#the themes of found family and the emphasis on working as a team in season one

[jennastarkhasaheart]

im honestly not sure about how to feel about season 5 and the things that happened in it. like on the one hand, while watching it i quickly noticed how the quality in writing had sort of dropped off a cliff, although most of the individual scenes and arcs are still really good and work. and that definitley influenced how i experienced scenes like fitz going full whitehall on daisy, the lack of any sort of reaction to that by the team, and the infamous "we didnt chose you" scene, along with stuff like jemma apparently not caring what just happened to her best friend at all. none of these felt real to me, it was all very out of character and underdeveloped and often lacked any sort of foreshadowing, i kinda just suffered my way through the season and couldnt wait for it to be over. and after like 5x8 i actually googled it and it turned out i was right, the writers really did have to rush the script. still think its the weakest out of all of them in total.

on the other hand, if you do go the route of getting into it the same way you did with the previous and following seasons, and take what you see at face value, that creates some biiiig problems. because it basically turns everyone outside of daisy and coulson into self-centered, uncaring egomaniacs, and contextualizes some scenes very differently, and i have seen people react appropriately to that a lot in the aos tags.

but aos isnt the kind of show (in my eyes) to do that to the main cast. the entire emphasis of the show is on the found family theme, how these people would die for each other, and how theyre (almost) always there for one another. it doesnt make sense to me that they would intentionally break that continuity in such a crass way. especially not since they continue with that narrative in the next season as if the events of season 5 basically never happened. however, aos is also a show that absolutely does dive deep into the emotional consequences and realities of the stuff that happens to the characters, which makes me very anxious to know what was actually intended by the writers for season 5, because currently its lost between a rushed script and as a result, a distorted interpretation of what they actually wanted to do.

because as it stands, seasons 1-4 feel consistent to me, then season 5 is this mudpit of shame, and seasons 6 and 7 feel disconnected from the rest because of it, especially since they dont attempt to adress any of this and basically pretend like season 5 went the way it was probably supposed to. i feel weird asking for reblogs/asks/comments or whatever, but if anyone who reads this has a theory on how season 5 was actually supposed to be written and interpreted, id appreciate it. and of course, this is just my personal opinion, not judging anyone here.

[caitlynxviolet]

So the one thing that worries me is how season 2 will start in tragedy and put a hold on CaitVi. Or that if Cait's mum is hurt in the rocket strike, she will blame herself (and Vi) for not shooting jinx when she had the chance...

It's the voice lines from the season 2 announcement.. where Vi's voice just breaks me..

Reference:

Cait: Every way I slice it... If I go after your sister alone, one of us comes back in a box.

>> Cait saying she won't hold back this time as her family got hurt maybe??

Vi (crying?): I can do this myself. No one else needs to get hurt.

>> Vi crying because she knows her sister is not her little powder anymore and can't be "saved" and hurt so many innocent people?

Jinx: I'm glad it's you. It had to be you.

>> now this could be addressed to anyone, but I think she's referring to Vi?

What are your thoughts on that one?

I know they are partners in the game and strong suggestion this is in a romantic and professional way but I really can't bear the Angst I get from this voice clip...

Ooh very interesting!

I think Caitlyn is leading Vi towards accepting that doing whatever they have to do means doing it together, rather than alone.

Cait: Every way I slice it... If I go after your sister alone, one of us comes back in a box.

She's bringing up the inevitable outcome that either she or Jinx will die, every way she slices it. Potentially because Jinx would not hesitate to kill her, and if the situation called for it, Caitlyn would retaliate. Maybe because there are a lot of other risks in what going after Jinx involves.

She can't go out there alone and Vi's response is about "doing it herself" so no one else gets hurt. This is the mindset that Caitlyn is trying to get at - that Vi can't let Caitlyn go out there alone, but she also can't expect herself to be able to do it either.

I think at this point of s2, Caitlyn knows how willing Vi is to sacrifice herself for the sake of others and the lengths she'd go to protect others (well, she also heard Vi say "you can fire that thing if you want, but I'm not going anywhere!"). I believe that whenever this situation happens, Caitlyn and Vi are much closer than they ever were.

Vi (crying?): I can do this myself. No one else needs to get hurt.

Caitlyn is too calm and collected for someone who possibly just lost her mother. Vi is the emotional wreck. The stakes are higher for Vi here, meaning that she could lose both her beloved sister and/or Caitlyn. That's why she'd be way more emotional.

If Caitlyn's mom died, it means this conversation takes place when she's processed her grief a little better and she's able to carefully weigh out their options as for what happens next. It means Vi is riddled with guilt and feeling incredibly torn, which is what Caitlyn would have seen from Vi.

I don't think we're meant to see Caitlyn as anything but an empathetic (and lonely/misfit) soul. She's going to want to do right by Vi, I believe. We all know none of the events of the dinner scene is Vi's fault. Why would Caitlyn perceive it any differently? It's deeply fucked up what Jinx did. If anything, I think Caitlyn could resent Jinx for what she did, on Vi's behalf because Vi won't be able to, and, of course, on her own behalf.

We know she thinks Vi has a good heart, but she's referred to Jinx as "lunatic" and "too far gone" at the end. She made sure to tell Vi that what happened to her sister wasn't her fault. It wouldn't make sense for her to switch it up on Vi for something else that Jinx did.

Jinx: I'm glad it's you. It had to be you.

This line could be a red herring, like we're meant to think she's talking to Vi, but it's someone else entirely. When I relistened to it, it sounded bitter. Almost like she is speaking with Caitlyn, like of course my sister sent you to stop me. But she's glad because she won't have to hurt her own sister in the process. It could literally be anyone, though. I think it may be Caitlyn with Vi hidden somewhere, or vice versa (but considering their brawler/sniper dynamic, it would make more sense for it to be Vi).

If they want to make Caitlyn's reaction to Jinx's bombing realistic, that means not blaming Vi and fully hating Jinx instead. Vi is the only one standing by her side, supporting her, and Caitlyn clearly won't stop wanting to be in on the action after this. Vi is her best ally.

On a different note, Christian and Alex have said Caitlyn and Vi will be at the center of the stories they tell in s2. I don't think separating them makes sense, and I don't think that's the intent.

[lilacerull0]

JOOOO!!!! I'M HERE TO SCREAM IN YOUR INBOX!!!!!!!!

I finished season 1, watched the first episode of season 2 because I couldn't wait (they were connected if you remember). The finale was AMAZING!!!!!!!! They introduced us to Reid's mother, Elle's past, we learned more about the characters' personal life than any other episode!! I loved every bit of it!!!!! We've seen how truly they care for each other!! Garcia and Reid bonding?? Yes!!! Elle was saved (thank God 😅). I even loved the way they made the crime, like the unsub knowing personal things about the team, giving them clues in order to solve the crime. Reid and Garcia were incredible together!! Gideon not leaving the hospital, telling hotch to not blame himself for what happened!! Hotch's concern about everyone especially Gideon and Elle? Loved it!!!!

But the most beautiful thing is hotch going to Elle's house to clean it before she leaves the hospital, only when he was sure she's going to make it!!! It was wholesome!!!

Morgan and Elle's friendship. Morgan and hotch exchanging looks when they found out about Reid's mother in the unsub's house!!!! These two episodes really showed how they love each other like family!! I am absolutely in awe. I literally stayed up late just to finish it even though I had to wake up at 6:30 the next morning!!!!

Perhaps you don't remember every scene and I hadn't taken screenshots because I was watching the episode with such concentration, but I need to rant to someone about it!!!!!!!

I'm really glad I get to enjoy this with you!!!! Thank you so much for putting up with my insanity that can only increase with every episode I watch. I hope you're having a nice day!!!!!! Love you 🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍💫💫💫

Also, Reid's hair pushed back in this episode was a nice addition. (Me saying this in order to show how normal I am about this).

HERE I AM AT LAST!!!!! Time to be very normal about Reid *wink wink*

GOSH!!!!!! These two episodes!!!!! I always say that friendship and family (and all the ways in which they overlap) are the heart of CM as a show and that's so beautifully brought to surface here. It's how all these storylines work together, Elle's dad, (even the unsub's family history!), Spencer's mom, the BAU being positioned as something that directly correlates with those familial themes which is wonderfully proven with Reid's mom standing with all of them and helping them solve the case. AND THOSE GLANCES BETWEEN HOTCH AND MORGAN AND GARCIA'S FACE WHILE REID IS ON THE PHONE!!!! The writers did this amazing whole circle thing, they took the common meanings and mixed them up with unconventional ones. Like I mentioned, giving Reid's mom the role of a profiler (something that's private and personal and purely familial coming in contact with the job which isn't usually associated with bonding, especially this job) and having everyone mess around and have fun at the beginning of the finale (s1), like Morgan and Elle just being people for a change. (which points out how their relationship isn't strictly work-related! they're friends!!!! or Reid knowing about JJ's love for butterflies... so many things like that giving their job this not very common meaning of love and closeness and care) I just love how the writers play with that, it's the best thing about this show!

Gideon cooking 🥺 Hotch and his wife 🥺 Gideon being devastated because the unsub took that one thing that was just his, that wasn't related to his work, away from him. This is a common theme in the show, how their jobs affect their private lives and it's so gut-wrenching, but it also works as an emphasis on the importance of the connections all of them have with the people they work with. It's all so 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 I think these are the first episodes that put an accent on that like this. By bringing all these drastically different characters together. I must admit that what makes CM feel so real to me is how it isn't about building relationships between characters, but about showcasing all these aspects to the audience with time. They're like: oh yeah, this is how they've always worked, it's just that you as a viewer didn't know about it. It helps you forget that it's all planned out which I appreciate. And it makes any new layers added feel more organic.

Hotch is everyone's parent tbh. HE'S GIDEON'S PARENT!!!! He cares so much and he still manages to maintain a clear perspective. I just love that he's not your usual stoic seemingly cold hearted character, he's just... always thinking about everyone and that care is entirely about them. HE!!!!!!!!!!

Let's just say I have a lot of feelings about Reid with his hair like that mhmhmhm (I - I have entire notebooks filled with his name and tiny ridiculous hearts surrounding it, 11 year old me was something alright... HE WAS SUCH A COMFORT AAAAH he IS such a comfort)

Oh and there was this:

Last one is specifically dear to me because SHOCKER, Reid and JJ are (probably?) my favourite relationship on the show. Literally the touchstone of my fandom preferences. THEIR FRIENDSHIP! IS! SO! LAYERED! They are all about those dimensional pockets existing between words friend and lover and aaah. Pretty sure she lightly touched his arm in that last photo and I'm always a sucker for characters who aren't all that into physical affection allowing that one specific person to touch them and that other person realizing the weight of that? (see: Riley & Farkle from Girl Meets World or House & Cuddy :")

I am So. Glad. I get to share this with you, it's such a rollercoaster of emotion for me in a surprisingly pleasant way. 2022 is the year of me coming back to my childhood favourites 😎

[dotthings]

Ok, here’s the thing. I don’t find it at all plausible Misha would have been cut from 15.20 filming due to covid. If he’s not in it, it’s because it wasn’t part of the plan in the first place. If it wasn’t part of the plan in the first place, then I do have some questions for the writers, because not having Cas be a key figure in ep 15.20 makes no sense for the story they’ve been telling.

We’ve got Cas revealed as the only Cas in all of Chuck’s worlds who wouldn’t follow the rules. The only spanner in the works, the only Cas with a crack in his chassis. And oh by the way, the only Cas in all the worlds who fell in love with Dean Winchester.

We’ve got Cas getting yeeted away to The Empty, where he’s already come back from it twice.

We’ve got a heavy emphasis not just on found family, but on how important Eileen is to Sam, and Cas is to Dean. 

We’ve got Cas getting to make a confession, and Dean left just...not dealing and not getting to speak, how is that an arc resolution? It’s not.

We’ve got Cas as consistently for 12 seasons always a key player in the A-level mytharc plots and pivotal in emotional plots. Suddenly he’s dropped off the board completely for the series finale of the entire show? For what, so the end can be all about Sam and Dean? Thus...throwing under a bus the point S15 has been attempting to drive into people’s heads with a mallet about family don’t end with blood and this love story between Dean and Cas and how unique Cas is in his own right. Don’t listen to ultrabitter nonsense about how unimportant he is and it’s all a brosonly conspiracy there at spn because that’s just insulting to this character and the actual role he plays on SPN.

We’ve got in S15 Destiel as an A-plot. Look at the way 15.18 was hinted up towards and talked about after by the spn writers and adjacent crew on twitter. 15.18 was clearly considered a pivotal episode, one of the most important episodes, if not the most important, of S15. 

We’ve got in S15 Dean’s entire personal self-fulfillment arc heavily tied to Cas. To the point where the last missing piece that enabled Dean to step off Chuck’s hamster wheel was Cas’s love confession. Cas saved everyone not just Dean by loving Dean. Yet Dean’s self-fulfillment arc isn’t done (neither is Sam’s fyi, but he’s not as closely tied to Cas in this). 

We’ve got this immensely important character knocked off the board 2 eps before the ending, with a majority of the fandom losing its godamn mind because we just aren’t buying that this was the end of his story.

We’ve got Cas’s self-fullfillment arc incomplete. Yes, I know, he felt fulfilled in saying the love and was happy as The Empty consumed him. But we’re still missing some major steps. Don’t even try to tell me that his arc is filled because he thinks dying for love is the best it can ever get for him. There’s big BIG missing steps here like uh...if Sam and Dean are able to pursue figuring out who they are now, when they’re off Chuck’s hamster wheel, but Cas just sleeps forever in the empty dreaming his regrets and that’s considered a resolution? Seriously?

With all this season has given us, do you really think the season was planned out with Cas’s absence in 15.20?

And do you really think, if the original plan is to have him be in 15.20, given the precedents here, the arcing of S15, the huge dangling lack of resolution here screaming for resolution that they have set up, that they wouldn’t make arrangements to have Misha film for 15.20 despite covid regulations? That he wouldn’t be pivotal enough to warrant it? Really???

You can say you’re worried the writers didn’t plan for him to be in there, that he’s not going to come back, that Dean’s never going to speak his heart’s truth back to Cas. I understand those worries. I personally would find that unsatisfying, and the argument I have always made is that if he was knocked down for a time, he’d be back. I’ve never rooted for Cas to be cut off and have his end be this. 

Taking him off the board just so the ending can focus on Sam and Dean would be wrong, even if it was a covid consideration, it’s bad for the story, bad for Cas’s story, and bad for Dean’s story and bad for the show’s themes. There’s a lot of unresolved aspects to Cas, individually, just as there is for Dean right now.  I’m sorry that Cas wound up cloaked in secrecy, that fandom is being so jerked around on this, to build suspense for a twist, or because he won’t be there and they don’t want to reveal the spoilers either way. That's been a pain in the neck.  Please try to take deep breaths. Remember PR isn’t the story.

What has the story been telling you.

What is the story now crying out for resolution on, when we had a pseudo ending already but there is still one whole episode left.

