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#just place the game of thrones music over the top of the credits and it’s the same vibe

aclowntiny · 1 year

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Silent War- Wonwoo x Gender Neutral!Reader

Word Count: 2,543 | Fluff, Humor, Slight Rivals to Lovers, Gamers 😎 | Warnings: nothing really, just one minor swear lol | Note: 20,000 won is about 15 bucks USD so yeah hehe

Corny pinball dings and flashes abound as you stroll into your haven, marching confidently to the card loader as if you owned the place. Which, frankly, sometimes you felt like you did.

Ok, that was a bit dramatic, but holding a consistent high score on your favorite arcade game gave you a unique childlike high of smugness that only grew stronger with the familiarity of your spot. You knew where everything was, the best table that didn’t wobble, which pizza was the best, how to load credits onto your card without asking for help, all of it. Visiting the arcade was your way to relax, a healthy way to release all your stress and aggression onto pixelated enemies. Not that you were a physically aggressive person anyway, but still. Take that, aliens.

There was a nice adrenaline rush associated with beating your personal best, something exciting but still relaxing. No need to sweat it up like some people did for their rushes.

Swipe.

Points added. Have fun!

Strike Shot was a janky, cheesy-looking console with some of the side design worn off, but so satisfying to huddle over and press the controls as fast as possible. Which honestly was faster than it looked like the machine could operate. The music was intense, upbeat techno you would have just listened to on its own, and the play was fairly simple: fly your ship, shoot down aliens, don’t run into asteroids, ships, or anything that makes you explode. It required focus and deftness, traits you’d honed for months. It was your corny old game, the star-dotted leaderboard suspended above the screen always topped by your initials.

Except today. Shotzfired, your username for that console, had fallen. It was second place. Second. After months of domination, someone had taken your crown. Some player by the name of Number원.

Oh, no. This would not do. Not at all. Number원 thought they could score 53,850 points, unseating you by a mere 300? Well, the joke was on them.

Stretching your hands, you got to work.

It happened again. You strode across the ridiculously dated carpet patterned with squiggles, triangles, and squares in yellow, magenta, and cyan to find Strike Shot again topped with Number원, this time beating you by a less narrow margin. Your eyebrows involuntarily furrowed, gaze narrowing at the display as if it would reveal Number원’s secret.

Had you ever seen this person in the arcade? They certainly didn’t seem to share your schedule considering you, a teenage couple who went by LOVERZ, and one kid innocently named MRCOOL once were just about the only people you’d ever seen playing Strike Shot. It wasn’t nearly as popular as the gambling simulators or basketball hoop matches. Heck, even the whack-a-mole got more traffic.

Number원 was a slippery character.

You were barely even surprised by the third time. Fire flew into your eyes, spurring you onward to defend your title. Number원 had to realize that you were not going down without a fight. Suddenly, motions that had become second nature to you felt important again, your energy and focus sharpening.

The rage of battle overtook you, every alien ship becoming a proxy for your newest enemy. Defeating the spacecraft shooting little purple blasts at you, sending them spiraling out of the sky, was your way of dropping Number원 off of your throne. Pew, pew. Take that, aliens. There’s only one ruler of space.

It was stakeout time. You’d had it. Number원 being on top was bad enough, but changing the username to Number원 ㅋㅋㅋ? It may have taken two weeks, but now it was personal.

Defeat was a challenge, mockery was all-out warfare. A purple-shirted arcade employee walked by you that day, stating “I’m glad you’ve been enjoying this game so much,” and it took every fiber of your being just to accept it and not explain that what you were doing was an act of silent warfare. You weren’t sure if the employee was enough of a gamer to get it. He was definitely younger than you, that was for sure. Teenagers had a tendency to roll their eyes at adults, right?

So, the day after you beat Number원 ㅋㅋㅋ, you went to the arcade. Day off be darned. Some of the familiarity had melted away, that usual kid replaced by a middle-aged woman you suspected was both the place’s owner and the boy’s mother. They had the same warm smile.

You stationed yourself at the pinball machine adjacent to Strike Shot, getting in a few rounds of a game you hadn’t enjoyed in too long anyway. You were rusty, so you honed your flipper skills while glancing occasionally at your home game, which remained empty.

After several rounds of pinball and even one on the claw machine around the corner (you didn’t win, the thing was totally rigged), it was break time. Couldn’t waste too many of your credits, after all. They didn’t exactly spring up out of the garish 1990’s carpet, after all, and you couldn’t help but chuckle as you wondered what your boss would think if he knew some of your wages were going to this.

A trio of middle school boys ran boisterously past, beelining for the basketball. LOVERZ strolled by hand in hand, the girl giggling at something her boyfriend said as she straightened her shiny black pigtails.

One lonely-looking guy tried his hand at the zombie shooter, gripping the plastic gun like much more of a pro than you would have expected. Usually you saw him at the claw machine. No one touched Strike Shot, you reflected as you crossed the floor over to the pizza parlor, ordering two slices of your favorite.

When you sat down and started tearing into the greasy goodness, you were surprised to see you weren’t the only one there. A guy near your age, give or take a couple years, sat two seats away from you finishing up some pizza of his own. You’d never seen him before; maybe he wasn’t a regular.

For some reason, he intrigued you. Maybe it was the way he casually yet deftly pushed his glasses up or the calm he exuded, but you decided to try your hand at conversation.

“Is this your first time here?”

You saw his posture shift, clearly in surprise at being addressed, before he turned toward you, shaking his head with a small smile. “No, I come here quite often, actually.”

“Me, too,” you replied, brow furrowing, “I’m surprised I’ve never seen you before. I thought I knew everyone!” You added with a chuckle.

“I usually come on tuesdays and thursdays.”

You nod slowly. “Oh, that’s why. I’m usually here on mondays and wednesdays. Took out some overtime this week.” You grinned. “I’m (y/n), by the way.”

“(y/n),” he repeats, “My name is Wonwoo. Hey, while you’re here, would you be interested in being Player 2 for Death Risen? I’ve always wanted to play, but I come here on my own.”

“Sure,” you nod, taking another bite of your pizza, “I’ve never played either, though, so I may not be up to my usual standard.”

Wonwoo cocked an eyebrow at that. “You have high standards, then?”

“Can’t come here this often and not, right?” You joked, eyes sparkling with mischief.

“Watch out. Watch out. Watch-” BLAM! Warnings received, you whipped around and took out the ghoul that charged from behind, somehow managing a headshot. “Nice,” Wonwoo commented.

He was really good at games, his calm smile fading into a sharp, focused look the moment he pressed start, but still kept that relaxing presence. You didn’t feel like you had to perform for him, like he didn’t care about pretense at all. His demeanor was a natural damp on nervous energy too, making you feel balanced out. You’d practically forgotten about Strike Shot, your mind devoted to shooting ghosts and demons out of the earthly plane…and maybe trying to switch your work schedule to heavier tuesdays and thursdays. Given you worked from home, that could be manageable if you-

Wait. Had this guy already gotten that far under your skin? You’d played one long round of Death Risen and you were already-

“Look, we got the high score! Great job, (y/n)!” Wonwoo reached over for a high-five, a big smile on his face and joy lighting up his deep brown eyes as the victory screen reflected in the lenses of his glasses.

Yep, you were interested. High-fiving back, you took in the feelings of your hands together for the fleeting moment you were offered. "Wanna play anything else?"

"Sure," Wonwoo nodded, "have you figured out the secret to the claw machine yet?"

Your eyes widened with interest. "That thing? It's so rigged."

He smirked, turning his game card in his hands like a master gambler plays with his poker hand. "Not if you know the trick."

Apparently, the trick was to shake the machine too. "Isn't this cheating?"

"Do you want a rubber duck or not?" Wonwoo shot back, laughing as you palmed the sides of the big rectangular chamber. "I'm sure they only cost this place like ₩20,000 for a lot of a hundred. It's not like we're cheating on the one that wins you a switch."

"Ok, ok," you let go of the machine to put up your hands in surrender, "you sold me. I wouldn't feel good about stealing a switch, either," you clarified.

"You're barely into stealing a rubber duck," Wonwoo teased, bringing warmth to your face.

"Yeah, yeah, let me know when to move it."

"Alright, go ahead. Which one do you want?"

"Hmmm, if you can go for the one with the cowboy hat, I like him."

"Done."

You walked away from the claw machine with Wonwoo at your side and your rubber duck, which you named Ranger, peeking out of your pocket.

"So, do you have a favorite game here?" You asked Wonwoo, peering at his handsome side profile as you broke the comfortable silence.

"Yeah," he nodded, grinning, "but I think only one other person ever plays it. I'm the best, though."

"I'm a regular, remember? Try me."

He tilted his head toward a purple console with faded wrapping on the side, aliens with faces worn away, the menacing effect totally lost as the screen flashed invitingly, enticingly.

"Strike Shot," he tells you with a smirk as if you didn't have every button, every chip of that game memorized, "someone keeps trying to beat my high score, but I beat them every time."

It hit you like a ton of bricks, your eyes falling open. Number원. Wonwoo. This was the guy whose ass you'd been trying to beat for two weeks.

"Number원," you muttered before you could stop yourself, tone a little more intent than the half of you that was attracted to this guy would have wanted.

What were the odds? This guy, this really chill, stupidly handsome guy you were going to try to swap numbers with was the newfound bane of your gamers' pride's existence?

Wonwoo for his part chuckled, smirk widening. "Shotzfired?"

"You're going down. One final match."

"Why, because if I beat you bad enough you won't play anymore?"

"That's it," you stop, crossing your arms and stepping closer to him, only inches separating the two of you. You'd totally forgotten yourself, forgotten Wonwoo and that you two were still relative strangers and that you were just thinking he was hot enough to rearrange your work from home schedule just to see him. In that moment, all you saw was the red of your silent war. "I'll show you. You'll eat those words."

That calm smile broke across his face, somehow much more infuriating than the smirk was. Wonwoo looked completely unbothered by your words, more faintly amused, like you were cute. The part of you that wanted him to find you cute had gone to sleep, though. Mostly. You still felt a little flushed, the realization of the way you two had been standing for just a little too long hitting you. But there was no backing down, not when he said what he said, that peaceful happiness still painting his face.

"Make me, (y/n)."

You won. You. Freaking. Won. By only a hundred points, but you topped the leader board with a smirk, crossing your arms once more as you swiveled to face Wonwoo. "Take that."

"That's ok, I'll just beat it next time you're here. You're so happy, I'll leave it for now.”

“That’s ok, maybe next time I’ll be here to stop you.”

“Oh?” Try as you might, you couldn’t read into the ‘oh’ very well. He sounded a bit pleased, but you weren’t sure if it was just the competition talking.

“Or would you rather just show up and see?” You backed off a little, suddenly feeling self-conscious, like maybe you’d taken it too far.

“If I’m being honest? I like having someone here to play with. Ever since we started going back and forth in first place, it’s been more fun, don’t you think?”

You had felt a new fire in you as you played to beat Number원, not just fill your own space. It had filled you with a new anticipation every time you’d entered the arcade, hoping to see someone else standing at Strike Shot for you to challenge. Heck, you’d even gone full stakeout more on your usual errand day just to get a glimpse of the person you were locked in a battle with. It had been the most fun you’d had in a while, a revitalization of a stale routine.

“Yeah,” you smiled, this time softly, gladly, “it has been more fun.”

“Same time next tuesday, then?”

“You’re on.”

Waving to the owner lady, you strode out of the arcade with a smug look, but this time your high score was completely forgotten. After all, Wonwoo had asked you for your phone number.

“Get him! Get him!”

“I’m trying! You’re making this difficult, (y/n).”

“What do you mean?” You teased, hands sliding a bit further up Wonwoo’s waist as he tried to hit the right combo of buttons.

“You won’t be laughing when I topple your Strike Shot score again,” he shot back, but he turned to away during the little zombie cutscene to peck your lips.

“Well then, I’ll just beat it again like I always do. Like I have been doing for, let’s see…”. You counted on your fingers innocently. “Five months now?”

He shook his head. “You’re a menace, you know that?”

“Yeah,” you just agreed, blinking at the stars in your boyfriend’s eyes, memories of you guys reading together, watching and reviewing movies, laughing at how silly you looked playing whack-a-mole like a kid, the way Wonwoo’s unique mind opened you up to new details of the places you’d seen countless times and the way you dragged him out to have fun everywhere you went, and of course your first kiss shared at your doorstep all playing through the haze of your mind, “but you know you love me.”

Wonwoo leaned down, resting his head on yours. “That I do.”

#seventeen #seventeen imagines #seventeen reactions #seventeen x reader #seventeen scenarios #wonwoo #wonwoo x reader #wonwoo x gender neutral reader #gender neutral reader #fluff #rivals to lovers #sorta hehe

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a-man-for-hire-and-his-archives · 1 year

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Black Sails: 13 Facts About The Starz Hit Worth More Than Stolen Treasure

BY ERICH B. ANDERSON/DEC. 31, 2022 1:15 PM EST

With contemporary series like "Vikings" and "Game of Thrones," "Black Sails" may often be overlooked when compared to other epic dramas of the 2010s, which makes it one of the most underrated shows of the decade. Not only is the scale of the pirate adventure immense with many scenes taking place upon impressive naval vessels, but the political intrigue and intimate interactions of the characters make it an entertaining watch for several different audiences.

The show as a whole does a brilliant job of mixing fiction with historical figures like the notorious pirate captains Blackbeard (Ray Stevenson) and Charles Vane (Zach McGowan) whose lives were so legendary that they verge on fantasy. But at its core, the story centers on the complicated friendship between its two main characters, Captain Flint (Toby Stephens) and his deviously clever quartermaster, Long John Silver, in the years before their sagas are continued in the later tale of "Treasure Island." For a series devoted to such larger-than-life individuals, the making of it also had its fair share of epic details and moments as well, which you can enjoy reading below.

The series is an unofficial prequel to Treasure Island

Although "Black Sails" is its own story for the most part, from the very beginning it was always meant to show the events building up to the classic work of fiction "Treasure Island" by Robert Louis Stevenson. More than anything, the creators of the series wanted to tie up loose ends to the famous tale and give their explanation to who the characters were up to in the years before, as showrunner Jonathan Steinberg explained to Entertainment Weekly: "At the end of the book, it's recounted by other people that Captain Flint died in Savannah alone, which begs a lot of questions."

Flint's origin is certainly not the only one covered with both Long John Silver's and Billy Bones' backstories explained thoroughly as well. For Billy especially, his situation in the finale of the series gives all new meaning to what happens to him later in the novel. Steinberg added: "It is clear we are suggesting he is on 'Treasure Island,' which I think has a number of implications if you go back and read the book."

After four seasons, it is clear the showrunner was pleased with how the series handled the continuity, saying: "It felt like we had finished the argument a little bit, in terms of connecting it not just to 'Treasure Island,' but to our contemporary understanding of what piracy was, about what Caribbean piracy was."

2. The opening credits features the hurdy-gurdy

Several aspects of "Black Sails" make it stand out as a particularly fascinating TV series, with one of the top being its unique theme music in the opening credits. Not only is the memorable tune composed by the talented Bear McCreary who is well known for his work on "The Walking Dead" and "Battlestar Galactica," but it also features quite an unusual instrument known as a hurdy-gurdy, according to Entertainment Weekly.

Also known as a wheel fiddle, the hurdy-gurdy is a folk instrument that has existed for around 1,000 years and is played to this day all over Western Europe, from Italy to England. In a 2010 TED Talk, musician Caroline Phillips explained that the complex and bulky device originally required two people to operate it until the design was improved a few centuries later, so it could be used by a single performer. Although a fundamental part of the instrument is the strings, akin to a violin, the sound produced can also be compared to bagpipes.

3. The show was filmed in South Africa

While "Black Sails" takes place predominantly in the Caribbean, that was not the place chosen to film the epic pirate drama. Instead, the Starz network went with the fairly new Cape Town Studios for the production, and needless to say that the South African-based company was ecstatic over the decision. Ahead of filming Season 1, Film Afrika producer Vlokkie Gordon said: "We are delighted to have been awarded ['Black Sails'] and it is further proof of South Africa's international reputation for outstanding production skill and expertise" (via The Location Guide). Gordon continued: "A production of this scope provides not only employment for South Africans, but also skills transfer which is in line with Film Afrika's policy of supporting growth and development of the South African film and television industry."

The swashbuckling series was then added to the growing list of productions shot out of Cape Town, including "Safe House," "Chronicle," and "Mad Max: Fury Road," as per the Cape Town Film Studios website. Plus, another Starz series benefited greatly from the elaborate ship sets built there, with "Outlander" using the Jamaican landscapes in its third season, according to Entertainment Weekly.

4. 300 people worked on the pirate ship

The impressive sailing vessels featured in "Black Sails" are almost as important to the story as the characters themselves. Therefore, a ton of work was put into the construction of the sets in order to make the maritime setting feel real for the cast, and more importantly, the audience. In a behind-the-scenes clip shared by Starz, senior rigger Joel Yates explained: "The carpenters building the boat it took them, I think, four or five months. They want it to look as authentic as possible because what we've built is a very accurate replica of a sailing ship."

The end product, called The Walrus in the show, was massive as well, as Yates revealed that the full ship is approximately 140 feet long. And to pull off such an incredible feat, it took a gigantic crew with various skill sets, as construction coordinator Clive Pollack shared: "There are 300 people working on the boat. There are carpenters, sculptors, painters, riggers, sailmakers."

5. There were no bathrooms for cast and crew on the ship

For as grand as the prominent pirate ship is in "Black Sails," it does have its faults as it also serves as the set of a modern TV production. In a 2016 interview with Den of Geek, actor Zach McGowan revealed the biggest problem for the cast and crew on set: "The hardest thing about the ships, most people don't realize, is just when you're on the ship at the top of the deck somewhere, it's very far to the nearest bathroom. There's no bathroom on the ships."

Even with that minor complaint, McGowan went on to stress that being on the deck of the ship at sea was such a great experience that the actor wished he had more of those scenes. It's also his opinion that most of the cast felt the same way, except possibly the ones who spent the most time on board, such as Toby Stephens.

6. The actors went through pirate boot camp

Like most epic dramas featured on premium channels, "Black Sails" is filled with massive battle sequences, in this case often between rival pirate clans, or against the relentless forces of the British and Spanish empires. While the nature of naval warfare means that a good amount of these conflicts are long distance, yet devastating, as cannonballs attempt to rip enemy vessels apart, much of the brutal combat is at close quarters.

All of the fight scenes in the series are quite impressive, so it makes sense that many cast members received special training. In a Q&A with a few of the main actors, shared by Starz in 2015, Luke Arnold revealed: "We all went through a three-week pirate boot camp. Well, the pirates of the crew did at the beginning of shooting." And it was a good thing that they did because when asked if they could survive the rough conditions of the time period, the general consensus was an adamant no. Toby Stephens then elaborated with a laugh: "The real trouble, I'd be ok on Nasau, it was as soon as I'd get on a boat and I had to sail anywhere."

7. Clara Paget came up with Anne Bonny's distinctive look

From Charles Vane, Edward Teach, and Jack Rackham to Captain Flint, Long John Silver, and Billy Bones, "Black Sails" has all sorts of characters based on either historic people or from the famous fictional tale, "Treasure Island." Therefore, both the writers of the show and the actors who portrayed these popular figures had to work with what was already known about them. But at the same time, there was a lot of creative freedom as well.

A somewhat minor, though fascinating aspect of another one of these real characters in the series, Anne Bonny, was thought up by actress Clara Paget. In a 2016 interview with Den of Geek, when asked what she contributed to the role, the actress replied: "I suppose the hat. That came completely organically. I tried on this hat and then I was pulling it down in an almost jokey way, like an old-school Western. Then it became who she is, hiding behind this hat. It really works for the character because, as I said, it shows this vulnerable side at the same time as being a badass through one side or the other. Like schizophrenic, bipolar."

8. Zack McGowan broke a stuntman's jaw by accident

A major reason that the fight scenes in "Black Sails" are so good is because of the enthusiasm of the cast and crew when filming, yet there was one time that may have gone a little too far. When a stuntman on set named Daryl was to be hit with the butt of a rifle by Zach McGowan, the dedicated performer showed no fear and encouraged the actor to strike him square in the face. The veteran stuntman figured it was no big deal since the thing was only made of rubber. Since Daryl seemed more than fine with the idea, McGowan went along with the idea.

In a 2017 interview with Rotten Tomatoes, Toby Stephens recalled the disastrous, though somewhat funny result: "Zach, who's brilliant at this kind of thing, whacked him straight in the jaw, as the guy asked, and totally broke his jaw. It looks fantastic, it actually made the cut, and it looked absolutely brilliant. At the end of it, I just remember Daryl going, 'No, it's fine. It's okay, don't worry about it.'" Fortunately, the stuntman was not seriously harmed, so they were able to joke about it a bit.

9. Zack McGowan climbed the balconies of a building to get rum

"Black Sails" is filled with many incredible exploits of pirate warriors as they battle on the high seas, but a behind-the-scenes achievement by one of the actors was almost as impressive as what was shown on screen. During a break in filming, the cast was having a good time together but needed some rum, so Zach McGowan went to rather extreme lengths to remedy the situation.

In order to gain access to the prized liquor in a room several floors up, the actor literally scaled the side of the building all on his own. When talking with Rotten Tomatoes, cast member Hannah New described the amazing sight, saying: "He did this like Spider-Man kind of thing where he climbed up these balconies … it's incredible, he does like, God knows how many chin-ups every day. So, he can just chin up these balconies."

After McGowan successfully got the rum and then made the way back down with it in his front pocket, the cast waiting down below were too awestruck to do anything but tensely watch. Fellow actress Jessica Parker Kennedy added: "And none of us videotaped it. I think we were all in such shock, it was so scary, I thought he was going to fall and break his neck and we would have to explain it to our producers the next day."

10. It took all season to film Luke Arnold's underwater scene

In the fourth season of "Black Sails," Long John Silver nearly perishes in the sea as he struggles to escape his sinking ship. Actor Luke Arnold must have been pleased that his character ultimately survived the harrowing experience, but filming the scenes was definitely not easy for the actor. Even though he was confident in the comprehensive training he received beforehand, Arnold still had to overcome a major fear of performing in those conditions.

When asked specifically about those tense underwater moments, he told Collider in a 2017 interview: "That was the beginning of hell that kept getting crazier as it went along. That took all season to shoot. We were in the water tank, from the beginning of the season, stuck underwater, all day." To his dismay, Arnold was right when he assumed it would take longer to finish than the filmmakers first thought, yet it was all worth it, as he added: "Right until the last couple of weeks, I was doing bits of the underwater stuff to make that whole sequence as spectacular as it is."

11. Luke Arnold received a special gift from a producer

Luke Arnold was one of several major cast members of "Black Sails" who was in the show from the very beginning all the way through to the climactic finale. The actor very much enjoyed his time filming the series, so when he found a cherished memento from the early days, it was a big deal. In the same interview with Collider, he revealed: "We were shooting a scene in Season 4 that was back in Eleanor's office, and I found the piece of paper that I was writing the directions to find the Urca de Lima on, which was the very first scene we shot in Episode 103. Nina Jack, who was one of our producers on Season 4, got it framed and gave it to me as a gift, so I've gone away with that. That was amazing!"

On the other hand, there were parts of the series that Arnold did not remember so fondly, mostly from the difficulties that arose in pretending to have lost a leg. In this endeavor, he was able to use a crutch on screen, but the prop caused him so much discomfort that he grew to despise it.

12. Luke Arnold had a legless stunt double

Once Long John Silver tragically loses his leg in "Black Sails," Luke Arnold had some difficulty filming scenes as the character, so he was grateful to have help from a stuntman named Ben de Jager who is also missing the limb. The actor told Collider: "It was great to have somebody who's gone through the experience of losing a leg. He did step in for a lot of stuff, mainly because it was so much easier to have him there. If you're shooting from behind or you're focusing on the foot, it's easier to have someone in who's missing the leg than to do it with me and spend a fortune on visual effects to change things."

Though Arnold certainly got along with de Jager, there also seemed to have been a little jealousy in sharing screen time for the role. The actor admitted that a downside for him was his absence in some major Long John Silver moments of the show.

13. The writers gradually decided to bring back Flint's lover, Thomas

For as dark as "Black Sails" can be throughout the series, it ended on a fairly happy note as the main character, Captain Flint, is finally reunited with the love of his life, Thomas Hamilton (Rupert Penry-Jones). Both men are sentenced to imprisonment on a plantation, yet all that matters to the pair is that they are together again. Viewers may have been somewhat surprised that Thomas had returned to the show given the fact that he was thought to be dead, but over time the writers decided that was not going to be his fate.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in 2017, Jonathan Steinberg explained: "We had a sense in Season 2 when he died off-screen, that any character who dies off-screen, you're taking the word of the messenger as to whether or not it actually happened. We knew we weren't finished with him. And then at some point in Season 3, we realized it would be reasonably late in the series when he came back, so in Season 4 it felt right."

Source: Looper

#luke arnold #zach mcgowan #clara paget #black sails #lovely article

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ynscrazylife · 3 years

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hi there! so i saw that you write about the mcu and dceu which is super cool bc i have this amazing idea of a story between me, the avengers, the guardians and the justice league (platonic ofc!) i was thinking about the three teams were preparing my birthday in a yard and while they are preparing everything, bruce banner is picking me up and him and i could get closer in a romantic way (mostly because he's my fav), and when i arrive everyone is suprising me and then we have a lot of fun 1/2

The Surprise Party | avengers, guardians, justice league fluff fic

Summary: Ignoring how they’re from different universes, the superheroes throw their friend an amazing surprise birthday party.

Authors Note: Thanks for requesting & happy birthday!

Request to be on a taglist (or multiple) here! (Taglists are at the end of the fic)

MCU Masterlist #1 | MCU Masterlist #2 | DCEU Masterlist | Main Masterlist

PSA: Do NOT copy, steal, translate, plagiarize, republish, etc any of my works on Tumblr or any other platform. Also, do NOT claim any of my works as your own. All of these works are either requests I’ve gotten that people have wanted me to write or original ideas I’ve had for works. If you happen to take inspiration from anything I’ve written and want to write something inspired by that, please a) ask me first and b) IF I say yes, credit me as inspo in your post by tagging me and link whatever work of mine that inspired you. Thanks.

header c @/gagalacrax on twitter

There was a reason why the Avengers, the Guardians of the Galaxy, and the Justice League didn’t all get together: with that many superheroes, in one space, chaos was bound to break out. That chaos could be, quite literally, anything. From Iron Man challenging the Flash to an arm wrestling contest to Aquaman attacking Groot when he thought he was an enemy. Long story short, it just wasn’t a good idea . . . Until they found out that besides saving the world, all three teams had one thing in common: Y/N Y/LN.

Y/N had, to everyone’s astonishment, been on all three teams. Born as a Metahuman, she had started out on the Justice League team. Then, on a solo mission, she accidentally entered a black hole and bam! she found herself in another universe, and quickly bonded with the Guardians of the Galaxy. Eventually, it was determined that the Guardians couldn’t help her return to her home world - or universe - so she bid them goodbye and sought out the Avengers.

