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space-blue · 3 years ago

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@nylazor I shall do my best!!

It's a world co-designed/written by Hidetaka Miyazaki (the mind behind the whole souls/borne series) and G.R.R. Martin.

So in very short it's set in a place with a very fucked divinity system. When you arrive as the player, things have been going tits up for untold centuries, lots of big players locked in a stalemate, Demigods and other sus beings at each other's throats, in possession of fragments of power, but unable to conquer all.

That's your job. You come in to mow them all down and either fix the system or erase it and go for another one.

Whether you play the game or not, there's a lovely community that does amazing lore videos! I recommend this guy, these two, but the current "go to" for a complete story would be this video :

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But who are the puppers?

Well, there are three puppers, who all have somewhat unclear origins, more under the break, for your dash's sake!

Blaidd the Half Wolf, your average vanilla monster lover dream boy, who is a friendly NPC associated with a main quest...

Maliketh the Black Blade, who made so many gamers cry in the early days, it was glorious. He's not optional either, and a player who ranked all bosses in the game by difficulty rated him as toughest.

The last is Red Wolf of Radagon, with his sexy earrings... He knows magic. I'm not going to touch on him because I'm too uncertain.

The short of it is that the world of Elden Ring, a place called "The Lands Between", has been sort of invaded by a divinity. You can picture them as alien. They're "an outer god" with lovecraftian flavour, almost. There are several outer gods, and some characters follow others instead (a major no-no).

The god currently "ruling" the LB is called "The Greater Will" (TGW) and is never featured in the game. You only see their envoy/vessel, which is a big beast and one of the most gorgeous bosses I've ever seen. That beast came along with a seed, for the Erdtree, the pretty golden tree you see everywhere in the game. This is a source of power, and things get EXTREMELY HAZY lore-wise, so I'm going to skim and let the lore videos clarify that.

The envoy of TGW, the "Elden Beast" can't rule itself, and invested the powers of the "elden ring" into a woman, who rose to the position. She's called Queen Marika, and you may recognise her from the promo :

She IS the Elden Ring, literally. By *becoming* the Elden Ring (depicted as a set of magic-like runes) she became the local "god", but in effect is a vassal of TGW. Her children are the various demi-gods.

She had quite a few, not all as cute as the others!! They're the ones warring among themselves after the Elden Ring was shattered, and are in a stalemate when you start the game. Marika herself is nowhere to be seen.

How do the puppers come in? Well, Marika may be a "god", but she's under a fair bit of supervision. In order to ascend, she had to have a consort (the Elden Lord) and a "shadow". They're basically prerequisites.

Enter her half-brother, Maliketh! YES. They're apparently related lol Although... the lore can be very vague, and often leaves a lot for the imagination (or the DLC...) so is he adopted?? Or was Marika's mom a monster lover degenerate like us? Who knows.

Anyway, Maliketh became her "shadowbound beast", supposedly a sort of champion. However, they also server a darker (secret) purpose, unknown to them.

I have neglected to introduce a gross yet major player in this already mad political structure : the fingers.

They're LITERAL big, creepy ass FINGERS. They're the vassals of TGW, can apparently talk to it directly (though it takes thousands of years lol), and they meddle in decisions of succession and how the show is run down here in the LB.

They're the ones who "gave" Maliketh to Marika as a shadow.

They're said to have "created" Blaidd to gift to Ranni as well.

Radagon's Red Wolf is more uncertain (not even getting into this), but I guess he's also a shadowbound beast.

Why the darker purpose? Because if Marika, or Ranni, were to rebel against the Greater Will, their shadow would turn on them and kill them, the drive overriding their entire personality in the process. It's sad shit.

Who's Ranni, you ask, and why does she get a pupper? She's a type of being called an Empyrean, which qualifies her as replacement for the God job position. She was chosen by a set of fingers to one day replace Queen Marika, but didn't want that fate.

She SO didn't want it, she got into some serious shenanigans to get out of it, including killing her body, and kickstarting the events of the game.

What was going on?

Well, when Marika got into power and became the Elden Ring, she decided it was time for sweeeeeet immortality, baby! She plucked from the Elden Ring (aka, herself??) the rune of Death. She became "Queen Marika the Eternal" in the process.

She made it into a "black blade" and entrusted it to Maliketh, her shadow.

So if Maliketh hits you with that sword of his, he gives you a "Destined Death". Forever death of body and soul. No reincarnation. (You know, lore wise. He doesn't "game over" you for real, although it'd be MAD shit if he did lol).

However you have to realise, a lot of that lore is hidden in tiny little item descriptions! So the item that tells you about that, also tells you that Marika's "only use" for her shadow was as a holder for the rune of Death, and "even then, she betrayed him"

And I'm like... WHAT?? Hoooowww??? TELL ME MORE!!

But we don't know, not yet. That's a fun element, mind you. Different people have different understandings of the lore, also because they haven't found all the items they could! The soulsborne series basically turns its players into archaeologists, and it's both a blessing and a curse for fic writers, for obvious reasons. My fun theory today can be "wrong" tomorrow when someone rocks up with a fucking rusty spoon with an item description that brings in new lore!

Basically, what went down is explained in the lore videos far better than I could, but the short of it is that Ranni REALLY didn't want to be the local "god", aka "slave" of TGW, and in order to escape her fate, she had to "discard" her flesh.

So she stole a fragment of the rune of Death from Maliketh (emphasis on stole, he's insanely OP and she couldn't take him one on one), and with this fragment, got involved into a plot to craft a set of black knives, imbued with Destined Death.

