#insane that the doctor was showing the master so much love devotion and kindness not knowing it was him too like how are you still down bad

[thirteenslily]

#richard siken quote #love is religion #kneeling for your beloved #i’m sure i’ve missed some but these are the main ones i can’t get out of my head #funny that the master kneels for the doctor more than the other way around like who’s mastering who my genderfluid alien #insane that the doctor was showing the master so much love devotion and kindness not knowing it was him too like how are you still down bad #they make me insane #if you’ve seen this elsewhere it was on my twt #doctor who #classic who #the doctor #3rd doctor #10th doctor #12th doctor #13th doctor #the master #delgado!master #simm master #missy #missy!master #missy doctor who #spymaster #dhawan master #threegado #tensimm #twissy #spydoc #power of the doctor #dr who

[nogreatillusion]

Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me Before Giving Birth

-- Zippers are preferable to snaps and both are certainly better than buttons, but don't let people make you feel bad if you want to buy a couple of impractical, beautiful baby things that they'll only wear once. -- A friend (a doctor!) DID tell me that most people hate their baby for the first two weeks, a thoroughly un-researched fact which shocked my grandmother but gave me an enormous sense of relief before my baby was born as I was finally able to unburden myself from the fear that I might fail to live up to the overwhelmingly prevalent idea that all mothers will immediately fall madly in love from the moment their child is born and stay that way. -- Don't waste your money on expensive diapers. They will all leak sometimes and that's life. Buy the cheap ones. Same goes for wipes. They're all the same. -- If you are planning to breastfeed, buy lots of very comfortable bras and then buy at least two more than you think you need. You will be unshowered, covered in milk, and behind on laundry for at least a couple of months. Clean, comfortable bras are a gift. -- If you get a clogged milk duct, it will feel like a little lump in your breast and you can massage it out using a vibrator. Do this ASAP to prevent mastitis. -- I think bottle warmers might be a scam. -- You can breastfeed lying down. It might work better, and it will certainly be easier on your back. -- Babies can just wear pajamas or onesies all the time for their first year of life. You don't need "outfits," or separates, unless you want them. No one will notice or care. -- Don't forget to brush your teeth and go to bed like a normal person sometimes. It took me 3 days to remember this. It feels insane to "go to bed" when you're getting up every two to three hours. Do it anyway. -- You're going to hallucinate due to lack of sleep and intense anxiety about falling asleep with the baby. You will imagine that the baby is lost in the sheets until your husband insists for the third time that the baby is in the bassinet. This will go on for months and it will always feel terrible. -- Pick a few good TV shows with a lot of seasons to watch the first month. You're going to be spending a lot of time on the couch. Like a lot. -- Formula smells incredibly bad and it is shockingly expensive. It can also be a lifesaver. -- You can keep track of feedings and diaper changes and baby sleep on a little handwritten spreadsheet to report to your pediatrician like a good parent, but this might also drive you slowly insane until your child's doctor has to remind you that you're raising a child, not running a hospital and really, you can stop. Please don't do this to yourself. -- Socks are for suckers. If it's cold out, buy footie everything for as long as you can possibly get away with it. -- None of the expensive eczema lotions or body washes will make any difference for your baby’s sensitive skin, but you can buy them anyway if it makes you feel better to do something. It will probably get better on its own when they get older and you've long since given up on the fancy creams. -- Buy the adult diapers for postpartum bleeding. -- You can use your baby's desitin on your own butt if things are beginning to chafe down there. -- Be prepared that breastfeeding might be a two person job for at least the first few weeks. It's complicated and difficult for many women, and having a partner there to help juggle and keep the baby (and you!) awake might be necessary! -- You don't really have to master swaddling. It's fine. I'm convinced that birthing classes devote time to this technique solely because it makes you feel like you're in control of something. You're not and you can buy sleep sacks that do the same thing, but better. -- Plain old spaghetti strap tank tops that you can slip an arm/boob out of work just as well as expensive, ugly nursing tops. — You don’t need the $900 stroller. I promise you. Spend your money on the nicest rocking chair you can find, if you have the space. You will be spending a lot of time there. -- Read the sleep books before the baby is born. Take notes. Make a plan. You will not have the energy for this later. -- Stop googling things about SIDS after 10 PM. Turn off your phone. Stop it!! -- If your partner has time off work for a while, a really good time to nap is when people come over to see the baby. You don't have to "host," you don't have to be "on," you can ask them to leave whenever you want. Let your partner handle it. The rules of politeness no longer apply. -- Don't expect to feel like you have it together for at least 2 months. The first 2 months are a blur. By 4 months, you'll finally be hitting your stride. Be patient with yourself. -- You do not have to let people visit you in the hospital before you've taken a shower and put on the cute pajamas you brought. You are going to feel like you were hit by a car and that no one seems to notice or care. You don't have to let people visit you in the hospital at all, actually. It's entirely up to you, as much as your parents may disagree. -- Crying is normal. For both of you. -- It can be really hard to get a newborn baby into a carseat for the first time. Make sure your partner helps handle this before going to get the car or you may find yourself in tears, squatting painfully in front of the car seat on the hospital floor, trying desperately to maneuver a tiny little person who is still curled up like a snail. -- Bring so many snacks to the hospital. Bring an entire duffle bag of snacks. No one else has to know what's in there. -- Buy the big burp cloths. Buy a lot of them. Keep them handy in every room of your house. — Do not buy that goddamn Snoo. -- It's ok and necessary to put your baby down. You will want places to set the baby down in each room of your home. Swings, snuggle pillows, playmats, bouncers, baskets, bassinets, whatever. It's up to you, but try to keep one spot to put them down in each room that you spend a lot of time in. It doesn’t need to be anything fancy. A blanket on the floor works in a pinch! -- When it comes to feeding, buy the bibs that can go in the dishwasher and a highchair that can be entirely wiped clean. -- You're going to clip the baby's finger with the tiny nail clippers. It will be awful. You will all survive. -- Get the breast shields with the silicone edges for pumping. Pumping sucks and anything you can do to make it slightly more comfortable is worth it. — A certain percentage of baby crying is unrelated to needing milk, sleep, or a diaper change. Sometimes babies just cry! They’re like people and they have moods! Remind yourself of this when you’re losing your mind trying to figure out what you’ve forgotten to try. You can just pretend they are a very small friend who needs to cry for a bit, and be a soothing presence while they work through it. -- Reusable nursing breast pads are more comfortable and absorbent than the disposable kind, and will keep you from feeling nervous about leaking every time you leave the house. -- It's ok to leave the baby in a safe place to go to the bathroom. The first time you have to do this, it will be terrifying. -- Don't expect the suction bowls to stay put. Your baby is strong and not an idiot. -- You might need more changing pad covers than you think you do. -- The baby milestone books exist to make you feel either superior or terrified. It's ok not to read them. Your baby will roll over when they roll over. Please stop worrying. -- The first few times you watch the youtube video of someone masterfully wrapping their baby in a fabric sling, you will decide it is impossible. It's not, and you'll get better at it with practice, though you may always feel like you're not *quite* doing it right. This is a metaphor for all of motherhood.

[rikkang]

Here is my doctor who oc. Missy/Master's companion.

This is her profile.

Commission of @queen_2cha/@highas_cms on twitter.

" I love you"

Name: Isabelle Grace

"Do what you want, Missy. But that doesn't mean you're everything in my life."

Title: Witch's pet

Age: 27

Born in Hampsihre, UK. (Living in London because of work.)

Job: Research Engineer (Doctor who series 8, working in 3W)

Birth: December 10th

Physical

176cm, 60kg.

Not skinny, but look slim because of her height. Arms and legs are stretched out so there is no fat, but there is a moderate amount of flesh in areas such as he waist and chest.

Blood type B.

Appearance

If you look at Isabelle Grace, the first thing you see would be her hair. Does it resembel the graceful moonlight of full moon, or the pale beauty of dawn? The smooth silvery gray hair pouring down from the edge of the wing porridge was so attractive that Selene, the God of the moonn and the owner of the silver carriage, was admirable and fall in love. It reflects light under the sun, like a light blue-silver shroud, and it has a faint sparkle in the dark.

However, Isabelle was not the type to stand tall in the crowd. As if she were pursuing an extremely ordinary life. As she claims, her bangs are neatly arranged and eyebrows were covered, and the clothes on her body were a formal look of a clean modern man. As mentioned earlier, arms and legs stretched out coolly and formed a thin and orphaned line. A thin, straight-cut eyebrow, dropping eyes. The edge of her eyelid which hides her shrap intellect, was wrapped in a red-light make-up that made her look sharper and clearer. The pale pink lips were expressionless, so they were shut up and deported so that her opponent could not read her thoughts. Isabelle Grace was not essentially a predator, nor was a herbivore.

Her long eyelashes would tremble at the rare moment when the grain of emotion was shaken by a single stream of wind. Breathing and sweeping hair behind her ears was Isabelle's small habit and way to express her feelings. Then her opponent's gaze was usually dragged away by her flawless milky back of her hand, her thin, long fingers, and short-rounded nails. It couldn't have been better to hide the slowly fading peach-colored cheeks.

Along with her appearancce, Isabelle's speech was also clear and orderly. She used to go directly to the main point without having to attach a word of desperation, and even though she talked down to her opponent, it was only an extremely exceptional situation, and basically he used honorifics to everyone.

If there is a time when Isabellle Grace is wandering about in confusion, not knowing what to say, it would be the same as when her cheeks are red. Right in fron of her Mistress. A brooch decorated with white patches, a token Missy given for her, was always with Isabelle. There are times when you put it on a ribbon and hang it on a choker, but the fact hat you always carry it with you was an immutable truth.