Y/N was the reason they had met. The reason that they knew of each other's universes. Now, seeing as her birthday was rapidly approaching, she was the reason they were coming together once more. Each superhero had their own connection with Y/N and adored her. Batman and Captain America were like father figures while Black Widow, Mera, and Wonder Woman were her mother figures, Furthermore, Aquaman and Thor were her mentors, Starlord, Iron Man, and Superman were like her big brothers, Gamora and Scarlet Witch were like her sisters, and Falcon, Rocket, Groot, Hawkeye, and Drax were her best friends.

There was someone else who fit into Y/N’s life in an entirely different way, though. That was the Hulk, aka Bruce Banner, who Y/N had a growing crush on. Coincidentally, his role in their birthday surprise was to be the distractor. He’d take Y/N out and about, staying as far away as possible from the Avengers Tower, while the other superheroes set up.

As expected, the planning hardly went smoothly.

Tony and Barry got into another confrontation, this time over Y/N’s choice of music (which went on until Mera and Wanda butted in with the music Y/N actually enjoyed), Arthur began to get on Natasha’s last nerves, and Rocket almost started eating her cake . . . and that was only a bit of what happened in the first half of the day.

Meanwhile, Bruce kept Y/N occupied. He took her out to her favorite breakfast place and breakfast was on him and then they filled the day at a carnival park. Bruce happily accompanied her on all the rides she wanted to go on (despite almost Hulking out multiple times) and even won Y/N some stuffed animals by throwing rings. He even got her lots and lots of cotton candy and then let her ride on his back when she got a stomach ache. All in all, though, it was a fun time. So fun that Bruce almost forgot that they had a party to get to!

Which is exactly why he frantically texted the groupchat that they were on their way and had to practically drag Y/N away from wanting to go on the ferris wheel for the third time. When confronted with questions, the lie that there was an emergency mission slipped off the brunette’s tongue -- probably not the smartest lie because Y/N had declared weeks before that if there were any missions on the week of her birthday, she wasn’t going -- but it worked long enough to keep her distracted, even if she was too busy with pouting and grumbling.

As they got closer and closer, Bruce could barely contain his excitement. Not only had he had a fantastic game, he was about to spend the night partying with the woman he had a crush on and celebrating her birthday. Who knows - maybe he’d even ask her out?!

When they got there, Y/N was ready to march inside and suit up, but Bruce tugging on her arm made her stop. Ignoring her endless questions and cries of frustration, he took his time leading her through the tower and into the backyard so the superheroes would have time to hide. Bruce let Y/N go before him and the moment she opened the doors, everyone jumped out wearing party hats and yelled: “SURPRISE!”

To say she was surprised would be a total understatement. In fact, she was so surprised that she stumbled back, directly into the scientist, and with his quick reflexes he steadied her and lightly nudged her forward and out of her shocked state. She had let out the biggest gasp that any of them had ever heard, her eyes went wide, and her hands flew over her mouth.

Slowly, she walked forward, overwhelmed by the sight before her. Not only were all her teammates - her friends, even family - together, but the place looked amazing. There were streamers, a big sign saying HAPPY BIRTHDAY, balloons, even a fake throne that Tony and Bruce had constructed earlier that week!

“Oh-oh my god, you guys . . . Thank you! Thank you, thank you, thank you!” She cried out, jumping up and down.

Everyone smiled. “Of course, sweetheart,” Arthur said.

“Go sit on your throne - presents are up first!” Tony added.

Y/N immediately ran and jumped onto the big throne.

“Aren’t presents supposed to be last or something?” Clint muttered to Steve as they walked over.

“Yeah, but Tony keeps boasting on how good his present is,” Steve replied.

Everyone mingled on over there and Tony presented his birthday present, which was definitely over-wrapped, first. After the squeals she emitted, the others were next. Everyone had gotten her their own birthday present, but Arthur and Mera went over the top when they joined together with their powers to make Y/N something super special.

Afterwards, they spent the rest of the time absolutely PARTYING! They had a dance contest which JARVIS was the judge of and Y/N won, but the next round Y/N co-judged with JARVIS and they determined that Rocket and Barry were tied for first place, Peter and Clint tied for second place, and Bruce got third place. Then, they moved onto playing games (Y/N and Bruce teamed up and they CRUSHED everyone else, because they already had experience working together at the carnival that day) and finally, it was time for cake. Y/N got the biggest piece and, of course, Rocket and Arthur fought over the cake (Groot smacked them).

They partied until the sun came up, where everyone either fell asleep or had someone fall asleep on them. In the morning, everyone awoke, only to see Y/N still asleep, her head resting on Bruce’s shoulder and a blanket wrapped around them both. It was the most adorable sight they had ever witnessed and Bruce carried her to bed while Natasha took her shoes off. The superheroes left her to sleep in and she came downstairs a couple hours later, a breakfast full of waffles, pancakes, anything you could imagine waiting for her.

Permanent Taglist: @natasharomanoffismywife @hehehehannahthings @paulawand @blackbat2020 @cerberus-spectre @marrymemcgrath @celestialbarnes @kathryndimitrescu @snipyloulou @big-galaxy-chaos @cc13723things

MCU Taglist: @stephanieromanoff @summerlovingbaby @ineffablebean @okkulta @procrastinatingsapphictrash @prettysbliss @caseyfish @sarahp-stan @thewidowsghost @basiclesbianbitch @mycosmicparadise @kidswhofightmonsters @xtraordinaryfangrl @peggycarter-steverogers @username23345 @ima-gi--na-tion @yori-nakajima @hi-i-1 @mmmmokdok @xxxtwilightaxelxxx @mads-weasley @tenaciousperfectionunknown @afraid-to-be-me @lilclownx @acertainredhead @natromanoffxox @lilymurphy03 @thanossexual @avengersz-biotch @kozumekoi @mjaudrey

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sarcasticfina · 3 years

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Fic Writer Tag Game

How many works do you have on AO3? 263

What’s your total AO3 word count? 4,901,188

How many fandoms have you written for, and what are they? including the fandoms on FFnet, that haven't yet been moved over to ao3, that'd be a total of 37. separating the larger fandoms (marvel, dcu) into their individual parts: Thor; Arrow; Smallville; The Vampire Diaries; Glee; Captain America; Supernatural; Teen Wolf; Iron Man; Life with Derek; Firefly; Friday Night Lights; X-Men; Fantastic Four; Harry Potter; Sons of Anarchy; Girl Meets World; Batman; Daredevil; From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series; Transformers; Lost Girl; Game of Thrones; Banshee; High School Musical; The OC; One Tree Hill; CSI: New York; Degrassi; Gossip Girl; NCIS; The Unusuals; Criminal Minds; iCarly; Secret Life of the American Teenager; Twilight; and The Listener

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

1. and I wonder (if everything could ever feel this real forever) - darcy/bucky - Steve tells him that Darcy's harmless. Bucky imagines, on paper, Darcy is harmless. HYDRA wouldn't give her a second glance. But he does. He can barely keep his eyes off her. He's not sure he wants to. | Kudos: 5576

2. I Climbed The Tree To See The World (When The Gusts Came Around To Blow Me Down, I Held On As Tightly As You Held On To Me) - darcy centric | darcy/steve - The path to self-discovery, including becoming Coulson's assistant-slash-liaison-slash-bff, Captain America's lady love, and rating fourth on the SHIELD BAMF scale, was like the yellow brick road; it was chaos and confusion around every bend. | Kudos: 3973

3. Take a little piece of my heart (and keep it for yourself) - oliver/felicity - A collection of Olicity prompts on Tumblr posted here for easier access/reading. | Kudos: 3498

4. You put your arms around me (and I'm home) - darcy/bucky - A collection of Darcy/Bucky oneshots, drabbles, and prompt fills. | Kudos: 3293

5. you (anchor me back down) - darcy/bucky - "I'll be right back." Famous last words. | Kudos: 2747

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? not all of them. i do try to keep up on them, especially on longer stories when there's been significant wait times in between chapters, or when a reader is asking a question or is unclear on something. and especially when someone writes a really indepth comment/review, i like to respond to those and talk about motivations and character growth.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending? I've written a number of fics that either had suicide or major character death, so i'm not sure if one outranks the other in terms of most angsty... hmm... i remember "be still and know that I'm with you (be still and know that I am here)" and "light a match, burn the world to ash (I will watch it die, and hold your hand as I fly)" both got some pretty intense reactions when they were posted. And "It's Your Song That Sets Me Free (I Sing It While I Feel I Can't Go On)" was basically just angst from beginning to end. buuuuut, i think i'll say "so you think you can tell (heaven from hell" was, only because there's a build up of everything going so right, only to pivot at the end, so it feels very bittersweet.

Do you write crossovers? If so what’s the craziest one you’ve written? i loooooove crossovers. i find writing in the marvel fandom makes things quite easy, but also smallville. as long as i can find a common thread, i enjoy finding a way to overlap two shows. i'll say the hardest one to write was "ruby red slippers (unavailable in her size)." I'm not sure why, but i found writing each personality together just felt strange. i liked the idea behind the story, but i definitely remember feeling like i was really forcing myself to keep going, like something just didn't fit right.

Have you ever received hate on a fic? oh, definitely. you cannot please everyone, it's impossible. for the most part, hate comes and i either argue back, take the criticism for what it's worth, or just ignore it when it's baseless. i think the hate that bothered me the most was a homophobic PM someone sent me re: "you know I will adore you ('til eternity)," on FFnet. i actually went and searched it up. they've since blocked me so i can't read our whole thread back and forth. but i did put part of it on tumblr so i could rant on it a bit, so you can see that here.

Do you write smut? If so what kind? ha. yes. depending on the story, it can be really detailed or really flowery. it depends on the ship, the plot, and how graphic i feel like being. i've definitely become more comfortable over the years with my writing. that said, i think everybody likes something different. i once had a reviewer tell me a sex scene was too much, just too intense. it was a stefan/caroline story and to be fair, that entire oneshot was just them fucking, lol, but it is what it is. to each their own.

Have you ever had a fic stolen? Multiple times.

Have you ever had a fic translated? Yes! for the record, i am always happy to have my stories translated and shared. i just like having a link sent to me and to be credited.

What’s your all time favorite ship? i have a list of OTPs, because interests change and as shows come and go, my love for a ship can be shelved for a while before it pops back up at random. currently, i can't get enough of buck/eddie from 9-1-1. and, historically, chloe/oliver (smallville) and felicity/oliver (arrow) have been two of my top OTPs. but i think i'd have to go with bonnie/damon. they had all the potential and the show dropped the ball by not exploring it. at the same time, that's kind of a blessing, because i don't trust those writers to properly explore what they had without eventually destroying it for the likes of de/ena. it means a treasure trove for writing where it could have gone and all the what if's.

What’s a WIP that you want to finish, but don’t think you ever will? the intention is always to finish. but given how i feel about allison mack and how that impacts my feelings re: chloe sullivan, pretty much anything with her as a main character is not something i see myself returning to.

What are your writing strengths? What are your writing weaknesses? i'm putting these together because my strength is my weakness. i love to write. when i get an idea, i go all in and i will skip eating and sleeping to just write write write. but i also eventually hit a wall and i get so many ideas that i hyperfocus on one until the steam is gone and then i hyperfocus on the next one to maintain that need to keep writing, accidentally leaving the last story in the dust for entirely too long. i also have clinical depression that comes and goes, which hasn't been super great mixed with covid and isolation, so more often recently, i find myself overly exhausted and despite wanting to write, can rarely get motivated to do so. so, pre-covid, wrote so much i left entirely too many stories dangling. during covid, i've just been reading and struggling to get myself focused enough to do what i love.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic? i appreciate the authenticity when possible, but i've recently been reading more about how native speakers of other languages feel when a) their language is butchered by google translate, or b) it's just not genuine in terms of how bilingual speakers act or speak.

What was the first fandom you’ve written for? it was smallville, but i remember adopting it out to someone else because i wasn't going to finish it. so if you look at my ffnet, the first fandom i wrote for appears to be x-men: the movie, but i remember writing a chloe/oliver story prior to that.

What’s your favorite fic that you’ve written? i have a lot. i mean, on ffnet, i have 576 stories, many of which were transferred over to ao3, with a lot of oneshots and drabbles getting joined together into collections. so there's a ton to pick from that span a 14-ish year timeline.

"you know I will adore you ('til eternity)" and "let me break (the walls that surround me)" hold a special place in my heart.

honestly, each story is important in its own way. there are bits and pieces of each that i love. every time i write something new it feels like my favorite. my best. and then a new idea comes along. there are scenes i've written that i loved more than the whole of what they became. lines that stand out that are almost too good to be a part of the larger picture.

one of my all time favorite passages i've written was bonnie's thoughts on damon and herself in 'if you love me (let me go)":

He is far from perfect. He is a novel of red, corrective ink. He is frayed pages and torn binding. His life, his choices, his mistakes leave lasting effects on everyone he meets.

She is a lifeboat with a hole in it. An anchor that drowns in the sea while everyone else remains steady above. She is both the calm and the storm, and while she screams that she will not be tamed, she cries. Bittersweet tears that go unnoticed and uncared about.

there are other stories, other pieces of dialogue, that i've been proud of. that make me laugh when i re-read them. that make me cry. and i love them. there are others that make me wilt and cringe and regret. it's a process. love and pride and growth, all bound together.

Tagging: @absentlyabbie, @anonymous033, and anyone else who'd like to fill this all out, haha

#fic writer tag game #long post

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stellar-starseed · 3 years

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Never In A Million Years

Gif credit to owner

Group: BTS

Pairing: Yoongi x fem!reader, Jimin x fem!reader, polyamory

Summary: You have just confessed to one of your close friends that you have feelings for them. Things don’t go according to plan, and you turn to your best friend, Yoongi, for comfort.

Word count: 2,763

Chapter: 6/8

Other Chapters: Master List

Warning: 18+, sexual content, language

Note: cross posted on ao3, none of this has been edited so apologies for errors.

Chapter 6

You wake up in Yoongi’s bed to see Jimin fast asleep in front of you with his arm wrapped around you. You smiled to yourself. You thought he would’ve gone back to the dorms. It was sweet that he worried about you. You turned in his arms and realized Yoongi was on the other side of you. Startled, you gasped and his eyes open to meet yours. He mumbled an apology and explained that Jimin said it was okay. You smile at him and nod.

“Of course it’s okay. You just startled me.” You felt Jimin’s arm tighten around your waist and automatically place your hand over his. When you look up at Yoongi you can see the flicker of sadness in his eyes. Your heart immediately felt that pain. Yoongi gives you a small smile as he tries to mask it. He whispers that he’ll leave you two alone. You reach for him and place your hand firmly on his arm before he has the chance to get up. You shake your head.

“Stay.” You whisper. Yoongi relaxes back onto the pillow with a smile he can’t shake. You both lay in silence looking into each other’s eyes.

When Jimin finally stirs behind you-you feel guilty. After getting what you wanted for so long, how could you want more? You couldn’t understand how your heart was split. Everyone has always told you true love is with one very special person. Well, what if you are lucky enough to find two special people? Two people who care about you a great deal. Is that selfish?

Jimin moans in your ear and lets go of you only long enough to stretch. His arm comes back around to pull you as close as he can get you before kissing your neck.

“Did I interrupt an important conversation?” Jimin smiles and kisses your cheek.

“Nope.” Yoongi speaks up and, after breaking eye contact with you for the first time in what seemed to be over an hour, he climbs out of bed. “I’m going to head to the the studio.”

“Oh, fine.” You sigh. “Just leave me in a weakened state!” You place the back of your hand to your forehead and look away in an over dramatic effort to get Yoongi to feel guilty.

“You have Jimin.” Yoongi says with furrowed eyebrows.

“He has exams.” You pout.

“Not today, 자기 (jagi). I took my last one yesterday. Jungkook has one more today, but I’m all yours, baby.”

“See.” Yoongi rolls his eyes at your pouting face and rummages through his dresser drawers.

“I can make you feel better.” Jimin dropped his voice as he spoke next to your ear. It sent shivers down your spine. Oh how you loved his seductive voice.

“I heard that.” Yoongi said, feigning disgust as he headed for the bathroom.

Jimin giggles at his reaction, “I’ll wait until you leave...” He calls after him. “The room.” He smiles at you and takes your bottom lip into his mouth to nibble on. You see Yoongi wave his hand behind him before the bathroom door closes. Jimin pulls away once he hears the door closing and gives you a mischievous look.

“Baby.” He softly sings next to your ear. Kissing your ear, trailing down your jaw and sucking at your neck, Jimin elicits a moan from you.

“Jimin-ah, he’s going to walk in any minute.”

“That’s okay.” He pauses from his work on your neck to look at you with an innocent smile. One hand slips around the back of your neck to pull you into a deep kiss. His warm tongue expertly working its way around yours. His free hand massages your breast through the fabric of an oversized T-shirt that probably belonged to him. He pulls away from the kiss to look you in the eyes.

“Are you okay?” He questions, “I don’t want to hurt you. Does your head still hurt?” You nod a little at the second question.

When Jimin begins to pull away you pull him back, “it’s okay.” You reassure and kiss him. Jimin smiles into the kiss and continues to kiss his way down your neck. Lifting your T-shirt, he massages a bare breast with one hand while he licks and sucks around your other, purposefully avoiding your nipple. When he finally reaches your nipple you gasp as he suckles. His hands freely explore your body, rubbing, grabbing, and they’re soon followed by his mouth. He licks, sucks, and nibbles any exposed skin on his way down your body.

“Jimin.” You whisper as you hold back a moan. Biting your lip you run your hands through his soft hair. He looks up at you and smiles. Jimin loves the way you say his name when he’s trying to please you. It’s like music to his ears. He’s instantly turned on and wants to continue to coax his name from your mouth. Each new way you say it is like a small reward for him.

Jimin slips his hand into your shorts, his fingers finding their way to your already slick folds. He uses his free hand to shimmy your shorts off. Dipping a finger inside you, he continues kissing your abdomen, nibbling at our skin. His finger, now lubed with your juices finds it’s way to your clit, he adds his thumb to gently pinch your most sensitive of spots. You gasp.

“Mmm. You like that baby?” He asks. His thumb runs circles around your clit as he lets a finger slip inside you. You buck your hips at the increasing pleasure.

“Jimin, oh-fff” He sits up to kiss you. A hungry kiss, his lips assaulting yours, his tongue covering every inch he can get to.

“Let go.” He tells you when he pulls away from the kiss. He can see you grabbing onto the covers and pressing your head back into the pillow. He adds a finger inside you. His thumb still working at your clit as his fingers hit your g spot expertly. His rhythm is driving you crazy. His thumb releases your sensitive clit when he feels your legs tense up.

“Ah, mmm.” You moan out. You’re all breath at this point, tucking your hips back to direct him back to your clit. You look down to see Jimin smiling at you and then his head dips between your legs. His soft lips wrapping around your sensitive bud. His tongue slips out to swirl circles around your clit before he licks down to your opening, fingers still inside you. He licks his way back up and laps at your clit.

“Jim—in.” You moan. One of his favorite things, aside from hearing his name escape your beautiful mouth, was when he knew you were so lost in ecstasy that you couldn’t actually say his name. It became a jumbled mess of attempts at calling his name out and moans.

“That’s it baby. Let go, cum for me.” He says as he pulls away momentarily. Diving right back in he licks a thick stripe up your pussy and continues his assault on your twitching bud of nerves as his fingers curl inside you. You were squirming underneath him, your thighs press against his face. Your fingers slip through his hair again and tug at his locks. His free hand tried to hold one of your thighs in place.

“Fuck, Jimin. Ah, I’m cumming.” You tense up as you reach your climax, shuddering under his continued assault of your clit. You look down, panting and whimpering, to watch Jimin lap up your release. He climbs on top of you and places the softest of kisses on your lips before he sits back. He stares down at you with such an admiration. You can’t bring yourself to question him. At this point it would take too much energy that you didn’t have.

Jimin tugs your shirt down to cover you up and pulls the blanket over the both of you. He lays his head on your chest. You wrap your arms around him. The bathroom door opens. Yoongi slowly peeks his head out in your direction.

“You said you were going to wait until I left.” He squints at Jimin.

“I did wait until you left.” Jimin’s innocent smile was enough to make Yoongi chuckle and shake his head.

“Sorry.” You mumble.

“So, are you feeling better?” Yoongi questions, sitting down to pull his shoes on. You glance over at him to see a smirk on his face. “I know I am.”

Jimin sits up and looks over at Yoongi. “Did you get off to this?” Yoongi looks at Jimin for a moment, his smirk ever present, and shrugs.

“You did?” You question. A laugh escapes before you can hold it back and Jimin looks to you before he starts to chuckle himself. He shrugs and lays his head back down on your chest.

________

Jimin had waited on you hand and foot all morning. He wasn’t only making sure you didn’t lift a finger, but he was also pampering you. You had gotten a massage, your nails painted, and now you were binge watching Game of Thrones with matching face masks on. You were pretty sure that if you hadn’t already fallen for him before this that you had fallen hard in a single day.

“You need anything else, baby?” He questions as he sets a steaming mug of tea in front of you.

“I’m okay, 자기.” You smile at him. A smile slowly grew on his face as he stared at you.

You looked around and back at him. “What?”

“That’s the first time you’ve called me that.” His smile is even wider now. If you didn’t have a face mask to cover it up he would be met with a deep blush.

“Well, babe, get used to it.”

“I definitely will. I’m already loving it.” He sits back down and pulls you close. You rest your head on his shoulder as he wraps his arms around you. You snuggle up to him and begin to immerse yourself in the show he had tried to get you to watch for some time.

“I’ve been thinking...” he says after the episode ends.

“That the Queen needs to die? God she’s such a bitch.” He chuckles at your comment.

“I forgot you haven’t seen this before.” He removes your mask and then his own. “I was thinking about us...and...”

Turning around to face him you ask, “What about us? Are you having second thoughts?”

“God no. Never. I just, Well, you and Yoongi- I guess I’m just curious if there are feelings there? He’s hot and you had a relationship that I kind of barged in on.”

“Well, I’m not going to lie this situation has happened in such a weird way. Never would’ve guessed it would’ve worked like this, but yes. To answer your question. I did. Do? I-shit. I’m sorry.” You can feel your heart rate pick up. You can’t believe you just admitted that to him. This will ruin everything. You sat back away from Jimin who was now silent.

“Hmm.” He said and went silent again for some time. You didn’t know what to say. You didn’t want to lie to him, but maybe you should have held back. You didn’t even think about it before you blurted everything out.

Yoongi had been on your mind a lot lately. You had wished to kiss him and cuddle with him so many times. You didn’t once want to give up what you and Jimin were starting to build, but you also found yourself wondering what you and Yoongi had started to build. The feelings you were realizing you had for Yoongi weren’t something new. You had began to realize these last few months that you had buried your feelings long ago. It had been so long that you thought they were gone.

________

Senior year of high school came and went for you and Yoongi. Since You and Yoongi had a tendency to spend so much time lounging around his parents house, they insisted you both get summer jobs. You obliged and ended up working at a vintage music shop together. Filing old records, cleaning off the public headphones, and ringing up customers took up the better part of your work days. It was worth it to listen to the mixes Yoongi came up with after work. He was always finding something new to use.

Your only parent was busy working, so you were often over at Yoongi’s for dinner. Most nights you snuck in his bedroom window to sleep over. His parents thought you two would end up together, his little brother often referred to you as his girlfriend. Many of your acquaintances thought you were dating as well. You were too shy to admit you liked him as more than a friend. Yoongi was your only real friend and you cherished your time with him, so you didn’t want to do something to derail your friendship.

Summer was nearing an end when you decided that maybe you should tell Yoongi about your feelings. You were both going to separate colleges and you weren’t going to be seeing as much of each other. Maybe if you told him how you felt things would turn into something more. Maybe you would visit each other on weekends and holidays. Maybe you could after all be more than friends.

You were day dreaming scenarios while you cleaned up the listening booths. You were jarred from your thoughts when the shrill ring of the shop phone reached you. You glanced up to see Yoongi was putting records back in order. You smiled to yourself. Today could change your relationship for the better. You stepped out of the last booth.

“Yoongi, it’s for you.” The manager held out the phone to Yoongi. You furrowed your eyebrows. Who would be calling him at work? You shrugged it off. You had ten minutes left before work was over and you were planning to spend it lazing around.

“No. No, no, no. No!” Yoongi repeated. His voice was breaking and you felt in your heart that it was something big. You dropped your cleaning supplies and headed over to Yoongi. He let the phone drop to the floor and he shortly joined it.

“Yoongi,” you wrapped your arms around his shoulders and you could feel he was shaking. “What happened?” You wanted to tear up. Your best friend, the toughest person you knew, the unbreakable Min Yoongi, was broken. Tears were running down his face. He was silent, but his mouth was agape as if he was trying to scream.

He sucked in as much air as he could, “My parents-“ he sobbed. Tears were now streaming down your cheeks. Your heart was breaking right there and you were at a loss for what to do.

“They’re gone!” He screamed. Your manager picked up the phone in front of you and asked you to take Yoongi home. You nodded and helped Yoongi to his feet. Your arms never left his shoulders.

When you reached his house you saw Jungkook on the steps with his knees pulled to his chest. His face was buried in his hands and he was audibly crying. You suddenly couldn’t get enough oxygen. The people you cared about most in this world had lost everything in one day.

You found out later that it was a car accident. A tire blew out on a large truck and it took out the Min’s car. They died instantly. Yoongi was alone, just him and his little brother. He was now left with a grand responsibility. You did the best you could to support him through the hardest time in his life. You brought him food. You helped Jungkook as much as you could. You saved money just to buy them things that they might need.

You felt so stupid when you looked back and thought about how much you had wanted to confess your feelings to Yoongi. There you were day dreaming about a fairytale future with him, and it was so abruptly interrupted when his parents were taken. Those feelings became so incredibly unimportant. All that mattered was Yoongi and Jungkook and making sure they were okay. You couldn’t tell him how you felt after that. You wanted nothing more than to be the best support system you could be. You were going to help him through however you could and that meant keeping stupid romantic feelings out of the equation.

——————————————————————

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I’ll catch you on the next one.

P.S. I hope you’re having a good day/night. If today was a struggle I hope you take care of yourself and I also hope that tomorrow is a better day for you💕

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Money Heist: What to Know About the International TV Phenomenon

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If you haven’t tuned into Money Heist yet, you’ve been missing one of the hottest series on Netflix right now. It’s sexy, absurdist fun, an action soap opera like no other, so addictively bingeable that it has stolen the hearts of a worldwide audience. But it’s more than escapist fare. Money Heist has also become a rallying cry of resistance that is changing the world.

It almost didn’t happen. Netflix picked up Money Heist entirely by chance. If they hadn’t, the original series might have easily vanished into obscurity for English-speaking audiences. Once Netflix got it, it blew up and became their most watched non-English series.

Money Heist was originally broadcast on Spain’s Antena 3 channel in 2017 under its native title La Casa de Papel (The House of Paper). The first season was 15 episodes, told in two parts. The initial part garnered a healthy 45 million viewers but viewership plummeted when the second part was broadcast. With only half the audience remaining and the story complete, the show seemed at its end. Netflix acquired the series as part of an international catalog of titles, re-edited it into 22 shorter episodes, re-released it internationally later that year. The streamer didn’t even bother to promote it when they added to their queue. Nevertheless, it found a huge audience outside of Spain and viewership skyrocketed.

