#this whole sequence takes up ten or fifteen minutes in the episode

[polarsirens]

first shot

[timeagainreviews]

A Very Special Doctor Who

The title of last night's episode "Can You Hear Me?" was a bit of a misnomer, or rather, a misdirect. In the tradition of Doctor Who names, I expected it to have more to do with the function of a creature. Something like "Don't blink!" or "You've got two shadows." Instead, it acts more as a reference to representation. Can you hear my calls for help? Can you see the signs of poor mental health? In many ways, tonight's episode was merely a vessel to deliver a message than the story itself. But was that to its detriment? Let’s get into it, shall we?

The episode opens on Aleppo, Syria in 1380. An interesting choice considering the history of the Crusaders. But they never once touch on the subject, they instead lean toward a simple monster invasion. It's not exactly certain why Aleppo was even necessary other than the fact that it looks really cool on-screen. It never really plays into the storyline other than being another location for the story to take place. I am guessing that writer Charlene James has some sort of personal history with the location. Perhaps she studied it and wanted to incorporate it into Doctor Who someday. Considering this is her first Doctor Who, that seems likely.

Tahira, a young Syrian girl is running from the authorities. Evidently, she's some sort of adventurous klepto like Winona Ryder. She leaves the safety of the centre of the city to steal things for the thrill of it. If you don't remember this, don't fret, it has little to no bearing on the greater story other than informing us that she's a bit bored and looking for adventure. Her friend Maryam scolds her and they speak of monsters, in which Maryam does not believe. Later that night, we're visited by these monsters who take everyone but Tahira. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but it's still early on. My biggest bit of excitement came from the fact that the hand we see over Maryam's face was not the Slitheen. Having seen them in the trailer last week, that's who I was expecting them to be. You have to admit, their hands were very similar!

The Doctor drops all of her companions off so they can go touch base with their home lives. Yaz sees her sister, who seems a bit worried about her. Ryan reconnects with his mate Tibo. And Graham plays cards with the boys from the bus depot. I was happy to see the continuity of Gabriel returning as Graham's mate. That was a nice touch. Over the course of their revisiting their friends, we learn that things have been a bit off. People have been having nightmares. Tibo seems to have locked himself away in his flat and complains that at night he's visited by a bald man with tattoos on his head. Luckily, his mate Ryan has been travelling with the Doctor, which means that instead of being laughed at, he's taken seriously. On top of that, the trio of companions are also given visions of the tattooed man. Except for Graham who sees a woman with Storm from X-Men vibes trapped between two planets. That night, Tibo is once again visited by the dream man, whose fingers detach and enter his ear. I don't know why all five fingers detached as he only needed one. Ryan witnesses this just as the dream man and Tibo disappear.

The Doctor is also visited by this bald dream man which gives her something to do while dealing with the boredom of being away from her mates. The Doctor's own mental health has been a subject of discussion lately and it's apparent here as well. As she follows the intruder back to ancient Aleppo, she doesn't bat an eye at the fact that it appears to be ransacked. She's in her element. This is her bread and butter! The Doctor finds Tahira who alerts her to the presence of the monsters, as one is still present, hanging from the ceiling in a very creepy fashion. The make haste and give chase back to the safety of the TARDIS, but not before the Doctor finds a sample of the beast's fur. Strangely, the sonic picks up nothing. That's twice now in series twelve that the Doctor's sonic picks up no readings.

The Doctor picks up her companions where they've followed the source of Graham's vision back to a spaceship looking a lot like a Borg cube. The interior was like when you see a night club in the daytime. It's a bit weird. Also, there seems to be a network of fingers. Within this ship, they discover the bald man who calls himself Zellin. Apparently, he's some sort of Godlike immortal. For the classic Who fans, this was a treat as they name-dropped not one, but three different immortal species- the Guardians, the Eternals, and the Toymaker. I was especially excited over the Eternals, as "Enlightenment," is my favourite Fifth Doctor story.

The Doctor and her friends help release the woman from between the two planets, who turns out to be an immortal named Rakaya. It turns out to be a trick, as Zellin is unable to break her out of the prison himself. Through an unusually helpful bit of exposition, Rakaya recounts their story to the Doctor in a beautiful sequence of animation. I really loved the art direction of this scene as it was something you don't often see in Doctor Who. It was a nice way of illustrating what could easily have been something boring. Kudos to the production team for trying something new.

According to Rakaya, her and Zellin were both like gods, born into the universe and bored by their immortality. In order to entertain themselves, they pitted two planets against one another. But after a while, both species on each planet grew wise as to the nature of these gods and rebelled. They built a prison between their planets and trapped Rakaya there as punishment. I suppose they were done with their planets and decided they didn't need them anymore. I mean, after all, planets are a dime a dozen, right? The whole explanation is a bit hand-wavy, as is usual with god-like beings. The mythology trumps common sense. Zellin then set about using Rakaya's technology to free her while keeping her sane by feeding her nightmares he sourced from humans with his little flying fingers.

Having locked the Doctor and her companions up, they set about causing mayhem on their new favourite planet- Earth. Naturally, this being Doctor Who, they land in England. Meanwhile, the Doctor and her companions are kept as prisoners aboard Rakaya's ship, locked up and having dreams harvested from their minds. Ryan dreams of the Earth's destruction and sees the Dregs from Orphan 55 again. He sees Tibo as an old man. Just one more person he's failed. Graham dreams his cancer is back, complete with a vision of his lost love Grace. Yaz's vision is a bit more abstract as we see her sitting on the side of a stretch of country road while a policewoman looks on from a distance. And the Doctor's dream was a further glimpse into who I believe is probably the Timeless Child. Though we get about as much elucidation on that concept as we have in previous episodes. The only difference here is that we see the same shot for a few more seconds. Nothing new or surprising there. Clearly, that's series finale stuff.

What comes next is an absolute load of rubbish. The Doctor awakens from her dream, just because. After bumping her hip against her sonic, it flies up out of her pocket absolutely defying the laws of physics. For a second there, I wondered if she wasn't hanging upside down as that's the only explanation I could come up with for how the sonic was able to magically fly directly into her hands. While it doesn't ruin the episode, it was easily the worst moment. They don't even try and make it look believable. I'm not even sure they could have made it look believable. Had she dropped it, and then kicked it up into her hands, I could have maybe believed it. There's suspension of disbelief, and then there's just being stupid. In fairness, I'd be lying if I said this was anything new for Doctor Who. Who can forget Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor screaming at such a high pitch that it breaks a pane of glass to make an escape? That being said, it was still very bad.

Having escaped, the Doctor locks Rakaya and Zellin back into the planet prison. However, now they're joined by one of the beasties from Syria, which happen to be from Tahira's nightmares, hence why they never attacked her. The Doctor returns the ship's captive Syrians and Tibo. At this point, the episode still has a good ten or fifteen minutes left, but the threat has been completely neutralised. Or has it? Well, as it turns out, Zellin and Rakaya were not the biggest baddies this week. Instead, that illustrious title goes to none other than mental health issues! That's right, it's an awareness episode! This is why the entire story was so hand-wavy- it's just an excuse to talk about mental health!

I wouldn't say it was exactly shoehorned in, but it definitely was not subtle. Ryan talks Tibo into getting professional help for his issues. This one made the least sense to me because they gave literally zero indication that Tibo needed group therapy. Sure, he was locking his place like Fort Knox and becoming a recluse, but he was quite literally being visited by an all-powerful ancient evil. You get rid of the ancient evil and suddenly, his biggest problems are gone. Instead, it's inferred that Ryan just knows his friend well enough to say "Hey buddy, you need some help." Which is fine I guess, but they in no way illustrated this throughout the episode. Even Tibo's standoffishness toward Ryan could be explained by the fact that Ryan had not been returning his texts. And considering that by the end of the episode, he now knows Ryan has been travelling with the Doctor, even that issue is resolved.

Graham's own fears make far more sense as cancer was a very real part of his life. Of course, he's afraid of his cancer recurring. I did really love the conversation he has with the Doctor as she offers very little comfort. Watching the Doctor awkwardly meander away was funny, but also somewhat confusing. I found it a bit weird that the Doctor listened to Graham talk about cancer without mentioning that she probably has the cure to cancer in gum form or something. She doesn't need to say anything comforting when she can say- "Sure Graham, let's just go to Medicalus 9, the hospital planet! You'll never worry about cancer ever again!" If the Doctor can't cure cancer, then it's like Amy Pond said- "...what is the point of you?"

Yaz's story is easily the most welcome, as it offers up some much-needed backstory with her. We learn that Yaz had a hard time with bullies in school. After deciding to run away, he sister Sonya sends the police to find her. This is why Yaz's nightmare shows her on the side of a country road with a policewoman in the distance. Yaz's fear is that she will get to a point where she is unable to cope and needs to run away. Perhaps an even deeper fear is that her travels with the Doctor are one more form of running away. We learn why Yaz may have been inspired to become a policewoman herself, as the interaction between these two is a positive one. The policewoman makes a bet with her that in three years if things aren't better, she'll pay her £50, but if they are, Yaz owes her 50p. Remembering this bet, Yaz returns to give the woman her 50p, which you'll note was not a Brexit commemorative coin. Thank Zellin.

