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renegadewangs · 3 years ago

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Van Zieks - the Examination, part 7

Warnings: SPOILERS for The Great Ace Attorney: Chronicles. Additional warning for racist sentiments uttered by fictional characters (and screencaps to show these sentiments).

Disclaimer: (see Part 1 for the more detailed disclaimer.) - These posts are not meant to be taken as fact. Everything I’m outlining stems from my own views and experiences. If you believe that I’ve missed or misinterpreted something, please let me know so I can edit the post accordingly. -The purpose of these posts is an analysis, nothing more. Please do not come into these posts expecting me to either defend Barok van Zieks from haters, nor expecting me to encourage the hatred. - I’m using the Western release of The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles for these posts, but may refer to the original Japanese dialogue of Dai Gyakuten Saiban if needed to compare what’s said. This also means I’m using the localized names and localized romanization of the names to stay consistent. -It doesn’t matter one bit to me whether you like Barok van Zieks or dislike him. However, I will ask that everyone who comments refrains from attacking real, actual people.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

Back to the second game we go for The Return of the Great Departed Soul! (Part one, this is another two-parter case)

Episode 2-3: The Return of the Great Departed Soul

So now, chronologically, six months have passed since The Unspeakable Story. Susato returned to Japan at the end of the first game and hasn't returned yet. Ryu was reprimanded for all the perjury and the questionable McGilded defense, so he had his right to stand in court revoked for now and instead had to focus on studying English law some more. He's done so quite patiently and now he feels he's ready to return. He just needs to get Stronghart's permission first. Meanwhile, the Great Exhibition is happening in Hyde Park, pulling in visitors and scientists from all over the world. Exciting! (S)Holmes hands Ryu a newspaper with an article on the exhibition, talking about how the brighter things shine, the darker the shadows cast behind them. By now, Ryu is fluent enough in (S)Holmes speak to know this means he should flip over the newspaper. There, we find an article of an entirely different sort.

So not only was Van Zieks apparently attacked, Ryu shows horror and concern at the notion. No hard feelings from our wholesome boy! (S)Holmes explains that London's finest criminals often find ways to get acquittals from trials through bribery, threats, sham witnesses... We saw this in McGilded, of course, so we know all too well how dangerous that can get. But since the Reaper and his curse are immune to such tactics, when a ringleader or fellow ends up being 'taken' by the curse, retaliation can occur. So it's established that this isn't the first time Van Zieks has been attacked by a group of thugs. Fortunately, Van Zieks is an “accomplished combatant” who doesn't take these attacks lying down. Unfortunately, the thugs were carrying guns this time. Uhoh.

This warms my heart, it really does. Van Zieks has been a terrible scumbag, but Ryu doesn't think he's gotten his comeuppance at all. He's genuinely concerned for this man and intends to find out more about his condition. So since he was planning to meet with Stronghart and ask for attorney permission anyway, it's the perfect opportunity to also ask about Van Zieks! Iris decides to tag along because she wants to visit the Great Exhibition. Let's shove the newspaper in Stronghart's face as soon as the game allows it.

The phrasing of “number one prosecutor” is interesting, but then... We never learn of any other (living) veteran prosecutors in this country, so of course Van Zieks would be number one. Stronghart says there's no need for concern; Van Zieks would not be so easily dispatched. Street ruffians are no match for him, since he's a very capable fighter. Seems like that sword he carries around isn't just for show after all. As for why he was attacked this time... Well, a month ago Van Zieks prosecuted a leader of a criminal organization. Nice to know he didn't just return to retirement and instead got back to work like a normal person without cherrypicking his cases based on what Ryu's doing. The defendant was acquitted, no doubt thanks to large sums of money being shifted around behind the scenes, but he still met a dramatic end just yesterday during an accident at the Great Exhibition. The man in question was Odie Asman, and the one now being detained on suspicion of murder without a defense attorney is Professor Albert Harebrayne. Albert's case has just been assigned to Ryu, so we're sure to find out more about Asman as we go. As as final touch, Ryu asks Stronghart why he continues to use Van Zieks as a prosecutor. Since the criminals are becoming fearful of the curse and attacking him, it's dangerous to Van Zieks himself. Stronghart explains that he has two reasons: Firstly, Van Zieks is the best prosecutor in the capital, bar none. And secondly, any deaths that have occurred outside the courtrooms after his trials have nothing to do with him. (S)Holmes alluded to the same thing, saying that Van Zieks had a rock-hard alibi for each and every mysterious death.

“So he will continue to prosecute on behalf of the Crown. ...Unless he wishes otherwise, of course.” With that, Stronghart admits he needs to get going since he's already 11 hours late to his next appointment (fsdkjfls). Ryu asks where he might be able to find Van Zieks and is told to head to his office. So even after being told that Van Zieks is just fine, Ryu is still concerned and wants to discuss the matter with the man himself. Let's gooo! Naturally, the first thing out of Van Zieks's mouth when he catches Ryu and Iris in his office is to wonder what the heck they're doing here.

So there's several things of interest in the office, with the game automatically addressing the biggest one: Van Zieks has an apprentice now! It's a mysterious, rigid dude wearing a hood and a mask who is absolutely not familiar to us, nope. We don't know him. Gosh, what a mystery. Van Zieks doesn't seem to know who he is either, instead just referring to him as his apprentice and nothing more.

Ryu sees this as an opening to ask about the attack on the Reaper that was in the newspaper. Van Zieks admits that he too is very interested in the true identity of the Reaper. “Assuming, that is, such a fabled fiend genuinely inhabits our great courtrooms.” The conversation halts for a moment so we can examine the office and this is the best opportunity for humanizing traits we've gotten so far, so LET'S DO IT! The enormous portrait in the back is the first thing to peek at.

Iris says whoever painted it exaggerated the subject's handsomeness, which in turn is reminiscent of Napoleon ordering the painter to make him look more attractive. That's super vain and not an attractive quality in a person at all. I laughed the whole way through that bit of dialogue and Van Zieks, who was in earshot the entire time, gets his feathers ruffled.

When Ryu asks who it is then, Van Zieks doesn't reply. BACKSTORY ALERT! Examining the chalices and bottles on the left leads to Van Zieks explaining the hallowed bottles are filled with the finest grapes from the finest vineyards he visits (so it is grape juice!!!) and he personally oversees the chalices being made by the finest crystal craftsmen in the world. Right, so not only is he filthy stinkin' rich, he's a perfectionist. Iris points out that Van Zieks throws the chalices and bottles around like they're worthless, to which Van Zieks says:

“Before you open your mouth next time, you should consider the poor artisans whose work you defile.”

As it turns out, passive aggression is contagious now. Ryu replies with a “So it's my fault? Silly me! How could I ever have thought otherwise?” and honestly I love that he's got enough guts to say this out loud. Our boy is growing a spine. Examining the wine casks has Ryu and Iris theorize about how there might be dead bodies in there, which once again ruffles Van Zieks's feathers.

Snrk. Examining the big diorama in the middle of the room has Ryu and Iris wonder whether Van Zieks can't go to the Exhibition in person and this is his way of dealing with that, which has Van Zieks snap that it's obviously an investigative aid. He even has pets of sorts in his office, in the form of a couple of bats hanging from the curtains. Alright, so the game's definitely humanizing this poor man now. No matter how many crazy stories Iris and Ryu come up with about him, there's usually a very innocent explanation to debunk the eerie myths. Something particularly interesting happens when Ryu shows Van Zieks his defense attorney armband. Van Zieks asks what the reason is for showing it to a British prosecutor, to which Ryu admits that he doesn't quite know. Van Zieks is silent for a bit, then says that he understands. “There's merit in reminding yourself of who helped you become what you are today.”

As he says it, he reaches for his prosecutor's badge and if you're aware of the backstory, you'll know he's thinking of Klint. More importantly, this conversation puts Ryu and Van Zieks on the same level. Ryu is always thinking of Kazuma, who 'helped him become who he is today' and the armband signifies this, along with the sword. Similarly, Van Zieks lost someone very close to him and he's walking the path of prosecutor in his brother's memory. Ryu thanks Van Zieks for understanding and it's very significant that Van Zieks understands in the first place. Remember, in the first game he was under the impression that a Japanese person could never understand a British person and vice versa.

Showing Van Zieks the newspaper article has him looking a bit embarrassed, pointing out that a reporter must've been nearby and he'd been careless to let himself get photographed. Either way, all the thugs responsible have already been apprehended. The investigation into Odie Asman's activities meant that their arrests were already imminent anyway, and some hoped to kill Van Zieks before that happened. Much like McGilded, Asman used his wealth to buy his way towards an acquittal in court, but “he got his comeuppance in the end.” Which is strange, right? Very suspicious. Van Zieks asks whether Ryu believes he has some sort of divine ability to make an accident like that happen. Ryu admits that would be far-fetched, and thinks to himself that even if Van Zieks were the Reaper, he'd have to be innocent of this particular death. We also learn that Van Zieks is familiar with Professor Harebrayne, the suspect in the Asman incident. When told that Ryu will be taking on the defense, Van Zieks is shocked.

Van Zieks goes on to explain that he knows Albert quite well. They were at university together. While he's lived in Germany for quite a few years, Albert is actually from a respectable British family. And despite Albert being in the science faculty and Van Zieks in law, they got along quite well. Now he's in pretty hot water for that Asman accident.

Hm. I don't quite know what to make of this reaction. I think what's going on here isn't that Van Zieks is rattled because Albert is being defended by a Japanese person, but because he's being defended by a rookie attorney who was just disbarred for six months for accidentally encouraging perjury, false witness and crime scene tampering in a court of law. Yes, Ryu has won his trials every single time, but it came at a price. Aside from this, there's one other thing Van Zieks knows about Ryu: he'll pursue the truth, no matter what. This means that if Albert indeed didn't succeed at inventing teleportation, it'll be revealed in court because exposing shams is Ryu's whole deal.

We learn that Van Zieks will be the one to prosecute Albert tomorrow, which is curious to say the least. Ryu wants to know why he'd do something like that, with Iris pointing out that so long as the Reaper is the prosecutor, Albert is doomed. Van Zieks replies that he's a Crown prosecutor and a mortal like any other; he's no demigod. In other words, he doesn't believe the curse to be a real curse. Iris points out that everyone who's been prosecuted by Van Zieks has died (which is already objectively wrong), to which Van Zieks replies that he usually prosecutes the vilest wretches of society.

… Harsh. Ryu points out that Soseki wasn't a vile wretch though, with Iris chiming in that Gina's also turned her life around and she's working very hard now. Van Zieks admits that things have changed ever since meeting Ryu- which of course has to do with Van Zieks's need to face Ryu in court even in mediocre trials rather than pursue his usual corrupted targets- but the point is that if any of those vile wretches died in mysterious circumstances, it was “at the hand of their own kind”, not Van Zieks's. So basically, he believes that they were killed because they were dubious people engaged with dubious activities, not because of the Reaper's curse. Not only that, but ever since the rumors of the Reaper began, the number of serious crimes in London has decreased significantly. Even the most hardened criminals can be made fearful of their lives. Therefore, if his pseudonym of the Reaper can serve a useful purpose, he'll “adopt it gladly and with honour”. Ryu repeats that which he already told Stronghart; that it's putting Van Zieks in danger.

He really is a prosecutor on the edge with nothing to lose, huh. So what Van Zieks is basically saying is that he doesn't care if he dies, so long as he spends the rest of his life serving the 'useful purpose' of carrying the Reaper moniker to intimidate the vilest of society. But is that really all there is to it? (Spoilers: It's not)

There's a bit more talk about the mysterious apprentice here, with Van Zieks explaining the man was placed in his care under Stronghart's orders. He's wearing a mask on Stronghart's orders and also doesn't speak to anyone from outside the office on Stronghart's orders. HM. Van Zieks claims that Stronghart isn't one for “meaningless follies”, therefore he must have a good reason. This implies that Van Zieks believes in Stronghart's judgment almost blindly. To round up the conversation, Van Zieks asks about “that Nipponese man. The one arrested twice in succession six months ago. With the stoop. And the moustache. And the jitters.” Looks super offensive at first glance, but I gotta admit, after six months I wouldn't remember Soseki's name either. Better to describe him than to guess the name and get it wrong. Still though, just because it's not super offensive doesn't mean it's not offensive. Just saying “the one you defended six months ago” would've done the trick. Either way, Ryu says he's doing just fine and a letter from him arrived by post just the other day.

So this is interesting. Earlier, Van Zieks claimed in his own words that he doesn't believe in the curse and those who died had it coming to them, but he's still inquiring after Soseki. Perhaps not so much because he's worried about Soseki himself, but because he's curious whether this man has successfully escaped the curse so far. He would know that for a fact about Gina, but the only way to verify Soseki's status is to ask Ryu about it.

Time to leave this glass cage of exposition and meet the defendant in person! Albert spouts a whole lot of dialogue about how his machine is treated differently depending on whether the case is treated as an accident or as murder. If it's murder, it can be examined up close and that's what Albert doesn't want. It has to be treated as an accident so that it'll be protected from prying eyes through The Special Dispensation for Scientific Equipment Act (wow that's a mouthful). Of course, that's not entirely what we're interested in. Let's ask about his friendship with Van Zieks! Ryu asks what he was like back in his university days and the answer surprises him.

HAH, wonderfully written exchange, this one. Albert goes to describe him as “the little darling of the Van Zieks family, with all its great aristocratic origins”. So Van Zieks has some very noble blood in him. We could've already guessed this from his title of Lord, but apparently it's a bit more serious. I could derail here with wild theories about his family originating from the Netherlands and having migrated to the UK around the time the first king of the Netherlands, Willem I van Oranje Nassau, rose to power in 1813. Willem changed the way nobility works to some degree in the country and not all noble families would've agreed with his way of doing things. But anyway, point is, Van Zieks is a big shot. Albert says that it was kind of a shock to him when he came back to Britain and discovered 'what Van Zieks had become'. He heard that there was 'a very big event' that completely changed Van Zieks after his graduation, but doesn't know what it was because he was already in Germany at the time. So here we have some more traces of that backstory and we have enough pieces to start sticking some things together. We know Van Zieks was once betrayed by a friend and we now know he was a very modest, pleasant gentleman when he was young. Whatever happened must've been very harsh indeed to turn him into such a sour lemon. Either way, Albert doesn't seem to know yet that Van Zieks will be the prosecutor and Ryu doesn't have the heart to tell him.

So let's investigate the crime scene! Here, it's confirmed that Gina Lestrade is indeed just fine and now in training to become a detective with Gregson. Cute! So eventually we get to talk to Gregson about Van Zieks and how he's acquainted with Albert. Gregson is overdramatically shocked to find out that the two of them are old buddies.

Remember when Van Zieks took a five year hiatus and nobody had to mysteriously die from the Reaper's curse? Those were the days, eh Gregson? Now he's even prosecuting his own friends willy-nilly. Gregson states he has no idea what goes on in Van Zieks's head (a sentiment we've heard before in 1-4) and goes on to bring up the newspaper article about Van Zieks being attacked. When told that our good old pal the Reaper is just fine, Gregson utters a very uncomfortable “glad to hear it” which honestly had me wondering whether he'd preferred Van Zieks to die.

Up until a certain someone gets killed and stuffed into a suitcase, I'd reckon. Gregson says that Van Zieks is a top class prosecutor, but not even he can always push the right verdict through. “Sometimes justice can't win.” Gregson explains that naturally, Scotland Yard suspected Van Zieks at first and assumed he was taking matters into his own hands. There was a very thorough investigation and the outcome was that Van Zieks was in no way related to the mysterious deaths. So that's three people now who all insist Van Zieks couldn't possibly have committed the murders. Gregson says he's willing to stake his reputation on it, even. Of course, Gregson would know for sure, wouldn't he? But the narrative is telling us over and over that Van Zieks himself isn't the Reaper, with even Van Zieks himself implying he'd like to know just who the Reaper is. There's a conspiracy happening that Van Zieks is the centerpiece of, with the narrative really pushing the mystery aspect of it. The writers want us to care about the truth of the Reaper for sure.

OOOH that's meta! Ryu, being nosy and overly invested in Van Zieks's life, asks Gregson whether he knows about the 'incident' which changed Van Zieks after graduation.

Okay he clearly knows. Even a first time player can tell from this single reaction that Gregson's lying. The mystery thickens! At the end of the conversation, when Gregson's gone off, Iris recommends asking (S)Holmes about it instead. Safe bet, since (S)Holmes continuously knows more than he's letting on. To the house of wax we go! When asked about it, it's clear that he does know something (and is described as suddenly clamming up), but before he can explain there's a distraction in the form of Madam Tusspells and we have to sit through a mostly-unrelated Joint Reasoning segment. It leads into a conversation about a mass murderer known as the Professor. Ten years ago, there was a series of murders which rocked the capital right around the time Van Zieks graduated from university. Five people were killed before the man was caught and executed. This fifth victim was Klint van Zieks, Barok's older brother.

I really, really dislike this phrasing because Van Zieks was already studying law to begin with. He'd just graduated as a prosecutor; his brother's death had nothing to do with him pursuing that path. Anyway...

OOOH that's meta! So remember way back in the first essay when I said the backstory is optional? Well, here it is. The Great Ace Attorney is going all in for it. It's being tied to the ongoing plot, just as pretty much all the main prosecutor backstories are. Edgeworth's backstory is tied to Von Karma being the final boss, Godot's backstory is tied to the Fey lineage, Klavier's backstory (I say this lightly) is tied to Phoenix's disgrace... Now Van Zieks's story is tied to the serial killer who ruined so many lives a decade ago. And technically, we already have all the puzzle pieces we need for the next twist; we know Van Zieks was betrayed by a Japanese person who was his friend. So really, we can now say with absolutely certainty that the man arrested and executed back then was a Japanese buddy of Van Zieks.

The investigation segment is pretty much over, but the game has one more scene for us. This is something Ryunosuke won't witness, but the scriptwriters deemed it so important that we're ignoring Ryu to focus solely on the two characters involved. And cutting away from our main character is something that usually doesn't happen in Ace Attorney. Even when characters like Phoenix or Ryu are out of commission for whatever reason, a new 'main character' takes over for a second and we see everything from their point of view. I can think of only one other scene viewed without Ryu there, which happened in 1-5 just before Susato had to leave London. So what we have here is a very private moment between Van Zieks and Albert.

AWWW... The scenes in the office were great and all, but this right here is perhaps the most humanizing exchange we'll ever see with Barok. The reason for that, I think, is precisely because Ryu isn't there. He's alone with an old friend now, which means he can let his guard down more than he usually would. Even so, it's worth noting here that he doesn't look directly at Albert. He stands with his back to him the entire time and I'm certain this is intentional, because they could just as easily have rotated him into that sideways view that's often used in dialogue and courtroom scenes. He made his way down to the gaol to speak with his friend after ten long years, but is reluctant to look right at him. The conversation itself feels rather distant as well. Albert is delighted to see Van Zieks, but the sentiment isn't returned vocally. Van Zieks points out that they're meeting again “in prison of all places” and that the court will decide Albert's fate tomorrow. When Van Zieks raises a warning, Albert says he already knows his friend will be prosecuting and doesn't appear bothered at all at first. He does try to raise a question in the form of “Are you really...?”, but ultimately drops it and says that he knows Van Zieks has his best interests at heart. Van Zieks says he wouldn't entrust the trial of his friend to anyone else, and Albert thanks him for that. So my first guess upon taking in that dialogue is that Albert wonders for a brief moment whether Van Zieks really is the Reaper/really is cursed, only to shake it off because he considers the man his friend. Van Zieks seems to know it's risky to prosecute Albert, but deems it more important to handle the case himself than to let someone else do it. This, as we learn later, has to do with the Special Dispensation for Scientific Equipment Act and the protection of Albert's scientific secrets.