And remember that the people trying to make pronouncements on the negative side of the speccing chain here don’t know any more than the people basing our spec on the substance of the story that’s aired so far. And we’ve all seen the same baffling and often contradictory PR and bts scraps of evidence. There’s nobody itk right now. I would also particularly mistrust meta takes that insist that it’s superior for the story to not have Cas return and not have Dean get to speak his heart’s truth to his face. That just seems like it’s short-changing Dean and Cas individually, not just Destiel.

But I don’t think covid was a factor. Things are set up the way they are in canon. Cas is too key a player every season for it to be feasible they could just last minute cut Misha from 15.20 filming because you can only have X number of people on set under covid regulations. My instinct is that he was always planned to be there, or he always wasn’t.

Cas deserves to have a full resolution on his arc just as much as Dean does and  knocking him out too early just so SPN could be about Just Sam and Dean at the end...for those who grokked onto the inauthentic feeling of the end of 15.19, with its purposeful air of outdated nostalgia, and Sam and Dean not quite looking joyful about this freedom they just achieved, you really think this writing team would do that? With Castiel’s name carved on the table. Dean showing his grief for Cas throughout 15.19. After all the story we’ve seen. It makes no sense to me to cut each of these characters arcs off at the knees. No that is not a superior story if that happens. And Dean’s personal fulfillment arc is so entwined with Cas now, and Cas with Dean. You know, Dean. His north star, the one who taught him how to love.

Roll the dice. That’s all any of us are doing. I think this writing team knows what it’s doing, I hope I’m right and this pays off beautifully, because the set up is amazing, the tension is beautifully set. 

[angelthefirst1]

The ballerina begins to dance again in fifteen minutes...

Last season I was extremely hopeful that perhaps masked Ninja would end up being Beth and that a big reveal would be similar to Morgan at the end of Coda-not far from finding team family, taking his mask off and revealing that he was indeed still alive. Providing us with a repeat Coda. Anyone that has been followed my posts over the years knows that I believe the actors use social media to give hints as to what is coming in the show, and that specifically-Emily's side projects since she's been gone, are planned by AMC and deliberately picked for her to symbolically shadow TWD. Thinking about some of the projects she has worked on, they include... The following-where she is a member of a cult and she is killed like this... 

Same overall theme to Alpha who had "A following"with the whisperers, and is killed in the same way. The flash (self explanatory)

Ten days in the Valley-About a missing girl The concussion-About a lady who gets a blow to the head. The Knick-About a brilliant surgeon who pushes the boundaries of medicine. If Beth is to survive her gunshot, she would at some point need medical attention. Forever-about a medical examiner who is immortal and studies the dead. In TWD universe we have seen examples of studying the dead/immortality, at the CDC in season one, and Milton in season three-who is a researcher and scientist, and we see hints of something similar happening with the helicopter group too. Love on the sidelines, which-as the title suggests would indicate her love story is on the sidelines. Being played quietly PPP Bullet proof Picasso-also self explanatory...

The messiah (Beth has always been portrayed as a sacrificial Christ figure) she sacrificed herself for Noah while wearing the cross bracelet. And we believe she will rise again and as with Jesus there was an empty tomb and Beth we saw no grave.  All of these could well be symbolic of Beth's story in part... And then there's some of Emily's songs which many in the past have speculated are about Bethyl. Songs like Last chance and more recently her song played on the TWD The Turtle and the monkey which played in episode 1005 (10+5=15) So keeping all this in mind...when I saw her post this...

About doing ballet and getting stronger, my mind at the time was focused on Ninja and I hoped she was learning to fight like Ninja and perhaps was just saying she was learning "Ballet" to cover for leaning marshal arts. But after re-watching 510 (5+10=15) the other day I saw Maggie open the music box and my mouth fell open and my brain exploded...

How did I miss this connection???

I suddenly remembered Emily's new album called THE SUPPORTING CHARACTER (PPP)

And her new song called 15 minutes (5+10=15) in which she becomes the BALLET DANCER.

Carl hands Maggie the music box in 510 and says "I found this when we were looking for water" (water = looking for the Lord-I'll explain this further down) Maggie "What is it?" Carl "I think it's used to play music" Carl "It's broken, I thought you might like it" Maggie "Thanks Carl"

Emily's new single/album is produced by SEAHORSE SOUND STUDIOS which is also represented in 510 (5+10=15) by this...

The walker trapped in the car in 510 is release by keys with a yellow seahorse. It’s trapped in the yellow "Seahorse studio" and even looks to have pointed toes like a ballerina and possibly a nod to ballet shoes to match...

Daryl, when he sees this car, deliberately runs away from it and goes on his search for WATER and comes across this dead deer

Time and again in this show (and others) whenever a deer dies (Christ) a person lives. If the deer lives-the person dies. Carl, Rick, and Magna's group prove this-just to name a few. In biblical symbology, deer represent devotion, and safety in God's care. Deer are a symbol of thirst and longing for the Lord. (Beth) Old testament David wrote about God, “As a deer longs for flowing streams (Water), so my soul longs for you. Jesus said "whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.'" Understanding the eternal water that Jesus speaks of will make more sense of 510 and why they were so desperate for water and then get drenched in it.

It's all about Beth (Jesus) return.

So for those who perhaps don't fully understand or haven't heard the gospel of Jesus Christ it's basically this. Mankind broke God's moral law (The ten commandments-Don't lie, steal, dishonor parents, commit adultery etc...) The payment for breaking even one of God's laws-even once is eternal death. God became a man (Jesus) who was free of the fallen nature and so was sinless. He sacrificed himself to pay the fine or penalty that was owed to mankind, having broken God's laws. So he died on the cross, but because he sacrificially paid for the sins of the world that were not his, God raised him to life and he defeated death (He wasn't owed the death penalty) He defeated death not just for himself but for all who ask him to take their place or payment. Water is life for humans so the reason Jesus calls himself the living water that springs to eternal life is because his water (sacrifice) if accepted brings eternal life to the drinker. So if a person lives (eternally) it's because Christ dies in their place, and they receive the eternal water Jesus has offered them. Beth was heavily portrayed as Christ, and Daryl (like old testament David) was longing for Beth when he went looking for water and he found the dead deer. Indicating Beth was indeed alive, he just didn't know it.

Emily's new song, video clip and album has heavily included symbolism of Beth from 510. including Beth being water and also the music box/ballerina. 510 (5+10=15 minutes) The water aspect is shown-or not shown i should say, by her album art cover. Which depicts her in the dessert (showing a lack of water just like the group in 510) but Emily is wearing the same pink that is found inside the music box. With the white shoes a nod to the white skirt. 

And this post Emily made about getting stronger at Ballet...

Was a repeat of this scene with Daryl and Maggie...

Daryl "She was tough, she didn't know it-but she was".  

The music video for 15 minutes is depicting the music box in 510. The video clip is very short and on a repeat loop, just like the ballerina in the music box it spins round and round.

For added emphasis i have hummed part of the music-from the music box that plays at the end of 510, and combined it into the introduction of Emily’s song, (please excuse the bad humming) but oddly the two fit together. whether that’s just pure luck or not, i don’t know but i found it interesting.  

In the video, Emily is dressed as a ballerina in the background but doesn't actually dance, it's a different ballerina dancing. Just like the music box ballerina represents Beth, but isn't actually her.

In photo’s Emily posted of the Video shoot, we see a ballerina dancing in front of oval lights-a hint to the oval mirror from the music box in the background.

Some of the lyrics to the song also made my ears prick up. Such as this...

While filming the small video clip for Fifteen minutes Emily posted some Instagram stories, which also tell Beth's story and I will go into below. Watch it and then read below.

This may seem to be an unplanned impromptu video, but it's not. Everything in this clip is scripted and planned. Every action and word is repeating Beth and Daryl scenes.  I'll point it out to you line by line... "Jacob's playing the piano, in my music Video that's coming soon" a reminder of Beth (music) playing piano and the music box playing again soon.

Jacob throughout this conversation is stuffing his face. Repeating Daryl doing the same in Alone.

Emily "Do you want to add to that?" Is a play on "What changed your mind?"

Jacob "Yeah you're gonna love it" (Daryl was trying to tell Beth he loved her)

Emily "What else? Ya think it's gonna be pretty good" Another play and repeat of the "What changed your mind" line, good people, and Beth playing “Be good” on the piano. Jacob "It's beautiful"

Emily "Thank you" repeating the thank you note. (In the background while Emily says thank you, we hear someone shout ooohhhh repeating the oh moment)

Emily laughs and says "what if you'd said no" which i think is a play on Daryl saying nothing to Beth when she asks "Don't you think that's beautiful?" Emily "Do you have some notes for the song?" A play on the thank you note. Jacob says he doesn't have any notes, repeating Daryl telling Beth she doesn't have to leave the thank you note.

Emily "Okay GOOD, because it's already mixed and mastered. Another mention of good.

Jacob ends the short clip with another reminder of the good theme by saying "The good thing is..." and it ends there abruptly, just like Beth and Daryl's story ending on the good people theme abruptly. This whole clip is a playful version of Beth and Daryl's main plot points from Alone.

Considering Emily posted about her ballet teacher saying she was getting stronger. I really find it odd that Emily doesn't actually dance in this video, she is just in the background.

I mean... she was apparently taking Ballet lessons and then does a ballet themed video clip-that would be a perfect opportunity to show some moves in. But it seems the Ballet theme video actually serves a different purpose-to tells us beforehand that the music box ballerina is about to start dancing again... 

Hopefully you can all see the connections here, and it's provided you with some much needed hope that Beth the music box ballerina is about to dance again soon. 

I do want to give a shout out to Emily Kinney Info on Instagram who is amazing at archiving all Emily's posts and provided me with some Instagram stories, clips and photos, which would have been lost in time.

[robthomissed]

Some thoughts on Jordan Binnington that no one asked for but I found his contract press conference very interesting

Okay, just gonna get this out of the way. Is Jordan perfect? Hell no. Has he made mistakes in the past? Absolutely. Will he make mistakes in the future? Almost certainly. But I do believe people can grow and I think Binner has that capacity. This is not an effort to redeem or defend him but merely me making observations and sharing my thoughts.

I just watched through the press conference and noted things I thought were interesting and tried to keep track of time stamps if you want exact quotes because this man's speech pattern can be hard to transcribe

2:00 – asked about how there are other goalies that make more money and haven’t won a cup but Army mentioned that he got the feeling from Binner that he wanted a good contract but was willing to maybe take a little less if it meant keeping a good team around him.

- Roughly paraphrased: “being on a competitive team matters to me. I’m not looking to crush the bank, it’s not all about money to me. At the end of the day what you look back on and feel in your heart is the memories made, competing, being successful, going through tough times and getting out of them, and being there for your teammates.”

3:00 – Asked if he has been able to reflect on his journey he took to get here

- First call was to parents/grandparents and talked to his girlfriend

- He then goes on to talk about taking a drive by himself around St. Louis and stopping and looking at notes in his phone that are from different times in the past few years about his mental and physical struggles

- He drove down to Enterprise just to reflect, then he drove past the Hilton by the ballpark where he stayed when he first came into the league, he thought about the baseballs games they went to during development camp, he drove past the restaurants where him and Eddy and the boys would eat dinner a lot. He talked about how those are the memories that stick out to him now and how proud he is of himself and the people around him who helped him.

5:00 – “I’m proud to be a St. Louis Blue. We already have so many memories made and I am very happy here in St. Louis, the people are so genuine.”

- This just made me happy. I have always thought that Jordan was happy enough here and wouldn't mind staying here but would maybe want to go somewhere else. Just the tone of his voice when he said this really struck me. He seemed to really mean it and it is nice to hear that he enjoys being here and that the people here are at least a small part of that.

6:50 – asked about his calculated personality and how sometimes he feels that he needs to do something like he did in San Jose

- He feels like reading situations and adapting is part of being a leader and sometimes you have to mix things up if stuff isn’t going your way

- It’s something he enjoys about his position. He sees that as an extension of his role as a teammate

- I personally love how sometimes Binner will just kind of lose it like that. He did it at least once before in juniors and so he knows when and how to do it. His teammates and coach love it and he knows that even if he is having a bad night in net that he can at least do something for the team. He has also said in the past that he believes that hockey is supposed to be entertaining so if he just doesn't have it that night then he should still do something to put on a show. I can respect that. Do I wish he didn't take a penalty for it in San Jose? Yeah. But in the end, I like what he did.

7:50 – Panger says hi to ask what kept Binner motivated throughout his struggles in the minors and Binner says hi back. It was just a nice moment and that is something I notice that happens with Panger a lot. The boys really respond to him and I think that speaks very highly of Panger.

8:58 – this man makes web diagrams which is so nerdy and I love it

- He talks about taking notes in his phone and putting in the work to get better. He seems really into introspection and reflection which I love. He acknowledges that it took a lot of work and meeting the right people along the way. All the simple things add up seems to be a theme in his life

10:00 – He talks about how the money isn’t what drives him it is more about making people realize that they should want to pay him that is his motivation.

- He talks about how he ended up in Providence with the Bruins organization because the Blues had nowhere for him to play. He talks about how good that was for him and how much he learned about himself and what it took to get to the next level there. The way he talks about us not having a place for him really stands out to me. He doesn’t seem upset or anything but it just feels like that put a fire in him to prove that we needed to make room for him.

12:00 – Asked about how if the contract hadn’t gotten done now that it probably would have been tabled until the end of the season

- “you’re in or you’re outright?” he would have been willing to go prove himself again and fight it out but he felt like this was a good deal.

12:45 – What is his motivation now?

- His motivation constantly changes. Lots of small goals that lead to bigger ones

- “We already have built such a great history in St. Louis, I wanna make the city proud. I want to continue to make my family proud. Just keep pushing myself to be the best athlete and person I can be I think that’s what keeps you alive”

Now I have been on record saying that I didn't think Binner had much loyalty to St. Louis or the Blues in the long term. Sure he would compete hard and be all in while he was here but I fully expected him to want to go somewhere for more money or where he might be able to be more of a spectacle since he enjoys the spotlight sometimes. But after hearing him talk here and some other interviews over the past year or so I think maybe he does realize how special it can be here. He is the goalie that brought us a cup and when you do something like that you are a hero forever.

I think Jordan is a little misunderstood sometimes in terms of how he emotes and the decisions he makes. he is very calculated about what emotions to show and when to use them. We call him Hockey Roomba for a reason. He reminds me a lot of a really good friend from high school who didn't look very exciting but once he trusted you it was a different story. I guess what I am trying to say is that Jordan is more emotional than we give him credit for he just controls them and channels them where he wants to.

Jordan also mentions respect a lot in this interview which was interesting to me. He seems to put a lot of emphasis on being a good teammate and having the respect of the people around him. He actually reminds me a lot of Jack Flaherty. They both have a high level of self-respect and compete from that mindset. They both aren't driven by money but expect to be paid what they believe they are worth. They both focus on staying in the moment and controlling what they can control and finding that inner fire to fuel them. And honestly, those are the kind of guys I want playing for my teams.

So congratulations Binner and I am happy you are here. Can't wait to see you keep growing as a goalie and a person.

