#why does kris have so many different spellings for their name

[shazos]

Rouxls is Hiding Something Big: A Deltarune Theory

FORENOTE- For some needed context, it may help reading my previous Deltarune theory here for important details that I will cover in this post. (My previous theory provides notable evidence on why Gaster is indeed the “Knight” figure talked about by multiple characters in Deltarune.)

Now, this is going to sound crazy. But after much time of poring over and analyzing Deltarune, I have come to a conclusion. One that I’ve been convinced of for awhile now. Something that’s been lying right under all of our noses without many of us even realizing it. We have all been bamboozled. Hoodwinked. Tricked. Why, you may ask?

Because the comically stupid and inept Duke of Puzzles is actually... not an idiot. No, he’s the complete opposite. He is a downright mastermind.

As collective players, we are all falling into the same trap once again. Putting faith into a character’s preconceived personality !

When their true personality turns out the complete opposite of what we expected...

It is here, my evidence for this claim begins—and we delve into the true identity of Rouxls Kaard. Buckle up everyone, cause this one’s gonna be a fun ride. 👀

So, to spill the beans up front, and get it over with. I believe Rouxls Kaards identity... is none other than W.D. Gaster in disguise.

Now. I didn’t immediately become invested in this theory—I was skeptical at first like everyone else. But, once I began examining Deltarune and all of its characters a bit closer...things weren’t exactly adding up about the Duke of Puzzles.

Point #1: Anagrams

I initially began to become suspicious of Rouxls Kaard because of his odd name. Sure, it is a play on the words of the term, “Rules card”. But it is spelt in such a peculiar way. If it were just simply a play on words, I think that there would be a much better way of going about spelling it rather than just jumbling a bunch of random letters together. There is a very intriguing reddit post found here that goes more into depth about his name that ties well into my theory. The thing that stood out to me in particular, is that Rouxls’s name is actually also an anagram for “A Dark Soul RX”, (with the left over RX typically being used in terms relating to doctors/medicine.) Not only is Gaster a Doctor, but he’s also always associated with darkness and the research of souls. Toby loves his anagrams—so I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if this was intentional. But it doesn’t end there.

I’ve noticed that Toby Fox has a tendency to tease certain things about his games through merch. And wouldn’t you know it—he has in fact, a particular item on fangamer of a “dark heart.” One which description describes the Angel’s Prophecy. Hm...

But let’s back on track onto my second observation, shall we?

Point #2: The Physical Resemblance to Gaster

Now, there seems to be some interesting foreshadowing related to inverted colors in Deltarune. Before Ralsei takes his hat off, he appears black. But once he takes his hat off, voila, his colors are inverted, and he is revealed to actually be a white goat highly resembling Asriel.

In addition, the entire Dark World is literally just. An inverted version of a normal world.

The Dark World could have hypothetically been the created world/experiment that Gaster had fallen into in the first place. After all, his experiment had to do with “darkness”, and “negative” photons--AKA the Dark Fountains, and the negatively/inverted landscapes of the Dark World.

And how does Rouxls Kaard appear inverted anyways? Well, he looks like THIS.

He even has the strange dangling lip thing—which another character said to directly resemble Gaster, Seam, has as well:

In addition, if you look at Rouxls’ text-box profile very closely, his eye colors are actually mismatched which is a rather interesting detail!

Point # 3: His Accent is Extremely put on.

I think anybody that has read any sort of Shakespearean/Old English writing, can instantly realize that Rouxls is as bad as imitating an Old English accent as a high-schooler reading Hamlet for the first time. Rouxls absolutely butchers it. He practically adds eth, and est at the end of any word he chooses, and calls the job done. What is even more interesting though, is when he gets nervous or panicked, he drops the act all together and talks normally.

Point #4: He is Pretending to be Dumb; His Puzzles are Actually Impressive!

I found it intriguing how there are countless puzzle traps in all the forest areas and in the Card Castle prison that were actually very well done. You have to flip the spades, diamonds, hearts, etc to unlock doors, and open secret chests. They require a decent amount of thinking skills, and are actually competent. But who made them?? Oddly enough if you observe one of them in the forest areas, it appears that Rouxls Kaard vandalized one of the puzzles to make it harder for the player to beat it—which further implies that he actually indeed made those puzzles himself. This shows that Rouxls is much more competent than only being able to make a single box shove puzzle that is comically easy. Where else do we see a place full of plenty of rather well made puzzles + traps seen? All throughout the Core in Undertale—a place which Gaster himself created!

Point #5: Rouxls IS Aware the World is a Game--AKA DON’T FORGET TO READ NPC DIALOGUE FOLKS!

I think it is well aware by now that Rouxls likely wants us as the players to underestimate him--and deem him a fool so we wouldn’t bat an eye at what he’s actually up to. But the most biggest give away to this is something that I have surprisingly seen no one mention at all. And oh boy, it is the most damning evidence that Rouxls is no idiot to be trifled with.

To the left of Seam’s shop, there can be found a little group of former puzzle-makers that used to live at Card Castle, until they were fired and replaced with Rouxls Kaard. They are now all out of a job, and are just barely scraping by since the Spade King didn’t give them any severance pay. However, Rouxls Kaard offered them a way to get money--by selling the tutorials he made.

These tutorials go over TP, stats, information about Susie, Ralsei,  and Kris. Rouxls Kaard has never once met any of the players yet--and he knows everything about them. He knows about stats. He knows the world is a game.

HOW??

In addition, when you talk to Rouxls in his shop, he calls you three the Heroes of Legend. He is well aware of the Angel’s Prophecy. He knows.

Whenever any character in the world of Undertale & Deltarune knows that the world is a game, it is an instant red-flag. It goes to show that they know much more than they let on. Flowey and Sans are big examples of this in Undertale. Pure hearted, dorky idiots that we trust earlier in the game--but wind up seeing the real side of them later on.

...So why should we treat Rouxls any differently?

Point #6: The “Control Crown”

Something that I immediately thought was kind of weird, was the fact that Rouxls Kaard was able to control the K. Round with a “Control Crown” device. If he is so stupid, how was he able to create a full on mechanical device that can brainwash a life-form into being violent/cause it to triple in size?! That is genius material right there!

But things start to take on a much darker side when you begin to look at the subtext of this realization, which I will get to in a moment...

First of all, Seam claimed these exact words.

The remaining king was the Spade King-- as the King of Hearts, Diamonds, and Clubs are seen to be locked up in the Dungeon. Therefore, the Spade King put the Knight, and his strange son into power. IF it were the Spade King in power, the dialogue box WOULD have said “himself”. Therefore, the Knight, and his strange son were put in place to control the kingdom. And who are they?

Gaster/Rouxls Kaard, and Lancer.

Evidence to back this up:

Lancer calls Rouxls his “Lesser Dad”. And Rouxls calls Lancer, his Strange little darling/son.

The Spade King is not in charge. During his boss-fight, he states that he obeys the word of the Knight.

If you observe more of Lancer’s dialogue in the scene right before the gang enters Card Castle, he states that his dad, (Spade King), recently forced his troops to listen to Lancer instead. Therefore, Lancer is by all respects actually second in command to the Knight.

One of Rouxls main interests is...Lawmaking. Even though he is just supposedly an innocent Duke of Puzzles.

Another one of Rouxls main interests is...Cages, and long strolls in the dungeon... 

There are innocent puzzle-makers locked up in the Prison who are terrified--they were arrested for the simple act of making a puzzle without a license. HM, I wonder who could have possibly locked them up? *Wink wink nudge nudge*

And what ties this all together, is perhaps the most obscure, tiniest detail that no one would have likely observed on a first play-through. If you go to the first floor of Card Castle and click the description tablet next to the elevator to the Prison, it claims that the Prison used to just be a Basement Which Just Happened to Have a Lot of Cages. This is backed up by the caged animals in the basement, who say that they miss the “good old days” when they used to be the only ones there in cages, and not a bunch of people behind bars.

In summary, Rouxls is locking up a bunch of innocent people, and playing nice to our faces. He IS the knight. And he is not to be underestimated.

Point #7: Rouxls’ Plan is Already Set in Place

The part where this theory gets a little dark, ties back to my mentioning of the control crown earlier.

If you observe the throne room, it looks like it was recently torn apart in a sort of...conflict.

Why was the Spade King the only king left un-caged to begin with? Why wasn’t he locked up too?

Well...Rouxls Kaard needed someone to put him in charge. But not only that—he needed a scapegoat. Someone to blame. Someone to be “The Bad Guy” for the Heroes to fight.

The Spade King...is actually innocent. He is obeying the Knight, because he is being controlled by a Control Crown. The throne room is in ruins because the Spade King likely fought against this at first, but Rouxls won and successfully put the Spade King under his command. I thought it was strange how the King was so...violent. So irredeemably evil, and even murderous toward his own son Lancer. Yes, it could be argued that this is indeed his true personality, that he is a complete, abusive jerk. But, the whole ending battle of Deltarune chapter 1 feels so...set up in a way? It feels so starkly good vs evil, black and white. Almost like a play.

And oh boy. I think I was onto something.

If you pay close attention to the fight with the Spade King, there is a brief moment at the beginning where he is completely shrouded in shadow. Except. For. His. Crown. It glows stark white in comparison to himself. Like a Chekov’s Gun if you will.

And even more interesting, in the supposed good/pacifist ending, the Spade King is locked up in Prison, the other three kings are still locked up in cages, everyone else is freed, and Rouxls and Lancer now have full control of the kingdom...

Guys. We just played right into Gaster’s hands.

Point #8: Seam Knows that Rouxls is the Knight...

The final observation that genuinely makes me convinced in this theory, is a small detail I noticed at the end of the Pacifist run of Deltarune. Once you have beaten the game, and all of the prisoners are freed, everyone comes to celebrate at Card Castle for your victory. Everyone, except for Seam. That is because Seam knows what the “Strange Knight” did to Jevil. He knows who the Strange Knight is. And he knows what the Knight’s true intentions are.

Point #9: Extra Tidbits I noticed:

When compared to the other denizens of card castle, Rouxls seems out of place. He is the one vaguely humanoid character among a bunch of card and chess themed Darkners. 

His puzzle is... too easy.

Rouxls is oddly excited about overthrowing the king/taking his place. 

Rouxls is well versed in calligraphy of all things. (Relation to fonts + letters.)

Rouxls “sparkles” have an odd resemblance to the shining save states...?

He makes pop culture references, such as ones seen here and here. Could just be random throwaway jokes, but often times more “aware” characters such as Sans and Papyrus are keen on breaking the fourth wall at times/making references to relate with the audience.

His hair looks strangely out of place. Especially the hairline which is really receded to an unnatural degree on the left side. It’s a wig guys...

He gets a suspiciously new position for no reason at all. In any normal situation, he would be extremely unqualified for it if he were as stupid as he makes himself out to be.

Rouxls is literally wearing armor, akin to a medieval knights.

If you pay close attention, Rouxls has a few very subtle similar speech patterns to Gaster. They both occasionally repeat words twice. They both use the words wonderful and truly a lot, etc.

When Kris and the gang beat the K. Round, Rouxls said it was just to test their abilities.

Rouxls theme has leitmotifs from Gaster’s theme.

End of discussion. Deltarune’s finale is legit going to be Gaster getting his wig snatched.

[pyreo]

deltarune megapost

I wanted to make a Deltarune post about the lore and the things that aren’t  obvious. And once I do that I wanna focus on why Mettaton is incredibly important to this setting

And also why he poses a problem

Why did Toriel and Asgore get divorced?

Without the setting of Undertale, Asgore and Toriel’s marriage still broke up after they had Asriel. There needs to be a reason though. In UT it was Asgore’s ‘worst of both worlds’ decision regarding killing anybody that fell from the human world, including children. We saw how close they were before this happened. Only something deep and serious caused that rift. In Deltarune, what on earth did Asgore do?

What happened to Dess?

Mentioned a handful of times by Noelle, Dess was her older sister and is mentioned In Undertale.... in that Xbox exclusing casino thing. The way Noelle talks about her, the conspicuous way Noelle gets locked out of her big house - it implies Dess is gone or deceased. Berdly recalls a spelling bee when he and Noelle were younger where she, despite being smarter than him, misspelled ‘December’, allowing him to win.

In the two-player spelling puzzle, it also spells out ‘December’ as Noelle recalls the past and her silhouette regresses to a child while she does so. Being distracted by her sister’s disappearance, rather than pure shyness, could account for her misspelling her name on stage, and it clearly left a big psychological mark for her to have this visual regression in the Dark World.

However, there’s a graveyard in Hometown with no Dess. I heard another theory that she has been missing for years, because where each character’s personal room is made by Queen to reflect their tastes via their search results, Noelle has a calendar where every day is December 25th. This could imply that Noelle continually searches the internet for ‘December Holiday’, her sister’s name, to see if there are clues to her disappearance, but of course the only result you would get is the date of Christmas.

Who is the Knight?

It’s now implied to be Kris, who has been forcibly removing the player’s influence to act on their own. By all accounts the Knight is the game’s main antagonist. Spade King and Queen both mention the Knight as someone who influenced their position - they brought Spade King to absolute power, and showed Queen that creation of new worlds was possible.

We’re led to believe that Kris was doing this, because they’ve been acting outside of the player’s control. Eating the entire pie between chapter 1 and 2 might have been a red herring to cover that they also went to the library and used that knife to slash open a dark fountain there.

However. This has issues. How would they even manage to shuffle slowly all the way to the library and get in the computer lab? The Knight is also the one creating the hidden bosses. They talked to Jevil until he realised he was in a game and he lost his mind; they ruined Spamton’s life by elevating him to success and then crushing him. Whatever the Knight is doing seems to be deliberately planned with key players in mind.

Kris opening the fountain at home at the end of ch.2 can be explained in that you just figured out in Cyber World that anyone determined enough can do this, and so, Kris decided to. So a better question might even be...

What does Kris want?

We have no idea. They are capable of removing the SOUL, ‘us’, temporarily, and putting things in motion we cannot influence. But they also keep putting us back in control afterward. This is hinted at right when ch.2 starts, where if you inspect the cage in Kris’s bedroom they threw us into, the description says it’s inescapable. Meaning Kris came back and took us out, willingly.

They allow us to pilot them through the game. Why? Because they cannot live without the SOUL for long for some reason? Because they’re bad at bullet hell? Why did they slash Toriel’s tyres before opening the fountain, making sure nobody could drive away?? Why did they specifically open the door?

You can find out details about Kris through the creepy way you interact with the townsfolk, who think you are Kris. They play the piano at the hospital waiting room - better than you. They used to go to church just to get the special church juice. It’s all normal, relatable things, not like someone who’s trying to plunge the world into darkness. Judging by their search history portrayed in their Queen’s castle room, they really want to see their brother again. However the castle has a room based on Asriel’s search history too, and Kris (not you) closes their eyes and won’t look at it.

What is Ralsei?

His name is an anagram of Asriel. Is he an extension of Asriel? The slightly flirtier dialogue in ch.2 would point to no. Is he an extension of Kris themselves, given the link between Kris’s childhood habit of wearing a headband with red horns on it, to pretend to be a monster like their family?

Ralsei knows exactly where the Dark World in the school is located, and unlike regular Darkners, knows the world is folded up inside the ‘real world’. There’s a certain whiplash to Ralsei telling you to hop out of his reality into yours and go down the hallway to retrieve all the board game items.

How does he jump from one Dark World to another, without assistance? How does he not get petrified like Lancer and Rouxls? Is this a power level thing because he’s a prince or something else? We definitely do not know enough about Ralsei.

He also says this incredibly suspicious thing after you spare Spamton NEO. Susie was also curious but accepts that maybe it ‘didn’t mean anything’, which is a sure tell that these optional bosses do mean something.

Someone is orchestrating what’s happening, opening fountains, manipulating the rulers, and influencing NPCs to become the optional bosses. Why? I suspect Ralsei for both knowing too much, and pretending something doesn’t matter when it clearly does. Until Asriel actually comes home from college I’m going to suspect he’s involved in this too.

How much does Seam know?

Seam on the other hand knows a lot about what’s going on but is openly withholding information while helping you. He’s nihilistic. He says things like:

One day soon... You too, will begin to realize the futility of your actions. Ha ha ha... At that time, feel free to come back here. I'll make you tea... And we can toast... to the end of the world!

Either this ‘end of the world’ is a reference to The Roaring, where opening too many dark fountains dooms the Dark World and the real one... or, I can’t get out of my head the idea that Deltarune takes place in a fake, or weird reconstruction of Undertale where things don’t match up, and eventually it will have to disappear. After all, powers of determination and creating and manipulating universes are Undertale’s basic bread and butter. How can we look at an Alternate Universe containing the characters we already know and not suspect that? Seam also uses Gaster’s key words, ‘darker, yet darker’, seemingly to clue us in that he’s not off track here.

Why haven’t we seen Papyrus?

This is a bright neon flashing ‘something’s not right’ sign. It’s not like Papyrus’s voice actor was too busy or anything. His absence is noticable and for a reason. Nice of Sans to promise we could meet him despite being aware we’re piloting a child’s body around, though, even if he didn’t follow through.

What locations in town could be used for dark fountains in the next 4 chapters?

If the sequence continues, we have chapter 1 in the school games room, chapter 2 in a computer lab, and chapter 3 in front of Kris’s television, where the aesthetic of each setting influences the world, characters, and enemies in the Dark World created there. Future possibilities include the church, the hospital, sans’s grocery store, Noelle’s house, and the closed bunker.

What the hell’s in the closed bunker

This one’s too obvious, honestly. I think it’ll open for no reason in chapter 7 and a little white dog will bounce out and steal one of your key items and nothing else happens.

Why does Asgore have these

Unlike the bunker feeling like a joke teaser, I gotta believe this is foreshadowing something weird. For example, what does opening a dark fountain in here with the seven flowers do? Does it just take you into Undertale?

Each chapter will have a hidden boss with a ‘soul mode’ from Undertale

Chapter 1 let you stay red, but I think each subsequent chapter is going to change your soul mode to one of the seven colours and design the encounter around that. Purple, yellow, green and blue were used in Undertale, leaving the light blue and orange modes yet to be revealed.

How does Spamton emulate Mettaton Neo’s name, body, and incorporate his battle theme, and the ‘Dummy!’ theme, with no actual connection between them ingame?

This is a really fun one that’s explained over in this post here. Swatch is the Dark World creation from the paint program on the library computers, so he’s able to explain that a Lightner made the robot body decaying in the castle basement that way.

Mettaton went to the library and drew his ideal form, Mettaton NEO, in MS Paint, and the Dark World formed that into a puppet body which Spamton was able to hijack temporarily. So by doing that Spamton was able to channel Mettaton’s appearance, attacks, music, and SOUL mode for the fight.

This might mean that the future hidden bosses, each with their own SOUL mode, might be based on the associated character for that mode (Muffet, Undyne, and Sans or Papyrus), and the boss will take on some aspect of them from their world to leech their fight mechanics.

The Problem With Mettaton

We don’t exactly know what Deltarune is about. It’s an alternate universe where the characters from Undertale already live on the surface, have completely normal lives, but diverge from the storyline of Undertale and, crucially, have not lived through the changes Frisk brought to their lives.

Remember how Undertale had a dozen different ending routes depending on who you befriended? The constant reinforcement in Undertale was that your choices mattered. Through Frisk, you chose to bring Alphys closure about her mistakes, you chose to befriend papyrus instead of attacking him, you chose to help Alphys and Undyne realise their feelings for each other and it’s only doing that that leads to the golden ending and escape to the surface.

Deltarune is the opposite, your choices do not matter. The only thing you can do to force the route of the game to change is to force Noelle into a No Mercy run, which is indirect, and also, a total desperation to mess with an otherwise set course. This version of the characters have not been helped by Frisk - Undyne and Alphys are not together, Papyrus has no friends, Asgore cannot get over himself, and they’re clearly the worse for it, but potentially, you COULD still do these things. In fact it’s hinted that you already are.

But there’s Mettaton.

He’s still a ghost and does not leave his house. In Frisk’s world, Gaster deleted himself, promoting Alphys to royal scientist by bluffing with Mettaton, and she then build him his ideal body. In Kris’s world... Alphys is a school teacher. There’s no barrier to break, no reason to experiment on souls, no Flowey mistake, and no body for Mettaton.

It was sad in Ch.1, but now with the Spamton NEO fight in ch.2, it’s unmissable. Mettaton wants that body and he cannot get it. Alphys in this universe is not going to leave her teaching job and suddenly be able to build a robot. Mettaton is just... screwed out of his happy ending and cannot get it.

So what resolution could this have? If it wasn’t for Mettaton I might believe in the vaildity of Deltarune and Hometown. But. How can you doom this character? If Undertale was the only way Mettaton could be befriended, then Undertale is Primary Universe A and Seam is right - the world of Deltarune is doomed as some kind of aberration. It all relies on how this gets explained in the future, but the core mystery of Deltarune is how exactly this universe intersects with Undertale and whether one is an offshoot of the other. How the Dark World links into that is another complication. But even as we get more fun characters and neat stuff in the Dark Worlds, let’s not forget we have absolutely no idea why Undertale’s characters are living here with no mention of underground or why there are no other humans beside Kris.

