#if the entire series is anywhere near as good as the first episode i am beyond exstatic

[picklepie888]

#this is a joke i know why production got delayed #i'm just excited is all #i discovered this project a week ago and have been scrambling for all info on it ever since #genuinely one of the best invader zim fan projects i've ever seen #if the entire series is anywhere near as good as the first episode i am beyond exstatic #invader zim #invader zim: a very tall problem #iz: avtp #avtp #iz #nickelodeon #memes

[butterflydm]

wot reread: crossroads of twilight (chap 21 - end)

spoilers through crossroads of twilight

Current book ranking (strongest to weakest): The Fires of Heaven; Lord of Chaos; The Shadow Rising; The Dragon Reborn; The Path of Daggers; Winter’s Heart (standalone); A Crown of Swords; The Great Hunt; the Eye of the World; Winter’s Heart (series); Crossroads of Twilight.

This really is the book of Everyone Reacts To One Scene From Winter’s Heart. It’s easy to see how so much of this could get cut away for the TV show. Honestly, Jordan could have used the prologue for four quick scenes of Our Mains reacting to what Rand and Nynaeve did, and then moved on to the next story beat. Even Elayne’s chapters, which I enjoyed, didn’t have much plot movement in them. She visits one of her loyal lords, has a couple of meetings, and gets a prenatal exam. Could easily happen in a handful of scenes in a single episode of the show. Perrin and Mat’s storylines are even worse. Nothing happens in Mat’s early run of chapters - he has a conversation with Egeanin, endures a temper tantrum from Tuon, and then talks to the Aes Sedai but nothing happens. Perrin at least learns where Faile is in his early chapters. Egwene is really the only person who moves the story forward at all the first two-thirds of this book and even she takes a few chapters of dithering before she acts.

It’s funny, when S1 of WoT aired, I was like, oh, yeah EotW is definitely the weakest of the books. And now I’m just... no. I was so wrong. What a fool I was.  Anyway, on to Knife of Dreams (my current plan is to read New Spring after KoD). Let’s see if KoD can make it above EotW. Though I am, by this point, pretty certain that none of the remaining books are going to get anywhere near my beloved TFoH-LoC-TSR trilogy. That was a good run. I hope we spend an entire season on each of those books, I really do.

1. Okay, we are over in the White Tower with Alviarin. Alviarin notes that the Black Ajah has been part of the White Tower “since it’s founding”. Yikes. Apparently, Alviarin was off to visit Tremalking. It is really starting to get on Alviarin’s nerves, being Mesaana’s errand girl. I wonder if Lanfear will get Mesaana’s plot-bits in the show. Because I don’t believe it looked like she made the cut of the 8 Forsaken who made it into the show -- four men and four women and we saw Lanfear, Moghedien, Graendal AND Semirhage all there, I think, so yeah, I think she’s been cut. So Lanfear makes the most sense and she does pop into the Tower briefly in TDR.

3. “With the Chosen, grovel and obey was the only way to survive.” I really do feel like you could say the exact same thing about Seanchan society, just with ‘Blood’ subbed in for ‘Chosen’. Why did Jordan choose to make them so similar? I hate that I will never know the answer to this question lol. Anyway, Alviarin is a Darkfriend because she wants to live forever.

4. As she heads back through the Tower proper, Alviarin notes how silent it all is, even more than she would expect. And when she walks into Elaida’s offices to find information out of her, she is shocked to see that Elaida is meeting with more than half of the Sitters in the Hall, as she had believed that she had Elaida thoroughly cowed. Elaida then orders her to stand in the corner until there’s time to talk to her. Alviarin obeys, worrying that Elaida has figured out that Alviarin is Black Ajah and is about to reveal it.

5. And so Alviarin learns that the rebel army is at their very doorstep and the Sitters in the Hall are considering the offer of negotiation. Elaida’s terms are just as all-or-nothing as Egwene’s - the Blue Ajah is forever disbanded and everyone who followed Egwene must serve a penance before any can be re-admitted to an Ajah.Then the Sitters are dismissed and Elaida lets Alviarin know that she was removed as Keeper in her absence, as she should have been present during such important events as this. Alviarin has officially lost her place of power behind Elaida for good.

6. In an aside, I think this is the first time we hear about the “standing flows” that existed in the Age of Legends, that were a way for even non-channelers to use ter’angreal. Alviarin can’t imagine why anyone would bother doing that, because she is very selfish. Anyway, she uses a ter’angreal gifted to her by Mesaana to call for a meeting of great urgency. Mesaana doesn’t take Alviarin’s warning seriously even though Alviarin has managed to come up with the correct conclusion (there is a Black Ajah hunt happening) with the wrong input (she thinks Elaida believes she is Black Ajah rather than a PERSONAL traitor). She’s about to punish Alviarin when Tall Fade shows up.

7. Oh, Hand of the Shadow is pissed off at Mesaana for not showing up at the cleansing fight. He touches Alviarin’s forehead and ‘marks’ her as his, telling her she will get no punishment from Mesaana. Then he orders Alviarin to figure out who is hunting the Black Ajah in the White Tower, and she leaves as Mesaana is ‘punished’ for not showing up at the battle in WH.

8. Hopping over sideways in the White Tower, we now move to Pevara. She’s having a talk with Tarna (who is the person who was sent to Salidar to talk to them, way back in... LoC, I think?). Tarna is the one who was raised to be Elaida’s new Keeper, now that Alviarin has been ousted. Pevara, of course, is worrying over whether or not she’s Black Ajah. This is a very interesting conversation. And we get a little more background on some of Pevara’s family that was murdered by Darkfriends at least a century ago. I like the way Pevara’s thoughts on her past are written here.

9. On Tarna’s journey back to the White Tower from Salidar, she happened to be in a village that was visited by an Asha’man recruiting party (this makes her wonder how far the Dragon’s ta’veren reach goes). Tarna tells Pevara that she believes that the Red Ajah should take Asha’man as Warders. There are too many of them to gentle them and their reach spreads too far, due to Traveling. The reason that she came to Pevara is because Pevara has been known to support the idea that Reds should have Warders. Pevara reveals to Tarna that she was sent a missive from Toveine (implied: revealing that she was bonded by Logain), which Pevara says will change the world.

10. We are now finally checking in with Rand’s storyline again, but we are in Cadsuane’s PoV and she still constantly thinks of him as ‘the boy’. It would be easier for me to believe that she really wanted to help him if she could think of him using his name more often! They are in an estate in Tear, a day’s ride from the Spine of the World. As Verin is talking to Cadsuane, Min bursts in, apparently having been listening at the door. Note that when Rand does something that Cadsuane feels is rude, she gives him open set-downs and tells him to be more polite but when it’s Min, Cadsuane is just passive-aggressive instead. I guess Min is her spy on Rand, so it behooves her to be a little bit nicer to her. She asks if Min has had any viewings she wants to tell Cadsuane about but Min is actually here as Rand’s errand girl, to let Cadsuane that he is asking to see her.

11. Cadsuane ponders how annoying it is that she has to actually, ugh, GIVE ADVICE to the person that she agreed to advise. The person that she has told us that she wants to teach ‘laughter and tears’ to. Verin acts like she is going to follow Cadsuane to Rand, but then Nesune shows up and draws Verin off for conversation. Cadsuane ponders how odd it is to see people who are on opposite sides of the White Tower split chat peacefully now that they’re both oathsworn to Rand. Lan is here in the estate, which means that Nynaeve likely is too, though she hasn’t been mentioned yet. Ah, she’s mentioned three pages later as watching Lan at his sparring. Cadsuane certainly is taking her sweet time going to see Rand. She also takes her time to (internally) diss Nynaeve for still having passionate reactions to things and not being a model of Aes Sedai calm.

12. Oh, wow, Rand awarded Narishma his Dragon pin and Merise took it away from him. So Narishma is upset and frustrated at her for shitting on his accomplishments and acting like he doesn’t count as an equal. I think she’s also the one who snapped her fingers at her Warder/Asha’man to make him go stand in a corner? “Jahar, he is still at the stage where he has to learn to accept only what I say he can.” Wow wow wow. Hate this. So Merise believes that bonding Narishma as her Warder means he’s not allowed ANY kind of separate life or accomplishments outside of what is given by her hand. I’m pretty sure that when she asked Narishma to become her Warder she did NOT make all this clear. He didn’t go through the Warder training! This was not informed consent! He obviously didn’t realise he was giving up everything else in his life by saying ‘yes’ to her! Cadsuane finds it worrying that Merise is actually considering giving Narishma BACK the pin because “Aes Sedai order and Warders obey”. I will be Keeping An Eye on developments here, but I’m not super-happy with how Merise is treating Narishma.

13. Alivia has appointed herself Rand’s new guard and is sitting outside his chambers. No matter how hard Rand tries, he literally cannot escape the fact that women are people and can make the choice to willingly risk their lives for a cause, the same as men. Cadsuane notes that Min dislikes Alivia but that she doesn’t think it’s jealousy, exactly. Cadsuane has seen Alivia and Rand exchanging glances, with determination on Alivia’s side and hope on Rand’s, but this is one secret that she had not been able to get out of Min (probably because Min is worried Cadsuane might be on Rand’s side lol). The other person guarding Rand right now is Elza (we know she’s a Darkfriend but Cadsuane & everyone else does not).

14. Cadsuane notes that Min has “finely honed instincts” of jealousy that make her snarl at anyone she thinks is horning in on her territory with Rand. Despite being the person in Rand’s bed, despite the bond, Min remains so completely insecure about her place in his life. I feel like that’s probably related to how much this version of her is a facade -- SHE knows that she’s faking almost everything about herself in order to appeal to Rand and part of her is worried that he will see past her dolled-up appearance and her desire to please and see the real her and reject that person in favor of someone who is ‘naturally feminine’ in the ways that Min does not believe that she personally is. Especially since she is aware that Rand is attracted to and in love with other women, even as he shares her bed. Because Min is pretty obviously just as monogamous as Perrin is and is easily driven to jealousy and insecurity and this relationship doesn’t make her feel satisfied and secure. And again, one of the tragedies in all this is that Rand was already attracted to Min before she changed herself for him. And one of the biggest ironies is that Min is only sharing him by her own active choice, even though it makes her miserable (because Rand was totally planning to come and go from Caemlyn without talking to Elayne or Aviendha at all). So all of Min’s unhappiness is something that she caused herself. Which has a lot of narrative irony but I feel like the narrative never actually... notices this?

15. Cadsuane notices that Rand is staggering a bit as if injured and... sort of worries about it? In her way. We are reminded in the narration that Min also let Cadsuane know that Rand believes that he needs her to teach him something. Rand is worrying over the Seanchan. They’ve been fighting among each other for a thousand years and it has honed their instincts for battle (similarly to how the Three-Fold Land honed the Aiel, I imagine Rand is thinking). We also learn that Rand has been talking a lot with Alivia about the Seanchan. I’d have MUCH rather gotten Rand and Alivia’s conversations about the Seanchan than that fawning chapter we got about baby!Tuon.

16. Before Rand can get to the part where he wanted Cadsuane’s advice, their meeting is interrupted. Maybe Cadsuane should have gone directly to see Rand when he asked her to visit instead of wandering around the manor idk. Anyway, some of his oathsworn Sisters have come to tell him that their Warders are abruptly a LOT closer than they used to be.

17. Later, Rand is lying on his bed with his boots on the covers. Moiraine did that in the show. <3 lol

18. Min punches Rand in the ribs again. I hate this relationship. She’s always ‘gentle’ with his unhealable wounds but apparently the rest of him is fair game at all times.

19. lol, Rand thinks about how Min is “good at reading his mind” and it just makes me think of pages and pages of her being absolute SHIT at having any idea of what he was thinking. She doesn’t have a clue how his mind works. Rand really does think that Min knows him so much better than she actually appears to, when we’re in her PoV chapters. Also, I note that Rand is still doing everything he can to hide his vulnerability/pain from Min. As much as I liked the bonding in Winter’s Heart, I’m frustrated at how little it seemed to actually affect Rand or his storyline at all.

20. The people who brought the Warders are Logain & his group (Asha’man and bonded Aes Sedai), plus Bashere & some of his soldiers.

21. Min currently appears to be actively TRYING to stoke Rand’s paranoia? No wonder I assumed it was SUPPOSED to be a bad sign that Rand was resting all his emotional support on her, back when I first read the books. She’s so bad for him! This is a bad relationship! Yet... yet I’m not sure whether or not Jordan was aware of that. Anyway, Min is panicking about Logain’s aura of glory and wondering if that means he’s going to try to displace Rand; she’s worried about seeing something ‘dark’ around Bashere, and fretting about rumors that Lord Dobraine might die. Luckily Rand actually seems to be better at shrugging off her panic than he was back in Lord of Chaos. I think maybe the Alivia viewing was the turning point there -- Min wants him to cut Alivia out of his life entirely because of the viewing and he refuses, because he thinks being ‘helped to die’ is a good thing and, besides, Min’s viewings are inevitable, so no point in fighting them. He basically tells her just that. “If you’ve seen it, then it’s going to happen.”

22. Yikes. When Min finds out Loial has arrived, we get this. “I could have killed Rand for letting you get off to your room before I saw you.” The bond said she did not mean it. Not exactly. Um. Yikes? I’m pretty sure this is supposed to be more ‘lol women, amIright?’ nonsense but... yikes.

23. I’m also trying to remember the history of the Loial and Min relationship, because they seem very close here. Loial did come to Caemlyn with Perrin, so Min would have met him at that point, but I do not remember the text making a big out of them becoming friends before Loial went off again with Karldin. Eh, it won’t be the last time Min is magically friends with someone, I guess.

24.  Yeah, Rand still tries to avoid having anyone (including Min) see him grab hold of saidin, due to the dizziness. So that hasn’t changed as a result of the bond. He still doesn’t want to actually be vulnerable in front of anyone, including the people he loves and trusts. But, yeah, at this point, Rand is just trying to make himself last long enough to die at the Last Battle.

25. Rand notes that he keeps thinking in Lews Therin’s turns of phrase and not his own, and tries to remind himself how he needs to think about things in his own head. I wish he felt like he could talk to someone about this. I really wish. I wish he had someone with him who was actually trying to help him in a way that didn’t seem to be about trying to make him MORE paranoid and worried. *sigh*

26. LOIAL notices immediately that Rand looks tired and Min is instantly defensive about it and saying that Rand IS resting, which Rand takes as her being protective of him. I, uh, don’t have as charitable as an interpretation as Rand does, unfortunately. I’ve noticed in other PoVs that Min doesn’t really seem to notice when Rand is tired or dizzy, etc. even when other characters do, so I think she’s feeling defensive because she didn’t NOTICE that Rand was tired and so Loial pointing it out makes her feel inadequate.

27. Rand is too tired to sit and too tired to sleep. :-(

28. Only some of the stedding agreed to watch the Waygates, which is naturally worrisome. But Loial did his best. He also lets us know that there’s a grand meeting of all the Elders, The Great Stump, but Loial doesn’t know what the meeting is about because he is too young for people to be willing to tell him. So nine Waygates have been left unguarded.

29. I do want to note here that Rand thinks - “Rand knew he was feeling his way in the dark when it came to women, even Min -- maybe especially Min” - which is a far cry from how he USED to think about her as the one non-confusing woman in the world.

30. We cut to Cadsuane being the one to react to finding out that the Asha’man bonding the Aes Sedai who had been sent to the White Tower to gentle them. We also learn that Cadsuane IS capable of being nice to someone when she knows for certain that “the stick” absolutely won’t work with them, but it’s also clear that the stick is her first instinct and she’ll only move to being encouraging if she’s absolutely convinced that harshness won’t do the job.

31. Ah-HA. Rand IS upset about the Black Tower people bonding the Aes Sedai, though he feels like he can’t ask them to undo it at this point, given how the Aes Sedai reacted when he asked them to release their bonds on the Asha’man. I knew he would be upset. Anyway, Rand and Logain’s relationship is not getting off to the best of starts here. Rand is swearing so much here that it really makes me miss Mat. Real Mat, not CoT!Mat.

32. Logain lets Rand know that Taim is giving out a LOT of orders that he is letting people believe are coming straight from Rand and he is, honestly, all but begging Rand to take the Black Tower in hand. And there really isn’t a good reason why Rand is refusing (except that Jordan didn’t want him to handle it yet for Plot Reasons). I really am feeling the creaky hands of the Plot Strings SO much harder in these recent books than I felt them in the earlier ones. People keep doing things for no good reason other than The Plot Needed It or refusing to do things for no good reason because It’s Not Time For That Plot Yet. Logain even tells Rand that Taim’s put the three Asha’man who travel with Rand on his deserters’ list. “No matter what you’ve done, it’s time to turn your eyes to the Black Tower before Taim splits it worse than the White Tower is.”

33. Rand’s philosophical musings are turning very pessimistic, fatalistic, and grim. Anyway, he tells Logain that Taim has to wait but doesn’t actually give a reason why. Literally, there’s nothing keeping Rand from going and dealing with this? His next plan is to send people off to try to set up a meeting with Seanchan for him, so, in other words, he’s just gonna wait around and do nothing for a while. He absolutely had time to go try to at least scout out the Black Tower and feel its vibes for himself.

34. Three chapters of Perrin. The summary:

Faile has now been gone for 32 days, so it’s been a week (ten days) since his last set of chapters.

Berelain deserves to be Rand’s Steward in Cairhien! Not trapped in this plotline! #BerelainDeservedBetter

I also wish Sulin were over in Rand’s plotline instead of Perrin’s. We literally never got an in-story reason for why the Maiden who was most closely bonded to Rand was the one who left with Perrin.

Aram has grown so touchy and easy to set off that Perrin is leaving him behind. Perrin is such a bad leader who never pays any attention to the people following him; I don’t know why the narrative keeps telling me he’s a natural ruler.

I can’t believe that Perrin is STILL (internally) being a dick about Wil al’Seen being a pretty man who is attractive to women. He’s been a soldier under your command for SEVEN BOOKS, please get over your youthful envy of him omg he literally follows your every order.

I’ve talked about this with @markantonys but Perrin’s thing about hating when men smile is SO WEIRD. Let men smile, Perrin! Not everyone is a gloomy gus. I honestly have to wonder what Perrin’s opinion of Mat would be if they met up again, because he kinda seems to hate men who behave similarly to Mat. Mat is 100% a charmer who likes to smile.

A sighting of a raken in the distance freaks out everyone but Perrin, who is dismissive of the Seanchan because they aren’t Faile.

Perrin’s people try to resupply in Sto Habor but all the grain is infested with weevils. There are ghosts in this town too, like Elayne had at the start of her storyline. The Aes Sedai ask him to leave one of them behind to help the town but he refuses, because Sto Harbor isn’t Faile.

Perrin reminds himself that he would do anything to get Faile back, chops off a man’s hand and threatens him to prove it to himself and then decides to make a deal with the Seanchan. “Yes, that would be like taking the Dark One’s help,” he thinks, and then he asks Tallanvor to tell him more.

Tallanvor (who brought the news of the Seanchan) also says he would be cool making a deal with the Dark One to get Morgase (’Maighdin���) back. Yeah, my first guess was wrong and Perrin is DEFINITELY the left hand that strays from the opening quote. Mat is on thin ice, don’t get me wrong, but he’s not yet in ‘would be willing to make a deal with the Dark One if he offered’ territory. Now would have been the perfect time for one of the Forsaken to go after Perrin. He absolutely was ripe to be turned to the Shadow at this moment in time. He’s thought both about how he would forsake Rand and the Last Battle for Faile in this book and now he’s thinking about trying to make a deal with someone he considers as bad as the Dark One.

35. Back to Mat. In his earlier chapters, the themes that Winter’s Heart told us would matter: the sul’dam secret, Seanchan characters questioning the empire, and Tuon being a dormant marath’damane, all had yet to come up in any way in the narrative. Instead we just focused on Mat navel-gazing about his marriage prophecy and not caring about slavery as much as he had the previous week. So, hopefully something actually relevant will happen in this upcoming Mat stuff.

