#neo also look really happy too which is a bit scary??

[nerdygirlwithanxiety]

So rwby volume nine opening was crazy. Hadn't watch the episode yet but...HOLY FUCK HES BACK???

[girlsbtrs]

An Interview with PLEXXAGLASS

Written by Olivia Khiel. Graphic by James N Grey. 

Non-binary dark pop artist PLEXXAGLASS has found their identity and carved out their own space in the music world. With the pandemic putting things on hold, they took to TikTok, reaching a new community of queer fans to connect with through songs like “Liar” and “Lilith” (the latter produced by Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda). GBTRS spoke with Plexxaglass about collaborating with Shinoda, their gender identity journey and what they hope listeners will connect with in their music.

Girls Behind the Rock Show: Now that you have more music out, how would you describe the evolution of your sound from when you started to where you are now?

Plexxaglass: I love that question. Because it's kind of funny- I feel like I made a little bit of a circle. I say that because the first two songs that I put out- "Lament en Route" and "Liar"- they're pretty similar sonically to the songs that I'm putting out. So much so that I'm actually going to include those songs on the LP that I'll be releasing, tentatively in October. There's an interesting little gap between those first two songs, and then I put out three other songs that was like my experimental phase. I'm always having fun, but I was trying some different things. I'm happy that I did that and there were two music videos that came out of that cycle or phase. Those songs are "Dead-Eyed Monsters" and "Ana Thema". But I feel like I found my way back to what I found initially, which is really interesting and fun to realize now.

GBTRS: What's the story behind your latest singles? What was it like collaborating with Mike Shinoda on "Lilith"?

Plexxaglass: "Lilith" was a half-finished song honestly- maybe even a quarter-finished song when I even got in touch with Mike. That happened so serendipitously-I had a listener who was also a regular viewer of my Twitch channel and a huge Linkin Park and Shinoda fan in general who hit me up on Instagram and was like, 'Mike Shinoda is producing independent artists' tracks, you should totally submit'. 

I submitted what I had of "Lilith" at the time, which was only a verse and the hook. It was a song that I loved and I knew that I wanted to be finished. I'm not one of those musicians that can just be like, 'alright, I'm gonna write a song today'. I really have to be called by the Muses or some shit. I have to be very inspired. But when Mike reached out to me, that was incentive and inspiration enough. I think when I was sitting down to finish it, I finished in maybe 20 minutes. That's just how it happens sometimes. When it's there, it's there and I finish songs really quickly. The process of working with Mike was amazing, and him and his team told me in the beginning that it was going to be pretty hands off on my part. I knew going in that I was gonna have to take it or leave it, which was sort of scary. I was like, oh shit, what if I don't like it? Am I gonna have to tell Mike Shinoda that I don't want to release the work that he did on my track? Oh my god, that's so scary. But no, of course, he's just so versatile. He really is a musician's musician, and he just gets music in general- doesn't matter what genre it is. I believe my song is the one that he finished the fastest, which is very flattering. It made me feel like it was just very ready. He didn't really have to do too much to it. It was a really, really cool experience that I just will cherish forever and ever and ever.

GBTRS: The song came out beautifully so it's great that things worked out so well.

Plexxaglass: Yeah! And the inspiration behind that one- I wrote it out of a fascination with the second season of The Handmaid's Tale. I found that dynamic so fascinating. I find women or femme-presenting people who [are] in a marginalized group who buys into very oppressive religious practices horrifying and fascinating at the same time. That was the inspiration behind writing that and really sitting with wondering if there's ever an awakening with those people. That was really the basis for that whole song.

GBTRS: You've gotten to collab with Mike Shinoda, but is there anyone else on your list that you'd love to be in the studio with in the future?

Plexxaglass: Oh god, yeah. So many. Right off the top of my head...I love Bishop Briggs, I love Dermot Kennedy, Bon Iver, Annie from St. Vincent, Florence Welch. Those are the big ones. I would die happy if I ever got to collaborate with any of them. That would be amazing.

GBTRS: What else do you find yourself drawing inspiration from these days?

Plexxaglass: Up until this point, it's been very autobiographical. It's been very much things that have happened in my life. I am trying to get away from that because I'm somebody who writes more somber music. I have some anthemic stuff that's more uplifting, but it is dark pop. I am at a point in my life where I'm generally- I'm mentally ill- but I'm generally a happy person. There's not a lot of dramatic tragedy going on in my life at 30 anymore. I'm trying to write a little more abstractly these days, but the themes that seem to always reoccur are very social justice motivated. Writing about mental illness and mental health are all themes that I tend to write about over and over again in different ways.

GBTRS: You've been very vocal and open about your gender identity and that's very important to so many people who are looking to find themselves in the people that they listen to. Do you have any advice for people who are struggling with that, or even advice for creatives who are in the industry who are working through that as well? 

Plexxaglass: So my coming out as non-binary is still honestly pretty new. I came out publicly about it a little over a year ago. It's something that I always knew, but growing up we just didn't have the language for it. I didn't really know why I felt so out of place and that it felt like such a struggle to present as feminine as possible so as not to feel like I was an outsider. I spent many years trying very hard to conform. 

I think a lot of it was literature that talked about neo-pronouns [that] was something that happened for me that was really an eye-opener. I knew at that point that there were people who used they/them pronouns [and] identified as non-binary, but for some reason, it didn't really click until a book called Black Sun. They have a character that uses neo-pronouns. It just really slapped me in the face. 

I'm really lucky. My friends and family have been almost apathetic about it- like 'that totally makes sense'. The other thing that really helped me was honestly TikTok as well. There is a large trans and non-binary community on TikTok. That was where I really found community, because it was scary to me, because I have conformed for so long. Being a woman was something that I made a very clear part of my identity for so long, that I was scared to lose that community.

I would just say to anyone who is afraid of that: anyone who doesn't still want to welcome you in their space isn't a person you want in your life anyway. I've been lucky that I haven't really had a lot of that. It was a struggle to let go of that. After I came out publicly, I was looking through my closet and I have all of these shirts that say Girl Club and Badass Woman [and] all of these because I was trying so hard. It was difficult to let go of that and come to terms with the fact that it really never was me- it was a mask that I was putting on to feel included and normal.

GBTRS: Do you have a song in your catalog that particularly resonates with you?

Plexxaglass: There's a song that's coming out in August. It's the last single off of this record [and] it's called "Tall". It is about being a trauma survivor- my trauma- and just a rallying cry for trauma survivors in general. I have put out little teasers of it on TikTok and it does seem like it's really resonating with people, which is very exciting. But out of the catalog of songs that I have out currently, the song "Liar"...it's kind of similar in tone. I wrote it after I was diagnosed Bipolar II. It's a song that's very clearly about mental health struggles and I think anyone who does struggle with depression really does relate to that song. That song was the one that really gifted me listeners from TikTok. So that's a song I'll always cherish for many, many reasons, but it has definitely brought me my little music family.

GBTRS: Now that you're starting to connect even more with your listeners, is there anything specific that you hope people take away from your music when they hear you for the first time?

Plexxaglass: I think, like most people, I wanted to create a little community, and I do feel like I'm finally getting to a point where I'm doing that with my music and connecting people and their experiences. 

GBTRS: Now that things are starting to move forward, what's coming up for you?

Plexxaglass: I want to get back to playing shows. I definitely want to pair a show with the release of the record, so I'm hoping I'm going to book some shows for the fall. Get back into rehearsals with a band and get that going and just keep writing and coming up with new material for the next wave of music.

GBTRS: Is there anything else that you want people to know about you or your music, or is there anything that you wish you got to talk about more that you might not get asked?

Plexxaglass: Wow, good question. I think a lot of people don't realize that musicians- especially independent artists- this is this is our small business. It takes a lot of work, obviously, it takes talent and patience, but it takes money. That's why they're there are gaps in time of when I put music out, because sometimes I just legitimately can't afford to- which is sad, I wish that the US had more support for artists like I know other countries do- I know that the UK is really good about grant opportunities for their artists out there. 

I know that people are happy to consume music, but I think people don't realize- especially in the independent side of things- how hard it is to be a musician who's trying to make it in this country. I appreciate everyone who has ever just randomly sent me like $2 on PayPal. It means so much to me because it means that they get that and I think that is something really special and cool about the family that I'm building with my music because they think that they really see me and they appreciate the work. It's people who genuinely want to be involved in my work, and that is something I've never experienced before until the past year or two. That's awesome because myself and my producer, Kevin...we love this project to death. It's awesome to see response from people who love it just as much as we do.

[razorblade180]

interdimensional dads 5 (Finale)

Orange, Blue, and Purple all make a drum roll on the table as they stare at Red, who is sipping coffee and trying not to laugh at the lunacy that is quite literally, himself.

Jaune: Y’all dome?

*drum roll stops*

Jaune:Yep, your turn. You have to be the buffest for a reason right?

Jaune:And look like you’ve seen shit?

Jaune:We’ve all been through shit. We’re us!

Jaune:Yeah, but you’re you.

Jaune:How- I’m not arguing with that one. Okay, my turn. Since you brought it up, we, I gained weight for a little bit and eventually got back into a workout routine. I might’ve went a little overboard but no one complains.

Jaune:Alright, now we can back this story up and start from wherever you like.

Jaune:Aight, I guess I start with my universe beating Salem. By that point, Ruby and I had been together for awhile. I think we were always together to a degree ever since RNJR formed. We obviously didn’t actually say anything but the time we spent felt different. At least for me it did. Maybe mourning Pyrrha had something to do with it but by the time Yang and Weiss showed up at Haven, Ruby and I were definitely on “friendly terms”

Jaune:Aaaaayyyyeeee!

Jaune:You two are too much. Haha, let him continue.

Jaune:We were trying to keep it lowkey but I’m sure everyone knew. Back to Salem, that was insane. If you were to tell me I’d help save the world when I was only 19 then I’d laugh.

Jaune:Wait...19? I was twenty.

Jaune:Same.

Jaune: I was 21! Are you saying Ruby beat Salem at 17!? That’s insane! Which one of us has the strongest versions of our friends? I never thought about it until now.

They all got silent and thought about it for a moment. That was a very good question.

Jaune:Ummm mysterious voice? Do you have an answer to that?

[Each person varies, but a majority is between Orange and Red. For example, Orange has the strongest Blake, while Red has the strongest Sun.]

Jaune:What about in terms of team RWBY?

[The feats in all universes make that a close race. Red, Orange, and Blue have extremely powerful Yangs that would most likely in a brutal draw. Collectively, the strongest team RWBY would be a tie between Red and Orange]

Jaune:Makes sense, my worlds peaceful.

Jaune:And mine doesn’t have any organized threat against it, just the dangers of living in a world trying to grasp the concept magic and gods again.

Jaune:Well we might not have a concrete answer but I’m sure my wife beats your Ruby. After beating Salem we continued traveling the world to thin out grimm threats, just the two of us. Not that the others didn’t want to but they needed a moment to breathe. Ruby and I however, we were kinda on a high of being the heroes we always dreamed of.

Jaune:Your victory lap was more adventure? Yeah you’re definitely built different from me. My Ruby went on missions but even she took a minute just to breathe. It was a very short minute, but the minute none the less.

[Comparing the two is like comparing an lone apex wolf to a jaguar.]

Jaune:Well then....all of that sounds scary.

Jaune:It wasn’t long before we got a house together. Built it actually, in Vacou. It’s a nice little spot over looking the town and another one in the distance. When Ruby was 19 she had really gotten into her stride and was only getting started. Also, I married her. I had known for awhile that she was the one so why wait? I wanted to go on all of her adventures and create new ones with her.

Jaune:Aaaaawwwww

Jaune:Things were like walking on sunshine. All of Remnant knew about Ruby Rose, the huntress that saved the world with her friends. Then at 21, I got her pregnant. *scratches head*

Jaune:I know that scratch. That’s the “My bad” scratch!

Jaune:Okay, it wasn’t exactly planned. I was thrilled when I found out since I did want kids with her. I learned a month after she knew though because she wasn’t sure what to think at first. Ruby was perfectly happy being the hero, she hadn’t even hit her prime yet technically. When she told me though, it was after she had talked about it with Tai and thought about it. I think she might’ve been happier than me.

Jaune:My Ruby would give anything to have a kid.

Jaune:Mine would give anything for her husband back...

The mood suddenly got a little less cheery with that statement.

Jaune:Sorry, I didn’t mean to bring the mood down.

Jaune:It’s fine...this next part....isn’t happy. It’s the reason I fell out of shape, and partly the reason why I look like I’ve gone through shit.

Jaune:Oh....no...

Jaune:You lost the baby?

Jaune:Yeah but uhhh, not the way you’re thinking. The pregnancy was fine, the birth was a little rough but it was fine. A little baby boy, Dustin Arc-Rose. I saw him for about five minutes and then he was stolen, by Neo and Cinder. I must’ve ran the fastest I’ve ever had that day. Faster than even Ruby can move on a good day, and yet they got away. Yang, Weiss, and I stood on the roof of that hospital and watched the airship fade into the sunset. I must’ve stayed up there for hours, screaming. Yang and Weiss kept it together for my sake but not by much.

Jaune:Dude I am....I am so sorry that you went through that.

Jaune:We showed mercy to Cinder the day we beat Salem. It came back to bite us. Things fell apart after that. I shutdown, the others felt guilty, especially Yang. As for Ruby, she broke a little. She looked longer than anyone else for a lead and drowned herself in work for about a year. In that time we didn’t talk, I never knew where she was, if she’d come back. Tai ended up taking me to live with him and unfortunately, time wasn’t gonna wait for anyone. Lives had to be lived, Yang and Blake still had to get married. It just didn’t happen with Ruby.

Jaune:How did you even find the strength to keep going after that?

Jaune:In my world, Yang is my closet friend. Thick as thieves, the two of us always try to pick each other up. She never hesitated to be by my sad whenever I asked. I don’t think I could’ve made it without her since Ruby was gone. One day however, the two of them showed up out of the blue. Ozpin had decided to confront Ruby. For once I was glad he meddling in our lives. He got her to start moving on and come back to me. That day I realized how special my friends are. Most people would’ve looked down on me for failing, not going after Ruby, breaking down, but not them. They wanted me back on my feet for my own sake. Just like they wanted for her. I’m really blessed.

Jaune:That’s good. Friendships that you want to live for, I’m glad we wall have that in common.

Jaune:Yeah. Ruby and I took some time to be together after that. No work, no leads, just healing. In that year she was gone, Ruby had become a juggernaut in the huntsman community. Even got a nickname, The Storyteller. Keeping up with someone like that meant getting back into shape. Those months we spent together gave us a slither of the joy we had missed. Eventually, thanks to Yang having her child, we found the courage to try having another one. Her name is Carmine and she’s my gorgeous daughter. We even have another son much later named Garnet.

The other three Jaune’s clap happily.

Jaune:Yeah, that’s definitely a lot of shit to go through.

Jaune:Hats off to ya.

Jaune:How’s Carmine?

Jaune:*puts head on the table* Uuuugggghhh!

Jaune:Yeah, that’s sound you make when you have a headstrong daughter. Who does she take after?

Jaune:That’s just it, she doesn’t really. Not in personality anyways. Carmine is a bit weird socially. She can be pretty blunt, making her sound rude. She doesn’t mind having friends but at the same time keeps them at arms reach. She says they would slow her down. Not to mention her and Ruby’s vision of what a huntress should be doesn’t match up perfectly so they end up butting heads on occasion. Still, Carmine is sweet if you know how to talk to her and understand her words.

Jaune:She gifted?

Jaune:*inhales*....Carmine is genius in battle. We taught her ourselves and sent her to regular school so she gained a bit of social skills. No one outside of selected few knows she has silver eyes. Carmine wears red contacts typically. New types of grimm pop up regularly so Cinder is obviously alive and well. Can’t be too careful.

Jaune:Sounds stressful. I’d rather deal with cult and my world’s grimm problem than Cinder. How old is Carmine?

Jaune: She’s 17 and more impressive than Ruby was at that age if I’m being honest. Though I’m not sure if that’s a good thing. We’ve done our best to give her a normal childhood as much as possible. I think what we gave was an odd mix of normal and insanity.

Jaune:Honestly, same.

Jaune:What do you mean Carmine is more impressive? Ruby was awesome since day zero at Beacon.

Jaune:Silver eye use, age five.

......

Red took a sip of his coffee while everyone tried to wrap that around their head.

Jaune:Since a young age, I knew Carmine was special. She has a difficult time showing up but she loves the Remnant we’re trying to build and the people in it that want to do good. I’ve seen her look out over cities before and I could feel the immense desire she had to preserve it. That girl has a strength I don’t think I could take credit for. That stern look, height, hair, and guitar skills though, That’s me. The tipsy of her hair are red though. She’s like a half ripe strawberry, hahaha.

Jaune:Sounds like an incredible girl. Must be pretty popular.

Jaune:If she could come off a bit nicer she would! I’d give up Pumpkin Pete’s for life if this kid could learn to work well with others. I’m glad people like her cousin and a couple of others that can deal with her. It’s not all bad. They know to bring out the normal teenager with her.

Jaune:Is she like Ruby and panics at rats?

Jaune:No, but she can’t deal with spiders. We have grimm spiders that are actually terrifying and that ruined normal spiders with her too.

Jaune:Grimm spiders? How big? A boot size?

Jaune:SUV....one spun her in a web. It was really bad.

Jaune:Fuuuuuuck that! I’d hate spiders too!

Jaune:Yeah but she has fun. Ballet, sleep, horses, etc. You just have to get her to work up to it.

Jaune:What about your son?

Jaune:Garnet? He’s five, has fat cheeks, and is probably eating some dry cereal right about now. He’s Ruby’s little teddy bear and is chillin. He’s probably the only thing that makes Carmine a big softie at the drop of a hat.

Jaune:Sounds like you’re doing pretty well for yourself? That’s good.

Jaune:We have struggles but we make things work somehow.

Jaune:I still can’t believe Cinder killed your kid. I don’t think I’d ever recover.

Jaune:Lost....we lost a kid. Killed wouldn’t be the right word. Dustin...just isn’t....it’s complicated. I don’t wanna talk about it.

Jaune:Sorry.

Jaune:It’s fine. That aside, I think most things life throws at us, we’ll handle just fine.

Jaune:What do you think Carmine is up to right now?

Jaune:Good question. I don’t think she’s on any mission or working with local authorities currently. If it’s morning then she’s in the garden. Playing with Garnet if it’s the afternoon so he’ll tired out. If it’s night time then.....

xxxx

“STAY AWAY!!!” A man screamed, shooting four bullets down a dark alley in the middle of the night. His target, a pair of shimmering red eyes that patiently stalked him from the shadows as he sprinted away. Each bullet seem to go right by his target so he continued running for his life, making a sharp right turn around a corner.

“You know eventually I’m going to catch you right?” Carmine said as she walked. “I’d rather you not make this longer than it has to be Tommy. We could be done by now if you just spoke to me.”

The only response the girl received was the sound of footsteps getting further away and a chain link fence being shook. Carmine sighed and looked around her before picking up a trash lid. She hurled it against a wall to her left and that was ahead in front of her, making it bounce off towards the right. The hunk of metal made its way around the corner with a whack! Followed by a heavy thump that hit the ground. Carmine continued walking until she turned the corner and found her target on the ground. He was rubbing his back in pain and groaning.

“Come on, I know I didn’t hit you that hard. The new head of crime orginization wouldn’t go down so-”

Suddenly the brute lunged at her, revealing a previously concealed dagger. Carmine was quick to react however, and grabbed his wrist before the blade could make contact with her exposed stomach. Carmine then twisted his hand down word and forced his entire arm slam down to the groun; the blade pierced the ground at her feet. Thick yellow liquid secreted from blade and soaked the ground.

Tommy felt his stomach dropped as he looked up to see the young girl staring down at him unimpressed. He went to reach for the knife but Carmine placed her boot on his hand, hard.

“Gah!”

“See? Now that’s what I was expecting. Too bad you’re not so good with knives. I guess you figured you didn’t have to be when it had Deathstalker venom in it huh? Now... let’s talk.”

Carmine rubbed her foot into the ground, causing Tommy to grit his teeth in pain.

“Stop!” He pleaded. “You’ll break it!”

“It won’t break if you talk fast enough. Tell me what I want to hear. A month ago you weren’t in charge. A tubby guy was and he always kept crates of his equipment in a warehouse outside of town. Then someone apparently shows up to have a meeting, tubby is enraged and kicks them out. Now he’s dead and you’re in charge, moving all of his stuff after you had a meeting. Are you getting the picture I’m painting?”

Tommy’s face goes pale. He starts struggling harder to free himself but it’s not working. Carmine can see the man start to sweat as if he got caught in the rain.

“Now I know what you’re thinking, if you tell me who obviously threatened you to move the crates, then they’ll kill you. But that’s the thing about the future Tommy...”

Carmine lifts her foot and swings it right into his face. She watches Tommy hold is face in pain before rolling him over and putting her knee on his back. Carmine grabs the knife and spooks him by stabbing it beside his face.

“It happens later. Focus on the present. Focus on what I could do to you right now and how to prevent that. Then you can think about your future.” Carmine said, not an ounce of playfulness in her voice.

