#or way before this part during the theater arc. perhaps

[murderandjambalaya]

Stick figure hcs!!!

It’s been a while since I got on tumblr and I STILL haven't posted, like, anything about my hcs (except for old writing from before I switched accts & devices but SHUSH WE’RE NOT LOOKING AT THOSE), so here’s some stick-focused world building stuff (mostly the hollowheads)!

rambles. Very much rambles. Only some coherent rambles. This is your only warning.

WTF IS A GENDER

Most sticks are closer to drawings or computer programs than humans, and their perception of gender reflects this! A few sticks across the outernet might take on more traditionally human genders, but most sticks see gender and pronouns as a fluid extension of their personality and self-expression. How attached a stick is to their gender varies from each individual to the next. That being said, most stick figure “genders” are more like pronouns (or lack of them) + flavors. My flavor hcs for the sticks (or at least the ones I have a clear idea of) are: (EDIT - this was supposed to be gender flavors and it slowly flew away from that but it’s long enough that I don’t want to delete it. I am so sorry.)

Red- uses she/he, cat videos, brainrot, bright blue artificial dye, time-out corner, three yo-yos at once

Orange- uses xe/xem, Yippee, Power of Friendship, orange juice mixed with caffeine in a Monster Energy can, loaf of bread, Take On Me music video but make it cosmic horror

Yellow- uses she/they, raccoon covered in car grease holding a wrench, ridiculously thick goggles+gloves, tism, curious. A bit too curious. Why are you googling “how to get away with arson.”

Green- uses he/him, disaster bi, theater kid (only derogatory during the influencer arc), WHAT’S UP DEMONS, it’s ME, yaoiYA BOI, Siren by Kailee Morgue

Blue- uses all prns, witchcore, “my farmer gf- or as I like to call her, my crop top,” if their eyes open yk you’re fucked, LET HIM COOOKKKK, rhubarb & lemon, Willow from ToH, 🫵rehab

Ourple- uses he/they, moth, capitalism, product is dairy free (father has not returned with the milk yet), “hello, Zuko here,” you’re literally broke how do you have so many suits, anxiety, Cavetown, flower crowns, psychological warfare, “DO YOU EVER FEEL LIKE A PLASTIC BAG*ugly sobbing*”, birb. Birb is love. Birb is life. grisp the birb.

Chosen- uses he/him (anything but ‘it’), Shadow the Hedgehog, Falling in Reverse, Transcendental Cha Cha by Tom Cardy but make it the seven stages of grief, Sobbing on the Ground, *pac man noises*, traumacore, Alan gave me depression bc he knew otherwise I would beat him in hand-to-hand combat at 14, eats pizza crust-first, coffee as dark and bitter as my soul, cornered stray dog, 🇺🇸F🇺🇸R🇺🇸E🇺🇸E🇺🇸D🇺🇸O🇺🇸M🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🦅🦅🇺🇸🇺🇸🍔🍔🍔🍔🍟🍟🍔🦅🦅🇺🇸🇺🇸

Dark- uses he/they (‘it’ when the mission code is in control), Murder, “spider-man, spider-man, does whatever a- OH NO NOT THE CHILDREN,” the crackling sound of a circuit board being broken in half and emitting sparks, ✨extra✨, shoplifting from Hot Topic on a Thursday, I’m Gonna Kill Santa Clause by Danny Gonzalez, masculine but like in a peacock way, knife pronounced “kuh-NIFF-eey”, chaos, the Sillies (aka bloodlust so strong I could commit a felony. Perhaps even multiple felonies.)

Vic- uses she/her (annoying local qpr always wearing the same gender), a woman politician???!!/pos, I’ve been near you for five whole minutes when are you going to murder me already, wet cat, tears, fluffy blankets, bones, space, I miss my wife, Tails. I miss her a lot.

MT- uses he/him, musty crusty Old Man, *eyebrows widen in surprise*, Flashbacks to The War, beefing with literal children, Dad Jokes, dust, depression

Agent- no time to Gender, never beating the loyal dog allegations, lost all whimsy in The Great Fire of 1941, “I just wanna be part of your SYMPHONYYYY,” ink, crunchy, fucked-up lil guy/w bg explosions for dramatic effect, IM SMITH SHADY YES IM THE REAL SHADY ALL YOU OTHER SMITH SHADIES ARE JUST IMITATING SO WONT THE REAL SMITH SHADY PLEASE STAND UP PLEASE STAND UP PLEASE STAND UP

Mitsi- uses she/her, Girlboss, actually the woman ever, paint, daffodils, ashes, earl grey tea, :3 “friend-shaped”

Gold- uses all prns, ash baby, space but it’s a liquid that will suck you into it, LET ME OUT, crayons, cotton, sunlight, glitter, sand, Minecraft end poem

Corndog guy- money, corndogs, repressed godhood, Pink Pony Club by Chappell Roan

Did any of that make any sense? Admittedly, no. Am I saying that if you bit into Red, you would taste artificial blue dye and cat videos? Yes. Absolutely. For added fun, read these like Ao3 tags.

WTF ARE THE HOLLOWHEADS

In my hcs, the hollowheads are not siblings *coughcoughchodarkpropaganda*. However, Vic and Cho are practically twins. Why? A hollowhead’s physical appearance (since I usually draw them like Fleshy Human People) is mostly determined by their creator’s intentions when creating them. Alan can only see them in stick form, so their appearance being shaped by his intentions is kinda like how ppl have hcs of their ocs that are still a part of them even though they’re only in the creator’s head and haven’t been drawn yet. Vic and Cho are so similar bc they’re only in we’re both drawn as punching bags, even though Cho was a challenge and Vic was a training dummy. Sec didn’t actually have a comprehensible mortal form until xey found RGBY (just picture an Eldridge Horror exploring Alanspc when TSC was first introduced) bc Alan created xem without any intent to make xem alive or any idea of what xey’d be for who xey’d be, so TSC is Art. Literally. Xey embody art itself. That’s why xeir whole green glowy power is so effective, it’s not meant to be an offensive measure, but a large part of the outernet IS art, so xey have a very wide range of control (or xey would have, if it was what xe wanted when xe realized it. Xey find more purpose and joy in just existing with xeir friends. Xey connect and create. It’s xeir whole thing).

A hollowhead’s appearance is also heavily shaped by the attachments they make, most notably their secondary colors. Their second color reflects the deepest attachment they make. When a hollowhead is first created, before they make any attachments, their second color is clear. The hollowheads’ pupil/irises being different colors would also make them blind until they form an attachment (light passes through clear stuff instead of being absorbed by it), and by that logic, even while attached, most hollowheads are some form of colorblind. Vic has never not been blind while Dark is the only hollowhead with Rainbow Premium™️. Second’s secondary color is Green, Chosen’s is red, Dark’s is black, and Vic’s was white but faded mostly back to clear with hints of silver (after Misti’s death, Vic kinda self-isolated and got addicted to the VR memory tech). Attachments forming appearances is also the reason why Sec is the only one with a cursor ahoogie. Vic has a large, cursor-shaped scar on their back. It fades while Mitsi helps her heal, but starts growing again once she starts blaming the cursor for Mitsi’s death. Sometimes, during her really bad flashbacks, her old cursor scars will start to show up on her skin, even though she has a new body with no scars each time she’s drawn. Chosen still has all his cursor scars. They function like normal scars. During his terrorist years, Cho also gained a “halo” after seeing the one on the Angel of Death poster. With each attack, he’d gain a few small, jagged, triangular red arrows floating around his head. Dark thought they looked cool, but Chosen would sometimes feel like they were poking him. Cho would gain more arrows per attack as the destruction went on, having an overcrowded full-on halo by the time he stopped killing sticks. It hurts a lot, these days. Sometimes, when the sunlight hits it just right, the halo flashed purple. Although his other powers remained unaffected, Chosen’s fire started to burn a little redder after escaping the PC. After the Showdown, it sometimes burns his hands. Just a little, not so much that he can’t use it anymore. It just hurts when he does. The same thing happened with Dark’s fireballs. They got darker as time went on. Dark only has a few scars. The star-shaped one on his neck only gets deeper. When under the mission code’s influence, Dark’s secondary color reverts to clear and the whites of their eyes go black. With the virabands on, Dark’s pupil/irises turn red. During the Showdown, they had red pupils and black eyes. The virabands also project six small screens in front of their face which look like eyes with the same coloration. These projections act as a targeting system for the virabots, give quick stats on how many are functional, track the location of the other band if only one is being worn, and look really fucking cool (according to Dark).

OK THAT’S PROBABLY ENOUGH FOR ONE POST, thanks for coming to my Ted Talk!

[itsahotminuteinbetween]

Been thinking about your Celestial Symphony Eclipse,,,, he does so fascinate me,,, I'd love some factoids about him if you'd like to share? /nf

Okay unfortunately my brain is doing some funny things today so this isn't going to be structured properly and for that I apologize-but here are some bullet points off the top of my head for now:

He's (legally speaking) the second Eclipse model after Solar, lasted for 8 months in the Theatre and Daycare before being scrapped after an...incident.

He was infected with the cannonical Security Breach virus.

He used to do security rounds, similar to Moon's in the game.

Both Sun and Moon take from his coded personality-he actually used to be much more enthusiastic and theatrical, but dying in a closet for 2 years changes you, I guess.

He's shorter than Solar by maybe half a foot.

He only interacts with Solar and sometimes Earth-anyone else he either refuses to speak with or freezes up in front of.

He gets very nervous when children approaches him-typically, Solar mans the theater and he'll stay in the back.

He's the one who discovered Solar's...modifications...and attempts to fix him afterwards. This happens often enough that he keeps some tools on him, just in case. (I might make a comic about this at some point, depends on my motivation.)

He dislikes the Pizzaplex to an extreme point-after perhaps a month of activation, he manages to get enough cash (don't ask how) to rent out a one-room apartment. Unfortunately, he still has to show up to the Plex every day.

Solar stays in the back of the Theatre at night-he tried to leave the Plex once because he wanted to room with Eclipse. It didn't end well.

Solar does go there sometimes during the day, but only for a few hours at a time. He doesn't leave the Plex at night.

Most of his communication with Solar is nonverbal-neither of them are very good at conversation, and they're at a level where nothing really needs to be said between them, anyhow.

He's uncomfortable around Lunar. Lunar makes it very clear how much he dislikes him.

Sun and Moon aren't as openly hostile as Lunar is, but they're definitely on edge around him as a result of his reputation-they've all read his files.

Well, Earth hasn't seen the files yet. Eclipse doesn't want to tell her why he got decommissioned.

He possesses the knowledge to play any instrument (this is where everyone else gets this from, by the way-Solar originally had all these programmed into him but never got the chance to use it), but plays second violin in their orchestra.

The only reason he agreed to join the orchestra was because he needed a way to sustain himself financially and a reason for Fazbear to keep him onboard (and because it's very difficult to say no to Earth).

He and Lunar are 'competing' for first violin (in reality, Lunar's paranoid that Eclipse is going to replace him; Eclipse could care less.)

that's all I've got for now, might add more later on. This is another Eclipse-centric au, for the most part (with some light on Ruin, of course - that arc is very important in this au, I haven't talked about him just yet), so more info to come, hopefully!

[sparkys-ec-corner]

hey your local tbi goblin here to nag you incesantly unt you give the info-(again, please tell me if im being annoying!)

ok i kept this until something came to me and miraculously it did, tbi anon! (watching mario's motheavenly pv helped haha!!)

i dont remember if i mentioned this in any of my previous tbi-related answers, but something i've considered for a very good while is that ma-possessed riliane has a monstrous, "rotting" appearance

ma revealing herself to allen during endgame is quite literally her turning to him, stating her name and her power bursting out of riliane's body. no such thing as the vortex just appearing, no no no!! poor allen gets knocked some meters away from the force of the mini explosion (poor boy tho, witnessing ma screw up with riliane's body like that.......)

some other ideas that are somewhat formed but still subject to change in terms of context:

ma absorbing cain and abel because both were arrogant and stupid enough to try fighting her (how ironic, huh?). hansel also gets absorbed as to save gretel.

amostia waking up once ma awakes within riliane's body and saving allen from her as per gretel's request. he chews out on allen for not noticing that ma was inside of riliane's body, but gretel cuts him off because it wasnt time for fighting; if ma got any closer to any of them and absorbed them, she could forcibly ascend and erase the universe, and although amostia could brag about being the only one who could deal with her, she would surpass him if she absorbed more irregulars.

the "boy, what will you choose?" line from motheavenly changes to "nightking, what will you choose?" and is spoken by amostia

allen yanks ma from riliane's body and hands her out for amostia to fulfill his part of the deal (amostia would help them if he got to kill ma personally). [i can't imagine this scene without feeling catharsis, for whatever reason lol]

hansel giving ma a second chance, because in the end they were all irregulars, therefore all peers. none of them are saints. all have their own sins and regrets. but well, it doesnt work, she doesnt accept it. cue amostia

endgame stuff is so disorganized in my brain, im still figuring out stuff. OOF, sorry!!

[lookitsaboat]

(All I Have to Do is) Dream: Why The Sandman is Important To Me

My first encounter with the works of Neil Gaiman was in 2009 when I sat in a dark theater and was delighted by the Henry Selick adaptation of Gaiman’s Coraline. I immediately sought out a copy of the book and was entranced by his writing, as it was exactly the kind of fantasy writing I enjoyed reading, mixing the magic and wonder of the real world with that of a fantastical world that could only exist in imagination. I was hooked, and soon I had also collected American Gods, Anansi Boys, and several of his short stories. This is when I first became aware of The Sandman, but I wouldn’t actually read it until a few years later when I was in film school. I was roaming the school library for some good reading material, and they had a large collection of the trade paperbacks of each volume of Sandman. I had never been a huge comic book person despite enjoying superheroes on television and film, but Neil’s name meant It was at least worth a look. I tore through each volume (although I admit I got a tad impatient and skipped some of the stand-alone tales to finish the full arc of the story, something I have remedied on subsequent re-reads). For my senior thesis in film school, I focused on a story about dreams and traveling through them, and to say this isn’t influenced by Sandman would be an outright lie. I had written some of the basics before I read the whole of Sandman, but it really took shape when I wanted to tell my own story set in dreams. I even got to discuss it with Neil Gaiman himself when I had the great fortune to spend an evening with him and his wife. He gave me great advice to tell my story, and very kindly signed my favorite volume of Sandman, A Game of You, and his signature had the wonderful advice to “Dream Dangerously” which I have tried my best to do ever since. Throughout my time in Film School I dreamed of possibly getting to adapt Sandman for HBO or some similar television network someday, and while that has not come to pass, I was so thankful for it being a part of my education. 

Several years passed, I had graduated, moved to Florida and had spent many years working at a certain Haunted Mansion in a certain theme park, and Sandman still stuck with me. I would go back and reread my favorite bits over and over again, and was excited when they were working on a film adaptation with Joseph Gordon-Levitt involved,and then even more excited when Netflix announced they were making a series out of the show, which I always felt was the best way to adapt the material.

And then my life fell apart. 2019 came into my life like a force of nature, destroying as much as it could. I wound up in the hospital multiple times and discovered that my body was basically destroying itself after I let it fall into disrepair due to a severe bout of depression. Between this and being stuck indoors during the pandemic, it got worse, and I ended up having to leave my job, which lost me not only a place I loved working for but friends too. I started to feel very alone. I wound up back in the hospital and physical rehab. I had to move out of an apartment that had been home for years, into a strange new home with a strange new roommate, and the loneliness continued to mount. I was in constant pain, and often, the only real voice I had to speak to was the one in my head, which was quickly becoming a much darker voice than it had ever been before. I used to tell myself I’d never consider suicide, it just wasn’t my style, but in the dark of lonely nights, trapped in a room by myself, I did. I thought about how perhaps it would just be better if I was no longer here, and that dark voice getting so much stronger than I ever imagined it could. I had one thing I was looking forward to…The Sandman adaptation. It feels silly to say that a television show was the only thing I had to look forward to, but it’s true. I found a small group of fans on Twitter and they were so kind and welcoming to an older guy who just wanted to watch his favorite story become a show. To help with the long wait and anticipation I finally sat down and listened to the Audible audiobook adaptation of The Sandman, which I had been avoiding as I typically have a hard time with audiobooks, but once I listened, I found myself discovering the magic of the world of The Sandman in a new way, and it felt as if for the first time. As I sat in my bed, struggling with my pain and health, I could make all that go away by putting my headphones on, and listening to Dream of the Endless go on his journeys.

When I first read the comics, one of the one-off short stories on my first read-through that didn’t quite click with me was Facade, a story that features Death meeting a woman named Urania Blackwell (Element Girl for comic savvy folk) who was cursed to be made of different elements and it was slowly destroying her life and mental state. As I listened to the Audible version of this story, it suddenly became real. A woman who can barely leave her apartment due to her condition, her only real companion being a weekly phone call, and a desire, but inability, to kill herself. I found myself silently sobbing as Urania spoke with Death about her life being miserable. I then began to imagine my conversation with Death, the kind goth woman who Gaiman imagined to whisk people from this life to whatever comes next with kindness and a smile. I realized that Sandman had saved me. The dark voice started to go quiet in my mind. 

I admit, I still struggle with these thoughts sometimes, and I am still finding my way back to what I sometimes refer to as “normal” but it has been so helpful to have this world to escape to, to help make sense of my reality. It reminded me how simple it is to go somewhere special, and reminded me that all I have to do is dream. 

Thanks to Neil Gaiman (@neil-gaiman), Sam Keith, Mike Dringenberg, and all the artists who have worked on Sandman over the years. As you have done so to many hundreds of thousands of readers before me, you inspired me. You inspired me in 2012, and then you saved me in 2022. I can’t thank you enough and I can’t wait to watch the entirety of the new show and find myself lost in that world yet again. 

May we all continue to dream dangerously 

Donald Hallene III

[lady-sci-fi]

The potential of a super-extended edition of The Hobbit trilogy

I am really really hoping for a Super-Extended version of the Hobbit movies in the next few years. Peter Jackson has teased over the years about a super-extended Lord of the Rings version for the 25th anniversary of those. (it’s one reason he gave for the lack of deleted scenes in the special features). But I’m way more interested in this for The Hobbit. LOTR didn’t feel like it was missing any scenes, but the Hobbit ones I feel and know there are. They were very much meddled with by Warner Bros, unlike LOTR, and while I think they are still great movies, they could be made better.

Battle of the Five Armies was hit hardest by the Executive Meddling, and it shows. Even the Extended Edition was. Jackson had actually added on about 30 mins to it. But the final added time was only 15. Warner Bros had apparently edited out 15 mins without telling him right before it was released in theaters and blu-ray. Which is... just WTF.

Read on for the scenes I know and suspect are missing from The Hobbit Trilogy and the Battle of the Five Armies in particular. Mostly Thorin’s Company stuff, because the Dwarves/Elves/Men balance feels uneven.

More little Dwarf characters scenes in all three films.

We know they filmed a lot of character stuff and that one goal with the Dwarves was to give them all a small sort of arc or growth. I would hope some of these would be put in.

Ori drawing the portrait of Bilbo.

Bifur and Bofur selling some carvings in a town to get them more money during the trip.

Bifur making/playing with an eagle toy in the cave before the goblins.

...

Something more to do with Thranduil’s gems and his feelings towards Legolas. 

There was more filmed for this subplot, including a bit during the battle where Thranduil tells Gandalf why he’s fighting so hard for those gems. Gandalf tells him “Your wife left you a child. Which would she rather have you value?”

As is, the subplot feels like it needs a couple more beats to it. It has a good start and conclusion, but a couple beats between are missing.

Something to do with Radagast getting Beorn and the Eagles for the battle.

We know they filmed Radagast rescuing Beorn on the way out of Dol Guldor with Gandalf, and a scene after where Beorn gets upset with them. This was edited out very late.

Philippa Boyens said that she was surprised that a scene of Radagast talking to the eagles was not in the extended BotFA.

I don’t think these are necessary, but it would be nice to see Radagast convincing Beorn and the eagles. Give them a little more importance.

A scene in the Counting Room (where Thorin finds Thranduil’s gems)- perhaps some of them starting to realize how much they have and that some could be given to Laketowners no problem, and maybe also giving back Thranduil’s gems.

There was more filmed in this room with several of the dwarves, whether as part of Thorin and the gems or separately. The actors spent enough time in here as a group to come up with and then film a funny music video, so they spent a good while there.

As for the scene, I can imagine them seeing some records on exactly how much is in Erebor would make them doubt Thorin’s desire to keep all of it for themselves.

A scene that starts to trigger Thorin’s suspicion that one of the dwarves has stolen the arkenstone- something to do with Bofur.

As it is, there isn’t a good reason for Thorin to think this, other than they simply haven’t found it yet in the literal dunes of treasure. If it’s at the bottom in a corner, it could take Dain’s army years to clear everything away to find it. Yes, he’s impatient to find it, but there should be something specific that sets off that trigger. It could be related to the above missing scene in the counting room.

It makes sense for this to be Bofur, since in the concept/art books, it’s said that he feels the most about the tragic injustice of Thorin’s change and overall attitude to the Men and Elves. In the DOS commentary Philippa Boyens says (talking about why they left four Dwarves in Laketown). “...And Bofur for a reason as we’ll see... It was very important having Bofur witness what is to come as set-up for the third film.”

