#who were inexplicably SUPER INTO HIM despite the fact that in our game he is horribly plague-ridden

[is-sni-ovg]

barovia's most eligible bachelors, according to my cos group:

1. dragon who has been dead for centuries

2. man who has Every Disease

3. ismark kolyanovich

[felassan]

Thoughts on the DA:TV reveal trailer from June 9th. DA:TV spoilers under cut.

this post is rly late, ik hh ◕‿◕

General and some random stuff

It's important to bear in mind what the trailer advised at the bottom, which is that the trailer is "game engine footage" and that "not all images appear in game".

Overall I really liked the trailer and it made me feel super excited!! I thought it was cool. the general more light-hearted tone of it and the music choice weren't what I would've guessed or expected, but they were interesting choices. I was a bit [dog cocking head from side to side in confusion] in the early portion hh, but it really came together for me all chills n stuff with the 'rise of Rook'-kinda shot and the group fight scene at the end, by which point I was overwhelmed with excitement, all the new stuff it had shown and the prospect of going back to Thedas fr to the point that I was teary lmao (don't look at me). I think as well the subsequent gameplay reveal video was more representative of the tone that the game will have, and that DA has.. previous [affectionate] for slightly ?? trailers and portions of the marketing. (remember the DA:O-era Marilyn Manson 'This Is the New Shit' metal trailers with like blood splattering all over the place & screen like strawberry jam fountains and stuff and the male Cousland who inexplicably looks about 40-50 years old? hhh. yea).

I think it looked great ^^ it's very pretty and detailed, it has cool art.

I also dug the sound design, like when there were sound effects like Venatori drawing swords and stuff (as a random example), it was just very crisp and satisfying

Trailer song

I'm so curious to know who the cover/rearrangement of "Heroes" is by and to be able to listen to it in full sometime. Do you think it's simply music for the trailer, or that it's part of the game OST? Didn't DA2's have some Florence and the Machine on it for example?

Interesting to note that "Heroes" is about two lovers from different sides. "Under constant fear of death, they dream they are free, swimming with dolphins". the song "represents two opposing forces", a sense that they will be separated, and the idea that love can endure or overcome anything (umm Var lath vir suledin? 😭). it brings to mind the idea of two people on opposite sides of something as parted friends or star-crossed lovers or something like that.

I also think this is interesting: "Bowie placed the [song] title in quotation marks as an expression of irony on the otherwise romantic or triumphant words and music". When Solas raised the Veil, he saved his people and the world but also doomed his people and destroyed the world - he is an ironic and sad/tragic hero. In a previous trailer, he says [to Rook probably] in a non-positive, almost bitter tone, "They call me The Dread Wolf. What will they call you, when this is over?" It sounds like he thinks (knows..) that though Rook may save the day now, they could poetically end up like him, a mirror of him - hated for it after the fact, or a big damn hero that sadly no-one knows about (remember in Mass Effect when Kirrahe says "We are trained for espionage. We would be legends, but the records are sealed. Glory in battle is not our way"? remember when Mark Darrah said that at one point or other, the 'vision statement' for DA4 was "We would be heroes, but the records are sealed"?), or being a hero at great personal cost to themself, or saving the world from one issue but inadvertently setting off another or causing great collateral damage or something like that. a "hero", but an ironic one in some form or other. it's argued by some that despite its sound, "Heroes" is not a feel-good anthem per se:

Describing the song, [Bowie] stated it is about "facing reality and standing up to it", about achieving "a sense of compassion" and "deriving some joy from the very simple pleasure of being alive". Likewise, Pegg contests the song contains underlying dark themes that juxtapose its uplifting chord sequence and delirious vocal [...] while the repeated announcement of "nothing will keep us together" asserts that time is short. Regarding the themes, Lurie stated: 'alchemy: We may be average and regular in the present moment, but we have the potential, at any time, for heroic thought and action – even if only for one day. The transformation can be brought about by an external event or through an internal change in perspective'."

Purple and bronze

My favs <3 :)

People we've met before

We knew Lucanis wasn't really dead

I really liked the focus of the trailer and its accompanying text blurb on the cast of characters, a thing which is a mainstay focus of Dragon Age and something that people really love about it. The trailer gives the impression that the game is about Rook becoming a leader, the leader of this specific A-Team crew; the relationships between them and the crew members; all their unique and complimentary strengths and personal storylines as woven into the main plot; and working as a team to defy the odds.. together. the old lesson of, if we work together, we have the power to resist and triumph. real The Power of Friendship, Found Family-vibes, yknow? 🥺 I really liked this line "Create memories with your team which will deepen your experiences and give you more to fight for." (Dates and friend dates with them please). In ME, Liara can ask Shepard what she's fighting for, and if it's a chance to give Garrus peace. Shepard can reply that Garrus has been hurt and betrayed, and that she would like to offer him something better. that's the sort of thing that that line makes me think of.

I also get the impression that yeah, the DA:TV prologue/lead-in comic Dragon Age: The Missing was definitely originally intended to end not long temporally irl before DA:TV marketing content of this kind came out. like if you read The Missing then immediately watch this trailer, you can see what they may have been trying to go for in that comic and how they connect together. The Missing ends with Varric and Harding in Minrathous, and in this trailer, here they are in Minrathous. At the time of The Missing, I wondered:

this sounds like it’ll be Varric’s role in DA:D, right? The person who puts together the new Team, but not a companion per se. so… Varnick Fury? he recruits us? maybe the various characters Varric and Harding meet in this comic series are part of the wider team in DA:D, contacts, folks we meet?

and

D] highlight these four groups/factions and introduce the two new ones (Veil Jumpers and Shadow Dragons) in advance of DA:D. [...] Certainly if I was Varric at the moment when Harding asks “So who are you thinking?” at the end here, after the events I had experienced and people & groups I had met in recent weeks, with those being fresh in my mind, I would be thinking about the Grey Wardens, the Antivan Crows, the Veil Jumpers and the Shadow Dragons, both as groups and terms of the mental list of people that I had recently met who Solas doesn’t know. again it makes you think about the popular speculation that the DA:D PC will have the background of being from one of these groups.

this trailer and subsequent marketing materials since then have indeed detailed that Varric is not a companion, that he recruited Rook, that the devs were kinda thinking of an 'Avengers'-type team, that Neve (appeared in The Missing) is a companion, that Rook can be a Warden, Crow, Veil Jumper, or Shadow Dragon (among other things), that those factions are all important in the storyline of the game, that the companions include a Warden, a Crow, a Veil Jumper, and a Shadow Dragon, and that the crew will also have contact with non-companion NPCs who will be "faces" of their respective factions!! like we don't know for sure that the 'face' NPC[s] of the Veil Jumpers will be Strife and Irelin or one of them, but we do know thanks to Game Informer that e.g. Strife and Irelin do appear in the game as NPCs. When Harding asks Varric in The Missing "So who are you thinking?", it mirrors the trailer, where Varric asks Harding "What are you thinking?" after she states that this will take more than just the two of them.

A fun fact about the trailer is that the 'most replayed' segment is the Lucanis and Bellara part. the people know what they want hh.. ^^

Opening segment: Venatori, Varric, Harding

The trailer begins with a view of Docktown, Minrathous, just from a bit of a different angle to the one in that screenshot. the now-familiar floating castle is in the sky. I guess the bright green light on the docks in the trailer version of this scene is one of Minrathous' magical neon shop signs, specifically one above the door of the building on the docks that you can see here (albeit it's unlit there because it's daytime/or at least not overcast). it's foggy/misty, with a general moody vibe. Varric and Harding are in a bar. I think the bar they're in is through the doorway with the neon green light above it, and I wonder if that bar is this one.

Are the carved creatures with human heads and wings in the foreground statues on the nearest shore (where the 'pov' is standing) or carved prows of ships in the harbor? they remind me of harpies or angels. have we seen these assets before in DA? in-world were they based on a Thedosian creature?

[points] repeating rings/concentric circles

this bit reminds me of the different shapes and patterns here. (around 'Level 30', around '0 points available', and the skill tree itself both in terms of design and the pattern behind it)

Who doesn't love a good Mass Effect-style lens flare? :D somehow these always make me feel nostalgic.. this bit reminds me of an eclipse (of which much could be said in the context of DA and DA:TV..) or other astrological event, or like an event horizon or something.

These guys are Venatori Soldiers. Compare with those in the gameplay reveal video. they even attack in a big group of guys in the trailer the way they do in gameplay, Power Rangers badguys-style (a Venatori classic..). ^^

What's the deal with some of their weapons being red btw?

It's giving red lyrium, it's giving red lyrium blade like Certainty (two), it's giving the vibe of the red lyrium weapons pack, it's giving general Venatori fuckery (they have messed with red lyrium stuff for their own nefarious ends several times before).

the symbol on their foreheads is also familiar.

It shows up in Dragon Age: Absolution.

(from here) the flag scene on the right is seen during Hira's flashback when the Venatori killed her family as an example, punishing them for helping those less fortunate in Tevinter. so it seems like the Venatori have a new symbol and a new look in the post-DA:I material, right? like irl art direction/art updates-wise. just, in-world, they actually were using it in the past, as we can see it in the Hira flashback, at which point she was a child, long before the time of the Inquisition forming. unless this is a specific faction or offshoot of Venatori..?

I'm not sure that it actually is or not, but when I see this type of thing I also think about red lyrium shards. also, some of them have lil spiky shoulder blades -

which reminds me of that 'hostile architecture' vibe Tevinter architecture and designs of stuff have going on, like the spikes on the back of the chairs here. and I wonder if the guy with the red face covering is the leader of this particular squad?

When it pans out to this shot, we get a good look at the bar and also it's clear what a bunch of cowards the Venatori are. What is this, like, 7 on 2 at least.. but it was actually more than that in the beginning because Varric and Harding have already laid several Venatori soldiers out flat on the ground (I count at least 3 there and 1 flat on the bar lol). 11+ v 2 LOL. there are also a couple of injured but not KO'd people crouching who could be more injured Venatori, or else just innocent bar patrons who got in the way. in the background you can see what looks like a hookah, which we have seen in northern Thedas before. also, at this point, Rook is right there, sitting there all casual and nonchalant at a table over by the window, with their hood up and their back to the fight hh. the other thing that strikes me about this shot is the intricate patterns on the rug and how beautiful the lighting is - all those shafts of sunlight and candle/firelight and stuff.

Bar fights are such a fantasy, D&D-type classic. I wonder if this bar is the Swan, the tavern Corinne mentioned as being in Minrathous which has good tavern music? or if it's the same bar as where the game starts off, where Rook has the choice of intimidating a bartender or not? an article also mentioned a pub in the streets of Minrathous which has a dozen NPCs in it and which is reached via a wide, winding pathway. (probably at least two of these various bar/pubs are actually the same one being described/shown in a different way hh.) the Venatori try to look all menacing and the barperson, understandably, tries to scuttle out the way.

Bianca looks great and has had a glow up. the carved patterns are so pretty, and with the eyepieces and stuff she looks almost steampunky or Fable-y. which makes her subsequent demise at Solas' hands in the gameplay reveal video all the sadder. 🥺 we can also see at this point that at Varric's belt, he wears a symbol of the Inquisition, even though it's been around 8 years.. 🥺 as in The Missing, you can also clearly see that Varric has been aging. he looks old and tired, he has more of a beard, and his hair is thinning and graying. this look of his, including the outfit and scarring around his eye, iirc first appeared in Issue 2 of The Missing.

I wrote then of that,

he looks Older and more tired, and also maybe redesigned (outfit, scar etc). if this comic is set around 9:52 or shortly beforehand, he’s over 50 years old now since he was born in 9:1. according to this tweet of Fernando’s, it wasn’t Fernando who did a redesign, BioWare had sent along the reference for Varric for this comic. are we looking at Varric’s DA:D Era (Dad Era..) Redesign? is this how he’ll look in DA:D? 

and it seems we were, and it seems it is! :D

When the shot cuts to Harding, we can see that the bar has a roaring fire (tho I question the heat efficiency of this with a wide open door :D). I like the symmetry of having Varric and Harding both shoot one Venatori each with their bow/crossbow at this point. Harding is in her new gear, the new look that appeared in The Missing. She looks so good! I love all the detailing on her and Varric's clothes, like the fur parts at their collar and shoulders (which up here in Tevinter seems so quaintly southern, Fereldan-y hh). my heart skips a beat when Harding whips her head around and blows her bangs out her face. 🥰 the motion of her and Varric's hair is soo goood (and for stuff like Harding's cape whipping around), and look at the detailing of her braided updo!!

Mid bar-fight, when despite being mid-fight Varric reaches for a tankard and Harding summarily takes it off him.. it reminded me of this panel from The Missing #2. at that time, I thought,

“food poisoning” ye sure okay bud. at the end of issue 1, Varric was after a stiff drink. this panel is a smart bit of continuity from that. [but] on a serious note though I hope Varric is doing okay like, and this was just a hangover after a celebration like he says, rather than part of his recent tired/sad/kinda strugglin vibe. otherwise coupled with his older tireder more haggard look it reminds me a bit of Ser Aaron. [and it's] sad to think about [anyone going through or struggling with that] :( (RIP Aaron...)

and the tankard moment in this trailer reminded me of that worry again. Varric, buddy... are you okay 😭

It's so funny (in a good way) when Harding in the background uses her bow like a freakin baseball bat to level a guy while in the foreground Varric is like 'yea it's fine, she got this' because he knows she can handle herself hh. and like, yea, in these few seconds Harding takes out three dudes herself. Varric is still looking forlornly at his now-empty hand when she's smacking a guy clean across the face with the mug. Harding.. make it rain!! :) bad guys drop to the floor and the sparkly effects of spilled drink both fall around her. also, does it look to anyone else that on the front of a pouch Harding wears on her front, there's the eyeball Scout-or-Inquisition symbol, like how there is on her bow? then Varric is like. 'okay, I'm listening'. :D

Neve

We see Neve meeting someone in a Minrathous backstreet. the setting here reminds of the Minrathous streets in the gameplay reveal, of this concept art and of this scene from a previous trailer. it's raining at night and she's meeting them - an informant or contact etc - at a specific time and place in a secluded area to make some sort of trade. they show her the goods and she offers them a pouch of what is presumably coin

from how the Venatori talk about Neve in the gameplay reveal, and maybe even a lil based on how this 'contact' (who is actually trying to rob her or maybe even trying to complete a hit/kill contract on her) is dressed, I wonder if this person was Venatori or one of their agents?

Neve's saunter made me weak in the knees. she seems so confident and capable. she has great instincts/reflexes, which makes sense for a character who investigates alone on the night streets; she saw the attacker's feint (and their real goal all along) coming straightaway. you can't get one over on Neve

In the final triumphant shot of her, when she holds the item aloft, she's got one foot on the felled person, who is lying on the ground hh

I appreciated the attention paid to the sound effects of her footsteps! it's like there's a metal clinking sound when she steps with her metal leg.

She does her specialty, ice magic, and ice magic looks so lovely - a bright white light coming from it, snowflakes floating all around

though I know it's probably more like, this was her planned design and the comic artist was given BW's reference for her, I love how faithfully Neve's complicated, fashionable design was carried over from the comics into this trailer/vice versa/matches in each!! e.g. the toe of her boot, her leg, all the details of her overcoat, the shape of her snake-belt, everything

Also her mannerisms match too! the spell she does here, with its staff-less magic and both hands coming forward with a burst of ice magic, is exactly like she does in the comics. :D (on the right below). I just think that's such a thoughtful touch.

I'm rly curious about the item that she was after. the red shard-type thing reminds me of red lyrium, and at this point a red gem-like thing set in golden metal surrounds remind me of the Venatori. those are different shapes of course, but see above with regards to: the red and gold symbols on the foreheads of the Venatori guys who attack Varric and Harding in the bar; the red and gold brooch or clasp thing from Absolution; and the red and gold symbol of the Venatori on their banners in Hira's flashback in Absolution.

What is it, and why was she after it? the other thing it reminds me of is the round enchanted clay discs from her TN short story, The Streets of Minrathous. they were seals to the demon's prison (the one that is under Minrathous) and involved blood magic. (this is red and gold though so it doesn't super-match tho, as if I remember right the seals in TN were described as being seated in polished black shell on gold chains, with a long, thin, 4-winged dragon etched on the front that was rising out of a dark sea..)

Another thing to notice here is when Neve's name's splash text comes up, what look like orange-red leaves blowing in the wind blow across the screen. this imagery repeats in a few of the other companion segments.

Lucanis

He assassinates a target in a crowded, beautiful, colorful and busy marketplace. Do you think this is Antiva, Tevinter or somewhere else? ^^ the target is frantic, he knows he's in danger and that he's being chased/watched (makes sense, 'The Demon' has a reputation); but Lucanis is so stealthy that he has no idea where he is. Lucanis is quick and deadly.

the orange-red leaves swirl around in the air

on the back of Lucanis' outfit we can see the purpley wing motif and the patterning of many eyes (more thoughts on that here), these are placed really prominently in this trailer.

Again the detailing of hair movement, clothes etc is awesome! Even the back of the target's cloak is all bejewelled and detailed.

Lots of NPCs in the crowd. peer around at their hairstyles just in case they're among those that are available in the CC for Rook :D we also now know that we will be able to re-create NPCs like these in the CC, as it was used to make them all.

Who do we think the target is? they are a human man. is he simply a random person to showcase Lucanis' assassin-ness for the purposes of the trailer, or meant to indicate a person from a particular group or faction? can we infer anything from the design of his clothes? the red pointy spike on his shoulder pad for example kind of reminds me of that of some Venatori (see above in barfight segment). and in general he seems well-dressed, and maybe his outfit has a sort of mage-y vibe. a higher-up Venatori? a bad magister? we know Lucanis has been going around taking contracts to kill prominent Venatori from TN, and that he was intending to do more of these jobs.

It's a mixed crowd, there are humans present and you can also see elves, qunari and dwarves. :) (please ignore the top right hand corner of the image below, I guess a copy-paste failed and I didn't notice at the time hh).

After the target knocks someone over by mistake, an angry guy behind him gesticulates, understandably annoyed.

Lucanis catches and kills him in one fluid motion. I would let Lucanis assassinate me

Grabs em by the face hh (makes sense, he then covers their mouth so they can't scream and draw attention I guess - it's the middle of a crowded marketplace after all)

mullet singing magnificently in the wind

lil crowfeather-like hair tufts sticking out

And he snaps his neck rather than stabbing with one of his knives or swords (and he is wielding one in this encounter). I guess it's more efficient and quick in this instance than stabbing. it also makes less of a mess. :D The setting and dialogue line for this segment is smart too - Lucanis kills this person by leaping out of the shadows/where he was hiding into the broad daylight, and kills them when it's light outside hh.

Bellara

an ancient elven ruin in Arlathan (Forest or Crater). birds fly overhead. I love the lighting and all the greenery :)

the orange-red leaves continue to fall in Bellara's segment too. they aren't a surprise here of course, the gold/orangey 'omg it's Arlathan/the Veil[Jumper] archer place from old concept art' trees are in Arlathan, where this segment is set, but they also crop up in the trailer in e.g. Minrathous in Neve's segment, in Lucanis' segment. they're a nice continuous aesthetic linking the scenes together ^^ We also see them on the Golden City version of the DA vinyl cover art, twining through the dragon's wings and growing among the buildings, in a way connecting this foliage to the Fade.

the design of the place reminds me a bit of the bridge at the Temple of Mythal in DA:I. I wonder if this ruin was a temple or palace in the past, and if so, to/of whom?

it's so beautiful and makes me feel really excited to explore ancient elven ruins and Arlathan :)

the two startled halla look so pretty

interestingly, the black bird that flies near the halla looks like a corvid - making you think of rooks, and Rook.

green Fade-y light gathers in the archway and our Veil Jumper's official proper introduction, fittingly, has her leaping out of the Fade[?], or otherwise leaping through part of the Veil :D Bellara's segment is so fun and I love that for her and us. when she first appears, she looks so happy and thrilled to be on the adventure that she's on here.

in her hand she grasps her prize, which I guess she's just taken from wherever she was - a gold-colored triangley thing (so, a piece of ancient elven tech or another ancient elven artifact). when she gets caught and pulled back into the portal, she drops it and it falls out of her hands.

👁️ Now, about the tentacles. from previous materials like the short story Ruins of Reality and DA: The Missing, we know that in Arlathan, space and time, and reality, has been warping. the Veil is thin and wild, wacky stuff is going on in there. there are Veil Bubbles. the Fade is a mess close to Solas' ritual and demons are coming through, etc. the tentacles in this segment are very interesting indeed 👀 Veil Jumpers are also being attacked by tentacles in this DA4 concept art. here's another DA4 concept art with a tentacled monster in it. I wonder where Bellara was jumping from? a different pocket of reality in Arlathan or elsewhere? a place "in-between"? from a Veil Bubble? the tentacles also reminded me a lot of the Cekorax. it was a big tentacled monster that Dorian hired Hollix to kill in Minrathous. in that TN story, Dorian recalls that a Mortalitasi once told him of "things past the Veil of our world, neither demon nor spirit"...

Emmrich

Cut to Emmrich in the Grand Necropolis in Nevarra. See the bottom of this post for thoughts on the final shot of the Emmrich segment.

Digging up a lot of buried secrets.. it's giving the mysteries of the Grand Necropolis (the lowest reaches of it are quite ancient), and it also makes me think of secrets in the Deep Roads, Descent-style 👁️

The pov at the start of Emmrich's segment has the camera inside the chest (or coffin-type thing, since the skeleton seems to rise from it a few seconds later) these two people are opening and looking inside. the lore says that the geography of the lower parts of the Necropolis varies and changes, producing a disorienting effect on visitors which has successfully prevented robbery attempts. but we can probably assume from location and context cues that these people are looters or grave robbers right? you could imagine grave goods and other treasures/loot to be found in the elaborate Nevarran crypts. (and, some of the wealthiest Nevarrans decorate their crypts with their most prized possessions.) Emmrich is a Mourn Watcher, a member of an order which serves as guardians and keepers of the sacred Necropolis. so it makes sense to see him foiling an attempted graverobbing :) [disrespectful of the departed anyway, but especially so in a culture where their death-related practises are kinda sacred to them like Nevarra]

I wonder if the people are just random petty thieves created for the purposes of the trailer, or if they represent members of a specific group/'speak' of a particular plot-thread? like I could imagine e.g. some Lords of Fortune or something wanting to loot a storied tomb full of walking dead, for treasure and glory.

the way Emmrich casts his magic here, he reminds me of a pianist or a composer. he's so calm and composed.

he's behiiiind youuu, Pantomime-style hh :)

when the splash text appears on-screen, in the bottom right you can see a fire burning - looks to be one of the robbers' dropped torches, which is a fun touch.

Davrin

I really love Davrin's design and I'm super curious to know which Creators' vallaslin designs he and Bellara have. he's so calm in battle, you get the sense that he's a skilled warrior for sure and I immediately trust him with my life. like Harding and Varric in the bar fight, he's holding off loads of enemies just him (well, him and Assan ^^).

He's fighting darkspawn which have been afflicted by red lyrium. (here's the "red lyrium darkspawn" for real too). as if regular darkspawn and the threat of being Tainted by contact with them wasn't enough, now you need to be careful of their red lyrium claws and the spread of red lyrium and stuff too. look how gross they look from behind.

In the background is a statue of a griffon, so I think Davrin is fighting in a Warden-related area. there are stone structures around and you can see some banners (albeit, not with Grey Warden symbols on them from what I can see).