“I....I....w-well I-”

“Before you try lying to me, I know how Deathstalker venom works. Only the babies are venomous and those are extremely hard to find here. Admittedly I don’t know you well but I know your men. They don’t have the patience or brains to find any here, because there aren’t many. So you either got the venom for this knife by being very diligent, going to a different continent, or someone got you the critters.”

Carmine leaned in close, barely away from his ear. “Or should I say made you some, instead of gathering them? Tommy, where is Cinder Fall?”

Tommy felt like he could vomit at any second. He couldn’t let intel leak. He sold his soul to a witch and now he has to live with it. “I....I can’t say.” He whispered, his lip trembling.

“I see. The fear is too much for you. Should’ve chose a different line of work. Maybe you’ll change your tune if you learn to fear me more?” Carmine grabbed the knife. “This won’t kill you but I doubt it’ll feel good either.”

Carmine lifted the knife and held is hand in place. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath to calm herself. She tried asking nicely. “Sorry....”

“CARMINE!” A loud voice echoed through the alleyways and made the people in it freeze. Tommy tilted his head up and got goosebumps. On the roof was a person everyone knew and criminals wish to avoid. Ruby Rose, he hadn’t seen her in person before. The woman’s cloak covered the area as she jumped down gracefully.

With no noise, her heels hit the ground and stood before the pinned man. Her piercing silver eyes borrowed into him and her long hair blew out of her face by the alley draft. Tommy’s back freed of Carmine’s knee and the young girl raised him to his feet. While Ruby’s expression was calm and oddly inviting, Carmine still looked at the man annoyed. Time was valuable and he was wasting hers. He might’ve escaped the knife but now he was stuck between two women that could all but erase him.

“Y...You’re Ruby Ro-”

“I had this under control by the way.” Carmine cut him off. “Don’t see why you intervened.

“You had him terrified and about to wet his pants. That’s a bit much don’t you think?” Ruby put her hands on her hips and shook her head. “No need to be so intense.”

Carmine mimicked her mother’s gesture. “And we care about the state of people like him why? Lackeys and gang bangers with too much ego have no right to be coddled when they’re rotting the city away from the underbelly. People like that might as well disappear.”

“Carmine that’s not how....” Ruby let out a long sigh and looked at Tommy. He was clearly trying his best to remain calm. “Sorry about her. You know teenagers, always intense in one way or another.” She let out an embarrassed chuckle.

Tommy flinched again when suddenly a burst of red petals spun around him. Next thing he knew, handcuffs were on him and his back was against the fence he tried to climb earlier. The pair of red and silver eyes stared him down from just out of the shadows. Yet he could still see Ruby’s more positive demeanor.

“I’m going to jail?” He groaned.

Ruby stepped towards him. “Depends, Tommy.” She reached out and grabbed his shoulder. “The thing is if you go to jail and I bring you in, Cinder will no doubt send someone to try and kill you. Truthfully, it’s not a bad outcome, for me. I’ll just attack your killer and get more info out of them then you most likely.”

“But...you’d stop them before they kill me, right?”

Ruby shrugged, “I can only go so fast. Who knows what could happen, Tommy. Can you take that chance, knowing you will be at the mercy of circumstances around you for gods know how long?”

“N...no” Tommy gulped.

“I mean I could let you run away right now like nothing happened, but any more meetings with Cinder would be absolute hell on your nerves because there’s no way you can keep this from her. What’s worse, you could fuck up and give us information accidentally overtime and then she’d really be mad because we’ll keep an eye on you as long as you’re doing things we don’t like; an unwilling pawn for both sides until someone knocks you off the board. How does that sound to you?” Ruby’s grip got a little tighter.

“Pr...Pretty bad-

“PRETTY BAD!?” Ruby shouted. “Tommy, you will not come out of this well. You’ll probably be dead within the month if I let you leave right now. So my question is what are you gonna do to save your own skin? Because I know what I would ask for in your situation.”

“What’s that?” He asked, almost desperate for his freedom

“I would spill my guts out to the hero because they would at least try to keep you safe if you behaved. Tell me what you know and I will personally take somewhere where you’ll have a fresh start with a new name, a new life that isn’t Illegal. You’ll still sleep with one eye open just to watch your own back but you also know there’s someone who is actively stopping the person who’d want you dead in the first place. Get off the chessboard Tommy. It sucks to be an expendable pawn.”

Tommy could feel her hand trembling. Was she...nervous? No, she was sympathetic. The way Ruby looked at him wasn’t to scare him. She was stating facts and didn’t want him being another statistic. This was the huntress everyone talked about. The one that gives lifelines and creates new endings where they shouldn’t be possible. The was Ruby Rose, the storyteller.

xxxx

Ruby holds up an envelope to the light before facing Carmine, the sound of waves rocking a boat behind them with Tommy in it. Ruby was a woman of her word. She’d take him somewhere safe.

“Here” she held out the envelop for Carmine. “Take it home, no need for me to lug it across the sea.” She waited for Carmine to say something, anything. The girl only nodded and took the thin piece of paper.

Carmine started to walk off but heard Ruby take a step towards her before stopping. She looked back to see her mother frowning, an expression they were both sharing. Ruby looked at her daughter with her emotions clear as day. It was weird to be eye level with her. Without heels, Ruby would be looking up. Carmine had gotten so big the last few years. It was hard not see her as still little.

“I...I know we don’t agree on certain things, and I also know you feel like I helicopter over you. I don’t do it because I don’t trust you or anything like that. Fact of the matter is...I’m your mother. If I can find a way to solve a problem without you doing something drastic, even if you’re willing to do it, then I’m gonna step in. Just because you’re willing to make the tough calls, doesn’t mean I won’t try to keep them away from you. They weigh people down and I don’t want that for you. You’re my daughter, I love you...”

Ruby always hated their fights. It’s why they don’t do missions together. No matter how strong Carmine is, she’ll always be Jaune and Ruby’s little girl. Truthfully, she didn’t hate it at all. Carmine hated arguing too, if not more.

“I get it mom, I do. Perhaps...I was a tad hasty tonight. Thanks for...showing up.” Carmine scratched her head in embarrassment. Since when did talking to her own mom get so rough. “I love you too.” There, she said it.

Ruby gave her daughter a gentle smile and opened her arms, hoping for a hug. She knew she might be getting a bit too mushy right now but unexpectedly, Carmine walked over and embraced it without question. Ruby wasn’t about to complain. Any affection was welcomed at all times when it came from Carmine. Ruby finally let her go and got one more look at her daughter. Time sure does fly.

“My beautiful girl. I saw the trash lid truck by the way, that was pretty badass.”

Carmine playfully rolled her eyes and opened the evelope. Ruby watched the girl read over the paper several times before handing it back. “Got it.”

Ruby’s eyebrows perked up in surprise. A shocked smile came soon after. “You’re-”

“Of course.” Carmine cut her off. She put her hands together and made a glowing red rose form between them. She placed the thing right behind her mother’s ear and smiled. “See you at home?”

“Yeah, I should be back before morning.”

“Good, I’ll have breakfast waiting for you then.” Ruby watch her daughter start to walk off before Carmine slowly blew away into red and yellowish rose petals.

“My oh my, that daughter of mine.” Ruby chuckled. “I can’t wait.”

xxxx

“Done.” Carmine said, rewriting the information down as she layed on the couch. On top of her was her adorable baby brother, fast asleep like he should be. She reached for a candle that lit the room and blew it out. All in all, not a bad night in the slightest. One step closer to their goal. One step closer to the end.

Part 4

Wanna start Rosebud < Part one is a click away.

[nights-lament]

RWBY Volume 8, Chapter 1 Thoughts and Opinions

HELLO, INTERWEBS!!! At long last, we are back with more RWBY, and with it, more RWBY Thoughts and Opinions! After the absolute roller coaster that was Volume 7's cliffhanger finale, I can not imagine the insanity that awaits us this Volume. So, without further ado, here are my various thoughts and opinions on Chapter 1 of RWBY Volume 8, "Divide"

SPOILERS BELOW:

Hmm, starting off with a mysterious woman scrubbing floors, and...wait, is that...no...

I really like the way they juxtapose Cinder scrubbing with her scratching the chair. Very symbolic.

Yick, something about organic architecture just gives me the willies. I mean, is the whale aware that they double as a building complex? Can they feel the diabolical ongoings of it's rib cage? Creepy stuff.

Oof, outright taking credit for grabbing the relic, Cinder? Yeah, no way that's going to bite you in the ass.

Oh my. Mercury, Emerald, AND Hazel have new looks this season. I'm sure I'll warm up to them eventually, but right now Emerald's and Hazel's aren't really doing this. For Hazel, the outfit is all right, but the hair is a bit boring compared to his originals. Mercury's is ok, but is it just me, or is he basically wearing Yang's V4-6 outfit? I mean, it works, but still.

"Without you, I am nothing." That...didn't sound like the first time she's said that. It almost sounds like something Salem's drilled into her head for years. Cinder may be irredeemable in my opinion, but I do love a good tragic backstory.

You know, I guess would make sense for the crater to be the slums area. Can't imagine living directly under a floating landmass would be considered prime real estate.

Ooh, this old man has badger paws. I don't think we've seen that kind of Faunus trait yet.

D'aaww, Nora gave Oscar a soft hug rather than her usual glomp. So cute ^-^

I'm interested in how Oscar not telling them about Oz is going to play out.

Ok, their is a lot going on in this bar-base worth talking about, but for some reason I am fascinated by the picture of (i'm assuming) the founders in the background. What interesting designs they have. I feel like they have a story, and I would like to hear it.

Penny's dejected demeanor is giving me all of the feels Q_Q

Not sure how I feel about the rift forming between RWBYJNRO, though I guess we'll have to see where it goes. At least we have people like Jaune playing mediator.

I will say, though, I look forward to seeing Ren and Nora apart. As much as I love them as a couple, I'd very much like to see them operate as individuals.

God, Ironwood trying to manipulate Penny like that.

And there it is. Ironwood has truly revealed his true feelings, and his motivation for his attempt to launch Atlas. He isn't making a tactical retreat in order to form a new plan altogether. He's abandoning the fight altogether, leaving Remnant to die so that he and Atlas can live. It's funny, he wanted to avoid becoming Lionheart, but he was a coward too.

"Everything that follows will be on your hands". That motherf-

You know, we don't see a lot of corpses on this show, do we? Penny got better, Amber's screentime ended as she died, Roman got eaten, Pyrrha got an express viking funeral, etc, and a lot of others were only corpses for seconds before we never saw them again. They did a good job selling how proper dead Clover is here.

Ok, I don't know squat about Hospital layouts. Is it normal to have the morgue right outside of an emergency room? I mean, I guess it saves some travel time should things go wrong, but still, seems like a great anxiety generator for the patient, especially with both rooms having windows. "That's where I'll be going next."

I like the new metal arm. The fact that you can see all of the internal stuff makes it feel like it was quickly put together for the sake of urgency, while still looking cool.

Man, that rendition of "Hero" in the background. Chilling.

Is Winter getting a new look already? I must say. I like the look of the braces, and the ponytail is a vast improvement over the bun.

JESUS H CHRIST IRONWOOD!!! I THOUGHT HE WAS GOING OUT THERE TO ARREST THEM!!! THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN A PRETTY BIG FASCIST MOVE, RIGHT!? HE JUST SHOT CHAD JAMES IN THE FACE!!!

What really interests me is everyone's reactions. Elm and Marrow are incredibly shocked, Harriet and Winter share their little look of doubt, and then there's Vine who just...doesn't react at all. Either that or it's all in his eyes, which we can't really see from here. Either way, not a huge reaction from him. Methinks the Ace-Ops and Winter might be starting to doubt the horse they bet on.

I find it interesting that Salem doesn't know how the Relic works, but then I suppose it makes sense, seeing as Oz probably placed them into the vaults almost immediately after finding them, so this is probably the first time she's even seen one in person..

Ok, OP time, and buckle up, guys, gals, and nonbinary pals, because this one is going to be a doozy.

-First off, the song sounds pretty good, but it seems like it's going to go through the same cycle as the rest where it doesn't do too much for me at first, but has me headbanging like a metalhead by the end of the volume

- Mantle glitching out between peaceful and wartorn is a wonderful effect. Definitely fills you with a sense of dread.

-The individual shots of Team RWBY are absolutely gorgeous. Conceptually, it's the standard "where we started and where we're at", but the composition is worthy of a chef's kiss. I think I've found my new wallpaper.

-The Ace-Ops appearing on Clover's pin is nice, but what I find interesting is Harriet and Qrow appearing back to back, especially with Harriet looking so angry. Is Harriet going to double down on her loyalty to Ironwood and go after Qrow?

- It seems Robyn is going to be Qrow's main source of support this season, though the bars seem to suggest they might be in custody for a while.

-Oscar seems to be in Salem's stronghold, which doesn't bode well for our farmboy, also, WHY DOES SALEM HAVE DEMON WINGS!? Emerald's Volume 5 illusion wasn't this scary looking!

-I feel like their's symbolism showing Team RWBY's weapons paired together like that, but I feel like it's too early to say what of. Looks pretty, though

-Ren and Nora standing so far apart. It hurts my soul! Interesting how, while Ren looks away, Nora actually turns towards him.

-I didn't notice Winter's change of expression/outfit before passing by Weiss. She went from looking confident and slightly condescending to full with doubt.

-Not a lot to say about the quick shots of Whitley and Willow other then the fact that they both look worried. The image of the Schnee Snowflake shattering, however, is VERY interesting.

-I'm always a sucker for some good ol' chess symbolism. I find it interesting that while Salem's pieces dissolve into creatures of Grimm, Ironwood's simply dissolve, leaving him alone. Perhaps shooting a fellow councilman in the face right in front of his inner circle doesn't play out as well for him as well as he thought it would.

- Speaking of the classics, also gotta love me some reflection artwork. Watts seems to be working behind Pietro's back while Pietro (presumably) works to get Amity running, while secretly worrying about Penny, whose reflection cracks, possibly symbolizing her resolve. I worry for her.

- The snowflake turning into a flower petal in Ren's hand, while a similar petal passes Nora by. I don't know what this means, but I'm intrigued.

- It seems Ruby and Yang won't be completely be at odds, judging by the look they give each other before going into the action shot.

- Hmm, while Cinder pulls a Za Warudo on the fight scene, you can see a dejected Emerald and a pissed off Neo, still moving, among the heroes. Interesting...

-Almost as interesting as Cinder grasping her Grimm arm before being engulfed in flames. Perhaps Salem pulled a Wormtail's Silver Hand with that arm.

-Is this the first time we've seen the Staff of Creation in it's entirety? I remember wanting to include it and the Lamp in my RWBY Vol 7 spritesheet, but couldn't find any images of it's bottom half. I like the little jewel on the bottom.

-Wow, CRWBY went full Kingdom Hearts with the heroes falling through the ice, and I absolutely LOVE IT! This op has some of the most gorgeous visuals the series has ever seen.

-HAPPY EVER AFTER HAPPY? NEVER AGAIN Daaaaaaamn, that's awesome. It kind of reminds me of a line from Red Like Roses Part II, "This bedtime story ends with Misery Ever After". It's incredibly haunting.

-Almost as haunting as the sketchy art style that flashes in between the words, particularly the part that shows Penny's eyes going red before the rest of her does. Did we predict Watts hacking Penny a volume too early?

-The final shot of Crescent Rose alone stuck in the snow. Damn. The theme of this op seems to be "foreboding as all hell"

Damn. Damn! DAMN! This was, without question, the best OP RWBY has ever had. By, like, a lot. The visuals were some of the best the show has ever had to offer, the foreboding is through the roof, and the symbolism is incredibly clever. I don't envy them when it comes time to make Volume 9's, because this will be a very tough act to beat. I am so happy to have RWBY back, and I am both excited and terrified to see what this show is going to do next.

[shadows-twilight]

RWBY Volume 8, Chapter 1 Thoughts and Opinions

HELLO, INTERWEBS!!! At long last, we are back with more RWBY, and with it, more RWBY Thoughts and Opinions! After the absolute roller coaster that was Volume 7's cliffhanger finale, I can not imagine the insanity that awaits us this Volume. So, without further ado, here are my various thoughts and opinions on Chapter 1 of RWBY Volume 8, "Divide"

SPOILERS BELOW:

Hmm, starting off with a mysterious woman scrubbing floors, and...wait, is that...no...

I really like the way they juxtapose Cinder scrubbing with her scratching the chair. Very symbolic.

Yick, something about organic architecture just gives me the willies. I mean, is the whale aware that they double as a building complex? Can they feel the diabolical ongoings of it's rib cage? Creepy stuff.

Oof, outright taking credit for grabbing the relic, Cinder? Yeah, no way that's going to bite you in the ass.

Oh my. Mercury, Emerald, AND Hazel have new looks this season. I'm sure I'll warm up to them eventually, but right now Emerald's and Hazel's aren't really doing this. For Hazel, the outfit is all right, but the hair is a bit boring compared to his originals. Mercury's is ok, but is it just me, or is he basically wearing Yang's V4-6 outfit? I mean, it works, but still.

"Without you, I am nothing." That...didn't sound like the first time she's said that. It almost sounds like something Salem's drilled into her head for years. Cinder may be irredeemable in my opinion, but I do love a good tragic backstory.

You know, I guess would make sense for the crater to be the slums area. Can't imagine living directly under a floating landmass would be considered prime real estate.

Ooh, this old man has badger paws. I don't think we've seen that kind of Faunus trait yet.

D'aaww, Nora gave Oscar a soft hug rather than her usual glomp. So cute ^-^

I'm interested in how Oscar not telling them about Oz is going to play out.

Ok, their is a lot going on in this bar-base worth talking about, but for some reason I am fascinated by the picture of (i'm assuming) the founders in the background. What interesting designs they have. I feel like they have a story, and I would like to hear it.

Penny's dejected demeanor is giving me all of the feels Q_Q

Not sure how I feel about the rift forming between RWBYJNRO, though I guess we'll have to see where it goes. At least we have people like Jaune playing mediator.

I will say, though, I look forward to seeing Ren and Nora apart. As much as I love them as a couple, I'd very much like to see them operate as individuals.

God, Ironwood trying to manipulate Penny like that.

And there it is. Ironwood has truly revealed his true feelings, and his motivation for his attempt to launch Atlas. He isn't making a tactical retreat in order to form a new plan altogether. He's abandoning the fight altogether, leaving Remnant to die so that he and Atlas can live. It's funny, he wanted to avoid becoming Lionheart, but he was a coward too.

"Everything that follows will be on your hands". That motherf-

You know, we don't see a lot of corpses on this show, do we? Penny got better, Amber's screentime ended as she died, Roman got eaten, Pyrrha got an express viking funeral, etc, and a lot of others were only corpses for seconds before we never saw them again. They did a good job selling how proper dead Clover is here.

Ok, I don't know squat about Hospital layouts. Is it normal to have the morgue right outside of an emergency room? I mean, I guess it saves some travel time should things go wrong, but still, seems like a great anxiety generator for the patient, especially with both rooms having windows. "That's where I'll be going next."

I like the new metal arm. The fact that you can see all of the internal stuff makes it feel like it was quickly put together for the sake of urgency, while still looking cool.

Man, that rendition of "Hero" in the background. Chilling.

Is Winter getting a new look already? I must say. I like the look of the braces, and the ponytail is a vast improvement over the bun.

JESUS H CHRIST IRONWOOD!!! I THOUGHT HE WAS GOING OUT THERE TO ARREST THEM!!! THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN A PRETTY BIG FASCIST MOVE, RIGHT!? HE JUST SHOT CHAD JAMES IN THE FACE!!!

What really interests me is everyone's reactions. Elm and Marrow are incredibly shocked, Harriet and Winter share their little look of doubt, and then there's Vine who just...doesn't react at all. Either that or it's all in his eyes, which we can't really see from here. Either way, not a huge reaction from him. Methinks the Ace-Ops and Winter might be starting to doubt the horse they bet on.

I find it interesting that Salem doesn't know how the Relic works, but then I suppose it makes sense, seeing as Oz probably placed them into the vaults almost immediately after finding them, so this is probably the first time she's even seen one in person..

Ok, OP time, and buckle up, guys, gals, and nonbinary pals, because this one is going to be a doozy.

-First off, the song sounds pretty good, but it seems like it's going to go through the same cycle as the rest where it doesn't do too much for me at first, but has me headbanging like a metalhead by the end of the volume

- Mantle glitching out between peaceful and wartorn is a wonderful effect. Definitely fills you with a sense of dread.

-The individual shots of Team RWBY are absolutely gorgeous. Conceptually, it's the standard "where we started and where we're at", but the composition is worthy of a chef's kiss. I think I've found my new wallpaper.

-The Ace-Ops appearing on Clover's pin is nice, but what I find interesting is Harriet and Qrow appearing back to back, especially with Harriet looking so angry. Is Harriet going to double down on her loyalty to Ironwood and go after Qrow?

- It seems Robyn is going to be Qrow's main source of support this season, though the bars seem to suggest they might be in custody for a while.

-Oscar seems to be in Salem's stronghold, which doesn't bode well for our farmboy, also, WHY DOES SALEM HAVE DEMON WINGS!? Emerald's Volume 5 illusion wasn't this scary looking!