Next day, we're at the Old Bailey! In the defendant lobby, Ryu is once again told by Albert that the true goal to aim for in this trial is to protect his scientific hypothesis. So hypothetically speaking, the ideal outcome here would be to prove the death was accidental and that the kinesis was a success at the same time. (S)Holmes and Iris don't believe Albert's theory to be sound though, instead saying it couldn't possibly be done. In the courtroom, Ryu faces off against Van Zieks once more for the first time in six months! The judge is quick to point out that Odie Asman is a name familiar to him; a man who was prosecuted only a month ago by Van Zieks. When he asks whether this death is the work of the Reaper, Van Zieks instead describes it as “divine retribution”, but also “a direct result of the actions of the accused, Professor Albert Harebrayne”. The prosecution asserts that the instantaneous kinesis demonstration was a success. He himself can't say for certain whether it's a sound theory, but it's being investigated by the British government since it was deemed to have potential and the prosecution's case aligns with the notion that there was indeed instantaneous- You know what? Let's just call it teleportation. That's easier to type.

Unfortunately, Van Zieks doesn't want to follow the accident angle. Instead, he outright accuses his old friend of murdering Asman using the totally-functional-teleportation-machine-which-totally-worked to be the sole benefactor of a scientific grant. Harsh. Very harsh. I don't entirely understand why he didn't pursue the accident angle instead, but then, I don't quite know enough about law. My guess is that as the prosecution, he's not allowed to. Scotland Yard found enough evidence at the scene to substantiate a murder plot, especially that damning screwdriver that Ryu so graciously handed to Gregson, so that's what the prosecution has to go with, maybe? It's up to the defense attorney to debunk that down to an accident, then, so in essence Van Zieks is counting on Ryu to 'defeat him' and prove the murder aspect wrong. It would align with the conversation Albert had with Van Zieks in prison, where he said that 'it was a terrible accident and the young Eastern man acting as his defence assured him that he can prove it'.

So speaking of that screwdriver, Albert tries to discredit it himself by saying that if he had stabbed Asman on the stage, there would've been a whole lot of blood. Van Zieks pours himself a glass of wine and 'congratulates' his friend on a good rebuttal.

“Here's to you, Albert!”

Albert laughs it off sheepishly, saying he's nothing compared to “Barok” (awww, first name basis), but a chalice is immediately flung. Van Zieks says Albert neglected to mention one crucial possibility, which is that the lack of blood is explained by the notion that the screwdriver remained in the victim's chest to plug the wound. Therefore, since the demonstration was totally a success, the screwdriver was teleported along with the victim. Ryu thinks to himself that he had no idea the victim had been stabbed and wonders whether Van Zieks kept that information to himself to keep the upper hand on purpose. This whole thing jars me a little, because the screwdriver is brought up relatively early in the trial during the very first cross-examination. Is not mentioning it during the opening statement and waiting for Gregson to bring it up three minutes later really the same as 'keeping it to himself to gain the upper hand'?

Either way, Ryu counters, saying that the screwdriver was found at the stage and therefore didn't teleport at all, with Gregson serving as an official witness to this location. It's pretty clear from the next dialogue that Gregson never told Van Zieks where that screwdriver was found.

“That you contravened the Special Dispensation for Scientific Equipment Act?”

Gregson is immediately up in arms, but it's fine. There was no investigation needed to find a screwdriver lying in plain sight. So now Ryu decides to tighten the screws. He claims that if the prosecution can't explain the inconsistency (the screwdriver being found on the stage but no blood being there so clearly it must've plugged the wound), the testimony is unreliable. Van Zieks doesn't reply and Ryu thinks to himself that he looks stumped, but uh...

He just looks annoyed to me. The person to object next is not Van Zieks, it's Albert. He says that metal can't be teleported with the machine, so it only makes sense the screwdriver stayed behind and there's no inconsistency at all. Van Zieks suggests: “Clearly we should hear the accused's explanation. … Or should I say, this brilliant scientist's explanation?” And I think here in these two sentences we have the crux of the issue. Albert wants to be treated as a legitimate scientist above all else. Even if that means he's branded a murderer, so long as his hypothesis is protected and the confidentiality stands, it makes no difference to him. This was likely discussed with Van Zieks the night before as well. Albert is apparently willing to die for the sake of his scientific principles and... Well. I'm sure Van Zieks can understand. He's willing to die for the sake of serving the Reaper purpose. In a way, this means the defendant and the prosecution are in cahoots together, which is another first in Ace Attorney history. The two of them are fighting to keep the hypothesis of teleportation intact and if Ryu manages to prove that it was an accidental death, then great! Unfortunately, the second that screwdriver was discovered, the chances of that became slim to none. It was murder, plain and simple. On a sidenote, I found this little gem:

I'm counting this as humanization, because the underlying sentiment here is that despite his haughty better-than-thou attitude, Van Zieks is still friends with someone so very scatterbrained, his name is forgotten sometimes. Even Ryu is taken aback by the purity of the friendship.

Heh heh... Time to cause some more havoc by informing the court that Asman's metal-rimmed glasses were still on his face and since Albert already said metal can't be teleported, his hypothesis is a load of tosh. The jurors go up in arms about it, saying the machine should be stripped down and examined. The game gives Ryu the option to either raise an objection or 'wait and see', but this is another one of those fake choices. Waiting and seeing just leads to a bit more dialogue between the jurors before Ryu steps in of his own accord. He says Albert would have no reason to build such an elaborate fake machine and put on a public display for murder, but Van Zieks counters with the very good reason: Money. The jurors are even more outraged, calling him a fake scientist who's only in it for the guineas, and Albert begs them to believe that his science is built upon a sound hypothesis. Van Zieks comes in to 'save the day' (sort of).

“The fact remains that the victim was transported instantly to the Crystal Tower. Which means that the experiment... was a success.”

And I gotta say, this next bit is just very enjoyable to me. The way it's written is so great.

HEH HEH.... Van Zieks has some more witnesses to summon who saw the incident from some 'very special seats', but let's end the essay here for now and pick it back up next time!

#dgs #dgs spoilers #tgaa #tgaa spoilers #barok van zieks

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immaturityofthomasastruc · 4 years ago

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IOTA Reviews: Furious Fu

Well, I'm surprised this is here so quickly, but here we are. The first episode of Season 4. While I was on the fence about reviewing it even though it isn't in English (though there’s one in Spanish with English subtitles), but it seems like there are people that want to see me do it anyway, so who am I to let them down? Hopefully, I won't be regretting my decision to go over every episode of this season later on.

Will Marinette's new position as Guardian lead to more storylines other than her suffering? Will the show actually resolve the whole Love Square debacle this season? Why am I asking you all these questions?

Let's dive right into the first (actually sixth because of course it is) episode of Miraculous Ladybug's fourth season, Furious Fu.

We start off with all of the Kwamis under Marinette's care asking to see Former Master by Default Fu, before Marinette reminds them, and by extension, the audience, that he erased his memory during the events of last season, making her the new Guardian. They continue to act like hyperactive children until Marinette finally caves in and carries them in her backpack, although not before they give us one of the most unintentionally creepy images in the entire show.

I apologize in advance for your nightmares tonight.

The only Kwami who stays is the Dog Kwami, Barkk, who looks like she's going to see if Marinette's parents have any wine in the kitchen once she leaves.

Marinette heads down to the train station, where she meets up with Fu and Marianne, a former confidant/old flame who he recently reunited with. It turns out that inbetween Seasons 3 and 4, not only has Fu been living in London with Marianne while taking up painting as a hobby, but they've actually gotten married. So yeah, while Marinette has to deal with the stress of protecting some of the most dangerous artifacts on the planet, Fu's just been chilling in London, oblivious to the fact that he forced a teenage girl to do his job for him. Nothing but the best from this show's wise and lovable “mentor”.

After heading back home, Marinette sees a strange man who has broken into her room and demands to know where she got the Miracle Box from.

This is Master Su-Han, the former Guardians before Fu accidentally killed them all. He's naturally not happy with the “improper” form of the Miracle Box (he's not the only one) and wants to know how Marinette got in in the first place. When she says she got it from Fu...

Yeah... while it isn't as obvious as “Animaestro” and “Felix”, you can kind of tell that this is a “turn the critics into enemies” episode. Even though the criticism towards Master Fu isn't as prevalent as the criticism those episodes were meant to call out, there have been some fans on Tumblr and Reddit who have criticized Fu's actions in the show, calling out his decision to make Marinette a guardian in particular. Likewise, Su-Han is meant to be a strawman to mirror the complaints, and show why they are ridiculous. Though ironically, Su-Han's dialogue and rules also unintentionally highlight how incompetent the Order of the Guardians was, but we'll get to it later.

But because the script says she has to, Marinette defends Fu's decision to make her Guardian. She even refers to Fu being the reason the Guardians were all killed in the first place as a “mistake”.

NO HE DIDN'T! How was what Fu did in any way a sacrifice? When he made Marinette the new Guardian “Miracle Queen”, All Fu really did was make the box float for a bit before it immediately landed back in Chloe's hands. If the box had magically floated over to Ladybug in the process, I'd see why Fu would have done it. It'd still be reckless, but it would be a good way to escape from Hawkmoth and Mayura's trap. Hell, the Kwamis had already refused to let Chloe transform when she had their Miraculous, so there was no real threat there. We don't even know if Hawkmoth knew how to transform with the other Miraculous. So again, I raise the question: How was Fu forcing Ladybug to take his job while he gets to paint in London a heroic sacrifice? How can you even frame that as anything but cowardly?

Su-Han notices a few of the Kwamis are missing, and takes notice of Plagg, who was shown to devastate Paris with a single tap to the ground, being missing in particular. He's even more horrified to see Marinette's earrings, because, get this, Guardians aren't allowed to wear Miraculous.

You're telling me that if someone gets their hands on a Miraculous and goes rogue, the Guardians are supposed to fight them with their bare hands? They don't even explain it by saying something like how the Guardians aren't supposed to be tempted by the power of the Miraculous, we're just supposed to accept that rule as fact. How are you supposed to fight someone with superpowers like illusions, shapeshifting, teleportation, and time travel on your own?

So Su-Han orders the Kwamis back into the Miracle Box (still don't get why they have to listen to him) and lists off some of the rules Marinette broke like he was a Ferengi reading the Rules of Acquisition. He does all of this while voicing several concerns fans have about Marinette being Guardian, but rather than being out of concern or compassion for her, it's condescension.

It's pretty easy to understand Su-Han's side of the story, and if the episode actually acknowledged it, I wouldn't mind. But no, everything he says is automatically supposed to be wrong, because when has anything with a different viewpoint portrayed as a good guy in this show?

Su-Han orders Ladybug to take him to see Cat Noir before demanding they both hand over their Miraculous, and we learn something interesting about the Order of the Guardians.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?

Of all the stupid Guardian rules Master Fuckup didn't blindly follow, it's the rule that Miraculous are ONLY SUPPOSED TO GO TO ADULTS!? Why the hell did he even recruit Marinette and Adrien in the first place if Miraculous for adults to use? What did he even see in them? All they did was help him once!

And again, we're supposed to see Su-Han as wrong for doing this. Why can't Ladybug simply tell Su-Han about Hawkmoth and ask for his help before she returns her Miraculous to him? That way, Hawkmoth is defeated, and Su-Han gets the Miraculous back. And it's not like Ladybug doesn't try to talk things out with Su-Han, so you can't say she didn't consider it. Oh wait, that would imply Su-Han is supposed to have a point in his claims.

Though to the show's credit, Su-Han's words do get to Ladybug, causing herself to doubt herself and her ability to stop Hawkmoth, but Cat Noir helps to reassure her, saying he'll only return his Miraculous only if she asks him to. It's a brief moment, but it's nice to see him place his faith in his partner in a platonic way.

Less nice to see is Cat Noir finding out that if Ladybug gives up her position as Guardian, she'll lose her memory like Fu. Except... Cat Noir was there when Miraculous Ladybug failed to restore Fu's memory, so why does he see this as new information? Did he only think it would happen to Fu? Did he lose some of his memory at the end of the last season?

This information is enough for Cat Noir to start a fight with Su-Han, with Ladybug abandoning any attempts at diplomacy by declaring that Cat Noir won't lose his Miraculous. It's a little frustrating to see them engage Su-Han, but again, this is meant to show Cat Noir trying to protect Ladybug so she doesn't lose her memory. This scene still does a good job showcasing the bond the two heroes have. It's far better than anything we got from the New York special.

Su-Han is trained in... Oh God... Mirakung-Fu, which somehow gives him the ability to predict Ladybug and Cat Noir's moves before they make them, comparing it to his rage “adaptating and always finding a way”. Translation: Astruc ripped off something else from Dragon Ball, Ultra Instinct. Ladybug distracts Su-Han and gets the Miracle Box, while Cat Noir gets his staff. After briefly trapping him under some rubble (which I guess doesn't kill him because of his “Mirakung-Fu”), the two heroes escape.

Meanwhile, Shadowmoth, the upgraded form of Hawkmoth that I'll talk about in his debut proper, senses Su-Han's negative emotions and sends out an Akuma after him. Su-Han sees Fu painting in the park, and steals his cane, thinking it's a Guardian's staff he can sue to track down the Miraculous. When the Akuma reaches him, Su-Han uses a technique to repel the Akuma completely. I like this idea. It makes sense that a monk would find a way to mask their emotions and achieve enough of a state of zen to ward off an Akuma. The Akuma instead reaches Fu, turning him into Furious Fu.

I like the design of this Akuma. While I personally thought it could have made for a more interesting fight if he was still short (like Yoda's fight scenes in the prequels), I think it's really clever to incorporate Fu's Hawaiian shirt into what looks like a Chinese gi. Furious Fu's powers are kind of like Evilustrator, only he has to draw down a Chinese character on a talisman before the power takes immediate effect, and lacks the weakness Evilustrator had with his tablet being easily breakable, with the corrupted object, a paintbrush on his ear, being harder to reach.

Ladybug and Cat Noir retreat to the unnamed stadium that the local school has gym class in for some reason, where they're confronted by Su-Han, who in turn, is confronted by Furious Fu. This leads to a three-way fight for the Miracle Box, which they all kick around like a soccer ball. Cat Noir even gets a goal. All around, pretty fun bit, though not for the Kwamis, I guess.

As soon as he sees Furious Fu get the Miracle Ball, Su-Han hides while Ladybug and Cat Noir get beat up by the Akuma. While he does get up eventually, he's still taken out by Furious Fu. Apparently, Su-Han's “Mirakung-Fu” is only useful against Miraculous holders, not supervillains created with the powers of a Miraculous. How the hell does that work? That's like being a trained soldier in the Marine Corps who's terrible at laser tag.

Ladybug uses her Lucky Charm (again, I'll talk about the suit change for its proper debut episode), and gets a pair of wire cutters. She uses them go get a soccer ball from a nearby container while Cat Noir keeps Furious Fu busy. Furious Fu, in turn, uses one of his talismans to predict Ladybug's plan, and manages to immobilize both heroes, but not before Ladybug traps the soccer ball underneath Cat Noir's arm before Furious Fu can use his Cataclysm against him.

How do they stop him? By having Marianne casually walk up to him and break the paintbrush while he's distracted. Honestly, that's a pretty funny payoff. Not “Puppeteer” or “Bakerix” funny, but it's still one of the funnier Akuma defeats I've seen. Another funny joke is Cat Noir using his Cataclysm on a soccer ball before he accidentally uses it on Ladybug and Marianne for their post-victory fist bump.

Later on, after Marinette sees Marianne and Fu off while the latter continues to avoid responsibility, Su-Han apologizes to her, and decides to trust her. He'll still take away the Miracle Box if she screws up, but it's a start to someone Marinette can at least consult Guardian to Guardian.

And honestly? I think this episode is a pretty good start to Season 4. It really feels like the writers are learning from their mistakes in Season 3.

Yes, Marinette is blamed by Su-Han, and while it is frustrating to turn Su-Han into a strawman, unlike other Season 3 episodes where Marinette is blamed, the blame itself is unwarranted, and by the end of the episode, it looks like Su-Han is willing to change, as he apologizes to Fu after he's de-evilized. That's a lot more than I can say for Astruc's other straw characters like Chloe and Felix. Sure, some of Su-Han's concerns are brushed off, but it's still a start.

From what little we saw of him, Cat Noir is also a lot better, really showing the character development promised towards the end of “Miracle Queen”. He's thankfully turned down the flirting, and I can only hope he keeps his promise as the season goes on. I hope we get an episode or two showing his perspective on Ladybug becoming Guardian, and how he feels less like her actual partner now. You know, something that can reinforce their bond as partners.

My biggest complaints from the episode really come from the way Fu is portrayed, and even then, it's only because of events that happen because of what he did last season and how much of a screw-up he is, despite the narrative trying to tell the audience he isn't. Then there's the revelation that Fu's cane has the ability to track down Miraculous. So... we're seriously learning this now? Why didn't Fu use it earlier to look for the two missing Miraculous? He literally has a Miraculous detector! But hopefully, the consequences of Fu's actions won't affect this season too much.

So yeah, I'm actually feeling pretty optimistic about this season so far. Maybe Season 4 won't be that bad after all.

Oh.

Oh no...

youtube

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likehandlingroses · 4 years ago

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“Realistic” Tom/Thomas Relationship Timeline

The S3/S4 Tom/Thomas affair is a theory that has been making its way around lately, and it is centered around the contrast in the interactions between Thomas and Tom during the Season 3 Christmas Special and their interactions in the Season 4 Christmas Special.

This means that usually the start of the relationship is viewed as coinciding with the immediate aftermath of Matthew’s death, which occurs in the Christmas Special of Season 3 (September 1921). Due to the interactions between Tom and Thomas in the Christmas Special of Season 4, the relationship can almost certainly be considered over by that time (May-ish of 1923). But what happened in between, and how long were they actually together? There’s one view that the affair occurs in between Seasons 3 and 4, which means that at the very longest they lasted just under six months (generally I think this view cuts it even shorter than that)...but this leaves some unanswered questions and some peculiarities, so I took another look at the canon to determine when, in fact, Thomas and Tom broke up.

(Note: I definitely know that Julian Fellowes did not intend for them to be having an affair, but also Julian if I’m right just DM me)

Let’s start with what we know about September 1921 and May 1923—the definite before and after points—for reference:

Christmas Special Season 3—September, 1921

In this Christmas special, we see Tom left behind while the rest of the family goes to Duneagle, and we see Thomas still dealing with the Jimmy situation a year after its apparent resolution. On its face, this episode features Tom being challenged in his new role in the house—and being encouraged to step up and face that role—and Thomas finding a way to resolve things with Jimmy.