36. They finally leave the outskirts of the city and it’s a rainy hellscape and Mat is glumly miserable. We get a montage of Mat ‘courting’ Tuon. It is painful even to skim through. Mat is making himself so pathetic for her and for no good reason. He is really Min 2: Electric Boogaloo, forcing himself into love with someone that he knows nothing about and has nothing in common with Because Destiny Says So. At least Min forces herself to fall in love with an actual good person and not a slaver. She doesn’t seem to actually APPRECIATE any of Rand’s good qualities (except the physical ones) but at least he actually HAS them. And the dice in Mat’s head have been getting so overused since Tuon showed up. I’m just... either annoyed or bored during most of Mat’s PoV this book and it makes me sad. Reading Mat’s PoVs used to be a delight and now they’re a chore.

37. On the plus side, Tuon is SUCH an incredibly petty asshole to Egeanin here for absolutely no reason that it looks like it may have reactivated at least part of Egeanin’s spine. Tuon literally renamed her because she felt like flexing her power and being a jerk to someone. Egeanin is the only character in this entire storyline who has gotten interesting character development so far this book.

38. Mat does still consider marrying Tuon to essentially be a terrible doomed fate (”when you knew you were going to hang, the only thing to do was grin at the noose” is very similar to a Birgitte quote). Yet he’s staying anyway. *sigh*

39. Oh thank fuck something relevant actually happened in Mat’s storyline. I mean, Egeanin got stabbed, so that sucks, but something actually happened that wasn’t just Mat deciding to roll over for a slaver.

40. We learn from Domon that Renna stabbed Egeanin in the back and then took off running. Teslyn heals Egeanin and absolutely no one says ‘thank you’ to her (#TeslynDeservedBetter). And Egeanin shares the secret about the sul’dam, that Renna, Seta, and Bethamin had all been leashed once, that she suspects any sul’dam is capable of channeling. Teslyn, Selucia, and Tuon all overhear. My eyes roll as Mat has a chance to leave Tuon behind but decides to keep the slaver around because she has ~mysterious eyes~. This is worse than when Jordan had Rand ignoring every red flag about ‘Selene’ back in TGH.

41. Anyway, we finally leave the circus, unfortunately still saddled with the slaver and her devoted slave, to chase after Renna before she can alert the Seanchan as they are worried that she might. They spot her before she reaches the garrison. She’s too far to catch but not too far to shoot with a crossbow, so Mat gives the order. And, annoyingly, just like with Rand, women are ~special~ and Mat swears that he’ll never let a woman die because of him again after this. Honestly, I suspect this is part of why Jordan turned towards the idea of making allies out of the Seanchan -- a. because they are an enemy that is predominately female in the 'known characters' due to the ‘character casting’ choices he made and he has SUCH a hard time killing female villains compared to male villains. and b. He would much rather enslave his female characters than kill them and in order for him to keep doing that, Jordan needs the Seanchan to continue to exist as a slaver culture, so that there’s a place to put the Bad Women.

42. ...and we’re back at the circus, at least for now, except now Tuon is openly placing the circus under her protection as ~High Lady Tuon~ so she will probably be even more insufferable and even more of an asshole next book. Well, that felt pointless. Mat also feels like everything was pointless, but he’s at the hysterical laughter stage of his “walking to my own doom” storyline. It’s so sad that I’m actually relieved that Mat’s plotline for the book is done and I can read someone else’s PoV.

43. As we end Mat’s section, slavery check-in.

Characters who were previously strongly anti-slavery in WH:

Mat, Setalle Anan, Juilin, Noal, Teslyn, Joline, Edesina, Thom, Beslan

Characters who inexplicably softened their anti-slavery stance in CoT:

Mat (knows sul’dam secret)

Setalle Anan

Noal

Anti-Slavery characters who haven’t changed their stance as far as we know:

Juilin (gold star for Juilin tbh)

Teslyn (knows sul’dam secret)

Joline

Edesina

Thom

Characters who are focused really only on their own personal freedom and not anyone else’s:

Renna, Seta & Bethamin (slaves if the Truth Were Known)

Domon (wants to be free to marry Egeanin)

We started strong with the sul’dam in WH, where they were questioning pretty much everything about what they knew about themselves and the empire, and now they’re just kinda... average horrible sul’dam again. Mat should have left them in Ebou Dar.

Characters who show signs of growth and change:

Egeanin (knows sul’dam secret)

Her breaking off the necklace and throwing it away? Wow! Literally the only worthwhile thing that happened in chapter 28. Her parts of chapter 29 were pretty much the only interesting things in that chapter as well.

These characters remain strongly pro-slavery:

Tuon (dormant marath’damane & now knows sul’dam secret)

Tuon questions literally nothing about herself and any of her assumptions about the world; this entire book has been a waste of time with regards to her character. The ending does set up the ~possibility~ that maybe we’ll see some character growth next book but so far Tuon is all hat, no cattle. Winter’s Heart ALSO implied that there would be character growth ~next book~ but it didn’t happen.

Characters in this storyline that I currently care about:

Egeanin, Joline, Edesina, Teslyn, Juilin, Thera. Maybe Thom.

44. We don’t have much of the book left, but we are back with Egwene! We learn that there has been another saidin-based murder of another Blue sister (Aran’gar’s work). This time, the person who was killed was one of the people Egwene was planning to use for Her Plan. We also learn that Nicola ran away four days ago, but her fellow novices covered up for her... because they disliked her and were afraid she’d be found and brought back.

45. Oh! We learn that Egwene DID share one of her prophetic dreams with people -- she told the sisters about the Seanchan attack she’d dreamed about (I can’t tell from context if this means all of the Aes Sedai with her or just her oathsworn sisters). I think it’s all the Aes Sedai Sisters. Hilariously, no one is taking it seriously because no one believes that she’s a Dreamer, possibly because of how she has never shared a prophetic dream before. This really is the opposite of Min’s storyline re: prophecy.

46. Hey, we finally learn the name of one of Egwene’s friends from back home (who, per TGH, were ‘allowed’ to dance with Rand because they wouldn’t try to steal him, and I was trying so hard to think of who on earth that would even be) - Larine Ayellin. It only took us 10 books, but we’ve got the name of one of Egwene’s childhood friends!

47. After talking over the issues that had been brought up earlier in the book with various Sitters, Egwene comes to a decision and sneaks out in the night, riding Bela rather than her own Daishar, with only Siuan aware that she’s left. She goes to where Bode has been set out on her secret mission and takes over for her (and I believe Leane is the other one on the secret mission). Anyway, we finally learn The Plan, which is turning the big harbor chains into cuendillar at night while they’re down, thus blockading the harbor without needing to bring in boats. She succeeds at her half of it... and then is caught, obviously betrayed by someone. I’m gonna guess by Nicola because... I mean, it fits her MO and she did just recently run away.

48. We end on a super-short epilogue. All of the major wounds that Rand has received still hurt, we learn. Not just the unhealable wounds in his side but the heron brands in his palms too. Oh, honey. Bashere has returned and tells Rand that the Seanchan are willing to meet with him -- but it needs to be in person and he will be meeting with a member of the royal family, the Daughter of the Nine Moons (and, of course, we know she’s too busy being an asshole in Mat’s storyline to actually be the person Rand will meet next book).

49. Mostly what reading CoT made me think about were several ways it could be improved. This was... a frustrating book. Honestly, I don’t think it’s out of character for Perrin to go seek out help from the slavers -- he’s pre-established as being ‘anything for Faile’ so he didn’t feel out of character. But so much of the book felt... pointless. And it essentially killed off one of my favorite characters, because CoT!Mat is NOT pre-CoT!Mat. I don’t know this guy and I don’t like this guy. Elayne and Egwene do all they can to hold up the book, but so much of it really is a miserable slog. I hope KoD is better but honestly, I suspect it will be Elayne and Egwene holding up the entire book again, and Perrin and Mat being miserable slogs again. But we’ll see. And after KoD, I’ll reread New Spring, and that one should be genuinely enjoyable at least.

Mat is mentioned by:

Rand x1

Unnecessary scenes in this section:

Perrin’s side quest (shaido): 1 (14 pages), 1 (17 pages), 1 (21 pages)

Mat’s side quest (tuon): 1 (31 pages), 1 (12 pages)

Tuon appears in 15 pages in chapter 28 and 23 in chapter 29.

Toy used:

8x in chapter 29

4x in chapter 29 (she doesn’t talk much in this one)

Tuon is a spoiled brat who is allowed to get away with anything she wants:

Forcibly renames Egeanin just to be an asshole.

When Mat gives her a gift, she gives it away in a manner calculated to be an asshole.

Mocks and humiliates Egeanin for no apparent reason other than to be an asshole (and I guess to push the limits and see what Mat will let her get away with, probably)

Demands that Mat take her shopping

Loads Mat up with all her purchases that she made on Mat’s gold

Tuon is now officially being feted and honored at Luca’s circus since they know she’s An Important Seanchan now

Tuon reminds us she’s a slaver:

Selucia, her slave, is still shadowing her everywhere

she talks about Mat needing to be trained in manners

is able to forcibly rename Egeanin because she has the power to do that in their culture due to being the Top Slaver

Egeanin is forced to kneel, kiss the floor, and beg leave to be permitted to withdraw

Tuon refuses to even speak to Egeanin directly, having Selucia (her slave) do it instead

She refuses to speak to Mat in the same scene, having Selucia speak for her. Since Selucia is speaking ‘for’ Tuon here, I am counting this usage of ‘Toy’ against Tuon

Threatens again to turn Mat into a slave

forbids Mat to mourn Renna because Mat is her hoped-for possession and not allowed his own feelings. I don’t want him to mourn Renna either but step off, lady.

Something from previous books is undermined (this is kinda my ranting section so skip if that doesn’t appeal):

Mat continues to treat both the Aes Sedai & the sul’dam as if they are ‘equally irritating’ and have ‘equally petty’ reasons for ‘annoying’ him, contributing to the idea that being a slaver isn’t a big deal. It’s even the SUL’DAM that Mat is giving apologetic looks to, even after they talk about how they want to leash the Aes Sedai again? WTF WTF WTF 

Mat acts like he’s baffled when Joline, Edesina, & Teslyn glare at him and not the sul’dam - yeah, they’re pissed that you’re treating slavers and their targets the same because you weren’t doing that LAST BOOK. I’d be pissed off too if the person who saved me was suddenly acting like he didn’t see any difference between me and the people who want to enslave me. They don’t expect the sul’dam not to act like trash but they expected better of you, Mat, because you were better last book.

Mat thinks of the a’dam and sul’dam as a lever to use against the Aes Sedai. Wow! Disgusting behavior! He thinks “Not that he really thought about putting those collars on the sisters again. Not often, anyway.” WTF? I kinda hate CoT!Mat. I adored this character only LAST BOOK and just hated that he was trapped in a trauma plotline. How did Jordan manage to completely ruin Mat in a single book?

Mat seems annoyed that Domon isn’t behaving like a good slave and sleeping on the floor, instead insisting that he and Mat trade off for the bed. Again! WTF!

Mat worries about the ‘bad habits’ that Olver might pick up from the Redarms or Thom, but has no qualms about him hanging out with slavers. He even approves of Olver bowing and making much of Tuon. Slavery is a pretty bad fucking habit, Mat.

Mat abruptly starts ‘courting’ Tuon in earnest, despite her giving him absolutely no reason to like her as a person and being open about her desire to potentially enslave him at some point. He lets her get away with being a jerk over and over and over again, despite being harsh with the Aes Sedai for much lesser irritations.

Setalle Anan is absolutely fine with Tuon acting like a slaver asshole in front of her and even is all “oh you silly man” in Mat’s direction when he’s baffled by Tuon’s behavior.

Somehow the entire Mean Girls (tm) event where Tuon and Selucia mock and humiliate Egeanin for absolutely no reason doesn’t make Mat decide not to court Tuon? wtf

Setalle Anan is now literally bodyguard to a slaver, willing to use her knife against people to threaten them to leave Tuon’s presence. What a massive comedown for this character, who was so strongly anti-slavery in Winter’s Heart.

When Mat finds out that Tuon has trained damane, he doesn’t think at all about how sickening he found the way that damane were treated in Winter’s Heart to be but instead treats it as a neutral statement about her hobbies; it makes him find her intimidating but he’s not disgusted by it like he would have been in Winter’s Heart. It has not been THAT LONG and yet Mat already barely cares about slavery, despite caring a LOT in Winter’s Heart.

Mat still appears to be in denial that Selucia is a slave, constantly calling her a “ladies’ maid”. This is kinda the one point where any kind of massaging Mat back into some semblance of actually being in character would hang, actually. Because he KNOWS that she’s a slave but persistently refuses to think of her as one, like if he just closes his eyes and pretends hard enough that Tuon isn’t a slaver, she’ll magically stop being one.

Despite very reasonably NOT considering an oath under duress to be binding in Winter’s Heart, Mat apparently considers accidental wedding vows to be binding??? You are not Seanchan; you have no reason to consider yourself bound by their customs unless you CHOOSE to be. Weddings! Aren’t! Magic! Spells! Why do I say this so often in these books!

Literally there is no point for the narrative to have removed Tuon from her power base in Ebou Dar because everyone still treats her like she’s in charge anyway. What is the point of this entire arc if it doesn’t actually impact Tuon’s character? ALL the circus arc has done so far is completely destroy Mat as a character. What the FUCK happened to Jordan in-between writing Winter’s Heart and writing Crossroads of Twilight? Seriously, even if that is when he decided to punt off all Seanchan-related development to the outriggers, there was no reason to assassinate Mat’s character this way. I’m so pissed off. It’s like being a slaver doesn’t even register as a negative to Mat anymore - he doesn’t even mention Tuon BEING A SLAVER in his list of things about her that he dislikes? wtf. Instead it’s all “oh dear, I might marry a noble” aka the kinds of worries that would make sense if he were fated to marry someone like ELAYNE, not someone like Tuon, who has much greater flaws than being a NOBLE.

When Tuon threatens again to turn MAT into a slave, he gets nervous about the idea but it doesn’t seem to impact his opinion of Tuon as a person??? She’s genuinely horrific (to him and others) in this entire section of the story and it doesn’t seem to impact his desire to ~win her over~ in any possible way? Like, dude, just fucking take a horse and abandon the circus. Take Olver with you and just leave.

And he’s just bafflingly all “oh women are so strange” about her threatening to enslave him. Mat, this has NOTHING to do with her being a woman. It’s because she’s a SLAVER. Also, absolutely mind-bogglingly, Mat thinks about how he needs to trust her. Literally right after she’s threatened to turn him into a slave. ????  We do get that echo of his ancient memories reminding him that trust is the sound of death but it doesn’t go anywhere, so whatever.

You would think that after one of the sul’dam stabs Egeanin and tries to run away, Mat might rethink some of his weird “oh the Aes Sedai and the sul’dam are both just equally annoying sets of people” trains of thought but this does not appear to happen.

When Mat learns that sul’dam can channel, all his focus is on “oh no my future wife can channel” and his tactical military mind seems to have taken a vacation? The fact that the sul’dam can potentially channel is a huge deal with regards to the Seanchan empire, yet this barely seems to cross Mat’s mind?

And, honestly, I don’t even feel like the whole “the prophecy threatens his life if he doesn’t marry Tuon” is a valid reason because Mat HAS risked his life before for other people, quite frequently! So him rolling over for the prophecy and doing his best to fawn and manipulate his way into Tuon’s good graces feels so excruciatingly out of character. Him giving her flowers and trying to court her all while doing his best to just ignore that she’s a horrific person who enslaves and tortures other people for fun is... it’s just out of character. I don’t care that Jordan wrote it. This isn’t the same Mat that we had in Winter’s Heart or the previous books. This is a different character. Mat is the guy who runs back into the burning house to save people, even while complaining the whole time (as Siuan described him in book 3), but this guy is marrying the fucking arsonist instead and just watching as she sets more fires. He comes across as weak and self-serving, which are not words I would associate with pre-CoT Mat. I remember accurately how awful Tuon is as a person and a character but, wow, Mat is shitty too in this book.

I just... I think back to the start of TSR and THAT should have been the energy that Mat had in this book -- he fucking hates the nobles in the start of that book, yet he doesn’t show it at all to their faces because he’s fleecing them for money, but even though he never actively thinks “I fucking hate these people” it becomes very obvious within about 2-3 pages. THAT is what we should have been getting from the Mat-Tuon scenes, but we would actually need to see MAT trying to subtly win concessions from TUON in order for that to be the subtext, rather than just barely keep his head above the water, you know? Because Mat focuses WAY TOO MUCH on Tuon being Prophesied Wife rather than Prophesied Wife being the FUTURE EMPRESS OF THE SLAVER EMPIRE THAT HAS RECENTLY INVADED THE WESTLANDS. Which is a MILITARY concern. Yet we never see Mat treating trying to get Tuon to fall in love with him as if it were a military concern; it’s just treated as a personal thing and THAT is why it makes all this feel like a pointless subplot rather than something that’s actually important. And it sucks because it felt like Winter’s Heart actually set up a good storyline for this plotline really well and then CoT has just completely ignored the bigger picture related to a Mat-Tuon marriage and has made it all about Fated Romance (which is something that Jordan has ALREADY done in other plotlines, so he’s not even bringing anything new to the table). It’s just so frustrating because this COULD have been  compelling story (though I would have felt bad for Mat even so) but instead it’s a limp nothingplot that ruins a good character.

Ironically, Mat being a shitty person isn’t even related to Tuon? Tuon is only in 52 pages of Mat’s chapters, but he’s a shitty person in the majority of his screen time, even before he starts courting her in earnest. I’m so disappointed (in Jordan, not in Mat. This is so clearly NOT pre-CoT Mat that I can’t even hold it against him; pre-CoT Mat is still one of my faves. CoT!Mat can go pound sand. Jordan had to absolutely obliterate Mat as a character in order to make him ‘fit’ with Tuon and it’s so depressing).

I hate everything about this plotline.

Plot-threads that started in CoT or were carried over from WH:

Elayne: Become queen of Caemlyn (second book of task) - NOT completed.

Mat: Escape Ebou Dar and return to the Band of the Red Hand and Rand (second book of task) - NOT completed.

Perrin: Gather up Masema and his Dragonsworn and bring them to Rand (fourth book of task) - NOT completed.

Egwene: Go to the White Tower with her army, confront Elaida, and heal the Tower (fifth book of task) - NOT completed.

Rand: Make a truce with the Seanchan (first book of task) - NOT completed.

Nynaeve: The only thing she does this entire book is watch Lan spar.

Plot-threads carrying over to Knife of Dreams:

Elayne: Become queen of Caemlyn (3/?)

Mat: Escape Ebou Dar and return to the Band of the Red Hand and Rand (3/?)

Perrin: Gather up Masema and his Dragonsworn and bring them to Rand (5/?)

Egwene: Go to the White Tower with her army, confront Elaida, and heal the Tower (6/?)

Rand: Make a truce with the Seanchan (2/?)

Nynaeve: ???

Unnecessary scenes (whole book):

young Sitters ‘mystery’: 3 (9 pages)

too many random PoVs: 5 (63 pages)

Mat’s side quest (tuon): 6 (134 pages)

Perrin’s side quest (shaido): 8 (175 pages)

Being Weird about Elayne’s pregnancy: 3 (5 pages)

Atha’an Miere nonsense: 2 (12 pages)

Egwene waits around for her plot to start: 2 (29 pages)

So that was a total of 427 pages. My copy of Crossroads of Twilight has 823 pages, so that is 51.9%. Honestly, I was expecting it to be worse. Thank goodness for Elayne and Egwene.

Tuon-related annoyances: (whole book; 52 pages)

refuses to use Mat’s name x25

acts like a spoiled brat x9

reminds us that she’s a slaver x11

People that Mat thinks about: (whole book):

Rand x3

Perrin x1

Mat is mentioned by (whole book):

Elayne x1

Egwene x6 (prophetic dream)

Rand x1

Mat is so disconnected from the rest of the cast in this book; it’s like he’s in his own, separate, and more poorly-written novella (which I guess is a ‘romance’ of some kind but one of those romances where you feel like the author only put 5% of their effort into the story).