And that was it, really. There wasn't a lot of meat to this episode. The baddies were dealt with quickly, and the plot resolved before things were even over. Was I mad about this? Not hardly. In fact, I applaud the show for taking the time to talk about mental health. It was clearly the driving force behind the episode and I don't mind at all. Using the concept of bad dreams to represent bad thoughts made a lot of sense in context with the show. Even if the story was devised as a means to deliver a message, it was still a pretty entertaining story. I've always had a soft spot for the immortal baddies of Doctor Who, so adding two more in was a treat. I had even begun wondering if Zellin wasn't the black guardian pretty early on, so clearly they had done a good job paying homage.

The BBC even took the time to drop a hotline at the end of the story, which I thought was a nice touch. It's no lie that due to the current political and social climate of the world these days, mental health is at an all-time low. A friend of mine who is in school for counselling messaged me after the episode, ecstatic that they were addressing these issues, and I have to agree. Doctor Who spans a rather large audience, and it's good to see them trying to take that responsibility seriously. Where I've questioned the show's capacity to address bigger issues, it seems as though they've found a bit of a sweet spot with series twelve, give or take. Keep the messages broad and incorporate them into the story. If "Can You Hear Me?" caused even one person to reach out for help last night, then it's done its job well.

[world-en0ugh-and-time]

Watching Classic Doctor Who!

#1: An Unearthly Child, 1963.

A new blog series in which I (a 20 year old who grew up with NuWho) watch every surviving episode of Classic Who ever and share my thoughts!

[all images/screen caps mine. feel free to use, credit if you’re feeling extra nice!]

(previous posts: [1], [2])

At 5:16 pm on Saturday 23rd November 1963, when the first ever du-du-du-du sounded from television screens across Britain, whilst a strange light cut a black background and morphed into strange abstract pattern while the now iconic wee-wooo-woooo played, I don’t think anybody could have predicted that almost 56 years later, that theme would be one of the most recognisable tunes in television history.

Over 40 years later, a little girl watched a blue box fly through strange circles of light and heard the same theme play for the first time, the words “Doctor Who” appearing in an orange oblong shape, and my own love for this remarkable programme was born. Just as my father, aged eleven in 1963 had been drawn in by this exciting new adventure in time and space, I was smitten, and thirteen years later my love is still going strong. So read on for my thoughts/review/commentary on the first ever story that Doctor Who gifted to us, An Unearthly Child! I’ll try and keep it spoiler free for those who haven’t seen it before.

The first thing I noticed was how similar the original theme music arrangement was to the current version today. I miss Murray Gold’s music massively but I love this nod to the show’s roots that Segun Akinola has given us! It really fits with Chibnall’s back-to-basics take on the show. The original title sequence is so trippy and cool, amazing given the limited technology in the early sixties!

The first main characters we meet are schoolteachers Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright, who muse over strange but brilliant fifteen year old student, Susan Foreman, whose grandfather “doesn’t like strangers”. Barbara lends Susan a huge book on the French Revolution, which she promises to have read by the next morning. Gallifreyans seem to have the skills to read incredibly fast, and I like the nod to this concept in the first ever episode of the rebooted series, where Nine reads a whole book in seconds.

When Barbara and Ian follow Susan “home”, she enters an empty junkyard and disappears. The only thing in the yard is a blue police telephone box... This show instantly feels wonderfully familiar and I know I’m in for a great time.

And then we meet the Doctor, the original Doctor! William Hartnell is old and crotchety and clever and wonderful and although a far cry from Matt Smith or Jodie Whittaker, I instantly feel that this is the Doctor, and he is brilliant.

Ian: I think we’d better go and fetch a policeman. And you’re coming with us!

The Doctor, very sarcastically: oooh, am I?

I love the sass!

Without giving too much else away, episode 1/4 culminates in the Doctor kidnapping Barbara and Ian (another great nod from Chibnall by having Thirteen do the same thing to her first companions, albeit accidentally) and I did laugh out loud when the T.A.R.D.I.S. taking off made Barbara and Ian faint, VERY dramatically. The big reveal of the bigger on the inside doesn’t disappoint, and once again this grainy old black and white programme from 35 years before I was even born feels completely like home.

The next three episodes are set in 100,000 BC, where the Doctor and his companions find themselves trying to escape a tribe of savage cavemen. My archaeological knowledge did ruin this a bit as by the Middle Palaeolithic, man definitely had command of fire (evidence suggests that homo erectus were already using fire!) and it is rather an insult to our poor hunter-gatherer ancestors dressing them up like Neanderthals and suggesting they have no concept of friendship. But the story is great fun and we get to see some early character development, although I was not at all happy when the Doctor was willing to smash the skull of an injured caveman just because he was slowing down their escape! I like the theory that Ian stopping him is what cemented his love for humanity and stopped him from going ‘too far’, though, and makes me think of the wonderful friendship that was Donna and Ten.

And a favourite quote,

The Doctor: Fear makes companions of us all.

He says this to Barbara when she remarks on him being kind to her, and is such a central idea to Doctor Who. Of course Moffat would make it that CLARA implanted this sentiment in a young Doctor’s mind in Listen, which is really quite infuriating as while I liked Clara, Moffat’s lowkey obsession with her as a character was rather tiresome after a while. Still, I like the connections that can be made between Classic and NuWho.

Needless to say they make it out alive and fly off to a new planet, where a Geiger counter needle creeping to “critical” leaves us on a cliffhanger for the next story: The Daleks. On the screen we see a (incredibly unrealistic) jungle world. We have arrived for the first time on the planet Skaro.

Some overall thoughts then.

Characters:

Susan’s premise is great, but her constant screaming gets annoying after a while. Apparently this is why Carole Ann Ford left the role, and tbh I can see why. I love her’s and her grandfather, the Doctor’s relationship though!

Barbara and Ian are cuties together! I ship it. Ian is certainly a “tiresome young man” at times but I like the two overall. Look how cute!!

The Doctor! Yes, I love Hartnell! I’m looking forward to him softening up a bit but I can really see where Capaldi took inspiration from him and I do love grumpy space grandpa!Doctor.

The story:

Prehistoric inaccuracies aside, it was a fun story. The set and props are laughable at times but it’s the low-budget-ness of this show that is one of the things I love. Shoutout to this hilarious dead wild boar:

I’d like to take a minute to cry about the fact that ‘John Smith’ isn’t any old alias, but a member of one of the Doctor’s grandaughter’s favourite Earth bands. (S)he’s such a softie at heart. I wonder what alias Thirteen would take.

The T.A.R.D.I.S. interior is great. It has the original round things! I love the round things!

Fun facts:

The bones in the ‘Cave of Skulls’ came from an abattoir. Apparently they smelt awful under the hot studio lights.

The assassination of JFK took place the day before the first episode aired. They re-aired the episode the next week before the second ep as viewing figures had been low due the the news.

And that’s me about done! Sorry this post has been SUPER long, but I hope it’s an interesting read for modern and classic Who fans alike! Next post, my thoughts on the first ever meeting of the Doctor and the Daleks.

[loquaciousquark]

Talks Machina Highlights - Episode 109

Covering for @eponymous-rose​ because she has just moved and has one chair in her apartment, and also her ceiling is apparently making it rain inside. Also, I’m still riding the high of seeing this show live, so let’s get this going! 

Tonight’s guests: Liam, Taliesin, and Marisha! Late start; Brian blames Spectrum. I blame Sam.

Regular Critical Role this week; Sam’s oneshot is next week! Tonight’s After Dark will be a rebroadcast of the panel from GenCon. 

Everyone is a little stunned at how much they packed into last weekend. Marisha is amazed that they’ve gone from 250 people to 2500 people in the audience, especially considering the number of volunteers and staff they need to run a show like this. Brian is very surprised it had so few hitches in the production. 

Marisha helped Brian piece together his outfit (it was Ashley’s shirt and pants from New York that Ashley made him get).

No one knew what Sam would be wearing until fifteen minutes before showtime. He originally used a Chessex dice box, but Liam “didn’t feel it would read in the back row” so he used a larger, hollow box. 

A fan offered Brian ten thousand dollars for that box after the show. Yikes.

The art book has been in planning for a year; the first official meeting was at the last ComicCon. Liam’s favorite piece is a group portrait that has not been seen before. Taliesin loves that there are bits of “ephemera” scattered throughout the book.

Neither Liam nor Taliesin anticipated how much work the book would be. No release date yet.

Liam had no plan to make sure the potion went to Sam. He just wanted a lighthearted moment, and hadn’t planned to use it until the Raven Queen’s trammel almost broke the episode before. 

