#spent the rest of the episode gradually losing my shit thinking the episode had either been reuploaded without that bit

[morporkian-cryptid]

@ Sherlock & Co fandom am I going fucking insane??? Did anyone else hear Soames say "Thank you for that James" in The Three Students part 1???

I know I did not imagine it, I went back to listen to that bit and it is definitely in the episode but it is not in the transcript. At 22:35 in the episode on Spotify (time code including the ads in the middle), Soames says the following:

"but if we may have a brief chit chat down this way... let me just grab- ah, thank you for that James."

But in the transcript there's only this:

The building is empty, all the students have been sent home after the burglary. Even the cleaning staff is being kept out (as noted by Sherlock's remark on the absence of trace of recent cleaning). Which means the only people still in the building are the professors.

Professors.

Professor. James.

WHY IS IT NOT IN THE FUCKING TRANSCRIPT???????????????

[sweetpaopao]

FMA 2003 (Re)Watch

I recently planned a hybrid watch of both the 2003 series and Brotherhood; the original plan was to skip over to BH at the divergence point, but I was enjoying the first part of 03 so much that I decided to keep going. I saw 03 when it aired on TV back in the day and watched BH a few years after it was released, so while both are technically rewatches, a lot of 03 was hazy. Also FYI, I was switching back and forth between sub and dub kind of randomly throughout my watch.

A bunch of random thoughts:

-The first half of 03 is done really well, and I enjoyed it a lot. I like the extra time they spent on the early arcs, and I really enjoyed the episode on the train, the one with Barry, and the one with Yoki. I did skip that one filler with the thief because I remember it being super cringe.  

-The music is good. Of course "Brothers" is the best, but I like a lot of the other tracks too.

-The origin of the Homunculi as failed transmutations is neat. It's creative, works with the established setup of alchemy, and makes the Homunculi relatable and sympathetic. They mention Lust being "the new Lust" several times, which makes me wonder how many different versions of the Sins have existed over the centuries, and what happened to each of them.  

-I like the extra screen time and development that Lust received. Though she loses points for getting "Cotton Eye Joe" stuck in my head on multiple occasions, lol  

-Al seems way younger in this version. He's supposed to be a year behind Ed, but he acts like he's 3-4 years younger. I think it's mainly the writing, but the dub voice actor might contribute to this, since it's obvious it's an actual child and not an adult doing a child's voice.  

-Sloth is 100% better in 03 than in BH, hands down. I do wish she had been given a little more development, at least as much as Lust was given, since she's so connected to the main characters. Her water powers were cool..."death by evaporation" is definitely unique.  

-On the other hand, I friggin' HATE Wrath. He's an insufferable brat, and his voice made me want to stab out my ears (no offense to either voice actor - it's the part that's the problem. It's impossible to NOT be obnoxious when 80% of your lines are screeching and/or whining). I also hate that he looks so much like Envy...character design 101 says that each character should have their own distinct look, so I can't fathom why they would make him look like Envy Jr instead of giving him his own design. At least give him different clothes? Cut his hair, or put it in a ponytail?  

-Greed had barely any part in the story at all. The poor guy was practically a "Hi and die". His death scene was one of the things I had strong memories of, but I thought it was much later, near the very end of the series (I think the library in Dante's house and the ballroom in that city merged together in my mind). The lack of Greed love was a little disappointing, since he's my favorite homunculus.  

-It's sometimes said that Winry doesn't have much of a part in this series, which honestly is wrong - she's in it a lot, just not as a love interest. I liked her espionage plotline with Sheska.  

-Sheska got way more screentime here. I don't really care all that much about her, but I can see where she would have favorite character potential for some people (or waifu potential, even). I laughed out loud at the "she's an alien" line.  

-Havoc is a shyguy and very much NOT a badass stud, lol  

-Hohenheim...uh. I absolutely hated everything they did with him. He's basically a villain, he was a creep to Ross, he looks like a drowned rat, and he literally stinks. Poor Hoho, why did they do this to you?  

-Riza also got screwed. She had that one cool manga scene where she saves Mustang by tripping him, and then proceeded to get shit on for the rest of the series. She was basically an unintelligent lump who exists to be talked down to and treated like an annoyance. And speaking of the Colonel...  

-Dear God, 03 Mustang is a DICK. I remember he was popular back in the day, so fans must have had a high douchebag tolerance then. He got so bad at points that my finger was itching to skip ahead every time he opened his mouth, and I nearly punched the screen when he told Hawkeye to "wipe that crap off your face" in that one scene. Christ. I vastly, VASTLY prefer his softer Brotherhood personality.  

-Ed is kind of a dick in this version too. They took the short-tempered hothead aspect of him and leaned on it too far, IMHO. He seems to have 100% contempt for everyone in the world except Al, who he only has 50% contempt for. I had occasionally had similar reactions to him that I had to Mustang. Again, Ed had a softer personality in BH that I strongly prefer.  

-This leads into my main complaint about the 03 series...it has a "mean streak", especially in the 2nd half. It's hard to explain, but it's like there's this undercurrent of cynicism that runs through it, and it comes out in the writing, especially in the characters. It gives me the same kind of feeling that I get from things like Game of Thrones or The Walking Dead...this uneasy atmosphere of negativity and bitterness that leaves me feeling kind of gross afterward.  

-Overall, I have mixed feelings about this series. The first half was great! I like the slower pace and the small-scale worldbuilding (I seriously want to take a train ride around Amestris), and the more intimate focus on Ed and Al at the beginning. I like that the writers took the small amount of source material that they had and developed it to its maximum potential. But once they ran out of manga to adapt, I think things slowly went downhill. My enjoyment gradually decreased episode by episode, until I was kind of relieved to reach the end.  

