#this episode just gave me the idea of all the kids blocking Alicent cause they got tired of her keeping them from being freaky

[godofstory]

Alicent honey I've got some news for you..😭

*my children are fine*

her children:

[lost-in-yujikiri]

Alicization Rewatch ep 14

OK, I’m back! Sort of haha, I’m having exams in these few weeks T_T, but I’d definitely post more frequently now especially in Lunar New Year week, so look forward to more.

Today I’m only talking about one episode because while rewatching it I found that the aftermath of Deusolbert’s fight was dragged out for so long, especially the last 5 minutes. They could have speed things up by shorten the latter half while adding back the important Eugeo’s monologues that they always loved to cut that add a huge chunk of characterization to him in LN.

Remember in my last Rewatch post, I said Eugeo didn’t just stay there reading history books for fun? He actually has a more profound reason for it, which he narrated in LN before the boys fought Deusolbert Synthesis 7.

Eugeo has always been plagued by guilt since he was a kid, but it’s not just about Alice’s arrest and being taken away from him. Eugeo’s family is made of poor barley farmers, but his original Calling was cutting the Gigas Cedar, a task that would take more than his whole life to fulfill.

Calling is not something anyone can choose for themselves, but his family shunned him for not being able to help on the farm, and most of his salary went to his father Orick instead, thus Eugeo was stuck with eating stale bread and wearing torn shoes everyday.

Eugeo’s family in Alicization manga, which is the only image they have in any adaptation so far

If Kirito had never come and found the idea to cut down the Gigas Cedar with Blue Rose Sword after both boys raised their Authority Levels during the goblin fight, his life would be stuck with it forever.

When Eugeo left the village with Kirito, his family of course wouldn’t receive any more salary from Eugeo's labor, so they were openly disappointed with him even though he fulfilled a huge feat his village has always dreamt of (sorry for my crude personal opinion, but Eugeo’s family are pretty much assholes all around, even when Eugeo tried to paint them in a better light in his monologues). But Eugeo still thought it’s his fault so he decided that he’d become an Integrity Knight to one day compensate more money for his family.

But after what happened with Raios & Humbert, both Eugeo and Kirito became criminals, the village and his family would shun them away even harder (like you guys can see what happened to Alice S30 in WoU ep 1-2), all Eugeo’s plan to become Integrity Knight to help his family became meaningless.

From then Eugeo saw himself straying away from the righteous path. He thought of himself as a monster. He read many history books in Cardinal’s library to see if there are any other people like him who have committed crimes and could go back to their families unchanged. No such records exist. He can no longer go back to live a normal life, only a bloody path ahead. Eugeo mentally broke down and he would curve himself into a ball and cry if Kirito didn’t find him before then.

In his mind, his goal of taking Alice back to her family still didn’t change, he’d do anything for it to go smoothly. But for himself, he’d wanted Kirito, the black-haired boy walking in front of him to be his partner for all their hardships ahead. He’d even ask Kirito to flee and live in the Dark Territory with him if they ever achieved their goals.

There was no place he could live after his many sins anymore, except for the horrifying Dark Territory beyond the End Mountains. But even that was a price worth paying if it meant Alice could go back home and live in happiness again. Eugeo watched Kirito walk before him, turning over this secret determination in his head. If I said I was going to the Dark Territory, would you come with me…?

LN Excerpt: Sword Art Online Volume 12 Chapter 8 part 1

After the fight with Deusolbert, while Kirito could see the Integrity Knights as poor beings whose memories were blocked and manipulated, Eugeo still viewed the Axiom Church as a wicked being and the Integrity Knights as a huge farce who had indirectly caused despair to their citizens and yet they all forgot about all their shady missions under Administrator’s orders, so they aren’t worthy of calling themselves justice defenders. That’s why Eugeo was so angry during his fights with Deusolbert (& Fanatio later), because he couldn’t accept their existence.