Season 1 is about a meticulously planned heist of the Royal Mint of Spain. The Professor (Álvaro Morte) is a criminal mastermind who assembles a gang of thieves. Each thief adopts the name of a city to conceal their true identities from each other, akin to the robbers in Reservoir Dogs. The story is told from the perspective of Tokyo (Úrsula Corberó), a brazen spitfire femme fatale who steals every scene she’s in. The thieves capture the Mint, taking dozens of hostages. Their plan is to print millions in unmarked bills. Meanwhile, the Professor plays a cat-and-mouse game with Inspector Murillo (Itziar Ituño) who is hot on his trail.

Don’t Fall in Love During a Heist

Through Tokyo’s narration and copious flashbacks to the planning of the crime, Money Heist tells a gripping story of the ultimate anti-heroes. As tensions mount, the gang is at one another’s throats while navigating the Professor’s deceptive instructions. The Mint is surrounded by cops and time is running out. Gratuitous shots of ticking clocks increase the pressure, the same device deployed by original Mission: Impossible TV series to heighten suspense. Stockholm syndrome takes hold as the hostages fall for their captors. In classic Money Heist style, the main hostage who joins the gang adopts the name “Stockholm (Esther Acebo)”. The Professor and the Inspector engage in a deliciously dysfunctional romance. It’s all exceedingly sexy with the beautiful actors often scantily clad, and has a subversively sharp sense of humor.

Despite its ludicrousness, Money Heist is so addictive in many ways. First off, it masters the cliffhanger. The suspense is relentlessly palpable and no matter how ridiculous some of the deus ex machina resolutions are, they’re still great fun to watch. Just like Game of Thrones, this show is merciless. Beloved main characters die in shockingly poignant death scenes. This keeps the suspense very real. You never know if your favorite character is going to make it. Of the seven thieves that enter the Mint with Tokyo – Berlin (Pedro Alonso), Denver (Jaime Lorente), Helsinki (Darko Perić), Moscow (Paco Tous), Nairobi (Alba Flores), Oslo (Roberto Garcia Ruiz) and Rio (Miguel Herrán) – three don’t make it out.

Secondly, it’s about those characters. The ensemble cast delivers great performances across the board. Every role is rich, complex, and well-developed. Everyone has his or her strengths, weaknesses, and back stories and their emotional journeys resonate deeply. No one is entirely innocent. You can’t help yourself from rooting for them, even the villains.

And third, Money Heist has style. Its passionate soundtrack has captured the ears of the world. The use of color, particularly red against darkly composed frames, is exquisitely captivating. Money Heist is a thrilling roller coaster ride that just has to be experienced.

Enjoy It Until the Party is Over

The global following shocked the cast and crew. After season 1 wrapped, the show seemed finished. As the cast watched their social media following grow exponentially (an experience catalogued in Netflix’s documentary, Money Heist: The Phenomenon), they knew something was up. By 2018, Money Heist garnered several nominations and wins across the European awards circuit and even won the coveted Best Drama Series at the 46th International Emmys.

Consequently, Netflix reassembled the cast and crew for a second season, this time with a much bigger budget. Even though season 1 was self-contained, the show’s creator Álex Pina dreamed up a second season, one that was on a much grander scale, thanks to Netflix’s backing.

The second heist is in four parts. That may sound confusing because the upcoming season 5 will be split into two parts as well. Season 5 is actually parts 3 and 4 of the second heist story arc. “Heist 2” is already 16 episodes deep and it’s only the halfway point.

For the second heist, the gang must reassemble to rescue one of their own after Tokyo makes another grievous mistake. And that rescue hinges upon robbing the Bank of Spain. New gang members join the survivors of the first robbery, and another more ruthless adversary, the pregnant Inspector Sierra (Najwa Nimri). Sierra is a more ruthless opponent than Murillo was for the first heist. When it comes to the Professor’s psychological chess game, Sierra flips the chess board upside down. Season 3 (Part 1 of the Bank of Spain heist) debuted exclusively on Netflix in the summer of 2019. Season 4 (Part 2) was released almost a year later in April 2020, and it was seen by 65 million households. That’s a million more viewers than watched Tiger King when it ran around the same time.

Realizing they had a bankable hit, Netflix released Money Heist: The Phenomenon. The documentary showcases the astonishment of the cast and crew as they navigate their new found popularity from a show they thought was done. A season 2 opening scene, filmed in front of the historic Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral in Florence, Italy, was almost ruined when rabid fans rushed the crew. However, do not watch Money Heist: The Phenomenon before seeing the show because it drops some major spoilers.

We Are Dali

To hide their identities, the gang wears masks based on the famous Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dali, replete with a red hooded jumpsuit. They force their hostages to wear the same costume to confuse the police. This Dali mask has become a new symbol of international rebellion, supplanting the Guy Fawkes mask from V for Vendetta on a global scale. Beyond Comic-Con cosplaying, the Dali mask has been appearing on protestors and in effigies around the world. Footage from these real life demonstrations appear in the show.

Money Heist has had a profound effect on international football (“soccer” for we Yanks). Massive displays of Dali mask banners appeared at Saudi Arabia soccer stadiums. At the Karaiskaki Stadium, Greek soccer fans unfurled a huge Dali banner too. After their team won, they rushed the field wearing Money Heist costumes. Brazilian soccer superstar Neymar de Silva even makes a cameo in season 3 as a monk who wryly comments about his disdain for soccer. Silva claims Money Heist is his favorite show.

There were even real life copycat heists. France fell victim to a shop hold-up and a hotel robbery where the perpetrators wore Dali masks. A 2019 daylight heist of the Mexican Mint was thought to have been inspired by the show. Perhaps the best one was when Justin Bieber’s five-billion-view music video ‘Despacito’ was hacked on YouTube. The hackers replaced it with an image of Money Heist in full Dali regalia with guns pointing out, accompanied by a call to ‘Free Palestine.’

Consequently, there has been some backlash. Cyprus banned Dali costumes for Carnival. Turkish journalists and politicians have admonished the show, describing it as rebel propaganda. The Professor describes it best in season 3. “The mask has become a symbol throughout the world of resistance, of indignations, of skepticism. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that it has inspired many people.”

Ironically, Money Heist pilfered Dali’s image. The Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation never gave the show its blessing for the use of the artist’s likeness. There’s no doubt that Dali is spinning in his grave for not getting paid royalties, but he must appreciate the surrealism here.

Bella Ciao!

Beyond the now iconic Dali mask, Money Heist also revived a rebel ballad, the Italian protest song Bella Ciao. Bella Ciao means ‘Goodbye Beautiful’ and it was the anthem of anti-fascists of the Italian Resistance during WWII. Originally about toiling in rice fields under an oppressive boss, the lyrics evolved to describe the Resistance’s commitment to the cause with their lives. When translated from Italian, the lyrics end with “This is the flower of the partisan who died for freedom.”

The Professor’s grandfather fought in the Italian resistance so he sings it with Berlin, his older brother, and teaches it to the gang. The song is frequently reprised throughout the series, most tellingly during the season 1 part 1 finale end credits. A montage of black-and-white footage decrying the evils of money fades to red as Bella Ciao plays.

Since Money Heist, over a dozen new versions of Bella Ciao have climbed the charts across Europe, with the Professor’s rendition placing first in Austria, second in Germany, and in the top twenty in Belgium, France, and Switzerland. It’s been covered by several EDM DJs like Steve Aoki and Hardwell. Bella Ciao has become a common chant at soccer matches, and was heard at the 2019 World Cup. When Open Arms rescued a boatload of fleeing immigrants docked in Lampedusa, the refugees sang Bella Ciao to celebrate their newfound freedom.

The Last Times are Beyond Comparison

What might the finale hold? When we last left the gang, they were reunited in the Bank of Spain and determined to win ‘the war’ in honor of their latest fallen comrade. But Inspector Sierra got the drop on the Professor. With a gun to his head, she declared “Checkmate, son of a bitch.” Anyone who knows the show understands that it is volatile and unpredictable so it’s anyone’s guess what happens next.

It’s clear that this is the end. When production wrapped on May 14th, Netflix tweeted “Thank you to all the fans for being part of La Resistencia! We can’t wait to show you how this story ends.” However, Netflix is never one to kill a goose that lays golden eggs.

Money Heist creator Álex Pina already launched another Netflix series, Sky Rojo. Season 1 premiered back in March 2021 and season 2 is slated for July. It’s the story of three women on the run, somewhat reminiscent of Thelma and Louise, only the threesome are prostitutes. It’s stylish and sexy, and received some critical acclaim. But it has nowhere near the impact of Money Heist.

A Korean adaptation of Money Heist is in the works with Kim Hong-sun directing. Cast as the Professor is Yoo Ji Tae, who is most remembered for his mastermind role in Oldboy, and also had a part in a Korean TV adaptation of The Good Wife. Playing Tokyo will be Jeon Jong Seo, aka Rachel Jun, a newcomer with two feature films under her belt.

This summer, an immersive event “Money Heist: The Experience” is set to tour London, Miami, Mexico City, New York, and Paris. Each city will get a different version of the experience, adapted to the venue, and the venues won’t be announced until just prior to the events open. This is another collaboration between Netflix and Fever, who previously staged “Stranger Things: The Drive Into Experience” in Los Angeles.

Most of the cast of Money Heist were too engaged with filming the final season under pandemic restrictions to take on any new projects. The notable exception of Úrsula Corberó. Corberó is cast as the Baroness in the upcoming G.I. Joe Origins film, Snake Eyes.

Money Heist held the title of Netflix’s most watched non-English series until a French show, ironically also about a heist, stole the crown. Lupin robbed Money Heist of the title in January 2021 racking up 76 million views. Lupin Part 2 debuted on June 11. When Money Heist returns, will it steal back Netflix’s most watched non-English series crown? Hopefully so. For Nairobi!

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Money Heist, Parts 1-4, are available on Netflix now. Season 5 Volume 1 debuts on September 3, Volume 2 arrives on December 3, 2021.

The post Money Heist: What to Know About the International TV Phenomenon appeared first on Den of Geek.

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theseerasures · 3 years

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Conspicuous Media Consumption, 2020

it’s that time of year again! *saddest toot from the party horn*

for those of you just joining us: it’s a “consume a different content every week for 48 weeks of the year” challenge. for a longer explanation, check out last year’s write-up here, and as always, feel free to pop in and ask questions about any and all of this content.

(same disclaimer as last year too: content for this project ONLY here, and not certain...*looks at my billion Sad Cop Lady posts*...hyperfixations.)

(man remember when i was big into X-Men comics earlier this year? better times than these, if only because no one's discoursing about Emma Frost’s woobie/war criminal ratio anymore--her w/w, if you will)

(...i swear at one point i didn’t exclusively like platinum blondes but alas)

Bitter Root (comic, 1 issue finished 1/1/2020): still very cool on a basic concept level, but runs into the Image Comics problem of just not having enough content to keep my interest beyond that. part of that is on me, for picking it up again BEFORE the second arc rolled out, but the first five issues didn’t really follow (or resolve) any cohesive story either, so...meh.

Immortal Hulk (comic, 3 trades finished 1/17/2020): still not gonna be something i care deeply about (maybe one of Bruce’s Hulksonas dyed his hair???), but i do want to give kudos to Al Ewing for sheer consistency in terms of sustaining this level of quality storytelling month by month for more than two years now. working with the dense archive of the Hulk mythos and managing to make it interesting and thoughtful is impressive even if i personally would not expend the same effort.

Disco Elysium (game, finished 1/18/2020): honestly i should have twigged onto what this year was gonna be like when the third thing i drew from the barrel was pure uncut Eastern European flavored depression. i faintly recall people ragging on it for being pretentiously cynical, but i actually thought its core slid more towards idealism than people give it credit for. also gratified that i haven’t heard anything about Robert Kurvitz using slave labor to finish it, which is a thing we have to say about our video games now!!! fun.

Watchmen (TV, 7 episodes finished 1/27/2020): i am a fool who wants to believe in Damon Lindelof and I WAS RIGHT!!! honestly still cannot believe that he pulled off this highwire act with such deft aplomb. might be my favorite TV this year, which is a pretty high bar given how much TV i ended up watching.

On a Sunbeam (comic, finished 2/1/2020): Tillie Walden rightly deserves all the praise for inventive queer storytelling, but i will say that on reread--since i first read this as a webcomic--there ARE some issues with pacing here that clearly come from the foibles of its original intended medium. still just excellent, even if after some plot significant haircuts i was having trouble telling a few folks apart.

Lazarus (comic, 1 trade finished 2/8/2020): it’s so good and i want moooooorrrreee--though obviously Rucka and Lark have the right to take all the time they need. the newer longer issues work really well with the epic prestige drama vibes of the story! i’m into it.

The Good Place (TV, 4 seasons finished 2/18/2020): i’m gonna be super honest: i actually wasn’t a big fan of the finale, nor the last season as a whole. it felt like all of Eleanor’s flaws vanished for a majority of the season, and the Chidi-centric episode where they tried to give a legible justification for why he’s Like This was...i didn’t care for it. still, it’s so good and unique on the WHOLE that we’ll literally never get anything like this ever again, and that counts for a lot.

The Old Republic (game, finished 2/21/2020): it’s an MMO so it will never actually Be Finished so long as the servers aren’t shut down, but i caught up on the content i’d missed in the intervening months. Onslaught thus far has mostly been...kinda bland tbh; going back to Imps vs. Rebs after all the shakeups in the previous expansions feels like a waste.

High Road (album, finished 2/22/2020): someone should tell Kesha not to say that word!! otherwise i was very happy with this album, and happy FOR her even though we don’t know each other. being able to find joy again in the same genre of music you made while you were being horrifically exploited is very cool.

Young Justice (TV, 13 episodes finished 2/28/2020): given how much the middle stuff dragged--STOP KILLING YOUR HIJABI CHARACTER IN HORRIFIC WAYS--i was...actually kinda mad by how the end managed to stick the landing anyway. the day being saved by Vic’s self-acceptance and Violet’s sublime compassion was A+, and even the Brion/Tara switchup was a pleasant surprise, though it relied on me caring about Brion MUCH MORE than i actually did.

Manic (album, finished 2/29/2020): do people still care for/about Halsey? i feel like even That One Song that was on every tumblr gifset ever has kinda faded into obscurity at this point. this album was...okay. i feel like people give Halsey a pass for extremely obvious lyrical turns that they wouldn’t for other folks because of her subject material--which is fine. not really my cup of tea, but i also listened to lots of Relient K this year, so that’s probably a good thing.

Jade Empire (game, 3/10/2020): the only 3D-era Bioware game that didn’t franchise out, and for good fucking reason!!! the Orientalism and appropriation really haven’t aged well, and even beyond that the story was...standard Bioware faire. even my usual “my wife’s a bitch i love her” Bioware type didn’t do it for me, and i just ended up romancing no one. it did make me think a lot about what level of cultural borrowing is accepted nowadays, and why: people still look fondly at Avatar and talk about how ~accurate and respectful it was, for example, despite it being staffed almost entirely by white folks, and the Orientalism ALL OVER the monk class in DND is still fine for some reason.

Alif the Unseen (book, finished 3/31/2020): interesting to have read this AFTER reading The Bird King last year, because it highlights how the intervening years have shifted G. Willow Wilson’s thematic interest and improved her craft. i’m actually quite fond of how her characterization work is rougher here--Alif is extremely flawed to the point of being insufferable, but it makes his development by the end more satisfying. Dina is also just good and i love her

Baldur’s Gate (2 games, finished 5/31/2020): well, having finally finished the series i’m happy to say that it...still doesn’t really do it for me, sorry. any awesome story moments were overshadowed by the EXCRUCIATING inventory management system and the combat (i still don’t know what a THAC0 is and at this point i’m afraid to find out). these games crucially lack the Home Base that later Bioware games were so good about, and that (coupled with the huge cast of characters you can drop off and never see again) really hurts the intimacy for me. by the time we finally did get one it was the Hell Dimension in Throne of Bhaal, and i was just...trying to get through it. (yes, i did just say that about one of the most beloved expansions ever to one of the most beloved games ever.) THIS particular iteration of “my wife’s a bitch i love her” was very good, but the game wouldn’t let me romance her :(

The Underground Railroad (book, finished 6/19/2020): honestly what is there even left to say at this point! it was exactly as good as every critic on the planet said it was, even with my usual aversion to hype. draining and horrifying in turns but still insistent upon a future for Black folks.

Steven Universe (6 seasons and a mooooooviiieeee, finished 7/11/2020): yes, i DID finish the show and almost immediately begin a rewatch. this series is now one of my top five most formative things, and the amount of love and respect i have for it is incalculable. that said: i once again did not love how the central conflict of Future was resolved (just the resolution--i loved the finale just fine). for all of Steven’s breakdown was built up, resolving it with “EVERYONE HUG HIM UNTIL HE CRIES” felt...cheap, especially since up until this point the show had been so good about treating trauma and mental illness with the respect and nuance it deserves. it made me wish some of the earlier, less substantial episodes had been cut so we could spend more time at the end.

What It Is (comic, finished 8/19/2020): y’all i love Lynda Barry SO MUCH. for the longest time i was worried that One Hundred Demons was more a lightning in a bottle situation but every book of hers i pick up makes me feel obscure emotions i didn’t even realize existed. the compassionate way she’s able to describe her child self and how weird and fucked up she was (and still is) is honestly aspirational.

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (TV, 5 seasons finished 9/26/2020): so here’s a reversal of what i’ve been complaining about with other shows: i was mostly lukewarm-to-warm about She-Ra, but the later seasons and the finale made me much more into it as a whole. more shows should improve in stakes and overall quality as they age tbh!! i still don’t actively love Catradora (my sole quibble with season 5 actually has to do with the way Adora kept backsliding as a character to make certain Plot/Relationship things happen), but i’m very happy for them nonetheless. i can certainly appreciate a show that will go for High Feeling over tight plot. dark horse standout moments: trees growing everywhere proving that Perfuma Was Right, and Hordak and Adora seeing each other--that weirdly intimate moment of recognition.

Fetch the Bolt Cutters (album, finished 10/7/2020): again i find myself not having much to say that no one else has said. it’s good! once again love it when an artist reclaims something they’d attached with negative affect (anxiety, depression, disordered eating) for better and brighter things.

Solutions and Other Problems (comic, finished 10/25/2020): i was very into Allie Brosh’s ambition with this book, which feels weird to say but i stand by it. it’s cool to see an artist try to make a new medium work for them instead of just sticking to what already works. not all the experimentation was 100% effective, but it was still delightful and occasionally devastating to read, so.

Legend of Zelda (3 games: Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Link Between Worlds, finished 11/1/2020): this was the third time i’d played Ocarina of Time, which made it the nice, comforting groove i settled into before Majora’s Mask blatted me in the face. i’m not usually a completionist Zelda person because...the gameplay in Zelda is bad, do not at me it just is, but i really felt like i HAD to be one for Majora’s Mask since the whole point is to get attached to the banalities of the town. i’m sure nobody’s surprised that i loved it, even if it gave me an existential crisis about how life goes on in the game for NPCs when you’re not there to save them from it, and there’s not enough time to save them all all the time (also not a surprise to anyone: Romani and Cremia gave Personal Feelings). Link Between Worlds...bad. not like in a “this is a bad story by every measurable gauge” way, but i was already struggling with the 2D playstyle shift enough that for the whole story to end with some “yes it’s v sad that Lorule is Like This but trying to steal Hyrule’s privilege is Even Worse Actually” noblesse oblige bullshit left a VERY poor taste in my mouth, this year of all years. i did audibly gasp when Ravio took off his mask, though. i’m currently playing Breath of the Wild in cautious increments; it’s the first time i’ve enjoyed early Zelda gameplay, but if they wanted fully voiced cutscenes i wish they got voice actors who...knew what words sound like.

folklore (album, finished 11/6/2020): my belief that Taylor Swift is Just Fine continues, i’m afraid. i LIKED this album, don’t get me wrong, and respect her constant drive to innovate, but i didn’t love it substantially more or less than any other Taylor Swift album. mostly i’m just tickled by how she thinks leaning into the indie aesthetic means borrowing Vita Sackville-West’s entire wardrobe, though i will admit to feeling Something when she swore in a song. i think it was like. savage vindication?? you go ahead and swear, Taylor Swift. you deserve it.

Shore (album, finished 11/19/2020): do people still care about the Fleet Foxes? i think there was some Drama with Josh Tillman a while back but i don’t remember where the discourse landed with who was being more problematic. it was nostalgic for me to listen to their new album--made me remember being an undergrad who exclusively listened to men who mumbled and played acoustic guitar all over again.

Star Wars (3 movies: original trilogy, finished 11/27/2020): there is So Much bad Star Wars these days that every time i rewatch the original trilogy i’m afraid that they will suddenly be bad, but guess what! they’re not. i love these children and their hot mess stories, i love that Lando doesn’t know how to say his best friend’s name. what stood out to me this time was the way Obi-Wan described the Force in A New Hope, which strongly implied that ANYONE can be Force Sensitive; that obviously faded with each subsequent movie, but part of me does wish they’d kept it.

X of Swords (comics, 22 issues finished 12/5/2020): i am enjoying Hickman’s X-lines!!! not so much here for the Grand Conspiracy or whatever, but the character work and highkey weirdness is fabulous--they FEEL like X-Men, despite all the shakeups in-universe. this crossover is a nice microcosm of all that: grandiloquently all over the place, but still full of cool standout moments and genuine hilarity. ILLYANA DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO SPELL MAGIC.

Fire Emblem (4 games: Sacred Stones, Path of Radiance, Radiant Dawn, Awakening, finished 12/14/2020): this was the thing that i was closest to giving up early on, but i ended up hyperfixating on it instead. that’s a credit to what the gameplay does to my lizard brain more than anything else, because the story and character writing is...insipid. it was very bizarre to witness this franchise blunder around with its animal-people racism allegory around the same time i was getting back into RWBY, and ITS animal-people racism allegory blunders. Awakening was the first time i felt anything for the franchise beyond “teehee red units disappear make exp bar go up and brain go ding,” so i’m excited for more mature storytelling in subsequent games (they MUST get better. they MUST). the child husbandry thing is...very bad tho, and Apotheosis being “challenging” entirely through the game changing all the rules is also bad.

once again no vidya games that came out this year--i’ll probably pick up Spiritfarer or Hades after the New Year, though (or maybe TLOU II! but probably not. sry Laura and Ashley). more TV and franchises this year, which made me feel In Touch with the Children but was also kinda exhausting. nothing was so egregiously terrible i dropped it without finishing! in a year like this that feels almost like an accomplishment

#conspicuous media consumption

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turtle-paced · 5 years

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GoT Re-Watch: Fine-Toothed Comb Edition

This post is also on my wordpress.

Well, this is it. The final push. The worst season of Game of Thrones.

Let’s get started.

8.01 – Winterfell

In one respect, this series has defeated me. No counting. I just want this done. God knows the problems got worse than nudity.

(0:09) It has to be said, the new opening credits are one of the best things about this season. Possibly the best thing about the season. However, we may all have been tipped off by how this was going to go in that we never see ice advance on King’s Landing, and the end of the credits focuses on the Iron Throne.

(2:26) So we start the season with a pretty good idea – a direct callback to the opening of season one when Robert Baratheon arrived at Winterfell, and watching this procession of relevant characters through Arya’s eyes again. I’m not entirely sold on the music cue, however, which is out and out the Baratheon leitmotif.

(3:08) Likewise, this landscape shot is also a good idea. Does some good showing. One, the snowy landscape. These are our conditions for the duration. Two, we see the amount of assistance Dany’s providing, as well as the discipline of the Unsullied.

(3:41) This is the first time Arya’s seen Jon in years and it’s a damn good thing the directors decided to let her show an emotion for it. Everyone suffers from the directors’ persistent idea that power = stoicism.

(4:17) Showing Arya’s got a reaction to Sandor and Gendry’s arrival in Winterfell gives us more than “these people are here now”. Which is why characters should be allowed to emote.

(4:32) First line of dialogue in s8 is a eunuch joke! Not even exposition. Eunuch joke. Like we’ve never heard one of them before.

(4:40) It’s not any funnier for Varys calling Tyrion out on this only to get another eunuch joke in reply.

(4:47) The juxtaposition of Missandei and Gray Worm here shows us another unpleasant thing that’s going to run throughout the season: the racism. This racism, here shown in the North being hostile to people of colour, contextualises the entire concept of Northern independence. This sort of juxtaposition undermines the argument that Northern independence is all about not being ruled from King’s Landing, and brings in a nasty undertone that the Northerners don’t want to be ruled by anyone who – gasp – includes people of colour in their cause. While I think it’s valid to depict the North as pretty well xenophobic, xenophobia and racism are not exactly appealing character traits.

Frankly, I don’t think the writers added it up when plotting out the ending. The North don’t look like they’ve been put upon by bad and unjust administration, they look like racist fuckheads complaining about rescues they don’t like. And yes, this impacts how Dany comes across – she’s the one with people of colour in her advisory team, and she never even mentions removing them to help the Northerners feel at ease. It’s hard not to see the implicit position as being “the North should get over this point.”

(5:12) “I warned you. Northerners don’t much trust outsiders.” In hindsight, this looks to me as the first set up for the idea that ‘Dany wants everyone to cheer her and is very sad then very insane when she does not receive the love to which she feels she’s entitled.’ See above re: complaining about rescues they don’t like. Is Dany so out of line for expecting a little gratitude?

(6:13) Speaking of no emotion. Oh boy. Poor Bran. This is the first time he’s seen his brother for years, and he gets to show mild curiosity. This is the character whose rule we’re supposed to leave off on, feeling good about the future of Westeros. But if he doesn’t care, why should we?

(7:35) Bran drops the bombshell that they’ll be dealing with a zombie dragon, that the Wall has fallen, and the dead are marching south. So there’s our context. Apocalyptic, imminent trouble. Everyone enjoy your episode of people not liking Daenerys against a backdrop of people preparing for apocalyptic, imminent trouble. I think these things probably should have been reversed.

(8:34) More preparing for a final showdown at Winterfell. Again, something else we should have take as a poor sign for the season’s structural integrity, as there was clearly no way they could drag out the build-up for four episodes.

(9:05) “It’s not important.” Ah yes, a great recommendation for this character’s political skills. Let’s just keep that in mind for the people who immediately think ‘oh yes Jon would be way better than Dany as ruler’.

(9:26) “When I left Winterfell I told you we need allies or we will die.” There is that. This is one thing we can get behind show!Jon for seeing better than the rest of the Northern cast. Jon will be proved correct on this count.

Though again, really, there is neither explanation nor excuse for the lack of discussion about a political marriage between Jon and Daenerys as a means of bringing the North into her realm in a position of greater strength and dignity. That’s just a gaping plothole, left unaddressed because otherwise the plot doesn’t work.

The plot didn’t even work anyway.

(9:32) Sansa stink-eye is most obvious here. Barely concealed hostillity to the people here to save you really is a good idea, isn’t it? Great politics.

