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baptaincarnacles · 2 years

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An Analysis that is Far too Long

The Whale Shark (Season 1, Episode 1) is such an uncomfortable Episode.

I understand that it’s (one of) the first episodes, and it’s sorta starting everything out, but the way that it goes on is so uncomfy. Like, of course, there’s little bits that are silly and that I love, and some that show good personality of the characters.

Season 1. intro is nice, I like it. The only thing that I don’t quite like, due to watching the American version since I was little, is how Peso has the British accent on the videos on YouTube. It’s odd and really doesn’t suit his character (in my opinion, of course). Otherwise, I like all the scenes it shows, and the smooth transitioning from scene to scene.

Starting the episode is alright, once again, other than Peso’s voice. It feels too high, and I’m not quite sure how I feel about the British accent. And Dashi’s voice is clearly much different from the American version, while not horrible, it’s different.

Ah- the first plot hole: how did Dashi manage to swim into a Whale Shark’s mouth without noticing the fish? It’s a filter fish, likely moving at a slow pace, and she swims into its mouth. I understand it’s for episode plot, but that seems uncharacteristic (which they were first developing character personality in the episodes, and perhaps they were trying to make it more similar to the books by Meomi? Not certain about that).

In reference to the teeth, Barnacles says, “...those little rocks hanging down look... kinda familiar.” Barnacles, what is that supposed to imply? How many times have you been eaten by a Whale Shark to know the teeth? I mean, he seems to think about it, so he perhaps got it from studies. Or past experiences before he was an Octonaut, but of course, we aren’t aware because there’s not much expansion on his full past, just Polar Scouts, and the fact that he wrote a book.

“How can a cave have teeth and a tongue!?” -Peso Cartoonish comedy is a classic.

Compliments to the writing of Shellington. First episode and he’s already on point. The smart marine biologist everyone loves. I don’t know what is so fascinating about the way he’s already portrayed, perhaps the intelligence is very nice (basically every character in the cartoon is incredibly clever), it’s just the excessive recognization and knowledge that he (and similarly, Inkling) share. Which, that’s just a little detail I like.

Barnacles being super protective already. If you’ve watched Octonauts to the full extent, or even a few episodes, you know that Barnacles is a very protective captain and father-like figure of the Octonauts. Seeing this protective side early on is really fascinating. It’s also neat to point out that in the first season specifically, he shows a bit more emotion than later seasons (other than Above and Beyond). It really brings the feeling that it’s an adjustment, and he is either trying to learn how to be this strong captain, or perhaps the producers decision to make him this way at first.

Dashi being oblivious to her surroundings is rather off-putting. Now, of course, this could lead to her needing (and being) more careful in the future, which I believe was the plan (if you’ve seen A&B, you know what I’m talking about- significantly, the leadership role she places forth). -Dashi going back for her camera is completely understandable in this situation. She has very special images and she can’t just let this marine life swallow technology (two minutes, four seconds into the episode).

Barnacles repetitively pressing the button to get back into contact with Dashi shows that he was genuinely concerned, and thrown out of balance because things seemed out of order.

British Peso’s, “she’s trapped inside a whale shark,” is underwhelming. (I keep hating on Peso, I’m so sorry. I love his character, I do, I just don’t like the voice acting.)

Love the Vegimals. Tunip passing out is such a comedic relief, love them. -”dat a whale?” Aw, please, they’re so adorable.

Shellington’s rapid arm movements when speaking makes me happy because I’m the same way. To express myself, I talk more with body language than words (helps with expression greatly).

(Two minutes, fifty-seven seconds - three minutes and fourteen seconds) How do they know what a school bus is? It’s revealed in later episodes (maybe in A&B) that Shellington’s nephew, Periwinkle, does attend school (I believe), but do they have buses? I just assumed they walked, with the exception of the Gups, of course. And are there other vehicles that other Anthropomorphic animals use? Plot hole? Maybe, but it’s a cartoon- it’s to be expected.

All of the characters are very animated. I may have looked over that in later seasons, but they all feel as if they move more in Season 1. The Vegimals are expected to be animated, simply because they are vegetable/fish hybrids with too much energy.

“How dare that dastardly beast swallow our mate.” I believe this is Kwazzi’s first line in the episode, and what a way to really emphasize his character. He has a very (Disney-influenced) pirate-like way of speaking, essentially, really setting stone for the development and ideas of his character. While he’s not entirely what you’d consider a real pirate, he does enjoy exploration and danger.

Inkling cutting in to inform more about Whale Sharks also reveals a lot about his character. He’s intelligent and likes to inform. Book smart, and most certainly clever. He’s the direct opposite of Kwazzi, in a sense. Kwazzi love adventure, Professor loves sitting and reading; Kwazzi is hyper, Inkling is relaxed. That character dynamic is so nice to see within these cartoons, especially where it’s revealed that Kwazzi and Inkling are really good friends later on (often playing ping-pong with one another).

(Three minutes and sixteen seconds)

While professor is explaining that the Whale Shark is, “a filter feeder,” he explains that it doesn’t use its teeth for biting. While yes, of course, this makes sense for him to explain, it’s Barnacles’ reaction that caught my attention. He stands and stared blankly for a second, opens his mouth as if he wants to speak, and then looks serious again. He either thought of some form of plan or he wanted to share something and hesitated. That, or he was zoning back into the situation (which he seems to do often).

“And this Whale Shark swallowed Dashi.” The way he delivers this line is incredibly sassy, and the fact that he puts his hands on his hips after is fascinating. It’s his signature move, but his tone and body language seem to indicate that he’s upset (father/daughter bond, I swear). -Shellington has no idea what to do with his hands, so they seem awkwardly crossed over his chest.

Ah! Tweak’s first line of the episode (three minutes, twenty seven seconds). Love Tweak and her inventive behavior so much. The little gadget she had created implies that she had a prototype laying around for something similar, or she heard quickly of the situation and quickly whipped-up something (which she likely did). She’s such a fascinating character, one that is highly empathetic.

-small detail I want to point out at three minutes, thirty-seven seconds- The way Barnacles gets into the Gup A is a nice little detail. While Kwazzi usually will front-flip inside, and Peso will hop inside, Barnacles goes for an action-movie jump (pushing himself off the side of the gup with his paw, throwing himself into the air) and landing. Maybe it’s how he was taught, because there’s various scenes in this episode that indicate that he had more training with strictness than other things.

(Three minutes, forty-six seconds) Tweak being super familiar with Barnacles routine (specifically the way he likes order in things) is nice. She knew to wait for his order instead of going ahead and opening the hatch. I know it’s simply because of a captain’s order kinda thing, but she seemed to know the way Barnacles wanted it to go.

Oh, Barnacles being lost when the map shows incorrectly implies that he doesn’t like when things don’t go the way they’re supposed to (which is understandable. He’s the captain and has a goal to protect his team, a minor slip-up can be fatal).

(Four minutes, fifteen seconds) A full introduction into how reckless Kwazzi is. Of course, this seems to upset Barnacles, because once again, his thought process is thrown off by disorder. He genuinely seems new to the role of captain, seeming how he is still super animated and has little control over how he feels. But, of course, he immediately goes back to being serious to give direction to Peso. (Four minutes, thirty-three seconds) Here’s where it kinda gets uncomfortable, and the writing seems to be a bit sloppy.

“Meanwhile, I’ll slither through your spaghetti.” Okay, the communication would make sense for an adolescent audience, but as some of us who are older, there was clearly a more... educated way to explain how the plan is to work out (and the Whale Shark approaching in the background is kinda funny).

And as the fish approaches further, neither Kwazzi nor Barnacles seems to be aware of their surroundings (Barnacles once again zoned out with his writing pad, and Kwazzi distracted with watching him). By no means should they have been fully distracted, especially with Peso yelling at them. -Peso had to address them twice to alert them. -Reacting only when the fish opens its mouth. While the delay is funny, it is a bit odd that they’d hesitate to move. -They clearly tried to get out before the Shark closed its mouth.

“You never got to leap around like Spaghetti, did you?” -Barnacles “No, I got sucked in like a wet noodle!” -Kwazzi

Cartoon humor, again, love it. Barnacles is highly sarcastic in this episode and I love it for no reason.

(Five minutes, thirteen seconds) While some scenes seemed to drag on before, the scenes that play here are rather quickly paced. The characters go from one thing to another without much thought until Barnacles orders to charge towards the spongey filter at the back of the fish’s mouth (which he sounds a lot like a commander in this scene). He’s meant to give order, yes, but it feels over-exaggerated (maybe to make up for how underwhelming Peso is /j)

The tip-toeing at five minutes, twenty-four seconds is adorable. I love the little T-rex arms, it’s so sweet.

Oh! And the episode reveals Barnacles’ book smarts as well (the scene where he’s explaining the gills to Kwazzi). He has clearly read-up on some of these animals, and is very aware of what they do.

*I want to make note of Kwazzi’s immature sense of humor as well. His commentary is very entertaining. “Let’s suck in out bellies, and squeeze!” -Barnacles I have to remind myself this is a show made for kids because I genuinely mistake my view of it and the actual show. It’s a goofy little line with a nice delivery. They way he talks is very flat, but bold. I love it.

(Six minutes, twenty-two seconds) Peso getting hit in the face because he keeps pressing random buttons is the best thing. He seems to not understand the controls of the gup quite yet. -”I guess not,” best thing he’s said in this episode.

Take it back, “You don’t have measles, or chickenpox, you have Octonauts,” is the best line,

And I’ll also point out how indecisive some of the wordings are. A little bit earlier, Barnacles explained that there were various ways that the Whale Shark lets water out and, “keeps big things in.” Peso point out that the fish is used to eating small things. I know what they had meant, but some people may not pick up on that at first, so there was probably better wording that could’ve been applied.

The last couple things I’d like to point out is: -Barnacles getting spooked by Dashi (seven minutes, fifty seconds) because she appeared suddenly. -Kwazzi having a more delayed response and hopping into Barnacles arms (seven minutes, fifty-one seconds). -Dashi having the time of her life (the entirety of the episode, really) -Barnacles seems very claustrophobic in the stomach of the fish and is acting incredibly defensive (around the time they got down there to the time they’re out). -Peso getting aggravated with the Whale Shark, and tickling it (which is very uncomfortable over his voice). -The Whale Shark belching (ugh) after spitting the Octonauts out. -Barnacles and Kwazzi being embarrassed over the picture Dashi got of them.

(I skipped explaining how I felt about those parts and the analyzations to spare the readers, believe me) Overall rating of the episode: 7/10 Loved the idea, but some voice acting was off (expressing the wrong emotions), some scenes went by too quickly, and others dragged on.

Reminder: I am in no place to really give my say on the show, I suppose, but I was rewatching Season 1. and couldn’t help myself. I’m sorry that this is so long-

#octonauts #captain barnacles #kwazzi #dashi #inkling #shellington #tweak #peso #vegimals

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comic-bastards · 2 months

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Review: Karate Prom

By Dustin Cabeal

Having been a fan of Kyle Stark since Sex Castle an original graphic novel published by Image Comics; I have loosely followed about anything Kyle Starks has made. Style and humor are something that resonates with me as a reader and the places Starks takes stories to be original, interesting, and always very humorous. It is hard to find consistent writers in comics that are funny and that produce consistently funny works. That is not to say that they can never do anything other than comedic writing, but finding someone who is willing and does produce consistently funny things is a creative catch. It is something that makes you want to follow that creator more.

Seeing the words “karate” and “prom,” by Kyle Starks instantly filled me with anticipation and joy for this new graphic novel, from First Second. At its core it is shooting for a younger audience. This is not a book that is necessarily reaching out and grabbing 40-year-olds and saying read me you will find infinite amount of humor and relatable references. Instead, it is more of a story/graphic novel for tweens and teenagers. Young readers. That is the prime demographic of First Second.

That said, the story tends to have awkward pacing and is broken up into three different chapters. While the first two chapters make a lot of sense, the third is staggered and shoehorned in there. While it absolutely relates to the experience of high school the gap between the events of the first two chapters and the third leaves too many unseen events and they are not even needed for the story. Being broken into these three segments does not flow very well. It is like reading three individual volumes of a book rather than one complete story. Young readers may or may not catch this or notice this. It is possible that it won’t even bother them. But from a story perspective, Karate Prom implies the night of prom.

Instead, our story is broken up into Prom, After-Prom and Graduation. See how that third one is a little bit awkward especially when there is a mention of a senior trip in-between. Other events seemingly taking place between chapter two and three. What is more, is that graduation seems to be the longest chapter of the story. Now, that is not to say that the prom and after prom chapters do not flow very well. Each is well, paced and in and of themselves it is just that the pacing of all three together is jarring and choppy. The prom chapter does not actually start at prom, but it is wonderfully paced. It has a good flow to it where you meet our main characters, you see them quickly fall in love and establish the Antagonist of chapter. It is so quickly played out that it does not feel that rewarding. Many of the fights are handled off-page, if you will and the main fights that we experience are unfortunately not over the top or detailed like the style that Starks has done in previous works. It is quick and painless. It leaves you wanting more. The humor is spot on and is not age-specific humor, it is just genuinely funny. Dare I say even all-ages appropriate. Apart from kissy stuff in the hotel room.

The after-prom chapter continues this rhythm. It's paced almost the same as the prom chapter and if there weren’t blank pages in between to show the transition from one chapter to the other, it would almost feel like we were still just continuing our main story. But it does break. We are introduced to different antagonists to our protagonists and a deeper back story to our main character. Which is good. It is just that it begins to all feel very quick. As if the story was saying “Let us just quickly mention this, quickly go to that get to the fighting, okay?” And again, most of the fighting is handled off-page again.

It feels like that After-Prom could be the end right there. But then again, we go to graduation. There is a conflict between our main characters. A situation has occurred between them that has divided them for this final conflict, and they must resolve that by beginning back together and overcoming a conflict once again by defeating a new set of protagonists for the chapter.

Thinking back on it, the story is never given enough time to breathe. The fights are not given enough time to breathe. The development of the characters doesn’t take enough time to breathe. The fast and quick relationship between our two protagonists is the most natural feeling part of the book but it is just everything else needed, more time to simmer, and be developed.

Kyle Starks' artwork is well honed. It has this Adult Swim, Cartoon Network animated looking feel to it. It resonates with me as a reader. I like his art style. I think this is the most well put together, polished version of it that I have seen. Again, having only loosely followed his work in recent years I haven’t seen it grow and develop as many other readers have. Here, it looks polished and beautiful. The pages feel full, the backgrounds feel full and even though there are a lot of dead backgrounds, it fits the humor and the style of the storytelling in general. But then when it pulls out and shows you an entire crowded room, that feels fitting and real to the story.

A strong aspect was the coloring and that there were a lot more tones instead of harsh lines and shadows. It has a more natural look to it and gives it this youthful energetic feel to it. Again, the fights are easy to follow, but they just feel so short. Having seen other works where he did let the fight breathe and it was amazing and hilarious. Perhaps he toned it down because this is for a different audience that doesn’t care or like Kung Fu and this is just a slow, build up for a new generation to enjoy and appreciate that. But it just felt like it could be more. It could bounce between the two protagonists creatively show both fights on two different pages. Anything to give them more pages to breathe. Overall, great character designs. There seemed to be a lot of real-life representation. It felt like being thrown into a real high school and that you are getting these variety of diverse characters.

The friendships feel real. The characters are one hundred Kyle Starks. “Gail Don’t Fight” is a line that will stay with me for quite some time. Punch man was funny even if it seemed like a weird tip of the hat to One-Punch Man.

Overall, it is a very humorous book, one that I would gladly share with my son. From a story standpoint it needed something to connect the three chapters differently. I do not know what it is, maybe it's just not making each chapter have such a concluded feeling to it. Chapter one resolves itself quite nicely and then chapter two does the same thing. It almost feels like we are done with this whole story, but then here's chapter three. And while chapter three resolves. It does not stand out as much as the first two. Especially when there's a mediocre joke called back to at the very end. Without the “Where are they now?” segments I do not think the ending would have been as good because it really needed that last little bit of humor to take you out of the story.

Overall, though if you are just looking for a fun, humorous, close to all ages book then check out Karate Prom this summer when it releases from First Second. If you have a young reader, absolutely have them check this out. Not just for the action and the friendships and the light romance but because they might have never experienced the hilarious combination of Kung Fu, and romance and this style of humor. I am curious to see what age-appropriate readers think of this book. I will likely share it with my son and see if he likes it. For me, as a Kyle Starks fan, I think it was wonderful and a fun read. Is it perfect? No but I think it accomplishes the goal of presenting a humorous timeless story that anyone would be happy to re-read again and again.

Karate Prom by Kyle Starks Colors by Chris Schweizer with Liz Trice Schweizer Published by First Second

#Karate Prom #Kyle Starks #First Second Books #Comics #OGN #Dustin Cabeal

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sshbpodcast · 1 year

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We have to go back, Martok! Back to the future!

By Ames

This week on A Star to Steer Her By, there’s no time like the past! We’re looking at time travel episodes in Star Trek, and there are so many that it’s a wonder the Department of Temporal Investigations can make time to examine them all. Unless they’re literally making time for them… hmm.

Time travel episodes prove to be some of the best conceits for their plots in Star Trek, allowing our fearless leaders to experience the past and provide commentary on it, go back and witness how small actions can have huge ramifications, or at least act as your classic fish out of water for comedic effect. It may not have felt like it as we were watching through the series in real time, but the good time travel stories largely outweigh the bad. And there are just too many of them to list them all here, so to save time (pun!), your SSHB hosts are breaking out our classic Top 5 / Bottom 5 format.

Hold on to your chronitons as we near 88mph. Check out all our many favorite time travel plots and the handful of clunkers that should have stayed in the past, and listen to our timely discussion on this week’s podcast (set your coordinates to 1:15:34 for the chatter). You’ll have the time of your life.

[Images © CBS/Paramount]

Top 5 Time Travel Episodes

There is just such an abundance of good time travel episodes that we didn’t end up agreeing on many. Which is great for you because it means a wider swath of episodes for us to highlight, and great for me because I get to find all these great screengrabs!

“Time Amok”: Chris Let’s start off with an episode I wouldn’t call strict time travel, but it’s just so good that it gets a pass. Instead of going forward or backward in time, the speed of time becomes variable for the different crewmembers of the Protostar and it’s just so clever and heart-wrenching you’d never think this was actually a kids’ show. Have we mentioned how much we love Prodigy?

Star Trek (2009): Caitlin Hey Trek fam, we hear you like Leonard Nimoy. Well JJ Abrams can hook you up in the first of the Kelvinverse movies. What better way to include Nimoy in a film that already has a younger, shoutier Spock in it than through employing a little time travel? Happily, this movie uses this casting fanservice better than something like Generations (see our bottoms list below…).

“Trials and Tribble-ations”: Chris When Deep Space Nine throws a party, it really throws a party. So the writers’ love note to The Original Series for its 30th anniversary comprises all the best things about Trek: a fun and funny time travel story that’s still smart and interesting and just campy enough to evoke the original “The Trouble with Tribbles.” What a fitting way to celebrate!

“Tapestry”: Jake With a little help from Q, Jean-Luc Picard gets to explore the road not taken and ends up not liking what he sees. “Tapestry” is one of those time travel stories that uses its medium to perfect effect: bringing the viewer along for the ride of a lifetime while always remaining accessible, thought-provoking, and notoriously human. Live life with no regrets!

“Visionary”: Ames We have a special (if not sadistic) appreciation for the “O’Brien must suffer” episodes. Here we get to watch O’Brien die not once, not twice, but thrice! And that’s not even the best part of this genuinely fascinating time travel motif. Think about it too hard and it loses you, but the pacing and intrigue of watching Miles trying to fix the timeline and failing keeps you swept up.

“Yesterday’s Enterprise”: Chris “Yesterday’s Enterprise” was cool even before alternate timelines got big. It’s not only a good way to see how different actions would create entirely different realities (better than the mirror universe, but that may just be me), but it’s also a great redo on the death of Tasha Yar. This is the meaningful departure her character deserved. Sorry about the whole Sela thing…

“Before and After”: Ames A couple more nerdy examples just from me. Having the temporally displaced Kes experience this story in reverse is so clever that I needed to include it on this list. You don’t get to see a lot of unusual storytelling devices pulled off this well in Star Trek, and this episode was smart enough to naturally let it unfold over time. But backwards. Unfold under time? Unfold before time?

“Relativity”: Ames I gushed about this episode probably too much on this week’s podcast episode, but I think it’s just so clever in how the story is told. Like in “Before and After,” the plot reveals itself at the proper pace without either coddling the viewer or confusing them in the moment. And credit to Seven for carrying this episode. Someone get that woman a permanent Starfleet uniform!

“Children of Time”: Caitlin, Jake Good time travel ideas will naturally force the characters to make hard, controversial decisions. In this case we see another alternate timeline that makes the DS9 crew decide which timeline they will follow: one in which their descendants populate a remote planet or one in which they make it home again. Alternate Odo saves everyone that decision… but mostly saves Kira.

“The City on the Edge of Forever”: Caitlin, Jake Another classic episode that makes the characters decide who should live and who must die is one of the very best from The Original Series. Though her intentions are the most pure and also Kirk has put his mouth on her mouth, Edith Keeler’s death is the lynchpin that allows for the progressive future that we see in Star Trek, as heartbreaking as that revelation may be.

“The Visitor”: Chris, Jake Another episode that is among the best of its franchise, if not all of Trek in general! One of our clear favorites from DS9 is also another time travel episode, using the medium to tear-inducing perfection. You try keeping from choking up watching old man Jake Sisko change time itself to bring his father back from the white void of subspace. I dare you!

First Contact: Ames, Caitlin Most (though not all, as you’ll see in a second) of the Star Trek feature films that employ time travel end up topping our favorites list, and First Contact has all the ingredients! The time travel in the movie is to an era in our own future but the world is still recognizable and the effects are historically impactful. The whole movie really takes us on a magic carpet ride!

The Voyage Home: Ames, Caitlin, Chris, Jake But the example that we all agree on is the one with the whales, which got pretty much everything right and used time travel to superb effect. Setting the movie in roughly contemporary times lends to the inherent comedy of the plot, which is balanced expertly with the adventure, action, and drama of this incredibly accessible movie. No dumbasses here, double or otherwise!