Keyleth suspected foul play on the love potion because she knows Vax well enough by now, but wasn’t worried because she likes lighthearted trickster Vax.

Brian was hoping Scanlan would see a mirror first. Taliesin hoped for Keyleth or Grog. Marisha hoped for Vax. 

The Gif of the Week is Matt tearing up his notes. It’s still hilarious.

Liam feels like the whole night was a scene from 300, including the chant of Vax’ildan. It was overwhelming in a good way.

Liam thinks some of Sam’s song/speech schtick was prepared before the show, but Taliesin and Marisha think he was adlibbing some of it as he went. Everyone marvels at his ability to improv so quickly.

Taliesin thinks Vex would have taken a finger or two if Scanlan hadn’t backed off. 

Marisha thinks Keyleth has come to the acceptance that death is likely, even though she’s hopeful they will survive. 

Marisha was slightly concerned that Scanlan would be angry at the prank and leave again. 

Liam doesn’t intend the pranks to be as good as they are, he just trusts Sam Riegel. “I just had to hold the football for Riegel and let him kick it.”

If Scanlan had seen Vex first, Percy would have been amused at first and then quickly annoyed. Taliesin also notes that Percy doesn’t know there was a love potion involved and is vain enough to think it was genuine.

There will be a Talks Machina next week even though a lot of people will be at Burning Man; it just “won’t be a traditional Talks.” 

Brian was excited to emcee the live show even though he had to stall a few minutes at the beginning because the merch line was so long. He felt like he had a contact high from how many Critters were excited to see him and the crew, the crowd singing All-Star before the show, and everyone just being generally enthusiastic. 

The guy who owns the theater said they have had rock concerts that were less exciting; he apparently thought something had happened after the first cheer and came out to check that everything was okay.

Keyleth is okay plummeting to her death these days. 

Taliesin, Marisha, and Liam all feel they will be battling Vecna on top of the titan. They don’t think it will stop until he’s defeated. 

Liam was certain he was going unconscious when Matt said he didn’t have the dice for the damage. Vax’s HP dipped to the 30s. 

Brian sat next to Andrew from CritRoleStats during the show. Hi, Andrew! He does the math in his head for the HP tracking and Brian kept interrupting him by accident. 

Percy is very much looking forward to killing Delilah again. “She’s the gift that keeps on giving.” He also says something about keeping her in a dungeon and killing her every week. Marisha: “Geez louise, that’s dark!”

Keyleth thinks it’s better for her to be down a high-level spell slot than for Scanlan to be, since he has so many high level Hail Marys. 

Brian marvels again at how intense the crowd was. The pre-show panel helped amp them up as well. 

Favorite GenCon moments for everyone! Brian: watching the live show in the audience and going to the Logic show. Brian got to lose at MarioKart on that stage as well. He came in 7th out of 8, and six of the other competitors were bots. Liam loved Bobby pulling Hannah Banana onstage to rap. I’m missing a lot of these references, so apologies if any of this is misspelled! The guy behind Brian’s empty seat apparently cheered very hard for him, even though he lost. Brian also loved Travis’s face when they walked out onto the football field on Sunday. Taliesin loved photobombing Critters. 

During the standing ovation, Marisha felt “pure, distilled, emotional ecstasy.” Liam was very humbled by the love for something they created around Marisha’s dining room table. Taliesin can’t find words for it. Brian felt like it was a wall of love. 

Right before he came out to do the initial announcements, Brian gave Matt a hug and unexpectedly started crying, so he had to compose himself before starting the show. At the end of the show, he looked over and saw Matt had tears in his eyes as well.

Liam loves that events from the game feel like real memories, and that what they do matters so much to so many people. 

After Dark: aka That Pre-Show Panel From the Con

Everyone is nervous about the show except Travis, who’s stoked. Everyone had a strategy session beforehand, except the rules of the game kept getting in the way. Matt: “Antimagic field does not work against spells cast by deities, sorry!”

Marisha and Laura love the game because of the roleplaying elements. Marisha notes there’s still a problem with D&D being perceived as a boy’s game. Liam runs a game for five small girls who love it because it’s not treated as a game for girls; “get ‘em while they’re as young as possible.” 

Any two NPCs in a cage match: Marisha picks Kevdak and Groon. Laura picks Trish the Dish and Kima. Matt: “Now we’re just me at home playing with my action figures, and I’m okay with that.” 

Marisha notes that Critical Role builds every week, which is different than the pre-produced final product from Dread. She loves Dread’s team-building aspect for the puzzles and atmosphere. Matt: “It felt weirdly magical.”

Taliesin and Marisha are very proud of Dread; there will be more to come.

An audience member asks about favorite one-liners: “Your secret is safe with my indifference.” “Life needs things to live.” “Where’s Larkin?”

They talk about how weird it is to have their game so big. They’re constantly amazed by the fan productions of love. 

Matt works hard on the balance between grandiose successes, failures, and heroism, and the importance of grounding the adventure in realism. Liam loves that it runs the gamut from an argument over a pair of shoes to a beloved city crumbling around them. 

Matt never imagined this world he made up would end up in a campaign guide. It was originally a generic fantasy land for his friends to play in, but the more life he put into it the more life his players put into it, and it was very daunting to try to capture all that collaboration into a book for other people to play in. He talks a bit about Joey, his co-writer, who helped him with the overwhelming load of work and created some ideas of his own.

If Laura could reroll one roll from the whole campaign, she describes a moment pre-show where she was trying to slide on her knees through a troll’s legs to shoot up, except she rolled a 1 and the troll stepped on her stomach. Travis would reroll the skull spike. “I wanted that one bad.” Taliesin feels bad rolls are character-building. Matt mentions the roll in the Sunken Tomb, and apparently Laura has never realized how much hinged on that one roll before this moment. Matt thinks of the roll Raishan failed against the Feeblemind. “Thanks, Keyleth!”

Travis prevented Laura from taking a gift earlier, but totally accepts a gift beer from an audience member. The same person brings up how good D&D is for blind and low-vision players since it’s theater of the mind, and as my residency was in low-vision rehabilitation, this means a lot to me. Matt also brings up Critical Role Transcripts as another great method of accessibility. They have over 60% of the whole show completely transcribed, which is over $50,000 in transcribing time. You can sign up to volunteer for five-minute slots at CRTranscript on Twitter. 

Matt talks about the importance of writing down details for NPCs you create on the fly and fleshing them out after the campaign if you think they might recur, because the players will remember every time if you don’t. 

Senokir was made up on the spot. Serious Alpha technical issues, so I’m sorry if I miss some stuff here. 

Matt does not believe in punishing players for being clever. He would rather throw away material and reuse it later. 

Sam is proud of the Washington Football Team inspiration and the library sequence with Laura. He liked the pressure of coming up with so many songs on the spot. 

Grog would take the Deck over the Alchemy Jug without a thought.

Travis will always choose character-based leveling for Grog over meta-gaming every time, especially if it makes Grog dumber. Sam looked up good spells for bards and the mansion was not one of them, but he took it because he loved the idea and hasn’t regretted it. Laura feels the same way about keeping Trinket through the Pathfinder transition. Taliesin never took Luck for the same reason; he feels the potential of the gun backfiring is the price he should pay. “I don’t want to undo my weaknesses.”

Liam’s choice of Fated is why Matt started thinking about him being fate-touched. 

More serious technical issues, sorry. Matt talks about the fact that all DMs will make mistakes and that it’s important to find creative solutions within the bounds of the world you’ve made. 

If Vex could reincarnate as anything, she’d pick “angel babyyyy!” Marisha would like to see Keyleth as a half-orc.

Laura is very disappointed Matt didn’t haggle the last time they went to the flea market together. 

[zefive]

Animated Webseries Recommendations

a (hopefully) consistently updated rec post for animated webseries. rec index here. if you know of a series that’s not on here, please feel free to rec it to me!

criteria: • no live-action/real life humans, except, if it’s for a bit. (example: south park s16e6) • no abridged series, or fananimations. (which is an animation featuring already existing characters, like Sonic or Mario) • no one shot shorts. has to be part of a series (or planned to be) • no cartoons, i.e, animations that is also airing on TV, or is made by a big name company. • has to be completely free!

edit (sept): added 3 new recommendations!

and so, onto the recs:

No Evil by Betsy Lee (on-going) follows a group of spirits, as they fight back against an evil known as The Black Tezcatlipoca, that has mysteriously returned after being sealed away fifteen years ago.

a wonderful and unique series, there’s nothing quite like No Evil out there. the story is inspired by mythology and folklore, specifically American, and is, seriously, something special. i highly recommend it, both for it’s story, characters, animation, and music. starts off slow, so please stick with it up to episode 10.