There is a mole under the right eye.

Personality

KEYWORD: Boredom, Rational, Cynical, Quick-witted, Persistent, Careful

The family grew up in peace. The companionship was smooth, and the livelihood was stble. She was, but everything in the world was boring.

The extremely gorgeous bouquets of flowers, the glitter of long-cut jewels, all sorts of delicies, wealth and honour also do not shake Isabelle Grace's heart. It is not because she is a man wihout desire, but she is tempted with something more baluable than he sum of it all.

While persistent enough to desire Missy, an object that can never be reached, she is prudent enough not to cross the line set by Missy. Missy, who thinks she'll kill Isabelle if she goes against the beat at all the time. Isabelle, who smiles shyly even though the dance with her gradually speeds up. Neither side would be normal. Our lovely cat, Missy called Isabelle that in her affectionate voice. The tile was a mixture of compliments for being quick and cute and ridicule for being tough.

Privacy

Hobby: Visiting exhibitions or fairs, Watching movies with her face tilted against Missy's shoulder.

Personal belongings: Smart phones, Cigarettes and Zippo-lighters, Handkerchiefs with initials, A handful of candy and chocolate.

+ Missy device (after series 10)

Favorites: The moment get to know something new, Sweets, Roughly all the time spend with Missy.

Hates: Something boring, The Doctor.

Ideal man: One who makes herself not boring, A new kind of person.

Family composition: Mother, eldest of one son and two daughters.

Relationships

Missy(short for Mistress)

"See that couple over there? You're the puppy."

Thinking of her Mistress, Isabelle Grace thinks. she may be her beloved pet, but she can never be her beloved pet but she can never be more than that. The moment she was confirmed to have guessed, she became miserable. However, it would be an act of crossing t he promised line to show the crushed the promised line to show the crushed inside. So Isabelle made up her mind. Let's just have a moment of her. When she is satisfied with staying in his memory for a while, she draws a line by reminding herself of her resignation. What kind of pet would beg for its owner''s' love? Reminding herself endlessly.

"Say something nice, dear."

"...I love you."

"I didn't expect it. Right, now say something nice, and new?"

For Missy, Isabelle Grace was another fun opponent, as if she were on the palm of her hand. If it wasn't fun, she wouldn't have kept that insignificant human. Because of that, she allowed her occasional skinship for teasing. Like Isabelle hesitating and just hold a finger of Missy, she holding hands tightly and appreciate Isabelle's face turning as fresh as a teenage girl.

Isabelle devoted, obedient, and sometimes grumbles. Missy accepts that grunt, shows generosity and adores it, but does not allow affection.

Is this love? It wouldn't. There is no way to express their complicated hands with flat words like love.

Master(John Simm)

"I'm the Master."

The moment she first met the master, Isabelle Grace notices. Isabelle didn't have much to like, but one fact that she would never, no mater what, like this Time Lord.

He was Missy's past, but she is nowhere to be founded.

Isabelle's lovee for life and death was only the face of Missy and freindly voice, the past or future (not the present) was not in her own domain. Unlike when she heard about "regeneration" from Missy, Isabelle was once again grateful that Missy, who was a completely different person, has become what she is.

Sometimes watching Missy fit the Master too well, she hid her wistful look reminding that two Time Lords are same person, but that was all.

The master was unwelcome. As Miss did, it was he same that one day suddenly appeared in her life, but Isabelle felt completely different. If there is one talent for her past which look stupid and round (Missy called him this way) it would be that grumble and annoying Isabelle endlessly.

But one should never forget that the opponen is as threatening as the wolf in front of the rabbit.

"The future self of me have given you too much hope. You must have had a lot of fun playing with, huh? What should I do with you..."

To Master, Isabelle would not be a pleasant human being neither. A pet man whom his future self adores. A man possessed by Missy, quick-witted but surely insane. A rude person who does not hide her displeasure completely, with his head gently bent before him, even if she hides her lips by squeezing them.

However, it would be a pleasure ot see the reaction of a vulnerable person who can be held in had at any time.

Master(Sacha Dhawan)

"Yes! It's me, Darling. Miss me?"

After Missy died, Isabelle Grace returned to her former normal, free life. She will never forget Missy for the rest of her life, but she kept her life as if nothing had gappened. Pushing he emotions and memories that sometimes swell up on the other side.

The Master always appeared in front of her without notice.

The day she first met Missy in the forest of Marronnier, where the sun was shining, and the day she put the exiled Master from Galifrey into the Tardis.

And even this moment when she faced the Master again in a goddamn purple suit, Isabelle didn't expect it.

The Master in front of me is not Missy. Just as the former master did when he was regenerated to Misst, so was this one. But she couldn't say he wasn't completely Missy. He had memories of when Missy was with Isabelle, and there was her feelings. Although modified and buried deep, it didn't mean much.

So he can take those feelings to hostage and mock Isabelle. That was why she couldn' deny it completely, knowing he wasn't Missy. It was the reason she hated herself. She knows she's in his grasp, but Isabelle can't let go Master because he had Missy's memories.

Funnily, the Master himself also wasn't completely free from that emotions.

Isabelle Grace was a useful thing for the master. A mere human being who was once valued, but is now nothing. It was a lot of fun to see Isabelle who was distressed when he showed his meaningless memories and past emoions. It was one of Master's many specialties to hold and shake human in his hand.

If there's one thing the Master can't bear, that's Isabelle forgets him and moves on. She had to be tied to him, and she shouldn't have grown up. By all means.

Even if her Mistress died, pity cute Isabelle should always remain his pet.

#doctor who #doctorwho fanart #doctor who fan arts #doctor who oc #dw oc #Isabelle Grace #Master #Missy #Missy and OC #Master and OC #simm!master #sim!master #dhawan master

[carolinesiede]

Reflecting on 2020

The strangest thing about 2020 was how familiar much of it felt: Working from home, extended periods of isolation, weeks and months blending together. To a much lesser degree, those are things I experience each year as a freelancer. And while I suspect it will take awhile before the full extent of the trauma we’ve all lived through this year fully sets in, right now I’m mostly focused on gratitude. I’m grateful for the health of my loved ones. Grateful I already had a work-from-home routine to maintain during the pandemic. And grateful that I was able to quarantine with my family for much of the year—which had its challenges but also its rewards too.

In my 2019 year-end post I wrote about feeling like my career was finally on an upward trajectory after several years of plateauing. This year obviously offered some new wrinkles in that regard. I made significantly less money and felt familiar fears about how sustainable this career actually is. But having less work also gave me more time to focus on the actual craft of writing. I feel like I reached a new level in terms of voice, clarity, and the ability to self-edit. I'm the sort of person who constantly (arguably, obsessively) strives to be better, and it’s rewarding to feel like that hard work is finally slowly starting to pay off.

In addition to devoting my quarantine time to mastering a favorite curry recipe, getting really into the Enneagram, finally learning to French braid hair, and rewatching all of New Girl, I also had some really cool opportunities scattered throughout the year. I interviewed John Barrowman about his surprise return to Doctor Who, which felt like a real milestone for me. I also contributed to the Los Angeles Times’ list of TV shows to binge-watch during quarantine, which appeared both online and in print. And thanks to everything going virtual this year, I was able to attend a press panel for the fifth season of This Is Us, which is the sort of thing I’m not usually able to do as a Chicago-based critic. 

My career is always a juggling act between film and TV, and this year made me appreciate how valuable it is to be able to move seamlessly between both worlds. I took on new TV assignments covering the first season of Stargirl and the second season of The Umbrella Academy, both of which were a blast to write about. And while I didn’t watch quite as many films as I did in my insane catch-up year last year, I did fill in some more major blindspots. I also contributed to The A.V. Club’s list of the best films of 2000 and shared my own ballot over on Letterboxd. Oh, and I set up a Letterboxd this year too!

Elsewhere, I made my debut on Bustle and The Takeout, and ended the year with a Polygon article about “Kind Movies” that pretty much sums up my entire ethos on storytelling. I was also named a Top Critic by Rotten Tomatoes, which was a real honor. But the pride and joy of my career remains my rom-com column, When Romance Met Comedy. I devoted a whopping 49,000 words to analyzing 25 different romantic comedies this year. And I’m really pleased with how the column has grown and with the positive feedback I’ve received.

I have to admit, I sometimes worry that year-end highlight reels like this one can make my life seem easy or glamorous in a way that doesn’t reflect what it’s like to actually live through it. I'm tremendously lucky to get to do what I do, but I also struggle a lot—both with the logistics of this career and with bigger questions about what value it brings to the world. My goal is to approach 2021 with a greater sense of intentionality. I want to be more thoughtful in my career choices, more purposeful in how I use social media, and more active in my activism and politics. I’d also like to do 20 push-ups a day everyday for the whole year, but we’ll see how long that resolution actually lasts.

Finally, on a sadder note, one other defining experience of the year was the loss of my dear internet friend Seb Patrick, who I’ve known for years through the Cinematic Universe podcast. Seb created a wonderfully positive nerd space online, and was a big part of my early quarantine experience thanks to the Avengers watchalongs I did with the CU gang in the spring. I’m so grateful for all the fun pop culture chats we got to have throughout the years, several of which are linked below. Seb is tremendously missed, and there’s a fund for his family here.

As we head into 2021, I’ll leave you with wishes for a Happy New Year and a roundup of all the major writing and podcasts I did in 2020. If you enjoyed my work, you can support me on Kofi or PayPal. Or you can just share some of your favorite pieces with your friends! That really means a lot.

