#they were originally one post because both episodes were out at the time

[jacquelinemerritt]

Final Fantasy VII: Machinabridged Episode 1 Review

Originally posted on September 11th, 2015

Episode 1

Final Fantasy VII is an incredibly popular and influential game, and a significant portion of its fan base reveres it, commonly claiming that it is the greatest RPG of all time or even that it is the greatest game of all time. So it stands to reason that it’s just the kind of series Team Four Star would want to take down a peg with their perfectly crafted cocktail of irreverent, rapid-fire humor. And this first episode is a comedic treat, reveling in its absurd characters and making sure that everything that can go wrong for them does (and then gets worse).

Their absurd characters are all pretty fantastic, with Takahata101 (in a stroke of genius), making the entirety of AVALANCHE a bunch of obnoxious and dumb kids, with the exceptions being Cloud and Barret, who are still absurd in their own right. Barret comes off as an absurd parody of “Mr. T,” (thanks to Anthony “Antfish” Sardinha) with his trademark “Don’t f*** up” both asserting his authority and demeaning the only one around him that would otherwise be his equal.

Cloud then is played off as an anxious wreck, totally clueless of what he is about to do and what the future has in store for him (capped off with a genuinely creepy hallucination of the voice of Zack, who lends credence to the implication that Cloud might genuinely be unstable).

Finally, Jessie, an otherwise entirely forgettable character, is made into the best character gag of the episode, as a shady root-canal procedure has left her with an incredibly strong lisp that throws even more chaos into the operation.

These great characters are tied together with a common purpose: to blow up the Eco-Friendly Peace Factory (previously known as the Mako Power Plant). And each member except Cloud is perfectly comfortable with this, because they are “eco-terrorists,” or as they would say, people fighting to save the planet.

It’s certainly oddly fitting that the only people we’ve seen who claim to be heroes and are fighting to save the planet are a group of dumb kids managed by an overbearing leader, but it takes a brilliant turn at the end when they’ve blown up the factory and abandon Cloud, because maybe groups trying to save the world are filled with nothing more than obnoxious, inconsiderate assholes. And maybe you’re forced into them anyway.

Rating: 5/5

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Stray Observations

The naming gag is great, and I look forward to seeing it for the rest of the characters.

Eco-Friendly Peace Factory!

Barret: “There will be an AVALANCHE of Justice!” Cloud: “And how exactly…” Barret: “We’re gonna blow this motha-f**** up.”

The subtitles being in the font from the original game is a very nice touch.

“Don’t f*** up.”

[helpimstuckinafandom]

JUSTICE FOR DAVINA CLAIRE I'M SO FUCKING SERIOUS FUCK OFF OH MY FUCKING GOD

[1shirt2shirtredshirtdeadshirt]

Sexism in TOS: Worst Offender, or Progressive in Retrospect in Comparison?

I see a lot of folks claim that TOS was the most sexist of the Star Trek shows by a landslide -- and while I agree that it definitely suffered from the sexism of the times, I also have other perspectives to share to give some food for thought.

I am of course not insinuating that TOS isn't sexist -- it is, but I have to ask folks to consider the breadth and depth of Berman's sexism in his run and ask yourself: Was Gene Roddenberry genuinely more sexist in his storytelling and delivery than Rick Berman?

I'm not telling you to feel one way or the other, but all I ask is that you hear me out and consider some perspectives and make your own balanced assessments. Nobody is obligated to share my opinion, but it means a lot just to have folks hear it and see their thoughts on the subject. So here is what I was originally responding to:

Someone's response to this photo:

"Devil's advocate. This was a part of the popular form of cardio during the production time of TNG. Yes, it was heavily sexualised by men, but so is literally every other way women work out. Men have been caught taking pictures of women while trying to do dead lifts, running on tracks and working on sled machines. They post them online to share too. The fact is, there is no way a woman can be shown working out without it going there. And yeah,t hat includes the combat forms of workout they do in Star Trek. Just look at how Dax dresses when she spars with Worf. Yes, they're dating, but still, same goes when 7 does and any other female.

Aerobics routines like this were made dirty and cringy. This was what women wore then by and large. This is how the workout was done. We make it cringy."

My response to them:

"I respect your take, but I disagree on a few fronts.

The miniskirt was chosen by the TOS female cast, not the male cast, specifically requested by Grace LW and affirmed by Nichelle and Majel who would go on to vehemently defend the miniskirt over the years as comfortable and embraced by them.

Grace said it was comfortable and seen as a symbol of female sexual empowerment during the 60s and thought it would be a progressive garment (and turns out that it was, as it was later adapted and worn by male crew as a skant on TNG) -- FYI those were designed by a gay man and Gene approved them.

This was also supposed to be Spock's TMP outfit:

Literally lingerie.

We saw both Uhura (who saves Kirk in from Marlena Mirror Mirror) and Yeoman Landon (the first to initiate combat with a classic Kirk-esque kick to help the Captain being attacked in The Apple) carry out their combat training in their Starfleet uniforms without ever being made to change into any ridiculous workout gear.

In fact, I'd argue Jim Kirk was sexualized even more than the ladies of the week on the show and I saw his naked body more than anyone else's on a fairly regular basis. He wore red yoga tights while topless in Charlie X while the women wore full length gymnastic suits that covered their entire body. If anything, it went out of its way to avoid sexualizing women practicing fitness in those scenes and instead focused on Kirk.

Gene confessed that he asked to have Shatner filmed in suggestive/provocative ways to "give something to the ladies", so he -- as he said -- liked to "film him walking away" or have him conveniently busting out of his shirts in just about every episode as it were, because Shatner apparently had great assets. LOL

Gene made an effort to at least sexualize both if he was going to sexualize one, and he carried that attitude forward in wanting the m/m and f/f scenes in the background on Risa for TNG. He also insisted that the men and women wear skimpy outfits on THAT TNG planet. You know the one. LOL I mean the dudes even had on less than the women:

Gene also gave permission to K/S shippers to have their conventions back in the 70s when he was asked for permission. Gene and Nimoy felt with all the skimpy outfits they had the ladies wear, why not let the ladies and gay men have their fun, too? It's how we ended up with moments like this:

Yes, those are two people dressed up as Kirk and Spock's penises doing interpretive dance. Gene didn't give two damns. LOL

In my eyes, that was a very progressive take on Gene's part for the 60s. It was actually PARAMOUNT STUDIOS who had the big problem with K/S stories and vehemently tried to shut them down. Gene literally hired slash authors on his payroll and even had several slash stories/writers published in his official Star Trek books (The New Voyages & The New Voyages II).

I feel I saw Uhura and women in TOS engaged in more physical combat/altercations defending themselves that Troi or Bev were shown holding their own.

In fact, Kirk used to get furious when someone would "dress up" his female crew members without their consent (Trelane episode, Shore Leave episode) because like his male crew members, he wanted them to be treated professionally and to also have his male crew act professionally.

Berman brought some of his own personal biases into Star Trek that in some ways regressed it. While TOS had blatant sexism and was called on it time and again, that show was made in the 60s -- a solid 21 years before TNG. We as a modern audience understood why some of it was cringe/sexist due to the time period -- look at any other media coming out in the 60s and Star Trek was miles ahead of what other shows were doing.

Compare that to Berman who was churning sexist stuff out when women like Starbuck and Scully were simultaneously on screen on other programs airing, and we had already had Sigourney Weaver and other strong women in Holywood playing respectful roles.

In my eyes, there was no need of the sexism seen in TNG but especially VOY and ENT. There was no excuse for it when other shows were writing women far better and a number of those weren't even set in the future like Trek was, making it age even faster due to having those dated perspectives frequently highlighted.

In the Center Seat documentary as well as "The Fifty Year Mission" book you will find cast members, writers and other studio alumni who attest to this. Some discussions from "The Fifty Year Mission":

"First, Berman was supposed to have been a real sleaze ball . . . According to Terry Farrel, he would go on constantly about how her breasts weren't big enough, how she should do something about it, and how his secretary was a good example to follow as she had huge breasts. She even had to have fittings to get larger bras, and that was all done at his behest.

Later Berman and Braga developed a name for Jeri Ryan's character prior Seven of Nine. They originally called the character "perineum" which if you look it up it is the area between the anus and the scrotum. Later they floated the name "6 of 9". I mean, what does it tell you about where these two were coming from in the development of this character if they had names like that put forward in all seriousness for her?"

Gene Roddenberry also had some of his own more progressive ideas for TNG cut or watered down by Berman. Roddenberry agreed TNG should have homosexual relationships and representation at a con in the 80s and insisted on it in a meeting with his writers -- something Berman later would not honor. Gene wanted the AIDS episode, showing m/m and f/f in the Riza scenes -- these were some of Roddenberry's requests to include in TNG that Berman later stonewalled.

Berman's era was sadly dated by his own misogynist bias, IMO, to the point that it can somewhat hurt the shows he worked on through his cringe egoism and blatant disrespect toward his female cast.

There is a reason why Gene could keep female actresses working with him and Berman had a revolving door of women that he couldn't seem to keep working for him -- he was abhorrent to women, on and off set. Gene wasn't perfect at all, he had a lot of issues himself -- but Berman was a whole other level. Just look at what he did to poor Jolene Blalock, Marina Sirtis and his toxic commenting on her body weight which exacerbated her struggles with eating disorders, or how he treated and talked to Terry Farrell.

Anyway, just some food for thought. I'm not saying anyone is wrong regarding a take like that, but there are a variety of ways to look at this. Gene Roddenberry isn't a saint by any means, but it definitely bothers me how folks will tote the Berman era as if it were the lesser of two evils or the more progressive depiction of women when I felt there were far more concerning portrayals of women in his era with far less justification.

(P.S: I don't event want to go near the sheer amount of "creepy old dude/villain preys on innocent/naïve/scared young woman or little girl" stories there were in Berman's era, either. But that's a whole other can of worms I can write about in a part 2.)

[lostwords-found]

Oh no. Oh fuck. I am relistening to some of the earlier Protocol episodes, and I have a horrible, terrible, no good very bad suspicion about Gerry.

I could, I want to emphasize, be completely wrong! I could be wildly, hilariously, off the mark. But--hear me out. This is going to take some explaining about what I think is going on in the bigger picture worldbuilding stuff; hopefully it'll be coherent, but fair warning, it may get a bit long.

First: there have been a lot of cases that have boiled down to trying to keep only the "good"/desirable/etc aspects of things or events or people, and discard the "bad"/unwanted, right? We saw this happening very explicitly in episode 23 with Alesis Newman, and way back in episode 2 with Daria the painter, but a number of episodes have presented variations on a similar theme.

Two variations in particular that I've been thinking a lot about are the violinist in episode 4 and the gambler in episode 9. The violinist can play his violin beautifully, but he wants to be rid of the price in flesh and blood that it demands. Similarly, the gambler wants the rewards of rolling high on his magic dice, but wants to be rid of the misfortunes that come with rolling low. Crucially, both episodes make clear that in this type of balance--something unwanted for something wanted--you can't just make the unwanted piece vanish. It has to go somewhere, it has to happen. But you can make it happen to someone else, somewhere else. And when that's how the game works, one of the major questions for players who want to get ahead then becomes: "how do I make the bad stuff stay happening somewhere else, and keep reaping the benefits of the good stuff that balances it out?"

