he ended up running away from home before he got put in the system. He ended up meeting PLF Granny and some other runaways, and when she joined the MLA, he followed along.

He wasn’t originally a very active member, but when he saw the perks PLF Granny was getting for her hard work, and more importantly that she was spending those perks on himself and the other runaways; he started going above and beyond to earn his room & board.

Dabi Advisor # 2 (Tube Face)

Another emo of the PLF, which is probably why he’s with Dabi. That said, he’s less close to Dabi because he’s the exact same kind of loner as Dabi was before he got put in charge of stuff. So they resonate with each other, but they don’t exactly talk.

This guy’s quirk is that he has a snake for a tongue; full-sized and it talks in place of his normal mouth.

That’s actually what the tube is for, it’s snake armor.

(2nd guess, and this probably more likely if I’m honest, is some kind of gas quirk. if that’s true though, he’s related to Mustard.)

His story is a typical one; ostracized for having a particularly freaky mutant quirk that, while impressive, went unappreciated outside of heroics. Perhaps he even tried to become a hero, but dropped out, and the Japanese school system is yet another harsh mistress of society.

Either way, he then joined the biggest game in town that’s trying to make quirks more accepted, so he and kids like him can be appreciated instead of ridiculed.

Dabi Advisor # 1 (Happy with his piercings)

This guy’s something like Muscular without quite so many murders; generally just happy to be here doing whatever we’re doing as long as he gets to use his quirk to do it.

Dabi puts on airs of hating him, but really he...mostly doesn’t.

His quirk is actually super speed, which he combos with his impressive muscles to be quite the lightning bruiser.

That said, he’s not that fast. Like, he is to the flash, what Sato Rikido is to All Might. Probably somewhere between Iida before and after Recipro Burst.

His motivations are, as stated, pretty similar to why Muscular joined the League, except this guy looked into a slightly more legitimate organization because we was looking to legalize the freedom he was after, rather than simply ignoring legality in general.

He’s not exactly opposed to Shigaraki’s methods though.

Geten Advisor #3 (Pointy Head)

My first though looking at this guy is “His color is Blue”.

Generally, the suit and mouth armor make me think he either has or had ties to big business or heroics. Let’s go with the latter.

He was a humble but fairly accomplished hero, or maybe even just a sidekick, when he took down some socially powerful villain the HC didn't exactly want him taking down.

He and his entire Agency were indirectly ruined, and so joined the MLA in hopes of continuing to help people in their own way. Happily for him, that turned out to be fighting against the HC.

His quirk is a simple one: enhanced sight, hearing, and basically all his senses, as well as the ability to process it all very quickly.

To combos this with his swordsmanship to deadly effect.

Having the title of “advisor”, he tends to give lots of advise to Geten (regardless of if it’s wanted), looks out for him, and generally ignores that fact that Geten is his superior, not subordinate.

Geten Advisor # 2 (Sweater Lady)

The PLF Wine Aunt. And she introduces herself like that to people too.

She’s brash but wise, tends to look out for everyone in the PLF when she can, but also shares just a few of Geten’s more worrying views on quirks.

So guys like Dabi & Spinner think there might be hope for her if they can get her to knock that prejudice stuff out, and actually have good reason to think they can, but generally steer clear of her when possible.

Her quirk is something powerful, but disfiguring to her face. My current favorite idea being breathing out a gaseous neurotoxin or something to that effect that makes her mouth look weird. 

Her sweater actually hides a series of soft but sturdy tubes that expel the neurotoxin from her arms, because she can aim her arms better than her head.

Her reasons for being in the MLA are basically that with a lack of social changes in the advent of quirks, standards of beauty are as BS as ever for women, even as women like her get weird mutations to their bodies, and especially to the head.

She believes a society more accepting of quirks would be more willing to accept mutations as beautiful, although this has eventually developed into a complex about powerful quirks being beautiful in order to convince herself of her own worth.

Hence everyone’s belief that maybe they can fix that complex of hers once they build a more accepting society. (That and, y’know, they have to work with her anyway.)

Geten Advisor # 1 (Stressed Baldy)

Probably one of the most welcoming advisors to the League because due to this quirk, this man generally ties to say cheerful at all times.

You see: his quirk is tied to his emotions. All of his emotions. Only by not feeling anything in particular, like in the picture above, does it not activate.

That’s actually why he’s in the PLF, he finds in unreasonable that those with hair trigger quirks like himself be forced to not use those quirks in public or face criminal charges.

Well actually, he’s also from an MLA family like Yotsubashi, but his ancestor joined for the same reason; so he’s probably the person born into the MLA with the best reason for still being there.

Ah, but I didn’t explain the quirk itself, what he does depends on what emotions he’s currently feeling.

When Happy, or otherwise feeling positively towards himself: a barrier forms around him right above his skin & clothing. While in this barrier, hits to him are diminished, and his own hits hit harder.

When sad, fearful, or other such emotions: that barrier disappears from around him and instead forms around his allies.

When angry, or otherwise directing negative emotions outward: the barriers appear around his enemies, and then lock in place so they cannot move. They also can’t be hurt in this state, but he can work around that.

Carmine (Intelligence)

Toga Advisor # 3 (Muscular tank top guy)

The reason he’s in the Intelligence regiment has little to do with his quirk, and a lot to do with his charismatic and friendly personalty. He get’s a lot done just going out and talking to people, and he teaches his subordinates how to do the same.

His quirk is simple x-ray vision. Nothing all that special, but he has learned to use it well in a fight, seeing how the opponent moves like a certain Jojo stand from part 6.

He was also a part of PLF Granny’s group of runaways who joined the MLA when she did. No particularly dramatic reason why, he was just broke & unlucky and she was just nice.

Before they joined the MLA, he did stuff like convince bakeries to give their left over product to the kids at the end of the day.

They ended up joining shortly before the MLA really started making it’s resurgence, so he made a name for himself helping out the new guys. And since everyone was already looking up to him, the higher-ups gave him a good position to keep doing that.

That’s his job with Toga too, introducing her to the ins and outs of the PLF. They also tend to talk romance and cute things (like I said above, he’s good at talking to people), so they get along pretty well despite underlying tension.

He finds her crushes on multiple enemies worrisome though, for multiple reasons, and is trying to build up the nerve to talk to her about that.

Toga Advisor # 2 (R2D2 Expy)

Little can we tell from the above picture, that’s just his head (and extremely long neck). He has a torso and such below.

His quirk is actually being a cyborg, and most of his body is augmentable.

He has multiple weapons he can attach and detach from himself and automatically control like any other limb.

It wares on him to attach to much to himself though, so he won’t be augmenting himself with any large equipment.

The R2D2 head is a disguise he wears to PLF meetings, and he intends for it to be his official villain outfit once he hits the field.

It’s not his only look though. He has numerous faces and various identities to go with them. It’s how he joined the Intelligence division.

He’s a Star Was fan (obvs).

Toga doesn’t talk to him much, what with him not being very cute. He mostly takes care of managerial tasks with his underlings, and organizes reports for her.

He also works at Feel Good Inc., & only really joined the MLA because he was invited by his boss, Skeptic. He got a promotion out of it and still feels like he’s on the winning side though, so he’s not complaining.

Toga Advisor # 1 (Beautiful Woman)

The advisor Toga most depends on, this woman tends to do all the work Toga’s less than qualified to handle as a 17-year old.

Frankly, Toga kind of looks up to her as a powerful feminine figure in her life, especially since she’s largely not quirkiest (like Sweater Lady), and her past is pretty similar to Toga’s but she managed to bounce back into a powerful position.

Her quirk is the ability to read minds in short snippets by making eye contact with people, usually whatever they’re thinking of in that moment..

It’s not perfect because people can sort of feel ‘something’ when she reads their minds, so people who know what she’s doing can just look away. It’s pretty easy to not look someone in the eye.

Giran caught on pretty quick when he was being held hostage.

She pretended to be quirkless to her friends and repressed it well into adulthood, until her quirk was discovered. At that point, not only did people stop trusting her, she was accused of illegal quirk usage and pursued by the police. This was when she found and joined the MLA.

Skeptic Advisor # 3 (Toad Man)

This guy radiates the best and worst of redneck culture, kinda gross, more than a bit judgy; but also inventive, Integrous, and always willing to throw down with corrupt authority figures.

(That said, he’s toned down the prejudice stuff working with so many different people and also Toga threatening him with knives.)

He’s also good at talking to the marginalized and those out in the boonies, which essentially means he’s got an underworld information network all his own, which is half of how he got his position in the Intelligence regiment. In fact, for better or worse, he’s the one who found Giran.

The other half is his quirk; which is, along with general toad-like characteristics, the ability to temporarily eat anything he can fit in that big ol’ gullet of his and analyze it down the the barest physical detail. (”physical” meaning he could find a finger print on a gun and draw it out, but couldn’t read the data on a memory stick.)

His reasons for being in the PLF are simple: like I said, he’s just always willing to throw down with authority figures. He doesn’t care that his quirk isn’t for fighting, he’ll just punch every HC member in the face.

Actually, he’s even more invested now that Shigaraki’s in charge. He wasn’t really feeling the MLA before, but now he’s gung ho about the cause like few others.

Skeptic Advisor # 2 (Ugh...Slidin’ Go)

Being a well known character, there’s not that much to say.

Hmm...

His reasoning for joining the MLA is surprisingly simple: he feels society’s view on quirks is too simple; praising flashy quirks while also forbidding non-heroes from using them where possible, all for the convenience of heroes and the hero industry.

Being so attached to his quirk, he entered into heroics in order to get a quirk licence, but still felt this thought process was backwards and joined the MLA to turn it around.

He’s responsible for a lot of the heroes in the MLA, having found a lot of like minded people in his industry and got them into the Army. A lot of them were actually old classmates of his.

Skeptic Advisor # 1 (Beautiful Man)

The half-brother of Beautiful Woman, he joined because she invited him and he wanted to help her. Not only because she was family, but because he was responsible for her quirk being discovered & he feels he needs to make up for accidentally making her a wanted woman.

He’s not a wanted criminal, so he got a job at Feel Good Inc. and works closely with Skeptic as a sort of secretary that reminds him of his personal affairs.

(In reality though, he manages contact with the MLA/PLF while Skeptic is running his company.)

He gets along with Skeptic as well as anyone can with that personality. Way better than Slidin’ Go anyway.

This quirk is a form of telepathy like Mandalay. There are 3 differences though. 1) he or a part of him must be touching the person to communicate, which he gets around by making bracelets & other accessories with strands of his hair that can be pressed against the wearer’s skin. On the other hand, 2) it’s got no range limit and 3) allows for 2 way communication. 

And on one last note: he can always tell who he’s talking too, as well as who might be trying (& failing) to listen in.

Essentially, he’s a hack-proof human communications network, able to pass along information from key PLF members to each other and Skeptic, who can relay the information to other members through more mundane means. 

It’s a good back-up for if heroes try jamming or otherwise interfering with those mundane communication methods.

Brown (Support)

Mr. Compress Advisor # 3 (Compress Cosplayer)

The mask is actually new, and actually kind of is Compress cosplay. when he met Compress they just kind of resonated with each other, and Compress decided to make him his apprentice.

It’s only been a few months, but he took to showmanship quite well. And now everyone else around him hates him. Dude just can’t win.

His quirk is basically being living hammer space; he can store things in his body like Momo in reverse & pull them out like Momo in forward.

The catch is that his whole body looks something like an astral CGI monstrosity; his skin is this gelatinous looking goop patterned like space that caused him to be bullied growing up.

Though his past is similar to Sweater lady, his motives are actually more like Spinner’s: living a lonely life, he kind of just joined the first cause that resonated with him in the hope of finding meaning.

He has yet to really find that yet, but at least he found a hobby & a good number of good friends.

Mr. Compress Advisor # 2 (Natsuo’s happier doppelganger)

A popular base commander, this guy has made a name for himself in the PLF for his managerial skills. He takes care of his people, completes his jobs promptly, and is generally pretty intelligent when it comes to resource management.

His job as an advisor is less stellar though. Except for reports, he tends to leave Compress to himself and/or his other advisors. Compress has tried to talk to him but he made fun of the magician act once and now they keep their distance.

He probably has one of the peatiest reasons for being in the PLF among the advisors & lieutenants.

You see, his quirk is that he’s able to make or dismiss a kind of wooden golem to do what he wants, and he often had it do menial labor for him.

That said, while it’s legal for him to do that in private settings, it’s actually illegal in public, and people have gotten on his case about that since he was a kid. What’s more, the reprimands got worse & worse the older he got, so eventually he got sick of it and joined the MLA.

Yeah, he’s part of a terrorist group because it’s illegal to use his quirk to carry his groceries for him.

Mr. Compress Advisor # 1 (Electric Scar Face)

Another descendant of a mainstay family in the MLA, he was actually a friend of Yotsubashi growing up. They’ve drifted a bit in adulthood since he isn’t exactly the business type, but they still work closely enough and keep in touch.

That’s actually most of the reason he’s not exactly on board with Shigaraki being in charge now. He only really heard 2nd hand about what happened in Daika, and he’s pretty biased in favor of the old boss.

All that said, he & Compress probably have one of the most stable lieutenant/advisor relationships; agreeable enough, healthy but minimal disagreements, actually pretty similar humor & they’ve both got good heads on their shoulders with just more than a hint of eccentricity.

We already know his quirk, absorbing and discharging Electricity.

Spinner Advisor # 3 (Cementos’ long lost cousin)

While not actually related to Cementos (probably), I’ve actually grown attached to the idea that he went to UA himself, so here’ the continuation of PLF Granny’s story I promised.

