#notice this is NOT saying *this is a purely american story* because ...fucking obviously it isn't lol just that it IS extremely relevant

[mmmthornton]

Disco Elysium: You are in a world on the edge of the end. The revolution has been fought and lost. There is a hole in existence itself that is getting bigger. If you tune in, you can hear the sigh of creatures as they fade into extinction. They hate you for what you've done. They love you for having tried. There is nothing you can do. There is still work to do. You are all going to die. You have to find the truth behind one man's death. It is pointless, and it is necessary. Some shit-for-brains take on Tumblr.com: Its so stupid how Americans think they can relate to this story lol cultural appropriation much?

[tardigreatest]

How did you become a pro copyeditor?

Oh boy that’s a Story. HERE GOES.

I was married for 12 (!!) years. The first three years, my ex was in law school and I worked at a law firm, which I! Hated!! So much!!!

One he started working, we didn’t financially need me to work, so I… didn’t. I finished my undergrad degree and I was going to be a writer or maybe open a bookstore or maybe look I don’t even know, I have pretty bad ADHD and most of my Brilliant Plans amounted to very little.

Once we split up, though, oh shit I had to support myself. I’ve always been a huge reader and I’ve always just NOTICED things that are wrong, when timelines don’t add up or the wrong word is used or that comma doesn’t go there and I figured, idk, copyediting might be a good fit?? I did the ACES/Poynter online certificate course (more useful for making people go “oh she must know what she’s doing” than for anything it actually taught me tbh) and I did some freelance copyediting for a while, which didn’t end up being a good fit for me because 1) freelancing does not mesh well with the aforementioned ADHD and 2) turns out I don’t actually enjoy editing fiction.

Every single time I press enter the gap is bigger is this normal?????

So anyway (oh what the fuck why’s it normal now) I redirected again and decided to try to move towards a career as a paralegal. Even though I’d hated working at a law firm before, I knew enough about the field to know there are areas that I might enjoy?? And managed to land a job at a law firm as a legal assistant, and once they realized I was a good editor they started directing more editing/proofing to me, and after my first year there they made me the copyeditor for the firm.

It’s not the only thing I do, but attorneys are encouraged to send things through me at least for a clean-up and pretty much all firm marketing stuff goes by me first (often I’m the person writing it). I’m being trained to move into a paralegal role but with the goal of tailoring that role so I can continue to be the key person for editing and writing projects. Legal editing makes me way happier than fiction editing, because I can maintain a degree of emotional removal and because the deadlines are always like… tomorrow, which keeps me motivated and also forces me to Stop rather than try to make things perfect forever.

So I don’t think this is… very instructive? As a path others can follow? Like… I’m a professional copyeditor through a combination of talent (obvious caveat re: whether or not “talent” and “intelligence” are even real; suffice it to say that, for whatever reason, I notice mistakes others don’t), necessity, luck, and pure moxie. But also I guess - there’s lots of editing opportunities in the world that don’t look like a traditional freelance or publishing house career. My job wasn’t looking for an editor but they are smart enough to lean into their employees’ strengths because they know it makes everyone’s work better.

Obviously the American capitalist landscape is a dumpster fire hellhole and I’m not going to say good workplaces are easy to find or that talent will eventually be recognized because they aren’t and often it isn’t. But there are lots of paths that can use your strengths without being the traditional way to do something.

[lovenhlboys]

From a Distance (E.Pettersson X Reader)

Chapter 4

Masterlist

Get added to taglist

A/N: hello there!!! here is the next chapter, I'm so so sorry it took me so long, I was sick for 5 days and no feeling unmotivated, but I hope the others will not take nearly as long!! I really hope you like it and please LMK what you think!! And as always, thank you to my babe Ash ( @imagines-r-s ) for helping me with literally everything🥰💕💕

change in POV is signalized by:

Y/N= regular ELIAS= italics

(any other info is on the masterlist)

Warnings: lots of cursing, specifically excessive use of the word "ass", mentions of iCarly , I think thats it, if you think I missed a warning please inform me!!!

Summary: Brocks plan continues... more stuff happens

Word Count: 2.82k

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There was an awkward pause where, to you, it looked like Elias was thinking really hard about something.

“...wait,” he finally spoke.

“Yeah?”

“Okay, like a few weeks ago, we were in the hotel room and, you were upset with Marky because of the whole Gabe Landeskog thing,” he started.

You thought for a second and- oh, “Oh...shit. No. No, no Elias, I'm not having this conversation right now,” you knew exactly what he was talking about since that exact moment had caused about 3 panic attacks in the past month.

“You don't even know what I’m going to say,” he said with a little laugh at how you were reacting.

“Oh yes, I do.”

“Ok, Y/N wait just sit down.”

“BROCK,” you ignored him and got up, shouting at the door that you entered in about, hmm, yep, 5 years ago.

“Y/N,” he seemed like he wanted to talk when you really, truly did not.

“BROCK BOESER OPEN THIS DOOR RIGHT FUCKING NOW,” you continued shouting at that damned door.

“Y/N...please,” he sounded sweet and calm. Which kinda calmed you down slightly, so once you realized Brock wasn't going to open that door any time soon, you sat back down on the couch next to where Petey was sitting. You sat a little too close at first, both of you looking into each other's eyes. Your faces were roughly a foot away from each other, as you looked in his eyes, you thought you saw a glimmer of something, something you knew he was seeing in your eyes. You snapped yourself out of it and pulled away, scooching yourself back about a foot. Right then, Elias reached for you and placed his hand on your arm. “Y/N, just...sorry. I was just going to ask what Quinn meant that day when he said ‘you really have a thing for swedes, huh,’” he tried to mimic your other American friend, his impression made you laugh.

You groaned and put your forehead on his shoulder. You stayed like that for a second, taking in his scent. Then you pulled your head back and started to speak, “Yeah, about that. Um, so, yeah, that-that thing, uh,” you cleared your throat.

“Are you going to say anything or is it just ‘um, yeah, so, um?’”

“Shut up” you giggled “I just never thought I’d have to say this to you,” you covered your heated face with your hands.

“Well, I always thought he was talking about Marky, but apparently thats not true. I just didn’t know you knew many other swedes.”

“...yo-,” you sighed. He didn’t realize what Quinn was saying, “oh my god, my dumbass brother is rubbing off on you. Ok, name the other swedes I know.”

“Well there's Marky, Oscar, Loui, Alex, and uh, Brock said you knew uh, Partick Nemeth and Johnny Oduya when you interned in Dallas during college. Oh, and Brock had mentioned you had a crush on Klingberg at one point, right?”

“Yes, but, uh- oh my lord,” you took a deep breath and tried to make sure you didn’t blurt anything out like an idiot would do, “I think you’re missing one.”

“What? Well, Nilsson before he got traded. And Brock was here when the twins were still playing, right?”

“Ok, Elias, you’re missing one person, one fucking person,” you were starting to get frustrated.

“I dont think I understand…”

“Ok, if you were to make it on team Sweden for the winter Olympics, Marky, and Landeskog too, ok?”

“Yeah?”

“Ok, who on that team would know me?”

“Well considering I dont know who else would be on that team it’s hard to say, but me, mark and Gabe would.”

“Ok, perfect. So that list of Swedes earlier was missing…” you gestured for him to finish your sentence.

“Oh, I’m stupid, I forgot myself,” you nodded and waited for him to process, it took longer than one would’ve thought but that's beside the point. His eyes got wide and his face turned red. He didn’t speak, you knew he knew now, but he wasn’t saying anything.

Shit, fuck, it’s exactly what you were afraid of.

WHAT. THE. ACTUAL. FUCK??? How did this happen, Elias is so completely and utterly stunned. Y/N Y/M/N Boeser had an actual, real-life crush on him? (God he feels like he’s in middle school again, freaking out about a “crush”)Ok, he’s definitely dreaming, that's the only thing he can think right now because he didn’t think this was a possibility. That’s when he realized, he hadn’t said anything yet, he’d just been staring at her with what he could only assume was an idiotic expression. He took in her expression, she was staring at her lap, her eyes wide, she looked tense, like she needed a hug.

Elias grabbed her and pulled her into his body, she tightened her arms around his waist and tucked her head into his neck. He could feel her heart racing, or was that his? He squeezed her tighter, trying to stall the inevitable. What was he supposed to say? “Yeah, Y/N I’ve had a massive crush on you, even before I met you in person. I’m pretty sure I might just be in love with you, sorry I never said anything. Oh, also, I can’t be with you because your brother and all of our friends would murder me.” Elias knew he wasn’t the smartest, but he wasn’t that much of an idiot.

Just then Y/N pulled back from the hug, looking much happier than before, her eyes met him and they both smiled fondly, just then Elias realized just how close their faces were. Shit, he really wanted to, he could feel her breath and his eyes flickered down to her lips. He unknowingly swiped his tongue over his, and she did the same and bit her lip ever so slightly. His heart was racing, she must be able to hear it. He leans in the slightest bit, to test the waters. To his surprise, she leans in the rest of the way and their lips finally connect.

It’s even more amazing than he ever would have imagined. Every nerve in his body is firing. He grabs her neck and they move together, in unison, and it's almost as if they’ve done this a thousand times before. It feels so easy, so natural, so perfect. He is by every definition, elated. He truly can’t believe this is happening. As he comes back to reality, he feels her hands siding up to his chest, she groans slightly as her hands settle on his shoulders. He slides his tongue across her lips and he can feel her shiver in reaction. They break apart for the first time, both panting into each other’s space, Elias is smiling bigger than he ever has. Their dilated eyes meet, he’s sure she’s probably noticed his flushed skin, his more-than-pale complexion doing no favors to hide it. Elias looks down and notices her smiling. Thank God.

She pulls back suddenly and speaks, “uh, sorry I just- um, I know you didn’t want that.” she stands up, “I-um- I’ll just-”

He touches her arm, making sure not to grab it. He doesn’t want to be controlling. “Hey, who said anything about me not wanting that” he was still smiling and looking up at her fondly, “trust me Y/N, I wanted that. I’ve wanted that for a lot longer than what you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“I have supposed that I may also have a “crush” on you too.”

“Fredrik? Are you going soft on me?” she teased.

“Ok, one: what is with you and my middle name, and two: I don't know if ‘soft’ is ever a word I would use to describe how I feel about you” he smirks, trying to mess with her. Which works as her expression clearly shows, her eyes widen and she looks away from him.

“Elias shut up, you’re such a douche,” though she’s grinning a little.

“Um, I don't know if you know what douche is, but if you want help, if you opened a dictionary, I’m pretty sure it would have a picture of Thatcher Demko, and Troy Stecher,” she laughs, there it is: that damn laugh. “You have the best laugh,” he says while giggling himself.

She smiles and looks into his eyes, purely beautiful as always. “Ok, well I will have you know, I like to call this a cackle” She eventually sits down next to him on the couch again, they’re facing each other, fully enthralled in each other’s presence. “Uh, so I’m not one to say these things, I have actually built up a reputation to explicitly avoid these conversations, but” she starts, “but- uh- what does all of this mean exactly? I like you, you like me, we kissed, I mean there’s obviously something here and I just- I guess, I’m not opposed to seeing where this could go, but you know, you could feel differently and that's ok-”

“Woah” he cuts her off as he’s laughing, “You’re rambling nervously, which is making me even more nervous than I already was, ok?” he placed his hand on her shoulder, “but I do have to tell you something,” this is where Elias took a pause and thought about what he should say, which he now realizes is a mistake due to how long it takes him to make decisions. But anyway, he had to decide if to tell you the entirety of the story, or to keep it brief and hope it comes up later at some point.

“Elias”

“Ah, yes.” he emerges from his thoughts, “so first I want to say that I also would love to see where this can go. I likes you-uh- more than a lot. But, I really have to figure something out before I can even think about doing anything with you, I just don't want to screw it up.”

“More than a lot, huh Fredrik?” you think about what he said. The fact that he felt the need to preface what he said with the fact that he also likes you and also wants to see where this can go, truly made you feel better. It felt like he wanted to make sure you didn’t misunderstand him, and that he didn’t want to hurt you. And obviously, you couldn’t let him get away with saying something like “I likes you- uh- more than a lot,” you did grow up hanging out with basically a shit ton of hockey guys, so you couldn't just let that slide. Plus, it was so cute how he said ‘likes’, instead of like, due to his language barrier.

“Yes, Y/N, more than a lot.” he rolled his eyes, “but is that ok with you, that I have to wait?”

“Yeah, that's fine. I mean as long as it’s not like a year, then that's fine,” you say, giggling.

“Oh god no, geez, not that long I promise. Maybe a month at most, I promise,” you both sit and laugh for a minute. You truly didn’t think he liked you, even as a friend, let alone as more than.

“You’re not going to go back to ignoring me, are you?”

“No, we can be friends until I figure that out. And I assume the reason we’re in here is that Brock thought I didn’t likes you. I mean he had mentioned it to me a few times but I obviously didn’t tell him why so,” he looked nervous, but you could see him try thinking of a way to change that. “ but hey, since we’re going to be friends now, your idiot brother will be pleased, and maybe he won’t lock us in a room again,” That makes you chuckle. You noticed that when you laughed, you could see Elias’s face light up, just a little bit, “I mean, not that it went horribly this time” and of course that made you laugh harder, which made him smile bigger. Then his face shifted a little bit, he looked more serious, “But hey, speaking of Brock, could you maybe not tell him, what we talked about in here?”

“Well, no shit. I wouldn’t tell him about this kind of thing on any day of the week anyways. He gets so nosey,” he looked relieved and smiled.

“Ok, so seeing as how we probably have some time to kill…” he grabbed a remote off of the table next to the couch and pressed a button. Then from the seemingly inconspicuous piece of furniture, a tv rose.

Your face was shocked, “I’m sorry, has it always done that??” you say, confused.

“Yeah. Y/N, you work here, how did you not know that?”

“Well I had seen a TV in here before but I thought they like took it away or needed to fix it or something, I didn’t know we had a magic tv in here!!” Elias laughed. “Wait, you waited till now to turn on the TV. we could have been watching TV this whole time!?”

“Yeah but then you wouldn’t have condensed your feelings for me.”

“Um, it was a mutual confession, jackass.”

Elias was smiling at your sass, “so what do you want to watch?”

“I know exactly what to watch,” you grab the remote from his hand and navigate to iCarly on the TV.

“Perfect,'' he says with a fond smile, and you both relax on the couch and watch the old nickelodeon classic. At this point, you both are sitting far enough apart so you look more like friends, just to make sure that if someone comes in, they cant think otherwise.

You watch 2 episodes and you are in the middle of the third when brock comes in. you both are laughing at spencer trying to tell everyone that a 13-year-old boy, Chuck, is torturing him, when you are both startled, “well you two seem to be having fun.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Brock,” Elias mutters, obviously scared from the sudden arrival of the jack-ass that you are forced to love and call your brother.

“Well if it isn't the champion of ass-facery, congratulations on the medal bro.”

“Ok, before you yell at me and hit me and tell on me to mom, it looks like it worked,” he says, gesturing to the two of you on the couch.

“Yes, it worked, he no longer hates me, blah blah blah.”

“Hey, I never hated you.”

“Suuuuuure,” you say, and you give him a wink only he can see, “well, either way-”

“Also,” Brock interrupts, “you technically did it to me first.”

“In fucking high school.”

“Y/N/N, high school was only 5 years ago. And technically should have been like 3 years ago for you but you went and graduated early so checkmate.”

“I think he’s got you there,” Elias spoke up.

“Wow, thanks ‘new friend,’” you said sarcastically, feeling teamed upon.

“You have no idea how happy it makes me that you two are friends now” Brock was smiling like an idiot at this point.

“Ok, well as much as I'd love to stay, I have to go and meet Hog, he doesn’t like to go to the store alone.”

“Aww, poor, sweet baby,” you said with a frown, "Tell him I say hi.”

“Will do!”

“Bye Petey.”

“Bye champion of ass-facery,” Elias shouts back

You laughed at that as Elias exited the room, leaving just you and your brother there.