It's dark and all around are the signs of the Taint - the darkspawn themselves, the dead gnarled trees, the corrupted tendrils, things which look like they could be Blight pustules/sacs, etc. I think the Davrin scene is set in the same location as this screenshot (which as it happens, also features Davrin!):

in the bottom left of this screenshot you can see water, and in the trailer, Assan runs past a boat. plus the other stuff looks the same too. and being that it's apparently a Warden-y location (griffon statue), I think that it's maybe the surrounds (or.. remains..?) of Weisshaupt in the Anderfels, and I definitely think it's the same place as here from the DA Day 2023 trailer:

- as the rock, lighting, structures, red lyrium etc all match up. Remember the line from that trailer, "Grey Wardens don’t hide in our castle. I won’t ask good soldiers to turn tail and run"? chat, it's not looking good rn for the Grey Wardens or for Weisshaupt (ctrl-F "Weisshaupt" in this post, and see also this post, for more on this topic.)

when the big red lyrium darkspawn charges forward, it knocks over one of the small ones hh.

Cut to Assan. good boy Assan!! he's already taken out at least one darkspawn by himself over there and we see him sitting on it hh. I wonder if Assan will join us in battle if we select Davrin as one of the 2 companions? it looks like he and Davrin have a close bond - he knows what move Davrin is thinking of just by how Davrin looks over at him. :) he's a strong baby - when he leaps on the big darkspawn he knocks it right over all by himself from the force of the impact. I love Assan's model and I think he's so cute oml 🥺 the way his ears perk up when Davrin looks at him 🥺... his big blue eyes like a husky or something.. the way he's kinda rangy and a bit scraggly like a puppy in the 'teen' stage where they're kinda tall and leggy but haven't really filled out yet 🥺 the lil whinny and squeaky roar he makes. HIS LYNX-LIKE EAR TUFTIES...

The shield-launching move is so fun and cool :D I think it's my favorite shot in the whole trailer. I just love Davrin, the relationship depicted here between Davrin and Assan, the trust and fun in that moment, the bond between them. and when he launches Assan here, Davrin looks so joyful and happy, it's nice :)

On Assan - is he one of the thirteen griffon hatchlings Valya discovered in 9:42 Dragon? or is he from a subsequent clutch? it's about 9:52 now, the question is how long does it take for a griffon to reach maturity? ^^

I also really wanna know more about Davrin. :D like Bellara and Taash, he hasn't appeared in prior DA secondary media like a comic or story so we don't have insight into him from something like that. we got quite a bit of insight into Bellara as a character in the Game Informer cover story (how we meet her, her personality etc) and a few lil snippets about Taash have come out here and there from social media (though I'd also really like to know more about Taash!). I'm dying to know more about Davrin too!! how did he come to join the Wardens, what motivated him to do that? what Dalish clan is he part of (is it a known one or a new-to-us one?), and where did they tend to roam? was he specifically entrusted with the care of Assan as a Warden assignment, was it more happenstance that he came into his care, or did Assan when he was a lil baby see Davrin one day and kinda be like "yea that is my guy" (griffons chose their riders by themselves, not the other way around) ((also. valid))? what does Davrin think of the possible Grey Warden civil war, the First Warden, the Hero of Ferelden? how long has he been a Grey Warden for, and how far is he from his Calling? what are some random lil trivia factoids about him? does he travel around killing other monsters in addition to darkspawn and saving people from them, and that's how he made his name as a monster hunter ("monster hunter" is giving a lil Witcher-vibe to me, and the voiceover line here anyways implies that Davrin also fights demons)? ◕‿◕

Also at this point is a neat transition to darkness. back in the bar, Harding and Varric are fighting back to back, a trope I am a sucker for hh.

Taash

(reverb womp womp womp sfx like a giant boomerang is being thrown :D)

"We'll need someone with fire in their blood" [to face dragons]. I know what this conveys (fight fire with fire, Taash is badass, brave, bold in the face of danger, will fight dragons etc) but I also thought this was an inchresting choice of line for Taash's segment.. Iron Bull once said "So, when you face a dragon, does it get your heart pumping? Do you breathe a little faster, feel the blood racing?" When qunari Inquisitor speaks to Old God Soul Kieran, he tells them: "I noticed your blood. It doesn't belong to your people." Corypheus taunts Adaar, "What do they call you? A qunari? Your blood is engorged with decay! Your race is not a race, it is a mistake!" In some scenarios, Corypheus can say of Adaar that they are "a beast of strange blood". and some believe that the Tamassrans cultivate dragon blood within the Qunari. so 👁️..

Some thoughts on Taash's design. (so I don't repeat myself too much. I link to each post in that series btw, one for each companion, at the end of this post).

Taash's segment is set on the Rivain Coast (two). you can see the palm trees, beach, bright blue waters, the skeleton of a large dead creature, that statue in the background, etc. fittingly she's fighting a dragon and there's fire everywhere :) I wonder if the Rivain Coast locale is where we will recruit Taash. she isn't among the characters (like Neve) who Varric knew prior to the start of the game; at the timepoint he speaks his Taash line in the trailer, he doesn't know her.

omg, the physics on Taash's braid! :D it looks like the gold cuffs on her horns have an eye symbol carved on them. dear Taash, please tell me the story behind each shiny trophy that you wear. 🙏 in addition to the dragonscale-looking parts of her armor, it looks to me like on her gauntlets there are also teeth (assumedly dragonteeth). love that for her. and as she gets up to charge forward, she does a small smile or smirk to herself. she's havin a great time fighting a dragon :D the heat-warping effects from the fire are cool too.

When Taash's splash text appeared on screen, it was at this point (the last one lol..) that I realized there were different effects on the companions' name texts. Harding has horizontal lines through hers, like the flightpath of arrows. the bits in Neve's could be chunks of ice. Lucanis' looks scratched/slashed, as if by daggers. Bellara's contains the floating triangle pieces that indicate ancient elven magitech. maybe Emmrich's is the particle effects of his necromancy? Davrin's could be slash marks from a sword or claw marks from a griffon's talons. and Taash's is all burning and on fire, with dragon-looking claw marks. smart!!

check this out in the background, the rock structure which looks like a head with pointed teeth -

it's the same structure as in this shot of Rivain from the DA Day 2023 trailer.

only in Taash's scene, she's on the beach and the teeth-rock structure is in the background, whereas in this shot, the POV is like you're standing under the jagged overhang, looking out from the jaws of the 'beast'. in the 'in jaws' shot you can even see the beach Taash may be fighting on, it's the area with the big skeleton on the shore. when we saw this shot in the DA Day trailer, it reminded us of teeth, and now that we can see the rock shape from another angle, it really does look like the maw of a great dragon-y creature, with fangs on the top and bottom jaws. the placement of this in Taash's segment interests me because there is also the suggestion of a dragon-y creature with teeth in the background of her card art. ^^

I also wonder if we can identify what type of dragon it is here from the dragon's design? ^^

When Taash leaps through the air, you can hear her yelling. :D at this point it looks to me like this is the same place as in this screenshot of Rivain Coast that came out later. you can see the big skeleton ribs, the campfire, the wall, and the hanging line thing. it's just from a different angle.

Rook and back in the bar

Do you think the Rook shown in this trailer is the 'default' Rook for marketing, like mage dude Hawke in DA2? And/or the Rook from the gameplay reveal video? you can see a lil bit of their face in this trailer.

dae get the feeling that when Varric says "This crew needs a leader. Someone we can count on" he might be thinking of Hawke? not to suggest as the leader of this crew (remember how he gave the Inquisition the run around to protect Hawke when they were looking for them), but just like, he's thinking back to a different place, a different time, a different crew, a different found family. 20 years ago in Kirkwall, his home, when he was part of Hawke's gang and they sheltered all the DA2 misfits (affectionate) under their wings. a reality he hasn't inhabited for ~10 years now. 🥺 "Someone that the world can count on" takes me back to his line to Cassandra in her interrogation, "The entire world is on the brink of war. And you need the one person who can help you put it back together". And it also has me wondering if by that point he's also thinking of the Inquisitor, another leader that he followed, a leader that saved the world. 🥺

Varric also understands the importance of a good leader as the core of a group, of the power of bringing friends together around someone great. a lesson he learned at Hawke's side, then later solidified or emphasized at the Inquisitor's. then, with "But where are we gonna find...?" he's probably going through the factions he and Harding encountered in DA: The Missing in his head at this point, but I also feel like he's rotating the leader-hero blorbos he keeps in his head and scrolling through them. Hawke? [if not left in the Fade]. Absolutely not, the world has taken too much from them already and he just wants to protect his friend. The Inquisitor? Won't work [for the literal leadership role], at this point they know they need to find someone that Solas doesn't know. and it doesn't even occur to him that he himself could lead the new crew. for one thing, Solas knows him obviously, and he's tired, but for another, Varric knows he's the storyteller, just a character in other peoples' stories, a follower, not a leader (of that kind). its a lil meta but it (and the rest of the stuff I said here) is also just 🥺.. when you think about Varric's life and what's happened in it.

Where in the opening segment, Rook was there chillin sitting all casual at a table by the window in the bar, they've now gotten up and started laying into Venatori themselves. (contrasing with e.g. the bartender, who ran out of the way, and other bar patrons who stand around in the background during the fight at various points or are seen floored. you can see why Rook specifically attracts Harding's attention at this point.) it's so funny [pos] - Varric and Harding are now staring thoughtfully into the fire discussing their plan in a circle of KO'd Venatori, Varric with his hands on his hips, meanwhile Rook has taken the heat off them and fends off a gang of Venatori by themselves. and the Venatori are back to trying to like, 6v1 someone. Oh Venatori dudes, you're so retro Power Rangers badguys. Rook only came out here for a quiet drink, and they are feeling so attacked right now.

Varric and Harding conducting a demon-summoning Heroic Leader[™]-summoning ritual

The unconscious/dead Venatori on the bar is still there on the bar. Rook lays someone else out on a table. Harding hears the commotion behind her and slowly turns around. Venatori flail towards Rook. Rook, backlit all cool, smashes two of their heads together silly-style (pos) and then steals their stuff (a sword). Rook pistol-whips a guy in the face with the handle of one of their own swords. Rook then launches themselves off a bench (floored Venatori in the background), yeeting the Venatori on their back (floored-table Venatori also in the background) into the bar, then elbows them in the face. Harding, understandably, falls in love (I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream..). Varric isn't aware of what's going on yet, either because he's so lost in thought reminiscing about his glory days with Hawke and/or because maybe his hearing is going a lil in his old age. Harding makes bedroom eyes at Rook.

Five Venatori then run at Rook (haha.. these fuckin guys :D). At first I was like wait, where did this wave come from? but if you look around Varric and Harding's feet at this point, the Venatori that were laid out in a circle around them are no longer on the ground - so that's a nice touch, that it's the same ones who got back up to have another go. Rook executes the swashbuckling action-adventure trope of cutting a rope to drop a chandelier, crates or other objects on some bad guys, which is fun. this bar patron (hit the image limit on this post hh) with the magnificent feathery collar is unfazed and just enjoying their drink. Harding's cape whips as she turns around; Harding is paying ATTENTION. The Venatori tackle and swarm on top of Rook like they're playing rugby. The chandelier drops. The Venatori are taken out. Harding is like 'wake up grandpa, get with the program'. Varric turns ("HUH?") and then, understandably, also falls in love. Varric makes bedroom eyes at Rook.

And then Rook rises (backlit, among flames and from the heap of a whole football team of Venatori that they KO'd themselves), and also rises. at the same time the music is crashing to a crescendo and the song says "We can be heroes". :D And at this point I'm feeling a bit unhinged over trees, but it looks to me like some of the particles floating around at this point are the orange-red leaves again hh.. Having no "Rook" splash text at the Rook-focus segment makes sense, they aren't a companion and while they are always "Rook", that isn't their name and of course they are the player-defined character of the bunch. I really like the shot where they look over their shoulder, back at Harding, Varric, and the pov.

looping back to the question I first asked in the 'Rook' section of this post, in this trailer it looks like Rook is wearing this outfit, which is also the outfit Rook (there a Shadow Dragon Rook) wears in the gameplay reveal trailer. So I think we can surmise that the Rook in the character reveal trailer is a Shadow Dragon Rook (and a rogue too, as in the gameplay reveal). I wonder if this Rook, this Shadow Dragon Rook, is sort of the 'default' Rook for marketing? or whether in the next trailer, they have a different Rook?

About Rook's clothing in this trailer. it looks similar (e.g. hood shape, presence of a hood, diamond-quilt-like pattern in places, the diamond-shape pattern on the shoulder, etc) to this figure on a Minrathous street from the 2020 trailer, who I assume is a Shadow Dragon or Shadow Dragon Rook. like in that post, it again makes me think of the art which accompanied Minrathous Shadows, the short story about the Viper. the outfit of the person in that art isn't the same as Rook's, but there are similar aspects in the way that people from the same faction have similar aspects in their outfits. again I'm wondering if maybe the Viper is associated with the Shadow Dragons faction, maybe even the Viper leads it? and what if their contact in that story, a lady who is lightning smart, is Neve? ^^

Also, Rook already has the Veilguard symbol on their clothes in this trailer. I wonder which moment the trailer is depicting. Is it depicting the moment when Varric and Harding first met Rook, then after it they recruited them to join the team? Or is it depicting a time after that when Rook had already been travelling with them for some time (per some info we were told before we know that Rook has been with Varric for a while already before the start of the game), as just a lil part of the team, only their performance in this bar fight was the moment when Varric and Harding realized that Rook could lead? Is it neither of these, and more just a cool scene for a trailer for vibes (that is very valid btw, it's a trailer - we didn't see the Hero of Ferelden's eyes for example glowing blue as they entered that specific cavern full of darkspawn like in that one DA:O trailer etc) - the trailer did note at the start that not all images in the trailer appear in the actual game. the trailer also depicts a barfight, and we know the game can kick off with a fight in a Tevinter bar (depending on if Rook chooses to be aggressive in the bar, a fight scene can follow). or maybe the trailer is showing when Varric and Harding met Shadow Dragon Rook specifically? since we know that faction choice basically determines why Rook has been called to help in the fight against Solas, and in this trailer it's Harding being impressed by Rook in Minrathous as they fend off Venatori, specifically.

End group fight

I really love the tagline "Together - Defy The Gods". "Together" puts the emphasis on the companions, the characters and their relationships with Rook & one another as they work together as a team. it makes sense to flash up at this point too, when the whole party (not just Rook+2) is fighting a serious battle together and quite a few of them get a spotlight of them doing their thing as the camera pans around this battle. the tagline also reminds me of when the Inquisitor can say defiantly to Cory at the end of DAI, "I don't believe in gods". ◕‿◕ I also really liked the swelling of the music and the drumming as the trailer ended, it was cool.

At this point, we can see Shadow Dragon Rogue Rook, Neve, Harding, Lucanis, Davrin and Bellara, though in the next bit we also see Taash fighting in the circle. am I just missing her at this first point? can anyone see Taash in that image? ^^ (Emmrich runs up in a following scene.) they're fighting off loads and loads of red lyrium darkspawn (when I watched this scene a second time I realized those humanoid darkspawn remind me a lot of the husks from Mass Effect, only red instead of blue). the big darkspawn swinging a hammer near Lucanis looks like one of the redesigned ogres. I really liked the group fight scene, I thought it was really cool and heroic. :) I hope this is a cutscene and bossfight-type battle at some point in the game's main storyline, because it is a really cool scene. :D maybe the trailer version with all the companions in it is just that, the trailer cinematic version of the fight, and in the gameplay it's Rook+2 companions as in this screenshot?

from the way the structures around them look architecturally, the place they're in has ancient elven ruins. the red sky is ominous. from the darkness and the curling tendrils, and what looks like maybe sacs on the walls, the place they're in is afflicted by Taint corruption. there are also floating chunks of rock in the sky, a trait of the Fade or places in the mundane world where the Veil is thin and Fadey things are Fadin'. they are in the same place as in this screenshot. (when the dragon alights later in this segment, it also generally evokes the sense of this key art for me.) and like I said here, this place and dragon encounter bears a resemblance to the 2x cover arts of the DA Vinyl, which we know were called "Golden City" and "Black City". so here we are maybe, in the corrupted/Blighted Black City..? and if it has ancient elven architecture.. brb, lying awake at night thinkin of how the elven architecture on the vinyl cover art basically confirmed the long-held theory that Arlathan is the Black City. these tower-tops are quite like what we see here in Arlathan Forest and here in Arlathan Forest at Solas' ritual site in the gameplay reveal video, for example.

Bellara's bedroll in her backpack in this climactic battle is so cute and pratical. 🥺 when her 'arrow' hits its mark, darkspawn blood and guts go everywhere. Rook has a cool golden dagger. Lucanis, please move, you are about to be smashed by an ogre's hammer. I'm really curious about his purple wing ability - like how does it work and what does it do? he pretty much stays on the same spot, wings outstretched, for the duration of this scene. I love the way Neve moves when she casts magic, it's like she's dancing, like some forms of bending in Avatar or something. when she lights up with the bright light she looks even radiant-er than usual. and the flash of Neve's ice magic turning the screen white for the next text to appear is a smart transition. ^^

(darkspawn feet pic.)

I'm a sucker for a good ol' 'camera pans around the gang fighting something off together and looking cool'. you know that one shot in the Avengers somewhere where it circles round them when they stand ready in a circle? that's the vibe, and it reminds me of when the devs mentioned the Avengers in the context of talking about the game's name change.

Davrin's boots have spur-looking parts! you can feel the force of Taash's blow there. and then Emmrich comes running up to the team from somewhere else chased by more darkspawn and the freakin dragon. did.. did they use poor Emmrich as DRAGON BAIT (I kind of get the impression that they wanted to draw the dragon to this particular location, and I wonder if that has something to do with the circle)? 😭😭 Grandpa..?? they wouldn't let him help fight in the circle with his magic, or assign a more physical member of the team to be the bait, and were instead just like run old man, run. 😭 he's running for his life and Harding's like over here Emmrich, I'll keep them off you, promise. at this point you can also see lots of those Blight sacs on the walls. the dragon is huge and looks really cool and detailed - when it's getting ready to breathe fire, you can see light through the tissue of its throat, and the fire dripping from its maw is cool.

in the final scene with the dragon's wings outstretched, on the left you can see a red lamp-type thing. it's the same as the blue ones here, only red. I wonder what those are? and why do they change color?

and of course, like I said here, in the background at this point we can see the Evanuris symbols in the form of their headshapes, specifically on the tops of statues just like the ones that surrounded Solas' ritual site in Arlathan Forest in the gameplay reveal. this makes me wonder - this battle seems quite climactic, if it occurs at the end of the game, maybe the game ends where it all really began, back at the Arlathan Forest Ritual Site, which by that point has maybe become extra Fadey and has corruption spreading in it, which killed all the vegetation? that would be poetic. an alternative spin on this theory is that, since this place is kinda Fadey, maybe it's the in-Fade reflection (specifically the Black City) of the irl ritual site.

I've previously wondered if the dragon in this shot is Elgar'nan (dragons were a form reserved for the divine, i.e. the Evanuris, in the time of the Evanuris), but on a re-watch, from the way things are positioned (maybe that was intentional?), the statue-head directly behind the dragon in the center as it spreads its wings is actually the one with the Ghilan'nain headshape, so maybe it's actually Ghil? this dragon's horns curve down like Ghil's headpiece curves, not upwards like Elgar'nan's. this concept art piece for DA4 to me implies both Ghil and Elgar'nan take dragon form (2 dragons here, 2 Evil Gods rising), and as we know, they were a shape of the divine generally speaking back then anyway so it's totally feasible. the dragon in the trailer matches the one on the left in this concept art more than the one on the right.

The other big thing about the final shot is that there is an eclipse in the background. this is just like on the vinyl cover arts, and is something we've seen a lot in DA:TV marketing (ctrl-f "eclipse" here), e.g. the astral-looking spheres here, this previous iteration of the logo. it's also a thing that has cropped up in related lore in previous games, along with sun&moon imagery (example), like:

two shadowed spheres among stars / an eclipse as Fen'Harel stirred [Emergent Compendium]

and I looked up and saw the seven gates of the Black City shatter, and darkness cloaked both realms. [Chant of Light]

etc. and if you think about it, in a solar eclipse, the moon blocks out the sun. Elgar'nan in Dalish lore is the son of the sun; he threw the sun down from the sky and is known as He Who Overthrew His Father. throwing down the sun would cause darkness, and it could be a poetic reading of an eclipse-type event like we're seeing here. additionally, the Dalish believe that when he did so, he buried the sun in the abyss (which might be the Void), a place which sounds like it's in a different part of reality to the waking world and which sounds like it could potentially be Blighted. (and in this trailer we're looking at a Fade-y or Fade location, and it is corrupted).

as the trailer ends, we can see pretty designs similar to the one here around Rook's level in the top left.

At the end of this post I'm gonna link to some more of the other posts I made about the trailer & related things at the time, just for the sake of completion. ^^

Post with the reveal trailer in it

Related official new screenshots from the website

Yeyyy, griffons are back (outside of the books)

Vallaslin

We saw you from across the bar

Lucanis wings compilation pic

Floating building, welcome back

He is here

A dream come true

Thoughts on the companion 'tarot-style' art pieces: Taash | Neve | Davrin | Harding | Bellara | Emmrich | Lucanis

Yoooo

They have come to deliver this world..  (◡ ‿ ◡ ✿)

[papermoonloveslucy]

INDOMINATABLE LIFESTYLE

July 16, 1972

HOLLYWOOD - Indomitable funny girl Lucille Ball, with a messy scoop hair the color of an orange popsicle, flashes on the scene in a sad predicament. 

She's got a lame leg.  

Lucy hobbled from her sleek silver Rolls Royce and into the yellow cubbyhole dressing room which is a sunny retreat near the Lucy set which Is crawling with rehearsal activity. 

On the surface, everything's ha-ha-ha. But the fact is that surgeons have inserted pins into the shattered leg bone suffered last year in a Snowmass Peak, Colo., skiing accident. The leg brace is a semi-intolerable ball and chain. But, as always, crippling situations must be mastered. Lucy's inextinguishable spirit pulsates despite the physical handicap. 

Lucy Is showing a smiling color photograph of herself in a flowing white hooded cape coat rimmed in fluffy fox. The picture, radiating exterior happiness, doesn't reflect the inner pain. Lucy's leg, in a hip cast, is disguised under a blanket. 

You know the familiar Lucy grin? She's grinning it and saying hell no, baby, she's not ever going to ski again. She couldn't stomach another goddam ordeal like that. Besides, on the immediate horizon is an operation to remove the pins.

Lucy, being Lucy, bears the cross with humor: "Honey," she says, "skiing is just getting into those nice winter clothes and being a show off." The burdensome subject of broken bones is dismissed with frivolity. 

Brainy Lucy, now 60 and president of a $30 million corporation, is an American institution. 

But, like all super-successful females, she vibrates complex contradictions. The fashion plate - who initiated her career as a Hattie Carnegie hat model - is a winsome dumb broad on the tube. In reality she's tough executive who barks orders left and right. Staffers instantly do like the lady says. God has spoken. Lucy runs a tight ship, but she is more respected than feared. 

Yet Lucy is softie with a heart of spun sugar. Trappings, which she has in predictable abundance, aren't a psychic crutch. 

"Success is knowing that if everything were wiped away tomorrow, it wouldn't really matter. I wouldn't die if I lost my things," she says. Then the awesome simplicity: "Dear, I still go home and let the cat out" 

Lucy has always run her home life with a liberal hand.

Desi Arnaz, Jr. is currently Involved in well-publicized liaison with Liza Minnelli. There was a previous Desi scandal regarding Patty Duke. People gossip a lot here because they live in a city where the major industry is make-believe and fact and fiction become blurred. 

