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feline-evil · 4 months

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To try and make my memory issues less Annoying i'm going to start cataloguing what i watch and my opinions on said things, i forgot to do it fresh after watching these first few things but in the future ill try and do it more soon after. You can block the tag jay tv time if you wanna filter this out and not see it!

POST NUMBER ONE: THREE THINGS WATCHED IN JANUARY 2024

YURI ON ICE

I'd heard vaguely about this way back when on tumblr and hadn't had any interest at the time; this was back when i was more interested in getting involved in discourse than really taking any media recommendations from my peers around me lol, older days on tumblr were a dark time huh. Anyway, watched this with my boyfriend this year because i have an interest in ice dancing, i like the sport, i wanted to see some sports anime drama around it!

So, my opinion and review. The show's opening credits are nothing to write home about, very clean looking yeah but kind of bland in a sort of mid 2010's corporate fashion- the show itself though starts with a boatload of charm and a very likeable main lead! The atmosphere was charming and fun and bubbly, everything felt very cozy; LOVED our main leads internal little monologues with little diagrams, loved his family his mom is like peak platonic ideal of an anime mom, loved the tongue in cheek nature of it! Aaaand then we hit what i would call the lowest point for the show, and one that i fully understand if it would be a complete deal breaker for people. That's right folks, we get fatphobic comedy! Whoo. This isn't the WORST i've ever seen but in those first two episodes or so it was prevalent enough to have me rolling my eyes, feeling uncomfortable and saying yeah, if this continues on we might drop the show. If not for how charming the rest of the show was I'm sure we would have dropped it right then and there! But what i am glad to say is that yeah, it drops off; of course it comes with the caveat that it only drops with the main lead losing the weight he was being mocked for, SIGH, but it at least started to feel less like we were going to have to sit through endless weird attitudes towards NORMAL WEIGHTS FOR A GODDAMN HUMAN BODY TO BE, and more like 'oh yeah these hardcore professionals in these fields have shitty attitudes towards bodies. That makes sense. Wish we didn't have to linger on it still because i dislike it thoroughly.' So anyway. Moving onto the next episodes the show really started to pick up for me and got me invested in the ice dancing; while a lot of characters come and go during the lead up to and the competition itself i found so many of them likeable and charming that i was rooting for them each time they took to the ice! I adored the 'rival' of sorts, fifteen year old yuri (not the titular one, different yuri) and we were cheering him on a lot; he's just a little angry kid that loves cats and wants to be the best!!! We wanted him to do good and have fun!!! And we found we were rooting like this for so many people, really feeling the vibe of watching a sport you enjoy and feeling the love for the art of it all.

Now speaking of art i will say i found myself not always totally in love with the animation during the skate segments; this show is really pretty looking for sure and certainly TONS of hardwork went into it so i don't wish to say anything against that- i don't even know if there IS a better way to animate this but. Well on occasion it felt as if the background slid at the wrong speed or angle or direction and didn't fully match the figures skating, making some of the speed and elegance of ice dance evaporate. A lot of animation also felt a little reused, a lot of the same motion being done with little variance aside from what the commentary dialogue says over top, but again i respect a ton of hardwork no doubt went into this and i'm sure animating competitive ice dancing is a daunting task so i'm not making any statements against effort or skill on part of the animators!! Just stating that i myself wasn't too taken with the animation during these segments.

Of course, at its core, what yuri on ice is really about is a blooming relationship; and oh my god. Okay so i'm kind of used to things tumblr called gay back in the day being....mmmm metaphorical, subtextual. Sometimes even not gay at all. So i wasn't prepared for how openly gay this was! There is clear romantic and sexual intent shown from JUMP, it is not shied away from nor shown as something to be demonized or to bring doom on the characters they are just Gay. Like REALLY gay. And maybe you're going 'well duh of course' but hey. I didn't grow up watching anything with gay characters or people in it, i still am not used to seeing open and happy gay people in media. Its still fresh to me! And it makes me happy! I don't know how they got this show to be SO gay, i would be surprised at something gaining mainstream popularity with 'THEY STRAIGHT UP GET ENGAGEMENT RINGS' level of gay nowadays never mind back then so i'm just sort of taken aback! That's cool!! That's still new to me!!

Now my overall review is: This show is a good fluffy watch, nothing too complex or complicated, might not blow your socks off but if you want something feel-good it's worth a try! Obviously with the understanding that if those first few episodes leave too bad a taste in your mouth i compleeetely understand and would not begrudge anyone switching off at that point, you'd be well within your rights because good lord we didn't need that put in. But yeah! Show's gay! Show's got ice dancing! Someone should take Yuri Plisetsky to the rainforest cafe!!!

DUNGEON MESHI

OK SO THIS WILL BE A SHORTER REVIEW BECAUSE WE HAVE ONLY SEEN ONE EPISODE VERSUS YURI ON ICE BEING A FULL SEASON, ALSO DO NOT FUUUUCKING SPOIL DUNMESHI STUFF MY BOYFRIEND HAS READ THE MANGA BUT I HAVENT.

Dungeon meshi is something i've known about for ages and known that i'd like, but i also knew it had a plotpoint adjacent to something that (genuinely depending on the day, its like a damn coin toss) can squick me out OR trigger me a bit, SO! I'd never read it, which i know is a damn shame! But my boyfriend really wanted to watch the first episode of the new dunmeshi anime and i really really wanted to watch with him and i'm really glad i did because it is SO good. It is so fun and witty and bursting with charm, every character is so likeable and it feels like you've known them forever from jump they settle so easily within your fondness for them! I adore how much they do not shy away from Laios being a very passionate weirdo, i love that the guy who is pretty much our main lead in our cast is. A PECULIAR MAN WHO YOU JUST REALLY CAN'T HELP BUT HAVE A SOFT SPOT FOR. I've been this man before, the guy who's really into something nobody else gets!! I get it Laios i get it! Marcille Chilchuck and Senshi are all absolute delights too and each has their personality show vibrantly different from each other, feeling like individuals all with so much to like about them all; Marcille as the person to constantly be unsure about the CLEARLY PECULIAR THINGS THEY ARE DOING is especially great!! Not only is this show a romp so far but it looks DIVINE, the animation knows exactly when detail and motion is needed and when a minimalist approach is needed to sell a gag; each character is rendered PERFECTLY from manga to anime, they are translated over with an expert touch that loses none of their charm- and according to my boyfriend this anime is a very straight forward adaptation, beat by beat following the way things are laid out in the manga's panels the way they are presented within that medium, and that's SO cool to me that they're managing to make precise things that worked so well on paper work just as well in motion! I can't say too much about this story-wise or plot related just now as again, we've only seen the one episode, but it has left me hungry for more and really excited to watch the rest of it, and that's fantastic!! PONYO

Oh wow this is three for three animated entries for the jay tv time list; not intentional but that's pretty cool co-ordination! Animated January..... ANYWAY!

CAN YOU BELIEVE I HADN'T SEEN PONYO YET! I've seen Spirited away and My Neighbour Totoro, but this was my first time watching Ponyo and ohhhhh my god it's wonderful. Every character is a joy, the world around them looks gorgeous, its all so sweet and nice and aaaaaaa Sometimes small kids can be. Grating in movies, or the plot can be moved along in ways that are annoying to watch a toddler progress through, but not with this movie; the kids are SO cute, Sasuke is such a sweet lil kid and Ponyo is so fun- also the line early on at the daycare where the one lil girl says 'you don't have a job you're FIVE!' KILLS ME! This movie portrays little kids in a way that never crosses into the annoying small child thing that a lot of movies can do; and that's not all it does right! It's conflict never feels contrived or irritating, it always flows nice, it's characters never feel boxed into Bad or Good everyone is just a person trying to do what's right, the world never feels Too hostile or Too cosy it just feels nice and balanced! It's a joy to watch it really is, it's not a complex nor complicated tale but it doesn't need to be, its a movie to watch when you want to have a big happy smile on your face; it makes you want to clap and go yayyy!!!! So often because you love what's happening so much! Sasuke's mom is SO FUCKING GOOD. Spoke about platonic ideal of anime mom earlier but Sasuke's mom takes the award for Coolest mom; she's driving fast and furious, she never once judges Ponyo for being a fishy, she's cool!! Ponyo's dad is equally good, i love a well meaning man who just can't help but come across as a Total Weird Asshole because he is just so much of a tired grumpy mess; and i love that he's not portrayed as evil or mean, just protective and misguided in places but ultimately just as kind as everyone else in this movie! And that's something i really appreciate, so much kindness flows through this movie, so much love for your fellow man (or fish); the community feels like a community because of it, families feel like families because of it. Kindness is so wonderful and the kind of kind, gentle understanding in Ponyo makes it's characters come alive! The final moments when Sasuke accepts Ponyo makes so much sense, he's a sweet lil five year old, he doesn't have any prejudice engrained in him, he likes his fishy friend!! And the world is saved by that!! And isn't that just delightful! Also hey if we may get unprofessional Sasuke and Ponyo's moms had a little something going on between them, i think they could've had a lil something something. I'm just saying. I also love Ponyo's dad SO Much. I couldn't fix him but. well. nay, i shan't say. ANYWAY!!! REALLY GOOD, SWEET MOVIE! Definitely one i'll revisit on days when i want a nice sweet pick me up! It's gorgeous, it's heartwarming; oh my god and the ANIMATION!! THE ANIMATION! Every frame a delight, i appreciate so much of how well done the creatures of the sea are and how much are filled into every scene, making it feel bustling and alive, i appreciate how unafraid to make Ponyo look WEIRD they are it really adds to the charm, and the animation in general is just so perfect, its a work of art... I REALLY ENJOYED THIS MOVIE! AND I THINK THAT'S IT FOR NOW, STAY TUNED FOR UH. MORE THINGS I WATCH I GUESS.

#jay talkin #jay tv time #this is more me more than anyone else i just think its funny to also publish it #its kinda a accountability thing then. maybe ill reemmeber to do it more if its public #and then maybe i wont forget things about things i enjoy!!!! bc my memory is bad lately LMAO

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crtter · 1 year

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hey weird question maybe but. I’ve never seen anything osomatsu before and I’ve noticed you said that having a related icon is probably why ppl have blocked you before so like. Why? Would they do that?

Oh, that’d be because of the people who ship incest in the Osomatsu-san fandom. The six main characters are identical sextuplets and… you know how certain fandom people are. There aren’t as many now (most of them moved to Twitter after the Tumblr NSFW ban in 2018) but a few years ago it was so prevalent on here you couldn’t even look up character tags. So a lot of people dislike the fandom as a whole and regard the show itself as being “ruined�� because of them even today.

I’ve personally always had a HUGE distaste for anything incest related and I prefer Iyami to the sextuplets anyway but I guess some people recognize the art style and block on sight. Oh well.

#answers #anonymous #incest mention #incest tw

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ourflagmeansgayrights · 1 year

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Lol you reblog a post on fandom ignoring racism and then reblog a steddyhands post you are literally who the post is about. Izzy Hands is racist and homophobic and abusive and you ship him with his victims. You are the problem.

oh i don’t actually ship steddyhands! sometimes i’ll reblog fanart tho if the art is good enough and the steddyhands isn’t actually super prevalent. like, the reblog you're referencing is barely shippy. i couldve just tagged it with the characters, but i decided to tag it steddyhands in case any of my followers really don't want to see any content of izzy stede and ed all getting along at ALL

also, if you actually look at the steddyhands tag on my blog, there's only 22 posts. and there are 12,807 posts on this blog in total. so it's not on my blog often, and it's tagged so people who have steddyhands blacklisted don't have to see it

of those 22 posts, 7 of them are fanart, and in 4 of those fanart posts, i say something in the tags about not liking the ship. of the 15 other posts, 9 of them are my own original posts (or posts where the op @'ed me in them) discussing my issues with steddyhands, 2 of them are other people's posts talking about their issues with steddyhands, 3 of them are absolute shitposts talking about steddyhands in homestuck quadrants or a blackhands divorce au where every possible combination of ed/stede/izzy/jack happens, and only one of them is a pro-steddyhands post that i reblogged and said in the tags that i don't ship it

meanwhile, my fandom crit tag, which is where i talk about racism in fandom and reblog other people's posts about racism in fandom, has 449 posts in it. so like, steddyhands is rarely on my blog—and when it is, more often than not it's bc im criticizing it.

also, i don't actually think steddyhands is inherently bad (altho i'll be the first to admit that a LOT of the content made for the ship is incredibly bad). i think steddyhands can actually be done in a way that doesn't prioritize izzy's feelings or excuse his racism and homophobia, and where izzy's character growth isn't ed's problem or burden in any way. so i don't personally feel like the very existence of steddyhands content on my blog puts me at the same level as like, ofmd discord mods who disregard people's complaints about racist content in the fandom because they value "let people have fun, fandom isn't for drama" more than they value making the space safe for fans of color.

the steddyhands on my blog is incredibly sparse, very easy to avoid if you just block the tag, and most importantly, it doesn't excuse izzy's bigotry. i feel like there are a LOT of ofmd fans who contribute way more to the problem than i did by reblogging fanart where ed izzy and stede are getting scared in a haunted house.

