#thematic unit plans

[fuzzyperfectionengineer]

O Level Statistics 4040 Lesson plans, Thematic Unit Plans Full and Latest Syllabus 📊✨

Hello, individual analysts! Take an exciting journey into the world of measurement with our latest blog entries. Currently, we are focusing on our valuable assets: O-Level Statistics 4040 lesson plans, thematic unit plans, and a complete and up-to-date syllabus. O-Level Measurement 4040 Illustration Plans, Complete Thematic Unit Plans, and Latest Prospectus at https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/O-Level-Statistics-4040-Lesson-plans-Thematic-Unit-Plans-Full-Syllabus-Latest-10407732 _____________________________________________ Discover the possibilities of illustrated plans for measurements. Displaying the O Level Measurement 4040 requires a nuanced approach and our illustrated plans are created to help you grasp it using fact-based ideas. Let's take a look at why these lesson plans are so important for teachers. Comprehensive coverage of coursework: The entire O-Level Statistics 4040 syllabus is covered with carefully designed lesson plans to provide a comprehensive understanding of all statistical concepts and techniques. Topically structured unit plans: Focus students on specific thematic unit plans that break down complex subject matter into meaningful areas. Work with clear understanding and application skills. 🧮 Intuitive Learning: Support intuitive and dynamic growth opportunities with illustrated plans designed to encourage collaboration, decisive thinking, and active use of measurable critical thinking. Real-world application: Our illustration plan goes beyond hypothetical information and focuses on the useful use of measurable methods. Prepare students for real, measurable challenges. _____________________________________________ 1. 🌟Mr. Anderson • Region: New York, USA • Survey: “These lesson plans are full of statistical gems.” Incorporating real-world applications and linking to themed units has changed the way students see and understand fact-based ideas. Definitely recommended! ” 2. • Mr. Patel's location: Mumbai, India • Audit: "After reading this O-level statistics lesson plan, my students' interest in statistics has increased. This is the perfect lesson plan and will definitely continue my students' engineering studies. A great tool! 📊📘” 3. 🌟Teacher Kim • Region: Seoul, South Korea • Survey: "These illustrated plans are a clear advantage. Statistics are made interesting and relevant through thematic units." My students don't just care about things; Understand the impact on current reality through measurable research. 📈💡” 4. 🌟 Madame Dubois • Region: Paris, France • Survey: "These lesson plans are essential to me as a statistics teacher. They simplify the development of ideas and encourage students to apply statistics in the real world. Awesome! 📊🔍" Five. 🌟 Mr. Rodriguez • Region: Madrid, Spain • Test: "These school planes have been transformed into city classes. My students are now confidently understanding and applying city concepts. What a great opportunity! 🌐🧮" 🌈 Unlock a Wealth of Resources: Find more valuable resources like lesson plans, at this Secret Link.  https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Useful-Resources-For-Everyone Uncover the hidden secrets that await you and let the journey of discovery continue to attain professional methodologies and reach the height of your teaching/training/mentoring career.

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[ratatattouille]

Why Arcane's Finale Fumbled Pt. 2

In my last post, I argued that Arcane's second season was artistically beautiful and thematically cheap. I broke down where I believed the writers fumbled with Vi's, Jinx's and Viktor's characters, and how the conflict of season 2 should have centred around a war between Piltover and Zaun rather than Piltover/Zaun against Ambessa and cosmic robots. I asserted the the real let-down of Season 2 had to do with its themes and its refusal to commit to the political story it had set up.

Well, folks, on further examination, it actually looks worse than I thought, and I'm going to use two characters--Silco and Mel--to break down what makes the message of Arcane so hollow and even a little dangerous.

Let's get into it.

Silco: The First Proposition

Silco and Vander:

Silco is a character CENTRAL to the themes of Arcane. The setup of the entire drama of the show, the central theme, are these questions: what is the price of progress and are we willing to pay it? Should we pay that price? Or as Silco says it quite bluntly to the first kid we see him give shimmer to: “Real power belongs to people who are willing to do anything to get it.” This story isn’t merely about ambition, but a dialogue on what actual progress costs and looks like. What does a better world look like? Is the better world we’re fighting for better for us or others? And what (or who) are we willing to sacrifice to achieve that goal? Vander, when faced with that question on the bridge answers, “No dream is worth the loss of those we love.”

The death on the Bridge of Progress during the early war/conflict had too high a cost to Vander. Silco, however, “had enough.” Unlike Vander, what happened on the Bridge of Progress radicalized him. Silco, while being drowned by Vander, realized in that moment that he would do anything, not just to live, but to achieve his dream of a free Zaun. With or without Vander. Even if he had to sacrifice Vander. And we soon see, that while Vander dedicated the rest of his life to keeping the vulnerable in The Lanes safe (even if it meant making deals with enforcers), Silco was willing to throw citizens of The Lanes to the wolves on his way to achieve independence for Zaun. Silco calls it, “The necessary violence for change.” And in this episode (3 of Season 1) Silco sets forth a proposition for the entire show: does the path to a better world require violence?

Silco and Sevika:

Silco’s new approach to crossing the bridge of progress, the path to freedom is winding and twisted. Silco embraces that, because only the goal matters: an independent Zaun. Silco won’t be at the mercy of the Council or anyone in The Lanes, and Sevika is into that shit. We saw that she percieved Vander as weak and servile to enforcers. Who she deems abhorrent without remorse (Vander and Grayson are both despised by Sevika and Marcus because they are percieved as being too lenient with their enemies). Silco, however, has an ACTUAL plan.

He creates a shimmer enterprise because having this control not only gives him a monopoly on The Lanes (and the gangs within), but leverage when it comes to manipulating the Council. Violence and the threat of war are the official languages of both Zaun and Piltover. It is how anyone bothers to listen to Silco both in The Lanes and within the Council. We know that the rich Piltovians (like those IRL) only speak money. “Progress” to them is prosperity and legacy (and I’ll get more into that later).

By creating the shimmer enterprise, Silco not only gets his foot in the door, monopoly over the other gangs and factions (thus uniting them), but a metaphorical seat at the table. His name has weight now, which positions him to make demands of Piltover and give Zaun a thriving industry (at least when it comes to money). Especially because (as we see with Salo and Lest) shimmer is also used by the elites. Silco is a brilliant tactician who exploits the hubris of Piltovians (like Marcus, who wanted to be in charge so he can neuter Zaunites indiscriminately), and manipulates them to his own advantage (much like Mel). But when Renni’s son is killed in the mines, Silco’s proposition is confronted once again: isn’t it easy to justify necessary violence when no one you love is the collateral?

Silco doesn’t care about Renni’s son, doesn’t see himself as remotely near Renni’s position. When Twitch calls Jinx his “dog” (something Sevika herself wanted to do lmao), Silco gets twitchy. He doesn’t recognize any similarity between his relationship with Jinx and Renni and her son. Jinx is not someone he would ever consider as up for debate. Which was the point of tension between him and Sevika (a Sevika who’s loyalty he KNEW he needed in order to keep control, especially in the wake of Jinx’s volatility and unpopularity). Nevertheless, Sevika doesn’t betray him in that moment, because she still sees Silco as stronger (even though she believes Jinx is a weakness he needs to get rid of). As with Vander, Sevika views affection for their own at the cost of freedom as weakness.

Yet, funnily enough, she is fiercely loyal. She, like Jinx, is Silco’s “dog.” She shares his weakness, the weakness that makes her zealous for a better world in the first place. But what Twitch and Renni pose to both Silco and Sevika is the unsettling question of: are you really willing to go far enough? Or do you still see yourself as an exception? Regardless, when it comes to Silco’s proposition, Silco WAS SUCCESSFUL (and also accurate in his deductions on what would get both cities to respect him and eventaully give him what he wanted - Zaun). His determination and focus paid off, indeed, it’s hard to see how he could have been successful without the “necessary violence”. It is clear that he wouldn’t have. No shimmer, no independence. Silco, for all his gruesome methods, WAS RIGHT. Except . . .

Silco and Marcus:

By exploiting and manipulating the vulnerable of The Lanes, Silco also ensured he would suffer the same fate as Marcus. Unlike Silco, Marcus did horrible things to protect his daughter. Marcus, at first, had started out as a zealous enforcer, eager to clean out the rats of The Lanes. Although he didn’t plan for Grayson to be killed, he was willing to get rid of her in order to ensure that he would get into a position that allowed him to do what he wanted to do: exterminate rats and be the hero of Piltover.

Silco offers him bodies for Stillwater in exchange for ease of shimmer distribution. Silco is willing to sacrifice his own people, the people Zaun is ironically for, in order to gain influence in Piltover. Silco, however, did the opposite. Because he loved Jinx, he recognized her deepest insecurity and sought to assuage it (inadvertently weaponizing it against her and those who loved her). He let Jinx get close and gave her responsibility so she could feel like she belonged (he let her drug his eye, a delicate process, while she was still thought of as reckless and untrustworthy). He brought her deeper into the heart of the violence and taught her to embrace it. He made her a child prodigy of warfare.

He takes a different approach to Vander (who kept telling the kids to stay out of trouble where they could and used himself as a buffer). So was Silco wrong? Was Vander? The answer was, quite poetically and profoundly, their deaths and the resulting silence. Both died, more or less, at the hands of their daughters. This is something overlooked often by fandom. It was Vi’s choice to lead her brothers and sister into Jayce’s apartment that would eventually bring the enforcers down to The Lanes, sparking the chain of events that would lead to Vander’s death (or had things gone “well,” his arrest). Vi is also how Powder got the arcane stones in the first place. Vi’s encouragement (well-meaning and innocent as it was) played a hand in the disaster that followed.

But the fact that both Vander and Silco die regardless, paints an excellent portrait of the constraints of oppression. Both tried different methods when it came to rearing their daughters. Both methods got them killed and thrust their children into peril. Vander could only have shielded Vi for so long, and Jinx could only have taken so much so young before she broke down completely. The fate of the girls is not merely their fathers’ fault, nor their sister’s. The tragedies of their lives happen due to the simple fact that they were born in The Lanes. No choice, on either Vander’s, Silco’s, Powder’s or Vi’s mattered in the end.

They were always playing a losing game, which is what makes it so fucking INFURIATING when S2 comes along and suggests that “ACKTUALLY the reason everyone’s happy in Ekko’s AU is because Vi died/hextech was no more/Silco and Vander made up).” All of those were symptoms of the bigger issue, not the issue itself. And that is the horrible irony of Silco’s story. He WAS right. But his folly was viewing himself and those he loved as exceptions to the rule. For when Zaun demands the final price, when Jayce asks for Jinx in exchange for his dream being realized, he isn’t willing to pay anymore.