(9:57) Tyrion gets up here to make a speech. While not being able to keep your mouth shut is endemic to the Lannister family as a whole and a valid character flaw, it’s not come out very intentionally in the last few seasons. Poor Tyrion has been pretty consistently inept from s6 onwards, and it doesn’t change here. Reading the room’s hostility to Jon’s bending the knee, he doesn’t let Jon and Dany speak for themselves, but stands up to speak. Him, a Lannister, i.e. a member of the family that were a huge part of why the North rebelled in the first place. An optics misread as bad as “It’s not important.”

(10:15) Possibly also the wrong way to bring up the fact that the Lannisters are expected.

(10:34) Back to the primary way the writers have to show that Sansa is smart. She’s the only one thinking about logistics. Which is a thing people need to think about – in a series that gives half a damn about this sort of thing.

However, Sansa is also bringing this up as part of the dialogue about whether Daenerys should be here, in the North, helping defend it. She is bringing this up in public (rather than taking strips off Jon in private for not thinking the supply chain through). It is clear from her tone and word choice that she is hostile to Daenerys’ forces being there. This is an open political statement as much as it is a logistical question. And they still have to fight off the ice zombies. This character is allowed to have political preferences, it’s better if she has political preferences, but she’s also supposed to be smart! And one of the things she was supposed to have learned in the first half the series was how to play nice in public and pick her moments!

On top of this, continuing to undermine the depiction of Sansa as intelligent, the logistical matters do not impact the story one little bit. Sansa’s objections are lip service to the idea that the army needs to be supplied.

(10:42) Sansa got enough supplies for Winterfell, but didn’t account for additional allies…when she knew her brother was heading out to get allies. Apparently didn’t even think to send over a raven asking whether Dany was getting the Unsullied to pack a bag lunch.

This is not entirely on Sansa. These are deeper communications problems which, to be fair, have been extremely well established. Whether it’s Jon and the army of the Vale, or Arya and the question of a coup, these problems just seem to feature Sansa disproportionately.

(11:04) Another establishing shot that, if linked to something more concretely, would have been an excellent idea – though having seen that Dany’s come with literal wagonloads of dragonglass, we’re also supposed to believe she brought no food?

(12:06) Sansa’s hostility to Daenerys is one of her overwhelming character traits in this episode. Her concern for the supply situation is expressed in hostility to Daenerys. The context for her confrontation with Tyrion is expressed in hostility to Daenerys. Sansa’s mistrust is not contextualised by any sort of historical reference to Rhaegar and Lyanna, nor Aerys’ murder of Rickard and Brandon, as you might expect if that was the actual motivation of the animus. On the contrary, we’ve got dialogue telling us that the mistrust is cultural and respect must be earned, and a chunk of showing us that Northerners are racist, establishing that this is Northern isolationism at work.

Whereas our establishing moment for Dany this episode was meant to show us how eager she was to make a good impression and to be on good terms with the Northerners.

(12:17) The ‘fixing’ of book!Sansa continues, as show!Sansa says that Joffrey’s wedding had its moments. One of the many, many ways the show is lesser than the books is because the books let characters actually differ. Everyone in this series has the exact same emotional reaction to revenge.

(13:09) Sansa gets to some of the wonky plotting behind season seven. Show!Cersei is not trustworthy! There’s no basis for a peace there. Tyrion, of all people, should have known this. Yet he bought it hook, line and sinker. He had to, because otherwise the plot the writers wanted didn’t work. And yet, Sansa calling it out doesn’t make the issue go away. It doesn’t reconcile anything. It just highlights that massive gap between how people talk about Tyrion, and what Tyrion’s actually shown to have achieved. And the plot hole.

(13:34) Here, have a shot of Bran sitting in the courtyard, watching people.

(14:02) A reference to Jon’s resurrection! Which…actually didn’t matter! So basically we’re bringing this up just to bring it up!

(14:10) Damn it’s so much better to see Arya and Jon both emoting!

(15:01) Similarly, as they compare their swords, it’s a nice little moment where we can see these two starting to negotiate a more adult relationship based on common interests and shared knowledge.

(15:17) “She’s the smartest person I’ve ever met.” Ow. That hurt. Sansa’s got the same problem as Tyrion, in many ways. We’re told she’s smart and shown that…actually, no, not really. To be fair, nobody in this show is smart anymore, but there are only a few characters where the other characters outright say that they’re smart. The writing’s got to back that up, and it doesn’t.

(15:26) Toot toot, all aboard the Daenerys hate train. Arya hasn’t even interacted with Dany, and yet Arya’s framing her backing up of Sansa and Sansa’s overt hostility to Daenerys as “defending our family.” Again without reference to Aerys or Rhaegar, and with the episode showing lots of Northerners glaring at all the people who came with Daenerys to fight the White Walkers.

How on earth did the writers think this would scan? One party’s shown up with her armies and her dragons ready to put herself and her ambitions on the line for the other, and the party getting its fat hauled out of the fire is going ‘ugh, fine, we’ll put up with you if we have to’. Dany’s not just going “I am Targaryen, bow to me,” here. This is a bit of a change from her father. She demonstrates that just by showing up.

(15:41) Capped off with a seriously nasty exchange. “I’m [Sansa’s] family too.” “Don’t forget that.” Just – gross. What the fuck. Ups the framing as Jon’s love for Daenerys as something inherently anti-Stark. It’s so mean-spirited. Isntead of “you look happy, Jon” or “do you love her, Jon?” it’s “remember we come first, Jon.”

(16:33) Here we see the Golden Company. Not that they’re going to be playing a part in events. They’re just there to make up the numbers. Literally.

(16:38) Scene with Euron and Yara starts here. We establish that Yara is still alive.

(16:56) A second eunuch joke! Every bit as charming as the first.

(17:36) If Euron’s side loses, he’ll sail somewhere else. New information! Not in the realms of mind-bendingly plot twistingly important information, but at least it tells us a bit about Euron’s character.

(18:00) And end scene with Euron and Yara. Nothing was accomplished there that could not have been accomplished with an establishing shot of Yara tied up on one of Euron’s ships. The writers continue to use their screentime well.

(18:40) The number of troops Cersei hired, the number of horses they came with, and the lack of elephants would mean more if the show paid attention to detail. And, when Dany has dragons, it’s this sort of detail that might actually help build tension and give uncertainty as to the outcome in a conflict between the two. As things stand, this scene could just be “did you bring soldiers?” “Yes, many soldiers!” for exactly the same plot effect.

We’re long past the days where the show discussed the drawbacks of armour, and past the days where Robert analysed the strengths of the Dothraki in the field. We occasionally still get some great showing of the Dothraki, and for all it totally didn’t belong in the setting and required significant dumbassery on the protagonists’ part, the shield wall Ramsay used in the Battle of the Bastards got the effectiveness of the tactic across. This is just…making up the numbers.

(19:03) You know, one of the most devastating scenes in Cersei’s AFFC plot is where she has sex with Osney Kettleblack, not because she wants to (on the contrary, he reminds her of Robert), but because she feels it’s the only way she can keep him as a political tool. It’s tawdry and risky and emphasises how Cersei’s political method of operating actually reduces her agency.

This scene has some of that feeling to it, but without the book-long context examining what she can and can’t do, and how Cersei’s character and deep internalised misogyny affect her capacity to govern. Here, this scene of Euron pressuring Cersei into sex was preceded by a scene showing his feelings on the situation – a feeling remarkably reminiscent of Robert’s “making the eight” back in season one – rather than something like what we got in AFFC, which is about Cersei’sattitude to this sex she doesn’t want. It doesn’t provoke as much thought, and leaves me at least with just a thoroughgoing feeling of ick.

If there is any saving grace here, it’s Lena Headey, who actually has some acting to do.

(20:50) Oh joy, it’s Bronn. Who’s here for the fanservice. More than one sort of fanservice.

(21:14) Not keen on this, either. Here these characters mention how Ed Sheeran’s cameo character came back with his face burned off. It’s like a more throwaway version of how the Sand Snakes died gruesome deaths last season – this character irritated you? Enjoy their horrible demise! We meant to do it!

(22:45) Now we get down to the meat of the scene. Cersei sends Bronn to assassinate Jaime and Tyrion. Now that we’ve seen the season, we know that this is absolutely pointless. Bronn does not assassinate Jaime or Tyrion. He doesn’t affect their behaviour in the slightest. Tyrion offers Bronn a good bribe, Bronn accepts despite having been screwed over by the Lannisters before, and everyone goes on their merry way. This character has nothing to do. He does not illustrate any aspect of the world this story takes place in. He does not undergo any sort of internal journey. He has no reason to be in this story. He’s just here for the fanservice.

(24:32) One thing I do like about the scripting of the scene, combined with Lena Headey’s acting, is that it is crystal clear that Cersei did not enjoy the sex. Euron is obviously fishing for compliments and outright asking for favourable comparisons to Cersei’s previous lovers, and Cersei phrases things so that Euron can read in favourable comparisons if he likes – but she doesn’t have to say it.

If only this was linked to some sort of ongoing thread about how a female political figure’s use of sex can be counterproductive politically and extremely emotionally damaging.

(24:48) “I’m going to put a prince in your belly.” It’s a double whammy for “the show has no sense of timeline.” One, please don’t draw attention to the fact that Cersei discovered she was pregnant who knows how long ago, and is somehow not showing. Two, Cersei should be 42 or 43! No, it’s not impossible that she’d still be able to have a child, but it’s said so freaking casually, like a woman of 42 or 43 in this medieval-like setting with pretty rudimentary medical care having a baby is no big deal. It’s not treated as unlikely, much less like a potentially serious risk to Cersei’s health and wellbeing. Not to mention the fact that Cersei had three children, and all three are dead – what’s her emotional reaction to a comment like that? That seems like it might strike a nerve, if the showrunners were thinking carefully about what Cersei experienced over the course of the series.

(25:07) Shot of Euron’s ship starts here.

(26:21) And the Greyjoy siblings are free and clear within ninety seconds. At least the writers didn’t waste much of our time, though on the whole this subplot has involved a lot of kicking Theon around the plot like a hackey sack, and a lot of putting Yara in storyline time out.

(27:02) Theon’s kicked over to a new plot once more, for old time’s sake.

(27:42) Another establishing shot of activity around Winterfell I like a lot.

(28:02) In the same vein of the writers forgetting that Cersei is expecting a fourth child late in life, having seen three children make it past the infant mortality stage only to die violently, the writers continue to forget that Tyrion gave the order that resulted in the death of Davos’ only son. We know Davos knows this, but giving Davos an emotional reaction would be too much like work. Plus it might impair the quipping.

(28:29) “You want their loyalty? You have to earn it.” We’re back to the characterisation of the Northerners as loyal, now that it’s convenient. And as we’ll see later, no, Dany cannot earn the loyalty of the Northerners no matter what she does.

(28:46) Finally! Someone brings it up! Dany isn’t spoken for, Jon isn’t spoken for, they can actually stand each other and work together, the match would take the edge off that ‘bend the knee’ thing and turn it into something closer to ‘partnership’, if they have children there’s the benefits of a ruler whose father was from the North – the advantages to Dany’s cause and Jon’s current political position are pretty obvious in this feudal society where marriage is an important tool in creating and maintaining political relationships!

(29:06) aaaaaaand it’s brushed off immediately because apparently Jon and Dany don’t want to listen to lonely old men? What? That is a bad reason for not approaching them and saying ‘hey guys, we’ve had this idea, we think it’s a good one.’

Not that anything’s stopping Jon and Dany themselves from thinking of it.

(29:28) Or is the real reason that Varys thinks that “nothing lasts”? That’s also a rubbish reason. His cyncism is poison, here, because it’s stopping him from making a move to strengthen Dany’s political standing. But never mind that, let’s just take that as a (thus far unfounded) indication that this is going to be a tragic romance.

(30:01) Dany points out that Sansa’s lack of respect is a genuine political issue.

(30:17) The fact that the dragons ate eighteen goats and eleven sheep, and Dany considers that to be barely eating does get across the fact that the dragons consume a lot in the way of resources. Unfortunately, lack of resources is never going to become a material issue.

(30:32) I like that we see the dragons have melted the snow cover.

(30:58) This is…not the best green screen work. Try to ignore it.

(31:02) “Go on.” Dany invites Jon up on one of her dragons. Just like that. This entire sequence is so anti-climactic. There’s no joy in Dany finding new family here, no thrill as Jon explores a new identity of his own. This is not any sort of culmination. This is a man riding on a dragon because that is a cool thing, without much thought as to why in-story dragons and dragonriders are special. It’s got all the narrative weight of Dany offering Jon a ride in her Ferrari – special, yes, but not in any way transcendent or emotionally significant.

(31:17) Especially as Jon’s hesitance to hop aboard is played as a joke.

(31:53) What this scene does have that I was asking for all last season was Jon and Daenerys enjoying each other’s company. They’re smiling, there’s some banter.

(33:54) “We could stay a thousand years.” This call-back to Jon’s romance with Ygritte would be a lot more meaningful if Jon didn’t kill Dany at the end of the season. Oh no, how tragic, how star crossed, their romance ended with Jon murdering her.

(34:41) Simiarly, the significant looks between Drogon and Jon just make me queasy after the finale. I have not rewatched earlier seasons after the finale. There was a time not all that long ago when I loved Game of Thrones, especially those earlier seasons. But this is the last time I’m going to be watching this show. And Lindsay Ellis was absolutely right that knowledge of a story’s ending shouldn’t ruin the experience of the story when you come back to it.

(35:07) Again, decent showing of preparations for the fight.

(35:17) “You know who makes weapons for the wildlings? Cripples and cocksuckers. Which one are you?” What a burn on Gendry. The Hound is likeable because he’s sassy, and he’s sassy because his jokes involve ableism and homophobia.

There is a difference between writing ableist and homophobic characters as part of an ableist and homophobic setting, and writing ableist and homophobic jokes as a reason we should feel good about characters.

(36:04) Man, Arya suffers almost as much as Bran and earlier-season Dany for being instructed to be emotionless. Think about it. If we were seeing this without the context of season two and three, would we be shipping it? Or would we be staring at our screens in befuddlement at the lack of chemistry? On Maisie Williams’ part, which has nothing to do with her acting ability (because as we have ample evidence in this show, she can act) and everything to do with the horrible, horrible idea percolating through this show that for the characters to show that they have toughened up and become strong people, they must be stoic.

(36:33) There we go! Arya cracks a smile, and instantly the interactions between these characters actually feel more natural.

(37:35) Now we’re back to showing the Northerners as disloyal.

(37:50) Here’s the setting for Jon and Sansa to actually have it out. In private. Where she can speak freely, as she does, about not cluing her in. Note, however, that this is the third instance this episode where Sansa’s going ‘ugh, Daenerys, I don’t like her’ either implicitly or explicitly.

Not helped in the least by the extra-textual comments that Sansa’s jealous of how pretty Dany is.

(38:15) But when it comes right down to it, Jon is right – everyone here needs Dany, her armies and her dragons both, and securing her assistance was not an optional perk. Sansa’s right that Jon went about it in a suboptimal way, both because show!Jon is written not that bright and because plot contrivance, but she’s real short on viable options to defeat the White Walkers.

(38:48) I have faith in you, Sansa says…then turns around and suggests that Jon only likes Dany because she’s pretty. Show!Sansa has not been treated well by the script at any point. In earlier seasons she was considerably less savvy than her book counterpart, and now she’s become ruthless and manipulative and often plain mean. (We were also supposed to believe she was undermining Jon in season seven, but that plot didn’t actually show that.)

(38:59) “Did you bend the knee to save the North, or because you love her?” And cut. I’ll get back to this issue next episode, because it’s a lot more prominent next episode with much more significant effects on the storytelling, but yeah, get used to the show posing questions to its characters and not bothering to answer them.

(39:37) Ah, a reminder of last season’s greyscale subplot. Criticise the maesters for not listening to pleas for help from the north, sure, but regarding greyscale…yeah, damn those maesters for forbidding a dangerous medical procedure that might save one patient, but only at great risk to the doctor (and any assistants, presumably) and thereby continue the spread of the disease. Those cowards.

(40:15) The Valyrian steel sword that’s been in Sam’s family for generations would have been his anyway, eventually. I see, I see. The writers kinda forgot about the Night’s Watch and their vows. Also, gross, I do hate this anti-Sam who’s so proud of having taken Heartsbane from his father.

(40:39) Bailed out by John Bradley’s acting. Bradley’s been great when it comes to depicting Sam’s mixed feelings about his abusive father. Get some lights in this scene so we can see John Bradley’s acting better!

(41:57) More wonderful shots of Bran waiting in the courtyard. Not showing any sort of emotion though.

(42:19) “It’s time to tell Jon the truth,” Bran says. No emotion there, either. Bran’s got nothing at the prospect of revealing one of the most explosive political secrets in Westerosi history, nothing at upending his brother’s sense of identity, and nothing over the complete reevaluation of Ned Stark that this information calls for. Nothing.

And again, we know this isn’t a problem with Isaac Hempstead-Wright’s acting, because of evidence provided to us earlier in the series.

(42:26) “I’m not his brother,” Bran says, completely without emotion. What is wrong with this direction? What is wrong with the writing for this character?

(42:45) I nevertheless like that the Starks head down to the crypts to pay their respects on a regular basis. That does show their love for Ned. What I wouldn’t have given to see the Stark siblings discussing Robb or Catelyn.

(43:32) More good writing, which I will take where I can get in season eight – Jon notices immediately that Sam’s upset and asks about Sam’s girlfriend and their son. Not only does this show that Jon knows the things that might be upsetting Sam, it lets the writers just briefly clue us in that Gilly and baby Sam are present and okay, just offscreen.

(43:55) Back to bad writing. Sam is understandably preoccupied with the fact that Dany exected his father and brother. What I don’t get is why Sam treats Dany’s failure to tell Jon as significant. Dany apparently has no idea that Jon and Sam are friends. From the way she greeted Sam in that previous scene, it looks like she only knows of Sam through Jorah. If Dany concealed her actions from Jon out of shame, that’s contradicted by the fact she told Sam the truth. (Nor is it consistent with various other actions she’s taken.) If Dany just didn’t give a thorough account of her actions on the field to Jon, and the Tarlys should have been included as significant casualties, that failing is shared by a whole bunch of people who could have told Jon, and isn’t any sort of personal insult.

(44:29) It’s time! The R+L=J reveal we’ve been waiting for! It’s been a rocky journey, between the lack of early foreshadowing, the really obvious foreshadowing later, that misstep where people thought E+L=J, Lannister style, and HBO had to correct people, and most recently the very obvious setup for Sam to tell Jon this news in the worst way possible, for the worst reasons possible (not a bad idea, just shakier execution). But who cares, we’re here. This is going to have some impact.

(45:15) Okay, well, impact kind of blunted by the fact I can’t actually see much in this scene. Some lights, please?

(45:46) Finally! Someone reacts to what this meant! Yes, this is some drama, this is going to take some time and some fraught conversations to work through.

(46:24) And straight away we focus on what this means for the current fights over the Iron Throne. Blast. Jon bypasses denial, anger, bargaining and depression and gets straight to acceptance and dealing with the consequences of the reveal. There’s no “that can’t be true,” there’s no “why did you tell me this.” Luke Skywalker had the fucking Force confirming the parentage reveal and even then he didn’t accept it as easily as Jon does now.

(46:35) “You gave up your crown to save your people. Would she do the same?” Except that’s not the question that the reveal of Jon’s parentage poses. Jon gave up his crown in trade for an alliance against a pressing military threat. What would Dany be saving people from, in abdicating in favour of Jon? Someone’s got to actually start a civil war over this for her to save people from that threat.

(46:42) In case you can’t see the scene, it involves Tormund and Beric investigating a castle that’s clearly been attacked.

(48:41) Just shy of two minutes before something was said, and even then it was screaming. That was a long time to squint at people walking through a scene so dark it’s hard to tell what they were reacting to. I need something to either listen to or watch, here.

(48:43) And Beric lights the scene as he and Tormund ambush some Night’s Watch refugees led by Dolorous Edd.

(49:30) So that’s Lord Umber dead. Which means presumably that we’re in Last Hearth right now. Establishing that Tormund, Beric and Edd will be coming back to Winterfell, blah blah, not sure that was worth two minutes of screentime when they could have just shown up and said “we passed Last Hearth and everyone was dead,” given the other plot points we could spend screentime on.

(49:49) It’s a good jump scare though.

(50:40) A mysterious hooded figure rides into Winterfell amongst a crowd of people also riding into Winterfell.

(51:09!) It’s Jaime! He looks around Winterfell’s courtyard.

(51:26) And spots Bran watching him. End episode on the held gaze. While Bran sitting in the courtyard waiting for Jaime is actually really funny, I do think this pretty much worked, setting up the idea that Jaime’s going to have to confront the attempted child murder from episode 1. It’s also a reminder of the conflict that’s involved with working with the Lannisters on that more personal level.

Next time – possibly the season’s best episode, and boy is that depressing.

#anti got #fine toothed comb edition #season eight

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ivalice-tifalucis · 4 years

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My ramblings on FFVII Remake

The irony never lost on me that after so many years on tumblr, I finally act on my username, actually post things related to FF.

So I finally finished FFVII Remake this Wednesday although stupidly I quitted the game before the credits finished rolling so I had to replay the last part again on Saturday. Thank goodness I already knew what to do so I only needed an hour to finish the last part. Took me 2,5 weeks and close to 50 hours of gameplay to finished as I also have real life obligation to do and couldn’t just play video game for whole day. And oh my god what an experience. As non OG fan who got introduced FFVII and FF in general because in 2006 her school best friend couldn’t stop yelling about Advent Children, who have watched Advent Children for god knows how many times even though she could barely understand the context, who felt weird at Dirge of Cerberus, and who cried stupid at Crisis Core ending, this game is beyond my expectation.

In 2015, when they announced the release, I was like ‘ oh great, finally they’re gonna make this after all’. I have waited for the remake for almost a decade at that time yet I felt empty because I was no longer care so much about FF anymore. I still haven’t even played FFXV yet I waited that for so long since the first FFVersusXIII trailer. So finally Square Enix got their shits together, great for them.

And then FFVII Remake was released. Y’know what, I didn’t even see the trailer. I didn’t care. But then covid-19 happened and I was bored. My brother kept suggesting me to buy FFVII Remake, said that the game got great reviews and I’ve waited for so long. I was like ‘ok, let’s see what the fuss is about.’ I never actually play the PS one game because 1) Never got the chance to, and when I could have the resource to play it, 2) I lost interest in FF. So it’s a good way to play a game you only read about it all this time. Then I read some of the review and bits of spoilers, because I’m that kind of person, that the game is not exactly a remake, that it’s only first few hours of original game, which quite dissapointing at first because you thought you’re gonna play like the real ans whole reimagined FFVII. And people talk about Zack. That’s what pique my interest more. I thought it’s only flashback because Zack did appear as flashback in OG but then spoilers said he’s alive??!! What??? Ok gotta have this game.

And so begin my geeky nostalgic journey. I haven’t heard The Prelude for so long and it was so beautiful hearing it on the menu. I stopped to listen to the song. Then the intro, beautiful, exactly what I always dreamed about if FFVII got a remake. Then the first bombing mission is done and Cloud met Aerith for the first time in Loveless street. And holy maholy, ‘wait, is that- omg The Promised Land from Advent Children!!!!’ Yep that sold me. No getting away from this.

By the release of this game, it brought me to realization that not every FFVII fans are keen of Compilation of FFVII which is too bad because I love Compilations with all its ups and downs. I wouldn’t like FFVII if it’s not of the Compilations. What makes FFVII far more interesting than other FF series is the mystery and big world building. Midgar is only tiny piece of Gaia compare to what we would explore in later Remake chapter. Every characters, good or bad have their own story and mystery. And while many of the backstory is explained in the OG, some of them got fleshed out in sequels and prequels. Listening to The Promised Land brought me to realize that FFVII Remake is not merely a remake but more like another chapter or maybe the first chapters that could conclude FFVII for good. Because I would love to see at least the definitive end of FFVII, where at least all the mysteries are answered.

The introduction of the Whispers or Arbiters of Fate during first encounter with Aerith made me realized immediately that this is what people meant when they said FFVII Remake defied from OG. I think if used well Whispers could give deeper impact to Remake. It adds more mysteries but it could also answer mysteries. Yes, including Zack’s fate. It depends on how Kazushige Nojima and Tetsuya Nomura used it. Of course I’m also a bit anxious. I don’t remember what but something Nomura did and said in the past is actually what made me driven even further from FF and honestly I’m afraid. I never played Kingdom Hearts but I heard people talk about how it becomes bumbling jumbo which I agree since that’s the reason why I never play KH because I had no clue what it is even about. Even reading the plot made my head hurts. And in the last two years I have been let down by my favorite franchises that are Game of Thrones and Star Wars sequels. However I’m optimistic because I don’t think Tetsuya Nomura would want to destroy his own legacy. FFVII is what makes him the top tier guy in Square Enix in the first place. It’s his precious baby and he has complete control over it.

In other topic, the game is absolutely beautiful. I had doubts when my brother told me they used Unreal while FFXV used Luminous Engine which based on what I saw on youtube made FFXV so beautiful and immersive (I hope someone could explain to me why). FFVII Remake is also beautiful game within its capacity. Of course because the engine limitation there are few downs on the graphic and render. I couldn’t get over that door in Sector 7 slums looks so unrendered I thought the game had rendering delay. But overall the game has reimagined Midgar perfectly. Other than objects that you could way too easily kick, there is so little bug. Other than Crisis Core, which was only PSP game and couldn’t do much, this is the only time we see Midgar before disaster other than the OG game. And Midgar is amazing. The upper plate, the cities look modern and well planned while the slums look so lively and dense. The Wall Market is festive and crazy, the mission is also crazy. I had a great laugh and snicker all the way during this part. Exactly what I would imagine Wall Market would be when I read about it all this time. The puzzles are great. The gameplay is also great. It’s not repetitive and makes you feel accomplished. Each enemies require different approach. I sometime had to look into walkthrough so I could find a good suggestion on how to defeat certain boss, after I failed so many times. There is a need for strategy so I have to prepare what kind of materia and accessories I would use on certain character which sadly lacked in the last FF game that I played almost a decade ago, which was FFXIII.

The music, damn I haven’t stop listening to Hollow since I finished the game. You notice that the previous posts had me got mind blown by it. Nobuo Uematsu has done it again. He touches my heart with his music, and he has done it again. The rest of the soundtrack is also great. Did I mention that I stop for a while to listen to The Prelude? Also got nostalgic and humming along with Main Theme, Aerith’s Theme, Tifa’s Theme, Shinra’s theme, Those Who Fight.

All in all, the fact that I couldn’t stop talking about this game, to me, is indicator that this game is amazing. 9/10 (because I don’t like that they used Unreal).