[varsitycult]

Shapeshifting: Solaris and True Alienation

          In Stanislaw Lem’s 1961 novel of the same name, Solaris is an alien planet that “materializes physical simulacra”— any members aboard the space station slowly circling the planet will begin to have interactions with figures from their pasts, those figures that left the greatest impact on their psyches. The ocean itself manifests many forms that fall under different categorization, such as mimoids, symmetriads, etc., which arise mostly as singular architectural feats and ever-evolving foamy, stretchy-then-solid, growing-and-shrinking structures that can be many miles in dimension; those that study these phenomena are called solaricists.            The study of Solaris developed from a more esoteric theorization of what the ocean actually “is”:

“For some time one popular view, eagerly disseminated by the press, was that the thinking ocean covering the whole of Solaris was a gigantic brain more advanced by millions of years than our own civilization, that it was some kind of “cosmic yogi,” a sage, omniscience incarnate, which had long ago grasped the futility of all action and for this reason was simply maintaining a categorical silence towards us.” (Lem)

          This evolved into a decidedly scientific investigation of how Solaris ‘works,’but no matter how many studies were done and how much a desire for First Contact might’ve been present aboard, the ocean didn't attempt to reveal anything about itself — to the crew, it seemingly only sought to essentially conduct psychological experiments on them by creating “empty” doppelgängers of critical figures from their pasts who cannot die.

          The book centers around Kris Kelvin, an at times neurotic, at times deeply detached psychologist. In his youth, he knew and was in a relationship with a young woman named Harey, who ultimately ended up killing herself after Kris ended their relationship and implied she was weak. Once Kris begins seeing, speaking and interacting with the simulacra of Harey, he questions his own sanity, and conducts experiments to prove to himself that he is sane — and when in the lab, realizes the other crew members have done the same. We never learn the details of the other crews simulacras beyond an interaction in the beginning of Kris’ stay, and fleeting glimpses of identifiers — but it is implied that they’re haunting enough to drive the crew to madness and suicide, such as in the case of Gibarian, a former professor of Kris’ and fellow crew member who committed suicide right before Kris arrived on the station.

           Harey is Kris’ appointed simulacra, or shapeshifter, if you will. What is a shapeshifter? Basically an entity with the ability to change into a different shape or form; It can be the act of a human turning into an animal (commonly seen in creatures such as werewolves, vampires and the like); an animal shapeshifting into a person; a person into a plant or object; and on, including gods turning into clouds, gods turning other gods into any myriad of animals or objects, etc. Shapeshifting is key in shamanic practice and totemism, and entails transformation into a different  f o r m, precipitated by an altered state of consciousness within the shaman, aided by substances, rhythmic driving, and the like:

“[S]hamanism and hypnosis … use … the same dissociative state of consciousness, which in shamanism is referred to as the shamanic journey, or ecstatic flight, and in hypnosis is called the hypnotic trance, or simply trance. Neurophysiological and empirical evidence support the view that the shamanic journey achieved without the use of hallucinogenic substances, that is, with the aid of musical instrumentation, chanting, and similar phenomena, elicits the same EEG profile as the hypnotic trance state. In addition, experiential phenomena characteristic of the shaman’s ecstatic flight, such as shapeshifting, contact with imaginal agents, and the like, can likewise be achieved in hypnotic trance” (Walter).

         
 For this entry, shapeshifting is one conscious entity shifting into another entity who is, by necessity, conscious to some degree. We find shapeshifters from stories that span the world and millennia — such as the character of Merlin from Arthurian Legend:

“In the Arthurian cycle, the wizard Merlin enchanted Uther Pendragon, making him look like the husband of Igraine so that she would gladly sleep with him. Merlin knew through augury that this mating would conceive the child who would later become King Arthur. One tool for accomplishing such shapeshifting was the spell known as fith-fath, used to transform one object into another and also to confer invisibility.” (472, Walter)

(I just really enjoy the word fith-fath)

          In the Cherokee tradition, there’s the story of the “Stone Coat,” a monster covered with scaly armor from head to toe who could take human form; Stone Coat ate the livers of his victims while in the shape of an old woman, after puncturing their skulls with a crooked finger (136, Young). Stone Coat took the form of an orphan, who then ate other children’s livers, and was subsequently banned from town. Knowing Stone Coat is approaching, 7 menstruating women lay along the path in wait — he vomits blood crossing them, and, knowing he is dying, asks the people to build a fire and burn him. As he burned, he sang songs, songs that eventually became traditional Cherokee songs; “His death, he said, would unleash disease in the world, but the songs he taught them would cure it.”

          In the case of Old Norse, with regards to Berserkers, shapeshifting more closely approximates a shared state of consciousness generated among animal cultists, leading to murder and rape under the influence of rage:

“It is proposed by some authors that the berserkers drew their power from the bear and were devoted to the bear cult, which was once widespread across the northern hemisphere … To "go berserk" was to "hamask", which translates as "change form", in this case, as with the sense "enter a state of wild fury.”

          In Asia, the kitsune (🇯🇵), huli jing (🇨🇳), or kumiho (🇰🇷) are mythical foxes with 9 tails, that are at least 1,000-years old and have attained the boon of shapeshifting. These creatures are known for turning into young women who eat the hearts or livers of young men. In Korea, the kumiho is always malignant, while the Japanese and Chinese variants are morally ambiguous. Across cultures, if a kitsune can last 1,000 days without killing or eating a human, they can become fully human.

          There are myriad reasons why Solaris is a unique shapeshifter experience, considering shapeshifting so often relies on either mythical entities with mythical powers, or altered states. With Solaris, we have an “entity” who can never be perceived directly, and we never learn how Solaris does what it does — Lem intentionally chose an ocean as to avoid personification and thus satisfaction of “First Contact.” Solaris creates an experience of True Alienation — because Solaris can “[see] into the deepest recesses of human minds and then [bring] their dreams to life,” but the observer knows that wish-fulfillment is impossible, making the experience of Solaris a deeply disturbing one which highlights the limits of our physical systems and of our human comprehension.

          We never come to understand the intent of the manifestations that haunt the crew observing Solaris, though later in the book, Kris ventures out onto the planet itself for the first time ever, after Harey has finally died indefinitely of her own accord; This experience changes his perception of the planet itself, realizing it is actually slightly timid, if not a bit naive, observing and reacting to new information, interacting momentarily with Kris’ hand. In the absence of understanding, there was forgiveness of the planet itself, and the psychological torment endured by Kris and the simulacras.

          Often, whether in literature about shamanic rituals or on galaxy-🧠 backwater forums, you will find discussion of shapeshifting paired with possession. Shapeshifting and possession are parallel phenomena, though possession is internal. Harey is both real and not real simultaneously; Harey knows she is and knows she isn’t; and Harey can never be far away from Kris, at least in the beginning. If Kris is not visible to Harey, she will enter a fugue state until she is reunited with Kris again, at times causing herself fatal physical harm to remove obstacles to him — this possession “reveals” Harey to truly be Solaris itself, her body receiving a hard reset via near-death experiences.

          In the beginning of the novel, Harey has a truly amnesiac response to notions of “the past” — she quickly creates an excuse for her behavior or her origins whenever she materializes on the station. As time goes on, Harey noticeably becomes perturbed by her inability to know herself and comes to realize that she is not “Harey”at all. As opposed to following the natural progression of a developing consciousness, arguably going from tabula rasa “nothing” to “something,” Harey goes from believing she is “something” to knowing she is “nothing,” a figment created by the parsed memories of another living being, in a way mirroring terrestrial Harey’s timeline.

          Solaris functions as the embodiment of what Rudolf Otto called the Mysterium Tremendum et Fascinans; the numinous, the unknown. Under electron microscope examination, blood samples from simulacras are devoid of electrons, instead being composed of neutrinos, and a specialized machine is ultimately needed to kill Harey at the end of the book because of this. Nothing like Solaris has ever been seen before, let alone conceived of by human minds, and when 106 members of the space station die in one freak accident while exploring a spontaneous formation on Solaris long before Kris ever arrives, humans subject it to nukes in “retaliation”. Humans had a stronger desire to destroy the unknown than to allow the unknown to exist at all. But Solaris was seemingly unscathed, and afterwards, public interest in Solaris waned, and the simulacras began to appear onboard the station.

           What makes the unknown of Solaris more exaggerated is its observation, even experimentation, on the crew. It is always learning about You — You cannot learn about It. And we can never know if it is learning from its experimenting, if its experimenting is leading to something, some conclusion, at all. It becomes a true black mirror, reflecting back at the crew that which has psychically harmed or affected them the most to try to understand that hurt, because hurt sticks the most :’ ).

           Very often in shapeshifter stories, the concluding action is to kill the shapeshifter because it is deemed malevolent. Shapeshifting is obscure, it is dark, and it is unknowable except to those shapeshifters with access to it. Shapeshifting physicalizes the Shadow, and conceptualizes the existential chicken-and-egg of knowing decay, death and rebirth are inevitable, just maybe not in the ways we’d hoped — bask in the Shadow and temper the compulsion to kill the darkness.

Bibliography:

Lem, Stanisław. “Solaris,” Walker, 1964.

Walter, Mariko, and Eva Jane Neumann. “Shamanism: An Encyclopedia of World Beliefs, Practices, and Culture,” ABC-CLIO, 2004.

Young, William A. “Quest for Harmony: Native American Spiritual Traditions,” Hackett Pub. Co., 2006.

& Wikipedia lul

[authors-dumpster]

A Study in Turquoise

Sybill was doing a pretty good job at blending in with the humans. She had set up her apothecary on a quiet street; customers would come and go throughout the day. No one seemed to suspect that a real Witch could be running this shop. Sybill assumed that her customers saw her as a weird and whimsical woman. Nothing more. She would sometimes get customers who seemed more outlandish than she did. This changed when a little blonde boy came into her apothecary one day in the summer. She remembered with a small smile the words he said to her, though she was not smiling when he had first spoken: “Can you make the purple fireworks come out of your hands again?”

What am I gonna do with this kid? Sybill thought to herself. No human could know she was truly a Witch. Her father would be more understanding, but this is something unacceptable for her mother. Sybill’s mother came from a very large and ancient family of practitioners, some Wiccan, some not, but all were Witches. The old Witch had very traditional ideas, but they were based on sound principals. Her most important was that humans can have no knowledge of the witchcraft that coexists with their mundane practices. Witches have to make a living, after all. Sybill was what could be called a “pureblood” in the magical world, but she tried to conceal this as much as possible. Purebloods tend to have a bad rep for their snobbiness and superiority complexes. This was not Sybill. She was a quiet Witch who just wanted to run her apothecary peacefully and eventually make her girlfriend her wife. Then, they could live quietly with Sybill’s familiar, a noisy and opinionated Siamese cat named Kratos.

On the day that the little blonde boy came in, Sybill got the shock of her life. She was very sure that she had only ever cast spells in her back room. She only ever opened her Book of Shadows after closing the shop, and she had definitely set up wards against any malicious beings that would mean to harm her. So who is this kid, and how did he see me casting that endurance spell?

“Well, hello there. What did you just say about the fireworks? We don't have any of those here, just plants and books, little boy. What’s your name?” Sybill squat down to the little boy’s level. He couldn’t be more than five years old. Where are his parents?

“My name’s Felix. I saw you make little purple fireworks. How did you maked that?”

Thinking quickly, Sybill thought quickly of something that would make sense for a human. “Oh, you mean the sparklers? I use them sometimes to entertain my cat. Do you wanna see him?”

At the word “cat”, Felix’s green eyes lit up. “Kitty? Where?” He was very excited now, and seemed to forget about the spell he witnessed. Sybill stood up and held her hand out for Felix. He took it as she walked to the front corner of the main room by the big windows that overlooked the street.

“Kratos! Here, kitty!”

Who you calling kitty? You look like an albino Willow tree today.

Thanks, I try. Just come down here and watch this kid for a little while. I think he may have seen me cast that endurance spell earlier. I need you to distract him while I get a memory wipe potion from the back.

But what if he pulls my tail like the last kid?

This kid is… different. I can’t explain it, so just come down here and see for yourself.

The most important thing about familiars is that they are definitely not your pets. A familiar is a Witch’s companion. The familiar comes to the Witch when they decide they want to, not when the Witch decides. Kratos came to Sybill when she was only 10 years old; they’ve been together for almost 20 years now. A Witch and her familiar can communicate through thought if desired. Sybill usually speaks aloud to Kratos, it helps her focus and adds to her “weird apothecary shopkeeper” aesthetic, but she didn’t want to risk any more magical exposure to this little kid. Kratos hopped down from the hanging potted plant he was sitting in. He got dirt everywhere, as he usually did. He even added to the shop’s collection of dirty-paw-prints-all-over-the-wood-floor.

“Does he like toys?” Felix asked. Sybill had momentarily forgotten about the little blonde boy.

“Good question. Why don’t we ask him? Kratos, do you like to play with kitty toys?” Sybill was totally not making this difficult for Kratos on purpose. She would never.

The cat meows loudly in response, You saw what I did to your fern bush, right? Same thing’s gonna happen to this kid if you leave me alone with him.

“He said yes!” Sybill clapped in a childish way, her many rings and bracelets jingling together.

Felix clapped happily too, “Yay! Kitty likes to play!”

Sybill summoned a few cat toys behind her back and handed them to Felix. “Be gentle with him,” she warned with a pointed index finger. She didn’t know if she was talking to Felix or Kratos.

She quickly moved to the back of the shop, taking a quick look over her shoulder to check on the little boy. Sybill quietly slipped into the back room where her potion supply was. She tied up her unruly mop of blonde curls so that it was out of her face. It was totally a hazard for casting, summoning, and brewing, but Sybill felt proud of her hair. Stark blonde hair was something like a trademark for the Blackwood family. Sybill hadn’t cut her hair in many years, and it reached all the way down her back.

She found the potion bottle she wanted. “Simple memory wipe. Use when needed to wipe a single memory. Dilute potion for children under 13 years of age. Add 3 poppy seeds for humans. Focus intent over a heated cauldron to target undesired memory.” This will do. Now, I probably shouldn’t just make him drink this… I’d have a lot of explaining to do if I got a customer. I can put it in a sweet, like a cookie. That’ll work. Sybill took several strides across the room to one of her many cauldrons, started a fire under a small one, and poured the potion into it. She followed the directions exactly, and finally she had her memory-wipe cookie. I’ll have to add this to my Grimoire.

Sybill finally emerged from the back room to return to Kratos and Felix. She found the little boy sitting on the floor. The Witch got the second biggest shock of her life next. Kratos was curled up in a ball in Felix’s lap, happily purring.

“Well, it looks like you guys became best friends,” Sybill sat on the ground next to Felix and looked down at Kratos.

“Hey Felix, did you come into town with your mommy or daddy? Where are they?”

“Mommy said me and my big brother could go shopping today. Kris is shopping too.”

Sybill was a little frustrated that Felix didn’t answer the question, but she knew how little kids were. “Hey Felix, do you want a cookie? I’ll trade you Kratos for this chocolate chip cookie. It’s his nap time, so I gotta put him back in his bed.”

“A cookie! I want a cookie!” Felix’s eyes lit up again. Sybill started for only a second. The little boy’s eyes seemed to literally light up. It’s probably just the sunlight making them change colour. Sybill handed Felix the memory wipe cookie, and waited for him to finish it. In the meantime, she scooped up Kratos, and stood up to return him to his potted plant. Kratos opened one eye at her and purred. Traitor, she muttered. Sybill brushed the dirt off of her harem pants and got yet another shock.

“Can you make the purple fireworks again?” Felix asked. He looked up at her through his golden hair with anticipation. The potion didn’t work. Great! Fucking great! What am I gonna do now? I have no idea where this kid’s “big brother” is, the potion didn’t work, and I can’t just dump him on the street. I am so not prepared to play babysitter today! What the fuck!

Why are you screaming? Kratos meowed. You woke me up…

Kratos, the potion didn’t work.

Bullshit, you’re the best brewer in the country.

Thanks, that doesn’t help the fact that it didn’t work. What are we gonna do now? I do not want to call Mother. She’ll teleport all the way over here just to hex me in person. And she’ll find out anyway if I tell Father.

Well, you did say this kid was different. You were right, as much as I don’t want to admit it. Maybe he’s not human.

I don’t know… Well anyway, it looks like we’re babysitting today.

You can count me out, it’s my naptime, like you said.

You’ll be in a time-out if you don’t get your fuzzy rump down here right now.

Yes, ma’am.

Don’t call me that, Kratos. We talked about this.

“Okay, Felix, well does your brother Kris know you’re in this store?”

“Yea, he saw me come in.”

“Do you know when Mommy wants you home?”

“No.”

Great. “Okay, well you can hang out here with us until it’s time to go home.”

“Okay.”

Sybill stood there awkwardly with her hands on her hips watching Felix brush around the dirt on the floor.

“Okay, Felix, come on. I’m gonna show you the coolest parts of my store,” Sybill crouched down to pick up the little boy. He was surprisingly light for a toddler. “Felix, how old are you?”

“Five.”

So I was right. She carried him to the check-out desk in the back of the main room, and set him on the desktop. He immediately started swinging his little legs around, and looked around at the stuff on the desk.

“Okay, Felix. We’re gonna learn about plants today. Can you read?” Sybill pulled her hair down and ruffled it.

“Yeah, Daddy taught me how to read. Your hair is pretty. We have the same hair,” he reached out to touch a strand of Sybill’s hair. She noted that he was right. They both had very blonde, curly hair. But they couldn’t be related. Sybill would have instantly known if Felix was a Blackwood. She checked that off the list of “Things That Felix is Not”. She looked into his big green eyes before changing gears. She motioned for Felix to wait there, and he obeyed.

“Kratos, where are my Succulents?”

“Meow,” They’re in the front window, section 4a.

Felix clapped happily, “Kitty meowed!”

Sybill returned to the check-out desk with two, large, potted Succulents. She put one down on the desktop and held up the other one for Felix to see.

“This is a Succulent, Felix. Can you say Succulent?”

“Suckylent”

“Good enough. These little guys are really cool. You see their special leaves? Look, they’re green and pink. They like a lot of sunlight, so I put them in the big windows in the front. They like water, too, but not too much. These guys right here don't have names yet. Do you want to help me name them?”

“Yeah! I want to name them!”

“Great! Do you have an idea?”

“Uhm, I like the name George.”

“George it is then!”

Sybill continued like this for quite a while, telling Felix about many different plants, and their properties. He seemed very intrigued for a five-year-old. She was just about to tell him about her Lamb’s Ear when the entrance door bell rang.

Kratos meowed, Couple of teenage girls. Definitely not Felix’s big bro.

Sybill turned around to greet the girls, holding Felix’s arm to make sure he wouldn’t fall off the counter. “Welcome, ladies, to the Granite Cauldron. Can I help you find anything today?”

One of the girls spoke up, “We’re looking for some small potted plants that will fit on a windowsill? Like, something I can hold in my hand?”

“Ah yes, it seems the Succulents are what you desire. Come, I will show you,” Sybill paused before deciding she should probably bring Felix with her, lest he hurt himself unattended. She placed him on the floor and held his hand as she led the girls to the Succulent section in the front window. She showed the girls the Succulents and provided some care tips. The girls seemed very understanding, which made Sybill happy. After several minutes, the girls were ready to check out. They all headed back to the check-out desk; Sybill let Felix sit on the counter again.

“That one’s name is George,” the little boy said very seriously. “He likes sunlight and not too much water.”

The girl smiled brightly and thanked Felix. “Is it bring your kid to work day? He’s so cute!”

Sybill was about to say no, but then realized just how odd it would be if she admitted that they weren’t actually related. What’s a random kid, who looks just like me, doing in this shop if we aren’t related? “Yes, his name is Felix,” Sybill finally said.

“He’s adorable!” Another girl said. “Thank you so much, have a great day!”

“Blessed be, ladies.”

The door-bell jingled and the girls were gone.

Sybill put her face in her hands and let her blonde curls obscure her vision. Ugh, I have got to get this kid home ASAP.

~

It felt hours since the little blonde boy entered the store, and still no sign of his “big brother Kris”.

Some big brother, alright, Sybill thought.

Do you think he forgot about him? Can we keep him? Kratos leaped from one shelf to another, watching the little boy as well.

Kratos!

What? He’s entertaining…

I can't just keep the kid, how would I explain that to literally everyone I know?

Right, of course, sorry. It was an option.

Sybill had left Felix near the check-out desk, surrounded by books to entertain him. She got the usual amount of customers trickling in, all asking if Felix was her son. She had to say yes to all, which will definitely prove a problem in the future, but Sybill couldn't afford to worry over that now. Every once in awhile, Kratos would leap down from his various perches (more hanging potted plants) and rub up against Felix to get some pets. Felix would sometimes ask Sybill what a word was, or ask her to explain something. He was very smart for a five-year-old. She was thankful to every god and goddess in existence that the little boy was not a nuisance. He just sat there peacefully reading. He didn’t touch anything that he was not supposed to, nor did he pester Sybill with annoying questions, crying, or temper tantrums. He was the most well mannered and patient toddler she had ever encountered. Sybill was curious about something, though. She couldn’t erase the image of Felix’s eyes lighting up. Part of her told her that it was just a trick of the light, but she wasn’t totally convinced. Sybill has had many encounters with creatures that only look human. Maybe Felix was one of their kids. Maybe he is only a half-blood. Like half a feral creature or a nymph, or something. That would explain why he is so smart, and weighs so little for his size. Sybill could only guess, until her answer finally came to her in the form of Kris, Felix’s big brother. Kris really was a big brother.