—

Bottom 5 Time Travel Episodes

When time travel episodes are at their worst, however, they are mostly confusing or heavily convenient. And when Star Trek fails to stick a landing, it can be a running gag (especially on this podcast) at best and permanently scarring at worst.

“Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night”: Ames I’ve got to throw some shade on this Deep Space Nine episode in which Kira goes back in time just because Dukat was making some “yo mama” jokes. It’s a really really convoluted reason to whip out the orb of time that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. And I’ll say it: shame on Sisko for foolishly letting her do this. Someone needs his emissary status revoked.

“Time’s Orphan”: Jake Speaking of convoluted episodes. The messaging is all wrong in how one should treat a person who has gone through as much trauma as Molly O’Brien in “Time’s Orphan.” While it’s heartbreaking to watch Keiko and Miles deal with their feral daughter, it’s also excruciating to see how she’s treated and how she’s ultimately to be released into the wild like an animal.

The Temporal Cold War arc: Chris We haven’t gotten to Enterprise on the podcast yet, but even I know about the fandom’s general hatred of the whole Temporal Cold War arc. The whole thing just seems like a waste of time, pun very much intended! It also gives us the future ship, the Enterprise-J, which we’ve shit on before in our starship design blog series, so that’s more points off.

Generations: Caitlin, Chris An even bigger waste of time is getting Captain Kirk into the TNG movies. In a plot so forced they had to ruin a perfectly good Excelsior-class ship design, Kirk is jammed like a square peg into the round hole of the future and then, to add insult to idiocy, barely used and then killed off! Come on people, if you’re going to introduce the Nexus, use it for more than ten minutes!

All of Picard season 2: Ames, Jake We felt very personally let down by the whole of the second season of Picard because it had so much potential. Time travel, as we saw above in our tops list, opens up so many possibilities, but the show simply squandered them. Or worse: started plot threads and didn’t bother to pay them off. Sanctuary districts, anyone? ELNOR, ANYONE?!

The Red Angel arc: Ames, Caitlin I must admit: I had trouble following most of season two of Discovery because there was just too much going on and it failed in its pacing and explanation. This mind-boggling Red Angel storyline wraps up in a sensory overload of a finale that leaves the viewer not experiencing what should be the climax of the season, but feeling lost, stupid, and exhausted.

“Time Squared”: Caitlin, Chris, Jake Not as lost, stupid, and exhausted as the second Captain Picard in “Time Squared” however! This episode is a different kind of confusion: a confusion in what the writers thought they were trying to accomplish in the first place. Why does killing Picard2 break the cycle? Why does flying into a vortex work? Why did the writers make such an interesting timeloop concept so boring?

“Time’s Arrow”: Ames, Caitlin, Chris, Jake Even Chris, who you’ll remember loved “Time’s Arrow, Part I,” can agree that “Time’s Arrow, Part II” is tedious, repetitive, and increasingly obnoxious. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it many more times: Mark Twain is the most annoying character in all of Star Trek. Without him, this might have been a better time travel episode, but alas.

“Assignment: Earth”: Ames, Caitlin, Chris, Jake But the worst time travel episode of all is also one that we all agree on and agreed was one of the worst of all of The Original Series, and that’s because it wasn’t even an episode of Star Trek. “Assignment: Earth” is a sneaky backdoor pilot that Gene sneaked past us, and even its time travel wrapper is infuriating. Why is the Enterprise even in the past? Because they simply felt like it? Talk about irresponsible!

—

Welcome back to the present! We hope you didn’t cause any bootstrap paradoxes or become your own grandparent along the way. Over on the podcast, our time with season 5 of Voyager is quickly running out, so make sure you’re caught up for next week’s season wrap up over on SoundCloud or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also sync up with us on Facebook and Twitter, and we’ll see you next time!

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narutoblog · 3 years

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Everlasting Beauty (Part 3)

prompt: Minato x Kushina’s younger sister OC (Kumiko); these two are dating, but Kushina didn’t know & she’s an overprotective big sis

Content/warning: couple swear words; besides that, just awkward fluff! some comedic relief at the end hehe

a/n: finally part 3 is here; sorry this was so delayed!! s/o to @itsao-mine for the prompt request that ended up in this long ass fanfic lmao;;; thank you to all who enjoyed this prompt, pls feel free to send me more requests! I’ll work on them as they come in :D

Read Part 1 // Part 2

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The next morning, Minato was approved to leave the hospital. Anare-san had looked over his wounds and noted that Kumiko’s treatment had almost fully healed his injury. Though he was still concerned about his teammates, Minato teleported home for a quick shower and meal. He had hoped a good rinse and nutritious food would help him back to his senses, but every time he closed his eyes, all he could see were Kumiko’s eyes. Determined to learn her name, he picked up some food from nearby restaurants and instantly teleported back to the hospital.

It didn’t take long for Minato to track her down. As he made his rounds visiting all of his injured teammates and giving them some non-hospital food, he found Kumiko sitting beside her sister’s bed, just as he had found her the day before.

“Has she woken up yet?” he asked, sitting in the chair across from her. Kumiko glanced up at him with tired eyes and then back down at her sister. A small frown formed across her lips.

“The other medics say she’ll be okay, that I just need to be patient,” Kumiko muttered. She sighed and swiped loose strands of her hair behind her ear. Minato froze and stared at her hand, remembering how his hand had mimicked that motion the night before.

Minato checked the clock. It’s already evening, he thought, as his stomach quietly grumbled in protest. He glanced back at Kumiko in time to see a smirk flash on her face. He smiled. “Have you eaten dinner?” he asked, immediately regretting the question, given the obvious situation. She was still at the hospital in her medic attire, and from the looks of her tired expression, she wasn’t thinking about anything besides her work and her sister.

Kumiko gave a short laugh and a wry smile. “No, but I’m not really hungry,” she said. She leaned over Kushina’s bed to pat the blankets tightly around her sister. As she sat back down in her chair, her body gave her away and a loud grumble resounded in the space between them. She wrapped her arms around her stomach and looked away, face reddening with embarrassment.

Minato paused and then laughed in understanding. “I see,” he said, still chuckling at Kumiko’s unintended admittance. Kumiko gave a faint grin and returned her gaze to Kushina. I guess I should get something to eat eventually.. But I can’t just leave her like this, she thought.

Minato watched Kumiko wrestle with her thoughts as she chewed on her bottom lip. At the sight of her pink swollen lip, Minato’s heart picked up its pace, and he tore his gaze away from Kumiko as a feeble attempt to calm his nerves. Get yourself together, Minato thought as he tried to snap out of his flustered state. He took a breath and headed towards the door to leave.

Kumiko looked up to see Minato turn towards the door. “Oh, are you leaving?” She blurted, immediately feeling a heat dust her cheeks at her sudden inquiry.

Minato stopped in his steps and turned to give a genuine smile. “I’ll be right back,” he promised. Kumiko watched his figure slip behind the door, her whole body paralyzed at the wake of his smile. Her body felt cold, and the only sign of life was her leaping heart replaying his words over and over again. Kumiko blinked and tried to shake the feeling, but all she could see was Minato’s kind expression, his blue eyes crinkling with a soft upturn of his lips. He said he’ll be right back.. He’s coming back?? Why do I care so much? her thoughts and feelings tangled in a rush of confusion as her face turned darker shades of red. Dammit, get it together! she thought. She firmly patted her cheeks with her hands to refocus her energy and shake off the sudden paralysis. She checked the clock on the far wall of the room and began planning out the rest of her night. Okay I can get changed, grab some food, go home for my overnight pack, come back… She listed off her to do list in her head and counted her tasks with her fingers.

Kumiko’s nose twitched as she noticed the waft of delectable food filling the room. Her mouth instantly watered at the thought of non-hospital food and she shifted her gaze to see Minato laying out fried dumplings and soup on a rolling cart in the middle of the room. Wha.. When did he come back? she thought, her eyes trailing his movements. His bright yellow hair looked slightly tussled by the wind; he had clearly been traveling fast to make it back so quickly. There wasn’t a single bead of sweat to be found on the shinobi’s forehead, but Kumiko could hear Minato’s quiet panting as he set up the makeshift dinner table. Her face twitched into a smile and a short giggle escaped her lips at the sight of Minato’s concentration. Kumiko quickly covered her mouth and tried desperately to control her laughter.

With the food set up to his liking, Minato finally turned to face Kumiko. Even with a hand over her mouth, he could read her expectant smirk easily. His gaze softened. “I got us some food we can share,” he started, gesturing to the soup and dumplings. “It’s not much, but..” A faint pink hue colored his cheeks.

Kumiko rolled over to the cart in her chair and took in the view. The dumplings were pan-fried a delicious golden brown, and the steam rising from the soup caressed her face ever so gently. “This is perfect. Thank you,” Kumiko replied, giving Minato an assuring smile. With a quick itadakimasu she reached for her spoon and tasted the soup, the warmth coaxing her tense body from inside out. She let out a happy hum. As she brought a second spoonful to her mouth, Kumiko stopped, “I thought you wanted to share,” she muttered, trying to ignore the sound of blood pounding in her ears. “Are you going to join me?” Minato blinked and found himself staring blankly into Kumiko’s eyes like the night before. His blush deepened slightly as he nodded, bringing over his chair and sitting down across the rolling cart dinner table.

They sat in silence and nibbled on their food, a thick fog of clammy hesitance enveloping the space between them. Kumiko tried desperately to control her breathing as she became hyperaware of her eating habits. Do I normally chew this loud? Oh jeez.. she cringed. Minato exchanged glances between the food on the table, Kumiko, and his bowl to try to avoid staring too pointedly, all the while trying to come up with decent conversation.

Minato cleared his throat. “I.. never got your name,” he said. Kumiko blinked and gave him a dumbfounded look.

“What?” she asked, a smile already tugging at her lips.

“All this time,” Minato wore a sheepish grin. “I never got your name.” Kumiko set her bowl in her lap and laughed. Her forest eyes crinkled and her long hair slid forward to brush against her pink stained cheeks. Minato stayed silent, admiring her laugh as he waited for an answer.

“My name is Kumiko,” she responded and gave Minato a warm smile. Her green eyes twinkled against the dusk-lit room.

Minato took in a short breath to remind himself to breathe. “Your name..” he started, then shook his head. He willed the blood to stop rushing to his face with little success.

“My name what?” Kumiko asked, her head unintentionally tilting to one side.

“Um,” Minato began, lifting his eyes to meet her curious gaze. “Your name, it means everlasting beauty.. right?”

Kumiko froze, her green eyes turning into round discs at her surprise. “How- how do you know that?”

Realizing that his random knowledge required explanation, he quickly raised his hands in deliberation. “It’s- It’s not anything weird, I promise! I.. My sensei is an author.. He would sometimes talk about the names of his characters during our travels,” he stammered, feeling his neck redden in embarrassment.

Kumiko hugged her shoulders and looked up at Minato’s sincere gestures with a small smile. “Oh, I see..” she laughed, then averted her gaze. “Yeah, I’ve always thought it was a bit too flashy for me..”

Minato stopped. His expression quickly shifted to match his sincere tone. “I think it suits you well,” he said, eyes locking confidently with Kumiko’s. He watched as her skin glowed brighter shades of red, matching her rosy lips and red hair. After a few moments, Kumiko blinked rapidly and averted her gaze. She stood up from her chair, eyes still transparent with all her emotions, and set her bowl down on the cart.

“I- uh, I have to go to the bathroom!” she squeaked out, voice tight and full of nerves. Kumiko raced out of the room, rustling Minato’s hair with her rushed departure. She ran down the hallway past the staff office, into the women’s bathroom, then quickly checked to make sure she was alone. What are you doing?? her inner thoughts rang throughout her mind. Are you really on a date in the hospital with a boy you barely know?? Kumiko stared at her blushed face in the mirror and quickly weaved the signs for the jutsu that would help drain the blood that had pooled in her cheeks and neck. She tried to even her breaths and push away the mental images of Minato’s smile as she slowly waited for the jutsu to take effect.

*****************************************************

Minato knit his brows together as he waited for Kumiko to return. That was way too forward, he scolded, was this all too much? He let out a loud groan and slumped over, trying to figure out the next best steps as to not overwhelm Kumiko further.

A raspy inhale followed by dry coughs caught his attention. Minato’s head jerked up to see Kushina’s pale figure struggling to sit up from her hospital bed.

“You’re up!” Minato gasped. He rushed to her side with a small water bottle he had picked up for dinner and held it out for her. “Here, drink some water.” Kushina gratefully took the bottle and gulped it down. Somewhat rejuvenated, she took turns stretching out her arms and legs, trying to relieve the stiffness in her muscles. She looked around the room and frowned.

“Where’s Kumiko?” she asked, trying to look past Minato towards the door.

Minato fought to hide his blush and cleared his throat. He followed Kushina’s gaze to the door. “She said she needed to go to the bathroom. I’m sure she’ll be back soon,” he replied.

“What about the others? Is everyone okay?” Kushina asked urgently.

“The team is fine. You and Hotaru had the most severe injuries; the others are in quite a few bandages, but they should recover within a few days,” Minato reported. He let out a sigh of relief, brought his chair closer to the bed, and sat down. Besides Kushina, everyone else on the team was awake and recovering at their own pace. He thanked kami under his breath that Kushina had finally awakened as well.

Kushina studied Minato’s tired but relieved expression and quirked an eyebrow. “And what about you?” Kushina asked, giving a sympathetic look.

Minato gave a breathy laugh. “I’m alright,” he responded. He tried to regain a bit more of his composure to lessen her worry. “I just didn’t sleep well last night, that’s all.” Minato walked over to the rolling cart and began packing up the food. Kushina’s attention also turned towards the rolling cart as she watched Minato clean up the setting – two sets of bowls, enough food to share, chairs lined up across each other…

Minato could practically hear the gears turning in her head as she connected the dots. He kept his head down and gaze locked on the food to avoid Kushina’s potential reaction. Right as he turned to place the food in a plastic bag, he felt a plastic bottle hit the back of his head. He winced as he felt the legendary red hot habanero’s rage rise behind him like the presence of a vengeful ghost. Minato slowly turned and backed away, hands up in an attempt to appease Kushina’s anger.

“Minato..” she bit out through gritted teeth, red hair coming alive around her as if through the sheer strength of her emotions. A bead of sweat dripped down Minato’s temple as his face twitched in his awkward smile.

“Kushina, it’s really not what you think..” he started, this time dodging the bedside lamp thrown at this head.

******************************************************

CRASH!! Kumiko’s brows furrowed and she quickened her footsteps down the long hallway. The other medical staff had heard the commotion and began heading toward the room as well. It’s coming from Kushina’s room! Something must’ve happened! she tried to keep her alarming thoughts to a minimum as she ran back to her sister’s room.

Kumiko slammed open the door to Kushina’s room right as a chair went skidding across the room towards a figure backed up against the wall. She blinked to quickly examine the situation and saw Kushina standing beside her bed in a full rage. That means the other person.. She looked over to see Minato against the wall, ducking away from the chair with hands up in a futile defense.

“One-san! You’re awake!” Kumiko exclaimed as she enveloped her sister in a hug. The hug startled Kushina out of her rage momentarily; she let out a sigh and hugged Kumiko back.

“Yeah, yeah, you know I’m never out for too long,” Kushina muttered to her sister, brushing her long ponytail down her back. Kumiko frowned and unlatched from her sister, crossing her arms in indignance.

“Still, you think that you can go through an intense surgery and then just start throwing things the moment you wake up?! What about your IV?” Kumiko scolded, checking her sister’s arm to make sure the IV was still intact.

“You’re one to talk! Having a dinner date in the hospital?? Since when do you two know each other anyways?!” Kushina chided back.

Minato continued laughing awkwardly as he placed the plastic bag of leftover food on the ground. He glanced around and noticed the other medical staff who had reported to the commotion slowly backing out of the room. One of the nurses mirrored his awkward laughs and mouthed good luck as she closed the door. Minato leaned against the wall as he watched the Uzumaki sisters scold each other out of mutual concern. Kumiko’s red hair swung against her back as she tried to force Kushina back to bed, her forest green eyes filled with a fire that could rival even her sister’s legendary determination. Minato chuckled under his breath. Uzumaki Kumiko.. You are something else..

#Minato Namikaze #minato x oc #Kushina Uzumaki #Naruto Shippuden #naruto imagines #naruto fanfiction #naruto headcanons #Reader Request

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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Close Enough Season 2 Review! or Josh Murders About 10 People

It's been hard to put into words just how wonderful a surprise this season getting released this month was. For starters before JG Quintel announced it last year shortly after season 1, I honestly was convinced season 2 wasn't happened. Do NOT get me wrong, Season 1 of Close Enough was one of the best parts of last year: It was funny, had a lot of heart, a great voice cast, and a great cast of characters that was throughly likeable and broke sitcom stereotypes, having a doofy husband and more straight laced wife with layers who clearly love and respect each other and BOTH can be prone to taking things too far instead of JUST Josh screwing up. Add in two great fellow leads Bridgette and Alex played by two of my faviorite va's, Kimiko Glen and Jason Mantzokus, whose name I finally learned how to spell, an adorable daughter and neat but out of focus neighbors and supors pearle and randy, and the show was just damn near perfect and felt like an improvement on regular show, taking the same humor and animation style but to an older cast and audience with more nuanced and likeable characters, and far more character development per episode. I wanted to see where the show would go.. but I was convinced given the show was leftover inventory from an animation block that never happened held over to give HBO Max some content it'd be canceled after one season, because I can't have nice things. But....

And very happily so: JG Quintel revealed the show had been picked up for season 2 not long after season 1 dropped, having listned to fans. As it turns out though they hadn't.. they just had a ton of faith in the show as I got ANOTHER bombshell earlier this month. While the show had showed up on the schedule for this month late in January, with no release date on said schedule, I wasn't 100% sure the show was coming back this month or that it wasn't just an error. But once again, I was wrong, it was earth all along, and they merely saved it for the press release for their adult animation lineup: alongside the huge and welcome bombshell they were the ones picking up the Clone High reboot and for two seasons, Close enough not only got two more seasons publicly announced, but fimrly revealed season 2 launched February 25th. LIke they likely had with infinity train the show was quitely picked up for another season, and they simply waited to announce it till the right time. Though unlike infinity train, they had faith in it to become a big hit and while they SHOULD HAVE with infinity train and should've accepted it was already a big hit simply not with the target demographic, it's still nice to see that after all it went through Close Enough not only got renewed but is now the network's flagship adult animated show, closely tied with harley quinn, and will likely go on as long as it wants to.

So naturally given I reviewed all of season 1 in the hopes i'td get renewed, I was happy to make room for season 2 and continue covering it and over the moon it was happening so soon. However I'm doing things diffrently this time: instead of flooding the tag with individual longform reviews, i'm reviewing the season all one go, to see if this format could work for me as I have tons of other shows i'd love to cover in this format that are either heavily comedic like say the Great North, regular show or the simpsons and thus dont' lend themselves to riffing as much and leave me less to do per episode, or more seralized shows like she ra or ones that are entirely complete like Steven Universe or Gravity falls that I could cover alone but this format could help expidite covering. Gravity Falls is also one of my patreon stretch goals if your instrested as is a whole lot of ducktales stuff, link on my blog. It also works with my much larger workload with a much tighter schedule, 6 reviews a week with a flex day in case I get behind so everything comes out as good as it posisbly can be, versus my original method of...

TLDR: One big post with smaller reviews each episode and an overall coverage of what changed this season and how good it is as a whole. We good? Good, then join me under the cut for some delightful sentient presents, couch ghosts, and jim fucking crunch as we get close enough to the heart.

I will never get tired of that image. I want it blown up and put on a banner at my funeral. But death plans aside let's get into the season

Slight Tweaks to a Great Formula: Given it's slice of life format based largely around likeable multi layered characters in comedic absurdity, not a lot has changed nor did it need to. What has are just simple tweaks to make things even better. For starters a natural result of getting to the episodes now produced directly for the 11 minute format means the pacing is much focused, subbing in full subplots for the occasional runner instead, and often only using what characters the episode needs. It will use the main five often, but the lack of subplots for the most part allows stronger focus on one or two characters to give the stories added weight and nuance and often laughs. While i'll always love season 1, this allows for much tighter stories and allows for everyone to get some major screen time instead of mostly Josh and Emily in season 1. It does mean we sadly get less of my boy Alex per episode but it's a sacrifice i'm willing to make if it means the show can grow and take more risks and evolve naturally. Though the former probably wasn't help by two of his three episodes being kinda weak, but i'll get to that.

The other noticeable change is Pearle and Randy. While they were promoted as main characters, even getting profiles along with the rest, they were in practice recurring characters in season 1, showing up pretty frequently but with only one starring episode for Randy and none for Pearle. And givne Pearle has an interesting backstory as a cop who likely had to put up with a LOT being a black woman officer, as well as raising a white redneck, while also being hilarious and having a fun energy to her, I felt they kinda wasted her in season 1.

Here though? Both have been bumped up to main cast proper, getting two focus episodes a piece (compared to the other main adults each getting three, some of those shared, and Candace getting one, hopefully more in the future as it was really good, along with, to my delight, mr.cambell also getting one), appearing far more in supporting roles and generally showing up with the main group a lot more. They still don't hang out with our loveable family all the time, but it makes sense as they have their own apartment and stuff to deal with, but it feels far more like their part of the main group. The show always treated them like this mine, but showing up more makes their friendships with their tenants feel more genuine, as it feels like their part of their lives more, whlie having their own to deal with we get to see now.

So while the series didn't change much, as I said it didn't need to and all of this is stuff is the kind of thing I wanted, especially Pearle getting a larger role and Randy being fleshed out from a dollar store version of muscle man into his own similar but difference character, and i'm happy to have it. So now i've talked about how the seasons' changed, let's talk about the episodes themselves. Grab a snack this is going to take a bit.