Khonjin House by Khonjin (completed) follows Khonjin, the son of a powerful mob guy, and his antics as his father, and associate Gino, try to teach him the ropes.

a random and dumb series, that manages to be completely hilarious. fair warning for Loud Noises, a ton of yelling, and just.. really dumb humour. however, the whole series is 113 minutes, so it’s definitely worth checking out! the story starts out seeming very self-contained, but it eventually reveals a complex lore, and a story arc. currently, the creator is working on two sequel series: Khonjin, and Supermental.

Eddsworld by Edd Gould (completed/hiatus) follows Edd, his friends, and their adventures through supernatural events, real life taken to the extreme, and Christmas perils.

an older series that will, without a doubt, remind you of the early days of the internet. while that might sound like a bad thing, the ‘classic’ Eddsworld episodes are nostalgia at its finest, with early internet humour that still manages to make, at least me, laugh. the creator, Edd Gould, sadly passed away, but after a while the series returned with ‘Eddsworld Legacy’, which has since then finished. currently on-going with a comic, though it’s been stated the animated series will return.

Mystery Skulls Animated by MysteryBen (on-going) follows a trio of supernatural investigators, and their run in with a ghost, and the fallout of that encounter.

an animated music video that became such a big hit, it became it’s own series. currently slated to be five parts, all animated to Mystery Skulls songs. while there’s no dialogue, the animations still manages to tell a story, and while it’s still in it’s early stages, it’s shaping up to be a downright treat. the characters are interesting, the animation is wonderful, and, of course, the music is catchy. definitely worth checking it out!

Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared by Becky & Joe (completed) follows a trio of puppet children as they learn about the wonder of STUFF.

a weird and surreal series that is, at times, horribly disturbing, and at others, really dang funny. while it’s not actually animated, it still fits all of the criteria, with cool hand-puppets (and a guy in a puppet suit), and ordinary objects given life. fair warning though, it is a rather... horror-esque series, with the trio of puppets getting hurt and traumatized. also there’s gore.

TOME by Chris Niosi (completed/hiatus)

follows Alpha and his friends, as they deal with a hacker problem in their MMORPG, Terrain of Magical Expertise

a series set in a made-up MMORPG, vaguely reminiscence of .hack. i’m currently still watching this myself, but so far it’s BRILLIANT. (i’ll expand on this when i’ve actually finished the series!)

Bloody Bunny: the first blood by 2spot studio (completed) follows the Bloody Bunny, as they try to take down an evil organization. (i. think?)

a collection of 15 shorts, made to advertise this series of (very cute) merch. however, it’s really gorgeous animated, with some nicely done gore and action sequences. it’s also just 11 minutes long, so. 

Animator vs. Animation by Alan Becker (completed/on-going) follows an Animator, as he fights against his own creation.

if you haven’t already seen these, you’re kind of missing out. an old internet classic, Animator vs. Animation is a gorgeously animated series of shorts, all of which are just, kind of really fucking neat. they’re a fun little thing to watch, and has some really clever scenes.

Law of Talos: Karl by Unknown-person follows the living statue Karl, as he enters into a tournament called the ‘Law of Talos’

if you’ve ever been on DA back in the day, you’ve probably seen at least one of these animations. unknown-person’s entries into the artist vs artist tournament ‘Law of Talos’ was one of the coolest animations i had ever watched as a kid. the story around Karl was interesting, the animation was so cool, and to this day, i’ll forever have a huge soft spot for Karl and his borderline evil hijinks. it’s just pure, undiluted fun.

by Roosterteeth here’s something to break the mold: a general warning about RT, and the shit they’ve done (link is down). personally, i have a lot of issues with RT, and even though i enjoy their series a lot, i’m still well-aware that they’re kind of awful, and i personally don’t support them in any way, except the bare minimum. (which is watching the series on youtube)

• Camp Camp (on-going) follows ten year old Max as he tries to escape the Summer Camp he’s stuck at.

a comedy series that’s pretty damn good. it’s kind of in the style of Rick and Morty, in that it’s not actually for kids- more adult humour than anything. most of the humour is wrapped up in the characters, and all of them are pretty unique! fair warning that one of them is, basically, a Hitler joke. the finale of both seasons get more serious, and while there is actual character beneath the jokes, it’s not the focus.

• RWBY (on-going) follows a team of four girls as they become Hunters, and eventually ends up fighting a threat much bigger than themselves.

an ‘epic’ series that is seriously popular, and is also seen as an anime by some people. while the writing is... shaky at best, the characters are all interesting (if under-developed) and it’s very easy to get attached. it starts of as a light-hearted show, but eventually gets darker. there’s also a side-series called World of Remnant that expands on the world building.

• Red vs. Blue (on-going) two teams, one canyon, and a lot of twists.

a series that starts of hilarious, but eventually develops a serious plot, while still keeping its humour. while i haven’t seen beyond season 6 (because i’m too heartbroken) i’ve heard they’re pretty good, so.

[nautilusopus]

The Number I

Chapter 8: Cloud Has Another Longer Conversation

Between the really long conversations about life in general and the gratuitous violence and swearing and the out of sequence nonsense, I think I've pretty much turned into Quentin Tarantino by this point. All I need now is the foot fetish.

Alternate title for this chapter: Cloud Has No Fucking Life Skills And Would Probably Have Died By Now If It Weren't For Avalanche.

Thank you to @auncyen, @cateringisalie, @fury-brand, and @limbostratus for spotting all the times where I had someone get up from a chair four times without ever actually sitting back down in between. It's chairs all the way down.

Four years after meteor-fall and Cloud Strife still isn’t himself. The thing that haunts him comes always at the same time… and when it does, on a distant far-off world, a needle moves. Twisty AU. Contains graphic depictions of violence

There was an incessant scratching at the entrance of Seventh Heaven. It migrated to the windows, gradually increasing in volume, before going back to the front door. It wasn't until it was accompanied by an indignant, "Really!" that Cloud actually acknowledged the noise and allowed Nanaki inside.

"The back door was unlocked. You know that," said Cloud, who'd been sitting in the empty dining room in a booth and took his seat there again.

"And what's wrong with me going in the front door?" replied Nanaki, hopping up onto the table and allowing himself to sprawl out on it.

"The claw marks, mostly," said Cloud. "I'm gonna have to sand those out now."

"I thought you enjoyed fixing things."

"Sanding off claw marks isn't fixing things," said Cloud, but began giving him an ear scratch by way of a greeting anyway.

"How's your arm?" he asked, leisurely stretching out to allow Cloud better access to his neck.

"It's fine. Marlene thinks it's neat."

"You showed her?"

"She asked. She wanted to know if I was gonna get a prosthesis."

"Is she here now?"

Cloud nodded. "Yuffie's volunteered to keep her upstairs while we're... talking."

It was late afternoon, and the bar had been closed early due to "a family emergency". Said family emergency had been waiting for everyone to show up, his anxiety gradually mounting as more and more arrived. Jessie had been the first to arrive, and hadn't made eye contact with him as she walked past him and upstairs to visit Marlene. Cid had been next, having the easiest access to an airship and not being beholden to anyone in particular about it. Nanaki had arrived just now and had been receiving appreciative head pats for the last ten minutes. So that just left --

"Here she comes," said Nanaki as soon as they noticed the frantic footsteps and the panicked swearing outside, before the door was pulled open with just a bit too much force.

"You're alright?" asked Tifa, dumping her bag on the floor next to the table and hurrying over to him. From the way she had asked it the question seemed less a status update and more marvelling that he wasn't rolling on the floor frothing at the mouth.

"Yeah. Fine. Easy on the ribs," he said as she went in for a hug. As they pulled apart he noticed she looked about as bad as Barret had on the first night back from the hospital, the bags under her eyes prominent.

"Who's left?" she asked. Nanaki stretched himself and then hopped down off the table.

"You're the last one," he said. "I'll go gather the others." He slunk off to the back without another word, leaving them both alone together.

"...How was your trip?" asked Cloud eventually.

"Fine. Sort of cold, I guess."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I got to shoo off a dragon. Adolescent bull. Really cranky." She sat herself down in the booth across from him. "Reminded me of you."

Cloud rolled his eyes. "I'm not cranky."

"You're almost 100% crank. Barret says you're banned from Edge Medical now."

"Not a big deal. Yuffie's good at healing, and I'll take care of whatever she --" He paused. "Wait, he called you?"

"Yes. A few hours ago when I landed."

He frowned. "What else did he say?"

"That you weren't immediately dying and that I could come straight home instead of visiting you in the ICU," said Tifa. "You scared the shit out of me, Cloud, you can't just... call me and say something like that and hang up without explaining. I thought you might've..."

"Might've what?"

"...I don't know. Had a really bad episode. Maybe... maybe you might've hurt yourself."

"I wasn't going to -- is that what everyone thinks of me?" said Cloud, his voice rising in anger.

"We're worried about you!" she said, matching his tone. "We're worried about you, and we have every right to be! You said to come home, we all came home! You can't just turn around and try and brush off the fact that you called me up at three in the morning crying your eyes out now that we're actually here!"

