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ptergwen · 4 years ago

Text

web of lies

take a leap. if you start to fall, the net will appear to catch you.

photographer!peter x journalist!reader || masterlist

w/c: 7.1k

warnings: swearing, one drinking mention, descriptions of anxiety, and angst if ya squint

summary: peter can’t stop holding your hands, betty and ned are the modern day bonnie and clyde, ned is a terrible guy in the chair, the osborn’s are up to something, and mj hates you all

a/n: y’all i’m super excited about this series like i haven’t had an idea i’ve really loved in months? so it’s good to be back !!! there are tons of things i have planned and i can’t wait to share them with all of you hehe i really hope you enjoy part one <3 happy reading

to be honest, which is what you do best, you’ve had a thing for peter parker your whole time at the daily bugle. you actually almost told him once.

a couple months ago, peter walked you home on a night you worked overtime. he’d came in last minute to leave some pictures on your boss’s desk. no one else but you was there, hunched at your computer in the dim office lighting. peter was pleasantly surprised to see you, yet concerned for your well-being. you had to put your finishing touches on a story.

he didn’t feel comfortable letting you travel alone at that hour. so, he went with you when you were ready. his company was more than welcomed. you told peter about your article while you two sat on the subway. he’d listened intently, your head resting on his shoulder and his arm around you. he made sure you got to your apartment building alright as well.

“hey, peter?” you’d asked, halfway up the steps. he was waiting until you were inside and safe to leave. “hm? you good?” he’d smiled sort of expectantly. “yeah. i... i wanted to say...”

your words got caught in your throat when he gave you the softest puppy eyes you’ve ever seen. you couldn’t do it. for some reason, you were too scared to confess how you felt. “thanks again for walking me home,” you’d settled on. he’d seemed disappointed that was what you wanted to tell him. nevertheless, he said not to worry about it before taking off.

that one moment perfectly captures it all; how yours and peter’s narrative plays itself out.

—

“we’ve got an update on hydra v. the people!”

“those freaky giraffes escaped the zoo... again.”

“shoot one more spitball and it’ll be your last.”

“does anyone have an aspirin?”

welcome to the daily bugle, where the chaos never ends and the calm never starts. you’ll find new york’s finest writers, publishers, and creatives of all kind right here. that would include you. you’re one of the top journalists in the whole building, according to mr. norman osborn. he’s the brilliant and slightly insane man who runs this place.

although it’s rare for someone in your field, you were hired straight out of college. norman read a few pieces you’d written and loved them so much that he offered you a job. full time, full benefits, no questions asked. there was something special about the way you wove your words together. your writing had its own voice. a strong voice, one the paper was severely lacking.

you’ve been with the bugle for just over a year now. it’s not the quiet, nine to five gig you were initially expecting it to be. you’re each very unique individuals in your office, and there’s never a dull moment because of it. your coworkers can be found hosting debates on the riskiest topics or tackling each other for blueberry muffins, and that’s just a regular tuesday. the place is stranger than strange. but, it’s become home.

thanks to mr. osborn being so accommodating, you actually settled in rather quickly. another big help has been the friends you’ve made. your first was michelle jones, who prefers to be called mj. she’s a fellow journalist with a wickedly dark humor that trickles into her writing. if you had to describe her in one word, it would be blunt. mj is as real as it gets, and also eternally loyal. she keeps her circle small, so you’re honored you get to be in it.

mj sits right next to you, which means you’re always talking through your days. that’s due in part to the way your office is set up. there aren’t any cubicles, tables and swirly chairs taking up their space instead. norman heard it was more progressive, probably from his son harry.

harry is about your age, only a couple of years older. he hangs around quite a lot, but doesn’t do much with his time besides that. according to norman, he’s still seeking out his passion. he’s banking on him finding a suitable career at the bugle. he’d like to pass this all on to harry some day, hopefully sooner than later. either way, you don’t mind having harry here. he’s super funny and friendly with everyone.

there’s also ned leeds, who’s an editor and reviews most of your pieces. he’s sweeter than candy, even when he’s ripping your grammar to shreds. on the rare occasions you’re not discussing breaking news, you two talk about movies. ned is a film buff and gives you the best recommendations. you’re convinced he was a critic in his past life.

last but so from least is peter parker. he only works for the bugle part time, since he’s still in school. you both graduated from your respective colleges the same year. peter wants to get his masters degree, though. he’s a photographer who’s aspiring to be a cinematographer. him and ned have their passion for the industry in common, and that’s what makes them such great friends.

you learned this and more from the times you and peter have partnered up on stories. he’s one of your best friends not only at the bugle, but in your entire life. the many long nights you’ve spent collaborating have brought you close to each other. they consist of drinking and deep talks, along with some actual work. he takes the pictures, you do the writing. you’ve been told you make a lovely pair.

peter says it himself, too. you’d like to believe he means it as more than coworkers. he’s so caring, and smart, and pure, and peter. yeah, you like him an awful lot. you can hardly stand the feeling of it sometimes.

the fact that you you haven’t come clean already is ridiculous.

“goddamn. not again,” you mutter out. “em, you better come look at this. it’s bad.” mj wheels over to you in her chair with a puzzled look. her eyes follow yours, landing on your computer. “leeds just sent this? to everyone?” she questions, your reply a short hum. you’re both staring daggers at the email your screen displays.

ned is responsible for assigning each journalist their own topics to cover. he’s been lacking a bit recently, having you write up think pieces on fluffy things. in other words, stuff that no one cares about. he asked you to compare oat milk and almond milk just last week. you’d hoped this week would be better, but here you are.

“this is ass. who does he think we are, buzzfeed?” mj scoffs at her own words. the daily bugle prides itself on being a reliable news source, on paper and tv. you’re starting to stoop down to the low level of your competitors. “he assigned me some tiktok dance trend. i’m not writing a single word about that app.” she sets her elbows down on the table, head in her hands.

“aw, why not? grandma mj isn’t down with the kids?” you tease and click out of the upsetting email. “i don’t write for kids,” mj deadpans. she pushes her glasses up on her nose. “what’d you get?” “the evolution of memes,” you gloomily reply. you’re surprised norman has been approving these topics. then again, ned is the head editor. he can do whatever he wants regardless of approval.

mj glares over at the kitchen, where betty brant currently resides. she’s making two hot chocolates instead of her usual one. “i blame her,” mj mumbles to you. your eyebrows furrow. “dude, what? betty is an angel. she doesn’t even work in editing.” betty is the bugle’s highest rated anchorwoman. her and her news team are on people’s televisions every night.

“no, but she has been spending a generous amount of time with leeds,” mj grumbles. she’s admittedly very nosy. the upside is that she tells you any juicy office drama there is. “my theory is betty’s making him give us crap stories so she can report the good ones.” she glances over at you to see what you think. “no way. that can’t be allowed... or legal,” you laugh back.

as if on cue, ned appears next to betty in the kitchen. he takes the extra hot coco that’s piled high with whipped cream. betty tucks a sheet of paper into his suit pocket and kisses his cheek, then he’s gone. you can only gasp as you watch this unfold. what has she done to poor, clueless ned?

“not such an angel anymore, huh?” mj smirks in satisfaction. “suddenly, she has red horns and a pitchfork,” you bitterly agree with your tongue in your cheek. betty waves to you two on her way back to broadcasting. mj gives her a fake nice finger wave, you ignoring her. “we can’t sit back and let this happen, em. we have to do something,” you decide. “let’s tell norman.”

uninterested, mj takes off her glasses and starts to clean them. “like he’ll believe us. yeah, golden girl betty brant is sabotaging the writer’s room,” she rewords her previous statement to put its stupidity in perspective. you throw your hands up. “she is, though! we literally watched it happen!” mj puts her freshly wiped glasses back on and sighs.

“i doubt norman would care, y/n. every newspaper to ever exist is corrupt somehow.” your pessimistic old pal has a point. however, you’re not so willing to accept it. “why can’t we be the first one that isn’t?” you offer a small smile. mj snickers, wheeling back to her own computer. “those are words of the innocent.” she’s already tapping her fingers across the keyboard.

“i thought you weren’t doing the tiktok piece,” you say under your breath. you’re slightly pissed mj turned you down, since she’s the reason you know about betty’s meddling. “i’m not,” mj answers sharply. “i’m gonna email quentin and ask if we can change our topics. happy?” quentin beck is another editor in the building. he’s not bad, but he is intimidating. no one typically goes to him as their first option.

“i’m thrilled,” you confirm and grin at mj to emphasize it. “thanks for stepping up. you’re forgiven.” “i didn’t realize i had to be sorry,” mj notes, this time in a playful manor. she shakes her head as she begins writing. “you and your morals.”

what you value most in your career is honesty, under any circumstances. of course, the other daily bugle writers are the same. norman strictly prohibits clickbait and crazy headlines because that isn’t real news. you leave that to companies like buzzfeed. you’re honest in the sense that you say whatever has to be said, what everyone else is too afraid to. you’ll speak your truth no matter who tries to stop you.

it didn’t used to be that way. there’s some childhood trauma that remains deep in the back of your mind. you’ve left that behind you now, having over a decade to cope with it. hey, they say the past is in the past. what’s important is your takeaway, that you would never let yourself or anyone else be silenced from there on out. never again.

quentin ends up giving you the okay to write different stories. he lets you and mj choose choose your own because he’s got “better things to do” and you’re “big girls.” what a peach he is. mj goes with how capitalism is continuing to provoke global warming. she has something to say about every major world issue, and you admire the hell out of her for it.

you’re a bit stuck when it’s time to write your article. it’s terribly ironic because you pushed for this. you aren’t too worried, though. the city is crawling with material, so you’ll find what you’re looking for eventually. lucky for you, some much needed inspiration comes skipping out of the elevator.

“morning, peter,” you hear liz greet him at the front desk. she’s your floor’s receptionist. her wisdom and patience keep this place going. “hi, liz. how’s it going?” he asks. “things have been quiet... mostly. can i do anything for you?” liz peers up at him. peter sports a shy smile. “uh, yeah. mr. osborn wanted to see me?” “right. hang on.” she nods, dialing his office phone number.

it’s endearing how peter calls him mr. osborn, seeing as the rest of you go with norman. he’s probably the politest guy you’ve ever met.

grinning, liz puts down the phone. “you can go in whenever you’re ready. good luck!” peter laughs nervously and turns to leave. “thanks, you too.” his face falls when he realizes his mistake. “wait, i- i didn’t mean to say that. that was stupid. you’re not-“ “it’s fine, peter,” liz reassures him. his anxiety makes him trip over his words sometimes. that, and he’s a bit dorky in general. you find it rather adorable.

you also wonder what exactly he needs good luck for. he’s not even supposed to be working today, so your curiosity as to what’s going on has been piqued.

“um, i’m gonna go now. bye!” peter rushes off, his face tinted pink from the embarrassing encounter. you’re hoping he’ll stop and talk with you for a little while, but he heads straight to norman’s office. your whole body deflates at that. mj notices from her peripherals.

“what’s the matter? missing your hubby?” she coos, her words dripping in sarcasm. “no,” you lie. “i’m... i don’t know what to write about.” ok, there’s some truth. mj gives you a couple pats on the shoulder. “ask parker for help. you two work... well together. don’t you?” this must be the zillionth time you’ve heard that.

“we do,” you murmur and glance at norman’s closed door. peter is hidden behind it. “i just don’t wanna bug him. he has finals soon, and whatever norman is putting him up to. it’s my job, anyway.” mj pokes your arm. “those sound like excuses to me,” she concludes, still jabbing at you childishly. “you really just don’t wanna tell him you like-“

“can you keep it down?” you hiss, yanking your arm back. “he’s literally right over there.” peter stands up and shakes norman’s hand. you catch it through the blinds on his window. “y/n, you were drooling over his mere presence only minutes ago,” mj prefaces, a smile pulling at her lips. “you can handle three little words. i like you, that’s it. spit it out already.”

you’ll never admit this to mj, but she’s right. you lost your momentum after your first failed attempt to say the three little words. you’re still not sure what stopped you. you’d shared the details of that faithful night with her, and she’s been pushing you to try again since.

the door to norman’s office opens, and out walks peter. he’s beaming after their conversation, which seems like a good sign. harry passes peter on his way in to pay his dad a visit. he claps him on the shoulder, peter happily accepting before continuing his stride back into the main office. it takes a moment to register that he’s coming towards you.

you quickly set your focus back on your computer so he doesn’t think you’ve been watching him. even though, you definitely have.

“y/n!” peter calls your name. he’s on the opposite side of your table, in front of you. “peter!” you match his tone. “i was just dropping by. i thought i’d say hey while i’m here.” he’s still grinning. “what’re you doing?” he looks cute as ever in an oversized and cream colored sweater. his curls are slicked back with a tad too much product, cheeks rosy. you gaze up at him when he rests his arms on the table.

“pretending to be productive,” mj answers for you, pressing her lips together. peter cocks his head to the side. “pretending?” “ignore her. she’s being a shit stirrer today,” you explain. “like every other day,” he jokes, earning a laugh from you. mj just tuts and keeps writing. “talk about me like i’m not here,” she mumbles to herself, then gets back into her article.

“anyways, i thought you didn’t work today?” you ask to take the attention off yourself. also, because you’re curious. “oh! get this.” peter perks up even more, if that’s possible. he has energy like no other. “you know alex in broadcasting? betty’s camera guy?” “what about him?” you wonder. “he called in sick earlier this morning, with the flu or something.” he’s oddly excited to announce this. that prompts you to make a funny face.

biting back another smile, peter elaborates. “mr. osborn needed someone to fill in for him, so he picked me. i’ll be here all week.” it makes sense, since peter knows how to work a camera and does so wonderfully. you give him a celebratory push at his chest. “peter, that’s amazing! this is the perfect way to transition from pictures to film, right?” he’s nearing his finals at school, which consist of more movie-like projects. the news will be great practice.

then, he’s off to hollywood. you’ll put that out of your mind for now.

“exactly! i think it’ll be a good place to start. the pay isn’t bad either.” peter wiggles his eyebrows at you, you giggling once again. you do a lot of that when he’s around. that’s going to be more often now. “plus, i get to see you. everyone wins.” he squeezes your hand that was just on him. your heart begins to thump. “except alex,” you challenge, playing with his fingers. “but, for real. i’m happy you get to do this and that we’ll be spending more time together.”

“thanks, y/n/n. me too.” peter grins and leans over, taking a peek at your computer screen. there’s a blank word document on it. “you never told me what you’re up to,” he chuckles. “guess mj was right... nothing.” “i’m always right,” she chimes in from next to you. you look between the two of them with a scowl. “i haven’t found my story yet. i don’t know, this never happens.” peter nods as you share your dilemma. “no good ideas are coming to me,” you murmur.

“they will. you have a way of attracting things.” he licks his lower lip, your heart completely stopping this time. “well, i gotta go set up for rise and shine with betty brant.” he waves his hand like he’s presenting his words. that’s what betty calls her morning news segment. “be careful with her. she’s being really sketchy these days,” you warn peter, mj grunting in agreement.

confused, peter purses his lips. “really? ned says she’s a sweetheart. they’ve been going out for a while.” mj pops her head up and adjusts her glasses. “did ned also tell you she’s bribing him to give her all of our scoops?” she’s asking rhetorically because she already knows the answer. of course he didn’t. “it’s one thing to not like her. you’re just making things up now,” peter huffs.

mj kicks your foot under the table. “i told you no one would believe us. not even peter gullible parker.” “it’s benjamin,” he corrects her. “whatever,” she brushes it off, resuming her work.

peter does tend to be sort of naive, to only see the good in things when there’s plenty of bad. you’re the same in that way, unless you hang around mj for too long.

“is that true? betty’s stealing your stories?” peter turns to you and asks. you gesture to your screen. “i don’t have one, so you do the math.” he hums sympathetically. he’ll listen to you, never mj. “i’m sorry. thanks for telling me, y/n. i’ll watch out for her.” he bends his fingers to look like goggles, putting them around his eyes. you sigh lightheartedly.

“are you twenty two years old or twelve?” mj remarks, but not without a comeback from peter. “you’re, like, eighty five. worry about that.” they’ve had this type of banter for as long as you’ve known them. it’s equal parts amusing and exhausting. “don’t be late on your first day.” you snap peter out of it with a knowing smile. he returns it.

“i hope something crazy happens so you can write about it.” he’s walking backwards now, towards the elevator. “see you later, pete,” is all you say back, yet another laugh threatening to escape you. “see you. bye, michelle,” peter says just to bug her. “it’s mj,” she groans without looking up. he shrugs. “not so fun, is it?”

after peter is gone, you try to get back into work. or rather, you try to start your work. what he said about you having a way of attracting things keeps ringing in your head. was he flirting? no, he couldn’t have been. peter parker doesn’t flirt. words aren’t his strong suit, and you have countless memories that prove this to be true. earlier with liz, for example.

you’re probably reading way into this. peter was simply doing what any good friend would do and gave you advice.

it’s late in the afternoon when anything worth mentioning happens again. peter is still with betty, as far as you know. they’re probably preparing for the nighttime news now. all you’ve done since seeing him is nibble on snacks and bug mj, who’s almost done with her story despite your distractions. this is really bad, considering your deadline to submit is at the end of today.

you’ve never missed a deadline.

mj emails her work to quentin while you repeatedly bang your head on the table. she hits send before deciding to entertain you. “whatcha doing over there?” she cautiously prompts, powering off her computer. “trying to get an idea. i’m desperate, if you couldn’t tell.” your voice is muffled. “i could.” mj grabs your shoulders and pulls you back so you’re sitting up. you childishly pout.

“y/n, the only thing that’s gonna give you is brain damage,” mj says sternly, then softens her tone. “why don’t you ask for an extension? norman gives me them all the time.” whining, you slump down in your chair again. “yeah, but you’re you! we do things differently, have different expectations put on us.” she’s back to cold mj after you say that. “alright. at least i did something today besides pine over that little-“

mj’s insult for peter is interrupted by harry. “ladies, what’s shaking?” he comes up to you two with a the hint of smirk on his face. you manage a nod to acknowledge him. “oh, hey... harry,” mj unenthusiastically replies. she’s the one person who isn’t really a fan of him. “not much. y/n was just having a tantrum.” “she was not,” you dismiss her. “it’s work stuff. you know your dad.”

harry clicks his tongue in a teasing way. “yep, the grind never stops in this joint. boss man is...” he does the sign for cuckoo with his finger. you laugh a little at that. “in a good way,” you add on. mj only watches you two, blinking blankly. harry gives you a definitive pat on the back. “before i forget, he wants to see you.” that gets mj talking. “norman?” she questions. “your dad?” you choke out at the same time.

“who else? he said you two have to talk.” harry flashes you a weary smile. “have fun in there, old sport.” you’re too busy biting the skin off your bottom lip to respond. “mhm... she will,” mj speaks on your behalf. even she sounds worried. saluting you both, harry leaves to go pester your other colleagues. you’re completely and totally fucked.

“that’s it for me!” you grin sarcastically, freaked out by harry. “i’m fired, aren’t i? i’m definitely about to get fired, and it’s all because-“ “relax!” mj cuts off your rambling. she reaches down and grasps at your wrists. “get it together, y/l/n. you’re the best we have, okay? you aren’t going anywhere.” your grin becomes a frown. “then why does norman wanna talk to me? and, why don’t i have a story?”

mj always has the answers, but this time is the execption. she lets out a breath. “i don’t know. you’ll go find out and tell me what happens.” there’s no use protesting. you’re going to have to face whatever you’re about to at some point. “ok,” you give in, defeated. “i’ll be back soon, i hope.”

the walk to norman’s office feels like a walk of shame. mj can do nothing but sit back and observe it. if this ends the way you think it will, you’ll be collecting your things and won’t ever return. norman is a kind man, and he’s usually pretty understanding. he doesn’t mind the workplace shenanigans as long as you get your job done. unfortunately, you haven’t today.

you hear your boss’s booming voice when you approach his door. inhaling deep, you knock on it, and the room goes silent. “come in,” norman responds after a few seconds. mustering up a smile, you open the door to be met with your doom. “hi, am i interrupting something?” you check. “not at all! you’re just the person i wanted to see. sit, sit,” he beckons you over. he’s not using his angry voice, so maybe you’re in the clear. you enter the room as told.

you’re shocked to see a terrified peter is already in one of the chairs. he visibly relaxes a bit now that you’re here. what the hell is happening? whatever you were expecting, this was the last thing.

taking the armchair next to peter, you sit facing norman’s desk. you nudge his arm to get his attention. his big brown eyes lock with yours. “what’s going on?” you whisper. “no idea,” peter whispers back. the two of you turn to norman again when he claps his hands. he’s plopped down into his cushy leather seat.

“so,” he begins, gaze flicking from peter to you. “you kids know why you’re here?” “is it because i missed my deadline?” you blurt out. you’re once again a nervous wreck. peter doesn’t speak, just winces. “not that. although, i did hear from ned that you turned down his assignment.” norman flicks at a post-it on his desk. “i asked quentin for one instead. me and mj,” you explain, peter’s eyes going wide.

“you talked to quentin? that guy’s bad news,” he murmurs to you. “how so?” norman questions, since it’s his employee. “he- he, um,” peter clears his throat before answering, “he’s super critical, you know? hates all my pictures.” “i love your pictures,” you assure him, the corners of his lips turning up. “your style is so cool. yeah, though. quentin’s pretty bitter.”

considering this, norman drums his fingers on the desk. “i’ll look into that. but, that isn’t why you’re here. i’m letting you off the hook this time.” your whole demeanor changes and a huge weight lifts off of you. “really? you are?” “i have a scoop of my own that i want you to cover,” he continues, peter bumping your knee happily. a toothy grin takes over your face.

“since peter will be sticking around for a while, i want him to join you.” norman waits a beat in case you have any questions. it’s been a minute since you last worked together. peter laughs in disbelief. “you want me to take over for alex and do this?” norman nods proudly. “y/n will need the extra hands, if you have them.” “yes, sir. i do,” peter immediately confirms. “my last class is next thursday, so i have the time.”

“wait, so you’re almost done? that’s awesome!” you bump peter’s knee this time. “yup, all that’s left is finals... and studying.” he mindlessly takes your hand, lacing your fingers together. you’re enjoying his gentle touches. “thank you so much, norman. seriously, i appreciate this a lot,” you tell him and mean it. “hey, no problem,” he chuckles at your eagerness. you grip peter’s hand tighter.

“what’s the story?” “ah, yes. the most important part,” norman starts, peter sharing an excited look with you. “how familiar are you two with spider-man?” his excitement fades at the question posed. it’s unbeknownst to you, caught up in the moment. “uh, same as everyone else, i guess,” you casually reply. “how come?” “he’s your subject.” norman points at you both. “you’re gonna study him over these next few months.”

peter’s hand goes limp in yours, and he gulps hard, throat feeling dry. “you mean, like, an exposé?” “no, no. there will be no exposing,” norman clarifies. “i’m sure he wears the mask for a reason.” that settles peter only slightly. you’re not sure why he’s so tense all of a sudden. “what’s our aim here, then?” you steer the conversation.

“see what new york’s favorite hero gets up to every day, how his life is beyond the crime fighting,” norman further describes your task. peter exhales a shaky breath, shifting away from you in his seat. the golden sun hits his face and reveals a bead of sweat dripping down it. you stare at his figure in worry. “you okay, peter?” “fine. i’m just... hot,” he murmurs back. his sweater does look pretty heavy, so you concede.

getting back to norman’s story, you grimace at the idea. “do you really think people will want to read that? for lack of a better term, it sounds kind of...” you pause. “basic.” “i thought the same thing at first,” he surprisingly agrees with you. “harry pitched the idea to me this morning. you won’t believe it! the other night, he caught spider-man hanging outside his window.”

“harry... harry saw him?” peter squeaks out. he uses the wool material that feels like it’s swallowing him to dab at his forehead. “he stopped on his balcony. must have been pretty late, the kid’s a night owl,” norman says about his son. your face lights up as you listen to him. “he took some shots of spidey in action, when he swung off. i saw a few. they were pretty great.” he’s grinning at his son’s success.

“maybe he’ll get into photography with you, pete,” norman suggests. peter gives him a weak smile in return. “we’d be happy to have him.” he usually has a lot more to say about his career than that. his behavior is starting to genuinely concern you. “anyway,” norman gets back on topic, “it got me thinking. how much do we really know about this guy? we’re supposed to blindly put our trust in him?”

you’re beginning to see the appeal now. you’ve written your share of pieces on the avengers and their methods, tackling the same questions norman just asked you. spider-man shouldn’t be overlooked, especially when he operates so close to your home. this could be another revolutionary superhero story in the making. and, you get to bring peter along for the ride.

“you know what? this has a lot of potential,” you smile at norman, then peter. he has his phone in his lap, fingers flying across the screen. it must be something important. you’ll discuss with norman while he takes care of that. “we could make it a weekly thing, about spider-man’s adventures. find out what we can about the man behind the mask...” peter shoots up in his seat. “without taking it off,” you finish, putting his mind at ease.