Here's where this gets wildly speculative and from here on I freely acknowledge that I may be talking out my ass:

I think the Magnus Institute was investigating that question. I suspect a great many alchemists before the Institute, probably going back to the times of Albertus Magnus, were investigating it as well. I think the Great Work they were attempting -- the "universal transmutation" alluded to in episode 21 as the Magnus Institute's aim -- was the exact opposite of Jonah Magnus's own "Great Work" in TMA. In other words, I think they were probably trying to make the world an eternal paradise, rather than an eternal hell.

But if you're getting rid of all the "bad" stuff, all the suffering and misfortune, it's got to go somewhere.

I think they were sending it through to other worlds.

I'm not going to get into all the reasons I think that right now, because that's a whole essay in itself, but basically--the Leitners in TMA? The artifacts? All the little bits and pieces of evil given physical form, that never had a clear origin point in the world where they caused so much suffering for so long? We've all been worried about them winding up here, post-Archives... but I think this is where they came from in the first place. I think they were sent away in the hopes that an increase in "bad" in other worlds would lead to an increase in "good" in this one. Remember all those books Albrecht von Closen found in the tomb in the Black Forest in TMA, that Jonah Magnus later stole and let loose on the world? Remember that Albrecht found a mysterious coin along with them dated 1279? Albertus Magnus died in 1280; I strongly suspect he sent those books from the world of Protocol to that of Archives shortly before his death, much as the world of Archives sent the tapes away centuries later. But I think Protocol's world kept sending things away, kept trying to export "bad" and import "good". Remember all those happy, laughing volunteers bringing strange and sinister items to the charity shop on Hill Top Road in episode 7? "All for a good cause."

Okay so. Now. With that bit of hypothetical framework for Protocol's worldbuilding in place, let's next go back to Alesis Newman of episode 23. Her expressed wish is to create a new her. "Someone better. Someone the pain can't touch." Someone who can be everything Alesis wishes she could have been. Someone "free of all (her) mistakes."

But increasingly it sounds like what she actually wants isn't to create someone new. It is to create someone who is only a part of her current self. Someone who, she says in one of her last few posts, will "just be the good parts of me."

And if that's the case, if what she's really trying to do is make someone who holds only the "good" parts of her, someone who can be happy and strong and perfect and loved by everyone forever... what happens to the bad parts of Alesis Newman, as she currently exists? What about the parts of her that feel pain and fear, the parts of her that make mistakes, the parts of her that she rejects?

One might assume, from the experience she narrates, that those pieces of her are simply being destroyed. But that doesn't line up with the suggestion we've seen from earlier episodes that there has to be some kind of balance maintained in these bargains. What she actually says is happening to her--and what the forum members have apparently told her will happen, through this process--is that she and this "new her" are "becoming one... and then two."

I don't think the "bad" parts of Alesis Newman are dying. I think they're also going to become a "new her"--they're just going to go somewhere else, somewhere the new, happy, strong, perfect version of Alesis Newman never has to see them.

Still with me?

Okay.

Now let's talk about Gerry. Let's talk about the smiling, laughing, irrepressibly happy Gerry Keay we meet early in Protocol. Gerry who seems to have everything that the Gerry Keay of Archives was denied.

Gerry who underwent tests at the Magnus Institute as a child, and who, per the static over his and "Gee Gee's" words, holds a few more secrets about what went on there than he let on to Sam and Celia.

Back when I first heard Gerry's appearance in episode 8, it sure felt like a narrative gut punch: This is who he could have been in Archives, if not for the presence of the Fears. This is what Jon and Martin's final decision threatens to destroy--for this safe, happy version of Gerry, and for everyone else in his world.

I'm now suspecting it might be significantly worse than that. I think the Magnus Institute might have done to Gerry Keay something similar to what Alesis Newman later did to herself: made him New. Kept only the good parts--ensured a happy, comfortable, good life for him. In which case, all the bad stuff--all the parts of Gerry Keay that would ever have to suffer from bad luck, to feel pain and fear and misery...

...well. They'd have had to go... somewhere else, wouldn't they.

Which would suggest I had the causality the wrong way around the first time I heard Gerry's appearance in Protocol: maybe it's not "Gerry has a happy life in this world because he didn't have to suffer everything that the Gerry Keay of Archives did."

Maybe it's "Gerry in Archives had to suffer everything he did because Gerry in Protocol was made to always be happy."

[bad268]

omg im obsessed with your work! could i please request kimi antonelli and a reader who is just kind of sad and cries a lot? or just like some general comfort? xx

Strawberry Margarita Mix (Andrea Kimi Antonelli X Menstruating! Reader)

Clingy Antonelli Universe

Fandom: RPF/F2/F3

Requested: Clearly (Also, combined this with #3, Figure Skating Anon <3 I love both of you and I hope yall don't mind I made this part of Clingy Antonelli)

Warnings: Menstruating reader, midol mentioned, aged up Kimi

POV: Second Person (You/your)

W.C. 1430

Summary: The reader's period makes them a little emotional, but Kimi knows the trick.

As always, my requests are OPEN

MASTERLIST // HITLIST

~~(^Pinterest)

It didn’t happen a lot, but whenever you were the clingy one, it meant everything was wrong and the world was gonna end. It was usually only a problem when you didn’t feel good, which was rare. The other common reason occurred every month like clockwork. Your period was one of the worst things you could experience, and it was always a role reversal for you and Kimi. 

He was usually the clingy one, but during your monthly hell week, your level of cling outweighed him easily. It sucked when he had a race, but the summer break was one of the few times you did not have to worry about being separated for races or the like. He made it very clear to any team he signed with that there was always one week a month that he would not be coming in for anything unless it was absolutely necessary. Mercedes was no exception.

Granted they knew about you since you and Kimi had been dating for as long as they could remember, but when he got signed to the F1 team, they continued their original agreement. 

And that’s where you were now. 

You were supposed to be on a boat somewhere in the Maldives, but no. You were curled up in your room, crying because you ran out of strawberry margarita mix. You may have been completely miserable, but you wanted to at least pretend you were on vacation, and when you saw the mix was gone from the last time you wanted to get into the vacation vibe, you just cried.

“I can get you more, amour (love),” Kimi comforted as he wrapped you in his arms, trying and failing to keep the smile off his face. He really wanted to take you seriously, but this was the seventh time you cried today.

The first was because you couldn’t find the remote. Then it was the sunrise was so pretty, it brought tears to your eyes. Then the water was too cold when you took a bath. That was Kimi’s fault, and he apologized. Next, you accidentally stained your favorite pair of sweatpants which were actually Kimi’s, and your throw blanket. You had two separate episodes from that. One because you stained the paints and blanket, and another one because you didn't want to do laundry. Lastly, you cried because you felt like you were missing out.  

This vacation in the Maldives had been planned with a group of your friends, and seeing their posts on Instagram made you feel like you were missing out. However, a small part of you also knew you would be miserable in the Maldives too. You’d rather subject Kimi to your moodiness rather than your entire friend group, but you were experiencing some major FOMO.

Then Kimi had the incredible idea of doing similar things at your apartment like drinking margaritas and tanning, and you planned to go to a beach later in the week. It sounded like a great plan at first, but as soon as you saw there was no strawberry margarita mix, it felt like the end of the world.

“No,” You wined as you hid in his chest. You wanted to stop the tears, but it was harder said than done.”I wanted strawberry margaritas.”

“We have classic lime. Does that work until we can get more?” Kimi tried to offer as he swayed you two back and forth and ran his fingers along your back in a comforting manner. 

“No,” You dragged out again with more tears as you sort of melted in his arms to sit on the ground in the fetal position. You weren’t crying about the margarita mix anymore. Your cramps started flaring up and the last thing you wanted to do was stand. “I hate this.”

I know you do amour (love),” Kimi consoled as he sat on the kitchen floor beside you as he wrapped an arm around your shoulder. He also snaked his hand between your thighs and stomach to place his hand on your tummy as a makeshift heat pack for the time being. “I know it hurts now, but you’ll get through this. You’re the strongest person I know, and I know you always prove to be stronger each and every month.”

“I don’t feel very strong,” You muttered as you turned to bury your face in his neck, inhaling his calming scent. “Why does it always have to be so painful?”

“How about this?” Kimi starts, He moves his arm from your shoulders to hold your chin, forcing you to look at him. He gently whipped away the stray tears from your cheeks before placing a light kiss to your lips. “I think you just need some pampering and cuddles, so why don’t we go and watch a movie in our room? We can have all of the snacks you want, and if you’re feeling up for it, we can go out for your favorite pasta later. How does that sound?”

“I think that sounds like heaven,” You sighed as you leaned into his hand.

“Good, you go get comfy, and I’ll grab anything and everything you could want,” Kimi left one last kiss on your nose before standing, holding his hand out to help you up as well. 

“Except the margarita mix?” You joked lightly when you stood up, smirking at Kimi as you teased.

“Except for the margarita mix,” Kimi sighed with a small smile. “Now, go before I leave you in the bed all alone.”

“No!” You shouted as you immediately clung to his arm as tears sprung into your eyes again., “Don’t say that!”

“I’m kidding amour (love),” Kimi chuckled as he kissed your forehead before looking back at you. “I promise, I’ll be in our room in like 5 minutes. You go pick a show or movie, and I’ll get all of the snacks for you. I’ll also get your hot water bottle. Let me handle all of it while you get comfy.”

Begrudgingly, you left his side to go take a quick shower to wash off before putting on a new t-shirt and sweatpants, taking care of your products as well. Then you set up in bed. You laid out a towel on our bed just in case a leak happened again before you got comfortable under your comforter and loaded up Netflix. You went to your comfort movie/show and prompted it up for when Kimi came in. Speaking of Kimi, it had definitely been more than five minutes. You gave him a couple extra minutes, thinking he lost track of time, but it didn't take long for him to walk in the room with everything. 

Every comfort snack, drink, candy, and ice cream you had ever mentioned. He had everything for you. He also had a glass in his hand, but you couldn’t see what it was. You assumed it was your comfort drink already poured out. He set all of the snacks around the bed before setting your Stanley cup on your bedside table beside a couple of Midols. He always put water in it and encouraged you to stay hydrated. Then, he put the glass in your hand.

“Thank you, baby,” You said as you took a drink from the glass and immediately made a shocked face. “Strawberry margarita?”

“Don’t be so shocked,” Kimi chuckled as he sat next to you under the covers. “It was pretty easy when you can get things delivered. I have us stocked for a while, so any time you want a margarita, you let me know.”

“Not just any margarita, Kimi,” You graned as you leaned into his side, “A strawberry margarita.”

“Oh, my bad,” He teased back as he played the movie/show. This was what you needed. Just to be held by him. That’s all you wanted and needed in this moment. It was like as soon as he wrapped his arms around you, you were gone. You snacked a little on what was around you, but honestly, crying took a lot out of you. You were ready to just collapse for the next week. You didn’t want to yet, though. You still had one more thing you wanted to say. 

“Kimi,” You whispered as you looked up at him from your place on his chest. He hummed in response, almost asleep but not totally gone yet. “Thank you for putting up with me. Ti amo (I love you).”

