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chibimyumi · 4 years

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The Circus Arc

Last week somebody asked me what my favourite manga arc is, and without a second of hesitation I answered 🎪. As I have already publically declared my love, it is only natural for me to write a love letter to the Circus Arc.

Why do I consider the Circus Arc the best still after more than a decade?

I. The true story

First of all, the Circus Arc is in my opinion the first arc wherein we truly get to meet the characters, as well as the series itself.

A protagonist who is dispensable in their own story is not a true protagonist. As touched upon in this post, before the Circus Arc O!Ciel was actually little more than a plot device to show off Sebastian’s many assets. “The Watchdog has a case because the Queen said so, Sebastian solves it.” “The Watchdog was kidnapped because Yana TOLD us he made life for the mafia a bit hard, so Sebastian saves him.” When Sebas said to his master “you truly have no other talent except for getting yourself abducted,” it sure rang very true until that point. It wasn’t as much a story of O!Ciel’s revenge as it was Sebas saving the day because: demon powers.

In the Circus Arc however, we truly got an insight on why this little boy could indeed have made life for the mafia hard, and why after two years the Queen still hasn’t fired him. As discussed in the post mentioned before, almost as a compensation for his prior starfishhood, O!Ciel had insisted on doing the investigation himself, even at the cost of his own health. We saw him actively cooking up strategies as well as dealing with any situation as they were met. O!Ciel really displayed a commendable aptness at playing the cards he has been dealt in the Circus Arc. In contrast, while Sebas did make many accomplishments, all his actions were the undertaken because of O!Ciel’s orders. In the Circus Arc we truly got to see how the boy is the chess player, and demon the black knight.

II. Our protagonists - into the core

The Circus Arc is likewise the arc wherein we actually get to meet our two main characters outside their token function.

We have seen Sebastian’s establishment as “the pawn that can move across the entire chessboard in one single move”. But without O!Ciel’s input or any price that the master would have to pay, Sebastian is easily just an ‘instant-win card’, an ironic “deus” ex machina, if you will.

As discussed in this post and this post, in the Jack the Ripper Arc Sebastian was quite dissatisfied with his master and therefore decided to teach his master a lesson at the cost of more innocent lives. However nasty, it had been O!Ciel who ordered for a subpar move, and technically the pawn “did nothing wrong.”

In the Circus Arc O!Ciel became meticulous about decisions regarding his chess piece. Principally there was nothing wrong with the order O!Ciel had given his butler about releasing the snakes before the first stringers would return, and Sebas who was bound to perfect completion of any order also didn’t do anything wrong, technically. However, it had already been established that as long as Sebas sees the interest himself he would find any loophole in orders to still benefit his master in one way or another. As it is, considering how Sebas did decide to release the poisonous snakes while his master was in the danger zone, we are left with a chilling conclusion that Sebas simply ‘did not see the interest’ of shielding O!Ciel from danger. For the first time we truly learn the extent of Sebastian’s nondiscriminatory nastiness; how indeed all humans are the same to him. For the first time we truly understand that O!Ciel is paying with much more than his soul for Sebastian’s services. This demon is a double-edged sword, but much more than swinging outwards, this sword has a tendency to swing inwards the moment the wielder allows for any opening.

Previously discussed in this post, we also see the full extent of Sebastian’s manipulativeness and toxicity in the Circus Arc. Sure, in other arcs Sebas is also manipulative, but all of those actions could still be categorised under “merciless honesty”. In the Circus Arc however, O!Ciel objectively did nothing wrong to be triggered and exhausted from the Circus shenanigans, and yet Sebas was unnecessarily re-triggering and victim shaming his master for some extra “flavouring”. If there had been any doubt whether Sebas is bad for O!Ciel, then surely the Circus Arc put all doubts to rest.

For the first time in the manga we also see a genuine obstacle for Sebastian that is for not also the final hurdle to overcome, like in the Ripper, Curry, Campania or any other arc really. In the Manor Murder and Werewolf Arc there were of course Earl Grey and Wolfram respectively, but in those cases Sebas mostly tried to outrun the obstacles. In the Circus Arc however, William is likewise a supernatural being, and Sebas knew very well that he can’t just neutralise William without causing more trouble than good. Hence we saw how Sebas tried to negotiate with William, and we learned that even Sebastian cannot just avoid hurdles. Negotiating with William did not work of course, so the story forced Sebas to be creative. It truly was great to see Sebas use his brain rather than demon-muscles to overcome a problem for a change.

While getting “creative”, Sebas displayed his aptitude for preying on humans in our weakest of moments. As explained in this characterisation of Sebastian, Sebastian is not terrifying because he has super powers, but because he understands human weaknesses like no other and uses our own weaknesses against us. Click here for an analysis of Sebas’ cross-media manipulation of Beast.

In this same arc we likewise truly understand the looming threat O!Ciel is dealing with, an explicit revelation of the monster Sebastian is. This scene from underneath is the most explicit moment telling us that Sebas is not just dwelling on Earth comfortably; he is holding out under a cover. This scene almost served as an alarming reminder to us: “beware, the demon can snap”.

What about O!Ciel? In our boy we saw his tremendous dedication to his job. Except for purposes directly related to the investigation, never once did he order Sebastian to make life easier for him. He never made Sebas secure food for him or do any of the chores for him. Surely Earl Phantomhive would consider himself above wrestling for food or scrub some floors, and yet he was willing to just take on any task without complaining. In no other arc do we see just how effective O!Ciel is as the Watchdog exactly because he is so versatile both in playing the ‘cute little boy’ card as well as the ‘feared Watchdog’ card.

Doll was an exceptionally well chosen “obstacle” for O!Ciel (more about her later). When Doll briefly wondered about why a peasant boy like Smile would speak in flawless RP, we saw O!Ciel’s ability of thinking on his feet, giving a very logical explanation of: “I served in a Lord’s household where I learned to speak proper.” When Doll caught him red handed when he sneaked into Snake’s tent O!Ciel also immediately pulled the “I didn’t steal anything!” card, skillfully tying it into his previous story as ‘the page boy who was fired for stealing’. We learned that the Watchdog really is willing to carry out his job through any means necessary, not just ‘the cool and edgy means’.

One of the best ways to get to learn a person is judging from their gut reactions. When O!Ciel was triggered in the final showdown he no longer had any energy to put on a strong front or think about matters rationally. He was in emotional pain and his gut reaction was to want that pain gone.

Even Sebastian who would not directly benefit from the case being completed advised his master against burning down everything. Even with the Queen’s commission as leverage however, the boy still yelled to have everything reduced to ashes. In this moment we also understood just how traumatising everything was to O!Ciel personally. This trauma response didn’t come from nowhere; everything that happened up until that point had been a logical build-up towards this inevitable result.

III. The Side Characters

A story cannot be told with just the main characters; you need to care about the interactions they have with others too. In my opinion the Circus Arc has delivered the most memorable side characters that linger with us even after death. In particular Joker and Doll.

Joker is a very fun, charismatic character as well as a person with many different sides. He is lawfully inexcusable, but we cannot help but sympathise, or at least understand how he too is a victim compelled into evil. Rationally we reject Joker’s actions, but partially it is because we have the luxury to do so. “Is this self defense? Would we, or how would we have done anything differently had we been in his exact shoes?” is a question worth considering.

Doll too; we see a child who lived a relatively happy life in the recent past. In the anime they made it explicit that Doll was complicit in all the kidnappings of the children, but in the manga it is more ambiguous whether Doll is fully aware of Kelvin’s agenda. This gives the effect that with the revelation of Joker always having taken most of the bullets, we understand that the torment Joker has been suffering was the price he paid to buy his siblings a more-or-less normal life. If O!Ciel sold his soul to the devil in the literate sense, Joker did so in the figurative sense in exchange for his family’s happiness.