-I'm glad I rewatched this series, since there was a lot that I had forgotten about, and some parts brought back a lot of good memories. The first half will probably go on my regular rewatch list, but I doubt I'll ever want to revisit the 2nd half again. I appreciate the effort they put into this series, and it's definitely worth watching. But overall Brotherhood will stay as my favorite version (and I'll be rewatching that soon too).  

[shannygoatgruff]

My Brother’s Keeper - Chapter III

Genre: Psychological Thriller

Modern Ivar X Modern Hvitserk

Rating: MA

Overall Warning:  Dark story told from an emotionally distributed person’s POV with graphic and sadistic material including rape, terror, torture, kidnapping, drug use, slash, implied incest, necrophilia and insecurity. Heavy trigger warnings.  

Chapter Warning: Mild violence

Summary: Mama always said to be their brothers’ keeper. Now there is absolutely nothing these two won’t do for each other.  Boys will be boys…

Chapter III

How can I describe my baby brother?  He has to be the most together person I know. God, there are so many things about him that I admire.  Of course, I’d never tell him that; he’d probably think I was weak or something.  

Ivar is the kind of guy that rolls up his sleeves and does what needs to be done, no matter what the situation. If the bills need to be paid, Ivar finds the money. If there's a highly stressful situation at work, he jumps in, gets everybody to the shut the fuck up, and settles the uneasiness. He just has this knack – this talent for manipulating things.  It’s like he sees everything from every angle and then plans accordingly - he always has a plan for every possible scenario. 

He is always prepared. If I lose control, he's right there with a gentle voice and warm arms to make everything better. If evidence needs to cleared, he's always equipped with a bottle of bleach or a deep trench…it doesn't matter. He just always seems to know what to do.

He takes care of me; which is strange because I’m his older brother.  I don't complain about it. I accept our dynamics. Honestly, I like being taken care of by him. I'm sure in some way I take care of him, too, but I don't know exactly how. He never grumbles about it, though. He likes to be in charge. He thrives on being in control of things. He's not controlling by any means, people just naturally defer to his power. We all seem to do without even realizing it. That's probably the most attractive thing about him. When Ivar's in control, I feel safe.

He's always the funniest guy in the crowd and the smartest guy at the party. He's the guy that all the ladies want to get to know. He's well-traveled, well cultured, interesting, mysterious…he's someone that everyone wants to be like and they all want to be liked by him. I think that's why we get along so well; he's everything I'm not. I see so many qualities in him that I wish I had. But I know if I did, our relationship wouldn’t be as strong as it is today.

Having a lot of brothers is hard.  With so much testosterone in the house, you always have to compete. That’s why Ivar has always been my favorite.  With him, there was never a competition.  I’ve always known where I stood with him. He’s always known it, too. 

See, he has always had this charisma about him.  I don’t know exactly what it is, but he has this sort of presence that commands your attention.  Since the day he was born, he held my parents' attention, that’s for sure. He especially had Mother wrapped around his little finger.  She seemed to almost forget about the rest of us as soon as she saw him.  She spent every waking hour with him, catering to his every whim.  He could do nothing wrong in her eyes.  

When he got a little older and Mother wasn’t around, gradually, we all started to see Ivar as she did. If he wanted something, we wanted him to have it.  There is nothing in the world more beautiful than seeing my little brother happy.  

When he’s happy he’s gentle, nurturing, and the embodiment of love.  He’s the best of our parents.  His smile is like a slice of heaven that I want to keep for myself and protect from the rest of the world.  If I could, I would make him smile every day.  He makes me feel complete. I can't describe it. No matter what we're doing, I just feel safest when I’m around Ivar. 

That is until he gets angry. 

Ivar doesn't get angry often and almost never at me. But when he does, I know to stay the fuck out of his way. That's why it's so bad tonight. He's pissed but I just can't let him go off like he normally does. Not while Thora's here.

I don't think she hears him walking the hall. I hardly do him until I look at the bottom of the door and see his shadow. I know he won't come in here. He doesn't like Thora and she's not that fond of him. But if I don't go talk to him, he's going to go off and that'll scare the shit out of her. I can't let that happen.

"I'll be right back." I roll over and kiss her neck noticing the way she smiles innocently at me. She readjusts the pillows until she's the hugging one like she was hugging me. "Tell me what I missed." For some reason, I'm really into this episode of Prodigal Son. 

"Okay." She's not really listening to me. She's too interested in what's going on on the television. "Bring me back some ice cream? Two scoops of chocolate…"

I nod. I know what she's going to say next, and yet she still feels the need to remind me. "With chocolate Jimmie's on top." A smile creeps on my face when she scrunches her nose at me. I would do anything to see her smile. If only this conversation with Ivar was going to be as easy as a bowl of fucking ice cream.

By the time I make it down the stairs Ivar is sitting at the table with his arms folded and his lips in a snarl. I haven't seen him this pissed off in a very long time and the worst part is that I know that it's because of me. My steps are quiet in the kitchen and I'm trying my best not to make my presence known. But before my hand touches the freezer door, Ivar moves his chair.

"Why the fuck is she here?" His voice is calm, but it's only a matter of time before it gets louder. He's close enough to me that I can feel his breath on my neck. "You knew that we were supposed to go out tonight. We had plans, Hvitserk."

I don't understand his hatred of Thora. She's such a sweet girl. But I also know that I can't tell him that or that’ll upset him more. "I didn't know she was coming. She just showed up."