This is shown a little through non-verbal emotion, but isn’t obvious, especially not before the pre-battle army confrontation. He experienced the destruction of Laketown first-hand, and would still be filled with sadness and guilt over that. Since he and his family are the least-wealthy and have the least social status, and he’s not there to regain a wealth/social status he feels he lost, he would be more humble and willing to give what he doesn’t need to the Men. Bofur also comes off as the least affected by the goldsickness (maybe tied with Balin). There’s also the strange subtle background tension Bofur seems to have with Thorin in AUJ and DOS.

Therefore, I think Bofur would do something like offer to give part of his share to the Men, and protest when Thorin refuses to let him do it. This would set off in Thorin the idea that Bofur, and a few of the others who initially think that’s the right thing to do, aren’t loyal, if they don’t have a problem giving away what Thorin thinks only they should have.

A scene while or right after they build the Erebor rampart.

Jed Brophy and Peter Jackson say in the behind the scenes that they’re all starting to feel that Thorin is starting to lose it while they’re building the wall. As it is, only Kili says anything or reacts at all to Thorin’s callousness. The rest of them don’t seem all that bothered.

A scene soon after Thorin tells the Company to not go over the wall and walks off to the throne- the Company discussing what to do with each other.

In the behind the scenes, there is a snippet of filming the Company at the bottom of the wall, standing in a circle, then they look in the direction Thorin walked away and start throwing off their armour in frustration. Dwalin is there, meaning that this is before he goes to confront Thorin. The only reason to have 12 characters standing in a circle facing each other is if they’re discussing something. I imagine it would be if Thorin is fit to lead, if they should still follow his orders, if they should disobey him… We should see them being upset and throwing off their armour, not only to explain why they suddenly don’t have it on, but to get a sense of their emotions before they join the battle later.

A scene between Thorin threatening to kill Dwalin and then getting over it in the gold floor room- more Company emotions in deciding what to do.

Having the two scenes without anything between undermines the emotional storytelling, holding that tension with Thorin’s emotional state for very little time. He threatens to kill his close friend, then gets over everything like a minute later. It’s resolved too quickly and suddenly. Also, Kili’s outburst when Thorin does come back to them doesn’t feel earned. Yes, there is a little build-up to it while they’re building the wall, but not enough to justify this sudden yelling at Thorin. A scene here with the Company, along with the missing scene above, allows more time to show Kili’s and everyone’s rising frustration. It also gives more weight to Thorin asking them to follow him one last time.

Scenes in the battle with Ori, Dori, Nori, and Gloin and Oin.

It’s said in the concept/art books that at some point in the battle, it was filmed that Ori protects his brothers when they go down for a bit. This would conclude his little character arc of growing from a sheltered young man filled with bravado (”I’ll give him a taste of iron right up his jacksie!”) to a more mature young man who doesn’t need to be protected all the time.

While Gloin and Oin don’t really have a character arc, more with them would’ve been nice, especially since we know all of the dwarves filmed a lot of battle stuff. It’s strange that in the editing of the battle, Oin completely disappears from it after they charge out, and it could do with him perhaps doing some combat medic stuff in addition to fighting.

It’s also interesting that, other than most of the chariot chase, all the added Extended Company battle scenes involve Bofur. (This feels like a cynical “Fine, we don’t like the Company Dwarves except Thorin and Kili, but we’ll let you keep this one” from Warner Bros).

A scene where Dwalin finds Tauriel with Kili’s body, and then finds Fili’s body.

Someone had to tell Tauriel “they want to bury him,” and Dwalin was the only dwarf up there to do so. (Though I suppose you could have Legolas knowing dwarves do that and tell her). Dwalin would be looking for Fili and Kili, whether he thinks they’re alive or not, and it kind of isn’t fair that Kili and Thorin both have someone one-on-one mourning over their bodies right after the battle, and Fili doesn’t.

Overall:

Please let there be a super-extended of these movies in the works. Everyone who worked on these deserve to have the intended work shown. And I want to see that version.

[yourdeepestfathoms]

in aeternum, little lamb

(Read Anne as Courtney!Anne)

Word count: 4756

Prompt: “Look, I know we don’t know each other that well, but I’m still worried about you. No one deserves to be alone.”

———————

It was raining. Again.

Usually a rainstorm was serene and peaceful, normal for London, but there was a certain sticky humidity in the air that made going outside a chore. It was cold, yet uncomfortably warm at the same time with no wind blowing to ease the mild heat that has settled its oppressive, sultry murk over the city. It spilled into every street, every alleyway, every house that dared to open the window, thinking that it would help with the clamminess that fogged their home, but to no avail.

This, of course, brought upon complete and utter dreariness that coated every person making their rounds through their daily lives.

Anne’s forehead was dotted with beads of sweat by the time she arrived at the theater, only then really regretting her decision to walk to work. She hadn’t been expecting the humidity to be that bad, but here she was, feeling like she was leaking steam from every pore.

“God, this weather is miserable,” Jane was grumbling in her dressing room when Anne peeked in. She was currently attempting to tame her wild blonde hair (and losing the battle), which had a small (read as: large, high, anything but small) tendency to frizz up in high vaporous atmospheres like the one drenching London on that day.

“You look great, Jane.” Anne laughed, leaning on the doorframe. She gets a piercing grey glower shot in her direction, but isn’t phased by it. The coldness of the stare almost eased her internal temperature.

“Why is it so damn humid?” Jane finally exclaimed. “We live in London! Not Florida or whatever the fuck it’s called—”

Anne bit both lips, trying to hold back her laughter at the proper fit the queen before her was throwing.

“It’s supposed to be rainy and cold. Not rainy and a LITERAL SAUNA!”

Kitty, who was sitting nearby at her own makeup table, giggled softly. She got up and picked up a brush to help with her mother’s wild hair, which was definitely puffing up as if she were an angry cat or a distressed Studio Ghibli character.

“I don’t know, Jane,” Anne laughed slightly. “Well, I’m going to go get a cup of coffee. You two need anything?”

“Yeah,” Jane said. “A word with Mother Nature.”

Anne laughed again, waved a hand, and walked off to the break room.

Well- it wasn’t really a break room, per se. Theaters didn’t really have those. It was just an extra dressing room that nobody used and had a microwave, mini fridge, and coffee machine inside. In some way or another, a round bar table, small couch, and two beanbags ended up inside- Anne couldn’t really remember how they got there, but they were there and, thus, the room became a nice place to chat and relax when nothing was going on. Kitty had once even hid under the twin beanbags during a game of hide-and-seek (which was also her idea).

Upon stepping inside the break room, the scent of coffee bombarded Anne’s nose. The coffee machine was still on, but little was left in the pot. She walks over to it, thinking it was enough to sate her- she didn’t really like coffee, but she needed the extra rush to help her combat the dreariness the weather was inflicting upon her.

“Sorry,” A voice from behind suddenly said. “If I had known you wanted some, I would have made more.”

Anne actually jumped and she whirled around to see none other than the music director sitting in one of the beanbags. She jumped, too, and straightened up, nearly spilling the mug she had placed beside her pillowy seat.

“Sorry!” She said again. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Anne placed a hand over her racing heart and waved the other dismissively, laughing.

“It’s alright!” She assured the girl. “I didn’t see you at all!”

Joan smiled slightly, humoring her comment, then slumped back over to continue reading the book she had in her lap.

Anne studies her for a moment- as everyone said, Joan wasn’t much for conversation, despite always lurking on the edges of a group discussion. It was like she wanted to join in or just talk to someone, but didn’t have the courage to do so. Perhaps she was worried about being ignored or rejected, so, instead, she just watched in silence.

Maybe that’s why a few younger stagehands who were working there for college credit started calling her the “Theater Ghost.” Anne couldn’t really deny that that title wasn’t accurate- her not noticing the girl at all just proved that it was.

“Did you drink all of this?” She asked, trying to strike up a conversation to make things less awkward. Tenseness was as thick as the humidity outside in that room.

“It’s not that big of a pot...” Joan sort of mumbled.

So, yes. She did.

Anne frowned slightly. She vaguely knew of Joan’s caffeine addiction, but never really saw it first hand. She just knew that the girl drank more coffee than everyone working on the show combined.

“I see,” Anne chuckled. “Well, alright.”

She turned around while waiting for the pot to fill to see that Joan was looking at her. However, when she noticed, Joan snapped her head back down to her book. Anne furrowed her eyebrows.

“What are you reading?”

“Huh?” Joan seemed...surprised that Anne was asking her something. “Oh, it’s just- it’s just some silly book.” She kicked her leg anxiously against the beanbag, seemingly trying to hype herself up for something. “It’s, umm- it’s called Wings of Fire.”

She brandishes the book, keeping one finger inside the pages to mark her spot. On the cover was a flying gold and black dragon with four insect wings, spines along the back, and funny little glasses on the snout (something about dragons having eyesight care and possibly dragon eye doctors stood out as silly to Anne).

“It looks good,” Anne said after inspecting the picture.

“Oh, it is!” Joan said, perking up slightly. “It’s about these ten dragon tribes and five baby dragons were supposed to be born on The Brightest Night and be the Dragonets of Destiny to stop the war between three Sandwings fighting to be queen. So they’re kept underground, but their caretakers are kinda abusive and mean. Probably because the Skywing egg was destroyed so they had to replace it with a Rainwing egg, which are supposed to be the laziest tribe and that makes Kestrel- the really mean guardian- mad. So she’s kinda a jerk to the five dragonets. But then they break out of their cave before they’re supposed to leave when they’re six, because they have to wait until they’re seven, only to be captured by the Skywing queen! And they’re forced to fight to the death and they’re almost killed because this one character, Peril, can burn everything she touches! But then it’s revealed that Clay, he’s the Mudwing, has fireproof scales! And Glory, she’s the Rainwing I was talking about, can spit venom!! Then they escape and go to the Seawing kingdom and Tsunami- the Seawing- is actually the missing Seawing princess and a statue was killing all the other eggs. Then they go to the rainforest and Glory becomes queen and Starflight goes blind in the fourth book and the end of the war happens in the fifth!!” She’s babbling about a hundred miles per minute- Anne can barely keep up. “We should- we should read it together! If you’re interested. Like a book club! Except I’m on the twelfth book right now and I don’t know how fast you can read and I just basically spoiled the entire series, hahaha...but only for the first five!! But the next arc isn’t that good if you ask me. It completely throws everything that has happened out the window and just puts new characters in a school? Which they barely even stay at! So why even make the school, Tui? And my favorite character in that segment is in a coma for, like, three of the five books in that arc!! Arc three is pretty cool, though. I like the new tribes. And Sundew is supposed to be a lesbian! With an actual girlfriend! And it’s a main plot point!!” She’s beaming now. “I just—I think you would really, really like it and, I dunno...it would be fun! I can read it aloud? N-not because I think you can’t read or anything, I just—like talking. To someone. And to make sure you don’t doze off and miss any of the really good parts! Because there are SO MANY even though Tui doesn’t seem to remember any of her world building half of the time, but—”

“Joan?”

“Yeah?”

“Breathe.”

Joan’s face flashed deep crimson. She hunched her shoulders around her neck and ducked her head, almost using her book as a shield to hide herself. It seems she just realized that she had been talking the green queen’s ear off.

“Sorry,” She whispered. “I-I just thought that you wanted to...” She shook her head. Her hands clench around the sides of her book. “Nevermind.”

“Joan-”

“Your coffee is gonna get cold.”

Anne looked at the full coffee pot, then back to the girl, and then walked over to get herself a cup. She can hear Joan shifting anxiously in the beanbag behind her.

Honestly, she found the girl’s deep interest in what she was reading quite endearing, she just didn’t know how to reply to her monologue in a way that showed that she actually was interested in what she was saying.

“Maybe send me the link to the book sometime?” Anne offered while heading for the door. “Or if you have a physical copy...”

“Yeah,” Joan smiles thinly- weakly. “I have some at home. I’ll give them to you tomorrow.”

“Sounds great.”

“Oh, and— Anne?”

Anne stopped right as she was walking out.

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

“What for?”

Joan looked down shyly, shifting her legs.

“For talking to me.”

———

“She thanked me. For standing there while she was ranting about a book!”

The other queens looked rather amused by the story they were given during dinner. It wasn’t exactly the reactions Anne was hoping for- was nobody else concerned by the oddity of the situation?!

“Joan’s a...quirky kid.” Jane merely said. “She’s always been a little strange, Anne. I’m almost positive she was raised by literal street rats, so that might have something to do with it. Rats aren’t exactly much for conversation.”

Anne looked at her in shock. Of everyone to say such a thing, she hadn’t expected it to come from Jane “Protective and Loving Mom Friend” Seymour.

“Did you just—”

“Anne,” Jane sighed. “You know what I’m talking about. She worked for you! She’s just a weird kid. Kids are weird!”

“‘Weird’ is when a kid likes to watch snails go over salt and get burned, Jane. Thanking someone for listening to them talk about a book is concerning.” Anne argued.

“Cathy does it all the time.”

“Cathy doesn’t thank us!”

Anne was really getting worked up over this and she wasn’t exactly sure why. She really only got this way for Kitty or Maggie- she theorized it was those maternal instincts kicking in or just a natural protectiveness for an ex-maid in waiting.

Whatever it was, it sure seemed to be amusing to the others.

“Okay, calm down, Anne.” Cleves said, laughing slightly. “We get it, you think it’s worrying. No need to start a food fight over it.”

“I’m not going to-” Anne broke off into agitated grumbling, which caused even more giggles in reaction.

“I said thank you to Catherine when I read to her yesterday,” Cathy said.

“That’s because you were asking her opinion on a chapter you wrote!” Anne struck back. “It is NOT the same thing!”

Cathy shrugged and took a bite out of her pork chop.

“It’s nothing you should stress about, Annie.” Kitty said. “Maybe some people are just meant to be alone!”

Anne gave her a look of disbelief.

“Like Henry.” Cleves put in helpfully.

“Like Henry, yeah!”

Now, don’t get Anne wrong, she loved her little found family with the queens very much, but, at that moment, she wanted to hit all of them with the salad bowl at the center of the table as hard as she could.

Maybe not Aragon, though (unfortunately). The woman hadn’t told Anne to forget about the situation or just move on- she was thoughtfully silent, eating her dinner in reserved peace. Whatever her opinion on the argument was, she didn’t say it.

Anne sighed, putting her head in one hand as she picked at her dinner until Aragon finally spoke up to tell her to get her elbow off the table. She begrudgingly obeys.

Like that, the conversation is dropped and something new, something Anne really didn’t care about was talked about.

After dinner, Anne decided to do some snooping on her laptop. First, she looked up historical information on Joan, only to find nothing. Every website was just the same thing over and over again- literally. It was just copied and pasted from the extremely short and vague Wikipedia page on the girl. The names of her parents weren’t even recorded, nor was any childhood information. There was barely even anything on her time as a lady in waiting, which only covered her work under Jane and not either of the cousins.

She had a son named Hercules, though. If that meant anything.

Next, Anne went to Joan’s Instagram page. It had several hundred followers, mainly from the fans who insisted on following everyone associated with the show, and was filled with the normal posts the actors usually had- although there were very few compared to the queen’s and other ladies in waiting’s accounts. Most of the photos were of her work or her playing the songs on her piano or of selfies of her in the band costume.

In almost all of them, she was completely alone.

Anne searched for something- she didn’t know what exactly, just something- in the seventh-five posts on the account, then went to the photos Joan was tagged in. There weren’t many- just group photos and a few good shots of her from a MegaSix and a single appreciation post (she vaguely remembered Joan telling them about it and how giddy it had made her...nobody had really listened to the babbling at the time).

And then Anne found a certain photo- the first one she was ever tagged in: it was a photo of her costume laid out on a table with the caption, “Here’s the lady in waiting costume! I’ll be posting about SIX more on my other account, so follow if you’re interested!”

The name of the account was @force-be-with-ewe.

Anne clicked on it.

force-be-with-ewe

i just really like drawing sheep

Johanna-She/her-Asexual lesbian-Musician and artist

That’s the first thing Anne saw when she clicked on the account, along with an adorable profile picture of a sheep playing a piano, then the whopping twelve followers (most of which were ghosts or bots) and three hundred and nine posts.

It took Anne just a moment to realize that this was Joan’s personal account.

And she went through all of it.

The profile was a mishmash of drawings and piano videos and sheep. The latest post was actually a photo of a bird with a caption talking about how the little guy had been visiting Joan’s bedroom window every morning and “giving her a reason to get up because she had someone looking forward to seeing her.” She maturely and proudly dubbed the bird “Minecraft.”

After that were drawings of dragons with #wingsoffire and #wof in the descriptions, leading Anne to believe that they were characters from the book she had been told about earlier that day.

And they just kept going.

Among videos of Joan playing the theater keyboard when presumably nobody was around, were drawings of sheep playing various instruments and sleeping and being adorable, drawings of more dragons, drawings of a few Pokémon (mainly Snom, Wooloo, and Sobble). There were stunning drawings of giant creatures from a game called “Subnautica” and beautiful drawings of castles and scenery. There were even drawings of the queens!

Usually fans would tag them in art, but it appeared that Joan was too shy to do that. So, instead, she just left them floating in her profile with no ways to see the masterpieces, since there weren’t any hashtags on those.

Anne was genuinely amazed by the attention to detail in the sketches of her and her fellow queens and even more amazed by the drawings with watercolors. She swore the painting’s eyes had more color than her own and the costume was as vibrant as the actual one in real life.

It was beautiful. They were all beautiful.

Why didn’t Joan want anyone seeing these?

Anne kept scrolling and eventually came upon rather...concerning posts.

The first was of a messy, but haunting colored pencil sketch of a pitch black ram with inky, bleeding red eyes that seemed to stare through the screen and directly into Anne’s soul. The caption simply said, “Black Philip.”

Another was a drawing of a blonde girl, presumably Joan, leaking coffee from every single orifice on her face and was drawn with such detail that it would easily make an emetophobic’s stoamch churn with nausea.

And then there were a few of an ice dragon, slightly similar to one of the dragon tribes from the book, but this one notably had more icicle spikes, frayed scales, and jagged wings. It was moon silver in color with ice blue hues and eyes like a raging blizzard.

All the drawings done with this beast, which was apparently named “Killer Frost” (and has no ties to the Flash character of the same name), were normal- just it laying around, flying, standing atop icebergs menacingly or breathing a freezing death breath. But there were a few that stood out to Anne as worrying.

The first was of Kitty, actually. She was wearing her show costume and her eyes were closed with a peaceful expression on her face. And then there was the glittering paw of the ice dragon reaching down from the top of the image and cupping one of her cheeks with its serrated, barbed claws. The caption read, “The Chosen One.”

The second and much more concerning drawing was captioned, “Envy truly is a deadly sin.”

It was a drawing of Killer Frost crouched in a feral position, staring forward with blazing eyes, jaw hanging open and teeth bared, absolutely soaked in blood.

There was just blood everywhere. Blood on the body, blood on the claws, blood dripping in horrifying realistic threads from the mouth, blood all over the blank, white floor beneath the beast, blood squirting from the remains of the carcasses that had presumably been gored.

The image left Anne with so many questions- What did this represent? Who were those corpses? Was Joan jealous? And if yes, who was she jealous of?

One thing was certain, though- Joan was startlingly good at drawing gore. A sketch of Killer Frost holding its own gooey, bloody esophagus and larynx in another photo just proved that. There was even one of the dragon ripping its own throat out while the faint outline of what appeared to be three ghosts encouraged it.

It was strange to see such mishmashes of horror shoved in between adorable sketches of sleeping baby lambs and fluffy Wooloos. It also left Anne with growing worry for the artist.

When she finally finished going through the profile, Anne decided the follow the account and became the thirteenth follower.

This time, thirteen would not be an unlucky number.

———

Five books were left on Anne’s dressing room table the next day, all with a colorful dragon on the cover, and a note that read, “I didn’t know if you only wanted one book or all of them, so I just left the first arc. Let me know what you think! :) -Joan”

“Fan mail?” Cleves asked, peeking over to the table from where she was getting ready.

“Nah,” Anne replied. “Just some books.”

“Sounds very cool,” Cleves chuckled before returning to dousing her hair with hairspray.

“Extremely.” Anne said, then set out to find and talk to Joan before the show. She could get her hair and makeup done later!

Except she couldn’t find the girl anywhere. She asked around, but nobody knew where she went. And she was definitely there because Anne saw her onstage right before the performance, but, by then, it was too late to speak to her. Anne just decided to see her afterwards, which was easier said than done because, once again, Joan was nowhere in sight.

Anne was about to give up, since it was almost time to leave, but then she spotted the girl in the break room playing a card game by herself at the round bar table. She considered charging in and barking at her about where she’s been, but she didn’t want to freak her out, so she just walked in calmly.

“Hey, Joan,” She said cooly, noticing the way the music director’s hand froze as she was setting down a card. She grabbed a water bottle from the mini fridge and sat down at the chair across from Joan. “Whatcha doing?”

“Just...playing a card game my brother taught me.” The girl replied meekly.