#wot #wheel of time #wot reread #crossroads of twilight #wot book spoilers #wot spoilers #slaver empress tuon #seanchan warning #trust me when i say that i also wish that this book weren't making me so miserable lol #i want mat back! #this is not mat! #i thoroughly disagree with the opinion that sanderson ruined mat #because jordan ruined him first #mat cauthon #the wheel of time

[astoundingbeyondbelief]

Kaiju Week in Review (December 4-10, 2022)

GigaBash's Godzilla DLC is now available, and they defied expectations (well, my expectations) by offering a lineup of Heisei Godzilla, Kiryu, Showa Gigan, and Destoroyah. I can't offer any insights into how they play, since I haven't had time to delve into this game, but they certainly look great.

An extremely special collection of Godziban episodes are out on Blu-ray and DVD. The main attractions are two all-new specials ("The Greatest Monsters on Earth" and "Mothra vs. Bagan"), starring the imposing lineup above, plus the entire Destroy All Monsters cast. Extended versions of the season 1 episodes "Son of Minilla", and "The Godzilla Who Came on Christmas Eve!" are also present, and the Blu-ray adds on the Godzilla Fest 2020 special episodes "The Xilien Who Turned Red" and "Lullaby of the Skies" and a behind-the-scenes featurette. Both formats come with a sizable booklet too. They're pricey, as is typically for Japanese home video, so as eager as I am to watch Bagan get pulverized by a couple of moths, I'll probably wait for someone to rip the Blu-ray.

Godzilla: Monsters & Protectors - All Hail the King! #3 is mostly Ghidorah doing Ghidorah things (although this might be the first time he's burned down Westminster, good for him). King Caesar can't wake up soon enough. This issue also plays a bit with All Hail the King's status as an unplanned sequel. In #2, Cedric questioned why King Caesar didn't intervene when Godzilla was on the brink of destroying the world in the original comic. The Shobijin have many abilities, but breaking the fourth wall isn't one of them, so they gave a vague answer about destiny, and it's just adding to the friction between him and Karen, a member of the family who can communicate with the shisa. Interested to see where they're going with this.

Tickets for the U.S. limited release (January 11/12) of Shin Ultraman are now live. Since Fathom primarily books at Regal, Cinemark, and AMC theaters, Fandango should allow you to see most anywhere it's playing near you. I will be dragging as many people as I can to the subtitled showing.

Mill Creek has issued the 1992 animated series Ultraman Kids: 3,000 Light Years in Search of Mother on DVD. I know nothing about it, and those designs are powerfully unsettling... but it's never even been subtitled before, so good on them?

Normally I wouldn't bother mentioning the millionth Godzilla crossover with a mobile game, but The Ants: Underground Kingdom is an unusual pick—it's a strategy game where you run an ant colony. These are clearly special ants, since the teaser shows them giving Godzilla a boost after King Ghidorah knocks him down. (I'd rather see him take on the ants from THEM! though.) The collaboration runs from December 16 to January 14.

#gigabash #godzilla #video games #godzilla monsters and protectors all hail the king #shin ultraman #ultraman #ultraman kids #mill creek #home video #the ant underground kingdom #king ghidorah #comics #art #idw #kaiju week in review #Youtube

[lediz-watches]

Helluva Boss

How dare you make me feel things, you stupid crude show about bad people doing bad things.

So because I have become cautiously obsessed with Hazbin Hotel, and you cannot go anywhere near that fandom without also having to hear about Helluva Boss (and specifically Fizzarolli), I watched a few episodes. And then binged almost the whole thing in an afternoon. And by episode seven, I literally did say, out loud, “How DARE you” at my TV screen.

So suffice it to say I’m impressed, and I was, once again, wrong about a thing.

For people not online or who, like me, just ignored it, Helluva Boss is a youtube animated series about four creatures that live in Hell and run an assassination agency. Literally nothing about that interested me, which is why I’ve been ignoring it when it appeared on my various feeds. But what it’s really about is finding healthy emotional connections with other people despite your emotionally damaging past. And that is entirely my jam, so I am not surprised to find I love it.

But anyway. Let’s start with why I was so horrendously wrong about this series to begin with.

I watched the first episode and a half a while back, and stopped watching halfway through the second episode because it just wasn’t clicking with me. Blitzo’s character annoyed me, and I don’t like watching bad people do bad things. And it was obvious Moxxie wasn’t the main character, despite his character being something I would have liked to have watched. I like shows about hope and family and personal triumphs and other such positive outcomes. The first episode and a half of Helluva Boss is about evil little creatures running an assassination agency in Hell and bitching at each other constantly while their boss carries on a toxic relationship with one of the elite for profit.

But what I should have noticed, in that second episode, is an exchange that not only made me laugh, but has stuck in my brain ever since:

“I’ll pay you~!”

“Pay me what?”

“Money~!”

I still don’t know what about it got through my wall of distaste, because in context it’s not that great. But I think it’s actually very representative of the show’s layers. It’s using sex to make a joke that has nothing to do with sex. It’s freaking vaudevillian!

On the surface, the show is crude and stupid. It appears to go for cheap jokes, and thinks that swearing is funny, and sex is everything, but none of that is true. The show is lying to you from the outset, and it’s…. remarkably upfront about that fact. So much so that you assume it must be a double-blind until it sucker punches you right in the feels.

The swearing, the violence, the crudeness… that’s all just set dressing. That’s the stage, the environment. And it took me until the end of an episode called C.H.E.R.U.B. to realise that, because as I watched Millie and Moxxie make out as they rained violence and carnage on an entirely innocent theatre, I acknowledged I was still grossed out, but that was more about the animation than what was actually happening (I also just never need to see tongues intertwining. I don’t). I realised that I was otherwise cheering them on entirely. And when the C.H.E.R.U.B.s got denied entrance back into Heaven, I was like “…yeah, justified, you arrogant jerks.”

(Except the goat kid. The goat kid should’ve been given another chance.)

Because in the world that the show had created, in the stage and the environment, the reality crafted… the imps were justified. Are justified. They’re doing perfectly reasonable jobs and taking perfectly reasonable actions within the reality they live in.

And even the people who aren’t nice or good, like Blitzo and Luna, the show doesn’t waste time hiding why they aren’t nice or good people. I don’t need to resort to fanfiction to explore why Blitzo pushes people away or keeps trying to impose himself on his employees’ happy and loving relationship. The show goes out of its way to make it perfectly obvious that he wants that joy and love for himself, without ever taking it away from them, he just doesn’t know how to get it in a healthy way. The show is quite happy to show me that in simple, stark detail, never lingering on it or making it overwrought. These are just facts, and the show is about getting Blitzo to a better place despite the aforementioned set dressing of his whole world.

What I find so impressive is how quickly I just accepted it all. There’s a lot that works together to build the world – the characters, the environment, even the musical numbers. I disliked the “Cotton Candy” song a lot, but damn if it wasn’t exactly what that character and the whole party she was at was about. Most of the time, the world is so logically put together that you don’t even need to explain it. And so the crudeness and violence quickly stop being crude and violent. They’re just part of the world. And you get the hang of what’s acceptable and not, and that enhances the subtleties of the characters’ interactions. It can be very hard to explain, but you know when Blitzo is actually crossing a line, and you know he knows it too. But why that moment was different than the other six times he's done something horrible in the last minute is… complex and difficult and kind of wonderful.

But that makes the emotional hammer throws even more effective. Because you’re skating along, watching the subtleties, enjoying them playing out, and then suddenly Blitzo’s having a very real and beautifully done breakdown on his couch (seriously, screw you Mr Rogers, that hurt my soul) and you remember you’re supposed to be watching a silly cartoon about Hell-demons killing people.

It’s not perfect, of course. The conflicts between characters often don’t land right, because the work hasn’t been done to lead up to them. Blitzo on the couch killed me, but the evening leading up to it and the final confrontation with Stolas seemed clumsy at best.  In hindsight, it was perfectly in character and perfectly fine, but up to that point, the show had not done nearly enough to showcase the power imbalance between Blitzo and Stolas. It still hasn’t, in my opinion. Because as much as I am aware that Stolas is a prince, with power and influence, almost every time we see him, it’s showing how little power he has. He’s weak and helpless, and Blitzo is one of two bright spots in his otherwise miserable life. Compare Blitzo, who is running his own startup quite capably, is dexterous, athletic, a great shot, apparently good in bed, appears incredibly confident (even if we know it’s a lie), and has Stolas wrapped around his finger. That’s what the show has shown me. The power imbalance appears balanced by the personalities behind it. They should have had a few more scenes showing us Blitzo feels like he’s at Stolas’s beck and call, rather than the other way around. They should have shown us more of him feeling pressured. His complaints, to this point, felt like excuses and pride, not genuine discomfort. So that whole conflict kind of… just… didn’t land.

And similarly… the politics in general. Not to compare franchises, but the Hazbin Hotel pilot, in ten minutes, set up everything that I think I will need to know about the politics of the Pride Ring: Lucifer is King and probably incredibly powerful, but the sinners do not give the slightest damn about that. They fight amongst themselves, and all that really matters is who commands the most power and the most fear. And then they get slaughtered once a year by the actual power in Hell: Heaven’s killers. Simple. Helluva Boss has… Goetia and the Sins, and apparently there’s some kind of hierarchy between the rings, and the kinds of demons, and sinners are somewhere in that mix as well, and… I’m still not Christian. Still don’t know any of the background reading. I’m very sorry. And none of it has actually been explained to me.

And no, I will not watch the streams or read any Dante to make sense of it.

But because of that, the whole thing in the most recent episode did not hit home for me. Two sins square off, and one of them, Lust, is forced to admit he feels love for his lover. The other, Greed, tells him he’ll regret admitting that. And I’m sorry, I know the fans love that episode, but to me, that was just a bitchy and pathetic comment, not the weighty call-forward that I think it was supposed to be.

Because I cannot, for the life of me, figure out what risk there could be in Lust admitting he feels love. Except his image, and honestly… whatever. As much as the world is Hell, where bad things are normal, the only characters that have actually even implied that love is a bad thing are the Sin of Lust himself and his lover. And yet I’m supposed to think him admitting his hypocrisy is some huge risk? What? Why? Is he going to get demoted? Is Heaven going to complain about him not playing his role? He doesn’t seem worried about that. What is the problem here? I’ve only even met this guy like three times, why do I even care what happens to him?

I mean, I worship at the altar of James Munroe Inglebert’s charisma too, but come on. Give me some stakes before you ask me to care about them!

I think that actually encapsulates why I struggled to finish the second episode. Helluva Boss is a great show, and Blitzo is an incredibly compelling character, and I want to see his story. I love Millie and Moxxie. I like Luna. I like Stolas. Fizzarolli is overhyped but I really did like his storyline and how it played out. But the first couple of episodes… they do not at all set up the show they’re introducing. They set up a wild and wacky show about Hellish creatures being vitriolic best buds while committing mayhem. And, I mean… yeah, but… also… really… no. No, not at all.

So.

So… like…

What?

How dare you make me care, and… what are you trying to make me care about now? What?

#helluva boss #also the voice actors #incredible performances #emotionally devastating show #hiding behind crudeness #but the world building is so inconsistent

[penname-artist]

“So, I went beyond...pluuuuuuuus ULTRA” (And other updates)

(Warning: unintentionally long)

Okay, but in all seriousness, I finally feel that I’ve progressed just far enough in the show to state that I got into My Hero Academia. Technically, I’d watched season one and like the first 2-3 episodes of two before, but I didn’t finish it, and now I’m trying to. At the moment I’m about halfway through season 2 and making steady progress. Side note: You SPOIL shit near me and you’re a DEAD MAN! Let me watttttch >:(

Honestly I am fucking loving the series right now, I think aside from Deku, my favorites are definitely Tsu (Froooooggie) and, well, Shoto. You saw that coming, I can understand why he’s an overrated favorite. Feel bad for the kid though, like damn, boi you got some serious daddy issues, would you like a popsicle?

And, having started back up on MHA, I’m getting *cough cough* ideas *cough* for potential AUs and such.

Which actually segues this into another thing, just general life updates.

We had a pretty bad freeze lately, but thank God we didn’t lose our entire state power grid this time around, so it was smooth sailing. Unless you count the fact that we had to go out because I needed to be at work while the roads were slippery as snot. Which, was only one day. So we’re fine.

I also had a fix on the house which has FINALLY deterred the Mystery Creature from showing up at night and disturbing my sleep. After months of restlessness, we found out that it was coming in through a vent outside under my bedroom, and we had it covered. That seemed to do the job, thank goodness.

For mental health and productivity, I can’t really say much on the case; things have been about as steady as they can be, but in that it hasn’t really gone anywhere up, and I’m afraid I might be teetering on top of another depressive slump. Which, at the very least I’m prepared for. I honestly thought it would have been sooner, I had a REALLY bad attack a couple weeks ago and I felt sure it was going to be lasting, but by some miracle, though the attack itself was horrendous, I managed to recover in a record time. The only big downside is that my trauma response seems to have “manifested” (for lack of a better word) into very severe body tremors and shaking. I can control it...somewhat...but it drains a lot out of me. Still, I suppose it’s become more manageable, in a tangible sense. I’m a little less worried about how I react mentally to triggers and more worried about how I react physically. That’s a much easier hurdle to take on, overall.

Though, mental barriers are just as much an issue, if for a slightly different reason, at the moment. I’m honestly really stuck, writing-wise. I have so much I want to work on and so much I try to work on, but just a few paragraphs in I get skeptical because the piece will become jarring and choppy, and hard to maintain. I’ve re-started the same baseline to a Clutch and Tyker fic about four times now.

I’m actually considering doing a deep-clean, throwing out concepts too old and too untouched to really go any further with. I will, of course, keep the important ones, and the pieces that are ongoing, but a lot of the stuff I have in the wings that hasn’t been released is just so fucking dead in the water, I either need to put it in the waiting room or drop it completely. So, not sure where that’s going yet.

Actually, come to think of it, the semi-annual is also coming up.

Been doing this for a few years now but as a re-reminder, I try to take social media times down significantly or else entirely 1-2 times a year, one in the spring and one in the autumn. April and September-October have been my best time frames for these, as they’re not only good distances apart, but they’re in relatively trauma-ey time periods that I need to focus on getting through rather than pushing past. Plus, it’s a great excuse to work on large scale projects and not feel any sort of production-line pressure I put on myself to get them out, because they’re all gonna get stacked in a corner to wait until my return.

So! In recap: I’m probably gonna stick around until April 10th (I wanna at LEAST get to have my 21st birthday in the company of my people) and then probably do a week or two heavily away from things, and then extended time kinda by the seat of my pants as needed. That’s still a ways out, but better prepared sooner than later!

That’s all the updates that I can think of for the time being, for now I’m kinda just trying to Vibe where I can. I want to work on things but my body is giving me a very big “no”, so. Sidelines week it is!

Hopefully you all have a relaxing and/or fun-filled weekend, and until the morrow!

#personal post #Personal Update

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #575

Top Ten Years for TV

As it was prophesied, so it must come to pass; I am once again back on my temporal bullshit and ranking years in which stuff came out. Having ticked off the easier/funner ones (films and games), I’m now making life harder for myself by talking about TV. And next week – no spoilers – is going to be a nightmare. Honestly, I deserve the opportunity to refuse a knighthood for all of this psychological effort.

Insert Steve Buscemi Reservoir Dogs meme.

Right, so, the gist here is that I’m ranking the best years for TV in my lifetime. That is to say, what years did the best or even the most TV occur? What years pay host to the greatest amount of top telly? In which years did the gogglebox kick the most ass? Incidentally, you won’t find Gogglebox on here, because I can’t bloody stand that show. Sorry if you work on it.

This list – as with all my lists – is entirely subjective, and of course is heavily infused with strong nostalgia. It’s also proven very difficult because sometimes there’s one or two great shows – my favourite shows – that makes me want to rank a year a lot higher, but on balance there’s another year with, like, seven very good shows. Maybe I should have incorporated a scoring system, but I’ve only just thought of doing that and I’ve already written my list so it’s not going to happen.

Something I’ve discovered – apart from, apparently, not watching anywhere near as much TV as I did as a teenager – is quite how many critically-adored TV shows I’ve not seen. Yes, it’s a source of much hilarity that I never quite got round to The Wire or Breaking Bad. But I’ve hardly seen or never seen stuff like Fleabag, The Boys, Succession, Ted Lasso, Killing Eve, or Better Call Saul. Some of that is by design (I doubt I’d like The Boys); some of it is because I don’t have Sky or Apple TV; some of it is because, well, TV shows take ages to watch. Honestly, give me a one-off fifty-minute TV special like Werewolf By Night any day. So, yeah, that’s possibly another reason why more recent years are under-represented. But also the sheer weight of years of adoration will always make a show like The X-Files, The West Wing, or Batman: The Animated Series bubble up over even very good 21st Century shows such as The Mandalorian or Stranger Things. I have a feeling if I’d been a little bit more well-watched, so to speak, then 2016 might have been a bigger year.

Also, yeah, I’m a genre nut; there are some great comedies and the odd terrific doc on here, but for the most part the TV programmes that really, really make me fall in love with a year are the sci-fi/fantasy-tinged ones. At the moment I’m barely interested in watching anything that doesn’t take part in the Star Wars, Star Trek, or Marvel universes, which I acknowledge is a huge cultural failing on my part, but on the other hand lightsabers innit.

Oh, and I guess there is another important caveat here, which maybe is obvious but maybe not. Because I’m ranking these by the year the programme debuted; in the case of American shows, that’s its US debut, whereas obviously UK shows are going by when it first aired over here. It doesn’t take into account ongoing shows; so yeah, if Star Trek: The Next Generation started in 1987, it’s probably fair to say that it only became unmissable in maybe 1989. But I’m classing it as an ’87 show coz that’s when it started. And Encounter at Farpoint is a pretty decent first episode. That’s it, let’s get cracking.

1993: once again the year 1993 looms large (it was number 2 on my films list and number 8 on my games list); really one of the most important years of my life, culturally speaking. Anyway, one of the most important and influential shows of my life debuted this year – The X-Files. That show hovered over my teens like a UFO that somehow only Mulder notices; it changed the things I watched, the things I read, and maybe most importantly, the things I wrote about. ‘93 also saw the arrival of Deep Space Nine, although I didn’t really get into that until, er, last year; but it’s tremendous and vital for deepening and enriching the Star Trek mythos. Also Animaniacs, one of the wildest and funniest animated shows; Frasier, classic comedy and part of the whole glorious “comedy on Channel 4” era of my life; Reeves and Mortimer debuted both The Smell of… and Shooting Stars, and they were the comic gods of my childhood. Beavis and Butt-Head, Lois and Clark, and I also want to give a shout-out to the rather dark childhood serial The Animals of Farthing Wood, which traumatised kids up and down the land.

1992: two huge gaming-related shows came out this year: Bad Influence! and Gamesmaster. These were massive deals to little young me, as games – games! – were on the telly. It also saw the debut of two TV institutions in Later… With Jools Holland and The Big Breakfast. The Larry Sanders Show began in the US, but I can’t imagine I was watching it in ’92; famously its UK airings were very late and very sporadic, but I remember being blown away as a young teen by its scabrous nature and how well is parodied the talk show format (I actually thought it was real for a little bit the first time I caught an episode). I could also talk at length about X-Men, one of the most important animated shows, and superhero shows, of the era. But it – and everything else this year, almost everything else on the list – is dwarfed by another great animated show. Batman: The Animated Series was this year, and it’s amazing. One of the best incarnations of Batman, taking almost everything good about him, with stunning production design and a maturity of storytelling that belied that fact it was stuck on Saturday mornings over here. And it gave us Kevin Conroy, the definitive Batman, who channelled his own hurt into giving the character weight and gravitas, and who is much, much missed.

1999: there are two massively important shows this year that I didn’t watch from beginning to end but want to acknowledge: Queer as Folk and The Sopranos. For me, though, this was the year of The West Wing; probably on balance my favourite TV programme of all time. A superlative masterclass in scriptwriting, performance, and direction, and a joyous exploration of camaraderie, kindness, and the quiet heroism of the everyday. What else happened? Well, there were two great animated shows, Futurama and Batman Beyond; Jon Stewart began his era-defining stint on The Daily Show; and I really loved Walking With Dinosaurs. But let’s face it, it’s Bartlet’s year. Okay? Okay.