So one day, while working on his internship, he ended up pursuing a wanted hero killer, who he found out was just an old lady who lost control of her quirk and has been panicking ever since. He realized she needed help, but for her crimes she’d surely be sent to Tartarus for life (which is a redundant statement), so he decided to leave professional heroism behind to help her disappear, as well as help her in general.

In the process, they came across a good number of other runaways, and when the MLA agreed to shelter them in exchange for labor and generally joining the cause, they agreed.

As an advisor, he has a good professional relationship with Spinner, and they often discuss what they believe heroes should really be like and the failings of their current iterations. As such, he’s ended up growing to the idea of Shigaraki as presented to him by Spinner.

His quirk is the ability to turn into a large whale like creature that’s able to move large numbers of forces in it’s mouth through the water. I think it’d be cool if it could move through the ground too, but that might overlap with Machia.

He’s also able to produce and shoot spikes from his skin in either form to defend himself. 

He’d probably get along with/relate to Kurogiri if he’s ended up getting some of Shirakumo’s memories by the time he escapes.

Spinner Advisor # 2 (Edgy Spider Guy)

(Just a reminder for those who only remember this guy from the above picture, he was shown to have spider legs in a later chapter.)

Spinner’s gamer buddy among the advisors, as well as the main supporter for his crusade of eliminating mutation prejudice.

Having a spider quirk, no surprise he was bullied in school only to be harassed and marginalized in adulthood. He eventually got a job at Detnarat, and was personally invited into the MLA by Yotsubashi himself.

Along with the extra spider limbs, he can also produce especially strong spider silk, which he can then telekinetically control while close to it. He does’t produce it at a very quick rate, but he’s been able to sew it into his cloak to move it, letting him increase his speed and pull off a few other neat tricks.

The main downside though is a particularly freaky face, which he’s developed a complex about. Thus why he hides his face. He’s got friends working with him about it though.

That said, he’ll probably still keep the cloak after he overcomes this complex because it’s cool.

Spinner Advisor # 1 (Cute Bug Girl)

The last of PLF Granny’s old runaway gang among the advisors.

(there are still others, but they have much smaller rolls, if any.) 

She joined after losing her parents to an altercation with the CRC. (Y’know, the Klan looking freaks.)

Her personality is something like a transitioning point between a high school alpha bitch and a wine aunt. Mainly because she looks to sweater lady from Geten’s group as something of a roll model (unfortunately).

Her relationship with her boss, Spinner, is rather tense as a result. She looks down on him for his quirk (though she’s tactful enough to not mention this), but relates to his hardships as a Mutant. As a result, she looks out for him more than she looks down on him, but she’s still kind of waiting for him to prove himself.

Her quirk is the ability to create & control tiny insects about the size of fairy flies (<3mm in length) in vast swarms.

These bugs move pretty silently, so they can act as a fog, fly into people’s mouths and attack them there, or fly into wounds to either stitch them closed or make them worse.

While she doesn’t have an actual PHD, she was trained by several doctors hired by the MLA for many years to make the best of her quirk, and is now the director of the PLF’s medical units, except for small, personal medial units in the other regiments.

General stuff

Just to be clear, though I describe most of these guys & gals relatively nicely, most all of these guys probably have more confirmed kills under their belt than Twice.

(Granted, that’s partially because Twice doesn’t really confirm his kills. We only know of 2, including the guy he murdered after he was himself murdered. But that still means everyone here has killed several people.)

Each of these guys have their own base to watch over, you’ll remember, and part of their responsibilities is either recruiting or eliminating people who learn too much.

Each of them has the job of easing their subordinates into going along with the new leadership, especially the people who weren’t there for Daika. This is kind of tricky because they were also not there for Daika, so they’ve been required to talk with the League members a lot.

It’s helped encourage them to get to know the new management relatively well.

Side note: I’m also willing to bet Trumpet & Redestro have their own regiment; probably an undercover or public relations regiment, and probably have 6 advisors for themselves too. I’m excited to meet them.

And despite how much work I put into all this, I’m also excited to see just how much of it is wrong as we meet these guys for real.

[baddyzarc]

2/7 Ruins: Legend of the Gladiator

1 x 3 4a 4b 5 6 7  

The next Barian ruins I wanna discuss is that of Alito. I was supposed to group Gilag and Alito since my contract says I’m legally not allowed to separate these two. But I went absolutely ham on Alito’s ruins so, uhhh, im splitting them up.

Alito is a fascinating, fantastic character. Not only is he outwardly bisexual and genuinely a non-evil character, he’s one of the most interesting due to how the writers use him to progress the narrative of the Barian Emperors. This could be attributed to his close relationship with Yuma, and thus he’s allowed ample screen time to play his role in the story.

Alito’s ruins are located under an artificial lake in the fictional city of Spartan City located somewhere in Italy. The ruins are revealed when Alito blows up the dam and drains the water away. Judging by the presence of a colosseum and the fact that Alito was a gladiator in his past life, I’m sure this is supposed to be based on Rome’s Colosseum. Not a big shocker, but this sets up the basis for the discussion. 

The Guardian for this Mythyrian Number found in the ruins (Number 54: Rebellious Fighter - Lion Heart) is a gladiator. This Guardian is the hardest one to decipher out of all of the Guardians. You have Mach, Ponta, Abyss, Minotaurus, Jinlon, and then a random gladiator. Each of the Guardians I listed have something to say about the Emperor it corresponds to, and I believe that the gladiator also falls into this category because of this line.

The gladiator recognizes Alito. This confused line is also spoken by Jinlon when he first encounters Mizael, so it can be said that some of the Guardians may not immediately recognize their Emperor, but they do feel their “aura”. 

Like Jinlon, the gladiator takes a moment before realizing its attacker is Alito. After that, Alito breaks through its power and gains him to get control of the Mythyrian Number. 

The most common theory, and the one I personally believe, is that the gladiator is the prince of the legend. 

My evidence is slim, but I think his likeness to the Mythyrian Number "Number 54: Rebellious Fighter - Lion Heart", his usage of a sword during his fight with Alito, and strong familiarity with Alito (”we’re like brothers!”) provides enough evidence. Not the best or decisive, but from what we have, I like this one the most.

Not only that, and I may be reading into this scene a little too deeply, but it looks as though the gladiator recognizes that this angry blob of hate is Alito, and under some choice of its own, it  allows itself to be taken by a Barian. Rather, the Mythyrian Number yields to a Barian. (For reference, only Nasch and Gilag came into direct contact with their Numbers; each has their own situation with Nasch’s being more complex and Gilag’s being similar to Alito). But why would something like a Mythyrian Number give itself to a Barian? I’ll get into that when I talk about the Ruins Duel later on.  

Back onto the ruins itself, when I first started this, I was truly struggling to see how the past and present are the same place. 

Obviously they have to be the same place because that’s how the plot works, but looking at the placement of the mountains, this image of the ruins in modern Spartan City does not match the geography of the past (unless there’s a glacial retreat or something, mountains do not wear away that quickly). I assumed that the animators didn’t consider this until I found a single second that shows that these locations are the same place. The image of Yuma is a poor angle of the ruins. 

And luckily for this shot, it gives me not only a confirmation that the geography is consistent, it also allows me to use this as an accurate frame of reference for the layout of the city.

Hold onto this information for a minute, because it is absolutely tasty.

Now that I confirm that everything is consistent, I can move onto Alito’s legend. His legend is straightforward if you discount the false memories embedded in him. Alito was a popular gladiator who was also friends with the prince. They frequently fought head-to-head and were on equal footing with each other. According to the legend, Alito and the prince were going to have a final showdown to see who comes out on top. However, the prince’s advisors were afraid that the prince would lose and damage the reputation of the country. The advisors framed Alito for murder, and despite the prince’s plead that Alito was innocent, he was executed under charges of murder. But according to Alito’s memories (or the ones altered by Don Thousand), the prince declared him guilty and was the one to call his death. Alito, being a hero adorned by many, was betrayed by his best friend and scorned by the people of the city, and this was what pushed him to Barian World. 

(Side track: But this is one of my favorite scene of his legend. The casket-shaped shadow, the crystalline, Barian-like shape, is a prelude to his fate after being framed for murder through the works of Don Thousand. At this point, no matter what happens, only death waits for him. The bright crimson coloration not only alludes to his bloody demise but also his descension into Barian World.) 

Now, the past lives of the Barians are often mucky because it’s hard to distinguish the truth from the lie, especially since Don Thousand altered the lives of the Emperors in many different ways (memory change, influencing outsiders, personality alterations, ect. It gets disgustingly messy). But in the case of Alito, it appears to be influencing the advisors to frame Alito, and then a memory alteration to where Alito believes that the prince was against him rather than for him. Because of this, I assume the legend recounted by Gauche (aka the advisors framed Alito + the prince was for Alito’s innocence) is the truth. I believe that if Alito knew the prince thought highly of him and trusted him during the entire trial, this would’ve been enough to allow his soul to pass onto Astral World regardless of the truth.

Therefore, Alito’s resentment exists as a product of Don Thousand going into his mind and changing his perception of reality. 

And this statement is what ties his character together during this arc. 

Now, if you know anything about this blog, you oughta know that I do not believe the Barian Emperors are evil. Except Vector. Vector is evil. He is evil because he feels like it and that’s it; it makes him happy hes a freak. The rest of them act like that because they are living-beings and have some self preservation. If they do not retaliate, Astral World will literally erase them from history. Each of the Barians (vector DNI) exemplifies this concept throughout the show. They are not antagonizing Yuma because he’s the hero. They are antagonizing him because he sides with Astral, and thus he supports the side that wants them dead. (and ngl, aside from Vector, they are incredibly inept at being evil villains, just look at their accomplishments if you take Vector away, gilag ate a live racoon whoop-de-doo these guys are going extinct)  

But this isn’t what this essay is about. This is about the legend and ruins of Alito, who is the most prominent in his lack of evilness. At the beginning of Zexal Second, Durbe ordered Gilag, Alito, and Mizael to defeat Yuma and Astral. From here, these characters acted first on orders, and then on self-motivation (or not at all). Mizael followed this order before getting side-tracked with surpassing Kaito. Gilag followed this order before kinda just joining a bunch of random clubs at school and watching *looks at script* Love Live. 

Alito did not followed that order and was immediately infatuated with Kotori. And by chance BY CHANCE did he run into Yuma, before being infatuated with him too. Alito has zero drive to be evil or follow any orders. He doesn’t hate humans nor does he act on anything malicious. Even with Yuma, his drive wasn’t to defeat Astral but to duke it out with Yuma with as much passion as possible. 

This is a stark contrast to what happens to him (and Gilag) when Vector injects their comatosed bodies with Don Thousand juice. This happens Twice. And each time, he loses his passion and becomes a genuinely evil person. He hypnotizes Gauche and makes him use the adverse effects of “Lion Heart”, he puts Kotori in danger, he wants to kill Yuma, he is filled with so much hate and rage that all the characters point out that “this isn’t the same person” they originally met. 

In essence, he became cruel by coming into recontact with Don Thousand. 

But we all know this. Don Thousand is evil while Alito is not.

So how does this prologue connect to the ruins and the Legend of the Gladiator? It has everything to do with Gauche.

Consider the geography of this again.

Even though it doesn’t appear like it, these images reveal some information about Alito and his proxy, Gauche. Compare the geography of the mountains and the placement of ruins, look at the current location of where Gauche and Droite live in the present and Alito’s home in the past. 

It’s the exact same place.

Neat, yes, but also consider that Alito was a hero to the children of his time and Gauche wants to be a hero to the children of his time. (“A Messenger From The Stars For The Kids”) Not only that, these two have an interesting relationship with Yuma. At first, Gauche dismissed Yuma before seeing that his unbreakable spirit makes him a worthy opponent. Same with Alito. They also get possessed by Barian powers in order to fight without their iconic fiery passion. These two characters are thoroughly similar if you can look past the surface level (also they were opponents during the Barian Onslaught arc if that counts for anything). 

From here, we can draw direct parallels between the fate of Gauche and Alito. 

On a historical note, I assume that Alito is not from Spartan City. Most gladiators in real life consisted of slaves, prisoners of war, or criminals, and if you consider the “Alito’s Theme” soundtrack and his “Farewell, My Friend” soundtrack (which I believe only plays after he frees Gilag from Don’s curse, but correct me if I’m wrong, also these are two of my favorite soundtracks), it sounds like it has vaguely Spanish origins to it. (again, correct me if im wrong, im not good at cultural interpretation of music)

The theory I accept is that Alito was a prisoner of war for some other country, say modern-day Spain. Gladiators in real life, if popular enough, can win back their freedom, and I assume Alito’s charisma, passion, and strength won him the favor of the public and the prince along with his freedom. He still fought, of course, but this may be due to his drive to keep fighting. 

Unlike Alito, Gauche is a native to Spartan City, but he started in the similar wrungs as Alito, although not like, slavery. He was an orphan living in the streets with Droite, and he also used his charisma, passion, and strength to rise as the Dueling Champion of Spartan City. 

Both of these characters are champions of their respective times, but Alito got decapitated while Gauche did not (so far). If Don did not interfere, Alito might’ve received a happy ending like Gauche.

This connection doesn’t go much further until we get into the Ruins Duel with Alito/Gauche vs. Yuma/Droite. And this duel is what I think storytelling through duels should be like.