My 15 favorite films of 2020

My 15 favorite TV shows of 2020

Op-eds, Features, and Interviews

Women Pioneered The Film Industry 100 Years Ago. Why Aren’t We Talking About Them? [Bustle]

2020 is the year of the Kind Movie — and it couldn’t have come at a better time [Polygon]

Make a grocery store game plan for stress-free shopping [The Takeout]

What’s Going On: A primer on the call to defund the police [Medium]

Doctor Who’s John Barrowman on the return of Captain Jack Harkness [The A.V. Club]

Episodic TV Coverage

Doctor Who S12

This Is Us S4 and S5

Supergirl S5

Stargirl S1

The Umbrella Academy S2

The Crown S4

NBC’s Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch Musical!

When Romance Met Comedy

Is The Ugly Truth the worst romantic comedy ever made?

Working Girl’s message is timeless, even if the hair and the shoulder pads aren’t

You’ve Got Mail and the power of the written (well, typed) word

Love & Basketball was a romantic slam dunk

How did My Big Fat Greek Wedding make so much money?

America eased into the ’60s with the bedroom comedies of Doris Day and Rock Hudson

I can’t stop watching Made Of Honor

Notting Hill brought two rom-com titans together

It’s time to rediscover one of Denzel Washington’s loveliest and most under-seen romances

Something’s Gotta Give is the ultimate quarantine rom-com

20 years ago, But I’m A Cheerleader reclaimed camp for queer women

On its 60th anniversary, Billy Wilder’s The Apartment looks like an indictment of toxic masculinity

The Wedding Planner made rom-com stars out of Jennifer Lopez and Matthew McConaughey

After 25 years, Clueless is still our cleverest Jane Austen adaptation

William Shakespeare invented every romantic comedy trope we love today

Edward Norton made his directorial debut by walking a priest, a rabbi, and a Dharma into a Y2K rom-com

The forgotten 1970s romantic comedy that raged against our broken, racist system

His Girl Friday redefined the screwball comedy at 240 words per minute

Before Wonder Woman soared into theaters, the hacky My Super Ex-Girlfriend plummeted to Earth

Dirty Dancing spoke its conscience with its hips

The rise of Practical Magic as a spooky season classic

In a dire decade for the genre, Queen Latifah became a new kind of rom-com star

Years before Elsa and Anna, Tangled reinvigorated the Disney princess tradition

Palm Springs is the definitive 2020 rom-com

Celebrate Christmas with the subversive 1940s rom-com that turned gender roles on their head

The A.V. Club Film & TV Reviews

Netflix’s To All The Boys sequel charms, though not quite as much as the original

The Photograph only occasionally snaps into focus

Jane Austen's Emma gets an oddball, sumptuous, and smart new adaptation

Pete Davidson delivers small-time charms in Big Time Adolescence

Council Of Dads crams a season of schmaltzy storytelling into its premiere

In Belgravia, Downton Abbey’s creator emulates Dickens to limited success

Netflix’s Love Wedding Repeat adds some cringe to the rom-com

Netflix takes another shot at Cyrano de Bergerac with queer love triangle The Half Of It

We Are Freestyle Love Supreme is a feel-good origin story for Lin-Manuel Miranda’s first troupe

Sara Bareilles’ melodic Apple TV+ series Little Voice is still finding itself

Netflix’s sexist rom-com sensation gets a minor upgrade in The Kissing Booth 2

With Howard, Disney+ movingly honors the lyricist who gave the Little Mermaid her voice

The Broken Hearts Gallery tries to find catharsis in heartbreak

Netflix’s ghostly musical series Julie And The Phantoms hits some charming tween high notes

After We Collided slides toward R-rated camp—but not far enough

Holidate is a bawdy start to Netflix’s holiday rom-com slate

Kristen Stewart celebrates the Happiest Season in a pioneering queer Christmas rom-com

Isla Fisher gets her own Enchanted in the Disney Plus fairy tale Godmothered

Podcast Appearances

Debating Doctor Who: “Orphan 55”

It Pod To Be You: The Wedding Singer

Reality Bomb: Defending Doctor Who’s “Closing Time”

The Televerse: Spotlight on Doctor Who Season 12

You Should See The Other Guy: The Ugly Truth

Only Stupid Answers: Stargirl’s season finale

Motherfoclóir: Ireland and the Hollywood Rom-Com

Called in to Nerdette’s Clueless retrospective episode

Cinematic Universe Appearances

Cinematic Universe: Superman IV: The Quest For Peace

Cinematic Universe: Birds of Prey

Cinematic Universe: Infinity War watchalong

Cinematic Universe: Endgame watchalong

Cinematic Universe: Terminator 2

Cinematic Universe: Josie and the Pussycats

Cinematic Universe: The Cuppies 2020 (Cuppies of Cuppies)

And here are similar year-end wrap-ups I did in 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, and 2013.

#Best Of #Year End #2020

[neriad13]

Best of the Best Media Consumed 2019!

This year I had a whole lot of focus on nonfiction, film and comics. Resolution for next year: read more fiction. Seriously, I read over three times more nonfiction than fiction this year. I read a little over one novel a month. But I really do love picking up a book on something I know nothing about and coming away knowing more than something. X-P

Anyway! The list!

Books - Fiction

Out of the 17 works of fiction I read this year, the best of the best is...

The Snow Queen, by Joan Vinge

The Snow Queen was one of my absolute favorite fairy tales as a child. The 2002 film adaptation of it was one of the things I watched endlessly. 

It was SO MUCH FUN picking apart this sci-fi retelling and discovering which characters are meant to represent the ones from the original story (of particular interest: the character representing the reindeer is human in this...and he has a one night stand with the character representing Gerta. Yes, I’m still cracking up about this. Yes, it actually was a pretty well written scene). 

But the absolute best part of it was the masterful characterization. Every single character has ulterior motives and often heartbreaking reasons for why they are the way they are - especially including the Snow Queen herself, whose final scene is horrifying, tragic and beautiful. 

I always like me some solid villain characterization.

Runner Up:

Fairy Tales: Traditional Stories Retold for Gay Men

I am not a gay man...but this very much spoke to me. It was at turns heartwarming and hilarious and the turns these fairy tales took felt so natural, like they’d been told that way all along. 

There are also many allusions to AIDS in the stories - sometimes as something a character is directly dealing with whether in himself, or a loved one and sometimes under the guise of a metaphor for inevitability. These ones were my favorites (aside from The Frog Prince, which was turned into a metaphor for accepting the process of aging with grace). 

Books - Nonfiction

Oh boy. There’s...definitely going to be more than one here. Of the 65 works of nonfiction I read this year, my favorites were...

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons From the Crematory

A memoir about the author’s time spent working as a crematory operator and her entry into the funeral business. This book was absolutely hilarious (it contains a story about the author getting absolutely soaked with corpse fat that wouldn’t stop flowing straight out of the incinerator), tragic (a 12 year old girl is cremated and her ashes are mailed back to her parents as part of a cremation mail-in program) and extremely poignant (the author talks openly about the time she was contemplating suicide). 

I love Caitlin’s youtube channel and I loved this book even more.

My Age of Anxiety

Partially the memoir of a man who has battled his extreme anxiety his entire life, a historical study of famous figures who have also endured it and a scientific look into why it exists at all. 

Ultimately, it offers no answers. As of the writing of the book, the author has found no treatment that helps him for longer than a few months. But what he has found over the course of his research is that he is not alone - that anxiety has historically been a factor in scientific breakthroughs and artistic accomplishments. And that perhaps most importantly, that anxiety has been a key part of human evolution from the start, which served a vital role in the survival of the species. 

Mental illness or evolutionary adaptation? Is there even a line between them?

Cassell’s Encyclopedia of Queer Myth, Symbol and Spirit

This is the only book, period, devoted to queer mythology, that I have ever been able to find. But the good news is that it’s fairly extensive (though the authors themselves admit that they had trouble finding as much information about non-western mythology as they did for western mythology), is chock full of references and is extremely thorough in the information it presents. 

I’ll admit that it was a slog to get through at times, but what it’s provided has been invaluable to my conception of history and my own place in it. 

Also, I can now say beyond a shadow of a doubt that almost every culture on earth has at some point in their history had a tradition of transgender shamans.

Hope After Faith

This is the memoir of a charismatic Pentecostal pastor turned atheist. It follows him from teenagerhood and the beginnings of his dream to be a preacher to a little bit after his deconversion decades later. 

The eventual crumbling of his faith was something that spoke to me on a deep level. The scene that I still think about months later is the one in which he finally gives up his belief in the afterlife and accepts the finality of death by saying goodbye to everyone he ever loved who has died with the words “I love you, but I’m never going to see you again.”

I was not a huge fan of the writing style at first, but this one won me over totally and completely. It touched me immensely at the time when I needed it most.

Comics - Fiction

I read 52 fictional comics this year and 46 nonfiction. I absolutely raided my library’s graphic novel section for months. It was a good time.

Beautiful Darkness

A French graphic novel wherein tiny people survive and feud over the corpse of the child they came from. It’s...hard to explain. Kind of a fairy tale Lord of the Flies, but more subtly horrifying. It’s a story about decay and collapse - of society, of the physical form, of the dreams of a child. It has no single interpretation and different people may take something very different from it. The most inventive horror story I read this year.

My Brother’s Husband

A story about microaggressions and how their buildup over time can drive a wedge between people without them even noticing. I cried. Go read it.

Mis(h)adra

A semi autobiographical account of a college student learning how to live with his epilepsy. I also cried over this one. 

