#oh my super evil schemes only ended up benefitting the good guys after all? what an astounding turn of events!! oh my!!''

[charlesemersonwinchesteriii]

Garak in "Second Skin": I will NEVER sacrifice myself for you people I will ALWAYS selfishly save my own life that is a PROMISE

Garak in "The Search, Part II", three episodes earlier: [sacrifices himself for these people even when he could have selfishly saved his own life]

[nova-network]

A personal ranking list for “husbandos” in the Fire Emblem series

This post will be cared about by exactly two people: Admin Annette of @imaginebluelions​, and myself. This is structured in the same manner as her own tier list, as that one inspired this one (especially with her insistence that I make it, hee hee!)

Note: I am an Awakening baby, and have not yet gotten the opportunity to play the older games yet. The placement for characters on this list who originate from games made prior to Awakening is based on the information that I have gathered about them from Fire Emblem Heroes, and from further reading about those characters. As a further note, Shadows of Valentia characters (well, the one SoV character on this list) are only based on their character in SoV, and not in the original Gaiden.

Without further ado...

S Tier:

Robin (Awakening): Robin is a very talented individual, being highly skilled at tactics and magic, and he manages to be a logical pragmatist while still being rather friendly and empathetic. He’s kind of a dork, but still social enough to carry on a conversation well and not be embarrassing. He has a clean, smart-looking appearance, without being stuffy. Additionally, in some portrayals, he and his magic come across as somewhat dark and otherworldly -- most notably in Fire Emblem Warriors, where he is capable of using dark magic in the Tactician class and gets around by levitating. His connection to Grima is emphasized, but he remains as much of a legitimately nice and helpful person as ever, and the juxtaposition between those two factors is VERY attractive. He’s Good Guy Julius. He’s like a one-man rebuttal to the Loptous cult back in FE4, showing that no, your bloodline doesn’t determine your fate after all, and even turning everything he was mean to be against Grima itself. He also may have a claim to the throne of Plegia, due to his heritage, and is thus potentially politically viable.

Robin is the safe option, being relatively free of angst, emotional baggage, and potential danger, despite what he was quite literally born to do. There are only two potential drawbacks to him, and they can both be mitigated. The first is that he is probably reluctant to make a claim to the Plegian throne, unless I were to push him into it, and the second is Tharja, who can be set up with some other guy and thus could end up an ally instead of a potential relationship threat.

Laurent (Awakening): Like his mother Miriel, Laurent is an utterly brilliant, highly scientific-minded individual, often striving to obtain new knowledge about the world or trying to quantify the magic he uses. In short, he thinks like I do, though he is also a lot more introverted and serious than I am -- and I think that’s a good thing, allowing each of us to understand each other without overlapping so much in personality that we would simply clash instead. Laurent often seems to be interested in practical applications of his research, too, instead of just staying with theory, so I think we could work very well together! I think Laurent would be capable of understanding me on a fundamental level that few other characters could, and vice versa. Laurent looks scholarly and refined, and he definitely is! And yet, at the same time, he isn’t a total boring stick-in-the-mud -- he can be surprisingly theatrical with how excited he can get about his ideas and innovations, and that is very attractive too!

Laurent’s supports with Noire indicate that he was very much... um, interested in her rage-breakdowns. As someone who has a tendency to dramatically lash out in a similar (albeit far less exaggerated) way, Laurent is uniquely suited to dealing with me and helping me through it, heehee! Laurent does, however, have the issue of being a politically unviable option -- he’s just a researcher, not a potential leader, so I’d have to work very hard to be able to establish myself in the archaic Ylissean government system if I wanted to go that route.

Hubert (Three Houses): Normally, I don’t go for characters who are as hostile and sinister as Hubert von Vestra, and yet there is so much about him that is absolutely my type. He is very clever, very ambitious, and very, very dramatic. He’s like a goth theater kid who went into politics instead of theater. He is very loyal, but not blindly so, willing to think critically about what is really best for Edelgard and their shared ambitions instead of just doing whatever he’s told. He’s very responsible, but not exactly honorable by Fire Emblem standards -- after all, he goes around scheming in the shadows and plotting assassinations quite a bit -- and I like that a lot. He’s fiendish, he’s devious, and yet, at least on Edelgard’s path (my preferred route by far), he’s definitely not evil, and even turns out to be quite a bit nicer than he generally lets on with his threatening demeanor. His dedication to following Edelgard’s ideals of abolishing systems like primogeniture and Crest superiority are even outright admirable, and make him uniquely suited to understanding my perspective on the world. Like most Three Houses characters, Hubert does seem to have quite a bit of trauma under the surface, but he’s a logical type of fellow, not one to need constant emotional support and coddling -- just someone he can, for once, actually trust. He’s the sort of person I could stand with instead of having to stand behind.

Also, um, I kind of want him to intimidate me. I think I would like it.

Hubert is quite possibly the single most attractive character I’ve seen in this entire franchise, but he has one single important point against him, as well, which keeps him in this tier with the others: he keeps a lot of secrets from people he cares about, and I have trust issues of my own. (And not that he’s, y’know, a creepy assassin wizard butler who has committed multiple murders. That part is okay. Welcome to Fire Emblem, I guess.)

A Tier:

Linhardt (Three Houses): Oh, Linhardt. I once dated a guy who was a lot like Linhardt. He was a biology student who legitimately considered selling his bed in order to buy a flow cytometer to put in his room because he usually just fell asleep in his chair anyway. So, right away, I can tell you that Linhardt is an excellent choice. Our interests overlap, but not so much that I would consider him competition or a threat. He’s just content to do what he wants to do. His rather lazy demeanor is a big point against him, but at the same time, this is somewhat mitigated by the fact that he’s so brilliant when he does try to accomplish something. And I think he could balance out my super driven, very Type A personality -- Linhardt can keep me in balance and prevent me from losing who I am or my connections to everything around me, because he is so relaxed. With his aversion to causing harm and the fact that he seems to be a lot more empathetic than he lets on, he could keep me from ending up as a bitter mad scientist type if things go wrong for me, perhaps better than any other character on the list. He can be to me what Byleth can be to Edelgard. At the same time, I think I could be somewhat of a motivating factor for Linhardt, so he can be the best he can be and really apply his brilliance for the benefit of the world instead of letting his mind languish in apathy.