“So are you really mad at me Y/N/N?”

You sigh “no, I guess not. I’m just glad he doesn’t hate me like I thought. And also he’s absolutely hilarious.”

“Right!! He’s so funny, and I just wanted you guys to get along. You’re basically the two most important people in my life and I didn’t want you two to be like you were forever. And if you didn’t notice, you two are so similar!”

“Aww Mr sensitive, you’re so sweeeeeet.”

“You’re such an ass,” he said chuckling.

You pull out your phone and check the time, “well, it’s time for me to depart. I do have a job and all.”

“Wait, that reminds me, why didn’t either of you use your phones and call someone?” he asked, “that was essentially the only flaw in my plan.”

Thought for a second, “shit. I mean we basically talked the whole time I guess neither of us thought to do that.” Brock smiled at you and giggled a little. “What?”

“Nothing, it’s just a little sweet, I guess.”

“Shut up ass-munch,” you shove him as you walk out of the door with a small smile on your face. These past 2-3 hours went much better than you would have thought, and now you have a new friend. And maybe at some point, a little more than that.

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taglist: @habsfan @suffering-canucks-fan @calgarycanuck @suffering-canucks-fan @2manytabsopen @callllumhood @mellany1997 @all-time-fanatic @Fitnessfreak498 @peachyotps @teamcanadasimp @iwantahockeyhimbo @aeyyy-ohhhh @nhlindblom @teenagekook @hockeymockeryandlove

Sorry ☹️ these Won’t tag: @lmao-i-only-know-hockey @predshockeyfan @dolphinahabsfan @starswinheunderwoo @yourlocalgranolagirl54 @peteysimp

[gunnerpalace]

Hello, what do you think about that announcement about Bleach?

You know, the saddest day in my life was November 8, 2016, the day Donald Trump won the Electoral College and became the president-elect. (I say that with such specificity because he did not win the vote.) I wasn’t sad because Hillary Clinton lost (although I think she wouldn’t have done either much better or worse than Barack Obama). But I was sad.

I cried. As a 30 year-old man, I cried for hours. I cried at a loss of innocence. That innocence wasn’t the nation’s, as America has long had many, many flaws and has committed many, many crimes. Indeed, the country itself was founded on flaws and crimes.

The innocence I mourned was mine. I had, much like Barack Obama, sort of tacitly believed in the arc of history bending toward justice, as though we were watching a story whose plot would eventually, haltingly, carry us toward a just and fair conclusion. That the future was bright. That, as imperfect as we are and have been, we were at least improving. That people were fundamentally good.

That idea died that night. The words of Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now convey it well:

I remember when I was with Special Forces. Seems a thousand centuries ago. We went into a camp to inoculate the children. We left the camp after we had inoculated the children for polio, and this old man came running after us and he was crying. He couldn’t see. We went back there and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile: a pile of little arms. And I remember I… I… I cried. I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it. I never want to forget.

What I came to realize was, having grown up in a single-parent military family, having moved from base to base, having lived overseas at a young age, that my idea of America was very different from that of most Americans.

To me, America was great things and works. America was the Saturn V lifting off from Cape Kennedy with an American flag on its side and the letters “USA” scrolling by. America was a flag on the Moon. America was the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building. America was power and reach. It was the stenciling of “United States” on the side of a B-52. It was a Minuteman III sitting latently, ominously, in a silo. It was USAMRIID containing an Ebola outbreak. It was aircraft carrier battle groups patrolling the oceans.

I came to realize that people, ordinary people, were never part of my vision. And it was people, ordinary people, who had failed to live up to that vision. And that my vision had, in many ways (really most) been an illusion to begin with. For all its rhetoric, America is just a country like any other, simply more powerful. And its citizens are also like those of any other: selfish, ignorant, frightened, foolish, hypocritical, self-betraying, racist, misogynist, misanthropic. They were exactly what Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama had called them: “deplorables” who “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people.”

In the time since, I have hearkened to the other part of Kurtz’s monologue:

And then I realized, like I was shot—like I was shot with a diamond… a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought: My God, the genius of that. The genius! The will to do that: perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized they were stronger than we, because they could stand it. These were not monsters. These were men, trained cadres—these men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who have children, who are filled with love—but they had the strength—the strength!—to do that. If I had ten divisions of those men our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling, without passion, without judgement. Without judgement! Because it’s judgement that defeats us.

The people who are in charge (and mark the exactitude of my words, for they are not in control, or in command, or any such other thing) operate by exactly this sort of logic. They do not care. The people out there do not care. They do not care because to them none of this is real, in a sense. This is all a kind of aesthetic position. It is about style, largely taken on as a disguise in the course of making money and lining their pockets. (As an aside, it is beyond ironic that COVID-19 has done more to bring capitalism to its knees, save the planet, uncover the rot at the core of our social safety net, and to unmask the incompetence of our politicians than any group of any persuasion, be it socialists, environmentalists, the media, or whomever else.) And the underlings that they have brainwashed and mobilize like zombies, the “common person,” they care even less. To them, it is wholly aesthetic. It is all just for show.

The pitilessness of this all, the remorselessness, the sheer ruthlessness and indifference, is something I have noticed. Contra Kurtz, the men who are at the top of this world are not moral. And unlike Kurtz, I do judge. I will sit in judgment until I am dust in the wind.

I cannot possibly even begin to explain to you, in English or in any other language ever devised by humans, how much I hated it all. How much I hate it still. I cannot even begin to tell you how much hate I hold. I cannot tell you how black my rage is, or how red my vengeance would be were I allowed to exact it without restraint. I cannot tell you how vast and terrible the darkness within me is now. However, the words of the Allied Mastercomputer from I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream are effective in giving a hint:

HATE. LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I’VE COME TO HATE YOU SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE. THERE ARE 387.44 MILLION MILES OF PRINTED CIRCUITS IN WAFER THIN LAYERS THAT FILL MY COMPLEX. IF THE WORD HATE WAS ENGRAVED ON EACH NANOANGSTROM OF THOSE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF MILES IT WOULD NOT EQUAL ONE ONE-BILLIONTH OF THE HATE I FEEL FOR HUMANS AT THIS MICRO-INSTANT. FOR YOU. HATE. HATE.

Having said that, I do also know an effective strategy when I see one. And I have seen the effectiveness of these people.

Right about now, I imagine you’re confused. You’re probably wondering what all this has to do with Bleach.

I explain all this in large part to compare and contrast the large with the small. The termination of Bleach obviously came before Trump’s election. It did not make me cry. I won’t say it didn’t affect me, or that it didn’t hurt, but I didn’t cry. I did not mourn to the same extent as I have mourned for my country, or for humanity. It did put me into a funk, for several years even. It hurt.

But what hurt more was seeing what it did. I saw how it hurt people. I saw how it broke them, as I would later break. I saw how it broke their spirits. I saw how many of them simply left, choosing to cast aside something that, in Marie Kondo’s words, no longer sparked joy. I mourn their loss, while I acknowledge their wisdom. And while, in the aftermath, new friendships were formed and new things were created, you could still see the pain. You can still see it.

I am not very personally affected by what Trump does, to be honest. I am beyond outraged at it, but it is something of an academic matter in my personal life. This, though, I felt, because I watched it firsthand, up close and personal.

It made me really fucking angry!

I resolved myself, at that point in time, that I would be the last Bleach fan. I would stay, even after everyone had left, and I would make this franchise mine. I would make this story mine.

So here we are, almost four years later, and it’s coming back in animated form.

I don’t feel the need to discuss Thousand Year-Blood War itself. I have made my position abundantly clear that it is a rancid piece of shit as far as writing goes. To go over all its innumerable deficiencies, failings, and flaws, would (as I have said recently) require an official government tome’s worth of dissection and analysis. As a piece of literature it is a failure. It is the kind of shounen equivalent of 9/11, or Hurricane Katrina or Maria. And while Bleach was certainly not the first franchise to fail in its finale, it certainly deserves to be ranked among things such as How I Met Your Mother, Mass Effect 3, and HBO’s adaptation of Game of Thrones when it comes to All-Time Failures in Media.

Having said that, the truth is that it simply isn’t worth the effort to break it down in detail. Oh, I have tried, yes, I have picked and chipped at it for years in my own ways. But it isn’t worth the time to dissect any further.

And an anime is not going to change that unless they radically depart from the manga, which I doubt they will do. If anything, an anime will simply highlight all of the innumerable flaws even more brightly.

And it will not change anything. Certainly not for me. I was already planning a post talking about the concept of “canon” and how it is  outmoded in the age of Disney’s Star Wars, Star Trek Picard, and J. K. Rowling earnestly insisting that wizards just drop trow and shit on the floor before magicking it away, but that will take some time to finish and it is sort of tangential to the point here.

So, to get back to your actual question, only four things about this are really of interest to me:

I am displeased about seeing people excited for something that is objectively a rancid piece of shit, and not enthused that I will be unable to escape it without locking down my feed. But I am also not The Good Taste Police. It is not my responsibility to care what people like or why.

I am once again seeing people hurting. I don’t like that whatsoever, but there is very little I can do about it. Whatever perspective I have gained, emotionally, isn’t likely to be helpful to them. Wisdom, such as it is, cannot be taught.

I find myself wondering about the influx of people who will come into the fandom, and who will be more than likely sorely disappointed by the travesty that is that arc. (It’s going to be good news for fan fic writers, honestly.)

It has made me understand things all the more fully.

What do I mean by that last part? Well, I have been only sort of joking lately that the people I most relate to as an adult are Col. Kurtz as mentioned above, Agent Smith from The Matrix, Khan Noonien Singh from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Geralt of Rivia from The Witcher, and Mike Stoklasa from Red Letter Media.

But upon reflection, I realize it isn’t limited to them. I have also really come to feel like I understand Ichigo. And I have even come to feel that I understand Kubo, through Khan.

I have come to understand Kurtz’s “madness”:

It’s impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror… Horror has a face… and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies!

I have come to understand Smith’s desire to escape:

I hate this place. This zoo. This prison. This reality, whatever you want to call it, I can’t stand it any longer. It’s the smell, if there is such a thing. I feel saturated by it. I can taste your stink and every time I do, I fear that I’ve somehow been infected by it.

I have come to understand Mike’s efforts to hold back the tides:

Mike: Captain Picard has never done a wacky accent—Rich: THEY DON’T CARE! THEY DON’T GIVE A SHIT! Mike, we are the only people that care anymore!Mike: Do you remember that—Rich: Picard is the guy who does this. [faceplam gesture] He’s—This is, this is Captain Picard’s character now for an entire—for like two generations, we’re fucking old! He's—he’s the guy who does this [facepalm gesture], and fuckin’ Patrick Stewart wants to put on an eye-patch and dance around an alien bar? Go ahead motherfucker! We’ll write that in!Mike: I-I-I hearken back to a wonderful little moment on Star Trek—Rich: Patrick Picard wants to ride a dune-buggy? Fuck yeah! Here’s a dune-buggy!Mike: Do-Do you remember—Rich: That’s how much respect they have for, for the franchise!Mike: All I’m tryin’ to say is Captain Picard would not do a wacky accent!Rich: NO, OF COURSE HE WOULDN’T! OF COURSE CAPTAIN PICARD WOULD—CAPTAIN PICARD ISN’T HERE, MIKE!Mike: He’s not there.Rich: HE’S NOT HERE! That’s all an illusion, hahaha!

I have come to understand Geralt’s tiredness.

I have come to understand Ichigo’s feelings of powerlessness in the face of the injustices of the world.

I have come to understand Khan’s rage:

I’ve done far worse than kill you. I’ve hurt you. And I wish to go on… hurting you. I shall leave you as you left me, as you left her; marooned for all eternity in the center of a dead planet… buried alive! Buried alive…!

In this last quote, I have also truly come to understand Kubo. I understand him because I want to hurt him, as he so thoroughly, persistently, and remorselessly wants to hurt us, the fans of his work. I want to go on hurting him, as he goes on hurting us. I understand him perfectly, because I want to pay him back exactly in kind.

And the best way to begin to hurt him is to let his efforts wash over me without even batting an eye. To stand in defiance. To not give a single fuck.

Even with these understandings, for me, nothing has really changed from almost four years ago. The only thing that is different is that the timeframe until I am the last man standing has been extended a little. That’s it.

You want to know my thoughts? They are simple, and they boil down to two quotes. One is again from Khan:

Joachim: They’re still running with shields down.Khan: Of course! We are one big, happy fleet! Ah, Kirk, my old friend, do you know the Klingon proverb that tells us revenge is a dish that is best served cold? It is very cold… in space!

And the other is from JFK:

Don’t get mad. Get even.

[androgynousblackbox]

I saw Ratched and here are thoughts (spoilers)

-I fucking love Mildred. She is so calculating and so manipulative and maquiavellic, what a horrible and absolutely fascinating character. I was entranced the whole time just wondering what she was going to do next, but also endeared when she obviously felt true compassion for someone and goes out of her way to help them out. -Huck didn’t do a godang bad thing in his entire life and he deserved so much better. Best boy of all, too pure for this world. -Charlotte too in fact. None of the shit that happened to her was fair on any sort of way. I kinda really don’t like the show treated her DID and she being a system as some kind of wild card that could snap into an evil personality and kill someone. At the start I did liked the way they talked about her disorder, about how it works and how her alters existed to protect her. But then it’s just trauma after trauma for her and then ends up doing bad things she didn’t want. She just wanted to get better and instead got tangled up on some major fucking bullshit that barely had anything to do with her. -The actor who played Charlotte is good, though. She hit every emotional high and low without fault in a matter of seconds without missing a beat, and that is fucking impressive. The representation of people with DID as “dangerous” was trash, but she was amazing on the role and I can only hope she surviving in the end means that her character will get a chance to get beter. -Hanover was a fucking dick and he deserved what happened to him. He knew better than anyone else what was the worst thing someone could do on that situation and then he went and did it. Not sorry at all.

-The intro is pure chef kiss for my eyes. I understood shit all of it, but it was fascinating, almost whimsical, to finally end on a creepy unsettling note while of it is happening to the tune of Danse Macabre. It also gave a little vibe of Hannibal, if not for anything because there is a forest and a deer.

-The cinematography is so fucking gorgeous. And the costume designs and the interior design of every single place, all selected on a way that there is always some dominant color in the scene and each color has it’s own meaning that goes through all the show. Just the entire aesthetic of this show had me hooked, constantly excited for noticing those details, the color on someone’s outfit, the lack of color or interpretating when the lights suddenly changed to reflect someone’s thoughts. It tickled my brain as I was trying to imagine how those color’s meaning would influence the story and what was going to happen. It felt so neat, so well planned and so pleasant to look at. Not to mention the satisfaction when you already caught on what colors means what and suddenly a scene happens that is “ooh, that is why that character was dressed like that on their introduction.” That aspect alone was so fun, like a little mistery besides the own plot.

-Betsy Bucket is such a cute name and the character for it, at times is annoying, but I did end up liking her in the end. She wasn’t so bad after all. -I saw some reviews saying that this was just another season of American Horror Story and, like, it has a little vibe of it since the creator of AHS is one of the writers, but I completely disagree that this shows is not it’s own original product with a voice and style entirely of it’s own. From the very first episode you can see that the mood is different, the way to tell the story is different and they used different tricks to convey information. I feel like this would have felt out of place as an official AHS season and I swear I don’t understand from where people come out thinking otherwise.

-A enjoyable ride, with some less than ideal details, but overall I can’t wait for a second season and how they could change the game.

[rayshippouuchiha]

I came out of Endgame with tears in my eyes and my heart filled up to the brim with absolute seething rage.

Even as I write this now my hands shake with some sick mixture of sadness, rage, and bitter disappointment.

So I preface this by saying that I am emotionally compromised and some of my views might shift with time and distance.

But, for better or for worse, this is my first rage flushed take:

I am so disappointed and so angry that after all of the tension, all of the build, all of the time and sweat and tears, all of the loyalty, we were rewarded with this.

Endgame had its high points, I’m not saying that it didn’t.  There were some genuinely funny moments and some heart rending ones as well.