The entrance door bell jingled, and Sybill waited for Kratos’ meow to let her know who to expect, as she was overlooking a book on the Natural Life of Switzerland. Her familiar was cut off mid-meow, and when Sybill stood up, she saw why. Her next customer was a seven-foot-tall elf, and he did not look very happy. This was nothing new to Sybill. She got a nice mix of humans and magical beings alike. The elves, however, were rare, and always hard to please.

Kratos finally meowed his report, I think this is our guy…

You think? Sybill replied as she picked Felix up off the floor.

The elf, Kris, had the same blonde curls as Felix, and his eyes were also very green. The one difference was that his eyes were glowing. Definitely an elf.

“Felix, what are you doing in here? You were supposed to meet me by the river at exactly 14 minutes past the hour. It is now 20 minutes past the hour. It is past time to go home,” the Elf said in a stern tone. He continued, speaking to Sybill this time, “I apologize, Witch, for this rascal causing distractions from your practice.”

“He- well- he was not a distraction for me. I’m just glad you came back for him. But he didn’t impede on my practices at all, nope. Not a worry here…” Sybill replied awkwardly. She was not the best at conversing with elves. They spoke in a very odd and proper way that made Sybill feel self-conscious of her thick Northerner accent.

“That is pleasing, then. He has much to learn still. As only a half-elf, he is slower at developing the proper memory skills at this age. It’s the human part that dulls his mind a little, you understand. Thank you for watching over my kin. Take this,” Kris handed Sybill a pinecone, “You may use it for one favour of me, should you need me.”

“Thanks,” Sybill accepted the pinecone with a quick glance to Kratos. He only cocked his head to the side and blinked his big blue eyes.

He took Felix into his own arms and stroked the little boy’s hair.

“Bye, Witchy! Bye, kitty!” Felix yelled over his big brother’s shoulder. Sybill waved and Kratos howled, which caused the little boy to squeal and clap happily. His eyes glowed for the third time, and that confirmed it for Sybill.

A half-elf, huh?

You think they call that a Helf? Kratos leapt from a bookshelf to the check-out desk.

Shut up.

You think we’ll ever see the kid again?

“I hope so,” Sybill said aloud, turning the pinecone over in her hands with a small smile.

[merrymcfuckyourself]

Dumb S-Word Headcannons for Ralsei because I’m horny and stupid

(I left out 3 questions and edited 1 just because I just didn’t feel like trying to answer them. With that said, let’s throw away the last scraps of dignity I have to my name.)

🤒: How often do they get sick? What kinds of illnesses do they tend to get most often? Colds, flu, sinus infections, stomach viruses?

Ralsei tends to get sick only slightly more than an average young monster would, so maybe 2 or 3 times a year.  A regular chest/head cold is the most common, but he is prone to the flu if it happens to be going around.

🌡: Do they tend to run hot or cold? When they have a fever, is it barely noticeable, or does their temperature skyrocket?

It’s common for his temperature to get pretty high and spike a couple of times, at most getting to 103. at it’s peek. 

😷: When they’re sick, do they stay home or go to work/school? If they don’t go to work or school, do they try to rest, or do they just go on with their day like normal? Do they try to avoid getting others sick by taking precautions like a mask or staying away from others in general?

He can be a rather stubborn patient if there’s work to be done, but either way doesn’t put up much of a fight if someone forces him to rest. He normally would insist on isolating himself to prevent the spread of illness, but would still go along with it if his friends insisted on sticking by him (Especially considering Kris knows how much he hates being alone)

🤧: What does their sneeze sound like? (Description, spelling, or both!)

eh...Hah-!HHAshuu-!  *(can range in pitch or volume but buildup is almost always involved one way or another)

😩: Do they tend to sneeze just once or twice, or multiple times? Do they have fits frequently or rarely? Does how many times they sneeze depend on the cause?

It’s more common for him to just have fits of 2 or 3 depending on the cause, but if the stars align then he can go into an uncontrollable fit that lasts for about 1 minute.

🌸: Are they allergic to any kind of plants? Flowers, weeds, trees? If yes, how bad are their allergies to those plants?

Ralsei actually loves the flowers of the Lightner World, that being said, some of them and most weeds/trees around Allergy Season more often than not can send him into those minute-long fits as previously mentioned

🕯: Are they allergic to other things? Dust, animals, perfumes, certain fragrances? Anything that might be considered “out of the ordinary” to be allergic to? How bad are those allergies?

Aside from the pollen allergies I mentioned above, there’s nothing else really that severe. 

��: In general, how sensitive is their nose? Can something like a certain flower or smell make them sneeze even if they’re not allergic to it? Do they sneeze a lot on average, or not very much? Does their nose twitch a lot, or barely ever at all?

Something like a feather or even someone else’s hair (usually Kris’) can set him off. This one weakness has been taken advantage of by Susie more than once. Other than that he pretty much never sneezes without a clear cause. Also, more often with allergies, his muzzle will twitch like a bunny rabbit right before sneezing, another thing Susie likes to make fun of him for when it happens.

😭: When they’re sick, do they try to downplay their symptoms, or do they treat every little cold like the plague? Do they whine a lot, or do they complain quietly or even just in their head?

He always stays pretty quiet about his suffering even when he feels miserable, but it’s still easy to tell even if he’s not whining about it. 

✨: What would be the best way for someone to induce them? Feathers, rolled-up tissue, or something else? How much stimulation would it take for them to start sneezing? Would inducing produce just one or two sneezes from them, or multiples?

He’s pretty easy to induce with just a few strokes from a feather or tickling him with Kris’s hair (god fucking dammit it hurt my brain to type that but my body was all for it) 

💦: How wet are their sneezes? Do they spray barely at all, or are you gonna need an umbrella? Do they try to cover at all, or just let it go? Do they sniffle a lot when they’re sick or allergies are bugging them?

Picture a full spray bottle of Water. That is all I’ll say

🤝: Do they like to be taken care of when they’re not feeling well? Or do they hate it when people fuss over them? If they do, what’s their favorite thing about being taken care of? If not, why don’t they like being taken care of? How bad would they have to be before they’d let anyone take care of them in any capacity?

Ralsei tolerates being taken care of, and silently appreciates someone caring about him enough to take time out of their day and do so.

💊: Do they take their medicine like a grown-up, or do they try to fight it? Do they prefer pills or liquid medicine? Can they be “tricked” by having the medicine mixed with applesauce or with a drink, or would they still not take it even then?

The first couple times it was easy to get him to take it because he wasn’t aware that pretty much all liquid medicine tastes awful. Even now, he’ll either choke it down with little to no fuss, or politely ask if he could just take it in pill form, and failing that, mix it in some apple juice and he’ll never tell the difference.

🍲: What do they like to eat while they’re sick? Do they like soup, or would they prefer something that isn’t “sick person food”? Do they lose their appetite when they’re sick, or are they hungrier than usual?

He loses any appetite for food, pretty much just surviving on water if you let him. Susie’s the only one who basically scared him into eating some cheese and crackers or else she’d hurt him (which was probably just an empty threat but he’s not gonna take that risk)

🍵: Do they like tea when they’re not feeling well? If so, do they like it with honey, lemon, both, with something else, or just plain? Would they accept something else if they couldn’t have tea? If they don’t like tea, is there something they’d rather drink instead? Would they drink tea if their preferred drink wasn’t available?

He may not like food, but he always appreciates a cup of tea on any day.

😔: What are their “tells” when they’re not feeling their best? Do they sleep more or less? Do they become easily irritated, aggressive, snap at little things? Or do they withdraw and become quieter, cry at the drop of a hat, stay in the background? What’s the one surefire way that one of their loved ones would be able to tell that they’re sick?

He goes from perky and good at holding conversations to tired and quiet, not speaking unless spoken to and even then you might have to shout his name once or twice to get his attention.

❄️: Would it be more unusual to see this character sick during the winter or during the summer? Do they typically go down during cold and flu season, or do they usually get summer colds?

He’ll often get sick as soon as the seasons shift or any little (or major) bug is going around. If it’s cold and flu season, he’s typically the first to get sick but the first to fully recover.

🎤: How does their voice change when they’re sick or allergies are bugging them? Does their voice get lower? Scratchy? Raspy? Can you hear any congestion in their voice or do they hide it well? Do they avoid speaking too much because of a sore throat and coughing, or do they try to talk through those things?

His voice pretty much disappears completely by the peek of a bad cold/flu

⚙️: Do they have some kind of ritual that they do when they’re not feeling great that helps? Does it help physically, or does it just make them feel better emotionally?

If he can’t sleep (coughing, congestion, ect), he’ll read a book until he knocks out. Usually happens only an hour or 2 into reading. 

😳: Are they embarrassed by their sneezes, or do they just not really care? Do they apologize after sneezing? Do they say “sorry!” or “excuse me!” or anything like that? If they’re embarrassed about it, why?

Susie’s taunting of his sneeze has made him a chronic apologizer, even if she’s not around anywhere.

😥: What would they do if somebody gave them a gift that they’re allergic to? Would they say they’re allergic to it or not? Try to give it back, keep it, or get rid of it later?

He’d insist on keeping the gift and probably hold onto it until someone else forcibly took it from him and threw it away.

📝: Quick! Come up with a scenario for them! It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, just something you think would be cute or something you’d like to see with them!

you have made a grave error in giving me this power Soo, my favorite allergy scenario for Ralsei is admittedly one like to give a lot of characters/OTPs I’m obsessed with. Hanging out or going on a date with someone (Kris) in a meadow, but suddenly having a reaction to the flowers around them, but not wanting to leave and ruin their outing until they’re basically a not sohuman Tap and struggling to breathe, making their SO drag their stubborn ass out of there for their own health and safety.

My favorite Sick Fic scenario for him that I’m totally not just conjuring up in my head as I type this would beee...Ral is sick and him and Kris are the only ones in the house, effectively forcing Kris into the role of sole caretaker. They finally convinced the kid to lay down and sleep, and the place he happened to drop was right on Kris’s stomach while laying on the couch. So they’re laying there, pinned to the couch watching TV or something, when without warning, Ralsei sneezes into his sweater, getting that one spot all damp, and immediately falling back asleep, leaving a shocked and silently pissed off Kris.

And that’s it! What, were you expecting a joke or something?

[critgemhero]

My Deltarune Theory

Here is a super detailed list of my thoughts of what I think Deltarune’s overall lore and the goal is going to be. This is what the heck I think is going on!

So my main theory is that Deltarune is clearly an AU, but it’s also more than that. I believe it’s an origin story to Undertale’s game/universe. In this essay of bullet points, I will explain.

Kris is “Chara”. YOU the player are possessing Kris’ life and creating Chara’s origin story somehow? Kris ripping their heart out is them taking control again, instead of you, proving you have no real say in this world or how it ends. Kris will probably take control again at the end somehow. Something that stood out to me is how the sprite of Chara you get when you debug the game is just a short version of Kris, with their eyes being covered by their hair.

The Dark Realm is either another AU deeply connected to Deltarune, or this world’s version of the Underground. This is the part that confuses me the most and offers the most mystery. What IS this dark realm exactly, and why does this 3 hour Chapter 1 mimic so many moments and characters from Undertale? There are WAY too many parallels and anagrams for this to not have some connection to SPECIFICALLY Undertale, not just the surface world of Deltarune. Ralsei is what confuses me the most, considering Asriel is alive and well in this world. I MAY have a theory, but it’s connected specifically to how I think the game will end and who is involved.

Choices in this game don’t matter, that means that the end of this game is already set. The end of this game will be the accidental creation of Undertale’s universe and the destruction of Deltarune’s. Everyone is probably involved in this change somehow, but especially Gaster, Sans, and You/Kris. This is how I see it playing out for each character.

Gaster? The result will leave the remains of Gaster’s code scattered. We know very little about Gaster right now in relation to Deltarune, but he is clearly connected by that cell phone call and also the creepy locked doors south of the town. Another interesting thing is how if you use Gaster as the name in either Undertale or Deltarune, the game is instantly reset. I wonder if Gaster plays a role in the creation of “you”, what I mean is, the creation of the possibility of YOU entering Deltarune’s world and fucking it up to create Undertale in which you have to heal it? That Gaster is basically Toby, basically the portal opener to this world to theirs. The game maker himself. Also a BIG FRIGGIN THING here is how many of Gaster’s followers are townsfolk in Deltarune’s surface world. Follower 2 is the guy Undyne is arresting, 3 is the guy in the library. 

Sans? Sans will somehow enter Undertale with immense power, struggle to remember it all and try to do everything he can to “go back” to his original world. I also think the three people in that crude drawing found in San’s workshop that says “don’t forget” could be Kris, Suzie, and Ralsei. Maybe this is Sans trying to piece together what happened to his old reality and how he possesses this much power. 

Suzie? She will be lost forever in the process, code scattered like Gaster somehow. How did Clam girl know of her existence? No idea, but maybe her getting her name spelling wrong is part of the key, that Undertale barely has any of her left. If you talk to Clam Girl, something changes about San’s workshop. What? Well, it’s the picture I just mentioned before, of the three figures in San’s workshop.

Kris/Chara? This world-changing process could free Kris/Chara from your grasp. Maybe Chara becomes “Split” from you and Frisk is created as a vessel, the vessel you wanted to have at the start of Deltarune. The character YOU control VS Kris/Chara’s autonomy. You share the near exact same origin story but split the moment you start the game. One story for YOU, and one for Kris to have and experience (and die by golden flowers) in. Maybe that’s why Chara tries to take YOU over and destroy the world in Undertale? Because they believe you destroyed THEIR world when they were Kris in Deltarune? Now that theory is just getting convoluted but what can you do when you don’t know when you are Kris or “you” or both.  

The Dark Realm? My theory is that the Dark realm plays a HUGE factor in this accidental creation of Undertale. I think it’s possible that it’s a combination of both universes, an “amalgamation” of the surface world and the dark realm? Maybe Gaster, Sans or other characters experiment or tamper with the Dark realm’s energy somehow and create Undertale in the process? Maybe their closure of that fountain is a factor into this as well. I am really not sure, but The Dark Realm HAS to be a big factor, it’s the core of Deltarune’s gameplay right now. 

Asriel/Ralsei? In Deltarune they are separate entities, but maybe when the worlds get connected somehow, they do as well? What I mean is, when you get to the end of the True Pacifist route, you fight an adult looking form of Asriel. Asriel DIED as a child, how does he have an adult form? Asriel at college! Not only that, but Asriel as a child does not have horns, but who does? RALSEI.

Those are my theories! Please feel free to discuss and elaborate and debate or disagree!!! I am by NO MEANS an Undertale expert, as I know little about Gaster and his whole code insanity in the game. I feel like I am offering a broad suggestion of what it could all be about but I don’t have any detailed proof or details in general maybe you experts could elaborate on. 

I leave with this though. The definition of Delta in math is basically the difference or change in something. When followers of Gaster appear in Undertale, what exactly determines their random appearance? What is the name of the value that determines these variables? 

Fun.

Remind me what the name of the party in Deltarune is again?

[sea-bea]

I said I was gonna probably talk abt Deltarune, I’m talking abt Deltarune

ALSO. THERE WILL BE SPOILERS FOR THE END OF THE GAME. LOTS AND LOTS OF SPOILERS

theres a whole lot to unpack from the ending, and I have a few headcannons in mind. I’m also going to focus on Kris, Frisk, Chara, Asriel, and Ralsei and the connections between them. It’s a lot of word barf too, so be warned.

(also I haven’t seen any theories from the deltarune fandom, this is all what I got from deltarune. I’ve kept it blacklisted bc I’m not going to have it tainted like undertale was.)

as we know, this universe is one where monsters never went underground. and as we know, everyone (keep this in mind) from the previous game is alive but living very similar, but different lives. And then there’s us. Kris. A new character presumably not from the last game Here’s what I think so far:

Chara was most definitely the voice talking to us in the beginning. They have the same kind of speech patterns and the same kind of thinking. “Its kill or be killed” “You can’t choose who you are in this world.” Both Chara and the voice have a very pessimistic view of the world, mostly about how people are naturally very cruel and will hurt you any chance they get. (and honestly, considering Kris’ life in the upper world, it would make sense that they too would have the same thought process).

As for the end, what happened in the end scene has happened before, multiple times before. It wasn’t because Kris went to the dark world. The birdcage they (or Chara) throws their soul in the cage is significantly damaged and the cage shakes with the force of it. It would explain why Kris always wakes up late for school, because they go out and do, whatever it is they do at night, and their body gets very tired. The ending scene also suggests that Kris isn’t pulling their soul out willingly, or even getting out of bed willingly. And since that’s supposed to be Kris’ soul, that means their soul isn’t in their body anymore, which suggests something else. 

also, I think the “incident”, whatever it was, that tore the family apart and outcasted Asgore has something do with Kris’ specifically. The first time there was an incident in the family it was when the Chara and Asriel fusion died, and the second time Asgore killed a bunch of kids. It doesn’t seem like Asgore killed some kids because he’s not in jail or anything, but it was definitely something that upset both Tori and Asgore significantly, so it might have had to do with the kids. That was also the turning point for both Asriel and Chara to become flowey and murder child so this universe’s kids must have changed significantly too.

Remember how I said everyone is living similar yet very different lives? In the last game, we played two characters: Frisk in pacifist and Chara in fight, but Kris is new, presumably one of them. Initially it seems like Kris is in Frisk’s place If Asriel is cannonly around the same age as Chara and is in college, I’d pit him around his early 20’s, maybe still 18. Considering the school looks like it was made for younger students and there are already stereotypes in the school (Susie, obviously) I’d pit Kris somewhere in middleschool, in sixth grade at the very least and eighth or ninth grade at the very most. Probably 12, or 13? 15 at most (which was around the age Frisk probably was when they fell). So they’d be more than four years apart, and that's a conservative estimate.

At the same time though, both Chara and Kris (other than share the same sweater) also share a personality as the weird kid that doesn’t talk that much. They naturally do very weird things that frighten other people, but they seem like pranks at worst. And they’re also naturally very aloof and don’t talk a lot and likes to keep to themselves (but will make an exception for Asriel). What Kris does with Asriel is also similar to what Chara did with him (Asriel’s final form was referenced by one of the characters, where they say that Chara and Asriel were too busy focusing on the wings). Then again, Frisk doesn't talk a lot either.

But then it came down to the name. I was originally confused why Kris had such a normal name, but if Ralsei is just a rewording of the name “Asriel” and is supposed to represent a version of Asriel, then “Kris” may be “Frisk” without the “F” (it also may be a stretch but I think there is no F because you probably shouldn't fight. Either that, or putting an F in that name is kinda hard to do). Thats what I initially thought that was. But If you pronounce Chara the same way you pronounce the first part of the word “Character”, then the name sounds like “Kara.” Add the K of Kara and the ris from “Frisk” and you get “Kris”. Not only that, but the regular spelling of Kris is Chris, “Ch” from Chara, “ris" from Frisk, and the “Ch” is disguised as a K from Frisk (also to make it more gender neutral, I think)

So maybe Kris isn’t just Chara or isn’t just Frisk, they’re both, a mixture of the two angels that fell down to free the monsters from the underground. But then why is the Chara part of them so prevalent here? 

I think that’s because Chara’s possessing Kris. Since characters like Chara can break the fourth wall and don’t follow the laws of reality, as well as know of alternate universes and endings, Chara could have crossed from the Undertale Universe into the Deltarune Universe, and then influenced their “Chara” side more.

Here’s what I think happened: An incident occurred where Kris and Asriel were put in danger that almost killed them. They lived, obviously, but Kris became very vulnerable. Because Kris was very vulnerable at the time and is also the version of Chara here, it was easy for Chara to possess them.

It may be very easy for Kris to be possessed frequently. When we first meet sans and he greets you, you have the opportunity to say “good to see you again” or something like that, to which sans replies that he’s never met you before. Either Kris was joking around or that was actually Chara saying hi to him. Plus the phase “It’s only you.” when you look in the mirror is a bit....ominous, and can imply there can be another person there sometimes.

Kris isn’t possessed all the time though, they still wake up late, and it’s implied they still have control of themselves sometimes —when you visit Rudy, there’s a card on the table that “you” have never seen before, even though you wrote it.  And Chara has to store the soul in the birdcage frequently, implying that Kris can fight them, to some degree.

So if Chara has been here the whole time, and has been possessing Kris frequently, what exactly are they doing? Honestly, I really don’t know. As Undyne says, the town is really boring. Of course, considering the shit that went down at the end of the game, that's probably going to change. Still though, I have no idea what they were doing before the whole “dark world” business.

I’m not going to go into much detail into Ralsei but I do want to point out one thing that stood out to me. He seems like a pretty cut n dry character, and his purpose as Asriel’s reverse is pretty obvious. He is the dark opposite of Asriel, he’s the dark prince living in the castle, while everyone in his universe is alive except for him, all of his subjects are gone and he’s the only one left. His name is literally a respelling of the world Asriel, plus he’s a goat. A goat. 