“see, i knew you were gonna love it! it was a blessing in disguise, you missing that deadline.” norman bangs his fist on the table with a hearty laugh. “what do you say, peter? you still in?” peter slips his phone back in his pocket. his tongue pokes out to wet his lips. “oh, of course. i can’t wait to work with you, y/n/n,” he speaks in a monotone voice, adding on, “again.”

something is definitely bothering him, and it isn’t the weather.

“i gotta go. betty needs me upstairs, so,” peter moves to get up, his body stiff. you assume that’s who he was texting. “thank you again, mr. osborn.” he’s rushing out of the room just like that, until you call after him. “um, don’t you wanna set a time to meet up? so we can get started?” you reasonably ask. “i... i really gotta go. find me later,” peter tells you, giving you both a tight lipped smile and running off.

“the dynamic duo is back!” norman announces to you. you’re disappointed you can’t share that sentiment with peter.

he’s absolutely booking it down the stairs, not bothering to wait for the next elevator. this is bad. this is a nightmare.

peter went from having one of his best days in a while to the worst in not even a full round of work. today started off fine, and got better when norman promoted him. it got way better when you came along. he saw your smile that makes his insides tingle, heard your laugh that’s the prettiest sound to grace his ears, held your hand that he never wants let go.

things went a bit downhill after that. betty was pushy and yelled at him a lot, demanding he only film her good angles for the segment. you and mj weren’t wrong when you told him to be careful.

later on when he saw you again, everything was okay. he was physically shaking as brad told him mr. osborn requested to see him. brad is mr. osborn’s assistant. a try-hard for sure, but good at his job. why did mr. osborn call him in? did betty complain already?

they’d been sitting in mostly silence, save for small talk until you came knocking on the door. simply being next to you was enough to ground peter and his racing thoughts. it was enough, then it wasn’t.

the whole day had gone to shit after he found out you were going to be writing stories about his alter ego. not only that, but he was helping. during the pitch, he’d texted ned to meet him in the bathroom. he was really anxious and needed a friend who understood why.

ned accidentally found out peter is spider-man last year. it’s a long story that involves peter hiding from some bad guys in the building and ned shrieking so loud the lights flickered. they’re cool now that peter talked things through with him. his secret has been kept, from what he knows.

pushing open the men’s bathroom door, peter is a mixture of sweat and ragged breaths. he’s panting from his fast descent down the staircase. he takes in his disheveled appearance using one of the mirrors. his styled hair is now damp and undone, hands trembling and palms sweaty, chest heaving. here’s his daily reminder that anxiety is not cute. as if he didn’t know.

his stupid, gigantic freaking sweater is only making things worse. it’s suffocating him. no one else is in here, so peter pulls it over his head and tosses it to the ground. he’s got a t-shirt on underneath that happens to be black. what a convenient day for him to wear the hottest material there is.

peter splashes his face with some cold water next to try and cool himself down. that doesn’t do much for him. his face still feels like it’s on fire, but now it’s wet. he takes his hands through his mop of curls, backing away from the sink.

“fuck. fuck, fuck, fuck,” peter repeats to himself. he’s silent for a moment, then rage overcomes him. he kicks open a bathroom stall. “shit! i can’t do this. what am i supposed to-“

the door creeks open, so peter shuts up in case it isn’t ned. it thankfully is, and he wears a deep frown at the sight of his best friend. “dude, what happened? you look...” “terrible. i know,” peter finishes for him. he tugs at his locks in another attempt to tame them. ned approaches him carefully. “you’re not, like, dying... are you? because betty was telling me you have to-“ “of course you were with betty,” peter exhales in frustration. “no, ned. i’m not dying.”

in ned’s defense, the text he received was very alarming. all peter wrote was, ��EMERGENCY. SOS.’

“i mean, yeah. it was my break.” ned sits on the ledge by the window, close to peter. “you do the same with y/n.” the mention of your name upsets peter all over again. he hides his face in his hands as ned watches. “if you’re not dying, then what’s the problem?” ned finally asks. “me and y/n...” peter removes his hands from his face, meeting ned’s worried eyes. “mr. osborn wants us to do a project together.”

“uh, peter? you’ve been saying how much you miss her forever, dude! you’re not excited?” ned snorts at him. he means well, but he has no clue what he’s talking about. “no. it’s supposed to be about spider-man,” peter answers angrily. this isn’t the support he was hoping for. realizing the severity of the situation, ned gets serious.

“oh... but, you’re still doing it?” he questions. “i didn’t have a choice,” peter scoffs out. “i can’t let either of them down.” “you’ll expose yourself!” ned escalates things further. “it’s not like that. we’re gonna follow spider-man around and post updates on him,” peter says, technically in the third person. he’s given an are you insane? look from ned.

“you are spider-man! and, no offense, but you’re not so good at hiding it,” ned refers to himself finding out. “how are you gonna be in two places at once?” damnit, peter hadn’t thought about that yet. he can’t be taking pictures of spider-man and swinging from building to building simultaneously. “i- i’ll figure it out,” peter stammers, unconvincingly.

ned looks him over in a disapproving way. “jeez. you’re really putting your life on the line for this girl-“ “woman,” peter interjects, not loving ned’s attitude towards you. “have some respect.” unfazed, ned gets up from the windowsill. “speaking of women, remember betty? you’re still on the clock,” he changes the subject. peter nearly forgot he has to go film her segment.

“i’ll head up to her now,” peter gives in. he scoops up his discarded sweater, not bothering to check his appearance again. ned follows behind him to the door. “we wrote her script together, you know,” he gladly informs peter, who already knows from you. “not really a flex,” peter mumbles his response. “peter, lighten up.” ned hits at his shoulder. the two of them exit the bathroom.

“you’ll figure this out later. i can always help.” he shoots him a sugary sweet smile. “thanks, ned. for talking with me and everything.” peter doesn’t smile back. they do a quick bro handshake, then they’re going their separate ways. “have a good show, dude!” ned yells back, to which he doesn’t get a response. peter doesn’t have it in him.

he allows himself to take the elevator back up to broadcasting. he’s so drained from the several anxiety attacks he endured. while peter waists for the elevator, he contemplates all the issues he’d better solve. it’s a relief to hear it ding because it brings him back to earth. that doesn’t last long because both you and betty are there when the door opens.

you’d each had the same idea, to find peter. unlike betty, your intentions were good. you asked liz if she saw peter leave. she told you he went downstairs, so you did also. betty was already in the elevator when it got to your stop. she was looking for him because, you guessed it, he had to record the news. the small space was filled with tension as you and betty occupied it.

“perfect. we’re going right back up,” betty beams, motioning for peter with her index finger. “hop in!” “coming,” peter does as told, going to stand between you and betty. she presses the button for your floor and theirs. the doors close. “pete?” you speak up, voice soft. “you kinda ran off earlier. i thought you were with betty.” “clearly, he wasn’t,” betty sneers.

you’re less concerned with her and more with peter. the sweater he looked so huggable in is now folded in his arms, his face splotchy and jaw clenched. he must have gotten triggered by something back in norman’s office.

“are you sure you’re okay? you... you can talk to me about it.” you take a step closer to peter, your doe eyes searching for his. he meets them with a tiny smile. at least, it’s real this time. “i’ll be fine, y/n/n. ‘s nice that you came to check on me, though.” “don’t mention it.” your arms loop around his neck and bring him into a hug. peter hugs you back by your middle, chin resting on your shoulder, breathing out in relief.

you keep your hands on his shoulders when you pull back. his stay on your sides, a lopsided grin now crossing his features. “spider-man...” you quirk an eyebrow. “how are you feeling about that?” “should be cool,” peter somehow maintains himself. “i’m mostly looking forward to doing it with you.”

listening in, betty joins the conversation. “what’s happening with spider-man? anything i should know?” her hand reaches into her bag and emerges with a notepad. does she ever think of her own content? “she’s nothing if not persistent,” you grumble to peter. chuckling, he pulls you into his chest. if he didn’t hold you back, you would’ve pounced on her.

“we’re gonna do a piece on him,” peter tells her. “you can’t copy or steal this one because it’s already been approved,” you contribute, smiling smugly as peter holds you tighter. betty is taken aback. “are you accusing me of stealing? who said i-“ “ned ratted on you... sorry,” peter says in a sing song voice. squealing, you jump away from him. “he did? we were right?”

“mj’s never wrong,” he reiterates. “mj knew about this? oh my god, i can’t believe her!” betty stomps her foot. “we got you on candid camera.” you make a clicking noise with your mouth. peter mimes taking a picture to back you up. “alright, alright. i won’t do it again,” betty mumbles, turning away from you two in annoyance.

“finally!” you hold up your hand for a high five, which peter gives you. “we really do make the best team,” he hums. your fingers intertwine with peter’s, and he lays his palm flat against yours. he prays extremely hard you don’t notice that it’s sweaty. you do, but you couldn’t care less.

“i was wondering when you’d wanna start our... research?” peter asks you, his lip between his teeth. “you were saying something earlier. maybe we could make a schedule.” “how elaborate of us that would be,” you tease. that earns a breathy laugh from peter. with a knowing smile, you put your free hand back on his shoulder.

“what are you doing tonight?”

peter parker taglist

@saturnpeter @tpwk-grande @itstaskeen @missyouhollnd @becicamina @dummiesshort @zspideyy @watchitimreadinghere @my-patronus-is-mabel-pines @dpaccione @karispotters11 @theofficialzivadavid @thehumanistsdiary @kelieah @aayaissaa @petersgroupie @annab-nana @tayyx @swtltlmrvlgrl @magicalxdaydream @haoluvver @kjune113 @captainamirica @marvel-dork98 @emmastarz @killingbxys @viriditie @misshale21 @veryholland @liliswifts @tommydarlings @rebelemilu @peterspideysense @cr-uelsummer @dreamy-clousds @quaksonhehe @quxxnxfhxll @blackbat2020 @babyblue19 @falconxbarnes @zachary-s @dirtytissuebox @dracoswhore007 @heavenlyholland @thsquad @etheralholland @dhtomholland @awh-lilies @tomshufflepuff @multifamdomfan12

if i forgot you please lmk!

#peter parker #peter parker fluff #peter parker x reader #peter parker x y/n #peter parker x you #peter parker imagine #peter parker fic #peter parker fanfiction #peter parker smut #spiderman #tom holland #tom holland fluff #tom holland smut #tom holland x reader #tom holland x y/n #tom holland x you #tom holland imagine #tom holland fic

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mercurygray · 3 years ago

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So, I Hear You Liked: 1917

More World War One Films

I was very excited about 1917 when it first came out because it almost perfectly coincided with the 100th anniversary of the First World War, a conflict that I love to read about, write about, and watch movies about. This period is my JAM, and there's such a lot of good content for when you're done with Sam Mendes's film.

Obviously there are a lot of movies and TV shows out there - this is just a selection that I enjoyed, and wish more people knew about.

Note: Everyone enjoys a show or movie for different reasons. These shows are on this list because of the time period they depict, not because of the quality of their writing, the accuracy of their history or the political nature of their content. Where I’m able to, I’ve mentioned if a book is available if you’d like to read more.

I'd like to start the list with a movie that isn't a fiction piece at all - Peter Jackson's They Shall Not Grow Old (2019) is a beautifully produced film that allows the soldiers and archival images themselves, lovingly retimed and tinted into living color, to tell their own story. It is a must watch for anyone interested in the period.

Wings (1927), All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), A Farewell to Arms (1932, 1957), The Dawn Patrol (1938), Sergeant York (1941), and Paths of Glory (1957) are all classics with a couple of Oscars between them, and it's sort of fun to watch how the war gets changed and interpreted as the years pass. (The Dawn Patrol, for instance, might as just as easily be about the RAF in World War 2.)

All Quiet is based on a famous memoir, and A Farewell to Arms on a Hemingway novel; both have several adaptations and they're all a little different. Speaking of iconic novels, Doctor Zhivago (1965) based on the Pasternak novel of the same title, examines life of its protagonist between 1905 and the start of the second World War.

I think one thing historians agree on is that the start of World War One is worth discussing - and that there's a lot of backstory. Fall of Eagles (1974), a 13 part BBC miniseries, details the relationships between the great houses of Europe, starting in the 1860s; it's long but good, and I think might be on YouTube. The Last Czars (2019) takes a dramatized look at the Romanovs and how their reactions to the war lead to their eventual demise.

As far as the war itself, Sarajevo (2014) and 37 Days (2014) both discuss the outbreak of hostilities and the slow roll into actual battle.

The Passing Bells (2014) follows the whole war through the eyes of two soldiers, one German and one British, beginning in peacetime.

Joyeux Noel ( 2005) is a cute story - it takes place early in the war during the Christmas Peace and approaches the event from a multinational perspective.

War Horse (2011) is, of course, a name you'll recognize. Based on the breakout West End play, which is itself based on a YA novel by Michael Morpurgo, the story follows a horse who's requisitioned for cavalry service and the young man who owns him. Private Peaceful (2012) is also based on a Morpurgo novel, but I didn't think it was quite as good as War Horse.

The Wipers Times (2013) is one of my all-time favorites; it's about a short lived trench paper written and produced by soldiers near Ypres, often called Wipers by the average foot soldier. The miniseries, like the paper, is laugh out loud funny in a dark humor way.

My Boy Jack (2007) is another miniseries based on a play, this one about Rudyard Kipling and his son, Jack, who served in the Irish Guards and died at Loos. Kipling later wrote a poem about the death of his son, and helped select the phrase that appears on all commonwealth gravestones of the First World War.

Gallipoli (1981) is stunning in a way only a Peter Weir movie can be; this is a classic and a must-see.

Gallipoli is a big story that's been told and retold a lot. I still haven't seen Deadline Gallipoli (2015) an Australian miniseries about the men who wrote about the battle for the folks back home and were subject to censorship about how bad things really were. For a slightly different perspective, the Turkish director Yesim Sezgin made Çanakkale 1915 in 2012, detailing the Turkish side of the battle. Although most of The Water Diviner (2014) takes place after the war is over, it also covers parts of Gallipoli and while it didn't get great reviews, I enjoy it enough to own it on DVD.

I don't know why all of my favorite WWI films tend to be Australian; Beneath Hill 60 (2010) is another one of my favorites, talking about the 1st Australian Tunneling Company at the Ypres Salient. The War Below (2021) promises to tell a similar story about the Pioneer companies at Messines, responsible for building the huge network of mines there.

Passchendaele (2008) is a Canadian production about the battle of the same name. I'd forgotten I've seen this film, which might not say very much for the story.

Journey's End (2017) is an adaptation of an RC Sheriff play that takes place towards the end of the war in a dugout amongst British officers.

No look at the Great War is complete without a nod to developing military technologies, and this is the war that pioneers the aviation battle for us. I really wish Flyboys (2006) was better than it is, but The Red Baron (2008) makes up for it from the German perspective.

One of the reasons I like reading about the First World War is that everyone is having a revolution. Technology is growing by leaps and bounds, women are fighting for the right to vote, and a lot of colonial possessions are coming into their own, including (but not limited to) Ireland. Rebellion (2016) was a multi-season miniseries that went into the Easter Rising, as well as the role the war played there. Michael Collins (1996) spends more time with the Anglo-Irish war in the 1920s but is still worth watching (or wincing through Julia Roberts' bad accent, you decide.) The Wind that Shakes the Barley covers the same conflict and is excellent.

The centennial of the war meant that in addition to talking about the war, people were also interested in talking about the Armenian Genocide. The Promise (2016) and The Ottoman Lieutenant (2017) came out around the same time and two different looks at the situation in Armenia.

This is a war of poets and writers, of whom we have already mentioned a few. Hedd Wynn ( 1992) which is almost entirely in Welsh, and tells the story of Ellis Evans, a Welsh language poet who was killed on the first day of the Battle of Passchendaele. I think Ioan Gruffudd has read some of his poetry online somewhere, it's very pretty. A Bear Named Winnie (2004) follows the life of the bear who'd become the inspiration for Winnie the Pooh. Tolkien (2019) expands a little on the author's early life and his service during the war. Benediction (2021) will tell the story of Siegfried Sassoon and his time at Craiglockhart Hospital. Craiglockhart is also represented in Regeneration (1997) based on a novel by Pat Barker.

Anzac Girls (2014) is probably my favorite mini-series in the history of EVER; it follows the lives of a group of Australian and New Zealand nurses from hospital duty in Egypt to the lines of the Western Front. I love this series not only because it portrays women (ALWAYS a plus) but gives a sense of the scope of the many theatres of the war that most movies don't. It's based on a book by Peter Rees, which is similarly excellent.

On a similar note, The Crimson Field (2014) explores the lives of members of a Voluntary Aid Detachment, or VADs, lady volunteers without formal nursing training who were sent to help with menial work in hospitals. It only ran for a season but had a lot of potential. Testament of Youth (2014) is based on the celebrated memoirs of Vera Brittain, who served as a VAD for part of the war and lead her to become a dedicated pacifist.

Also, while we're on the subject of women, though these aren't war movies specifically, I feel like the additional color to the early 20th century female experience offered by Suffragette (2015) and Iron-Jawed Angels (2004) is worth the time.

As a general rule, Americans don't talk about World War One, and we sure don't make movies about it, either. The Lost Battalion (2001) tells the story of Major Charles Whittlesey and the 9 companies of the 77th Infantry division who were trapped behind enemy lines during the battle of the Meuse Argonne.

I should add that this list is curtailed a little bit by what's available for broadcast or stream on American television, so it's missing a lot of dramas in other languages. The Road to Calvary (2017) was a Russian drama based on the novels of Alexei Tolstoy. Kurt Seyit ve Şura (2014) is based on a novel and follows a love story between a Crimean officer (a Muslim) and the Russian woman he loves. The show is primarily in Turkish, and Kıvanç Tatlıtuğ, who plays the lead, is *very* attractive.

Finally, although it might seem silly to mention them, Upstairs Downstairs (1971-1975 ) Downton Abbey (2010-2015) and Peaky Blinders (2013-present) are worth a mention and a watch. All of them are large ensemble TV shows that take place over a much longer period than just the Great War, but the characters in each are shaped tremendously by the war.

#so i hear you liked #preaching the period drama gospel i am #world war one #period drama #period drama trash #1917

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the-desolated-quill · 4 years ago

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WandaVision: ‘Subverting’ Good Television - Quill’s Scribbles

(Spoilers for the first five episodes)

Hey everyone! Well... it’s been a while, hasn’t it? The last time I wrote a proper review or Scribble, people still thought the COVID crisis would be over within a month. The poor saps. But I thought that as a special way to mark this year’s Valentines Day, we could take a closer look at the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s shittiest power couple in their new Disney+ show WandaVision.

The first of many MCU spin-off shows that nobody asked for, broadcast exclusively on Disney’s totally unnecessary streaming platform, WandaVision is about everybody’s favourite whitewashed Nazi experiment and her red sexbot boyfriend as they try to fit into a suburban sitcom neighbourhood without arousing suspicion.

Yes, you read that correctly. The MCU has a sitcom now. My life is now complete.

Sarcasm aside, I was legitimately curious about WandaVision because of its unusual setting. And considering one of my most common criticisms of the MCU is its total lack of creativity, anything that’s even a little bit subversive is bound to attract my attention. Of course ‘subversive’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘good.’ I could hand you a canvas smeared with my own shit and call it subversive. That doesn’t necessarily make it good art. And that’s exactly what WandaVision is. A canvas smeared with shit.

So lets split this critical analysis/review/angry bitter rant into two distinct chapters. The first focusing on the plot and setting, and the second focusing on the characters. Okay? Okay.

Chapter 1: Bewitched

Critics seem to be utterly enamoured with the whole sitcom gimmick, and it is a gimmick. As far as I can tell from the episodes I’ve seen, the sitcom setting serves no real purpose whatsoever other than to make the show ‘quirky.’ Which I wouldn’t mind, believe it or not, if the show was actually funny. There’s just one problem. It’s not.

Now in some ways describing why a sitcom doesn’t work is often futile because comedy is largely subjective. What I find funny, you won’t necessarily find funny and vice versa. With WandaVision, however, I won’t have that problem. I can demonstrate to you precisely why WandaVision, objectively, isn’t funny. And it all comes down to one simple thing. The stakes. Or rather the complete and total absence of stakes.

The show makes it very clear from the beginning that none of what we’re seeing is real. The cheesy theme song, the era appropriate special effects (mostly. It’s actually very inconsistent), the joke commercials, and, in the case of the first two episodes, which are in black and white, the appearance of red lights and objects in Scarlet Witch’s general vicinity. (Gee, what a mystery this is).

Basically Wanda has brought Vision back from the dead and created this sitcom world for them to inhabit. I’ll explain the stupidity of this in Chapter 2. The point is none of this is real, and that has a negative effect on the comedy because the very nature of comedy is suffering. Take the plot of the first episode. Wanda and Vision have to prepare a dinner to impress Vision’s boss. If they fail, Vision could lose his job and the couple could be exposed as superheroes. If this were a normal sitcom, it would work. The stakes are clear and it would be satisfying to see the two struggle and overcome the odds. But here, we know it’s not real. If it’s not real, it means there’s no stakes. If there’s no stakes, it means there’s no suffering. If there’s no suffering, there’s no comedy.

It would be one thing if the unfunny sitcom stuff lasted for like the first ten minutes or so before making way for the actual plot, but it doesn’t. Oh no. It doesn’t even last for the first episode. Out of the five episodes I’ve watched, four of them are almost entirely about these unfunny, objectively flawed sitcom homages, each set in a different time period. The fifties, the sixties, and so on. And what’s worse is that nothing that happens in them is plot-relevant. That gets relegated to the last five minutes of an episode. So you’re forced to sit through twenty five minutes of boring slapstick and puns in order to catch even a whiff of actual story. Which begs the question... who is this for exactly? It can’t be entertaining to Marvel fans, who have to slog through all this pointless shit so they can figure out what the fuck is going on. Comedy fans may get a kick out of the sitcom pastiche at first, but after four episodes, surely the joke would wear thin. So why is it in here? Clearly someone in the writer’s room absolutely fell in love with the idea of doing a Marvel sitcom, but nobody put in any time or effort to figure out how it would work in context.

I cannot stress enough how bad the plotting of this series is. As I said, the vast majority of a thirty minute episode is about shitty sitcom plots that aren’t funny and don’t have any impact on the story, only to then tease you with a crumb of actual plot in order to keep you coming back for the next instalment. Admittedly it’s an effective strategy. I was more than ready to quit after Episode 2 until that beekeeper showed up out of the sewer (don’t ask. It’s not important). WandaVision essentially follows the Steven Moffat school of bad writing. String your audience along with the promise that things might get more interesting later on and that all the bullshit that came before will retroactively make sense by the end. Except, as demonstrated with BBC’s Sherlock, that doesn’t work. And even if it did, it wouldn’t justify wasting the audience’s fucking time. And that’s what the majority of WandaVision is. A waste of time.

The only episode that doesn’t follow the sitcom format is the fourth episode. Instead it basically exists to explain all the shit that happened before. The shit that the audience, frankly, are smart enough to figure out for themselves. Wanda created the sitcom world as a way of coping with the loss of Vision, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, we got it. Thanks. It doesn’t advance the plot or anything. It’s just a massive info-dump. But by far the lowest point was when Darcy (by far the most annoying character in the first Thor film and is just as obnoxious here) was sat in front of the TV, watching the sitcom and asking the same questions we were. Not even attempting to look for answers. Just reiterating what the audience is thinking. Like this is an episode of fucking Gogglebox.

In the end it becomes apparent why the series is structured the way that it is. It’s to hoodwink people into subscribing to Disney’s stupid streaming service. If you think about it, there was no reason for WandaVision to be a TV series other than to lure gullible fans in with a piece-meal story buried in a mountain of crap. This isn’t a TV show. It’s what is cynically known in the world of big business executives as ‘content.’ They’re not interested in entertaining the audience. Instead they crave ‘engagement’, which isn’t the same thing. Watching WandaVision is like staring into the void, waiting for something to happen, while Disney charge you for the privilege.

Chapter 2: I Love Lucy

So the plot sucks balls. What about the characters? Surely if Wanda and Vision are likeable at least, it’ll give us something to cling onto.

Well as I was watching the first episode, it suddenly hit me that I couldn’t remember anything that happened to them in previous films. I knew Vision died, but other than that, I couldn’t tell you significant plot details or their personalities or anything. Not a great start.