Except there’s a whole lot of other stuff going on in the periphery of those stories: Tom knows that Jimmy is bothering Thomas and appears to want to intervene at the fair, but he is stopped by Edna, who at one point uses Thomas’s injuries as an excuse to visit Tom and assure him that Thomas is “feeling much better.” And—of course—there’s the fact that Tom and Thomas hug at the fair (and lest you think this was a RJC/Allen Leech moment not caught by editing, it was in multiple takes! Someone—multiple someones actually—included it on purpose). They are friendly, aware of each other, and to be honest it isn’t impossible to argue that maybe the relationship predates Matthew’s death! I’m going to argue otherwise, however, based on how Tom breaks down when Edna kisses him—I think Edna is the first time he’s even really thought of himself in romantic terms for a long time! But Thomas is right there in the wings, and he just finally made some progress on the emotional problem that’s been plaguing him for over a year!

It’s a big difference from what we see in the next Christmas special, big enough to start the theory of the affair in the first place...

Season 4 Christmas Special—Summer 1923

Once again, Tom is left alone at Downton while the rest of the family goes to London...and the difference in how Thomas responds is striking. He’s furious at having to wait on Tom, for reasons both we and the characters cannot quite understand. The excuses don’t add up—at this point, Tom has been living at Downton for three YEARS, and this has never been a problem before. Now all of a sudden Thomas is slamming trays and clenching his fists and provoking Tom into admitting that he sees himself as Above sitting next to him...what?

Then there’s Sarah Bunting, a Miss Sarah Bunting...whose presence infuriates Thomas while also making him eager to use her as a way to embarrass Tom. And Tom knows it, immediately. He’s embarrassed, he’s uncomfortable, but still he’s quick to pull rank with Thomas when challenged. Something has fundamentally altered the way they interact with and perceive each other while sharing the same space.

All of this speaks to a breakup, and a messy one at that...so with the knowledge we have, WHAT exactly happened between September of 1921 and May of 1923? Let’s look at what Season 4 has to say:

4.1/4.2–February, 1922

“That’s right: it’s Valentine’s Day.”

This is an important piece of the puzzle, because Thomas—Nanny West drama aside—is in a pretty good mood for the Valentine’s Day episode! He engages with Daisy and Jimmy’s Valentine’s card drama with good humor and even some genuine interest...something I do not believe he’d do if he’d only recently been broken up with, and by someone who lived in the house! The big one here, though, is the dialogue Thomas has with Nanny West in which she calls him “Thomas” and he says, “that’s Mr. Barrow to you...”

Now, where did Nanny West hear him referred to as Thomas? The episode makes a point of the fact that nannies do not as a rule spend much time with the downstairs staff—and even if they did, not many of the downstairs crew call Thomas “Thomas” on a regular basis. Nor do the upstairs folks...with one notable exception. Tom, who has to be reminded by Thomas in 4.3 to address him as “Barrow” (more on that later), routinely messes up names and titles.

To me, this suggests that Tom and Thomas are still talking, and it’s pretty clear from Thomas’s attentions to Sybbie in the episode that it would have been easy for Nanny West to overhear it in that context. Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re still seeing each romantically, but the “Mr. Barrow TO YOU” element implies that the correction was NOT made to whoever Nanny West heard using the name (we presume it’s Tom)...and the distinction is that Nanny West does not *get* to call him that! It definitely seems like whoever she grabbed the name from has been granted permission to do that, and she Has Not. And if it’s Tom...well.

So does that mean that Thomas and Tom were done by 4.3, when Thomas DOES correct Tom on his title? Not exactly...

4.3/4.4–The House Party (pre July 1922)

(tw on this section for discussions involving sexual assault)

The party features Edna’s schemes and assault on Tom in order to extract a promise of marriage from him. It also features a Tom who is incredibly vulnerable and entirely out of his element with the introduction of the Crawley’s friends. This is somewhat of a contrast from the Tom of the first two episodes, who stands up to Robert several times to intervene on Mary’s behalf, and even ropes Carson into the mission. It feels, for a moment, that despite Matthew’s death Tom has taken up the challenge presented to him at the end of Season 3 and begun seeing himself as a valuable, contributing member of the household and family.

But here, Tom speaks of himself as a fool, as walking a tightrope, and of not being understood. He relies on alcohol to get through the event, which Edna takes advantage of—and which gives us a Tom/Thomas interaction that speaks to, in my opinion, a continuing relationship (although perhaps an altering one):

Now, if I had to guess, I would say that Tom might be less *keen* than usual, given his overall demeanor and the new scrutiny placed on him by Edna coming back to the house (not to mention the house party itself). It’s very possible there’s been a lull between the two of them as of late. I do not believe, however, that there is evidence of a clear break between Tom and Thomas as of the house party.

For one, Tom doesn’t just say the wrong thing when addressing Thomas in the drawing room—he says, “Thomas, would you get me a drink for God’s sake?” That is Not how he talks to him in the Christmas Special, where he is stilted and uncomfortable and concerned about how the words will be taken. He isn’t worried about any of that, and while Thomas corrects him, he doesn’t seem all that bothered by it. Tom’s look of irritation at the correction isn’t overdone either.

“It’s Barrow now,” also has flexible meanings. Of course it literally is what Tom is supposed to call him now...but “now” seems like a weird word to use when it’s been what Thomas is meant to be called for several years. It could be a post-breakup smackdown, but we’ve seen what those look like in the Christmas Special, and this doesn’t feel like that! I believe, rather, that Thomas is making reference to the fact that it is incorrect at that moment, something Tom should know and has been discussed!!!

The house party has both of them overworked and tense (this is also the time where Thomas has to fill in for Jimmy because Jimmy hurt his hand...which is SO ridiculous if you think about it for more than two seconds), but Edna’s transgression still draws Thomas’s attention

And that’s important! Thomas had been friends with Edna until this point, largely for convenience it seems—she is a new lady’s maid, and she can feed him information. Thomas even worked with her to mess with Anna, who had earlier made a comment to Edna about his intentions in befriending her. There’s a bond forming there, and while I don’t believe Thomas would genuinely support the literal details of Edna’s plot, I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion that he would be Opposed to Edna taking advantage of what she would frame as an indiscretion on Tom’s part. Not if he disliked Tom or was predisposed to believe Tom was at fault (ie: someone who expects to be “waited on Hand and Foot while he decides what Might Please Him Next”).

But right away, Thomas is suspicious the morning after. We see Thomas spying on Edna as she corners Tom, and he specifically brings it up to her later to catch her out. Already his tone is soured where she’s concerned. He’s sensed she’s up to something and he can probably guess the vague idea if not the particulars...and it turns him against her almost instinctively.

So what’s that about? Could it just be jealousy? The thing is, we know what Thomas would do if he believed that Edna and Tom were simply having an affair—we see what happens in the S4 Christmas Special with Sarah Bunting. This isn’t like that at all.

Thomas immediately blames Edna for what’s happened, calling her a manipulative little witch and declaring that he’s delighted her plans didn’t work. There’s no question of Thomas’s loyalties, even though Edna assumes he’ll want to “keep in with” her. Not for one second does he appear to consider this, and that seems to distinguish this incident from later ones.

4.5/4.6–What Are These Episodes (pre-July 1922)

There isn’t a lot to remember about these episodes for Tom or Thomas, and so what people may not remember is that these are the episodes Tom starts floating the idea of leaving for America—a full season before he tries starting that conversation again, and over two years before he actually DOES temporarily move to Boston. Now, that kind of decision takes time, but it’s kind of...strange that he begins making it here in the spring of 1922 and will not seriously consider it again until well into 1924!

Whether this has anything at all to do with Thomas can’t be determined, but I do enjoy hearing Tom say it will be impossible for him to marry anyone at Downton because an upper class woman won’t have him, and would an “nice Irish working class girl” make everyone “comfy?”...and Thomas is standing Right There! What does it mean...

Thomas is also getting more paranoid, he’s got Baxter in the house feeding him information...and he’s generally giving off a different vibe than he has all season.

Here is where I think the connection is starting to see some serious cracks—Tom is realizing he doesn’t belong and is making moves to change that. Meanwhile, Thomas is making moves to ensure Nothing Ever changes without him knowing about it ahead of time! Tension abounds, though we don’t see any evidence of it being directed at each other just yet...

4.7/4.8–Interesting and Modern (July 1922)

Thomas goes to America and Tom meets Miss Bunting...weird how that just happened like that!

Thomas is excited to go to New York, and it seems...pretty clear he fucked while he was there. I think if you’re gay and you go to New York in the 1920s and you come back and all you can tell your coworkers is that it was “interesting and modern” you definitely were not doing anything you can actually talk about

Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean that he and Tom are Done (they may not have ever been exclusive on paper), but the overall feeling from Tom is a dejected man in limbo...he can’t even say he’s a Socialist anymore. It’s not going well. So my inclination is to say that Tom hit pause (maybe not for the first time), and Thomas is dealing with it by getting some in New York (great!) and bullying his coworkers (bad!) So why do I think they weren’t totally done at that time? Because these episodes happen in the summer of 1922...the Christmas Special for S4 takes place in May of 1923. That’s a long time to have passed! A long time for Tom to keep Miss Bunting at arm’s length, a long time for Thomas to be fuming over something...I believe that in the Christmas Special what we are seeing is the last stand of two people who are grappling with finally cutting a fraying thread.

Another Look At The S4 Christmas Special

These scenes are truly some of the most incomprehensible things Downton Abbey ever presented to us with virtually no explanation. So let’s take another look at what’s happening here.

First of all, we have the scene with Tom and Thomas entering the house after sending Edith off and leaving Tom offically on his own--they don’t appear openly hostile, though there’s some tense looking when the other person isn’t and looking back down again when they are energy...but nothing egregious.

Not until we see Thomas slam down a tray, that is. In fact, this whole thing seems to be coming from Thomas’s anger, while Tom appears eager to just smooth it over by not causing trouble and following the rules set forth by the household norms. This seems in line with Tom’s general dispositon--with both Edna and Miss Bunting he tries to ease out rather than break things off.

But Thomas interprets this as dismissive, and while he says to Ivy it’s about their positions in the house...as discussed above this really doesn’t logically check out. I do think it irritates him that Tom is essentially avoiding Thomas because it’s what “pleases him,” but it runs deeper than “he used to be the chauffeur.” Because that was always the case.

And then Tom brings Miss Bunting back without telling anyone, and he takes her upstairs. And this makes Thomas INSANE, and Tom knows IMMEDIATELY that it will! And Tom is eager to assure “Mr. Barrow” that nothing happened (actually, what he’s really eager to do is have Thomas not stand there while he eats, but Thomas is not budging).

Thomas is furious. He’s said to Ivy that he is SICK of this man, he’s tired of dealing with him...and then he tries to get Tom to sit next to him the car?

Thomas stole a dog one time, and I still think this might be his wildest attempt at controlling a situation we see on the show. What is going on? If Tom HAD let him sit in the back, would Thomas have still gone to Lord Grantham about Miss Bunting? If Thomas hadn’t been such a jerk about Miss Bunting, would Tom have LET him? What is poor Ivy even processing this as? Am I the only one hearing Taylor Swift’s Better Than Revenge playing?

Thomas acts immediately on coming to London, dropping the line of “Mr. Branson is stil a young man, and he can’t be expected to stay single forever”...he’s Angry Angry!! If they were on a break before, I don’t think it had fully set in for Thomas that it might be Permanent until now. And I think Tom’s newly avoidant personality we see in other scenarios gave him the wrong impression in this respect.

In Summary

I think that the relationship was relatively “on” from the period of September 1921 through whenever the house party took place. The house party caused some huge issues, mostly for Tom (understandably)—he may have unfairly blamed himself for what happened and drew wrongful parallels to what’s happening with Thomas. I think that after that it was very “off,” but I believe that neither Thomas nor Tom really committed to ending it either...and when we see them in 1923 they are in the peak stages of finally facing the end of things.

So what caused the final shift? Perhaps Thomas came back from New York with expectations, expectations Tom found himself intimidated by. Perhaps Thomas’s increasing paranoia and Tom’s growing agnosticism towards his own beliefs and identity are related and fed off of each other until they both just did not like the person they were seeing! Maybe it’s just that Downton Abbey is a really bad place for both of them, and even though they started off trying to protect each other from that, they got sucked in and turned on each other!

In any case, by Season 5 the romantic relationship appears over for good, though there is some evidence in later episodes that Tom and Thomas settled down a bit over time (Thomas defending Tom in S5 at Brancaster, and Tom saying he hates goodbyes in reference to Thomas).

We will just have to see what happens when they realize they both are dating someone new, and they work together too :)

#this is way too long to actually be Fun but to be clear I did it for Fun #anything to avoid actually writing #thomas barrow #tom branson

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quilna · 3 years ago

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A very long time ago I suggested a MBaV au then later took it down because I didn’t think that many people watched the show so not many people probably knew what I was talking about. I’ve decided to bring it back.

I had art to go with this (Which I might have posted earlier so my apologies if this is the second time you’ve seen this au) but people didn’t seem particuarly fond of it and I was worried that the art would be offputting from the actual concept.

Anyway, MBaV stands for My Babysitter’s a Vampire and it was this cheesy supernatural show I watched when I was a kid. This au has a few differences from the show, either because the time frame doesn’t fit (MBaV is set in the modern day, TGS is Victorian London so some things don’t match up), because I don’t properly remember the episode (It’s been a long time, not everything will match up. There are some episodes that I didn’t see at all.), or just because the change seemed better fitting for the au.

Dr Jekyll is a powerful spellcaster who, after a mishap with a spell years ago, accidentally split himself into two. While Jekyll is known for being one of the older and more skilled spellcasters in London, Edward has a bad habit of messing up spells, either by not reading through the consequences before using them or reading them backwards. He’s technically still powerful but it’s difficult for people to tell when so many of his spells go sideways.

The pair can hide memories from each other and both use it to screw with the other.

Jekyll runs a society for the supernatural, trying to keep the supernatural side of London from messing around with the normal side too much. However, the society has a cover of being a society for the sciences so it attracts a mixture of regular humans and the supernatural meaning that:

A. The supernatural side of the society has to be hidden from some of the society’s members

B. They’re not actually sure how many are human and how many are supernatural, leading to some more malicious monsters slipping in.

Lanyon, meanwhile, is a seer. By touching people or certain objects he can receive visions of the future or the past but they’re not always clear.

Throughout his life, these abilities have allowed him to learn a lot of things he didn’t want to know about - he always knew when other people were just trying to use him, he always knew when something bad was going to happen to someone, and it left him rather cynical and detatched. He does his best to avoid contact with people to avoid getting these visions.

However, he starts to get particularly bad visions from Dr Jekyll, hinting that Edward Hyde will eventually start being a danger to Jekyll. As a result, he’s doing his best to figure out what the deal with Edward is before it’s too late or, at least, get rid of Edward before things can come to pass.

Rachel and Henry don’t seem to take him seriously about Edward (Rachel doesn’t want to believe that Edward could hurt Jekyll and, therefore, reasons that Lanyon’s visions aren’t telling him everything and Jekyll, obviously, already knows everything and wants Lanyon to stay out of it before he learns the truth.)

Rachel is a fledgling vampire, bitten and turned by Moreau, the leader of a vampiric cult. She hasn’t drunk human blood yet which means she’s weaker than most vampires, hoping that, if she remains a fledgling (continues to not drink from people) she might one day be cured.

Jekyll helps make a blood substitute for her so she never has to drink from a human.

The Elephants are an all female all vampire group so Lucy and Elsie are very supportive of Rachel’s vampirism and often give her advice on the matter. (Although they don’t really get her aversion from drinking human blood.) Lucy is a very old and powerful vampire.

Eli was killed by Moreau when he ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Frankenstein is a necromancer who came to London looking for the powerful spellcaster she had heard so much about, wanting his help to cure vampirism entirely. However, the moment she arrived she ended up in an altercation with Moreau, leaving her injured. To her annoyance, she had to pick up the cover of being a scientist looking for a cure for her son’s terrible condition (The son being Creature.) and was taken in by the society while she searches for the spellcaster in her spare time. To her extra annoyance, every time she slips away and starts trying to track the spellcaster, it always somehow seems to lead her directly into the path of “the naive human” Dr Jekyll leading to her being put back to bed every time.

In all fairness, Jekyll has perfected the ignorant human act.

Things become trickier however when her spell finally leads her to Edward Hyde instead, leading her to believe that he’s the spellcaster. Edward doesn’t correct her or even let Jekyll know about this, wanting to prove himself as powerful as Jekyll.

Eventually, he starts searching for a powerful magical artifact which could help them. A magical artifact with absolutely no corrupting properties at all. Ever. It’s perfectly safe and will not at all ever send Hyde, already the personification of evil, towards trying to eliminate his good half and take over London. Of course not.

Jekyll knows that something bad is afoot but, with Hyde blocking his memories from him, he doesn’t know exactly what. Neither does Frankenstein realize her mistake until it’s too late.

---

The lodgers:

Helsby is a mermaid. When he’s touched by water, he turns into his mermaid form and his singing voice can send everyone around him into a rage. After he causes a lot of chaos around the society, Lanyon, Rachel, and Hyde set out to try to defeat him in a music contest. If he loses, he has to stop. This plan goes sideways when Hyde marches in with a trumpet cursed to make the most horrible noise possible and basically forces Helsby into submission instead. And destroys Lanyon and Rachel’s eardrums in the process.

Jasper is a werewolf as always. He came directly to the society, looking for help with his condition, fearing the danger of his werewolf half. Werewolves and vampires have a natural rivalry but Rachel just decided that the taboo of it was just more romantic and fell for him. When the full moon came, though, everyone found out that Jasper just turns into a harmless dog. Rachel was a little disappointed but still loved him anyway.

Cantilupe is an ancient god who slipped in with the intent of collecting followers in the society to bring about the apocalypse, pretending to be a zoologist. However, she then met Lavender, a newer human zoologist who viewed her as her senior and constantly looked for Cantilupe’s help with her work. Cantilupe decided she was fond of this tiny human and stopped trying to end the world. Lavender still isn’t aware that her senior is a literal god.

Maijabi is a spirit that can inhabit mirrors. His cursed mirror was accidentally taken in by the society where he began to manipulate people who looked into his mirror into harming people around them to get revenge for his death after dying in a prank gone wrong. As it turned out, though, Lanyon could see him for what he was thanks to his powers. After stopping him, Jekyll used his magic to make him visible to other people so he can sort of live again. He still can’t touch people without passing through them.

Sinnett is human but, at one point, a sentient tree ends up getting into the society and taking control of all of the automatons, technology, and clockwork in there, including Sinnett’s arm. He helps arm the trio with flamethrowers to fight the tree but they couldn’t get the last bit of tree of out Sinnett’s prosthetic arm. Now he has to deal with an evil tree in his arm which occasionally tries to convince him to destroy the world. He tunes it out.

Tweedy is also human but he’s a “paranormal investigator” who came to the society looking for ghosts. Most of his equipment suspiciously goes off around Rachel (She is undead and all) and everyone has to keep trying to hide the numerous ghosts and zombies in the society.