Cloud took a deep breath and looked away uncomfortably. "...Is this about the stigma?" he sighed.

"Other way around. The stigma is about this. You can't just --"

"But I'm fine now, so what does it matter?!" His hands were gripping the table now, digging into the wood slightly. "Why can't it just be okay that I'm fine now?! Why can't you all just appreciate --"

"Don't none of y'all get the party started without us," came a voice from the doorway as Cid leaned against it with a wry look on his face. They turned to look at them, Cloud going a bit pink. "No, go ahead, don't mind us."

Cloud unclenched his hands from the table and picked a splinter out of his thumb. Tifa sat back down, having apparently stood up at some point without either one of them noticing.

Cid detached himself from the doorframe and took his place at a table, with everyone else sans Yuffie following behind him. Jessie sat the furthest away from the group and refused to look at Cloud. He suddenly felt very tired.

Nanaki hopped back up onto the table and gave him an insufferably smug look (at least, as smug as someone with a muzzle could look) upon seeing what Cloud had done to the table. Cloud made a face at him when he wasn't looking, and then turned back to Reeve, who cleared his throat and began to speak.

"Alright, everyone's here. As nice as it'd be for this to be a big family reunion for its own sake, this is... an emergency meeting for an issue that we're going to deal with now before it becomes too big. Cloud?"

Cloud took a moment to steel himself before getting to his feet. It had been years since he had played the part of leader. It should be easy enough.

You're not having a crisis, and they're not here because they have to deal with that crisis, he told himself. You're noticing warning signs, and they're here to help pinpoint what they mean. It's just another mission, and after this we're gonna find someone and kill them and that'll make it all stop.

In theory, anyway.

He relayed the whole story quickly and quietly, about the shadows in the morning, the bike crash, the roof... and eventually, under Cid's suspicious prodding, the kitchen, with Jessie. Everyone immediately turned to her. Jessie swallowed.

"You kept that a secret?" said Reeve incredulously. "Jessie, this is something we needed to know about."

"He didn't want you to know, and he asked, and it was his business, and I thought --" She had bent nearly double, rocking herself.

"It's not her fault," Cloud said quickly. "I shouldn't have asked that. I'm sorry."

"Why did you ask her that, Cloud?" said Tifa, peering closely at him. Cloud looked away and said nothing.

"...Whatever the case, it's something we have to deal with now." Reeve pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm gonna have to tell people about this."

"The WRO?" asked Cloud. Reeve shook his head.

"Higher than that. This is now a federal problem."

Cloud jumped to his feet. "What? Why?"

"If my understanding of the situation is correct, there's a sizeable risk that --"

"What he means is you're dangerous," said Cid, glaring at Reeve, who sighed heavily.

"...Alright, yeah, that's what I mean," he said resignedly. "Even if this isn't Jenova -- which I'm not convinced of -- you have lost control of your actions to an outside force four times so far, and we don't know any way to stop it. This time it was just a car accident. Next time we might not be so lucky."

"'Just' a car accident?" interjected Barret.

Reeve leveled his gaze at him. "Given the scale of what we know Cloud is capable of, yes. Just a car accident."

"I haven't --it hasn't made me attack anyone." The inside of Cloud's mouth was dry.

"Neither did Sephiroth. Not right away," said Nanaki, who was now sniffing him curiously. "Perhaps whatever this entity is is simply testing the waters."

Tifa spoke up again. "...Can you hear Jenova saying anything about this?" she suggested. Everyone turned to look at her now. "You can hear Her. Understand some of what She wants, right? As long as you have it under control, it's a resource, just like before."

Cid looked at her incredulously. "You're actually suggesting he --"

"She can't do anything to him. Not with all of us here." She looked at Cloud again. She looked incredibly nervous, but she kept talking anyway. "Do you think you could do it?"

He considered this for a moment. Jenova didn't have as much power over him as She once did, true, but the damage to his psyche had been done years ago, and he was potentially clay in Her hands if he wasn't careful.

"...I think I could, yeah."

"It's a lot to ask," she added. "You don't have to if you don't want to."

He shook his head. "I want to. I can handle Jenova better than I can handle... whatever-it-is."

Tifa nodded and placed a hand on his arm. "I'll spot you. Fifteen minutes and I'm gonna cut you off."

He sat back down and tried to pretend everyone wasn't staring intently at him, and that Barret's arm hadn't just shifted back into a gatling gun, and that Jessie hadn’t just shut down again. Deep breath in, deep breath out.

He barely had to reach for Her before She snagged him and pulled him away. It was dark here, but he knew that it was far from empty. A million million voices scratched at the fragile scrap of self he had left. He had nothing left to fight against them with -- what little he might've had before, five years alone in Nibelheim had destroyed what was left of it. Rather than wasting energy trying to maintain himself against Her, he allowed Her to overtake him, gathering as much of Her voice into himself as he could while he still had the presence of mind to.

Eventually, his will crumbled entirely, and he was awash in that deep space for a second, or an hour, or a century. Part of the music, and the depth. Part of Mother.

He was suddenly jarred back to reality and found himself slumped in the booth with an aching jaw. He stared at the ceiling for a while with vivid green, inhuman eyes as who he was slowly began to put itself back together. Everything felt distant.

"...you hear anything?" That must have been Tifa. Maybe she had punched him.

He nodded numbly. "Heard Mother."

"What did She want?"

"She wants out. She wants to be whole."

There was a motion across the room, which got him to notice Cid. He was here now too. That was nice.

"Anything we don't already know?" he asked. Cloud turned his head and fixed his eyes on Cid and earned a small shudder from the latter. He couldn’t seem to make his eyes focus on anything.

"She wants out. She wants to be whole. She's waited to be whole. Her children will make Her whole."

Cid rolled his eyes. "This was a waste of twenty minutes."

"Her children will make Her whole. Her children will bring Her Reunion."

"Well, looks like he's checked out for the day," he heard Reeve say as Barret retracted the gun back into a hand. "We may as well consider our options and call in what reinforcements we have."

Cloud felt a wet nose press into his arm. Nanaki. It was his friend Nanaki. "Is he going to be alright?"

"I'll take care of it," said Tifa, who moved somewhere he couldn't see and carefully picked him up with a grunt. "Maybe he'll mention something else."

Words kept happening from his mouth on the way up the stairs. He could hear them discussing them in the dining room. Reunion, children, whole. Their words and Her words that weren't words, not the way humans knew them, and his words, the ones in between the two, kept blending together all the way to his room as Tifa set him down on his bed and sat down next to him, squeezing his good hand.

After a moment it occurred to him that perhaps he was supposed to squeeze back, but for some reason he couldn't really move. Mother hadn't given those parts of him back yet. Still, there it was. The thought was strangely comforting even though it wasn't a part of them.

She was saying words now, to him. Tifa, not Mother. He tried to respond, but the words he wanted to make himself wouldn't stick together long enough for them to be said. There were only Mother's words now. Tifa kept talking, though, so he had another chance, and another, and another. Eventually, he managed one.

"Sorry."

There was a pause in her speech, and she said something back. "Me too."

"Didn't mean to yell."

"I know. I'm sorry I didn't trust you."

It was another few minutes before he managed more: "Didn't want anyone to worry."

"We're gonna worry about you. That's something we chose to do anyway. That's part of how having a family works."

"Don't leave."

"I won't."

After what felt like another eternity, Cloud finally managed to make his fingers contract. About time. She might've left.

Tifa let out a sharp hiss of pain as he very nearly broke her hand, and he loosened his grip and turned to look at her properly. It was easier to write his own words in now.

"You get anything good from that?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Same old crap as usual. Bit weird that She's mentioning children again, considering they're all dead."

"You think there's more? Remnants, maybe? Another experiment that got out?"

"Nanaki thinks there could be. I think he's wrong. There's nothing left, right? You checked about a hundred times after... after the stigma." She clenched her fingers nervously.

He nodded. "Nothing. Not even any samples."

"Well... no news is good news, right?"

"Right."

She leaned up against him, careful not to bump his arm. Another thing he'd missed. At least it was easy enough to convince Tifa to sit with him. Half the time he couldn't work up the nerve with anyone else. They could say yes if he asked. But they could also say no, and that would hurt almost as much as if he never asked at all and just went about his business not being lonely all the time like an adult was supposed to be.

Tifa didn't want to say anything, obviously, but a quick look out the window told him it was already night. He must have been sitting on his bed with Mother -- Jenova, for hours. Maybe five or six. It had gotten worse again. 

The worst part of it all was that even after all this time, it wasn't really unpleasant. In fact, it felt wonderful to be "whole". It was as though he'd been choking, and he was finally permitted to breathe, this basic function of his mind and body that he denied himself so he could keep his individuality. The fact that one day he might not want to refuse was yet another thing he was terrified of.

He curled up against Tifa a bit closer. She'd have to bail him out if that day ever came. He hoped she would want to. 