[dragonofyang]

On Love and Lions Part 1: An Analysis on Love in VLD

“I have always believed that unity is where true power comes from, and true unity can only be born of love.” --Gyrgan, Paladin of the Yellow Lion

Voltron: Legendary Defender is a cartoon on Netflix that–with the final season available to watch on Netflix–has extremely regressive and harmful messages. The S8 on Netflix carries lessons about how war is good, that men shouldn’t respect the wishes and desires of women, that violence and abuse mean even victims aren’t deserving of forgiveness. Everything about that is 100% antithetical to what VLD was about throughout the prior seasons and each harmful message is another nail in the coffin of the original narratives of peace, respect, and fundamentally how everyone is deserving of love and forgiveness, regardless of the circumstances of their birth.

In fact, the theme of love in VLD is something we at Team Purple Lion wish to discuss. It’s arguably the most absolutely fundamental theme of the show. Love destroys the universe, and love saves it over and over again. And love would have rebuilt the universe, but thanks to the edits ordered by the trademark holder, the universe that should have been born from love was instead born from one girl sacrificing her life because she saw no better option. She didn’t even get to tell her only remaining father figure goodbye. What kind of message is that? In the original final season, prior to the executive meddling, we should have seen how love was such a powerful force in the universe that it could not just repair this reality, but all realities. And it’s not just romantic love, but six types of love.

Now, for those of you more familiar with our work, we’ve discussed some pretty big concepts in VLD and how they’re addressed, and there will be even more in future episodes of our reconstruction Rise and Atone. VLD engages not just with its own predecessors in the Voltron franchise, but Beast King GoLion, Labyrinth, Frankenstein, and Maureen Murdock’s The Heroine’s Journey is all but the story bible for Allura’s arc. The concepts we are about to discuss date back to Ancient Greece, and while love can be more than these concepts, it’s important that we have a framework through which we can discuss and analyze love as it appears in VLD without getting lost in all the examples.

In American culture, “love” is not very well-differentiated between kinds because we only use one word: “love”. While we use it across all sorts of contexts, we have to add modifiers when we don’t mean romantic love or familial love, which are the most commonly-acknowledged forms of love. VLD, being written and edited by primarily Americans living in America, also encounters this issue, but it does not focus solely on romantic love, which can complicate how to interpret love in the show. We, however, would like to argue that not only is it all love, but it doesn’t all have to be good love, familial love, or romantic love. At the end of the day the plot is driven by love in its many forms. Love is so baked into the story that it’s quite difficult to extricate, dare I even say impossible, and that ultimately is part of why we were able to reconstruct so much of what was lost in S8.

The Ancient Greeks had many words for love, but we feel it’s important to discuss the dialogue that VLD engages in with various forms of love, using the Ancient Greeks’ framework as a guide. The model gives us concrete definitions of different kinds of love, and can help us as an audience understand the various forms of love that are present in VLD. It’s important that we define the different ways we can observe love being portrayed because much of VLD relies on the writing adage of “show, don’t tell”.

So without any further ado, let’s dig into what, precisely, is love.

As stated earlier, we’ll be using terminology coined by the Ancient Greeks, specifically six categories of love that we feel are most prevalent in the show. We’ve also deduced our own examples of these forms of love when they’re taken too far or flat-out discarded, which will be discussed in a companion article.

The six forms of love are as follows:

Eros: the most famous kind of love, an intense (and often sexual) passion for another being and seeing the beauty within them. This is the love that most closely aligns with romantic love as we understand it in a modern American context.

Philia: an affection and loyalty between friends, notable for its platonic nature, it is the love that arises between friends, and can be found among family, but the modern equivalent would be the found family trope.

Storge: this is the intrinsic empathy between individuals, primarily the attachment of parents to children. This form of love was primarily used to describe familial relationships, and the patience one sometimes needs when around blood relatives.

Philautia: put simply, this is self-love in its purest form. It is acknowledging your needs, wants, and happiness without apology. The Ancient Greeks considered Philautia to be a basic human need.

Xenia: while many might not consider this to be a form of love, it is hospitality, or as we define it, love between a host and their guests. Specifically, this would be the care a host gives to their guests in both physical (food, gifts, etc.) and non-physical (respecting rights, protection, etc.). Hospitality is massively important because if you are good to someone while they are in your home, they will be equally good to you if you visit theirs.

Agape: this is a Greco-Christian term, ultimately, and is a little more difficult to understand because it can be confused with other forms of love. At its core, though, it is a pure and unconditional love such as that between spouses, families, or God and man. It shouldn’t be confused for other forms of love such as Philia because unlike the other forms of love, which only focus on one aspect of humanity, Agape is the unconditional and universal love for everyone. It’s sexless, unlike Eros. At its core, it’s the love born of goodwill to all people, regardless of circumstance.

While these are only six categories, there are many ways of interpreting love, especially since there are so many avenues to see love–in good and bad forms–in VLD. These categories are also not inherently hierarchical, and are not presented in any particular order. Agape is the main exception, being more convoluted in its nature, and thus is discussed at the end. It also narratively serves as part of the culmination to the plot, so it carries a greater weight in relation to the alpha plot of the whole story.

Now, let’s examine how they present in VLD. As an official reminder, please remember that all analysis of VLD is done from a ship-neutral stance and we are not proposing any endgame romances. The sole purpose of this article is to discuss observable portrayals of love in its various forms, and to analyze both the text and the metatextual messages resulting from them.

Eros: Passionate Love

Eros… arguably this is the most contentious form of love presented in VLD, if only because of all the ship wars that occurred in the fandom. Eros drives the shipping communities of fandoms across the world, because it often stems from on-screen chemistry or the potential of the fleeting seconds where a spark flies but does not catch in canon. The beauty of Eros is that it ripples quietly through fiction, or it can be a tsunami ready to devour the story. It’s the quiet whisper of two women sharing a private moment, to the shouted declarations in the heat of battle. Eros thrums through fandoms in a desperate tempo for seeing a love as passionate as you can feel in characters who may never share more than a glance.

Plato actually had quite the influence on the word “Eros”, because “Eros” or erotic love, was largely regarded as a type of madness brought upon a person by seeing someone whose beauty strikes your heart with an arrow (Cupid’s arrows, anyone?). Eros is the love that drives you to despair if the object of your affections is cruel or uninterested, and it burns like a fire. “Falling in love at first sight” is the key concept here, and you can see it reproduced in fandoms across the world, though many cultures have their own names and terms for it. Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott define “Eros” in A Greek-English Lexicon as “love, mostly of the sexual passion”. Plato, however, redefined the word to include a nonphysical aspect. He discusses it in Symposium and says that while (physical) Eros can be felt for a person initially, with contemplation you can and will fall in love with a person’s inner beauty, which for Plato was the ideal, since he specifically emphasized the lack of importance of physical attraction. In fact, Jung–who coined the Anima and Animus–has a similar approach, with an emphasis on unity within the self by accepting your internal Eros which manifests as your feminine Anima/masculine Animus.

In the text of VLD, Eros is remarkably subdued. This is partially due to its rating. Being a Y7-FV show, VLD can’t really have explicitly sexual content. Sure the implication can exist, but a lot of times sex has to be carried through metaphor if a story is to address it at all. Take the juniberry as an example. It’s a three-petal flower of a deep rose and softer pink, delicately topping a green stem, with a yellow pistil. In much of literary history, flowers represent female sexuality and beauty, and they are common representations of youth across genders.

Now, in strictly biological terms, flowers as a sexual symbol is a 1:1 accuracy in analysis, because the flower is the reproductive organ of a plant. I’d like to analyze the juniberry from a biological perspective, because understanding the anatomy of a flower can help us understand its role in literature as a metaphor for sex. The whole point of the flower is to be able to spread pollen across individual plants, whether by wind or by pollinators such as bats or bees, and breed to produce more plants. The actual reproductive organs of flowers are called the stamen and pistil, respectively. The stamen produces pollen, while the pistil collects pollen in its ovule to fertilize and create seeds. A stamen is a very slender filament, topped with what’s called an “anther”, which is where the pollen is actually released. The pistil, meanwhile, has a thicker base with a long body, usually topped with a few tendril-like structures called “stigma”.

Diagram by the Association of Societies for Growing Australian Plants [ID: A simple cross-section diagram of a flower. Three petals are visible on the far side, with reproductive organs drawn in the center. There is also a stalk and sepals at the bottom. Along the sides of the cross-section there are labels. On the left, a category called “Stamen” is labeled, with “Anther” and “Filament” pointing to two parts of the thinner reproductive organ. “Receptacle” marks the base of the flower, and “Peduncle (flower stalk)” marks out the stem. On the right, we have the label “Petal” and three labels under the category “Pistil”: “Stigma”, pointing to the top portion, “Style” pointing to the stem-like feature, and “Ovary” pointing to the rounded bottom. The label “Sepal” marks the leaf-like structure just under the petals. End ID.]

Now, when we look at the juniberries we see in canon, we can see that at no point are any drawn with stamens. They all have a single pistil growing from the center, and they’re topped with three stigma, meaning that all juniberries drawn on-screen are female juniberries.

Juniberries are a quintessential symbol of Altea, and they represent home to Allura, as well as what she’s lost. However, they also represent how Allura’s relationship to her own femininity is not some mystical thing determined by forces beyond her. Colleen gifts Allura a juniberry that was selectively bred from flowers she had available, and it’s identical in every way (that we can see) to the juniberries native to Altea. The message, though it’s subtle, is quite clear: Allura is in control of her femininity and can define herself however she pleases (“highlands poppy” versus “juniberry”). After the sexual undertones that threaded her relationship with Lotor, this is a very important message to convey, especially since a patriarchal story would punish Allura for the metaphorical sex in physical ways, such as how the season 8 on Netflix does.

Allura isn’t simply a vessel for male desire, nor is she a strong female character who doesn’t need a man. Her story is about finding agency separate from male expectations, without forsaking her own femininity in the process. Like the juniberry, she is feminine, but she is able to define herself, and the dark entity masquerading as Lotor reminds her of that with their conversation about calling the juniberry a “highlands poppy”. That’s what makes Lotor so dangerous to a traditional patriarchal values system: he reminds Allura that she has a choice.

It’s important to note that during their interactions Lotor never gives Allura a choice in the sense that he, a man, is allowing her one; he simply steps back and encourages her to make the choices to which she is entitled and to act on her emotions and desires. She is an agent of her own free will, and Lotor, being first her Shadow, challenges her to be smarter, quicker on the battlefield, and then as her Animus he challenges her to look inward and become in-tune to her own inner wants and needs. The other Paladins can offer some aid in that, but none of them strike her anxieties or hopes the way that Lotor can, being the crown prince and heir to her sworn enemy, and being half-Altean and half-Galra. He is, in a fundamentally physical way, the union of two races that were at war before Altea’s destruction, and to a survivor of that war, that forces Allura to question the beliefs she held in the beginning of the story. The stakes of success and failure are much higher with Lotor in the picture, and it’s easier to focus literary tension on two characters than five or six, so as a result of that persistent tension, we as the audience are given plenty of chemistry between two characters to spur Eros.

As we discussed last year in “Legendarily Defensive: Editing the Gay Away”, Keith was meant to have a gay relationship with another Paladin. We refuse to write conjecture on what his endgame romance was meant to be, however it is important to discuss Keith’s Eros in a metatextual sense. For example, let’s look at Keith and Shiro. Keith is a legacy character that dates all the way back to 1984 Defender of the Universe. His romantic subplot was relegated to excised footage and extremely subtextual if it managed to squeak past the axe. Shiro was able to be queer, however, due to the fact that he’s a DreamWorks-owned character who is new to the franchise, meaning that there isn’t a legacy that needed to be upheld.

Keith’s queerness, however, still acts as a spur to fuel the potential for Eros, and helps build tension between him and his fellow male Paladins. And I specify male Paladins because during season 2, Keith and Allura go off in a pod by themselves to see if Zarkon is tracking either of them. During the scenes with Keith and Allura together, it’s important to note the background music is remarkably flat and lacking in romantic cues. In prior iterations of Voltron, Keith and Allura are implied as endgame (DOTU), have the beginnings of an on-screen romance (VForce), or straight up just fuck on the page (such as in the comics). It stands to reason that this scene should at least imply some form of passionate chemistry here, but largely it’s two friends confiding in one another and trying to find reassurance as they confess their fears. Keith doesn’t have a moment to admire Allura’s beauty the way we see Lance and Matt do, and Allura doesn’t blush like how she does with Lotor or Lance. Without markers for any kind of Eros, the scene is a quiet moment of contemplation away from the stress, only to be broken by Shiro telling them to get back because the Galra Empire found the Castleship again.

So then where do we see passionate chemistry for Keith? At the risk of starting the ship-war again, his chemistry largely exists with Shiro and Lance. Shiro, narratively, functions as his Mentor, someone to guide and believe in him, who then gives up his position of leadership (sort of) so that Keith can grow. Bringing Shiro back prematurely makes it harder to see, but in a traditional Hero’s Journey, the Mentor figure teaches not-quite-enough to the Hero before disappearing, and the Hero grows on their own and becomes their own person. Naturally, this makes Keith and Shiro have tension, especially since Shiro was brought back prematurely due to marketing, so their relationship dynamic had to change to accommodate Shiro’s return. Lance, however, constantly baits and teases Keith, and Keith frequently rises to it and they argue. They butt heads and don’t have that sense of camaraderie that Keith and Shiro do, so right off the bat there is more obvious tension between the two of them. Eventually, Lance and Keith learn to trust each other, and in season 8 we finally see them settle their rivalry as they prepare to face Honerva. So while Keith’s dynamic with Shiro is more focused on camaraderie and growth, Keith’s dynamic with Lance is more focused on pushing each other to be better warriors and teammates.

Philia: Friendly Love

In VLD, we’re shown that friends can be found anywhere if you’re willing to put down the blasters and try to make them. We’re also shown that just because you’re on the same side of the battlefield, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re best buddies. Commander Lahn pledges his loyalty to Lotor after his base is saved by Voltron, and Keith and Lance butt heads so often you’d think one would sooner drop the other into a black hole. However, we should never discount the power of friendship, or rather, we should never discount the value of platonic relationships. This includes everything from friendship, to the found family trope, to the mystical bond the Paladins have with their Lions. Philia is the companion’s love, firmly rooted in platonic–and often intellectual–admiration.

Philia, as defined in A Greek-English Lexicon by Liddell and Scott, is “an affectionate regard or friendship, usually between equals”. Where Eros is the fiery passion between sexually-attracted adults, Philia is the platonic love between people who respect and trust each other. This is the love that flows like water, endlessly filling and refilling your emotional needs with good company, good advice, and generally just a good presence. Friendships are the ports we anchor ourselves at when the seas become too rough, and in VLD, where space is the most dangerous frontier and most of the universe is your enemy, friends are more important than ever for our Heroes and Heroines.

[ID: A screenshot of S4E1 “Code of Honor” with Allura, Lance, Coran, Shiro, Pidge, and Hunk sharing a group hug with Keith. Coran, Hunk, Pidge, and Allura are all crying, while Keith, Shiro, and Lance are smiling. End ID.]