See, up until now, Vision and Scarlet Witch have been little more than background characters. So already there’s an uphill struggle to get us invested in their relationship, especially considering we haven’t actually seen that relationship develop. In Avengers: Age Of Ultron, Scarlet Witch is killing people because she’s pissed off about Tony Stark killing people (you work that one out) until all of a sudden she stops and joins the good guys because the script said so. Vision meanwhile is introduced as a convenient deus ex machina to beat Ultron and gets no real personality other than he’s a robot. Captain America: Civil War comes the closest to giving Wanda a story and personality of her own as it’s her actions that cause the Sokovia Accords to come into effect, but she never gets any real growth or payoff as the film is heavily focused on Cap and Iron Man’s penis measuring contest. And as for Vision, all he does in the film is accidentally cripple War Machine. No real character or arc there as such. And then we have Avengers: Infinity War, where Wanda and Vision are now sporadically in love and on the run until that pesky Josh Brolin, looking like a CGI cross between Joss Whedon and a grumpy grape, comes along and rips out Vision’s Infinity Stone to power up his golden glove of doom, and the film treats this like a tragic moment, except... it isn’t. Because we haven’t really had the time to properly get to know these characters and see their romance blossom. So instead it just comes off as hollow and forced.

WandaVision has the exact same problem. Apparently Wanda was so distraught about Vision’s death that she broke into a SWORD base, stole his corpse, brought it back from the dead... somehow, and then enslaved an entire town of people to create an idyllic lifestyle for her and her hubby while broadcasting it as a sitcom to the outside world... for some reason. Putting aside the dubious morality of it all, it’s impossible to really sympathise with Wanda or her supposed grief because we’ve barely spent any time with her. Had the Marvel movies taken the time to properly explore the characters and show us their relationship grow and develop, this might have had more emotional resonance. But no, it just happens. In one film they barely speak to each other and in the next they’re a couple. No effort to explore how they feel about each other or any of the problems that may arise trying to date a robot. It just happens and we’re just supposed to care. Well I’m sorry, but I don’t care. You’re going to have to try a little bit harder than that I’m afraid. What’s worse is that, thanks to the whole fake sitcom thing, it’s impossible to really become invested in Wanda and her plight because the show has to constantly keep us at arms length at all times in order to keep up the pretence that this bullshit is somehow mysterious.

Looking through the WandaVision tag, it amuses me how many people say that she’s acting out of character. And yeah, her actions are a bit of a head scratcher. Why would an Eastern European’s ideal life be an American sitcom? Why a sitcom? Why kidnap an entire town? Why keep changing the decade? None of it makes sense, but you’re wrong for thinking that Wanda is behaving out of character for the simple reason that Wanda has never actually had a character. In fact, ironically, Wanda mind controlling an entire town and forcing them to do her bidding is probably the one consistent thing about her as she did this in Age Of Ultron. In interviews, Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany described how they used actors like Elizabeth Montgomery and Dick Van Dyke as influences, which is really funny because they’re straight up admitting they don’t have characters and even now they’re still not playing the characters, instead emulating the work of far better actors.

As I was watching the show, it became abundantly clear that not only do Marvel not have the faintest idea what they wanted to do with these characters, but they also straight up don’t give a shit about these characters. Wanda in particular has had a rough time under the tyrannical regime of the House of Mouse. First they cast Elizabeth Olsen, a white woman, to play a Romani character, then systematically erasing her Jewish roots, even going so far as to put a cross in her bedroom in Civil War, and now the character is being butchered even more by forcing her into an American sitcom housewife role that she apparently willingly chose for herself, which is laughable. I mean say what you like about Magneto in the X-Men films, at least they actually depicted his Jewish culture. At least they recognised his Jewish background was important (though not important enough to cast a Jewish actor apparently). Wanda’s steady cultural erasure over the years is incredibly insidious and judging by Olsen’s comments in interviews, where she called Wanda’s comic book outfit a quote ‘gypsy thing’ unquote, it seems nobody has an ounce of fucking respect for the character or the culture she’s supposed to be representing. (and to all those kissing her arse saying it was a slip of the tongue, she has been repeatedly called out for using the slur in the past, so at this point I’d describe her behaviour as wilful ignorance)

If you want further proof of how much Marvel doesn’t seem to care about Wanda, look no further than her brother Pietro, aka Quicksilver. At the end of Episode 5, Wanda brings Pietro back from the dead, except it’s not Pietro. It’s Peter Maximoff, the Quicksilver from the X-Men films played by Peter Evans, who coincidentally is not Jewish or Romani either. So Quicksilver has the dubious honour of not only being whitewashed three times, but also twice within the same franchise. But should we really be surprised at this point? It’s Marvel after all. The same company that whitewashed the Ancient One in Doctor Yellowface and claimed it wasn’t racist because Tilda Swinton is ‘Celtic’. But now I’m going off topic. My point is that this isn’t a simple case of recasting an actor like Mark Ruffalo replacing Edward Norton as the Hulk. WandaVision actually acknowledges the recast in-universe, which makes no sense. Why would Wanda bring back her brother, only to make him look like a different person? We the audience may be familiar with this version of Quicksilver, but she isn’t. That would be like me bringing my Grandad back to life and making him look like Ian McKellen. He’d be perfectly charming, I’m sure, but he wouldn’t be my Grandad.

If Marvel really cared about the characters or narrative consistency, they would have brought Aaron Taylor Johnson back. Instead, now they have absorbed 20th Century Fox into the hellish Disney abyss, they use X-Men’s Quicksilver as a means to keep viewers from switching off and so that people will write stupid articles and think pieces about whether the rest of the X-Men will show up in the MCU. It’s like dangling your keys in front of a toddler’s face to distract them from the rotting corpse of a raccoon lying face down in the corner of the room.

And it’s here where I decided to stop watching the show because fuck Disney.

Epilogue: One Foot In The Grave

You know, I am sick and tired of the so called ‘professional’ critics bending over backwards to praise these god awful films and shows when it’s so clear to anyone with a functioning brain cell how bad they truly are. WandaVision is without a doubt one of the most cynically produced and poorly structured TV shows I’ve ever seen. Its riffs on classic sitcoms are pointless and self-indulgent, the writing is terrible, the characters are unlikable and unsympathetic, and it’s entirely emblematic of what the entire MCU has become of late. And it’s only going to get worse as Disney drowns us with more ‘content’ to keep the plebs ‘engaged’. In short; pathetic.

#anti wandavision #anti marvel #anti mcu #anti disney #quill's scribbles

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x0401x · 4 years ago

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Febri Talk Interview with Jin (Complete)

Commissioned by the lovely @sodasexual again!

Part 1: overwhelmed by the power of friendship in “The☆Doraemons: Kaitou Dorapan no Chousenjou!”

Musician and creator Jin has been bringing countless topical works to the world, including “Kagerou Project”. In the first part of this serial interview, we had him talk about a work from the series “The☆Doraemons”, which he experienced in his childhood and continued to be influenced by for a long time.

A work that unexpectedly became one of the origins of “Kagerou Project”.

——Jin-san, we would like to ask you about anime shows that have had an influence on you, following in order from your infancy onwards, so would the first one be “The☆Doraemons: Kaitou Dorapan no Chousenjou!” (hereon, “The☆Doraemons”), which came out in the year 1997?

Jin: That’s right. I watched this one in the theaters when I was either 7 or 8 years old. It’s an animation short that was screened together with “Doraemon: Nobita no Neji-maki Toshi Bounen-ki”, and it had one hell of an impact on me. At the time, I was living in an isolated island in Hokkaido called Rishiri Island, so just getting to watch a movie was quite a spectacle in itself (laughs). Actually, not many animes were broadcasted in Rishiri Island to begin with. There were few channels, and other than that, they aired those black-and-white period dramas in cable TV, I guess.

——No, I think that last one is a stretch (laughs). Did you watch “Doraemon” because you liked it from the start?

Jin: I liked it a lot. But the so-called “The☆Doraemons” is a spin-off about six friends of different colors. If I were to talk about the contents of “Kaitou Dorapan” in a summarized way, it’s the story of the Doraemons receiving a letter of challenge from an mysterious enemy called Dorapan, then completely getting caught into his trap and falling into a pinch... And, surprisingly, Doraemon isn’t active at all in this movie (laughs).

——Aah, it’s a work where the Doraemon friends are the main characters, right?

Jin: That’s right. A duo that didn’t have much popularity among the friends, Dora-med III and Dora-rinho, were set as the main characters in this one (laughs). Of course, I didn’t go watch it thinking that Doraemon would participate actively, but he almost doesn’t do anything. Instead, we were shown these two, who are something like sub-characters, in a big scuffle. But when it ended, I began to really like Dora-med III and Dora-rinho.

——Ahaha. So you totally got into it.

Jin: They had something called a “Friendship Telephone Card”, which was introduced as a key item, and this “friendship” thing made the back of my nose sting – that was the kind of feeling I got from it. Dorapan, the one who plays the role of villain in this movie, attempts to take control of robots from all over the world using the power of the Doraemons’ Friendship Telephone Card. However, there’s actually a mastermind behind the scenes, and one heroine is taken hostage, so Dorapan is doing bad deeds because he has no choice. We find this out in the middle of the movie, and at that moment, Dora-rinho goes, “I see; so that’s what was going on” and voluntarily tries to sacrifice himself. By believing in self-sacrificing friendship, everyone was able to reach a happy ending. That kind of storyline was truly wonderful... To tell you the truth, the initial motif of Kagerou Project (hereon “KagePro”) was this movie.

Making KagePro out of wanting to create his own “Doraemons”.

——Eeh, is that so!?

Jin: I created KagePro because I wanted to write about friendship, or rather, I wanted to make my own “Doraemons”. I started KagePro when I was about 20 years old, as I was vaguely beginning to realize that friendship apparently doesn’t exist at that point in life (laughs). Also, same goes to music, of course, but among the books I was reading back then, quite a lot of them had cynical views. Although these stories were my own taste, I also had the impression that there was a generational trend in them, like “people shouldn’t look at this if they’re dumb” and “those who understand this thing are admirable”. Therefore, I did my best to pretend to be like that at first, but I gradually grew tired of it...

——Ahaha. You were getting out of breath.

Jin: That’s right. So, when I looked back, I thought, “I do like ‘Kaitou Dorapan’ after all”. Therefore, if I was going to make something by myself, I decided to use it as the theme. In that sense, amongst the things I watched in my childhood, this work was a turning point. After watching it in the theater for the first time, I watched it over and over again as rental video, and because of this, I even now remember the moments when the sound effects come in.

——Generation-wise, you’re precisely from the generation of “The☆Doraemons”.

Jin: Yeah, spot-on. Also, the Doraemons from “The☆Doraemons” are comical and cute, but on the other hand, they show us that they are extremely strong-willed characters. Moreover, the Doraemons are rich in individuality – as in, everyone is irregular and there are some characters that make you go, “Isn’t that a problem?” amongst them. For example, the wolf Dora-nichov can’t speak human language (laughs).

——I see! Thinking that way, I feel like I can see the points in common with KagePro.

Jin: Also, all of them are purely good guys. The fact that they’re all good people and only have one enemy is pretty awesome. I believe that this kind of thing has an influence on the KagePro series as a whole.

Part 2: paralyzed by the hardboiled worldview of “Cowboy Bebop”.

In the second part of this interview series, where we ask Jin about anime works that influenced him, we have “Cowboy Bebop”, a masterpiece still loved by many fans even now. Here, Jin, who works as both a musician and creator, discusses thoroughly about the appeal of it.

Learning the attitude and stance for creating things.

——You talked about how not many animes were aired in your homeland, but did you keep watching anime after that?

Jin: If you mean watching on TV, anime was what I enjoyed most. However, the shows on broadcast were limited, so when it comes to series that left an impression on me, it would be things like “Card Captor Sakura”, which I used to watch with my little sister. “Kinnikuman” was also re-aired and I liked it a lot. As expected, I was weak to “friendship” (laughs). When they were fighting for the throne or whatever, man, I cried, for real. This happened around the time I was in grade school, but when I got into middle school, I stopped watching anime entirely.

——And when you came back to it, it was right on time for...

Jin: For the series that I pointed out as second in line, “Cowboy Bebop”. Because my father had made up his mind to get his hands on a satellite television called SKY Perfect TV! I think he probably wanted to watch Discovery Channel, but back then, he also included Animax in the contract. And, by sheer coincidence, a re-run of “Cowboy Bebop” began right at that timing, around 2004 or 2005, I guess. I was a middle schooler then, and there were lots of CMs that went like, “Broadcast begins on X day of X month!” together with that opening theme by Kanno Youko-san.

——So that’s what caught your interest.

Jin: There was also the fact I’d been disconnected from anime for a while, so I watched the first episode not knowing anything. And the contents weren’t aimed at children at all (laughs). Dude sprayed an eye-drop drug into his eyes, went, “UWAH—!” and died, like.

——Ahaha. It was a shock.

Jin: “Cowboy Bebop” was my first time coming in contact with a hardboiled worldview. I was like, “What’s this? It’s so cool”. Until then, I had this impression that “anime was made for kids”, but for the first time, I felt like I was watching a drama. Plus, the story was interesting, so I was super hooked as I watched it, and while doing so, the episode “Jamming with Edward” (episode 9) had an impact on me.

——Satou Dai-san was the one who wrote the script for it, right? You later came to work together with Satou-san in “LISTENERS”.

Jin: That’s right. It was such an impact that it had me thinking, “You wouldn’t be able to do that in a TV drama”. And so, this ninth episode had me completely addicted to it, and in the end, I watched it up to the finale. Later on, when I began my own creations, I noticed that what I was doing overlapped with “Cowboy Bebop”, and when this happened, I realized I was doing something quite risky (laughs). To top it off, just when I thought, “There must be lots of animes like that out there”, there was surprisingly none.

The coolness of affirming that KagePro has both pop and hardcore songs and that this is what it is about!

——Ahaha. Did “Cowboy Bebop” have any influence on you? For example, on the music side...

Jin: Hmm... if you put it that way, maybe not (laughs). Only in the variety aspect of the narrative, as people call it. Each one of the 26 episodes has wholly different colors, so to say. They felt like a gashapon from which you couldn’t tell what was coming out next.

——Like, although there were episodes where they threw in comedy to their hearts contentment, there were also episodes that showed vigorous action.

Jin: When I think about it, there are also episodes that go through a simple approach by way of genres that even I would know. I think the creators must’ve had a lot of fun when making them. So when it comes to what influenced me, it I think it was the variation of songs. I think there probably aren’t that many composers like me, who make songs one by one and have no idea what song to write next.

——As in, you do it while intentionally deciding to change the tone and genre?

Jin: Rather than that, I guess it happens naturally. I was always the type who doesn’t listen to the same genre all the time – it’s like, “Today is rock day; tomorrow is punk day”. I believe it’s possible that “Cowboy Bebop” made me think this kind of feeling was valid. The themes also don’t have to be consistent, and even if you turn upside-down the things that you had been asserting in a previous episode, their value and meaning will still hold. Moreover, I didn’t think that the people who made “Cowboy Bebop” had to plan this stuff up in their heads and study about it so that they could put it to action. It just so happened that when they drew out the things they like and lined them up, it turned out the way it did.

——So they didn’t do it while aiming for that, but rather, it turned out to have a sense of variety to it when it was finished.

Jin: And I think it’s amazing because it validates itself with that. So I guess being able to say all we have to say is what actually matters (laughs). If I were to affirm, “This is what KagePro is about!”, then that’d be pretty much it. Even though there are both pop and hardcore songs in KagePro, nobody can say, “That doesn’t feel like KagePro”. That’s why I think that the coolness of proudly declaring, “That’s what it is!” is something I learned from Bebop. Like, “This is what’s cool”. It feels like, on my own accord, I accepted something that was like a stance to be taken when you create these kinds of things.

Part 3: obsessing over “Tokyo Godfathers”, which had developments where one couldn’t predict what lay ahead.

This is the third part of the interview series where the creator Jin talks about works that influenced him. Here, he discusses about a hidden masterpiece from the director Kon Satoshi, which also had a great influence on “Kagerou Project” and which he encountered during his vocational school years, while living a wasteful life.

——The third work is “Tokyo Godfathers” by Director Kon Satoshi, but when was it that you watched it?

Jin: It was during my vocational school years. After graduating from high school, I attended a vocational music school located in Sapporo, but my upperclassmen from that school taught me many bad ways of having fun (laughs). I used to buy lots of sick equipment. Then, obviously, I’d run out of money, so I worked to death in part-time jobs, and well, lived a wasteful life (laughs), but during that time, a friend from my class lent me a DVD of “Hidamari Sketch”. At first, I told him, “Nah, I’m not too into this kinda stuff”, but when I took it home and watched it, I wailed aloud.

——Ahaha.

Jin: That’s why I asked Asumi Kana-san (who voices Yuno) to play KagePro’s main heroine... Anyhow, “Hidamari Sketch” became the cue for me to start watching anime again. And Director Kon Satoshi was from Sapporo, so it was probably being featured in a video shop. “Tokyo Godfathers” is a 2003 movie, but I saw it in the video in 2008 or 2009.

——What piqued your interest about it?

Jin: It was tremendously well-done and fun, and on top of that, it was sharp – a work like no other up until then, I thought. A dramatic production with parallel storylines focusing on different characters is incorporated within the span of about an hour and half as if it weren’t enough. During that same time, there were also works by Mitani Kouki-san and Isaka Koutarou-san’s “Golden Slumber” was being made into live action, so I believe that the so-called multi-protagonist story kind of approach was being used in all sorts of places. But even among them, “Tokyo Godfathers” was outstandingly interesting. “Where the heck is this story heading to?” You can’t tell at all until the end. Three homeless people pick up a baby on Christmas night and try to take her to her mother, but as the story goes on, it gets to a climax like, “Does she even have a mother in the first place?”. Plus, we find out that the person who they thought to be the mother and handed the baby over to is actually someone who kidnapped her from a hospital. The story just keeps changing over and over.

As the story progresses, the characters’ pasts become visible. It was interesting that the past and present were firmly bound together.

——We can’t predict what comes next at all, huh?

Jin: So, the topic will go back to KagePro now: when I thought of writing a novel, first of all, I decided that I “wanted to do a multi-protagonist story”. To make a story like the one from “The☆Doraemons” into a multi-protagonist story. Back then, I really liked the type of novels that went on in first person – such as works by Isaka-san or Morimi Tomihiko-san, and also Yonezawa Honobu-san.

——I see, I see.

Jin: On the other hand, “Tokyo Godfathers” is structured so that the characters’ pasts can be seen more and more as the story progresses. As if the story progresses with the past mini-arcs as the main focus. Like, “Person A and Person B were actually parent and child!” – it was interesting that the past and the present were bound together so firmly. Moreover, the developments go on at an incredible speed, and there’s a proper catharsis at the end. Also, all the characters that show up in it have rich facial expressions.

——To begin with, the fact that the three main characters are homeless is a twist.

Jin: In the first place, it starts with the main heroine spitting onto people in the streets from a rooftop (laughs). I really like those sharp-edged points of it too. “Tokyo Godfathers” has a content that can be written even if the protagonists were parent and child from an ordinary household. But through making the protagonists homeless, it became extremely vivid.

——It’s as if it turns them into down-to-earth characters and gives you a sensation that they connect with the audience’s “present”.

Jin: If I were to speak of other words by Director Kon Satoshi, I also think that “Paprika” and “Sennen Joyuu” are amazing. But on the other hand, I end up thinking, “They’re so wonderful”. As in, “Awesome, aren’t they? I don’t get them very well, though” (laughs). But “Tokyo Godfathers” is a candid form of entertainment that even an idiot like me can instantly get hooked on. The fact that I indeed want to keep doing entertainment resides strongly inside me.

——Listening to you talk like this, Jin-san, it makes me think that the books you read and movies you watched because you liked them reflect straightforwardly in your own manner of expressing yourself.

Jin: I myself think that I’m usually straightforward (laughs). Rather than “I want it to be seen like this” or “I want people to think of it like that”, I prioritize “I want to do this” and “this is fun”, so to say. By multiplying “The☆Doraemons” to “Tokyo Godfathers”, it turned into “Kagerou Project” (laughs). I feel like that’s my foundation.

#kagerou project #kagepro #mekakucity actors #kagerou daze #jin #shizen no teki p #interview #my translation #cowboy bebop #doraemon #tokyo godfathers #satoshi kon

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peepspersonalperspective · 4 years ago

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MY PICKS: Top 10 K-Dramas

Disclaimer: These are totally subjective choices and I've justified them as per my preferences. Consider them friendly recommendations and let me know if you disagree. Also, I've discovered the wonderful world of K-Dramas over the last couple of years and they've really evolved not just in storytelling but also production value so I personally prefer the more recent ones. So for example I haven't put a very popular pick like My Love from the Star simply because I've seen better stuff since (don't shoot me). Anyway, 가자!

MEMORIES OF ALAHAMBRA

This is my first recommendation for anyone who's just starting out watching Korean television content simply because it's so different from what new viewers expect it to be. It's so gripping and thrilling. I would expect nothing less from Song Jae Jung's writing.

So it's a sci-fi show, set in Spain, about an augmented reality game, that seems to have physical implications in the real world, sending the lead, Hyun Bin on a rollercoaster ride to find answers. Exo's Chanyeol has a recurring role as the game developer, so that's exciting too. I learnt that he was cast because of his love for PubG. Lol.

Every episode will leave you wanting more, and you'll find yourself as desperate to search for answers as Yoo Jin Woo (Hyun Bin).

Granted, mid season, it gets a little complicated, especially with newer nuances of the game unfolding, but fret not because the characters are discovering the secrets of the game with you. So they're as confused as you would be, and that's why this show is so good! More so because the graphics are excellent! You can tell they really spent money on ensuring high quality work. You will really feel like you're part of the game with Yoo Jin Woo.

Anyway, if you are an EXO-L, or you like gaming, sci-fi, thriller and Hyun Bin, this show is great!

2. W - Two Worlds

Another piece of awesome from Song Jae Jung. I would still rank this show a little below Alahambra, because I think the makers made improvements from this sci-fi drama in Alahambra, in the sense of storytelling. Still, W is just as intriguing.

Oh Yeon Joo (Han Hyo Joo) gets sucked into a comic book where she falls in love with the lead character of the comic book, Kang Chul (Lee Jeong Suk). Sounds like a typical romance drama right? Don't be fooled because there are many many twists and turns along the way.

I feel like there is metaphor in there somewhere about existentialism, the creation and destiny. But maybe that's just me reading into things.

Lee Jeong Suk is extremely desirable as Kang Chul, unsuspectingly charming and endearing, and Oh Yeon Joo is an absolutely relatable character, and how she deals as an ordinary girl thrown into extraordinary circumstances is genuine.

I would say this drama is wholesome, with sci-fi, suspense, thriller, action, romance, filial relationships, and more. And while it's usually difficult to jam pack all this into one show without screwing it up, W emerges exceptional.

3. Extraordinary You

This show is so cute! If you want just a light hearted, quirky show, this is the one for you.

It's about characters in a cartoon becoming aware of their existence in a cartoon. But don't worry this is NOTHING like W.

The best part about the show is that it's not about the main characters of the said cartoon. It's the story about the extras finding their way in that world, hence the pun intended in the title. The main characters (of the cartoon) are actually the most dull, because they are bound by the laws of stereotypical high school romance. But the real stuff is happening on the sidelines, with Kim Hye Yoon as Dan Oh and Rowoon as Haru.

Dan Oh is a hilarious character and Kim Hye Yoon does a fantastic job of switching emotions when she's in and out of a scene in the cartoon. One minute she goes into character mode, next minute she's bitching at the sorry fate of her character when she wakes up, to the astonishment of the characters surrounding her (who aren't aware of their reality yet).

Rowoon has a quiet charm about him that perfectly complements Hye Yoon. Check it out for a chuckle and a taste of something different.

4. Crash Landing on You

This show is hard not to like. Apart from the poorly picturized tornado carrying our leading lady over the border to North Korea, this show is a wonderful Netflix and Chill kind of show, I think.

The cultural disparity between the South and North is interesting to watch and also entertaining. Like when they mention buying mobile games at an App store (a literal application store in a Pyongyang market).

Ri Jung Hyuk (Hyun Bin again) and Yoon Seri (Son Yejin) are such a delight in comedic, romantic, and dramatic scenes. But the scene stealer for me was Yang Kyun Won as Pyo Chi Soo, and his unshakeable nationalism that he is ready to set aside for some shampoo and conditioner.

The interesting thing is going into the show, you have an idea of the longevity, so ofcourse, Seri's journey back to the South ain't going to be easy, also her relationship with Ri Jung Hyuk is doomed, and yet you find yourself rooting for them at each step, crying with them during their failures and crying with them even in their triumph. But the most tears were shed for the least expected character, who simply left us all heart broken.

5. Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo

In a world where women are expected to behave and look a certain way to be considered attractive by someone they're vying for, here's a food hogging, tomboy, weightlifting champ, with her first crush.

The premise may rope you into the show, but midway you realise that the heart of the show is in its characters, and without realising you become so invested in them that you feel their fears, insecurities, and cherish their victories with them.

This coming of age show really relishes on the quirks of each character, friendship, love and aspirations. It's not a very dramatic story which is probably why it didn't rate very high during its broadcast, but that's part of its charm, and that's why it's been able to gather a significant cult following since.

Lee Sung Kyung and Nam Joo Hyuk portray the most sincere friends and eventual couple. Their relationship blossoms in the most organic manner and it's so heartwarming. They're not cheesy or unrealistic; they even beat each other up! I don't think I've seen that level of comfort portrayed on screen so well before.