The Episodes!:

Josh Gets Shredded:

Our premier and honestly it's a solid one with a singular premise on poking fun at gym culture, though in a nice twist Jim Crunch, the guy who runs the Gym Josh ends up going to to strengthen his core to play with Candace and whose voiced wonderfully by Kevin Michael Richardson is a genuinely good guy and there's no horrifying twist with him. He just wants Josh to get ripped and dosen't know his training is keeping josh from candace. IT's a simple setup of a father doing something for his daughter but getting distracted by it and while not new it works well here and we get plenty of fun gym jokes, including an exchange from Jim and Josh when Josh wants to become an "absolute unit", which in this case ends up meaning turning into the hulk but with the glowing firey eyes of an angry god, feels like it came straight out of the hockey bros from letterkenny, which is a good feeling to have. There's also a nice setup with Candace wanting to play king kong with Josh due to seeing it in class (Specially the Peter Jackson remake, also Candace knows who jack black is which I buy because of who her daddy is. I wouldn’t be surprised if Josh had Saving Silverman on a loop for several days until emily threw it out the window like a frisbee. ), which kicks off the whole thing.. and ends with ultra instinct hulk josh taking her to the top of a building and swatting away helicopters. It’s more of an average episode for the series and the runner about Emily being REALLY hot for buff josh comes off as a weaker version of the plot from family guy where Lois likes a thinner peter, apart from one inspired bit where in order to talk to him about candace without getting distracted, Emily pours an entire bag of ice down her pants.. and subtly after Josh talks about becoming an absolute unit, it’s gone nad rather than animation I like to believe it melted. Still a decent start to a great season.

Meet the Frackers: A Randy Spotlight episode and unlike his season one episode rather than be a subplot in another episode it’s a full episode about him. And the starting incident is great as the gang gets their ancestry results back from costco, with Emily and Bridgette having ancestors in Guadalajara and Kiyoto.. and Josh being white (”Can you believe it?”). Alex coming from a long line of creeps is also pretty funny, those are his actual results by the way.

But what the episodes truly about is Randy finding out his parents are alive in Malibu after Pearle claimed they were dead when he was a kid. She had a very good reason though: Randy’s parents were serial gas thieves, and Pearle nearly caught them one night with the two chucking him at her to escape. And to her credit Pearle TRIED to reach out to them once they ended up in jail for their crimes.. but they again chucked him at her which is hilarious. She simply didn’t want him to feel abandoned. He instead feels betrayed.

His parents are hilariously white trash and played by two faviorite va’s of mine, David Kochner and Wendy Malick, who i’m happy is finally playing a lead roll on Owl House. They drink redneck maragretihas and eat mcribs (As Randy puts it “God’s favorite sandwich!”) every day and still steal gas, just legally now as frackers. Naturally though the two are still assholes and soon use a carnival as a cover to illegally frack and it’s up to Randy an dhis real mom to stop them> It’s a touching story with Randy genuinely wanting to hlep his mom, though I feel it would’ve been more interesting if Randy’s parents hadn’t been scum an dhe had to genuinely deal with having three parents now. Still it was worth it for some great lines from Malick and Kochner , so it works. Decent ep.

Sauceface: Now we come to both one of the best eps of the season, and the series so far, and one of it’s most unique as it stars Candace and dosen’t feature the other main cast hardly at all, only Emily who kicks things off by, in a great bit, breaking Candace’s illusion their rich as “they live in a castle with alex and bridgette”, with her slowly realizing “Were poor”. Which is just a very kid thing to think that your parents are rich when they very much aren’t.

But the episode really is a crime boss parody story, as the title would imply as Candace and her best friend start selling hot sauce, which is banned from the school due to it’s political correctness having gone mad and it being offensive to “sensitive palates” (They’ve also banned general tso’s chicken for mitlarialism and everything bagels for being “too much”). This leads where you’d expect: Candace getting drunk with power and forgetting why theys tarted, wet willies, and an art room brawl, all leading to candace’s friend getting pinched and candace having to use the money to buy Mr. Cambell a pelaton to get him off their backs, which leads to this lovely exchange “YOur letting them off just because they bought you a present?” “This is a 2000 dollar bike”. We also get the subtle reveal Mr. Cambell is gay which given how straight the main cast is, is nice. But this was a great one with too many good gags to mention, a great setup, a great rolling stones song played during the montage I do not know the name of, and I hope we get other candace advnetures at her school in the future, because this was a real delight. Again one of the best episodes of the season.

The House Guest From Hell: Speaking of best episodes, this is probably the best pairing of episodes yet, as both are standouts of the season.

Emily’s old friend Becca drops back into her life, to everyone’s annoyance as Becca is an utter leech who constantly take advantage of Emily’s lack of boundaries with her to constantly talk about whatever drama she’s wrapped herself in and mooch off her. Josh and Bridgette want her to set firm boundaries, but Emily fails to and instead only gets Becca to set boundaries with her boyfriend.. which leads to her moving into the apartment temporarily, and annoying the hell out of everyone. Becca is a great character, being that asshole in the most over the top and annoying way possible, to the point she takes alex’s room, watches tv on a loop and doesn’t seem to realize Emily is married (Despite being part of her bridal party), or that candace is Emily’s daughter and not a tiny butler (Which Candace assumes is a game. )

Naturally for this show things escalate hilariously as Emily finds out she’s pregnant when she tries to throw her out and the pregnancy is escalated.. and we soon find out it’s because the pregnancy is demonic: She has Hecate as her dula (And Alex naturally asks if she’s single, get it guy get it), needs goats hoves, locusts and the blood of the innocent (Which is the only item that trips josh up who hopes they can get it at costco, which made me have to pause as I could not stop laughing). This would be funny enough. .but what takes it into making this episode a classic is when Emily tricks her boyfriend Luke over he’s unsurprisingly a devil.. but also a hilariously over the top douchebag dudebro played by Beck Bennet, who it’s not only nice to see outside of ducktales, but is also just totally game. Luke is so odious it wraps around to being funny, to the point he unsurprisingly hits on Bridgette while his girlfriend is in labor, messily makes out with her and they try to move in, though thankfully Emily cathartically screams Becca out midbirth. Also they end up going to hell, with Luke getting there by doing donuts. Yes really. This episode is a treasure and does the series schitck of taking a relatable problem and escalating it to perfection.

Joint Break:

Another unsurprisingly good one, as Pearle deals with the fact that despite her decades of service, the force’s health plan doesn’t cover her needed hip surgery after she slides over a car wrong (Which also leads to a great riff on the old csi Miami parody). She then finds herself between her oath as an officer and her needs for help as she befriends a gang of saucy old women at water aerobics who are also bank robbers and want to cut her in. And they provide a tempting offer, getting what their owed and ti feels like a genuine dilemma, even if Pearle ends up siding with the police, not that she should. It’s also full of great bits of the old lady gang weaponizing stereotypes about old people, with the three of them dawning classic old lady getups to fool an officer, and having one of them i a walker slowly cross the street to stop an armored truck. Fun stuff helped by their leader being voiced by Jane Lynch, continuing this season’s red hot guest star streak, not that the series has ever been light on them (They got David Hasselhoff and weird al in season 1, so yeah), but this season ramps up the good guest voices to the point there’s one per episode almost.

Cyber Matrix: This one’s okay though the setup is good. Unsurprisingly given both his dale gribble-esque penchant for conspiracies and his hipster holier than thou ways, Alex has never had a smart phone, and has a very old flip hone that’s horrifc to look at and naturally gets destroyed, leading to him getting addicted to the thing.. and this being the show it is fusing with it. What makes this one is the climax, as the rest of the main group scramble to take out the cell tower so Alex’s phone doesn’t upload him to the cloud while Josha nd Alex open everything they can to slow her down. The result is the phone hacking Emily’s and ordering packages, task rabbits to punch her inthe face (With randy taking it so they can go) and outright hijacking a car in a clever chase. The ending though does sink this as suddenly their in veirutal reality again and it just feels weird given the series, while not really using continuity much so far, dosne’t have negavite continuity punch out endings outside of this one ep and I hope this dosen’t happen again. Otheriwse a decent one if sadly not one of Alex’s best and he equally sadly onlyg ets one truly great episode this season, compared to having a good chunk of the best plots last season. Still you can’t win em all and i’m sure my boy will return to form and said great episode, which we’ll get to soon, certainly shows they didn’t loose their touch. They just fumbled a bit and that’s okay.

Haunted Couch: Balancing that out is the fact that Bridgette, who didn’t get nearly as many good eps as Alex or as much focus as the rest, gets some great episodes this season with this one being my out and out favorite as it fleshes her out more and has some really great gags. Josh brings in a street couch (And he and Emily’s argument over it is great including him using the fact she forced them to get a savings account as leverage somehow), just as Bridgette is in emotional turmoil over her latest boyfriend suddenly ghosting her.

Naturally she ends up falling for a REAL ghost, a french couch designer who had a habit of cheating on his lovers, died for it by one of their hands, and his soul ended up bound to the couch. Naturally hea nd Bridgette hit it off and we get a LOT of good stuff in a montage as the two take the couch everywhere, and her friends, minus Alex who surprisingly rather than being jealous, simply dosen’t like the fact there’s a ghost in the house technically haunting them which surprisingly goes nowhere, are happy for her and like him after the initial shock wears off, though Josh still wants to sit on the couch. He and Bridgette even have really good sex using Randy’s body, with him being a willing vesel for Marcus. And i’d just like to point out that an intensely weird comedy show that also has a sentient present, bob vila with saw hands, and dude bro satan in this very season, 2/3 of those to come.. STILL did this better than wonder woman 87, as they actually asked someone to let the ghost of the couple use his body so they could fuck, and he gave full consent to it. And no I sitll haven’t let that go, it was a very bad plotline with nightmarish implications and the fact close enough did it better in a joke, they also have the song from ghost in the background by the by, than a big budget movie from the same company, is a really large bilboard saying:

But while the episode was thoroughly interesting and funny.. it’s what happens next that makes it one of the series best. While the series is amazing at comedy, it’s the character growth slid in between it that makes it so awesome and this episode is a great example. Bridgette turns cold towards Marcus as it’s clear he’s serious, and he’s even moved a tooth brush in. She gets more and more hostile until eventually Marcus calls her on it, and prevents her from leaving with a vortex of furniture.. which could’ve gone bad very quick but instead just means she has to face him.. and is hit with a rather painful relization when he asks “Do you what me to, how you say, ghost you?” (She explained the concept earlier). She says no.. but quickly a series of flashbacks puts the previous breakup in context as the guy she was seeing asked to leave a toothbrush, a simple escalation and she got real nasty real quick without saying what the problem was. We see more of this with a previous boyfriend and hilaroiusly one before that guy who not only had a toothbrush in a ringbox but was also in a hot air ballon she casually cuts the anchors too and has float away. Which does mean Bridgette probably killed a man but that’s one compared to josh’s 10 this season. Yes, 10. We’ll get to that.

Point is she realizes “oh shit i’m the dick”, and has a genuine talk with Marcus, realizing why: “You know how women feign being submissive because society’s taught them to so they don’t get raped or murdered or kidnapped?” “Oui”, best bit of the episode and damn if it ain’t horribly true. But due to tha Bridgette simply got terrible quick to scare guys off when she really just wanted to break it off instead of take things further and breaks it off with marcus.. and is surprised and relieved when he doesn’t want a big fight and takes it acceptably, Marcus having grown from his past of being a women using cad and genuinely wanting to treat them better. For once Bridget gets to have an emotionally mature breakup with someone, and while you could say her relationship with alex is like that, it’s very clear from an upcoming episode it wasn’t a very clean break at first and while their amicable now their marriage was a hot volcano of arguments. This allos Marcus to pass.. if also destroying the couch to Josh’s misery. An instant classic and one of the season’s highlights and one that really fleshes Bridgette out a bit by giving another reason for her relationships not working besides alex that fits the character perfectly and has her grow from it.

Also just a quick sidenote, this episode vaguely reminded me of the Nightmare Time, theater troupe team starkid’s zoomcast I highly recommend set in their hatchetfield multiverse, episode “Jane’s a Car” , which is about a man’s wife possessing his car and also involves an object. Both are very diffrent mind you, Jane’s a Car ends up way more depressing, but its’ stil la story involving ghost fucking though Bridgette found a vesel instead of straight up fucking a couch the way tom went to town on that car. It also involves the lead’s perosnal issues, if far more severe in Jane’s a Car’s case, reflected by their relationship with a ghost. I mean it is a stretch but these are the weird connectoins my brain makes and I mostly bring it up because an upcoming episode in the season goes from kind of similar but only to me to very similar, and a very fun concidence that these two episodes existed in the same year, especially since this happened last year with this show and Ducktales. But first josh doing a murder on some people.

Man Up:

Okay for starters the title man up reminds me of this short lived abc sitcom I never saw but given it was about three guys tapping into their “inner man” it sounds like aresnic somehow took the sentient form of a tv show. This actual poster for it not only proves the point but why it lasted one season if not why the hell I remembered this existed at all despite never seeing it, not recognizing anyone in it and not wanting anything to do with it.

Given I have 8 more episodes to go after this one, I do not have time to disect all the way that poster is a waking nightmare, though i’d love to, and instead i’m going to talk abotu the episode itself. The intro is funny enough, with the Ramierz-Singletons going to a bank for Candace’s first bank account, the Bank of Hollywood. An alien seemingly attacks, it turns out to be a promotional stunt with high budget effects a great gag in of itself, but Josh runs out on his family. Naturally he’s horribly rattled by this, and wants to be a better dad, a John McClane type. So two things: I now want a crossover with this show and brooklyn nine nine along with the hatchefield one in my head and the regular show one most fans want. And the second is that John wasn’t the best dad or husband, and both the original film, the sequel josh saw, and the fourth film all spell this out. The fifth does too but I feel if I wish hard enough a good day to die hard will just spontaneously cease to exist and we’ll all be happier that way.

So Pearle agrees to help him, and we get a fun training montage, with Josh protecting a candace made of eggs Alex made, because of course he did, and an emily made of the same because of course he did, and get punched in the junk by randy in a dog costume, as you do. He actually feels tough and is ready for phase 2, pearle hitting him with something unexpectdly.

Instead what he thinks is Phase 2 is actually a die hard style hyjacking of Emily’s company christmas party, which josh misses due to being in the bathroom after panickily running into corn. As a result.. we get josh killing about 8-10 people not realizing it’s not a simulation but not really caring about that part when it’s revealed. Which granted it is in self defense but he still kills a LOT of people this episode, and I will be forever haunted by the fact that stringbean can REALLY do some murders. Seriously who knew JOSH had it in him. That is terrifying to comprehend. Naturally after he john mclanes his way up, he finds out it wasn’t a simulation panics but instead of running away runs the hans gruber knockoff, whose sadly not very entertaining out of the building and onto some exploding corn, saving the day, earning his family’s respect and cemnting himself as a badass. The reveal of what the text actually was is just.. perfect as it’s just a bat on a string with Alex saying “he’s totally going to shit”. The perfect capper to good ep only hampred by hans being really weak.. seriously he just has a weird sentence sturcture tha’ts hte joke. They can do better. Otherwise a good die hard parody. John would be proud.

Handy:

Another decent one not a standout but it has a truly astounding bit. Randy finds out, after going to Guy Fieri’s flavor diaster for Pearle, that she hired another handyman and he’s not good at his job as as he puts it “I’m going to do what troubled young men have done for years : i’m going to sea!”. Which is funny enough but leads to him stranded on a desert island, hallucinating and then meeting his idols in handy manning who may or may not be hallucinations: Bob Vila, The Ikea Mascot (Who speaks only in pictures and is a fun gag despite never having seen him before this episode) and my favorite tim the tool man taylor, whose tie is constantly pointed up for some reason and who amazingly only speaks in grunts. I didn’t know I needed this so thank you close enough. We also get the three helping with bob turning his hands into buzzsaws, ikea man creating nails and screws and Tim using his head as a tool. All accurate to their original shows and in ikea man’s case brocures. Really good adaptation. But through this he discovers the clog the guy is trying to fix at the house is loadbearing and rushes home to save the house, leading to a fun actoin scene and a weird version of the celebration from the end of return of the jedi, complete with force ghosts. So we also get a tim taylor force ghost which I did not know I needed and as much as that show makes my stomach churn I badly hope shows up in the finale of last man standing. A decent one and givne how I keep sayin ga decent episode over and over you can kinda see why I didn’t review all these. LIke season 1 I simply don’t have a full review in me for every single one of these episodes. We’re now at the halfway mark, only 8 more to go, I envy the dead, let’s do this.

Birthdaze: This was the episode most heavily promoted in the trailer and for good reason as it’s the best of the season. Also relatable as while not having kids I do get how Kids Birthday parties feel and how they often end up weirdly close together. In this case both coalse as Josh and Emily have three birthdays in one weekend, their friends Emily’s friend Trish from “Cool Moms”, who is so far some of the only continuity the series has, but a nice sign it has it, and that we could see Jim Crunch (who rose from the grave after an utterly wonderful funeral) or Dog Boy again. Or this episode’s standout gifty. But we’ll get to that in a second. So Josh and Emily well intentiondly decide to throw a party for the parents at the same time as Candace’s.. but end up neglecting Candace. While their idea is good, to reward the other parents for having to sit through so many parties, putting it at the same time was a horrible idea as giving a bunch of pent up people with low alcohol tolerance booze ends up resulting in drunken antics and them heckling the magicain... and given the world we’re in, that’s a horrible mistake as he makes the children disappear to a world of perptual brithday parties and forces JOsh and Emily to follow him if they want their child back. What results is an utter delightly as we meet the wonderful and incomprable Gifty, a giant living present who works iwth the magician, named sardini, and is voiced by Kate Miccuci, heart eyes> Just.. evey bit with gifty is great, from her genuinely being animated and looking like a muppet, to her casually going demonic to explain if the kids stay too long they forget parents, to as seen up top playing a pipe organ that is apparently made of gold plated clown bones, and her best bit, which I posted on this very blog, where she assures the trapped kids if JOsh and Emily fail their final test, they’ll get to live of nutricious necco wafers before vomiting a giant cloud of them at the poor children. Those things are gross and we now knwo it’s because they come from a giant present’s stomach.

We get a great montage before most of that of our heroes treking through a weird and awesome birthday landscape with too many good parts to mentoin, before finding Sardini who puts them through tests before they can get candace back.. and one of those are you human image tests via the ball from phantasm. As gifty puts it “We have to make sure your not a bot”. But the tests, about candaces faviorite things, help the two realize she liked them because they did it together, and a final talk with candace, as the final test has her ask why theyd idn’t want to spend time with her, with the two warmly apologizing and explaning why they did it but that they went too far. Candace reconclies with her parent,s the kids and our heroes go home, and Sardini finds himself sad no one stayed.. but at least he has gifty... and then start making love to her “Unwrap me!” which is far and away the best gag in the season’s best episode by a mile.

Time Hooch:

Now to talk about two things I hinted at earlier: The only good Alex episode this season and the one that vaugely resembles one of the Nightmare Time episodes. And while their two very diffrent stories with very diffrent outcomes and only one of them involves this guy

And suprisingly it’s NOT close enough that has the eldtrich horrifying goat monster with a goofy cartoon voice who says things like “I’m coming for your ass Teddy Bear!” But both are stories about a sketchy (mildly for alex, entirely for Ted) middle aged man who feels one moment is where his life went wrong then accidently time travels after drinking 80 tons of liquor and decides to use said time travel to save a relationship, and fails at it in some fashion. There’s even a jaunt to a distopian future with robots and cyborgs. So while it’s not 1:1, alex is far more sympathetic than Ted, Time Bastard is dark horror comedy, and it again dosen’t involve a horrifying goat man suprisingly enough, it’s till way too many happy coincidences for me to outright ignore. Also check out nightmare time and especially the musicals it spun off from The Guy Who Didn’t LIke Musicals and Black Friday. It’s good stuff. But I couldn’t help but make the comparison, or now imagine Alex, Ted and Professor Hidgens as some weird diasterious power trio. This is how my brain works now.

But to the episode itself it’s just great from start to finish: Bridgette finds out while rumaging for an old photo in an old box of their stuff that Alex never signed the divorce papers. Turns out he was hoping they’d get back together.. and while not doing it and not telling her was a VERY selfish and horrible action.. you still sympathize with him. He hoped things would work out and they’d get back together, and given they had some close calls with that in season 1, to the point I shipped them, you can see where his sprig of hope came from. But with this he’s realized there probably isn’t any hope and drinks some old moonshine he and Josh made in college. Said moonshine was from a recipie in an old blues record, the titular time hooch that true to form, allows them to travel back in time. And since he was thinking of when he thought the relationship truly hit it’s breakig point, when Bridgette at a sandwitch of his and he’d said in the heat of it he wished he’d never met her, they end up there and Alex tries to use it to help. Also Jason’s delivery of Alex saying what the recipie was “rye, barely, a dead man’s pocket watch, mixed under a full moon (Laughs) okay we probably should’ve seen this coming.

Naturally here’s where it really gets intresting. As you’d probably guess, our heroes are the ones who made the sandwitch disappear and in desperation, alex kidnaps his past self before he can say the fatal words> We also get another spectacular bit where all past alex needs from alex to know he’s really him from the future is what year he was born (1982), meaning he’s defintely older than the rest of the cast. Though I wouldn’t be suprised if he was held back.. like at all. Look i’m not thinking too hard into it this is also a story about whiskey based time travel.

But with that said intresting part takes hold as Josh’s past self reminds him of another fight that made things tense for a while.. and you can see where this goes. Alex keeps going back, and back, and back and back and back and back and back... and back, to try and stop the one fight, only to find a bigger one, leading to a montage.. to the point he ends up at the start of the relationship, the day they met at a college bar. The younger Alex’s have decided screw it it was always wrong, let’s end the relationship.

We also get more of Alex’s backstory as it turns out he’s at a community college rather than UCLA, where he used to teach because of his own dumb actions: He met bridgette, let her enroll in his class and didn’t try to convince her to take another one. Don’t get me wrong the decade age gap and power dynamics are iffy.. but it’s not as bad as it could be. They met before the class, and it comes off more as both being too stupid or too horny to realize how her being in his class came off before it was too late. She got with him entirely on his merits, and yes he has some trust me. Case in point.. Alex realizes a few things. The first is that no amount of time travel can save his relationship. They fought all the time clearly, and there were inherent problems. It’s also clear just from the series itself that while they have chemistry their just not that compatible as people. Bridgette is obessed with image, social media, and herself while Alex just two episodes ago called phones the downfall of society and likes feeling superior to the exact kind of person bridgette is. They have chemistry but sometimes it’s jut not enough. You have to have some common ground or your going to fall in a big hole. It’s honestly feels like a much more tolerable and realistic version of Leonard and Penny from the Big Bang Theory. And yes I know that show’s not the most popular with my core audience, nerds, and I bring it up because mom’s been watching it a lately, and any time I see Leonard and Penny on screen it annoys me into a tizzy as the two just have NO REASON to be together other than boning, and even then he’s apparently not a good partner so why then. They have nothing in common and she mocks and belittles him all the fucking time, mocking his hobbies, finding his job boring, and mocking him as a person. And not sharing hobbies or finding his job intresting would be fine, and still work but it’s the constant teasing about it that comes off far more vitrolic than probably intended that just makes me hope for a divorce. Here it’s not only much milder but they did actually get a divorce because their just diffrnet people and i’m not mad the ship was sunk. It was done in a poetic way.