-I feel like their's symbolism showing Team RWBY's weapons paired together like that, but I feel like it's too early to say what of. Looks pretty, though

-Ren and Nora standing so far apart. It hurts my soul! Interesting how, while Ren looks away, Nora actually turns towards him.

-I didn't notice Winter's change of expression/outfit before passing by Weiss. She went from looking confident and slightly condescending to full with doubt.

-Not a lot to say about the quick shots of Whitley and Willow other then the fact that they both look worried. The image of the Schnee Snowflake shattering, however, is VERY interesting.

-I'm always a sucker for some good ol' chess symbolism. I find it interesting that while Salem's pieces dissolve into creatures of Grimm, Ironwood's simply dissolve, leaving him alone. Perhaps shooting a fellow councilman in the face right in front of his inner circle doesn't play out as well for him as well as he thought it would.

- Speaking of the classics, also gotta love me some reflection artwork. Watts seems to be working behind Pietro's back while Pietro (presumably) works to get Amity running, while secretly worrying about Penny, whose reflection cracks, possibly symbolizing her resolve. I worry for her.

- The snowflake turning into a flower petal in Ren's hand, while a similar petal passes Nora by. I don't know what this means, but I'm intrigued.

- It seems Ruby and Yang won't be completely be at odds, judging by the look they give each other before going into the action shot.

- Hmm, while Cinder pulls a Za Warudo on the fight scene, you can see a dejected Emerald and a pissed off Neo, still moving, among the heroes. Interesting...

-Almost as interesting as Cinder grasping her Grimm arm before being engulfed in flames. Perhaps Salem pulled a Wormtail's Silver Hand with that arm.

-Is this the first time we've seen the Staff of Creation in it's entirety? I remember wanting to include it and the Lamp in my RWBY Vol 7 spritesheet, but couldn't find any images of it's bottom half. I like the little jewel on the bottom.

-Wow, CRWBY went full Kingdom Hearts with the heroes falling through the ice, and I absolutely LOVE IT! This op has some of the most gorgeous visuals the series has ever seen.

-HAPPY EVER AFTER HAPPY? NEVER AGAIN Daaaaaaamn, that's awesome. It kind of reminds me of a line from Red Like Roses Part II, "This bedtime story ends with Misery Ever After". It's incredibly haunting.

-Almost as haunting as the sketchy art style that flashes in between the words, particularly the part that shows Penny's eyes going red before the rest of her does. Did we predict Watts hacking Penny a volume too early?

-The final shot of Crescent Rose alone stuck in the snow. Damn. The theme of this op seems to be "foreboding as all hell"

Damn. Damn! DAMN! This was, without question, the best OP RWBY has ever had. By, like, a lot. The visuals were some of the best the show has ever had to offer, the foreboding is through the roof, and the symbolism is incredibly clever. I don't envy them when it comes time to make Volume 9's, because this will be a very tough act to beat. I am so happy to have RWBY back, and I am both excited and terrified to see what this show is going to do next.

[tikitm]

tiki being a music nerd for 13 minutes straight

uhhHh so oscar and ozpin’s theme are mixing more ?? i hear little bits and pieces of ozpin’s theme , then oscar’s in ‘trouble on the argus limited’

in the same track , ‘trouble on the argus limited’ , ozpin’s theme begins to play , but then takes a ,,, darker, more sinister sounding note instead of that higher , more hopeful note in his theme that he usually has

the main theme , rising can be heard when ruby is telling the plan in ‘trouble on the argus limited’ and it’s soft , but it’s there , which carries on the theme that they’re trusting ‘in the light’ and ‘rising like the moon’

the playful theme in ‘mistral central station’ that captures the character’s excitements ?? amazing

then it goes into dee and dudley’s theme that sound Annoying as Heck , and then it blends into qrow’s theme ?? beautiful stunning amazing bird dad

then you hear ozpin’s theme again , which slowly gets taken over by oscar’s theme again , and they they seem to blend together again , like they have been doing

the piano part of smile in ‘mistral central station’ gave me goosebumps !! ilia has come such a long way as a character and it makes me happy that she funny has a straight path she Wants to go on

and there it is - ‘like morning follows night’ - a perfect , slow , version of it that really enraptures sun’s ,,, softness for blake and how he came to support her and after all , he did support her and help her and that makes me soo happy

but then it trails off into a lighter tune when the camera pans to yang and her friends and hhhHhh im soft

wow then it takes a dramatic tone shift to a dark and sinister theme for ‘spider’s web’ because cinder is starting to get into some Shady Shit™️ because she’s desperate for any kind of information on anyone

and then it pans right into that cue music that neo is Right There™️ , ready to attack , and then it goes into softer , more sinister and mischievous music that shows that wow they’re actually up to something , and it’s going to be big and bad and it’s going to put someone to shame

AND THEN THE THEME OF ALL THINGS MUST DIE PLAYING SOFTLY AND SLOWLY ??? amazing. im so excited akdhsks

all things must die slowly transitions into one thing and that makes me happy because it’s their two themes blending into one another , showing that they’re working together - but the sinister undertones show that they don’t fully trust each other and there Are secrets and undertones being kept

‘say her name’ starts out soft and slow and relaxing , but then gets more mysterious and faster as it goes , showing the severity of the situation

ozpin is being really shady and not that trustful right now , and oscar’s trying to Fight It to give them the information they need and stuff , which shows through the undertones of his theme playing throughout the track , then his theme slowly taking over , showing that he is fighting against ozpin’s control - he wants to be his own person , which is way it’s even more upsetting when qrow says that he isn’t

and then the music picks up and up and up faster and faster and louder and louder , showing ruby’s decision to say jinn’s name -

and then it goes silent. it stops

and whOOsh jinn !! genie in a bottle !! genie in a lamp !! her upcoming theme has a few familiar notes that form a familiar melody , but they’re hard to place

and then the music picks up , showing ozpin’s desperation to keep things ‘close to the chest’ and BOOM the music stops

im literally going to do an entirely different thing for ‘a delicate balance’ because there’s so much to say about this track - and it’s e i g h t m i n u t e s

‘our creation’ - im guessing it’s for the god of light’s moment with ozma

it’s soft , slow , and with the choir in the background , it makes the music seem ,,, important and urgent - like something Needs to be done and that something needs to be done quickly

and oof ozma’s theme soft in the background , showing that after all , he is still human and he wants a normal life and all that and hhhh i feel so bad

im skipping around im sorry

‘brunswick farms’ has that sinister , dangerous vibe , but we’re not sure what it is yet - dangerous , mysterious - we don’t know.

and it’s slow - it slows down at certain points to really emphasize on the scariness

the slow piano at a certain point gives it a certain softness that it shouldn’t have - a false sense of security , if you will . but then it turns into more mysterious , with hints of qrow’s theme (which im guessing is for the part of his drinking™️) that is slow

AND OH SHIT THERES THE PART WITH THE DROPPING OF THE BOTTLE

and ruby YANKS herself up and woAh that’s kinda scary

‘the apathy’ is probably the scariest track in the ost. it’s slow , sinister , and it’s literally telling you something is about to happen

AND THEN THE MUSIC PICKS UP !! ITS THE SLEEP PARALYSIS DEMON BAY BEE

they’re running they’re running they’re running they’re running uh oh sisters

every time the music slows down it stops the melody slightly , that’s the part where the apathy SCREAMS , slowly zapping the motivation out of them

and each time it gets louder and louder and bigger because their influence is getting more and more overwhelming

and then the music slows down slightly because they’re giving up , and the sinister , scary theme is getting louder and louder - and then the silver eyes stops the music for a split second

and maria is over there , trying to coach ruby into using her eyes and then - BAM

and now they’re running out of the house , yelling for oscar to GET THE DAMN TIRE

and weiss sets the HOUSE ON FIRE and wow she’s committed arson

and they have to get the HECK out of there as quick as they possibly can

im doing something completely different for the grimm reaper skjsk

‘welcome to argus’ gave me goosebumps. the soft ,, piano of ‘rising’ gives them hope - gives us hope - because they made it. after all that shit , they made it. finally.

and then it gets into a more cheerful , nice theme of argus , with little notes of oscar’s theme in the beginning because ‘CUTE BOY OZ’ and then they’re touring around argus , looking at all the sights and stuff

ruby’s surprise in jaune’s sister is shown through the ‘ooh !!’ moment in the music that interrupts the melody of the entire track

‘cashews’ is amazing. it’s shows the literal stupidity of the entire interaction - from maria and cordoven’s banter , to a more serious match music , then slower , sadder music because ‘oop racism’ , but then it picks up again lmao

there isn’t much to say about the track ‘silver eyes’ but it shows the softness - the emotion - that goes into using silver eyes

‘jaune’s arc’ gives me whiplash. because it’s slow in the beginning - then it picks up speed to show jaune’s anger as he shoves oscar against the wall and Yells because his love died for ‘nothing’ , and he lets oscar go with sadness and regret , but he doesn’t say anything. and then as they’re looking for him , jaune has time to think things over. you hear the melody of ‘forever fall’ towards the middle , then the melody - the song itself - takes over as something to signify that jaune really Misses her , but gets closure

AND THEN OSCAR’S THEME !! HAPPY , HAPPY BOY !! its so happy !! he feels good about his new clothes - and despite what he says , he gave himself closure for now , but im sure itll be touched upon later because of the cut off of his theme , interrupted by qrow’s theme to show qrow’s grumpiness and all that

and then ruby’s speech !! she had a little bit too many speeches , but the theme ‘rising’ plays again , to show her - their - determination to get to atlas and figure it out because they WILL rise like the moon - like the sun - no matter what. they won’t give up.

‘the heist’ !! a theme that gives everyone Anxiety because no one thought it would work , and the moment it did work , it didn’t . weiss and maria sneak onto the airship and take them out , with the others standing around waiting , and yang and blake off on their own

a small version of oscar’s theme plays as he comforts ruby , showing how much he’s grown into his own character

and then the music picks up and oof it turns suspenseful because oh Shit where’s blake

‘into the canon’ is not only scary on screen , but also scary music wise. it’s suspenseful , it mixes both blake and yang’s fights and the other fight together. the music is fast and urgent , showing that they have to get away and fast and if it doesn’t work , bad things will happen. bad things are going to happen.

but first !! the battle music for cordoven’s fight. fast , playful , serious at the same time. it shows both perspectives of the fight - absolute absurdity , which cordoven feels , and the urgency that the team feels. cordoven thinks this is childish - disgraceful. the team thinks this is important - something that Has to happen or else they can’t complete their mission.

and ruby goes DOWN THE CANON

i have to do an entirely different thing for ‘protecting each other’ too

OH NO HERE COMES THE GRIMM

the music gets dangerous , crazy , fast - they have to do something quick or bad things will happen and that won’t be okay. huntsman and huntresses are supposed to protect - if they can’t do that , then what are they good for ?

jinn’s theme , then the hopeful theme of indomitable is just 👌👌

-‘flight to atlas’ gives closure - peace that they couldn’t find for a while. it’s slow , soft , showing that they made it - it was a long , stressful process , but they made it. with a lighter version of qrow’s theme , small undertones of ozpin’s and oscar’s theme , and then how the music SWELLS when they see atlas because it’s beautiful - it’s grand , it’s amazing - and they made it. there’s a sense of triumph in there , a sense of urgency and a sense of pride. they rose , and they’re going to try and stay there

uhhHHh thanks for sticking around to hear my literal Ramblings about the ost and me being a music nerd - this ost is just so good ?? and if you haven’t listened to it go give it a listen ! the vocal tracks are Amazing , and so are the instrumental ones.

[aleahadelina-blog]

GO OUT & DISCOVER INTRAMUROS THE WALLED CITY OF MANILA

WHY DO I TRAVEL ALONE?

“I have been travelling alone for quite sometimes now, it is scary to think at first that you are doing things by yourself and being independent away from home. I live far from my parents to study and learn how to walk on my own path. One day when I look back, I will reminisce everything with a happy heart. I will cherish every moment, every place that I went through. Forever.”

Tips for your Intramuros trip:

1.       Plan ahead of time where to go and what to do. (You can visit sites online for fun activities or for any inquires )

2.       Bring your camera with extra battery saver.

3.       Wear comfortable shoes.

4.       Bring your bottled water.

5.       Meet and talk to the incredibly friendly locals.

6.       Enjoy and have fun.

My Intramuros Bucket List 

1.       Fort Santiago

2.       Casa Manila

3.       Manila Cathedral

4.       San Agustin Church

5.       Light And Sound

6.       Bahay Tsino

SAN AGUSTIN CHURCH

I began my journey to SAN AGUSTIN CHURCH

Central terminal station is the nearest station in Intramuros. It is located in Ermita Manila and the popular name for the Station is Arroceros.

“From Central Terminal Station I ride a pedicab because I was honest to myself and I know that I will waste too much time if I will walk down the streets of Intramuros knowing that I do not exactly know where San Agustin Church is located. I decided to go to church first for me to be blessed for the rest of the day and for my safe travels. It was already 1:00 o’clock in the afternoon when I arrived Manila from Makati. It was an hour train ride from Guadalupe Station to Taft Avenue Station and from Taft Avenue station to Central Terminal station.”

“Manong Bert the driver of the pedicab is very talkative but in a nice and mannered way. He is sharing his life in Intramuros about his job and about how much he earns for a living. That is a very heart warming moment for me, knowing the imperfections of the world Manong Bert still managed to do good despite of his situation. It was and still a decent job.”

“It was about 15 good minutes as we pedaled around and arrived to my first stop. So basically, it was a point to point service. 100 pesos is a little bit expensive for a pedicab ride but for me the ride is still worth it. It was fast, easy, and safe.”

 INTERIOR OF SAN AGUSTIN CHURCH

San Agustin Church (or giving its full name, the "Church of the Immaculate Conception of San Augustin") 

“They said that the San Agustin Church survived the American bombardment of Manila in 1945. Of the seven churches inside Intramuros, San Agustin was the only that survived without serious or total destruction.”

“The San Agustin Church is in Manila and more specifically inside Intramuros. You will find it on General Luna Drive. Opening hours of San Agustin Church is daily at 8:00am to 12:00 and then closes and reopens at 1:00pm through to 6:00pm.” Right beside and physically adjoining is the San Agustin Museum.

“I was lucky I was able to visit the church and had a little tour before the wedding ceremony started. The San Agustin Church is known to be the Wedding Capital of the Philippines, there are a lot of weddings each day. In the San Agustin Museum you will get to see the courtyard and it was unbelievably beautiful. The garden is well maintained. Even the room is labelled accordingly with the topic and the rooms are air conditioned, making it a wonderful and pleasant experience to roam around. You can take amazing pictures inside the museum but you cannot take videos said the tour guide.”

CASA MANILA

This beautiful reproduction of a Spanish colonial house offers a window into the opulent lifestyle of the gentry in the 19th century. Imelda Marcos had it built to showcase the architecture and interior design of the late Spanish period, with lavish features throughout and some interesting items such as a double-seated toilet. The house may not be authentic but the stunning antique furniture and artwork are.

BAMBOO BIKE ECOTOURS

Bambike is one of the most popular locally-made bicycle brands in the Philippines. These unique bicycles made from durable and all-natural bamboo and abaca materials are hand-made and crafted by builders from Gawad Kalinga, a Philippine-based community development organization. Bambike aims to be one of the greenest bikes on the planet. 

Rental rates for Adult is 100 pesos per hour and 50 pesos for students with valid ID’s. 

“While I was in the waiting line the girl who is in charge of the reservation for the rental of the bambike approached me. She asked me why I am alone and she was not the first one to ask me that question in that same day. She said it was nice seeing someone out there and having fun alone. Everything about she said makes sense, of course. I answered her that if I tour together with my friends definitely I will really have fun although I will not have the opportunity to really seize the moment and reflect. The only disadvantage was it is hard for me to do the documentation and taking pictures alone. Then we both smiled”

MANILA CATHEDRAL

The present Manila Cathedral, situated at the heart of the walled city of Intramuros has gone several major reconstructions since its inception. The Neo-Romanesque-Byzantine cathedral has long been the seat of archbishop in the Philippines. And it continuous to be one of the most admired churches in the country.

Manila Cathedral also holds religious artworks and sacred relics of popes and saints, and serves as resting place for the remains of former archbishops in Manila

BAHAY TSINOY

Bahay Tsinoy is a museum which presents the story of the Chinese in Philippine history.  The Bahay Tsinoy is located in the historic walled Intramuros area of Manila on Anda Street, making it easy to combine a visit to this museum with several other Intramuros attractions and amenities.

FORT SANTIAGO

One of the most important sites for Philippine history in Manila, Fort Santiago was built by the Spanish conquistador Miguel López de Legazpi as a defensive fortress designed to protect the newly formed city. The fort is a key feature of the famous walled city known as Intramuros — a complex of manicured gardens, fountains, lily ponds, and sunny plazas, as well as the Rizal Shrine museum, located in the building where Dr. Jose Rizal (a Philippines national hero) was incarcerated during the late 19th century.

“Fort Santiago a world class best of the Philippines and it one of most interesting place I dreamed to visit when I was still a kid. I used to see Intramuros only in books and pictures.. Looking to learn more history about our country and  with our culture and  trying new things around Intramuros was something you wanna look at the future of something look at the past.”  

Fort Santiago admission fee is 50 pesos for students and 75 pesos for the regular rates

“Bambiking through Intramuros and cycling around for two hours gave me opportunity to breathe in, I was pedaling around and I can’t even control the stories that are going through my mind. I have been questioning myself a lot. The only thing I can call my own it the bamboo that I am riding. Everything around me is because of the colonization of the different countries the that brought changes in every aspect in our land and our people.”

“What I actually learned from my Intramuros tour is that, we have journeys on own, we do not have to depend on somebody else about what we believed in, we have to discover it on our own. I was like stepping back into time and  I was living my life years and years ago.”

“Travelling alone is not just discovering new places but discovering yourself too.”

[dukeofriven]

Hussie, Hitler, And Boy I’m Tired

I said earlier that I didn’t want to put on my hip waders and muck about in the Homestuck tags. *pulls off hip waders* I went anyways. I went even though I was feeling pretty good because I had a nice dinner and got to watch the New Years Bake-Off special. I went anyways, and I did it for you, my eight followers who aren’t pornbots. It turns out the Homestuck fandom of Tumblr is as scary and hyperbolic as ever, and has taken one lousy bit of badly written crap and extrapolated that backwards into ‘Homestuck has always been a racist anti-semetic pile of garbage and everything about it is terrible and Andrew Hussie needs to die.” I’m not paraphrasing, by the way. Someone out there is chanting ‘die Andrew Hussie die,’ because he had the gall to... clumsily dunk on Hitler like a fifteen year old trying to impress his English teacher with edgy comedy? This new stuff is too dumb to be offensive, especially in an era with, y’know, Hitler-praising alt-right Neo Nazis actually being mainstream media figures.  Hey Tumblr fandom? Can you... mm not chill, chill’s not the word I’m looking for what is it... oh yes. Can y’all fuck off for once?