It's extremely unclear if Marika was involved, as the knives were given to assassins who were all women of the same origin as herself, and she was up to some really dicey stuff that smell like a long con...

What we know for certain is that on the same night, Ranni kills her flesh, and simultaneously, the assassins killed Marika's firstborn son, a demigod called Godwyn the golden.

This dual, simultaneous strike was necessary, as it "split" the rune of Death's power into two : it killed Ranni's flesh, but not her soul, and killed Godwyn's soul, but not his body.

If a demigod had not been killed, Ranni would have taken the full brunt of Death and died in body and soul.

Godwyn's death is one of the most disturbing cutscenes in gaming history...

He becomes "the Prince of Death". Major yikes.

Was Marika involved? Was she grief stricken? We don't know. Some sources say she was, but there's a TON of unreliable narrators in the game, and people will tell you stuff they believe but don't know for sure, or straight up lie to you!!

What we do know is that she shattered the Elden Ring (aka herself. When you see her body, she's all broken and fucked up), and as a result of this treachery was imprisoned within the Erdtree.

And her pupper? Maliketh? He went pretty apeshit.

After Death was stolen from him, he sealed the remainder into his own flesh (can't be healthy) so it couldn't be taken from him again. After Marika betrays TGW by shattering the Elden Ring... We don't know, but we can assume Maliketh went insane.

When we meet him in the game, "an age" has passed. Over a thousand years, during which Marika's kids fought over the runes/fragments of the Elden Ring. They were all deemed traitors basically, and lost their "grace", aka, support from TGW. You're actively encouraged to hunt them down and kill them to get their runes (that's... the goal of the game).

Maliketh is in hiding as a clergyman called Gurranq. He's clearly a bit deranged, roars in the night, and begs you to feed him "deathroot", like eating the by-products of that death leakage would somehow help... (it does, kinda, he grows more lucid the more you give him).

But then you confront Gurranq and realise, through his major mid-fight glow-up, that he's in fact Maliketh, and that depending on your level and character set up, you might be here a while lmao.

In the end, it seems like he's aware that Marika betrayed him in some way, but he's also very apologetic and guilt-ridden. This whole time he's remained loyal despite the madness. He still wants the Golden Order to be restored... But as far as we know, it doesn't seem to be something Marika wants.

It looks a LOT like she kept him in the dark and plotted behind everyone's back.

Blaidd, the other shadowbound beast, is also victim of a tragic storyline. It's not good to be a shadow to busy-body godling women. :-/

Although this fight with Maliketh is incredible, I really enjoy people who fight him with a friend or a summon, because you get to see his super cool moves from afar when is attention isn't on the player.

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A large part of his charm is how dope he looks, and how mesmerizing he is in his movements. He caught my eye in the original gameplay trailer, and just captivated me from that video. I picked up all the lore I know solely in my quest to understand Maliketh's story, and the world just became fascinating.

There's a lot to it, and it's really cool that it lends itself to videos you can enjoy from the comfort of your armchair, even if you can't play the game yourself.

I hope this helped, but I can't stress enough how much watching the videos will help. I've completely skipped a LOT of the lore here to focus on the puppers, but the vids will give you a more rounded overview of the world!

Recs time :

At the time of writing I'm the sole English author for Maliketh. For Always is Maliketh x Reader 9but not player character!) and Little Brother is a one shot looking at Blaidd meeting Maliketh as a very young shadow fresh from his training.

For more Blaidd content, I recommend Have You Tried Dying Less? by Shirokoi. Sounds super promising and is from the POV of Blaidd. Really enjoy his voice.

Beyond the puppers, but still in the realm of monster fucking, The Golden Hour by Tanatanas is very well written. Morgott x Tarnished.

And I had a MAD blast reading Five More Minutes Please by The Third Iteration, which is under 300 words and is reader x Godrick the Grafted.

Redmane by Pearl Slug forcuses on a Tarnished reader x Radahn, where the reader remembers the past relationship as they fight. Kinda bitter sweet and tragic, very cool.

I'm sure there's a ton of great pupper fics out there... Well, clearly not for Maliketh, but MAYBE one day someone else will join me in that corner lmao. Blaidd is popular though, so you can find stuff for him, I'm sure. He's in about 30 fics in English.

Yeah. tiny fandom galore.

#elden ring #elden ring lore #blaidd the half wolf #maliketh the black blade #Queen marika #red wolf of radagon #PUPPERS #please don't skewer me for subpar lore retelling #this is a very vague overview #shadowbound beasts #Youtube

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tolkiengenweek · 2 years ago

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TGW 2023 is ON

Hi friends,

I am SO sorry that I've been MIA in these crucial weeks before the event. Real life has had me in a death grip, but I'm finally free for the summer, and I want to assure everyone that TGW 2023 is still happening!

Tolkien Gen Week will run July 3-9, 2023!

The prompts are the same as last year's!

I will have official, pretty promo posts up ASAP (tomorrow or the next day, probably) - but here's your heads up!!

Thank you for your patience! And happy creating!