And part of that poetry is Alex realizing that as doomed as things ended up being, via a very sweet montage of their time together.. he realizes he can’t loose this all together. That sure he’d gain a lot and porbably woudlnt’ be living in a closet, but he’d loose all the good times, and he’d loose a friend. His marriage wasn’t so bad he wants to erase it it just ended and that happens. Naturally the other alex’s don’t feel that way but Alex stops them.. Josh is too drunk at this point to help, and ends up creating a time vortex. The vortex sends our heroes home, where Alex realizes his mistake and apologizes for it to bridgette and signs the papers in front of her. As for the Alexs we get a horrifying and hilarous gag as, given they’ve all commented each other is handsome.. start having an orgy, and are later found in amber and their dna is used to create our alex apparently. How does that work?

Point is this episode.. is a masterwork. It’s emotoinal, hilarious, and really good character work, with Alex having a really stellar arc that shades him in and putts a final button in his and bridgettes relationship. And having seen many ships I like end horribly, it’s nice to have one end in a satsifying way like this. Also we see Alex in his borat thong, and i’d just like to point out how funny I find it that the same year they made a borat joke, specifically on it being from a decade or two ago, we ended up getting a second Borat movie. Very niceeee.

World’s Greatest Teacher: This one was alright. On the bright side we got a Mr.Cambell episode! I”ve loved the guy since first meeting him in 100% no stress day, it was the first episode and that hasn’t changed and he’s always a bright spot when he shows up. So an episode about him dealing with a rival teacher, MS. Lake a twice a week music teacher gunning for his job and his students love sounded made for me. In practice he gets a bit too petty to be symapthetic which takes things down a peg, even if it turns out Ms. Lake really is coming for his ass Teddy Bear, but it has enough good gags to help it still be a fun episode.

The biggest one and the biggest reason I sitll like the episode is Timothy’s coffe mug for world’s greatest teacher.. which naturally comes to life, possibly as a psychotic break possibly for real because of the show this is, and starts speaking in the dulcet tones of keith david. ANd i’ve made no secret I love and am thirsty for Keith David on this blog and never will, and having him voice an abusive fowl mouthed coffee mug is something I dind’t know I need but boy did I always need it my entire life. Yes even as a baby. It’s just glorious every time he shows up. The climax is also great as the two teachers end up bonding over the greatest love of all and george micheal after Candace invites River to a part sh’esd having for her tooth coming out, and end up becoming frinemies, a nice solution i was glad to see. Even if i’ll miss evil keith david coffee mug. Rest in power my dude.

Where’d You Go, Bridgette? The second major Bridgette episode of the season and like “Haunted Couch” this one’s an instant classic. After realizing Bridgtte’s already out of control addition to her phone has gotten even worse, Pearle confinscates it and takes her to detox. This leads to two great plots; Bridgette going into withdrawl, complete with an inspired nightmare sequence about her aps and missing her friends death because she was on her phone and the rest of the cast thinking sh’es been kidnapped because she’s not on social media, which while stupid is DELIGHTFULLY stupid and makes some sense given how glued to her phone she is. They end up calling a true crime podcast over, two egosticial college girls who quickly blame them for it despite it making no sense and their fans torm the apartment, and don’t belivie it when bridgette actually shows up.. It takes an inspired speech from Bridgette, whose developed as a person and after actually tasting a late for the first time sees how good they are, and Pearle posting that speech online to dismiss them and our heroes are saved. It’s an utterly amazing plot from josh being excited about the mob attacking them, to Pearle revealing part of the reason she’s so dedicated to helping bridgette is due to her own weird addiction to six flags, which is just so oddly specific I love it.

The Erotic Awakening of A.P. Lapearle This one STARTED well, with Alex reading his viking erotic to everyone, and not getting that Candace maybe shouldn’t be there, only for Pearle to be the only one to actually enjoy it and be inspired by her enjoyment of his work to submit it to a publisher. The publisher ends up making a valid point that women want erotic fantasy from someone they can feel safe by and alex is well.. alex, so he suggests using pearle as a front. it goes how you’d expect: he wants actual credit, the publisher slowly pushes him out, she regrets it, they fight an army of fans and make them vomit with alex reading the book.. standard stuff. It’s just not very funny or a great insight into either characters, and is easily the weakest episode of the season.. though the next one gave it close compettition.

Men Rock!

This one was a chore to sit through, and is only ahead of the last one because it has some really good josh bits and musical numbers which is more than the last one gave me so hey. In a nutshell Emily is on the verge of quitting her and Bridgette’s music careers as she feels they’ll never be famous only for their latest song Men Rock!, an ironic title for a sarcastic song poking fun at a bunch of toxic masculinty bs that is a good song, has hit it HUGE in a fictonal foreign dicatroship and get invited to go, reclutantly agreeing. If you haven’t seen the ep, you can still guess how this goes: say it with me THEY TOOK IT AT FACE VALUE. So our heroines have to help inspire the repressed women and inspire a bloody cou, helped by josh finding some improisoned femisinists in a bathroom. They also gain a fan. it has a few good gags, mostly Candace trying to remind her dad to help her find a place to pee after he keeps getting sidetracked by being taken back by Emily’s sucess. I’ts just a very bad, very predictable episode with very obvious misogyn is bad jokes. And misgoyny IS bad but other shows, paticuarlly tuca and bertie with one early episode, have tackeld this topic better. This episode did not. Last one.

Secret Horse:

This one in stark contrast is one of the series best and an utter joy to watch. On a bad day for the whole apartment with some santa anna winds, an adorable, poofy mained utterly precious horse gets free and ends up at the apartment. Thus we get a vingettte episode, as the horse has a delightful adventure with each of our main 7, and each up tot he last try and hide the horse badly only for the horse to suddenly sprout up and help their mood.

I do love a good vinegtte episode, with two of my faviorite simpsons episodes being 22 short films about springfiled (Minus kirk dragging MIlhouse away from the bathroom, fuck you you balding asshat, it makes the episode hard to watch) ,and trilogy of error, and this is a classic example of it as we get some fun adventures fro each of the housemates: Candace plays with the horse, adorably so, Josh finds it in the garage as his car breaks down and takes them on an install with him, even stuffing them into a suit and we get a great bit of the horse getting fed sugarcubes and josh money. Brigette gets help living in the now instead of posting about it all the time.

My faviorite comes next as Alex needs new patches for his suit but obviouslyc n’t afford them so he takes the ponyt ot he track.. to help him pick which horses to bet on. It’s just such an inherntly funny idea, especially since it works, and really the horse is just hilarious wherever it ends up. It next helps randy win a skating contest, we get a touching story as Pearle misses her old tragically dead horse partner and uses our boy as a subtitute and finlaly we get emily who needs help relaxing and while she naturally calls animal control she hangs up as she falls for hte horse. The group all fight over the horse in the end, the horse leaves and they let it go home, wonder if it was a hallucination and it whizes on thier car. Overall a really great finale and a wonderful note to go out on.

Overall Ranking I’ve decided eveyr time I do one of these, or a post season wrapup of a show i’ve covered every episode of the season to rank them from best to worst sooo

Birthdaze Time Hooch Haunted Couch Secret Horse Where’d You Go Bridgette? Sauce face Houseguest From Hell Joint Break Josh Gets Shredded World’s Greatest Teacher Meet the Frackers Handy Man Up Cyber Matrix Men Rock! The Erotic Awakening of A.P. Lapearle

And i’d like to note that outside of the bottom two hear.. I enjoyed ALL of these. WHich leads to

Final Thoughts; This season was excellent. It had everything the first season had the heart, the character and the utterly great sense of humor, and fine tuned it to be a well oiled machine I could hardly stop laughing at and with tons of great character stuff. Before it had the potetial to surpass regular show but now it has as despite having a few dud episodes itself, as is intievitble in any show, now, they still aren’t as bad as a lot of RS’s early misteps. And Regular SHow as a FANTASTIC show and really stuck the landing, so i’m only saying this is even better and can only go up from here. And even if it stays about the same quality wise, that won’t be a bad place to be. This season was near damn perfect, i’ll probably watch it again and again, and I can’t wait to devour more and given the current tragectory probably will this year. And I couldn’t be more excited.

If you like this blog follow for more reviews, become a patreon to help reach stretch goals or comission a review outright, details for the latter two on my blog. And i’ll see you at the next rainbow.

#close enough #josh singleton #emily rameriz-singleton #bridget yoshida #pearle watson #randy watson #candace ramirez-singleton #hbo max #animation #reviews

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gamersgrp1 · 3 years

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Diving into MACARTHUR by Bob Ong

Macarthur is a book published by famous author Bob Ong from 2007, this was the author’s first ever work that went for a different path as Bob Ong is known to be a more humorous or comedic type of writer. However, this work went more serious and poked on the lives of the slum community here in the Philippines. The Cover of the book is actually referencing a part in the story with the blurred out red image of a toilet in the background covered by the huge text that says MACARTHUR. The story is about 4 friends being Cryus, Noel, Voltron and Jim. The characters have their own personal struggles throughout the story such as Jim having to take care of family and Cyrus who has to take care of grandpa’s medical bills. The story was fun to read with its funny writing and fun moments but what makes it more deeper is that this pokes much more deeper into the lives of people in the slum. With the 4 characters symbolizing a life of a filipino in the slum. The Philippines is in fact known to be one of the most wholesome countries in the world. But the harsh reality the people have to sweep under the rug is that the country has some massive problems such as poverty.

Bob Ong is known to be a controversial writer amongst the literature community in the Philippines. Although a very famous writer in the country. The true identity is yet to be known to the fans. The way he tackled this specific problem of the Philippines that is poverty is quite special. The story really went deep on how life goes by in the slum. Including youth having to tackle drugs and authorities having a dark side to them. Though the story has some really sad moments. These moments in the real world are not as unique. These sad moments in the story are typical in the slum community due to how lackluster care has been given to this side of the community of the Philippines.

The book delves deep as to how relationships in families are incredibly weak because of poverty. Noel’s family are always at constant fights against each other for some of the smallest reasons whether that be misplacing of valuables or even small misunderstanding. The family at one point in the story even kicked Noel out of the house out of anger, after going through so much though the thing is, Noel was innocent. He didn’t do anything wrong, he was just mentally tired of being the person of blame for everything going wrong in the family. Like when his sister was looking for certain valuables and immediately pointed the finger to Noel without giving him a voice to speak out. Though in the end the family reconciles and reunites with a better and stronger relationship. The way the book described what happened during these parts of the story would touch certain people’s hearts as some families in that community could wish for a better family or a better life as a family. But most of the time it all goes back to poverty.

Not everyone is rich and privileged, not everyone experiences such luxury or any creature comforts, not even everyone gets to eat three meals a day, the Philippines is among the countries that is suffering from such poverty.So much to the point where innocent people would grow desperate to the point of drastic measures. Such an example is Cyrus from the story taking someone’s necklace and swallowing it to hide the evidence just to be able to get money from it, all so to take care of a loved one’s conditions. Such a thing happens in real life as well, and the story just depicts that very well. Considering that the author is the comedic type, the author veering into this area of a sensitive topic is surprising, as it tackled the topic in such a way that more people would be- -aware of the other side of our country’s people, the slums, crime committed due to desperation

It also talked a bit about how sometimes, the government authorities that everyone looks up to and trusts a lot, have a dark side in them as well as how the more fortunate people have an advantage in society. This was shown when Cyrus was being interrogated after being captured by the police for robbing a woman’s piece of jewelry. The lady quickly blamed Cyrus even though they haven’t given him a chance to defend himself just because of his status as being in poverty and immediately got thrown to jail. And then later on in the story, Cyrus was being used by a government figure most likely a cop as a side source of income using Cryus’ ability to be quick and agile, the cop told him to hand all the valuables he stole to him. This then led Cyrus to be so scared whenever a sign is shown that the cop is nearby and awaiting his bonus income, he would swallow way more non edible material than what his body could handle before including a few packets of drugs and even 1 whole ring of a necklace, adding the fact that Cyrus in the story is the youngest out of the four. It's so unfortunate to hear about this because the youth should really be focusing on their education and their future endeavors. But with the lack of money and power, the youth are stuck in a loop of having to strive to just barely survive in life. Since the youth can’t really do much and not get a job because they don’t have an education, they resort to very dark measures to be able to only afford as much as a basic meal you can get in a fast food chain. It’s also sad seeing how the law figures represented in the book are not what you would expect, society places all trust onto them, always praised for, always reliant for, so much that they would take advantage of it and use it for personal use instead of doing what is right.

Lastly, it tested the bond and the trust with people. How far one would go to have their bond to be intact and just how long can their patience last as a relationship. During the story, Noel was the punching bag of his family. Even being innocent, his sister if not always blames him for any personal item of hers going missing even with Noel stating clearly without any lies that he has never seen this item before, their mother Aling Sally has been taking and suppressing all her sorrow and anger over the days of non-stop conflict between family members for even a slight mishap at times. Until one day, his sister Lyla’s watch goes missing, after his mom asking him if he recalls seeing it before, he finally snaps. Out of anger, he rushes downstairs, finds Lyla and finds the nearest plastic chair. And without hesitation, he throws it directly at Lyla after not being able to handle it anymore. The tension rises as soon as he starts rushing towards Lyla to start hitting her, the rest of the family then gets involved. After a short time, it stops, but Noel or anyone in the family wanted to witness what just happened, his younger sister has never seen them being as how they were a few moments ago, the already exhausted father unleashes his anger to Noel after that fight and forces him to move out of the house and as well as pouring continuous negative comments on Noel such as “you are a hopeless person” out of anger. But at the end of the story, after what went on with Cyrus, the family make a mutual agreement and they reconcile again living happily ever after, with the dad even offering him to eat with them. The story really tested everyone’s patience in a relationship and as to how far it can go during tense situations. Oftentimes in reality, it's either they break up and never try to reconcile again, or they would forgive each other, but there is still conflict inside them. Deep down inside, they would probably have something they would like to express to the relationship but with the stabbing thought of the other side of the relationship not being able to accept it and tear down the relationship. How long can your relationship go without being brutally honest to each other? Are you even willing to try and express opinions on the relationship? Is the relationship healthy on both ends? And if so, how would you go about it?

To Conclude, the story dwells deep into the morbid reality of the Philippines’ situation with poverty and how bad it has become these days to the point where even the youth, the new generation of families in there have to deal with these situations early on in their life, leading them into going through dark routes in their lives cycling to the next newer generation and the process repeats for generation to generation. Unless the government finds the time to handle the situation with more care, then the Citizens of the country will have a dark side to sweep under the rug for a long time. To anyone that is interested in looking at the book. It’s a genuinely good book to read, with its writing style and pacing on how it deals with a dark topic that being poverty in the Philippines. It also showed the test of relationships whether that be friends or even family and how far would you go to do what it takes to be satisfied in life during very dire moments in life. With the comedic lines and moments with also this sudden blend of seriousness would honestly become even someone who doesn’t read much an instant favorite even if they don’t read much if they take their time to read it

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Did The Dark Knight Really Influence the Marvel Cinematic Universe?

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In 2008, there were two seismic events in the superhero movie genre so close together that you’d be forgiven for thinking they signaled the same thing. Over the span of a few months, Marvel Studios launched the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) via Iron Man, and director Christopher Nolan changed the perception of how seriously to take these movies with The Dark Knight. Both are credited as watershed moments for how audiences and (more importantly) the industry approached such stories; and The Dark Knight is specifically singled out as the gold standard by which all other masked crimefighter films are measured.

However, was Nolan’s haunting vision—one in which a lone avenger is the last, best hope for a major American city on the verge of collapse—really that influential on its genre? The Dark Knight certainly had a monumental impact on the culture, then and now. You saw it when Heath Ledger’s searing interpretation of the Joker made him only the second actor to win a posthumous Oscar, as well as when the film’s exclusion from the Best Picture race changed the way the Academy Awards handled its top prize. And just last year, The Dark Knight became only the second superhero movie inducted into the National Film Registry.

Yet when a friend watching last week’s The Falcon and the Winter Soldier premiere told me Marvel was returning to the “realistic” approach of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and by extension The Dark Knight, I couldn’t help but disagree. The new Disney+ series may have a slightly more grounded aesthetic than the last time we saw these characters (back when they were fighting space aliens over magic stones in Avengers: Endgame), but the medium-blending existence of the series belies the idea that Marvel took anything significant from the insular and self-contained Dark Knight Trilogy.

The Dark Knight vs. Iron Man

It’s interesting to look back at just those 2008 films since at face value they bore minor similarities. They both were focused on fantastically wealthy billionaires using their fortunes to fight wrongdoing on a potentially global scale; each movie was directed by filmmakers with indie cred thanks to Nolan helming Memento (2000) and Jon Favreau writing and starring in Swingers (1996); and each starred unexpected casting choices with Ledger as the Joker and Robert Downey Jr. jumpstarting a career comeback as Tony Stark.

But their goals and approaches were worlds apart. The obvious thing to note, besides The Dark Knight being a sequel to Batman Begins (2005) and Iron Man being an origin movie, is that Iron Man had an slyly hilarious sensibility, and The Dark Knight fancied itself an allegory about post-9/11 America. The former’s success was engineered in large part by Downey’s gift for comedic improvisation and freestyle. Indeed, co-star Jeff Bridges said in 2009 that he, Downey, and Favreau were essentially improvising their scenes from scratch every day during primitive rehearsals. “They had no script, man,” Bridges lightly complained with his Dude diction.

By contrast, The Dark Knight appears at a glance to be an exercise in self-seriousness and lofty ambition. Every scene, written by Nolan and his brother Jonathan Nolan, appears like a chess move, and each character a pawn or knight who’s been positioned to put contemporary audiences in a state of pure anxiety with War on Terror imagery and dialogue. Of course this clocklike presentation is itself another Nolan illusion, as smaller players like Michael Jai White, who portrayed gangster Gambol in the movie, have been quite candid about. As with almost every film, there is still a level of fluidity and workshopping on Nolan’s set.

Ultimately, the bigger difference between the Nolan and eventual Marvel approach is what each is hoping to accomplish with the film they’re currently making. More than just offering a “realistic” vision of Batman, The Dark Knight attempted to tell a sweeping crime drama epic that would stand alone, separate from its status as a Batman Begins sequel. Rather than being “the next chapter,” The Dark Knight was meant to be a cinematic distillation of Batman and Joker’s primal appeals writ large. With this approach, the film also broke away from the superhero movie template Batman Begins followed three years earlier, and which nearly all superhero films still walk through the paces of.

In essence, The Dark Knight showed that superhero movies could be dark and mature, yes, but they can also be subversive, unexpected, and genuinely surprising. Nolan’s previous superhero movie, as good as it is, followed the beats set down by Richard Donner’s Superman: The Movie nearly 30 years earlier. They’re the same beats trod by Iron Man and pretty much every other superhero origin movie, including a large bulk of Marvel Studios’ output. The Dark Knight, by contrast, reached for a cinematic vernacular separate from its specific genre. The movie’s not subtle about it either. The opening scene of Nolan’s epic wears its homages to Michael Mann’s Heat on its sleeves, and the story’s structure has more to do with Jaws than Jor-El.

The approach shook audiences in 2008 after they’d come to expect a certain type of movie from masked do-gooders. In The Dark Knight, superhero conventions could be subverted or obliterated when love interest Rachel Dawes is brutally killed off mid-sentence, or stalwart Batman is forced to claim a pyrrhic victory over the villain by entering into a criminal conspiracy and cover-up with the cops. The thrill of novelty was as breathtaking as the movie’s allegorical elements about a society on edge.

And even with The Dark Knight’s open-ended finale, it stood as a singular cinematic experience, complete with then-groundbreaking emphasis on IMAX photography. Nolan was so adamant about making this as self-contained an experience as possible that he jettisoned his co-story creator David Goyer’s idea of setting up Harvey Dent’s fall from grace for a third movie. Dent’s fate, as that of everyone else’s, would be tied strictly to the events of the movie you’re now watching.

“We Have a Hulk”

In Iron Man, and then more forcefully in Iron Man 2 (2010) and the rest of its “Phase One” era, Marvel Studios demonstrated a wholly different set of priorities. Similar to how Batman Begins paved the way for Nolan to do what he really wanted with that material, Iron Man 2 came to encapsulate Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige’s grander designs for the type of movies he was making. Where The Dark Knight was singular, unconventional, and two steps closer to our world than its comic book origins, Iron Man 2 was episodic, entirely crafted around audience expectations for a sequel, and even more like a comic book world than our own.

In other words, the first Iron Man gently submerged audiences into the fantasy by beginning with contemporary images of Tony Stark in a Middle Eastern desert; Iron Man 2 then made sweeping strides in defining what that MCU fantasy is as quickly as possible: Natasha Romanoff, aka Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) is introduced solely to establish the superspy who will be vital to The Avengers two years down the road, and the central narrative about Tony Stark fighting an old rival is put on pause to reintroduce the character Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) as a supporting, and superfluous, side character. The post-credit scene even arbitrarily introduces literal magic with a glowing hammer that has absolutely nothing to do with the story you just watched. Still, it’s a hell of a teaser for Thor which was due in theaters a year later.

With the release of Iron Man 2, Marvel Studios’ emphasis became diametrically opposed to the driving concept behind The Dark Knight Trilogy. Rather than each film being an insulated, standalone cinematic experience like the Hollywood epics of old, Marvel’s movies would be interconnected episodes in an ongoing narrative saga that spanned multiple franchises and countless sequels. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Unlike Nolan after The Dark Knight, Feige and his stable of writers always know where the next movie (or five) is going, and have a better idea of what the overall vision is than any single director working within this system. Ironically, this returns power to the studio and producer as the seeming authorial voice of each movie. Like in the Golden Age of Hollywood, directors are more often hired hands than influential auteurs.