Klein (Binding Blade): Klein is so elegant and refined! And yet, at the same time, he makes sure to treat everyone equally, no matter whether or not they are of noble birth. He would be able to recognize me for my accomplishments, for what I do and who I am, instead of just where I come from. I think Klein is another good balancing factor for me, as well -- he’s a skilled diplomat, apparently, which provides an excellent complementary counterpoint to my more blunt and aggressive demeanor. Klein can help me circumvent problems that I can’t just plow through, and I can help him take action when action needs to be taken. Klein may not be as scientific-minded as some of the other people on this list, but given that his father is freakin’ Pent, Klein is probably quite capable of understanding a lot of the things that I say and willing to listen to a lot of my interests. There is, however, one very significant problem with Klein -- his sister. I can tell you right now that I would not get along with Clarine AT ALL from the very first time we would meet, and Klein would have to handle a lot of conflict resolution and mediation. It would be an absolute mess.

B Tier:

Ephraim (Sacred Stones): Ephraim is somewhat unique in this tier list because he’s not really much of an academic type at all! He’s good at tactics and leadership, but not much else. But at the same time, he has a clean, sharp sort of athleticism to his appearance that I like a lot, and he’s very confident and outspoken without being a jerk at all. Since he does end up in charge of Renais, he’s also a very politically viable option (are you seeing a pattern here for characters who don’t come from 3H, the game where monarchy and inherited nobility are deconstructed more instead of taken for granted?). I think Ephraim would be able to listen to me and understand my strengths, while at the same time, I can understand his talents and perspectives as well. On the other hand, he probably wouldn’t know what the hell I’m talking about half the time, which could make me eventually feel kind of isolated.

Henry (Awakening): The cute one. Henry is just such a legitimately nice and fun person despite his morbid personality. He wants to help, he just doesn’t always know how, because his grasp on human morality and empathy is a bit nebulous. He’s a twisted fellow, but not a mean one, and I think I could really appreciate his curiosity and vice versa. He’s smarter than his goofy personality lets on. I think we could talk about a lot of things with each other and accept a lot of things about each other that most people wouldn’t be able to, or at least not as easily. And he is apparently a very good parent! There are still a couple of problems with Henry, though. Most importantly, he’s kind of immature, and I don’t know how much I could handle that in a relationship. Also, he’s technically a mass murderer, though this is mitigated by the fact that he’s not a bad guy, and could be mitigated much further if his willingness to take a stand against Grima gives the public a bit of a better view of him. Also, he’s not politically viable. Whee! And I’m not sure how old he is.

C Tier:

Leo (Fates): Logical but theatrical, pragmatic and cold but surprisingly nice and dedicated despite that. He’s like a proto-Hubert, for the purposes of this list. Leo is a pretty great pick for pretty much all the reasons that Hubert is, but... just less so. Also, he has a couple of major drawbacks -- I don’t want to have to deal with his family (Camus-archetype Xander and ingenue Elise would be enough of a problem, but Corrin? Well, Camilla’s okay, I guess), and like Henry, I’m not sure how old he is, either. Leo is, ironically, probably best on the Birthright path in terms of husbando properties, because now I don’t have to deal with Corrin, who I would immediately consider a threat because Corrin is a pile of naivete with way too much power for his/her own good but people like him/her anyway.

Ignatz (Three Houses): Pretty cute, especially post-timeskip. A nice person, and could be great to cooperate with in terms of that Victor Trading Co. This guy just wants to paint nice art, but his family is successful enough to hire a private military, how cool is that? He’s also pretty smart, given that he excels at Reason magic. There are quite a few problems that keep him from being higher up, though. Ignatz is full of guilt, full of art, and not much else. I’m not sure how well I could ever truly connect with him.

Alfonse (Heroes): POLITICALLY. VIABLE. More importantly, Alfonse is the nerd lord! He’s good at strategy, likes history and mythology and folklore, and strives to avoid collateral damage when he fights. He’s a rational sort of fellow, which seems to be a rarity among all the crazy people in Zenith. However: it would only work out if I am the Summoner, as opposed to it being some generic-Kiran, I’m not sure how much he would approve of the darker sides to my personality, and he’s kind of a stick-in-the-mud. And that’s saying something, because Laurent is up in S tier and Klein is in A.

Exception Tier:

Canas (Blazing Blade): Canas would be most likely placed in A. He’s a brilliant scholar, and a super cute, absent-minded dork. He’s someone who could challenge me with his intellect without me ever considering him a threat. However: he already has a wife, and is thus off-limits. There is only one possible scenario that could circumvent this barrier: me being the Summoner of Askr and picking him up and rescuing him right at the brink of his untimely death, to start a new life in Askr without affecting the Elibean historical record -- but even that has its own problems. Did his wife survive in the snowstorm longer than he did? Would he just go right back there and die if the contract were broken? How much does summoning affect the mind of the person summoned? So Canas simply gets an honorable mention.

[tjkiahgb]

Alright, let’s talk about that TJ scene in the last episode

I’ve tried to figure out the Buffy/TJ scene from “A Walker to Remember” numerous times now. I’ve flipped and flopped on what truly happened, what’s a lie, and what the character motivations are.

The only thing I’ve truly settled on is this: it’s not working for me. I think the problem is that the show maybe tried to have its cake and eat it, too.

Let’s look at this from a writing standpoint. What are the goals for the scene? What pertinent information are we’re supposed to get from it?

There’s a lot.

TJ is back on the team after telling the math teacher (Coleman) about his dyscalculia

Coleman knows Buffy did TJ’s homework and she might be punished for it

Buffy figures out TJ has used “You’re right” to trick her in the past and likely got the information from Cyrus

TJ is trying to change for the better

First problem: almost all the information we get from this scene comes from TJ himself. And about halfway through the scene, Buffy claims that everything he’s said is a lie, which he sort of admits to. I say sort of because he doesn’t say what’s a lie or come clean about some plan. He just says, “Old habits die hard,” which is... vague. For our purposes at least.

Back to the list of information. We can mostly leave #1 aside. Let’s assume it’s true. It’s fairly straightforward. Even when Buffy accuses TJ of lying about everything, I don’t think she means this. He wants back on the team, this is his way back.

Let’s also leave aside #3 -- that information mostly comes from Buffy’s detective work -- and hone in on #2.

What’s likely true here: Coleman knows Buffy did TJ’s homework. I don’t think there’s any grand bluff there. TJ told Coleman that.

Did TJ volunteer that information or did Coleman figure that out on his own? It’s not a wild leap to guess that after Coleman learned about TJ’s disability, his next question would be about how he then aced his homework assignment. It’s possible TJ could’ve thrown that info out there unprompted, but that’s a risk on his part, no? There’s no way of knowing that Coleman wouldn’t also punish him for going along with a plan to cheat instead of coming to him in the first place.

I guess it really depends on how much malice you want to attribute to TJ here, and that’s probably affected by whatever your thoughts were about TJ coming into the episode.

What we also need to figure out is whether or not TJ told Coleman that he asked Buffy to do his homework.