Marcus only crossed the bridge of progress into Zaun for the sake of his daughter (as is shown in a chilling scene where he finds Silco playing with her in her room). Likewise, when Silco FINALLY finishes, after all those years, his march on The Bridge of Progress, like Marcus, he dies in a swarm of bullets. But unlike Marcus, he is afforded time to tell his daughter, “I wouldn’t have given you to them. Not for the world.” Not for his dream. So what did Season 2 do with that?

Summary of Fumblings:

-I’ll tell you what Season 2 did. Season 2 took the biggest shit on one of the most fascinating characters in animated history. The reason I didn’t put that much critique up there was to show you how complex, layered, deep and thoughtful Season 1 was with Silco’s character. Silco in S2 became a cheap gimmick flung in our faces like the marketing team was trying to sell Silco plushies following the release. His back-story in Season 2 clashes horribly with Season 1. If Vander, Silco and Felicia were such chums back then, why did neither Silco nor Vi recognize each other when they met in Season 1? They were quite grown by the time the March on The Bridge of Progress happened. Honestly, there’s too many mistakes and inconsistencies with how Season 2 handles the backstory I don’t even see a point in getting to it

-(excerpt from one of the writers) I can't BELIEVE MY FUCKING EYES! Silco’s respect for Vander, despite the fact that Vander tried to drown him (most likely after the carnage on the Bridge of Progress where Vander realized the cost of war), was that Vander remained dedicated to Zaun’s independence, at least, until he began prioritizing the safety of the children over Zaun’s freedom. Silco’s respect for Vander had never been a goal or motivation. Silco never expressed any desire to be respected by Vander. He merely expressed respect, ONLY because Vander, up until he became the enforcer’s “lapdog,” shared his pursuit of a free Zaun. Silco killed Vander for the same reason Vander tried to drown Silco: they had become a threat to what they held dear - Silco, his pursuit of Zaun, and Vander the safety of his adopted children.

-”We build our own prisons. Bars forged of oaths, codes, commitments.” This conversation is SO FUCKING—rips into mattress and pulls out stuffing Jinx hallucinates Silco from within the cell she’s in at Stillwater, maybe the same one Vi had been in. Silco starts off saying something like “It’s funny how Marcus thought putting Vi in this cell was a greater mercy than killing her,” cluing us in to not just Jinx’s mental state but the very real torment it must have been for Vi as a child as well. SO JUST TO RECAP, WE ARE TALKING ABOUT THE PRISON OF THE CYCLE OF KILLING AND VIOLENCE, OKAY. In addition to that already horrible quote above, Silco says, “. . . and it will continue, long after the two of you.” So, folks, IN CONCLUSION, this cycle of violence (which I have already established like a fucking broken record is EXPLICITLY started and perpetuated by Piltover) is eternal and inevitable. Just let that fucking sink in. Let it settle nice and sour in your gut and then tell me how that GERD feels. Not only is that an appalling thing to suggest about any oppressive regime, it’s also untrue. Yes, humanity has not gone a decade without some form of conflict and struggle, but individual societies have been PROVABLY capable of both progress and regress. Both of which require the agency and active participation of others. And Arcane seems to want to show that progress is indeed possible, but it has already declared it, to some extent, a pointless pursuit in this conversation. Which is it, Arcane S2 writers? Is progress worth striving for, or is it pointless? “Oh my god, you’re so dumb ratatatouille!” you say. “Of course they answered the former! Duh! In Ekko’s monologue when Jinx is trying to kill herself, he tells Jinx that someone special once told him that no matter what happened in the past, it’s never too late to build something new - someone worth building it for.” GREAT! DELICIOUS, EVEN! Now why is it that Ekko says this instead of Silco? Why isn’t this something Silco would say, given that this was the entire point of his and Vander’s story? That this is what his arc embodied and explored? “You’re so silly! Obviously Silco is a hallucination!” The show explicitly frames Silco as RIGHT and tries to tie in what Silco says with what Ekko says. More sympathetic viewers will say that since Ekko discovered that Jinx was never the problem, that hextech was, and that Jinx was actually the path towards progress - a path Silco had walked so she could run - Ekko approached her as someone he could finally save (and oh boy am I going to get into why that doesn’t work AT ALL later). Is is not Jinx, but the hextech, the ARCANE, that is dangerous. The hextech is the true jinx. It is what will keep the cycle going. That’s why Silco holds the arcane stone near his eye like that in the scene.

And to that I say . . . WELL THAT’S FUCKING STUPID. I don’t care that “Arcane” is the title of the show. It is the cheapest story gimmick I have seen since vibranium, except vibranium REMAINED a plot device and didn’t usurp the theme or political/interpersonal conflicts in Black Panther. Hextech was a PLOT DEVICE meant to be used to explore the themes which became the ENDPOINT. And this story SUFFERS SO MUCH from that simple change. This is why most critics of season 2 say the story should have remained focused on the interpersonal and political reasons characters did what they did, rather than siphoning all their stories into a mission to stop the evil, mystical stones. It is a fucking stupid distraction in S2, where in S1 it had been a beautiful metaphor, a fragment of a mirror that the characters held up to examine their faces.

But by claiming the cycle was the hextech all along, you just shat on everything that made S1 good.

Which brings me back to what Ekko tells Jinx, that she can still build a better world for the people she loves (like Vi, I guess). That’s why she comes back to help her sister. She cuts her hair (a symbol of letting go of the past) and joins Vi to defeat Ambessa and evil Viktor. This is treated as some kind of continuation (or the true point) of Silco’s “ending the cycle” speech. By letting go of Vi (literally) and Silco (also literally), she can finally . . . er . . . stop “running in circles.” So the show tells us she is BOTH supposed to fight one more time to achieve an autonomous Zaun AND fuck off to a new land to escape said cycle—which, what was the POINT of fighting if she still had to “escape” it in the end anyways?

NO S2 HALLUCINATION SILCO, JINX AND VI DID NOT BUILD THEIR OWN PRISONS. THEY SURVIVED THE CAGES THEY WERE PUT IN AS CHILDREN AND THEY DESERVED BETTER THAN THAT GODAWFUL DUMBASS SPEECH.

Do you see why this writing is so horrible? It contradicts itself so many fucking times, no matter how you splice it. Whether it’s about the cycle of violence being the fault of unforgiveness or hextech. None of it makes any sense because none of it was ever established in season 1 as being the cause for any of those things. And by even SUGGESTING that either or both of those could be the cause, the writers send us two very troubling messages: oppression is inevitable and also, somehow, the fault (rather than responsibility) of the oppressed. Actually no, I think the suggestion from the writers is even stupider: oppression is an option and you can opt in or out.

And that is the ultimate insult to Silco’s character and what he did for the story of the show.

Mel: The Counterpoint

Mel and Jayce:

Mel is Silco’s thematic counterpoint. In the story, Silco proposes that progress costs some “necessary violence.” Mel is faced with this same question as a child, when Ambessa presents her with the last remaining heir of a nation Noxus had conquered. Ambessa asks young Mel if they should kill or spare the girl. “Kino says war is a failure of statecraft,” Mel had said, when her mother told her about how her father had made her retrieve knives on the battlefield at ten so she’d know death. War, Mel is sure, is REGRESS not PROGRESS. It is the breaking down of the state, not the making of one. It’s obvious to Mel that sparing this girl, who looks about her age, is the progressive, less barbaric thing to do. Yet Ambessa insists, “Your brother thinks he can talk his way out of anything,” Likening him to being a fox among wolves when a good ruler needs to be both. To which Mel goes on to describe the kind of ruler the new conquered kingdom will need. A woman “with a kind, fat face to charm her subjects”, but moldable, to which Ambesaa basically says “So basically you? Cool. I’m down, but you have to prove yourself to me. Prove you can take it.” This is when Mel is presented with the ultimatum: choose to spare the girl or kill her. “We can show the people we are merciful,” she pleads on behalf of the girl. But Ambessa is firm. If Mel kills her now (a symbol of the old “regime”), she won’t (maybe) have to deal with any uprisings and kill thousands.

But Mel doesn’t swallow this poison, insists that diplomacy is the superior way, and is banished to Piltover, where she undertakes the task of proving herself. She tries to become the fox. She uses her kind, fat face to charm the Councilors of Piltover and utilizes Jayce to use hextech for Piltover so that her work in the city becomes impressive, cements her legacy as a Medarda, validates her as one of them, and ALSO proves her mother wrong, thus liberating herself from her mother’s cycle of violence and re-instating her rightful station as a worthy member of the Medarda clan.

But it’s not JUST that, though. Jayce’s enthusiasm to improve the world with hextech inspires Mel and validates what she felt so strongly as a child that Ambessa staunchly denied. When Jayce shares his dream with her, she goes all soft and says, “We’re (the Medarda’s) not often in the position to give back.” Which is . . . funny, lol. I think she was talking about herself rather than her entire family. Anyway, to Jayce, Mel was the one who gave him a second chance. He and Viktor wouldn’t have gone anywhere without her help. Jayce is likely the first person she’s felt capable of helping (especially outside Ambessa’s shadow), and likewise, Mel makes Jayce feel indominable (remember: “Nothing feels impossible when I’m with you”). Jayce makes her feel good about herself, hopeful that her ways can work. After all, being the fox has worked for Jayce and Piltover.

But Mel isn’t just the fox, and not for the reasons S2 thinks. Why? LONG before Ambessa sets foot in Piltover, Mel receives a letter from a correspondent overseas. She despairs that Jayce is not ready to be the success she needs him to be. Even after he confides in her about Viktor’s illness, to her it is not a personal loss. Like no matter what the meljayvik or melvik shippers say, Viktor and Mel DID NOT GIVE A FUCK ABOUT EACH OTHER OUTSIDE OF JAYCE. Jayce wants to uphold his promise in helping Viktor, the man who saved him from his own death (AND TRUST ME, WE’LL GET TO THAT) but Mel wants Jayce focused on keeping her investment and legacy IN PILTOVER safe from Ambessa.

So what does homegirl do? She manipulates Jayce into creating hextech weapons. The reason she moves for a vote to make Jayce a councilor on Progress Day is in light of Jinx’s attack. The councilors are worried that someone in the undercity got their hands on hextech and can use it against them. Jayce, feeling responsible for the situation (and that probably having something to do with Caitlyn nearly dying in the attack), proposes to pause all hextech developments until the threat is neutralized. Instantly, we see Viktor’s and Mel’s reactions—panic. Both are running out of time. Mel to make Piltover a success (in that it is able to defend itself from Ambessa), and Viktor to help those dying in The Lanes. So Mel proposes Jayce become a councilor instead.