#silm #silmarillion #tolkien #lotr #lord of the rings #the hobbit #2023 #mod post

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personinthepalace · 3 years ago

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2 MORE HOURS

Goes Wrong Show S2 promotional posts

#it’s almost here!!!#tgws cast #summer once again #mischief theatre #mischief comedy #the goes wrong show #the goes wrong show series 2 #tgws promo #tgws photos #henry shields instagram #henry lewis instagram #bryony corrigan instagram #chris leask instagram #greg tannahill instagram #nancy zamit instagram #charlie russell instagram

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arofili · 5 years ago

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ok now that i’ve tagged half the tolkien fandom in the tgw promo post i think i can take a break, lmao i hope im not annoying i just want ppl to participate if they’re interested

#next promo post isn't for another month; then one a week before and the day before;#that's reasonable right??#tmi anna

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florrickandassociates · 5 years ago

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TGF Thoughts: 3x09-- The One Where The Sun Comes Out

This episode was way more engaging than the last. I talk a lot about Maia in this one; the writers finally figured out how to use her!

Reasons I shouldn’t write recaps after a year without seeing an episode: I forget basic stuff, like that it rained for all of season 3. You know, because ATMOSPHERE and WEIRDNESS and QUIRK. And SYMBOLISM. Can’t forget symbolism.

To be fair to the writers, it did rain a lot last year. All I remember about the month of June is rain. They predict everything.

Maia’s new job at a call center (I can’t recall if we’d seen her at the call center before this episode) is something she takes very seriously. Just kidding. She acts disdainful towards anyone who dares ask for her help and then hangs up on them. On one hand, this seems like a terrible job so I get her “fuck it all” attitude. On the other, she’s being suuuuuper bratty.

Right. I refreshed my memory. We did see Maia at this job in an earlier episode.

Consult-a-Lawyer is where all the LGwhatever rejects go. Sounds miserable.

Blum walks in, and Maia makes a, “Oh God, THIS asshole” face. Coincidentally, this is also the face I’m making as I realize I’m going to have to listen to this loud man I had blocked from my mind yell obscene things for two more episodes.

Blum wants to hire Maia. She agrees, as does her friend Lili. I believe Maia has other choices (remember how she turned down Diane’s offers to help when they weren’t exactly what she wanted?) but also, yeah, I’d want to get the hell out of Consult-a-Lawyer too.

Now it is hailing. Everyone from RBL is in blue. Remember those picspams we all used to make where we’d oversaturate the background to make everything blue? I wouldn’t need to oversaturate this image to make the blue pop.

I truly don’t understand why the main page of All Access thinks I am in the middle of some random season 2 episode when I am clearly in the middle of 3x09. When I click on the show, it understands that I’m in the middle of 3x09 and allows me to resume watching. Why wouldn’t you optimize your homepage to encourage people to keep watching!? (All Access isn’t alone in this: HBO Go also makes it very hard to figure out where I left off when watching a series.)

So, because Carl Reddick was a sexual harasser and RBL covered it up, ChumHum is insisting on an internal investigation, led by a woman who is-- you guessed it-- quirky. And even worse, it’s one of the quirks that’s actually not funny because it’s a real condition people live with?? How are we still doing this, show?

This is RBL’s best year ever. Yay! I forget if that tracks with anything we’ve seen. I guess the existence of ChumHum alone is enough to make that true.

Oh NO, Book Club is in this one too!? Liz, wisely, says she’s done and refuses to go with Diane.

Maia tells Blum no, she won’t work with him. She thought he was rescuing her from hell, but he’s really “dragging her down deeper.” This is accurate. Maia may not be the smartest character on this show, but she’s got her eyes wide open when she works with Blum.

Blum wants to work with Maia (duh) because her father is a piece of shit respected by other pieces of shit. This checks out. This is quite logical, tbh.

Maia requires very little convincing. This is not because she is in such a hard spot she has no other options. This is because she is bored and hates the world because she didn’t get her way and had to deal with consequences. It took very little to turn Maia from an innocent to a villain. Perhaps that’s because she was always complicit. (If you’re 26 and went to law school and you can’t understand privilege even on the most basic level, it’s because you’ve been tuning out everything that challenges you.)

Maia seems way more confident now. She’s SO much more fascinating as a villain than as a protagonist, likely because even when she was the protagonist everything she did was so selfish it was hard not to see her as a villain. Props to the writers for recognizing that and leaning into it. They don’t explicitly tie her actions here to her actions at the start of the series, but this only works because Maia’s always been one slight away from going bad.

And yes, I think villain is the appropriate word for someone money hungry and willing to work, no questions asked, with someone as slimy as Blum.

Maia hires her friend Lili to help out, which, admittedly, is a nice thing for someone I just called a villain to do.

After further “messages” from the con artist who started Book Club, the Book Clubbers want to SWAT someone. This sounds fucking terrifying. Diane pushes back and the rest of Book Club is totally ok with this strategy.

So Diane reveals that Valerie’s a con artist and it causes squabbling. It somehow backfires because people believe the woman claiming to have a message from Valerie. Even the one who can do all the IT things--the one who could very easily (by show logic at least) just simply look up the records and phone numbers herself-- believes her.

Is a big group setting really the way internal investigations are done? I’m no expert, but this feels like a bad approach!!

Marissa doesn’t think the firm has racial issues! Ha ha. She thinks the racial pay gap issues are totally resolved because the associates got raises. As much as I want to believe someone as savvy as Marissa wouldn’t think like this… I kinda believe it.

Lili also seems kind of terrible, like someone who can’t wait to go on a power trip and fuck over every person who has ever said anything mean to her.

Oh goodie, we’re talking about sexism now. I appreciate that they’ve featured a few associates over the course of season three. I don’t remember their names since I last watched these episodes a year ago, but I remember that they’ve been in several episodes. I hope to see them in season four, and to learn their names.