Bryson is the ghost of a once famous aeronaut looking to regain his lost fame. He tries to force Lanyon as the only person who can see him into helping him with this but Lanyon knows absolutely nothing about aeronautics.

---

Other things:

Once, as a lesson to try to teach Robert, Rachel, and Edward to work together, Henry secretly used a spell to send each one of them into their own pocket dimension based off of each of their fears. Initially it was supposed to have safeguards in place to keep the exercise safe and keep the fears mild.

Hyde was given the fear of being alone (A world completely devoid of people)

Rachel was given a fear of losing herself to her vampirism (A more powerful and evil version of herself)

Robert was given the villain from a play he watched recently which frightened him. (An automaton dentist gone rogue.)

However, either by Hyde messing around with magic to try to free them all or by some malicious outside intervention (Because it would be mean for Jekyll to do this himself but I can’t miss out the angst of a proper worst fear episode.) the safeguards got removed and the worlds started to twist themselves to everyone’s deepest darkest fears.

Hyde ended up chased by his own friends, turning on him after they discovered his secret.

Rachel was chased by the ghost of Eli, blaming her for his death.

Robert got a monstrous version of Hyde from his visions, the version of Hyde he knew was someday destined to kill Jekyll. (Hyde was very flattered when he found out.)

All of them try to hide their fears from the others and the worlds continue feeding off their fear and becoming more monsterous and twisted as time goes on.

They all only just escape.

Jekyll and Hyde have been seen in the same place before which doesn’t help anyone figure out that they’re the same person. Thanks to messing around with an old cursed camera from Jekyll’s collection, Hyde accidentally makes an evil clone of himself. Everyone kind of notices that Hyde’s acting a little worse than usual but Jekyll’s the only one who knows that something wrong’s going on here (Because that’s himself just standing there mocking him.) and Jekyll has to try to stop the evil Hyde alone, unable to tell anyone why he knows that isn’t the real Hyde.

Jekyll once accidentally hired a carriage haunted by the ghost of a dead vampire and everyone had to work together to stake it because it wouldn’t stop running people over.

They don’t talk about it.

The horses came out fine.

Hyde once tried to resurrect an old pet of Lucy’s to attempt to impress her (Pets don’t live awfully long when you’re immortal after all.) but ended up bringing to life every dead animal in the area. Every last one of them turned out violent. After getting rid of most of the animals, they found one little zombie dog that somehow didn’t become violent. Jekyll took it in and named it Zosi.

#the glass scientists #tgs au

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argumentl · 3 years ago

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The Freedom of Expression, radio version - Ep 38, June 2016 - Subliminal messages, Japanese comedian takes on Cambodian citizenship to compete in Olympics, The appeal of Japanese women overseas.

Kaoru starts by saying at the time of this broadcast, the band will be mid-tour and will have just finished the show at Namba Hatch. Kaoru's voice sounds kinda husky, as if he has a cold. Joe says he will be dropping by the Tokyo shows, and then comments on the huskyness of Kaoru's voice. Kaoru jokes that he's been shouting too much at Namba Hatch.

Next Kaoru plays another entry in the show's new jingle campaign. He says he likes this one, which quite surprises Joe. Having said he likes it, he still won't give it a sticker. It would be unfair to the previous entrants who tried so hard if this entry were to get a sticker now.

Kaoru's first talking point is about the use of subliminal messaging. Joe points out that inserting subliminal messages is strictly banned in all Japanese public broadcasts, as it is in many countries. Kaoru says that talk of subliminal messaging is heard more often these days, and he asks Joe what he thinks about this. Joe says that secretly inserting subliminal messages into footage is quite a 20th century method. Technology has advanced a lot in the 21st century, so there might be new ways of delving into the subconscious going on right now, that we are not even aware of. Kaoru says he likes this type of thing. He wants to know all about it. Joe says he's not sure if this is the best way to describe it but, for example, with Nazi propaganda in Germany, despite being lies, after it was repeated ten thousand times it began to be believed. If the media is used to repeat something over and over again, it eventually becomes accepted. Now in the age of the internet, online restrictions are few, and there is a risk that hate speech will gain prominence if it is continuously repeated online. In this way, the human subconscious can be infiltrated without necessarily the use of old fashioned style subliminal messaging.

Kaoru says Dir are very aware of making sure they don't attract attention for subliminal messaging with the footage they use in thier MVs. Joe asks him if the band need to be aware of this with thier music too, and brings up the examples of Ozzy Osbourne's 'Sucide Solution', and Judas Priest's 'Better by you, Better than me', both of which were accused of and taken to court for use of subliminal messages resulting in suicide. Joe adds that these cases concern the use of negative subliminal messages, but conversely subliminal messages could also be used to produce positive effects. Kaoru says he has the feeling that Dir might have used reversed lyrics at some point during thier earlier years, due to the original lyrics being a no-go (*Is this refering to egnirys cimredopyh?*) , which he thinks might have a kind of subliminal effect, but they otherwise havn't given much thought to subliminal effects in thier music. They have been much more concerned about thier footage, and are keen to avoid anything resembling the 'Pokemon shock', where strobe lights in a scene of Pokemon caused seizures in some viewers in 1997. Joe asks Kaoru if this also applies to footage used during lives, or only to broadcasted material. Kaoru isn't quite sure about if it would apply to live footage too. He then says there is probably still a lot of dark, difficult to watch material being shown on tv. Joe says there probably is, but he doesnt know because he doesnt own a tv. He adds that as for making creative shows, a certain amount stimulation is needed, while at the same time keeping it safe to watch. Getting the right balance becomes harder and harder in the current era. Kaoru wonders whether new unexpected effects will be produced from all the different new technology that is being created these days. They wonder whether Hiranabe and Kami are using some kind of subliminal messaging in the way they both carry on, and especially with Kami's voice.

Next, they welcome Tasai for the Tokyo Sports corner. Joe mentions how Hiranabe appeared on the previous show, and asks Tasai if he sees Hiranabe a lot in the Tokyo Sports office. Tasai says due to his work schedule he doesn't, but he sometimes accompanies him to the night/entertainment districts. Joe asks Tasai what Hiranabe is like, and Tasai says 'He's an idiot'. He tells the story of how he recently went to a place in Ginza with Hiranabe in relation to work. It was Tasai's first time in this bar, but Hiranabe had been there before. A woman who knew him, kept flirting and calling out to him, 'Nabe-chaan!', and Tasai thought it sounded pretty stupid. He also tells of how Hiranabe got cheated by a woman into ordering a ¥300000 bottle without realising, and only had ¥40000 cash on him. There are so many episodes surrounding Hiranabe, like how he recently got his head smashed in etc, but thats a story for later, says Tasai.

Tasai's first news is that Japanese comedian Neko Hiroshi has taken on Cambodian citizenship in order to represent Cambodia in the men's marathon during the 2016 Rio de Janeiro summer Olympics. This has become quite controversial, with people questioning whether its ok to randomly take on Cambodian nationality just to represent in sport? Joe is pretty impressed that someone could be passionate enough about competing that they would change thier nationality, but he still isn't sure if he approves. He says Neko Hiroshi can do this easily coming from a rich country like Japan, so it seems as if some inequality is showing. Tasai comments that Neko Hiroshi did also try to enter the London Olympics in 2011, but was rejected because at that time he had been a Cambodian citizen for less than one year. He has spent the last four years training in Cambodia, and is considered one of the country's best runners. Kaoru is surprised to hear he is that good. Kaoru says he doesn't really understand why the Neko applied for London, knowing he would be rejected. Publicity? Joe also says it may be difficult for the Cambodian people to show much support for him, knowing he is not originally Cambodian. Tasai says he knows a Cambodian chef who is living in Japan, and he asked his opinion. It seems Neko Hiroshi is not that popular with the Cambodian people, but it will be interesting to see what kind of impact he will have.

Tasai's next story relates to the group Morning Musume. Tasai asks the others if they have heard of this group, and of course they both have, but Joe momentarily questions whether he's thinking of the right group. Tasai continues to say that Morning Musume member, Suzuki Kanon (also known as Zukki) is very popular with overseas fans, despite not having the same level of popularity in Japan. Tasai says that unlike a regular idol, Zukki has a plump figure, and she is apparently popular with Americans due to her cute smile. This prompts Tasai to ask Kaoru whether Dir en grey experience different reactions in Japan and overseas. Kaoru says that they personally don't see much difference, but he thinks Japanese women are viewed a lot differently by people overseas than they are by Japanese men. He mentions the idea of the 'Asian Beauty', and the fact that Americans etc find a woman with a bit of meat on her more sexy than a very thin woman. He then tells a story about how once when Dir were touring overseas with other bands (*Family Values?*), they took some of thier female staff with them, and the members of the other foreign bands were going crazy lusting after these Japanese women, which made Kaoru realise that Japanese women in general are seen as more attractive in some countries.

To finish, Kaoru pleads with listeners to send in more new jingle attempts, he'll feel a bit sad if none get sent in. He then plugs his DVD and new single Utafumi, stating the new single will be played in full for the first time on this show on the 2nd of July, 2016.

Songs - Dir en grey/New Age Culture, The Rasmus/In the Shadows.

#dir en grey #the freedom of expression #radio

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im-the-punk-who · 4 years ago

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Hi, I dont know if you read or know anything about Macchiavelli's "Il principe", but I am studying it in school and I cant help but compare it's fundamentals to how Flint leads. I'm just curious about what you think

Eekekekekekekekekekekkek okay so first off Anon, you are absolutely, 100% right to be getting those vibes. If it’s not actually textual it is at the least meta-textual that Flint ascribes to a very Machiavellian type of leadership. His whole ‘never was there a Caesar who couldn't sing the tune’ speech is...licherally a direct reference to Machiavelli's philosophy that leaders cannot retain their leadership without sacrificing some level of ethical behavior in order to manipulate and deceive their subjects into following them.

And, Flint owns at least two books from thinkers who drew directly on Machiavellian thinking in their texts: De Jure Belli Ac Pacis by Hugo Grotus and The Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes are both visible in Flint’s cabin, and both drew heavily on the type of leadership principles established in books like Il Principe.

(Also, my eternal quest for the book that sits *under* The Leviathan in that scene remains. Y’all I will literally pay someone for this knowledge. My best guess is Plato’s De Republica.)

In fact, the whole system that Flint’s world was operating under at this time was very machiavellian in influence.

Henry VIII, who converted to Protestantism and who would eventually lead England in the conversion from Catholicism to Protestantism that would then in turn eventually lead the country into the War of Spanish Succession(the war being fought during the London 1705 flashbacks), was a student of Machiavellian thinking. He took the teachings of Il Principe to heart and used them to transform his country. Over the next hundred and fifty years, England would change from an entirely Catholic country to a Protestant one. Of note, Catholic scholars generally disagreed with Machiavelli’s principles on the grounds that it did not support the Divine Right of Kings.

As well, the Enlightenment thinkers that influenced Thomas Hamilton(and Flint himself) were starting to argue more for personal liberty and choice of the governed, both concepts presented in Machiavelli’s writings. (For those following along, this approach was also being used to justify slavery, as what was ‘good for the state is good for the man’ was used as justification for everything from impressment to colonization and slavery. Men were willing to set aside their morals for what they justified as good for the state. Shrug emoji.)

As James says of England when he and Thomas view the hanging in London:

“You think Whitehall wants piracy to flourish in the Bahamas?”

“No I don’t think they want it but I think they’re aware of the cost associated with trying to fight it. And I think that that sound travels.”

Here we see that Flint knows what Thomas doesn’t or does not want to accept: that England is willing to sacrifice some morality and some amount of lives(both of pirate-prisoners and the ships they take) in order to save themselves the financial burden of rooting out the causes of piracy. The justification for piracy was that it is too costly to fight, and that the nation ultimately benefits from a bit of strife as it drives prices up and allows England to place within the sights of its citizenry an identifiable enemy. (Note that Blackbeard also argues the same of Nassau, that prosperity ‘made it soft’.)

Even as he is changed by Thomas’ line of thinking, this lesson will stick with Flint and we’ll see it over and over again as he deals with the men’s hatred of himself by redirecting them towards other avenues(Vane, Hornigold, England, etc.)

And in actuality, this is what sets Thomas very much apart from his political brethren - he was *not* willing to sacrifice his morals in order to achieve a ‘more effective’ victory. Once he realizes that moral deficit shown by England, he creates the pardon plan to argue directly for a more moral and just way of governance. His whole premise for the pardons was to show England that an approach that considered the needs and wants of the governed was ultimately more effective, both in cost and in gaining the genuine good will of the people. And again, this is another likely reason why Thomas was then targeted by Peter Ashe and his father. Railing against the entire system of government was dangerous. Particularly if one was railing against the government in a way that could be seen as support of an opposing system of religion and political rule(remember how I said before that Catholics were generally against the Machiavellian systems?) Put plainly, Thomas’ rejection of Machiavelli’s leadership tactics would have been yet another argument for his treason against the crown.

Interestingly also, Marcus Aurelius - Thomas Hamilton’s homeboy - is said to be one of Machiavelli’s five “good” emperors, of whom Machiavelli wrote,

“[they] had no need of praetorian cohorts, or of countless legions to guard them, but were defended by their own good lives, the good-will of their subjects, and the attachment of the Senate.”

How we tryna be.

And so we see that Flint has - not so much fallen back into England’s line of thinking but perhaps that he never really fell out of it. And that this is actually a rift in his potential ability to conform to Thomas’ line of thinking, assuming we see that line as more morally correct. We do see Flint, gradually, throughout the course of the show, move more away from this Machiavellian line of thinking, especially once he meets Madi and the Maroons. And to me at least it’s one of the most important character shifts we see - in contrast to the trajectory of John Silver becoming Long John Silver - throughout the series. Just as Flint is finally starting to really value the lives of those around him, Silver has learned how effective those tactics can be in achieving his goals. As Hands says - ‘I wonder if he knows how much you learned from him.’

And in fact, Silver almost directly quotes Machiavelli at one point when he talks to Flint about their different leadership styles.

“I once thought that to lead men in this world, to be liked was just as good as being feared, and that may very well be true. But to be both liked and feared all at once, is an entirely different state of being in which, I believe, at this moment, I exist alone.”

Whereas Machiavelli in his chapters addressing cruelty and mercy writes

"Here a question arises: whether it is better to be loved than feared, or the reverse. The answer is, of course, that it would be best to be both loved and feared. But since the two rarely come together, anyone compelled to choose will find greater security in being feared than in being loved."

This is clearly the approach Flint has taken - he is the most feared captain on the seas. Certainly in the colonial world and on Nassau, too, his name brings a certain amount of fear with it. Because of this he has been safe from rebellion for quite a long time - however he is also not unaware that his power comes from the people. In the very first episode he talks of his plan with Gates to “position people in all the right places so the crew would never turn.” He has, for an unknown amount of time but I would suspect from the very beginning, been manipulating the crew’s opinion of him to keep them happy. Gates himself, and Silver later, are prime examples.

Both of them; Gates for the first ten years or so and Silver in seasons 2+3 act as a go between - being the ‘liked’ to Flint’s ‘feared’. They convince the crew - the ‘people’ in this case - that Flint’s plans are in their best interest and not truly the act of a tyrant. It is only when Flint forgets - or neglects to respect - that the will of his crew is how he keeps his power, that he really starts to fail. And, later also, that now he has a rival - Silver.

Now, I do want to point out that personally I don’t think Flint is a needlessly cruel ‘ruler’ in the sense the crew sometimes thinks he is, nor is he trying to be as a king is to english subjects. He has power, of course, and he does manipulate, lie, and kill if necessary to maintain his power in accordance with Machiavelli’s principles, but he does not do so ruthlessly or to a degree that is unnecessarily violent, nor with only his own advancement in mind. His goals genuinely are in service of the people he leads, even if the tactics he uses sometimes put them in danger for it. Moreso, I would argue that Flint is a prince who created his own princedom. He took an existing power structure(the pirate council in Blackbeard, Hornigold etc) and took most of the power for himself, either through luck, violence, or political maneuvering. And then he kept it through skill and tactical advantage.

Silver, in contrast to Flint’s new princedom, is truly a ‘prince of the people’. He comes to power through convincing the other pirates that he has their interests at heart - even when he doesn’t. But Silver soon learns that being a well-loved leader is difficult. It isn’t until Silver kills Dufresne and Billy uses that fear to build a legend that ‘Long John Silver’ the pirate king comes into being. Silver learns, just as Flint knew, that in a world or corruption, often leaders need to make sacrifices of things they would have once deemed important.

(I think it’s also important to note for Silver that his main goal is actually one Machiavelli writes of as being ‘a will of the people’. Silver’s main wish is not to rule, not really. His biggest motivator is ‘to be free’. To not have to make choices based on the will or subjugations of others. And so, he attempts to make the leadership forced upon him into something that frees him - unfortunately for him, Madi is right when she says that the ‘Crown is always a burden’ and it would be truly impossible for him to find the kind of freedom he wishes for while wearing it. Which, honestly, is part of why he ultimately fails in that regard as leader of the revolution.)

In the later seasons we see Flint go through this change in philosophy after he meets Madi and the Maroons. He begins to actually value the lives of the people he leads. When put to the choice of going through with the raid on the Underhill estate despite the risk it poses to the slaves on other plantations, Flint resists the idea. As he tells Madi - it would have cost them far more to ignore the ‘will’ of those people he hoped to lead - the slaves - than it would gain them to go through with the plan. And later, even though he can’t be blind to Max’s sway with Eleanor and the others, unlike Billy (and oh how the mighty have fallen, Mr. Bones!) he doesn’t even seem to consider keeping her rather than trading her for the lives of his other men. He no longer wants to trade a potential political victory for the suffering of those he leads. So, too, when he attempts to trade the cache for the fort, he is doing so with the goal being to not have to put those under his power in danger if there is another option. It is, at least to me, an incredibly moving character arc and one that is so very understated.

And honestly, I think it’s what *needed* to happen before he could move on from his rage-hate bender and begin to find the sort of peace that one might argue those ‘good’ rulers had. Machiavelli’s principles tend to get in the way of your ability to connect with other people: when you see them just as pawns in a game, friends and foes lose their intrinsic value of just being important on an emotional level. It is only through learning to truly value his partners that Flint can learn how to be a better and more just leader.

Also, this passage in chapter 15 absolutely KILLS me in regards to both Flint, and Thomas Hamilton:

“Men have imagined republics and principalities that never really existed at all. Yet the way men live is so far removed from the way they ought to live that anyone who abandons what is for what should be pursues his downfall rather than his preservation; for a man who strives after goodness in all his acts is sure to come to ruin, since there are so many men who are not good.”

Like bitch!! We get it!! Too much sanity!!! Shut up!!!!!

Anyway, all this to say that you’re absolutely right in seeing parallels between Flint’s style of leadership and a Machiavellian prince - he is absolutely written as a prince-like leader. As are Silver, Rogers, even the Maroon Queen(and Scott and Madi as extensions of her) can be compared to certain rulers in Machiavelli’s archetypes. Even Thomas, who models himself after one of those ‘good emperors’ engenders a type of political leader Machiavelli writes about.