But if there’s one thing that concerned me the most was how insistent he was on making sure you “acted” instead of “fought”. what stood out to me the most was when he was talking about the consequences of fighting, he said something alone the lines of “You may not like the outcome/ending you get.” Which makes me wonder what exactly happened to him and his entire kingdom. And since he’s technically a version of Asriel (who is still Flowey in the undertale universe), maybe he knows about the old resets from the Undertale universe. 

The other theory is he went through his own fight route which honestly sounds pretty intense. Really intense. Considering that flowey too did many routes, especially fight routes, the idea that Ralsei here could have done a kill route too can be very possible. also, the way Ralsei tells Kris to act sounds less like “dont do this because I saw someone else do it”, and more like “don’t do this because I did it and now I live with the consequences”. 

finally, to tobias fox

im not forgiving you for what you’ve done to mettaton

that is all

[milquetoast-on-acid]

The Deep End, A Reactionary Post

A Wedding and a Funeral

Major Crimes, S2xE8: Episode Review Finding the words to tell their story Mateo Rusty Julio

Parents and Pressure Mateo + Dad Jack + Rusty Nicole's wedding Sharon and Provenza conspire

Sharon and Andy...and so a relationship begins with a wedding

My name is Lt. Provenza hahaha I love how Provenza has the hots for Kris' mom and introduces himself as "My name is Lt Provenza." That guy can't hate his name anymore than he does. 

Also Julio's response.

Finding the words to tell their story

Mateo

He found the words to finally tell his story. His idea was absolutely fantastic. It was stunning, emotional and a way for him to tell the world what had happened to him without speaking. It was beyond effective and extremely moving - props for the writers for coming up with this idea.

One of MC's most moving moments...

And one of their most unexpected...

Mateo's father shooting Frey was soooo completely unexpected. I think this is the first time that MC actually shocked me. It's not often that happens with this show but I love it when they put unexpected moments in because that makes them all the more shocking.

Mike tackling him was pretty amazing though. I don't think that Mike gets enough credit for being an older member of the squad and pushing it just as much as the younger members. Look at that, I  mean he just freaking launches himself at Mateo's dad.

Rusty Sharon tries to get Rusty to tell his story. Even if it's not to her, she doesn't want what happened to Mateo happen to him. She doesn't ever want him to think that she's too busy for him to talk to him. But even after Rusty sees Mateo's video and the similarities to Mateo's story to his own it still doesn't move him to talk to a therapist. Sharon's got to walk a very tight rope with him. She wants him to get the help he very badly needs but at the same time she doesn't want to push him too hard. Rusty is beyond stubborn and has it set in his mind that he doesn't need help. He just thinks that he'll do his best to forget his past. But that's not how life works - you can't just forget and you can't run away. As much as you may want to.

Emma finally sees Julio "If your busy what about Detective Sanchez, then?" So Emma finally gets it (after both Provenza and Mike had to spell it out for her). So she's trying her best to extend an olive branch to Julio and he's just not having it anymore. It's certainly possible that Julio/Emma was going to be endgame but I always thought she was a little too young for him and I could never stand her character. Plus the fact that her character didn't stick around after this season.

Parents and Pressure

Mateo + Dad

Mateo's dad had no idea that Mateo was being molested by Frey. His family just thought all of his issues had to do with him being kicked out of the swim team. Mateo's parents were busy and couldn't see what was happening with their son. Mateo's father also put a lot of pressure on his son but it's rather obvious that he loves him very much.

Jack + Rusty As I have mentioned before Jack is definitely not Rusty's father but while Jack was at Sharon's him and Rusty formed a bond and had a bit of a father/son relationship. And that bond extends to this episode even though Jack is gone. Rusty took Jack's awful advice and told Kris' parents about his past. This is what Jack's influence is all about here.

Nicole's Wedding

Similarly Andy was busy with work, his own issues and became a rather absent parent to his kids. In the past and in the present. Although now he's got a completely different reason for being absent from Nicole's wedding. Like with Mateo's case, there's more going on than Andy being a dadzilla. Andy's apprehension about attending the wedding has less to do with Nicole wanting her stepdad to walk her down the aisle and more to do with him feeling like he's not wanted. 

She’s not listening...

Yes he's got issues with the stepdad but I think it's largely an excuse he's using because it seems like he's under tons of pressure from Sandra and the rest of the family. Andy's beyond frustrated, how many times has he tried making things right and how many times has it blown up in his face? 

Andy's issues with Nicole wanting her stepfather to walk her down the aisle is another glaring reminder to him that there was someone in his kids life when he wasn't. To him it feels like he'll never measure up. To Nicole, she wanted to share her big day with her two fathers, showing them how much she loves them.

Sharon and Provenza conspire "He needs to make this decision on his own." "Lt. Provenza has volunteered to take Rusty out for Burgers."

Never really occurred to me until after the first time I watched this episode but Sharon and Provenza quietly conspire to push Andy into going to the wedding. One thing I do love about what they do is they don't actually try to talk him into going. Much more like they let him come to the conclusion that he should go. For Nicole and for himself. 

While Mateo's father put him under pressure to be an Olympic swimmer, Andy was under pressure from his family. It also occurs to me that's why Sharon keeps having Andy with her during her interviews with Mateo's parents. To seeing what a father is like without his child. May silently push Andy into going to Nicole's wedding. Without her bashing it over his head. This is and always has been Sharon's way of teaching people things. Mostly Rusty. She usually does some nudging but ultimately lets them come to the conclusion on their own.

Sharon and Andy...and so a relationship begins with a wedding

I don't think that Provenza could have thought that this is what would happen when he originally conspired with Sharon. I mean yes he wanted Sharon to go with Andy as a buffer to help him emotionally at the wedding but I don't think he ever anticipated a romantic relationship between the two of them. As we see later on how much he disapproves. 

"I like weddings."

So we get Sharon's infamous line here. And there's a few things I want to say about it. The fact that Sharon loves parties and celebrations is not something we would have ever have thought about her when we first met her. Another things is the way that Mary delivers the line. It's light, giddy and her voice goes up. Along with this coy head movement she does. She's is definitely flirting with him - whether she intends to or not. 

How much of Sharon and Andy's relationship has been mapped out at this point? Was Sharon/Andy's endgame ultimately going to be a wedding between the two of them? What better way of a relationship to start with a wedding and then climax with a wedding?

"It's not like a date." Then she later follows it up saying that it's not a date because she's married. Here's a few thoughts on this. He wants it to be a date, and that's the whole reason he walked into her office in the first place. He was going to ask her to go with him before she volunteered. There's some interesting wording going on here...he says 'date', she says 'buffer'. Which is another clue as to where their minds are at. 

Although Sharon says 'buffer' while she's flirting with him. So it's no wonder he has to flat out ask her if it's a date. He's probably confused as fuck. The words coming out of her mouth say one thing but her body language says another.  Talk about mixed signals!

This is really the beginning of Sharon's veeerrry slooooow transition of moving on from Jack. She's in some HUGE denial here, as that extends for another 2 1/2 years.

What I don't like: This case was great, the personal storylines were great. It was emotional and impact. So there wasn't really anything to say about it..there's only one thing that I did not like about this episode. And that was that we didn't get to see Sharon and Andy at Nicole's wedding. I remember the first time I saw this episode and how I angry I was. I remember yelling "That's it!?" and...thinking that they are at least going to talk about it in the next episode...but how little I didn't know back then. About how much we are literally shut out of Sharon and Andy's relationship. And yes I use that phase because of how much doors are a huge symbol in their relationship. 

What I like: I'm not sure if I should put this in what I like or what I don't like. But this episode literally ends with that tv troupe, a wedding and a funeral. I can't believe that it didn't occur to me until I'd seen this episode like 15 times. This is the episode that really kicks off Sharon/Andy. So as frustrated as I am with not seeing them at the wedding I can’t help but put this episode in a special place because it really starts them off as a couple. Beyond the Shandy stuff. I really liked this episode as a whole. It was shocking, emotionally moving. A lot of nice meaty stuff for Sharon, Rusty, Andy.

[reactingtosomething]

Reacting to Atomic Blonde

Suck It, Daredevil

The Setup: Charlize Theron was the best action star of 2015, and two years later she may have just reclaimed her crown, in the solo directing debut of former stunt coordinator David Leitch (half of the duo who directed John Wick and some second unit stuff on Captain America: Civil War, doing their part to save Hollywood action scenes from subpar ALL THE SHAKY CAM AND ALL THE CUTS Paul Greengrass imitation). 

Heralded by possibly the coolest trailer of the year -- at the very least, the coolest that didn’t have a House of Mouse effects budget -- and backed by a uniformly stellar supporting cast including Sofia Boutella and John Goodman, Theron’s also making a decent run at James Bond’s status as Most Dashing Lothario Assassin, because why not. (And not just for straight dudes.)

In short, this has too many of RtS’s favorite things not to be an obvious choice for a Reaction. SPOILERS for Atomic Blonde after the jump.

KRIS: I guess I’ll open with a Caroline Framke tweet

MIRI: Please do

KRIS: https://twitter.com/carolineframke/status/891158770117685248

MIRI: I was really hoping it would be that one

KRIS: (The RT:like ratio, as of now, is 146 to 1200)

MIRI: Omg

I may be one of those likes

MARCHAE: LOL

KRIS: RtS is definitely one of those likes

MIRI: Can't remember if I RTd

Update: I did RT

very proud of my lack of shame

KRIS: Although I guess stabbing is really the least of what she does to some of those guys

MIRI: Carry on

Right

But there Is definitely some stabbing

KRIS: So this wasn’t, like, EVERYthing I wanted/expected it to be, but the “long take” fight alone is worth the price of admission twice over

MARCHAE: Yeah she is incredibly hard core (and trust that was not in the source material so i was happy they def. gave her some swag)

did either of you get a chance to read the text it was based on

KRIS: I loved that it was basically telling both Daredevil and Birdman to go fuck themselves

No

MIRI: Hahahahahahha 

No I didn't

I'm not nearly the fight choreography conosieur that Kris is, but I was so fucking into this

(Wow spelled that so wrong autocorrect was stumped)

KRIS: I mean I did not have any reservations about any of the other fights, it was everything around the fights that was kind of uneven

MARCHAE: go on

KRIS: Not BAD, but uneven

MIRI: Say more

KRIS: Pacing felt weird sometimes?

This felt longer than its runtime

MARCHAE: (yes that is truth..>YES IT DID)

MIRI: Yeah, I can agree with that

KRIS: Maybe a little twistier, plot-wise, than was really justified, especially since it end-loaded the twists

MIRI: Yeah, the last few minutes were a bit of a mind fuck and not in a totally earned way

KRIS: The sound mixing was VERY interesting, but I wasn’t always sure it needed to be so showy

MIRI: This movie is showy down to its bones

and some ways that works better than others

KRIS: Although it did add to the disorientation

MARCHAE: (re the twists the text was similar in that way…)

KRIS: The sound mix I mean

Like going back and forth between having music in a scene be diegetic and not

I did like the way they used it in the bar where Lorraine meets Delphine though

MIRI: I feel like it was better directed, acted, and choreographed than it was written. Does that make sense?

KRIS: When you assume the REALLY LOUD CLUB MUSIC is diegetic but it cuts out really suddenly when the guy (was it Bremovych there?) offers a light

Yes

MIRI: Yeah, that moment was very nice

KRIS: But I feel like pacing often comes down to direction

MIRI: Fair

KRIS: All the performances are definitely great

MIRI: Seriously, all of them

MARCHAE: hmmm that’s interesting - I think that comes back to the writing - if the story has pacing problems - then that’s ultimately a structural problem with the story, no?

MIRI: I especially loved Lorraine’s German contact

KRIS: I think editing can have a lot to do with pacing too

MIRI: And obviously Theron, McAvoy, and Boutella

I think it can be any of the three, or a combo

MARCHAE: yeah… i thought about that as well @kris

MIRI: They all need to be good for it to work

KRIS: Did you feel like it at least played fair with the audience for most if not all of the twists?

MIRI: Yeah, I would say so. Things felt justified to me

KRIS: I felt like I got lost two or three or five times but at least some of those seemed to be deliberate and then I had “ohhhh” moments in act 3

MIRI: Hahahah which ones?

MARCHAE: Yeah, I think it is supposed to be a bit of a mystery  which is kind of nice

KRIS: God I don’t even know, there’s was a lot happening

But the one I’m still confused about is that I don’t remember what happened to the guy who killed Gascoin

MIRI: I was secretly hoping you’d name them all so I could refer to your superior memory

Ice pick to the brain, right?

KRIS: Oh, my mistake, it is Gasciogne

I’ll take your word for it

But there were several Angry Bearded Men

MIRI: I think that was the same angry bearded man

He had the list and was going to sell it

to the watchmaker man

MARCHAE: Oh yeah

MIRI: and Percival ice picked him because Gasciogne was his friend

KRIS: Oh man I totally thought Marton Csokas was playing Bakhtin but IMDB tells me I was wrong, I guess it was just two Angry Bearded Men

MARCHAE: HA!

MIRI: Shit, who was Bakhtin? Is that ice pick head?

KRIS: Yes

MIRI: I need to open the imdb page

Ok, Bremovych was the one who beat the guy in the warehouse, right? And smashed the boombox?

KRIS: Oh wow Gasciogne was [played by] the stunt coordinator [Sam Hargrave, who also doubled for Chris Evans in Captain America: Civil War]. Did not recognize him with his (not-angry) bread in the post-show interview

not-angry beard, not bread

And yes

MIRI: WHAAAAATTT???

KRIS: Bremovych was the boss

MIRI: He looks SO different with long hair and a beard

KRIS: He was EXTREMELY Angry

MIRI: Holy heck

Also, he grew that beard so fast!!!

KRIS: That scene could have ended sooner

MIRI: Yeah, wasn’t my favorite

KRIS: Not even for the brutality, which was partly offscreen, it was just one of the pacing things where I was like why is this happening

MIRI: Yeah, it dragged a little

And it wasn’t at all shiny

Like, even when things are grungy and bloody in the rest of it, it’s shiny

MARCHAE: so this is my last time brining up the text … it was very similar to me in that way

so similar that indeed some the dialogue came straight from it

MIRI: (not literally, like stylized)

Guys, go to Til Schweiger’s imdb page immediately

Not only is he a fox

KRIS: Like awkwardly long, you mean, Marchae?

MARCHAE: I wasn’t surprised to  see that it did have pacing issues - i honestly think that they thought they would make up for that with the action scenes.

MIRI: Apparently he’s Germany's best-known actor and also the country's most successful director

(He’s the watchmaker guy)

MARCHAE: @miri - WOW!

@kris what do you mean the text

KRIS: That scene in particular

MARCHAE: so here’s the thing… she doesn’t fight AT ALL in the text

in fact i think she fires a gun once

MIRI: WHAT

WHAAAATTTTTTTTT

That is a significant change

MARCHAE: and as far as other acts of violence it was literally like a few gun shots if i remember correctly

KRIS: Like is Bremovych’s introduction just panels and panels and panels of kicking noises and pained reaction shots?

MARCHAE: not even…

MIRI: And makes the fact that they stayed so close to the text in other ways fascinating

MARCHAE: it is incredibly slow and much of the action, similar to in the film would be in the last couple of dozen pages

MIRI: What?

MARCHAE: legitimately i believe they slayed her out made her tough because otherwise it would have been a historical drama

and that would have been an entirely different film

MIRI: Also because the director is a stunt guy, probably.

MARCHAE: it was not an excited graphic novel (GN)

exciting*

that’s why i thought it would be interesting to read and see the movie i was like wow this will be an awesome comic

and it is if you are interested in historical GN about russians ( I am not generally)

but I was expecting LOADS of fighting

nope

so to see that on the screen made the film 1000000 times more enjoyable

MIRI: Nice

I really really loved that the fight choreography wasn’t Sexy lady Fight Choreography

MARCHAE: but they definitely compensated for the other shortcomings which i thought was this weird desire to stay close to the source in terms of story but create a film that would be able to kind of catch some of the wind that was left behind by the other female centric films of the summer season

ok that’s all

YES

MIRI: They were deliberate about the fact that she was smaller than most of the guys, yes, but she fucking fought

She took hits

MARCHAE: i also love that she’s not young

or incredibly frail

MIRI: She was brutal and they were too and it was amazing

KRIS: Lorraine getting the shit kicked out of her was definitely the distinctive thing

MARCHAE: that made the back of my knee caps hurt

but she held her own and prevails

MIRI: I do have the tiniest quibble with the fact that they kept her unmarked from fights that totally would have bruised/scraped her up in the beginning because they needed her in sexy club outfits

But past that point they did a nice job of letting her be marked by the fights without being afraid to make her less pretty or whatever

KRIS: It gets you invested in the character AND gives Lorraine the character development/revelation of having the stronger will, as the stunt guy put it

I guess I assumed she was using makeup to cover stuff up early on?

MIRI: Eh, I don’t 100% buy that but it also doesn’t super bother me

MARCHAE: i don’t know that it registers with me much… i think because she’s so battered at the end …

doesn’t she soak in a tub of something at one point?

KRIS: I think the ice bath is just at the beginning, which is advanced in the timeline of the story

MIRI: Yes, in the beginning bookend she’s in her AMAZING giant ass tub filled with ice cubes

And she does something similar in Berlin

All of the tubs in this movie were giant and I want them

The Berlin time was where you got the cool underwater shot of her face in the neon light

KRIS: Oh right

MARCHAE: i just never quite figured out what it was that she was able to look mostly okay…

i thought it was medicinal but i guess it was just ice

MIRI: Well she did do a bunch of makeup after that

MARCHAE: also it was an incredible shot

MIRI: And it couldn’t hide everything

Which? Neon Berlin bath or opening London bath?

Both were cool but I’m assuming you meant the London one

MARCHAE: the blue one?

MIRI: The one they used in the trailers, where she then adds some of the ice to her drink?

MARCHAE: YES

MIRI: Yes! That was very cool!

With the perspective flip and all

M: And the bathtub is SO BIG

MARCHAE: it was so good

so i know you all mentioned earlier that it wasn’t shiny

KRIS: There was a lot of playing with perspective in the cinematography

MIRI: Only that warehouse scene

(re: not shiny)

MARCHAE: gotcha

MIRI: The rest totally was

which I mostly loved

And to Kris’s point--yes! Most of it very cool

MARCHAE: sorry i was just going to add that i thought it was a sexy looking film

which i suppose also goes to kris’ point about cinematography

MIRI: The one I think about most is the sexy one, actually--the cut from them making out in the club to the sex scene

(which again, they used in the trailers a lot)

(well, the red band ones anyway)

MARCHAE: i did like that

KRIS: I feel like there were also a lot of reflections

Like when she’s leaving Delphine’s apartment near the end

MIRI: Yes! God that one broke my heart

MARCHAE: (side note…there is no Delphine in the text)

KRIS: And for awhile it’s just two Lorraines and I was like “hmm this is unnecessary” and then you see Delphine

MIRI: well, Theron did say that she’d need a Bond girl if she ever played Bond

KRIS: I think having a female love interest was actually the writer’s idea

MARCHAE: OhHHHHH

MIRI: That makes me so happy

MARCHAE: yeah it had to be because it didn’t exist… it takes the place of another relationship or is ore of a composite

I liked it and I thought it made the character much more interesting and gave her more than we generally get

MIRI: As does the way Theron has addressed Lorraine’s bisexuality in interviews

I was really afraid that it would be a surface level portrayal of bisexuality

KRIS: “I remember sitting in a room one day thinking about how do you make this different from other spy movies,” Theron says. “It’s really hard. Who is going to be the love interest? Kurt, who’s a punk rock writer, suggested she falls in love with a woman.”

http://ew.com/movies/2017/04/26/charlize-theron-breaks-down-her-steamy-love-affair-in-atomic-blonde/

MARCHAE: Nice!

MIRI: I was afraid she would have an emotional connection to the dude and a purely sexual, over-sexualized connection with the girl

But it was not that at all

MARCHAE: no - i mad that delphine died and i think bugged by how she died as well

KRIS: But I also liked that the emotional connection wasn’t really just “whirlwind romance” but also ended up being about Lorraine mourning what being in “the game” does to people

MIRI: I am angry that Delphine had her damn headphones on when she knew someone might come and kill her

that was dumb

MARCHAE: **snaps fingers @miri and @kris**

MIRI: Kris, that’s a really good point and I agree

MARCHAE: i wished she’d been able to fight more i think. 

AND YES MIRI DUMMMBBBBBBBBB

KRIS: It at least didn’t feel like a fridging, though, in that Lorraine’s motivations weren’t really changed and she never had like a breakdown scene or anything

I think on some level there’s an expectation of a Sofia Boutella character Kicking All of the Ass 

but at least to me it was important to the story that she be green

MIRI: (btw that’s not to say there aren’t bi people who are bisexual and hetero or homoromantic or to cast shade on them! It’s just a very often a very stereotyped portrayal in media)

KRIS: She’s on her first assignment and “only been here for a year” vs. Percival, a station chief, having “gone native”

MIRI: Yeah, it did mostly work for the character

and I liked that she was green and in over her head

It made her a very nice foil to both Lorraine and Percival

KRIS: Especially with Lorraine being allll the way on the other end of the spectrum as a triple agent

MIRI: How old is McAvoy?