After it all, Kirito still bantered with Eugeo a lot like the old school days as a way to help ease his tension down, and assured Eugeo that everything was still fine. The silly banters the boys shared unfortunately have been changed into a very bland and dragged out version in the anime which shows none of their dorky character, so I post their original banters here:

Just then, Kirito came to a sudden stop on the staircase landing just ahead. He turned back, face dead serious, and said, “Hey, Eugeo………What floor are we on now…?” “Um…well,” Eugeo said, wobbling a bit. He sighed, shook his head, and slumped his shoulders all at the same time. “Next one’s the twenty-ninth floor. I’m going to assume you were at least counting at the start.” “Well, you’d think they would have floor number displays along the way. I mean, it’s just common sense.” “I agree, but you should have noticed before this!” Eugeo scolded, but Kirito merely brushed it off and rested his back against the landing wall.

“Man, I’m getting hungry…” “…I agree with you there.” Eugeo thrust out his hand and demanded, “So hand over one of the ones you’ve got in your pockets.” “Uh…but…I was saving them for emergencies…Man, you’re greedier than I thought.” “You thought I wouldn’t notice how much you stuffed in there?” Kirito gave up and slipped his right hand into his pants pocket, then pulled out two steamed buns and handed one to Eugeo. The smell of it was still strong enough to stimulate his appetite, even though they’d left the library long ago. “That flame attack kinda charred it a bit.” “Ha-ha…I see. Thanks, man.” Cardinal had generated the steamed bun out of some precious old tome’s pages using her high-level sacred arts, a fact that Eugeo had to ignore as he bit into the treat. The crispy, burned outside gave way to juicy meat on the inside, which he savored rapturously. In less than a minute, their little lunch was over, and Eugeo licked his fingers in satisfaction. Kirito’s other pocket was still bulging suspiciously, but Eugeo was happy enough to let it go for now.

LN excerpts: Sword Art Online Volume 12, Chapter 8 Part 2

I’ll will speak more about Eugeo’s continuous character development that anime hasn’t emphasized very well in next week’s Rewatch post.

[tomeandflickcorner]

OUAT Episode Analysis- Hyperion Heights.

Well, here it is.  The start of the new chapter in OUAT.  Not sure how well it’s going to go with most of the original cast gone.  But I’m willing to give it a chance.  So let’s go, Season 7.  Impress me.

We open with Henry, who apparently managed to graduate high school, in spite of the horrendous education system in Storybrooke.  His plan is now to go on some kind of soul searching journey.  See, he went to the Sorcerer’s old mansion after completing his Authorial task of writing about everything that happened throughout the past 6 seasons.  While there, he found hundreds of other books that revealed the existence of parallel worlds. Each of these parallel worlds had their own version of Snow White or Rapunzel.  But he’s feeling a bit weirded out that there wasn’t a parallel version of himself.  For some reason, this doesn’t sit well with him, so he’s now wanting to live his own story. And now that he’s out of high school, he feels now is the time to set out and do that.  Regina’s not too keen on this idea, since she was hoping he’d go on to college.  But let’s be real.  Even though Henry managed to get through high school, it was the high school in Storybrooke. They probably let you graduate if you could recite the alphabet.  I seriously doubt he could get through a single semester at college.

But in the end, Regina agrees to let Henry live his life, and he drives off on a motorcycle I’m assuming August gave him, using a magic bean to open up a portal to one of the previously mentioned parallel worlds.  I guess this means Anton’s bean field is flourishing again.  It struck me as odd, though, that only Regina was seeing Henry off.  You’d think Snowing, Emma and Killian would want to be there, too.

Regardless, we then flash forward a few years.  Henry is now a full-grown adult, and is still traveling around the parallel worlds. This is how he quite literally runs into Parallel!Cinderella.  The run-in causes Parallel!Cinder’s carriage to get damaged, preventing her to get to the famous ball.  Henry, wanting to help Parallel!Cinder finish her story, offers to drive her there on his motorcycle.  But after a bit of back and forth, Parallel!Cinder manages to steal the motorcycle, punching Henry to the ground in the process.  I do wonder why Henry didn’t see that coming, as Parallel!Cinder was making her intent rather obvious, what with her over-interest in how to operate the motorcycle.  But he doesn’t seem to mind in the slightest.  Maybe he was remembering the story of how his grandparents met, and how Emma met Killian, and suspected the tradition was continuing?