However, this means the aspects Nolan really valued on The Dark Knight beyond a gritty “realism”—elements like spontaneity, subversion, and a distancing from superhero tropes—became antithetical to the type of movies produced by the MCU. For at least the first decade of its existence, the Marvel Cinematic Universe flourished by creating a formula and house style that is as predictable for audiences as the contents in a Big Mac.

When you go to a Marvel movie, you more or less you’ll get: an ironic, self-deprecating tone, a story that often revolves around a CG MacGuffin that must be taken from the villain, and a narrative in which disparate heroic characters come together after some amusing, disagreeable banter. In fact, more than Iron Man, it was Joss Whedon’s The Avengers (2012) which refined the Marvel formula into what it is today.

There are of course exceptions to this rule. Black Panther became the first Marvel movie since Iron Man to arguably tackle themes significant to the real world, in this case specifically the legacy of African diaspora. It also became the first superhero film nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture as a result; James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy movies might follow the narrative formula of most MCU movies, but they’re embedded with a cheeky and idiosyncratic personality that is distinctly Gunn’s; and in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) and Captain America: Civil War (2016), directors Joe and Anthony Russo, as well as screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, attempted to inject a little bit of that “realistic” aesthetic from The Dark Knight. But only to a point.

Particularly in the 2014 effort, there was a push by the Russos to rely on in-camera special effects and cultivate what they often described in the press as a “1970s spy thriller” style. Ostensibly, the hope may have been to make The Winter Soldier as much a spy thriller as The Dark Knight was a crime epic. In this vein, there were even attempts to graft onto the story very timely concerns about the overreach of a government surveillance state, which had only grown in the decade since the U.S. PATRIOT Act was passed, despite a change in White House administrations. However, all of these ambitions had an invisible ceiling hovering above them.

Despite having overtones about the danger of reactionary if well-intentioned government leaders, like the kind personified by Robert Redford’s SHIELD director in the movie, Captain America: The Winter Soldier couldn’t become too focused on the espionage elements or too far removed from the Marvel house style. The story still needed to interconnect with other Marvel films, hence Redford’s character turning out to be a secret HYDRA double agent, and it still needed to give audiences what they expected from a Marvel movie. Thus how this “1970s spy thriller” ends in a giant CGI battle with citywide destruction as Captain America inserts MacGuffins into machines that will blow up HYDRA’s latest weapon for world domination.

It’s easy to wonder if the movie was developed a little longer, and didn’t have to play by a certain set of rules and expectations, that instead of backpedaling into comic book motivations, Redford’s character would’ve been a well-intentioned patriot amassing power “to keep us safe,” and in the process destabilized the institutions he claimed to revere.

Movies

What Did Batman Do Between The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises?

By David Crow

WandaVision: The Unanswered Questions From the Marvel Series

By Gavin Jasper

A Universe Without End

The Marvel method breeds a heavy need for familiarity and comfortable predictability, as opposed to disorientation and discomfort. Yet both methods are valid. While Nolan achieved near universal praise for The Dark Knight, his attempt to replicate it with the even more ambitious The Dark Knight Rises—an unabashed David Lean-inspired epic that took more from A Tale of Two Cities and Doctor Zhivago than DC Comics—left fans divided. It also was a narrative dead end for the corporate/fanbase need of an ongoing franchise. Nolan instead reached a final, artistic, and emphatic period for his cinematic interpretation of Batman mythology. By comparison, Marvel Studios has created a new cinematic vernacular that only ever uses dashes, semicolons, and commas. There is always more to tell.

Nolan reflected on these changing circumstances for superhero movies in 2017 when he said, “That’s a privilege and a luxury that filmmakers aren’t afforded anymore. I think it was the last time that anyone was able to say to a studio, ‘I might do another one, but it will be four years.’ There’s too much pressure on release schedules to let people do that now, but creatively it’s a huge advantage.”

This lines up with what Jeff Bridges said about the evolution of the Marvel method way back in ’09 after the first Iron Man: “You would think with a $200 million movie you’d have the shit together, but it was just the opposite. And the reason for that is because they get ahead of themselves. They have a release date before the script [and they think], ‘Oh, we’ll have the script before that time,’ and they don’t have their shit together.”

Bridges’ unhappiness with the new process notwithstanding, Marvel was rewriting the playbook about how these types of movies were made. Nolan’s approach of one at a time and years-long development processes created three distinctly different and relatively standalone Batman movies. But Marvel has shifted the idea of not just what a franchise can be, but also what cinematic storytelling means.

Instead of three movies, their rules and structures have generated dozens of well-received and adored entertainments, that when combined can produce experiences as unique as Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and Avengers: Endgame (2019): two movies that were more like a two-part season finale on TV than individual stories. And the latter became the highest grossing film of all time.

The success of this approach is further underlined when one considers competitors that tried to emulate both Marvel and Nolan’s approaches, relying on a lone auteur to build a shared cinematic universe—while also arguably taking the wrong lessons from the “dark” in The Dark Knight title. In the case of the DC Extended Universe, that approach collapsed on itself after three movies, leaving the interconnected “shared” part of its universe in tatters, and fans and studio hands alike divided on how to proceed with the franchise.The Marvel Cinematic Universe took a narrower road than that of The Dark Knight. But it turned out to be a lot smoother and much, much longer.

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nathanneedsausername · 5 years

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The MCU (So Far) Ranked

With Avengers: Endgame right around the corner now feels like a good time to talk about all 21 films that brought us to this moment.

#21 - Thor: The Dark World (Alan Taylor)

Rating - 3/10

Look, there always has to be one.

Thor: The Dark World suffers from the same problem that most bad comic book movies do it is simply forgettable, this is the worst type of film to write about because I have noting to say. Far from being insultingly bad but also far from being any good. Honestly if you ever plan on cramming these films again do yourself a favour and skip this one.

#20 - The Incredible Hulk (Louis Leterrier)

Rating - 4/10

You can skip this one too.

The Incredible Hulk is a product of its time, in the late ‘00s this was about as good as action movies not called The Dark Knight got. This one isn’t unwatchable and the bit were The Hulk kicks Tim Roth into a tree is pretty cool but given how little this film has effected the franchise going forward you really wont miss anything by skipping it.

#19 - Iron Man 2 (Jon Favreau)

Rating - 4/10

I get why they made this movie, but I’d rather they hadn’t.

Iron Man 2 is basically just a teaser trailer for the better movies that were about to come out. This movie consists of boring conversations between Tony Stark and Nick Fury and even more boring scenes with the villains that really kicked of the cliché that these movies have boring villains. The suitcase Iron Man suit is really dope though.

#18 - Ant-Man and the Wasp (Peyton Reed)

Rating - 6/10

Meh.

Ant-Man and the Wasp is actually pretty good. Paul Rudd is allowed to fully explore his comedic talent making this a very watchable film however the script lacks any focus and it is ultimately difficult to stay invested in anything happening on screen. It’s a mixed bag but it’s pretty fun.

#17 - Thor (Kenneth Branagh)

Rating - 6/10

Kenneth Branagh made a super-hero movie, this is about as good as that idea could ever have been.

Thor is a surprisingly small movie, revisiting this film now feels slightly strange given what we have since seen of the character. Branagh was always the wrong choice to direct a Marvel movie especially during a time were the studio had far more say than any of their filmmakers. It’s worth revising this film to set up the Avengers but other than that it isn’t anything special.

#16 - Avengers: Age of Ultron (Joss Whedon)

Rating - 6/10

It took me a long time to come to terms with the fact that this movie is just ok.

Avengers: Age of Ultron should be so much better than it is but it ended up being the poster child for when a studio gets cold feet and tries to take over on directors vision. Joss Whedon is an excellent story teller but this does not so off his talents at all. Once again this certainly isn’t a bad film it just isn’t great, there is some good dialogue and the introduction of both Scarlet Witch and Vision is worth seeing.

#15 - Captain America: The First Avenger (Joe Johnston)

Rating - 7/10

Way more camp than I remember .

Captain America: The First Avenger feels as though it has taken the framework of a more conventional war drama and just thrown in some superhero stuff and I don’t necessarily think that is a bad thing. When this film embraces its campness it can be very entertaining. Chris Evans was a prefect casting choice for Steve Rodgers and this film does go in an unexpected direction by making Captain America basically just a mascot but once again the villain is weak and large sections of the plot are forgettable. Overall worth re-watching it is probably better than you remember.

#14 - Captain Marvel (Ryan Fleck, Anna Boden)

Rating - 7/10

I’m sorry, I like this one.

Captain Marvel might be the most controversial film in the whole franchise. I have some grievances with this one, namely lack of any style or originality in the writing or direction but the chemistry between Brie Larson and Samuel L Jackson helps to make this an enjoyable watch. I know you probably don’t agree with me but this is my list and I like this movie, so there!

#13 - Iron Man (Jon Favreau)

Rating - 7/10

Not as great as I remember but still pretty good.

Iron Man will forever be remembered as a film that changed cinema witch is so weird to me having re-watched it recently. This is a rather slow and somewhat cliché 2000s action flick with a paper-thin plot. Robert Downey Jr. and Jeff Bridges both give it their all and I have nothing but respect for Jon Favreau for turning RDJ’s mad ramblings into a coherent film.

#12 - Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (James Gunn)

Rating - 7/10

I’m still not sure how to take this.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is the most visually stunning film in the MCU, almost every shot could be used as a laptop wallpaper. This also has quite possibly the strongest theming as its story about fatherhood and toxic relationships can bring a tear to your eye if you let it. So it is such a shame that this film is full of jokes that just do not land and weird side plots that feel like set-ups for movies that Marvel would probably never let James Gunn make. I kinda love this movie but this is as high as I can put it on this list.

#11 - Captain America: Civil War (Anthony Russo, Joe Russo)

Rating - 8/10

The fight scene though!

Captain America: Civil War is one great fight scene that is all anyone ever wants to talk about. I think the rest of the movie is also pretty good, this was our first look at how the Russo brothers would handle a larger ensemble cast and every character gets the screen time they deserve. Really though the airport fight is amazing!

#10 - Doctor Strange (Scott Derrickson)

Rating - 8/10

The word Strange is in the title.

Doctor Strange has a remarkably safe plot given the source materiel, although that can all be forgiven given how amazing the visual effects are. This is a very entertaining film mainly for the creative and ingenious uses of special effects. This film can drag a bit but it is worth it to see something that gives the end of 2001 a run for its money.

#9 - Iron Man 3 (Shane Black)

Rating - 8/10

And you thought my views on Captain Marvel were controversial!

Iron Man 3 is great and I will not change my mind on that. This was the first team up between Robert Downey Jr. and screenwriter/director Shane Black since 2005′s Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and it was worth the wait. The dialogue is sharp and the plot with Tony Stark dealing with P.T.S.D. after the events of The Avengers makes for a great character study.

I am aware that the general consensus is that the plot twist sucks but with Ben Kingsley’s fantastic performance and the wonderfully absurd way that it is reveled I can’t help but love it. In all honesty I just to big a Shane Black fan to hate this (the same logic does not apply to The Predator).

#8 - Ant-Man (Peyton Reed)

Rating - 8/10

I can only image how great the Edgar Wright version of this would have been.

Ant-Man is so much better than people give it credit for. The dialogue is constantly funny and the screenplay is paced perfectly so that the film never has a dull moment even in the quieter character scenes. Moments like the train-set fight and the first time Scott Lang uses the Ant-Man suit are among the best scenes in the whole franchise. Like most people I have to believe that the Edgar Wright version would have been better but I must say that Peyton Reed did a pretty great job piecing what he had together.

#7 - Black Panther (Ryan Coogler)

Rating - 8/10

Marvel’s little awards season darling.

Black Panther is somehow one of the most important and talked about films of the decade and in all honesty it sort of deserves it. Coogler does what other MCU filmmakers would never do and dives head first into real world political issue, ending his film with a poignant note about free trade and open borders. Michael B. Jordan as Killmonger adds a nuance that is missing in most comic book movies. Overall Black Panther is a breath of fresh air in an over-saturated genre.

P.S that soundtrack is awesome!

#6 - Thor: Ragnarok (Taika Waititi)

Rating - 8/10

How did this happen?

Thor: Ragnarok is everything I wanted it to be. Taika Waititi is one of the most interesting filmmakers working today and it is great to see a major studio allow such a unique voice to make the exact film that they wanted to without sacrificing their creativity. This is not only one of the best Marvel films but one of the best straight comedies of the decade. I cannot wait to see what Waititi has in store in the future.

#5 - Spider-Man: Homecoming (Jon Watts)

Rating - 8/10

Things are looking up for Spider-Man.

Spider-Man: Homecoming was my favourite Spider-Man movie up until very recently. This genuinely feels like watching an 80s John Hughes film in the 2010s that also happens to action sequences in it. The scene where Peter Parker and Adrian Toomes are in the car together is brilliantly tense and shows of the dramatic range of both Tom Holland and Michael Keaton. The characters feel real and fleshed out and the breezy feel of the editing brings the world to life through the naive eyes of a young Peter Parker. I honestly can’t believe how good this ended up being.

#4 - Avengers: Infinity War (Joe Russo, Anthony Russo)

Rating - 9/10

This simply should not have worked.

Avengers: Infinity War is one of the most ambitious films in cinema history. I have so much respect for the Russo brothers for managing to make a film with this many characters and this many plot points feels cohesive and endlessly entertaining. I think the real triumph of Infinity War is how watchable and fun this movie is despite being 2 1/2 hours long, full of characters and constantly hitting you in the face with really depressing stuff. Let’s hope that the Russo brothers can pull of the same trick twice.

#3 - The Avengers (Joss Whedon)

Rating - 9/10

This movie isn’t given enough credit anyone.

The Avengers was a huge gamble back in 2012 and although it may now feel quaint given the achievement that was last year’s Infinity War Joss Whedon was able change the landscape of blockbuster cinema and make this whole thing possible. Almost every plot point in this film has since become cliché, Whedon and Feige laid out a blueprint for success that no one else has been able to copy since. The Joss Whedon humour and snarky dialogue helped to pave the way that these characters would interact in the future and his unique approach to utilizing an ensemble cast makes this film worth revisiting over and over again.

#2 - Guardians of the Galaxy (James Gunn)

Rating - 9/10

James Gunn hit the mainstream with a movie about a talking raccoon, I can never complain about the Hollywood system ever again.

Guardians of the Galaxy should not work on most levels but Gunn was just crazy enough to pull it off. The character interactions here rival the Wheadon penned interactions in The Avengers and the Gunn’s direction brings the strange worlds he has created to live in striking ways. Gunn was given a chance to showcase his humour and he ran with it, Guardians goes from dark and meandering to fun and rapidly paced within seconds and it is a complete joy to watch no matter how many times you have seen it.

#1 - Captain America: The Winter Soldier (Joe Russo, Anthony Russo)

Rating - 9/10

The Russo brothers came out swinging.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is an entertaining, tightly directed, brilliantly acted, fast paced and well edited action film that just so happens to be a squeal to the First Avenger. Many of the best moments in the franchise are in this film including the elevator scene and the fight on the bridge, this film also has great character interactions especially with Steve Rodgers and Nick Fury. This feels like an update on classic James Bond stories with a modern edge, this is everything that a comic book movie could be and I highly recommend checking it out again if you haven’t seen it in a while. There is no question that The Winter Soldier is the best of the MCU.

Franchise Rating - 7.1/10

Nathan Needs A Username’s Must See Movies: https://letterboxd.com/nathan_r_l/list/nathan-needs-a-usernames-must-see-movies/

Nathan Needs A Username’s Avoid At All Cost Movies: https://letterboxd.com/nathan_r_l/list/nathan-needs-a-usernames-avoid-at-all-cost/

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brokehorrorfan · 6 years

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Blu-ray Review: I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle

I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle has an attention-grabbing title with artwork to match, but unlike modern B-movies in the vein of Sharknado, it is not a byproduct of manufactured camp. The 1990 low-budget horror-comedy is well aware of its silly premise, but the laughs are genuine; it never lowers itself to winking at the audience. The dry, British humor holds up, and there's plenty of integrity behind it.

When a motorcycle gang kills a group of occultists amidst a satanic ritual, the cult leader uses his last dying breath to bleed himself into the gas tank of his 750cc Norton Commando, leaving an evil spirit to possess it. An unsuspecting local, Noddy (Neil Morrissey, British Men Behaving Badly), later buys the bike on the cheap, soon learning that it has a mind of its own. The title is not a metaphor; the motorcycle is a literal vampire. In addition to craving blood, it hates sunlight, garlic, and crucifixes.

The vampiric vehicle targets members of the rival motorcycle gang, but it's willing to satiate its blood-thirst with anyone it can get its hands-- er, wheels on. There are a lot of fun practical special effects - in addition to the killer bike, there's an unforgettable, anthropomorphic poop - headed by Bob Keen (Hellraiser, Candyman) and his Image Animation team (which also includes the Harry Pottter film's key prosthetic makeup artist, Paul Spateri). The scrappy charm brings to mind The Evil Dead.

Anthony Daniels (C-3PO from the Star Wars franchise) chews the scenery as an eccentric priest that Noddy enlists to exorcise the evil spirit. Fellow Star Wars veteran Amanda Noar (Star Wars: Return of the Jedi) plays Noddy's girlfriend. She and Morrissey were married at the time, so their chemistry is natural. Michael Elphick (The Elephant Man) serves as the inspector on the curious cast. Burt Kwouk (Pink Panther franchise) makes a brief, silent cameo as the proprietor of a Chinese takeout joint.

Producer/co-writer Mycal Miller (who penned the script with John Wolskel) conceived Vampire Motorcycle while working as an editor on the British crime series Boon. He proceeded to "borrow" several cast (including Morrissey and Elphick) and crew members, among other resources, from the TV series. Dirk Campbell made his feature directorial debut with the film. While he has since made an unlikely career for himself in children's television (most recently helming several episodes of The Worst Witch), I'd love to see him tackle another horror-comedy.

The film is pure entertainment from start to finish, but it's a bit long at 101 minutes. The setup, in particular, throws off the pacing; it's not until an hour into the film that Noddy realizes what's wrong with his motorcycle. Since the audience is in on the premise from the title, the main character - from whose point-of-view the story is told - ought to become aware of the conflict by the end of the first act.

I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle has been newly restored in 4K for a Blu-ray release from Kino Lober, resulting in a transfer so pristine it could be mistaken for a new (albeit low budget) effort. The Blu-ray features reversible artwork and several special features ported over from a previous DVD edition. Campbell, Frank, Wolskel, and Miller participate in a lively audio commentary, taking friendly jabs at one another and the film itself.

"We Bought a Vampire Motorcycle" is a 40-minute making-of documentary; a highlight comes when Daniels admits that the infamous "talking turd" nearly turned him off from doing the movie, but he has a good sense of humor about the ordeal. Other extras include: a featurette in which Campbell revisits the prop motorcycle after being stored in a shed since filming wrapped, a comedic "Where Are They Now?" segment, and the trailer.

I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle doesn't try to hide its limited budget, but it's a well-made film with ample humor (ranging from lowbrow to clever), special effects, and heart. With all the makings of a cult classic - including a rocking end credit theme song by composer Dean Friedman (another Boon alumnus) - it's a wonder the film isn't more widely discussed. Hopefully Kino Lorber's new Blu-ray presentation will allow viewers to uncover this hidden gem in all its bonkers glory.

I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle is available now on Blu-ray and DVD via Kino Lorber.

#i bought a vampire motorcycle #anthony daniels #michael elphick #burt kwouk #neil morrissey #horror comedy #cult classic #b movie #kino lorber #dvd #gift #review #article

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honeylikewords · 5 years

Note

Hey, K, I know it’s been days but you still feel like infodumping about Spiderverse? :o

pettyprocrastination said to jonedwardbernthal:Hello yes I loved into the spiderverse with my heart and soul please info dump I require sustenance

YES I DO WANT TO INFODUMP ABOUT SPIDERVERSE THANK YOU FOR ASKING

okay okay so i’m gonna put this all under a cut for those who haven’t seen the movie and wish to remain spoiler free, and i’ll also put a couple images so that mobile users (who sometimes automatically see the post, apparently?) to warn them to scroll past!

(pls enjoy my crappy ms paint warning banner ghskhgdk)

SO FIRST OF ALL I WANT TO SAY that genuinely, this movie changed my life. I have never been as excited or happy about a movie as I was with this one, and can find few (if any) flaws with it. I would have to be hyper-nitpicky if I wanted to point out anything wrong with it, but overall, I gotta say, this movie inspired me, made me cry, made me laugh out loud, made me shake and jitter with excitement.

I should point out that, yes, the visuals can be kinda jarring, especially for sensitive people like me who react to flashing stimulus and abrupt movement very poorly, but I honestly LOVED the visual aspect of the film. The character design is incredible, the animation is so unique and stunning, and every single person has this wonderful individuality in the way they look and move that it just blows me away. This movie is already a frontrunner for an Oscar in the animation category, apparently, and it’s easy to see why.

The writing is also impeccable, with a quick pace and genuine humanity to it, and it feels so bright and alive! The way people talk is so full of character and personality, and Miles’ codeswitching is adorable and fun to listen to, and everyone has such a special and unique personality that comes through how they speak. The voice acting is INCREDIBLE and the array of the cast is SO awesome and I LOVE everyone who was in it!

I literally am so excited about everything that I’m having a hard time keeping this post linear and sensical, but I just! Love it so much!

Some people criticize the film by saying that it’s not really the “first black Spiderman movie” because Miles “shares the spotlight”, but, honestly? That didn’t come across to me at all. This movie felt entirely centered on Miles. Yes, Peter B. Parker played a big role, but, like, every movie has supporting characters and co-mains. I understand the frustration, but that’d kinda be like saying that Captain America: The First Avenger isn’t Steve’s story because Peggy gets screentime and so does Bucky. But I also do get where people are coming from and I find the frustration very valid.

But I LOVE all the spider-people, and they didn’t actually overwhelm the movie. Peni, SpiderNoir, and SpiderHam all took backseats. They were fun additions, but didn’t ever detract from the experience of this being Miles’ story. Even Gwen didn’t derail the film, or even Peter B.! They all stayed in their lanes and moved Miles’ story along, more like the wheels propelling him than roadblocks obfuscating his progression.