KRIS: 38

MARCHAE: born 1979

MIRI: Oh, he’s a bit older than I thought--he’s only 4 years younger than Theron

I thought he was more in the middle of her age and Boutella’s

KRIS: Boutella is also older than she looks

35

MIRI: Holy crap she is

born in 82

Wow, I would have said mid twenties

I’m so bad at ages

MARCHAE: I didn’t realize she was as old as she is!

KRIS: I do think mid 20s is what she’s playing here

MIRI: Yeah, seems like

Can we discuss the outfits? Because they are amazing

MARCHAE: OH MY GAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH

I turned to my friend and said i need to start dressing like all of these women! it was its own character and kind of a love letter to the era

MIRI: Lorraine’s commitment to GIANT sweaters/tops with no pants is AMAZING

MARCHAE: YESSS

YESSS

KRIS: (To go back for just a second, my objection to “whirlwind romance” definitely applies to couples of all configurations -- it’s the one thing that doesn’t totally land for me in Casino Royale)

MIRI: It says SO much about her

KRIS: I did like that as a consistent choice

MIRI: She’ll dress however she has to for work

But whenever she can be, she’s COMFY AS HELL

MARCHAE: and i appreciated it and she fights in a hoodie i think at one point

MIRI: I mean she still looks amazing, but no pants, giant shirt

Yes!

MARCHAE: although i didn’t love that she was perpetually in heels!

NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE

my feet hurt for her but that’s an aside

MIRI: Yeah, I feel like some flat ankle boots would have been better

MARCHAE: although am glad she can work it that way

MIRI: But I do believe that she would do it

KRIS: Yeah

MARCHAE: kudos to the women who can fight in heels

oh yeah all the marvel women seem to do it

KRIS: I also thought Theron was taller than me, but she’s the same height

MARCHAE: how tall is that?

so our readers have a frame of reference :)

KRIS: I think we’re not actually supposed to notice most of the Marvel heels though

I’m either 5-9 or 5-10

MIRI: Kris wants to remain mysterious, Marchae

or not

KRIS: IMDB lists her at 5-9 1/2

MARCHAE: LOLOLOLOL

miri i thought the same

(we aren’t?)

MIRI: Not sure. We might be supposed to just accept that that’s how superhero women look

Like Barbies, with their feet always arched

MARCHAE: interesting

KRIS: (I feel like they’re mostly to make Johansson and Smulders tall enough to make framing shots easier? I don’t know though)

MIRI: I think that’s definitely part of it, if not all

I’m just being snarky

KRIS: Gamora being the (infuriating) exception

MIRI: I like to play to my strengths 

Ughhhhhhhh readers, please refer to our Guardians Volume 2 reaction for more!

Percival’s sense of dress is batshit and amazing

He wears sweater vests as shirts

And his giant coat!

MARCHAE: LOLOL

KRIS: Hard to go wrong with a good giant coat

MARCHAE: (ok another book spoiler… Percival is an older man who’s always in a trench coat- ALWAYS)

MIRI: Whaaaaaat

Is he all wily and gone-native?

Does he drink Jack and hide things in his fake cast?

KRIS: I loved the fake cast

MIRI: It was brilliant

MARCHAE: well yes and no.. he has no cast at all he’s completely in tact because there was not a ton of violence and he is a bit what’s the word not aways nice

the fake cast was great!

MIRI: Does “a bit what’s the word not aways nice” mean he was a dick in Marchae-speak?

MARCHAE: LOLOLOLOLOLOL

KRIS: I know this wasn’t McAvoy’s first Fun Role but it was the first one I’ve seen him in

MARCHAE: yeah he kind of was

MIRI: He’s fun in First Class!

KRIS: I guess First Class-era Charles Xavier has a little fun but he pretty quickly has to do the Mentor thing

MIRI: Fair

KRIS: He’s fun until he gets his doctorate, basically

MARCHAE: I DID NOT REALIZE THAT WAS HIM IN ELENOR RIGBY

KRIS: Yep

MARCHAE: get the heck out

I liked him in Split

he’s kind of a good actor

KRIS: He rarely gets to do his own accent (Scottish)

MIRI: I LOVE his accent

MARCHAE: (HE WAS ALSO GNOMEO!!!)

KRIS: Oh he’s great, I’ve been a fan since pre-Chronicles of Narnia

MARCHAE: oh my word i am learning of all these movies i’ve loved him in and didn’t realize it was him

wow then i guess i Love him too

thanks gang

how cool!

MIRI: He’s amazing in Atonement

KRIS: I wonder if I should’ve seen Victor Frankenstein

Probably not, but still

MARCHAE: lol

KRIS: Does someone want to talk about the music?

MARCHAE: it was it’s own character and definitely a love letter to the 80s i appreciated it as a detail that was paid particular attention to in the film

MIRI: I like 99 Luftballoons

MARCHAE: and i sometimes watch people when i go to the movies which i know is weird, but you saw a lot of people dancing in their seats and lip singing to it

KRIS: Is “love letter” enough of a reason to do something though?

MIRI: Just in general

MARCHAE: it was cool

KRIS: I liked the use of covers

But maybe post-Baby Driver I’m a little oversaturated on the whole “music as a character” thing

MIRI: I mean, this whole movie is kind of a love letter to its aesthetics

KRIS: Also partly because the composer for this is the composer on the Guardians movies

Which do the same thing -- heavy, showy music supervision, totally forgettable original score

MARCHAE: I don’t know Kris - I think maybe it is sometimes because you interact with people on a different level

MIRI: Yeah, I couldn’t tell you a single thing about any of the original score

KRIS: Say more MM

MARCHAE: I think because i was very young during the time in which the film is set, but the music triggers memories of what was happening, so now in my mind i am going back saying -yes the Berlin wall - and not from something I learned in class - but instead at home as a kid - but it’s because the music triggered that more than the image necessarily… also because of the kind of tv i was watching as a kid so like the cartoons

KRIS: I will say that the near-oppressiveness of the soundtrack in most of the movie made the music-less long-take fight that much better for the contrast

MARCHAE: but then you ALSO now get to engage those people who maybe weren’t sold on the movie at least now excited about how it sounds and what will be next

KRIS: I guess that makes sense, but what does it have to do with how I interact with people?

MARCHAE: I think as a writer/director you are interacting with all of my senses (save smell but I’ll even argue that)

so i hear how it, what it makes me think of after the fact and why

am i dancing in my seat and saying thats my jam

or i loved it

i think that kind of thing

KRIS: Oh, so when you said “you interact with people on a different level” that was the general You, not You-Kris

?

MARCHAE: yeah general you

not you KM

sorry i should have been more clear

MIRI: The English language is imperfect

KRIS: I’m curious to see more movies from both David Leitch (this) and Chad Stahelski (the other John Wick director, who directed JW 2 solo)

Because I want to know if Stahelski is a better solo director or if there’s something else behind the pacing differences in this and JW2

I mean besides the obvious genre difference

MARCHAE: (aside number 554 from marchae - i need to watch JW and JW2 )

MIRI: I need to watch JW2

KRIS: I keep forgetting MM hasn’t seen the first one, especially ever since we realized she loves action movies

MIRI: I keep forgetting that amazing fact

❤️ 

KRIS: (WATCH HAYWIRE)

MIRI: (WE WILL AT SOME POINT I PROMISE)

KRIS: I feel like somehow we haven’t said enough about Charlize Theron

KRIS: (WE DON’T HAVE TO REACT TO IT I’m just saying)

MIRI: (ALSO I MIGHT FINALLY BE READY TO WATCH BLAICK SAILS)

MARCHAE: (I WILL)

MIRI: Let’s talk about Theron

Because she is AMAZING in this movie

KRIS: She definitely holds the whole thing together

If the performance had been a few notches less confident I would’ve gotten bored

I think

MARCHAE: she is brilliant

to go back to the text she gives that character so much LIFE

KRIS: I mean even just the button on the first interrogation sequence -- the pause before and the delivery of “Fuck”

MIRI: People laughed out loud at that moment

MARCHAE: oh yea

she has this kind of wit about her that i love and she’s coy which is awesome

and she freaking in her 40s

KRIS: That was one of the more successful uses of a dragged-out moment

50 is the new 40, not to be a cliche

MIRI: Are people saying that?

KRIS: Even more than John Wick this made me think of Banshee, which also has a 40-something female action lead (though she’s not THE lead)

MIRI: I mean I endorse it wholeheartedly

KRIS: I mean just in general with regard to __ is the new __

MARCHAE: LOL

MIRI: Between this and Proud Mary, I’m all in for movies about women old enough to be my aunties killing people with great skill

KRIS: I’m always going to prefer hand-to-hand to gunfights (and gunfights to car chases)

MARCHAE: And doing so unapologetically it’s about time we get to see women use their bodies in ways that are indicative of strength

i do love a good car chase that ends with a fiery crash

MIRI: @Marchae YESSSSSS YES YES

MARCHAE: those are cool

MIRI: @Kris, how did you feel about the Atomic Blonde car chase?

KRIS: It was fine, and it wasn’t really about the cars was it?

Unless I’m forgetting a car chase

Which I would believe

MIRI: Ah, so you mean you’re not into Baby Driver car chases (as much as gun fights, at least)

KRIS: Right

MIRI: No, it was more cars as blunt weapons and gun shields, not a drag race or anything

KRIS: BUT there is a fun little Charlize Theron car anecdote in the Anne Helen Petersen profile I posted earlier

MIRI: About her in the Woody Allen movie?

Oh, I’m mixing up movies from that profile

KRIS: ...I think I am forgetting a car chase

MARCHAE: HA!

MIRI: From Atomic Blonde?

MARCHAE: she also learned a lot of her own stunts

MIRI: Or something else?

KRIS: Yeah

MARCHAE: There were two

KRIS: When you said it I was just thinking of Percival chasing the car Lorraine had gotten into when she landed

Jesus Christ Kris

MARCHAE: YUP

MIRI: Ohhhh, I forgot about that one

MARCHAE: i was just typing that

with the shoe

MIRI: I was talking about the other one

K: I guess I blanked on it since it’s part of the oner and especially because we never leave the inside of Lorraine’s car 

KRIS: Start looking for the name 87 Eleven a lot more, I think

MIRI: I did like the shoe thing

KRIS: They’re the stunt/action design people

MIRI: They did damn good work

MARCHAE: they were really good!

KRIS: This and the John Wicks

Also a “Special Thanks” on Power Rangers?

MARCHAE: ok i get it… I’ll watch JW 😊

MIRI: Huh

Maybe they consulted

KRIS: Stephanie Beatriz started training there recently, not for a part but to get in shape for potentially being an action hero

MIRI: WHAT

KRIS: She’s posted a couple of “I’m dying” videos to her Instagram story

MIRI: she'd be good, too. She has dance training 

I need to watch more Instagram videos

KRIS: I feel like we’re running out of steam but we have to go back to the long fight

MIRI: Pause for a sec, grabbing my laundry

KRIS: I felt like a lot of the apartment fight was in the trailers so I was a smudge concerned the same would happen in the stairwell

While we wait, here’s Jessica Chastain punching the air:

https://twitter.com/jes_chastain/status/891493560993947648

MARCHAE: LOL

yes

they were both brilliant fight scenes!

KRIS: I absolutely will not accept The Huntsman as the only time Jessica Chastain gets to be an action hero

MARCHAE: she’d make an amazing superhero!!

KRIS: Especially because that was such a stunt-double-heavy character

She’s in talks to be in the next X-Men as a Space Empress

But I don’t think she’d get to do much fighting

MARCHAE: dang! i’d love to see her kick some doors down

MIRI: Ok I’m back!

And I fully support Chasten as action hero!

*Chastain

KRIS: So a bit of this fight is the very first thing most of the world saw of Atomic Blonde

Which obviously turned out to be the smartest possible trailer move

(Maybe “most” is an exaggeration)

MIRI: Right, but the sheer length of it is not something you understand from the trailer, which is nice

KRIS: Yeah, basically the trailer part ends before Spyglass gets his little comic beat

“Two more”

MIRI: Because it means you don’t lose the impact in the moment by showing it in the trailer

KRIS: And I was like “Aw, only two more?”

MIRI: Loved the Spyglass beats

KRIS: But then everyone just... kept... getting... back... up

MIRI: that one, and him doing the tape in the apartment

MARCHAE: RIGHT

MIRI: Yeah, she has the most will, but they all has a LOT

KRIS: So hang on, have either of you watched Daredevil?

MIRI: especially bleach blond guy with the neo nazi haircut

Key-face

KRIS: Or at least that fight? You know the one even if you haven’t seen it

MIRI: I have only watched part of the first season

Not that one, not

*no

MARCHAE: I starting watching part of the first season

MIRI: I’ve heard of the fight you mean

MARCHAE: ( I actually liked it and am not sure why I didn’t keep going)

KRIS: It’s the end of the second episode

MIRI: Same!

Oh, then maybe I did and I’m just blanking

huh

KRIS: We don’t need to watch it right now but the salient points are that it’s maybe still the best fight scene TV has ever had

And does a similar thing with exhaustion

MIRI: Oh, interesting

KRIS: But they tried to one-up themselves in season 2 with a longer, flashier oner

(Which incidentally also involved a staircase)

But without the exhaustion bit

MARCHAE: Nice!

MIRI: Staircases are good. They give new height differences

KRIS: And it’s Cool and all, but feels much emptier as an exercise than the first one, which is confined to one hallway

MARCHAE: I liked seeing them on the stairs there is also a new element of danger and stakes … like if i fall or get thrown over…

KRIS: Which is why this fight in Atomic Blonde felt almost like a direct response

MARCHAE: ohhhhhhh

KRIS: And specifically a Suck It, Daredevil

I mean I don’t know if it actually was

But I enjoyed thinking it

In that Daredevil s2 fight Matt just absolutely owns everyone who comes at him

Which can be cool

MARCHAE: now i really want to watch

KRIS: But the back-and-forth and the exhaustion justified the technical showiness in AB

MIRI: I liked that Lorraine was really good, but wasn’t Impossibly Better Than Everyone

KRIS: Also really liked the commitment to improvised weapons

MIRI: Key-face is super good too, she’s just got more will in the end

I love that

MARCHAE: Yeah that was brutal

MIRI: The hot plate!!!

KRIS: And the shot revealing the corkscrew, and the audience reaction to seeing the corkscrew

MIRI: WHY IS IT ALWAYS CORKSCREWS????

MARCHAE: I’m cringing thinking of it….

KRIS: I guess because you can hold them for punching?

MIRI: In the last calendar year, I have seen three movies where a woman stabs someone with a corkscrew

THREE

KRIS: What were the other two?

MARCHAE: they are small and compact

MIRI: The Girl on the Train

MARCHAE: OHHHHH yes

*cringing again*

MIRI: and Clinical, which is a Netflix movie the company I used to intern for produced

KRIS: Oh I haven’t seen but I guess there would have actually been wine in proximity

I read Clinical

MIRI: Yeah, the fight between her and the girl in the kitchen

Spoilers for both of those, I guess

KRIS: Yeah to go back to something Miri said it was a cool choice that the fighting in this wasn’t as stylized as in something like John Wick

Which made the choreography in a larger sense more creative

Because of the improvised weapons, the use of the locations, etc

MIRI: I really like how most of the movie is so stylized, but the fights were so gritty

KRIS: Whereas the locations in so many action movies are basically irrelevant

MIRI: I mean, obviously super choreographed because they’re not insane

MARCHAE: they felt authentic

i could not every fight in that way, but you looked at that and thought yup a person could actually do this… it was believable!

MIRI: Honestly, the lack of stunt doubles made this so much better

KRIS: OH

MIRI: Because it can feel that real

What?

KRIS: I really loved that Lorraine covers her face in the end of the apartment fight, when she’s outside before the last two cops arrive

And that I thought this was going to be a moment for a cut to a double

But then they hold the shot until she lowers her collar again

MIRI: Why did you love that?

KRIS: Just to have my expectation of a double subverted

MIRI: Ah, gotcha

KRIS: It felt VERY oh, here’s a good excuse to cut around her

And then it wasn’t, it really was just Lorraine protecting her identity

MIRI: I just didn’t know why she did it--she lowers it immediately after, so it doesn’t seem effective to keep her identity secret!

I guess from those two cops

Or anyone who might have been coming, but then no one did

MARCHAE: that’s what i thought, it also looked really cool, she’s a spy and has to just keep cover, she’s always on alert

KRIS: And of course the other thing about the realism of the fighting in this is the gender thing -- Natasha Romanoff is always kicking and spinning

MIRI: Which is a cool and valid fighting form

But it shouldn’t be ALL THE TIME

KRIS: And Charlize Theron’s legs are like a mile long so not just from gender but from Charlize Theron you would expect something similar

MIRI: I loved that Lorraine was a brawler

KRIS: And obviously men can kick and spin and that’s the point of like, Tae Kwon Do, but outside of Asian productions you don’t see it a lot in movies

MARCHAE: i am thinking and you really don’t, KM

KRIS: There’s so much throwing people into other things in this too, which is great

Just like, use every object and surface that’s harder than a fist

Because hand bones can break relatively easily

MIRI: I loved when they went through the film screen

MARCHAE: that’s what made it so gritty and brutal  - it’s like what you’d hope you’d do if an intruder were coming into your house

YES

KRIS: The movie they were watching there, Stalker, is one of Andy S’s favorites

I wonder if there was any significance to that choice

other than the year

MIRI: Of course it’s one of Flash’s faves

Flash/Andy was our screenwriting professor most committed to Art

I really loved the umbrella thing

KRIS: Yeah, I find Convenient Crowd Things hit or miss but this one worked for me

MARCHAE: it looked great too

KRIS: I guess because they’d established Merkel well in advance

MIRI: perhaps because it was an Engineered Crowd Thing

KRIS: Right, but even those

MIRI: I really did love Merkel

KRIS: Just a poor choice of words on my part

MIRI: Oh, gotcha

KRIS: I guess I mean that I bought Merkel having that level of influence

And usually I’m like, really? This would have taken a lot of logistics

MIRI: Yeah, I’m with you

KRIS: Also, it matters that it didn’t ultimately succeed

Because BETRAYAL

MIRI: Multi-layered betrayal!

MARCHAE: HA

it really was (please promise you’ll read the texxxttttt it’s just so awesome to see what was changed and what was kept the same)

MIRI: Now, why exactly was Percival trying to kill Lorraine? (Was he? She says so, but Spyglass makes more sense)

KRIS: I think Spyglass was definitely the main target but she’d have been a loose end, right?

MIRI: That makes sense

I got a little lost in the twists at the end

KRIS: Seriously

MIRI: And he knew she was Satchel

But not that she was a triple agent, of course

MARCHAE: all of these things i agree with

KRIS: Yeah, the Satchel thing is something I’d want to try to pay more attention to on a rewatch

Just a lot of moving parts and sibilants to keep track of

MIRI: Definitely

MARCHAE: and gathered from it… but i do want to rewatch because it was a lot

MIRI: Sibilants?

KRIS: S sounds? Did I use it wrong?

MIRI: No, that’s right! Just didn’t follow and thought it had a different meaning I didn’t know

But you meant names with s sounds, etc. Which there are a lot of

KRIS: And which there’s no good reason for

MIRI: True

MARCHAE: LOL

KRIS: Any other thoughts?

MIRI: I loved it

MARCHAE: READ THE BOOK!

KRIS: I had a brief thought about how nudity was shot

MIRI: Share it

KRIS: Which was just that there’s nudity when it makes sense but even in and around the sex scene the camera didn’t seem to be leering

Like there’s not active avoidance of nipples or anything but also no lingering on them

MIRI: Agreed, though the buzzfeed review I saw earlier mentions the camera leering on her legs a bit, but no more than it leers at punches or neon or anything

KRIS: I mean “showy, aestheticized sex” is also accurate (I do like Alison Willmore a lot as a critic)

MIRI:Your bench of critics is so deep and I love it

KRIS: And now I’m just watching this gif she included of people being thrown down that stairwell

MARCHAE: he does have a good variety

KRIS: I wonder how many actual cuts there were in that oner

MIRI: I’m thinking about how similar Lorraine and Percival actually are

in that they have such long-term false personas and they’re SO GOOD at maintaining them, but also not perfect

KRIS: (Now I want a crossover with The Americans)

MIRI: Also we have not discussed her scene with the Russians at the end

And we should because it was baller

The shot of the gun in the ice was great

KRIS: Yeah

MIRI: Like, we saw a decent amount of it in the trailer

MARCHAE: ohhhhh yessssss

MIRI: and yet is was still so effective

And that wig and the outfit were amazing

MARCHAE: she was also barefoot

KRIS: Right, the story context automatically makes it way more interesting

MARCHAE: ( i mean she was probably just over it after wearing heels the entire movie)

KRIS: I had more or less forgotten there was one more action scene left

MIRI: There’s so much in this movie

KRIS: And it’s the most stylized fight but still had that, I guess, un-rushed quality to it?

MARCHAE: there is a lot - i repeat again, they knew they had to to make this an action film! those scenes let you forgive so much

MIRI: Yeah, there never felt like much danger to her in that one, whereas there was in the others

KRIS: Lorraine wasn’t like a John Wick-level gun wizard

K: I might be wrong about this, actually, GUESS I’LL JUST HAVE TO REWATCH ALL THESE MOVIES

Yeah! I guess that’s it too, that she felt totally in control of it

MIRI: She knew exactly how it would play out

And that she’d get to go home soon

Also, can I just say how much I loved the “cocksucker” moment, and the end callback to it?