 Either way, Henry manages to follow Parallel!Cinder to the ball.  There, the story comes out that Parallel!Cinder isn’t here to meet the prince in the way the tale usually goes.  In this world, the prince somehow brought about the death of Parallel!Cinder’s father, leading to her becoming a scullery maid for her evil stepmother. Who’s even nastier in this version. She even kidnapped Parallel!Cinder’s fairy godmother and killed her with her own wand.  So, anyway, Parallel!Cinder’s plan is to kill the prince in revenge.  Henry, possibly remembering the lessons about revenge he’d learned from his stepfather, tries to stop her, but he’s held up by a woman who claims to be Alice of Wonderland fame.  Not sure if she has any connection to the Alice of the Wonderland spinoff.  Maybe she’s a Parallel!Alice?  I don’t know. Either way, she drugs Henry’s drink to send him to this weird hallucinogenic place where she tells Henry to not interfere with the events unfolding in this Parallel World, and that he should just go back home.  She also reveals she’s in cahoots with Rumpelstiltskin somehow.  At this point, I have no idea what Rumpelstiltskin and New!Alice’s plan is. But whatever it is, I doubt it’s good. In any event, Henry refuses to heed New!Alice’s demand, because he feels called to help people, no matter what.

While Henry was being detained by New!Alice, Parallel!Cinder manages to approach the prince.  But she’s ultimately unable to kill him, because he conscience kicks in.  But that’s when Parallel!Evil Stepmother steps in, killing the prince herself.  She goes off on a monologue about how she wanted the prince dead because he rejected Drizella, one of the Parallel!Stepsisters.  But she was hoping Parallel!Cinder would do her dirty work for her.  Parallel!Evil Stepmother then tries to frame Parallel!Cinder for the prince’s murder, but she eventually manages to fight off the guards and escape, with Henry’s assistance.

Sometime later, Henry arrives at the site where a portal has been scheduled to open up at midnight, allowing him to return home to Storybrooke.  I can’t remember if they ever explained how Henry knew this portal would open at this time.  If they did, I completely missed it.  Maybe New!Alice told him?  Maybe, but Henry seemed to know about the portal even before his acid trip conversation with New!Alice.  So I’m not really sure how Henry knew about the portal.

However, Henry is visibly disappointed.  During the ball, when he was trying to talk Parallel!Cinder out of her revenge plan, he offered to bring her back to Storybrooke with him, so she could start a new life in a new land.  But Parallel!Cinder doesn’t seem to be showing up, making Henry feel she decided to reject the offer.  Before Henry could go through the portal, however, he notices Parallel!Cinder’s glass slipper lying nearby, and he realizes that she was there.  But for some reason, she didn’t stick around.  I’m not sure if she left of her own accord or she was captured before Henry could arrive.  Either way, Henry decides that ‘Operation Glass Slipper’ isn’t finished, and he decides to let the portal to Storybrooke close so he could stay and continue assisting Parallel!Cinder.  While some might feel that Henry should have given up on naming those operations of his, since he’s no longer a kid, I really don’t mind it that much.  I just chalk it up to Henry being Henry.

That’s about all we see of the backstory for this new season in this episode.  The rest of the episode focuses on Present Day Seattle, where Henry is working as an Uber Driver.  He returns home after a typical night and tries once again to start to write a new book. As we learn throughout the episode, there’s a new curse in effect, and Henry is one of the people who were affected by it.  Because of his new cursed memories, he believes all his adventures throughout the first 6 seasons were just part of a novel he wrote.  But after he completed that, he’s been experiencing a prolonged writer’s block.  Though there are some small aspects that pop out at you in this scene.  For instance, we see briefly that the swan pendant that Emma gave him in a deleted scene set during the Wizard of Oz arc now resides on his keychain.  And I spotted a small painting of a pirate ship on his wall.  I’m guessing this was his subconscious mind remembering the Jolly Roger?

Anyway, this is the part when Lucy appears at his door, announcing that she’s his daughter, her mother is his True Love, and that she wants him to help her break the curse.  But Henry, because of his cursed memories, doesn’t believe her, because he thinks all his past experiences was just the book he wrote.