"Well, now she can just fucking leave." There's an eerie calm in his voice.  When I turn around to look at him, his blue eyes are cold. He doesn't mean what he's saying; I know that, but it still hurts to know that he hates my girl so much. 

But, there’s something more behind in his words tonight. Ivar doesn't take it well when he doesn’t get his way.  Since we were little, he doesn’t really doesn’t know how to handle the word no. More than that, anything standing in the way of him and his hunger is an obstacle that needs to be removed. With me, the hunger is like a gnawing in my gut that won't go away until I feed it. It's enough to drive me crazy but it's never debilitating. With Ivar it's all-consuming.

"I'm not telling her to leave, Ivar." I'm not afraid of him. I don't know how I just know that he won't ever hurt me. But I also know where the line is with him and I don't cross it. He just needs to be reminded sometimes that I have a life outside of partying. "I think I need to stay home tonight."

He moves over to the table calmly. This is just the beginning. My eyes close on their own somehow knowing the fate of the vase sitting there. I don't flinch when it crashes against the cabinets over the sink. I know that he needs to let out his frustration and since he won't do on me, the closest object at hand gets his wrath. I wish I could comfort him, but he's not the type that takes to comfort. He's not like me. He doesn't need someone to help him through the hunger or the guilt. He needs to work through this on his own.

"Fine. Then we'll all stay here." There's a condescending tone in his voice and the smirk on his face, as he makes his way to the stairs, makes my heart race. Somehow, I manage to move fast enough to the stairs that I’m just behind him and I touch his arm. I know that look in his eyes and my heart goes out to him because of it. I feel bad for him because he's in pain right now, but I refuse to let him touch Thora.

He pulls his arm away as soon as I touch it, however my hand goes to cradle his face and he lets me.  I look him in the eyes, "Ivar, don't.  Please?"

He runs his hand through his dark brown hair right before he punches the wall. "Why is she so different? I need this." His voice gets louder and this demented smile crosses his lips. He doesn't care that he's breaking the rules. Thora is never supposed to be touched.

I knew from the first time I saw her that she needed me.  Ivar and I were in a bar on college night looking for somebody young to party with. She looked so innocent waiting for her friend, like a good little church girl, and not the kind we fantasize about breaking. She wasn't interested in the guy that was trying to get her to leave with him, but he didn't seem to care. 

I can spot a guy like me from a mile away. He's the type that always has an intense look and smiles at just the right moment. He does little things, like brushes his hand across an arm, stands too close, and never takes no for an answer. I had never taken a woman against her will and I wasn't going to let him do that to her either. She seemed so relieved when I slid next to her and put my arm around her shoulder. That innocent look of gratitude was all I could concentrate on and I knew from that moment she needed me.

It didn't take long before that guy's face met the top of the bar and his shoulder separated when I pinned his arm behind his back. It didn't matter that Thora was scared only that she needed protection. And for the past year, I've been the one that protects her against everything. Nothing will ever hurt her as long as I'm around.

"You know why I'm with her." Ivar knows not to question me about Thora. He knows the plan.

I hate when he laughs at me. It doesn't happen often but it's the one way I know that he disapproves. "You really think you can stop, Serk? Do you actually think that little whore upstairs is enough to keep you calm? You're fucking delusional."

I don't care what he says. Whenever this hunger is finally settled, I want a normal life. I want a life like Father had with his first wife. I want a family and a house with a white picket fence. I wanna be the dad to take my kids to the park and drive across the country on family vacations. This thing…this hobby of ours, this life that we share, it's only temporary. One day I'll get my fill. I can feel it each time I feed it; I know what it feels like to be satisfied. I just have to feed it and keep feeding it until it goes away permanently. It'll happen and when it does, Thora is the woman that I'm going to have that other life with.

"Hvitserk?" Thora's voice is faint but I can hear her moving across the floor. I know she's scared and the panic in her voice is enough to make me plead with Ivar's eyes. She's afraid of Ivar; she's fucking petrified of him. I don't know why because she's never met him, not that she wants to. She only hears about him through me and of course when he blows a gasket like he's doing now. The side of him she knows about is the side that slams doors and throws shit around. She knows about the side of him that yells and curses and tries his best to take me away from her. It's no coincidence that he's like that whenever she's around, either. I think he only gets like that because he thinks she's trying to change me.

"She takes care of me, Ivar." I know that look of sympathy on Ivar's face well. It's not sympathy for her, it's sympathy for me. He knows how hard this is for me and that I hate choosing between them. I love them both and I don't like it when they put me in the middle.

"No, Serk. I take care of you." His eyes soften and so does the hardened look on his face. His fingers lovingly touch my cheek and he offers me a sad smile. “That’s my job.”

"Please, Ivy?" He brushes past me on the stairs and slams the front door behind him so hard that the pane of glass cracks. I know I hurt him but it wasn't intentional. I'll make it up to him later. Maybe tomorrow we can get two, one to make up for tonight.

Only her toes are visible on the top of the stairs, almost like she's trying to hide in the shadows. She wants to check on me, I know because that's the type of person she is. But her fear of Ivar will keep her from coming down. "Hvitserk, are you okay?"

With each step I climb more of her body comes into view. Everything from her pink painted toes to her strong bare calves and thighs barely hidden under the hem of my t-shirt tells me that I made the right decision. Her chest heaves while she tries to steady her nerves but the tears in her eyes are a dead giveaway. She's afraid for me. "I'm fine."