KRIS: YES

Surprisingly hilarious take on the “What?” “What?” conversation trope

MIRI: You can play the tape back

They did a good job letting there be comedic moments without shoehorning them in

KRIS: (This is minor and SUPER action-nerdy but I also appreciated Theron/Lorraine’s pistol handling when she wasn’t shooting -- how she folds her arms in to keep the barrel at the right height and orientation for having to quickly aim and shoot)

(You can tell if an action star did their homework by how often they keep their arms totally extended when holding a handgun)

K: Actually I think worse is the thing where they hold it by their face while pointing the barrel straight up

MIRI: I did not at all notice it, but that’s a cool detail!

(I’m now sitting on my bed holding out a finger gun in various positions to see what feels right)

KRIS: I don’t think we can do a better, more fitting ending line than the movie’s own

You want the honors?

MIRI: I’m honestly blanking on what it was! I’m so embarrassed!!!

KRIS: I’m glad it was convincing

Follow us on Twitter for steady retweets of even more critics Kris likes to namecheck, along with screenwriters and general entertainment reporting. Also for links to future Reactions, of course.

Next up: X-Men cartoons with a Guest Reactor. Unless Liz and Marchae get around to watching The Bold Type soon enough. (WATCH THE BOLD TYPE, LIZ AND MARCHAE.) 

[purplesurveys]

458

A bunch of name surveys just because.

Do you know people with these names? For each name, say if you know someone with that name and how you know them.

Aaron: Aaron’s a good friend and a part of my high school friend group. We don’t see each other anymore but we’ll sometimes bump into each other on campus. Adam Aisha Alanna Alex: There’s someone in my college with this name. She sings and is taking up broadcast communication. Alexa: Someone from my high school batch. Was a popular girl and a little too sassy for my liking. I think she’s moved to Australia now. Alexandria Allegra Allie: It’s spelled Alli, but she’s a member of our rival org. She’s the fakest bitch I know and ugh, she’s just so rotten and loves to talk shit about people behind their backs. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s said anything about me. Allison: This was the name of my Comm 100 instructor. I found her really pretty but she doesn’t teach very well. She’s also taking up her Masters in the same department, which explains why she did one sem of teaching.

Alondra Amanda: I have an orgmate named Amanda. She’s taking up engineering but I’ve forgotten which sub-branch. Super quiet girl but I found her reliable in the few times I worked with her. Amber Amie: It’s spelled Aimee but whatever. Rich girl, is the equivalent of a white girl where I live. Is dating one of the star basketball players from Ateneo. Ana Anaïs Andreas Andrew: Dude from my course. Likes wrestling, is funny and has good insights, but is a little too clingy for my liking. Also feels as though he’s friends with everyone which can feel a tad bit invasive. Angela: My best friend’s name is Angela. Angelica: Sweet girl from my course who is super passionate about science journalism. A little dorky but I like her, and I find her really sweet. I admire her for always sticking up for what she wants and believes in. She’s really resilient and adventurous; she always signs up for conferences, seminars, workshops, and stuff, whether local or abroad. Her mom’s a famous journalist in the country. Anna Annie: One of my grandma’s close friends is named Annie but I haven’t seen her in a while. I don’t even know if she’s still alive? Ari: I have a friend-ish who has a little sister nicknamed Ari. I’m not close with her enough to know Ari’s full name lmao. Ashley Ashna Audrey: Someone from my batch. She stayed in UP Los Banos for a while, but she’s since moved to my campus but I’m not sure what course she’s taking. My bets are Math or Architecture, but I can be wrong. Austin Becky: Nasty fake bitch from my AJPunk days. I had a close-knit group of friends during these days and we were all brought together just by our love for wrestling and our favorite ship at the time. She was a part of it too, but someone discovered her private Twitter and it was just her saying a bunch of mean, nasty things about everyone else in the group, including me. When we confronted her about it, she blocked us. Messy times, lmao. Ben

Berkeley Beth Bobby Bolor Brendan Bridgid: I dunno if this counts, but I had a batchname with the name Bridgette. I don’t know much about her other than the fact that she once dated a dude from one of the popular bands from our scene who played the saxophone. Britney Brooke Cal Callie Cam Cameron Camille: When I was younger, I used to ride the school bus with an older girl named Camille. She was 3-4 years older, I don’t really remember; but she was one of the nicer older students and always spoke to us on the bus. She’s since moved to California and I never got to talk to her anymore. Camryn Carmen Caro Caroline: Jane’s middle name is Caroline. Casilda Cecile Cecily Chanel Chloe: Another high school batchmate. I remember her as being kind of a snob and would look down on people who weren’t popular. She was always kind to me though so that was nice. She’s taking up Psych in my school now but I’ve never seen her around. I also know another Chloe from communication research, but I don’t talk to her. Chris: Not the same spelling, but I know a Kris. She’s one of Gabie’s two best friends. All I know about her is that she likes doing outdoor stuff, like hiking and going to the beach; but she’s too extroverted for me to wanna hang out with her all the time. Christina: We all call her Tina but this is her whole name. She’s the new VP for Publicity in our org. Real sweet girl, not a bad bone in her body. She’s also one of the more mature people I know. Christopher: My uncle’s whole name is Christopher, but he’s Tito Perry to me. I have no idea how his nickname turned into that. He works abroad so I don’t see him much but I know he’s hilarious. Claire: Ms. Claire was the guidance counselor assigned to my batch for several levels. I didn’t really cultivate a relationship with her as much as I didn’t with all the other mentors/teachers in my old school. Claudia: Her name was Klaudia and she was an It girl all the way from preschool to the second we graduated high school. She was really mean when she was a kid but I think she’s been nicer in high school and now that we’re in college. Typical rich kid who has snooty tendencies, but I appreciate the one time she said hi to me on campus haha. She’s taking up a course in economics now. Claudine Cole Connie Connor Courtney Cyrus Daisy: My 6th grade Math teacher had this name. She did not teach well and I mostly got bad grades in math that year. Dakota Dana: If you mean Danna, then I know someone I went to grade school with with the same name. She was...honestly a little weird, and knew so many sexual innuendos at like, 10. That creeped me out and I didn’t hang out with her a lot. But if you mean Dana with a long A, I know a Deina too; different spelling but whatever. I don’t know much about her but we’re course mates and I’ve been classmates with her a few times. She had a dog who died recently :( Danielle: She goes by Giana but her middle name is Danielle. Sweet girl from my high school, but never really got to hang out with her since our personalities are super different. She’s taking up philosophy in my school. David: Callo’s foreign boyfriend is named David but I’ve never met him precisely because he lives somewhere in like Europe and only comes over to the Philippines a couple times every year; Patrice’s boyfriend is also named David and I’ve met him a few times. Nice dude. David’s also the name of one of my groupmates from my communication research class. He sucks and barely contributed anything. Delilah Diane: Dianne’s someone I went to high school with. We were never close but we were always friendly to each other when our paths would meet. Super smart–she’s taking up business administration and accountancy also in my schoool–and is a beast at dancing. Diego: A high school batchmate has been going out with a dude named Diego in the last 5 years. Donald Doug Duncan Dylan: My sister went to high school with a girl named Dylan but that’s all I know. Eleanor Elijah: I have a cousin named Elijah and also a high school batchmate with the same name. The first Elijah’s really quiet and likes to keep to himself, preferably with a book; the second one I’m not very close to. All I remember is that she kept on having these really bad allergies when we were in kindergarten but that’s about it lmao. She also goes to the same school I do and I think she’s also taking up business ad. Elise: Some girl a batch higher than me in college who served in the student council. Never talked to her. Eliza Elizabeth: See Ellie haha. Ella: Angela’s family nickname is Ela. Elle: I had a former batchmate whose middle name was Elle but we all called her Rielle. Insanely rich. Moved to Nevada when we were all still kids. Ellie: It’s spelled Ely, but I had a class with her just this semester. She’s soft-spoken and I found her to be really elegant. Elliot Emerson Emily Emma Eric: My godfather and uncle is named Eric. He was the funny uncle when I was a kid but I never really see him anymore. Erika: There was an Erycka from my high school batch but I genuinely dislike her. She was rich, liked to brag, and to look down on those who weren’t on her level. Acted like hot shit because she was in a band. She asked me to drive her along with her other (much nicer) friends for the Paramore concert last August, and as much as I didn’t want to, I had to say yes because I had no reason to decline the request. Ethan Faith Fiona: One of my sister’s closest friends is named Fiona. Francesca: Such a common name. Francesca is my friend Michelle’s middle name, and the first name of my close friend from Batch 2017 in high school (I’m from Batch 2016) as well as the names of two girls from Batch 2019. I also have a distant cousin with the name. I’m sure there’s loads more with this name. Franz George: Weird dude I was classmates with in a history class this semester. It’s the kind of weird that you know just how smart he is that you just accept the weirdness and go lmao. Ginny Giselle Grace: One of my great-aunts is named Grace. Graham Hadley Hailey: Not a person, but one of Angela’s shihtzus is named Hailey. Hannah: Orgmate, groupmate, classmate, and a good friend of mine. Also not a bad bone in her body. She’s a born performer and has a massive crush on David Archuleta. Havana Helen Henry Hugo Huma Ilana: Close enough. I know an Ylona but we all call her Summer. Guessing she got that nickname as she was born in April. Indra Isabel: High school batchmate who I mostly remember because she’s super religious, which is also why I didn’t really want to be close to her. She’s really nice though. Isabelle’s also my middle name. Isabella: One of Gabie’s sisters is named Isabela. Itza Ivy: This is the name of my professor in feature writing. Really good at what she does and I’ve always enjoyed her writing. Izzy Jackie Jacob James: I have a younger second cousin named James. I’ve only seen him once though, when he visited the country last December for Christmas, because he’s been raised in New Zealand and Vietnam his whole life. Jamie: She was one of my groupmates in an English class. I found her hardworking so I liked her. She was also my classmate in a pol sci class but I think she dropped it halfway through. Jason Jennifer: One of my teachers in kindergarten. She was very maternal and always looked out for me knowing how shy I was as a kid, which I’ve always appreciated. Jenny Jess Jhadha Joe John: I know a bunch of Johns but the most prominent one is my older cousin that I’m closest to; his first name is John. Jonathan Joseph: Dude from my course. Kinda cheery dude, always active and in a good mood. Sometimes he’s too extroverted for me. Joyce J.P. Jude Julia Julie Justin: Some dude from the org I used to apply for. I didn’t last very long in the application process so I only know him by name. Kaan Kai: One of my sister’s best friends from school is named Kairin but she goes by Kai. She’s also a neighbor of ours. Karina Kat: I had an internet friend back in like 2012 named Kat. She was mysterious and had a twin sister, but she disappeared and had her Twitter deleted not long after. Kat’s also the nickname of my cousin’s girlfriend. Kate: One of the best friends I’ve made in college. We started out as orgmates and didn’t really talk for two years, but we got closer since we were both vice presidents and had to work a lot with each other. She’s graduating next month and I’m really sad about it. Katherine Kinaya Kira Kristie Lanie Laura Lauren: A batchmate from high school. She studies med in college now. We were close from Grade 3 to 4 but grew apart as our circles and interests changed. Had a slew of boyfriends and girlfriends in like 6th grade and was one of the girls who started drinking early lol so she was one of the pretty cool kids for those. Leah León Lexxi Liberty Lisette Louisa: One of my good friends in college is named Luisa, who I also met from our org. She graduated last year but we still keep in touch in groupchats and I’ll also see her from time to time in sports events since she covers the sports beat. Luca Luis: A close friend that I met in high school. We were part of the same friend group, and now he’s taking up architecture in my school with Angela. Lynette MacKenzie Maddie Maggie: There was a girl from two higher batches with this name. I also have a younger cousin we call Maggie. Makena Manlio Margaret: Yeah, my cousin Maggie’s first name is Margaret. Margo: Used to go to grade school and ride the school bus with a Margo. She would let me listen to her MP3 when we were in 3rd grade; her favorite album at the time was Ashley Tisdale’s Headstrong because that’s all we would listen to hahaha. Maria: This is the most common name in the Philippines and I literally know like 50 people named Maria. Marianna Mariely Martha Martin Mayuri McKinley Megan: A high school batchmate’s middle name is Megan, but her first and chosen name is Denise. Meredith Mia: I know a Mia but only from mutual friends. We’ve never talked to nor met each other. Michael: See Mike. Michelle: Yup, she’s my orgmate and a friend of mine. I’m also gonna be working with her in the next executive board term in the org since we were both elected as VPs. Mike: He was my almost in high school. We met each other at a soiree and hit it off really well from the start. I was considering it for a while and he even asked me to senior ball, but it clashed with me getting back together with Gab while all of that was happening. Minah Miranda Molly Morgan Nadia Nancy: We had a bus mother we called Manang Nancy and she practically raised me my whole childhood. I changed school buses when we moved houses and never really was able to get back to her, which I continue to feel sucky about. She’s really old now and highkey not even sure if she’s still alive, and it’s why I’d love to see her again. Natalie Nathan Nathanael Neoma Nichole: I had an annoooooooying bus mate named Nicole. She was the kind of kid that would do all kinds of stuff just to grab your attention and to have you look at her. I think she graduated this year. Nico: One of my high school batchmate’s went out with a Nico for a really long time. I don’t think they’re together now though cos its been ages since she posted about him. Nikki: Old high school batchmate, but she moved out early to transfer to a science high school. Noah Noelle Octavio Olivia Orion Owen Paige Pam: Again, another girl from high school. I also had a classmate named Pam in my broad comm class this semester, and she was always nice to me and helped me out a lot whenever I needed it. Pat: I know a bunch of people named Patricia who go by Pat. Patrick: Audrey’s boyfriend. All I remember about him is that he gets annoyingly aggressive when he’s drunk. Paul: An alumni of my org. Was a former president, too. He’d show up to org events here and there. Paula: I went to elementary and high school with a girl named Paula. She was painfully quiet for the most part but I think she’s blooming a lot in college now. Pauline: My 4th grade social science teacher was named Pauline and she was also one of my first woman crushes lmao. I also used to go to school with two Paulines; one was really girly and a little snooty, and the other Pauline is one of the most talented artists I know. Peter Phoebe: There are two Phoebes in my college. One is taking up journ and the other is from broad comm. Phong Price Quinn Rachel Rai: A girl from one of my old broad comm classes. That was really the only time I encountered her. Railey Raquel Ray Rayne: There was a Raine from my old school. Smart, talented, very tall, hilarious, clever, cool girl. She’s the daughter of one of the more popular national basketball coaches. Rebecca Rebkah Regina: She goes by Reggy but this is her full name. She’s the beeeest baker I know. She’s had her own successful baking business since high school and I’m just glad it’s going nowhere but up for the last five or so years. Reilly Remy Ren Rhianna Robert Rohini Roither Rose: Marielle’s (my lifelong enemy lmao) first name is Rose. Ruby Ruilin Sabrina Sakura Salim Sally Sam: Sam is a really popular white girl name in the Philippines and I know so many of them. Sapna Sarah Savanah Sebastian Shani Shannon Siena Snigdha Sofia: Gab’s youngest sister is named Sophia. My old best friend is also a Sofia. Sophie: ^ It’s the former’s nickname. Soren Spencer Summers: Close, but I know a Summer from my college and org. Sydney Taran Taylor Tessa: My prof in PR class is a Tessa. Thea: Another girl from high school. She was a teacher’s pet even though I always found her to be a bit snobby and having a little atittude. Theo Theresa: My profs in PR and Newsroom classes are Theresas. Tim Tom Tori Ural Victoria: I had a groupmate in civic ed whose middle name was Victoria, but we all called her Kristine. Viviane Walter Will Willa William Yujin Yuta Zac: I think one of my cousins has Zachary as his middle name, but I’m not so sure hahaha. Zoe Which names do you prefer?

Alice or Allana? Allie or Andie? Alexandra or Anastasia? Anna or Angela? Annie or Angelica? Ana or Ashna? Audrey or Ashley? Ansel or Annika? Brooke or Britney? Berkeley or Bella? Bo Chao or Beatrix? Camille or Camryn? Cristina or Casilda? Chloe or Courtney? Charlotte or Carol? Cleo or Chanel? Davin or Dillon? Delilah or Dutra? Erin or Elina? Emin or Emerson? Emily or Emma? Erika or Estelle? Faith or Frannie? Fernanda or Francesca? Georgina or Gracie? Gabriela or Gina? Hailey or Hannah? Hadley or Havana? Indra or Isabel? Indiana or Ivy? Jenny or Jessie? Julia or Joyce? Jasmine or Jackie? Jamie or Jennifer? Kimia or Karina? Katerina or Kate? Kira or Kristie? Lia or Lily? Lauren or Lynette? Liberty or Leila? Margaret or Martha? Michelle or Mackenzie? Mia or Michaela? Morgan or Maddie? Maya or Mayuri? Megan or Makena? McKinley or Margo? Nikki or Natalie? Nadia or Nancy? Nicole or Olivia? Rachel or Rebecca? Remi or Rosie? Ruby or Reine? Ren or Sakura? Sapna or Snigdha? Sally or Stella? Sophie or Sydney? Sophia or Solana? Skye or Sierra? Serena or Savanah? Sarah or Sabrina? Tara or Taylor? Vittoria or Yahs? Yoonju or Yukine? Aidan or Austin? Alan or Andrew? Aldo or Alexx? Ben or Brian? Billy or Brodie? Corey or Carlos? Coleman or Connor? David or Dylan? Eli or Eric? Franz or Fernando? Gabe or Graham? Holden or Hudson? Jacob or Justin? Jack or JP? Jimmy or Jared? James or John? Karm or Kian? Lou or Lenny? Michael or Mickey? Nick or Nathan? Peter or Pierson? Rai or Rafael? Sanjay or Supawat? Will or Wynn? Zachary or Zack? Girls’ Names - This or That?

Aisha or Allana? Alex or Alexa? Alexandra or Alexandria? Ali or Allie? Allegra or Allison? Alondra or Amanda? Amber or Amie? Ana or Aneka? Anaïs or Anh? Angela or Angelica? Anna or Anne? Annie or Ashley? Ashna or Aziza? Astrid or Audrey? Beatrice or Beleicia? Becky or Berkeley? Bethany or Bethlehem? Bo-Chao or Bolor? Bridgid or Brooke? Britney or Brittany? Callie or Carlie? Camryn or Camille? Carmen or Casilda? Carol or Caroline? Catherine or Charlotte? Cecile or Cecily? Chanel or Chloe? Christina or Claire? Claudia or Claudine? Connie or Corrine Courtney or Cristina? Daisy or Delilah? Dana or Danielle? Dakota or Diamond? Diana or Diane? Eleanor or Elizabeth? Elise or Eliza? Elle or Ella? Ellen or Evelyn? Emlyn or Emerson? Ellie or Elly? Emily or Emma? Erika or Erin? Fiona or Francesca? Faith or Frances? Gabi or Grace? Gardenia or Giselle? Ginny or Genesis? Hadley or Hailey? Haley or Hayley? Harriet or Helen? Hannah or Heather? Havana or Haligan? Ilana or Isabel? Indra or Itza? Ivy or Izzy? Isabelle or Isabella? Jackie or Jamie? Jasmine or Jeanne? Jenna or Jenny? Jen or Jess? Jennifer or Jessica? Jae-Min or Jhadha? Julia or Julianna? Jude or Joyce? Judy or Julie? Karina or Kinaya? Kat or Katherine? Kate or Katie? Kyra or Kira? Kiki or Kristie? Lily or Leah? Laura or Lauren? Lexxi or Lizzie? Lisette or Lynette? Louisa or Lucia? Lanie or Liberty? Maddie or Maggie? Mackenzie or Makena? Mallory or Margaret? Madeleine or Megan? Margita or Maria? Marie or Martha? Marianna or Mariela? McKenna or McKinley? Miranda or Meredith? Melissa or Michelle? Margo or Marianne? Mariely or Mayuri? Minh or Mitsuki? Molly or Mia? Morgan or Marge? Nadia or Nina? Natalie or Natasha? Neoma or Naomi? Nancy or Nicole? Nichole or Noelle? Nikki or Nelsy? Olivia or Oratilé? Paige or Phoebe? Paloma or Pamela? Pam or Price? Paula or Pauline? Rachel or Rebecca? Rayne or Reyna? Raquel or Rebkah? Regina or Rita? Railey or Rhianna? Remi or Ruby? Ruilin or Rohini? Rose or Rosie? Sabrina or Sydney? Sadie or Sally? Salomé or Silvia? Sara or Sarah? Shannon or Simone? Shu-Shu or Sakura? Siena or Sofia? Sophie or Sophia? Soren or Summers? Swapnika or Snigdha? Syd or Savanah? Taylor or Tori? Tessa or Theresa? Victoria or Viviane? Waverly or Willa? Yasmeen or Yvonne? Yoonju or Yujin? Yahs or Yukine? Zoe or Zoey?

[usatrendingsports]

The Cubs must discover a leadoff hitter for 2018, and Kris Bryant deserves the job

The Cubs are smack in the midst of a run of success the franchise has hardly ever earlier than seen. They simply went to the NLCS for the third straight season, which is a franchise first. They received their first World Collection since 1908 in 2016, and this previous season marked the primary time they have been in three straight postseason since 1906-08. Additionally they received their division in back-to-back seasons for simply the second time (2007-08). 