#txt #if this post is in the izcourse tag no it isnt u just dont know how to use tumblr #ask #anon #mine #ofmd fandom crit #izzy critical #steddyhands #<- sorry to put this in the ship tag #anon discourse #tagging it for organization purposes on my blog not bc i want steddyhands shippers to see it. sorry #og

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nobleclover · 2 years

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Oh god. I try not to let this bother me, and I'm sorry for the rant, but it just annoys me when something original I made doesn't get as much attention as my Cuphead fanart. Like, just last night, I posted a doodle dump of my OCs and a Cuphead comic. Guess which one got the most attention? Yep, the Cuphead comic. I am glad to have finished both pieces, but it sucks that one got more attention than the other.

Heck, I've even seen this being prevalent in my recent original artwork, which garners not that much likes/reblogs or none at all. I even announced wanting to do an ask event with two OCs of mine but got very little interest.

I still love Cuphead for inspiring me to draw again, but I just hate how my CH fanart overshadows any other art I produce. Plus, I don't know if it's just the algorithm or something, but it could mainly be due to the hype surrounding Cuphead.

I really want people to look at my original content more, however because of this, as well as imposter syndrome, I feel hesitant to put anything original out sometimes for a few reasons. These reasons include doubting my art skills, not knowing how to get more people interested in my original works and often not posting stuff due to art block or burnout. It's pretty bad here on Tumblr and I don't know how to present my characters to a wider audience but if anyone has any tips, feel free to share.

Lately, I've been on a real kick for my OCs and I'm gonna try and post some sketches (when I'm not tired from work or not busy) of my OCs a bit more frequently.

So yeah, I don't mean to sound bossy but if you visit my blog, please remember that I do MORE than just Cuphead fanart and do check out my other works. Thanks for reading and sorry about the ramble. I just wanted to get it out.

#artist problems #vent #i don't just do cuphead art #my art #cuphead #my ocs #it's honestly frustrating #art vent #personal art

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fiblertsos · 3 years

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About IZ’s fandom policies, and why they are like this

Ok, since I’ve seen people taking screenshots of my tweets on this subject, I thought it’d be better for me to just make a Tumblr post.

I’m sorry for not putting this under a readmore, but I want people who visit the tag to read it all.

tl;dr: No, IZ isn’t LGBTQIA+phobic, nor do they hate your hcs and AUs. It’s just literally how JP fandom works.

JP fandom etiquette functions as thus: the main tag is ONLY for content that complies with canon. This is done so anyone who searches for it has accurate information and the right “image” of the fandom they’re looking at.

“Image”, in this context, is not “oh I want new people to think this series is good and not icky like the icky fanart those fans make”. The “image” is, quite literally, a reflection what you see in official media. JP authors, while ok with headcanons, want people who get into the main tag to get what their series is about from the getgo, without confusion.

This is why shipping, “hard” headcanon content and AUs go into separate tags on Twitter: # whnoc (WH non-official content) and # whnos (WH non-official shipping)

What got IZ splitting hairs was not the headcanons themselves, but people using official art and the main tag to claim characters have canon sexualities when they do not.

In JP fandom, the notion of “fantasy” is prevalent: fill in the gaps left by canon, and project anything you want in there. Characters having ambiguous sexualities and identities is something authors do on purpose, in order for a fan’s “fantasy” to take control in fandom.

What we see when someone edits official art to include a sexuality/identity flag and going “X is gay now! It’s canon!” is a fan acting on “fantasy”; semi-ironically declaring a character’s sexuality to express their love for the idea.

What a person engaged in JP fandom sees when someone does that is someone willingly breaking the ambiguity the creator put there on purpose just to selfishly declare their headcanon as truth, denying everything else. The main tags are for canon information, so if something like this is there, it’s seen as a declaration of canon truth.

Same with AUs! What a JP person thinks when they see an unspecified AU in the main tag, they go “oh that must happen in canon at some point”. It causes confusion due to the different views on tag etiquette, and that’s something IZ wants to avoid.

(JP fandom has certain keywords to help them identify AUs, but we don’t have that system.)

About art edits, well. As an artist myself, not editing someone’s art should be pretty damn obvious. Not only do edits in the canon tag cause confusion, but it’s also the defacing of someone else’s art!

About that, IZ has said cropping and resizing their art for video thumbnails, headers and such is ok, along with very light edits (like brightness or saturation, nothing that distorts the characters at all) that are positive towards the characters.

(Also, I know they don’t hate AUs and hcs because they’ve liked a bunch of them on Twitter, including when I made Wilardo and Ashe in FFXIV. If they’re fine with my ugly ass FFXIV models they’re fine with anything.)

The rumors of IZ hating LGBT fancontent were born from an earlier declaration of theirs, where they said “any LGBT content is not official nor intentional”. People took that as meaning IZ was denouncing shipping and sexuality headcanons as bad, but it was just them trying to reiterate the point about authors leaving sexualities vague. If I recall correctly, this was shortly after the whole siri/claire debacle, so people already wanted to pick a fight with them. A lot of the people who spread this rumor had blocked both Aster and myself, the two people who translate IZ’s tweets into English: so they had no source of translation except machine translators, which predictably enough did not do their job very well.

In summation: This is all a misunderstanding, JP fandom etiquette is literally just like that, and IZ just wants canon compliance in the main Twitter tag. You’re free to post hcs and AUs in another tag, and IZ even encourages it.

Edits are banned though.

#witch's heart #witchs heart #again sorry for not putting it under a readmore #but i need people to read this #also i don't talk about the tumblr tags bc iz doesn't seem to care about tumblr

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orsuliya · 3 years

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Can we talk about how these princes , with so much wealth & resources how could they basically have no martial art skill ?

Zitan , he can’t even do a basic fighting (running ard and hiding behind the tree) while assassins tried to kill him, not a good look for prince. Potato, a sitting duck with arrow in his chest 😹 and Zilu only able to swing sword around aimlessly

The problem is not that Zitan cannot fight off those assassins. There are four of them and he’s more than a little drunk, judging from his and Awu’s general behaviour at the festival. The problem is that he was not drunk when he decided to slip out of the palace and steal Awu away from the safety of her home. And yet this adult man takes absolutely no precautions. None. No secret bodyguards following them at a distance, not a one. Okay, this is somewhat understandable, although it further proves that Zitan is a bloody nobody, a prince with no faithful retainers of his own, whom he could trust not to blab to his father or mother. But seriously, he has NO WEAPON. Not even a measly dagger!

What. The. Hell. Was. He. Thinking. Anything can happen at night in a crowd. I am not even talking about possible assassination attempts, but about common cutpurses and, if one is particularly unlucky, common cutthroats. Or, if those are too hard to imagine, then about bog-standard drunkards, who might become somewhat too bold towards a lady of Awu’s beauty and sharp tongue. If Zitan was alone, then fine, I could excuse this criminal forgetfulness. He’s young, he may be feeling immortal or think that nobody will dare to attack one such as him (despite the incognito). But he’s not alone. He has Awu with him and as the instigator of this whole adventure should take responsibility shoud try to ensure her safety... even if she was not his beloved Princess and possible future wife. A hidden weapon would do the trick; or better yet, he should wear a sword in plain view, regardless of his actual skill. Probably won’t help against assassins, but you know who it might discourage rather effectively? Anybody who would gladly try to take advantage of a defenceless highborn youth and his beautiful companion, that’s who.

Training or no training - and Zitan obviously had some - nothing excuses this level of utter irresponsibility. Either Zitan is a total moron or he thinks that the capital is a land of love, peace and rainbows, which makes me wonder about his eyesight and hearing. As far as we know, Zitan has been raised in the very centre of the court and not pushed into some isolated corner, so what gives?

At least he tries to get Awu out of the way, even as becomes blatantly obvious that she’s not the main target. Bonus points for using his surroundings to hinder the attackers, I guess. But seriously, weapons are useful. And not so heavy that he could not hide one on his princely person.

Oh. We were to talk about the princes’ training or lack thereof, not about Zitan’s idiocy. Fine. It’s obvious they all got some form of training; Zitan can, ummm, shoot a bow without damaging himself, Potato is a surprisingly good archer as seen during the Hunt of Doom and Zilu can... handle a sword in a reasonable manner? Although I have no idea Zilu goes for a rapier-style thurst when Awu gets on his last nerve. That... doesn’t really make sense as a go-to move taking into account the type of weapon in use, Zilu’s state of mind and their respective positions. Oooh! I get it! Parrying a swing would require Zitan to actually do something other than just standing there like a sacrificial lamb! Right.

Anyway. As far as I can tell, all the princes got some theoretical lessons, a bit of practical training with weapons and that was... that? Perhaps not one of them had shown any great aptitude and therein lies the answer, but it doesn’t seem all that probable. For one, I am sure that Zilu strived to excel at all of his lessons. Potato - and isn’t this curious - seems really happy about doing outdoors stuff, even in the middle of an actual conspiracy with a non-zero chance of getting shish-kabobed by Xiao Qi. By the way, I don’t blame him for getting shot; it was unexpected, so. Zitan, well, Zitan was probably a lost cause from the very beginning.

The question is this: there are three princes, the imperial hold on Cheng’s army is slipping rapidly due to a myriad of factors, so why not take one of those princes and make him into a puppet general, regardless of actual competence? The final decision in this largely domestic matter lies with the Emperor, no matter how much the Xies and the Wangs may push and pull at court and through their respective imperial consorts. The obvious answer is that Daddy Emperor had learned his lesson during his own campaign for the throne. Not because he himself was an able commander, as I am sure he was not, but rather because of Jianning. Our Prince J might have been thrown into the army young and that’s where he got the resources and the audacity to stage his own attempt on the throne. Was Daddy Emperor fearful that a military-trained prince might stage a coup against himself? Maybe, maybe not. What is more probable is that the Emperor wanted to avoid a civil war after his death, which means that General Zilu was never an option. Creating a third viable candidate by giving the ‘lesser’ prince a ready-made army? No way. Wangs are The Worst and having a warrior-prince would mean that they could never be budged from their position of power. Sorry, Potato, no army for you. Now, logically reasoning, if Zitan was Daddy Emperor’s favourite and the prince he originally wanted as his heir, then Zitan should be given all possible help, right? So why wasn’t he taught any actual skills, whether in governance or in military matters?

The thing is... they might have tried. In episode 61, when Zitan asks his faithful pair of retainers if he would be able to best Xiao Qi, their first answer is not that he’s the Emperor so it’s a given. Well, that too, but the first, immediate response? You studied the art of war. Which, okay, might be a reasonable guess when it comes to any prince, but those retainers are rather young and only recently-promoted. Before their soujourn at the Imperial Mausoleum they probably served somewhere within the wider imperial household, but not close enough to any great personage to be knowledgeable about what the princes might or might not have studied. Also, that answer, should Zitan’s lessons be limited to his early childhood, would make them look like idiots or bootlickers of the worst sort. But let’s say that Zitan actually studied the art of war and did so longer than his brothers. Or, alternatively, with more famous masters. That would naturally be a subject of some talk, if only within the imperial household itself. If so, then the female retainer, who seems rather astute in general, gave the best answer she could give.

Let’s wrap it all up. What I think might have happened is that the two elder princes got blocked from pursuing any kind of military career by their father for purely political reasons. All princes got some basic training with weapons, although not enough to enable them to credibly defend themselves. Which, okay, not like they would ever need to do, because what are Imperial Mooks for. Potato might have pursued additional training in archery; he seems a rather avid hunter, which would read like a harmless enough pasttime even to a paranoid ruler. Zitan got additional lessons in the art of war, more in theory than practice. The first part didn’t stick, the second part he slipped out of, probably thanks to his soft-hearted mother. Concubine Xie really spoiled him, that’s pretty obvious going by the way they both behave about the matter of Zitan’s potential marriage. Besides, it’s not like a blue-blooded general actually needs to wave a sword himself. That would be positively plebeian. Strategy, theory, that’s what matters - that seems to be a prevalent view in the capital. Remember one Wei Kang...?

