#the whole gunshot sequence

[itspileofgoodthings]

when he told her he loved her and then said “I was so scared I was never going to have the opportunity to tell you” 😭😭😭😭😭

[spaceseinensam]

love seeing everyone's Mouthwashing theories and analysis and just wanted to throw my two cents in, bc Mouthwashing is an amazing game, not only story-wise, but also on a meta level.

!!! SPOILERS FOR MOUTHWASHING, CAN'T PUT A READ MORE ON MOBILE !!!

the game is told from two perspectives: Curly before the crash, Jimmy after the crash. The player controls either one of the two in the corresponding times, and I think the concept of "protagonist" plays a big role here. Before the crash, Curly is the protagonist. He's the captain everyone listens to and tries his best (more or less) to be a leader, a friend, a beacon for everyone. Jimmy is an old friend of his, but ultimately an NPC in Curly's perspective. And the game shows that Jimmy is very jealous of that. He wants to be a big shot too. He wants to be someone others look up to. He wants to "take responsibility".

The crash happens and Curly is left burned and limbless and voiceless and now Jimmy is the protagonist. We, the player, control him and thus we get his very limited and unreliable perspective on everyone else. And Jimmy loves being the "protagonist". The game is even warped story wise so we only learn in the end that it was Jimmy who caused the crash, not Curly. With Jimmy as the protagonist, every other character is subject to his perspective: for example, when Anya locks herself in Medical to end her life, Jimmy influences Daisuke to believe that Anya would kill Curly, although she's shown nothing but compassion and selflessness for the other characters all game. It's easy for the player to get caught up in that, as seen in players being totally fine with drugging Swansea to enter Utility and rarely questioning if the character they're controlling is being reliable or not.

The game being warped through Jimmy's influence also shows itself in other instances: during the one time Jimmy and Anya talk alone in the hallway, Jimmy lashes out at her. He yells about the "tasks" he's been given and the order of them, resulting in the tasks the player can see in the user interface starting to flicker and change according to what he yells. This is showing how meta wise the game is being influenced by Jimmy being the protagonist, having to bend to his will and act accordingly. But we also see the game fight back: during the hallucinatory vent sequence, the player has the option to turn around after seeing a piece of paper that reminds them to "take responsibility" and when turning around and facing away, thus not facing responsibility, the game snaps the player back to face the paper again. It looks like the whole game is a representation of the protagonist struggle between Curly and Jimmy. Curly, the "natural protagonist" is hijacked by Jimmy's actions, making Jimmy the new protagonist of the game. He tries to fulfill the role according to what he thinks he has to do, but he's not good at it, resulting in the game being told out of chronological order, to show the player both sides of the coin.

And even the finale of the game is a representation of the "protagonist struggle" between Jimmy and Curly. In the end, after everyone is dead except them, Jimmy (controlled by the player) takes Curly to the one functioning cryo pod, his last action as a protagonist. Then, in the last scene, the perspectives are switched again. The player looks through the eyes of Curly inside the cryo pod, seeing Jimmy outside ultimately walk to the side and kill himself with a gunshot. As the credits of the game play, the cryo pod is starting to freeze Curly and the player is stuck as him in the pod, ending the game. It shows that Jimmy didn't manage to grow into the role he so desperately wanted, bc his last action as the protagonist is giving away responsibility, directly back to Curly. Jimmy can end the game as an NPC again and avoid taking responsibility, while Curly is the one now faced with an undetermined future, worse off than before.

I hope my ramblings made sense, but I love the game a lot and I hope more people start to analyze the story and other aspects of the game soon!

[annoyingcinephile]

SPOILERS FOR THE FNAF MOVIE!!

I just got home from seeing the fnaf movie and I'm basically gonna unload everything I thought of it.. bear in mind it's just my opinion (haha get it cause.. bear. freddy fa- *gunshot*)

it wasn't bad!!!! we won 🎉🎉 it was literally so good and completely worth my five year wait

now obviously it wasn't a perfect film, there were definitely moments where I was like hmmmm.... really???... but other than that it had pretty much everything I ever wanted out of a fnaf movie

speaking of hm really moments.. matpat? in MY fnaf movie??? it's more likely than you think. he literally said it's just a theory. I'm not mad that he's in it I do love that he got that opportunity but did you really have to make him say it? it was kinda funny tho... I'll give them that

we're sooo back william girlies HE'S NOT JUST STEVE RAGLAN 🙏 I was so right

I wasn't right about mike being an afton but do I care? no. at least they're still connected in some way

however.. vanessa? is william's daughter? really didn't see that one coming and idk how to feel about it. I know there were theories here and there from sb that vanessa is his niece or grand daughter or smth, but still

ok now I wanna talk about the positives.. there are way more positives than negatives obvi yay

i LOVED the ending. that last shot of william squirming around on the floor in the spring bonnie suit while the spirit was watching... I was gagged

I have to talk about the scene of mike in will's office when they meet for the first time cause that was kind of insane... the way he paused in the middle of saying mike's name I was like oooooo 🤭🤭 and ngl when he stood up bro I almost moaned matthew lillard is so fine fr. speaking of, matthew was absolutely my favourite part. he had the least screen time but he stole the whole spotlight, he was THE best choice and I stand by that

mike's dream sequences were so cool and interesting I loved how much the spirits were involved with the story and how they got to interact with mike

yk that scene where abby, mike and vanessa were making the fort with the animatronics.. I know for a fact that people are gonna complain about that and say that it was cringey and unnecessary but you kinda have to understand... they're still kids. yeah they're not alive, but they're not just animatronics either. it was a bit nice to see them be like that with the main characters. and when abby handed bonnie that little heart I was just 😭😭😭 that was so cute

the. the fucking. scene with max?? getting her whole body split in half.. woah I was speechless it was so cool. plus a reference to the bite of 83 kind of? so good

I'll definitely have some more thoughts once I go see it again cause trust i WILL be seeing it as many times as I can idc

[aberamasgolds]

so when charles has his silly vision sequence of how the murderer did it..

the placement of the red flower in his suit??? mimicking the gunshot wound like when sazz was shot??? it's the lingering doubt that he possibly was the intended target but also, paired with the whole idea of him thinking out the whole sequence himself as the murderer ie him thinking of himself as the reason sazz was killed.. this man has GUILT

[distant-screaming]

your top 5 nlmg moments <3

what the HELL archer............. worst sleepover ever I'm being made to choose? from nlmg????? >:( I had 22 scenes shortlisted, and I with great pain cut it down to 5 + 3 bonus ones. also this took me really long to answer because I can't shut up. anyway. I will try to keep this as short as possible and not go into full explanations because then we'd be here forever 🎀

so, my favorite nlmg scenes, in no particular order:

palm gets shot

is this surprising? at all? no I didn't think so. palmnueng are so insane about each other and this entire scene is such a good demonstration of that - palm, actively bleeding out from a gunshot wound, tells nueng not to sign anything over, and nueng does so anyway. and then palm gets shot and just - the acting is so wonderful from everyone in that scene and it's such a good demonstration of their characters! I also especially ADORE the next bit, where nueng is outside the operation room and he's just so grief stricken it makes my stomach hurt. and I just love this whole section a lot okay!! (fun fact: my first time watching the show, I wasn't able to watch the scene fully - I had to skim it and go ahead to the part where palm was Alive. once I realized he was, I went back to watch it properly djfkfj)

waltz scene(s)

I'm cheating a little but it's fine - all three of palmnueng's waltz scenes live in my head rent FREE. the first one (the dream sequence) is just so very 'I have a crush on this guy' core and it's so soft and sweet and yearn-y <3 I don't remember where I talked about this, but in the dream sequence nueng keeps track of the rhythm by tapping his finger on palm's shoulder - the same thing he did in real life. this means palm was so focused on him during the irl dance that he even noticed that. and that just. it makes me sick okay. second dance sequence is in the motel room after mam dies, and this one is so different from the first because it's much more centered in comfort and relief rather than romance. the whole scene is an absolute masterpiece - the way it's shot with the blurred backgrounds and close ups and the colors - and man I just. I love it so much. it's so intimate. and finally the waltz at the restaurant before nueng gets snatched by kit... literally no one does it like them they're so!! it's a very scary scene to watch because you can tell something's about to go really wrong really fast, but my GOD is it good. me and who literally........the tenderness, the trust, the way they look at each other with absolute stars in their eyes (and the way that the camera focuses on nueng more this time, and how in love he is because we've seen palm but nueng is just as insane). insane. deranged.

first kiss on the island

rooftop hug

while watching this, I had to pause the episode and physically stand up to do laps around the room. it's sooo good and pondphuwin are amazing at intimacy and it's just like, they really do kiss like they're desperate for each other which is exactly what palmnueng are. also the significance of it being after david + wu's wedding is a whole different rant I will spare you from but ajfkskfkdjfkdjfkfjfjfjv!!!! absolutely amazing first kiss, especially contrasted with their first kiss on the rooftop. no notes.

speaking of rooftops! man. the whole ben + coming out part really hurts me every time I watch it and this scene is no exception. nueng is so desperate and heartbroken and he keeps lashing out but palm just holds him close and doesn't say anything and eventually nueng hugs him back and just cries in his arms and he just. he just wanted a friend. he just wanted to be loved. that's all. GOD.

peng(2) you(3)

world's most insane guys flirt, leave me dead. like. this is episode 2. nueng still has some like vague pretend animosity towards palm. and yet. 'oh yeah let me just - here touch my neck and I'll gaze into your eyes and say peng you (friend)' HELLO?? I mean. sure why not. palm's clearly enjoying it (read: having a gay induced mental breakdown). generally I love scenes that have flirting with pining oblivious guys and this is the perfect fit. also, the fact that palm is slightly higher than nueng here the CONNOTATIONS guys the THEMES. the [I am shot and dragged away]

Bonus:

nueng barging into palm's room

sir...... just. all of this. no words. he's such a bratty teenager. I love him

palm opening shot

this one is on here solely because this is the exact moment I feel utterly and deeply in love with pond. hello there gorgeous standing there all by yourself??? why is he so <3

every time palm is annoyed by ben existing

I ADORE this dynamic. they're this 👌 close to killing each other in every frame they're together. the fingers are touching btw. hashtag gay on gay hostility. I love it.