Here’s where I start to have some real trouble with the scene, because I think I’ve finally settled on the answer being no, he didn’t. I think this is the lie Buffy is calling TJ out on. I think we’re supposed to get from all this that TJ told Coleman that Buffy did his homework on her own, in one last attempt to get her off the team.

And it’s real tough to work out the logic behind how that plan would work or why TJ would even attempt it in the first place.

First, like the idea of him throwing this information out there unprompted, why would TJ assume he wouldn’t also be punished (or that Buffy would be over-punished) for this whole homework cheating thing? At the very least, he went along with it for this long. There’s culpability there. He’d have to assume Coleman would think something like, “Well, he’s got a learning disability and didn’t know what else to do while Buffy should’ve known better.” I mean, I guess that’s what Coleman did, but that’s such a weird sense of justice for a teacher to have. Incredibly lucky on TJ’s part.

But once you dig into the actual story he would have to tell Coleman to get to this place, it really falls apart.

First off, it just weird – Buffy, against my wishes, just did all my math homework. For fun?

You could argue, I guess, that she might do it just to say she tutored him and fixed him, but that would blow up in her face the next homework assignment or test, and every subsequent one after that. She’s smart enough to know that. And Coleman should know that she’s smart enough to know that.

And really, how would that benefit Buffy anyway? Why would she even bother trying to pull the wool over Coleman’s eyes when she could just say TJ’s untutorable and leave like every other tutor he’s had. No harm, no foul. It’s not like she’s got some big cash prize waiting at the end of this or anything.

Furthermore, this entire plan is predicated on Buffy never explaining her side. She could very easily tell Coleman that TJ asked her to do it and she could point to any of these aforementioned logical gaps as to why she wouldn’t have just done his homework on a whim. It gets into a he-said, she-said situation, but it’s not like TJ’s reputation is sterling, while Buffy’s one of the best students in school.

And this whole thing, by the way, doesn’t even gain TJ that much: Buffy’s gone in a few days anyway. He gets his team back. If it all falls apart -- if at any step along the way Coleman stops and says, “Wait a second, this doesn’t make any sense.” -- then TJ would be in even more trouble with the basketball team than he’s already been in. You can’t explain away lying to throw your tutor under the bus with a learning disability.

The whole plan is both brazen and pointless.

So, why bother with this bit of storytelling? Well, it creates immediate drama, obviously. It leads to a big blow to our hero Buffy’s hopes and creates a deep conflict with Cyrus that needs to be dealt with.

Ok. So TJ’s a bad guy then. He wants nothing more than to beat Buffy and be the top dog.

I mean, look, if that’s the case, fine. The logic of the plan still bugs me, but the storytelling works for the most part.

But here’s where I say that the show is trying to have its cake and eat it.

I don’t actually believe it’s the case that TJ is meant to be some moustache-twirling villain here. I’m pretty sure the show truly wants us to believe point #4: that TJ is trying to change for the better.

Why? Because of how he acts throughout the scene. You have to remember: TJ’s behavior in this scene is a conscious choice by the director and the producers. The actor, Luke, didn’t just try to play TJ as sincere for most of this scene on a whim. If he was making character choices that the people behind the scenes weren’t gelling with, it would’ve never made it to air.

So let’s look at how TJ behaves throughout this scene.

He stops Buffy outside the gym and approaches real easy, even mentioning that he’s coming in peace. They have the whole exchange about telling Coleman about the learning disability, and Buffy needing to talk to Coleman. TJ talks about how he’s changed, and how he’s an open book, and even says some nice things about hoping Buffy doesn’t get kicked off the team and about how he heard she had a good game.

Then he heads for the gym and Buffy stops him by saying everything he’s said is a lie.

And here’s where the whole thing throws me for a loop.

If this whole scene had happened the same way up until this point, and Buffy called him out, and TJ turned around with an evil grin and said, “You’re right.” and then something like, “Boom baby, you just got Kippen’d!” and ran off into the gym, I’d have gotten it.

Oh, ok. Moustache-twirling villain. Playing evil chess and scheming. Got it.

It’s not like we haven’t seen that before. It would be very similar to the scene on the basketball court in “We Were Never.” Let’s remember that scene real quick.

Buffy calls timeout because TJ won’t pass her the ball. They bicker about passing for a second. TJ says he’ll do it next time and Buffy calls him out for lying. She says, “You just say what you need to say to get what you want, but you don’t mean any of it.”

And TJ says, “You’re right,” in a super smug way, and drops this look on her.

Which is just a cold, cold stare. Basically: Yeah, you caught me. I lied, I don’t care, I’m in charge, what are you going to do about it, etc. etc. (Or in other words, “You got Kippen’d.”)

Again, if this is how TJ turned around after Buffy called him out for lying in “A Walker to Remember,” I’d instantly understand where we’re at with him.

But he doesn’t. Let’s look at the body language.

It’s shame.

Regret.

Admission.

Let’s listen to the way he says “Old habits die hard,” and the seemingly genuine tone he uses when he says that he’s really trying.

I mean, think about him saying that now. He contends that he’s really trying after Buffy’s busted him for lying. Why would he do that? If that’s untrue, what incentive does he have for trying to convince Buffy of it? Unless... Unless he’s telling the truth.

And then he tells her she’s right. And for a second, you maybe think he is making fun of her. She even calls him out on it.

And once again, he could drop everything and reveal himself as a villain here (You got Kippen’d and all that) but he doesn’t.

He seems actually surprised that she’s mad. Like, he was either trying to lighten the mood with a joke or he was honestly trying to make her feel better by saying the words he knows she loves hearing, but he wasn’t doubling down on evil. (I mean, let’s be honest here, it’s not the most natural thing to say either way, and the only reason he really said it was to advance the Buffy/Cyrus storyline by giving Buffy a clue to sniff out. But, you know, I’m analyzing it as a line of dialogue and not a plot-pushing device.)

And then, after all that, when Buffy’s figured it out and TJ realizes he’s given up Cyrus.

And that he’s gotten him in a lot of trouble with Buffy.

That is not the same TJ from earlier in this season.

This is someone who actually cares about a person other than himself.

That’s my issue with the scene. It presents us two wildly different things. What we saw from TJ in the episode was character growth. Especially in the scene with Cyrus earlier, but in this one, too, if we believe him to be sincere for at least a chunk of it.

And yet, he makes a sneaky, irrational move to try and oust Buffy from the team? And the only explanation we get is “Old habits die hard.” Like, as much as he was trying to be a hashtag good boi, a little devil inside of him jumped up and made him blame Buffy for the homework thing? I couldn’t help myself, I just had to frame you! It’s really very disjunctive.