1984: yeah, it pleases me immensely to report that 1984 continues to be a banger year. The Transformers happened, and Jesus Christ, is there any way to downplay the importance of that show? Sure, it’s probably the comic that really took over my brain, but it all began here – for me – with the cartoon. There were other big cartoons for me too: GoBots, Muppet Babies, Thomas & Friends, Trap Door (Trap Door!). And some other stuff not really for kids: Spitting Image, for cryin’ out loud! Murder, She Wrote! V! Tripods! The Cosby Show! Er, okay, maybe in retrospect we forget about The Cosby Show.

1989: My policy of only listing a show when it first airs has a bit of a wobble here because of Blackadder Goes Forth. Do we count Blackadder as a series beginning in 1983? Or each separate season as its own separate entity? Anyway, Goes Forth is amazing and has a terrific ending. However, something that definitely for-real did begin in ’89 was The Simpsons (well, if you don’t include the Tracey Ullman shorts I guess). And The Simpsons is epoch-defining in its excellence, one of the most important TV shows to ever release in my lifetime. What else happened? Well, if Blackadder wasn’t enough Tony Robinson for you, Maid Marian and her Merry Men came out too (not on Pancake Day though). What’s the deal with Seinfeld too? But to be honest, outside of Springfield, the biggest deal for me was Quantum Leap. Oh boy.

1987: I’d love to sing the praises of the Beauty and the Beast series starring Ron Perlman and Kirstie Alley, but whilst I loved it as a kid I’ve not seen it in over thirty years so maybe it sucked? Something that definitely didn’t suck was Star Trek: The Next Generation. This was my Star Trek, and even though I didn’t fully engage with it (ho ho) till much later, I need to plant a flag in the year it began. You’ve also got the seminal Max Headroom, a childhood icon. And speaking of childhood, two of my favourite cartoons: Duck Tales and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the latter of which was one of the huge sensations of my young life. Seriously, it’s, like, Turtles, Transformers, Ghostbusters, and Garfield.

2021: okay, this is gonna be a bit of a weird one. I’m sure lots of things came out this year. I’m sure, if I was inclined, I could Google the year (well Bing the year – gotta get my Microsoft Reward Points; it pays for Game Pass!) and find out lots of stuff. I could do my research; normally, I do do my research. But there’s no point, because 2021 is the year all the MCU shows started on Disney+, and that fact alone is enough to get it this high. WandaVision, Hawkeye, Loki, Falcon and the Winter Soldier, What If… am I forgetting one of them? It was a hell of a year, such a great way to kick off the whole shebang, even if some shows were better than others. Lots of things probably happened. But none of them were as good as that moment in the first episode of WandaVision where the boss starts choking and Wanda breaks character and the structure of the show starts to come apart.

2005: this is another year really defined by one show, and that show is the reboot/return/whatever you wanna call it of Doctor Who. Now, I think this really does count as the start of a new series, even if Who began in 1963; we’re still in the new Who era. And I bloody love it, warts and all, shittier series and all, the whole timey-wimey shebang. Other stuff happened, less exciting but still quite a big deal. Avatar – the best version of Avatar – began. My daughter would be most upset if I didn’t mention it. What else? The Thick of It, crucially important and hilarious comedy of the era. Grey’s Anatomy, one of my wife’s favourite shows and one that has a great deal of social worth and heft. Prison Break was cool, at first. And The Office, I suppose, but I never really got on with it, and now Ricky Gervais is a bellend.

1988: so there are two really important shows in my life that debuted in ’88, and I don’t know which to flag up the most: Red Dwarf and Garfield and Friends. I suppose really it should be the Boys from the Dwarf; their smegging antics became one of the most important comedy – and, indeed, sci-fi – shows of my teens. Garfield is a much bigger deal but I think even back then I preferred his comics and the TV specials; although Friends did give us Orson! There was also Duckula, another amazing animation; and the BBC’s classic The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe adaptation, my introduction to Narnia. There was The Wonder Years, and The Kids in the Hall, and I guess Roseanne, even if the bloom’s gone off that rose a little bit. Whose Line is it Anyway was and is a comedy gem. And way back then I loved Denver the Last Dinosaur. What can I say? I was, like, six or something.

2019: this is another year where there are a few shows I’ve only seen bits of but which are worth mentioning for posterity: Catastrophe and Sex Education for instance. But there are other ones I’ve seen properly: Ghosts, which is funnier and sweeter than I’d have ever expected; What We Do in the Shadows which is good enough to live up to the superlative movie that spawned it; DC Super Hero Girls, which manages to combine a lot of the heart and aesthetic of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic with the wit and dynamism of Teen Titans; and Years and Years, the depressingly prophetic fable from RTD. But of course I’m burying the lede because the real highlight of 2019 is The Mandalorian, a tremendously stylish and atmospheric space Western that leans on the best Star Wars tropes to give us something surprisingly original and an excellent use of the TV format to tell a cinematic story. This is, indeed, the way.

#top ten #years #tv #years and years

[maladaptive-ninja-returns]

It’s The Avengers (03x17)

Loki x Reader Avengers The Office AU (Slowwwwww Burn)

Season 3 Episode 17: Homecoming

SEASON FINALE

Series Summary: Living in the Avengers facility post-apocalypse in a better timeline   Tony Stark has decided to capture every moment by pulling The Office on the Avengers. All of housemates are pretty used to the idea except for you, who had just come here to finish her degree, and the newest member- Loki.

Warnings: something mild that you guys have been waiting for

Word Count: my therapist diagnosed me for ADHD and she said that I am on the borderline of the spectrum. In the sense that I have a chance of getting better if I go through proper therapy and bring a change in my thinking. That is good to hear and hopefully I will do better by myself in the near future.

MASTERLIST in bio, darlings. Tags are open (check bio)

A whirr followed by a piercing hum of a machine filled the blackness of the recording device. "Oh shit," a whisper was heard from within the dark. "What," another whispered back. "I forgot to pee." "Scott," multiple voices whispered at once, making Scott apologise to everyone in the dark. "All right, everyone," Natasha's composed voice addressed everyone, "we are jumping in five, four-" "Bucky, is that you?" Steve's voice was quite low. "Three-" "Yeah...well, I've never travelled to space so..." the White Wolf was quick to answer his boyfriend. "Two-" "Maybe I should've worn a diaper?" Scott's whisper was an amplitude higher now,  the fear quite evident in his voice. "One."

The darkness was replaced by a flash of light flooding the lens before gradually giving way to a desert. The camera moved around to take in the Avengers team all suited up in black and purple scrutinising the area around them. Slowly everyone was opening their suit helmets once the oxygen concentration on this alien planet was confirmed. Scott was taking little jumps with his legs crossed. "Excuse me," he exclaimed quite urgently before running haphazardly behind a blue bush. Steve and Bucky stood there holding hands while their gaze went everywhere to look for any sign of trouble. Natasha tested the comms, the incoming signals from the Compound and the number of people who had arrived with her. "I have taken the attendance and we have arrived intact," she narrated robotically into her comms, "though Scott seems to be suffering from travelling sickness." "I'm okay," he shouted from behind the bush with heavy inhales in between his words, "just my bladder. Everything is a-okay. Nothing weird in the pee-pee." Wanda was already making use of her power to scan the entire planet while standing in one spot, her hands glowing in red plasmic waves while the rest of her body floating in a trance. "Have to say, this place almost looks like earth except for those little weird looking rabbits who were watching me behind the bush," Scott commented, coming back to the group. Natasha made eye contact with the one GoPro fitted on Scott's shoulder.

Natasha: *pushing her pigtails off her shoulder* So Shuri and Tony worked out the Pandora Box's algorithm of teleportation in *smiles* forty-eight hours. Bruce helped with the foundation, of course, I just sent him on vacation when Shuri arrived because the big guy was exhausted. *inhales and looks in the direction of her Space Team* As you can see we volunteered to rescue Y/N and Loki- *Tony's voice cracked through the comms* just Y/N. *camera panned in on Natasha's face going back to a stone-cold b*tch* Natasha: *sighs* Pepper deserves a reward for keeping him on earth Tony's voice: I heard that Natasha: *completely ignores Tony* Wanda is looking for them, Steve is here in case we need more brainpower for rescue. Bucks is our muscle and I am here in case any of them have second thoughts about killing anything that tries to hurt my family. And we are all worried that Scott might die on this trip. *camera zooms in on her* We don't even know what he contributes to this group. *camera slowly turns to record Scott, standing there tongue-tied, right from his shoulder* Scott: *in a low, disappointed tone* I am standing right here. 

The camera- or cameras that were embedded in the dangerously fitting space suits- panned in on Wanda's eyes opening with a red glow. "I found them," she announced on a wavelength of confusion. "What's wrong?" Steve asked the question rising in everyone's mind. "Remember the woman who tried to kill Loki and Y/N?" "Aellae," Scott replied in the most derogatory way while making a face. Wanda blinked and tilted her head a bit. "She's alive."

On the Other Side of the alien Planet Coming into focus, a rusty looking fabric came into view, the loose cross stitch giving way to the light of the nearest star to pour in while the fabric flapped in the cool breeze. Panning out from the fabric, the view was shifted to you sitting up from what looking like one really good nap- thanks to that glow on your face and no gravity known by your hair that was everywhere. You wore a brown cotton dress without sleeves- exposing the black thread tied on your right bicep. A bit of air was knocked out from your lungs when Lulu bounced on you to hug and lick you to his satisfaction. The little tent was filled with your giggled and weak persuasion to get him off you. A gust of the cold breeze entered with the figure that came in with the tent. "Grandmamma!" you exclaimed, getting up to go hug Se'tiri, who patted your back. The camera settled down in front of the two of you as you sat down where you had been sleeping. "What are you doing here?" you asked Se'tiri, all smiles till you were hit with a sudden realisation. "Wait-" "You had fallen sick in Jotunheim," Se'tiri explained that sudden rush of questions inside your mind, "so Loki brought you back to me." "Is Loki okay?" was the first question that popped out of you. "You think anything can happen to that mannerless boy?!" she almost cursed him, tapping her cane on the floor. "He left Jotunh-" "Aye," Se'tiri waved your worries away with her hand, "do not worry about useless things. He is mannerless but he thinks ten steps ahead. You worry about yourself. Look at you, huh? You've lost so much weight. Does that boy not feed you? All that beautiful fat has vanished from your body." You were nearly on the edge of tears, hugging Se'tiri with all your might. "I love you, Se'tiri. And I can feed myself. What's that got to do with that 'boy'. It's not like he is going to cry if I lose a couple of pounds. Speaking of which, he isn't even here. Where is he?"

In the Middle of the Desert "I warned you not to follow me." Javier's camera was already panning on Loki's black-clad figure from his right side. The drone flying over them recorded Javier's resolute facial expressions. "I can't let you go to war alone." Loki snickered, barely able to contain his laughter. The drone moved away from them to record an eerie-looking shadow standing on the top of the opposite dune; a shadow with tentacles breaking out in every direction around the figure. Upon focusing, it turned out the figure was Aellae, looking at the figure of Loki laughing on his knees now. Her pale skin was cracked and her lips were dry and chapped. Those eyes were dark and clearly full of unsatisfied rage for the God slithering in the sand on some joke she did not understand. One moment she was standing here, her gaze suddenly locked with the drone; the other moment, she was seen at the foot of the dune before presenting herself right in front of Loki. Loki- all done with the laughter that Javier was clearly not pleased with- cleared his throat, wiped away the tears from the edge of his eyes and stood up to face a very horrid looking Aellae. "'Sup," the God greeting, barely trying to hold his laughter inside him. "You sold me out to those punishers!!!" she stressed the 'P' to nearly spit in his face.  "You need to have some value for me to buy you before selling you out, Aellae," he soothingly stressed to the witch. Aellae was already baring her teeth at Loki, her shadow tentacles growing bigger with every passing second. "I guess riling your own kind against you paid me. I don't see your frail human anywhere." Her giggles of content were stopped by a voice from behind her. "Oi!!!" Loki, Aellae and Javier turned in the direction of this extremely familiar yet surprisingly thunderous 'oi'. The cameras panned in on the figure appearing on the other dune, riding a beast- hairy, husky, well built, no eyes, just a mouth with evident fangs and a roar that could be heard for miles- that almost looked like... "Lulu!" Loki shouted, "I told you not to bring her here you slow-witted pile of husk!!" "Oi oi Loki!!" you shouted back with a tsk. "Do not talk to my baby like that!" Lulu roared in agreement. "And you-" you turned towards Aellae- "no one gets to hurt my boys... except for my family! Families are weird." Aellae snarled at you. "Oh, but I will hurt them. But first I will hurt you." Both you and Aellae wore stern faces, neither of you backing down. Loki on the other hand was rolling his eyes and pressing his forehead with his fingers. "Why can this woman not give me a single day of peace?" Javier looked at Loki with a raised brow, about to say something when Loki raised his index at him. "No. Do not." Giving Lulu a pat, you were already mounting off the dune on his back. Aellae too was rushed towards you in horrific teleportation jumps till she came to a halt in the middle. Once, twice, thrice- the witch tried to move but she seemed to have been trapped right there. You came to a halt a few feet away from her, confused as to what just happened. Aellae was really not able to move. "What's wrong?" you seemed confused. Aellae turned to look up at Loki with all the world's animosity in her eyes. Loki, with his hands behind his back- that the drone recorded glowing- looked down at her with a smirk. "Not so fast," he whispered. Looking down at her feet, she noticed the familiar green and golden glow. With a scoff coming out of her lungs, Aellae gathered her shadows in her palms and directed it in your direction with great force. The shadows swirled around her fingers, found a target in you and rushed in your direction at a speed you were not able to comprehend soon enough. But the drone recording this fight could see them stop right before they came within two feet of you, freezing mid-air like icicles made of dazzling black liquid. "Not on my watch," a whisper stronger than the hot breeze in the desert came from behind you. All eyes watched as Wanda emerged from behind the sand dunes, floating over to come by your side. Her palms glowed with her ethereal magic but her poise made it seem like this took no effort at all. Your eyes widened on seeing Wanda right next to you. Inhaling all the alien air in your lungs, you opened your arms, right in time for Wanda to twist her fingers and raise her brow and smirk. "WANDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!" you shrieked. And your shrieks were being directed by the Scarlet witch towards Aellae with no delay, making her lose her footing in no time. Lulu was helping you slide down his back right into Wanda's arms. No one could figure out when your shrieks had turned into wails muffled in Wanda's arms. "It's so good to see you," you bawled in her chest, making your witch laugh. "Aw! I missed you too! Though I have been watching you every day." Both of you were embracing each other in the highest hug possible while moving side to side in a slow down. And all this while, Aellae was throwing her attacks at you, which barely made through Wanda's shield. From where Loki watched this unfold, the futile efforts of the bad witch were just clad in some dark humour. "Everything about this makes me cringe," he groaned. "Stop it Aellae," he shouted in her direction, "you are just embarrassing yourself." Aellae wanted to go all dark, her eyes, her features, all covered in the shadows she carried, evidently preparing for a big bang. And just before she could release it, Green and golden chain made of pure magic were wringing her waist, pulling her away from the two women. They yanked her towards Loki, on the top of the dune where the God stood stoic as ever, his one hand behind his back while the other casually carried out what needed to be done. She was roaring in his face, wanting to burst open from those chains, but Loki was already fetching shackles from his pocket dimension to bind her in their magic. "The boys will take care of you," he announced without putting much effort in his words, seeming quite bored. "Man, I love the boys," another familiar voice came from his side. Javier turned his camera to record Scott sitting on the sand playing with the rocks while looking up and smiling at Loki. "They remind me of someone. Like a boy band, I think." Behind him stood Steve and Bucky, both shielding their eyes from the starlight with shades. Natasha was sitting next to Scott, surprisingly entertaining herself with Scott's pebbles game. "Why did we tag along, again?" Bucky asked his boyfriend. Steve puckered his lips, opening his mouth to say something. "Well, the cameras need the sexy while Wanda and Loki take care of things," Scott mentioned as he swimmingly put on his own shades for Javier's camera. Bucky and Steve seemed satisfied with that explanation before a good amount of blushing.

.

"Are you sure this is going to work?" Javier and his drones pointed themselves in your direction. "They better work." Javier seemed pretty serious. "Shuri will be firing the mechanism in exactly-" Natasha looked at the countdown on her watch- "two minutes and thirty-seven seconds. So, everyone, take positions." "Wait," you begged loudly out of the blue, turning towards someone outside the frame. "I'm sorry I have to leave you, my precious baby," you croaked. Your giant floof came forward to smell you before licking your face. He chirped out loud, rubbing his head with yours. "I love you too," you announced at the edge of breaking into tears, hugging him as gently as possible. Loki blinked a few times before looking away from you. Clearing his throat, he came to stand next to you, taking his sweet time to raise his hand and pet him right where he loved it. "Don't let that witch out," he commanded softly to his pile of husk, to which Lulu replied with a loud burp that carried the cries of Aellae from the oblivion inside him. That earned him more soft pats from the God. "Will you be okay alone?" you had to ask, even though you knew that would just bring up more emotions in your throat. "Of course, he will," Loki acknowledged, pointing you in the direction of the nearest dune. There on the top stood six floofs, both big and small just like Lulu. One of them, the biggest of them all, roared with a pulsating sound. Lulu replied with a roar of his own, giving you one last tug before walking towards his pack.

"So, your powers are back," Steve commented, his thumbs resting in his belt loops as he waited for the clock to take them back home. At the same time, Scott was asking you the most awaited question. "Hey, Y/N, what happened at Jotunheim? After you were taken hostage?" Just as your inhaled a lungful and furrowed your brows at the question, Loki was smirking at the captain, moving a step closer to you to wrap his arm around your waist. Call it a reflex or a reaction built on experience but as soon as his arm was wrapping itself around your waist, your arms were grabbing onto his shoulders with your life force within one-tenth of a second "Let's test it out," the God pondered with no drop of doubt on his face, before disappearing with you. An awkward silence loomed after the golden swoop, leaving the Cap a little bit tongue-tied. "You just had to ask," Bucky rolled his eyes but the camera was zooming in on this one mischievous smirk on Natasha's lips as she took her position in the centre and pointed to the block Javier was supposed to stand on. "I am still curious-" Scott raised his hand in the air as he took his position- "in case anyone is curious."

The Lounge The continuous smacking of the LED screen was heard out of the frame while a very flushed MJ sat on the sofa, never blinking for a minute straight. The camera turned to find Peter still smacking the LED and its router while his little bulging bicep was peeking out from his half-sleeved white t-shirt. "Anything yet?" The soda that had barely reached the eighteen-year old's lips spilt a little as she found herself back in reality. "Huh? Wha-oh! No. Nothing." The flushing embarrassment must have increased tenfold on seeing the camera focused on her for she tried to shift in her seat, trying to face away from the camera. Peter stopped the smacking abruptly to let out a groan. "Come on you dumb machine! Work! We need to find out where my friends are!!!!" The 'machine' started to vibrate; the intensity increasing by the second. "Oh my God, I'm so sorry I didn't mean to offend you," Peter was blurting out in one breath. "Peter! What did you do?!" MJ was pulling the boy away from the screen before an intense pressure of air blew them over to the sofa- Peter landing over MJ. In the very next second, you and Loki stood in the middle of the lounge, his arms still wrapped around you. Your eyes closed, your head pressed to his chest, hands clutching the fabric of his long coat as hard as possible, your existence just wanting to stay in this shell even when the people around you started to move. Peter was breathless at the sight. Pointing at you and Loki, no words coming out of his mouth, just that his eyes were getting moist by the second. "Y/N-" Loki's voice was smooth as his hand tried to move your undone hair from your face- "we're home." You made the effort to open your eyes and take a small step away from his chest, but the vertigo of space travel was still playing with your brain, making you lose your balance. Not fast enough for Loki to not catch you in his arms and bring you back to his chest. "Breathe," he ordered in his scruff yet gentle voice. And you obeyed. The camera was frozen on those pale hands holding you tightly to his chest, and that one tick of tension in the brows of the God that seemed to dissolve into a resting cold face as soon as it appeared on the surface. Once your breathing was steady, you tested your balance. "Good now?" You nodded and Loki let you go. The frame captured you slowly parting from him, your gaze stuck on his, relief on both faces, and Peter appearing in the middle with tears streaming down his face, his arms ready to take you both. "I'b soooo habby you're okayyyy," he bawled through his tears and hiccups. MJ pulled him away by his shirt. "Yes, yes, you're really happy now let them breathe first," the sweet girl ordered him in a monotonous tone. You broke into a smile at Peter's overflow of concern and Loki mirrored you all the same. A ruckus could be heard from the lab, specifically Tony asking for you. After two seconds of silence, he was bursting into the lounge breathless to find you standing there, in flesh and blood. Within the breath that you used to wave at him and say, "Hey Mr Sta-ow!" he was already hugging you with the intensity of a thousand suns. "Tony, you need to let her go before she chokes due to lack of air," Pepper pointed out as she stood next in line to hug you. "Are you okay? Does it hurt anywhere? The last feed we got was-" "Yes, Loki saved me," you assured your father, cutting him mid-sentence. "You shouldn't be expecting anything less from him by now. Right, dad?" That's it. That word did it for Tony. All the waterworks that he had been saving suddenly started to pour out while he took Loki's support as a shoulder to hide his outburst. The God softly patted the man on his back with gentle but quite awkward 'there, there's.