The art is stunning, the metaphors are amazing (the main character’s epilepsy is visually portrayed as a set of ghostly knives that follow him around) and the ending is extremely affecting if you’ve ever dealt with any kind of chronic illness. 

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba

The absolute most fun I had reading a comic this year. Gets extremely dark and incredibly sad but never feels overwhelmingly heavy, thanks to its great sense of humor. 

Edward Scissorhands: Parts Unknown + Whole Again

A series of adventures set decades after the movie, after Kim’s death, in a time when her granddaughter begins wondering if the stories about the castle on the hill are true. 

It deals with such issues as the difficulties Kim had with her daughter growing up, when all she would do is tell stories about Edward rather than give her the emotional support she needed, whether removing the thing that both makes you unique and brings pain is worth it and how to stop angry villagers from burning down your house (again). 

Also, seeing Edward be surrounded by a group of friends who care about him was extremely healing.

Comics - Nonfiction

My Solo Exchange Diary vol 1-2

A series of updates about the author’s continuing battle with mental illness and about how recovery is anything but a straight line. 

Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?

Finally, some light reading!

It’s a memoir about the decline and death of the author’s aging parents. 

I found it...extremely comforting. Extreme old age, whether in one’s self or in one’s loved ones, is a scary and often obscured prospect, despite being a near-universal human experience. This book took the mystery out of aging and the fear out of taking care of aging parents. I’ve seen it done now. I’m more ready to do it myself.

The Best We Could Do

A memoir of the author’s family’s flight from Vietnam and their immigration to America, through the lens of the birth of the author’s first child. About how being a refugee changes a person in small, often unexpected ways, how trauma leaves its mark on families - and how, knowing all this, one can still keep living and raising the next generation.

Film - Fiction

I caught up on a lot of classics I’d not seen before and really got into Jidaigeki this year. Me putting only four of them on the list is a show of restraint. Of the 64 films I watched this year...

The Fall of the House of Usher 

Impeccable costume and psychedelic set design. The unanswered question that bounces throughout the entire movie: is it the curse or is it the fault of human belief in the curse?

Patch your walls, dude.

A Monster With a Thousand Heads 

A Mexican thriller about a woman whose husband is denied cancer treatment for seemingly no reason. The doctor gives her the runaround. No one can answer her questions. No one listens to her.

So, naturally, she and her teenage son spend a night kidnapping and holding at gunpoint every person she needs to get her husband’s cancer treatment approved. Wild and intense and timely.

Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

I watched a couple of Kubrick movies I hadn’t seen before and of them...I died laughing at this one. The tight plotting! The inevitable buildup to disaster over something so insanely stupid! 

I did not live during the Cold War, but damn do I feel for the inherent ridiculousness of it now.

Seven Samurai

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAFGFTRTRNHUKIJUHNJNHHHHHHHHHHHHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYHYXCVVGGERDSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!

...this movie is insanely good. I watched Citizen Kane this year. This movie’s better. 

It has a plot which can be described in its totality, in a single sentence - a group of samurai are hired to defend a village from bandits - but what they do with that premise is so much more than that. 

This movie is three hours long. It did not lag once. 

Hara Kiri

As the Tokugawas secure their grip on all of Japan, war ceases. Great houses are dissolved and their retainers, cast into the streets. The relevance of the samurai is ending and the cities are awash in starving ronin. 

Once, one of these starving ronin approached a great house, asking if he might be able to end his life honorably, in front of witnesses there. So impressed was the lord with this ronin’s resolve, that he instead hired him on as one of his retainers. 

Hearing this story, other ronin, having no intention of actually offing themselves, tried the same trick in the hopes of securing a job, or at the very least, a little something to eat. 

It became a common scam which, in the end, fooled no one. Most houses gave the ronin a handful of cash and sent them on their way. 

But one house, seeking to preserve their warlike spirit in these peaceful times, chooses to treat one beggar ronin very differently. 

This is the story of vengeance taken for that death.

Yojimbo

A ronin enters a town that is being torn apart by gang warfare and decides to play both sides in order to end the conflict. It contains such comedic gems as:

 - the ronin suddenly deciding not to take part in a street battle, leaving both sides evenly matched and extremely nervous about fighting each other, while he watches it all from the top of a watchtower, laughing his ass off

 - the ronin is critically injured and being smuggled out of town in a coffin. A fight breaks out while this is happening and scares away one of the people carrying the coffin. A less intelligent goon of the gang he just escaped from is cheerfully recruited to carry the coffin the rest of the way

 - standing up in the coffin, declaring that he’s fine and immediately fainting

Also, you should totally bring a knife to a gun fight. 

Ran

A jidaigeki reimagining of King Lear. 

A visually astounding, sweeping epic with amazing acting and a complex interplay of conflicting passions which might just be more bleak than the original play. 

The scene in which the main character goes mad and is cast out into the wilderness is especially haunting.

Jojo Rabbit

I don’t think I’ve EVER experienced such violent mood whiplash in a movie before. One moment you’re crying-laughing from a joke that hit with absolute perfection and the next you’re...actually crying. In the same scene. Within thirty seconds. Multiple times. It is the oddest feeling to be so elated by the best joke in the entire movie while every character we’ve come to know across the course of the movie is in the process of dying violently. It’s not a feeling everyone’s going to like, but for me it was completely new and fantastic. 

The best part of the movie is the main character’s relationship with Imaginary Friend Hitler. He’s wildly funny and relentlessly charming. I got excited every time he appeared in a scene and was, oddest of all, actually comforted by his presence. 

He was all of these things until, in the most terrifying scene in the movie, he was not.

This movie shows you the mechanisms through which fascism becomes an appealing idea for a lonely child by putting the audience through a version of the same process. It’s so clever, so funny and so sad. 

What do you do when your world is destroyed by absurdity and there is nothing left for you to return to?

You dance in the streets.

TV Series

Good Omens 

Wildly hilarious comedy, fantastic costume design, multiple androgynous characters for which NO ONE bats an eye and honestly?? the best queer love story I’ve ever seen in television or film. 

The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance

I am not sure if I have ever seen a production with so much love poured into it. The dozens of painstakingly crafted sets and characters, the sheer level of artistry on display - the next thing I saw was always more amazing than the thing I’d seen before it and the amazingness just kept coming with no end in sight throughout the entirety of the show.

And the story itself! The way it deepened and played with the lore of the original movie in the most perfect and unexpected ways! It felt like I was watching the most fantastic and labor intensive piece of fanfiction ever conceived, that was written by a person with a deep passion for and knowledge of the source material. 

Speaking of fantastic throwbacks...

Dororo

I’ve said a lot about this one already. While it ultimately fell kind of flat, what it did get right was phenomenal. The motherfucking FIGHT SCENES! The love between bros! The fascinating reconception of Hyakkimaru’s powers and its emphasis on a disabled character actually being portrayed as disabled! The journey of good characters going down the path of evil with good intentions!

Mwah!

Primal eps 1-5

Genndy Tartakovsky’s next big project after the completion of Samurai Jack! 

It is gory. Like, extremely gory. Do you know how much gore a thing has to have before I consider it ‘extremely gory?’ It’s a lot. Like...really a lot. There’s a thirty second (or possibly longer. time lost all meaning as I watched it) sequence in which the main character punches the intestines out of a horde of hominids in loving, exacting detail. It’s like Genndy’s letting out all the pent-up gore he was forced to keep in check during the years when he was working on Samurai Jack. 

But it isn’t just gore. It’s a journey about the main character’s grief over the sudden, horrific, unexpected death of his entire family. A story which is also mirrored by that of the dinosaur he joins forces with. There were parts during it in which I literally felt my heart being torn in two over the travails of these two, as well as wildly funny and completely adorable parts.

The settings, creature design and fight choreography are insanely creative, as is the decision to do it with no dialogue whatsoever.

And that cliffhanger, DAMN!! They’d better get the next five episodes out soon!

Honorable Mention:

Rick and Morty S4 eps 1-5

This one doesn’t entirely make the list proper because the latter two episodes...were rather subpar. But I can’t entirely keep it off the list because the quality of the first three episodes was off the charts. A particular shoutout to ‘The Old Man and the Seat’ and ‘One Crew Over the Crewcoo’s Morty’ - the former, which somehow managed to use toilet humor, of all things, to reach a crushingly tragic conclusion and the latter, which has a twist better than that of some of my favorite horror movies. 

Games

Shogun 2

I didn’t do a whole lot of gaming at all this year. But what I did do is have a fantastic time getting into the Total War franchise. Shogun 2 was my entry point and a FANTASTIC game. The ninja animations! The tiny, exacting animations of every single person running around on a sinking ship! The way Realm Divide changes the game into something much more dangerous and the way I learned to dance on the edge of it until I was good and ready! 

Plays

Love’s Labours Lost

One of two Shakespeare plays I saw this year, the other being The Tempest - which was also excellent (especially the part where it legit started raining when Ariel summoned the storm in the first scene and then that showing had to be cancelled. The second time was the charm). 

Love’s Labours Lost had some excellent comedy and the usual absurd web of misunderstandings you’d expect to find in your standard Shakespeare romcom. But the thing which pushed it over the edge for me was that...it had a sad ending. It goes against the definition of comedy and has a sad ending. Because it was so unexpected, it hit unexpectedly hard and made it that much more memorable.

#jojo rabbit #akira kurosawa #rick and morty #the dark crystal: age of resistance #good omens #primal #a thought #long post

[sugartums]

The Full Heart and Emotional Availability

I.