(Here’s a quick alternate explanation for everything that, in my opinion, makes more sense and is more consistent with the character arcs, but doesn’t actually seem to me to be where they’re heading with this.

Assume TJ was honest about being an open book with Coleman. Say he laid all his cards out on the table: I have a disability, I asked Buffy to do my homework. Coleman, because of his still warped sense of justice, chooses to punish Buffy anyway. This sort of leads us to the same point, but TJ’s actions are less malicious and more in line with his recent character growth. He doesn’t make some risky, near pointless attempt to ruin Buffy. It just kind of happened through carelessness.

When Buffy says he’s lying, it’s possible she’s referring to the last things he said to her before that line: that he hopes she doesn’t get kicked off the team and that he heard she had a great game against the Raptors - implied there that he’s happy she had a good game, even without him.

Then TJ’s line about old habits dying hard, coupled with the line about really trying is saying, “Yeah, I honestly would still rather you not be on the team. I’m not happy you’re a good team leader. Though I am trying to be better about that.”

This whole way of viewing the interaction requires more nuance and explanation though, and I don’t know if we’ll get that. It’s easier to just accept TJ=bad for now until he shows up next time and they inch him closer toward redemption.)

Last thing.

I think this scene has been a big source of the conflict this week in the fandom. (Well, some of the conflict. We got conflict for days out here.)

But I think this scene is a problem in that sense because its vagueness has served as a sort of Rorschach test for anyone who has thoughts about TJ one way or the other.

If you came into this scene hating TJ, it’s likely you mostly just took from it the TJ=bad parts. He’s a snake. He’s out to get Buffy again. He’s a villain. (It’s honestly not an unfair reading of it, especially if want to believe it was a targeted attack and you also want to believe everything he said about growth was part of the lie.)

And if you came into this scene rooting for TJ, you see the person trying to make a change and the Buffy stuff leads more to disappointment than rage, like someone you know can do better, but keeps sabotaging themselves. (Again, assuming it’s based in rancor and not carelessness. You might also be more willing to believe the alternate explanation of what happened.)

Anyway. I don’t know how to wrap this up. I’m exhausted. I’ve been writing and thinking about this for too long now. Still, if you want to hit up the comments and discuss it more, that’s cool. I’ll jump back in. In the meantime, though, I’m going to go have myself a little lie down.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Michael After Midnight: The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy

Ah, October, a month where the internet becomes obsessed with ghosts and goblins in preparation for Halloween. And really, can I fault the people for that? The dark, macabre, and spooky make for great entertainment! Plenty of great scary movies out there for the adults to enjoy to get into the spirit, but what about kids? Well, there’s Goosebumps and all those other shows like it, but what about a dark, macabre cartoon filled with spooky shit?

Enter The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, one of the best Cartoon Network cartoons ever made. Released in August of 2001, it came just in time for that year’s Halloween, and lasted six years, with seven seasons under its belt. During that time, the show endeared itself to audiences with its combination of dark comedy, grossout humor, and just plain weird situations…though weirdness is par for the course when you’re pals with the Grim Reaper, I suppose.

So what is the plot of this cartoon? Well, one day a hamster owned by a stupid boy named Billy was about to die, and the Grim Reaper came to take him. Billy’s cunning, evil best friend Mandy decided to make a bet with the Grim Reaper; they have a game of limbo, and if he wins he gets the hamster… but if THEY win, he has too be their best friend forever. Of course, he loses, and then he becomes the put-upon pal of these two kids as they boss him around and force him to entertain them. Much hilarity (and chaos) ensues.

This show’s greatest asset was its variety. With Grim onboard, any sort of plot could be possible, from sci-fi stories where the gang fought aliens or mutant chickens to more horrifying stores where they fought demons, monsters, and other denizens of the underworld. And sometimes they would do something really weird, like the episode-long dream sequence in which Billy imagines he’s in the Wild West confronting the cowboy Tooth Fairy. This helps most of the episodes feel fresh, because going in you don’t know if you’re gonna get a story about a killer tricycle or an episode-long reference to Suspiria. Speaking of which, the show is pretty clever in its references, slipping in TONS of content for adult fans, from numerous dirty jokes that will fly over kid’s heads to references to movies no kid would see, such as the aforementioned Suspiria or Hellraiser. As there’s not much continuity here, this show is super easy to jump into at any episode and just watch and have a good experience, which is another plus; sometimes it’s nice to have a simple show driven only by its desire to tell jokes rather than tell an overarching story. And thankfully, the jokes here are mostly good, and have as much variety as the episodes themselves. One memorable episode is just an episode-long series of fart jokes, while another episode gets its laughs from giant mutant chickens and cannibalism. It’s THAT kind of show.

Now, none of these situations would be quite as good if the protagonists weren’t entertaining, so how are they? Let’s start with the guy whose name comes first in the title (technically speaking): Grim. Grim, the personification of Death with an inexplicable Jamaican accent, is bizarrely the straight man in this show… well, usually. When he has to deal with Billy, he plays the role with ease, but with Mandy, Grim can sometimes get a bit silly, though rarely to Billy’s level. As he is typically what allows the strange and supernatural hijinks of the show to occur, be it on purpose or inadvertently, he’s easily the coolest main character, and due to his put-upon nature and how sympathetic he ends up being due to the shit Billy and Mandy put him through, he’s also the most likable.

Billy is up next, and he is the stereotypical idiot comic relief character cranked up to 11. He’s stupid to the point it is stated by his principal in one episode that a shovel and two candy bracelets actually scored higher on an IQ test than he did (they got a positive 17; he got -5). Think Ed from fellow Cartoon Network cartoon Ed, Edd n Eddy, only with a bigger nose and voiced by Richard Steven Horvitz of Invader Zim and Psychonauts fame. Unlike Ed, though, the dangerous and supernatural experiences they faced combined with an occasional lack of empathy and his tendency to be a jerk can make Billy a bit of a divisive character; I tend to enjoy him quite a bit, but there are a few episodes where even he tried my patience. Still, overall he’s an enjoyable dope.

Then we have… Mandy. I’m just gonna say it: by the time the show came to an end, Mandy was easily the worst main character, maybe even the worst character on the show period. She’s typically portrayed as the Ultimate Evil, this epic child chess master who always comes out on top and never faces any sort of consequence for what she does. It’s a rare episode that sees her punished for her actions. However, in episodes where she’s not trying to pull off some evil scheme and is just reacting to the madness around her, she’s a solid character. The fact she’s voiced by Grey DeLisle does help things a bit.