[follows-the-bees]

A scene that I think captures the whole feel and thesis of this show (and specifically season two) is when Archie and Jim first kiss.

We start with Jim and Archie in the hidey hole protecting Izzy. Frenchie, now in the first mate role, tells them to "start with his leg, see where it goes" to save Izzy from the infected gunshot wound, leaving to get the first-aid kit.

Archie and Jim do just that and proceed to sit down in front of a passed-out Izzy, tissues in nostrils to keep the stench away. Pointedly, Jim is still holding onto Izzy's leg and is inspecting it. We get comedy thrown in during and right after the amputation. Joking about which leg to amputate, stating that "oh, he's a gusher," and Jim casually inspecting the leg.

And that is followed immediately by a sweet speech. Jim tells about the good times of the ship, their time with the old crew and specifically Olu. They call Izzy "a dick, but he's their dick" claiming him as part of the crew, the community, and reinforcing that at the heart of it, all of these characters technically aren't "good people," they are pirates, survivors, they've done a lot of morally ambiguous things, but that doesn't mean that they are past saving, past loving, past living.

This part of the scene shows us the community that the crew has for each other, how they are hiding Izzy and trying to keep him alive. It also shows the violence of this way of life. Violence in the past season has always been there but more in a cartoony way — people recover from being gut-stabbed fairly quickly and mysteriously or to the clearly defined bad guys. This season is no longer the fantasy (Note the gusto!) of being a pirate, but the reality of it (Our characters can get fundamentally hurt.)

((And Izzy living from this wound still semi fits the cartoony part of S1 because in reality he would have died from it, but in the show he lives from the wound and recovers fairly quickly, but we don't shy away from the mental and physical trauma of it like S1 would have done.))

As the scene continues, Archie leans in to kiss Jim and when asked why, replies that she likes Jim's optimism. We see here how Archie is used to the real-life violence of pirate life. But Jim, who was raised to be a killer as to seek revenge, has changed into a softer person. One who will try to save the life of the person who was once not enemy but enemy-adjacent. Someone who now tells Fang stories, one who remembers and implements the ways of their old captain to find healing and community in this dark situation.

This moment between Jim and Archie is as sweet and romantic as it can get for two people covered in blood, holding an amputated leg, and noses stuffed with tissue.

The kiss abruptly ends when Frenchie returns with Blackbeard. The moment turns ominous as Blackbeard laughs at them and tells them to leave.

But even in this small scene, comedy still shines through. From Frenchie's lie about not knowing this place existed to Blackbeard's "take the fuckin' leg."

And the scene ends (or where I am ending it for this analysis) with Jim bravely telling Blackbeard that Izzy was his friend.

This whole sequence shows the softness and heart of the show and of these characters in the middle of dark and violent circumstances,

Jim is turned away from the violence and toward the community/romance/comedy while still holding onto the other side the reality/violence, while on the floor with Archie. They then take that evidence of violence turned community/heart with them, balancing all the tones.

This two minute scene truly encapsulates all the elements of the show: humor, romance, community, all forms of love, and the grit of injury and piracy. And I find it fascinating that such a short scene can do all that and why I think it's a perfect example of the themes of the show.

[oflgtfol]

ok im home now i have to say from the visuals alone the whole time i was watching it i was like. god damn this is what star wars could be. like the choreography and the color grading and the cinematography it all felt so carefully chosen and selected and just so… NEAT and DELIBERATE, in a way that makes star wars, particularly the disney+ shows, look even messier than i already knew they were. and on one hand i mean i get it a tv show will have a smaller budget than a blockbuster film like this but its still like. fucking imagine if the fight scenes in like, kenobi, had the same gravitas and weight as the fight scenes in this movie. instead we get dull color grading, dark scenes that are so dark you cannot fucking see ANYTHING, underwhelming scores, underwhelming to outright cringy fight choreography, its just. imagine what it could be. watching john wick 4 all i could think of was, man, things could be so much better if they were like this

i watched john wick 4 earlier i have never seen a john wick movie before i have many thoughts about literally anything other than the plot but im in the middle of something rn so i cant say much but i will summarize to say: one of the best fucking movie soundtracks i have ever experiences, such epic color grading and cinematography, epic fight choreography, overall really fun to watch with my eyes i wasnt really paying attention with my brain but it was so good for my eyes and ears that it was a great movie for that alone

[blatterpussbunnyfromhell]

Did Silver kill Flint?

I keep seeing cold ass takes in the Black Sails side of tumblr that make my blood boil.

Look, I got into Black Sails in 2017, three weeks after the finale aired. Back then, there seemed to be an understanding that the "Silver killed Flint" interpretation was just a fringe theory from straight people made uncomfortable by the queer lead getting a happy ending. Personally, it was my first encounter with the phrase "unbury your gays" (having learnt "bury your gays" a year earlier with The 100). It seemed to be generally accepted that Flint lived, and that this was the whole point.

Now, it would appear that a shift has happened in the fandom, where the idea of Silver killing Flint is no longer treated as a theory by straight weirdos but as a canon, onscreen event, and these posts come from queer fans. It seems to come from younger fans who were about 12 or 13 in 2017. It's so mindboggling to me.

The arguments for this Silver-Killed-Flint thing is usually the same two: birds flying away and Silver's men turning around in the forest, as in reaction to a noise, which is interpreted as a gunshot.

Like, I'm just elaborating on a rant I sent to my friends earlier today here but, if Silver killed Flint, then :

Why would we be shown an entire sequence with one of Silver's henchmen looking for Thomas where he is?

If Thomas and Flint are dead, why aren't we shown their deaths? It's an actual rule in cinema that a character whose death isn't shown on screen isn't dead, a rule that the show does follow (we see Billy's funeral but not his corpse). Besides, Black Sails doesn't shy away from showing death on screen, even for main characters. Then, why not show how Thomas died instead of telling us? Why not show us Silver shooting Flint? The writers trust their viewers to understand the pattern, and understand that the reason we do not see their deaths is because they aren't dead.

Why would Silver bring up Thomas to Flint if he'd planned on killing him? Or if, as I've also seen it said, it was just a lie he made on the spot for Madi ?

And talking about Madi, I've seen A LOT of people saying she would never forgive Silver. And to that I genuinely have to ask, have you seen their last appearence in the show? I dont mean their argument in the cabin, I mean the scene where Silver sits on top of a hill and turns around to find Madi waiting for him on the path. I mean the scene where he walks towards her and she waits for him. So, my question here, if she wasn't gonna forgive Silver, why is she waiting for him on that hill? Nevermind the fact that Treasure Island's Long John Silver is in a relationship with a Black woman (I've seen posts saying that could be Max, and really wtf??), what is the point of showing us this scene if she's not gonna forgive him? Why not stop their arc at the cabin where she sends him away?

At the time when Black Sails' finale aired, Supernatural was still queerbaiting its audience, and Sherlock ended in a fucking shitshow. People were throwing fits over Bill Potts, Doctor Who's first ever onscreen lesbian companion because she was a lesbian with a masculine name. A year before that, The 100, a very popular tv show at the time, had just killed it's only lesbian character and faced so much uproar and backlash for it. (That was my entry into the LGBT+ community, by the way : the first character to make me think I might actually like women getting killed on screen two scenes after having had sex with the female lead). Sense8's two-hour long finale and Love, Simon wouldn't air for another year.

So yeah, if you weren't into queer media back in 2017 (and omg I sound like such an old twat), I don't think you can understand just how important that ending, with Flint being reunited with the love of his life after so much pain and loss, was.

If your interpretation of Black Sails is that the events of Treasure Island happened the way the book tells you, then I'm sorry to tell you this but you completely missed the point of the show.

[wiltedprayers]

god that sequence in episode 9 near the end with eugene seeing death everywhere no matter where he looks.... the eerie music overpowering the gunshots, fire and explosions.... eugene basically dissociating through the whole thing.... honestly an insane scene

[izzysillyhandsy]

"You must have a lot of time on your hands"

A list of my (very much Izzy-related) meta from the most recent to the oldest:

After the Finale:

Prince Ricky and Izzy Hands (WHY did noone notice the gun?)

Izzy is punished for every transgression (and dies of a combination of the worst traits of the people he loves/aligns himself with)

Izzy isn't the main character (but he makes the main couple more interesting)

Why do some people hate Izzy so much? (or: it's so much easier to hate Izzy than Ed)

The cruelty of the murder/suicide scene (finally closeness - but at what cost?)

Izzy didn't die of the gunshot alone (Ed's and Stede's suicide missions combined cost Izzy his life)

Poor Izzy aged 10 years in 6 months (he finally looked like a father figure, at least)

Izzy's "death threat" towards Edward (as if Ed would ever believe Izzy could kill him)

The difference between Izzy's and Ed's anger (Inwards vs. outwards)

Ed is an "us" person (Ed and his attachments to "the one" person)

Re: the deathbed conversation (a very confused post where I fail to make sense of it all)

A cool death - Ed's theatrical, performative suicide (Ed and Iz and their rituals, and when Ed went too far)

Death and change in OFMD (maybe it doesn't have to be a death?)