Tumblr doesn’t deserve to enjoy things because it doesn’t know how to enjoy things responsibly. It lurches from adoration to hatred without pause, and as a writer it gives me nothing but an anxiety. I cannot produce anything imperfect, I cannot ever write crap because if I do then all my work will be tainted by it forever. On Tumblr you are always judged by your worst effort, which is a fucking god-awful standard for large media franchises of any kind. You know who one of the greatest, most thoughtful, socially-driven authors of the twentieth century was? Terry Pratchett. You know what’s kind of sexist and lazy and awful? The Colour of Magic. You know what’s weirdly colonialist and smug and all-around shit? Snuff! Neither of those shitty books invalidate the forty other Discworld novels. The existence of Anchorman’s bloviating nothingness doesn’t erase Will Ferrel’s warm and desperately human performance in Stranger Than Fiction. The Forced Kiss Equal Romance kiss in Blade Runner doesn’t erase the rest of the movie piercing question on the nature of what it means to be human. And on and on and on. Andrew Hussie’s sneeze-shart dogshit history rewrite that was so embarrassingly bad it got pulled from the internet didn’t erase Rose/Kanaya, or gay Dave, or Joey Claire tap-dancing her little heart out to try and defeat a monster. And even if Andrew Hussie does a JK Rowling and produces nothing but ill-thought-out crap from here until the day we all die in the great Disney Final Merger of 2023, it still won’t invalidate the good moments that made you happy. I mean if Andrew Hussie toddles out of retirement onto a talk show in a bathrobe to discuss his new revelations on the Puppetgrandmasters of Scion who all have worryingly Semetic names, I’m not going to be so naive as to pretend that his earlier media can be consumed in some kind of vacuum, that the future cannot affect the past. but I am saying that the good that happened in it - the things that affected you in positive ways - are not ethereal. It mattered to you then, and that’s okay. Tumblr’s hyperbolic responses seem to be rooted in embarrassment and self-flagellation. People seem so terrified by the thought that anyone might associate them as a fan of something - gasp - linked to controversy that they... well, they say shit like “die andrew hussie die.” Hey dude. Hey. You need to redirect that anger, my friend. There’s actual Neo-Nazis in the streets. On the TV. In the US government. I guess what I’m trying to say is... Woof. Okay. You know, to give Andrew Hussie partial credit here, its nice to see someone actually write Adolf Hitler the way he really was - a pant-shitting constantly whiny toddler of a human being who endlessly threw tantrums and got to where he was largely on the strength of other people’s bad decisions. Remember kids: the biggest myth Neo-Nazis have ever perpetrated is that Germany under Hitler was well-run, well-organized, and anything other than a collection of squabbling dysfunctional fiefdoms run by party hacks propped up by a bureaucracy and military too bound by inertia, ego, and cultural racism to do anything to stop a lunatic from ripping their country to shreds. That whole ‘trains running on time’ thing? It’s nonsense. Go study the conduct of the war once Germany had exhausted all its pre-war stockpiled resources and ran out of useful shit to loot, once it had to start relying on its leadership for the things that make wars winnable - supplies, reinforcements, fuel, winter clothing. Watch the way from 1942 onwards Germany stumbled from one disaster to the next, as Hitler fired more and more generals and drew more and more authority to himself and his fellow party cronies. Hitler should not be feared as a man of competence or skill - he was a buffoon, a clown of a human being fuelled entirely by petty, vindictive spite and an unlimited capacity for cruelty. And before anyone goes ‘well if he was so objectively pathetic how the fuck did he take over Germany’ I direct you to google the last two years of American politics and the words ‘Donald Fucking Trump.’ [I recommend, on these war subjects particularly, Sir Antony Beevor’s bleak and sobering works, particularly Stalingrad, Berlin: The Downfall 1945, and Ardennes 1944: Hitler's Last Gamble.]  Sorry this... kind of got away from me somewhat, but I really hate it when people get mad that someone didn’t take Hitler seriously (and, to be strictly fair, this is not what everyone is mad about in regards to Andrew Hussie, either). You should never take Hitler seriously. Take hate seriously - take violent words, and calls for purity, take his ideas of superiority and racial preeminence and anti-semitism seriously as the evils, the horrors as they are. But the man himself? He literally stank - a combination of his halitosis, chronic flatulence, and was constant diarrhea. [I am not exaggerating] He was a sad pathetic clown, and Andrew Hussie chose to write him as such. He just... went too far. It happens. It’s not good writing. It’s fucking shit, to be honest. Boring shit. The Minions movie decided to have the Minions sit out the entirety of WWII by having them get stuck in a cave or some such. Honestly that’s a better option than what Andrew Hussie went with - and ‘be more like the Minions movie’ isn’t advice I give that often. You want to be disgruntled that an author wrote something this bafflingly tone deaf and tedious? Sure. I know I am. But to chant for his death? Are you fucking kidding me? Look! Look out your window at those marching Neo-Nazis trying to establish a white supremacist state? What the ever-loving fuck are you people doing in here getting ready to string-up a man whose crime was making Adolf Friggen Hitler too petty???????? Tumblr. Tumblr, for the love of god this has to stop. This ‘Ceasar’s wife must be above reproach’ shit has to stop - it’s killing fandom, it’s killing good media critique, it’s burying proportional fan response, and its just exhausting. Why can’t you ever just let something be lousy without it being literal death warrant? There’s real demons out there - I can see them out the window, and every time I turn on the TV. Maybe - just bloody maybe - not every single crime deserves the exact same level of disapprobation and punishment? Maybe we could read some content and say “boy that sure had some lousy implications and also was just really poorly written” and then... stop there? Wouldn’t that be nice, for a change? We could dislike something without feeling like it required activism on our part. We could say ‘this piece of media was shit, but it didn’t advocate for a white ethno-state, so I will continue to think of it only until the end of this sentence.’ I am not advocating for an end to media criticism for anything that isn’t openly hate speech (but if you think that I am I am going to assume you’re already so needlessly enraged about this whole matter that I’m a bit puzzled why you’ve bothered to read this far since its obvious we don’t agree on many fundamental issues.) What I am calling for is the end to death threats against people who don’t mean you harm. Because that’s lunacy. That’s beyond the pale, actually, that’s really disturbing and sickening and you should seriously reconsider your relationship with media. Because there are people out there who do want to hurt you. Their lives are fuelled by hate, their philosophies are driven by it, as are their politics. I assure you that when a time traveller steps through a portal trying to prevent the rise of ‘the great Trump War of 2020′ the inciting incident will not be ‘Andrew Hussie trivialized the holocaust by citing its origins as a grudge Adolf Hitler bore Albert Einstein over a rivalry in secret clown ninja school before being taken on as an agent of a baking-obsessed alien space witch and bumped into power by the Peters principle.’ Because just by writing that sentence I have already reaffirmed a very simple truth: this is way, way too stupid to give the slightest shit about. So let’s tell Andrew Hussie that his new work is... mmm.... kind of like a shit if a shit had a shit that was itself shat out by a shit and then vomited on by another shit who had eaten nothing but shit since Sunday. Let’s tel lhim “hey dude, your clownish work summoned the spectre of anti-semetism, and you can do better.” Frankly, I think that message was already sent, since in the two hours between me going to make and eat dinner and then coming back to my computer, the new material was discovered, read, disseminated, and removed. Two hours. Sure, maybe a bit of lag due to what does and does not hit my feed but come on - this all took place in an afternoon. It’s already down. Our voices were heard - we didn’t think this was very good, and apparently Whatpumpkin agrees enough that they didn’t mount a defence of it. Rather than take the next logical step, though - which seems to be calling for the death of Andrew Hussie and removing all of Homestuck from the internet and maybe nuking Toby Fox from orbit just to be extra-sure? - we could do... something else. Talk about the release date for Stranger Things, maybe. Track down some local Neo-Nazis and punch them. Read some Antony Beevor books and really educate ourselves on what a smelly fuck-up Hitler was so we can chant that at Neo Nazis at their next rally. Or you could watch the New Years Bake-Off special. It was pretty good.

[calliecat93]

RWBY V6 CH5 Review: The Coming Storm

It's been roughly about a month now since Volume 6 started... and ho boy, has this volume has not held back it's punches whatsoever. Within the span of four chapters we got a train wreck, long awaited questions answered, Cinder plotting her vengeance, and Salem reminding us why she is scary as Hell. We've been put through the wringer these past for weeks, and now with Chapter 5 upon us, we are all wondering how this can get anymore intense. Well delving into the horror genre seems to be a pretty good way! What do I mean? Well lets find out!

Overview

Before we check on our heroes though, lets check in on Cinder The good news for her is that Lil' Miss Malachite has gotten the information that she wanted. She informs the Fall Maiden of the good guys heading for Argus, which causes Cinder to conclude that they're heading for Atlas next. She starts to head off... until Lil' Miss refers to her by name. As it turns out, Cinder was quite the interesting figure. So much so that it brought the information broker double the business. How you may ask? Well the camera cuts to above where we see a figure standing on a  beam... and carrying with her a familiar looking parasol That's right my friends, after three volumes and a ton of teasing, Neo has made her return.

Neo wastes no time, attacking Cinder and the two villainesses begin to rumble. It's a pretty awesome hand-to-hand fight too, all as a chilling new Jeff and Casey tune plays. Did I mention that I really want the soundtrack? Between this, Lionized, Miracle, and the opening this soundtrack is gong to be morbidly awesome. Lil' Miss, while clearly enjoying the show, eventually tells the two girls to take their rumble outside. It's at this point that Cinder discovers that the Neo that she's been fighting is one of her illusions... so yeah, Neo can now cast longer, more lifelike illusions. Be afraid people. Be very afraid. But it isn't long before Cinder causes the real Neo to step forward.

Now normally, Neo has a confident, pretty cocky demeanor like her former boss, which her previous illusion also demonstrated. But here? Her clothes are slightly tattered, her expression is serious and vengeful, and most notably she is now wearing a very familiar looking hat. It takes Cinder no time to realize what the deal is: Neo wants to kill her as revenge for Torchwick's death. As they fight however, Cinder points out that they both have the same goal, which is to get revenge on Little Red Ruby. Cinder finally goes into Maiden mode, causing Neo to stop in fear, ad the Fall Maiden convinces her to knock it off and that they can work together to make Ruby pay. Neo agrees to talk... well she can't really talk, which I guess we now have conformation that Neo is indeed a mute. But you get what I mean.

Back with Team RWBY, the storm is growing worst as Ruby is confused by the state of Brunswick Farms. Most places that she's seen that were abandoned were either destroyed or unfinished, but this place is fine. The group breaks into what I assume is the mayor's house and everyone scatters to look around and find supplies. Ruby's attention goes to some portraits, showing a rather happy bunch of people. Blake goes to check on her... when the two hear Weiss scream. The gang goes to find her and Yang in a state of horror... because they just found the corpses of the home owners still int heir beds. WELL... THAT WAS SOMETHING.

A little later, Qrow confirms that all of the town is dead int he same manner. Weiss understandably doesn't want to stay there, but with the storm they have no choice. Qrow goes to see if he can find anything that can transport them out, ordering the others to go nowhere alone. Blake and Yang go to see if they can find anything in the other buildings as Ruby and Weiss look around to see if they can find any food. That leaves Oscar with Maria, who tells him to keep the fire going as she looks for a bedtime story. Did I mention that I love Abuelita Maria? Because Dear God do I love her.

Blake and Yang end up in some kind of barn/shed and look around, also wondering what it could have been that killed everyone. It's pretty clear that Yang is not handling any of the recent events well and Blake is concerned, but the blonde merely says that she's tired and wants to get out of this place. She finds a wagon that looks large enough to hold everyone, but any possible relief is killed when she has a flashback to Adam. She tells Blake of how she still flashes back to that night, her hand trembling as she asks the cat girl if she believes that Adam is still out there. Blake doesn't know, especially since despite knowing that the WF will reject him for his cowardice, he'll likely force his way anyways. She would know after all, he would use force and fear to make her feel beneath him and right into his control. But still, Blake tries to comfort Yang by assuring her that she isn't going anywhere and will be there for her. It seems to help Yang... until Blake says that if Adam comes back, she'll protect her. Yang doesn't take that comment well, heading back while saying that they'll hook the wagon to Bumblebee later. And somewhere, the Bumblebee shippers aren't sure if they should cheer, cry, or both.

Back with Ruby and Weiss, they find what looks like a bar. Ruby isn't happy with this, especially considering Qrow's current mental state, but brushes it aside as she heads for a pantry. Weiss however starts to ask Ruby if they're still heading for Atlas, much to Ruby's confusion. Weiss brings up that Salem can't be killed, so what's the point of going there now? Well that's what she claims anyways. I think that we all know the real reason why she doesn't want to go back. Ruby is clearly upset about this, but Weiss takes it back and just says that she's tired and hates this place... remember this for the review. They find more alcohol and a chained up wine cellar... and some canned shrimp flavored beans! Ugh... why would anyone make those? They take the food and leave and the episode ends with one of the cellar doors opening up...

Review

If anyone was hoping that things would get more cheery.. well sorry, you're going to be waiting awhile! Man, this episode was tense. Heck,t hat's what they should have named it! Tense: The Episode. I'm not complaining though cause man, this chapter was great! The drama continues to keep us at the edge of our sets, we got some payoffs, and plenty of nightmare fuel! Thanks for the Day 5/Until Dawn crossover CRWBY! I'll be having nightmares for weeks now!

So lets talk about the villains first! Neo is back... and I really don't care. I know that Neo is a fan favorite, and it totally baffles me as to why. Her design is cute and all, but... she hasn't done anything. I mean she's.. what? Fought Yang, broke Roman out of prison, and fought Ruby before getting Mary Poppins'd off the airship. That's it. We know nothing about her as a character and her scenes are very minor. She existed to be Roman's flunky because Monty came up with a cool design at the last possible moment. Otherwise, she could have been written out and it would have changed nothing about the series. I need more than a cool character design to care about a character, hence why I wasn't upset when Sienna got killed off, so I really wasn't all that excited to have her show up again,

That being said... this CAN turn out to be a good thing. Because with Torchwick dead, it gives Neo motivation as a character. She clearly cared about her boss and now that he's gone, all that she's left with is the desire for revenge against those who got him killed in the first place. With Cinder now wanted, it made sense to go after her first, plus it was Cinder's planning that got Torchwick put into that situation to begin with. Honestly Torchwick's death may be what allows Neo to get the character that I feel that she is lacking and while I don't expect her partnership with Cinder to stick for long, it'll be interesting to see how she operates now that she has the chance to get back at Ruby.

As for the scene itself, I loved it! The fight scene was great. Fast-paced, but not over bloated. Just a really cool hand-to-hand fight with both Cinder and Neo using their abilities to their advantage. Cinder is still a bitch, but she's showing more of the more smug persona that we're familiar with while actually being logical with her convincing Neo to work with her rather than against her. Considering her current situation and lack of any backup until she redeems herself, it makes sense for Cinder to go this route, even if her mind is still mainly on making Ruby suffer. But hey, she's not screwing up any per-conceived plans to do it this time! Oh, and Lil' Miss Malachite continues to be a delight. I freakin' love this woman.

Now onto our heroes... and boy do I worry for them. God the entire sequence from them breaking into the house to finding the bodies... it was tense. Something felt so off. Poor Weiss just seems traumatized after, and I can't blame her. I'd be traumatized too. So what was it that killed an entire town? Well I think it's pretty clearly a Grimm, but we'll go more into that in a little bit. For now, lets talk about the partner scenes.

Yang and Blake's scene just... made me sad. On the one hand, I freakin' love Blank. She's gone form my least favorite Team RWBY member and not even in my Top 5 to now being a serious contender for my second favorite alongside Weiss. Throughout this chapter, she is supportive and concerned for her teammates. She goes to see what Ruby's thinking about as she stares at the photos, gives Weiss a blanket while she's clearly still reeling from her morbid discovery, and she is trying so hard to be supportive and friendly with Yang. She tries to give Yang the chance to talk about what's bothering her, opens up about how small Adam made her feel, and tries to assure Yang that she's not going anywhere and won't let her get hurt again. It really shows how much that Blake has grown since Volume 4, an I am loving every second of it.

Sadly, Yang isn't doing that great. The recent events, from Adam to everything with her mom to the new revelations to now, have clearly weighed her down. She's downcast, bitter, and frustrated. Her PTSD is still haunting her as she still has flashback and despite being willing to face her fears, those fears still haunt her. And sadly just when it looks like Blake's making a breakthrough, Yang gets upset because Blake said that she'd protect her. It's a very sweet comment, but to Yang it make her feel like she's weak an incapable. She's supposed to be the one protecting people, not the other way around. She hates feeling weak and afraid, so while Blake's comment was nothing but well intentioned, to the blonde it felt like an insult and only reinforced all the negativity brewing inside her. Clearly she needs to let it out and she and Blake need to sort everything out, then she can start to do better. Hopefully, this arc will allow that.

Onto the Ruby and Weiss pair and... man, poor Weiss. The girl is badly shaken from finding the corpses, even as she tries to keep some kind of positive attitude after. But it's clear that both the recent events and the fear of going back to Atlas are haunting her. She's afraid to go home since it means facing her father again and the threat of once more being locked away. No one would want to go back to the place where thy were kept prisoner. But she's also concerned with the recent revelations. Salem can't be killed. Even if they lock away the Relic, all it'll do is slow her down. There seems to be no point, and Weiss is considering calling it quits even if only briefly. It shows how bad of a state shes in emotionally on top of everything else, and I really worry for her.

Then of course there's Ruby. I think that this is the most serious that we've seen her in a good while. She's very much in leader mode, and after how baldy she got the shaft last volume, this is very good to see. She's concerned about the state of the town and trying to piece it together. She tries to comfort Weiss by looking for food. When she finds the bar, she want sot immediately seal it up out of concern that Qrow will get overly drunk. Clearly a lot is weighing on Ruby, yet she still displays a helpful, positive attitude. She's really trying, and it really makes me concerned for her. IDK if all that she's holding in is going to break in this volume, but with how the other three seem ready to break, this might be the right time to do it. I do think that Ruby may have to save them all though, if my current theory about the Grimm is right.

So you may remember that both Weiss and Yang being tired, Yang even showing signs of being delirious. I don't think that's just general dialogue. Remember, they were the two who found the bodies. Bodies that were tucked in bed alongside the rest of the town. It seems that whatever the Grimm is, one that I assume the town locked up until now, it killed them in their sleep There are many different ways to interpret this, but my current thought is that this is some kind of dream walker Grimm. Think of it like Freddy Kruger form Nightmare on Elm Street. Someone who haunts and tortures you in your dreams, to the point that you end up dead in the real world. And this Grimm may cause people to feel tired in order to lull them into it' trap, hence why the entire town ended up dead.

If I had to guess, Weiss, Yang, and Qrow are going to end up asleep and end up victims of the Grimm. Maybe Blake too, but who can say? IDK about Oscar either though I think that Maria will be fine. This will probably means that while everyone is trying to fight through their nightmares. Ruby may have to go into the cellar to find and kill the Grimm, which would lead to the scene in the opening. Heck, for all I know all of them will end up in the nightmares and maybe Ruby's the first to break through or something. I'm not sure. For all I know, I'm talking completely out of my ass. What I do know however is no matter what this Grimm may be or whatever is coming next, with this episode's title being 'The Coming Storm' it's NOT gonna be pretty.

Final Thoughts

Like last week, this episode had me uncomfortable throughout, but in different ways. I am seriously worried about everyone and whatever it is that's about to happen to them. No one is in a good place right now, and that's probably about to reach a breaking point. But hey, we got a cool fight scene and a new song! That was nice of them! But yeah, really enjoyed this episode! It has plenty of character development and plenty of setup for next week. So tune in then as Nightmare Fuel Theater proudly presents RWBY: Day 5 Until Dawn!

[mythicaldemigoddess-of-deltarune]

Theory About The Bermuda Triangle And Half Of Humanity’s Heritage ...and talk about Vampires and other stuff.

first I want to say that I feel better,

but I’m still peeved at the sources who dare to hurt some people. 

well besides that, the other day, I was watching something Youtube,

about Vampires....and well it showed each video about some people

who showed Vampire Traits...

there was even these two boys, who look like they might of been I don’t know not that mature yet, but they were acting like vampires and they were being monsters, and there was these boys who were in a car picking on a guy outside, who was just walking, but things went too far...

and well the video had showed clips of people showing Vampire like Traits.

I get that can happen in some movies or video games or even in books,

but if those videos were real, and those people were real vampires.

there is better ways to feed, such as one, DON’T make someone a victim.

that might be fine in fictional movies or video games, but at least in half of the fictional entertainment, they have a vampire that becomes very well liked and shows a good side to vampires.

and let me be clear, no what I had seen on those videos about Vampires,

had nothing to do why I was not in a good mood on June 19, 2021.

it had to do with something else I found out about on Youtube.

but anyway I felt not happy and mad at what the two so called vampire boys were doing....and it did not help the cases of the other vampires in the video.

my pendulum could be joking about me having vampire heritage.

but still, if I had any the strength they had....

I would use it for good and try not to let it over take me if I was able to.

like I know I can get pretty mad too, but I don’t think it ever came out like how half of those guys were showing.

I don’t ever want to drink blood though.

I’m not sure if the whole garlic thing is true though,

plus I love garlic sauce, so I’m never gonna give that up.

if it is true that vampires are real in real life,

and some humans do have vampire heritage,

then it’s important to not let it get out of hand or over take you,

no matter if you get really thirsty, DO NOT ATTACK.

 if there was a vampire and human that fell in love,

and the vampire had to feed, then they should ask the consent of their human life-partner.

if the whole biting might be too much for them,

it’s best to find different means, like how they get blood donators.

also I had learned something,

NEVER go without eating first, and then have your blood be checked.

I’m glad that me and my family found out there is a different way to check on what blood type you are,

and it might be a while before I can find out what type I am.

but with each blood that was taken from me, I started to feel...

not so great, if I had to describe it, it was like that time when it felt like I was gonna faint.

I think it was the same feeling too.

which was a sign I needed food.

I’m not sure if I have a fear of blood, and I’m sure if I had something to eat first,

then I wouldn’t of ended up feeling like that when my finger was being poked.

I’m sure it was just a coincidence that seem to happen again.

the last time it happen, my cat had scratch me and drew a bit of blood.

we did use that alcohol stuff on it, the scratch I mean...not my second cat.

but at some point I did start to feel not so great, and it was a feeling like I was gonna faint.

I think my Mom did imply that I might have a fear of blood.

but that can’t be it right...?

and my pendulum giving a Yes to that question, has got to be a prank.

I mean sure seeing blood might make anyone uncomfortable.

and might be okay seeing it in video games.

anyway I will get back to that maybe after I talk about this...

I have a theory about the Bermuda Triangle, and I wouldn’t be surprised if others came to this same theory.

that the Bermuda Triangle......has a space ship.

and it carried half of humanity’s ancestors on it.

the other half possibly still being originally from Earth.

 I’m not 100% sure about the theory that popped into my head,

about how it was the ship that killed all the dinosaurs.

but let’s put that in the maybe box.

let’s say it is true, that when the ship did come to Earth a VERY very super long time ago, the crash was too much and it caused the dinosaurs to be killed.

but other than that, I still think there is some possibility that the Bermuda Triangle is home to a space ship that possibly carried half of humanity’s ancestors.

I mean even if there is some debate about how humans really came into being.

trying to argue about it being either through miracle or science type way.

but I have to say, both could be correct.