(Also lastly, i want to very quickly point out this guy, Cesare Borgia:

Who was a prince of ‘fortune’ who lost his princedom to trusting the wrong person. What a beard, amirite? What a face. He’s even got the rings! I’m sure this means nothing.)

So basically yeah, Flint is absolutely a Machiavelli bitch.

#anyway talk dirty morally grey philosophy to me!!!#black sails #james mcgraw #captain flint #machiavelli #black sails meta #milos black sails meta #long post #Anonymous

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canmom · 3 years ago

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Animation Night 56: KyoAni, 2!

It’s been almost a year since we last visited the wonderful Kyoto Animation - last seen on Animation Night 13. I ran down the history of the studio in the last post, so I’ll keep things short here: Kyoto Animation are an anime studio based out in (surprise surprise) Uji, Kyoto, forming a kind of self-contained anime ecosystem with their own school and in-house inbetweeners.

If you don’t know them? On the film side, they are known for meticulous and charming character animation, strong cinematography, and many long running moe series like K-on! and Hibike! Euphonium, emotional character dramas like Violet Evergarden, 4koma adaptations like Lucky Star and Nichijou, and yaoi-adjacent sports anime like Free!. They’re also, as we saw last time, the home of renowned directors like Naoko Yamada, whose subtle, film-influenced directing style has proven very influential.

In the anime industry, they have a different kind of glowing reputation, as one of the best places to work in an otherwise extremely life-hostile industry. (Costs of living being much less in Kyoto than Tokyo helps, but they seem to have a great culture of valuing their douga artists, avoiding overwork, and generally treating their people well.) This along with their origins has meant that while anime has been steadily getting less dreadfully male-skewed over the years, KyoAni is way ahead of the curve, especially in senior positions like direction.

tl;dr? kyoani based!

So what’s the plan for tonight? Watching KyoAni works on Animation Night is a bit of a tricky puzzle, since the majority of their films are side stories or sequels to one of their one- or two-cour series. Watching them without that context is generally said to be viable - they’re not totally opaque - but lacking the emotional depth you get when you taken five or six hours to get to really know the characters. So what do you do?

I’m going to throw those fan cautions to the wind and try to jump in anyway. So tonight I’m essentially going to try and give us a taster of some KyoAni series: a sampling of episodes from their TV shows, and then the corresponding movies. The series in question are going to be K-On! and Violet Evergarden. So what are these about?

K-on! we saw a couple episodes of last year, but since it’s been a while, let’s quickly recap. It is perhaps the quintessential ‘cute girls doing cute things’ anime, and also (iirc) where Naoko Yamada got her start as a director, making a mark with distinctive storyboards in her episodes. The premise is pretty standard ‘club anime’: our protagonist joins a struggling music club, which unexpectedly leads to them forming quite a successful band. Mostly it’s slice of life in a school setting; a kind of nostalgia for a somewhat idealised childhood.

The K-on movie sees the girls come to... where I live, actually! They go to London, and it seems KyoAni’s animators really went to some extremes to research the setting, with uncannily accurate depictions of the London Underground and other landmarks. (Apparently it heavily features a café, which has since become very popular with fans of the show). It probably won’t land quite as well if, like me, you don’t really know the K-on girls from having seen the show, but I imagine it will nevertheless prove deeply charming.

Violet Evergarden is a slightly tricker one to explain; I’m going to do my best but be aware I may get some details substantially wrong. Set in a world recovering from a brutal WWI-like war, it tells the story of an ex-soldier named Violet, who is employed as an ‘auto memory doll’, which is to say, a ghostwriter. Over the course of the series, as Violet gradually learns to return to society and face her massive amounts of PTSD, she meets a series of characters and learns about their own equally tragic stories. By all accounts, it is extremely moving. Keep tissues to hand!

The movie I plan to watch tonight is called Violet Evergarden: Eternity and the Auto Memory Doll, and it is a side story taking place about halfway through the series. Generally speaking, fans of the show recommend watching the full series to the end first, but since we do not really have time to do that, I’m going to try and squeeze in just enough episodes to cover the major character turn prior to the events of the film. Perhaps in a future Animation Night we could then deliver the second half and the sequel movie? Rather depends how this night goes. If we end up watching just part of Evergarden, and not having time for the film, so be it!

If that sounds fun, we’ll be starting pretty much immediately because damn I’m running late today. We’ll be at the usual place, twitch.tv/canmom - leading with K-on! Hope to see you there!

#animation night

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edorazzi · 5 years ago

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It’s the post everyone’s been waiting for!

It’s taken a little while for me to get around to this, but it’s worth it for being able to make a full reaction post. This is really long so I’ll put it under a cut, but check it out for my complete scene-by-scene reaction of Miraculous’ “Felix” episode! (´∀｀)♡

Okay, I’ve been putting this off for days now so it’s time to finally get to it. I’m comfy and undisturbed and have my supplies ready to go.

I know next to nothing about what I’m going into. I’ve seen a little bit here and there because some people haven’t tagged their content properly, but I haven’t watched either of the trailers. I haven’t even looked directly at the images of Felix which have been going around. I’ve tried to stay as blind as possible, so as a result I’m pretty excited but also very anxious. I’ve taken two beta blockers today and I’m considering taking a third.

I usually liveblog episodes on our Ladybug PV Discord server (message me for an invite!) but this time I’m making a proper post out of it. I’ll be typing up my reactions as I go then cleaning everything up a little bit afterwards. I think it’s the first time I’ve done something like this on my blog so here goes!

- “Script: Thomas Astruc” NO. HE REALLY COULDN’T JUST STEP AWAY FROM THIS EPISODE GRACEFULLY, COULD HE. HE HAD TO GET HIS HANDS DIRTY. I’m not going to say “fuck this man” but, you know, identical sentiments. I’m opening my chocolate bar.

- God, Emilie looks more like ET every time I see her. Such an awkward model.

- Oh but wait, Sébastien Thibaudeau was on the script? That does actually give me some hope! Next to Zag himself he’s the only writer on this mess of a show I trust. HE FIXED WAYHEM, CAN HE DO FELIX A SOLID TOO? PLEASE. PLEASE SÉBASTIEN OL BUDDY OL PAL OL FRIENDA MINE

- Does Gabe have anything else to say to his wife other than monologuing his Miraculous plan over and over? They say people in comas can still hear things but Emilie’s probably double unconscious from how boring her husband is.

- DON’T LIKE THAT KNIFE SOUND EFFECT FROM THOSE RINGS. Am I supposed to find it sweet that Gabe’s taking such good care of their wedding bands or is he about to use them for evil? Also where’s Felix.

- ADRIEN SWEETHEART. I maintain that it’s weird to have a statue of your wife/mother/self in your own garden but it kills me that he’s just sitting there in front of it like a lost kitten.

- “Of course, someone will get you right away.” IS THAT FELIX. WAS SHE ON THE PHONE TO FELIX. WHERE’S MY SON, NATHALIE HAVE YOU SEEN MY SON

- That wide-eyed look Adrien turns up towards the window is killing me even more. I’M SO SAD. I see he also hasn’t noticed he’s sitting in the middle of a giant butterfly circle, unless he’s so used to it being Gabe’s logo that he’s just not paying it any mind. When was this all built? Has Gabe always used a butterfly motif even before he got his Miraculous and it was just a great coincidence, or did he commission this whole garden area after Emilie went missing? I guess you could pass it off as eccentricity but in the real world that would be a HUGE red flag that Gabe murdered her. I dunno man.

- DON’T WAVE AT HIM LIKE THAT, NATHALIE. YOU RATTED HIM OUT IN 5 SECONDS IN THAT THEORETICAL FUTURE WHERE YOU DISCOVERED HE WAS CHAT NOIR. YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT THIS BOY. >:V

- “It’s been one year.” HAS IT? Hasn’t Adrien been at school for at least a year now? Didn’t his mom vanish two years prior to that?! Maybe she’s talking about how long Gabe has been fighting Ladybug and Chat Noir but knowing this show’s messy timeline it could be anything. WHERE’S FELIX.

- That’s the song from Chat Blanc! Was that something his mom taught him? OH NO, I’M EVEN SADDER NOW. This is what I mean about Sébastien’s writing, we’d never get this kind of focus on Adrien from Garbage Man Astruc. This kind of character exploration does wonders for ML whenever it’s brought up so I hope this is consistent.

- SHIT, GABRIEL’S OUT OF THE HOUSE. SOMETHING’S WRONG. THOSE EXPENSIVE LEATHER SHOES HAVEN’T TOUCHED ACTUAL GROUND IN YEARS. ADRIEN GET OUT OF THERE.

- I do like that Adrien doesn’t get up when his dad comes to stand right next to him like that. It’s just informal enough. He’s waiting for Gabe to make the first move this time and that’s nice development considering how stiff and cold their relationship was in S1.

- OOOOH GABE THAT’S AN AWKWARD CROUCH. Any lower down and his back is going to go. He’ll be stuck there. I do LOVE that he’s trying though, I don’t even know what he’s going to say to Adrien but this is already SO good.

- “There’s something important I have to talk to you about.” Finally time for The Talk, huh.

- GABE PLEASE. ADRIEN’S WAY TOO CHIRPY TO HAVE ACTUALLY CAUGHT ON TO WHAT YOU WERE GOING TO SAY. HE THINKS YOU’RE TRYING TO SAY YOU LOVE HIM OR SOMETHING ELSE RIDICULOUS

- “I’ve noticed how close you and Nathalie have become!” CLOSE ENOUGH. Still in the ballpark of Adrien thinking his dad has real human feelings!

- “HOW COULD YOU POSSIBLY THINK SUCH A THING??” I GENUINELY LAUGHED OUT LOUD AT HOW ANGRY GABE WAS ABOUT THAT. I’m not sure what to think of the “Nathalie replacing Emilie when Emilie’s technically still alive” plot either but GABE’S DECIDED FOR ME. Also good job yelling in your son’s face when you were JUST having a moment, good luck getting back up off your knees in order to storm away, old man.

- Oh alright, he did get up, but it was with a strange angry bow-legged prance. I think he still had trouble.

- I love the way Adrien just kinda wide-eye-blinks at him, like Gabe’s emotional outburst is going totally over his head. He’s been dealing with akuma FAR too long to be bothered by this.

- Guests, plural? I’m guessing Felix is one of them but is he with someone else? That makes sense given he’s (as far as I’ve gathered) the same age as Adrien so he wouldn’t be running around far from home unchaperoned, but OHHH this is so interesting.

- So they ARE claiming it’s been one year since Emilie vanished! This just doesn’t work as a Season 3 episode, especially with Nathalie and Gabe’s romantic development being as far along as it is. Emilie’s been gone for at LEAST three years by this point! Read your show bible once in a while you horrible garbage man!!! Also ADRIEN SWEETHEART THAT’S A LITTLE PREMATURE. You can say “went away forever” when you’re three years into her disappearance, the anniversary of one year really isn’t long enough to claim she’s never coming back!

- OH NO, IT’S THE GIRLS. I’m already bored. Unless Luka is here I really just do not care what they’re all up to. I haven’t missed Marinette at ALL in the first two-and-a-half minutes and I don’t want to see her now. WHERE’S FELIX.

- I’m sorry, how are Lila, Chloé AND Kagami all on a video call together without any blood being drawn? Also for god’s sake PLEASE leave Adrien alone, you want to ask first if he’d LIKE some company or if he’d prefer a quiet personal day to think about his mom? OF COURSE NOT MARINETTE, YOU WOULDN’T WOULD YOU.

- Okay, a video message is definitely a better idea than trying to break into his house AGAIN. At least then he can watch it whenever he feels up to it. The first good, safe, noninvasive idea Mari’s had for SEVERAL episodes when it comes to Adrien.

- I’M REALLY TORN WHEN IT COMES TO THE ENGLISH DUB. On one hand I hate how little screentime Nino has when he’s not just being Alya’s fashion accessory, but on the other hand I’m so glad they switched scenes the moment Nino started his video because I CANNOT handle his dub voice. Nino just deserves better in general really.

- HE WAS CRYING. MY BOY WAS CRYING AGAIN. I’M NOT COOL WITH THIS. IT’S NOT ABOVE YOUR PAYGRADE TO GIVE HIM A HUG, NATHALIE.

- ALRIGHT HI ELSA. IS THIS HIS AUNT? THAT’S SPOOKY.

- Her name is Amelie? So their parents had twins and named them Amelie and Emilie, and they turned out the same right down to the over-the-shoulder Dead Anime Mom hairstyles? That’s lazy parenting down to a tee, can’t mix your twins up if you never have to learn the difference between them in the first place! But that’s INTERESTING that Felix is (I assume, still haven’t seen him yet) from Emilie’s side of the family, I’ve always had the impression he was a petit Gabriel.

- OHHH THAT’S MY BOY! I CAN SEE MY BOY IN THE DOORWAY!!! OH MY GOD GIVE HIM TO ME. GIVE ME FELIX. GIVE ME MY SON.

- ADRIEN IMMEDIATELY JUMPING ON HIM IN A HUG IS ABSOLUTELY PERFECT. WHILE FELIX’S HAND IS STILL OUTSTRETCHED FOR A HANDSHAKE. I know this episode is going to go downhill because there’s no way it won’t, but this one single moment is EVERYTHING I WANTED. I should just close the tab now and leave it at this, I really should.

- “Do you remember when they used to have so much fun pretending to be each other? Once they had you and Emilie fooled for a whole weekend!” WHERE HAS THIS BEEN FOR MY ENTIRE ORDEAL GETTING THROUGH THIS SERIES. I don’t even care if this Felix is a stone cold bitch, it’s enough to know he and Adrien were besties when they were kids and Adrien still wanted to hug him the second he walked through the door. AMAZING.

- “I WON’T BE FOOLED A SECOND TIME.” WHAT DOES THAT MEAN, GABE. THEY WERE PROBABLY TODDLERS. ARE YOU JUST SO USED TO GETTING YOUR ASS HANDED TO YOU BY CHILDREN THAT YOU’RE SUSPICIOUS OF EVERY SINGLE ONE NOW

- Aww, Felix is American (dubbed, anyway). I was really hoping he’d be British with all the references to London over the last season. He does have a nice voice though! I can tell he shares Adrien’s actor but he’s got the softness I’d have expected from his character. There’s kind of an interesting look about his face though, I wish they’d tweaked it a bit to give him a sharper look but I guess he IS like 14, he can afford to still have a bit of baby-cheeked roundness. I’m going to find the positives in every part of this because I will NOT give Garbage Man Astruc the satisfaction of being disappointed like I know he wants me to be. It’s been a fucking war from the moment I saw his name in the writing credits and my best weapon is being pleased about everything in this episode.

- Okay, he looks a little better in the following closeup where his eyes are slightly narrowed. I think it’s the slightly-below-the-chin angle which doesn’t really work for his character model with his soft cheeks and high collar. FELIX IS A BABY.

- WHY WILL NOBODY SHAKE HIS HAND. Adrien hugged him instead and Gabe is ignoring him completely, Felix is clearly so perplexed and I love it. He’s fourteen! He’s fourteen and doing his best with social graces but NOBODY WILL HELP HIM.

- “Felix, you know your uncle’s never been the physical sort!” HE KICKED HIS OWN SON RIGHT ACROSS PARIS IN THE LAST EPISODE BUT SURE, IF YOU SAY SO.

- “Oh, how sweet! You’re still wearing your wedding band!” YEAH? IT’S BEEN LIKE A YEAR?? Again this would make more sense if it had been around three years like we KNOW Emilie’s been gone for, but picking someone out for still wearing their ring after 12 months?! And why isn’t Amelie more emotional about this anyway, isn’t it her sister who’s missing? I wouldn’t be poking fun at MY sister’s husband for keeping his ring if SHE went missing. No wonder Felix seems like he turned out weird.

- I CAN’T MAKE OUT THE NAME OF HER BRANCH OF THE FAMILY AND IT’S KILLING ME. SOMEONE LET ME KNOW WHAT THAT WAS. Graham de Vanily? I can’t place the words. I mean I’m going to keep calling Felix “Agreste” no matter what but I’d like to know what canon is trying to get at.

- “It’s been a long journey from London” I KNEW IT, I FFFFFFFFFUCKING KNEW IT. SO THEY ARE BRITISH?! BUT THEY HAVE AMERICAN ACCENTS?! I mean I guess they’re French first and foremost, but what the fuck is with the American accents if you’re making a POINT about them being from London?! I can’t wait for the French audio to be released, I really want to know what Felix sounds like there. Regardless AAAH MY SON IS FROM MY CITY, I’M SO PLEASED.

- “TakeFelixtoyourbedroom.” EASY GABE THEY JUST MET, ALSO THEY’RE COUSINS

- Poor Felix looks so depressed being saddled with Adrien. Sweetie it’s okay, think positive! You could be stuck with Marinette and THAT would be a true nightmare.

- Now why does Felix keep glancing at Gabe? Is there something going on there? Is he suspicious about what happened to his aunt? I can’t imagine he knows anything about the Miraculous so what’s the deal here?

- UuuuuUUUUGH we’re back with the rest of the gang. I’M NOT INTERESTED, SHOW ME MORE FELIX.

- “Help me Tikki! What would you tell a Kwami friend who’s lost their mom?!” You’re talking to a 5000-year-old demigoddess, Mari, I don’t think she’s gonna relate.

- MARI YOU CAN’T CONFESS TO ADRIEN. NOT AFTER CHAT BLANC. GABE WILL LOSE ALL HIS CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT TO WRECK THE LOVE SQUARE AND ALSO THE MOON’S GOING TO EXPLODE. WHY ISN’T BUNNIX HERE TO SLAP THE TABLET OUT OF YOUR HANDS

- Should Tikki really be encouraging this?! I have no idea where in the timeline this is supposed to be. Maybe this is at a stage where she doesn’t know Adrien is Plagg’s chosen so there’s no reason to steer Marinette away from bonding with him. Or maybe every episode just plays by its own rules and there’s really no such thing as continuity in this series. I want to see Felix again.

- YANKING AT AN ELECTRONIC DEVICE ON THE OUTER EDGE OF A BOAT ISN’T GOING TO END WELL. DON’T. I do love how :D Alya is about it though, if nothing else I love what a supportive friend she is.

- Oh, the tablet didn’t go into the water! I’m genuinely surprised by that. Though I imagine Felix is going to fuck things up in some way so he’ll probably be the one to destroy the video somehow. We all know the relationship development isn’t allowed to move forward so SOMETHING’S going to happen to it.

- Thank god we’re back to the mansion. I’m surprised and pleased that (for now at least) we’re only getting the girls in small doses and the plot is mainly focused around the Agrestes. Gorizilla is my favourite episode to date and it did a similar thing with allowing Marinette to be a side character for once along an Adrien-centric plotline, so hopefully this episode will be similar. I’m liking its odds so far but who knows what Horrible Garbage Man Astruc has up his sleeve.

- “I’m really sorry I didn’t come to your dad’s funeral.” I’M SORRY WHAT? PARDON ME? THAT’S AN ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM I DIDN’T EXPECT. As a side note I love Felix being killer at basketball for some reason, he doesn’t look like the athletic type at ALL but he still made that net over his shoulder without even LOOKING. Goddamn. Can everyone please appreciate how cool my son is!!!