#cloud strife #tifa lockhart #aerith gainsborough #zack fair #final fantasy vii remake #my ramblings #i review something yeay #ffvii remake review #spoilers

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diveronarpg · 4 years

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Congratulations, JULIE! You’ve been accepted for the role of OBERON with an approved FC change to Oscar Isaac. Admin Rosey: I don't know how many times I said I was possessed when I wrote Oberon but I very much was. I think you have to be a little bit possessed to write him because that's the kind of person he is; you have to be all in with him or perish. I don't know what it is about these types of enigmatic, almost ethereal characters that you understand - they have one foot in heaven and one foot in hell - but you get them at their core, Julie. Thank you for bringing my most beautiful son to the dash. Please read over the checklist and send in your blog within 24 hours.

WELCOME TO THE MOB.

OUT OF CHARACTER

Alias | Julie

Age | 20

Preferred Pronouns | She/her

Activity Level | I mean, y’all know how it is. One draft a day usually does it for me, and at the bare minimum, I shoot for a few replies a week.

Timezone | MST

How did you find the rp? | I was perusing the ‘lsrpg’ tag, and the rest was history.

Current/Past RP Accounts | Lucien!

IN CHARACTER

Character | Oberon / Olivio Rivera -- with a fc change to Oscar Isaac, if it’s okay with you guys.

What drew you to this character? | There’s something about Olivio that makes him half-man half-hell, and that’s fascinating to me. I think, to a degree, he’s as human as the rest of us, with good parts and bad, but most people don’t show those parts so brazenly and manage to be half as discreet while doing it. This charm is pretty different from a character like Lucien’s, because it’s not a necessary charm. It’s not something he learned to do. It’s something he's always had in him for as long as he’s been -- it’s essential to the core of who he is as a person. There’s a dream-like quality to him that pulls you in and a nightmare-like quality that makes you take a step back when you get too close. He’s brutal in the way he orchestrates his own downfall just to get away from work he no longer has an interest in. He’s gentle with Theo, still grieving, because he knows they’re still working through something and it’s not entirely his place to poke and prod. Walking the thin line involved in this dichotomy is something that immediately caught my attention, and I’d love to explore both sides to him in the way Oberon deserves.

What is a future plot idea you have in mind for the character? |

1. I’d like to explore what Olivio has to sacrifice in order to ascend in the Capulets. He’s already lived a fair bit of his life without any of it really being impacted by the mobs of Verona, so his priorities and goals are likely pretty different from characters that have been here their entire lives. It’ll probably take a while before he builds relationships strongly enough in Verona that he has anything worth sacrificing, but as soon as he does, I’d like to yank them from under him, see how he fares -- if he’s worth becoming a soldier or an emissary in the way that Theodora thinks he can be. He’s strangely comfortable as an initiate, sitting at the bottom of the barrel, but how long is that comfort going to last him?

2. With Olivio, there’s definitely a two-faced element to him, in much the same way there’s a two-faced element to Oberon in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He’s brutal and gentle all in one, and I’d like to explore what dictates in him which part comes out where. He gets his work done and ties it off in a neat bow, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he shies away from the ugliest parts of himself. How does he fare in comparison to someone like Orpheus, a dead man, who had similar goals and aspirations as the Robin Hood of Verona but didn’t set out to become that sort of figurehead -- everyone remembers Orpheus. No one knows Olivio. I also think it’s entirely possible his two-faced nature could undermine his reputation and his overall climb towards a more concrete place in the Capulets, if he isn’t careful, and I’d love to see what the consequences are. It worked for him in Spain. It might not work for him here.

3. In the para sample, I allude a little to Olivio’s dream in the same way it’s alluded to in his biography -- this borderline fantastical dream of a better place, a better world, where the underdogs and the fantastical alike can come together and live in harmony. A place where he can taste honey in his mouth where there might have been blood. I’d like to explore Olivio’s past in reflection to his present. He’s had the same dream his entire life, worked towards it slowly but surely in his youth, and then he ended up sitting on top of an empire he didn’t expect to have and didn’t really want. He gets caught up in his own flaws, and it all crumbles apart right from underneath him, and I’d love to see if he’s doomed to repeat that in Verona or if things are really going to be different this time around.

Are you comfortable with killing off your character? | I think so! As long as it serves a purpose, I’m happy to dip my hands in angst.

IN DEPTH

TW: VIOLENCE, DEATH

Cesar’s face is so heavily caked with blood that Olivio doesn’t think he could see through the red if he wanted to. His right eye is swollen. He’s missing some teeth. His breath is coming out in wheezes from a few broken ribs, and Olivio -- in spite of his shape, in spite of being three years Cesar’s junior -- is out of breath. They’d grappled for the pistol for some time only for it to go flying under a table somewhere when Cesar kicked it up. Now, staring each other down in an empty backroom in El Valenciano, they’re catching their breath. They’re both drenched in the vibrant pink of overhead lights. It could be a painting, he thinks. Something right out of sleep. He’s had dreams like this before, and they usually don’t end quite so badly.

It makes sense in Olivio’s head that Cesar wouldn’t go down without a fight. That’s fine. He never has. But Cesar knows that Olivio’s never liked losing. Even in drills and races and training exercises, even in the field, neck-to-neck, rifle-to-rifle, Olivio never gave him the chance to get ahead. So those few months where Olivio was falling from grace, slipping from his throne? They must have felt like winning to Cesar. He must have not even realized that the game was rigged from the start.

That’s fine, too. Olivio was always the brain of the operation. Cesar served his purpose as the brawn, the Lancelot to his Arthur.

“You should’ve let me leave, a year ago. Otherwise we wouldn’t be here.” There’s a headache building at the back of his head. Stress or exhaustion. Both? He takes his own trembling hands and grapples for a glass of what looks like bourbon from one of the still-standing tables. Cesar watches him, licks his lips when Olivio swallows.

“No one leaves. You’ve never let anyone leave. You shouldn’t get the same luxury, Olivio.” Cesar spits the words out so angrily that Olivio’s almost convinced he believes them, but it’s still hard to hear him over the thrumming reverb of the music. Sweet dreams are made of this, who am I to disagree? Catchy. In this moment, in spite of the gore, Olivio thinks Cesar looks young again. Fuzzy around the edges, purple-pink-crimson, young. No more grey at the temples, crow’s feet around the edges. Just blood on his teeth, shifting from pink to blue in a moment’s notice.

“Where are you going to go?” Cesar asks, as he moves a few steps closer. He’s still holding the glass in a white-knuckled grip. His heart is going a million miles a minute. It’s not easy to kill a man with your bare hands, but he’s done it before. He’ll do it again. It feels right to do it this way, with his fists, rather than the barrel of a gun. He wraps his fingers in Cesar’s collar with his free hand and Cesar barely even jerks to meet the movement. He’s all dead weight. Olivio considers the question.

“I’ll go to Verona.”

“In Italy? Bah.” Cesar laughs, throat hoarse. Spittle paints Olivio’s face, but the disgust barely registers. “You always hated Italy -- shot down any business there every time.”

“I hear it’s nice this time of year.”

“You’re burning every bridge you have in Spain. When winter comes around there won’t be any coming back. This is it. You kill me and we’re done.” This feels right out of the pages of the novel. He wonders if maybe he should deliver some sort of dramatic monologue. Something about being brothers from the very beginning. Hold your head up! Moving on! “You’re going to regret it, and you won’t get to crawl back and apologize to me this time.”

Even Olivio’s two divorces weren’t this messy. Still, he leans in close. “It’s not my dream anymore. I’m just making sure it won’t be yours, either.” He searches Cesar’s face for something. Anything. An apology. An indication of guilt. A plea for mercy. The animal-like terror that comes into men moments before they die. They’d seen it a thousand times before, together, and they’d laughed about it over drinks. A shifting green light passes slowly over his eyes. The world goes seafoam.

Nothing. Just their shared breaths. Not even a do it. Olivio sighs. He lifts his hand holding the glass and brings it down. Cesar, to his credit, doesn’t scream. He just takes what he’s given and dies quietly, in the club they bought back when they thought they’d go somewhere bigger than Barcelona. Or maybe that was just him. It doesn’t take more than two minutes.

Olivio stands back, checks Cesar’s pulse, and then wipes his hands on his slacks, chest heaving.

The ‘ludes start to kick in just as he leaves the club, bloodied jacket in hand, a little later than he would have liked. The cleaners sweep in to wipe evidence away as soon as he’s stepped out of the room and towards the exit. Not a single employee looks at him as he leaves, and the people dancing on the floor hardly notice him. The doorman nods at him on his way out. The car waiting for Olivio at the curb takes him straight to the airport, and he barely has time to settle in his seat before he’s asleep. When he wakes, it’s to the sight of Verona and the river that runs right through it, the sun cresting overhead. He descends onto the tarmac cotton-mouthed, changed into clean clothes, and satisfied.

Cesar had been the last loose end. With his death everything in Spain has tied itself up into a neat bow. The ashes of whatever vision he and Cesar might have shared at some point would be gathered up and put into someone else’s hands. Marta’s, he hopes. She’d always been the most capable, in his mind. She’d been the one to tell him of Verona, originally, when she caught wind of what he was doing: razing everything he’d built. She’d been smart enough to stay loyal in the face of his personally orchestrated coup, and he let her live.

He just hopes she doesn’t take it for granted like he had. That she’ll lay out her own path and stick to it, instead of watching it build by itself and grow restless. Verona won’t be like that -- he’s sure of it. It has to be a new start, one he’ll be happy to die by.

In two days’ time --- and he doesn’t know this now, but he will look back at it and laugh --- he’ll kill an enemy of the Capulets in much the same way he killed Cesar, hooked on the sheer euphoria of his newfound love for the city, just outside a place achingly close to El Valenciano, and it won’t even get him in trouble. The Capulets will sweep him up before he has the time to come down from the high, and they’ll bring him into the fold without even knowing his name. He’ll start from the very bottom, and he’ll relish in it, because it’s been a long time since he had nothing.

What he does know: the Capulets are the key to this newfound dream of his, this new-and-shiny-glossy illusion, and Olivio Rivera will take whatever he can get in a city like this, so long as it means he doesn’t have to raze it to the ground.

Extras: [glass him] PLAYLIST / PINTEREST [cesar won’t remember this.]

#accepted #accepted: oberon

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chiseler · 4 years

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Unhuman Cinema

Recalling a First Peoples’ wisdom tale, this short film of an owl and fox caught on a surveillance camera is a fine example of recent Unhuman Filmmaking. It dates from Jan 9, 2019 and is known by several titles: When the Fox Met the Owl; Town of Cobourg Owl & Fox Video; and A Fox & an Owl Meet on a Snowy Night etc. Titles are little matter though – most works of art have no proper title; think of the Sphinx, the ‘Mona Lisa’ or Lascaux. Comparisons in film, to James Benning and the late Kiarostami, for example, sound academic here and rest only on a static camera – common for some duration in all films, constant in the basic works of Edison, Hepworth and Méliès. But perhaps any question of art is beside the point. All moves inside this unmoving picture. If several curious questions arise, most of them are inartistic.

Most edits run about 3.25 mins. (that is, from 1:54:55 to 1:58:16 on the top left timecode). It is night or just before dawn. Initially, we see the fox running down the snowy expanse of what is named the ‘center pier’ on the bottom text (we are along a quay in winter). The shadow of an owl flies over the fox, dipping low almost as if to hit or seize it; the fox sits a moment and watches the bird fly off out over the frozen water. The fox meanders awhile and finally runs off-screen, leaving a set of pawprints. Soon after, the owl flies back in from the sea and lands. The fox enters back into the frame and starts to hesitantly make half-circles around the sitting owl, which seems to ruffle its feathers a few times, almost like a fighting rooster. The owl follows the fox with revolutions of his whole body as the fox draws near and back in cautious semi-circles. The fox draws even closer, mingling their shadows, draws back and then starts, crouching slightly (this could be a flinch, a crouch to show the owl he means no harm, or a semi-lunge). The fox then walks off camera at a moderate pace, leaving the owl sitting for several seconds (this moment seems almost eternal). The owl then flies off, gaining altitude until he too leaves the frame. The pier is lit by several flood and street lights; there is what appears to be a convenience store to camera left, also well-lit.

When Gorky saw the Lumières’ film Repas de bébé in July of 1896, which features a stage chorus line, he memorably wrote: “Their smiles are lifeless, although their movements are full of living energy and are so swift as to be almost imperceptible. Their laughter is silent, although you see the muscles contracting in their gray faces. Before you a life surges, a life devoid of words and shorn of the living spectrum of colors, a gray, silent, bleak, and dismal life.” Like the owl and fox clip, these very early reels were initially shown silent. Almost immediately, sound and music were added in various ways, as marketing revealed that Gorky’s terrified feeling of watching the living dead was almost universally shared.

Watching a silent film silently is still an unnerving experience, yet When the Fox Met the Owl does not take place in a mute cryogenic zone. Onrushing wind and wings’ flap, howls and squawks (if any), a camera or light ballast hum – all of this would sentimentalize the scene. By making it ‘natural’, natural noises now seem to us like synthetic music or ‘room sound’ striped onto the product, due to the historical processes of film technology and audio theories over the last century plus. The silence of this film shows a silent real world, not Gorky’s muted future ghosts, which seems strangely to be beyond human hearing (but not human seeing).

The video was shot in the homeland of the Mississauga (Anishinaabe-speaking) peoples, later named Cobourg, Ontario, Canada, by white settlers. These colonials consolidated the town from several smaller outposts in 1818 – without asking the Mississauga about any of it of course – and named it after the royal Germanic House of Saxe-Coburg und Gotha, who currently occupy the English throne. Cobourg is known for rail and automotive works, as well ‘wealthy Americans’ – at least according to Wikipedia. The film itself has been credited to no one; there are two cuts: one right before the first appearance of the fox, and one after the owl exits the frame, marking the beginning and the end of it. The camera is not specified as far as I can find, so we cannot credit the film as (Untitled), by 4K Nocturnal IP NVR System with Eight 4K (8MP), for example. As for the position of the camera, debates on who is responsible for any camera angle rage between directors and cinematographers, as well as their fans. Here, an anonymous city or private technician is probably responisble. Other related works no doubt exist, shot on street corners and in lobbies all over Cobourg.

Interpretations of the action tend toward the confrontational, but what it resembles most is a ritual dance between the animal stars. The fox does not attack the owl, which sits quizzically in the center, but it does mysteriously circle the bird several times. Things look ‘to be continued’, like a snippet of an ancient relationship which has been interrupted by its own documentation. Anything further is unrecorded (or at least occurs beyond the scope of the camera), yet the action seems quite complete. It is still a popular hit, and deservedly so.

In Japan, the fox (キツネ; kitsune) is said to possess supernatural abilities, not the least of them, shapeshifting. Kurosawa’s film Dreams features one of these occasionally-vengeful changelings. Same with owls. Apache tales feature a Bog Owl Man; a Lenape legend has a hunter who unwisely betrays a vow to an owl; Eskimo myth pairs White Owl and Black Raven; a disrespectful boy is punished by an owl in a Chippewa pedagogic tale. Yet foxes and owls can also be good omens, depending on where and when. In all the worlds’ animal tales, no beast is ever one single thing – with the possible exemption of mankind. I cite only the most famous legends; wherever the fox is found, so is her double. But by collecting myths, perhaps we fall into an anthropomorphic trap. If fox and owl spirits are present, they might avoid of the camera and send their avatars instead to fool us into believing in something more than nature. In an epoch haunted by that darkest of suspicions – that we are all living after nature – animal spirits may feel any warning remains unheard.

And so too does any talk of a ‘photographic moment’ fall flat. The democratic side of photography allows anyone a ‘moment’ perhaps greater than the greatest practitioners of this weird art (especially after the advent of the Polaroid), which is an officious way of saying anyone can get lucky. Now even the despised CCTV gets a chance to invade that pretentious all-too-human ‘moment’, attributed to either mysticism or the genius of a solitary artist. What we have here is a kind of revenge on both the church of art and the church of technology, a ‘parody’ of both poxy houses. So who knows? Maybe the influence of the Trickster is there after all, not only on aesthetics but also on time and the marina.

When money came forcefully to replace the Sacred in art, it could not anticipate that the Everyday would rise up and replace both preciousness and market price. In some ways, the commodity value of a ‘film’ like this truly disappears, but not due to any human desire. It is more due to a loss of control over technics. The wizards have yet again called into being a power whose unintended consequences they can neither forsee nor command. Though human agency created the lowly surveillance camera, the invention has permeated daily life to an unimaginable degree, confirming the soul-stealing qualities Gorky and others saw in the first moving images. The watchers are being watched – but by whom? Not by their superiors in rank; not by the camera; not even by beasts, but by the terrifying blank wall of Technology itself. A great silent barrier producing nervousness, paranoia, an old lust for companionship and the nostalgia for loneliness... Occasionally too, something rare.

When the Fox Met the Owl can hardly be said to be influenced by any other filmmaking, not by Zapruder, David Attenborough and the naturalists or even wild ethnographers like Rouch. Aside from the recording medium film/video, it bears little in common with them. Anyway, the medium is now ubiquitous. The City of London is most monitored city in the world, yet it seems to catch nothing at all except the unpunishable crimes of bankers. The action in this masterpiece has taken place countless times over an infinitely longer span of time, which is why capturing it seems impossible but also unnecessary. Its ‘accidental’ being is why this most ordinary of films never ceases to startle and amaze. Its deserted genius exists by turning us and our automatic cameras into blind fools – cameras that record everything, an everything we paradoxically see less and less the more surveillance pervades an unsettled world. Eavesdroppers all, far outside the snowfall and the game.

Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuJJFXi1VIM

by Martin Billheimer

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soveryanon · 5 years

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Reviewing time for MAG157! ;___;

- … I’d been making fun of the fact that The Corruption was the unloved Fear of season 4, since we hadn’t had any statement since MAG103… and consecutively, we got a small talk about Jane Prentiss at the end of MAG152, a Corruption statement in MAG153, and now… another one, which dealt with an identified avatar, and was, I felt, the most gruesome Corruption one we ever had. Somethingsomething about how season 4 is the “be careful what you wish for” season, uh. (Well. You never wish for a Corruption statement, you mostly note that there hasn’t been one for a while.)

Jon was suspecting that Jane Prentiss’s attack on the Institute had been a ritual attempt:

(MAG152) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] … It’s all that left of her now. Apart from a… jar of ashes in my desk. Just a circle of rotten stone on an otherwise… unremarkable wall. HELEN: More of a legacy than some people get. ARCHIVIST: … It was meant to be a gate, I think. A hole that she… rotted into The Corruption itself. Maybe the start of a ritual. HELEN: Hm. Not exactly impressive, is it? ARCHIVIST: Less complex, certainly. But I think that’s the thing about– … what did Elias call it… “Filth”. I don’t think it really plans much. It just starts to grow wherever it can get a foothold and… if no one stomps it out in time: Game Over. […] I’ve been wondering what they were doing down here.

And it’s a bit terrifying to think that technically, Jane Prentiss was quite… low scale, in the harm she did during the attack on the Institute, compared to what we saw in “Love Bombing” (a whole cult minus one getting eradicated) and Amherst’s actions (contaminating the entirety of Ivy Meadows, and it probably could have spread through Nicole Baxter if she hadn’t lost/cut her hand, and eradicating the entire population of Klanxbüll):

(MAG157, Adelard Dekker) “I knew at that moment that there was nothing that could be done to save the town. […] I found the source of this sickness in the Parkplatz opposite the train station. The cars had been pushed to the side, clearly at great cost to the bodies of those that pushed them. And in the centre was a figure from whom the rot clearly flowed. He was sat upon a most dreadful throne, formed from a dozen, two dozen bodies mixed together like putty, eyes staring out like horror-stricken stars twinkling in the night – and their hearts beating for all to see. A moaning came from that awful seat, voices trying to scream through things that weren’t their throat – and it is a sound I shall be glad to leave behind me when I go to my rest.”

What kind of music was Amherst hearing in his dreams, to go for mass-damage like this every few years? Ivy Meadows happened during summer 2011 or 2012 (dates were a bit inconsistent in MAG036 itself, Elias said in June 2017 that it had been “five years” since the death of Melanie’s father), Amherst’s actions in Klanxbüll happened in 2013, that’s… such a short span to cause so much damage… ;; Really hoping that this concrete lasts forever ;;

- Chronology time, regarding Adelard’s actions since we began hearing about him in season 2:

* 06/02/1991 or 06/07/1991: Adelard had left a statement about the “NotThem”, calling it as such. Although it was referenced in MAG077, Jon explained in MAG078 that he had found another statement in the file:

(MAG077) GERTRUDE: Based on the interactions and effects, I suspect this to be the creature that Adelard Dekker refers to as the “NotThem” in statement 9910607. […] Based on Dekker’s statement, it would seem Polaroids are also relatively stable.

(MAG078) ARCHIVIST: I found this in the folder marked 9910602, where Gertrude’s tape had indicated I would find the statement of Dekker himself. There is nothing else in there, but I think it tells me what I need to know. This thing, this… “Not Sasha”… it’s tied to the table.

(… With an inconsistency regarding the month. Either Gertrude messed up (unlikely.), either Jonny messed up, either Jon messed up in his panic and fortunately still found a Not!Them-related statement despite going for the wrong file with the wrong month.)

* Sometime between 1991 and 1996 (since Eric knew Elias but didn’t know he had become Head before his own quitting&getting murdered): Adelard was identifiable as Gertrude’s collaborator and, amongst other things, threw a “screaming box” in the Thames:

(MAG154) ERIC: She never played dumb when I was stalked by bloated, blood-sucking things, or told me I was “imagining it” when I saw your friend Adelard drop a screaming box into the Thames.

* 04/11/1996: Gertrude recorded Lucy Cooper’s statement (given in September 1994) about the Not!Them taking her mother’s place. In her Final Comments, she mentioned a statement previously left by Adelard:

(MAG077) GERTRUDE: Based on the interactions and effects, I suspect this to be the creature that Adelard Dekker refers to as the “NotThem” in statement 9910607. If the pattern of behaviour is consistent with what he establishes, then further follow-up on this case is pointless: the thing has finished with the Cooper family and will not be revisiting them. It rarely seems to stay in the same place or with the same people for long, though it’s hard to guess at its motives. Personally, I suspect it to be an aspect of The Stranger, though that’s entirely conjecture at this point. […] It is at least reassuring to know that magnetic tape seems to escape being overwritten, so if I get changed, you can be sure this is my real voice. Based on Dekker’s statement, it would seem Polaroids are also relatively stable.

* Shortly before 12/06/2001: Lawrence Moore’s statement described Adelard Dekker, binding the Not!Them to the Web table which had previously been in Raymond Fielding’s ownership at Hill Top Road until the 70s. We don’t know how Adelard acquired the table, nor what happened to explain that he left without it and that Breekon&Hope were the ones to retrieve it afterwards:

(MAG078, Lawrence Moore) “He was black, dressed in a crisp white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and a thin necktie. For a moment I had the idea he might be a Jehovah’s Witness, but one look at his face dispelled that idea immediately. It was hard and stern, set in look of determination, and his short hair was iron grey. He was very thin, with aging skin stretched tight over wiry, corded muscle, and though he was slightly shorter than I was, it seemed like he towered over me. He asked if I knew the man who had left my house earlier that evening. […] At this, the old man’s eyes lit up with excitement, and I took an involuntary step back. If he noticed, he didn’t show it, walking past me into the house and ordering me to get any photos that hadn’t changed. […] He told me his name was Adelard Dekker, and that he was an exorcist, of sorts. […] Adelard Dekker stood in the corner. He was straight and motionless, his lips moving rapidly, though no sound came out of them. In the centre of the room, next to the empty box, stood a table carved from dark wood and wrapped all over with a sprawling, intricate pattern. And in front of that table was the thing that had said it was my cousin. It was long and thin, the tops of it bent against the ceiling and its stick-like limbs flailed from too many joints and elbows. Wrapped around it were thick strands of what I think was spider’s web, stretching back into the table, which I now saw pulsed along its carved channels with a sickly light. The face at the top of that gangly frame was like nothing on earth. […] I didn’t return to my house until the next morning. Dekker’s blue van was gone, and in its place was another one, dirty white. There was something printed on the side, but I couldn’t make it out under the grime. I watched two men in overalls carry that same box out of my house, load it up, and drive away. That was about two months ago, and it was the last time I saw them, the table, Adelard Dekker or the thing that wasn’t my cousin.”

(MAG079) NOT!SASHA: Once upon a time there was a monster, but no one realised. Sometimes someone did and then they were scared, so that was good. But one day a nasty man came along. A nasty man who tricked the monster and wrapped it all in webs and tied it to a table. So the monster got its friends to carry the table all around, and it still got to take faces and scare people.

* 22/01/2006: Adelard sent a letter to Gertrude regarding Garland Hillier’s disappearance in 1867 (the year of Robert Smirke’s death…) and describing Bernadette Delcour’s discovery of his old sealed flat, leading to an encounter with the Inheritors from The Extinction.

(MAG134, Adelard Dekker) “Sorry I can’t be there in person to go over all this with you. I still have a few things to clear off over here, but I thought it would be best to let you know as soon as possible. I am now certain my theory is correct: there is something new emerging. A fifteenth Power. […] Now I know what you’re going to say, Gertrude: odd doors are signs of The Spiral, empty worlds tend towards The Lonely, and eschatology is almost literally the study of The End. But this is different. I feel it. This Fear is new. This is a fear of extinction. Of change. It used to be part of The End, perhaps, when The End of humanity was to be the end of all things; but now, the fear is not of a rapture or a revelation; it is of catastrophic change. A change in our world that will wipe out what it means to be “us”, and leave something else in its place. […] These are new fears, Gertrude, and a new Power is rising to consume them. The Extinction. The Terrible Change. The-Future-Without-Us. […] I know you don’t credit my theories, and I’m sure you’ll have plenty to say on this one, but I’m going to need your help with this at some point – I’m sure of it. I don’t know how you can stop the birth of something that has no life, or mind, or… substance, but if anyone can figure it out, it’s you. I’ve never met anyone so gifted at understanding that… strange, dream logic of the Fears, and if what I suspect about this new Power is true, it could be catastrophic. Until then, I’ll keep searching for evidence, trying to find… instances and manifestations of The Extinction. I’ll keep you updated.”

* October 2008: Dekker had helped Gertrude stop The Flesh’s ritual – suggesting she use explosives? Providing them? Helping her set them up in the gnostic church?

(MAG130) GERTRUDE: When I heard there’d been survivors of “The Last Feast”, I was rather concerned that one of them might be able to positively identify me, [CHUCKLE] which could land me in all sorts of trouble! But she doesn’t seem to remember me at all. […] Dekker really came through with the explosives! It almost felt like cheating. Sad about the loss of history but Miss Wright didn’t seem to think the old Gnostic church got many visitors anyway. […] At least we know for sure that these “grand rituals” can be disrupted by conventional means, though a more… nuanced approach will be needed for some of them, I’m sure. Also… I can’t rely on having this much lead time.

* 04/01/2009: Adelard sent a letter to Gertrude describing an unnamed man’s experience in the Bright Lake amusement park in Colorado, with something Adelard identified as an Extinction occurrence.