Watch out for guest appearances by Ji Soo and Lee Jeong Suk.

6. Strong Girl Do Bong Soon

I'll be honest, this recommendation is mainly for Park Hyung Sik. He's amazing in the show. And there could be no better supernaturally strong petite girl than Park Bo Young, either.

So there are actually a lot of things happening in the show, story wise, but I promise it all comes together in the end. There is quite a build up and I'm happy that it pays off adequately.

This is like a superhero show with all the spices and flavours of a Marvel movie, but K-Drama style. There's an invincible villain, some idiot gangsters for comedic value, romance (a love triangle infact), functional training, a point of lost hope for Bong Soon, and then her resurrection as a superhero.

It's all there, and more.

But Park Hyung Sik.....

7. Itaewon Class

This recommendation is simply for the refreshing change of representation on TV. I know a lot has already been spoken about it already, but I have to admit that that's what sets this revenge drama apart. That, and the music. Dayum, Start by Gaho is so catchy! And let's not forget V's Sweet Night.

This show starts off slow but give it 3 episodes before it gets to the real shit.

Park Saeroyi is almost too good to be true, and in that lies his shortcoming. His character is so strong that while watching him I forgot that Park Seo Joon was acting. And despite some unnerving moments I found myself rooting for him. He has some strong motivational lines too, like about his choice for a better life. His determination is almost unreal, as he goes on to take down his mortal enemy.

Some of the best scenes, though, are of Jo Yi Seo (Kim Dami), a sociopathic enterprising genius. She was the one who actually kept me hooked to the series. She added some much needed flair to the show, and as it appears to Park Saeroyi's establishment.

Actually, every character was strong, every character had a strong backstory and motivation for the action, and most importantly they never broke character.

Watch out for Park Bo Gum's special appearance.

8. Love In The Moonlight

Speaking of Park Bo Gum...

This show is all kinds of weird in the best way! A girl pretends to be a palace eunuch and falls in love with the crown Prince. That is so messed up!

But that's the fun part! And Park Bo Gum and Kim You Jung make it a wonderful ride. Full of quirky romance, political conflicts and hidden identity issues, this show is addictive af!

And even though this wasn't in the show and was just a promo, be sure to watch Park Bo Gum's Bombastic dance. It's adorable!

9. The Third Charm

I'm sure this is my least popular recommendation. But something about watching this show was so cathartic. I highly recommend it for those who may have gone through heartbreak ever in their lives.

This is probably one of those rare times when I was lost in the story instead of Seo Kang Jun's eyes. Hehe. This story is about an on again off again couple and their journey through life together and apart.

This was meant to be a healing drama, and it really does take you through the emotional evolution that comes with growing up. I think it's the perfect medicine for a healing heart.

10. It's Okay Not To Be Okay

This show! This is my current obsession. Kim Soo Hyun's comeback couldn't have been more perfect. Seo Yeji couldn't have been a more perfect casting. And the two leads couldn't have had a better chemistry.

This show is all kinds of whimsical and I love it. Also a healing drama, this show deals with.... Baggage....to put it simply. Some baggage may be bigger than other baggage, some even irrevocable. But seeing all the characters overcome this baggage is so fulfilling.

But the charm of this show is in Ko Moon Young's (Seo Yeji) craziness and the Tim Burton-esque setup, that really makes one perceive fairytales in a whole new way. I mean I always knew that fairytales were sanitized German folklore, but I never thought to find a very different messaging from the material. The parables are ingenious, and it really is a pleasure to watch each and every person on this show.

Special mentions: Goblin, Reply 1988, 30 but 17/ Still 17, My ID is Gangnam Beauty, Hotel Del Luna

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casualotptrash · 4 years ago

Text

Fixes to the Persona Series

Oh boy I hope you all are ready to talk about this for the hundredth time!

My recent tirade about the FES vs Portable discussion started to make me think about what I think could be done in the next coming installments of the series to make it either feel a bit more fresh or just as an overall improvement. Now, I know many of the things I’m about to say have been said time and time again, but...this is my post so I’m going to give my opinion on this :)

Enjoy and feel free to vent with me about your biggest gripes with the series, because I’m always ready for a salt-fest.

(This post will pretty much have any spoilers about Persona 3, 4, and 5 (including Royal) so beware if you haven’t finished those)

To clarify right off the bat, anything I don’t mention in here as something I would fix I either don’t think it is a problem or I just happened to forget it.

1. Player Gender Options

(Royal Spoilers)

Starting off with a great one, I think that an improvement to the series would be to allow an option between a male and a female MC. I don’t think this choice would affect the story in Persona 3 or 4 very much (and we’ve seen that with Persona 3), but I have imagined and seen so many fanfics about how it would actually be a really interesting twist for Persona 5. For most of the story it probably wouldn’t matter too much, but it could impact the first palace so much. The first palace/story arc is already one of the best arcs in the game, so imagine if the player could relate to Ann and Shiho on an even deeper level? To be clear, I’m not saying the player has to be sexually assaulted or something, but I imagine Kamoshida would at least treat the player more like Ann rather than just a delinquent nuisance.

Also, and this just came to mind, but picture this: in the third semester Maruki actualizes things that he thinks will make others happy. Obviously, Joker and Akechi are against this. In the game itself there are a lot of clues to point that Joker does care about Akechi, and does want to see him again, but in the end they both agree that they need to fight for the real world that they worked for, not for a fake reality. If Joker was a female, they could still go the route of doing this (especially if romancing Akechi was an option? Or they just hint at them having feelings but Akechi doesn’t want to commit because he’s a self-loathing boi who needs to work on himself first).

Alternatively...what about a badass narrative of a girl, in a powerful position as the leader of the Phantom Thieves, fighting against a man who believes he knows what’s best for her and tries to appease her by just bringing back Akechi? Kinda like a “Yeah fuck what you did, you just need Akechi/a man and he’ll make you happy” type of thing. Obviously this would all be subtle, because I do think Maruki has good intentions, but he also blames himself for all of the hard things Rumi has gone through and may internalize that as women needing a “strong man” to protect them. Of course this might seem too preachy for people, but I thought it was an interesting idea to run with and that some people could relate to the whole “Woman trying to think and do things for themselves? Nah just sit in your little fake world and be happy, thanks.”

(Sidenote, Sae would be such a good role model...after her change of heart of course. You crush it girl.)

However, I do understand that this could be a lot of extra work, especially when the game is so long and tedious. That’s why I would also be fine with the strategy of “switching off” per say. By that I mean if Persona 5 has a male MC, then Persona 6 would have a female MC, and if a 7th game was made (in 2040 or whatever) then it could go back to a male. This would eliminate the issue of having to record all the voice lines twice or any other extra work that would come with having to make both genders an option. Honestly I know this option doesn’t matter too much to people, they just want an MC who is either a self-insert or actually a character (more on that later), but I do think it would be a very nice inclusion especially for the female fans of the game. It kind of sucks that three of the most popular games in the series all have male protags, and the female protag who was introduced often gets shafted for very dumb reasons. (Oh no, you have the option to romance a kid that most people don’t even choose or like, that means she’s a p*do! :I I know this comment is normally a joke but seriously it’s not funny).

2. Setting of the game (not transfer but also maybe involve the other games?)

(Spoilers for the Arena games and Persona 5/Royal)

So there are two main points to this suggestion: where the game takes place and how it relates to the other games.

As we all know, the three latest entries in the mainline Persona series have all followed a certain trend. They are all high schoolers, who transfer to a town, and know basically no one there. This formula has been repeated for the last three games, and while they are still great games, I think this trend needs to change. Any amount of switching this up would be better than nothing in my opinion. For example, the MC could be a new college student who goes to a new place for college (if they wanted the MC to move somewhere), and there meets the party members who are a mix of people who also don’t know the area (new to the college) and those who do know the area/some people there. This would appease people who have been really wanting an MC to not be a high schooler, while also giving the feel of meeting new people and seeing a new place.

On the other hand, the next game could take place in the MC’s home town, where plot stuff happens and they connect more to the people they already knew (aka party members) to solve the plot stuff. They could be in high school or college, either I think would work, but it would appease people who don’t just want to be a transfer student each time and also have some connection to the characters prior to the game. However, this would be difficult to do given the current “flow” that the games have, that is that the MC doesn’t know anything and has to ask a million questions. It would be very strange to go up to someone you have known most of your life and ask them a basic question, which is why that style of storytelling(?) would not fit well with this and other methods would need to be used.

Now, for the second point, I understand that they don’t make strong connections to the other games because they want each game to be able to be played as a stand-alone, and not to hold people back by forcing them to play the other games to understand this. Makes sense, but usually what happens is that people play one game in the series and then try another game, if they really like the one they started with. After playing through the ones they want to, and if they like them, then there is an appreciation for the series as a whole. Of course Atlus sneaks in little references here and there, like having the P4 gang go to Iwatodai or some TV news announcements on P5 that allude to Adachi and other characters, but those cant always cut it. One of the biggest letdowns I would come to know is the fact that the Shadow Operatives are not mentioned at all, outside of those small references, in P5.

Persona 5 literally has the PT’s broadcasting all of their heists, and includes major government officials like Shido. There are also the mental shutdowns/psychotic breakdowns, which also have people confused, along with how the PT’s steal hearts in the first place. I don’t know about you all, but this seems like the perfect opportunity to get the Shadow Operatives involved. This is like...literally what they were made for? Investigating persona/shadow activity and such, and we already know that the PT’s deeds reached at least Hawaii so it would be strange for the SO’s to have not heard anything. There are headcanons that they were blocked by Shido or something, which is pretty interesting to think about/develop, but it was only thought up to make an excuse for why they aren’t there. Persona 5 introduced a lot of people to the story, so yeah some people would probably be very confused about who the SO’s are and stuff, but it could payoff in the long run for long-time fans and those who play the other games after.

Depending on the story of P6, I don’t think it would be a bad idea to start including casts from the other games into newer ones...especially when each game introduces 8-9 new characters per game, and those games usually get made into spin-offs that include the characters made in the previous games! Counting only the characters introduced in the previous games (3-5), Persona Q2 has 33 characters (11 P3, 10 P5, 10 P4, and 2 P3P, this includes the velvet room assistants for each respective game). That’s a ton! Sure, having new characters each time is part of the fun, but I believe there is definitely a way to split them up. I don’t think it would be too much of an issue to have a smaller party member group (you can only have 4 fight at a time anyway), that way there is still the enjoyment of seeing new characters, while also filling up some of those spots with preexisting ones.

3. Characterization

This kind of piggybacks off of the second point, but personally I think they need to stop with the self-insert protags. First, like I mentioned earlier, it kind of messes up the “flow” of the game since they have to pretend that the character doesn’t know anything because the player doesn’t know anything (yet). For example, how many times did the option to say “Probation?” or “Expelled?” or something like that come up as a dialogue choice in P5? Too often, in my opinion. I assume anyone over the age of 15 would probably know what those things mean, but in case anyone doesn’t they have to make it an option to say.

Adding onto this, it also seems like people start to like the characters a whole lot more when spinoffs or movies/animations come out that really expand on the character, because in those games/mediums the player is taken out of the self-insert role. I would say out of the three games, the Persona 3 protags have the most characterization in game through their dialogue. I haven’t watched the movies, but I heard it fleshes the MC out a lot more. In Persona 4...well, I see what they’re going for but I also feel like Yu has the personality of a cardboard box. The animations definitely helped out this one, as did Arena, and I’ve seen other people agree that they liked Yu a lot more after playing/watching those things.

As for Persona 5, I think they tried to give Joker some characterization (and oddly enough “Joker” has a lot more to him than Akira/Ren, but he still fell more on the side of self-insert. P5 the animation is...of questionable quality, but I think Xander did a good job in the Dub (which is the one I watched) in trying to make him feel more like a human being. I haven’t played Strikers, but I assume it goes more on the route of P5 because you’re still controlling Joker. Oddly enough, I feel like the dancing game gave him the most characterization? Call me crazy, but his dance moves and voice lines just ooze of his suave, friendly, and supportive attitude. I wish that they took whatever those voice lines embodied and just put them into the game, because I would like Joker a lot more than I already do (which, to be clear, I do still like him a lot).

Although this doesn’t have much to do with the characterization, it would also be nice if Atlus could just put the “canon name” in the game while also still having the option to choose your own name. Again, this might add a little more work but maybe if someone chose the “canon” option then their name could be spoken in voice lines, but if they don’t then the names would be left out (except for text) like usual. Honestly this is mostly up to personal preference because I like some of the “not canon” names more so I would want to use those if I could, but I also don’t like having the characters just randomly cut off in the end of sentences when they’re saying your name. Just kind of breaks immersion, which is probably why I really like Joker because at least they say “Joker” quite a bit.

(Little rant, but why do the PT’s get like two group names? At first Morgana defaults to “The Phantom Thieves of Hearts” but then when you get to choose the name of your team, that name is what shows up instead. However, everyone still calls you the “Phantom Thieves” and the gang refers to themselves as that too! I get naming the group is kind of cool, but I would have preferred if they were just called The Phantom Thieves (of Hearts) and that way their name could be spoken in dialogue too.)

4. Choices matter...please? (romance and regular dialogue)

This might be easy or difficult to implement, I’m not so sure because I’m not a game developer, but I really wish choices mattered more in this game. I feel like most of these suggestions (especially later on down the list) are just little things that could be added to the game that would really amp it up, and this is one of them.

When I talk about choices mattering, I do not mean that dialogue should be so open that there are branching paths and that your choices affect the story. What I mean is that you could choose two different options and not get the same exact answer. I get that this isn’t always the case, but when it is it feels very strange. In this same vein of things, please stop with the illusion of choice because everyone sees right through it. I didn’t really see this as much in P3, and I still need to finish P4, but it was definitely apparent with P5. I felt that so many times in the game there were two options that were just “Option A” or “Synonym for Option A” as the choices.

Along the same lines, I think it would be great if romance choices were actually acknowledged. Again, there is a little of this in P3 and P4 where some party members comment on your relation to the other party members (Ex. Junpei saying to take care of Fuuka if you date, Yukari stating that Akihiko probably wouldn’t want FeMC going on a group date if they’re dating, and Yosuke coming to assumptions about who Yu spends the summer festival with), but they are very few and far between. I also saw no evidence of this at all in P5, which was pretty disappointing. In fact, in Persona 5 Royal if you are dating Ann and go on the Christmas Date with her, she makes some comment about not wanting the others to find out about them. Like...girl, considering someone can finish Ann’s social link as early as June or so on NG+ I’m pretty sure your friend group would notice if you’ve been dating for 6 months?? I know that romance is definitely not the focus of the game, but if you’re going to include it why is it shoved into the farthest corner and never touched?

Don’t get me wrong, it is cute to see the romances in the game play out and such, but on the same hand I can see how much better it could be. In reality it kind of sucks to romance someone in the Persona games because no one acknowledges it, and you only get like 3-4 small scenes in each game to spend with them (beach in P5, festival in all, Christmas in all, valentines except for 3, White Day in P5R). Just imagine if you could take a walk in Kyoto with whoever you romanced, or were able to take your partner to the Jazz Jin in P5R and they would get like special date dialogue or something? Very very small additions, but it would go a long way in making the romances feel a bit more connected.

5. LGBT Romances

I went into this in some detail in Part 3 of my FES vs Portable debate post, so I to save your eyes from reading more I’ll just quickly say that Atlus definitely needs to add in more LGBT romance options because it’s ridiculous at this point. The fact that you can’t romance any guy (because all of the MC’s are male, this is not including the FeMC stuff because that’s not typical in the Persona series) but can have a whole harem (despite what they may do to you) is just ridiculous. They’d rather let you date a fully-fledged adult than someone of the same gender.

Also they’re cowards for scrapping the Yosuke romance and that’s that :)

6. Fixing Social Links

Link to the stand-alone post about this section.

I literally was going to include this in this post, but this section alone (which I knew was going to be the biggest) was almost as large (a few hundred words off) than everything prior to this point put together. I’ll make a separate post with just this section soon, but this criticism of mine can basically be boiled down into the fact that the main growth of a character should happen outside of their social link in order to avoid tonal whiplash in the story, and that this will fix the problem of some characters feeling “one-note” if you do not do their social links/confidants. Essentially, go back to the P3 method.

However, something that needs to be fixed for all of the games is that you shouldn’t only get social link points for saying what the person wants to hear. I get the train of thought that if you say what they want to hear they will like you more, but that’s not how real friendships work? Obviously you shouldn’t be saying something that offends them and think it will raise your points, but sometimes people just need to hear things?

I can think of three standout examples: Nozomi in P3 (Gourmet King), Mishima in P5, and Shinya in P5. Nozomi’s link is a hot mess in of itself, but it was very frustrating to at one point just be like “Hey can you chill?” when he’s trying to induct you into a scam/cult or whatever, and it reverses the social link. Like ok buddy fuck you too, I was just trying to say no and that you need to stop scamming people?? For Mishima in P5 (I’ll go more in depth on him in a later post), it’s just kind of strange that you can clearly see him starting to obsess about the PT’s but you can’t really tell him he needs to stop until the social link demands it. Even then, the only way to get points is pretty much to go “Wow Mishima, you’re the best! You’re the reason we exist! We love you!!!” and it just feels kind of wrong. Shinya’s is very much along the same line as that, except you basically have to do something even worse and encourage him to keep being a bully? Thankfully P5 doesn’t reverse confidants, but I probably would have done so with Shinya because I kept telling him he shouldn’t bully others until I realized how to get points with him. It just feels wrong to encourage such behavior until the character suddenly realizes they’ve been acting wrong. No shit, I’ve been trying to say that.

I think social links need quite the fix to them, but this is definitely one of them. Strong, real relationships are not just built upon telling the other person what they want to hear.

7. Have Characters Hang Out

This is mostly a suggestion based off of P5′s downfall in this aspect. I think that P3 and P4 did a good job at showing the characters hang out in other aspects, or hang out separately outside of the MC. P4 had a lot of good group hangouts, but not many scenes without the MC. P3 had the opposite where members kind of hung out together a bit, but also showed or mentioned them hanging out without the MC. However, P5 didn’t have much for the group hangouts and also I can’t really recall a single scene of the party members hanging out outside of the MC.

Along with all of the problems I mentioned earlier with the cardboard cut-out personalities, I feel that this contributed to P5′s group feeling a bit less cohesive. Obviously when they all hung out they acted like a real group of friends, but it’s hard to see it as legitimate when 95% of their hangouts are just meetings for the Phantom Thief stuff. The only times they hang out outside of the PT stuff is the TV station, the fireworks festival, helping Futaba + the beach trip, and the culture festival. Like I said, I can’t recall them hanging out together outside of being with the MC/PT business, although I could have missed some stray text message if one was mentioned.

In this aspect, P5 feels like a small step down from P3 and a huge step down from P4. I think some of the events in P4 are a bit unnecessarily long, but at least they go through the effort of showing that the group is also a real friend group, not just people trying to solve the murder. Strikers may be a step up from P5, but I haven’t played it yet so I can’t judge that.

Also bring back school trips to prior locations of Persona games. Imagine P5 group going to Inaba and it turns out this is the small country town that Joker came from? And they sprinkle in references to P4? *chefs kiss*.

8. Remove/Change Certain Tropes

(Spoilers for the babe hunts, stupid ass hot springs scenes, and Ryuji abuse after certain palace)

By that spoiler tag, you can probably tell that this is the category I’m most passionate about. I can deal with social links feeling a bit disconnected. I can deal with the MC being a self-insert. What I cant deal with anymore? These. Dumb. Ass. Scenes.

Let me explain (insert Sojiro voice here)

Every game has three main tropes. One, the babe hunt scenes. Two, the hot springs scenes. Three, one character being dunked on by everyone else. I’ll go through each, scream about my feelings about them, and why they need to change.

First, the babe hunt scenes. I don’t have much of a problem with this trope to be honest, I just think it could be done better in some games. I actually think the one in P3 was quite funny, because the group treated it like an “operation” which added a bit to humor. Truth be told, I was just a bit disappointed in P3P FeMC route when you didn’t have your own version of the “babe hunt” thing. I know Yukari and Mitsuru aren’t the types to go hunt for boys, but perhaps the MC could have suggested it as a fun idea. In P4, this scene happens in Okina and largely remains the same as the P3 formula, but I think it lacks just a bit of the humor that the P3 one had. Lastly, in P5 this scene happens during the beach trip but compared to the others it’s pretty...lackluster?

It shows a montage of Joker, Ryuji, and Yusuke talking to girls but no actual dialogue goes on. After talking to three or so, Yusuke disappears and this is when Joker and Ryuji meet the two “flamboyant” men again. This time, the men either chase them down or call after them (?) depending on if you’re playing Vanilla or Royal. I don’t like how they use these men in the first place, but on top of that it kind of takes the “babe hunt” out of “babe hunt” if you don’t actually...hunt for babes? Like no actual dialogue is spoken when trying to convince the girls, which was most of the fun in the other scenes. You don’t even have free reign to walk around at the beach, and the scene is formatted in a more cutscene type of way. It just makes P5′s babe hunt fall flat in many ways, and overall I finished the scene with a strong “meh.” The only good things about this was watching Makoto and Ann defend themselves and Yusuke with the lobsters.

Now for the hot springs scenes....hoo boy.

Simply put, in my opinion, these scenes suck ass in almost all of the games. P3 is the least egregious in my opinion, for a couple reasons. First is that it shows that Junpei and Ryoji were kind of trying to peep on the girls, and Akihiko and MC were just dragged into it. They have some funny dialogue, and in FES and Portable they even included the option to try and evade the girls. I found the little evade minigame to be really fun, even though every time I can’t help but fail because I want to say “It was a cat!” I find it interesting that there is the option for the men to get off scott-free, and that their dialogue after the trip is over changes slightly because of this.

On the FeMC side, I also find it fun that you have the reverse of the minigame and actually seek out the boys. My only letdown with this entire scene is if the boys are caught. I get it, it’s supposed to be funny with Mitsuru executing them and such, but as a reasonable person with a brain it seems really dumb to me that Mitsuru would just punish all of them when it’s just Ryoji and Junpei’s fault? This is nothing against Mitsuru, but her actions just seem so...exaggerated for some reason? Like Mitsuru is usually smart, and even if she is embarrassed I don’t get why she would punish innocent party members. A huge disappointment for me was that the FeMC isn’t able to stop Mitsuru from doing this either. Not even a choice to try and encourage Mitsuru or discourage her (so both options would be available). You just kinda sit there and watch, even after Akihiko say “It was a misunderstanding!” or something. For me it was especially strange because MC was dating Akihiko at that point, so why wouldn’t I try to hear him out? Just struck me as kind of dumb.

If I thought that was dumb, P4 and P5 were out to really make me roll my eyes and sigh in disappointment. Unlike P3, which has most of the scene being pretty good besides the very end where Mitsuru punishes the boys, the P4 and P5 scenes are all bad. This is not the first time anyone has said it, and won’t be the last, but they aren’t funny scenes in the slightest.

In P4, it’s actually the girl’s fault that they’re in the hot springs when the boys walk in. They stayed over their allotted time and into the time when boys are supposed to be in there. So what do they do? Get flustered, yell at them, and throw buckets at the group. Oh, and they don’t listen to the boy’s protests at all. Really.

Who thought this was a good idea?? The girls even realize after that they were in the wrong, say they should apologize, but I don’t think they ever show a scene of them apologizing after. This whole scene, like the hot springs ones in general, are just exaggerated (ie. throwing masses of buckets) to be funny, but they really fail in my opinion. It just serves to make the player kinda angry (since they’re usually on the receiving end) and make the girls look wildly unrealistic and dumb. I have never really thought that needless physical abuse is funny, so these scenes are just the bane of my existence apparently.

There actually isn’t a hot springs scene in P5, but they did add one in Strikers.

If they wanted to still do these scenes, maybe they could switch from making it “just beat up the boys” into something else. For example, the girls could try to peep, or walk in on the boys. Equality y’all, sometimes girls can do those things too (but still don’t beat them up. Just don’t beat anyone up). If none of that happens, or maybe that’s how the scene ends, the rest of the scene could just be a chill, relaxing scene between those involved. Essentially, how the scenes go before the whole “lets beat up the boys” thing comes in.

Lastly, on basically the same vein as why I don’t like the hot springs scenes, I’m starting to get real sick of the “let’s shit on this one character” trope. In Persona 3, I don’t think it’s that bad because they kind of do it with Junpei but they also give him a lot of character development, and eventually the sort of hostile shitting on him turns into just gentle teasing.

For P4 I still don’t think it is too bad, because Yosuke is kind of the one being shit on but he also does the same to the other people in the group? I suppose the only thing that really sticks out to me is how Teddie abuses Yosuke’s wallet (making him buy/pay for a lot of stuff with his hard earned cash), but I also don’t like Teddie at all in the first place so I may be biased about him. Oh well, he still shouldn’t do those things and I don’t really find it funny but to each their own.