I loved every one of the characters, and I got so attached to all of them; Miles’ family really stands out to me, because they are such strong and loving characters, and it is so, so sadly rare to see loving black families portrayed like this. Jefferson, Miles’ dad, is allowed to be flawed without ever crossing the line into “bad dad” territory. He’s allowed to be wrong but still love his son and be doing the absolute best for him. Even Miles’ “bad” uncle, Aaron, made me cry and love him. When Aaron died, I was horrified (mostly because, I mean, god, we really did not need to see another black man getting shot by a white guy...), but they also never demonized Aaron, or downplayed the tragedy of his loss. He was heroic, even in his mistakes, and I think that was really noble on the part of the storytellers.

The movie just feels so lived in and loved and human, and you can tell that it’s just a work of art and love and passion. It’s a game-changer. I legitimately consider it the best Marvel movie ever made, on par with Black Panther in terms of artistic value and importance. It’s the fun of Thor: Ragnarok and the art and significance of Black Panther rolled into one, unique, amazing bundle that has forever set the bar for how I want movies, especially movies intended for families and children to be.

“Anyone can wear the mask” means something. It may sound like a cheesy cop-out, but it means that we don’t have to look up to Perfect Pillars Of White Heroism as our standards. It means black children from Brooklyn are heroes. Jewish people are heroes. Women are heroes. Asian people are heroes. Even Miles’ parents are heroes, and it shows the wide gamut of good people and what we owe to each other. While neither Rio nor Jefferson Morales-Davis are “superheroes”, they are legitimate heroes, doing their part to make the world a better place.

Also, check THIS:

Just saying!

Anyway, moving on; the jokes in the movie are awesome, and my family has been throwing them back and forth ever since we saw the movie. SpiderHam’s t-pose ascension into the black hole and “keep this, it’ll fit in your pocket” had us in tears. SpiderNoir and the Rubik’s cube? Incredible. Peter B. crying in the shower? Artistry.

AND NOW FOR ME TO TALK ABOUT THE AFTER CREDITS SCENE BECAUSE I HAVE BEEN HOLDING IT IN FOR S O L O N G

When I read that Oscar had a cameo in the movie, I needed to know. It was the only spoiler I allowed myself to know about, and when I heard he was going to be Spider-Man 2099/Miguel O’Hara, I flipped. I read nothing else about the scene, and wanted to go in blind, but I researched Miguel and, well, you know, I fell in love!

His scene was SO good and SO funny and I LOVE Miguel SO much, you have no idea. I am SO excited for him to be in the next movie (fingers crossed!) and can’t wait to see more of him. I do hope they give him more screen time, because he’s a great character, and because it’d be amazing to have a Latino Spider-Man AND a Afrolatino Spider-Man! And because, you know, more Oscar is always ideal.

I love, love, love Miguel, and Oscar was so funny (he has amazing comedic timing and such great range, omg), and I am desperate to see more of him. I haven’t stopped bombarding my poor friend Cydney with love and affection for Miggy in, like, two weeks. I’m sure she’s sick of it by now. Also, I kinda wanna write stuff about Miggy, lowkey, as self-indulgence, but for now I’ll just keep that foolishness to myself lol.

Miguel O’Hara Is My Boyfriend Now ghdkhgkldhg

Anyway, the movie is chock-full of amazing things, both from an artistic/cultural standpoint and from a Marvel-fan standpoint: so many easter eggs and little surprises, so much amazing writing, so much amazing character design, just!! So! Good! Please go see it immediately, because I’m itching to see it again and don’t know how I can resist going in for a second watch.

Also, Peter B. Parker is Jewish and it’s canon and if you want to step up and fight me about it, feel free to, but I will kick your ass. I will. Know this. Jewish Spider-Man FOREVER, FOOLS. No one is allowed to thirst after him if they also ignore his being Jewish or disrespect it, so if you wanna love him, you gotta love his Judaism too, or I’ll fist-fight you behind the Denny’s at 3 am and knock you the hell out.

also john mulaney’s cussing outtakes for spiderham are the funniest thing on earth and i’m crying

OH and I have the art book for the movie and everything is so *kisses fingers like an Italian cook* B E A U T I F U L! And the soundtrack? BOY I TELL YA I was listening to it for WEEKS in advance even when there were only three songs released and some of those tracks are, like, incredibly powerful, whooh.

Anyway GO SEE SPIDERVERSE. I LOVE IT. ALL OTHER SPIDER-MAN MOVIES ARE DOOKIE BY COMPARISON.

I have more I could say but I’m so excited I’m bouncing around and going hog wild dgkgdhgkg i love spider verse

#spiderverse #messages #spoilers #into the spiderverse spoilers #miggy: LOOK AT YOUR FINGER LOOK AT IT YOU ARE POINTING AT ME #me wiping tears from my eyes: i cant believe i love you so freakin much #Anonymous

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vroenis · 4 years

Text

Art Created For Mood

I was watching a YouTuber I really like playing a game I really don’t like but from a developer that I also don’t like who does a thing I actually really like. That’s an opening and a half, but bear with me.

I don’t know if this book is good or not, but it’s here for the puns, and so am I. So is Max Kornell, it appears. I sure hope he’s an alright guy cos his children’s book is on my tumblr for a visual gag now.

It doesn’t matter what the game was, and it so happens it was DLC - some of you will be able to figure out what it was once I describe it, but very early on in the gameplay minutes of proceedings, the developers have the player-protagonist/avatar and your companion-of-the-moment engage in messing about in an old, abandoned fancy-dress store, picking up costumes and masks and larking about. I appreciate the YouTuber in question may have been partially or wholly playing up to the streaming audience ever-present at the time when they impatiently remarked “is this all we’re going to do” and “when do we get to actually play the game” etc., “when does the game start?” and so on, but as you may remember in my commentary on the Uncharted games a while back, interactions like these to someone like me are most often the most important - and now there’s no question what the game is if you haven’t figured it out already. As a side-note, I think the problem in this particular instance is one of pacing, and cold-opening the DLC with a scene like this may have been the issue. Video game pacing is tricky, tho, so it’s difficult to consider whether most players would be playing this content months after having experienced the main game, or whether the majority of players will be those who will have purchased it fresh on the newest generation of hardware, given the title actually launched a whole console iteration ago. Assuming that might be the case, the pacing experience might be entirely different, but I’m getting side-tracked.

I can’t account for what the YouTuber/Streamer was thinking and I don’t want to throw any shade and suggest they may have been performing for their audience - even if they were, it’s still fine - Streaming is performance, I feel like that much should be clearly evident. It’s not important to me where the truth lies within that individual. What the exterior performance telegraphs tho, is perhaps a misunderstanding of what the purpose of a scene like that is. I realise that in games that feature frequent occurrences of brutal violence, tension, excitement and anxiety, scenes of levity and peacefulness offer reprieve and introspection. They’re effective because of context and their rarity lends them power.

I’m still here to say a whole game of those kinds of things can still be powerful, you just have to be intelligent about the context. Reframing maturity to mean something other than violence takes real intelligence. It makes me question just how many actual adults we have developing video games. No, I don’t hate to bring it up again, but you need to play Kentucky Route Zero, Howling Dogs and a myriad of other Twine games and many other games created in queer spaces to perhaps broaden your understanding of what adults create when they don’t look to violence as a banner for maturity.

Naturally I’m going to turn to the most cliched of mediums; film.

For which I won’t apologise. That’s a frame from the montage in the middle of Mamoru Oshii’s 1995 movie Kōkaku Kidōtai - Ghost In The Shell, based on Masamune Shirow’s manga of the same name. I’d like to say that frame or the set of frames it’s taken from is one of my favourites from the film, because it is, but to be honest, the entirety of the three and a half minute montage is absolute perfection and every frame is equally important. It encapsulates the essence of the film without a single line of dialogue by playing a haunting piece of music expertly crafted by Kenji Kawai and showing seemingly disjointed images of the city in which the film is set. The film’s protagonist does appear in several shots, and some frames exhibit the city in decay, but some are completely urbane and simply show life in ordinary existence. Without discussing the main text of the film further, suffice to say it is the perfect frame for the subject of the narrative without stating it.

Before I embed the Ghost In The Shell montage, however, I want to share one Oshii created 2 years before it in Patlabor 2: The Movie. Let’s watch that one together, and even if you’ve not seen the film yourself, note in particular how topical the images are today, if you’re reading this some time around July 2020.

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For those who’ve not seen the film, I highly recommend it. It’s not necessary to have seen either the series or the first Patlabor movie. It may help a little to watch the first film, mostly just to familiarise yourself with characters and terminology, but it’s not a necessity. The first film is much more comedic and while the second still has its funny moments, as evidenced in this montage, it takes a much more dramatic and sombre turn. Various domestic terrorist and military activities cause a declaration of martial law in Tokyo at roughly the mid-point of the film at which point this montage appears. The depictions of the citizenry, their interaction with the military and vice-versa are particularly interesting, and the film’s commentary as a whole is fascinating. That this has for the most part been lovingly and agonisingly rendered by hand in stunning animation detail is amazing.

Feelings are wonderful, weird, oddly shaped things. We use a lot of words in our lives, pragmatically to communicate, to instruct, to describe and tell stories. Funnily enough, when I was deeply entrenched in video games culture doing podcasts, playing a lot of games and writing a lot more about game studies etc., there was a lot of writing about the place about game verbs and it’s a great synthesis of design - a tool for describing the most simple actions in a game; move, jump, shoot, collect, talk, choose etc. In my introductory example, there are still a lot of verbs in play, like move, but the one most absent is of-course shoot, and the one that comes to the fore is talk. I feel like the scene at the beginning of that DLC is wholly intended to create a sense of atmosphere, to evoke certain feelings. Is it there to set the scene for context later on? Maybe. Is it for reprieve from violence? Also possible. But perhaps it’s just there to be relished, to be indulged. Maybe it’s OK to just be there to be felt, because feeling it is good, or even just feeling it is feeling something. Maybe it doesn’t have to be good, it’s just a different feeling to the way we feel when we’re reading an action feedback-loop where we’re engaged in move/shoot/wait/don’t die/melee/die-reload-repeat.

It’s hard for me to separate these montages from the films they come from. I want to say they’re powerful outside of the films, but I’ve seen those films so my viewings and re-viewings of them are loaded with my memories of the entire work; I have the full context. Tempted as I am to embed the montage from Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence, I think that would be spoiling you too much, plus the film in its entirety really warrants a full viewing. Kenji Kawai’s music in the second film along deserves maximum volume and your time uninterrupted, so I won’t demean it with a tiny little window and a wall of text. I promised you the montage from the first GitS movie, so here it is, at three and a half minutes.

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I’m using the word feel quite a lot in this entry and it’s intentional. In recent times, we seem to be de-emphasising our feelings somewhat and I’m all for some semblance of rationality and logic but emotions are important. Feelings are amazing - all of them. The ones that are good, the ones that are uncomfortable, the ones that are uncontrollable. I guess some folks try to talk about understanding feelings and there’s a little truth in that but I don’t think it’s something we can ever fully get a complete hold of, nor should we. I’m not here to attempt to provide you guidance on that, I think if you’re reading this, you’re well capable of gauging for yourself what the impact is of your emotions to your life and what you may need to do about it. Don’t read an implication that I mean to diminish their impact, either - you may well need to amplify their impact, I think a lot of people don’t consider that - now more than ever, but again, I wouldn’t know. You would. Only you do.

Anyway - I feel like a lot of art and moments in art, or sections of art, are being misinterpreted or criticised because people aren’t open to the intent. Again I come back to the example in the opening to this entry. Assuming on good faith that the YouTuber’s/Streamer’s behaviour was genuine, their reading of the activity in the game was that it was somehow not game, and that until there was either shooting or puzzling or adventuring of some kind, that those things would be actually game or real gameplay does that scene and activity a disservice. Of-course, maybe they just straight-up didn’t like it which is fair. I accept that, I guess - but I don’t like it.

It still bothers me tho. Even tho I really don’t like that game, I understand that the point of it is to ground the narrative in very human roots, in emotional engagement so that the character has something to celebrate, to cherish fondly, or even perhaps to regret or look back on with bitterness or anger. Regardless - even if it doesn’t have a payoff in the future, I still feel like it’s important as a representation of human behaviour in a game in which human avatars are depicted. The images on screen within that video game are for the most part not abstract. The themes shown and the narrative woven about their journey, their motivations, the justifications for their actions and the moralising therein within the fictional framework of the universe are all extremely human and intended to be analogous to the real human experience.

That being the case, on that assumption, I’m surprised and even more disappointed that there aren’t more non-violent indulgences of peaceful human interactions on offer in these games.

People’s tastes in films, I guess, has been quite monolithic for some time. I mean, I’ve always had the throw-away semi-casual assumption of such but I didn’t think it was a real thing. I appreciate I’m into some fringe stuff and I don’t expect most people to get into the super-weird films, but that folks would be so narrow? Like... so narrow. I’ve said it before, I’m well accustomed to the art I’m into being heavily criticised by most people, but even the more approachable material I’m into, people seem to either struggle to digest or still regard as boring because it doesn’t register on some level of excitement that scales on a weird, reductive verb-o-meter not dissimilar to video games designed with the fewest of verbs; move, shoot and collect. Sometimes a film isn’t necessarily about what’s literally happening on the screen, or strictly about the narrative playing out. Sometimes art is about how you feel when you experience it - we’ve quite literally been describing art, in particular music, as mood pieces for years, and for quite some time now, video games.

In film, David Lynch is a master at it to name only one, and there are a ton of others. You don’t have to immediately have to be able to process his narratives, your first concern is to how you feel when you view his films. The pragmatics can - and often do - come later. Once you familiarise yourself with his cinematic language of emotional tone and atmosphere, you may find that his narratives are actually quite simple and they quite easily make sense - they’re artfully told and are injected with immense feeling because they’re told in such unique and emotional ways.

How do you go about choosing a frame from David Lynch’s Mulholland Dr.?

I tend not to discuss general release films much - I don’t have any particular distaste for them at all, I’ve mentioned that I have a great appreciation for them but if there’s any way I can speak to the emotional responses I have to them, it’s that in a broader sense, most of my responses are more or less the same. That’s why I don’t really talk about them. Their impact to me and how I engage with art in my life is minimal. That doesn’t mean I don’t think they’re important in the world culturally or that I discount their cultural importance to others - not at all. If they’re important to you, then that’s wonderful and amazing and you should celebrate them. Nevertheless, there’s also a place for independent cinema and art and creating things that don’t directly speak to the most transparent of feelings. I understand that the audience is smaller and the financial availability is going to have to be smaller - that’s OK, but mood pieces are special and amazing and weird and sometimes indescribable and maybe you should give them a try because they can make you feel real strange and sometimes strange feelings can be powerful too.

Once in a while, some folks do make something that is super approachable and bridges that magical gap between indescribable emotion and mood, and audiences that need the most gentle of entry-points. I think Thatgamecompany’s video game Journey has to be one of the best examples of a work that transcends and overcomes a lot of barriers by removing so many obstacles not only typical of video games but art in general. It’s a truly gorgeous experience, and one that is uniquely evocative not only for its own but any medium.

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While I’m sure there where throngs of mouth-breathers who flocked to reddit et al to decry Journey as NOTAGAME™, there were plenty of people who found themselves disarmed by its approach to play, playfulness, narrative and emotion. While you can watch a full play-thru video of the game, once-again I do encourage you to actually play the game itself altho so far from its release, there may be a critical component of the experience missing. A minor spoiler; central to the game is a sense of connection and yet separation. Lead designer Jenova Chen at the time was dismayed by online gaming behaviour and that engagement between players was so so toxic - it remains so today. He wanted a way for players to connect but not be able to be harmful and hateful to one another. The game will actually pair players together via online services, but there is no VOIP or text communication utility at all, nor can you see the username of whom you’re liked to. There is almost no way to communicate, save for a single button that will emit a musical note and an abstract symbol above your character’s head - that’s it. Beyond that, you may freely move about the world together, choosing to follow one-another or separate and ignore each other. That is the extent of interaction, and when the game launched in 2012, we discovered this together as a community - it was amazing and breathtaking, especially as the whole experience unfolded.

If Jenova Chen and his team at Thatgamecompany can teach people who usually shoot heads that moods can be engaged in and enjoyed with Journey, I feel like people have the ability to identify all forms of art that does the same. Art that deviates from the usual MO of fulfilling our usual roster of base needs. I’m not denigrating mass-market art by describing base needs - not at all. Base needs are hella important, but if the violence in The Last of Us gives the reprieve of giraffes context, surely the base needs of mass-market art does the same for mood pieces?

This is a frame from Exit (2011) directed by Marek Polgar and you should 100% find it and watch it.

These are some of the more fringe works I’m into, if you’re particularly daring. I’ve no doubt that someone will find them pedestrian and that’s fine. At some point, tho, people have to be able to either go to a shop a buy it, or at least find it online somewhere, so I’m sure the video your mate from uni made is the highest of couture art, but if no-one other than you and ten friends have seen it, it legit doesn’t count ay.

By the way - these are all listed in Film Notes, but I’ll lazylink their IMDB pages here so you can see how bad their audience scores are.

Tokyo.Sora (come-on, it’s my favourite film of all time) Exit (OK so as much as I was being facetious just before, this is going to be difficult to track down, but worth it if you can) Womb (CW: incest) The Sky Crawlers (my favourite of Mamoru Oshii’s) The Limits Of Control To The Wonder (I know - Malick, but I feel like if you’re going to try one, try this - shorter, more intimate, less abstract - I find it’s his most tender) Holy Motors (be thankful I’m linking Carax and not Noé/Void or Climax)

#2020 #chrono #film #writing about film #ghost in the shell #art created for mood #patlabor #patlabor 2 #patlabor the movie #patlabor 2 the movie #mamoru oshii #anime #anime movies #writing about video games #video games #david lynch #thatgamecompany #journey game #journey playstation

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clonerightsenthusiast · 7 years

Text

The Minister of Crocaganda

(this is all the fault of the campaign discord, who suggested blue wearing these. this is both the best and worst thing ive ever written)

(read on ao3)

It all started with those stupid, no-good, absurd novelty shoes, and frankly Zero regretted ever buying them to begin with.

But how could he resist? They were just… so awful, so unspeakably hideous, he couldn’t possibly not buy them, just to see the look on everyone’s face when he came sliding into the conference room wearing electric blue crocs with high heels.

He never expected the chaos that would ensue.

Sure, it was funny when he sauntered in, followed by the ridiculous squeaking of the rubber shoes, and he got a laugh and rolled eyes out of Aava and a (carefully, but not totally masked) horrified look from Synox, but Blue.

Blue wasn’t paying attention at first, reading what looked like four scripts at once, but looked up at Aava’s laugh and turned to give Zero a quizzical look.

Zero posed, shooting Blue finger guns as he stuck one leg out comedically far.

“What do you think?”

Blue looked… confused. “Why in the world are you wearing those?”

“The real question, Blue, is why aren’t you wearing them? They’re all the rage these days. All the cool kids are wearing them,” Zero said in the most over-the-top prima-donna voice he could muster. He pulled up a hair-flip emoji on his faceplate just for added effect.

Blue just blinked, went, “Huh,” in a considering voice, then went back to his scripts.

Zero plopped down in his chair, put his feet up on the table, and shot Aava a winky face. She rolled her eyes and snickered behind her hand.

After a few minutes Blue spontaneously dropped the scripts and got around to telling them why they were all there in the first place, and Zero thought the moment had passed.

Everything had seemed normal for the next few days, until Zero wandered into the kitchen one morning to see Blue dressed impeccably in his usual uniform, with the sole exception of a pair of blue crocs sporting the image of a bright yellow cartoon character.

Zero stopped dead in his tracks.

There were only a few explanations for this:

One, Blue had decided to get in on the joke a few days too late, which was a little embarrassing but also sort of endearing, and the two would laugh about it over breakfast and then Blue would throw those abominations in the incinerator where they belong and they could never speak of them again.

Two, Blue’s fashion sense is just that bad and he genuinely likes the shoes, in which case Zero can never be seen near him again.

Three, Blue didn’t realize Zero was joking the other day and has decided to wear them because he’s under the impression they are a legitimate fashion craze and he wants to stay on top of it.

Four, and the worst of all, Blue didn’t realize Zero was joking the other day, and he likes the shoes. In this case Zero could never be seen near him again, and he might just drop dead of secondhand embarrassment.

Zero remembered the jeaster, and shuddered.

“Heeey, Blue,” he said finally, casually sauntering over to lean against the counter beside the caf machine Blue was standing over. “Nice, uh… nice shoes you got there.”

Blue looked up and beamed at him, with that just-caffeinated wide-eyed edge that Blue always got first thing in the morning. “Thanks, I had someone requisition a pair for me after what you said the other day--they’re actually quite comfortable, and I was surprised by the broad range of colors they had available! Mine aren’t as fancy as yours, but I like them a lot actually, they’re very cute, don’t you think?”

Zero didn’t answer for the several long seconds it took for him to process that this was actual real life, and then he let out a strangled, “Uh-huh. Gotta go!”, turned on his (sensible boot) heel, and speed-walked out of the room as fast as physically possible.

Minutes later he found himself pacing agitatedly back and forth in front of Aava, reclining on her bed in a robe with a faintly annoyed look on her face.

“You don’t understand, Aava, he doesn’t get it. He’s not being ironic at all. He’s wearing them because he likes them. He’s going to keep wearing them unless someone tells him and if I go in there and tell him I was joking and crocs are the greatest fashion sin this galaxy has ever seen I will die. Do you hear me, Aava? I will die if I have to tell him.”

Aava rolled her eyes. “I don’t see the big deal, Zero. Personally, I think it’s hilarious. Let the boy embarrass himself for a few days until he realizes he’s being an idiot. It’ll be good for his ego.”

Zero rounded on her, gesticulating wildly with both arms. “I have to be seen with him! In public! Every day! While he’s wearing them!”

Aava cocked her head and considered that for a moment, then shrugged. “Then tell him.”

Zero groaned and dragged his hands down his helmet.

“And get out of my room, I was getting dressed,” Aava added, irritation coloring her voice.

Zero flipped her off as he stormed out, wondering desperately how he could salvage this situation.

He didn't do anything at first, hoping that maybe the situation would sort itself out. Luckily, Blue had mostly sequestered himself in his office while he worked on the scripts for the next batch of Synox and Friends episodes, but every time he left to get more caf or yell at the editors Zero died a little more at the sight of the obnoxious blue-and-yellow rubber abominations on his feet.

