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sortasirius · 3 years

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What the Fuck Happened to the SPN Finale?

Okay so here it is, my Charlie Kelly style manifesto.

Before I get into it, I recognize that I will look like this to many of you, and that’s okay, I understand:

Secondly, your personal Takes about the writers don’t interest me, I don’t need to hear them. This, as I’ll explain, is going to remain a writer positive blog, and that’s the end of it.

Third, and most importantly: some of what I’m going to talk about is fact, and some is highly educated speculation. I will notate what is speculation, just so there’s no confusion or hot takes in my inbox that I’m a conspiracy theorist or stirring shit up for no reason.

A list of what I’ll be discussing

The episode in regards to the rest of the season

The episode issues: length, editing

Scene placement and speculation of scenes cut

The scrubbing of Jack, Cas, Eileen

Network involvement and general timeline of when things were cut

Misha: theories on where he was, official company line, why we can’t expect to hear anything directly

The silence of the cast post episode (in Misha’s case, mid episode) and what this might mean

Jensen speaking with Kripke about the ending: why it doesn’t mean what you might think (also why kripke remained positive on the ending)

Walker, and why this episode had a major shift

Why the network would do this or get involved

Why the writers of the show simply aren’t the bad guys here, and what I “want” out of this post, since I know it’ll get asked

This is very long and under a cut, but I hope you’ll give it a read.

The Episode In Regards to the Rest of the Season

So, I’ve discussed this already here, but it’s the most obvious thing to me, and that’s the way this episode simply doesn’t fit with the rest of the season.

These people in this room have, truly, been nothing but consistent when it comes to their arcs, especially this season, and the marked dropoff in quality for the finale episode is just too sus to discount to me. Dabb’s whole focus has been character-based. In his seasons, we’ve moved far away from MOTW and bro-codependency, the found family taking it’s place. Does it really sit right to anyone that that was all thrown away in literally the last episode of the entire show?

This is speculation on my part, but as a writer myself, there is no way I would be happy or willing to stamp my name on something that I didn’t think would, at the very least, wrap up the season+ character arcs that I and my team had been crafting.

And before anyone comes in here saying, “well GOT did that!” Bruh. The writing was on the wall for GOT long before the final episode. You could tell that the showrunners just wanted to be done (not only from the plot, but from the fact that they lobbied for a shorter season). Miss me with that, it doesn’t apply here. Andrew has, besides Singer and J2, been with the show longer than anyone. He cares, he is meticulous and detailed, and this ending feels worse than anything Bucklemming has ever written, let alone Dabb.

Additionally, I’ve seen a lot of people say that Dabb was never behind Destiel, that it was all Bobo and Meredith and no one else. That is reductive to the point of insult of the work Dabb has done to get this greenlit. This man did not write the s13 Dean grief arc to be slandered like this. That being said, YES, Bobo and Meredith were the leads on the DeanCas arc this season, but ANDREW IS THE SHOWRUNNER, TO GET EVEN THE CONFESSION APPROVED BY THE NETWORK HE WOULD HAVE TO HAVE THEIR BACKS. AND HE DID.

Finale Issues

So, now that we’ve gotten the fact that this episode doesn’t hit on any of the major themes the show was barrelling towards all season, let’s discuss the fact that the episode is just...weird.

Not only is it shorter than any other episode (I think with the intro and the credits/crew thing at the end, it was around 38 mins), but it was also...idk, 90% filler?

One of the lovely humans in the POLOL server did the legwork here, and broke it down:

This is weird, y’all. Most series finales are LONGER than normal (Lost, SOA, Longmire are the ones I can think of off the top of my head), and for the final episode to be this? I saw more than one person point out that we only really needed 19 episodes, what was the point of 20? AND THAT’S EXACTLY IT? WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THIS FINAL EPISODE IF THIS WAS ALL WE WERE SUPPOSED TO GET?

It simply doesn’t make any sense, the first half of the episode was rushed, a final monster hunt gone wrong, but in the second half? Nothing really happened? Sam lived his entire life and Dean just drove around. It doesn’t make sense to have all the emotional arcs left unaddressed in an episode that definitely needed some kind of spark.

Here’s the speculation I have: the episode seemingly went through a lot of changes between the initial inception of the final season and when we actually got it, but I think it would have been passable (as in, we wouldn’t be sitting here asking each other why each arc feels incomplete) until the editing room got ahold of it. The only think that makes this episode make sense is network fuckery. Truly, that is the only thing. It explains the weird, cuts, the rushed pacing of the first half followed by nothing in the second half, the double montages of “Wayward Son” back to back, and Dean just...driving around for the last half of the episode.

Scene Placement and Speculation of Scenes Cut

Before I get into this section, the info of the shots in the episode I have come from a source that @occamshipper got a week or so before the finale. She’s talked about this here.

So here’s what Min was given:

1-5: 1 INT MEN OF LETTERS – DEAN’S ROOM Dean is greeted by Miracle

6-10: 6 INT MEN OF LETTERS – HALLWAY/SAM’S ROOM Sam has his routine

D1 1 11-15: 15 EXT FARM HOUSE Establishing

N1 1/8 16-20: 19 Dad’s journal, marker, drawing of masked man in journal.

21-25: 23 INT IMPALA – PMP Driver picks the music

N2 1 3/8 1,2 26-30: 28pt2 INT BARN: A face from the past

28pt3 Sam and Dean say goodbye

28pt4 Shot early for technical reasons, presumably the overhead shot

N2 31-45: 41 INT MEN OF LETTERS – SAM’S ROOM Sam’s alarm goes off D4 1/8 1 46-60: 56 INT N7glasses for Sam, laptop.

So...it all fits right? It all tracks with the actual episode, where it lands, etc. The issue is between shots 29-40 which were apparently “too big to spoil.” Uh. Where are they? And where’s 28 pt4?

After Dean dies, the next scene is Sam burning him, then shot 31, the shot of his alarm going off.

So. Where are those 11ish shots?

PLUS we have the boards, which are scenes we KNOW were actually shot:

As well as scenes for 20 that were shot in 19.

It’s just...weird, it’s weird and again hits on the fact that the episode is so short and like 80% montage.

The Scrubbing of Jack, Cas, and Eileen

So now we have to reckon with the fact that Eileen was last mentioned by Sam after she got snapped by Chuck, Jack’s last mention is that he’s off being God somewhere, and Cas’ last mention is a ~knowing look~ between Dean and Bobby.

I’m sorry, make it make sense:

???????? That’s the end if it? They don’t need to be discussed after this??? It’s just simply not something a writer would do, they would not introduce these characters, these arcs, without thinking there’s going to be some kind of follow through here.

So not only were three major characters (including two leads and both of the original characters’ love interests) completely wiped from the finale episode, it was as though Sam and Dean never even needed them, which just...ain’t it.

So why Eileen and Jack too? Why not just take Cas out of it if they were afraid of the gay? Because, ultimately, the episode went back to Kripke’s original story: just the bros, they only need each other and no one else. They don’t want anyone else, they don’t need anyone else. Easier to go back to something they knew was successful than trust the writers and their audience and take a big leap.

Alex even said he shot for 20 with “some of the guys” here. What happened to that footage?

The complete 180 of it all still shocks me, I still cannot believe that we were essentially at the finish line, and the network just stopped short, and decided to go run another race, at the expense of the arc of this fifteen year legacy show.

Network Involvement and When Things Were Cut

Okay, now into the juicy stuff.

So I’ve pretty well established that network fuckery is clear, but how much did they get involved, what was the original intent?

Well again, we may never actually know what Andrew’s original script was, but I think, at the least, it would involve Dean speaking his truth to Cas and Sam living a life with Eileen.

Now, it seems today, that Misha said that Jimmy Novak was supposed to be in the finale in one iteration of the script, and while initially my brain was like “that truly makes no sense and he’s either straight up lying or telling a half truth,” I think what may be happening is Misha talking about as much as he can right now.

So Jimmy right. Weird as fuck. Why would he been in the Roadhouse and not Cas? My current thought (this is about as reachy as I’ll get) is that Jimmy had no lines, could he have been in the Roadhouse as a red herring, like it said “Jimmy” in the script but it was just Cas in human clothes, a way to get around the network saying Cas couldn’t be in the final scene. Also, you’ll notice that Misha didn’t say that Cas wasn’t supposed to be in the ep at all, just Jimmy in the last scene.

All this to say, there have clearly been multiple versions of the script, getting lighter and lighter with Cas and Eileen as the network pulled further and further back. Remember, Dabb has to get things approved before they get shot, and if the network kept asking and asking and asking to cut Cas and Eileen, he had to find a way to work around it. Granted, I still think that if we had been able to get a Dabb script that wasn’t torn to shreds in editing, it wouldn’t be so bad. It may not be what a lot of us wanted (Dean speaking his truth to Cas and a reciprocation), but doing everything he could to give it to us in subtext or visual clues.

Plus, in all honesty, my man can’t keep his story straight anyway. He said twice in his panel that the Empty and offscreen Heaven ending weren’t his original ending either.

In addition, remember that Jensen did ADR post episode 18, AND said in a meet and greet last weekend that Dean’s reaction to Cas’ confession was “cut down.” (Source here). Many of us clowns got excited when we first heard about ADR, because we thought it would be upping the ante on Dean’s reaction, but I remember being a little sus when it was just crying. My speculation on that is that they cut out Dean actually SAYING something, @winchestersingerautorepair spoke about that here.

The biggest sins were, in my opinion, committed during editing, where the network got too gun shy and sliced the episode until it was nothing but a heartless bro-fest of a finale, not mentioning anything about the other major characters that we all love, and letting the boys just suffer in separation until Sam died and finally joined Dean in Heaven. The editing came by cutting all the major emotional beats between anyone other than Dean and Sam, leaving the skeleton of the story intact, just shorter and less...poignant than it was ever supposed to be.

Misha

We know Misha was in Vancouver, we know he quarantined, but we also know he wasn’t in the final scene, when he spoke about being in the last moment of the show months ago. We were not crazy, he was there, he quarantined, and, in all likelihood (speculation but fitting with the timeline), he actually may have shot something (not much, but something).

I have sources here, here, here, and here showing where Misha was at that time.

Remember, the man was completely open about coming back until they finished shooting (look at this thread). The switch happened, just like everything else, halfway through them shooting.

Please also remember Jake Abel posting his “Where’s Misha” video here. Jake isn’t malicious, he isn’t being nasty here. Misha was there, and everyone that’s trying to convince people he’s wasn’t just...isn’t telling the truth about it.

This is one of the things that makes me really mad, because they’re literally attempting to gaslight people into thinking, “oh we were totally wrong he was never supposed to be there” WHEN HE WAS THERE, WE KNOW HE WAS THERE.

So we’ve already heard from several people (Meghan Fitzmartin, Jay, a PA on the set of 19 (WHO WAS NOT WORKING FOR 20), Misha himself) that this was all down to Covid restrictions. Ultimately, as this post says, we’ve heard FIVE versions of where Misha was. None of it makes sense, but the Covid protocol seems to be the company line that others are repeating.

You may ask: why? Why lie to all of us when we have questions? Why, in Jay’s case, say that we’re all spreading false lies to stir up trouble, when we just have questions and things that do not make sense. Simply? Warner Brothers is absolutely massive. These people have their careers to protect and are likely all under NDAs. They want to work for WB again and don’t want to burn bridges, including Misha. It sucks, but that’s why it’s unlikely that we’ll hear someone come out and say, “yeah we’re lying to you.”

Silence of the Cast Post Episode

So this is...probably the worst part of all this, at least in my opinion.

The guys had all been pretty excited about the end of the show (especially Jared, but Jensen’s panel last week was Jensen as happy and jokey and positive as I’ve ever seen him. He was so excited about episode 18, about what it meant for Dean and for Cas, and I just cannot buy that he would have been that excited unless he thought there was something more in the episode.

Misha live-tweeted the episode, and was watching it with his kids. It’s well known that Misha and the kids don’t watch the show because it’s too scary, and let’s ask ourselves, why would he have them watch an episode that he’s barely even mentioned in?

He also stopped live-tweeting at a very specific point in the episode (Dean’s death) and has not mentioned Supernatural since then.

None of them, not Jared, Jensen, Misha, or even Alex, said anything about the episode for nearly 36 hours, when Jensen posted a salty photo on instagram. It’s just...not what you’d expect for the end of a 15 year show, when the cast and crew are so close to the fans, so close to each other.

My theory? They didn’t know. They thought Misha was, at least, going to be in the episode in some way, and when he wasn’t, they decided not to say anything.