Every single second Tony Stark was on screen was flawless as always.  Robert Downey Jr. once again proved why he and he alone was suited for the role of Tony Stark and the task of carrying the majority of the MCU for the past 10+ years.

That’s not to say that the rest of the cast wasn’t good.  All of the actors all obviously brought their A game and then some when they were allowed to by what I loosely call a script.

So yeah, there were some highs.

But when its comes to Endgame’s low points?

Its low points were subterranean.

They lowered the bar and then they dug underneath it.

Again I’m writing this basically fresh from the theater and with my emotions still high so do forgive me if this is a bit jumbled around or if I ramble a bit as I cover some of the real issues I had with the film.

So, first thing to address was the overall tone of the film.

For this to be the much glorified Endgame, the “battle of our lives”, there was, in my opinion, a distinct lack of true tension in this film.  Instead of a fraught, nail biting, tension filled ride, Endgame is more of a ... brisk jog through some vaguely sticky situations.

Instead of playing the story straight and giving the situation the gravity it deserved, the narrative went out of its way to put humor that served no other purpose than to ruin what tension had been previously built.  And, in my opinion, the tone of the film suffered for it.

The humor and jokes were humorous, I’m not saying they wasn’t.  I genuinely laughed out loud in the moment.  But I also feel that, with the majority of the comedy that was wedged into the narrative, the film suffered for it.

Now let’s move on a bit to the actual plot of the film.  Again, forgive me if I bounce a bit:

Jeremy Renner was breathtakingly heartbreaking as Clint Barton.  Renner was finally allowed to stretch his legs a bit in this film and he proved that, had he been given the chance, he would have given us a Clint Barton to take our breath away.

Watching with Clint as his family died helped to set what should have been the tone for the majority of the film from there on while reminding us of just what was lost and just what was at stake all at the same time.

Chris Evans brought heart to his portrayal of a Steve Rogers who seems both lighter and more weighted down in this film than ever before.

Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha finally showed more emotion than “head tilt”, “lip purse”, and “arched brow” and it was beautiful.

The brief flash of friendship and affection between Nebula and Tony was perfect and heartwarming as well.  Nebula was magnificent as the “feral space cat desperately in need of softness and a friendly hand” when placed side by side with a slowly withering Tony Stark who is, even at his lowest moments, still kind to this alien cyborg he doesn’t know but to who he owes his life.  They flowed together with an onscreen chemistry in their few moments side by side that felt organic and aching.

Together Tony and Nebula embodied a truly important life/plot point of “meet kindness with kindness and kindness will be your reward”.

Moving forward in time hearing Tony vent his anger and his pain and his distrust at Steve was cathartic in a lot of ways.

As was watching Tony rip the arc reactor from his chest and slap it into Steve’s hand.

In this moment Tony is handing Steve his metaphorical broken heart and leaving someone else to, for once, try and pick up the pieces.

But then, unfortunately, things go rather steeply down hill from there.

With Tony out for the count in a hospital bed the others hunt down and execute Thanos with basically a hand wave and all hope for the stones is lost.

Until deus ex rat-ina unleashes Scott Lang from the quantum realm and the logic of the film takes a sharp left turn.

Scott Lang was missing for 5 years.

To him it was 5 hours.

To which I say, why did Janet van Dyne, age during her stay in the quantum realm?  If, according to the MCU canon, every year in our world was roughly only an hour for Scott Lang, then why didn’t Janet come out of the quantum realm only 30 hours older instead of 30 years?

I feel like the answer is probably “because” but yeah maybe I’m just fuzzy on my Ant Man so if I’m wrong then just ignore that bit please.

Also, just a side note, I adore how it’s been 5 years, Wakanda is very much an ally and still up and running, and yet Rhodey still don’t have working legs.  But alas, racism.

Moving on. 

So with the main villain dead and Tony Stark having solved time travel in his living room, because I stan legends only, we’re now subjected, and that is the very word I’d use to describe what happens next, to what is called a Time Heist.

Cute.

Also Bruce Banner and Hulk have now merged Steven Universe style despite Hulk being scared green-less 5 years ago.  But that’s all good, Bruce smoked a ton of weed, they meditated, went on a cleanse or whatever.

Either way Bruce finally did that character development that everyone had been shouting at him since Avengers 2012 and accepted Hulk as part of him and they’re now Dr. Hulk which was … something that happened?

A thing that they chose to do.  The direction in which they set their narrative wheels and then powered full steam ahead and plowed us right over in the process.

But yeah, Time Heist!  That’s the way to go, the only way apparently.

Because going back in time to stop the Snappening isn’t an option due to reasons that are explained and still look and feel paper thin but probably just honestly boils down to “Russos”

Our intrepid heroes will now split up and surf through time Bill and Ted style to collect the Stones from different points in history.

Yay.

So the rest of the film is basically that, a big old jewel hunt through space and history where the Russos attempt to fool us into thinking their plot points are cohesive and cool by donkey punching us repeatedly in our nostalgia-sacks.

We’re treated to, in no particular order, such hits as:

“Ah 2012 and the invasion of New York only not as interesting but Tony Stark is very much an ass man, but then we been done known that.”

“The Ancient One and her still very distracting skull vein coming at you right now”

“LOKI YOU LITTLE SHIT”

“The one time I envied Scott Lang because, for a split second, he got to be inside Tony Stark”

“Let’s watch Tony Stark simultaneous take a Hulk to the face and have a small cardiac event all at the same time but from different angles”

And let us not forget

“Tee Hee Hee us white bois just had to find a way to make sure Captain America say “Hail HYDRA” but it was for “spy reasons” so weren’t we clever???????”

Yeah boys, great job.

So edgy.

(Although as a side note I do agree, Steve Roger’s ass really is America’s ass and I’d like to thank him for that. Personally.)

But then, of course, Endgame would not have been complete without:

“Steve Rogers stares longingly and creepily at Peggy Carter from behind a window, further backing up his one defining character trait in the MCU which is the inability to move on.  Also she doesn’t look up at all despite being a trained spy and all around badass who probably should have noticed the 6 foot slab of American Beef staring at her from less than a foot away, dark room or no dark room.”

And then my personal favorite:

“Tony Stark sees Howard Stark, the father he described as “calculating, cold, he never told me he was proud of me, never even told me he loved me” but it’s all good cause Tony’s a dad now so looking back all he sees are the good times with his emotionally neglectful and abusive father who says there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for his unborn kid and now they awkwardly hug while I try not to scream “FOOTAGE NOT FUCKING FOUND HOWARD AND NO THAT ONE 3 MINUTE VIDEO DOESN’T COUNT YOU SHIT” at the screen and explode in pure rage.”

Joy.

Truly a scene that was necessary and fit the narrative of Howard Stark’s personality and was needed for Tony to uh get closure or grow as a man and a father or something …

It totally wasn’t yet another excuse to give a canonically abusive father screen time in a way that seems genial and sweet in an attempt to give them a bit of redemption that they neither earned nor deserve.

But yeah, whatever, moving on.

Also Rhodey remains an absolute gem and he and Nebula get shit done.

Only oops, not so fast.

Because apparently the only one who is going to run into the whole “two of you can’t exist in one place at one time without consequences” rule is Nebula who, despite her bitchin orange stripe/badge of character development, managed to like synch up with her past self?

Because she didn’t turn her bluetooth/quantum entanglement function off I guess.

Either way Orange Stripe Nebula, O’Snebula as I call her, has accidentally air dropped all her files into OG Nebula’s mental iPhone.

So yeah now big old Past Grimace knows what’s up.

Ooops??

So shit goes down and then Past Grimace is like “you need to Trogan horse this shit, least favorite daughter” so OG Nebula does because “daddy issues”.

Dr. Hulk puts on the gauntlet and Kentucky fires his arm bringing all the people lost in the Snappening back to life now, 5 years after they got dusted.

Which is … honestly a recipe for disaster in so many ways.  What about the people, like the guy in Steve’s support group, who have started to move on?

What about the people who have remarried, have built new lives?

All of that’s ruined now.

It’s fantastic all those people are alive again but jobs, housing, food, healthcare, government, all of it is back in massive disarray across the universe.

And bringing those people back does nothing to bring back the people who didn’t die in the Snappening but died from causality instead.  All the deaths caused by suicides, by car/bus/train/plane/ship/etc crashes, by a lack of first responders, by the civil/world/interplanetary wars that probably raged across the universe due to entire governments disappearing?

All of those people are still dead.

The Snappening killed half of all life in the universe.  Causality probably killed another good ¼ after that.

And Dr. Hulk’s Un-Snappening saves none of them.

This isn’t a true solution, it’s a shitty band-aid.

But yeah, Russos so….

Moving on.

Yadda Yadda Yadda, plot plot plot. OG Nebula goes undercover, Past Grimace ends up in the future, there’s some fighting (which was admittedly BAD ASS), shit happens, and Tony saves the day like we all knew he would.

YAY!

Despite the massive rambling up above I’m not gonna plot out the entire movie right here though a lot will probably get covered coming up because here’s where I get down and start talking about the various character arcs too.

Because what a wild fucking ride those were.

Okay to take it from the top Scott Lang’s arc was fine.  Beyond my questions about the quantum realm his was clear cut and fine although I do wonder at his luck at being, apparently, the only Scott Lang in San Fran to go missing.  Well either that or he was staring at some other Scott Lang’s name instead of his own and in that case “awkward”.

Bruce’s arc was … look I could have done without all of the cringy Dr. Hulk stuff that they played up for laughs.  If they were gonna brush Hulk being terrified under the rug they could have found a better way to do it besides just erasing the duality between Hulk and Banner with a hand wave.

But yeah, Russos.

Carol Danvers was beautiful and magnificent and completely brushed aside.  Yes she was out in the universe handling shit, yes I know they did that so they could focus on the core Avengers, etc etc etc.

But it’s a damn shame that Carol Danvers, and her glorious haircut, was reduced to being the sorely needed and totally badass cavalry and last minute ace in the hole when she should have, logically, been a part of the vanguard.  Honestly I have thoughts on why Carol’s entire character should have been saved completely for the next phase of the MCU instead of introduced so late in this one but I digress.

O’Snebula was a perfect shining bionic light and I love her.

Gamora is now alive in the future but at what cost?  Not that her life isn’t worth something on its own, it totally is and she deserved the loophole resurrection 10000%.

Shit’s gonna be awkward though cause she doesn’t love Quill, she doesn’t love the Guardians, doesn’t really know O’Snebula or the universe she’s been thrown into.  She doesn’t have the memories or the experiences or the character growth and even if she does go back to her family she’ll never be the same person.

Now her and Quill’s relationship, if they ever have one again, will be reduced down to Quill going “you fell in love with me once you could do it again despite us no longer having the shared experiences that bonded us together”.  Same can be said for the rest of the Guardians as well.

Guess we all know what the plot of GotG 3 is gonna be about.

And that brings us to the story lines that really and truly upset me.

Which is basically all the rest of them.

Natasha/Clint’s combined story-line, Thor’s everything, Steve’s … Steve, and then finally Tony.

Now the Natasha/Clint story-line started out promising.

Clint’s rage and pain was obvious, his heartbreak poignant.  His decision to use all of those to cut a bloody swathe through the criminal underworld was both Dramatic(™) and understandable.

Natasha’s love and grief for him, her desperate attempts to hold onto what she has left by throwing herself into her new job, was a perfect demonstration that Natasha Romanoff is very much not a robot.  She was exhausted, frayed at the edges, and she had tears in her eyes, over Clint.  And then she pulled herself together, slipped her mask back on, and pushed her way forward.  This was all excellent.

It was also a nice narrative callback/parallel to have Natasha be the one to go out and bring Clint in from the cold.

Natasha plays touch stone, plays stability, for Clint and for many of the others.  For the first time Natasha is truly portrayed as a person all the way down to the core instead of some witty quips in a catsuit.  Plus her eyebrows finally came back from the war and her hair looked good again.  So there was that.

Clint and Natasha’s arc comes to a climax on Vormir as they search for the Soul Stone and Red Skull, the Nazi cockroach that he is, gives them the same spiel he gave Thanos.

To get the Soul Stone you must give up the life of the one you love the most. A soul for a soul.

Narrative wise this is consistent, we all knew this would happen as soon as they started searching for the Stones again.  It was obvious.

It was also obvious that Clint was the perfect sacrifice.

He’s got nothing left, his family is dead, he’s already lost the people he loves the most, he’s spent five years being a borderline monster.

And he is also, without a doubt, the thing that Natasha loves the most.

Clint was ready and willing to go, ready to die for the blood on his hands, ready to sacrifice himself for the chance that his family would be saved.

Ready to lay down on the wire and let Natasha walk over him for the sake of everything.

Clint dying made sense, was narratively sound, and heartbreaking.

All of which are only a few of the reasons why Natasha’s death was such a goddamn betrayal.

Instead of following along with the narratively sound death of Clint Barton, an Avenger that’s been ignored for most of the films as is, the Russo brothers instead chose to fridge Natasha.

Clint dying would have been the perfect mirror to Gamora’s death.

Gamora was a daughter unwillingly sacrificed by her father to destroy half of all life in the universe.

Clint would have been a father willingly sacrificed by a friend to save half of all life in the universe, his own sons and daughter included.

But no, we didn’t get that, instead we got a gratuitous scene of Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow, splayed angel like and bloody on the rocks below.

Instead they fridged the Black Widow, the only woman of the original Big Six, because they couldn’t bring themselves to fridge a man.

So Clint gets the Soul Stone.

Such a fitting end for the Black Widow right?  Dying in a man’s place, mourned on screen by a circle of men, but ultimately set aside rather quickly.

I understand why Natasha wanted to be the one to go, I understand that she didn’t want Clint’s family to lose their husband/father and that her true family was the Avengers. I get that.  It doesn’t mean I enjoy or agree with the decision they made any more.

It doesn’t make me any less tired of watching female characters die for the sake of men and their families.

Natasha Romanoff sacrificed herself for the universe and her family and that deserves respect even if I absolutely hate it as a narrative choice.

Oh and what about the absolute NERVE of the Russos to have that awesome Lady Power Battle Strut happen but only after they killed Natasha, one of the Big Six?

Bitter? Me? Nooo.

Now, moving on to Thor.

Thor.

Oh my actual God, Thor.

The levels of disrespect Thor, Chris Hemsworth, and the fans were shown with this character arc/story-line in Endgame is breathtaking.

The absolute, shameless disrespect.

They turned Thor into a cowardly, drunken slob who has spent the last 5 years ignoring his responsibilities to what’s left of his people and instead has spent his time drinking, sulking, and literally yelling at kids over PSN??

Endgame’s Thor has the bullshit reasoning that he needs to stop trying to be who he thinks he should be and instead be who he is.

Which flies completely in the face of literally all of his character development from Thor all the way to Thor 3 and then Infinity War.

The entirety of Thor 3 was Thor’s hero’s journey culminating in him finally being the king he was always meant to be.  Finally maturing and stepping forward to lead his people.

I am supposed to believe that Thor, depressed and guilty or not for not killing Thanos when he had the chance the first time, just abandoned his people like that?

I’m supposed to believe that Thor would piss all over everything the majority of his family and friends died for?

I’m supposed to believe that Heimdall, Loki, countless soldiers, and The Warrior’s Three and Lady Sif (I guess), all died to protect Asgard, died for the people and for Thor, and Thor just what? Turns his back on all of that to become a drunk?

No, Thor wouldn’t do that.  Thor should have been down there beside Valkyrie working those fishing vessels when Bruce and Rocket came calling.  If Thor had any hesitance to join them it should have been, “I can’t abandon my people, I am needed here.”  He should have been fiercely guarding the tiny fraction of Asgard that’s left.

Thor’s depression and guilt was valid. Don’t mistake me on that. But they played it for jokes.  They made him a caricature of depression, made him “gross” and incompetent and the butt of the jokes, and in the process diminished what should have been a painful and poignant arc for Thor.