Izzy as Calypso, Ed as Odysseus :) (OFMD and Greek mythology - there are parallels, I swear)

How I learned to stop being angry and love the Death Scene (for now) (the death scene is either well-written or tragic, but never kind)

Thoughts about the finale, and my utter confusion about Izzy Hands (posted 2 days after the finale, expect sadness and confusion about Izzy's purpose in the narrative)

It's only suicide if we die... and Izzy's second suicide was planned to set Ed free (a very weird theory, posted 1 day after the finale - proceed with caution)

What I wanted most from Ep 6-8 - and a very hurt reblog after the finale :( (Ed and Izzy were done dirty)

Between Ep 7 and the Finale:

The meaning of the skeleton mermaid flag and Stizzy's Revenge theory Part 1 as well as Stizzy's Revenge theory Part 2 (my favourite theory ever!!! Should be canon imo)

Ed and Izzy: Cleaning up the mess (too much trauma, too little time - or: Ed needs Izzy to be whole)

Izzy is NOT ok (the "I'm feeling GReAT!!" phase of breakups) (a reaction to people posting "happy Izzy gifs" where he actually looks like he's barely holding it together)

Izzy's Gravy Basket (Ed and Stede had their visions/dreams - Izzy needs that too!)

Ed-and-Izzy-related stuff that stood out for me in episodes 6 and 7 (lovely little moments between those 2)

May I present Izzy's Fuck-I'm-going-to-die-for-this-twat sequence (not meta but kinda prescient)

Between Ep 6 and Ep 7

The Man with a Hook for his Head (it's Izzy - he gets his own symbolic bedtime story)

My predictions for the S2 finale (also, 100% wish fulfillment) (some of that didn't age well)

Too many thoughts about episodes 4 and 5 and "Moving On" (a very emotional post about Izzy and Ed and my fears for their trajectory)

Between Ep 3 and Ep 4

My immediate thoughts about the murder/suicide scene (there's soooo much going on!)

Izzy has love for Ed. Ed has love for Izzy. (it's an unhealthy love but it IS love)

"Can't believe I was living like this" - "I feel like a million bucks actually" (Ed wasn't feeling better at the end of Ep10)

Before S2:

What do you want most for Izzy Hands in S2? (we got so much!!)

What I like about Izzy is that he is so sincere. (my most controversial post for some reason - it's so tame idk? But that was the atmosphere before S2 I guess)

Reasons why Iz is so relatable (to me at least) (my first attempt at explaining why I love Izzy when so many people still hated him)

[whypolar]

Gundam Unicorn OVA 3: The Ghost of Laplace

Some of the most stunning visuals from these OVAs yet. What a beautiful piece of animation.

Choosing which screenshots to use for this post hurt me. If I had my way, I would include multiple shots of every sequence where something explodes. Many, many things explode.

I'm glad I don't have problems with flashing lights. The lasers in this one get pretty intense.

This post is very long. There's a lot of novel stuff I want to talk about. Let's get into it!

(Previous posts: Day of the Unicorn, The Second Coming of Char)

I won't lie, they got further into the plot than I thought they were going to. I was expecting more time in Palau and then Riddhe and Mineva arriving and doing stuff on Earth, with the confrontation in the ruins of Laplace being saved for the next one. If I'd paid attention to the title I could have realized they were going to go to the coordinates, but I obviously did not. It caught me pretty off guard!

I definitely feel like this one benefits from multiple watches. They all do, for sure, but this one had a lot of little moments that were much stronger the second time through. A lot happens very quickly! Taking the time to pay attention is rewarding, especially in terms of emotional stakes. It was easy on a first watch to just get caught up in the spectacle and not fully process everything that's happening-- and that's for me, who already knew the background context and plot beats going in.

The Obligatory Music Section

Some of these tracks were probably also in the last two, but I didn't link them so it doesn't count. Here are the standouts I'm highlighting this time:

Bring on a War -- I love the strings on this track. Guitar? The instrumentation for this entire soundtrack is so fun and complex. The intense drums! The woodwinds! The weird ghostly vocals! That repeated noise that sounds like a gunshot and breaking glass! So good.

Capture -- Equal parts jaunty and menacing. I like the bells at the start.

Merry-go-round -- The credits song. Pop music with lyrics about the inescapable repetition of history: it's a proud Gundam movie tradition.

Environments

You guys remember places?

We're spending time in and around a large colony again, so the sweeping establishing shots are back. The space port is so beautiful, and so alien in how you're expected to traverse it.

I definitely will be looking up the staff once I'm done watching these. For many reasons, really, but I'm very curious about who was doing the environmental art and design.

And while we're talking about environments--

Operation Billiard

The most important reveal: the glowing orb pillars in the purple palm tree lounge are low-gravity hologram pool tables.

It turns out that the vaporwave room was a billiards hall this whole time! I assume this is a nod to how the attack plan on Palau was named "Operation Billiard" in the novels.

We get a quick explanation of the plan in the OVA (separate the asteroids that make up Palau, seal the military port, rescue Banagher during the confusion) but they don't bother to explain the mechanics in detail. Why would they need to? When you see a bunch of explosions and a giant fuckoff laser, it is immediately obvious why that might be a problem for Neo Zeon.

Fuck that one Eye-Zack in particular

If you're curious about why it's "Operation Billiard": Palau is made up of four asteroids. They planned to use the force of the Mega Particle Cannon to knock them all into each other. This would obstruct the exits for the military port in the centre of the asteroid cluster, trapping the Zeon forces inside.

The manoeuvre worked as intended, but Frontal knew the attack was coming, so he was able to move all his forces off Palau ahead of time.

(A small number of other random Zeon-aligned soldiers were deliberately left out of the loop to act as bait, because the Sleeves didn't care about them. The way the guys that try to escape through the cracks get picked off one by one is kind of horrific. They might as well be marching single file into a mech-destroying meat grinder.)

I do think the attack on Palau is more harrowing in the novel. In terms of the combat, I'm not sure if that could be avoided. It feels inherently easier for me to remember that every mobile suit is a person while reading textual description than when there's a beautiful laser light show going off before my eyes.

That said, in some places the framing is just different:

I really love this scene, for the record.

In the novel, Nashiri is a perspective character during the battle. We are reading from his viewpoint inside the cockpit with his crew while they pick off Zeon soldiers one by one-- and then the Sinanju swoops into view, and they immediately know the plan is compromised and that they're going to die. They are burned and vaporized to dust, and then we switch to Angelo's perspective.

What I find memorable about the novel scene is the loss of life: how methodically they had been killing, and how quickly the Sinanju does the same to them. How they saw it coming but could do nothing. How living, breathing human beings could be reduced to literally nothing in an instant.

The OVA positions the camera outside, with the Sinanju. We see Frontal slowly and deliberately carving out the Loto's entire chest to make sure he got all of them. We do not see or hear any of the Loto's pilots. We see inside Frontal's cockpit, for a shot of him looking cooly down at his handiwork before moving on. What I find memorable about this scene is that Frontal is scary.

(Imagine me here getting stabbed with a beam weapon, saying "Wow! Cool Antagonist!")

It's not like death isn't thematically important in the OVA-- they absolutely remind you with dialogue that every mobile suit blowing up is a person dying. We see a shot of this same Loto and its partner after the battle as burned out wrecks, and it's clear Daguza and the other ECOAS guys are thinking about their dead comrades. Riddhe and Banagher both deliberately attempt to spare enemy pilots. The level of destruction is immense! The robots are simply too cool. It can't be helped.

This is one of the benefits of multiple watches. When you've already seen the cool robots once before, you can focus in more closely on what they're doing, and what that means.

There's another reason the battle loses some emotional charge: focus is drawn away from noncombatants almost entirely. We see very little of the regular people who live on Palau.

For all Riddhe assures Mineva that they have no intention of attacking the areas where civilians live, it is unavoidable that slamming the asteroids they live on together will have consequences.

The novel describes intense earthquakes. Two residential blocks collapse. Residents are rolling and tumbling around. Windows of the houses that stay standing shatter. You get a real sense of fear on the civilian level.

The OVA gives us a quick scene with Tikva. There's some dust and some shaking, but he stays standing easily enough. We don't see anything collapse on screen. We hear people screaming in confusion and terror, but none of them are visible. Likewise, the streets are totally empty of people and identical to their first appearance when Banagher is making his way to the space port. Civilians are basically not relevant.

The novel spends a lot more time on Palau even before the attack. We spend time with Gilboa's family. Banagher genuinely befriends these people! He plays with Gilboa's kids and fixes a machine they use to make a living. It's a bit sad to lose all that, but I get it.

There's also scene in the novel where a truck driver in one of the connecting tunnels gets blown back fifty feet by the force of ECOAS' bombs going off, slams into a wall, and passes out. He wakes up when he's discovered several hours later, after the attack is over. It's more funny than anything, because he's just like, fine, lmao. I was so sure he was done. Fifty feet just intuitively sounds like too much to be survivable, until you remember there's no gravity.

Anyway, you wanna know something that was appropriately menacing during the Palau attack? The Unicorn. The Unicorn was perfect.

The joy of a hunter.

Marida vs. Banagher

Oh... this sequence is so visually striking.

I was shocked by how quickly it all happened. This isn't a criticism. I guess I was expecting it to linger more, like the scenes with Amuro and Lalah in '79. The amount of concrete "information" conveyed here is so much more than that, and yet it covers it all in less than two minutes. You certainly get a sense for how instantaneously Marida and Banagher are communicating, and how overwhelming it must be for both of them.

I will likely revisit Marida's backstory in future posts, in relation to other scenes that happen later. For now, I'll just say I was surprised and impressed.