“Ti amo di più, mia vita (I love you more, my life),” He whispered back, pulling you tighter against his chest. “Sempre (Always).”

~~~

Part 4 ->

Series masterlist

~~~~~

© BAD268 2024. DO NOT REPOST WITHOUT PERMISSION.

[allergictocolor]

The Addams Family Through the Years

Before I get into character profiles, let me first do a run-through of the incarnations of the Addams family through the years.

As I wrote in my first post, Charles Addams created the nameless, bizarre family in some of the many comics he drew for The New Yorker starting in 1938. Morticia and Wednesday were named in 1962 when dolls of them were released. Charles Addams was asked for a list of names and descriptions for them and the other family members when the TV show was in development in 1963, but had little other involvement with the show.

The show ran for two seasons from 1964 to 1966, totalling 64 episodes. This was the same time that a similar show, The Munsters, was also on the air. Both shows were about wacky families of monstrous weirdos living in American suburbia. Both were in black and white, and both were canceled in 1966, possibly due to the rise of color television.

After a cross-over with Scooby-Doo, Hanna-Barbera produced a 16-episode animated series in 1973 which featured the family on a road trip in a creepy camper that looked like their mansion. It featured the same actors who played Lurch and Fester voicing their previous characters, and a 10-year-old Jodie Foster as the voice of Pugsley!

There was a reunion special in 1977, which reunited most of the cast of the show, called Halloween with the New Addams Family. The original show had remained popular, running in syndication for years. It was especially popular in Australia. According to one fan, this was because the Addams family was “less American” than the Munsters. 

In 1991, a feature film was released after a tumultuous production. Raul Julia became the new face of Gomez Addams in the popular consciousness. It was followed by a sequel called Addams Family Values in 1993, and in between there was another animated series. John Astin reprised his role as Gomez in that animated series. 

There were plans to continue the film series, but Raul Julia suffered from stomach cancer and died suddenly in 1994, canceling those plans. Although both films performed poorly at the box office, they gained a loyal following on home video and remain popular to this day. In 1992, an Addams family pinball machine was produced featuring original voice acting from Raul Julia as Gomez and Angelica Huston as Morticia. It became the most popular pinball machine of all time, selling over 20,000 units.

In 1998, a TV movie called Addams Family Reunion was produced by Saban, featuring Tim Curry as Gomez and Daryl Hannah as Morticia. The only returning actors from the 1991/93 movies were Carel Struycken and Christopher Hart's hand, who played Lurch and Thing, respectively. I have not seen it, and can not attest to its quality, or lack thereof. That movie was also meant to be the pilot for a TV show called The New Addams Family, but most of the cast was different. It ran for 65 episodes, none of which have I seen. (Hat tip to @tenthirtyone for pointing this out.)

After a try-out in Chicago, a musical debuted on Broadway in 2010. I was lucky enough to see that for my birthday that year. It starred Nathan Lane as Gomez and Bebe Neuwirth as Morticia. It was pretty entertaining. It would have been better if Lane wasn’t trying to be Raul Julia. He did a very fake Spanish accent, and it was terribly distracting. The musical was panned by critics and didn’t last long, but it was popular enough that it is now performed by high schools across the country. In fact, my friend Sarah and my cousin Charlie were both involved with different productions of it this past Spring.

That same year (2010), the rights were purchased by Illumination Entertainment, and they announced that they were going to produce a stop-motion film with Tim Burton. However, he decided to go with computer animation instead. That eventually turned into the 2019 film, after Tim Burton dropped out. This version was the closest in appearance to the original comics. Although the characters are rendered in 3D, the animators aimed to make them look as much like Charles Addams’ drawings as possible.

You’d think Tim Burton had been involved since at least the 1991 movie, but he hadn’t. Black and white stripes? Bats? Other goth things? That sounds like Tim Burton, but oddly enough, he actually hasn’t been attached to any Addams Family property until the Netflix show in 2022. It’s a natural pairing, and perhaps he would have been great friends with Charles Addams, had he been born several decades earlier. 

Now the Netflix show, centered on Wednesday, is in production for its second season after its first season was one of the streaming service's most popular shows to date. It's not the first time the Addams family has spawned a viral dance sensation. Way back in the 1960s, the original TV show started a dance craze called “the Lurch”.

In coming posts, I’ll go into how Charles Addams originally portrayed each of the nine characters in the Addams family pictured above (Gomez, Morticia, Pugsley, Wednesday, Fester, Grandmama, Lurch, Thing, and Cousin Itt) and how they evolved, or didn’t, over time.

[strangebiology]

John Oliver just did an episode on body donation, which was very well-reported as usual.

It cites some older news including this amazing series on body brokers by Reuters. Some thoughts on anonymity being an issue:

It is shocking that there is no regulation on what it means to donate your body to "science," although, I'm not sure exactly who can say what that definition is or should be. Also, plenty of people would be happy to have their bodies used in a museum, but you CAN'T, because body donations are shuffled around and anonymized. We wouldn't have any issue with consent if we let people who WANT to be on display be on display.

When I read The Red Market, an amazing book about the trade in human body parts, it really highlighted the issues with mandated anonymity. WHY does a deceased heart, kidney, or blood donor need to be anonymous? That policy has led to horrific abuse of donors all over the world (egregious examples are given in China and India), living and dead, and the recipients have no idea because of that mandate. Mandated anonymity is a shield against regulation, public understanding, and accountability.

I wonder if people believe in anonymizing things because they think that makes the death not real. I've noticed people selling all sorts of human and animal remains with no description as to where they came from, and no one asks, and no one complains. I understand; sometimes some information is lost to time, or a business owner maybe can't take the time to verify the exact origins of things. Fine.

But take for example all these human fetuses for sale on Facebook. I'm not here to argue about that, although it's odd, and I understand both sides of the controversy regarding selling them. When I saw those posts, no one bats an eye.

Then when someone offered to sell her own aborted fetus (context: this person went in for an abortion but was told the fetus was dead anyway) people freaked out. In the same group where they're buying the fetuses of strangers. So...it's only ok to sell body parts when the person whose body it came from did not consent? That's our standard?

The same goes for animal body parts. "Hey, buy these dead rats!" Fine and dandy. "Buy these dead rats! Here is some context about their lives and/or deaths--" Disgusting! How dare you! Those were living things!

Death is disgusting and horrifying and I'm NOT saying that everyone has to think about it all the time or look at dead bodies or even understand it. What I am saying is that when we complain about transparency and enact policies that make it impossible to actually understand who these body parts are coming from, or to track them, that breeds an industry where abuse of consent is hard to avoid.

Lastly, the end of the Last Week Tonight show showed what happens when you let donors be known. It's beautiful.

[funhouse-mirror-barbie]

So, I’d initially made a post that said something along the lines of “it’s weird that they had Stolas say this”—

“Only to remind the audience like 9 min later of a specific time where Stolas talked down to Blitzø”

And I also included the original scene for context/comparison:

But after posting someone DID point out that in the song’s lyrics during that sequence, Stolas was questioning his past choices and coming to the realization that his actions had affected Blitz—They stated that initial scene of him saying he doesn’t look down on Blitz was a set up for this later self-reflection on his behavior in “All 2 U”, and potentially realizing how harmful his actions have been.

And I think this is a very fair interpretation and observation—as well as something I missed, and that’s on me.

I like talking about these things openly, because I think it is really nice to get other people’s perspectives and interpretations of stuff like this, and I’m also susceptible to missing things on a watch-through.

I decided to delete the original post, b/c I realized I agreed partially with their assessment of the scene, and because there was another comment that was a little spicier, and I didn’t want people to start arguing back in forth in the comments. That’s happened before and it’s always kind of annoying.

With all of that said, I do still think those lines were a weird choice, and I want to go over why the song “All 2 U” fell really flat to me in regards to Stolas’ self reflection. (More below + TLDR @ the end)

There is, so far, a really consistent pattern in Helluva Boss’ writing, where every time Stolas comes close to reflecting on the way his actions could have negatively affected Blitz, the focus almost immediately shifts back to Stolas’ own feelings and situation.

It’s kind of become the status-quo for HB—Stolas will have a brief moment of questioning himself, before the story continues to frame Blitzø as being in the wrong.

We see this really blatantly in “All 2 U”—where anytime Stolas DOES begin to question his own actions, Verosika and Vortex chime in and immediately assure him that it’s Blitz who’s in the wrong:

And then even after, these lines where he questions himself further

The song just CONTINUES to focus only on Stolas’ feelings, and prioritize them above all else. He has a brief moment where he wonders if he’s in the wrong, before brushing those concerns away and continuing to refer to Blitz as “the motherfucker”.

The montage during this also goes to great lengths to show how regretful Blitzø is hearing all of this.

He feels terrible that Stolas is hurt—even though Blitz does NOT owe Stolas anything. You can disagree with me, but based on the arrangement that STOLAS created, their relationship is entirely transactional (and coercive, but I don’t have time to get into that mess right now).

Blitzø is in no way obligated to treat their “relationship” as something that holds meaning because of this—if Stolas is hurt by Blitz’s not reciprocating his feelings, that is ENTIRELY on Stolas. Blitz has not wronged Stolas in any way by not reciprocating those feelings.

But it’s so very clear that the WHOLE PURPOSE of this song—and this entire episode, even if there is a moment where Stolas questions himself—is to portray Blitz as the one in the wrong.

Even in the scene where Stolas questions what he’s done to Blitz and wonders if he’s in the wrong, his flashbacks include these scenes, which are framed as Blitzø being uncaring/blowing Stolas off after their arrangement:

This is probably one of my biggest issues with Stolitz as a ship, and with Stolas as a character. That the writing explicitly caters to Stolas’ feelings and beliefs, and (so far) refuses to hold him accountable for anything he does that negatively affects others. His actions have consequences just as much as Blitz’s do, but the narrative constantly frames him as being a victim.

You can say that both characters are in the wrong all you want, you can say to the audience point blank “this is what I intended with this scene”, but you still have to actually. write. the developing relationships and action of the story. Telling the audience about development after the fact is just poor storytelling.

I’ve already gone over how the narrative rarely holds Stolas accountable in the conflicts he has with Octavia, but it’s very much the same with Blitzø.

So much so that Autistic Swag on YouTube was able to make a Stolas Hypocrisy compilation video:

And because I know there’s a chance of people reacting to my criticisms this way, no, recognizing a character’s hypocrisy in the narrative is not “media illiteracy”.

Media analysis is still derived from the actual text of the story. I see fans (not just of HB, this is a general problem in a lot of fandom spaces) making wild leaps and jumps about story’s character developments, world building, plot-points, etc. and then claim that people who disagree with their interpretations are “media illiterate” and like.

Those are headcanons. Those are just personal headcanons that you made based on what you wanted to happen in the story.

Which is fine!!! Which is something that is very fun to do!!! I do it a lot actually!

Like, I could say that the green light in “The Great Gatsby” actually represents envy and that Gatsby is always staring at it because he’s actually jealous of Daisy and wants to transition from male to female and live as a transgender woman.

And that would be a really interesting concept to explore! But it would also be a headcanon because in the context of how the text is written, is clearly not the case.