We next see her examining Jinx’s bomb with Viktor and Jayce. Jayce asks Viktor if it’s possible that Jinx could create something resembling hextech. Viktor, who is busy marvelling at Jinx’s ingenuity and feeling a little proud of his people, says very confidently that “It’s a leap.” Meaning it’s far away from what Jayce and him are developing. But Mel needs SOMETHING to intimidate Ambessa. That, or she recognizes the undercity as a real threat to her dream of progress and prosperity. Legacy. The undercity is ugly and she wants to neutralize it before she loses her chance. Regardless, here, we see her make the choice to be the wolf. The relentless and unmerciful. Focused and driven by her ambition. She will be a Medarda, unlike last time. Armed and prepared. When Jayce asks if she knows for certain that Zaun intends to turn the gemstones into weapons, Mel says, “That doesn’t matter. We’ll assume,” which pisses Viktor off. But then she performs the ultimate manipulation on Jayce. She uses Jayce’s care for the Kirammans and Piltover to convince him that it’s necessary to “protect your people” which, Viktor can tell, does not extend to the people of the undercity.

Once again, Mel is demonstrating that she doesn’t see Zaunites as people. She barely acknowledges Viktor when he protests, saying “That’s not what we invented hextech for!” She merely looks at him, then looks back at Jayce and talks to Jayce. She repeatedly ignores Viktor, talks over him, as if he isn’t there. Doesn’t matter. After all, Jayce is the only one in Piltover worth her time. Piltover is her project, not the dirty undercity. Mel had already sown the seed for Jayce’s rampage by the time Ambessa showed up.

“Stay away from Jayce!” she says, and yet Mel is what brought Ambessa close to Jayce both physically and ideologically. For hextech and Piltover (the City of Progress) to be safe, Jayce has to commit some “necessary violence for change.”

This isn’t only Ambessa’s fault, but Mel’s and Jayce’s errors as leaders. By neglecting the undercity, Jayce fails to see how his innovations could be weapons until it's too late. Mel is also so focused on Ambessa as a threat that she neglects the threat of the undercity, a place that only became a threat because of YEARS of failed state-craft.

Jayce acquiesces to Ambessa's rhetoric since the attack at the bridge, and proposes to the other council members to go into The Lanes with force, which they are all (including Mel) hesitant to do. But then Jayce goes ahead anyways, and kills a kid (which we’ll come back to), and he not only regrets it, but does a 180 and returns, like Mel, back to his core values — peace and progress over prosperity or legacy. He makes a deal with Silco and then goes and tells the Council what’s up. Mel, now utterly convinced of her position, is the first to cast her vote in favor of an independent Zaun, and removes the Medarda ring while she does so, signalling her disdain for all the clan represents. Not only that, but she smears gold over the Noxian ships in her painting, which her mother correctly reads as a rejection of Noxus and an embrace of the Piltover her and Jayce want to build. Mel does not anticipate the attack, and Mel, in the last frame of the finale of Season 1, is the first target of Jinx’s bomb, the first councilor it was going to hit while her back was turned to it.

Mel and Viktor:

Mel’s parallel with Viktor is interesting. Mel’s interest in hextech (and initially Jayce) are to her own ends, later becoming altruistic (Viktor’s interest in Jayce also starts as an interest in his theories although his motivations were altruistic from the start). Jayce reminded her what she wanted to be in the first place. That her family name, like Jayce’s was to his, was a ball and chain around her neck. Holding her back from true progress. From a better world. A better legacy. Viktor comes from nowhere-land. Viktor doesn’t have a family legacy to inherit. Viktor is a Zaunite. And soon, much like Viktor, Mel is going to have to work hard to create her own legacy. Both Viktor and Mel are sort of outsiders in Piltover. As is shown in S2 with Salo, Piltover, the Fake City of Progress, has no accommodations for the disabled, which makes Viktor stand out like a sore thumb (also, Viktor is the one who made his own leg brace). Mel is a foreigner who has to make a name for herself before she can latch onto the Medarda title. Viktor wants the city to be good, while Mel wants the city (and herself) to look good by matching the strength and prosperity of Noxus.

This is why Viktor gets so sassy with her lmao. He sees through her manipulations and notices that she is pulling Jayce away from what they’d set out to do together (he is also annoyed at how easy it is for Jayce to forget). Mel is the one who tells Jayce it would be wiser to let the council members get away with their criminality (all while cracking down on The Lanes), which makes them wealthier, something that pushes Jayce deeper into his own prejudices against Zaun, where he starts seeing himself as primarily a caretaker of Piltover rather than hextech, as a councilor rather than a scientist, and it jeopardizes his relationship with Viktor.

But Jayce helped her re-connect with the values all three of them shared deep down. The desire to help people and make the world a better place. After the bridge massacre, Mel wants to put her charm and diplomacy to good use, and she does so in the Council Room when she votes for Zaun’s independence.

But here’s where the FUMBLE happens. In S2, we see that Mel’s magic seems to have shielded Jayce and herself, but not Viktor. Not only that, but it’s hinted that Viktor’s magic is resistant to her touch. We don’t get any answer as to why that is (although I’d like to think that was Viktor being petty even while unconscious). This is especially weird since the arcane is alluded to be where the mages get their power (and isn’t it convenient that Viktor became a mindless war machine controlled by the corrupted/corrupting arcane instead of a mage when we see that in other universes he is indeed a mage already?). Not only that, but Viktor can clearly “touch” her magic through the puppet, later on.

Jayce keeps asking her why he was spared and Viktor wasn’t, and Mel, once again, cannot answer him. She knows that her magic protected her and Jayce, but once again, Jayce is lowkey asking why all these horrible things keep happening to Viktor instead of him. Why he is spared instead of Viktor. Unlike Mel, I have an answer. The answer IS PRIVILEGE JAYCE NOT THE FUCKING ARCANE AND THE MYSTICAL NATURE OF MAGIC OR SOME UNKNOWN FORCE OF FATE. Viktor’s tragedy was something that could be helped by both hextech and just Piltover not being a bunch of fucking asswipes. Viktor’s “bad luck” was actually just piss poor governance, or as Kino would say, “a failure of statecraft.” When Mel forsook her original ideals in order to pursue her mother’s acceptance and her family legacy, she did what all the other council members did: make themselves comfortable in places of power at the expense of the oppressed. In order for her to reclaim herself, she had to abandon Noxus and her dream of returning or belonging to the Medarda Clan. Mel has to choose between her family’s legacy and her own longing for progress and dedication to mercy over violence.

Mel and Ambessa:

While Jayce has to fight Victor (who is really now reduced to just another weapon Jayce created that’s gotten into the wrong hands - and more on THAT later), Mel’s task is facing down her mother. By removing the context of oppressed/oppressor inherent to the Piltover/Zaun dynamic, we fail to explore S1’s setup for Mel. IT SHOULD BE NOTED that the reason diplomacy worked for Mel and not Silco was because of their differences in power. When Viktor tells Jayce “There is always a choice” after Jayce expresses his doubts regarding what Mel said about the Zaunites making hextech, Viktor was talking about Jayce’s choice. Mel’s choice. Mel could have chosen to be diplomatic, even with the threat of Jinx. But instead she forsook her ideals in pursuit of her desire to become a Medarda and, like her mother in her dream, preferred to eliminate the threat rather than integrate (Zaun). Even if she back-tracked by the time her mom came back.

Mel has to face the fact that, like Jayce, she betrayed her values and initiated something horrible: the war she’d always dreaded and despised. Mel is why Ambessa heard of the weapons in the first place. But S2 doesn’t focus on this at all. It barely acknowledges it. Instead, Mel is sucked into the Black Rose and told she’s a mage and that her mother must die for the sake of nameless nations the Black Rose mentions. You see, Ambessa is a scapegoat. An excuse to halt and dissolve any meaningful discussion on Piltover’s (and Mel’s) hand in the plight of The Lanes.

By making Ambessa the big bad, the council members and other Piltovians complicit in Zaun’s desperation get a free pass. Both in the show and by fandom. In fact, Mel can now be regarded as a hero (one of the GOATs of Arcane, if I recall) for killing Ambessa, then being christened the wolf by her mother. We don’t have to reckon with the fact that for most of the time she ignored Zaun, and that when Zaun got her attention, her first instinct was to weaponize Piltover, saying, “The peace was already broken.” And I’m pretty sure the reason she did this was LARGELY for ambition, because not more than an episode later, she’s backtracking, insisting that Jayce doesn’t know war like she does, that they should simply give Silco what he wants.

So Viktor was right. She wasn’t forced to create hextech weapons. She wanted to do it for her own gain. And Jayce rightfully gets mad at her in S2 when he recognizes her manipulations (even if he himself was complicit). He does, however tell her that “No one can control you and you’ll never be a passenger.” Once again affirming her incredible power—only this time, the focus is magic and not her political prowess. AND ISN’T IT CONVENIENT THAT MEL “DOESN’T UNDERSTAND” HER EMPATHIC POWERS SO SHE CAN BE TECHNICALLY EXCUSED FROM HER DECISIONS IN S1? HOW COOL IS THAT?!

Lmao when Mel starts lecturing her mother in the finale with “Mother, look at the price of your ambition,” it’s like . . . okay? You exacerbated this war long before your mother, girl. You were the one on the council for YEARS before she arrived. Mel, like Caitlyn, gets to play saviour while barely taking any credit for the fact that she was largely responsible for where Zaun and Piltover ended up (sis literally determined council votes singlehandedly). When Mel stands on the other side of the Bridge of Progress, she sees a trail of violence. She decides to cling even more firmly to her core values. Silco was right, but so was Mel. You see, diplomacy wouldn't have worked for Silco, but it could work for Mel, because Mel had power.

Summary of Fumblings:

-And what was that, “(Piltover is) the city I built for my family” BS? By the end of S1, it is clear that Mel wants NOTHING to do with being a Medarda anymore. She wants to keep Noxus and Piltover SEPARATE. So why does she tell her mother, “You will never be a Medarda” as some kind of gotcha? Lmao, like why tf does that matter? How would she know? Why would she care? Other than her and Kino, what other benevolent Medardas are out there that makes her say this?

-The Black Rose warns Mel of Ambessa’s “thirst for legacy” (much like Mel’s) leading to a worldwide calamity. Mel wants to imagine that her mother prizes her own children over her pride, but the Black Rose insists that’s not true. That Ambessa is willing to sacrifice her children for more power and legacy. We do understand, however, that when Ambessa is confronted by the Black Rose, she is resorting to hextech so she can avoid using Mel (”she’s safer as our enemy”). AND THAT WOULD MAKE SENSE IF THE THIRD ACT ACTUALLY ACTED LIKE IT. How is Mel going to be this really great weapon that Ambessa doesn’t want to use because she loves her (which like, why didn’t she love Kino then if it wasn’t about magic?), but also simultaneously SENT AWAY TO A DISTANT LAND OUT OF HER WATCH? So now she’s hiding Mel, but she wants to pursue the arcane that is waking her mage-ness up and making it impossible for Mel to hide? Ambessa was literally there in the council room in the aftermath of the explosion. She knew Mel had used magic to protect herself and Jayce, but she didn’t do anything? Say anything?