Two Hours Later "I'm sorry, I swear this is the last test." Bruce was adjusting his glasses on his sweaty nose, trying his best to stay composed under the stress those two dads standing behind him were giving him. Clint was even holding his resting bitch face in place. "It's okay, Mr Banner. Please take your time, as I told you the last five times." You were surprisingly calm. "Are you sure you don't feel anything weird?" Tony had to make sure.

Bruce: *sighs* Seven

"Yes," you were resisting the urge to scold him by biting your lips and closing your eyes as you lay on the table with all the scanners surrounding you, "I am fine. How about you go take a look at Javier and Loki?" "They got over with the tests half an hour ago," Clint mentioned, taking a sip of coffee from his takeaway cup. "So, there are no foreign sensations in your body?" Tony furrowed his brows as if they would have helped you answer his question. You shared a tired look with the camera.

Bruce: *groans* Eight.

"It wouldn't hurt you to trust me, Tony," Bruce finally blurted it out, picking up the syringe to draw a blood sample from you. "Oh, I trust you-" Tony nodded with assurance in Bruce's direction while Clint mimicked that nod- "it's the...other alien I don't trust." Clint shook his head. Your palms legit slapped the slab you were lying on, taking the men by a little surprise, as you got up to face them. "That alien is the reason I am here." The camera panned in on that nasty glare you were giving those two while Bruce stepped back with his needle, trying to look at anything but you. "He is also the reason you froze to death in Jotunheim." Tony was quite assertive with his voice. "Well, I am not dead, am I?" Your voice rose a tempo higher. Clint raised a brow and took small steps to join Bruce on the side. "And if you saw me in Jotunheim, I am pretty sure you damn well know that I am the one solely responsible for me dying in that frost prison because I know you know I did that on purpose!!" Tony was already matching the rage wavelength with you. "And that makes it all the more reason for you to stay away from that man." "I WAS DYING BECAUSE I WANTED TO COME HOME!!" Your outburst came with the waterworks. Your voice shook but that did not stop you from taking the floor and standing in front of your father. "AND I KNEW LOKI WAS THE ONLY CHOICE!!" "You had Carol," Tony was gritting his teeth. "She has a family to look after too, Mr Stark. And last I remember she was the one who trusted me to stay with Loki till she came back because she knew who was trustworthy. And why are we even having this discussion? That GOD literally fought his own kind for getting me and Javier home safe. What more do you want to take from him to finally see that he can be trusted? What are you afraid of? That he will trick you and take over the world? That he is planning some universal scale annihilation? Well, good for him. At least when he is not thinking of world domination he is busy saving your dumbass destructive DAUGHTER EVEN WHEN HE DOES NOT HAVE TO!!!!" The loud sobs did not stop. But Tony definitely did, watching his anger crumble as he embraced you in his arms and lightly patted your head to make you feel better. "I'm sorry," he finally confessed, "I almost felt like dying when I saw you freezing on the screen. I was angry at myself for not being able to save you." "Then why are you blaming him?" you asked in between your sobs, pointing in a general direction away from here.  "Because he was close to you and I wasn't. I am so sorry, my baby. I just wanted to give you a normal life. I just wanted you to have normal friends, normal college life, normal stuff like boyfriends who I could threaten when they came to take you out for a date. I never wanted you to just disappear into space out of nowhere." The camera turned towards a very wide-eyed Clint just staring into oblivion.

Clint: Well, I thought the older one with daddy issues would handle it well. But *chuckles* she really is his daughter. *takes a sip of his coffee* *feels the taste on his tongue* *makes a bitter face with his tongue out* Ugh! Why is this thing been tasting so bad for these past few weeks?!

A Few Minutes Later Scott, Peter and Pepper being the most avid listeners of the night, showered Loki with questions about all they witnessed on the recordings. Both boys were wearing rabbit beanies and pink pyjamas to compliment Pepper's fuzzy blue ones.  Loki- to the shock and awe of everyone who witnessed this- was unexpectedly patient, answering all their queries. "And they bought it, just like that," Pepper stated with a null expression with curious eyes. Loki shrugged, shifting his arm pillow to Pepper's side. "Their kind takes the female superiority pretty seriously. They practically pray to them. So, it wasn't that hard once Y/N told them she was my wife." Peter and Scott- with their head resting in their palms- let out a stretched 'wow' with dreamy eyes. "They surely are one of a kind." Pepper tilted her head, "Is there some sort of encyclopedia where I can learn about all these creatures? I have been craving new knowledge recently. And Tony keeps all the Discovery channel on child lock so that is not helping. At all." Scott waved a hand at Loki. "And what about the time at the bar? Those beings with long antlers. What are they called?" The camera swivelled to you standing at the entrance of the lounge smiling a glowing smile at the scene unfolding in front of you. You too were on your brown pyjamas, finally looking like a kid amongst all these super adult. Once the camera caught your attention, you nodded at it and walked towards the recording room. "Come on, let's get to it before I fall asleep for seventy-two hours."

You enter the room with a yawn and a stretch, sitting down on the chair and scratching your exposed legs in those fuzzy shorts. Once the signal is given, you look at the camera. You: *sigh* *smile lightly* Well, that was a wild ride. And even saying that is an understatement. All that stuff that we- The door opens and the camera shifts to record Tony apologising before turning to you. "Don't stay up late, okay. You need your sleep," he reminds you in a hush. You nodded and replied with a smile. A pause of three seconds and Tony walks towards you to pat your head and plant a soft kiss in your hair. "Goodnight." "Goodnight," you blow a kiss back at him. Tony walks out with the most precious smile on his face.

You: *inhales* so where were we? Yeah. *laughs* You have seen everything, right? *snickers* and this guy still said he wanted a normal life for me. *laughs some more* This is the normal, father dear. This is how it is! Normal college life? To be honest I am not that disappointed that I missed a couple of assignments. I mean you don't get to say 'I'm sorry I didn't turn in my homework because I was busy being stuck on an alien planet'. *pauses* *presses her lips together to put a stop on the smile* You: Oh! Peter has already used that line. Well, then that makes two of us. And get a boyfriend so he can threaten him? Pfft! What is this some ninety's rom-com high school drama? Someone needs to tell him his daughter hasn't dated in this lifetime. *shakes her head* *stares into oblivion* and with the kind of things, a hundred things, she looks for in one single man guy, she might date in this lifetime... or the next one. *makes a face at her own thoughts* You: *groans* I mean come on! I can't just start dating a guy. You saw how I was when everyone around me was a complete stranger. I barely talked! *looks at the person behind the camera* You: What do I look for in a ma-that's a long list sweety. *shakes head vigorously before giving up* *long sigh* *licks lips* *shrugs* Well, the first thing I want in someone I would consider to be eligible as someone dateable would a person who is my friend.

Recording flips to the small clips of you meeting Loki for the first time, bickering, fighting, laughing together, pranking each other, watching movies together, sharing secrets about the other avengers and reading books together in the library.

A person who *thinks for a moment* gets how important family is to me. And when I say family...well, you know what I mean.

Another clip edit shows the God helping Bucky train in the training room, teaching Natasha about new poisons, blocking all the foreign sounds from the lounge when Pepper was soothing her belly and watching Boys Over Flowers. One time he lifted all the heavy furniture while Tony stress-cleaned the entire place all the while the God read a book. Another time he kept replacing Clint's coffee with a substitute that was good for his heart and tasted better.

I would want to date someone who gives me attention? *tsks* In the sense that they know I am there. I don't know if that makes sense.

Flip to the clips showing Loki moving the side table out of your way- with his magic- when you were busy dancing with your headphones on; him cooling down your tea to bring to a drinkable temperature; him threatening Sam so he doesn't eat your period chocolates; his concerned eyes stuck on you when you were stressed out about your exams at two in the morning in the library before he got you something to drink and offered to go in your place instead; he and Peter playing darts with David's face pasted on the dartboard; him taking the fairy lights from you to place them near the roof where you could not reach, in your room.

Someone who is funny.

The flip is to all the clips where you are either snickering, giggling or cackling with laughter, choking on your drink after Loki said something sarcastic with a straight face.

Someone who respects my space and my decisions

The recording shows Loki smiling while looking at you lecturing the men in the house about mansplaining and how it was an inherent thing for some; the God helping you make sandwiches for the Avenger's donation drive to Stark orphanage; Loki being the first to ask 'want me to help you pack' when you announced to the family you were going to visit a haunted house with your college friends; Loki putting a repel spell on your door when you wanted to be alone; him just sitting in his room by the window reading while you took his entire bed to make zentangles, neither of you talking throughout the time together.

Someone who is not afraid of physical touch. I would really want that.

All the falls that Loki saved you from with his arms, chest and entire body, be it in the Avengers facility or out in space; all the hugs he gave you at your low points; all the pats on your back flash one by one on the screen.

Someone who is *shrugs* *smiles a weak smile* happy for my existence? *brows furrow though the smile is stuck on your face* Someone...who I can get comfortable with. I don't have to put up a facade for them.

Edit flashes of all the moments where Loki gravitates to come and sit next to you, be it in the lounge, the library, the lab, the training room, the spaceship, alien planets. Another edit is of all the moments when you gravitate towards Loki, sometimes a mess in your nightclothes, hair unkempt, burping out loud, sometimes farting without any restrictions, other times groaning and letting your head rest on his shoulder. Other times just plane crying ugly in front of him.

*blinks* *furrows brows further* Someone...who I feel safe with?

This time the shift is to the clips where you are drunk and coming home from the club and Loki is supporting your frame to walk you to your room; another clip shows you watching a horror movie in the lounge late at night and you are burrowing your face behind his shoulder while he sits there with discomfort on his face for whatever movie both of you are watching; there is one where you are not feeling evidently anxious in the crowd of aliens and the camera is zooming in on you fingers lightly holding on to the edge of Loki's coat while you both walk through the market; another one is of you smiling as you look at Loki gush over the simulators in the modified spaceship; then there is one where you are smiling once again despite being surround by lethal frost giants and the reason of you smile being the God who is standing beside you and at the same time standing a step ahead of you to act as a shield for anyone who dares do anything in your direction. 

You are evidently surrounded by clouds of confusion and doubt hiding an impending realisation somewhere inside them. Your lips are parted but no sound comes out. Just when you feel like you have it, confusion grows darker on your features. The door clicks open and Loki's face pops in to find you in the room. The surprise on your face does not go unnoticed by either him or the camera. "You do realise you teleported here in terms of light-years," Loki comments. "Huh?" is all you can manage. "Go get some sleep before Clint comes to kill me in my sleep," he orders before turning towards the camera and finally walking out. A good few seconds pass in deafening silence. Your eyes are still stuck on the door. A few blinks later your eyes go wider. Even the camera knows what has happened for it is panning on the unadulterated shock on your face as your lips finally move to express this newfound theory. "...oh fuck."

#Loki #Loki x reader #loki (marvel) #loki x female reader #loki fluff #loki smut #loki series #loki odinson #marvel fanfiction #loki fanfic #loki fic #marvel fluff #marvel smut #mcu fic #mcu fanfiction #mcu fluff #mcu smut #mcu loki #fanfiction #fluff #smut #loki imagine #loki friggason #It's The Avengers #maladaptive-ninja-returns #the office #the office au

[wonderlandhatter]

Will you read to me?

Pairing: Spencer x femReader

Summary: You're feeling unsettled after a case, so Spencer helps you get some sleep and get a smile back on your face.

Word count: 1863

Warnings: fluff (is that a warning idk), mentions of an unsub, feeling overwhelmed after an unsub touches you (just your hand and waist nothing in detail). Tiny bit of angst I think mostly fluff though

A/N: Ok so this is my first attempt at writing a fic, it ended up being longer than I thought it would be, anyways if you would like to give me some feedback that would be greatly appreciated, hope someone out there enjoys this, I really liked writing it.  Ooh also if I missed any warnings pls tell me. 

A/N2: Hey so my old account got deleted so I'm reposting my fics if you have a sec I would appreciate it if you could boost it so i can try and get to where i was, thank you.

It had been a tough case, especially for you, the victimology fit you in every way and so you had been used to draw the unsub out, nothing had gone wrong but you could still feel his hand where he had touched yours, his alluring presence was lingering around you , all you wanted to do was go home and shower this feeling off but first you had to get there.

Unfortunately, there was still 2 hours left in the flight. So, until you did get home you would settle for sleep hoping time would pass faster, though you just couldn’t stop your mind from thinking, well overthinking. Spencer noticed this and it hurt him to see you like this he himself knew nothing had happened but he didn’t like the thought that you had even gone near that creep, to think about what he would have done to you, if the circumstances were different.

He couldn’t imagine what he would do if something had happened, you and him were close, very close, you had first bonded when he noticed your Dr who coin purse on your first day at the BAU, he hadn’t gotten a chance to say anything because at that moment Garcia bubbled into the bullpen announcing that they have a case. but when he saw it again on the jet, he couldn’t resist but to ask if you like the show, you love the show and your face visibly lit up at the mention of it as did his, you both exchanged a few words before Derek piped in to ask if that was the show with the flying phone booth but before Spencer had the chance to correct him, you did. ‘well firstly it’s a Tardis which stands for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space, secondly it isn’t a phone booth it’s a police box.’ Once you finish you simply smiled at him but before he could answer you piped up again early. ‘ ooh ooh and do you want to know why it’s a police box’, Derek honestly couldn’t care less but he couldn’t bare to take away the joy in your face that was brought by this nerdy little show you clearly loved, Spencer might also have been giving him a look that said ‘don’t you dare say no’, so he decided to indulge you, ‘sure kid tell me why it’s a police box’. Spencer saw your face light up even more if it was even possible, and so you began’ So the Tardis is supposed to change in appearance depending on where it  is because of a component that is called ‘the chameleon circuit’ but something happened to it so it no longer works and is stuck as a police box, its explained in the first Dr who series in an episode called An Unearthly child. Oh and…..’ by this time Derek has lost interest and was only half listening but Spencer’s full attention was on you as you talked about something that clearly brought you joy, at this point he decided  to chime in and so you two spent the rest of the jet ride to wherever it was you were going discussing your favourite episodes, plots and Drs. And so, a beautiful friendship began to bloom.

As spencer’s memory of that day came to an end he couldn’t help but be visibly sad at how much of a contrast your feeling were to that day, there was no smile so big you had dimples no hands moving around animatically  as you talked and no interrupting your own sentences as you thought of something else you thought needed to be said. And certainly, no you trying to convince him that David tenant was the best Dr. now there was only an uneasiness about you, you looked sad and in slight distress.

Spencer couldn’t keep sitting there doing nothing, he wanted to take those feelings away no, he needed to take them away, he wanted to go over to you and hold you, place you on his lap and let you bury your face into his cardigan like you had done so many times before on your movie nights, but that wouldn’t be appropriate while the entire team was around, and he didn’t want to make you feel worse by being so forward so instead he stood up from his seat opposite Derek and J.J and made his way to you on  the sofa holding his book, you were sat  in the corner looking so small, holding a now cold cup of tea.

Your mind was anywhere but there so it took Spencer calling your name quietly before you realised anyone was sitting there, and as you saw him all those bad feelings were drowned out by those of joy and love, they weren’t gone but their overwhelming words were dulled, Spencer just had that effect on you, you weren’t completely sure when your feeling changed from hey that’s my friend, to hey that’s my friend who I would like to kiss, marry, and have babies with. Maybe it was the day he showed you how to do physics magic, or the day he brought you coffee every morning for 2 weeks because he spilled one the previous day on your white shirt, or maybe the first time he hugged you, you knew he wasn’t big on hugs but after a tough case for everyone he could see you needed it and honestly once he was there holding you he never wanted to stop, after that he wouldn’t hesitate to hug you, you both waved it off as friendly but you both just wanted to be as close as possible, maybe when you came to terms with the fact you would both try your best to have physical contact with each other, be it holding hands or falling asleep on each other’s shoulder is when you knew you wanted a lot more.

You were brought back by Spencer’s voice, ‘are you ok’,’  ‘oh,  ah yeah sorry , my minds just wandering I guess’ you said looking down at your hands feeling bad for lying, he clearly knew you weren’t he was a profiler after all, and as you stared at your hand you   once again remembered his lingering touch on your left hand, before your mind could wander further Spencer held your hand ,he spoke up  ‘ don’t think about him, I know that’s what your doing , but he’s gone now were he cant hurt anyone else, were he can’t hurt you’. You looked away from him feeling silly ‘I know that, I don’t even know why I’m acting like this it’s ridiculous honestly he didn’t do anything he just touched my hand and waist but the thought of his hands on me just makes me feel sick, it’s like I can still feel him and I just want to wash it off and that’s all I can think about every time I try to sleep, I just want to sleep and forget about it spence’ as you said this you subconsciously scratched the back of  your hand where his had been, spencer took both your hands once again before you could hurt yourself,  ‘hey y/n, it isn’t silly, after seeing the crime scenes and knowing what he did to those women it is perfectly reasonable to be feeling like this’ you nod at his words and lean your head on his shoulder as you take in his familiar comforting smell, ‘thanks Spence’ you hear him hum in response as his head leans on top of yours.

You sit in comfortable silence just being with each other not even realising he hadn’t let go of your hand, it isn’t like you had made a move to either, and neither of you were planning on it. The jet was silent as everyone was either asleep, or going through some files, it was peaceful, it was wonderful.

You were the first to break the silence ‘what are you reading’ , ‘Alice’s adventures in wonderland’, you looked up at him from your place on his shoulder with a soft smile and simply stated ‘that’s my favourite book, I have a copy in my desk right now’ , ‘I know, that’s why I’m reading it, ‘ his reason made your heart swell as he continued, ‘even though it Is considered a classic I’ve never actually read it, I must say I am enjoying it’, ‘how far along are you’, ‘about half way’. Truthfully Spencer could have been done with the book already even though he had started it at the beginning of the flight, however this book was different, this was your favourite, this one meant so much to you and so he wanted to take it all in, he wanted that feeling you get when you first read a line that impacts you, a feeling you only get once with that line, a feeling he was getting often in this book because he knew you loved it and so he loved it.