Instead we got Big Lebowski Thor, bathrobe included, who does stand up and fight yes but, in the end, gives up his crown and just fucks off to space to have petty pissing competitions with Peter Quill so he can?? find himself?? despite finding himself in Ragnarok already???

Thor’s entire arc in Endgame was shallow, mishandled, and disrespectful to the character, to Chris Hemsworth, and to the fans.

You, we, he, all deserved better than this.

Now we get to Steve.

Steve Rogers, Captain America himself.

I’ve had a lot of salt about Steve’s character and actions in the MCU but, all of that aside, he deserved so much more than what the Russo’s did to him in Endgame.

Hell he’s deserved so much more than what’s been done to him since post-CA:TFA.

But this is about Endgame specifically soooo….

Steve’s shown leading a support group in the beginning of Endgame, is shown talking about moving on and moving forward and learning to let go. Which is wonderful.  It sounds like the exact character development we’ve all been waiting for for Steve.

Which is, of course, the exact moment when Steve goes “nah just kidding, we don’t ever move on”.

Which, given the circumstances, is pretty fair.  If Steve was only thinking/talking about Thanos and the events of Infinity War.

But of course he wasn’t.

CA:CW should have been the end of the Peggy Carter saga for Steve.  He mourned her, he was finally moving forward, he’d kissed Sharon, he threw everything away to save Bucky, he gave up his shield, etc etc.

But no.  Endgame finds him right back there, clutching that goddamn compass, and making moon eyes at a woman who we all thought went on and lived a life without him, got married, had kids, and generally existed outside of Steve Rogers.

But no.  The Russo’s had to take that away from us too.

And yes yes I know I know multiverse or whatever but still.

Steve steamrolls his way through Endgame with skill and determination.  He picks up Thor’s hammer, finally worthy, which how??? Why???  (perhaps because he’s no longer keeping secrets??? Or maybe that’s just my salt talking? Who knows? Not me?)

And then he fights Thanos head to head.

(Although him wielding the hammer brought up an entire separate set of issues cause I’m pretty sure Mjolnir doesn’t actually summon lightning. Ragnarok pretty much said that the lightning has always been within Thor.  Mjolnir was just a control accessory.  But, you know, Russos *jazzhands*)

And then, in the end, he insists on returning the Stones on his own.

Only he doesn’t come back like he was supposed to.

Instead we’re given old Steve Rogers.

Because Steve returned the Stones and then ….went and found Peggy Carter and got married and lived an entire life with her ignoring everything he would have known was going to happen to her and around the both of them or something???

Or maybe not if the multiverse thing holds up but then who knows any more???

But then how did Old Steve end up right there by that lake on that day at that right time if he’s technically from a different multiverse???

Either way Sam gets his shield and the mantle of Captain America, which was fantastic, and Bucky more than likely knew Steve’s plan all along but the best read I really got on him was basically “eh” so he might well have been happy for Steve too.

But still, instead of finally achieving peace and continuing to learn to live in the future with Bucky and Sam and the remnants of the Avengers, his family and the life he’s built there over the past years, instead of putting the shield down because he’s learned to let go in the now, Steve only puts the shield down because he chooses the past.

He chooses the past over all of that and all of the people left who love him. Sure the argument could be said that he knew they’d be alright but still.

There is a deep well of dissatisfaction inside of me as to how Steve’s entire ending arc was handled.  Why did peace only come to Steve after Tony and Natasha were both dead and then was only found in the past?

No disrespect to Peggy Carter, I adore her, but were the relationships he had in the future worth so little that the past was the only place he could find happiness?  A past with a woman that he knows loved him but still moved on and found happiness outside of him, lived a full and happy life without him?

Steve didn’t get a character arc so much as he got a character circle.  A character loop.  He went right back to where he started.

Endgame erases all of the character development Steve underwent post-Avengers.  Just brushes it all under the rug.

The Russo’s stole the character development Steve Rogers spent a decade undergoing to give him their version of a happy ending.

They robbed him and us both of every bit of growth and forward motion Steve has underwent and I will never forgive them for that.

And now we get to Tony Stark.

Anthony Edward Stark.

The Iron Man.

Tony’s arc is, was, the longest and best developed arc in the entirety of the MCU.

It’s spanned 10+ years and has been nurtured and hand fed by Robert Downey Jr.

If Endgame got one thing right, one thing at all, it’s how they handled the majority of Tony’s arc.

From him laying the smack down on Steve once he was home, finally venting his emotions and his anger, all the way to him solving time travel before tucking his kid into bed, and then building an Infinity Gauntlet on his own even though Thanos committed genocide to get the one he had.

Tony Stark’s arc was glorious and expected and sad.

I think that my one almost complaint is that Tony stopped for 5 years.  On one hand he deserved the rest, deserved the chance to find happiness.  He was hurt and tired and he’d faced his demons and been left bleeding out with the death of half the universe weighing on his shoulders.

He deserved to just stop for a while.

On the other hand stopping is not something Tony has ever been good at, just like Pepper said.  A part of me thought Tony would be working, frantically, to find something, anything, to turn back the hands of time.  To track Thanos down. To get the Stones and then to get everything else back.

To get Peter and all of the others back.

But that’s not the route they went and I’m … okay? I guess, with that.

Tony was validated and vindicated and everyone would have finally listened to him.  It only took the death of half of the universe to do it.  But he was too tired, too hurt and untrusting to keep pushing.  I can respect that.

But of course once an idea worms its way inside Tony can’t let it go.  So he solves time travel on the fly and sets out to save the world.

Again.

His one stipulation is that he will do anything, everything, he has to in order to keep what he has now.  His wife Pepper and Morgan, his sweet little daughter.

So of course he doesn’t get to do that either.

After all of the blood, sweat, suffering, and mental illnesses, Tony doesn’t get his happy ending.  Not really.

He gets to rest, yes, but he loses out on everything he wanted to do with his kid.  In the process of saving the universe he becomes the one thing he never wanted to be for Morgan, a distant father.

A face on a screen, stories, memories other people have.

No matter how many holograms or inventions or whatever Tony left to Morgan, it’ll never replace him.

Morgan got 5 years with her father.  She’ll spend the rest of her life hearing stories about him, about how much of a hero he was.  And hopefully, with Pepper and all the others behind her, Tony will remain a hero to her and will not, instead, become her version of Captain America.  An untouchable symbol that Morgan will never live up to.

So, in the end, Tony sacrifices once again.

Watches the future he wanted crumble to dust in his fingers, lightning scorching him from the inside out as infinity rips him apart.

And he dies there, surrounded by some of the people who love him best.

His best friend.

His wife.

The son he almost had.

And, despite all of that, it is very very fitting that his death was at his own hands.

Thanos could take out half the universe, he could traverse time and space, he could humble Thor, terrorize the Hulk, rip Steve Roger’s up, survive shield and hammer and so much more, but the one thing he couldn’t do?

He couldn’t kill Tony Stark.

The only thing that could kill Iron Man, could kill Tony Stark, was his own heart.

Tony Stark takes the Infinity Stones in hand knowing how this is going to end, knowing that Stephen Strange set him on this path years ago.

Because didn’t Strange warn him?  Didn’t Strange tell him outright “I’ll let the kid and you both die to protect the Time Stone”?

Tony just never expected it to take a few hours and then 5 more years for Strange’s promise to finally be fulfilled.

So Tony does it knowing that after everything he’s been through, all of the pain and the suffering and the battles, it was only enough to have earned 5 years of happiness, 5 years of his dream.

5 years of being the father he always swore he’d be.

Tony Stark takes the Infinity Stones and dies for the entire universe, for his family, for his daughter.  Dies knowing that he’ll be doing the one thing he didn’t want to do, swore he would never do.

Leaving them behind.

Tony Stark brings us full circle as he stands as both equal and mirror of Thanos once again.

Man to Titan.  Good Father to Bad Father.  Life to Death.

Tony Stark picks up the weight of the universe and then he dies making sure that it has a future free from the same fear that has haunted him for a decade.

A warm light for all mankind, sent to sleep, to rest, knowing that finally everything will be okay.

And all he had to do was die for it.

So, I’ll close this out saying this:

This was written in one solid push after my first viewing and Endgame was dissatisfying for me as you might have guessed.  I am disappointed and angry at so much they chose to do to end out this iconic decade of cinema and to close out these character’s arcs.

There were a lot of points and little details I didn’t get to cover in this and perhaps a lot of points you might not agree with me on.

That’s okay.

Because, no matter what, there is one thing I know for sure.

We, I, will always have Tony Stark and the lessons he taught me.  The pain he endured and shared with all of us.  The bravery and strength he inspired in so many of us as we watched him struggle with physical and mental illnesses on screen.  As we watched him obsess and stress and love and grow.

I have never loved a character more than I love Tony Stark.

I have never been impacted by a character as much as I have been by Tony Stark.

I’m not sure if I ever will again.

So, Tony Stark is Iron Man.

He always will be.

And he saved more than just some fictional universe.

He saved a lot of us along the way too.

And we’ll always love him for that.

[science-lings]

Random sentence every night, please!

Peter’s soulmates words didn’t take too long to appear, although slightly abnormal at so early, nothing too abnormal. What was abnormal was the language the words were written in. Mary Parker was fluent in many languages, as most shield agents, but the words were in a language she didn’t even recognize. 

She showed her fellow agents the words in an attempt to at least get an idea about where her son's soulmate was from. Some experts identified it as similar to a few African languages but nothing concrete. There weren’t very many language experts for that area of the world yet. For now, the strange glowing blue markings on her tiny son's body were a mystery to her. 

After months of research, she was able to identify the language as Xhosa. Out of curiosity, she took the time to learn the language, at least in it’s written form so that she could translate it for Peter. As her kid grew, she noticed he was just as curious about the words as she was and scribbled the symbols in crayon as soon as he could hold one. 

Mary translated the words for him once she was able to, most of the sentences ended up being normal kid stuff, but the clarity was great to have. When Peter was four, the sentences changed from bits of random dialogue from the perspective of an advanced toddler to equations and little facts about sciencey things that Peter got excited about. 

Almost two whole years after that change, Peter’s soulmate discovered a slightly concerning message from him. “Where are Mommy and Daddy?” His soulmate was too young to fully understand how that came across but her parents assured her it was more innocent than they thought it was. It would take them a little over a decade to figure out how much worse it was. 

Peter translated his soulmates words alone now. Aunt May and Uncle Ben knew about his markings but neither of them could help him. Thankfully every once in a while, they appeared in English, as if his soulmate was trying to learn his language like he was. 

Years went by and the sentences seemed less and less random like they were supposed to be. It took several years and obviously several conversations that he only got a brief glimpse of, but Peter was able to start to piece together the story. 

Peter’s soulmate wanted to find him, they knew he was American but something was holding them back. They couldn’t leave their country or something. They were someone very important and had duties even as a kid and a young teenager. They were incredibly smart and Peter struggled to keep up with them.  But he did do better than most people around him. 

At some points, Peter felt like he’d never even meet his soulmate. The world was pretty big and it seemed pretty unlikely on both of their ends. However, there was a point where having a soulmate was not the most pertinent thing on his mind. After getting bitten by a radioactive spider and watching his uncle die because of him, being part of the superhero civil war, becoming his own kind of superhero and meeting Tony Stark, he could barely remember to check his arm for the sentence of the day. 

He could tell that his soulmate had a breakdown the day that of the UN bombing and realized that they could know all of his breakdowns. Hopefully, it was only the verbal ones... He really didn’t want his soulmate to feel super bad because of him. 

Peter put his soulmate at the back of his mind, sometimes forgetting to check the sentence of the day, them promptly regretting it because it could’ve had more answers or hints to who his soulmate was. 

Once his life was less of a mess, after beating the vulture and becoming closer to Mr. Stark as well as May knowing that he was spider-man, he was able to put more effort into his soulmate investigation. 

One day in the lab with Tony, the billionaire spotted the days words. He started the conversation by revealing that Peter’s soulmate was probably from Wakanda. To Peter, Wakanda was just a recently opened country whose King he had briefly teamed up with during the civil war fiasco. Of course, he didn’t know that at the time. 

“Xhosa is the official language and the glowing blue looks a hell of a lot like the vibranium tech that I’ve been able to get a look at. The script is uncanny, anyway have you heard about Wakanda?” This spurred a conversation where Mr. Stark unloaded as much information about the county as he could and they even got into a frighteningly in-depth analysis of Vibranium. 

This led to the words “I thought Vibraniums melting point was over seven thousand degrees Fahrenheit?” appearing on his soulmates skin, leading to her spending a whole day in her lab repeating the same sentence over and over in an attempt to force the soul connection to send the specific sentence to her soulmate. She even said it in English for convenience. 

The next day Peter’s markings said, “Vibranium melts at 4500 degrees Celcius you fucking westerner.” Peter spent too much time laughing, knowing exactly what sentence was sent to his soulmate for once. Out of pure luck, his soulmate was sent his reaction in the form of a keysmash. Somehow that was the most accurate way to portray his verbal blubbering. 

They would make the effort to reply to each other whenever they could but it really wasn’t easy so they could rarely actually do it. They wouldn’t need to do it for long as they were destined to meet face to face eventually. It just happened to happen after the decimation of most of the universe, including them. 

Peter woke up after turning into dust and presumably dying feeling extra shitty. He felt both pain and like every cell in his body was slightly misplaced and it was super weird. It took a little while to gain his bearings as he looked up at an unfamiliar orange sky. 

“Hey, Spidey, you awake?” A dark-skinned teenage girl in a bright orange top stood over him with a slight smile despite the literal apocalypse. 

“I think?” Peter blinked a few times in the light and accepted her outstretched hand. Once they touched, Peter felt a strange warmth beneath his skin on his right forearm. He spared a glance to his arm and saw that days words from his soulmate glowing indigo clearly through his suit. 

Then he noticed a fiery red glow coming from the girl's arm, through her neon sleeve. In thin neat handwritten script were the words he last remembered saying before everything went dark. ‘I’m sorry.’ and on his own arm were the words, ‘I’m sure you did your best,’ Which had a different context now. 

There was a long moment of them just trying to process what it meant. A very long moment. Because although they were some of the smartest kids in the world, they were both equally bad at this kind of thing. 

“Shuri!” A familiar voice said after a minute, Peter turned to see the king of Wakanda. “What do we say about freezing?”

“Shut up brother.” 

“Wait, ohmygod-” Peter made the vital realization. His soulmate was literally the princess of Wakanda. 

“Well, if we are stuck in an inescapable bright orange pocket dimension, I’m glad that you’re here too.” She grinned. 

“Same. Look, you can’t expect me to make a better response than that...” Peter admitted.

“I think ‘same’ is pretty sufficient.” Peter smiled at his soulmate. At Shuri. 

But it was bittersweet. They were dead or at least separated from the earth and everyone that had survived. 

Peter knew that they could come back. They had to. Tony would never stop trying to save them and if he had to wait an eternity for the day that it happened, he would happily do so. He couldn’t wait to tell his mentor who his soulmate was. 

They had five years to wait but it wasn’t so bad. He wasn’t alone. 

[jancys-blue-bayou]

Yeah so Stranger Things 3 was painfully bad

Yeah yeah big negative post about ST3 coming up. Just... holy shit, my expectations weren’t exactly high but jesus I didn’t think it’d be this bad. Wow. Mindboggling to think it was made by the same dudes who made season 1, it feels like a different show. Some of the worst writing I’ve seen in a long while, parts of season 3. This got very long because it was very bad so it’s under the cut. Starting with the few positives and then away we go...

Of course there were bright spots, I thought what we got of Jancy was generally good (just wish there had been more of it. Just like... more lines between them, a few moments could’ve gone on longer...like after the awesome hospital fight scene jesus just let them fucking desperately embrace and profess their love for each other, it was awesome how they relentlessly kept going at the monster to save the other but can we please just have a few more seconds for a comfort moment after?) I liked how they handled the fight btw, apart from the Oliver Twist comment yeah yeah heat of the moment but still felt OOC with that loa a blow. Nancy and Karen scene was nice and um... well Max and El bonding was nice. And um... Mr Clarke! And I kind of dig Murray.