However, Lucy isn’t deterred, and somehow manages to steal Henry’s laptop, leaving him a note that if he wants it back, he has to come to Hyperion Heights, which is apparently the new Storybrooke.  Henry drives out to Hyperion Heights to get his laptop back.  As he drives into town, he passes by a stone troll statue, which is apparently a real sculpture in Seattle.  But I have a feeling that the stone troll will be important later somehow. I think I noticed something unusual about the troll’s eye.  After a rather weird encounter with New!Alice, who goes by Tillie in this world, Henry follows the instructions on Lucy’s note and enters a bar called Roni’s.  Turns out, the bar owner, Roni is actually cursed!Regina. Naturally, they don’t recognize each other.  But Roni/Regina tells Henry about Victoria Belfry, the alter ego of Parallel!Evil stepmother.  Victoria is the new big bad of S7, and possibly the one who cast this new curse. After all, we saw in the flashback portion that she has possession of a fairy wand.

In Hyperion Heights, Victoria is this powerful businesswoman who pretty much owns everything in town.  And she’s planning to buy Roni/Regina’s bar, too.  She also has Parallel!Cinder under strict observation.  Though in this world, Parallel!Cinder goes by Jacinda.  She works at a fried chicken restaurant, but her boss is a major jerk, and she ends up quitting after a confrontation with him, in which she tried to stand up to him in defense of a fellow employee.  At the start of the episode, Jacinda lives with Lucy and their roommate, Sabine (the cursed identity of Tiana from Princess and the Frog).  But when it’s discovered Lucy ran away to find Henry, Victoria swoops in and announces her intention to take permanent custody of the girl, stating that Jacinda is proving she’s not capable of properly providing for her daughter.

Meanwhile, Henry and Jacinda meet when Jacinda shows up at Roni/Regina’s bar to return the stolen laptop. Even though the curse prevents them from remembering each other, Henry and Jacinda still are able to have an instant connection.  As they talk, Jacinda mentions a dream she has to start a new life on this small island just outside Hyperion Heights.

Sometime later, Henry finds that his car has turned up stolen, which prevents him from leaving Hyperion Heights and returning to his Seattle apartment.  He goes to the local police station, but the cop at the front desk proves to be unwilling to help in anyway.  But they’re overheard by Officer Rogers, aka Cursed!Killian.  Rogers/Killian, even when cursed, is a good man, and probably the only one in the police department who is willing to help.  While he’s working on helping locate Henry’s stolen car, Victoria storms in, announcing Lucy is once again missing.  And Jacinda is also nowhere to be found.  Right away, Henry suspects, correctly, that Jacinda is planning to run away with Lucy and start over on the island she told him about, but he tries to stay silent, wanting to do right by both mother and daughter.  But Victoria manages to coerce him into spilling the beans.  As a result, Jacinda and Lucy are prevented from leaving, and are subsequently separated.  And Victoria manages to locate Henry’s stolen car.  Though, there’s a part of me that thinks Victoria was the one who took Henry’s car in the first place, planning to use it to trick him into betraying Jacinda’s confidence.

As the episode wraps up, we revisit the cast of characters.  Henry, whose cursed memories have led him to believe his wife and child were killed in a fire, journeys to the cemetery where they were buried.  But when he arrives at the site where he believed the cemetery was, he finds nothing but an empty lot.  And a random passerby informs him that there was never a cemetery there. So Henry’s probably realizing that something isn’t adding up.  Jacinda is forced to go back to the fried chicken restaurant with her tail between her legs.  Which admittedly bothered me.  Yeah, I know, Jacinda probably felt that she needed the job to try and earn custody of her daughter again, but it rubs me the wrong way that she had to go back to such a horrible boss.  I say she should go work at Roni/Regina’s bar.  As much as I don’t particularly like Regina, I’d rather have her for a boss than a guy like that. As for Rogers/Killian, because he ended up helping them track down Jacinda and Lucy, Victoria used her influence to get him promoted to the rank of detective.  But as a result of that, he’s now partnered to Detective Weaver, the new identity of Rumpelstiltskin.  I cannot see this as a good thing.  Because I just KNOW that Rumpelstiltskin is awake and knows full well who he is.  And it’s clear that he’s just as sadistic and cruel as ever.  We saw him earlier in this episode, waterboarding some poor slob.  So I’m really worried what he’ll do to Killian, considering Killian clearly doesn’t remember who Weaver is.

