#to be fair ep 8 has like much more art than the other eps and this is almost the end

[revindicatedbyhistory]

i think its funny how obvious it is this bg is just a zoomed in version of the other bg

[revols-headcanons]

belcher birthday headcanons

this was going to go in my general belcher headcanon post that im making but it was far too specific and long so here’s a separate one.

okay, so the first episode of the show is on september 3rd because it’s bob & linda’s wedding anniversary, and tina’s birthday is 5ish episodes later, so it’s easy to assume that tina was born in fall (somewhere between september and november).

so tina’s either: a virgo, or libra, scorpio, or sagittarius. due to how the first thanksgiving episode in the show is the beginning of s3, my assumption is that tina was born at the beginning or middle of september, making her a virgo (or perhaps she’s a september libra).

virgo’s are typically rational, practical, logical, and systematic in their attitudes. they are consistent and diligent, but have issues regarding their standards. they are gentle, kind, loving, and have a habit of fixing what’s broken due to their hardworking and committed nature— this describes tina. she tends to be the voice of reason in situations disregarding her love life, where she uses her determination and commitment to achieve her romantic dreams (albeit unrealistic). although, when looking at the libra definition (see linda’s section), a lot of the traits could also define her.

linda’s birthday episode is 6ish episodes before a halloween episode, so linda is definitely a libra with either a late september or an early/mid-october birthday.

alternative argument: using the fact that in an episode that is 8 eps earlier, bob has a garden, and typical gardening season is spring and summer (look at the bob section for clarification), linda could potentially be a virgo or leo if they just didn’t make another tina birthday episode (which makes sense bc aging the kids is much more noticeable than aging the adults). however, google says that it’s implied that the show takes place in new jersey and/or around new york, and in new jersey the weather is typically 65-45 degrees in october (76-57 in september), so my first argument could still apply.

libra’s are typically passionate about achieving balance, justice, and harmony. they value intellect, beauty, money, and art and have a tendency to be attracted to people pleasing to the eyes. they are good in social situations and keep others engaged and happy. they take initiative in situations and are good at considering all perspective. they struggle with indecisiveness but they are good at resolving conflict with their charm and tendency to keep things fair— this describes linda. she has been shown to throw herself into situations regarding justice and she loves the finer things in life. she is very social and her origin story with bob was her literally finding him attractive because of his mustache.

bob’s birthday episodes are consistently after the christmas and valentine’s day episodes and the episode before one of his birthday episodes appears to fall within the spring time (as in, during rainy season). new jersey is the driest in february, so bob’s birthday episode has to be a while after february.

a couple of episodes after a bob’s birthday episode, it’s an episode where bob gets a mini garden. in new jersey, july is the hottest with an average of 86 degrees fahrenheit (which would burn most plants). plants need about 50 degrees fahrenheit to survive, and since gardening season is typical spring to summer, this episode must take place between march and june due to the weather in new jersey. the lowest temperatures for march and april are too low to sustain plant life (33 and 42 degrees), so it would make sense if this episode took place in may, but since the episode isn’t that far from bob’s birthday episode, I believe bob was born at the end of april and that he’s a taurus.

taurus’ are described as people who like relaxing environments that stimulate their senses. they are attracted to comfort and they’re hard working, focused, and ambitious. they prefer stability in their lives, they are loyal, and they’re consistent and reliable. they can be stubborn and get caught up in unhealthy situations to prove a point— all these points describe bob perfectly. look at how he acts in the restaurant and how defensive he gets over his family. also look at all the episodes that focus on bob being in the wrong/eccentric— they usually have him being stubborn and refusing to give up until he absolutely has to. also he just gives end of april taurus energy as well.

taurus bob and libra linda works well because taurus and libra are highly compatible with one another. in relationships, both signs avoid conflict and work together. these signs are also both good at parenting.

neither gene or louise have birthday episodes indicating what month they were born in, so now these ones are purely based on vibes and zodiac descriptions.

gene’s personality has similarities with the typical pisces description. pisces tend to be conflicted between what’s fantasy and what’s reality and they learn from observation. they are compassionate but easily swayed, they’re dreamers, and they have to learn to have a more realistic approach to seeing the world instead of being overly positive. they are also adaptable and creative. gene is a kind character who tends to be naive but not out of harm. he seems to view the world as a musical masterpiece full of color and joy, which distracts him from the unfortunate parts of reality. he is also incredibly creative and tends to go with the flow. he also gives late february birthday energy.

some may argue that gene is a leo due to his passion and theatrical personality, which is true, however he doesn’t seem to get jealous when he isn’t in the spotlight. i would argue against this perspective, but this could easily apply to gene. if he’s a leo, he would be a late july or very early august leo.

as much as people want louise to be a capricorn, she doesn’t have the struggles depicted in a typical capricorn. her issues don’t rely on her needing to learn to be playful and relaxed. instead, she has a lot of traits similar to a sagittarius. sagittarius’ like adventure in regards to either physically or mentally. they seek knowledge, they have wonderful senses of humor, and are excellent story tellers. they are straightforward and blunt, which makes them appear arrogant and pretentious. they are flexible to situations around them, prefer independence, are open to new things, and dislike limits. these traits describe louise accurately. she’s always the leading force on her adventures, she is witty and intelligent, and she is independent in regards to emotions and mentality. if she’s a sagittarius, she would’ve been born in early december (as to not interfere with christmas).

i would also argue that louise could be a cancer. cancer’s are typically intuitive and emotionally intelligent. they know how to protect themselves and they can appear cold and uncaring when in reality they are genuine and compassionate for others. they are family oriented and adopt the caregiver role, but can be controlling when they get too emotionally invested. they are also committed and loyal. these traits describe louise in a multitude of ways. she has a tendency to be protective of her siblings and defensive for them, and she also tends to act controlling and uncaring during her antics. if she’s a cancer, she would be a late june cancer.

summary:

bob was most likely born in april and he’s a taurus.

linda was most likely born in late september or october and she’s a libra.

tina was definitely implied to be born in early/mid september and she is probably a virgo.

gene has no indicated birthday in canon but he has a lot of traits associated with pisces. he could also be a leo due to his theatrics.

louise also has no indicated birthday in canon but she has a lot of similarities to sagittarius and cancer.

i almost went onto another tangent about how these make sense due to earth, water, fire, and air sign traits, but then this post would’ve been far too long.

[invisiblegarters]

Jack o' Frost Ep 6 - Finale

Getting around to this a tiny bit late because Midnight Museum has eaten my entire brain, but not as late as I could be (speaking of, MM ends this week so some sort of "here's what I missed when I was obsessing over the story of a maybe-alien and his immortal museum owning boyfriend brother" post will probably be coming. Or two. I don't know I often have too much to say about things).

Anywho.

When last we left off, Ritsu and Fumiya had decided to take some time apart, and that was probably for the best. Frankly Ritsu had every right to be furious, and everyone involved knew it. I don't think that he was pissed, though. At first, yes, but at the end he mostly just seemed sort of sad. Here he was falling in love with this man and it turns out that he'd both already done that and had the full relationship, complete with unhappy ending. Only the one person who should have told him that decided to use his amnesia as a reset button. While I can see the temptation, I also think it's kinda slimy and I wouldn't blame Ritsu for staying away for good.

Oh, the air of melancholy is definitely back. It went missing for a few episodes there.

Okay Fumiya's frustrated yell made me laugh. I get that he probably feels that he's not allowed to go after Ritsu, that he fucked up too much, and well. He did. A lot. But also, not going after Ritsu has been his issue all along. Over and over he decides to leave things to lie rather than try to fight for what he wants, and over and over that has been shown to be the wrong choice. It's Ritsu's decision, ultimately, whether he can learn to forgive Fumiya for what's happened, but I do think that Fumiya should consider letting him know that that's what he wants. Even if ultimately he's rejected. When has keeping his mouth shut worked for him?

HA! It' just doesn't feel like a proper JBL without someone running to their love interest (or chasing their LI around a school, if you're Hira and Kiyoi).

It'll be cute if they come together at the cafe. Like coming full circle.

It's gotta be so weird to take a trip down memory lane when you have a big blank spot in said memory.

Aw, was Ritsu into Fumiya before the cafe? And did he pursue art because of his priase? That's cute. That's very cute. And I mean, I can't say I blame him for wanting to draw Fumiya's face all the time. He's very handsome.

I'm glad he's remembering. While I get the impulse to want to forget all about a relationship when it ends, you'd lose all the good things, too.

Oh the melting effect on the window was nifty.

Um, I don't know. I think hiding a first meeting is a little less a violation than hiding an entire relationship, but that might just be me.

So are they gonna work on their issues here or what? Guys? Those issues that broke you up in the first place?

Okay I'm gonna take Ritsu saying he doesn't want to start over as him saying that they're gonna meet each other halfway as the people they are - the same people that broke up. Because otherwise I'll just work myself into a lather thinking about how saying you're gonna restart doesn't actually do anything without putting in the work to not end up in the same place you were before, and no one wants that.

To be fair I don't really think either of them wanted to break up in the beginning either. I just know that unless we actively try to avoid them, we are often doomed to repeat the same mistakes.

The end was cute, though. Maybe Fumiya is learning to chill a little. And I'll pretend that Ritsu got up afterwards and helped out, rejuvinated.

Final verdict: 8/10. I'm not sure it stuck the landing for me, but I really liked getting to this point. I enjoyed the quiet wistfulness, I loved that this was more adult and that Suzuki Kosuke got a lead role. I also really liked the way it was arranged - the flashbacks into their former relationship bleeding into the way that Fumiya acts with Ritsu, the echoes of how they used to be vs what they are now. I think maybe second chance romances aren't often for me, though, and that might be part of why I'm feeling kind of meh on this here at the end.

[reachexceedinggrasp]

(my original ramble from *cough* months ago that fuck it I should just post because I’m going to have to start over and this will no longer make sense once I finish the whole show)

In fairness, I've still only watched 8 episodes and I've seen more than one person say the thing doesn't properly get going until around episode 10, but I struggle to understand why Chuno is so highly regarded and enjoys almost universal acclaim. Maybe the momentum does pick up, but I don't know how much that's going to help since pacing is not really the problem I have with how it's going so far. The pacing is fine, my problem is lack of direction and lack of heart. It doesn't appear to be really about anything.

I’ve been stuck for agessss, first on ep 7 and now ep 8, and since scrubbing through some of the later eps to fix the subs after finally finding it in semi-decent quality, as far as I can determine the thesis statements of the series are: a) slavery possibly bad b) Daegil loves Ennoyeon absolutely unconditionally and always will and this may or may not be admirable of him c) loyalty??? something about saving the crown prince’s last surviving kid

And that’s it. That’s everything. It has nothing more specific to say and has almost no commentary on those two vague things that it does say. It just wants to point them out. There’s a repeated thematic beat about human dignity and not judging by appearances, but with only one exception thus far, dehumanisation is always tied directly back to the literal institution of slavery. The larger point about classism and prejudice is not developed despite looming hugely over the proceedings. It feels... hollow? I have a disconnect from what’s happening.

The positives are the fight scenes (rightfully revered, they’re balletic and gorgeous and all the work put in by the actors is fully captured by the fluid cinematography- totally get why everyone remembers these visuals, they are insanely good) and the music. The music is fantastic. That main fight song evokes historic grandeur and scale but it also has tonnes of individual personality and is an absolute banger. The editing and score always work together in a way that creates great atmosphere, powerful juxtapositions, and many iconic images. Like, A+ work on sensory storytelling, it frequently looks and feels incredibly cool and/or epic.

But it’s not a well-written show, man. There’s no real meat under all that artful presentation. The story and characters are so paper thin that I really struggle to care about them, even when there’s occasional good dialogue.

It has great eye candy (in both the usual sense and in that it just looks good in general- the stylish action beats, the stunning vistas, the grand scope), but there's no emotional core, no anchor. I'm on episode 8 and I have no idea what the actual story being told is supposed to be. It's endless exposition involving characters I mostly see no reason to care about and one giant, aimless, interminable, slow-motion chase sequence. There's certainly a prevailing theme about the rich and powerful grinding down the poor and how this creates a cycle of violence, but there's no substantive narrative tying any of it together or providing a way in for the audience. It's more of an amorphous blob of miseryporn with cheap cliffhangers than it is a story with a committed, focussed point (even one as facile as 'slavery bad', because for all the suffering on display the actual slaves are relegated to subplots, the show does not centre 'unjust society' as the villain despite feinting in that direction).

Out of the three leads, only Dae-gil is even a bit engaging to me on a pure writing level. He has some hints of genuine complexity that cause a lot of tension in everything he does, which is interesting, but he's also very, very static and opaque. You don’t really know what he’s thinking or feeling a lot of the time or what his larger motives are. But at least you wonder about him. The other two are so insufferably, staggeringly, impossibly boring that I cannot even imagine wanting to know more. The fallen general is a featureless plank of wood who causes my attention to wander every time he’s on screen and the girl is essentially a sentient piece of luggage with whom everyone falls in love for no adequately explained reason. Then these, the two most boring people in the universe, team up to be even more boring together.

It also outright lies to me with almost every episode-ending cliffhanger, in a way that borders on comic. Where the closing cliffhanger scene will be played differently with different shots in the opening of the following episode (eg: the closing sequence will have shown a big reaction of obvious shocked realisation on someone’s face as they catch sight of the person/thing they’re seeking, but the opening sequence replays the moment without the character noticing anything). Misleading us is fine, fake-outs can be okay if you don't overdo it, but fuck you show, blatant lying is too far!

Apparently it takes 15 episodes for Dae-gil and the luggage to even meet again and I'm so tired at the very idea of what nonsense will go on between now and then. I’m told there’s also no real emotional payoff or honest conversation between them later anyway. I love his undying devotion as a characterisation choice, I find his complicated attitude towards her and how it contrasts (and doesn’t) to the flashbacks really compelling in theory, but what is the point? She is a total nonentity and there’s no actual content to their relationship- there’s just the idea of it. What is he fighting for? He was this pure-hearted, clear-eyed idealist who wanted to change the world for her, then he became cynical when she left him for dead, and now he just seems ambivalent about slavery and the status quo. Disgusted by it but complicit in it. What is his suffering for? What has he learned? What’s my takeaway from this? I mean, I need to watch the rest, obviously, but seeing bits from later episodes, I’m already frustrated.

These characters just go nowhere. It feels like nothing much changes with any of them.

Don’t get me wrong, I 10000% understand why Dae-gil is an iconic performance that’s indelible in the minds of audiences and will forever define a huge part of JH’s legacy as an actor. It deserved every accolade! But it’s because of his performance not the character on the page. No one else would have been that iconic in this role. The character on the page is every bit as anaemic, thin, and lacking personality as General Balsawood and the Living China Doll. The writing is just as one note, he’s just as much of a flat, stoic cipher as Tae Ha. The reason he feels like something more than that and is about ten million times more compelling to watch than the other two leads is the utterly towering charisma of an actor who is perfectly in his element playing this part, determined to fully inhabit the role with total abandon. There’s an absolute commitment to the character that infuses everything he does on screen with life and mystery.

Jang Hyuk is making this underwritten, one-note person engaging through sheer presence and his empathy as an actor; he has this unmatched ability to bring genuine humanity to archetypal badasses and it’s the exact same quality that makes him so mesmerising as Bang-won and Oh Hyun Jae and Doctor Lee. He can be scary and vulnerable, compassionate and callous, desperate and untouchable all at the same time. There’s so much tension in the way he plays these parts, like they’re at war with themselves, really making you believe their choices are an organic manifestation of troubled psyches, and that makes the characters feel incredibly real. He creates something endearing and intriguing out of rote tough guy bullshit by always allowing a child-like element into these macho personas, a melancholy note of broken idealism.

There is a primary lack of vanity in his approach to playing the ‘cool guy’ that elevates the whole enterprise and allows you to view a stylised character as if they were a real person. He presents no sense of self-consciousness or awareness of his own image in these performances, he makes you believe he just is and it’s all effortless and that puts him in the ranks of the all-time great Byronic heroes. He is aspirational but relatable, charming without trying to be, dark without becoming unsympathetic. Those things make him seem dynamic even when the writing isn’t. If Oh Ji Ho or another equally boring actor had played Dae-gil, he’d be just as boring as Tae Ha.