Everywhere you look in VLD, you’re sure to find some kind of camaraderie between friends. Lance, Pidge, and Hunk make the Garrison Trio (or as I like to call them, The Planck Constant), and they get into shenanigans together. In fact, it’s entirely likely that had Lance and Hunk not decided to follow Pidge up to the roof, they never would’ve found Shiro, and subsequently Blue Lion. Later, when Voltron has allied with Lotor as the new Galra Emperor, they reprogram a sentry to become the eternally-fantastic Funbot. If you want a prime example of the fun that could be had between friends, those three are quintessential to the definition of Philia. They’re the first Youths you meet in the story, and it’s through their eyes we watch as a far-off intergalactic war comes to Earth at last. The show has us follow them as the audience, and we watch as they meet up with Keith, save Shiro, and then find themselves going from Earth to Kerberos in less than five minutes, and then by the end of their day, they’ve awoken Allura and Coran and are on Arus, thousands of lightyears away from their home.

We see the Paladins go from a rowdy group of teenagers with Shiro as the head to a group of five Heroes and Heroines capable of saving the universe. Lance helps Pidge get all the GAC coins she needs for a video game, and he’s always got the team’s back with his sniper rifle. Hunk always is ready to lend a hand, even when he’s scared of flying Yellow, but when the Taujeerans are in danger of falling into the acid as their planet breaks apart, he’s right there holding them up while the team gets the arc ship ready for takeoff. Our Paladins are the embodiment of the power of friendship, trust, and perseverance, and it’s that tenacity and dedication that should have carried our six Paladins to victory and brought the Purple Paladin back into the light he thought had forsaken him. Black, Red, Green, Blue, Yellow, Purple, and White, together in a bond of pure platonic love. There’s an old phrase I’m sure you’re all familiar with: “blood is thicker than water”. The power of Philia and found family in VLD challenges that notion in the original S8 when Lotor is offered his vindication. “The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.”

Pick any two of our main protagonists and you’re sure to find a thread of Philia connecting them, because when you fight together as one, you inevitably become closer as the trust builds between you. In fanfic terminology, this is the root of the found family trope: strangers and friends finding themselves in a gripping adventure together, and discovering that they’re stronger together than they could be apart, and coming to see these people as more than colleagues or acquaintances. They become your family and people to defend, and the people you trust to have your back when it’s time to face down an enemy together.

That’s part of why Keith leaving for the Blade of Marmora is so fractious. He’s growing into a leadership role and obviously accustomed to it, but with Shiro’s premature return, there’s some growing pains as the incumbent leader and the former leader unintentionally butt heads. Keith needs to be in Black Lion without Shiro to complete his growth, but without a way to easily integrate him back into the team without messing with the legacy, Keith has to go. And like with any good friend, when you have to say goodbye, it’s a bittersweet affair. The team doesn’t want him to go, but in-canon he feels he can do more good with the Blade, but the meta reason is that his Hero’s Journey has been arrested. But, like with any good friend, the team is able to reunite with him at a later date and he integrates back into the group. They are wiser to the world, harder, but they are together again. And they need that unity when it’s time to face Honerva and go into battle for not just their universe, but all realities.

Storge: Familial Love

In English, we have many concepts of love, but generally we only treat the single word of “love” as a word for “love”. As a result, we tend to use other words to modify the type of love we mean, which can get things kind of sticky if you talk about X type of love but don’t specify that it’s X type and not Y type. With familial love, it can be relatively understood without being specified, but as you can see by my explication here, I still have to modify the word “love” with an adjective to describe the next kind of love I will be discussing. Storge, the familial love.

A Greek-English Lexicon defines Storge as “love, affection, especially of parents and children”. Storge, unlike Philia, is not a platonic admiration for a companion in the family, however it does denote respect. Storge is also not the idealized unconditional love of Agape (which we will discuss toward the end of this essay). Storge is the instinctive love for those in your family, especially between parents and children. I also argue the key aspect of Storge is that your family–for all the times you want to tear out your hair–will love you for the rest of their lives. And you’ll love them, because they’re people who have your best interests at heart, even if they don’t always express that well.

Coran, Coran, the gorgeous man himself is Allura’s second father figure (after Alfor), but he’s the only father figure for Allura in the show that’s alive. Coran’s protectiveness of Allura is well-documented. He was furious when she got captured saving Shiro, he warns her to be careful healing the Balmera, he worries for her in Blue, but at no point does he actually prevent her from making her choices. He wants her to have a full life, a happy life, or at least as happy as one can be when you’re one of the only survivors of a war. He’s a father through and through, and even if Allura is Alfor’s daughter by blood, Coran is the one who supports her during the most difficult stage of not just her life but the universe’s life. He loves her, he consistently reminds people to respect her and to think of what’s best for her. Not just as a princess of Altea or the heart of Voltron, but as a daughter. Alfor was her father, but he died before he saw her face the trials in the plot. Coran, however, he gets to see her grow into a woman even greater than what Alfor could have ever imagined. The audience might find him a little frustrating (such as in S8E1 “Launch Date”), and Allura takes his protectiveness in stride, but at the end of the day Coran is a gorgeous man with his heart in the right place, even if his execution is a little off the mark on occasion.

The Holt parents are also good examples of Storge. We see Colleen and Sam fight to tell Earth about what’s been going on, as well as finding their children. Colleen herself is a solid mama bear that anyone would want to have fighting for them in their corner, and we can see she gives no fucks about protocol when she’s told she can’t stay on Garrison grounds with her husband.

[ID: Colleen Holt glaring, her husband Sam behind her looking equally annoyed. She glares at Admiral Sanda (off-screen) as they argue. The subtitle reads, “You’ll get me the clearance.” End ID.]

While Colleen doesn’t hesitate to ground Pidge for running away to space, the fact of the matter is that she and Sam fought like absolute hell to protect their kids in the ways they had available to them. Storge is the love parents have for their children and these two human characters are the perfect examples of it, even if Pidge chafes a bit under being grounded. Sam and Colleen’s love for Pidge and Matt and Coran’s love for Allura are the perfect avenues to explore how Storge is love, even if it’s frustrating, but they also serve as an excellent foil for how that love can be horribly twisted.

Philautia: Self-Love

In S1E1 of VLD, when our human protagonists meet Allura, Sendak is barreling through open space to their location and hellbent on capturing the Blue Lion. Allura is able to talk to Alfor–or rather, his hologram–to seek guidance in the upcoming battle, and he says, “You must be willing to sacrifice everything to assemble the lions and correct my error.”

With VLD, there’s this idea of sacrifice, of giving your life for the greater good, but when discussing acts of love, we also need to talk about acts of love for yourself. We see many instances of characters sacrificing themselves for the greater good, the belief that their death will bring an eventual victory to the Paladins of Voltron and free the universe. Allura throws Shiro into an escape pod so he doesn’t have to suffer the abuse again, but in the process becomes a prisoner herself. Ulaz gives up his life to save the Paladins and keep the Blade of Marmora base secret. Thace sacrifices himself so that Galra Central Command can go offline and the plan can move forward. Keith nearly kills himself trying to break through Haggar’s barrier at the battle of Naxzella before Lotor intervenes and destroys the ship with a blast from his Sincline ship. Sacrifice is a massive part of the show, and needless sacrifices are always undone, but what message do continuous sacrifices leave us with as the audience? It leaves us with Alfor’s lesson: you must sacrifice everything to correct my mistake.

When you’re writing, one of the most basic things you must do to drive a plot forward is change something significant. In the beginning of a story, Character A might think Character B is wrong and has no idea of what it takes to do something, but then Character B later on needs to surprise Character A by proving they can do that thing or that they don’t need to. It forces Character A and the audience to rethink their initial assumptions, and it encourages tension and dialogue between characters that otherwise might not exist. It’s an internal motivation, and one that audiences will pretty much always find more gripping and compelling than a simple monster-of-the-week scenario. VLD is no different. “All Galra are bad/Altea is good” leads to meeting the Blade of Marmora and Alteans who took over their universe. The challenge to a character’s worldview is what makes turning these initial ideas on their head so satisfying.

So what could challenge the idea that you have to sacrifice everything? Especially to correct the mistakes of someone else?

Love. Not for others, not for family, not even for the greater good.

But for yourself.

To quote Audre Lorde, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” Philautia is the love in which you put yourself first, not because it’s selfish, but because it’s self-care. Self-love is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as “an appreciation of one’s own worth or virtue” and Philautia has been recognized for millennia as a basic human need by the likes of Maslow and the Ancient Greeks. Recognizing your own needs and worth is a fundamentally radical decision, especially if you are in a position where you’re expected to prioritize the needs of others before your own.

S1E1 of VLD offers us pretty much every worldview that gets challenged later on in the series, except for Alfor’s. We see Alteans can be equally cruel, that Galra are not all evil. Voltron is a great protector, but it is also a great weapon, and Keith even calls it an alien warship in the very beginning, highlighting the danger Blue–and consequently Voltron itself–poses by merely existing. Philautia is not the exertion or prioritization of your desires, but the assertion of your needs. It can easily swing too far into selfishness and vanity, but making yourself heard is never a bad decision, and for those who are marginalized, women, trans people, disabled people, neurodivergent people, nonwhite people, it is an act of defiance. The sins of people in positions of power are not the burden for their victims to bear. If protesting is too much or too burdensome, simply taking the time to care for oneself is enough, because you can’t pour water out of an empty cup. Alfor’s plea to Allura was always meant to be overturned with the finale, especially since she’s facing down the antithesis of everything she believed in season 1. Honerva is selfish, manipulative, abusive, and an Altean woman. Alfor would ask Allura to give up everything she has left to destroy Honerva, but in the original and unedited season 8 Allura would have taken that plea and turned it on its head.

VLD’s Princess Allura is the first and only iteration to be a nonwhite girl and voiced by a black woman. Having her sacrifice herself is an extremely harmful message to little girls of color everywhere because it’s not the burden of girls of color to save the world. Their duty is to love themselves and know they’re able to be as brave and kind and intelligent as they’d like. Princess Allura’s arc is about a girl learning to not shoulder the burden of violence, but instead choosing to relieve herself and choose healing and creation, and in turn, her reward would be the literal universe at her fingertips.

And Allura isn’t the only character to learn to love themselves. Lance, as well, learns to become comfortable with himself. At first he’s comfortable and cocky and immature in Blue Lion, but then as the seasons progress and he finds Red to be more of a challenge, he learns he has to follow through with his actions and decisions. He learns that to fly Red, he can’t hesitate and just has to roll with the punches. He dubs himself “the sharpshooter” of the group, and at first he gets laughed at, but then he saves Slav from being trapped in prison once more by firing and making a near-impossible shot. He doesn’t have to forge ahead and fight recklessly, he simply has to see an opportunity and take it.

All our other Paladins learn to become more comfortable with themselves, as well. Hunk becomes more confident in being the voice of reason, and becomes an A+ diplomat in the process. Pidge is able to open up and be honest with her team about her secrets and fears, and in return is blessed not just with that weight off her shoulders, but the knowledge that her team is her family just as much as Sam and Matt are. Keith, too, learns that he doesn’t have to go it alone all the time. He’s able to relax and trust his team, and rather than burdening himself with doing everything, he’s able to rely on the skillsets of the other Paladins and make them a stronger team by focusing his attention on directing them, as opposed to commanding them.

Another interesting example of Philautia is Lotor himself, who at no point is uncomfortable with his mixed heritage, even when he’s called a “half-breed” or when one of his parents blames half of his heritage for his failings. The main reason that it’s not as blatant is because by the time the story begins, he’s been at peace with his heritage and his place in the Galra Empire for a long time, and thus does not play a significant role until he has his breakdown at the end of season 6.

This form of love is quite possibly the most frustrating, if only because so much of its payoff was in season 8. We should see Allura not give up her life in the name of sacrifice, but rather choose to become a goddess in the name of love. We should see Lance become unshakably confident in his abilities when it’s time to face the biggest bad guy of the series. The final season was meant to be a season won through love, and self-love is quintessential to that victory, because it gives viewers the message that your acceptance of yourself is vital to the world. It’s an important lesson for little girls everywhere to know that their worth doesn’t lie in how much of themselves they can give away, but how much of themselves they cultivate and grow, because if you trust in yourself and choose love, then you’ll be as powerful and strong as Princess Allura. It’s possible to be the brave and chivalrous Paladin while also being the princess who likes the occasional sparkly thing.

The lesson of Philautia in VLD is one of embracing your limits of what you can give, and reminding the world that you matter, because loving yourself is the greatest act of defiance when you’re faced with an enemy who wants nothing more than for you to make yourself smaller, weaker, more amicable if it would please them. It’s the reminder to be gentle with yourself, no matter what battles you face, because caring for yourself is just as–if not more–important.

Xenia: Love for the Stranger

Hospitality is a massive part of many cultures, I personally had a relative (who has since passed) who would always have an open door for the poor families in their neighborhood and the stove would always have something cooking. My own mother will cook especially for you if you need her to. There’s a reason “Southern hospitality” is famous. Good food, good company, and ultimately safety are what sets Xenia among the categories of love as defined by the Ancient Greeks. In VLD, this form of love is very sparse in comparison to love such as Philia, however it’s extremely important that our heroes engage in it. To quote Coran, “70 percent of diplomacy is appearance. Then 29 percent is manners, decorum, formalities and chit-chat” (“Changing of the Guard”). The remaining one percent, which Allura notes, is actual diplomacy and fighting for freedom. That’s essentially what hosting, good and proper hosting, is. It’s taking someone into your home and providing them with material comforts and necessities such as food, as well as non-physical ones like safety or protection, or extending and respecting their rights.

A good host will anticipate their guests’ needs because they have a love for their fellow strangers, and they show that love by providing for them. Xenia is the love of the stranger who has taken up space in your home and respecting their need to do so, but it’s also a reciprocal love. By extending your hospitality to a person, they will be more inclined to do the same for you and yours in the future. In Greece it was a complicated dance of gift-giving and receiving, spurred by the belief that one would incur the wrath of a god in disguise. While offending the gods was a big fear, it’s important to remember that good hosting and good guesting will create a deep bond between both parties because you’re respecting one another. Respect your wayward traveler and welcome them into your home, and they will entertain you with tales from far away lands, and in the future you will find a place at their table. Respect your host and the space they provide you, and you’ll receive gifts and care fit for a god. This giving and receiving encourages goodwill between strangers, and providing care to someone you don’t know is an act of love in its own right.

There’s a rule in American food language: “never return an empty dish”. This rule is especially prevalent in the US South and Midwest regions, but the general idea is that when you meet someone new (i.e. a new neighbor) you bring them a dish of something to welcome them and introduce yourself. You make small-talk, help them get acquainted with the area, wish them well, and then go on your merry way. Then, once your new neighbor has settled, eaten the food you gave them, and had time to make something new, they come knocking on your door and return that dish to you with a new food in it.

That’s a facet of what Xenia can encompass, and we see Xenia acted out in three key ways in VLD: Allura recruiting people for the Voltron Coalition, Lotor hosting the Paladins during their alliance, and Hunk showing his care for others through cooking.