The silence was disrupted by a very large yawn coming from you, he must admit you looked very cute when you were tired (he may also love the fact you were wearing one of his cardigans that you had claimed as your, and you also had very cute sweater paws). ‘Here lie down’ Spencer said, you knew you wouldn’t be able to fall asleep so you asked, ‘will you read to me’ there was barely a beat before you felt the need to justify your request, even though you didn’t need to he would do anything you asked. ‘it’s just I don’t think ill be able to sleep, and your voice is very calming’, the last part you said quietly and felt a light blush on your cheeks, spencer simply smiled and simply answered ‘of course ill read to you’, and so you laid you head down on his lap and he began reading once you were fully comfortable, ‘would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’’ ‘’that depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’’ said the cat………’’ and so Spencer kept reading to you, an you kept listening, his hand made its way to your hair and began to play with it while your hand drew lazy  nonsensical things  on his leg , and as you heard the words you had read a million times before, and as the man you held so much love for played with your hair all your worries and thoughts melted away and you slowly let sleep take over , you felt conflicted as you didn’t want to miss this, miss Spencer’s voice recite something that meant so much to you, it was like hearing a completely new story, but at some point you let it take over and so you were finally able to sleep, Spencer never stopped reading to you or playing with your hair in fear of disturbing your peace, he was so happy there was a smile back on your face, he would read to you every hour of every day if it meant seeing you smile.

#spencer reid #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid fic #criminal minds #spencer rwid x reader

[historyman101]

Fena: Pirate Princess Episode 7 Review

Instead of Fena: Pirate Princess, we should call this Fena: Passive Plot Device.

I had high hopes for episode 7. I had high hopes for this being a turning point in the series. I had high hopes that this could become the moment when Fena actually grows a spine and fights for herself. I had high hopes that we could see a massive naval battle with, y’know, actual pirates.

Joke’s on me, I guess. 

When the Rumble Rose was blown to pieces and O’Malley and her entire crew (including ma bien-aimée beauté française Charlotte) were seemingly killed, I was damn near gobsmacked. This was a battle that had been built up to be this epic showdown with all the bells and whistles that go with it. Instead, the battle was over in less than a few minutes. It wasn’t even decided through any clever maneuver or ingenious stratagem. It was just “bigger gun wins” (and you’d think that the Rumble Rose would be prepared for that since historically speaking, pirate ships were smaller, faster, and more nimble than the naval warships they’d tangle with). It felt way too easy and it was such a tremendous waste of potential.

Given how we saw dead bodies bobbing in the ocean, I’m just gonna call it here and now.

RIP O’Malley and her pirate crew. You were the real stars of this show. 

And as for Charlotte...

Bonne nuit, douce princesse. Tu seras à jamais la star de mon cœur. 

OH AND SPEAKING OF STRONG, LIKABLE FEMALE CHARACTERS....

Are we still pretending that Fena is in any way an actual character? I hope to God I am not the only one that lost his absolute shit when she (yet again) does nothing to get herself out of her predicament. Just before the climax of the episode, when the British sailors began to surround her and she received flashbacks to her first shipwreck and separation from Yukimaru, I kept screaming for her to pick up a damn sword or pistol and FIGHT!! It’s only what I initially liked about you in the fucking first place! I want the Fena I saw in episode 1! You had a golden opportunity to make me cheer and give this show props, and what did you do instead?

You scream out Yukimaru’s name and thus summon him to battle.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, when Abel badly wounds Yukimaru and it looks for certain that she’s cornered, she still doesn’t fight! Even when the rest of the Samurai Seven (including Shitan) comes to her rescue, she doesn’t join the fray. She doesn’t fight alongside her own crew, the people sworn to protect her. 

I have never seen such a passive, do-nothing distressed damsel in anime anywhere. This is such a far cry from what the initial teaser gave us that it’s not even on the same continent as this show, let alone the same ballpark. 

I was hoping for Nami, and instead I got pre-Shippuden Sakura. And she even has a Sasuke to go along with her! 

Sorry, I know I’m raging, and there is a lot more stuff wrong with this episode that I could easily go into like dragging out the opening scene of the Samurai Seven deciding to rescue Fena, or Abel’s creepy vibes with Fena and allusions to an Oedipal complex, but those things don’t come anywhere near to setting me off as killing off some of the best characters AND robbing Fena of any individual agency. AGAIN. 

At this point, I am more than sure this anime is taunting me. It’s saying “we DARE you to keep watching. We DARE you to see just how badly we can screw up again.” And you know what? I probably will, just to see for myself how badly this will go. 

If I can be nice somewhere, it’s that the animation and music are really on point this episode. The use of shadows, flames, and stormy seas did a great job of setting the tone. The voice acting is competent and everyone seems to be giving it their all. But even if the animation was amazing, and even if the cast was the best in the world, it wouldn’t make up for the shoddy writing on display here. 

When it comes to anime and cartoons, I abide by a simple rule: good writing can save bad animation, but bad writing can never be saved by good animation. And this anime is a perfect case in point.

I’ll likely watch this through to the end, and the only thing that’s ended so far is my fucking patience.

#kaizoku oujo #fena: pirate princess #fena houtman #fena #yukimaru #anime #japanese animation #Adult Swim #Toonami

[rorodawnchorus]

The Devil Judge, Ep.1 Meta

(On the re-imagined justice process, imageries, parallels in South Korea and our world today) 

As with all dystopian fiction, it is not exactly a far-fetched imagining of our world. Instead, it is a critique of our society which seeks to amplify the inequalities and suffering of society through some exaggeration. 

The Devil Judge is that: it "re-imagines" South Korea today with a sprinkle of cyberpunk aesthetics (a little too much bluish green tint) and dystopian imagery (of homeless people, a very dirty subway and dingy backalleys on a rainy night).

I kept thinking it was a dystopian "future" but was wondering why they were using only Samsung Note 20 instead of some Samsung futuristic prototype phone. So, those phones do keep audiences grounded in the reality it is portraying -- this is the alternative South Korea of today. 

We are barely halfway into the first episode and we've got this extremely charismatic, anti-hero male lead strutting red carpets and making verbose declarations like "I am the power. By the judicial authority delegated to me by the people of Korea, I will run this court. And it is the people who hold this power." (Not verbatim but that's the gist). 

Then, meet associate judge Kim Ga-On who seems to be against how the system is running. He seems to be the outlier who rose to his ranks from the bottom class of society (which his colleague Oh Jin-joo says, he looks like he's from the shanty town of Seoul). We start off, barely into the drama at this point, with a dramatic scene of a kindergarten bus ramming down barricades and charging towards the Court building. A group of kindergarten children crossing the road there (I've just no clue what businses kids would have near the court building tbh). A little girl tripping as they were rushed across the road, Ga-On jumping to the rescue, and unable to pick her up in time, shields her with his own body. Kang Yo Han is just there, taking a heavy gun from the guard and unhesitantly opened fire at the bus driver who was flooring the pedal. He misses the driver's head and hits the headrest before firing again. The bus swerves and flips. The driver loses consciousness and Ga On (again!) jumps to the rescue. So, here the tone is set. We've got this "devil judge" who seems to be the ultimate modern day anti-hero who's given immense amount of power. 

Much more interesting is that in this dystopian South Korea, we've got what seems like a publicly elected judiciary (or Kang Yo Han is perhaps the first?) and that has always been something that has been discussed in legal academic. Not the idea of electing the judiciary but that the argument of the judiciary not being publicly elected can be seen as slightly out of tune with democracy. (In legal academic, however, this is theoretically seen as being balanced by the separation of powers; ie. the executive branch (=government) and elected members of Parliament/Congress are supposed to be fully separated from the judiciary and should therefore never interfere with the judiciary. But, of course, these are all theoretical stuff. They look good on paper and when discussed in legal essays but in reality, it can often be different (if not, the exact opposite). This series takes things to yet another level by imagining the inception of a publicly televised and publicly voted trial. 

This goes against the nature of trials in general because in our world today, the judiciary (wherever it may be) typically have mechanisms (ie. laws and codes) to prevent manipulation by media. The principle of fair trial requires that no external influence affects the process of adjudication (ie. the judgement by judges). There also tends to be avoidance of trial by public opinion because the way the law is interpreted and applied can be rather technical and different from what people may say or think about a certain trials, the decision delivered and also sentencing. Trial by jury is the nearest it gets but that too can be a fairly technical process which do also include considerations like avoiding a two-day trial to prevent influence by the media or other agents on a jury member's decision. (A recent drama mentioning this is Law School). The thing about this idea of trial by the public is that standards of morality can be very subjective and varies from person to person. Judgement by judges are not entirely free from the influence of morality, but the process is a litle more stable through the processes of interpretative practices, case precedents and legal theories. Previously in another Kdrama, Miss Hammurabi (2018), Judge Lim Ba-reun became slightly frustrated by his friend's comment that having a jury trial is like "true democracy" because the "people gets to decide" and he even thinks the judiciary should be elected too. Lim Ba-reun sarcastically said he must have loved every elected politican since they were elected by the public. He tells him grimly that no jury has ever found a policeman who had beaten up a Black man to be guilty. He also pointed out that Nazi, the Holocaust and Hitler were all supported by the public. 

In this series, the premise allows all of these imaginings to be realised and played out. It is peak criticism, I think, when they portray the scenes of the TV producer being excited about the real-time ratings and viewer ratings. And also the scene of the broadcasting channel's chairman dancing in joy when he received realtime report of the ratings (vowing to treat his equally wealthy friends to a meal). Even when his other friend seemed appalled by the decision delivered by Judge Kang, the Chairman could not hide his joy in the skyrocketing viewership ratings. This really reminded me of the entire Produce 101 franchise which also heralded the shows for putting the decision in "The Nation's Producers" (ie. voters) and emphasised how it is the Nation Producers who put together ("produce") the National Kpop group that is bound for success and set to receive national love. All of this illusion collapsed (and the Korean franchise died along with it) when the court finds its producers guilty of voting manipulation. The Devil Judge seemed to have a similarly dramatic flair in its emphasis of TV production gimmicks, camera angles, cuts of a person's reaction, etc. The President of South Korea (who has a very light voice, a penchant for orotund speeches and a lack of concern for national policies) and all these top 1% of people tuned in were on the edge of their seats watching Judge Kang orchestrate this theatre of public trial. Kim Ga-On watched him closely and was sure that Judge Kang had something up his sleeves and was definitely up to no good, yet he couldn't tell. When he finally delivers a verdict (that yes, this was a case of professional negligence and not negligent homicide), Ga-On was crestfallen and frustrated because it carries a mere 5 year imprisonment maximum. But Kang turns the table and brings up the newly passed legislation which allows accumulative sentence which then resulted in 235 years of imprisonment. 

This sounded very much like how some Korean netizens had previously wondered (online) why Korea couldn't have a sentencing system like the US where the years of imprisonment can go up to 100 years or 500 years. Again, this was like realising an alternative South Korea that many have perhaps tried imagining. Episode 1 ends with Judge Kang stepping down from his high seat when a victim's family member bowed deeply with her hands clasped, as though in prayer, and even kneeled to him. This corresponded well and tied perfectly into the religious/godlike imagery represented in the justice's robes which is reminiscent of the pope's robes and resembles a priest's robe, and the app they named DIKE or Diety of Justice (正義의 神). When Judge Kang hugs the old woman with a compassionate smile, teary eyed and full of empathy, he ends up yawning barely a minute into consoling the weeping woman. Ga-On witnesses this and realises, all of this must have been a gimmick after all. He had his hopes up when Judge Kang serves the sentence of 235 years. The episode ends. 

I think this series is set to be a great one. (Just as Law School was amazing too!) It has tons of stuff to unpack, lots that goes into the cinematography and camerawork. While characters do seem a little more like caricatures rather than realistic people that are properly fleshed out in the narrative, there is still promise to push beyond these caricatures. I think there is also a lot in the imagery of dystopia and the constant bombardment of messages from the government (which is often the mainstay of dystopian fiction) which emphasises a certain narrative which they want the people to believe. For example, Kim Ga-On is travelling up the escalator when there were ads of the DIKE app, ads on electronic billboards on the justice system, paper posters plastered in the dark backalley where a high school girl is being dragged away by two men saying "The government will now create a safe South Korea". That last one is perhaps the most glaring one to me because when I was in Korea, it was repeated to me by different Korean individuals: "Your things are safe. No Korean will steal it. (Not sure about foreigners though!) You are safe. Crimes don't happen. I checked and there are no sexual offenders living in this neighbourhood." But... spycams can be anywhere. Men secretly follow women to their homes and try to break into them. Sexual harassment can happen anywhere. Robbery and theft can happen.

Personally, my paranoia and anxiety won't ever let me believe such words. No narrative, self-made or otherwise, can convince me enough to think that I am in a safe place. I would always have a nagging thought at the back of my mind telling me danger can be lurking just about anywhere. I think Koreans today do have high levels of confidence in their country. Most people do think it is safe to be walking around in the dead of night without any worry. (Again, I do not quite share the sentiment.) But this is a kind of self-made narrative because I also know my countrymen who travel to other countries like the UK and say "I feel absolutely safe walking the streets in the dead of night while I won't feel the same in my own country" when those are simply ideas they've planted into themselves through the mindset that [This country is better than my country and therefore safer.] There is absolutely no correlation between a "better" country and crime rates (or potential of becoming a victim of crime). Not to mention, being an Asian in a Western country sets you up as a likelier victim of hate crime... 

So, I was saying.... This narrative of "safe Korea" is already existing in South Korea today. The need for mass surveillance or a spycam detecting task force in public toilets don't add up with a "safe country" image but the sentiment planted into the people seems to be strong despite all of this. However, Koreans do call South Korea "Hell Joseon". Youth unemployment can be a concern is a country like South Korea and a graying population, increasinly empty gray towns like the one mentioned in the series are all concerns which are ever-present in the public conscious. The mention of plauge and unemployment too must be a major concern now. In a rather similar vein, this narrative of DIKE or trial by the public through app voting creates a sentiment that people can take into their own hands and deliver justice. But what about the people at the margins of society who are homeless and do not own smartphones? What is this concept of democracy that places power in the hands of people? Is it a mere illusion or is power really in the hands of people?

..................................................................................................

(A side note on how the indicted chairman of the company responsible for mass poisoning of an entire town had brushed off concerns about a failing filtration system and the move of industrial plants to Southeast Asia. As a Southeast Asian, it is also something on my mind how South Korea has moved out of China and moved most of its plants to Southeast Asia for cheap labour. But what about the pollution here, the appallingly low wages they pay Southeast Asians (both white and blue collars!) in comparison to the few Korean expat managerial staff or engineers they station out here? I remember how I was at the hospital at 2 am and a small group of blue collar workers in their work uniform came in with their injured colleague; this can only mean they were at work past midnight due to some accident and we are still in the midst of the pandemic. What kinds of welfare and benefits are these blue collars provided with?)

#The Devil Judge #Park Jinyoung #Jisung #악마판사

[anomenofdarkness]

Alright so first, i know i don't have anywhere near a big enough following for anyone to give a shit abt my opinion, buut idgaf.

So, for those of you who don't know, in the latest chapter of My Hero Academia, the character Mineta Minoru supposedly came out as bi

This purple piece of shit.

You may be wondering why i say "supposedly". That would be largely due to the fact that I've seen multiple people who speak Japanese claim this is a mistranslation, which I am inclined to believe.

In the panel above, Mineta is talking to the protagonist of the series, Midorya Izuku (a guy).

Now that we've got context out of the way, fuck this shit. And fuck people like this jackass:

Oh wait more context is needed. Why can the person who made the Tik Tok above get fucked? Because the message they were going with, or at least my interpretation of what they were saying, is that we should just accept any LGBTQIA+ rep we can get, with no regard for the quality. This is also what leads me to believe that they are not a part of the LGBT community, and therefore not qualified to tell us what good rep even looks like. I might be wrong, but i found no evidence to suggest i am.

But where *does* the queer rep lie in terms of quality? Well, let's go down the list.

According to the mfer who made the tik tok, there are 7 queer characters in MHA; 1 gay man, 3 bi people, and 3 trans people

The gay man im question?

One of Mineta and Izuku's classmates, Yuga Aoyama

In the TikTok they create immediately after the one linked above, OP claims that it would be extremely obvious that Aoyama is gay in any medium other than anime, and while they *are* right in that aspect, they then claim that this automatically means that Aoyama is canonically gay. That is incorrect, which means our Canon Queers tally is down to 6.

Now for the three bi people.

Up first is obviously Mineta, then Toga Himiko and finally Toshinori Yagi, AKA All Might (spoiler alert, All Might is not a canon bisexual)

Wether he actually is or not, Mineta is disgustingly bad bi representation in that he is a raging pervert who has sexually assaulted all but one of his female classmates on multiple occasions. For those who don't get it, Mineta being bi perpetuates the negative and incorrect stereotype that bi people are hypersexual pervs by virtue of their sexuality.

Now for Toga, who, despite also being terrible bi rep, is my favorite character. "But why is Toga bad rep?" I hear you asking. Well for one she's a villain, which right off the bat villainizes bi people. But don't worry, it gets worse! It gets worse in her reason for being a villain, that being that she gets off on killing people. Yeah this is a shitshow.

So far the two canonically bi characters we have are abnormal freaks that aren't entirely fit to interact with society. Going great.

As for All Might he has no canon sexuality, and while it *is* heavily implied he was in relationships with two male colleagues prior to the beginning of the series, this is far from canonization of anything.

Now for the trans characters (spoiler alert 2: electric boogaloo: only one is explicitly canon out of the two that are actual characters)

First up, Tiger of the Wild, Wild Pussycats. As can be seen in the second image, he is in fact canonically trans. Surprisingly, he isn't the explicitly canon one. How? Because the second image is pulled from a character encyclopedia separate from the actual series, and as far as I'm concerned, any time you have to find materials outside the actual series, that is not explicitly canon (that's not to say im denying that tiger's trans. He is.)

Now for the explicitly canon of the two actual trans characters, Magne. A villain. So, again, villifying a queer identity. Oh yeah, and the episode we find out she's trans is the same one in which she fucking dies. Specifically blown in half. It also doesn't look particularly good for Horikoshi that her quirk is based around gender.

And now for this dumbassery. This is a friend of Magne's, another trans woman. Or rather, an absolute caricature of one, who is barely even a character, as evidenced by the fact that she is unnamed and only appears once.

So, let's go back to our tally of Canon Queer Characters

Aoyama and All Might aren't canonically queer so that brings our count down to 5. Still not bad for an anime.

As for quality of queet rep, it's pathetic.

Two bi characters, both freaks

Two trans characters, one of whom you could watch the entire series and not know is trans, and the other is dead.

And, of course, one trans caricature.

In conclusion, I didn't need to make this, the fucker that made that TikTok just pissed me off.

#mha mineta #bineta #mha toga #mha all might #mha aoyama #mha tiger #mha magne #im not even really sure why im still a fan of this series #im not usually interested while watching #and more often than not i kinda just see watching new episodes as a chore

[carmenxjulia]

Another Duane interview transcript, coming at you! This one was from a smaller Carmen Sandiego chatroom. There were several interviewers, so that’s why the name of the question asker changes. Get the details below the break! Stay tuned, more interview transcripts coming soon.

Duane Capizzi:

HI EVERYONE! I'M IN!

Sorry I'm late, I got lost on the way haha. Then got lost trying to change my PFP

Thanks for gathering! Shall we get started? Let's do some Q&A!

(as long as they are not geography questions haha)

Fuel:

What characters or plot points were cut from the final product?

Duane Capizzi:

Ooo, starting with a right hook to the jaw!

Let me think about that for a moment: I'm hesitant to give too much away because I'm really hoping we can tell more stories in this world at some point

Which is to say, we tend not to waste anything: if we don't use it when we originally planned, we usually find a way to use something later - and there's usually a "karmic" reason that we waited.

I'll also preface by saying this: I know season 3 was more of a mini-drop and some felt season 4 was rushed. But I wish EVERY season were longer. Season 1: ideally, i wanted the Pilot to be its own event and 10 more episodes after that (but we had to tell the post-Pilot story in 7. At the end of the day, that had its benefits: we got to the Shadowsan turn earlier and I think that's when a lot of viewers realized the ride they were truly in for). Season 2: we initially figured we'd need 5 episodes to have Carmen doing the ACME dance with Chief, and wound up doing it in 3 - mostly because it quickly became clear that Rio needed to be a 2 parter, and the Zack and Ivy backstory a rough 2 parter. So we squeezed 3 episodes worth of plot into 209. It was exhilarating!