I mean humans weren’t truly the ones to have science first,

we can look at our own creation of being born as first souls and then being placed into new vessels as both miracle and science.

 some people don’t believe in Magic either,

but magic can depend on how well you can master it

or how much power you have of the magic that is in your soul.

I love both Undertale and Deltarune,

and in theory, the Monsters in Undertale might be a bit wrong about how they view humans who can’t seem to do magic.

not everyone is gonna be able to do the same type of magic.

I can’t wait until Chapter 2 of Deltarune, I mean I can...

but you know what I mean right?

wait....when I was asking about the whole vampire heritage,

was it saying Yes to the type of vampires that are rumored to turn into bats,

or the whole succubus type vampires...?

aren’t succubus still a type of vampire in a way?

okay I had checked and got a no on my pendulum,

so it had nothing to do with the whole succubus thing.

but no matter if it is a prank or not

(and sometimes I do get prank from my pendulum.)

I still want to play it safe and always have that dream-catcher to protect me,

I do not wish to dream walk into someone else’s dreams.

and I’m always gonna have those angel shaped gems under my pillow

to protect me from incubus.

I wonder if a creep away bat would work on a incubus?

anyway, I still think it is possible that the place where funny stuff happen,

that is the bermuda triangle, might be home to a lost space ship.

and yeah I believe that aliens are real,

I don’t believe that earthlings are the only ones with life.

I mean why would we be the only creations?

it’s okay that not many believe this,

and some might be say “how can you believe that kind of thing,

when your a Ma-Acolyte & Neo-Christian.”

dude, that is stereotyping.

of course toxic-religious people who make others feel bad,

like that one person who kept misusing those words on me

and making me feel really bad.

just because I believe in a Goddess too, and that my gender identity is like Female/Nonbinary (my bio-sex is female.), don’t give them the right to do that, even after I said how bad it was making me feel.

I know that not all people who are religious will end up becoming like that person.

I mean I love Helluva Boss and Hazbin Hotel, and I don’t see anything wrong with it.

I also like the Grim Adventurers of Billy & Mandy, and Nightmare Before Christmas.

and even Bendy & The Ink Machine.

plus you can make scary fun video games and still be Christian or another religion.

also just because Donut from Red Vs Blue acts a bit feminine,

doesn’t make him less of a man.

only REAL men wear pink.....and use a pink straw.

yeah I saw something on Youtube about it, about the whole pink straw.....

but I didn’t click on it or even watch it yet.

but only a real man would drink out of a pink straw, just like how a real man would wear pink.

so how is it okay for only women to wear blue but not men...?

even Steven Universe wears Pink, and his Mom is like Pink Diamond.

plus it’s good for men to have a feminine side, and the whole feminine doesn’t always mean the bio-sex and binary.

it be just as bad as some guy decided, that he wouldn’t let his girlfriend have a blue straw, and instead gives her a pink straw instead.

and even if it does turn out the word “Femboy” can also be uses as a insult,

it can also be used in a positive way, like I’m hoping as a type of identity.

not all identities are gonna be the same, and I think it is possible my bigender identity could go from Gyno-Agender to Feminine-Nonbinary.

I would still like to go by she/her, but I think I will be fine with them/they too.

I think that this will 100% be the last post, at least until July.

I will post again on here around July.

still not happy with what I had found out before.

but at least I got some good news today.

I’m in love with the Arackniss series,

it’s by AxelGear, I have thoughts about hoping they also put those videos

on newgrounds (not for little kids).......ya know because of the whole you can only trust Youtube so much, with what some Toxic-Youtubers are doing, but I will talk about that problem another time...

for now I’m just gonna be happy with it being on Youtube.

right now I think I should wait before I re-watch or catch up to some I missed.

in one of the audio episodes, I wont say which one...

one of the characters did mention Jesus.

is it weird to not know how to think when either someone uses his name

in either a form of conversation like talking about his life,

or like when someone uses it in the other way, which is at times in form of vain.

what’s weird is that he is technically family, so it’s like anyone who says his name in well the whole vain thing, they are kind of doing that to family.

and I’m not talking about the whole soul or spiritual family thing,

I mean he is LITERALLY biologically family.

(well according to some info.)

because of the whole sharing the same ancestor King David.

I still think it is a blessing to be Solomon’s descendant,

cause it means I will never take that throne.

never want to sit on that....EVER.

yeah he is a descendant of King David too,

and it is obviously from his mother’s side.

sadly we can’t figure out how we are distant cousins.

and be we, I mean me and my family.

all we know is that he is a descendant of King David too.

so like if Jesus’s name is used in any type of from in some show or movie or video game, doesn’t it go from being insulting, to a mix of being kind of awkward.

anyway, I do love the Arackniss Audio series.

it is of course NOT for kids, and if parents knew any level of responsibility

then they will stop blaming the content and start blaming themselves and try to improve themselves as parents.

firstly, get your own child their own computer,

but use some kind of child lock that will keep your child from looking at stuff they are not the proper age for.

also if your sign in on Youtube,

go to the settings and turn on the restricted mode.

I did try to check on Youtube on the computer, but it seems I will need to be sign in for that.

when I’m signed on the Xbox, it seems that while not signed on to Youtube on the Xbox (even if I’m sign on Xbox.) it will let me open up the settings on the Youtube.

even if Youtube still have it’s good side, it is still a bit broken because of the Toxic-Youtubers....which I will explain bout that later.

if Arackniss got reincarnated as a female, I think Penny (Sir Pentious)

would still love him, or her if Arackniss ended up going by their new bio-sex’s pronouns.

the reason I say this,

is because of the possibility Penn might end up being bisexual.

but even if it says he May be bi, it isn’t shown on his bio just yet,

or the name of his crush.

  also a very VERY weird thought pop into my head.

like if I had a crush on Husk, would that be something like cougarsexual.

(do not misinterpret that, just please....look up the meaning of cougar besides a animal being named that.)  

I know that “cougar” normally has to do with a much older woman.

I guess if I do have any form of crush on Husk, Arackniss, Pentious,  Alastor

and Angel.

those crushes would be like something like.....

if women are called the cougars, then what would the men be called...?

besides sexuality and asexuality, I hope we do end up seeing more of gender identities.

  but yeah some time I should look it up, to see if there is a opposite to the whole cougar thing.

I’m pretty sure that Angel had zinged with Husk, even if it might be one sided right now.

and the craziest theory I have, is that he possibility that Adam and Eve,

came from the space ship that now makes up the bermuda triangle.

like what if Eden was a place that was not on Earth,

but still had some connection to each other.

and when Adam and Eve were kicked out, they were given a space ship and send to Earth.

okay maybe that theory might not be correct.

but it is still possible that there is some form of stories about the history of humankind that we only know half being true.

and even if it’s okay that not many agree about it,

I’m starting to believe there is that possibility that the bermuda triangle has a space ship that belong to some human looking beings who make up part of our heritage.

of course I believe that the whole angels and demons being real.

as well as there being a  Divine Heavenly Mother, who rules over a version of Heaven that is a “Earth-Heaven” having trees and grass.

but not everyone has to agree about that.

some time I will talk more about the whole there being a space ship over the bermuda triangle theory.

I’m gonna just hurry up and post this,

[nerdygirlwithanxiety]

So rwby volume nine opening was crazy. Hadn't watch the episode yet but...HOLY FUCK HES BACK???

[aion-rsa]

Doctor Who: Revolution of the Daleks Review

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This Doctor Who review contains spoilers. Our spoiler-free preview is here.

It may be the start of a brand new year, but ‘Revolution of the Daleks’, an episode of Doctor Who that’ll need to tide us over for a while, is more focused on looking back and taking stock than teasing what’s ahead. As the pre-title sequence informs us, courtesy of some Big Chunky Captions that the show currently favours, not only is this episode a follow-up to the events of ‘The Timeless Child’, it’s also a sequel of sorts to the 2019 New Year’s Special, ‘Resolution’.

Things pick up a few short hours after that adventure, which saw a buried Dalek mutant hijacking a human host and eventually constructing a scrapyard casing. It’s the abandoned husk of that same travel machine that now gets carted away by an unwitting driver, a man who’s so obviously doomed from the second he signs the paperwork that you can’t help but feel sorry for him. (But then, who can’t sympathise with someone who gets through their day one cuppa at a time?)

The Dalek shell soon finds its way into a pair of grasping, familiar hands, and this is where a selection of festive snacks are likely to be flung at the screen by some of the fandom. The mastermind behind the theft turns out to be Jack Robertson – the Trump-envying, Scooby-Doo villain last seen burying toxic waste during the divisive ‘Arachnids in the UK’. Robertson, played once again by Chris Noth, hasn’t managed to realise his presidential ambitions, but his character is unapologetically the same.

This time around, Robertson is accompanied by a ruthless Defence Secretary with her eyes on Number 10. Given that this episode was almost certainly conceived back when Theresa May was still Prime Minister, it’s not hard to see the inspiration for this particular pairing. Together, their intention is to reverse-engineer the Dalek technology – which as far as they know is nothing but a very advanced robot – and mass-produce them to roam the streets.

The idea of these caricatures conspiring to build an army of alien neo-Nazis in the name of “national security” is the kind of brute-force political allegory that has proven extremely hit-or-miss in recent years. If the dastardly duo had stayed in control of the Daleks for any length of time and we’d seen Britain slowly fall into the depths of fascism while the companions looked on helplessly, the episode could have come across as both derivative and ham-fisted, particularly when compared to ‘Genesis of the Daleks’. Thankfully, the Daleks themselves are having none of it, but more on them later.

Shortly before the titular revolution, we find the companions kicking their heels back on Earth with no word from the Doctor, and no clue as to whether or not she’s even alive. Yaz is spending most of her time in the new-build TARDIS that brought them home, having gone a bit Zoom-and-Enhance as she tries desperately to concoct a rescue plan. Graham and Ryan, meanwhile, have all-but accepted the Doctor’s fate and are doing their best to look after the planet in her stead.  

Alongside the exterminations and screaming that are a given whenever the Daleks are involved, this episode asks itself two questions, the first being: how do Doctor Who companions save the world without the Doctor? Ahead of transmission, the idea that Team TARDIS would need to tackle the Daleks by themselves was played up as being the meat of this story, leading to speculation that Captain Jack would step in as a sort of surrogate Doctor – he’s certainly got Dalek experience.

For better or worse, though, life without the Doctor isn’t really a question the show cares to dwell on for very long once it’s been posed, despite what the trailers might have led us to believe. It seems that what Graham, Ryan and Yaz have learned from travelling through time and space is that when someone’s threatening to take over the world, you should march right up to them, issue a few vague threats before being unceremoniously arrested, then go home again and sulk. Graham grumbles that without a sonic screwdriver or some psychic paper they can’t follow in the Doctor’s footsteps, but given how often the show teaches us that the Doctor isn’t defined by her gadgets, their half-hearted attempt to confront Robertson and save the day still comes across as a bit of a damp squib.

Luckily for the human race, it doesn’t take too long before the Doctor’s broken out of space-prison. Not from our perspective, anyway – as far as Thirteen’s concerned, she spends a good few decades in the company of some returning alien races, all of whom have supposedly gone through the judicial process. (A Weeping Angel on trial is a Big Finish production just waiting to be written…) There’s even an imprisoned P’Ting, which seems a bit harsh, though it might just be locked up to keep it safe from Yaz.

When Captain Jack finally springs the Doctor from her cell, the two characters get their first proper interaction since ‘Journey’s End’ (not to mention a callback to Jack’s favourite smuggling technique). It’s a sweet, slow moment, as is the Doctor’s reunion with her TARDIS, even if it’s all a bit too straightforward to be a genuinely thrilling escape. The Doctor was obviously going to bust out of prison sooner or later, of course, but given all the hype surrounding her absence, it’s hard not to feel her reunion with the companions happens a bit too easily and without complication.

The next few minutes are more interesting. While Whittaker’s Doctor has always claimed to be fiercely devoted to her ‘fam’, she usually can’t wait to get out of the room as soon as she’s required to interact with her companions on an emotional level, meaning they normally have to lean on one another for support. This time, the dynamic is reversed – the Doctor, still stewing over being the Timeless Child, is being particularly clingy while the companions are keeping her at arm’s length, with neither group really able to conceive of what the other has gone through.

These scenes culminate in a line of dialogue from the Doctor that would be wildly out of character in most other situations: “New can be very scary”. The Doctor normally claims to adore ‘new and exciting’, citing it as the reason they travel – so long as it’s new and exciting on their terms. Failing to escape on her own, encountering resentful companions and a loss of her cultural identity have left this Doctor feeling very much out of control.

And then, like a roller-coaster lurching into motion, the episode kicks into high gear and we’re off to see the Daleks.

Read more

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Doctor Who: A History of Dalek Redesigns and Fan Reactions

By Andrew Blair

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Doctor Who: revisiting each Doctor’s first encounter with the Daleks

By Mark Harrison

Having been cloned back into existence by Robertson’s scientist-slash-flunky Leo, the mutant from ‘Resolution’ has been practicing its two favourite tricks – puppeteering a human host, and online shopping. With an army of freshly-farmed mutants just waiting to slither inside empty Dalek casings, it doesn’t take too long before the cries of “Exterminate” ring through Downing Street, putting an end to the new Prime Minister before she’s even had time to feed Larry the cat. Team TARDIS, along with Robertson for seemingly no other reason than so he can betray them later, now need to sort out humanity’s DIY alien invasion. The Doctor’s solution: call the Daleks!

Skaro-variety Daleks, that is, further adding to the cast of aliens we haven’t seen in a while, and they’re not too happy that their racial purity is being threatened by human-fed knock-offs. Dalek civil wars were quite common in the show’s classic era, and there’s definitely mileage to be had watching the pepperpots squabbling among themselves. With so much to wrap up in one episode, though, what we actually get isn’t a war. It is, to borrow a phrase, pest control. The 3D-printed Daleks are so much cannon fodder for the bronze originals, who – thanks to Robertson – decide that taking over the Earth sounds like a bit of a lark so long as they’re in the neighbourhood.

This leads to some running around on a Dalek saucer that accomplishes little. Despite repeatedly reminding everyone just how immortal he is, Jack gets spared a horrific series of deaths this time around, and before long the Doctor arrives to taunt every last one of the infuriated mutants into her TARDIS. Except it’s not really hers – it’s the new-build TARDIS in disguise, and its destruction takes out the Dalek forces and ties up that loose end in a neat bit of storytelling.

With the threat eliminated and Robertson once again weaselling his way out of punishment, there’s one last issue that needs to be tied up. We’d all been made aware that Tosin Cole and Bradley Walsh were going to be departing Doctor Who this week, so when we saw them demand to board a Dalek saucer alongside the immortal Captain Jack… Well, there was precedent for things to go badly wrong.

Companions old and new have died in Dalek stories. A heroic grandfather/grandson sacrifice to save the human race wasn’t too likely, but it wasn’t completely out of the question, either. Here are Ryan and Graham alive and well, and this is where the show has to confront its second question. What does it take for a companion to leave the Doctor?

It was quite common for assistants to jump ship in the classic serials. Sometimes they were travelling with the Doctor only reluctantly and would leave the TARDIS whenever they happened back to their rightful home, especially when the Doctor could barely control their next destination. Others fell in love, elected to remain somewhere they could make a difference or, sometimes, sacrificed their lives. Whatever their fate, there was always a sense they knew that their relationship with the Doctor was a transitory one; a journey into the unknown, but one that definitely had a final destination.

Then came the Time War, and the Doctor was suddenly the most amazing, brilliant, astounding and important figure in the universe. Last of the Time Lords, destroyer of Gallifrey, spoken of in myth and legend. He could take his companions anywhere in time and space and show them the delights of the universe. Showrunner Russell T. Davies made it abundantly clear that if you could handle the challenge, there was absolutely no drug more addictive than setting foot inside that TARDIS.

A few companions still chose to leave, or else got left behind. Mickey Smith lingered in a parallel universe where he was needed and loved. Martha Jones departed to care for her traumatised family. On the whole, though, increasingly convoluted ways have been concocted to forcibly separate the Doctor from his companions without actually killing them. Parallel universes, mind-wipes, temporal paradoxes… For many years now, the Doctor’s friends haven’t walked away – they’ve been ripped away.

Here, Chris Chibnall chooses to confront the scar that ten months has left upon the companions’ relationship with the Doctor. It’s something of a tell-don’t-show moment – Ryan makes reference to having reconnected with friends and family, but we don’t see any of that. It’s clear, however, that the past year has given Ryan enough time to realise how much home and a stable foundation still means to him. His decision to say goodbye doesn’t stem from any close call or tragic loss, but a new-found self-confidence and a desire to grow up. The Doctor may be a Timeless Child, but Ryan is not.

Ryan’s departure means that a clearly torn Graham must also say his goodbyes, although his reasoning is far more straightforward – if he leaves to travel with the Doctor, he’ll miss his grandson taking those first steps into adulthood. And so Yaz is left in a TARDIS control room that suddenly seems a lot bigger, her trust in the Doctor tarnished but intact thanks to a surprisingly earnest heart-to-heart with Jack earlier in the episode. And then, as is fitting for an episode that has spent so much time in its own recent past, we return to the same Sheffield hillside where the companions began their journey – and to Ryan Sinclair, cheered on by his hopeful Grandad, learning how to ride a bike.

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This is unlikely to be anyone’s all-time favourite Doctor Who episode. It won’t sit proudly in the number one spot when YouTubers rank the Christmas specials. It’s a little too reliant on navel-gazing for that – but what the episode does is try and tackle questions raised by the Doctor always being the centre of the series’ universe, and what it takes to overcome her gravitational pull. Even if you don’t care to chew over those metatextual issues on New Year’s Day, however, ‘Revolution of the Daleks’is still an enjoyable hour-and-change of telly, and one that ultimately chooses to (mostly) wipe the slate clean ready for adventures yet to come.

The post Doctor Who: Revolution of the Daleks Review appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[lynchgirl90]

KYLE MACLACHLAN FLIRTS WITH THE DARKNESS  #TwinPeaks 

David Lynch's most reliable guide reveals that Twin Peaks will never end, because everything is Twin Peaks.

BY

TYLER COATES

SEP 3, 2017

I am standing outside the Soho House in Manhattan when I get a text from an unknown number. "Hey Tyler. Kyle here. I'm on the sixth floor at the end of the room. (Walk towards the light! 😆) See you soon."

KYLE MACLACHLAN JUST TEXTED ME.

I stand in place for a moment. I take a breath.

Kyle MacLachlan just texted me a joke and he used an emoji.

My reply, which takes entirely too much time to compose, is simply to tell him I'll see him upstairs soon. He writes back: "Cool 👍" And I immediately picture FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper, the character he played on Twin Peaks (and is playing—sort of—on Twin Peaks: The Return) giving an ecstatic thumbs-up on the original iteration of the series.

I'm aware that I'm slightly nervous as I walk through the sixth floor restaurant. Meeting a famous person is nerve-racking! And MacLachlan is a big deal in my brain, maybe because I've been consumed all summer with Twin Peaks: The Return, David Lynch's revival of his cult classic TV series on which MacLachlan starred in its two-season run from 1990 to 1991. Maybe it's because MacLachlan is, let's face it, a very handsome man. He's also less foreboding in person than on television. His hair is a little messy rather than perfectly combed in place and shellacked with pomade; the collar on his navy polo shirt slightly popped in a breezily unkempt manner, as if he's on a late-summer vacation. (He lives not far from here in Manhattan.)

And maybe my nervousness is why I immediately bring up Blue Velvet, his second movie ever, and his second collaboration with David Lynch. I mention that I saw the movie when I was 13 or 14, somehow convincing my dad to let me rent it. (My mother's theory: "He probably thought it was about Elizabeth Taylor and a horse.") That's when MacLachlan gives a slightly embarrassed laugh, and he says, "I bet that was...frightening?" There's an iconic scene in which he's completely nude and Isabella Rosselini, clutching a butcher knife, goes down on him after their characters first meet. So yes, I was possibly frightened. But I knew then—as I know now, having seen much of David Lynch's work, with and without MacLachlan—that it was something interesting, peculiar, scary, and absurd, and everyone involved was willing to take a major risk to fulfill this one guy's crazy artistic notions.

I settle in my seat, and I remember that I'm here to talk about David Lynch—and Twin Peaks—with the man who has been the face of those notions for many years. Lynch is big on avatars and doppelgangers, the nature of good and evil, and fucking around with our ideas of the American Dream and the horrors that exist just below the surface, hidden thanks to our willful ignorance. And he's put all of this into the world by telling a large, expansive story with MacLachlan's face—still handsome after all these years—at the forefront.

What's the allure of Kyle MacLachlan, anyway? There is the obvious handsomeness, an all-American look that the actor attributes to one feature in particular. "It's the chin," he says with a laugh. "It's hard to get away from that." But there's something about his personality, too, that offsets—and maybe works in tandem—with his looks. He has a kind sensibility, an inherent goofiness that makes one naturally comfortable around him. He seems to have heard this before, from people who have tried to describe him without being able to put their finger on it exactly. Back to his face, just for a second: MacLachlan tells me that it's got an edge to it, so he hears, that has served as a trademark of sorts. "There's something off—that's the thing," he says. "People would always tell me, 'Something about your face is a little bit off.'" (Writer Rich Cohen once described him, in an early '90s profile in Rolling Stone, as "the boy next door, if that boy spent lots of time alone in the basement.") Does he sweat the comments he's received about the indiscernible weirdness of his persona, his face? Not really. "Listen, if it gets me work, that's fine," he says.