Earlier, I talked about how the Guardian allows Alito to gain control of the Number. I do not think this is a fluke on the Numbers part. Mythyrian Numbers are the antithesis to Over-Hundred Numbers, and the only way to break the spell of Don Thousand is to use a Mythyrian Number. I believe that the Guardian saw that Alito was under Donny’s influence, and thus gave him the Mythyrian Number in hopes of snapping him out of it. 

This happens with Gilag too, where Ponta hands him the Mythyrian Number before swapping into his body (as well as Ryouga but this was before he was declared an Emperor, and i will get to this when i cover him). The only other Emperor who got close to his Mythyrian card but didn’t touch it was Vector, who made Black Mist deal with it; that said, I wonder what would’ve happened if Vector reconnected with his Mythyrian? 

Back to duel, will you believe me when I say that the actions of this duel tells the story of the Barian Emperors? Maybe, maybe not.

But I do not think it’s a coincidence that Alito is the only Barian that participates in the Mythyrian Numbers duels (mr. Ryouga and ms. Rio do not count for obvious reasons) nor is it that he fights under the full influence of Don Thousand. 

There is a lot that happens in the duel under the text, but the overall message of the duel is the rekindling of the original self. This is in opposition to Gauche and Alito, who lost their true spirits after being possessed. In contrast, Yuma and Droite duel with as much, if not more, passion than ever before. 

The duel, although not spectacular in terms on the plays made, has a lot of interesting imaginary that I appreciate so much. 

I think this scene is the most lovely of this entire duel: a fearsome lion and a tender butterfly facing off against one another. The butterfly is able to move the heart of the lion, and Gache returns to his original soul with Droite’s unyielding passion alone. He isn’t freed, but this action opens the door to his heart. 

Droite’s actions mimics the flow of Yuma returning Alito to his original soul. Instead of responding to his hate-filled dueling with a similar stance, Yuma duels with relentless passion, summoning out “Heroic Champion - Excalibur” and letting in face off against “Number 54: Rebellious Fighter - Lion Heart”. This is enough to save Alito from Don Thousand’s spell.

Furthermore, I feel as though this entire duel is closure for Alito’s past life whether he realizes it or not. As you know, Alito and the prince never had their final match due to Don Thousand’s interference. This duel concludes their fight and put the souls of both parties to rest (figuratively speaking). 

As the duel picks up, the stadium comes to life with the spirits of the spectators. They cheer for the duelists as the fight gets more and more intense. It’s as though the characters are thrown into the past.

The final move of the duel is what gives this “Legend of the Gladiator” the closure it deserves while presenting an amazing end to the narrative of Alito and Gauche. 

As Gauche and Yuma duke it out with “Lion Heart” and “Excalibur”, two monsters that are passionately battling one another, Alito interferes with “Cheat Commissioner”. This is no different than when the advisors cheated in order to murder Alito, thus preventing the final match from commencing. The strength of “Number 54: Rebellious Fighter - Lion Heart” and “Heroic Champion - Excalibur” was able to overcome “Cheat Commissioner” and as a result, Alito is instantly knocked out rather than Yuma or Gauche. 

Alito’s Mythyrian Number and Gauche’s former ace—their passionate souls working together to defeat a common foe, freeing their masters and returning them to their original self.

The presence of “Lion Heart” and the knockout of Alito’s “Cheat Commissioner” (or Don Thousand’s interference with Alito and the prince in the past) was enough for Alito to shake off Don Thousand’s control and revert back to his original personality. He’s confused and baffled as his memories as a human flood into him, but he quickly retreats back to Barian World. 

A similar outcome happened when Yuma faced off against the gladiator version of Michael, who is a character who shares many similar traits with Alito. I talked about this before and I rather post this here than rewrite a decent explanation of my thoughts. 

Yuma was able to free Michael of his hateful and rage-filled state like how he did it during this duel with Alito and their final encounter. 

But from the contents of this duel alone, it is revealed that Don Thousand has the ability to alter the Emperors’ minds; he can also influence even the kindest Barian to act cruel and sadistic. It demonstrates that enough passion and force from their Mythyrian Number is enough for them to shake off the control—if only a little bit—and return them to their true nature. It also cements that the true memories of the Barian Emperors are suppressed and hidden from them, and they are the heroes we suspect they are, but unknown (but probably Don Thousand-based) circumstances sent them to Barian World without their consent.

You can take all of this was a grain of salt or say im looking too deep into it but,

This is what I mean when I said “story-telling through duels” should be something like this. There shouldn’t be a character in the background recounting what’s happening below the subsurface. Seeing a battle between a lion and butterfly, or the knockout of “Cheat Commissioner” through Alito’s Mythyrian Monster and Gauche’s original ace monster, or the awakening of the spectators to cheer for Alito—this should be left for the audience to dissect. I’m not gonna say this is my favorite duel or the plays are amazing, but I truly appreciate the story it shows without the characters looking at the camera and expositioning what this means. 

This analysis is long enough as it is, but I want to end it by talking about “Number 54: Rebellious Fighter - Lion Heart” and and “Number 105: Burning Knuckler - Cestus the Meteor”. They’re both based on fighting, which fits Alito’s personality. These monsters (as well as Vector’s) are unique in that they are the only ones that swap attributes between the Mythyrian and Over-Hundred Numbers. “Lion Heart'' is an Earth Monster while Cestus is a Fire Monster. I’m actually quite stumped on this decision. Lion Heart looks like it should be a Fire Monster based on the colors of its design, the fiery background, and fiery spirit it uses to keep fighting even after death.

However, despite this, I think it’s a cool idea that the Over-Hundred is a Fire Monster. According to the legend, the gladiator is said to “still wander the ruins of the Colosseum” because he “... regrets… not being able to finish his fight with his rival”. 

To “seal the wandering spirit of the unappeased gladiator” the Colosseum was submerged underwater. 

Water suppresses the flames that Don Thousand forced into Alito, and as the water drains away, revealing the earth beneath it, after a thousand years, the lost gladiator wanders through the ancient ruins of the Colosseum once more. And through the cheers and hollers of the spirits that transcends time, the champion and lion partake in their final showdown. With the conclusion of the intense battle, the bantering of the spirits fade away in the glow of rising sun, and gladiator of the legend is liberated.

[jayfromriverside-blog]

Comics I read this week (8/26 - 8/30)

Hey anyone and... anyone I guess. For all those looking to get into comics or who are already comics readers but don’t know which books are good, here’s an opinion on just that! 

Give it a read, let me know what you think, light some pitchforks, whatever you like:

Justice League #30

I was conflicted reading this week’s issue of Justice League: while I’m really liking the direction that Scott Snyder is taking the story, I’m really getting sick of Jorge Jimenez’s art on the series. 

While Jimenez was a breath of fresh air on the “Superman: Rebirth” series with his CG texturized drawing and smooth surfaces, his ultra-stylized and cartoony figures are starting to look more plastic and stretchy as this series goes on. He’s got a bad habit of smoothing over his character’s proportions, which make these heroes that are supposed to be cut and strong look flat and almost doughy. It’s starting to grind on me more as each new issue comes out, and maybe it’s time for an artistic switch-up on this title.

In terms of the story though, this was a good set-up issue for the Justice/Doom war that Snyder and co. have been building up to on this run. We’ve got all the pieces in place: a gathering of forces by both sides; a romp through time which sees the League meeting with both Kamandi and the classic JSA; and everything going awry right from the get-go! 

The only thing I’m slightly concerned about storywise is that Catwoman was in the Doom lineup, and with the rekindling of Bat-Cat in the latest Batman issues, I’m hoping this isn’t a portend for another breakup in King’s run. My heart couldn’t take another.

Superman #14

Let me be clear on one thing before I start in: I’m a fan of Brian Michael Bendis. His work on “Ultimate Spider-Man,” “Daredevil,” and “Alias” are some of my favorite comics, and his more recent work with “Naomi,” and “Event Leviathan” has been really good. With all that being said... man, this Superman comic has sucked hard since he took over.

Let’s just start at the story: 

It’s felt like Bendis has been really looking forward to getting started on his upcoming run with the new “Legion of Superheros,” which is something to potentially get excited about for the near future. What’s not exciting at all is the realization that this whole Rogol Zar arc has been a poorly thought out lead-in to the Legion’s return. SPOILER WARNING FOR ANYONE WHO WANTS TO READ THIS GARBAGE FIRE: the Legion show up at the end of the issue to invite Jon to join, as a commemoration of the day the United Planets was formed. This is fine, and could be an exciting new direction for Jon that harkens back to the classic comics. BUT did we really have to suffer through weeks of nonsensical story just to get this? 

Just to recap this arc: Rogol Zar appears out of nowhere, looking like Lobo, Doomsday and a garbage disposal with a bland imagination all had an orgy and he was the deformed kid that came out of it. This beefed-up piece of blandness comes out of the sky to fuck up Superman cause he heard there were some Kryptonians still alive in the Universe and apparently he’s a space-racist. 

Superman struggles against this remnant from the 90s while the worlds shittiest not-dead Grandpa, Jor El, is off in space traumatizing Jon and stressing him out so much he ages up to a teenager. 

But it’s ok guys! Jor El knows who Rogol Zar is, they have a connection of sorts! And Rogol Zar caused the destruction of Krypton! But now he’s allied with Jax Ur, and also now Zod maybe? And the Thanagarians are involved? So are the Guardians? Wait, now Rogol Zar is also effected by Kryptonite because he’s a Kryptonian? And now he’s just captured like that, but Thanagar’s under attack, oh wait just kidding it’s not? 

Those last 2 plot points literally happened in 3 pages this issue, right after each other. So this story is confusing and non-sensical and ultimately doesn’t mean anything, because the whole point turned out to be that Bendis needed something, some plot device to make it so Superman could say “we can’t have secrets like this tearing apart worlds like Krypton, we need a United Planets.”

None of this crap story is helped by Ivan Reis’ art, which I know some people love, but to me it looks like everything bad with the 90s except with better backgrounds and textures. But even if I didn’t hate his art, his page and panel composition is often confusing, especially during fight sequences, which doesn’t help when the story is confusing to begin with.

After reading this week’s issue, I want nothing more than to die in the garbage fire Bendis has lit and take this whole comic with me. 

The Terrifics #19

Shouts out to DC for finally figuring out how to write a Fantastic 4 comic, maybe they can show Dan Slott how it’s done. But seriously, “The Terrifics” has been the exact kind of science-adventure story that needs to be around in comics, as the landscape needs it’s fare share of science-criminals and heroes to balance things out.

First thing to note for this week, the art is great. Max Raynor (first time I’ve seen their work) has a great kind of cartoony playfulness to his characters and line-work, while at the same time keeping the models tight and well detailed. 

I’m glad that the writers of the story realized that the Terrifics function best when they’re dealing with light-hearted cross-dimensional adventures, and this new one seems like it’ll be great from the start. In keeping with the “Year of the Villain,” Lex Luthor has made an offer to Bizarro (the one for the HTREA, not the one from the Outlaws), giving him a time-machine device to reek some havoc with. 

I don’t want to spoil the issue too much, as if you haven’t read the Terrifics you really should give it a go, but let’s just say that it involves Bizarro at one point destroying Algebra, and a Bizarro Terrifics team known as “The Terribles” breaking through to the main DC dimension to challenge their Terrific rivals.

If you’re looking for something fun, cheesy, but heartwarming and action packed, definitely give the Terrifics a try.

The Flash #77

Look, I’m still not digging this whole “Force War,” or “War of the Forces,” or whatever the Flash team is trying to build up with these new force users. It felt like the DC Creative team was trying to retcon Flash to be more mythical with “Flash: Year One,” pitting the Flash against the Turtle and creating this whole mythology around the Forces of the Universe to make it seem like this clash was inevitable. 

But what this has done for me is just make the Flash feel smaller and less special. These forces and the grander narrative behind them have just diminished the Speed force, which was still shrouded in some mystery after all these years in the DC Universe, to just one force, just A force. 

There are two silver linings from this week’s issue, one more bittersweet than the other. First off, the art has gotten ten times better than it’s been in weeks. Rafa Sandoval’s pencils are crisp and clean, and though his action feels static sometimes, he’s miles better than what we’ve been seeing for a few months now.

Second, though this Force War already feels like a dud, a cool concept was introduced in a throwaway line. Flash fans, feel free to crucify me, but with the Black Flash’s appearance this week, Commander Cold talked about how he was acting like an anti-body for the Speed Force in trying to eliminate these new force users. If that’s true, it makes the Speed Force almost like a living creature that feel’s like it is under attack. But this also makes me think that, wouldn’t it have been cooler if you had the same motivation for the appearance of the Black Flash, but instead of the Force users, it was Speedsters it was targeting? 

What if all of the new Speedsters were putting a strain on the Speed Force, hurting it in some way that awoke the Black Flash? It’d still give Barry a reason to reconcile with Wallace and Avery, but would also replace this Force War with a Speed War? Spitballing here, but that sounds cooler to me.

Ice Cream Man #14

And now we break up the superheroes for something a little more horrific. For anyone who doesn’t know what “Ice Cream Man” is, the best way I can categorize it is a horror anthology series. 

The story, setting and characters change from week-to-week, except for one presence: the Ice Cream Man. Even when he’s not in whatever nightmare is being doled out that week, his fingers can be felt all over the story, and they dig into the fears you try to hide and pry them open.

The theme of this week’s story was communication, and maaaaaaaaan does this comic have a way of making you feel depressed and scared all at the same time. 

The two main characters are a husband and wife, the former who is deeply dissatisfied and finds escape in crosswords, the latter who is so starved for communication and intimacy that she makes problems out of nothing just to have something to talk with her husband about. 