However...this problem walks and rocks the fucking runway in Persona 5. Namely, this happens with Ryuji. The most obvious aggressor in this is Morgana, because him and Ryuji butt heads so often, but the other thieves kind of do it as well. Obviously they don’t do this all the time, but it’s extremely frustrating when they do. Morgana getting into arguments with Ryuji at the drop of a hat get old very quick, and the other thieves poking a bit of fun about how dumb Ryuji can be is also not that riveting. Despite all of that, the scene that highlights all of this is the scene after Shido’s palace collapse.

You all knew this was coming, but I couldn’t resist talking about it. The scene is so tone deaf in so many ways that it takes away all of the emotional impact that they were trying to build. Even the first time I watched this scene, in which I didn’t think they would kill off Ryuji, I could still sympathize with the group being concerned about him. Then when he shows up they...just beat him up and leave him unconscious next to a pole while they walk away? Wow.

On all subsequent playthroughs I just skip this scene, but I truly cannot understand why that was the angle they went for. Were they trying to insert some humor right after an emotional scene? That can be done in certain cases, but....why??? It’s so unbelievable it’s almost laughable. It’s not even like the bath scene where the the girls think the guys are trying to peep on them. It’s simply because he survived which I assume is what they wanted!

“Oh no you made us thought you were dead (even though he didn’t because he couldn’t control any of this), we’re going to beat you up!” Now you just make the characters look like irrational idiots.

Seriously Atlus, stop doing this. In most cases it just serves to make the player kind of frustrated, and in this case it it literally takes all of the emotional weight out of the scene and makes me think worse of the entire female cast. Please. Stop.

Well that’s the end of that. I don’t think I said anything too revolutionary, although my opinions about the social links and characterization might get me some flak. I just want the characters to be more than one personality trait... This was a really long post again, so kudos to whoever made it to this point!

Next time, on Dragon Ball Z Casual’s pointless posts: something Persona related :)

#long post #persona 3 #persona 3 portable #persona series #persona 4 #persona 5 #persona 5 royal #p3 #p3p #p4 #p5 #that's a lot of p's #ready to get shit on for my opinions #but maybe just ask me first before doing so #who's ready to play persona 6 when it comes out and be slightly disappointed #I am!#but I'll still like it because it's persona

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renjunvinates · 4 years ago

Text

Radio Days

summary: a short internship as a radio host but you didn’t expect to fall in love?

genre: radiohost!Jaehyun, stranger to lover, fluff

pairing: jung jaehyun x reader

word count: 3680

Day 1:

You were chosen to be an intern radio host for a month and a half, along with someone else, you didn’t know who the other person was, but you didn’t really care also. As long as you were chosen then that's all that matters. You walked into the radio broadcasting room and saw a really cute boy. He smiled at you with his dimples appearing, you blushed and looked away.

“(Y/n) this is Jaehyun! The other radio host that was also chosen, from now on you guys will be working together for a month and a half, I hope you guys get along very well!” The manager said.

He grabbed, walked towards you and smiled and reached out his hand, “My name’s Jaehyun, pleasure to meet you, I look forward working with you,” He smiled.

You took your hand out and shook it and smiled at him, “Nice to me you Jaehyun, my name is (y/n) and I look forward to working with you too!” You smiled brightly.

Your heart was beating fast, because he was really cute, you felt like your cheeks were on fire and beating red, you were hoping he wouldn't notice or couldn’t tell.

“Okay great! Let’s get you guys started, I will show you guys everything and how things are worked around here, if you guys have any questions please let me know,” The manager said.

We both nodded and looked at each other and smiled and continued to follow our manager showing us the controls and how everything worked in the broadcasting system.

Day 6:

Five days have passed and you and Jaehyun have gotten to know each other, you tend to act really nervous around him still because you can’t help but think he’s really cute. You’re convinced it’s a small crush because of how cute and attractive he is, but you pushed it aside because you assume he has a girlfriend or is interested in someone else.

“Are you ready to go live?”Jaehyun asked.

“Yeah, are you?” You joked.

“Always ready,” He winked.

Your heart raced and you couldn’t help but have shaky and sweaty hands. The radio broadcast started and you and Jaehyun were live. Luckily, being on the radio made you feel at ease because once you were live, all of your worries went away.

Day 12:

You and Jaehyun have started spending more time together outside of the radio hosting internship and it felt nice, before the radio hosting you guys would get coffee together and walk on your way together to the broadcasting. Sometimes you guys would grab lunch together and discuss ideas and topics on what you guys should talk about on the next airing.

“Sorry to get sidetracked but besides radio hosting what else do you like to do?” Jaehyun asked.

“Nothing, I think maybe reading or drawing, I like to binge Netflix shows too when I have a lot of free time too,” You laughed.

“Me too!” He smiled.

“What about you, what does the star Jaehyun do in his free time?” You asked.

“I just sit home watch videos and sing and listen to music,”

“Oh?” I raised an eyebrow, “You like to sing? You should sing on the broadcast,”

“Never going to happen,” He blushed.

You looked at him and saw his ears turning super red and noticed he was getting embarrassed and your heart melted. Jaehyun was too cute, and you fell hard and felt ridiculous for this.

“I have an idea! Let’s watch a netflix series together and review it and then talk about tv shows and movies tomorrow?” He suggested.

“So you want Netflix and Chill?” You joked.

“Not like that!” His ears turned red again.

“I’m joking, besides I wouldn’t want some girl to come after my neck,”

“Some girl?”

“I mean, I don’t want your girlfriend to get on my ass for watching Netflix with you,”

“I don’t have a girlfriend,”

“Oh, my bad, I just assumed,”

“Assumed what,”

“You had a girlfriend, I don’t know,”

“I don’t,”

“Oh okay, my bad, sorry,”

“It’s no big deal, besides I’m not seeing anyone right now, so you don’t have to worry,”

“That’s a relief, anyways yeah I’m fine with that, your place or mine?”

“Yours? I live with roommates and they can be quite annoying,”

“Fair enough, okay. I gotta get going, I’ll text you the address and see you then,”

You got up and waved goodbye to him and left, your heart was beating fast and you felt like it could burst at any moment. Jaehyun was coming to your place which meant you had to tidy things up or else you would be seen as a mess.

Day 20:

After the whole Netflix hangout, things between you and Jaehyun have gotten closer and better, it's now tradition to have Netflix marathons every night just for fun and also could help to talk about on the radio. You guys started hanging out more and more just for fun and not because of internship, and at this point you have to admit to yourself, you’ve fallen for Jaehyun and there’s no going back.

Day 27:

“Hey (y/n)! Are you going to the party that Johnny’s hosting?” Taeyong asked.

“Probably not? Parties aren’t my thing and you know that,” You smiled.

“Yeah I heard Jaehyun’s going to be there too,” Taeyong smirked.

“So what?” You laughed.

“So, that means you should go, don’t you like him?”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean anything, besides he doesn't even like me, we’re just friends and radio host, remember,”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I just know,”

“You should still go,” Taeyong pouted.

“I’ll think about it,”

You drove home and plopped onto the couch and turned on the TV, it was 6pm already, and you were still thinking about whether or not you should head to the party. You weren’t really a fan of parties because there were too many people, and you weren’t a fan of seeing drunk people, and also loud places gave you a headache. Your phone rang and you noticed that it was Jaehyun who called you.

“Hey?” You answered.

“Sorry to call you, but is it okay I swing by?” He asked.

“Aren’t you heading to the party? To Johnny’s?” You asked.

“You mean the party at my place? Yeah, I didn’t even know this was happening, I wanted to study and get homework done, but it’s too late,”

“You live with Johnny?”

“Yeah, he’s one of my roommates unfortunately,” He joked.

“I see, yeah, feel free swing, by. I was actually thinking heading over to the party but never mind,” You laughed.

“Nah, there’s nothing great about this, I’ll be over in 10,”

“Okay,”

You hung up the phone and smiled, you were happy that you decided to not go to the party, and that was when Taeyong texted you, “I heard Jaehyun was heading over to your place, be safe (;” you rolled your eyes and replied back to him, “Oh my god, shut up, he’s coming over to do homework and study, keep dreaming,” You tossed your phone away and then Taeyong replied back, “I think you need to dream, anyways have fun!!”.

You smiled at Taeyong's silly messages and heard the doorbell ring, you ran to your door and opened and saw Jaehyun carrying take out food. You smiled at him and he walked inside the door and set the food down.

“I assume you haven’t eaten, so I bought food,” He smiled.

“You’re right, thanks Jae,” You said, but then realized you called him something else, “I mean Jaehyun,” You said while flustered.

“You can call me Jae, it’s okay. I don’t mind,” He chuckled.

You smiled at him and he smiled back, and there it was again, his cute dimples appeared and you looked away to hide your bright red cheeks. These feelings were never going to go away and you didn’t know what you were going to do. You walked away to grab the plates and utensils for the food, and after a few hours of eating and talking. You decided it was time for Jaehyun to study and do homework, he groaned and frowned but he knew better and proceeded to do so. You went to grab a drink and went towards your room to chill for a bit because you didn’t want to bother him.

After a few more hours past midnight, you wondered if Jaehyun was still awake or he had left yet, so you quietly opened your door to see if he was still studying at the dining table but all you could see was him slouching. You tip-toed over to his body and saw him sleeping in slumber, you didn’t want to wake him up, so you decided to get a blanket and put it over him. You also decided to set up the couch for him to sleep just, you brought out extra blankets and pillows for him and as you were setting them up you looked up and saw he had woken up.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up,” You apologized. “I set up the couch for you to sleep, you can spend the night, I don’t mind. It’s past 12 but according to Taeyong’s Snapchat stories people are still at your place,”

“You didn’t have too, it’s fine,”

“Don’t worry about it Jaehyun, it’s okay. I don’t really mind, besides you looked tired, Just stay the night and head home tomorrow morning,”

“Thank’s (y/n),”

“Anything for you Jae,”

Day 32:

A month has passed on your internship at the radio and you were starting to feel a bit sad over it, you were in the broadcasting room just going over the script and couldn’t help but frown.

“Hey why so glum?” Jaehyun frowned.

“We’re almost done with this internship,” You frowned.

“I know,” He pouted. “Don’t remind me, I wish this internship was longer,”

“I wished that too, but I’m glad I met you through this internship,”

“Me too,”

“Promise me something Jae,”

“Hmm?”

“We’ll still be friends after this internship right?”

“Of course! What are you talking about come on (y/n)! I’m a bit hurt you would think we wouldn’t be friends after this internship ended,”

“I just want to make sure, friendships mean the world to me!”

“Don’t worry, we’ll always be friends,”

“Ready to go live?”

You nodded and gave the producers the thumbs up as well as Jaehyun did, we smiled at each other and started to talk on the radio live. Today’s topic was about the upcoming love month February and it was super interesting learning that Jaehyun’s birthday was on Valentines day.

“So Jaehyun, it’s going to be the love month, do you have anything set in mind,” You asked on air.

“Not particularly, but probably just celebrating my birthday?” He answered.

“Oh? When’s your birthday?” You asked.

“You’re going to laugh and not believe me,” He joked.

“Oh come on, I’m sure everyone wants to know the Jung Jaehyun’s birthday,”

“Fine, fine, it’s February 14th,”

“No way!” You laughed. “Aw! Your birthday is on Valentines Day! That’s so cute,”

“It’s really not,” His ears turned red.

“So is there anyone special in mind then? Spending that special day of yours?”

“No, not really, although… ah nevermind there will be another day for that,”

“Oh come on, is there someone out there?”

“Maybe, but we’ll see. What about you (y/n)?”

“Me? Nothing special on this month,”

“Oh? Why not? I’m sure you have someone in mind you want to spend time with,”

“Hmm not really,”

“Are you lying to me, or possibly to the whole world?”

“Maybe? Maybe not? Let’s just say… I don’t think they have me in mind and so it doesn’t matter,”

“Oh come on! I’m sure there’s many people out there would want to be with you,”

“Maybe, but there’s only one person that I want, but it’s okay, now what about you mr. vague, who’s the lucky girl, I’m sure everyone listening is very curious,”

“She’s really kind and cute, but I don’t think she’s interested in me, I think she likes someone else,”

‘Well that girl is missing out then! I hope you get her though!”

“We’ll see,”

“And that’s the end of this broadcast, see you guys tomorrow!”

Day 40:

After that radio broadcast about Jaehyun talking about who the lucky girl was, you were very awkward, on edge, and sad, because you were wishing it was you. Lately you’ve been trying to avoid him even though it hurts your heart because you were afraid the more time spent, the more you would get attached and be broken hearted.

“Hey (y/n) are you busy today?” Jaehyun asked.

“Yeah, I actually have something to do with family,” You replied.

“Oh okay… it seems like we haven’t been spending much time together as before? Did I do something wrong?”

“Oh, of course not! Sorry Jae, there’s something going on with family things,“You lied.

“Oh… do you want to talk about it?” He asked.

“No, it’s okay. There’s no need to worry about me, things will be okay,”

“Oh okay, then I’ll see you tomorrow then!”

“Yeah, I’ll see you later Jae,”

You left the broadcasting room feeling sad and hurt for lying to Jaehyun, but you knew better to keep your distance because you were trying to protect yourself from a broken heart.

Day 45:

Today is Valentines Day, the day you’ve been trying to avoid and well just hoping your heart doesn’t break too much.

“Alright are we ready to go live today? Today’s a special day so let’s be positive and happy,” The manager cheered.

You smiled and nodded as well as Jaehyun did, the manager gave you the signal and the live sign went on.

“Hello students of SM High, today’s the day you’ve been all waiting for! That’s right guys, today’s Valentine’s Day everyone, and you all have my blessings,” You smiled.

“She’s right, you guys have my blessings also, today’s the day where we all share love with our significant others! And to the people who don’t have someone, it’s okay!” Jaehyun said.

“Jaehyun’s right! It’s okay to have no one,and it’s okay to be single guys! There’s no rush to things! But speaking of that! Jaehyun, any advice to the listeners who are single?”

“Right! Just to let you guys you’re not alone! If it makes you feel any better I’m on the same boat with you guys! But to be honest even if it’s the day to celebrate with your significant other, it's still the day that shares love! So share the love to your friends and your loved ones and tell them how much you appreciate them!”

“Agreed, today is essentially the day where we spread love! Again it’s okay to not have someone by your side because I’m on the same boat too!”

“The guy didn’t confess to you?”

“More like, I think he likes someone else. What about you Jaehyun? Did you confess to the girl?”

“Nah, I don’t think it’ll work out, I don’t think she feels the same way,”

“Well that’s a shame. I bet you received many chocolates,”

“I did, but chocolates never my thing,”

“Oh! That’s right!! Happy Birthday Jaehyun!”

“Thanks (y/n), I honestly forgot it was today,”

“Anything special planned then birthday boy?”

“Maybe just dinner with roommates?”

“Sounds fun!”

“What about you (y/n)? Did you get any chocolates?”

“Me? Nah, but I don’t care as much,”

During your talk with Jaehyun you felt a bit relieved that he didn’t confess to the girl, but also felt bad that the girl didn’t feel the same way, you were hoping it was you, but there was still no way it was you. After the broadcasted ended, a bunch of staff showed up in the room with a surprise cake for Jaehyun for his birthday. Everyone sang happy birthday to him and wished him a good happy birthday, and after a couple minutes everyone had left and it was just you and Jaehyun.

“So dinner with the roommates for your birthday?’ You asked.

“Yeah, it’s nothing too special, Johnny wanted to throw a party, and well we both know parties are not my thing,” He replied.

“That’s cute though,” You laughed. “Your roommates wanting to throw you a party,”

“Yeah, but I’m good, do you want to come over for dinner too?”

“Are you sure?”

“I don’t mind, plus we’re celebrating my birthday! I would love for you to come,”

“Yeah, okay. I’ll be there then, let me go drop off my stuff and I’ll see you there,” You smiled.

“Okay, I’ll let the boys know you’ll be there!”

Your heart was beating fast, you forgot to buy Jaehyun a present. You lied about dropping off your stuff and drove straight to the store to figure out what to buy him. It was hard choosing a present for Jaehyun considering you didn’t really know what he liked. You saw a microphone speaker on sale and decided to buy him that, you remembered that he liked to sing, so you thought it would be a great present.

You arrived home and you didn’t know what to wear, should you wear something casual or fancy? You were stressed and panicking, you took what look mixed both and left the house and drove to his place. His roommates opened the door and welcomed you in. When you all entered they all looked at you intensely and you felt very awkward.

“So you’re the famous radio host (y/n),” Johnny asked.

“I wouldn’t say I’m famous,” I replied.

“I don’t know, Jaehyun’s always talking about you,” He smirked.

“He does?” You asked.

“Yeah, it’s probably because he likes you,” Jungwoo said.

“Yeah, there’s no way, he said the girl didn’t like him so he didn’t confess so I don’t know what you guys are talking about,”

“That’s weird, he’s always talking about you,” Jungwoo replied.

Your heart was racing and you felt your face heat up, there was no doubt that you were blushing at this moment. You were thinking to yourself and wondering why Jaehyun would talk about you, and you felt no reason why he would talk about you because you’re not very close with him.

“Hey (y/n)!” Jaehyun appeared.

“Jaehyun!” You stood up and gave him a hug.

“Sorry, I had to do something,” He said.

“It’s no problem. Here,” You said while giving him the present bag. “Happy birthday,”

“You didn’ have to get me anything,” He smiled.

“It’s your birthday you deserve something!”

“Oh my god! You didn’t have to get me this!” He said with excitement.

“I hope you like it! I remember you told me you liked singing,” You smiled.

“I love it! I’ve actually always wanted this,”

“Well now you have it!”

Jaehyun’s roommates were staring at you and smirking, they all knew something was up but luckily they didn’t say anything about it.

The night went by smoothly, you celebrated the birthday with him and his roommates and it seemed like he was enjoying his time. Hours had passed and you decided it was time to head home. Jaehyun offered to take you home, but you rejected and told him it was okay, he frowned and still insisted. You gave in when he gave you his cute puppy eyes while pouting.

“So did you enjoy today?” You asked.

“I did. It’s actually one of the best birthdays I’ve ever had,” He smiled.

“Well, I’m glad. I still find it so weird that your birthday is on Feb 14,” You chuckled.

“Yeah, I find it weird too. So, did you end up confessing to the guy you like?” He asked.

“Nah, I don’t think he feels the same way,”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because I heard he wanted to confess to someone else,”

“Oh… Were you hoping it was you?”

“I… yeah… just a little bit, but it’s okay. What about you? Were you hoping for the girl to confess to you?”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t seem like she likes me,”

“Well that’s a shame, I think you should tell her, you never know,”

“Maybe… What about you? Maybe you should tell him too,”

“I’m not the type to confess, it’s okay Jae,”

“What about this… we both text the person we want confess too, let’s just start with a simple “hi” as a text,”

“I don’t about that,”

“Come one, it’s just a simple ‘hi’ besides we can back out if we both are nervous…”

Your hands were shaky and sweating, you weren’t for sure if this was a good call, all you knew was there was a high chance your heart would be broken and there would be no turning back and this friendship could be ruined, but you really liked Jaehyun. You prayed to the lords that love and luck was on your side.

“Okay…” You nodded.

“Okay, ready,” He asked while he pulled out his phone.

You nodded and took out your phone also, you both looked at each other and nodded, you clicked on Jaehyun’s contact number and typed the words. You looked at Jaehyun again and then he counted down, and when he counted down, you closed your eyes and sent the message. You glared at your phone and looked at the text message and saw Jaehyun texted the same thing, and that's when everything clicked, you looked at him and he looked at you and smiled. He came in for a hug and you could feel tears coming out of your eyes, you hugged him tightly and started sniffing.

“Why are you crying?” He asked.

“I’m just overwhelmed, I didn’t think you like me back and I was scared to lose this friendship we have,” You sniffed.

“Well I like you, I like you alot,”

“I do too… Happy Birthday and Happy Valentine’s Day,”

“Thank you (y/n), thanks for making this day great, now let's go on a date,”

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daeunhye · 4 years ago

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How would Chel teach SF9 Bahasa Indonesia?

Note: this is not real yorobun~ this is purely my imagination because i honestly miss teaching foreigners and learning together with them :(

I'm not a teacher or professor, I'm just an ordinary person; a student. I have this experience as a teacher/lecturer's assistant in teaching Bahasa Indonesia for foreigners (Bahasa Indonesia Penturur Asing/BIPA).

please excuse me if i made mistakes because i'm struggling with resources and knowledge too hahahaha 🤣

enjoy!!!! ✨

1. Youngbin

At first he was asking me first that he wanted to learn Bahasa Indonesia because he heard that there were a lot of baby fantasies from Indonesia. so we're arranging a 12x meeting (2 times a week, 2,5 hours) and he will use the last 30 minutes to do a live broadcast to present what he learned that day.

I can imagine teaching him in a chill and fun way. He would like to take notes very diligently.

the lessons that i teach him is just like how Indonesians would speak/write usually (this is also because i'm not an expert lol). at the 12th meeting, i'll give him a quiz about everything that he learned. his score would be 75/100 and i'll give him a special gift which is Indonesia's traditional outfit: batik! :D

2. Inseong

Since he's already good in English, he wants to expand his language skill too. so he's asking me to teach him Bahasa Indonesia. lessons with him were also fun and filled with lots of laughter because we're both kinda "struggled" with our own language lol xD same as Youngbin, 12x meeting but with a bonus 6x meeting for an Indonesian song that he will cover so he needs extra lessons to master the pronunciation and the song itself.

At the end, he released the cover and I also gave him a special gift too! Since he loves food, I give him Indonesian traditional snacks. (i give it on the day he recorded the cover so the staffs can enjoy it too~)

3. Jaeyoon

this guy is using the chance to level up his "I Can" series hahahaha XD

other than just teaching him language, he also learned how to make something. such as making and decorating a kite, doing batik, making Indonesian traditional games, and cooking Indonesian food too!

also outside the series, we would do 12x meeting just like the others and i would give him a quiz at the last meeting~

When he completes the series and the lesson, I'm giving him a set of Indonesian traditional ceramic cutlery (tea set).

4. Dawon

He was interested in learning Bahasa Indonesia because he saw a trending topic on Twitter. everytime we're doing a lesson, he's always turning on the live broadcast on his Instagram. He would also ask Fantasy to give suggestions of what he should learn next because we don't have fixed lesson. he also tries various of Indonesian foods like the ones he saw on TV. one day, on his usual vlive broadcast, I surprised him with a quiz. He wasn't prepared but he did his best doing it. he got 77/100 and Fantasy were flooding the comment section praising him and his skill.

as an appreciation (and because i love to spoil everyone too), i give him Ulos (Ulos is the traditional cloth of the Batak people of North Sumatra in Indonesia.)

5. Rowoon

He saw a movie recommendation and turned out it was an Indonesian movie so he asked me to explain the movie for him. He then became interested to learn Bahasa Indonesia. as usual, 12x meetings but without a fixed schedule because he's busy with his drama filming. The lessons are mostly outside the company like a restaurant or cafe. At the end of the lesson, I give him a mini quiz and also some notes for him to learn at home.

lessons with him is super fun! he's full of curiosity but not in annoying way~ he give me the vibe of my thesis advisor but more chilled and of course more handsome~

In our last meeting, we had the final quiz and he decided to turn on live broadcast while doing the quiz. He also accepted challenges from Fantasy such as re-enacting an Indonesian dialogue from a movie, etc.

because i love to spoil everyone with a gift (they've worked hard~ 🥺🥺) so my gift for him is the famous Luwak coffee.

6. Zuho

He just suddenly asks me to give him Bahasa Indonesia lessons because he wants to communicate better with the fans. since he's also a musical genius, i give him the idea of writing a song using some words in Bahasa Indonesia. he was so excited so he announced this news although our lesson hasn't been started 😅

In this case, we mainly focus on the words or sentences or sayings that are commonly used in Indonesia. Just like Dawon, he's doing a live broadcast while doing our lesson and he tries to write the lyrics (with Fantasys help too~).

when the song is complete, he's releasing it on his soundcloud. My gift for him is Indonesian traditional musical instrument: Angklung (Angklung is a traditional music instrument from West Java, Indonesia. Angklung is played by shaking. More info: https://authentic-indonesia.com/blog/5-popular-musical-instruments-of-indonesia/)

7. Yoo Taeyang

Since he's a dancer, I thought he was just interested in dancing. but turns out he wants to learn the language. so he's taking a course in Indonesian traditional dance and also learning Bahasa Indonesia with me. his dance lesson would be on the weekend, but the language lesson with me is set on a flexible schedule with 12x meetings including a mini quiz every end of the meeting and some notes for him to learn at home. In the end, he uploaded a video of him doing the dance and also introducing the dance using Bahasa Indonesia. Bonus: he covered an Indonesian song too!