IV. The Antagonists?

We do not spend too much time with Baron Kelvin, and he is a relatively simple character. But that is not bad as long as the villain’s threat reaches us. The horrors of Kelvin have always been quite clear; when children are harmed it triggers a gut reaction of disgust in most viewers. But the kidnapped children were not the functional victims in this story, it is the first stringers with Joker in the centre.

Kelvin has made a bunch of crippled children fully dependent on him, and used their own dependency as a currency to satisfy his own greed. Never once did he allow these children to forget how he could easily return them to the gutter from where he collected them. The kidnapped children were just numbers in the newspaper, but the first stringers are characters we spent time with. We have seen their suffering and we know they are just trying to get by. So it is all the more heartbreaking that children who merely wanted their basic human rights were turned into the antagonists that had to be exterminated. In the showdown between Joker vs Watchdog, the dynamic is shifted from “heroes vs child-kidnapping villains” to “villain-protagonists vs anti-villains”.

The Circus Arc is very special in how the villain impacts the readers, because the people affected matter to us. In the earliest arcs we didn’t REALLY care about O!Ciel, but he was the main person who suffered from the villains. With Sebastian around however, we don’t really worry. In the Ripper, Mansion, Campania and Potter Arc the main victims are characters we don’t spend any time with, so emotionally we don’t really care whether “evil gets vanquished”. In the Werewolf Arc we do have Sieglinde and Wolfram, and it is heartbreaking to see Sieglinde discovering that all her happiness had been a big lie and that to even her own mother she was nothing but a tool. But in the very least she did grow up happily, she survived and has a fresh chance to start a new life, and the person closest to her (Wolfram) is still with her.

For the first stringers however... all had been meaningless, all is finite.

As expertly described by Sebas in the musical adaptation of the Circus Arc, humans are pathetic because we are merely “accumulating sins in the version of hell [we] have chosen to live.”

V. From foil to team members

The servants at the Phantomhive manor were originally just designed to be foil for Sebas to demonstrate his awesome butler skills. I don’t know whether they were liked at first, but for one I do know that many found them quite annoying or pointless too.

The Circus Arc is the first time we see the significance of the Phantomhive servants, that they’re not just there waiting to be fed by O!Ciel because... he’s a philanthropist of some sort? Yana had made some questionable decisions at first, and she clearly regretted those ‘choices’. I personally see the Circus Arc as her first demonstration of her skills as story writer, and her public proclamation of: “this is Kuroshitsuji’s potential!”

Had the entire series started with the Circus Arc, then surely the animated series would have gotten a much higher budget and a better time-slot for airing.

VI. Humour

The humour in the Circus Arc is also great, but nothing was shoehorned in there for the sake of laughs, neither do these moments disturb the tone of the story.

Everything was funny because they were the inevitable consequences of putting these people together. William had been established as a demon-racist plank, and when made to cooperate with a demon, of course he would say: “my hands will rot”. When called “four-eyes”, of course he would say: “it’s SUIT”.

Many of the comedic moments are centred around our protagonists’ inconveniences, but nobody is inconveniencing them for the sake of inconveniencing them. When Sebastian was not trying to leave the vicinity William mostly let him at peace. O!Ciel for example also couldn’t do many things simply because Doll was clinging to him. But she did not know what was at stake and her actions were well grounded in her immense desire to make new friends. “You are young, I am young. You lost an eye, I lost an eye. Let’s be FRIENDS!”

This is in stark contrast with how ‘funny inconveniences’ were staged before using Lizzie or Grell for example. Lizzie was a drag to O!Ciel because... she’s a girl who wanted everything to go HER way... and Grell was a drag to Sebas because she... is a girl who wanted everything to go HER way.

VII. Ending

The ending of the Circus Arc also carried a bitter-sweet tone that most other arcs do not present. The thematic of “demons dwell in the human nature of stepping on others” is perfectly addressed in the Circus Arc, but it does not end with: “so don’t be evil!”. The Circus Arc simply highlights the issue and reminds us that ‘stepping on others’ does not exist in a vacuum.

Had the objective of the series not been established as “boy who swore on revenge”, and instead be: "rethinking evil”, then the Circus Arc alone would have told the story sufficiently.

The finale of the Circus Arc resonates with its audience because the core principle on which Kuroshitsuji is built is a narrative humankind has always wanted to externalise, but without success: “demons are only as evil as humans allow their own evil to show”.

#Love letter to the Circus Arc #Circus Arc #Sebastian Michaelis #Ciel Phantomhive #O!Ciel #Our Ciel #Joker #Doll #Baron Kelvin #Analysis #Noah's Ark Circus #best arc ever imo

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kirschkid · 4 years

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Misha Collins - StageIt 22.11.20

First of all, let me tell you that for me Misha is the sweetest and greatest person on earth. I'm really happy I was there, watching him talk about Spn and Castiel. So I want to give you some of that joy, I hope I get everything right. Here it is:

Misha at the beginning of the panel: "So strange not to be able to see your smiling faces." His last shooting on the show was a while ago, so Misha thought he had mourn but "... watching that last episode was quite an emotional experience for me! Kinda took me out for a good couple of days. Just because it... for me personal it represents the end of a chapter of my life. And yet I do have that feeling that this supernatural fandom isn't going anywhere. That somehow we are going to be able to stick together... "

I saw some of the other online panels and everybody had selected questions to answer. When the chat is just rushing through, this totally makes sense. But still, Misha trying to read the chat so he could answer was the sweetest!

Question: "We know Jack brought Cas back but we didn't get to see how that played out. What do you think happened and what is he up to?"

Misha: "There was a different ending originally to supernatural that covid restrictions made impossible to shoot. I think we are not supposed to talk about what that ending was going to be. But it was very cool but it involved bringing back lots of lots of cast members from over the years and big crowd scenes..." "... so in the original ideation of the ending Cas hadn't gone to rebuild heaven. There was a different conclusion for him. So I actually did not read the last two episodes before they aired. Because I just wanted to go on a journey as an audience member and watch the episodes not knowing how the story would unfold exactly. I knew a little bit of what Cas's and Jack's fate were... in the abstract just from conversations, but because I wasn't in it I don't know what the answer is." Misha goes on a bit about the way Jack is but it's not really going anywhere. So sorry I cut it here.

Question: "What qualities does Castiel has that are qualities of Misha?"

Misha: "I think there are a lot of them. And I think that that's because over time the character melded with me. And I with him to an extend." (He had a little but a very cute smile on his face, saying that!) "When the show started Castiel was just this like... he was a soldier, he was a warrior and he was just bound in determined to serve the interests of heaven. And over time we got to see him unfurl as a bit of a fish out of water who didn't quite feel like he fit in with either angels or humanity. Felt like a little bit of an outsider and I think that that is something that I have felt for much of my life." (Can somebody tell me how it can be, that a person like Misha Collins ever has to feel that way?! Sorry... just had to say that.) "He became frankly like softer, more sensitive and he tried to do the right thing. Tried to be a good person. These are qualities that I have. But you know I don't think of myself like a hardened warrior. And I think that that's how Cas was written at the very beginning." Misha goes on about the fact, that not only him but also Jared and Jensen over the years formed the characters they played with their own personality.

Question: "What is the one thing you will take with you from Castiel?"

Misha told us that he discussed this with Jared and Jensen recently, that "the characters really became kind of a part of us." when you play a character for so long. Misha: "When I was watching Dean's death scene I cried. But I was really crying because it was like that's Cas's friend Dean dying. It's a weird thing on an emotional level to have a blurring of the lines between yourself and your character. And I think that that happened to all of us. And it is just because we inhabited them for so long. The characters became facets of ourselves. I literally feel like I will take the character away. You know what I mean?! He is always going to be with me. He is going to be an aspect of my being, forever. Which is strange... yeah... I don't know." Again he goes one a little bit.

Again the topic of how the show was meant to end came up. Misha was considering the idea of telling us, even if he wasn't supposed to. (Not sure if he was kidding or truly trying to figure that out. You know, it's Misha!) Misha: "I tell you... we saw a version of Sam and Deans heaven that was populated with all these people from their past. All of the characters from the show that we have come to love, that Sam and Dean have come to love over the years. They were there in this version of heaven."