I don’t want to spoil too much, as I think everyone should be reading this book, but things take a turn for the hellish when the husband goes out to buy more crosswords and finds himself trapped in one, while his wife finds out that her delusions may have been true, and worse than she thought. 

For long-time readers, the biggest thing from to take away from this issue is that perhaps the Ice Cream Man’s influence is spilling out into the world more and more, and things will only get worse from here. 

Spider-Man: Life Story #6

For any fans of Spider-Man, go out and buy this book. Doesn’t matter if you’re a new fan or a hardcore fan, this is a story for anyone who has any love for Spider-Man in any shape. This story isn’t perfect all the way through, but man is it an incredible ride.

For anyone who hasn’t heard of this comic, writer Chip Zdarsky took the gargantuan task of creating one long-form story out of the entire continuity of Spider-Man, from the 1962 till 2019, and showing how this life that we’ve seen Spider-Man live would actually play out in real-time. 

This comic took some of the best and worst arcs, from “Kraven’s Last Hunt,” the birth of Venom and “The Superior Spider-Man,” to “The Clone Saga” and the Inheritors (god those pseudo vampires were dumb), and not only makes them work within this different world that Zdarsky has made, but makes them work as a part of the larger narrative. 

While it’s not perfect all the way through, seeing the characters we know and love, especially Peter and MJ, live their lives with wrinkles and all feels like something special, and I encourage anyone who is curious to go out and cop this 6 issue series and join the ride.

Runaways #24

For all manga fans out there, I’m a huge fan of the “slice-of-life” genre. For any non-manga fans, slice-of-life stories are ones that celebrate the everyday little moments that make up most of our lives. Riding bikes with friends, going to the movies, starting a new hobby, or even just going to the store and deciding what to get for dinner, these are all the kind of topics that a slice-of-life narrative covers. With her run on “Runaways,” Rainbow Rowell has essentially made a superhero slice-of-life comic, and I’m really liking every moment of it. 

This week’s issue focuses almost entirely on Karolina and Nico spending a night out “superheroing.” Except it becomes apparent pretty early on that neither really knows what they’re doing, and whatever little problems they run into (fender bender on the 405, potentially lost children, etc.) are better left to themselves, as they either wouldn’t be able to help or would actually get in the way. It’s weird to say that watching superheroes be ineffective is really entertaining, but that’s exactly what I’m saying, and I think that is in large part to the good character writing that Rowell has done on her run, and the warm art of this series that helps you feel safe and cozy.

My favorite part of the issue is when Karolina and Nico stop for a bite to eat, and Karolina feels like she has to apologize for wasting Nico’s time. Nico just laughs it off and tells her that she was just looking to spend time with her partner, so in her eyes tonight’s mission was a success. It’s cute, it fits with the characters and how we’ve seen them grow over the run, and I like it a lot. 

That’s not to say there isn’t any action in this issue. By the time the story is done there’s a super-powered dance fight and a mysterious new superhero debuting on the scene. I’m excited to see where both of those threads go heading into the next issue.

Justice League Dark #14

Since the Rebirth of this team this has been one of the comics that I look forward to the most each new issue, and this is quickly becoming one of my favorite iterations of the team. While Batman’s gothic-detective aesthetic fit well with the team, he always felt too based in technology and the modern world to really embrace magic. On the other hand, Wonder Woman is a walking myth, a demi-god on earth, someone who is made of magic. Her role as the leader of this team alongside heavy hitters like Zatanna and Swamp Thing, along with smaller characters like Detective Chimp and Man-Bat, has felt natural and authentic.

Another great part of having Diana on the team rather than Batman is that her personality stands out. Whereas Batman and most of the magical characters in DC are generally tragic, Wonder Woman is a symbol of hope and optimism, someone who fights to see the best in people and bring that best version out of them. This works especially well with her band of misfits, who despite having much more experience than Wonder Woman in the world of magic, have far less experience in being part of a team, let alone in being “superheroes” in the traditional sense of the word. 

As for this issue, it’s a set-up chapter that ticks all the right boxes. We’ve essentially got the “Dark” Justice League Dark coming together, led by a newly powered up Circe, who are raring up to wage a Witching War against their good counterparts. While their final players are coming into the fold, the villains have already managed to plant a couple of seeds of doubt into the team which will certainly bloom into dissension. Can’t wait to see where this goes next.

Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #11

Tom Taylor gets Spider-Man. 

It’s a simple statement, but as we’ve seen over all of the years with Spidey, not a whole lot of writers have really understood what makes Spider-Man so spectacular, amazing, superior, etc. It’s a testament to how well Tom Taylor is writing Spider-Man in this series that he’s telling small scale stories without a whole lot of action, death-defying adventure or real conflict, and yet this is some of the best Spider-Man I’ve read in years. 

The opening pages set the tone for the story right away, with one of the simpler but most honest statements I’ve seen in a Spider-Man book:

“See, Captain America is Captain America. Thor is Thor. But Spider-Man...

Spider-Man is Peter Parker...

And Peter Parker is my responsibility.”

That’s the thesis statement for this story, detailing a day in the life of Mary-Jane Watson, the often under appreciated girlfriend of our titular web-head. 

The story from then on is pretty much in her hands, with occasional monologuing from a sleeping Peter, as Mary-Jane goes about what we can only assume is a pretty typical day in the life of the girlfriend of one of NYC’s premier heroes.

Small scale stories are essential in superhero comics in order to break up long events and arcs. They’re breathing room, time for the readers to catch their breath and assess the new status quo before things get wild again. But they’re also often the stories which show us the foundations of who these heroes really are. It’s been said that power doesn’t corrupt, it reveals, and when characters with as much power as Spider-Man aren’t up against the wall and forced to make a decision, the decisions they do make show us that much more about the person beneath the mask. 

Tom Taylor has managed to show us just who Spider-Man and the people in his life really are underneath their masks by lowering the stakes. The stories are small and simple, the consequences often equally so, but what’s been created is true to the characters more than almost any stories I’ve seen before, and it’s lovely. This is one of the best books being written right now, and if you’re not reading it yet, you need to go out and fix that right now.

Detective Comics #1010

It feels like there isn’t much to say about this week’s issue. We’ve still got the stranded billionares on the island, who are now clearly being held hostage by Deadshot. Meanwhile Bruce is rescued and patched up by two WWII fighter pilots who have been stranded on this island since the war, neither knowing which side won.

I’m a big fan of Deadshot when he leans into his nihilistic killer persona, and this “The Most Dangerous Game” setup with a tech-deprived Bruce and Deadshot duking it out on an island seems interesting. Tomasi has been generally pretty good with his run on Detective Comics, so I’m excited to see how long he runs with this arc of Bruce and Deadshot trying to outsmart each other in this deadly game of cat and mouse.

[thetraveljedi]

Why I travel solo

I travel solo quite frequently, and when I’m traveling and discussing my travels with people I get different reactions to the fact that I choose to travel alone. A small few comment “I travel solo, too!” But people are shocked; they could never have the guts to travel alone, they would be too nervous or scared or be too lonely, and wonder how safe it is, especially as a woman. Usually this is followed by a “so why do you travel solo?”

I got into solo travel accidentally, as do a lot of solo travelers; we want to go somewhere, but cannot find someone who will go with them. I was fresh out of culinary school with a steady paycheck and vacation days and it had been way too long since I had been to my favorite place since I was a kid, Walt Disney World. I was dying to go, but couldn’t find anyone willing to go with me. So I decided to just go by myself.

I booked my trip and started to plan my itinerary. It was so freeing to be able to do whatever I wanted to do there. When you go to Walt Disney World with your family, you’re not always the one who gets to decide what to do. I could stay at any hotel I wanted, go to any restaurant I wanted, any ride or show I wanted. I could take advantage of some of the special activity offerings there that I had always wanted to do but couldn’t because of my family plans. I was planning a trip to a place I had been to countless times, but all of a sudden it felt like a brand new world.

On my trip, I booked two activities I had always wanted to do; I went horseback riding at Fort Wilderness and got a massage at the spa at the Grand Floridian Resort. I remember sitting on the horse, wandering through the forests of Fort Wilderness and peering through the trees I could see Cinderella Castle. The castle is one of my favorite sights at Walt Disney World, one I had seen countless times before, but I was seeing it from an entirely new perspective. It was exhilarating in a way I had never felt before. I made it a point from that moment to do a special activity like this every time I would return to Walt Disney World, and I’ve kept to that promise. It’s made my solo experiences there all the more special.

Another great thing about going to a place like Walt Disney World for my first solo trip- safety. You’re in an enclosed “campus” the entire time, surrounded by security and families having a good time. As someone who lives in New York City and is always on high alert, it was insanely refreshing. Being in a familiar, safe place for my first trip allowed me to focus on the fun part of the trip and not the stressful part of traveling. It would also give me the confidence I would need to venture elsewhere in the USA, and eventually, the rest of the world.

After a few trips to Walt Disney World, I was ready to expand my horizons. I was already traveling a lot to see the band Phish at the time, but usually with friends on the East Coast. Soon my Phish trips started turning into mostly solo trips to see them on the West Coast. Then I took my first completely solo non-Phish trip for my 30th birthday, spending 8 days in California traveling from Los Angeles down to San Diego (with a stop at Disneyland, of course). After that I finally felt comfortable enough to take the leap and go abroad, and the following year went on an 11-night Mediterranean cruise that started and ended in Rome. Then later that year I spent 8 nights in Spain, starting in Madrid and driving my way to Salamanca. Yes, that’s right, I drove by myself in a foreign country. (Spain drives on the same side of the road in the United States and has some of the most clearly marked highways I’ve ever seen. It was actually a breeze.)

So what is it about traveling solo that I’ve come to love so much? The freedom. Even if you do find someone to go with you on your travels, it’s almost impossible to find someone with the exact some travel interests as you. I love history, so I plan a lot of historical sites into my itineraries when I travel solo. Most people would find the amount of historic sites I go to pretty boring. Also, when you’re traveling solo, you’re going at your own pace. I go through sites pretty quickly solo, so I’m able to do more on trips. But if there is a site I want to linger on, I can- there’s no one there to stop me. Except maybe the security guard at the end of the day.

Do I get lonely? Not really. I’m pretty extroverted, but I have an introverted side too. It’s actually nice that when I travel, I get to choose which side to be at any given time. I meet so many more people when I travel solo, but if I’m not in the mood to make friends, I can do a solo activity or hang out in my room. That’s something nearly impossible to do when you’re at home in everyday life, especially while working in the travel industry.

Let’s say you want to plan a solo trip, but you’re not sure where to begin, or you’re feeling anxious about the whole thing. I get it. I was pretty nervous when I went abroad for the first time, especially since my first stop was in Italy, and I speak maybe 25 words of Italian. Here a few suggestions to help you ease into solo travel.

1) Pick somewhere for your first solo trip where the language will be familiar to you. It’s not a coincidence that I chose to go back to Spain for my first longer non-cruise European vacation; not only did I love Spain during my first visit and wanted to go to Madrid to see a Real Madrid game, I’m mostly fluent in Spanish. If I wasn’t, I definitely would not have felt comfortable going there for my first completely solo non-cruise trip to Europe. Once you get the first time experience of going abroad alone, you will feel more confident to travel places with unfamiliar languages. Though I almost always recommend trying to learn some of the languages of the places you visit. Locals are much more willing to help you if you make an effort to communicate with them in their local tongue, even if they speak English. Keep in mind, too, that sometimes even within countries, more than one language is spoken. Go to Barcelona and you may not hear all that much Spanish, but you will see and hear a lot of Catalan. Make an effort to learn some Catalan and try speaking it with the friendly people of Barcelona and you’ll make friends there quickly.2) DO YOUR HOMEWORK. Research everything about where you’re going. Start off by learning a little bit about the history and culture of not just the country you’re going to, but the specific city you’re going to. Why? Take Barcelona for example. Barcelona is in a region of Spain called Catalunya, which remained a separate kingdom from Spain for a large portion of history, and as a result has a different language and different culture. Read further and you’ll learn about the Spanish Civil War and the suppression of Catalan identity under Francisco Franco’s regime, and that to this day the notion of an independent Catalunya is still very much a hot button issue there. Because you now know this information, you can be sensitive to political situation when you talk to locals. Next, research crime in where you are going. This is not to scare you; actually, you’ll find that violent crime isn’t a major issue in many places, but rather pickpockets. Pickpockets in each country have different ways they try to work their magic on tourists. For example, I learned when I traveled to Italy that many pickpockets and scam artists will be dressed in expensive looking suits and watches to avoid suspicion. We rarely associate petty theft with people wearing expensive stuff, but in Italy it’s a criminal’s uniform. You should always be on alert and take some precautions wherever you go, but knowing bits of information about the scams out there are extremely helpful when it comes to avoiding them. Look up which neighborhoods are safe and which aren’t. Make sure you know what the tipping situation is where you going, especially if you’re an American traveling abroad; our big tipping culture is often exploited outside of the country. Read up on the best way to travel in the country you’re going to. Many cities have clean, safe public transportation; some don’t. Most have reliable, responsible taxis; some don’t. Don’t set yourself up for trouble by not being prepared in advanced with this kind of information.