#ask and answer #the rebel princess #Zitan oh so pretty and oh so useless #not even a dagger what the hell #and this is why I headcanon that all Awu's wards get some actual self-defense training

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jackcinephile · 4 years

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L'Inferno (1911) Movie Review!

As promised, we're gonna be celebrating this Spooky Season with a Devilman Crybaby headcanon! In order to fully express my HC, I will be reviewing icons of horror cinema and literature that helped contribute to many of the themes and ideas that are prevalent in Go Nagai's original manga. So, without further ado, let us descend into the Blind World. Put all fear and cowardice aside. I will be your guide through this eternal place, where you shall hear the shrieks and see the tormented spirits who all bewail the second death.

And how appropriate? Because our first film is the 1911 adaptation of The Inferno by Dante Alighieri. I suppose it's only right to begin this saga of horror films with one of the first horror films ever made. Okay, "first horror film" is actually debatable, so keep in mind that I said "ONE of the first." In any case, it remains one of the most important landmarks in horror cinema.

"Stopped, in the middle of what we call life,

I looked up and saw no sky, but rather a dense cage of leaf and tree and twig,

For I was lost."

The film opens as the iconic poem does. Dante Alighieri is a middle-aged man who finds himself lost in a dark, gloomy forest. This opening of the story always had a way of making me feel somewhat lonely and isolated. In my interpretation, I always saw this forest as being symbolic of how Dante felt after the death of Beatrice. Allow me to explain...

For those who don't know, Dante met a young girl named Beatrice when they were both nine years old. The young boy immediately fell in love with her, even though they hardly interacted. Despite their lives continuing in separate directions, Beatrice had always and forever held a special place in Dante's heart. When he received word that she had died, Dante was absolutely devastated. He felt that she deserved to be immortalized in what he intended to be his magnum opus; The Divine Comedy.

I believe that this opening to the Inferno is actually Dante going to a journey to find Beatrice so that he could say goodbye to her. Along the way, he got lost, both literally and spiritually. That, in my opinion, is what this forest symbolizes. In many ways, this opening kind of reminds of the opening to Silent Hill 2, just from how dismal it is.

Having said all that, I think the film does a very poor job of conveying those emotions. Sadly, I just don't feel any of the despair that was present in the original poem. He just wanders around for a few seconds, then steps out into a clearing. But don't worry! As soon as Dante steps into the clearing, the film IMMEDIATELY gets better. Upon entering this clearing, Dante finds himself at the base of, what I believe to be, Mount Purgatory. I can only assume that's where he is, because the gates of Hell are at its base, and Dante seems to suggest the gates of heaven are at its summit, just like Purgatory. Unfortunately, his path is blocked by three ravenous beasts: a leopard, a lion, and a she-wolf, all representing different Earthly sins. He runs back the way he came, before being rescued by a strange apparition. It's here that the film begins to remind us all of why the original poem is regarded as a self-insert fanfic...

Upon introducing himself to the apparition, Dante learns that it is the actually the ghost of Virgil, author of the Aeneid. The significance of Virgil being in the story is that he was Dante's favorite poet of all time, and Dante always longed to meet and interact with him. It's literally a self-insert fanfic of Dante meeting and interacting with all of his inspirations. It's honestly a mystery to me why I love The Inferno so much, because it's everything I hate! It's a Catholic's fanfic about why he sees himself and his friends as morally superior and why everyone he ever disagreed with is going to Hell. Somehow, in spite of all that, I still love it.

So why did Virgil even decide to help Dante in the first place? Well, remember when I talked about Beatrice dying? It turns out, she descended from Heaven into Hell to ask him for help, because she knew how important he was to Dante. She tasked Virgil with being Dante's guide, after seeing that he has gone astray.

This is where the film's innovation starts to take shape. Beatrice has often been drawn as having a halo around her head. The problem is, how do you show that in a film made in 1911? The effect was strikingly realized with, what I assume to be, spinning rods covered in reflective material. I can only guess this is how it was done, but it appears right to me, because that's how a similar effect was created for the lightsabers in the original Star Wars. It looks like the rods were placed behind the actress, so that the rig couldn't be seen, making it appear as if the light was emanating from her head. This scene also displays an early appearance of wire work on film. In those days, that shit wasn't easy. It was even harder to hide the effect, which this film does fairly well.

So, Virgil explains to Dante that he must take him on a pilgrimage through the three different stages of the afterlife. To be perfectly honest, I never understood why. Maybe I'm just an idiot with little to no reading comprehension. It's also a factor that I haven't read parts II and III of the Divine Comedy, so maybe it's elaborated better in there. From what I gathered, since Dante is going on a journey to find the literal Stairway to Heaven (Led Zeppelin intensifies) Virgil needs to take him to Hell and Purgatory, so he can face his sins and better appreciate Paradise. And thus, Virgil's pilgrimage to lead Dante through the Afterlife begins!

"Through me, the way to the City of Woe

Through me, the way to everlasting pain

Through me, the way among the people lost

Divine Power made me

Eternal I endure

Abandon Hope, all ye who enter here"

That is the inscription above the Gates of Hell. It is here, that Dante is already planning on turning back. Virgil literally tells him to stop being a pussy, and I was satisfied. Once they enter the gates, it becomes apparent to the viewer, if it hasn't already, that this isn't just an adaptation of Dante's work. This film is actually a cinematic translation of the ICONIC illustrations by Gustave Dore that were created in the middle of the 19th century. So much care and detail was put into recreating his AMAZING artwork, that many consider to be his magnum opus. This film was basically the Zack Snyder's Watchmen of its day!

Those familiar with the story will recognize this iconic scene that is being recreated onscreen. Dante and Virgil have come to the shores of Acharon, where the souls of the damned board Charon's vessel to be taken before Judge Minos, who lives in Limbo.

Speaking of Limbo, that is the first spiral of Hell Dante visits. This is where good people who weren't Christians come to face eternity. Their punishment is meant to be the denial of Paradise, but if you ask me, it doesn't seem so bad. Apparently Dante felt the same way, because this is where he meets his other great inspirations, such as Homer and Ovid! The poets all enjoy their visit together before Virgil must take Dante on his way. This is honestly the part that makes me cringe the most. Nothing reeks of self-insert fanfic more than meeting your idols and being greatly respected by all them. This is exactly why I abandoned my Silent Hill fanfic.

Anyway, Minos's throne lies at the lower boarder of Limbo. The king himself appears as a giant naked bearded man with a snake tail. The tail is used to determine the punishment of sinners by wrapping around Minos's own neck multiple times. However many times the tail coils determines which spiral the sinner is sent to.

And here we get to my favorite scene in the whole film: Lust! This spiral perfectly displays the true innovation of special effects. In this spiral, sinners are punished by being caught in a tumultuous whirlwind. The wind symbolizes the tumultuous feelings that arise between lustful lovers. It's one of Dore's best illustrations, and it blows my mind that the filmmakers were able to recreate it so well!

Our two pilgrims move onward to the Spiral of Gluttony, where we come across Cerberus. He guards this spiral, but Virgil subdues him by throwing a clump of dirt in his face (still more respectful than Lore Olympus). Honestly, Gluttony is nothing to write home about. It's just a raining landscape with people laying in the mud. Still, I have to give credit for the meticulous recreation of Dore's art!

Down in Greed, who else do we find guarding this spiral, other than Plutus?

SIDE NOTE: I've read a very strange "translation" of his dialogue. The original line reads, "Pape Satan, Pape Satan, allepe!" Strangely, no one seems to agree on what exactly this means, so most translations are different. Particularly, in the case of Douglas Neff, he translates "Pape" to "Papa," which is strange because "Pape" means "Pope" in Itialian. Then, he changes "allepe" to "you are my king." Let's also not forget that Plutus was also occasionally used as an epithet for Hades and/or Pluto. This means Douglas Neff literally wrote Hades to say, "Daddy Satan, I worship you" (still more respectful than Lore Olympus)!

In the Spiral of Greed, the sinners are forced push heavy sacks of gold around for eternity. Once again, this scene is nothing special, but still an admirable recreation of the illustrations that inspired it.

The next scene, however, shows off more of the innovative talent that makes this film so amazing! Virgil and Dante move on to the Spiral of Anger, where the sinners are punished by being submerged in the black sludge of the River Styx. The only way across is by boat. This is where Phlegyas comes in. The two poets stand by a giant tower which they use to signal for passage to the City of Dis. Along the way, the boat is stopped by Dante's political and intellectual rival, Philipo Argenti. It's here that one realizes just how petty Dante truly was. "Oh, I disagree with you politically. Therefore, you deserve to drown in sludge for all eternity!" He sounds like people I used to know. Hell, he sounds like me in high school!

All while this is going on, we see an amazing special effect of a double exposure of Dis in the background. It's an amazing miniature of the city's outer wall, optically printed to take up the entire top half of the screen.

Finally, they make it to the other side of the river, where we actually get a cameo by Hades' and Persephone's children! No, not Zagareus, Makaria, and Melinoe. None of those people were Hades' and Persephone's children. I'm actually referring to the Erinyes (also known as, the Furies). They block Dante's entrance to the city's gates, so Virgil calls upon the aid of an Archangel to rid them of the Furies. It is here that Dante asserts the superiority of Christianity over the Hellenistic faith (still more respectful than Lore Olympus).

Within the City of Dis, Hell begins to look more like how we always imagined, with fire and brimstone. In the Spiral of Heresy, sinners are stuffed into eternally burning ovens embedded in the ground.

Beyond that is the only omitted sequence from the poem. In the original Divine Comedy, the Spiral of Violence is originally guarded by the Minotaur! Beyond that are sinners, stewed in a boiling river of blood (The Phlegethon). On the banks, we see a heard of Centaurs practicing their archery on them. These are the individuals who were violent towards other people. In order to cross the river of blood, Dante and Virgil must ride on the back of one of the centaurs. You know, having heard of centaurs' notorious reputation for being horrible rapists, it makes me concerned for the sake of our Pilgrims. Maybe they didn't include this in the film because they couldn't figure out how to make a centaur?

On the other side of the Phlegethon, Violence continues into the suicide forest (*Logan Paul reference here*). Here is where sinners, who were violent against themselves, are punished. Once judged to this spiral, they grow into trees. The symbolism being that trees are a symbol of life, of which these sinners have deprived themselves. I'm surprised this scene isn't more controversial. After all, seeing as how seriously mental health has been taken recently, it's fucking awful to tell someone they're going to Hell for committing suicide! As a peice of horrific imagery, I love this scene, but knowing that Dante actually believed this makes me despise it.

In addition to being a horrifying concept, this scene also includes one of the first instances of bloodshed in a horror film. Virgil explains to Dante that he can speak with the sinners if he breaks one of their branches. When he does, blood sprays out of the tree like a drinking fountain!

After a brief conversation with the sinners, Dante moves on to the final section of violence, where people were violent against God. Here the sinners are punished in a desert that perpetually rains fire.

Now, not every special effect in this film is good. Because when Dante rides down to the eighth spiral on Geryon's back, it is such a stiff, unnatural, badly puppeteered marrianet that they couldn't even keep stable for the shot!

"There is a place in Hell called the Malebolge..."

Now, we get to my favorite part of the whole poem: The Spiral of Fraud. Here the deceivers are punished in a myriad of ways, depending on how they lied to others.

In the first Spiral of the Malebolge, those who pander towards others are mercilessly whipped for all eternity. This marks the first appearance of the classic image of the winged demons that we all know and love.

In the second spiral, the flattererers bathe in a stagnant pond of their own feces and vomit. This symbolizes the value of the words that they spew at other people. I think this might be where the expression, "You're full of shit," came from. Think about it; you say that to people whom you think are lying to you, and this is in the Spiral of Fraud.

Incidentally, this punishment was referenced in a Turkish horror film called Baskin -- a film about a small group of off-duty police officers who crash their car and wake up in Hell. In that film, the main characters realize they're in Hell when they find demon raping someone, while shoving her face in a bowl of her own face and vomit. Baskin is not a part of this HC, so I'll have to talk about it later. For now, I'll just say it's one of the best horror films I've ever seen!

In the third spiral, those who joined the Catholic Church for their own personal gain are buried head first, with their feet sticking out in the air.

In the fourth spiral, fortune tellers have their heads turned backwards. This prevents them from looking forward, symbolizing their attempts to see into the future.

In the fifth spiral, the sinners are repeatedly dipped in boiling tar. This scene is especially interesting because it shows that the demons we see aren't actually monsters. They're just creatures doing their jobs, punishing sinners. In fact one of the demons named Malecoda assigns a group of demons to help escort Dante and Virgil through the rest of the Malebolge. That, unfortunately, doesn't work out, however, because the demons are distracted by a sinner trying to escape, so Dante and Virgil move on alone. What's also unfortunate, is that other demons, who assume that Virgil and Dante are also sinners trying to escape, chase them into the next spiral. Luckily, each demon is confined to their own spiral, so they can't keep chasing them.