Joan had a brother? The articles on her said nothing about him...

“You had cards back then?” Anne asked, as if she hadn’t been born in the same time period.

“No, we used strips of wood we would tear off from people’s houses and carved symbols on them with knives.”

Anne blinked.

“...Oh. That’s...”

“Concerning?” Joan finally glanced up from her deck of cards to look at Anne. A ghost of a smile graced her lips for a moment before she tilted her head back down with a light laugh. “I know.”

“Mind if I play?”

She’s glanced at again- scanned, as if Joan was expecting her to pull something and make a joke out of her. But then she gave in and began collecting the cards from how they’re laid out on the table.

“This game is too complicated to explain,” She said. “But we can play Speed?”

After a quick rundown of the rules, Anne agreed and the game began.

And honestly? It was great. Joan genuinely laughed and smiled as they playfully bickered and argued over the card game. She almost looked like a happy little lamb frolicking in a field of flowers.

On their third round, Kitty peeks into the break room.

“There you are, Annie!” She said. “I was looking for you!”

“Oh, hey, Kit!” Anne said. Out of the corner of her eye, she definitely saw Joan clench her jaw. The drawing of Kitty and Killer Frost’s claws and then the bloody sketch briefly flashed in her mind. “What’s up?”

“We’re leaving,” Kitty informed. “We had dinner plans tonight, remember?”

Joan sighed softly and began to pick up the cards. Anne gently pressed her hand down.

“I think I’m going to pass tonight, Kit.”

Both blondes looked shocked- Joan more than Kitty from the way her head whipped up fast enough to give her whiplash.

“How come?” Kitty asked, clearly confused. “I thought you really wanted to go to this pub...”

“I know, but I’m hanging out with Joan right now.” Anne said. “Just bring me home something if you can!”

Kitty blinked several times, glanced at Joan, then nodded and walked out.

“You didn’t have to stay,” Joan whispered.

“I wanted to, though.” Anne assured her. She gently took the deck of cards from Joan’s clenched hands and began dealing them out. “Wanna keep playing Speed or try War? I’ve played with Aragon before. I swear, she ALMOST broke my nose in anger!”

“You followed me last night.”

Anne blinked.

“Yeah, of course,” She said. “I had no idea you could draw so well. You’re very talented.”

A hot pink blush dusts Joan’s cheeks and she looked away. She anxiously plays with the corner of an ace of spades. The slight drizzle that had been tapping on the window starts to pick up.

“I-”

She’s embarrassed, Anne realized. Embarrassed and horrified because she knows Anne saw the gruesome drawings she had made.

She believes that Anne thinks she’s sick. Or a freak. Or a monster.

Anne would admit that they’re a little weird, but a lot of artists liked to make horrific art. Nothing wrong with that, especially if they were vents.

“Joan-”

“Why are you doing this?” Joan asked quietly. She looked up and centuries worth of loneliness and neglect and pain reflect in her stormy grey eyes. “What do you want?”

Finally, Anne understood.

“Look,” Anne said. “I know we don’t know each other that well, but I’m still worried about you. No one deserves to be alone.”

Joan froze. She just stared at Anne in shock for a long time before tears fill her eyes and start to run down her cheeks. She tries to stop them, but it’s clear she’s been bottling this all up for a long time and won’t be able to hold it back any longer.

“Y-you want to be my friend?” Joan whispered.

“Yes, Joan.” Anne answered her honestly, not missing a beat. “You deserve someone who cares about you.”

The most heartbreaking whimper Anne has ever heard strangled itself out of Joan’s throat. The tears start to come down faster.

“N-nobody— Nobody has ever w-wanted to—”

“Oh, Joan...”

Anne quickly got out of her chair and walked around to Joan’s side of the table. She wrapped her arms around the girl and she immediately slumped into her embrace, clinging back like Anne was her life line.

“Oh, Joan,” Anne said again. “Oh, you poor, sweet little thing...”

Joan began to openly sob against her shoulder. Her hands claw at the back of Anne’s shirt, desperate for a good hold.

“I’ve- I’ve been alone f-for so long—” She wept.

“Shh, shh,” Anne hushed her. She began to rub her back soothingly. “I’ve got you now, honey. I’ve got you. I won’t let you go.”

That elicits a sharp whimper from Joan, who burrows herself even closer to the queen’s warmth. And she stays like that, half slid out of her stool, clutching onto Anne Boleyn like her life depended on it until she was able to choke back the rest of her tears.

“Feeling any better?” Anne asked. She was still rubbing Joan’s back, as the girl had yet to pull back from the embrace.

Joan shrugged weakly. “A-little.” She croaked. “N-not...not good. But better. B-because you’re here.”

Anne’s heart simultaneously broke and melted.

“You sweet girl,” She said lovingly. “I want to be here for you from now on. Is that alright?”

Joan nodded. “Please...”

“Alright,” Anne said. She gently pressed Joan back and gave her her water bottle, which she never actually opened. “Drink something for me, sweetheart.”

Joan obeyed and took a few small sips of the water. It soothed her dry throat, which was weak from the outpour of emotions.

“Good girl,” Anne said encouragingly. “Hey, here’s an idea! Why don’t we go back to my house and watch a movie? I know there’s a tray of lasagna we could heat up! If you want to, that is.”

“N-no, that’s-” Joan sniffled. “I would really, really like that...”

Anne smiled warmly at her.

“Wonderful.”

———

When the other queens came home later that evening, none of them were expecting to see Anne sitting on the couch with the music director’s head in her lap, but that’s the sight they were greeted to.

They both looked content, Anne with a loving smile on her lips and Joan with a peaceful expression settled on her face as she slept. One of Anne’s hands was stroking through Joan’s hair and the other was holding a book, which she looked up from when the front door opened.

“Hey, ladies,” She said, momentarily setting down Wings of Fire- The Dragonet Prophecy. “How was dinner?”

———

A day later, Anne got a notification on her phone saying that @force-be-with-ewe had posted. When she checks it, she sees a digital drawing of Killer Frost being nuzzled lovingly by a large, emerald green dragon.

The caption simply reads, “Thank you for giving me a chance”

[96thdayofrage]

Aretha Franklin was larger than life. Her voice, her physical presence, her personality, her place in musical history. Everything about Aretha was big. To appropriately portray the scope of her story, and everything she represented, the treatment must be larger than life.

National Geographic’s 8-part series, “Genius: Aretha” does the exact opposite.

To begin with, there’s a reason they call television “the small screen.” It’s not a medium for epic storytelling, or anything with significant scope. The way the series is shot feels very much like daytime television, rather than a cinematic experience. But that alone isn’t what makes this story feel so small.

The opening title sequence of each episode contains music that sounds like a midi track from an old video game — a bizarre musical choice to set the tone for a story about Aretha Franklin, a brilliant and inspiring musician who was named the #1 greatest singer of all time by Rolling Stone Magazine.

Suzan Lori-Parks’ script diminishes The Queen of Soul to a mere caricature. The dialogue is so poorly written, it becomes a distraction to the story. Throughout the overlong show, Parks takes tangential details and tries to make them absurdly momentous. And worse, she reduces some of Franklin’s grandest moments into side notes, or skips them entirely. For example, we see Aretha (barely) react to the announcement of Dr. King’s death. But why did they gloss over the fact that Aretha sang at his funeral? Instead, the episode included a fictional scene of Aretha and MLK flirting during a smoke break. A classic example of sacrificing an iconic moment, for a silly (and untrue) scene in its place.

The entire show feels like an effort to confuse the audience as to what time period it’s supposed to be in. This is partially due to the scattered direction from Anthony Hemingway. The flashbacks are confusing, in part because some are in black and white, while others are in color. Stylistically, the black and white treatment never works because the picture looks as bright and clear as if it was shot yesterday. Nothing else was done to make the “old” scenes look old.

Another authenticity problem is the gospel music sung by young Aretha. While Shaian Jordan has a lovely voice, it is a contemporary R&B sound, and does not remotely resemble the style in which Aretha Franklin sang as a child. Her voice is much smaller than young Aretha’s, and yet audiences respond with rapturous applause as if she just brought the house down. This is distracting, to say the least.

Overall, the acting leaves much to be desired, and is not helped by the lackluster script. Each actor’s delivery feels like they are reciting lines. The pacing as a whole is painfully slow, yet each individual scene feels rushed.

In life, Aretha was surrounded by celebrities from an early age. Her father was a famous minister, and they had countless famous friends. Even from a young age, some of Aretha’s closest friends and neighbors grew up to be stars as well. So, to properly tell Aretha Franklin’s story, you need a glittery cast of A-list talent. NatGeo fell painfully short in this department, as no one is actually a star.

The closest thing to an A-list celebrity is Courtney B. Vance, who has enjoyed an illustrious screen career. But even he is sadly out of his element playing Aretha’s father, the iconic Rev. CL Franklin. His portrayal feels like a caricature, and much of his story arc is straight from the salacious rumor mill.

Unfortunately for everyone involved, NatGeo’s worst error was the miscasting of British musical theater actress Cynthia Erivo as Aretha Franklin.

Perhaps most obviously, Erivo simply does not possess the physicality to play Aretha at any stage of her life. Her stature is far too small, and her costars tower over her in most scenes. Aretha had unique presence both onstage and off. She was a commanding figure — a force — and yet she had the most graceful way of moving. Her gestures were understated and subtle. Erivo’s movements are hurried and harsh, and her physical presence lacks the authority of Aretha.

One of the most distracting elements is Erivo’s speaking voice. Aretha had a high, breathy, flirtatious voice, with a specific lilt in her cadence. For reasons unknown, Erivo speaks in a low, emotionless monotone, which is reminiscent of her previous characters, Celie (“The Color Purple”) and Harriet Tubman (“Harriet”). It would seem that Erivo has one American accent in her arsenal and uses it with each American role she takes on. Perhaps the most difficult moments to watch are when she accidently slips back into her British accent, taking the audience fully out of the scene. Why no one on set caught these major gaffes is beyond comprehension.

Erivo’s character development completely misses the mark. Aretha had a strong personality, but was also shy, coy, demure, feminine, and cool at the same time. Erivo’s portrayal is surprisingly one-dimensional. It would seem that her only view of Miss Franklin was “angry diva.” But Aretha was far more than a diva, and when her “diva” came out, it was often coupled with a wink and a nod. Aretha loved to laugh and had a wonderful sense of humor. Erivo’s Aretha is painfully void of comic relief, completely ignoring Franklin’s playful and acerbic wit. The one instance she attempts to show this side (telling her band a joke about a chicken), it falls completely flat.

While Erivo’s singing is strong throughout, it never reaches that spine-tingling level of Aretha’s unbridled delivery. Instead, it feels like a carefully rehearsed karaoke imitation. Unlike Andra Day’s recent tour de force performance as Billie Holiday (“The United States Vs. Billie Holiday), Erivo never manages to get lost in the character, even during her best musical moments.

In addition, many of the musical moments would appear to be added after the fact, just to remind the audience that this is still Aretha Franklin’s story we are watching.

Arguably the biggest letdown of this entire endeavor is the song selection. NatGeo did not secure the rights to Franklin’s most beloved songs in her catalogue. So what we get here is a string of lesser known songs from Aretha’s repertoire — and often, songs more closely associated with other acts (Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come,” Otis Redding’s “Satisfaction,” Dusty Springfield’s “Son of a Preacher Man” and Diana Ross’s “Reach Out and Touch”).

Before Miss Franklin died, it’s been said that she specifically requested not to have her story told on television. (Instead, she famously asked Jennifer Hudson to bring her story to life on the big screen in MGM’s “Respect,” due in theaters this August.) Aretha knew what National Geographic and its showrunners did not — her story is larger than life and should be treated as such.

[filmadaydiary]

1/22/21 to 1/23/21

Marvel Part 3

This is the biggest chunk of the films by a bit, and a lot happens in here. I think there are four origin stories, and there’s even a sequel to one of those origins within the same group. A LOT happens, and in general things have been settled into a comfortable formula. And yet here we have some new directors, a lot of new characters, and some new takes on old favorites. Now that the MCU is so established, it seems people were more comfortable taking risks with these stories, and I think it pays off in audience satisfaction. Also, yes, we did watch seven movies in two days. What can I say? We’re good kids staying locked down.

1/22/21

Ant-Man – Peyton Reed, 2015

I’m very disappointed that this could have been an Edgar Wright movie. It comes so close, with the way Luis tells his stories and the structure of the final battle between the two tiny men. And yet it is definitely not Edgar Wright. It’s a pretty basic superhero origin story. That being said, Paul Rudd is a national treasure and absolutely carries this film. He is a delight to watch as the funny, clever lead, as he always is. He was made to be a quippy genius in a cool suit. Okay, that makes him sound like Iron Man. In a way, Ant-Man is Iron Man Lite. He’s not rich, he’s just an everyday guy. He is an engineer, but maybe not a genius. Most importantly, he’s genuinely funny, not rude, and he cares about his family. I do think the characterizations are what make this movie compelling, not the plot. It ties in very nicely to Civil War, and I enjoyed watching it directly before the epic crossover event. Having light-hearted characters with less worldly stakes keeps the MCU grounded and keeps superheroes from being too out of touch. 

Captain America: Civil War – Joe and Anthony Russo, 2016

I hesitate to say this, but I think this might be my favorite movie in the MCU. I can’t quite put my finger on why, because there are certainly more epic team-ups, and I hate when friends fight. And yet, I still love this film. One, you get Hawkeye in a non-Avengers event, which is always terribly exciting. Two, you get the character intros of some of the best characters ever (Spider-Man and Black Panther). And three, you get an intense debate about morals that actually gives you something to talk about after you leave the theater. It feels rare to have a superhero movie that doesn’t have morals hitting you over the head with righteousness and love. This movie really makes you think about control and consequences. And I love a movie that makes you think. I’m also slightly biased because I had a great premiere experience, I got to see an early screening and the exclusivity made it more exciting too. It pulls on a lot of existing threads within the MCU and brings the conflict to a head in a spectacular way. 

1/23/21

Spider-Man: Homecoming – Jon Watts, 2017

The stand-out role in Civil War, seeing Spider-Man on the big screen under Disney’s purview was certainly a treat. I appreciate that they didn’t go for yet another Peter Parker origin story, instead jumping in after he’s already become Spider-Man. We all know the story of the radioactive spider bite by now, so getting to see Spider-Man grow as a friendly neighborhood guy is delightful. It’s a high school coming-of-age movie that happens to feature superheroes. The stakes are brought down to a relatable level. Asking out the girl he likes is just as important as catching the bad guy, perhaps even more so. Tom Holland is the absolutely perfect casting choice, capturing both being an awkward teenager and being a web-slinging badass. And Tony Stark gets the opportunity to right his wrongs and step up to be a father figure for someone who desperately needs one. I do wish we got to focus on Peter’s story a little more, instead of using him as a pawn to fulfill Tony’s character arc. But that’s a small criticism for an otherwise lovely movie.

Black Panther – Ryan Coogler, 2018

Black Panther rocked the world when it came out, and rightfully so. Here we have a Black superhero who brings a respectful version of African traditions to the big screen. The worldbuilding of Wakanda is spectacular, showing that this hidden nation knows more about technology than anyone else in the world. It flies in the face of negative stereotypes about African peoples and blends aspects of tribalism in without making them feel like tokens. I think I like the Dora Milaje the best, the squad of women warriors who protect the king. They are so strong and beautiful with their shaved heads and spears and I love them. After Black Panther’s introduction in Civil War, it was nice to go into this movie and see what he dealt with in the weeks after his father’s death. Once again, seeing things in chronological order helped clarify any confusion I had about the timeline of things when they came out months apart in theaters. T’Challa had a really rough couple of weeks in there. Oh, and Michael B. Jordan is also excellent in his role as Killmonger. It’s a great movie for so many reasons. 

Doctor Strange – Scott Derrickson, 2016

I feel like a lot of people don’t like this movie. It is true that Doctor Strange is a little bit like a discount Tony Stark, a man who thinks the rest of the world is below him because of his superior intellect. At least this movie has the decency to break him down to nothing before giving him ridiculous superpowers that serve to reaffirm that belief. I think this movie is fine. It’s definitely one of the more visually arresting films, which I always appreciate. On visuals alone, I’d pick this over something like Ant-Man or Thor 2. The concept is also relatively cool, making it seem like wizardry can be learned by anybody. However, it does feel out of place in the timeline. We’re getting close to the end of the line here, and all this movie does for the overarching plot is introduce the Time Stone. But while I think it’s a perfectly passable origin story, it doesn’t make sense here at this point in Phase 3 of the MCU. Plus Marvel didn’t really need another overpowered quippy white man. Again, this is a fun movie to watch, but for the first time in awhile, this is better on its own than in sequence.

Thor: Ragnarok – Taika Waititi, 2017

Taika Waititi is a creative genius and should be allowed to take over the entire film industry. What We Do in the Shadows is one of my favorite movies of all time and I’m so glad that he is now on the map and taking over the Thor franchise going forward. He took the goofy Thor we all know and love and turned up the humor without compromising character, adding in nods to the previous movies and the fans without offending anybody. To say nothing of Korg, arguably one of the best side characters we’ve seen in the MCU thus far. After seeing it for the first time on my birthday, my brother announced upon leaving the theater that this was his new favorite MCU movie. I do think that this ranks pretty highly for me. It makes Thor fun again. Plus it’s just a really good movie. Like it features characters we already know, and then uses characteristics we haven’t seen before to make them well-rounded and more interesting to watch. And it’s stylistically very well done too! The scene with Thor using his lightning and the flashback with the Valkyries and the fight on the rainbow bridge... It’s all so good. And I haven’t even mentioned Jeff Goldblum. There’s a very good reason my brother likes this movie so much. It’s because it’s excellent.

Ant-Man and the Wasp – Peyton Reed, 2018

Now, Thor: Ragnarok leads directly into Infinity War, so I do sort of wish we’d gone into that next. But it was more important for us to watch Infinity War and Endgame back to back, so we decided to throw the Ant-Man sequel in here. This movie is about what Ant-Man and his friends were up to immediately before the events of Infinity War, maybe even during, because he wasn’t in that movie. And it sets up some VERY important plot points for Endgame. It makes a lot of sense to release these in the order they did. This is still an okay movie, but it ultimately feels like filler. Which is a shame, because these are good characters. Paul Rudd is still a delight, and so is the supporting cast of thieves. At the end of the day, it does feel necessary to watch this movie at some point so that the other ones make sense, but it also doesn’t feel like it has much impact on its own. The villain is interesting enough, the dialogue is still snappy, but the most impactful part of the film is the end credits scene when you see the Pym family get dusted. It’s a preview of what’s to come, even more haunting if you know it’s coming. But the part of the movie that makes you sit up and pay attention should not be hidden away in the credits. 

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Is It Really THAT Bad?

I’m going to warn you all now. This one is going to get a bit angry at the end. Normally I would try and remain as professional as possible, but in this case, I don’t feel like I would be able to.

Batman & Robin is a film that has lived in infamy since its release in 1997. Upon release, it was critically reviled, and this hatred of the film continued long into the modern day, where it frequently tops “worst films of all time lists” to the point where it actually is listed on the Wikipedia page for “List of films considered the worst.” It was nominated for at least 11 Razzies but only won a single one, and it went on to be a frequent punching bag on the {REDACTED] Critic’s web show, where he would get irrationally angry at the mere mention of the Bat Credit Card. In contemporary reviews, Mick LaSalle of The San Francisco Chronicle stated “"George Clooney is the big zero of the film, and should go down in history as the George Lazenby of the series,” which is less of a criticism and more of a compliment, if I’m being totally honest.

Most of the stars would take a negative stance towards it as well, with legend stating that if you tell George Clooney that you saw the film in theaters, he will refund you for your ticket out of his own pocket. Chris O’Donnell likewise is not particularly fond of the film, stating "It just felt like everything got a little soft the second time. On Batman Forever, I felt like I was making a movie. The second time, I felt like I was making a kid's toy commercial." And, perhaps most depressingly, Joel Schumacher himself was apparently very apologetic for the film, though this may or may not have come about because of years and years of vitriol being directed at him for making this film.

In the wake of Mr. Schumacher’s passing, I decided to re-watch the film, as I am famously rather fond of it, and I am going to tell you all why the answer to the question “Is it really THAT bad?” is a loud, resounding, NO.

THE GOOD

There’s honestly quite a lot to like here, more than you might think. I think first and foremost what you need to understand going in is that this is a silly, cartoonish take on the Burton style, blending the silliness and camp of the West series with the drama and aesthetics of the Burton films, all while adding some over-the-top, colorful flair. John Glover, who appears in the film as a cartoonish mad scientist, even has gone on record as saying "Joel would sit on a crane with a megaphone and yell before each take, 'Remember, everyone, this is a cartoon'. It was hard to act because that kind of set the tone for the film”… the last sentence makes the statement very baffling, but at least even the actors were aware of what they were doing. If this doesn’t sound appealing, well, the opening is sure to warn you off, as it is a suiting up montage with various shots of the firm butts, large codpieces, and stiff batnipples of the Dynamic Duo. The movie is very upfront about what you’re in for.