Allura, for all her charms, isn’t that great of a diplomat, especially in the beginning of the story. When she meets the Arusians, she accidentally informs them that their dance of apology isn’t enough, which then makes them think they need to sacrifice themselves on a pyre. She thankfully recovers and lets them continue the dance, and then invites them into the Castle of Lions later. With the leaders of the rebel planets, she has a good presence and is rather suave with her guests, however when attention moves off her and onto the Paladins, and when the question of Voltron comes up, it’s extremely difficult for her to take control of the situation again. The loss of Shiro was fresh, and she really didn’t have a good answer that would reveal they couldn’t form Voltron, so she struggled with taking control back. This isn’t an indictment on Allura, but it is meant to point out how Xenia is not easy to learn. As we follow the Paladins, however, Allura gains confidence in her ability to speak publicly, and as they gather more allies it becomes easier for her to encourage alliances. She goes from panicking and trying to keep Arusians from dying to being able to communicate with allies and command a room. Xenia doesn’t come as naturally to Allura as it does to Hunk, and Lotor has had millennia of practice, but the important thing about Xenia is that you extend your hand and make the effort, even if it’s a little clumsy, because in the end you’re caring about strangers and welcoming them into your home and telling them they have a place at your table.

However, where Allura falls short in Xenia, we see both Hunk and Lotor shine. Let’s examine Lotor’s expertise, first.

Lotor is ten thousand years old, and it’s implied he’s spent much of that time playing the political game of the Galra Empire, as well as learning about other planets. It’s canon that he has a thirst for knowledge, and so couple his curiosity with his need to survive a very blood-driven political environment and you have a golden host forged in fire. It’s difficult to surprise Lotor, since he’s pretty much always two steps ahead of everyone. When he forges an alliance with the Voltron Coalition after his victory at the Kral Zera, Lotor has banners hung that bear the same symbol that Zarkon and Alfor fought under, which also adorns the shield on Green’s back. He specifically sought to recall the good times between the Galra and Alteans, and personally greeted the Paladins on his flagship. He encourages the Paladins to explore and use whatever resources they need, because as their host, Lotor–and by extension the entire Galra Empire–is now at their disposal. He’s the ever-perfect host, inviting his lower-ranked guests to make themselves comfortable, and acknowledging Allura’s rank as princess and personally escorting her along. In a lot of other high fantasy or sci-fi stories, showing the heroes around would get palmed off to a servant of some sort, especially if the host is duplicitous. However, Lotor affords our Heroes and Heroines quite a bit of respect compared to what other characters in his place might do, even going so far as to offer his own personal time to the princess when he has an empire to claim still. Given the canon politics, Lotor logically should have been in constant communication with various officers and securing their loyalty to him, but instead he takes time to approach his new allies and make them feel welcome in the headquarters of their former-enemy.

So while Lotor is arguably the best example of good hosting I’ve ever seen in a show (without it turning out to be some sort of ploy), Hunk’s style of Xenia is equally good if in a different way. While Lotor is shown to essentially be a master of decorum, Hunk is a master in the kitchen and the art of making room for everyone at the table. Hunk has only been in space for a few months to a few years (depending on when in the series we’re talking), he hasn’t had the millennia to research planets and learn all their customs, or train in diplomacy to make up for any lack of education. He’s just a guy from Earth who likes to cook and who especially likes to cook for others. In all prior iterations of Voltron, Hunk has always been “the food guy” or “the slightly dumb, but lovable one”. It’s not particularly flattering, and VLD even pokes fun at how flat his character is historically in “The Voltron Show!” by adding fart gag noises. In VLD, however, we see that Hunk is intelligent and brave, if anxious, and he’s more at home in a home than he is in a Lion. Hunk is a good Paladin, but he is quite possibly the best diplomat in the whole show.

A large part of Hunk’s diplomacy lies in listening. When he’s out in the field, he’s quite possibly the best listener out of the entire team. When there are guests on the Castleship, or when the Alteans are on the IGF-Atlas, he doesn’t just listen, he welcomes them. In scenes from season 8, we really get to see this shine, because as Hunk says in “Day Forty-Seven”, “food has a way of reminding people of moments in time.” Bringing good memories with food can go a long way to putting stress and anger behind people.

Every person has a dish that, when prepared, makes them relax and think of happy memories. In Hunk’s kitchen, everyone eats, and nobody is unwelcome. Whether you’re Commander Lahn and working with Hunk to save your planet from devastating radiation, or you’re an Altean who just wants what’s best for your people, Hunk will meet you halfway and try to see things from your perspective, and offer you a cookie because he feels like it. Hunk’s Xenia is not wrapped up in protocol or etiquette. His Xenia is found just across the kitchen table, with a plate of warm food and a friendly conversation, ready to listen to your troubles and offer a hug, if not a solution.

Agape: Unconditional Love

Now that we have discussed the five prior categories of love as defined by the Ancient Greeks, let’s examine Agape, which can be difficult to conceptualize. “Agape” originates a Greek term, however it wasn’t used very often until Christianity came into the picture, and thus it encompasses far more than even xenia does, because while Xenia is love in the form of courtesy to travelers, Agape’s prevalent definition stems purely from the idea that God loves everyone unconditionally. In fact, “agape” is the term used in the Bible to describe the unconditional love of God, but when you translate it to English, the word simply becomes “love”, losing the weight that it carries in Greek.

The idea of unconditional and divine love is not unique to Christianity or the Ancient Greeks. Throw a rock in any direction and I’m sure you’ll find a culture with a similar concept to Agape. The key aspects of unconditional love is that it is sexless–meaning attraction is unnecessary to feel Agape–and that it is founded in goodwill for others. It feels cheap to throw the quote “love thine enemy” around in this section, because that discounts the importance of Philautia as we discussed it earlier in this essay, but at the end of the day that’s what Agape means. The Bible–which influences much of the definition of this kind of love–would have people forgive the ones who do them wrong, but forgiveness does not mean forgetting, and loving someone doesn’t require forgiving them either.

In VLD, a man loved a woman so much he tricked his closest friends and allies into opening a rift in an effort to save her life. In the process, they both died and revived, cursed with immortality and a thirst for destruction. Zarkon was a man who loved Honerva so much that he doomed the known universe to 10,000 years of his tyranny. Honerva, when she regained her memories, sought vengeance against Voltron for not just losing her son, but also because she blames everyone around her for being the reason why her own son rejected her time and time again. Honerva is the antithesis to Allura in pretty much every way, and in the edited season 8, Lotor is condemned to a cycle of abuse because he’s never offered an opportunity to speak, just like how he was violently silenced by his mother when he disobeyed his father on the colony planet in “Shadows”. Honerva, however, is not.

[ID: A screenshot of S8, featuring from left to right: Lance, Keith, Allura, “Shiro”, Pidge, and Hunk. They face Honerva, who is facing away from the audience so we see the back of her head and suit. Screenshot from “Seek Truth in Darkness”. End ID.]

[ID: A shot of “Allura”’s hand grasping Honerva’s wrist and vice versa. Screenshot from “Seek Truth in Darkness”. End ID.]

Allura being a paragon of growing into Philautia gives other characters the ability to do the same, but as @leakinghate notes in “Seek Truth in Darkness”, that is not Allura’s hand, just as that is not Shiro next to Allura in the prior screenshot. Allura is not the one who was most wronged by Honerva. She was asleep and hidden from the universe. Lotor, however, was subjected to centuries of abuse by the hands of his parents.

Agape is a complicated love, one that requires a person to be able to love everyone unconditionally, but love does not necessarily mean “forgive and forget”. It’s important that Allura impart the enlightenment she gained on her Heroine’s Journey, because this is the point where she can be at peace and claim her cosmic reward, but she cannot do so without the person who was most wronged being able to face his oppressor: Lotor.

[ID: A close-up shot of Lotor glaring at the audience, with the subtitle text reading, “maybe I will take pity on you when the time comes.” Screenshot from “Seek Truth in Darkness”. End ID.]

As @leakinghate​ pointed out, Allura is the one to use her abilities to restore Honerva’s sense of self, but Lotor being present makes this confrontation all the more poignant and intense. This is the opportunity for us to see Agape in its full glory, but with the edits to the final season it’s a pale shadow of what could have been. The universe is about to be reborn because Allura and Lotor stay behind to repair the rift in all realities. We need that Philautia that Allura is able to embody, but we also need Agape. We’re shown countless times throughout the show that good and evil are not so clearly delineated, and that there are shades of gray everywhere. Lotor has been hurt so much by the one person alive who should have loved him unconditionally.

And rather than continue the cycle of abuse and take vengeance, he chooses to let go. We should have seen him take his power back, not in a godly or violent sense, but his power over his fate. He is not his father. And he is not his mother. He is more. By confronting her in this rift of all realities, we see the foreshadowing of season 6 come into full swing and while we are missing much of that original sequence between him and his mother, it’s important to realize that regardless of the content that was removed post-production, he takes pity on his mother in a sense. She’s a flawed person who made bad decisions. He does not owe her forgiveness, and he does not owe her love, but in her finally letting go of not just him but all the spirits of the original Paladins, Lotor himself is able to be free to love in the way he was denied: unconditionally.

The universe needs people who love themselves enough to choose a path of peace, and it needs to be made with the unconditional love of a parent, a friend, a lover, a god. It needs the eternal goodwill of its new creators because the people of the new universe will fuck up. They’ll make mistakes and hurt each other and Weblums will eat planets and the circle of life will continue. But being able to look at the fucked-up universe and say “I love you” is a power that not many have. It takes courage to look at the universe that has wronged you, wronged billions, hurt the found family that’s accepted you, and still find a way to love it.

The new universe is made of love just as the old one was. It’s made with passion, for friends, for family, for strangers, and for yourself. It’s made by people with love and hope and the intent to make the world they live in a little better every day. And that, ultimately, is the true love that spurs the story of VLD forward.

Stay tuned for a companion meta soon, in which we will discuss these forms of love and how they can be twisted and taken to unhealthy extremes.

Works Cited

Dos Santos, Joaquim and Montgomery, Lauren. Voltron: Legendary Defender. Netflix.

LeakingHate, et. al. “Legendarily Defensive: Editing the Gay Away in VLD”. Team Purple Lion. 12 Mar 2019. Web. https://www.teampurplelion.com/gay-romance-cut-voltron/

LeakingHate, et. al. “Seek Truth in Darkness”. Team Purple Lion. 2 Mar 2019. Web. https://www.teampurplelion.com/seek-truth-in-darkness/ Liddell, Henry and Scott, Robert. “Eros”. A Greek-English Lexicon. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3De%29%2Frws

Liddell, Henry and Scott, Robert. “Philia”. A Greek-English Lexicon. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dfili%2Fa

Liddell, Henry and Scott, Robert. “Storge”. A Greek-English Lexicon. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dstorgh%2F

“Self-love”. Merriam-Webster Dictionary. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/self-love

Payne, Will. “Botany for the Beginner”. Australian Plants Online. 2006. http://anpsa.org.au/APOL2006/aug06-s1.html

Potter, Ben. “The Odyssey: Be Our Guest With Xenia”. Classical Wisdom Weekly. 19 April 2013. Web. https://classicalwisdom.com/culture/literature/the-odyssey-be-our-guest-with-xenia/

@leakinghate​ @crystal-rebellion​ @felixazrael​ @voltronisruiningmylife​

[tortoisesshells]

Top five guilty pleasure reads/watches! (I mean film/TV, not clock-work!)

(1) Haven. The low mental investment monster of the week show of my dreams, ft. Strong & Silent Small Town Cop, Zany FBI Agent Turned Paranormal Whisperer, Amoral Smuggler Turned Caring Restaurateur, and all the gooey Stephen King weirdness you can shake a stick at, PLUS gorgeous Maine scenery that’s totally not Nova Scotia. The ending didn’t make sense, and I lost patience with just about everyone by S5, but my love for S1-S3 is boundless.

(2) Eureka. I’ve already started humming the theme. A delightful alternate universe where there’s actually research funding and the government occasionally invests in things that are not weapons systems? I think I explained this once as: what if someone made Will Turner the sheriff of a town full of insufferable geniuses?

(3) Timeless. I’m a simple woman. I see found family, shades of moral grey, characters struggling with grief and survivor’s guilt, characters who are competent at their jobs, characters who soliloquize when they’re on their last legs, and antagonists who are not in fact completely villainous, and fall ass-over-tea-kettle in love. I refuse to acknowledge the Christmas special and continue to live in my blissful world where Jess comes back to the Bunker Team, Flynn is alive and the weird grumpy murder uncle, and Rufus isn’t just a plot coupon.

(4) Sleepy Hollow (specifically S1). Honestly, it’s nearly impossible to go back, given how badly the show ended, and what we know now about how the production team mistreated Beharie and Jones and the writing room; and the first season made serious missteps with indigenous and Romani narratives. And yet I will love Abbie Mills forever, as well as certain episodes of a show that unironically gave me literal zombie George Washington. There’s something appealing in a show that so fully committed to a completely batshit premise.

(5) Crash Landing on You. On the one hand, yes, this is about a South Korean billionaire heiress who falls in love with an uptight but honorable North Korean army officer after a series of unfortunate events dumps her in the DMZ. On the other hand, the found family is impeccable, the self-referential humor is delightful, and the emphasis on making one’s own decisions and assigning the meaning that makes sense to you is surprisingly poignant.

[despair-ninja-everything-agency]

Ninjago: Ongeki Hibiki - an idea of Kamen Rider X Ninjago

Ever since I came back to the Kamen Rider series, one particular Rider-Ninjago match up has been stuck on me for a while. Believe it or not, it's between Kamen Rider Hibiki and Cole's dad, Lou. There's a reason why I gave his surname (and by extention Cole) as Hibiki.

While I haven't watch the entirety of Kamen Rider Hibiki (or Kamen Rider in general, really) save for some YouTube clips, I at least have the general gist of the plot and how the staff changes affect the second half of the season.

But enough of that, let's get to the proposed story of Lou as Hibiki.

Overview and Brief History

Back in 20... what? 10? 12? It was when Gaim was the latest Kamen Rider on air. There's really not much premise since it was still in a "casting agency" phase, meaning I still playing matching up without much story put on thought.

Lou is no different. I assigned him to be Hibiki simply for the latter's theme in music. He's in a team consisting of Dr. Julien as Kabuto and Ed Walker as Den-O, both of which doesn't have valid reasons to be matched up with like Lou did other than it sounds cool on paper. You could argue that Ed is Den-O because Den-O is one of if not the quirkiest Heisei Phase 1 Rider and Ed is that quirky while Kabuto has technological emphasis in which Dr. Julien is related to but these kinda stretching it.

Come this year. 2020.

Lou's Story as Hibiki

The idea is that, since it's confirmed that Onis exist in Ninjago's World, there's supposedly a small Oni tribe known as the Ongeki tribe, famous for their usage of music in battle. This again split into 4 clans. The clan of Ibuki which specialized in wind instruments, the Zanki clan specialized in string instruments, an unnamed clan which specialized in keyboard instruments, and the Hibiki clan which specialized in percussion instruments. They are separate from the usual Onis of Ninjago's Continuity in that they rather left out of the never ending war between Onis and Dragons, only come out to the battlefield whenever necessary. However, this in turn causes friction with the other Onis, the latter deeming them to be cowards. It resulted in a genocide against the Ongeki tribe, with only one (or a few, maybe) survivor.