Now most of this is clearly setting up another story in Runeterra (which means my criticism will ultimately be left to conjecture), so I’m going to focus instead on her last words to Mel: “You are the wolf.” The wolf being a symbol (at least in callback to season 1) of ruthlessness and fearlessness: the opposite of mercy. Why does her mother say this? Because Mel finally made a kill? Or because she killed to protect what she built? Finally embraced her power? Yeah, let’s go with that last one. Mel’s development in S2 becomes one where we focus on the power she’s always had, both magical and influential. Yet the show focuses more on the cool magic part than the rammys of Mel’s decisions in S1. It ignores her political power and frontlines her magical abilities, even making her political prowess partly due to her magical empath powers . . . like . . .

-Mel had dislodged her legacy from the Medardas by the time S2 rolls around. . . except no she hasn’t. In the end, Mel is sailing back on the Noxian ships she painted over, and she is doing so as the new Warlord (even wearing what looks like her mother’s cape) because she is the badass wolf, the leader that her mom wasn’t. And how did she achieve that power? Magic. Why does she want to go back? To reform the Medarda name? To take on the mission her mother couldn’t finish against The Deceiver? Because Jayce is dead? Who even cares at this point, this is mainly happening for the spinoff. It isn’t illogical, it’s just the least interesting approach to her character. Mel had much more agency in S1, and her political prowess made her formidable. But that doesn’t matter anymore.

-Her whole arc in S1 was all about her finding the courage to leave the Medarda name behind in pursuit of true progress, but then she kills her mother and sails away from Piltover, the city she fought to protect and killed her mother for and is all about probably reforming the Medarda name—and that’s her job done? Is it me, or is that a reversal of her—pardon the pun—progress? Also, she grew up in Piltover, it must be more of her home than Noxus ever was. Not only that, but making Ambessa go from an imperialist tyrant to this woman bravely fighting against a larger, more powerful threat cheapens what Noxus represented for me. Sometimes conquerors do be conquering, and they make threats up to justify their greed. Not the other way around. It’s not too egregious, but it would’ve been nice if the Black Rose had been more of an epilogue thing.

-sigh I know I’ve said it before but it’s because it’s true . . . the conflict should have remained between Zaun and Piltover and Ambessa was a cheap way out of what S1 was building up

-Ambessa was not who Mel needed to physically defeat, but someone she needed to ideologically defeat. And we don’t see any of that. By the time Ambessa calls Mel “the wolf” it’s hollow, because it’s about Mel being a more powerful combatant than a wise ruler. In this moment, her “foxness” is about how she figured out the “deception” of the Black Rose and not how she outmaneuvered her mother politically. Perhaps it would be epic if we knew what the fuck she meant by “I see your face deceiver!” and then super sayan-ing out of nowhere. Her not having mercy on her mother is about being a Medarda, a question that wasn’t the focus of season 1, merely a catalyst. Becoming a Medarda was the goal Mel had, not the need. She needed to learn how to rule. Instead, she learns how to kill. And then she’s off to her home in Noxus as more of a soldier and spy than a queen. 

Which likely means two things:

-S2 got bored of Mel and just gave her cool reflective powers to make up for it. Making every interesting development about her character happen off-screen, in the writers room, or on another show.

-S2 was deliberately trying to communicate that it sided with Ambessa. That violence and combat, war, is not merely a failure of state craft, but necessary or inevitable to political growth. That militarism is the only thing that can answer militarism. That the only way to ensure the progress you make is secure is arming yourself. Even though this topic has some grey areas, Arcane explicitly picks a side by narratively using Ambessa to justify Piltover’s weaponization of hextech.

i know fandom has a lot to say about Mel being a “strong-black woman” character, but as a black woman myself, I hated how they stripped her of what made her such a strong, enigmatic presence in S1. Her prowess, her wit and cleverness. Her sheer intellectual power made her so FORMIDABLE.

She’s just a lost, hurt uwu little puppy for most of S2 before she’s given her US government assigned Avengers superhero uniform.

Mel in Act I was already using Lest to spy and we almost got a good story then—POOF!—Black Rose.

-Mel’s contribution to the development of hex-tech every step of the way is completely ignored. Instead Viktor and Jayce take full responsibility.

Conclusion:

Mel and Silco's arcs both ask: is violence necessary for progress? Both answer yes, but Mel's remains a little unsatisfactory. Because Mel had a choice. She had power. Power that Silco was willing to do (almost) anything to get. Both Mel and Silco's presence in S1 were formidable, and what made them so intriguing was there thorough understanding of people, both the good and the bad. But in S2, at least for Mel, what made her such an agentive character is thrust aside for spinoff hype. It's not that it isn't cool, it is. It's just one of the things that made S2 feel not only chunky, but disconnected from the roots of its story in S1. Both Silco's and Mel's characters in S2 reveal a very poor (or troubling) view of oppression, power dynamics and politics.

Anyway, that's just me. I was gonna do Ekko, Caitlyn and Jayce as well, but this post got too lengthy. I'll probably need to whittle it all down later. I've already cut so much.

[torchwood-99]

Eowyn and the Hobbits

Eowyn is very thematically tied to the hobbits

While a trained warrior and a member of the royal family, her youth, her gender and lack of battle experience puts her in a subordinate position to many of the other lead heroes, much like the hobbits, due to their stature and lack of martial background are dependant, and therefore at times subordinate, to the rest of the Fellowship.

Eowyn is most specifically tied to Merry. Both of them are to be left behind when the muster leaves for Rohan and when she brings him along with her to battle, you can imagine her seeing her own frustration, her own despair in him, and wishing to do better for him than had been done for her.

They ride together on one horse, and take down a great foe together. They almost become one fighting body, one unit, and the bond between them is deepened by Merry declaring Theoden as like a father, and Eowyn also being Theoden's adopted child.

You see elements of her in the other hobbits as well. Pippin is the youngest hobbit and the one Elrond wishes to stay back, (Eowyn is the also the youngest in her family), so that experience of others wanting to hold them back, keep them confined, is one she shares with Pippin as well.

With Sam, we have Eowyn at the end declaring the wish to love all things that grow, and Faramir planning to grow a garden with her. Sam is perhaps one of the most virtuous (if not the most virtuous) characters in the books, and his love of gardening, of nature and growing things, is used to underline his virtue. To be garderner is, morally, the greatest thing to be in Middle Earth, and when Eowyn finds happiness, and reason for hope and joy, it is Sam's calling she likewise finds herself drawn to.

With Frodo, both of them suffer with depression. Both of them experience moments where they can no longer remember what it is to feel joy, or believe they never will again. They are also bound through the Witch King. Frodo's first really terrible blow of the war is the wound dealt him by the Witch King, and it is that wound which continues to physically torment him after the war. Eowyn, with Merry's assistance, is the one to slay the Witch King. She too suffers physical ramifications of this act, also in her arms, and like Frodo, her suffering and recovery from this physical blow is tied to her mental and physical suffering.

When Frodo and Sam complete their quest, and the Ring is destroyed, everyone in Middle Earth is saved, but we get to see this moment from Faramir and Eowyn's perspective, and we see how this moment is a turning point in Eowyn's healing narrative, especially pertinent, as a fair deal of Eowyn's depression was directly caused by Sauron's servants, Saruman and Grima, actively working to destroy her mental health. Therefore, both Eowyn and Frodo, while taking down enemies that were a threat to everyone, also destroyed an enemy that was a personal foe to the other.

The Scouring of the Shire also emphasises the ties between the hobbits and Eowyn. First, between Eowyn and the hobbits as a whole. Grima, as the king's counsellor and a student of Saruman, was in a position of power over Eowyn, and he used that to prey on her and cause her harm. After Saruman is defeated, and Grima is cast very low, and is tormented by Saruman, he then preys on the hobbits, even eating one of them.

And of course, it is the hobbits who overthrow Saruman and Grima's control, and it is at the hands of a hobbit that Grima finally dies, and Eowyn's tormenter is killed.

Eowyn and the hobbits are all examples of the unexpected, overlooked hero, whose courage and competence is underrated, only to be proved pivotal in times of crisis. And Eowyn and the hobbits all know, by the end of the narrative, that although sometimes battles have to be fought, gardening is a better thing to aspire to.

[yourlazykitkat]

Joel's celestial symbol being a car isn't complete crack and actually might be a good idea.

In Fast and Furious franchise, one of movies' climax have the characters strap jetpacks to a car which is strapped to a military aircraft in which two characters drive off and are sent into orbit. Yes this is thing that happens and yes, it somehow does perfectly capture the narrative of joel's victory and what it brings to the celestial symbolism.

I have never watched the fast and furious movies, all i know about this franchise is this scene and that it's about family and that's all you really need to know. But still, i shall yap.

The Fast and Furious movies are a perfect intertextual lens to view the Wild Life season and Joel's victory. The franchise has two highlights to it: the fucking spectacle and the interpersonal relationships. Did I enjoy the mechanics of wild life? Not particularly but I enjoyed the spectacle; the rush of I don't know what the fuck is going on but I'm here for the ride. Did I enjoy the storylines? There won't many clear and strong storylines this season as much as there were ever-resonating character beats that I ate up like it was the last supper. (JUST LIKE IN FAST AND FURIOUS)

Pearl and Scott reluctant allies and healing, BigB and Cleo healing, Etho's slut arc, Bamboozlers overcoming their character's persistent struggle with loneliness together, whatever the fuck treebark is doing, pearl picking her champion in impulse, grian losing his two wings. DESERT DUO DIVORCE ARC IS OVER? OMG DESERT DUO DIVORCE ARC IS BACK ON. Bad boys finally kill scott, shinyduo situtionship (going insane over them- i can't wait for more of them), tango and bdubz as angry wives and of course: The family.

Gem and Joel's alliance was the most stable alliance in the season. We made jokes about the 4Gs as they became the 5,6-7 Gs. They never knew who they truly could trust. Mumbo and skizz' paranoia might of been a joke but grian's curse did wipe them out in the end, martynn has forever ruined any trust in future alliances after limited life (especially given how he planned to betray ren in third life...) so i did not have any faith in treebark lasting. I don't need to explain tuff boys, etho was cheating on them to their faces and bamboozlers came close but any bamboozler fan will tell you how anxious they were that something would ruin a group. Look at Timmy on the high that he could finally win and break the curse, always running off carelessly. Scar, who was so desperate to win grian's favour that he was spilt between him and bamboozlers. Lizzie, who wanted to do anything but die alone but multiple times in the series, could not find her boys.