In the sixth spiral, the hypocrites are forced to wear robes made of solid gold. They also find Caiaphas nailed to the ground. As someone who has Jesus Christ Superstar on his top three list of favorite albums, I was happy to see Caiaphas get referenced.

In the seventh spiral, the thieves are bound by snakes, whose venom causes them to burn to ashes. One thief in particular gets attacked by a giant lizard that makes him into a lizardman (someone tell Alex Jones).

In the eighth spiral, the false advisors are eternally engulfed in flames.

In the ninth spiral, the sowers of discord are viciously mutilated. My favorite part about this scene is that it's one of the first instances of gore in a horror movie. The prophet Muhammad has been cloven from his belly to his throat with his guts spilling out all over the place. That's right! Muhammad is depicted in the Inferno. Not only that, but Gustave Dore drew him. Damn. Dante has no chill. Hey, the founder of the most homophobic religion in the world rots in eternal Hell? I'm not complaining! This kinda makes up for the portrayal of suicide victims.

In the tenth spiral, the falsifiers are punished with enternal leprosy.

At last, we make it to the Spiral of Treachery, at the center of the earth. Here, the traitors are frozen within the Lake Cocytus.

"Lo! Dis Himself!

Emperor of the Kingdom of Woe"

Finally, at the climax of this horrific epic, we see Satan, and it's not what you're expecting! He is in the very center of the lake, frozen up to his waist in ice, and forced to eat the three greatest traitors of all. His body is covered in course fur, and he has three heads and six wings. Satan's appearance in this story is disarming and almost pathetic in a way. You'd imagine Satan to be this fearsome king, but he's just shown to be suffering like everyone else. It's kind of sad, really.

The film ends with Dante and Virgil climbing down Satan's leg fur and ending up at the base of Mount Purgatory.

L'Inferno is one of the first true masterpieces of horror! It's hard to believe that this movie is almost 110 years old! Just think of how it would have been to see it in theaters for the first time when it was new. We owe it to this film for proving the language of Cinema could be used to tell the most epic stories possibly conceived.

You can watch the film for yourself here:https://youtu.be/cMUPbPOGPdM

youtube

Now, you're probably thinking, "What the Sam Fuck does any of this have to do with Devilman Crybaby?" Well, for starters, in Go Nagai's original manga, the character Asuka Ryo implies that Dante's Divine Comedy might have been based on a true story. This is futher validated when the demon Xenon appears and bears a strong resemblance to Dante's description of Satan. But beyond the surface-level details, let's discuss some of the deeper implications of what Hell actually is. Within this headcanon, the Afterlife is an entirely separate dimension, occupying the same space as our Earth, but invisible to our eyes. There is a way, however, to see and explore this separate dimension. You see, when different dimensions intersect at certain angles, they sometimes leave gaps through which we can come through and cross over to the other dimension. It was through one of these gaps that Virgil was able to find Dante. These angles and gaps between dimensions will be further explored in a later film.

#dante's inferno #dante's divine comedy #l'inferno #devilman crybaby #devilman crybaby headcanon #Youtube

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raptured-night · 4 years

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Hi! I’m part of the lgbtq+ community and Severus is my favorite HP character and I was wondering (if you have the time and feel obliged) if you could please give me a few examples of how he’s queer? It’s been a few years since I reread the books, and def before I came out, so I’m a little in the dark here lol Thanks!!

First of all, I just wanted to apologize for how long it has taken me to properly respond to your ask. I’ve been dealing with some ongoing health issues that have turned me into something of a moody writer. I’ll get random spurts of energy and inspiration and then hit a wall of absolute writer’s block assisted by a major case of executive dysfunction every single time I try to respond to the multiple asks languishing in my inbox. Fortunately, I found myself involved in a discussion just today that addressed your ask so perfectly that I wanted to share it with you. In the very least, that discussion has also managed to shake off my writer’s block temporarily so that I have found myself in the right head-space to finally be able to give this lovely ask the thought and attention that I feel it deserves.

Although, in regards to the Snape discourse I linked above, I feel that I should warn you in advance that the discussion was prompted by an anti-Snape poster who made a rather ill-thought meme (I know there are many in the Snapedom who would rather just avoid seeing anti-Snape content altogether, so I try to warn when I link people to debates and discussions prompted by anti-posts) but the thoughtful responses that the anti-Snape poster unintentionally generated from members of the Snapedom (particularly by @deathdaydungeon whose critical analyses of Snape and, on occasions, other Harry Potter characters is always so wonderfully nuanced, thought-provoking, and well-considered), are truly excellent and worth reading, in my opinion. Also, as I fall more loosely under the “a” (I’m grey-ace/demisexual) of the lgbtqa+ flag and community I would prefer to start any discussions about Snape as a queer character or as a character with queer coding by highlighting the perspectives of people in the Snapedom who are actually queer before sharing any thoughts of my own.

In addition, I also wanted to share a few other posts where Snape’s queer coding has been discussed by members of the Snapedom in the past (and likely with far more eloquence than I could manage in this response of my own).

Source

Along with an excellent article in Vice by Diana Tourjée, in which a case for Snape being trans is convincingly argued.

Importantly, you’ll notice that while some of these discussions do argue the possibility of Snape being a queer or trans character others may only discuss the way that Snape’s character is queer coded. That is because there is a distinct but subtle difference between: “This character could be queer/lgbtq+” and: “This character has queer/lgbtq+ coding” one which is briefly touched on in the first discussion that I linked you to. However, I would like to elaborate a bit here just what I mean when I refer to Snape as a character with queer coding. As while Rowling has never explicitly stated that she intended to write Snape as lgbtq+ (although there is one interview given by Rowling which could be interpreted as either an unintentional result of trying to symbolically explain Snape’s draw to the dark arts or a vague nod to Snape’s possible bisexuality: "Well, that is Snape's tragedy. ... He wanted Lily and he wanted Mulciber too. He never really understood Lily's aversion; he was so blinded by his attraction to the dark side he thought she would find him impressive if he became a real Death Eater.”) regardless of her intent when she drew upon the existing body of Western literary traditions and tropes for writing antagonists and villains in order to use them as a red-herring for Snape’s character, she also embued his character with some very specific, coded subtext. This is where Death of the Author can be an invaluable tool for literary critics, particularly in branches of literary criticism like queer theory.

Ultimately, even if Rowling did not intend to write Snape as explicitly queer/lgbtq+ the literary tradition she drew upon in order to present him as a foil for Harry Potter and have her readers question whether he was an ally or a villain has led to Snape being queer coded. Specifically, many of the characteristics of Snape’s character design do fall under the trope known as the “queering of the villain.” Particularly, as @deathdaydungeon, @professormcguire, and other members of the Snapedom have illustrated, Snape’s character not only subverts gender roles (e.g. his Patronus presents as female versus male, Snape symbolically assumes the role of “the mother” in the place of both Lily and later Narcissa when he agrees to protect Harry and Draco, his subject of choice is potions and poisons which are traditionally associated more with women and “witches,” while he seemingly rejects in his first introduction the more phallic practice of “foolish wand-waving,” and indeed Snape is characterized as a defensive-fighter versus offensive, in Arthurian mythology he fulfills the role of Lady of the Lake in the way he chooses to deliver the Sword of Gryffindor to Harry, Hermione refers to his hand-writing as “kind of girly,” his association with spiders and spinners also carries feminine symbology, etc.) but is often criticized or humiliated for his seeming lack of masculinity (e.g. Petunia mocking his shirt as looking like “a woman’s blouse,” which incidentally was also slang in the U.K. similar to “dandy” to accuse men of being effeminate, the Marauders refer to Snape as “Snivellus” which suggests Snape is either less masculine because he cries or the insult is a mockery of what could pass for a stereotypical/coded Jewish feature, his nose, Remus Lupin quite literally instructs Neville on how to “force” a Boggart!Snape, who incidentally is very literally stepping out of a closet-like wardrobe, into the clothing of an older woman and I quoted force because that is the exact phrase he uses, James and Sirius flipping Snape upside down to expose him again presents as humiliation in the form of emasculation made worse by the arrival and defense of Lily Evans, etc.).

Overall, the “queering of the villain” is an old trope in literature (although it became more deliberate and prevalent in media during the 1950s-60s); however, in modernity, we still can find it proliferating in many of the Disney villains (e.g. Jafar, Scar, Ursula, etc.), in popular anime and children’s cartoons (e.g. HiM from Powerpuff Girls, James from Pokemon, Frieza, Zarbon, the Ginyu Force, Perfect Cell, basically a good majority of villains from DBZ, Nagato from Fushigi Yuugi, Pegasus from Yu Gi Oh, etc.), and even in modern television series and book adaptations, such as the popular BBC’s Sherlock in the character of Moriarty. Indeed, this article does an excellent job in detailing some of the problematic history of queer coded villains. Although, the most simple summary is that: “Queer-coding is a term used to say that characters were given traits/behaviors to suggest they are not heterosexual/cisgender, without the character being outright confirmed to have a queer identity” (emphasis mine). Notably, TV Tropes also identifies this trope under the classification of the “Sissy Villain” but in queer theory and among queer writers in fandom and academia “queering of the villain” is the common term. This brings me back to Snape and his own queer coding; mainly, because Rowling drew upon Western traditions for presenting a character as a suspected villain she not only wrote Snape as queer (and racially/ethnically) coded but in revealing to the reader that Snape was not, in fact, the villain Harry and the readers were encouraged to believe he was by the narrator she incorporated a long history of problematic traits/tropes into a single character and then proceeded to subvert them by subverting reader-expectation in a way that makes the character of Severus Snape truly fascinating.

We can certainly debate the authorial intent vs. authorial impact where Snape’s character is concerned. Particularly as we could make a case that the polarizing nature of Snape may well be partly the result of many readers struggling against Rowling subverting literary tropes that are so firmly rooted in our Western storytelling traditions that they cannot entirely abandon the idea that this character who all but had the book thrown at him in terms of all the coding that went into establishing him as a likely villain (e.g. similar to Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, Snape is also coded to be associated with darkness/black colors and to represent danger and volatile/unstable moods, while his class status further characterizes him as an outsider or “foreign other,” and not unlike all those villains of our childhood Disney films which affirmed a more black-and-white philosophy of moral abolutism, such as Scar or Jafar, the ambiguity of Snape’s sexuality coupled with his repeated emasculation signals to the reader that this man should be “evil” and maybe even “predatory,” ergo all the “incel” and friendzone/MRA discourse despite nothing in canon truly supporting those arguments; it seems it may merely be Snape’s “queerness” that signals to some readers that he was predatory or even that “If Harry had been a girl” there would be some kind of danger) is not actually our villain after all.

Indeed, the very act of having Snape die (ignoring, for the moment, any potential issues of “Bury Your Gays” in a queer analysis of his death) pleading with Harry to “look at him” as he symbolically seems to weep (the man whom Harry’s hyper-masculine father once bullied and mocked as “Snivellus”) memories for Harry to view (this time with his permission) carries some symbolic weight for any queer theory analysis. Snape, formerly portrayed as unfathomable and “secretive,” dies while pleading to be seen by the son of both his first and closest friend and his school-hood bully (a son that Snape also formerly could never see beyond his projection of James) sharing with Harry insight into who he was via his personal memories. For Harry to later go on to declare Snape “the bravest man he ever knew” carries additional weight, as a queer theory analysis makes it possible for us to interpret that as Harry finally recognizing Snape, not as the “queer coded villain” he and the reader expected but rather as the brave queer coded man who was forced to live a double-life in which “no one would ever know the best of him” and who, in his final moments at least, was finally able to be seen as the complex human-being Rowling always intended him to be.

Rowling humanizing Snape for Harry and the reader and encouraging us to view Snape with empathy opened up the queer coding that she wrote into his character (intentionally or otherwise) in such a way that makes him both a potentially subversive and inspiring character for the lgbtq+ community. Essentially, Snape opens the door for the possibility of reclaiming a tradition of queer coding specific to villains and demonstrating the way those assumptions about queer identity can be subverted. Which is why I was not at all surprised that I was so easily able to find a body of existing discourse surrounding Snape as a queer coded or even as a potentially queer character within the Harry Potter fandom. At least within the Snapedom, there are many lgbtq+ fans of his character that already celebrate the idea of a queer, bi, gay, trans, ace/aro, or queer coded Snape (in fact, as a grey-ace I personally enjoy interpreting Snape through that lens from time-to-time).