So, we had hoped to have more episodes for Season 4 of course. We had a ton of ideas and had to compress things a bit. But honestly in many ways it was for the better. I know we all wanted to live in this world longer, but I think sometimes the flip side is true - when you have big ongoing storylines, it can get frustrating when some things drag out too long. But, we got all the "story" we wanted to tell in Season 4 - we just lost some "incident" if that makes sense. We would have taken longer to get there.

So, all that preface to answer the question: we wanted to do more musical numbers! We had a Bollywood dance sequence in a return to India caper with Paperstar. We wanted to do a famous Elvis suit theft in Las Vegas during an Elvis impersonator convention (Shadowsan's an early elvis guy; Brunt likes the Vegas "jumpsuit" era). We also wanted to do a thread where Gunnar gets captured by ACME so that Julia could interrogate him and he could play mind games with her a la Hannibal Lector and Clarice. CAVEAT TO ALL THIS: these were some ideas that were bouncing around, that may not have seen the light of day if we couldn't get them to work. But they were on our wish list.

re: "other stories" - I could live with these characters for another 32 episodes easily and there have of course been discussions. But alas, that is up to the powers that be. Let's keep fingers crossed - and keep the Carmen love alive online so that someone up there takes note

There is more of course, but those are some things that spring to mind.

Fuel:

Were there any scenes cut for time that were your favorite?

Duane Capizzi:

Not much springs to mind: our directors were amazing at getting everything in the scripts to fit naturally (and in fact, I was the one who was usually suggesting trims to let other things breathe, etc). We were limited to 22 minutes of episode time, NOT counting front and end credits so a little longer than the average show. We have a pretty good idea when the SCRIPT is too long, so the cutting usually happens at script stage before it gets to the board crew so that they don't waste efforts over-boarding material that won't be used.

We had hoped to build out Chase and Carmen teaming up for the first time, meeting at Carmen's hotel lobby etc for more scenes of them together; but had to reduce that to get that all to fit in the VERY packed episode 406. But again, tighter was fine considering. That's one area that leaps to mind. (note that when I say packed, I don't mean that in a bad way: we spend a lot of time pouring over details in editing to make sure everything gets its due).

If I think of anything, I'll circle back at a later point. But the simple answer is that scenes were usually trimmed or compressed at script rather than board or animatic. So nothing comes to mind. I know it's hard to believe, but "shorter is usually better."

except for my answers to fan questions of course

Fuel:

We saw that in s4 episode 6 that Julia's mother(?) is wearing a necklace remarkably similar to the one Julia wears all the time. Is this the same necklace and if so, why was it given to Julia?

Duane Capizzi:

Just when I thought I was detail oriented! Wow! You guys blow me away

I can't take credit for that: it was either the board artist or director who added that. They do slip things in! As I've said before, EVERYONE on the crew really brought their A-game and were as deep thinking and as passionate as I was/am about the show.

It's a nice detail and I would say your interpretation works!

It took me three or four reviews before noticing that the team had slipped in baby Carmen near the play set in Mom's front yard at the end of 408. When I caught it, I was like: bravo!

Fuel:

When they first met, Zack and Ivy said to Carmen that they were the only family they had, do you know what happened to the rest of Zack and Ivy's family?

Duane Capizzi:

I don't. At least, I don't yet until such a time that I might have the opportunity to explore that. It was important to their relationship with Carmen that they be orphans, so they had that common bond (aside from being "thieves who steal from bad guys" - even if it was only gonna be one time for Zack and Ivy).

I know there are writers out there who like to do entire bio's for characters up front but i'm not one of them. It could be a trap in many ways. I like to have a general idea but be open to the demands of the ongoing storyline. You discover things along the way - it's like you're taking a journey with the characters by writing them, and the longer you spend, the better you get to know them (that was not a prepared statement by the way - I just made that up but I'll have to use it again :). So in Z/I's case it wasn't important to the story or Carmen's relationship, we felt. Conversely, we STARTED with Shadowsan's family backstory with 203, but more important to me was that we use it as a platform to explain why he stays with Carmen and crew. He really has no home at that point, so it was relevant to the present ongoing story. Which is what made that especially powerful to me.

Also, there's always a push-pull between telling character back stories while balancing them with ongoing episodic plots. You have to service both. If you just tell back story, then you're writing a biography

Arden:

What was the biggest challenge when designing these characters, especially the pre-existing characters from the series in the 90's?

Duane Capizzi:

This is probably more of a question for Chromosphere, re: challenges. But from my standpoint overseeing that process, the first thing I'll say is that we weren't necessarily trying to be "true" to those characters since we reinvented nearly every one from the ground up. (with the exception of Carmen of course - her trademark red hat/coat weren't going anywhere! But mostly the update with Carmen was in the styling of her "outerwear"

ALTHOUGH: I will admit that I was pushing for Carmen to have shorter hair as Carmen. I thought it would be a cool update. Chromosphere were really passionate about giving her long full hair and I have to see that they were right. The short tomboy cut worked so well for Black Sheep anyway. We had a different hair style for each of her ages.

So about the reinventions: Gunnar is in spirit a similar character to the original (old colleague in Vile and an early mentor if I remember), but his presentation completely different. We weren't trying to be "in canon" with the original. The beauty of CSD is that every incarnation has been its own entity so that freed us to reimagine the characters. THE CLEANERS, for instance: gimme some Cleaner love! There were a pair of janitors from the original game named RICK AND NICK ICK. They were literally janitors, it was too silly for our purposes. But, it's one small step to make them "Cleaners" (in the sinister hit men sense) - and lo, our reinvention.

So to summarize the answer to your question, they weren't really challenges to me so much as FUN to creatively reinvent the original characters (many of which were from the game, so not really "characters" per se with dialogue and inner lives). Whenever we could, we tried to use character names from the originals and update their looks and personalities. Where we couldn't find an equivalent for what we needed, we created characters from whole cloth. For instance, it seemed a miss to do a heist show without a tunnel guy and a high rise climber guy. Hence, LC & ET, everyone's favorite taco truck vendors!

(yes, i've seen some short hair carmen fan art on Twitter - someone did a great one recently!)

Arden:

Are there plans to give us more of the characters in, say, novel/graphic novel form?

Duane Capizzi:

I know HMH has done a bunch and no doubt have more in works. There's currently a novelization of the Pilot with some additional material if anyone's interested. I consulted on the second one, Clue for Clue, because it falls in the timeline while Chase was still Interpol/pre-Acme so was tricky.

And depending on whether another series in this canon makes it to air, I may just approach them about writing one or two myself to get some "further adventures" our there. Anything is possible!

Arden:

If you could go back and change anything about the series, what would it be?

Duane Capizzi:

File under anecdote, but there was what I felt was an important expression on Gray that kept me awake at nights, from his graduation ceremony at Vile. When we revisited those flashbacks in the Gray arc in Season 4, I had them change his expression there (to be more evil less innocent). We had it corrected in 404 so was able to get permission to have Netflix "fix" the Pilot by adding that shot in. I am tenacious!

We really poured over everything, it's the series that I have virtually zero complaints with the end product to be honest. But the simple answer is: I would have gone back to 106 and "un-greek'd" Gray's nametag. It's sort of a rule for international that we scramble signage (which is weird for a show that takes place in many countries/languages, I know I know). It's mostly for localization/translation reasons. And I'm sure there are some countries where Gray's name might be spoken differently. But as a proper name, I think we could have made an exception and seen "Gray" on his name tag. See? Details! But that's about the worst of it

there's also like one small line from Chief in 208 where she indicates she knows Carmen is a good guy (something to that effect) which I felt was too absolute and would have tweaked the line to temper it a bit. It's tiny, but looking back it sort of bugs me and I kick myself for not catching it. But this is absolutely the series I wanted and couldn't be happier.

Carmen:

How did Carmen know she could trust Julia? As far as we know, she has not seen or heard Julia defending her, and in the Fashionista Caper, Julia even held up her gas gun to her, saying she was under arrest. Do you have any opinions on this? Was it just intuition?

Duane Capizzi:

I'm gonna go with intuition

Carmen was raised on an island with some hardened criminal types. I think she's a pretty good judge of character. Poor Julia, trying to be tough with Carmen didn't suit her.

But, great observation! I'd have to mentally step through everything to see if Carmen had any earlier indication but i think you're right there.

Yes, sometimes you just gotta follow your heart

Carmen:

Are there any characters that didn't actually interact that you think would get along well?

Duane Capizzi:

Amazing question! First, I'd have to think more about who DIDN'T meet - you're asking the hard questions haha. But "get along well" is very specific! Hmmm, care to volley anyone?

I'll also add that so many smaller moments get lost in the "binge" of it all, but I am surprised how few fans have noted the first meeting between Player and Julia. THAT was a good one IMO! Very sweet!

Before getting back to your question, I also want to add that we were originally going to find a way for Carmen to lose her earring in Stockholm so that Julia could pick it up and be communicating with Player. BUT, I cut it at treatment stage because I knew we didn't have room in that episode to service it. Circling back to questions 1 & 2, another case where it turned out better saved for later IMO (saving Player meeting Julia, not to mention the earring business in 402 with Ivy).

Oh of course, Julia and any of the other Vile members. It would have been Gunnar for my vote, as mentioned earlier. We probably would not have had Julia meet anyone else and mixed it up more. I like that Cleo sort of became J's personal nemesis.

YES, SONIA & XIFENG (and LUPE PELIGRO, if I can add). The intent was (and is, if we ever get to revisit) to see them again in Carmen's travels. We started to expand Carmen's world but when we finally learned the finite number of episodes we had to finish the story, we drilled back down into the essentials. Would love to see them some day!

I'm hesitant to share too many things I have in mind in this forum for hope that they will see the light of day one day. You know, "spoilers"

Julia:

Do you have any opinions on Zari? Just in general? Some thoughts on her backstory would be nice if possible

Duane Capizzi:

I love Zari! I really don't have any back story on her at this point. She was originally just "Agent B" but when the need arose to give story points to another agent, we chose her because she looked so awesome! And Sharon Muthu gave voice to her so wonderfully.

I love when we finally teamed her with Chase. Hopefully the anticipation was that she would give him a hard time. I love that we defied expectation (organically, of course) and had her respect him by the end of that episode (for believing that he foiled Carmen!)

Julia:

Do you have any thoughts on small facts about any character, major or minor, that you think are fun/interesting to think about, but don't necessarily add to the plot itself?

Duane Capizzi:

Bellum, like myself, likes cats. But you knew that!

I try to put everything pertinent on screen, doing double duty to service any given episode's story but also the overarching story. That "journey" thing I mentioned earlier - we had no idea Chase falling on his own car would be a thing when I first came up with it. But as other characters refer to the incident, it took on a life of its own and made the characters feel more real.

Sorta kinda related to this question and some earlier ones, I will say that I DO think there's more to learn about Shadowsan's past vis a vis Lady Dokuso: it's clear to me that they have a history together, and it's something I hope to explore someday soon (maybe in a book if not another series

Julia:

Are the Carmen Sandiego books a part of canon?

Duane Capizzi:

I only consulted on the first two or three (too busy with series!) and have not read them, so hard for me to answer in a definite way. They are definitely in the universe we've created, but not in the timeline that I know of (which would have been too hard to pull off with our script development running concurrently). But do know that the book team at HMH pays close attention to the series and world so they should be perfectly compatible. Look no further to their clever social media on the series for example.

Kenz:

We saw in season 4 that Julia and Carmen helped each other mid to long term; would there ever be a possibility that Julia would permanently or semi-permanently join team Red?

Duane Capizzi:

Of course there's a possibility. But in a sense, with ACME now finally on Carmen's side, in a sense if Carmen were back in the game Julia, Chase, Zack and Ivy would ALL be an extension of Carmen's crew. But, would J remain with ACME or literally come to Carmen's team at her HQ? As they said in an old radio show: "Only The Duane Capizzi knows ..."

Kenz:

Where do you see Carmen in her retirement (if she retires)? Do you think she would still travel the world or settle down somewhere? Similarly, do you have any thoughts on what some other characters could be doing years down the line?

Duane Capizzi:

That is a big question, and one difficult to answer without some potential future spoilers (and yes, I really want to tell more Carmen stories if you can't tell But I'll answer by giving you one "read" on our open-ended ending as seen in 408 (read no further if you haven't seen it - yeah, right haha). The ending suggests to me that Carmen settled down for a spell to forge that relationship with her mother, to make up for lost time. But, if that is indeed Carmen that we see on the rooftop, I think the ending suggests that Carmen doesn't stay still for very long. If Vile is back, there is work to be done! Carmen has a life mission - she's one determined lady.

But of course, it's deliberately ambiguous: "anyone with your heart, wisdom and courage can be Carmen Sandiego." Is it Carmen? Sonia? Someone we haven't met? I think both endings resonate: Caroline and I always said "Carmen is bigger than a person, Carmen is a movement" would be a great message to end the series on. And I think our ending resolves this chapter of Carmen's journey as a person, but also elevates her to mythic status. Which is why I love it!

And, that seems to me a pretty perfect question and answer to end our chat on. Thanks everyone! Again, I cannot tell you how moved I am to see that we have such a passionate, intelligent and talented fan base. THANK YOU.

Take care guys, thanks again for having me! 'night!

#Carmen Sandiego #CS Crew #Duane Capizzi #Interview #Transcript

[simptasia]

Sorry I'm a bit late, but here's some Lost nonsense from my brain:

If Jacob's & MIB's adopted mum didn't adopt them, then a whole lot of mess could have been avoided.

Also.

Why didn't John's dad just say he was moving after he stole his kidney and see him like once a year? (That way if you need to borrow a lung later down the line the option is is there.)

Also.

If I knew my past self was gonna kill my son I won't let that happen. Screw the time space continuum, I'm doctor who-ing this nonsense.

And on top of that.

How come no one really tried to mess about with time in the 70s? I know there was a bit of "ahh don't effect the future" but like, if I was stuck in the past I'd have a go at screwing around with time. I'd be like suck it universe, there's no Internet and I've got people in the present I care about. I know alot of the Lost people had reasons not to, like Jin's trying to keep his family safe and Sawyer doesn't really have anyone outside of the island. But Julie's sister? Kate needing to find Claire? WHY WASNT THERE A DANIEL FOCUSED EPISODE ABOUT HIM TRYING TO CHANGE THE FUTURE AND SAVE CHARLOTTE THAT JUST MADE THE FUTURE HAPPEN MORE SO THAT THEN WHEN SAYID SHOT CHILD BEN I COULD HAVE BEEN ALL LIKE nah bro thats no gonna help, when instead I thought there was gonna be some funky timeline nonsense that I'm always here for AND THEN THERE WASNT. Also more Daniel.

Last thought (sorry I can't shut up)

Now I'm thinking about it, why was everyone's reaction to Sayid shooting child Ben as a bland "this is bad" ?? Im not trying to say it was good, but its like the whole 'go back in time and kill Hitler as a kid' argument? I thought characters would at least have thoughts? Like no one even talked about it beyond face value?? Or even had an emotion?? Everyone was just like: "this is bad, but let's leave him with his abusive dad" ???????????????

Epilogue Thought: i genuinely thought when Kate handed child Ben over to the Others she was doing to say something to him along the lines of what adult Ben said to her at the beginning of series 3 when they had breakfast together. (My memory is so bad, but it's something like "I wanted you to have a nice memory to cling onto because a lot of bad is going to happen.") And then it was gonna be like a weird time loop thing of who really said it first, like Ben doesn't remember them properly or anything (but it might help why he didn't just ask Jack for surgery help when they first crashed.)

lost spoilers ahead

Okay, first of all, how the fuck did you send a message this long. Whenever I send messages, I'm given a character limit???

If Jacob's & MIB's adopted mum didn't adopt them, then a whole lot of mess could have been avoided.

"Adopted", yes that the's word for it. And yeah... yeah. The entire plot of LOST, down the drain. Isn't it ironic, this show is known for so much daddy issues and all of this fuss was caused by mommy issues

Why didn't John's dad just say he was moving after he stole his kidney and see him like once a year? (That way if you need to borrow a lung later down the line the option is is there.)

Short answer: Because Anthony Cooper is a cunt

Longer answer: it's pooossible that anthony genuinely didn't wanna spend any time with locke at all. as you pointed out, this isn't pragmatic on his part. but he's a dick. he also has a history of not sticking around the people he's conned

If I knew my past self was gonna kill my son I won't let that happen. Screw the time space continuum, I'm doctor who-ing this nonsense.

I've had this same thought. Offense to Eloise, but I'm different.

like, yeah, even if it turns out to not be possible, there's merit in fucking trying to prevent this. like, morally, emotionally, i'd respect eloise if she'd fucking TRIED to not kill her baby boy :(((

legit, same, if i knew i was destined to kill my boy, i'd be like "no"

and at the very fucking least, i'd give the best life possible! which, paradox or no, is what a parent is SUPPOSED to do, eloise!!

not only does eloise not even try to not do this, what makes it so much worse is that she didn't allow him the life he wanted. you know he's gonna die young, bitch, let him have love and piano!

HES NOT EVEN ASKING FOR MUCH. free will??? please???

i Cannot talk about eloise without going on this rant, it seems

and the rest of ur message, i won't copy paste, but what ur saying about time travel. i'm kinda indifferent to a possiblity of them trying to change more but thinking about it, it's odd that they didn't Try more. however this can chalked up to like, not enough run time. but yes i'm all in favour of the characters ties to other characters mattering more. and charlotte mattering more. grrrr

oh boy the ben thing. well, i don't blame them for the This Is Bad thing. because it is. it's very bad to shoot a child. i wanna say, sayid is so fucking out of character when he does this. the writers mishandled sayid pretty bad in seasons 5 and 6, sigh. personally i don't believe its anywhere near okay to try to kill somebody because they're gonna be a bad person One Day. but yeah i am surprised there wasn't more of a debate about this in canon. we have people of different morals here... plus, it's a debate in real life. i'm in the "punish the people who have actually done something wrong" camp

it's fucked that he has to stay with roger though. i don't put that on our losties tho, overall i blame the others. because they could have accepted ben into the others way sooner and they really should have. richard could see this kid was suffering and they let him stay with his abusive dad. that's awful. then again, charles was in charge during this time period so that makes THAT make more sense but ugh

and finally. inch resting... i always saw kate's sympathy for little ben as 1. he's only a child, he's Not big ben. and 2. she grew up in an abusive home too so she sees a kindred spirit

regarding ben's memory, it annoys me how the writers felt the need to erase some of little ben's memories to supposedly Make It Make Sense but i felt that was unneeded. i think it's perfectly viable for ben to remember all the stuff that went down in season 5 but he never mentioned it because why the fuck would he. for one thing, he was henry gale at first, he's hardly gonna be like "oh hey are you the guy who shot me when i was a kid??" no, he'd keep his memories to himself. i think ben keeps a lot of things to himself for tactical reasons so i think the lost writers employed a get outta jail free card when they really didn't need to

#lost headcanons #i have a friend who hasn't entirely watched lost yet so i hope she doesn't read any of the lost stuff i've posted today

[the-ice-sculpture]

Reflecting on the Loki show

Hurray – fewer instances of cringey humour in Episode 2 than Episode 1!

Shame about there not being a single scene in the entire episode in Episode 2 where Loki felt in character

If this wasn’t a Loki show, I’d probably be enjoying it at the same level as a casual viewer of any other TV show. The plot’s interesting with a different take on time travel that I’ve seen, and there are no boring moments. But I can’t get past the lack of MCU Loki here. I just... Ugh. It’s so frustrating. No other media could get away with the main character suddenly having a personality transplant, but because it’s Marvel people are... fine with it, for some reason?

I can live with the tone and plot being different to what I’d do with it if I’d had the choice. I’ve said multiple times in the past that just because the show probably won’t give me what I want from it doesn’t mean that the show can’t be good in its own right. But what I didn’t anticipate before any of the trailers started coming out was that the Loki here might not feel like MCU Loki at all. I can forgive a lot of things, but I just can’t wrap my head around the sheer number of people who must have given the green light to all the decisions made about his characterisation. Those kinds of things can’t just be blamed on one person, it’d be a combination of the writers, directors, actors, producers...

I never thought that Loki finally getting to be the main character on screen (how many years have I wanted that to happen? 7? 8?) would be the thing to cause me to have my first ever thoughts about quitting this fandom.