You really think that Jensen “Heller” Ackles would have been so excited about the end of the show last week if he thought Cas wasn’t going to be in it at all? Nah son, doesn’t make any sense.

Even today, in Jared and Misha’s panels, they seemed sad and...more than a little careful, both saying that there were things they couldn’t say, both talking around things that we all have questions on.

Jensen Speaking with Kripke

So this is where a lot of people are getting fodder to take shots at the writers, saying that Jensen hated it from the beginning, but I don’t think so. I actually think I know what Jensen went to him about, and it wasn’t the lack of Cas or the weird pacing or the montages (which I don’t think were there when Jensen got the script); I think it was the manner of Dean’s death.

I know a lot of people were upset about that, upset with how...normal it was, coming off an episode where they literally beat God. I actually didn’t mind it, I thought it was an interesting thematic take to be like: you can be a hero all your life, but sometimes shit happens, and you just die.

But imagine how hard that was for Jensen to read. He would run to Kripke for that, because for him, Dean dying by being impaled by a piece of rebar had to be tough to swallow.

So, why didn’t Kripke say that? Why didn’t he say, “oh well he had a problem with Dean’s death, none of that other stuff was in the script.”

Guys. Why would he get involved? He’s not going to burn bridges any more than anyone else is. He said the ending was good because it’s the easy thing to do, it’s simple, will cause him no problems in his career, and he can just ignore the people trying to engage with him on it.

Walker

Something else to talk about is the major shift this episode had from the rest of the season: the shift from Dean to Sam. I am NOT saying that Sam isn’t important, he definitely, absolutely is, but it was DEAN who really needed to wrap up his arc, Sam just needed to move on, get married to Eileen, become the leader he was always meant to. So what changed? What was with the shirtless scene, the Austin number and random case there, most of the episode being heavily Sam focused, going through his entire life in a montage?

Anyone else notice the 375 Walker promos, or Jared’s little spiel about Walker and how he hoped SPN fans would “come along for the ride.”

It’s...kinda obvious? CW wanted to appeal to who they think the key demographic of SPN and Walker is: rural areas in the South. It would explain a lot, why so much editing, why so Sam focused, the Austin number, the number of Walker promos, all of it.

I’m not saying this is fact, I don’t know that it is, but it is a little suspicious that even in Jared’s panel today, he talked A LOT about Walker and how he hopes SPN fans will watch it.

Why Would the Network Get Involved?

Simply put: $$$

If they think Walker can be the new SPN, and that those crazy SPN fans liked it originally, it’s a lot safer to go with the “original intent” of the show than do something risky (like making one of your two original leads queer).

And? They don’t care. They don’t care that the episode didn’t make sense, they don’t care that all the emotional arcs were left hanging, they don’t care by (potentially) smashing together two of Dean’s monologues (one to Sam, one to Cas) that it came of as...gross. ( @curioussubjects wrote a beautiful post showing how part of that death speech was likely meant for Dean here). They don’t care, they never have, they just want to make their money and move on from the too-loud fandom that fought for representation too hard for too long.

It can’t help but feel insidious, which, honestly, it might be, but it really all comes down to the next cash cow, which, they think, is Walker, even at the cost of the fifteen year legacy show.

The Writers and What I Want

So here it is, all this weird, sus shit laid out on the line. And you know what? To me, there is no way to blame the writers, because they didn’t want this.

I don’t think Dabb and Bobo would have gone ahead with the confession in 18 without thinking that there would be some closure to that arc, they wouldn’t have done that not only to the fans, but for the sake of their own story as well: no writer wants to start something that they can’t finish. (And this applies to both Cas and Eileen).

Here’s a basic rundown of what I think happened: they had a clear arc from 18-20, ending in reciprocation at some level from Dean, Sam marrying Eileen, Hunter Sam as the new Bobby, Dean in heaven with Cas and big roadhouse reunion at the end. Covid prevented a good amount of that. Network had to stare at big gay 18 for six months, got cold feet. Thought about Walker, target audience and alienation of the rural areas if it went full gay. Misha quarantined and likely shot something (not much), he was then cut by execs and went home. They likely added in lines referencing Eileen and Cas to make it clear but more subtextual. They wrap, editing gets it and hacks it to pieces, so we get a shorter episode that’s mostly montages and jarringly bro-centric with nothing else. Arcs are left hanging. Dabb gets episode but it’s too late, there’s nothing he can do. Actors aren’t told so they can continue to do positive PR for the ending, they all found out at the same time we did: hence almost complete silence about the finale.

And you know what? They warned us. I talked about it here, but they’ve been telling us all season that Chuck wasn’t the writer, he’s the network. I don’t think, still, that they thought it would be cut up like this, into something so unsalvageable that it’s been panned by almost everyone, even people who didn’t care much about Dean and Cas.

Finally, a masterpiece can be ruined by editing, and while I’m not sure even the script they ended up shooting on was a masterpiece (due to the network meddling already), but to me it’s blatantly obvious that it’s no one but the network that caused this, that took away closure for Dean, Cas, and even Sam.

So what do I want? Nothing really, there’s nothing we can do, but I wrote this mostly to show people that the writers are not your enemy. In fact, to the people trashing them? You’re doing exactly what the CW wants you to: blame the obvious targets, blame Misha, blame Jensen and Jared, blame Dabb. Scream and yell at them on Twitter and about how the show is ruined because of them. The network keeps their engagement levels high, they don’t get as targeted for their behavior, and just keep moving along.

Just, please, think about who did this, Mourn the show, be angry, but not at the people who fought tooth and nail for this for literal years, not the people who wanted it more than we did, not the people who cannot say anything because of their careers and the NDAs they’re bound by.

Someone is going to spill eventually, but until then, we just have to wait, and continue to be loud.

#my writing #my meta #supernatural #spn #spn finale trash fire #MY MANIFESTO IS DONE

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talesofafangirlwithadvr · 3 years

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Jan/Feb 2021 Picks

HELLO! It’s been a while, but I’M BACK!! Life has gotten a lot busier as I started Grad School this January. So, I feel it may be tough being on time with future Monthly Wraps like I’ve done in the past with working on my MFA, and my job. I’m going to probably do more seasonal wrap ups when I get the time. I also think I’ll be posting more individual posts as I watch an episode. Because even with a busier schedule, there is always time for TV and there’s so much I want to talk about!

You know the drill. Spoilers are coming.....

You’ve been warned :)

WANDAVISION

I want to start off by mentioning that I have not watched this week’s episode yet. So the last one I saw was EPISODE 6 with Halloween in the late 90s/early 2000s.

THIS SHOW! OMG.

I didn’t know what I was signing up for when I watched the first episode and I have been blown away. It is such a cool concept and I love the fact that everyone who watches it is confused. There have been so many interesting theories out there and I am so curious what is going to wind up being true. I love all the nods to old sitcoms and TV shows as well as all the MCU Easter Eggs. (I mean they got X-men’s Quicksilver-like WOW.) It feels really Black Mirror at times with the breaking of the fourth wall. I will never be able to shake the feeling I got in Episode 3, when Vision reversed. (And then I saw a bunch of videos with him looking at the camera as Wanda looks at the TV. Eww I don’t like it, but it’s such a good move on their point.) I love the outside plot as well and the characters who were previously side characters in other MARVEL movies. The love for Jimmy Woo is astounding and I’m here for it. I’m glad it’s Friday, so I can watch the next episode. I’m just upset that we’re so close to the show ending. The next Disney Plus Marvel shows better be just as good. Wandavision set the bar high.

NANCY DREW

If you’ve visited this page recently, you know I have a very strong love for this show. It is the only one I am still watching religiously on the CW and I am tuning in the night it airs. (That is HUGE for me.) IT IS JUST SO GOOD AND I DON’T KNOW WHERE TO START....

2x05 just aired, which would have been the season 1 finale before COVID and I have it saved on my DVR to watch again. There’s just so much I want to relive and catch that I missed the first watch through. It would have been SUCH A GOOD FINALE, but I’m happy that we can continue with new episodes starting next week. And with the way it ended...there’s so much I need to know!! I’m just curious how fast they’re going to develop certain plots. I love the Drew Crew and how they are a family. Each character is so well developed and their chemistry is great. I love learning more about each of them and watching them develop. My favorite character is definitely Ace. I love all his witty lines and how he is opening up more to the group as well as to us, the audience, as we get more of a look into his personal life. I enjoy all of his scenes with his dad and specifically liked when they were celebrating Shabbat. (I am also here for the Nancy and Ace content. I gush more about this on my other blog: lydia-whogowith-stiles. Check it out if you want to hear more.)

THE WATCH

When I watched the Christmas special (or was it New Years? and why does that feel so long ago) of Doctor Who, BBC America kept advertising a new show called the Watch. Due to the extensive amount of commercials, I decided to tape the first two episodes (which premiered back to back) to see what it was all about. I was unaware that this series is based on the book series created by Terry Pratchett. When I came to see if people were talking about it on Tumblr, I saw that a lot of people didn’t like it because of how drastically different it was. As I was unfamiliar with the original, I can’t compare. The TV show was eight episodes and I just watched the last one that aired this past Sunday. I definitely liked the first half of the season more (I noticed my mind start to drift as I watched later ones), but thought the finale was good. I really enjoyed how they incorporated the theme song. I didn’t realize the connection earlier and now can’t stop humming it. (I don’t know if there will be another season or not.) I enjoyed the characters and how it was like nothing I’ve seen on TV before. It got me thinking a lot about blending genres. I would still recommend checking it out.

ZOEY’S EXTRORDINARY PLAYLIST

I was VERY excited for this show to come back. I loved the first season so much. It’s just such a heartfelt show and it helped me survive the early parts of quarantine. So far, this season I am noticing how detailed the musical performances are. Mandy Moore is doing an AMAZING job. The choreography is *chefs kiss* I also feel like the song choices have been great and not always the ones I think that would be picked. We are getting to learn more about each character and watch Zoey and her family as they continue life after losing Mitch. I am here for Mo and Max’s restaurant. I think the concept would be so cool in real life. Who knows maybe we’ll see one now. (Max’s rendition of ‘Numb’ was amazing. I’ve never heard the song like that and I think it might be one of my favorites of the season so far.) I hope Max and Zoey get back together by the end of the season. It did feel fast, so I do understand why they had to break up, but it still makes me sad that we watched them get together and then it was taken away from us. The last episode before the break was so powerful and I think the show did an amazing job applying real world issues into their plot. It did not feel forced at all and brought so much awareness. Upset we have to wait so long for a new episode.

SECRETS OF SULPHUR SPRINGS

Are you looking for a good mystery, but don’t think Disney Channel can provide it? Think again. I have to say, when I started watching I was not expecting this show to be a part of my monthly picks. It pleasantly surprised me. The show involves the mystery of a young girl, Savannah, who went mysteriously missing at camp back in the 90s. Apparently, her ghost still haunts the hotel that was on the camp grounds to this day. Then Griffin and his family buy the hotel with intent of fixing it up and reopening it after all these years. The people in the town think they’re crazy because of its past. But there’s something more going on with Griffin’s dad as well as some of the other adults in the town. They know something about Savannah’s disappearance, but aren’t saying anything about it. While this is a kid’s show (and only half hour episodes) it has been interesting to see where the story will go. I’m sure I am imagining much more intense things for her disappearance than what actually happened. It’s also not super cheesy or have bad acting, which is refreshing. (I really feel Disney Channel has gone down.) Either way, I don’t know how many episodes are left to air, but I think we’re pretty close to the end. If you’re looking for a quick, entertaining mystery I would highly recommend.

MISS SCARLET AND THE DUKE

And here come my period pieces (ironically both from Masterpiece/PBS this time). I know last year I felt like I watched a lot of historical watches at the beginning of the year. We’ll see if that continues to happen this year too. It does serve as a nice escape. Plus, these are some really good stories.

Miss Scarlet and the Duke is a part of Masterpiece Mystery on PBS, although it aired on a different network in the UK. It is (another) mystery series (shocking I know with that title!) It follows Eliza Scarlet who has a nose for mystery, but as a woman living in the Victorian era does not have any rights except for being a wife and mother (two things she would rather not be). When her father dies (apparently from a heart attack...emphasis on apparently), she takes over his Private Investigator business. Much to the dismay of long time family friend William “The Duke” who is a Detective Inspector for Scotland Yard. Eliza is often in his office as she gets arrested for being places she shouldn’t or trying to get information out of him. This element of Eliza having to work in a very male dominated Victorian society is one that I feel I haven’t really seen on a TV show. I really like her dynamic with William. There’s always that feeling of “will they won’t they,” but I don’t feel the show just focuses on that. The mystery is the heart of it all. This last week’s episode was REALLY GOOD. As we got to find out more regarding her father’s death. I hear a lot of people want a season 2 and I am right there with them. This show deserves it.

ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL

Another PBS Masterpiece watch. I love this show, so much more than I was anticipating. It is so heartfelt and makes me so happy and in a good mood after watching it. It follows James Herriot who has recently graduated from veterinary school, but is struggling finding a job. Then he gets a call from Siegfried Farnon’s veterinary practice in Yorkshire. Siegfried is known for having a harsh demeanor and temper, so the assistants he hires don’t often last long. Spoiler alert, that should be pretty obvious, James does. The cast of characters are so lovely and I like all their relationships with one another. The show takes places in the 1930s and I realized I don’t often watch things in this era, so that has been fun to explore. The sets and locations are BEAUTIFUL. In the episodes, we often get these amazing shots that sweep over the exterior and I want to travel to Yorkshire like tomorrow. (See more escapism, it’s great.) The main plot follows everyone interact in the town and watching James become a more confident and experienced veterinarian (which I decided I could never do after watching). I heard that it has been renewed for a second season so that is so fantastic.

FATE: THE WINX SAGA

The first things I heard about this show was how disappointed everyone was in how they decided to adapt the Winx Club show from their childhood. On this I can agree, but I decided to watch the show anyway. I pretended that it was something new entirely and I have to say I enjoyed it. Of course, there were parts that bothered me and then I had to remember it was a teen show, so angst would be annoying. I think overall it was too short (and should have at least 8 or 10 episodes), but I’m happy that they were able to conclude the main plot well. (Although we did get that cliffhanger, but it is exciting that it was released the show just got renewed for a second season the other day.) I really liked Silva-mainly because it was great seeing Thomas from Downton Abbey in something else. I also enjoyed seeing Jacob Duchman in more things. It was a surprise to see him in Medici and I am just happy he is adding more to his IMDB.

Quick and addicting watch. Add it to your queue. Just forget it’s supposed to be based on something else.

BLOWN AWAY SEASON 2

Continuing with the Netflix picks, one of my FAVORITE picks from 2020 got a season 2 and it is already on Netflix! That’s right Blown Away season 2 is now available. I seriously loved the first season of this show SO MUCH! Glass blowing is such a magical process and I am mesmerized every time I watch it. It felt weird starting this show with all new contestants, but then Alex came back as a guest judge and I was so happy. It is just as addicting and I cannot wait to see who wins this season. I am just trying not to rush the episodes.

VIOLETTA SEASON 3 UPDATE

I know you were all dying to know...

After taking a hiatus from watching during the holidays, I have gotten back into watching the Disney Channel telenovela on Disney Plus. I am now on episode 68. Things are really starting to happen and I am finding myself getting sucked in again, which makes me happy. Episode 60 (pictured above) had A LOT happen and really was a turning point for the second half of the show. Can’t wait to keep watching. Some really awesome songs from these last set of episodes.

AND NOW FOR MY NOT LOVING IT PICK:

LEGACIES

This third season has really disappointed me so far. As I’ve previously discussed on this page, it feels like they are just reusing previous plots from the last two seasons when there is so much more they can do. There was so much promise for this show and I loved the Vampire Diaries and Originals so much, that it’s sad to see Legacies miss the mark. I wish they gave Hope more storylines that didn’t revolve around Landon. She is such a strong character and is SO POWERFUL. This is something we rarely see and it shouldn’t only be shown to save a guy (multiple times). Their couple plot is continually doing the same thing. I want to see a lot more development with this show over this season to keep me watching. I am actually happy that there isn’t a new episode until March 11th. (That’s saying something...)

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theeasterlymedia · 4 years

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A Normative Discussion on Andrei Rublev

Meghnad Mukherjee

While watching Rublev, I couldn’t help but think about Béla Tarr and his The Turin Horse. Tarr developed his distinctive style over time, and so one should presume Rublev was a stage in Tarkovsky’s development towards perfecting his almost magical cinematic philosophy that we admire today. In this essay we will be discussing only some of the scenes (and a short general discussion) of this three hours long masterpiece otherwise the obvious following rant would not have stopped.

Holiday, 1408, June

The scene opens with the greatest of all Russian Icon painters Andrei Rublev and his crew of apprentices and helpers on their way to a job in the once-powerful feudal fortress city Vladimir in June of 1408. It is probably the evening of June 23, St. John the Baptist Eve, which falls immediately after summer solstice, the end of spring. The Kliaz'ma River rises north of Moscow, flows between Moscow and the Trinity-St. Sergius Monastery and eastward past Vladimir.

Gathering firewood, Andrei gets caught up in a village pagan ritual. We should notice the sounds of nightingales and of ritual bell percussion.Some would say he seeks a way to join his high spiritual calling and art to the real soil of Russian folk experience, his "civilization" to his "culture". One way to describe the linkage of Christian "civilization" with Russian pagan "culture" is dual faith. Andrei is about to have a "dual faith" experience himself, and so are you if you let the film have its way.The making of a straw effigy and the burning of it are documented features of peasant ritual on St. John's Eve. The sexual license portrayed here is characteristic of peasant spring and summer rituals. Andrei stands over a smoldering camp fire and his monkish robes catch fire. Fire and water are central to the pagan rituals of St. John's Eve (they are also central to Tarkovsky's own personal film imagery). The men and women are performing a characteristic ritual of St. John's Eve. Also don't miss the scene downstream from the two lines of naked folk---a white horse comes into view and begins to thrash the river's surface as the ritual boat approaches.

Andrei is captured and bound in a stable by villagers who do not want him to interfere with their dear ritual. Marfa approaches him and plants an earthly kiss: physical contact of native paganism with highly refined and civilized Christianity. Notice the necklace she wears. Also notice how Andrei sheds his monkish cowl (identifying "uniform" of the black or monkish clergy) as he decides to melt into the woods and rejoin the village fest. As the next morning follows someone has squealed on the village revelers. The local landlord and his ruffian men-at-arms on horseback appear, accompanied by clerical enforcers, all bent on doing their official Christian duty. They hope to run down participants in last night's ritual. Sure enough, here comes Marfa and her significant other, chased by authorities. He doesn't get away, but she swims toward the middle of the river, immediately past the boat carrying Andrei, but he will not look at her. She splashes bravely out to deep waters.

Raid, autumn, 1408

Now we jump ahead a few weeks to the fall of 1408 and the outskirts of the city Vladimir. This army is led by a Russian prince who is a rival of his own brother for power in Vladimir. A tatar Khan’s army and his one will join up at a difficult river ford in preparation for an attack on Vladimir. As the two armies link up, the Khan and the Russian prince vie with one another to see who is faster. The Russian prince recalls an event in the previous winter in which the church tried to reconcile him with his rival brother. The wintry church is the great in Vladimir, built in 1194-1197. You can just barely make out the remarkable animal, vegetable and human figures carved in relief in the white stone outer walls of this ancient cathedral. These figures are taken to be themselves representatives of the combination of old pre-Christian "Scythian" motifs with Biblical themes.

Two times later in this section of the film, the Russian prince flashes back to this treacherous "kissing of the cross" which he and his Tatar ally are now about to betray. The second flashback occurs as the Russian prince witnesses the Tatar humiliation of the captured prince's brother and family and receives from the Tatars the vestments of the now deposed brother's power. The sounds of the Orthodox mass can be heard again, now in the courtyard as the Tatar khan nervously walks his war horse back and forth in anticipation of breaking into the church. A dying horse comes down a stairway and falls to the ground, bleeding to death. This is a disturbing and powerful scene. We may be more touched by this cruel death than by all the other film portrayals of human death. As the horse stumbles to its death, from the church we hear the most characteristic phrases from the Russian mass: Hospodi, pomilui, Hospodi, pomilui... [Lord, have mercy, Lord, have mercy...].

Soon, we see inside the cathedral being rammed by the Tatar army.We spy Andrei again. He is with a young blond woman. The actress is Tarkovsky's wife, and she is playing a paradigmatic Russian cultural role: the holy fool. She is a "durochka", not able to take care of herself, but in her naive simplicity representing something very dear to Russian tradition. Andrei has made himself her protector in earlier scenes, and now they are trapped together as the cathedral door breaks open. What a scene, as the Tatar khan paces his horse around inside the cathedral, asking the Russian prince taunting questions about the holy images on the walls, most now burning. The brave and defiant Foma is tortured, molten lead is poured into his mouth, and he is dragged to his death by a stallion stampeded through the devastated streets of Vladimir.The traitorous prince is beset with deep misgivings about this destructive adventure. Large white geese float from cathedral rooftops to the disordered streets below, all in slow motion. Andrei and Durochka are still in the church and try to come to terms with what has just transpired.

Tatar's Wife

The final scene I have selected is four years later, the winter of 1412. It is a hard winter, and famine stalks the land. Andrei is heating large stones and trying to transfer them to wooden casks to heat water. Durochka is eating an old apple. The Tatar khan rides into the monastery with several of his warriors. They are in a playful mood. The khan feeds frozen meat to quarrelsome dogs. Durochka wants some too. What follows is one of the most intriguing "falling-in-love" scenes in all of filmdom. Andrei tries to intervene, but this situation is beyond his or just about any imaginable power to change. As the khan sweeps Durochka up behind his saddle and he and his warriors gallop out of the monastery courtyard through a roofed gateway, our time is up.

Some commentary or rather a casual discussion --

Tarkovsky created a film about faith in a time when there were no films about religion, apart from satire or anti-religion propaganda. At the same time, people who were religious have tended to view film as a profane medium, inappropriate for religious topics. Andrei Rublev was a 15th-century monk regarded as Russia’s greatest icon writer. While his work is well known and celebrated throughout Russia, little is known of his life except for the handful of icons he left behind. Tarkovsky invented life for Rublev. It is then not an investigation into the painter’s life, but Tarkovsky’s response to what the filmmaker saw and felt by looking at Rublev’s icons.

Moving through ‘a sequence of detailed fragments’ in which Rublev is sometimes present, sometimes only an observer, the film works toward difficult questions: how is experience related, and how can it be communicated? How can art be true to its subject and its audience?How do you paint the trinity without just reducing it to the sum of its parts?

At once humble and cosmic, Rublev was described by Tarkovsky as a “film of the earth.” Shot in widescreen and sharply defined black and white, the movie is supremely tactile—the four classical elements appearing here as mist, mud, guttering candles, and snow. A 360-degree pan around a primitive stable conveys the wonder of existence. Such long, sinuous takes are like expressionist brushstrokes; the result is a kind of narrative impasto.The film’s brilliant, never-explained prologue shows some medieval Icarus braving an angry crowd to storm the heavens. Having climbed a church tower, he takes flight in a primitive hot-air balloon—an exhilarating panorama—before crashing to earth. Fifteenth century Russia was a tumultuous country, never really at peace, and Tarkovsky shows this in particular in the latter half of the film. The theme of conscience is present throughout the film.Tarkovsky plays here with sound and silence, almost deafening silence.

Shooting the entire movie in black and white, Tarkovsky finally dazzles the audience with close-ups of Rublev’s works, revealed for the first time during the movie in all their brilliance and colour. After more than two hours of sombre and austere imagery, the beauty of the frescoes amazes the viewers. The art, born from the endeavours and aspirations of the artist, is presented to the audience in all its grandeur, rising over the everyday like the man on the balloon at the beginning of the movie. This universal quality of the artist and his work makes the historical period irrelevant, performing a spiritual sweep, casting an ethereal spell on the audience.

Andrei Rublev is itself more an icon than a movie about an icon painter. (Perhaps it should be seen as a “moving icon”) This is a portrait of an artist in which no one lifts a brush. The patterns are God’s, whether seen in a close-up of spilled paint swirling into pond water or the clods of dirt Rublev flings against a whitewashed wall. But no movie has ever attached greater significance to the artist’s role. It is as though Rublev’s presence justifies creation.

#world cinema #film #cinema #andrei rublev #andrei tarkovsky

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imaginariumpod · 4 years

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Bright Star : The visualisation of tenderness

This movie is one that I constantly revisit, the beauty and softness of it is something I want to carry with me. The soft colors, the delicateness of the moments that we see, and yet a story that moves hearts. This is the sort of stories I want to be able to tell and this is why I really wanted to write about this film.