On the subject of the infamous batnipples, Schumacher stated "I had no idea that putting nipples on the Batsuit and Robin suit were going to spark international headlines. The bodies of the suits come from Ancient Greek statues, which display perfect bodies. They are anatomically correct." It seems a very odd choice, but it’s pretty clear that he meant it as an amusing little design choice and nothing more. Of course, this hasn’t stopped everyone and their mother from spewing homophobic comments about how he was purposefully making the film gayer, even from star George Clooney, who has said that he played Batman as a gay man and was told by Schumacher Batman is gay. It’s so disgusting that people did and continue to do this, because honestly, the costumes are fine, and even if they are meant to be fanservice… so what? O’Donell and Clooney’s asses look nice, as does Alicia Silverstone’s when she dons a suit. The fact hers is just as form-fitting as the other two really shows that the whole idea Schumacher did it because he was gay is ridiculous; the man was very egalitarian about the fanservice in the movie.

Whatever else Clooney says, he does a pretty great job as Batman and Bruce Wayne. His speech at the end of the film where he talks to Mr. Freeze and reminds him that he is a good man and offers to help him is honestly one of the few moments in any Batman film where Batman actually feels like the one from the animated series, a man who fights crime but also wants to help the people he’s trying to stop. Clooney just has a very natural charisma that lends himself to playing a hero, and while there are a few awkward moments in the performance, he captures the fun and charm a more lighthearted Batman should. Michael Gough’s last turn as Alfred is also surprisingly poignant, and a lot of mileage is gotten out of his genuinely tearjerking subplot.

Of course, the very best part of the film is the villains. Uma Thurman is clearly having a ball as Poison Ivy, and she gets to have a ludicrous amount of costumes as well as numerous moments of fanservice. She also has the power to turn every man around her into a simp, which is absolutely amazing and leads to quite a few scenes of Batman and Robin slapping each other over her. But f course, there’s really no doubt that the best part of the film is Mr. Freeze. He’s a combination of the sillier Mr. Freeze from the West days and the more modern take of the character most are familiar with, the tragic anti-villain who wants to save his wife; such a character would take a talented man capable of comedy and drama in equal measure. And who better than Arnold Schwarzenegger? Joel Schumacher wanted a man who looked like he was chiseled from a glacier, and Arnold certainly fits that description. He spends the movie juggling some of the most corny puns you can imagine and a lot of truly powerful, understated drama, and it really does work. You honestly get the sense that Arnold really gets Mr. Freeze and what makes him a great character. Also, that suit he has is amazing.

As a final note: the Bat Credit Card is absolutely not stupid. Linkara has defended it in the past, giving reasons why and how it could actually work, but really, all that needs to be said is… is this any more ridiculous than Shark Repellent Bat Spray?

THE BAD

So don’t get the wrong idea here; this film is far from perfect. As is the case with any comedy, the humor can be hit or miss; not all of the puns land, not all of the jokes are great. You’re never going to get a perfect comedy no matter how hard you try, and this is no exception.

As for performances, I think O’Donnell’s Robin and Silverstone’s Batgirl are a bit wonky. O'Donnell has long been a source of derision for his whining, and while I think the hate is a bit overblown, he does spend a ludicrous amount of time in this film being snippy, miserable, and arrogant. I think he actually fights with Batman more than any of the villains! Still, his performance isn’t horrible, he just gets a bit too whiny at a few points.

Silverstone is a bit of a bigger problem, but she’s not quite as bad as even I remembered. She’s pretty much Batgirl in name only, since she’s related to Alfred in this, but she’s mostly okay. The issue really is that her arc in the film is relatively bland and feels a bit shoehorned, which comes to a head where she fights Poison Ivy in a designated catfight, obviously because they didn’t want Batman to punch a woman in the face I guess. There’s just one issue with that:

On the subject of Ivy, while she definitely does have plant powers here, they’re strangely underplayed. She rarely uses them even when it would probably be beneficial, instead relying on Bane to do most of the fighting for her. Ah, Bane��� Bane is one of the few things about this film I can’t really muster up any sort of defense for. While his creation scene is rather cool, it doesn’t lead to much of interest, as this version of Bane is pretty much a mindless supersoldier lackey who serves Poison Ivy. Now, this was still relatively early in Bane’s existence, as he had only debuted in 1993 and was really most famous for his signature “breaking the Bat” move, but it still is baffling why, with that famous thing fresh in everyone’s minds, that they would just choose to go and basically make Bane into Evil Diet Captain America. Surely they could have either saved him for a sequel or utilized him in a way more befitting of the character? I think this Bane is kind of responsible for the negative perception of Bane as this big, dumb bruiser, something that works like The Dark Knight Rises and Arkham Origins have thankfully gone a long way to rectifying. Bane is at his best when he’s a cunning genius bruiser; here, he’s nothing but a glorified prop.

Is It Really THAT Bad?

The answer is no. No it isn’t. AT ALL.

I’ve always felt this film came out at the wrong time. It was towards the end of the 90s, during the Dark Age of Comics when everything was dark, gritty, and edgy. The world didn’t want a movie like this back then; they wanted stuff like Blade, who would come in shortly after this film and show us how to make that aesthetic work. I guess in terms of Batman they wanted something more like Dawn of Justice, which really speaks volumes to how awful the 90s were for superheroes. 

Look, I’m not trying to convince anyone this is the greatest Batman film ever. Even I don’t think that; Batman Returns, The Dark Knight, and Under the Red Hood are all much better films. But is this really the worst Batman film now that we have the deeply misogynistic and disgusting The Killing Joke and the relentlessly bleak and unpleasant Batman v Superman? Hell, it’s not even worse than Batman Forever! At least the Batman in this film has some kind of emotional range beyond “plank of wood!” And even calling it the worst sequel ever is just… so baffling. Again, this is definitely better than Batman Forever, lack of Jim Carrey notwithstanding. And can you honestly look me in the eye and tell me that this is worse than any of the Terminator sequels after the second film? Worse than Iron Man 2 or Thor: The Dark World? The almost half dozen Alvin and the Chipmunk sequels? This is only the worst sequel or even a bad sequel if it is the only sequel you’ve ever seen in your life.

A lot of the hate for it from back in the day carries a strong undercurrent of homophobia. Much like the infamous backlash against disco, it’s seriously uncomfortable, and it definitely is cruel how accusatory people were towards Schumacher’s intentions for the suits of the heroes in the film. The fact that even the two main stars have gotten in on it is a bit disgusting, though O’Donnell questioning why there needed to be a codpiece is certainly less offensive than George Clooney saying he played Batman as a gay man for… whatever reason. Was he implying that Batman being gay made the movie worse? I’m not sure what he’s on about there. Even The New Batman Adventures made a cruel dig at the film; notice the sign and the effeminate-looking boy. You could only get homophobia this good in the 90s!

The hatred of this film is absolutely overblown. It’s so ridiculous. #70 on the bottom rated movies of IMDB? #1 on the 50 worst films of all time list from Empire? Doug Walker’s personal punching bag whenever he needs to talk about a bad sequel, to the point where he literally said no one wanted a comedic take on Batman in his worst sequels video? Come the fuck on.

Joel Schumacher may or may not have ended up hating this film, but he certainly was made to feel like shit for making it… and it is honest to god not that bad! But he was just absolutely eviscerated, to the point where this was a fucking headline when he died:

Literally fuck all of these people. Fuck io9 for their insensitive headline. Fuck Empire for rating this as the worst film ever. Fuck Doug Walker for his constant bashing and his shitty old “chimp out over the Bat Credit Card” gag. Double fuck Mick LaSalle for shitting on George Clooney’s performance while also trying to say George Lazenby’s Bond was bad. In fact, fuck George Clooney for his weird idea that playing Batman as gay is a bad thing (sorry George, but I can’t defend this). Fuck the Razzies. Yes, it was nominated, but I just feel it’s always a good time to say “Fuck the Razzies.”

I will never say you have to love or even like this film, but the sheer amount of vitriol and hatred for it is absolutely beyond me. At worst, this film is just a bit too goofy, and at best, it is a fun tribute to the campy days when Batman just couldn’t get rid of a bomb. I didn’t take off my score this time. I’m proud to say I gave this an 8/10, personally. If I’m being honest, a 6.6 – 6.9 is more appropriate, because it does have quite a few issues, but god, this film is not bad at all. It’s silly, goofy, campy, and fun… but bad? Not by any stretch of my imagination. And fuck the critics for convincing an entire generation that this is Batman at his worst, when we have Batman fucking slaughtering his ways through criminals and fucking Barbara Gordon on rooftops these days. I will always take stupid ice puns over misery, murder and creepy intergenerational sex, thank you very much.

I hope you can rest easy, Mr. Schumacher. Maybe you didn’t love your film in the end but, wherever you are, I hope you know I loved it.

[recentanimenews]

FEATURE: Why You Never Get Sick of Seeing Char Aznable Ruin Garma’s Life

  Today marks infamous Gundam villain and completely-innocent-man Char Aznable's birthday. What better way to celebrate than showcasing the Red Comet's love for good-natured betrayal? While Char might currently hold the title of anime’s most prolific back-stabbers, one classic case of betrayal continues to stay fresh in fans 'minds: the tragic tale of Garma Zabi. It's time to take a trip down memory lane.

  Even Pretty Hair Won't Save You From Sweet, Sweet Revenge

  During Mobile Suit Gundam’s original broadcast, little was known of Char or his backstory. Char’s initial appeal was undoubtedly his indisputable combination of fearlessness and mystery. Unlike all the other Zeon goons, Char wore a mask for undisclosed reasons, further adding to his allure. Besides a chance encounter with Sayla in Episode 2, everything and everyone about Char and his relations was totally up for interpretation. Until Gundam’s fifth episode aired on May 5th, 1979. Suddenly, Char had a friend and ally. His name was Garma, and he had nothing to blame except the misfortune of his birth.

  Char and Garma return to a hero's welcome

  “Re-Entry to Earth” begins a series of events that both lead to Gundam’s first major arc involving Char requesting the Zabi family's aid, Zeon’s most powerful asset. Up to this point, everything had been a game of cat and mouse between Char and White Base — an obvious fight between good and “evil.” However, the introduction of Garma signals the series pivoting from one-and-done episodic conflicts. Garma is not just a bad guy, but a bad guy with an implied backstory related to Char! And yet, something seems off. Char isn’t just playing dirty against obvious good guys or lasers now. He’s playing the political game.

  After several failed attempts to capture White Base, Char offers Garma a chance to claim Amuro’s Gundam for himself under a strategic guise. Garma naturally takes the bait, depicted as selfish and vain in ways Char’s charisma can control. While both are hungry for clout and power, Char ultimately emerges the victor by guiding Garma’s forces directly into White Base’s line of fire. Garma crashes to his death in a fiery blaze, only barely putting together the pieces when it’s too late. This is when Char reveals his true intent: to destroy the Zabi family from the inside out. This classic betrayal isn’t just about Garma, but as Char announcing himself as a whole new class of anime villain with unprecedented nuance.

  Innovating the meaning of "friendly fire" since 1979

  Variations on a Theme

  While Garma’s death sets off a chain of increasingly escalating events in Mobile Suit Gundam’s Universal Century timeline, this is specifically an early series watershed. And, of course, it’s also a huge meme. Theatrical screenings of 2016’s Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt: December Sky film included a short animated PSA depicting Char and Garma on their cellphones reminding guests to mind theater etiquette. The two tease each other with catchphrases from Mobile Suit Gundam’s tenth episode, “Garma’s Fate.” The phrase “Hattana, Char!” or “you betrayed me, Char!” has become relentlessly parodied in everything from merchandise and boxed cookies to official parody manga like Mobile Suit Gundam-san. Garma’s classic quote has now become shorthand for Char (or anyone else) unexpectedly screwing someone over.

  Local man ruins everything (Source: Gundam 0079: The War for Earth, Screenshots taken by Blake Planty)

  Perhaps the strangest depiction of Garma’s betrayal is the 1996 FMV game Gundam 0079: The War for Earth. While exclusively released in Japan, this title used American actors and roughly adapted the first ten episodes of Mobile Suit Gundam. The title included many English-language firsts for this franchise entry specifically — including a delightfully hammy rendition of Garma’s famous last words: “Char, you craven traitor!” whereas the Japanese-dub preserves the classic line. Other versions of Garma’s final blazing moments of glory include the long-running strategy game series Gihren’s Greed. The 1998 title and its sequels depict a more mature Garma attempting to pacify Zeon if the player manages to have him survive Char’s sabotage. The 2001 Playstation 2 game Mobile Suit Gundam: Journey to Jaburo provides one of the first accurate depictions of Garma dubbed in English, this time translating the famous line as: "Char, this time you double-crossed me!" While these variations on canon never change the essential arc of Char’s first major betrayal, they nonetheless suggest a long-lasting fascination with a one-note character. With each revisit to classic Gundam, inevitably something new is always added.

  Garma after Char gives him the bad news (Source: Mobile Suit Gundam: Journey to Jaburo, screenshot by Blake Planty)

  Getting Back to Basics

  Garma’s popularity could possibly be attributed to how unexpected Char’s betrayal was at the time, especially for a pioneering series like Gundam. Garma’s always been a plot device, albeit one that got a surprising amount of development (five whole episodes!) before his demise. It wasn’t until classic Gundam character designer Yoshikazu Yasuhiko began serializing Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin in 2001 that Garma finally got his narrative due. In this adaptation of the original series, a new arc was added about Char's previously mentioned academy days. Unlike the previous iterations of Char’s epic betrayal, this re-telling serves double-duty in developing Garma and Char’s shared megalomaniac tendencies. Char encourages a notably docile Garma to start a student uprising and in the process, plants all the right manipulative seeds to make his master plan work years later. It’s mind games all the way down.

  Garma speaks to Char after the Battle of Loum

  In an interview regarding his performance as Garma in The Origin’s OVA adaptation, voice actor Tetsuya Kakihara commented, “If I ended up portraying Garma as that epitome of a ‘spoiled kid,’ he'd end up a truly saccharine character.” Kakihara added that, had he played Garma without “a bit of mischievousness” Garma wouldn’t believably buy into Char’s plans nor “come together” as a character with a strong sense of pride. The Origin’s depiction of Garma would have to match up to Shuichi Ikeda’s reprising his original role as Char with the audience very well knowing how it all ends. In other words — portraying Garma as two-dimensional and vain as he was in 1979 simply won't do when everyone knows the beats. The Origin isn't exactly coy about this, either. After Garma happily introduces himself to Char as his new roommate, the scene immediately cuts to an explosion on a battlefield as Char laughs. Best. Friends. Forever.

  Mood 

  Mobile Suit Gundam is a story that never gets old. No matter how many times it’s told, it’s always exciting to see how classic material gets reimagined over the years. While Garma’s betrayal might’ve been shocking the first time, it’s now just another part of the ebb and flow of Gundam lore. Yet, there’s excitement every time you know it’s coming — the same way audiences still anticipate Darth Vader telling Luke he’s his father. When "the moment" happens, it's all the sweeter for being the culmination of something bigger than itself. It’s not just a win for Char, but a win for Gundam’s talent for making nearly 41 years of twists feel as fresh as ever.

  Who are your favorite Gundam besties? Let us know in the comments below!

      Blake P. is a weekly columnist for Crunchyroll Features. How come Casval and Char are never in the same room together? His twitter is @_dispossessed. His bylines include Fanbyte, VRV, Unwinnable, and more.

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[valkyrieelysia18]

RWBY Rewrite: Penny Polendina

Salutations Tumblr users! Today, we tackle beloved fan favorite robot girl Penny Polendina.

Now as I stated before, I dropped RWBY after Volume 6 and didn’t really watch Volume 7. I have however heard about certain developments and one plot point made me grateful I got out earlier or I would have rage quit this Volume anyway.

They brought back Penny, with all her memories completely intact.

This destroys one of the best pieces of writing in the show. Penny’s death was meant to symbolize the death of innocence in the show and it led in to the Fall of Beacon as well as Pyrrha’s death. Up until now, the show had been treating it as if a real girl had died. Vexed Viewer on YouTube has done a video on the topic that explains this better than I could. Even if they were going to bring Penny back in some way, she shouldn’t have been exactly the same as if nothing happened. Such as her memory of Vale (and everyone she met) being completely gone or her personality being significantly changed she isn’t even the same person anymore.

So, in this post I am going to be going over her history, role in the plot, and ‘successor’ for the Atlas Arc. 

Creation and History

Okay, slight can of worms, but if Doctor Polendina is black, why is his daughter one of the most obviously white characters of the cast?

Alright, there actually is a legitimate reason for that in this rewrite. Penny’s physical features are actually based on Pietro’s late wife Clara Polendina (reference to the Nutcracker ballet) who worked with her husband. The two were very much happy and in love, but Clara died in a Grimm attack before they could have children. Thus, Penny is basically the daughter Pietro never got to have with her. Clara won’t come up that much in the Rewrite, but she was close to both of her husband’s prized students Arthur Watts and Willow Schnee. Arthur would note the resemblance and bring it up during his final confrontation with the doctor (This is what you ruined my life for as well as countless others?! Clara would be ashamed.) Willow would also bring it up and notice the similarities in both Penny and her successor.

However, the Atlas military and Ironwood’s desires to build something like Penny is less heartwarming. There was the original desire of making stronger robots for mass production to protect humans that evolved into infiltration and espionage purposes. But James Ironwood would see Polendina’s plans and see an immense opportunity. A young woman who would never age or die. An individual that they would never have to worry about running away or disobeying orders. Such a person becoming a Maiden would mean that they would never have to worry about the transfer process ever again. That would explain why Penny said that it would be her job to save the world one day, but they don’t think she’s ready for it yet. She is Ironwood’s hope for the future of the Maidens. And just in case she isn’t perfected in time for the next transfer, Winter is being trained and kept in reserve. Ironwood would provide all of the materials Pietro could need, including a crystalized substance that no one knows much about other than it being a classified by the military. It’s source  will be noted in a spoiler’s section in this post, but it’s the very thing finally got things to work.

But while Pietro is aware something is up and suspicious of Ironwood’s intentions, he loves his little robot daughter regardless. There will be some flashbacks involving her first days awake (showing her curiosity and determination) as well as her bidding her father good bye when she leaves for the Vytal Festival. 

Vale

The only thing I’d really change about Penny in the Vale Arc is giving her more time to interact with the cast, especially Ruby. What we got was okay, but I think it would be much more impactful if Ruby got to spend more time with Penny before her death. I’d definitely like it if Penny would bring up her father during their conversations, saying she was sure that two of them would get along given how much Ruby likes weapons.

It might be also nice for Pyrrha to feel a little off by her sensing all the metal when they first meet, but not realize why or how important that is. Just bit of foreshadowing.

Pelia

So, as you might have guessed by now, Penny will stay dead in this Rewrite. With the kind of story and tone I’m working with, it’s important that there is legitimate consequences to events and actions of the characters. As such, characters who died will stay dead. They may be referenced, appear in flashbacks, haunt our characters’ dreams, perhaps having a spirit linger with unfinished business to help the main characters on their path, but there is no chance of resurrection.

Not that Pietro wasn’t thinking along the same lines as others had considering Penny is a robot. They did manage to retrieve her body and core, but when he managed to build a new body, reboot, and restart, it wasn’t Penny greeting him. Rather, it was a completely personality. And they did not recognize anything or anyone. Pietro was devastated.

Thus I introduce Pelia Polendina, or Pelly. This is reference to the Coppelia ballet that actually includes a toy inventor trying bring a doll to life that he calls a daughter, much like Pinocchio. Only instead of magic bringing a puppet to life, the inventor tries to bring Coppelia to life by stealing a human soul and putting it in the doll. Quite the dark contrast and is actually going to be a bit of foreshadowing. I will say her appearance is actually pretty similar to Penny’s redesign with longer hair, though I would picture her more similar to dishwasher 1910′s design in https://www.deviantart.com/dishwasher1910/art/penny3-0-SD-758463321 . Check them out on DeviantArt, their work is amazing.

Pelia is considerably different than Penny. Whereas Penny was bright, enthusiastic, and rather trusting; Pelly is subdued, talks very mechanically, and is significantly less naïve. While Penny longed to be a part of something greater and be with humans despite her lack of social skills, Pelly avoids most people and is afraid of what Atlas(and by extension Ironwood) wants with a robot like her. This is partly due to her finding about Penny and how the world reacted with the Fall of Beacon.

In regards to Penny, she feels rather guilty about being alive in her place though she doesn’t quite realize that’s what she is feeling. This would lead to her trying to find out everything she could on Penny to understand her emotions, learning about Ruby and the others in the process. Pietro is devastated by the loss and incredibly frustrated with her, not really considering her alive in the same way Penny was which given her personality isn’t that unreasonable to think. Pelia does care about her creator and tries to assist him in what ways she can, but his attitude towards her is not positive and as such she mostly stays out of his way.

Atlas

Pelia’s first proper appearance would be in the Atlas Arc when the group visits Doctor Polendina for weapons repairs after their meeting with Ironwood doesn’t go well and the good doctor isn’t the on the best terms with the General at present. The man is not pleased or in the mood to humor them, though he does defrost a little when Ruby shows her geeky know how on weapons. (He may have also said some rather terrible things about Pyrrha which made the group somewhat grateful JNR wasn’t there.) As the group leaves the building and goes on their way, Ruby looks up to the upstairs window as she feels she’s being watched. She doesn’t see anything, but as she turns and walks away Pelia comes into view from the window. Having recognized who the people who just visited were, Pelly sneaks out and follows the group in the secret for a while.