As I said, there is very little continuity between episodes, but there is some, mostly in the form of reoccurring characters. In a show like this, the ensemble cast as well as one-shot characters really need to be on point, and boy oh boy are they ever in this show! This show may have one of the best and most enjoyable ensemble casts in a cartoon ever. The big standouts are Hoss Delgado, the buff monster hunter who is basically a combination of Ash Williams and Snake Plissken, with all that badassery that implies; Eris, the sexy and tricky goddess of chaos; Jeff, a gigantic spider (voiced by Maxwell Atoms, the show’s creator) who is Billy’s ‘son’ and just wants his spider-hating father’s love; General Skarr, a character from Evil Con Carne who is a cunning evil man who wants to usurp power and rule the world… or he used to be, now he just wants to tend his garden in peace; and, last but definitely not least, motherfuckin’ Dracula, voiced by Phil LaMarr and based visually on Blackula, who is basically a nonstop fountain of hilarity. Each of these characters is fantastic, funny, and able to fit into a variety of weird situations the show pops out. And this brilliance and hilarity extends to one-shot characters as well, such as the much-loved singing evil meteor and Jack O’Lantern, characters who had one appearance each but easily endeared themselves with fans. If there’s a weak link in any of the ensemble cast, it would probably be Fred Fredburger; while he’s not devoid of funny moments, his schtick was really overplayed and he ended up becoming an unofficial mascot for the series in the ads, which led to overexposure. It leads people to think he had a bigger part in the show than he did, when he had a few episodes and then appeared in a few of the specials.

Interestingly, Billy & Mandy is probably one of the few shows that really benefited from getting wackier as the show went on. The first season, when the show was Grim & Evil, is, for lack of a better word, a bit grim. The episodes still have comedy, but a lot of them just aren’t as funny as later episodes, and not many of the series mainstays pop up here, aside from Nergal, Eris, and Hoss. That’s not to say there’s nothing memorable here – “Little Rock of Horrors” is in the first season, after all – but the first season just doesn’t stack up quite as well to later ones. Season 2 introduces Jeff and Nigel Planter and has the legendary Halloween special, while season 3 has classics like “Here Thar Be Dwarves” and brings in Grim’s school bully Boogie. They only get better from here, save for season 7, which is easily the least memorable season of them all (though it does have its exceptions, particularly “Wrath of the Spider Queen"). 

 Now, normally this is where I would wrap up, but first, I want to do something a little different. I’m going to list the 25 episodes I think are essential viewing for the best Billy & Mandy experience. I’m not going to review each episode or even detail them, because it would basically be me explaining jokes and how they’re funny. These are just the episodes I think anyone getting in should see. So without further ado…

25. Attack of the Clowns

24. One Crazy Summoner

23. The Loser from the Earth’s Core

22. Toadblatt’s School of Sorcery

21. Wrath of the Spider Queen

20. Home of the Ancients

19. Nursery Crimes

18. Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner

17. Giant Billy and Mandy All-Out Attack

16. Nigel Planter and the Chamber Pot of Secrets

15. Modern Primitives

14. Prank Call of Cthulhu

13. Duck!

12. The Secret Snake Club

11. Jeffy’s Web

10. Fear and Loathing in Endsville

9. Here Thar Be Dwarves

8. Goodbling and the Hip-hop-opotamus

7. Billy and Mandy Moon the Moon

6. My Fair Mandy

5. Keeper of the Reaper

4. Little Rock of Horrors

3. Wishbones

2. Billy and Mandy’s Jacked-Up Halloween

1. Billy and Mandy Save Christmas

Now this is by no means a definitive list (though I certainly believe the Halloween and Christmas episode are the two best episodes of the show), but I do certainly think that these are some of the funniest, most memorable, and most enjoyable episodes the series produced.

This show is unarguably a classic. Funny, dark, witty, and filled with jokes for people of any ages to enjoy, this is the sort of cartoon that helped Cartoon Network be truly great in the early to mid-2000s, prior to their descent into madness with live action shows. It actually spawned a pretty solid TV movie, an incredibly bizarre crossover with Codename: Kids Next Door, and a failed spinoff movie called Underfist; I’d go into more detail, but honestly, that stuff is worthy of their own reviews, so I’ll save it.

Needless to say though, The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy is one of the best cartoons of the 2000s, a real gem and definitely worth watching, especially its holiday specials which are among the best holiday specials, if not THE best (that Christmas episode is a strong contender). I kinda wish this show would get a revival of some kind, because even with the glut of comedy shows we have these days, as long as Maxwell Atoms is at the helm, I can’t see this show failing to stand out in the crowd… no show with such ballsy dark comedy and radar-dodging innuendos could ever be unwelcome.

[sootonthecarpet]

if it's not too much trouble to answer, can I ask what's been the going on with doctor who that's bad? I've seen little bits of it when my parents watch it in the other room but not enough to really get a good sense of it?

heyyy sorry to keep ya waiting on this. i tried to keep this as short as i could, but it’s about five paragraphs long, sorry. it’s not in any way a comprehensive list of problems with the last few seasons, just a quick tour of the moments i shouldve let be my ‘i can’t keep watching after this’ point. i wanted to write it objectively but i got pretty aggro, bc this show that in some part i genuinely adore has been producing unforgivably bigoted content. (it’s kinda a ship of theseus situation, except where the parts of the ship were replaced with worse, shittier, fake-woke parts.) i ask ppl to avoid reblogging this, because i don’t want my words to contribute in any way to online buzz surrounding this show or make anyone want to see it, even if ONLY to hatewatch or criticize.

content warning for misogynoir/antiblackness, racism, bury ur gays, some shit with nazi germany (yeah lol) and just the slightest kiss of antisemitism.

(edit: i seem to be having some problems with the read more cut. it’s there on dash view and when i edit the post, but doesn’t show on some instances of my blog. i can’t fix this but gksfkgls. wanted to at least be overt that i wouldn’t post this kinda long ranty stuff without a cut.)

in the last season where peter capaldi was the doctor, two seasons ago now, he had a new companion, Bill. she was a black lesbian and literally the only reason i started watching doctor who again. i loved her, and i was really glad to see the show moving back towards the more diverse cast of characters that we saw in the late aughts. then the season had a repeated theme of FORCING her to either repress or not feel her emotions. there are two scenes that stand out most to me. in an ep set in like, early 19th century london, she and the doctor are talking to a racist rich white dude who is being super nasty to Bill. the doctor keeps telling her to cool it and not show how angry she is. then HE gets to punch the guy out and knock him to the floor.