(MAG156, Adelard Dekker) “Gertrude; I wanted your opinion on an encounter I’ve had described to me recently, and given your recent dealing with Viscera, I would very much value your input. Good job on that, by the way […]. So: what are your thoughts? I’m keen to hear your own interpretation of this account. My first assumption would have been The Flesh, based on the cannibalism and strangeness of the bodies involved, but… something about this idea of some sort of “famine world”, its location within a made-man ruin, the whole… societal aspect of it… I’d be inclined to chalk this up as a genuine Extinction manifestation. But I don’t know. Am I drawing wild conclusions, trying to fit the account into my own preconceptions? Keen to know your feelings on the matter.”

(* 03/10/2009: Gary Boylan gave his statement to the Institute, about the destruction of his village following a signal he had deciphered. No mention of Adelard Dekker in the notes.)

* Undated letter, likely circa 2012: Adelard sent a statement to Gertrude about an avatar of The End encountered when he was tracking The Extinction (without naming it), through a string of people dying by carbon monoxide poisoning in their sleep. Adelard also mentioned that Gertrude had asked him to move out some plastic explosives (he hadn’t been her provider, Gertrude had got them elsewhere).

(MAG113, Adelard Dekker) “I was pursuing my researches into the new emergence I mentioned earlier. I know you are dismissive of the possibility, but if I’m right, the sudden urgency of these “immediate dangers” you are so focused on could very well be a direct result. But that’s for another day, as this particular instance turned out to be unconnected. The point is, I was alerted to a series of deaths by a coroner friend of mine. […] I don’t know if my little “theoretical” is strong enough yet to start taking avatars, but this one, as you’ve no doubt guessed, turned out to be Terminus.”

* 13/05/2013: Judith O’Neill gave her statement about (mostly) unmoving creatures made of garbage, killing a researcher. Judith had been explicitly sent by Adelard:

(MAG149) MARTIN: There’s… hum, a, a note here as well. [PAPER RUSTLING] Looks like Gertrude’s handwriting? Start of a letter to… Dekker, thanking him for sending Judith to her, though… it doesn’t look like it was ever finished or sent. [PAPER RUSTLING] I assume this is another one he was trying to use to prove The Extinction? It… certainly has something in it. Mankind’s trash giving rise to something terrible. And again, fear of the other, inanimate humanoid figures. That’s all very… Stranger, isn’t it?

* Before August 2013: Adelard had apparently been the one to suggest explosives to disrupt The Unknowing. Gertrude made the following comment on 09/10/2014:

(MAG137) GERTRUDE: Another one to cross off the list. Doesn’t help with The Unknowing, though. [HEAVY SIGH] We still have Dekker’s back-up plan, of course, but… it’s very risky. To be sure, I–I think the detonation would need to happen from within The Unknowing, while it was going on.

* 14/08/2013: Adelard Dekker sent an email to Gertrude regarding his suspicion about an Extinction activity in the town of Klanxbüll, which turned out to be the work of John Amherst, from The Corruption. Adelard was poisoned during the fight, and told Gertrude what had happened and how he was choosing to die, ultimately expressing doubts about the reality or the shape of The Extinction:

(MAG157, Adelard Dekker) “You must forgive me, Gertrude, for any typing and spelling errors that might be in this message. My hands are shaking quite badly and my fingers… aren’t what they were. […] But I shall not wait for it to putrefy as the rot overtakes me. I have dragged those other afflicted I could find into the Parkplatz, laid them at the feet of that appalling throne, and… taken the last gifts of that… generous construction site: a dozen cans of petrol. I will sit upon that seat, and release these poor souls from their suffering. [INHALE] And hopefully make things simpler, for the ECDC clean-up crews. But it did not seem quite right to leave without letting you know what happened. And… Herr [Becker?] was kind enough to succumb to the sickness without signing out of his computer, so… perhaps you were right about The Extinction. I’ve been hunting it for decades now, and… while I have seen evidence of its influence in other Powers, I have never found anything to genuinely prove its emergence as a true Power of its own. Perhaps it is an existential fear that flows through the others like a vein of ore; or perhaps the birth of such things is longer and more complicated than I believed. For all that though, I cannot regret the time I have spent seeking it. I have done my duty; and none may ask more of me.”

So… although he sounds absolutely dead-dead, I don’t think this is the last we’re hearing from Adelard. I guess it could be possible that he had just left the Web table binding the Not!Them behind him around 2001 (though quite uncharacteristic), but we’re still missing his statement from 1991, and given that Jon had acknowledged that he hadn’t found Dekker’s own statement, I think it’s safe to assume that we could be hearing about it later (in season 5? Or in MAG160, as a “closure” to Dekker’s own story and investigations, since he was quite important through season 4?), in a written statement or through a recording with Gertrude.

- I’m a bit interrogative about the way Adelard mentioned his investigations regarding The Extinction:

(MAG157, Adelard Dekker) “… perhaps you were right about The Extinction. I’ve been hunting it for decades now, and… while I have seen evidence of its influence in other Powers, I have never found anything to genuinely prove its emergence as a true Power of its own. Perhaps it is an existential fear that flows through the others like a vein of ore; or perhaps the birth of such things is longer and more complicated than I believed. ”

Because the earliest he tried to summarise and essentialise what he felt was the New Power, labelling it “The Extinction”, was in 2006 (MAG134), so only seven years before his death. Was he exaggerating when he said “decades”? Or will we learn more about his genesis, as an addendum, and it was truly a long-time conviction / a dissatisfaction with Smirke’s categorisation? I had already noticed that it was strange (ha) that, although the Not!Them presented itself as a creature from The Stranger (or at least allied to it), the earliest things we know about Adelard was that he was after it… when his description of The Extinction feels very close to some of the Not!Them’s effects (although in lower scales, for the latter); so maybe he had trouble categorising the Not!Them, back then, hence his conviction that a New Power might have been emerging…? Adelard also used some of the names inherited from Smirke’s work:

(MAG113, Adelard Dekker) “There was… an inevitability to his movements, and I think that is when I realised he was simply serving The End, which I won’t pretend wasn’t a disappointment.”

(MAG134, Adelard Dekker) “Now I know what you’re going to say, Gertrude: odd doors are signs of The Spiral, empty worlds tend towards The Lonely, and eschatology is almost literally the study of The End. But this is different. I feel it.”

(MAG156, Adelard Dekker) “So: what are your thoughts? I’m keen to hear your own interpretation of this account. My first assumption would have been The Flesh, based on the cannibalism and strangeness of the bodies involved, but…”

(MAG157, Adelard Dekker) “I’ve spoken before about how keenly I have watched news of possible pandemics, which is where I suspect The Extinction may pull away from The Corruption during its emergence. […] So, it seemed it was not The Extinction as I had anticipated but simply a new and awful strain of Corruption.”

But he was also occasionally labelling them in unique ways:

(MAG113, Adelard Dekker) “I don’t know if my little “theoretical” is strong enough yet to start taking avatars, but this one, as you’ve no doubt guessed, turned out to be Terminus.”

(MAG156, Adelard Dekker) “I wanted your opinion on an encounter I’ve had described to me recently, and given your recent dealing with Viscera, I would very much value your input.”

(MAG157, Adelard Dekker) “I have spoken to you before of Christabel, my… contact within the ECDC. She had a run-in with the Crawling Rot some decades ago, and has since then kept me up to date with any incidents they have encountered which display “unusual” properties.”

(Though that last one was also used by Arthur Nolan in MAG145: “Found a mass of the Crawling Rot growing, a while back. Managed to get a hold of the property before it became too big. Gotta wait ‘til it blossoms before we can properly burn it.”)

It is curious that, of all people, we didn’t get Adelard’s story of his first few years, how he came in contact with the Powers, with Gertrude, why/how he came to tracking down avatars, so I think there is a good chance we could get a statement about it, indeed. After all, we keep hearing stories of/from people who have been dead for a while; what I’m curious is when/how it could be done in a way that would “add” something else to the current storyline, if we’re done with The Extinction after the season 4 finale…? (Unless we aren’t.) Or it could be about categorising, or the concept of “Faith” against the Fears, I guess.

- There is something heart-breaking putting together his ways of addressing Gertrude in his messages:

(MAG134, Adelard Dekker) “Gertrude; Sorry I can’t be there in person to go over all this with you. I still have a few things to clear off over here, but I thought it would be best to let you know as soon as possible. […] I’ll keep you updated. Stay safe. Adelard.”

(MAG156, Adelard Dekker) “Gertrude; I wanted your opinion on an encounter I’ve had described to me recently, and given your recent dealing with Viscera, I would very much value your input. Good job on that, by the way; I’m sure the gnostic temple was a great loss culturally speaking, but I can’t help but admire your directness when it comes to dealing with this sort of thing. […] So: what are your thoughts? I’m keen to hear your own interpretation of this account. […] Keen to know your feelings on the matter. […] Oh – one more thing: if you do try to follow up with my source – and I know you have your own ways of finding him should you wish – please be careful. He told me, near the end, that he had recently been worried he was being followed. He keeps catching glimpses of a thin figure in the distance, or disappearing around a corner, and I can’t quite get past the detail that there was no reflection at all in the mirror he used to return. If my suspicions are correct, there’s little either of us could do for him; but do take care, should you make contact.”

(MAG113, Adelard Dekker) “Gertrude; It should all be here, though god knows I was tempted to take a block for myself just in case. […] Anyway, you owe me a favour. And… maybe another one once you read this. It might come to nothing, but it’s something you should probably be aware of. […] I’m sure you can take care of yourself, of course, but I thought it would be worth letting you know. Good luck, Gertrude. And enjoy the fireworks.”

(MAG157, Adelard Dekker) “You must forgive me, Gertrude, for any typing and spelling errors that might be in this message. […] This is the last time you will hear from me. You must trust me on that and not come looking. Not that you would; I know you’re too smart for sentimentality, especially after what I have to tell you, but I feel it worth saying nonetheless. […] I’ve wondered, Gertrude, whether you are truly as fearless as you seem; or if you are simply a master of disguising your terror…! I suppose I’ll never have a chance to find out. I rather hope it was the former. However much I disagree with some of your methods, it feels good to believe there are people in this world who can stare down the devil without flinching. […] But it did not seem quite right to leave without letting you know what happened. And… Herr [Becker?] was kind enough to succumb to the sickness without signing out of his computer, so… […] I am proud of the work we have done, and it has been an honour to do it alongside you. Goodbye, Gertrude. May you find your rest where no shadows are cast… and no eyes may see you slumber.”

Politely beginning all his letters with “Gertrude”, except for the last one, which began with apologies. Ending each ones with little words of encouragements and concern (“Stay safe”, “do take care”, “good luck”)… up until that “goodbye” in the last one.

Something that MAG157 put into a new perspective, too: in MAG137, Gertrude had mentioned “Adelard’s back-up plan” to thwart The Unknowing. That recording had happened in October 2014; Adelard had been dead for more than a year at this point. When she sighed right before mentioning him, was it only a pragmatic sigh, linked to the fact that she was a bit at a loss to counter The Stranger? Or was it also because she had lost her closest ally, and someone she had been seeing as a friend despite herself, and who wasn’t there anymore…?

(And in the end, Gertrude didn’t have the time to stop The Unknowing and to follow through with Adelard’s plan. Jon, Tim and the others followed in her footsteps and, without knowing, also in Adelard’s, accomplishing the plans of two dead people…)

(- There is still The Mystery Of Gertrude’s Death and thinking again about MAG113 made me realise that, UHOH???

(MAG113, Adelard Dekker) “Anyway, you owe me a favour. And… maybe another one once you read this. It might come to nothing, but it’s something you should probably be aware of. […] I cannot make any guarantees Justin Gough will remain in the state I left him. And it seems that, as he deals in dreams, it may be worth your while to keep an eye on the statements you take, in case he finds his way here. I’m sure you can take care of yourself, of course, but I thought it would be worth letting you know.” […] ARCHIVIST: This was found tucked into a hard case containing… many blocks of plastic explosive, kept by Gertrude Robinson in a storage unit that I can only assume has… extremely lax oversight. It is unclear if she ever read it. […] I know there are more important things to be doing, but I did ask Basira to have a quick search for Justin Gough, see what might have happened to him. There are records of his residence in an East London care facility until 2015, when he disappears from their records. Several deaths among the staff apparently occurred at roughly the same time. And it will come as no surprise that the inquest returned a verdict of carbon monoxide poisoning in each case. I’m not too concerned, to be honest, my dreams are, uh... well, let’s just say I don’t think they're going be letting anyone else in any time soon.

… Adelard had explicitly warned her about an avatar from The End who dealt with dreams, who went loose again in 2015.

… And Jon wasn’t sure that Gertrude had read this message.

… And in March 2015, Oliver, End-touched person, soon to become avatar, had described his own dreams of Gertrude, terrified, being the target of the vines usually announcing people’s death…

We know that Gertrude didn’t die when she should have (she was still alive in April 2015, if she didn’t lie on the date), and Elias confessed to her murder, and she had plain mundane bullets in her body… But it’s actually extreeeemely suspicious that Justin Gough escaped the year she died? Was The End involved in her death a bit more actively than just through Oliver’s visions…? Or was Oliver’s vision the fate awaiting her if Justin had managed to kill her?)

- One Nice Thing (aesthetically) is that I really experienced Adelard’s realisation right along with him? I assumed that the town was under a new Extinction threat, assumed we were on the verge of meeting our first Extinction avatar… and then, as Adelard already introduced the idea that he had been Wrong and began describing the cause of the town’s downfall, I suddenly realised that OH NO, LANKY AND BROWN COAT, IS THAT–

(MAG157, Adelard Dekker) “No pale spectre in a lab coat, or twisted golem of petri dishes and test tubes. No; he was… lanky, wearing an ill-fitting brown suit and a smile. I’d never previously had the misfortune to meet him, but I knew the description well enough to recognise John Amherst.”

… and it was.

(MAG036, Nicole Baxter) “The door to the reception opened, and a tall man stepped out. He was rail thin and wore a faded brown suit that seemed to have been cut for a much fatter man. His eyes were a watery blue and his dark hair stood on top of his head in an unruly mess. He must have been around forty, but had a nervous sort of energy to him.”

(MAG055) JORDAN: He was tall, maybe 6ft5? But it was hard to be sure of his shape inside the huge, brown suit he was wearing.

(Extra funny thing is that “ill-fitting brown suit” + “a John” also feels really close to how Jon probably looks like from the outside.)

- I’m so sad for Adelard, but also so proud of him in a way?! It’s a really strange feeling because we’ve never heard him live (so far?), but he was still a reassuring figure in some way. I was anticipating that he could have snapped, because I Remember Oliver, but no: although he was giving up pretty fast when it came to saving their potential victims, Adelard was simply someone who would fight what he identified as evil, putting his life on the line when it came to stopping threatening avatars. It’s interesting to compare what we heard of him with Gertrude: Adelard was firm, a bit callous at time, but not keen on sacrificing people to reach his goals, and was personally involving himself in the cases he was investigating… to the cost of his own life, as it happened in MAG157. (So it was not “like Oliver”, it was “like Gerry”. If you like a character, and you feel like they could be helpful/do some good: either they’ve turned into a monster since then, either they’re dead. … Though, now: we… have no Characters Who Are Helping left still alive at the moment – hoping that it could mean that Team Archive will more or less try to go that way but ;; Not very optimistic about it.)

Adelard had expressed that he was afraid of the idea of dying in his sleep:

(MAG113, Adelard Dekker) “I’ll even make it a statement. Give your patron something to keep it satisfied. It’s not like I sleep enough to worry about dreams. […] It’s odd, isn’t it? Sleep. That you can never remember or fully pin down the exact moment you lose consciousness. Just lying there, waiting to find yourself in a dream without the first clue or interest in how or when you got there. Or to find your eyes closed and force them open to sunlight and morning, only realising that sleep has happened in retrospect. I wonder if… death is the same way? No clear dividing line, just… gone, only to realise after it’s happened, except for the fact that there isn’t an after. Is that a comforting thought or a terrifying one? Depends on who you are, I suppose. It bothered me when I was young. If I thought too hard about the concept of sleep, of exactly what it was, I would worry myself, and end up having to turn the light on, and read for an hour or two. Everyone always talks about how they want to die in their sleep, but honestly, I think that’s the death that scares me the most.”

So ;; Best outcome you can hope for really is dying on your own terms, uh. We got it with Tim, and Adelard got to face his own death awake, in a situation he chose to put himself in, also turning it in one last “good” action (putting an end to the suffering of the villagers who… indeed couldn’t be saved at this point):

(MAG157, Adelard Dekker) “This is the last time you will hear from me. […] Perhaps I’m simply prevaricating, trying to cling on to a few more precious minutes of life – but that’s not me. I know what awaits me, and must have no hesitation in going to my reward. [SCOFF] I know you’ve never had much patience for my faith, but perhaps it will provide you some small peace knowing I face my death gladly, knowing I have done my duty before God. […] For all that though, I cannot regret the time I have spent seeking it. I have done my duty; and none may ask more of me. I am proud of the work we have done, and it has been an honour to do it alongside you.”

“Faith” was present in more than one aspect in his last message: as his religion, which had driven him (and in hindsight, I realised that there had been a few words from that lexical field in his past statements) and in which he found comfort in his last moments; as his belief in Gertrude and their “work” together. And, in parallel, there was also a loss of faith, as he was hypothesising that he may have been wrong all along about The Extinction as a Fifteenth Power:

(MAG157, Adelard Dekker) “so… perhaps you were right about The Extinction. I’ve been hunting it for decades now, and… while I have seen evidence of its influence in other Powers, I have never found anything to genuinely prove its emergence as a true Power of its own.”

So, it was a bittersweet ending, but one that didn’t feel utterly crushing either. On the one hand, it’s still a death; it’s upsetting that Adelard died while neutralising a dangerous menace who had caused harm to many people, it’s sad that his death was caused from a Corruption avatar while Adelard had been running after The Extinction all this time – he did something brave and amazing in his last actions, but it would have had more meaning, for him, if it had been against The Extinction… and precisely, John Amherst was a tipping point making Adelard lose faith in his theory. But it’s still honourable, and fits Adelard well, as someone who made that world a bit less dark, who was keeping in mind circumstantial victims without always getting lost in the Big Plans and the Big Picture like Gertrude:

(MAG078, Lawrence Moore) “Then he instructed me to go to my bedroom, and not to leave until he told me it was safe. I did protest at that, and I asked him how my locking myself upstairs would help save Carl. There was no sympathy in his voice when he told me my cousin was dead, that nothing would bring him back, and that my best chance to not join him was to stay in the bedroom until everything was over. He did not seem inclined to tell me what he meant by “everything”.”

(MAG134, Adelard Dekker) “I may try to interview her again later, though I have my suspicions she may find herself disappearing. She has that… quality about her, I’m sure you know what I mean, o–of an unfinished meal. And I can only hope that when the second course starts, she can remember her way back to Garland Hillier’s apartment once more.”

(MAG156, Adelard Dekker) “… Anyway, I was following up on a young man who had apparently had a nasty experience whilst exploring the ruins of the Bright Lake amusement park in Colorado. You will forgive me if I withhold his name, as I have all the verification I need to be convinced he’s telling the truth, and I find it hard to believe any follow-up you’d be interested in doing would be beneficial for him. He’s earned his anonymity. […] He keeps catching glimpses of a thin figure in the distance, or disappearing around a corner, and I can’t quite get past the detail that there was no reflection at all in the mirror he used to return. If my suspicions are correct, there’s little either of us could do for him […].”

(MAG113, Adelard Dekker) “I think that is when I realised he was simply serving The End, which I won’t pretend wasn’t a disappointment. But still, I thought if I could deal with him and save a few lives, I might as well. […] I was not quick enough to save the man who lived in that house. Truth be told, I didn’t especially try. I didn’t think I would be able to move quick enough to do so, and was more concerned with being quiet and thorough. […] I knew it wouldn’t kill him, he’s too far from human for me to do so, but I thought that scrambling his brain a bit was probably my best bet. And I was right, as far as it goes. He survived what I did to him, and when the police picked him up after an ‘anonymous tip’ about a break-in, he was barely able to speak, and I very much hope I managed to sever his dreams.”

(MAG157, Adelard Dekker) “I knew at that moment that there was nothing that could be done to save the town. But I could perhaps identify the cause – and identify it I did. […] So, it seemed it was not The Extinction as I had anticipated but simply a new and awful strain of Corruption. Still. It was not something I felt I could leave to run its course unopposed. […] I have dragged those other afflicted I could find into the Parkplatz, laid them at the feet of that appalling throne, and… taken the last gifts of that… generous construction site: a dozen cans of petrol. I will sit upon that seat, and release these poor souls from their suffering. [INHALE] And hopefully make things simpler, for the ECDC clean-up crews.”

And it’s so soft that his last words were for Gertrude, not berating her, but almost… comforting her?

(MAG157, Adelard Dekker) “For all that though, I cannot regret the time I have spent seeking it. I have done my duty; and none may ask more of me. I am proud of the work we have done, and it has been an honour to do it alongside you. Goodbye, Gertrude. May you find your rest where no shadows are cast… and no eyes may see you slumber.”

(Wishing her the best, uh. I can read the mention of “shadows” as innocuous, but I also wonder if it might not be a direct reference to something of Gertrude’s personal history with The Dark?)

(- I also mean: gdi, what is it with season 4 and the way it’s offering me New Ships For Gertrude. We got Gertrude/Agnes, a bit of Web/Gertrude, I was wondering if she didn’t used to have some Feelings for Eric, now I’m REALLY digging Gertrude/Adelard, gdi.)

- Adelard died in August 2013, Gerry in late 2014. Gertrude had previously lost Michael sometime after late 2009 (MAG126 mentioned the upcoming “Great Twisting”), although in his case, she had minutely planned his sacrifice. I’m not sure Leitner was a good judge of character (was Leitner good at… anything.), but he had gotten the feeling that she was getting lonely:

(MAG080) LEITNER: I think she was lonely. I didn’t meet her until about six years ago, after she’d lost the last of her own assistants. She would mention them sometimes. I believe she missed having someone to talk to on occasion. ARCHIVIST: I… I didn’t know Gertrude had assistants. LEITNER: Of course. Three of them, each meeting an unpleasant end.

(During her last year, Leitner was apparently her last “ally”. That’s telling how low she was, and how bad the situation was, I guess.)

Those were rough years for Gertrude, uh? I wonder how much Adelard’s death impacted her – if she took it in stride, or if it almost made her crumble; they had been allied for at least twenty years, at this point, and it really sounded like she trusted him; there was a very specific enthusiasm when she mentioned the explosives stopping The Last Feast in MAG130?

… on the less bright side, I wonder if Adelard’s death was what pushed her to try and seek out Gerry? She had promised to find him in August 2008:

(MAG154) ERIC: I want you to find my son. If Mary is… if she’s gone, or worse… I want you to make sure he’s alright. GERTRUDE: [HUFF] I’m not exactly a mother figure. ERIC: You could hardly do worse than her. GERTRUDE: Fine. But I don’t know what growing up with Mary has done to him. If he’s… gone rotten, I can’t promise anything. ERIC: I understand. GERTRUDE: I suppose he might be useful. ERIC: Oh, sentimental as ever.

But we know she didn’t do it right away:

(MAG111) GERRY: In the end it was Gertrude who saved me. She came to me when I was desperate, nowhere to go, and she offered to help. […] I think you know the rest. I joined Gertrude’s work for a few years. Didn’t realise how ill I was until it finally caught up with me. Then I died.

Gerry mentioned that they had worked together for “a few years”, but Mary Keay ~died~ in 2008 according to MAG004 and haunted Gerry for “five years” according to him in MAG111, so that would put Gertrude finding him around 2013 – so, they worked together for a bit less than two years, before Gerry died. It could be that Adelard’s death was the reason why Gertrude finally decided to honour the promise she had made to Eric, and if so, yikes. Still utilitarian until the end, uh.

(Though: did Gerry remind her of Adelard, at least a bit, in the way he was waving his way through the Fears and neutralising supernatural occurrences and/or begrudgingly helping people to get out…?)

(- Adelard wondering about whether or not Gertrude felt fear reminded me of Arthur’s comment about it:

(MAG145) ARTHUR: [SCOFF] Yeah. … But you don’t actually care about Them, do you? […] All your energy is focused down here, on monsters and… murderers, and all the things doing the dirty work for Them Beyond. You know plenty, sure! But you don’t have that obsession, that stupid urge to try and understand and… classify things that use logic and reality like weapons. GERTRUDE: Hm. Per–perhaps. ARTHUR: [CHUCKLE] Always respected you for that. Takes a strong stomach to not give a shit. GERTRUDE: Eh! You’ll forgive me if I’m not overjoyed at the compliment?

(MAG157, Adelard Dekker) “I’ve wondered, Gertrude, whether you are truly as fearless as you seem; or if you are simply a master of disguising your terror…! I suppose I’ll never have a chance to find out. I rather hope it was the former. However much I disagree with some of your methods, it feels good to believe there are people in this world who can stare down the devil without flinching. [SHORT SNEER]”

And 1°) it obviously puts Georgie to mind, though in her case, her inability to feel fear was inflicted on her, and 2°) … Oliver had seen Gertrude terrorised in his dreams:

(MAG011, “Antonio Blake”) “Getting closer I realised that there was a person sitting at that desk and it was them that all of this scarlet light was flowing into. I could see none of the figure’s body beneath the flesh that enclosed them, but as I moved around I saw the face was uncovered. It was your face and the expression upon it was far more fearful than any I had seen in eight years of wandering this twilight city. That was when I awoke. […] If you do see this in time and read this far, then to be honest I don’t know what else to tell you. Be careful. There is something coming for you and I don’t know what it is, but it is so much worse than anything I can imagine. At the very least you should look into appointing a successor.”

… so I don’t think Gertrude couldn’t feel it, which means she was probably just really good at hiding it. On the other hand, creature and monsters feel fears and are fed by it, so would it even be possible to fool them if she wasn’t truly fearless?)

- ;; Something bittersweet, too, is that… Gertrude apparently Learned from Adelard and took a page from his book when it came to concrete:

(MAG157, Adelard Dekker) “I can’t deny some pride in my solution, Gertrude. In all our discussions of how to contain a being that we could not destroy… I’m not sure we ever hit on a method quite so neat…! I am no builder but, by the end, I think you would have been hard-pressed to criticise how well that concrete had been laid – and Amherst four feet beneath it.”

(MAG103, Dylan Anderson) “If you hadn’t turned up that evening, I don’t know what I’d have done. I know a monster pig wasn’t what you were looking for, but I do appreciate your advice. When you explained the situation, I hoped you’d have some special trick for dealing with it, but I suppose welding scrap metal around the pen and filling it with cement just about works, even if I do owe Mason a favour for borrowing his mixer. I’d have thought the thing would at least try to break free while I did it, but… thank heaven for small mercies, I suppose. A huge block of solid concrete. What ought to do with it? Some sort of engraving, maybe?”

Monster Pig happened in July 2014, so eleven months after Adelard’s message. And Jon had also noticed that Gertrude’s computer had receipts involving “petrol”:

(MAG157, Adelard Dekker) “I have dragged those other afflicted I could find into the Parkplatz, laid them at the feet of that appalling throne, and… taken the last gifts of that… generous construction site: a dozen cans of petrol.”