3) Finally, figure out where you want to go in each city and make some kind of a game plan as to how you’re going to see it, preferably as soon as the trip as booked. Tickets for many popular sites sell out far in advance. If you want to go to the crown of the Statue of Liberty, you need to book months out or you will just be staring at the crown from her large, green feet (still worth a visit, though, in my opinion). Also, many sites close for holidays, and many countries have holidays that aren’t celebrated in the country you live in. They also will be closed one day of the week-sometimes that day is Sunday, but sometimes it isn’t. Some countries in Europe are very much on the “siesta” schedule- open in the morning, close for a few hours in the afternoon, reopen in the evening. So make sure you are checking this information as far in advance as possible so that can you prepare to get tickets for the right day and you don’t get shut out. It also helps that when you do book tickets in advance, you’ll have usually have access to a much shorter line than people who haven’t, and this could save you precious time. Visit Florence, Italy in summer and you’ll see what I mean when you walk towards the hordes of people waiting in line to get into the Galleria dell'Accademia to see Michaelangeloa famous David statue. I ’ve had seemingly hundreds of people tell me that when they travel, they just book plane tickets and room and wing it when they get there. Pretty much all of those people come back and tell me they wanted to go to a certain site, but it was closed or sold out for the day. Don’t be that person; you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. Sure you can wing your trips to a certain extent, but if you know there’s one particular site you want to see in a city, do your research ahead of time and plan accordingly. Don’t feel like doing the work? Consider using a travel agent to do the work for you.

A cruise is another great option for those new to solo travel, especially to foreign countries that don’t speak the same language. Cruise lines offer tons of group excursions with English speaking guides, so you’re always with people, you’re always getting transportation back and forth from the ship, and you’re learning about the destinations in English. You spend your evenings on the ship sailing, so you’re in a contained moving resort as opposed to wandering a foreign city at night. Other cruise benefits that don’t just pertain to solo travers: you can see a whole bunch of destinations in a short amount of time and only unpack once; the cruise line can take care of your transportation from the airport/hotels to the ship and back; and it’s all-inclusive, so most of your meals will already be paid for before you travel.

For planning trips to Europe, I can’t recommend Rick Steves’ television program on PBS (available on Hulu and Amazon Prime Video) and guidebooks. Not only will you get a comprehensive background of the history, culture, and major sites of the places you will visit, he goes into a lot of detail about the practicalities of traveling within the country- if public transportation is better than taxis, neighborhoods to avoid, and other basic traveling tips. I also love his walk throughs of cities/neighborhoods and major sites; they really help you understand what you’re looking at when you’re walking around and direct you to the places you really need to see within them.

For trips elsewhere, I really like Lonely Planet and Fodors. I also recommend the Lonely Planet Guides app, which has great information on sites, restaurants, hotels, and more for major cities around the world.

I’ll be posting destination guides for the places I’ve visited in the weeks to come- these will also be a great resource for your travels. But if you’re feeling overwhelmed by your planning, or you just simply feel like you don’t have the time to do it, I highly recommend reaching out to a travel agent like me. We’ll do all the work for you and make sure you’re all set and ready to go for your trip with everything you could possibly need, no stress involved. And we’ll probably save you some cash along the way too.

For my next trip, I’m headed to Amsterdam for a few days, then leaving from Amsterdam on a 15-night Viking River Cruise, with stops in Kinderdijk, Netherlands; Cologne, Koblenz, Miltenberg, Würzburg, Bamberg, Nuremberg, Regensburg, and Passau in Germany; Melk and Vienna in Austria; and finally, Budapest, Hungary. Be sure to stay tuned here to my blog and my Instagram account (@thetraveljedi) for words and pictures from my trip.

Safe travels!

Traveling solo at El Escorial in Madrid, Spain

[fatgirlwritesscenarios]

Achilles Heel

((I am...on a roll? What is this? Are you guys dumbfounded by my sudden activity? Because I am. Don’t get too excited, though. I don’t live to disappoint, so try not to have any expectations of me, lol. Anyway, Joshua! My baby, Joshua. It’s been a while since I��ve written anything for him, so I figured it was time and thought this was a cute idea to go with. Enjoy!))

Pairing: JoshuaxReader

Genre: Fluff

Word Count: 2,258

Summary: Your weakness is a nurse-in-training with kitten eyes and the sweetest smile who’s willing to stay up until 3 AM to make sure you’re home safe and well taken care of. You couldn’t ask for a better nurse, a better boyfriend, a better Achilles Heel. 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

It was well past 2 AM on a Wednesday morning, but the city traffic remained as busy as rush hour during a Friday afternoon. The black SUV with the tinted windows blended well amongst the other cars, spotless and gleaming from a recent wash, yet plain enough to avoid curious speculation. You still had 15 minutes before you reached your apartment, the throbbing pain in your body making a demand of rest from you that you struggled to ignore, but still succeeded in doing so.

It helped that the driver, a very good friend of yours, was so drunk on the hype of your recent underground brawl, he couldn’t stop talking in that loud, animated fashion of his.

“I can’t believe how badly you kicked that dude’s ass, Y/N! He was a whole head taller than you and had at least, at least, 50 more pounds of muscle than you did!” he gesticulated wildly, giving you a mild heart attack when he took his hands off the wheel and the car drifted a little too close to the other lane.

You smirked and huffed a chuckle, “That’s what made him easy to take down. Big, bulky bears can’t catch hummingbirds.”

“Hummingbirds can’t kick in quick succession like that either, but there you were,” he continued, filling the car with his boisterous laugh, “And that right hook, girl! Whoooooo! That was killer! And don’t even get me started on that leg-lock you had around his neck. We all thought he was gonna die!”

“That’s against the rules.”

“That’s the only rule, Little Bird.”

“No. You also can’t use blunt weapons at The Cage unless it’s No Bars Sunday.”

He cut you an unamused look, “Fuck me, then, I guess.”

Your own laughter spilled out of you, the pain intensifying to the point you had to force yourself to calm down, inhaling slowly through gritted teeth. That bumbling giant you had as your last opponent did quite a number on you, even if you did win the match. His fists were the size of your face and he landed a couple of good blows to your ribs, the epicenter of your pain.

You sat back as the car came to a slow roll at a stoplight, your friend continuing; “How did you know to go for his left side, anyway?” he asked, glancing at you, “What’s your secret, girl?”

Head rolling to look at him, you grinned, “I don’t always go to The Cage to fight, you know? I go to observe and I’ve seen him fight more than once. He’s an ambidextrous fighter ; he can throw an easy punch with his right or left arm because he doesn’t favor either one. Tonight, he kept his left arm tucked in to block and mostly hooked with his right. That’s when I figured he probably hurt himself at one of his last fights and hadn’t healed yet. That was my best bet to win.”

“And you almost killed him! I’m surprised you didn’t break a rib into his lung with that last kick!” he cheered, positively giddy, “What the hell would you have done if he hadn’t been injured?!”

You shrugged, “Gone for his knees.” Your friend just looked at you. “He has bad knees. That’s his Achilles Heel.”

“Achilles Heel!” he repeated, as if it were the catchphrase of the year, “That’s wild, girl! That’s some straight philosophy shit!”

“It’s not that profound,” you said, the light turning green and your friend hitting the gas a little too hard, “Everyone’s got one.”

“An Achilles Heel?”

“Uh huh.”

“Even you?”

You turned to look at him, a secret smile dancing on your busted lip, “Especially me.”

He wasn’t sure what that meant, but he was too riled up to care. The rest of the ride continued in the same manner: your friend recounting certain parts of the fight for the umpteenth time and you trying to breathe your soreness away. The busy streets gave way to more residential areas, the street lights illuminating the path ahead.

At long last, your apartment building came into view and your friend parked on the main street adjacent to it. “Here you are, Little Bird,” he said, grinning wide at you, “Thanks for getting me into the fight tonight!”

“Thanks for giving me a ride back to mine.”

“Are you going again next week?”

You shook your head, reaching down at your feet to get your duffle bag, “Nah, I think I’m set for a little while. I need to give myself time to heal.”

“Whatch’ya  walk away with?” he asked.

A smirk touched your lips, “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Damn, okay. It’s like that?”

Your friend never stopped being funny and even though it hurt to laugh, you couldn’t help it. Opening up the duffle and reaching in with both hands, you shifted around for second before pulling out a little wad of bills. Benjamins to be exact.

You held it out to him, “Here. For always driving me and making sure I’m safe getting home.”

His eyes shimmered with glee, deftly plucking the money from your fingers, “I don’t do it for the money; watching you beat the absolute shit out of a grown man is my favorite thing in the world, but thanks anyway!”

You rolled your eyes with a playful air, snapping your head to the side when a knock came at the window. You and your friend tensed up in that one instant, but soon relaxed when an ember warm voice said, “Don’t panic. It’s just me.”

You would recognize that voice anywhere, at any time and in every way. A voice that reminded you of soft cotton and lollipops. Joshua waved through the tinted window, nice and snug in his favorite hoodie- coincidentally, it was the first hoodie you ever bought for him a few years back when you were just friends, but crushing hard on each other.

Your friend unlocked the door, Joshua opening it and standing in the doorway. His trained nurse’s eye swiftly grazed over the immediate injuries he could visibly detect in the dim light of the car, his brow furrowing for only a second at the bruises and dried blood on your lip. In the blink of an eye, his deep concern was masked and he leaned in to kiss your nose.

“Welcome back, beautiful,” he said, reaching over to unbuckle your seatbelt.

“I didn’t go to war, Josh,” you teased, earning a gentle knock of his knuckles under your chin.

He took your duffle bag from you and pulled it over his head, “You might as well have. I was worried about you.”

The seedling of guilt that lay planted in your chest cracked and rooted itself with its tiny little tendrils. His concern over you during nights like this was both a blessing and a curse. Or perhaps, maybe, it was your love for him that cursed you now. Your relationship with The Cage was a steady one; it had been established long before you even met Joshua. Fighting was your passion and your therapy. You never had the intention of giving it up, not for anyone, but knowing that you caused sweet and gentle Joshua to worry over you on a regular basis for something that you could so easily stop- that’s where the guilt came from.

You apologized a lot for it.

“I’m sor-” Joshua silenced you with a swift kiss, a playful smile tugging up the corners of his lips.

“Don’t say sorry. I’m always going to worry about you, babe, no matter what you do,” he said, chuckling when you leaned up for another, “That’s what you do when you love someone.”

He pulled back and took your hand, helping you out of the car while saying to your friend, “Thanks for bringing her back home safely!”

“Yeah, you’re welcome. I’ll see you guys later.”

You nodded before Joshua closed the door, watching as the black SUV pulled away from the curb, made a smooth U-turn and blended back into traffic. Hands clasped together, fingers laced, you and Joshua began the short trek back to your apartment, the lights gleaming warm yellow from the third floor.

“It’s almost 3 AM, Joshua. What are you still doing awake?” you asked, trekking into the lobby and boarding the elevator.

“Waiting for you to come home, of course,” he answered lightly, pressing the button for the third floor and turning a heart-warming smile towards you, “And studying for an exam I have in a couple of days.”

Joshua was training to be a certified nurse and was two months out from completing the program while also interning at one of the city’s best hospitals with a career ready for him once he graduated. People who knew you and Joshua- and about your weekend trysts with violence and underground criminal activity- believed that Joshua went into nursing so he could properly take care of your injuries after your fights. That assumption wasn’t true. Joshua already had plans to go into medicine and nursing when you met him as a teenager, but you will admit that his resolve to become a nurse strengthened itself once he found out about your pastime.

Perks of being you.

“So how was it?” he asked you once the elevator opened on your floor, guiding you slowly down the corridor.

“Good. Exciting, as always,” you replied, glancing at him, “You wanna know how much I made?”

He hummed for you to continue as you approached your apartment door. “Five grand,” you said, beaming proudly.

Joshua whistled low, pulling the key from his pocket and unlocking the door, “Impressive, baby…but that also means your opponent was bigger…doesn’t it?”

You shrugged, slowly walking past him and heading for the small, square kitchen table in the dining area where you sat down, “It could mean that. It could also mean that my opponent wasn’t shit and everyone knew it, so they bet on me to win anyway.”

“That’s never the case for you, babe. You and I both know that,” Joshua chuckled, setting your duffle bag down on the sofa and eyeing you closely, “Besides, if your opponent were easy, then you wouldn’t be limping, favoring your left side where I’m guessing you were hit multiple times, and you wouldn’t have any bruises at all let alone a ton on your face and a busted lip.”

Damn him and his keen nurse’s eye.

“Fine, you got me. He was a bear.”

“A real bear?” You stared at him flatly, feigning being unamused to which he laughed and moved to kneel in front of you. His eyes gazed fondly at you, roving over your injuries and falling more in love with your perfectly imperfect self. He stroked your thighs idly and tilted his head to the side, “Let’s get you showered and cleaned up so I can treat the wounds properly. Then off to bed, okay?”

“Okay,” you breathed, smiling into the kiss you pressed to your lips.

The shower was heavenly for your sore, aching body and you probably would have passed out right then and there had it not been for Joshua sitting in the bathroom with you to keep you company. Your fights always left you understandably exhausted and after a few incidents involving you falling asleep while standing up, Joshua made sure to be present until you were nice and snug in bed from then on.

The following medical checkup that ensued went rather quickly; there were no major cuts or swelling aside from your busted lip. His main concern were the bruises littering your torso, but he applied icy-hot and a cream to ease the pain. He was nothing but gentle and tender with you, kissing all of your injuries to make them better, whispering praises in your ear for being his strong, beautiful, ass-kicking girl.

Joshua took care of you. After all of the fighting was done, after you dragged yourself home, after facing a world that laughed in the face of a woman’s strength and then sneered when it couldn’t beat her down, he took care of you. He was the only reason that you still smiled and still believe that there was some good left in the world. You wanted to wake up in the mornings because of Joshua- to see the cute curl of his lips and listen to his bashful laugh that he tried to hide behind his hand.