The offense for a lot of final season, nevertheless, was inconsistent. General, they have been second within the NL in runs, third in house runs and first in on-base share, so it isn’t like lets say it was dangerous and even simply common. It was an excellent offense. It simply went by way of occasional — and typically even prolonged — lulls, reminiscent of hitting .215/.309/.392 as a staff in Might. 

One factor they could not appear to get straight was who to hit leadoff. After Dexter Fowler was a mainstay within the spot in 2015-16, they needed to discover a substitute as soon as he signed with St. Louis. The Kyle Schwarber experiment to start out the season did not work. Spells with Anthony Rizzo and Willson Contreras weren’t meant to final, and the Cubs ended up beginning 11 totally different gamers on the season atop the order. 

Because the Cubs have not altered their position-player roster a lot this offseason, the query now lingers into 2018. Who will hit leadoff? 

I am right here to advocate for Kris Bryant, who, funnily sufficient, was not one of many 11 gamers Joe Maddon employed on the prime final season in any respect. Let’s go over why. 

There aren’t any (different) nice matches

Conventional leadoff guys come from up the center. Javier Baez doesn’t have the ability set to guide off, and we do not even actually need to delve additional into his case to show that. Each baseball fan is aware of it. Addison Russell additionally does not match on the prime. He is a profession .240 hitter with a .312 on-base share. 

Albert Almora hit .298 with a .338 OBP final season. I would reasonably see a man take much more walks to get extra separation between the common and OBP, however I can see a case for him main off, particularly towards lefties (he hit .342/.411/.486 towards southpaws final season). I would nonetheless reasonably see a a lot larger OBP than .338 on the prime of an offense that must be high-powered, nevertheless. 

As such, I am wanting elsewhere. 

Anthony Rizzo had a .392 OBP final season and walked (91) greater than he struck out (90), however he appears like he must be extra a middle-of-the-order man. Willson Contreras had a .356 OBP, however I once more love him within the center. The Cubs shouldn’t revisit Schwarber on the prime, because it did not work. Ben Zobrist hit .232 with a .318 OBP final season. Heading into his age-37 season, he must be achieved as an on a regular basis starter. Ian Happ hit .253 with a .328 OBP and strikes out at a excessive share (129 Ok in 364 at-bats). I’ve given up hope that Jason Heyward must be wherever close to the highest of a batting order. 

That is just about everybody who ought to advantage consideration as a daily starter besides Bryant. 

On-base chops

Crucial factor a leadoff man can do is get on base. He is the — as they referred to as Fowler — “you go, we go” man. Bryant was fourth within the NL (and first on the Cubs) with a .409 OBP final 12 months, and he is trending up. He is gone from .369 to .385 to the .409 mark in his profession, thanks partially to strolling 95 occasions final season, in comparison with 75 in his 2016 MVP marketing campaign. 

Heading into 2018, Bryant figures to guide the Cubs in OBP once more, maybe even by a giant margin. 

Examine the strikeout pattern

Maligned in some corners of the web throughout his rookie season for his penchant to strike out an excessive amount of, Bryant has been making important strides on this entrance. Have a look:

Season

Strikeouts

Plate apperances

2015

199

650

2016

154

699

2017

128

665

Bryant went from main the NL in strikeouts in 2015 to being higher than common within the class final season. He struck out in 19.2 p.c of his plate appearances, whereas the MLB common was 21.6 p.c. 

Once more, he is now above common when it comes to making contact. Think about that. 

Given the strides he is made in OBP, walks and strikeouts in simply three seasons, we’ve loads of proof that Bryant goes to proceed to enhance his sport or on the very least simply keep just like what he was in 2017. 

His willingness to be versatile

With the intention to do one thing that seems out of the atypical, the participant usually must be OK with it. What we have seen in simply three years from Bryant is that just about nothing bothers him. Actually, I can not actually bear in mind a time he complained about something, aside from a strike-three name a few times. He is a 3rd baseman who has began 42 video games in left area, 23 in proper area, one in middle area and eight at first base. He is additionally appeared at shortstop. He is hit second, third, fourth and fifth within the beginning lineup at varied factors. He is by no means complained or let it have an effect on his excessive stage of play. 

There’s nothing right here that leads me to imagine Bryant could be sad or unable to succeed on the leadoff spot. 

He isn’t sluggish

Whereas each staff would love their leadoff man to flash Billy Hamilton wheels, it finally does not matter a lot if the man steals many bases or not on this power-heavy period. Nonetheless, each time I carry up a non-traditional leadoff man thought, I can hear screaming from the hills about mentioned participant’s lack of velocity. 

The factor is, Bryant is not sluggish by any stretch. Actually, he is remarkably quick for his measurement. He is stolen 28 bases in three years and is among the hardest gamers in baseball to get on a ground-ball double play (solely eight occasions in 665 plate appearances final season). 

Or, , we might go along with the attention take a look at: 

That man can run, of us. 

It matches with the remainder of the personnel

When you’re gonna make the case for a leadoff man, the remainder of the batting order has to make sense as nicely. Let’s go along with a fast sketch to see. 

Bryant (R)

Rizzo (L)

Contreras (R)

Schwarber (L)

Russell (R)

Almora (R)

Baez (R)

Pitcher

Heyward (L)

There’s additionally room to play in there within the 5-7 spots with others like Happ and Zobrist, however this common define exhibits a reasonably well-rounded order. I particularly like Heyward’s decent-ish OBP and nice baserunning sitting ninth, in entrance of Bryant after which Rizzo. You are additionally getting your total two finest hitters essentially the most plate appearances. Unquestionably the perfect three, truly, as Contreras has morphed right into a bona fide offensive drive in his personal proper. 

There’s my case. I imagine Bryant is the perfect man for the job, and the lineup fills out very nicely behind him. I am unsure if Joe Maddon would hear even when he by some means ever stumbled upon my rationale, however I would very very similar to to see Kris Bryant because the Cubs’ leadoff man in 2018. 

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[seafoam-blue]

The Star by wuyifan95, deedee_zelo90 & alyssa_1998

Story link.

Story Title: 6/10

The story has fourteen chapters and I asked myself if I actually had time to read it. I find the title quite cute, if I say so myself. Yet, I can't seem to see the relevance it has to your story plot. I can sense a little connection but it's not a huge part of the whole story. A title needs to be effective to an extent it does accurately portray the message and plot of the story. A title also needs to be able to portray the story plot well without giving away too much. Your title, in my opinion, is vague in a good way but I can't seem to understand it and I'm really sorry.

Appearance wise I have to say it is quite mediocre, the title isn't a turn-off but it isn't really a hook either. It’s a bit on the plain side, and it sounds like something that many people would use. Correct me if I'm wrong, but did you get your title from EXO's The Star? I kinda guessed that because when I first saw your title, I was quickly reminded of that song which happens to be one of my favourites. I don't think the title is eye-catching enough, and that is one of  the problems with naming a fanfic after a song. There are too many other fanfics with the same title and this will not help yours to stand out. Perhaps, you should come up with something more profound. You can try messing around with words, find something relating to the story yet not revealing the plot.

Foreword & Description: 11/15

Let's start with the description first, shall we? Your description is something safe as I'd like to call it. You pretty much summarized everything without giving away too much and that's good. It's not the best but it's fine to me. There are certain parts that caught my attention, so well done. There's one thing I'd like to talk about and that is your sentence construction. I don't know why but most of your sentences are really awkward to read, or maybe it's just me. Try to rewrite some parts in your description to make it more appealing and readable to the reader's eyes. You can ask your co-authors to help you or just ask for a beta-reader. I'm not sure if English is your first language but you do have a bit of wrong grammar from your description.

Original: Kris already has a girlfriend who he loves.

Correction: Kris already has a girlfriend whom he loves.

As you can see, a lot of people tend to get this mistaken. 'Who' vs. 'Whom'. I read a lot of fics where the author got these two words mixed up. Here's some explanation. From what I've studied, who should be used in the subject position in a sentence, while whom should be used in the object position, and also after a preposition. For example:

Who cooked this rice? (here, who is the subject of the sentence)

Whom do you think we should support? (here, whom is the object of support)

To whom do you wish to talk to? (here, whom is following the preposition to)

I hope you get the idea. I'm sorry if you don't understand what I'm trying to say. I'm really bad at explaining things, so forgive me.

Moving on to the foreword, I think everything's fine here. The only thing that needs a little touch-up is the sentence construction which I've mentioned before. The snippet you've given is nice, I have nothing to complain about. The only real problem I have with your overall description are your character descriptions where you introduced the three major characters and gave a brief outline of them. I feel that this is really unneeded as the details you gave under each character could have been introduced in the story rather than the foreword itself. It's fine if you're giving the readers and subscribers the important information, but never give away their personalities. Sometimes things should just be left hidden so that the readers can discover them themselves.

Characterization: 8/10

Here, I'll just talk about the three characters that seem dominant in my opinion, which are Kris, Hyuna and Lunia. I find that your characters are interesting, but they're not memorable or amusing to me. You developed your characters with dialogues instead of describing their actions and feelings. It's not wrong but it's not good either. Some readers might have a hard time grasping your characters and connect to them. I don't have a problem with it, though. I won't ask you change the way you write because you're probably comfortable with that style of writing. Different authors have different kinds of writing styles. It all depends on taste and preference so I won't say much.

Let's start off with Kris. Based on what you wrote, I think he's an idiot. I had neutral feelings for him. I didn't like Kris but at the same time I didn't hate him. I find his character irresponsible. He left Hyuna for 4 years without a good explanation and when he finally met her, he acted like nothing happened. Honestly, I wasn't satisfied with that. He even dared to stay the night with Hyuna and made out with her. That was absolutely unacceptable and unfair considering what he had done to the girl. Another thing is that he's currently having conflicts with his own feelings. He loves Lunia but at the same time he loves Hyuna. He might be irresponsible and stupid at some point, but I can still see that he's selfless. He left Hyuna for a reason and seeing how he kept the secret for so long, he must've have loved the girl very much. I can see that he has flaws which is good. I want to feel sorry for Kris, but he brought all the problems to himself and I really hope in the future chapters, he is able to make things right.  

As for Hyuna, I think she is quite a strong-minded person. She won’t take it when someone tries to hurt her, she stands up for herself against Kris and I really like this aspect of her. She acts all tough when she's broken on the inside and I think this is portrayed really well. Taking a revenge on Kris was a dirty trick but after what she had been through, it's understandable and realistic. I realized that Hyuna wasn't the girl that she used to be. When she was in Canada, I saw that she was very bright and cheerful. She was also friendly as she was able to befriend Kris in a split second. But after what happened, she became cold and passive that she can't seem to interact with anyone other than her brother and her best friends. She detaches herself from other people because she doesn't want her trust to be betrayed again like what Kris did to her. She might have changed, but I can still see bits of her old traits in her because that's her true personality which I find you did a good job of portraying. I like her character.

Now, it's Lunia's turn. Lunia is an insane person that I can't even think of her as 'normal'. She's really bubbly, like really really bubbly. I had a hard time understanding her because to me, her personality was hard to grasp. I'm starting to wonder why the EXO boys treasure her so much when she comes off as clingy and spoiled, which makes her unlikeable to me. She feels like a 'Mary-Sue' who lacks layers as a character. She feels really flat and plain, and she did come off as unrealistic at one point. I gotta say that it annoys me that Sehun likes her because I honestly think he deserves better. I hope you will try to improve her character as the story goes on because there's nothing to it. One thing that doesn't make sense is that she keeps calling Kris 'oppa' when she's actually Chinese and Kris is also Chinese. I don't see the point why she calls Kris 'oppa' when they're both Chinese.

Summary/Plot: 15/20

So far, the plot for the whole story is not the most original plot out there because I've read a few fanfics before with the same idea. But then again, I can't say much about it because your story is still on-going. What I have to say about your plot though is that it’s interesting, believe me. I really do like your plot. I know with plots many readers have their own preference of what makes up a good story but with yours it already has a decent plot. The only problem is the flow and I will talk about it later in the flow section. I won't talk about originality because that doesn't matter to me. We see cliché fics everyday. I've also written a lot of fanfics with cliché plots before. Cliché isn't always bad. If you know how to deal with it, your story will do great. One more thing, please avoid using symbols for your chapter titles. It just looks messy for some reasons.

Grammar/Spelling: 10/20

This is possibly the weakest section you’ve done in and you need to understand this so I’m going to explain it as clearly as possible. I don't know if English is your first language or not because you didn't specify, but I have to say that your grammar really distracted me. I'm not a Grammar Nazi, I'm not even a native English speaker to begin with. But there were a handful of grammar mistakes I found throughout the story, and most of them are the very basic ones. Here are few to name: tenses, punctuation, spacing, vocabulary and also some sentences that didn't make sense; I would understand what you were trying to say, but the way you strung your words together sounded really awkward or the words were simply incorrect. I suggest you type your story in Microsoft Word before publishing it on AFF because it's really helpful. Microsoft Word is every author's best friend, as I'd like to call it. I know it's sometimes tiring to copy and paste your writing because I used to feel that way before, but it helps to fix our grammar and such. I want to list some of your mistakes but you disabled text selection, so I think you can ask your co-authors to fix them for you.

Organization/Flow: 5/15

The flow of your story felt extremely rushed (to me at least). My advice: don’t rush things. Stop and explain. Some events felt rushed, like the flashback with T.O.P and the engagement between Kris and Lunia. The transitions from one event to another in a chapter was not subtle and that really bothered me. The overall flow wasn't terrible just try to slow things down a bit and add more descriptions, but not too much or otherwise it'll be boring. I didn't quite like the POV change because I feel like everything can be written with the third person omniscient POV without adding all the characters' POVs.

Structure: 8/15

There’s nothing embarrassing to point out so don’t be scared over reading this section. You did pretty well in this section but I'd like to talk about your paragraph structuring. You tend to collapse your paragraphs into one big paragraph when there are certain parts that need to be separated. It looks scattered and inconsistent. I suggest that you make them shorter; a lot of your paragraphs could be written one by one. I also don't quite like how you bolded the dialogues. Bolds are mainly used to emphasize things. In your case, you're using it for dialogues and there's no need for that, to be honest. Just stick to normal colour and format for the dialogues. No bolds or italics, unless you want to emphasize something.

Bonus: 2/5

The story is good in its own way. I can say that there are aspects in writing that I know you can improve on. Your readers seem to enjoy your story a lot, and I think that's the most important thing when it comes to a story. Your story is fun to read, I enjoyed it. The only problems are your grammar and flow, so try to fix that as soon as you can. You have two co-authors to help you so I don't think there will be a problem.

Total: 65/100

Notes: Hi there wuyifan95! I know that you requested from muraskipandadreams to review your story but I had to take over it for some reasons. I'm really sorry this took so long. I had a problem with my computer a few days ago and I actually had to read your story one chapter a day because of my busy schedule. I hope I didn't come out too harsh and my review's helpful. I'm sorry if it didn't come out as you expected. I haven't been reviewing stories for months so I hope you understand the difficulties I had when I was working on your request. Hope you enjoy your review. Thanks for requesting!

reviewed on 8/7/2014

[ralphmorgan-blog1]

What the federal government can get from your voter file

Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump's election integrity commission won't have access to all of the information it would like because of state laws that map out what is and what is not publicly available -- triggering a national conversation on the privacy of voters' information.

At the heart of the issue is a letter sent last week by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach in his capacity as vice chairman of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity to all 50 states and the District of Columbia. In that letter, Kobach asked for all "publicly available" data, but the long list of pieces of information sought, including the last the four digits of Social Security numbers, included several elements that very few states, if any, say they can legally comply with.

The letter said the commission is seeking to collect feedback from the states that can be used in its work studying the US election system's integrity. But a request for certain pieces of voter information -- especially the last four digits of Social Security numbers, military status, possible felony convictions and dates of birth -- raised the concern of states, privacy experts and cybersecurity professionals.

The federal government and Kobach say the letter clearly acknowledges that states are governed by their own laws in what they can provide, reiterating that fact in a court filing Wednesday against a lawsuit from a privacy group seeking to block the request.

In a statement on Wednesday afternoon, Kobach said 20 states will provide public information and another 16 are reviewing their options, while 14 states and DC have outright refused to comply.

"Despite media distortions and obstruction by a handful of state politicians, this bipartisan commission on election integrity will continue its work to gather the facts through public records requests to ensure the integrity of each American's vote because the public has a right to know," Kobach said.

But states and privacy experts remain concerned by the request in general, and some say the context of how the data is intended to be used matters just as much as the patchwork of privacy laws that could affect what states are able to disclose.

According to a CNN inquiry to each state earlier this week, at least 45 states and DC said they would be unable to provide at least some of the information or outright refused to comply, including Kobach's own office, which can't provide all of the data under state law. A small number of states did respond positively, and some had yet to receive the letter or were still reviewing it.

Is my voting information public?

The short answer is yes, some of it.

Generally, states consider voters' names and addresses public information, as well as whether they have voted in past elections and what party they have registered with.

How a person actually voted in an election is never recorded, though which ballot they requested in a primary election may be.

But from there, it can get complicated. Every state has different laws about how that information can be requested and used. Some states post the information in an online database, whereas others have tight restrictions on who can request it, how and for what purposes.

Some states do consider information like some birthday information and identifiers like the last four digits of Social Security numbers public, but many consider it confidential or sensitive. Information like military membership and felony records is almost never considered part of a voter file.

In addition to state records laws, there are also a myriad of state data breach laws and specific federal privacy laws potentially at play, including privacy laws over drivers' information that could be applicable if voter rolls are mixed with DMV records.

"Voters in most states should feel very confident that at most their name and address is part of their public voter file, and they should feel good that states are being careful custodians of their data to make sure that sensitive information doesn't get out," said David J. Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research and a former director at The Pew Charitable Trusts who ran their Electronic Registration Information Center. "The reason is because political campaigns, the candidates, want to be able to reach out to voters and talk to them, so it's for no nefarious reasons they're available, it's for good reason."

Some of this information is also already aggregated in private, by political parties and commercial vendors who advertise the ability to look people up for a nominal fee, though that information doesn't necessarily come just from voting rolls.

Some states also do provide exemptions for people with a safety concern about their information being public, such as judges, law enforcement officials and domestic violence survivors.

Who can access it?

It depends.

"Public" here has different meanings. Even if a state considers data public record, it can't always be used by anyone for any purpose. Commercial purposes are not allowed, and some states only allow verified political organizations to request the information, which wouldn't include the federal government.

Many states charge a fee for the data, as well, ranging from just a few dollars to tens of thousands.

According to University of Florida professor Michael McDonald, who studies voter rolls and elections, collecting voter information for all the states could cost more than $100,000 if states don't waive fees. His research in 2015 concluded it would cost $126,482 for an average citizen to buy data from every state that allows it, $135,132 for a political nonprofit and $136,671 for parties, candidates or political committees.

In some cases, McDonald told CNN, the cost is designed to prevent "casual use" of the data, but in other states, incumbents are given the data free while outside candidates have to pay, using the cost for a politically protective function.

One wrinkle for the commission is that because of federal open record laws, anything states turn over will become publicly accessible. It was not in the letter seeking the information, but in a court filing on Wednesday, Kobach said the plan is for the commission to "de-identify" any data that is made public, though he did not provide specifics.

That disclosure aspect could complicate what's allowed under state laws.

"The concern that some of these states could have is every state has a prohibition on the voter file being used for commercial purposes, and if the data could be subject to a FOIA request, then the states lose control over who has access to that data," McDonald said.

So if it's public, why did this request cause so much drama?

There are layers of concerns that states and experts have.

Strong responses have spanned both parties. They include Republican Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann who said, "My reply would be: They can go jump in the Gulf of Mexico, and Mississippi is a great state to launch from," and Democratic Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe saying, "At best this commission was set up as a pretext to validate Donald Trump's alternative election facts, and at worst is a tool to commit large-scale voter suppression."

A small number of states have responded positively, namely Missouri, Colorado and Tennessee.

Some object to the federal government possessing such a robust database of all Americans' voting info and potentially sharing that broadly across the government, especially when it is considered a strength of the American election system that it is dispersed and managed independently by states.

Others object to the very notion that voter fraud is a massive problem. Trump has made repeated claims about millions of illegal votes, yet study after study has shown almost no voter fraud in the US and there were no indicators of any irregularities in the last election.

Another subset are concerned about the data privacy and security consequences of having all that sensitive information in one place -- a very attractive target for hackers of all kinds -- without more information about how it will be protected. Critics noted that the letter's suggestion of submitting the information by email was a red flag, though there was also a federal computer system offered as a different option.

And a further concern is the motivations of the request for information and what the data will be used for, which are not clearly spelled out in the letter. Kobach has been a target of voting rights activists for years, who have accused him of aggressive tactics purportedly to combat mass voter fraud, which studies have found is statistically nonexistent in US elections. The letter, though, does include goals like preventing voter intimidation and disenfranchisement, even if those were not mentioned in the executive order creating the commission to examine voting integrity

Kobach pioneered the growth of a multi-state program, called Crosscheck, that has been criticized by voting rights advocates for using incomplete information that generates thousands of false positives,or false matches of different people as the same voter, perpetuating a myth of widespread fraud and resulting in unjustified purging of voters from rolls.