The gift that i'll give to appreciate his hard work is a set of Beskap (Sundanese traditional clothes, more: https://greatnesia.com/sundanese-traditional-clothing/)

8. Hwiyoung

He read a pickup line comment using Bahasa Indonesia and he wanted to try to learn it. At first he just focused with those pickup lines or funny sayings but as time went by he grew interested to learn more. so he asked me to teach him. our lessons are mostly learning sentences and breaking it down word by word to know the meaning. We don't have any fixed meetings or schedules because he learns when he wants to or if he has time. although our lessons aren't that often, he's showing very good progress and the result is good too! He knows some Indonesian jokes too so he threw it to his members and Fantasy too because he said it's really fun.

in the end i give him a traditional wooden carving figure~

9. Chani

He was clueless because suddenly his members were combining Korean words with Indonesian. this time, i offer him the lessons myself. he excitedly said yes to the offer and prepared a lot just like a formal course 😅 same like Youngbin, i can see Chani is taking notes well and he's passionate in learning new things. and like Rowoon, this boy is also full of curiosities! He's the fun type of student that seems not serious but actually gives his best.as usual, 12x meetings with quiz at the end~ in this case, the quiz is given from the members. so they pick up to 3 questions and I will be combining it all as Chani's final quiz. Surprisingly, he got the highest score which is 80/100. now he can understand what the hyungs are saying hahahahah 🤣 I'm giving Chani a bracelet made from pearl originally from Lombok. (more about the South-sea Pearl: https://www.thejakartapost.com/travel/2019/03/16/home-to-south-sea-pearls-lombok-encouraged-to-sell-educational-tourism.html)

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buzzdixonwriter · 4 years ago

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Tears In The Rain

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe…All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.”

-- Blade Runner (David Peebles & Rutger Hauer)

The radar screen manufacturers -- RCA, GE, and others -- started jonesin’ for cash when the end of WWII dried up all that sweat & easy military materiel money.

Commercial consumer television existed before WWII in England, the UK, and Germany but it was a super-expensive technology confined to a few very wealthy homes in a few select markets or in Germany’s case, public venues such as beer halls.

Radar screens and TV tubes were basically different applications of the same thing, so the radar tube manufacturers shifted their production to TV sets pitched to post-war consumers as the must-have status symbol.

Problem: Said TV sets needed something to show and while there was live national network and local programing, most early stations filled their air time with old movies / cartoons / serials / comedy shorts.

That was the cultural gestalt I and other boomers grew up in during the 1950s, an era when much of the on air media dated back to the 1930s.

I’ve always been more culturally observant and curious than others in my generational cohort, and while they blandly / blindly watched Bugs Bunny and Popeye and Betty Boop and Our Gang, I was asking my parents and grandmother and aunt about the odd details I saw in old media (it didn’t hurt that we had a beautiful art deco edition of Collier’s Encyclopedia that my grandparents acquired in the 1920s in the house as well).

As a result I knew far more about the Depression and Prohibition and war rationing and other major cultural events and touchstones prior to our generation than did most other boomers.

When our history and social studies textbooks finally introduced these topics in junior high and high school, I was already intimately familiar with them.

As a result, I fell in love with the Marx Brothers and continue to love them to this day.

And while I watched and re-watched The Three Stooges, once I discovered Laurel and Hardy I left Larry, Moe, Curly, Shemp, Joe, and Curly Joe behind.

But the thing is, to fully understand and appreciate and know and love the Marx Brothers, you have to understand the pop culture of their era.

The same applies -- to a lesser degree -- to Laurel and Hardy.

The key difference is that The Three Stooges are pure physical mayhem: There is nothing to understand.

They are imbeciles who inflict pain on themselves and one another, and while far, far inferior to Groucho / Harpo / Chico or Stan & Ollie, they will outlast them.

Anybody from any era or any culture can access The Three Stooges, but if you don’t understand a “gat” (short for gatling gun) is 1930s slang for an automatic pistol, then Groucho’s line upon seeing a automatic in a drawer with a pair of derringers -- “This gat’s had gittens” -- is absolute gibberish.

Likewise Laurel and hardy require some understanding of how American cultural values functioned in the 1920s and 30s; if you don’t get that, a lot of their humor is lost.

Our Gang / Little Rascals ages better because kids are kids and much of what they do is universal.

But even there much of their references have to do with the Depression or WWII rationing and scrap drives and if you don’t grasp that then those jokes zoom past you.

The situation isn’t confined to pre-WWII media, either.

The Marx Brothers and Laurel & Hardy might possibly be recognized by the current generation as something their parents and grandparents watched, but the Ritz Brothers are forgotten by all except those who specialize in comedy / pop culture history. Wheeler & Woolsey are even more obscure, and Olsen & Johnson obscurer still, and if you’ve ever heard of Lum & Abner my hat’s off to you.

And holy shamolley, those are just the comedians we’re talking about. There’s a whole universe of pop culture lost as fans of old B-Westerns die off, not to mention minor pop stars of music and small movies in the 1930s / 40s / 50s.

Silent movies have virtually disappeared from pop culture today; they are things of the past, historical artefacts.

Thanks to the Internet Archive and Project Gutenberg and Comic Book + and Digital Comics Museum and other sites, literally tens of thousands of hours of old radio shows and countless pulp magazines and comic books and other media are available, but who accesses them today except the truly die-hard genre fans or the pop culture historians?

Why morn their passing?

As Theodore Sturgeon famously observed, isn’t 90% of everything crap?

Yes, it is.

But that doesn’t make it any less of the cultural gestalt, the zeitgeist of the era than the few timeless gems that shine through.

. . .

As pop culture historian Jaime Weinman points out, the boomer generation -- the late 1940s to early 1960s -- offered a particularly fallow time for pop culture.

We enjoyed access to previous generations of pop culture, brought to us in curated form. Even if those curators were costumed local cartoon show and horror movie hosts, we got at least some understanding of what led up to our own generation.

Weinman observes that because of technical broadcast reasons, only a few avenues fell open to new programming -- and that new programming could be rerun again and again to fill in gaps in local stations’ air time.

It created a generation with remarkably deep pop culture roots, even if relative few members of that generation were aware of them.

We were, to some degree or another, aware of a vast library of older pop culture media and icons and idioms.

Ironically, this began changing in the late 1960s, slowly at first, but coming full flower in the mid-1970s as music cassette recordings allowed us to create our own playlists off radio shows and record players, and cable TV stopped being something for the hinterlands and started penetrating urban markets, thus literally uniting the country with first dozens then hundreds and a virtually infinite number of channels and streaming options.

But the real nail in the golden age of pop culture’s coffin was the introduction of home TV recordings and time shifting, meaning we no longer needed to wait for curated programing but could watch what we wanted when we wanted.

Despite a wider range of options, older material became less and less popular, and the lack of curation is a big part of that.

With nobody to supply some sort of context -- even goofy horror host context -- older examples of pop culture became less accessible.

The newer generations look less to the past, more to the future.

. . .

As I’ve written before, endings fascinate me.

Right now I’m seeing a generational shift with the boomer generation’s pop culture rapidly fading to be replaced by Generation Z and the generations to follow them.

I look at the boomer era and wonder how much will survive.

Very little, I’m afraid.

And that includes losing some of the best our era had to offer.

For example, how many people today know of The Firesign Theatre?

In the mid-1960s through the early 1970s, they performed absolutely brilliant satirical comedy on radio and recordings. Their album Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers received a Hugo nomination for best sci-fi drama presentation of 1970.

I still laugh when I hear their recordings -- but I laugh because I lived in that era.

Their humor relies heavily on topical subjects and the counter culture of the late 1960s-70s. They were very much a Southern California phenomenon…and thanks to radio and TV and movies of that era, that culture permeated the entire country.

But that era is gone, and now when I listen to them I laugh, but to use a specific example I laugh because I know who Ralph Williams was and what he meant to Southern California pop culture in that time.

You don’t get that, you don’t get the joke, and the brilliance of The Firesign Theatre’s humor is lost.

Like tears in the rain.

. . .

Cheech y Chong will survive, because like The Three Stooges, their appeal lies in their basic stupidity.

True, many of their routines make contemporary pop culture references, but material like “Dave’s Not Here” is timeless.

You don’t even have to get the drug references to find it hilarious.

Conversely, the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers will fade.

As characters, they are of a particular time and place: Hippie dippie San Francisco.

They can’t survive transplantation, as was demonstrated in their last few stories.

Now there’s an animated series that brings them from the swinging 60s to to Trump 20s and it just doesn’t work.

The creators Don’t Get The Joke.

I don’t blame them for failing to get the joke, but updating the Freak Bros. would be like updating the Marx Brothers.

It can be done, but only badly.

. . .

Music will always have musicians and buffs who will track every obscure item they can find, but a lot of the best and most innovative work will be forgotten by mainstream culture.

This is because in many case, the best musicians are way ahead of the rest of their field, and their innovations are only made palatable by others who take them up and reinterpret them in a way to make them accessible to contemporary audiences.

Frank Zappa, as much as I personally love him as a cultural icon, will fade fast after the last boomer dies.

Basically, he didn’t make singable music.

There are a lot of brilliant innovations in his work, but his lyrics are so idiosyncratic as to be impossible to cover.

That, and a lot of his lyrics and subject matter would not be comfortably acceptable today.

Yeah, when he did it he was trying to make a satirical point, but when modern audiences hear it, they don’t hear the sharp commentary on the culture of his time, they hear songs that seem to glorify sexual violence and racial bigotry.

Most of the people who decry so-called “cancel culture” today are hypocrites trying to justify their own offenses, but there will be creators and components of pop culture who simply aren’t going to make the cut.

I can show you on paper why radio’s Amos And Andy was a brilliantly written show.

You’re not going to get modern audiences to accept white actors doing blackface…or black voice.

Zappa is acceptable today because there are still enough people who get the joke.

When we’re gone, so are most of his songs (his instrumentals hopefully will live on).

. . .

Quentin Tarantino’s star is already starting to set.

His copious dropping of the n-bomb seemed daring and edgy in the early to mid-90s now seems boorish and tiresome.

People don’t want to listen to that, and how can you make them watch what they don’t want to watch?

The Hateful Eight might endure since it gives a sorta context for its racial animosity, ditto Django Unchained, but even they will be problematic due to Tarantino’s Red Apple universe -- a world similar enough to ours to be mistaken for it at first glance but ultimately completely different.

Inglorious Basterds will ultimately fail the history smell test by audiences who will perceive it as wildly inaccurate.

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood probably has the least problematic elements in it, but it too is so firmly set in a specific time and place that only those who lived it can truly appreciate it.

When we’re gone, who can follow the pop culture breadcrumbs that lead us through the movie?

Tarantino is a brilliant writer / director, and film students in the know will study his movies to see how he pulled them off…

…but they’re going to move far past him.

(He may enjoy a revival 50 years from now, the way certain film makers get rediscovered a half century after their deaths. If so, it will be by people able to see past the pop culture references to the real story beneath.)

. . .

Roger Corman and other exploitation film makers aren’t going to as welcomed once the boomer generation departs.

Boomers see them as transgressive artists, tweaking the nose of so-called respectable society.

New generations will see they as creeps who exploited violence and sexism.

(And we shouldn’t mourn its loss; most of it is soft-core pornography. But there were a few shining moments that shine only if you know the context, and that is fading fast.)

. . .

Superheroes probably won’t die out just as Westerns never completely died out, but like Westerns their audience is rooted in a very particular time and place.

I mentioned B-Westerns earlier; once upon a time there were literally dozens of B-Western stars, each with their own face base and merchandising and movies…

…and now there are no more B-Westerns.

We remember Roy Rogers because he’s culturally referenced elsewhere (and Gene Autry because he left a great big museum in his name).

B-Westerns’ success was based on fulfilling audience expectations, essentially giving the same thing they’d seen before, only slightly different.

Superheroes have degenerated into that.

In their current form, they’re deconstructions based on what a previous generation’s pop culture produced.

The superhero market has been supersaturated in the past and collapsed before.

This time when it collapses it will take along countless near-identical characters and storylines.

What emerges from it will be as different from the current iteration of superheroes as The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly was from My Pal Trigger.

. . .

Likewise, if James Bond is to survive, there will be a drastic retooling of the property.

It is possible; Sherlock Holmes has been retooled often.

The original Connery Bonds, the ones we consider to be “iconic” will eventually be viewed as an embarrassment.

The world and its attitudes are changing, and while there will always be room for heroes, audiences will be a bit more discerning about which heroes they want.

The attitudes of the original Bonds will not fly with future generations.

. . .

Finally, one prospect that will make it into the future, though not necessarily on its own strengths, no matter how significant they are.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 has skewered pop culture via bad movies since 1988.

Supported by a legion of fans, there are several books and websites that annotate all the references found in the various MST3K series.

Scholars 500 years in the future will thank these fans and researchers for their efforts.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 and its various annotated spinoffs will be the Rosetta stone of 20th century pop culture.

It will provide a context to make the jokes understandable, but more importantly than that, it will open a window into what people were thinking and feeling in the last decade of the 20th century.

It and the films it spoofed will be studied with near Talmudic intensity (you think I jest; I do not). They’ll provide insight that will help future generations and cultures understand this one.

#Once Upon A Time In Hollywood #Wheeler and Woolsey #Lum And Abner #The Ritz Brothers #The Firesign Theatre #The Marx Brothers #Laurel And Hardy #Frank Zappa #Olsen And Johnson #Our Gang #Little Rascals #The Three Stooges #Groucho Marx #Harpo Marx #Chico Marx #Stan Laurel #Oliver Hardy

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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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Battle of the Episodes: Celebrity Deathmatch: Rockstarmageddon Vs When Animals Attack

Hello all you happy people! And welcome to a minty fresh new segment on the blog cooked up by longtime fan and friend of the blog weirdkev27, named by me: BATTLE OF THE EPISODES! In this new segment I take two similar episodes from a show or franchise and put them up against one another and see which ones better. He pitched the idea to me for something he could do, he had two patreon reviews free so I suggested why not do it in April and here we are!

Before I begin I will admit I’d forgotten PieGuyRulez had done a similar idea with his podcast ReCast, which I’d never seen and only vaugely heard of. However I feel what i’m doing here is still diffrent enough to keep doing, I have nothing but respect for the guy, and I promise to not do any topics he’s done. If you have any suggestions for this new segment, i’d love to hear them. I already have another one in mind for when I have a free moment on the schedule that I simply didn’t get around to next month.

But for our innugural contest, Kev being the one who pitched it picked the show and it’s a show i’m only passingly familiar with as I did see bits of it growing up: Celebrity Deathmatch. Celebrity Death Match was a late 90′s and early 2000′s tv show on MTV with a revivial on MTV2. It was born both out of a short done for MTV’s Cartoon Sushi, their equilvent of Oh Yeah Cartoons! and What a Cartoon, pitting Charles Manson against Marilon Manson, and that short was popular enough to lead to a special after the superbowl. Said special ended up being the highest rated progam MTV had broadcast at the time, so naturally it got a four season series.

The premise is exactly what it says: two celebrties battle it to the death in goofy claymation fights, one shall stand, one shall fall. Meanwhile our hosts Johnny and Nick banter and set up the fights, talk to interviewers etc. It’s essentially a combination of wrestling and celebrity mockery, and unsuprisingly given MTV’s teen audience who loved pop culture and a bit of the ultra violence it was a massive hit.

The show later got a revivial a few years after it ended on MTV2, which fans often derided and which I saw more of as I was watching MTV2 at the time... look i’m not proud of the fact i watched “Where My Dogs at?” and i’m even less proud I watched “The Adventures of Chico and Guapo”. But with shows like that you can imagine how high quality the reboot was and how much fans flocked to it. Me I never took to either incarnation. I don’t HATE the show and do appricate it’s gorgeous claymation and copious use of Stone Cold Steve Austin. I love that beer drinking, hell raising, boss humliationg hellion, it’s just the combination of modern celebrity mockery, something that rarely ages well unless the joke is just funny on it’s own, and ultra violence never appealed to me as I was a pretty squeamish kid and teen.. i’ve grown out of that, but I just had no real desire to go back. It’s not a bad show but it’s not really one for me, but I get why i’ts well loved and popular.

But being a death match fan, and given the similar premisses, Kev picked this to be our inagural contest. Pitting the original against the reivvial. For this he went with two death match time machine episodes: the original’s finale rockstarmageddon and the revivial’s when animals attack. Each episode has it’s own unique theme within the general theme of a dead person versus their successor... and a very much alive person one or both of the hosts thought was dead versus their succesor as a joke: the first is about rockstars and their supposed imitators, the second is about putting two animal themed people against one another.

Each Battle of the Episodes will have diffrent comparisons as every show or franchise is different, comics are also open for this by the by. So for this one i’ll be comparing time machine use, the person explaning the machine, individual episode theme, the joke about one of the “dead” combatants turning out ot be alive, and each of the three matches. How many will also very, either 5 or 7 depending on how many talking points i have. So with that in mind LET’S GET READY TO RUMBLE under the cut and see which episode walks away a champion and which episode walks away a bloody pile of clay on the floor.

Doing the matches first as a lot of this stuff overlaps with the later bits.

Round 1: Lenny Kravitz Vs Jimmy Hendrix VS Horatio Sanz Vs Chris Farley Whelp this was a bad start to BOTH episodes as these matches are the worst of each episode and all 6 matches period. So it’s less which is better as both are a black hole of comedy.. and more which one sucks slightly less.

The Jimmy Hendrix vs Lenny Kravitz bout is just.. a black hole of comedy, It’s VERY clear the writers hated Kravitz but to me in 2020.. it just hasn’t aged well. I just don’t CARE about Lenny Kravitz. He had maybe one good song, are you gonna go my way, and that’s it. He was not good.. but he was an easy target for the time and an easily forgotten one now. It’s not smart, clever or even cathartic to watch him die. He’s also nowhere similar enough to Hendrix for the comparison to work: for one he had a vastly diffrent look most of the times and for another at most both played guitars and were not white. That’s it. It just dosen’t work.

The finisher here is just also... one of the objectively worst grossout bits i’ve seen in animation and i’m almost 30. That’s a LOTTTT of stupid gross gags that aren’t funny. The two vomit into each others mouths. Yes really. Not only is this really disprectful to hendrix death, as ODing on drugs is not something I really find funny nor the show makes funny, but it’s just.. horrifying to think about and gross and makes me want to , ironically enough, vomit thinking about. it’s just deeply unpleasant easily the worst thing i’ve encountered in my time reviewing so far, and it’s going to be a hard bar to clear. This match sucked and it left a bad taste in my mouth.

Now as for the Horatio Sanz vs Chris Farley Match...

I honestly have never seen Horatio Sanz that i’m aware of and unlike Kravitz who at least is mildly memorable if not a very good musician, Sanz has just been.. forgotten. I don’t know anything about him and once again it feels like the show punching down, picking an easy target versus a legend.

And speaking of easy targets the entire segment is just fat jokes. Just a ton of fat jokes. No really, it’s a battle of “Hog vs hog”, chris eats a lot and hte main joke is Chris Farley can’t stay alive long enough to fight. That being said while I find the joke in VERY poor taste, as Farley died of a heart attack and was a really good person and having his death be a punch line just bothers me.... I’ll admit it’s at least clever to have one of the death match time machine contestants come back again, and again, and again. It’s not Funny, it’s horrific.. but I can at least say they put in some effort ofr that one gag and given the horrifying lack of effort for the other match this one BARELY gets the W Winner: When Animals Attack:

Round 2: Shaggy vs Bob Marley VS Christan Bale vs Adam West

This one’s a no contest... seriously the gulf between jokes is wide and deep.

The Shaggy Vs Marley bout is the best of Rockstarmageddon. It’s funny, the target actually deserves being made fun of as Shaggy was a talent vacum and is memorably bad in comparison to Kravitz, so I still like seeing him get roasted, and they find a lot of funny jokes to do with Bob Marley. I only have a passing familiarity with the guy and while they do the obvious weed joke, they also have him ask for a tiny hammer or a small axe, beat shaggy with his dreads and after using a ring post to kill him, MAKING HIS REMAINS INTO A BONG (hilariously called a “legal novelty smoking device by the commentators). This match shows me why the show was popular: not every match was GOOD.. but the ones that were were creative and a joy to watch. While I sitll feel it’s mildly punching down, it’s funny enough I don’t care.

Bale Vs West just sucks both by comparison and just in general; The IDEA of having the current Batman at the time and the 60′s one duke it out is great.. but it’s very clear they didn’t like Batman begins nor have any actual christian bale jokes. While this was pre terminator rant and the much more iconic dark knight, if they didn’t have any good jokes , why do this. They just have nothing and are insulting a legitimately good movie instead of making anything funny and making cracks about everyone thinking Adam West is dead. More on that in a bit, but it’s just really not funny and really wasted my time... though West turning him into a batsignal of the cross was clever i’ll admit.

Winner: Rockstarmageddon

Round 3: Dave Matthews vs Keith Richards VS Jamie Fox vs Ray Charles

Another mistmatch.. but this time in the opposite direction.

Dave Matthews Vs Keith Richards sucks. While there are some good gags up top, we’ll get to that in it’s own section, the match itself just isn’t funny and I really don’t get comparing the stones to dave matthews band. the two bands aren’t remotely similar. The most clever it gets is Dave injecting Richards with his blood, which mellows him out but also revitalizes Richards. There’s a few good jabs at richards but otherwise just nothing of susbtance and like Kravitz Dave Matthews Band has been largely forgotten and unlike Kravitz or Shaggy, just doesn’t seem like as valid a target.

Fox vs Charles on the other hand was a great misdirect, changing his opponent and “punking” fox, forcing him to go from someone he was ready to throw down with to someone he rejects. There are way too many mr mcgoo style I’M BLINDDDDD gags, but Fox is a much more deserving target, and they had far more clever gags, with charles pulling out a cat o n grammys, and using a piano to finish Jamie. It’s nothing GREAT... but at least it’s actually funny and actually picked a good target for the time, if not one that has aged well.

Winner: When Animals Attack. 1 to 2

Round 4: Who Used the Time Machine Better?

Narrowly .. rockstarmageddon. While it had the same justification for it, the original taking on an upstart attempted replacement, the keith richards gag we’ll get to in a second is better than the farley gag for not being grossly insensitive and unfunny. But neither really use it well; Rockstarmageddon just uses it to mock artists they like and Animals uses it because the first one did. Neither really had a clever idea for it other than “get it this person sucks compared to that one.

Winner: Rockstarmageddon. 2 to 2

Episode Theme:

Similar to the time machine, this one comes down to which one had the better indvidual theme... and i’d have to say it’s Rockstarmageddon. It used the theme POORLY, but at least it both had an interesting idea, dead rock stars vs their successors in modern day, versus an easy one (animal matchups) it abandoned for the final match and used REALLY fucking insultingly in the first match. Seriously I don’t mind a WELL done fat joke, as an overweight guy myself, but this was just...

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In it’s purest form.

Winner: Rockstarmageddon 3 to 2

Special Guest:

Each episode had a guest for the time machine... and this one is again no real contest, Rockstarmageddon wins.

For Rockstarmageddon the show brought back frequent guest star , wrestling legend Stone Cold Steve Austin, who I enjoy and was indeed part of my childhood and star of many video games and one of my brother’s all time favorite wrasslers. The show contrasts his blue collar hellion image with him having made the machine, getting quantum mechanics and unlike nick getting that Keith Richards is dead. Austin clearly gets the show, is fully on board playing along and has fun escorting Hendrix back to the machine and getting his revenge on Nick for doubting him that Keith Richards was alive. He just fits perfectly into the show.

The revival.. could not get him, likely because he didn’t want to or saw the script and rightfully stone cold stunnered them, i.e. what he shoudl’ve done when Adam Sandler offered him Grown Ups 2. Seriously Adam why bring him in if he’s not going to do something wrestling related to you? This is why people don’t like your films. That and you keep giving your old buddy rob increasingly racist work. And david spade work. And nick swarsdon work. Please do keep giving Shaq work though he’s actually not half bad.

So instead they bring in Einstein and the joke.. is that he swears a lot and drinks a lot and pulls his pants down at the end.> That.. that’s it. I mean the original , at least the episode given to me, didn’t make a GREAT impression, but at least it was creative. The Reboot came off as shockingly lazy and half assed, with lesser voice actors for our hosts and far less effort put in and this is the biggest emblem of that. Soooo

Winner; Rockstarmageddon 4 to 2

Final Round: Their Not Dead

The final round is a short one and while the winner is already decided, might as well. Both episodes do a joke about one of the guests NOT being dead.. but once again Rockstar is more clever about it. Nick is CERTAIN Keith Richards is dead, and forces Stone Cold to bring him to the present... only for Keith to show up, and there be two keiths. One fades away due to time travel stuffs, a REALLy damn good gag, and Nick’s dogged instance he’s not dead despite everyone knowing he isn’t is just damn funny.

IN contrast all they have for the late great Adam West.. is insisting he’s dead. That’s it. that’s all they got. It’s not funny, it’s disprectful to Adam who while not an a list actor did a ton of stuff after batman. I mean the simpsons alone should shut them the fuck up...