Misha talked about Castiels outfit for quite a while. Telling us that they changed it from time to time without really mentioning it. It felt like he had thought about this for a while. And let me tell you,- he has some of the trenchcoats in his wardrobe at home.

Question: "How did you prepare for emotional scenes?"

Misha: He told us how he needs to stay away from people to get in the right mindset. And for the love confession and death scene, he sat down in a corner, and one of the crewmembers, without Misha asking, shield him from people.

Question: "How did you feel when you read the script on how Castiel dies?"

Misha: "I knew that this ending was coming for a long time because I was talking to Bob Berens, the writer, about it. And I was really happy with it, you know. That was sort of the ending that I wanted for Cas and so when I read the script I was really happy that it had made it to be page. It felt like it was a little risky and a little brave for the show to do. And I was happy to be a part of that! And happy to be able to have that character express love like that. So I was happy with it." He took a moment before he continued " I have seen some people complaining about this is playing into the bury the gays trope." He was really careful talking about this, telling us that he didn't think that that's what was happened with Castiels 'ending'. And that so much good came out of this declaration. "This declaration ended up literally saving the world."

Question: "What was your favorite moment of the finale?"

Misha: "My favorite moment of the finale was Dean's death scene. I just thought it was really masterfully executed. Excellent performance from both Jared and Jensen in that scene. It made me cry so that's pretty good."

Question: "Do you think Cas and the other angels got their wings back?"

Misha: "Great question! Yeah, probably. I mean if we were rebuilding heaven we have Jack on our side who is now the new god why can't we finally have our wings back?! What a long and miserable experience that was of not having wings. Cas was so powerful when he started. He could like snap his fingers and teleport anywhere in the world and time travel!"

Question: "What job, non-hunter, would Cas be good at?"

Misha: "Cas would be a great security guard because he never sleeps. So he could just stand there and he doesn't seem to get bored" Misha thinks Cas wouldn't be a great teacher, architect, or artist. But he could see him as a cook.

Question: "In your opinion what color are Castiels wings?"

Misha: "I... shit! I don't know... I always thought they were black but now that you say that we only saw the shadows of them. Ah! They are rainbow-colored!"

Question: "What was your favorite version of Castiel to play?"

Misha: "I had the most fun playing Lucifer..." "I really loved playing the human version of Cas..." "Overall just regular Cas was my favorite." "I'm gonna say Cas-Cas was my favorite."

At the end Misha told us something very important: "I hope you all stay safe and take care of each other. Stay sane it's a hard time right now." "One of the nice things about this supernatural community is that we have all done a good job over the years of taking care of each other so I hope you know that there are people here you can reach out to and there is a community of support. And I appreciate you all!"

-----

So, that's it. It isn't every single word but I hope you enjoy it!

#Misha Collins #Castiel #Supernatural #StageIt #Panel #SPN #SPNFamily #Season 15 #Episode 20 #Carry On #The End

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hippychick006 · 4 years

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Misha Panel

I’ve done this summary as it helps to have what Misha actually says to hand as more often than not, his stans misquote him. It’s also useful as Misha often changes things - as he appears to have done between his last virtual panel and this one. Note, I’m only focusing on the key parts where he talks about the show/Jared/Jensen. It is not free of anti castiel/misha comments where I disagree, though those are few and far between for a change. It’s long so putting under a cut...

- Misha confirms his filming finished in March prior to Covid [this comes up later in more detail]. Watching the last epiosode was an emotional experience for him. For him, it represents the end of a chapter of his life.

- Misha says fandoms not going anywhere [*hisses]

- Misha’s future work/projects?: working on senate race in georgia, publishing a book of poetry, couple of film projects he’s trying to get off the ground, one he’s not acting/directing in, the other he may act and/or direct

- Jack brought Cass back but we didn’t get to see it, what happened?: different ending originally that Covid restrictions made impossible to produce. Cool ending involved bringing back lots of cast members over the years. In the original ending, Castiel hadn’t gone to rebuild heaven, there was a different conclusion for him. Misha purposely did not read the last two episodes before they aired as he wanted to be an audience member. He knew a little about Castiel/Jack’s fate in the abstract, but because he wasn’t in it, he doesn’t know what the answer was. He thinks them rebuilding heaven was less boots on the ground and more at a spiritual level [so he’s talking at the metaphysical/spiritual plane level and not corporeal) so they are everywhere (e.g. in drops of rain as per Jack’s speech to Sam in 19). That’s what I’m understanding at least. He says that’s pure speculation though.]

- what qualities does castiel have similar to Misha?: there are a lot of similar qualities [backstabber comes immediately to my mind tbh]. Over time he and the character melded. Over time he evolved into something that didn’t quite fit in with either angels or humanity, he felt like an outsider which Misha has felt for much of his life. He became softer, more sensitive, he tried to do the right thing and be a good person. Oh wow, he says that in order to write to play to Misha’s strengths, the character had to “morph a bit”. I loved bad!ass Castiel, he’s my favourite Castiel!

- What one thing will he take with him from playing Castiel?: on a professional level, it was fascinating to play a character for so many years. He discussed with J2 recently that the characters really became part of them. He doesn’t think that will happen again, just due to length of time the played them. On watching Jensen’s death scene, he cried but it was more “That’s Cass’ friend Dean dying” It was weird to have a blurring of lines between yourself and your character but he thinks that’s what happened with all of them. He’ll take the character away, which will be a part of him forever.

- Misha made fortune cookes and put inside lewd and inappropriate fortunes

[I don’t get this next bit as earlier in the panel he says he didn’t read the last two episodes so didn’t know what was going to happen and gave the answer I documented above and now we have this next question where his answer seems to contradict that]:

- Is there anything more he can say about the originally planned finale?: He doesn’t want to be the one to reveal these state secrets, but what are they going to do, fire him? He feels someone might have said to him, please don’t reveal what was going to happen, but can’t remember for sure if it’s true. He says there was a version of Sam and Dean’s heaven that was populated with all of the people that were from their past that they have come to love. They could not do that because of Covid restrictions.

- Favourite behind the scenes memory of “The boys”: He doesn’t have a favourite memory, they were close friends for 12 years. They had laughing fits and fights and got pissed off at each other. Some of his fondest memories of being at work anywhere were working on Supernatural. He’s never going to be on a set again where there is so much mirth so he’s going to miss that for sure.

- he’s talking about Castiel’s wardrobe which is actually funny - e.g. original suit 3 sizes to big, sometimes showing blood and holes, sometimes being magically fixed, not wearing a tie, going back to wearing a tie... “Nobody complained about that too much...” [uh because some of us were watching other things and your own stans were looking at the background.] He stole some trenchcoats and has them in his closet.

- How do you prepare for emotional scenes?: it’s hard for him to get into that emotional state. To prepare for the Castiel’s declaration of love scene and taken by the empty, Misha needs to be off by himself and not chatting with people, so for that scene he sat on his own in a dark corner of the stage and ruminated on his own. Rob Hayter, stunt coordinator, noticed and stood sentinel and made sure no one disturbed him which Misha said was really sweet. Everyone stopped fucking around for that scene to allow them to do what they needed to do.

- How did you feel when you read the script when Castiel dies?: Misha knew for a long time that ending was coming, he’d been speaking to Rob Berens about it, he was really happy with it. It was the ending he’d wanted for Cass so when he read the script, he was really happy it had made it to the page [i bet it was Misha, how are those destiel sales going through your Stands company?]. It felt it was a little “risky and a little brave” for the show to do [on a fucking network that is number one in Glaad reviews? Are you being fucking serious right now?] He was happy to be a part of that [again sales] and have that character express love like that so he was happy with it.

[Okay, so notice in his last virtual panel 2 weeks ago, he was very happy, he’s now starting to do exactly what he did with Karla movie as he goes on to say...]