Someone says men weren’t considered to head up Lucca’s department. This is blatantly false. Also, idk what these other associates can do, but Lucca’s proven herself to be adaptable, smart, and someone who can go above and beyond. Plus, she is someone who is out for herself, with tons of career options. She’s someone you want at your firm.

The female named partners are biased against men, says a (you guessed it!) male associate. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahhahaha no.

Marissa calls the associate out on this, and another (female) associate steps in to say she’s in no place to talk since she’s stealing Jay’s job. If it didn’t seem like there was room for both of them, this would be true.

In a move I appreciate, the mailroom employees are also in this scene, talking about how they didn’t receive any bonuses to correct for the pay gap because of their class. When one of the associates says they didn’t receive a bonus because of race, a mailroom guy calls her out for not knowing his name.

And then it devolves, as so many of these scenes do, into people talking over each other.

While I like that they address these issues so often on this show, I don’t think “inequalities are controversial and there’s no solution so here are people talking over each other” is the best approach. Sure, I can appreciate different points, and I don’t need the show to tell me how to think, but at this point I think the show needs more of a POV on this. It feels, too often, like they’re saying “Controversy! Huh!”

Marissa goes to Liz and mentions the other women Carl Reddick assaulted. Liz, understandably, hasn’t looked at the files Marissa gave her. She says she will but asks Marissa to keep quiet around the investigator. So sounds like she doesn’t intend to do anything.

Oh no. Is this the ep with the retcon where Liz and Adrian actually did hook up!? And put it in work emails!? All I have to say about this is that it’s a bad decision. Sometimes the writers get so close to making a bad decision and then walk it back enough so that I can relax, and then bring it back later, for no reason. It’s even worse that way, because by that point I’ve already formed a strong opinion about it happening. The moment that set me off the most in TGW was when Alicia and Peter agreed to renew their vows at the end of 421, followed by a commercial break, followed by a promo with Alicia kissing Will. I HATED the love triangle at that time. I mean HATED. That commercial break allowed me to relax into the idea that the writers had ended the love triangle. The promo shattered that idea, and, in turn, I slammed my computer shut so hard it nearly broke. That is not a feeling I like. That is the feeling that learning Liz and Adrian fucked gives me.

NOT EVERYONE HAS TO SLEEP WITH EVERYONE. IT IS SOMETIMES MORE INTERESTING WITHOUT THE ILLICIT AFFAIRS. THERE ARE MORE INTERESTING WAYS THAN HOOKUPS TO ADDRESS THAT THEY USED TO BE MARRIED. For starters, can we get an episode where Liz calls Adrian out on the condescending voice he’s always using when he talks to her?

Oh yes, this is also perjury. Why. Why is this happening? Why would Liz and Adrian admit this to an investigator knowing damn well they lied under oath, and also, why would they lie under oath? I know we saw it happen but was it really worth two partners perjuring themselves bc they fucked their ex???

When the stakes are high for no reason (or for a stupid reason) it doesn’t maximize drama. It just makes me tune out the drama. If I believed Liz and Adrian had a good reason to perjure themselves, maybe I’d care about this. Maybe they did. But the fact I don’t remember it-- and I’m someone who can name every single episode title of TGW in order-- suggests to me it wasn’t a good enough reason.

Liz goes to shred the file with the rest of the info on her father’s victims. See, this is a bad choice that I understand. It’s her father’s legacy and her firm’s future, and she has all the power right now. It could come back to bite her, but I get why she takes this risk. I get why this situation is fraught.

Credits time!!!

Maia’s also decided to dress like a Bad Girl. She is trying VERY hard. But she’s pulling it off. She’s speaking without hesitation and actually taking an active role in getting things done. It speaks volumes about her character that the first time she’s been motivated about anything work related, it’s something morally bankrupt.

Apparently the black and white associates are sitting apart from each other. Julius says it’s not intentional; there’s a hot desk system. That held up well.

LMAO people think Julius and Marissa are sleeping together. Julius does a spit take-- the appropriate reaction.

“You’re really a Rindell?” a potential client asks Maia. “Raised at his knee. Taught me everything he knows,” Maia says proudly, displaying a framed picture of her and her father. I’ve said it like five times already but it’s SO dark that Maia would use this to her advantage. We’ve seen some opportunistic shit on TGW/TGF but Maia gets so shameless, so fast, with no remorse. Damn.

RBL is trying to disbar Blum. He doesn’t care. He tells Maia to take care of it and to use the allegations (which she doesn’t realize are real) against Carl to make it go away.

Diane is talking to a computer. I’m over all the Diane plots.

Liz is glad the Book Club is still fighting even if she’s not involved, which is the stance it always made the most sense for Liz to have.

Diane allows Book Club to proceed with their latest scheme because she finds the dude they’re targeting deplorable. If this plot didn’t involve Book Club I’d find it to be an interesting moral dilemma.

An actually interesting dilemma: Liz informs Marissa she will not be disclosing the names of any additional victims. Marissa clearly thinks this is the wrong call but keeps her mouth shut. An unusual amount of restraint for her.

Maia and Marissa are still friends! Is this the episode with the bizarre Maia/Marissa kiss that I still don’t understand the point of?

Marissa divulges info about the firm’s Reddick drama to Maia, which is uncharacteristically stupid of Marissa. But there’s no bridge Maia isn’t willing to blow up to help Blum. She’s prying and manipulating a friend who faked a drug test for her and got her through the worst time in her life so she can prop up a mean, cruel man. There are other paths for Maia. I want to be absolutely clear that I think she is choosing this one because things got the slightest bit challenging for her.