He tried dropping hints, at first.

“Hey, Blue, aren’t you a little tired of those shoes?” he asked, painfully casually.

Blue shrugged. “No, actually, I think they go well with my uniform, and they’re more comfortable than regular work shoes.”

The next day he tried, over dinner, “Y’know the real fashion trend? Combat boots. It really gets the teen demographic.”

Blue looked at him disdainfully over his holo-display. “Aava told you to say that.”

Zero gaped at him and stammered out, “Wha--she did--she did not!”

Blue rolled his eyes with a, “Sure, Zero,” and went back to what he was doing.

Zero cornered him on the walk back to their quarters after a long day of watching Blue edit propo footage, asking him, “Don’t your feet feel weird after a while walking in rubber shoes?”

Blue laughed and waved him off with, “Don’t be silly, Zero. Of course I’m wearing socks with them.”

Zero practically choked and forced himself to keep walking like nothing happened.

He gave up in despair after that.

He was about ready to resign himself to a life of humiliation via Minister Blue’s horrendous fashion sense when it somehow managed to get even worse.

Zero had to actually stop and make sure he wasn’t in a some kind of horrible fever dream when he walked into a room and spotted Synox talking to some stormtroopers while wearing a pair of crocs as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

Zero marched right over to him and stood glowering a foot away while Synox finished talking and dismissed the troopers, then slowly turned to look at him.

“Good morning, Agent Zero,” he says in that stiffly cheerful way of his, eyeing him uncomfortably as Zero leaned closer.

“Yeah, hey, Sy,” Zero said briskly. “Hey, uh, can I ask you a question?”

“Of course,” Synox said, tilting his head not unlike a curious dog. “What would you like to know?”

“Where the hell did you get those shoes and why are you wearing them?” Zero asked urgently.

Synox blinked and looked down at his shoes. “Minister Blue gave them to me. He said they would attract the young adult demographic that Synox and Friends and the Junior Trooper program are not reaching,” he said like he’s reciting something.

Zero let out an agonized groan.

Synox frowned. “Are you alright, Agent Zero?”

Zero jabbed a finger in his face. “No, Sy, I am not okay. He has gone too far.”

“Er--”

“I have to fix this. I’m going to fix this. Later, Sy.”

Zero about-faced and strode off in the opposite direction, muttering to himself and leaving Synox to stare after him before shaking his head and leaving to attend to his own duties, squeaking faintly.

He found Blue in his office, and when Zero burst in, Blue looked up and broke into a grin.

“Zero! Just the man I wanted to see!” he exclaimed, pushing back from his desk to rise to his feet.

Zero stopped short, caught off guard. “Uh, hey, Blue,” he said awkwardly. “And why is that?”

Blue walked over, slinging an arm around Zero’s neck and pulling him with him as he left the room, gesturing with his other arm. Zero reluctantly allowed it, still rather taken aback.

“I’ve had a great idea, Zero, and it’s all thanks to you.”

“Okay…” Zero said, suddenly filled with dread.

“You know who’s the most likely to be discontented with the Empire, Zero? Do you?” Blue continued on without waiting for a response, which is good because Zero was too busy being horrified as he realized where this is headed. “It’s young adults. Young people just coming into their own, filled with rebellion and seeing the Empire as their enemy. They need to see the Empire as a friendly face, relatable and approachable.”

“Isn’t that why they hired you?” Zero asked, gesturing to his… everything. If anyone in the Empire looked approachable it was Blue, for a certain measure of approachable that probably also included “punchable”.

Blue waved a hand dismissively. “Yes, of course, but the formula could be improved upon. And that’s where your idea comes in, Zero.” Blue pressed his other palm into Zero’s chest intently and grinned at him. “Fashion is the answer, Zero. I can reach them through their trends, show that I understand them.”

Zero’s stomach sunk as his worst fears came to fruition. “Blue, I don’t--”

“No, no, not another word, Zero,” Blue said, shaking his head. “You’ve done enough. I need to thank you. You’ve ushered in a new era of imperial propaganda.”

Zero had never been more grateful for his faceplate as he forces himself to project a smiley face to hide his true horror.

At the first opening, he slipped Blue’s grasp and ran off with a weak excuse of having to check on something in his room and went to find Aava.

Aava wasn’t anymore sympathetic (and in fact found the entire situation even more hilarious than before, which Zero did not appreciate), but she did let him sulk in her room for the rest of the afternoon.

“I have to stop this,” he moaned, laying face-down on her bed, his voice muffled by her comforter.

“Tell Blue it was a joke,” Aava said, bored after saying the same thing at least ten times in the past hour.

Zero groaned and flopped over onto his back. “You didn’t see him, Aava. He’s so thrilled by these kriffing shoes. I can’t do that to him. It’s too late.”

“Then I guess you’ll just have to let him go on film wearing crocs.”

“Unless…” Zero bolted upright, turning to Aava. “I have an idea.”

Aava gave him a wary look. “Zero, don’t do something stupid.”

“No, it’s a great idea. Thanks for listening, Aava, I gotta go!” Zero clambered to his feet and raced out of the room, waving to her over his shoulder.

The first step was to track down Blue’s favorite requisition flunky. It wasn’t hard, considering Blue puts in some request to her at least three times a week and sometimes Zero has to intercept the ones he makes thirty-two hours into an editing session with nothing sustaining him but caf.

He cornered her just as she was filing the last handful of papers on her desk at the end of the day, dropping one hand on her desk and the other on the back of her chair, looming over her.

“Agent Zero!” she squeaked, jumping and leaning away from him. “Er, wh-what can I do for you? Does Minister Blue need something?”

“No, actually,” Zero said. “But he’s going to tell you that he needs something, and you’re going to tell him it’s impossible.”

The poor girl blanched. “I--I suppose if you say so,” she stuttered, grabbing the edge of her desk to avoid falling out of her chair as she leaned even farther away from him. Her eyes flicked to the hilt of his vibrosword over his shoulder. “W-what is he going to ask for?”

Zero stared her down long enough for her to be utterly aware of the severity of what he asked, before finally saying, “... Crocs.”

She blinked. “C-crocs? Like, the shoes?”

Zero raised one hand to wave it. “Yes, the shoes! He’s already asked for a few pairs, right?” He paused long enough for her to nod before going on, “Make sure he doesn’t get anymore. Understand?”

She nodded again and when Zero didn’t move, blurted out, “I understand! No more crocs for Minister Blue, got it!”

Zero finally straightened up, satisfied. “Good. And make sure nobody else gets them for him, either, or I’ll be back for another talk.”

She squeaked and nodded frantically, and Zero retreated, leaving her to hyperventilate in peace.

Step one complete. Now for the important part.

It’s easy enough to get into Blue’s room when he’s asleep. Zero has had to do it plenty of times in the past, to make sure he actually crashed when he was supposed to and also for the occasional prank. He never bothered to actually ask for the lock code because he could slice into the lock practically in his sleep at this point.

With the excuse of some nonsense question ready at hand in case Blue was awake, Zero slipped inside his room in the predawn hours of the next day. Blue, fortunately, was snoring away in his bed, tangled in his sheets and blissfully ignorant to the intruder. The dark was no obstacle to Zero, and he made short work of getting into Blue’s extensive closet, snatching the offending accessories, and stealing out of the room with barely a sound.

He stowed them in his room, under his mattress where nobody would think to look, until he had a free moment to incinerate the damn things. Then he went to bed, satisfied that he was off to a good start.

The next morning, Zero was in an excellent mood as he strolled into the kitchen to find Blue pouting into a cup of caf.

“Morning,” he said brightly, getting his own cup and plopping down beside him, popping out his straw to cheerfully slurp at it.

“Hi, Zero,” Blue said, sounding distracted. He looked up from his caf and Zero offered a question mark on his faceplate.

“What’s up, pal?” he asked, kicking his feet up on the table.

“My shoes are missing,” Blue said, frowning. “I don’t know what happened to them--have you seen them?”

“What, your crocs?” Zero asked, feigning concern. “Where did you see them last?”

“Yeah, my crocs,” Blue said with painful sincerity. “I put them in my closet last night and they weren’t there this morning. Do you have any idea where they could’ve gone?”

Zero pretended to think about it for a bit before shrugging and shaking his head. “No, sorry. I’m sure they’ll turn up eventually--but even if they aren’t, it’s not that big a deal, right? I mean, they’re not that great.”

“Of course they are,” Blue said morosely. “But I appreciate you trying to cheer me up. You’re a good friend, Zero.”

Zero gritted his teeth and showed Blue a smiley face as he got up and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “No problem, Blue. I got something I gotta take care of, but I’ll see you later.”

Blue looked up, wide-eyed, grabbing his wrist. “Wait, what, where are you going? We need to film that propo later today, I need you to find my shoes!”

Zero took a deep breath and held up his hands appeasingly. “Don’t worry, I’ll be back. If I see your shoes, I’ll bring them to you, okay?”

Blue still didn’t look pleased, but he sighed and let go. “All right, all right. See you later.”

Zero shot him finger guns and walked off, speeding up as he turned the corner and headed back to his room to grab Blue’s crocs and make for the nearest trash chute.

On his way back, he turned a corner and walked smack into Synox going the other way. He stepped back, blinking, and automatically looked down to see that, yep, Synox was wearing his crocs.

God, those kriffing eyesores, he needed to get rid of them once and for all.

“Agent Zero, I wasn’t expecting to see you here, what are you doing in this area? Where’s Minister Blue?” Synox asked, looking over Zero’s shoulder as if he expected to see Blue appear out of midair.

Zero stopped short. “Oh, um… nothing and nowhere. I’m not up to anything, Sy, why would you think that?”

Synox frowned, looking suspicious. “Is something going on, Zer--”

Zero cut him off, pointing over Synox’s shoulder and yelling, “Whoa, Sy, what’s that over there!”

“What’s what?” Synox asked, turning to look.

Zero punched him hard in the back of the head, and as Synox doubles over, he shoved him over, grabbed the shoes off his feet, and sprinted off in the other direction.

When he came face to face with a pair of alarmed cadets, he jabbed a threatening finger at them, growling, “You saw nothing,” before turning the corner and racing off.

“Zero, I love you, but if you burst into my room one more time--”

“I knocked Synox out and stole his shoes.”

Aava stops short and stares at him, then sighs and delicately facepalms. “I thought I told you not to do something stupid.”

“I panicked!”

“Zero!”

“Look, just--I got rid of Blue’s shoes, but on my way back I ran into Sy, and he was suspicious, and I--I panicked, okay!” Zero gesticulated widely, Synox’s shoes still in hand.

Aava groaned. “Why did you have to drag me into this?”

“You’re the only sane person in this entire compound,” Zero pleaded. “Aava, what am I gonna say when Synox asks me why I attacked him?”

Aava shook her head, shrugging. “I don’t know, maybe you thought he was someone else?”

“I called him by name, Aava, come on, I need something real!”

“Zero!” Aava reached up to clamp her hands on his shoulders. She is really deceptively strong, and Zero stopped to look down at her. “This has gone far enough. You need to just tell Blue that the crocs were a joke, and they’re embarrassing, and he shouldn’t wear them on air.”

Zero whined. “But I don’t wanna.”

Aava gave him a flat, unamused look.

Zero let out a blustery sigh and lifted his arms helplessly. “Fine! I’ll tell him. But for the record, my plan would have worked.”

“If you hadn’t attacked Synox.”

“I feel strongly about fashion, all right?”

Aava rolled her eyes and let him go with a final pat on the shoulder. “Go talk to your boy.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Zero grumped, turning to leave. “Thanks, Aava.”

“Mmhmm. Never step foot in my room without an invitation again.”

“Zero!” Blue cried out the moment Zero turned the corner, sheepishly holding Synox’s crocs. “I was looking for--what’ve you got there?”

Zero held up the crocs, trying to figure out how to breach the topic of conversation.

“Are those Synox’s? How did you get those? Did you find mine?”

“Blue,” Zero says, holding up a hand to stop him as Blue strode over to inspect the shoes. “There’s something you need to know.”

Blue cocked his head curiously.

Zero took a deep breath. “Okay, so, you remember that day when I came in wearing crocs? And I told you that they were a hot new craze?”

Blue frowned, gesturing impatiently. “Yes, of course I remember, what’s your point?”

Zero made a frustrated sound, gesturing sharply with one hand. “Just, listen to me. Blue.” He put his hands on Blue’s shoulders, staring him in the face. Blue’s eyes found his behind the faceplate with not much difficulty after years of practice. “I was making a joke. Crocs aren’t actually cool. They are in fact the worst thing a human being--or anyone else, for that matter--can ever wear on their body. They are a sin in the eyes of fashion god. The only people that wear them are doing it as a joke or are terribly out of touch.”

Zero took a long breath as Blue just gaped at him, uncomprehending. “I’m sorry, Blue, but letting you go on air wearing crocs would be a betrayal of our relationship. I couldn’t do it. I broke into your room last night and threw them out. I also may have just punched out Synox and stole them. And threatened the requisition girl so she wouldn’t give you any more.”

He shrugged sheepishly. “I was just trying to look out for you, Blue.”

Blue looked at him in silence for a long time as Zero resisted the urge to squirm uncomfortably under his gaze, then squinted suspiciously. “... Are you playing a prank on me right now, Zero?”

Zero threw his hands up in the air with an explosive groan, whirling around and walking a few steps away. “I can’t believe you. I cannot believe you. Do you seriously, unironically think crocs are cool shoes?” He turned back around to face Blue, hands on his hips.

Blue looked at him, offended. “They were cute.”

Zero raised one hand to rest over his faceplate. “Blue, I will buy you a stuffed animal. Okay? I’ll get you something cute. But you can never wear crocs again, or I will die. Can you promise to never, ever put those insults to good taste on your feet again? For me?” He dropped his hand from his helmet and held it out to Blue entreatingly.

Blue gave him a long look, clearly still suspicious, then sighed. “Fine, I won’t wear them again.”

Zero sagged in relief, throwing an arm around Blue’s shoulders and squeezing him. “Good! Great! That’s great news. Thank you, Blue.”

“I don’t know why you decided to steal my shoes,” he said, still pouting slightly. “You could have just told me you weren’t being serious.”

Zero sighed, shaking his head. “What can I say? You were so excited. I didn’t have the heart to burst your bubble. I tried dropping hints.”

Blue snorted. “Sure, hints. No wonder we don’t rely on you to talk to people.”

Zero projected rolling eyes on his faceplate to make sure Blue got the point, then stops and frowns to himself. “I’m gonna have to apologize to Sy for hitting him, aren’t I?”

“Yes, probably,” Blue said easily. “And for stealing his shoes.”

“No, I’m not apologizing for that, I was doing him a favor,” Zero said dismissively, tossing the crocs into the trash can beside the caf machine. “But I’ll tell him I’m sorry next time I see him.”

“You can worry about that later,” Blue said, ducking out of Zero’s arm. “Right now I have film to shoot, and you’re coming with me.”

“Sure,” Zero said. “Whatever you want, Blue. As long as there are no more crocs.”

Blue laughed. “Sure, Zero. No more crocs.”

As Zero followed Blue out of the room, he sent Aava a thumbs-up over holo-chat and rolled his eyes at her smug response.

Whatever. It all worked out.

And he never had to see a pair of crocs again.

#campaign podcast #agent zero #minister blue #aava arek #synox #listen...... i cant believe i wrote this #its absurd #youre welcome