Lucy isn't deaf to the talk about her son's romances: 

"What the hell, they're having a fine spree. I just hope it lasts for Desi and Liza. They don't have time to get married. Their scene is the world and they're swinging in there. I'm the one who talked marriage to them. One night I said: Look, kids, don't get married too soon. They were upset. Desi countered with the observation that you don't have to settle down when you get married. So I go -  well, that's true son! The subject of marriage just never came up again. They're a nice couple. They present themselves well without becoming asses. I've told the kids to do as they wish." 

Lucy, who was a good friend to Judy Garland, makes no bones about her affection for Liza. And once Lucy loves, the feeling lasts. After 20 years of marriage to Desi Arnaz, there was the divorce. Still Lucy looks people straight in the eyes and says the present Mrs. Desi Arnaz is a "wonderful woman." And she can see it in her heart to rent ex-husband Desi studio space on her lot so that he can work in the shadow of a success they initiated together. 

When Liza Minnelli was a child, Lucy kept a scrapbook of Liza's activities at play, in ballet school, attending birthday parties. There, in a battered old photo album, are the precious pictures. Liza didn't know about the book until recently. Desi brought Liza home and Lucy accidentally-on-purpose left the book on a coffee table. "Oh! Wow!" exclaimed Liza through a flow of uncontrollable tears. 

Lucy; "And I said to Liza, honey-baby, I told you I've known you for a long time. Didn't you believe me?" Lucille Ball speaks in an affectionate aside about Liza and the loyalty is simultaneously visible and audible: 

"That kid is liable to explode any minute. I just hope I'm around to pick up the pieces. No one knows why she works so hard. She's made it her objective to clear her mother financially. Those b--- lawyers took her --- really took her. But she's paying back every damn cent herself." 

Life is, of course, an inexplicable mixture of tears and laughter. Buoyant Lucy can see the funnies in everything. Love, she says, is looking beyond someone's minor faults and caring passionately despite the irritations. Lucy's 80-year-old mom, Dede (Desiree Ball) lives near Lucy's sprawling colonial house in Beverly Hills. Dede has a longstanding idiosyncrasy which used to drive Lucy wild but is now an amusement. 

In that familiar screechy scratchy soprano voice oozing feigned stupidity, Lucy sing-songs the dialogue; 

"I say to Dede: Hey Dede, I've got a pain in my elbow. Dede always says: 'stupid, it's because you're not eating right!" Honest to God, if you've got a pain in your big toe, it's not because someone stepped on it it's the food. Drives you nuts! Dede really has a thing about food. The other day I went home and cooked a batch of chicken. 'Chicken!!" says Dede, 'you know it's gonna make me sick.' Of course Dede eats more chicken than anybody. Next day I say: Dede you been up all night throwin', huh? Naw," says Dede, the chicken wasn't half bad.'"

The ridiculous story illustrates two things Dede taught Lucy early in life. One: That without good health you've got nothing. Two; That without a non-pliant, thoroughly independent attitude, you've got less than nothing because show business kills the weak. 

Lucy is in constant awe of Dede. When Lucy built the five-story ski chalet 9,800 feet on the side of a Colorado mountain she was certain Dede couldn't take either the long trip or the altitude. Besides, once you get to Lucy's place, there are a million icy steps to climb before you make the front door. "Even the dogs stop to get their breath," says Lucy. "But when I start huffing, Dede looks over her shoulder and sorta snaps: Aw, Lucy, you're a sissy!' That woman is my challenge." 

Does Lucy ever get down? Do the burdens of crushing disappointments halt her enthusiasm even temporarily? "Jesus," she says, "I cry. I cry a lot. Then anger sets in. When I'm angry, I become a fighter. And I always fight to win." 

When Lucy talks to you, she taps your knee in a natural gesture of intimacy. Her gaze is through black fringed x-ray eyes that sear through trivia. She smokes her cigarette twirled ceremoniously between her thumb and forefinger. Lucy always spews gut honesty: 

"Love is a great peace of mind. There's no panic in the relationship. It's never having to prove yourself. Love is not playing games. Baby, some women have to put up with mysterious absenteeism. That's always a sign of hanky panky-ism. Christ, I never have to worry where Gary is." 

Gary is Gary Morton, Lucy's husband and executive producer. Suddenly he bursts into the dressing room and asks for the afternoon off. Lucy's going to work the full day. Her answer is affirmative, but she doesn't use the word "yes"; "Just don't forget to tell the cook to get out the steaks and have a big salad ready." 

The show is all in the family. Lucy's sister, Cleo Smith, is another producer. Lucy is having the talk-about twosome of Desi Jr. and Liza written into a script. Little Lucy, who has been Mrs. Phil Vandervort for a year, is a regular. She, too, bursts into the dressing room to use the john. The jeans are already embarrassingly unzipped. As she whizzes by she comments only to her famous mama: "Jeez, I though you were alone!" 

But an emergency is an emergency. Lucy, quick to seize the humor, quips: "Our togetherness is only occasionally splintered." 

In retrospect, Lucy is pleased with her real-life mother role. "I've been one hell of a mom," she says. "I always knew where they were every minute." Lucille Ball is a profound woman who often uses great simplicities to get her points across.

Once, when the kids were small, a nurse observed to Lucy that Little Lucy was calling Desi Jr., "fatso," and jabbing him in the stomach-when no one was looking. Desi didn't hit back because mama had said never to hit defenseless little girls. Lucy relives the old conversation with her daughter, first announcing each "part" and changing voices to portray the back-and-forth swing of conversation: 

Big Lucy: "Got a problem, Little Lucy?" 

Little Lucy: "Me? No." 

Big Lucy: "Let's talk. Whose fault is it? No, actually it doesn't matter whose fault it is. Next time one of you is hurt, I'm going to hit the one who is hurt." 

Little Lucy: "What does that mean, ma?" 

Big Lucy: "You'll see." 

Soon there was another battle. As usual, Little Lucy elbowed Desi in the stomach and he howled, Lucy illogically whacked Desi hard on the rear and his screams got louder. Little Lucy immediately became hysterical: "Mom, don't hit him! For God's sake, why are you hitting HIM?" 

Lucy delivered the punch line which is the credo of their life: "I hit Desi because you let things go too far. Never let things go too far. Someone innocent always suffers. Do you understand?" 

That was the end of sibling squabbling. Forever. 

Once, before her chorus girl days, New York-born Lucy worked as a fashion mannequin for various Seventh Ave. houses. She's still got a clotheshorse figure but she won't splurge on couture: "I'm just one of those normal working women who doesn't go in for hifalutin’ fashion." 

Lucy haunts three fabric shops in Beverly Hills and has local movie set seamstresses make all her clothes. "I'm not the type who dresses and goes out," says Lucy who long ago graduated from the silly-but-necessary movie star game of being seen in the right places. 

"Once when I was in Paris, I bought a designer dress grey flannel, I think and wore it out from the salon to my car.  When I sat down the damn thing was so strictly constructed that the neckline popped up to my nose. I was on my way to Switzerland and I mumbled to my driver, God, did that designer expect me to stand up on the plane?" Lucy can afford emergencies. When she got to Orly, she bought a dress from an airport boutique and changed in the ladies room. 

And, so, the sweet saga of Lucy continues, there are no plans to quit. The word - retirement - isn't in her vocabulary. "I can't imagine doing nothing," she says. "If you don't keep moving, you're buried." 

The beauty is still there. The complexion is like alabaster. Lucy confesses that she washes her face with Ivory soap, colors her own hair and occasionally gives herself offbeat facials." 

"Honey, the idiot who said to put honey on your face never explained that it has to be mixed with cream," she says. The face melts into that wonderful famous grin. "I put honey on straight from the goddamn jar and it closed my pores for a month." 

That's lovable Lucy. 

[Ed. Note: The original photographs were degraded by copying so similar shots were substituted as close to the originals as possible.]

#   #   #

[whatisthisnonsense]

Okay you know what I am gonna talk shit in a proper well-thought-out manner because I’m salty and stressed and I may as well channel it into something fun like yelling about anime in an over the top display of angery as befitting this cesspool of a social media platform. This being said I’m gonna do it under a read-more ‘cause most of ya’ll ain’t got time for no negative nonsense and some of you genuinely enjoy Tri, and you know what, I respect you, you’re valid.

Okay so to explain how much I want to throw Bandai into a dumpster, we first need to go back and explain Adventure and the fiasco that was 02.

Digimon Adventure came out in 1999 (March 6th in japan and August 14th in the states, which coincidentally means this show came out exactly on my sixth birthday!) and lasted for about a year, with 54 episodes. The plot was simple; seven punkass grade schoolers turned out to have been chosen by fate to defend the Digital World, an alternate plane of reality created by various forms of digital information (the wee baby internet of the era, for example), mostly to kind of justify Bandai’s V-Pet (Tamogatchis but they’re gross and can FIGHT) and sell toys. So like, Transformers but with more human characters and kickass monsters and sometimes a lesson about the Power Of Friendship. Later, they find out they were chosen because they saw their neighborhood get wrecked by two monsters and Inexplicably Forgot This, as well as the fact there’s actually a missing member of their group (which less than surprisingly turned out to be the leader character’s little sister, who had already been seen in a prior episode and had also been involved in that early monster attack). It was hokey, the english dub generally bordered on that of a proto-abridged series if not aggressively sanitizing things (turning sake into green chili sauce, for example) and it was just good dumb fun and in the end everyone was crying anyway because dammit, while it was dumb fun you still cared about these characters and loved how they grew up. And then came 02.

Hoo boy. Digimon 02 came out in 2000 (April 2nd in japan and August 19th in the states) and lasted for another year or so. While sometimes listed as a second season, in truth it was a sequel series and it had...some interesting ideas, lets say. And I mean that sincerely! They did have some good ideas! But it was pretty clear from the lack of direction and the constant roller coaster of serious and stupid that it was being a sequel for the sake of being a sequel. For example, a whole new super secret crest turned up out of nowhere, which brings up a lot of questions in the lore but is mostly used to prove Ken isn’t irredeemable because he’s a Chosen Child ,as well as the questions about how this Crest is still present and useable and then literally gets no use. No Ultimate Form Wormmon for you, folks, NORMAL digivolution is out! I think I and @yunisverse have made our opinion on how to use that crest better clear while we’re being salty over Wizardmon, ha People have said that it’s big draw was that it had a heavier focus on character development and...yes and no? On the one hand, Ken and Cody’s arcs were genuinely enjoyable, Kindness shenanigans aside, as was occasionally exploring TK and Kari’s trauma, something often brushed over in the original series. On the other hand, more or less the whole of Adventure centered AROUND character growth where in 02 it’s...sporadic. Sometimes even random. However the main two reasons everyone was mad at 02 were these;

The original digidestined that were not Kari or TK got shunted onto the backburner, usually using excuses as they had given up their crest powers sometime between Our War Game and the present (despite that A) this is otherwise disregarding the fact they were supposedly not able to enter the digital world again until 02 and B) the power is literally inside them as part of their core, not something the digiworld actually gave to them, and while it could be diminished it could never actually be removed) or that it was the New Kids turn, often with wildly out of character personality developments. (Looking at you, Sora’s new docileness and Mimi’s lack of involvement in most of the plot period.)

The epilogue, which not only gave everyone really weird future jobs (why is Matt an astronaut?!) but also seemed pretty much out to be as aggressively Happily Ever After without actually stopping to think about any implications or actual lead-ups.

02 usually gets a pass from riding on the Adventure coattails, but everyone still tended to be at least disappointed in what had occurred. Also, more serious takes on Digimon, such as Tamers and some of the games, had been growing in popularity.

Thus Bandai, in it’s infinite wisdom, decided to cash back in on Nostalgia by focusing on the Adventure kids, making them closer to 02 so they’re older and they can therefore do more serious mature takes like Tamers, while also trying to rectify how they would even begin to come around to their epilogue jobs. They do this by killing the 02 cast in the first two minutes.

Welcome to Tri folks! Okay, so the 02 cast isn’t actually dead, but we don’t know where they are for six movies. Six movies!! The most we know for a few years is Ken, for some reason, has reverted to evil! And he has Imperialdramon, which implies Davis is brainwashed too!

He is basically doing this most of the series (which was initially going to be a mini-series before becoming a series of movies which then proceed to often be cut up into episodes, which that alone should tell you the problems BEHIND the scenes much less on screen) and we find out what he is (not actually Ken but an evil Gennai clone which is also out of nowhere) and what he’s doing (apparently bringing Yggdrasil, long time lore big bad of various digimon continuities and also god, into the Adventure storyline) not by efforts of the kids. Oh no. They’re too busy playing with their new friend Mei!

God I wish I was joking. The original squad literally shows no concern for where the 02 gang is until halfway through, and it’s a handwave at best and quickly moved on from. Hell, they barely react to “Ken” and CHEER on defeating Imperialdramon! More gravitas was given to having to kill the plot coupon of the day, Meicoonmon, than someone they actually know and should be upset about. Also making Tai NOT want to rush into a fight (what?), Turns Out Homeostatis Is Also Evil Or At Least Amoral (why), a reveal one of the backstory five original digidestined went mad with grief (no), and also I guess for some reason the kids and digimon were separated again given their reactions despite 02′s ending? That’s. That’s not even keeping your own continuity. Why are you like this. Also connecting to the epilogue just seem to be on a whim (not metaphor, Matt decides to be an astronaut on a whim), the general lack of gravitas in most moments followed by moments of SEVERE gravitas (which is the 02 problem but Worse), and bad jokes. I don’t mean Good Bad Jokes like Adventure, just really not funny jokes. And the real bitch of the matter? It had a few things that should’ve made it AWESOME! Like listen, I miss these idiot kids a lot, and the concept of a virus forcing a reboot on the digiworld and thus having to explore, finally, the digimon as characters and what they would be like without the kids? That’s cool! The idea of undoing all the Perma Digideaths (like WIZARDMON goddammit, and in this own show friggin’ Leomon again) with said reboot and thus having a pretty legitimate reason to allow it? Also cool! Worldbuilding about the previous five digidestined? Neat! And lets be real, you all cried at the cast version of Butter-Fly. You know you did. But the thing is they didn’t DO anything with most of this, or did it in a sloppy way. Example; the virus was basically a means to an end for waking up Yggdrasil (I’m not calling him King Drasil, that’s stupid), right? Why? When the Adventure-verse, often to it’s own detriment, is actively tied to the Milleniumon mythos, you could just pull in that eldritch horror and finally have Ryo make sense everywhere not japan. Or heck, the Dark Ocean! Remember the Dark Ocean? Where literally cthulu is and also Daemon now? Apparently neither do the script writers since that would’ve been a golden opportunity.  Of course, this would be asking for continuity, which Tri has issues with within its own narrative. Remember when I said the reboot should’ve undone all permadeaths? Yeah, Wizardmon still shows up as a ghost later to lead Kari out of trouble. No lines or anything, just pops up facing away from the audience and leads her out, and then vanishes, despite the fact that according to the rules they made up for the reboot, he should be a cute little Mokumon in Primary Village at the moment who remembers nothing. Also it kind of low-key has the vibe that growing up is terrible and results in having to make awful decisions? Which I’m not sure is what they meant to do, but it does pretty much have that end result. And that sucks! Even Tamers didn’t do that! Growing up is HARD, sure, but there are GOOD things about it too, and being Adventure one would think that would be the main focus! Nope. I just. This should have been good and when it was announced I was super excited and now I’m pretty much exasperated by its mere existence. And now we’re getting a sequel after ANOTHER timeskip.

Bandai if this is how you give us a nostalgia feels trip, do us a favor and let Adventure die. You’re just making the sugary memories of childhood have a bitter aftertaste. Or, if you must, just do a proper reboot. Tie up things that actually WERE wrong with the original series and do some clean ups but otherwise leave it untouched. We all know you’re trying to capture the magic twice, guys, you’re not even trying to hide it now. TL;DR, The only parts I like about Tri are Butter-Fly (cast version) and the fact Tai and Matt are gayer than ever

[commentaryvorg]

Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Part 1.3

Be aware that this is not a blind playthrough! This will contain spoilers for the entire game, regardless of the part of the game I’m commenting on. A major focus of this commentary is to talk about all of the hints and foreshadowing of events that are going to happen and facts that are going to be revealed in the future of the story. It is emphatically not intended for someone experiencing the game for their first time.

Last time, Kaito’s adventures in nearly getting himself killed had totally saved everyone until it turned out they really really hadn’t, Monokuma announced the time limit motive, and Shuichi (and by extension Kaede) fell right into the mastermind’s trap due to the lack of any visible cameras monitoring them.

Now, it’s finally Free Time! I am going to be covering some FTEs in this commentary, but only as many as I can get in a normal playthrough. I’ll be trying to keep things as close as possible to what might have potentially happened “canonically”. So I’m going to be going for characters whom the protagonists would be most likely to willingly choose to hang out with if they didn’t have a player controlling them on the other side of the fourth wall.

I’m also going to make it a regular thing to ask around all of the characters before actually initiating an FTE with the one I’m planning on doing, just to see what thoughts people have on the current situation so that I can mention any if they seem relevant. There can be quite a lot of interesting stuff going on in the pre-FTE dialogue sometimes.

Speaking of, Rantaro happens to be hanging out in the library, suspiciously close to the moving bookcase, so there’s that.

Keebo:  “I cannot believe we’re being subjected to this purely for the entertainment value!”

…whoa, Keebo, you actually hit the nail on the head there. Of all people to make that assumption, it’s interesting that it’s him specifically. I wonder if he has slightly more of a sense that that’s the case because of his inner voice? Hm.

Anyway, obviously the first person that Kaede would choose to hang out with would be Shuichi! He’s in the warehouse right now. I wonder if he’s checking out what kind of stuff it’s got to see what he can use for his plan. If only he’d taken the things he needed now while he was here instead of bringing Kaede here to get them with him tomorrow, she might never have grabbed a shot put ball. Or perhaps the fact that I’m about to make Kaede hang out with him now is what’s going to prevent him from doing that, at least in this particular version of events.

Also, while almost all the sports equipment is examinable right now, the box of shot put balls isn’t.

Kaede:  “Do you wear a cap, smoke a pipe, and use a magnifying glass to investigate crime scenes? Do you say stuff like, ‘Indeed, most intriguing!’?”

Kaede is such a goof. I love her.

Shuichi:  “A lot of those cases are small jobs… Infidelity cases, background checks…”

Shuichi is not normally a homicide detective except for that one murder case he accidentally solved. Still, I imagine that the Ultimate Initiative also looked into all of these more routine cases when deciding to name him the Ultimate Detective; just because the cases he’s solving aren’t murders doesn’t mean he can’t be talented at solving them.

That said, this kind of case is also not necessarily the most glamorous in terms of painting detectives in a positive light. Much later on in the story, Shuichi laments that all detectives do is uncover people’s secrets for money, and it’s probably these cases that make him think that.

Kaede:  “Yeah, I guess it’d be bad if flashy murder cases kept happening around you!”

Yeah that’s definitely not going to happen at all now that he’s in a killing game.

Shuichi:  “The other cases are just stuff like… finding runaways and stuff.”

This kind of case, however, does show a positive role for detectives. Shuichi’s saving people by finding the truth!

He goes on to explain that he and his uncle have a policy of following up on runaway cases to resolve the reason the person ran away in the first place, which is a lovely policy to have.

Kaede:  (I didn’t know detectives were so considerate. Or is Shuichi just a special case?)

It depends on the detective, apparently. Shuichi’s a very different kind of Ultimate Detective from Kyoko – she was very cold and impersonal, whereas Shuichi has a much more compassionate and human approach, but both kinds are good in different ways.

I’m also going to include all of the bonus item-dependent scenes, since there’s no reason to assume they’re not canon. Well, with one certain exception, but I still have a few things to say about how that one is initiated, so I’ll still talk about it when we get to that point. That said, half of them aren’t super interesting and I won’t have that much to say about them, and this nail brush scene here is one of those. Still, it’s cute – Kaede gets so excited about it! – and it’s probably not a coincidence on the writers’ part that it happens to involve the true mastermind and the person whom Kaede ends up killing because she thinks they’re the mastermind.

Also, Tsumugi, if you didn’t want Rantaro upstaging you at nail art, maybe you shouldn’t have written his character to have twelve younger sisters. Or, actually, did Tsumugi write Rantaro’s character? Because he was written for season 52, so it’s entirely possible she wasn’t involved in that. Maybe that’s why Tsumugi is so inexplicably disdainful towards Rantaro in this scene – because he’s not her character, unlike everyone else there.

Moving on, Kaede can “max out” two people’s FTEs while she’s the protagonist, so she should hang out with a second person besides Shuichi. It’s a little less obvious who else she might choose to spend time with, but… yep, you guessed it, I’m going with Kaito. It’s pretty reasonable Kaede might want to hang out with him since he’s been so supportive of her, but aside from that, he’s a very important character and doing his FTEs here will give me more chance to talk about his similarities to Kaede and what makes him tick in general. Whenever it’s more ambiguous who the protagonist might choose to hang out with, I reserve the right to go with my favourite and/or the most story-relevant out of the most plausible options.

But first, while asking around…

Rantaro:  “Oh, sorry. I was just… thinking about something. You wanna go to the library? I feel like reading.”

…not convinced that’s the real reason you want to go to the library, Rantaro.

Maki:  “It feels like we were just given our Ultimate talents on a whim…”

Whoa, Maki, that is very perceptive of you. And I guess she would be the one to think that, since she hates her true talent more than anyone else here.

Maki:  “…And if there’s time to complain, I’d rather spend it being productive.”

Don’t tell Maki right now, but this is her being pretty similar to Kaito in this particular way.

Kaito:  “What’s wrong? You got something you want to talk to me about?”

Kaede:  (Should I spend time with Kaito?) [Yes]

Kaito:  “Yeah, you can tell me anything! I may not look like it, but I’m a great listener!”

Kaede:  (I spent some time listening to Kaito, despite him telling me he was a good listener…)

This is a very meaningful exchange! On a first time through this would look like yet another supposed example of Kaito not being able to back up his own words, but it’s not that at all. Anyone who’s seen the rest of the game knows that Kaito really is a good listener when people need him to be. The reason he doesn’t end up being a good listener to Kaede here is because she doesn’t need him to be right now. The thing that’s bothering her the most is the knowledge of a mastermind and whether her and Shuichi’s plan will work, but she can’t tell him that. And maybe she could express more general worries about whether they’re really going to be able to survive the time limit, but she’s too optimistic a person to want to admit to things like that, especially to other people whom she’s trying to be an encouraging influence on. You know, kind of exactly like Kaito himself doesn’t either.

But I also like how the conversation started off with Kaito assuming she had something to vent to him about and offering to listen. This is an early sign of Kaito’s determination to support people. He may be totally at a loss in terms of coming up with a plan to deal with the time limit, but he knows that he’s good at providing emotional support for others. So he’s offering to do that here in an attempt to feel like he’s still making a difference, even though Kaede is probably the least likely person to need it.

What we have here is a clash of two people who focus far too much on helping others with their problems and never like to admit to their own, so the conversation that both of them initially thought of as an attempt to help the other relax got derailed and probably ended up as something along the lines of Kaito excitedly telling Kaede facts about space instead. Because there is absolutely no way that Kaede ending up listening to Kaito was the same unloading-your-problems kind of “listening” that Kaito was originally offering to do for her.

Getting into the actual FTE, Kaito wants Kaede to teach him to play piano.

Kaede:  “Playing the piano is gonna help you when you go to space…?”

Kaito:  “Of course! What if I meet an alien?”

I love how Kaito just says this like it makes perfect sense when it makes anything but to anyone except him.

Kaito:  “Well, we haven’t confirmed any, but… It’s silly to think that humans are alone in this vast universe. Plus, isn’t it more exciting to think they’re out there somewhere?”