(MAG066) ARCHIVIST: There’s also the matter of the products she was ordering. There were several online orders of petrol, lighter fluid, pesticides, and high-powered torches. They are sporadic, but notable in that she did not drive, smoke or work in pest control.

… So maybe it was also an idea she got from Adelard’s last actions. Utilitarian, and/or an homage, in a way.

- I’m also HUMMMM re:Adelard, because if there is one thing that’s been recurring when he was depicted fighting avatars or monsters, it’s that he tended to notice what he could use in his surroundings and improvise a lot…

(MAG113, Adelard Dekker) “Truth be told, I didn’t especially try. I didn’t think I would be able to move quick enough to do so, and was more concerned with being quiet and thorough. The cutlery drawer was largely empty, but after a minute’s searching I did find what I was after: a long, metal skewer. Did you know there are certain forms of brain injury that cut you off from your ability to dream?”

(MAG157, Adelard Dekker) “At first, I was struck almost with despair, having nothing to hand with which I might attempt a confrontation with this creature. But upon retreating some ways, and considering my options, I realised I actually had… almost the exact resources to hand that I might need. A few minutes spent scouting the surrounding streets even revealed a small construction site, almost precisely suited to my requirements. I returned to the cordon and took what I needed: a stretcher, as many quarantine sleeves as I could carry, and a syringe. […] I loaded the gear into a wheelbarrow I had taken from the building site along with a thick metal chain, and began to head back towards the Parkplatz, stopping only to fill the syringe from a can of garden pesticide I had noticed during my earlier sweep of the houses. […] I dragged the thing over to the building site, and with the last of my strength threw him into the hole that had been left. By this point, the concrete truck I had turned on earlier had been mixing for some time, and it was a simple matter to open the pump and… pour the contents of its hopper down on top of him.”

And isn’t it a bit like Basira?

(MAG142) MARTIN: Would have thought Basira would’ve had more sense, though. DAISY: When Basira and I were partners, I’d see this happen sometimes. She can read a… situation like no one I know, always seems to know the right move, but for all her research, she never wants to put a plan together. I think she just hates all the unknowns, the… variables. [SIGH] Contingencies. If she spots an advantage, she’ll… grab it, and trust herself to figure out the details as she goes. MARTIN: Hm. DAISY: It’s worked so far.

- Aaaah, so confirmation/a few more things about The Eye’s effect!

(MAG157, Adelard Dekker) “My hands are shaking quite badly and my fingers… aren’t what they were. Even so, just knowing where this is going, this… statement [CHUCKLE], I can feel The Eye’s power on me, be it ever so slight. Steadying me; helping the words flow. Is it strange that… here… now… that seems almost a comfort…?”

I was wondering if something wasn’t at work in the same way as for live statements since people’s letters were so articulate too – it sounds like just being conscious that you’re sending a message to the Institute and/or an Archivist and/or to an agent of The Eye is enough to put you under The Eye’s spell, because your tale interests it? GOSH, it was so sad that Adelard was aware of it, but also that he was potentially stalling since, as long as he was giving a “statement”, he wouldn’t drop dead or reach a state of too much pain to continue…

I’m curious about the fact that the letters Jonah Magnus was receiving were of the same kind – clear enough to be read as statements. Was it “simply” because his penpals from the XIXth century were quite educated and used to sending long, articulate letters? Or was the fact that they knew they were sending them to Jonah influencing them? If so: was it because he was under The Eye’s effects… or because, specifically, he was an Archivist at the time…? (We still don’t know where Jonah fit, back then, if he was more like Elias, or more like Jon… He was collecting supernatural stories, at least.)

- More on the medium Adelard used to give this statement later, but it was explicitly an email:

(MAG157, Adelard Dekker) “You must forgive me, Gertrude, for any typing and spelling errors that might be in this message. […] But it did not seem quite right to leave without letting you know what happened. And… Herr [Becker?] was kind enough to succumb to the sickness without signing out of his computer, so…”

1°) It… worked on a computer. It went through. We only know for sure that statements don’t record digitally in audio form but I was wondering about written ones, whether they could be typed down… Not sure if that’s a confirmation that yes, they can; or if there is something wrong with this statement; or if it’s that somehow, “something” (Web?) helped Adelard’s message to go through.

2°) … There was no static at any point of it during Jon’s reading. I don’t know when statement-reading static has happened for the last time during narration, but there were many moments in this statement at which there could have been, when describing supernatural things…? Why didn’t the tape recorder react to anything at all during the statement, even though Adelard described his encounter with a very powerful avatar? There were no quoted words or verbal exchanges, yes, but the tape recorders don’t only go All Staticcy at those. Overall, I realise that Jon’s last readings haven’t produced a lot of static? Iirc, there was nothing since MAG148, except for a few lines in MAG153 (“Love Bombing”), when there were direct quotes. Is there something hidden in the fact that the tape recorders are reacting less lately…?

- Adelard’s death was Sad News, but I’m so glad that we learned that John Amherst was actually neutralised a few years ago… in the same episode in which we got confirmation that Melanie is alright, is not regretting her choice one bit, and that it didn’t go supernaturally “wrong” or anything.

(MAG157) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] … No, you’re right, I’m sorry. A–are you alright? MELANIE: Yes! I’m, hum… actually doing okay…! ARCHIVIST: That’s good. MELANIE: [SOFT CHUCKLES] My therapist isn’t happy about it, you know? Uh, unsurprisingly. Tried to have me put away, but they, uh… they let me come here. It’s, it’s been good for me, though! I… I feel alright. I’m, hum… I’m not scared anymore.

I was so afraid that John Amherst would be re-emerging, thus giving Melanie an incentive to go back to business in order to avenge her father? But nop! John Amherst was sealed under concrete five years ago! We’re not safe from him freeing himself, but it’s a hypothetical, not an active threat. Melanie is just free to… enjoy her life. Really free from All That (at least right now), and she… really sounded like she had found peace ;w;

I do also like that it seems like she’s back to the world. The Institute was a closed universe, with its personal rules – only Section 31 officers go when something happens, the Archives team has been isolated (Jon also mentioned that the regular staff didn’t want to talk with him much lately); but now, Melanie is back to another world, with its own rules and workings. Yes, gouging your eyes out is self-mutilation, and means you need help (although in practice, institutionalisation can make things worse); yes, your therapist is going to get worried about it. (The fact that Melanie still said “my” therapist also said, to me, that she was still seeing her? But aouch for the therapist; she must be used to compartmentalising, she must be used to patients self-harming, but probably not to the point of what Melanie did…)

I’m not absolutely sure it was the intended impression, but I reaaally felt that Melanie was currently on painkillers and/or tranquilisers? Her voice sounded almost too relaxed, she sounded like she had just woken up together with The Admiral, and Georgie was insistent on her resting. Nothing negative there – I would find it a bit reassuring for her to be medically handled right now, actually! Doesn’t have to be forever, doesn’t invalidate her words about feeling fine. Just. Melanie is not isolated; she needed help, she sought it, she did something that is understandably perceived as self-harm by society, and she is being tutored to make sure she can relearn to function. (I also wondered, at first, if Georgie was talking to The Admiral or to Melanie because she sounded a bit too cautious rather than tender and concerned, to me? So that would fit, if Melanie’s under treatment right now, and really not needing the extra strain.)

- We lost Tim and he left… so many… Bi babies… in his wake…

(MAG157) ARCHIVIST: Look, is she here or not? She–she said she was staying with you. GEORGIE: Yes, she’s here. ARCHIVIST: Really? Where’s all her stuff? GEORGIE: Bedroom, why? ARCHIVIST: … No, I just– [STATIC] Oh. Oh! I’m sor– I didn’t– I didn’t realise you were… to–together… GEORGIE: That’s ‘cause it’s none of your business. Now leave.

(MAG086) MELANIE: Then there are some old cuttings about Robin Patton. […] Hmm, wasn’t bad looking, before… well… that.

(MAG106) MELANIE: I don’t think so; Georgie Barker? She does What the Ghost?. […] Well, she and Jon, they… dated. BASIRA: Yeah? MELANIE: I mean, it was years ago.

(That’s also putting another light of Melanie’s discomfort when she mentioned that Jon&Georgie had dated – I was assuming it was mostly because Urk, Don’t Wanna Think About Jon’s Romantic Life since she was Eww at the concept of thinking about him sleeping with Martin, but. (ALSO, the beauty that in the same breath, we had Melanie talking about Georgie, describing past Jon-Georgie, and mentioning Martin’s ~fussing~ over Jon.))

“What’s the Ghost?” is officially queer culture! ;w;

I’m SUPER GLAD for Georgie to get a girlfriend, very !! but a tiny bit less over Melanie&Georgie being together at the moment – but that’s mostly because 1°) I also REALLY love Deep And Very Important Platonic Relationships, and Melanie&Georgie had been that to me so far with Georgie helping her, and we… don’t have a lot of deep friendships at the moment (quite the contrary, we have a lot of pairs who are (not all confirmed but STILL) romantic in nature: Martin-Jon, Basira-Daisy, now Georgie-Melanie), and personal taste but I would have liked to hear about Melanie re-learning to function outside of the Institute before learning that she’s actually romantically involved with the person who had supported her in her steps towards recovery, 2°) … I’m super concerned about Basira&Daisy because, if one romantic relationship had to be canon-canonised, I was expecting them to get that first, and I’m Still Super Afraid About Daisy’s Chances Of Survival By The End Of The Season, so a bit heartlessly strategical here, but thinking that giving us Georgie/Melanie miiiiight be a way to not… destroy all the wlw romances. If Daisy dies, I’m also losing the only Intense Platonic Friendship we have at the moment (hers with Jon), so, sob.

… But then, Melanie is saying that JON IS A FRIEND

(MAG157) GEORGIE: Melanie, you don’t have to do this… MELANIE: It’s, it’s okay. He’s… welcome. As a friend. But that’s it. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] … Right. MELANIE: But you’re not after a friend, are you, Jon?

AND I WAS NOT EXPECTING THIS NEW CHALLENGER!! IT’S SUCH A WILD DEVELOPMENT THINKING BACK TO THEIR FIRST INTERACTIONS…………………

(MAG028) MELANIE: I knew you guys were a bit… slapdash, but this is absurd. ARCHIVIST: No doubt you’re used to a higher calibre of equipment when pretending to see ghosts in old churchyards and mental institutions. MELANIE: People like a show. People like our show. And, even if we do ham it up a bit, even we do add a bit of sparkle, we’re still more respected and evidence-based paranormal investigators than you and your lot. [NERVOUS, DISPARAGING LAUGH] ARCHIVIST: We are not “paranormal investigators”. We are researchers. Scholars. MELANIE: Whatever. […] ARCHIVIST: Hmm. And you’re sure you weren’t… dreaming? MELANIE: Are you serious? ARCHIVIST: I just have to check every possibility. Obviously working in your field, you must have quite a powerful imagination. MELANIE: Great! Great! I should have known this was a complete waste of my time.

(MAG063) MELANIE: You look like hell. ARCHIVIST: It’s been a hard few months. Look, can I help you, because if you’re just after another shouting match… MELANIE: No! I… I actually do need your help. ARCHIVIST: Hm. Interesting. MELANIE: Alright, can you not be an arsehole about it? I just need access to your library. […] I don’t exactly have the “academic credentials” you guys demand. So I apparently need someone to vouch for me. And you’re basically the closest thing I’ve got to a friend here. ARCHIVIST: We’ve spoken once, and we ended up screaming at each other.

So yes, losing a platonic relationship but getting a new friendship in the process ;w;

- I’m not sure the scene actually played this way? But given how The Admiral purred:

(MAG157) ARCHIVIST: Ah– [DOOR OPENS] MELANIE: Oh? What’s go–, what’s going on? You… you woke The Admiral… GEORGIE: Hey, hey, easy; it’s–it’s alright, he was just leaving. ARCHIVIST: Melanie, I… MELANIE: Jon…? ARCHIVIST: Yeah, it’s… me. GEORGIE: It’s alright, Melanie. Jon, leave. [ADMIRAL STARTS PURRING] ARCHIVIST: I’m sorry, I just… […] I suppose not… GEORGIE: Okay [ADMIRAL MEOWS IN PROTEST], you’re done. [PURRING CEASES] ARCHIVIST: Yeah. [INHALE] Yeah, I am.

I pictured The Admiral rushing towards Jon as soon as Melanie opened the door, more or less climbing on Jon until Jon secured him in his arms. The Admiral’s purrs were loud, so he had to be close to the tape recorder, right? And given his protest when Georgie cut in, she removed him from a comfy place, so that wasn’t Melanie’s arms.

(So: I pictured it as The Admiral in Jon’s arms AND Melanie petting it, able to find him through his purr. Melanie’s voice sounded like she was doing something else at the same time, to me? So yeah. Very close, very intimate, very comfy.)

(Kudos to Georgie for stepping back once Melanie began to talk about herself, without interrupting! She’s a good! Jon also has learnt his lesson from MAG131 and did not interrupt, listened to her! Sadly, Georgie is losing Awesomeness Points because… she retrieved The Admiral before he was done purring? D: Kitty crime??? Georgie, how could you do that to the cat? D:)

- I found Georgie a bit less harsh about Jon, too: not saying that her stances in season 4 haven’t been valid, far from it! But she’s still fair, and she didn’t blame him for Melanie’s injuries, she only pointed out the sacrifice Melanie had to make in order to flee, and wanted to make sure that Jon wouldn’t undo it, which was… extremely legitimate.

(MAG157) [CLICK–] [MUFFLED SOUNDS OF THE STREET] GEORGIE: No, Jon, you’ve done enough! ARCHIVIST: I just need to talk to her. GEORGIE: What don’t you understand? She mutilated herself to get out of that place, and there is absolutely no way I’m letting you involve her again! ARCHIVIST: Look, is she here or not? She–she said she was staying with you.

(And she was right about Jon threatening to pull Melanie back in, since Jon acknowledged he wasn’t really after a “friend” in current circumstances.)

Since Melanie did acknowledge that it might have been hard for Jon to tell her about Eric’s statement, I wonder if Georgie won’t mellow down about Jon a bit, given that Jon has indeed been trying a bit more, lately…? That will depend on Jon’s state at the end of season 4 (are we “losing” him forever? Or will he still try to not totally give in to The Eye, without cutting their link?), but it could be a possibility…

(I liked what we saw of Jon&Georgie’s friendship in season 3 a lot é_è Jon had remembered their break-up as having been a bad one, and despite it, they were getting along in season 3, and Georgie could be harsh and fair with him, so… I still want to cling to the hope that they’d manage to get back on speaking terms at some point, if Jon doesn’t fall entirely and keeps trying like he has begun to do… Maybe there could still be a way for them to build something again… maybe…)

(- At the same time: yes, Melanie&Georgie are legitimate to want to stay out of the supernatural business and to not participate in it anymore.

… On the other hand: if “bad things are coming” and an apocalypse is launched, and the world is changed, and monsters are let loose into the world because what was left of Team Archive wasn’t powerful/competent/numerous enough to prevent it… they won’t have any right to complain about what happens. But that’s interesting, because still “nobody is right/wrong” in their situations, even when they’re not directly harming anybody; if nobody is there to stop powerful avatars, like Adelard did, or to prevent rituals, then what would happen? More victims, probably. So, at the same time, it feels like it’s nobody’s and everybody’s responsibility to step in when they can.)

- Okay, so Basira&Daisy were unavailable, and Jon didn’t have anyone else, but still SOBBING that “someone I can trust” turned out to be Melanie, because gnnn. After learning about Eric’s statement, they made different choices, but I’m so soft for the fact that Jon still valued Melanie’s opinion and…

(MAG157) ARCHIVIST: Melanie, I… MELANIE: Jon…? ARCHIVIST: Yeah, it’s… me. GEORGIE: It’s alright, Melanie. Jon, leave. [ADMIRAL STARTS PURRING] ARCHIVIST: I’m sorry, I just… It’s Martin. MELANIE: Jon… don’t… Please. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] … No, you’re right, I’m sorry. A–are you alright? MELANIE: Yes! I’m, hum… actually doing okay…! ARCHIVIST: That’s good.

… wanted to make sure she was fine!!! Even in the midst of urgency, of the fact that Martin was very likely in Big Danger and Not Fine, Jon still took the time to ask Melanie about it!!

- Jon Learned but at the same time, so many poor choices of words…

(MAG157) ARCHIVIST: Look, is she here or not? […] Look after yourself. Both of you.

jON… Being an Eye avatar doesn’t mean you have to be insensitive about it…

- ;; Overall: I’m sad that… Jon has indeed learnt. He didn’t dash to the tunnels, trying to find the centre on his own, or to go fight Peter. He immediately understood he needed to think about the broader picture, about who could have wanted him to listen to the tape and read the statement, and his first instinct was to want to talk about it with people he could trust.

(MAG157) ARCHIVIST: Am I just hearing what I want to hear? I need a second opinion, but… Basira and Daisy are… “out”, somewhere. […] I need someone I can trust. [LONG SIGH] […] Please, Georgie, it’s not– … I just need to know I’m not overreacting to something, I need an outside perspective.

It’s mostly that, due to circumstances, all his options have been cut. The timing of Daisy&Basira leaving is definitely too suspicious to think that it was unrelated and had nothing to do with getting Jon isolated, worried, and prone to being easily manipulated into doing something… so I’m guessing that the point was that someone/thing (Elias, Peter or Annabelle) is trying to get him to reach the centre. But Jon did try, and indeed, what other options would he have at the moment? Waiting for Basira&Daisy to come back, while Martin could be getting sacrificed? With the current configuration, I can understand that Jon is not keen on risking it… although, yeah. It’s undoing all the “trust” he was forcing himself to give Martin from afar during this season – his understanding that Martin had a plan, and that Jon had to hope Martin knew what he was doing to ensure Martin’s success. Jon made a mistake once when he tried to “Know” about Peter’s plans at the end of MAG139… and is probably doing a new one right now, confused by urgency. (“A tiny… hairline fracture, which destroys everything.”, to quote MAG139 orz)

… and hum. You know what had previously claimed to bank on Jon’s worry for someone to get him to level up a bit more?

(MAG135) ELIAS: Fine. Consider it a test – things are… coming, things that will need Jon to be far stronger and more willing to use his connection to our patron. His performance during The Unknowing was… disappointing. I needed a way to force him to harness his ability more acutely than he had before. The coffin was a useful tool; Daisy an adequate bait. BASIRA: Then you messed up. Way he tells it, he doesn’t know how he got out of there. ELIAS: But he did. And his powers were no small part of it. Even if he required some assistance, they were what saved him. And he’s still achieved what no one – mortal, monster, or anything in-between – has ever been able to. He climbed out of The Buried. BASIRA: [DRY SIGH] What was the point? You won’t be getting your ritual off from in here so, what do you need him for? What’s so important you need him stronger?

Still squinting very hard about The Bastard and the concept that ~no, he’s not getting his ceremony off from his prison~.

- Amongst all the exchanges, this moment was probably my favourite:

(MAG157) MELANIE: It’s, it’s okay. He’s… welcome. As a friend. But that’s it. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] … Right. MELANIE: But you’re not after a friend, are you, Jon? ARCHIVIST: I need an ally. MELANIE: Then I can’t help you. [SHORT SILENCE] ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] I suppose not…

Because it immediately conveyed that… Jon wasn’t seeking an opinion about whether or not to try to get involved and help Martin – that opinion would have been a “friend’s”. No; at this point, Jon had already decided to go in. And I like that Melanie, of all people, was immediately able to pinpoint that.

- Laughing forever, though, that YESSS, rule of three re:Jon and wlw:

(MAG089) ARCHIVIST: I just… er, you were a friend of Agnes Montague, correct? JUDE: She’s not one of your little stories.

(MAG117) ARCHIVIST: I think Basira is the same, she's coming along to back-up Daisy, or so she says. I–I– I don't quite get those two, I suppose. What they’ve done, seeing what they’ve seen… It’s a hell of a bond.

I can’t believe it took Beholding’s powers for him to realise. (Though, to be honest: he knew Melanie&Georgie were friends, Georgie was going on dates with other people in season 3, we don’t know whether Georgie is poly or not, so it wasn’t a given that they had gotten together sometime before this episode.)

- You know things are dire when, in the last few episodes: 1°) even Jon said “fuck”, 2°) Jon knocked on a door, not only once but twice.

(MAG146) [CLICK–] ARCHIVIST: [BREATHING HEAVILY, FRANTICALLY BANGING ON A DOOR] [A DOOR CREAKS OPEN] [DISTORTION SOUNDS, BRINGING CONSTANT STATIC] HELEN: You rang~?

(MAG157) [CLICK–] [FRANTICALLY BANGING ON A DOOR] [A DOOR CREAKS OPEN] [DISTORTION SOUNDS, BRINGING CONSTANT STATIC] ARCHIVIST: Helen…! HELEN: Jonathan~?

(Well. Banged on a door that wasn’t there.) Reminder that there is few knocking around Jon, and he still diiiiid it, times are… what they are.

(- When was the last time that someone called Jon “Jonathan”? I only remember Georgie’s “Jonathan Sims, are you trying to save the world?” from MAG093, and Elias in his first appearance:

(MAG017) ARCHIVIST: A complaint? I could just as easily complain about her wasting my time! ELIAS: That’s not how it works, Jonathan.

Helen had been generally replying to Jon on the same level when it came to names/designations, so was she just playful, or was this a way to point out that “Helen” is technically as formal as “Jonathan”, and not something someone close to Jon would call him? Even Melanie calls him “Jon”. Why “Jonathan” suddenly? Just for the variety?)

- SAD for Jon that his option as “ally” was… Helen, given what we’ve seen of her lately:

(MAG157) ARCHIVIST: I need to know that’s in there, what’s at the centre, it’s–it’s important, Martin… I need to know. HELEN: [CONTAINED TITTER] That’s a shame. Because I’m afraid I’m not going to tell you. ARCHIVIST: What…? Why not? HELEN: Because I have a good enough sense of what’s going on to know that it will be much – more – fun – without – my – involvement…! [HELEN LAUGHS AND LAUGHS, ECHOING] […] ARCHIVIST: Just tell me what’s going on – please! HELEN: Bad things, Archivist. [HELEN LAUGHS AND LAUGHS, ECHOING] Really – bad – things!

It sounds like she’s going full Distortion lately, uh? She seemed comparatively so stable and straightforward, in MAG131…

- AHHAHA, Helen had reminded Jon about her sharpness recently:

(MAG152) ARCHIVIST: Huh? You’ve got hands. HELEN: Sharp enough to pull out worms. Kill a few old men. Maybe stab an overeager Archivist… ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] HELEN: But my physicality is as much an illusion as everything else about me. Think of me… as a bear trap. Not a sword.

(MAG157) ARCHIVIST: I don’t have time for this! [STATIC] What is at the centr– [SHARP SOUND AS HELEN GRABS HIM BY THE THROAT] HELEN: No. We are not playing your game now. ARCHIVIST: [PAINED SOUNDS] HELEN: Don’t forget how sharp I can be, Archivist. Perhaps here, now, you’re powerful enough to learn what you want from me. But if you try, I promise you I will resist, and only one of us is going to survive the attempt. [SHARPING SOUND, RETREATING]

“Not a sword”, uh.

And we’re back to Jon getting whumped and threatened by everyone. It’s… interesting that Helen felt that Jon’s compulsion was an actual threat – it had annoyed Jude, too, but Helen directly went for the throat (… apparently, it was actually truly the throat in the script, Anil said). Would getting straight answers from The Distortion cause it harm on an essential level, like it potentially happened with Breekon when Jon “extracted” his statement and got to “know” him?

- Also interesting that Jon’s compulsion is apparently getting stronger? You would think that Jon’s powers would begin to crash and burn since he’s quit taking live statements, especially since Helen advised him to get a victim to replenish himself, but nop. Is it still from the power-boost Jon got when he chose not to die? Is it because of the new Fears he experienced over season 4 (Flesh taking ribs out of him, going and getting out of The Buried, staring at the Dark Sun)? Is it because we’re in 2018, and it’s supposed to be kind of a zenith for Beholding given that it’s the Institute’s anniversary…?

- … I was very scared that Jon might have forced a statement out of someone on the way to Georgie’s, but given how Helen invited him to find one right now, doesn’t seem to be the case!

(MAG157) ARCHIVIST: Fine. [PANTING] Can you take me there? To the centre? HELEN: I honestly don’t know. But I’m not inclined to risk it. ARCHIVIST: Damn you! HELEN: Run home, Jon. Find a victim on the way~ Chaos is coming, and I think you’d best be ready.

Which is a relief ;;

I’m… super worried about Basira and Daisy, who left Jon absolutely unsupervised, and with Jon proving that he is able to go outside. Melanie is not there anymore either to check on him, and Jon had told Martin juuust a few episodes ago that:

(MAG154) ARCHIVIST: Honestly: thank you. [EXHALE] It’s been hell, but… I–I did need to hear it. MARTIN: Oh, hum… Uh, g–good. Heh. Are the others… helping? ARCHIVIST: Oh! [DRY CHUCKLE] They’ve been keeping a… very close eye on me…!

… but no, it’s really not the case right now ;; And I’m worried again. What’s the point of Jon getting caught and made to stop in the last third of the season…? I still feel like if he makes new innocent victims, then it’s indeed over for him (there would be nothing to differentiate him from other avatars who feed and prey on innocents to stay alive); is his withdrawal a step towards something else…? Or is it to exemplify that there could have been another option, that Jon didn’t hold to it and crashed himself down in the end…?

- From their point of view, I’m REALLY worried that Daisy&Basira left suddenly, leaving Jon unsupervised and alone because… why would they.

(MAG157) ARCHIVIST: Am I just hearing what I want to hear? I need a second opinion, but… Basira and Daisy are… “out”, somewhere. They left in a hurry and didn’t tell me why; now, their phones are going to voicemail. Maybe they’re just… on the Underground, and probably th– … That doesn’t help me now. [SIGH]

The way Jon phrased it, it seems like he saw them leaving (it wasn’t that he couldn’t find them or anything), so? Why would they choose to not tell Jon? What could make them leave together, Daisy included, when Daisy was still “weak”? They could be trapped in Helen’s corridors right now (like Tim&Martin at the end of season 2), or in The Lonely because Peter wanted to get Jon absolutely isolated, but I’m still a bit baffled about why they would leave Jon unsupervised and without telling him anything.

1°) Is it that Basira managed to convince Daisy to Hunt again (nooo, Basira, don’t…), and to go after Trevor&Julia… ;; (Or Julia&Trevor were spotted somewhere, and they left to get them with Daisy trying hard not to Hunt.)

2°) Same thing, but with Annabelle Cane?

3°) Maybe they left for the tunnels on their own because something’s happening down there/Basira found something about it in the Archives, and it was really important to not talk about it (because Elias Watching, or The Web having its many eyes on him) and/or because Jon is still an avatar of The Eye…?

4°) Or plainly: they read Adelard’s statement, were the ones who left it on Jon’s desk, and are trying to stop Peter&Martin. … Would still be very stupid, tho, because OF COURSE Jon would panic about it ;; Unless they read it, hid it, and something else pulled it out to get Jon to panic. Could Martin have contacted them about something they need to do without Jon knowing? Basira knew that Martin was planning to go for a self-sacrifice; if it’s tied to this, it could explain why they didn’t tell Jon anything regarding their departure.