Maia realizes what she’s doing and stops herself saying she has to go because “everything we talk about from now on, you’re gonna blame me for.” And rightfully so!

OH, the kiss is because Maia is acknowledging she’s fucking over their frendship, isn’t it? Earlier they’re about to drunkenly kiss and one of them talks about not fucking friends they don’t want to fuck up the friendship. So the kiss is fucking over the friendship. Or maybe it’s just a kiss.

“You’re gonna hate me. Just remember, this has nothing to do with us,” Maia says. Ha, I believe this less than I believe Alicia’s “this was never meant personally” in 5x05. (Hitting the Fan isn’t a bad comparison here, since Alicia does make a choice to fuck over friends when she has the choice to not fuck over friends. I think what makes that “gray” for me while this is villain territory for Maia is how fast this happens. Alicia’s taking the clients whose accounts SHE has sustained, and starting a firm she truly believes will be better (for herself, as a company, for her family). It’s a selfish decision. Her options aren’t reduced all that much either (she’s the governor’s wife, if she wants to leave her firm she could go anywhere). But I can see her side, I can see how fraught the choice was for her, I can see how the way things played out made the tensions worse. Maia burns her friendships to the ground so she can work with a loathsome man because the opportunity fell into her lap while she was hating the world too much to do anything productive with her life.

Maia’s crying in the office when Blum finds her. She knows what she’s about to do. She’s sad she’s going to do it, but she knows she’s going to do it. I don’t think she considers, for a moment, not fucking over Marissa. As soon as Marissa gives her the intel (which, no matter what Maia says, she was totally fishing for), Maia’s mind is made up. Does it make it better if she cries about it?

And Maia KNOWS it is a betrayal. She says she knows “a friend will interpret it as a betrayal” because she knows it is one. She tells Blum she doesn’t know if it’s a betrayal because “I’ve lost track these days” (that line sounds surprisingly Alicia-esque) and tells him what she knows. That’s one of those questions that if you have to ask, you know the answer.

Thought experiment: Would it be a betrayal if Maia were an activist who wanted to get the word out about an abuser? I think a lot of why I react so harshly towards Maia’s choice here is that (1) she sees it as a foregone conclusion that she’ll use the info and (2) she is using it to help Blum. Blum isn’t shades of gray (50 shades of gray joke here). He is despicable. He isn’t morally ambiguous and you can’t even say his ends justify his means because his ends are despicable too!

Ah, a scene I won’t have much to say about. It’s going to be Blum on his bullshit.

Oh, I do have something to say, but it’s a sad thing. Mark Blum, the actor playing ACDB lawyer Julius Kreutzer in this scene, sadly passed away from COVID-19 last week.

Roland Blum representing sexual assault survivors to fuck over a rival law firm makes me sad.

Marissa does, in fact, interpret Maia’s actions as a betrayal. She calls her immediately and asks, “you fucked me over?” “Not intentionally,” Maia says. Oh, own it. You knew the moment she said it what you were going to do; this was an intentional action with an inconvenient consequence.

The partners find out, thanks to Blum, that Julius is going to be a federal judge. And they are not happy.

More talking over each other! Cultural appropriation has entered the mix of complaints. Lucca decides to intervene by going to the partners about the new seating plan. And this is why Lucca, and not that associate, is heading up a department. She knows when to go to management and isn’t wasting her own time in these squabbles. (Tbh, Lucca recognizing that bickering with no resolution in sight isn’t productive makes me wonder if the writers have more of a POV than I’m giving them credit for. Maybe they’re trying to say that talking over each other is futile and aggravating.)

Why the hell does this investigator want to integrate the mailroom by firing black people so they can hire more white people?! Setting aside for a minute that that is a profoundly stupid idea, that can’t possibly be legal, can it???

RBL decides that, backed into a corner, it’s time to just own up to their wrongdoings. It works with the ACDB, at least until Blum brings Maia into things.

Book Club kills someone. I truly don’t know how to feel about Diane having literal blood on her hands. This scene should be way more dramatic than it feels. This is the problem with having stakes too big for the show. Instead of getting invested, I write off the far-fetched plots, and I can’t really care about character drama that stems from something so over the top I don’t believe it.

Diane thinks Book Club didn’t want the guy dead. What about this group that was working to hack voting machines suggested that they wanted him to live????

Liz says Diane has to report them, but Diane worries she’s implicated. Who could have imagined that working with crime-loving resistance group would have legal ramifications?! It’s not like Diane and Liz are lawyers or anything.

Liz thinks Diane needs to convince Book Club that everything they’re doing is because of a con artist, but that’s a solution to a different problem. Diane knew Valerie was a con artist and still pushed forward with Book Club because she was committed to the cause. Why would any of these other women abandon the group at this point? What difference does it make if Valerie is a liar.

Shock of all shocks, Book Club is planning their next attack. It’s almost like they are a group of criminals who meet in shady spaces at odd hours. The time to be noble about this shit was weeks ago, Diane and Liz. You’re complicit. What did you think you were getting into?

Book Club does not like that Kurt is conservative. Diane gets mad and basically threatens them.

“You two are just as culpable,” one of the Book Clubbers says. She’s not wrong. Maybe not JUST as culpable, but culpable for sure. It’s possible that I just don’t want to see Diane and Liz be culpable for things this atrocious and stupid so I resent this plotline. (That said, to go back to Hitting the Fan as an example of a character I love doing a thing that is morally questionable at best, I can accept my faves doing things I don’t like. There’s something about the scale of Book Club’s actions vs the scale of the show that feels off.)