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This one short gag is a MUCH better one than that entire 7 minutes. It was also DEEPLY uncomfortable now Adam’s passed. So naturally

The Winner of this Segment and Overall; Rockstarmageddon.

I wouldn’t say I LIKED either episode this go round, both had some pretty bad spots..but it’s very clear that while the original had it’s flaws, it was creative, had tons of energy, and a great voice cast. The revivial... has a good chris farley impersonator and that’s it. It’s very clear the people behind the reboot just don’t get the show and are doing the lazy bare minimum. While I didn’t LIKE most of the matches in Rockstarmageddon, I can at least respect the craftmanship: the animation, host jokes and energy is just BETTER. There’s a care and craft the revivial dosen’t have and the drop in quality is noticeable.

So yeah overall the original wins.. but the episode chosen clearly wasn’t it’s best. That being said both had some good moments, and I would be open to watching more if any one wants to comission it. This experiment has been intresting so let me know in the comments if you want to see more of these and i’ll see you at the next rainbow. And please join my patreon at patreon.com/popculturebuffet.

#celebrity deathmatch #lenny kravitz #jimmy hendrix #keith richards #dave matthews #shaggy #bob marley #adam west #christian bale #horatio sanz #chris farley #jamie fox #ray charles

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ladylooter · 4 years ago

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ladylooter’s guide to watching Lupin III

I was inspired by @despairfiles‘ guide to watching the Fate series as well as mutuals who have expressed interest in interacting with my Fujiko muse but were either completely unfamiliar with the Lupin III franchise or hadn’t seen any of the shows/movies/OVAs/TV specials in awhile. So I’m going to use this post to share my recommendations of where Lupin fans (and soon-to-be fans!) can start with the franchise. I’ll make a note first: these opinions are my own and there’s no ‘correct’ way to watch the various anime offerings. Some Lupin fans may disagree with me, and that’s great! Personally, I think there’s something in the Lupin fandom for every fan to enjoy, depending on your tastes. This is just my personal recommendation, based on the vast (seriously, a lot) of Lupin I’ve watched over the years.

But first, the basics:

Lupin the Third (often stylized as Lupin III) began as a manga in the 1960s by creator Monkey Punch. It spawned a media franchise featuring the manga, two pilot films, six television series, countless movies/OVAs/TV specials, video games, live action movies, a CG movie, and more. It stars Arsene Lupin III, the grandson of the original Arsene Lupin, who is considered the world’s greatest thief. He often teams up with the likes of Daisuke Jigen (expert marksman), Goemon Ishikawa XIII (expert swordsman), and on occasion, Fujiko Mine (expert seductress and betrayer). The four (though mostly Lupin), are constantly pursued by Inspector Zenigata of Interpol, who will stop at nothing to apprehend Lupin III.

A note about this guide: While the thoughts are my own, none of the images are. I tried to pull photos that represent the various recommendations I give here.

Where to watch: I’ll always advise to find legal copies of Lupin III shows and films. With so much content, there’s a variety of ways to watch. If you’re in the United States or have access to US-based streaming services, I’d recommend checking Hulu (Lupin III Part II is on there still, I believe) and Crunchyroll (Lupin III Parts I, II, III, IV and V are there). Movies and The Woman Called Fujiko Mine are a little more difficult to find nowadays, but you can often find out of print Funimation discs on secondhand sites as well as a variety of licensed Lupin movies from Discotek. But if you have your own means to track down content, I’m not going to judge you.

Onto the guide!

Part I - I’m completely new to Lupin III…

...And I only want to watch one movie to see if I like it!

If you only want to commit to one movie, I’d recommend choosing Lupin III Episode 0: The First Contact. Lupin as a franchise has negative continuity, so there’s multiple ways the cast meets and interacts with one another. First Contact does this in a very succinct fashion while not losing a lot of the more traditional, common Lupin tropes. You’ll be introduced to the main five characters, see some heists, and get an idea of what the franchise is (mostly) about.

In short, the plot revolves around a story Daisuke Jigen retells to a reporter about how Lupin and the gang first met. The main five members of the cast are also supplemented by interesting side characters (who aren’t just there to be plot devices. This happens a lot in the Lupin franchise unfortunately).

I really liked this! What do I watch next? Almost any of the movies/OVAs/TV specials you want, as well as Part II or Part IV. If you don’t mind a darker take on Lupin or with more questionable plots, then Part I or The Woman Called Fujiko Mine could be for you. But I’d suggest Parts II or IV if you want to watch a TV series.

...And I want to watch a few episodes! I love humor, wacky hijinks, and don’t mind older animation.

Look no further than Lupin III Part II! This Lupin series is what you may remember being broadcast on Adult Swim in the early 2000s. It consists of 155 episodes and aired between 1977-1980. But don’t worry, you do not need to watch all of them, or even watch them in order! Most plotlines are contained to one episode, so you can skip around and watch what you’d like. The content is light, most everything is focused around crime capers, and there’s a lot of humor and pop culture references (well, pop culture for the late 70s). Episodes 145 and 155 are particularly highly regarded as they were directed by pre-Studio Ghibli Hayao Miyazaki.

In short, the best way to figure out which episodes to watch are to read the titles or see thumbnails and see if it interests you. Or you can watch from the beginning, but that’s a lot of anime to go through!

I really liked this! What do I watch next? I’d recommend the two following movies: The Mystery of Mamo and The Castle of Cagliostro. Mamo was Lupin III’s first feature film and is a bit darker and mature in tone than Lupin III Part II (as well as some rough animation), but the plot is fantastic. Cagliostro is a classic, and Hayao Miyazaki’s first feature film. It’s just a great movie in general and has one of the best car chases in cinematic history. My only advice for Cagliostro? Know that the Lupin gang (especially Lupin and Fujiko) are far nicer and altruistic than their portrayals in other Lupin media. Watch it with the mindset of it being a Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli take on Lupin and being very family-friendly.

...And I want to watch a few episodes! I love heists and capers, but I prefer more contemporary animation.

You can’t go wrong with Lupin III Part IV! Also known as “The Italian Adventure,” this series takes place mostly in Italy and San Marino. It opens with Lupin’s marriage (yes, marriage) to Rebecca Rossellini, a wealthy heiress who has way more fun being a thief. It aired in 2015 in Japan and 2017 on Adult Swim’s Toonami block in the United States.

It has plenty lighthearted moments similar to Part II, but unlike Part II it does need to be watched in full. Some episodes are self-contained capers but there is an overarching story that spans the entire season. Luckily, it’s only 26 episodes. The animation is stunning, the main cast is very much reminiscent of the gang Lupin fans know and love, and Part IV also has the addition of a more consistent female member of the cast other than Fujiko in Rebecca (and the two play off each other rather hilariously!).

I really liked this! What do I watch next? You could watch the TV special Lupin III: The Italian Game, but a good amount of the film will rehash content from Part IV. Instead, I’d recommend watching Lupin III Part V. Taking place mostly in France, it’s the natural successor to Part IV. While you don’t see much of Rebecca, you do get another female member of the main cast named Ami. Part V also recently aired on Adult Swim’s Toonami block in 2019.

...And I want to watch a few episodes! I want to start at the very beginning to see how the characters have evolved and changed over time (and I don’t mind older animation).

Then you should start with Lupin III Part I. Originally broadcast in 1971-1972, it’s one of the interpretations that’s closer to the original manga. It was the first anime series in Japan with a mature feel and aimed at an adult audience, so don’t be surprised if there’s a bit more lewd humor and violence. There’s a lot more sinister organizations for the gang to rob and far less of an emphasis on the happy, upbeat Lupin portrayal that’s found in later installments.

I really liked this! What should I watch next? Lupin III: The Fuma Conspiracy. It still features green jacket (Part I, when it was released) Lupin and is overall a good movie. The Japanese dub of this will be a little jarring if you’ve watched other subtitled Lupin: the entire voice cast was changed for this specific movie only. Otherwise, I’d recommend checking out Lupin III Part II or The Woman Called Fujiko Mine.

Part II - I’m a returning fan to Lupin III...

...And I want to see a darker, grittier Lupin gang.

The Woman Called Fujiko Mine. You will not get a darker, gritter take on the Lupin franchise in anime than The Woman Called Fujiko Mine. Tone and design are very close to the original manga and it’s the only series that has Fujiko as the main character (I’m also a bit biased: this is one of my favorite contributions to the franchise). The 13 episode series details how Fujiko met Lupin, Jigen, Goemon, and Zenigata (gotta love the Negative Continuity!), and the various missions she undertakes while she tries to outrun her past.

You’ll get some very different characterizations for some of the main cast (especially Zenigata) and as the series is much more dark and adult in nature, it has copious amounts of nudity (mostly for Fujiko. She’s completely naked for the entire opening credits), drugs, alcohol, smoking, and implied sex (among other things that would be considered spoilers).

Literally. I cannot stress the nudity, drugs, and sex aspects enough for this show. It’s also the only entry into the Lupin III franchise to be directed by a woman. I’d say that if you’re a fan of Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo, you’ll likely enjoy this addition to the franchise.

I really liked this! What do I watch next? You’ll want to watch the trio of films meant to follow TWCFM and have a similar art style: Jigen’s Gravestone, Goemon’s Blood Spray, and Fujiko’s Lie. None of them necessarily reference the series, but they have similar tone and design and are meant as spinoffs/continuations. They’re all relatively short films (an hour or less). If you’re already pretty familiar with Lupin, don’t miss the shoutout to The Mystery of Mamo in Jigen’s Gravestone.

...And I want to see some great heists and overall fun that reminds me of Lupin III Part II!

Scroll up and see everything I wrote for Lupin III Part IV: The Italian Adventure. :) If you haven’t watched Lupin in awhile but love the red jacket era Lupin, you’ll want to start on Part IV. It has nicer animation with a similar feel.

...And I want to watch some movies/OVAs/Specials! What do you recommend?

Beyond everything already recommended on this list? There’s a lot of movies out there, but here are some of my favorites:

Generally good story/art contributions to the Lupin III franchise:

Tokyo Crisis

Dead or Alive (This was directed by Monkey Punch himself!)

Voyage to Danger

Island of Assassins

Alcatraz Connection

Green vs. Red (this one is good for fans who’ve seen quite a bit of the franchise already. It was made to celebrate Lupin’s 40th anniversary)

The Travels of Marco Polo ~Another Page~

Lupin III: The First (The newest addition and the first CGI Lupin III movie! It’s coming to theaters in the USA shortly and will arrive on blu-ray in January 2021)

So bad they’re good at times:

Farewell to Nostradamus (I’m biased towards this one for a reason. Also, the opening sequence is great)

The Columbus Files: Fujiko’s Unlucky Days (Look I’m here for amnesiac Fujiko and I admit it)

Dragon of Doom (Great if you like Goemon, a little basic otherwise)

So there you have it. I hope you enjoy getting into Lupin III!

#ladylooter musings #(probably the biggest OOC post I'll ever write on here)#(But I wanted to get it out of the way and linked in my pinned post for handy reference!)

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papermoonloveslucy · 4 years ago

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THE MARRIAGE LICENSE ERROR

January 21, 1949

“Marriage License Error” (aka “Marriage License”) is episode #27 of the radio series MY FAVORITE HUSBAND broadcast on January 21, 1949 over the Armed Forces Radio Network (AFN).

Synopsis ~ Liz and George find their marriage license and discover that instead of "George H. Cooper," it says "George C. Hooper." Now Liz is convinced that she and George aren't legally married!

Portions of this radio show served as the basis for “The Marriage License” (ILL S1;E26) filmed on February 28, 1952 and aired on April 7, 1952, on CBS-TV. On television, the Ricardo’s marriage license mistakenly read “Bicardi” instead of “Ricardo”.

“My Favorite Husband” was based on the novels Mr. and Mrs. Cugat, the Record of a Happy Marriage (1940) and Outside Eden (1945) by Isabel Scott Rorick, which had previously been adapted into the film Are Husbands Necessary? (1942). “My Favorite Husband” was first broadcast as a one-time special on July 5, 1948. Lucille Ball and Lee Bowman played the characters of Liz and George Cugat, and a positive response to this broadcast convinced CBS to launch “My Favorite Husband” as a series. Bowman was not available Richard Denning was cast as George. On January 7, 1949, confusion with bandleader Xavier Cugat prompted a name change to Cooper. On this same episode Jell-O became its sponsor. A total of 124 episodes of the program aired from July 23, 1948 through March 31, 1951. After about ten episodes had been written, writers Fox and Davenport departed and three new writers took over – Bob Carroll, Jr., Madelyn Pugh, and head writer/producer Jess Oppenheimer. In March 1949 Gale Gordon took over the existing role of George’s boss, Rudolph Atterbury, and Bea Benadaret was added as his wife, Iris. CBS brought “My Favorite Husband” to television in 1953, starring Joan Caulfield and Barry Nelson as Liz and George Cooper. The television version ran two-and-a-half seasons, from September 1953 through December 1955, running concurrently with “I Love Lucy.” It was produced live at CBS Television City for most of its run, until switching to film for a truncated third season filmed (ironically) at Desilu and recasting Liz Cooper with Vanessa Brown.

REGULAR CAST

Lucille Ball (Liz Cooper) was born on August 6, 1911 in Jamestown, New York. She began her screen career in 1933 and was known in Hollywood as ‘Queen of the B’s’ due to her many appearances in ‘B’ movies. With Richard Denning, she starred in a radio program titled “My Favorite Husband” which eventually led to the creation of “I Love Lucy,” a television situation comedy in which she co-starred with her real-life husband, Latin bandleader Desi Arnaz. The program was phenomenally successful, allowing the couple to purchase what was once RKO Studios, re-naming it Desilu. When the show ended in 1960 (in an hour-long format known as “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour”) so did Lucy and Desi’s marriage. In 1962, hoping to keep Desilu financially solvent, Lucy returned to the sitcom format with “The Lucy Show,” which lasted six seasons. She followed that with a similar sitcom “Here’s Lucy” co-starring with her real-life children, Lucie and Desi Jr., as well as Gale Gordon, who had joined the cast of “The Lucy Show” during season two. Before her death in 1989, Lucy made one more attempt at a sitcom with “Life With Lucy,” also with Gordon.

Richard Denning (George Cooper) was born as Louis Albert Heindrich Denninger Jr., in Poughkeepsie, New York. When he was 18 months old, his family moved to Los Angeles. Plans called for him to take over his father’s garment manufacturing business, but he developed an interest in acting. Denning enlisted in the US Navy during World War II. He is best known for his roles in various science fiction and horror films of the 1950s. Although he teamed with Lucille Ball on radio in “My Favorite Husband,” the two never acted together on screen. While “I Love Lucy” was on the air, he was seen on another CBS TV series, “Mr. & Mrs. North.” From 1968 to 1980 he played the Governor on “Hawaii 5-0″, his final role. He died in 1998 at age 84.

Ruth Perrott (Katie, the Maid) was also later seen on “I Love Lucy.” She first played Mrs. Pomerantz (above right), a member of the surprise investigating committee for the Society Matrons League in “Pioneer Women” (ILL S1;E25), as one of the member of the Wednesday Afternoon Fine Arts League in “Lucy and Ethel Buy the Same Dress” (ILL S3;E3), and also played a nurse when “Lucy Goes to the Hospital” (ILL S2;E16). She died in 1996 at the age of 96.

Announcer Bob LeMond is not heard in this episode as it is part of the American Forces Network and has a different announcer.

Gale Gordon (Rudolph Atterbury) and Bea Benadaret (Iris Atterbury) had not yet joined the cast as regular characters.

GUEST CAST

Frank Nelson (Joe Ridgley) was born on May 6, 1911 (three months before Lucille Ball) in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He started working as a radio announcer at the age of 15. He later appeared on such popular radio shows as “The Great Gildersleeve,” “Burns and Allen,” and “Fibber McGee & Molly”. This is one of his 11 performances on “My Favorite Husband.” On “I Love Lucy” he holds the distinction of being the only actor to play two recurring roles: Freddie Fillmore and Ralph Ramsey, as well as six one-off characters, including the frazzled train conductor in “The Great Train Robbery” (ILL S5;E5), a character he repeated on “The Lucy Show.” Aside from Lucille Ball, Nelson is perhaps most associated with Jack Benny and was a fifteen-year regular on his radio and television programs.

Doris Singleton (Hotel Biltmore Telephone Operator) created the role of Caroline Appleby on “I Love Lucy,” although she was known as Lillian Appleby in the first of her ten appearances. She made two appearances on “The Lucy Show.” Singleton played a secretary in the first episode of “Here’s Lucy” and was meant to be a series regular, but her role was written out to concentrate on Lucy Carter’s family life. She did two more episodes of the series.

Ted de Corsia (Police Officer) was an actor in touring companies and on radio before making a memorable film debut as the killer in The Lady from Shanghai (1947). De Corsia's New York street demeanor and gravelly voice assured him steady work playing street thugs, gang leaders or organized-crime bosses. On radio he starred in the CBS series "Pursuit" (1949-50). Two years after this episode of “My Favorite Husband,” he appeared with Lucille Ball on the radio show “The Golden Touch.”

The actor voicing the role of Paul Buchanan is not credited and has not been identified.

EPISODE

The Coopers are spending the evening in the living room reading the newspapers. Liz is doing the crossword puzzle, while George scans the headlines.

GEORGE: “Well, it looks like the inauguration came off alright.”

George is referring to the second inauguration of incumbent President Harry S. Truman, which happened in Washington DC the previous day. It ushered in Truman’s second term in office. It was the first televised U.S. presidential inauguration and the first with an air parade.

Liz insists that crosswords build her vocabulary. George quizzes her on current events.

GEORGE: “Where did the President take his oath of office?” LIZ: “On a special platform built in front of the capitol building. GEORGE: “How did you happen to know that?” LIZ: “It showed through the hole when I cut out the crossword puzzle.” GEORGE: “Try this: who administered the oath?” LIZ: “What?”

The familiar trope of husbands being engrossed in the morning papers to the dismay of their wives takes a slightly different spin here, but was continued well into “I Love Lucy.” The answer that George is looking for is that Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson administered the presidential oath of office that day in 1949.

Through the hole, Liz recognizes the name of Paul Buchanan, who is in the paper because he was elected president at the jewelers convention. Liz recalls dating him in high school. He played tuba in the school band. Liz says she might have married but for his tuba playing. Liz says that if she had married Paul she might have gotten an engagement ring. Instead, George couldn’t afford a ring and gave her a sweat shirt with his initials on it. George says the initials actually stood for Gym Class!

LIZ: “I was lovely! I was engaged! I was dressed like Maxie Rosenbloom!”

Max Everitt Rosenbloom (1907-76) was a professional boxer, actor, and television personality. In 1948 he played a truck driver in the Paulette Goddard film Hazard. Nicknamed “Slapsie Maxie”, he had appeared in the film Muss ‘Em Up (1936) in which a blonde Lucille Ball was a background performer. She posed with him for the above publicity shot, helping him apply his make-up!

Liz senses that George is still upset about the ring, so she sits on his lap and they cuddle and kiss. Liz opens their scrapbook, looking at their wedding photos. She sees her marriage license.

LIZ: “On this date, Elizabeth Elliott was married to George C. Hooper!”

Liz panics thinking that their license may be invalid - and they might not even be legally married! As soon as the Sheridan Falls City Hall opens, Liz intends to go down there personally and find out for sure!

Unbeknownst to Liz, George calls his friend at the license bureau, Joe Ridgley (Frank Nelson). He tells Joe that he wants him to play a joke on Liz, and tell her that they are not really married! Joe agrees.

Liz arrives at the bureau and explains to Mr. Ridgley about the error. He tells Liz that it does indeed matter. He refers to her as “Miss Elliott” and confirms that she hasn’t been married to George for ten years!

Liz returns home. When George goes to kiss her - she says that she is no longer his to touch!

LIZ: “The man at the license bureau put the padlock on our wedlock.”

Liz insists they go right down to the license bureau and get re-married. George - having some fun at her expense - hesitates. Liz is as upset as she is angry! Just then, Katie the Maid takes Liz aside into the kitchen to tell her that it’s all a joke between George and Joe. Liz decides to get revenge for his prank.

Liz goes back into the living room and George suddenly confesses to his joke - but when he describes Joe Ridgley, Liz says that he is not describing the man she spoke to at all! Which means that they really aren’t married after all! George wants to go right down to City Hall and re-marry, but Liz (teasing him along even further) says not so fast - she wants to be single a little longer! Liz picks up the phone to call Paul Buchanan to ask him out on a date. She reminds him that she was called “Queen of the Rumble Seat”!

A rumble seat was an additional padded passenger seat that popped up from the rear of the vehicle, usually just big enough for two. This led it to becoming synonymous with romantic trysts!

Liz knows that George can’t hear Paul on the other end as he protests that he is married with six kids! He abruptly hangs up, but Liz continues her staged phone conversation with the hotel operator (Doris Singleton). Liz says that she will meet him at the Flamingo Room of the Biltmore.

In the kitchen, Liz tells Katie that while George thinks she is on a date with Paul Buchanan at the Biltmore, she and Katie will actually be watching Humphrey Bogart at the Strand movie theater.

In January 1949, Bogart’s most recent film would have been Key Largo, released in mid-summer 1948. It went on to win an Oscar for Claire Trevor. Humphrey Bogart never appeared on screen with Lucille Ball. However, in “Ricky’s Movie Offer” (ILL S4;E5) Desi Arnaz does an impression of Bogart and in “Lucy and the Andrews Sisters” (HL S2;E6) Lucy blows a kiss to a large poster of Bogart from the movie Casablanca.

Coming out of the Strand later that evening, Liz and Katie notice a crowd in front of the Biltmore Hotel. Katie thinks it might be a wreck!

LIZ: “When you see a crowd in front of a window these days, it isn’t a wreck, it’s television!” KATIE: “Oh, well maybe they’re showing a wrestling match!”

Before television sets became affordable to the general public, it was not uncommon to find people gathered on the sidewalk in front of a store window to view it from the street.

LIZ: “Katie it is wrestling! There’s gorgeous George!”

Liz is referring to her husband, George but wrestling matches were very popular on early television, producing such colorful wrestlers as Gorgeous George. George Raymond Wagner (1915–63), was known as Gorgeous George because of his long blonde hair. He was mentioned on “I Love Lucy” in “Pioneer Women” (ILL S1;E25) and “Ricky’s Movie Offer” (ILL S4;E6). In 1949, Republic Pictures released a film starring Gorgeous George.

A Policeman (Ted de Corsia) is breaking up a brawl between George Cooper and Paul Buchanan. Paul is nothing like Liz remembered: bald, fat and with a black eye. Paul remembers George from school. Liz is delighted having two men fighting over her. George spots Liz in the crowd. When George insists Liz is his wife, Liz claims she never saw him before. When the cop wants to arrest George, Liz pretends to be from Brooklyn (Myrtle Avenue) to talk him out of it. She insists that George buy her an engagement ring (from Paul) to get out of going to jail. The office gladly agrees - if George will properly propose on one knee first! Liz insists he use her ‘pet’ name.

GEORGE: “Will you marry me... toodly-woodly-ums!” COP: “When you gonna get married?” LIZ: “Ten years ago!” COP: “Why that’s impossible!” LIZ: “Who cares! I’ve got back my favorite husband!”

In the bedtime tag, Liz asks George to get up and get her a glass of warm milk. After bickering about it for a moment, George reluctantly agrees, stubbing his toe on the chair. By the time he finds his slippers, Liz is snoring, fast asleep.

GEORGE: “How do you like that? Goodnight, Liz.”

#Marriage License #My Favorite Husband #I Love Lucy #Lucille Ball #Richard Denning #Frank Nelson #Ruth Perrott #CBS Radio #Doris Singleton #Tony Di Corsia #keychain #Humphrey Bogart #Gorgeous George #Maxie Rosenbloom #TV #Harry S. Truman #Rumble Seat #1949

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makczio · 5 years ago

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Maxence Danet-Fauvel's interview for EntourageS with Kevin Elarbi part 1/2

On this interview for EntourageS, Maxence and Kevin Elarbi talks about Actors Factory, the success of Skam France, the pros and cons of a transmedia serie, and Maxence’s favorite series.

K: So Skam, a phenomenal serie from france tv slash. A bet that also made france tv shlash because it’s a transmedia serie, which we’ll talk about it later with Maxence Danet Fauvel, one of the pioneer actor. How are you Maxence?

M: I’m very good!

K: We’ve been running after each other for few months now to know where we can meet, which podcast an everything. I’m so glad you’re here with us for this premiere on Betaseries the radio. This serie is amazing it’s crazy, on the representation but especially on its popularity. Is this something you expected?

M: No

K: By the way, how did you arrived on that serie?

M: How did I arrived? Well I was in an actor formation at the Actors Factory for, at the beginning I didn’t really knew why. And when I started to discover the method I thought “I would love to work on castings it would be cool to do casting director. We do classes opened to the public every friday since January, and at the class I did at the end of my second year there was Léa Coquin, the casting director for the first two seasons of Skam France, was in the public saw me and called me a couple of days later and proposed me to do a casting.