Pointing out that Stolas’ actions are morally dubious at best, and that he is flawed and has done wrong and has very clearly hurt Blitzø by coercing him into a sexual relationship so Blitz can keep his livelihood isn’t media illiteracy. It’s literally. It’s just the text. Audiences aren’t media-illiterate for seeing that.

Final note time— I want this post to age poorly. I want so badly for there to be a future episode where Stolas is really truly held accountable for the ways in which he has hurt Blitzø, the ways in which he’s been classist and racist toward imps, the times that he’s neglected Octavia, and yes! Even for cheating on Stella!!

And I want this NOT because I want to see Stolas completely villainized or beat down, I want this because I want Stolas to develop and grow and change as a character. I want Stolas to actually have the nuance that the writers say he has!!

Again, as always, please know that if you love Stolas and Stolitz that I am REALLY not trying to rain on your parade. I’m not trying to convince you that you’re not allowed to like the story as is, or that your opinions are wrong. That would be really silly. You are allowed to interpret all of this literally however you want, even if we disagree.

The only, only thing I would ask you to please consider, is if you are doing the work of writing these characters development outside of the story, or are you building on what the writers have already shown you. I am not asking this to be condescending or elitist.

This is something I have to actively ask myself when reading and analyzing text and stories, and when analyzing and editing my own writing and work.

That’s all. Thanks for making it to the end of this long ass post. If you’d like to have a polite discussion about your thoughts on all of this I would genuinely like to hear it. I will delete any arguments or fights in the comments tho. Thanks again.

——————————

TLDR:

-“All 2 U” falls very flat as a song where Stolas re-examines his actions because even tho this self-reflection is set up, nothing ultimately comes of it and things immediately go back to the status quo

-This is a very consistent pattern with Stolas as a character, due to this he is severely under-developed, and feels like a completely different character from his season 1 appearances.

-People realizing that he has not had active development between seasons 1 and 2 and pointing that out is not “media illiteracy”.

-Final side note—I think the “both sides are wrong/fucked up” angle really COULD have worked, if after the bridge where Stolas questions his actions, he acknowledged that HE was also “a motherfucker”. But. Nah. Oh well.

[mareastrorum]

These are just initial thoughts, and perhaps I’ll learn something that changes my mind on it, but I’m glad to see Critical Role making the leap to their own subscription service with Beacon.

As a lead in: I’m an attorney that has some background in IP law, though it isn’t what I practice currently. I’ve kept in contact with several active practitioners, particularly those that represent small-time creators either in their own independent practice or via nonprofits. I do not have an extensive Rolodex of IP peers, nor do I spend the money to keep up on IP CLEs. I’m just someone who used to know a ton because I did heavy research and work in that space, and that hasn’t been the case for years.

So here’s my thoughts a bit on the IP angle:

The primary reason I’m happy to see this leap is that CR is taking active steps to keep control over its IP. It’s a boring thing to most people, but when I start paying attention to a specific creator (authors, directors, companies, etc.), I tend to be very attentive to how they use their IP. How freely do they license their marks to partner with other creators to make merch? How often do they allow others to make adaptations or derivatives of their copyrights? What is the quality of those products? What is the supply chain like? Are those third parties objectionable in some way? Were the other parties faithful to the original works or marks? Was this a cash grab or an earnest effort to make something worth the price tag?

Honestly, I like how CR run their business. They have a history of tapping fans and fellow small businesses when making new merch or spinoffs. They embrace the culture of fan-made derivative works, both by featuring fanart/cosplay and by sharing their success. Do you know how rare it is for a company to pay fan artists for their already-made and freely posted work and then sell books of it? Let me be clear: CR bought a limited license from each artist so they could print and sell each work in a physical book, then paid the cost of publishing that book with no guarantee that CR would make that money back, let alone profit. I have a copy of the collector’s edition art books: they’re actually very well made and the packaging definitely cost a pretty penny. That’s not a rainmaker idea, that’s genuinely risking financial loss to sell something people could access for free if they wanted to.

The art books aren’t a one-off either. Darrington Press is CR’s separate LLC for tabletop games. (It’s good business practice to split off companies that handle products in different industries.) CR has also made shows based on those games, and the Candela Obscura series has quite a dedicated audience. Everything about Candela belongs to them: the game itself, the rule book, all the art in the book, the web series based on the game, and merch. It’s so successful that they invested in scheduling a live show for Candela later this month. That’s HUGE.

Contrast that with the distribution of Campaign 1 and the first 19 episodes of Campaign 2. CR cannot host those videos themselves; Geek & Sundry still exists and still holds what I presume to be distribution rights (but I don’t have the contract to review). So G&S gets to host those videos on YouTube and reaps the advertising. I can’t speak to whatever share CR gets from that, but considering that CR is locked out of hosting their own copies of those videos, I doubt it’s much, if any, revenue. (If you’re wondering why CR just didn’t buy those rights back, I ask: what incentive does G&S have to sell something that’s making them money for no cost?)

Knowing that background about G&S, I was wary of CR choosing Amazon to host and distribute The Legend of Vox Machina. Originally, TLOVM was not the plan; CR had a kickstarter for an animated special based on C1. It was only because they blew past the goal that CR was able to make an entire season. The reasonable assumption is that choosing Amazon had to have secured CR additional funding for future seasons of the show, which seems evident from how quickly season 2 was announced, Mighty Nein Animated is also going to be a thing, and that season 3 of TLVOM is scheduled for fall 2024. CR had the option of just doing 1 season and keeping it purely in their control, but going with Amazon meant they could animate more of their works. Animation is expensive. I cannot stress enough how doubtful I am that CR would have been able to afford this many episodes and both campaigns if they had not gone this route. As wary as I was in the start, it paid off, and it’s going well—so far. Hopefully CR doesn’t regret that decision if Amazon tries something sleazy. But, as before, we don’t have the contracts and can’t know how secure CR’s position is if any dispute came up.

CR also partnered with Dark Horse Comics to make Vox Machina comics and Might Nein Origins comics. What’s especially surprising is that each of the cast had a hand in writing the MNO comics for their characters, with Matt listed for multiple. That isn’t very common with comic adaptations. Often times, IP owners let comic companies go ham with minimal oversight. Being listed as one of the authors comes with IP rights that have to be negotiated. That means that Dark Horse had to talk with CR about whether that warrants more or less revenue going to which party in exchange for that—or, alternatively, whether the comic gets made at all. That’s a ballsy move. You think people can just demand to write the comics that a publishing company is going to pay to print? Pffft. CR wanted some creative control, and that is a big ask. However, Dark Horse still has the distribution rights, both digitally and for physical copies. You couldn’t buy the comics from CR until they came out with the library edition, a book bound compilation of 4/8 comics. But the publisher is still Dark Horse; CR is just allowed to sell the book directly from their own site as well.

Contrast that with the novels about CR characters. CR partnered with Penguin Random House to publish novels about Vex and Vax (Kith & Kin), Lucien (The Nine Eyes of Lucien), and Laudna (What Doesn’t Break). Liam and Laura were vocal about having some say in K&K, whereas Madeline Roux said in an interview that she had full control over TNEOL. Both of those novels were narrated with CR voices, but narrating a book doesn’t come with IP rights, it just brings in a paycheck. There’s a lot less IP control in there compared to the comics, but this isn’t abnormal for book publishing. To be blunt, I doubt PRH would have agreed to publish the novels if anyone from CR had been a co-author or had heavy oversight over the author or the editing. I don’t think PRH even considered that as an option. Either an author that has already managed to sell X number of copies or nothing. Creative control over a book a huge ask, asks come with reduced revenue, and switching to books from a web series is already a leap. The fact that Laura and Liam had any say is surprising, really.

That was a long meandering tour of what we’ve seen CR do with its IP. The reason I bring up each of these things is that navigating the way to protect an IP in this space is rife with challenges. Different types of IP warrant different strategies because of the cost involved in creating each medium and the challenges placed by industries that have already sprung up around them. Any time that a third party is tapped to create an IP, it’s usually because they already have the funds and resources to create the work, and CR has to negotiate for revenue, creative control, distribution, and—the big one—who gets to be the owner. These are not easy, quick, or fun conversations, and CR is always going to be the smaller company at the table.

Knowing that, I’m not surprised or worried that CR is creating its own independent subscription service with Beacon. It tells me that they’re being careful with their IP whenever they can. A subscription service means they don’t have to trade away distribution rights or give up ad revenue to a third party. They’re in this for a long term investment, and that requires solid income not tied to third parties that can definitely outspend them in litigation in the event of a dispute. A subscription for bonus content is one of many parts in a diverse revenue stream.

(All that said, this isn’t meant to criticize creators that cant afford to do this type of thing. It took 9 years for CR to get to the point where Beacon is financially feasible and a desirable business decision. They have enough ongoing, popular content to warrant paying for a subscription, and they’ve built sufficient trust with their audience that more will be added. That takes time and an awful lot of money.)

As a final note, I take this step as a sign that CR definitely intends to stick around. This isn’t a move people make when they plan on ending the business after the current campaign. I’m glad to see CR is taking steps to secure their foundation and keep making new content.

I’m sure people will chime in on other issues (cost, content exclusivity, etc.), but I hope my perspective gives an idea of why this sort of thing is good for business generally and why it would be good for CR.

[love-takes-work]

Highlights from the stream:

Here are the anecdotes shared during the epic draw-fest. Nearly all of them have been shared elsewhere at least once, but the new ones for me were about Greg Universe's orientation and the prototypical name for what Steven and Pearl's Fusion was going to be.

Rebecca Sugar loved Peridot's floating fingers and wanted to do all kinds of fun things with them before they would be gone forever. That's why we see her making arrows with them and biting them nervously in the episode right before she loses them.

When selecting clips for promotional use, they tried to be super careful about not picking anything that would show Peridot's real hands before the reveal had been aired. They didn't want a promo to accidentally ruin that surprise.

While doing the show they had an "eye theory" where the three main Gems would always have a different number of eyes showing. Pearl had both her eyes visible; Amethyst usually had one covered; and Garnet had either no eyes showing or three eyes showing.

With Rebecca and Ian's decision to get married and the characters Ruby and Sapphire being based on them, they figured well, of course now they have to get married too. (Though Rebecca and Ian got to do so AFTER their characters did!)

One of Rebecca's "post-Future theories" is that Steven gets a Gibson Hummingbird guitar.

Cookie Cat was originally based off of Cookie Puss, a very strange Carvell ice cream cake. It had a complicated backstory, which was appropriate for working with their own characters' complicated backstory. The branding and packaging of the Cookie Cat is important within the show.

Jeff Liu composed the Cookie Cat theme on a Game Boy and pitched it.

Rebecca has a "theory" regarding how Steven and Connie's faces kind of "fit together" with Connie's face sticking out at the top and Steven's face sticking out at the bottom.

Rebecca used to do a lot of fan comics, and learned a lot about storytelling while practicing with others' worlds and characters. They love when people make things based on these characters.

The original appearance of Rainbow Quartz was inspired by a music video from the Cars that Rebecca loved when they were younger. The Cars are referenced a lot throughout the show because their videos were a huge inspiration to Rebecca.

Lapis is very much based on a character from one of Rebecca's comics from the art school days.