He’s seen “some people” [you mean lgbtq+ people?!] “complaining” about this is playing into the “bury the gays” trope which is an insidious and real trope in film and television storytelling in h/w over the years. Misha doesn’t think that’s what was happening with Castiel’s [he died second after the confession MIsha!] First of all Castiel isn’t dead, he’s in heaven working to rebuild it... [you didn’t know this 2 weeks ago, as far as you knew Castiel died and went to the empty]. So much good came from that declaration, because Cass was able to save Dean, which was essential to saving the world, so this declaration wasn’t so then fate strikes you down and you’re done forever. The declaration literally ended up saving the world. It was of Cass’ own volition, he wasn’t forced to do it, it was his choice, and he thinks that’s important, so maybe he’s naieve and doesn’t feel they are playing into that trope.

[You were absolutely playing into that trope Misha and you didn’t give a shit as you did no research on playing an lgbtq+ character so sincerely fuck off]

He’s glad that Castiel got to express that and have that ending. He thinks thats kind of important and he’s proud the show did that. [again fuck off, this was done for you and it showed] He thinks its a conversation they will continue to have as they continue to dissect it going forward [nope, consigned to the dumpster fire I’ve put the majority of the rest of Drabbernatural in]

- Do you think you will ever get an SPN tattoo?: He doesn’t have any but he’s thinking about getting tattoos relating to his children. Is that a sign of desperation that a true hasbeen will do? Should he get a tattoo of Jared and Jensen’s face. He could get a tattoo of Castiel’s face on his abdomen. He’s saying probably not. If they want to get one, totally supportive of that

- what is his favourite moment of the finale?: Dean’s death scene, masterfully executed, excellent performances from both Jared and Jensen in that scene and made him cry

- best memory of your last day on the supernatural set?: everyone being really sweet, lot of tears from cast and crew. The last scene he shot as Castiel was the last scene of the day on a Friday. Him, Alex, Richard S and Jensen all had to get to Las Vegas for a fan convention the next morning. They shot late and finished at 1.30, it was Cass goodbye and Misha’s goodbye to the show. He said they had to get a chartered flight because of the early flight [not sure why he’s saying this as I thought it was Jared’s plane they all travelled in?] He’s talking about going back - because of the issue with the plane - and they are all texting family, saying they love them, so it was such a strange night, he’d said goodbye to Supernatural, he said goodbye to Castiel and later on said goodbye to his kids because they thought they were going to die that night. :(

[Going to add that this puts to rest that Misha was due back for 19 and 20 even before covid, it confirms he was not going to be in either episode, though I maintain, they may have shot an extra scene while they had him to slot into 19 or 20]

- do you think Cass and the other angels got their wings back?: Yes, probably, they have Jack who is the new god. What a long and miserable experience that was of not having wings. Cass was so powerful when he started, he could snap his fingers and teleport and time travel and lost that with his broken wings and they didn’t come back. He doesn’t know why they didn’t fix him as Castiel would have been a much more powerful ally if he didn’t have to drive around in the pimp mobile [uh, for the same reason Sam lost his powers, deus ex machina]. He tells the story of Jared pressing buttons in the car causing the hydraulics to fail costing $10000 of repair.

- in your opinion, what colour are Castiels wings?: shit, I don’t know, I always thought they were black, but now that you’ve said that, they are rainbow coloured, how about that?

- What is the worst joke Jared and Jensen did to you?: [*cough fans looking for things to complain about or hate Jared on]: Jared and Jensen, as you know, they are not good people. He talks about directing an episode and they got excited in the week before, they were going to break into his apartment and steal his furniture, they had all kinds of nefarious plans, the crew tipped him off and told him to watch his home and car keys. They put a fish under the seat in his car and one of the crew told him. Jared removed the canvas on the director’s chair and laid it across so it looked like it was still the chair. Misha fell for that at least 5 times. That was pretty frustrating. Jared kept messing up his lines (which Misha said Jared never does) and Misha was directing in another room, Misha eventually went to see what the problem was and that’s when Jared pied him in the face. Everyone in the crew was complicit in the “assault”. Jensen brought him another shirt, said, “I’m sorry man, that’s sucks, that was too much.” Jensen then pied him in the face.

- What is the real story behind the handprint in the finale?: Um I don't know, but I think it was a nice touch, that was a really lovely callback that worked well. I can’t remember how we came up with that, or was it in the script, I can’t remember. Wasn’t it a good callback to the very beginning. [Again, this appears to differ from what was being reported two weeks ago so might need to go back to that panel if I can get access to it]

-What’s your favourite memory from offline/online panels?: It’s much more fun to be live and in person. I don’t know, I have had some really fun... [PANDERING ALERT COMING UP] Jensen and I have some really fun panels together in Rome. I don’t know why but we always just seem to have a real hoot there, talks about the resume off, they really enjoyed that. He had pizza delivered to a creation panel once. He talks about the Saturday night special and he can’t wait till they can get back to that.

[NOTE CYNICAL PART OF THIS IS FOR HIS FANBASE TO ONCE AGAIN CLAMOUR FOR MORE JENMISH PANELS. I DO NOT TRUST THIS MAN AT ALL]

- What was your favourite version of Castiel to play?: he had the most fun playing Lucifer because Mark P had left a great template to play Lucifer [you took the worst parts imo but Mark fucked his character up too]. He enjoyed playing the human parts of Castiel because it was fun to explore how to be human for the first time. Overall, just regular Cass. He wouldn’t have wanted to trade regular Castiel for other iterations. [A great question would be badass Castiel v late season wooby castiel preference]

#anti misha #anti castiel

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jamiebongwater · 4 years

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Pretty Sure This Is America

Somewhere in America today a single middle-aged man who works in the financial sector parked somewhere to scarf down a quick lunch while skimming the news of the day. He was confronted by headline after headline telling of a polarized public and a mosaic of disparate, fractured Americas struggling to understand one another, and he wondered aloud to himself what the source of this confusion could be. “It sure seems like things used to be simpler,” he thought, “I would like to think we could just sit down and find a solution that works for everyone. I know one thing for sure though, I never would have thought to complain as much as this generation when I was younger.” He was feeding from a wrapper with a Taco Bell logo on it, and gave no thought to the place his lunch was made as he pondered the current state of the country he called home. Where were all these dissatisfied people he kept hearing about, and what were their lives really like? At this moment the man could not recall the faces of any of the working class people he had spoken to that day, even though they had made his breakfast, lunch, and coffee, and washed his car.

I recently took a gig at Jimmy John’s in an even smaller town just North of Coeur d’ Alene. I am planning to relocate to Las Vegas in about 1.5 months to make some real music, money, and art -related moves, and I need some extra money saved for the move. I am working five days a week as a cook at a downtown restaurant right now, which I like, but it’s just not enough money to fund my immediate endeavors. I decided to bite the bullet and get yet another retarded corporate job to fill out my schedule. I mean, I applied to some pretty cool places, but due to the time frame I basically had no choice but to take the first thing that came my way. This place didn’t even interview me.

ring ring

“Hello?” “Hey yeah I do need someone for mornings on Wednesday and Thursday. So just come in at 10, we’ll have a shirt for you and stuff. But there’s two training videos you have to watch, they’re like two and a half hours each-” “Wait a minute, I’m sorry- who is this?” “Sorry, my bad. This is Justin from Jimmy John’s.” “Oh, good to hear from you!” “Yeah, we just had someone leave and I’m actually tryna bring on two new people. So, you can come on down really anytime between now and then and watch those videos. I know it’s shitty but you get a sandwich for doing it and you also get paid so...” “Yeah man, sounds great. At the latest I’ll be by at 7:30am on Wednesday.” “Haha. Alright buddy.”