- “My father thought it would be too hard on me, considering everything that’s happened this year.” So Felix lost his dad VERY RECENTLY. OUCH. DON’T LIKE THAT. Or I DO like that because it’s already giving his character some extra depth when we’re still only just getting to know him, but on an emotional level I don’t like that.

- “He’s very... protective of me.” CHAT BLANC REALLY WAS A HOT MESS OF AN EPISODE WASN’T IT.

- Now Felix is giving Adrien a hug?! I didn’t see that one coming. My canon Felix would mean it but I don’t quite trust this new Felix yet, he’s probably up to something.

- WHAT A JARRING PIANO TRANSITION. Also why?! What does he have to gain from swiping Adrien’s phone? He’s probably got a terrible roaming plan on his own mobile, that’s always my problem when I go to France. If you truly loved your cousin you’d let him browse Reddit on your phone, Adrien. This is worse than not coming to his dad’s funeral.

- PLAGG KNOWS SOMETHING’S UP. He ought to, in another life he and Felix are STILL dealing with each other.

- Okay I take back what I said about Felix’s voice. Bryce Whatshisface isn’t doing a very good job separating the tones. I can buy that Adrien and Felix sound very similar but their delivery should be completely different! I really do want to watch this in French, I get the feeling it’ll sound much better.

- AH YES, HERE WE GO. I’m getting the feeling this is Garbage Man’s part of the episode. Squished cheese aside, I do like the implication Felix does (or did) card magic and karate. I’m thinking of that Mickey Mouse episode where he vanishes Donald’s car keys with a hand trick except it’s Felix vanishing Marinette’s phone when she’s about to text Adrien or something. I’ve got to draw that.

- “Mind if I take a shower?” WHY, FELIX. I mean I’d probably want to shower too after the London-Paris commute (and I’m sure he’s only going in there to wreak havoc, put food colouring in Adrien’s shampoo bottles or something) but what a weird time to ask!

- I mean Plagg has a point about difficult home situations not justifying bad behaviour (and I feel like that’s not what’s going on, with how he was glaring at Gabe I think he’s behaving like this for some other reason), but Felix’s dad LITERALLY DIED. Like they had a funeral and everything. Emilie is just “missing”. They’re SIMILAR but that’s still a false equivalence because Adrien’s got hope to hold on to and Felix doesn’t.

- So we’re not going to talk about how Felix got into Adrien’s passcode-protected phone? I guess he could have done the fogging-up-the-screen trick from Oblivio. Standing around in a steamy bathroom in three layers of clothing is a great way to sweat yourself out and ruin your hair though, way to get even more gross than a five-hour commute between countries.

- “Of course that idiot has a crush on a superhero!” EASY THERE, MR HOWLING-ON-A-ROOFTOP-BECAUSE-HE-SAW-THE-GIRL-HE-LIKED. WE’VE ALL SEEN THE PV.

- I’ve just noticed Felix has a ring too! I don’t know how I missed that before this scene! That’s NICE. He’s still not allowed to have it on his middle finger (LET HIM SWEAR) but that’s a nod back to Chat Noir which I really appreciate!

- ROSE HAS BEEN ON THE HELIUM. SOMETHING’S NOT RIGHT THERE.

- FELIX KNOWS CHLOÉ! THAT’S NICE, THAT’S GOOD. I LIKE THAT. That’s also a really nice little video from her, I love the few small moments we’ve had that affirm she and Adrien really ARE friends, whether she wants to date him or not.

- OOOH HE DELETED THE VIDEOS. I’m curious about him borrowing Adrien’s clothes too, are they going to dress the same? You’d think Adrien wouldn’t give someone an exact copy of the outfit he’s currently wearing but I genuinely don’t know if he owns anything different. I hope they don’t just use two Adrien models for the rest of the episode, please let me see Felix properly :/

- WHY. HONESTLY, WHY. CAN I PLEASE GET AN EXPLANATION FOR WHY FELIX IS DOING THIS.

- OOOH MARI YOU’RE NOT GONNA LIKE THIS. I can imagine Felix is going to say something nasty and that’ll set the girls off and bring about the akuma of the week. I’m mildly entertained but I’m still not engaged with this idea without any proper explanation. We’d better get something by the end of the episode which justifies what’s made Felix do this, because “he’s just evil lol” would be a reeeeally low move from Garbage Man Astruc.

- MARI SWEETIE. YOU’VE GOTTA LEARN TO CHECK A ROOM IS EMPTY BEFORE YOU RUN INSIDE AND START FREAKING OUT VERY LOUDLY. LUKA’S HEARD ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING.

- Luka is such a nice character. Why does he get to be so high quality when Felix has been turned into a cheese-smashing phone-stealing gremlin? I mean I KNOW why, but I’d like to think the showwriters are better than this. They’re not, but I’d like to think they are.

- WHAT A VIDEO MESSAGE. I love how Luka’s just sitting there grimacing while Mari speeds off into battle, he doesn’t know what she’s about to do but he knows better than to try stopping her.

- Back with Gabe and Nathalie. Is this what was being foreshadowed when Gabe claimed he wouldn’t be fooled by the boys’ identity switch twice? Is he GOING to be fooled again or will he be the one person who can tell immediately that this isn’t his son?

- “FELIX.” WOW, HE REALLY WASN’T FOOLED TWICE. RESPECT. He may have trouble getting up off the ground if he sits down too low but he can at least identify his child in a difficult situation like this, props to Gabe this week.

- “All this disappointment might just help us get rid of our unwanted guests!” SHUT YOUR MOUTH, FELIX IS A DELIGHT. The only unwanted guest here is Astruc on the writing team.

- “Felix... I told you that you couldn’t fool me twice.” Way to blow your identity in five seconds Gabe. I guess he hasn’t sent out the akuma yet so this might just be a personal monologue, but he starts addressing his victims directly so often at this stage that I’m really not sure what they can or can’t hear. SHIT’S RISKY.

- OH OKAY, SO HE’S SENDING THIS TRIPLE AKUMA AFTER FELIX? AND/OR ADRIEN, DEPENDING ON HOW HARD IT IS TO TELL THEM APART? I guess that’s what he means by getting rid of their guests, if the house is attacked by a monster (or monsters?) they aren’t going to want to stick around, but I REALLY HOPE YOU’RE TAKING ADRIEN’S WELLBEING INTO ACCOUNT HERE GABE OL BUDDY :/

- “TIKKI, SPOTS ON! MNUURGH” ME TOO MARINETTE. I’M REALLY ONLY 12 MINUTES INTO THIS.

- I’m gonna be honest, I’m not really interested in the girls. I was hoping for a real triple akuma (like Oblivio was apparently Alya and Nino together) but they’re all just villains we’ve seen before. There’s stuff I could comment on here but I just want to see more of Felix, that’s what I’m here for.

- “Nathalie, get Adrien to a safe place far from his cousin!” YOU’RE REALLY JUST GONNA SACRIFICE FELIX LIKE THIS. I guess that makes sense, I WAS complaining during Chat Blanc that Adrien is Gabriel’s weak point, so all things considered I’m not surprised that he’ll protect Adrien but just flat-out wants Felix dead. Fair enough.

- WOW. I THOUGHT ADRIEN WAS GOING TO BE HEROIC AND DEFEND FELIX BUT HE WANTS HIM DEAD TOO. Or was that a double bluff to make the akuma think he MUST be Felix so he can lead them away and keep his cousin safe? He’s just run off with a wild cackle so I’m thinking it’s the latter. HE’S A GOOD BOY AND A TRUE HERO.

- I also find it kind of funny how Nathalie will jump in harm’s way to defend him when there have been INNUMERABLE other episodes of Gabe just setting an akuma directly on Adrien for the hell of it. Maybe because there isn’t really any ‘harm’ here to start with; the three girls’ powers are probably the least violent of all the akuma we’ve seen so far.

- AM I REALLY ABOUT TO SEE FELIX DRESSED AS ADRIEN DOING KARATE. I HOPE HE’S GOOD AT IT.

- OH MY GOD HE IS GOOD AT IT. That’s cool! I was expecting him to totally flop considering how badly his imposter trick went down a few minutes ago, but it’s nice to see he’s as capable at fighting as he is at basketball. When do I get to see his magic card tricks?

- YEAH I FEEL THE SAME PLAGG. WHAT’S EVEN HAPPENING. Not that I think Adrien shouldn’t save Felix, I just want to know WHY Felix felt like he had to do this in the first place! I feel like “can I PLEASE get a waffle” except instead of watching the employees fight I’m watching this episode careening away with no pauses to explain what’s going on.

- FELIX C’MON. STOP CAUSING PROBLEMS ON PURPOSE. I can tell Garbage Man Astruc still has the reins here because causing even MORE trouble even AFTER Adrien saved his ass is a completely illogical course of action. PUT SÉBASTIEN BACK IN THE WRITERS CHAIR.

- “WHICH PART OF THE WORD ‘NO’ DID YOU NOT UNDERSTAND?!” Oh perfect, great, can’t let this episode end without accusing Felix of not respecting consent! That’s a hot button issue and if Garbage Man Astruc can get him on that bandwagon then fans HAVE to hate this character! Great move! Fucking pillock!

- WOW CHAT THAT’S MEAN. I guess accusing Felix of having no friends is justified in the context of the episode but yikes :(

- Was that a flash of humiliation from Felix there? God will one of the writers PLEASE save this character, PLEASE don’t let this episode end without someone getting him out of the Garbage Man’s big meaty claws.

- Excuse me WHAT? Felix is talking directly to Papillon?! So he knows about all the Miraculous stuff?! Oh NO, is this about getting his dad back? I don’t know whether the One Wish is common knowledge (I don’t think it is?) but maybe Felix put the pieces together on his own back home, so all his behaviour here has been trying to incite an akuma that he can take advantage of to appeal to Papillon?! Or he could just be a bitch all on his own, which is probably what the Garbage Man would prefer, but this makes a lot of sense all of a sudden.

- BRO HE NEARLY DIED. BRO. BROOO.

- “I hope you’ve learned your lesson!” YOU’RE NOT EVEN GONNA ASK ABOUT THE PAPILLON THING? YOU CAN’T JUST TREAT THIS AS A REGULAR DISTURBANCE, FELIX KNOWS SHIT ABOUT THE MIRACULOUS YOU GUYS--

- FELIX’S MOM IS REALLY GOING TO BLAME HIS DEAD DAD FOR THIS? HARD YIKES. NO WONDER FELIX IS WEIRD.

- I’m expecting this isn’t over, because Felix still clearly wants something specific that he didn’t get, but I’ll take this cute hug for what it is. He didn’t have an evil expression behind Adrien’s back this time either and the music is all soft and nice, plus he FINALLY got a handshake from Gabe, but I absolutely do NOT imagine this episode will end without getting an extra shot in at the PV fans somehow. We’re not getting off this easy.

- Why doesn’t Gabriel want Adrien to go after Felix? Is he scared he’ll try to run off, or ask them to stay longer when he really wants to get rid of them?

- AHAHA FELIX STOLE GABE’S RING. WHAT A BRAT. Was that the “jewelry” he mentioned wanting in return for helping Papillon? I figured it was a Miraculous thing but maybe not.

- OHHH, look how much Felix loves his mom! This is such a sweet scene. I particularly like the idea that Amelie was trying to get the rings back to give one to Felix because the way she was speaking to Gabe made it sound like she wanted them Just Because. But you can’t mention some wild story connected to the rings and then not explain it! I want to know what that is, I want to know why Felix is so fascinated with it!!!

- ALSO, FELIX GETTING A BIG KISS RIGHT ON THE FOREHEAD. EXCELLENT. I’ll fucking BET this is another scene Sébastien sneaked in because it’s such an emotional quality shift from the whole clone mess. Like what the fuck even WAS that.

- Yep, Felix is still evil! WHY THOUGH. WHAT’S GOING ON. CAN I PLEASE GET A WAFFLE

- I was expecting a worse ending, but “Felix can’t ever come back to Paris because Gabriel will kill him with his bare hands if he does” is decent enough. If there’s no further confirmation (and NO, anything Garbage Man Astruc tweets later on does NOT fucking count so don’t try me) I’m going to take it that he WAS actually sorry for what he did to Adrien. That’s better than nothing.

WELL THAT WAS AN EPISODE. That actually wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be - it could have been a lot better but it could have been a lot worse too. The beginning and end were nice enough even if the middle part was Garbage Man Astruc’s usual atrocious mess of self-service, though I do particularly despise the hamfisted consent issue shoved in there just to generate extra reasons to hate the character. WE GET IT, YOU DON’T LIKE FELIX. OFF YOU FUCK.

I’ve slept on this next paragraph to give myself time to formulate some concrete thoughts about the plot, so... Well, it was a mess, that’s for sure. They spent way too much time establishing how oH sO eViL Felix was and not nearly enough time actually explaining his character.

Why is he acting out like this? What has he got against Adrien in particular? Is he really sore about Adrien not supporting him at his dad’s funeral or is that just what Adrien thinks is his problem? What was his relationship with his dad before he died? Was his troublemaking all about trying to provoke an akuma and ask Papillon to help him get his family rings back (which he was clearly trying to steal from the moment he walked through the door, only Gabe wouldn’t shake his hand the first time), or was that just a side effect of causing shit for no reason? Did he mean his apology to Adrien at the end? WHAT was the deal with the rings and the story attached to them? There’s a whole interesting story buried in here which just got completely overlooked by the emphasis on how terrible he was and that’s really disappointing.

I did like his damaged-but-still-good relationship with Adrien though, there’s still hope there and maybe Felix (if he ever shows up again, which I only hope he does if it’s NOT another excuse for Garbage Man Astruc to shit on the PV fandom again, for the love of FUCK don’t give this guy multiple opportunities) will start coming around and making the effort to be a better cousin since Adrien’s given him a second chance. I don’t know. What I liked just as much was Marinette actually barely being in this episode at all, for the first time since Gorizilla she’s ALLOWED to be the supporting character again and that’s GREAT.

I don’t really know what else to say. I’m exhausted. Adrien’s a darling and I think I prefer my Twin AU, though canon Felix being a delightful little gremlin who causes problems-on-purpose is something I can work with in the future too.

Thanks for coming on this... interesting journey with me! I posted a set of tweets last night which I’ll leave here to finish up:

#josie's art #josie talks about things #miraculous ladybug #felix agreste #this can go in my felix tag for organisation's sake #and NO i'm not going to start calling him felix vanillagrahams or whatever his canon name is; leave me alone #anyway here's the post everyone wanted; it got VERY LONG but i ain't even sorry #i usually liveblog on the PV discord server but i felt this deserved its own post of basically-the-same-thing-but-neater

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vincentcatagainsttheworld · 4 years ago

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😍❤ #Repost Deborah Harkness FB page With the first episode of A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES season 2 airing this weekend in many places all around the world, this is my last installment of #Book2ScreenMagicMonday. Today, I'm devoting my post to our talented and generous cast who have taken my characters and brought them to life on screen in ways that have amazed, humbled, and thrilled me. Being around the actors--whether they are leading members of the cast our one of our supporting artists--has been fascinating for me as a writer. They ask me the same questions preparing for their roles that I once asked myself when writing the books: how does Diana really feel about Sarah? how do Matthew's past deeds shape his present interactions? What is Philippe's biggest concern? Is Knox a bigot or a racist--and is there a difference? Before meeting Phoebe, was Marcus a love-em-and-leave-them guy or a serial monogamist? I'm playing a merchant, where would I have come from and why am I in London? I love these conversations with the actors. They almost always bring me fresh new insights into my characters, because actors have stunning emotional intelligence and have empathetic skills that can put the rest of us to shame. Our directors work with the cast to sharpen and hone their understanding of the characters, of course. And the actors work with each other to discuss how to dig deeper into the roles and how to fit the different characters together into an ensemble that feels organic and truthful. People always ask me what I will miss when we finish filming the series in a few short weeks. My answer is always the same: I will miss being on set and sharing in the magic as my books are brought to the screen--especially my conversations with Teresa, Matthew, Ed, Adelle, Aiysha, Steven, Tom, James, Michael, Alex, Val, Tanya, Gregg, Lindsay, Sorcha, Paul, Holly, Milo, Aisling, Gregg, Malin, Owen, Trevor, Trystan, Elarica, Elaine, Michael, Joshua, Adam, Sophia, and all the rest. The conversations I had with you about my imaginary friends are some of the most treasured and privileged moments I've ever experienced as a writer. #ADiscoveryOfWitchesS2 #adow #adowcast https://www.instagram.com/p/CJozewJlUBT/?igshid=17ti2lujfjjh1

#repost #book2screenmagicmonday #adiscoveryofwitchess2 #adow #adowcast

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j-elaine-hyde · 4 years ago

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The Bean Chronicles: Part 17

Henry Cavill / Reader

With all of the chaos that had been happening you had completely forgotten that Christmas was only two weeks away. You had happily agreed to fly back to London with Henry. Happily because you knew he only had a week of filming before being off for the holidays, and you were excited to spend that time together.

However, now more than ever you were stressing about meeting his family. Henry had gently reminded you that all of them would be getting together at his parents house. All five brothers. You had grilled Henry about his family, and enjoyed the stories about all of them. It lessened your fear slightly, feeling you like already knew them. Coping with Henry’s busy filming schedule you spent your time decorating the house and getting all of your Christmas shopping done, despite Henry telling you you didn’t have to buy his family gifts.

You were sitting on the floor in the living room wrapping presents. Kal sat next to you on one side, panting as he eyed the pizza on the table behind you. You were binge watching episodes of Absolutely Fabulous when Henry finally got home from set.

“There’s my girl.... hello my love, what are you two up to?” He stood there with a smile and his hands on his hips as he surveyed the room.

“Kal and I are wrapping presents.”

“He’s a very good helper. I see he’s also guarding that pizza... he’s clearly very interested in the safety of that delicious looking crap.”

“Do you want me to heat some up for you? Don’t knock that crap honey, it’s super tasty. But I didn’t make any dinner..... so that’s whatcha get.”

“Why are there so many presents darling? Surely these aren’t all for Kal....” he gave you a stern look trying his best to hide the knowing smile that was quickly forming.

“Ok so I might have gone a little overboard with the presents for your family.... but I want them to like me.”

Henry scoffed as he grabbed a piece of pizza and sat down on the sofa.

“Darling they’re going to love you.” He said through a mouthful.

“I hope so. But a little bribing never hurt.” You finished wrapping another gift and slid it with the rest of the pile of brightly wrapped gifts under the tree. You stood up and perched on Henry’s lap.

“They’re going to love you. The house looks amazing darling. I love that you put up a tree. It actually looks like a proper home as opposed to a bachelor pad. My mum will love that you did this.”

You kissed his nose before standing up. He reached out and smacked your ass before grabbing another slice of pizza and settling into the sofa. Kal joined him, hoping for a bite.

—

You had just finished getting dressed and doing your hair and makeup. You wanted to surprise Henry with a hot dinner and a beautiful girlfriend after a long day of filming. You were about to head out and run some errands when there was a knock on the door.