I'm admittedly very curious how this scene reads for people who don't already know the backstory going in. Hell, how does it read for people who aren't familiar with Gundam ZZ?

(I put on the dub for my second watch. This is the first time I heard how "Ple" is pronounced in English. Fucked up.)

I wish I'd taken notes on specifics, but I think they shifted some dialogue around between combat, the Newtype link, and the scene in the hospital room. It's not really important, but I think it's interesting how scenes with similar dialogue or themes can be folded into each other in an adaptation.

Some stuff cut from the hospital scene:

There's a CT scan of Banagher on the wall in novel. "You checked whether I was a Cyber-Newtype too, didn't you?" When I read the English translation, I thought they dodged telling the audience what the result of the test actually was. I thought that was a really interesting choice. Unfortunately, I don't think it's actually the case, having checked the Japanese. I can't be 100% sure, but I think the meaning of the line is that as far as the doctor could tell with the equipment they had available, he detected no evidence of Banagher being a Cyber-Newtype. 😔

When Banagher and the doctor discuss Newtype theory, they cut a line where the doctor suggests that a world where everyone knows what everyone else is thinking without obfuscation or deception might not be the magic bullet to end war, and could even be more violent. He's also a little more direct in the novel about implying that the emergence of Newtypes could create a divide between them and "Oldtypes."

The doctor points out that Newtypes are theorized to evolve in space, and how this would be a problem for Earth-Space relations. Banagher says that they should just make everyone evolve all at once. The Japanese line seems a bit vague, but the English translation interprets this as him suggesting they pull a Char / Mafty and send everyone into space. I think that's a fun way to take it, particularly because Banagher thinks it's a childish idea even as he says it. It's cute to me.

Full Frontal

In the novel, we see Frontal arranging his battle plan before the attack begins-- we see that he knows the attack coming, we see him move his troops off Palau, and we see him give orders to leave the Unicorn where Banagher will find it. In the OVA, we learn most of this in retrospect. I don't think the framing changes much, except insofar as it means less screen time for him and Angelo.

The big scene we lose is the one where they speak to one of their major sponsors in Neo Zeon, the guy who owns Palau. He tries to goad Frontal into officially admitting to being Char and taking off the mask, implicitly threatening to rescind his support if he doesn't. Frontal responds to this with "That's okay. I actually came by today to tell you we're leaving! How convenient. Bye."

Frontal speaks very differently to this guy than he did to Banagher, even beyond refusing to remove his mask. It's a fascinating contrast, and I like it a lot. Frontal is very good at being threateningly passive-aggressive in multiple registers.

A good and telling bit of dialogue from Frontal that we lose by cutting this scene: "Char Aznable is a man who lost."

I still don't understand what they're doing with Riddhe, and I'm getting increasingly concerned about it.

I cannot believe how many Riddhe opinions I apparently have had this whole time, just waiting to be revealed.

OVA Riddhe does not feel like much of anything to me so far, which is bizarre when his novel counterpart has so much going on. His blandness is even more noticeable when he's spending so much time with Mineva, who is a very strong-willed character with defined beliefs.

I would say his characterization has been made subordinate to hers, except she doesn't even gain anything from it? Cutting his screen time also cuts hers as well. He's the character that she's interacting with most for this entire section of the story, so making him less interesting just means she has a less interesting conversation partner!

Riddhe is a major character, and there are events later that hinge on the audience giving a shit about him. He needs to have substance, because the story is going to treat him like he has it. If he doesn't have it, it will fall flat.

Here are the key points I want to go over:

Novel Riddhe's values and beliefs are made very clear, while OVA Riddhe feels more ambiguous and flimsy.

Novel Riddhe's relationship to his family is far more complicated and compelling than anything we've been told about OVA Riddhe so far.

Novel Riddhe is shown to have strong emotional ties to the crew of the Nahel Argama.

Novel Riddhe has many clearly established reasons not to do what he does-- personally, professionally, and legally-- and chooses to do it anyway.

This scene was funnier in the novel, because it tells you they have a telephone for each member of the family, but they're all in the same room where they get answered by the same butler.

Novel Riddhe is thoroughly established as a person with opinions and a strong moral compass. He does more to help others, at greater difficulty than anything OVA Riddhe has been faced with thus far, and the negative consequences he knowingly takes on are made more explicit.

In the novel, there's a whole extra step before taking Mineva to earth. Mineva has been moved off the Nahel Argama to another ship, the Alaska, which was going to bring her to a be held at a base on the moon. Getting her out of there is a lot more convoluted than knocking out a single guard and then sneaking down some hallways when no one is looking.

Riddhe sets off a bunch of smoke canisters all over the ship to cause confusion, knocks out some guys, flees the Alaska in a shuttle, shakes the mobile suits tailing them by flying through a debris field, lies about his reason for returning so they let him back on the Argama, and ultimately sneaks Mineva back onto the ship and into his mobile suit. Since the battle has started at this point, it's impossible for the Argama to contact the Alaska or vice-versa.

It makes sense to cut this for time. It's an extraneous trip just to return to the status quo of them needing to sneak off the Argama again anyway. There are other ways to show Riddhe's determination without giving him a dramatic heroic sequence.

But here's the problem with removing it: Riddhe doesn't just rescue Mineva. Takuya and Micott are also on the Alaska. It is strongly implied that they're going to be disappeared.

(There are people from the Intelligence Department on the 'Alaska', so leave the prisoner to them. Don't ask any further.) "Then what about the civilians? They..." (Will be treated as those who violated confidentiality and dealt with as appropriate. You have no need to be involved with them.)

That's significant! Mineva is a person with obvious political importance, and Riddhe became emotionally attached to her before he even knew that. It is entirely possible to interpret rescuing Mineva through a lens of selfish motivations, especially in an adaptation where we aren't privy to his inner thoughts.

Riddhe has no special attachment to Takuya and Micott. He saves them because he has an obligation to do so, because leaving them behind would be wrong.

Are you wondering why the Alaska came to pick them up in the first place? It happened because Riddhe contacted his father at the request of Captain Otto, even though he really didn't want to, in the hopes that he could prevent more deaths by requesting additional support for the Argama.

But Riddhe's father didn't send the support Riddhe requested-- he sent a ship to pick up Riddhe and the prisoners. Why send military support when he can just remove his son from the battlefield that he never wanted him to be on anyway, right? He doesn't even respond himself, some random military guy does it for him.

... this admiral might not have even thought of him as a person. He was just looking at the shadow behind his back-- the authority of Senator Ronan Marcenas. Riddhe felt the emptiness of talking to a wall as he yelled, "WHY ONLY ME...!"

To me, novel Riddhe's frustration with his family is the single most important character trait he has. It informs every single one of his decisions. And so far, in the anime, it has not come up even once.

Riddhe is not just a bit distant from his family. He is repeatedly described as having run away from home. We are told he has not spoken to his father or his sister in some time. He literally refers to his 'family' in scare quotes while thinking about them.

Riddhe too felt repulsed by the fact he had to rely on the 'family' that he had been hiding from at this point, but there was no other way.

[...]

There’s no other choice. Riddhe returned back to his room and ended up spending 2 hours writing a mail to his father. He had never sent a phone call for the past few years, let alone a message. His body did not have a function to communicate with his father, and he felt a chill when he started off with ‘Dear Father’.

[...]

"Since I entered the army with the family's objection, I never intended to come back, but just this once, I have to do this."

The car ride with his father when they first meet and head back to the house is incredibly miserable. They casually drop that Riddhe's mom is in a nursing home, and then they sit in total silence.

Riddhe was looking in front silently, not looking at the greenery passing by outside the window. He was about as silent as the time when he piloted the “Delta Plus” into the atmosphere—no, he might be a lot more tense here. Sitting diagonally in front of him was Ronan, who had his mouth shut, not intending to look away from the notebook terminal. As for what they actually talked about on the limousine, there were only two lines, “Mom?” “She’s in a Nursing Home in Switzerland.” What was left was the heavy and unbearable silence passing between them.

Eventually, Riddhe starts speaking to Mineva while she's looking at the scenery, very obviously as a way of needling his dad. It's an insanely loaded conversation. He basically says "hey Mineva, have you ever read Gone with the Wind? Did you know it takes place here, in Georgia? Just thinking about wealthy white farmers enriching themselves by exploiting Black slaves as we drive to my rich politician dad's house, for no reason."

The dig is not subtle. His dad sarcastically responds to it by pointing out the comparison, as if pretending he isn't extremely aware that's why Riddhe brought it up in the first place, and then they go back to totally ignoring each other.

This is something I think is important: in the novel, Ricardo Marcenas-- Riddhe's great-grandfather and first Prime Minister of the Earth Federation-- is not white. He is stated to be mixed race both during his political speech, when he talks about his heritage, and later when Mineva sees his portrait.

It is an unbelievably pointed choice to have Riddhe and his father be white-passing and from the southern US while the dead great-grandfather with lofty ideals who was implicitly assassinated by his own government was visibly (and proudly) multiracial.

Between the family's politics and Riddhe's sister being in an arranged marriage for political and business reasons, you can guess that this is more than just a coincidence of genetics. Ricardo's descendants wanted to hold onto power, and power was disproportionately held by white people, so that's who they married. Fukui is hitting me with a big cartoon mallet labeled "racism and its consequences persist in the politics of the Earth Federation."

And this... just doesn't exist in the OVA, I guess. They cut the lines about Ricardo's heritage from his speech, and he looks like any other white guy.

The anime as a whole so far has a general trend of cutting anything that directly mentions real-world racial identity or politics, without exception (see also: Syam and Banagher). They've also been erring on the side of lighter skin tones across the board, even in cases where novel description says otherwise.