click When I got there Wednesday morning Justin looked tired and his face was red and puffy. “I’ve been out sick for two days, man. Today was the first day I had to wake up to an alarm clock again. Fucking sucked. Anyway, let’s get you set up with this video.” He wasted no time pulling out a Samsung tablet and setting it up on the table, where I watched my new owner personally explain how to uphold the Jimmy John’s brand for over 145 minutes. I was full of coffee and broke up my piss breaks to make the video go by faster. In every city there is a working-class underbelly composed of various spheres of fast-food workers, dishwashers and cooks, low-rent security guards, parking attendants, and other people working in marginalized industries, barely or not quite making ends meet while at the same time trying to get to a better stage in their lives. In different cities these circles overlap and mix to different degrees, but combined this working-class, service-industry group often comprises the largest single sector of the economy by number of employees. In Coeur d’ Alene the service industry contingent is particularly diverse, lively, and tight-knit. You’ve got some local cooks and bartenders who have been at it forever, some hardcore burnout kids from the surrounding areas, inexperienced waiters and pretty 19-year old servers who are more likely to be middle class, from out-of-state, and/or attending classes at NIC, literally anyone who had a kid at an economically disadvantageous time and just needs a steady job, and my favorite, the rotating cast of misfits, cluess 18-year-olds, tweakers, and lost souls who staff our local fast-food restaurants, chain stores, and corporate entities with the absolute laxest hiring standards and highest turnover. I’ve been embedded with this cohort since moving to Coeur d’ Alene, and I’ve had the chance to interact with people from across the spectrum. While I mostly try to work slightly higher-wage, less-corporate line cook jobs, work is somewhat spotty in this town and I’ve ended up working whack ass places both on accident and out of desperation. In turn, many of my friends work for Hagadone Hospitality, the owner of the massive resort I refer to as Dracula’s Castle, and my long time girlfriend Katie was a manager at McDonald’s. My point being, I’ve been taking notes. Inside, Jimmy John’s was a sterile, mechanized assembly line for the conversion of offsite manufactured product into end-sale revenue, with the elimination of individual thought, habit, and work style as an incidental byproduct of the corporate auditing process. In this regard it was pretty similar to Subway, Domino’s, Jamba Juice, or any one of these interchangeable corporate-shell companies that make up at least half of the world’s food economy now. Remember that people in America’s towns and inner cities live and die in these chain stores, feeding their children with paychecks stamped with beaming logos. I don’t take this corporate homogenization lightly. Our work is our life. Don’t let them take it from you. College dropout who prepared for an economy that wasn’t there, Retiree returning to work because his savings wasn’t enough, inner-city single mother who just doesn’t have a better way to fund the upbringing of her child...

If you step outside today in most populous areas of the United States the world looks rather shitty. There’s a McDonald’s, Wendy’s, or Carl’s Jr. on every block, at least one, and people are rushing between working shitty jobs and spending their money on shitty things. A person’s life is made up of their time, money, and actions. The world we inhabit is made up of human lives. When jobs are shitty, lives are shitty. Working-class life in Coeur d’ Alene is in some ways a microcosm of the dystopian future that I fear may soon await most of the country. The inequities would be almost comical if it weren’t causing palpable suffering to thousands of people every day and stifling untold human potential.

The huge influx of outside money necessitates a massive service industry, but the work is highly seasonal. People at the bottom, most often the people born and raised in the area, are reduced to fighting over scraps; rents are relatively high and no establishment pays more than they absolutely have to, especially since Idaho’s minimum wage of $7.25 sets the bar pretty low. Middle management positions that offer some tentative financial security are a far off dream for most, and those who attain them are forced to guard their status to the point of assholery, bullying subordinates into submission and withholding valuable knowledge. The huge amount of property tax revenue enables the right wing government to fund a massive police force. The town’s drug subcultures remain extant, but are kept in check by a police and court system that actively preys on the underclass for revenue and to justify their salaries. This is the American Police State 101: There are more than enough businesses paying more than enough taxes, so the availability of public funds isn’t an issue. What these businesses require, however, is an endless supply of cheap labor, and the police fill this need by maintaining a permanently marginalized population of people who are not housing secure, people of color, people with substance abuse issues, and anyone who has to miss work because of court appearances or fail a background check. These people, who society blames for their own problems, are continually re-arrested for suffering from the afflictions of poverty and thereby kept in a state of economic desperation. All in all, ordinary working brothers and sisters are largely prevented from sharing in the leisure opportunities and scenic beauty of Coeur d’ Alene that bourgeoisie tourists from around the world come to enjoy, all because of the false promises of economic justice that are so pervasive across the United States. I will give you a specific example. I have what would be considered a pretty good job for this area and I make $12.50 an hour. Extrapolated to one year, that’s $26,000. However, I made barely over $18,000 last year, I know because I just did my taxes. That’s like $1,500 a month. Rent on an apartment like mine is $1,000, though in my case I was splitting it with somebody. And in reality I worked over 5 jobs, some of them weird tip jobs like delivery driving, and never knew quite how much money was coming in. Needless to say nearly all of it was sucked up by bills, paying to fix shit on my car, and court expenses. These are the harsh realities of working class life in America. Jobs like Jimmy John's shouldn't exist as we currently know them. If a college kid or a single mother needs to get an entry-level job at a place like Jack in the Box or Wal-Mart because they have limited options and need to fund important things in their lives because they are adults, then they can be paid $15 a goddamn fucking hour or some kind of meaningful indexed minimum wage that enables them to actually do those things. Like eat, for instance, or acquire further training. If prices go up on prepared foods and service industry-based luxuries- fuck, it astounds me that people talk like that would be the worst thing imaginable. Have you seen our cities? This country has become an absolute corporate shitscape. These dumb corporate jobs, these cheap simulations of luxury, there needs to be less of them, they need to pay their employees better, they should probably be a little more expensive, and they need to provide at least a hope of a better future for everyone involved. Why anyone would oppose accomplishing that through legislation is beyond me. These companies have become the most profitable firms in human history off the labor and hard-earned money of ordinary Americans, and they have only used their profits to further decimate the working class. Money has to stay circulating for the economy to work. It moves upstream through consumer spending, and it moves downstream through paychecks. Right now the paychecks aren't big enough to keep the whole population in a state of healthy economic activity. Capitalists aren't going to start paying out more on their own. It's their job to protect their bottom line. The people need to use a combination of collective bargaining and legislation to protect their interests and to force more money out of the corporate machine. Because our government is now owned by corporations through legalized bribery, this will necessarily entail rooting out corruption from the Federal level down and making the bribery of representatives illegal. Not an easy task, but nothing worthwhile is. What are you gonna do, sit on your ass? How pathetic would that be. A sandwich maker at a chain sandwich shop could easily have a dignified existence. It doesn't have to be a terrible job. Make sandwiches, whatever, talk to people, get paid. As long as you have some sense of autonomy at the workplace, you have a chance to be good at what you do, you feel the people around you want you to succeed, and it enables you to actually live your life, there's nothing wrong with that. One could easily design the job at Jimmy John's so that it doesn't suck. But it would necessarily cost Jimmy John's more money. They wouldn't be able to schedule 8 grown ass men per day to work four hour shifts and weird split shifts, not train them at all, make them sign mandatory arbitration clauses so they can't sue or organize, make them pay for their own meals, no benefits,... your life emanates from your job. If your job sucks, your life sucks. Some conservatives will tell you that that's the point of Capitalism. Life has to suck so that you are motivated to make it not suck; in other words, the economy makes you work to achieve a dignified existence and your work fuels the economy. I happen to think this model is asinine and outdated. Healthy humans are largely self-motivated and they like to do work and make money. These corporations are not helping to train healthy, hard-working humans with these entry level jobs, they are wasting people's time in dead-end positions, systematically devaluing the labor of the working class. People can tell when they are being fucked over and treated as if they are expendable, and they don’t respond well to it. When your life sucks due to a lack of funds and you can't connect the dots, you can't pay a security deposit, you can't fix your car, you can't go back to school even though you want to, that's wasted human potential. Time, work, effort, and creativity are the things that our world is made of. Right now the corporate machine is devouring human life and shitting it into the ocean, and nobody is even saying anything about it. The great lie sold to the working class by the elite in this country is that the market forces of Capitalism will naturally and necessarily create the perfect meritocracy and by extension the perfect civil society. This lie is projected to the individual as "Work hard for your masters and you will be recognized and rewarded with your very own piece of the wealthiest society in human history." It's a perfect swindle, designed to make ordinary people identify with wealth that they don't have. Workers compete for their place in the paycheck stream by putting on appearances and throwing each other under the bus instead of actually working, managers are forced to cut labor costs and encourage high turnover instead of training and motivating existing employees, executives outsource, subcontract, and issue ever-more demanding corporate standards without regard to human life or dignity, and everybody blames the person immediately below or above them for the shitty state of things. THERE ARE BETTER MODELS. Social science has come a long way. THERE ARE THINGS THAT CAN BE DONE. I know what some of those things are but not all of them. I am not a scientist, I am a writer. My main job is to point out how full of shit everyone is. But there are people developing kickass solutions to the things that are making human life suck, and you need to listen to those people. The only people who are definitely wrong are the ones saying that the current system is fine and we don't need to do anything, or worse, that giving more money and power to the corporations is the answer. The corporations, as long as they have the unrestricted freedom to do so, will always find creative ways to staff their buildings that are cheaper than hiring and developing long-term employees who are paid a good salary. The corporations created this backassward world of ours, now the people will have to do something to change it. A simple place to start would be taking seriously the notion that everyone who has a full time job deserves at least an economy-class ticket to a decent life that offers some degree of choice and autonomy. Say, enough income to comfortably rent an apartment, stock the fridge, and finance a preowned car. You could accomplish this by creating a good federal minimum wage that is indexed against housing costs, alongside a robust social safety net and other worker protections such as standardizing work contracts so that employees who desire full-time employment or consistent hours have some guarantee that their expectations will be fulfilled. That's not really a lot to ask. All the modern western democracies do this, even ones that do dumb shit all the time like Great Britain and Australia. Can we be smarter than Australia, the country that elected Tony Abbott? I guess time will tell.