Kal barked and took off down the hall. You hesitated, a nervous pang struck your chest, putting a lump in your throat. With another knock you jumped and rushed to the door.

“Hellooooo! Y/n? It’s Marianne! Henry’s mother...” She called through the door.

All of a sudden an entirely different nervous energy filled you as you quickly opened the door.

“I’m so sorry! Hello, come in!” You swallowed hard and smiled nervously.

“Oh! Well... you certainly are breath taking. You’re even more beautiful in person! No wonder my son is so taken with you...”

You blushed and smiled. “Thank you.”

She looked around the house at the Christmas decorations you had put up with an approving smile, “I’m sorry to just pop by... I know my darling boy is away working, but I was dying to meet you... and I thought it might be easier coming over for Christmas if you had more than one familiar face there.”

“That’s awfully sweet of you. Thank you. Can I take your coat? Would you like to come in for some tea?”

“I’d love to. I can hang my coat deary, but I’ll let you get the tea.”

You had never liked English tea. But you were never so grateful that Henry had taught you how to prepare and serve real English tea as you were now.

Henry’s mom had gone into the living room and sat down. She was admiring your tree when you came in carrying a tea set on a tray.

“You’ve made this house a home, my dear. I wasn’t sure if that would ever happen. I’m very grateful my son has you.”

“Thank you. I’m lucky to have him.” You handed her a cup of tea, “I don’t know what I’d do without him honestly.”

“It definitely hasn’t been an easy year for you, has it?” She smiled softly and gave you that “poor thing” look mother’s do when they want to hug you.

“That’s putting it lightly. I was hoping the insanity had managed to escape your attention.” You got choked up. Embarrassment written across your face. Henry’s mom had let you know without a word that she hadn’t missed a headline.

“They were all so wildly dramatic... and of course with our Henry’s name in them, we couldn’t help but take notice. He’s always been such a private person...”

You sat there, staring at the floor, biting your lip. A small silent stream of tears rolled down your cheeks as you tried to wipe them away unnoticed.

“I’m sorry dear. I didn’t mean to upset you. We don’t hold anything against you. We’ve talked to Henry about all of it, we know what you went through. This wasn’t your fault....”

You forced a smile, but couldn’t force a word.

“I’m terribly sorry, by the way, for your loss. I can’t even imagine... I’m so sorry.”

“Doctors said theres still hope. They didn’t see any reason why I couldn’t...” you took in a sharp stuttered deep breath, “anyway.”

Henry’s mom got up and hugged you. One of those good hugs only a mom can give.

—

The two of you had talked for hours before realizing the time. Henry’s mother hugged you tightly before she left, asking you to go to lunch later that week. You absolutely adored her, and were grateful she had came over.

You were finishing dinner and setting it up in the dining room when you heard Henry arrive home.

“Babe?” He called from the living room.

“Dining room!” You hollered back.

He walked in to see the beautiful candlelit dinner you had spent hours preparing.

“You’re so incredible. I’m starving.” He walked over and kissed you before sitting down at the table.

You smiled and took your seat at the table across from him, “How was your day hon?”

He dug in to his food, pausing with a smile at his first mouthful. “It wasn’t bad. Stunts were a little intense today, but you know what they say, when you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life.” He winked at you before shoveling in another bite. “I hear you had a visitor today....” he looked up at you with a curious, albeit nervous look.

“Yeah! Your mom came by today.” You took a slow sip of your wine.

He raised his eyebrows at you, fork halfway to his mouth, “well?”

“Your mom is amazing. I completely love her. She’s great.”

He relaxed and continued eating.

“I’m really happy she came by... I hope the report you got was a good one.”

“Glowing reviews. She absolutely adores you.” He thought about his statement for a minute, smiling to himself, before megawatt smiling at you. “She said she was here for a few hours!”

“We completely lost track of time. I had such a good time with her. She gives really good hugs.”

Henry jerked his head up from his plate, “She hugged you?”

With a confused look you laughed, “a few times...”

“Wow.... I mean, she raved about you. How gorgeous you were, and smart and sweet... but she didn’t say she hugged you. That’s a really big deal. I don’t even think she hugs Simon’s wife...” a grin spread across his face.

You ate a little bit more before excusing yourself from the table. “I’ll be back in just a sec.”

You rushed down the hallway into the bedroom. Finding the bag of lingerie right where you left it, you pulled out a red lacy, strappy number and made quick work of putting it on. You adjusted the red stockings and clasped them onto the garter and slid on your favorite pair of red Louboutins.

“Babe?” Henry called you.

“Coming! I’ll be right there!”

Sauntering down the hallway you walked into the dining room, “Care for dessert?” You struck a pose leaning against the doorway, hip cocked out, hand in your hair.

“Here she is!”

Henry was on his iPad, and had it facing the doorway to introduce you to his brother.

“Holy shit!” His brother exclaimed as Henry dropped the iPad. “You lucky bastard.”

“I’ll call you back. Hang up!” Henry shouted.

You stood there; hands over your mouth. “Honey I’m so sorry, I had no idea.”

Henry laughed as he walked over to you and clutched your face in his hands. “He’s not getting a better Christmas present than that this year... I can promise you that.”

“Oh crap. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m not. That was hilarious, and I can guarantee you he enjoyed it. Probably about as much as I’m going to enjoy taking that off of you.” He bent down and slung you over his shoulder, smacking his hand on your ass as he carried you to the bedroom.

He set you down, as your placed your hands on your hips staring at him, as he lowered to his knees.

“I worship you, My Queen.” He kissed your stomach as he ran his hands up your legs. He kissed your thigh next to the clasp holding your stocking before leaning over and kissing the same place on your other thigh. He slid his hands around to your ass, gripping it and rubbing it as he ran the tip of his nose down your stomach. Nuzzling the satin fabric of your thong, sending shockwaves to your nerves.

He slipped his fingers under the thin ribbon of your panties and slid them down your legs as he looked up at you. Leaning forward and kissing you, his scruff tickled your thigh. He stood up and grabbed you, swinging you onto the bed before grabbing your legs and pulling you closer. He kissed your ankle, leading a trail up the inside of your leg. He ran his tongue over your folds, “mmmmm babygirl.... you’re already so wet.”

He continued blowing your mind with his tongue, sliding in his finger to send you over the edge two times before he was done. He kissed his way up your stomach, tracing circles around your breasts with his nose, before continuing to your neck.

“I love you.” He whispered, “You’re everything to me.” He reached down and pulled your leg up, positioning himself between your thighs.

Your head was swimming as he entered you. You wrapped your arms around his neck holding tight as you lost yourself.

The rest of the night was a blur of pleasurable ecstasy that left both of you completely drained and satisfied. You curled against Henry as he held you close, both of you blissfully happy as drifted off to sleep.

TBC

#romance #fiction #fanfic #fanfiction #henry cavill #smuttyfanfic #smuttyfun #author

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uservillanelle · 5 years ago

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Killing Eve ― 3x03 (Review)

Alriiight clowns, who’s ready for some 3x03 discussion? I don’t even remember how many times I’ve seen the episode already, but there are still some points I’d like to point out/talk about. So let’s get started!

Andalusia

As bad as it sounds, I enjoy seeing Villanelle do her job. It’s exactly where the show can show off some really incredible places in the world and of course explore different, creative ways of killing someone. However, this time in particular I don’t think it was realistic enough the way they did it. I mean, what kind of strength does Villanelle need to have in order to throw the tuning fork like that and instantly kill a person? You’d think it would take a lot more effort to have the tuning fork pierce human skull. No?

Anyways, another thing is the nanny that Villanelle also killed. I believe only the pianist was her target, since she appeared to be rather taken aback by hearing the baby’s cries through the baby monitor. She didn’t expect anyone else to be in the house. She could’ve easily left without anyone seeing her, but she didn’t. “You really like that baby, huh? It’s not even yours.” So this kind of explains why she killed the nanny, since the baby wasn’t hers? But then again... I think this scene was needed for her to be able to take the baby and eventually this thing would escalate into her need to find her family.

The Bathroom

Carolyn and Mo are analysing the circumstances of Kenny’s death. And what’s better way to do it than in a bathtub? Classic Carolyn. This reminds me of Villanelle’s “I have a thing for bathrooms, actually.” One of the recurring themes that the show expresses in such a natural way.

The fact that the head of MPS still claims that it was suicide despite the lack of note or motivation. Makes me wonder just how many more cases like these are marked as ‘suicide’ when in reality there’s a lot more to the story to uncover. KE is really into all this shady stuff, hm?

Eve is SO done with Carolyn this season. She deserves it though, after betraying Eve but it is just so satisfying for me, at least, to watch them interact with this new formed dynamic. It’s refreshing that Eve was in a way replaced by Mo, who now is basically Carolyn’s assistent and not Eve. She did make her point for not wanting to work for Carolyn anymore, so she found someone else, while Eve is still active and in the game, just in her own way. Gotta love independent Eve Polastri.

Meetings Have Biscuits

Eve is really taking charge this season, not gonna lie. She basically set up this whole meeting, invited Jamie (whose name I constantly keep forgetting) and even ordered everybody on what they should be doing since neither Carolyn nor Jamie showed the initiative to work with one another. “You can have a biscuit when you tell me what the point of you is.” GOLDEN LINE!! I don’t usually agree with Carolyn, but YES! I’m not really sure what is Jamie’s role here. You can have Bear, who already helped to solve the rubbik cube’s puzzle while Jamie did what, exactly? I have a bad feeling about him but I’m not going to say it just yet... in case I’m wrong and do I hope I am.

Young mother with baby and grandma

I absolutely ADORED this scene in all ways. We got to see Villanelle interact with an actual baby without her doing any harm to him! That’s a rare gem we might not get to see again, so let’s appreciate it! Not only that but we got to see A BABY interact with A BABY. Villanelle’s a literal child and I love her to pieces.

Ever since Villanelle found out that Eve’s alive she’s been back on her BS just like Dasha said and apparently it’s been DAYS. “What got into you?” So.. Dasha doesn’t know that Villanelle knows about Eve. Meaning Dasha is not communicating with Konstantin and probably doesn’t know about Eve. Then again, last episode she and Villanelle did have a talk about how she can’t go down the same road again. So is Dasha pretending not to know what’s going on or she truly isn’t aware?

Villanelle gets her next postcard. It’s London. She freaks out and we all know exactly why. Yeah, it’s like, WE also should be freaking out about it because Villanelle will be going to London in episode 3. Eve and Villanelle usually got her first reunion in episode 5 in previous seasons. So it does feel too soon and that’s exactly what Villanelle says next. “I’m not ready! How about that?” Of course she needs to prepare first. She’s extra like that. Not only she says it but she is actually nervous and her body language is TOO loud about it.

This brings me to my next point... Dasha sees just how much of a mess Villanelle is and proceeds to “encourage” her once she hears that she’s not ready. “All you need is anorak and a face like cheese”. Okay, hear me out. Last episode Dasha and Villanelle were having a conversation about Felix and how Villanelle will have to “guide” him, encourage him and make him believe that he “can be good”. This is exactly what she’s doing with Villanelle now, or am I seeing things? Last time Villanelle picked up on that, this time she doesn’t because she’s too invested in thinking about Eve and preparation. Then she agrees with Dasha and we see her give this sort of satisfying look which only indicates just how twisted she is. I mean she can’t be that stupid to not realize why Villanelle is the way she is... and STILL encourage her to go to London. Like.. I’m sure The Twelve has many more assassins up their sleeve so why not send someone else to London instead? No. It has to be Villanelle for the show’s sake. It has to be Villanelle because EVE is there and the idea of the Twelve possibly wanting to recruit Eve keeps appealing to me more and more... this might not be the case at all but why would both sides keep setting Eve and Villanelle up even after they seemed to be “over” one another?

On a lighter note, Dasha placing the baby in the trash bin is the most hilarious thing I’ve seen. INCLUDING Villanelle’s reaction. Sooo damn good, but it didn’t seem like anyone saw Dasha do it at first. It’s only later when someone heard the baby crying, people showed up. This show man.. there’s nothing else like KE in television and it’s a fact.

Eve

Let me just start with “But before I go on, you have to understand that once I tell you about them, your lives are in danger.” “Then don’t tell us.” “They’re called The Twelve.” Eve’s really not giving a shit about anything as it seems LMAO! I mean, at least she gave them a warning beforehand? This is yet another recurring trait of Eve’s. She doesn’t care about other’s needs except her own. It happened plenty of times back in S2 and it happened in this season. For example when she called Kenny and asked about the drinks and as soon as she got the answer she needed from him, she hung up not giving a chance for Kenny to say anything. Then now, and the way she treated Mo once she asked if he could trace the Geneva account for them. This reminds me of a scene in S2 where Eve basically ordered Kenny to help her find Villanelle by saying “you work for me.” This is exactly what she’s doing with Mo now. “Did you take this job thinking it would be easier? If you did. quit now. Cause it’s only getting tougher.” This is her own way of manipulation and getting what SHE wants. She even did it with Villanelle back in 2x05 when she asked for her help while interrogating the ghost. She did it and basically had to ASK Eve for a ‘thank you’ which wasn’t even genuine from Eve’s part. It’s not the best thing to have or do... yet I’m not sure if Eve is even aware of what she’s doing or when she does it. Hopefully it won’t cause major trouble further into the story. Hopefully.

The time has finally come. Eve is finally beginning to realize and hopefully accept her feelings for Villanelle. I’m not saying she was in denial before, but more like avoiding the topic in general. Until this episode. I mean the sexual tension between her and Villanelle whenever they meet and especially in this episode was WAY too strong for her to handle and she went for it. She went for the kiss which, can mean a million things, like Sandra mentioned in one recent interview. It can mean she went for it to catch Villanelle off guard, it can mean that she simply gave into the temptation... and accepted the fact that yes, she IS attracted to the assassin and this way unlocked this very personal character journey we are about to see. After meeting Villanelle she still went to the office and all she said was “I don’t want to talk about it.” Clearly it all was too much for her, as it was FOR US, so it’s understandable. But when she came back home and got instantly paranoid, thinking Villanelle was there just got me thinking of just how big of an effect does Villanelle have on Eve. She definitely caught Villanelle’s strong scent there... and then the recording. Sure, she was scared and angry and at first turned it off ASAP. But something changed soon afterwards... something that made her turn the recording back on and bring it to her ear... and close her eyes while taking in Villanelle’s voice. She IS admitting and she DOES wish Villanelle was there. This was a moment where she had time to process everything on her own without anyone else around her. She needed this... and the reveal is just so delicious. I’m sure we all know how the episode really ended, huh?

Now that the reunion happened and Eve found out that Niko apparently discharged himself from the fascility and moved back to Poland, I’m very intrigued to see just how much will Eve and Niko’s dynamic change. Will she still try to get Niko to come back? Try to convince him that there is still a chance for the two of them? Or is she only going to visit him to tie the loose ends and be done with the guy? I do think that the kiss and the meeting itself changed things for her so I cannot wait to see just how her and Niko’s relationship will escalate/end. Niko, on the other hand, is still pretty much UNSTABLE and he’ll cause trouble. I’m telling right now. This is no good so I hope Eve will leave him as soon as she comes and be done with him since she DOES deserve better than him, too.

The Accountant

First, I’m actually glad Suzanne decided to dive deeper into the core of The Twelve. Last season we didn’t really get enough of information about them and this one seems to be way more focused on it. Meaning the story is moving forward. And by story I mean the actual plot.

Sergei Korchmarev. AKA Charles Kruger. As far as I understood he was the one to stole 6 million euros from the Twelve WHILE working for them? He did that and then asked Konstantin to get him the money to “buy him some time” to find the “scoundrel”. So 6 million wasn’t enough for him, hm? Why do I have a feeling he’s been stealing the money for something bigger than his own greed? It has to be for something “bigger” but then again, guess we won’t be able to find out as Villanelle blew his brains out.

Again, both Konstantin and Carolyn knew him so that makes me even more suspicious. They seem to be working on different sides now but who knows really? This whole thing just keeps me on my toes, as it should but I want to know a bit more of this whole situation. We are left in the dark and we’ve been there for the past two seasons.

Villanelle

Villanelle in the perfume shop is the definition of a drama queen. Period. The way she described the custom scent she’d like was so captivating and telling. Like, she knew exactly what she wanted and that’s power. Smelling like Roman centurion means smelling like power. “I want to make people gag with it.” It has to be THAT strong, she wants people to know just how much strength she’s carrying, but most importantly Eve. “Well, we have some lovely floral fragrances for ladies over here.” “Maybe I should describe to you what I’m thinking.” OF COURSE he had to suggest some “lovely floral fragnance for LADIES” which is the complete opposite of what Villanelle describes next. So the overly too big suit that she chose to dress to meet Eve should have that very scent sshe was talking about. After all, she does see herself as a warrior.

I wonder if them throwing a baby in this episode is the only reason for Villanelle to have this need to find her family. Sure, Konstantin hinted last season that some members of her family are still alive and right now he doesn’t seem too keen on helping Villanelle find them. Though, knowing that she will be going to Russia in 3x05 means that Konstantin, or someone else, will find out about the location of her family memebers in next episode. It should really be interesting because we haven’t seen Villanelle interact with ANY family members before. Plus... I have a feeling they will force for OKSANA to come to the surface yet again and I am here for it.

I can’t help but point out, yet again, that after receiving the postcard, Villanelle went to London to buy perfume in preparation for the reunion with Eve, then went to the toy’s shop where she bought a talking bear and a very adorable bear shirt for herself and THEN went to meet Eve. Only afterwards all that she actually went after her target, which should be the main reason why she was in London in the first place. Love comes first for Villanelle. Job after. That’s ironic, because the previous two seasons everything was about JOB for Eve. She let her marriage fall into pieces but she didn’t stop working and obsessing over Villanelle.

Can we just appreciate Villanelle in police officer’s uniform? I mean... she can kill whoever the hell she wants if she will be wearing that. Almost makes me want to be arrested by a cop lmao!!

The bus scene

It’s been over 4 days since the episode came out and I STILL cannot believe we got a villaneve reunion AND A KISS!! Like... I was worried the scene would be too random and I didn’t want that. It was random. That’s why it was so surprising for all of us, because we couldn’t expect them to meet so soon and on a bus. There were no indications we will see them meet and that worked really well.

At the same time I feel like if we cut out the bus scene from the episode, the main plot wouldn’t be affected. This scene could easily be replaced with another one while this one could be thrown in next episode or have them meet in second episode if they found out about each other during the premiere. That’s why I don’t like that aspect... I wish the scene was there because it was NEEDED to be in that episode at that time, you know? It’s only about the placement. I wonder why they decided to include it in this particular episode.

Other than that the scene itself was PERFECT!! I made a separate in depth post/anaylsis of the scene HERE in case you haven’t read it yet!

Carolyn

I’m soo glad that we’re finally seeing more of Carolyn investigating things openly for us, viewers. The previous two seasons we barely saw anything she did because she was THAT private and had so many secrets we could only wonder what the hell she’s thinking or doing. Now, though... we can see she’s working on Kenny’s case and is actually trying to solve this mystery surrounding his death. That includes her setting up the meeting with one of her former lovers, Henrik, to find out about the Geneva account.