Everybody on the Crew had different ideas of how Steven's head connected to his body and how his hair worked; Rebecca felt that they learned from everyone's various ideas.

If you've heard that Rebecca was against Finn being in a relationship while working on Adventure Time, that is not true. Rebecca worked on lots of the Flame Princess episodes. Finn and Flame Princess were still together when Rebecca left the show (last episode "Simon and Marcy").

Greg Universe's sexuality was never explicitly stated on the show, but Rebecca thinks of him as sexually fluid. Regarding him as bisexual is also completely valid--and appreciated by Rebecca as a bisexual creator who puts lots of their own personal traits into characters and feels that bisexual characters are pretty rare. Greg's gender on the show is pretty solidly established as male, so Ian says he is probably not gender fluid, but Rebecca is fine with alternate headcanons about that too.

Some of the earliest concept art from "Mr. Greg" was everybody in suits. Getting everyone in a suit was a primary agenda.

Everyone also wanted Connie to have a Space Camp outfit in the earliest concepts for her design in the movie.

Rebecca used to love doing signings while doing the show because it was like a chance to come up for air and go back to work energized by knowing how many people were touched by the show.

Rebecca Sugar wanted Pink Diamond to feel a bit influenced/inspired, design-wise, by the work of Iwao Takamoto. Rebecca loved his work in the Hanna-Barbera Alice in Wonderland and on Sleeping Beauty.

Rebecca drew the rough of the poster's art and Danny Hynes did the colors. Rebecca loves that they got to do this poster because they didn't get to do the final Comic Con with any art depicting Future or beyond (the finale of Future coincided with the emergence of Covid, so everything was closed down), so this is their way of "going rogue" and doing it!

An early prototype of a Steven/Pearl Fusion was called Coral. Rebecca said maybe they could share some drawings of this Fusion sometime. Rebecca shared this factoid with the viewers while drawing Rainbow Quartz 2.0, and mentioned that Ian boarded the scenes including their introduction.

Rebecca would often draw Garnet with a huge smile on her face whenever Garnet was the requested character--even before Garnet had made an expression like that on any aired episode. They had to be careful not to drop any Garnet lore before viewers knew what her center was about. For the short period before "Alone Together" had aired that they were doing conventions, some people were getting mysteriously grinning Garnets and not being familiar with that expression, but once the episodes aired, they understood for sure.

Shelby Rabara, Peridot's voice actor, is a professional dancer, and she choreographed the tap-dancing in "Mr. Greg" as well as provided the foot-taps that you actually hear in the show during the dancing.

Rebecca thinks of art and writing as just two different ways of expressing what you mean--they're not exactly as different from each other as most people think.

Everyone on the Crew was so excited about Steven's neck as an older teen. Mainly because figuring out how Steven's head joins to his body was an issue in original SU.

Unfortunately, while it was also kinda nice to see so many people enjoying Rebecca's drawings and commentary, there was a lot of rudeness and obnoxiousness in the chat. I know, I know, it's expected; I too live on the internet. But I'm disappointed to say the chat was full of people demanding Black Diamond, or repeating their own name and what character they want every 3 seconds (like, literally, pasting it over and over again for a long period of time), or harassing them about "weird Ed Edd and Eddy art," or spamming "REBECCA WHAT WAS IN THE CHEST," or wanting constantly for them to say hi to them personally, or repeatedly asking if Rebecca has read Homestuck. Or even writing snotty things like "maybe you should stop drawing and get up and give us a new season." Holy shit. can u not

(I didn't want to get a live-signed one, but I did get one of these to be sketched later! Mine is supposed to get Lion on it. I love Rebecca and the SU crew for bringing us new art and fun discussions in 2024.)

[canonicallyobserving911]

Buddie: "Evan" vs. "Buck" - Parallels of Margaret & T.K. 1.0 vs. Phillip & T.K. 2.0

The video below includes a few examples of Phillip, Eddie and Tactless calling Buck "Evan" and IT'S EASY TO HEAR THE DIFFERENCE IN THE WAY THEY SAY IT. Phillip and Toy Story sound like they're scolding him while Eddie said it with love, emotion and caring. ALSO, I ADDED THE PART WHERE BUCK TOLD HIS DAD TO CALL HIM BUCK! That's why it's interesting Buck hasn't told Tree stump to call him "Buck" in CANON yet.

In a recent post I completed about Buck's "In Another Life" journey being continued in Season 8 (linked here), I mentioned I would do a separate post that included details regarding the parallels between Phillip and Timbuktu that would illustrate how their wardrobes are similar and their clothing in the different episodes proves it. The same way Phillip calls Buck "Evan" Transparent does it too and like I mentioned in my original post, I believe he's doing it because he's supposed to be teaching Buck something.

Reminder both Phillip and Margaret are TEACHERS! However, the audience didn't learn this information until 6x11 when Bobby said it at the end of the episode. Well, I said Tyrannosaurs Rex is supposed to be a GUIDE/ADVISOR to Buck and people in those roles are there to teach and support the person they're assigned to. Therefore, it makes sense that Phillip's and Temu's clothes are similar.

While watching 8x5, I kept trying to figure out why Tonka Toy's wardrobe looked different from the way it did in season 7 and when I realized he wore a plaid shirt twice, I immediately remembered who else wear's them. It's Buck's dad, Phillip. He wears them ALL THE TIME! Usually he has a sweater, cardigan or a blazer on top of them and they always cover most of his shirts but THEY'RE ALWAYS THERE and they're in plain sight. Reminder, Phillip calls Buck, "EVAN" and he usually does it with so much disdain that anyone who hears him whenever he says it can tell he's aggravated or annoyed with him.

I've placed pictures of Phillip from different episodes beside one's of Toy Story to illustrate this point.

In the first picture, Phillip and Margaret are talking to Maddie because she told Buck about Daniel. They told her she had no right to tell him and Phillip just let Margaret become unglued the same way she always does when she's talking about Buck and Daniel. It's also the part where he explained Buck being born was the reason why he packed them up and moved them to Hershey. In the second picture, they're in the hospital looking at Buck but reminder, they weren't in the room when Buck's found family entered later in the episode. In the third picture of Phillip (at the bottom), they had just arrived in L.A. because Maddie asked them to come and in the fourth photo, it was a flashback and it's when Margaret told Buck, "Don't be stupid, Evan." The pictures of Tinseltown are from 8x5 and 8x1. He wore plaid shirts in both of them. The one at the top is of him visiting Buck in the hospital after he dislocated his left shoulder and the one at the bottom is of him at Eddie's house before Chris' online birthday party.

Additionally, in 8x5 (below), Tree Branch was wearing another shirt that matches a color Phillip wore on two different occasions. It's a dark red almost burgundy color and Tonsilitis wore one in 8x5 while he was supposed to be helping Buck after he dislocated his shoulder. Reminder, it's the part where he told Buck he'd had enough screen time and it was time to turn off the computer. Also, he turned the lights out on him.

The first picture of Phillip is from "Buck Begins" and it's a flashback from the night Buck INJURED his arm after he crashed his motorcycle. Phillip asked him, "Evan, what were you even doing in that part of town?" It's also the night Maddie gave him her Jeep and told him to go and be happy. In the second picture, Phillip is at the firehouse with Margaret (they showed up unannounced) and he's telling "Evan" that it wasn't his fault that he couldn't save Daniel. It's when BUCK TOLD THEM, "It's BUCK! The people who know me call me Buck!"

I did a post a few years ago about the way Margaret and T.K. 1.0 spoke to Buck and I included some information about the way their wardrobes were similar too (linked here). It's the same story with both T.K.'s because in the pictures below, Margaret is wearing a reddish color sweater over her blouse but reminder, she was yelling at Buck for almost dying. In the picture of Taylor from 4x8, it's when she called Buck, "Needy". In the second set of pictures, Margaret is wearing a purple shirt and she's yelling at Buck because he was sitting in a tree. After she did, he fell down and broke his left arm. Taylor is talking down to Buck while wearing a lavender (shade of purple) blouse but reminder, she was upset with Buck because he climbed up the crane after Eddie was shot.

The point of this post is to illustrate what the show has been doing this whole time with T.K. 1.0 and T.K. 2.0. They're paralleling both of them with his parents. Taylor used to yell at Buck the same way Margaret did and now Trespass is talking to Buck and calling him Evan the same way Phillip does. Everyone who's ADMITTED that Buck prefers to be called "Buck" and not "Evan' fully understands that Tree branch calling him by his legal name is JUST PLAIN WRONG!

The one-time Eddie used his legal name, it was to let Buck know he is needed and that his life is NOT EXPENDABLE. (Related post linked here.)

THERE'S A REASON WHY THE SHOW ONLY LET'S TOMBSTONE CALL BUCK "EVAN" INSTEAD OF HIS CHOSEN NAME WHICH IS "BUCK".

Just saying!

[hotasfahrenheit]

the thing that is really crushing my heart slowly is that i can't stop thinking about the idea that everything that is happening in the fixed timeline is happening not just in Great's mind, but is a mix of Great and Tyme together because they are both currently dieing in the original timeline. they're both having an out of body experience and the changes are their shared will, not one or the other wishing things had gone better.

because that means it's not just that Great wants to have a nicer, softer relationship with Tyme- Tyme wishes he had approached Great differently, had handled things better despite knowing who Great was. remember in the fixed timeline, Tyme is the one who pulls off his own mask and reveals to Great that he's the one who attacked Korn, but we know now that in the original timeline it was Great. if this is something they're both in control of then it makes sense for Tyme to have changed that, for him to have chosen different paths to pursue Great. to have done it in a way where they both developed feelings for each other instead of using each other and just not quite making the right connection.

the main changes we see are happening when Great experiences the visions of the future, but Tyme's choices don't feel like they're just ripples of that to me. they feel like Tyme pushing things from his side as well.

because they both wish things could be different. in their fight at the end of episode 6, Tyme calls Great out for being a coward and standing by while other people die. he wants Great to be better, Great wants to be better, the first thing Great changes is the first time that he let someone die. Tyme seeks Great out sooner, approaches him in a more open manner. finds out things that he likes, protects him, takes him on a cuter, better date. plays him guitar. makes it clear that he wants to be around Great for his own sake and not just because it's a means to an end.

Tyme is not a particularly nice guy in the original timeline either. clearly Great allowing or being an accessory to murder is worse, yes, but Tyme has plenty of his own problems. he's willing to use another person to achieve his goals, his reaction to his girlfriend ending their relationship is to shrug and drink some more coffee, he's willing to post a non consensual sex tape on the internet, he's willing to do whatever he has to.

but both of the times that he walks away from Great, he's upset. upset with himself for having to break things off, upset with Great for his failings because he believed Great could have done better.

when their original timeline mini-date ends, before Tyme walks away, Great possibly predicts the future, while thinking he's speaking of the past.

"you were dying for me that day," he says.

in a show wrapped up in death and the afterlife and the steps in between, i can't think that comment wasn't loaded with some kind of meaning.