Lou (original name unknown) was an Oni from the Hibiki clan. He specifically mastered in taiko drums, in leu with the original Hibiki. Not much known about his past except he was a trained warrior. While skilled, he's considered to be one of the lowest ranking warrior. On the day of the genocide, he managed to escape to the realm which would become Ninjago with the help of another Oni, which may or may not be Mistaké.

As an Oni, his form is closer to that of the Oni of Kamen Rider Hibiki, in particular Hibiki himself, rather that the Oni of Ninjago. Once settled in Ninjago, he changed into a form that we now know as Lou. As a disguised human, he often changing identities and jobs. But each jobs he had were always have to do with music, something he felt reminding him of his home.

This might be forced but let's talk of how Lou transforms into his Oni form using a device rather than at will like most of Ninjago's Oni. Cuz I like the Henshin Onsa :P

Lou, back then know with a different name that suspiciously similar to the OG Hibiki (Hitoshi Hidaka) down to the alletrative name, was involved with helping the First Spinjitzu Master fending off the Oni forces sent to capture him. However, since he's weaker than the FSM, he's captured quickly by the Oni. Believing that having his powers would be an obstacle to them, the Oni forces decided to seal away his Oni powers and form, rendering him a normal man. They didn't manage to do the same to Mistaké tho, as they're driven away from Ninjago.

It is at this time that the FSM offered to help him tapping into his Oni powers, which led to the creation of the Henshin Onsa, a tuning-fork shaped transformation device. It lets him to access his Oni powers and ability yet not enough to return him to his Oni form. He only finally able to turn into his Oni form again after a tougher training, and even then he still need to use the Onsa for it.

Due to the extended lifespan of an Oni, Lou had lived long enough to know the history of Ninjago itself in the making. However, he only known as what he is now when he met with The Elemental Master of Earth. They both fell in love quite fast and not even the revelation of Lou's true identity hindered their love for one another. This led to their marriage and later the birth of Cole.

Cole was unaware of his heritage as an Oni as Lou tried his best not talk about his other activity, often disguised it as something related to his current occupation as the Royal Blacksmith. Speaking of Royal Blacksmith, he established it with three other people not long after Cole's birth.

Now for something related to his injury, that is his broken foot. See, while he presented it as some insignificant accident, in reality he was injured while fighting against a giant creature similar to the Makamou of KR Hibiki. In his defense, it did happened during a big party in which he's invited to.

General Appearance as Hibiki

While his Oni form is that of OG Hibiki's, Lou's transformed or powered state is usually signified with his suit turning into a simple purple colored hakama with brown ropes fastening a golden Oni face similar to the early Ninja gi where the Oni face is replaced with elemental symblos. His footwear is a pair of wooden sandals and a pair of white socks. A red taiko drumstick known as Ongekibou usually appears on his back in a crossing manner fastened by the ropes.

Rider AU vs Symphogear AU vs A Canon Divergance

Here's the deal. I have two or three idea for Lou as Hibiki.

The first one is a Canon Divergance, in which I have elaborated above. His relationship with Cole is still strained, even more so once Cole found out that Lou isn't what he appears to be. But it does work around later on.

The second is the Rider AU. While the whole Ongeki tribe thing still exist, its demise is instead causes by a group known as Shocker (the OG Kamen Rider's enemy). The circumstance of his transformation is different as well. In here, Lou was almost got killed and went missing, leading to the then teenager Cole to go after Shocker in revenge. This leads to him nearly dying, only surviving thanks to Dr. Julien turning him into a cyborg and become Ninjago's equivalent of Kamen Rider Black. Lou returns to his only family after recovering from his wound.

The last is Symphogear AU. His circumstance is that he's an early expermentation of Symphogear's prototype, utilizing the power of music (specifically taiko music) as opposed to the more well known song. In appearance, he is also different to his successor in that he wears a hakama instead of armors. Of course, his son Cole become the next Symphogear wielder who utilize the power of Gungnir relic. Lou's relic is left unknown.

[zaritarazi]

What makes Tagumo Attacks one of your favorites?

okay woof this turned into a mini-essay that’s on me you can choose to read it under the cut

it’s one of the most tightly written episodes legends has ever had, for starters. it juggles 3 plots, all three of which are at least tinged with very real sadness, really well. Even though the plots do vary- we’ve got tagumo in the a plot, nora and ray in the b plot, and nate and ava vs family gather in the c plot, they maintain common themes that drive home the emotion of the episode. Overall, we see issues of humanity, darkness, and compassion- What can a person come back from? Where can a person go after trauma? It comes to us in tiers- Clearly, Ishirō Honda has seen the greatest trauma, and it’s important that the show makes that distinction, because his actually happened in real life. Putting priority on that shows the emphasis the episode has to emotional honesty- Had Legends chosen to do what a LOT of American narratives do, which is talk around the Atomic Bombs or use at least some justification for it, the episode would’ve been unwatchable and completely disingenuine. 

So with that in mind, we have our three cases of humanity: We have Honda-san, who has, as he did in real life, been making larger than life monsters to represent the horror of the atomic bomb. On the fictional end, we have Nora, who has no faith in herself and feels all of her power can only come from a negative place. And then we have the fugitives at the time bureau, the actual “monsters,” who don’t actually get to speak for themselves- Mona essentially has to come in and serve as the big reminder to have compassion for the little guys. And her compassion at the bottom kicks all the way back up to the top- Ray asks Nora why she assumes her magic has to be dark, and offers her the ability to see herself as something other than a monster, and in the A plot, Sara points out that there is nothing wrong in using art to work through trauma, and that this event (tagumo being real) is only happening because the trauma occurred in the first place.

Additionally, we see Charlie start to take her place in the team- As a magical creature herself, it is vital for her to see the good in humanity through this lens, and it is vital that humanity be tested by Charlie’s standards- This is actually the turning point episode for her trusting the Legends, and for everyone in-show to take a different look at their preconceived notions of magic. Even though the midseason finale was a very silly kind of mash-up of tropes, it is worth noting that the last timeline, the most “correct” one before they fix things, does correctly point out that people can be very cruel when they choose to fear something instead of understanding it. THIS is the episode that picks understanding, and WITHOUT it, we would’ve missed something really and deeply important to the narrative of this season.

I’ve found that at its best, Legends lets the characters lead the narrative, and drive the vehicle in whichever way their predetermined experiences tell them to. Yes, there’s usually a monster of the week, but from there, the episode is always better if the reactions of the characters feel genuine and in line with what has been established in other episodes. At its worst, Legends has fallen prey to bigger picture plots that ignore characterization in order to force plot points of convenience-  In order for A to happen, Character must do X. So Tagumo strides because it shows us the very best we can be, especially after going through the very worst. 

Like i know legends is mostly a clown car fire but like... sometimes i can acknowledge that i know writers do stuff on purpose. but don’t get used to it or anything

[riallasheng]

Zak Storm episodes in Viewing Order!!

I tend to break Season 1 of Zak Storm into three parts of 13, mostly because there are three different parts plot/theme wise and it also makes it easier to see the rising tension and have a series of building climaxes as the Episodes go.

Some things to note are:

·         Origins was apparently supposed to be a three parter, not a two parter and as a result the pacing is a bit janky

·         The broadcasters had severe issues of airing the episodes in what they felt was the order of ‘best scripted/strongest episodes first’ and as a result in the original airing order you had things like waypoints being opened before they were found

·         The show is very good at subtle/slow build of plot and character and lore, but that DOES mean that you sometimes have to wait to get answers

·         And other small things like that.

·         The show is an action adventure series, but despite that there are strong intrapersonal relationships and an emphasis on family and team work

·         The show does occasionally deal with very mature maters.  Nothing NSFW, but themes like death, homesickness, and even defense-vs-revenge.  For me this is wonderful, but that might not be for everyone

·         The First ‘season’/5 or so episodes are a bit slow, but it DOES pick up and WOW is it amazing once it does!!

1a01: Origins part 1 1a02: Origins part 2 1a03: Witch Overboard 1a04: The Voice of Chaos 1a05: Troll Diving 1a06: Freezing Point 1a07: Morlock the Unstoppable 1a08: The Seas Seven 1a09: The Swap 1a10: Spirited Away 1a11: Lumuria Attacks 1a12: The Jellybeast of Legend 1a13: The Lighthouse of the Soul

1b01: Forged in Fire 1b02: Prison Break 1b03: The Bermuda Apocalypse 1b04: Crogar the Terrible 1b05: The Labyrinth of Minotaur 1b06: The Last Flight of Icarus 1b07: Call of Adventure 1b08: Mutiny on the Demoniac 1b09: Crogar’s Band 1b10: Wrath of Blix 1b11: The Shipwrecked in the Sand 1b12: Tanah Lost 1b13: Escape from Netherwhere

1c01: Eye of Cyclone 1c02: Calabrass’ Old Friend 1c03: Thermal Shock 1c04: Burn Out 1c05: Trial by Fire 1c06: The Wiseman 1c07: Calabrass’ Body 1c08: The Stowaway 1c09: Between Stars 1c10: Island of the Lost Children 1c11: Zak’s Choice 1c12: The Lost Orb 1c13: The Last Guardian

I also have a gDoc with my reasoning for this order, but be warned, within this doc are SPOILERS!! Read at your own risk!!

[luvtessascott]

SOI Hamilton Write-Up  Part 1/2 (Day/Show)

Hey guys!!! I can’t believe this weekend is already over, but even before starting to write this I have a smile on my face rather than the often the little bit of a post-event sadness. Much of that is because I got to spend the weekend with @makeitcountmeggy & @danelledo. I had such a fun girls weekend with them--hanging out, having life chats, talking skating, eating dessert, drinking wine, painting pottery, karaoke car rides, staying up till 4am, laughing, getting ready, going out. I can’t explain how much these two girls mean to me but the glow of this weekend in the words of @makeitcountmeggy was an energy in kind of feel; all around infectious positive energy.

We attended the Hamilton show on Saturday evening. @makeitcountmeggy & I sat together while Danielle went off to do her magic. Just as we were walking to our section we saw Kate siting in the aisle just across from us. Later she was joined by Alma and Cara and a bunch of other family/friends. Our seats were to the right of center on the long end, row 3. These were actually amazing seats, it’s the first row of the stands which makes you elevated from the on ice seating and row 1-2. You could see the entire ice the only thing that obstructed the view was the CBC video camera-- not an issue for me, because I much prefer the intimate venue for Hamilton compared to the ACC. BY THE WAY Y’ALL, guess who’s photo creds is in the SOI program **cough danielle cough**. We both bought programs to get signed at the M&G.

The show starts with the intro to Raise Your Glass. What a fun number, lots of energy. I love a good skate in formation with emphasis (not even sarcastic). The moment where Tessa, Gabi, Kaet, go up to Scott was on the way other end of the rink so I couldn’t see much but I still got it on video but it’s the back angle. Oh also, I hated those costumes on the boys, they just weren’t my cup of tea they were oddly...geometric? Lol sure, lets go with that word.

I’m not going to go number by number but I’ll give some of my general thoughts on performances for non-TS numbers. Jeff Buttle, is such a great performer. He did this program to another song from Dear Evan Hansen and it really was like a Broadway number and he carried it through the entire performance. Meghan and Eric-- I don’t think after watching them rise to the occasion at the olympics after such a tough last few season I’ll ever be able to watch them without a sense of pride. When you watch them skate, you remember all the work they put in to pave their own path despite being a partnership that no one thought would work. Their programs were entertaining and fun with some really cool elements-- I love when they do the throw into the side by side jumps. Gabi, she’s got so much energy and her jumps are so powerful I want to see her let go emotionally and give more in her face. Kaetlyn, she’s so well rounded loved both of her new show numbers she has great command of the ice. Javi’s second number was really great, I love seeing him do something slower and a bit uncharacteristic for him. Patrick’s Hallelujah was so powerful-- show patrick is my favourite patrick. While he skated I kept having flashbacks to him skating it at the olympics-- it was a beauty.

Boys number-- I love that song! It makes me want to get up and dance every time. The boys did really well with that performance but I promise you even without trying your eyes are drawn to Scott. He commits to the character so well and just has a blast out there. He lets it all go and really acts at the hype man for the other guys. When they were skating in a circle you could see him animatedly mouthing words to keep everyone motivated. Some will say that he’s too extra but he honestly looks the best out there because he gives it everything he’s got. Also poor eric sliding right off the ice,oopss! 

Girls number-- I’ve seen pretty stellar review for the girls number however while it’s pretty and the costumes were great, I found it underwhelming. I just thought they could’ve done more than pretty girls skating to pretty music. Give it a theme, make it more intricate, ect.

You Rock My World-- So I didn’t watch any videos before the show. It was hard but I love being surprised. I thought the number was great!! So fun, so jazz, they totally nailed the Michael Jackson theme. When I first saw the costumes online, I didn’t love them however in person they’re much more striking and sparkly. They skated the number with so much attitude and energy. Scott sang the whole time it was so precious. Chemistry was off the charts as usual. I actually feel like I need to re-watch videos of it now to properly take it in because of how fast it moved. TS are such performers, I know this is the second time I’ve mentioned committing to the role but this is another prime example. They both feed off each other and give it everything--every move having intention and purpose. Overall great number!

Shape of You-- I’d like to thank God, Jeff Buttle, and Tessa and Scott for this number where for lack of a better descriptor TS can feel each other up for three minutes RIGHT on my side of the rink, UH-MAZ-ING. The costumes were so striking and looked great on everyone one. TS totally committed to the routine were vibe-ing so well with the music and, of course, each other. Hella chemistry, geez! They play of each other, flirt with their eyes--it’s hypnotizing to watch.

Fields of Gold-- this number was so simple yet so powerful. I loved the choice of music and the lighting. I wish that Gabi and Kaet got their own entrance and that the piece was a bit longer, it ended much too soon. There was a easy sense of pride as the team was announced as Canada’s Gold Team Medalists and a roaring standing ovation took over. I loved the cute little choreographed group hug because you know that the team is thinking back to that moment on Olympic Ice--huge feels.

Moulin Rouge-- So again with not having watched any videos, bless @makeitcountmeggy for agreeing to film for me so I could just watch. I didn’t know what was coming for the intro but all my friends insisted that I would scream. The long time running with the cbc video was so cute, there was lots of ‘awww’s’ from the audience. I glanced back at Kate and I saw her with that proud mom teary eyed look. The second the lights flashed on for Moulin Rouge, in my direction first. I screeched, IT WAS SO BRILLIANT. It was totally visceral, who ever came up with that was genius. The program itself was so great, TS were really bringing it with their facial expression and totally committed to the program. It was probably my second favourite time seeing it-- nothing will beat nationals however the epic lighting and just how close we were sitting made it a close second. I thought it was great how they incorporated the little bit of the short dance into it, it totally fit perfectly. I also loveeeee that team event dress, it was so sparkly. The performance easily brought on a standing ovation. 

You Will Be Found--- I personally thought this number was a little over hyped. It was great music and it was fun when they all skated forward at the crest of the music but I just found it repetitive. The little TS bit at the end was very pretty. Also I loved that after he kissed T on the cheek and went to skate away he had this moment of ‘wow’ looking at and feeling the energy from the crowd he really feeds off it.