Lynch gave MacLachlan his first big break: the starring role in Dune, the anticipated adaptation of Frank Herbert's celebrated sci-fi novel. Most young actors dream of landing such a role, playing the hero in a big-budget Hollywood blockbuster helmed by a buzzy director (Lynch's previous film, The Elephant Man, earned eight Oscar nominations). But Dune was a disaster—both on the production side and once it was released, flopping with critics and audiences alike. It was a hard first lesson for MacLachlan: Expectations could work against you, and it was important to be a practical actor, not to dwell on the losses, and to always keep an eye out for the next thing.

The next thing happened to come not long after, when Lynch came back to him with the script for Blue Velvet and offered him the role of the lead, Jeffrey Beaumont. Blue Velvet was the second big break—the real one, the one that propelled MacLachlan's career forward, and what solidified his connection to his director and friend.

"David is not Hollywood," MacLachlan explains. "My sense of it was that people didn't know what to do with me." He'd done the post-Dune audition rounds, and he wasn't finding other jobs landing in his lap. "Somebody does a movie that makes a zillion dollars, he plays the young hero, and producers can plug him into a million other things," he says. "The smart ones obviously build a construct. Not everyone has that ability."

Blue Velvet introduced a regular theme that Lynch has examined throughout his work since, which MacLachlan describes as "flirting with that dark soul, getting closer and closer to it until you're faced with the ultimate evil." Despite the film's brutality, it has a somewhat happy ending—suggesting that triumph over evil is possible. "Jeffrey barely escapes," MacLachlan says, "but he's changed forever."

With Jeffrey Beaumont, MacLachlan displayed full-on naïveté, playing a young man who realizes that the world in which he finds comfort is hiding sinister forces. His next major role, another created by David Lynch, would be a character who would find himself up against similarly dark factions—although this time of a supernatural quality.

MacLachlan admits that Twin Peaks was a bit of a fluke. The idea of David Lynch working in the realm of network television was absurd in itself. Blue Velvet, while earning Lynch his second Oscar nomination for Best Director, was met with a polarizing critical response. (Roger Ebert's review in particular was a scorcher, and he branded Lynch a misogynist for the way he "degraded" Rossellini on film.) His follow-up, Wild at Heart, which premiered at Cannes a month after Twin Peaks debuted on ABC, was met with equal parts enthusiasm and derision. (It won the Palme d'Or that year, even though the film was met with boos by the notoriously vocal film festival audience.)

Pairing up with writer Mark Frost, who had spent three years as a writer on NBC's police drama Hill Street Blues, Lynch broadened his idea of Americana—specifically, the darkness that lies beneath the surface of a quaint and seemingly wholesome small logging town in Washington—into a series. MacLachlan, bolstered by the critical success of Blue Velvet yet still reticent of how Lynch's next idea would play, didn't have high hopes. "It was completely unexpected that it would be anything more than a Movie of the Week," he tells me. "That's why a lot of us were on board: to watch David Lynch do this—and the anarchy that would reign down. Yeah, okay. Why not?"

But ABC executives loved the two-hour pilot, which introduced the murder of the beautiful homecoming queen Laura Palmer, the FBI agent who was summoned to solve her murder, and the various cast of characters who may very well have had something to do with the crime. "Suddenly we were doing it," MacLachlan says. "They called our bluff and bought the show."

Twin Peaks was a bonafide phenomenon, and its first season—consisting of the pilot and seven subsequent episodes—was a massive hit over the course of its eight-week run in the spring of 1990. Not only did it reunite MacLachlan with the director who introduced him to movie audiences, but it assembled a large ensemble cast of familiar and fresh faces.

The show was a mixture of television neo-noir and classic nighttime soap, but with a certain quirkiness that grabbed the attention of television audiences. There was a central murder mystery plot, yes, but there was also romantic intrigue, whispered secrets, a woman who communicated with a log. It often depicted its protagonist dreaming of a mysterious room, decorated with red drapes and a black-and-white chevron-patterned floor and populated by the kind of grotesque characters straight out of a Flannery O'Connor short story. It blended Lynch's dry humor and his absurdist non-sequiturs with the themes he began exploring in Blue Velvet—but with an entirely new style that filmmakers would spend years trying to replicate.

Laura Palmer's murder was solved in the early part of the second season—she had been raped and killed by her father, Leland, while he was under the influence of a demonic presence known as BOB—and the show began to shift into an unwieldy procedural drama. MacLachlan is honest about the missteps of the show's middling second season.

"I thought the first seven episodes [in Season One] were brilliant," he admits. "We had gone on a crazy tangent [in Season Two], and they were trying to pull it back. But it had already drifted too far off."

The series ended with a massive cliffhanger in a final episode directed by Lynch. Cooper, who had a new love interest in Heather Graham's Annie Blackburn, attempts to save her from an ex-FBI agent who has committed his life to terrorizing Cooper's. The pursuit finds him entering the mysterious red room of his dream through a portal in the woods; caught in what is known as the Black Lodge, he comes face to face with his mortal enemy as well as the evil that is holding the town hostage: BOB himself. BOB overtakes Cooper, creating a doppelganger of our hero and entering our world in disguise—leaving Cooper trapped in this impeccably decorated limbo.

Once again: disappointment. As with Dune, MacLachlan took it in stride. After all, Twin Peaks had earned him two Emmy nominations and a Golden Globe. He had had a steady job and got to work again with Lynch to craft a great role—arguably, in hindsight, the most vital of his career. "There was certainly a disappointment when it was cancelled," he tells me. "But I said to myself, 'Well, that's done. Time to find the next thing.'"

Two things propel actors: Getting work that pays enough to stay afloat between jobs, and finding work that's compelling and challenging—roles that don't leave you typecast and stuck playing the same character over and over again.

Of course, MacLachlan did play Dale Cooper again in Lynch's big-screen prequel to the series, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, which was released a year after the show's cancellation. MacLachlan initially passed on playing Cooper again so soon after the show ended, although he eventually joined the production. But his role was small, and the absence of many other Twin Peaks regulars (and its bleak, darker tone) was off-putting for fans. The film was not a commercial success, and the critical response was mixed.

MacLachlan—who tells me that he had to find "a construct" for himself, a certain kind of figure he could play with slight variation—took a few odd roles in the '90s. There are a couple of forgettable indie movies on his résumé, plus Oliver Stone's The Doors, in which he played keyboardist Ray Manzarek. In what would be one of the biggest box-office successes of his career (that is until he leant his voice for a small role in the Pixar film Inside Out), he played Cliff Vandercave in The Flintstones, an insanely successful movie (it earned over $300 million worldwide) that feels like a lost '90s relic. (Do you remember anything about The Flintstones, other than it happened? I saw it twice, and I mostly just remember MacLachlan's biceps.) Yet he still proved he could play a different type: the sexy antagonist—even if that chance involved wearing a sleeveless double-breasted suit and playing the foil to John Goodman's Fred Flintstone.

But that led to his next role in what would be another infamous moment in modern film history: Paul Verhoeven's Showgirls, one of the most notorious movies of all time and the first big-budget NC-17-rated film to get a wide release. MacLachlan has been vocal about how he feels about the film. (He told Esquireearlier this year, "What did I learn from Showgirls? I learned what not to do!") Naturally, he chuckles when I even bring it up. (It's an inevitable topic of conversation. You can't not mention Showgirls in the presence of Kyle MacLachlan.) And he's honest with me about why he took the role. "It was a deliberate attempt to change things up a bit," he says. "All actors do that to varying degrees of success and failure. And, to be honest, I was a big fan of Paul Verhoeven, so I thought, 'Well, this could be fun.' I just happened to pick the wrong one." (Every gay man I know would suggest otherwise, but hey: Everybody's a critic.)

Once again, MacLachlan's career took another oddball turn. But these moments were still high-profile; he was still on the radar. And his early work with David Lynch continued to cast a welcome shadow over him as an actor, particularly as those who appreciated and found influence in Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks began to rise in the Hollywood ranks themselves. At least that's MacLachlan's theory for his three major television roles of the last two decades: Trey MacDougal, the impotent Upper East Side mama's boy who served as a frustrating love interest to Charlotte on Sex and the City; Orson Hodge, a devious dentist on Desperate Housewives; and the Mayor of Portland on Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein's hipster satire Portlandia, who could very well be Dale Cooper if he had gone into local politics instead of the Black Lodge.

"These things came to me because of my work with David," MacLachlan says. "Not because they were looking at the roles and saying, 'Oh, he'd be perfect for that.' The creators were people who had in some way been inspired by David, or affected somehow."

Two decades after Twin Peaks, as the show's cult following only grew larger and larger and its influence became more overt as dark, quirky mystery shows about the dangers hidden out of sight in small-town America became more and more popular, MacLachlan couldn't shake the series from his head. He and Lynch remained good friends, and Twin Peaks was often a topic of conversation when they saw each other. "Over the years, we'd get together and sit, chat, have coffee, catch up," MacLachlan tells me. "Occasionally I would bring up the idea of Twin Peaks. I recognized for me, selfishly, it was a great character, a great period of time. I was hungry to revisit that and to have the experience of working with David again."

"OCCASIONALLY I WOULD BRING UP THE IDEA OF TWIN PEAKS. I WAS HUNGRY TO REVISIT THAT AND TO HAVE THE EXPERIENCE OF WORKING WITH DAVID AGAIN."

Years later, Lynch called MacLachlan on the phone, and his tone was markedly more assertive than normal. "I need to talk to you," Lynch said to him, "but I can't do it over the phone." The two met in New York, and Lynch delivered the news: He and Mark Frost had figured a way back into the world of Twin Peaks. Was MacLachlan interested in joining them? "We've talked about this, David," MacLachlan recalls saying. "But if you need to hear it from me: Yes, I'm in." Nothing was settled yet. Scripts hadn't been written. A precarious deal with Showtime was in the works, and there were stops and starts, which naturally worried MacLachlan. But eventually everything fell into place, Lynch and Frost and MacLachlan signed their deals, members of the cast were coming back, along with some new familiar faces. The network handed the keys over to Lynch to direct a whopping 18 episodes. It was official: Twin Peaks was returning to TV.

Let's rock.

Where the hell do I begin with Twin Peaks: The Return? For one thing, as I write this, I still haven't finished it; Showtime is keeping a close guard on the final two episodes that make up its grand finale, and the network didn't provide journalists screeners throughout the season. Perhaps that's part of why it's been so fun to watch: Not only is every episode completely unexpected, with most of the theories surrounding its complex and meandering plot as indecipherable as the show itself, but no one is getting an early look at this show. We all have to wait to see what David Lynch has in store for us precisely when he's ready to give it away.

I'm chatting with MacLachlan on the Monday afternoon following the 16th episode of the series—the one in which Agent Cooper finally comes out of the catatonic state in which he's been trapped for a very long time (15-plus hours for us, but much longer for him). Before that, he was trapped in the body of Dougie Jones, a Cooper doppelganger who lives in Las Vegas, sells insurance, and presumably has a gambling problem; most of his biography before the events of the season begins is provided by his wife, Janey-E, through one of her regular screaming sessions leveled at her dim man-child of a husband. (Naomi Watts, playing Janey-E, is a master at the David Lynch monologue.) How he got into Dougie Jones is still sort of a complicated mystery. Some people have their ideas of how it works, but for me, well… I've simply watched the show and kept myself from asking too many questions for the sake of my own sanity. I've simply enjoyed the long, twisted ride.

MacLachlan hasn't seen the final two episodes, either, although he knows what happens. From the beginning, he was in possession of what he calls The Bible. "After a little bit of cajoling, they let me have the script," he admits to me, "as long as I absolutely swore never to show anyone." (He keeps that promise with me, despite any effort I make to milk a secret or two out of him. "We all felt an obligation, really," he says. "We wanted to protect this thing so that people could experience it in the proper sequence.")

The world of the new Twin Peaks is massive. It expands beyond the borders of the small Washington town, with scenes taking place in Manhattan, Las Vegas, South Dakota, New Mexico in 1945, and in the Black Lodge. And while it brings with it a return of many of the beloved characters from the original series (with a few noted exceptions), it also introduces a wide variety of new characters in those far-flung locations. It is perhaps the most impressive cast of actors on television in recent history, and that doesn't include the musical guest that shows up every week at the Bang Bang Bar. (Whoever is booking for the Roadhouse is doing one hell of a job.)

"WE ALL FELT AN OBLIGATION, REALLY. WE WANTED TO PROTECT THIS THING SO THAT PEOPLE COULD EXPERIENCE IT IN THE PROPER SEQUENCE."

MacLachlan asked for the complete script almost out of a necessity to understand where his role fit within the larger story. Well, I should say "roles," because at this point he's playing three: there's Special Agent Dale Cooper, trapped in the Black Lodge for 25 years and then released into the world once again; Dougie Jones, the aforementioned dummy who's learning about the world almost like a child (or maybe he's actually Cooper, trying to remember who he actually is); and then there's Mr. C, the Cooper doppelganger who left the Black Lodge behind in 1991 at the end of the original series.

As much as the rest of us wondered how the residents of Twin Peaks would look and act after a 25-year hiatus, MacLachlan himself wondered how to get back into the role of Agent Cooper. But first he had to tackle the two opposite poles of Dougie and Mr. C. For Dougie, he looked to Peter Sellers for inspiration, also remembering Jeff Bridges's performance in Starman; for Mr. C, he thought of Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men. Dougie, he admits, was the easier role to take on, while Mr. C was much tougher.

"It's hard for me to play that," he admits. "I can do it, of course, but I don't know if I really want to."

I bring up the moment when Mr. C murders his son, Richard Horne, steering him on top of a rock formation and watching as he is electrocuted. Mr. C shows no sign of empathy—that's in his nature, of course. But it was hard for MacLachlan to pull off. "Of all the things David had me do, that was the worst. But it's true to the character. As an actor, I want to show some humanity. It's so hard to be absolute." I can tell, through the calm and measured quality of the good-natured man who sits before me, that diving into the depths of his own potential dark side was no easy mission. He had to find that humanity within his director, who he says went along with him on both Dougie and Mr. C's journey. "David almost embodies the qualities of the characters," he says. "I can see it in his face. With Dougie, there's a certain energy. When I'm Mr. C, it's dark and he's in another place. It gave me the confidence to carry the character to its fulfillment."

He tells me another difficult task was to act as Mr. C with David Lynch as his character, FBI Deputy Director Gordon Cole. "I didn't like it at all," he says, definitively, and with a look of deep concern. It suggests that MacLachlan felt uneasy breaking out of the kind of figure that Lynch has pushed him to play so many times: the innocent who flirts with danger but ultimately controls it. Dougie, in a way, was his own release from that darkness: all joy and absurdity. When I ask him about his favorite scenes, MacLachlan immediately sports a big Dougie Jones smile. His sex scene with Naomi Watts comes to mind, and he imitates the look of perplexed ecstasy on Dougie's face as he sleeps with his wife. He flails his arms about a bit, not noticing that he's drawing some attention from some of the people sitting near us in the restaurant. But I suppose when you've taken the leaps that he has—flirting with the darkness that David Lynch has created, or even doing something so bold as acting in a sex scene in front of a film crew—you lose some of your inhibitions fairly easily. I'm much less nervous around MacLachlan by now, and much more impressed with the confidence he exudes, something he's learned from the fearlessness that his job requires.

MacLachlan knows Twin Peaks: The Return isn't for everybody. He knew this as soon as he saw the script, realizing that fans of the original show might not embrace the revival with as much enthusiasm. I suggest that there are two different kinds of people: Twin Peaksfans and David Lynch fans. "Twin Peaks: The Return is for the David Lynch fans," I say, and MacLachlan nods.

"It was going to be the Lynch fans who would have the most fun," MacLachlan says. "That was obvious to me as we were traveling on that journey. It was going to be darker, visceral, and have the same kind of surreal elements that David loves to mix in with the ingredients. Who's to say how the Twin Peaks fan base and the David Lynch fan base would find common ground? David Lynch fans were in for it the entire way, and the Twin Peaks fans who made the leap might find something special, too."

As one of David Lynch's regular players, MacLachlan has learned not to parse the material for meaning—just as he's learned not to demand too much explanation from his director. This, he admits, he learned the hard way. "On Dune, I was rabid. I drove David to madness," he says. "And finally he closed the door on me." He offers no detailed analysis of what has transpired over the show's 16 episodes so far, and I get the sense that my intuition—to focus less on the meaning and more on the form—is the best way to experience it.

Instead, he accepts that there's a purpose to everything he's done, simply because Lynch has created it. He offers an explanation for the director's working relationship with Mark Frost, who is certainly more grounded in his craft. "Mark is the kind of writer who says there needs to be reason and process," he explains. Lynch, on the other hand, pays closer attention to theme and ideas—particularly where evil comes from, how it corrupts innocent men and women as it spreads like a virus, and where to put it in order to keep it contained. "I don't think David feels compelled to resolve everything by any means, maybe because of the idea that it's ongoing and we'll pick it back up if we have to," he says, pointing to the differences in the way Lynch and Frost attack the material. "Maybe that's why they get together once every 25 years," he laughs.

At the end of the day, the return of Twin Peaks is almost enough of a treat for MacLachlan as much as, I'd suggest, the people who are tuning in each week. "It's like a weird high school reunion," he says, and I think that the people who either watched it when it first aired or throughout the years on DVD or streaming on Netflix might say the same thing.

"I DON'T THINK DAVID FEELS COMPELLED TO RESOLVE EVERYTHING BY ANY MEANS, MAYBE BECAUSE OF THE IDEA THAT IT'S ONGOING AND WE'LL PICK IT BACK UP IF WE HAVE TO."

Working with Lynch again has been a delight, MacLachlan says, as has acting for the first time with fellow Lynch muse Naomi Watts. And, naturally, he speaks with visible exuberance about seeing Laura Dern on set again 30 years after they starred in Blue Velvet together. Dern plays Diane, the previously unseen assistant to Agent Cooper who would receive his daily briefings in the original series; she steals every scene with a sharp, bitter tongue and a platinum blonde bob wig. "Laura and I have traveled this road together a long time," MacLachlan says. "We love David very much, and we get a real kick out of each other."

But seeing Dern interact with Lynch, who directed her in Wild at Heart and Inland Empire, showed MacLachlan a different side to his friend and director. "They tease each other a lot—David and I don't really tease each other!" he laughs. "I mean, we get along, we have fun, we have a laugh. But I never felt thatcomfortable, you know? I wondered, how does she do that?" MacLachlan says that he and Dern aren't unlike siblings, realizing that their individual relationships to their father is surprisingly different.

Ultimately, MacLachlan is grateful for the opportunity to play this character again, and he's grateful for the fans for keeping the spirit of Twin Peaks alive. ("I think the fans played a big part of this," he says of the revival.) He feels like he's a part of something bigger, a piece of moving art that is ripe for interpretation and inspiration as much as it is entertaining. And, as always, he guides me to understanding how it falls within David Lynch's worldview, as well: "David tells me, 'Everything is Twin Peaks. It's all Twin Peaks,'" he says. "These stories continue—that's the whole thing. Everybody kept living and going on and doing their thing. It never stopped. Now we're picking it up again, 25 years later. Who knows if we'll pick them up again down the road, I don't know."

Before I'm even able to ask the final question—either because he knows it's coming, or simply because his answer is so obvious for him—he gives a sly smile when he responds.

"Would you do it again, down the road?"

"Oh, yes. In a minute."

Link (KM)

[shefa]

Walk a Mile in My Shoes

WALK A MILE IN MY SHOES SERMON FOR KOL NIDRE 5778 -- 2017 Rabbi Stephen Weiss, B'nai Jeshurun Congregation

Well here we are on Yom Kippur eve, Kol Nidre, the most solemn day in the whole Jewish calendar. So, I want to begin this evening by invoking the King. No, not the King of Kings, but rather the King of Rock and Roll. And I’m going to ask you to help me out, by clapping along with me, and singing too if you know the words:

If I could be you, if you could be me for just one hour If we could find a way to get inside each other's mind If you could see you through my eyes instead of your ego I believe you'd be, I believe you'd be surprised to see that you've been blind

Walk a mile in my shoes Walk a mile in my shoes Yeah, before you abuse, criticize, and accuse Walk a mile in my shoes

Now if we spend the day throwing stones at one another ‘Cause I don’t think ‘cause I don’t think or wear my hair same way you do O well I may be common people but I’m your brother And when you strike out to try hurt me, it’s a hurtin’ you

Walk a mile in my shoes Walk a mile in my shoes Yeah, before you abuse, criticize, and accuse Walk a mile in my shoes

Now there are people on reservations and out in the ghetto And, brother, there, but for the grace of God go you and I If I only had the wings of a little angel Don't you know I'd fly - to the top of a mountain and then I'd cry, cry, cry?

Walk a mile in my shoes Walk a mile in my shoes Yeah, before you abuse, criticize, and accuse Walk a mile in my shoes

Sing it with me!