The doctor on the Argama is described as Arab, with light tan skin. They coloured him half a shade darker than Banagher, who is half a shade darker than Mihiro.

Gilboa is Black. He's still Black here, but they gave him the absolute lightest possible skin tone that still reads as brown. He's way more ambiguous than his wife and kids, and they also have light brown skin. He's described as dark-skinned in the novel!

Yeah, people can have these skin tones with those backgrounds. Obviously. But they've chosen to convey information that is clear in the original text ambiguously, and they've done it to multiple characters.

I'm going on a bit of a tangent here, but this felt like the most appropriate place to bring it up. IT BOTHERS ME.

Anyway. Do you know who is the first character in the novel to bring up the rumours that Ricardo Marcenas was assassinated by the Federation? Because it isn't Daguza in the cockpit with Banagher-- that's later. It's Riddhe.

Riddhe is the one who suggests conservative elements within the Federation might have wanted to a eliminate a more liberal and idealistic Prime Minister while also providing an excuse to root out separatists on the basis of anti-terrorism. Riddhe is the one who gives a scathing account of what his family did in the aftermath of the assassination, where Ricardo's son took advantage of the situation to gain power with the support of the same conservatives who killed his father.

Riddhe says all that directly in front of his dad, who yells at him for spreading nonsense conspiracy theories, tells him he doesn't know anything about politics, and says that he abandoned his family. Wrow.

Riddhe is ultimately ashamed of himself for provoking his father just because he's angry. He thinks it's selfish and childish for him to risk jeopardizing the relationship when he's relying on his father's power to accomplish his goals and protect Mineva.

Calm down, he's a Senate Council member who can deal with the army that will suck up to him. I have to put aside all personal feelings and tell him.

Riddhe took Mineva's line about her responsibility as a member of the Zabi family very seriously. He comes back to it repeatedly. He doesn't want to have anything to do with his family, but he knows there are things that only he can do to help, precisely because of his family-- and he has an obligation to try.

There's a very interesting tension, where Riddhe is only even able to survive and successfully enact his plan because of the otherwise unwanted privilege conferred by his father. It's made clear that even that might not have saved him if he hadn't gotten extremely lucky! It comes up again and again, at every step of the plan.

No matter whether the "Nahel Argama" survives or not, Ensign Riddhe's military career will be at an end.

[...]

"I'm risking my life here as well. I might even end up facing the firing squad if I mess up here, you know?"

[...]

If the situation had happened during a Parliamentary Session, the contact would definitely bounce around amongst the secrataries, and the "Delta Plus" would most likely be shot down without any confirmation of its identity.

Even after they manage to land safely by using the name of his family as a shield, the guards surrounding them when they disembark are hostile and keep rifles trained on them the whole way.

I feel like this element of luck is part of why they swapped his model airplanes for a good luck charm, but it's still so weird to me. His luck is important because of the risks he's taking, and they're not really playing that up as much as they could be. They could tell us in retrospect, but Riddhe knew the risks going in, and that's important.

One thing he knows he's going to lose, unavoidably, is all of his established social relationships in the military.

Survivor's guilt and having lost friends is something that comes up a lot in Riddhe's internal dialogue after the destruction of Industrial 7. I talked about it a bit in the last post. His crewmates are people he cares about, not only in an abstract sense of duty and obligation, but as people.

He's clearly deeply hurt by lying to the crew about his real intentions during the attack on Palau, especially as some of them are glad to see him back and praising his bravery as a soldier.

Does OVA Riddhe have strong relationships to anyone on the Argama? Maybe. He gets some advice from a superior officer. He banters with one of the other pilots for three lines or so. The doctor certainly believes that Mihiro is on edge specifically because of Riddhe's "death", but there are no particularly significant interactions between them to confirm it.

Riddhe's romantic interest in Mihiro is established very early in the novels, when he asks her out to a movie before launching for the first battle. He says he needs something to look forward to so he'll come back alive.

This comes back again when he's heading out for the Palau mission, when she specifically privately contacts him:

(Good luck, Ensign Riddhe. I haven't forgotten the promise to watch a movie.)

And he just has to agree, knowing that he's not coming back and she's going to be mourning him, thinking he's dead. Man.

When it becomes clear the battle isn't going to go as planned, Mineva can sense Riddhe's hesitation. She tells him to stay and fight, because otherwise he'll regret it for the rest of his life. While this works as a character moment for Mineva in the anime, I don't feel like it's a convincing one for Riddhe. What made it work in the novels was that we already knew this was an accurate assessment of his feelings. In the anime, rather than her resolving the conflict for him, it almost feels like he hadn't even fully realized he was having one until she told him.

Maybe I'm being uncharitable and nitpicky, and this all comes across just fine to people without my preconceptions. I just can't shake the feeling that too much scaffolding for his character has been removed, so now even big character moments are failing to stand up on their own.

Riddhe's latent newtype connection to Banagher and their Man's Promise is plot important, but on an emotional level it is nothing to me. I don't care about Riddhe's masculine pride. I care about him having a fraught relationship with his shitty rich dad who he has deliberately avoided for years. I care about social bonds. I care about sacrifice.

Banagher's trust in Riddhe in the novel is meaningful because the audience has reason to believe that Riddhe deserves that trust.

I really hope they can integrate at least some of this stuff going forward, but I also worry it might be too late. I can imagine it failing so easily-- like if they give me Riddhe yelling at his dad, but without all the established context it just comes off like he's a brat throwing a tantrum.

I'm pretty sure his crush on Mineva is going to start becoming relevant now, too, so I need them to give me something to work with as soon as fucking possible if they don't want me to become a relentless little hater. Please.

I want to believe they can still flesh him out enough to work for me, even if it's not perfect.

Micott's arc is altered by changes to Riddhe's arc.

This isn't a super dramatic change, since she's not a load-bearing part of the narrative like Riddhe. I do think how they shifted things around is interesting and worth talking about, though.

In my post on OVA 2, I mentioned that Micott is the one who snitches on Mineva in the novel. This was removed in the anime, where instead Daguza just recognizes her face himself. Now the reason becomes clear-- they moved it here, instead.

In the novel, the second part of the conversation they have in this scene happens on the shuttle back from the Alaska. Since the Alaska was cut, they obviously couldn't do that, but having the betrayal without including the resolution would defeat the purpose. Their solution was to combine the betrayal and reconciliation into a single scene, by having Micott consider reporting Mineva's escape but ultimately back down. I think that's a very clever way to handle it.

Micott is more emotional in the novel version. The circumstances are completely different, so the difference in tone makes sense.

"I know this isn't something I should be saying. But sorry, I have no intention of apologizing to you. Your army was the one that decimated our colony." ... "But, I want to apologize to Banagher. If I don't, I..." The rest of her words were vague due to her crying.

She apologizes to Banagher in the novel equivalent to the hologram billiards scene, when Takuya deliberately leaves them alone for a bit so they can talk. Banagher is puzzled by her apology, and they just kind of cyclically apologize to each other for a bit. It's cute.

The novel version of the conversation is very unsubtle about implying that Banagher implicitly believes Riddhe is trustworthy because they have a psychic connection. Micott's line in the anime, where she just comments on Banagher behaving differently than usual, is more vague.

Micott also sticks up for Mineva to Banagher, which I thought was sweet.

"But since you helped her out once, you have to bear responsibility and help her out until the end. That girl's feeling rather down inside despite making a strong look."

The Vist Foundation: Martha, Alberto, and Gael

God, I love Martha. I've been waiting for her desperately. I loooove her anime design. She looks so good. My evil wife.

The Vist Foundation is much less present in the narrative than expected, so far. I'm not entirely sure what to think, but unlike Riddhe's changes, it doesn't raise any alarm bells for me (yet). The Foundation itself is central to the conflict, what with 『The Box』, but all the individual people in it are minor characters.

Do you remember Gael, Cardeas' bodyguard? At this point in the novel, Gael is on the Garencieres. His interactions with Zinnerman and the rest of the crew are very tense and uneasy, but he's a key player in the plan to rescue Marida. He talks to Banagher briefly during the battle as well, just like Gilboa.

Gael wants to capture Alberto and force him to publicly reveal information about Martha, thus ruining her reputation. This allows him to have his revenge for Cardeas without killing her (since Syam objected to him doing so).

For Marida's escape-- rather than being blown out into space, the guys transporting her are gunned down by Gael, and that's when she takes the opportunity to slip out of her bonds.

Gael confronts Alberto about killing Cardeas, and Alberto has some interesting dialogue:

"THAT MAN ONLY CARED ABOUT HIMSELF! HE THOUGHT THAT HE COULD DECIDE EVERYTHING JUST BECAUSE HE'S STRONG! HE THOUGHT THAT PEOPLE WHO WERE WEAKER WERE JUST SLACKING OFF... BUT I'VE BEEN WORKING SO HARD!"

[...]

"Aunt [Martha] was very kind ... She was willing to recognize and accept me. Dad doesn't know about such things."

I could imagine Alberto having a conversation like this with Marida instead, since it's related to her reason for saving him in the novel-- she recognized his connection to Banagher. When Marida saw Banagher's mind, she saw the burden placed on him by Cardeas, and she sees the same thing in Alberto. She mentions that they both have the same sadness in their eyes.

(We still haven't seen Martha tell Alberto that Banagher is his half-brother, by the way. Is Marida going to tell him instead? Does he know? I need to know if he knows!)

Anyway. Alberto shoots Gael and more crew from the Nahel Argama arrive, having heard the commotion. Gael flees.

The scene keeps going, but I'm stopping here, since we might be getting into stuff for the next one.

Daguza has a lot of backstory that doesn't make it in.