Thank you for your ask @pinkyhatespink and once again I apologize for the amount of time it’s taken me to reply. However, I hope that you’ll find this response answered your question and, if not, that some of the articles and posts from other pro-Snape bloggers I linked you to will be able to do so more effectively. Also, as a final note, although many of the scholarly references and books on queer coding and queering of the villain I would have liked to have sourced are typically behind paywalls, I thought I would list the names of just a few here that I personally enjoyed reading in the past and that may be of further interest should you be able to find access to them.

Fathallah, Judith. “Moriarty’s Ghost: Or the Queer Disruption of the BBC’s Sherlock.” Television & New Media, vol. 16, no. 5, 2014, p. 490-500.

Huber, Sandra. “Villains, Ghosts, and Roses, or How to Speak With The Dead.” Open Cultural Studies, vol. 3, no. 1, 2019, p. 15-25.

Mailer, Norman. “The Homosexual Villain.” 1955. Mind of an Outlaw: Selected Essays, edited by Sipiora Phillip, Random House, 2013, pp. 14–20.

Solis, Nicole Eschen. "Murder Most Queer: The Homicidal Homosexual in the American Theater." Queer Studies in Media & Pop Culture, vol. 1, no. 1, 2016, p. 115+.

Tuhkanen, Mikko. “The Essentialist Villain.” Jan. 2019, SBN13: 978-1-4384-6966-9

#severus snape #pro snape #snape discourse #snape meta #snapedom #snape community #queer theory

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myfandomrambles · 4 years

Text

Dhawan!Master Character Analysis

A look at Confused motivations, externalized anger, performance, self-destruction, boredom, and trauma

Confused Motivations:

Something I find interesting is that The Master’s motivations are not understood by himself. He professes it’s because he is angry that The Doctor is a key part of who he is and the “specialness” being The Timeless child gives her, but this is no way the whole story.

A more complete read of the motivations:

A biological concrete aspect has been added to the vacillations of feeling less than and better than The Doctor causing anger.

A compulsive need to control The Doctor and make them the same by putting them on the same “level”

Anger at being even more of a tool and creation of the Time Lords and loss of autonomy & control thereof.

Anger that they hurt The Doctor

Boredom, apathy, impulse control deficits and general control issues informed by trauma.

I doubt he is aware of all of these layers, and I believe The Doctor in the story and us as spectators will choose the one they believe is the “real” reason, but it was never just one. The Master flattens these motivations and explains it to The Doctor as almost all disdain for her, and blind rage, both actively in his emotions, and subconsciously to himself.

We know The Master has been used by the Time Lords their whole life (longer if the child in the flashbacks is Baby!Master) and has their autonomy stripped to be used as a tool of the aristocracy. He is dealing with having the Time Lords who have taken his autonomy directly on a physical level via The Doctor’s DNA. Just like the drums and resurrection during The Time War, we have direct physical meddling by the high council.

The Master has always felt that The Doctor and he are the same, that she is better than him, and that he is better than her in turn. This vacillating perception of her and their dynamic with each other is something we can see tracing through their relationship. This comes into play where they are used as foils and mirrors to each other. The Doctor Pointing this function of being the same while opposed to each other:

Twelve: “He's the only person that I've ever met who's even remotely like me.”

Bill: “So more than anything you want her to be good?

An interesting way we can see this change how they refer to each other sometimes using the present tense and past tense of the word friend.

Ten: “A friend, At first” [Ten spends most of the time focused on them being ‘the last’ over a real relationship, but offer a hand]

Thirteen: “The Master was one of my oldest friends. We went very different ways.” [Thirteen is intensely emotional about the master, more so then we have seen her at almost any other point, but shows mostly anger and exhaustion]

Twelve: “Of course she's not dead. She's a friend of mine. I may have fiddled with your wiring a little bit.” [Both Missy and Twelve focus heavily on their friendship and fall heavily on their intimate history]

The Master also changes the description of their relationship

Missy:“friendship older than your civilization, and infinitely more complex.”

Dhawan!Master: “I'm her best enemy.”

We see how the Fifth Doctor has an almost apathy to The Master, Seven takes the time to give him a proper burial, Ten and Twelve both seek out their respective Masters dreading the loss. The Master also does this being open about wanting attention, playing lower stakes dreams, being truly murderous, and abjectly cruel. The Master's self-perception shits as well; playing god on Gallifrey, making a personal army, putting her on a pedestal, dragging her down, and a suicidal streak. I think this helps illustrate the behaviour throughout the whole season.

The Doctor and The Master compulsively try and get the other’s attention. The obsession is something pointed out by multiple other characters namely; The Brig, Jo Grant, and The Rani. We can see this in him taking the time to play at being O and in how even when he yells about wanting her dead he also always knows she will live why else would he leave a note for her that would show when she got to Gallifrey. The Master will get none of the sought after catharsis and compulsion to involve The Doctor if she actually died. In their Eiffel Tower confrontation;

Doctor: “When does all this stop for you? The games, the betrayals, the killing?”

Master: “Why would it stop? I mean, how else would I get your attention”

His involvement this whole season is only about The Doctor, even the side operations of working with the baddie on earth, committing genocide and paling with the CyberMen are all about The Doctor and his need to exert control over both of their lives.

The Master is angry that The Doctor was hurt. The Master has always had a kind of “Only I can hurt The Doctor” mentality. And considering he knows how it feels to be used and manipulated, I don’t think he wants The Doctor to suffer in that manner by the Time Lords. I don’t think it’s contradictory to want to hurt everyone else and also be angry The Doctor was hurt. Because of the obsessive thoughts around The Doctor, it would alter the thought patterns, The Master is not working based on logic.

A real empathetic connection to The Doctor is present in the way someone who is in a toxic relationship will have. This goes both ways we can see this in the way they have all of these periods of differing extreme emotions, especially if you look at Simm->Missy->Dhawan. There is love there when they had a healthier relationship back when they were friends/crushes, but over time it’s been compromised through each hurting each other (whatever you pick/know of canon this still holds true) becoming toxic for most incarnations. I also don’t think this hot empathy for The Doctor would contradict not even having a cold empathy for the innocents slaughtered on Gallifrey (The at least 2.4 7 billion kids did nothing wrong)

In general, I believe after going fishing in the matrix either on a whim or not the act of burning Gallifrey was likely an impulsive act. But after this, I think planning came into it, along with building the blocks for performance. He can formulate an elaborate game to play with The Doctor, The Matrix, live on earth, and The Cybermen to stave off boredom and attempt to integrate trauma and it will fulfil his rumination on The Doctor and the high council. I’ll talk more about trauma and boredom later.

Externalized & Cyclical Anger:

When you are angry there are generally two ways people display these emotions: they put their pain into their own body and mind or put it on everyone else. Anger is healthy and The Master has every right to be angry at the high Gallifreyans who have treated him and his best friend like garbage from the very start.

Dhawan!Master is a perfect example of someone taking their own pain and putting on everyone else. He is angry at so many things, some justified, some not but is dealing with this through externalization. He displays self-destructive anger but goes about the self-harm/suicidality by causing as much damage outwards as possible. A common Master trait, but very prevalent here, taking his own hurt and making others feel it, a stated goal more than once.

He took this anger at a set number of people onto the entirety of the Gallifreyan people and stepped up the “flirting” and games he plays with The Doctor to one of the most painful versions they have. We can see The Master and The Doctor’s relationships take many different forms of the years but it has always been grounded in the need for the other's attention and anger from The Master at being left. With these added sources of anger they toss at each other it makes sense that we get different versions of tipping point moments when one of them “wins”.

Another key here is that The Master shows a long history of serious anger rage that comes out in extreme ways. He suffers outbursts regularly and it’s something that worsens over time but even The Masters who were more in control we still see how anger is an undercurrent. And while The Doctor has a similar undercurrent The Master has this pattern of explosive outbursts that have slowly become more character-defining.

Part of the cyclical anger is also the fear under there. The Master is afraid of so much, of not being enough, of being left behind, of not being who they thought they were, of dying (historically he has gone to crazy length to live), of continuing to live how he is, of being the worst of him, of being controlled and of the Time Lords. The Master runs from the Time Lords, using them yes, but never staying there.

The Timeless Child revelation might have acted as a trigger for larger displays of anger, however, I think it’s key to The Master that this anger was there way before now. And it has caused mass suffering before now, this sympathetic grief and anger The Master shows in Timeless Children is compelling but it’s best understood a part of a cycle of outbursts of those emotions severely worsened by this latest re-traumatization.

Performance:

The Master, like The Doctor, is a huge fan of performance art. This is something that has always been there with costumes, voice changes, dancing, and using this for both just plain fun and as a real tool. On a strictly meta-level, Sacha Dhawan was living for every moment and being able to meet and even surpass Whittaker for screen presence. It was his story almost anytime he was on screen.

Narratively putting on a show was key, as O he is literally playing a part for The Doctor, and even keeping in contact as this persona. When in the past he is theatrical in his introduction in the science expo, in his character reveal in Ascension of the Cybermen his dialogue starts is:

Master: “Wow! Oh! Ah! That's a good entrance, right? Be afraid, Doctor. Because everything is about to change... forever.”

He literally asks if they liked his entrance, they liked how he presented himself. Then follows this up with this big pronouncement. Begging for the people on screen and us to pay attention to him. Which is generally one of the only moments in this episode that people really remember from the latter 1/2 of the episode.

The entirety of the interactions with The Doctor on Gallifrey has a semi-planned performative aspect like he has a bit of script in his head and is using the environment as a stage, monologuing for the vast majority of the time. He critiques the performance as much as the substance of the Lone Cyberman’s plan. The body language and mannerisms are also very large and have a dancing aspect to it, or come across as severe and are trying to get a rise out of The Doctor or Cyberium.

Another aspect to the performance is how he has these set pieces, of bringing her in, then trapping her, playing with the Death Particle and more than anything is the CyberMasters. He introduces them with a big speech, does the march with them and uses them to make a point more than to actually build an army. It’s also important to think he had to make the costumes and had this macabre point of putting the Time Lords into the Cyber Armour.

The performance is more than anything just begging for attention. The Master loves to blow stuff up, watch the smoke of buildings, and fight with The Doctor, but it’s clear that they tried really hard to impact The Doctor more than anyone else. It’s clawing to be enough for The Doctor, prove himself, to win. Another way this performance is as a mask covering the fact The Master is falling apart. It's the duality of The Master always loved putting on the show but there is desperation undergirding it. We can see how The Master can start to jump in his speech mannerisms become more desperate and this facade of control drips to the anger and fear consuming him.

By putting on a show, he is in control. He fears to be out of control, and the loss of identity both the Time War and the Timeless Children gave him. Controlling how he acts, how others view him and setting out a roadmap. Control through hurting others, hurting himself, through acting and of course just basic controlling others.

Self-Destruction:

The Master is highly self-destructive here, something that is connected to a form of “anger in” and the aspects of control we talked about before. When the death particle fails to go off the first time he seems somewhat disappointed it didn’t just end right then:

Dhawan!Master: “Worried, were you? I thought if he was compressed, the Death Particle would activate and all this would be over. I would've been okay with that. I thought it was a nice little gamble. But no, here we are, all still alive.”

He is gambling with his life, I believe this to him would be a second-best ending to finishing the whole game and be face-to-face with The Doctor. More than anything though, it seems he wants to be able to end everything with The Doctor there as well. In this case that is the ultimate control he is seeking, to end the fear, grief, bitterness and pain. Suicidal thoughts don’t quite care if you complete your plan.

The ultimate version of this plan puts The Doctor in the position of if she wants to save the world she must also join The Master in an act of extreme destruction. The interesting thing is it fails to put The Doctor on his level because instead of an act of anger, control and wanting harm this one is to prevent more death. If she had been able to do it it would have succeeded in making her die as a hero which is the opposite of the stated goal. The Doctor has taken cruel and pointlessly destructive steps before but this wouldn’t have been one of them. The Doctor has also been suicidal before this point, those moments would have been a lot closer to them being the same then this actions as well.

Outside of the moral quandary, this is actually not that different from a murder-suicide in real life on a psychological level. Murder-suicide is also incidentally a highly male crime, which adds to an interesting pattern of invoking male violence. The Master wants to end his life but if this was the only goal he could have done it a million and one ways and send a note to The Doctor if he just wished her to know. But, like in real life part of it is wanting to control the other person too, he wants to control The Doctor and himself. The Master here has had his self-belief shattered, is depressed himself and feels The Doctor has become something less manageable with all this new information along with Thirteen being one of the least interested in The Master's games. This is interesting as I said before Dhawan!Master is the king of externalizing violence so even when his self-loathing drives him to suicidal urges the need to have The Doctor die with him and end anything that could possibly live on Gallifrey takes precedent.