"Ivar's mad again, huh?" Her hand trembles as she reaches out to touch my shoulder. "Should I leave?"

I shake my head at her and put my arms around her. "No. It's fine. He was pissed but he's over it."

"Just like he got over the last time he got pissed?" She lifts my hand to her eyes and stares at the healing bite marks. I don't have the heart to tell her the truth, that Ivar didn't do that to me. She wouldn't believe it anyway. If I told her she'd be afraid and I couldn't take it if she were afraid of me. "He scares me, Hvitserk."

"I won't let him hurt you." Just feeling her cling to me with her fear curbs the hunger within me that I've been trying to ignore. No. I made the right choice. I want to take care of her more than I want to feed.

Thora needs me right now and I can always feed my hunger tomorrow.

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[velkynkarma]

noisypaintersong replied to your post: A dilemma

So far it looks like you don’t really need to have seen s2 to he able to follow s3 - it seems to be focusing more on Dick, Connor and Artemis than the rest of the team (well, the first 3 eps at least. I haven’t seen the latest eps yet)

Mmmmmmmm....we’ll see what happens. Honestly, I might just end up cherry-picking scenes I want to see handled for the hell of it. Honestly, if YJ S2 had been, say, YJ S4, I don’t think I’d have minded so much. My issue with S2 wasn’t the new characters per se. It was the timeskip in general. S1 spends 26 episodes making us learn about and grow close to a core group of characters. You come to love them, their skills, their flaws, everything about them. You want to see them progress more. You want to know their stories.  But then S2 kicks it off with a 5-6 year timeskip. Suddenly all the characters you know, love, and spent a season getting connected to aren’t main characters anymore. A bunch of them retired. Others moved on to entirely different identities. There’s shit that’s gone down between characters that’s alluded to. People have died. But you don’t see any of it. You’re just told all of these things happened, and they’re big, character-impacting things, but they’re merely handwaved.  And there’s an entire new cast of characters you’re introduced to all at once. And you’re told ‘these are the new mains! Love them!’ But you don’t have a season’s worth of buildup and plot arcs and characterization to really make you care about them at all. If you have comic background, maybe you’ll be excited at the prospect of Blue Beetle or Wonder Girl showing up. Cool. Back in the day when I was watching YJ, I didn’t have that background. It felt like I was watching an entirely new show, not S2. And I didn’t like it. It was just too jarring.  Timeskips are hard. And they’re hard to do well. As I said, if YJS2 had been, say, YJS4—if we’d had a couple of seasons in the middle to gradually explain the catalyst that makes Artemis and Wally retire, if we have episodes to show why Dick makes the decision to become Nightwing, if we see the stories for now these new characters are introduced, if the studio isn’t cowardly enough to hide the stories of the heroes that died and we SEE those stories and how it affects the Bat-fam to lose their first Robin, or the hero community to see the fallout of the loss of Blue Beetle—if we’d had those things, I think I would have enjoyed it.  But we didn’t. And based on the way the YJ fandom split itself out when I lurked there and read and wrote fiction, I think most of its viewers agree, whether or not they realize it. It always seemed all or nothing. You either adored S1 and hated S2, or you disliked S1 and you loved S2. But it’s because they felt like two different shows, not two different seasons of the same show.  And that’s...kind of what I’m afraid of for S3 here, too. Especially after so many years between production. 

[aion-rsa]

South Park Vaccination Special Review

https://ift.tt/3tb3wtA

This South Park Vaccination Special review contains spoilers.

The coronavirus pandemic has no official start date. Beginning in early 2020 (but really late 2019), the virus spread to different parts of the globe gradually. In the U.S., states dealt with its arrival on a case-by-case basis. The closest we’ll come to an anniversary, however, is likely March 11.

March 11 was the day that the NBA suspended its season and the day that Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson revealed that they had both tested positive. Perhaps it’s fitting then, that the South Park Vaccination Special (styled as the South Parq Vaccination Special, which we won’t be indulging here) falls one day short of arriving a full year after that fateful day. 

Of course, the South Park Pandemic Special already aired amid the throes of the pandemic on September 30. But with some 100 million Americans already vaccinated and the end of this awful thing approaching, the Vaccination Special allows South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone to really take a step back and reflect on the very strange year that was. Their conclusion? That shit really sucked, man.

The South Park Vaccination Special is far superior to the Pandemic Special and is one of the better South Park episodes of the past few years. That’s due to the show’s reinvestment in its own central four characters: Stan, Kyle, Kenny, and Cartman. One got the distinct sense over the past five or so seasons that Parker and Stone (now in their early 50s and late 40s, respectively) had come to identify with Marsh family paterfamilias Randy more than their original South Park Elementary students. 

Randy has always been a “great in small doses” secret weapon for South Park, but Parker and Stone have lately been determined to find as big a dose as possible of whatever special, pandemic or otherwise, Randy’s Tegridy Farms is selling. The Vaccination Special doesn’t feature Randy until the very end of its runtime, when he takes the opportunity to hock his wares and remind us that the episode is nearly over. Taking his place as the South Park leads are the four Kommunity Kids who were always designed to fill that role in the first place. 

There aren’t many tangible ways to measure this, but it does feel that amid quarantine, nostalgia has reigned supreme. When the present is boring and the future is murky, the past is all we have. At least I think that’s the case because me and countless other older millennials with disposable income have driven the Pokémon cards of our past to near extinction.

Parker and Stone too seem to have spent the months since the Pandemic Special aired thinking about their past. The resulting Vaccination Special is the kind of self-indulgent spectacle that the show would make fun of under any other circumstances. But after all we’ve been through together, who could blame South Park for wanting to post some cringe of its own?