"So... why fire?" came the question after several moments of silence.

Cloud looked up at Tifa from a bit of skin he'd been picking at on his left wrist with his teeth, confused by the question. "You must've mastered about ten spells by now," she clarified, "and fire's always your go-to. Why?"

"It... it's easy to use," he said. He reached through to the Planet on a path he now knew by heart, gently coaxing a small flame into existence and staring at it as it ran through his fingers, as though it would look different now that he was considering it properly. "It's pretty similar to what I can do innately. Does big explosions just as well as quiet arsons. It's got a lot of useful non-combat applications, too."

Tifa shook her head. "No, I know, just... it doesn't bother you, in fights?" There was another period of silence. 

"The smell, I mean," she added quietly.

He looked up from the fire at Tifa again, who was staring at it with a distant expression on her face. "We were both at Nibelheim," said Tifa. "If -- if you saw anything close to what I saw... smelled it... I don't know how you stand it."

The flame in his hand flickered and went out. He knew exactly what Tifa was talking about: had stepped over the mangled bodies in the streets and sprinted frantically to their cabin; had run back in for his mother, maimed and screaming as the flames claimed her; had to be dragged back out by Tifa's sensei when he succumbed to the smoke, too lethargic to do anything but watch her burn. The mako had seared away many things from that day that he'd had to win back, but the scent of charred flesh and burning hair had not been one of them.

Eventually he spoke up, still staring at his empty hand. "I, er... I sort of got used to it. From before Nibelheim."

Tifa frowned, fixing her gaze on him. "Before?"

"Nibelheim was only unique because it wasn't planned and they didn't have a coverup story ready to go," he said, failing to keep the bitterness out of his voice. "I worked for Shinra for two years before that. It's what they do."

Tifa was quiet. Cloud continued, the words coming easier the longer he talked. He didn't know if she actually wanted to hear it or not, but he was loath to interrupt a clear memory, especially if he managed to recover something else. "Three houses in the Sector 1 slums, I remember doing. And in Wutai, when they were cleaning up after the war... whole villages, along the southern half of the main island. Little villages, even smaller than Nibelheim."

He leaned back against the wall, staring out the window. "They weren't in the news. Nobody cared about those villages. Nobody cared about Gongaga, or Corel... and nobody really cared about Nibelheim, either." He glanced nervously at her. She was looking at him. He held his ground. "I never felt like that smell was a part of Nibelheim. It was just... a part of fighting, I guess. Had been for a while."

She looked at him for a while, then nodded. "It was tricky for me, at first. Almost wasn't let in to Avalanche at all. They took me on the first bombing mission, and after it went off things got a little... intense for me. So they stopped taking me."

"You came with me for the run on Sector 5," said Cloud.

She nodded. "Yeah. And that was the first bomb run I'd been on in years since then. I volunteered, and I guess Barret was too surprised to say no."

"Why'd you volunteer?" asked Cloud, and while she didn't smile, he saw Tifa's expression soften a bit.

"Had to keep an eye on you, Mr. Soldier First Class," she replied. Cloud let out a quiet huff of laughter. "After the bomb went off, it was a little easier this time, since it had been so long, and I thought maybe I'd started moving past it... before Sector 7, anyway."

There was another period of silence as Tifa quietly clenched and unclenched her hands. She didn't really have any mastered spells that she could cast in such close quarters -- it was rather like cracking one's knuckles, something Tifa found thoroughly unappealing.

"I thought maybe Barret dealt with it easier," she said, "but then I remembered Corel. I don't know how he does it."

"Maybe he's not bothered by stuff like that. Maybe he's got different stuff that gets to him," said Cloud eventually.

"He's right in the other room. You could ask him," said Tifa.

"No point," said Cloud. He'd rekindled another flame, smaller this time, and wove it between his fingers like a pen. "He'd tell me to stop asking. He's probably only afraid for Marlene's sake. I can't really picture anything getting to Barret like that, can you?"

Tifa shrugged. "Well, let's check." She raised her voice. "Barret, can you come back in here for a moment?"

She reached out to his flame as Barret stepped in through the door, scooping it out of Cloud's hand and sculpting it with her own mastered spell, Flare, and it violently flashed out of existence in midair with a deafening crack, causing Barret to jump and yell a string of words that prompted a loud, ugly laugh from Cid in the next room.

"Is that all you called me in here for?" he said, clearly unamused.

"Yes, and you've been a big help," replied Tifa politely as Cloud struggled to keep a straight face. "Really," she added, as Barret's scowl deepened.

"I'll let everyone know he's awake. Good to know y'all are taking this seriously," he said, and closed the door to Cloud's room again.

"Loud noises," said Tifa after Cloud allowed himself a brief chuckle. The strange static aftermath of a magic discharge hung heavy in the air. "See? He has a gun for an arm and you can still startle him."

"I guess so," said Cloud after a moment. "It's... maybe he's got something else that it means to him."

"Yeah, maybe..." said Tifa. There was another moment of silence as the unspoken thought passed between the both of them; who had Barret watched burn before Corel?

"...He probably wouldn't tell us what it was, though," said Tifa eventually. "But maybe when all this is over, we should ask anyway."

Cloud nodded. "Maybe we should."

There was a knock on the door. “Are you okay? I heard something loud.”

Cloud quietly swore under his breath. He’d forgotten about Marlene.

“We’re fine,” said Tifa, opening the door. “Is Yuffie still with you?”

“She went downstairs for drinks.” She looked nervously at Cloud, whose eyes probably still weren’t quite right. “...Can you come make me a float?”

“Yeah, alright,” replied Tifa after a moment. She turned back to Cloud briefly. “You’re okay here, right?”

He nodded. “Gonna stretch my legs a little, actually. Everything still feels weird.”

He watched as Tifa went off with Marlene, then let himself downstairs as well to find Cid and Reeve still talking in the dining room.

“Do we have a plan yet?” said Cloud uneasily, pulling up a chair. It was so much easier when they could just go stab whatever the problem was.

Reeve shook his head. "Not a lot we can do for now. The WRO is a volunteer group. It'll take time to get a response from anyone with any real power."

"I thought you were in charge?" asked Cloud.

Reeve shook his head. "I'm in charge of a large relief organisation that doesn't have any real authority over any particular sovereign nation or city-state. Edge wants to be one of those city-states. I can apply for a leadership position just like anyone else, but..."

"I thought you'd be a shoo-in. You're pretty much the only politician left alive, right?"

"Not necessarily. And people... don't really like former Shinra staff, as I'm sure you've noticed by now. The WRO's come under a lot of fire over the years for having my name attached to it."

"You're trustworthy, though. You --"

"-- helped you kill every other member of Shinra in what was unarguably a coup, even if it was a coup for the right reasons." Reeve sighed, watching Tifa disappear up the steps with Marlene holding a root beer float. "I knew I'd have to get out of this game eventually. If I'm not a part of the process anymore, now is as good a time as any."

"...Well, if I was allowed to vote, I'd vote for you," he said eventually. He got up from his chair and walked behind the bar, doing his best to make drinks with just one hand. "If you're voting on anything, anyway. Is this a vote?"

"It's a vote, yes. And your support's appreciated," said Reeve, then looked over at Cid sharply. "You're not supposed to be smoking in here," he said in response to the lit cigarette he now had between his fingers. Cid held up another finger on the hand he wasn't using and took another drag.

"Tifa's gonna put that thing out on your face," warned Cloud through his teeth as he bit the cap off an opened bottle of brandy they had in the fridge.

"Just like she's not gonna mind you're pouring yourself a drink," returned Cid, gesturing to the third cocktail he'd been making. Cloud waved him off.

"She doesn't care if I drink. It's not like there's a rule against it."

"You can't have booze with pain meds, Strife," drawled Cid. "They shoulda told you that on the way out of the hospital."

"They told me a lot of stuff," he replied offhandedly, slowly screwing the cap back on after topping the glasses off. "Doctors say shit all the time, and it's never important."

"Actually, that's not quite --" began Reeve before he was interrupted for the fifth time that night.

"You're gonna put yourself in another coma and we just got you out the last one, dumbass."

"I've had worse," said Cloud, and went back to his seat with his drink.

"I hate it when you do that, you know," said Reeve. "You can't just shut down every conversation about your health."

"Can and will." He took a sip of his drink, and Reeve just shook his head and echoed Cid's "dumbass” sentiment but let the conversation drop anyway.

"What, we don't get any?" asked Cid, then stopped as he noticed the two glasses float over and set themselves down in front of each of them. Cid snatched his up and gestured pointedly at Cloud with it. "I thought you said you were gonna stop doing this shit."

"I have one hand, Cid."

"So take trips," said Reeve, now also frowning. "It's one thing if it's an emergency. Casual use of this kind of thing is gonna make this a lot harder to deal with. Especially now."

"It's convenient and it's not hurting anything."