For example: All three lead characters have a deliberately huge contrast between who they used to be in their past circumstances and what they are in the present of the show, but the only one who actually conveys this shift in identity with his mannerisms is Dae-gil. He comports himself so differently that you could, in fact, be completely forgiven for not recognising him as the same person; the way he speaks, the way he carries himself, the habitual set of his features, the look in his eyes, etc. has all changed. He is a radically different man than he was, obviously transformed from within by his traumatic experiences and also forced to alter his outward behaviour in order to survive.

The other two change outfits a couple times. Nothing else about them illustrates any kind of shake-up in their class status or self-understanding or emotional state. Ennoyeon’s sameness against Dae-gil’s sea-change makes her empty artificiality even more egregious. She should be just as unrecognisable as he is, her rise parallels his fall and is equally drastic.

Imo it’s 30% fortuitous casting of the exact right person and 70% JH doing all the work that makes Dae-gil an iconic character.

And I figure he alone might deserve most of the credit for creating this performance* considering how terrible Lee Da Hae is as the luggage. I know she’s not a terrible actress, she was perfectly fine in Robber, so the fact that she’s this expressionless, lifeless, sucking void of Perfect Noblewoman stereotypes (especially frustrating because she’s supposed to have been raised a slave and it makes no sense she’s this delicate, sheltered wilting flower) is something I’m going to blame on the director. I haven’t seen Oh Ji Ho in anything else, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt that maybe he could do better than this, too. His woodenness might have been intended as the character being closed off, but in order for that to work you have to show there’s something going on under the surface and there isn’t. He’s got zero presence in this part, he’s overshadowed even by the one-scene day players.

So the director clearly wasn’t helping anyone much with their acting, is what I’m saying. Dae-gil’s two bros were all right, though General Choi is also a bit wooden and the ‘funny’ one can be kinda try-hard. None of the relationships in the show were super convincing, but the three of them at least had good chemistry together and comprehensible motivations. The same cannot be said of General Balsawood and the luggage, who had the opposite of chemistry. The two of them together is like watching paint dry. If the paint and the wall also somehow didn’t seem to like each other despite being inanimate.

The music is really fucking great though. I strongly suspect a massive amount of this show’s huge cultural impact comes from the epic music along with dazzling fight choreography, superbly shot, and great overall style distracting you from how boring most of the characters are. Coolness is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Even with Dae-gil, part of the appeal is definitely that he’s so cool that it covers how opaque he is as a character despite the phenomenal depth of agony he expresses. That action scene in the first episode is incredibly memorable and I can see how if you watched this on TV spread out over weeks, you’d just focus on the spectacular parts and the big tableaux with their effective imagery while forgetting the dragging, meandering, undefined slog that is the rest of it.

Edit from 300 years later: I mean, going further, and having watched some more contemporary shows, I’d venture that the action scenes are almost revolutionary for this kind of tv. They’re on a level so far above what I’ve seen in other historical dramas from that decade, it might be fair to credit them with the show’s success. The way they’re shot is genuinely beautiful and allows you to follow the flow of the action and actually see what’s going on in a way that’s still rare now. It just makes it ten thousand times more impressive when you can appreciate the choreography playing out in full, and the lack of ridiculous sound effects or wire-work is a big plus. People do flips, but they’re real flips done for real, not gravity-defying hovering.

(I am fine with ridiculous ott magic-fighting existing, it’s just when it’s in shows that are otherwise super grounded in the real world and played totally straight that I’m like ‘wat’. If people can fly, you need to set a tone where that seems appropriate; if you haven’t, the fights should remain tonally consistent and be believable - they don’t have to be realistic, they do have to be believable.)

Like, I’m watching the white whale show now (Daemang, the Great Amibtion, which was a white whale because it seemed like I would never be able to find it) and while it’s totally exceeding my expectations and is in fact genuinely wonderful as a show, the action scenes are terrible. It’s the anti-Chuno: the characters are fantastic, the story is thematically focussed and deeply profound, and the action is almost unwatchable. The fights are shot so badly that you have no idea what you’re looking at, there’s no sense of continuous movement or screen geography, and the sound effects are absurdly silly. The actors look super uncomfortable and mostly unconvincing.

I don’t know who decided constant fast cutting was a good way to cover action, but it’s just not. Even if you have to hide stuntmen or that what the character is supposed to be doing is physically impossible, you still shouldn’t cut every nanosecond. There are better ways to do it. The truly egregious offence is cutting people who can do the thing in a such a way that it looks like they can’t. If the actors can fight fluidly and do their own stunts, my dude you need to let the audience see it. Not that I tried to watch Voice and got motion sickness or anything.

Anyway, my point here is that Chuno’s action scenes are basically the Citizen Kane of action scenes in historical dramas and that plus coolness plus bulletproof anti-hero archetype played by a human inferno of charisma plus tragic romance is probably enough reason for it to take off. I still don’t get its sterling reputation as a masterpiece or why people think it’s such a great story (knowing very loosely where it goes and how it ends, I currently stand by my ‘vague directionless miseryporn’ assessment), but I do admire those elements. It’s a subpar whole with some really, really successful parts. I find I’d like to read fanfic that fleshed out Ennoyeon and her relationship with Dae-gil, so I’m buying in at least that much.

*he even choreographed his own action scenes. Learning that he did this blew my mind. Like... how? How was that allowed? How did he know how to do that? How could he be so good? I understand he was a gymnast and studied martial arts very seriously and went to university for theatre, but none of that really explains for me his ability to be a fight coordinator or do screen action at that level. He didn’t actually do a huge amount action before this! Maybe I’m overestimating how much experience/training you need to get handed that kind of responsibility even on a big budget production. Maybe I’m underestimating how much the director wanted him to play this part since JH said it was his request to design his own fights. An excellent call by the director in hindsight but must have seemed wildly risky at the time.

I think I read this show was over budget before it even started shooting, so maybe recklessness was a theme with the director. Paid off for them, though, didn’t it.

[antiloreolympus]

12 Anti LO Asks

1. i feel like in the beginning at least the painterly look actually looked nice and could distract from the less than stellar writing, but now it looks so rushed and makes it look sloppy. i know photoshop specifically doesnt have good paint mixing tools, but it just looks so ugly now.

2. listen im not going to nitpick that sometimes the eyes in lo arent consistent levels unless its particularly egregious (and trust me there are some really bad examples) but i do think it speaks to how bad the art style actually is when its praised for being so "beautiful".   like if it marketed itself as unique, then that's more excusable, but its marketed as some groundbreaking piece of art, which falls flat when we see facial features cant stay consistent and it looks rushed and flat.

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From OP: To clarify, the assistant would have to do 20 panels for a week (from what was stated). However, it definitely has to be done before a week since it has to be ready by Sunday. With the pay of $450 USD total, that’s $22.50 per panel. I think the assistant would spend 30 - 45 min  per panel if RS is hiring someone who can do it fast.

I’m iffy on the payment but I still need to clarify because I feel some of these asks have some misleading information or misinterpreted the post in this next section.

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3. yall why is rachel AGAIN asking fo helpers? doesnt she have 5+ team already? the lack of same figures only adds to the degraded quality of art. also doing 20+ panels with inking, coloring, & lettering? other webtoon artists and the WT itself have gone on record its required for a featured comic's panel count to be 40 panels ... so rachel is basically only paying $450 for someone to do over half of the work she's supposed to do for while she gets all the fast pass, merch, and ad revenue. cool...

4. ok but no that ad rachel put out legit makes me mad esp considering how low the pay actually is. shes asking whoever applies to do the inking AND all the coloring while she what, only slaps on random shadows and puts in her misspelled dialogue? especially when its 20+ panels? the person would have to do 95% of the actual work for a solid chunk of the ep,and that doesnt include the other people on team who also do 95+ of the work. the whole situation makes her really look unpleasant and greedy.

5. me with my tea, watching people drag rachel for her trying to pay barely anything for assistants to do most of her work and only really paying in "expose": oh no, anyway -

6. rachel purposely turning off replies and comments to her posts asking for help which has shit pay on it ... she is aware its a bad look and still is trying to silence people on calling her out on it. this is not a good look, smythe.

7. i guess that anon who admitted the art team of LO work in batches while only working off sketches is right, and for a shockingly low pay too. if thats how the team is paid too then her team isnt even making minimum wage despite doing most of the work. i wanted to give the benefit of a doubt towards rachel but this honestly looks so scummy, especially when we know she's making a lot of money off fast passes, merch, and book deals. it's honestly gross to see her true colors come out like this.

8. people did the math on rachel's pricing for working for her and its at best like ... $5 an hour. and w/ the locked comments too? thats her being aware she KNOWS shes taking advantage of new and young artists because they worship her while she scams them fo work for barely nothing in compensation. youd think someone who lucked out this ,uch on her first try with her bad writing & art would know to pay at least minimum wage, but nah. this is so telling to her actual character its not nice. :/

9. rachel makes so much money off LO its honestly disgusting shes taking advantage of her fans to literally do the work for her while not even paying the lowest end of minimum wage. im seeing a fair few ppl calling her out over this so hopefully no one gets scammed and shes forced to actually pay them if someone reaches out, but considering shes ignoring it to instead retweet fan art is very telling.

10. TBH the funniest (worst?) part about Rachel's pricing is you know she'd be pissed if someone offered that little for her to do so much work, yet she's perfectly happy to ask her fans to do so for her while she gets the credit for it? Maybe that anon was right, the greedy capitalist, woe-is-me Hades IS her self insert. Who knew!

11. my little brother works at mcdonalds and gets paid $600+ a week meanwhile rachel cant even pay her workers even that for doing the bulk of the literal work for her? also flats and inks take different skills yet she expects them to do two jobs for one with such little pay on top of it??? shes wildin for this im sorry to say 💀 unionize webtoons now 💀

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-----FP Spoilers/Mention-----

12. One thing i don't get about the fast past episode is... doesn't Hades actually LIKES kids? Like, we have seen him happy hugging Hebe, he has no problem with holding Triton while Poseidon drinks something and he was pretty sweet to that little kid nymph that give him a cow. Why would he be okay with macking a child work? Does shades of dead children ALSO become slaves?

Also, this "backstory" with Thanatos comes out of nowhere? There was literally nothing that suggested Thanatos saw Hades as a paternal figure or that he respected him or had some sort of special affection for him? Even when he practically raised him, Hades didn't got atached to him even a little bit? He seems annoyed at Thanatos most of the time and doesn't look like he actually likes him... Was Thanatos literally hooking up with his "adoptive" father's girlfriend??? And let me tell you, NYX WOULD NEVER DO SOMETHING LIKE THIS TO ONE OF HER CHILDREN.

Come on, this is the goddess that was so angry that Zeus was being mean to one of her precious children that she SCARED THE TARTARUS OUT OF ZUES! Nyx would never abandon a kid Thanatos at Hades house,said "here, he is here to serve you" and then leave like she has better things to do. Is RS  planing to also do a "golden child and scapegoat" thing like she did with Artemis and Apollo but with Thanatos and Hypnos? (Than's twin brother) becuase i can't think in another reasson why she would make Nyx do something like abandoning her son.... 

[nexyra]

I got an ask for Qrow Branwen so here it comes !

My fav ship(s) for the character

I think my favorite ships for Qrow are Cloqwork and Fair Game ! Cloqwork lacked screentime in terms of canon content of course, but I love the potential here. I also have a things for shipping the sad men together xD There are a lot of REALLY great Cloqwork fanfics out there and I love seeing people write about these two <3 It's in the details but I think there's something interesting here. With Qrow who is convinced to be a curse, who came from such a harsh background... And with Ozpin who is so convinced of humanity's inherent goodness and that anyone deserves a chance. At the same time they're both very complicated people who I think would interact in cool ways. Ozpin is wise but does have a mischievous streak that I think also helped in making them both get along. Qrow is much more perceptive than he appears and that's also good for dealing with someone as secretive as Ozpin.

Fair Game also had a very good start ! The relationship was admittedly a bit tilted toward Qrow's recovery in the show, but they were nice to see together. Clover was perceptive & caring as well as patient. All great qualities for a relationship with Qrow, who has a hard time breaking down his walls and a shot mental health. At the same time, Atlas is very professional, straight-to-the-point and I think Qrow is a real breath of fresh hair in that environment. He brings a different viewpoint to the table, he's very loyal & caring and it's clear that his sass amused Clover greatly. We didn't get to learn enough about him, but Clover's VA hinted that Clover's trust was a fragile thing and he wasn't a fan of showing vulnerability. Qrow, who gives everything he has in all his relationships, would have been a great balm for that uncertainty. So yeah !

My least favorite ship(s) for the character

There are, of course, any & all ships between Qrow & the kids or Qrow & Salem's team. But outside of these obvious "nope", I'll have to go with Jailbirds. This is COMPLETELY personal but I have a really hard time liking Robyn's character as of V7 end/V8 so I'm barely interested in her dynamic with Qrow. I did appreciate her talking down Qrow from revenge because he was only doing it for his own sake but... That's about it. I find her way too abrasive (hidden behind her shiny Robinhood looks). And whereas Clover (imo) was pretty good at getting Qrow to face his issus head-on & building him up, I feel like Robyn relies more on humour & deflection... Which is an art Qrow is already acquainted with, and not the best coping mechanism for him. Aaaand I just feel like she put Clover down several time in order to lift Qrow up. That, plus the queerbaiting controversy, plus her having indirectly participated to Clover's death... The ship makes me a bit uncomfortable.

My fav & least fav platonic relationship(s) for the character

My fav platonic relationship for Qrow is his bond with Ruby ! I really hope they bring it back because these two were GREAT together. Ruby's admiration was adorable. Qrow's nonchalent but clearly protective streak. They care about each other A LOT and I really loved them together. I hope they can have more moments together like back in V3-V4 or V6.

I'm not sure what my least liked platonic relationship would be. Saying Robyn again feels like beating on a dead horse but I don't really have a problem with any other ones. They're all, if not kind & good for him, at least interesting (like Raven)

My favorite thing about the character

The combination of his sassy/cynic personnality and how loyal & caring of a person he actually he is. Qrow is rough around the edges, leans easily into banter but he cares so damn much. He fit so easily next to Ruby's peppy enthusiasm in Vol 1-3, and then he was just an incredible badass and yet so damn vulnerable human in Vol 4-6. I liked that about him. How all the pieces fit together

My biggest criticism for the character

Well I have 2 things to say about that. First : V7C12 With Friends like these. What the fuck was this episode qkfazkfhkgh Qrow's brain was nerfed SO DAMN HARD, I was genuinely pissed while watching the episode. This was just a string of dumb decisions from everyone except Tyrian. But I digress -

In a more general sense, I'd say... putting Qrow in the sidelines. Him falling further into depression was a sound decision. It was interesting and fitting of his character imo. But I feel like they tied "Ruby having enough of his alcooholism" and "Ruby growing away from adults" in a way that kind of.... just put Qrow to the side and doesn't allow him to do much. In V6 finale, Qrow expresses understandable concerns about their plan to steal an airship, but instead of dealing with that Ruby's frustration with his cynicism is aired out and... the timing kind of makes the whole thing weird becaus Qrow isn't allowed to disagree with their plan ("we'll do it with you or without you") and then has to trust Ruby and let her go which AGAIN is a great moment in itself. But all that put together just like... rid Qrow of his function as a parental figure because Ruby is the leader now and he's just... kind of following along.

When was their writing at the peak according to me (ex : best season)

Okay for this one Q, I'll have to go with Vol 4 and Vol 6 for very different reasons. V4 was great because we really got to get to know Qrow. His complicated relationship with Raven. How BADASS his encounter with Tyrian was I freaking loved it. What his semblance and how it shaped his life. And it also let him be vulnerable through the poison & seeing Ruby repay his care was very nice.

Vol 6 for fleshing out, taking his issues & drinking more seriously. Showing more hopelesness and cynicism, and that he had a real drinking problem and he wasn't just a fun drunk. Plus the loss of faith in Oz showed how much Qrow needs stability and secure certainties to orbit around despite his nonchalant personnality. But I like it a bit less because it was the starting point of putting him on the side kind of.

A song I think fits them & why

Ship in a Bottle (Steffan Argus) ➸ A song about being alone in your fight, in the sense that your life is like a sail on the ocean and you are the only captain, the only one who can choose what to do with it. At the same time, there are several mentions of a "captain" as if the singer/Qrow adresses someone else. It's reminiscent of his relation with Ozpin or Clover : speaking of a deal, of being honest and sharing what's on your mind. Qrow thinks too much, he's scared and he sinks more & more as he delves into his cynicism (V6). Qrow cries, things get worse, the mention of the glass echoes his struggle with alcooholism. And the Scarewrow loses his brain, "lose touch with all the things that made [him] feel sane."