It was also nice to meet up with my other friends and get a squad pic at intermission, we hadn’t met up since nationals so it was fun to all touch base :)  @icevirtuemoir @canadianvirtues @tessavirtueandmoir

Part 2 will include the outtakes discussion and my meet and greet :)

Part 2

[aion-rsa]

Lucifer Season 6 Episode 10 Review: Partners ‘Til the End

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This Lucifer review contains spoilers.

Lucifer Season 6 Episode 10

“I’m an angel, remember? I’ll see you on the other side.”

There are endless avenues the Lucifer writing team could have taken with the series finale “Partners ‘Til the End,” but fans of the Netflix fantasy show are treated to an emotionally charged ride that finally places the characters exactly where they need to be whether in Heaven, Hell, or here on earth. Though the episode clearly centers on the circumstances behind Lucifer’s disappearance and the impact it eventually has on Chloe and Rory, all the characters receive wonderful, albeit brief, tributes that offer the satisfying endings each deserves. All in all, just a beautifully executed conclusion to a show that began with such a preposterous premise.

The partners come full circle as Chloe gets shot in the series pilot and stabbed in the finale, but it’s the actions of the half human, half angel Aurora that ultimately drives the final narrative and draws Lucifer and Chloe even closer together. In retrospect, viewing Lucifer as a series of metaphors remains an option, and with the emphasis lately placed on the themes of guilt and redemption, this approach makes perfect sense. “If the Devil can be redeemed, then anyone can,” Lucifer explains to Vincent Le Mec during the final scene and hones in on the series’ fundamental precept – Lucifer is us.

Lucifer’s recurring refrain “what is it you truly desire,” coupled with the fact that his character embodies the global concept of pure evil through the Devil persona, provides an opportunity to examine our own failings as human beings traversing the many pitfalls life puts in our way. All of which makes Lucifer’s epiphany such a wonderful outcome as he recognizes that Hell doesn’t need a keeper; it needs a healer. He’s found his calling, and it couldn’t be further from what we’d expect of the celestial being we meet outside of Lux when this journey begins.

Read more

TV

Lucifer Season 6 Episode 9 Review: Goodbye, Lucifer

By Dave Vitagliano

TV

Lucifer Season 6 Episode 8 Review: Save the Devil, Save the World

By Dave Vitagliano

Through six seasons, the Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar relationship occupies much of the narrative capital, and once they settle their differences, the ongoing romantic entanglements disappear leaving the landscape open for others to move to the front. However, the appearance of their daughter Rory and the time travel element that brings her from the future, enable a long buried aspect of Lucifer’s personality to emerge. Rory’s anger toward her father and his own self-directed angst regarding his absence during her childhood disappear in the midst of an emotionally charged scene that leads to a promise to not change a thing. Rory realizes Lucifer was there when she needed him most, and in a scene visually and thematically reminiscent of Dan’s ascension into Heaven, Rory returns to her own time in the future. Brilliantly handled.

While it may have been nice for Rory to remain in her parents’ time, we always knew the future for Lucifer’s nuclear family would remain unchanged. What we see in “Partners ‘Til the End,” though, is that the truth of the situation sets Lucifer, Chloe, and Rory free from the pain and suffering each endures now and in the decades to come. Even though Chloe and Lucifer now understand the events that lead to his absence during Rory’s life, a somber mood surrounds the two at Lux as they work through the reality of how their lives will change. Lucifer doesn’t disappoint, however, and sits at the piano, presumably for the last time, to play a “Heart and Soul” duet with Chloe. It’s a sweet scene during which she tells him “I’ll be with you always,” though the visual of them kissing as he sits on Hell’s throne is momentarily a bit disconcerting. To be fair though, it will be hell for them to be apart.

Though there’s not much about the Lucifer series finale that requires in-depth explanation, that doesn’t mean there aren’t ideas and motifs that bear discussing. While regret and guilt play a significant role in determining one’s ability to enter Heaven, the sacrifices Chloe and Lucifer make, not only for the sake of their daughter but also for the good of the human race, should not be dismissed lightly. 

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TV

Lucifer Season 6 Episode 7 Review: My Best Fiend’s Wedding

By Dave Vitagliano

TV

Lucifer Season 6 Episode 6 Review: A Lot Dirtier Than That

By Dave Vitagliano

The series denouement comes fast and furious, and that’s perfectly fine. This is Lucifer and Chloe’s story, and even though we know she’s on her deathbed in the future, it doesn’t make seeing it any easier. Still, the sublime nature of the mother/daughter reunion in the future reveals even more layers of the sacrifices Chloe makes along the way. Her death and ascendance into Heaven is likewise handled with the beauty it deserves, and when the white robed Amenadiel appears behind her, we realize her journey is just beginning. “Are you ready to go home?” he asks her. And then it hits us.

Perfection is a dangerous word to throw around, but the show’s final scene comes as close as celestially possible to achieving narrative perfection. Because the scene now turns visually dark, we immediately know we’re in Hell, and wait to glimpse our first Hell loop. However, that’s not how Lucifer rolls, and we find ourselves inside a therapist’s office that looks eerily similar to Linda’s. Instead of Linda conducting a session, it’s Doctor Lucifer employing all of the tools and techniques gleaned from his sessions with Doctor Martin. Le Mec’s inclusion in Lucifer’s group session speaks loudly to the work the Devil plans with his healing mission.

And just so we know the new, improved Lucifer retains much of what makes him such a delightful character, a knock on the door prompts a response that the donuts must have arrived. A playful jab at law enforcement? Nevertheless, Chloe walks through the door prompting a magnificent call and response to end the series. “Hello, detective.” And in a perfect tie-in to the episode’s title, Chloe responds, “I thought you could use a partner.” We don’t know the mechanics involved, but since Amenadiel now occupies God’s throne, we can assume Chloe’s been granted free passage between Heaven and Hell. A happy ending for sure.

Nevertheless, it’s not all about Lucifer and Chloe, and the members of Team Lucifer deserve and receive nicely presented scenes that provide enough closure to keep everyone happy. Ella meets the first group of girls for her STEM program and her relationship with Carol appears to be thriving. As much as anything Lucifer does in his final days on earth, this simple act shows not only that he cares, but that he listens to what people truly desire. Dan and Charlotte relaxing at an outdoor cafe would have been enough. Nevertheless, the writers hit a homerun adding a swanky metal serving dish whose removal reveals one of Dan’s beloved pudding cups. Again, brilliant.

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TV

Lucifer Season 6 Episode 5 Review: The Murder of Lucifer Morningstar

By Dave Vitagliano

TV

Lucifer Season 6 Episode 4 Review: Pin the Tail on the Daddy

By Dave Vitagliano

Even though Merrin Dungey joins the cast late and appears only briefly, her character plays an important role in Amenadiel’s ascendance. Unfortunately, we won’t get to see her working side by side with Chloe and Ella now that she’s a detective, but we know her heart’s in the right place, and she’s working with the right people. Though I didn’t hear the tinkling of a bell, an angel gets his wings which absolutely thrills his parents. We could have done with a bit more Linda, but Lucifer’s homage at the end pays tribute nicely. And the powerful scene in which the celestials kneel before their new God drives home the fact that the human race is in magnificent hands.

Arguably the most delightful and engaging couple, Eve and Mazikeen work together as bounty hunters, but it’s the phone call they receive while out on a job that reminds us what a strong bond Team Lucifer retains. Chloe brings infant Rory home from the hospital to meet the family that will love and support her through the challenging days ahead. These charming snapshots of the near future feel completely natural.

We’ve reached the end of our journey with Team Lucifer and the LAPD, so what do we know? Amenadiel has taken over as God now that their Father left this universe to be with his wife in another. Dan, Charlotte, and Chloe find themselves rewarded with new lives in Heaven, while Ella, Carol, Sonya, and present day Chloe hold down the fort at the precinct. Half-angel Charlie gets his wings, but we don’t know the status of Linda’s manuscript devoted to her experiences with Lucifer. 

With Lucifer down under, who will occupy the penthouse? Chloe will likely want to stay in her home with Trixie and baby Rory, however, Lucifer’s old digs seem perfect as a base of operations for Maze and Eve to begin their lives together. And what of Lucifer? The Devil reinvents himself, leaving the traditional perception of Satan in the dust in favor of a kinder, gentler figure. Eventually, we know he’ll reunite with Chloe, but for now, there are patients to help.  

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Showrunner Joe Henderson has gone on record stating that this is it for Lucifer, and there will be no seventh season. It’s always difficult to leave old friends behind, and such is the case with Team Lucifer, but “Partners ‘Til the End” provides a marvelous ending to a series of stories that will continue. Unfortunately, we won’t be there to witness these sublime delights. All good things must come to an end.

The post Lucifer Season 6 Episode 10 Review: Partners ‘Til the End appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[nyslovesfilm]

Save the Date: Film Festivals and Events

Film festivals and industry events take place in New York State throughout the year. The following is a list of upcoming festivals and industry events: New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival—Through March 2 The 23rd Anniversary Edition of the NYSJFF provides viewers with an understanding of the rich mosaic culture of Jews from the Middle East and greater Sephardic Diaspora.  Contemporary voices steeped in history and tradition are celebrated through this two-week series of events, including première screenings, intriguing stories, powerful documentaries, director Q&As, and The Pomegranate Awards Ceremony.

New York International Children’s Film Festival – Through March 15 Founded in 1997, the New York International Children’s Film Festival supports the creation and dissemination of thoughtful, provocative, and intelligent films for children and teens ages 3-18. The festival cultivates an appreciation for the arts, encourages active, discerning viewing and stimulates lively discussion among peers, families and the film community.

Athena Film Festival – Feb. 27 - March 1 Held at Barnard College, the Athena Film Festival is a weekend of inspiring films that tell the extraordinary stories of fierce and fearless women leaders. Over the last 10 years, the Festival has welcomed more than 35,000 people from all over the world to 200+ screenings of narratives, documentaries, and shorts that feature diverse stories of ambition, courage, and resilience.

New York WILD Film Festival—Feb. 27 - March 1 New York WILD™ is the first annual documentary film festival in New York to showcase a spectrum of topics, from exploration and adventure to wildlife, conservation and the environment, bringing all things WILD to one of the most urban cities in the world.

Rendez-Vous With French Cinema—March 5-15 Rendez-Vous with French Cinema returns with another edition that exemplifies the variety and vitality of contemporary French filmmaking. The films on display, by emerging talents and established masters, raise ideas both topical and eternal, and many take audiences to entirely unexpected places. 

Inwood Film Festival – March 13-15 The festival celebrates and showcases the Inwood community through the moving image, presenting independent films made in the neighborhood or by Inwood-based filmmakers.

Socially Relevant Film Festival NY – March 18-22 Celebrating its  25th anniversary, the Socially Relevant Film Festival NY  aims to raise awareness towards social issues through the powerful medium of cinema.

GLAAD Media Awards (NYC) – March 19 The GLAAD Media Awards recognize and honor media for their fair, accurate and inclusive representations of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) community and the issues that affect their lives. 

Queens World Film Festival – March 19-29 Turning 10 in 2020, QWFF includes an annual multi-day/multi-venue festival, youth-oriented educational initiatives and year-round screening opportunities for QWFF filmmakers, past and present. The festival is programmed in thematic blocks with evocative titles, and each program is followed by a post-screening dialogue to engage audiences from the demographically diverse communities that comprise the borough of Queens.

New York City Short Comedy Film Festival—March 22 Come prepared to laugh at the fifth annual New York City Short Comedy Film Festival that features only films 20 minutes or less in length.

New York City International Film Festival—March 23-27 With a well-earned reputation, nationally and internationally as one of the most respected events of the film festival year, the New York City International Film Festival is committed to bringing the best of the world's cinematography to New York City and to providing a platform for established and upcoming talented filmmakers from the US and around the world to showcase their films.

CineKink NYC – March 18-22 The 17th annual CineKinc NYC will feature a carefully-curated program of films and videos that celebrates and explores the wide diversity of sexuality/ Works range from documentary to drama, camp comedy to artsy experimental, mildly spicy to quite explicit — and everything in between.

African American Women In Cinema Film Festival – March 26-28 African American Women In Cinema (AAWIC) organization has served as a continuous support for the vibrant work of women filmmakers for the past 20 years, with the mission to expand, explore and create business opportunities for minority women filmmakers throughout the entertainment industry.

NYS Writers Institute Albany Film Festival – March 28 A celebration of storytelling on screen, the kickoff to the inaugural Albany Film Festival will include illuminating the night sky and the exterior of the Science Library on the uptown UAlbany campus with a dazzling 3-D immersive light show.

New York Metropolitan Screenwriting Competition – March 30 To celebrate everything about New York, emerging screenwriters are invited to submit their work, giving New York talent an opportunity to further their careers by connecting with agents and managers who could represent them to production executives.

New Directors/New Films – March 25 – April 5 The festival introduces New York audiences to the work of emerging filmmakers from around the world, celebrating a group of filmmakers who represent the present and anticipate the future of cinema and includes daring artists whose work pushes the envelope. Presented by Film at Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art.

Reelabilities: NY Disabilities Film Festival – March 31 – April 6 The largest festival in the U.S. dedicated to promoting awareness and appreciation of the lives, stories, and artistic expressions of people with different abilities. The festival presents international and award-winning films by and about people with disabilities in multiple locations throughout the city. Post-screening discussions and other engaging programs bring together the community to explore, discuss, embrace, and celebrate the diversity of our shared human experience.

Transparent Film Festival - April 2-4 The Transparent Film Festival ("TFF") is based in the heart of New York City's buzzing East Village. TFF is only for independent filmmakers. It's not for production companies, not for studios, but only for the individual who puts his or her blood, sweat and tears into telling a story using moving images.

Bosnian-Herzegovinian Film Festival – April 8-11 The Bosnian-Herzegovinian Film Festival (BHFF) is an exciting showcase for contemporary Bosnian-Herzegovinian cinematography, and films with Bosnia and Herzegovina as their theme. Each year, BHFF brings a colorful tableau of Bosnian and Herzegovinian stories to diverse New York City audiences.

St. Francis College Women’s Film Festival – April 15-18 The  festival is committed to celebrating emerging and established female filmmakers and  strives to recognize new and original voices within the St. Francis College community and other university communities, as well as in the international emerging film community. 

Tribeca International Film Festival – April 15-26 The Tribeca Film Festival is a prominent film festival held in the Tribeca neighborhood of Manhattan, showcasing a diverse selection of independent films. Since its inaugural year in 2002, it has become a recognized outlet for independent filmmakers in all genres to release their work to a broad audience.

SUNY Wide Film Festival – April 17-19 Film and video are a thriving field of study throughout the SUNY system. From the traditional Hollywood narrative to animation, experimental film and video to documentary work, students and faculty are exploring personal visions through time-based image making. The SUNY Wide Film Festival provides a platform to highlight the work that best exemplifies the dedication and skill found across the SUNY system. 

Manhattan Film Festival – April 23 – May 7 The Manhattan Film Festival is an annual film festival founded in 2006 by filmmakers Philip J. Nelson and Jose Ruiz, Jr. and is currently operated by Nelson and a team of filmmakers, journalists and exhibitors. It was founded as the Independent Features Film Festival.