The drive home from the Theater for Emotive Artificial Intelligence Science was in the rain on gravel roads past the one/laned bridge. The country. A lone squirrel was making her frantic search for acorns and sustenance for the winter. My winter of discontent, no more, thought she.

He should start acting differently in a few weeks, it’s done, the Maestro determined. It was all a matter of time now. His brain is sub/affecting the change through his baptismal/implanted devices as we speak. They were still current, no new insertion needed for the next twelve years. Strange:  none of the future Meridians had any recollection of the pain inflicted by violent insertion of ear-implants; a ritual unquestioned and decided long before consciousness was attained.

The Maestro remote activated the device to reconfigure the area around the corpus colosseum; (like in Rome, said Maestro), so that when she arrived back home; her live/in boyfriend would already be Engaged. Interconnected cryptic syntax; nerves talking one another or something, his being unaware of the whole affectation of his advanced personality. Blah blah blah.

He would be better that way, such as was advertised on TV.

Click click, program supra/routine engaged: Emotional Availability: EA.

It wasn’t a cheap upgrade. The MC in his electric/silver/plated desk and his silver/black hair swiveled when she balked at the non/premium covered cost of her boyfriend’s brain evolution. That’s not what it said on TV. The Maestro said nothing as prices were haggled.

Slicked back and side parted.

Long metallic pen in thin/tarantula length fingers, fingering the thing.

False/glass plate windows were back in vogue and behind him, the foggy dusty lines framed the once-scientist.

Weary and heaving downward in the chest, he determined the price again without argument. MC would indeed be the Master of the Ceremony and the coin.

She weighed her actions like a laundry list.

←←←←←

II.

The night before the upgrade he didn’t respond to her question. While watching her

decision  (re Boyfriend) stare at the plexiglass moonroof of their bedroom, flat-backed;  "Do you ever feel anything?" asked she.

“Whaat?” and a chuckle from him.

Even worse, any text messages received from him, after her explanation remembering a time-frame, or a series of events surrounding them, were answered with an “I see”.

She thought he may as well have said, “I don’t give a shite” instead of “I see”.

Halloween was over. The guise of insanity no longer an excuse for Fools.

↑↑↑↑

In the next phase, the doctor said, the subject, i.e. Raymond, would be responding more lovingly and with empathy.

It would be another few weeks before anything would happen; runtime errors, bugs, and self-deletion of wayward files.  

It was good for humans to have a heart. Every stew needs a salting.

Even some humans rejected the attempt of science to force more humanity, said the once-scientist. I don’t want this to happen, she thought.

Halloween was over. The guise of insanity no longer a suggestion. Who dresses up on the other days of the year?

←←←←

The stupefied glow of a man after orgasm reaches a point of lull for only five seconds, then he becomes aware of reality again. The Fukijawa light on a semi-warrior pose of Raymond by the wall window held for more than five seconds-- there was a time she could stare at his slim-toned stomach for many seconds after sex. In this time frame, she was getting up to clean herself off after the five-second lull. Wasn't the time used now for better things than sex? But without sex Raymond would retreat further into his Mother's figurative tentacles. Birdsmouth would be around to feed him immediately at her exit.

His body was never the problem. His sexual prowess, even without the help of botvibes, was never the problem.

His mind: was what she said in her mind. Born and raised without empathy. That kind of person. Mean sometimes. Critical of her driving. Unnaturally negative in simple conflicts.

Lush green mountain flora and sweet smelling air. Country s-curve roads in a to

p-down blood red Mitsubishi r-type.

→→→→

“The end of the story is when the people go away, then only come back as spirits,” Mirima explained to her 6-year old niece when visiting Fractiontown trying to forget about Raymond’s upgrade to complete.

“I don’t like this story, Aunty Em,  it scares me too much.”  Mirima laughed, “No, my baby, this is just a story that is not true, and what you are hearing cannot really happen, people cannot come back as spirits.”

“What about ghosts,” she was curious.

“I don’t know about ghosts, but your grandma is still with me, I can feel her. “  

“Do you still  talk to her anymore?”

“When I miss her, “ then a wave of emotion, silently stepped stage center from a waiting place; so Mirima let it, and let it more. Tears cannot be repressed when your heart is full.

“Stop,” said the niece slowly and atonally. Again three more times.

Mirima came home five days later.

Raymond worked at a polymer plant and got through traffic and gravel roads around  

1900ss.

His self-chosen duties were to make the dinner of fish and rice, sauces, and soy, peas and beans. Sauces and soy, peas and beans. He had an apron to protect his clothes. He maneuvered around the kitchen like one of his robots doing inspections. He amused himself by acting as they would; sharp stops and slow turning.

Control of heat and time. Watch the flame. Lower the flame.

Toss the food, Plate the table.

She sat at the supper table and looked on the outside of his deeply Jade and orange-flecked eyes, soft black eyelashes, and the Steve Martin-esque hairline from 1979. It was some kind of rage and admiration always. Both at once, unlike a cup of milk on the table. The table had other things there like a bowl of rice, but the rice would never be judged.

After dinner, she looked for some signs and was told to preview her questions slowly but surely over the course of four weeks. One question per day to solicit an emotional response. When the desired answer was received, she could then reward and affirm him through a series of phrases and personal attention.  

The physical attention was the first thing she desired from him in the commencement of their matchmaking.  Then as the progression happened, and her happiness waned, she let him move into her complex. He was more than willing to take over the financial and the household task halves. She watched him at the stove and garbage bin a

nd held back screams of rage.

But there were no sounds to describe the horror.

The secret remote engagement of the missing elements would be modulated to the maximum potential of Raymond’s emotional threshold. Max. pot. meaning using the prefrontal cortex as a type of clay, molded to make the emotional elements missing, would force the man into a more balanced being.

Dionysius and Apollo. Yin and yang. The fullness of the heart and mind.

                                        Lonely. Cold. Scared. Alone.

This morning she decided to wake early to make some muesli with honey and kiwi. Some fruits were rare and showed extra love to prepare for someone.

He came to the table dressed and pressed. He had a smile on his face. She asked how he was doing, he gave her a tiny pinch on the shoulder at the breakfast bar while bussing his bowl to the island.

Oh god, a rush of dopamine, oh yes. Thank you for touching me. It is happening, It is

happening! She suppressed the joy/wave but smiled back. Have a good day honey, I love you.

Love you too. And into the gravel driveway to the Mitsubishi Eclypse.

III.

Because this will help us. Because he is disabled by lack of emotion. Because he is a man.

He will thank me later for this. She wandered mentally in this matrix for the rest of her morning. She had to take off this day to get some bloodwork done. She was having her own brain chemistry tested to make sure her evolution was in order. No new upgrades for me.

I am tired today. I am feeling slow and tired. Does this happen when someone else changes?

→→→→→→

On the desk a month later, in her computer room, was a card. It said her name in black ink. She opened it and saw the picture of a heart on the front with some kind of abstract fish swimming through it.

She had a pause before the feeling she was looking for.

Ecstasy. She had to calm her beating heart. Inside, the card said:

“I have sunk like a stone to the depths of the ocean; I am lost in devotion.”

Love, Raymond

She lay back in bed with the card on her chest and cried a joyful messy cry with minimal repression.

I want to feel this way every day please please my God I knew this would work and my dreams would come true finally

She drove off the gravel driveway looking straight ahead. This will last with her eyes unblinking at the battery of red lights that forced her to pause. She would not be stopped now. Her way was now.

→→→→→

The second card. Two months later. Know that she never brought up the cards; that would ruin it. I’m not dull in the brain, for Pete’s sake.

A picture of a saint or something, looking woeful, and in pain. Only inside a quote:

"And what God? Great Jove,

Who shakes heaven's highest temples with his thunder,

And I, poor mortal man, not do the same!

I did it, and with all my heart I did it."

She put on the computer to find an answer...it was St. Augustine, talking about sex and then going on about it in a Confessional; about the vileness of lust.  

This is not what I want..I wanted to love, I must bring this up to Raymond.

She forced with some flesh resistance, a pair of crystal hoop earrings into the second hole in each ear. It was enjoyable, the feel of the skin ripping. Take it, bitch.

That voice came from nowhere and inside her head, responding to whatever leftover guilt remained. For sneaking, for cheating, for getting what she thought she wanted.

→→→→→

There is first spring, and then there is summer. You now, do not become you later.

The person who has settled down on the train is not the same person who stepped onto the train on the platform.

True words are not beautiful.

Raymond made statements such as these. Mirima went into the bathroom to knock on her head with her fist.  She caused a flux of a person; no longer a consistent person. He was more emotional, yes. But was he sensing his brain was different? What did he know of this programming?

If he was giving her a clue, it was when helped her with the kitchen duties. He said I want you to know, I will never judge you. You can be honest with me. She turned from scooping the prickly pear fruit:

Let’s go horseback riding then, you said the smell of horses makes you sick. If you

can handle that, then I know you won’t judge me for forcing you to go.

The jumping of the beasts was horrifying to him, more so at this moment; but the lucidity and clayness of her face; this new frontal cortex made him think, ok, I will go.

Ok, I will go, he said aloud.  She shrieked and hugged him around the hips; the hips felt round and lovely, like the vulnerable thighs of a baby.

IV.

The self that travels from moment to moment, corresponding to the moving water on the waves. This is the meaning that no one experiences anything, there is simply seeing and experiencing.  

The Maestro spoke to the young woman with the gentle approach of an ancient technologist; the folding rice paper table held a few oyster shells, upside down and holding sticks.

I cannot find a place to love him, he is changing in a way I cannot compute. Maestro sighed, took a long look out the plexiglass, then sneezed with a loud AHHH before the choo.  