+ Problem child (Simple Plan) The Star song (Amanda Palmer) Would anyone care (Citizen Soldier) Wasted (8 Graves)

A headcanon to make up about them

Qrow didn't have the most normal childhood and because of that he had to learn a lot for Ruby & Yang. Notably, Qrow had absolutely 0 notion of what was an appropriate presents for young girls. As a result, he tended to simply bring back from his travels whatever shiny thing might have caught his attention. Could be a weird flower. Could be a pretty knife. Or even junk that his corvid brain latched upon.

Tai designed a look(Tm) that Qrow learned to recognize as "No, not appropriate." After a while, Yang learned to mimick it (but rather at random, she didn't really recognze what was appropriate and what wasn't). Ruby always liked his presents though.

What I would change about them if I was making a re-write

I CLEARLY would rewrite V7C12 so that Qrow & Clover keep their brains kzjhfkqhzk There were ways to reach the same conclusion without like... having a Qrow-Tyran team-up which was REALLY weird

I see 2 main possibilities to stick close to canon content - After the crash, Tyrian gets free but he keeps playing dead for a bit. Since there is no 3rd menace, Clover and Qrow's argument devolve into a fight as seen in canon. At one point, Clover manages to briefly disarm Qrow. They discuss for a bit, you can even put the exact same dialog as in the ep. Then Tyrian takes action, moving out of the shadows to kill Clover with Qrow's discarded weapon. Braincells saved. OR - Instead of having Qrow & Tyrian outright team up, Tyrian just... keeps instillating doubts in their mind. Qrow & Clover are temporarily allies in taking Tyrian down but because of this, they don't TRUST each other which cause missteps and make them less effective. At one point, Qrow tries to attack Tyrian who is behind Clover. But because neither Qrow nor Clover really have faith in the other at that moment (and because Tyrian is poisonning their mind), Clover automatically steps back or aside. He doesn't entirely trust Qrow. Because of this small hesitation, Qrow's attack fails. Tyrian manages to disarm him. Tyrian uses Qrow's weapon to kill Clover. There could even be some message here about the lack of Trust & letting Salem divide friends... something of that caliber in any case 🤔 It can even parallel V3 where Qrow did the same thing with Ironwood & Ironwood refused to stand aside even if he thought Qrow meant to attack him... Could lead somewhere ! Like, in V3 Qrow had faith that Ironwood wasn't to blame. Only Ironwood feared that Qrow blamed him, but Qrow knew & trusted that Ironwood wasn't to blame. In other words, Salem didn't divide them. Here, Qrow & Clover let Tyrian get into their head. And as a result Clover dies. "Together we stand, Divided we fall"

My guess for their MBTI/Enneagram

I'm still mulling on it right now but I think he might be some kind of ISTP 416. He has some weird 7ish behaviour but his need to orbit around someone/a goal, his relationship with Oz, how close he stuck to Tai & Summer sounds closer to 6 fix. He wants people to go home to. Certainty and security. His independance definitely is there but seems emphasized moreso out of necessity.

One aspect that I think would be nice to delve deeper into ? (optional)

I'm not sure mhmmm maybe his relationship with Summer ? It would be both cute & interesting. As well as finally giving us insight into who Summer was

[kinetic-elaboration]

September 29: 3x09 The Tholian Web

Today’s episode, The Tholian Web, was completely new to me and I came in with no expectations at all. I wasn’t sure about it at first but ultimately I really liked it!

In uncharted territory looking for lost ship the Defiant. Space appears to be breaking up. Idk but for some reason this sounds very familiar.

Like truly I don’t know what this is reminding me of but hasn’t space broken up before?

And now there’s a mysterious object! Nothing is going Kirk’s way today at all.

“Fascinating.” / “Explain.” Truly the root of this relationship.

It’s the Defiant! Looking ghostly.

Uhura’s on the case already. You don’t need to tell her how to do her job.

Scotty and Sulu looking badass together.

Conveniently, it’s another constitution class, allowing all the sets to be reused. (Though also I do think it makes sense only a large ship like that would be in uncharted space.)

Look at them in those suits. They look like they’re going to the grocery store in May 2020.

How do they know this isn’t an illusion? Because “we can see it, but the sensors don’t pick up anything” screams “illusion” to me. I wouldn’t want to beam into open space!

The triumvirate + Chekov, fourth wheeling again. (My mom suggested he’d be incapacitated soon, which is fair--he IS the red shirt in this scenario.)

All of this is feeling very familiar--missing ship, unusual space phenomenon, people going mad--but I'm not sure if it's repetitive or classic.

NO mutiny ever? That seem unlikely. Also didn’t Spock literally commit mutiny? Chekov would appreciate knowing this.

Kirk manages to look intense even through the space suit.

I find it really weird he doesn’t know the captain of this ship. Like, first off, he knows everyone, and second, there only about 12-14 constitution class vessel Captains so I really do think they know each other.

“Spock, stay with me.” Don’t have to tell him twice.

Lol the ship looks so silly just...drifting away. Adorable, but silly.

Seeing an Asian man in sick bay reminds me how few Asian people there are in Starfleet. Like... 1.

“What the devil?” That’s a Southern man there.

Is the ship actually dissolving or is it an ILLUSION? (It’s actually dissolving.)

Uh, the transporter’s not working? That’s not good.

I love how Scotty hears that and immediately abandons the bridge, like there is NO other man for the job.

O’Neil’s face when Kirk asks to be beamed aboard is hilarious. Human embodiment of the :O emoticon.

“You too, Spock.” He delays ordering Spock back to the ship because he KNOWS Spock’s going to argue.

“Completing the data set” yeah okay. He just doesn’t want to leave Jim alone. Especially in the extremely suspicious circumstances of there being 4 people and 3 transporter spots.

He’s vanished!

Spock is NOT having this.

The fabric of space is very weak here. Sounds legit. And there are many alternate dimensions that are very close at hand. So in other words... Kirk is literally stuck in an AU right now.

This is sorta like The Alternative Factor but way better.

You know it’s serious when they break out the fish eye lens.

When Bones rushed in, I was expecting him to sedate Chekov but Spock has it covered.

I feel like Spock is extremely concerned for Chekov here. Like it’s subtle, but just the attention he’s paying to him. And Sulu is obviously very concerned too.

His “environmental unit” only has so much oxygen. What a great name for a fancy spacesuit.

Spock will not believe Jim is dead!! Never. (This is the plot of the whole episode in 8 words essentially.)

That’s an alien!

“According to the Federation, this area is free space.” ...Okay, that sounds a little colonialist. In his defense, he doesn’t press the point. He basically says, kay, we’ll go as soon as we’re finished rescuing.

And I appreciate the Tholian’s respect for that even though surely he must feel gaslit by Spock--rescuing WHO there are NO other ships??

Also I like the look of the alien.

Nifty lab equipment there.

MCCOY FIGHT SCENE.

Wow that orderly was easily disabled lol. I guess Chapel hypoed him but it really looked like she just tapped his shoulder and he fell.

Hmm, there are still 30 minutes left so something tells me this Kirk rescue mission won’t work.

Captain Kirk is not in his designated area. I repeat Captain Kirk has wandered away from his designated area.

The space was disturbed by the Tholians. I guess they weren’t factored into the delicate calculations.

Something about this exchange really screams Southerner meets Alien. Like more than most McCoy and Spock exchanges.

You can tell Spock is thinking about this whole "nothing’s being transmitted, it’s just the nature of space; everyone's already sick" thing but also not caring because CAPTAIN KIRK.

Now they’re being fired upon! A lot is happening here.

“Renowned Tholian punctuality” lol. Always a sense of humor on this one.

Spock’s face when Sulu questioned his order was 100% “Did I stutter?”

“I know you don’t like to use the phasers.” Because he’s a pacifist.

Well he changed his mind on those phasers fast enough.

“You’ve lost Jim.” UM no I think NOT.

Everything happens so much.

“That is the mark of a starship Captain like Jim.” I mean Spock is no Jim but there’s no need to be rude about it

“Doctor, go to your room and do your homework.”

Aw, the ships are kissing.

Now they look like little weaving shuttles. Adorable.

Hmm, it IS a web. Appropriately named episode.

“We shall not see home again.” Lol Spock way to be the Most Dramatique as always.

Tholian web screensaver Windows 98.

No, not a funeral!!

“This service requires my attention, Mr. Spock.” Crying emoji.

(I’m with Spock in almost everything in this ep but come on, you can’t ban McCoy from Kirk’s funeral, that’s just rude.)

This seems more like an assembly than a funeral tbh.

[agonizing scream] is also how I feel about Kirk “dying” and that’s why Generations isn’t real.

AOS Kirk would 100% approve of a brawl at his funeral.

Sulu and Uhura <3

“Each of you must evaluate the loss in the privacy of your own thoughts.” Spock definitely will.

Wait, that was it? The whole eulogy? Both Kirk and Spock really suck at eulogizing the other.

McCoy probably could have skipped this honestly.

Wait, Kirk left his space husband and his BFF a final in-case-of-death message? Noooooooooooooooo I can’t.

McCoy is so insistent they watch it and Spock is like “nah, that makes it too real, not gonna do it.”

“The Captain’s last order is the top priority.”

Why does everyone always assume Spock wants power? He obviously doesn’t. He could be a Captain if he wanted, probably. He’s early enough in his career where he still has time to become a Captain, too--eventually he does! Most of his career and literally every statement he’s ever made would kinda imply he’s not interested.

Also, if he didn’t care about Jim and he just wanted to take over the Enterprise, he would have left 3 hours ago? Like multiple people were saying he should? Including Bones??

“He was a hero in every sense of the word.” True.

McCoy is being VERY mean today.

And now he’s mad at him again for fighting the Tholians instead of leaving without Jim! Like which is it! What did he do wrong? At least pick a specific thing to criticize lol.

"I need not explain my rationale to you or to any other member of this crew." That’s true but also all I can hear is “I love him. I’m in love with him. I must have him back.”

What is that art work on the wall? That’s new.

I don’t get how Bones isn’t getting this. He KNOWS about the “warm, genuine feeling.”

Vulcans clearly aren’t immune to the...space weirdness. But yes, another pot shot at his alienness is always welcome lol.

“I AM in command of the Enterprise.” You tell him.

Finally, the secret message!

Omg Jim is literally dead and he’s still reassuring Spock. What a good boyfriend. I know this is the hardest thing you’ve ever done, but you got this bb.

Now he’s lecturing them both from beyond the grave and getting everything right and they’re just standing there like chastised schoolboys.

That “take care” was so soft.

“It does hurt, doesn’t it?”

“What would you have me say Doctor?”

Like??? I can’t stand this.

Uhura! At home.

I like that twirly thing they have in their quarters; very efficient use of space and also I want one.

I also love that her chair has crocodile arms.

Kirk shows up in the mirror just to be dramatic and disappear again.

“Of course you saw him. We’d all like to see him.” Lol. Yes, yes, he’s still with us... in our hearts.

If the Tholians complete the web, what will they do with what’s inside? Eat it?"

“Are we any closer to the cure for space weirdness?” / “No. Except also yes.”

Love all the vague science that goes into solving their problem at the last minute but also extremely quickly by any objective standard.

Is Chekov restrained with seat belts?

Whereas Uhura’s just chilling. She knows what she’s about.

Ghost Kirk! Ghost Kirk!

"Do you suppose they're seeing Jim because they've lost confidence i you?" Damn bones, harsh. I thought we were done with this.

Pretty distressing that everything relies SO much on Scotty lol--arguably the MOST critical single member of the crew.

“I’m  sorry.” Glad to hear him say it, finally!

“He would just say ‘Forget it Bones.’“ Adorable.

I feel like everyone’s simultaneously thinking, ‘Okay, we ALL see that, right?”

I am overwhelmed by the longing in that shot of Spock trying to reach Kirk through the dimensions. Like, we’ve established everyone loves him, everyone misses him, everyone wants to see him, but Spock actually approaches him and tries to meet him...

“We were separated. He couldn’t touch me.”

I want to know Scotty’s opinion on Spock’s crazy statue.

So Spock shouldn’t have fired those phasers? Because they... did something... bad to the dimensions? But what other choice did he have, other than to leave without Kirk?

Wasn’t Scotty literally just saying this wasn’t fixable? And now he’s like ‘eh, I can fix it in 20 minutes and get you 80% power’?

The antidote is derived from a nerve gas used by the Klingons...that’s honestly rather hilarious. They’re good for something I guess.

“It simply deadens certain nerve inputs in the brain.” / “Any decent brand of Scotch’ll do that.” Starfleet’s finest lmao.

Lmao Mccoy's no longer drugging the crew he's straight up killing parts of their brains with booze and deadly nerve gas. The man must be stopped.

Noooo don’t give Scotty the whole bottle. We’ve already established the ship doesn’t run without him.

They still gotta get out of the web.

If I shipped McCoy/Spock I would DEFINITELY ship it in that little moment where they look at each other over the glasses.

I have no idea what happened but they seem to be free. Bye Tholians!

Kirk back in the chair where he belongs <3

“No problems worth reporting”--I mean that is technically true, I GUESS.

Kirk is trying to get the gossip.

“Only what one would expect when humans are involved.” / “What humans?” The oxygen hasn’t fully returned to his brain, I see.

Also he is completely lying about understanding McCoy’s explanation.

Sulu and Chekov are having a great time listening in. Collecting future gossip for the cafeteria.

“M-my last orders. That I left for both of you.” He’s adorable.

"The crisis was upon us and then passed so quickly that w-we...." Lol yes the crisis came and then 4 hours later, it was passed! Just like that.

I totally get that Kirk wants them to admit they watched the tape. It was his orders that they watch it first, plus he knows he said helpful stuff and he wanted to be helpful! But I also get why they don’t want to admit they saw it, because it is rather awkward to admit they watched his last words when he’s... not dead.

That was a great ep overall! I really enjoyed it.

My only two complaints are that there wasn’t enough Kirk, and I wasn’t fond of Bones’s characterization. I mean, I get that he was affected by the... space weirdness and maybe his usual prejudices were purposefully exaggerated to show that but it still felt like he was constantly piling up on Spock and in the most unhelpful way. Like, they often disagree, in part because they have different general philosophies, and Bones often misunderstands Spock. But Bones wasn’t really offering anything helpful in terms of command advice, and his criticisms were both repetitive and incoherent. Did he want Spock to leave Jim behind or not? Was firing the phasers bad or necessary? Is Spock doing too much to save Jim or is he just out to get rid of him and take command? And again, he had like 6 moments where he said something cutting and cruel and...one or two of those go a lot farther to show the point. I also just... Bones really, really doesn’t get Spock, and I can see how he’d get meaner given the space aggression. But he’s not cruel. And he and Spock are friends, and he does know that Spock loves Kirk more than anything. So I did not find him IC overall.

But I did really like Spock and his characterization. I could feel all the emotion in him, so pent up and controlled but so present--especially in the moment when he held the tape Kirk made, but in so many other places as well--the “funeral,” the first moment after Kirk failed to materialize, reaching for him on the Bridge...

I also liked this portrayal of Spock in command. He is a good commander and he has obviously grown a lot since the Galileo Seven. But he’s not Jim, and the show is clear about that. Kirk is not replaceable and his job is not easy. I’m not even sure that Kirk would have done much different than Spock--he wouldn’t have left without one of his crew, and that probably would have involved firing on the Tholian ship. But when Spock did it, it really felt like he was overwhelmed, frustrated, and not thinking--he didn’t want to, but then Scotty said he should, and he did. Kirk would have made the decision, not been pressured into it. Would it have mattered? It comes out to the same, but I think it would have been a different scenario. Kirk only ever makes his own decisions--then he can own them, no matter what. That didn’t feel like Spock’s decision, and it affected others’ confidence in him (cough cough McCoy).

I would have to watch again to see if I thought there was any other choice.

This ep made me think of the cave scene in ST09 where Ambassador Spock meets Kirk and thinks he is HIS Kirk, come on purpose to find him. Because obviously Kirk is like that: he comes back from the dead, he finds Spock no matter what, he comforts and reassures and supports him no matter what. He would cross dimensions, he’d travel through time, he’d become No Longer Dead, if that’s what Spock needed.