I’m not having fun. I’m used to being more than a bit disappointed. I even stayed in the fandom after Thor: Ragnarok came about without much complaining, despite not being a fan of a fair amount of elements in it. I even stayed after Infinity War and Endgame came out with very little complaining either, despite how many things there were that I didn’t like in them. I even rewatched Game of Thrones after being just as unsatisfied with how it was tied up as everyone else was, and I still love the first four seasons and some scenes from later on (yes, even including Season 8).

But I’m not used to being this level of disappointed. The past month I’ve gone from having 5 different Loki WIPs I wanted to write to suddenly not being sure if I want to finish any of them at all. I mean, at least two of them will be finished because they’re oneshots for an event and I’ve already done most of the work so I might as well, but the contrast with my motivation is huge.

I don’t want to leave this fandom. I still have things I (hypothetically) want to write. I have over 100,000 words of various unpublished Loki fanfics that I’ve been working on. I don’t want them to go to waste. I want to finish what I started. It’s not like the enthusiasm for the idea of the stories has gone, it’s just... I don’t know, the overarching disappointment and not having fun in a fandom space anymore? How strongly Loki is associated with me feeling bitter and miserable now? How the show and the experience outside of it is doing the opposite of inspiring me?

I don’t to be that person either. You know, the one who has an entire blog dedicated to moaning about something. The one who seems determined to interpret everything in the worst possible light, regardless of rationalism. The one who seems like they’d never be satisfied unless something was made 100% their way, and if it wasn’t then of course it’s Problematic and that’s why it’s Just Plain Bad, and it’s nothing to do with personal taste and a certain amount of projection. The one who starts getting positive reinforcement about hating something, so it becomes a habit and before they know it, it’s part of their daily routine, and they’re still regularly doing it years later. The one who goes on about how ‘if you’re a true fan of [x] and really understood [x], this would bother you’, or worse, starts making it personal with the real people involved in the creation of the show.

But the experience of not liking the show is a lonely one. There are other people who don’t agree on his characterisation either, I know. But when the vast majority of people who watch it seem not to find the changes in his entire character jarring? When people are going around saying that it’s not until now that the writers have finally understood Loki? When you get people acting like anyone who voices any criticism whatsoever is ridiculous and shouldn’t be in the fandom and behaves like they might catch the Taint of Negativity if they were to associate with them? When any criticisms are dismissed as ‘people who just want to hate the show’?

Believe me, I don’t want to hate the show. I’d love to be happy with the show. But I'm not. This Loki doesn’t feel like MCU Loki. The only time he did feel like himself to me was during the scene towards the end of Episode 1 where he was watching parts of his life on screen. That’s it. Over one and a half hours into the series so far, 1/3 of the entire show. Out of all that, only one scene.

And now every time I see people being happy about the show it makes me feel resentful. And, no, I’m not going to add anything negative to their posts or say anything to them. If the show is what it is and there’s no changing it then it’s better at least some people get to enjoy it rather than it bringing about universal misery. I don’t want to take away anyone else’s happiness. I just to feel happy too, but I don’t, and I’m painfully aware of it.

I don’t know where I’m going with this, I think I’m just venting. 

I don’t know what the solution is either. Space from fandom for a bit? I mean, I’ve been doing this a bit already recently (not full commitment, just more than usual), but I like being able to use tumblr as an escape. Unfollow people/leave Discord groups? But there are people who I’ve had plenty of positive interactions with, and I don’t want to lose those connections.

It’s really dumb, but I like my fandom corner. I like knowing that if I post a fic, there’ll be a certain small group of people who’ll probably read it, and a smaller chunk of those who’ll comment on it, even all these years later. And there are still so many stories I want to tell with Loki, so many things I haven’t done yet, but... 

Yeah, I don’t know if my motivation will come back or not (I’m leaning towards maybe not). Or how much the fandom will change as a result of the show. I’d expect a wave newcomers, but if a lot of new fics being written are largely based on the show characterisation (and if reader expectation of Loki’s characterisation lies with that too), then I have little to no interest in it.

Oh, and another thing to add to my list of things I don’t want to be: I don’t want to be that person who is all ‘I’ve been here longer and know better and am therefore more of a real fan than any of you new people’. So there’s that.

Ultimately, I think I’m eventually going to have to choose between staying and trying to squash/somehow extinguish any bitter feelings, or leaving. I don’t like either of those options very much. It might be premature of me to post this before the show has ended because my feelings might change, but, unsurprisingly, writing is a good way of processing feelings and I’ve been having a lot of them that need processing.

In case anyone’s actually read this obscene amount of rambling, I’m okay, I’m not, like, weeping over this as I write or anything. But it’s still not a great feeling to have a place that was once my favourite place for escapism and creativity to make me feel like I might not be welcome or like I might not want to be there. And it’s not like I can easily just switch over to another fandom to write for, because there are no other characters who have inspired me to write anywhere near much as Loki has. So, yes, I’m feeling a little sorry for myself. All over a fictional TV show. I repeat: it’s dumb.

#loki negativity #venting #personal #negative #my posts #not for reblogging

[aer-in-wanderland]

구미호뎐 | Tale of the Nine Tailed - Ji Ah’s Fate & the Korean Mythology Surrounding It (requested by @kestrel-of-herran)

Ask: One of the most fascinating things for me is the prophecy the fortune teller told Ji Ah when she gave him the fox bead. I feel like that's important foreshadowing for the drama's ending. How would you translate and interpret that?

Note: words/terms left in Korean require context and will be discussed below.

EP06 The Four Pillars of Fate - Ji Ah Trades the Fox Bead

Ji Ah: I’ll repay this eunhye no matter what, please? 

Fortune Teller: Okay, okay! You were a princess in your past life, do you think you’re a princess now? You think if you whine enough you can have anything. Ei! Your hand. Give me thine hand. (Ji Ah extends her right hand). Left hand!

Ji Ah: (changing hands) Left hand. 

Fortune Teller: You were born with a very special saju weren’t you! Water and fire vie on par, earth is clouded, but metal will subdue it, so though darkness should surround you (literally: all four directions, heaven, and earth), a moon rises in your sky. 

Ji Ah: I’m not sure what you mean...?

Fortune Teller: You have the fox bead! For that is your moon.

Ji Ah: Excuse me?

Fortune Teller: Give to me the fox bead. Even without a moon, your saju is overflowing enough. Therefore...!

Ji Ah: I’ll give it to you! I don’t believe in such things as palja. 

Fortune Teller: The deal...has been accepted. 

Ji Ah: Pardon? Already?

Fortune Teller: Your palm lines. Your palm lines have changed. 

(Note: I translated this working from the raw, so I haven’t seen the subs to be able to comment on them). 

Eunhye (은혜)

Commonly translated as a ‘favor’ or ‘debt,’ ‘eunhye’ is distinct from both of these both linguistically and conceptually. When Yeon says that foxes are obligated to repay ‘debts,’ he’s actually talking about eunhye. ‘Debt’ is another word entirely (빚) and it does appear occasionally. The two are distinct. The glowing ring bonds formed between Yeon and Ah Eum, and Rang and Sajang are both manifestations of eunhye. 

One Korean folktale in which eunhye features famously is the tale of the Grateful Magpies (은혜갚은 까치, literally: ‘the magpies who repaid their eunhye’). Shin Joo refers to this in EP02 when Yeon tells him about returning Ji Ah’s eyesight to her even after she tranquilized him:

Shin Joo: And you’re saying you just let her go? And returned her sight, too? 

Yeon: Since rules are rules.

Shin Joo: It’s not as if we’re magpies meticulously repaying our eunhye! Geez, how long do we have to be bound by that sort of premodern contractual relationship?

Eunhye is difficult to translate but can be approximated as ‘help or favor (as in ‘to favor someone’) given willingly.’ In my mind, rather than a debt which is a negative concept, eunhye is more of a positive concept. There’s a voluntary, good faith/good will element to it. So you’re ‘indebted’ as the result of a good deed done for you. Except it’s not so voluntary if you’re a gumiho, apparently. 

In contrast, when Yeon tells Eodukshini, ‘I’ll repay this debt shortly,’ in EP08 (could also be translated sarcastically as ‘I’ll return the favor shortly’), he uses the actual word for debt (빚) - no good will to be had here on either side. 

Saju Palja (사주팔자）

Literally ‘four pillars eight characters’ (四柱八字), commonly translated as the ‘four pillars of destiny/fate.’ The concept comes from the Chinese astrological concept that a person’s destiny or fate can be divined by the two sexagenary cycle characters assigned to their birth year, month, day, and hour. For more on that, I’ll refer you to Wikipedia. ;) 

In EP02, when Yeon asks Taluipa to look into whether Ji Ah’s parents are alive or dead, he has Ji Ah text him their saju (birth dates and times). 

I’m not sure how palmistry fits in with the concept, and am no expert in astrology, western or eastern, so I can’t offer any interpretation of the fortune teller’s prophecy, but if anyone wants to try looking into it I’d be intrigued to hear what you find. Apparently, the writer spent 2.5 years on the script, so I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that there’s actual meaning behind it. 

The Fox Bead (여우 구슬)

Fox beads are a common earmark of gumiho lore in both Korea and Japan (and probably China, too, but I don’t know enough Chinese to speak to that). In most tellings I’ve encountered, a fox can’t live without their bead, but that doesn’t appear to be the case for Yeon. I was also intrigued by the following exchange he has with the Magistrate in EP06:

Yeon: That’s the Mirror of the Moon. Do you mean to harm (literally: catch) a human with one of the four great mountain gods’ four great treasures meant to protect all creation? 

Magistrate: And so, did your fox bead protect all of creation? Or did it protect one person?

To my thinking, this implies that Yeon’s fox bead is being attributed to his status as a mountain god as much as it is to his being a fox. None of our other foxes seem to have one, but none of them are gumiho (gu = nine, ie. the number of tails), much less cheonho (heavenly foxes) like Yeon. 

I’m actually a little unclear on this front as well. According to the excerpt from the Hyeonjoong’gi (玄中記) at the start of the first episode, foxes that live to be a hundred can take human form and foxes that live to be a thousand become cheonho. Shin Joo is obviously at least 600 years old but he doesn’t appear to be anywhere near Yeon’s caliber (or even Rang’s who is half human), something he says himself, and in the spin-off he only had one tail. Yoo Ri is younger still. It’s unclear to me whether they will ‘level up' if they live long enough, or if they will never be as powerful as Yeon, regardless of how long they live. I get the sense it’s the latter. Both Yeon and Shin Joo have said that Yeon was of a different caliber from the very beginning (in EP02 and EP03, respectively). 

Finally, we haven’t been told much about the fox bead’s powers other than emitting an aura only Yeon can see (sometimes) and suppressing Imoogi inside of Ji Ah. I’m hoping we see it again before the series wraps, but not convinced they’ll have time to recover it given everything else that needs to happen.

On another note, based on the preview for EP15, it appears that the Magistrate’s Mirror of the Moon will be coming back into play. My guess is that Imoogi is going to steal it from the Magistrate and use it on Taluipa. She was shown turned to stone in the background while Yeon and Terry-Imoogi fight. That’s originally her power, so I think Imoogi may use the mirror against her similarly to how the Magistrate ‘absorbed’ the sword Yeon sent flying at him and re-directed it at Ji Ah. 

The Jeo Seung Shi Wang (저승 시왕)

The Ten Kings of the Afterlife (jeo-seung-shi-wang) [저승 시왕], as they’re known in the drama, are more commonly called the Ten Kings of the Underworld (myeong-bu-shi-wang) [명부 시왕・冥府十王]. In the subs they appear as the Afterlife Judges, which is accurate in that this is one of the key roles that they perform. As we're told in EP13, the fortune teller is actually one of them. 

Yeon: What’s the word? That fortune teller, did you find out about him?

Snail Bride: I’ve been asking around via our patrons. 

Yeon: He didn’t seem to be just another low-level native (Korean) god. What’s the geezer’s deal?

Snail Bride: This seems like just a baseless rumour, but there was talk that one of the Ten Kings of the Afterlife who rule over hell leaves his position without notice at odd times.

Yeon: Heh...Interesting. In any case, relay any news you hear about that geezer to me as soon as you hear it. 

While the Snail Bride seems to doubt the validity of the rumour, Yeon appears confident it’s true. He later relays this to Team Fox at their strategy meeting:

Yeon: Do you remember the fortune teller we met at the Korean Folk Village?

Ji Ah: Of course I remember! (Shooting Rang a dirty look) Because of someone [your] fox bead was stolen from us.

Rang: I heard rumour he’s a major big shot. Is it true?

Yeon: He’s one of the Ten Kings of Hell. 

Rang: What?!

Yeon: They say he’s also in possession of the Uiryeong’geom (geom = sword). 

Rang: No way~

Jae Hwan: What’s the Uiryeong’geom?

Shin Joo: It’s a sword that cuts evil (literally: sins). 

Jae Hwan: Cuts...evil, you said?

Shin Joo: It’s sword they say was made in ancient days by King Yeomra himself from a branch he broke off of the Uiryeongsu (su = tree) that weighs sins. But, didn’t that disappear from the world several thousand years ago? 

Yeon: (Shaking his head) Uh-uh. The Snail Bride just picked it up.

As you may recall, the Ten Kings are the ones who put a celestial hit on Rang which led Yeon to track him down and pretend to kill him (thanks for the angst), and they’re the ones who passed judgement on Yeon after he killed the mudang (shamanness) and sentenced him to time in the Snow Mountain Prison. 

It appears that there was some confusion going around that the fortune teller is King Yeomra. Given the above dialogue, I can see where people may have understood his possession of the sword to indicate that, and, in truth, we don’t know which of the Ten Kings he is. That being said, I think if King Yeomra was frequently vacating his post without notice, someone would have said something. I also think Yeomra is a big enough name that if it were him they would’ve just come out and said so. Yeomra is also Taluipa’s brother so she, at least, would know. My assumption was that he was one of the other, less well known kings. 

To conclude, this has all been a long way of saying that I have no idea what Ji Ah’s palja will mean for her fate. What I can provide is a little context. I’m not familiar with the sword, and it doesn’t turn up when I google it, so I suspect it was invented for the purpose of the show. Whether it remains a red herring until the end or shows up in the final hour remains to be seen. 

#tale of the nine tailed #nam ji ah #korean mythology #ask #totnt #구미호뎐 #남지아 #my translations #kestrel-of-herran #totnt ask

[loreweaver-universe]

And that’s...

...the show.

That’s Steven Universe.

That’s the end of the most important show I’ve ever watched.

That was...perfect.  I wasn’t sure if they were going to nail it, but they did.  I was crying through half the episode, really blubbering.  I could barely take it.  This was SO good.

Steven Universe...what a show.  This show was so important.  It broke so much ground, and it affected my life in countless ways.  I don’t know where I’d be without Steven Universe, but I don’t think I’d be anywhere near as happy.  This show means so much to me, and I’m sad to see it go.

It’s the end of an era.  I...wow.  I finished Steven Universe.  That’s it.  It’s done.  I can’t believe it.  One hundred and eighty liveblogging sessions.  A little shy of twenty thousand screenshots, counting the ones on my old fried laptop.  4.46 million views.  It’s nuts.  What a journey.

According to my Discord chat, I’m the first person to liveblog every episode of Steven universe?  Some people beat me to the final episode, but they’re ones that started midway through the show.  Who’d’ve thought I’d be the first getting from start to finish?  Crazy.

I’m stunned.  I can’t believe it’s over.  It...man, I’m gonna talk in circles here for a minute, but this show changed my life.  I can’t believe it’s over.  I can’t believe it.  There’s no more Steven Universe for me to watch.

I thought it would feel like there was a hole in my life, but instead I feel...complete.  That finale really finished it off for me in such a satisfactory way.  That sense of completeness is really buoying me in a time when I thought I’d be absolutely crushed.  It’s amazing.

I did it.  I made it all the way from start to finish.  That’s Steven Universe.

Goodbye, Pearl.  Goodbye, Connie.  Goodbye, Amethyst.  Goodbye, Garnet.  Goodbye, Greg.  Goodbye, Peridot.  Goodbye, Lapis,  Goodbye, Bismuth.  Goodbye, Ruby.  Goodbye, Sapphire.  Goodbye, Sadie, and Lars, and Onion, goodbye Sour Cream and Buck and Jenny and Ronaldo.  Goodbye, everyone.

Goodbye, Steven.  I’m going to miss you so much.

The Future comes in at my new #1 for Season 6, displacing Snow Day, and my new #1 for the series, displacing A Single Pale Rose.  Very little in this show is on par with it, and nothing made me cry like it has.  What a capper.  What a perfect sendoff.

I love this show.

If you’d like to read some other Steven Universe liveblogs, now that I’m done, I have a few active ones for you to check out.  Minda Reads is finished with Steven Universe, though he only started with Three Gems and a Baby.   Taz, the SU Workbook, is the newest game in town, and damn is she good at what she does.  Zephyr is another liveblogger that started at the beginning, and he’s halfway through Future, so there’s quite a lot there to read.  MissFineFeather is another liveblogger that started midway, with Can’t Go Back, but is up to Prickly Pair in Future.  All of these people also do other shows and webcomics, so check them out if you want to branch out, too!

As for me...I’m going to take Friday off.  I think I’ve earned it.  Well, off from liveblogging; I’ve got streams like Baba Is You and Final Fantasy VII Remake to do, and I may do those for fun, but I’m taking my usually scheduled Friday off from liveblogging.  I’ll be getting back to liveblogging on Monday, with the Patron Picks, and after that will be more She-Ra; my plan is to finish Season 1 of She-Ra, then take a big bite out of Season 2 of Infinity Train.

This has been a thrill, liveblogging for you.  I hope you Steven Universe fans stick around for the other shows I do, but if not, know this: I treasure every moment we’ve spent together.  It’s all been so important.  You all make this possible, with your patronage and your fandom, and I owe each and every one of you for making me able to do this for a living.  Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

I’ll see you next time.  I love you guys.

(For the record, I did this entire liveblog wearing the Shouty Goat shirt that @thischick25 made me years ago.)

IN OTHER NEWS:

Back in January, I completed a blind playthrough of Steven Universe: Save the Light!  You can view the full playlist by clicking here!

I recently completed my playthrough of the second story campaign in Fire Emblem: Three Houses!   You can view all the streams of the Golden Deer and Black Eagles routes I have done by clicking here!

I recently completed a blind playthrough of Hollow Knight on Twitch!  You can watch all the Hollow Knight streams I’ve uploaded to Youtube by clicking here!

If you’d like to help me pay my rent, buy me some food, or help with my bills and medicine, please use my direct donation link!  If you’d like to support me per liveblog completed every month, please pledge to my Patreon! Becoming a patron not only allows you to vote on what shows I do whenever I choose a new one, but also grants access to the community Minecraft server to $5 patrons or higher!

You should also go pledge to Gio’s Patreon–our Discord server maintenance tech, creator of Rubybot, and community Minecraft server overlord deserves far more than I can afford to pledge to him by myself.

If you’d like more of me and my content:

My Episode Lists master page, where you can find every show and liveblog I’ve done!

My Discord server, where you can come hang out with me and other fans, check out member liveblogs, and join community gaming guilds!

My Twitch channel, where I stream variety games every so often!

My Youtube channel, where you can check out past streams!

My ask blog, where you can send me questions and comments!

My Twitter, where I make announcements about liveblogs and streams!

It’s your kindness and support that lets me do this stuff, and I wouldn’t be where I am without all of you to do it for.  Thank you all so much for your support, and for tuning in every episode!

OTHER PEOPLE YOU MAY ENJOY:

I may have been one of the earlier Steven Universe liveblogs, but a whole community of livebloggers has sprung up over the last five years!   I linked to a bunch individually for a few wrap-ups, but honestly, this end-slate is already eight billion miles long, so I’m just gonna link to my links page.  Click here if you want recommendations of other livebloggers, or other neat people, or webcomics and podcasts that I recommend.

#steven universe #steven universe future #suf #subloggin #bloggin #su180 #su episode 175 #this is screenshot #sua11308 #episode wrap up #goodbye steven #I'm going to miss you