K: Because the Actors Factory, we’re going to talk about it now ‘cause you just started talking about it. For the people that doesn’t know or that are not actor. It’s a theatre school but not like Cours Florent or Cours Simon (French institutions were you can study theatre), but looks a lot like Actors Studio in the 50’s

M: Wow! You just said 3 things, if my coach hears you she destroys you haha

K: I mean by the creation and the group, it’s not 2k people classes, were we want to know the actor

M: Yeah

K: How much could you define Actors Factory?

M: Yes I’m saying that because I always have the habit to say School but she doesn’t like it. For her it’s a studio.She’s at the extreme opposite of the french methods of acting, so it’s not a theatre school it’s a… (Max just realised he wasn’t speaking in the mic haha) It’s really an actor formation for the cinema. We work on camera, we work on the organic processus of the actor. It’s far from a theatre school. And how can I talk about it? It’s a 2 years formation where we first work on ourselves which allows us to get rid of the mask and avoid pretending on the camera and really live things.

K: And you arrived on Skam with that formation? Because you just said that you were at the Actors first, so you worked on that character with that formation. With professors or alone?

M: So at first it was alone, and then for every role I play I’m helped by my coach, the one who trained me at the Actors Factory, she also train actors that aren’t in the Actors Factory. And when I really worked on my character I see her and everytime she gets to see things, not really important for the viewer but very important for me to understand my character more and play it with all I have.

K: Because in the seasons 3 and 4 of Skam France, the very popular ones, the word to mouth worked! So popular that whenever we do an interview with one of you it’s immediately translated in China, UK, well everywhere!

M: Haha it’s true!

K: In theses seasons your partner is Axel Auriant, you have a common narrative arc. You’re going very far in the scenes you’re playing for a series for “teenagers”, that’s why I wasn’t surprised to see Euphoria in your choices because Euphoria does that too with HBO and OCS in France but we’ll talk about that later. So I’d like to see a clip from Skam France, a love scene between you and Axel’s character, so you can explain to us if it’s a decision of France 3 and France TV Slash because it never happened to go that far in a teenager serie.

A part of the Samedi 9:17 clip is showed.

K: So a really beautiful scene with Axel Auriant that we kiss (in France, when we talk about someone we like on television or radio, we say we kiss but it means we salute). How did you worked together? I know you shoot many useful minutes per day, and we don’t see it because it’s a qualitative serie, as I said in the introduction of the podcast. So you shoot many useful minutes per day however it’s very qualitative and technical. How did you did? Did you see each other a lot? Talked a lot? Repeated a lot when you weren’t on set? How did it happened?

M: So we have a big work behind where we repeated a lot with the director. With Axel we worked a lot about, how can I call that? It’s not even a work in fact, we get to know each other, first we went to take a beer, then we repeated at his place etc. And yeah we really took a big month to prepare ourselves, we got our texts and positions on the rooms rock solid before arriving on the set, so when we arrived on set and it was David’s goal, we just had to live all the colours that we created together, and yeah it worked so well because we trusted each other, we were well leaded with a great team. I mean it’s really an impressive team on Skam France because we don’t have a big budget, we shoot a lot and fast so it means that we barely sleeps, and really everyone is really invested and united and it gives a work energy were you don’t count your work hours, you don’t care acting 18 hours a day, you’re so invested that when it ends you feel like it’s a dream and lasted half a second and yeah the months were so fast!

K: Did you watched movies, did you got any book references or did you went with your knowledge in this character?

M: Well no, I never watch movies during a shooting or during the preparation

K: That’s very interesting, can you explain why? I think I know why but...

M: You wanna know why?

K: Yeah

M: Well because… Well my favorite part during a shooting, what really makes me love it isn’t the shooting itself but all the month before, all my preparation, the isolation is really a phase where I need to be alone at my place, changing my morning routine and the decoration of my apartment, there’s really a work to be the character. And that’s really the phase that I love the most, and it’s something that should be me that I don’t want to be inspired by... I don’t want to take the risk to steal something that an actor build. But what I do is maybe better than going to the cinema, is that I go on the street and I observe a lot people. And for Skam France for example, it was really impressive. I spent 6 or 7 hours a day walking in Paris without a destination or a goal. I walked an sometimes there were things that came in my mind and when I went back home I wrote it and thought “Yeah that’s good, this is a good element for this or that” so bit by bit you build something and a complete character

K: That’s so interesting! And as I said in the introduction, it’s a transmedia serie. So when we say transmedia we don’t understand it in the first place, can you explain what’s a transmedia serie? If I'm right it's a serie that take your character and broadcast it in real time. It's so 2.0. Did you understood this concept at first?

M: I understood… Well I didn't tried to understand it. Until the last day on set I was really focused on Eliott, and it's a character that's so close to me that I couldn't fail. It could've been so easy to go for my comfort zone thinking "Oh they took me for Maxence so I'll play some Maxence and it will be easy!" So no, until the end of the shooting I wasn't paying attention to that. I heard stuff, they asked us to take selfies on the set, I was expecting there was something to follow. But I understood that the serie was broadcasting in real time, so a Monday at 10:21 will be out a Monday at 10:21 and it was a full episode a Friday at 18:00 but I didn't really cared about it. So you want me to explain that's right?

K: No but that because when Lula explained me that concept when she came I didn't understood anything, I was thinking "What the fuck is that"

M: Okay so I'll explain

K: Yeah explaining but popularizing this term, for those who aren't used to this kind of serie

M: So a transmedia serie is… should I watch there? (he was pointing at the camera, funny he thought about that 11 minutes after the interview started). So basically a transmedia serie is… I'd like to call that a serie that you can't really see if you don't watch it during the airing time. Skam France season 3 you can find it in the France TV Slash website or youtube but during the airing, something like the scene we saw earlier, if it happens at, I'm going to say some crap I'll be bullied by fans haha, but I'd it happens Saturday at 11:21, I said it randomly, it will be online Saturday at 11:21 etc, and it's the same for every clip. And at the end of the week, there's the episode.

K: And that episode is the whole episode?

M: Yes that's the whole episode, plus, the characters have Instagram accounts where we can see them in real time, exchanging texts, that they put in an Instagram story so people can follow them, they post pictures during their days. For example if Eliott, well he doesn't do that but we can imagine Eliott posts a pic during the airing of an episode, if you update if Instagram account at that second the pic will appear. So that's a total immersion.

K: Isn't it dangerous for an actor, I'm thinking about the distance to have with the public, who is enormous. After the scene that we'll watch later I'll ask you something about the LGBTQI+ community in China or even the Middle East, that serie is very important and so many people watch it, sometimes they're hiding just to watch it. But how do you put a frontier as an actor, I mean during the convention when you meet tour fans, this serie is one of the few ones to have that many conventions I mean you'll soon have one in Seoul, it's crazy

M: Yeah it's crazy

K: Yeah, how do you do to.. Yeah there's tour character that's in your life and it's just fictional but is also everywhere like on Instagram. How do you do to put a certain distance? Is it something that you like or is it hard?

M: No that's not something that I really like, I mean I think we're already so much on our phones, even I am! I don't remember when but I discovered on Instagram you can see how much time you spend on it, it's dumb but you do there on the morning, during coffee, etc. I think it's not a good solution because we use a society problem to encourage people to use it more etc. I don't think people need that, I think in the new generation, there's people that wanna go to theater, there's young people that wanna go to the cinema, there's no need to give them that much on social networks to interest them. It's not something that I really like but it gives something to the serie that, I know when I watch a serie, during two seasons I miss the characters and I think "Fuck the next episode is in a year, it's hell", so in that case it can be cool. I don't know during an evening you wanna watch an episode of Peaky Blinders and the season isn't out yet, well you can see between the seasons what the characters are doing and it makes a link during the seasons. So there's something interesting about it but I can't say that I like it, because it would be a lie. The idea is good but if it was created in an other way I would've liked it too

K: So another clip and then I'll ask you to react to the importance of that serie for like I said the Middle East countries or China, countries where the liberties are less than in France, where your character and Axel's character are now close to political characters

A part of the Friday 20:27 clip is showed.

K: Yeah so a part of a clip of Skam France, a strong one. Oh and you're filled with emotions

M: Noooo haha (he's moved and has his eyes all teary)

K: Haha barely. I didn't wanted to move you. I know how difficult it must be because I know you gave a lot of yourself for this scene and maybe you're back at how you were during the shooting

M: Haha no I don't know

K: Haha yes I know, I tell you. Do to change the subject, I didn't wanted to touch you that much Maxence I'm sorry

M: No that's cool, it's beautiful. It's such a beautiful scene. This scene is magnificent it kills me, Axel is...

K: It's everything

M: Yeah it's everything, the music, the editing its wow!

K: Yes the travelling on him, and the light! I completely agree it's one of the most beautiful scene of this season, and I have to say thank you to Mathilde who works with me and insisted that I play this scene. Do you have any idea how important this serie is, seen by ao many people legally or not, even more seen in other countries than in France

M: Oh really?

K: Yes! Have you ever received testimonies, I'm thinking about Middle East or Chinese, even Russian, it's amazing the success in Russia

M: Yes Russia is unbelievable

K: So have you received testimonies?

M: Yes, we've got a lot of them in private, also a lot of touchy videos from hundreds of people, you were talking about Russian, I remember of hundreds of Russian doing secret meetings to watch the serie because they can't watch that kind of fiction and, and yeah that's very touchy but it's true that it brings to a really rough reality and we did Skam France for the love of cinema first and now with the message we give, it's true that it has a big impact and gives us responsibilities that we didn't thought about. And yeah when we see the impact it has like in China, even Corea, you know I lived in Corea and we might thought that it's free but not that much, it's getting better slowly but not that much. So seeing that in all those countries all these people are watching it and taking this message, it's something we didn't imagined. We weren't expecting this

K: We're lucky to have this serie, hopefully it will last. By the way, I don't know, because I know but I don't know if we can say it, I'll do like I didn't knew. You're currently on set?

M: Yes we are but I only acted just a day for now K: The shooting just started?

M: Oh no, it's been shooting for 3 weeks already

K: Oh okay not a lot

M: Yes it's not a lot but for Skam France it's almost half of the shooting

K: Oh yeah that's true. How many useful minutes a day?

M: 16-17

K: Wow, and with quality!

M: Yeah with quality!

K: Not a lot of series can afford 17 useful minutes a day! Don't laugh that's true!

M: Haha no you're right that's true

K: And the choices of the team are amazing!

M: Yes and also Xavier director of photography is completely insane, David the director doesn't give up, the actors are so invested. And yeah we're with a passionate team, very young. For most of us it's the first project, it was mine. For David it's also one of his first one. We all want to do something wonderful because it's our first experience, it was my first experience in front of a camera and you want to remember that your whole life and I think that, yes, it's by far the best shooting I ever done for now

K: A shooting followed by many, became I know the Actors Factory take a lot of time, the Skam France shooting too. And also one of my friends that was on the shooting with you guys

M: He also was there during the shooting of seasons 3 and 4

K: Oh yes but what I understood is that this year his work is more important

M: I won't say anything!

K: Fuck! I was trying haha! So you lose me I don't remember what I was about to say. Oh yes, I wanted to wish you a good luck for this shooting and I wanted to know if there was new ones?

M: Yes! There's new people coming but...

K: But you can't say who?

M: No I can't say

K: Why?

M: Mostly because, there's someone I won't talk about it

K: Okay

M: And a project that I won't talk about because I don't want to and I want to work it alone, also another serie but I don't know if I can tell for who or what it is

K: Is it french?

M: It is

K: A hertzian group?

M: Yes

K: Shooting in October, this summer?

M: From January to April

K: So it will come very soon

M: Yes very soon

K: So you'll come back to talk about it then

M: It would be a pleasure!

K: So now we'll talk about the series you picked. First we're going to talk about an amazing serie, and OCS serie called Westworld and the a scene without visual effects but I think you'd like with Anthony Hawkins, a philosophical scene from the first season

#skam france #maxencefvl #maxence danet fauvel #eliott demaury #skam eliott #lucas et eliott #skam universe

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letterstothemidnightsociety · 4 years ago

Text

It’s week three of my Global-Pandemic-Induced decision to rewatch all of Supernatural, and so I’m still attempting to make this watch more productive than the last show that I binged.

So I’m on disc two now - that’s episodes 5 - 8 for those of you watching on Netflix. By the time we get to this disc, we know the basic formula for Supernatural as a series - Two Hunks + Fighting Evil to the Power of Acceptable Levels of Gore x Missing Dad = Ratings Gold. Or at the very least, good enough ratings that we’ll give you a season (or fourteen). And then...well...then.

Episode five is “Bloody Mary”, easily the scariest episode of this first season and, based on the nose dive that the formula takes after season 1, probably the entire series. Maybe it’s that the Bloody Mary legend was one that really got me as a kid, maybe it’s just that I don’t do so hot with ghosts, but guys this episode still made me turn on all the lights and avoid all my mirrors. I accidentally turned this episode on at 9pm and regretted it immediately. I walked away at one point to go clean my kitchen to strategically miss some of the spookier points and I walked back in during an even spookier point. I was mad that there were no commercials at the commercial break cut-to-black! The first time I watched this episode, I’m pretty sure I watched it through my fingers. This most recent viewing, I ALSO watched it through my fingers. Guys, THIS EPISODE.

I will say it a-hecking-gain: This episode scared the SHIT out of me.

AND THEN, THEN! Then this show has the gall to go ahead and drop a major season/character plot point right there in the middle of all this content that I am actively trying not to look at: SURPRISE! Sam has premonition powers and sorta kinda knew that his girlfriend was gonna die a terrible death weeks before she dies. Because sure, why not?

Ohmiglob the DRAMA.

I’m gonna take a moment to say that, yes, technically this piece of plot gets dropped within our first six episodes, so we can still safely say that, you know, they’re still setting up the story for the rest of the series. It’s not like a sudden twist they drop half way through the season, it’s being laid down as ground work. And I know that this turns out to be a MAJOR issue for the next four seasons at least, but can I just say: Kripke, you’re really throwing a lot at us. I mean, OK. here’s what we’ve got -

The Winchester’s lost their mom at a young age to some evil thing. Cool, got it.

THEN they have daddy issues with C-minus Single Dad John Winchester. Alright, that seems logical.

The brothers hunt bad guys looking for the thing that killed their mom. Ok still on board.

There’s family drama, relatable.

Dad’s gone missing and we gotta find, ok ok ok.

Also Sam’s girlfriend dies in a fire, alright, so we’re looking for that thing now too.

OH! And now Sam has magic powers.

I mean, it’s a lot, right? We got a lot of layers here. That’s all I’m sayin.

So “Bloody Mary”, right? Big episode, big bad guy, they kinda loophole their way into defeating her but I’m not mad. Big reveal at the end, so kind of an important lore episode. And then...well...then we get the following episodes:

“Skinwalker” - gross-out fx, establishes Dean as a lonely asshole with a lot of APB’s out on him

“The Hook Man” - takes the Urban Legend angle of the show and dials it up to 11

“Bugs” - Does what it says on the tin.

Now to be fair: all three of these episodes have at least ONE shining moment that reveals a little more about the characters we’re working with, and that character development plays out in important ways in the rest of the season/series. But all three of them are arguably---

FILLER EPISODES-ODES-ODES-ODESSssssssss.

Alright, maybe that’s unkind. Maybe we should call them standalones or self-contained. A Filler is an episode designed to “fill out” your season. It doesn’t necessarily move the overarching story of the season forward, although it may contain some concepts or revelations that are important later. I’d argue that Supernatural has only ever had two kinds of episodes - Series Arc and Filler. Not that that’s a bad thing - I like a filler episode now and again. Depending on how heavy your season gets (and by all accounts Supernatural gets pretty heavy), they can be a nice breath of fresh air - also known as a Breather Episode. Or they can be just for fun. I’mma reference “Once More with Feeling” again because sure, why not throw in a musical episode in season 6 of a show about vampire slaying, that’s fine. I wanna reference something from Community here too, but honestly anything after season 2 could probably be called filler or self contained, so who even knows. I’ll point at the Voltron episode where they spend a day in the mall to gather some unobtainium for the ship and wacky shenanigans ensue. Point being, they can be times to break the mold and experiment and have fun with what you’re writing. Or they can be ridiculous nonsense. Mileage may vary.

The crazy thing about these episodes is that they most closely resemble what Kripke intended the show to be in the first place. Kripke wanted a show that revolved around characters investigating American urban legends. What is more quintessentially urban legend than Bloody Mary, the Hook Man and curses from ancient Native American burial grounds? These were stories that I as the viewer was already sort of familiar with because I’d heard of all of them before. What I appreciated, specifically about the Bloody Mary episode, was that they a) acknowledge the fact that these are Urban Legends (capital letters and all) and then b) acknowledge that the legends vary wildly so a part of their job is figuring out what is true and what is rumor. I guess you could also call that a cop out but when I was a kid, I was told that Bloody Mary was the ghost of Queen Mary of England who was sister to Elizabeth I and was also violently anti-protestant. WHERE did I get this story? I have no idea. But I also have no idea where Sam got the “mutilated bride” story from either.

In an old article I found circa season 2, Kripke actually talks about preferring standalone content to mythology/lore episodes in television. Both as a creator and as a viewer, he wants a show where people can jump in at any time and “join the party” wherever they are. That’s the beauty of procedurals - you don’t need to start from the beginning to enjoy them.

But what really got me personally hooked on the show was the mythology, was the season long arc to find John Winchester and whatever killed their mom. Those mythos episodes were where the meat of the show was for me - it usually involved a lot of feelings and a lot of character development which is still mostly my jam. If I’m obsessively watching a show, it’s because I’m connected to the characters and watching them struggle through the challenges in their path, not because I want to see what monster they kill next.

And again, I’ll reiterate that each of these episodes contains an important nugget of character. In “Bloody Mary”, easily the least likely to be called Filler, we find out that Sam has weird magic powers that are the real source of his guilt over Jessica’s death.

In “Skin”, we find out a lot about Dean’s inner landscape from the DopppleDeaner, who reveals that Dean is probably most afraid of people leaving him (be still my 19-year-old heart).

Wasn’t mad about this bit...

Coulda done without this bit tho...

In “Hookman”...alright, you kinda got me on “Hookman”, but we do get the first appearance of the rocksalt shotgun and Sam talks with a girl about her dad issues which is really Sam talking about his own dad issues in the language of tv shows. Also, he maybe starts to move on from Jessica???? It’s unclear, and also a little weird but I guess he’s only 22 and that’s not that far off from 18/19.

Really, WB?? Sneaking into sorority houses?

And then in “Bugs”, yes, even in “Bugs”, we get juicy little bit of tension between the brothers as they advise some teen boy about family dynamics. The fight shows a lot about what each character feels about their own experiences growing up the way they did, how they manage the expectations from their own father, and how they believe those family dynamics should exist. I mean I guess you could also argue this is the episode that plants the seed for Wincest, but I don’t really want to go there, let’s not talk about it.

This kid’s like, “This is...not a conversation about me and MY dad, is it?”

So they could be worse. I mean the last two definitely aren’t great, and we’ll see how they measure up to the Monster Truck episode later in the season, but they’re not bad episodes.

So let’s flash forward to Now again - have we seen the end of Filler Episodes?

As I have mentioned in previous posts and will probably continue mentioning in future posts, the 22 episode season is not the norm anymore. A lot of articles I’ve read point to Breaking Bad as the first American show to really break that mold. Breaking Bad released only 7 episodes in it’s first season in 2007. When you’ve cut your story down that much, there’s no room for filler - you’re basically producing a 7 hour movie.

Now notice I said American TV show. I’m pretty sure for most of the rest of the world, 22 episodes is way outside the norm, but really I can only speak to UK TV. Seasons in the UK do not last as long as seasons in America. Doctor Who, one of, if not the, longest running show on BBC, aired its first season with 42 episodes, which is mind boggling. But since the series revived in 2005, it hasn’t had more than 13 episodes in a season. Spooks/MI5 never had more than 10 episodes. The IT Crowd only aired 6 episodes per season. Broadchurch had only 8. And because I must complete the Superwholock trifecta, Sherlock seasons were only 3 episodes a piece. These are the shows that spring to mind while I’m writing this, but you get the idea.

So why does American broadcast TV have such long seasons? Well, the answer is: moneymoneymoney.

We live in an age of “prestige” TV. Some throw around “Golden Era”, but there’s been like, a Golden Era of television every 10 years since tv’s became household commodities, so that phrase basically means nothing. TV today is more similar to long-form film making than it was a decade ago. We associate terms like “film” with other terms like “art”, and sometimes we forget that television is, and always was, a business. It’s a business that’s making a lot of money entertaining you for hours on end, but a business nonetheless. I’d argue that it doesn’t mean it’s not art, but I don’t think we can separate the art and entertainment value of tv from its actual monetary value.

Strategically, the 22-episode season was to get a show to a magical number of total episodes - 100. Once you hit the 100th episode, somewhere around season 5 (thanks math), then you can sell the show in syndicated reruns. This is also referred to as second-run syndication or off-network syndication. When a show is syndicated, that means the production company that produces the show can now sell the right to air episodes to other channels. Think channels like TBS or TNT or even USA Network - they don’t really dabble in producing their own content, they just repackage content from other networks to plug in to empty slots in their programming. And because these channels can air episodes 5 days a week, 365 days a year, that means the production company can actually make more money by selling the show in syndication than when they sold the show to the primary network. The more episodes you have in a season, the faster you get to syndication, and sometimes that means a show that’s on the brink of cancellation due to poor numbers may still get greenlit for another season or two if they’re closer to that magic 100th episode. For a show like Supernatural, that has a very procedural, not-super-heavy-mythos, structure, you can do very well in syndication. Just cuz another network agreed to air your show doesn’t mean they agreed to air it in order, so procedurals work better in syndication than your season-arc shows do. And that’s why we have episodes like Bugs, that have nothing to do with the overarching plot of the season and also phone in some questionable CGI.

Apparently they DID use real bugs to shoot this scene and everyone got bit to hell but the bugs didn’t show up good and they went with CG anyway?!?

But these days, you don’t have to hit 100 episodes. Sometimes only 80 episodes will do. Sometimes, you run a streaming site and you don’t have to worry about reruns at all because your revenue isn’t generated from air time or even ads, but from subscription prices. Honestly, when you think of it that way, it makes way more sense to greenlight shorter seasons so that you have the budget to buy more and more diverse shows that will appeal to a broader audience of viewers.

So if Supernatural was produced today, would we get these off-shoot, self-contained episodes that have little to do with the plot of finding Sam and Dean’s dad? It’s hard to say. Knowing what I do about Kripke’s original plans for the show and his thoughts on procedural standalone episodes in general, its possible that he’d still try for a traditional season aired on a traditional TV network. But in that same interview I quoted above, he also mentions that the only way to get into a show with a heavy mythos is to buy the DVDs. We don’t need DVDs anymore - we have Netflix. And Hulu and Prime and any number of other streaming services that pick up any show they can get just to have a larger library of content and attract new viewers. I think a good indicator of what Supernatural would look like if it aired today is Hulu’s Helstrom - a show about two siblings with a childhood marked by strange and terrible happenings, who spend the season trying to defeat an evil demon. This show is a Hulu original that dropped all 10 episodes on October 16, 2020, and damn if that doesn’t sound familiar. I told a friend, “it’s like Supernatural but more emotions.” (Her response was, MORE emotions?!?!?) And before you dive down the rabbit hole, the characters in Helstrom made their debut in a Marvel comic back in the 70’s, so you can just chalk it up to nothing new under the sun.

Big Mood, guys. Big Mood.

I’ll close this one by reiterating I don’t mind a filler episode. Some fillers can be weird and great and wonderful. I’d say “Tales of Ba Sing Se” (Avatar the Last Air Bender, Season 2) is a great example - with the possible exception of Appa, the vignettes presented in “Tales” are basically side quests that have nothing to do with the main quest of season 2 and only serve to develop characters. The stories are sweet and touching and also light and fun.

I’m not crying, YOU’RE crying! It’s ok, I’m also crying.

And the longer a show runs, the more likely you are to run into these fillers - episodes that take a break from the main action to bring something that’s new and out of the box and possibly/probably writers getting bored with the every-day formula of the show. I think season 1 of Supernatural does a decent job of balancing the two styles of episode so that neither gets boring. In fact, I’m pretty Supernatural was what taught me the difference between the two episode styles in the first place. And the first time around, I was hyped for those season arc episodes, because back in the late 2000’s, I hadn’t seen a lot of TV content like that. Now, 15 years on and mired in a sea of seasons that stick mainly to a season arc story with little to no room for breathing, I think that if all TV became nothing but season arc episodes...well, it’d get pretty boring.

#Supernatural #Supernatural Season 1 #Bloody Mary #Hookman #Bugs #Skin #Jensen Ackles #jared padalecki #kripke #helstrom #Filler episodes #TV #TV history #Supernatural Rewatch #CW #Sam #Dean #Winchesters

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