Man, this guy is carrying around so much baggage. Banagher has no idea. Content warning for child death for this part. Scroll down to the screenshots if at any point you decide you don't want to read it.

After the conversation with Banagher in the tea room, we get a much longer conversation between Daguza and the other ECOAS guy. We learn about "The Sweetwater Operation", during which ECOAS murdered a bunch of children as collateral while trying to take out a group of terrorists. Yes.

Sweetwater was a refugee colony. The living conditions were terrible, basically a slum, and it eventually became a hub for anti-Federation activity. During Char's Counterattack, it was a working base for Neo Zeon. After the conflict ended, it became "a breeding ground for terrorist planning."

"Those terrorists ignored human rights and laws, so their crimes that went beyond the law should be punished by means beyond the law" -- gee, where have I heard that before? What could Fukui possibly be referencing here?

To summarize: intelligence failed to report the presence of a school bus, ECOAS blew up a bunch of kids along with the terrorists, 33 of them died, and the four who survived were disabled for the rest of their lives. Investigators covered up the incident and it was reported as an accident, but rumours still spread within the Federation special forces. ECOAS was nicknamed "The Manhunters."

Honestly, I think it's a kind of contrived scenario compared to the much more cruelly mundane way that kids and other innocent civilians get murdered during anti-terrorist raids and drone strikes in real life, but I see what Fukui was going for.

From that point on, ECOAS continued to be given dirty missions due to their reputation. I would bet those 33 kids are not the only children they've killed during their career.

They do a lot of justifying it to themselves during the conversation. "It was the intelligence branch's fault, we couldn't do anything." "Well, we were facing a group a group of people who would drop colonies and asteroids on the Earth. If we didn't take them down all at once, there might have been more children killed." "Yes, we have to allow a little sacrifice for the sake of the many." Again, all very familiar.

Despite his words, it's very obvious that Daguza feels guilty. His discussion of himself as a cog is a lot more charged when you know exactly what kind of violence he enacted as part of the machine.

Let me ask honestly, what is this order we have to protect even if it means killing children? [...] Despite understanding that, I still continue to kill myself off, telling myself consistently that it can’t be helped. Won’t I become a real cog gradually? I swallowed reality and sold out myself bit by bit. In this sense, I’m a foolish creature who’s sealed in this shell called an adult.

While they do talk about how Banagher is a child during this conversation, we don't get the line from the OVA here about never having had children and Daguza's implicit fatherly feelings toward Banagher.

The idea does come up later, with Daguza expressing that no matter what the box is, it's not worth exchanging for the future of a child like Banagher. It's pretty clear that this is the reason he's so ready to go to his death.

And what a death it was.

He wanted to hand his life to a child, a child who would think about the future. Of course, he did not think that he could wash away all his guilt after all the atrocity he did, but he felt surprisingly happy that he could do this. He, who only knew how to act on priorities to fulfil his duties, was leaving everything to a young life that had no blood relations or bonds with him ...

Holy shit.

I love the Sinanju with its busted face. Such a look.

Anyway, this death is one that I think is more disturbing than it was in the original text. The decision to let his rocket launcher float just far enough from the beam to survive and then splatter against the emblem is downright nasty. It allows for a person whose body has been totally vaporized to still look like they're leaving behind remains. It feels like a full body gore splatter, even if closely watching the sequence makes it clear it's not. That rules.

And that's when we get our second Destroy Mode activation.

A Gundam is a monster. A Gundam is a devil.

Do you ever think about how Frontal is tactically the single most important person on the battlefield for his side, but he puts himself at risk of burning to death to stop the Unicorn from killing Angelo? Because I do. I think about it a lot.

RIP Gilboa. It really hit me while watching that Banagher has multiple potential surrogate father figures who explode directly in front of him, much like his real dad did. So far, Otto is the only adult man to survive giving Banagher friendly paternal advice.

If you've read all this, thanks for indulging me. I hope it was interesting.

I'm really looking forward to watching the next one. I've heard good things, and that arc of the novel, uh... well, it's a lot. I'll have to think about how much I even want to get into it.

[polyhexian]

Okay hear me out, I've had a crazy impulsive idea and I want to pitch it:

Eugenesis audiobook. Edited. Voices. Music. Sound effects.

This is a mad task. It's mad. No one should do this.

Let's talk about how I'd do this.

I've not hosted a major collaborative project in a long time, but I am very good at it. I completed 36 multi animator projects, two zines and a tarot deck, all three having been successfully funded through Kickstarter. I am real good as a director.

I think the way to produce it is to divy it up into individual jobs so the jobs are manageable.

Task zero: pre production

Gotta go through the whole book and mark like. All the dialogue and it's characters. Colour code it or something. All soundwave dialogue. All rev tone dialogue. For the sake of the voice actors and the editors. Mark out which sections will be narrated by whom. Notate parts where specific audio is needed.

Task one: narration

My initial feeling is that there should be one narrator, for consistency. This is also the largest and most time consuming, probably difficult job (it's like six-8 hours of reading at least... It's exhausting) so I feel sort of obligated to do it, as someone who regularly produces audio content. A secondary idea would be to split the narration into parts, either as they are in the book, or by scene. The book has lots of breaks where it changes from one scene to a scene somewhere else with different characters without any obvious transition, and potentially using a different narrator could make it clear in that instance that there has been a scene change. Most of these sequences come in and out, a section with deaths head begins and ends and then we return to it and leave it and return and so on, and having the same person continue each of these scenes as they resume would help a listener immediately clue in on what the new setting is.

This would require much more prep work in splitting up the sections first, deciding which follow which, as occasionally they branch, ie, a scene is following a group of characters that then splits into multiple groups. This is doable, and would reduce the load on the narration as job. It's potential.

For the sake of consistency and editing, even though the voice will be done by other people, the narrator should still read the dialogue, so that the editor can most easily find what to replace with the new audio without always referring to the text.

Task two: voicework

There are so many fucking characters in Eugenesis. So many. Many having only a few lines. However, a variety of very different voices is a transformers staple. If someone does voicework they should do every line spoken by that character. If they do any other characters, even bit parts, they should do a very different performance. Some of these can probably be edited in audacity to have a robot-y timber or echo or something. Like soundwave especially. I think each characters audio should be in a separate audio file collected and then sent to the editor.

Task three: editing

Split into two parts. First is editing in all the new dialogue, which may change the length of the full audio. Once that is replaced, it's time for sound effects (there are some great collections of tf specific sounds like transformation tssch-tssch-tssch or laser sounds or big robot footsteps) explosions, distant gunshots, water, etc. Then finally, mood music.

Editing is a job that can easily be split between multiple people in sections.

This is a stupid project. It's a massive undertaking. It would be so long and take so many fucking people to do. But imagine me posting an eight hour fully produced audiobook of eugenesis to my YouTube of 150,000 subscribers who do not want it.

This is objectively hilarious.

Anyway. Raise your hand if you're obsessed with eugenesis enough to want to do this

[arospecsyourblockdudes]

fanfic ask game - 7, 8 and 17? 💜

Share a snippet from one of your favorite pieces of prose you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it. I've already answered this one but I can do another!

"Death stood placidly by as Pearl picked herself up and readjusted her grip on her axe. The hellhound barked and crouched, staring her down. It wanted her closer, probably so it could maul her. But there was no other way to injure it, so Pearl ran, axe held high above her head. 

When she got close, she swung down, axe biting into its left paw. It only seemed to get angrier at that, and snapped its fangs at her arm. Pearl stumbled backward, managing to haul her axe with her, but her right forearm was cut up and bleeding badly. It hurt like absolute hell, but that's what she got for being careless. She grit her teeth and hefted her axe up again, watching as the hellhound crouched down again. 

This wasn't going to work. Just charging in blindly and hoping she hit something. She needed a fatal hit, to the heart or the neck preferably. If she somehow could get it to charge her again she could try something, but putting it on the defensive would make things harder. 

Pearl shifted her weight, holding herself at a more defensive stance. She kept her eyes on the hellhound and slowly started backing away. It growled, low and ancient, before flinging itself at her. Pearl let herself smile as she watched its approach. By the old gods, she'd missed this thrill. 

She held her stance until the hellhound was near breathing down her neck, then dropped to her back and pushed her axe up into its stomach. The hellhound just about screamed as it tore itself open on her blade, hot blood gushing out over her. 

The hellhound collapsed, shaking, onto its side and Pearl was quick to stand up and bring her axe down on its neck. The moment her blade cut into flesh, it vanished into smoke."

I like this from "how queen pearl almost defeated death" which is also an empires smp fic (season1 though!). I like Pearl's character a lot in empires sigh. I wrote a decent amount of fighting/action in that fic, which is something I don't usually do so it took a lot of mental finagling. Short action sequence, but I was very deliberate with how I wrote it so it made logical sense and was possible to do, especially because the character involved is a pretty good brawler.

Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

"“This isn’t ‘cause you still feel sad I got shot, right?” Jack pointed her cigarette at him accusingly. “I’ve had just about enough of people trying to be sweet and nice about that all at work, I don’t need it from you.”

Atticus sighed dramatically and took a bite from the cake without bothering to slice it. “One, you were meant to take the whole week off for recovery. Two, I don’t need ulterior motives. I genuinely just thought this would be fun. Stop being paranoid that people care about you and eat the stupid cake. It’s marble.”

“They needed me at work, no one in that station can do a damn thing.” Jack grumbled, but put out her cigarette in an ashtray and grabbed a fork. “And it’s not like my work is really that demanding. I just sit around.”

“You’d show up to work if you were a stuntman and the bullets went through your skull.” Atticus grumbled and opened her fridge. “Why do you only buy shitty alcohol? You need taste.”