“The truth is what you make it,” Blum tells Maia. A familiar lesson for this show.

!!!!!!!! Is CBS reading my unpublished word doc?! Because today All Access understands that I am watching 3x09.

It’s also updated the key art for TGF to the season 4 image, which says “What is memo 618” in larger font than the show’s title. I am sure I will come to care about memo 618; however, it doesn’t make me want to watch the show or tell me anything about the show, so I don’t get why it’s on the poster.

ALSO there is no question mark on the image so that’s gonna drive me just a little crazy.

Blum manipulates Maia by telling her she shouldn’t let anyone control her. Maia doesn’t agree to help him; she heads home instead.

Liz and Adrian talk about sleeping together. They had previously said it was a mistake, but Adrian wants to reopen the discussion. All Liz wants is privacy.

Adrian then asks her if she regrets “fucking”. Yes, he says fucking. Those are his words. Liz is like, what do you want to hear? And it breaks up the tension of the moment. THAT is more compelling to me than all the perjury stuff. (Also, neither of them regret it.)

I don’t think I have a problem with them sleeping together… just a problem with it happening off-screen (I don’t need a sex scene-- just want to know how they got there!), being retconned, and then being used to create drama. If they want to hook up, go for it.

Oh, look, it’s a stock footage shot of the outdoors. Busy streets? People walking around? Seems fake.

The stock footage is to show that the rain has stopped, btw. It just feels like it’s designed to taunt me with the idea of public parks and bustling streets.

The ChumHum report is out and the partners look very! Serious! But Liz and Adrian are in the clear.

The investigator basically just finds the firm grew too fast and that’s their only real issue. The Carl Reddick issue will hurt, but it’s survivable.

But they’re still losing ChumHum. They were always going to lose ChumHum. Diane goes outside to enjoy the good weather while she can.

Maia doesn’t show and Blum gets disbarred. It’s fun to watch him squirm, having just lost his power. He rambles nonsensically.

Maybe Maia isn’t a villain. I truly don’t remember this scene happening; I thought I remembered her showing up to defend him! Score one, Maia. This episode is the most interesting Maia’s ever been.

I also don’t remember Diane singing on a park bench. But I like it!

Book Club is threatening Diane now. They’ll destroy her (or kill her?) if she tells on them. Dramatic!!!

#the good fight #tgfthoughts #yall i had to actually spend time THINKING about why maia's choices come across differently than similar choices by other characters #a maia plot made me think about something other than how little she works!! truly incredible

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personinthepalace · 3 years ago

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Promo Photos from The Goes Wrong Show S2E1: Summer Once Again

From Mischief’s twitter and instagram

#poor dennis is being abused with cake and drinks haha #max is giving me harper’s locket vibes haha #so excited to see this while I try to run btwn lab and classes lol #the goes wrong show spoilers #the goes wrong show series 2 #the goes wrong show #summer once again #tgws promo #tgws photos #mischief theatre #mischief comedy #posting in the palace

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365daysofmchart · 6 years ago

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Reflecting on McHart: 3x01

Long time no see! But just thought I’d make some little (as it turns out) incredibly lengthy remarks about McHart-related things that stood out to me in the season 3 premiere of The Good Fight! May or may not do more of these throughout the season--let me know if you’re feelin’ it. Obviously 3x01 spoilers below!

1. Them holding hands, (and her leg slung over him which we couldn’t really see in the scene but did in the promo) and THAT CHIN GRAB, and him indulging her, oh my! (BUT WHY WOULD HE TEMPT FATE LIKE THAT SAYING “WHAT COULD GO WRONG?” DAMN IT, KURT!)

2. I had been planning to make a clever remark about how I had so been looking forward to seeing what a home/bedroom that was truly both of theirs would look like... and then (once seeing it in the promo/promo pics) that apparently it looks exactly like a Diane bedroom, lol (which is sweet in it’s own right too, I suppose, him just letting her run with it... or perhaps her insisting they do it together but then she vetos like 95% of his ideas so then he just gives up). But then I saw the gun case with more than a dozen firearms in it so actually a Diane/Kurt bedroom seems to be a Diane bedroom with an abundance of guns. ...Which honestly kind of surprises me, especially given that they’re not really locked away. Wondering how those negotiations went between the two of them. ...Are the guns in the bedroom going to become relevant in a later episode??? So many questions.

But anyway, further on their bedroom, THAT THING IS FREAKING MASSIVE. I know that they want it to function as sort of a catch-all space for the season so that they can get away with shooting every single McHart home scene in that one space and so it has to serve a lot of functions, but good lord, I think an entire apartment could fit in there? And HOW MUCH SEATING DO THEY NEED? They’ve got enough for--no exaggeration--more than ten in there. That’s insane. Are they planning to have a freaking soiree in there??? HA! ...It is gorgeous though, props to Beth!

3. The domesticity of their morning! He’s shaving (with a shaving brush OF COURSE and probably a straight razor) in a towel in the bathroom and her unpacking his stuff as they talk (or holler, rather) back and forth, just kind of hanging out while doing their own things to get ready for the day. THEY’RE MARRIED. My heart! 4. Diane’s increased knowledge of his guns and his preferences despite the fact that he has probably like 50 of them. How much time does he spend talking about guns and she sits there and lets him and listens, probably mostly because she just loves watching him in his element... and also because THEY’RE MARRIED and idk, I guess you do stuff like listening to your spouse talk about things you’re maybe not totally into when you’re married?

5. He called her (at work vs. her cell) while she was on her way to work, after she had just left him, but we never find out why. WHY???