However, because this is OUAT, we are given a few crumbs of hope.  Roni/Regina, who clearly didn’t like how Victoria handled things with Jacinda and Lucy, decides to stand up to her by refusing to sell her bar. Rogers/Killian was given the new copy of the Storybook  that Lucy was carrying around, with the instructions to get rid of it.  But he has seemingly decided to hold on to it, instead.  Because he caught sight of an illustration of Emma within the book. And it’s clear from his expression that he recognizes her.  But of course, he can’t understand why because his cursed memories is preventing him from remembering.  As for Jacinda, she finds a coin while sweeping the restaurant floor and uses it to make a wish at a wishing well Lucy was visiting earlier in the episode.  This wish, I guess, helps weaken the curse a bit, as Henry starts to break through his writer’s block, and this flower garden, which I guess was rendered dead by the curse, starts to grow again.

So, that’s how this new chapter is starting out.  I admit, I’m a bit curious about how this all happened.  I’m wondering how Henry and Parallel!Cinder got from their first meeting to their current predicament. I’m curious as to what started this curse. So yeah, I’m sorta interested in where they go with this.  But it’s a bit convoluted.  They just push all these new characters on you, making it slightly hard to figure out who’s who.  So I’d say the jury’s still out on this one.  We’ll see what next week brings.

(Click here to read more Episode Analyses)

[michelemoore]

Takhuk

October 29, 2019

Michele Moore Veldhoen

Are we Living in a 21st Century Version of Wonderland?

Our recent election triggered in my mind thoughts of Lewis Carroll’s nonsensical Wonderland. Did you ever read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland? Not until I was an adult reading them aloud to my kids did I experience my first (and, now that I think of it, only) reading of nonsense literature. The book was a surprise. I had been under the misconception that Alice’s adventures would annoy me. I was too serious of a reader then to consider nonsense worthwhile.  As I discovered, Carroll was not just writing to entertain children. He was also using nonsense to satirize British Victorian society’s strict and prudish rules of etiquette, which, apparently, were in glaring contradiction to the way the English had behaved for centuries before that era unfolded. Here’s what Wikipedia says about Victorian morality:

“Between 1780 and 1850 the English ceased to be one of the most aggressive, brutal, rowdy, outspoken, riotous, cruel and bloodthirsty nations in the world and became one of the most inhibited, polite, orderly, tender-minded, prudish and hypocritical. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_morality

I suppose Carroll, as a writer, was quite drunk with the fodder offered by a society that evolved in just a few decades from being outspoken and rowdy to prudish and polite. Since he lived throughout the era, he likely watched in horror as men had to be more and more circumspect in their manners around women, whose crinolines grew wider by the month. As for children, well, they were best seen but not heard.

If Carroll was alive today, he might suffer writer’s block. There’s just too much fodder for words.

We see it all these days, aggressive, cruel, bloodthirsty right alongside tender-minded and orderly.

While Carroll’s Wonderland skewers politicians, royalty and adults in general, it is first, a book of entertaining nonsense for children.

But I do feel Carroll was also contemplating some sobering ideas. This may be why his book came to mind this past week.

A quick refresher - Alice is an adventurous girl who flings caution aside and follows a rabbit down a rabbit hole to indulge her curiosity. She wanders through Wonderland, meeting a fantastical array of talking creatures, rabbits, cats, lizards, birds, mice, ducks and dogs, with whom she has absurd or nonsensical and therefore frustrating conversations. But Alice is not afraid to argue with these adult sounding creatures, a fact which no doubt gave young Victorian readers great satisfaction. She was also not afraid to simply blow off the worst of these characters and carry on with her adventures through Wonderland.

Carroll was making a hero of Alice but was he also saying to his readers not everything in this world makes sense, adults least of all, and trying to make it so is futile.