Read more

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South Park Pandemic Special Brings the Show’s Highest Ratings in Seven Years

By Joseph Baxter

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South Park Pandemic Special: What Does The Return of Death Mean?

By Daniel Kurland

The plot of Vaccination Special is convoluted and bizarre as any other latter-year South Park episode. Parker, Stone, and their team of writers clearly view the writing process as exploratory, and follow the whims of the story to wherever it wants to go. In this case, the story takes South Park from Walgreens as the hottest club in town, to Cartman humiliating their teacher, to Mr. Garrison returning, to the whole town getting swept up in a war between the Kommunity Kids and the QAnon-tutored Q’Ties. Of course, Garrison faces down Hollywood’s shadowy elite, and Mr. White turns into a penis but that’s the long and the short of it. 

While some (or most, if you’re feeling uncharitable) of South Park’s recent plots feel exhaustively convoluted, this one does not. Amid all the insanity, the show never loses focus of the four boys at its center. Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny have all dealt with the ennui of being together for 25 years before, but something about their dissatisfaction this time feels more acute…and more adult. 

The quartet spend the entire episode with one another and their strange dynamic takes center stage. Cartman is always the one to make something happen, in this case the plan to cheer everyone up with a cruel prank that horrifically backfires. Kyle is always the one to oppose Cartman’s plan. Then Stan is always the one who must field Kyle and Cartman’s complaints and requests to keep the other in check. Meanwhile, Kenny is the wide-eyed innocent stuck in the middle of it all.

This dynamic is exciting and fresh to see onscreen again after the show has spent so much time sidelining the core four. But you can also appreciate just how exhausting it is for the kids. The scene in which they accept their “divorce” and begin the process of divvying up time with Kenny is strangely affecting (either that, or we’ve all been inside far too long). Despite displaying a newfound interest in serialization, South Park’s breaking up of its main characters seems unlikely to stick in its 24th season. For now at least, it’s a tender examination of what one full year of sustained stress can do to our most important relationships. 

While the dissolution of the Kommunity Kids’ union is novel ground for the show to tread, the rest of this special is positively bursting with callbacks and nostalgia. Of course, the most prominent bit of past reclamation comes in the form of Mr. Garrison. 

“Oh yes, I’ve got a lot of baggage,” Garrison happily explains to the bus driver upon arriving back in South Park following his stint as the literal President of the United States.

Garrison breaks down his hero’s journey to PC Principal and to any audience member who may have forgotten. First he was a caustic elementary school teacher with a finger puppet fixation. Then he was gay. Then he was a woman. Then he was Donald Trump. Now he’s back and can’t we all just get back to normal? Hopefully as quick as possible?

It’s hard not to see Garrison’s journey to reclaim his past self as commentary. Even if it can’t fully articulate it, South Park wants to get back to something, whether that be its own golden era or merely a world without a virus rampaging through it. There is a truly astonishing amount of past characters who pop up in this Vaccination Special, even if for only a moment. Scenes frequently feature comic book style flash page art with dozens of characters from South Park’s past. I wasn’t able to pause it to get a full accounting but I do recall seeing Al Gore, Cthulhu, and Najix, the Talking Taco Who Poops Ice Cream. Hell, even mad scientist Alphonse Mephisto from season one gets a speaking role this time around. 

Given the subject of this particular episode, and the catharsis of all our impending vaccinations, a lot of these callbacks and cameos really do feel earned, rather than just an ancient show playing the hits. It certainly helps that a lot of these callbacks are funny. One in particular that caught my eye is a notecard reading “Whale on moon?” on Mr. White’s Q conspiracy corkboard. Who could forget the fate of poor killer whale Willzyx? Seeing Parker and Stone in their Basketball attire as part of the Hollywood Elite on the corkboard is good for a chuckle too.

In fact, much of this episode is perfectly pleasantly funny, if infrequently laugh-out-loud. The presence of Garrison’s Mr. Slave replacement, Mr. Service, is hilarious. Naturally, the sight gag of White as an enormous, barely sentient dick is a winner as well. Much of the third-wall breaking is amusing, even if it culminates with shadowy Hollywood powers being connected to the Israelis. 

Not everything works in Vaccination Special. South Park doesn’t know what to do with QAnon, but to be fair: who does? Some of the boys’ plans once they secure vaccines are unclear or don’t really follow. 

But still, by the end of the episode’s extended running time, it’s actually quite cathartic to see the people of South Park riotously celebrating, unmasked. That’s certainly partially due to the context surrounding the episode (after all, Pandemic Special featured a similar ending that wasn’t nearly as pleasant), but it also speaks to the work that the episode puts in with its characters.

I mentioned earlier that this is one of the better South Parks of the past few years. It occurs to me now that I have no way of knowing that’s true, having forgotten many of the South Parks of the past few years. In any case, judging South Park against itself is a difficult proposition as each episode feels crushed under the weight of the show’s own massive catalogue. 

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For now, at least, the Vaccination Special works on its own as a nostalgia-drenched bright spot at the tail end of a very long year. 

The post South Park Vaccination Special Review appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/38oOiZV

[obsessivedilettante]

Somehow love has been so idealized as positive and healthy form of bond, that the reality which is that lot of romantic relationships are dysfunctional on one level or another is denied. In the case of Kwon Joo and Tae Gu, the romance is impossible: she will never accept him but the attraction is real on his side (the writer pushed it since ep11) and it humanizes him a little bit. So playing with this fantasy makes sense, is not harmful and wouldn't be a first in fiction...