Of course Kaito would think this, not just because it’s mathematically likely given how huge the universe is, but also simply because it’s fun to imagine it. It’s what he wants to believe!

Kaede:  “So, if there are aliens, do you want to try to communicate using the piano?”

Kaito:  “Not just piano, any music! Even singing would work.”

Then just sing to them, you doofus. Don’t you realise how much extra fuel it would cost to carry a piano on a spaceship.

Kaito:  “I think it’s totally possible to communicate with music.”

Even so, this is still great. He doesn’t just want aliens to exist, he wants to be able to meet them and communicate with them, and he understands that music is one of best forms of communication that works despite language barriers. This is already establishing Kaito’s belief in the importance of communication, even before he talks about it some more in one of his FTEs with Shuichi.

(He is making the rather human-centric assumption that any aliens he meets would communicate using sound, but still.)

Kaito goes on to talk about the Voyager Golden Record, which is a real thing that I hadn’t heard of until I saw this FTE.

Kaito:  “It was put on a spacecraft called the Voyager. It was a message to any aliens that found it. It had greetings in a bunch of languages, images of landscapes… and also music.”

It’s really cool that humanity did this and so like Kaito to be invested in this kind of thing!

Kaito:  “In the not-too-distant future, in fact! I, Kaito Momota, Luminary of the Stars, will be the first human to ever come in contact with an alien!”

Kaede:  (…Where does he get this confidence from?)

What a dork. Aliens existing: mathematically likely. Aliens being encountered by humanity within Kaito’s lifetime: extremely mathematically unlikely. But that’s not going to stop him!!! He is so ridiculously determined.

Kaede:  (I know well that music can transcend words and language to unite hearts as one. Oh god, I’m starting to sound like a hopeless romantic like Kaito! Hahaha…)

They are both so idealistic and so focused in different ways on communicating feelings to others and it’s great.

Kaede:  (But I won’t lose… I won’t give up. Because I want to see everyone’s smiles just a little longer.)

Guh, Kaede just wants to make everyone smile and that’s why she’s going to do what she’s going to do.

In the morning, Monokuma shows up at the door when she’s expecting Shuichi, to tell her her lab is open.

Monokuma:  “Now, go to the Ultimate Pianist’s Lab right away and compose a murderous melody!”

Ha. Ha ha. Oh dear.

And then she does the cliché of assuming it’s still Monokuma the second time the doorbell rings.

Kaede:  “Geez, enough already! You’re bothering me!”

Shuichi:  “Ah, I’m sorry! Should I come back later?”

Kaede:  “Oh, Shuichi! Sorry, just ignore what I said!”

Come on, Kaede, you could at least tell him you thought it was Monokuma so he doesn’t spend the rest of today anxiously wondering why you yelled at him and whether you secretly hate him.

I randomly decided to examine Kaede’s closet before leaving and…

Kaede:  (It even comes with my pink vest…)

Well that sure is a suspiciously specific detail that isn’t ever going to be relevant later or anything.

Kokichi:  “C’mon! I wanna see you fly! Robots have jet packs or whatever under their feet, right?”

This is some brief foreshadowing that also highlights how little of a damn Kokichi ever gives about saving everyone. If he’s apparently so enamoured with the idea of Keebo flying, when Keebo’s lab opens up in chapter 4, he could have tried to persuade Keebo to use his jetpack and laser gun sooner.

Rantaro:  “Look, like I told you before, I was just a little confused. Not being able to remember my own talent is… stressing me out. Really, I would appreciate it if you didn’t ask me about it anymore.”

This is after Shuichi tries to ask Rantaro again what he meant regarding the Ultimate Hunt, which Rantaro sees as an “interrogation”. He really must be horribly lost and confused, just like Shuichi remarks in chapter 6. He doesn’t feel like he can trust anyone, and he’s terrified that Shuichi and Kaede don’t trust him and that if he tells them the truth of how he knows about the Ultimate Hunt that’ll just make them trust him even less. Guh. If only he did trust them and tell them everything, then the tragedy that’s about to occur wouldn’t happen, but it’s so, so understandable why he doesn’t.

He also leaves after the conversation is over, making it clear that he really doesn’t want to talk about this at all.

Maki:  “…Heading to the dining hall? You guys better brace yourselves, then.”

Shuichi:  “Wh-What? Why?”

Maki:  “…Because Miu’s there.”

I absolutely adore how 1000% done Maki always is with the most annoying members of the cast. It’s very refreshing.

Maki:  “…And what about you?”

Shuichi:  “No, not yet… I suppose only Miu and Kaede’s labs have been prepared…”

Maki:  “…I see.”

[Maki leaves]

Shuichi:  “…It sounded like Maki was in a bad mood.” 

Kaede:  “I think Miu was bragging about her lab being open. But I don’t think that would bother Maki, since she seems so level-headed.”

The way Maki asks about other labs, and their observation that Maki seems uncharacteristically bothered by something that isn’t just Miu being Miu, makes me think that this is Maki being afraid of the possibility of her lab being open now. Like she’s thinking that it’s already accessible somewhere in the school and she just hasn’t found it yet, and now that it might have opened up, someone else could find it before she can stop them and learn her secret that she’s so afraid of having anyone know.

In the dining hall, Kaede starts begging to Miu because she’s just that open and straightforward of a person, but it’s sweet that Shuichi is inspired by this and joins in, even though that’s very much not the kind of thing he would have been comfortable doing if he’d been on his own.

Kaede:  “Thank you, I owe you! Even after we escape, I’ll owe you forever and ever and ever!”

Miu does not deserve Kaede being this pure and good at her.

I’m not sure why Shuichi doesn’t have Kaede come with him to the back of the warehouse to get the sensors and instead asks her to wait there by the sports equipment. I mean, obviously from an out-universe writing perspective I do, but man, that on-a-whim decision of his made all the difference.

It’s a little odd that the only photo-taking cameras the warehouse has are disposable ones, but as we learn in chapter 5, it also has video cameras as well. Kind of makes you wonder why Shuichi didn’t try asking Miu to modify one of those instead. That wouldn’t have had the problem with intervals.

Kaede:  (Will these cameras really work? Even if we take pictures of the mastermind and persuade everyone… What will we do after that? The mastermind could just smirk and order the Exisals to attack everyone. Can we really protect everyone with this plan? Will we really be able to escape this place?)

And right here is the moment where Kaede resolves to murder the mastermind instead of just capture them. She hasn’t got the whole Rube Goldberg setup in mind yet, but she grabs herself a murder weapon all the same, despite not being sure how she’s going to use it.

I’ve been talking a lot about Kaede and Kaito’s similarities and the ways in which Kaede is a better leader than Kaito, but this is one of the situations in which Kaito would have been better than her. Had it been Kaito instead who was helping Shuichi with his plan, his ridiculously stubborn optimism wouldn’t have allowed him to think this thought all the way through. He’d have stuck to Shuichi’s plan, refusing to acknowledge the possibility that it might not work. Kaede is also very optimistic, but she’s more capable of acknowledging negative possibilities than Kaito is. While that can often be a good thing, in this situation that works against her to make her conclude that her only option is murder.

Kaede:  (I shoved the things I was holding into my backpack, and ran after him.)

Everyone knows what’s up with this line since it’s referred back to during the trial, but it’s still really good. The game can no longer afford to be completely truthful with Kaede’s thoughts and actions, but it never tells an outright lie. It merely omits certain details, leaving just enough there for you to figure out what’s really happening when you know what to look for. And while there are probably a few of Kaede’s thoughts about her murderous intent that we’re not seeing, it does make sense that she would mostly try to avoid thinking about it in the first place.

Kaede:  “I was just thinking how amazing you are for coming up with this plan, Shuichi.”

Aww, look at Kaede admiring Shuichi for his talent even though he doesn’t believe in it himself. They really are a great team. Shuichi’s detective skills make him able to come up with this plan which at least on the surface looks pretty solid, but he doesn’t have the confidence or courage to carry it out on his own. Meanwhile Kaede is so great at encouraging people but doesn’t have the skills to come up with a plan like this, so she needs to team up with Shuichi for her ability to encourage people to actually be useful. If only Kaede had been able to truly believe that simply capturing the mastermind would be enough to save them.

(And, you know, if only Shuichi had been aware of the several pieces of information he’s missing that indicate the plan won’t actually work to capture the mastermind in the first place. But he’s still doing a really impressive job with what he has.)

During free time, I took Kaede to look at her newly-opened lab, because I could.

Kaede:  (Smiling, I ran toward it and lifted the cover. Beneath it, a clean row of black-and-white keys smiled back at me. I haven’t touched a piano in a couple days, but it feels like it’s been forever since I played.) “Hahaha… I really am the Piano Freak…”

Kaede being so excited about seeing the piano is adorable. I love how she describes it as “smiling back at her”, like every piano is a friend of hers.

Also, it really has been forever since she played. Since, you know, she didn’t exist until a few days ago and has literally never played before. The previous owner of her body might have done, but not her.

It’s a shame there isn’t an option to, like, have Kaede pass the free time slot by just playing the piano. I feel like she totally would have considered that instead of hanging out with someone. (She does actually end up playing the piano in Angie’s second FTE with her, but it sucks that that’s the only way to allow her to play it before she dies.)

Shuichi:  “You giving me something this wonderful… I wish I could give you something in return.”

Don’t worry, Shuichi, it’ll be your turn to give everybody presents soon.

(Does Kaede just, like, bequeath Shuichi the giant stack of presents she’s amassed from the Monomono Machine, so that he can continue her wish of making friends with everyone?)

Shuichi talks about how he lives with his uncle and aunt right now because his parents work overseas.

Shuichi:  “Well, for me, they’re just a mom and dad who have a… hands-off approach to parenting.”

Ouch. Seems like Shuichi’s uncle is more of a parent to him than his actual parents.

Kaede:  (Shuichi’s smile seems bitter. I wonder if his parents jerk him around a lot…) “Oh, we got off-topic! Um, there’s something I wanted to ask you about, Shuichi…”

I feel like Kaede is partly changing the topic here because she doesn’t want to make Shuichi think about his not-great parents. Look at her being considerate.

Shuichi’s first case was to find a classmate’s pet alligator.

Shuichi:  “I researched alligator behavior and spent a long time preparing the tools to capture it… I had to climb around mountains and swim up rivers… It was a lot of work.”

It’s things like this that make it all the more believable that their backstories were made up by someone who was trying to write cool exciting characters and not necessarily the most realistic ones.

Shuichi:  “The knowledge it took to solve that case… became the foundation for my detective work.”

Um, are you sure, Shuichi? I guess the more general skills you practiced were useful, but alligator behaviour?

Shuichi:  “And… I was so happy to be of use to someone. I can still hear her ‘thank you’ to this day.”

Aww, Shuichi. He laments a lot later on that detectives can’t help people because all they can do is solve murders once the tragedy has already happened. But even aside from how he’s ignoring the fact that in this killing game he’s directly saving everyone else’s lives by solving the murder, that’s still not true! The kind of work he and his uncle do to find missing people (or pets) is all about helping people!

Kaede:  “It never once occurred to me that detectives could show that kind of compassion. Compassion makes people trust you. If you offer them your hand, they'll reach for it... The world needs more detectives like you.”

And Kaede thinks so too!

Shuichi:  “Because… that’s the first time someone has ever said that to me. I’ll never forget this moment. I’ll be able to believe in myself and be proud of being a detective.”

On the one hand, it’s adorable how much Shuichi needed to hear something like this. On the other hand, it’s a little awkward that he seems to be acting like his issues are all solved now, when they’re very decidedly not and he’s going to continue to be ashamed and afraid of his talent for quite a bit longer.

One of Shuichi’s lines here is fully voiced. Anyone who’s maxed out a character’s FTEs in DR2 (although I don’t think this was a thing in DR1?) might remember that someone usually only gets a fully voiced line on their very final FTE. Which might raise suspicions as to Shuichi’s mortality here on a first time through, making someone think that surely he’d only apparently have so few events if he’s going to die soon, right?

Except that this happens for the second FTE of anyone Kaede hangs out with. So a first-time player who happens to hang out with the same character twice in chapter 1 might end up assuming that that specific character only has two FTEs (especially if they go on to try and hang out with them more times and not get an event regardless of the presents they give), no matter who it is. And because of that, they might think that they just happened to choose to hang out with one of the two characters who’s therefore blatantly going to die this chapter, even though actually this would have happened for literally anyone. It’s like a Schroedinger’s Death Flag.

I dunno; I didn’t get this feeling myself because I first experienced this game by watching a playthrough that barely did any FTEs, but I have to wonder how many players had different experiences of being convinced that a completely different character was going to die than most other players would, based solely on who they chose to hang out with.

This last free time slot is a good one for asking around everyone before actually initiating an event. It’s the last slot before the time limit, and most people are starting to feel nervous about it.

Angie:  “Hmmmm, I feel like cloistering myself away right now. Atua’s not feeling lively, either.”

Even Angie seems to actually be worried, for once.

Shuichi:  “… There’s a whole day left… but I’m starting to get nervous. …I’m sorry I said something so pathetic. I’ll drink some tea and try to calm down… 

Even though Shuichi has a plan to survive the time limit, he’s nervous too. He’s hanging out in the lookout classroom, probably because he’s already feeling antsy about the plan.

Meanwhile, Rantaro is in the library standing close to the moving bookcase again.

Kokichi:  “When tomorrow night comes… and we all die… I wonder what Monokuma is gonna do? Will he end it… or just start a new one…?”

Here’s a neat hint that Kokichi has already figured out what’s up with Monokuma’s time limit. He realises that what Monokuma really wants isn’t to kill everyone but to have an entertaining killing game, so Kokichi’s wondering if Monokuma would really be satisfied with killing them all. He also seems aware of the fact that if the mastermind could kidnap all of them for this so easily, maybe they’re pretty expendable and the mastermind could just kidnap another bunch of kids and try again if this killing game fails.

All very intelligent, perceptive, useful observations that it would be really nice if he shared with everyone. The fact that he doesn’t very much indicates that he only cares about himself.

…Tsumugi, what are you doing hanging out in the Flashback Light classroom? I wonder if that’s just a coincidence, or if she was already preparing the Flashback Light for next chapter – wouldn’t be surprising, since that one is already there when they get to the next floors.

Maki:  “…Hey. Your research lab is open, right? Can you… show me?”

Meanwhile Maki seems more preoccupied with the labs than the fact she’s going to die tomorrow. She probably wants to see Kaede’s lab to get a sense of how obvious a person’s talent is from the inside of their lab, so that she knows how worried to be about her own opening up. Plus, it’s not like she actually needs Kaede’s permission to check out her lab, but maybe Maki’s asking because she knows she would hate someone going into her lab without permission.

But of course, our hangout partner of choice this time…

Kaito:  “There’s only one day until the time limit… Don’t worry, I’m not panicking. I’m an astronaut, after all!”

…is not remotely nervous what are you talking about. Astronauts are always fine!

Kaito:  “Oh, you wanna learn how to have peace of mind, like me? Alright, I’ll show you how!”

Kaede:  (I spent some time learning how to have some peace of mind from Kaito… But he told me stories that made me question his definition of peace of mind…)

Hee. Probably exciting, adventurous stories of effortlessly surviving ridiculous dangers despite seemingly-impossible odds, knowing him. It’s fun how oblivious he is to the fact that other people’s minds don’t work like his and maybe this kind of thing wouldn’t be anyone else’s idea of peace of mind.

Kaito:  “I’ve been thinking this for a while, but, Kaede, you’d make a pretty good astronaut.”

Didn’t I say Kaito has noticed how similar Kaede is to him? He’s been thinking about that a lot, apparently!

Kaito:  “First off, you’re able to both cooperate with people and lead them.”

Again showing how Kaito considers co-operation one of the most important qualities due to his astronaut training, and therefore values it so much in non-space-related people and situations too!

Kaito:  “I haven’t even had to rally everyone here together yet because you’ve beat me to it.”

I see you leaving out the reason why she beat you to it, Kaito. But this supports what I was saying before that he absolutely would have done if Kaede hadn’t done it first!

Kaito:  “But you do tend to go ahead on your own sometimes.”

Look who’s talking. Kaito, who out of the two of you nearly got themselves killed two days ago because they acted without thinking?

Kaede:  “That’s true…”

…Then again, Kaede’s not denying it. After all, she is doing something on her own without telling anyone, which is precisely what’s going to end up getting her killed, so really Kaito is right to be worried.

Kaito:  “How about I make you my sidekick?”

Oh, Kaito. This must sound ridiculous on a first playthrough but makes so much more sense when you’ve seen the whole story and understand that Kaito literally does this with people all the time.

But it’s also very interesting, because when Kaito considers someone his sidekick, he thinks of them as a person who needs his support and whom he’s now going to devote his efforts to helping… and that’s not Kaede. Kaede is just as emotionally strong and capable of managing on her own as Kaito is – possibly even more so. Kaito knows this. So what I think he’s really doing here is trying to make himself feel just as good as Kaede by pretending that she’s someone who might need his support, to hide from the reality that Kaede’s been leading and encouraging everyone and seemingly working on a plan to get them all out of here while Kaito has done nothing except nearly get himself killed.

Kaede tells him she’s not interested in being an astronaut (or his sidekick), but Kaito’s still planning on using his job to make it easier for normal people, including artists like her, to get into space one day too.

Kaito:  “I’m going to take the culture that grew on Earth and spread it across the universe!”

He’s so good! He cares so much about communication that he wants to let all those aliens out there know exactly what humanity is all about!

Kaito:  “There isn’t any unnecessary art or technology in this whole world!”

I love this. Even though he’s personally most enthusiastic about space, he thinks everyone and everything is important. He might have a seemingly inflated view of his own importance, but he truly believes that everybody else is just as incredibly important, too!

Kaede:  “I thought you just wanted to travel to space, and that’s it. But you’re already thinking about what you’ll do afterward.”

Kaede realises she underestimated him! There’s a lot more to Kaito being an astronaut than just thinking space is cool.

Kaito:  “Of course! I’ll create a path for the people who come after me! That’s my role!”

Even when it’s him being an astronaut, the thing that’s supposed to be the most about himself, Kaito is still thinking of it as something to help everyone else as much as possible and not just as his own personal achievement. He’s so, so good.

Kaito:  “I promise I’ll make a path out of here too, so don’t worry!”

This is his fully-voiced line for this event – because of course it is. He really, genuinely wants to be able to do that, even though he has no idea how. And in the end, he does manage to play an important role in getting everyone else out of there.

Kaede:  (He tried to convince me of his goals, despite having no way to pull them off… Only Kaito could be this confident without a plan…)

…Pretty much, Kaede, pretty much.

This is one of my favourite FTEs – they could have just made it about why Kaito wants to go into space, but instead they present it in a way which makes it also about Kaito’s similarity to Kaede and what he admires in her, which is so interesting and relevant and I’m really happy they had a whole thing about it here.

Kaede:  (No, it won’t be our last nighttime ever… Just our last night in this horrible place.)

Kaede is so determined. (To kill the mastermind.)

Kaede:  (Yeah… We promised we would all be friends once we got out.) “…”

That ellipsis implies there are some thoughts she’s having here that we’re not privy to. Probably about the fact that no-one would want to be friends with her if they knew she killed someone. This might be when she starts thinking about disguising her crime.

Kaede:  (The time limit was set to expire tonight… but weirdly enough, I was looking forward to it.)

Looking forward to saving everyone and getting out of here, of course! (Probably looking considerably less forward to becoming a murderer.)

Kaede:  (Even then… I barely slept the whole night.)

Yeah, plotting a murder can’t be good for your ability to get to sleep.

---

[Next post]

[echodrops]

Voltron or Final Fantasy 7?

In my last Voltron post I mentioned that Voltron Legendary Defender is really just Final Fantasy 7 with robot lions, so I wanted to elaborate on some of the comparisons.

Obviously this is mostly facetious; there are still several note-worthy differences between the two series, and if you want to get technical, Voltron certainly existed before Final Fantasy 7. However, it’s pretty obvious that someone on the writing team for Voltron Legendary Defender has been influenced by the plot and characters of Final Fantasy 7.

I mean...

We start out our story with the world in the clutches of an evil dictator, who by all rights, has no logical claim to the parts of the universe he controls, except that he has consolidated access to a seemingly unlimited supply of energy, which gives him military and utilitarian power over the hapless masses. (Also, bonus for their outfit color schemes matching almost exactly.)

The energy that these two scumbags are powering their military forces with is not just any energy, no sir: it’s actually the lifeblood of planets, the force that keeps worlds and everything on them alive.

In one of the most blatant cinematic parallels of all time, they forcefully draw out and refine this energy, using it for various purposes from powering their cities, building massive weapons, to creating armies of typically monstrous super soldiers, usually hopped up hard on the energy drug.

Meanwhile, our evil dictators rule from the thrones of their conspicuously ring-shaped dark fortresses that continue to slowly drain the life and peace from everything in reach.

But everyone knows that any villain worth his salt is backed up by an even more morally bankrupt and terrifying Mad Scientist:

Whose preoccupation with a calamity from another world

and penchant for creating horrific chimeras of flesh and machine

is about to cause everyone to have a very, very, bad day. Now where else have we seen pink glowing eyes, hm...

Of course, evil never reigns without opposition, so we have to have the consistently-out-of-focus-for-the-rest-of-the-series band of well-intentioned extremist rebels:

Although they talk a big game, their biggest accomplishment seems to mostly be getting themselves blown up.

They certainly aren’t responsible for killing their respective evil dictators, for example. Nope, that honor goes to:

The mysterious light-haired pretty boy with weird bangs, cat eyes, a sword, and a big ass chip on his shoulder over his parentage. He seems calm and rational, even sophisticated and princely--but it’s a thin veneer hiding a life-time of trauma and horror, and one wrong reveal about the identity of his mother could tip him over the edge into no-holds-barred madness. A dangerous free agent whose loyalties are questionable and whose existence is inextricably tied to the calamity from another world. He thinks He is among the last of the ancient mystical race of Cetra Alteans, who were eradicated by the creature from the other world, who infiltrated their society by possessing some of their closest allies.

Lotor also has shades of Rufus Shinra: seizes command after his father’s death, possibly still evil but everyone loves him anyway, commands a Quirky Mini Boss Squad:

Featuring in order: the One Who Rushes Into Everything, the Most Competent Right-Hand, the Quiet One, and the Plucky Redhead.

Of course, when the world needs saving from certain doom, a most beloved band of bizarre heroes will arise to answer destiny’s call:

The Stringy Inherited-Sword-Wielding Hero With Wack Hair

It’s a running gag to refer to him as a lone wolf and disinterested in other people, but under his prickly facade is a much softer, confused boy who is struggling hard with identity issues. He’s forced into a leadership role for which he is particularly ill-suited, and even though most people will leave the game/the show with the impression that he really grew into his leadership, the sum total of his accomplishments is actually causing far more trouble than would have occurred if he had just stayed home.

His obsession with finding and defeating light-haired pretty boy causes everyone no small amount of grief and then he ends up siding with said light-haired pretty boy anyway...

Can’t overcome the fact that he is deeply connected to the very thing he must defeat; he has Jenova Galra genes that lead him to question his role in the universe and whether or not he is a monster.

Incurably socially awkward country boy. Let’s mosey!

He learned everything he knows from:

The Black-Haired Best Friend with a Scar on His Face

Older, wiser, and in every way more competent than the stringy hero, this guy, complete with noticeable black and purple color scheme, is REAL hero material. He’s been through it all: held captive for year(s) by the mad scientist, “upgraded” and experimented upon with intentions of creating a true Super Soldier, something-something clones everywhere something-something... He has the good attitude and the powerful loyalty necessary to be a shining example of a white knight for the princess and is the standard which stringy hero knows he will never exceed. Stringy hero looks up to this guy more than anyone in the entire world, and this guy would give it all--even his life--to protect the people who mean the most to him. Complete with dramatic mid-series meaningful haircut!