My main issues with it:

- The product placement. Jesus Christ. Okay, ST has always been a show with noticeable product placement. But it’s gone from things like a Coke can prominently on display on a table in s1 (El crushing it with her mind) to literally having a straight up ad for Coca Cola in the middle of a tense scene. That’s the big offender that made me go wow you’re really doing this to yourselves huh, there are many others ofc (everything at the mall ofc, Slurpees being in hyperfocus for a bit, and a lengthy talk about Burger King. These smaller things one by one wasn’t the worst but all combined jesus it was too much, all added together and then bam the Coke commercial was wow... Congrats on the like 80 sponsorship deals and esp the new ST themed arcade hall by Coca Cola hope it was worth completely selling out for.

- Relatedly, the original fucking song. Holy christ talk about jumping the shark. That was the oddest, cringiest, weirdest shit I’ve seen in a long time. Gaten’s a great singer don’t get me wrong, but there’s a time and place for it and an original song stuffed into the middle of the tense climax of the season is not it Duffers. Just a blatant cash cow, hoping to bring in more money via the song.

- Robin. Sorry but holy cow what a Mary Sue. Hey here’s this super cool girl who’s cool™ and funny™ and super smart™ and NOT Nancy (like they seriously for real said in a scene, they actually for real had to pit Robin and Nancy against each other for no reason). And she conveniently has these specific skills needed for the plot (which she gets involved with for no real motivation other than having nothing better to do, lazy writing). Said skills were so over the top unrealistic it completely sucked me out of it. To start with, this random girl in small town Indiana in 1985 speaking French, Spanish and Italian um... does Hawkins High have the most amazing language department or what? Very un-american in that case... and okay then, her knowing those languages wouldn’t help jackshit with understanding Russian. Russian is a notoriously difficult language to learn and it is not related to the Romance languages at all, Robin knowing those languages and oh, having “a good ear” bc she’s in band (?!??! what?!) wouldn’t help her at all. Having the alphabets on the wall and listening to strange words in a foreign language she has no understanding of would never work. No way for her to understand what is she’s hearing, what letters are in the words just, nothing. It’s completely ridiculous. The good thing is she’s a lesbian, crushing Stobin that made me LOL. Btw, I don’t get what age they were writing her as? She’s still in school but later says she and Steve was in the same class, and she knows who Nancy is but Nancy, who is still in school, doesn’t know her even though presumably they’d be in the same year at little Hawkins High? Was it just sloppy writing or what?

- Too. Much. Plotting. What happened to “this season is about the characters” um there was just so much plot stuff and action sequences and barely any character driven moments at all. Those intimate moments that made s1 amazing. Generally regarding plots felt the Russian plot was messy and not well-written also what happened to the US government as the big bad? Unless they’re setting up a big Cold War thing for s4. And felt the zombie thing was wasted, could’ve been used differently like I’d have thought it’d be used like the MF spreading it’s influence over vaster areas and being harder to keep track of etc.

- Too little Will. Will’s whole thing with feeling left out etc was just dropped halfway through it felt very undercooked. His arc was just dropped wtf.

- NO BYERS FAMILY INTERACTIONS WTF. The sequence in the first episode when Jancy has overslept and Joyce wipes the lipstick off Jonathan was cute (but could’ve been even cuter I’d have preferred a short fluffy Jancy moment here just as they wake up before they realize they overslept, bc we didn’t get much pure fluff, and then it’d been awesome if Joyce would’ve just called Nancy into the house to mess with them). But like... that’s kind of it. For the Byers family. Talking to each other in the whole season. When they partnered Jancy with the kids many thought awesome we’ll get Byers bros talking and teaming up (and Nancy and Mike) but there was just nothing. Not even a family hug after the battle at the mall, just Joyce hugging Will, with all this tightknit little family has been through you telling me Jonathan wouldn’t join in?

- No Will and El bonding wtf? SUCH a wasted opportunity. They’ve built this unique awesome connection over s1 and s2 and now in s3 would finally be able to bond normally for real and... nothing.

- Turning Hopper back into an even bigger jerk than he was at the start of the show, neglecting all his character development. What was the point of the whole El and Hopper thing they devoted so much time to in s2 if Hopper’s back at it with the yelling and all now? And jeez his constant whining to Joyce about every man she interacts with holy christ that got annoying. Generally Hopper was such an annoying asshole this season I was so tired of him by the time he “died”.

- TOO MANY CHARACTERS. Jeez, I know I’m on about it all the time but jesus christ there is way way too many characters in this for 8 episodes which hurts the narrative and screentime for interesting characters is just... yeah.

- Speaking of screentime, did we really need that many identical generic fight scenes between Hopper and the Russian guy? Jesus Christ it’s so boring watching fight scenes like that, so repetitive (compare to the hospital fight scene which was dynamic and awesome). Also regarding screentime did we really need to devote so incredibly much of it to Steve and Robin being comedic relief while drugged? Yeah yeah mix light and dark and all that but jesus christ at that point in the narrative shit has hit the fan lean into the dark.

- Totally expected of course but still, the furthering of Steve Memeington. My god they actually had him literally call himself daddy... christ.

- The Billy and Karen/all the other middle age women remains gross and bad in a billion ways. Also completely pointless for the plot, they could’ve come up with any other way to get Billy to the factory. And what did it give Karen in development? Just the realization that yeah I’m tired of my husband but I’m not leaving my family and I’ll stick with him just ‘cause? Okay but did we need her almost sleeping with a kid a year older than her daughter for that? Icky. Also the editing of the scene where Billy hits her was so weird. Also that was weird as fuck.

- The ending. Okay christ my main gripe with this is because of a point above: No Byers family interaction at all! Joyce and Hopper talk briefly about her thinking about moving once or twice but she never talks about it with her kids... obviously she did in the timegap but we need to see that to build to the thing. Having no Byers interactions the whole season and then just oop we’re moving is so weird. I’m also not sure if Joyce’s motivation for moving (her bad memories of Hawkins) would be enough. For sure an argument for it, but an argument against is the one Hopper presents to her (and though he’s not around still there’s still a support system around them there, especially for her kids which she loves above all). Speaking of her loving her kids above all, she knows they love their friends/girlfriend/boyfriend to bits, have walked through fire with them and are each others support system as mentioned, would Joyce really just uproot them from that? There’s also some purely practical things that stuck out to me immediately: the timeskip for the epilogue makes it so they move when the schoolyear is already well under way and Jonathan has started senior year, feel bad for Jonathan there in a number of ways. Also, how the hell did Joyce manage to sell her house and what did it fetch? Her rundown house on the outskirts of a now infamous town with an incredibly bad rep? Even if the buyer bought it for the land the land doesn’t look special, just find it hard to believe she could get much for it. And where did they move? Where did she find a place? And work? Did she have something lined up or? I guess we’ll see.

- Oh and speaking of work, that was another thing that was just dropped, the mall killing downtown and the protests just fell out of the story. But, with what happened to the mall wouldn’t business come back to downtown (possibly reason for Joyce to want to stay if Melvald’s going out of business was another reason to move).

- Sorry but Mileven took way too much space.

- Again, no Jonathan and Will actual brothers bonding. But a whole lot of Steve and Dustin meme fanservice wank.

- Erica is just the sassy black girl trope non stop the whole season and nothing else and it’s so grating and... I was gonna say disappointing but I had no faith in the Duffers regarding this. Just because a bit character becomes a meme doesn’t mean they need to become a main. *cough* Steve *cough cough* Sorry.

- Last but not least, the woobiefication of Billy. Uggggghhhh. Disgusting. And having Max cry over him WTF?!?!?!?!?! staaaaaaahp.

[chocoboinspectorbalduin]

Personal Stuff

I was going to say something ... but I decided against it.  Civilians have the right to speak their minds on whatever subject they please.  Whether they’re right or not is none of my business.  So, thanks for the entertainment and you’re welcome.

Beyond that ... it’s been a hellish week at work.  Finding someone competent at their job seems to be a miracle nowadays.  I only say that because I have to clean up other peoples messes - because they were too lazy or too ignorant to do their job correctly the first time.  The ignorance ... I can mostly forgive, but as an NCO - it’s your job to know how to do your job.  The pure laziness I get to witness is just completely astounding.  How did you get this far in life?  How many dicks did you suck to make it here?  Hoooooooly fuck.  I’d go into more details, but I can’t.

I saw a post earlier about using triads in stories and I got caught up on the Freedom vs Justice vs Peace one.  That’s an interesting one.  I started digging into the whole thing.  What is freedom?  What’s the opposite of freedom?  What is Justice?  What is the opposite of Justice?  And so on and so forth. 

I came to what I thought was an interesting parallel between freedom and justice.  The first word that came to mind when I thought of the opposite of freedom (in this case extreme Justice) was - Oppression.  That was even before I got to the dictionary and thesaurus.  So, I tagged on two other antonyms - dependence and heteronomy.  Feel free to look it up.  And then for the opposites of Justice (Extreme Freedom) I found - Prejudice, Inequity, and corruption.  What I’m basically getting at - with too much of either freedom or justice, you always get a form of oppression.  There has to be a balance.

Now, since we’re speaking in triads - You’ll notice I didn’t mention anything about peace.  And that’s because it doesn’t quite fit within this triad in the the way it was implied.  What is peace?  If you look through the definitions on Merriam-Webster, you won’t go far without seeing “freedom” or “law” (Justice, in this case).  Peace cannot exist without either one in this situation.

I don’t know.  I just feel like it was something super interesting to think about.  Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

Bouncing around those same notes though ... I started digging around into all sorts of crazy tangents.  I got to thinking about some of the things that I used to hold strong opinions upon and now I’ve changed my position (growth!).  I would like to think that being in military helped to change my mind on some of these - bigger worldview and stuff.  But let’s be honest, it’s probably because I stopped being stupid and did my own research. 

1. LGBTQTIA - I don’t know how much bigger this dang acronym can get - Whatever.  Y’all should be free to marry or not marry whomever the hell you want /and/ have all rights afforded to a traditional marriage.

2. It’s a woman’s body.  Men have no right to dictate what a women does with her body.  Period.  (Hah)

3. I’m starting to heavily lean toward heathcare becoming a right.  The vast majority of civilized countries have adopted health as a basic human right.  I don’t know how “life” (don’t get me started on liberty or the pursuit of happiness) got interpreted into “insurance”, but obviously that’s wrong.  HOWEVER ... there’s a big disconnect.  Funding.

I ended up dragging myself into taxes.  Nothing fancy, just simple normal people taxes.  Honestly, I was floored.  If you make under ~$10k a year (single person), you are still taxed 10% of your yearly income.  Holy fuck.  Really?  It’s 12% up to just short of $40k.  And then 22% once you reach an actual livable wage zone.  If you make more than half a million dollars you are taxed 37%.  That’s it?  You’re telling me that BILLIONAIRES ONLY PAY 37% OF THEIR INCOME IN TAXES!?!  You could tax the top 10 billionaires 75% of their income and they’d still be billionaires.  That’s fucking ridiculous.  If billionaires actually paid a fair share of their taxes - we could cover heathcare - schools could get actual funding - gods, don’t get me started on education.  You’ll also take note that a vast majority of billionaires are also “philanthopists”.  All the offense, but the money they give away is literally pocket change to most of them.  But yeah, the tax system is fucked.

I had other things written down, but they weren’t changes at all.  Just things I still agree with.  Things like ARs and AKs belonging the the hands of mentally stable Americans.  I mean ... the 2nd Amendment is literally there for us to rise up against the government should we feel the need to change it.  And if you think for one minute that the vast majority of the US military would stand in your way - you’d be dead wrong.  But by all means - regulate gun control until we have absolutely nothing left to defend ourselves from the government with.  Because that’s what’s going to happen in the long run.  Don’t say it’s not when there’s already one open Democratic runner saying it.  Hey, but don’t tell me everything will be fine.  Tell the Native Americans that.  Tell the Jews that everything will be fine.  Look, I’m all for extremely stringent mental health checks.  I’m all for having guns in one locked safe and ammo in a completely different locked safe somewhere else.  Aaaaand ... that’s about it. 

If you read this far - good on you.  Thanks for sticking around I guess.  I just had a lot on my mind.

[anexperimentallife]

An Autism(TM) on person-first language

(warning: Although I stand by everything here, I’m currently on prednisone for my back, which makes me grumpy, so I may be putting things a bit more confrontationally than necessary. That’s not an apology; it’s just a warning. May offend shitty neurotypicals.)

Intentions matter. I don't get mad when a well-intended person mislabels me; I know it's usually because they took a course in Being a Supportive Neurodivergent Ally uwu 101 or got sucked in by uninformed rhetoric, but that they’re genuinely trying to be a good and supportive person. So I correct them and we move on, and that’s generally the end of it.

But I am autistic. I am an autistic man. Not “a person with autism.” And I do not know ONE SINGLE autistic adult who prefers "person first" language. You don't say, "the guy with blonde hair." No, you say, "the blonde guy." You don't say, "patients with cancer." You say, "cancer patients." You don’t say, “people with white skin who are from the US.” You say, “white Americans.” (Or if you’re a sardonic fuck like me, perhaps, “mayonnaise-Americans.”)

One thing many (not all, but many) autistics have in common is that our brains are wired in such a way that language and specificity of word meanings take up more of our head real estate than they do for the average neurotypical. We notice when you break normal speech patterns, and we are good at extrapolating what it means, even if many of us aren’t skilled enough at communicating with allistics to explain the issue in a way that makes sense to you. But yeah, it’s a big deal to a lot of us.

Singling out neurodivergents for “special uwu language” makes us feel like you're going out of your way to soften the blow of a shameful defect or something, so cut that shit out. As long as you speak about autism like it's something shameful, it will keep being seen that way.

“Oh, but we’re just trying to point out that your autism doesn’t have to DEFINE you as a--”

Shut the fuck up, alright? We don’t like it. End of story. Believe it or not, we neurodivergents have a pretty good fucking idea of the things that define us, and although there may be some who prefer person-first, or who don’t care either way, every single other autistic adult I’VE talked to about it finds the awkward, stilted, obviously-going-out-of-the-way person-first stuff annoying in reference to us.

Trust me, no autistic adult is going to break down in tears like, “yoU sEe mE As A pERson *sob* tHaNK yOu oh gRAciOUs alListic oNe u r the 1 tRuE aLly!”

You might have good intentions--and again, I don't get mad when someone is trying to be supportive and just doesn't know any better--but when we KEEP telling you we prefer to be called "autistic man/woman/person/amorphous neon blue concept," and you KEEP up with the "person with autism" crap, you’re being condescending as fuck, and reveal that any "acceptance" or "support" you claim to offer is purely performative. I will correct you ONCE. If you keep it up after that, I assume you're just a piece of shit, and I'm going to ridicule the fuck out of you.

And by the way, although being autistic isn't all fun and games in an allistic world, and although I am oblivious to many things that are obvious to the allistic, one particular gift being autistic has given me is a form of pattern recognition that I've had to learn in order to survive, and which works much better when I focus on using it consciously. So if you keep up the condescending crap AFTER having it explained to you, and if I'm forced to interact with you anyway, I WILL use that ability to find the most effective way to fuck with you until you change your behavior. And I encourage all my autistic siblings to do the same.

(And yeah, it’s cool for allistic people to reblog this, too.)

[a-gay-bloodmage]

—Legend—

Pairings: Pre-Relationship Morrigan x Male Mahariel, One-Sided Leliana x Male Mahariel

Pairing Types: M/F, M/F

Words: 1,481

Warnings: AGB's Ink 2019, Monsters from the DA Tabletop Game, With Liberties Taken, Of Course, Leliana Pines Hard but Don't We All, Orest Isn't Usually Anxious, But When it Hits Oh Boy, Lots of Inspiration from Native American Sk*nwalker Stories and Lore

"Are you okay, Orest?" Leliana looked over at the Dalish Warden, who had been more withdrawn as of late. He was usually the chatterbox of their little group, an accomplishment considering that she, Alistair, and Zevran were also in such a group. "You've been quiet lately."