Walk a mile in my shoes Walk a mile in my shoes Yeah, before you abuse, criticize, and accuse Walk a mile in my shoes

I’ve been humming that Elvis Presley song a lot lately, because after all, this day is all about shoes. What kind of shoes are you wearing today? Running shoes? Crocs? Dress shoes with a rubber sole? Probably not blue suede shoes. We don’t wear leather-soled shoes on Yom Kippur because leather is understood by our sages as a sign of luxury and comfort. Our sages did not want us to get too comfortable in our own shoes. They wanted us to step outside our comfort zone, to get inside someone else’s skin, their heart, their mind, to experience life through their eyes, to learn what it’s like to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. To experience empathy. Because only through the experience of empathy can we both change ourselves and change the world around us.

Let me share with you a story about such a change. In 2012, Csanad Szegedi was poised to lead Jobbik, an ultra-nationalist neo-Nazi, racist, anti-Semitic political party in Hungary that garnered 20% of the vote in 2014. Jobbik consistently accuses the Jews of being at the center of a cabal of western economic interests seeking world domination.

The opposition research from Szegedi’s rivals revealed the surprising news that Szegedi’s maternal grandmother and grandfather were Auschwitz survivors. It was true. When his mother was fourteen, her father told her the secret but insisted that she never reveal it to anyone. And she didn’t, not even to Szegedi, who was shocked by the news.

When Szegedi first admitted the truth about his Jewish ancestry, one party leader urged him to shoot himself. Another urged him to make a public apology. It was this comment that made him say, “Wait a minute, I am supposed to apologize for the fact that my family was killed at Auschwitz?” When he stepped out of his comfort zone and gave a speech in support of Israel, skinheads and neo-Nazis showed up at his home chanting “Death to the Jews.” He was forced to experience what Hungarian Jews had experienced at the hands of his Jobbik party, at his hands as a Jobbik leader. This changed him forever. In response, he devoted himself to defending human rights. He says, “I am aware of my responsibility and I know I will have to make it right in the future.”

Having learned the truth about himself, he resigned from the party, went to visit a local rabbi, studied Torah and underwent circumcision. Dovid, as he is now known, became a religious Jew, keeping kosher and observing Shabbat, studying Torah and Talmud and davening regularly. And this fall he made aliyah to Israel.

Walk a mile in my shoes.

Szegedi had radical empathy forced upon him by circumstance. But empathy can be a force in our more mundane everyday lives as well.

Let me give you a simple example. It happened once that a young girl’s friend lost her favorite doll which she’d brought over to play with. She was heartbroken. She sat on the steps and began to cry. When the first little girl’s mother came outside to check on the girls, she found them both sitting on the step sobbing. She asked what was wrong, and her daughter told her through her tears that her little friend, Suzie had lost her favorite doll. The mother looked puzzled for a bit, then asked her daughter, “did you lose your doll too?” “No”, the daughter sobbed. “Then what’s wrong with you?” asked the mother, “Nothing” she sobbed. “I’m just helping Suzie cry.”

Helping Suzie cry. You see, that’s what real empathy is. Empathy is feeling what another person is feeling. It is the art of stepping imaginatively into the shoes of another person, understanding their feelings, their experiences, their perspectives, the way they see the world, and using that understanding to guide your own actions.

Walk a mile in my shoes.

Empathy is not sympathy. Sympathy is when I feel for you. Empathy is when I feel with you. Sympathy is when say “I know you are hurting.” Empathy is when I endeavor to feel and understand your hurt from your perspective. When I hurt with you.

Imagine that someone has fallen in a deep dark hole in their lives. And they shout out “I’m stuck, it’s dark, and I’m overwhelmed.” Sympathy is when you look over the edge of that hole and you look over the edge of that hole, and you wave down there and you say, “Wow. That looks really bad.” Empathy is when you climb down into the hole. You stand with them, and you say: Hey, I know what it’s like down here. I’ve been down here. You’re not alone.”

Moses climbed down in that hole. The midrash tells us that Moses among the slaves in the field and put his shoulder to the grindstone. He felt others' pain as his own, and helped alleviate their burden.

Rabbi Israel Salanter, the great 19th century founder of the Mussar movement, also climbed down into that hole. The Jewish community of Kovno operated a homeless shelter which fell into disrepair. Despite various appeals, the community failed to fix the facility. So what did Rabbi Israel Salant do? He went to sleep in the broken-down shelter. And he vowed to continue doing so until proper repairs were made.

The Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism, taught that a tzaddik – a righteous person – must go down into Gehenna – to Hell – himself to be able to raise up souls. Not to sin with them. Not to castigate them. But to be with them empathetically and experience their pain. If you cannot experience someone’s pain, if you cannot identify with them, you cannot help lift them up.

Walk a mile in my shoes.

The amazing thing is that we are hard-wired for empathy. Scientists have discovered that some 20% of the neurons in our brain are what they call “mirror neurons.” These “mirror neurons” fire when we see someone else doing or feeling something, and they allow us to participate with them in a kind of virtual reality. You’ve all experienced it: When you see a scary scene in a movie, and you jump just as the actor who is scared jumps. When you are with someone who is experiencing pain and you wince. When you see a face that looks sad and it makes you feel sad. That’s our “mirror neurons.” It’s as if the barriers between us dissolve, as if our minds and our bodies become one.

That’s what eastern religions teach, and that’s what Judaism teaches as well. Kabbalah – Jewish mysticism – tells us that all the distinctions between us are illusory, that in truth we are all part of one unity. You and I, the chairs on which you sit, the trees and grass outside these windows and the air we breathe are all a part of the flow of Gods energy and spirit. That’s the meaning of the Shema. Not just that there is one God, but that God is the singularity of the universe, that everything is contained and unified within God’s spirit, forever connected. To understand this is to understand the true meaning of empathy. It is the God-given ability to dissolve the barriers between us and become one with each other.

Empathy enables us to feel connected to and supported by others. It is a cornerstone of our emotional intelligence, contributing to both our humility and our self-esteem. It opens our minds to new landscapes and challenges us to grow in new directions. It should come as no surprise then that empathy contributes to our emotional wellbeing and our happiness.

Philosopher Mary Gordon points out that at the Nuremberg trials, one of the judges pointed to the war crimes of the Holocaust as a “failure of empathy.” She goes on to say that “Empathy is integral to solving conflict in the family, schoolyard, boardroom and war room. The ability to take the perspective of another person, to identify commonalities through our shared feelings, is the best peace pill we have.”

Walk a mile in my shoes.

And yet it seems that lately we have lost touch with this unique gift that God has given us. Instead of breaking down barriers we seem to build them up, drawing ever more distinctions between “us” and “them.” We live in a world marked by a hostile disregard for the ‘other’ whether that ‘other’ is someone of a different race, religion, gender, orientation, or political persuasion, or a different segment of society. We especially seem to demonize those who hold different opinions from our own.

Indeed, we suffer from an empathy deficit. Studies show that empathy levels in this county have dropped by nearly 50% in the last three decades. The most dramatic drop has been in the last ten years. Why is that?

First, we must acknowledge that feeling empathy is hard for us because it requires us to feel vulnerable and out of control. Feeling someone else’s pain may open up wounds of our own that we have managed to suppress and feeling emotions we may not want to feel. Looking at things from another person’s perspective may challenge our own beliefs and assumptions.

We also suffer from an increasing focus on ourselves. The 90’s was the “me” generation. The millennial decade has been the “I” generation. For decades, our psychologists have told us that if we want to solve our problems and to feel contentment in life we should look inside ourselves to resolve our issues, instead of telling us to look outside at the world and those around us. You don’t believe me? Just go to the bookstore and see how large the “Self-Help” section is. Then do me a favor. Go find the section labeled “Helping Others.” Of course, you won’t find it.

Some of this decline in empathy is also from compassion fatigue. We are flooded daily with news of catastrophes so overwhelming and so frequent as to make us numb: Harvey, Irma, Jose and Maria, the tsunami in Asia, the earthquake in Mexico, refugees from Syria, the genocide of the Rohingya, terror attacks in Israel… it’s just more than we can absorb.

Some of this decline in empathy may be technology itself making us less empathetic. Not just being on our computers, tablets and phones all the time, but technology’s very presence in our lives. Did you know that studies show that if there is a phone just sitting, turned off, on the table between two people, those people listen less to each other? Isn’t that fascinating?

Our resistance to empathy also comes from being in a state of denial. Perhaps we feel shame or guilt that by contrast, we live such privileged lives. Perhaps we turn away because we don’t want to admit that we might be somehow responsible. So we tell ourselves that our actions won’t really change anything.

And if we are honest, some of our resistance to empathy comes as well from our own prejudices that make it difficult for us to appreciate the humanity and uniqueness of other people’s personal stories.

Walk a mile in my shoes.

So how do we regain our ability to empathize?

It starts with the most basic tool: listening. Really listening. What is commonly called “active” or “empathetic” listening. That means that when you speak, I am fully focused on being present with you rather then caught in my own reaction or preparing my response. This is an exercise that I make every couple practice in the months before their wedding. I see some of you in the sanctuary tonight. You can vouch for this! Listen to your partner and then repeat back to them exactly what you believe you heard, without commentary or response. Check in with them: did I hear you correctly? Only once they confirm you heard them fully and correctly do you respond.

Couples are surprised how often they don’t hear each other correctly. And couples find this exercise terribly awkward at first, But those who persist find it becomes natural, a part of their everyday life and relationship. And do you know what? Studies show that active listening increases the chances of a marriage’s success. And it’s not just for our personal relationships. One recent study showed that when corporate management and unions used empathetic, active listening, the time it took to negotiate a contract was reduced by 50%. In his famous treatise I and Thou, Martin Buber taught that we can become fully human only when we have “genuine conversations” that try look at the world through the other person’s eyes and to comprehend their thoughts and feelings. In that book he described what that process was like for him. He wrote: “I imagine to myself what another man is at this very moment wishing, feeling, perceiving, thinking. . ..” He went on to write that the “inmost growth of the self is not accomplished, as people like to suppose today, in man’s relation to himself, but in the relation between one and the other, between men.” It’s only in that dialogue – in the listening – that we can discover each other.

A second tool in regaining empathy is to humanize those hidden individuals in our lives, those that we benefit from but we take for granted. Commentator Karen Armstrong suggests we try this exercise:

“When you get up in the morning, remember those who planted, picked and spun the cotton of your sheets and who collected, treated and exported the beans you grind for your morning coffee. You enjoy their product,” she says, “so you have a responsibility for them, especially if they were working in poor conditions. As you set off to work, reflect on the thousands of workers and engineers who maintain the roads, cars, railways, planes, trains and underground transport on which you rely. Continue this exercise throughout the day.”

A third tool to help us regain empathy is what one social philosopher calls “the character game.” When you see someone who you might treat as other, someone who is different than you, try instead to imagine them in a more human guise. When you see someone on the street who you think looks dangerous, looks different, makes you uncomfortable, or just seems worth your time and concern, try to imagine him playing hide and seek with his child or singing to her elderly mother to cheer her up. In this way you can give people a human face, break through our stereotyped views of them, and open us to new opportunities for connection and conversation.

Finally, we have to be willing to set down our worldview for a moment and put on someone else’s glasses. We must allow ourselves to see the world through their eyes, to experience what they experience, to feel what they feel, to know their truth, and to understand that their truth – whether we agree with it or not, whether we like it or not – exists in the world beside our truth, and that we have to support them in it.

If we want to regain our sense of connection to each other, if we want to heal as individuals and as a society, this is where it all begins: We must learn to walk a mile in each other’s shoes. To learn to humanize the other. To have genuine conversations in which we seek to see the world from their perspective. To understand and accept without judgement what someone else is feeling and be able to be with them in their pain. To let down our guard and allow ourselves to be vulnerable, to be changed by those around us. To break down the illusory barriers that we think divide us and see how much we share in common and how good it feels to be in one unity.

This is the meaning of the words that we sing so often that come from our sacred texts:

Hinei ma-tov u-mah na’im shevet achim gam yachad. “Behold, how good it is when we – brothers and sisters, the children of the One God – can dwell together in unity.

So this Yom Kippur, we know what we need to do. Sing it with me one last time:

Walk a mile in my shoes Walk a mile in my shoes Yeah, before you abuse, criticize and accuse Walk a mile in my shoes

May we all learn to walk a mile in each other’s shoes every day. Amen

[sambart93]

2017.08.14 Konchuuger 2 Review!

I was super happy to be able to see the next installment of Konchuuger! I was so ready to be entertained and see what the next stage of their ridiculous tale would me! Also Ise Daiki came back but as a different character so I was wondering if they were going to make fun of that fact!

Official Website here Official Blog here Official Twitter here Press Coverage 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Video Coverage 1 DVD Purchase here

CAST and CHARACTERS

☆KONCHUUGER Moto Fuyuki as Tokiwa Sou Ebisawa Kenji as Banri Choji Saito Shuusuke as Eiffel Thomas Momose Saku as Tahjima Haruo Suda Maasa as Sakurada Asuka Familia

☆HACHUURUI TEIKOKU Okuda Tsutomu as Snake Shougun Kadoshima Mamio as Tokage Sanbou Yasukawa Junpei as Chameleon Shousa Ozeki Riku as Turtle Gunsou Hori Yuuki as Yamori Shakudan

☆NEO-KONCHUUGER Ise Daiki as Kaminari Mon Saga Yui as Sukaitsu Lily Tanzawa Seiji as Gojyuuno Tougo Saito Kyouhei as Hanayashi Kiichi Fujio Kantaro as Kamiryoku Shark

Kurata Naoki as Bird Kizoku TAKA as Hoshi Atomu Kaide Kousuke as Chef Yamizaki

Ensemble: Mitsuman Kohei, Itakura Takeshi, Ayano Hana and Hagihara Tatsuro

*

NON-SPOILER REVIEW Overall: This was a blast! This had lots of comedy in it and was a lot of fun as expected! The bad guys this time were even more ridiculous and I loved how the Hachuurui guys came back and how they worked in the story. Once again MMJ balanced the comedy and the serious meaningful moments very well.  Albeit, it's not AS funny as the Saien for the first stage (reviews for these here and here) but it was still enjoyable; some parts dragged just a tad but didn't blemish the stage overall.  I am definitely hoping for a 3rd installment in this series and you bet your ass I already preordered the DVD for both this and the saien << they come as a double pack. I really hope Hachuurui come back again in the third one because I want to see my JP is more stuff but only time will tell << I have a feeling they won't come back though. Rating: 7/10

*

SPOILER REVIEW

STORY

The story this time is about how a group of people figured out a way to make the same potion as what turned the Konchuugers, and their plan is to take this potion, that should take hundreds of years to turn them, so that they can be the new, hip, better generation after the Konchuuger have gone and passed. BUT, it backfires when the potion works a little TOO well and it only takes a year for them to turn super human.  Meanwhile, the Konchuuger decided to go their seperate ways for a bit to go and enjoy life, or to go and figure themselves out now that the Hachuurui gang are a threat to society. BUT because of this new NeoKonchuuger group trying to destroy the Konchuuger and trying to get the Hachuurui team to join them. BUT the konchuuger act fast and try to get to the Hachuurui before the Neo guys do.  That’s the main chunk of the plot; who will persuade who over?  We also have Tokiwa Sou who is all alone on a rooftop and has become somewhat depressed since the Konchuuger went their own ways and he is at a loss of what to do with his life and that leaves him open to alien prey; specifically a giant bluebird who claims he wants to be his friend. But in actual fact, he has put Joe in a deep sleep and hopes to keep him there with him for all eternity.

PRESHOW

In the preshow, one guy came out cross-dresses on stage just as a kid came into the theatre and said to his mother 'kowaii!! / he’s scary!’ And the guy was so distraught like 'kowai?!??’ We all died laughing but kids being kids, he didn’t realise he’d been overheard nor that he’d just been spoken to xD

On the day I went, they had a special guests who turned out to be the previous Turtle Gunsou; Kosaka Ryoutarou. He ended up helping in the preshow with the crossdresser - who I'm pretty sure was Mitsuman Kohei - explain the 5 rules of the theatre. They explained these rules by doing a skit which was the girlfriend (played by Mitsuman) getting really angry that when they go to the theatre, he plays on his phone, he's loud, and he just doesn't understand what's wrong with it. Eventually he learns and they get all lovedovey. But Mitsuman would push him off his chair and would force to hold hands with Ryoutarou and stuff and he did really well not cracking too much. Ryoutarou is so cute but so damn tall and skinny though!! He looked good! At the end, with the live, they got him onstage and joined in with the ending song xD

THE STORY BREAKDOWN

The first person the Konchuuger try to bring to their side is Yamori and Tokage who have decided to open their very own Neko/Cat Cafe, and just as you would imagine; it was hilarious. The cats ended up being JP, Kurata and Mitsuma in black onesies and cat ears on! I absolutely died when JP walked onstage with freaking cat ears on and doing nyaaaaa and being all cat-like… omg it was so adorable!!! And Kurata was freaking adorable too! I coudn't decide which one I should pay more attention to between them two! There was a moment where JP led on Kurata and pretended to be sleepy or sleeping and it was so cute!!! I didn’t pay attention to what the hell was going on at all in the story when that was happening with them! They were such good cats and so adorable!!!!! And then it got even crazier when Itakura Takeshi came on with this ridiculous cat make-up and he was like the humanoid version of a cat! He was like a mafia boss cat thing. But then Tokage and Yamori managed to tame him and got him to see them as his parents and as his mommy so he joined the rest of the cats and became cute. BUT he first came on from the side door and had this megaphone and he started his sentence but the megaphone was still ringing it's alarm and he couldn't turn it off easily so we all cracked up laughing. Thie battle in this scene was Yamori and Tokage versus Hanayashi Kiichi who’s personality is; everything is done by the book. So he walked on stage with this massive file with all their information and also inside it were lots of persuading and battle strategies and tactics BUT because the Mafia Cat wasn’t part of any of his scenarios and because the Konchuuger (who was Banri Chouji) was so predictable, that he started to go a little insane and was yelling like ‘why won’t these plans work?! Why is it not going as planned?!’ and Tokage and Yamori finished him off before asking him to join their simple little cat cafe which doesn’t have any complicated rules to follow. So he accepts.

Then, they went to Turtle Gunsou who had not only made it as a YouTube star, but also now had his own record label and recording studio. However, thanks to the NeoKonchuuger's melding, most of the artists he had invited for an event that was happening the very next day, backed out, so he has to rely on 3 of the Konchuuger - Chouji, Asuka, Thomas - to replace those artists in the event which ends up being a musical performance. This angers the NeoKonchuugers because the event wasn't supposed to take place so they try and invade during the performance. The musical is quite a hilarious scene. It starts off with a haunted house theme, and then we switch to like a farm girl type of thing. All the while we have Turtle Gunsou at the back with his DJ deck rocking out which was hilarious to see -- I thoroughly enjoyed seeing Ozeki in this role! The sequence goes on a tad too long if I remember correctly, but it was very, very enjoyable! Asuka with her pink farmer and unimpressed face as she gets dragged into doing this musical was hilarious. They had all the audio prerecorded so they just lip synced along which I felt was very Konchuuger-esque for some reason and worked well. So here we see Kamiryoku Shark and Gojyuuno Tougo defeated here. They defeated in the simplest way; they get jealous that the Konchuuger could perform and became a big success. Tougo used to be a fitness trainer and Shark is very athletic and very Jackie Chan like, so Turtle offers them to come work for his company and make it as famous Yoga instructors and stuff; well that wins them over xD.

Finally, they went to JP’s character, Chameleon, who was hanging out at this very fancy bar, by himself, with sunglasses on, and a snake teddy hogging the seat next to him. Whenever he showed up throughout the play, he had this Snake teddy around his neck, and everyone was like 'awwww you miss Snake Shogun!’ but he’d always reply 'no I don’t! Why do you think that?!’, but clearly he does because he’s carrying around a goddamn snake teddy! It was adorable though! I’m pretty sure towards the end he admits he misses Snake Shogun too and then when Snake Shogun finally turns up he’s super happy!! So at this bar he's enjoying a drink and talking to the teddy when NeoKonchuuger Lily walks in and pretends to take an interest in him. Chameleon instantly falls for her and tries to woo her, which she 'falls' for. He asks her back to his apartment, but when they get there, Kaminari Mon is already there and has set up a debate-type room, with three random strangers to be the judges at the back of the room. Unfortunately the debate was somewhat a little difficult for me to follow because Ise and JP spoke so fast so I don't remember what the topics were and this scene ultimately ended up being a tad too long and boring for me. BUT eventually Konchuuger turn up and take to his side a support. The final debate topic, Chameleon got to choose, so he decided on EbiChilli (or MapoDofu); Kaminari thinks this topic is absolutely ridiculous, however, Chameleon goes on to say that the reason why it's so important to him is because he'd always eat Chinese food at the restaurant he and Snake Shogun and the rest of Hachuurui would meet for their evil devising plans. So every time he eats Chinese food, he's reminded of those fun times and he just wants Snake Shogun and the gang back together. This wins over the crowd emotionally, even though Kaminari is just like 'what the f?!' xD BUT it backfires on Kaminari even more, when at this moment Lily cruelly sees the coolness and attractiveness in Chameleon and falls to his side for real this time.