[miss-musings]

Parallels between Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader and Crosshair from "The Bad Batch"

GENERAL PERSONALITIES & EARLY LIFE

Both of them are fiercely loyal to the people they care about

Both of them are absolute SassMasters

Both have a scar/tattoo over their right eye

Neither had a proper childhood, as they were both trained for combat starting at a young age

Both have special abilities/enhanced senses compared to the average human, and they were trained (read: groomed) because of it

Both of them were part of a unique brotherhood (the Jedi and the clones, respectively) that, at one point, spanned the entire galaxy during The Clone Wars

Both have a complicated relationship with an older brother/father figure in Obi-Wan and Hunter, respectively

Both lost their right hands in a fight with an evil counterpart (Although, for Crosshair, this happens much later in his life)

POSSIBLE FORESHADOWING IN TCW Season 7?

As I pointed out in a separate post, in "The Clone Wars" Episode 7.02 "A Distant Echo," we get a moment of foreshadowing with these two characters.

In the episode, Anakin and his friend/captain Rex and the four original Bad Batch brothers are on a rescue mission together. About halfway through the episode, there's a moment where the six of them split up to search a tower. They're basically at a T-intersection, and while the other four go one way, Crosshair and Anakin go the other.

(Link to a gif post of the moment here.)

These characters literally take the same path.

By doing so, they are separating themselves from their loved ones (Anakin from his friend Rex, Crosshair from his brothers) and choosing the opposite path.

I realize this might've been unintentional on the writers' part, because I'm not sure if "The Bad Batch" series was in production yet when TCW Season 7 released, but holy hell! That's some insane foreshadowing right there!!

THEIR TURN TO ‘THE DARK SIDE’

Both betrayed their brothers and other loved ones by deciding to serve the Empire, and it's around the same time in-universe

Order 66 specifically becomes a pivotal moment in their respective stories. For Anakin, it's when he first takes on the name and mantle of Darth Vader and exterminates the Jedi; for Crosshair, it's when he's first torn away from his family due to the Empire's mind control via the inhibitor chip

Both have at least one opportunity to come back but decide to continue serving the Empire/Dark Side of their own accord (Anakin on Mustafar in ROTS // Crosshair on Kamino in TBB S1 finale)

While their battle attire was dark-colored before they betrayed their loved ones and started serving the Empire, afterward, both characters start wearing all-black armor

Despite all their loyalty and sacrifices, their masters/employers are ready to throw them away the minute they find a better or more convenient replacement

Both were burned while trying to kill their older brother/father figures

Both initially had hair, but after being burned and getting scarred on their heads, we only ever see them bald on-screen

Both seem to suffer from an "in for a penny, in for a pound" mindset, which is partly why they stay with the Empire for so long

While serving the Empire, both commit all of the war crimes!! 😬

Both have multiple scenes of them killing their own officers/troopers, and they both seem to take some amount of pleasure in doing so

Blinded by anger and rage, both are ready to hunt down their older brother/father figures at a moment's notice, and ultimately attempt to kill them several times (Vader in the "Obi-Wan Kenobi" series // Crosshair in TBB Season 1)

Both attempt to kill their own kid at least once. (Vader in ANH // Crosshair in TBB Season 1)

(Side note: if you don't think of Crosshair as one of Omega's dads, I recommend you review my post about S3 Crosshair speed-running Hunter's Dad Arc and/or my CrossDad S3 episode ranking. Because, if you're not on board with the idea that Crosshair is Omega's dad, you're not going to enjoy the rest of this post.)

THEIR REDEMPTION & FINAL MOMENTS

There’s a whole plot line about them trying to find their kid at a secret base (Vader in ESB // Crosshair in TBB Season 3)

When confronted by their kid, both characters believe they are undeserving or too far gone to be forgiven/redeemed (Vader: "It is too late for me, son" // Crosshair: "Omega. Don't risk anything for me. I belong in here.")

At some point, both characters' kids challenge them on their true intentions and decisions to stay with the Empire. (Luke to Vader: "Then my father is truly dead." // Omega to Crosshair: "I wanted to believe it was the inhibitor chip that made you like this, but I was wrong.")

Both of them ultimately find redemption and forgiveness because their blonde kid refused to give up on them (Luke to Vader: "I know there is good in you. The Emperor hasn't driven it from you fully." // Omega to Crosshair: "You're still their brother, Crosshair. You're my brother too.")

A large part of their redemption arcs is saving their kid from being held hostage and tortured by the Empire (Vader saving Luke from the Emperor & the Death Star // Crosshair helping Omega escape Tantiss both times)

While a much larger battle impacting the fate of the galaxy rages on nearby, both characters' final on-screen act -- the climax of their respective stories -- is saving their kid from one of the Empire's worst villains (Vader saving Luke from the Emperor // Crosshair saving Omega from Hemlock)

Both of them ultimately help thwart Palpatine’s plans for immortality/reincarnation(?) by destroying his primary body and his cloning facility on Tantiss, respectively

Their final on-screen reunions with their kids are very personal and emotional. For Vader and Luke, it's the only time they see each other face-to-face. For Crosshair and Omega, it's the first time they ever hug on-screen.

Their last lines of on-screen dialogue are talking about their daughters with another family member (Vader to his son Luke: "Tell your sister you were right" // Crosshair to his brother Hunter: "If I'm off -- I can't risk Omega.")

The final shots of them on-screen are a 'family portrait' type pose with their older brother/father figure and other loved ones, and their kid/s are nearby

(This list is subject to edits/additions if I think of anything else! If you have any ideas, include them in the comments or reblogs. Thanks!)

[jmdbjk]

Minimoni Music Exchange

Things that got answered:

1. The complete meltdown Namjoon was having up to and following Festa 2022. I talked a little bit about that back in this June 19, 2022 post.

In the past, Namjoon once said being the only one who spoke fluent English meant he was thrust into the frontman position when they began doing interviews and promotions with western media and it made him unsure of himself. He said it was nerve wracking to be required to think on his feet while fielding questions for the group, to speak for the members without actually consulting them before speaking for them and then have to answer these questions coherently and off the cuff in ENGLISH.

As this episode opens Namjoon says he "loves BTS because of the music... but if he had to continue like this he might want to die."

That's a heavy statement. But it is edited with the context left out.

I know this because further into the episode the context around that is included: they all felt the burdens of ALL eyes on them, and at some point they all had to become conscientious of who they were and act accordingly. He loves BTS because of what they do, the music that they bring out to the world. But if he had to care about what everyone else thought, all the people who put pressure on him to be responsible for everything and had to deal with that constantly, he felt he wouldn't be able to withstand that, that he felt he'd want to die.

2. The complete shit-show their military enlistment caused for them. I talked about that in this June 22, 2022 post and here in this Oct. 17, 2022 post.

All of the "MS exemption" stuff was such a waste of time and it really did hurt everyone's feelings, mine, yours, and theirs, backwards and forwards. A truly damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario. I believe Jin was relieved to finally get to the base and begin his service in order to get it behind him. And I'm sure the others knew how he felt about it. And in 15 days Jin will be back! We are about to begin a new Bangtan era: post military.

I watched this MiniMoni Music episode twice, pausing and rewinding both times. Not just to make sure I understood what they were saying to each other but to surround those words, to put context to the words, with the heft of the emotional support and reciprocal gratitude that accompanied the conversation.

And Jimin brings a different perspective than say Yoongi would if it was Yoongi and RM having this conversation like during a Suchwita episode.

I also had to pause a few times to savor that sudden burst of love upon seeing beautiful Jimin.

Jimin listened as Namjoon explained how he second-guessed himself when he delayed enlisting. He was supposed to go with Hobi but then chose to continue working on RPWP.

He totally related to Namjoon declaring himself contradictory in nature.

Namjoon said he had to "turn off BTS" in order to focus on himself. He had to be physically apart from them in order to stop thinking about them as a team and see himself as an individual. And then Jimin revealed that he and the members detected Namjoon's distance and wondered if he was drifting away from them. But they also realized it was part of this era, part of this process they were all going through.

Throughout this episode, Jimin listened to the songs for the first time and offered his thoughts.

Namjoon says he had to get this album out because he believes things have an "expiration date", meaning he needed to get this out of him in order to move on artistically. He had tied his identity to BTS all this time, that he had no idea who RM was, or who Kim Namjoon was.

They then go on talking about when they come back, the return of the pressure of being the leader of BTS and they wonder how their concerts will look then. They throw out the idea of more subunit work. Namjoon says when they are done with their service, he will focus on the team and each of their originality must go into it ... and he feels good about his position as a member of BTS and as RM.

He reiterates whether you are a fan, a casual listener or a hater, everyone is a Right Person or a Wrong Person at times.

Jimin tells him that he, the members and the fans are influenced by the things Namjoon says and that when he's feeling down that they and we will be ok with it.

This is my personal opinion: I disagree with people who keep saying "After they are discharged, I hope they spend a little while enjoying some down time."

Their military service is "downtime" to them. Being their civilian self is down time. Military time was an interruption to them. It disturbed their career's momentum.

The longer they delay getting back to work in their real job the longer it will be for them to be where they ALL said they want to be: on stage.

However, that being said. The break needed to happen. And military service forced the break.

As Joon says: "... and I look up in the sky and see silver cloud, yo hurry!" I think it could be taken as the cloudy, forboding future is unavoidable but can see it will bring necessary and refreshing new challenges and change for the good. It is a healthy way to embrace the unknown.

The timing of filming this episode... was it possible Jimin did not know their enlistment date yet? RM said within 4 weeks he was enlisting. That would put this filming the week of November 13, 2023.

Jimin left Nov. 15 for Budapest, returned on Nov. 18 and then Jimin and Jungkook left together on Nov. 23 to go to Japan. They returned on Nov. 28. JK left again the next day for Los Angeles and returned Dec. 2. That's a lot of traveling for men just days away from enlisting in the military.

They knew this episode would be out six months after RM enlisted on Dec. 11. But possibly they didn't know Jimin and Jungkook's enlistment date yet or they would have said "by the time you are seeing this, we will all be enlisted." Maybe they found out their enlistment date almost immediately following the filming of this episode and the Japan trip and JK's LA trip were crammed into the last few weeks they had. I don't know, I'm just thinking out loud.

My personal take: The more the members say and explain the feelings/intent of what they say, the easier it keeps getting to ignore the solos, mantis, haters, boycotters of BTS and toxic fans. Etcetera. Because they are so foolish. Both Jimin and Namjoon called you all "jerks".

RM's album and whatever we heard he and Jimin speak about, ALL that reinforces that THEY the individual members, have the freedom to do what they want. They are Koreans, they will speak in ways that, inherently due to their culture, will be framed in a way that will be "polite". RM said "fuck you jerk" in his music, not to the camera while addressing the fans and public.

One thing this genre-bending album of Namjoon's also does is help the other members continue to step over all of the pre-conceived ideas/restrictions/lines that idols are not supposed to cross over that people throw at them.

All of their solo efforts will help each of them to be more progressive: Yoongi's smoking in his MV, JK's irreverent singing about fucking every minute of the day, Jimin having female dancers actually touch his body (and male dancers as well), Tae and Jennie.... all of that helps pull us along with them, helps normalize things for us so every baby step is a legit step towards more freedom, more maturity, wider spaces to explore artistically.

And they are fully aware of all these "rules" they are going to step over and move on from.

Revelations:

Namjoon has at least 25 pairs of shoes in his entryway. And the small path through them...

Those high-dollar apartments actually have shoe closets in the entryway.... Namjoon... please.