I am just going to preface this article by saying that BRIGHT STAR (2009) directed by Jane Campion is one of my all time favorite movies and that I am going to be extremely biased in this article. Now, that this is out of the way, let’s move on to the article. Bright Star is a movie about the love story between John Keats and Fanny Brawne. But ultimately, it is a story about yearning, poetry and loss, at its core, it’s a story about love. Every shot of this movie encapsulates the tenderness and kindness which drives the story and Jane Campion’s directing. This movie is a highly romanticized version of John Keats’ life that centers Fanny and John’s romantic relationship and not necessarily on Keats’ career as a future legendary poet. The angle she chose to tell this story is a very soft and kind one, that is very empathetic toward both its main characters.

I’m going to start by placing the movie in its cultural context as well as in the cinematic industry that was prevailing in 2009 and still is today. Jane Campion is one of my favorite female directors and one I would qualify as an Auteur. Unfortunately, the cinema industry being as it is, I feel like so few women have the standing in the industry as artists that a lot of men have. Not to turn this into an interlude on the inherent inequality of the cinema world at large, but it’s easy to think of male directors that have a certain aesthetic and a recognizable way of making their movies. I’m thinking of Wes Anderson, Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, Guillermo Del Toro etc etc. For better or for worse, those cineasts are known for a certain style of works that is attributed to them . Female cineasts who get to be artists for more mainstream are very few in between, Jane Campion is one of them, but I could also name Anna Biller, Agnès Varda and Greta Gerwig. Women work at all scales of the industry and yet it feels their work is not valued enough for varied reasons. The industry doesn’t want to take A Risk (™) on a female cineast the way they do with male movie makers. The industry still has so much progress to do when it comes to centering stories made by people that aren’t straight cis white men, the films being produced for a mainstream audience are still majorly directed, produced and written by white men. You only have to see the recent award shows where the best directors nominees were all white men, despite women and people of color presenting amazing work constantly. Representation is important in what you see in the movies, non-white actors and stories featuring marginalized people, but what is also truly important as well, and I feel isn’t talked as much in the broader discourse about this subject, is how it’s important to have diversity behind the camera as well, whether it’s the director, writer, producer, crew, etc. I think we can safely say that progress was indeed made since 2009, but a female filmmaker being celebrated is still so rare to this day that i feel it’s important to remark on.

Jane Campion was still a celebrated filmmaker, despite having taken a hiatus from the film industry, and Bright Star (2009) did very well. The movie received many awards and nominations in such prestigious institutions such as Cannes or the British Independant Film Awards. Campion describes the film as more intimate than the previous ones she had made and in this regard, she is right. The way the film is shot and directed brings you closer to the characters and the story. The intimacy and the tenderness is almost overwhelming at times, she uses shots that are both very close and very near to give you a close sense of nearness and intimacy and to convey the emotions the characters are feeling, but also Campion uses a lot of very ethereal and shot. Hands brushing, butterflies flying around while one is lying on the grass, make this movie a literal visualization of soft romantic yearning.

One of the most important things to me in this movie, is how kind the narrative is toward Fanny Brawne. History hasn’t been kind to her, especially when we know that historians in general (ad im talking precisely white male cis straight historians who have been the ones to mainly write our History) have created the narrative that she was a despicable person, that she was a frivolous woman who didn't deserve to be in the vicinity of their favorite poet, simply on account of her being a woman who was more interested in clothes than rhymes and verses. and maybe she was, but on all accounts, John Keats was terribly in love with her, and she was equally in love with him. I just want to preface this by saying I would die for keats, I adoooore his poems and his writing and I have his complete works on my bedside table at this very moment.. I feel like its a very special kind of misogyny (or a very mundane one, now that I think about it) where the simple feminine presence of Fanny brawne near John Keats somehow tarnished him. The fact that she loved feminine things was a flaw that she needed to overcome for most male historians, they thought her futile and shallow, simply for the fact that she was a woman who was interested in clothes and delicate pretty things.

But more than that, she was also a skilled seamstress, she made her own clothing and was delightfully creative and hardworking, and the way Campion frames the craft of Fanny in the movie shows how valuable she thinks this skill is. Garment making is a really complex craft that requires skill and time and hardwork and to this day still isn’t valued the way it should be. So it should be no surprise that history, mostly written by male white cis historians, remembers Fanny Brawne as a vapid shallow woman who only cares about clothes. We can see that the character of Charles Brown, who will later be introduced as one close friend of Keats, is a bit of a placeholder for this sort of perspective. He constantly tries to thwart Keats and Brawne’s budding romantic relationship because he doesn’t think Keats should bother with such frivolous affairs. The movie is incredibly kind and tender in the way it showcases how craft, any craft, whether it be sewing or writing poetry, is work and a labour of love, and does not diminish the value of either to the advantage of the other.

John Keats is ofc a central part of this story. Ben Whishaw succeeds perfectly in bringing the tragic poet to life. Whishaw is perfect to play a poet who is about to die of consumption, he’s just very tragic that way. His delivery is perfect and he is the perfect casting for John Keats. (If you have the time, this reading of La belle dame sans mercI by Ben Whishaw is so delicate, beautiful and legit brings tears to my eyes ) I’m sure most of you know the story of Keats, but it’s still very tragic to think about : a poor and unsuccessful poet who died incredibly young and who never got to truly see how impactful his art would be in the future. Keats is still remembered today, but he never got the chance to enjoy the success his poetry had, years after his death. He never got to marry the woman he wanted to marry because he didn’t have the means to do it. He created beauty from his words and then died alone in Italy at just 25 years old. It never truly hit me before this year, when I did my annual rewatch of the movie, how young Keats truly was, being now 24 years old at the time of writing this article, it truly was a life that has been cut too short.

The directing of Jane Campion is very deliberate, and i think there’s a vision to this movie that is incredibly powerful and obvious. The movie’s pace is very slow, but I think sometimes we need media that just takes the time to slow down and to just enjoy the scene enfolding in front of us. I’m thinking about some scenes where you can only see Keats sitting on a chair outside. He is writing. The wind is moving through the leaves, the birds are singing in the distance, and Keats is writing. A lot of people would say that the scene is useless when it comes to moving the plot forward, and I guess i would agree, strictly speaking, that it doesn’t do much in terms of moving the plot forward, but it does set the atmosphere wonderfully. You can feel the calmness and the ethereal feeling of Keats’ poetry. Campion scatters moments like these throughout the movie, where she takes the time to slow down and get lost in the moment. It’s something that i particularly adore in media, as life constantly feels like it’s getting away from me, it reminds me to slow down and take the time to breathe.

The delicate colors of the cinematography are another aspect that I think really brings such a soft and tender dimension to the movie. The director of photography for this specific movie is Greig Fraser who also did the cinematography for such movies as Rogue One, Vice, as well Batman film starring Robert Pattinson but we aren’t talking about that atm. The colors that have been used throughout the film are very soft and soothing. Soft pinks and soft greens, as well as deep rich hues of blues and browns. There’s a haziness to this movie that very much feels like being thrown into a poem.

This wouldn't be an article written by me if there wasn't any mention of the costume design. The costume design in this movie is being taken care of by Janet Patterson, who had worked previously on other Campion’s movies (Portrait of a Lady, The Piano). The work she does here is marvelous. She manages to create such a beautiful wardrobe for each of the characters. From the colorful dresses of Fanny Brawne to the outfits of the last extra, everything is carefully thought of, and the attention to detail really stands out when you look at the clothing, from the historical research to how well the costumes fit within the realm of the BRIGHT STAR cinematic universe. John Keats’ outfits, in particular, were particularly delightful, he,s always clad in deep blues and clothes that seem worn and comfortable. Something about these darker blues just seem so melancholic compared to the rest of the costumes, especially in contrast with Fanny Brawne’s brighter dresses.

The last thing I will touch upon is the tenderness of the story in itself, despite how sadly it ends. The love story between John Keats and Fanny Brawne unfolds slowly, and then all at once. Despite all of what they go through, the love and the care they give each other is tremendous. And the times they have to be apart, you feel the yearning and longing for the other as if enveloping the scene. Having to wait for another letter, having to acknowledge that they can’t be together is heartbreaking, especially as Keats is desperately trying to do right by Fanny. They want to get married, but Keats is an unsuccessful poet who is in debt, and Fanny is from an upper middle class family and won’t be allowed to marry beneath her rank. I feel like it’s such a mundane story and yet, it feels world shattering to them, especially the last moments they share when Keats becomes ill and he has to leave for Italy to rest and try to get better, but they both know that it’s probably the last time they’ll see each other breaks me. The tenderness in each movement and each conversation they had was tinged by the heavy weight of saying goodbye one last time.

And then. The letter arrives. With the news of Keats’ death. And his fiancée cuts her hair, dons a black dress. And mourns him.

#bright star #my article #ben whishaw #bright star 2009

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aokozaki · 5 years

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9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors Tarot Analysis.

One of 999′s greatest strengths will always be its character writing, imo. It’s able to take these seemingly stereotypical characters, and through various late-game scenes focusing on them, subvert a lot of the stereotypes! Of course, being a huge fan of Persona, whenever I try to think about or analyse multifaceted character archetypes, my mind immediately turns to the Major Tarot Arcana.

With that said, I think that it gives a really interesting look at each character if you consider their personalities boiled down to an Arcana, then look at how that reflects them in the Upright, and Inverse positions (remember, the characters in 999 often seem one way before revealing a hidden side).

(For context, the Upright card represents, usually, the positive aspects of an arcana, while the Inverse represents the negative traits. With that in mind, let’s begin).

The Magician archetype is that of an opportunist and a showman, not so much a "master of the arcane" as a "master of sleight of hand". However, the reversed Magician can be manipulative, condescending, delusional, emotionally abusive, and sometimes unlucky.

Number I - The Magician - Junpei

While it’s often tempting to make the protagonist of a story, I think Junpei fits the Magician far better. Junpei is above all else, a “guile hero”, as TV Tropes would put it. He knows probably the least out of the cast the events of 9 Years Ago, yet as the protagonist is the one to uncover it all.

There’s also the scenes where he chooses Door 3, or rigs the 1/2/6 Vote in his favor, or manages to outsmart Ace. Even with very little resources at his disposal, Junpei manages to turn things around magnificently, a textbook Magician move.

However, Junpei’s more negative traits are also embodied by the Magician. He’s most certainly manipulative, as his choice of Door 3 can show, he also tends to run his mouth sometimes, and has generally poor luck (at least in the bad endings).

The Priestess symbolizes wisdom and mental fortitude. Common positive traits include being highly intelligent, wise, and patient, along with having plenty of hidden potential within them. On the flipside, one under the Priestess Arcana may be calculating, have ulterior motives in mind, have frail emotions, or can come off as pitiable and weak in their passivity.

Number II - The High Priestess - Akane

If you’ve read that description and played through 999, you’ll most likely agree that it all fits Akane fairly well. As another bonus, the Magician and Priestess are sort of “foils” to each-other, representing similar ideas in a masculine and feminine ideal.

Akane is a veritable font of trivia about pseudoscience (or, in the world of 999, actual science), and comes across, at least for the most part, as fairly calm. She shows wisdom and patience in her desire to leave nobody behind.

However, on the flipside, Akane has incredibly obvious ulterior motives for almost every action she takes in the game, and even before this is revealed, shows a great deal of frailty and passivity through her fevers.

The Empress represents maturity, elegance, and also strongly embodies the archetype of motherhood, maternal feelings and instincts. Reversed, the Empress may find it difficult to cooperate with others. They may infantilize their peers in their pursual of leadership, making it difficult to truly connect with or understand them in the process of “mothering” them.

Number III - The Empress - Lotus

Lotus is pretty much the Team Mum of the 999 crew, and The Empress Arcana really fits her in that respect. However, unlike Junpei and Akane, (and as a part of 999′s habit of building unlikable characters only to reveal their softer sides), Lotus arguably shows her Inverse aspects before revealing her more positive side.

To begin with, Lotus is hardly a team player. She constantly brings up the need to sacrifice at least 4 people once they reach the 9 Door, and can be flippant to the point of seeming uncaring. In terms of “infantizing”, this is a more lose connection, but she does tend to ramble off stories about telepathy that she doesn’t really believe herself.

However, her softer side solidifies herself as the Team Mum of 999′s cast. She’s also the only character confirmed to have children, which plays into her backstory heavily and gives her an edge of maternal instincts. Furthermore, it’s revealed she’d be willing to be one of the 4 people sacrificed, totally changing the tone of her reminders.

The Chariot Arcana is a very broad one, gender-neutral. It symbolizes pride, control, and goals. A person under the Chariot are usually very extroverted, have a strong sense of will, and are resolute-- striving for an ultimate goal that they desire. But on the negative side of things, they can be extremely aggressive and unpredictable, and often reckless and insecure.