But gem and joel were always there for each other, their trust and love in the each other displayed for the whole server to see in the centre of the map (the most dangerous part). Not only did it help each other, they solidified so many other alliances that were shaky for so long (adopting grian when he's alone coz no one deserves to be alone, giving the Gs a common enemy to unite against, "we are bamily"). This perfectly encapsulates the fast and furious thematic core, we have no idea what' going on but we'll make our last stand together.

Very long-winded post, might come back later to fix it (i haven't had the chance to explore joel specifically and what this victory means for him) but even though it ruins the celestial aesthetic, the car for joel is so perfect. If u need it all celestial, the shooting star works pretty well in adjacent but it's so perfect for the wildest, most scuffed season to ruin the aesthetic of the life series BUT STILL BE THEMATICALLY COHERENT.

I have my complaints for this season and it did take me a while to decide how i wanted to approach the narrative of this season. Genuinely the more i think about it, the more i love the season.

[sketchyartthings]

While I was drawing/looking at reference images, I realized that the king doesn’t look like he was killed by anything void related at all. His eyes don’t drip with void like every other character killed by overexposure to void in game, so what happened? What if he sealed himself away not to save himself, but to preserve the kingsoul? I mean, if I wanted to preserve an important object within me, I would think the dream realm would be a very suitable place to go. Evidently, the king hasn’t survived this, but it doesn’t look like there was a struggle. There was no evidence of the formation of a void creature in the room to have killed him the old fashion way, and no injury on the body itself. Nothing but a force of nature like the knight was ever going to get in or out of that room past all of those saw blades, and based on that, I don’t think the king planned on leaving that room. It looks to me that the king simply let himself wither away on his throne, and that he did it on purpose. The king was by no means a fool. He did not assume that locking himself in a room forever would be safe, and even if he did, he would’ve done more to solve his problems. The king had no workshop for him to toil in, no library to research from, and there was no effort made to stop the infection after he resigned himself to that room. The king was not there to save his kingdom in safety, and he was most certainly not there because he wanted to outlast the infection. The king wanted to die somewhere that was near impossible to reach. Somewhere in a near impregnable dream behind a nigh unwalkable path. But I don’t think that’s because he didn’t want to be found. After all, the king has tried tasking his children with a near impossible task in the hopes one will rise to meet the challenge before, and it worked. If we trust The White Lady’s perspective, The Hollow Knight was the perfect vessel before it was “tainted by an idea instilled,” so the idea that the king trusted the strength of his children enough to predict, or at the very least hope that one of them would reach the king would despite these measures, is not out of the question. In fact, the increased security of a task like this would make sense as a more intense test of the purity of a vessel. If the parkour skills needed to define THK as hollow were as simple as escaping the abyss, then the saw blades could certainly be explained as either a revised test of a vessel’s purity, or its will. Maybe the king predicted the creation of the void heart? If the vessel’s will is being tested, it would support the idea that the king knew about the possibility of the void heart, as it unites the void behind the bearer’s will. If this is true, then it may explain why The White Lady gives you the white fragment with the following quote. “I have a gift, held long for one of your kind. When united, great power is granted, and on the path ahead, great power it shall need.” This is most definitely referring to the unification of the king soul, but what if it were also a thematic parallel to the great power granted with the unification of the void? If this is the case, I don’t believe that the white lady was informed about all of the details, but likely just that a vessel was needed to end the infection, and that she must give the white fragment to a vessel she deems worthy. To ask the last question about this theory I could think of, why is the corpse of the king in a room dark with what is likely void if void is not what killed him? It could be deduced that the king’s regrets’ darkening of the room was meant to be a more subtle nod to his disposition at the time of his death than a hint as to what killed him, as the void tears found on those killed by void serve that purpose well and wouldn’t have impeded his design, but a darker room alone would be an interesting thematic note as evidence of a nagging question in the king’s head: “Have we payed a cost this great for nothing?” Anyways. Call me a deranged lunatic in the notes.

[canmom]

Comics mini-Comints: Dungeon Meshi

reread dungeon meshi through to the end. still such a great manga. here are immediate thoughts - if I end up having time and energy I hope I can write something that goes deeper!

ironically i was only a few chapters from the end when I stopped keeping up, but I was struggling to remember all the characters and context, so reading it through in one go was definitely an ideal way to achieve maximum impact there.

ryoko kui does a very elegant job of handling a transition from 'silly antics' to 'big dramatic fantasy' while still keeping the central thematic throughline - eating and being eaten, belonging to an ecosystem, the significance of sacrificing others to achieve your own desires. a lot of setups pay off in a way that feels meticulously planned - and of course the crux of the final showdown revolves around characters attempting to eat each other, of course the big payoff is a huge feast that symbolically unites all the conflicting factions. it is maybe a bit too neat and happy for my taste, but it's undeniably tightly executed - it never loses sight of what it's about. especially compared to something like Frieren, it's an incredibly coherent serialisation, up there with e.g. Fullmetal Alchemist.

kui's art style deserves all kinds of praise - it feels effortlessly simple, but it clearly communicates all sorts of different shapes and body types and it's really fun to see her play around with remixing the different visual elements when she switches the races around. in general Laius's autistic monster loving ways clearly reflect kui's own deeply felt appreciation for all the ways people and animals live (accentuated further by all the extra sketches the scanlators tuck in). in a way you could kinda call it like Parts Unknown the fantasy manga.

the stakes of the final conflict are interesting - there is much to be said about the framing of 'desire' and its fulfilment, of this occult idea of 'the infinite'. lots you could put in relation to other manga, and also buddhism. (in particular I really want to develop a comparison to Made In Abyss, there are so many parallels, it just might be too spicy for tumblr lmao).

one thing I really like about it is how much its fantasy dungeon-exploring setting owes to D&D and other TTRPGs, rather than videogames. monster ecology has been a fascination of that game since the early days of Dragon magazine, and Kui sharply zeroes in on some of the intrinsic conflicts baked in to that fantasy milieu, notably the lifespan thing, while smartly avoiding the traps of 'evil races'. there's some really fun nods to the weirder monster manual entries. and in a story with so many characters and factions, it does a genuinely incredible job of furnishing everyone with understandable, reasonable motivations, conflicts drawn from their context just like the monsters are explained by their ecology.

and one thing that I particularly appreciate is like... how much it is able to simultaneously understand and sympathise with a character and also show us how and why they'd rub others the wrong way. it's impossible not to like our main group, they're all such charming dorks and the manga leads you along with all the crazy rpg party shit they do, but at the same time you definitely find yourself thinking 'guy's got a point' in the kabru chapters lmao. I'm projecting hard bc i don't really know a thing about ryōko kui but laius def feels like the sort of depiction of having an autism that you can only do if you've lived it.

but yeah, it's a fuzzy ending where it all turns out well. but what's the deeper thrust of it all? there's a funny moment where marcille is like 'maybe in the end our journey is about learning to accept death' and the grouchy old gnome guy completely laughs this off as naive, because death doesn't mean anything. and indeed their big plan pays off, and falin does indeed come back just fine. but still, through all of this it asks you to bite the bullet that being a living creature means eating to survive, at the cost of other creatures, with the other side being that one day you too will be eaten. in contrast to this honest way of being is the beguiling fantasy of infinity, where all your desires are immediately fulfilled - this is shown as a dangerous path of corruption that produces madness and manipulability. having limits and rubbing up against the wishes of others, or 'doing things you don't want to do' as izutsumi's arc puts it, becomes necessary for having some kind of definition as a subject. the thing that makes the demon concrete as an entity is a desire, or appetite, that can't immediately be fulfilled.

of course we can connect this to the idea of narrative conflict. a standard advice for putting together a plot is to ask what each character wants and why they can't get it. wanting something implies movement. and indeed over the course of this story, we see that while having too many desires fulfilled too readily leads to incoherence and callousness, equally a character who is left catatonic as their desires have been eaten by the demon must be reawakened to activity by finding a new desire.

it's kinda Buddhist innit. neither the opulence of the palace nor asceticism. desires are what tie you to the world. but mixed with ecology: what a creature does to find the energy to live is what defines its lifestyle, its form.

this is probably where I'd start talking about entropy gradients and shit if i wasn't typing this on a phone at 1:30am lmao.

but yeah - it's a powerful move to go from 'D&D monster recipe show sendup' to 'living with the inherently violent nature of being an organism fated to live in a finite sum game' and yet Dungeon Meshi makes it feel natural and convincing, while remaining tremendously charming and funny throughout. ryōko kui is definitely some kind of genius, and I can't wait to see what her next act is gonna be. it's all definitely making me appreciate the act of eating a lot more.

next story on my plate is probably The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere, which sounds like it will present a very gnarly thematic contrast.

[alexanderwales]

Save the Cat is a snappy read, and only 8 chapters, so I'm just doing a liveblog of them unless I get bored or distracted.

Chapter one is about the pitch, the logline, the title, what you put on a poster and how you sell it. It doesn't necessarily come first, but I get the sense that for Snyder this would be his preferred way of doing it. (A logline is just the one-sentence "what is it about" that you use to sell people on the idea.)

Snyder says that writing loglines is awful, soul-crushing work, and I agree there. I'm awful at it. But Snyder also says that if you don't have a good logline, maybe there's something wrong with your movie, and that I don't agree with.

I think there's a fairly wide set of stories that have good, snappy, easy loglines, and are also good stories. But I think there are other stories that are good stories and don't have a great way to pitch them. The lack of a good pitch can exist for a lot of reasons, and sometimes it's just that it's more complex than can be summed up in a single sentence, or even a handful of sentences. I think in practice writers will often dumb down the story for the logline, lying about what's contained within, just to make sure that it will sell, that people will want to know what's inside.

One of the other main points of the chapter is that a good logline has irony to it, a twist inherent in the title, some kind of thematic tension, and I disagree with that too, maybe not from the standpoint of selling a script, but from the standpoint of storytelling.

Why does everything have to have an irony to it? Why does everything have to have a twist? Why can't we have stories that are just well-told explorations of conflict and character? It's like at some point people decided that they only wanted Distinct Pieces of Media, so if you wanted to tell a story that's been told before, something with its own unique texture, you're just shit out of luck.

I find this all the more irritating because often the twist/irony/idea/pitch is good, and then the execution is shit, and then people don't want that idea again. It's not like you can say "like that thing that flopped, but good".