Cid narrowed his eyes. "If someone sees you doing that --"

"Look, just... everyone already saw my eyes, probably. Barret told me about the arm, and I got spotted on the roof. Damage done. The mobs'll probably be here in a day or two," said Cloud, his face falling a bit as what he was saying suddenly hit him. People knew now. Someone would have told someone else. Everyone would know that there was something living in Seventh Heaven that wasn't human.

"So it's not like it matters," he finished quietly after a moment. He took another few large swallows of his drink.

"...You can stay at my place for if you want, 'til things blow over," said Cid, taking a swig of his own drink. "Couch is yours for as long as you need it."

Cloud nodded. "Thank you." It still sounded insincere. "I can..." Pay him? Fix something for him? Give bad relationship advice? Cid could do all that himself.

"You can make me drinks," said Cid. "'Cause this is damn good and the bar back home is shit."

"I didn't come up with it. It's Tifa's recipe," he said, shifting in his chair. Cid shrugged and took another drink anyway.

"You have as much right to be here as anyone else," added Reeve. "You don't need to move unless you want to.

"Dumb fuckin' assholes'll never know what you did for 'em anyway." Cid drained his glass and Cloud moved it back into the kitchen and into the sink with a small jerk of his wrist, just to bother him.

"You goddamn smartass --"

"Is Cid smoking in there?" came a voice from the doorway. Jessie had come back out of the back room. "Tifa's gonna kill you."

"Not if you don't tell her," he said, flicking some ash off his cigarette.

"I won't have to. That stuff smells. You know that, right?" She let herself into the kitchen, then turned to see Cloud drinking and scowled at him. "Sure, why not? Let's have you run the dishwasher and use the oven while we're trying to think of more ways to piss Tifa off." Cloud's face went furiously red.

"It was one time --"

"It was four times for the first and six for the second and you know it."

"He's been doing not-magic, too."

"Reeve!"

"Gods, I was joking. Anything else?"

Cloud stood up again. "If I make you one too, will you shove off?"

She shrugged. "I guess so. Make sure it has an olive on a toothpick."

Cloud slunk off behind the bar as they continued talking. It had been easy enough to take the compliment from Cid, but really he hadn't done anything for them. Well, perhaps that wasn't strictly true. They'd taken out Shinra together, killed Sephiroth together. He'd helped dig through the rubble of Midgar for survivors, too. He'd been one of the few people on-site with any sort of first aid training and mastered White magic, and definitely the only one capable of lifting massive chunks of downed buildings off civilians. But he'd had help with that too. He wasn't the strongest healer in their family, let alone in that volunteer group. And he'd helped dispose of the bodies. But Cid probably wouldn't bring that up to try and lighten the mood. The man wasn't that tactless.

Cloud knew exactly what Cid had been talking about, and that was something Cloud was absolutely sure he hadn't done. He couldn't have. No one, not even the man that killed Sephiroth, could do something like that, could they?

It was, by definition, impossible. Magic had rules.

There was nothing he could do about them being convinced it was him, though. If it was something they thought he'd done, he'd let them keep giving him credit for it. Another lie onto the rapidly growing pile, but it wasn't like he had a lot of purchase in this group as it was. He needed every edge he could get.

After getting Jessie her drink (and hovering it over to her while looking Reeve dead in the eye), he went back upstairs to check on the rest of his belongings. His sunglasses were smashed. The temporary ones he'd been given by the hospital wouldn't stay on his face because they were too big, and not because he was too small. He'd have to send someone out to get new ones, not that it would matter much anymore. His phone was badly scuffed, but still seemed to work alright. His wallet only had eighty gil in cash and a couple condoms in it in the first place, and both were still there. He made a mental note to put something else in it with his phone number on it in case it got lost, since it wasn't like he had an ID. His radio was back to producing nothing but static.

Guess I can't give this back to her now, he mused, and began to leave his room.

He stepped out the door, and the static faded into music again. He froze, and then went back inside. The music lapsed back into static.

He glared at the radio and snatched it off his desk, then jogged back downstairs with it. He dropped it unceremoniously into Jessie's lap and hauled himself up to sit on the bar a small distance away.

"Can you fix that thing for me?" he asked. Jessie looked at him strangely. The radio was playing music again.

"Seems fine to me," she said, shrugging. She tossed it back over to him, and as he snatched it out of the air, the music shut off again. Cloud stared at the radio, and now Reeve was staring too. He quickly switched it off.

"Yeah, probably. I'll deal with it later," muttered Cloud, and finished off the rest of his drink in one go, just in time for Barret to walk in and scowl at him.

"...What?"

"Did you listen to a damn word the doctor told you?"

"Nah. Are you gonna ride me about the booze too?"

"Your dumb ass is gonna wind up with another seizure."

"I don't do seizures anymore." At least, he was pretty sure. It had been years since the last one, and there was almost nothing left to set them off anymore.

"There's a difference between your episodes and poisoning yourself. And Yuffie can't heal either one, so you'd better --"

"What am I not doing?" Yuffie had peeked her head into the room curiously, then frowned when she noticed Cloud with his empty glass, and she gestured with her own. "Can I have one?"

"You sure can," said Cloud, giving the smallest smirk. "Barret, do you want one?"

Barret grunted, which was probably the most graceful "yes" he was gonna get out of him for the time being.

"What are we getting?" said Nanaki as he trotted into the room after her.

"Cloud's making drinks," said Yuffie. "You want any?"

Nanaki cocked his head to the side, then shook it. "I'll have a sip of someone else's. I don't know if I would like alcohol."

"Is he above drinking age?" objected Jessie.

"I'm fifty-two. Is that sufficient?"

"Isn't that like... twelve for you?" said Yuffie.

Nanaki's tail bristled, and the fire on the end of it sparked briefly. "Fifteen at least! And it's fifty-two!"

"I'm making two drinks," said Cloud decisively. "And one of you better share."

Might as well ask Tifa if she wants one too, he thought. And as the notion occurred to him, she came walking down the steps, her mouth drawn in a thin line. He braced for the inevitable conversation but pressed onward anyway.

"Hey, Teef, do you want... Tifa?"

Instead of also lecturing him about why he shouldn't be allowed to have a nice drink to take the edge off things, or even making Cid put out his cigarette, Tifa walked right past him without looking at anyone and out the front door.

"Tifa?"

Tifa was already off down the street. Cloud looked guiltily at his empty glass. Maybe he shouldn't have been drinking.

Marlene peeked down from the top of the stairs after her, looking a bit guilty. "...Did she leave? Was it something I said?"

Barret set his drink down and shifted enough to allow her into the booth next to him. "What's wrong, baby girl?"

"I made Tifa mad."

"I promise you didn't," said Barret. "Tifa couldn't be mad at you."

"I found a box under her bed, and it made her mad."

Cloud quickly shot Barret a significant look. After a moment a look of comprehension settled onto his face and he turned back to Marlene again.

"She's not mad at you, baby. She was worried you'd get hurt. There was a gun in there."

"Tifa owns a gun?" The skepticism was clear in her voice.

Barret nodded. "It's a gun. You remember back when Shinra was around, and we had to fight them?"

"Yeah..."

"Well, we had to buy a lotta weapons to fight them. We still have some of 'em around, just in case something else bad happens."

"Like your arm?"

"Like my arm."

"So why was she mad? You aren't shooting everyone." Marlene tapped the back of his metal hand, which looked for all the world like another prosthesis, albeit a very fancy one. Reeve had called in a couple favours after his original gun had been crushed when the Highwind crashed and he’d been pinned by rubble.

"She wasn't mad," said Barret wearily, clearly regretting this particular story already. "Guns aren't safe to touch if you don't know how to use 'em. It could go off and hurt you."

"...So, can you teach me how to use a gun?” asked Marlene. “So Tifa won't be mad."

"Look, why don't we go see Tifa, and she'll tell you she ain't mad," said Barret. "Alright?"

"I'll get her," said Cloud, heading for the door. He'd been anxious to anyway.

"Glasses," said Nanaki rather firmly.

Cloud grunted and stepped back from the door again. "Someone's not getting a drink."

"If you'll recall, I didn't ask for one."

"I'll go get her," said Barret. "You too," he added to Nanaki. "Gonna need someone with a nose on 'em to find out where she went."

"What about Marlene?" asked Cloud. It was almost definitely past her bedtime. Marlene looked at Cloud hopefully.

"...I'm making an exception just this once, 'til we clear this up," said Barret uneasily as Marlene's face lit up. "Keep an eye on her." He knelt and gave her a quick kiss on the forehead. "Be back soon, baby girl."

"Thank you!" squealed Marlene, the earlier conflict all but forgotten at the prospect of staying up late with everyone else. The minute Barret and Nanaki were out the door, she rounded on Cloud.

"I wanna do an arm-wrestle contest!" she said. Cloud shrugged, then winced at the action. His shoulders were definitely not up for shrugging for the time being.