this theme of the white man being the only one allowed to get angry was big all season, iirc. then at the end of the season, Bill is turned into a cyberman. they’re usually like. soulless scary automatons, but some characters keep their individuality, which has been explored in a few past seasons, usually leading up to a tragic/heroic death. in Bill’s case, they did this trick with filming where we could see her perspective of herself in some shots–an intensely emotional performance, Bill was completely traumatized and her actress was working her ass off–and in others, just this metal body incapable of expression, scaring people like she was a monster and monotoning these otherwise very emotional statements. it’s an interesting narrative device, but after a whole season of this show putting Bill through all kinds of terrible shit and forcing her not to show her feelings on the matter, it hit me as like. this nauseating exaggeration of how society treats actual black lesbians as monsters and tries to make them bottle up their emotions and especially their justifiable anger. anyway, then Bill died and got to be with her dead girlfriend from her first episode. wow, cool.

idk what made me watch the season after that. i guess i wanted to see the new doctor, and i liked her companions (one was like. a young man with disabling neurological symptoms, tbh even if i’d missed Bill’s season that might have had me back on board). i had plenty of problems with how the season played out, obvs, but nothing was standout horrible to me the way the shit with Bill had been (except maybe the episode that started out like ‘space amazon is a hellhole’ and somehow ended with ‘space amazon was taken advantage of by a broken AI that hurt some people and they didnt fix the infrastructure we explicitly showed harmed their workers but now it’s fine!’ if that sounds weird and heavy handed with an unsatisfying ending, it’s because it was). the new season tho? the OPENING EPISODES OF THE NEW SEASON, THO? it opens with alexa product placement, in an episode about how a fictionalized google was actually run by a black man who had ties to a large number of aliens who had secretly infiltrated our society, altered our dna, and shit like that. so uh, 1. brand war lmao, sellouts etc etc 2. y’all remember those conspiracy theories about jews? and white supremacist beliefs that black people are ruining the world but aren’t smart enough to do it on their own so they must be agents of jewish corruption? HUH. HUH! that’s not even my big problem with the fuckin thing, but it’s FOR SURE a suspicious writing move from a tv show with suuuuch a huge viewership. (and it’s just plain embarrassing for a show with alexa product placement to try to go all scary panopticon tropes specifically @ a google analogue.)

anyway, we run into an old recurring antagonist, the master, a time lord like the doctor. he’s a guy again after having been a woman for a few seasons, and now played by an actor of color. i figure the reasoning at least partly relied on “dude, how fucked up will it be if we force the doctor’s black friend to call a white dude master” but i was immediately afraid it might go to the like…. Righteous White Woman Gets The Better Of Evil Brown Man tropes and oh boy!!!! i tried to be good and give it the benefit of the doubt until i saw something racist but it wasted no time. the doctor got stuck in the past at one point, and met the master, who was currently a military official with the third reich. oh boy. so she asks him why they let him work with them and he explains he’s using a device to psychically disguise himself, they see him as white. (we missed a great chance for him to monologue about how they were willing to bend their morals when they saw how evil he could get or something.) this was awkward enough for me as a viewer, but i wasn’t prepared to go into it, in case there was some tiny shred of nuance somewhere that would make this situation anything but a clusterfuck.

well, the doctor executes a genuinely clever scheme and makes a radio transmission to the brits that she knows won’t reach em, talking about how helpful this officer has been–setting up the master to be falsely outed as a double agent when the nazis intercept it. she tells the master this and then skedaddles, letting him be arrested by his own men. could be a satisfying karmic victory where he presumably gets a military trial and weasels out of his fate, although i don’t like the implications of a white woman punishing a brown man for racism. BUT IT DIDN’T STOP THERE! she disables his psychic filter, causing his men to see his true identity as a man of color–she exposes her oldest frenemy and Basically The Only Time Lord Who’ll Talk To Her to nazi racism when he was ALREADY about to fall into their hands as a prisoner. what could have been a marginally satisfying defeat was instead a kind of emotional horrorshow for me as i had to stop and wonder what kind of hell they’d put him through and why the writers decided that the doctor (who has literally since the show began in like the sixties been set up as an enemy of naziism via allegory and has always been firm in the idea that NOBODY, including literal maneating space monsters, deserves to be treated as less than human) would DO that. IT’S LATER IMPLIED HE ESCAPED FROM A CONCENTRATION CAMP. the narrative DOES NOT allow time for that to sink in before moving on.

i dont have a conclusion 2 this. im just hurt as fuck about it. i hope i gave u the info u were looking for without getting too deep into my personal feelings, but it’s difficult, maybe impossible to be objective about stuff like this.

[that-jesse]

SEIS [a thing that is posted] BATMAN

[thing that makes us realize something crazy]

Imagine a world where everyone was an evil-fighting vigilante

That world is ours, today.

Over the past few months, my mind has been opened up to the amazing world of informal public art. It’s bold, it is associated with it a certain lifestyle and it is objectively one of the most controversial every-day elements of society to date. Because of studying this topic through a University of Guelph seminar course, my little mind has understood 3 things

1. Graffiti and informal public art are very misunderstood

2. We do not like what we don’t understand. 

“So what do you think about graffiti?”

— “it’s beautiful”

“Would you let me decorate one of our walls with it?” 

— I’m not sure, I’d have to make sure I know what it is first.

“Fair. What about this?

visit this art: https://graffitiholic.blogspot.com/2009/11/how-to-draw-graffiti-alphabet-design.html

— “...well I don’t know what it says”

“Oh no worries, it says _______”

— “oh that’s nice. it looks so good. But I’d be worried that maybe there was a secret gang connotation or bad message that I can’t see in there. Sorry.”

When humans don’t know something, they fear it. This is surmountable; educate. 

When humans know something but don’t understand it for themselves, they fear embodying it.

the second is almost impossible to overcome, and the above conversation (similar to a real experience had by my friend and his mom) illustrate why in 2018 the world has yet to feel at ease about street art, something very misunderstood.

and of course, THIRD. 

In this act of ‘spray paint tag’ and cries for social justice, each of the 3 parties involved think that they are Batman.

visit this art http://dailypicdump.com/batman-graffiti

Over the semester we met 3 individuals, very passionate for their role in this controversy: A Police officer (we’ll call him Officer Dan), Paul, a man who runs a volunteer vandalism-cleanup organization, and Arthur, an infamous international graffiti artist.

So to illustrate our group of buddies here let's use the police, batman and the joker as our example. I did the cliche thing before this course and placed each of these individuals in the box that I thought most suited them and thought it to be a no brainer who stood where. The cop is the cop, the artist is the villain, and the volunteer cleanup guy was somewhere in the middle acting as the vigilante.

WHAT BLEW MY FREAKING MIND

was that I was dead wrong.

We first spoke to Paul, he spends frequent hours with a crew of other volunteers cleaning up the unwanted misunderstood art for people whose private property is affected. His motive? He says

“to be honest I didn’t really see a problem with it, the world is sketchy. But then I started seeing it through [someone else’s] perspective. The other side of the argument doesn’t want graffiti on their wall, so I don’t either.”