ERIC, a similar program from Pew, spent years working with privacy, technical and election experts to develop an encrypted database that checks more than name and address to identify potential voter overlap among states, according to Becker and its current director, former Washington elections director Scott Hamlin. It took that long to convince states that sharing data through the program would be technically safe and responsibly handled.

Joseph Lorenzo Hall, chief technologist at the pro-privacy Center for Democracy and Technology and an expert in election integrity, said a responsible scientific proposal would first lay out what it hopes to do with the data and find within it, thus determining the minimal essential data to accomplish that goal. Hall is an adviser to ERIC.

"It looks like this commission just skipped that whole important step," Becker said. "Even if some of this information is public, what are you going to do with it that's useful that merits putting a national database together? States are asking the right questions: They're saying if you want this stuff and you're going to put it together in one place where anyone can get it all at once, you're going to need to demonstrate a real need to us to get it."

"I think there's valid concerns about the security of the data once it's provided and the method of transferring this data, and there are secretaries that are concerned about what the data is going to be used for, such as a national matching program which is much more complex than people realize," Hamlin said. "It's easy to generate thousands of false positives if you don't have good data and good matching processes. And the risk is with thousands of false positives with this data, which won't even be complete in all cases, (and) you can't unring that bell."

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[umusicians]

UM Interview:  Glass Peaks

Founded just over a year ago, GLASS PEAKS are quickly earning themselves a reputation as one of the Southeast’s hottest new talents. Hailing from Bexleyheath, United Kingdom, the band coins their sound as “Melancholic Alt-Pop”. Amandah Opoku sat down with Glass Peaks to talk about their latest album “Speak and Spell”, band origins and more!

Amandah Opoku: “Speak and Spell” is your latest release, what is the story behind the track? Alfie: It's a conversation, really. It's about a friendship or a relationship that's potentially going sour. It's about the way one person perceives another. It's about peoples actions or behaviors in social situations. It's a commentary on all of that - in short. AO: Thinking back on how “Speak and Spell” came to be, did the songwriting and recording session differ from your previous releases? Alfie: The songwriting process was exciting. It was quite experimental and free. We try not to tie ourselves down too much when we write new material, so Speak and Spell in its earliest form had quite a bit of space in amongst the textured guitar lines. When we took it into the studio with Kris Harris, we played around with the electronic elements of the song slightly more and focused on the textures within the instrumentation. I think we'll always have fond memories from recording that particular track. AO: “Speak and Spell” debuted on Huw Stephens BBC Radio 1 Show, going into the premiere and following the songs release what were you feeling? What were you hoping radio listeners and fans would take away from the release? Jake: We are still super hyped that S+S got its radio debut on Radio 1. Its been getting a lot of radio love from loads of stations all over the place. We noticed it was getting a few spins over in the US too which is mad. This single is a lot more electronic than our last, so this track shows a different side to us. People can take that away with them if they want, right? Alfie: Yeah, the Radio 1 debut was a lovely touch. I always feel a sense of pride whenever I see or hear it has been spun on the radio somewhere! As Jake said, it got some love in the US which is amazing. Music is subjective, so listeners will take away different things after hearing the track, but personally, I just hope it excites people or moves people, whether they love the song or absolutely despise it; I would hate for people to feel indifferent towards our music, that would be shit.

AO: Focusing on your band name, what does Glass Peaks embody to you? Why did you decide to call yourselves Glass Peaks? Jake: Theres 2 stories to this... The true story is: I always wanted the bands name to have something to do with nature in it. So after going through hundreds of words and names we all sort of agreed that we liked PEAKS. We then went to a local chicken shop for some dinner and opposite us was a small glass shop... GLASS PEAKS. The false one is that this is a beautiful and poetic band name, when your at the height of love, life, your career or anything, it's like your always walking on glass because it could fall through at any point. You're walking on your GLASS PEAK. AO: Metaphorically, what does Glass Peaks represent? Alfie: In a weird way, I suppose it represents the 'False' story that Jake just mentioned, which sort of legitimises it! We constantly push ourselves and each other to the heights of our musical abilities; we're honest with one another, we all have the same love for creating, it's all we want to do, so you could say that, metaphorically, Glass Peaks is the representation of exceeding your goals or heights for the love of whatever you're trying to achieve.   AO: You describe your sound as ‘melancholic alt-pop’ which is derived from your influences such as Joy Division and The Smiths –how have they influenced you musically? Alfie: Lewis is a huge fan of The Smiths, maybe he takes some inspiration from lyric writing from them. I suppose some of our guitar work is pretty Smiths-esque as well but I'd largely say that our influences vary from everyone we listen to. If you were to scroll through our iPods, you'd find every genre under the sun, I think we draw inspirations from every corner of the musical spectrum. But yes, The Smiths and Joy Division have been names that have come up as comparisons with the sound...we've also recently had Depeche Mode and Mogwai, which is pretty awesome. AO: What current artist on radio, would you say your sound aligns closely with and why? Jake: White Lies, Foals, Warpaint and so on. These sorts of bands love layers. We love layers. Alfie: I think Warpaint is definitely up there and definitely some elements from bands like Foals and Radiohead. Collectively, we have a very broad musical palette, a lot of our music is groove based, we take influences from artists of all different genres. What we don't align with in sound we try to make up for in the emotion of the music. If you were able to speak to any of your musical influences, ask them for advice whether it be in regards to writing or performing –what would you ask them? Jake: to BB king: I love you Alfie: This is such a hard one because there are so many artists I look up to that I'd love to sit down for a pint with and quiz them on their music & songwriting etc... I'd actually love to sit down with Alex Turner of the Arctic Monkeys, It'd be amazing to understand his songwriting journey from their first album to their most recent; especially in his lyric writing; he uses some of the most beautiful and honest imagery in his words. I'd also love to talk about the way they've re-invented themselves and changed their direction ever so slightly with every album, very similar to Radiohead. Big fan. Can you tell? AO: Glass Peaks formed just over a year ago, how did you come together? Jake: Me, Lew and Grant were in a previous band for a couple of years. That naturally came to an end and we fancied doing something new. I knew Alfie from working with him back in The 02, he liked our tunes and bought the spice to the party. AO: From where you were was a band last year and what you are today, what is your one big takeaway? Alfie: Perspective. Being straight with people and being honest in your music. There are a lot of people out there who talk a lot but don't deliver. Be honest with what you write, be confident in what you believe, and fucking tear it up when you perform live; leave people feeling something. AO: Looking at the music industry and the reasons why one pursues a music career, what inspired you to take this route? Why music? Alfie: Music is something we've all pursued from a young age. We've all played in previous bands over the years and I think we're all in a collective headspace where music is something we can all consider as a career. It's more than just a hobby or a 'side project'. We all currently work full time jobs and still commit the long hours of rehearsal and touring because we're hungry to succeed. We take inspiration from those who have done this before us and every band or musician who is currently in the same position as us. It's tough, but if you want it enough, you'll do whatever you can to make it work for you. AO: If you could give your younger self, any advice –what would you tell them? Alfie: I think I'd just tell myself to always keep your chin up. This industry is full of setbacks and disappointments, you have to learn to just pick up and carry on. I've developed a thick skin over the years and I think that's something I wish had from a younger age. You can't take things too personally. Keep working and it will come. AO: You have an upcoming tour this March/April what can fans expect from your set? Jake: A load of songs that we wrote in a cold shed. We always give it 100% live, so yeah come and see what we got for ya. Alfie: Fans can expect loud noises, sweat and broken spectacles. AO: With “Speak and Spell” out digitally, what can fans expect from you this year? Jake: Loads of shows up and down the country, more music to be released and some big festival announcements ... AO: Before we end this interview, is there anything you’d like to say to your fans? Alfie & Jake: Thanks for your support! We hope to see you at shows all over the place this year and beyond! 

Connect with Glass Peaks: https://www.facebook.com/glasspeaksband/ https://twitter.com/glasspeaksband https://soundcloud.com/glasspeaksband https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNZrpGSmbq4HgFTTgE7EihA

[cityweeping]

the grief song

It would be romantic if he could remember when exactly he first learned it but he doesn’t. Instead he remembers watching someone slip and fall and fall and fall, soundlessly, the patient accepting death of a cliff-storm drakki. He doesn’t remember really who they were or when exactly they died but he remembers sitting at a cave mouth with his mother and asking her what her clan did when someone left.

and she’d smiled and taught him the grief song. and warned him he must never think of it when there is nothing or no one to sing it for, because that’s bad luck, and in fact did you know rivullet that it’s tradition to ask to relearn it every time from someone else. sometimes we meet in the plains hours before the ceremonies and we relearn all the words, all the harmonies, we change the words and sing the histories of their life as it comes. one person does all the lyrical parts, all the story parts, and the rest of the clan sings the traditional song. maybe sometimes we change the key so it fits their personality better. this is how it goes, she says and teaches him the grief song and to him it sounds strange and haunting and sad with only two voices to mourn. but his mother hugs him and tells him that she hopes he forgets the words every time, may he be blessed with life and everyone around him too so that he’ll never have to be sad like the grief song is.

they sing it together the next time someone dies - an accident, a child, someone skaen had wanted to be friends with but he can’t quite recall their face now and he’s ashamed of that. He remembers green scales and a friendly face and crying, pressed into himself and being ashamed for crying, and singing the grief song with his mother. she’d had to teach him the words again.

then there are years and years and mostly of those, he remembers silence and not speaking but singing to himself, to the storms, with his mother when the others are away on the storm runs. it is shameful, some say, that the chief’s son is not running with them and it grates on his ears when he remembers that before, his father would laugh and say that he needs to learn both sides of his blood. before when his father would teach him where to put his feet and how to teach himself how to not-fall. before.

there are years and years and in those years he doesn’t sing the grief song even when someone dies. his mother does, for the deaths that do happen, but on those nights he stays inside and pretends to be asleep and doesn’t go with her to sing to the stars about those who pass. so he doesn’t know the words to the grief song when his mother passes.

he remembers the melody, kind of, and he doesn’t know the words at all. he remembers part of his mother’s name and he keens into the stars and at the end he doesn’t sing, just screams and screams and curls up asking something to kill him. when he doesn’t die he mourns on the cliffsides for a day or two and then asks for permission to leave.

he sings the song when he leaves but he changes it, puts it into a different key, and sings lyrics that are from a love song. words about parting and forgetting. he sings the grief song for the clan and his home but in a way that will bring them no bad fortune. he sings and he is free and he sings with a sort of joy.

it becomes too familiar, after that. after he learns who he is and what everyone is and why they have to fight - why they are fighting - he doesn’t quite understand but he sees everyone falling apart in front of him and the grief song becomes too familiar. sometimes he’ll sing it in a battle and it will surround everyone with a sort of gray soft aure and no one will know where they are, how to hit them, but he will be outlined in a golden storm. and everyone will target him.

after a while they learn that the words in the song give him a barrier and he can’t really be killed but they learn that if they distract him the spell will stop working. they learn that if they stop him from the song that they can stab him and he will bleed and that’s when he comes out of his trance and topples over and someone snaps his spine and he doesn’t know how he survives. avri doesn’t tell him, tiri doesn’t tell him, lanth’s face darkens and he mutters something about becoming a dragon when he mentions it. once he gets kri to tell him and she says, plainly, that they’d gotten someone to stop time for him. he doesn’t want to understand.

but he sings the grief song for them when they die. there is too much to sing for, there is too much - when shol dies it’s a shock that their grizzled old leader could ever be defeated and it’s more of a little circle story than a funeral, because there really isn’t enough body left to bury. he sings the song and makes up words about a bird flying through space and ignores the hollow eyes, the curled fists, the aura of fury-sadness around the little fire. he sings about becoming a bird and isn’t sure if he has the melody right. but he sings.

it’s something he doesn’t understand, how fyral will not-die.

when avri dies he doesn’t realize it for a week, really. when avri dies kri’s eyes turn a different color and he doesn’t really understand it’s not her eye color but her aure color that changed. when kri throws herself at archer and becomes a shimmering flash of impossibly bright aure and dies he doesn’t realize what happened until he wakes up, three weeks or so later, and his hands and voice and legs all don’t know how to work. but they’re gone.

he sings as soon as he can for them but he’s not sure whether anything is right about the song, it must have changed so many times. he wants to see his mother and ask if he’s doing it right. in those three weeks of being unable to wake he dreams about home and mother and being a little storm warrior, being rivullet. being someone he understood and knew how to be.

when he sings he remembers and he is someone else, remembering being someone else.

in some other fight lanth almost sacrifices himself for skaen and he is so angry afterwards he can’t speak with him for a few days. he sings to himself in that time - he’s good at that - but he doesn’t know how lanth can think lives work like that. it doesn’t work like that. he’s upset.

when lanth does sacrifice himself for skaen he can’t breathe, really, for a month, he doesn’t understand, and he knows tiri is suffering too but he acts like he’s the only one that’s lost anyone. their force is tiny instead of little now and with carat gone so often there’s only so much they can do. if anyone tries to talk to him he snaps at them. even tiri doesn’t try, after two or three days.

he sings the grief song at night and it’s slower, softer, quieter. gentle.

when he is shot and he knows he is too far away for anyone to get to him in time he fights anyway. fights the darkness, and the fading, and all of the pain, and he sees someone flash before his eyes he sees - he sees the red flash of his mother’s hair - he hears - he hears his heartbeat - he sees everything constricting, everything narrowing until all he can see is his mother’s hair - he hears - he hears the grief song, sung for him, and with his last few breaths he does not sing.

[milquetoast-on-acid]

Rules of Engagement, A Reactionary Post

She realized that her prince was really a beast...

Major Crimes, S2xE7: Episode Review What this episode is about: The Dysfunctional Family Sharon & Taylor Sharon, Jack and Rusty Waking up from the Love spell Browning and his Fiance Rusty + Kris Julio + Emma Sharon + Jack Provenza owns Jack Jack, Leaving for good Squad Game: How stupid do you think I am?

The Dysfunctional Family

Sharon & Taylor Always so much wanting to release their videos to the press. He loves using the press more than letting his own people do their jobs. Sharon is always much more strategic about when and when not to release videos and information. But for Taylor anytime the public is (possibly) in danger he wants the media's attention on it. Sharon is trying to stop a gang war from happening before they have all of their ducks in a row.

Sharon, Jack and Rusty I love how Sharon always sees right through Rusty. How many times have Emily and Ricky tried to pull 'I'm sick, I can't go to school.'? 

Also this exchange... “I'm an attorney.” “Like a really successful attorney.”

The dude is messy AF

Waking up from the Love spell; Who we really are always shows up in the end

Browning and his Fiance Melissa

Browning decided have his Fiance killed so he could run away with some other girl. And then the asshole took the ring from his dead fiance and gave it to a new fiance. Browning is very dominate with a obvious temper, with domestic abuse charges filed against him so him having his former fiance killed is no surprise here. I want to know what the hell anyone sees in this guy.

Rusty + Kris It's Kris' parents that do the breaking up for Rusty after Rusty follows Jack's horrible advice. He advises Rusty to tell Kris' parents about his past with Stroh. So that would scare her parents into having Kris push Rusty away. While Provenza reminds Rusty that there is another person that's going to be affected by his actions. To the point where he brings up how his own mother abandoned him, while he's doing the same thing to Kris (although not to that degree). 

Provenza is a real dad who will give you life lessons the hard way and Jack is the guy that wants to be friends with you. Jack has and never will be a positive role model or a real dad. With Provenza's advice, I had hoped that would have been enough to sway Rusty out spilling his guts to Kris' parents. To bring up that theme of "Who we really are always shows up in the end." With following Jack's advice he's following behavior taught to him by his mother and Jack. It's certainly possible that he could have continued down that path if it weren't for Sharon.

Julio + Emma “You stop talking to me like I'm your waiter!”

Finally! The episode in which Julio can't take Emma's bullshit anymore. After literally following Emma around like a puppy dog super eager to do anything and everything at her whim. To Emma not even knowing who the hell Julio is--remember...

It's Emma talking up the case as a gang murders that finally pushes Julio over the edge. Not only is Julio the gang expert in the squad but he also has members of his family killed by a gang. Julio is the single best person that knows what gang culture is like that isn't in a gang. 

Love Provenza, Mike and Julio cheering Julio on in the background. Mike has been off to the side a slightly silent observer of Julio's infatuation with Emma who's definitely objected to it.

Bonus: Emma’s face!

Sharon + Jack Sharon was reaally desperate to have Jack be Speedy's lawyer. I don't know why she thought it would be a good idea. When Jack spills the beans quite deliberately that their more than just a Captain and a defense attorney. It's his way of trying to throw Sharon off her game by bringing up their personal life. As he knows that it will shake her and he can use that as a way of having her mess up the case in his favor. And it does work. He gets Sharon all riled up and gets her to slam the door. How many times have we see Sharon gets so mad that she slams a door!? Honestly I can't think of any other time...I mean we have seen Sharon pissed but I don't recall her slamming any doors recently.

Sharon ends up beating Jack at his own game by using his own tactics. She ends up using their relationship to get Jack fired so she can talk to Speedy. Ultimately I think that both of them were in the wrong. 

There is a thread between Browning/Melissa, Rusty/Kris and Sharon/Jack and that is abuse. Which seems to play a role in all three relationships - although in very different ways. Browning was physically abusive and no doubt emotionally and mentally. His rage ultimately lead to the murder of Melissa. Rusty's past as a prostitute put him straight on the path of sexual abuse, it effects him in his present life and his relationship with Kris. Whether he's willing to acknowledge it or not. 

Then there's Sharon/Jack and the subtle shades of emotional abuse. As we come to learn more and more about Jack, manipulation is the name of his game. He's very much not above emotional manipulation of Sharon, their children and Rusty. Look how the man gets in Sharon’s face.

Also this scene is one of my all time favorite comedy scenes in this series.

Are you sleeping with this man? Of course not. He's my husband.

I still love how much in The Closer when we first meet Sharon and everyone thought she had a hard time connecting with people. She kept her distance and was seemingly cold during murder cases. When it turns out the opposite is true. To the point where her professional life is now her personal life. 

I still find it absolutely fascinating that while Sharon no longer wears her wedding ring.  Jack still does. We didn't even know that Sharon was married this whole time until season 7 of TC, almost three years after we first were introduced to her. Sharon was the one to file for separation. Jack never wanted the legal separation. Jack deep down still loves Sharon but the two of them are beyond dysfunctional. 

Like you really care. I love how Provenza called Jack out on his phony caring of their suspect. You know that Provenza has been just waiting to stick it to him ever since he came back into Sharon's life. You can always count on Provenza to tell it like it is.

Leaving for good Jack leaves once again. How many times has Sharon gotten a letter from Jack? A few interesting things to note. When things get too tough for Jack he cuts and runs. But there's a part of me that thinks that Jack leaves because he knows he doesn't have it in him to be a good parent. That he'll screw their lives more by being around them than when he's a ghost. Rusty really wanted a relationship with Jack, the two of the got on like a house on fire. Rusty wanted Jack to be his father and for a while I think that Jack wanted that too. But everyone is pretty much waking up from their little fantasty.

In the end, Jack is not a father. And he's not a husband. There's a chance that Sharon and Jack could have gotten back together but things got too tough for him and he cut and run like he'd done so many times in the past. What's significant about this scene is Sharon ripping up that letter without even opening it. She doesn't want to read what he saying. His words mean nothing anymore. And damn it if she isn't trying to let herself feel this. She's trying so hard not to break down. Because how many times has she cried over Jack leaving yet again? He's not worth her tears anymore. This is the scene where Sharon beings her process' of emotionally moving on from Jack. As I mentioned earlier there was a chance. Sharon had given Jack so many chances even 22 years of seperation. He still had a change.

Squad Game: How stupid do you think I am?

I love this scene. We're playing a game "How Stupid do you think I am?" "Oh I love this game." I love that even Taylor plays.

A nice light scene to offset the heaviness of the episode. And to showcase the fantastic banter of the ensemble and how well they play off of each other. Can I make a shout out to Captain Poppins for making a fantastic MC crack!vid playing off of this scene. Go watch if you haven't her videos are fantastic! Speedy confesses to the squads two committed Catholics.

What I didn't like: Rusty being an asshole to Kris by deliberately telling her parents about things in his past to emotionally manipulate them into causing a breakup. I'm glad so much that Provenza called him out on it but sadly he doesn't take his advice. Instead he takes Jack's shitty advice because he looked up to him. Which makes me wonder - if Jack had stuck around for more than a few weeks. Jack would clearly have more influence over Rusty than he already does. And that would effect how he functions as an adult. Rusty already has so many issues from his past and his selfishness, I really feel like that selfishness would come out more with Jack around. 

What I liked: Julio finally waking up from his dream. Emma needed someone to yell at her in the way that Julio did, to tell her the truth about her behavior. Because without that I don't think she would have ever seen Julio and even Rusty as a person. As she starts to with this conversation. The beginning of Sharon moving on from Jack. Sharon had been married to Jack in this odd limbo marriage. A marriage that wasn't a marriage but both of them are still emotionally tied to the other. Jack was never going to move on from Sharon, she was always the one who was going to have to do the pushing. And it seems like Rusty is the straw that breaks the camels back so to speak.