The issue I have is that people assume because there is attraction, it must mean romantic (or sexual). Tae-gu is definitely fascinated by Kwon-joo, but it’s because he views her as an elusive prey. For someone who seems to have had a fairly easy life when it comes to killing people (I mean, when you come right down to it, his father literally buys “unwanted” people for him hunt and kill, just as though they were toys), here is one that is intelligent and fights back. In fact, I think a large part of his giddy glee when he saw her wall of evidence and red string is the discovery that she has also been hunting him. She is no normal prey.

[More after the jump! My apologies to mobile users, and if you’re coming to this on my tumblr page and not your dash, Anon, you’ll probably need to click the post to get the rest of the answer since this theme doesn’t always put a ��more” link when I use it on an ask.]

But she is still just that to him – prey. I can’t agree that his attraction to her “humanizes” him because the show has taken great pains to convince us that he’s not really human. He’s been repeatedly called a monster and the devil (and, to be honest, it’s easy to believe he is just that when he has taken such joy in killing anyone that has possibly hurt him or stood in his way).

To him, Kwon-joo is not a person. She is something to be toyed with, to be teased and tormented until he finally sees fit to give the final blow.

I actually think it’s pretty interesting that the show hasn’t placed him in any romantic or sexual light*. Even though he’s a young and handsome chaebol (at least, to those who don’t know about his murderous tendencies), he’s not been shown partying around with a gaggle of women, or even just one woman. When Jin-hyuk looked into his past, there was no record of a scandal, and I presume that includes scandals with women (or men – hey, I’m not gonna judge, but I know Dramaland and its heteronormative default). I very much doubt he often brings dates home, since he seems more interested in bringing dead bodies home instead. 

That’s not to say Tae-gu has no sexual desire, but it’s notable that his idea of power and dominance is through straight-up brutality and not through sex. He’s killed women before, but from what we’ve seen, hasn’t tried to rape them. Instead, he gets his jollies from the hunt and the sensation of crushing their skulls.

Which, again, is why I give a serious, serious side-eye to those who want to ship him with Kwon-joo. She is an amazing woman who’s worked hard to get where she is, even when no one else believed her. She’s careful and smart as she figures out not only how to save those under the Golden Time (okay, maybe not that careful and smart because c’mon stop going to creepy empty hallways without back-up!), but also in accumulating information that gradually lead her to discover that Tae-gu is the killer she’s been searching for all these years. To her, Tae-gu is the monster that we all know he is. He killed her father, he’s killed so many others – he’s ruthless and shameless. He’s evil and he must be brought to justice.

So for someone to go “eeeee, I ship it!” just because both characters have an obsessive determination to hunt the other feels like it trivializes just how much Tae-gu has hurt and damaged her life. Not just that he killed her father, but thanks to the cover-up by his father and Sang-tae, he made her lose her job and respect within the community. She was treated as a laughingstock and something to be scorned. Yes, she is strong and resilient, but he ruined her life. And he plans to ruin it even more, just for kicks. He knew that his visit to her apartment would scare her, and yet he couldn’t hide his laughter. That is what makes him happy – making her fear for her life.

While I don’t know how the final two episodes will play out, at this point in the show, there’s really no way that Tae-gu can be redeemed. There’s no “oh my mother abandoned me when I was a baby boo-hoo” story that can possibly excuse his murderous behavior. At this point, the only truly “honorable” thing he could do is either confess to his crimes and spend a lifetime in prison, or fall on his sword (kettlebell?) and kill himself.

Perhaps if this writer spent more time developing the characters, there could be some hope. But as it stands right now, he has shown himself to be nothing but pure evil. There is no goodness in him. There is no saving him.

It is true, though, that relationships are inherently messy and so many of them are filled with bad decisions. Maybe I would actually like rom-coms more if they didn’t try to convince me that two diametrically opposed people would suddenly fall in love and live happily ever after, just because the writers said so. Maybe I would suffer less from second-lead syndrome if the male leads weren’t persistently written in such a way that I would instinctively label them as abusive (either emotionally or psychologically, and even sometimes physically), and wish the woman would run the hell away and never look back.

Then again, I think “love conquers all” is utter bullshit, especially with romance. I will, however, happily accept more stories of love that is familial and platonic, because, to me, those are the most endearing and sustaining. That’s why I give only a vague side-eye to those who want to ship Kwon-joo with Jin-hyuk. Part of me understands it – they’re the leads, they’re thrown together, they have to learn to trust and rely on each other. It makes sense, since most dramas would probably go there anyway. But I love that there’s been no hint of romance between them, simply because there aren’t enough platonic male-female friendships represented in media, especially in mutual work environments (where platonic friendship actually makes the most sense, since dating in the workplace is incredibly messy and often ends in disaster, although you wouldn’t know it by most of Dramaland’s offerings).

So I’m not saying “kill it with fire” to a Kwon-joo/Jin-hyuk ship because I can see how these two co-workers, thrown together in a multitude of intense situations as they pursue the same goal, could be appealing to someone. Jin-hyuk has learned to respect Kwon-joo, and is not out to sabotage her. He actually supports her and listens to her.