I was a little disappointed that we didn’t see Kirk’s adventures in the AU lol. I think he was lying about being alone in the other universe. I want to see the fic where he was actually in the AOS verse lol.

Even though there wasn’t enough Kirk in this ep, I appreciated how strong his presence was anyway, seeing everyone love him so much, and seeing just how effective he is as a Captain by comparison with Spock, who is good and who did get them out of the situation, but who lacks that certain... Captain’s quality.

And it outright was a great Spock episode, and a good Spock and McCoy ep except for all of the OOC-ness in McCoy. I’m starting to feel like actually there’s a pretty significant amount of Spock and McCoy stories (this one, The Paradise Syndrome All Our Yesterdays, even Bread and Circuses) and I wish there were more Kirk and Bones stories, too. They are best friends after all!

Next is Plato’s Stepchildren, which is a pretty meh episode, but not awful.

[ruslanrekrut]

Best series to watch on Netflix right now the week start off with a new series Universe amazon prime

From original series like The Crown and Bridgerton to favourites such as Doctor Who and Sherlock, check out the best TV shows to watch with our Netflix recommendations.

watch movies online What is the Universe? What is the show about? Perhaps the following definition will help you understand what is so and what is wrong - As the universe's expansion is accelerating, all currently observable objects will eventually appear to freeze in time, while emitting progressively redder and fainter light. For instance, objects with the current redshift z from 5 to 10 will remain observable for no more than 4–6 billion years. In addition, light emitted by objects currently situated beyond a certain comoving distance (currently about 19 billion parsecs) will never reach Earth

If you still haven't check out what has to offer, you've already waited too long. While early criticisms of the content line-up were fair, the state of the library of television shows in 2021 is a much different story.

According to the director, Paul Latushkin, serial story is entirely based on a real event that happened on the territory of the Russian Federation, in Siberia, in a remote village called «Upper Karbush»

Residents feared one anomalous place that was abandoned in the catacombs, and did not go there, even the children were forbidden to play there.

And, nevertheless, accidents still occur, a group of people start to go hard in these catacombs…

And what happened next?

The creators of the show argue that the season 1 of American viewers waiting for an exclusive and fascinating story that will not leave anyone indifferent…

Promo web-series Universe - season 1. ep.1 https://youtu.be/mVPI-wVjS-w <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mVPI-wVjS-w" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Anomalous history of the catacombs has only 10 episodes, but the end is not yet. Soon, the creators will surprise viewers continuation of the story in the second season, where you can see for themselves that the event is really real. Even the film crew during the production of the series was influenced by the catacombs. The very same project could be completed only at the fifth attempt. And in fact the TV series began shooting in 2008…

But even the difficulties encountered during the shooting, did not break the spirit and determination of the crew. This is evidenced by the fact that the film company «Karbush» series released in the United States twice, in 2013 and 2015, and very successfully. According to the latest series show was rated 8 out of 10.

Watch New Series Universe Right Now Series Universe - Season 1, Episode 1 (art house auteur independent) And here you can see the schedule of all the other episodes of the series Universe - https://webseriesuniverse.com/about/watch-season-1-ep-1/ <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YfiLiee19Ec" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[purplesurveys]

1031

Do you usually take blame or blame others? Depends on the context, I guess? When things go wrong on a very deep and personal level between me and people I deeply care for, I usually try to find reasons to blame myself. But if it’s something superficial, like if someone messes up at work through no fault of my own, then I’m able to point my finger to whoever fucked up.

Have you ever been to a McDonald’s in another state? I’ve been to McDonald’s in different provinces and also  in different countries. The McDonald’s we went to in Baguio was so surreal because we discovered that they were still using styrofoam containers that they had already phased out years ago everywhere else, and they also never changed the original spaghetti and chicken recipes I grew up with. It was such a blast from the past. As for other countries, I’ve tried out the McDonald’s in Malaysia, Indonesia, and China and made sure to order items that we didn’t have back home.

Have you ever seen 50 First Dates? Yeah, it’s one of my semi-guilty pleasures. It’s such a cheesy movie, but idk the concept is unique and the supporting characters made the whole movie enjoyable for me.

Do you like or hate the smell of fish? The fishy smell at the market can be pretty strong and bleck, but generally I don’t mind the smell of fish. I live in an archipelago, man. We live and breathe seafood. Idk anyone in real life who doesn’t like fish.

Have you ever been to Sea World? No.

Do you know someone who suffers from short term memory loss? I don’t think so, no.

Have you ever read any of John Green’s books? Yeah, but the only one I’ve gotten to read in full was The Fault In Our Stars. I also got to start on The Abundance of Katherines and Paper Towns, but because I only borrowed those copies from friends I never got to read either until the end. All were okay, but I don’t find John Green’s writing to be as great as it was once hyped up to be.

If so, which one is your favorite? I guess TFIOS, since that’s the only one I got to read through to the end.

Are you a protective person? With my loved ones and pets, yes.

Have you ever experienced an earthquake? Yeah I’ve felt a lot but fortunately it’s never been a severe one. Just super brief earthquakes where the most that happened to me was a little swaying.

Would you rather go to a beach or city for a vacation? I love beaches, but a change in scenery would also be nice because I already go to beaches for vacations fairly often. City.

Does your license plate number contain the number 8? I never actually memorized my plate number LOOOOOOL I think so? It’s either a 6 or 8.

Were you ever a ghost on Halloween? Nope.

Has someone ever held the door open for you? Yeah, security guards tend to do that for customers/guests. Sometimes, nice strangers that I enter a place with will do it for me too.

Are you a fan of penguins? I think fan is pushing it far lol. I like penguins, but I’m not obsessed.

Have you ever stayed up all night on a school night? Just a handful of times, and it was always as part of a groupwork. I’d never willingly go through an all-nighter for myself.

What’s your favorite brand of chips? Doritos or Pringles. We also have a local brand that makes these deeeeeelicious salted egg chips, but I’ve never actually taken note of what the brand is.

Has anyone ever sang to you? Not to me. But a lot of people have sung around me.

Are you a good painter? No. That’s why I opt for paint-by-number kits, because those come with a guide haha. I can’t actually craft images by myself – that skill belongs to my sister who has an insane talent for painting.

Before buying a car, do you usually test drive it? I’ve never bought a car by myself; my dad takes care of the car purchases. I know he test-drove the Vitara, but idk about the other cars we have.

Have you ever written a poem and then read it aloud? Hmm, I don’t write poems. I don’t find the vast majority of them appealing, and only once in a while will there be a poem that is able to speak to me.

Do you like pineapple? Nope.

Have you ever met your favorite author? I don’t have a favorite.

Do you look more like your mom or dad? Most comments point to my mom, but I’ll get the occasional remark that half of my face is my dad’s as well. I’m a good mix of both.

Have you and your best friend ever liked the same person? This hasn’t happened before.

When was the last time someone called you babe or baby? Maybe August? I’m not too sure. It’s been a few months.

Do you have an older brother? No. But I’m super close with my eldest cousin on my mom’s side and we grew up together and all that, and I pretty much consider him my older brother. He’s definitely more a brother than a cousin to me, and it has always felt and been that way.

Are you a fan of art? Yes, especially paintings and dioramas.

Did you get your mom or dad’s eyes? My mom’s, I think? I really don’t know, I’m bad at recognizing this kind of stuff. You’d have to ask people who actually see me on a daily basis.

Have you ever seen the movie My Girl? Is this the one with the really sad scene of a boy’s funeral and the girl’s like, “He can’t see without his glasses”? I haven’t seen the movie, but I’ve heard about that scene a million times.

Do you watch Teen Wolf on MTV? Ugh, MTV’s teen shows are such a cringefest to me. I never followed it, but I’ve had to watch a few eps back in high school when my friends would watch it while we were at someone’s place. Not my cup of tea.

When it was on, did you watch Cory In The House on Disney? I watched a few episodes, especially when it was still new. But we were also in the process of moving then and we didn’t have cable for a few years in our new house, so I had to miss out most of it.

Do you have any blackheads? I don’t.

Do you have any freckles? Nope.

Do you have a movie that you have to watch during the summer every year? No, but I have something similar. I like watching Love Actually at least once every year, during the Christmas season. I like watching Two for The Road once a year as well, regardless of the time of year.

Do you think that life isn’t fair sometimes? I mean yeah. It doesn’t revolve around me, so I know it won’t always be fair.

When was the last time someone bought you flowers? Valentine’s Day last year.

What was the last book you read? Midnight Sun. Haven’t touched it since September, though.

How many books do you plan to read this summer? It’s past summer, and I haven’t been doing a lot of reading in general.

Does your house have a dishwasher? No, not a common appliance here.

Do you know anyone who has a flower tattoo? I probably do. But I haven’t seen people outside of family for so long that I can barely remember who has which tattoos. I’m pretty sure I know someone who has flowers.

Do you like the name Carter? It just reminds me of the underwear brand honestly, so not a fan.

Have you ever had a secret admirer? No. Should there be one, they shouldn’t be having high hopes; I wouldn’t be interested in the least.

How many different languages can you say goodbye in? There’s English, Filipino, Korean, Spanish, German, French, Japanese – 7.

Agree or disagree: You like Adam Sandler movies. Disagree for the most part, but 50 First Dates is cute.

--

Did the last type of shoes you wore have laces? Yups. I wore sneakers when I went out to get Starbucks last Friday evening.

How much money did you spend yesterday? The charging cable that I ordered arrived yesterday, so I had to shell out ₱140 for that.

What genre is your favorite movie? It’s a romcom/drama. My other favorite is a drama.

Are you texting anybody right now? Nope. I’m all alone today, which is the way I want to be for this weekend.

Who was the last person you were in a car with? My parents.

Do you like the picture on your license/I.D. card? I really do, hahaha. I don’t know why the people at the LTO gave me a pass, but I had been allowed to smile with my teeth. That helped make my license photo turn out super well and I no longer feel embarrassed whenever I have to take it out and present it somewhere.

What’s your favorite thing to snack on while watching a movie? Potato Corner fries. Can’t be any other type of fries.

When was the last time somebody hit on you? July or August when this random guy slid into my PMs. I had never had so much fun blocking somebody so fast.

Was the last person you met a male or female? The last new person I met was male.

Which one of your friends do you feel most comfortable around? Angela or Andi.

Do you own a map of the world? I mean, I guess. I have a collection of the World Almanac for Kids books, and it had always included a world map in its Countries chapter every year.

What’s your favorite Thanksgiving food? We don’t celebrate Thanksgiving.

Is the light on in the room you’re in? No, doesn’t have to be as it’s bright out and I can see the sun from my window.

Who did you last spoon with? Gabie.

Are you currently watching TV? No.

Have you ever had surgery or stitches? Never. Hope I’ll never be needing one.

Do you own any clothing that has animal print? I have a tank top with cheetah print that I sometimes wear at home.

Does your family eat dinner together? Yes, every evening. We don’t eat together when my dad is working abroad, but since he has stayed home for all of 2020 because of Covid, we’ve gotten to eat together as a family all year.

Where do you work? Somewhere in Metro Manila; I’m not giving the city away.

Are you in high school? I got out of there nearly five years ago.

Do you have a TV in your room? I used to, but not anymore.

Are any of your electronics charging right now? My phone and laptop both are.

What was the last video game you played? Mario Kart 8.

--

Are you hungry?: I can def go for a snack, or maybe even a full meal. It’s taking everything in me not to order Popeye’s or Army Navy from Grab rn.

What color is the chair you’re sitting on?: I’m sitting up in bed; my sheets are blue with gold/yellow prints.

What did you buy last time you went to the store?: I got bottled coffee when I went to 7-Eleven a week ago.

Do you like salsa that has fruit in it?: ...Don’t all types of salsa have fruit in them though? It would be brand-new knowledge to me if I was told not all salsas have fruit.

Have you ever opened up your computer to clean the fan on the inside?: No. I’d rather have professionals do that.

Can you count in binary?: No, and I never even understood how it works.

Do you think stained glass windows are pretty?: No. Mostly because it reminds me of cathedrals.

Are you a chocoholic?: Nah. I like chocolate, but I can live without it.

Are you scared of snakes?: I mean if they were venomous or obviously wanted to eat me whole, of course. But I’ve also already held a couple of snakes before.

Have you had your wisdom teeth removed?: No.

Do you like hard or soft pretzels better?: Soft all the way. I find the hard ones too salty.

What was the last magazine or catalog you looked through?: I don’t even remember. Maybe Tatler? My grandma has loads of those at her house.

When was the last time you wore a raincoat?: I don’t think I have ever worn a raincoat.

Have you ever been carded when buying something?: Idk what that is but nothing out of the ordinary has ever happened to me whenever I’ve made a purchase, so I’m gonna go ahead and say no.

Do you eat meat?: Yep.

Corn and mashed potatoes, or beans and rice?: Both pairings aren’t really a part of our cuisine, so neither sound appealing to be honest. As someone who thrives on rice, I hate the idea of eating beans with it; so I would go with corn and mashed potatoes even though I’m having a hard time imagining how it would work.

Can you sleep with the light on?: I probably can, but it would take me a lot longer to fall asleep.

What’s your operating system of choice?: Mac/iOS.

Have you ever broken a bone?: Never.

Do you have a favorite highlighter color?: I don’t have a favorite color to use, but I prefer pastel shades in general over neon.

Do you have a flashlight?: My phone has a built-in flashlight, but we also keep a couple of emergency flashlights at home in case of blackouts.

Do you like watermelon?: I like some watermelon-flavored stuff like candies, but I’m not fond of the fruit.

…Honeydew?: Hahahahahaha. BoJack Horseman, anyone? Anyway, I’ve never had honeydew and probably wouldn’t like it considering my established opinion on fruits.

Can you shoot a gun?: I’ve never tried, so I’ll say no. I’ve always been meaning to go to a shooting range though; I feel like it’ll be such a cool experience.

Do you like salad?: Not for the most part. The only kind I enjoy is spicy tuna salad, which only has lettuce in it alongside tuna sashimi and spicy mayonnaise.

When was the last time you smashed your finger?: I don’t know if I ever have? This doesn’t ring a bell to me.

What color is your computer?: Silver/gray.

Have you ever made ice cream in chemistry class?: No, my chemistry classes in high school and college were never that fun.

Has anyone ever walked in on you while you were on the toilet?: Sure.

What color hair do you have?: Black.

Do you use the microwave often?: I wouldn’t say so; just a couple of times a month.

Are you good at spelling?: Sure, I’d claim that. Thank the movie Akeelah and the Bee; that movie made me super passionate about spelling and dictionaries for a time. I can still feel its effects today because I’m still very much particular about spelling more so than any other kind of writing/language mechanic.

Have you ever petted a donkey?: I’ve never even seen one before :o but I’d love to have the chance to pet one, heh. It would make me so happy.

When was the last time you went to the doctor’s for a physical?: 2016.

Do you like a lot of ice in your drinks?: Sure.

Have you ever painted a room? Never have, but would like to give it a try.

[veestormcourage]

I’ve finally gotten around to the Ace Attorney anime

And boy am I disappointed so far!

Not sure I need spoiler breaks for an anime that’s already been out for a few years and a game that’s been out for over a decade in the states and more than fifteen years in Japan, but I’ll still pretend no one knows about the sled, so to speak.

FIRST POINT: Animation

Seriously, the animation is shit.  I’m having flashbacks to Sailor Moon Crystal.  I didn’t take a million screen caps of it like I did for Crystal, but type the following into Google and take a look: ace attorney anime bad animation.  When Phoenix bows to Grossberg, his hands did the same thing Jadite’s did, and in the very beginning when he’s apologizing to Mia for being late, again, the hands.  His hair spikes are constantly changing size, the 3D is egregiously terrible when they pan the courtroom in the first episode (not so bad when they don’t pan the model), and the gallery in the second trial (ep. 2-5) could have been made with better models back in the original game’s launch year...of the Japanese version!!!  The use of effects only in the trial of ep. 1 just highlights further what a dumb idea it was (albeit one sort of taken from the live action movie), while the whole magic screens coming from the paneling thing seems just plain dumb given at this point the setting of the games has turned around and become “present day” instead of “fifteen years into the future.” Inconsistencies with things like Mia’s boobs and Phoenix’s hair spikes aside, the actual models they came up with...are pretty terrible, actually.  Phoenix’s forehead is just plain wrong, Gumshoe’s head is all...something...Mia looks like she has an animation error instead of a mole, the whole makeup thing when Maya channeling is idiotic and kind of sexist when taken in context with the credits animation, Mia wears slight heels and is only 8 cm/3 in. shorter than Phoenix in the first place yet she’s way shorter standing next to him in court -- for that matter, Maya is 22 cm/8 in. shorter than Phoenix, yet she only seems to come to his collar.  This tends to be true in all the official art that she’s absolutely diminutive, but it’s always irritated me there as well, so I’ll just grouse about that one on the entire franchise.