Number VII - The Chariot - Clover

Clover starts the game in an upright state, but when Snake goes missing, reveals the negative inverse side of her arcana. However, Snake coming back for the endgame is enough to push her back into her positive aspects.

Clover fits the terms of the upright Chariot to a tee, being extroverted with a strong sense of will. Her ultimate goal is usually as simple as defending the people who matter to her. On the other hand, when displaying more negative traits, Clover swings wildly between the extremes of heartbroken silence and reckless rage.

Overall, there’s almost not much to say in regards to Clover and the Chariot, seeing as she fits it so well that the blurb seems to do most of the job for you.

The Justice Arcana is one that symbolizes morality, fairness, and truth. A very dynamic card, the positive sides of the Justice Arcana include being truthful, analytical, rational, and fair. But the negatives are violent, one under the Justice may seek vigilantism and vengeance, or are rather dishonest and unhappy with themselves.

Number VIII - Justice - Santa

Santa is an enigma for most of the game, not revealing much of his arcana at all. However, it’s quickly established he’s dealing with a lot of personal demons, and is very much hiding something. This establishes him as someone who begins the game representing the inverse Justice arcana.

Come time for the True Ending, during the moments when it seems like he’s the sole mastermind behind the Nonary Game, he exceedingly represents the inverse Justice. He’s violent and seems to be behind the vigilante killings of the Cradle Pharmaceutical members, all in the name of revenge.

Though this is all a facade, and he happily explains the truth behind the Nonary Game once this facade breaks. Further (much like how Ace put it 9 Years Ago), there was always a fair chance to escape, and during the Safe Ending, it’s implied Santa returned everyone to their normal lives. Santa is fair to the point of only being an assistant to the real mastermind.

The Hermit Arcana, one that symbolizes self-searching and guidance. They are often very positive and introspective-- nearly to the point of being almost philisophical in nature. They often give someone guidance when needed. But at the same time, they are also very lost themselves. They don't know "where" they are, or what they're doing, making them rather isolated and alone.

Number IX - The Hermit - Snake

Snake is a very on-the-nose application of the Hermit arcana. With his blindness, he is in some sense “lost”. However, this is misleading, and as a part of subverting character archetypes, Snake shows that his other senses more than make up for his lack of sight.

Otherwise, Snake fits the upright aspect of his arcana very closely, fitting for a character the narrative wants you to sympathize with after his “death”. Snake is very knowledgeable, and often comes across as the most level-headed member of the group.

However, in another interpretation of being “lost”, Snake spends most of the game locked away, in another form of darkness. In a less literal form, he also loses his head when placed under extreme stress (such as learning of the loss of Clover), subverting his wise level-headedness.

The Strength Arcana, represents discipline and simple honest to goodness strength. The Strength is shown by courage, self-control, patience, and honesty. But deep inside, it also shows a lack of integrity, will, control, and actual power.

Number XI - Strength - Seven

Unlike a lot of other characters, Seven mainly represents himself through the upright meaning of his arcana, Strength. While the arcana at first seems far too on-the-nose, the concepts of “courage, self-control, patience, and honesty” are all very core to his character as a Detective.

Other than that, Seven does display some negative aspects at first too, with his amnesia making him seem more suspicious than he is, and making him prone to hesitate. This could be described as a seeming lack of integrity and any actual power.

Befitting “self-control” however, Seven is generally who he appears to be, with any suspicion from Junpei being undue on his part.

Mostly a somewhat negative or unpleasant Arcana. The Devil symbolizes addiction, lust, and a will to gain. The Devil is one about seeking something, or being tempted. This may include finding more power or letting their impulses control them, to simple greed and arrogance.

Number XV - The Devil - Ace

Much like how many characters in this game begin in the inverse interpretation of their arcana, only to reveal the upright side, Ace surprisingly follows this pattern. The Devil Arcana is a more negative card, so its inverse position represents a positive state of mind.

Quite often, Ace insists that everyone should trust each other, and, importantly, not to give into temptation to Zero’s traps. Ace insists that everyone should stick together, and overall he puts out an air of level-headedness.

However, once his facade drops, Ace is revealed to be the most temptation-driven member of the cast. 9 Years Ago, Ace wished for the ability to see faces so much that he orchestrated a deadly experiment that put the events of the entire game in motion. You can’t get much more driven by temptation than almost killing children.

The 21st card in the Major Arcana, Judgement depicts absolution and realization. At best, Judgement represents a person who has found their calling in life, and is on their way to their true calling. But at worst, this also depicts a person who is in doubt-- unsure if the path that they're going on is the right one at all, leading to self-unawareness.

Number XX - Judgement - The 9th Man

Out of the four Cradle Pharmaceutical members, the 9th Man is the most clearly anxious, leading to an interpretation of being unsure over the ethics of his actions. Even if this is not the case, his anxiety during the second Nonary Game very much impairs his self-awareness, leading to his death.

Another interpretation of what the Judgement card means (in this case referring to an event rather than a person) can be the appearance of consequences from a long time ago. Considering he designed the system which eventually kills him, his death can be considered quite karmic.

Otherwise, the 9th Man doesn’t have much else to him, dying quite early on, before his character had a chance to shine. Despite this, his death is still relevant, as it’s the first example of Zero’s “judgement” of Cradle coming into effect.

#Zero Escape #Tarot #999 #Nine Hours Nine Persons Nine Doors #9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors

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highkingtictac · 5 years

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Marvel’s lessons in world-building an awesome fictional universe

I love Marvel and its films, but now I have looked at its fictional universe with a critical eye. It is a highly successful world that people believe (mostly) and is enough to attract millions of people. Love them or hate them, the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) is one of the most popular fictional universes of all time. In this post, we'll analyze four ways Marvel made it happen.

Contents:

1. Plan Ahead

2. Be Willing to Experiment

3. Borrow from Other Genres

4. Commit to Character

1. Plan Ahead

There's a reason foreshadowing is one of the most commonly used literary devices around. When big events happen in a book or movie, audiences expect a feeling of inevitability (without spilling into predictability). That requires intricate planning.

For an example from the MCU, consider the previous Avengers film, Infinity War. It was the culmination of a decade of planning and forethought. Almost every major character from the studio's past appeared in the film, if not played a pivotal role in the proceedings. Furthermore, each Infinity Stone that Thanos pursued appeared in at least one Marvel film before appearing in this one.

But planning ahead in the MCU goes beyond this step. For example, consider how characters are introduced within this fictional universe: They often appear in supporting roles before taking the lead. For example, Nick Fury, director of S.H.I.E.L.D. and architect of the Avengers Initiative, first appeared in an after-credit sequence in 2008's Iron Man. Or consider King T'Challa, a.k.a. Black Panther, who appeared in Captain America: Civil War before leading his own film. Appearances like these, whether major or minor, give fictional universes a sense of sprawling scale. The borders of each siloed story overlap with others, forming the fabric of the fictional universe.

For writers, here's the takeaway: look ahead. Have a plan not just for what happens now, but what happens 10 stories from now. Doing so creates a thriving fictional universe.

2. Be Willing to Experiment

When Marvel Studios announced a Guardians of the Galaxy film, people were skeptical. Even enfranchised Marvel Comics fans thought it an odd choice. And for those who hadn't heard of the comics before, a racoon voiced by Bradley Cooper, a tree voiced by Vin Diesel, and a crew led by Andy from Parks and Recreation sounded…odd.

To be fair, the movie is pretty odd. But that quirkiness, humor, and cast chemistry led to an unlikely hit. The Guardians have been a huge part of the MCU ever since.

This anecdote shows the importance of experimentation. Imagine if Marvel chose to play it safe and instead adapted a more famous character, such as The Punisher, for their next big project. It probably would've been solid. But would it have the surprise and freshness of Guardians? I don't think so.

And it's not just experimentation in subject matter. Marvel Studios has done a fantastic job experimenting with structure, too. Consider Infinity War, for example. Entering the film, we'd expect the protagonists to be aligned with good and the antagonists to be aligned with evil, right? Those are the moral structures for many stories (and for almost every previous Marvel film). Yet Thanos is the protagonist of Infinity War and the Avengers themselves are the antagonists. Thanos pushes the action of the story forward by seeking the Infinity Stones. The Avengers try to stop him from doing it.

Such risks and experimentation don't always work. For example, Antman is another lesser-known Marvel character who, likely due to the success of Guardians of the Galaxy, got his own film franchise. Though perfectly fine, his first two films haven't been among Marvel's best.

Not every experiment succeeds. But experimentation is an essential step toward keeping your fictional universe fresh.

3. Borrow from Other Genres

Some of the best stories present a familiar formula but then deviate in new and interesting ways. Marvel Studios has gotten really good at that, especially in regard to genre.

Each Marvel film, at its core, is a superhero movie. That's obvious. Yet as they've grown and developed, Marvel films have often crossed into other genres.

Captain America: The First Avenger is a war movie. Captain America: The Winter Soldier is an espionage thriller. Spider-Man: Homecoming is a teenage coming-of-age story. Guardians of the Galaxy is a 70s sci-fi pastiche crossed with a comedy. Ant-Man is a heist film. Black Panther is a political thriller.

This hybrid approach to storytelling allows Marvel to continually produce interesting stories in a variety of ways. One can imagine a Ghost Rider film in the style of a western next, or perhaps a Daredevil film in the style of a noir detective story. Add genre tropes to your fictional universe and see how they form something new.

4. Commit to Character

With a sprawling fictional world, it's sometimes tempting to focus too much on the big picture. But, as Marvel Studios has shown, it's important to keep the focus on characters.

Follow the arc of Tony Stark, for example. Each film he appears in advances his character from the one previous. Check out my basic timeline:

Iron Man (2008) - The obligatory origin story. Stark begins the film as the arrogant, selfish, and vain heir to a weapons manufacturing company. He becomes a better man by the end. Also, unlike other superheroes, he gleefully reveals his identity.

Iron Man 2 (2010) - Stark's announcement backfires when the villain of the film uses his own weapons technology against him. Stark wins in the end, but a conflict is clearly established: no matter how he might use it, his technology is still dangerous in the wrong hands.

The Avengers (2012) - Stark's entire world view is changed. In his first two films he believed he only needed to protect Earth from other humans. In The Avengers, he discovers he must protect it from aliens as well. As a result, he accepts his role as leader of the Avengers and proves he’s ready to make a sacrifice.

Iron Man 3 (2013) - Stark must come to terms with the post-traumatic stress he's developed following the Avengers. He must also reconcile with his girlfriend, Pepper Potts. At the end of this film, he destroys his Iron Man suits and vows to just be Tony Stark.

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) - The vow doesn't last long. Stark is forced back into the fight. The theme of the dangers of Stark's technology is revisited in the form of Ultron, an artificial intelligence being that's made to defend the world but instead tries to destroy it. Stark's relationship with the other Avengers begins to fray, particularly with Captain America.

Captain America: Civil War (2016) - The conflict seeded in the previous film comes to fruition. Seeing the ruin caused in the last film, Stark supports government oversight of the Avengers. Captain America is against such a plan, and the film chronicles their dispute.

Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) - Stark embraces a new role as mentor to Peter Parker, also known as Spider-Man.

Avengers: Infinity War (2018) - The beginning of the culmination of Stark's character arc. He embraces his role as a saviour of the world.

Avengers: Endgame (2019) - Nope. No spoilers, it is too much of a masterpiece.

As you can see, each film builds on events from the previous ones while setting up the events of the future. And they're all based on character!

In closing, remember to do the following with your fictional universe. Now you have no excuse so start crafting your world, because it will be amazing and your writing will rock!

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#writing #writers #authors #writing advice #writing tip #writing help #character #world-building #storytelling #help

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sepiadice · 6 years

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Tales of Genius Ch. 2: Follow the Light

(9/16/18)

And so, for possibly the first time ever, I got a session two in a campaign! New high score! Woo-hoo!

Also, got to redo an adventure I ran for the old High School crew. Updated it slightly, added a puzzle, changed the final encounter, added a pair of magic items.

Don’t think I have any sort of RPG Life updates. Working on various other projects off and on. Started watching a new Netflix original series that redoubles a plot point later in this campaign.

Added a fourth party member. Which I think I’m going to lock down on. The games I’ve been involved with always had a problem of having a large number of players, so I think I want to try for the classic four-person ensemble.

Hope they’re having fun. Doubt plagues me, but they’re not whining to me, so it’s probably fine? It’s still clear I need to continue practicing GMing, and I’ve noticed I’ve been stuttering and having difficulty pronouncing words. That will all need to be improved before we move on to the podcast phase.