Nor is Alice afraid when she meets sinister characters such as the Queen of Hearts who orders Alice’s beheading on every other page. During the trial of the Knave of Hearts, Alice stands up to the Queen’s insanity, defending the Knave fearlessly. She survives the episode, head intact.

Was Carroll telling children to speak truth to power? Was he saying: Queens and those with authority are mad and dangerous, you must speak up?

Like many of us in Canada, I have been thinking lately about the world’s current state of political turmoil. The wacky disorientating world Alice experienced seems a good analogy. The general sense of total, utter, nonsense that imbues Carroll’s 19th century Wonderland is a fair comparison to today’s incomprehensible state of affairs. Hookah smoking, mushroom munching caterpillars and all.

Like that stoned caterpillar Alice could not understand, today’s politicians of every stripe around the world talk nonsense, evade questions and generally talk in circles. Worse, some, even here at home, break the law, neglect to mention the facts, spread lies, scorn the poor, scorn entire populations, scorn scientists and journalists, scorn anyone that does not agree with them. The contortions and rages some of them get themselves into is a sight to behold and makes me sometimes want to send them relief in the form of a good long dunk in a cold mountain lake.

Of course, in the records of organized human society, there is nothing new about any of this behavior. Power corrupts us and has been corrupting us from the first opportunity. What is new for us, or at least me, is the breakdown of so many governments that were built over decades and in some cases centuries to guard against such corruption. We have had the luck now and again to enjoy the rise of truly good leaders – many at the community level, some at the highest levels, who recognized the danger of concentrated power and created institutions and organizations to limit it in the hands of government.  Because history has proven over and over that corrupted leaders produce in society intolerance, extremism, violence, and war.

These days, attempts are being made by many corrupted politicians and others to dismantle or discredit the institutional structures upon which much of the peace and prosperity of the world has been built. These are the ones I would dunk in a nice frigid Rocky Mountain alpine lake.

In Alice’s Adventures, there is no plot. No purpose. No goal or endgame. There is only a series of increasingly bizarre interactions and conversations that culminate in Alice’s final exchange with the Queen of Hearts who, when she shouts “off with her (Alice’s) head”, causes Alice to lose her temper and take a swipe at the Queen. Suddenly, the Queen and all her court are just a pack of cards, which moments later become leaves Alice’s sister brushes away from her face in order to wake her from her dream.

Are we all dreaming today’s Wonderland? When will we wake up? What is our endgame, our purpose, our goal? Is it not what we have all believed throughout our lives, to create and live in peace and mutual prosperity?

Is it true that

not everything in this world makes sense and trying to make it so is futile.

Oh yes, there is definitely futility in trying to explain everything we do. But do we not hear around the world too many excuses for intolerance and greed masquerading as necessary action or inaction? Does it make sense, for example, to fuel war on a continent (Africa, for example, where war materials are sold by almost every country you can think of including Canada), only to then have the millions who run from the devastation come to the gates of those same countries in need of refuge?  

Do we agree that

often, adults are mad, and we must stand up in the face of their madness to defend the innocent.

Yes, adults with unbridled power and money do indeed go mad. For many of us, just a little too much can do us in. I learned that in 1984 in Reno, Nevada. I have not gone near a slot machine since!

Real madness though, leads to serious nonsense, to the seriously absurd. It leads to those fleeing war and violence being branded criminals instead of victims. It leads us over cliffs. Down rabbit holes.

Despite the disorienting and disturbing nature of today’s politics, I do believe that sensible heads will prevail here in Canada and elsewhere.  The extreme absurdity that this world wide epic struggle for power is producing will, one day, be remembered, not as a dream like Alice’s, more likely a nightmare. But even nightmares come to an end. We do know how to climb out of rabbit holes.

Let’s go out from this weighty blog with something light, shall we?

First, from Will Rogers:

"Everything is changing. People are taking their comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke."

Next, from Tom Blair:

Politicians are like diapers. They both need to be changed often. And for the same reason.

And, from John Lennon:

If someone thinks that love and peace is a cliché that must have been left behind in the Sixties, that’s his problem. Love and peace are eternal.

So, friends, Love. Peace. Have a beautiful day in Wonderland.