6.HER HELPING HIM PACK. Ans it’s because she “saw airplane tickets on our account.” On “OUR ACCOUNT.” Something tells me they hadn’t merged much of anything before (including their lives), but they have now and it warms my heart!

7. I actually love the way they handled the hairs/her suspicions.To start with, I think it’s natural that after everything, even if they have moved forward and are starting over, even if she has worked though everything and trusts him, I think it’s perfectly realistic that certain feelings might creep up given certain circumstances. Of course exploring this in the show could’ve easily gotten into “drama for the sake of drama” territory and been incredibly messy and destructive, but it wasn’t.

She wasn’t looking for reasons to be jealous, wasn’t looking to catch him in a trap--they honestly were “just there.” She then handled it so well, asking him reasonable questions, went on with her day, then maturely confronted him about it at home that night. (And honestly, I don’t think she actually thought he cheated, just that he was hiding something perhaps a little less than seemly that had to do with one of his “Fox blonds.”) And then when she does approach him about it, she starts by telling him she loves him! She’s diving into this situation knowing it could be messy/hurtful but wants to preface with an “I love you” cause they are so IN THIS. Oh, also, ya know, he was being dishonest with her/lying to her, so her suspicions were totally valid. ...And on that note, DID KURT REALLY NOT LEARN HIS LESSON ON BEING HONEST WITH HER?!?!? Like he’s the most honest guy with literally e-ver-y-one else... but his wife. I think it just comes from loving her and not wanting to upset/hurt/lose her, but COME ON, MAN.

8. “I’m being paid. I don’t have a job, I’m hiring myself out...” “They pay me, Diane; it’s money. I’m not doing it because I like them!” “I’m being paid! I’m working!” That. Job. Though. His excuses are such a cop out because they obviously don’t need the money by any means. But I think it really speaks to Kurt and his pride--he loves his wife dearly, loves her strength, will always support her and is genuinely okay with her being the primary breadwinner. ...But he also still feels the need to pull his weight--to have a purpose and to contribute something financially. To “be a man.” (But again, as much as he may feel the need to play a traditional male gender role, he also has zero expectations that Diane do the same!) Because he could always volunteer in some way, take on smaller jobs, wait for the right long-term, paying position... but he’s taken that one. Because pride (which apparently trumps integrity? LOL!). (Throwback to season 2 of TGW!) Oh, Kurt... BUT ALSO SHE SEEMS TO GET THAT, because yes, she’s definitely upset about it and judges him for it, but she doesn’t even begin to try to talk him out of it, just, “Nope, you’re right. You have to do what you have to do.” She knows it’s important to him and respects that it’s something he feels he has to do! (They’ve come so far from 5x06!) As he respects that she has to do what she has to do. Like she just walks out on some kind of vague mission and he just stands there, a little confused, but like, “...Okay? Well, you do you, I guess. I’ll be here.”

9. THEIR TEASING, I LOVE IT SO MUUUUUCH. Honestly it’s been so long since we’ve seen them relaxed and playful together that it almost felt out of character for Diane for a hot minute and then I thought back and was like, “oh yeah, never mind, this is just what they’re like together when they’re not being put through the wringer by the writers!” Gasp! ...But like oh my God, they’re so freaking cute and yes please I’ll take more wise-cracking-sarcastic-sasshole Diane EVERY EPISODE, PLEASE!!! And let’s be honest, Kurt loves it. He looks at her with heart eyes and that little smirk that he can’t quite master because he’s just so in love with her even especially when she teases him. But then “Come on, come on. A little hug, please.” Like it’s not even a kiss or sexual in any way, she’s just missed him and just wants to embrace him for a moment. And given their history in regards to physical intimacy and that we can be quite certain that their sex life is still plenty vibrant, I think that a hug actually means more than tearing into each other, you know? They’ve always had that physical draw, the hug is more a product of an emotional one. (THOUGH I WOULD HAVE ZERO COMPLAINTS ABOUT THEM TEARING INTO EACH OTHER) And then, from the slightest wince she knows something is wrong and presses him on it!

10. The entirety of the “They shot you!” scene was pure GOLD. Every line, every delivery. And then her concern followed by her frantic ire and demand to know who did it, and his trying to calm her but then getting riled himself... UGH. I love it. All of it. Every bit of it. But especially... (And some lines I’ve highlighted at the bottom!)

11. Idk, but I just really love when he shows her the ointment? It just feels SO [OLD?] MARRIED COUPLE. Like, “Yeah, I did go to the hospital and they gave me this stuff to put on it, see? Here it is. Do you want to look at it?” (And her just automatically taking it from his hand!) Honestly I clearly can’t adequately put words to why this in particular stands out to me, but it just gets me every freaking time.

12. Moment of appreciation for their bathroom (the one room that’s actually lit properly, lol) and alllll of her products and their matching toothbrushes in the middle, then that lil red car on his side (’cause they have sides, guys!). Dying to see their bedroom reasonably well lit at some point during the season (we hope) to see more of these little details! (...Also why are their towels hanging in their washroom area where it would appear that there is only a toilet???)

13. “You’re not fit to kiss my husband’s feet--a truthful man, uncomplaining, never passing the buck, never punching unless he’s punched. When did he become the exception?” After everything, after it all, after the lies and the hurt, she still believes that this man is the greatest man to walk this earth. Perhaps she now knows that he’s not perfect... but I think she believes he’s the closest any man will get. She just loves him SO. DAMN. MUCH. And then just gently resting her arm over his waist while careful to keep her distance from his wound cause she just wants needs that connection... I CAN’T WITH THEMMMMM.