She finally gets revealed while the group is watching Weiss dance ballet at a Mantle Community Theater. The Atlas Arc is primarily Weiss centric and part of her Arc in proving herself as worthy of the Schnee name will have her prove herself to people of Mantle. One such instance will have her helping out at the community theatre in learning and teaching dance. It’s in which she is showing off her skills Pelia accidentally reveals herself to the group having been incredibly entranced in ballet (little show to her inspiration). Ruby at first mistakes her for Penny so she gets very emotional, only to temper down when she realizes Pelia’s not her. The situation is cleared up and the group gets more insight into the situation of Atlas as well as the strain between the General and Pietro.

Pelia has three distinct dynamics of interactions with the group: Ruby on Penny, Weiss and Winter on siblings, and Oscar on succession. With Ruby, Pelia gets to know more about Penny as a person and Ruby gets a chance to fully process her loss. Pelia’s not Penny, but she comes to appreciate her all the same. Ruby also comes up with Yang in regards to sibling interactions, but Pelia’s focus in this case is more on the Schnee siblings. She’s basically wondering what sisters act like and whether Penny would have seen her as a sister. This lets her get some ballet lessons from Weiss as well as close to Winter. Then there’s her relationship with Oscar with the two of them having to deal with their predecessors and the problems they’ve let them to deal with. The both of them come to realize through talking with each other is that they shouldn’t compare themselves to those who came before. They have their own views and ways of doing things different from their predecessors and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The only thing they can do is do things the best THEY can.

The big turning point in the Atlas Arc for Pelia is when Pietro finds out abut the Winter Maiden and what Ironwood’s original plans were.  While I am majorly rewriting the Atlas Arc, I do actually like the idea of an old Winter Maiden who is on her last legs. Pietro doesn’t get all the details of course, but it gives him the idea that the magic could bring Penny back to life. Aside from the whole ‘Dead means dead’ world I’m working with, it’s also a way to show that magic that cannot bring back the dead. I know that’s very much true in the show though not directly stated, but here I want to lay the ground rules down on what magic is and is not capable of.

After being called back by Pietro and assisting him in breaking into the facility where the transfer is soon to take place, the two enter the room that was originally prepped for Winter (who is distracted with everyone else on things going wrong due to Pietro’s interference) with the old woman in the pod. Pietro has explained things and orders Pelia to get in the other pod. Pelia doesn’t move, having been conflicted during this entre plan which shows all over her face. The doctor orders again, much firmer this time.  A few moments pass as she thinks it over; fear, doubt, determination all playout in her expressions. Finally, she speaks. “No.”

While Pelia may have been built to be a weapon, she still has free will. Unlike Penny who accepted her role without many doubts, Pelia rejects that her only purpose is to be someone’s tool of war. She wants to help others, but she doesn’t want to fight. I think that if you bring choice into a story as a main theme, you also have to give the characters the choice not to fight, to walk away even if they don’t actually do it. Above all, Pelia doesn’t think that sacrificing others for herself is what Penny would have wanted after having met Ruby and gotten to know what she was like. 

She would tell this to Pietro, who would get furious and argue with her. this would continue until they were interrupted by Watts. Watts, with revenge on the brain, would focus on Doctor Polendina and tell Pelia to run along. I know this seems a little hypocritical for Watts to do this considering his advice to Cinder in Volume 5, but this a different situation. Spoilers for the future Atlas Arc Rewrite and future James Ironwood post, go to the next paragraph if you don’t want spoilers. You see, the villains don’t need the Winter Maiden to open the Vault for them because Ironwood already took the Relic of Creation out of the Vault years ago (and is NOT holding up Atlas). In fact, a bit of the power from the staff was used to create Penny  which was the the crystalized substance. Watts knows this due to his hacking Ironwood’s system and has already retrieved the Relic and sent it on the way to Salem. This will make the results in Atlas a lot more bittersweet: our heroes will win on the people’s side of things, but lose the Relic. Back to Watts, the man is all about efficiency. While the Winter Maiden’s powers would be nice, they don’t have a vessel for it at the moment and it’s not necessary for their primary goal. Once the business side of things is taken care of, then he’ll indulge in revenge.

Pelia, while conflicted, would run and get to the group to tell them everything. She would then spend the rest of the conflicting helping to escort and treat the wounded, giving her a presence to the people of Atlas. Pietro will be arrested and will be convicted for his crimes, Watts dead but having gotten the last laugh in the end with his technological abilities exposing his teacher and those who left him out to dry.

Once everything is settled, Pelly will stay behind in Atlas as the new right hand of new Headmistress Winter Schnee. Basically, she becomes the Glynda to Winter’s Ozpin (though Winter is a much more hands on no nonsense person). She bids the group goodbye, hoping to Ruby that they will meet again.

After Atlas

I don’t have much in mind for Pelia after the Atlas Arc except for two things. Firstly, that she and Pietro do eventually reconcile and develop something of a relationship when she visits him in prison on her off days. (Jacques is not so lucky in regards to his children.)

The second is when she and Winter will meet everyone at the lowest point of the story. Ruby will have learned some pretty dark truths, including some choices her mother made that’s really made her think. Pelia will actually have a similar conversation with Ruby that she had with Oscar. In how she’s no more Penny than Ruby is Summer. She’ll remark that perhaps Ruby put her mother on a bit too much of a pedestal thanks to the way her family viewed her. When in reality Summer was just a person and people make mistakes. Right now, what choices Summer made in the past aren’t what matters. What matters is what Ruby wants to do now.

Okay, I think I started before the coronavirus stuff went crazy. I am so sorry. Not sure when I’ll get beck to this.

However, I know the next subject is going to quite the doozy...

[londonspirit]

Occasionally, Dan Levy will pick up his phone and send a text: “Can you believe it?” These messages are sent to Annie Murphy or Noah Reid or Emily Hampshire or Karen Robinson, former inhabitants of Schitt’s Creek, titular town of the series Levy co-created with his identically-browed father, Eugene. What Levy can’t quite believe is that a CBC and Pop network show that aired in the U.S. after reruns of The Young and the Restless became a no-shit international phenomenon and won every major 2020 comedy Emmy from Outstanding Series to Outstanding Contemporary Costumes, plus awards for the show’s four main cast members: Levy, Levy the elder, Murphy, and Catherine O’Hara.

Not that Levy has any qualms about the best thing that’s ever happened to him. Or, more accurately, the best thing he’s ever made happen: In addition to creating, writing, and starring as skeptical scion David Rose on Schitt's Creek, Levy occasionally directed episodes and sourced many of the award-winning costumes. But the endless wretchedness of 2020 is perhaps an inopportune time to publicly garner good fortune.

“What this year has done has opened so many people's eyes to so much of the social unrest that is happening in America and really forced people to learn more,” Levy says, sitting in the bland Toronto apartment the 37-year-old is temporarily renting until he can head back to LA. “Read more. Educate themselves more. Check their privilege more. And yet…” Levy’s magnificent eyebrows unfold from a furrow of probity to an arch of delight, and his mouth into a crooked tilde of a smile. “There are moments when I think it is important for your sense of self to also be OK to say, ‘Something good happened to me this year, and I worked really hard for it.’ And so did a group of really talented people that I love. You're kind of caught in this place where only you can talk about it amongst yourselves.” Levy’s conversations with his co-stars are couched in language familiar to anyone who doesn’t want to give off the vibe of an Instagram caption on a pandemic birthday trip to a private island: "Well, obviously, you know, this is not of much significance" compared to everything else that’s going on. Still, Levy has to acknowledge that, yes, a good thing did happen; after all, he says, “You're talking about breaking records at the Emmys!”

Since he began social distancing, Levy has engaged in something like a fame-offset program, matching his good fortune by taking, publicizing, and raising money for University of Alberta’s online Indigenous Canada course. Levy’s queasiness about his success happening with a 2020 backdrop seems to stem from goodness so pervasive he’s caught himself thinking, Am I going to seem too, like, sincere? (When I ask if he believes he’s a good person, Levy frets, “Is being a good person something you can proclaim? Or is being a good person something that someone has to observe about you?”)

And Schitt’s Creek itself is an oasis of kindness — it doesn’t seem coincidental that after a slow five-season ascent, the show’s viewership exploded in its final year as we quarantined with our own bad thoughts. Levy has said that the arc of the Rose family — a “Balenciaga” to “consignment Balenciaga” to “back to current season Balenciaga” story — is based on the question, “Would the Kardashians still be the Kardashians without their money?” To Levy, the answer is obvious: Yes, and they would be better for it because, he says, “There is a love to that family.” So of course when the Roses lose the fortune amassed from a video rental empire and are forced to move to a Canadian town purchased as a novelty gift, they learn what truly matters.

Levy’s father and collaborator, Eugene, who co-wrote Christopher Guest films Best In Show and A Mighty Wind, says, “There are people who work in the world of comedy where they like to push envelopes in terms of what they can get away with, but that may come at the expense of other people. If it's at all important to you to avoid then you, you know, avoid it.” With the notable exception of programs like The Great British Bake Off — Levy, naturally, used to host the Canadian iteration — it is quite a bit more difficult to be entertaining and kind than entertaining and cruel. But Dan Levy attributes some of Schitt’s Creek’s success to what he calls “a purity to the storytelling and the show that caught people off guard because it was so unexpectedly sincere.” “There was something badass about the fact that it didn't have the kind of edge that people had often equated with cable comedies,” he says.

Making Schitt’s Creek a source of goodness and light was an unrelenting crush for Levy. “How much anger and rage do I have to repress in order to get the light out?” he says, laughing and stroking his elderly dog, Redmond, so vigorously I worry about ginger fur getting on Levy’s David Rose-appropriate black and white JW Anderson T-shirt. “Um, at times a lot.”

When Levy was working on Schitt’s Creek, he was picked up every morning at 5 a.m. and driven to set, where he would rehearse and rewrite scenes. Next was making decisions about sets and wardrobe fittings for cast members like O’Hara. Moira Rose, the actor mother of Levy’s character with a grandeur as flamboyant as her choice of syllable emphasis, might have to go to meet someone who makes her feel exposed. Levy would supervise an outfit selection that functioned as a billboard for her emotional state. “How do you express vulnerability?” Levy asks. “Well, you put more clothes on, and more aggressive clothes on, so as to armor yourself.” Levy needed to approve budgets, which didn’t increase even as the show gained more attention. He would act and sometimes direct, and then be back in wardrobe picking out the right statement necklaces for O’Hara to wear to buy a used car.

After filming ended, Levy went to the writers’ room to work for a couple more hours. He’d get home at 8 p.m., quickly eat dinner, and write until 2 a.m. on some nights. Then he’d sleep for two hours and get in the car to go back to work at 5 a.m. When shooting wrapped for the year, Levy went into post-production, spending months in windowless rooms. Once a season was finally completed, preparation would begin for the next one. Levy charged himself with making sure every detail connected to each other and tracked with the personal histories he and Eugene had written for each character before the series began. Eugene can remember only one deviation from those bios during the entire run of the show. Originally, the father of motel employee Stevie had been a roadie for Fleetwood Mac before receiving a restraining order from the band; the detail was later transferred to the father of diner waitress Twyla, who was played by Levy’s sister, Sarah. Several times during the run of the series, Levy developed anxiety so literally paralyzing that his neck would seize up, forcing him to wear a brace and receive chiropractic treatments between scenes.

“Through every phase of Schitt's Creek,” Eugene says, “Dan had a very strong sense as to what it was he wanted the show to look like and what he wanted it to sound like and what the tone of the show was going to be and what the message of the show would be. He certainly makes himself responsible to make these things happen. He doesn't go with the flow at all.”

Total control let Levy create a perfectly realized world, from the menu size in the Café Tropical to the caws in Moira’s comeback film The Crows Have Eyes III: The Crowening. But it’s perhaps not the healthiest arrangement when the confines of quarantine feel normal to you. “Over the past six years,” Levy says, “I really haven't been outside that much.”

When he was a boy, Levy became so anxious that he did not want to attend birthday parties. He did not want to go to summer camp. He did not, in fact, want to engage in any social situations. Levy’s anxiety physically manifested as iritis, an inflammation of the eye which doctors feared would eventually take his vision. It was as if the anxiety that drove Levy indoors had then decided to draw all the curtains.

“I think that came from a deep-rooted fear of knowing that I was gay and not being able to be free,” Levy says now. “By the time I got to high school, when your brain is starting to catch up to your physical impulses, it led to a very confusing time. Because on the one hand, you are now being introduced to things like self-awareness and anxiety. At the same time, you’re becoming more and more savvy when it comes to hiding it.”

The escape was theater. Levy began writing, directing, and performing in school plays, including a student-run stage adaptation of Clue produced during a teacher’s strike. “I was starting to develop a sense of confidence by way of being able to entertain people,” Levy says. “It was like a decoy version of myself that I was putting out there to not have to live with the reality that when the bullying was happening — if someone was calling me a f----t or whatever it was — they were speaking the truth.” What a cursed blessing to discover you have a gift but to understand it as a distraction from who you really are and not as a true part of yourself. No wonder that Levy says of creating a persona — naturally, in the self-distancing second person — “Your sense of self gets chipped away. You lose sight of your own value.”

Levy had a ticker of fears scrolling through his mind broadcasting what might happen if people knew who he really was: “Fear of being ridiculed. Fear of being othered. Fear of exposing something that I think a lot of high school students at the time didn't have the tools to process properly, to make it comfortable for me.”

Then, when he was 18, Levy came out. Actually, his mother, Deborah Divine, invited Levy to come out, over lunch. Levy accepted, and was accepted in return. It was one version of an inflection point that Levy has explored in some of his most impactful work. In Happiest Season, Hulu’s lesbian Christmas rom-com, Levy delivers the film’s high point in a monologue; filmmaker Clea DuVall tells me, “I cried during every take.”

“Everybody’s story is different,” Levy’s John says to Kristen Stewart’s Abby, who is planning to propose to a woman whose family doesn’t know she’s queer. “But the one thing that all of those stories have in common is that moment right before you say those words, when your heart is racing and you don’t know what’s coming next,” John goes on. “That moment’s really terrifying. And then once you say those words, you can’t unsay them. A chapter has ended and a new one’s begun, and you have to be ready for that.”

On the Schitt’s Creek episode “Meet the Parents,” David’s future in-laws discover their son Patrick is gay before he can come out to them. “Did we do something wrong, David?” Patrick’s father asks, inadvertently head-faking homophobia before saying, “The thought that Patrick was feeling like he couldn't come and talk to us about this…”

Obviously not everyone who comes out gets the response they’re hoping for. But like Patrick, Levy had a happy ending sitting in front of him: accepting and caring parents wondering when their son was going to tell them he was gay and trying to respect his timeline for doing so. When I ask Eugene if it’s painful knowing that he could have potentially alleviated the anxiety Levy was feeling by approaching him sooner, he concurs. “I would have done things so much differently, you know?” Eugene says slowly. “I would have gotten more involved in talking about what was going on.” But he doesn’t know that it would have changed anything — after all, the flow goes with Levy. “Not necessarily that we would have gotten any direct answers,” Eugene says. “You can only get back what you get back.” (Levy confirms he was not ready to discuss his sexuality before he was; despite his parents’ openness and love, he had created Schrödinger’s Eugene and Deb in his head, simultaneously welcoming him and rejecting him at the news.)

Newly out, Levy went to college and began dating. However, he says, “I was not in any place to be of great value in a relationship.” Like David Rose, Levy’s pitch tends to ascend on the back half of sentences, making him sound like he’s interrogating his own thought process. “You then get into these habits where you're dating people who are totally wrong for you because they're seeking out people who are a bit damaged,” Levy says, “and you're seeking out people who have one foot out the door so that you don't actually give yourself over in any kind of way.” (After I mention that while watching Happiest Season, I wanted Stewart’s character to dump her semi-emotionally damaging girlfriend and leave with Levy, he says, “In this conversation, I'm brought back to many a relationship [where] ‘RUN’ was just, like, the subtitle flashing for about a year and a half of my life.”)

Dating, then, became another way to keep people out. “I really got to a point where I felt like if I didn't make an active choice to pull myself out of this shell that was becoming such a comfort,” Levy says, “I would not be the adult that I want to be.” He spent a summer in England, answering phones at the ICM talent agency as exposure therapy for speaking, unscripted, to strangers. A month and a half later, he auditioned to be a host on MTV Canada. Levy says it was “the ultimate exercise in pushing myself and getting myself out there. If I could get a job on television asking other people questions — which had previously been on the top five things that I would never want to do — this could be the final kind of exercise in changing myself for the better.”

Like Levy’s high school theater work, his success as a host was a gnarled little monkey’s paw of unfortunate wish fulfillment. He was charismatic on screen and became famous enough to travel to New York on the weekends and get into the clubs he wanted to get into. Levy also pioneered the now-prevalent televised after-show with his The Hills discussion series, which exists in the same tonal universe as Schitt’s Creek: sharp enough to make you feel smart for laughing at it, but warm enough that Lauren Conrad herself was a guest.

But much of the work felt limiting. The questions he had to ask celebrities were pre-negotiated with publicists and written by producers — as Levy notes, “No one wants to sit down with someone from MTV Canada and have a revelatory chat about life.” One of his last appearances before quitting was the MTV Movie Awards red carpet. “You could see a kind of judgment in the people you're interviewing,” he says. “They're not rolling their eyes, but you can feel them thinking about rolling their eyes. And I know that a lot of the times they were questions I didn't necessarily want to be asked if I were in that situation.” Pretending to be the version of himself he thought people would accept, Levy says, “kind of just didn't feel worth it anymore.”

You know the next part. Levy realized he could keep the traits people had responded to when he performed — his charisma, his humor — add sincerity, and still be compelling. He spent half a decade grinding out something that was truly of himself. And through Schitt’s Creek Levy became, his father points out, “one of the top showrunners in the entertainment business right now.” Eugene says, “After the [Emmys] broadcast I think there were probably some executives who — if they even remember us going in to pitch the show — are probably kicking themselves.”

Based on what he does next, Levy is now in the unique position of being able to calibrate how famous he becomes. It’s evening in Toronto, and Levy mulls the question over what simply cannot be good wine; when I ask what kind it is, he says, “Red?” Levy knows he could choose to stay behind the scenes and work on the ABC Studios projects he has in development. But Levy is also in the early stages of a romantic comedy he would star in. He worries that he wouldn’t be able to handle uber-fame with the aplomb his co-star Kristen Stewart does. When they went out to a dive bar while filming in Pittsburgh, he says, “I was just so kind of in awe of her confidence and comfort in herself. She's so at ease — [I say that] as someone who I think will always be on their journey to have that for myself.”

“Dan’s assessment is actually incorrect,” Stewart says later. “But what I have done is try to keep that experience [of fame] fairly insular, not make other people I’m with take on the weight of my own self-consciousness — or, God forbid, have someone think I’m up my own ass and loving the attention. It’s easier for me to pretend [people noticing me] is not happening, even though on the inside I still feel like the world is a big school yard of giggling onlookers. Are they laughing at me? Yes, no… Who cares.”

If Levy ever does find himself in the position of being Stewart-famous, she thinks he’ll be fine. “What I did notice was how absolutely wonderful Dan is with everyone,” she says. “He is so loving and gracious towards people that recognize him. The positive force he puts out into the world is clearly reflected in how people come back at him.”

What Levy is putting out into the world next: “I would like to date more,” he says, shoulders bashfully rising ceilingward. “Circumstance plays such a huge part in what we accept for ourselves. When you're doing something that you love it’s like, ‘I have a full plate.’ Even though [Schitt’s Creek was] super intense and even though at times I need a neck brace, it was never not inspiring, and it was never not thrilling and exciting and totally satisfying. So to [want to] make space for someone else…in a way, it is the ultimate filter. You’re basically saying, do I want to carve out the space in an already full and fulfilled life for this person? And a lot of the time, the answer is no. But it only makes it that much better when the right person comes along.”

For now, Levy’s plate is full of his multiple simultaneous projects. (He says there are more than three but few enough that you could count them on both hands, though he doesn’t want to talk about them in detail until there’s actually something to talk about — if Levy follows the Schitt’s Creek model, he jokes, he’ll “get five seasons on television before anybody sees them.”) Before he begins writing, Levy must make sure his entire house is immaculate. Even today, months after the series finale of Schitt’s Creek aired, Levy is negotiating the length of the “fuck”-blocking bleeps of syndication. But as we have all learned this year, not everything is under our control, even if we are Dan Levy. Stewart remembers him panicking as he tried to decorate a new home and realized none of the furniture he bought made any sense together. “The idea of him left and right showrunning and developing and acting and writing — and then his sweater closet confounding him — was very cute,” she says.