Blake Snyder is trying to tell good stories, but he's also trying to sell stories, and this is a good thing for authors to know how to do. I accept this. I just don't like it.

So as a writing exercise, here are some loglines for things I've written, without the amount of care and polish and revision that a good logline needs:

Worth the Candle - A teenaged dungeonmaster gets thrust into the worlds he's created, where his recently deceased friend is a historical figure. (This is bad, not short and snappy enough.)

This Used to be About Dungeons - Five young adults team up to delve dungeons and bake pies. (I don't know man, I said I was bad at this.)

Thresholder - A man travels through portals to different worlds and genres, gathering powers and skills as he fights other people just like him.

Shadows of the Limelight - In a world where fame gives you power, a fanboy saves the life of the world's greatest hero in full view of the public.

The Dark Wizard of Donkerk - An orphan raised by two dark wizards adventures north with a wayward princess.

Millennial Scarlet - A gig-economy demon hunter grapples with the death of his mother and the plans she set up before she passed.

Alright, I found that less soul-sucking than usual, but I don't think that these are the oiled, muscular, perfectly toned and smiling loglines that are necessary to sell, just to be clear. The marketing unit of written fiction is not really the logline, though that helps, it's the blurb, and I am equally awful at writing those. I just don't agree with Blake Snyder that a blurb or logline coming poorly is a sign that you don't know the story.

[vindieselsfacebook-blog]

I want to hear more about your opinion that Rory ending up with Logan would go against everything the show stands for. How so? Tell me more!

Bless your heart (complimentary) for asking for MORE of my rambling! :’)

I think there are a few themes that ultimately guide the entire Gilmore Girls narrative. No matter where the plot and characters end up, if ASP is writing, I think the outcome will always adhere to these themes and a specific pattern.

The most important is family - how complicated and imperfect it is, how patterns repeat and break and struggle to repeat and break. We try our best and love in our own ways, but inevitably fuck things up, too. We just keep working at it, which is beautiful and painful and frustrating and gratifying. I think found family and community is just as important, which leads me to the second theme, which is independence and/or individuality.

The show centers Lorelai's quest to build her own life from the ground up which is a pattern I feel repeats in most of the main characters. She rejects upper class life to work a blue collar job, make her own home, build a new family unit with her daughter and close friends, and aspires to small business owner life. Luke shares those values and has a similar journey - taking his father's store and making his own, new thing from the ashes. Jess, the character with the most positive character growth, repeats that pattern, too. He struggles until he, too, strikes out on his own to build his independent life from scratch.

The third theme is class struggle. Although I do think it's clear the show has more respect for the working class, it loooves playing with the back-and-forth of it all and never takes itself too seriously to poke fun at it. It's fun to sometimes see Emily's point even if it's often buried in shallow superficialities. It's thought-provoking to agree with Richard that Rory should use her grandparents' privileges, although we've been rooting for her to make it on her own. We respect Lorelai's independence, but want to yell "just take the money!" when she needs a loan. Or we judge her for it and think "you're not so independent after all."

I love scenes like this one at the end of S4E15, Scene In A Mall:

Lorelai: This is your window on a whole other world, Luke. The world of worthless rich people stuff. People of means see what they want and simply take it, regardless of others. Luke: ... d'you pour your own coffee? Lorelai: Oh, err, yeah. Luke: You're not supposed to do that. Lorelai: Oh yeah, sorry, I won't do it again. Luke: Mmm hmm.

Like, yeah, rich people suck and we dunk on them all the time, but hey, even queen main character can be selfish and hypocritical. No one's really above it!

Anyway, all that to say... Rory is clearly set up to have a similar trajectory where a wrench is thrown in her plans and she won't ever really get back on track until she, too, burns her life to the ground and independently starts all over. She just struggles with the push-and-pull of it all more than her mother ever did.

I get frustrated with fans who think her ending up pregnant like her mother is some pessimistic "history is doomed to repeat itself and no one can ever really change" message, when I see it as her being set up for her inevitable successful ending. She has to figure it out for herself on her own terms. This is why I feel she and Jess will be linked together forever, romantically or not.

If Rory had ended up with Logan, that crash and burn would've just come later. She would've been unsatisfied in that life. Rory and Logan always went to each other for escapism and fantasy - it just doesn't make thematic sense to me that he would ever be a legitimate happily-ever-after option. It's simply not how things are done on this show. Even Emily ultimately follows the pattern - she starts a new life as a more independent person rejecting the "bullshit!"

And conversely, look who is set up in contrast - Christopher is the coward who could never fully run away from his guided cage. The show repeatedly calls him "weak" and makes it clear he's not as brave and independent as Lorelai. He ends up isolated from his kids, accepting the status quo. And ohhh boy, look what his parallel is doing in AYITL - Logan is accepting the dynastic plan, working for daddy and marrying the heiress. That is not the story of a viable end game to me! It feels pretty clear.

Phew - you asked for it! lmao I hope I articulated this well enough??

[jasminejava]

November 7 ~ 2/3

10:30 A.M. - 4:30 P.M.

English was a work period, and so I already got the intro of my thematic essay done, yippee! My chem and math homework went pretty fast so this weekend I’ll just review the material. I also have a long weekend up ahead because I don't have school on Friday (Friyay!), so I'm doing my weekend planning a day in advance. An issue I have is in keeping my space tidy, so I’ll plan it so that the upcoming pictures are good looking!

English Class 🇬🇧

Intro Paragraph for Thematic Essay 📝

Av. Func. Class 📏

Plan for the weekend 🗓️ (studying, uni application prep, emails, friends, languages, blog assets, cleaning, exercise, family time)

Duolingo French 🇫🇷

Organic Chem Homework 🧪

Reading for English 📖

Av. Func. Unit 7.1 📏

[hexjulia]

i was looking for a way to learn russian not because i have any reason to or expectation of ever becoming fluent but because i have insomnia and need challenges to occupy myself with at night without those things having anything to do with anything i try during the day.

ok now i feel like an annoying cooking blog giving an essentially unrelated story before the recipe, but this motivation probably determines what i look for in language learning resources: no organisation necessary on my part. accessible online. capable of keeping me entertained while half-asleep.

found this!

"The "textbook" for Ме́жду на́ми is this website. It is a free resource that requires no special password or registration. It provides the story line, vocabulary, grammatical explanations and cultural context that will guide your study of Russian. You will also use a set of printed workbooks called Ра́бота в аудито́рии (Classroom Activities) and Дома́шние зада́ния (Homework Assignments).

The program is organized into nine уроки (units). Each one starts with a list of goals so that you know what you will be learning to do in Russian. You should plan on checking yourself regularly against these goals as you work through the material. They will help you keep track of what you know well, and the areas in which you might need some additional work. Each unit divided into three ча́сти (parts), with each часть (part) sharing common thematic and grammatical content. These parts are divided into episodes that advance the ongoing story line and provide new vocabulary, grammar and cultural information. Each episode begins with a текст (text), which you should plan to read multiple times. Listening to the audio, looking at the illustrations, and checking the mouse-over glosses for words and phrases that may be hard to figure out from context will aid your understanding of the text. If you cannot recall the meaning of a word you have seen before, you can look it up by checking the Слова́рь (Dictionary).

After reading and listening to the text several times, you should move onto the Вы всё по́няли (Did You Get All of Тhat?) section, which provides comprehension questions with automatic feedback to help you to check your understanding of the text and to learn new vocabulary. These activities are crucial preparation for the in-class work, which is designed to help you use this new vocabulary and to examine new grammatical constructions.

As you work with the classroom activities, you will read and re-read the Немно́го о языке́ (A Bit About Language) section, which contains information about Russian grammar and usage encountered in the episode. Be sure to make use of the activities with automatic feedback to see if you have understood the new concepts being presented.

[fuzzyperfectionengineer]

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[cienie-isengardu]

The Last Agni Kai is my top favorite fight in the ATLA because of the music, colors, choreography and the tragic sense of two siblings forced to battle each other but I’m still not sure why Zuko and Katara needed to confront Azula instead of being part of team Avatar in the final, the most important battle. Like, I get it thematically, as Azula and Zuko had their own storyline to resolve and so on, but from the perspective of in-universe events? Taking the title of Fire Lord would mean nothing, if Aang was killed by Ozai and the man returned to Fire Nation as a winner against Avatar, leaving Zuko and Katara on enemy territory all on their own, to either fight to the last breath or flee. 

Azula, as just crowned Fire Lord, was not that big of threat at that moment because ATLA takes place in a world that has limited long-distance communication and it was not like she had an idea what was going on with Ozai or if he was attacked by Avatar or not. She was far away from Earth Kingdom and would not be able to travel fast enough to aid her father, no matter how much she would want to do so. She would need to learn first about her father’s defeat to plan revenge or counterattack - what gives the White Lotus & alliance forces some time to plan the next step. With Ozai defeated, Zuko could come back to challenge her for the throne the same as he did originally. And even if he died during the final battle against Ozai and/or Ozai’s forces, there is still Iroh with a legit claim to the throne, right? Not to mention the psychological blow to Fire Nation’s psyche, if Avatar came to Fire Nation with their dead or depowered “great” Fire Lord.

And sure, Zuko taking throne with Avatar’s support wouldn’t put him in the best light, considering how his people were raised on imperialism and propaganda, but let’s be real here, his original regime was too controversial for the sole fact he left his country to aid Avatar and his future politics were aimed at peace and repairing damage done by Fire Nation across the world. On that matter alone, coming back to face Azula with the whole Gaang at his side won’t change that much.

My problem with how Zuko and Katara were sidelined on a different mission is not just the whole Iroh’s hypocrisy of I can’t fight my brother ‘cause history will remember it bad but you definitely should go fight your sister for the Fire Lord title. It is just the disappointment we didn’t have a chance to see Zuko, Katara, Sokka, Toph and Suki united like the Old Masters, all different elements in harmony, benders and non-benders supporting each other and together defeating the common enemy; the new generation all here for Avatar so their friend could focus on his task. Dunno if I make sense, but I truly wish that our young representatives of all cultures were there together, as there should be Zuko - firebender - standing against the corruption and deprivation of once honorable Nation, the same as Katara (waterbender) should be allowed to partake in mission alongside her brother, as they together went against the world since the first episode. 

Like I said, I love The Last Agni Kai, but damn, we were robbed of Gaang’s final battle against Sozin’s Legacy. Because we have never(?) truly seen them all together at the same time in full battle? Shame. Just shame…

[tpuckerupbaby]

The Implications of Tripol

I think a key issue with Enterprise is they didn't plan Tripol from the start - and once it was in motion, the writers didn't see what they had on their hands.