I am saying “kill it with fire” to a Kwon-joo/Tae-gu ship because it pits her with someone who doesn’t see her as human and only sees her as a thing to amuse him until he decides she’s no longer worth his time. It diminishes who she is as a woman or even simply as a person. He is a monster, and I’m repulsed by the unspoken implication that she could “save” him because of the attraction (or supposed “love”) he has for her. Not that’s what everyone thinks when they consider this so-called ship, but it is the standard representation when we see this kind of dynamic in fiction – the “bad boy” that the woman will save through the power of her sparkly “I’m not like the other girls” vagina. (Again, Tae-gu is not some moody, broody chaebol/cursed vampire/hurt momma’s boy. He is an unrepentant psychopath who gets joy out of tormenting the most challenging prey he’s yet encountered.)

I get it, though. I know that it’s somehow so easy to default to crackling chemistry and want to ship all the things, no matter what, no matter how terrible they are. Some of the best (worst?) ships come from this.** The attraction is there, even if it is only sadistically one-sided. And even though I don’t read fanfiction, I know there are enough of the “oh hell no” ships out there that people are gonna ship what they’re gonna ship, no matter the logistics or actual characterizations. Maybe someone’s cooking up a theory that says Tae-gu will eventually realize the error of his ways and spend the rest of his life in prison pining for the one woman who got away. Or maybe someone’s embracing the insanity and is like “this shit is fucked up but damn the sex is hawt.”

In the end, I guess I’m just too fond of Kwon-joo as a character and a woman, and everything she represents in terms of her intelligence and desire to help people even as she longs for justice in her own life, to see her linked romantically to a murdering psychopath – no matter how gorgeous his cheekbones are.

*of course, as we all well know, Kim Jae Wook is hella sexy and I’m not gonna deny I’d probably do some terrible things for a few minutes in heaven with him, but that’s the actor, not the character.

**for example, even though I know, instinctively, that these two are terrible for each other and will forever end in tears, you can tear the LoVe*** from my cold dead hands. They are Epic and will always be Epic.

***Logan/Veronica from Veronica Mars, who I immediately started shipping**** from the first “Annoy, tiny blonde one, annoy like the wind” and still get a little tingly from that first kiss as the camera cranes outward and “Momentary Thing” plays.

****and I suppose someone could argue that “well you ship [problematic thing] so stop being a cry-baby about other people shipping [problematic thing], and besides, it’s just fiction*****, so who cares what other people do with fictional characters?” To which I say “dude this is tumblr I will overthink whatever the hell I want and also women should not be shipped with brutal psychopaths who only see them as a means for their sadistic pleasure, especially when those psychopaths have totally and unrepentantly ruined those women’s lives and will kill them after they’ve had their fun.”******

*****yeah, it’s just fiction, but stories matter and if I can smash one patriarchal belief that a woman can save a broken and screwed up guy just because he lurves her then I think I will have fulfilled a purpose that I didn’t know I had but I will gladly accept.

******is2fg no one tell me there’s a fanfic out there where Tae-gu is revealed to be a necrophiliac bc there’s not enough brain bleach out there to unsee that image even though it would probably make total sense, dammit.

[dingoes8myrp]

Orange is the New Black: The Road So Far

Now that I’ve finished the fifth season, here are my thoughts on the show.

For the most part, I feel like this season was 80% filler, 2% character development, 8% set-up, and 10% compelling story.

I should mention, as a viewer and as a reader, I loathe filler. I’m a minimalist. I probably write this way, too. I like every piece of dialogue, every description, every scene, to either move the story forward or give important information. I like to be constantly moving or thinking. My perfect movie, episode, or book is one where I’m captivated and engrossed. And this doesn’t have to be a high-octane thriller either. Really, it just has to keep me moving or keep my brain working. I lose interest in books with paragraphs and paragraphs of detailed descriptions (George R. R. Martin and Cassandra Clare). I tune out of shows or movies with a lot of side-stories with no real bearing on the main arc (The Vampire Diaries and Game of Thrones), or with a lot of expositional dialogue and unnecessarily long shots (The Walking Dead). I’m not a fan of old Westerns with their wide, expositional shots and slow-moving stories (3:10 to Yuma). However, I’m captivated by mysteries and thrillers with unsettling suspense (The Killing and Gone Girl). I love a story that focuses on character development even when the plot doesn’t move much (Titanic and Lost). Just an aside so anyone reading understands where I’m coming from before I get into the nitty-gritty of this.

Season 5 of Orange is the New Black wasn’t bad. It was well-written, and some of the performances were absolutely amazing. Danielle Brooks (Taystee), Uzo Aduba (Suzanne), Selenis Leyva (Gloria), Elizabeth Rodriguez (Aleida), and Brad William Henke (Piscatella) were particularly stand-out for me. However, there is a stylistic difference in the later seasons of the show versus the earlier ones. The first two seasons in particular were well-paced with a steady arc and compelling characters. I couldn’t stop watching because I felt like I was being pulled through the story by what was unfolding. Last season and this season in particular felt different: drawn out and inconsistently paced with an overarching story that was muddled and unclear. I believe this trend began in season 3. Seasons 1 and 2 focused on Piper’s arc as the main story with everyone else’s stories revolving around it, much like the spoke method used by Seinfeld. Other stories and characters were artfully folded into this main arc, but Piper was the show’s heart: the lens through which we viewed the world. Gradually, other characters came into the spotlight with Piper. Dayanara’s relationship with Bennett became its own strong story. Nicky’s battle with addiction and her relationship with Morello became a compelling story on its own. Meanwhile other characters became near and dear to us through compelling personal arcs: Taystee with her dynamic personality and her drive, Red with her no-nonsense Alpha vibe and maternal role, Suzanne with her troubling but endearing quirks, and of course Alex with her anti-hero road-to-redemption arc. There was a nice structure and momentum to the first two seasons that made me feel grounded, and managed to reveal layers of individual characters while balancing a few different side-stories without losing sight of that main grounding arc.