A certain amount of acceptance will be useful as Levy figures out how to follow up a beloved hit show. “The goal was to make sure that the first season was exactly what we wanted it to be,” Levy says of his Schitt’s Creek thought process. “To use the resources that we have as best as we can to get that season out there, so that we can go to sleep at night knowing that if people don't respond to it and it gets pulled off the air, there was nothing more we could have done.” Levy leans forward with a sincerity he’d surely second-guess if he were writing this scene and explains the daunting task of living up to yourself. “That’s the goal of anything I'm gonna do from here on out. It's just, try and do the best job you can. Try to make sure that you're loving it.”

[psyga315]

Fixing RWBY Volume 7

Much like my Volume 6 Tweak, this Volume 7 Tweak doesn’t change a lot of things, but the things that do change will be to be centered around a theme: Who Can You Trust? With the amount of the word “trust” being thrown around, it helps to add more than just characters parroting “I trust you, do you trust me” and “can we reeeeaaaaally trust you” ad nauseum.

Now, normally, I’d begin with Episode 1, but for the most part, Episodes 1 & 2 do a great job setting up the conflict for the Volume. The only thing that would be changed is an earlier introduction to Robyn. Either through a character short style random fight or have the group bump into her during their trip to Mantle.

Also, probably change up how Weiss handles the drunkard because… Yeah, you don’t just fling a guy into the trash bin for being racist after you spend the past six volumes having a villain faction of murderous terrorists motivated by racists attacking their kind. The problem is that I don’t know how. The best I can say is that Weiss tries to do something about it, the dude’s like “wait, aren’t you a Schnee?” and then Weiss realizes “Oh shit, we should be incognito.”

Episode 3

Now here’s where things start to change up. Have a split in the group over whether Ruby was in the right to omit Salem’s immortality to Ironwood. A clear 50/50 split or as close to one as possible. If I was deciding who was on who’s side, Weiss, Blake and Nora would be on Ruby’s side and Jaune, Ren, and Yang would be on Ironwood’s side. Over the course of the Volume, they give their reasons, but I’ll explain their reasons now.

Weiss and Blake’s reasons are virtually the same, with Weiss’s added caveat being that she overheard Ironwood going “OZPIN SHOULD HAVE TRUSTED ME!” bit. Nora would be too pissed at Ironwood to care what he wants and anything to fuck him over is a win in her book, even egging on the other side to join by saying how he disqualified RWBY from the Vytal Tournament and how this would be good payback.

Ren’s reason was implied, but it’d be more pronounced that he wants Salem dealt with now. Not out of apathy or tiredness, but because he knows the Grimm now have a mistress and that the only person who has an actual plan to deal with her is being lied to. Yang and Jaune share their reason, but in different ways. Yang isn’t too keen on Ruby omitting information to Ironwood after they had just spent an entire two Volumes distrusting Ozpin for the same thing and Jaune especially doesn’t like that Ironwood is going to go into an unwinnable battle without knowing all the details, much like how Pyrrha never found out about Salem.

Oscar, Qrow, and Maria would be the middle of the fence. Maria doesn’t care too much about the situation and is just there to help out Pietro, Qrow has known Ironwood more than anyone but recent events had him uneasy, and Oscar just doesn’t want to be hurt because that tends to happen whenever people find out about Ozpin’s many, many skeletons. However, they all have faith that Ruby is doing something right…

The only other thing I’d change with this is giving the outright confirmation that these are the mines that Ilia’s parents died in. Maybe even have Marrow allude to how it was a major turning point in making the White Fang what they are now.

Episode 4

Not much changes, except for Ironwood showing genuine remorse for what’s going on with Mantle and trying to make amends by making the group Huntsmen and having them broker peace to Mantle by helping them out.

The other major change is Qrow not telling Ruby that she’s done nothing wrong. Instead, he warns that Ironwood, while he’s a very valuable ally, is also one whose trust is hard to earn and easy to break. He reveals to Ruby about how Ozpin was put on thin ice in Volume 2 and how Ironwood became the head of security for Vytal. Because the Tweaking Volume 6 showed Summer in the flashback to Ruby, I don’t think we’ll get that here.

A minor bit would be Penny and Jaune talking about Pyrrha, because what’s Jaune’s character arc without bringing Pyrrha into it?

Episode 5

Nothing really changes that much except for a training montage between the Ace Ops and RWBY so that we get that out of the way. Maybe even have Nora note the hole in the wall and get more furious at Ironwood for just leaving that out in the open when a simple patch would fix it. Ironwood would then give a rebuttal that it wouldn’t fix the Manticore problem.

There’s a small change in Robyn’s demeanour in which she doesn’t like Penny. “Just because you’re the protector of Mantle doesn’t mean you’re not another one of Ironwood’s machines. Once I get in power, you’re the first bot to enter the scrapyard!” Like, the world knows Penny is a robot, right? Speaking of, we have Ruby talk to Penny about how depressed she was when she died. Because remember when she broke down into tears over that and had Penny’s death be a major impact to her psyche?

The biggest change would be that whole scene with Winter and Fria. Weiss is appalled that Fria is locked up in a room before Winter tells her that it’s to secure her, explaining how Maidens end up having their powers taken from them through murder instead of the natural way and using the Fall Maiden’s death as an example. Weiss then asks “isn’t that what you’re going to do to her? Why don’t you just do Ironwood a favor and stab her right now?” Winter is silent.

Oh, and there’s no scene of Jacques inciting a riot. You’ll understand why later, but this will eliminate the stupid “riot happens off screen” bit. Instead, we get a scene where a plane flies towards the blockade. They demand to know who’s on the plane, only for Cinder to come out, smirk, and her Maiden eye flares as a snowstorm kicks off.

Episode 6

Not a lot changes here save for the obvious minor detail of a snowstorm hitting Atlas and Mantle (as well as Ironwood receiving reports about his blockade being taken out, thus he tells the group to take the night off while he looks into getting replacement planes) and one major detail: Tyrian’s attack during the rally would be him busting in during a power outage (engineered by either Watts’s hacking or Cinder’s snowstorm) and slaughtering people as they try to whip out their phones to try and illuminate the area. We’d even have an earlier scene where we could see Tyrian sneak in the background as Nora kisses Ren, giving the notion that, had Nora not macked on Ren, they would have seen Tyrian.

Penny tries to fight Tyrian because of her night vision, but Tyrian gets the better of her, even dancing through her slashes and have other people get hurt and possibly killed by her blades, blood being on her swords once the lights go back on. Robyn instantly attacks Penny, leading to Ruby to try and defend her and prove her innocence. Marrow gets the angry mob to “STAY!”, but it’s pretty clear that Robyn was out of the radius when that happened. As Ruby and Penny run off, Robyn gives chase, the Grimm invade, a plane lands without any problem on Mantle, and we get perhaps the largest change in the entire volume: An entire episode gets shafted in favor of one we were promised.

Episode 7

We see Blake and Yang with FNKI when they hear the Grimm siren go off and they go to investigate. Meanwhile, Weiss, Jaune, and Oscar exit the theater only to get attacked by Grimm. The majority of this episode would be them fighting the Grimm until Ruby, Penny and Robyn come in to Blake and Yang’s perspective.

Not sure what’s going on, Blake and Yang fight Robyn while Penny runs away. It isn’t until Robyn rants about Ironwood does Blake stops fighting her, tells her about Ironwood’s plan, and the whole truth Semblance thing happens. Yang confronts Blake on this, to which she gives her rant about how she distanced herself from the White Fang and that what RWBY is doing is exactly like the White Fang. It doesn’t help that, when Yang reassures Blake that they did what they had to do, she sounds exactly like Adam, right down to her saying “It's good to know I've still got you...”

Weiss, Jaune, and Oscar find Ruby and Penny and have a brief moment to reconvene before a mob comes after Penny, demanding her head. In the middle of this, Cinder and Neo look on. Neo nonverbally asks if they should get Ruby while they have the chance, but Cinder smirks upon seeing her scroll and says she has a plan. During a stand off where Ruby tries to proclaim Penny’s innocence, Cinder sneaks into the mob and, with the help of Neo disguising her as an old lady (because what’s RWBY without making characters into two different fairy tale references at once?), tell the group how Penny had been going out and murdering people for Ironwood, showing the group the doctored footage of Penny murdering Forrest and Cinder lying about how Forrest is her (grand)son.

Now in an even bigger frenzy, the crowd swarm Ruby as Cinder slinks into the background. Despite all their best efforts, the people of Mantle get their hands-on Penny and dismember her from limb to limb. The despair of Penny dying again followed by several more Grimm coming in causes Ruby’s Silver Eyes to go off, turning the Manticores to stone (and, if you want some instant karma, one of them could be in midflight and fall on top of some of the more ruder Mantleans, crushing them in the process) before she gets weak and Weiss carries her away, with Jaune and Oscar carrying Penny’s remains from the blinded crowd.

In the middle of all this, Ren and Nora fight Grimm on their own, getting into an argument about how Mantle is being treated. This is where Nora’s rant comes in, not to Ironwood, but to Ren. Ren tells her his reason why Ironwood is their best bet and because of his words, it upsets Nora enough to go her separate way. We end the episode with Nora coming across Robyn.

Episode 8

It’s been a week since the battle and we reconvene on Penny being rebuilt. Ruby and Jaune converse about how coincidental it is, with Ruby being clearly upset that she had to watch Penny die twice now. Jaune, however, elates that at least she’s alive, awkwardly bringing up his dead girlfriend again. Pietro comes in and tells them that it is not as coincidental as they believe and demonstrates by using his Semblance, the ability to be a make shift deliberator.

Basically, this is where I reinvent how Pietro’s relation to Penny works. I’m keeping the disturbing aspect that he slowly dies a little each time he uses this power while taking out the unintentionally disturbing aspect of Penny really being just Pietro in the robotic shell of a young girl. As for who Penny is… You saw this coming and if RT wanted to really make those fairy tale references, it just makes sense for them to pay homage to the very first anime that just so happens to also reference Pinocchio, or at least is compared to Pinocchio.

We have a flashback to Pietro and Watts working on the Paladin project together before Pietro gets a call. We don’t hear what it is, but we can definitely tell from how he reacts and how it’s framed exactly what happened. We cut to Pietro in the morgue grieving over a dead girl who looks similar to Penny and get that hard confirmation that Penny was Pietro’s daughter… or rather was the basis of Pietro’s daughter.

He uses his Semblance, which he says allows him to jumpstart people’s aura and save them from the brink of death. While normally an Aura technique in of itself to awaken another’s aura, it’s another thing to awaken another’s aura and save their life in the process. However, he tried that on a long dead Human Penny and all it did was put her in a comatose state, needing to be put on constant life support or else she’d die. Not wanting to let go of Penny, Pietro invented a means to transfer her aura over to something else: The Aura Transfer Machine. He places Penny into the shell of V1!Penny and jumpstarts her. She opens her eyes and says “Salutations!”

As the flashback ends, he explains how what he did was unnatural and, as a consequence, whenever he jumpstarts Penny with his Semblance, his Aura completely depletes and it damages him. It’s how he became crippled. Normally, the Aura would return slowly and he’d be recovered, but because he had to do it so many times in a short amount of time, it damages him. Jaune says he’ll use his Semblance to save Penny next time, but Pietro brings up the contrast between their Semblances: Jaune just dumps aura into other people, but Pietro is bringing the dead back to life. Even if Jaune were to use his Semblance, all it would do is put Aura into a robotic shell and not Penny. A sad reminder that, no matter what he did, Penny will never be a real girl again. Especially since, as one last flashback shows, Ironwood was more than pleased with Penny and convinced Pietro to turn Penny into a living weapon, something he was very hesitant about.

I’d add that Pietro would die right there to show that Penny has no ‘extra lives’ left, but I feel like RT would do that already… So I’ll say he’s written out of the volume by going into a coma.

Interspersed with this is the dinner scene. Because there’s fewer people going with Ironwood, RT might splurge a bit and give characters different outfits for the scene, like Weiss having an all-white version of her Mistral dress or having Qrow’s new outfit be the outfit he wears to the dinner. Obviously, not everyone gets new dresses, as the Ace Ops still have their uniforms. Only Weiss, Blake, Yang, Ren, and Oscar attend for obvious reasons.

Weiss investigates Jacques like usual, but she gets quite a few encounters, such as running into Harry Marigold (who gets in a heated argument with May and establishes who she is right there and then instead of doing Twitter) and even the Trophy Wife who she tried to kill. They’re brief, but show the consequences of Weiss’s actions. Maybe have the Trophy Wife flee in terror. She then comes across Willow, who, for the first time in Weiss’s life, is not drunk. In fact, she is elated to see Weiss return, but understands why she doesn’t share the same notion. She reveals to have sobered up since Weiss ran away and had done a lot of contemplation. She doesn’t say too much, but she does leave Weiss with the video and guilt trips her about Whitley.

While Watts turning off the heating grid is still in, it’s not the final scene. Instead, it’s during the dinner with Ironwood and the others, in which Robyn, as part of the “get Ironwood impeached” party, brings in someone who had been “tormented by Atlas’s boot on Mantle’s face for far too long…”: Nora.

Nora’s Backstory

Okay, granted, this is something that is operating on information we don’t know yet, so there’s a lot of speculation to go on here. I’ll probably make an update to this once we get a proper backstory for Nora, but for now, this is what I think would be Nora’s backstory:

Mantle had been scapegoated as the cause of the Great War and while they had a hand in it, the real cause of it, the nobles, decided to take their ball and go home by using the Relic to lift their Kingdom high into the clouds, leaving the rest of Mantle to take the fall. The Oz at the time allowed this to happen knowing exactly why they did it, but instead tried to cite it as creating a beacon of hope instead of what it truly was.

As a result, Mantle hit an unstable depression and unable to even be on the same level as the other Kingdoms, essentially being Menagerie before they made Menagerie. This resulted in people starving and dying. Of the few people who remained hopeful was Fria Valkyrie, who proposed life living out in the lands of thriving kingdoms rather than be ruled over by Atlas. She went to Mistral and got a few people into pooling their resources to make a new Kingdom, one that would exist outside the four and be by the people, for the people.

Unfortunately, not everyone shared her vision and some even took her resources to create Menagerie for the purpose of dumping the Faunus there. After she gained the Maiden powers by chance, she was forced to give up her dream by Oz. Her child grew up and inherited that vision, getting a child of their own, moving to Mistral, wooing someone to birth Nora, tell her about how Mantle became a shithole thanks to Atlas, and then head to make Oniyuri with the others. The Nuck came, killed Nora’s parents and left her an orphan, only for her to bring the Nuck with her to Kuroyuri and the rest is history.

Of course, this wouldn’t all be shown and is a rough idea, but the core idea is: Mantle suffered long ago because the people who caused the Great War refused to take blame and went into their floating castle while Oz just looked at it and said “hey, look at this shiny beacon!”

With that in mind, let’s return to the story:

Episode 9

Nora lays down Mantle’s grievances to Ironwood in front of everyone before she includes the two members of the council and Jacques into the shit pile, saying how they’re not blameless. When called out on going all “sins of the father” on the group, she says how they should have thought of that before doing that to Mantle. Robyn attempts to expose Ironwood before Weiss drops in and tries to expose Jacques…

And here’s where major change #2 comes into play. As the video plays of Jacques and Watts having their conversation, it takes a turn for the weird as Jacques just throws Watts out of his house and refusing to hear any further of his offer. This is one of the major scenes that convey the theme of trust. Throughout the Volume, we’re built up to not trust Jacques and trust Ironwood before the tables turn around this exact moment. Now, with the revelation that Jacques refused to work with Watts and Ironwood turning Penny into a weapon against her and Pietro’s will, Jacques is the trustworthy one and Ironwood is the deceitful.

Though, before any consequences play out, it’s all put on hold as news of the heating grid had been turned off. And yes, before you ask, in this tweak, the heating grid is in Mantle and thus is just as easy to hack. The reason why Watts decided to do this now is to make it look like Ironwood is doing it in retaliation for what happened to Penny. As a result, riots and Grimm naturally come. Robyn asks Ironwood why he’s working so hard to hide Amity Arena and this gives Oscar the (unintended) signal that now’s the time to tell him the truth. He covers for Ironwood, then gets him to a secure room to tell him all he knows about Salem.

Especially how she boned Ozpin.

Okay, joking aside… The rest of the episode (as well as Episode 10) play out like normal, but with Ruby and Jaune arriving to help from the ground instead of from the plane for obvious reasons.

Episode 10

The only big change is the reveal that Tyrian is a serial killer here because we retconned the original Episode 7. The only sight twist I can add to this is that he was part of the White Fang, had a hand in some of Weiss’s family members being killed, and that’s why Salem knew of them.

Episode 11

Okay, this is the best episode of Volume 7 so there’s not a lot to change. The only major changes are as follows.

Ironwood confronts the group over Robyn knowing about Amity. When confronted on why he had to keep that a secret, he explains that it was to prevent the enemy from learning about it, like what happened with Watts. When Yang calls him out for lying, he snaps and calls her out for lying.

“Oscar told me the truth. About Salem.”

“What!? He wasn’t supposed to!”

“Then who would have? And when? When everyone threw their lives away for nothing? You’re just like Ozpin.”

And then Salem shows up, gloats a bit, goes yo mama, and Ironwood decides to use the Relic of Creation to send Atlas somewhere else. He’s not doing the stupid thing of yeeting it into space, though. Instead, he’s going to use it to move them away from the continent and towards another Kingdom. When Blake says that they’re leaving Mantle to die, he just coldly remarks that “they did this to themselves”.

Naturally, RWBY protests about this. The funny thing is, The Ace Ops are almost able to convince the girls to leave Mantle… But then Ironwood says this to Ruby:

“After what they’ve done to poor Penny… Surely, you’d agree that they don’t deserve our protection.”

This causes Ruby to quietly turn that comment around:

“Yeah… But after I heard about what you’ve done to Penny… The only thing I agree about is that you don’t deserve my trust.” Before she calls the others and says how Ironwood had gone mad. This leads to the confrontation with the Ace Ops and the end of our episode.

Episode 12

Well… How do we make the worst episode of V7 better? Well, we begin with showing what happened to Oscar. Robots come to take the Relic from him, Ruby comes in and Oscar saves her. They have some romantic tension, but uh oh! It’s Neo! And she took the Relic!

We then cut to the airplane. I should bring up that the arrest warrant has been changed a bit, excluding Qrow, Oscar, Jaune and Ren from the list. Qrow and Oscar because they gave Ironwood their trust and vice versa, Jaune because Ironwood overlooking Jaune would be hilarious, and Ren because of the kids, he was the most trustful of Ironwood. Nora, however, is still on the list due to her standing against Ironwood. As well as Robyn.

This leads to a more natural reason for Robyn to pick a fight: She’s resisting arrest. They crash and Clover calls for a medical team. Qrow and Clover have a conversation about what’s going on. Qrow insists they talk to Ironwood about this, only for Clover to insist he arrests Ruby. This leads to a natural conclusion as to why Qrow fights Clover: He wants to protect Ruby.

Tyrian joins in and the fight isn’t a 2v1 like the original, but instead Qrow vs. Clover but with Tyrian running interference against both sides. This leads to Qrow and Clover teaming up against Tyrian, but Qrow, at the last minute, knocks Clover aura out so as to disable him. Tyrian is kinda shocked at the betrayal but stays around to let it play out, especially since he knows something Qrow doesn’t.

Clover asks Qrow why he did that and Qrow told Clover that sometimes, you have to do the right thing instead of doing what you’re told to. Clover remarks that the right thing is often the hardest and stands firm with his belief that Ironwood will do the right thing, even if the cost is people’s lives. Qrow then says “then he will take the fall.” Clover chuckles, says good luck, then dies because it’s freezing out on Solitas.

Tyrian laughs at this, Qrow gets pissed, he runs off, and the aircraft comes.

RWBY vs. Ace Ops goes about as well as the best of the best of the best going up against a bunch of college drop outs who only had a week or so of training with said best. Very poorly. In fact, the group takes advantage of the team’s insistence of fighting in the White Rose and Bumblebee pairs, curbstomping them by exploiting their weaknesses. However, just as they’re about to be arrested, Marrow takes a look at Ruby.

“You know, I never wanted to actually arrest you guys…” He breathes in. “And I don’t want to.” Turns around and shouts “STAY!” to the rest of the Ace Ops and tells Ruby and her friends to run. As soon as they do, he gets out his weapon and glares at his ‘friends’. Harriet asks why he did this, only for him to reply:

“Well, maybe we were just tired of being pushed around.” He says before he tosses a volatile Dust crystal on the ground and hurts the group, making a getaway.

And the JNPR bit stays the same.

Episode 13

Because this will be setting up Volume 8, this is mostly speculative at this point. But then again, I did the same with Volume 6’s Tweaking before Volume 7 premiered… That said, Volume 6 was more conclusive than Volume 7 so…

Bottom line, this will most likely get disconfirmed by the time Volume 8 rolls around.

JNPR vs Neo stays the same, but Nora and Ren bicker about whether to stay on Mantle and help the others, causing Neo to give them the slip with the Relic and further sever the ties between Nora and Ren.

Cinder vs Winter, Penny and Fria is also a little changed. Namely, Penny takes a blow for Winter that destroys most of her body. Despite this, she struggles to go through the whirlwind that Fria makes and saves her from Cinder. Penny is dying as a result of putting herself through the extreme and with no Pietro to save her, this will basically be her final death.