I hope things get better for the working people of Coeur d’ Alene, and I plan to come back to this area for Barter Faire and shit next year. But I’m not going to spend the rest of my life fighting the impossible uphill battle that it would be to try to bring socioeconomic justice to North Idaho. I hate cops. I hate cops hate cops hate cops. I haaaate cooooops. I’m getting the fuck out of here. I need to get out while I’m ahead and try to make some real money somewhere else. I leave on Saturday. The Desert Cruiser is fully outfitted. See you on the other side.

JAMIE

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cromulentbookreview · 5 years

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Binge! Part 2: The Re-Binging

I’m often put off by long book series - considering how often I complain about being suckered into the first book of a series, this isn’t surprising. However, sometimes I’m willing to put in the time to binge a whole series.

Like, for example, the Barker & Llewelyn series by Will Thomas.

So I binge-read the first 10 books of this series (well, 10.5, there’s a novella called An Awkward Way to Die ) in one long, dizzying binge last year. And, lucky for me, there’s a new book out: Lethal Pursuit! Pretty much exactly one year from the release of Blood is Blood!

But! If you haven’t read the first 10.5 books, here’s a review:

BOOK 1 - Some Danger Involved: Your average detective enquiry agent-duo origin story featuring brilliant detective and his new snarky Welsh sidekick!

BOOK 2 - To Kingdom Come: Barker & Llewelyn go undercover and build bombs for the Irish!

BOOK 3 - The Limehouse Text: Barker & Llewelyn face big trouble in London’s 19th Century Chinatown!

BOOK 4 - The Hellfire Conspiracy: Barker & Llewelyn fight human traffickers, secret societies and such!

BOOK 5 - The Black Hand: Barker & Llewelyn fight the Italian mafia!

BOOK 6 - Fatal Enquiry: Barker & Llewelyn fight Barker’s almost comically evil arch-nemesis!

BOOK 7 - Anatomy of Evil: Barker & Llewelyn fight Jack the Ripper!

BOOK 8 - Hell Bay: Barker & Llewelyn Present: Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None!

BOOK 8.5 - An Awkward Way to Die: Barker & Llewelyn solve a case in, like, 20 minutes!

BOOK 9 - Old Scores: Barker & Llewelyn Present: Japonism in Late-19th Century England!

BOOK 10 - Blood is Blood: Barker is put temporarily out of commission by an explosion! Llewelyn must solve the case himself! Who should show up to help but Barker’s long lost brother??

BOOK 11 - Lethal Pursuit: Barker and Llewelyn are hired by the Prime Minister himself to transport an ancient manuscript to Calais. Sounds easy enough! Except Barker seems more interested in investigating the death of the man who brought the manuscript to England in the first place…

So! Lethal Pursuit! It begins with Hillary Drummond, recently arrived to England from Germany (somewhat newly united! Kind of!) he’s on the run from some blue uniformed youths after the satchel he’s carrying, which contains this book’s MacGuffin an ancient, and very valuable manuscript. Drummond almost, almost makes it to the Home Office when, gasp! He’s run through with a sword. Then he walks into traffic and is run over by a cab.

Or, as it’s known in London traffic: Tuesday.

Meanwhile! It’s January! 1892! Llewelyn is a happily married man, as he loves to mention roughly every two pages. Along with being a happily married man (did he mention that he’s married now? Because he is) he’s also now a partner in Barker’s Detective Private Enquiry Agency. Barker has been moving a bit slower since his leg injury during the events of Blood is Blood, but, instead of treating Llewelyn like a full partner, Barker continues to treat him like an assistant. Which rankles Llewelyn a bit but hey, at least he’s married to the love of his life Rebecca. Only they still live in Barker’s house - he’s renovated the first floor for them and everything. Anyway, Barker and Llwelyn receive a summons from Prime Minister himself! The British government has the MacGuffin, and they want nothing more than to have the manuscript sent off to the Vatican archives and forgotten. But Barker is more interested in the mystery of who killed Hillary Drummond and why. Rather than immediately deliver the manuscript to Calais like the Prime Minister asked them to do, Barker hangs onto it. See, this manuscript is, apparently, a new gospel. Which is important because...reasons?

OK, so after 11 books, I’ve noticed that the Barker & Llwelyn series involve a lot more religion than I know anything about. I mean, when it comes to the religious category on Jeopardy, my answer is always “Jesus.” I’ve never read the Bible the whole way through - I read Acts of the Apostles in high school for an assignment, for which I had to actually go out and buy a Bible because the one we had was a family heirloom that couldn’t be opened without falling to pieces. In my lifetime I’ve attended a grand total of two church services - one when I was baptized at the ripe old age of 7 (I guess from ages 0-7 I was naught but a sinful hellbeast) and once in Germany I attended an Easter mass in a thousand year old cathedral because it was literally the only thing open on Easter Sunday in the whole town. Upper Franconia is suuuuper Catholic, you guys. Anyway, I took communion at that mass just to see what the body of Christ tastes like (burnt toast, I was disappointed). Does that mean I’m Catholic now? Hurray for gold-plated everything and indulgences? I mean, I’m not even 100% sure what I was baptized as back when I was a 7-yr-old unbaptized hellbeast…Lutheran, maybe? I think? I do enjoy posting lists of complaints on peoples’ doors. I mean, I could check, but that would require getting up and I both don’t want to and really don’t care all that much. Anyway, long story short: religion is not my strong suit. I don’t know the difference between a Baptist and an Episcopalian and a Methodist. Perhaps I should but honestly…eh. My point is, when Will Thomas writes about a manuscript that might be a new gospel written before Luke or Matthew or whoever...I just sort of smile and nod and go "yeah sure OK" and have zero idea what that might actually mean or its religious significance. I just hear “1000 year old manuscript” and think “that sounds awesome, gimme.”