“I have taste. Sorry I don’t exclusively drink hundred year old Italian reds.” She wanted to tell him she only went into work because she was losing her mind in her apartment, head filled with the memory of the dead man and the slow, precise gunshots. Because Atticus was put-together and at work and wasn’t around to take her mind off it. Because those six dead men were her responsibility. “Anyway, I think the case might actually be over soon. I’ve got two solid leads, we’ll see where they end up.”

Atticus nodded, still rummaging through her fridge. “Really? That’s nice. Here, I’ll be a barbarian for tonight.” He turned around holding a bottle of bourbon. “Doesn’t look half bad, except I goddamn know you got it at the gas station.” 

“It’ll do fine. You know where cups are.” She smiled around a mouthful of cake. “But yeah, we’re getting somewhere. We’ve gotten into the phones of the victims, they all messaged Whoever Finch about meeting to hook up or buy drugs. No idea who the hell that is, it’s fake names anyway. But today, got an email from Ashton and Sons, car rental. Give it a day or two and I’ll be able to see who got that rental car the killer had.” She pointed her fork at him. “That’s when we go out and celebrate so hard we throw up. I’m sick of this case.”

“Jack, I love your morbid career choices but can we please discuss things that are actually interesting?” Atticus snapped. He was frowning at the mugs of bourbon. “Sorry. Long day. I’m going fucking crazy.” He handed a mug over to her while downing his own. 

Jack nodded slowly and sipped her drink. He’d probably been stressed out tonight and she hadn’t noticed. “Alright. Sorry I pushed it.” She said softly. “What do you wanna talk about?” 

Atticus smiled and refilled his mug. “I dunno, I’m just tired. Mind if I crash here for the night?” 

“Yeah, that’s fine. If you don’t mind the couch I’ve some spare blankets and pillows.” She knew she’d never get to the bottom of what was bothering him so bad, he was never an emotional person like that. And maybe it was hypocritical of her to want to know, because she barely liked even thinking about what bothered her. She just wanted to comfort him. 

“Thanks.” He nearly whispered it. Atticus packed the cake into her fridge, which apparently meant the little event was over. Jack felt a bit bad about ruining the mood, but there was nothing to be done about it now."

I'M CHEATING BECAUSE THIS ISN'T TECHNICALLY FANFIC ! It's my own original shortish story BUT it's on ao3 so it counts in my heart. This one's also very long but hey, I have to get the whole thing. I love the dialogue and general interactions between the two characters. This is from a later chapter but I honestly think someone could understand their relationship from just this interaction. This part in particular because it's just very soft and sweet, I love it a lot. Ah, I love these two characters so much, they're like my awful little babies. Again, I really do think someone could get what their relationship is like and even a bit about their personality from this bit of dialogue which I'm really happy with. I love all their interactions but this is my personal favorite

Do you write your story from start to finish, or do you write the scenes out of order?

I have to do it start to finish. My organizational ass would die if I had to do it out of order, because I end up improvising a lot when I write. So if it goes Scene A - Scene B - Scene C, if I write Scene C first then there might be something I end up writing in Scene B that changes things so I'd have to go back and change what I already wrote, etc etc. Easier to do it all in order.

[thenationaltreasuregazette]

To the editor,

Thoughts on the various bumps, bruises, and scrapes that the team (TM) must have attained in the course of their adventure? My personal headcanon is that Abigail’s right shoulder is probably a bit screwed up: she did hang single-handed off the side of the food truck door for multiple minutes, and she landed on the same shoulder when she was knocked down and lost the Declaration in traffic. And then there was the whole ‘wooden stairs collapsing under Trinity Church thing’…

Love your work!

Hi Anon,

Thank you so much for your question! I’m glad you’ve been enjoying my little project. I definitely have.

Injuries! Oh yes I have so many thoughts, and like you, they mostly center around Abigail’s shoulder.

Aside from being tired, like just exhausted, nobody talk to me for three days t i r e d, the gang came through their adventure more or less in one piece. For as much as Ian and his crew liked to shoot at them them, nobody got hit, and after the Charlotte exploded, there wasn’t any direct violence of that sort either. The injuries we’re looking at are mostly incidental, the wear and tear of going through an ordeal like that.

Let’s take the trio one by one:

Riley

There’s only one injury actually mentioned directly in the dialogue of the film, and that is:

"Actually I still have this splinter that’s been festering for three months"

So Riley got a splinter. (I think he would be rather miffed if we didn’t acknowledge that up front, lol.)

Other than that, as the tech guy/comic relief, he’s usually a bit removed from the action. There are exceptions of course, like when he’s shot at in the van outside of the National Archives, but in general he comes out okay. He also makes it to safety almost immediately in the collapsing staircase sequence, which spares him most of the physicality of that event. So Riley makes it out with just the base level of exhaustion and fatigue.

And a splinter.

I think it’s safe to say that most of Riley’s scars from this one are emotional.

Ben

Ben’s role in the story is much more physical; he’s the one doing the bulk of the heisting, running, jumping, etc. There are four main point that I see where Ben could have been injured.

The first is rescuing Abigail from the catering truck. While hanging out of the van is certainly dangerous, Ben is in control of what he’s doing. He’s deciding how far he can reach, etc. Not so for Abigail. Since Riley is able to swerve around the oncoming bus, Ben escapes this moment seemingly no worse for wear.

Second is the chase through Philadelphia. Here he’s probably looking at some minor scrapes and bruises, mostly from diving through the graveyard. The gunshots hitting the headstones sent little bits of rock dust flying, which could have scratched up his face and hands. And he doesn’t seem to be cut or in pain after the chase, but if there were sharp edges on any of that scaffolding he could have scraped a hand, shin, etc.

It also clearly hurts when he punches Powell outside the cemetery; he even says “Ow!” as he shakes out his hand. But then it’s off on the chase again. His hand doesn’t seem to impede his ability to climb the scaffolding, and when he’s in FBI custody he’s interlacing his fingers pretty tightly. So the “Ow!” might have been more from the shock, the kind of stubbed-toe pain that’s worst in the moment and then subsides. Still, he might have scraped or bruised knuckles. He also might be feeling the punch later that afternoon or the next day, but after what is to come, it might get lost in all the other soreness.

Third is the jump from the Intrepid. We know that Ben has fairly extensive dive training. He wears a Rolex Submariner, which is a $10,000 watch? Ben, I have new questions about your finances. which is waterproof to 1000 feet. From the FBI’s profile we know that Ben’s education encompasses “Navy ROTC and Naval Diving and Salvage Training Center.” He also breaks out the scuba gear again in Book of Secrets.

Holy shit this led me down a massive rabbit hole into what Ben’s exact relationship with the Navy might be. More on that at a later date.

Without getting into specifics, Ben is an experienced diver. But that’s scuba diving, not high diving. The Naval Diving and Salvage Training Center is the largest diving facility in the world, and it’s possible that depending on what course(s) Ben was enrolled in, he learned jumping-from-height techniques. He doesn’t strike me as a parachuting-from-a-helicopter kind of guy, especially because that likely wouldn’t be necessary for the kind of salvage he was interested in. I’d venture that is more for rescue missions—which is under the purview of multiple military diving regiments trained at NDSTC—but probably not where Ben’s focus was, given that the Charlotte was already long-sunken.

He clearly gets his body into a pencil position before hitting the water, and just the fact the he has the wherewithal to do that while jumping from an aircraft carrier suggests that he has some experience related to this. BUT, that doesn’t mean he’s actually prepared to do what he does.

Still, he surfaces in New Jersey in one piece. When Ian says a “No broken bones? A jump like that could kill a man,” Ben’s response is to play it off. “No, it was cool. You should try it sometime.” That doesn’t mean he wasn’t taking a huge risk in doing it, but he clearly came out of the jump without significant injury. He’s also able to change, meet Ian, and lead the expedition into the catacombs without any visible signs of pain. So while I imagine the jump didn’t feel as “cool” as Ben claims, he doesn’t seem to be hurt. Sore, almost certainly, but whose to say where the soreness from the jump ends and from any of the other adventuring begins?

And last, of course, we have the Trinity Church staircase sequence. Ben ends up hanging on for his life three different times during the stair collapse, first with Abigail trying to pull him up, then holding her up before dropping her on the nearby platform, and finally hanging onto the last board after the elevator breaks in half.

As with the Intrepid he doesn’t seem to be injured, but at this point his body has to hurt. He might not realize it in the moment—or even after the moment, what with his entire life’s goal evaporating and then materializing before his eyes and all—but holding his grip that intensely had to have stressed most of the muscles in his hands and arms. And although he doesn’t bring it up like Riley does, I wouldn’t be surprised if he came away from that with a palm full of splinters. Then he immediately had to hold himself up on a 200-year-old natural fiber rope, which can't be a pleasant sensation even without everything else going on.

So I imagine when all is said and done he’s plenty sore, with bruises and scratches here and there and possibly some minor scrapes, splinters, or even rope burns on his hands.

Abigail

And now to the main event. As you point out in your question, Abigail seems to come away from the adventure worst of the three of them. She’s the only one who appears visibly in pain after one of the action sequences is over.

As you state, in each of the three major action sequences—the catering truck, Independence Hall, and Trinity Church—Abigail take a bit of a beating, and she takes it in the same place: her shoulders.

Let’s go through them one by one.

Catering truck. When she opens the door of the catering truck, she’s immediately flung out and whips almost all the way around the doors. That has to hurt her arms, shoulders, and torso; her body was not prepared to move like that. She holds on with both hands, swings out on her left arm only, then finds her grip again with the (fake) Declaration in her right hand. First she reaches out to Ben with her free left hand, and then does so again after the door swings back and Ian takes the document from her, leaving her right hand holding onto the door. When Ben pulls her into the van, she lands pretty hard on her back.