Fria knows this. She also knows that Ironwood had sent only one person to see her to make it easier for her Alzheimer’s and that Penny is not that person. Despite this, she is moved by Penny’s dedication, asks for her name, and passes on her powers to Penny, saving her life. Ruby flashes Cinder and secures Penny. On the ship during Ozpin’s speech on fear, Pietro wakes up, checks up on Penny to see if she’s alright. Upon seeing that there’s blood on a cut from Penny, he’s at first afraid, but then cries in joy as she had become a real girl. However, if RT decides to do a plot point like this in a future volume where they make Penny a real girl, then disregard this bit.

The final bit (don’t worry, I’m going to the Ironwood vs Oscar bit later) is that Maria explicitly says that they’re leaving Atlas. As soon as she says that, Nora and Blake object. Nora because they’re leaving Mantle as well and Blake because they just had an entire fight where they wanted to stay and fight. Yang tries to reason with Blake, but she just comments about how she’s not going to run. Likewise, Nora is tired of sacrifices after losing Pyrrha. They both leave and go to Mantle just as the plane leaves.

Ironwood and Oscar’s Conversation

Okay, no amount of summary is going to do this justice, so I’m going to include this as a subsection like with Nora’s backstory. This would take place roughly in the same spot(s) as the original. It starts out roughly the same until Oscar pleads to work this out.

Ironwood: There is no working anything out. People have been demanding me to do things their way, to make things easier for them, and every time I try to bend to their whims, Salem and her forces go two steps ahead. The easiest solution is for me to do everything myself.

Oscar: Including leaving people to die?

Ironwood: That’s what Ozpin had been doing for most of his life. You don’t hear people complain about that. Because he kept it all to himself and never told others the bigger picture. Just like Ruby.

Oscar: Ruby only hid the truth because she was afraid of what you’d become if you found out.

Ironwood: That’d I’d become another Lionheart? I’m not that weak-willed a coward.

Oscar: Then why abandon Mantle?

Ironwood: Because Salem’s forces are on our doorstep. If we don’t do anything, then we will fall!

Oscar: No… If you divide us, then we will fall… It’s what she wants, James.

Ironwood: … James is what my friends call me. To you… it’s General.

And the rest of the scene plays out like normal, including the ending of Salem’s forces arriving.

Stinger

This is less fix and more wish.

Marrow stumbles onto a rooftop, the top portion of his face heavily burned from the explosion, and sees Salem’s forces arriving. A recovering Fiona approaches Marrow and tells him how protecting Mantle had just become more complex. Marrow shakes his head and takes out something from his pocket before he fixes it to his face.

“It was never about protecting Mantle, Fiona… It’s about making Atlas pay for what they’ve done.” He turns around, wearing a White Fang mask.

And that was Tweaking V7, perhaps the most intense tweaking I’ve done with five thousand words.

[popwasabi]

“Toy Story 4″ Review: A Great (and Unnecessary) Sequel

Directed by Josh Cooley

Starring: Tom Hanks, Annie Potts, Tony Hale, Tim Allen, Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele

 I think I can speak for most of us when I say there was a collective groan and eyebrow raise when it was announced Pixar was working on a fourth “Toy Story” film. After all, how do you follow-up what is a perfect film trilogy with a perfect ending in “Toy Story 3” which brought the story full circle in such a way that 90s kids were bawling their eyes out in the theaters back in 2010?

(Me trying to look tough walking out of the theater back in 2010)

It felt like a cash-grab to squeeze one last box office score for the power hungry Mouse out of a franchise that I felt really didn’t have much left to say. Well, “Toy Story 4” is still at the end of the day a cash-grab BUT it’s a movie that won’t insult its viewers, teaching another great life lesson to kids and is still nonetheless as heartwarming as any of the previous three films.

“Toy Story 4” picks up where “Toy Story 3” left off continuing the adventures of Woody, Buzz and all his friends who are now in the care of their new kid, Bonnie, who is beginning her first year of Kindergarten. When Bonnie makes a new “toy” friend out of garbage named Forky Woody struggles to get the new kid in town acclimated. Just as Woody begins to get Forky into the fold however he is taken hostage by antique toys during Bonnie’s family’s road trip. Now Woody must get him back before Bonnie’s family leaves but not without the help of a long lost friend; Bo Peep.

I watched this film literally hours after putting my cat down. Yeah, I know that’s a lot to start this review off with but I needed heavy dosage of feel goodness after what happened and “Toy Story,” no matter how much there didn’t need to be another one, is consistently great at warming the cold dead strings of my heart and this film helped me cope tremendously.

(I mean, I definitely wasn’t going to feel better watching this disaster again…)

The story isn’t too much different from previous film’s themes regarding love, loss and bittersweet melancholy but it still manages to feel mostly fresh here as we deal with a new set of circumstances for Woody who grows perhaps the most here than any previous film. 

It becomes clear early on he still misses Andy to a certain extent and feels he’s losing Bonnie now too. He wants to continue to be loved even though he knows it won’t last forever. As he states (paraphrasing here) toys are there to guide kids through the best parts of their lives, even though they can’t be there for the later years its better to have been a formative part of their development than not at all (But he wants this process to still go on forever).

Toys are representative of nostalgia, of childhood here; though we all wish we could go back to those simpler times and stay there forever we all have to move on eventually. But the message isn’t that we should be sad here but that we should all be glad we experienced that joy no matter how long or short it was.

(I mean, I too miss blowing air into my game cartridges to make them work, rewinding multiple VHS tapes to get them Blockbuster before midnight, my digi pet sitting in it’s own shit, drinking Crystal Pepsi all while the US slowly began molding even more into the capitalistic hell-scape that it is today. Hey, wait a minute...)

Woody’s arc at the end of this story represents an acceptance of change and a bittersweet happiness that comes with it. It made me think deeply of my beloved cat I had to let go of not even six hours prior to seeing this. I had believed all the way up until that morning that I still had years left with him, that I could still hang on to what I had but with his diagnosis it was clear it was time and through tears I let him go. I definitely felt Woody’s sadness there but not of the tragic kind but of happy acceptance. Like Woody’s time as a beloved toy, my cat’s time was up and it was time to accept that and in that way this fourth film is poignant and unique in its message.

As for the rest of the story “Toy Story 4” is just about what we all love about the series; toys getting into wacky adventures. Though the main part of the gang doesn’t get too involved in this one, instead relying on mostly the new characters of the film, they are all nonetheless charming in each bit they are a part of and will bring plenty of laughs when appearing on screen.

The newcomers especially here shine between Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele’s always hilarious banter that fans of their show enjoyed. Tony Hale is great as Forky and delivers some great humor throughout and Christina Hendricks who joins in as Gabby Gabby delivers a truly enjoyable performance and arc for the film.

Of course, there’s Keanu Reeves, the internet’s favorite wholesome, meme husband who as Evel Knievel toy Duke Kaboom knocks it out of the park here with his comedic timing and wit as this character. Some of the funniest lines of the movie are delivered by Keanu here and it makes me wonder all the more (especially after watching “Always be my Maybe” too recently) where comedic Keanu has been all these years? Keanu clearly still hasn’t lost a step in the comedy department since “Bill and Ted” so Hollywood, put this man in an Edgar Wright movie soon please!

(KeanUwU Weeves, everyone)

Bo Peep was a welcome return to the story, however. Whether it was intentional or not, I got some light “Mad Max” Furiosa vibes from Bo Peep who’s character evolved tremendously in this film. It always felt strange to leave her out of the third film and to have her character’s story completed in this film was a major delight. Seeing Bo and Woody play off each other brought back some happy memories from the first two films and I’m glad we got to see the two interact again.

The worst thing you can really say about this film though is that despite its quality it still feels unnecessary. As endings go it’s a pretty good one but you know what was better?

The third film.

Though it has some new and often poignant things to say it still goes through most of the usual beats you expect out of this series and feels only like a very interesting side story to the more robust trilogy.

This all said am I mad that I saw it? Do I wish Disney hadn’t made it? No, cause kind of like Woody’s arc it’s not really my time anymore. This movie is for kids and in that way it’s perfect. The people who worked on it, even if it is a cash grab for Disney, clearly cared about telling this story one more time and made sure it wouldn’t be a cynical exercise for 90s kids like myself who are still seeing it as adults.

I love “Toy Story,” always will, and whether this series continues on from here or not I’m glad I got to enjoy it through my childhood and at the close of my teenage years just as I was in college much like Andy. If future movies help kids learn about love, loss and other complex themes then maybe it’s not as bad as it seems.

So to my childhood, so long, partner but to the kids who will surely love this film, enjoy these years while they last because nothing lasts forever and that’s ok.

 VERDICT:

5 out of 5

*Ugly tears intensify*

[kitcat992]

Endgame thoughts and emotions: A proper review

Yeah, I did the unthinkable today. I saw the movie for a second time. And in my defense, I did not want to. I laid in bed as my friend literally tried to pull me out of my blanket burrito and drag me to the movie theater. The issue is, he bought me a ticket and really wanted me to go with him for his first time showing. After much commotion, I dragged myself into a theater seat, pouted, and watched it for a second time.

I decided to try and find a silver lining in my misery: Now I can view the movie with a much clearer mindset, without the fog of fan excitement and the years worth of anticipation. Plus, it was a matinee showing, so I was sure the crowd would be a lot less rowdy and I would be able to really immerse myself in what was happening. And most of all, if I was going to bitch this much about the movie, I decided it was only fair I really give it a good watch.

So here I go: Thoughts and emotions the second time around.

Too long; didn’t read: It’s still shit.

Tony’s opening scene in the Benatar remains to be the best part of the film, along with his confrontation with the team, specifically Rogers. These moments are why the film started off so strong – we were receiving exactly what we waited for since Civil War. I repeat, we waited 3 years for Civil War to finally pay off. But it’s really pathetic that the only good parts of this film are the beginning, right before the 5 years later cue card.

Despite the amazing pay off from the fallout in Civil War and the incredible acting from RDJ during that confrontation scene, the pacing of the beginning STILL felt all sorts of weird. For starters, did Marvel just assume that every single movie-goer would watch Captain Marvel/Captain Marvel’s end credits scene?

Without that scene, without the whole “We found Fury’s beeper.” and “Where’s Fury?”, Captain Marvel’s entrance makes ZERO sense. And ya know what? Even after seeing the movie [Captain Marvel] it STILL makes zero sense. This is one of the many moments in the film that we’re left to assume. We’re left to assume that the team told Carol about Tony having flown to space to stop the doughnut ship, and we’re left to assume that she went and spent 3 weeks looking for him.

I was flooded with questions before the title card even rolled: When did they find Fury’s pager? And how did they find Fury’s pager? Were they just walking the streets and came across it, or did it have a GPS of sorts on it, or did it have an alert set to notify the compound in case of emergency? Did they tell Carol to go search for Tony or did Carol come across Tony on her own accord? How did they know Tony fought Thanos?? Tony even asks “Who told you that?” Well, who told him that? Did they receive the messages from his Iron Man helmet from when he was onboard the Benatar?

And let’s talk about Irondad&Spiderson moment that wrecked me – “I lost the kid.” Don’t get me wrong, this had me peeing my pants a little bit. But HOW did Steve know about “the kid”? His face says he knows, the way he reacted says he knows. Does he just know Spider-man is a kid, and he knew Spider-man went to space with Tony Stark, thus that’s the kid Tony refers to? Or did Steve also know about Peter before Civil War? Perhaps he was someone they both were planning to recruit, but Tony got to him first. How does he know about “the kid?”

That’s a lot of questions for the first, what, 10 minutes?

Immediately feeling the pacing so off balance in the movie this soon was incredibly troublesome. It only gets worse once they go off to kill Thanos. Because the moment Thor walks out of that hut, the movie takes a nose dive it never stood a chance to recover from.

5 years later.

Fuck that noise.

Okay, so the “5 years later” part didn’t bother me during my first watch. Because I so strongly (and naively) thought time-reversal was the end fate for this film. It was the only goddamn thing that made sense. But, to say the least, nothing following this cue card makes sense.

For starters, there’s just NO information given to the viewers about what happens from the fallout of The Decimation. So once again, we’re left to assume. Did the Avengers hold a press conference? Does the world now know about other universes and infinity stones and magic? Was Carol Danvers the one to explain that? Or Tony? Was the world angry with the Avengers for not stopping Thanos? Does the world even KNOW about Thanos? Does the world know what we the audience know or did the government sell them a lie? How about the Accords – did that dust away too, because we see Natasha handling business with the help of Nebula, Rocket, Rhodey and Carol.

But there’s not even a HINT of what civilians think or what they were told. We’re left to assume.

It turns out Steve’s little support-group-talk about “Some of us moving on” was actually a way for The Russo Brothers to completely erase his character development of the past handful of movies. Here we naively thought he was talking about moving on from the loss of Bucky and Sam and the other half of the universe…nope. All a ploy to remind the audience that despite the fact Steve Rogers said goodbye to Peggy Carter, buried her body, and began to live his own life in this new time and world, he still hadn’t moved on from the woman he loved for 21 months. Not only is this a giant slap in the face to Steve’s narrative, but he’s turned into a hypocrite by preaching “move on” without actually moving on himself. “Some of us move on…but not us.” is NOT a way to justify his actions at the end of this film.

I’ll say it now and here: I’m positively sick of Hollywood preaching that happy endings only come in the form of romantic relationships.

Natasha’s little spiel about family was sweet. I knew she was dead the moment she said it. My first viewing, I was okay with this. I actually felt a little touched, knowing that she got redemption from her red ledger by making the sacrifice for the family that she found. Upon my second viewing, I actually got pissed. Very pissed. Ya know why? Because Clint deserved to make that sacrifice. Nay, he needed to be the one to make it. But I’ll get there.

Paul Rudd’s acting for his reunion with Cassie was actually really touching. In fact, Scott Lang probably suffered the least amount of character-development-fuckery in this entire film. It probably helps that he was stuck in the quantum realm for 5 years instead of living with the others. I guest we’re just supposed to assume these characters changed over the course of 5 years, because they sure as hell aren’t acting like themselves.

*sigh* Tony…*bigger sigh* Morgan Stark. I know I’ve said it once before, if not multiple times already. I’m sorry for being a broken record. But Tony did not need to have a kid. She only served purpose to the narrative if time had been reversed. Perhaps Tony procreated with Pepper after Infinity War because he felt he needed to contribute to society and help get the universe back to how it was. Okay, I can flow with that. Even his insistence later on that they bring the dusted back but “keep everything from the past 5 years, at all cost” would play majestically into the ultimate sacrifice of losing his daughter for the other half of the universe to return. Watching these scenes [with his daughter] the first time around wasn’t as painful when I so naively thought time reversal would occur. My unbelievably intense opinion that Tony and Pepper did not need a kid keeps me from even remotely enjoying them now. Another thing Hollywood so wrongly assumes and pushes on audiences: If you’re a couple, you have to have a kid. Tony and Pepper were just fine without one and bringing a child into their story only prevented Tony from reversing time.

Also, the little girl who played Morgan was horribly directed. I know she was young, and I know kid actors aren’t great to begin with. But she mumbled all her lines and never looked anywhere but the ground. I will give credit to RDJ for playing the fantastic Irondad we all knew at heart he was, and I’ll treasure those moments with Peter in mind instead of Morgan.

But again, more questions arise from here. Steve, Natasha and Scott come to talk Tony into doing a time heist. The way Tony looks at them all…I can only assume he hasn’t spoken to them in years. But when? When did they all fall apart? Was it directly after he slammed his arc reactor/nano housing unit into Steve’s hand and passed out? Was it after the team told him, off camera, that Thanos was dead and the stones were gone? Have they kept in touch at all?

For the most part, Tony seems civil to them – “Table is set for 6, if you don’t talk shop you can stay for lunch.” and even pours them all drinks. But so much was left unsaid/off screen that I have no idea what’s gone on between these characters in the past 5 years. A cue card doesn’t tell me narrative. At this point in the film, I’ve already got a headache. I’m asking too many questions and getting so little answers.

I cannot even begin to express my utter disappointment in how they handled Professor Hulk. Even during my first viewing of this film, I had face palmed at this diner scene. Mark Ruffalo had a very well-thought out mini story in every Avengers film and even during Thor: Ragnarok. His struggle to control the Hulk, and Hulk’s distaste for Banner, all led up to Professor Hulk. How Banner described him is exactly how he was supposed to be – brains and brawns, the best of both worlds.

He was instead used for jokes. And lets be honest, he just looked weird. He acted weird, he looked weird, and every time he had a moment on screen I was just uncomfortable. So uncomfortable. I loved Ruffalo’s performance of Bruce Banner and all that just went away with this film. I don’t even like to think of Bruce Banner in this movie. Science Bros went away, his dynamic with the team went away, so much went away.

It felt like watching an alternate universe Avengers at this point, it really did.

Tony’s desire to get Peter back saved the universe: That is fact, that is canon. He was adamantly against time travel until he saw that photo and then BAM, he figures it out. I will take joy in this moment, despite wanting it to be something else. I really wanted this to be a grieving moment, I really wanted him to be at May’s place (who be are left to assume got dusted) or at a makeshift funeral/memorial or something. I’m happy to have gotten this scene, I really am. But I also feel empty from it. Perhaps that’s because so much is left unsaid that we’re left to assume the nature of Peter and Tony’s relationship since Homecoming.

So again, I get my hopes up for this time reversal that never pans out. Tony  has a conversation with Pepper about how he figured out the time travel nonsense, but he could put a pin in it immediately and forget all about it. Pepper, softly and a little heart broken, said he wouldn’t be able to rest if he did. In my honest opinion, that was Pepper telling Tony “I don’t want to lose what we have…but so many others lost so much more. We can try this again. We can have a second chance.” That, to me, was Pepper accepting the possibility of time being reversed to 2018 and losing Morgan and their cabin and all they had done in the past 5 years. In that moment, she accepted that. She gave him her blessing.

This made sense to me, this made sense to the narrative. Because this would leave Tony with a heart breaking choice of choosing the universe over his daughter. But he would, because that would be his ultimate sacrifice. One last sacrifice, to quote his movie poster. He’d be absolutely heart broken but he would know that his loss was nothing compared to all those who were dusted, all those who lost their lives by the dusted (falling air crafts, ect) and all those who took their lives due to the grief. He’d make that decision. And we’d go back to 2018 where time would be restored to how it was. If the writers really wanted to keep the Morgan nonsense, they could have even give him a happy ending by Pepper announcing she’s pregnant in 2018, showing that he’ll still have Morgan and his happy life.

Ultimately, this is not what pans out. Things only get worse from here.

Tony returns to the team, who failed at managing time travel with Scott due to lacking a time-travel-GPS. I’m not even touching that scene, it’s just sorta pointless and there were pee jokes and…yeah. Tony invents this time gps and agrees to help them, so long as nothing changes from the past 5 years. He gifts Steve a new shield, admitting that resentment is corrosive.

So…I’m left to assume he and the team really did split ways after his return from space. I mean, it’s a sweet moment….but I’m also left to assume what the shield is made out of. Is it Vibranium? Does that mean Thanos’ sword can cut through Vibranium, as it goes on to cut through his shield during the final battle?

A throw away line here was vital and never received. Steve’s shield was widely known for being made from the strongest metal in the world, and if you’re going to recreate it, you need to establish if it’s made of the same material. A simple “You better not toss that around like a Frisbee all the damn time, it’s not made of the worlds strongest metal, ya know.” or “It cost me an arm and leg to get some of that glorious Vibranium from Wakanda. Be careful with that thing.” And all you’d have to do to make time for this one throw away line would be cut one of the many unnecessary childish jokes in the movie, or reduce the “Nah, take a picture with him, ‘cmon!” scene from like, a solid minute to 30 seconds.

Its small things like this sprinkled throughout the entire film that goes to shine a light on how awful the script really was.

They decide to get the team back together, which includes Rhodey, Rocket and Nebula. And Thor.

Pour one out for Thor. He ain’t dead, but his character development sure as hell is.

My anger with Marvel, the MCU, Kevin Feige and The Russo Brothers stands to be for so many reasons, but this one might just take the cake. Once all of my anger dissipates from bad writing, the destruction of character development, the immature jokes – this will be the one thing that remains. I will never forgive any of the parties involved for turning Thor’s clear-as-day PTSD into a fat joke. Thor became a depressed, traumatized alcoholic.That is NOT something to make light of, and yet at every corner there was a joke for him.

His one serious moment – when Professor Hulk mentioned Thanos’ name and he was so clearly triggered into a state of emotional distress – was laughed off by Rocket telling him they had beer on the ship. So not only was his depression laughed at with the fat jokes, but his alcoholism was turned into jokes as well. As someone who grew up with an abusive alcoholic father, I cannot condone this type of humor, especially for young children. There are some things you just do not make fun of.

I wrongly trusted Marvel to be able to handle mental health issues with grace and dignity, as seen in Iron Man 3. They did more than drop the ball on this. They played skee ball with it.

Oh, and Hawkeye is now Ronin (was his name actually said, though? I guess we’re left to assume again) and he’s been murdering a shitton of people. Natasha finds him, says a sad line about “not being able to give hope sooner” and recruits him. So that’s cool, I guess. Problem is no one cared about his family to begin with and they still sorta don’t. But, yeah…everyone bring the murderer onboard. Cool. It’s sorta telling the audience (which includes kids) that its okay to murder as long as you actively kill bad guys, but yeah, whatever.