I think this is key because, for all the talk for pointing out that he is really suicidal, the murder-suicide aspect is really key to any honest reading of the situation. Because if the death particle plan had worked he would have just committed murder-suicide, even with The Doctor pulling the triggering. This act would have come after a psychological battering via The Matrix (which even if he has a real want for her to know it was done cruelly), threats to her friends, threats of mass violence, giving her the weapon it’s hard to say he wasn’t culpable in the death particle’s usage. Even the first plan would have killed her too.

He is insistent that he broke her, she has nothing left, her world view is broken he finally brought her down. He needs The Doctor to be in the same headspace as he abjectly lost and searching for something worth living for. To feel understood and to be in control. Personally, I don’t think she has just accepted that none of this hurts and she is great because he gave her “gift of myself” and proved she “contain multitudes”, it feels more like her not wanting to give in to his control, to convince herself, but in the end, it doesn’t matter because he doesn’t win this time, and worse he dies without her. And interestingly she ends up taking the cowards route by making someone else fight her battle, this had nothing to do with ending the Cyber War it was ending a toxic relationship, a demolished culture and a Time War.

Boredom:

Something I think I've not seen talked about a lot is that if The Master is displaying a show of chronic boredom this is something associated with a lot of people who are violent towards others and themselves. I think we can see this in his agitation, body language, speech patterns and just the sheer amount of what he accomplished during The Timeless Children. This is less visible in him being O as we don’t really know how much he was messing around or doing while in character, but the moment he stops the endless need to do something, anything shows up.

If you think about it not everything he did is strictly necessary for the goals of destroying Gallifrey and then commit murder-suicide with The Doctor. But along with the need for a show, there is always something to do. And when each aspect of the plan finishes there is some joking and revealing but it also feels like “whoop that's done I'm bored again”.

He’s compulsively doing something, anything, but as he mentions this isn't actually fully fixing anything. It’s something that really lends itself to both the outward and inward destruction. When nothing will ever calm the anger, nothing will help you regulate, no amount of stimulus can keep your attention, it leads to reckless and damaging behaviour.

However, the game with The Doctor has to end, because this is the long game and now that we’re here she has to finish it too. The Doctor also has chronic boredom and he knows this, and that The Doctor has as little self-preservation as him. It tracks that when he makes the finale move he would assume The Doctor would be willing to act out too.

Trauma:

I think it’s very clear this Master is dealing with trauma and we see a lot of signs, many of which I talked about but here is a list:

Agitation

Anger & rage

Chronic Boredom

Compromised empathy

Compulsive behaviour

Depression

Destructive behaviours & suicidal actions

Dysregulated emotions

Enmeshment with The Doctor

Identity issues

Lashing out

Locus of control issues (Blaming everyone else while also needing to own it)

A need for control

Oscillating self-estimation

Preoccupation with those who traumatized them (with the timelords & The Doctor)

Reenacting trauma

Ruminating thoughts

Sensory integration issues (stimming, could be linked to other conditions)

Trying to put on a show, (A trait associated with trauma linked PDS)

Thoughts of violence

Dysregulation of Emotions and Nervous System: The erratic emotions displayed by The Master overlaid with behaviours that some have identified as looking like stimming point to dysregulation. His feelings and affect jump around and are always at high levels. A point of interest, however, is that From Spyfall to Timeless Children the issue seems to worsen as the ability to put up a facade is gone. Now we know that it wasn’t really that long of a period where he was actively keeping it as we only saw him as O for a short time. But it tracks that after being exiled on earth and then into the Kassavian dimension his dysregulation would worsen.

Preoccupation With Those who Traumatized Him: It’s so heavy in this story and even throughout the whole story The Master is locked on those who have hurt him, and the trauma thereof. The Master is used as a tool here the same way people manipulate The Doctor via their god and guilt complexes. The entire story is the Master having gone back to Gallifrey to try and enter the Matrix and then spend the whole time destroying Gallifrey and even then he can’t leave. New Who Masters specifically have their whole stories centred around the trauma Gallifrey did to them and their connection with The Doctor was changed by that event. And Dhawan!Master takes no action in this series that doesn’t involve this, even the plan with Kassavian is centred on getting the Doctor’s attention and setting up sending her to Galifrey.

Replaying Trauma: This is a commonality between the master and The Doctor. They have been reliving the Time War, the same patterns of loss of their friends, being unable to turn off the training to be a soldier. The Doctor is often taking the same actions she did before, sometimes outside of her control, all of which were made during a trauma state or resulted in traumatic experiences.

The Master replays the behaviours he learned during trauma as The Doctor does, but is a lot more likely to not only replay acts that they did that traumatized others, which The Doctor does too but also can replay what those who traumatized them did.

The speeches we get from the master in Timeless Children is slightly off version of Rassilon's speech at The End of Time pt 1.

Master: “Yes, it could! Behold your new CyberMasters, Doctor. All born from you, but led by me. How does that feel? Huh? Now, no time to lose. Don't move. Oh, that's right, you can't. Can you feel a new era dawning, Doctor? For Gallifrey.”

Cybermen: “For Gallifrey!”

Master: “For the Time Lords.”

Cybermen: “For the Time Lords!”

Master: “For the end of the universe itself!”

Cybermen: “For the end of the universe itself!”

Master: “Sweet dreams. This way, soldiers.”

Time Lords: “For Gallifrey!”

Rassilon: “For victory!”

Time Lords: “For victory!”

Rassilon: “For the end of time itself!”

Time Lords: “For the end of time itself!”

The Master who destroyed Galifrey in the name of something Tecteun, and by extension the other founding fathers of Galifrey, is playing the same game Rassilon did and views himself as a god of Time Lords the same way Rasilon did. We also know The Master isn’t directly quoting them because he was not present when Rasilon made that speech, so this dialogue shows how he is in patterns of trauma. It also is important character and theme-wise because it plays on the ideas of autonomy and how the Master has essentially made himself the destruction and death god to Gaalifry in the way The Doctor was essential in its creation. While he is goading The Doctor to be both creator and destroyer. The Master and The Doctor are in fact these forces, even though I believe the Timeless Child is a victim of abuse and exploitation, but, it’s entirely true that The Doctor and The Master are playing at being gods. Something they have done on other planets before.

This is also part of replaying trauma in the fact he has taken bodily autonomy and specifically regeneration from Time Lords to use as his own weapons. The CyberMasters are exactly what the worst version of Timeless Children are, complete manipulated weapons with no free will.

Conclusion:

The story of Dhawan!Master is one that turned hard into both the idea of The Master being in pain themselves but also showing some of the worst cruelty the master has ever done in both their extreme assault of The Doctor and genocide.

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huilian · 4 years

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chapter one of my court of owls rewrite AU!

***

Dick stands near the podium, watching Bruce give his speech. He already knows that the speech is about looking forward to the future to create a better Gotham, instead of focusing on the city’s grim present and past. However, Dick finds himself thinking about the city as it was and still is, despite the point of Bruce’s entire speech is for people to not do so.

Dick can’t help it. Bruce starts the speech with stories of his connection to Gotham, and Dick finds himself remembering his own association with the city, and all that entails.

He wishes he could say he hasn’t thought of the Court for years, but that would be a lie.

Without Dick realizing it, Bruce has finished his speech. The socialites and elites of Gotham lap it up, of course. Dick knows that a lot of them don’t really believe in what Bruce is saying: invest in Gotham’s future and we can make Gotham a better place--and Dick has his suspicions about which of them actually wants to make a better Gotham, considering what he knows about them--, but they take it anyway. That’s Gotham’s elites for you.

Dick waits until Bruce has done his cursory thank-yous before putting himself next to Bruce’s elbow. He knows how much these rich people hate it when he interrupts their conversations with their beloved Brucie, but that makes him do it more often.

Spite. What a powerful motivator.

“Are you sure about this?” Dick starts signing, not really caring who sees. It’s not like any of the people surrounding Bruce knows ASL anyway. They never care enough to learn.

“Yes,” Bruce signs back.

“Don’t you have enough to do with Batman Inc.?” Dick can’t say how much he loves that he can actually talk about Batman in public. He just has to slide everything under the blanket of Batman Inc.. After all, it’s public knowledge that Bruce Wayne is funding Batman Inc. No more searching for increasingly ridiculous excuses.

Plus, it is not like anyone around them knows what they’re saying. Like Dick said before, they don’t care enough to learn. But it’s always good to be safe.

“Actually, I’m thinking of spending more time in Gotham.” The people surrounding Bruce start to disperse, grumbling and whispering to themselves and each other, after it becomes clear that Bruce is not going to translate his conversation with Dick to the people surrounding him. Honestly, by now, they should know already. It’s not like this hasn’t occurred many, many times before. “I-”

Dick stops Bruce with a hand. With the crowd surrounding them, or more precisely, surrounding Bruce, clearing, Dick can see Commissioner Gordon, standing near a window as he talks to his phone. While the sight is not something out of the ordinary, especially in an event like this,the words that Dick can read from his lips, however, are unusual.

… stab wounds… I’ll be there…

Well, maybe even that is not something new. It’s Gotham, after all. Despite Bruce’s, and lately Dick’s, efforts, victims of stabbings are still common. What’s extraordinary is the fact that the GCPD is calling the commissioner about a stabbing, when they know perfectly well he’s attending a function.

Not a regular crime then.

Bruce, noticing that Dick’s focus is now on the Commissioner, moves his attention to him.

They both watched Jim Gordon for a while, and when the Commissioner hangs up, Bruce signs, “Are you going out?”

Dick nods. He’s already thinking of excuses, and whether or not he should take Damian. A stabbing doesn’t sound like a case Dick would keep away from him, but if they’re calling the Commissioner about it…

“Want me to come with?”

No, Dick’s not going to bring Damian. If they’re calling the Commissioner because of some mystery surrounding the stabbing, then he’ll involve Damian later. The kid needs more detectiving practice. But if it’s something else, something more horrible than just a mystery, then he’ll work the case alone. Damian doesn’t need more violence in his life.

At least not more than what he usually sees on a daily basis.

“No,” Dick signs. “I’ll go alone. It’s your party, you should be here. Keep an eye on Damian.” Dick watches as Bruce’s eyes go distant--the way they did when he doesn’t understand something--at the sign name Dick has given for Damian, index finger up, palm facing outwards, which is then continued by the palm turning, while touching the chest with the middle finger. The letter D, moving onto a modified sign for heart. Dick has been meaning to have that conversation with Bruce for a long time, now, about what Damian means to him and how they will navigate that now that Bruce is back, but they never seem to have the time. Maybe Bruce being in Gotham more will be good for them. For all of them “Make sure he’s not putting anything on fire,” Dick finishes, teasing a bit.

Bruce eyes him warily. Dick knows he’s not sure whether Dick is joking about the fire bit or not Dick just smiles as he tries to figure it out.

Maybe Damian will put something on fire. And with both Tim and Cass in attendance, chaos will still reign even if Damian doesn’t light anything up. Tim and Damian are bad enough, but Dick has learned recently that putting all three of them in close proximity to each other for a prolonged period of time will only result in chaos.

It’ll be fun to watch Bruce handle that for a change.

Bruce sighs. “I’ll be on standby as back-up, then.”

“You just want to ditch the party.”

Bruce flicks Dick’s nose. For a moment, Dick is transported to years ago, having a conversation very similar to this one. Only this time, Dick is the one who’s going out and Bruce is the back-up. It startles him a bit, knowing how far he’s come since those unsure Robin days, shoulders heavy with the need to redeem his mother’s name for him, and always, always scared of the possibility of hitting too hard, of going too far.

Him and Damian are so much more alike than the kid can possibly think.

Dick’s shoulders are still heavy now, but it’s a different name he’s bearing, with a different parent behind it.

No. The mission first. Dick can do his maudlin reflections later. He shakes his head a bit, just to clear it, then signs, “I’m going to call Tim or Cass if I need back-up. This is your party, and you’ll stay until the very end of this stupid thing.”

Bruce flicks his nose again. Or, well, he tries to. Dick ducks down, leaving Bruce’s fingers to flick air.

“Brat,” Bruce says, huffing with exasperation. Then, his expression turns serious, and he signs, “Be careful.”

Dick smiles. “Always.”

***

The cape no longer drags him with its weight. It’s still heavy, it’s still weird and constricting, but it no longer pulls him down. Dick wonders what that says about him.

Since he left Damian back at the party, with plenty of protests from the boy, Batman is flying solo tonight. Dick takes the opportunity to play around a bit, since no Robin means he doesn’t have to be a good example.