Season 3 began to lose this balance. The departures of Bennett and Mendez drastically changed Dayanara’s story and took something away from the dynamic of the guards. Nicky’s stint in Max left Morello with nothing to do and removed an entire layer of story from a lot of other arcs Nicky was involved in. Larry was ultimately written out of the story, which removed a complication from Piper that made her relationship with Alex less dramatic (so other plot elements were added, presumably to keep the drama going). Meanwhile new characters were introduced or focused on, and those characters didn’t have two seasons of story under their belts to help them carry the weight. As a result, we started getting these “filler” episodes that focused on an underdeveloped character to sort of catch them up to everyone else (i.e. Boo in “Finger in the Dyke,” Flaca in “Fake it Till you Fake it Some More,” Chang in “Ching, Chong, Chang,” basically the bulk of the episodes). We were introduced to a whole new cast of characters and their stories while the characters we’d gotten to know took a back seat. While I appreciated some of these episodes individually, I didn’t appreciate them as a part of the whole. Pulling so many new or background characters into the spotlight so quickly created a need to hit “Pause” on a number of stories and slowed down the show’s momentum.

Seasons 4 and 5 continued this trend of introducing or expanding characters, but also reintroduced characters that had been minimalized or written out. This has bloated the story to the point where it’s difficult to discern the main arc or to keep up with all the side stories and character arcs. We’re picking up threads of stories that were back-burnered trying to remember where we left off while some newly introduced stories are put on pause and some even newer stories are being set up. There’s just way too much going on, and the 10% of it I’m actually invested in has gotten lost in the shuffle. Aleida being released from prison was a big deal at one point, and I was very interested to see how she adjusted to life outside. However, a very small amount of screen time was spent on this compelling story and instead Aleida’s role became relative to Dayanara’s story (which stopped being compelling as soon as she lost the gun). Alex killed a man and buried him in the garden and that somehow wasn’t even in the top 5 storylines. It was just something we were reminded of every few episodes through expositional dialogue, presumably so we didn’t forget that this was once an important plot point. Poussey, a beloved main character, was horrifically killed. Instead of the fallout becoming the main story, as was set up in season 5’s premiere, it somehow became a setting in itself rather than a plot. This is actually something I’ve seen in other shows, where a character’s death becomes a part of the atmosphere (Sons of Anarchy and Outsiders come immediately to mind). However, if Poussey’s death wasn’t the overarching plot, and the riot it caused wasn’t the overarching plot… then what the hell was? I still don’t know.

My major problem with season 5 is that it took way too long for anything to move forward in a significant way, and when it did everything happened all at once. Red, Lorna, and Suzanne are all competing for Little Miss Crazypants of Litchfield. Piscatella’s in the house and he’s also throwing his hat in the Crazypants ring with a side of torture just for funzies. Humps died and no one seemed to give a shit despite his death being a BIG FUCKING DEAL because all the negotiations between the inmates and the gun-toting officers hinge on the fact that no one has died, and because a beloved character shot the guy while another blew into his I.V. for shits and giggles, and another whole shit load of characters fought like hell to save him. All but one of the remaining guards got out, which was also a big deal. An overzealous S.W.A.T. team stormed the prison. I mean, Jesus, we couldn’t have spaced this out a bit to make the previous 8 episodes more interesting? As entertaining as it was to watch Angie and Leanne fuck around like Lucy and Ethel, I really didn’t need as much of it as I was given and I would have loved more of Alex or Almeida or even Pennsatucky. As fun as Linda as an inmate was, that was an entire storyline I could have done without in the grand scheme. Brook’s grieving was super compelling and we barely got any time with her. 

This brings me to my secondary problem with season 5, which was the fact that a number of compelling stories and characters got lost in everything going on. Lorna got pregnant and doubted her sanity while playing fast and loose with everyone’s medications. Burset became a badass MacGyver style medic and then disappeared for the rest of the season when she could have been super useful to have around. Pennsatucky engaged in a consensual relationship with her rapist and somehow that wasn’t the most interesting thing going on. Bayley was having a straight up mental breakdown because of his role in Poussey’s death and it’s just a side story we get a glimpse of here and there. Instead of focusing on any of this, we spent a lot of screentime watching Caputo and Taystee negotiate with Figueroa. We followed Leanne and Angie around while they decreased our brain cells with their stupidity. We hung out with Red and Flores in an office for some reason. We watched Frieda and company smoke pot in a bunker because why the hell not? We watched Boo court Linda despite the fact that her friend Pennsatucky was clearly in need of some sort of support. We watched Piper walk around talking to people while Alex rolled her eyes (legit, that is the extent of their plot this season as far as I can tell).

Oh my God, that ending. Really?? You’re going to cram all the good stuff into the last 3 episodes and then end with a fucking cliffhanger? Not an earned one, either. This reminded me of the end of season 6 of The Walking Dead. Whatever impact the S.W.A.T. team storming into the bunker is going to have, they just cut it in half by making us wait a year to finish watching that fucking scene. I’m not a fan of that trick. So, they could kill off anyone in the bunker and they’re shipping the bulk of the cast elsewhere (“probably not max” is all we know). So, does this mean we’re going to be splitting our screen time between THREE different settings next season? Or does it mean virtually ALL of our beloved characters are being written out? Either way, it doesn’t look good.

All told, while this wasn’t a bad season, I felt like we were focusing on all the wrong things, and it slowed everything down while hurting the flow and momentum of the other stories. Not my favorite season by far.