I know initially Jolene and Connor didn't like or understand Tripol. She couldn't see why T'Pol would be drawn to someone so emotional. He couldn't see why Trip would fall for someone so repressed or be willing to limit sex to once every seven years. Since then, he seems to have changed his mind and now wishes the show had more time to explore their relationship. I don't know about her, but her cameo in The Lower Decks suggests (to me) that she's accepted it, too.

As a viewer, I think that relationship had to happen. I know initially it seemed like T'Pol and Archer might develop something, but that's just too obvious. It certainly would've united Vulcans and humans - but Tripol do more. They symbolically embody the entire point of the show (and maybe all of Star Trek) - learning about others, overcoming perceived differences, and becoming something more yourself. Tripol work because they are so different.

However...this moves Trip into the role of a reluctant political figure. He didn't set out for it, but there he is, facing people like Terra Prime. And that kind of xenophobia doesn't just go away overnight. In reality, Tripol would have definitely dealt with that kind of thing again, eventually becoming something like Sheridan and Delenn in Babylon 5.

This makes Trip especially important amongst the human crew - probably more important than the writers foresaw. They spent the first 2 seasons building up the captain as the person of significance, but the Tripol romance arc changes everything.

Archer fades into the background, almost a bystander who never really seemed aware of Tripol happening on his own ship. A captain who turned sharply to the dark side, maybe even more so than Janeway, and no longer feels like the inspiration he could have been.

After all of Archer's questionable decisions, including committing acts of torture, it makes more sense to have Trip make that all-important final speech about interplanetary coalition. He's become a very public example of someone who has lived the message. Unfortunately, they'd already spent 4 seasons promising us Archer made that speech. By the end of the show, this only makes sense if there is no Trip.

Cue Trip's death - rushed, forced, and lacking all plausibility. And they didn't even show the speech.

But even if Trip had lived, breaking up Tripol at the end sends a frankly disgusting message that you can't overcome cultural differences. After 4 seasons, we're told that interspecies marriage isn't possible after all. How did the writers not see what they were doing, there? It isn't just some breakup. It undermines the whole premise of the show. And bearing in mind the post-911 climate of Enterprise when it first aired, it also undermines any hope that we could overcome the very real xenophobia in our own world.

And there's no canonical need for the breakup - or Elizabeth's death, for that matter. TOS never says Spock was the first human-Vulcan child, or Sarek and Amanda were the first Vulcan-human pairing. They're rare but not necessarily unique.

Thematically, Tripol needed to stay together - and Trip needed to grow in importance. If the writers didn't want that, they should have planned out Archer's character differently.

The writers tied themselves in knots they didn't know how to unravel. They hit the end, saw that none of it matched what they'd planned at the outset, then attempted to hammer it painfully back into shape. But it doesn't work - at all. They should have just listened to the characters and let them guide the way - logically.

[henghost]

Twig Liveblog for Arc 15

great arc!!!! it all felt so french, somehow, very may '68, with feckless anarchists and student rebellions. sy even starts smoking!!!!!! that was probably my favorite part, sy nervously smoking more and more. i'm beginning to understand how everyone around him finds him so irresistibly attractive...

speaking of: jessie and sy are literally TOO CUTE!! jessie explaining how she likes trains, sy and jessie sleeping with their heads on each other, and then a little peck on the cheek 🥺 they are so perfect for each other! the interlude is probably one of my favorites so far. god that line about how she didn't know jealousy until that episode with lillian killed me. the discussion of "anchors" is so fascinating--and heartbreaking when we realize that the central anchor for all her memories is sylvester. she is cursed/blessed to recount in perfect painstaking detail every encounter, every little instance of neglect. she reroutes every new experience through the complex web of memory, and it feels so agonizing to have even this small exposure to that. every new happiness is tinged with the pain of nostalgia.

there's some kind of parallel between jessie/sy and fray/avis, i think. people who can, by virtue of being victims of fucked up biotechnology, only find solace in one another. the phantom amalgam-fray joining evette was another standout moment--the not-quite-sisters.

fray continues to be enigmatic. her motivations, plans, and pathology are all so murky. does she really have a scheme lurking in the background that she doesn't need to be there for? how will this circumvent the sore-loserdom she describes? (very excited to learn, by the way, that the infante is one of the people who gets to personally condemn whole cities.) sy's long discussion with fray wherein he details how he felt like a dog for the academy was so good.

fray is so fucking cool!! it's crazy that she gives mauer a run for his money in terms of being a badass rebel leader. dolores the octopus 😍😍😍

sad to narrowly miss the lambs :( i hope they can still meet up sometime soon! i want to know what's going on with them too, like for instance if mary and lillian have kissed yet.

final predictions!!!!! (or embarrassing myself for your amusement):

fray is probably right to be more cautious than sy wrt fighting the crown, and sy's recklessness will lead to some unspeakable catastrophe

this catastrophe will probably involve some plan to disseminate the nobles' big secret that backfires horrifically

the plague will be what ultimately does the crown in--too thematically appropriate to have eruptive, spontaneous life triumph over the crown and academy's regime of biocontrol

the duke and the lambs will unite to try and defeat the infante, but will lose

the king will be larger than the infante

sy and jessie will kiss a lot and make love and get married and find some way to have children and name them all sylvester junior or jessie junior and live happily ever after forever :)

[filmnoirfoundation]

NOIR CITY: D.C. begins October 11 at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center running for 14 days through Thursday, October 24. Following this year’s festival theme "Darkness Has No Borders," the D.C. lineup features 15 thematically linked double bills connecting non-English language noir films wiith movies made in the United States and United Kingdom. Highlights include the 4K restoration of Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Samouraï (1967) paired with This Gun for Hire (1942) and the FNF’s latest restoration No abras nunca esa puerta (Never Open that Door – 1952 Argentina) followed by the FNF preservation print of Si muero antes de despertar (If I Should Die Before I Wake – 1952 Argentina) - the last part of a Cornell Woolrich trilogy originally planned for Never Open that Door but released as a stand-alone feature.

FNF founder Eddie Muller will introduce screenings during the festival's opening weekend, October 11–13. Film historian and FNF board member Foster Hirsch will introduce screenings October 18–20.

NOIR CITY: D.C. All-Access Pass - $200

The All-Access pass gives you admission to every screening at NOIR CITY D.C. (Oct. 11–24) at a significant discount, plus the opportunity to attend an exclusive passholder reception with Eddie Muller on Thursday evening, October 10.

All-Access Passes and individual tickets for the NOIR CITY D.C. film festival are now available on the AFI website.

CONFIRMED 2024 NOIR CITY DATES

NOIR CITY: D.C.: Oct 11-24 AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center Silver Spring, MD

NOIR CITY: Philadelphia: Nov 15-17 The Colonial Theatre, Phoenixville, PA

NOIR CITY XMAS: Dec 18 Grand Lake Theatre, Oakland, CA

[lightandheatao3]

The Bunker - Criminal Minds

Chapter 6: The Rot

Summary: Spencer Reid wakes up in a locked bunker to find half the current BAU and two of its departed members unconscious on the floor. The old team is back together but the reunion is not what any of them would have wished for. An Unsub from their past has decided it's time they all stop keeping secrets, even if it means exposing them by force.

Hotch and Derek have been pulled back into a world they tried to escape. Emily, Rossi, and JJ are doing their best to keep it together. Spencer is falling apart.

AKA a found family is reunited and forced to go through the most nightmarish version of family therapy imaginable.

Set months after the end of Criminal Minds: Evolution. Evolution referenced, but not necessary to understand the story.

Chapter Summary: The team rebel in the only way they are able.

Read chapter 6 on AO3 or under the cut. All comments and reblogs are extremely appreciated <3 I would love to know what you like about the story :)

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5

JJ had been the first one to point it out. 25 or 26 hours in, while he had been shivering on the floor.

There was a door on the bathroom. "Oddly considerate," JJ had said. "Seems thematically inappropriate."

This Unsub was obsessed with exposure. With forcing them to be vulnerable. To be seen in the most confronting sense.

She wanted them to be stripped bare.

So why would she give them a door?

Why would she give them soap so they could wash themselves and their clothes? Why insist they don’t leave rubbish out?

Why structure all her rules around cleanliness?

Why lock them in a box, then afford them so many little dignities?

She wanted to break them down, piece by piece, and she had gone to extreme measures to make that happen. They were unanimous in their assessment that this Unsub was not a person who dealt in half-measures. So why was she holding back?

The answer was easy.

She wasn't doing it for them.

With that part of the profile settled, Emily's plan had become an obvious response.

They hadn’t risked pushing boundaries or breaking rules while Spencer had been too sick. He loathed it, the thought of all the time they're lost because of him. Now that he was better- still not healthy by any stretch, but not actively in acute withdrawal- it was time to test the waters and see what kind of response they could provoke.

The profile they had agreed on was this: She was meticulous, desperate for control, enacting detailed fantasies through them, yet actively hindering her own stated goals by providing them with comforts not essential to their survival.

She provided these comforts not for their sake, but because she was uncomfortable.

She was squeamish.

She wanted them to clean because she couldn’t handle the mess. She gave them a door because she didn't want to be reminded of their bodily functions.

She afforded them dignity because she was unable to stomach indignity.

She likely had a significant anxiety disorder, possibly with obsessive-compulsive features. They suspected she may have been raised in a highly conservative or religious environment, perhaps with an abusive parent who instilled a deep sense of shame for any behaviors or bodily functions perceived as unclean.

Much to Spencer's immense displeasure, the pathway to provoking a response was clear.

He was happy to have something to do. It felt good to have a goal. It felt even better to be united in that goal as a team. He and Derek had put their bickering to the side, and JJ was being warm with him again. It was good, he repeated to himself again and again. It was good.

But did it have to be so disgusting?

“You doing alright?” asked JJ sympathetically.

“I am fine,” he said through gritted teeth.

“It’s just that you’ve been staring at it for a long time. I don't think I've seen you blink for a while now.”

“Patulin is the most commonly found mycotoxin in fruits. It has the capacity to be carried on dust and airborne spores, which act as a delivery mechanism for the mycotoxin to reach the lungs, where it can cause acute respiratory symptoms, including hemorrhaging of the lung. Even if airborne mycotoxin exposure is statistically unlikely with this relatively low quantity of rotting fruit, mold exposure is still a very real concern, particularly in enclosed environments with limited ventilation,” he explained tensely. “It can cause respiratory distress, dysregulation of your immune system-”

“Spencer,” interrupted Emily. “I know it’s disgusting. Try not to think about it.”

He flicked his eyes away from the rotting pile of fruit scraps that sat in the middle of the room, over to Emily instead. “There are maggots, Emily,” he said, pained.