Things that didn't get answered:

Namjoon secretly a saxophone prodigy? I'm still waiting to learn exactly when did he learn to play the sax?

And Jimin's album coming soon? With a reciprocal MoniMini Music episode? I thought we'd get another hint or acknowledgement of such but we didn't. I noticed this video was not branded Bangtan Episode but linked to RPWP. As has become customary, we wait.

[dalekofchaos]

Choices I would've added to Life Is Strange

I posted this on the LIS subreddit and thought I'd post it on here.

I wanted to keep to the same story without altering anything major, otherwise I would've stuck to the original plotline with Sean as the big bad, Nathan knowing about the storm, have Max, Chloe, Warren and Victoria team up to give Warren, Kate and Victoria more screen time and give them romance paths and add a ending where Max goes back to save Rachel, Chloe and the Bay.

I might be breaking a rule by adding more Warren, but cut content suggests we were meant to see Max, Chloe and Warren together as a team. Concept art sketch for a cut scene by Edouard Caplain, depicting Max Caulfield, Chloe Price and Warren Graham

Episode 1

Take photo of David harassing Kate. Rewind. Comfort Kate. Keep photo. To this day it baffles me that this is the only time - the only time - where the game breaks its own rules of "Max keeps things on her when she rewinds." Even small things like helping Joyce make breakfast respects this rule. If you tell Joyce you want one thing, grab all the ingredients, and then rewind to tell her you want the other thing, all the ingredients you grabbed are still in your inventory! You can have the items for both breakfasts in your inventory. Though the game does remove them all once you talk to Joyce and commit to making breakfast. You could make an argument that the photo didn't exist to the point she rewinds to, which breaks the semantics of how the time-rewind works (notably how if you pick up an object off say a table, then rewind to before you picked it up, it's still no longer on the table), but it still annoys me endlessly. Because that was my natural thought on that sequence, and the game just slaps your wrist and says "No. In this game all about rewinding and undoing your decisions and not having to commit to them, you have to commit to one." It becomes more relevant and thematic in later chapters, but it just felt oddly out of place so early in Chapter 2.

The choice between Help Warren before jumping into Chloe's truck or not. If you help Warren, Max kicks Nathan in the balls and Warren doesn't get a black eye. If you don't help, Warren gets a black eye as was in canon

Warren romance playthrough. A series of choices to help flesh out Warren as a character and a potential partner for Max. Continuing on the Help Warren choice. Helping Warren also leads to Warren hopping in the truck with Max and Chloe. Warren has a black eye from the headbutt and Chloe offers to use the first aid kit in the bathroom. Cute scene where Max helps Warren reduces the swelling of his black eye and you have the option to hold Warren’s hand or not. Warren takes off when his eye is healed up enough and wishes Max well in reconnecting with Chloe

If you choose to comfort Victoria, this leads to an actual friendship with Victoria. When she sends the thnx but we're not friends" text, you can reply insisting on it. This will prompt you to go back to the dormitories and when you go back to Vic’s dorm, Max and Victoria get to talk, become close, show Victoria the pictures Max has taken, have a laugh over the email situation and get Victoria to see the way she was treating Kate was wrong. Victoria will tell Max that she was jealous over her not caring what anyone thinks of her and thanks Max for coming and invites her to join the Vortex Club as it needs real cool people like her and not snobs and suck ups. Max asks advice on what to do with Chloe and tells her how guilty she feels for not keeping in touch and asks what she should do. Victoria tells Max to suck it up and get back in touch and make it up to Chloe and Max thanks Victoria for the advice and they leave as friends.

If you took Victoria's photo after Chloe proclaims "booyah skank, karma's a bitch" Chloe will ask to keep it because it gives her joy to seeing Victoria brought down to a peg and that Rachel would've loved it.(will add onto this for the other episodes)

Episode 1 ends with Max, Chloe and Warren together as the snow falls(evidenced by the concept art)

Episode 2

Romance Warren path. After Warren's offer to Go Ape, Max gets to explain her powers and the situation with Kate and Nathan. We get to prove it to Warren, we also get to learn more about Warren as a character. We find out Warren is basically the boy version of Matilda. Was neglected as a child, so he chose books and science as his passion and sci-fi and it made him feel whole.(idk this was the best I could come up with, but it’s more than what DONTNOD has given us) then Warren will promise that he will look around and help out with Kate.

Max will take photographic evidence of Nathan vandalizing Max's room and leaving the threatening messages. When Max accuses Nathan at the end of the episode, she presents it to Wells, Wells recognizes the message as Nathan's handwriting and Jefferson recognizes the photo as Nathan's style and this leads to Nathan spending the night in jail as well as being suspended.

Continuing on from Chloe and Victoria's paint photo. We are given the chance to tell Chloe about Kate's situation and let’s say in addition to showing off our powers to Chloe, Max tells Chloe about Kate’s ordeal and Chloe’s just as pissed as Max. Maybe in the Junkyard or on the way back to Blackwell, Chloe will offer Max to mass produce the pictures, post them everywhere at Blackwell and email the picture so she can post it online. She says “let’s call this Kate’s revenge” if you accept this will happen throughout episodes 3-4. -Victoria feels what it’s like to be humiliated and bullied and feels some humility -Everyone in the Vortex Club except Nathan turns on Victoria -Everyone in Blackwell calls her “paintgirl” and some things worse. -Victoria absolutely hates us and when she sends her texts, Max can either apologize or stand her ground and call her out like the bitch she is “karma’s a bitch ain’t it? this is what you made Kate feel. You deserved every bit of it.” -At the party, you can try to make nice and Victoria will learn a lesson that there are consequences for her actions. You can either forgive or condemn Victoria. Whichever you choose, you then choose to warn her or not about Nathan.

Continuing on the Victoria friendship. Victoria is genuinely nice to Kate and apologizes and says she deleted the video. This will prompt a hopeful Kate and a Taylor asking “wtf was that and Victoria laying down the law yelling “be nice to Kate and Caulfield, that’s an order” Continuing on after Max convinces Courtney to let her in the guest list and into Jefferson’s room, Nathan will be his mean self but Victoria will say “be nice to Max, she’s my best friend” Victoria will start calling Max Maxine, while Max doesn’t like it, Max will allow her to call her that if she gets to call Victoria “Tori” Victoria and Max will have a moment to talk before class starts. Catches up, Max shows the photos she’s taken in episode 2, asks how Kate’s doing and finally Victoria personally invites Max to the End Of The World Party and you are given the choice yes or no, obviously you choose yes. Which prompts Victoria to say “congratulations Max Caulfield, you’re officially a VIP member of the Vortex Club”

Episode 3

Warren romance path. Max, Chloe and Warren will be investigating Blackwell together. Warren will use his hacking skills to help them break into school. They each search for clues. In the Principals office of course, but also searching where the last Vortex Club was in search of anything that might help. Warren keeps a lookout while Max and Chloe skinny dips in the pool and Warren is the one to warn them to hide. You get the choice of choosing between going to Chloe’s place or going to Warren’s dorm. In Warren’s dorm, it will open with Max and Warren holding each other, Max at first blushes, but embraces the moment and the two taking a selfie together. We see Warren's dorm looking like this. Max talks to Warren, about how much she appreciates Warren for always being by her side, and Kate's. Warren tells Max that he loves her And a choice prompts to Kiss Warren or Hug. In place of Max wearing Rachel's clothes, Max wears one of Warren's nerdy shirts. They will talk and say they should go on a date to the End Of The World Party as a date and a means to spy on Nathan and make sure he doesn’t hurt anyone again. Chloe texts Max to come over and Max kisses Warren goodbye and says “see you later my white knight.”

Victoria friendship path. In the beginning of episode 3, Victoria sends a text congratulating Max and saying she’s proud she did something, while Max says she did more by the end and saying she’s proud of Tori

When we kiss Chloe, Chloe doesn’t push back, she embraces Max in a kiss

When we choose the “Side with Chloe” option in episode 3, we print out David’s evidence and take pictures of the surveillance footage as proof for Joyce. We talk about it but we don’t show it to Joyce and Joyce automatically sides with Max. I’d also have David snap and attempt to hit Chloe and Joyce stops him and finally puts her foot down with David and shows him the door. Always bothered me that Joyce only begins to side against David by Max's word. She might as well have screamed that Max was the golden child. Joyce spent literal years watching David treating Chloe like crap right in front of her, and even now that he’s raising his hand at her she’s not reacting, but the second he talks a little too harshly to Max, she jumps to take her side and honestly. Chloe cannot not have noticed that. Obviously she wasn’t going to start a scene about this since they were already all fighting with David, but I’m pretty sure she would’ve under different circumstances because. The audacity. I would’ve gone mad.

Max will get to stand up to Chloe. Basically she puts her foot down on Chloe. After Chloe snaps after finding out about Rachel and mocking Kate's suicide attempt/suicide, Max can then lose her shit and stand up to Chloe. Basically says the way she treats her is not okay and if she wants to help her find Rachel and seek justice for Kate, then things are gonna have to change or they are finished. Then Max leaves Chloe behind with Chloe realizing that she needs to change. I just REALLY wanted Max to stand up to Chloe at the end of this episode instead of just letting Max act like a doormat and take her shit.

Not really a choice. But I'd alter one thing about Alternate's Max's look. Give her long hair, and tied up in a ponytail like she was a kid.

Episode 4

Not really a choice, but after the returning from her time jump, Max returns to her dorm and goes to Chloe. Chloe properly apologizes for how she’s been acting since they got back together and agree to put everything in the past so they can work together to find Rachel and give Kate justice. Would've been better than just seeing the apology over text.

Before we begin our investigation in episode 4. Max calls Joyce and David so everyone could let it all out. It’s basically the therapy that Joyce wanted David and Chloe to go to but didn’t. Chloe calls out David for his abuse for the last 3 years of her life and the fact that he made her feel like a prisoner in her own home and how much the cameras made it worse. Then Chloe calls him out on Rachel. “Rachel was my angel. She was the only good thing that ever happened to me since my dad died and you and the spoiled rich kid took her away from me. Worse. You stalked her like you stalked Kate. And now Rachel is missing. Congrats, David I hope it was fucking worth it.” Then Chloe unloads on Joyce. For all the times she covered for David’s abuse, choosing to either ignore or condone the abuse and for the fact that she’d rather pretend everything was fine. Maybe end it with “I didn’t need a fucking step-father, I needed my mother when I needed her most and your first instinct was to chose the worst fucking man to bring into my life. Fuck both of you.” Maybe after David and Joyce say their piece.(hopefully both of them being remorseful) Max can either choose to tell Chloe to forgive them or “fuck them” basically Max calls out David for his bullying and abusive behavior, Max can call out David. “You saw Frank, who was an adult, perving on Rachel, a high school student, you even had the evidence and you did nothing? Kate needed help and instead of being that help, you treated her like shit” David admits he fucked up with Rachel and wishes he could’ve sent his evidence to the police. then Max calls out Joyce for being a shitty mother. “I used to think you ruled Joyce, but you are a terrible mother. Chloe needed a mother and you failed her. She needed you, she didn't need you to bring some man she's never met before, she needed her mother who was traumatized and hurt by her father's death. And you let David hit your daughter and don't even see anything wrong with it? You talk about Chloe like she's a problem, like a burden. She's your daughter Joyce and she deserved better. ” David and Joyce would apologize to Chloe for the past three years and do better for Chloe. I don’t know how forgiving them would play out, maybe it would be therapeutic and would result in closure for the Price-Madsen family and they have a chance to start over after Max helps them in that direction. After choosing condemn them. I think Chloe would tell Max. “Max, thank you. I needed to finally let all that shit out.” “You deserved so much better Chloe.” “I got better Max, I got you.” And if you chose forgiveness. “I will still hate them both for how life went for the last 3 years, but I think we can start fresh. Thank you Max.”