On pan outs, the judge is literally a tan ball with a beard.  Contemplate that quality kwality for a second.

SECOND POINT: Sound

The use of music from the games is a lot more understated than I was expecting, which is a crying shame because the franchise’s music is beloved by fans, and has been acclaimed repeatedly for years.  When I did hear the motifs from the games, I started to feel a shred of hope for the anime.  The opening is just fluffy nonsense, generic OP stuff that will be forgotten immediately and probably skipped if VRV will stop being a pain in the ass every time I jump around. I like that VRV gives me the option of dubbed or subbed.  I also appreciate that if I go to Crunchyroll itself instead of its VRV channel, I can choose the English or Japanese names on the sub track.  I wish that option was on VRV as well, just because I find it interesting, but meh. I don’t hate the credits song, but I’m not...happy with aspects of the animation on it.  But that’s for character reasons, not technical ones.

THIRD POINT: Voicing

I’ve watched both the dub and the sub, and I have to say, I like the fan VAs better from the years of fan-dubbing of the games.  Slightly British Edgeworth and scratchy Phoenix Wright are better than either official VA.  That said, I like Japanese Wright and Maya better than English, and I was so disappointed when I heard Edgeworth’s lack of posh accent that I went immediately back to subtitles, which is a shame because this is the kind of franchise where I might have actually gone with the dub.  And yet, that shrieky “WHAT” to open Ep. 4 in English...yeah, that lost me.  Sorry, US English Maya.

FOURTH POINT: Subtitles

Just gonna say, just because they kept the English names for one of the subtitle tracks doesn’t mean they had to keep all of the localization aspects.  Hearing Maya say “miso ramen, RA~MEN!” and seeing “burgers” gets weird.  To be fair, this was similar to the dissonance I had to wrap my head around when Digimon Adventure Tri came out.

SIXTH POINT: Compression

Actually, no complaints.  I think they’ve done well with what to cut and what to keep, and using the time they have to make the characters feel as over the top as they were in the games, so far.  Little sad the cute moment where Phoenix carries Maya to the couch was lost, though.

FINAL POINT: Characterization

This section is mostly gonna be about Maya, but I’ll knock a couple other things out of the way, first.  One is that Mia sounds a lot more...motherly, than I was expecting.  Another is that it seems weird Maya heard Mia in Ep. 4 when that’s...not a thing.  At all.  The judge seems less like a doof so far, and Edgeworth’s pompous ass has yet to seem quite as pompous as it should.  Gumshoe seems even less competent than usual, though, given his weird posing when entering the scene.

Maya got to point things out during the case and show signs of intelligence, which is nice, because half the fandom has her as Phoenix’s cool sis or something akin and recognizes her common sense wisdom and the other half has Crya the burger monster.  In the games, Maya gets Phoenix to actually pay her share way less than in fanon.  Her sprites present someone who’s a lot more solid and steady than the promo art does, which I’ve never been able to wrap my head around.  I’d finish a game, unlock that final CG, and be like “wait, what?”

So then this anime comes out, and I hear her voiced, and I go, “Wait, so she is the high-pitched adorable mascot?” I’ve never understood the universal need for them in every single anime and take great joy in subversions like Kyubey and the “Fairy” guy in Mahou Shoujo Ore.  It’s not that I don’t like them when done well, it’s just, if the series isn’t fantasy, they seem to squish a female into the role.  “Mayushii-de~su.”  Like that.  So hearing Maya done like that...ew.  Just, ew.  It also makes her seem much, MUCH younger than 17.  I moved out on my own when I was 18 and hadn’t come to terms with my gender, but I wasn’t sitting there with makeup to try to be more “adult,” either.  I think most girls go through that, sure, but it’s more of a middle school thing.  Even I did, and if 13 year old me (who wore makeup every day) was told “I have a magic ray that will make you a boy” I would have thrown my compact away and asked “Can you make it look like an accident?  My parents are Fundamentalists.”  And maybe I’m wrong for bringing my experiences into this, but then again, I’m not trying to give a professional critique, but my personal review, and in the end, that boils down to what I like and don’t like, which, meh, what can I say, I’m an innately selfish creature and myself doesn’t like seeing girls pressured to use makeup to be “grownups.” Sailor Moon always did that, too, and that’s one of my all-time favorites but LORD I hate that aspect, and hate that it’s persisted across adaptations for decades.  I hate that Maya’s new look in SoJ has lip gloss, too.  Like, “Hey, we back-stepped on all the growth at the end of AA3, so how can we show she’s matured?”  “I know!  Lip gloss!”  “Perfect, give that guy a raise!”

CONCLUSION: I’m gonna go over to AO3 and read “Archeology” again because it’s the Ace Attorney characterization we all really deserved and probably still come back and watch the entire series, but I’m gonna pray really hard it improves as it goes.  Maybe it got some actual money for the sequel seasions.

[rainh2oman]

Jazz Potluck - Episode 01.

Like countless folks around the world, I LOVE music. Pretty much any and all genres. JAZZ however, is the music that seems to bring the most joy in my life. As a creative person, I always need to have music on in the background while I work, (well, all the time really) and jazz has always seemed to catalyze my creativity.

I dig this sentiment from the late writer Anaïs Nin:

>>>"Jazz is the music of the body. The breath comes through brass. It is the body’s breath, and the strings’ wails and moans are echoes of the body’s music. It is the body’s vibrations which ripple from the fingers. And the mystery of the withheld theme, known to jazz musicians alone, is like the mystery of our secret life. We give to others only peripheral improvisations."

This “Jazz Potluck” is something that I’ve been wanting to do for years and years, but I never quite got around to it... (I’ve got enough plates spinning already, not much room for another! Hehe.) Anyway, I’ll be sharing Spotify playlists here as often as I can... containing a rich mix of jazz that I love, and would love for YOU to love! I’m certainly no music critic, and I’ve no intention of “analyzing” the music I share, the way that a professional might. But, I will provide some brief personal notes about the songs in the playlists, and hopefully some jumping off points for further exploration, if you dig what you hear!

So without further ado, here’s the very first edition of my Jazz Potluck... Episode 01! There are 16 songs here, with no particular theme, other than that I DIG ‘em, and they get a lot of rotation in my headphones! Quite an eclectic mix!

Here’s the direct link to the playlist on Spotify - Jazz Potluck, Ep 01.

A preview of the tracks in the playlist, and some brief notes on the songs, below.

“Dirty Blonde” by The Bad Plus

“Giant Steps” by John Coltrane

“Chinoiserie” by Medeski, Martin and Wood

“This I Dig of You” by Hank Mobley

“The Windup” by Julian Lage

“3-in-1 Without The Oil” by Roland Kirk

“Gangsterism on the Rise” by Jason Moran

“II B.S.” by Charles Mingus

“It Might As Well Be Spring” by Brad Mehldau

“Gazzelloni” by Eric Dolphy

“Nu Nu” by Avishai Cohen

“Salmon Jump Suite” by Happy Apple

“Brother Mister” by Christian McBride & Inside Straight

“Tiffakonkae” by Kamasi Washington

“Greasy Granny” by the Charlie Hunter Trio

“Cease the Bombing” by Grant Green

Playlist - EP 01.

01. “Dirty Blonde” by the trio “The Bad Plus.” Starting this thing off with a BANG! From the moment I first heard this song back in 2004, I knew that I had stumbled on a Jazz Trio with something utterly unique in their music. A piano, bass and drum trio that has produced some delightful original material over the years, as well as a bunch of “cover” songs that in some ways, helped make them famous in the Jazz world.

For all of the critical acclaim the band has received over the years, one thing that has always stood out to me is the HUMOR in their music. They are often filed under “Avant Garde” Jazz... but they are really in a sub genre of their own. They play with real heart and soul, but they don’t take themselves too seriously, and they KNOW how to have a good time. When you hear all hell break loose at the 2:44 mark in “Dirty Blonde,” you’ll know that you came to the right party.

02. “Giant Steps” by John Coltrane. What can I say... I listen to this song pretty much EVERY MORNING when I wake up. If not immediately after I open my eyes, certainly by the time I’m making coffee. The fast paced tempo and saxophone wizardry of Coltrane and his crew in this Jazz standard always motivates me to get going.

If you’re not familiar with the song, here is a FANTASTIC video backgrounder on the piece, called “The Most Feared Song In Jazz, Explained.” I highly recommend watching it right before or after listening to the song. VERY enlightening!

03. “Chinoiserie” by the trio “Medeski, Martin and Wood.” What an amazingly funky cover of the Duke Ellington composition! I’ve been a fan of MMW since the early 90′s, and this album is probably my favorite, next to “Shack Man.” Medeski rocking the Hammond B3 Organ, Chris Wood’s bouncing bass, and Billy Martin’s frenetic drumming, make this tune just boogie right along. Be sure and listen to Duke’s original version of the song, to see how it sounds with a much larger band!

04. “This I Dig of You” by Hank Mobley. Uptempo, feel-good tune! (And I love Art Blakey’s drum solo around the 4:50 mark!) This is widely considered to be Mobley’s most popular original composition.

05. “The Windup” by Guitarist and Composer Julian Lage. This tune features his current Trio. I was a latecomer to the music of Julian Lage. I only really started listening to his music in 2019... but I’ve made up for lost time! (I think I have his entire catalogue now!) If you’re not familiar with Lage, he’s a prodigy  and was recognized as such by age 12. Now he’s in his early 30′s, and a career that’s going strong!

06. “3-in-1 Without The Oil” by Roland Kirk. If you’ve heard of Roland Kirk (who later went by Rahsaan Roland Kirk) you’re likely aware that he was famous for playing multiple instruments at once. I always found his crazy, loosy-goosey style to be sort of “optimistic” if that makes sense? Very unconventional, and devil may care! 

And speaking of his talent for playing multiple horns at the same time, here’s a passage from my FAVORITE novel, “Another Roadside Attraction.” Author Tom Robbins seems to really peg Roland Kirk in just one sentence.

>>>They are playing phonograph records, some wild new jazz. Straining my ears just now I heard Amanda ask, “John Paul, is it true that Roland Kirk is the entire Count Basie orchestra in drag?"

07. “Gangsterism on the Rise” by Jason Moran. I love the heavy left hand Moran utilizes on his piano in this tune. (Not unlike Pianist Ethan Inverson from “The Bad Plus” in “Dirty Blonde,” the first track in this playlist.) Boom boom boom! Here’s a quote from a music critic that pegs Moran’s style quite well: >>>“Moran is a spellbinding virtuoso who moves between boogie, avant-funk and Brahms as if he had never heard a good reason not to.”

He’s also a stylish sort of fellow....

08. “II B.S.” by Charles Mingus. I’ll have MUCH more to say about Mingus in future playlists... but I had to include at least one of his compositions in this 1st Episode! He is likely my all time favorite Jazz Composer. (He was an amazing bassist as well, but his compositions are what really knock my socks off.)

09. “It Might As Well Be Spring” by Brad Mehldau. This album was Mehldau’s major label debut, and was the first album of his that I purchased way back in 1995! What an AMAZING debut! I chose to include this cover of "It Might As Well Be Spring” because of it’s unusual and playful time signature. It’s a classic Rodgers and Hammerstein tune from the 1945 musical film “State Fair.” Mehldau does something really surprising with this classic tune, and it was such a breath of fresh air to me when I first heard it!

Here’s a passage I dig, from the great jazz book “Playing Changes,” by veteran Jazz Writer Nate Chinen. He zeroes in on what makes Mehldau’s rendition of the song unique.

>>>Introducing Brad Mehldau opens with a quick spray of staccato: tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap, like someone knocking impatiently at a door. It’s the preface to Mehldau’s arrangement of a show tune, “It Might As Well Be Spring,” from the Rodgers and Hammerstein film musical State Fair. The song had long been a verifiable jazz standard, with dozens of canonical recordings: by singers like Sarah Vaughan, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and Nina Simone, and by others ranging from the pianist Bill Evans to the trumpeter Clifford Brown.

>>>Mehldau’s version arrived in 1995, precisely half a century after the line “I am starry eyed and vaguely discontented” made its way into the popular lexicon. He and his trio had made a neat structural modification to the tune, tinkering with its pulse in a way that their syncopated prelude set in clear relief. Instead of the even 4/4 cadence known as common time, the track races along in 7/8, creating the impression of a rhythmic hiccup, or a sprint with a hitch in its stride.

>>>Jazz musicians have been dabbling in irregular meters since well before Dave Brubeck’s enormously popular 1959 album Time Out, which made them an exotic selling point. What’s striking about Mehldau’s performance is where he ventures after the opening vamp, phrasing the melody in a cool, flowing cadence even as his partners, the bassist Larry Grenadier and the drummer Jorge Rossy, busy themselves with percolating chatter behind him. In his articulation of the theme, and in a solo full of deft intricacies punctuated with breathlike pauses, Mehldau gives the song a sleek, appealing contour. His performance doesn’t feel herky-jerky or cerebral. It feels natural, even inevitable.

10. “Gazzelloni” by Eric Dolphy. "Out To Lunch” was the first album I ever bought in the “Avant-Garde Jazz” genre. I certainly wouldn't have been ready for this album in my teens or early 20′s, but I’m really happy that I developed a taste for the genre in later years. It’s some of the most expressive Jazz that I’ve ever heard, and I LOVE to have it on when I’m designing something, or working on a painting. Seems to connect the creative synapses in my brain somehow!

11. “Nu Nu” by Israeli Bassist and Composer Avishai Cohen. (Not to be confused with the Jazz Trumpeter of the same name.) This song is the opening track to Cohen’s album “Continuo” and really sets the tone for the rest of the album. I don’t know what time signatures Cohen uses in this tune, but they change up frequently over the course of 5 minutes. He’s a great composer, and a MONSTER on the bass. It’s said that he took up the bass in his early teens, because he was inspired by the legendary bassist Jaco Pastorius. (An inspiration that likely applies to MANY Jazz bassists since the 70′s.)

12. “Salmon Jump Suite” by the trio known as “Happy Apple.” This song is a smash-em crash-em DEMOLITION DERBY.... and I mean that in the most respectful and delightful way! Play it loud, and I think you’ll agree. Badass.

Oh, and the Drummer is Dave King, who’s main gig is as the Drummer for the aforementioned trio “The Bad Plus.” King is one of my favorite drummers, not just in Jazz, but it ALL genres of music. A real monster on the drums!

13. “Brother Mister” by Christian McBride and his band “Inside Straight” from the album “Kind of Brown.” McBride REALLY gets around as a bassist and composer... just scroll through his credits as a sideman on his Wikipedia page! One of the hardest working musicians in ALL of Jazz! His humor and playfulness comes across in both his playing, and his compositions, and "Brother Mister” is a great example of these. “Kind of Brown” is easily my favorite McBride album!

I should also note that McBride’s funny, extrovert personality has turned him into a popular Jazz radio host! You can catch him on Sirius X, NPR and other programs.

14. “Tiffakonkae” by Kamasi Washington. I simply cannot get enough of Kamasi’s music. I find him to be one of THE greatest talents to emerge in Jazz, in it’s entire history. I don’t think that is hyperbole. I was a couple of years late in discovering him, but since the day I heard his first album “The Epic,” he has been on my DAILY listening routine. No kidding.

If you like what you hear in this cut from his 2nd full length album, do yourself a favor and watch/listen to this special on NPR, that will show you some of what I’m talking about. It’s a 2 hour live performance and series of brief interviews with Kamasi and his collaborators, known as “The West Coast Get Down.” It might give you a buzz.

I’ll be featuring Kamasi and company on PLENTY of Jazz Potluck playlists going forward!!!

Here’s Nate Chinen again, from his book “Playing Changes,” talking about Kamasi bursting onto the scene. (Indeed, Chinen opens the first chapter of the book with Kamasi!)