Recovering swiftly; I can only tell you that what you experience, and you, are the same thing, he said.

So I am looking at his changes, but my insides are not separate from his outside changes?

He ignored her question, then asked if she would take a short test, to see if her brain was doing its job properly. You know, he said, the job for the thing one owns; memories, experiences, Raymond. She laid on the couch submissively with her legs spindly, hanging off the settee.

Raymond got off the phone with the Maestro and grabbed his keys. He would be going horseback riding after all. It was time to move on to look at things he no longer feared. It was his solemn duty to learn how to enjoy himself, the man said.

Mirima was absolutely smashed from a few cocktails at the kitchen table. He was hoping she would be fine to ride when they got there in two hours. Into the deep country, away from gravel and smog. No place to bicker, only the horses. He loved her fully now, no more fear of risks.

On the hill, she was still buzzed but quite aware of her skills inherited from a family

of farmers and tillers. She opted for no helmet, her hair was sprayed and beautifully luscious with copper tones.

No, he would not jump, he would take a stroll on one of the older beasts; on a short journey in the wood while she got her courage to leap over the five-foot barriers.

It was a perfect blue/sky morning. She raced forward and the horse’s gait leaned to the left. She over compromised on the right, and her foot fell from the

←←←←

Down on the ground and neck

Slowly people around the body, she is conscious, she is ok.

Raymond took her to the hospital himself, 23 kilometers away, and raced like a wooden horse.  Carried in as a Princess...saved by actions, saved by his works. This was not in the time/frame.

In the waiting room, he sat with his hands folded, knees wide apart, facing the floor.

He was called in and she was bandaged around the head and awake. I love you he felt.

“ I love you, my dear, I have to tell you something..I know what you did, you were stalked..we will be together forever, we wanted you to accept the upgrade….” he burst into tears, the first cry of his time with her. Amidst blubbering, his head in her braless breasts, I

love you I love you...

With furrowed brows, she gently pushed his head away.

“Who are you?”

#emotionallyavailable #the future #relationships nanobots upgrades transhumanism

[recentanimenews]

THE GREAT CRUNCHYROLL NARUTO REWATCH Heats up with the Legendary Sannin Battle in Episodes 92-98!

  It's that time, y'all. It's time for the GREAT CRUNCHYROLL NARUTO REWATCH! I'm Nicole Mejias, and I'll be your host this week as we make our way through all 220 episodes of the original Naruto. Last week, we tackled episodes 85-91, introducing us into the arc of Tsunade's path to becoming the next Hokage. This week, we've got episodes 92-98 on the docket, so let's get to it!

Last week we started to learn more about Tsunade, the woman who may become the next Hokage. This batch of episode leads us through her decision and the conflicts that arise from it, with a heavy focus on the three legendary ninja: Jiraiya, Orochimaru, and Tsunade. Naruto is sort of just along for the ride here, but we get to see the birth of his signature ability: The Rasengan! Kabuto also makes some serious impressions here, and at the end of the episodes, the Leaf Village finds themselves with a new leader. We also start to learn a bit more about the fate of Rock Lee after the disastrous results of the Chunin Exam, and things don't look very good for him. 

Let's see what the Crunchyroll Features team thought of this week's slew of episodes!

These episodes deal heavily with Tsunade's struggle to decide whether to accept the title of Hokage or not. How do you feel about Tsunade as a character after this resolution of her introduction arc?

Kevin: Based on her arc and characterization, I have no doubt that she will care about the Village, however I’m not convinced that she’s actually a good choice for Hokage. It seems more like no one outside of the Sannin are famous enough to be recommended for the position.

David: She’s definitely one of my favorites at this point. Regarding her arc so far, I’m glad the story let her have a moment where she stands up and assumes responsibility, without going back and pretending she doesn’t have any of her character flaws anymore. Change is a slow process.

Paul: Tsunade gets some heroic moments and we learn enough about her past and the traumas that she's overcome to get a good idea about her character, but I'm still not sure how she'll cope as the Fifth Hokage, as the position doesn't seem to fit her personality very well. I'd like to see more about her perspective as a field medic. What would it be like to be a super-powered doctor in a world crawling with deadly ninja?

Noelle: I think Tsunade’s pretty great! It’s not easy to step up and take charge, and it’s definitely not easy to push past long-existing traumas, but she manages to do just that. It’s also not something shown as easy, which I appreciate. I think it might take her some getting used to, but I think somewhere down the line, she can be a good leader.

Joseph: I still think it’s wild to have a medic ninja with a fear of blood but I dig Tsunade. She has some real struggles to cope with and I like that she had to see firsthand the threats her people are up against to make her big decision.

Jared: I liked her more as these episodes went on compared to last week. Like others here, I’m curious to see how she is able to handle the responsibilities of being the Hokage. Especially with regards to all the turmoil the village is dealing with and having to rebuild from what happened.

Kara: Definitely still liking Tsunade, but I love the extra context here. The English major in me also loved how her overcoming her fear coincided with her healing herself. Very nice. And again, I am cool with a Hokage who’s willing to throw down against a kid.

Danni: I think she’ll contrast well with what we saw of the Third Hokage. I dig her a lot right now, especially since she got over her fear of blood. It was a nice dose of irony, but it kept becoming an excuse to have her cower in the corner, which honestly sucked a lot considering she’s like the strongest woman in the world.

Naruto succeeds in using the Rasengan here! What's your opinion on Naruto's growth throughout the series? He seems to get the most 'on-screen' training, but sometimes still seems outclassed by everyone somehow. What do you think about the successful execution of the Rasengan?

Kevin: The Rasengan is the first time we’ve seen Naruto truly struggle with training, and even when he pulled it off this first time, it was a spur of the moment inspiration, rather than definitely mastering the technique ahead of time. As for Naruto’s growth thus far, I’m a sucker for Shounen training so I’ve had a good time with it. He doesn’t really change as a character, but I like the worldbuilding and expanding magic system that comes from more in-depth training arcs.

David: Watching Naruto grow is genuinely satisfying, largely because it almost never feels like he is granted said growth simply because the story calls for it. He’s a good kid who is constantly working hard to achieve his goals. His quick thinking on successfully performing the Rasengan makes perfect sense given how he usually works out problems, and the aftermath of its effects on his body proves he has ways to go yet.

Paul: We've seen Naruto grow in terms of his Chakra-manipulation and Ninjutsu skills, but my favorite moments have been the ones that emphasize Naruto's growth as a character, such as when he steps back and lets Sakura have her moment with the newly-revived Sasuke. There's a heavy focus on Naruto's sense of empathy, which is more interesting in my opinion than his combat prowess. Regarding training, going forward I'd like to see Naruto develop a completely original Jutsu rather than just putting a creative spin on an existing technique.

Noelle: Naruto really deserved this moment. Some shonen it really feels like protagonists get their powers out of nowhere, either too easily or merely when the plot calls for it, but Naruto actively struggles. The show devoted quite a bit of time to showing how the Rasengan is complicated, hard to master, and not very intuitive. As such, when Naruto finally gets it, that’s purely satisfying.

Joseph: I know Naruto’s inner powers give him a massive advantage over almost all his opponents, but I love how genuinely hard working he is. He’s gone from being annoying to imo a total sweetpea over the course of 98 episodes and I think they’ve done a great job carrying out both his training and personal growth.

Jared: I really enjoyed seeing him go through all of the training to finally figure out a way to make this technique his own. You could see the struggle he had to go through to get to that point, and when it finally pays off, it’s wonderful. He’s definitely undergone a lot of growth throughout the series which has been enjoyable to watch, such as giving Sakura and Sasuke a moment when he wakes up. It was a rather mature moment from him which isn’t what you expect from the beginning of the series.

Kara: Creativity with jutsus, both making them work in the first place and how they’re used, is something I’ve been enjoying consistently about Naruto. I also haven’t been giving this kid nearly enough credit for his lateral thinking skills. Yeah, he keeps on cranking out Shadow Clone Jutsu, but it’s his favorite and one he can do in his sleep, so it makes a lot of good sense for him to recontextualize difficult techniques from a familiar starting point. I kind of want to show these training sequences to my teacher friends; I think they’d appreciate them.

Danni: I was amused by how they managed to walk the line between having him master this near-impossible to master technique in two weeks without having him master it the RIGHT way so he can still be the underdog. I’m glad he has some more tricks up his sleeve now with the summoning and the Rasengan. I like him a lot as a protagonist and can’t wait to see him start using his newfound abilities in *checks schedule* the weeks and weeks of upcoming filler.

Kabuto makes a lot of waves in these episodes, showing off his particular strengths. How do you feel about Kabuto here? I remember when I first watched this that I found Kabuto a lot cooler than I think I do now.

Kevin: *Insert laughter with growing insanity* Oh Kabuto, you started out as a simple henchman. So far, he seems like a legitimate threat, at the level of a Jonin and combat skills on par if not above Tsunade while also being such an unknown that he was able to take the Chunin exam with the main cast. Later on… well, we’ll get to that eventually.

David: I’m honestly kind of frustrated he is so powerful that he can stand up to a Sannin like Tsunade, and the only real explanation for that so far is basically “well he works for Orochimaru, so…”. Hopefully this gets explored more in the future.

Paul: Kabuto is such a gigantic dork. He's like the kid in a tabletop game of Risk who grabs Australia and turtles up, turning the entire game into an inevitable nine hour slug-fest. I'll be happy when someone finally gives him the shinobi equivalent of an Atomic Wedgie.