Despite being a fan favorite, the creators spend more time writing this guy out of the series than they do actually using him to his best potential...

Shiro also has some shades of Vincent Valentine: atoner who fears he has become a monstrous tool for the enemy, despite his deep-down incredibly good heart. Some people like to pair him with the Genki Girl.

Mostly seen in the company of:

Princess Last of Her Kind

Don’t let her soft looks and pink color motif fool you! The “princess” is a strong, independent girl who does what she wants, when she wants, up to and including sacrificing herself to save the day when all the other heroes fail at life. As the last of her mystical and mysterious race, she possesses strange magics that allow her to feel the life force of all living beings and tap into the very energy that Shinra the Galra Empire are harvesting. Capable of wielding a staff, her actual greatest strength is her healing magic, which has the power to bring an entire planet back from the brink of death.

Her people were destroyed from within by betrayal at the hands of the calamity, and their sole remaining Plot MacGuffin, the white materia Voltron is the only thing left that can save the world. Despite being technologically advanced beyond all reason, her people were ancient peacekeepers who still, inexplicably, built stone temples.

The Promised Land Oriande is not a faerie tale.

Strongly flower-themed:

Then we have:

The Brilliant Young Rascal

As a character, Pidge isn’t actually a one-for-one to anyone in FF7. Yuffie’s acrobatic stunts and mischievous Genki Girl personality embody one obvious part of Pidge, but Yuffie lacks Pidge’s tech-ish brilliance and competent follow-through. In that regard, Pidge is actually somewhat closer to Red XIII: smart, inquisitive, and usually mature, their deep inner-conflicts, especially regarding the fate of their fathers, reveal their weaknesses and the truth that they’re still young, uncertain people who fear for the future of their world and sometimes feel helpless in the face of the staggering tasks put before them. They are deeply attuned to nature but also raised by someone whose technology is capable of revealing incredible truths about the universe. Both of them are also fish out of water when it comes to befriending new people, and they often feel like they do better on their own than trying to rely on people who aren’t part of their trusted family.

Courage the Cowardly Cat

Although it’s certainly tempting to compare Hunk to Barret, based somewhat on appearance and even, to a certain extent, on personality--Barret is a huge softy underneath who just loves his family and wants to do right in the world--Hunk has much more in common with Cait Sith, the robotic cat/moogle combo who is secretly an alter ego for the brilliant architect Reeve Tuesti. Cowardly and often the butt of jokes from teammates and enemies alike, Cait Sith is frequently underestimated and flies under the radar, allowing him to keep his own secrets even while sticking his nose in just about everyone else’s business. Although he’s not initially sold on the heroes’ goal of saving the world, he soon has a change of heart that makes him into a fast and loyal ally. Despite the fact that he’s made of “fluff,” in the hour of greatest need, it’s Cait Sith who steps up to rescue everyone, essentially single-handedly saving the world.

His creator is an incredible and genius engineer who longs to use his creations to better the lives of common people, but he’s also sarcastic and unafraid to tell it like it is, even if that means he’s telling his own allies where they’ve messed up badly.

His predictions about the future always seem to come true...

The Emotional Backbone of the Party

Don’t get me wrong, both Lance and Tifa are formidable fighters on their own, whose talents shine in different areas of combat than the traditional sword-wielding heroes. But their greatest strengths actually seem to lie in their ability to support their allies. When stringy hero falls into despair and falters in his leadership, it’s this right-hand role who steps up to bear the weight and get the party back on track. The voice of reason and drive, Lance and Tifa are go-getters who won’t let anyone settle for giving less than their best, and they definitely aren’t willing to sit around listening to tired old excuses when they could be out saving the world. Razzle Dazzle time!

They are both influenced strongly by their families and tend to listen to the feelings and struggles of others much more than they are willing to share their own feelings and fears. The others come to rely on them as an emotional crutch, whose central job it is to reassure, validate, and empower the team, sometimes at the cost of their own happiness.

But they weren’t always this way, and in fact, in the past, they happened to be a bit shallow and excitable, with a penchant for throwing themselves into situations which were way, way too far out their league and for rarely, if ever, listening to good advice. Head-strong and romantic, they started out as dreamers before the war took its toll.

They definitely had a rocky beginning with their stringy hero--they were not friends--but, by the middle end of the series, have grown and matured as characters into a strong person who not only helps guide the hero but also holds up better in the face of all the trauma and suffering the party experienced.

Even being such a central character, they get a bare minimum amount of dialogue, leading many fans to interpret the character however they see fit, causing both Lance and Tifa to become common stand-ins for the fans themselves.

(Despite both losing their place as the “heart of the party” to the “Princess,” they never become jealous of her.)

And finally:

Coranic The Mechanic

Coran and Cid Highwind don’t have that much in common in terms of personality, except both being extreme dorks with notable accents, but I wonder how much of that is because Voltron is a kids’ show and Cid’s chain-smoking, curse-laden, women-abusing attitude just wouldn’t fly in a place like that. In terms of story role, they fill the exact same niche: the older male mechanic who advises and leads when needed to, despite his advice often seeming eccentric at best to those he’s trying to lead. He��s in charge of flying the ship while the others race off into danger, and if you lay one dirty finger on his baby, he will probably throw you overboard.

Tough as nails, despite all appearances, but also tried, true, and loyal to a fault. Won’t give up, even in the face of insurmountable danger, and gets a big kick out of killing bad guys. Impeccable timing for dramatic last second saves.

PHEW, got ‘em all!

In case you need anything else to convince you that you’re watching an at least partially repackaged story, don’t forget the:

Bizarre Egyptian-themed ancient stone temple where the mystical race of the Cetra Alteans kept the deepest secrets of their magic.

Really unlucky magic rock from space.

Gigantic killer robot beasts.

An overly-drawn-out and somewhat poorly explained clone plot line that just leaves the fans even more confused.

And OF COURSE:  infamously long unskippable summoning sequences.

tl;dr:

If you’re in the game of predicting where Voltron’s future plot might go, you would not be misguided to go play FF7 as fuel for your predictions. And if you’re a Voltron fan who still hasn’t played FF7... What are you even doing with your life? Get out of here!

[junker-town]

Every Seahawks game of 2018, ranked by how well they Established The Run

The Seahawks ran their way right out of the playoffs — but when did it actually work for them?

It started Week 1, after the Seahawks lost to the Broncos by three points despite staying close for the entire game. “Not enough [rushing],” Pete Carroll told reporters by way of explanation for the loss. “The reason was we didn’t covert on third down. It’s just football. That leaves you where you don’t get your next series.”

Wait, no — it started after the draft, where the Seahawks took running back Rashaad Penny with the 27th overall pick. “We wanted to make sure we’re at the core of who we want to be, and the running game is a lot of that,” Carroll said in a post-draft press conference.

Or maybe it started in 1994, when Carroll was the head coach of the New York Jets. “Coach Pete Carroll believes that in order for the Jets to be successful, they have to establish their running game, something they have had trouble doing this season,” wrote Jason Diamos in the New York Times.

Whenever it began, the 2018 Seahawks were certainly on an explicit, season-long mission to Establish The Run — an ironic goal for a team, at least in the Carroll era, best known for a play when they didn’t run the ball. In an era when NFL offenses are scoring at an unprecedented rate, the Seahawks preferred to grind out points despite the absence of an A-list back (Chris Carson, you are incredible, but it’s true). “You know, I don’t mind being different at all,” Carroll insisted in a press conference that followed the midseason Chiefs/Rams Monday Night Football spectacle. Free to be you and me, the Seahawks way.

But as Seahawks fans would soon learn, in the post-Marshawn Lynch era, the run game was to be treated like a beautiful, delicate flower that required careful and often counterintuitive cultivation.

If the team was having success running the ball, one simply kept running, running like a million Pats fans with Super Bowl XLIX goal-line interception GIFs were chasing them. If the team wasn’t having success running the ball, all that meant was that the run had not yet been established; that it was necessary to keep running it until, like Cris Collinsworth into Sunday Night Football camera frame, it appeared, fully realized and ready to take on the world.

Offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer alone holds the secret to this process, one that remains opaque to much of football Twitter. During the Wild Card game versus the Cowboys, for example, a sequence during which Schotty abandoned his preferred run-run-pass sequence for the rarely seen run-run-run-pass inspired vocal chagrin, even beyond the self-referential bounds of Seahawks Twitter. Previously, that rag-tag group had been able to focus their ire on former offensive line coach Tom Cable; now, the whims and wiles of the younger Schottenheimer (who brings up his father more often than is entirely reasonable) — and accordingly, the relative merits of running the ball — are their primary object of discussion.

As is now abundantly clear, the Seahawks failed to Establish The Run in the playoffs — but not for lack of trying. Though they didn’t actually run the most in the NFL (that title belongs to the Ravens, who are also out of the playoffs), they ran ... a lot. Here are all 17 regular and postseason Seahawks games, ranked by how well the run was established from “Wow, we really had 5 yards on offense in a quarter” to “We’re never throwing again!!!*(#*!”

17. The Wild Card Game, Dallas Cowboys

The Seahawks rushed and rushed and rushed some more, for a sum total of 3 yards per carry. The run briefly appeared to be Established when Russell Wilson ran for a touchdown, and then Carson ran for the two-point conversion — but it was a mirage. In total, they ran 73 yards and threw for 226 to wind up losing by ... two points.

16. Week 1, Denver Broncos

So much passing, so little rushing: a paltry 64 yards, almost half of which was the result of one long run by Penny. For shame — a loss was (checks notes) inevitable.

15. Week 2, Chicago Bears

Trying to run the ball against Khalil Mack is a challenge, to put it mildly. But the Seahawks persisted — even after a fourth-quarter touchdown to Tyler Lockett made a win possible, they kept running because if you let up for even a minute the run might unestablish itself and that, my friends, would be a disaster. They lost.

14. Week 12, Carolina Panthers

The run was decidedly not Established, as the Seahawks had just 2.7 yards per carry. And yet — and yet — they won. Incomprehensible.

“On a day when we couldn’t run the ball like we had been, we needed the throwing game, and Russ came through and had a great day throwing the football,” Carroll said afterwards. “He just found so many key plays in crucial situations, and did a wonderful job of making plays down the stretch when we had to have them. Guys made the catches, and the pass protection was there for us. We love to run the football, but balance is what’s really the essence of this thing, and I’m thrilled we were able to do that.”

In other words, the run was so well-Established from the previous games that it actually held over into the Panthers game, casting a magical protective aura around the team that allowed them to have a successful offensive performance. The power of the run simply cannot be understated.

Russell Wilson's 4th & 3 throw was incredible... Dropped it right into David Moore's lap for the touchdown. #Seahawkspic.twitter.com/sx4lN2I09S

— Samuel Gold (@SamuelRGold) November 27, 2018

13. Week 3, Dallas Cowboys

The run was only very tenuously Established — 2.9 yards per carry — but the team got its first win of the season. Perverse.

12. Week 9, Los Angeles Chargers

It was a home game, and Carroll and Schottenheimer knew what the fans wanted: The Run. And so it was very, very Established — so Established that when the fourth quarter came around, the team felt that it was safe to throw to the Seahawks’ best receiver, running back Mike Davis, five times. They lost — an important lesson to those who might consider throwing.

11. Week 6, Oakland Raiders

Establishing The Run worked, in the sense that the Seahawks threw for three touchdowns which is the ultimate purpose of Establishing The Run: to run so often that you can throw successfully. But a win against the Raiders only sort of counts.

10 & 9. Weeks 13 and 15, San Francisco 49ers

There might be no better illustration of the agony and the ecstasy of The Run than the Seahawks’ games versus the Niners. They ran for the exact same number of yards — 168 — in both games, resulting in one win and one loss. “How is this possible?”, you might ask. Well, in Week 13 Bobby Wagner had a 98-yard interception return, which is something of an Establishing The Run cheat code.

8 & 7. Weeks 5 and 10, Los Angeles Rams

The Seahawks ran a lot — Carson had 116 yards in Week 5, and Penny had 108 in Week 10. But, inexplicably, the Rams threw more. It’s an unorthodox strategy but it paid off, for despite the fact that the Seahawks Established The Run (and weirdly scored exactly 31 points in both games), the Rams still won.

6. Week 4, Arizona Cardinals

This was when the Seahawks Established The Run for what felt like the first time in a millennium. The Cardinals win marked two games in a row where Seahawks running backs had had 100-yard games. “We really needed to focus and establish that we could run the football and find our offensive line’s nature,” said Carroll. “I think we’ve really tapped into that. That’s really important and it’s a long, long season.”

5. Week 8, Detroit Lions

The Seahawks averaged 4.2 yards per carry, and even punting savant Michael Dickson had a 9-yard carry — needless to say, the Run was Established. This game, a classic run-down-their-throat Seahawks W, was also the inspiration for the first Cable Thanos (the Tom Cable-inspired online moniker of Seahawks Twitter’s most enterprising meme-maker) video, the most important milestone of the season.

4. Week 11, Green Bay Packers

So you think you have one of the best quarterbacks of all time — but have you Established The Run? NOPE. Another win for the Runaround Hawks.

3. Week 17, Arizona Cardinals

The Run was real, and she was spectacular — a Carson touchdown and a Davis touchdown fueled the team’s postseason dreams.

Mike Davis follows Chris Carson's 61-yard run with a 17-yard TD run. Seahawks up 21-13. #Seahawks #AZvsSEA pic.twitter.com/xlF2Xkg9rW

— SeahawksUnited (@SeahawksUnited_) December 30, 2018

2. Week 14, Minnesota Vikings

Who needs throwing when you have Carson and Sebastian Janikowski, honestly? Russ even had a 40-yard run, because it was just that Established.

40-yard run by Russell Wilson to most likely ice the game pic.twitter.com/3o5eOuI0ql

— Jimmy Clarke (@JimmyClarke) December 11, 2018

1. Week 16, Kansas City Chiefs

Imagine having one of the best offenses in the league, one of the most innovative playcallers around, and a QB in the middle of a record-setting season — and still losing. Has Andy Reid even heard of Establishing The Run? Perhaps Schotty can give him a few tips before this weekend.

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Fantasy Football Booms/Busts 2018: The Atlanta Falcons

Hitting the pylon was a very rare sight for Julio Jones owners last year. How many TDs should investors expect this time around? (AP Photo/Chris O’Meara)

As the mercury rises and we inch closer to the open of training camps, our resident fantasy football sickos, Brad Evans and Liz Loza, will profile their favorite booms/busts of every NFL team. Today’s topic: The Dirty Birds. Julio Jones found the end-zone a measly three times last year. OVER or UNDER 8.5 touchdowns this season?

Brad – UNDER. Whether it’s attempting to kick rubber balls or scoring touchdowns, Julio is allergic. There isn’t enough Claritin in Georgia to quell his sniffles. Whether it’s absent chemistry with Matt Ryan or plain bad luck, Jones can’t rid himself of the TD ills. Though OC Steve Sarkisian made it a point to force feed his prized receiver near the goal-line, No. 11 walked away with a comical number of touchdowns in 2017. Again, it wasn’t for a lack of attempts. His red-zone target percentage jumped significantly from 2016 (11.8-to-26.4). He also recorded the fifth-highest end-zone target rate (44.1%, 15 targets) among all wide receivers. But scoring connections were few and far between. Ryan posted a ghastly 35.1 QB rating when throwing to Jones inside the red zone.

Though he’s topped the proposed total only once in his seven-year career, Julio’s three goal-line crosses last season was an anomaly. Even with the addition of Calvin Ridley, he should solicit at least 26 percent of the target share, many of those coming within striking distance. Forecasting 6-8 TDs for him this fall, Jones is a strong candidate to finish inside the WR top-five. Recall, thanks to his 88 receptions for 1,444 yards, he was the virtual game’s WR5 in total fantasy points in ’17.

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Liz – UNDER. Not since 2012 has Jones hauled in more than 8 TDs in a season. Under the direction of Kyle Shanahan, Julio averaged .46 scores per game, falling short of the proposed number (14 TDs over 30 regular season games). Last year, under Steve Sarkisian, Julio’s end zone struggles continued. I remember a lot of theoretical pundits ranting about getting Julio more involved in the red area of the field, but when reviewing the data… Sark tried.

Despite drawing 19 red zone targets (an average of 1.2 per game, which was up significantly from .71 per contest in 2016), the 29-year-old wideout managed just three scores. Whether it was a funk brought on by the regime change, or something more complex, the fact still remains that over a seven-year career Jones’ reception and yardage totals have dwarfed his end zone prowess. Expect 6-8 TDs from the Falcons’ stud receiver and consider anything beyond the mark gravy. FF: 85-1,400-7

Briefly, are Devonta Freeman (21.5 ADP, RB14) and Tevin Coleman (64.1 ADP, RB29) OVERVALUED/UNDERVALUED or PROPERLY VALUED at their respective ADPs?

Liz – PROPERLY VALUED. Freeman has never been the biggest or fastest back in the league, but his vision and patience have more than compensated for any physical shortcomings. While he didn’t post top-eight FF numbers in 2017 – a regression from his previous two outings – he still managed low-end RB1 numbers and 13 goal line carries (#3 among RBs). Averaging 4.4 YPC on the season, the 26-year-old remained efficient, managing 4.8 YPC against base fronts. Earning 4 more carries per game than Tevin Coleman, Freeman will continue as the team’s RB1. He’s currently my RB12, though that would obviously change were he to re-tweak his knee. 

PROPERLY VALUED. If Freeman goes down (knee), Coleman will feast, as he did in Weeks 10-12 of last year. Averaging over 20 touches per game, 80 yards per contest, and scoring three times, the Indiana product gifted fantasy owners with two top-ten (and one top-twenty) finishes. The only problem is… he’s still Atlanta’s back-up. But with Taylor Gabriel in Chicago, Coleman’s work in the passing game is expected to increase, which certainly adds to his appeal in PPR-friendly formats. A top-twenty FF producer in back-to-back season, Coleman’s upside is healthy enough to warrant a sixth-round investment.

Brad – UNDERVALUED. If Freeman were a TV show he would be “Ozark.” Though it doesn’t generate the publicity blockbusters “Game of Thrones” or “Westworld” do, the Jason Bateman joint is brilliant and consistently enrapturing. Same could be said for the Falcons running back.

Compared to the likes of Kareem Hunt, Leonard Fournette or Melvin Gordon, Freeman doesn’t receive the recognition he deserves. Over the past three seasons no rusher accumulated more fantasy points in .5 or full PPR. Still, somehow, he’s falling into the latter portion of Round 2 in 12-team exercises. Off a 2017 campaign in which he finished top-12 in total breakaway runs (15+ yards), total evaded tackles, yards per carry against base fronts (4.8) and fantasy points per game, he exhibits one of the safest floors. Despite the inexplicable drop-off in receptions (Thanks, Sark) and concussion worries, Freeman remains a sensational value at his current ADP. On roughly 55-60 percent of the opportunity share look for him to again rack around 1,300 combined yards with double-digit scores working behind a top-five run-blocking line.

UNDERVALUED. Coleman remains one of fantasy’s finest RB sidekicks; “The Anvil” to “The Hitman.” His upright running style frightens many, but he’s a lightning bolt in the open field, a sure-handed receiver and robust between the tackles (3.0 YAC/att in ’17). He’s finished RB19 and RB22 in .5 PPR the last two seasons. Sark’s refusal to dial up designed pass plays to RBs has spooked many, but Coleman, like his tag-team partner, is unfairly discounted. His surroundings are quite nurturing. Another RB25 finish or better is likely.

By his perceived value, will Calvin Ridley (140.8 ADP, WR56) BOOM or BUST in his rookie season?

Brad – BUST. Hate to break it to some in attendance, but Ridley probably isn’t this year’s JuJu Smith-Schuster. Full disclosure, he carved up defenses with balletic footwork in a conservative offense last season with Alabama. According to Matt Harmon’s info-rich Reception Perception metrics, the wideout notched an 80 percent or better success rate on nine of 10 tracked routes. He also tallied a 91.1 percent success rate against zone coverage, an astonishing feat.

However, Ridley is far from a sure thing. He owns cartoonish wheels (4.43-40 yard dash), but his lackluster SPARQ score (31st percentile) and svelte build (6-foot-1, 189 pounds) raise questions about how he’ll handle stiff press coverage. Then there’s the opportunity path. Unless Julio Jones or Mohamed Sanu are felled by a substantial injury, he’ll struggle to attract Ryan’s attention. Recall Taylor Gabriel, the role he’s filling, recorded 9.9 percent of the target share in 2017. At the end of the day, a Ridley line in range of 40-475-4 is most likely in Year 1.

Liz – BUST. I fully understand the hype. Ridley, undoubtedly, landed in a plus situation. Not only will he share the field with Julio, but he also has a shot at becoming the team’s No. 2 WR. Mohamed Sanu is entering his age 29 season and has battled a host of nagging injuries (groin, hamstring, knee, etc.) since landing in Atlanta. It’s additionally encouraging that Ridley, who was used primarily in the slot in college, took reps on the outside during OTAs.

Still, he’s a rookie, and evolution takes time. I dig his long-term potential, but this is a guy who disappointed under the bright lights of the Combine. I’m not taking him ahead of proven guys like Michael Crabtree or potential breakouts like Mike Williams. BONUS – Fill in the blank. Matt Ryan throws for ____ yards and ____ TDs finishing ____ among fantasy QBs.

Liz – 4,285 yards and 26 TDs, QB12. Drafting Matt Ryan has always been a floor play. Since gaining Julio as a weapon, Matty Ice has produced QB1 numbers six of the last eight years. 2016 proved to be the only season Ryan finished among the top-five fantasy players at the position. A season removed from a crushing Super Bowl loss, and with another summer adjusting to Sarkisian’s offense, Ryan should improve on his 2017 just enough to finish a low-end QB1.

Brad – 4,276 yards; 24 TDs; QB18. Unless he reclaims the pinpoint accuracy exhibited in 2016, he’s only an occasional plug ‘n play stream option in 12-team, single-QB leagues. Bring the blitz on Twitter. Follow Brad (@YahooNoise) and Liz (@LizLoza_FF).

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6 Things Hollywood Always Gets Wrong About Being A Teenager

Presumably, every single writer in Hollywood was at some point in time a teenager. At the very least, they probably inject themselves with teenage blood in order to keep their organs strong and their skin moist. So how in the world do they know nothing about them? It’s … it’s the cocaine, isn’t it? Well, whatever it is, pay attention, writers. We’re about to help you out …

6

All Teens Are Totally Free To Interrupt Gym Class Or Practice

Teen movies like to portray gym teachers and coaches as sadistic disciplinarians who must win at all costs, yet they’re also super OK with anyone walking onto the field and interrupting things. Movie football practice has to stop every three minutes for each player’s girlfriend to walk onto the field and have a long conversation with him. In The Duff, the protagonist goes right up to the quarterback as he’s running drills.

Lionsgate Films“Hey! Star athlete in the middle of a play! Let’s talk about science class! No, YOU get the hell off the field, COACH.”

In 10 Things I Hate About You, a male student interrupts an all-girl archery class without anyone telling him he’s not allowed to just show up there for so, so many reasons.

Touchstone Pictures“Sup? You in class? Being watched very closely by a protective gym teacher as you shoot a dangerous weapon? Cool, cool.”

In Superbad, Seth has no problem completely ruining the gym class soccer game to talk to his buddy. People seem a little annoyed, but not to the point of anyone kicking him out. The PE teacher barely manages an irritated “Come on.”

Columbia Pictures“No, YOU come on! Movie school by-law 48B states that if I want to ruin a soccer game, you can’t do a goddamn thing about it!”