Now, for the second part of Tales of Genius![1]

CAST

Eli Roberts: (Played by Lyons) Child of Clio. Doctor, travelling to write a medical text akin to Gray’s Anatomy. He’s an Intellect! Olivia Grayson: (Played by Maddie) Child of Thalia. Apprentice to Eli. Believes her Squirrel-raccoon companion is her boyfriend reincarnated. Fromthe: (Played by Jose) Child of Calliope. Military veteran and current mercenary. Also has some mercantile ambitions.

Jean De Ferrero: (Played by Anthony) Child of Terpsichore. Travelling con artist.

Quick exposition:

So, that whole “Child of…” thing is part of my world’s lore. About nineteen hundred years ago, nine sisters travelled the world and founded nine schools of philosophy and nine separate cultures that populate the world. The only solid marker for the tribes is eye color. White/Light grey for Clio. Yellow for Thalia. Orange for Calliope. Green for Terpsichore. Others for the other tribes as they’re introduced.

The sisters are named after the Greek Muses.

And, so, onto our tale.

DATE: Late Winter 1911

PLACE: THE TINES (Mountain border of Astree and Hervar)

We open back up on North Fort. Food supplies are running even lower, especially since a good chunk of it has been poisoned. The mayor has decided to send those clever adventurers to try and find an alternate path out of town,[2] plus this nice Jean fellow who speaks highly of his own conquests.[3]

After some brainstorming while I was busy making curry,[4] the mayor mentioned the town crypts, which are a small network of caves some distance from town. There’s an iron door there which no one has explored past, because there’s a bunch of warning symbols on it, so better just stick the dead in there until claimed. But, well, it’s something?

The party heads to the crypt, as I couldn’t be bothered to force any scene work in the town. Would’ve been nice to establish the mixed critters of the setting, but I’m bad at following even my own notes, and I didn’t really have any cause to delay them.

In the crypts, they discovered a small band of Saber-toothed foxes.

Olivia tried to befriend the foxes using the cheese from the rations North Fort gave her, but the foxes weren’t satisfied, and unhappy with the intrusion. So combat despite Olivia’s protests!

I still am far from getting a handle of combat narrative, but after a few rounds, they’ve killed two foxes and scared off three.[5]

Then Olivia used a magic spell to cave in the entrance. Which… I should probably take a moment to taunt the party over.

And now I have. What nerds.

The party moved towards the iron door. It’s magic proof,[6] locked, and barred. So the group needs to figure out how to get in.

Unbarring it was easy enough, but it’s still locked.

But, hey, the party has a new Scoundrel Character! Maybe he can pick the lock!

The dice say no. This is dire, as the back up plan I had is sitting in North Fort,[7] and that’s not an available path anymore.

Okay, okay. Let’s reason this out. Is the door there to keep people out, or something in? Both, but which is important?

Which is to say: this door opens out, so the door hinges are on our players’ side! Which the fair doctor thinks up, then teases the con artist for not coming up with.

Said scoundrel (Jean) uses skullduggery to get the pins out. (Because it’s heavy iron, hasn’t been moved in a while, and would require finesse. Probably some heat to remove frost). I then have them do another check to get the door open since the lock is still engaged and needs to be worked out of the wall. Which they do.

Momentary inside baseball thing that might ruin the magic: I didn’t have a firm solution. I just placed the door down and waited until I heard a solution I liked. I recommend fellow GMs do this, but also try and prepare an alternate solution if the party can’t get past it for some reason. (See footnote 7 for my release valve).

On to the next room! A massive cavern, with many tunnels shooting off, and crystalline protrusions here and there. Then there’s a wooden lean-to slash shack near the door.

In side is a desk with a chess game mid-progress, and notebook tracking the game next to it, a glass jar of mythril dust, and a mummified corpse sitting in a chair[8] holding a bullseye lantern.

Eli Roberts examines the board, makes a move, notates it in the notebook(!), pockets the mythril dust, then investigates the mummy.

(A spent story point later also says he took the notebook.)

Eli fails to find anything notable on the corpse, so he turns to figure out what path to take.

Olivia, who we are learning this session has no regard for her fellow humans, uses her magic to puppeteer the mummy.

This jostles a rolled up scrap of paper out of its beard.

Time for the puzzle! Also pop quiz for my world building lore, because screw you, at least learn the muses you picked for your character’s heritage![9]

I wrote a poem (not a great poem, because I lack rhythm) that referenced the Muses in a certain order.

Now, this puzzle needs workshopping, because once the party figured out to use the mummy’s lantern[10] to shoot a beam of light into a large crystal to refract it into colored beams, and that they needed to follow the beam that corresponded with each Muse’s assigned eye colors in the order listed on the poem, there wasn’t much else to do until the final twist.

I probably could’ve done something with the crystals. Finding them, getting them in position,[11] just some complexity for the successive rooms.

Needs workshopping. But we also had a time limit, so maybe simple wasn’t bad for this rendition.

Now, this refracted light thing was an expansion on a moment that wowed the last time I did my North Fort session, which I mimicked halfway down the mine: the first obvious crystal sent the light bouncing all over the chamber, hitting other crystals, and illuminating the entire chamber, revealing a mural![12]

The mural told the mine’s story: they were mining it normally, then thought ‘hey, let’s try magic!’. Magic resonated with the mythril they were mining, heating the cave and waking up a giant snake that started gobbling people up. They got some adventurers in to deal with the snake and stopped using magic.

What I wish I added was the snake’s giant skull in this room. Instead, I had it in another room, looming over the exit tunnels. Oops.[13]

So that’s neat.

The party continued the prescribed solution and moved on, seeing the ribs of the snake were repurposed into support beams.

Another element I failed to convey is that the mining shafts were actually expanded from the snake’s tunnels throughout the mountain.

Anyways, the final room was the cool twist. Because the final mentioned Muse is Urania. Who I assigned black/dark grey eyes.

Black light’s not a thing. What could be the…

They killed their light. Eventually, mythril dust started to glow, a thick vein going down the final correct tunnel. (The poem also mentioned Urania using the stars in her line. This fit with the mythril dust but also her role as the Muse of Astronomy.)[14]

And they exit into another large chamber like the one at the top. Including wood office shack and an iron door. Inside the shack is another mummy, chessboard, and a notebook with matching move notations to the one earlier.

Including the move Eli noted and wrote down.[15] Huh.

Eli’s player spent a Genesys Story Point to say he nabbed the first notebook earlier so he wouldn’t have to hike back up.[16]

For those curious, there’s another poem on this end for going the other way. The colors don’t even have to be the same since they’d be approaching the crystals from a different angle, so the first step doesn’t have to be Urania![17]

Anyways, the spent story point ruined how I’d hoped to bring in the boss fight, so instead a Masked Snake slithers in.

Smaller than the one slain long ago, but still pretty big. Also way too young to listen to reason.

Again, three party members work to kill it as Olivia uses nonlethal magic. The snake iced the floor, making footing difficult.

I allowed the fight to drag on a while because, despite putting in my session plans to come back to make stats and having more than a month to, I never did.

Really should sit down and just make a series of notecards for easy, normal, and hard enemies. Get too distracted with narrative.

Anyways, combat rages, half the party gets upset with Olivia’s efforts not to kill the snake, when a mysterious figure in fancy robes and snake skull mask arrives and pulls a gun.

Olivia promptly magically murders this man without a word. Then steals his mask. And returns to nonlethal spells against the snake.

After realizing the snake can’t fit through the door, Eli and Jean attempt to flee, but Olivia refuses to leave, instead standing on the human corpse she created to avoid the disadvantage of the ice floors.

Eli goes in and finishes off the snake.

Grumpy after the encounter, they exit the caves, which leads out to a point on the path below the avalanche. There’s a way to connect North Fort and Soldier’s Rest.

They go to Soldier’s Rest (named such because it’s where the military men went to rest when not on duty at the mountain fort). Turn in a letter of introduction to Soldier’s Rest’s mayor, and step outside.

Where they encounter a Jackalope. They’re giant creatures ridden by the mail carriers of His Majesty’s Courier service![19] The courier has a letter for Eli Roberts: The Queen and Heir Apparent are ill with a mysterious disease, and Dr. Roberts comes highly recommended by his peers to help.

Whether this is because his peers genuinely believe he can do it, or because not healing the royal family could have dire consequences and they’d rather gamble Eli’s career over their own is a question I intend to play with.

End session two.

Admittedly, it was a railroading session that hinged on two combats that I didn’t prepare properly and a puzzle that need a few more facets, but I set some Campaign Plot up and actually got players to the table, so I say sufficient success! Always a learning experience! And Anthony seemed to prefer the system vastly over GURPS, so I think it’s good.

Just need to cement running combat and the Advantage and Disadvantage system. It’s a new thing that takes getting used to. Plus the question of what to do when you get a nothing roll.

Also need to get firmer control over what magic can and cannot do. And also that GM trumps rulebook everytime.

I have an outline for the next session. Just need to add some meat and work in elements the players enjoy. Maybe try and have it be less of an Eli Roberts focused story.[20]

Until next time, may the dice make things interesting!

[1] Pompous sounding name? Perhaps! But it’s a grab from the Tales JRPG series, and a TED Talk I saw once. [2] Had the party asked, the Mayor was avoiding asking South Fort for help because that crosses a border and could cause a lot of diplomatic tensions. The party didn’t ask, so I’m noting it here for my own gratification. [3] Because we needed to fit a new party member in some how. [4] Which I forgot to put potatoes and apples in. I’m disappointed in myself. [5] Unless it was the other way around. There was confusion! [6] Iron is magic proof in the setting! Because I’m taking inspiration from my vague knowledge of fair folk mythology. [7] Her name is Debra. I didn’t have the exact details (improv!), but if needed, she’d have the key for the door for… reasons? [8] I keep trying a Douglas Addams thing where I save the most glaringly obvious and distressing fact for last. It’s never worked because I keep getting interrupted or the players overlook I mentioned a monster. Might be a sign to stop, but why would I? [9] I casually left a prose-y cheat sheet on the table before we started. So it’s open notes. [10] Always provide the required tools if you can’t be sure the party has the needed supplies. [11] My much coveted block puzzle! I’ll figure it out someday! [12] In the pathfinder version, it instead revealed a sleeping dragon. I should’ve worked in a similar element on top of what I put in the chamber. [13] Maybe if I ask nicely, my players will pretend this is what I did. [14] Why do the muses include two with dominion over Astronomy and History? Who knows! They just do! [15] I was hoping someone would mess with one of the notebooks for this exact reveal. They played right into my hands. [16] I’ll leave it to the players to retcon why they stole the first notebook. [17] Maybe Urania should’ve been the mural room. You light the crystal for the story, then have to darken it to move on.[18] [18] Take three on this dungeon’s going to be epic! [19] A pay off when, long, long ago, when I was very young looking through a borrowed copy of GURPS 3rd Edition, I saw a picture of cowboys riding giant rabbits with saddlebags reading ‘Bunny Express’. Finally did it. [20] He took the reigns on the session one mystery, and the letter plot hook only works with him. I’ll try to do hooks working off the other three before returning to him, if at all.

#SepiaDieGMs #Genesys #tales of genius

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badgersinthesky · 7 years

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M&M’s Recipe of Doom

This, was absurd.

Completely, totally, and irrevocably absurd. This, was probably the most terrible idea in the history of terrible ideas, and she had no one to blame but herself. And three seventh year boys that had worshiped her oldest sister up until last year, but that was besides the point. THE POINT BEING, she was not one to back down from a dare. Ever. Even if it did take her to one of the creepiest places she had ever been to in all of her days, her being swallowed up by complete and utter darkness, save for the light coming from the trembling wand in her hand, the brightly glowing tip casting eerie shadows in a small circle around her. She was not by any means a prideful person, but the name they had called her stung worse than the cold of the earthy, root-infested tunnel. Coward. She was not, by any means, a coward. A chicken, yes. But not a coward. At this thought the second year narrowed her eyes and squared her shoulders, the grip on her wand tightening in determination. “I’ll show those trolls what’s what. Susan Hawthorne is not a coward. Now, what was it they had said?” She tapped her foot on the ground, concentrating on the directions they had given her and trying to ignore the creepy shapes the shadows were making. “Follow the tunnel until it starts to widen, and then I’ll be there.” She gulped deeply and took a steadying breath, letting it out as she cautiously walked onward. “Right, time to live up to Willow’s reputation and make her proud! If I don’t get eaten first….”