>>>Kamasi Washington stood tall on a lot of big stages during his Year of Ascendance. Swaying in tempo, pushing heavy gusts through his tenor saxophone, he exuded the regal composure of a conquering hero: dauntless, doubtless, ablaze with rugged purpose. His sound on the horn—rangy and intemperate, or clipped and urgent—suggested an almost tactile force, a physical fact. He cut an equally imposing visual presence, in an unkempt Afro, a thick beard, and a dashiki, its patterned fabric loosely draped over his burly frame. And as his band raged around him, the music’s exultant sprawl enacted a ritual of transcendence. It was all rattling and ecstatic, maybe a little mystical. For many who bore witness, it was, brazenly, something to believe in.

15. “Greasy Granny” by the Charlie Hunter Trio. This album was my first introduction to this virtuosic Guitarist, back in 1995. (I seem to be including a number of albums from 1995 in this list... funny coincidence!) Anyway, as you listen to this tune, keep in mind that he is playing bass lines, chords AND melodies, ALL SIMULTANEOUSLY!!! I don’t know how in the hell he does it, but I’ve seen him performing live a few times over the years, and he makes it look effortless!

This song, “Greasy Granny” is as FUN as the name suggests.

16. “Cease the Bombing” by Guitarist Grant Green, from his 1970 album “Carryin’ On.” Figured I’d close out this 1st Episode of the Jazz Potluck with a long and smooth groove. Easy like Sunday morning.........

Stay well, people!

[multimetaverse]

There are some massive spoilers regarding Buffy and Marty in 3b courtesy of a casting notice. I’m going to post the relevant parts of the notice and my analysis under the cut. Fair warning, these spoilers are very big.

Andi Mack Episode(s) 317 Shoot Dates Saturday, November 3, 2018 through Friday, November 9, 2018 RACHEL Female, 13-16, Any Ethnicity, Marty's girlfriend, Jealous when Marty runs into Buffy at the Bowling Alley. She questions whether or not Buffy and Marty have feelings for each other. Co-Star IMPRESSED STUDENT Male or Female, 13-16, Any Ethnicity, A student admires Andi's art piece on display at the Middle School. Co-Star

Obviously Muffy is endgame, that was clear from the very fact of Marty’s return, this just 100% confirms it. It’s not like the show is trying to sell Wuffy but this pretty much confirms that Walker is done in any significant role and likely won’t even appear at all after 3a. It’s good to see that Andi is branching out with her art, that could be a really good story line. I think this bodes well for Tyrus in 3b that they’re giving Buffy such a dramatic story line, I’ve always said that the het ships will have to bear most of the drama and angst so as to counterbalance the gay story line. Looks like Buffy and Marty reunite around ep 8 then Buffy decides to forgive Marty and welcome him back into her life in eps 13/14 before the angst hits in ep 17. 

What is very interesting is that they’re going with the old ‘two people are in love and one of their significant others realizes it’ trope. There’s almost no way that Marty and Rachel are still dating by the end of 3x17 and most likely Rachel will have to initiate the break up (and maybe it’s revealed she’s not a nice person) so that Marty and especially Buffy don’t come off looking too bad. This is fairly similar to what the show did with Jandi and Jamber in S1, obviously Jamber was toxic but the show had to tow a careful line so Andi didn’t look like a homewrecker.

I always said that the show was bringing back Marty because sailing Muffy would provide the show lots of drama and angst and passion and here we’ll have it in spades. There’s so many things they can do in ep 17 and beyond. We’ll almost certainly get a Buffy hair twirl, hell maybe even a Muffy look back, they could bring back Buffy’s mom for another mother daughter chat, they could have Buffy go to Bex, Cyrus and Andi will certainly be involved at some point, and they could really dig into how does Buffy deal with her feelings, and how her and Marty navigate the treacherous waters of their relationship when they have already lost and then found their way back to each other. The possibilities are endless. 

If I had to guess the Muffy plot culminates in the same episode as Buffy’s team plot which would be the big championship game which I imagine would probably be in the last 4 or so eps before the finale. It’s a classic sports movie trope, the hero wins the big game and wins the person of their dreams. I think the writers will find it too tempting to resist playing that trope straight, so I think after Buffy wins the game she has a big moment with Marty that makes Muffy official. Realistically it makes no sense that Marty would be at the Bexie wedding in the finale unless Buffy invited him and there’s little reason to invite him if she’s still wrestling with her feelings for him. 

This strengthens my theory that they’ll occasionally put Raquel’s character into Cyrus’ plot because they want to keep her around but also need time in Buffy’s story to focus on Marty. And funnily enough I was about to write a post speculating that Garren would be showing up on set for more than just a day or two in the the near future because his character on GH is about to be murdered near the end of October by a serial killer doctor who has an angel of mercy complex according to a seemingly well sourced article I read that now looks very accurate. I have no idea how many episodes Garren will show up in for 3b but if he’s no longer on GH the show can bring him back whenever they want in theory. 

There’s been some discussion over why people don’t take Buffy turning down Marty at face value in regards to her not having had feelings for Marty. Part of the answer is that she obviously will develop those feelings as we can now say with 100% certainty. The other big reason is that Buffy not having a crush on Marty is most likely a retcon the writers had to do once they realized that Marty wouldn’t be back in S2 that they are now able to unretcon now that Marty is back for S3.  It’s very hard to watch the Muffy scenes we saw before Buffy turned Marty down and not think that Buffy did in fact have a crush on Marty. In S1 when Buffy meets Andi in the bathroom as Andi is washing off her goth makeup they specifically talk about feelings and Buffy mentions that her feelings are always rational right before she dunks Marty’s sneakers.

These spoilers are very exciting. Marty’s departure really sent Buffy’s story line careening off track and I’m very interested on a meta level to see what Terri’s original plan for them was and if we can tease out why exactly his leaving the show had such an outsized effect. From what we can glean from here on the outside it looks like Andi Mack is setting itself up for a very good final stretch.

[theflenser]

Street Sects interview with Ad Libitum.

A interview with Street Sects, originally published in Polish in the Ad Libitum zine.

Interviewer: Lidia Kowalski

1) In one interview, you stated that Rat Jacket was kind of "transition point" for you. Was it only in musical kind of meaning or was it also concerning lyrical content? What kind of "topics" will be brought up on the newest album?

Leo Ashline - Mostly it was a musical transition point. I tend to approach lyric writing from a song to song basis, depending on how the music that Shaun sends me makes me feel at the time. Shaun was introducing a lot of melody on that EP, twitching guitars, slightly more patient structuring, and some really sad, melancholy synth work, so the words reflect those things. Lyrically, the thematic connective tissues of Rat Jacket are trust, betrayal, and regret. It differed from End Position in that it was less hateful and nihilistic, albeit only slightly.

On The Kicking Mule there are a lot of different themes at play. The record is more of a collection of vignettes than it is any kind of concept record. A lot of the songs are incredibly personal. “Birch Meadows, 1991” is about my parents divorce, and “Everyone’s at Home Eventually” deals in part with my love/hate relationship with alcohol, and how it has always been first and foremost a symptom of my fear and anxiety. Other songs, like “Chasing the Vig” and “The Drifter” are my feelings and experiences filtered through my love for crime noir writing, much like “Featherweight Hate” was on End Position.

2) Firstly, you have been working on making your project into a "total aesthetics" one. What exactly does it mean, what does it involve? And is it possible that one day it will go beyond simply music and visuals?

LA - An old friend of mine impressed this idea upon me about a decade or so ago. To me it means having all of the facets of your work (the music, the visuals, the words, the live performance, etc) coalesce into a unified or singular aesthetic. I think our work as a whole speaks pretty clearly to that intent. And yes, I do think it can and (hopefully) will seep into other mediums. Time will tell.

3) Concerning the visuals - on almost all of the covers of your releases, a silhouette of woman which (imo) symbolises death, can be seen. Does her presence mean simplz that death, or a thought of it, is present through full duration of your life, or does her symbolical role differ? What's your view on that?

LA – Death, or “Lizzy”, as we call her, represents different things in different images. In the original Gentrification seven inches, she represented the culture, the color that gets pushed out and washed over when a neighborhood is gentrified. People want to destroy what they are afraid of. People are afraid of what they don’t understand. Death, like diversity, scares certain people. Lizzy was beautiful, and look what you did to her. Now you can drink your fucking pour over coffees and your fifteen dollar craft cocktails in clean, vanilla scented, color-free comfort. Happy?

In other images, she is the voyeur. She is watching, waiting, refusing to participate or interfere because she knows better. She knows how it’s going to end, one way or another, so she may as well sit back and enjoy the show. In other images she is the chauffer, our guide from here to there. In those instances I’d like to think that she represents hope, optimism, and a chance at finding something more meaningful than what we have allotted ourselves this time around.

4) You have once told about that there were periods in your life, where your only motivation to get up was music you got to make. Has making music had a cathrarctic, self-therapic role for you? Or maybe it played a part and made you see anything else in life worth living for only a bit?

LA - I think maybe a bit of both. Focusing so intently upon negative energy can be therapeutic in that the negativity can, on a good day, become something purposeful. It can be a tool to be utilized rather than a weight or a burden. And yes, certainly touring, meeting people, being fortunate enough to see your work have an effect on others, all of that can be incredibly rewarding. It can sometimes help to restore that lack of faith in the whole thing. But most of the time, unfortunately, it isn’t enough. You reach down and try to dig for that feeling, and it just isn’t there. Shaun and I do what we can to keep pushing each other forward, and I think that we are fortunate to have that dynamic. I see a lot of people, artists, who struggle to make it on their own, and it’s such an uphill battle. Trying to dodge depression, rejection, self-doubt, and a constant lack of encouragement all while pushing yourself creatively can quickly become a bleak and impossibly lonely road. It’s hard to blame people for wanting to walk away from that.

5) Well, it is obvious becouse of your experiences and feelings, but in your music you often display the darkest, most ugly side of live. You had your fair share of really awful times, but here comes the question: what, do you think, has the most power to destroy a human: his surroundings or him alone?

LA - That’s a pretty big question, and honestly I don’t think I’m really qualified to answer that, at least not in any kind of broad sense. Speaking for myself, I blame the majority of my hardships, past and present, on my own poor decisions. I’ve had a lot of opportunity, and I have wasted almost all of it. Now I’m playing catch up, and I’m still paying for a lot of those mistakes. I used to move around a lot, different cities…different states. Wherever I went I kept fucking up. I don’t think my surroundings had much to do with it.

6) There are a lot of people in the world that live in their safe world, completely unaware of what can be happening three steps from their home, completely unaware of how depression feels. Do you see "consciousness" as a value? Would you rather be totally blind, but happy?

Shaun Ringsmuth:  Consciousness is something I've had to teach myself to value. Of course, the mind records what's happening whether you appreciate it or not, but it might be to one's advantage to find a place of calm before blowing one's brains out, or worse having one's brains blasted by another person. Violence like that, either way, always scares me, because of how little value is placed on the moments, whether it's sentiment between two people or the greatest speech ever being spoken--it all seemingly becomes a waste staring at the barrel of a gun. On this topic, I would recommend Viktor Frankle's book Man's Search for Meaning. It is with great luck that tragedy doesn't happen to a person, and of course that begs the questions of how to live, why, and what for. Arguably it is better to try to live with purpose, and if that purpose is found to then not diminish it with negative self-talk, or rot away on drugs and alcohol, and to not take out on other people one's personal sense of injustice. With the creation of art, a sense of purpose can be easily associated, because it is often self-created and comes from a place of inner truth. Even in collaboration, like with me and Leo in Street Sects, we share what we can, go our separate way for a while, and then come back with we've found. Sometimes this is a song, or a new image, or a lyric, but whatever it is the aim of these created things is to give time--time being the only thing we ever really own--a story, a way of relating the human experience, which with any luck gets passed on long after we're dead. However, to get back to your question, is it better to be totally blind but happy: that's not for anyone else to say but yourself. You have to step away from your everyday reality for a number of minutes and ask yourself, Is this who I am, is this what I want? And then change the "why" to the "how"--as in, not "why am I doing this," but "how am I going to do this."

LA - Do I see a consciousness as a value? I can’t imagine any artist or musician answering “no” to that question. If I was “totally blind, but happy” I don’t think I would have much use for art or music as a creative outlet, because I doubt that I would have anything interesting to say. Pain and despair, like death and diversity, are a part of life.

7) On "The Defence of Resentment", you start by listing some of the fears you have. However, is there any  particular fear that is close to you the most, that haunts you, if I can say it this way, "personally"?


LA - My biggest fear is the fear of being a failure, of having wasted my life. To reach the end and have to own up to the fact that I could have done so much more, that I could have tried harder, done better. The potentiality of that kind of regret is terrifying.

8) In one interview, you said that being sincere while writing lyrics isn't enough, it is also a matter of finding a unique perspective. In what way you see your perspective as unique?

LA: Everyone’s perspective is unique, not just mine. However, not everyone is able to communicate their perspectives in a way that does justice to their particular experience. Art takes form, and we look to preexisting forms as influences and guideposts for our own work. Even the most abstract artists are often hard-pressed to outrun the shadows of artists who came before them. With my writing I try to focus on expressions of sincerity and honesty, and try to couch those expressions in a form that appeals to my inner critic. I don’t want anything that I write to have the stink of familiarity or nostalgia. It has to be clear that there was an effort made to approach the work from a fresh perspective. Whether I’m successful in that or not is not really for me to say, but the effort is there.

9) Do you think that we, as a human kind, have a tendency to run away from thing we'd be better off not knowing? What we escape most frequently in modern world?


SR: Some of us, yes. I've known and admired people in my life who have preferred truth in every instance. I was not one of those people. I wanted escapism and fantasy, some of which was self-destructive. Not wanting reality exactly as it is can also lead to creativity: novels, movies, music, paintings, architecture. Attempting to see reality as it is, and attempting to see reality as better than it is--these are worthy pursuits. Lately, I'm finding what's most important from day to day is knowing exactly what one thinks and feels, followed by deliberate action. Like, really stopping all movement and asking what's going on. It's the only way to care for oneself and for others. It is worth taking the time to breathe deeply, look around, and be in that very moment of reality, because that's the best chance to really see and to create. This is easier said than done, of course, because one wakes up and all the shit from yesteryear is right there, and nothing seems good enough and nobody is kind. Everyday one has to make a choice of how to live.

10) On "Rat Jacket", I can feel a distinction, yet a weird relationship between abrasive mechanisation and a "human side" to this music (by which I mean post-industrial melodic hooks). Do you think that the same kind of connection between pure human soul and that what is cold and obcure can be found?

SR:  Yes! Though, I would add that every Street Sects recording has attempted this connection between warm human melody and cold machine sounds. Humans have the gift (and burden) of being self-aware, unlike other animals, and with that comes the urge to name, to conceptualize, to make meaning where there seemingly isn't one. It's how people come to such wildly different interpretations over pieces of abstract art. The less a piece is controlled by labels the more room a person's mind has to dream. Even if something begins with a narrative or directive, it can take a turn for the surreal and then allow more headroom for the spectator. We see this in Ingmar Bergman's films. We see this in John Barth's novels. We feel this in Harold Budd's music. Any abstraction of course does ask participation of the listener/viewer, and not everyone wants that experience. Sometimes all we want is escape. Creating these things can get complicated, but it doesn't have to be a single extreme choice, thus the use of melody or a relatable narrative coursing through abstract imagery.

On "In Prison, at Least I Had You" I wrote a fairly abstract intro. Originally it was supposed to go toward a split release with the Cincinnati band Curse. Some

of their songs have slow, doomish metal-inspired parts, so I wrote what I thought would complement that. When the song starts, it's all bits of sound, total collage work, which eventually flows into what I hoped would be doomish metal tempo, followed by the main portion of the song itself. The final version you hear on Rat Jacket didn't come out as I intended, at least the intro part before the wind-up sound that kicks off the song, but I spent a lot of time on that intro collage part, really feeling out those sounds, connecting them, making sure they had the right rhythm in the mix. The intention of that song in particular serves the human/machine dynamic, I think.

11) During the times of "Gentrification" you said that you don't exactly write lyrics, but rather do some kind of stream of consciousness resolved around central topic. Are you still working like that?

LA: No. With the Gentrifiction singles there were these pieces of micro-fiction that I had written to accompany the records, these sort of journals from characters who were caught in the crossfire of social displacement. Those pieces were the core of the writing, and the “lyrics” were more guttural abstractions of those pieces. Since End Position, my approach to lyric writing has been more traditional and meticulous.