Back to the book: this manuscript is so valuable, the people after it are willing to kill for it. Which puts Barker & Llewelyn in an awkward position. Even more awkward is the fact that Rebecca’s family, who seemed so cool in the last book, have now decided to shun her for marrying Thomas, a gentile. As usual, Barker & Llewelyn are caught between a rock and a hard place. Can they deliver the manuscript safely to the Vatican? Can Thomas repair the relationship between himself and his in-laws? Will Rebecca ever learn how to make a decent Pain au chocolat? Will we ever, ever meet Thomas’s massive Welsh family? Will Rebecca ever demand to get to know her small army of brothers- and sisters-in-law? Will Barker ever propose to Philippa? Will I ever learn the difference between various sects of Christianity? Find out tomorrow in Barker & Llewelyn: Lethal Pursuit! Same bat time, same bat channel!

I love this series. I am well and truly hooked. Barker & Llewelyn are a more down-to-earth Holmes and Watson. There is just the right amount of action, historical detail, and mystery to satisfy any Sherlockian desperate for some 19th century English mystery. I don’t know of any other book series, save Meg Cabot’s Princess Diaries series, where I’ve stuck around past the 8th or 9th book. So many books! Not enough time for serieses! I mean, sometimes I entertain the thought of binging all 900,000 Discworld books, but there are so many other things I’d like to read, too…I wish I were a faster reader. Better yet, I wish I could be like the Doctor and just flip through a book and absorb all its contents at once. That’d be awesome.

Still. I adore Barker & Llewelyn - I will absolutely be there for any book they’re in, even if the series goes the full Anne Perry and goes on and on for like, 20+ books. I’m here for it. And I am on pins and needles for the next book. I really, really, really want Thomas to reconcile with his family in Wales. I want Barker to actually acknowledge that Philippa Ashleigh is his girlfriend. I JUST WANT MORE, DAMN IT!

OK, for lack of anything else to say, let’s fancast this thing.

OK, so Barker would obviously be played by Graham McTavish, aka Dougal from Outlander.

Admit it, he’d be absolutely perfect, right? Come on. I mean, just look at that face.

Thomas Llewelyn would be played by Taron Egerton because he’s Welsh and absolutely pretty and tough enough to be Llewelyn

Yesssss.

Mac would be played by Paul Ready because Paul Ready is beautiful and I love him and would cast him in anything. Plus, I could see him as the finicky perfectionist Mac. Plus, I still ship Mac/Thomas, and I think he’d play well against Taron Edgerton. By which I mean they’re both gorgeous and I’d enjoy watching them.

Jeremy Jenkins would be played by Adam Nagaitis because he’s awesome and he’d be perfect as the squirrley / drunk half the time Jenkins.

Ho would be played by Benedict Wong because he would be perfect, though I’m not sure if my fantasy BBC/ITV/Netflix series budget would have enough money to get Benedict Wong. He’s got Marvel money now.

Rebecca Llwelyn nee Cowan nee Mocatta would be played by Jessica Brown Findlay because, eh, why not. I’m still traumatized/pissed off about Sybil’s death on Downton Abbey.

Tchéky Karyo as expert chef Etienne Dummolard because I can seriously picture him going into a long French tirade and throwing shit whenever Barker disrespects his cooking.

Michelle Gomez as Philippa Ashleigh, Barker’s Girlfriend, because I would love to see her and Graham McTavish as Barker snipe at each other.

Gemma Chan as Bok Fu Ying aka Miss Winter, Barker’s ward, because she is the perfect combination of elegance and badass.

Gaten Matarazzo as Soho Vic because I’m absolutely sure he could pull off a British accent and annoy the shit out of Thomas,

And this dog as Harm. Look at this dog!

Awww!

RECOMMENDED FOR: Anyone fond of a fun 19th century mystery-solving duo.

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR: People who dislike mysteries, detective private enquiry agent duos.

OVERALL SERIES RATING: 4.5/5

TOTALLY UNBIASED VICTORIAN MYSTERY / MURDERINO FANGIRL RATING: 5/5

LETHAL PURSUIT RATING: 4/5

RELEASE DATE: November 12, 2019

ANTICIPATION LEVEL FOR NEXT BOOK IN THE SERIES: Olympus Mons

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ramblingsbyrhi · 7 years

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some spoilt brat type wall of words

What I’m about to write isn’t going to be pleasant or enjoyable or uplifting in any way, shape or form, so consider yourself fairly warned before you complain about my whinging as the ability to stop reading is entirely yours.

This stems from the troubles I’m having with my iphone.. hear me out, a web has begun. I’ve had iphones since I was 17, I’ve been through a few of them. I’ve never had major problems though until recently when my camera started malfunctioning for absolutely no apparent reason. At first it was only through apps and then the actual camera itself started shaking and wobbling, so any time I wish to take a photo I have to use the front camera. Which I understand is absolutely the biggest first world problem, but still, I paid over a thousand dollars for a product that I expect to work for a very long time, not for a couple of years then “HEY! We’re releasing unnecessary new products.. oh, whats that? Your phone broke? Well, my! How convenient!”.

Then the classic YOU ARE LOW ON STORAGE annoying as all fuck message started appearing contiiiinually no matter how many things I went through and got rid of (funny how it used to hold over 1000 photos and now it struggles at 5.. just saying is all). I thought, okay, I’ll try the update, that might fix a few bugs, right? Wrong. Try as I might, the iOS update WOULD. NOT. INSTALL. for various reasons, including but not limited to: lack of storage, no internet connection (the wifi was full, hmm), ERROR *insert some number that I googled how to fix, to no avail*, and pretty much no reason at all, just “failed.” Thanks Apple, I really appreciate those hours of my life you wasted. No, really, I probably wouldn’t have done anything productive with them anyway and the anger inspires me.

Everyone’s saying things to me like “Ohhh my god rhi, why don’t you just get the new phone when it comes out?!”. Yeah, that’s all well and good for the average Joe Blow who doesn’t mind the monthly hundred dollar bill. And you know what? That was me not all that long ago. In fact, earlier this year I did try to update my phone and plan however had a MAAASSSSSIVEEE battle with optus who a. sent me the wrong phone b. could not help me in getting the right phone c. agreed to cancel it and nevermind the upgrade because I was over it by then and they said they’d send me a satchel to return the phone in d. never sent me the satchel e. instead sent me a fifteen hundred dollar bill f. finally understood why I didn’t deserve the bill and sent me a satchel g. sent me more ridiculous bills h. sent some debt collecting company after me i. FINALLY helped me get to the bottom of why the fuck I was being sent the bill j. FIIINNALLY agreed to me paying thirty dollars and the account’d be settled k. didn’t bother clearing things up with the debt collectors who wouldn’t leave me alone no matter how many times I explained to them that I literally owed no money as it was Optus’ wrongdoing (I was given various instructions as to clearing my dads [oh yeah, to make matters worse optus refused to put the phone into my name but were more than happy to have me open up a new plan under it] name by several employees of this company, none of which worked). BIG BREATH. So in the end I was glad because instead of paying almost a hundred per month to have a flash new phone, I kept my (what WAS) in-perfect-condition existing phone, and saved money by only paying for the calls and data etc. per month. So now my response to the upgrading suggestion is why? Why should I have to pay more money because of something I already paid a lot of money for that isn’t working, when it should be in order? Why would I pay thousands of dollars for something, only to have to pay thousands more to replace it when it should last, being worth a thousand dollars and all? What the fuck? CONSUMERISM IS INCREDIBLE!