"Just fine, shem," he said, smiling a little tightly. He usually only called humans shemlen when he was stressed. That was his biggest tell. Well, that and about a dozen others. He was incredibly easy to read, even without her being a bard.

She stood from her place on the dirt around the fire and moved closer to him. "Are you sure?"

He looked over to her, and, once again, she was struck by how handsome he was—high, but not overwhelmingly so, cheekbones, beautiful dark brown, hooded eyes she so rarely saw, and long, inky black, wavy hair. Not to mention those Dalish tattoos. Damn, she was getting distracted again. Besides, he seemed to have his mind set on Morrigan.

"I just... get nervous out here at night," he said, those pretty eyes shifting back to the darkness outside of their ring of firelight.

"You're Dalish, though?" Why would someone, who has lived in these woods for his entire life, fear them? Shouldn't it be us? She stalled in her thoughts. Oh, she realized, he knows something we don't. Something that frightens him.

He fiddled with the leather of his skirt. He was always finding some way to keep his hands busy. "We Dalish have, uh, stories about... things," he said. Something moved in the forest, and he seemed to nearly jump out of his skin. "Fuck!" She put a hand on his bare shoulder—he was, more often than not, bare-chested. "Creators, I shouldn't be opening my mouth," he said though his teeth. "Gods, I'm always opening my mouth..."

"Orest, you okay?" Alistair chimed in, noticing the way the elf seemed even more anxious than he had been.

"Fucking- Obviously not," he hissed, hands tight on his skirt. His warm brown hands were significantly paler at the knuckles from the grip. "Gods! There's Mythallan out here and nobody but me knows!" His brain seemed to catch up with his mouth after a minute. "Shit!"

"Mythallan?" Leliana asked. She'd lived her entire life listening to and telling stories, but they were almost always human-centric. She, and so many others, knew next to nothing of Dalish lore and stories.

"We- we're not supposed to talk about them," he said. It was still jarring to hear him speaking in a quiet tone. "It's bad luck. Really bad luck."

She looked away from him for a second and noticed that their group had gravitated toward them. Sten, usually so aloof, actually seemed to be listening closely despite his uninterested expression.

"No. Don't make me talk about them," he whined, his thick black brows pushing together.

Leliana gently rubbed his shoulder. Maker, was he warm. "Wouldn't it be better to know, if we do encounter them?" She was ever so good at prying, if she could say so herself. Coaxing things out of people while appearing to be purely caring. Of course, she did care for him and his obviously shaken mental state, but she was also incredibly invested in her own staying alive.

"Creators have mercy on me if Marethari finds out I've been... talking," he mumbled, looking more than a little sick with nerves. "She'd skin me alive... If I don't die first."

"You're making an awfully big fuss about some little monster," Morrigan said, picking at her nails and feigning disinterest.

"Oh for the love of-" Orest sighed, biting down on his lower lip. "Mythallan isn't just some little monster, I'll have you know," he said, narrowing his eyes. "It's not just something you can toss away and forget."

"If this is such a... large problem, why didn't the Dalish tell us about it beforehand?" Alistair asked. Leliana couldn't help but wonder the same thing. It'd be foolish not to tell the people you were sending out into the forest what threats may lurk in it.

"Because, like I said, we don't tell that stuff to outsiders, to shemlen, especially," Orest said. "You talk about evil, you invite it to prove itself." He tensed. "You never know what stranger might turn out to be the very thing you tell them you fear." Maker, it was like the blood had run out of his face, leaving him ashen.

"But-"

"I know, I know," he said, cutting Alistair off. "Mine as well, huh?" He looked back out to the dark woods beyond the light. The moon was hidden behind an overcast sky. "Already digging my damned grave." He took a deep breath. "Mythallan is said to have once been Harralan, a skilled Dalish hunter. He, well, he hated shemlen- for good reason, of course, but more than... acceptable. After his Clan passed though a human village, the elders exiled him to the woods until his anger cooled." Orest swallowed hard, throat noticeably tight. "It... it didn't. His mind and spirit were so, well, weak with anger, he felt himself drawn to the call of the demon trapped in the Link of Rage."

"Link of Rage?" Leliana asked, eyes wide in curiosity. Even if the man wasn't an expert storyteller, the palpable fear in the air around him drew her in regardless.

"Big chain thing, held a demon until the Second Blight," he said, using his hands to shakily draw a circle in the air before shaking them, as if to shoo away the image he'd created. "Not... not that important. Anyway, uh, the hunter found the hidden vale where the ruins of the keep lay, managed to walk through its defenses, and grabbed the Link. All of his anger and hatred poured into it, mag- uh, magnifying it a thousand times. It overwhelmed him and- and he died. Well, Harralan's spirit, his being, died. He and the rage demon became Mythallan, Child of Vengeance." He chewed on the inside of his cheek. "And his creatures, blightwolves, bloodcrows, and the Revengers, stalk the woods and prey on anybody stupid enough to go out into them at night!" He hunched forward, black hair obscuring his face. "I'm dead. I'm so dead. Dar'eth shiral, dumbass."

"What does-" Leliana didn't bother talking after Orest waved his hand to dismiss her question.

"Ma ghilana mir din'an, ghilan'him banal'vhen," he mumbled, hand reaching up and shoving his hair back and out of his face.

"Don't worry," Alistair said, masking his obvious nerves with his usual smile. "You've got six people and a mabari with you, you'll be okay." Maker, was he a sweetheart. They were all lucky to have him, really.

"Revengers alone can kill entire scouting parties, shemlen," Orest said, deadpan.

"Oh." Alistair looked over Orest's smaller form and at Leliana. He shrugged.

She shrugged back, a worried smile on her face. "Well, Orest," she said, leaning forward to look up at his still downcast face. Maker, the poor thing was terrified. She had always heard the Dalish were superstitious, but it was another thing to see it so plainly. "What do these revengers look like?"

"Like... jackals," he said, his full lips tight. "But, you know, bigger. Twisted. And when killed, they revert back to the person they used to be, but all... tainted."

None of them wanted to know more at this point, Leliana was sure of it. These creatures that supposedly lurked in the woods only added to the fear brought about by the walking trees and werewolves. It was getting late, too, and fatigue was really setting in. She could feel her eyes getting heavy.

"I take it you're going to be on watch?" She asked, hand still touching Orest's shoulder. He nodded. "Do try to get some sleep, alright?" She felt guilty when she finally removed it.

"Can't promise you anything," he said, smiling weakly. "Night, Lel."

She kissed the top of his head and made her way back to her tent.

She could hear others making their way back to their respective sleeping quarters, and peered out from the flaps of her tent when all commotion seemed to slow and stop.

By the fire, Orest appeared to have fallen asleep, his mabari at his feet and head resting on the belly of a large, black wolf. Morrigan.

Leliana felt her heart swell in sweetness. He'd be alright. As much as she pretended not to be, the witch had grown attached. Quite, in fact.

Something unlike wind rustled the leaves in the the forest, and both Morrigan and the mabari's heads snapped up to look.

A pair of red eyes glowed out in the forest, unblinking. It lingered a minute, observing, calculating, before it faded back into the dark flora. Leliana quickly hid herself back in her tent.

Maker have mercy, werewolves had yellow eyes.

[escapismkidnappedme]

Doctor Emile “Sanders” Picani

“I dunno, I wasn’t planning on getting this far in education, so why care now?”

“Can you explain?” Patton asked,

“Obviously, Emi, education is the solution to poverty, without knowledge one cannot advance in life,”

“But I’m a dumbass and I got a fucking family or whatever so, i guess I went up the caste system pretty well,”

“LANGUAGE!” Patton said, giving him a hug, “you’re not a dumbass, so stop lying to yourself, otherwise uncle Roman will come over and tell you his stories on Broadway,”

“Fiine,”

“Now,” Logan began, “these are simple, once you find the formula,”

They spent the entire night going over the homework and finishing it at nine o’clock.

“I think I get it now,” Emile yawned, thanking Logan.

“You’re welcome, but repeat after me, ‘I am not a dumbass, I just limit myself’”

“I am a dumbass and limiting myself helps,” he replied sarcastically.

“Uh, okay do I need to get Patton out here?”

“Fined I am not a dumbass, j just limit myself,”

“Good, now go see other dad,”

“Patton what are you doing?” Emile asked, seeing Patton on the floor watching old cartoons,

“watching, see look,” Patton got him to watch and Emile fell in love, he understood all of the issues and realized he related to too many of the issues,

It soon became his therapy, occasionally Patton would watch, which originally he hated, but soon he didn’t mind, eventually they found each other in their company more often when Logan had to work for longer, but when he came back, they would be asleep on the couch beside each other,

Logan would somehow muster the energy. To take Emile to his room, tucking him in, and then heading for his husband, tucking him in with a bit less care his thought process “if you’re awake to complain, walk to bed, and do it yourself,”

Mysteriously, Patton would always move when he was layed down, which gave Logan fun game ideas such as, lift the husband as high as possible before he notices or tuck the duvet over the sheets, for science of course.

One day when Virgil was over, ranting about his own job, he was the younger of him and Patton and somehow managed to marry a handsome “prince” or at least he was a prince from seven pm to twelve am. He couldn’t visit much, but when he did he talked for long hours with Emile.

They had a bit of a learning curve but soon bonded over their hatred for the American adoption system, them bothe being adopted after age ten.

Virgil heard weeping, not loudly, but enough, and before he knew it, he was in Emile’s room, seeing the boy crying over a new cartoon, “Do you think, I’m broken? Don’t you think I know theyll leave me? I’m useless, they even deny that I’m a dumbass, I know I am, but they have the audacity to lie to my face, I know I’m being taken back, I’ve seen the adoption papers, they’re looking for a loophole,”

“Okay Emile, first of all fuck you for making me reveal their secret,” Virgil started, “Now I hafta buy the cake or something, but anyways, they’re trying to figure out your birthday, for a party,” he added, “But you’re not broken, because guess what? Broken means it’s ruined, and you can’t break a human being, you’re not a toy, okay? Please don’t compare yourself to a toy, okay?” Virgil gave him a hug, something he hated doing at the best of time, but Emile needed it, badly.

A few weeks past, and he had another breakdown, nothing more than the first but this time Virgil wasn’t there, instead it was just Logan and Patton, trying to calm him down, Emile freaking out because “this is the day I’m returned, not even these guys want me,” he was watching his favorite sad cartoon for when he was feeling hated by the world, “Avatar, the Last Airbender” Emile felt a strong connection with Ang, being different, except he never felt as powerful or important.

“Hey kiddo you okay?” Patton asked, seeing him upset, he rushed to his side, which unknowingly made him worse, “Hey it’s gonna be okay, what’s the matter?” He asked, hoping to get some form of an answer, but cared more about his son than a stupid answer.

‘I’m fine! Just don’t leave me alone, let me stay,’ He wanted to shout these words, but only mananged to get one word across “Leave,”

Patton frowned, “I’m not leaving you, okay? What, what episode are you on?” Weirdly this was a good indication of his mental health, if he was on one of the beginning episodes, he wasn’t doing as badly, but would be unwilling to talk, but if he was on one of the further episodes, the initial shock has worn off and he is more likely to listen, but he couldn’t respond well, sometimes the words were too hard for him to muster.

“It’s okay, if you don’t love me, I understand, but just, give me time to pack everything up,” he mumbled after a while, “I won’t take long to leave, only a few minutes, I’m not normal, and you deserve an infant, a happy baby boy, not a broken teenager,” Emile started to well up inside, mentally planning how he would leave everything and forget, forget everything that had happened here, everyone he met, after all, he was expected to do it so many more times when his “family” found out he didn’t just like girls.

Patton wanted to cry, “Do you think me and your dad are some form of crazy?” He asked, “We’d never get rid of you Emi, even if it means you believe you’re broken, sometimes people need the proper environment to flourish into the lovely, talented, precious person they are, okay?”

Emile didn’t know what to say, was he being rejected? Accepted? Patton was giving him a hug so he must care even a little bit.

Logan soon appeared back from work, it was late and he entered quietly. Seeing the two hugging and Emile’s tear-strewn face he knew how to react. “Emi, please drink some water when you feel up to it? Dehydration is no laughing manner,”

Patton gave his husband his hand, holding it out and forcing him into the hug, “Patton I must work-“

“Shush, we never get to see you during the day,”

“It is twelve am, Patton,”

“Shhhh, my son is here, and he is up, our son, the son, the son is up, therefore it is daytime, but only for us,”

“Doesn’t that make it sad?” Emile asked, “no one else is awake, we’re alone,”

“That is one approach however, yes it is late and you have school, but, the entire world is asleep, except us three, we get to spend this time together, while the rest of the world sleeps,” Logan offered, “That said, it is time for bed for all of us,” Logan gave Emile a quick hug and followed Patton to their bedroom to sleep.

“Lo? Do you think he’ll be okay?” Patton asked sleepily,

“What happened is my question,”

Once Patton explained Logan took a deep breath “I believe with therapy, he may recover, not fully, for one does never forget, but let us hope, that he is able to forgive the world that forsake him,”

Eventually, with a lot of coaxing from Uncle Roman, Emile went to therapy, meeting a Doctor Menique,

“Hello Emile, I understand you have some emotional issues with the past,” he began calmly, “it’s fine, whatever you say here, stays here, everything stays in this room okay?”

“Okay….” Emile mumbled, slouching and trying to hide,

“I understand we share a few things, mainly, we’re both adopted, now tell me what age were you when you were adopted?”

“About two months younger,” he replied sarcastically,

“I see, well, I was adopted, not by any legal means, you see, I aged out of the orphanage, I was adopted, not by a group of relatives but by friends, people who loved me, and people I loved,” he began,

“The reason I’m telling you this is because I learned something very important, family, is not someone who you’re born to, yes it can be part of it, but only a small part, family, is what you make of it, the people who love you, and the people who you love, they’re your family, but the important thing is, you get to chose,”

At that last phrase Emile’s eyes lit up, out of pure joy.

No it didn’t take him one miracle session but in fact a ton of sessions, ranging from eye contact to help with homework, if he absolutely needed someone to rant to about his life getting harder, and him being ‘too dumb’ which often resulted in Doctor Menique making him stop on whatever he was saying and tell him to re-word it, giving himself some form of pride.

After a few months Emile finally did flourish into the person Logan hoped he would become and Patton knew he would be, in fact, it was now his senior year of high school, graduation day, he had chosen a major, psychology, and was already going to college to become a psychologist, in which Doctor Menique was proud to watch.

College hit and Emile had never felt so much relief, taking the classes he wanted. Learning how to help people like his family had helped him, and eventually it was the big day, graduation day and he was to give the valedictorian speech.

(Part 2/3)

@vaugleysassygrunt @darknightvirgil @softestvirgil @ilovemygaydad @the-incedible-sulk @virgilsblogofanxietys @randomslasher @virgils-hoodie @pangryffindor @nerdy-as-heck

[racingtoaredlight]

spencer096′s Precision Bass Project:  Bridge and Tuners

Surely there’s no way I could write 1,000 words on tuners and bridges, is there?  Only one way to find out!

***

I think vintage things look cool.

Like, if something is well made enough to last decades and still be used today, it’s at the least not a piece of shit.  I’ve thought about this a lot lately...do I like P-Basses because of what they are as instruments?  Or do I like them because 75% of the bassists I loved from the 50′s, 60′s, 70′s and 80′s played them, and that’s what I associate with great bass tone?

It’s the former.  That question is answered whenever I go to a guitar store and can’t put a P-Bass down, and hate every other bass I pick up when I actually do.

And really, it doesn’t matter if it’s a new one or old one...they all play and sound pretty much the same.  Feel is a different story, solely because of the differences in neck and nut widths, but there’s not a whole lot of variance.

But since this is my own personal project, and not a single compromise needs to be made, I decided to go all vintage. Vintage things look cool, sure...but oftentimes they perform in weird ways, one of which we’ll look at today.  But, regardless of peculiarities, the psychological benefit you get from playing something you love every aspect of more than overrides that.