Chloe would enter Kate’s hospital room with Max. We’d see Kate talking with Chloe and we find out that Kate was there for Chloe when Rachel went missing and made Chloe feel a little better, that’s why Chloe said “she’s cool”

Max can warn Kate about the storm and tell her to leave Arcadia Bay immediately.

Reject Warren path. After the Warren/Nathan situation. If you're pursuing Chloe and only choose platonic actions with Warren. Max gets the opportunity to turn Warren down. Max will tell him she's sorry, she just doesn't feel that way about Warren and just sees him as a cool geeky older brother and points out to Warren that Brooke likes him and that he should totally hook up with her, Warren appreciates for gently letting him down and is glad they can still be friends and says that he's glad Max has Chloe. You will see Warren and Brooke together at the party.

Max calls out Frank on his bullshit. Instead of choosing to befriend Frank, Max gets to call him out. Calls him out for turning Pompidou into a violent attack dog, the fact he sells drugs to kids and his predatory obsession with Rachel. “You didn’t love Rachel, you were obsessed with her and whatever you did drove her away and honestly? You’re not just a creepy drug dealer, you’re a pedophile, Frank.” Frank of course would get violent and you have two choices. Rewind and call the police or let Chloe shoot Frank and afterwords Max calls to animal services to protect Pompidou and give him a new home. Either you get the client book off of Frank’s dead body or you get it after the cops arrest Frank. Either way you get rid of a predator. Sorry, not sorry. I have no sympathy for people who prey on children.

Warren romance path. Instead of Warren appearing drunk, Warren waits for Max and awaits her on the dance floor. Max takes Warren to dance with and it's like a moment of peace or like the scene of Alex dancing with Duckie. It ends with Max and Warren kissing and Max taking a picture to capture the moment forever.

Continuing the Victoria friendship path. At the party, Victoria says, she's late, but she's happy Max is there. Max fills her in on what her day was like. Victoria is proud she and Chloe stood up to David and Joyce and that Kate is doing well. Max warns Victoria about Nathan. and as they part ways, Victoria hugs Max and tells her to be safe and call her if she or Chloe needs anything. But instead of going to Jefferson, Victoria goes to the hospital to visit Kate. As part of a culmination of your choices in the relationship with Victoria, you can encourage her to go and visit Kate to apologize in person. It wouldn't even have to be an extra scene, just part of the ending montage to an episode showing Victoria knocking on Kate's door and Kate opening it and inviting her inside. Maybe this could have been what happens to Victoria instead of ending up in the Dark Room. So if you do well enough to befriend her and she accepts your warning, she goes to see Kate and is spared being kidnapped by Jeffershit. if she doesn't accept your warning, she ends up in the DR. Would have been nice and felt more rewarding than what we got! Also? Kate would tell Victoria about Max's warning, meaning both Kate and Victoria would survive the storm!

We are given the opportunity to enter a photo for the Everyday Hero Contest. We enter at the last minute as Jefferson would give Max the opportunity. So Max with Kate’s permission, Kate would let Max take a photo of her in the hospital. Which wins the Everyday Hero Contest. Max gives an inspiring speech about how everyone can be a hero and that Kate has always inspired her, how much she loves Kate and that she hopes that Kate knows that she is loved by everyone in Blackwell and everyone would cheer Max on. This would also give Jefferson the means and opportunity to drug Max. It honestly works better than Jefferson magically appearing at the Junkyard with no explanation(and it never being brought up).

Episode 5

We are given the choice to save Nathan or let Jefferson kill him. Cut dialogue indicates there was something more meant for Nathan in the final episode. Jefferson says this to Max “Like you Max, I… am a camera. And like some cultures believe I’m going to use my camera. To capture… your… soul. Now take a break. I need to deal with Nathan first. Don’t worry, our session is just… getting started." I think Max could’ve helped Nathan in the dark room, to owe her the favor, Nathan would help Max.

Since I didn't have Chloe killed in Episode 4, Chloe and David would've worked together to save Max. Max and Chloe rush to diner to save Joyce, while also to use Warren's picture to go back in time. While at the diner we get a chance for Max to confess her feelings for Chloe and to tell Joyce while she approves.

While on the journey to the Lighthouse before the Nightmare world kicks in, we are given the choice to save everyone in the diner or leave everyone behind. After you save everyone at the diner, Chloe asks if they should double back to the hospital to save Kate and Victoria, but Max insists the hospital is so far from the storm and they'd be safer there anyway

Third ending. Sacrifice Max. Max screams no, Nathan freaks out and shoots Max. David subdues Nathan and Max is rushed to the hospital. Inspired by this comic and video

An addition to the endings. I wish we could have seen the last entry in Max's journal after she saved Chloe or Arcadia Bay. It would give one last glimpse into her thoughts, as well as clarify the endings a bit more. Also not really a choice, but an addition to the Bae ending. I'd make this ending twice as long, and the extra 5 minutes would be scenes following each other over the next few years. Show how Max and Chloe head to Seattle to visit Max's parents. Show how they help each other cope with trauma (like Chloe comforting Max when she wakes up from nightmares, or Max supporting Chloe at Joyce's funeral, or how they grieve every October 11). Show how Max doesn't give up on becoming a photographer, and Chloe is there to encourage her to follow her dreams. Show how they begin a romantic relationship (including the kiss this ending deserves) if you romanced Chloe. End it on a positive note as Max and Chloe buy the RV and go traveling like they always wanted to, and the last shot is Max and Chloe smiling at each other before hitting the road (as in the original Bae ending). Also among a few shots we might see Max and Chloe hanging out with Kate and Victoria - the former would be if you saved Kate, and the latter would be if you were nice to Victoria. and Nathan appearing if you saved him. What we'd see with Nathan is Nathan in a blue jacket like he has in the alternate timeline to reflect his new change in behavior and redemption. Hugging Victoria, apologizing to Kate, Max and Chloe. Hugging Victoria, Max and Kate and shaking Chloe's hand. I'm tempted to say he could've been in the Brody role in LIS 2, since he kind of fits Brody, cause Brody's line about his family having money but no soul would fit a Nathan after surviving the storm. It would have made this ending more complete, it wouldn't have required their cameos in the sequel, and already in 2015 it would have disproved the theories that death would continue to haunt Chloe/another storm would happen. Addition to the Bay Ending. I like to think it would be a collection of the montages we already got and Chloe’s funeral. But more. We’d see Max dealing with Chloe’s loss, her grief, but ultimately showing Max living her life and moving on. Show that Max still misses Chloe, but show her living her life. And just show Max living her best life with Warren, Kate, Brooke, Dana, Daniel, Stella and Alyssa. Even show montage of a friendship with Victoria. Show Max having a tea date with Kate. Show Max Goin Ape with Warren. Max doing photoshoots with Victoria and shopping dates with Victoria, Courtney and Taylor. Max doing group projects and games with Warren, Kate, Brooke, Stella, Alyssa, and Daniel. Max being Dana’s official photographer. And show Max and her friends graduating Blackwell and living their lives in Arcadia Bay. We just needed to see that despite losing Chloe, Max is okay and that while she will hold onto the memories of Chloe, she can live. The final scene is Max and Warren visiting the Lighthouse. The Blue Butterfly appears and it touches Max and as the Butterfly flies away, Max says "Goodbye Chloe as Warren holds onto Max and shares a kiss at the Lighthouse."

[coraniaid]

People in the Buffy fandom love to rail against the idea that a vampire's personality has nothing to do with who they were as a human being. I've lost track of how many times I've seen a post on here pointing out how hard this stance is to justify and how ridiculous it is that the writers in general and Giles in particular keeps claiming it to be true. Which is interesting, since what I've just described is a position that both Giles and the show more broadly never actually takes.

The one time Buffy suggests this might be true -- when she tells Willow that "a vampire's personality has nothing to do with the person it was" in Season 3's Doppelgangland -- she is clearly meant to be wrong! Angel very obviously is about to correct her when he chimes in with "well, actually...", and she knows he is about to disagree with her which is why she glares at him to make him stop. What's more, what Buffy is telling Willow in this scene has no bearing on anything the show has said or shown before. We are not meant to think Buffy is accurately descibing the show's position. We're not even meant to think it's something Buffy herself believes. She's very obviously just saying it to try to make Willow feel better. This is not subtle!

The very first human we see on the show who gets turned into a vampire is Season 1's Jesse in the opening two-parter Welcome to the Hellmouth / The Harvest. Human!Jesse is, not to be too charitable, an unpleasant creep who is weirdly obsessed with Cordelia Chase. Vampire!Jesse is ... also an unpleasant creep who is weirdly obsessed with Cordelia Chase. Don't you think this is an odd creative choice if the show wanted you to really think that a vampire's personality was nothing like the human they used to be?

This trend of linking a vampire's personality to that of their former human life continues throughout the first season. Why would Giles warn Buffy (in Never Kill A Boy On The First Date) that the human Andrew Borba, who they suspect has been sired as the Anointed One, was wanted by the police for "questioning in a double murder" if a human's personality had no bearing on the vampire they would become? And indeed, a couple of episodes later, in the same season's Angel, Giles will explicitly tell Buffy that "a vampire [...] may have the movements, the memories, even the personality of the person that it took over."

Having established this back in its first season, it remains a part of the show's lore in every future season. It's one of the elements of the show's often mutable world-building that remains the most consistent. Angel and Spike will both talk about things that "they" did as humans. Giles will continue to warn Buffy that the current vampire of the week was a horrible murderer before becoming a vampire [see: the Gorch brothers in Season 2's Bad Eggs, or Zachary Kralik in Season 3's Helpless], which only makes sense for him to do if he thinks that has a bearing on how dangerous they are as a vampire. Drusilla, as a vampire, is shown to be insane because of pyschological torture she was subjected to by Angelus while she was a human. (If a vampire's personality was entirely separate from that of the original human, how would this work?) Buffy admits to Ford in Season 2's Lie To Me that a vampire "walks and talks and [...] remembers [it's former] life". And so on, and so on.

And yet, without fail, every couple of months, somebody will announce that a vampire's personality in Buffy very often mirrors the personality of the human who died to become that vampire, as if this is somehow a radical and subversive reading of the text. Well, yeah, no shit. That's explicitly how it's always worked.

What's next: a post bravely insisting that -- no matter what Joss Whedon might want you to think -- vampires on the show really do hate sunlight and crosses and holy water? That maybe being a Slayer might be a metaphor for something? That there are subtle clues and hints scattered throughout the show's final seasons that suggest that maybe Marti Noxon and Doug Petrie are wrong, and that Willow might not be straight?