It’s not strictly professional, but it keeps the mythos going. Besides, Bruce used to do it all the time. Still does.

Dick lands at the crime scene silently, searching for the officer in charge to spook.

The officer in question is Sergeant Harvey Bullock. Dick sighs internally. No chance of spooking, then. Bullock has been in the game for far too long to be startled by the Bat anymore, whether it is him or Bruce.

“Sergeant Bullock,” Batman says. Dick hates doing it, hates forcing the words out of his mouth, hates the memories that come with it, but unlike Nightwing, Batman cannot be mute.

It’s bad enough that Commissioner Gordon and a lot of the Rogues know he’s not the original one. He doesn’t need to advertise it.

“Batman.” Bullock nods at him. “Come on. Let’s go look at some art.”

Sergeant Bullock leads him inside, to where a man is pinned to the wall by knives.

“The landlord found him on a routine rent run. He went by the name Sam Strigs…,” Bullock says as Dick listens with half an ear. There’s something familiar about the knives.

Dick moves closer.

An owl. On the handle of the knives.

Dick’s breathing stops for a second. He can feel his hands curling around phantom knives, much like these ones. His neck tingles with the sense of being watched.

No. Dick takes a breath. Bruce said the Court is gone. Bruce said he has run the Court to the ground and burned them himself.

Dick glances at Bullock. He’s still talking, oblivious to the fact that Dick’s mind had gone somewhere else. Good. It won’t do to have people know that the Batman is scared of the Court.

There will be riots. No one will take Batman seriously ever again. Dick can’t do that to Bruce.

But then… an owl. The Court is powerful. It’s possible that Bruce hasn’t burnt them all, that they have been hiding, biding their time, waiting for their chance to strike. But, that brings its own sets of questions. The most prevalent one is, why now?

“... has anything to do with the old wive’s tale-”

“I know what you mean,” Batman says. Dick knows. He knows all about the Court of Owls. There’s no need for Bullock to start saying their name out loud. Speak not a whispered word of them. Better not to tempt fate.

He also says that because he can excuse that with Batman’s general sullenness and know-it-all behaviour. The Batman is not scared of the Court of Owls. He just can’t be bothered to listen to their name.

Dick pulls his eyes away from the knives, surveying the rest of the room. The smell of paint thinner hits his nose, blocking even the stench of the body.

Why is he smelling paint thinner?

Oh. Maybe. Dick pulls out a lighter from his belt, then starts walking around the room, trying to find where the smell is strongest.

The smell is strongest on the wall right opposite of Sam Strig’s body. Dick observes the wall. He doesn’t see anything that will give him clues, but paint thinner does leave no trace on this kind of wall. Dick flicks the lighter on and approaches the wall. He hopes he’s not wrong, because if he is, then he’ll be burning the crime scene down.

“Hey! What are you doing?” Bullock shouts, but it’s too late. The fire has caught.

It illuminates the room. Well, the good news is, Dick is not burning anything down.

The bad news is, the fire writes, RICHARD GRAYSON WILL DIE TOMORROW.

Well. Dick has had his share of death threats over the years, but none so… dramatic as this.

“Tomorrow?” Bullock says. “Our time of death is a week ago, so the ‘tomorrow’ Strigs thought of already came and went. This Grayson boy should be in the clear.”

“Unless he knew when he’d be found,” Batman says.

Bullock narrows his eyes, then grimaces. “The landlord says he always comes on the second Friday of the month. Maybe our victim knows he’s going to die and be found today, and left a warning for this Grayson boy.” Bullock snorts. “Then good luck to that killer. Grayson’s Wayne’s adopted son, and Wayne’s security has security. I’m guessing you know the boy? What with Wayne being your-”

Batman grunts. Why would a dying man leave a warning message for his killer’s next victim? Unless…, unless the one writing the message is not Sam Strigs.

If it’s a Talon writing that message, if it’s the Court who’s sending that message…

“I’ll be seeing you, Bullock,” and with that, Dick is gone before Bullock can answer. He has a murderer to catch.

***

“Are you insane?” Bruce says. Other people will say that Bruce is completely unaffected. Dick knows better. He’s speaking to Dick. “The Court is back in Gotham, they’re threatening you, and you’re telling me to leave?”

Dick sighs. He would also like to be stressed about this, but when he comes back to the Bunker and tells Bruce about the situation, he sees that Bruce is actually panicking over this. He decides then that he’s going to be calm and collected. No sense in having two Batmans that are panicking, after all.

“We don’t know if it’s the Court or not. It could be a copycat.”

“I’m not leaving, Dick. You should have called me the moment you have any indication that it’s the Court instead of letting me play billionaire in a party all night.”

And that’s the thing, isn’t it? Even if this is the Court, Bruce has been protecting Dick against them for so long now. It’s Dick’s problem, and it’s past time he handled it.

“I can handle it,” Dick signs, perfectly calm and collected. He’s not, not really, but Bruce wouldn’t even consider going if Dick isn’t the picture of serenity.

He loves Bruce for that, but Bruce shouldn’t be worrying about Dick anymore. Not when he has so much more to worry about.

Bruce pinches the bridge of his nose. “I’m… I’m not saying you can’t handle it, Dick. I…”

Dick laughs a little bit. Even with the threat of the Court swirling at the back of his mind, it’s always fun to see Bruce getting flustered with emotions, instead of locking them down and playing the unfeeling Batman.

Dick taps Bruce’s fingers, forcing the man to pay attention to him, then signs, “You can’t say it, can you? I’m worried.”

“Dick,” Bruce says. “It’s the Court.”

Dick changes his demeanour instantly. “I know,” he signs. “It’s time I faced them.”

A look passes between them. A thousand unsaid things and a thousand unspoken emotions.

There’s no evidence it’s the Court, Dick’s look says.

They’re smart enough to conceal it, Bruce counters.

Even if it is, I can handle it.

It’s my job to protect you, the set of Bruce’s mouth says.

I can protect myself just fine.

Bruce takes a breath. Then, in the rise of his eyebrows, he asks, Are you sure about this?

And Dick, answering in kind, raises his own eyebrows. Yes, I’m sure.

“Alright,” Bruce breathes out, “but call for back-up the moment you need it, Dick. I’m serious.”

“And by back-up you mean you, right?” because Bruce is nothing if not paranoid and controlling. He won’t even be in Gotham by early tomorrow morning. The Batman of Tokyo needs his help, and so Bruce is flying out first thing tomorrow. He can’t seriously think that he is going to be Dick’s first point of contact.

Nowadays, Gotham is not lacking in protectors, and so Dick is not lacking in back-ups. Babs is here, Stephanie is here, Tim is here. Cass is back, and even Jason can be persuaded to give them back-ups once in a blue moon. Dick is not lacking in back-ups.

“None of them have faced the Court before.”

“I have.”

“Dick,” Bruce growls.

Dick sighs. “I promise to call for back-up, but I’m not promising to call you. Tokyo needs you much more than we do. We can handle this.”

Another thousand unsaid things. Another thousand unspoken emotions.

“Fine,” Bruce sighs..

Dick smiles at him. He turns to go to the lockers to change out of his suit, but before he steps out of the room, Bruce adds, “You know that the mission is not more important than you, right?”

He is gone before Dick can answer.

***

“How much longer do I have to endure this, Grayson?”

“You love it,” Dick teases.

Damian scoffs. “I repeat, how much longer do I have to endure this, Grayson?”

Dick laughs. Damian glares at him, but he doesn’t stop stirring the sauce, despite all his complaints in the last twenty three minutes. Dick tries to stop laughing, but one look at Damian’s glare gets him starting again.

It warms Dick’s heart, to see his little brother stirring the sauce next to him. The Damian from months ago would have stabbed him with a kitchen knife before deigning to accompany Dick in cooking. The sight even manages to push the threat on his life to the very back of his mind.

Dick takes a few deep breaths to calm himself. Damian won’t appreciate it if he keeps laughing at him. Then, Dick walks over and ruffles Damian’s hair before taking over the spatula. Only Damian can make stirring pasta sauce sounds like torture.

“Give me the tomatoes,” Dick signs.

“Yes, I know, Grayson,” Damian grumbles, handing Dick a plate of chopped tomatoes. “And stop signing while you’re stirring. We don’t want a repeat of last Thursday.”

Dick stops stirring, then gives Damian his best conspiring look. “Nothing happened last Thursday.”

Damian snorts. “Keep telling yourself that. I will break the moment Pennyworth asks me about it. I do not wish to incur his wrath. Again.”

“The mighty Damian falls under Alfred’s wrath, huh?”

“It would be prudent to do so,” Damian says. “And stop signing.”

Dick laughs again. It’s fun, actually, being in the Penthouse’s kitchen, cooking dinner with his little brother, despite the complaints from Damian. It also serves to give Alfred a break every once in a while. God knows the man needs it.

The sunlight glints on the countertop, unhindered by anything. It’s almost sunset already. Dick knows that the Court can strike just as well, if not better, at night, but the sight of the sun setting calms Dick’s beating heart somewhat. At night they are Batman and Robin, not Dick and Damian. At night Dick can protect his brother more.

It’s ironic, that Dick likes Damian to be on the streets better than at home, but on the streets, he can lead any attempts on Dick’s life away from Damian. He can’t do that here.

Dick is perfectly fine with the Court threatening him, but he cannot bear it if his family is in danger. Never mind that all of their lives are at risk every time they put on a mask.

But they can handle those dangers. They have for years now. The Court though. The Court is something else. The Court is Dick’s problem.

A shadow appears over the countertop. And from its angle, whatever it is is perching on the windows. Too big to be a bird, and anything else won’t perch on the window.

No. No. Not now, not when he’s so close to getting through the day unscathed.

Not when Damian is so close to getting through the day unharmed.

Down, Dick signs with the field signals, ones that only his family and his Titans know. Ones that Damian is trained to recognize and obey instantly.

He does, thank god. Damian puts down the basil he’s been chopping and takes cover behind the kitchen counter.

Not a moment too late, because once Damian’s head went out of sight, the window breaks. The windows at Wayne Tower are supposed to be unbreakable, but…

It’s a Talon. It’s a Talon standing inside Dick’s kitchen, in very close proximity to Damian.

So it is the Court.

And they have sent a Talon for Dick’s head.

Dick moves into his stance. From the uniform, Dick knows that the Talon in front of him is his great-grandfather, William Cobb. That’s both good news and bad news, because Dick knows how Cobb fights, but Cobb also knows how Dick fights. After all, he’s the one who trained Dick all those years ago.

He’s also a damn good fighter.

But Dick has spent the years since their last encounter training with other people and he’s guessing that Cobb hasn’t. He throws the pan filled with hot pasta towards Cobb, trying to buy some time.

As Dick had expected, the pasta didn't hurt Cobb,but it did give him time to take a knife from the knife block on the counter. Distantly, Dick remembers Damian holding a knife before he took cover, and wonders where that knife is, but Dick pushes that thought out for later.

Dick has batarangs on his person, as always, but he’s not sure whether the Court already knows that tidbit of information, so he doesn’t dare pull them out.

Cobb throws his own knife. Dick ducks and rolls towards Cobb. Another knife, this one aimed downwards. Dick leaps up.

Cobb may be good, but Dick is right. Cobb’s skills, although impressive, hasn’t improved in the years since their last meeting.

Dick’s has increased exponentially.

But he’s in civvies, with only the one knife as a weapon. Cobb is in his full Talon regalia, with dozens of knives, two swords, throwing darts, and possibly several grenades. He also has regenerative abilities. Dick does not.

Dick aims a kick towards Cobb’s eyes. Cobb evades it, but that’s okay. It is supposed to be a feint anyway. Dick knows what move Cobb will use to evade the kick and he makes use of that by slashing at Cobb’s back.

It hits, but Dick knows the cut will heal soon enough. Dick has to be fast. He trips Cobb’s legs and strikes at his neck.

Dick used enough force to shatter a normal person’s trachea, but Cobb is a Talon, and so even that is not hard enough. Cobb takes the hit, but still manages to land one of his knives into Dick’s arm.

Dick does not have regenerative abilities.

Dick rolls away, protecting his injured arm. Cobb does not have the same qualms. He starts to say, “Richard Grayson. The Court of Owls has-”

His words are cut off by a knife to the spine. Damian. What is he doing, staying here? He’s supposed to be out and safe.

The knife did give Dick the opportunity to kick Cobb out of the window. He doesn’t even twitch, because Damian apparently had lodged his knife deep into Cobb’s spine. Not even a Talon can heal with a knife still embedded there.

That done, Dick turns towards Damian, hands already moving.

Damian doesn’t even blink. He just says, “You’re hurt,” like that’s all there is to be said.