"Alright, but go easy on me," he said. "I've gotta use my bad arm." Marlene immediately ran off to get paper to write up tournament brackets and scores on.

Cloud had no idea what time it was, and the alcohol was making him a bit dizzy, now that he really thought about it. Marlene pinned his arm five times, and then had to stop because one of those pins (the one where he'd decided to give her a bit of a challenge and she'd responded with using both hands and shoving his arm at an angle) actually managed to elicit a genuine cry of pain from him as it twisted a muscle he didn't know was still sore. Yuffie got out a deck of playing cards and did a few witch's tricks, since she was always good at the sleight of hand stuff, then began trying to teach Marlene how to do one of the easier ones. Reeve went upstairs to take a phone call. Cloud went out back to his bike and removed his swords, just in case. Cid took off his shirt to compare scars and wound up falling asleep in his chair. Jessie fiddled with the portable radio, trying to find that third station that was rumoured to have started up lately.

Through it all, Cloud kept glancing anxiously back at the door to the Seventh Heaven, because he could have sworn that on the way out there had been something clutched tightly in Tifa's fist.

[focalwriterworks]

ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY

The path to new Star Wars stories has been carved and cut and whether you like this first one or not—the first live action Star Wars product to arrive outside of the Skywalker saga (and by product let’s call it Star Wars product B, C, or D to the original main series A)—it's a success for Disney. And though it’s different, let’s say it has a pleasant Star Wars veneer, it still works competitively well in the new episodic, binge watching digital TV and theater world we live in.

The Story: A band of Alliance Rebels—think French and British underground rebels fighting the Nazis in WWII—know the power and destruction of the Empire’s latest weapon called the Death Star. They must at all costs steal the digital blueprints of the planet-destroying spaceship in order to stop the tyranny of an army in possession of such a fearsome device. We do indeed see the Death Star’s strength in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977) for which that film acts as a sequel, sort of, to this prequel. Central to the rebel endeavor is Jyn Erso, played by Felicity Jones, whose father Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen) is one of the weapon’s creators.

The Goods: For the Disney business model, and for Star Wars fans, the film is a huge plus. There is already, and there will continue to be, endless products and programming as the Mouse that bought Luscasfilm for $4 billion in 2012 will be story-mining details of previous films and characters from those films for decades to come.  And this will be for all demographics and age groups regardless of whether those products are critically received or not.  Which brings us to this semi-inaugural film—not animated like Star Wars Rebels, the Lego Star Wars films or Star Wars: The Clone Wars—but linked in terms of the Rebels’ fight, in a space war, with the Empire just like all of the films and ancillary TV and game commodities before it.

Most diehard fanatics who were there in 1977 won't feel the same however, for Rogue One, as a younger crowd might but that's why rolling these new items out every few years is important—it’s a scientific, mathematic equation that Disney’s quantitative assessment analysts have forecasted accurately—that they will continue to reach out and appeal to a new generation at every turn.  But it’s important to point out, spoiler free, that they didn't ruin Star Wars. Disney and Rogue One director Gareth Edwards didn’t harm the Star Wars legacy or universe in any way, and that’s very important to know going into Rogue One.

The genius of all this is that it’s probably impossible to do so because the originals, Episode IV, V, and VI sort of exist in this historic vacuum.  Yes, in Rogue One they use props, tools, machines, wardrobe and uniforms from previous films—from the 1977 original, specifically—and used one of an infinite amount of moments from Star Wars lore for the Rogue One story but the rest as a whole is mostly a digression like you might see in a midseason episode of The Walking Dead, or Game of Thrones. That’s to say it’s not a massively impressive “episode” (like season five episode eight of Game of Thrones, Wildlings vs. Walkers) that makes you drool for more, or want to tell people about it the next day at work, even wanting to talk about it with people who don’t watch. Rather that Rogue One is more like one of those sort of book-to-TV adapted filler episodes with 70% talking and character development, and 30% action. Which still gives us the goods to keep us watching until next week though not as hair raising.

Though Rogue One is not as aesthetically pleasing or paced as well as Edwards’ other films, Monsters (2010) and Godzilla (2014), and I can’t believe I’m saying a Godzilla film is better than a Star Wars film, Rogue One is still well put together in terms of the story and plot territory it covers and the actual war battle sequences that ensue. The best parts of Rogue One are the actual “star wars” dog fights between the Rebel X-Wing fighters and the Empire’s TIE fighters, and blaster-laden land battles in exotic locations, which are extremely well done. And then there’s Darth Vader. Vader makes an appearance in the film, not a spoiler here because you see him in the trailers, but let's just say his appearance in the film and the lead-up to Episode IV is worth the cost of admission.

The Flaws: Edwards knows Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick well.  He is a student of great cinema, and you can see that in his other work.  Most of the awesome, wide vistas and images of great breadth we see in the trailers for Rogue One—very similar to use of great spatial dimensions on screen in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and found in John Ford films—are missing from Rogue One’s finished presentation and seem to be only found in production stills used in marketing and advertising.  In that respect the ads sell a completely different, expansive, wide screen creative work that is opposite of the quick, short, almost TV-like one we see in Rogue One.  

It is a well done cover of a Star Wars original, certainly not part of their flagship class A line.  To think they may have purposefully set out to make a Star Wars film, for the big screen, that doesn’t try as hard to be better than the rest is disappointing. Like purposefully not using certain John Williams created Star Wars score cues to amplify emotional moments as heard in the A films. Instead there is a completely new though familiar sounding accompaniment to keep the films separate, while visually keeping it all in the family, which defeats the purpose really. Especially when Rogue One needs that familiar Star Wars theme to help when solid character development fails.

In reality Rogue One is no different then something you might see in an NBC Heroes episode circa 2006, or Agents of Shield, or something from the early 2000's on the Syfy channel, like Battlestar Galactica from 2004. That is to say polished, action oriented with long sequences of dialogue for budget purposes. And while several “shows” from the ‘60’s, ‘70’s and ‘80’s paved the way for Netflix, Prime, HBO, Hulu and their bread and butter serial TV, Heroes and Galactica stand out as the kind of new kid on the block products these streaming channels gunned for. Rogue One could be a part of that category. Even though it’s not TV it certainly feels like it. Not necessarily a bad thing. It’s just not of the Class A Star Wars echelon we’re familiar with when we go to the theater.

Here’s what watching Rogue One felt like to me: since I mentioned Battlestar Galactica, if you saw the original Star Wars film in 1977, in a theater, and then a year or so later saw Battlestar Galactica, the movie, in the theater, you would understand what it feels like to see Rogue One. Sure they’re different, absolutely. And how can you compare anything to the original Star Wars. George Lucas sued the producers of Battlestar Galactica for certain technical similarities to Star Wars: A New Hope, and John Dykstra who was a special effects supervisor on A New Hope also worked on Battlestar Galactica. Regardless, one felt like the greatest space adventure ever while the other felt like the TV pilot space war surrogate that it was. And that’s sort of what we’re talking about here. Coming from a huge Star Wars fan.

Again, I can’t say enough of how much I appreciate and applaud what Disney and Lucasfilm have done. But it doesn’t mean there aren’t flaws. The major error for me in Rogue One (as if I haven’t been critical enough) is the very limited but highly visible use of computer graphics to create two well known Star Wars characters. It's great CG animation, don’t get me wrong, but it's also noticeable as such. So when the rest of the film looks incredibly real, in terms of old school model making and matte paintings, and shooting on location, when none of the characters are animated and along comes a cartoon you really know and feel it and it removes you quickly from the film. Not quite Jar Jar Binks distraction, but along those lines. More like in Tron: Legacy (2010) when Jeff Bridges' computer likeness appeared.

When George Lucas did this with the prequels, Episodes I, II and III, he interweaved an equal amount of human actors with computer generated ones and the finished product while at first was hard to swallow soon turned into a crafty, acceptable balance we learned to live with through those three films. Like watching a foreign film with subtitles, or a Shakespearean British drama, it takes a good fifteen to twenty minutes to get into it and assimilate the presentation. Whereas here when suddenly after an hour of solid human interaction we get an artificial actor well it just feels out of the norm. There’s not enough of it seasoned throughout the film to allow us to get comfortable with it. Sort of cool, yes. But it fails the movie in its disruption. Especially when compared to nostalgic, organic realism of 2015’s Episode VII, Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

The Call: Spend the ten. Regardless of my personal petty criticisms, as a long-time Star Wars fan, Rogue One has some hot action adventure sequences—though not as many as talking ones—and an appearance by the one and only Darth Vader (voiced once again, thankfully, by the great James Earl Jones). Kudos to Disney and Kathleen Kennedy, head of Lucasfilm, for successfully planning, executing and inaugurating the Star Wars Story line for Star Wars where we are sure to see a Star Wars story for everyone. And on every device.

Running time is 2 hours and 14 minutes. Rated PG-13 for extended sequences of sci-fi violence and action.      

By Jon Lamoreaux