12) Also, many times when you were asked about your process of creation, you mentioned talking with each other a lot about it. What were those conversations about? I don't mean to dwell to deep, just the general.

SR: Leo and I don't sit down and work out songs on instruments together. We tend to talk through the parts, and later I work them out in the instrumentation. This is why I sometimes only write a snippet of a song, maybe one minute or two. I'll send it over to him to think about, and he'll often listen to the pieces in his van. The conversations, on the whole, cover a long period of time in our friendship, to my mind, because he and I have been talking about music since we first met in 2002. Sometimes in talking about a current thing we're working on, we'll reference a ten-year-old conversion about a band or song. It breathes new life into old ideas.

13) This question can be a bit personal, and even if your music and lyrics are generally confessional, I'll understand if you don't answer. What's you experience with the spiral of self-hate? What makes it worse and harder to escape (if it is possible at all)? How do you experience it, can you desribe in your own, abstract way?

LA: I don’t mind answering. My relationship with self-hate probably began around the time my parents got divorced, in 1991. I put on a lot of weight and it made my life harder in terms of school, peers, and my interest in the opposite sex. I have struggled with having a negative body image my entire life, and it has greatly effected my self esteem, my confidence, and my overall mental health. These issues in turn led to eating disorders, isolating myself from other people, and self medicating with alcohol and drugs. The chemical dependencies then in turn created a maelstrom of other problems, culminating in extreme and obsessive self destructive thoughts and behavior. Fixation on suicide as a solution, which is still a huge part of my mental framework, unfortunately. I feel like I have been trying to work backwards through these problems for a long time now, but the root problems are still there. Getting off drugs and alcohol was only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the mountain of work I still have in front of me. What makes it worse is inertia. Sitting around. Not doing anything. I have to keep busy with the band. I don’t go to therapy, and I stopped attending (AA) meetings years ago. Street Sects is the only real cure I have found. I don’t know what I would do without it.

14) This will be less of a question and more of a confirmation (or denial) of my predictions. On your lyrics to "In Prison, At Least I Had You", there is a fragment that says "I'm holding the same position". Is it reffering to title of your debut LP, "End

Position"?

LA: Yep. Nice catch!

15) And finally. How are you feeling these days? Is life quite OK? I wish you the best, honestly.

SR: I am now almost two years sober, so my feeling about things in general is one of hope. Without sounding corny here, I really want to live with passion, put all the ideas into the music, and try to connect with people along the way. When I drank, i drank to black out and forget myself, and I lived that way from about 14 to 32 years of age. There was so much self-loathing, trepidation, anxiety in my life. I was afraid of everything. These days I try not to take anybody or anything for granted. I let people know that I love them and that they are loved, which is something I couldn't do pretty much my whole life. I'm grateful that I'm still making music with my best friend, Leo, and I truly believe our best work is still to come.

Thank you, Lidia, for listening and looking into our music, and for taking the time to interview us.

LA: I’d be lying if I said that I feel good more often than not. Staying positive is a constant struggle. But I have a lot to be grateful for, most of all this band and my friendship with Shaun. I’m also extremely grateful for my mother, who helped me get sober, for the small handful of friends I have, and for everyone who has ever supported Street Sects in any way. Thanks for the interview, Lidia. Sorry it took us so long to get these answers back to you.

[kickdownthewalls]

TOP 20 ROCK/METAL ALBUMS OF 2018

This has been a year of surprises and disappointments in pretty equal measure. Judas Priest blew me away with their latest record (and tour) and Immortal made one of the most triumphant comebacks in metal history. On the other hand, Voivod’s new one felt strangely by-the-numbers, as did the latest from Riot V and Monster Magnet. Still, the sheer amount of releases out there, just in the traditional metal and thrash scenes, is somewhat mind-boggling, and there were plenty of excellent albums to be found.

(Countries represented this year: Italy, UK, Sweden, Norway, Germany, USA, Canada, Switzerland, Portugal, and Denmark).

20. BURNING WITCHES - Hexenhammer

Switzerland is a tiny nation, but they have given the world some of the most creative and diverse bands over the years, from Krokus to Celtic Frost to Samael and beyond. Burning Witches combine elements of melodic thrash and classic heavy metal for a sound that works quite well and is perfectly suited to Seraina Telli’s powerful vocal delivery. The album has its ups and downs but the title track and “Open Your Mind” are both flat-out brilliant.

19. PERPETRATÖR - Altered Beast

This is how I like my thrash metal: fast, evil, dirty, but still well-played and composed. Perpetratör hail from Portugal and this is only their second full album, but it is a scorcher. Songs like “Extreme Barbarity” and “Terminal Possession” are brutally fast in the vein of the early Germans, but the band explore some more mid-tempo riffs here and there as well. Like all my favorite thrash bands, these guys sound like they are playing just on the edge of what they can get away with and the effect is electric.

18. ARTILLERY - The Face of Fear

These Danish thrashers are one of those bands that has always had consistently quality releases but, for whatever reason, never really made the impact others in the genre have over the years. While the line-up has changed over time, the current incarnation has done three albums together now and sounds quite comfortable here. The drum sound is a bit ‘bonky’ for my tastes, but the quality of the tunes rises above it. Bonus points for the variety of songs on offer, too, from speedy, complex thrash, to power ballads to straight-ahead heavy metal.

17. LUCIFER - II

Lucifer’s brand of retro doom rock is both obvious in its influences and original in its assembly of said influences. The jazzier side of early Sabbath is the most prevalent element at work here, with riffs that range from heavy and evil to mournful and atmospheric. Despite some line-up changes, the sound is pretty consistent with the excellent debut from 2015, with perhaps a bit more clarity in the production (though nowhere near polished-sounding, fear not).

16. WITCHING HOUR - ...And Silent Grief Shadows the Passing Moon

The number of excellent bands with ‘witch’ in their name is strangely high this year and Germany’s Witching Hour are another to add to that list. This is their third full-length and displays a great deal of maturity and talent for writing complex yet compelling songs. Elements of black and thrash metal abound, but there is a lot of other stuff going on here, too, and lots of melody. The bass playing is particularly impressive and really adds a whole extra dimension to the music, while the vocals are a potent mix of plaintive and grim and complement the dark, intricate songs beautifully. This was a late-year release and, given some more spins, it will likely rise on this list.

15. SATAN - Cruel Magic

It is rare that a band can pull together their classic line-up the way that Satan did in 2013, let alone one that can then proceed to release three albums back-to-back that fall right in line with their old material. Cruel Magic is the latest of these and has all the hallmarks that made Satan great: finely-crafted heavy metal that is speedy and complex, organic production, and an overall sound that is truly their own. They may have only caught the tail-end of the NWOBHM but damn if they weren’t one of the scene’s best and it is heart-warming to see and hear them continuing the legacy 35 years later.

14. ABYSMAL GRIEF - Blasphema Secta

Abysmal Grief are Italian doom masters that create a sound that is heavy, gothic, creepy, and relentless all at once. Most songs are in the 8-9 minute range and are usually centered around a few core riffs, but the way the band build them up and vary them throughout really pulls the listener in. Keyboards are used quite a bit and to great effect, while the vocals range from mournful to menacing. The band has kept a very consistent style since day one, with only the production getting a little better with each release, and Blasphema Secta sounds both heavier and cleaner than anything prior.

13. STRIKER - Play to Win

Been following these stalwart Canucks since their debut EP a decade ago and I’m glad to see that they have continued to evolve and refine their sound with each new album. Play to Win is probably the most ‘commercial’ release to date, with tons of melody and big choruses, but there is still plenty of heaviness on tracks like “Heart of Lies” and “Summoner” to keep a nice balance. Striker has gotten really good at writing distinctive songs that aren’t just a collection of riffs but actual, well-constructed tunes.

12. BULLET - Dust to Gold

This Swedish quintet has been bashing it out for 15+ years and still manages to release an invigorating collection of hard rockin’ metal tunes. Stylistically, Dust to Gold covers a fair amount of ground, from heavy metal in the vein of Accept and Grave Digger to more upbeat rockers ala Krokus and AC/DC. The common denominator throughout is a sense of fun that is missing from entirely too many albums these days.

11. LEATHER - II

Leather’s powerful voice was always the thing that raised Chastain from a good band to a great one and I’m pleased to report that she sounds just as good in 2018 as she did in 1988. The opening track “Juggernaut” is one of the best speed metal songs I have heard in a while and the rest of the album is consistently good, too. Shades of Dio and Priest color the wide range of tunes here and the band turn in some excellent, spirited performances. Glad to see Leather back on the scene and, as much as I enjoyed the Chastain reunion records, I think this one is even better.

10. HAUNT - Burst Into Flame

Although I enjoyed the first Haunt EP, the full-length debut really takes it up a notch. This is classic, old-school heavy metal that reminds me a bit of the first couple of Cauldron albums, with some wonderful dual-guitar work thrown in for good measure. The vocals are clean but remarkably restrained compared to some of the screamers out there, making for a nice change of pace. Songs “Reflectors” and “Burst Into Flame” have a haunting (ahem) timelessness to them and the album flows really well from start to finish.

9. THE NIGHT FLIGHT ORCHESTRA - Sometimes the World Ain't Enough

Despite featuring members of Soilwork and Arch Enemy, this is a long, long way from death metal, melodic or otherwise. Although the band’s first effort had a distinctly late-70s hard rock vibe to it, each record since has taken the listener deeper into the world of 80s AOR. Unlike a lot of the sterile, radio-friendly acts from that actual era, NFO bring a warmth and heartfelt approach that really brings the music alive. This is the band’s fourth album and probably their weakest, but it still stands well above the average album of 2018. Songs like “Turn To Miami” and “Pretty Thing Closing In” are immediate, timeless classics.

8. THE CROWN - Cobra Speed Venom

Although Deathrace King is still one of my top 5 death metal records of all time, The Crown never really were able to duplicate its genius. Cobra Speed Venom, however, comes damn close. It has all the brutality that the band is known for but brings back a lot of the punky/thrash energy and memorable riffs that have been missing for a while. The first three songs might be the best start to any album this year; just relentless, mayhemic brilliance. Top it off with one of the coolest and most original album covers I’ve seen in a while, along with three bonus tracks that are actually worth adding, and you have one hell of a return to form.

7. SAXON - Thunderbolt

Saxon certainly made some missteps in the late 80s, but I can’t think of another band that has remained as true to form over the years, while also consistently putting out quality albums and touring relentlessly. Thunderbolt is no Wheels of Steel or even Call To Arms, but it is still a solid record that is as good or better than the last couple. From the melodic timelessness of “The Secret of Flight” to the moody “Nosferatu (The Vampire’s Waltz)” to the raging “They Played Rock and Roll,” there is also a diversity rivaled only by Priest on this list.

6. BLACK OATH - Behold the Abyss

When it comes to true, epic, soul-crushing doom metal, Black Oath have become true masters. I have been following this band since the Portrait of the Dead single back in 2010 and am pleased to say they just keep going from strength to strength. Behold the Abyss balances a lush production, clean vocals, and plenty of melody, with dreadnought riffage and blissfully dark, esoteric lyrics. A rich, dynamic work of black art.

5. SIGN OF THE JACKAL - Breaking the Spell

This amazing Italian band has created a style that is equal parts early 80s Warlock and late 80s Judas Priest. Great, driving metal tunes that sometimes border on speed metal with plenty of screaming solos and hooky choruses. The recording, the mix, the energy, everything about this record is incredibly old-school and authentic, right down to the 32-minute running time.

4. AUDREY HORNE - Blackout

Ever since these Norwegian rockers abandoned all pretense and went full-on retro with their Youngblood album, I have been hooked. They compose hard-hitting rock tunes with tons of hooks and Lizzy-esque harmonies that give a nod to metal and punk without really being either. The first three songs - “This is War,” “Audrevolution,” and “Blackout” - are all perfectly built and give a great cross-section of the band’s diverse sound. Toschie’s vocals are as unique as his fashion sense and, as much as I loved the last two records, I think this one may be their best yet.

3. BRAINSTORM - Midnight Ghost

Brainstorm has long since perfected their style (as far back as Soul Temptation, some fifteen years ago), and each new release is really just varying levels of execution. As good as Scary Creatures was a couple years back, Midnight Ghost is truly brilliant and may possibly take the title as my favorite Brainstorm outing. All of the usual plusses are in place - great production, top-notch musicianship, catchy tunes - but the songs themselves are just a tad bit more finely honed and memorable. “Ravenous Minds” and “When Pain Becomes Real” in particular are killer and there is nary a dull moment here.

2. IMMORTAL - Northern Chaos Gods

My first Immortal record was At the Heart of Winter and it is still my favorite black metal album, hands down. The combination of raw, icy riffs with the mind-blowing drumming and just enough melody to keep it all together was/is intoxicating. Immortal has never done a bad album, but some are definitely better than others and Northern Chaos Gods is one of the best ones. The ferocity is up there with Pure Holocaust and Demonaz’s vocals, while not quite as distinctive as Abbath’s, fit the music perfectly. The band wisely took their time to put this record together and the results speak for themselves.

1. JUDAS PRIEST - Firepower

Priest has been one of my favorite metal bands since I first got into them back in ’82 and they are still right up there with Sabbath, Accept, and Mercyful Fate, with a catalog that is as diverse as it is brilliant. After the disappointing Nostradamus and good-but-not-great Redeemer of Souls, it was a real pleasure to hear Firepower, a true, all-guns-blazing Priest record. The production is 1000% better than anything they have released in the last two decades and the material is both diverse and top-notch. Songs like “Firepower,” “Never the Heroes,” “Children of the Sun,” and “No Surrender” have such a classic sound to them and Rob has not sounded this good since Painkiller. Even the weakest tracks (“Lone Wolf” and “Sea of Red”) have grown on me a bit, so I am confident that Firepower will go down in history as one of the band’s crowning achievements.

I must also mention some very impressive EPs, demos, and singles that were released this year, namely those from CIRITH UNGOL, ROUGH SPELLS, ÜLTRA RAPTÖR, PULVER, SIGNIFICANT POINT, TENTATION, ANCIENT SÉANCE, SABÏRE, and OCCULT BURIAL. If you aren’t familiar with any of these bands or haven’t heard their latest, I highly recommend getting acquainted immediately.

As usual, my list could have gone on much longer, but here are the bands that just missed the top 20: AMORPHIS, AURA NOIR, BEHEMOTH, BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB, BLACK VIPER, BLADE KILLER, CAULDRON, DIMMU BORGIR, DREAM CHILD, GOAT WORSHIP, GRAHAM BONNETT BAND, IRON ANGEL, KHEMMIS, KRISIUN, NIGHT VIPER, PRIMAL FEAR, PROFESSOR BLACK, RIOT V, SABOTER, SKULL FIST, SUBSTRATUM, TAD MOROSE, VISIONS OF ATLANTIS, VULCAIN, WHITE WIZZARD, WITCHFYRE, and WYTCH HAZEL.

What is on the horizon for 2019? Well, I am already psyched about the new ones from CANDLEMASS, DELAIN, ROCK GODDESS, FLOTSAM & JETSAM, CHAINBREAKER, SOILWORK, WITHIN TEMPTATION, MORTAL SCEPTER, HAMMERFALL, and TYTUS, plus possible releases from SACRED REICH, DEATH ANGEL, and EXCITER all have me really looking forward to the coming twelve months. The world is crumbling around us, but at least the metal scene is stronger than ever!

[rainydawgradioblog]

RDR Essentials - Hard Rock (2/26)

RDR Essentials is a weekly newsletter of alternating genres that outlines key releases of the past month, upcoming events around Seattle and happenings in the specified music genre.

Made in collaboration between Rainy Dawg DJs and the Music Director.

Releases:

I Don’t Know How to Be Happy - Deli Girls

https://sweatequitynyc.bandcamp.com/album/i-dont-know-how-to-be-happy

Deli Girls crawled out of the grimy New York underground hardcore scene thanks to the group’s wild performances and fiercely gay noise, which was channeled into their first album Evidence. In a similar vein, their newest album I Don’t Know How to Be Happy pushes their trademark sound even further. The album starts off to “Officer”’s serrated beat, which hisses beneath an automated phone message regarding a court date, functioning as a brief adjustment period before exploding into passionate screaming, rapping, yelping, and laughing of lead vocalist Danny Orlowski. Orlowski continues this manic verbal assault through the rest of this album, which pounds along with a righteous and dark violence against the patriarchy. “Peg” stands out especially, pushed along because of Tommi Kelly’s fresh layer of poppy synth arpeggios. “Here We Go Again” follows, one of the more eerie cuts on the album. “You will never win because you will never be as angry as the rest of us / Another day I didn’t end my miserable fucking life” screams Orlowski, with interludes of laughter on the brink of breakdown. Get ready to run head first through whatever glass ceilings or brick walls you might experience in 2019 with this incredible album.