Dick begs to differ. “What are you doing? You could’ve gotten hurt!”

“So you would have me leave you?”

“Yes!”Dick signs that with more force than the sign actually needs. “When I tell you to leave, you leave.”

“You didn’t tell me to leave,” Damian protests. “You told me to go down. And I did.”

Dick starts to sign again, before he looks at Damian. The kid meant well, and Dick can see that Damian is shaken up by the attack. He’s just trying to help. And Dick can’t really fault that logic. But still…

“You know what I meant. Don’t do that again.”

“Tt,” Damian clicks his tongue. He stops for a moment, and Dick lets him. Sometimes Damian needed more time to gather his thoughts, and Dick is more than happy to oblige him. “Are you not going to reprimand me about the knife?”

Oh. Damian didn’t know.

“You didn’t know about the healing abilities?”

“No. I suspected, based on the way he paid no mind on your attack on his trachea. Anyways, it wouldn’t have killed even a normal human being. It would only paralyze them.”

Dick sighs. He really shouldn’t encourage the violence, but the kid did save him. And Dick owes him an explanation.

“Don’t do that to a normal human being. Otherwise, good job.” Dick ruffles Damian’s hair again, with his uninjured arm. Then, he sobers up, and signs, “That’s a Talon.” Dick doesn’t elaborate. The kid knows about the Court already.

Damian’s face turned dangerous. Dick will have to watch out for that. Damian opens his mouth.

“No,” Dick signs, stopping Damian before he even starts. “We’re not going to go after them now. Go get Alfred, then get packing.”

“Packing?” Damian asks, perplexed.

“This place is compromised already. We’re moving to the Manor.”

***

#dc #dick grayson #bruce wayne #lian writes #noctuis #fic #i'll be tagging characters on tumblr as they show up!

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dafukdidiwatch · 4 years

Text

Cool Cat Saves The Kids

I watched this movie and I still can’t believe this is the actual cover art for it.

God I wrote so many notes about this that even my flipping Bullet Points were basically an essay. I don’t even know how to begin just thinking about it hurts my head.

Overview: Cool Cat is Cool. Things happen to him, and he has to deal with bullying.

That’s it. That’s the thing I watched. Because there is no Real Flipping Plot to this movie.

This is a kid’s show. Or at the very minimum, a movie that is intended for children. It was based on a kid’s book series I’ve never heard of whose author Derek Savage decided to turn it into a movie. Though movie isn’t exactly what I would call it. When you watch it, it honestly feels like there are six 15 minute shorts that they just mashed together to a feature film, but even then that is a Generous Description.

Basically, the film tries to be a children’s program (and I guess has beef with Barney?). And you can see intent behind it being informative child-friendly psa. But the execution was so bad.

First, there is no plot. Sure the cover says that this is “an anti-bullying kid gun safety movie,” but it really give you nothing. What would happen is that Cool Cat has a problem, like someone bullying him or his friends. It would either A) be addressed immediately and solved so that’s great, or B) it is dropped immediately and never really addressed throughout the rest of the film.

And example of A is that the bully kid Butch just starts stealing candy just to be “evil,” Cool Cat sees that and chases him, and the kid gets arrested twenty seconds later. The End.

For B, Cool Cat gets a mean email. And...that’s about it. He responds to the email, but doesn’t actually address the issue and the subplot drops entirely until that VERY Last wrap up scene.

I think the reason for this lack of plot is that there was just WAY too many messages in here. Like, take a shot every time you see a psa announcement. It ranges from don’t bully, how to deal with bullies, being creative, crossing the street safely, to fricking GUN?! Like, the gun thing that I Guess was promoted in the movie tagline, only shows up the last 10 minutes. It caught me so off guard. You cannot call this a Gun Safety movie when guns aren’t even prevalent!!

And the lack of plot is counterproductive when you want to make a Kid’s Movie like this. If you want to tackle each issue as a show or a short, the messages would come across better. There would be more time to develop each message for kids to really understand. But because there is So Much to cover, a lot of the things are gonna fall to the wayside. There is no way a kid would pay attention to this, and if they do I doubt they are gonna learn everything that Derek Savage is trying to teach. There just isn’t any real focus.

The acting, god like they Tried to go with the kid friendly vibe, but was not working. At All. It was like they thought that to add emotion is to just enunciate your words as loudly as you can. Cool Cat was way too yelly. Every line he was just screaming, has no change whatsoever. Even Elmo can sound sad when need be (fucking love Elmo, but he does has a similar voice vibe to Cool Cat, just better).

Then the kids....I don’t want to be mean but I’ll be blunt. They are just reading lines, this is a middle school stage play basically. I’m not blaming the kids, Butch look like he had a hell of a time doing his villain laugh. It’s just that some of the scenes felt like it was taken in one shot and they didn’t bother to retry. Example: One kid got too excited and jumped his line, but they couldn’t just retake that??

And the lines, man. OOF. Some of it was bad. Like, really really bad placement.They should have had someone proof-read this.

Cool Cat: “Why Are You Painting That Wall?”

Random Kid: “Because Nobody Loves Us”

lol what?

Maria: “I bet those kids have never been shown love before.”

Cool Cat: “Thanks, and it’s all true”

LOL What??

There are just a LOT of lines like that that should have been rephrased.

THEN there are the freaking technical issues.

The audio kept fluctuating in sound quality, which honestly started to hurt with Cool Cat’s constant yelling. Some scenes it sounds like they recorded in a studio, sometimes it sounded like the actors had to yell in order for the camera to capture it. There were echos, there were layers, you can’t hear the lines over the song, you can’t hear the song over the cheers. There was one point whispers overlaid on top of the lines where I thought that Cool Cat just got haunted now. And the fun side of having headphones on means I heard the phone button noises in only One Ear. LOUDLY.

Blocking could have been better. There were a lot of backs to the camera, shots of characters walking away from camera not just off screen. This didn’t bother me as much, because I know this isn’t professionally made. But it didn’t feel like they really tried as much as just half-assed it. Example:

Cool Cat was drawing a picture with different colors, but the actor only used one marker and just said different colors. Or Cool Cat is working on a poster but really just rubs the already completed poster on a clean table as him “working.” Like, how hard is it to just film on a table with a bunch of craft supplies around you?

Then there are the questionable camera shots. LOTS of lingering shots to I assume fill up run time. These are shots of just showing Cool Cat walking round without having any real purpose. It shows Cool Catwalk all the way Up Stairs. Walked all the way Down Stairs. Walking into the House, walking into the Car. Even just shots of the parents doing things with no real motivation or impact to whatever Cool Cat is doing. It’s just there. If you want to say stuff like "oh well its to show the parents relationship" no it doesn’t. You can’t really add nuance to characters when the rest of the film is just one chaotic shot after the other. It just gets lost in translation.

The music number is probably what hurts me the most. You see Cool Cat WRITE the song. Then he SINGS the song. Then he DANCES to a DIFFERENT song. And that was it. He just needed the song for the parade, but there wasn’t any explanation or anything. I don’t even know WHY he needs the song for the parade! There was no explanation. It was just an excuse to have two back-to-back bad music video of poor choreography that again, NO POINT to whatever plot/message/psa thing he is trying to do.

I get that there should be some leeway since it looked like this was shot at Derek Savage’s house/neighborhood, so there really isn’t much they could do with their setting. But they could at least tried more with what they had. Cool Cat’s room doesn’t look exactly child friendly. There are only blank drab walls with two, maybe three posters of just Cool Cat himself. There is a reason the settings in other children shows have vibrant colors to engage them. Along with that, another half-assing moment was Butch graffiting Cool Cat’s poster, but it was one of those political posters you stuck on the lawn so it was like a foot tall outside. 1) You can’t really see that shit that small. 2) You couldn’t put the poster on a wall to film that scene at, to give a better view to the audience? It’s just a bunch of little things like that all over this film that really adds up.

Also, what’s with the posters only being about Cool Cat in his own room? A bit narcissistic if you ask me.

I'm also like 70%,sure they made this movie around the footage of them being in the Hollywood parade twice. They were at the parade, got the film, and wanted to use it so they made a movie for it. And I know it was twice because the announcers that were there to announce the arrival of Cool Cat had a costume change after switching scenes.

And after ALL of this, there is just so many random shit that really don’t do anything. Elements are randomly introduced and just as randomly dropped. We get a “next day” transition in the middle of the movie when days have already passed before them. Cool Cat breaks the 4th wall a couple of times with no real reason why. There is this joke where the camera was following Cool Cat into the bathroom for Cool Cat to ask for privacy, only to just ignore that bit every time he goes to the bathroom afterwards. Cool Cat just makes random ass noises when doing things, not important stuff. Just Doing Things. And he does this weird thing where I think he is trying to do Air Guitar, but it just looks like he is just shaking his leg a lot. I don’t really get it.

(Oh Shit, it is only after like the 3rd proof-read of this review I notice that in the gif you can clearly see the dude’s actual leg. I don’t know how mascot suits actually work, but I’m pretty sure that you’re not supposed to let kids actually see that there’s a person underneath in a kid’s show.)

There is also this....lowkey humblebrag going on? Which does not do the movie favors. After the first dumb song number, Derek shows off that he has a signed guitar by Van Halen. Like not just him playing it (which after the 15th zoom in on the guitar how could you NOT notice it thank you Derek), but pointing out to the audience that, Yes it was Indeed signed by Van Halen. Then there is the footage from the Hollywood Parade about the cars there. Sure, I get showing off like the Ghostbusters car, or Jurassic Park car, or the Batmobile. But Hurby the Love Bug? Night Rider?? Starsky and Hutch??? Magnum P.I.?????? The target audience is elementary kids, they aren’t going to know these old shows. So who is this for exactly?

Kudos to the cop for actually doing this, seriously. That cop probably had a hell of a lot of better things to do than arrest children for a bad after-school special.

And this is just SOME of the main problems of this film. There’s so much going on it would be impossible for me to go over everything without

The thing is, there is good material here. Maybe not great results, but there are a lot of ideas here that you can work with to make a decent kid’s movie. I actually loved the part where Cool Cat is dreaming and trying to figure out how he should handle bullies. I thought that was a good scene and a good way to show kids how to think through different options. There are good ideas here, but it was just way to much going on at once the movie basically shoots itself in the foot.

So here is My Version of what Cool Cat should have done.

Cool Cat is running for School President. That’s the main story line. Early in the movie he learns of a writing contest where the winner gets their own float at the hollywood parade (stretch but roll with it). But Cool Cat has no idea what to write, and talks to it with his friends who offers ideas. So he is juggling that along with running for Student President.

However, the Butch the Bully doesn’t like that. He doesn’t want Cool Cat to win. So he vandalizes his posters. Cool cat still runs and makes better posters. Butch tries to frame Cool Cat for vandalizing the playground, but instead his cronies get caught and convinced that it was a bad idea. So Butch decides to cyberbully Cool Cat and his friends to scare them off. He works with the other kid running for President to make a hate ad against Cool Cat, telling everyone how terrible and bad Cool Cat is. Cool Cat tries to go against this my making his music video song over how cool he is to swing the votes, making Butch more angry and vindictive to his bullying scheme.

Cool Cat doesn’t know how to get Butch to stop, but after getting advice from his friends, parents, teachers, and some hard thinking, he decides to confront Butch about his bullying issue, tell someone, and thus solves the problem. Later on after talking to Butch, maybe manages to convince him to start being friends.

Finally, Cool Cat uses this scenario to write his story about how to deal with bullying and make new friends. Which wins and we end with the Hollywood Parade.

Is this perfect? No. But it focuses the idea to one main plot (running for president) with the other issues naturally coming off of it, instead of making each issue it’s own separate thing. There is no random shifts in narrative, no GUN moments (or GUN in general we kick that shit out) and just focus on the main bullying theme.

Overall: This was a weird and bad children’s show. You have to put in a lot of effort into making a movie, but there was just too much going on for this to be a Good Children’s Movie, least of all a Good Movie in general. But it isn’t to say that it wasn’t morbidly enjoyable. It’s was like playing Spot The Difference to find all the Wrong Things in here. It was fun in a bad way.

So will I show this to children? No. But will I play a drinking game with my friends where we take a shot every time someone says the phrase “Cool Cat”? Yeah that sounds enjoyable.

Take a shot for every time you read “Cool Cat” in my review.

Side Note:

You had this as a GUN PSA, wtf are you doing holding a gun!? Given how the only 3 videos this channel has is only Cool Cat Trailers, I’m assuming this is official Cool Cat. Soooo.....what the hell?

#dafukblog #dafuking films #cool cat #cool cat saves the kids #week 8 movie #derek savage

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