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ionica01 · 7 years

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How to direct an episode

Every once in awhile, I pull out Ouran Highschool Host Club to relax and have a good laugh. But that's not all this show means for me; it is also about great friendship, organic characters with broken pasts and great facades and a lesson about great directing. I was watching my favourite episode, episode 24: And so Kyouya met him, which I've always adored thanks to the powerful message (and my own personal bias regarding Kyouya) as well as for the fact that it demonstrated how complex of a character Tamaki is. Rewatching this episode, I realised one more thing helps it deliver the plot in an absolutely stunning manner: the direction. This episode tells the story of Tamaki and Kyouya's friendship. But first, let's notice one thing: it's episode 24 out of 26, right before the climax of the series and one of the last. This is not accidental: this friendship is the absolute deepest one in the anime. It comes after the Casanova arc, where we finally see Tamaki asking himself questions about his love for Haruhi but then drifting back into obliviousness and Kyouya asks him the right questions, helping him pinpoint his feelings. Up to this point, we've seen Kyouya do anything for Tamaki: being the one to think and pull him back on earth when his head is in the clouds, but also going along with his crazy ideas on a whim. We've all wondered why he does that, we got no answer. The only other Kyouya-centric episode was the one at the supermarket, which foreshadows the similarities between Kyouya and Tamaki and how he keeps up the business front only to be seen through by Haruhi (the onle other person apart for Tamaki who can accomplish such a feat). We can tell he's surprised by that, because he repeats meaningfully: "That's an interesting notion, in and of itself..." We know he hasn't been seen through by many other by this point, so a special connection is established with Haruhi. So up until ep 24, we know next to nothing about Kyouya except for the facade everyone sees and that he's not as bad of a guy as he tries to seem (also see the scene in episode 8 "you can pay me back with your body"). In the end of episode 23, we even get to see him pushing Tamaki towards Haruhi (also note that he was the one who stated at the end of episode 1: "I think we may be witnessing the start of love!"). And right after this proof of friendship/teasing (take it as you wish), Honey and Mori-sempai have a short moment, which changes EVERYTHING! They are up in a tree (pointing to the fact that they analyse the situation objectively, from a distance, and that they have a better understanding of the matter than the rest) and from there, they point out Tamaki and Hikaru's obvious feelings for Haruhi, but then they mention Kaoru and Kyouya, saying they are even more oblivious for they haven't realised they are also attracted to Haruhi. This has never crossed the viewer's mind: Kaoru pushes Hikaru to go out with Haruhi so that he can expand his horizons and also treasures the family carriage so much that he wouldn't break the spell, so he is forgiven for being oblivious. Kyouya, however, says nothing and does nothing to flirt with Haruhi (except for the bed scene, but that is just a lesson for Haruhi and also the moment I'd argue he fell for her, but I'll discuss that in another post, maybe). So we let this pass, but it will always ring in the back of our mind. And then comes ep 24. You'll see this introduction-gibberish is very important to the whole ep. But for now, let's break it in pieces, shall we? We start off with the club as per usual. Tamaki is presenting the kotatsu to the guests: it's only spring, but the club is always ahead of time, so it's fine. Tea is being poured, and the activities begin. Tamaki's usual eccentricity and the normal activities, right? Haruhi disturbs this to ask the question that's always been weighing on our minds: how did the two meet? And so we delve into Kyouya's story, but only after he throws a fond look at his friend and gives Haruhi a cryptic answer: "it's because it was a crazy idea." (That he went on with Tamaki). We turn back in time to see Kyouya in his last middle school year, before Tamaki joined. He's being his business self, but we stop upon each face with the help of a faded picture to see his real thoughts. This, in and of itself, is genius: we see that colour and the actual face don't matter much to our Kyouya as he starts explaining each character's background and their importance to him as business partners. This stops are very formal, and there's an obvious contrast between the voice of storyteller Kyouya and third-year-middle-schooler Kyouya, which is much more polite and friendly, just like his voice with the guests. He was just as diligent as we know him to be now, nothing surprising there, but he's much more distant. When the photo-framing stops on him, too, we know everyone is putting up a front, not just Kyouya. The difference is, Kyouya can read the others' fronts (see their pictures) while the others can't see his, a thing he also says proudly. The first clue that Tamaki is special comes when Kyouya meets him. We don't receive the same photo-panel on the Suoh, instead, we get to see Kyouya researching data on him a night before. That makes us see that Kyouya can't yet quite read through his facade; he attempts to when he sees Tamaki flirting with the vice president, but he isn't sure ("maybe itțs a cultural difference?", a deduction, not a fact). What we get instead is a foreshadowing that Tamaki can see right through Kyouya as the latter politely offers to take his new "friend" on a tour of the school and the photograph-filter stops on our glasses-boy, showing us that his font is crumbling under what he categorises as idiocy. What we get from now on is the crumbling of Kyouya's front. In the first day, he is declared Tamaki's best friend and thinks he's a complete idiot. The second time they meet, Tamaki calls him a God. The scenes are symmetric, taking place in the same courtyard and with Tamaki having the exact same reaction of jumping around yelling: "kyouya!! Mon amiiii!" But the second time around, Kyouya doesn't even bother keeping his feelings to himself as he murmurs them out loud, not keeping up the facade anymore as he's sure Suoh's too much of an idiot to notice. This amazing montage is accompanied by what I find to be the most subtle metaphor: the scenes from home. Before he meets Tamaki, but already knows he has to befriend him from his father, we see Kyouya and his sister hanging out in the living room. At first, we think this is just to prove that Kyouya has someone in the family he can confide in, someone who he isn't just business with. We see his sister showing genuine concern and asking if he "would be happy", to which he answers: "it doesn't really matter." Afterwards, the camera zooms out from where it only stood on their faces to show us the entire room and what his sister is doing: pulling out clothes. In the context, the image becomes a great metaphor: his sister as his inner conscience brought to life and his clothes as his thoughts, the inner thoughts that take over him whenever he thinks about how he's only the third in line for the Ootori group and how hard he has to try to paint the canvas in the beautiful frame (a metaphor the show explains, making it even harder to figure out that the living room could be a metaphor in and of itself, symbolising Kyouya’s brain). As his sister remarks: "these don't get back in once you took them out!" (the scene apparent comedic relief), we understand it actually means: once Kyouya starts asking himself questions about his place in the Ootori group, he can't take that back. The question, the worry will keep floating somewhere in there, without him being able to deal with it. When he says: "then don't take them out!" He's actually arguing with himself not to think about it anymore, to stop doubting himself. In the end, he just says: "let the maid take care of them", which translates to: "i'll figure it out. Just stuff them back in for now.” After his first meeting with Tamaki and having labeled him as an idiot, we return to the living room where the clothes are stuffed in the drawer, hanging partially outside. The meeting has put Kyouya at ease, since he couldn't be seen through-although we have a hint that's not entirely true. That means he can temporarily put his doubts away, but that is only a solution for now, as the clothes are still crumbled (questions not yet answered or that didn’t receive a satisfactory answer). The next scene in the living room is when Kyouya prepares for a trip to Okinawa. He's apparently composed, but we see all the clothes his sister keeps pulling out and, as she pulls more and more, Kyouya's voice starts cracking and he starts breaking his facade: that moron isn't happy with anything is what he tells us, but while a business Kyouya would sugarcoat it and use as less words as possible, this enraged Kyouya starts ranting and his voice is pissed. The clothes don't fit back in; his facade is crumbling and he can't keep it up. The last scene we see in the living room tells us that indeed, Kyoumi (Kyouya's sister) wasn't able to fit anything back in, so she made do with hanging the clothes around the room. The direction here tells us that Kyouya has finally accepted his doubts about the Suoh and realised he can't match him (in terms of idiocy is what he'd say), and so all of his anger and other "uncharacteristic" feelings have overflowed, occupying his entire mind (symbolised by the room: whereas they used to be only in a drawer, they are now all over the room). And so Kyouya paces through them, meaning that tons of thoughts race through his mind and he exteriorises them to no-one in particular, maybe to himself, for the first time. Kyoumi enters the room but she leaves him be, since it's the first time he got so engaged in something and she wants him to have fun, proving that deep down in his conscience, Kyouya isn't so angry and is actually finding this refreshing. The next important scene is when Tamaki comes to visit. Kyoumi waits for Kyouya outside to tell him Tamaki came: his conscience is warning him, preparing him for the impact. For the first time now, he sees a new side of Tamaki, a sensitive, affectionate one, but this is not what Kyouya thinks about: instead, he worries that this could bring himself to such a state, and that he himself can be brought to tears but what he considered to be an "idiot". What follows next only serves to enforce this feeling: Kyouya doesn't really have a link to Tamaki up until now. He's still Suoh to him, and he only sees him as the "lucky heir who doesn't even have to try", taking his frustrations out on him. Up until now, Kyouya hasn't seen Tamaki for who he is: instead, he has grown more and more worried that this guy can break his facade. All their interactions have been simply an excuse to hear Kyouya's thoughts and see his front slowly crumble, so when Kyouya brings tea, it's the first time they ever really talk. Not this scene is framed interestingly: firstly, Tamaki and Kyouya are sitting on the couch together, but they’re obviously far apart from each other. As if this wasn’t enough, Kyouya has his head turned away from him, but when Suoh talks, he glances sideways with anger to see him (although that’s covered by his glasses, but we have another panel confirming this). He is also completely in the shadow, while Tamaki is in the light (just like their hair color suggests, they are complete opposites), which also means that Kyouya hasn’t warmed up to him just yet. He only turns to face the blonde when he starts talking about the main estate (business as per usual) and his face is finally in the sunlight: he is open-minded to what his friend has to say. As Tamki touches the sensitive subject of Kyouya as a heir for the Ootori group, Kyouya turns his head back in the shadow when he talks about his brothers: ressentiment; self-hatred; grief. When Tamaki exclaims “that’s a surprise”, Kyouya is pulled away from his thoughts and faces him again. The next lines he almost spits are said without us getting to see his face, only for his feeling to overflow again and for him to turn the table over (the spilt tea is a metaphor for his feelings, too). He hates that Tamaki can see through him and he hates that he’s right: he almost gave up on being the successor, but what right does an outsider have to rub it in his face? He knows he messed up, but he’s even more annoyed at Tamaki’s light-hearted tone when he explains he may not be a successor. In a total uncharacteristic manner, Kyouya violently pins Tamaki down and starts yelling, grabbing at his shirt. This could mean that he’s actually grabbing onto his own thoughts, that he is fighting with himself and not with his friend. Even in this enraged state, though, Kyouya doesn’t say exactly what he’s thinking: “How can you see through me?” He knows, deep down, that Tamki isn’t blessed; he know he doesn’t have it easy from his little sighs (“the decor is… western”; “we don’t have a kotatsu” and so on). But he projects what he would like to be onto Tamaki. The final metaphor (and the most obvious one) now gains full screen time: the canvas. A frame is a delimitation, the borders you can’t cross no matter what. We see Kyouya painting ever since he was born, but he can’t improve anymore: he can’t overcome the boundaries of his condition as a third son, almost a curse. And it only takes Tamaki to voice his inner doubt for Kyouya to realise is: he has given up. He has labeled himself as the third son and used that as an excuse to give up, since t was easier. And that’s when he takes the first step outside his frame: it’s a red dot, intense, fierce, angered, passionned. And from thereon out, he doesn’t have to be the elegant purple: he can be any color but that and he can grow to heights no one would have imagined. It’s thanks to Tamaki that that he steps out of his frame and reaches his full potential. As he envisions that, he lets go of Tamaki’s shirt (aka his own doubt) and bursts into a hysterical laughter as he realises how easy it was and that it took an “idiot” to realise it. After this revelation, we see him banging Tamaki’s head and his tone becomes that of the Kyouya we know now: relaxed, sly, ironical, mean. The last scene is that of the two sitting under the kotatsu, eating mandarins and talking just like Tamaki described at their first meeting: and it came true. But this is more than just a meeting between friends: it’s proof that Kyouya has changed as he playfully kicks Tamaki. It’s proof of their deep bond. It also symbolises family for Tamaki (as he earlier declared) and thus we understand that their connection is more than friendship. It also proves that, whatever Tamaki has in mind, he always accomplishes. But most importantly, it makes a perfect point to end the story, as it is perfectly symmetrical with the beginning. We now know that the kotatsu is a motif of Kyouya and Tamaki’s friendship, so we understand why Kyouya looked up from his notebook at the start of the episode, when Tamaki introduced the kotatsu to their guests (a little early, just like when they met). We also link the ideas of their talk (about starting a club) and Haruhi’s question: “you and Tamaki-sempai started the club, right?”. We know that ever since back then, he thought it was crazy: “dream on”. We know he went along with it because of that craziness from the smile that reflects in his cup of tea, the same green oolong tea that was being poured in cups at the start of the episode. And we simply know that’s how Kyouya must have been smiling while telling the story. And so, we close this episode perfectly without having to turn back to the club. Maybe we don’t turn back because Kyouya never told the story and only remembered it. He isn’t the type to share his thoughts, after all. But I did argue in the beginning that there is a special connection between bim and Haruhi, so maybe he did. That isn’t so important though, because the show connects beautifully with the beginning, letting us draw our own conclusions. So now we know how this relationship started and we know it’s as strong as a family bond. We also see, yet again, Tamaki’s determination to make friends and help those around him. Without beating us over the head with a leach and absolutely casually, we also find out that Tamaki’s grandmother doesn’t like him, which will be the cause of the climax in the last two episodes. Last but not least, we understand that Kyouya isn’t oblivious to his possibly blooming feelings for Haruhi, but that he cherishes Tamaki’s happiness much more (in the manga, he even says it: “I found something I love even more” referring to Haruhi and Tamaki as a couple, when Honey asks him if he’s fine with that). We need this episode to experience the climax at full power, we simply have to see why all the members love Tamaki and aren’t with him simply because of business relationships, but because they genuinely care for him. That was hardest to see with Kyouya, but the anime did it justice. Might I add, the clothing scene was in the manga, but only the first one (they didn’t perpetuate it as a metaphor, simply as comedic relief), whereas the canvas and the photograph panels were never there to begin with. Neither was the perfect comeback to the beginning: it was all merely a flashback Kyouya had (so you may think he never told Haruhi anything, which makes relating the scene to its origins all the more impressing). And that, friends, is how to direct a great episode, with recurrent metaphors and stunning visual symbolism. If you’re a sucker for that, I suggest watching Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu, for each episode is full to the brim with visual metaphors. I ought to make an analysis on that one soon, too. I hope you enjoyed:) let me know if you have any suggestions on what I shall do next!

#ouran highschool host club #ouran high school host club #ohshc #ouran koukou host club #anime #analysis #mine

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idolizerp · 5 years

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LOADING INFORMATION ON MAYDAY’S MAIN VOCAL, LEAD DANCE NA YERIM...

IDOL DETAILS

STAGENAME: Yena CURRENT AGE: 23 DEBUT AGE: 22 TRAINEE SINCE AGE: 17 COMPANY: MSG SECONDARY SKILL: N/A

IDOL PROFILE

NICKNAME(S):

예나치 (yenachi) - in reference to fans of yena finding her to be a great treasure or gift of significant value to the group’s success, but also alternatively a cheeky reference yena’s toothy smile when she gets excited.

찡찡이 예림이 (jjing-jingi yerimie, whiny yerim) - a playful, affectionate nickname born from yerim’s tendency to be a bit of a whiner during competitive games on variety shows or group fanmeeting games.

우유 예나 (u-yu yena) - pale, refreshing, innocent - akin to the purity of a child.

yememe - in reference to yerim being a perpetual meme and her facial expressions being exceptionally reaction pic/gif-able and prime real estate for messy stan twitter layouts.

INSPIRATION: she was inspired to become an idol after watching olympus’s comeback stage for “be mine” - it was her first real brush with an idol group and she’s looked up to them ever since. other inspirations include singers like whitney houston and carole king, and actresses like uee and lily collins. SPECIAL TALENTS:

reigning champion of the high pitch note battle (x, x) - variety hosts have tried and failed to dethrone her but she continues to wow audiences with her ability to hit notes beyond comprehension all while saying every word of the challenge. the fact that half the time she’s really just screaming is beyond the point. shut up.

improvisation - exceptionally useful on variety and a skill that yerim has picked up more recently, she’s able to successfully bounce off of sudden “skits” posed by hosts with an improved comedic timing - but has also shown that she’s grown leaps and bounds in terms of on-the-spot acting.

juggling - she learned how to juggle after watching the magical girl anime precure (pretty cure, for the uninitiated) and taking a shine to a character named joker who juggles in the smile season.

NOTABLE FACTS:

her first real experience with performing outside of church was through doing showcase performances with friends and covers and dances from popular japanese idol rhythm games on her now deleted youtube channel called yayajam.

yerim is the youngest of her cousins and has a fifteen year age gap between herself and the cousin closest to her age due to her mother being the youngest of her siblings and the one to wait the longest.

prior to being trained under msg, yerim was gearing up to major in film production at konkuk university with plans to later go into the film industry behind the scenes - as it stands, shortly following mayday’s second comeback in 2018, she earned a degree in business and production.

IDOL GOALS

SHORT-TERM GOALS:

short-term, she wants to regain her footing after the shocking change of pace she’s experienced recently and focus on building her resume to grab attention for both herself and her group, so they can, hopefully, get their first win during their next comeback.

LONG-TERM GOALS:

she’s looking to move more fully into acting and follow in the footsteps of exemplars like bae suzy who were able to create a name for themselves through not only their efforts on stage but on the screen as well. somewhere down the line, years from now, she wouldn’t mind being able to work solely in the film industry and do music on the side, opposed to being a full-blown idol until the public gets tired of her.

IDOL IMAGE

yerim is compliant to a fault as a result of her strict religious upbringing under a firm-handed mother with a high standard of morality, a bit of a pushover, entirely too trusting of the people around her, she thinks the world of even those who don’t deserve it. despite this inherent timidity towards decisiveness against authority, she’s a bright and bubbly girl who just wants to make the world smile with her voice, her personality. she’s playful and naive, exudes a natural innocence that comes with her pointed lack of experience. it’s charming, the way it impacts her sense of humor, her lighthearted sass; funny, how jokes fly right over her head. she’s cute. there’s nothing forced about it and it’s that that msg is counting on: her natural aura, genuine, the feeling of fondness and protectiveness that this aspect of her elicits.

she’s simple in that she’s generally easy to get along with, to laugh with, to be around, to love. she’s got that trademark adorable easy-to-approach air about her but shines in the spotlight.

off stage, she’s painted as the girl-next-door, the childhood best friend, the little sister you’d sell your kidney for in a pinch. yerim’s pretty, radiant in the way you remember your first ever crush being when you were in school. she’s a social butterfly. her purity is captivating, youthful, and it has the potential to pull in a broad range of audiences if they play their cards right - people who want to preserve it, those on the other end of the spectrum who want to tear it back just to see what’s underneath, and those who resonate. that’s the fun in acting, being able to take their doll and see her dressed up the way they want to see her.

when she first enters under msg entertainment, she’s a shy and subdued little thing, humbled by a life hardly lived and the cruelty of kids who hate anything different. in her insecurity, she struggles to catch up with the other trainees who have the zeal and passion of years of working toward a common goal under their belts, only standing out with any significance during performances, speaking when spoken to, singing her heart out the way she’d always dreamed of doing and smiling a smile that dimples her cheeks. it’s a side effect of being muffled under the arm of her mother for the majority of her youth but there’s a charm that she’s picked up from cosplaying, a knowingness that helps her play the part of someone to be admired, and, with the help of the company, she learns how to harvest it.

she improves.

it takes time and money but she learns how to fake it until it’s real, until she stops hiding behind the other girls and forces herself into the forefront of the minds of her coaches. “yerim,” is said with a hum of recognition. yerim is noticed. yerim is indispensable, can bring a smile to any face. yerim can shine.

she hadn’t planned on this part of things - the potential fame and recognition part, the part where she’d have to smile when she doesn’t feel like smiling and crack jokes on variety shows so she doesn’t look cold and unappreciative. she envies the people that this kind of thing comes natural to, grins and bears it through image training when management takes notice of her suffering. she learns to smile even when her limbs ache from hours of dancing and singing and all she wants to do is curl up in bed and sleep.

it’s a gradual change, a shift from being the shy, bashful one to reading as a girl who’s blossomed into herself over the course of her first year as a trainee, comfortable in her own skin and the growing attention as a potential member of a msg-owned girl group. a fire burns. they soften her hair and lighten her wardrobe - nothing is her own, not even her body, not even the pounds of healthy fat and muscles she sheds to be thinner like the girls who’ve succeeded. like a butterfly from a cocoon, when mayday debuts, new yerim rises. on stage, she lavishes in the moments where all eyes fall on her, where she gets to show off - the luxury of feeling the kind of greed that comes with performing without the guilt that had always followed suit. you have to be greedy to get by.

it could’ve been any of them, that got plucked out of the proverbial ashes and dusted off, polished into something that the masses of korea want to see. the industry is political. yerim is a tool and the it girl idols before her are the blueprint.

“but,” she wants to say. “i’m a singer.”

she sings her ass off on stage, she’s a main vocal - wants them to acknowledge that, that she’s talented and good and has worked hard to reach this point, to be a singer. she thinks about the fact that she left home for this, cut ties with her mother for this. she’s gotten so much better at dancing, feels vindicated in her role as a lead dancer because she’s worked for it, her performances get better every time.

she wants to remind them that she’s got a group, that they’re good, too, that there’s more to her than her image, that they make good music. “please love mayday a lot!” she makes sure to add during her solo schedules.

“so cute!” they say. she’s the apple heart girl, cute enough to slap her face on their brand, cute enough to cast as the quirky one in their webdrama. it’s shallow, the way they love her, the way they want her.

it doesn’t feel as good.

IDOL HISTORY

TW BRIEF PHYSICAL/VERBAL ABUSE

act i, scene i, the sun shines through the clouds

yerim comes out singing. not literally, of course, but that’s the way her mother’s always made it seem, like this was the only thing she could ever picture for her little girl - the same bright little girl who’d sit in her lap during church and sing at the top of her lungs to every hymn, knew the words to every bit of gospel, and jumped at the opportunity to join the youth choir when she was finally old enough to hold a microphone. she’s a tiny, frail little thing, smaller than the other kids, and it pains her mother to watch yerim so far away, to watch her shine without her light. it’s a beautiful sight, though, the way she shines, the way she makes her mother feel like she was born to do it. she smiles so hard on stage, she’s scared her little face will split in two.

yerim’s mother learns early on that her zeal is conditional, that she shines so brightly but that she’s scared of her own shadow. she’s got stage fright something awful - conditional, because she’s fine when she can see her mother in the crowd of judging faces, but she throws up all over her brand new dress the day she has to dance a ballet solo in front of her class.

she’s relieved, she thinks, that it’s not easy for her to do it alone.

she’s her only child, her little yerim, the product of a short-lived relationship but a miracle, nonetheless. chubby and introverted, careful and stuck to her mother’s hip. she’s all she’s got. she doesn’t know if she could ever stomach having to let her go. yerim cries.

“another opportunity will come, baby,” she tells her when she brushes her hair before bed that same evening, holds her close and hums. “you were meant to shine.”

it gets better when she starts participating in neighborhood plays as an attempt to branch out and get over her fear. she’s good.

her mother makes sure it doesn’t get to her head.

scene ii, they part.

the curtains rise to the rolling sound of drums and there she stands. there’s a television stage left and on the screen, there’s colors. they’re bright enough to blind her but still, she stares. there’s an awe in her expression, like she’s seeing for the very first time - hearing, too, the sound of music in another form. it’s different, this music, to the trot songs and olden spirituals her mama plays around the house.

it’s the first time ever she’s gone to a sleepover. she’s embarrassed that she doesn’t know the song, that the other girls do. her idea of fun on a friday night up until now has been watching historical dramas with her mom on the couch with a bowl of lightly salted popcorn between them, but, now, watching olympus’s comeback stage, she thinks she’s in love. her friends tell her to pick a favorite. she can’t decide, but she goes home the next morning and downloads ‘be mine’, listens to it when she gets ready for bed, so she’ll know the words, too.

it’s not a secret but her mother finds out when she catches her belting the song into her hairbrush after dinner, a printed out picture of the boys taped above her bed. (she’s decided she likes the main vocal’s part best.)

“who’re you listening to?” she asks, a hand against the doorframe.

“idols,” yerim replies, a new word added to her vocabulary. “don’t they sound cool?”

“don’t forget to pray.” her mother says.

interlude

the first and only time her mother hits her is when she comes out of her room with lip gloss on, some daiso mascara on her lashes and a cute shirt she’d borrowed from one of her friends. there’s nothing inappropriate about the look, just shorts and a shirt, stomach and thighs hidden like she’s been taught to keep them. she’s slimmed down, shed her baby fat and shows the beginnings of a figure. she’s thirteen and learning about makeup and self-expression from the now regular sleepovers she has with her school friends every weekend. they meet up and sing together, plan on putting together a cover performance for the back to school showcase after being inspired by heaven’s comeback. (touch my body, for god’s sake, she never sings it at home) her walls are plastered with idol posters now, bought with the money she picks up from babysitting the toddler who lives in the flat next door when his parents are out. she’s growing up, discovering herself, doesn’t see a thing wrong with it until her mother slaps her square across the face.

it stings something fierce, burns with a kind of betrayal she’s never felt before - ever. it’s the first time she feels truly afraid of her mother. it hurts more when she speaks, tells her to change because she looks like a trollop.

yerim changes. something changes with her. she prays.

2013.

her friend goes to an audition for msg. “come along,” she says, “it’ll be fun.” she says, but it feels like a set up somehow. it’s incredibly cliche, the way she doesn’t intend to audition, doesn’t even think about it, but winds up in front a panel of judges before she even realizes she’s there. she needs to be home by six. caught off guard, she sings olympus’s be mine with absolutely no expectations, grooves a bit to some generic pop music as a display of her grasp on rhythm, and makes a point to apologize to them for being unprepared. she squirms, smiles sheepishly and tries not seem as nervous as she is.

it’s cute. they like her. she doesn’t know how she’s going to tell her mom.

act ii,scene i hell freezes over

she tells her over dinner.

her mother’s mad, the way yerim knew she’d be. she tells her that when she thought of her becoming a singer, she’d always pictured someone classy and regaled like so hyang, maybe a traditional dancer, but this. this isn’t what she wants and she makes sure that yerim knows it when she signs the paperwork. things get cold after that, like it’s her mom’s attempt to ice her out, guilt her into calling it quits so she can pay the hefty fee for a month or two and they can go back to spending every night together, quiet and safe and holy.

it hurts her feelings but she pushes through, spends her time as a trainee doing the best she can, stays away from home as long as possible when the opportunities arise, but always comes back with her tail between her legs on the rare occasion she gets truly, properly scolded. she’s compliant when she can be, when it doesn’t speak against her soul.

it gets colder.

things reach a head when she’s old enough to be out on her own and her mother kicks her out. she doesn’t look at her when she does it, doesn’t say a word, but the way her things are neatly packed and waiting by the door when she gets home from training speak volumes. the bible on top of her suitcase while her mother sits in her usual spot in front of the television feels passive aggressive, hurts her feelings, but she leaves. she stays the night at one of her trainee friend’s apartments and never goes back.

her mother cries, feels like a failure, feels terribly alone. she doesn’t call.

it’s the first time yerim ever truly goes against the grain. hell freezes.

it’s too cold.

scene ii, let me entertain you

debut doesn’t feel the way she thought it would. it’s very clinical, the whole process.

she expects them to be received with open arms by the public but the scores during music shows speak volumes, their song does okay but it’s not enough. it’s a hum, barely even a clap of thunder, just a rumble. she’s happy anyway, like she always is, glad she gets to sing, but she holds out hope for a breakthrough.

and, well.

she doesn’t do it on purpose, the whole aegyo thing, it just happens during a fansign one day. she’s interacting with the fans that came, teasing them for their reminders for her to eat well when she goes to mime eating an apple to satiate them. it turns into a heart and she’s terribly delighted, does it again and tells them, tone cute and lovely, that their love keeps her full. it’s a few days spent without her giving it any thought, but one morning, she sees her face on pann and wonders what the fuss is about. weeks pass and she’s genuinely surprised to see other idols do it during interviews, finds herself searching for compilations on youtube and twitter and giggling in delight when she should be sleeping. it feels surreal but her company seems pleased.

she doesn’t realize what it really means until they start to really push her, booking her appearances on commercials, variety shows here and there to keep the public’s eyes on her - the mc’s always bring it up, the apple thing. they coo over her, laugh at her jokes, seem utterly charmed by her and it’s - different. it’s never about her singing. it’s a side effect of being a msg girl group member, cherry bomb!’s little sister, she assumes, knows full well that some other rookies aren’t half as lucky, privileged. the company tells her she’s being helpful.

it gets even different-er when months down the line, she’s offered a role in a webdrama.

they accept it without really even asking her but it’s fine, she guesses. she likes acting well enough. she doesn’t question their motives. it’s okay.

she’ll do what they want her to do. if it’ll help.

#id.bio #id.msg #id.mayday #id.lee jueun

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