So you can imagine my feelings towards Apple and Optus right now. Which got me thinking about how reliant we are on these absolute piece of shit companies who cannot get it together despite how large they are and how many people have come to depend on them. DEPEND. It’s true, it really can’t be denied. We have come to RELY on always having phones and internet with us, one hundred percent of the time. I toyed with the idea of not having a mobile, because fuck it and fuck them taking all my money for me to still lose. Plus, 10 years ago I got by fine without having one so why can’t I now? And that’s the thing. I’m honestly starting to feel like as a society who have been spoilt with technology, we have become so dependent on it and every single thing we could need being accessible, that it would be weird and at least difficult to live without. Imagine my boss when I tell her I don’t have a mobile anymore, and she’d have to call me in on my home phone (which yes, we do have, but I know many people now do not. WHAT?? HOW?! because on the internet they are RELIANT!). I can’t imagine she’d be very pleased if I were out doing groceries or at the gym or, I don’t know, just enjoying my day off, and she needed me to come in ASAP but I was not at home to answer her phone call. But that’s how things worked not all that long ago, people lived that way and dealt with it. And imagine if I had no/no access to social media. How would I make friends or remain in contact with people, or start “talking” to a guy? That’s how it goes now, isn’t it? You meet or hear of someone you take an interest in, and straight to facebook or Instagram you go, and the rest is history. We joke about it, but it’s true! Is there another way people get to know each other now? Do people even text anymore now that everyone’s all over messenger?? TEN YEARS AGO PEOPLE!!! Life honestly changed in the blink of a fucking eye. A generation ago people kept in contact without all this shit, and they managed to marry and have babies and maintain lifelong friendships! CRAZY. I honestly feel like if the internet and social media were stripped away we’d be beside ourselves (especially those who go t rid of their home phones ;) ).

It’s all too easy and far too accessible. You really can find out too much about someone so quickly now, I imagine privacy and its definition will soon work itself into language of history alongside all that Shakespeare mumble that I regretfully do not understand. And I thoroughly believe that not only is our reliance on the ease and accessibility overall negative, but as is the impact it has upon everyone’s mentality and relationships. Or, what relationships have become with the bittersweet evolution of the www. Which would be what? What are they? What do young, and even older people want these days in regards to a relationship? Let me rattle off a few ideas, great suggestion you! The term “facebook official” is no longer a joke, it’s become a serious indicator about everyone’s status, which, is now apparently the business of everyone they know and a few randoms they’ve accepted in their friend requests along the way. Once two people’s relationship is officially recognised on the FB, I think they’re supposed to chuck up a few pics (ones with kisses on cheeks and selfies in adventurous looking locations, so people know they’re blossoming) and tag each other in emotional statuses, and memes of course. That way everyone can monitor that they’re still happily in love and evolving as a couple. Instagram pics a must as well, and a little mention of each other or at least the inclusion of each other’s initials in the little bio are also a standard requirement I believe. And that way, once the pics stop being uploaded or are deleted, along with the initials and the “SHARE WITH: PUBLIC” relationship status, everyone can know that things didn’t quite work out and they’ve dived back in with the other fish and considered a potential catch until they decide to have a bite of the next one, and the process repeats.

And repeats. And repeats. Or, doesn’t repeat. Because all of that really IS a huge commitment. Like, not only is keeping up appearances online an awful big exercise, but so is the stuff from the olden days that unfortunately we’re still supposed to do a little bit of, like spend genuine time with your SO, surprise them with gifts and flowers, introduce them to your family, begin your futures together, not jack off over other people’s instagrams, commit. Oh, my apologies, how silly of me to suggest that nan and pop jacked off over other people’s instagrams! Hahaha. No, back then these factors never came into play, because they didn’t exist. And by no means am I saying that pop never had a look up another girls ankle length skirt as she paraded up the staircase with a boy from out of town at the local dance, hell, he probably did that several times. PER DANCE. Or flirted with the bar lady at the pub after work, before he came home to nan’s incredible cooking and kept home. But he didn’t get the barmaid’s name, he didn’t look her up on facebook later and sneakily chat with her on MESSENGER while nan did the washing up god bless her. He went home and they became your grandparents because they committed to each other, despite nan checking out the milkman’s bum as he trekked back up the driveway of a morning, or pop watching the perky young woman next door whose bedroom window was positioned in his viewing favour.

They didn’t have the ease of access that we have not only taken for granted, but have let shape us in shitty ways. I truly feel like, and disagree if you want but I know it exists, we’ve become so used to accessing unlimited amounts of people, that we’re always wanting more. If Beyonce is going to get cheated on, who won’t? Is cheating nowadays even the same as it was twenty years ago? Ten years? Is flirting and or exchanging nudes over snapchat cheating? Because nothing physical happened, right? People these days ask for “nudes” (and I can say this with experience) before hardly getting the name of the nude-ee, and I can only imagine the number of requests sent to various people, and the variety they’ve seen, or unfortunately kept. With accessibility comes a massive lack of respect, and it has to go without saying that the concept of respect, and where it is given and deserved, has changed dramatically since pop first kissed nan’s hand at the dance. A “nude” back then would’ve had to have been strategically photographed, developed, enveloped, stamped, sent, waited for, received, and then cherished and kept under the bed, whereas now one could’ve requested and received ten different ones in the time it took me to write this fucking sentence, and even sent two on to his or her equally tasteless mates.

Not to mention the fact that he or she asked ten different people for them would go unquestioned. What is this “talking” that people do anyway? Any time someone has suggested that they and I did “talk” or are “talking” I shudder so hard Christchurch would prepare to rebuild. I think commitment is completely different to what it once was, what with tinder and the like and phones with locks on them and snapchats that disappear, no one has to be loyal to any one person if they don’t want to, and why would they? Why commit to one cake when you could taste a few on the regular, then replace them with the right swipe of your index finger when you feel like it? “Talking” doesn’t refer to anything serious, I don’t think. It’s like when you could probably get it on with someone but you aren’t letting people know about it because you’re “talking” (fucking, I presume) to a couple of other people as well, but you aren’t doing anything wrong or disrespecting anyone really because you aren’t dating you’re only TALKINNNGGG. Have I got it? Can someone confirm, or correct me? I’m so dying to know. And there are that many gorgeous humans in the world, no one can blame you for wanting to window shop and even go try on some things whilst doing so. There’s always going to be a prettier dress, or a comfier hoodie, or a new colour of vans. You can’t just buy the first or fifteenth you see, just in case. Missing out would be THE WORST. And you don’t owe it to any of them to discuss the predecessors or… (what’s the word for predecessors but happening at the same time? anyone? no word? funny that) if you are only talking and you’ve made it clear that that’s all you want. No commitments or relationships here, no sir-eee! And then suddenly your 30th birthday is coming up and you kind of feel like maybe you should have built a life with someone by now but you were too busy gaining notches in your belt and you still aren’t sure which dress you want the most so maybe you’ll give it until 35 before you make a massive decision and settle down and stop unknowingly spreading chlamydia. Maybe. There are far too many babes on Instagram to get through but hopefully another five years will get you close.

I do apologise for the tangent and apparent change in tone, but like I said earlier a web really formed in my mind at the shit performance of my phone. I suppose what I’m kind of but super not really getting at (or trying to, at least), is as great as technology is, I do think it’s really fucked up (a better term cannot be accessed at this time, not unlike the iOS update, strange). The idea of growing up around the time that my dad did, or even before, constantly lingers in the back of my mind. And yes, believe me I realise how pathetic that is coming from me as a type this contradictory slab of words; please understand that I’m grateful for the ease in which I can type up my thoughts as they occur, then share them and quite possibly connect with someone anywhere in the world who can relate at the mere click of a button and copy of a link (poor old pop might think I’m talking about imitating a chain). But I do sometimes feel like a lot of us have missed out on developing respect for each other and relationships of our own in ways that we’ll never even come close to within our society. We don’t put up THAT much of a fight at the fact that companies suck us in and take us for all we’ve got because they KNOW we can’t live without them and the latest and slimmest ever phone in existence. And I can only imagine living like this will only intensify and worsen as we advance in technology and the speed in which we can slide into people’s “dm”s. Maybe it’s me, maybe it’s all in my head, but I decided a long time ago to stop holding my breath if even Beyonce had to.

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