Why did it have to be this time of the year? Why so randomly? What was that about the human silhouette? Why was his stomach growling so bad? Huldric inhaled slowly, thoroughly, filling up his lungs with stale air up to the point where they started to hurt. Even in the poor light of the wand he could see the little particles of dust, mold and minuscule parts of Merlin-knew what else was in the tunnel, their snuffed sparkles seemingly suspended in the tight space in front of him. He exhaled all at once and almost choked on the humid, earthy taste that filled his mouth. A deep grimace and a few moments of gagging later he was already shuffling his feet deeper into the gaping hole in front of him, all the while muttering curses under his breath. Knowing that there was no one to cover his back, the Gryffindor was starting to feel anxious, which ironically annoyed him as much as it gave him a rush of excitement. He hadn't been by himself working on a case for such a long time that he had forgotten what it was like: the budding fear that was only natural given the circumstances, the constant feeling that there was always a pair of eyes watching from some dark corner, the thrill of the discovery and the hunt. And the humming - that was something he had missed dearly. Whenever he had been on a job with the crew their own auras distorted and disrupted that glorious, subdued sound. Now, alone and surrounded from all sides by the traces of magic, he was able to perceive it as clearly as a vivid echo: catching onto shadows of murmurs as it purred and whizzed with his every step and every breath. Now if only his stomach would stop its tirade. He was sure the investigation wasn't going to take long anyway - the place had the reputation of being haunted, but the family archives clearly stated it was only a myth perpetuated by the previous Headmaster to hide Remus Lupin's true nature. The archives also summarized the story of the werewolf, as heard from the Potter family. So there was no doubt regarding that. However, since the new rumors had started to spread, Hulderic had found himself thinking more and more that there was something that was either missing from the story or had been overlooked. The answer to that question was simple enough, it turned out. The death of another great figure of the Second War, Severus Snape, had happened in the Shack. Was it possible that he had remained behind as a ghost and was now acting up? It made no sense - he had been a hero of the war, long-time Potions Master and temporary Headmaster at Hogwarts. Why would he want to haunt an empty, abandoned, crumbling down house? While the man's reputation for avoiding human nuisances was as legendary as his role in aiding the Order against the Dark Lord it was highly impractical to stay behind just to hide. "Well, whatever might come I'm ready for it," Hulderic sighed while patting the heavy, slightly deformed bag he was carrying with his free hand as if to assure himself. Indeed he had a little bit of everything that was needed for basic investigations in there. Armed with that, his wits and knowledge, he was certain this first visit to the Shack was also going to be the last, as long as he wasn't going to meet with any daredevil student inside. He sneezed. It really was cold and sticky down there. He was going to definitely catch a cold if he hung around much longer. He'd be stupid to think other students would know about the tunnel underneath the Whomping Willow, nevermind how to enter it or where it lead. He was privileged to have all the society's resources at his disposal, and even with all the information the society had gathered the details on everything related to the abandoned building were pretty scarce. A few facts here and there alongside the rumors tied to the name. Smirking, the Gryffindor continued to walk forward. Those rumors were enough to scare even the ghosts at Hogwarts from investigating. Surely no one was stupid enough to do it themselves. A voice echoed from somewhere in front of him. Wordlessly he turned off the wand's light and shifted his weight as to make as little noise as possible, then slowly started creeping along the corridor, eyes closed to channel his focus on his hearing and fingers gripping the wand tightly. It sounded like a girl.

After several moments of incessant muttering, tripping, and swearing vehemently to herself Susan came to a halt. She cocked her head to one side and listened intently, holding her breath as her brow narrowed in concentration. The second year could have sworn that she had heard faint footsteps. However, that was impossible. No one was stupid enough to come down here. Present company excluded. With that thought she finally allowed her lungs the air they were screaming for and shrugged her shoulders, decided she was hearing the echoes of her own padding feet. Echoes that were far behind her and slightly heavier than her own that bounced around her. In an eerie frequency that did not quite match up to her own walking pattern. But, those were only minor details. She was the only living human down there. Totally. As her brain continued to run wild, much to her chagrin, the hairs on the back of her neck began to stand-on-end. She was the only living thing down here. Living. She was the only living thing down here. A shiver ran down her spine and she stumbled over an exposed root, causing her body to erupt into survival mode as she tried to prevent herself from careening into the cold, crumbling, dirt wall of the tunnel. However, survival turned into panic as she plummeted through a spiderweb. “No no no no no, get it off, get it off, get it off!!!” she danced and squirmed around the small space in disgust, the light emitting from the end of her wand bouncing wildly about her. “There’s a spider on me, oh good gravy there’s a spider on me! It’s gonna eat me get it off GET IT OFF GET IT OFF I’M GONNA DIE!” She’d have put a ninja to shame.

Hulderic's eyes snapped open and he once again felt the pressing weight of the darkness, as if the tons of earth on top were all pushing down on the tunnel, intent on squeezing the air out. He'd have loved to stand his ground and get some grip on himself and his perception of the environment but the screams were really starting to sound like a banshee's by then. Wand at the ready in one hand and the other reaching for a small bottle in his bag, he started striding forward with the valiant determination of one who was more afraid of what the screams could disturb rather than what was going on with the girl - from the high-pitched screeches to the earlier thumps that had marked the silence with grave grunts of pain, to him it was obvious by then that the only kind of creature to meet all the requirements was a girl. He might have been a little misogynistic but, after all, he was there with a task and she was only an obstacle in his way at that moment, what with all the screaming and flailing around. What on Merlin's knickers was she doing down in the tunnel anyway? Having a picnic with her Weird Sisters dolls? At last, he stopped before the place where he could see the light of a wand tip dancing feverishly to some erratic rhythm. He considered playing the knight in shiny armor and just joining in on the fun of catching the attacking spider, whether it be imaginary or not. But it was way too risky, and in that current situation the girl was too volatile - she needed to calm down. So instead of playing the hero, he did the simplest thing he could think of. Which, in this case, just happened to be casting a high-end, difficult and possibly disastrous if performed incorrectly Charm: the Silencing Charm, a fifth-year spell he had learned after a dozen or so displeased garden gnomes and frogs and a summer's worth of effort. However, like any complex spell, it needed focus and intent on the part of the caster. Both hard to obtain when, avoiding a wild swing of the girl's wand, the Gryffindor sidestepped, tripped over forward, accidentally bumped into the other student and, as gracefully as a sack of potatoes, plummeted down to the floor.

In her panic-stricken stupor, Susan was aware of the fact that she was most definitely not alone. There was absolutely another living being there, and she was flailing about like a banshee with Tourettes. Smooth Hawthorne, super smooth. The terrifying thought of a spider clinging to her for dear life was thrown from her mind as the aforementioned living being bumped into her and presumably crashed to the ground. The collision sent her wand skittering into the earthy abyss, plunging them into darkness. Her unsteady balance was knocked even further askew, her foot catching yet another exposed root. Susan’s ankle rolled as she pitched forward with a short pterodactyl screech, the pain in her lower limb enunciated with that of her knee and both hands as she tried to prevent the fall that inevitably came. Susan groaned as she pushed herself up into a sitting position, ignoring her dangling glasses as her bruised ego throbbed worse than her swollen ankle. At least it was dark enough that her surprise company was unable to witness her less-than-graceful descent to the ground. With a small hint of irony she realized her wand was trapped underneath her marred palm. Light surrounded the area warmly as she cleared her throat, her eyes squinting painfully from the sudden intrusion. “Any survivors?”

#ic #hp #Mystery in the Shack #HEX verse #closed rp #TheAdventuresofaSkyBadger #Moonlithollow&Miranthia

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emblem-333 · 7 years

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Kevin Durant: Whose Side Are You On?

Can it have been less than thirteen months since we were so close to a KD-LeBron NBA Finals rematch; the one we wanted. The legend Kevin Durant battling demons with his brother Russell Westbrook. All the fun we could have had talking about the Dion Waiters revenge x-factor. The playground fights for rebounds between Steven Adams and Tristan Thompson. Kyrie and Russ, the best shoot-first point guards in recent memory; also the best square-peg in the round hole fits next to a dynamic star we universally agree isn’t assertive enough. Both teams are super flawed, crossing their fingers the trends of their fringe players sustain just for a couple more weeks. In the Golden State series forward Andre Roberson hit 54.5% of his threes thru the first four games - one of the major reasons OKC jumped the vaunted 73-win Warriors team. It felt right. Out of place, but right.

A very winnable Game 5 slips out of OKC’s hands. It's alright. Game six is when they’ll close out and cement Kevin Durant as one of those too rare nowadays stars to stick with the team that drafted him. 39.5 fg% combined with Russ’s 36.8 fg% in the final 3 contests of the season insured Game six would go down as one of the most impactful moments in NBA history. The biggest “choke jobs” in recent memory. Klay Thompson and Steph Curry stole Durant. In a way, it seemed poetic for the championship hopes of the Thunder franchise to go belly up for the KD era the way it did. For all the talk of loyalty, we omit the fact Sam Presti signed KD and Russell to extensions before trading their friend James Harden, because ownership didn’t want to pay him $58 million for four-years. Loyalty in sports isn’t a responsibility solely on the player. The Thunder franchise only came about because Clay Bennett and his cronies moved the team from Seattle.

(One underrated deplorable argument after the Durant decision came down last summer was the Thunder fans somehow deserved this because of them benefiting from the hijacking of the Supersonics. That wasn’t the fans fault. So what they wanted a team? If the shoe was on the other foot Seattle would clamor just as hard for the Thunder to ditch OKC.)

But you know what? Fans do have a right to be…bummed. To piss and moan about Durant undoubtedly taking the easy way out. Leaving whom we thought was buddy Westbrook hung out to dry - if Russell wanted to be all alone in Oklahoma is besides the point. I don’t know why I was so invested in their friendship. Kevin Durant and I will never cross paths for as long as I live; ditto for Westbrook. Maybe it’s the battles I’ve seen the two take part in. They came into the league together. Rose to prominence together. Won together. Lost together. Cried together. Durant called Russell his “brother” in his iconic MVP speech. It was the moment I believed Durant was never leaving OKC. I thought they were brothers. It crushed me to learn they were work buddies and nothing more.

The 2016-17 Golden State Warriors are in a league by themselves. Not just because of their on court talent, but how they’ve achieved that aforementioned talent. No team ever fielded four All-Stars in their primes. The 1962-63 Boston Celtics, off their most successful season in franchise history added 22-year-old John Havlicek to a team that already had still in their primes Bill Russell, Sam Jones and Tom Heinsohn. “Hondo” wasn’t the top-20 all-timer he’d grow to become yet. What’s regarded largely as the best Celtics team, the ‘85-‘86 team were fortunate to have prime Larry “Legend”, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish; Bill Walton moonlighting for them as a third big. Point guard Dennis Johnson was coming off an All-Star caliber 1984-85 season, but his best days were with the Sonics in the late 70’s and the Suns in the very early 80’s. DJ was more of a complementary piece by 1986. A damn good one, by the way. The Lakers in the Shaq-Kobe years were strictly a two-man show; when Gary Payton and Karl Malone signed in the summer of 2003 it was more of two respected vets last gasp at a ring as role players. Neither were All-Stars at that point in their careers.

Super-teams are not new. Prior super-teams in the late-sixties, eighties, nineties, 2000s and 2010s either built entirely from within, mostly from within, or shrewd management of the cap that allowed the front-office to chase the market players in free agency. All predecessors started from the bottom, a draft pick, a signing or taking advantage of dim-witted general managers to catapulted them on the road to calling themselves a super-team. No super-team made an NBA season more redundant than the 2016-17 Golden State Warriors.

We shouldn’t hate the Warriors for being smart these last couple of years. Not trading Klay Thompson for Kevin Love when people thought it was unwise to pass up on acquiring who was a top-12 player in Love. Drafting Stephen Curry, the aforementioned Klay Thompson, Draymond Green; having the guts to start him over the well-known and highly paid David Lee. Having the guts to cut ties with Mark Jackson when it became obvious behind the scenes that things were about to go belly up, but on the surface to us fans it all seemed hunky-dory. If you fault the Golden State Warriors for signing Kevin Durant I’d like you to consider visiting your nearest psych ward.