Noelle: I do love my antagonists, so ruthless Kabuto ranks much higher to me than friendly Kabuto. Like Kevin says, it’s best to just judge him at the moment, and so far, he’s pretty okay. I’m not that impressed overall, for him being able to do hard damage on Tsunade seems a little bit much, but I guess they had to establish him as a threat.

Joseph: Kabuto is kind of corny. I did like him being recognized as the battle against Orochimaru began, but I could take or leave him at this point.

Jared: The way they’ve been able to position him as this guy who looks out for Naruto to now wanting to murder him has been very good, because it made his eventual turn that much better. I don’t know how much I buy him being as accomplished as he seems, but I guess him being recognized by Orochimaru is a good endorsement. Although, I still feel like I’m waiting for him to do another double cross at some point.

Kara: I’ve watched enough giant robot anime to know what happens to right hands. I’d like to be able to take time to appreciate him, but I just keep wondering when he’s gonna get killed, betrayed, used as a meat shield, sacrificed for some greater purpose, replaced, demoted…

Danni: The more evil and cool they try to make Kabuto the more he comes across as a lame tryhard. I feel like I’ve heard at least in passing heard of or seen every single character in Naruto EXCEPT him, which probably means he isn’t all that important.

Let's address a somewhat unfortunate problem: the way Tsunade gets depicted and looked at in this show. I noticed it a lot more than I did when I watched this originally, and I was curious if you think the focus on boob jokes and such harms Tsunade's character, especially since she's the new Hokage?

Kevin: I definitely noticed it as a kid. It’s not great, but mostly only lasts a few seconds at a time and then she reestablishes either how much ass she kicks without even trying or reminds everyone that she is the one in charge. I’m not sure if it hurts her character or not, but it definitely doesn’t help. Luckily, she at least has more characterization that being just a boob, gambling and drinking gag on loop.

David: I don’t mind the drinking and gambling; those seem like real character flaws tied closely to her trauma and commitment issues. The constant focus on her looks from basically every other character is a problem though, one that unfortunately extends to how the show treats its entire female cast. It wouldn’t be as bad if, say, it was just a quirk of Shikamaru’s, but when everyone in the whole show does it to some extent or another, there’s clearly a more fundamental issue at play.

Paul: Maybe I've been poisoned by decades of anime fan-service, but I found the stuff surrounding Tsunade to be rather restrained at first. She spends most of her introductory episodes wearing that huge jacket, so the camera doesn't really have much opportunity to leer at her body, although when the jacket comes off we get a Powergirl scenario, where I swear they draw Tsunade's breasts larger in every subsequent cut just to see what they can get away with. It also took them something like 10 episodes for someone to face-plant into her cleavage, so...progress?

Noelle: Unfortunately, this isn’t a Tsunade-only problem—Kishimoto really isn’t that great at writing women overall. This is just one example of that larger problem. As for her specifically, I’m not going to pretend it’s good. Framing things like this is an author’s choice, and a deliberate one. That being said, as uncomfortable as it is, it’s not as bad as some fanservice other series pulls. That doesn’t mean it’s good though, I’d rather Tsunade not be framed like this at all, but this is what we get.

Joseph: I, too, have anime poison, because I didn’t think much of it. I also remember that aspect from when the series first aired and it seems pretty tame as far as not including too much nonsense fan-service goes.

Jared: I said this last week that I’m not surprised that they’d write her kind of poorly after what we’ve already seen with Sakura. I guess it could be worse and be something like Jiraiya just perving after her all the time, but trying to build her up as getting over her trauma to finally taking the position of Hokage, to then having Konohamaru face plant into her cleavage is not great.

Kara: I don’t think I’m un-poisoned but I must have an unpleasantly high threshold. Nothing about Tsunade’s depiction bothered me up until Konohamaru motorboated her, and then I just kinda died inside.

Danni: I’m honestly surprised by how few boob jokes there’ve been. The only one I can recall is when Konohomaru bumps into her and just starts motorboating. What really sticks out to me though is all the guys being jerks about her age. Like, a hot woman in her 50s who can kill me with one hit? That’s the IDEAL woman.

So, these episodes leave us with some bad news in terms of resolution: Rock Lee's ninja career seems to be over. I know people are pretty partial to Rock Lee, and I remember being pretty upset when he got so hurt during the exams. What are your thoughts about Lee's future? (Feel free to talk about how great of a character Lee is!)

Kevin: Tsunade, if you ever talk to my ninja son like that ever again, you’ll wish you had stayed in that tourist town. Seriously though, that revelation was so well choreographed (especially Lee’s reaction) that I remembered almost the exact wording, even years after previously seeing the scene. It makes going back to the Third Exam Preliminaries even tougher to watch, since throughout Lee’s fight against Gaara, we see the failure struggle against impossible odds and know that not only will he fail, but even after seeing him raise to continue fighting while unconscious, the damage he inflicted on himself created what is basically a coin flip whether he can pursue his dream or die trying.

David: I know there’s been a lot of arguably more important things going on, but this continuous stretching of Lee’s suffering is almost getting to be too much really. His fight was fifty episodes ago, and he’s constantly working on getting better, yet every time we check in on him things just look worse. But really this comes from a place of caring—stop teasing us, if he’s gonna get better, I wanna see him get better already!

Paul: Lee is a lovely good boy, and I'm surprised that they've kept him out of commission for as long as they have, but if Sasuke can survive two brushes with death without permanent repercussions on his health, then I have to believe that Lee will pull through somehow, too. The state of his injuries weeks later makes me angry at Might Guy for allowing Lee to push his body past the breaking point, though.

Noelle: Give Lee a break! I didn’t really pay much attention to him during my first viewing years back but Lee really does deserve better. He does nothing but try hard, and has gotten this far on the power of hard work alone. Seeing geniuses get by with relative ease but Lee getting the short end of the stick hurts. Do I think this is going to be a permanent thing? No, I doubt it, but the fact that he has to deal with this in the first place—give this boy a vacation.

Joseph: Definitely a heart-breaker, but I have confidence that Kishimoto won’t relegate such a good character to the sidelines. Right? RIGHT?

Jared: Rock Lee is still the best boy in this entire dang series and I really hope we get to see his triumphant return. If it goes that route, it won’t be easy, but that boy can totally do it with how mentally tough he is. Plus, if that’s where it does go, I’m expecting some pro wrestling style injury return hype videos.

Kara: I can’t believe they’d bring a badass medical ninja to town, make her Hokage, and then have her not be able to help my best boy. I’m with Paul—as much as I appreciate Might Guy sticking to the sports anime hardcore training aesthetic, I’m not pleased with him letting Lee mess himself up to this degree. He knows Lee will fight ‘til he’s burger unless someone stops him, and sometimes that’s not a good thing. This is largely, if not entirely, on Guy.

Danni: Like I said before, I don’t think we’ve seen the last of Rock Lee.

And, as always, what are the high and low points in this week’s set of episodes?

Kevin: High point - Up until the end of the final episode, I was going to give it to the Sannin fight, since we finally see full-fledged ninja fighting all out, but we also know that none of them are at full strength and so know that this isn’t even as crazy as it can get. Lee getting notified by the top medical ninja that he should give up his dream takes the top spot though. It was absolutely heart rending to hear, even knowing full well that it was coming and how it resolves. Low point - Shikamaru and his dad. It was a short moment, but really guys? Women are basically just around to give the men a reason to do good things, and even the sharpest edged one will show a soft side to the one she loves? Mister Nara, please update your morals a bit.

David: High point is Naruto inheriting the First Hokage’s necklace. After all of her backstory, that moment more than anything else is proof of both Naruto’s perseverance and growth as well as Tsunade’s renewed faith in both herself and the future. Low point is basically the entire “Naruto kidnapping” episode, not because I think it was entirely pointless or bad, but because it really didn’t need to be a whole episode and the pacing of this show is otherwise much better than that.

Paul: My high point is a tie between Gamatatsu, the adorably inept Frog Summon with the sunny disposition, and Katsuyu, the gigantic Slug Summon with the gentle voice and extremely respectful manner of speech. I love both of those characters. My low point is a tie between Jiraiya giving himself heatstroke in an attempt to be a perv at the mixed bathing hot springs and Shikamaru's continued low-grade misogyny. Tsunade is the Fifth Hokage, and you will treat her with respect, young man!

Noelle: High points, the Sannin fight, from giant kaiju battles to everyone going one on one. Tsunade riding Gamabunta’s sword and slamming at into Manda’s mouth was something I loved as a kid and I sure do love that now! Tsunade throwing hands is also completely delightful. Low point, Shikamaru’s not so subtle misogyny. Really, Shikamaru? Really?

  Joseph: High point: Gamatatsu is my new favorite Naruto character. Low point: The C-grade hot spring episode I almost completely tuned out during.

Jared: Naruto catching Kabuto’s knife in between his fingers was the most hardcore and metal thing he’s done in this entire series and it was AWESOME. Low points would be the hot spring episode which was just there and Shikamaru’s monologue about women.

Kara: High point is absolutely Tsunade making Orochimaru into her own personal punching bag, especially when she was just whipping him around by the tongue. Close second is good boy Gamatatsu having a lovely first day out. Low point was the show bringing Jiraiya’s perv aspect right back into play after that awesome fight. I’d nearly forgotten about it, but here we are.

Danni: Low point goes to Shikamaru and his dad. For real, guys? You’re both pretty cool, but there’s no excuse for misogyny. High point was easily watching Tsunade just beat the everloving crap out of Orochimaru for like 5 minutes.