New York Indian Film Festival – April 27 - May 3 Presented by the Indo-American Arts Council, Inc. NYIFF Celebrates alternative, independent cinema from the global Indian community. The festival is dedicated to providing filmmakers, actors, and industry professionals a platform to showcase their work, as well as creating an environment where filmmakers may exchange ideas with one another, and interact with discerning and diverse audiences, journalists, and aficionados.

Blackbird Film Fest – April 30 - May 3 The festival is FREE for all to attend and prides itself on the high quality of films and filmmakers that fill the 10+ screening blocks throughout the weekend. Each year Blackbird screens 120 - 150 films with an emphasis on short form production. In addition to the many wonderful films, Blackbird also offers a variety of mentorship opportunities, workshops, and industry talks geared toward the seasoned professional as well as the first-time director.

One Take Film Festival – April 30 – May 3 This Rochester film festival has grown out of the Little Theatre's highly successful monthly documentary series that began in 2012. It celebrates and promotes the art of non-fiction filmmaking and stimulates public understanding and appreciation of the documentary film.  Over the course of four days, the art of documentary filmmaking will be celebrated in its many forms with films that inspire, surprise, challenge, enlighten and entertain us.

[storyteller0311]

Arrow 5x23: Forgiveness, Redemption, and the Ties That Bind

So, I don’t know about you guys, but I thought tonight’s season finale of Arrow was pretty spectacular. While the general plot of the episode was somewhat predictable, the themes running through it and the assorted character moments were wonderful. But it was the episode’s function as both a season finale and the closing of a 5 year arc where it truly and fantastically shined.

Tonight’s episode brought many, many things full circle and connected threads that have been present throughout the season and throughout much of the series. Had the episode not ended on such a cliffhanger, it would have worked as a series finale too. (Though I’m so glad we have more time to spend with our favorite characters.)

If I had to simplify 5x23 into a core group of themes, it would be:

Forgiveness Redemption Moving On

and most importantly...

the love of a parent for their child.

And, with great kudos to Arrow’s writers and producers, I found that these themes and the plot lines they were highlighted by simultaneously closed out the journey so far and laid the ground work for Arrow’s journey moving forward.

In my opinion, so many of the things that happened in 5x23 were necessary, not only to close out that 5 year arc, but more importantly to launch Arrow into a new era.

Malcolm Merlyn’s death could have come in so many different ways. He could have been the villain in this episode had this and previous seasons been constructed differently. But instead, and I think infinitely more powerfully, he died as the one thing he’d been claiming he was for years – a father who loved and would do anything to protect his daughter. Not only did this feed into the episode’s main theme, but it also served as a road forward for Thea in season 6. In the aftermath of Season 4’s bloodlust storyline, Thea has struggled with her identity as the daughter of less than innocent parents. But, as Malcolm proved, no one is all dark or all light (OK, except for maybe Adrian Chase – dude is bat shit bonkers) and in the end his sacrifice will give Thea the strength and the resolve and the faith to know that she is capable of being a good person and not simply the legacy of her parents.

To be honest, I wasn’t sure where Slade Wilson’s story was going to go in tonight’s episode. And by the time he had triple (quadruple?) crossed Oliver and team, I had whiplash. But, in the end, I was so very happy that his storyline was one of redemption. And it makes sense too. I highly doubt Manu Bennett would have agreed to return for anything less – especially considering his unhappiness/crankiness about Slade’s character development in the past.

Slade is a mirror in some ways to Oliver, as well as a direct callback to the beginning of Oliver’s story. This Slade is a man who has had to come to terms with his actions, he knows the power of the past. And he knows that Oliver is still the innocent kid underneath, who is not the monster that Chase has made him out to be. And, now knowing that Oliver is also a father, he too sees that Oliver knows the love of a parent for his child and that he will do all he can to save William. 

I think Slade will meet one of two fates in the aftermath of 5x23. There was a moment at the end of the episode where I caught something that made me think Slade might have something up his sleeve – an idea to save them. Whether or not Slade has a major hand in saving everyone on the island, I don’t look for him to stick around in any capacity. He’ll either die saving the others or surviving, will go off to look for his son.

For Lance, tonight’s episode was as much about moving on as it was about a parent’s love for his child. Tonight, Lance made a huge stride forward in his acceptance of Laurel’s death. Black Siren’s presence is not a balm to Lance, but rather is an insult to Laurel’s legacy. She is the antithesis to his daughter and he will not have her manipulating that legacy or his love of and memory of her.

 His moving on is also highlighted by his calling Dinah Black Canary, thus answering the question Laurel posed on her death bed to Oliver at the beginning of the season and giving Dinah her road forward in Season 6.

And, then, there’s Oliver. Our dear, beautiful boy has come full circle.

He has been to the brink and has come back from it. He will not let Adrian win. He will not give in to his demands.

He has finally come to terms with his journey and realized that he has changed. He is not the same man that returned to Starling City at the beginning of Season 1.

He has forgiven himself.

He is ready to move on.

It will probably be an unpopular opinion, but I now see why the William storyline was so important to the overall trajectory of Arrow and Oliver’s story. We can argue on specifics and how Olicity was handled within the storyline, but I think Oliver absolutely needed to learn he had a son and go through this journey to understand and accept this facet of his journey.

Because he finally understands why his father did what he did on that life raft in the pilot. Why this journey of hell and heroism began in the first place.

Because Robert’s love for his son would have led him to do anything to protect Oliver. Just like Oliver’s love for William would lead him to do anything to protect him.

Because deep down, underneath the conspiracies and the Undertaking, and the book of names, and the righting of wrongs…it was about love. And forgiveness.

“I’ve been tryin’ to get down to the heart of the matter… But I think it’s about forgiveness Forgiveness” – Don Henley, “The Heart of the Matter”

So, where do we go from here?

I look for Season 6 to be a departure in many ways from the last 5 seasons. The conclusion of Season 5 showed Oliver accepting that he could have a full life that included those he loves. I think this life will definitely include William, though how much will depend on Samantha’s fate – something I’m not sure of.

I think Season 6 will be an exploration of Oliver Queen, family man and that he and Felicity will be stronger than ever by the end of the season.

And, finally, a random thought…

With all this thematic emphasis on parents…does anyone else think it puts an interesting spin on how the new recruits called Felicity and Oliver “Mom” and “Dad” all season? 

[twdmusicboxmystery]

7x13: Details

 Okay, just wanted to go over some details in the episode.

1. The number 5. We saw 5 Kingdom-ers at the beginning with the cantaloupe: Richard, Ezekiel, Jerry, and two others. Then when Carol kills walkers in the tree, she kills four with the sign and one more with a knife: 5 total. Probably pointing us back toward S5 for, you know, some odd reason. ;D

2. Candlelight Theme. We saw it with Carol at the beginning when she woke from her nightmare. After Benjamin dies, we see it with Morgan as well. Both are in psychological distress when we see this. Of course, there are Norman’s famous lines about Beth being the light in the dark tunnel for Daryl. Daryl was in serious psychological distress after the prison went down, and Beth helped him heal from that. This kind of lighting almost always signals serious emotional angst.

3. 63 on the wall again. @bluesandbeth told me that in issue 63 of the comic books, Michonne is thought to be dead…but then turns up alive. Hmmm.

4. I wondered if Nabila meant anything specific. It means “Noble or Excellent.” Another thing I didn’t mention on Monday was what she said about burning the garden down. She said the beautiful thing was that, “If you want, it can all grow back. ” They “get to come back,” but it’s always a choice. Carol was making a choice by staying alone in that cabin. She was in a self-imposed Purgatory and wasn’t progressing at all. Now she’s made the choice to move forward and become part of the world (the Kingdom) again. Same with Ezekiel choosing not to fight the Saviors.

5. Benjamin’s girlfriend. Benjamin talked about some girl who helped him with the picture, but wouldn’t tell Morgan anything else about her. A Nonny suggested maybe this was a way of paralleling Benjamin with Zack. He definitely does have a similar, boyish look to Zack. For me, it depends on whether we ever meet this girl or not. If we do, we’ll have to see what role she plays in the show. If not, she’s only symbolic. The thing is, this was more than just a minor detail. Morgan asked Benjamin about her at least twice. They really drew attention to this, so I’ll be interested to see where, if anywhere, it goes.

6. Jerry’s cobbler. Okay, small totally silly note here. I think the cobbler has come to symbolize something good. Maybe happiness, normalcy. We saw it with Carol in 7x02. Only a place like the Kingdom that’s well settled and has a decent food supply could reasonably expect to have or make cobbler. Anyway, Ezekiel told Jerry to leave the cobbler. Yeah, it was a funny–gotta love Jerry’s smile–but also kind of random. I wondered if it was a foreshadow that bad things were afoot. (Yes, that was an extremely lame pun. Someone else also pointed out to me that a “cobbler” is someone who makes shoes. So the cobbler could also be tied to the shoe/foot theory. Just throwing that out there. ;D)

7. The Kingdomers gave the Saviors their guns. We’ve seen this before, as Negan took all the guns from Alexandria. But this made me think of Noah giving up his gun and giving into Dawn at Grady. Not only did that result in disaster where Beth was concerned, but I do think it showed his weakness as a character and led to his death later on. (X) Here, Ezekiel and co give up their guns. Not long after, Benjamin is dead.

8. The Saviors said they were going to “teach them” just like the Claimers. Small detail, but Gavin said, “You have to learn the stakes, so we’re going to teach you.” This not only points us back toward S4 but shows that the “bad guys” in this season are being set up as parallels to earlier things we’ve seen.

9. We again saw the theme of the Saviors killing someone for what someone else did. I thought it was interesting because in this case, it wasn’t supposed to happen. Gavin was surprised when he turned around and Jarod had shot Benjamin. He was supposed to kill Richard, as Gavin originally said. This has become more than just something intentional on Negan’s part.

10. “It’s As or Fs, no Is.” “One, not more not less.” I was a little confused by this part. Assuming these are letter grades with A being the highest and F being “fail,” and I’m assuming I = Incomplete, then it makes sense in the dialogue. They’re saying the drops have to be all or nothing. But I was reminded of shirt Daryl wore at the Sanctuary. It had a red A with what looked like an I super-imposed over it, which doubled as a handle of sorts. Not sure if this is what they’re going for, or even what it all means, but it’s what I thought of.

11. Carol planted tomatoes. We’ve seen tomatoes a lot, especially around Morgan, and most recently at the Kingdom. The thing I noticed was that on this package, it says, “Boston pickling.” I thought it was a pickle reference. @bluesandbeth told me that this company most often does cucumbers, not tomatoes. This may even be an incorrect pairing–something they put together for the show. A double pickle reference and paired with the tomato reference. ***Update: I need to fix the above reference. I misunderstood the information sent to me. Boston Pickling isn't a company. It's a type of cucumber. Im looking into it further but just know for now that we can't find any evidence that there is any such thing as a Boston pickling tomato. That type of plant, from what we've seen, doesn't exist. Just wanted to clarify. Thanx for the correction @bluesandbeth! 💖***

12. Family Doctor sign in background. Lots of people have sent me doctor or ER signs that have been in the background. I guess I’m finally starting to pick them up on my own. This one was behind Morgan, specifically when he found the missing melon. You know, the one that was separated from the others and hidden? As though a doctor or medical institution may have had something to do with that?

13. “Benjamin, get your gun up.” Okay I’m gonna be a total TD geek about this. They called attention to this twice. Richard says it when they first stop at the road block, and then Morgan thinks about it again after Benjamin’s death. It’s what makes him realize that Richard was the culprit. Richard says it just as he secretly separates the hidden melon from the others. I couldn’t help but think of the fact that Dawn’s gun simply wasn’t “up” far enough to have shot Beth. So right when the melon was separated from the others, “Benjamin, get your gun up.” I’m probably really reaching. Meh. Whatevs. It’s what it made me think of.

14. Babies Crying - Richard mentions this several times when telling Morgan about the camp he used to be in. It made me think of episode 5x09 where we not only saw an emphasis on Judith crying from 7x01, but we also heard echoes of it all throughout the episode. Now we had an emphasis on it here.

15. Finally, @sparklepoodles pointed this out to me. It originates in 7x10, when Daryl keeps Richard putting his plan into action that would have gotten Carol killed. Not only did they foreshadow Richard’s death through dialogue. (Richard: I would die for the Kingdom. Daryl: Then why don’t you?) but look at this picture:

Tell me that’s not a foreshadow of Richard’s death and, more specifically, to Morgan strangling him. 

16. The bull rider picture. I wanted to do this one last because it’s the most intriguing to me. I don’t have a specific theory, but I just wanted to share some observations. This is important, not only because it’s exactly the kind of detail they like to hide symbolism but it was also emphasized in the quiz on TTD.

I had to research bull fighting and found that I knew very little about it. Basically, it’s all about a fighter (commonly called a matador) showing off his skill by killing a massive, angry bull. It’s a brutal sport and they do kill the bull by the end. Usually. In the first stage, the bull fighter observes the bull, looking for strengths and weaknesses, and takes steps to weaken it physically, often by stabbing it to cause injury and blood loss. In the second stage, more steps are taken to weaken the bull, including stabbing it with barbed sticks that will remain in order to weaken its strong neck and shoulder muscles. The killing, in which the matador must several the bull’s spinal cord, happens in stage 3. It’s very dangerous for the matador, of course, but almost always fatal for the bull. (There are some special cases where they might let the bull live, but that’s rare.)

I don’t see a whole lot of TD things in this symbol. I’m side-eyeing a few things, but overall, I think this is a very strong Morgan symbol. In fact, it’s probably a very negative sign for Morgan. Morgan is the matador. Benjamin, however, is not the bull. Richard is. How do I know that? Well, for one thing, Morgan didn’t kill Benjamin, but he had to use his strength and skill to kill Richard. Another thing I read? After the bull is finally killed, it’s body is dragged through the arena by a team of mules. Kinda like this:

And then there’s the fact that there is a blue prohibition sign (the circle with the line through it) over the entire picture, as if to warn that this would be a very bad thing for Morgan to do. To me, that just points to his downward spiral even more.

It did occur to me that the three stages of the bull fighting could represent Morgan’s bouts with sanity, but since he’s the matador, I’m not entirely sure that works.

And the things I’m side-eyeing? @bluesandbeth pointed out that how the bulls are killed isn’t so far off how walkers are killed in the show, which I think is a good point. You could, of course, relate this to Beth specifically because they didn’t stab her in the brain. (I had a Nonny point out that Morgan stabbed Richard in the brain despite an obvious head injury, which is a super-interesting observation - X).

The only other thing that caught my attention here is the red cape. It’s the traditional symbol of the matador, which is how you can tell (other than the bull) that this is a picture of a bull fighter. But I immediately went back to the red cape/poncho/whatever-it-was in Beth’s cell. 

I’m not sure how that would tie into this, unless it’s as anti-parallel. Morgan killed Richard, but he might have saved Beth.

And then there’s the fact that the prohibition sign on Morgan’s painting is GREEN. Just saying.

So anyway, like I said, no specific theory. Just observations.

That’s everything I had in my notes. Anyone pick up any other tidbits?