Joshua was your world. You probably didn’t say it enough, but he was. You didn’t care about life without him; didn’t want a life without him. He was your everything. Your strength…and weakness.

“Good thing I have tomorrow off. I can properly take care of you,” he whispered after tucking you into bed beside him, the darkness blanketing the both of you and softening his already gentle voice.

“I thought you made plans to see the guys tomorrow,” you whispered, your eyes closing.

Joshua shrugged as best he could, considering his position, “I see them every other day. I’d much rather spend time with you.”

You smiled a sleepy smile that made him dizzy, it was so cute, “You take such good care of me.”

“Of course.” He kissed your fluttering eyelid, “It’s because I love you so much.”

“I love you, too.” A sweet sigh of a whisper and you were drifting off, Joshua positively melting before following after you.

Everyone had an Achilles Heel- the thing that’ll be there undoing. Joshua was yours and you’re perfectly fine with that.

[bunnyandbirb]

Birb’s B-Movies #2: Pass Thru

Neil Breen is a truly visionary actor/producer/director/writer/editor, and the owner of Neil Breen Films, LLC. You may know him from his previous works, Double Down and I am Here….Now. My favorite masterpiece of his is undoubtedly Fateful Findings, the science fiction drama where Neil plays a magical hacker who exposes all “the most secret government and corporate secrets.”

In preparation for his upcoming film, Twisted (set to release in 2018), I decided to sit down and watch the one film that I’ve never seen: Pass Thru (2016) and trust me, this is a work of pure Breenius. The website for the movie describes the movie as such:

“Artificial Intelligence from far into the future arrives to immediately CLEANSE the human species of millions of humans who are harmful to other humans. A VISIONARY, REVOLUTIONARY FILM which pushes the human species to the limits of controversial, thought-provoking actions.”

I have to admit, this is probably the most confusing Breen movie I’ve seen to date (and that’s really saying something.) I honestly don’t even remember the names of any of the characters, but that hardly matters. It has a very similar message to his other films, which he makes sure to hammer into your head so that even if you don’t understand the plot, at least you end up with something. We’ll get into that near the end, though.

The movie starts with overly long mountain/desert landscape shots that were probably taken an hour away from his house, since he lives near Las Vegas. Then something strange happens.

There’s a rock with white paintings on it, and suddenly a giant ginseng root-looking “hand” comes out and delicately prods the paintings with a stick. It then cuts to a random tiger chilling on a cliff above, and then immediately cuts again to two pristine clocks by the rock with some shitty black smoke effect crawling across the screen.

I don’t even get a chance to try to comprehend what these things mean before another series of confusing imagery: walking legs, a girl in her room reading about space, some old man just sitting in the desert with magazines, and then Neil Breen himself, picking up what looks like trash from a party he threw the other night. A red dot appears in the sky, and finally we get our first real dialogue of the film.

It is at this time that I have the horrible realization that everyone in this movie has received thorough direction from Neil Breen on how to read lines off a script. Each syllable is robotically intonated, each word spoken unnaturally slowly and with an awkward pause… nothing anyone says in this movie sounds real. Breen was debatably the worst actor in Fateful Findings, and it seems like he tried really hard to get everyone on his level this time.

Three kids (names unknown) sit around in a room, and the boy has somehow found the red sky dot (which is apparently some kind of signal.) The two girls try to sound excited but somehow manage to sound even more apathetic as they raise their voices. The boy goes from “I’m following the signal!” to “I lost the signal” in literally one second, so I guess he just sucks.

The next few minutes of this movie are just pure chaos. Each scene is somehow too short and at the same time way too long, and the sequence that they’re placed in just makes zero sense whatsoever. Let me just run through them (keep in mind, these are in chronological order):

Neil Breen lies in a pile of his own filth in his trailer.

Neil Breen lies outside in the dirt while some faceless man with a gun pays him to clean up the evidence of a ‘smuggling site’ (i.e. Gatorade bottles and soup cans.)

Some “immigrants” (who just look like tourists) are led through a ravine

Neil Breen wakes up in the dirt with the garbage still around him, finds a dirty syringe and injects it into his arm. He then dies and we get this great special effect: 

The nameless boy calls one of the girls and then proceeds to have an entire conversation by himself. 

A random hand bleeds while it touches barbed wire.

I was confused enough at this point, but then I kept watching and realized that the entire movie is edited like this. Let it be known that I tried three times to write this post while reformatting the events of the story to make them more clear, but it was actually impossible. So instead of trying again, I’m just going to run through the four most hilarious parts of the movie. Honestly, you wouldn’t understand the plot even if I gave more information than this, so to hell with it.

1. The Great Immigration

One plotline involves a group of “immigrants” who are being herded along by human traffickers. The “immigrants” all act like a bunch of middle schoolers on a boring field trip (and are dressed similarly), and are constantly whining: “Where are we going?” “Why do we have to walk so far?” “Stop yelling at us.” The human smugglers in the movie are incredibly incompetent at both smuggling and acting, which makes every one of these scenes a pleasure to watch.

The traffickers filter through the immigrants, stopping a few who happen to be hiding plastic baggies (of what looks like cocaine) under their shirts.) One of them is a woman who is pretending to be pregnant, and is clearly not an actor because she can’t stop smiling in what (I’m assuming) is supposed to be a serious situation. They line up these baggies and start handing them out, designating who they’re going to: lawyers, bankers, “the CEO”, etc. Basically all the people Breen talks shit about in every movie he makes.

Their leader shoots some woman and a kid because she “has absolutely no VALUE for you two on the STREETS.” (Uh, lady, you’re in a desert.) Two of the women manage to escape, even as a man shoots at them at point blank range four times (and apparently misses each time.) Nobody bothers to go after them. The rest of the immigrants are “trapped” in a truck and they all freak out because they clearly cannot escape:

2. Neil Breen cleaning up his house

The two women that escaped from the traffickers stumble into Neil Breen’s trailer, and he invites them to stay with him. For some reason, the women yell everything they say even when they’re standing right next to each other. Also, they vehemently don’t want to stay with him - can’t blame them, really.

In order to convince them to stay, Breen insists that he will “clean it” for them. No words can explain the beauty of this scene, so I have to just show you the clip:

3. Neil Breen “isn’t that corrupt”

Coming to the end of the movie, it’s revealed that Breen is actually an alien artificial intelligence (who has a name, but hell if I remember that much). His mission is to just kill all the humans that he doesn’t like. Okay, he actually said those who “cause harm to other humans,” but isn’t that technically every living human? Whatever, I will not question our lord and savior Neil Breen.

Breen teleports into mansions and inserts himself into conversations with the people that he shit talks all the time (i.e. lawyers, Big Pharma, government officials, bankers, etc. etc.) and just makes everything awkward.

Here’s a transcript of an actual conversation:

A: “I know senior, national elected government officials who I can force my political... *insert pause where she forgets her lines*... bias and influence on fellow politicians to vote my way, for a payoff of course.”

Breen: “ISN’T THAT CORRUPT?”

Everyone: …….

[Breen looks away as everyone else stares at him.]

B: “I know companies that can hack into any government national agency or corporate facility. For the right price, you can get any information that you want. And they don’t need to know why or your reason. These places are so vulnerable and unprotected, and there is no way they can keep up with the technology.”

Breen: “ISN’T THAT CORRUPT?”

Everyone: ……..

This same exact conversation repeats itself until Breen decides to leave, and then the people are like, “Who the fuck was that guy?”

Breen teleports in front of the mansion, fades out of his tuxedo and into his regular janitor clothes, and then waddles away as shitty explosion effects happen in the background.

“If it can be destroyed by the truth, it deserves to be destroyed by the truth,” he says. I’m pretty sure those were not ‘truth explosions,’ but you do you, Neil.

4. The Newsroom and Neil Breen

After that shitshow, Neil decides to make his big move by appearing on some news channel to make his traditional monologue. Throughout the movie, the news anchors have been reporting some very interesting news. Serious criminals, lawyers, bank management, and even accountants have mysteriously vanished overnight.  According to one of the hosts, “It’s as if all the harmful people on Earth are disappearing.” Oh, he also mentioned that “Ignorant reality shows about families, housewives, groups, individuals… those casts are all gone.” So I guess Breen is now lumping the Kardashians with corrupt government officials on his ‘Evil People’ list.”

Neil shows up uninvited onto the news broadcast, and the hosts rightfully call out for security guards. Breen fires back with, “You won’t need security. You’re gone.”

And so they are:

I won’t even try to recount all of the nonsense the Neil says in his speech, but here are the some select quotes:

“I am not of this Earth. I am artificial intelligence from FAR into the future.”

“Human evolution has ended, and there can be no further advancement.”

“I have eliminated 300 million humans from the planet today”

“Violate laws and regulations”

Breen also really loves listing things, as can be witnessed in this single speech.

Neil Breen lists the things he hates (in order within the speech):

Illegal wars

The abuse of the media systems

Films

TV

Radio

The Internet

Violence

Corruption

Political correctness

Fear of the truth

Excuses

Second chances

Third chances

Warnings

Sympathy

Cheats

Thieves

Criminals

Abusers

Corrupters

Dishonest humans

Abusers of:

Other humans

The planet

The environment

Children & animals

Violence

Corruption

Corporate corruption

Failed political systems

Failed judicial systems

Failed educational systems

Failed environmental systems

There are a lot of other hilarious things in this movie aside from these moments.

 Like seriously, what the hell is this:

But I won’t get into any more of the gems from this film, because this has already gone on long enough. Watch it yourself to experience them all.

I’ll be looking forward to Twisted, Neil!

~Stay tuned for nonsense~

- birb

[mammothstrengthx]

Those 3 Little Words..Performance Enhancing…

The fact 101% of the people reading that title filled in the black with DRUGS is very telling.  It just goes to show that PED use is prevalent.  You would think that it would mostly be restricted to the Professional ranks, where any competitive advantage would lead to a bigger pay day.  However, this is not the case.  Let’s face it, we live in a society where alcohol, tobacco and illegal narcotics are used on a daily basis.  With the exception of marijuana (sorry Republicans), none of them have any particular health benefits other than numbing the senses to escape the world around you.

PED’s on the other hand increase your ability to do the things you want to be good at.  So why would it come as a surprise that the number of people that actually use them is several orders of magnitude more than the Average Joe might imagine?  Unfortunately the number of PED users is not the only thing that Mr. Average Joe is ignorant of.  Human beings are pattern seeking mammals, and are prone to labeling something, throwing it in a box and never thinking about it again.  That tendency is perpetuated by the information age that we currently live in.  If something wants to get our attention it better be something we can digest in 140 characters or less, be related to an adorable kitten, or be in some state of undress.  As a result, despite walking around with the culmination of human intelligence in our smart phone, the majority of people seem to choose speed and ignorance over careful study and actual KNOWLEDGE.

How does that apply to performance enhancing drugs?  Well you get people that think anabolic steroids are a magical elixir brewed by the Devil himself to destroy the integrity of sports and kill off every first born male child.  Of course these same people, with no personal experience whatsoever are fairly certain if they had just “cheated” and used steroids they would have made it to Pros themselves.  Unfortunately, once that delusional belief finally takes hold it’s not long before they are out in a field recording videos of their passing skilz, and claiming they could throw a football over a mountain.  I mean if you can convince yourself that one demonstrably false idea is true, then the floodgates open and you can believe all kinds of batshit insane things that make you feel better.

“How much you wanna make a bet I can throw a football over them mountains?... Yeah... Coach woulda put me in fourth quarter, we would've been state champions. No doubt. No doubt in my mind.” –Uncle Rico”

Here in my home town of reality it is fairly easy to see that this just isn’t so.  However, it is my personal belief that the bitterness caused by the aforementioned delusions are part of the vilification of steroid use by athletes.  That along with a healthy dose of propaganda from the medical community, and you have a general public that think that people are droppin dead from anabolic steroid use every day.  All I can say to that is “Show Me the Bodies…”

When you actually ask the anti-steroid crowd to produce evidence of all these deaths they don’t really have much to offer.  It is like any other “faith based belief”, when you convince yourself of something with little to no evidence then you are admitting that evidence doesn't matter to you.  And whenever an athlete dies with steroids in his system (or is known to have used them at any point) then that is always one if not the top reason for their death as far as the media is concerned.  I honestly believe that if Mark McGwire died tomorrow of a snake bite, somehow his steroid use which obviously compromised his immune system would be responsible.  The rules of modern “journalism”…Don't let the facts get in the way of a good story.

This Graph shows the mortality rates of people who use tobacco and alcohol compared to anabolic steroids. It should be noted that 45 million people use tobacco and nearly 100 million people use alcohol. There isn’t any such quantitative data for anabolic steroid users (Center for Disease Control 2011). [Read more]

None of this is to suggest that anabolic steroids are necessarily “safe”.  If you have any kind of pre-existing condition then a substance that cause growth can exacerbate the situation.  As with anything else in life the safety of something is directly related to the person using it.  Guns are perfectly safe, in the hands of someone trained in gun safety.  Most people would consider hammers even safer, and yet hammers are responsible for hundreds of deaths each year.

Anyone that has read anything I write knows what a big fan of IRONY I am.  And the discussion about PED’s is rife with it.  I have to admit that I sometimes am bored enough to listen to sports talk radio.  And the local channel here is always getting into the anti-PED discussion.  Then when they go to commercial you find out that one of their sponsors is a local HRT Clinic.  In case you didn't know, hormone replacement therapy is the legal way to use anabolic steroids and growth hormone.  All you have to do is convince a Doc that you have lost a little pep in your step, give them your insurance information, pay your deductible and BAM…suddenly PED’s are ok.  Apparently cheating death and the aging process is socially acceptable.  What is also funny is it is socially acceptable for doctors and lawyers to abuse caffeine and other stimulants to get through school and internship.  But a professional athlete that chooses to use PED’s to increase his job performance is EVIL?   Speaking of performance enhancement, how many guys die from Viagra use every year?