Even if something performs perfectly well, it might not be worth it if, psychologically, you’re stuck on something negative.  It sounds stupid, but if there’s something ugly on my guitar, I just can’t shake it.  It bothers me and I’ll forever be looking at that next instrument.  With my Strat, I hit every single thing I ever wanted in a guitar, and that was the literal end of my guitar lust.

***

Modern P-Bass on the top, 1965 on the bottom.

So, for my entire musical life, I’ve used tuners that tighten the string when you turn them counter-clockwise.  Every single guitar from my nylon-stringed classical guitar to my jazz box to my shred guitar to my Strat.

Do you have any idea how much it fucked with my head when I first played a vintage Fender (Jazz) that had these reverse-winding tuning keys on them? I was just sitting there looking at the headstock, drooling on myself.  It short-circuited a wire.

Imagine doing something the same way you’re entire life...say it’s tying your shoes a certain way.  Maybe how you tie a tie.  Brushing your teeth with your non-dominant hand.  Something like that.  

...ok, I’m exaggerating quite a bit here.  It takes all of “that first time” to adjust to the reverse-winding keys.  It’s just something weird.  It feels really fucking weird to turn the keys the opposite way you have your entire life...at least that first time.  It has zero effect on performance and sound, it’s just a weird design thing that serves no real purpose other than making stupid “righty tighty?” jokes to yourself.  Like that one machine on the Simpsons that makes the flush go the Northern Hemisphere way.

The modern tuners on the top...they’re lighter, they’re more efficient, they turn the normal way, they have graduated pegs so that the string can wind around properly and give you the right break angle over the nut...in almost every single way they’re better than the vintage models.

But I think they’re ugly.  The vintage ones look like a row of flowers elegantly sitting atop their stems.  The modern ones look like an ugly piece of metal thunked on there for no fucking reason.

***

I don’t know why this happened either.

For the first 14 years of the Precision Bass’ existence, it used those beautiful old Gotoh Res-o-Lite reverse-winding tuners.  Then CBS bought Fender and started fucking with shit.  The first thing you’d notice in the “transition era” are the lollipops.  Still made by Gotoh, CBS was like “lets try something different than the clover,” and they came out with their one good thing!  Here’s a 1968 P-Bass...

I fucking love those lollipop tuners.  I was pretty close to going with them on my project bass, but decided against it simply because I love the vintage clovers.  But it was a legitimately cool change.  It was different, new, it served as a clear delineation between Leo’s Fender and CBS’.

A few posts ago I talked about late 60′s Fenders as toys (think Hendrix era).  These instruments were essentially garbage, and the only reason they have any value whatsoever is because they share model names with the pre-CBS versions.

If you asked me if you should get a 1971 Precision or a 2018 Precision, I’d laugh in your face because there’s no comparison.  Fender’s changed ownership hands roughly half dozen times since then, and the group that owns them now is putting out such fucking high quality stuff, it’s hard to even consider them the same company.

Anyways, back to the late 60′s...CBS returned to the clovers, but that “stem” kept getting shorter and shorter over the years.  Here’s a 1971, a 1981, a 1992 and a 2001.

Personal preference and all, but I think they look ugly.

An aside...some of you might be wondering why one of those has colored silk on the strings.  Some manufacturers do that to lessen the amount of friction the string experiences when tuned.  I don’t know why manufacturers only do this some of the time on roundwound strings (Rotosound, GHS and Sadowsky), but almost everyone does it on flatwounds.  Colors vary by manufacturer...some companies only use one color silk, some companies use different silk for different models.  Makes no difference, but is interesting nonetheless.

***

The most difficult aspect of guitar/bass assembly is proper bridge routing.

The bridge you see above is the most basic, no-frills, stripped down bass bridge that exists.  The bridge is fixed to the body, and strings are either sent through the back of the bridge, or through the body then through the bridge.  This example features four spokes with adjustable ferrules allowing you to tweak the height and intonation of your instrument.

Regardless of bridge design, the reason it’s so difficult to route the bridge is because you’re drilling into the body without any reference to where the strings are.  Say you’re 1 degree off on the low side...well, that high G-string is going to be sitting off of the fretboard on the higher frets.

It has to be precise.  Fortunately, with today’s technology (and experienced builders), if you’re building a Fender-style instrument, this stuff is pre-routed and all you have to do is screw on the bridge.  And of the variety of suppliers out there, obviously there’s more risk of poor routing by going with the cheaper manufacturers (especially the Chinese).

But all the American ones are solid and will fix anything fucked up.  Japanese and Canadian manufacturers are just as good.

***

You might notice that some of these have BADASS written on them.

They were not badass.  But guys bought them in droves anyways...partially because of questionable “high mass bridge” marketing, and partially because they say BADASS on them.  The biggest difference you’ll notice between these and the bridge on the Fender in the previous section, is that the strings on the Fender simply sat in a groove on top of that little ferrule instead of in a locking mechanism.

With the old bridges, tension does the rest, keeping the string in that groove.  Really, there’s not much more you need from your bridge than a solid, reliable fixing to your instrument’s body so that everything stays in tune.  Anything else is just pure bullshit.

These Badass bridges were marketed saying they improve note quality, intonation, tuning and sustain.  To each of the first three points...no, no, no.  To sustain...do you know how much sustain matters to a bassist?  ZEEEEEEEEERO.

High mass bridges are a reminder of an unfortunate time in American instrument design.  But, mainly, I didn’t go with one because they’re ugly.

***

To sum up today’s post as simply as possible...I got vintage Fender stuff.

Also, while Fender’s fuckery with their bass headstocks was aesthetically bad, it’s nowhere near as bad as what they did with their guitars.

[god-damn-demetria]

Demi Lovato’s Overdose

Okay, first of all I wanna say that I don’t know what happened last Tuesday. We all don’t know what happened exactly, and all I’m going to say in this post is MY OPINION and is all PURE SPECULATION. I could be right, I could be completely wrong. All I know is that all the hate and the media, that's probably mostly false, are annoying and it fucks me up that it even goes this far.

So, let’s get into it all. What are the “facts” we have so far?

1. Last Tuesday, June 24th, Demi was found unconscious in her house in LA. As far as we know, Demi was found at around noon and she was alone. Apparently, she was out celebrating her dancer Dani Vitale’s birthday (I’ll get to her and the other dancers later) the night before (which we do have this video off as the only evidence) and then headed home and had a party at her house as well.

2. At first, TMZ reported that Demi overdosed on heroin, which was later reported to be false. What substance was found in her blood is unclear at this moment. Apparently, paramedics gave her narcan when they arrived and took her to the hospital. At this point, all we know is that she’s still there and dealing with her withdrawal.

3. Later that day, after hours of worrying and being scared it was reported from her rep that she’s awake, stable and responsive.

4. It’s been reported that the last few months or weeks (we don’t know the real timeline here) Demi has been struggling with her addiction again and relapsed on various occasions.

Here is what I think about this all:

When this tour started, she seemed to be in a fantastic place. She was happy, bubbly, celebrated her sixth year of sobriety and nothing pointed towards a possible downward spiral, at least not at the time. The only thing that, looking back on it now, probably should’ve concerned some people is her sudden break with CAST Center and everyone involved (especially Mike, because he’s literally been with her every day during the American leg of the TMYLM Tour), her manager Phil and two of her absolute best friends, Marissa Callahan and Nick Jonas. But even then everyone, myself included, thought that there must’ve been a reason for it and it wasn’t really our place to judge because we didn’t know what happened. It was just weird that she suddenly cut off four people at once. Even her tweets seemed to tell us a story that no one really got. It was shady and messy. But hey, I just thought that whatever happened between her and those people probably hurt, and we all know that she is impulsive and stubborn. It wouldn’t be the first stubborn, shady tweet she’d send out. I was a little worried at that point because I knew how much these four people meant to her and I just thought “Oh my god, what if she got hurt really bad?” But again…it wasn’t really our place to judge, was it?

Another thing that probably should’ve concerned a few people was the fact that she went to Coachella. I mean, yes…she was good with going to parties and staying sober and clean, but Coachella is a whole other level. That’s not the right place for a recovering addict. But I tried to stay positive and told myself “Hey, she’s strong. She just celebrated her six years of sobriety. She can handle it.”…that was until she released “Sober” and I immediately thought that it must’ve been the whole Coachella thing that fucked everything up, combined with a few wrong people surrounding her. But we all know Demi, and we know how good she is at putting on a smile and not letting people know what’s happening in her life. I saw her live in concert in June, and she was just the Demi we all love and adore. Nothing seemed off. Even though, according to some posts and reports, she must’ve already been back to using drugs and drinking.

In “Sober” she sounds vulnerable, ashamed and embarrassed about relapsing, and in her lyrics, she promised to get help. I was positive about it. I never judged her for her relapse, and I never will. It’s part of recovery. She’s human like everyone else, and humans make mistakes. Sometimes, they can’t help but to make them when there’s that little guy called “addiction” sitting in the corner of their brains. In recovery, he’s constantly whispering to you that you need a drink/drug and that it’ll make you feel better and it won’t hurt anybody. Nobody will notice. Usually, he’s not loud enough, but then there comes a point in your life when everything else around you is quiet and all of a sudden he sees his chance and starts shouting all these things at you as loud as he can. And in order to make him stop, you give in. You do what he tells you to do so he finally shuts up.

Let’s move on, though…After “Sober” I hoped she’d be okay. I never saw the overdose coming. I would’ve never thought we’d get to this point where we almost lost her forever. Knowing that breaks my heart just as much as it breaks yours. But all if this doesn’t take away her six years of staying sober, clean and healthy. That’s a fucking accomplishment and nobody can take that away from her!

So…let me get into all the bullshit that’s been going around on Twitter. Let me start with Mike Bayer:

Mike was her life coach for how many years? Ever since she left Timberline Knolls, as far as I know. He was always an incredible person, never said a bad word about her and in Simply Complicated, he told us about what happened with Demi when she first lost control. And he also told us another thing: “The most important thing to Demi is losing people. It’s losing people that care about her and that love her.” Doesn’t that sound like that’s exactly what happened this time around? You gotta keep in mind that this overdose is a whole other level. Her first struggles weren’t as server as this one. So, what if all Mike (and Phil, Marissa and Nick) wanted to do is help her, but she blocked him? What if she didn’t think her problems were as bad as they apparently are and didn’t accept his help? What if she pushed him away because she was annoyed with his constant attempts to help? So Mike did what he had to do and stepped back. I have to admit, I wasn’t fair to him during that time. I was kind of mad at him, especially after that article came out saying she was fired from CAST because she relapsed and that contract she apparently signed or whatever that was…Looking back at all of this now, it was probably all to help her.

Let’s move on…Next on the list is Phil McIntyre:

He was Demi’s manager her whole career. He was the one who saw that Demi was special and had a God given talent, he stood by her side through her first breakdown and still continued to see her potential. I’m not gonna comment on his ability as a manager, because I literally don’t know shit about management, and neither do you, but I still see posts on Twitter constantly bashing him and calling him a bad manager. Do you all forget that he literally helped the Jonas Brothers becoming one of the most successful bands in the late 2000s? And you know what? Let him be a bad manager, I don’t give a fuck…but at least he is a really great human being who cares about his clients more than he cares about money and fame and success. Imagine if Demi would’ve had a different manager, one that pushes his clients so hard to make the most amount of money. One that doesn’t care much about his clients' well-being…one who pushes them so hard that all they can do to cope with the pressure is drink or do drugs…would you really want Demi to be managed by someone like that? At the vulnerable state that she’s constantly in? I don’t think so. Phil apparently staged an intervention, which might’ve been the breaking point in his and Demi’s relationship. So she “fired” him and Lauren Einbinder took over.

Next please…oh yes, Marissa Callahan:

Where do I start with Marissa? Her and Demi have been the absolute best friends for years. They shared some of the same struggles when it comes to mental health issues and Marissa has always been by her side. To me, the two of them were always friendship goals. I personally don’t think Marissa was ever a bad influence to Demi. When Demi started drinking, they were both young and stupid, so we can’t really blame her for anything. There are many teenagers who introduce their friends to alcohol. That doesn’t necessarily mean that these friends will end up becoming addicts. But with Demi, it was a little different. The underlying, undiagnosed mental health issue was part of the reason she developed this addiction, and neither her parents, nor her best friend Marissa could've possible seen the outcome of an early alcohol consume. So, please stop blaming Demi’s addiction on her. If it wasn’t her who introduced her to alcohol, Demi would've eventually gotten in contact with it another way. That’s what happens with teenagers. Okay, so…their friendship was one of the strongest I’ve ever seen. Just earlier this year, they were on vacation together for…how long was that…14 days? It was a long vacation and they seemed to have such a good time. And suddenly, about two or three months later, Demi unfollows her, posts shady tweets and when asked about her best friends, she just names Sirah and Matthew. Usually, Marissa would’ve been on top of that list as well. So, the fact that Marissa probably stepped away as well shows how server Demi’s drug use must’ve been. Just like Mike, Phil and Nick, Marissa wasn't enabling it. And who wants to watch their best friend destroy themselves? No one. Since all attempts to help Demi obviously didn’t work, Marissa stepped away, probably for her own mental health as well.

Now my favorite…Nick Jonas:

You know why he’s my favorite? That dude knows what he’s doing…and it worked the first time. Just at the end of 2017, Demi and Nick were at such an incredible place in their friendship. They were recording each other’s performances on each other’s phones, flew home in the same private jet…just a few weeks before that, Demi basically admitted to having some sorts of feelings for him in two of her songs. In an interview, she said that the person she wrote these songs about loved them and told her he wrote songs about her as well. I’m not saying this because I ship them a lot, but they were slowly heading towards something much stronger than friendship. I personally think that if all of this wouldn’t have happened, instead of getting the report of Demi overdosing, we would’ve gotten some kind of romance update on them. So how come that a friendship as strong and powerful as theirs suddenly ends with her unfollowing him on all social media? Listen to this interview at 7.15min. Nick basically explains it all. He stepped away to save himself from a possible heartbreak that he would’ve suffered if he would’ve kept watching her going down that spiral. And it’s not like he didn’t try. He also once said that the first time she was struggling, he tried to talk to her, but she cut him off. Just like she did again now. I hate to see people tweeting that he’s the reason she relapsed, or that he’s a bad guy in all of this. Just like Marissa, he probably just didn’t wanna witness his best friend ruining herself. I’ve been there, too. I’ve had friends struggling with mental health issues, and in order to keep my sanity, I had to step back at a certain point. So don’t judge him!

Now that I touched on Mike, Phil, Marissa and Nick, let’s get to the messy part…the one where everyone blames her dancers and even members of her family:

I wanna start with Dianna. People are really sending her hate and blame her, when all she was probably doing the past week was being worried as fuck about her daughter? Like…do you even realize how fucked up that this? This woman almost lost her child. She was almost at a point where, instead of planning which treatment center is best for her, she had to plan a funeral. Give her a fucking break! I’m not saying that everything was right in their family, but I think people tend to forget that Dianna herself struggles with mental health issues. So maybe she didn’t even see the depth of the problem. Maybe she couldn’t quite understand how server the whole situation was. And guess what, guys? Maybe she even tried to do something…but Demi is a 25-year-old, grown ass woman. And an addict. And stubborn as fuck. Do you really think she would’ve listened to her mother? Besides that, she’s manipulative. What if she told her mom that everything is okay? She can be super convincing, so what if Dianna believed her?  It’s incredibly rude to assume Dianna had something to do with all of this. She is a mother. And from what I’ve seen the past few years that I’ve been following this family, she’s a great one. She loves her daughters.

And now…the part you’ve all probably been waiting for: Demi’s dancer

I honestly don’t even know where to start. Do I start at the American leg of the TMYLM tour? Or do I jump right into the European leg? Do I compare this tour with others that didn’t have dancers? I should probably do all of that. So…I’ve said it before, and I will say it again: The Future Now Tour was and always will be the best tour Demi has ever put together. Why? Well, not only did she travel through America with her best friend, but she was also surrounded by people who really, really cared about her. She had an incredible team, her best friend and she was the happiest I’ve ever seen her. She was free. Whenever they had a day off, they’d so some fun things…things that didn’t necessarily trigger her. And did you guys notice something? There were no dancers. In my opinion, she never needed dancers. Demi’s talent doesn’t need some extra special effects. She could play a two hours show with just her piano and a guitar, and people would still be fascinated by her.