There are some factors that make the Durant decision more damning than the infamous LeBron drama we watched unfold seven-years ago. Cleveland, unlike Oklahoma, was going to go as far as LeBron could carry them. James’ best teammates in his first stint as a Cavalier were Mo Williams, Delonte West, Ben Wallace, Wally Szczerbiak, Anthony Gibson, Larry Hughes and Shaquille O'Neal. Dan Gilbert, for all his pitfalls, wasn’t afraid to write a big check to any player. Desperate to put a competing team around LeBron, Gilbert and GM Denny Ferry gave up cap space, picks and other assets for decent players on bad contracts. This strategy kickstarted in 2006 lead to his departure. In hindsight: we couldn’t really blame LeBron for wanting to leave. We had a right to be bummed. But from his viewpoint wasn’t hard to see why he wanted to bolt.

In contrast, the Thunder had a GM willing to let his young core breathe. In doing so Durant flourished with Westbrook, Harden, Ibaka, Adams, Waiters, and never spent a year in Oklahoma since 2009 on a bad team. Ownership clutched their pearls when the idea of paying the luxury tax was even uttered. Cleveland drafted poorly, were too willing to overpay for pass their peak talent.

Oklahoma drafted exceptionally well. They literally weren’t willing to pay the price of greatness and lacked the fortitude to know what was good for them long-term after the Harden trade. Case and point: mismanaging of Durant’s foot injury in 2014-15, the staff rushed the reigning MVP back to the floor before he was ready and killed yet another promising season. Afterwards, Russell Westbrook snapped and attempted to carpet bomb the rest of the league by himself. Scottie Brooks, Sam Presti, Clay Bennett couldn’t bring themselves to DNP Russ, allowing the star to put unnecessary miles on himself, and in a deep draft that year the Thunder picked fourteenth when potential game changers Myles Turner, Trey Lyles, Devin Booker and Justise Winslow were already off the board.

LeBron left a Cleveland team who anxiously sold their future, in order to build a contender in Miami. In need of a fresh start, he also took the smoother path to a title. Miami, unlike Golden State, wasn’t set at every position at the time of LeBron’s arrival. Were they favorites to comfortably win-it-all? Absolutely. But, Mike Bibby played 21 minutes a game in the playoffs, started all but one of those twenty-one games. It wasn’t as if the Heat were without flaws. It’s more difficult to build a title contender three close friends than to join a cast and crew that didn’t need you in the first place. You felt the role-players mattered on the Miami. If Shane Battier misses his three attempt in Gams 2, at the 5:08 mark of the Finals, the Thunder go up 2-0 and we’re staring at a completely different NBA landscape possibly.

The lack of vision, outside the box thinking and uncompromising owners lead to the Durant departure. Thunder fans have no right to throw him under the bus. In 2010, all the media circulation on where LeBron was going to go after his contract with Cleveland expired wore him down to the point where he disengaged in Game 5 of the Boston series, tore off his jersey in the decisive Game 6 defeat and announced his leaving on national TV. Durant didn’t quit on his team; he willed them past the Spurs, played the best ball of his life in every facet, except scoring, in the Golden State series. Bitching about KD developing close-ties within the Warriors isn’t valid, there’s no evidence to support he didn’t leave it all on the floor for his team. When KD hangs up his laces and the all the statistics were all set in stone, the lone edge KD will undoubtedly have over LeBron is his mental toughness at the crucial point right before they hit the market for the first time as unrestricted free agents.

Now Durant vs LeBron is an official rivalry, not wishful thinking. Durant scored one over his biggest adversary, overtook him at almost every turn and nullified perhaps the greatest performance by a loser in the NBA Finals. For the entire year we argued KD rode the coattails of Curry to reach the championship that alluded him; fast forward eleven months and Durant was the one carrying Curry over a Cavaliers team that wasn’t afraid of them like the rest of the league was a year before. And in the process of doing launched himself over Curry; taking over Golden State and burying Under Armour.

No matter your qualms, Durant made the right decision for Kevin Durant. He’s a grown man who’s earned the right to do what’s ultimately right for himself and himself alone.

#Kevin Durant #golden state warriors #Stephen Curry #superteams #Nike #under armour

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mgrgfan · 7 years

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Some worldbuilding for my fic - Ancient Soris Empire, part 1.

More than 3000 years ago, in the Soris region, there was a great Soris Empire.

Thanks to lack of Apricorns in Soris and low cooperativeness of local Pokemon, as well as abundance of easily-acessed metals and fossil and fissil fuels, Soris people took a technological way of development. Several centuries later, a Soris Empire springs into existence.

Unlike what you will think, this empire, at it’s peak, was pretty diesel/atompunk heavy and most of the electronics were based on higly-advanced vacuum tube technology, though transistors and arcane science devices started to slip in near the end of the empire. They also had nuclear-powered transport, including icebreakers, submarines and even rigid-hull hydrogen-lifted dirigibles!

The single most beloved Pokemon species in the later Soris Empire was introduced Alolan Flygon line, thanks to their weather-adaptational ability (like this of Castform) and great cooperativeness towards humans. Nowadays, these dragons has somewhat diverged from the original line and became Soris Flygons, which, while retaining abilities of their Alolan ancestors, have also gained minor Aura abilities (which they use to locate their prey and as a darkvision of sort) and are constantly migrating from one part of Soris region to another (however, they do this only in small herds, so each part will have some Flygons coming in, some staying and some coming out), so they will not get stuck in one form, like the Hoenn Flygons did. The most prominent changes of Soris Flygons are longer antennaes, which are crucial in Aura reception and are forked in two roughly in the middle, the lower part of antennae being shorter than a upper one, slightly different shape of wings and, surprisingly, more omnivorous digestive system, because such is life in Soris - hard and complicated.

These cute, but powerful insect-dragons were the reason why, after the fall of Soris Empire and subsequent loss of technology, humans has managed to survive in this region and, eventually, rebuild.

One of the greatest achievements of the Empire were Imperial Science Facilites, which were researching lots of things - physics, genetics, chemistry and so on. The main jewel in this crown was Imperial Science Facility 9 - the single biggest and most powerful of this line, which also had early arcane science as a main direction of the research, although not the only. More than 90% of this base were located deep underground to prevent outbreaks and protect it against attacks, when the ground had only a Bioscience Division’s surface labs (mostly for studying extraregional Pokemon), Astronomical Dome, material sorting and transport complexes, as well as some recreational sub-facilities.

This facility was constructed to be self-sustainable and able to survive for centuries without maintenance, if properly conserved. Because of this, the main energy source of this facility was complex of closed-circuit geothermal reactors, which could provide up to 1200MW of electricity and were cooled by the oceanic water, which was pumped from pretty far away, to reduce chances of detecting the facility itself. The secondary energy sources were several nuclear fission reactors, capable of providing up to 900MW each, although two of them were mostly used to empower some of the science equipment directly.

One of the main energy hogs in this facility, as well as in Imperial Science Facility 8, was early arcane science equipment, especially irradiation chamber (in which first Mega Stones and some artificial Evo Stones ever were created) and tseryobla (teleportation device. Why it was named so? Even creators, when they were alive, could barely remember it, because all memories of the night when it happened were way too obscured by the alcohol fumes). One of the most important devices, which were crucial to functioning of the rest of arcane science equipment, were highly advanced two-way energy converters, which could not only turn Pokemon life energy into electricity (like Devon Inc. and some of the Nikola’s devices did), but turn electricity into life energy as well! Because of these converters and abundance of electrical energy (thanks to geothermal and nuclear reactors), facility had no need to use Pokemon as a “fuel”, so, no “Powered by a Forsaken Child” for you! After the fall of the Empire, data on how to create and maintain these converters, as well as most of the converters themselves, was lost, and the only surviving units and documentation are in the sealed away ISF9, which is pretty much guaranteed to finally fall apart in this century. Chances of this facility, and, because of it, technology getting re-discovered and restored are... slim, at best.

It was also the facility in which first artificial mechanical pokemon ever was created. Constructed by one of the leading arcane scientists and named “Chugun” (”Cast-iron”), this guy (psychological gender of the Chugun is male) quickly became intergral part of the personel, because he was truly great at task he was created to do - repairing and maintaining things. Having powerful and resilient body, which was also very easy to repair and modify, Chugun was always ready for performing different jobs - from helping planting tunneling explosives to saving people from the gassed or burning room to working in the operating reactor pool to hermetizing steam mains to soldering electronics and so on. In fact, he was beloved so much, that when one of the revisors came to this facility and ordered to dismantle Chugun, because he thought of him as too dangerous, Dr. Pobegov, which was in charge of the Imperial Science Facility 9, threatened to perform a skull trepanation and subsequent lobotomy on the revisor if he does not shut up. When this revisor reported this to the Emperor, he got following answer: “Imperial Science Facility 9 reports directly to me. You were sent to it to find a problems and report them, not to express your opinions left and right. In fact, I think Dr. Pobegov was right about what to do with you.”

Chugun was also the first sentient, on whom tseryobla was tested, and he has volunteered for this! Of course, some tests were performed beforehand on non-sentients (lab Ratattas, heh), but most of the time, after the tests, workers had to wash entire test lab out of bloody pulp, which was sprayed everywhere. Thankfuly, during the test with Chugun, when tseryobla malfunctioned (yet again), there was only teleport-throwing in random places, including even the Reverse World (Giratina was quite surprised, when she saw strangely-looking glowing mechanical Pokemon briefly appearing and, before she even had a chance to finish her question, vanishing again), for five hours (but for Chugun, it was like five years, though he knew what he has volunteered for), after which, however, entire tseryobla crew was hospitalized because of excessive arcane energy exposure. Thankfully, amount of data, gathered in this experiment, was more than worth it, because it finally allowed to find a safe settings for tseryobla and ensure safe teleportations. Moreover - the required data was gathered in less than an a hour, and the rest of the time was dedicated to stabilizing Chugun in the ISF9′s tseryobla and safely extracting him from the teleportational “vortex”, because if they’ve simply pulled the plug, he would’ve got scattered across the teleportation places - all of them. As you can see from it, they’ve really held him in high regard.

When the Empire was at it’s last days, the ISF9 had undergone conservation procedures and Chugun was tasked with maintaining it until someone comes. For more than a 3000 years he was fulfilling his duty, but now, fuel for nuclear reactors was burned off ages ago, replacements are almost ceased to be, so he is forced to cannibalize whatever he can from reserve systems to maintain main ones in (barely) working condition, the main steam turbine complex, which provides power to the base, has lots of leakages, which he barely manages to patch... To put it in short, right now, base can survive no more than a fifty years on remaining reserves. Chugun understands it, but still continues to do everything he can, hoping, that one day, someone will excavate buried entrances to the facility and restore it to it’s full glory.

However, the last part does not apply to the Shift-verse, where the Empire, instead of Ancient Soris War, got time-shifted 3100 years ahead and, therefore, was never destroyed and even prospered in the new time.

(Funny fact - initially, fic Chugun was created after watching humoristic re-dub of Half-Life 2, called Kayf-Life 2, where Alyx’s Dog robot became, well, Chugun, which was originally created for straightening rails, but, thanks to faulty AI, has escaped from the factory and took refuge in the Budulai’s illegal undeground workshop. Also, Kayf-Life’s Chugun was a champion in throwing trash bins at the distant moving targets, but got disqualified after he has thrown one of the bins at the referee. What’s this all about - after I’ve thought of Chugun, my “train” of ideas has gone like this:

“So, mechanical Pokemon, which looks like it was assembled from the junk, but is pretty powerful and reliable and needs to be called Chugun. How to write it in? Hm, what about Russia-like region? Pretty good idea, actually, but it needs some non-obvious name. Riso? No. Rosi? Definitely no! Soris? That’s great! Hey, but nowadays, no one manufactures Pokemon like this, so, it needs to be ancient! Yes, ancient arcane science Soris mechanical Pokemon. That’s good. But just how ancient? Hm, let’s see... The first traces of arcane science originate back to Ancient Kalos War, AZ had some cool arcane tech... So, more than 3000 years old it is! Also, why not plan it in such a way, that AZ gained some of this tech from one of the crashed airships, which were escaping from the Soris during the Legendaries rampage? I’ll roll with it. And Nikola... Nah, he has developed the arcane technology again without any help from AZ or data from Ancient Soris Empire. Back to Chugun: where would he be created and what for? Let’s think again: he would be great at repairs, he would be first and, unfortunately, only of his kind with some small hope for building new in the modern time... His creator would be one of the arcane scientists from the huge science facility. What this facility would be like? Well, Ancient Soris Empire, as I’ve written in my notes about the underground base beforehand, is already planned to be atompunk, so... Ancient Soris Empire atompunk arcane science-heavy Black Mesa-like facility. That’ll be awesome.”

In short, entire region and ancient empire in it were created just because I thought of backstory of one of the planned characters and origin of the ancient underground complex.)

#mgrgfan does worldbuilding #Ancient Soris Empire #Soris region

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