Once you notice this, you’ll see it everywhere. In Juno, about 30 seconds into the movie, everyone’s favorite quirky preggo hipster interrupts a track team’s cross-country practice to talk to her baby daddy, and the rest of the team continues as if nothing matters. Sandy in Grease tries the same thing, and can’t seem to understand why Danny won’t talk to her, despite the fact that he’s obviously in the middle of track practice.

Paramount Pictures“Sandy, I need to get a mustachey blowjo- I mean FINISH PRACTICE.”

5

All Teenagers Take The Same Classes, Everywhere

While pop culture would have you believe that teenagers spend all day making sex bets and hatching revenge schemes in response to sex bets, the truth is that they spend most of their time sitting in class. Literally, everyone who has ever written a script should know this and be able to get this fundamental element of teen life right, but much like the teens of today, they just can’t even.

Real high schools have level systems to separate students by academic ability, if not AP or honors courses to further separate our future leaders from the future opioid addicts and pyramid scheme victims. Movies and television are always sorting characters into jock, nerd, and slacker roles — which would absolutely have different schedules — and then throwing them all into the same class and hoping nobody notices.

Teen shows will have the smartest kids in school taking the exact same class as the pothead four grades behind and the lineman about to get kicked off the football team for failing lunch. For instance, in Boy Meets World, Topanga winds up being the valedictorian, yet she’s in class with Cory, the idiot, and Shawn, the wisecracking slacker. Even toward the end of high school, they have the exact same classes. Is this a Philadelphia school with only one classroom’s worth of students?

ABC Studios“Psst! Topanga! Who is this ‘Biology’ girl everyone is talking about? Is she hot?”

On Saved By The Bell, Jessie is an obsessive overachiever who resorts to speed pills to study longer, Kelly is an airhead cheerleader, Screech is more like a chimpanzee than a human, and Zack is a sociopath who would break up an administrator’s marriage in order to get out of class. And yet there they are, all in the same room.

Universal Television“Welcome to All the Math 1.”

Daria is in the same class as the cheerleaders and football players, who are portrayed as being so stupid that she can barely manage to feel contempt for them. Which must suck for her, because she’s learning the same things at the same rate they are.

Paramount Television“Class, please open your All the Math books to Chapter 4: Beginner and Advanced Math.”

Mean Girls also apparently takes place in a school with only one math class. Cady is “really good” at math, while Aaron is “kinda bad” at it, and yet they are in the exact same class, junior year. Should a mathlete like Lindsay Lohan really be sitting behind the handsome boy who has to count on his fingers? What’s she going to get out of that situation, other than HPV?

Paramount Pictures“Teacher, the answer is 1 over cute butt to the dreamy eyes!”

Read Next

5 Common Sayings That Mean The Opposite Of What You Think

In The Duff, Bianca is great at science, while Wesley is a jock with grades so bad that he is academically ineligible to play football and might lose his scholarship to Ohio State University, home of this tweet. By the end of the movie, he can’t get a grade above a B+, even with Bianca tutoring him every day. How could they possibly be in the same class? She should be in AP physics with all the other nerds, and he should be collecting bugs and guessing the names of rocks. The point is, this isn’t a frontier classroom by a pig farm– teachers don’t throw all the kids into one room and read to all of them from the same Bible anymore.

4

Cool Kids Love Carpooling

Hip teens are all about their spicy memes, Tide pod lunches, and sharing one vehicle between large groups of friends. Hollywood thinks that nothing screams cool like the environmentally friendly practice of carpooling, especially if you’re a teenager heading to and from school. TV teens are, like, so totally concerned about their carbon footprint that they cram into cars like they’re Bangladeshi buses.

Warner Bros. Television“One Tree Hill? They should have called it One Car H-“ “I will crash this car, Melissa. I will do it. I would love to do it.”

And it’s not like we are talking about friends aimlessly cruising around together. No, this trope is specific to the school commute, which all movie teens love. They act like driving to five different houses at the crack of dawn to pick up everyone for first period fills them with the raddest, most tubular joy.

Paramount PicturesThat girl’s probably mean because she’s been operating a door-to-school shuttle since 5 a.m.

This strange phenomenon happens in pretty much all teen-centered media across the decades, from Fast Times At Ridgemont High to 13 Reasons Why. Which is odd, since real teenagers think carpooling is about as cool as unregulated gun ownership.

Universal PicturesThe only way these guys managed to visit three locations and smoke a pound of weed before school would be if they were trying to make it to school two days ago.

3

There Is An Unlimited Amount Of Time Between High School Classes

Movies and shows think the time between classes constitutes about 70 percent of the entire school day. In a real school, you usually get five minutes to walk three minutes’ worth of distance. It doesn’t leave a ton of time to have profound conversations or gather together for bully ambushes. But in fictional high schools, like the one in Boy Meets World, you can style your hair, witness the beginning, middle, and end of a relationship, and give yourself a haircut. All between classes, with no one expressing any sense of urgency.

Their school gives them 90 minutes between periods. They know you always gotta look fly.

In Riverdale, they have time to trade long monologues and accuse each other of elaborate murder plans while still presumably making it to their next class.

“Can some of this intrigue wait until after school? I only have 40 more minutes to make it to Beginner/Advanced All Math. You know this, because you have it too. So do all of you. Hey, why did we even switch rooms?”

2

Teenagers Are Always Having Consequence-Free Food Fights

In a movie or TV show, all it takes to turn a room into a war zone is for one character to yell the words “FOOD FIGHT!” It’s as if movie teens have been waiting their whole lives to get covered in cafeteria food — objectively the worst kind of food. Try to think if there’s ever been a time in your life when that proposition interested you, much less enthralled an entire room full of carefully styled teenagers in their favorite outfits.

20th Television“Tee-hee, look at us ruin thousands of dollars’ worth of musical equipment!”

That last picture is a property-destroying riot from Glee, in an episode about several of the senior Glee Clubbers coming to terms with how they���ll soon be leaving the only school where everyone expresses themselves through song and dance. They halfheartedly attempt to recruit their replacements, and somehow, moments later, it is the goddamn food Purge.

“I’m going to miss this place, you guys. Wait, I have an idea! DESTROY THE FUCKING SCHOOL!”

In Vice Principals, two rival educators are trying to kill each other, and their angry presence sparks a massive food fight. So it seems that any chaos, whether it is life and death or plain silly fun, will ignite the volatile powder keg that is teen lunching.

We see these inexplicable, random fights break out over and over in films like Matilda, Max Keeble’s Big Move, Whip It!, Valley Girl, and Animal House. They also happen in shows like Lizzie Macguire, Boy Meets World, The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody, and even Power Rangers. Just because you defend the world from Lord Zedd does not mean you’re above trying to destroy a bunch of children with handfuls of chili.

Saban BrandsWhile they threw cake, 40,000 people died in a TurbanShell attack.

Picture the aftermath of a real school food fight. You’d have to spend at least a couple of hours covered in caked-on rotting food, all mixed together to form the exact recipe for vomit. You have to go home and explain to your parents why your best pants are ruined, your phone is filled with mashed potatoes, and your books have been soaking in melted Jello. The cafeteria is a legitimate biohazard that no school budget is prepared to deal with. Now try to picture the trouble you’d be in. Well, in a movie, nobody gives a shit.

You can create a tornado of garbage, and there won’t be a single consequence. Five episodes of Glee should have been them singing sad songs in detention after they destroyed an entire cafeteria. There should have been a scene in which they begged their principal not to press criminal charges with a Salt n’ Pepa song. You can’t simply decide to start a landfill where you stand because someone screams “food fight.” It absolutely does not go well when it happens in real life, as we see time and time and time and time again.

1

Teenagers Love To Hang Out Before Heading To School

For most of us, a school day started with a very unwelcome alarm, followed by a tough decision between personal hygiene and more sleep. Once you finally got ready and maybe ate something, you got on the bus or in the car with as close to zero seconds to spare as possible.

In movies, teenagers are always hanging out at their friends’ houses, meeting up in arcades, or stopping by the home of an elderly mad scientist of no relation to play guitar. High school has an average start time of 8:00 a.m., and most people take around 11 to 30 minutes to get ready. So even assuming you live next door to your school, you’re getting up at 7:48 at the latest. What kind of meth addict teenager gets up and does more than zero things before 7:48?

In a movie, that’s totally normal. Bill and Ted, two slacker kids failing out of school, managed to get up early enough to get together and then write, produce, and perform a music video before school.

Orion PicturesIt’s as if time travel movies don’t care about linear time.

Here’s a clip of Michael Cera and Jonah Hill in Superbad, both awake so early that they have time to share their masturbation fantasies while buying a slushie before school.

Jonah Hill, in particular, always seems to be up in time to run all his errands before his first class. He’s just a goddamn go-getter. In 21 Jump Street, neither he nor Channing Tatum mention how fucking early it is when they go pick up a new car before their first day as undercover high-schoolers. How the hell do movie teenagers manage to fit in a whole day before 8 a.m.?

Columbia Pictures/MGM StudiosIt’s as grand a mystery as 27-year-old Dave Franco being cast as a real, non-undercover high school student.

Diego Rivera is a film student from Chile. He’s sometimes funny on Twitter. Jordan Breeding also writes for Paste Magazine, the Twitter, himself, and is taller than literally every teenager.

You only wish you had an alarm clock as powerful as these kids’.

Support Cracked’s journalism with a visit to our Contribution Page. Please and thank you.

For more ways Hollywood sucks for teenagers, check out 5 Horrible Life Lessons Learned From Teen Movies and 5 Weird Things That Teen Shows Think About Actual Teens.

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Syraq SITREP 31: SecState Tillerson Commits Trump Admin to U.S. Occupation of Eastern Syria

The ISIS 'USUS' GCC Game and the Turn of Turkey

As experienced Mideast correspondent Elijah J. Magnier observes, in a piece picked up by Zerohedge, Daesh would have never been puffed up into a terrorist super army, if it were not for the not so covert support of the Gulf States and NATO governments. Together with Israel, which overtly aided Al-Qaeda on its borders and whose commanders confessed they preferred the Takfirists presence to that of Iranian advisers, these nations 'deep states' cynically sought to funnel the terrorists into the war against Assad and Iran.

By design, the vacuum left behind by Daesh defeat has been filled by American boots on the ground, a classified but estimated 4,000 soldiers and contractors, spread across at least nine bases large and small in the Kurdish areas of Syria. This development and the deliberately provocative announcement of an American proxy army composed of Kurds has antagonized Turkey, a former abettor of ISIS, to move against the YPG Kurds armed and trained by U.S. special forces. Despite the U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson affirming a commitment to a long term (and illegal under international law) occupation east of the Euphrates for the nominal purpose of checking Iran and pressuring Assad, it isn't clear to date whether both Moscow and Washington will again tacitly cooperate to limit Ankara's incursions into Syrian Kurdish areas.

You Occupy (Part of It), You Own It: Trump, Tillerson Can No Longer Blame Neocons if Things Go South Fast in Syria

The Russian Analyst is disgusted, but not surprised by the casual acceptance by American mainstream media and population of a Secretary of State announcing a (totally illegal under international law) occupation on the sovereign territory of a country whose internationally recognized government rejects the U.S. military presence. Certainly the hypocrisy of Washington openly dismembering the territorial integrity of a smaller state while accusing Moscow of doing the same through the much smaller Russian footprint of GRU 'polite people' in the formerly Ukrainian controlled Donbass republics is rich.

Nor is it surprising that prominent alt-media figures who would have rightly condemned such moves under Presidents Dubya or Obama like Infowars' Alex Jones go easy on the President or attribute the policy to the malign influence of neocons nominally under his command, like UN Ambassador Nikki Haley or the aggressively anti-Iranian/Russian generals National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and Secretary of Defense James Mattis. Nonetheless, given Tillerson's reputation for having cut deals with the Russian government while running Exxon and a more pragmatic, non-neocon profile emerging from the global energy industry, his announcement of such an inherently contradictory and thus doomed policy is doubly disappointing.

No longer can Trump blame the policy on aides he inexplicably fails for the 4d chess crowd to sack (most likely due to the influence of pro-Israel megadonors like Sheldon Adelson conveyed through the derisively dubbed by the banished Steve Bannon 'Javanka', the daughter and son in law duo who convinced the CINC to strike a Syrian air field after last April's chemical false flag). If American soldiers start coming back in flag-draped coffins from Syria due to either ISIS or Damascus aligned Hezbollah attacks, Trump will own the political backlash, both from those who already hated him, and among his America First base, to whom he promised (unlike that warmonger Hillary) not to fight Assad.

With that said, as patriotic Americans we certainly want U.S. troops not to be targeted, even as we intellectually understand, by aligning their positions so closely with those of regional heavyweights Israel and Saudi Arabia, this stupid policy is putting targets on the backs of our troops. The fact that Hezbollah and the Iranian backed militias have thus far abstained from hitting U.S. troops is owed more to their alliance with Russia imposing restraints and desire to avoid a larger conflagration then to an imagined invulnerability of the Americans both military and 'civilian' (read: CIA and contractors) in predominantly Kurdish areas. Furthermore, though Daesh remnants have concentrated their suicide bombing attacks on the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and YPG Kurds, it isn't clear that they will abstain from going off their steady script of attacking Saudi/Israeli enemies and target the U.S. infidels soon, as the original Bin Laden 'led' Al-Qaeda did following their successful 1980s collaboration with CIA against the Soviets.

While Turkey Threatens Afrin, Moscow Invites Washington's Representatives to Sochi While 'containing' Iran, not Russia, is the stated objective of the policy Tillerson outlined in this week's Stanford University speech (with Iraq War proponent and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice looking on), from Moscow's perspective the Americans are creating a Cold War-style occupation zone standoff in the Levant. The fact that the U.S. presence in Iraq remains small and has not achieved much leverage over the Iranian-friendly Shia-majority government in Baghdad isn't going to preclude the Americans from trying the same type of leverage against Damascus. Yet as Elijah J. Magnier points out, the U.S. troops are useless for stopping the flow of arms and fighters overland from Iran via SAA-controlled Abu Kamal at the Syraqi border all the way to Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon. No matter how many times the Israelis bomb weapons transfers with Russian air defenses looking on, they cannot stop them all. Thus policies intended to convey American-Israeli resolve end up highlighting Washington and Tel Aviv's weaknesses instead. 

"Jan. 18, 2018 (EIRNS)—In an interview with Sputnik International, Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Anatoly Antonov said that Moscow had decided to send an invitation to the U.S. and UN Security Council members to participate as observers in the Syrian National Dialogue Congress being held in Sochi Jan. 29-30."  -- http://larouchepub.com/pr/2018/180118_russia_invite_us.html

Even if the gap between what a few thousand troops operating in the Kurdish held territories east of the Euphrates can actually accomplish and what Tillerson says they can in terms of forcing Assad to step down weren't enough to doom the policy before it starts, there's another contradiction confounding the Americans: Turkey. The wavering NATO member state is engaged in a war of nerves against the Kurds in the enclave of Afrin, but rumors that Russian troops had pulled out to green light a full on assault by the Turkish Army have not panned out.

While Turkish and Russian defense ministers and their generals met face to face, Moscow's client in Damascus warned the Turks that any fighter jets bombing Kurds in what it still considers sovereign Syrian territory would be shot down. Those snickering at such warnings on Twitter, citing the apparent impunity Israeli Air Force jets have enjoyed while attacking targets inside Syria for years, overlook the fact that the IAF invariably uses standoff missiles fired from Lebanese air space not controlled by the Russians to strike. And that the IAF may have covered up damage if not actual confirmed kills of its aircraft as the Syrians quietly upgrade their outdated S200 and other anti-air missiles. If the Syrian Air Force's newer MiG-29s challenge the Turks, even with the Russian Air Force avoiding engagement, the Turks' F-16s will likely beat a hasty retreat back across their border.

Erdogan is mostly bluffing, expressing for domestic political consumption deep Turkish anger at the U.S. for rubbing their noses in American support for the 'terrorist' YPG, while not going too far in alienating his frenemies in the Kremlin. The Russians of course, know that Syria cannot avoid partition without Kurdish autonomy and Kurds being included in a peace settlement. In return for remaining in a united but more autonomous Syria, Damascus can offer the Kurds air defense from Turkish bombing and Russian engineering expertise for the oil and gas fields under their control (if the Kurds will agree to pay the Assad government some taxes on that energy output).

"The Turkish military fired some 40 rounds of artillery rounds into Afrin from border posts near the towns of Reyhanli, Kirikhan and Hassa in Hatay province, the private Dogan news agency reported on Friday. The state-run Anadolu Agency said buses carried Turkish commandos to Hatay on Friday while Syrian opposition fighters were also taken to the province from a Turkish-controlled zone in Syria. Canikli would not say when the operation would take place, saying authorities were working out the best timing for the assault. They were also working to minimize possible losses for Turkish troops, he said, without providing details. Canikli said the operation would be conducted by Turkish-backed Syrian opposition fighters with Turkish troop support. Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency reported that Russian military police stationed in Afrin had begun leaving the region ahead of the possible Turkish operation, but the report could not be independently verified. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and a YPG spokesman denied that Russian troops were leaving the area. The report came a day after Turkey's military and intelligence chiefs traveled to Moscow to discuss Turkey's planned intervention."  -- http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/turkey-determined-carry-offensive-syrian-enclave-52458122

What's clear this weekend is that the Turkish Army has massed armor and artillery for the Afrin shelling, but the Turks have not mobilized a sufficient number of men to storm the city. The 'Free Syrian Army' 'moderate rebels' also lack either the manpower or military competence to seize Afrin from its Kurdish defenders. On Friday pro-government network TRT World showed YPG shells having allegedly hit a Turkish hospital in Hatay province on the border:

Notwithstanding the Secretary of State's denials that DoD is creating a 'border security force' along the de facto borders of a separatist Syrian Kurdistan, the Pentagon announced that's precisely what it was doing just a few days ago. Once again, the policy is either inherently contradictory, the most likely explanation, or someone is lying. The Turks led by Erdogan have repeatedly stated that Washington has sought to deceive them about the nature of its support for the YPG and the continuance of the arms and training flow after the justification of crushing ISIS was removed -- though remnants of the Daeshbags continue to carry out largely exaggerated attacks in the Euphrates Valley, with the Americans noticeably sluggish in hot pursuit of these small ISIS units (while accusing the Russians and their Syrian hosts of failing to do enough to mop up Daesh).

Mixed Messages and the Attempt to Set Up U.S. Troops for Clashes with SAA/Hezbollah

The Russian Analyst shares W the Intelligence Insider's longstanding concern, even with a large scale Second Israel-Hezbollah War postponed, that the stage is being set for a broader confrontation with Iran, and indirectly Russia and China. Stepping back from the three way standoff between the Turks, Russians and Americans in Syria, the position of U.S. ally Saudi Arabia continues to deteriorate in Yemen. Modest territorial gains inside Yemen by the Kingdom's tribal allies have been offset by the Houthis use of increasingly numerous and sophisticated missile attacks and cross border raids on Saudi territory.

While neocons gloated about the drone bombing attack against Russia's Kheimmim air base in Syria on New Year's Eve and Russian Orthodox Christmas day, the fact remains such 'do it yourself' technology is very likely to appear in the Houthis hands soon to attack Saudi bases where American and especially British contractors work. Israel has repeatedly baited Hezbollah into direct combat through assassinations and bombing missions but so far the Iranian-backed super militia has not taken the bait, keeping its vast arsenal of missiles at ready for the war with the Zionist Entity its leadership has proclaimed as inevitable. Palestinian protests over the Jerusalem capitol move announced by the Trump Administration have been contained but increased European sympathy for the divest from Israel movement.

Now that long-serving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finds a recording of his son outside a strip club at the center of corruption investigations into his premiership, there may be more pressure in Tel Aviv for diversionary military adventures against Hezbollah or Assad's forces in Syria. The Saudi effort with Israel's support to destabilize the Hezbollah-including Lebanese government backfired. And a Trump Administration on the cusp of exposing much of the RussiaGate scandal as a Democratic and deep state fabrication is unlikely to start a major military engagement either in North Korea or the Middle East just before this November's 2018 mid term elections. As Elijah J. Magnier writes, the path of incremental mission creep remains perilous politically and militarily for the Pentagon and the Trump White House:

"There is no doubt the US doesn’t want to leave Syria and let Russia extend its presence and control, as long as it there is a possibility of Washington disturbing and diminishing Moscow’s influence in the Levant. By declaring itself an occupation force and therefore its will to form a “proxy state”, the US position justifies (to itself only but not to the American people, nor to the world) its presence for as long as it sees fit until the time comes to abandon the Kurds and leave them to their destiny. The US is mainly using as an excuse,the Iranian presence on Syrian territory and the US obsession to limit the control of Tehran over Damascus. There is no doubt that the US forces can look after their interests in Syrian occupied territory and prevent any regular force from advancing. However, the safety of its soldiers depends on the milieu these are based in, in this case an environment which is totally hostile all around it and within it .Attacks against US forces and their Kurdish proxies are not at all excluded. This is when the US will have to re-think about the necessity of its presence in a newly occupied territory, so far from home and where American lives can be lost for little return and little benefit to US national security."  -- https://elijahjm.wordpress.com/2018/01/17/can-a-new-us-proxy-state-in-syria-survive/

U.S. Troops in Syria Suffering a Major Attack is a Wild Card Up the Globalists' Sleeves

However, all of these rational evaluations of what ought to be rational actors leaves out many wild cards and the desperation of those determined to have their big war with Iran if not WWIII, no matter what. For that reason, the presence of several thousand Americans inside Syria remains dangerous in that a significant casualty attack on the vulnerable troops blamed on Hezbollah could be the (false flag?) spark to a conflict that drags Trump in regardless of domestic political and personal considerations.

[flauntpage]

Ronin: Kyoji Horiguchi, UFC Contender in Exile

The nostalgic fans were on tenterhooks. The opening to the first day of Rizin’s two day spectacular was relatively tame. Nobuhiko Takada, PRIDE FC’s first headliner and the man who almost knocked out Rickson Gracie, showed up looking dapper but underwhelming in a tuxedo. The alternate MMA fan found himself worrying that Rizin was cutting back on the staggering production values for which PRIDE FC was known. Nobuhiko Takada’s opening ceremony appearance in a fundoshi, or "sumo diaper" for the Westerner, had become a grand tradition in PRIDE. In his Reddit AMA a day earlier, PRIDE founder Nobuyuki Sakakibara had teased fans by stating that he didn’t know if the old style opening ceremony was planned but he knew that the fifty-five year old Takada had been working out.

PRIDE nostalgia is Rizin’s whole trip and it brought back the memories in force when the second day’s broadcast opened on a darkened Saitama Super Arena, a quartet of torches lit on the entrance ramp. Eight men entered in latex robes and in a scene which evoked memories of Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut and the steel mill from The Simpsons, the eight began banging on drums assembled on the stage.

The pyres were extinguished and the arena plunged into darkness once more. The central caped figure stepped forward to raise his hands and reveal that his elbow length latex gloves contained flashlights in each of the fingers. A drum sounded and the entrance way was spotlighted. Two of the drummers began to undress the man with the luminescent fingertips, stripping him down to a latex hakama or "Aikido skirt" and revealing him to be Nobuhiko Takada, inexplicably heralding a gasp from the silent crowd. A drumroll and a fanfare began as Takada marched down the entrance way.

At the end he extended his arms and gazed skyward, before tearing off the skirt to reveal…the diaper.