COUNTERS:

"I'm gonna be Hokage!" count: 16 Bowls of ramen consumed: 2 bowls Shadow Clones created: 17 + 1 uncountable scene

Total so far:

"I'm gonna be Hokage!" count: 48 Bowls of ramen consumed: 35 bowls + 3 cups Shadow Clones created: 314

And that's everything for this week! Remember that you're always welcome to join us for this rewatch, especially if you haven't watched the original Naruto! Watch Naruto today!

Here's our upcoming schedule:

- April 26th will have DAVID LYNN take us to the Land of Waves in episodes 99-105.

- May 3rd features PAUL CHAPMAN, who will walk us through the inevitable Naruto vs Sasuke in episodes 106-112.

- May 10th, JOSEPH LUSTER will give us the deets on the Sound Four.

Thank you for joining us for the Great Crunchyroll Naruto Rewatch! Have a great weekend, and we'll see you all next time!

Have anything to say about our thoughts on Episodes 92-98? Let us know in the comments! Don't forget, we're also accepting questions and comments for next week, so don't be shy and feel free to ask away!

----

Nicole is a features and a social video script writer for Crunchyroll. Known for punching dudes in Yakuza games on her Twitch channel while professing her love for Majima. She also has a blog, Figuratively Speaking. Follow her on Twitter: @ellyberries

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

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[vitalmindandbody]

Tragic, fascinating, bright- life of’ wild child’ Zelda Fitzgerald revisited

Two movies and a TV serial out soon portray the life of the jazz-age novelist and spouse of F Scott Fitzgerald

She is thought of as the original wild child, a pearl-twirling party daughter who died at persons under the age of 47 after a attack breaks out in the North Carolina sanatorium where she was a patient. Now Zelda Fitzgerald, the southern belle returned jazz-age protagonist, dubbed the first American flapper by her husband and partner-in-drink Scott, is to have her own Hollywood make-over two movies are in the pipeline and a television series will air on Amazon Prime early next year.

All three jobs have starry names affixed: Jennifer Lawrence will take the lead in Zelda , a biopic be administered by Ron Howard and based on Nancy Milfords best-selling account; Scarlett Johansson will bob her whisker for The Beautiful and The Damned ; and Christina Ricci will play the young and impetuous Zelda in the Amazon series Z: The Beginning of Everything. The entitlement of the TV succession comes from Scotts awestruck comment on see Zelda: I desire her, and thats the beginning and end of everything.

So what is it about Zelda that mesmerizes almost 70 times after her dreadful cease? In fraction it is that the convulsions the couple lived through find an resemble in our own tumultuous times.

Interest in the Fitzgeralds has definitely been on the projected increase is not simply since Baz Luhrmanns film of The Great Gatsby in 2013 but too from the many latitudes between their lives and piece and the period were living through right now, answers Sarah Churchwell, generator of the critically acclaimed Careless Beings: Slaying, Mayhem and The Invention of the Great Gatsby .

Its a narration of thunder and bust and it reverberates as we are grappling with our own thunder and failure, our own concerns about the costs of our plethoras and our own social failures. Human life and fates of Scott and Zelda peculiarly mimicked their eras: in the 1920 s they were roaring for all they were value, but with the gate-crash in 1929, everything fell apart.

It helps, extremely, that Zelda was so vibrant a representation. It begins with her knockout, reads Churchwell. But likewise with the fibs told in the 1920 s about the high jinks and fun she and Scott seemed to have. People really liked her: she was surprising, smart, astute, funny and adoration a good defendant. She likewise liked to be the centre of tending, and so had her detractors more. These happenings combined to make her a legend.

Scott repeatedly returned to their relationship in his myth, most notably in his second fiction, The Beautiful and Damned , which details the heady early days of their wedlock; and his doleful fourth, Tender Is The Night , in which the gilded reverie has faded into a more tawdry actuality. Zeldas simply novel, Save Me The Waltz , presented the relationship from her side.

They were arguably Americas first luminary pairing: a carefree golden pair who wrote their way into the spotlight, generating their own myth of gin-soaked days and fun-filled nights, merely to linger too long formerly the light had started to dim. Their recklessness becomes the storey exciting and spectacular, mentions Churchwell. But they paid a high price.

After a few giddy years, all the youthful predict crumbled away, leaving Scott a stupefied and drunk jobbing hack in Hollywood and accompanying Zelda to breakdown at the age of 30, a diagnosis of schizophrenia , now widely thought to be a bipolar illness, and a life in and out of sanatoriums.

Her story is both fascinating and regrettables, tells Therese Anne Fowler, on whose novel Z the Amazon series is based. Here we have a woman whose talents and vigour and intellect should have realise her a bright success, who was determined to be an achieved master, scribe and ballet dancer in an period where married girls were supposed to be wives and mothers, stage. Her devotion to Scott was, in many ways, her undoing[ although] he was just as imprisoned as she was. Had they affection one another less, they might both have come to better ends.

The idea of Zelda as a bright woman trapped by her epoch has gained traction in recent years, with a number of cultivates re-evaluating her through the prism of feminism although it is not ever the most wonderful of fits. As early as 1974, the couples daughter Scottie repelled such assertions, writing the purpose of which is to belief her father as a classic put-down wife, whose efforts to express her nature were thwarted by a often male chauvinist pig partner were no longer accurate.

Writing in the New Yorker in 2013, Molly Fischer agreed , noting: Saving Zelda Fitzgerald is no easy hypothesi …[ she] does not want to be anyones pet, and theres something baffling about the literary readiness to domesticate her, to change an exasperating woman into an appealing heroine.

The new movies may well further Hollywoodise Zelda, sanding away her rough lines and reinventing her as a relatable heroine for our modern times. The molding of Lawrence so often was regarded as Americas Sweetheart in the Howard biopic is no accident.

A report about the upcoming Johansson film in the Hollywood Reporter showed it would draw on previously unreleased fabric explained that her husband embezzled his wifes suggestions as his own.

Mark Gill, chairman of Millennium Films, the yield corporation behind The Beautiful and The Damned , concurs : She was massively ahead of her period and she took a vanquish for it. He plagiarized her ideas and made them in his works. The wedlock was a codependency from blaze with a jazz-age soundtrack. The film has, nonetheless, secured the co-operation of the Fitzgerald estate.

Fowler agrees that there is a developing propensity to apply our own concerns to Zelda. We do anoint her as a kind of proto-feminist heroine, even though she didnt receive herself as a feminist and didnt amply replace at anything, she replies. But her original reputation is based on conventional paternalistic standards of what a woman, mother and spouse ought to be and do. Her ambitions and her insistence on engaging them were considered inappropriate and unhealthy; after her psychotic smash she was literally told that this insistence had created her split mind and that the path to a antidote lay in giving up all desires that didnt conform to the paternalistic ideal.

Scarlett Johansson, Jennifer Lawrence and Christina Ricci are all set to play Zelda Fitzgerald in the forthcoming productions The Beautiful and the Damned, Zelda and Z: The Beginning of Everything. Composite: Getty Images

The backlash against this image is intelligible given that popular opinion of Zelda was initially driven by Ernest Hemingways notoriously corrosive descriptions in A Moveable Feast , produced posthumously in 1964, in which he dismissed her as insane and blamed Scotts changing dependence on alcohol on his wife.

Our perception has very much changed, replies Churchwell. We have come to sympathise with her thwarting, to recognise her gifts and to be more fair-minded about her selects. That read, she prudences against attempts to create a Team Scott/ Team Zelda segment, as is so often the case in famous literary partnerships. Its important to say that they always affection each other and wouldnt have appreciated people taking surfaces Fitzgerald wrote a few years before he died that it was a moral imperative that their friends understood they were a pair, a component and would stand that behavior, even if her illness aim they couldnt live together.

Churchwell is too scathing about attempts to suggest Zelda had a larger role in her husbands labor than previously presumed. There are people who want to credit Zelda with Scotts work, which is just silly and doesnt do girls any promotes, she does. Its not a zero-sum play: we are in a position recognise both of them for who they were.

Zelda had many endowments, but where writing was referred she was probably extremely ill when she started to sharpen her talents, and while it is true that Scott didnt especially want her to write partly out of territoriality but partly because medical doctors told him it was bad for her its too genuine that her work isnt in the same class as his. Her individual sentences are often lovely, and she can create a mood and has clever diverts of term but her toils tend to be sketches rather than full stories. If they had represented different selects, maybe she could have been an important scribe, but current realities is that she wasnt.

Perhaps, then, the true key to Zeldas resumed pull on our resource lies not in her drive but in her modernity. I dont live their lives I want to cherish first and live incidentally, she exclaimed and it is that vitality and desire for all of lifes events, both good and bad, that stretchings down over the activities of the decade, tolerating each generation to see something new.

Z: The Beginning of Everything will air on Amazon Prime early next year

THEY SAID

I have rarely known the status of women who uttered herself so delightfully and freshly: she had no ready-made phrases on the one handwriting and no striving for effect on the other. Critic Edmund Wilson

I fell in love with her courage, her candour and her flaming self-respect, and its these circumstances I would believe in even if the whole world revelled in wild feelings that she wasnt all that she should be.

F Scott Fitzgerald

I did not have a single sympathy of insignificance, or shyness, or uncertainty, and no moral principles.

All I miss is to be very young always and very irresponsible, and is of the view that my life is my own to live and be happy and croak in my own channel to delight myself.

Other folks ideas of us are dependent primarily on what theyve hoped for.

Read more: www.theguardian.com

The post Tragic, fascinating, bright- life of’ wild child’ Zelda Fitzgerald revisited appeared first on vitalmindandbody.com.

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