- Max Bryla

Vain Attempt  - SLANT

https://ironlungpv.bandcamp.com/track/the-trap

There’s really not a whole lot out there about SLANT, a newer classic punk band that hails from Seoul, South Korea. Their recent EP, Vain Attempt 7” is just 4 tracks with the longest clocking in at 2:02, and is issued by Seattle punk label IRON LUNG Records, available on Bandcamp. Labelmates like Diät and Iron Lung have had some more mainstream success, but SLANT is much newer to the scene. They have pulled members from other bands like SCUMRAID and BLOODKROW BUTCHER, another Seoul and Boston punk band, respectively. Vain Attempt 7” definitely has a higher production value than those counterparts however, and it benefits because of it. Tracks like “Dry Heave” get right to the point, and don’t stick around too long. Terrific, fast paced drumming combine with some great vocal heft to make a really solid punk album, and this is a band that has a solid future with them, and hopefully some US tour dates.

- Max Bryla

Protogoni Mavri Magiki Dynasteia - Mystifier

https://mystifier.bandcamp.com/

Brazilian blackened death metal band Mystifier have announced their first album in 18 years with the pre release of their track Weighing Heart Ceremony. This track plays similar to their older material with its guttural vocals, creepy and eclectic atmosphere, and overall eeriness. Their 1993 album Goetia is regarded as a landmark in South American extreme metal, showing clear distinctions from European and American artists of the same time. This new track still has the same occultish aura of the band’s earlier material, but also features a much more blackened tonality, meaning more melody and less dissonance. Rather than sounding like the soundtrack to an occult ceremony (basically the narrative of Goetia), this track is a lot more brooding and pensive. If you are into slightly untraditional black/death metal, you should check out this album when it drops on March 8.

- Zac Weiner

Forgotten Paths - Saor

https://saor.bandcamp.com/

Saor is a scottish based atmospheric black metal band that has been pushing black metal to its most serene and experimental boundaries. Forgotten Paths sums up exactly what atmoblack is all about: beautiful tremolo picked melodies, the occasional folk instrument interlude, and a placid nature shot on the cover. This project is the perfect soundtrack for a solo walk through the woods. While some of the interludes can be a little dramatic for an experienced listener, the album makes up for it with bone chilling screams which sound even more emotional over the Gaelic sounding guitar melodies. This album is very digestible and could serve as an excellent introduction to black metal: the production is clean, the riffs sound like they were written by the bard at the Renaissance fair, and every blast beat is met with an equally long folk interlude.

- Zac Weiner

Xiu Xiu - Girl With a Basket of Fruit

https://xiuxiu.bandcamp.com/album/girl-with-basket-of-fruit

Xiu Xiu is an noise pop / experimental rock outfit fronted by multi-instrumentalist Jamie Stewart which can never quite settle on a single sound. They’ve been consistently churning out full-length albums every year or two, varying from anti-folk to electronic indie rock to harsh noise and everywhere in between. Doing away with the cleaner indie rock sound they explored on their previous album Forget, their newest release, Girl With a Basket of Fruit, is a return to the noisier and more experimental tendencies of their early output. Produced by Deerhoof’s Greg Saunier and featuring vocal contributions from Oxbow’s Eugene S. Robinson, the album repeatedly shifts from frantic tribal rhythms (Scisssssssors, Pumpkin Attack on Mommy and Daddy) to abstract heavy electronics (title track, Ice Cream Truck) to droning ambient passages (The Wrong Thing, Amargi ve Moo) and back again, tied together by the harsh synth sounds and uncomfortable samples Xiu Xiu fans are so familiar with and Jamie Stewart’s characteristically unsettling vocals, which are pushed farther than ever on this release, whimpering one minute and screaming the next. After over half an hour of head-spinning erratic noise, the album leaves the listener on a softer note with Normal Love, a slow, stripped-back and sweet (for Xiu Xiu standards) piano pop song. RIYL - Suicide, Coil, Oxbow

- Elliot Hansen

Angel Bat Dawid - The Oracle

https://intlanthem.bandcamp.com/album/the-oracle

The Oracle is spiritual jazz clarinetist Angel Bat Dawid’s very first release. She recorded and mixed the album entirely by herself and performed every instrument except the drums on one of the eight tracks. The recording process, done entirely on a cell phone, was split between London, England, Cape Town, South Africa, and Dawid’s hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Though the album features not much more than clarinet, drums, Angel’s vocals, and the occasional electric piano or miscellaneous wind instrument, the numerous overdubs and effects used turn these elements into cosmic, psychedelic soundscapes, greater than the sum of their parts. Dawid’s lyrics, when present, largely reflect on African American identity and experience, as evidenced by the third track, a re-interpretation of Margaret Burrough’s poem “What Shall I Tell My Children Who Are Black?” Reverberating, overlapping vocal harmonies ebb and flow and give way repeatedly to much more abstract melodies and stranger sounds, ranging from squealing horns to wide, cosmic phaser textures and long-winded erratic improvisations. RIYL - Sun Ra, Ornette Coleman

- Elliot Hansen

Upcoming shows around Seattle:

02/26/19 - Cannibal Corpse / Morbid Angel / Necrot / Blood Incarnation @ Showbox

Openers include Necrot and Blood Incantation, bands that represent the death metal renaissance occurring in recent years and provide some of some of the freshest and heaviest sounds of the 2010s. Morbid Angel (of the cult favorite Altars of Madness) follows as the midbill. Headlining the night is Cannibal Corpse, a group that’s  infamous for their graphic album covers and truly grotesque lyrics. 8PM / $29 / AA

02/27/19 - The Big Band at the End of the World @ Vermillion Art Gallery

18 piece improvisational ensemble featuring strings, horns, electric guitar, harmonium, 3 drummers, and live visuals led by local avant-garde/free jazz saxophonist Gregg Miller. 8PM / $5-10 / AA

03/02/19 - Sandy Ewen / AF Jones / Greg Kelley / Ambrosia Bardos @ Vermillion Art Gallery

Ewen, a touring experimental guitarist, Jones, a local avant-garde composer, and Kelley, a free-jazz/noise trumpet player will perform as a trio. Ambrosia Bardos, a local noise artist who also performs under the name Morher, will perform a solo set. 4PM / $5-10 / AA

More to look out for:

FILM: Lords of Chaos / @ Grand Cinema March 16th

Depicts the sensationalized history of black metal, is now out in theaters. This film has been met with mixed reviews for its lack of honesty in portraying the events (and some really terrible cinematography) but still has merit as an introduction to the genre.

Upcoming Releases and Tours:

3/8 The Coathangers - The Devil You Know via Suicide Squeeze

3/15 The Minneapolis Uranium Club - The Cosmo Cleaners via Fashionable Idiots/Static Shock

4/2  Empath - Active Listening: Night On Earth via Get Better (”Soft Shape” video out NOW)

6/5 - Royal Trux @ Neumos (rescheduled)

[kinetic-elaboration]

August 9: The 100 2x01, The 48

Okay, settling down to rewatch 2x01, the start of my favorite season...

I love this Clarke so much. Badass Clarke, sneaky Clarke, a Clarke who will fearlessly do what she has to in order to escape and to get to her friends. A Clarke with convictions and guts.

How DO they know everyone’s names lol? Is that ever explained? (ETA: Monty was obviously the informant.)

Mount Weather is one of my favorite parts of this show, honestly. I love that their mission is in part to preserve the beautiful things humanity created, like art; they gave their prisoner Starry Night. The ORIGINAL Starry Night. I just find that very moving. All of these non-essential parts of being human... the show has abandoned them and that’s part of why it’s so hollow for me now, I think.

Level 5: where it all begins and it all ends.

The Clarke/Maya relationship could have been so much more, tbh. Like they had their good moments, like threatening to kill each other etc., but they could have gone deeper.

Surprise! Underground executive branch family dinner! This is the sort of twist I can get behind.

Haha remember when actual delinquents still existed? I joke but truly the later canon has ruined parts of this show for me.

I forgot Tristan survived into 2x01. Not for long. Such Grounder hypocrisy: “That’s one. I lost 300.” He makes it sound as if Finn marched into a village and killed 300 people--they were fucking soldiers on the attack you dum-dum.

“Only our warriors speaking English.” Well that sounds like bullshit based on literally everything we see after this point.

The statue of Lincoln is “the place we go to settle disputes.” First, please don’t say they settle disputes to the death or some nonsense, and second, that’s his namesake... Significant? I mean, objectively, no, but can I make something out of it somehow?

I disliked Luna but she COULD have been so interesting and she and Lincoln COULD have had quite a dynamic. I headcanon them as exes. I want to know their whole backstory tbh. When they met. How. If he wanted to go with her to the sea. If he did perhaps and then came back.

Drink every time someone cauterizes a wound.

You know what else they should have done? Story line about the meeting of Grounder and Sky People medicine. Oh wait that would have taken away from the repetitive war story lines never mind.

That dropship is so fucking impressive. WHERE ARE THE AWARDS FOR THE SET PEOPLE?

And the costume people for those awesome masks.

Am I supposed to feel bad for this Grounder and his charred friend? I do not. Next time, don’t attack the children for no reason and you won’t get burned to a crisp. Easy.

The thing is I can never get behind the Raven + Murphy friendship 100% even though their S5 dynamic looked interesting because he literally fucking shot her and that’s just not a bygones are bygones thing. But they do have personalities that mesh well together so in that way it’s sort of a shame. Also he 10000000000000% had a crush on her don’t even try to argue.

She fired that gun at him. I forgot that. She fired but was out of bullets, that’s the only reason he didn’t die right there. “Yeah I would have shot me too.”

I’m p. sure that’s the real Mount Weather?

I know the Mount Weather people have no leg to stand on when it comes to the Grounders and that they’re...pretty obviously racist, but in their defense--the Grounders were written to be pretty savage, so “savages,” while unforgivably racially tinged, is a fair descriptor of them.

I know I’ve harped on this before but Mount Weather has a judicial system of some sort and it’s possible to press charges there. Somehow. The world building on this show sucks balls.

“They also said you were their leader” is like some retconning, okay. Because you will not convince me that for most of S1 BELLAMY wasn’t the leader in the eyes of the delinquents.

“Kiddo.”

Fucking love Dante. Where are my Dante + Clarke mentor/mentee or ex-mentor/mentee or different-gen-rivals fics?

“We prioritize safety over sentimentality.” As Maya takes blood she absolutely doesn’t need but is having just in case and that she knows comes from someone else’s tortured body because she’s accepted this as something they do, because she’s not sentimental. But she already feels guilty.

Clarke is already using the word “capture.” I had a discussion with someone once about Clarke’s vision of Mount Weather versus, say, Jasper’s, and why it was different and I said some poorly phrased stuff that didn’t really reflect my thoughts and opinions and it still haunts me but I feel like this is...relevant to that. How she immediately feels ‘captured,’ trapped.

Clarke’s devotion to her friends and her people was still so pure and right here.

Dante really does believe he “saved” them. I wonder what his thought process was... I really hate the “savages” so I must save these children? These children look interesting, let’s meet some new friends? She’s right of course that if they were really guests, they could leave.

Multiple crash sites over 100 square miles = I should go on google maps to confirm my Pennsylvania/Farm Station theory but I’m too lazy.

GOD THOSE CLOTHES. I love that Clarke picks the pants and the high heel shiv.

There’s no way there’s actually time for natural selection to work that fast in 97 years and also I’m pretty sure the Sky People are genetically modified because their original pool was way too small for the process Dante is describing but whatever this show is all la-di-da science.

Also: this is how you run an underground Bunker OCTAVIA.

Dante was the only rival/antagonist/whatever Clarke has ever had that rivals her instincts and intelligence yeah I said it; fight me. I know she needed to be on the outside for this season to work but he should have been her mentor. He basically set her up to be mentored and then she ran off and into L who basically destroyed her and she’s never recovered.

THAT REUNION. Heartwarming. Though hard to watch too because this show did both Jasper and Monty so dirty. (Yeah I said that too WHAT OF IT.)

“Dying. Same as you.” Murphy gets all the good lines. That’s why people like him, forget this “redemption arc.”

The Grounder Raven killed was Murphy’s guard and honestly--hilarious. He abandons his post, realizes all his friends are skeletons, pickpockets one, then is shot by what he must initially assume is a dead body. Better character than almost anyone introduced from S3 on.

This cake scene is the most iconic. Jonty were scene stealers stfu. They’re children--basically. They get to act their age. They get to be happy and silly and they loved each other so much.

“Pretend like you’re happy to see me.” / “We are happy to see you.” See? Adorable. I know he’s no cinnamon roll but gosh, adorable.

And then Clarke comes in like secret espionage time and they just look so Tired TM.

I feel like Monty knew, or suspected on some level, that Jasper wasn’t just ‘bummed out’ by Clarke’s suspicions, he was panicking a little.

I can’t believe Jasper and Maya have known each other for like 10 seconds and she’s already seen his O face.

“Clarke’s the only reason we survived.” Um ex-CUSE me but I know you didn’t forget Bellamy’s existence, Jasper.

Clarke’s so smart!

Maya brings out the big guns, literally.

“I’m the one who fired the rockets. Should I not have done that?” is so heartbreaking. Mostly because of the delivery. I love this entire scene. There are like 8 different scenes I love in this episode, like whole-heartedly and truly love.

Clarke’s suspicions really do look like paranoia. Like I see what she’s picking up on, saw it even the first time I watched this ep, but there’s a sense in which she does appear irrational.

There’s actually something kinda funny about Bellamy running out with a spear in one scene, looking around blankly, and then getting chained up as a prisoner in the next scene. At least he inspired his little protege Monroe. Scenes like this are the reason she joined Pike in S3.

Tristan’s like “Who are these fucking children running at me and screaming?” Then he gets shot in the head. Goodbye Tristan you won’t be missed.

“We’re here now. Everything’s going to be okay.” This sounds like Kane playing out a hero fantasy he’s had since he was a child. Except he’s talking to two mud-stained kids who are looking at him skeptically instead of, like, a captured heroine or something.

I feel like they set up this conflict where the adults/Sky People elite come in and, like Kane says explicitly, assume they’re in charge and everyone will fall in line, but then the delinquents don’t see it that way or want that: they have their own priorities (their friends) and their own relationships (Finn and Bell don’t even LIKE each other but they’re still communicating by look) and their own knowledge (the pipes that allow them to move through the dropship camp quickly and without permission). But then... it sort of plays into the rest of the season...but not that much?? Not as much as I would like.

“You are not animals. There are rules. Laws. You are not in control here anymore.”

This show sacrificed a lot of complex relationships to just either make people buddy-buddy who had no reason to be or just arbitrarily assign relationships to scenes or episodes without regard for continuity at all.

Raven took Jasper’s goggles.... never over this.

How was bringing Octavia to TonDC faster than collecting some beetles for her to eat?

“Loss, pain, regret. Time eases these things.” I’d say this is the sort of line the show should be repeating but God when it gets a line in its teeth it never lets the fuck go so I guess it’s better this one remains pristine.

I find Dante very sympathetic but also so creepy.

They weren’t really patrolling for other people, were they? Because like...surely they would have found them. They’re at the dropship and close by. He was just bullshitting here. But why don’t they want to make even more new friends?

Dante’s stationery is presidential themed lol. Glad we stocked up the bunkers properly with the important stuff.

The crashed Alpha Station is beautiful. I believe this was the first time it was shown on the show? Ugh, this whole sequence with the music, it’s perfect and so touching.

Jaha is the most tragic and heartbreaking figure on this show. He also doesn’t get the appreciation he deserves. Just...the image of a man alone in space, talking to his loved ones, hoping they can hear them, not knowing if they can... I almost can’t handle it. I used to be very unsure if I liked where his story line went after this (seeing it in its entirety, I defend it) but surely he could not have died this way.

....I really gotta sleep now.