Now before you make the mistake of thinking that I am advocating cheating, please know that I AM NOT!  When you compete in a sport that says “doing this is against the rules”, and you do it anyway then you are by definition a cheater.  I am simply questioning the rules, and attempting to point out the inconsistency of the general public’s moral judgment.

POP QUIZ HOT SHOT!!

Why are performance ENHANCING drugs illegal, while performance debilitating drugs such as alcohol and tobacco are legal?! 

A)     Politics

B)     Ignorance

C)     Misinformation/Propaganda

D)     The Myth of The Level Playing Field

E)      All of the above

If you answered anything other than E) All of the Above, I’m sorry but we have some wonderful parting gifts for you.  Obviously politics play a huge role in this equation.  Alcohol and tobacco companies have HUGE lobbying budgets, and are huge profit generating industries.  Unfortunately, there is no corporation that would stand to benefit if PED’s were legalized.  And make no mistake about it money makes the world go around.

Of course ignorance and misinformation play its part in this as well.  The general public, mostly due to apathy, is at the mercy of CNN and FOX for fair and balanced reporting on issues.  Again as I said before, if you aren't really concerned with actual facts and evidence, then you will believe whatever story someone tells you.  Truthfully PED’s just seem to be one of those anomalies that gets lumped into the “Drugs are bad mmmmmkay” mentality of Joe Six Pack.

As much as all of the other reason have something to do with PED’s being illegal; I would argue that the myth of the Level Playing field is the most influential.  For some reason, especially in the United States people think that sports are somehow sacred, and that the records involved in these sports are the Holiest of Holies.

In some strange way I suppose it makes sense.  If sports fans didn't have statistics and records to compare to other fans there would be no more sports hate and pissing contests.  And then *gasp* people would have to accept that sports are just ENTERTAINMENT just like movies and music.  As an aside, think of how ridiculous it would be if people got into drunken fist fights at movie theaters over who’s favorite actor was better.  See what happens when things are put into context.

The truth is that people have been using drugs of all kinds for the entirety of human civilization.  It is only recently that we have deemed some of those drugs illegal.  The “War on Drugs” has been an epic failure, and has not served to curb people’s use of drugs.  It has only served to turn law abiding citizens into criminals.  The same can be said for PED’s.  Athletes are competitive by nature, and to get to the very elite level you are always looking for a way to make yourself better.  The legality of PED’s have turned World Record performances into *Asterisks, and left a black mark on the athletes name.  Guess what, Mark McGwire's homeruns STILL entertained you, and Lance Armstrong STILL raised HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS!  So is the problem the athletes, or the laws?

Many fans are opposed to athletes using PED’s, but they also want to see records being broken and they celebrate bigger, stronger, faster without the slightest bit of acknowledgement to the irony of the situation.  Don’t for a second believe that fans give a shit about the players.  They want to be entertained, and when the players get a little long in the tooth, they will want them put out to pasture.  So why wouldn’t a professional athlete dabble in PED’s to extend his professional career a year or two?!  How many of those same fans wouldn’t do the EXACT SAME THING if they had a chance to earn a couple Million Dollars?!

Another thing you will hear is the claim that they are worried about the children, “what about the children” they cry.  By that same logic, shouldn’t they be trying to get drugs and alcohol out of the music industry?  Wouldn’t society be so much better for our children, and for our future if everyone was a teetotaler with regards to all drugs?!  And since it is obvious that you don't care about Pro Athletes once they get past their prime entertainment years, why exactly should the athletes care about being role models to YOUR CHILDREN?!

Here’s the thing, and you may not want to hear it, but if you honestly think that would be a good thing then be careful what you wish for.  You would have to put an *Asterisk next to the majority of the past 100 years.  There would be no more records broken in your lifetime, and the music industry would suck worse than it already does.  Again I am not sayin that athletes should cheat, they should not.  I am suggesting it is hypocrisy of the highest order to make PED's illegal (unless they are part of HRT..thus proving their medical benefit) while alcohol and tobacco are legal.

My point is NOT to advocate PED use.  My point is to advocate education.  If you think PED's (or any drug for that matter) should be illegal then you should have solid reasoning behind it.  If your only reason is FEAR of what might happen if they were legal, then really is that even an argument?!  If you are afraid of "what might happen", then shouldn't you be outraged at what IS happening with regards to alcohol and tobacco.  You seriously are stepping over the bodies of hundreds of thousands of people that die each year from alcohol and tobacco abuse to try to find one or two people that might possibly have died from steroid use.  This kind of inconsistent moral outrage, and the hypocrisy is staggering to try to comprehend.  I will close with the my question from earlier, and I welcome all different points of view…

Why are performance ENHANCING drugs illegal, while performance debilitating drugs such as alcohol and tobacco are legal?!

Read additional information on: http://mammothstrength.com

[aaaryuuuuuuuuu-blog]

My Favorite Movies of 2017

Now it's almost the end of the year and it's time to do this, for me looking back at the movies that I love of the year is essentially the same as looking back at how I survived through this year, so it is very important for me to put out this list as a reminder of the year. At the same time, the list itself sort of projects what kind of person I have been this year. For example, if the 2017 version of myself saw all the movies in 2016 and made the list of favorite movies, it would be significantly different from what I actually made in 2016 because I’ve changed a lot (hopefully in a good way), the fact that I’m writing this in English (which is unimaginable without the experience as an international student in Utrecht) is the proof of it. Also, the list is going to be my extremely arbitrary choice, quality of movie doesn’t matter here. It’s all about how I loved that movie, how that movie impressed me as an experience, and how that movie redefines my life even. To be honest, I don’t even know why I bother writing all this crap in English which arguably takes 10 times more time and energy than in Japanese aside from I’m completely alone in the flat on 24th of December, have so nothing to do and it drives me insane to the level of convincing myself that somehow writing all this nonsense is actually a healthy way to spend my Christmas Eve of 20 years old, so just let’s get into it.

First, I start off by giving an honorable mention to the movies almost made it to the list. Believe me this year is tough, definitely more than last year when I reluctantly needed to include notorious Batman v Superman (I’m kidding, I adore BvS, seriously, that’s why this year’s Justice League was a major disappointment for me.) Also, the movies that I will pick are released in 2017 in Japan and The Netherlands. For those who is familiar with extremely messed up movie’s release date situation in Japan, it is easy to understand that this list includes the vast majority of Oscar movies from last year.

Honorable mention

The Disaster Artist

A Ghost Story

Wonder

Thor: Ragnarok

War for the Apes of the Planet

It

Baby Driver

Dunkirk

La La Land

John Wick: Chapter 2

Magnificent Seven

10: The Nice Guys

Director: Shane Black

After the hours of struggle, this hysterically funny buddy detective neo-noir “The Nice Guys” find its spot in my 10th favorite movie of the year. The chemistry between three main characters played by Russell Crowe, Ryan Gosling and young new talent Angourie Rice is top-notch. The rhythm of the dialogue constantly evokes my laughter. Comedic performance by Ryan Gosling is indescribably amazing. Although I keep emphasizing how funny this movie is, there are some very heartfelt moments which pay off beautifully.

9: Moonlight

Director: Barry Jenkins

The most romantic movie of the year, Moonlight, there is something very poetic and emotive about this movie, and its emotive quality comes from great direction by Barry Jenkins, the way the camera captures the momentum beauty of falling in love is astonishing and let the audience draw into the moment. I've seen true work of art there.

8: Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Director: Rian Johnson

I was deeply invested to the next chapter of each character introduced very well in the previous “The Force Awaken (2015)” But standout of this movie is its visual. The aesthetic of Lightsaber battle is nothing but astonishing. It even took my breathe away and gave me goosebumps. it was extremely well choreographed and beautifully shot with certain vision behind the camera, the production design of “that room” was just amazing.That was easily my favorite moment of this year.

7: Trainspotting 2

Director: Danny Boyle

Danny Boyle never disappoints me, Steve Jobs was easily my favorite of 2016, “Slumdog Millionaire” “Sunshine” ”127 hours” and “The Beach” almost all of his movies are my favorite. His unique visual style is very apparent in this movie yet he found a right spot to bring his strength for this middle-aged version of Trainspotting. This movie did not shy away from being nostalgic about the original, the entire perspective of the movie looked back at the past, this is a story about men who’s stuck in their past. The ending beautifully explores the answer to it.

6: Columbus

Director: Kogonada

Criminally underappreciated and overlooked gem of the year. Columbus was about strange yet poignant relationship about late-teenage girl who is stuck in a small city Columbus to take care of her mother, and middle-age Korean man who’s also stuck in the city to watch out his sick father. Every shot of the movie is meticulously composed to provide a stable almost Zen-like imagery to the film. The aesthetic of the architectures in Columbus constantly gives momentum to the main story.

5: Blade Runner 2049

Director: Denis Villeneuve

What makes original Blade Runner legendary one-in million existences, for me was cinematic-magic. It happened almost miraculously. This long-awaited sequel beautifully recaptured the magic of it. Year’s best cinematography from Roger Deakins adds deeper layer to this Blade Runner universe. I was deeply invested to this personal narrative of K played by Ryan Gosling.

4: Arrival

Director: Denis Villeneuve(again)

This is a second movie from Denis Villeneuve made it to this list. Together with Blade Runner 2049, he officially becomes one of my favorite director. This sci-fi alien invasion movie (sounds bit corky but no, it’s not that kind of movie) heavily relies on my favorite actress Amy Adams charisma, and it totally works. The movie was told entirely through the perspective of Amy Adams Character, which enables it to be a completely original, personal and emotional story about human being.

3: Manchester By the Sea

Director: Kenneth Lonergan

It is one of the saddest movies, yet it featured a lot of comedic moments, (seriously the way Boston people talk always hysterically entertains me) Thanks to Cast Affleck’s Oscar-winning subtle performance, this movie manages to deliver one of the most joyful-sad experiences in years. I am so glad this movie didn’t shy away from being honest about people, the ending of the movie totally knocked me out.

2: Transformers: The Last Knight

Director: Michael Bay

Okay, I know exactly what you’re thinking, it’s outrageous choice for 2nd favorite movie of the year, but again, this is not about the quality. What matters here is how profound the movie is to me as an experience. In that sense, I cannot help but to admire how passionate the director Michael Bay is about bringing his best to create what he believes as an ultimate form of entertainment. He might not be recognized as "good film director" but I believe he truly is great artist. Action sequences especially the last one is nothing but jaw-dropping. I absolutely loved it. Mr. Michael Bay you well deserve my 2nd favorite movie.

1: 20th Century Women

Director: Mike Mills

Although I struggled a lot to complete this list, best movie of the year was no brainier for me, from the exact first moment of the movie, I felt like I knew this was going to be my movie. This autobiographical story about young teenage in Santa Barbara in 1979 essentially celebrates humanity, not only by showing joy of life but also by giving us the insight of complication of interacting with other people. Words cannot describe how rich this movie is, it’s a portrait about everything, about entire small universe surrounding 5 main characters (I even hesitate to call them as characters because they felt real to me) who just lived their life. I know what I’m trying to say here doesn’t make sense, so just watch it! It's surely worth your time.

[bmaxwell]

Top 50 Video Games: Number 1 - Final Fantasy Tactics

Well, here we are.  You waited all this time for this. Just to be disappointed by some weirdo Japanese game that’s like Chess but with Wizards and Knights and Dragons and shit like that. Well this isn’t about YOU. It’s about ME.

So you might have noticed that, despite my love of Japanese RPG’s, there has been nary a Final Fantasy on my list. The Final Fantasy games have never resonated with me, though not for lack of trying. They’ve always married something interesting stuff (FFX-2′s class system) with something bad (FFX-2′s real time combat making me dig through menus to change classes while getting hit by enemies). Sometimes the games just fail to keep me engaged and I sort of drop off after a dozen hours or so (FF1, 7, 10, 15).  I like to talk about Nintendo and Blizzard having that special polish, that undefinable something that makes their games so good. Final Fantasy has this unique touch too, only it’s something undefinable that keeps me from falling in love with them. The closest before Final Fantasy XV was one of the ones in FF Anthology. Final Fantasy V? Anyhow, despite being the most prominent series in a genre I love, Final Fantasy isn’t my jam. 

Except for Tactics.

One of my favorite things in a game is customization. When a game gives me a fun gameplay loop and lets me tackle it in a way that feels like my own, I’m hooked. No game has done customization as well as Tactics. There are unique classes in the game, and you can learn new ones by meeting certain requirements. For example: to change to the Ninja class, the character must have at least 3 ranks in Archer, 4 ranks in Thief, and 2 ranks in Geomancer. And as you might guess from Geomancer there are quite a few classes in the game - 20 to be exact, not counting the classes available only to the story-central characters in your party. I’ve played games with lots of classes before, but oftentimes they feel cosmetic and kind of same-y. With Tactics, each class really feels like its own special thing. 

This alone is pretty cool. Being able to turn any character into any class if I work at it is real good. Want a party full of Priests? Go for it. Want an army of Time Mages? It’s all yours. 