5°) … It would still go back in the “but why not tell Jon!!” category, but I’m really worried that there is something very wrong with Elias’s prison right now, hence why they left in a hurry – that either he has disappeared (and/or was “Peter’s map”, so Peter got him out), either the prison is unresponsive and it turns out it has been under Elias’s control for a looong while. He didn’t seem too upset about the prospect of going in MAG120, the Institute was built with strong ties to the Millbank prison (so it’s not an unfamiliar place for The Eye to thrive), and we still don’t know what he’s “eating” (/how come Elias is fine, as an avatar of The Eye, while Jon is suffering so badly from withdrawal? Is Elias himself really under withdrawal?)…

(MAG120) POLICE OFFICER: By all means, mister Bouchard: why don't you have a look in my head, and see exactly what will happen to you when you mess with me. ELIAS: [GRUNT] There will be no need for that, inspector, I’m sure we’ll get along famously. POLICE OFFICER: Good. ELIAS: Best of luck, Martin. Ah, let the others know I shall be thinking of them. MARTIN: [SIGH]

(MAG127) BASIRA: Can we cut the bullshit? ELIAS: What “bullshit” might that be? BASIRA: The part where you pretend you don’t spend your whole time watching us. ELIAS: … Sometimes I’m eating.

+ There is the fact that Elias spent this entire season in prison, and I have trouble picturing him still inside at the beginning of season 5. He’s getting out before that.

- ;; GODS, Jon listening to Martin&Peter’s exchange was so tense and heartbreaking… we knew that Jon had listened to previous tapes, but it was something else to hear his deep breathing, really heavy and conveying how much he was… upset? Worried? Angry about Peter?

(MAG157) [CLICK–] [VERY SHARP SQUEAL OF DISTORTION] MARTIN’S RECORDED VOICE FROM MAG156: “… Will I be coming back?” PETER’S RECORDED VOICE FROM MAG156: “You’re not going to die–” ARCHIVIST: [LONG, SHAKY INHALE] PETER’S RECORDED VOICE FROM MAG156: “–if that’s what you’re asking–” ARCHIVIST: [EXHALE] PETER’S RECORDED VOICE FROM MAG156: “–but… no. If all goes well, you won’t be.” ARCHIVIST: [DEEP, SHAKY BREATHES] MARTIN’S RECORDED VOICE FROM MAG156: “[LONG INHALE, EXHALE]” PETER’S RECORDED VOICE FROM MAG156: “How does that make you feel?” ARCHIVIST: [EXHALE] MARTIN’S RECORDED VOICE FROM MAG156: “… Nothing.” ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] MARTIN’S RECORDED VOICE FROM MAG156: “[SNORT]” ARCHIVIST: [LONG EXHALE] MARTIN’S RECORDED VOICE FROM MAG156: “Nothing at all…!” PETER’S RECORDED VOICE FROM MAG156: “Excellent. I’m so proud of you, Martin.” MARTIN’S RECORDED VOICE FROM MAG156: “I really don’t care.” PETER’S RECORDED VOICE FROM MAG156: “Perfect.” [CLICK.] ARCHIVIST: [LONG INHALE, EXHALE] This… tape was left on my desk.

1°) I was wondering, but Peter’s voice indeed records on tape!

2°) Complete with the squeal of distortions that are his trademark when we’re hearing him live. So it’s indeed something that tampers with the recording a bit, but not to the point of being inaudible.

3°) It was the worst pre- and post-supplemental to hear when it came to Martin… the one when he sounded the most “lost into the Lonely”…………. And he had said he wasn’t sure whether he still cared about ~Jon hearing his voice~ at the start of it…

And at the same time: given how Martin had been so self-aware of being recorded, of Peter being potentially in the room… the question is still open. Elias did acknowledge that Martin was manipulative:

(MAG138) MARTIN: … What? [HUFF] That’s it? No, no monologue, no mindgames? You love manipulating people! ELIAS: That makes two of us. MARTIN: [HUFF]

And was it only about keeping tapes from Jon behind Peter’s back? How much can we trust of what we heard from Martin during season 4? Even Jon had managed to hide that he had attacked people from his recordings; it took Jess’s complaint and Helen calling Jon out for him to admit what he had done. Does Martin truly not “care”, as Peter was glad to hear, or was Martin feeding Peter what he wanted to hear, too…?

(tl;dr Web!Martin is not dead as long as Martin is still alive :|)

(- I'm Still Not Claiming That It’s Romantic On Jon’s Part Until We Get A Very Explicit Confirmation Because I Wanna Raise The Bar Higher, but: Jon… Jon, you big worried bi…

Urk… The fact that he went “Martin” first, before giving Helen a formulation that she probably wanted to hear (=> Jon as an Eye-avatar Wanting To Know…))

(- Last minute Extinction speculation, but I wonder if Adelard’s most important speculation in his last message wasn’t this one:

(MAG157, Adelard Dekker) “while I have seen evidence of its influence in other Powers, I have never found anything to genuinely prove its emergence as a true Power of its own. Perhaps it is an existential fear that flows through the others like a vein of ore”

… what if, indeed, The Extinction had never been a Fifteenth Power… but a kind of enhancer? Every time Adelard was prone to label an occurrence as an Extinction one, it felt like it was operating on a big scale. What if The Extinction is indeed something new, but mostly boosting good old Fears into something bigger, scarier, more effective – and a few of them, such as the Corruption, would obviously be more compatible than others?)

- There are indeed so many options about who left the tape and the statements, and why:

(MAG157) ARCHIVIST: [LONG INHALE, EXHALE] This… tape was left on my desk. I don’t know by who, but to my mind there are… three options. Martin has left it here, to let me know that… whatever the situation is with Peter Lukas, it is entering its final act and he needs my help. Alternatively, Peter may have left it here to… goad me into action? Or just to gloat, to highlight my helplessness and everything. [SIGH] Or Annabelle Cane is trying to manipulate me into thinking it’s one of the other scenarios. Previously, the Spiders have made their presence clear when they’ve sent me… “hints”, but I can’t take that for granted. I don’t know what to do…! [SIGH] There’s a statement with it. It looks pretty recent – hm! First time in a while I’ve been… wary of reading one. … Still. I guess… [LONG INHALE, EXHALE] [PAPER RUSTLING] […] This, uh… this changes things. I–I think. … If Martin found this, r–read it already, then perhaps he’s having… second thoughts about, about Peter and The Extinction, this… this could be a cry for help, his way of asking me to follow him without Peter knowing, or… [EXHALE] Or what? I don’t understand – Martin’s been quite clear he doesn’t want my help…! Am I just hearing what I want to hear? I need a second opinion, but…

1°) But Jon casually ignored the fact that the statement was a last message, sent to an Archivist, to say goodbye, and that… that could have been what Martin was aiming at. (I’m not really digging that Martin would have done that without leaving a message on his own, though; even if he were to stop caring about Jon, he would still keep in mind that Jon would be prone to doing drastic things to try to save people, or to run into danger. He got a whole discussion with Daisy about it in MAG142, and asked Basira not to tell Jon that he wasn’t planning on coming back just a few episodes ago.)

2°) The tape and the statement have been left by different persons/things, and had different purposes, and/or one of the factions could have subtilized something else to prevent Jon to connecting dots.

3°) A big question is also who was aware of Adelard’s last message (and of his death). I lost my bet that Peter had killed him, but still: it’s extremely suspicious that Peter never mentioned in front of Martin the possibility of getting Adelard’s own help… so he must have known it wasn’t an option. We never heard Martin questioning about it, so… Martin might have found out, or guessed about it, too.

4°) Adelard’s message was explicitly an email:

… And Peter’s not good with computers:

(MAG126) PETER: Anyway, I’m very excited to see this rota you’ve put together. Never had much of a gift for– MARTIN: Okay. PETER: –administration myself; too many variables. Now, this box on the left, that’s the library stuff, yes? MARTIN: What? N–n–no, th–th–that’s, no, those are the dates, I– … Look, are you sure you don’t want me to teach you? It’s, it’s a very simple program– PETER: No. No. Can’t stand computers. Besides! That’s why I have an assistant, isn’t it? MARTIN: [SIGH] Yeah. I guess so.

Unlike Annabelle (who was very interest in the www in MAG123), and unlike Martin. Who printed it out? Gertrude? Or someone else, very recently?

- ;; Is next week Jon trying to reach the centre of the tunnels already (and unknowingly being Peter’s map, being tracked when thinking he was tracking Peter&Martin?), using or not using Leitner’s supernatural copy of The Seven Lamps of Architecture, or going to ask Elias for help because he’s desperate………………… I don’t see many more options for Jon at this point… There is still the Threat of Jon’s inner door looming here:

(MAG127) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] It’s… hard. It’s like there’s a–a–a door, in my mind. And behind it, is… i–is the entire ocean. Before, I didn’t notice it, but now, I know it’s there, and I can’t forget it, and I can feel the pressure of the water on it. I, I, I can keep it closed… but sometimes, when I’m around p–people, or–or places, or… ideas, a drop or two will push through the cracks, at the edges of the door. And I’ll… know something. BASIRA: … What happens, if you open the door? [SILENCE] ARCHIVIST: I drown.

… and I’m dreading that yes, he would try to open it to find the centre, in order to find Martin… ;; (And that there is actually no centre; only Jon, with his sea of knowledge, in the middle, thus precipitating the bad things Helen was cackling about.)

- As usual: what are Elias/Annabelle/Peter’s plans and aims, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrgggg

(- Hi, guess who was there at every 38th episode of a season so far:

(MAG038) ARCHIVIST: Urgh. Urgh. [SOUND OF CHAIR SCRAPING] I see you… [THUMP… THEN SOUND OF COLLAPSING SHELVES] [NOISES OF EXCLAMATION] [DOOR OPENS] SASHA: Alright? ARCHIVIST: Ah… Yeah. A… spider. SASHA: A spider? ARCHIVIST: Yeah. I tried to kill it… the shelf collapsed. SASHA: I swear, cheap shelves are… Did you get it? ARCHIVIST: Ah… I hope so. Thinks so. Nasty, bulbous looking thing. SASHA: [CHUCKLES] Well, I won’t tell Martin. ARCHIVIST: Oh, god. I don’t think I could stand another lecture on their importance to the ecosystem.

(MAG078) ARCHIVIST: [WHISPERED] It is remarkably easy to buy an axe in Central London. Harder to sneak it into Artefact Storage but not impossible. I don’t know if destroying this is going to kill that thing… but I am damn sure it’s going to hurt. […] Hollow. Just cobwebs and dust.

(MAG118) DAISY: Shut. Up. BASIRA: It’s just cobwebs. ARCHIVIST: There’s no such thing as just cobwebs! I don’t like it. TIM: Tough.

MmMMmmmMMmmmMMMmm.)

Title for MAG158 is… ouft. F–finally, I guess?

So, hum. Beholding, I guess? (It would be the 5th one this season if we count MAG138 as mostly Eye’s… ;;) And probably tunnels stuff. Depending on how the groups are split, could be Peter&Martin, Basira&Daisy&Elias or Elias&Jon, I guess… I’m mostly expecting no statement and a two-part climax like in season 3, but if there is a statement, I guess it could be read/told by Elias, whether alone or ~in company~ (a letter to/from Jonah Magnus? Another thing from Smirke’s earliest days? Something related to [the title itself]?).

Regarding the… less concrete aspect of the title, it… could be either about Elias (is he really confined.), either about Jon and his powers, I guess……………… could be Jon opening his ~inner door~ to try to find Martin/the centre of the maze, too……………….

#mag157 #tma liveblog #tma season 4 #long post/#5 #tma spoilers #the magnus archives

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ducktracy · 4 years

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80. buddy of the apes (1934)

disclaimer: once again, racist content and imagery is in this review. i don’t at all endorse it, this is purely for historical, educational, and informational purposes. the stereotypes and caricatures are gross and wrong and need to be exposed as such. please let me know if i can do anything to make this review more bearable, and PLEASE correct me if i say something harmful or offensive. i never want to hurt any of you. thank you for taking your time to read this and understand.

sorry for the bad quality again, it’s the same quality as buddy the gob (which also constituted a disclaimer, coincidental?). we have ben hardaway’s first directorial credit! he, friz freleng, and jack king would dominate the cartoons of 1934 and 1935, tex avery stepping in with gold diggers of ‘49 (or ‘35 in this case). hardaway would direct 7 buddy cartoons and go back to being a gagman and storyman, co-directing with cal dalton starting in 1938 while friz freleng briefly left for mgm, returning to warner bros in 1940. here, buddy resides in the jungle, but a cannibalistic tribe may put the tiny tarzan in jeopardy.

our tiny tarzan comes out of his “house”, inflating his chest and giving a hearty, grating, obnoxious call of the wild that will be reused many times in this cartoon. joy! he swings from vine to vine, accompanied by some slightly out of place yet nice music by bernard brown (who’s credited instead of norman spencer).

buddy engages in some flintstones-esque activities (granted this was 26 years before the flintstones), showering under the trunk of an elephant and brushing his teeth with a cattail. other animal centric gags include a giraffe gargling water, an alligator using a porcupine to brush his dentures, and a monkey shining a hippo’s teeth.

elsewhere, a mother gorilla is rocking her child, feeding him coconut milk. the mother proves herself to be rather responsible, leaving the baby alone. as all curious babies do, the baby rocks its cradle—so aggressively that it topples over the edge and into a river.

terrified to find her child gone and floating happily down a river, the mother gorilla rushes to buddy for assistance, who’s cutting open a coconut. the monkey is on trajectory to topple right over a waterfall—but not if buddy can help it. he attaches a vine to a dagger and tosses the dagger, sticking into the back of the baby’s cradle.

buddy pulls the mischievous monkey to safety, and all is well as the animals of the jungle celebrate uproariously. the mother gorilla scoops up her child and scolds it, the other animals dancing around buddy in celebration.

now enter the stereotypes. a blackface caricatured native spies on the celebration through a telescope, and is delighted at what he sees. he slides down the coconut tree he’s perched in (some nice visuals of the bark shedding off) and runs to a village, where the leader sits in his throne—almost identical to bosko shipwrecked!. i had no idea there were so many cartoons about cannibals, let alone racist interpretations of cannibals. the spy fills the king in, who responds “well, shut my mouth!” he rings a dinner triangle (which is a man’s nose ring—gotta have those gross stereotypes, now).

the entire village congregates at the sound of the bell, including a man reading “NUDIST NEWS”, two men playing ping pong with their mouths, and a family, their baby swinging by their nose rings. the king explains the situation in nonsensical garbles, and the village chases off, the king carried in his own escort. the music is nice and snappy—the only plus i can say for this half of the cartoon.

buddy and a monkey are playing a game, which is interrupted by a spear nearly taking off buddy’s finger. he sees the charging tribe and places the monkey on his back for safety, swinging up to his hut in the trees and giving another excruciatingly annoying call of the wild.

all of the animals in the jungle collaborate with buddy. an elephant uses seeds as bullets, a kangaroo beats up a man who hangs by a spear (tossed by buddy) by his nose ring, and a hippo is used as a cannon, a monkey swinging and hitting it in the butt to fire the coconut cannons. the coconuts hit the natives, who fly over the edge of a cliff and swim away. a pelican also holds a monkey in its beak, who tosses coconut bombs below—right at the cannibal king. porcupine needles and coconuts consist of the artillery used against the cannibal: all intriguing gags but tired. as always, appreciation is significantly lessened with all of the stereotypes and caricatures running amuck.

buddy swings on a vine and kicks the cannibal king’s head in, beating him to a pulp. the dust settles and buddy is on top, giving a victorious call of the wild as the monkey places the cannibal king’s crown on buddy’s head. iris out.

not my favorite cartoon at all. after just seeing goin’ to heaven on a mule, this feels extremely mild. the stereotypes and caricatures are all there in their gross lack of glory. as always, i understand the historical context, how it was a different time—still doesn’t make it any less wrong, though, and doesn’t mean they were okay then and wrong now. these depictions have always been wrong. nevertheless, the first half was slow but slightly amusing with the animal gags. the music was lovely and the animation... it was hard to see because of the print, but it wasn’t the worst. ben hardaway isn’t one of my favorite directors, but i don’t hate him at all. i’ve only seen a select few of his porky cartoons anyway, so i’m still relatively new to him. from what i’ve seen, he has much better entries ahead. ultimately, skip this cartoon. it has a lot of action, but drags on the entire time, and the caricatures/stereotypes make it unsavory. but, as always, i’ll provide a link, just view at your own discretion.

#lt #buddy of the apes #reviews #long post #racism tw

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amandajoyce118 · 5 years

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Friday Five: Women In History

Think of this Friday Five as a list of five women I wish Timeless had the chance to do episodes about. Why? Because it’s the last Friday of Women’s History Month. In honor of all the women who made history, I’m spotlighting five who often get overlooked this week. These are women who don’t get taught about in schools because, instead, we learn about their male counterparts. Or, these are women who had a big influence on a particular market, but few people know their story.

Five: Zelda Fitzgerald

I thought I’d start off with a woman that people are probably slightly familiar with, but maybe don’t know her full story. If her name sounds familiar, but you can’t place where you know her, that’s because she’s the wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald. If you went to high school in the U.S., or studied American Lit at all, you probably read at least one of his books, like The Great Gatsby. What you might not know is that Zelda was as good as, if not a better writer than, her husband.

Her husband regularly wrote down things she said when recounting stories to friends, stole her journal, and all around copied her work. She “inspired” all of his heroines. So, if you actually like his writing, chances are, you really like Zelda’s. She was trapped in a loveless marriage. He cheated on her, but wouldn’t allow her to have relationships with other men. He also attempted to drive her to a nervous breakdown so he could have her institutionalized. All around, not a great guy there.

Zelda actually got an offer to have her journals published at one point, but because of her husband, she couldn’t. She retaliated by publicly reviewing his writing, penning, “plagiarism begins at home.”

Four: Andree Borrel

A lot of posts have gone around tumblr about the women who acted as spies and assassins during World War II lately. Andree Borrel didn’t go that route, but in her twenties, she was recruited to train members of the French resistance.

She actually started off trying to help in the war efforts on her own. She traveled from France to Spain to fight against Nazi work, but thought her efforts were meaningless, and made her way back to France. There, she took a nursing course offered by the Red Cross and became field certified to help in the hospitals. Since she was under 21 when she did it, the hospitals wouldn’t allow her to stay and volunteer. That is when she started working for the underground.

She started safehouses that helped British soldiers who were shot down, escaping Jews, and spies. Eventually, she and her friends had to leave France when their safehouses were compromised. They made their way to England where they gave full reports to MI5 and began working for the Special Operations Executive to help the French resistance.

Not only was she recruited for the French resistance, but when they sent her back to France to start her work, she was parachuted into the area. She (and her partner for the mission, of course) was the world’s first female paratrooper. She was excellent at her job, but she was eventually captured. Andree was executed in a French concentration camp in 1944.

Three: Willie Mae Thornton

Everybody remembers the names of the singers. The songwriters don’t get as much credit. Today, they get a little more because so many singers like to write (or assist in writing) their own music. In the day of Willie Mae Thornton though, she was the Big Mama (yes, that was her actual nickname) behind the curtain.

She first started singing in church, like so many people from the south. When her mom died, she had to drop out of school and get a job to help support her five siblings. Eventually, she left home to pursue a career in music. While she could supposedly “sing pretty,” if she wanted to, she preferred to make her voice “big” instead. In other words, she didn’t conform to what men in the music industry thought of as a feminine sound. She belted.

Willie Mae wrote and recorded music that other people made into hits. “Hound Dog,” made famous by Elvis Presley? She sang it first and it spent a few weeks at the top of the charts, but she didn’t see any real profit from it. Her record sold about 500,000 copies, which was big for its time. Elvis’ version became the hit, selling 10 million copies just a few years later. Likewise, she wrote “Ball n Chain,” which Janis Joplin made famous. She also didn’t get the profits from that because the record company owned the song, not her. Joplin, however, hired her to open for her as a way to give back what the record company took from her. (I feel like she should have split profits with her, but that’s just me.)

(Side note: I almost wrote about Rose Marie McCoy here instead. Like Willie Mae, she was a black woman who wrote hits for other artists. She also wrote songs for Elvis. By the end of her songwriting career, she wrote more than 800 songs, including commercial jingles. I think she’s a little bit more well known since NPR has featured specials on her in the past, but probably not by much.)

Two: Hypatia

Since the other three lived and worked in relatively recent history, it seems prudent to go back a little farther - like way back. I’m talking fourth century. Hypatia was from Alexandria, you know, where the ancient library was that we all wish had survived disaster?

Hypatia was a scholar in the time that women weren’t really allowed to be scholars. All of the stories and historical accounts of the era paint men as the heroes in Greece and Rome, with women as the people on the sidelines being fought over or worshiping deities in temples. Hypatia’s father, Theon (not a Greyjoy, Game of Thrones fans) wanted her to have the same opportunities as men in their community, so he made sure she was educated in science, math, and astronomy. Eventually, Hypatia became a teacher.

Unfortunately for her, Hypatia lived at a time when Christianity was spreading throughout the ancient empires. Though she didn’t seem to subscribe to one religion over another, historians seem to consider her a pagan. She was tolerant of other religions, and was one of the people outraged when Jewish residents were ousted from Alexandria and Christians began targeting pagans. She was murdered by a group of angry Christians during Lent. She wasn’t just murdered either. She was stripped, had her eyes removed, and then pieces of her body were taken throughout the town and burned. For no reason other than she was seen as an enemy of the political leaders at the time.

I’ll admit that the first time I ever learned about her was a result of doing my own research after “Hypatia’s chariot” was an artifact in Warehouse 13. Despite the few things I’ve read recently calling her a famous ancient scholar, or a feminist icon, I doubt most people know her name.

One: Sayyida al-Hurra

For a time when I was a teenager, I was fascinated by the life of pirates. Not in the romance novel way, but more in the what-drove-a-person-to-piracy kind of way. I think most people, primarily as a result of Hollywood, become passingly familiar with pirates like Blackbeard and Anne Bonny. Glossed over is the Pirate Queen Sayyida al-Hurra, who actually held a long standing alliance with Blackbeard.

She was actually born into a wealthy Moroccan family and married a much older business man. She continued to run his business after his death. Her family, however, was forced to flee from Morocco when the Spanish declared themselves rules and Christianity started spreading through the region. (She was Muslim.) Eventually, she became the political leader of Tetouan and married a king. She didn’t even travel to marry, but instead, made him come to her, which was unheard of.

Holding onto her grudge against the Spanish empire for what they did to her people, she used her political standing to slowly build her pirate army and take on their ships. She made her little country rich with stolen merchandise and selling the Christians she captured into slavery in place of her people. She was also the foremost negotiator when it came to releasing Christian captives. She was the person European nations contacted to offer up ransoms, so she only sold people into slavery if the European nobles weren’t willing to pay. Sayyida ruled the western Mediterranean while Blackbeard ruled the east.

Sadly, history doesn’t know what happened to her. Though she remained queen after the death of her husband, her son in law overthrew her, and then… nothing. I’d love to see a movie speculating about her fate.

Obviously, there are thousands of women who were important to history. I picked five that I have found interesting, and ones who aren’t usually present in more mainstream pop culture (like the ladies of Hidden Figures, for example) for this list.

That’s it for this week! Tell me about a woman in history you think everyone should know about!

#zelda fitzgerald #andree borrel #willie mae thornton #hypatia #sayyida al-hurra #friday five #women in history

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agentnico · 5 years

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X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019) Review

For all this gender talk surrounding the title and Mystique’s “well excuuuuuuse me, princess!” attitude in this film wanting the team to be called X-Women, why not just follow in the footsteps of the wise man Deadpool who said “we’re not X-Men, nor X-Women....we are X-people”. Be good, be cool, be like Deadpool.

Plot: Jean Grey begins to develop incredible powers that corrupt and turn her into a Dark Phoenix. Now the X-Men will have to decide if the life of a team member is worth more than all the people living in the world.

The last ever X-Men film from Fox as we know it (not counting New Mutants though by this point that might never see the light of day). Kind of emotional. Kind of. Dark Phoenix is a new take on the story that was attempted in The Last Stand, and you remember how bad that one was? You’d think they learnt from their mistakes and the second time round will be better? Absolutely. Absolutely not. This film is a mess, with a terrible script, a plot with wasted potential, actors not caring, moments of awful CGI (mind you, this film’s budget is a ridiculous $200 million) and an overall disappointing anticlimactic end to a franchise that has seen better days of future past.

So the script, what can I say about the script? It’s very clunky with the dialogue at times very cheesy and over-the-top when it does not mean to be, the story feels cobbled together from a couple of whisky soaked poolside 'brainstorming sessions' by a couple of developmentally challenged teenagers, and the discourse throughout is nothing more than moronic, exposition laden gobbledygook. The directing from Simon Kinberg is also at fault here, as the man previously only acted as producer on these movies, so all of a sudden making him a first-time director and handing him such a big movie right off the bat results in the whole thing looking very amateur.

With this being the last X-Men film following the Disney-Fox merger means that no one really cared about how this movie panned out as no one was worried about the future of the franchise for there was none. This factor is made the more obvious by the actors, who have played these roles before to strong critical acclaim might I say, however here there performances ranged from mediocre to outright flat. Michael Fassbender especially comes to mind as first an unnecessary character in this film in the first place and secondly a performance so wooden that I considered becoming a lumberjack. It’s kind of a shame that since 2015 with the likes of Steve Jobs and Macbeth, both fantastic films in their own right, Fassbender then had a massive dip in quality and hasn’t really been in a decent film from then on. James McAvoy who is fresh off the heels of his superb role in Glass (still my favourite performance of this year so far) gives the definition of a mediocre performance. He hits all the bullet-points of the emotions his character needs to go through in this movie, but knowingly how previously spectacular he was in the role, here it comes off really forgettable and care-free (not in a good way). Jennifer Lawrence was forgettable, Jessica Chastain had a sweet glass of nothing to work with. The only two who actually seemed to care at all among the cast were Nicholas Hoult as Beast who’s actions and intentions I actually believed, and surprisingly enough Sophie Turner as Jean Grey. I say surprisingly since up till now she had not proven to be a good actress, both on Game of Thrones and X-Men: Apocalypse. Here however, though not an awards worthy performance (not even close), I at least understood what she was going for and you could tell that she was giving it all she had, and that awful misguided American accent she had in Apocalypse has thankfully been turned down.

The one truly good element of X-Men: Dark Phoenix was the music score. Throughout the duration of me watching this film I was bored a lot of the times at what was happening on-screen but I was digging the music with it seemingly taking inspiration from the sounds of Inception and Interstellar. In fact the scenes in the film where I actually felt any kind of emotion was only due to the score giving me the feels. So I waited till the credits to see who this Hans Zimmer-wannabe was only to find out that it was Hans Zimmer. Say what now? Didn’t Zimmer say a couple of years ago that he was done with working on superhero films and that he wanted to strive to more interesting and different projects? Apparently that was all tosh (only in Hollywood, eh!), but heck, at least it resulted in something good to come out of Dark Phoenix.

Overall score: 3/10

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