14. Also, ummm... can we please get shirtless Kurt in 3 scenes in every episode??? 15. Diane uttered like 2 “husband”s, 2 “wife”s, and one “married” in this single episode... clearly the writers are as committed to defining them as MARRIED AF as we are.

And just a few other lines that stood out to me:

“I’m happy. ...Am I ridiculous?” “You like narrating your life.”

“But mean it.”

“...And it reeked of cologne, or mousse, or something, and I know that you’d rather die than use girly products...”

“...Then which of you Fox blonds is it?” (”Fox” did not sound like “Fox” upon my first watch/listen, haha!)

“You call him Eric?” “Oh, God...”

“DIANE, you’re scaring me!”

“My God, my poor husband. What have they done to you?”

“That’s why they delayed the trip, they SHOT you!”

“I can do the ointment.” “No you can’t!”

“The most important person in my life...”

Alright, as per usual I got ENTIRELY carried away, but anyway there ya go. Hope at least one of you gets amusement out of it, lol! And feel free to comment/"Ask” your own thoughts!

Happy “More McHart is only 25 hours away!” -E

#McHart #diane x kurt #diane lockhart #kurt mcveigh #The Good Fight #I LOVE MY MARRIED AF SHIP #it took so long and we went through so much but my got is it good right now!#also though why am I like thissssss #why do I always get SO carried away I hate myself #it was just supposed to be little blurbs!#I mean good God I barely even finished in time before the new episode!#anyway more married babes sooooon #thanks for putting up with me everyone!#reflecting on mchart

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mchartforever · 7 years ago

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McHart thoughts (The Good Fight 2x8)

I haven’t posted anything on here for almost a year (for reasons that shall not be named), but I’m still alive, I still ship McHart, I still watch The Good Fight, I still write fanfics (well I’m working on one regularly, and have plans for another unfinished one) and I still plan to make at least one McHart video when the season is over (or sooner, who knows, we shall see). I will also definitely prepare the Diane Lockhart Survey again, which I’m very excited about, since a lot has been going on with her this season. So stay tuned for that as well. I’ll ask you for questions for the survey as usual, so you can already start taking notes, even though there are still 5 episodes left of this season.

I should have written my short reviews on each episode of TGF, like I did last season. Maybe it’s pointless now, but I definitely want to write about today’s episode. So here it goes...

We finally got an episode with the focus on McHart. (Because how disappointing was 2x4, even if I loved that scene at the end between them.) The promo was already mind-blowing, then we got the sneak peek. When I first saw the promo I had the impression it suggested that Kurt and Holly are still sleeping together, then in the episode we found out that they just had a drink once or more than once (depending on who we believe). So I guess it was better than I’d expected.

Then we also knew from the promo that Diane would sleep with the jerk again. (His name sounds ridiculous, plus he’s been a jerk from the beginning, so I stand by this nickname.) We just didn’t know what would trigger it, after the way she’d gotten rid of him in the previous episode. Then we assumed it was because of Holly, but in the end we saw it was because of the fight with Kurt. I gave her a free pass the first time because of the drugs, I’m not sure how I feel about this time. I mean she slept with him in the same bed she’d slept with Kurt two nights before. But she’s come to her senses, and I got the one thing from this episode I really wanted, that the jerk is gone. Finally!

Another thing I hoped we would get from this episode is a timeline for the affair (relationship?), but of course we didn’t get it. At this point I don’t think even the writers know when that really happened. (They are welcome to prove me wrong anytime though.)

We did get an answer to another question though, clearly Diane and Kurt haven’t moved in together since 2x4 and that’s perfectly fine under the circumstances. Not to mention he doesn’t even have a key to her apartment. (Considering he saw the jerk there, it’s probably for the best, would have gotten awkward.) I think it’s safe to assume he suspected something was going on between them, judged by the look on his face when he saw them in her office. But he still called her later, so he still thinks he owes her an explanation after their fight and that court scene.

The fight scene was amazing! (Couldn’t help having flashbacks to that Diane/Will fight in another conference room though.) First, I was angry at Kurt too for trying to protect Holly, but he’s just being himself. When Diane asked him to do it for her, I had to remember what happened the last time she’d asked him that in TGW. So it was a smart decision, even though Diane was unable to accept it. Not to mention she was hurt because of Holly’s testimony and didn’t even want to hear him out. He tried to explain, so I assume there is an explanation, that he ran into her and was just being polite. But I get where Diane was coming from, she felt like he made a fool of her once again and she told him that he lied. Now this is where I got confused, what was she referring to? Maybe once he promised never to see Holly again, yet he did. Who knows really. I felt so sorry for Diane after that scene that I was blaming Kurt, but tbh I’d rather just blame Holly.

I was waiting until the last scene for some resolution, but of course we never got it. I couldn’t even say I was surprised, and it also made sense that she didn’t call him back right away. She needs time, she needs more clarity. She needs to make up her mind about them, but for that she needs to hear him out. And for all of this to happen she needs to get off those drugs. She is a strong woman, she can do it. But I’m afraid she might end up worse and if she never calls Kurt, we might only see him again when something happens to Diane. Either because of the drugs, or the threats, anything can happen.

I realize these are just random thoughts, I don’t even know what was my reason for writing or posting them. I guess I just want to see as clearly as possible, to maybe even write another canon fic at some point.

Also it would help a lot to know if Gary will be back again this season. I really hope he will be.

#mchart #the good fight #diane lockhart #kurt mcveigh

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