Now, I was soo sure Villanelle would go after her so I kind of was prepared to lose Carolyn or have her escape somehow. None of that happened, though they did make us worry for a minute or two during which Carolyn wasn’t moving and had blood/bruises on one side of her head. Again, Villanelle is THAT extra to go through the trouble to nearly shoot Carolyn only to get to the accountant. And we actually got to see Carolyn fearing for her life despite having met Villanelle several times. She knew what Villanelle was capable of so the aftermath of this helped us see that she indeed had feelings but often decided to ignore/avoid them and this way stay in denial. “I’m fine” says a woman who looks like a mess and is shaking at the same time. It’s okay to admit things, Carolyn.

Overall Thoughts

The first two episodes were there to set the entire plot up, including Eve and Villanelle find out about one another and now that they know... shit’s going down and this episode was definitely the strongest one this season so far. This is very promising since the episode was written by Laura Neal, who will be the showrunner for S4!

We got to see plenty of action, funny moments, AT LEAST 6 different Villanelle outfits and we got a moment with her and actual baby. PLUS VILLANEVE KISS!! What else could we want?!

As always, if any of you guys have any predictions/thoughts on previous or future episodes don’t hesitate to ask/message me about them so we could chat and discuss our favorite show together! Thank you guys for reading and see during the review for 3x04 next week!!!

#ke spoilers #killing eve #villanelle #jodie comer #sandra oh #villaneve #eve polastri #ke review*#ke*#ke 3x03 review #ke s3 #ke 3x03 #the kiss™#villaneve is canon bitches #creation

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thedreadvampy · 4 years ago

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So this was sent to me by @atiredpan weeks ago when the White Jon conversation was very live and I'm posting it (belatedly) with their blessing (they didn't want to put it up publicly and have it seem like an attack which I really very much appreciate but wouldn't have minded) and I percolated for a few days and then got very busy for a few weeks. Response follows.

So I feel weird about how I'm responding to this stuff, I'm launching rapidly into taking about/explaining my own experience in a way I'm worried maybe comes across as a direct comparison. It kind of feels like I'm talking in a way that's like brushing off your experience and saying OK BUT HERE'S WHY I'M RIGHT and that's not what I'm trying to do, it's just that there's not much I can usefully add to what you've said - you know your experience better than I do, and I'm not gonna go around trying to read into it or reexplain it. So I'm going to talk about where I am/have been coming from, but not with the intention of countering your points, all of which I think really resonate.

First off, the post where I was like "Jon is white and if you disagree you're Wrong" was, unreservedly, just a shitty post and I'm not suprised it upset a lot of people. I'm really very sorry about that, it was thoughtlessly written and pretty stupidly posted.

I totally get that my whiteness has fed into how I hced Jon (and as I think I've said before I saw Jon a certain way well before I engaged with any fanworks, just as you did). There's a lot of reasons I imagined Jon as white from pretty early on, a non-negligible one of which was like...That's Jonny. This is a podcast by Jonny, about a character with the same name and mannerisms as Jonny, and Jonny is extremely white. It would have felt weird, when I was listening to TMA as a Friend Podcast, to stick a brown face onto what at least appeared at the time to basically be a self-insert character of my white friend. Now that's a really personal thing informed less by the story and more by the circumstances under which I've interacted with it, but it certainly laid a baseline. I didn't really have a clear mental picture of Jon (or most of the characters) for a looooooong time (for an artist I'm really not a very visual thinker) but I had a few sort of mental sketches (Jon is short white balding and awkward, Martin is tall biracial and scruffy Basira is fat and somali Melanie is my friend from work etc) which I developed a long time before I encountered fanworks.

I saw the alienation you mentioned and I connected it to class and gender, not race, because I’ve met a lot of cis men, white and otherwise, who interpolate trauma, class insecurity, insecurity about their own abilities, and so on into withdrawal, denial and snappiness. So for me I had an interpretation of that element of his personality which was pretty much race-neutral, and then I had these existing cues leading me to assuming he was white (largely that Jonny is white, but also wee stuff in the story that...it’s not like anything substantial enough to remember, let alone justify, but there were certainly interactions that pinged whiteness for me personally)

There are actually iirc a few throwaway references to Jon being promoted above more qualified candidates throughout (or at least I thought I knew that before s5), but the time I decided I thought White Jon was an obvious conclusion was of course the conversation where Sasha expresses frustration about it. and the context of that conclusion (at least as far as I can see) wasn't "people of colour can only exist in subservient positions/defined by oppression" but was informed by two things that were going on with my life around the time that episode aired

I had been having several conversations with friends of mine (and largely friends of Jonny's) who work in London in the museums/archiving sector and who are the only women of colour in whole departments or even whole museums, and who experience so little career mobility compared to their less-qualified white counterparts (we're talking about women graduating top of their class at Oxbridge with anthropology or library science masters and stellar original research, with a decade or more of impeccable work experience and acting up, being left in internship and low-grade positions, while white men who "fit the culture" but have 0 museums experience sail into upper management positions and then stay there until they retire). So I'd come almost directly from these conversations into what to me sounded like exactly the same gripe in TMA.

I'd been at that point working for about a year and a half on co-coordinating the anti-oppression committee in my workplace, which was a very Good Progressive Activist Charity with Good Lefty Principles, and over the course of experience sharing and discussions both with colleagues of colour and along lines of wealth, disability, class etc, I was very much confronted with the realisation of how much 'being adequately qualified' meant different things for middle-class good-university white men vs much more highly skilled and hardworking women of colour or people of different class and wealth backgrounds. Obviously I'd known that before in principle, but not really having been in Salaried Workplaces (as opposed to like. service and retail hourlies) I hadn’t got so up close and personal with it. So that was also very fresh in my mind, this like...big substantial experience of how Good, Well-Meaning, Caring, Thoughtful, Woke white men just........did not need to think about this. at all. and were startled and discomforted to face it. and that this was also true of most white middle-class women. and these conversations were really carved down the middle between white middle-class European women saying ‘this is such a surprise when we have such an equitable hiring policy and diverse staff, that there’s this gender gap’ and women of colour in the room wearily saying ‘yeah, there’s a gender gap, there’s always a gender gap and it is always a racialised gender gap’ so yeah I was definitely thinking about the intersection between being passed over at work because of gender and because of race.

The point about Tim is interesting because I think for me what’s getting lost is that I don’t think Jon is entitled as like...a Character Trait. He’s not like...Toxic Masculinity Man. He is very anxious about boundaries and about his own capacity to do harm. But it has to be pointed out to him where he’s doing harm. He doesn’t notice where he’s been unfairly advantaged, and that’s to me much more reflective of most people’s relationship to white or male entitlement.

As I say, that exchange with Tim and Sasha cemented the Jon Is White hc in my head specifically because it was so reflective of conversations I had had with women of colour working in similar workplaces, about white men, usually about white men they generally liked or at least didn’t have beef with beyond their unfair advantages.

It seems odd to me to frame ‘bitching about your boss on your friend’s behalf to make her feel better’ as more similar to white entitlement/white privilege than any of that tbh? That’s just...being friends with someone?

Anyway I recognise that it’s not white entitlement to accept a job. Obviously it’s not, it’s just sensible under the circumstances, you get lucky and you grab it. For me my sense of Jon as white-because-of-this is not “he took a job he shouldn’t have taken,” it’s more about his obliviousness to the impact he has on others, and also primarily how people react to him. The interaction between Sasha and Tim is saturated with the of course it would be him I mentioned above, but even before that he walks through the world not expecting to have to think about anything but his conscious decisions, and he’s caught aback when people see him as out of place or as having power above his station.

I think it’s impossible to extricate ‘this is where my head was at’ from that interpretation, and also like obviously my own whiteness is a big factor. And not just my own personal whiteness but the place I grew up (which was 98.3% white) and the world which reflects back whiteness. So this is in no way intended as a bolshy This Is The Correct Headcanon the way my Bad Post was bc examining it I’m like...yeah I mean this is about how I personally interpreted this based on where I was at at the time. But I do feel like there’s some communication gap in what it is about this unqualified promotion thing that pinged me - it’s not that All Bosses Must Be White And All Brown People Must Be Downtrod, it’s something quite specific about the tone and tenor of the interactions around the getting-a-job.

But also? Idk. Kind of unrelatedly, and people obviously should feel free to disagree with me on this, it feels kind of off to frame this as defaulting to a white Jon? I sort of think that my idea of Jon as white is very much not ‘white until proven otherwise’ - part of the reason for my original strident tone was that I felt that I was being expected to drop a headcanon I had for specific reasons and default to the fanon version of Jon without actually having any reason other than ‘this is how the community thinks he should look,’ and without really understanding anything about what that means, and while obviously defaulting to a non-white headcanon isn’t like...entrenched in the way that defaulting to a white headcanon is, it does seem to me like this is perhaps part of why white fans slap brown skin onto a character without thinking into what that means or why they’re doing it.

The thing I’m struggling with as regards my personal headcanon here is that I could decide to only ever draw Jon as Fanon Jon, but it wouldn’t be because I had strong reasons to see him that way, it wouldn’t be the same as why you see Jon as brown, or why I see like...Melanie as Indian, it would literally be Default To Standard in a way it isn’t for you. And I don’t feel that I have Defaulted To Whiteness, or where I have it is for reasons specifically to do with Jon (I visualised Jon as white because I visualised him as Jonny, who is white), not because I think every character is White Until Proven Otherwise. Like, my reasons for understanding Jon as white may be bad reasons, but they are reasons, not post-hoc excuses (I can’t like...prove that. but I know it to be true at least on a conscious level). I didn’t go Oh Jon Is White Because Everyone Is Unless I Have Reason To Think They Aren’t, Hooray, Here Is A Post-Hoc Justification For Why It Isn’t Racist To Think That. So while I am totally on board with the idea that it may be shitty, harmful or poorly thought through to hc Jon as white, I’m not sure I can fully see it in myself as being default. But I do understand that that isn’t necessarily what came across in my original short post.

Honestly, the reason I took issue with Fanon Jon and Fanon Martin in such a bolshy way in the first place was that I didn’t get why these characters were universally seen as Asian and white, respectively, and had such strong and consistent fanon images, when none of the other characters did, and when I was seeing people drawing people like Sasha and Melanie and Tim as white way more when in my mind there was no reason to assume they were white. On an emotional level I guess I think either there’s Fanon As Lore, or there’s no fanon (and I prefer the latter) and my discomfort came from the place that the one character I absolutely saw as coded as white in the core cast had this one really specific Ambiguously Brown Fanon Look (which from what I’d seen at the time didn’t seem to be like...backed with anything or coming from any personal interpretation for most of the white fans I was seeing on like Twitter and Tumblr) but white headcanons are everywhere for characters like Melanie or Sasha or Georgie, who seemed to me to be unambiguously people of colour, or characters like Tim or Martin (who could perfectly reasonably be people of colour and who I hc as Rroma and biracial respectively)? I don’t know, it’s difficult to express, but I find it frustrating.

#tma #White Jon #idk sorry to post this so separate from the rest of the conversation I have been Busy

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paulinedorchester · 3 years ago

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Mosley, Leonard. Backs to the Wall: London Under Fire, 1939-1954. London: George Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1971; reprint, as Backs to the Wall: The Heroic Story of the People of London During World War II, New York: Random House, 1971.

Each generation gets the history that it needs — or wants, or demands. That’s what kept going through my head as I read Backs to the Wall, which appeared three years after France’s youth explicitly rejected both Charles de Gaulle, the self-appointed leader of the Free French during World War II, and the political ideology that he represented, and amidst ongoing unrest over the Vietnam War. (It’s also worth mentioning that it was published in the same year as Norman Longmate’s How We Lived Then: A History of Everyday Life During the Second World War and two years after Angus Calder’s The People’s War.) This book gives up a World War II narrative in which Churchill was an improvement on Chamberlain only in that he wasn’t an appeaser, de Gaulle was worse than both of them put together, the Allied leaders all cordially loathed each other, half the British public wanted to sue for peace, and there was across-the-board mutual dislike between London civilians and American troops (and British dismay at the way African-American troops were treated by their white counterparts was far from universal). Do I exaggerate? Only slightly. Backs to the Wall is a sort of distant, city-specific pre-echo of Juliet Gardner’s sour 2004 book Wartime: Britain, 1939-45.

As with Wartime, however, this book does have the virtue of introducing us to a number of very interesting people. I became interested in reading it because it brought Vere Hodgson’s wartime diary to public attention. Mosley quotes or paraphrases Hodgson’s writing from the beginning of the war through its end, and also seems to have interviewed her extensively. His primary villain, meanwhile, is not Chamberlain but Chamberlain’s chief acolyte, Henry “Chips” Channon, from whose diary he quotes widely (and who turns out to have been born and raised in the United States, to my surprise). We hear a great deal from the chemist and novelist C.P. Snow and follow the misadventures of two civilians, Jenny Martin and Polly Wright, whose consistency in both bad luck and bad choices meant that neither of them was able to stay out of serious trouble for any length of time.

There are many glimpses of the London home front through the eyes of two boys, both eight when the war began: John Hardiman, of Canning Town and later of Aldgate, who was evacuated in 1939 but soon returned to London, and Donald Ketley of Chadwell Heath, who was never evacuated at all. Donald, who thoroughly enjoyed himself during the war, had an experience that speaks to our own recent reality:

Another good thing: quite early in the Blitz, his school had been totally destroyed by a bomb. Since Donald was shy, a poor student and unpopular with his teacher, he was overjoyed when he heard the place was gone. Thereafter he went each day to his teacher’s home to pick up lessons, which he brought back the next day for marking. In the following months he changed from a poor student to an excellent one, and although he was aware that his teacher rather resented it, he didn’t care.

Mosley also introduces us to Archibald McIndoe, the real-life counterpart of Patrick Jamieson, Bill Patterson’s character in the Foyle’s War episode ‘Enemy Fire.’ Art seems to have imitated life pretty accurately in that instance: he and his burn hospital in East Grinstead were apparently exactly like what was depicted, the only difference being that the hospital was set up in an existing hospital building, not in a requisitioned stately home.

Backs to the Wall seems to have been one of the earliest books to make substantial use of Mass-Observation writings. Most M-O diaries are anonymous, but there are two named diarists here who stand out. John James Donald was a committed pacifist whose air of lofty detachment as he observes the reactions of those around him to air-raids and other wartime event and prepares for his tribunal — which, in the end, he decides not to attend — quickly grows irritating. More interesting is Rosemary Black, a 28-year-old widow, in no small part because she differs markedly from what I had thought of as the archetypical M-O writer. Here’s her self-description on M-O documents: “Upper-middle-class; mother of two children (girls aged 3 and 2); of independent means.” Mosley continues:

She lived in a trim three-story house in a quiet street of the fashionable part of Maida Vale, a short taxi ride from the center of the West End, whose restaurants and theatres she knew well. She was chic and attractive, and lacked very few of the niceties of life: there was Irene, a Hungarian refugee, to look after the children; Helen, a Scottish maid, to look after herself and the house; and a daily cleaning woman to do the major chores.

Black took her children out of London at the beginning of the war but quickly brought them back, and when bombs began falling she kept them in place — air raids might be disruptive for them, but apparently relocation had been worse. She was very much aware that she was riding out the war in a position of privilege, and she often expressed guilt feelings; but this tended to fade away before her irritation at the dominance of “the muddling amateur or the soulless bureaucrat” in the war effort. Offering her services, even as a volunteer, proved very frustrating. “She was young, strong and willing; she typed, spoke languages, was an expert driver and had taken a course in first aid,” Mosley tells us, “but finding a job even as a chauffeur was proving difficult” in September 1940. (She actually wasn’t all that strong physically: as we learn, she suffered from rheumatism which grew worse during the war years and probably affected her outlook.)

Black was greeted with “apathy and indifference” by both A.R.P. and the Women’s Voluntary Service. Early in 1941 she was finally able to get a place handing out tea, sandwiches, cake, and so on to rescue and clean-up workers at bomb sites from a Y.M.C.A. mobile canteen. She was a bit intimidated by the women with whom she found herself working:

Their class is right up to the county family level. Nearly everyone is tall above the average and remarkably hefty, even definitely large, not necessarily fat but broad and brawny. Perhaps this is something to do with the survival of the fittest.

And the work did bring her some satisfaction, even if it was of the type that lent itself to being recorded with tongue placed firmly in cheek:

We had a pleasant and uneventful day’s work serving City fire sites, the General Post Office, demolition workers and Home Guard Stations, etc. We were complimented at least half a dozen times on the quality of our tea ... I think the provision of saccharine for the tea urns to compensate for the mean sugar allowance is my most successful piece of war work. What did you do in the Great War, Mummy? Sneaked pills into the tea urns, darling.

For all her good humor and astute observations, Mrs. Black was far from immune to tiny-mindedness. After an evening out in 1943 she wrote:

I had to wait some time for the others in the cinema foyer, and I was much struck, as often before, by the almost complete absence of English people these days, from the capital of England. Almost every person who came in was either a foreigner, a roaring Jew, or both. The Cumberland [Hotel] has always been a complete New Jerusalem, but this evening it really struck me as no worse than anywhere else! It is really dismaying to see that this should be the result of this war in defence of our country.

Indeed, Mosley cites the results of a multi-year Mass-Observation study that showed a marked increase in anti-Jewish views London’s general population over the course of the war. Since it’s just one study, and since I haven’t seen that study mentioned anywhere else, I am reluctant to trust blindly in its accuracy; and there’s also this:

The small flat which George [Hardiman] had procured for [his family] ... in Aldgate was cleaner and airier than the old house in Canning Town [which had been bombed], and the little Jewish children with whom John now went to school seemed to be cleaner than the ones in Elm Road; at any rate, he no longer came home with nits in his hair.

On the other hand, Mosley himself gives us only a fragmentary view of London’s wartime Jewish population: everyone seems to be either a terrified refugee or an impoverished East Ender. We hear nothing about the substantial middle- and upper-middle class population — mostly of German descent and in some cases German birth — that had already taken shape in Northwest London; and while we are briefly introduced to Sir David Waley, a Treasury official, in connection with the case of an interned Jewish refugee, we aren’t told that Waley himself was Jewish, a member of “the cousinhood.” On yet a third hand, Mosley also quotes other M-O surveys from the same period that indicate largely hostile attitudes to most foreigners in London, with Poles at the bottom of the ladder and the small Dutch contingent on top. (Incidentally, the book’s extremely patchy index identifies Vere Hodgson as a Mass-Observation diarist, which she wasn’t.)

Backs to the Wall closes with a very brief, remarkably non-partisan account of the 1945 general election and its immediate aftermath. “Neither side had any inkling of the way the minds of the British voters were turning,” he writes.

When [Churchill’s] friends suggested that he was a victim of base ingratitude, he shook his head. He would not have such a charge leveled against his beloved countrymen. Ingratitude? "Oh, no," he said quietly, "I wouldn’t call it that. They have had a very hard time."

The book is worth reading for the primary materials that it includes, but it probably tells us as much about the era in which it was written as about the period that it covers.

#world war II #u.k. home front #london #non-fiction after the fact #recommended with reservations #long post

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