As the camera cut to a view of Takada’s glistening buttocks, the crowd let out a mild cheer. Takada entered the ring and stood before a giant taiko drum, suspended in the middle of the ring with the Rizin logo on the skin. He paused, waiting for his cue, then missed it and drummed wildly while out of time with the music being played through the arena. This opening ceremony perfectly encapsulated just what Rizin is. It tries new things, and they are often very intriguing, but the old things that just don’t quite work any more are the things which actually bring in the ticket sales and the stream purchases. This writer would rather not linger on a 50-year-old Tsuyoshi Kohsaka coming out of retirement to fight the Mirko Cro Cop who just stopped King Mo and won the Rizin Open Weight Grand Prix, which could only be described as "fucking disgusting." Or on Gabi Garcia missing weight by twenty pounds when matched against a 50-year-old woman. Or on proven world class bantamweight kickboxer, Tenshin Nasukawa, being fed easy knockouts.

No, that is the "bad" and the "ugly" of Rizin. The "good" of Rizin is five feet and five inches of karate fury. His name is Kyoji Horiguchi and he is one of the greatest fighters in the world, serving out a period of self-imposed exile.

The Ronin

Kyoji Horiguchi is the best and most proven fighter today outside of the UFC. There have been plenty who never made it to the big American shows or arrived too late, but Horiguchi is in his athletic prime and currently the most glaring omission on the UFC and Bellator rosters. A flyweight, Horiguchi fell victim to the sausage factory that is the UFC’s flyweight title picture. Why does no one care about Demetrious Johnson when he has defended his title a dozen times? becomes Quick, find someone from the undercard to fight Demetrious Johnson which again becomes Why does no one care about Demetrious Johnson when he has defended his title a dozen times? Horiguchi was green as a goose turd when he was thrown in with the flyweight king and while he showed Johnson some interesting looks on the feet, he wound up losing just the same. Horiguchi still had some serious holes in his game back then and before moving to American Top Team, Horiguchi gave up his back in almost every fight he had, despite being considerably better than most of his opponents.

Working with ATT, Horiguchi has looked better from fight to fight. After picking up his best win to date, over the top ten ranked Ali Bagautinov while stuck on the undercard of a UFC Fight Night event, Horiguchi decided he’d get better treatment in Japan. At the time, we described the move as “perhaps the UFC's greatest failing in recent history,” showing zero anticipation of the year to come. But letting as highly ranked a fighter as Horiguchi go, when he was one of the most exciting and hardest hitting men in the division, was a break with UFC tradition. The aforementioned Bagautinov made the same decision and jumped ship to the Russian promotion, Fight Nights Global.

After making his Rizin debut in April, Horiguchi was entered into the Rizin bantamweight grand prix, ten pounds heavier than his usual fighting weight. He smashed the aged Hideo Tokoro in the opening round back in June, then stopped three men in two nights last weekend to become the tournament champion.

Life After Ippon

The discussion of karate styles is a sticky area where you will always offend someone. You say something like “karate doesn’t really have elbows” referring to karate competition and someone will get offended and say “there are elbows in our kata!” As with every martial art, karate tapers down to whatever the rules of its competition permit. There might be some old geezer out in Thailand declaring that real Muay Thai has headbutts, but you don’t see many Nak Muay who claim half their style is out the window when the headbutt is banned. So for our purposes there are only two styles of karate—points and knockdown. Points is about tagging the opponent first at all costs before the opponent can tag you. Knockdown is a gruelling battle of body punches and high kicks. Andy Hug, Semmy Schilt, and the many top guys from the golden days of K-1 were knockdown stylists. Horiguchi is a points stylist and he might be the best example of it in MMA today.

Points karate is largely built around the reverse punch, gyaku-zuki. Typically to score in competition this comes from about chest height and has to come back to the hip in hikite to score. This leads to the low hands of karate competition. As we noted back in Lyoto Machida and the Double Edged Sword of Competition Karate:

The point sparring system just produces an atrocious attitude to exchanges. A fighter will dive in with a straight punch to the midsection, then pull his hand back to his hip, and turn his back while shouting, to convince the judges that he totally did just score. Often both fighters will pirouette around the mat, mouths open, “selling the point.”

If you do that in MMA you stand a great chance of being cracked after you have landed your punch. As Holly Holm showed the other night, you can land your rear hand perfectly and still get hit with two shots while you admire your work. The old karate mantra of ikken hissatsu or "one strike, certain annihilation" is a good training philosophy, not a guaranteed outcome.

What Horiguchi does so well is burst in to score the point, then continue into something more sensible and "real." Adding a little bit of head movement has made his karate far more reliable in the wild world of four ounce gloves. Most often he’ll blitz in on the 1-2, then weave out to his right side. Many coaches, including Freddie Roach, like weaving out to the right side off right-handed punches because the left hook is an expected counter when the fighter closes the distance to fire his right straight. Or he’ll burst in and immediately stiff arm out to range.

Or he’ll burst in, push his man back and skip up into a left high kick. It’s using that traditional karate burst to get to the inside, and then building off being on the inside before the opponent has time to swing back that makes for that beautiful combination of karate and boxing.

Horiguchi has had a ton of success connecting his right hand, stepping out to his right side and weaving into a left hook. A simple counter punch but one which normally you would see in extended mid-range exchanges in boxing. Closing the range and moving into it as Horiguchi does and as T.J. Dillashaw did to spark Renan Barao the second time is essentially starting the counter without concerning yourself about reacting to the opponent on the inside. In fact, curiously enough during his Shooto run, Horiguchi’s left hook was his main lead and he was considerably wilder in his leaps across the floor.

One of the more interesting differences between Kyoji Horiguchi and other points karateka in MMA like the Machida brothers, is that he doesn’t often switch stances and he seems to prefer being in closed position to open position. Where Lyoto Machida constantly looks for that southpaw counter left straight while leaning outside the lead foot, and Stephen Thompson retreats to throw the southpaw counter left straight through the open side, Horiguchi is always in an orthodox stance, looking for his right hand. And where Machida is often kicking straight into the open side with his rear leg, Horiguchi uses skip up lead leg kicks to attack the body and head on the open side. Very few fighters can get the same pop into a skip up body kick from such a side on stance. This kick forms a double attack with the high kick should the opponent’s right hand get a little low or close to their head.

In the tournament quarter final, Horiguchi was matched against Gabriel Oliveira, a 10-0 fighter from Brazil fresh off a knockout of Tatsuya Kawajiri. Against Oliveira, Japan’s littlest bantamweight looked a class apart.

In karate there are three initiatives—Sen, Sen-no-sen, and Go-no-sen. To hear more about those, check out Ringcraft: The Three Initiatives. But to summarize: Sen is to attack, Go-no-sen is to defend and then attack—or a delayed counter—and Sen-no-sen is to attack as the opponent attacks—a simultaneous or intercepting counter. Horiguchi burst in on Oliveira, weaved his head out after his right hand, but Oliveira had run a mile. As Oliveira stepped back in to kick, Horiguchi intercepted him. Sen-no-sen is considered the highest level technique in karate, and of course was the focal point of Bruce Lee’s philosophy: Jeet Kune Do, meaning "The Way of the Intercepting Fist."

This is how most karate competitions go—you are trying to get in as fast as possible, or away as fast as possible, and if you can convince your opponent you’re running but actually step in as he does, you’ve made a perfect collision. This was both Lyoto and Chinzo Machida’s main method for accumulating knockdowns and knockouts without tremendous hitting power.

As a bonus—for all of his big bursts across the floor, Horiguchi uses the low line side kick in just the subtle way you like to see. There are two ways to use it: to keep someone the hell away from you, and to annoy and set up further attacks. Both of those are helped along by planting the foot straight on the opponent’s knee as you bounce in. Pulling the knee up to the chest and stomping down as hard as possible—as Yair Rodriguez always does—simply results in the opponent running a mile and you missing the second part of your sick two-touch combo by even further.

Why the Ring Ruins MMA

Horiguchi’s semi-final opponent probably should have been Ian McCall. Unfortunately McCall had a run in with an old gypsy woman some time a couple of years back and now can only fulfil his wish of fighting in a slightly twisted, Bedazzled kind of way. In his hotly anticipate Rizin debut, McCall was given a badass entrance, got all the way into the first minute of the first round, and lacerated his face on the ring rope before a single decent strike was connected.

The ring is and always has been terrible for mixed martial arts. It offers better visibility for the floor seats, but that is quite literally all that can be noted in the "advantages" column. The corners make for more interesting ringcraft, but that could just as easily be done with a square cage. The main advantage of a cage, of course, is that every time a man is pushed into it his arse doesn’t fall through between the links and have to be held up by a team of white gloved referees on the outside. And when a man is taken down in the cage he cannot dive underneath the bottom rope, or poke his head over the bottom rope to avoid being punched in the head.

Anyone who pretends the ring somehow prevents stalling in a standing clinch is wearing rose tinted glasses because just as many PRIDE fights turned into clinch slogs as UFC fights. Furthermore any time won back from wall clinches is quickly re-assigned to the hundreds of resets needed on any event using a ring. Not a single match on this Rizin event or any other avoided an exchange being negatively affected by the use of the ring. Still, no one fell head first into the floor and was asked to continue fighting this time, which is always a blessing.

So in the second round of the tournament, Horiguchi met Manel Kape. A 9-1 fighter who had just got by Ian McCall by TKO (rope burn), then celebrated as if he had done something incredible, turning the crowd even further against him. Kape could hit and he could take a shot. He had a couple inches of height and reach on the former flyweight Horiguchi, but he too looked completely outclassed. Being pushed like a Krazy Horse Bennett with actual ability, Kape resorted to trying to no-sell Horiguchi’s cracking right hands, and ducking in on Horiguchi’s hips whenever the karateka jumped in thinking he had the finish in his sights.

Horiguchi landed many good right hands on Kape as he burst in and many on the counter, but some of his more spectacular moments came as he wedged his way up the inside of kicks. It can be seen as sort of a kamikaze attitude but intercepting counters up the center of round kicks or sliding down the side of straight kicks are among the most powerful techniques that competition karate can teach you.

That’s not to say Horiguchi escaped unscathed, one of his great stylistic disadvantages was thrown into the spotlight. If you burst in like a bolt from the blue, you have to hope that it is your striking surfaces that are doing the colliding and not something more integral to your consciousness. On one of his many bursts in against Kape, Horiguchi ran face first onto the top of a ducking Kape’s head. This "nodder" was accidental but when done deliberately it has been a great way to settle down aggressive fighters since boxers first realized their skulls were a lot harder than their gloves.

In the tournament final, Horiguchi met Shintaro Ishiwatari and despite a long, checkered, and decision-victory filled record, Ishiwatari had a good idea of what to do. Waiting for Horiguchi to burst in, he was hoping to make Horiguchi reach and then check hook the shorter fighter.

Unfortunately, outside of a decent attempt at kneeing Horiguchi as he stepped in to intercept, Ishiwatari didn’t get much going. Taken down off that knee, Ishiwatari was essentially TKO’d while caught up in the ropes behind the ring post at the end of the first round.

Just the ring getting in the way of the action, yet again.

Ishiwatari, understandably groggy, came out wild and ran onto an easy thread-the-needle counter right straight as soon as the second round started.

While his opponents were not the best bantamweights in the world, Horiguchi’s work against three good fighters over two nights, a weight class above his own, garnered him the kind of attention he has deserved for a while. On the mathematically ranked FightMatrix he broke the worldwide bantamweight top ten—though that seems a bit much. But Horiguchi stands out as the biggest of fish in Rizin’s still small pond. Not only is he lacking quality opposition in either of his weightclasses, he is working under an outdated rule set and without one of the most important aspects of modern MMA, the cage. If Rizin could build the kind of roster that makes Horiguchi a viable alter rex for the flyweight division, that would be wonderful for Japanese MMA and the ring would become a viable alternative for top tier fighters rather than a gimmick wheeled out a couple of times a year. But if it cannot—and that is the more likely outcome—we can only hope that Horiguchi’s time back in Japan is a sabbatical and that the UFC soon comes to its senses. UFC should not only throw money at Horiguchi—that would not solve the problem that allegedly caused him to leave—it should give him the position and promotion that his style so deserves.

Pick up Jack’s book, Notorious: The Life and Fights of Conor McGregor and follow him on Twitter @JackSlackMMA.

Ronin: Kyoji Horiguchi, UFC Contender in Exile published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

[amtushinfosolutionspage]

Ronin: Kyoji Horiguchi, UFC Contender in Exile

The nostalgic fans were on tenterhooks. The opening to the first day of Rizin’s two day spectacular was relatively tame. Nobuhiko Takada, PRIDE FC’s first headliner and the man who almost knocked out Rickson Gracie, showed up looking dapper but underwhelming in a tuxedo. The alternate MMA fan found himself worrying that Rizin was cutting back on the staggering production values for which PRIDE FC was known. Nobuhiko Takada’s opening ceremony appearance in a fundoshi, or “sumo diaper” for the Westerner, had become a grand tradition in PRIDE. In his Reddit AMA a day earlier, PRIDE founder Nobuyuki Sakakibara had teased fans by stating that he didn’t know if the old style opening ceremony was planned but he knew that the fifty-five year old Takada had been working out.

PRIDE nostalgia is Rizin’s whole trip and it brought back the memories in force when the second day’s broadcast opened on a darkened Saitama Super Arena, a quartet of torches lit on the entrance ramp. Eight men entered in latex robes and in a scene which evoked memories of Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut and the steel mill from The Simpsons, the eight began banging on drums assembled on the stage.

The pyres were extinguished and the arena plunged into darkness once more. The central caped figure stepped forward to raise his hands and reveal that his elbow length latex gloves contained flashlights in each of the fingers. A drum sounded and the entrance way was spotlighted. Two of the drummers began to undress the man with the luminescent fingertips, stripping him down to a latex hakama or “Aikido skirt” and revealing him to be Nobuhiko Takada, inexplicably heralding a gasp from the silent crowd. A drumroll and a fanfare began as Takada marched down the entrance way.

At the end he extended his arms and gazed skyward, before tearing off the skirt to reveal…the diaper.

As the camera cut to a view of Takada’s glistening buttocks, the crowd let out a mild cheer. Takada entered the ring and stood before a giant taiko drum, suspended in the middle of the ring with the Rizin logo on the skin. He paused, waiting for his cue, then missed it and drummed wildly while out of time with the music being played through the arena.

This opening ceremony perfectly encapsulated just what Rizin is. It tries new things, and they are often very intriguing, but the old things that just don’t quite work any more are the things which actually bring in the ticket sales and the stream purchases. This writer would rather not linger on a 50-year-old Tsuyoshi Kohsaka coming out of retirement to fight the Mirko Cro Cop who just stopped King Mo and won the Rizin Open Weight Grand Prix, which could only be described as “fucking disgusting.” Or on Gabi Garcia missing weight by twenty pounds when matched against a 50-year-old woman. Or on proven world class bantamweight kickboxer, Tenshin Nasukawa, being fed easy knockouts.

No, that is the “bad” and the “ugly” of Rizin. The “good” of Rizin is five feet and five inches of karate fury. His name is Kyoji Horiguchi and he is one of the greatest fighters in the world, serving out a period of self-imposed exile.

The Ronin

Kyoji Horiguchi is the best and most proven fighter today outside of the UFC. There have been plenty who never made it to the big American shows or arrived too late, but Horiguchi is in his athletic prime and currently the most glaring omission on the UFC and Bellator rosters. A flyweight, Horiguchi fell victim to the sausage factory that is the UFC’s flyweight title picture. Why does no one care about Demetrious Johnson when he has defended his title a dozen times? becomes Quick, find someone from the undercard to fight Demetrious Johnson which again becomes Why does no one care about Demetrious Johnson when he has defended his title a dozen times? Horiguchi was green as a goose turd when he was thrown in with the flyweight king and while he showed Johnson some interesting looks on the feet, he wound up losing just the same. Horiguchi still had some serious holes in his game back then and before moving to American Top Team, Horiguchi gave up his back in almost every fight he had, despite being considerably better than most of his opponents.

Working with ATT, Horiguchi has looked better from fight to fight. After picking up his best win to date, over the top ten ranked Ali Bagautinov while stuck on the undercard of a UFC Fight Night event, Horiguchi decided he’d get better treatment in Japan. At the time, we described the move as “perhaps the UFC’s greatest failing in recent history,” showing zero anticipation of the year to come. But letting as highly ranked a fighter as Horiguchi go, when he was one of the most exciting and hardest hitting men in the division, was a break with UFC tradition. The aforementioned Bagautinov made the same decision and jumped ship to the Russian promotion, Fight Nights Global.

After making his Rizin debut in April, Horiguchi was entered into the Rizin bantamweight grand prix, ten pounds heavier than his usual fighting weight. He smashed the aged Hideo Tokoro in the opening round back in June, then stopped three men in two nights last weekend to become the tournament champion.

Life After Ippon

The discussion of karate styles is a sticky area where you will always offend someone. You say something like “karate doesn’t really have elbows” referring to karate competition and someone will get offended and say “there are elbows in our kata!” As with every martial art, karate tapers down to whatever the rules of its competition permit. There might be some old geezer out in Thailand declaring that real Muay Thai has headbutts, but you don’t see many Nak Muay who claim half their style is out the window when the headbutt is banned. So for our purposes there are only two styles of karate—points and knockdown. Points is about tagging the opponent first at all costs before the opponent can tag you. Knockdown is a gruelling battle of body punches and high kicks. Andy Hug, Semmy Schilt, and the many top guys from the golden days of K-1 were knockdown stylists. Horiguchi is a points stylist and he might be the best example of it in MMA today.

Points karate is largely built around the reverse punch, gyaku-zuki. Typically to score in competition this comes from about chest height and has to come back to the hip in hikite to score. This leads to the low hands of karate competition. As we noted back in Lyoto Machida and the Double Edged Sword of Competition Karate:

The point sparring system just produces an atrocious attitude to exchanges. A fighter will dive in with a straight punch to the midsection, then pull his hand back to his hip, and turn his back while shouting, to convince the judges that he totally did just score. Often both fighters will pirouette around the mat, mouths open, “selling the point.”

If you do that in MMA you stand a great chance of being cracked after you have landed your punch. As Holly Holm showed the other night, you can land your rear hand perfectly and still get hit with two shots while you admire your work. The old karate mantra of ikken hissatsu or “one strike, certain annihilation” is a good training philosophy, not a guaranteed outcome.

What Horiguchi does so well is burst in to score the point, then continue into something more sensible and “real.” Adding a little bit of head movement has made his karate far more reliable in the wild world of four ounce gloves. Most often he’ll blitz in on the 1-2, then weave out to his right side. Many coaches, including Freddie Roach, like weaving out to the right side off right-handed punches because the left hook is an expected counter when the fighter closes the distance to fire his right straight. Or he’ll burst in and immediately stiff arm out to range.

Or he’ll burst in, push his man back and skip up into a left high kick. It’s using that traditional karate burst to get to the inside, and then building off being on the inside before the opponent has time to swing back that makes for that beautiful combination of karate and boxing.

Horiguchi has had a ton of success connecting his right hand, stepping out to his right side and weaving into a left hook. A simple counter punch but one which normally you would see in extended mid-range exchanges in boxing. Closing the range and moving into it as Horiguchi does and as T.J. Dillashaw did to spark Renan Barao the second time is essentially starting the counter without concerning yourself about reacting to the opponent on the inside. In fact, curiously enough during his Shooto run, Horiguchi’s left hook was his main lead and he was considerably wilder in his leaps across the floor.

One of the more interesting differences between Kyoji Horiguchi and other points karateka in MMA like the Machida brothers, is that he doesn’t often switch stances and he seems to prefer being in closed position to open position. Where Lyoto Machida constantly looks for that southpaw counter left straight while leaning outside the lead foot, and Stephen Thompson retreats to throw the southpaw counter left straight through the open side, Horiguchi is always in an orthodox stance, looking for his right hand. And where Machida is often kicking straight into the open side with his rear leg, Horiguchi uses skip up lead leg kicks to attack the body and head on the open side. Very few fighters can get the same pop into a skip up body kick from such a side on stance. This kick forms a double attack with the high kick should the opponent’s right hand get a little low or close to their head.

In the tournament quarter final, Horiguchi was matched against Gabriel Oliveira, a 10-0 fighter from Brazil fresh off a knockout of Tatsuya Kawajiri. Against Oliveira, Japan’s littlest bantamweight looked a class apart.

In karate there are three initiatives—Sen, Sen-no-sen, and Go-no-sen. To hear more about those, check out Ringcraft: The Three Initiatives. But to summarize: Sen is to attack, Go-no-sen is to defend and then attack—or a delayed counter—and Sen-no-sen is to attack as the opponent attacks—a simultaneous or intercepting counter. Horiguchi burst in on Oliveira, weaved his head out after his right hand, but Oliveira had run a mile. As Oliveira stepped back in to kick, Horiguchi intercepted him. Sen-no-sen is considered the highest level technique in karate, and of course was the focal point of Bruce Lee’s philosophy: Jeet Kune Do, meaning “The Way of the Intercepting Fist.”

This is how most karate competitions go—you are trying to get in as fast as possible, or away as fast as possible, and if you can convince your opponent you’re running but actually step in as he does, you’ve made a perfect collision. This was both Lyoto and Chinzo Machida’s main method for accumulating knockdowns and knockouts without tremendous hitting power.

As a bonus—for all of his big bursts across the floor, Horiguchi uses the low line side kick in just the subtle way you like to see. There are two ways to use it: to keep someone the hell away from you, and to annoy and set up further attacks. Both of those are helped along by planting the foot straight on the opponent’s knee as you bounce in. Pulling the knee up to the chest and stomping down as hard as possible—as Yair Rodriguez always does—simply results in the opponent running a mile and you missing the second part of your sick two-touch combo by even further.

Why the Ring Ruins MMA

Horiguchi’s semi-final opponent probably should have been Ian McCall. Unfortunately McCall had a run in with an old gypsy woman some time a couple of years back and now can only fulfil his wish of fighting in a slightly twisted, Bedazzled kind of way. In his hotly anticipate Rizin debut, McCall was given a badass entrance, got all the way into the first minute of the first round, and lacerated his face on the ring rope before a single decent strike was connected.

The ring is and always has been terrible for mixed martial arts. It offers better visibility for the floor seats, but that is quite literally all that can be noted in the “advantages” column. The corners make for more interesting ringcraft, but that could just as easily be done with a square cage. The main advantage of a cage, of course, is that every time a man is pushed into it his arse doesn’t fall through between the links and have to be held up by a team of white gloved referees on the outside. And when a man is taken down in the cage he cannot dive underneath the bottom rope, or poke his head over the bottom rope to avoid being punched in the head.

Anyone who pretends the ring somehow prevents stalling in a standing clinch is wearing rose tinted glasses because just as many PRIDE fights turned into clinch slogs as UFC fights. Furthermore any time won back from wall clinches is quickly re-assigned to the hundreds of resets needed on any event using a ring. Not a single match on this Rizin event or any other avoided an exchange being negatively affected by the use of the ring. Still, no one fell head first into the floor and was asked to continue fighting this time, which is always a blessing.

So in the second round of the tournament, Horiguchi met Manel Kape. A 9-1 fighter who had just got by Ian McCall by TKO (rope burn), then celebrated as if he had done something incredible, turning the crowd even further against him. Kape could hit and he could take a shot. He had a couple inches of height and reach on the former flyweight Horiguchi, but he too looked completely outclassed. Being pushed like a Krazy Horse Bennett with actual ability, Kape resorted to trying to no-sell Horiguchi’s cracking right hands, and ducking in on Horiguchi’s hips whenever the karateka jumped in thinking he had the finish in his sights.

Horiguchi landed many good right hands on Kape as he burst in and many on the counter, but some of his more spectacular moments came as he wedged his way up the inside of kicks. It can be seen as sort of a kamikaze attitude but intercepting counters up the center of round kicks or sliding down the side of straight kicks are among the most powerful techniques that competition karate can teach you.