-

And then we come to; where the hell is Tokiwa Sou?! Throughout this play between the Konchuuger vs NeoKonchuuger battle scenes we kept jumping back to him on the rooftop. First he's with Snake Shogun, and they dicuss about opening a yakitori place together but even though Sou wants to do it, Snake says he's not ready to just stop what he's doing. Then we meet Hoshi Atomu who's living on the rooftop in a cardboard box and claims to be a cardboard model. During these serious scenes with Snake and Sou, or even just Sou on his own trying to figure out what the hell to do with his life after Konchuuger, we have Atomu just being a complete, hilarious idiot. He also causes stress to the two older men, who sometimes even slip on the cardboard Atomu leaves around. Atomu doesn't have an ultier motive; he;s honestly a sweetie and just wants to cheer them up; even if handing them poorly brewed coffee in a cardboard mug ends up pissing them off instead of making them feel better... which he does on a number of occasions.

I really, really loved seeing Snake Shogun and Tokiwa Sou’s relationship in this one. Even though I’m not sure which parts were reality and which parts were in Sou’s head, nevertheless I thoroughly enjoyed their scenes together and it’s great to see that they’ve definitely become friends even after decades of ‘fighting’ each other. They have this great ‘old man’ dynamic which doesn’t help (in a positive, comedic way) when the new character of the group Hoshi Atomu butts into their scenes with his ridiculous happiness and his god damn 'cardboard idol’ crap, which the two men just don’t want to deal with but he lives on the roof where the two men often have their discussions so it’s more like they brought it on themselves.

Once Snake has gone off somewhere, Sou begins to see a bird who he starts to feel a connection to and what's to spend time with. Unfortunately, the bird may act like he wants to be Sou's friend, but in actual fact, he's manipulated Sou into a deep sleep and wants to keep him there and forever so he's only friends with him. So we get to the climax of the story where, now that NeoKonchuuger have been defeated and only Kaminari Mon is left; the NeoKonchuugers, Konchuugers and Hachuuruis band together to electrocute Sou in order to get into his unconciousness and get him out of the deep sleep before he dies there. Finally, they wake him up. But turns out the bird is also in reality and comes to attack them. He's about 30 times the size of a normal bird but luckily the Konchuugers have a new contraption -- a giant megazord/mecha! It obviously defeats the bird and all three groups are now a happy clappy family. The End.

-

Some extra notes:

This time around instead of a Chinese restaurant, the NeoKonchuuger’s base is a family restaurant xD

As usual they had a mini live at the end where they all had fun and sang and danced around! It was a lot of fun as usual!! I was once again surprised at how much of the crowd knew the dance and the song.

THE ACTING

I won’t talk about everyone but just some of them where I feel I had something to say.

Quick note: toooo many IKEMEN in this!

☆KONCHUUGER

Ebisawa Kenji as Banri Choji: Ebizawa still hasn’t persuaded me that he’s good for this role. He’s a nice guy sure, but I feel like all he does as this character is yell, and his voice doesn’t even allow him to yell properly so it sounds very strained and painful.

Momose Saku as Tahjima Haruo: I really liked his Haruo! He was all cute and smiley and yet still different to what Ise and Shimizu had brought to the character. In fact, I think I enjoyed Saku's version of Haruo the most! At the curtain call, Saku spoke about how he really enjoyed doing this role and really hopes he doesn’t get swapped out like the other two were. Which to be honest, I think they should keep it as a running joke that yellow changes every time. We could even have all the previous yellows play someone else just like Ise did! Although I would like Saku to continue as Haruo, I think they've technically three stages in and it's becoming a running joke so they SHOULD swap him out, even though I sort of don't want them to. Also, during the stage, they made a hilarious joke of 'why does the actor for Haruto change every time?!’ and 'why does Haruo ook different every time?' and the whole audience (who had clearly watched the pevious stages) died of laughter.  Every time they did subtle throw backs for people who had seen the original stage started chuckling hard.

☆HACHUURUI TEIKOKU

Yasukawa Junpei as Chameleon Shousa: I was totally into JP's character having a funny love interest! I thought it was hilarious! In fact the whole scene starter where he's drinking to himself with his snake teddy and then she comes in and 'takes in interest' in him and he suddenly gets this huge ego, but then she betrays him, but then she ends up actualy liking him and, if I remember rightly, after the debate scene and after Snake Shogun has reshowed up in his life, he walks off with linked arms with Lily while putting on some shades -- it was hilarious! I loved scene this from JP!  He's like this awkward, quiet yet funny guy in real life so to see him in this role which is kind of like a dasai-kakkoi-kei/cool but really not cool and totally cringey type character is amazing! I really did love this scene! I will definitely be repeating this one on DVD <3 JP as always is such a good actor and I love how used to his acting style I am and when he does those signature JP things in his acting just make me all warm and fuzzy inside xD I'm not making sense am I! haha

Ozeki Riku as Turtle Gunsou: I totally love this character developement from Ozeki as Turtle in this stage! The whole 'him becoming a music producer and totally rocking out at the DJ deck' was a wonderful sight to behold! He had so much more comedy this time around and his character in arc this is totally entertaining! I really want to see Ozeki in more stuff in the future! I think he's great and got potential.

☆NEO-KONCHUUGER

I'm going to be honest: I didn't really warm up to the NeoKonchuuger. A few of them I got and enjoyed but for the most part, I kind of didn't understand what they were supposed to be and didn't really get any personality from them.I understood the basics of what their characters were like but if we compare how well we got to know Hachuurui in the first stage compared to how we got to know NeoKon in this stage; it's a vast difference. We understood the personalities and comedy and traits of each Haichuurui member pretty much straight away in that first Chinese restaurant scene they had. But for NeoKon.... I felt like they weren't really that developed and didn't have much depth and I really didn't care for them... which is a shame. For me, they're pretty forgettable... I even kind of struggled to remember what they did when I wrote the STORY section above.

Anyway... I'll try.

Ise Daiki as Kaminari Mon: I think my favourite scene for Ise was right at the end when the only way to reach Sou's unconciousness was by using Kaminari Mon's electricity power and electrocute him until their voices reached his sub(?)un(?)conciousness. Ise's character was prettu ridiculous and over the top and I liked his character out of the Neo's the most. I was lucky enough that I was smack bang in the center of all the seats and seating rows so whenever Ise took certain stage to go on a monologue or rant or tangent, his eyes would pretty much be directly starring into mine even though he obiovusly couldn't see me; and he's eyes are amazing. They're slightly crazy - which fit the character - and they're so glarring that you can't look away. He really knows how to hold someone's attention. Of course, during the live, we got to hear his voice and he's great!

Tanzawa Seiji as Gojyuuno Touko: I enjoyed his character too! He reminded me of Taguchi Junnosuke (if any of you know ex-Johnny's members) with the long legs and the adorkableness and just being plain silly while going acrobatic and yoga-like moves all over the place. I thought it was super cute that he just wanted to be a famous fitness/yoga instructor. I liked the colour of his costume too.

Saito Kyouhei as Hanayashi Kiichi: His personality really confused me during this scene when he goes to the cat cafe. When they were in the family restaurant, I just thought 'oh this character is a glasses character: very serious, composed, and not funny' but then in the cat scene he pulled out this manual with all these rules and schemes and we see him very quickly worry and become panicked and it just felt like a little bit of a jump. They should've introduced his manual book obsession in the family restaurant scene beforehand in my opinion.

Fujio Kantaro as Kamiryoku Shark: This one was the one character I really, really did not like. At first he was interesting because he comes onstage with this The Grudge hair and it's covered his face. But then as the stage developes, he pulls his hair back (and the actor kept messing with the hair to keep it out of his eyes which got annoying) and has this weird clown-like makeup and he jumps up on tables and stuff and I'm like; what are you supposed to be? What is your personality supposed to be. I really didn't like him and it's been a while since a character made me so uncomfortable that I actually wish they weren't in it. I just... didn't like him. The actor himself did lots of various roles throughout the play and he did great in the rest of those so wtf was his main character all about? I just... no thanks.

-

Kurata Naoki as Bird Kizoku: I was super upset Kurata ended up playing the bird who ended up being the bad guy! I feel for Kurata the moment I saw him in the cat ears and outfit so I wanted him to be good! Also his bird outfit was great! I wish he had had more stage time too. Due to the lack of stage time, it made me think that maybe this was his debut stage; but it’s really not! He's been in Waashi no Host-chan and he was in PuroLand for a bit too. But as expected he is a baby - '97er! And he'll be reprising his role in HostChan next year! I hope he can do a bit more work with MMJ - mhe could've been in Poseidon no Kiba, OR I'd quite like to see him in the next stage or remake of Wakasamagumi if they ever get around to it! I think he'd fit those two stages rather well. OF COURSE I loved him in the cat scene! He was absolutely adorable and I thought 'I want JP and Kurata like this forever please!'.

TAKA as Hoshi Atomu: Hoshi Atomu was absolutely hilarious! I fell for this adorably stupid character straight away! He is absolutely ridiculous! For example, he uses a sheet of cardboard almost like a skateboard and goes around the stage pushing that around. And he has a freaking cardboard house that he lives in on the roof! What the actual?! xD Like I said above, he means well but he just doesn't do it in the right way. And what the hell even is a CARDBOARD MODEL/IDOL?! xD He was adorable! I am looking forward to seeing him ALSO in HostChan next time.

AFTERSHOW

As usual I didn’t check if there was an aftershow or anything special and once again, turned out there was!! It was a hightouch send off with the Snake Shogun team! Which meant I got to high touch Ozeki and JP!! I was super happy, but also super nervous because I’d come from work and it had been raining outside and I probably smelt a little xD but I completely forgot my worries when I went to the high touch!’ Everyone was so nice and smiley!! It was so great!! Sorry Konchuuger but they beat you xD (I got high fives from Konchuuger last time, see here).

And you wanna know the best part about the hightouch this time?! I'm like 99.99999999% sure but(!!!): I think JP remembered me!! When he saw me at the high touch at the end, he kept his hand against mine for ages and he gave me this huge smile and there was a twinkle in his eye that looked he knew/remembered who I was!! So I was super duper happy! Ozeki was really nice too! He was really happy and welcoming ^_^ I think it went: Turtle, Yamori, JP, Tokage, Snake Shogun.

Ahhhh!! I hope I'm right about JP remembering me >.< *dead*

I'm okay...not really...

*

And that just about does it! I really hope we get a 3rd stage next year!

[magicgeekponsol-blog]

♛ (for mismatcheddoll. I swear I don't hate you. please don't kill me.)

Taken from meme: [x] ||Accepting|| ((Now why would I hate you for this. My back may be unhappy but i’m perfectly fine. lol))

Makes more sense to put both on one ask answer, yes yes? Third times the charm to answer two urls at once. //sob cry

@mismatcheddoll​ @tsundere-model​ @knights-queen​ (bc of your ask answer is here)

my opinion on;

character in general: Ahhh Mika, what a cute lil thing. So I don’t know too much about him because I don’t actually play Ensemble stars? I only know what I kow from what aoi or Izuzu tell me. lol If I’m remembering correctly, didn’t Shu find Mika in like a box or something? A dumpster? Whatever it was, he was alone. This would probably be a reason why he’s so attached to ‘Oshi-san’? I think he has a complex about his two eyes? Idk if it’s because of Shu or not, but he doesn’t seem to like them very much. 

Obviously he’s also just really... he’s just a meek child, honestly. Still he tries. I know he’s apparently got weak sense of feeling? So stabbing his thumb with a needle was like ‘oh there’s blood’. I know he’s very close to Arashi. I’m very sure I remember a part where it’s like he wanted to make a bouquet or something for Arashi as thanks? I could be wrong, but I swear there was something about that. So pretty much he’s a bit clumsy (I think?) and very awkward but he does try hard. He’s doing his best. He gets scared easily and what not but that’s understandable if you think about how he was introduced. Child probably went through a lot but he still tries to be happy and friendly. A good child. 

how they play them: I believe Izuzu is doing a fabulous job. Poor child makes my cold... dead heart... do a thing called skip a beat. Can’t be mean to him. I have a Spritz bottle on standby for when Ponsol is interacting. I’m warning you dude. You can see how he struggles and is very scared and insecure, but he is very earnest and very very honest to a fault. Even when scared, he will still try to do what’s right. This is Pre-hiatus but Mika, though Shugarl is a scary-ass dude was wondering if they should kiss because they both got caught under the mistletoe like ‘don’t you get bad luck if you don’t?’ Child, worry about yourself, don’t worry about him. He needs bad luck. I meant what? I said nothing. He’s just  a boy who needs guidance and love, that’s all. 

He’s written in a way that you can tell he’s got social and anxiety issues. He isn’t really down played. He’s a loving character and he’s fair. Though Vasco is scary, Mika could see that he’d hurt the guy and honestly could have left it at that, but didn’t. He does what is right. Just an all around ‘good boy’. So If Mika is supposed to be a good boy chara who is supposed to melt your heart with purity and also just all around general pity, then yeah, Izuzu is doing great. //sheds tear for Mika

the mun: Ahhh okay. Let’s do this. //cracks knuckles and stretches back. So I said this in a previous meme wwaaayyyyyyy back when, but Izuzu was the first and only one to answer to Vasco’s very first open starter. One that went ignored for a long while.Discouraged, but otherwise //shruuuuuuug. Izumi was well... Izumi, but I still appreciated the notion. Not too long after that was Monster Madnes, the first event I was a part of. Izuzu wrote up a heavy drabble and it honestly made me fear of Vasco’s life and I was more than willing to get Vasco out of there. lol. Izuzu already knows this, but i’m sure others are curious? I don’t do well with Yandere themes so I was just ‘ABORT MISSION!!!!!’ Though Izumi is pretty... tame for the most part. 

We talked a lot on im and I got to see many characters from her. Some who came and went and some who stayed behind and are here today. I do love interacting with Izuzu. If you have an idea there is a 98% chance she’ll say yes. Actively HC’ing with Izuzu is fun who also is very serious about characters. Izuzu, like myself, connects with her muses. Some more than others. I connect real well with Shugarl while I think Izuzu connects well with Izumi. It always makes for a fun thread experience and it just feels... natural? When Shugarl gets mad, I get mad. lol Now English isn’t her first language. She is learning, but even so she writes pretty well, wouldn’t you think? Perhaps a few minor mistakes here and there, but for the most part she writes well. 

I really like her use of vocabulary and descriptions. That was honestly what drew me to her in the first place. (I don’t think Izuzu knows this. hoh hoh) So we talk a lot about random things all the time. For some reason, idk why, but she really likes Ponsol. Like a lot. So I appreciate that. He used to get real neglected. OTL ALSO SHE KNOWS EYESHIELD 21 SO I CAN USE MY REFERENCES IN THREADS. YAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I guess one word of sorta warning is that Izuzu (like myself) can ramble a lot so threads can get real long... real quick. So if you can’t handle really long threads... exercise caution. Izuzu can certainly go short but longer is so much fun. I so understand. As for reply speed which may be another cause of concern, with a lot of blogs and groups, it’s hard to keep on top of things. If anything, Izuzu has a lot on her plate but still tries hard. I really respect that. 

do i;

follow them: Ye ye

rp with them: Oh yes, clover goodness.

want to rp with them: //chucks clovers at the question.

ship their character with mine: LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL---- SAVE MIKA 2kINFINITY from Ponsol.

what is my;

overall opinion: ((Screw it i’m moving this to next section. This seciton is already so looooong))

my opinion on;

character in general: Did you mean the bratty egotistical shitstick? The one that I ironically love oh so very much? So from what I know, apparently at the start of things, he was just a regular lil dude, but things in Yumenosaki just really changed him with pain and treachery so he became more of a Tsundere. Starts to bully Kohai in order to make sure they become strong. Goes as far as to go to very extreme lengths and it’s like CHILD NO. WTF DUDE?????? //salutes a certain lil megane-boy. 

Still, with the things that went on with Knights and with Leo, you can tell he’s a loyal guy. He may not be the most honest, but he is very loyal. I’ve been told that he’s pretty much an insecure lil thing. He hides this behind his tough persona. He believes himself to be useless, to be a horrible person. Sure, he’s fucked up. He’s done bad things, but he does try to change. He does try to get passed that. He’s at the heart of things, trying to help. He wants to be loved, he wants to be useful. (I hear that he was the untalented one or something during Chess? idk. I don’t know too much of the whole thing but I think that’s what I remember. 

I mean he’s also got some issues with his mom, right? I don’t hear much about the dad so i’m guessing he’s aight. (or dead) He’s pretty complex with his personality and his complexes. He needs to be loved as much as the next guy. I really do adore him along with Arashi. Both of em are lil cuties and I love them and they are my faves. I bias over my faves hard and they are all I need. Mama has nice looks yes, but I’ll take Arashi and Izumi anyday. I do love the way these two look and I’ll fight for em. Watch me. 

how they play them: Ahhhhhhh So like, Izumi. Is a shit. A lil shitstain. Let’s be real. Izumi is hard to deal with and he really just--- angers me a lot. Goes so show Izuzu is doing a fine job, right? Ponsol and Izumi are like cat and dog tbh. Like, please stop making me feel how mad you are, Ponz. I don’t care. Stop synching your emotions. I don’t want to be mad at Izumi. STOP THAT. //spritz You see him a lot having a haughty attitude, and only ever so often do you see a crack in that armor of his. Izumi is often played as the powerful and confident guy. 

But at the heart of things, you see that he’s also but a human with flaws and fears. Like when he’s dealing with a whole hoard of girls. The reactions to such are not downplayed. The first time we did this (pre-chara reset) Izumi was just so pitiful like ahhhh child, come to Neo. She will hug you. SHUT UP ACCEPT THE HUG YOU LIL BRAT. Considering he’s been aged, there are likely some places where he may have grown, perhaps to learn to be just a bit more patient. Maybe to learn how to be a bit less rude (or hell, maybe even more rude, years of practice, and years of the sass fruit ripening). As I don’t really know Enstars personally, I do think that Izuzu is doing well. We talk about characterization a lot, so I know that she puts a lot of thought and effort into her characterization. You can see how Izumi changes with different characters based on how well he knows them. 

That takes a lot of character consistency and understanding. So I believe Izuzu knows what she’s doing. Though my word don’t have much weight as I don’t know the original media that he’s from //shrug.

the mun: I dun wanna repeat

do i;

follow them: Well duh, Izumi is my fave~ rp with them: Why yes indeedlywant to rp with them: YES INDEEDLYship their character with mine: ... //mings. As of right now... 50%? I still need to use Ponsol for my own evil deeds, but after that is over i’m 1000% willing to commit to this, yes.

what is my;

overall opinion:  Okay. Time for the big guns. So Izuzu at the core of things is a person who loves to write and talk to people. A very friendly person. I warmed up to Izuzu pretty quick. Very open and willing to pretty much give anyone a chance. Willing to give most things a try. It is good to have someone who is really open-minded about things. 

She also is very keen on character development with the way she’s always striving to become better and to write better. She tries her best to write and to learn new ways to write things out. It’s not easy writing in a language that isn’t your first one. So I really respect that of Izuzu.

Now to be honest, when I first joined RTRP the only threads I really saw for Izuzu were ahhhh nsfw threads so I will admit that I was squinting at the screen like ‘wait is that really... all you thread?’ I grew nervous, I won’t lie. On my main blog, i’ve seen a lot of people who literally only really rp smut and they reach out to you just for that. If you don’t give them the smut they get all nasty with you. It’s really annoying when it gets to the point of bullying. No one really touched Haru though. She’s often neglected-- which is nice but it also means I get so much... dry spells and it’s sad. I digress, so I was a bit nervous about Izuzu to be honest and was just //avoid. I won’t lie. This meme is about brutal honesty so here it is. 

So seeing her reply to a regular open starter and having Izumi be a brat was relieving. At least it was like ‘okay so you are totally okay with threading things that aren’t NSFW. Thank you. QuQ I saw way too many people who are just like ‘INTRODUCTIONS’ and then ‘I WANT IN YOUR PANTS NOW’. I just 0-0!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyways, does her interest in NSFW make her any less a great rp’er? No. Did it worry me though? Yes. Protect my son 2k16.

Izuzu has an interest in that, but she’s also interested in other things like fluff, angst, and daily life shenans. Really you can just send anything and she’ll probably be okay with the idea. A very adaptive rp’er. Like I said before, she can write a lot so sometimes she and I can have really long tangent threads, and then we both suffer because it’s so long. Why did we do this to ourselves? 

I’m just rambling on a lot, but in other words: Izuzu is a quality rp’er who often tends to think not so highly of her work. I personally believe she does very well for writing in a language that isn’t her mother tongue. You might not notice it at first when you first read her work. If you want a partner who is open to just about anything, and is serious about what they do, Izuzu is a good bet. 

Just note that Izuzu can be slow at times due to her being a part of multiple groups with many blogs. She’s got a lot going on so it would be hard to balance everything. Also a student so you know. Busy busy busy. Also normally writes a lot by default. So those are things to look out for and be mindful of if any of those bother you.

I think that will suffice. Gotta save some material for future memes, right? Can’t say everything now. Gotta wait for the next time. Ohohoho. This is how I make people come back because I’ll suddenly throw in more information/confessions.

**Note: Mun’s answer are all to be completely honest. Don’t send url if you don’t want brutal honesty.