This is graffiti’s batman. He goes on to explain he receives no benefit, no compensation for his effort other than a sense of fulfilling a duty he thinks he has. Most importantly, he himself agrees that in a way he is a quiet vigilante.

Later we were visited by Officer Dan. He stated a clear agenda-free opinion on the matter and then I asked hi some questions. Does he consider himself the role of the police officer in the super hero analogy? (of course he does, right?)

NOPE

“It’s usually just businesses that call to report graffiti. Sometimes they scrub it off themselves and sometimes they think best to call police... either way, we don’t get involved unless someone else requests we intervene. Police are the middlemen”

wait a minute... the middlemen??? police are the what??? I thought the middle ground stance was taken by Paul... Did I hear that correctly?

I was shocked to find after further clarifying with our neighborhood face of justice that they have no disciplinary stance on graffiti in Guelph if it is free from gang connotation and private complaints. More importantly, they think that because the measures they DO take are only prompted by other business owners’ request, they are not invoking justice - rather act as the medium through which justice is served. In essence municipal police also claim to be graffiti Batmen.

To wrap up our in-class visits, we were visited by Arthur and his family, social activists and avid graffiti artists. What an insightful man, he has more street experience than I would’ve assumed and the deepest understanding of the meaning of street art that I have ever seen. As he taught about the ethnic tribal origins of graffiti and how it was influenced by the moods of modern dance and hip-hop, I immediately labelled him as a graffiti Joker. A man with a cool story, with personal, often illegal motives - with absolutely no regard for authority if it doesn’t convene him... a villain to the law (just when it comes to property vandalism). I was sold on this idea when he said,

“They think that the wall over there belongs to them, but in reality, it belongs to us... because we go and take it. We put our thought up there successfully in the middle of the night. Boom it’s ours.”

I figured that, because of the assumed relationship between authority and vandalism, he would agree that he plays the role of ‘villain’. Does Arthur, a man who knows his craft and the lifestyle he lives because of it, consider himself the Joker in the graffiti-justice analogy?

NO SIR

“people have voices, and voices need to be heard just as much people need clean walls, sometimes more.”

Our very own Arthur explained to me how his graffiti (although it might have been meaningless at one point in his early young boredom) is a well though out statement of how he wants the world to be. He is not the bad guy if he changes the world by stepping over a line or two. Arthur is also the graffiti Batman.

This weird metaphor of a conclusion that I have developed doesn’t mean much until you realize that then entire “problem” with graffiti in modern day society is summed up in those three stances. Those three stances, with different views and very different responsibilities by design, that claim the same role. Essentially, each refusing to have any part in owning up to the issue and playing a passive “middleman” in the grand scheme.

Art is beautiful, why do people oppress it when it is expressed in public space??

Because there are 3 Batmen and no mediator to stick up for the art itself.

Why is so much public property being vandalized and degraded without any punishment?

Because there are 3 Batmen and no authority to intervene.

Why are people upset when art on their illegally claimed  stolen public space is removed, changed, quoted or used for free?

Because there are 3 Batmen and the one with the spray paint can in his hand thinks he’s a societal hero.

As beautiful as paint sprayed on a wall with a message behind it may be, the conflict inherent to the issue will not be resolved, CAN NOT be resolved if the three elements of the equation pretend they have the same role. Graffiti is beautiful, graffiti is dangerous, graffiti is a means to social change but undoubtedly,

graffiti is a means to no end.

visit this art: https://www.sideshowtoy.com/blog/graffiti-rivals-photos-by-daniel-picard/

-JIBZ

request access to full referencing / contact information for individuals quoted in this piece by emailing ibanezj@uoguelph.ca - paraphrasing liberty was taken infrequently and only when protecting identity and tailoring to keep in line with context. In all cases, final work is ultimately representative of the opinions of the author and not the edited statements of the individuals quoted nor of the University of Guelph.

[laughinglistener]

Girl Power & Talking Animals: The Sequel We Didn't Know We Needed

Again, not the American cover on the audiobook I listened to, but LOOK HOW AWESOME THIS IS.

Lirael

(Old Kingdom, Book Two) By Garth Nix

Format: Audio Book Narrator: The infamous Tim Curry again Length: 14 hours & 45 minutes Genres: Fiction, Young-adult, Fantasy, Adventure, Magic Take a Peek:  Audible  |  Overdrive  |  Amazon  |  Barnes & Noble  |  Goodreads

Rating: 4 Stars

The saga continues! I had some serious doubts going into this sequel since the beginning of Sabriel was such a freaking bore. But once again, the promise of Mogget and Tim Curry made me take the dive and I’m happy I did. So far this Old Kingdom series hasn’t been pulse-racingly thrilling, but it’s a fun adventure with talking animals. That’s all I really need.

THE REHASH

*For some reason, this summary is super long. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Feel free to skip my rantings and head straight to the review on the bottom. I promise not to be offended.*

The prologue opens with a mysterious man named Hedge carrying the bells of an Abhorsen, instantly making the reader question where in the Old Kingdom timeline this is taking place. Last we heard, Sabriel—the new Abhorsen—was definitely female. Is this far in the future, or far in the past? He begins speaking with another powerful sorceress named Chlorr and it becomes obvious that they are followers of Kerrigor, the evil-being Sabriel defeated in the first novel. Hedge makes Chlorr his new servant and apparently these two goons are the new evil dream team.

This book is broken up into four parts, the first taking place 14 years after the ending of Sabriel. We see a girl named Lirael, who’s turning 14 and hates birthdays. They’re just a reminder of everything she doesn’t have. She’s a member of the Clayr, a group of mostly women infamous for their ability to see into the future, and Lirael has waited her whole life to get the Sight without success. Plus, her whole aesthetic is the complete opposite of a normal Clayr who are tan skinned with blonde hair, while Lirael is pale and dark featured. Now she is alone, her father’s identity a mystery and her mother long gone, with only an abrasive aunt as family. She is an outcast in every way—no easy thing for a 14 year-old—and goes to great lengths to push people away so she can’t get hurt.