“Come on, Reid, I know you’ve got a thing about germs, but you have seen way worse than this,” said Derek. "You can handle this, man."

“Judging by the rate of deterioration and the visible emergence of the fruit fly larvae, it has been two to three days since we stopped returning our food scraps.” he said. "I had sincerely hoped that I would never end up locked up somewhere even more disgusting than prison. At least there they had waste disposal."

“She’ll break, Spence,” said JJ in a whisper. “You just need to not break first.”

He scrubbed his hands over his face, scratching a little at the patchy beard that was growing in. “I’m sorry," he said sincerely. "You’re all stuck in here too. It's just hard not to think about it.”

“Well then, how about we all forget about this for a minute,” said Rossi. “Everyone close your eyes.”

They all looked at him skeptically. He rolled his eyes and gestured at them all to just hurry up and do it.

Spencer watched as everyone else, sat scattered across the four walls of room in a vague square shape, reluctantly closed their eyes. The last ones left open were his and Hotch’s. Hotch met his gaze with an amused shrug, then closed his own.

Finally, Spencer did too.

“You’re not going to make us mediate?” asked Emily wearily.

“I wouldn’t even know how to begin with that. Now, please shut up until directed otherwise,” instructed Rossi cheerfully.

He could still smell the rotten fruit scraps, sickly and sweet with an earthy undercurrent of mold. Every inhale came with the mental picture of a thousand microscopic spores pouring into his lungs. He dug his nails into his forearms and focused on Rossi’s voice.

“Okay, now, I’m going to need everyone to take this extremely seriously,” said Rossi solemnly. “It is of the utmost importance, for our sanity and perhaps even our survival, that you answer honestly. Understood?” He was met with silence. “That was me giving you permission to speak. Are we understood?”

“For fuck sake Dave, just spit it out,” said Hotch of all people, earning a snort from Emily across the room.

“You asked for it,” said Rossi, milking the moment for all it was worth. “Fuck, marry, kill. FBI addition”

The uproar was immediate. They all opened their eyes, cries of “What is wrong with you?” and “You’re a child!” being hurled in his direction amongst amused yelps and bubbling laughter. Even Spencer couldn’t hold back a laugh.

Rossi held his hands up defensively. “Woah! You wanted a distraction, you got it! I didn’t realize you were all so prudish,” he teased.

“Alright,” said Emily, nodding her head. “I’m game.”

JJ shot her a mockingly scandalized look.

“If the boss is in, who am I to say no?” said Derek with a cheeky wink at Emily.

“Great,” said Rossi. “Now, everyone close your eyes again.”

With a lot of eyerolls and exasperated head shakes, everyone did as he asked. Spencer smiled to himself at the absurdity of it all.

“Why do our eyes need to be closed for this, exactly?” asked JJ.

“If you really want to stare at the garbage pile while we do this, be my guest,” said Rossi.

“Fair point.”

“Since you’re so eager, Rossi, how about you go first?” suggested Derek. “Fuck, marry, kill… Jenny Carlile in security, Marina Ferra from the comms department, and… Josie, you know, the one who worked the reception desk until about six months before I left.”

They all laughed at the list, but a laughter that came with a lot of audible cringing.

“Coming out swinging, I see,” said Rossi. “Well, those are three very beautiful, intelligent, lovely women, but kill Josie-”

“What!” yelled Derek. “You’re crazy, man!”

“You didn’t have to think about it!” said JJ indignantly. “What did she ever do to you?”

“Hey, who’s talking here!” said Rossi with a laugh. “I have nothing against Josie, she’s just too young for me. I prefer a woman with some life experience,” he said defensively. The answer seemed to placate the naysayers. He continued, “Marry Jenny. She seems so easy going. And fuck Marina, because, well, do I have to explain?”

Morgan huffed a laugh and hummed in a way that suggested Rossi absolutely did not have to explain. “I can’t argue with that.”

“Thank you. Now in the interest of gender equality and equal opportunity objectification, it’s your turn JJ.”

JJ groaned. “Okay, hit me.”

“Gary Renkin, Ricardo Perez, and… Daniel what’s-his-face from the basement.”

“The basement?” JJ chuckled. “Do you mean Daniel from IT?”

“Yeah, whatever they do down there. The guy who clearly doesn’t get enough sun.”

She laughed again. “Right, give a second... I pick… Marry Ric, because he’s a sweetheart. Fuck Gary. No, I won’t explain. And kill Daniel because an IT guy is a little redundant when you’re friends with Penelope.”

“You make a good point,” said Emily.

“You have to be logical about these things,” said JJ. “Speaking of which, Emily, I hope you're ready for some hard choices.”

“I am so ready,” said Emily. “But give me a real challenge.”

He snorted. She sounded genuinely competitive, and while he hadn’t played this game before, he gathered that it wasn’t one you could ‘win.’ His skin had almost stopped crawling from thoughts of the germs that were infesting every surface of the room.

“If you say so,” said JJ. “Luke, Matt, and Tara.”

The room erupted. Derek wolf whistled; Emily let out a loud “Oh come on!” and Rossi applauded the audacity. He thought he might have even heard a small laugh from Hotch. He smiled to himself.

“What?” yelled JJ, stifling a laugh. “You said you wanted a challenge!”

“How am I supposed to kill one of them?” lamented Emily.

A beat.

“You’re killing Luke, right?” said JJ as a statement, not a question.

“Yeah, obviously,” said Emily without pause. “Fuck Matt, marry Tara. Is there even another way to answer that?”

“What?” laughed Rossi. “What did poor Luke do to earn this?”

“Luke is great,” said Emily emphatically. “He’s just…”

JJ jumped in; “It would be like sleeping with your little brother.”

“That’s exactly it,” said Emily, clicking her finger. “I mean really, the right answer is to kill both Luke and Matt and just pick Tara. Have you seen her?”

“No, I think your first answer was right. That’s what I’m going with,” said JJ with a giggle. “What about you, Spence? Same question.”

He was glad to have his eyes closed as he felt his cheeks warming just a little. “Does it have to be them?” he asked in halfhearted protest.

“Oh, absolutely,” said Emily. “If I had to pick, so do you.”

“Fine,” he sighed. “Okay, so, just to be clear on the rules-” Derek groaned but he couldn't tell if it was affectionate or annoyed, so he ignored it “- these are all mutually exclusive categories? I mean, if you married someone, it would be likely that you would have an ongoing intimate relationship, so what’s the distinction between the marry and, uh, fuck options?”

“Have you never played this game before?” asked JJ.

“No?”

Was this common? Is this something he was supposed to be familiar with? Was this another one of those things that everyone with a normal adolescence had done? He suddenly felt self-conscious.

“For the sake of clarity,” said Emily, “let’s assume they are all mutually exclusive. Think of it as who you want to be emotionally intimate with and share a life with for marry, and who just want to… well, fuck is a fairly self-explanatory category.”

He appreciated that she didn’t make fun of him while she explained. He didn’t mind the teasing from the others. Not really. He teased them right back most of the time. But he didn’t like it when people made fun of him without actually explaining why.

“Thank you.” A beat. “Do I really have to choose?”

“Yes!” came the unanimous, exasperated shouts from everyone except Hotch, who was laughing in earnest now.

“Oh my god, fine! Fuck Luke, kill Matt, marry Tara,” he spat out without thinking.

There was a moment of silence.

He opened his eyes, realizing he must have been the last one to do so, as they were all staring at him. Five pairs of tired, dark-rimmed eyes looked at him from across a pile of rot.

“Interesting,” said Derek wryly.

“Care to explain your rationale?” asked Emily with a smirk.

He turned it over in his mind a moment. “I would prefer not to.”

“Because I have a theory that Luke is about 2 beers away from-”

“I would prefer not to,” he repeated more firmly.

She threw her hands up in surrender. They all made a point of not staring too hard.

It wasn't a discussion he was necessarily completely averse to having with them. He'd considered it in the past. Things were changing in the world and even, very slowly and incrementally, in the FBI itself.

It certainly wasn't a conversation he wanted to have in front of the ever-present camera.

Rossi swung his head around to Hotch. “Aaron, your turn to-”

“Absolutely not,” said Hotch in a tone that beggared no argument.

“Oh-kay then… New game-”

He was cut off by a clunking sound.

They all looked around the room, trying to figure out if they had heard the same thing. Spencer wasn't sure if he'd imagined it.

Then, another THUNK.

They looked at each other as if each of them was hoping to find reassurance from the others.

Spencer’s heart pounded so hard in his chest he thought he might pass out.

THUNK.

They looked to the roof.

A steady hiss emanated from above.

Out of the vent in the roof, he saw a wisp of something.

“Smoke,” said Derek, voice tight.

“No,” said Hotch, pushing himself to his feet. “Gas.”

For a moment, time froze.

Then all at once they activated.

They pushed themselves to their feet, with Derek throwing down a hand to help pull Spencer up. They grabbed discarded, filthy and unwashed shirts from the ground and tied them over their noses and mouths.

Hotch and Derek sprinted to the door, pulling at it as hard as they could, desperately trying to leverage it open.

Spencer stared, transfixed at the swirling mist that was filling the room from the roof downward.

“Get on the floor,” he said urgently. Or at least he thought he said, but nobody responded. He tried again, louder this time. “Get on the floor!”

They all froze, whipping their heads around to look at him.

He continued talking as he ran to the bathroom. “There’s no way out. Wet your mask, then get on the floor face down and slow your breathing as much as possible. We don’t have much time.”

He ripped off the shirt tied over his face and soaked it under the water running from the bathroom tap. He passed it behind him to JJ, who was standing the closest to him.

“What?” she breathed out, looking very much as if she was going into the early stages of shock, eyes glassy and confused.

“Give me your mask and put this one on.” He looked back at the rest of them. “Now! We have a minute at most! All you can do is try to minimize the amount you breath in and ensure you don’t hurt yourself by falling when you lose consciousness.”

Hotch stepped forward, guiding JJ to follow his instructions.

“Do what he says,” said Emily urgently, approaching him to help distribute the wet cloth.

They moved as quickly as humanly possible. As quickly as he had ever seen any of them move.

Even as he was wetting the last piece of what he thought was Rossi’s discarded button up shirt and tying it around his own face, the edges of his vision were fading.

He managed to half crawl to the ground until he was lying face down on the disgusting, dirty floor.

The sound of weak coughs and splutters rang in his ears as his vision blurred and blackened.

All he could see, somewhere across the room through the tunnel of his vision, was someone's chest. He couldn't tell whose, but it rose up and down, still breathing.

He held onto that image as long as he could. Whoever it was, they were still breathing.

Then…

Nothing.