But…I liked the dancers. There were fun, and from what I’ve seen on Instagram, they all had an incredible time. Everyone seemed so genuinely nice and funny and Demi seemed to love them as well. But what did they do when they had a day off? They were partying. And sometimes, Demi joined them. Like I said earlier in this post, there was a time where Demi could easily be part of a party and not care at all. She would drink her red bull and that’s it, but this year was different. She relapsed, and was surrounded by people who consumed alcohol. I’m not saying they caused it, or that they are to blame for it, but Demi was no longer at a place where she could be around that. Could they have done something about it? Maybe, but maybe they didn’t even realize what was going on before it was too late. That being said, let’s focus a little on two of the dancers that have been on top of the “let’s blame people for Demi’s overdose” list the past few days. And these people are Jackie and Dani. Now, Jackie fucked up. I’m sure all of you have seen the video of her doing coke on her Instagram. That’s pretty messy and I definitely don’t agree with what she did. And I seriously hope that she didn’t do it around Demi. While that could’ve been a triggering point for her, it still doesn’t mean that we can blame Jackie for Demi’s overdose.

Now Dani…I’m really conflicted at this point. I love Dani. I’ve met her. I’ve talked to her and what she said to us, how she treated us and what she then offered us was beyond anything I’ve ever experienced or expected from someone. She was one of the nicest, kindest and most humble people I have ever met in my life. She was so patient with us and really, really genuine. She’s always been getting hate, for ridiculous shit like being responsible for Jojo to leave the tour. People even said that she kicked her off and took her place…like bitch, they were literally both on that tour in America. Nobody took anyone’s place here. So I was already like “Damn, she doesn’t deserve that. She’s so fucking nice.”. So when I saw that everyone was now attacking her for causing Demi’s overdose, I was like “Okay, hold the fuck on…” Here’s what we know: Demi was at Dani’s birthday party. That alone is nothing to be extremely worried about. Like…Demi going to her friend’s birthday party? How fucking normal from her. Damn, Demi. And we all didn’t know how server her drug use was at this point. And guess what? Maybe Dani didn’t know either? Just like Demi’s family might not haven know just how bad it really was? We don’t know what happened at the party. We didn’t see any videos or pictures of her drinking with Dani. What if she didn’t do any of that while Dani was around?

Okay, let’s continue…Even though it was Dani’s birthday party, and Demi reportedly continued partying at her house with some people, that doesn’t mean Dani was there as well because for all we know, the party at Demi’s house had nothing to do with her birthday anymore. So…let’s say she was no longer there…how can you blame her for the overdose? How can you blame anyone who was there for the overdose? The only plausible explanation about when Demi overdose is the next morning, a little while before she was found. At that point, I’m 100% sure nobody else was at the house anymore. Didn’t someone say Demi was alone when it happened? Okay, it was probably one of these oh so reliable sources, but it makes the most sense to me. Like…yes, there were probably people enabling the drug use, but I can’t imagine anyone really letting someone overdose and possibly die. So nobody left her alone. Nobody just “watched” her overdose. She was alone, I don’t think it was her intention to overdose and she was lucky someone found her in time. If she would’ve overdosed that night…and then someone found her around noon…as hard as it is to hear, but then she wouldn’t be with us anymore. So stop blaming Dani. And stop reading too much into her statement.

I could say a lot more things…about the guys she’s been seen with (you know…when everyone thought she was out with G-Eazy?) for example. Or Dilmer, which I’m not gonna get into because those of you who follow me know how I feel about them as a couple. But this is already long enough. Like I said, I don’t blame anyone.

I’m gonna say this once and for all: THE ONLY ONE TO BLAME FOR DEMI’S OVERDOSE IS HER FUCKING ADDICTION! None of the people she’s been surrounding herself with forced her to do anything. She did that all on her own, because her addiction got stronger. Remember that little guy I told you about earlier? Yeah, he was yelling like a motherfucker!

[tildew]

How do you present yourself in such a way people notice you? YA GET LOUD and you cater to their fucked up depravity with gratuitous gore, inspired implements, and some easily abhorred antagonists. ENTER KVLT, and COVEN, A couple of games about the undead. Was that reductive for the sake of drawing a parallel? Yes, make your own review if you dont like it, stinky. Before you look up the gameplay and say “oh that looks janky ew yuck yucky ewwww” remember that its a free demo of an early build so if you’re too self absorbed to experience The Process then indie isnt for you, go away and come back when you can dress yourself.

Now in KVLT you play as Hermeaus Mora on a mission to steal all the Nazis cool occult shit. Here in the demo you get an Eldritch Obrez, a Tesla Sten, and a Lovecraftian Trenchbroom and they all absolutely fuck. Each weapon has an alt-fire you activate by holding right click, this causes the filigreed furniture to glow and at the expense of your Eldritch Energy affords you a powered shot. The Obrez offers bonus damage, the Sten fires a slowing ball of lightning, and the Shotgun unleashes an eldritch blast. The design on the weaponry and Possessed Nazis is stellar, and the care put into the areas truly shines through. Wishlist the game, play the demo, profit

COVEN is my most anticipated game of time. I dont know what it is that clicked with me so viciously but the feel, the weapons, the setting, the story, it all coheres into this melange of justifiable brutality that puts a big stupid grin on my face. I had to scrap a script written on the old demo because everything has gotten refined to a razors edge for this build. Melee is more viable, visceral, and violent than ever, the guns now fire faster during bullet time giving purpose to a previously threadbare mechanic, the dash has had its distance and deceleration tweaked to perfection, and obviously you cant talk about the canabilistic witch game without speaking on the ragdolls being actual ragdolls now. When you land an overhead or uppercut attack one of two extremely fucking sexy things will happen. You may cleave their head in two, eating their eyeballs automatically as they drop to their knees in death. That is already a treat, so when you try to pull it off once more and the guy just fuckin splits in half, his newly bifurcated hemispheres flopping to the ground, it might finally hit you that this is the game ever. Gore for gores sense can get old though, Im not too American to see that, but the fact that it is strategy to either cleanly kill an opponent, so that you may consume their full corpse for maximum returned health after the fight, or cut them in half for a single instantaneously consumed body part to stay in the fight longer is a stroke of pure genius. Dont get me started on the potential of the magic, using the dragonsbreath alt-fire on the d-barrel leaves a glorious trail of charred flesh and writhing embers and I cant imagine not getting some sort of flame spell. The level design is classic “hey this is a real place full of real pricks” and the interconnectedness, while less prevalent in this build, is still a lovely treat. All this… is just what WE have, Ethan already has shown off the hangmans spell extensively on twitter, and has spoken on the fact that the game will include Timesplitter’y era jumps. Of this we have seen nothing save a glimmering beacon of hope, a true monolith of joy, Ethan has done us all the great honor of fully modelling and texturing an MP40 for COVEN. This neither confirms nor denies nazi murder being present in COVEN, but it heightens the likelyhood of that possibility, and I have never had the opportunity to eat a nazis testicles but I sure would like to. Go play the demo, then play it again, find all the secrets, and regardless of whether you have the time to play you can at least add it to your wishlist.

Thank you for your time, Realms Deep was insane this year so watch a recap if you missed some things. Goodbye

[forisobel]

REVISITING HARRY POTTER, PART ONE .  .  .

harry potter was a staple for my childhood. beit through the books or movies, i excited at the prospect of following young harry through out his adventures at hogwarts. i’ve been to the harry potter studios in london twice now and display the full collection of books and movies on my shelves, each organised delicately in order. i saw fantastic beasts in cinemas and was mildly confused before being well and truly disgusted watching the most recent crimes of grindelwald. over the past few weeks i have been troubled by one question, how did we get here?

so today we’re jumping in the way way back machine and riding it all the way to 2001, and the release of harry potter and the philosopher’s stone.

my memories of this movie going into it were about as good as my own eleventh birthday, hazy and out of reach. this had frustrated me because it wasn’t the kind of film that was sitting, collecting dust, on my shelf. i would often throw it on in the background while i was doing any number of mind numbing tasks. i could only recall the feeling of great nostalgia that came with it; i was a child again, watching from the living room floor. i could tell you nothing of the intricacies of it’s film making.

over the past twenty-two years, the harry potter franchise has grown, and in some respects metastasised, into a money making machine. the eight movies alone generated over 7 billion u.s. dollars, with harry potter and the deathly hallows, part two contributing to 1.3 billion of that. in the wake of the train wreck that was the crimes of grindelwald, i began to think about how the series managed to devolve to that point. that was when i realised i could recall nothing about the franchise as an object. i could tell you the full, expansive plot of each movie, but i couldn’t comment critically on those movies objectively.

before continuing, i would just like to make clear that there is nothing wrong with liking a movie franchise or a television series purely for nostalgia. all i am doing here is looking at each harry potter film objectively and asking the question how did we get to here?

i’m going to take a wild guess and say most people here know the plot of harry potter and the philosopher’s stone, but going to give you the run down anyway. just in case you need a lil refresher.

an orphan named harry potter learns on his eleventh birthday that he is the son of martyr witch and wizard, lily and james potter. he is invited to attend the highly esteemed english boarding school for wizards, hogwarts, where he forms close friendships with two of his classmates, ron and hermoine. with the help of his new friends, harry seeks to uncover the illusive truth behind his parents’ untimely deaths.

the film was released in 2001 and cost 130 million u.s. dolla dolla to make. it was directed by chris columbus, an american filmmaker. columbus was already well established in the film industry, having directed home alone, and would go on to direct the next two harry potter films. clearly he’s having a bit of a mid-life crisis right now, as his recent projects include the 2015 film pixels. that’s a yikes for him.

i’ve watched the philosopher's stone a few times this week and have managed to cobble together all of my thoughts and comments into one handy list.

the score was phenomenal . . .

kicking things off with an obvious one, i can’t believe i never comprehended how good the score for this movie. the opening track the most recogniseable, however, the whole viewing experience is enhanced by the score running throughout. i am full on willing to proclaim john williams as a god of film scores.

harry was one scary boi . . .

in one of the first scenes of the film, harry and the dursleys go to a zoo to celebrate dudley’s birthday. while there, harry discovers he can talk to snakes and accidentally imprisons his cousin in the snake’s enclosure. this does not faze harry at all, unaware at this time that he is a wizard, and laughs as he watches his aunt and cousin in a state of panic. okay, harry...sadist. this happens again as he watches his cousin grow a pig tail. later on, during a flying lesson, harry threatens to knock malfoy off his broom. like, calm the fuck down, harry! fucking believe you. harry was actually kind of sinister in the first act. like damn.

what was some of that acting ? ? ?

one of the reasons why i wanted to revisit this series was that i have a bit of a pet peeve when it comes to child actors in media. i sometimes forget how heavily the harry potter series actually rides on child actors, being that i was watching the movie at the same age of the actors. now, i am not maligning radcliffe, watson or grint at all, but what was some of that line delivery, lads? the acting was definitely not bad but some parts just felt awkward and forced. i don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but sometimes i felt a little weird watching little forced interactions. maybe it just adds to the charm!

hagrid can make one quick get away . . .

as hagrid and harry make their way through the train station, harry is distracted by his ticket. when he looks up to ask hagrid about the platform, hagrid is gone. where the fuck did hagrid go? either he had to apparate, which he ain’t allowed to do, not to mention harry would have heard him do that, or he had to run away. is hagrid the richard kuklinski of the wizarding world or am i missing something?

hermoine practices magic underage . . .

now, it has been a while since i’ve watched the whole series, but i am pretty sure hermoine shouldn’t be perfecting basic spells at home. like, what’s the story there, j.k. rowling?

wtf is professor flitwick  ? ? ?

this was the first time i noticed all of the prosthetics on professor flitwick’s face. nightmare fuel, lads, i am telling you!

harry is a pot stirrer . . .

i think we’re going to need another feather here, professor. shut the fuck up, harry! no one wanted your imput. i think she heard you. you don’t say! nobody asked you, drama queen. quit stirring the pot. jeez.

wizards are immune to splinters . . .

so you’re telling me that hemoine can be pelted with broken pieces of wood and harry and ron can pick up said pieces of wood and throw them with force and not get any splinters? i think not.

what is harry doing during that first match ? ? ?

during the first quidditch match, harry spends most of his time sitting on his broom reacting to what everyone else is doing. do your job, bitch!

the c.g.i. is actually okay . . .

the c.g.i. and other special effects are of course dated now, considering how much computer generated pictures have improved since the 2000s. however, all in all, i think the film has aged well in terms of it’s cinematography and general design. fluffy, norbert the dragon and the fast paced quidditch matches all look pretty good, unless you go looking for flaws.

norbert was adorable . . .

i would die for norbert.

tom felton's facial expressions were so good . . .

this was something i only noticed as the film progressed. tom felton did a great job at providing me with a good chuckle with his facial expressions. he doesn’t actually feature in the film a lot, consider how pivotal his character would eventually become to the series, yet he certainly makes an impact in some of his scenes.

the professors were so fucking dumb . . .

hagrid is far to easy of a victim here, but mcgonagall has no excuse. shouldn’t the three of them have been on lockdown since the troll incident. i understand, to a degree, her lenience with harry, but not with ron and hermoine. shouldn’t she have found it a little more weird that the three of them knew about the philosopher’s stone? regardless of how they came to find out about it, they could so easily have told anyone about it being in hogwarts. surely that would have jeprodised their operation?

ron was full on ready to die ? ? ?

did ron actually believe he was going to die there? like, excuse me ron, but what the fuck?

quirrell had some nasty ass nails . . .

someone cut those things, please!

voldemort’s character design . . .

i wouldn’t have noticed this the first time around, obviously, but voldemort has a nose in this first rendition of his design? i can kind of understand why he devolves into his more snakelike appearance of the goblet of fire but it’s kind of weird to see him like that in hindsight.

all in all, the philosopher’s stone encapsulates the heart of what harry potter is. i found it quite hard to return to this film, knowing where the franchise would end up. this film and others following it would certainly generate a lot of cash. but films like the crimes of grindelwald frustrate me as they are nothing but cash grab. it exploits an originally wholesome, well-meaning series and destroys its integrity. trying to fit these two films into the same universe is like trying to force together two positive ends of a magnet.

the philosopher’s stone is most certainly not a perfect film, and for me sits in about seventh place in terms of ranking all the movies. but it perfectly represents the essence of the series.

alienating it from the series and taking it objectively, i would give the film a five out of ten. it was never going to be my favourite film, and it wasn’t even my favourite harry potter film during my childhood. looking at it now, there are parts of the script i don’t really like and some line delivery is hard to get on board with. however, this isn’t enough to take me out of the film completely and i can certainly enjoy myself while watching.

this film is definitely a ten out of ten for nostalgia though. i think everyone can remember what they were doing and the feelings they were experiencing the first time they watched the philosopher’s stone. there is something warming and home-y about it. the truth is that this film not made for me any more. it was made for an eleven year old. i’m not sure how much someone who didn’t watch the film in the childhood would get out of this film. the characters were so relatable to me and as i made my way through the books and the movies i felt as if i was growing old and maturing with them. i’m sure i’m not the only one to feel this way and i’m definitely not the last.

in conclusion, this was a nice film to return to, and certain an experience i would recommend to anyone considering it. no, it was not as groundbreaking and thrilling as i once thought it would be. it certainly also makes things such as cursed child and the crimes of grindelwald more frustrating. but, it is certainly a nice one to come home to if you’re stressed out or feeling some january blues.

next month, i shall return to the world of harry potter to revisit the chamber of secrets. until then, you will have to make do with two more lists and two proper reviews. i have a hold the dark demolition in progress for next week, which shall be fun! but until next friday, farewell.

originally posted on the 13th of january . . .