After an abysmal birthday morning, Lirael spends most of chapter two listing all the benefits of suicide and plotting how to do it. In the end she settles for jumping off a cliff. You know, casual. The Clayr’s home is already set in the mountains and they have a paper plane hanger that would be perfect to throw one’s self from, so Lirael sets off. She arrives after a long hike and immediately hides, waiting for the guards to get lost to make her final move. As she waits, a paper plane comes gliding in and we finally see Sabriel and King Touchstone. They’ve come to visit the Clayr hoping for a vision that could help their current quest. Hedge is purposely causing problems as a distraction, though they don’t know this yet—only see the effects of his actions. The older Clayr deny having any related visions, and the now married couple set off again, but not before Sabriel spots Lirael hiding in the snow. Once the two are gone, the older Clayr demand to know what Lirael is doing and she breaks down. Without giving away her plan for suicide, she admits how miserable she’s been and how worried she is about not gaining the Sight yet. For some reason, the Clayr women are shocked and ask if it would help to have a job to take her mind off things. Um, duh. Lirael is overjoyed and accepts a position in the library, making you wonder why no one offered this to the poor thing earlier.

Contrastingly, fast forward four years and Prince Sameth is busy being a wholesome, trouble-free teen playing cricket with his cricket team. On the way home from a game, they belatedly realize that the driver has been going the wrong way and leading them straight into a trap. There’s a whole lot of zombies coming and Sam demonstrates his prowess as a leader, which is important because you’ll want to slap him in the coming chapters. Recognizing that the undead are being controlled by another necromancer, Sam decides to go into death to find them. On the other side, he sees Hedge who immediately tries to cast a control spell. It’s obvious that this entire plot was a grand scheme to get to Sam specifically and he just manages to thwart Hedge with some pretty kick ass moves. Sam goes back to reality barely making it out alive, with Hedge following close behind, determined to get control of the prince. For an awful moment it appears that Hedge succeeds, embedding something evil in his opponent’s heart, but we learn that he mistakenly hit Sam’s friend Nicholas instead. Nick is now unknowingly the host of an awful spirit that the creepy Hedge is trying to please. It’s all very Harry Potter, Professor Quirrell-esque.

via GIPHY

The cricket team narrowly escapes and they all go home, unaware that the danger has just begun.

While Sam recovers from the attack physically, he still suffers from post-traumatic stress and has become paralyzingly afraid of death (the place, not death death)—not too convenient for the Abhorsen-in-waiting. For a long while we follow Sam while he mopes about the castle, wondering how to tell his mother he doesn’t wish to be the next Abhorsen. We also see him get bossed around by his insensitive older sister Ellimere, which is apparently suppose to show us that she’ll be a great Queen someday. Just as the two royal siblings get word from their parents that things in the kingdom have gone from bad to worse, Sam receives a letter from Nick saying he’s coming to visit. This would be good news, but Nick didn’t want to bother Sam to come pick him up, so he decided to hire a random guide instead. It’s so obvious this “guide” is Hedge that even Sam sees how sketchy the situation is and decides to sneak out of the castle to go save his friend.

The now 18 year-old Lirael, on the other hand, is having a grand time working at the library by day and exploring it’s hidden rooms at night. She’s very gifted with charter magic and uses it to sneak around after hours. During one of these excursions she accidentally unleashes a freaky praying mantis monster and in the chaos, finds a little dog figurine. Once she manages to get away safely, she casts a spell to bring the dog figurine to life and OH MY GOD THERE’S A TALKING DOG NOW. Sassy Tim Curry dog is just as amazing as sassy Tim Curry cat and ALL MY DREAMS HAVE COME TRUE. Together they team up to defeat the scary praying mantis and explore the library in more depth, eventually finding the secrets of Lirael’s past hidden in one of the old rooms. The elder women of the Clayr help her find some answers and confess they’ve seen Lirael in a vision helping a sick young man.

They send her on a quest to find him, where she sails—quite literally—into Prince Sameth and they discover they’re looking for the same person. Both Lirael and Sam join forces to save Nick and *crosses fingers* defeat Hedge. In the end, we’re left on a cliffy and have to read book three to find out what happens.

THE GOOD

My main gurl Lirael is awesome and I really loved the parts told from her perspective. Even when she was having a major pity-party at the beginning, on the verge of throwing herself off a cliff, she was still relatable. What person hasn’t felt like an outcast at some point during their life? Plus, the Clayr seemed so oblivious to her plight that it really made me feel for Lirael. Once she gets the job in the library, though, she becomes a magical bad ass and it was amazing to watch her grow as a character.

Plus, let’s not forget Lirael’s bff, the TALKING DOG. Mogget the cat really saved me during the first novel and the Disreputable Dog (I’m calling her DD for short—that name is way too long.) saved me during this one. It’s kind of poetic. I’m really hoping this is a theme that runs throughout the series and we’ll just get more and more talking animals. Talking dragon. Talking horse. Talking bird. Talking fish. The possibilities are endless. When Mogget and DD finally met and bantered together towards the end it made the whole book for me.

I also think Garth Nix did a good job in the way he arranged the plot, and it really made everything more exciting. The way he switches perspectives between the two characters is great, and it helped build a lot of excitement for when Sam and Lirael finally meet. At the end of Sabriel, there was a time crunch and a sense of urgency that this book was lacking since it cuts off before the main confrontation. Breaking it up into different parts and characters was a good way to compensate for that.

And I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again. Tim Curry makes this audiobook worth listening to. He has the best voice and does an amazing job acting out the story. I have already mentally added “animal voices” to the list of reason why I love Tim Curry so much.

THE UGLY

By the end, Sam is not my favorite person. It’s odd because I started off really loving him after that whole cricket team battle, but my opinion just got progressively worse and worse as the story went on. When he goes into death to hunt for Hedge, some horrible things happen and it’s completely understandable that this would freak him out. I never blamed him for the post-traumatic stress, and even felt for the guy when he went back home and had to deal with his awful sister without any help from his parents. After a while though, his whining starts to get old and by the end I wanted to kick him. My new literary best friend Lirael is making plans to go save Nick, and Sam says he wants to stay back and let her go without him. What?!? Are you kidding me right now? After everything you’ve been through and the countless times she’s saved your sorry butt, you’re just going to let Lirael rescue Nicholas (who’s your friend to begin with, by the way) alone? UGH. GTFO. I think part of the problem is that the book cuts off and we only see half of Sam’s character transformation, but that doesn’t make it any less infuriating.

Plus, I can’t lie, parts of this book were a little boring for me. Particularly Sam’s sections that depict him depressingly roaming about the castle and dancing terribly as a bird. I loved Lirael so much that I found myself anxiously awaiting her parts and not paying too much attention to his. It was nowhere near as dull as the first one, but still a little on the subdued side nonetheless.

FINAL WORD

This was really fun to listen to and definitely a better overall book than the first one. How often does that happen? If you liked the ending of Sabriel and loved the characters, this is definitely worth reading. All of the good ones come back and I really enjoyed seeing the story continue. On to the third!

And again, do yourself a solid and LISTEN TO THE AUDIOBOOK.

Girl Power & Talking Animals: The Sequel We Didn’t Know We Needed was originally published on Laughing Listener