But it doesn’t stop there. You can learn skills within each class, and you can choose an assortment of skills regardless of your current class. This means that you can become a Ninja, learn the 2 Swords skill, then become a Knight, equip the 2 Swords skill, and BAM: dual-wielding Knight. Become a Time Mage then a Monk, and equip your Time Magic skill to be a barefisted Monk who also slings haste and slow spells. This kind of roll-your-own freedom to make crappy characters, or weird characters, or broken characters, or just whatever the hell you want is what makes this game so special.

                                    Orlandu OP nerf Orlandu plox gg Square

You get a mix of vanilla characters which can be molded into whatever classes you see fit and NPC characters with their own unique classes and abilities. The sense of progression in the character development is wonderful. You’re always close to learning a new skill, or gaining access to a new class. Some of the classes are extremely strange, like the Mediator who uses Speech abilities to buff allies and debuff enemies, or the Calculator who can use any spell he has learned instantly, but it affects all units (friend and foe alike) based on parameters of your choosing. So all units whose XP is a multiple of 3, or character level is a multiple of 5, and so on. It’s a strange class, and potentially quite overpowered. 

It isn’t just the customization though. Over the years I’ve paid more and more attention to video game soundtracks, and Final Fantasy Tactics has the best one. The orchestral score is alternately haunting, buoyant, tense, exciting, and melancholy. It also has its own little theme ditty that appears in various forms several times. I love it enough to have bought the physical discs and listen to them while driving.

The story was unique at the time for me, revolving around political treachery and religious corruption rather than the standard “lone hero saves the world from an overwhelmingly evil force” that I’d gotten used to seeing. It touches on themes of loyalty and social class distinctions. Your friend Delita, despite a similar upbringing and training, isn’t of noble lineage and so is treated as a lesser person. You get the differing perspectives of the noble class who sees the rebels as simple thieves and criminals, and that of the rebels who see the nobles as corrupt and greedy. Early on when some bad guys came to kidnap princess Ovelia and one of them punched her in the stomach, slung her over his shoulder and took her, I knew this wasn’t the same RPG stuff I’d been seeing for years. The game delivers a story featuring betrayal, a war for the throne, and villainous cardinals and bishops pulling the strings. Unfortunately it does go off the rails with holy stones and demonic possession, which is a shame because the human side of the story worked well. Despite the mangled translation of the original game, the story was quite good.

It’s a challenging game that can sometimes feel unfair. I can think of a couple of battles right off the top of my head that can be impossible if your party doesn’t have the right set of skills or equipment. And it’s got some frustrating weirdness in the form of a Zodiac system which determines things like hit percentage and damage based on how the participants’ Zodiac signs relate to one another. It’s got the weirdness of friendly spells having a chance to miss their target. 

The rabbit hole goes deep here. Many spells and abilities do not take effect immediately, they will hit after a specific number of turns. So you need to decide whether to cast Bolt 2 on that Monk in 5 turns, or on the square he’s standing on in 5 turns. What if he moves? What if you forget and walk a friendly character up next to him (friendly fire can happen in this game). You can check the AT (active turn?) list to find out the order in which characters will act and spells will go off. There’s planning on top of planning here; impatient gamers need not apply.

The game has its secrets too, with some miss-able characters and locations. You can even get Cloud from FFVII and his Buster Sword.* The optional secret dungeon is brutal, and contains some cool gear that you can’t find anywhere else. Likewise, some stuff can only be gotten by stealing from enemies (using the Thief class’ ability). You can recruit monsters to join your team. There are hard to attain classes like the Dancer (a female character must gain high ranks in combat-oriented classes) and the Bard (a male character unlocks this by gaining high ranks in magic-oriented classes). There’s the weirdo Mime class who mimics all friendly actions whether you want them to or not. The game is a completionist’s dream. Or nightmare. 

          Me trying to plan out my turns with a Calculator and Mime on the team.

It’s a strange, beautifully cobbled-together thing. The interface was archaic and clunky when it was new, and it feels even worse now. You can really cheese the XP/JP system by hitting your own teammates with weak abilities and drawing out combat far longer than is needed. Some of the battles are straight up unfair, and if you aren’t geared for it you had better hope you have multiple save files. Well, fuck all that. I adore this game. It walks the line of having too much shit all thrown together, but it somehow all just works for me. I loved Shining Force and had to wait a long time to get my hands on another strategy RPG. Final Fantasy Tactics was worth the wait. I rarely replay games, but I dust this one off every few years. It just feels like home. It is the best game I have ever played.

I’ll squeeze one more link in here before I close. I could listen to this soundtrack forever.

Release date: January 28, 1998 Developer: Square Platform: Sony Playstation

*Too damned late in the game though. He starts at level one when the rest of your party is in their 30′s.

[mammothstrengthx]

Those 3 Little Words..Performance Enhancing…

The fact 101% of the people reading that title filled in the black with DRUGS is very telling.  It just goes to show that PED use is prevalent.  You would think that it would mostly be restricted to the Professional ranks, where any competitive advantage would lead to a bigger pay day.  However, this is not the case.  Let’s face it, we live in a society where alcohol, tobacco and illegal narcotics are used on a daily basis.  With the exception of marijuana (sorry Republicans), none of them have any particular health benefits other than numbing the senses to escape the world around you.

PED’s on the other hand increase your ability to do the things you want to be good at.  So why would it come as a surprise that the number of people that actually use them is several orders of magnitude more than the Average Joe might imagine?  Unfortunately the number of PED users is not the only thing that Mr. Average Joe is ignorant of.  Human beings are pattern seeking mammals, and are prone to labeling something, throwing it in a box and never thinking about it again.  That tendency is perpetuated by the information age that we currently live in.  If something wants to get our attention it better be something we can digest in 140 characters or less, be related to an adorable kitten, or be in some state of undress.  As a result, despite walking around with the culmination of human intelligence in our smart phone, the majority of people seem to choose speed and ignorance over careful study and actual KNOWLEDGE.

How does that apply to performance enhancing drugs?  Well you get people that think anabolic steroids are a magical elixir brewed by the Devil himself to destroy the integrity of sports and kill off every first born male child.  Of course these same people, with no personal experience whatsoever are fairly certain if they had just “cheated” and used steroids they would have made it to Pros themselves.  Unfortunately, once that delusional belief finally takes hold it’s not long before they are out in a field recording videos of their passing skilz, and claiming they could throw a football over a mountain.  I mean if you can convince yourself that one demonstrably false idea is true, then the floodgates open and you can believe all kinds of batshit insane things that make you feel better.

“How much you wanna make a bet I can throw a football over them mountains?... Yeah... Coach woulda put me in fourth quarter, we would've been state champions. No doubt. No doubt in my mind.” –Uncle Rico”

Here in my home town of reality it is fairly easy to see that this just isn’t so.  However, it is my personal belief that the bitterness caused by the aforementioned delusions are part of the vilification of steroid use by athletes.  That along with a healthy dose of propaganda from the medical community, and you have a general public that think that people are droppin dead from anabolic steroid use every day.  All I can say to that is “Show Me the Bodies…”

When you actually ask the anti-steroid crowd to produce evidence of all these deaths they don’t really have much to offer.  It is like any other “faith based belief”, when you convince yourself of something with little to no evidence then you are admitting that evidence doesn't matter to you.  And whenever an athlete dies with steroids in his system (or is known to have used them at any point) then that is always one if not the top reason for their death as far as the media is concerned.  I honestly believe that if Mark McGwire died tomorrow of a snake bite, somehow his steroid use which obviously compromised his immune system would be responsible.  The rules of modern “journalism”…Don't let the facts get in the way of a good story.

This Graph shows the mortality rates of people who use tobacco and alcohol compared to anabolic steroids. It should be noted that 45 million people use tobacco and nearly 100 million people use alcohol. There isn’t any such quantitative data for anabolic steroid users (Center for Disease Control 2011). [Read more]

None of this is to suggest that anabolic steroids are necessarily “safe”.  If you have any kind of pre-existing condition then a substance that cause growth can exacerbate the situation.  As with anything else in life the safety of something is directly related to the person using it.  Guns are perfectly safe, in the hands of someone trained in gun safety.  Most people would consider hammers even safer, and yet hammers are responsible for hundreds of deaths each year.

Anyone that has read anything I write knows what a big fan of IRONY I am.  And the discussion about PED’s is rife with it.  I have to admit that I sometimes am bored enough to listen to sports talk radio.  And the local channel here is always getting into the anti-PED discussion.  Then when they go to commercial you find out that one of their sponsors is a local HRT Clinic.  In case you didn't know, hormone replacement therapy is the legal way to use anabolic steroids and growth hormone.  All you have to do is convince a Doc that you have lost a little pep in your step, give them your insurance information, pay your deductible and BAM…suddenly PED’s are ok.  Apparently cheating death and the aging process is socially acceptable.  What is also funny is it is socially acceptable for doctors and lawyers to abuse caffeine and other stimulants to get through school and internship.  But a professional athlete that chooses to use PED’s to increase his job performance is EVIL?   Speaking of performance enhancement, how many guys die from Viagra use every year?

Now before you make the mistake of thinking that I am advocating cheating, please know that I AM NOT!  When you compete in a sport that says “doing this is against the rules”, and you do it anyway then you are by definition a cheater.  I am simply questioning the rules, and attempting to point out the inconsistency of the general public’s moral judgment.

POP QUIZ HOT SHOT!!

Why are performance ENHANCING drugs illegal, while performance debilitating drugs such as alcohol and tobacco are legal?! 

A)     Politics

B)     Ignorance

C)     Misinformation/Propaganda

D)     The Myth of The Level Playing Field

E)      All of the above

If you answered anything other than E) All of the Above, I’m sorry but we have some wonderful parting gifts for you.  Obviously politics play a huge role in this equation.  Alcohol and tobacco companies have HUGE lobbying budgets, and are huge profit generating industries.  Unfortunately, there is no corporation that would stand to benefit if PED’s were legalized.  And make no mistake about it money makes the world go around.

Of course ignorance and misinformation play its part in this as well.  The general public, mostly due to apathy, is at the mercy of CNN and FOX for fair and balanced reporting on issues.  Again as I said before, if you aren't really concerned with actual facts and evidence, then you will believe whatever story someone tells you.  Truthfully PED’s just seem to be one of those anomalies that gets lumped into the “Drugs are bad mmmmmkay” mentality of Joe Six Pack.

As much as all of the other reason have something to do with PED’s being illegal; I would argue that the myth of the Level Playing field is the most influential.  For some reason, especially in the United States people think that sports are somehow sacred, and that the records involved in these sports are the Holiest of Holies.

In some strange way I suppose it makes sense.  If sports fans didn't have statistics and records to compare to other fans there would be no more sports hate and pissing contests.  And then *gasp* people would have to accept that sports are just ENTERTAINMENT just like movies and music.  As an aside, think of how ridiculous it would be if people got into drunken fist fights at movie theaters over who’s favorite actor was better.  See what happens when things are put into context.

The truth is that people have been using drugs of all kinds for the entirety of human civilization.  It is only recently that we have deemed some of those drugs illegal.  The “War on Drugs” has been an epic failure, and has not served to curb people’s use of drugs.  It has only served to turn law abiding citizens into criminals.  The same can be said for PED’s.  Athletes are competitive by nature, and to get to the very elite level you are always looking for a way to make yourself better.  The legality of PED’s have turned World Record performances into *Asterisks, and left a black mark on the athletes name.  Guess what, Mark McGwire's homeruns STILL entertained you, and Lance Armstrong STILL raised HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS!  So is the problem the athletes, or the laws?

Many fans are opposed to athletes using PED’s, but they also want to see records being broken and they celebrate bigger, stronger, faster without the slightest bit of acknowledgement to the irony of the situation.  Don’t for a second believe that fans give a shit about the players.  They want to be entertained, and when the players get a little long in the tooth, they will want them put out to pasture.  So why wouldn’t a professional athlete dabble in PED’s to extend his professional career a year or two?!  How many of those same fans wouldn’t do the EXACT SAME THING if they had a chance to earn a couple Million Dollars?!

Another thing you will hear is the claim that they are worried about the children, “what about the children” they cry.  By that same logic, shouldn’t they be trying to get drugs and alcohol out of the music industry?  Wouldn’t society be so much better for our children, and for our future if everyone was a teetotaler with regards to all drugs?!  And since it is obvious that you don't care about Pro Athletes once they get past their prime entertainment years, why exactly should the athletes care about being role models to YOUR CHILDREN?!

Here’s the thing, and you may not want to hear it, but if you honestly think that would be a good thing then be careful what you wish for.  You would have to put an *Asterisk next to the majority of the past 100 years.  There would be no more records broken in your lifetime, and the music industry would suck worse than it already does.  Again I am not sayin that athletes should cheat, they should not.  I am suggesting it is hypocrisy of the highest order to make PED's illegal (unless they are part of HRT..thus proving their medical benefit) while alcohol and tobacco are legal.

My point is NOT to advocate PED use.  My point is to advocate education.  If you think PED's (or any drug for that matter) should be illegal then you should have solid reasoning behind it.  If your only reason is FEAR of what might happen if they were legal, then really is that even an argument?!  If you are afraid of "what might happen", then shouldn't you be outraged at what IS happening with regards to alcohol and tobacco.  You seriously are stepping over the bodies of hundreds of thousands of people that die each year from alcohol and tobacco abuse to try to find one or two people that might possibly have died from steroid use.  This kind of inconsistent moral outrage, and the hypocrisy is staggering to try to comprehend.  I will close with the my question from earlier, and I welcome all different points of view…

Why are performance ENHANCING drugs illegal, while performance debilitating drugs such as alcohol and tobacco are legal?!

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