That had to hurt.

Not immediately. Not the kind of searing pain that can’t be ignored, but the kind that creeps up on you. The kind the stiffens up and settles in muscles you'd never even noticed were there.

Ben repeatedly asks Abigail if she’s alright and she never really answers whether she’s physically hurt. She thinks she’s lost the Declaration of Independence to a truck full of armed lunatics, and that is all she can focus on.

“Yeah well I’m not alright! Those men have the Declaration!”

At Patrick’s house, she keeps her arms crossed over her body most of the time. This is probably a function of being in an incredibly awkward situation—semi-kidnapped and now meeting your accidental kidnapper/intentional document thief/future love interest’s dad, who insulted you at the door??—but you could additionally read this as experiencing some soreness in her arms and shoulders.

When she goes to test for the cypher, her hands seem as steady as could be expected in such a situation, and once the masonic symbol is revealed, she goes all-in on helping Ben reveal and record the rest. So she can’t be in too much pain. Plus, like in the van, the safety of the Declaration and the thrill of cypher have all her attention.

I imagine that it’s when they get on the road to Philadelphia that she really starts to notice what hurts. As she sits in the car her muscles stiffen up, and there’s much less to take her attention from the pain. Not to mention she’s now willingly on the run from the FBI, with these two weird guys she just met, in a dress she probably wanted to be out of hours ago, in the middle of the night, while having plenty of quiet time to reckon with the fact that she just put lemon juice all over the Declaration of Independence and almost certainly will not have a job when she gets home. The physical discomfort only adds to it all.

I’m not convinced she’d even attempt to sleep in such a situation—Riley, sure, but that’d be a lot of trust for Abigail to be showing toward these guys at this point—but even if she did, she might not be able to get comfortable. No matter how she might twist in the seat, her neck or her shoulder or one of her sides would hurt.

Philadelphia. When Abigail is knocked into the road during foot chase in Philadelphia, she lands on her back and right shoulder, and when Riley pulls her out of the path of the truck, she again lands on her right shoulder. While these don’t look like particularly hard falls in and of themselves, after swinging from the catering truck and then having twelve-ish hours for that soreness to build, yeah, those fall probably hurt.

She may also have some raspberries on her hands or knees from when she fell. Again though, Abigail is so focused on the Declaration and almost dying for it, again that it doesn’t even seem to register with her.

Trinity Church. Finally we have the Trinity Church staircase sequence. First she helps pull Ben up from where he falls, and then she hangs from the elevator. She’s holding onto Ben with her right hand, and when he drops her on the platform she falls and lands more on her back and left shoulder. It’s this left arm that she’s clutching even while Ben is still dangling over the pit.

She takes her hand away when she yells, “Hang on!” but immediately puts it back again, which suggests to me that she’s in quite a bit of pain. In the previous instances she’s been so focused on the danger to both herself and the Declaration that she doesn’t acknowledge she’s just been through something that probably hurt. Now, even with both Ben and the Declaration moments away from falling to their doom, she is reflexively holding her shoulder. She’s even still holding it when she runs up to Ben after he swings to safety on the rope.

Maybe if the adventure hadn’t been so rough on her shoulder already this wouldn’t have been such a painful hit, but in any case it’s clearly not something she can ignore.

There’s this little moment that I had never noticed before when Ben’s trying to convince Ian to turn back where Abigail puts her hands on the railing in front of her and noticeably wiggles that left shoulder, as if she can’t quite get it comfortable or is checking to see how bad the damage is.

It’s not broken or anything like that: she’s clearly using both her arms when they discover the treasure, even holding her torch with that left hand at one point. And in the three months later flash-forward she’s holding Ben’s hand with her left and pressing up against him with her left shoulder, so she’s fully healed by then.

Headcanon time

My personal headcanon is likewise that her shoulder is pretty banged up. I imagine that when Abigail takes that jacket off (or when an EMT does, because I’m assuming there’s an ambulance somewhere in with the 300 police cars and FBI vehicles that must have descend on Trinity Church after Ben’s call) she’ll find a nasty bruise. The kind that’s instantly purple and only seems to get worse. The kind that lasts for weeks and turns all sorts of sickly greens and yellows as it's healing.

I imagine that when Abigail’s sitting watching Ben talk to Sadusky, all the pain and stiffness she’s been pushing out of her mind comes creeping back on her. Aching soreness in her back, her shoulders, her neck. And that left arm hurts. The longer she sits there, the more she realizes just how much it does.

I especially like to think that the paramedics give her a sling that she’ll have to wear for a few days. There’s not much they can do besides immobilize her shoulder and let it heal. I don’t imagine she needs any kind of dramatic treatment like surgery, but maybe some physical therapy when she gets home if you’re so inclined.

What I like about the sling is that it’s highly visual, and Ben would already be on his way to Boston by the time she gets it. So while Riley is probably there to see how bruised Abigail’s arm is, Ben gets to be surprised when he sees her the next day. I also headcanon they have to stay in NYC for a few days being debriefed by the FBI. And he gets to feel terrible because he’s the one who dragged Abigail into all this, however inadvertently, and yet she’s the one who ends up hurt.

That sweet, sweet angst, you know?

So in addition to the incidental scrapes, Abigail has a wicked bruise on her left shoulder, and possibly others on her back and right arm. Depending on how severely she wrenched her muscles in the catering truck or staircase sequences, she might have some longer-term pain as well. It's possible that those shoulders will never be quite right again, and sitting poorly at her computer or spending long hours hunched over in the preservation room might cause it to flair up again. And given her job, she may have chronic neck, shoulder, or back pain already.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this adventure hurt. Abigail may have sustained the only semi-serious injury, but the guys will be feeling this tomorrow as well.

Running. Jumping. Falling. Holding on for dear life.

Sore muscles. Scrapes. Cuts. Bruises. Scratches.

Remember, they’re nerds. Ben has to have a certain level of fitness to do all that diving, but all three of them are fundamentally nerds. Riley sits as a computer all day, Abigail sits behind a desk, and this particular week in his life to the contrary, Ben Gates probably spends most of his time looking at books, maps, archival records, etc.

Not to mention they’ve been awake for like 24 hours now with unknown amounts of food and water and probably all have massive headaches.

Prescription: Ibuprofen all around.

Well, that's all from me for now. Thanks so much for your question! Feel free to send another any time.

[gayratdad]

Something that I absolutely loved about the movie Fresh (2022),,,, just so many things:

SPOILERS AHEAD:

- in the grocery store scene Noa was standing under a "Fresh Meat" sign

- I loved that when Paul showed up at the end, heard gunshots and then was just like "nah lmao I don't wanna die" cause honestly?? That's some irl behaviour and I was obsessed with it

- I loved the reveal of Steve's wife's leg, a whole other fuckin twist I was NOT expecting. (which also-- the note on the magazine was defs from her??)

- I also really fucking loved Sebastian Stan in this, his total villian era and I'm here for it.

- I loved the social commentary on dating and what women go through. Re: horrible men on the first date, and when women turn them down its an immediate "I wasn't attracted to you to anyway, stuck up bitch" and, how Noa has the keys between her knuckles when she spotted someone following her in an alley. How Steve told her a couple of times that she has a nice smile and needs to smile more.

- The fact that Noa put her keys between her knuckles ready, and it was a chill dude with a baby strolling by. Vs at the end of the movie she used the key to stab the wife. Brilliant, 10/10

- the entire title card sequence. AMAZING I LOVE A GOOD TONE SHIFT LIKE THAT.

- I loved that it was a world that was so rich in history and also had so many questions left unanswered about the cannibalism industry etc.

- Noa flirting with Steve was such a good way to manipulate him as that's how he manipulated her in the start.

- the painting with all the women's stuff in it-- I could SWEAR that there was strands of hair in the painting

- Noa's best friend being queer.

- Noa's best friend searching for her?? Amazing

- Noa said "smile for me" before killing Steve. Amazing, 10/10 LOVED it.

- I'm still figuring out Steve's wife. Was she manipulating him the whole time? Did she eventually end up "falling in love" with him? Did she get involved in the business and is she now like the head of feeding the rich dudes people?? At the end she also told the body guard guy to put his body on ice-- so that tells me she's going to sell his meat?? Which tbh-- Queen Shit I love it.

- after that entire god damn movie that guy from the first date TEXTING NOA ASKING IF SHE UP ??? !!!!!

[mostlygibberish]

"They dont make cops like him anymore. He was one of a kind." "He still is."

I liked the part with Robert Z'dar, from Maniac Cop 1, 2, and 3.

I expected Maniac Cop to be a silly, over the top slasher, but was pleasantly surprised to find it was a horror crime procedural that took itself seriously. That is until it suddenly didn't, and became a silly, over the top slasher. 

Most of the performances were fine, but Sheree North did a truly awful job of it for whatever reason. There was one shot of two people being stabbed by the maniac, shown through a door lite, which was fantastic. It's a shame that it exactly marked the point beyond which the overall quality of the movie sharply fell off. It didn't even feel like the same movie after that sequence.

Maybe the concept of a serial killer using the inherent trust people have in uniformed police was more effective in 1988, or at least less laughable. Equally laughable was the scene where the mayor of New York City in the 80's was worried that tourism will suffer because there have been murders.

I didn't really get what they were going for with the maniac himself: Was he supposed to be a regular guy or some sort of supernatural evil? He spent the whole movie killing people and taking multiple gunshots to the chest and face without making a sound, but then right at the end a pole stabbed into him and he screamed in agony? In fact, the whole ending was just stupid, and not in a goofy, charming way.

Eh, it was okay. Ultimately what I expected, even after it briefly wasn't.