That’s not to say Horiguchi escaped unscathed, one of his great stylistic disadvantages was thrown into the spotlight. If you burst in like a bolt from the blue, you have to hope that it is your striking surfaces that are doing the colliding and not something more integral to your consciousness. On one of his many bursts in against Kape, Horiguchi ran face first onto the top of a ducking Kape’s head. This “nodder” was accidental but when done deliberately it has been a great way to settle down aggressive fighters since boxers first realized their skulls were a lot harder than their gloves.

In the tournament final, Horiguchi met Shintaro Ishiwatari and despite a long, checkered, and decision-victory filled record, Ishiwatari had a good idea of what to do. Waiting for Horiguchi to burst in, he was hoping to make Horiguchi reach and then check hook the shorter fighter.

Unfortunately, outside of a decent attempt at kneeing Horiguchi as he stepped in to intercept, Ishiwatari didn’t get much going. Taken down off that knee, Ishiwatari was essentially TKO’d while caught up in the ropes behind the ring post at the end of the first round.

Just the ring getting in the way of the action, yet again.

Ishiwatari, understandably groggy, came out wild and ran onto an easy thread-the-needle counter right straight as soon as the second round started.

While his opponents were not the best bantamweights in the world, Horiguchi’s work against three good fighters over two nights, a weight class above his own, garnered him the kind of attention he has deserved for a while. On the mathematically ranked FightMatrix he broke the worldwide bantamweight top ten—though that seems a bit much. But Horiguchi stands out as the biggest of fish in Rizin’s still small pond. Not only is he lacking quality opposition in either of his weightclasses, he is working under an outdated rule set and without one of the most important aspects of modern MMA, the cage. If Rizin could build the kind of roster that makes Horiguchi a viable alter rex for the flyweight division, that would be wonderful for Japanese MMA and the ring would become a viable alternative for top tier fighters rather than a gimmick wheeled out a couple of times a year. But if it cannot—and that is the more likely outcome—we can only hope that Horiguchi’s time back in Japan is a sabbatical and that the UFC soon comes to its senses. UFC should not only throw money at Horiguchi—that would not solve the problem that allegedly caused him to leave—it should give him the position and promotion that his style so deserves.

Pick up Jack’s book, Notorious: The Life and Fights of Conor McGregor and follow him on Twitter @JackSlackMMA.

Ronin: Kyoji Horiguchi, UFC Contender in Exile syndicated from http://ift.tt/2ug2Ns6

[galimatios]

tabris; notes

“ i'm late! i'm late! for a very important date! ”

enter tabris. an inter-dimensional traveler who moonlights as a magical boy, saving civilians from terror (or at least boredom) in exchange for food and shelter. yeah, you heard right. a magical boy. to be fair, he's already pretty magical without the added super-saiyan transformation, but it's there just for good measure. he's clearly not human, able to use abilities akin to magic — not to mention the ability to hop universes and travel to distant realms, planets, what have you. he never stays in one place for too long though — he's got a destination.

what that destination is, no one actually knows. he makes up stories or just flat-out ignores anyone who asks. and even if he does say something, well. he's probably lying. something about him just seems... a little disingenuous no matter what he says. it doesn't exactly help that he is apparently physically incapable of doing anything but smile, which doesn't exactly make him seem any more trustworthy than he actually is.

so we've established he's this op little piece of crap who barges into universes with some weird, vague agenda that's so obfuscated beneath his ridiculous shenanigans that there's no way he could possibly be trustworthy, right? humor me for a sec and let's take a trip through the rabbit hole.

consider this: some pink-haired bunny-eared weirdo comes barreling through the sky like a comet, crash lands a mile outside your city, then 5 minutes later he just... shows up at your front door with a BIG smile asking you if he could stay for a while. his clothes are weird. he smell faintly of roses, which is extremely disconcerting considering the fact that roses are never present when he's around ... and he's probably bleeding. he probably has a broken arm. or both his arms are broken. listen, you don't just crash land into solid ground without sustaining at least a few injuries. by all accounts, this boy should be DEAD and yet he's standing there, in front of your doorway, smiling as if absolutely nothing was wrong.

so it's really no wonder that he's regarded more or less as some kind of anathema of nature, no matter how weird the dimension he's in. at best, people kind of just... stare at him a lot. it's not really his looks as much as it's just... his personality. his entire... aura, so to say. despite his cheerful disposition, there's something deeply unsettling about him. some would say he's haunted. others, cursed. whatever the truth may be, it's also true that he's ridiculously powerful. you know how he shows up at your door with broken arms? they'll heal in like, idk, half an hour. fifteen minutes tops. he has incredible regeneration abilities and can recover from most wounds very quickly.

this leads many inter-dimensional inhabitants to come to the conclusion that tabris might actually be a little bit immortal. like, semi-immortal. there might be some way to kill him but no way has worked so far (and believe me, some have tried.) because of this, he's... become an omen of bad luck. some societies in their early inception were unfortunate to have an encounter with tabris, and since then he's been engraved in their culture as a bringer of doom. to be perfectly fair, it's not that he actually brings bad luck, but... trouble tends to follow him, whether it's by his own dangerous curiosity or recklessness. there have been many a time he's accidentally lead monsters to new worlds, eventually killing them but also causing massive havoc in the process. his massive physical strength and agility mean that all his battles are kind of... pyrrhic in nature. not necessarily for him, no, but for everyone else around him. some heroic magical boy he is. it is completely possible that he causes more destruction saving people than just letting monsters roam freely.

sometimes he leaves a good impression. these societies regard him as a god sometimes, which... he seems to take in stride while also not completely understanding the implications of their worship. other societies are large and complex, full of technology he hasn't seen before. these places occasionally try to capture and experiment on him for science reasons, but they usually have a hard time doing that. not just because he's hard to catch, but you just can't science tabris.

yet still, other places are... tamer. more like our own, where time seems to pass slowly in moments and the eons stretch on. he takes a little breather, masking his appearance to play a little game of pretend with the local inhabitants. he blends into the crowds, takes up a new name, a new identity. goes to school, work, meets people. occasionally, he falls in love. yet none of these things, all the years he spends living another life, are ever enough to make him stay for good. the thing about tabris is that he's perpetually, eternally in motion — in transit between worlds on this journey he's set out on. his impulsiveness is only one facet of him, betrayed by the way he looks at the skies above him with a kind of inexplicable expression. don't look at his smile — that's always there. instead, look at his eyes — deep wells of hidden secrets and desires he'd never speak of.

on the rare occasion he does find someone he's terribly fond of, he might let it slip: my queen's waiting for me. 

it's as close to a good bye as you'll ever get out of him.

[glenngaylord]

UNFUNNY GAMES - My Review of MOTHER! (3 Stars)

Alternate Review Titles:  DARREN’S REPULSIVE BABY, BIBLICAL ABORTIONS, and OH BROTHER, WHAT ART THOU?

When I was a student at UCLA Film School, we all had to make a 15 minute, non-sync sound Super 8 film as our introduction to filmmaking.  The assignment was called Project One.  My opus was called “Nobody’s Hunting Ground” and it was literally about one person’s 15 minutes of fame. It was my nod to Andy Warhol’s famous quote, something that is now true in this age of social media.

The Story: An elderly woman walks into a grocery store, shoplifts a candy bar, and suddenly finds herself famous.  For the next 15 minutes, she’s hunted down by a pack of masked, arrow slinging dancers.  I used the drum break from Adam and the Ants, “Antmusic” during the big attack scene. A montage of dancers leaping across either side of the frame was my homage to the audition sequence in ALL THAT JAZZ.  When the poor woman is felled by an arrow, one of the dancers takes off her mask, puts it on the woman and becomes the new “It” person.  Now it’s her turn to be famous for 15 minutes.  

It’s a classic example of new filmmaker overreach.  It looked pretty, but it felt overstuffed, with too many ideas and metaphors splattered across the screen and almost no attention paid to its main character.  It was a time when I thought I really had something to say about the world around me, but I hadn’t really lived enough of a life to recognize that my message about fame was pretty silly.  Dancers!  Masks!  Arrows!  At the very least, I should have been asked to direct the SATAN’S ALLEY segments in STAYING ALIVE, but Sylvester Stallone wasn’t about to give that up to a dumb kid.  

I say all of this to put MOTHER!, the new film from Darren Aronofsky, into perspective.  A quasi home invasion thriller wrapped up in an allegory about creation, God, the Virgin Mary, Adam & Eve, Cain & Abel, and the environment!  Throw in a little ROSEMARY’S BABY (the poster is a direct lift from that film’s iconic advertising) and I started to think that Aronofsky was going back to his roots as an excited filmmaker who wrote a script in 5 days and simply allowed literally everything to spill across the pages.  He clearly wanted to pay tribute to some of his favorite films (REPULSION, the aforementioned BABY, THE SHINING, to name a few), to talk about the patriarchy, loss of control, the damage we’re doing to the earth, the perils of a mob mentality, and, and, and…stop Darren Aronofsky!  Calm the fuck down and save something for your next film!

The marketing campaign for the film has told you very little about the story, so I’ll do the same.  A husband (Javier Bardem) and his wife (Jennifer Lawrence) live in a secluded mansion.  He’s a poet and she’s spending her days renovating the house, which, in the opening, has risen from the ashes.  Don’t ask.  The couple have reached an impasse in their marriage, rarely having sex and his impotence manifesting itself via writer’s block..oh…and also via the fact that they don’t have sex anymore.  We never learn their names, nor do we of any other characters, so I’ll use the actors’ names.  They’re reached such a dead end, that she sometimes just sits there watching him not write.  

One day, a knock on their door brings them Ed Harris, a stranger who is a fan of Bardem’s writing and has mistaken the place for a Bed & Breakfast.  Bardem inexplicably lets him in and invites him to stay as long as he wants.  Note to self:  Feed someone’s ego and you’ll get two hots and a cot.  Lawrence understandably remains cautious, especially when Harris goes on endless coughing jags.  Soon enough, Harris is joined by his wife (Michelle Pfeiffer), who obnoxiously pushes her way into the house, barging into rooms she’s told to steer clear of and inserting her opinions despite not being asked.  Had Harris and Pfeiffer been wearing white gloves and carried golf clubs, I would have thought some cool Michael Haneke home invasion thriller à la FUNNY GAMES was in store, but Aronofsky has far grander ambitions.  When it becomes clear that Harris and Pfeiffer have no intention of leaving, the movie builds on that and goes off the rails with violence, noise, and….bald rudeness!  

I’ll say no more of the story, but yes, it’s crazy, audacious, and packed with one outrageous image after another.  I had so many feelings as it unspooled - excitement that something so far removed from a comic book universe got made by a major studio, thrills that Michelle Pfeiffer got to explore her obnoxious side for the first time since HAIRSPRAY, amusement that not only is everything but the kitchen sink thrown into this story, but…come to think of it…the kitchen sink is almost a major character unto itself!  

Here’s where the movie lost me.  It’s ridiculously repetitive.  You can only take Jennifer Lawrence screaming “Stop!” so many times as the world crumbles around her.  She’s so inert most of the time that her impotence to what’s happening becomes frustrating and unbelievable.  In fact, the film is such an allegory that it forgets to provide any believable moments or character motivations.  Since when do poets amass such huge followings in the United States?  At what point do you just start bonking people on the head with a frying pan when they go into rooms you’ve declared off limits?  In what world does Kristen Wiig take such a baffling role?  Ok, the last question isn’t fair, because she’s built a career around unexpected choices, but she does some totally ridiculous shit here.  

After a while, I felt like we were watching the same scene unfold over and over again.  Lawrence screams at everyone, more apocalyptic stuff happens, and she screams again.  It’s a brave performance, as is Bardem’s, as they both Mia Farrow and John Cassavetes the shit out of their characters.  Aronofsky and his cinematographer Matthew Libatique shoot everything from Lawrence’s point of view.  She, and we, observe little snippets of conversations, but are left out of so much, just like in Polanski’s film.  They frame sequences so obliquely to keep the audience off balance.  Unlike Polanski and Haneke, who built menace so masterfully, Aronofsky acts like a school kid who can’t wait for all hell to break loose.  He exuberantly fills the frame with so much stuff that it’s often hard to stay afloat.  He’s a director in full command of his vision and clearly had a studio behind him willing to jump off the ledge with him.  

I love his spirit, but wish he had used a little more discipline and restraint.  There’s a great home invasion film inside a jumbled mess with a laid-on-thick approach to telling us we’re killing this earth, a surplus of Garden of Eden machinations, and just a skosh too much God. Aronofsky has made his own Project One. It simultaneously deserves to be seen, vilified, adored, torn down, built up…stir, shake, and start all over again.  

[trendingnewsb]

6 Things Hollywood Always Gets Wrong About Being A Teenager

Presumably, every single writer in Hollywood was at some point in time a teenager. At the very least, they probably inject themselves with teenage blood in order to keep their organs strong and their skin moist. So how in the world do they know nothing about them? It’s … it’s the cocaine, isn’t it? Well, whatever it is, pay attention, writers. We’re about to help you out …

6

All Teens Are Totally Free To Interrupt Gym Class Or Practice

Teen movies like to portray gym teachers and coaches as sadistic disciplinarians who must win at all costs, yet they’re also super OK with anyone walking onto the field and interrupting things. Movie football practice has to stop every three minutes for each player’s girlfriend to walk onto the field and have a long conversation with him. In The Duff, the protagonist goes right up to the quarterback as he’s running drills.

Lionsgate Films“Hey! Star athlete in the middle of a play! Let’s talk about science class! No, YOU get the hell off the field, COACH.”

In 10 Things I Hate About You, a male student interrupts an all-girl archery class without anyone telling him he’s not allowed to just show up there for so, so many reasons.

Touchstone Pictures“Sup? You in class? Being watched very closely by a protective gym teacher as you shoot a dangerous weapon? Cool, cool.”

In Superbad, Seth has no problem completely ruining the gym class soccer game to talk to his buddy. People seem a little annoyed, but not to the point of anyone kicking him out. The PE teacher barely manages an irritated “Come on.”

Columbia Pictures“No, YOU come on! Movie school by-law 48B states that if I want to ruin a soccer game, you can’t do a goddamn thing about it!”

Once you notice this, you’ll see it everywhere. In Juno, about 30 seconds into the movie, everyone’s favorite quirky preggo hipster interrupts a track team’s cross-country practice to talk to her baby daddy, and the rest of the team continues as if nothing matters. Sandy in Grease tries the same thing, and can’t seem to understand why Danny won’t talk to her, despite the fact that he’s obviously in the middle of track practice.

Paramount Pictures“Sandy, I need to get a mustachey blowjo- I mean FINISH PRACTICE.”

5

All Teenagers Take The Same Classes, Everywhere

While pop culture would have you believe that teenagers spend all day making sex bets and hatching revenge schemes in response to sex bets, the truth is that they spend most of their time sitting in class. Literally, everyone who has ever written a script should know this and be able to get this fundamental element of teen life right, but much like the teens of today, they just can’t even.

Real high schools have level systems to separate students by academic ability, if not AP or honors courses to further separate our future leaders from the future opioid addicts and pyramid scheme victims. Movies and television are always sorting characters into jock, nerd, and slacker roles — which would absolutely have different schedules — and then throwing them all into the same class and hoping nobody notices.

Teen shows will have the smartest kids in school taking the exact same class as the pothead four grades behind and the lineman about to get kicked off the football team for failing lunch. For instance, in Boy Meets World, Topanga winds up being the valedictorian, yet she’s in class with Cory, the idiot, and Shawn, the wisecracking slacker. Even toward the end of high school, they have the exact same classes. Is this a Philadelphia school with only one classroom’s worth of students?

ABC Studios“Psst! Topanga! Who is this ‘Biology’ girl everyone is talking about? Is she hot?”

On Saved By The Bell, Jessie is an obsessive overachiever who resorts to speed pills to study longer, Kelly is an airhead cheerleader, Screech is more like a chimpanzee than a human, and Zack is a sociopath who would break up an administrator’s marriage in order to get out of class. And yet there they are, all in the same room.

Universal Television“Welcome to All the Math 1.”

Daria is in the same class as the cheerleaders and football players, who are portrayed as being so stupid that she can barely manage to feel contempt for them. Which must suck for her, because she’s learning the same things at the same rate they are.

Paramount Television“Class, please open your All the Math books to Chapter 4: Beginner and Advanced Math.”

Mean Girls also apparently takes place in a school with only one math class. Cady is “really good” at math, while Aaron is “kinda bad” at it, and yet they are in the exact same class, junior year. Should a mathlete like Lindsay Lohan really be sitting behind the handsome boy who has to count on his fingers? What’s she going to get out of that situation, other than HPV?

Paramount Pictures“Teacher, the answer is 1 over cute butt to the dreamy eyes!”

Read Next

5 Common Sayings That Mean The Opposite Of What You Think

In The Duff, Bianca is great at science, while Wesley is a jock with grades so bad that he is academically ineligible to play football and might lose his scholarship to Ohio State University, home of this tweet. By the end of the movie, he can’t get a grade above a B+, even with Bianca tutoring him every day. How could they possibly be in the same class? She should be in AP physics with all the other nerds, and he should be collecting bugs and guessing the names of rocks. The point is, this isn’t a frontier classroom by a pig farm– teachers don’t throw all the kids into one room and read to all of them from the same Bible anymore.

4

Cool Kids Love Carpooling

Hip teens are all about their spicy memes, Tide pod lunches, and sharing one vehicle between large groups of friends. Hollywood thinks that nothing screams cool like the environmentally friendly practice of carpooling, especially if you’re a teenager heading to and from school. TV teens are, like, so totally concerned about their carbon footprint that they cram into cars like they’re Bangladeshi buses.

Warner Bros. Television“One Tree Hill? They should have called it One Car H-“ “I will crash this car, Melissa. I will do it. I would love to do it.”

And it’s not like we are talking about friends aimlessly cruising around together. No, this trope is specific to the school commute, which all movie teens love. They act like driving to five different houses at the crack of dawn to pick up everyone for first period fills them with the raddest, most tubular joy.

Paramount PicturesThat girl’s probably mean because she’s been operating a door-to-school shuttle since 5 a.m.

This strange phenomenon happens in pretty much all teen-centered media across the decades, from Fast Times At Ridgemont High to 13 Reasons Why. Which is odd, since real teenagers think carpooling is about as cool as unregulated gun ownership.

Universal PicturesThe only way these guys managed to visit three locations and smoke a pound of weed before school would be if they were trying to make it to school two days ago.

3

There Is An Unlimited Amount Of Time Between High School Classes

Movies and shows think the time between classes constitutes about 70 percent of the entire school day. In a real school, you usually get five minutes to walk three minutes’ worth of distance. It doesn’t leave a ton of time to have profound conversations or gather together for bully ambushes. But in fictional high schools, like the one in Boy Meets World, you can style your hair, witness the beginning, middle, and end of a relationship, and give yourself a haircut. All between classes, with no one expressing any sense of urgency.

Their school gives them 90 minutes between periods. They know you always gotta look fly.

In Riverdale, they have time to trade long monologues and accuse each other of elaborate murder plans while still presumably making it to their next class.

“Can some of this intrigue wait until after school? I only have 40 more minutes to make it to Beginner/Advanced All Math. You know this, because you have it too. So do all of you. Hey, why did we even switch rooms?”

2

Teenagers Are Always Having Consequence-Free Food Fights

In a movie or TV show, all it takes to turn a room into a war zone is for one character to yell the words “FOOD FIGHT!” It’s as if movie teens have been waiting their whole lives to get covered in cafeteria food — objectively the worst kind of food. Try to think if there’s ever been a time in your life when that proposition interested you, much less enthralled an entire room full of carefully styled teenagers in their favorite outfits.

20th Television“Tee-hee, look at us ruin thousands of dollars’ worth of musical equipment!”

That last picture is a property-destroying riot from Glee, in an episode about several of the senior Glee Clubbers coming to terms with how they’ll soon be leaving the only school where everyone expresses themselves through song and dance. They halfheartedly attempt to recruit their replacements, and somehow, moments later, it is the goddamn food Purge.

“I’m going to miss this place, you guys. Wait, I have an idea! DESTROY THE FUCKING SCHOOL!”

In Vice Principals, two rival educators are trying to kill each other, and their angry presence sparks a massive food fight. So it seems that any chaos, whether it is life and death or plain silly fun, will ignite the volatile powder keg that is teen lunching.

We see these inexplicable, random fights break out over and over in films like Matilda, Max Keeble’s Big Move, Whip It!, Valley Girl, and Animal House. They also happen in shows like Lizzie Macguire, Boy Meets World, The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody, and even Power Rangers. Just because you defend the world from Lord Zedd does not mean you’re above trying to destroy a bunch of children with handfuls of chili.

Saban BrandsWhile they threw cake, 40,000 people died in a TurbanShell attack.

Picture the aftermath of a real school food fight. You’d have to spend at least a couple of hours covered in caked-on rotting food, all mixed together to form the exact recipe for vomit. You have to go home and explain to your parents why your best pants are ruined, your phone is filled with mashed potatoes, and your books have been soaking in melted Jello. The cafeteria is a legitimate biohazard that no school budget is prepared to deal with. Now try to picture the trouble you’d be in. Well, in a movie, nobody gives a shit.

You can create a tornado of garbage, and there won’t be a single consequence. Five episodes of Glee should have been them singing sad songs in detention after they destroyed an entire cafeteria. There should have been a scene in which they begged their principal not to press criminal charges with a Salt n’ Pepa song. You can’t simply decide to start a landfill where you stand because someone screams “food fight.” It absolutely does not go well when it happens in real life, as we see time and time and time and time again.

1

Teenagers Love To Hang Out Before Heading To School

For most of us, a school day started with a very unwelcome alarm, followed by a tough decision between personal hygiene and more sleep. Once you finally got ready and maybe ate something, you got on the bus or in the car with as close to zero seconds to spare as possible.

In movies, teenagers are always hanging out at their friends’ houses, meeting up in arcades, or stopping by the home of an elderly mad scientist of no relation to play guitar. High school has an average start time of 8:00 a.m., and most people take around 11 to 30 minutes to get ready. So even assuming you live next door to your school, you’re getting up at 7:48 at the latest. What kind of meth addict teenager gets up and does more than zero things before 7:48?

In a movie, that’s totally normal. Bill and Ted, two slacker kids failing out of school, managed to get up early enough to get together and then write, produce, and perform a music video before school.

Orion PicturesIt’s as if time travel movies don’t care about linear time.

Here’s a clip of Michael Cera and Jonah Hill in Superbad, both awake so early that they have time to share their masturbation fantasies while buying a slushie before school.

Jonah Hill, in particular, always seems to be up in time to run all his errands before his first class. He’s just a goddamn go-getter. In 21 Jump Street, neither he nor Channing Tatum mention how fucking early it is when they go pick up a new car before their first day as undercover high-schoolers. How the hell do movie teenagers manage to fit in a whole day before 8 a.m.?

Columbia Pictures/MGM StudiosIt’s as grand a mystery as 27-year-old Dave Franco being cast as a real, non-undercover high school student.

Diego Rivera is a film student from Chile. He’s sometimes funny on Twitter. Jordan Breeding also writes for Paste Magazine, the Twitter, himself, and is taller than literally every teenager.

You only wish you had an alarm clock as powerful as these kids’.

Support Cracked’s journalism with a visit to our Contribution Page. Please and thank you.

For more ways Hollywood sucks for teenagers, check out 5 Horrible Life Lessons Learned From Teen Movies and 5 Weird Things That Teen Shows Think About Actual Teens.

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Read more: http://www.cracked.com/article_25504_6-things-hollywood-always-gets-wrong-about-being-teenager.html

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