Now, things have been bad up to this point. Very bad. But it just gets so much uglier from here. The team discuss Time Travel and try to tell the audience how it REALLY works in their universe – by dismissing the notion of “you mess with the past, you mess with your future” theory all movies tend to have. This is essentially the butterfly effect and its really the only way to go about time travel.

But they couldn’t do that, because then we couldn’t have the time travel shenanigans that follow. And honestly, I’ve seen a LOT of things with time travel, and their explanation still doesn’t make sense. “You can’t change the past, only your present, which then becomes your past.” Whatever, Russo Brothers. You’re just trying to pass off a shitty time travel plot without actually caring about it.

Clint does a trial run of time travel, it works, and then they go about figuring out where the stones were so they can travel back to get them. None of this was entertaining. Rocket calling Scott a puppy fell flat, for starters. Thor having an obviously distressful triggered moment recalling his mother and Jane was painful to watch and equally painfully to hear the audience howl in laughter from it. It was nice to see a 15 second shot of Tony, Natasha and Bruce laying against each other, surrounded by books as they try to figure things out but these type of brief, fleeting moments were why I was so found-family-trope baited in the first place. 4 movies too late, MCU.

Also, Nebula tells them clear as day that Vomir is a place of death and Thanos went and came back without his sister, to which Scott jokes “Not it.” So SERIOUSLY, Nat and Clint knew something was up before they even went. Dick move to whoever sent them there.

Time travel shenanigans from here. They split into teams and go to their past locations where everyone fucks up everything in every timeline, but there are no consequences because the narrative established “you can’t change the past”

Listen, I do not even WANT to try and understand this. I don’t. It’s why I don’t mess with TheFlashTV anymore. Professor Hulk goes to get the time stone but The Ancient One won’t give it to him and they have this long drawn out discussion about how if the team doesn’t return the stones, her new timeline/reality is doomed. So Bruce’s astral form promises to bring them back and he tells her Strange gave it up willing and she gives it to him and…*sigh* Again, the Russo Brothers using cheap lines to try and explain their shitty use of time travel. This scene exists solely for Steve Rogers. It gives him his reason to travel to the past at the end and return all the stones to their rightful place (and, as it will later be discussed, say Fuck You to everyone in the year 2023.) That’s all this scene is here for.

Loki got away with the space stone/tessract, Thor gets to talk with his mother while Rocket grabs the reality stone, Nebula somehow connected with past Nebula’s harddrive and Thanos got to see her memories and Clint and Natasha did a little remake of the Thanos and Garmora sacrifice from Infinity War. To make matters even WORSE, because Loki got away with the space stone, Steve and Tony have to travel to 1970, to the SHIELD bunker seen in The Winter Soldier and where the space stone/tessract is being kept, as well as grab some additional Pym Particles on the way since they didn’t have enough for the additional jump.

This entire scene is garbage. Tony runs into a young Howard Stark. And I guess because Tony’s a dad now, he goes on to forgive his own dad for abusing him. As a child of abuse, fuck that noise. Howard is made out to be a man with good intentions and Tony even hugs him before he travels back.

It’s like the Russo Brothers wanted to write Tony having everything he ever wanted (a family, a kid, closure with his father) before they killed him off. This scene served nothing to the movie, nothing to Tony’s narrative and really sent a harsh message to victims of parental abuse. The mix messages with Howard along the way of the MCU films are so flawed I cannot even begin to describe them here.

Oh, and Steve runs into Peggy’s office where he stares at her from afar. This is the Russo Brothers once again shoving down the agenda that Steve Rogers needs to be with Peggy Carter if he’s to be happy. Despite having said his goodbye and having buried her body, he’s still hung up on the woman he knew for 21 months over 16someyears ago since coming out of the ice. So we get that.

Rhodey and Nebula grab the power stone. Rhodey spends like, 1 minute talking about the temple being boobytrapped only for them to walk into it fine. Not sure what that dialogue was there for. Nebula burns her hand off getting the power stone, they go to travel back but 2014 Thanos links with 2023 Nebula’s mind harddrive and accesses her memories and discovers the future and…yeah, I’m just not even in the mood to explain this. Nebula was kept around as a plot device. It’s a real shame to see her character reduced to that. Also, jumping way ahead here — someone seriously needs to explain to me how she still exists after killing her past self. I need that explanation like whoa.

Thor’s conversation with his mother about “being who he’s meant to be, not who he’s supposed to be” would have been more touching if the fat jokes weren’t tossed in every other line. He legit had a panic attack, even SAYS “I think I’m having a panic attack.” and how do the writers go about this serious mental health issue? By having Rocket slap him.

I was sitting near a middle-aged man who howled SO loudly with laughter at this, it reminded me of how people laughed at the 3 stooges. Way to go with that one, Marvel.

I think that about sums up the time travel shenanigans. While it was fun to watch the 2012 Battle of New York from a different perspective, everything just got so royally fucked up that my headache was turning into a migraine at this point in the film. But again, it doesn’t matter. Time travel in this movie is explained as “You can’t mess things up. You can’t change the past.”

But wait. The best is yet to come. Our first death of the movie. It’s bad enough that Natasha died instead of Clint, but to have her death be such a blatant rip off of the Thanos and Garmora scene in Infinity War is a real slap in the face.  All the way down to the usage of the same score music. Why? That only made the scene less emotional and moreso, took away from the impact of the Thanos and Garmora scene in Infinity War. The entire time, I felt like I was watching a fanfic with that scene. Among many others.

Clint deserved/needed to die instead. I get that they “battled it out” to be the one to jump, and he wanted to be the one to die – I get it. But that’s just…sorta not good enough. Because the writers wrote all that in when it didn’t need to happen. For starters, the entire fight over who jumped was drawn out and quiet frankly, hilarious. Sure, it showed a bit of their personalities and what friendship they had, but it ended up laughable. Maybe that’s because everything leading up to this felt like such a joke as well that I couldn’t take any of it seriously.

Regardless, while I’m not nearly as angry at Natasha’s death as I am Tony’s, I still strongly believe Clint should have been the one. Otherwise, the message I walked away with is: It’s okay to go on a murdering spree when you’re feeling hurt and bummed out, as long as you say sorry for it and try to take the spot of sacrificing your life. 

I would say that Marvel didn’t want to kill off a “family man” with Clint, as he had his family and kids, but Tony had that at this point as well. I feel they killed Natasha off because they didn’t know what else to do with her, as so clearly evident in her other films. She had no direction with these movies, no real character arc to go off of, and even with her solo movie in the works (an obvious prequel) she was sort of an empty slate waiting for her story to be told. Marvel never used her properly, never really took advantage of her, and at one point even gave her a relationship that did NOT need to be [Brutasha] because they were so clueless as to what to do with the only female Avenger. (Which means she HAS to have a love interest, right? RIGHT? God, Hollywood sucks with females)

They return to 2023 with all their stones and without Natasha. There’s a 1 minute grieving scene where Professor Hulk throws a bench in the lake and Steve blinks a tear and that’s…it. I mean, christ, don’t dedicate another second  longer to the poor woman, we couldn’t have that. Gotta make room for all those fat jokes. /s

They put the stones into Tony’s nano gauntlet and fight over who should put the gauntlet on – Professor Hulk wins. He says some shit that’s pulled straight out of his ass about gamma and how much gamma is surrounding the glove and that only he can handle it because Hulk is gamma. “It’s like I was made for this.”

Okay, whatever. Seriously, all this is so out of nowhere that I can’t muster the strength to care. A universe that always relied on collective narrative and plots weaved throughout movies is just pulling shit straight out of their asses at this point and I’m supposed to eat it. Please just snap your fingers and reverse time to 2018, Professor Hulk. That’s all I’m waiting for.

Tony once again says DO NOT lose the past 5 years and I guess the stones work off of what you’re thinking (ie: why they won’t let Thor do it, he’s too much of a mental mess) so Bruce…thinks about the dusted and snaps and…yeah. The dusted are back. A bit anticlimactic.

This also raises SO many questions about so many other things…what about those that got dusted in crashing airplanes? Are they just falling from the sky now?  People who were in boats that are no longer there, or in trains, or cars? What if they were dusted where a wall is now built? Are they morphed into the wall? Not to mention, bringing the dusted back in the year 2023, 5 years from when they were dusted…the legal problems that will occur. What if you had an apartment and someone is living there now? Where’s your stuff? What if your spouse married another person? Not to mention, what if your loved ones who survived The Decimation committed suicide in grief?

What about all that life insurance that was dished out?

None of this is explained. I doubt any of it ever will be. As the audience, I am once again left to assume.

So anyway, cue final battle scene. Thanks to time travel fuckery, 2014 Thanos is in 2023 and he bombs the shit out of the compound and it’s all CGI action from this point forward.

I mean, the fight was pretty cool. It was just…it was a lot of CGI, and to be honest, it was dark. Like, hard to see kind of dark. I get the tone and atmosphere they were going for, but one of the reasons I loved the Wakanda battle scene in Infinity War so much is because it was during the daylight. Even the battle of Titan was bright. Again, I get the tone they were going for, but I had a lot of trouble seeing what was going on, and it was a lot at once.

The OG 3 fight Thanos alone at first, which was cool. They all get their asses handed to them and Steve’s the one left to try and finish him off, solo, when Doctor Strange opens portals around the universe and brings all the dusted and army’s to the fight. I’d like to say I felt the same excitement watching this the second time around as I did the first, but I just…didn’t. Knowing the ending of this movie robbed a lot of initial joyful moments and if you ask me, a movie shouldn’t do that.

Also, yes, the fanservice moments exist. Steve lifts Mjolnir and says Avengers Assemble. I’m sorry, that’s not enough for me to forgive the mess of this movie.

A few pairs have their reunion scattered along the battlefield. I absolutely adored Peter and Tony’s, though I remained vastly uncomfortable that Peter was suddenly 5 years in the future and even addresses it as much. “And then Doctor Strange said you gotta hurry, it’s been 5 years!” Like…again, if this was reversed, that’s fine. But friggin hell. At this moment he doesn’t even remember turning to dust and how much pain he was in. Simply “Remember when I got all dusty? I must have passed out.” They hug though, so at the end of this shitshow at least the Irondad&Spiderson fanbase got their hug.

Rocket and Groot exchange a look and say nothing.

Fucking Steve and Bucky don’t even talk or see each other in battle. Probably because the Russo Brothers reallllyyy wanted to push that Steve/Peggy agenda and not remind anyone of Stucky. I look back on my complaints about the Irondad&Spiderson in this movie and take my grateful’s that we got the hug, because the poor Stucky fanbase got friggin robbed.

So again, big giant CGI battle fest. At one point they’re playing Hot Potato with the gauntlet trying to keep it away from Thanos and get it to Scotts van. I will admit, seeing Peter get like, 11 moms all at once was badass. Though it broke my heart to see him curled up in a tight ball holding the gauntlet like that…boy gunna have some real PTSD that Far From Home will likely brush off with more jokes disregarding and disrespecting the seriousness behind mental health and trauma.

I legit forgot about Captain Marvel until the moment she showed up.

I repeat: I legit forgot about Captain Marvel until the moment she showed up.

I know this moment had a LOT of characters to balance, but christ. If the writers can’t handle multiple characters with grace, they shouldn’t be handling multiple characters to begin with. Most were in this battle scene for the sake of showing their face. I mean, did Mantis even fight? So much was going on I couldn’t see past the center focus.

And I know a LOT of people complained that they didn’t want Captain Marvel to be the one that saves the day, but honestly, she would have been the better fit.

Tony making the final snap was done for shock factor. I stand by it. The narrative called for Steve Rogers to lay down his life in a blaze of glory, and because people predicted that – which is NOT a bad thing! It just means you’re telling your story well! – they took a hard left. Steve Rogers was a man out of his time, and his narrative told us time and time again he struggled with his life without a war. He needed the fight, that was his purpose. And his purpose should have ended with that final snap.

Instead, because movies want to be edgy and unpredictable, they ruined the narrative of Tony Stark and the final snap kills him. It’s horrific to watch. His last audible words are “I am Iron Man” and his last mumbled words are “Hey, babe” to Pepper. He gurgles blood out of his mouth, his brain is melting from the sheer power of the stones, Peter legit just sobs over him and he dies after Pepper feeds him some poetic, flowery shit about “You can rest now.”

This would be an immensely touching moment if it weren’t telling the audience that death is rest and the only way Tony could rest is if he died. First and foremost, I’m sorry, I do not consider death to be rest. Death is the end of existence. And Tony Stark had plenty of opportunities to rest without death. But the Russo Brothers decided 5 years of happiness was enough for him (when honestly, was it truly happiness? We all know he was harboring guilt from the Decimation and still mourning Peter) so they gave him those 5 years and then killed him off.

Between Thor, Natasha, and Tony, the MCU has taken society’s fight against the stigma on mental health back like, 25 years. Their answer to those who have mental trauma is to make fat jokes or kill them because that’s the only way they’ll be at peace. I guess this means Spidey is next, because there’s no way a 17 year old teenager is walking way from that without some serious PTSD.

Just by watching it I have PTSD.

I’m just not even touching this one in full extent. I’m sure other people will say it better than me and already have. All I will say is this: The past 11 years of film and subsequently the collective narrative told over the course of 22 films created a purpose for each of these two characters — Tony Stark struggled to move on from the fight, to truly let go of being Iron Man and retire. Steve Rogers struggled with his place in the world, moving on from Peggy Carter and finding purpose in fighting the battles that needed won.

Tony Stark deserved an ending of retirement, or even semi-retirement, perhaps taking on an advisory role at Shield. It would show the audience that sometimes you shouldn’t fight what feels natural within yourself, and Tony had a natural urge to be involved in this superhero life. He still could be, from afar, like a new Nick Fury.

And Steve Rogers, a man out of his time, deserved to win that battle in the blaze of glory, laying down his life for the other half of the universe. I really can’t believe I’m saying this, but I feel cheated for not seeing his death.

The Russo Brothers got this wrong. And shame one everyone who supported them along the way. These character’s had arcs established for many films prior to this and with a “5 Years Later” cue card all that just goes out the window.

Tony’s funeral exists solely for the purpose of doing a slow pan shot of a ton of faces standing around somberly. As an Irondad&Spiderson fan, it hurt to see Peter directly behind Pepper, Rhodey, Steve and Happy. May looked to be the same age/not aged up so I have to assume she got dusted as well. And since I’m being honest here: I know a lot of people fawn over Harley and Tony, but him being there made little to no sense to me. Plus, 95% of the audience didn’t even know who he was.

But again, this scene exists solely so we can show a bunch of big name faces at once, the big “group shot” that’s been spoken about so much during the hype of this movie. Even General Ross is there, the little fucker.

And to be even more of a bitter little sarcastic ass — the sailing away of his first arc reactor was sweet, truly, it was. But I look at that lake surrounding their cabin and think…it’s just gunna float around out there, making it’s laps around the cabin. I’d hate to be Pepper, waking up one morning and seeing it near the front porch. Unless they go and collect it once everyone leaves…I dunno, fuck, I just don’t even like thinking about this part of the film. It all played out like so much fanfiction I’ve read waiting for this movie. This just wasn’t supposed to be the movies ending, I really can’t say that enough.

Clint and Wanda have a moment that, I suppose, is there to tell us they’re grieving over Nat and Vision. It all felt like cheap throw away lines. Natasha deserved so much more than that, and hell, so did Vision. And hell, so did half of Asgard, and Loki, and all the people who died because of The Decimation.

But it’s okay. Steve’s going to return the stones back to their proper timelines, as promised to The Ancient One, and with that opportunity of time travel he’s going to give the middle finger to the remaining team members he has by staying back in time and “living some of that life Tony told him to get.” How, you ask? By using his other hand to give his other middle finger to the life Peggy Carter established long after him, with a husband and children and a career at SHIELD, so he can marry her.

😑

Imma be honest, when I first watched this movie, it was the cheeseburger line that really broke me. Up til that very moment, I held strong. I ignored all the shitty jokes, the shitty unraveling of character development, the shitty use of time travel, the shitty death of Tony Stark – I ignored it all. For some reason, the cringey-as-fuck “Your father liked cheeseburgers. I’ll get you all the cheeseburgers you want.” line just broke me. It read so much like badly written fanfiction that to sound like the obnoxious white girl I am, I couldn’t even anymore.

But once this scene hit, I was done. This was my “Nah, fuck this movie.” moment. This was my “I absolutely do not accept this” moment. This was when I walked out of the theaters, not waiting for an end credit scene that didn’t even exists anyway, or the credits of all the actors who’ve been in the MCU since 2008. I walked out the moment that dance ended, furious. And honestly, sticking around for that montage the second time around was rough. The anger hadn’t gone away yet.

So, to sum up? Avengers: Endgame played out like a fans poorly written, rushed, badly scripted fanfiction. But that fan had only watched Infinity War and read a couple of fanfictions afterward to get the gist on how to even write in the first place.

I’ve defended the MCU up until this moment. I know a lot of people jumped ship after Civil War; clearly the Russo Brothers were doing something wrong then. But they absolutely destroyed the universe with this movie to the likes that I’ve personally never seen before. What should have been a proper send off for characters (death or no death) ended up being a laughable joke of bad script writing, poor treatment to characters who had been around for a decade, and an idiotic usage of time travel.

Doctor Strange saw 14 million futures. In my head, Endgame was merely one of their lost battles. In my head, I have disowned this movie from the franchise. And while I will always be a Marvel fan, I’m likely done with the MCU moving forward in this odd universe of 2023. It’s just sad that I have to say goodbye with such a bitter taste in my mouth.

Thankfully, that’s what fannon and fandom is for.

[saltine-kakyoin]

HI SARAH!!!!!! i hope ur doing ok in quarantine mein schön broth-er 🥺🥺 for the ask thing, perhaps could you do 💕 🕹 📏 📖 🌼 and 🎁? i'm sorry it's kind of a lot!!!!!! you don't have to do any that you don't want to of course

HEY RUTH!!!!! 🥺🥺🥺 i’m doing okay!! i’m lowkey riddled w academic brainrot rn but i am also Starving so i’m hoping i will feel like a regular person after dinner 

😳 i hope you’re doing well, too! ; O ;/ thank you for sending these my way bruv, it’s not a lot at all!!

i do feel that my answers will probably become A Lot tho, so i’m going to put them under a readmore!

💕 your two top fave fictional characters

ohhh god, how is one supposed to choose…I don’t think I could faithfully answer this without saying kaworu nagisa from nge 🥺 something about the intrinsic loneliness and existentialism of his character has Hurt Me since 2014 (how has it been 6 years since i got into nge…….what the FUCK) another character i’ve been very 🥺 about lately is zane truesdale from ygo gx… If you asked me this question a month ago he would NOT have been my answer, but look. my sister and i have been watching gx since there’s nothing to do and doing that reignited my childhood crush on him.. umu I’m only in season 2 but they really show no mercy to him and it hearts my heart man..zane did Nothing to deserve this character arc + while i love aster and how much of a little shit he is, I cannot forgive him for sending zane down the path he’s on >:(

🕹 video game you are currently playing

unfortunately, dragon age: origins ; J ; i finished it before this trip to arkansas, and the idea was to play da2 + dai when i came home the next week, but Um… 😳😳😳 I’m trying to get my sister into it but she is a slow slow gal when it comes to video games, so it’s been a struggle 3

The worst part is that Ben has been at home playing the entire series over and over and is Super Familiar with all the spoilery stuff now, meaning he can fully flesh out his characters and the worldstate.. I have been stuck in the scope of origins for like 2 months now and i’m gonna go insane lmao!! never in my life have i been filled with such envy!

📏 how tall are you

mein broth-er exposes me at 7:19 EST….i’m between 5′ and 5′1″ ; J ; somehow, koichi is taller than me….. huge short king mama aye hours 3

📖 fave book

Ohh this question!! this is such a good question!

🌼 fave flower

you would thing, as the chick who buys bouquets for all my theater babies, that i would have some semblance of opinion on which flowers are the prettiest but alas, i have None 😳 all flowers are pretty and i don’t think i could ever choose a favorite… though i must say that i am Super endeared by those flowers that look like they have lil dudes sprouting outta them

🎁 best gift you ever received and why

ohhh Worm..we r opening This can of beans..The best gift i’ve ever received is my keyboard, which i got from this girl i was hardcore infatuated with during freshman + sophomore year! She gave it to me because she is a Band Kid and they really needed someone to play the keyboard in the pit + I was kind of considering it but was also really intimidated by the concept because I couldn’t play piano. i never did end up joining band, but the keyboard has been put to good use nonetheless! having that keyboard allowed me to learn a lot of my music at home, which allowed me to help out my fellow choristers figure out our lines during rehearsals! that helping has really stuck with me over the years, so much so that i’m going to school to be a choir teacher soon… mamba mimba

i’ve been really homesick for it lately, since I didn’t expect to be stuck in arkansas for so long..I impulse bought a new keyboard for my piano class that i’m giving to my nephew once I leave, but it’s not the same as good ole faithful, yk? :’(