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robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

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A continuation of NHS invites WWX to JYL's wedding, and what happened there? Perhaps about how the estemed Hanguang Jun ended up running off and eloping with the Nie sect heir's intended?

continuation of that short fic, now it’s own fic on ao3

Plus One - Chapter 2

“So,” Nie Huaisang said, sidling up to his brother and his two sworn brothers now that they’d finally gotten to the party part of the wedding and they could all huddle up in a corner to be anti-social together.

Or, well, for Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen to be anti-social and for Jin Guangyao to be forcefully restrained from attempting to perform hosting duties, which he incessantly tried to do - it was like he had no idea what servants were for. Which Nie Huaisang supposed was understandable, given everything, but the way Jin Guangshan encouraged him to do it certainly wasn’t.

“So,” Nie Mingjue said, his voice only mildly ominous in a way that suggested, to Nie Huaisang at least, that he was still finding this whole thing incredibly funny.

Accordingly, Nie Huaisang ignored him. “How much do you think I can milk being horribly dumped?” he asked. “Because I think I’m about to be horribly dumped.”

“By your new ‘intended’?” Lan Xichen said, looking amused. “Really, Huaisang, I don’t know what you were thinking by bringing him.”

“Uh, that he deserves to attend his shijie’s wedding? Obviously?”

“But to bring him to Lanling…”

“He’s my guest,” Nie Huaisang said haughtily, bringing out his fan and doing his best ‘rich young master who is better than this and is most certainly above your petty questions’ Jin sect impression. “You aren’t suggesting that the Jin sect would take back an invitation they freely issued, would they? Or breach the rules of hospitality?”

“Huaisang, Xichen didn’t mean it that way and you know it,” his brother said, sounding annoyed, but in his relaxed run-of-the-mill ‘I hate parties’ type of annoyance, rather than specifically about his behavior. “Obviously the Jin sect won’t do anything about it. Regardless of any other considerations, anything they did would be refusing to show our Nie sect face, and then I’d have to make an issue of it.”

He sounded wistful. Probably thinking about how he could use it as an excuse to storm out and go home early.

“We’re only worried about you, Huaisang,” Jin Guangyao murmured, looking remarkably calm for someone who was definitely (if unobtrusively) being blocked from leaving by two very tall men with excessive mother hen tendencies. “You’re all grown up now, not a child – you need to think about the political implications your actions might have. Aren’t you concerned about your brother’s reaction?”

Huaisang was about to explain that he’d gotten his brother’s permission, but then he remembered that they were in Lanling, full of spies, so he decided to tell Jin Guangyao about that later.

“It’s not my problem that Sect Leader Nie has to think about politics at what should be a happy family event,” he said instead, nose in the air, and Lan Xichen frowned even as Nie Mingjue sighed, probably at Nie Huaisang’s total lack of caring about even the basic obligations of etiquette. Or possibly his reference to their little inside joke, but these were his sworn brothers, so they’d have to figure out sooner or later that Sect Leader Nie and Nie Mingjue weren’t always the same. “Besides, that isn’t what I asked. I asked about how long I can milk my terrible heartbreaking break up.”

“I thought you were getting dumped?” his brother asked, passing him a jar of wine. A good brother, even if he was mocking him.

“Getting dumped leads to a break-up,” Nie Huaisang insisted. “Wei-xiong is a thankless white-eyed wolf who was just using me with absolutely no consideration of my tender feelings.”

“You have tender feelings?” his brother said. “Why wasn’t I informed of this?”

Nie Huaisang kicked him in the shin.

As usual, it had no impact whatsoever on his brother and only hurt his own toes, but it was the principle of the thing.

“Huaisang,” Lan Xichen said, his voice oddly gentle, even softer than normal. “Did you – really – for Wei Wuxian –”

Nie Huaisang, who’d been taking a drink of wine, nearly choked. “Er-ge,” he said, mildly horrified. “Please. Wei-xiong is a very handsome gentleman, fearless and dashing, with all the skills one might ask for in a son-in-law –”

“Brother-in-law,” his brother muttered, as if he hadn’t been Nie Huaisang’s de facto father figure for years.

“– and, yes, I suppose we have similar tastes in drinking, carousing, and pornography –”

“Of course you do,” Jin Guangyao said, looking up at the ceiling as if it would hide how his lips were twitching.

“– but let us not forget: he lives in a trash heap. With Wen sect. I have standards!”

“I thought he was marrying in?” Lan Xichen asked, smiling again now that he had confirmed that there was no actual heart-breaking occurring in the vicinity. “He’d live in the Unclean Realm that way, wouldn’t he?”

“He would not,” Nie Mingjue put in. “I don’t care if they’re all enlightened saints that do nothing but charity all day, no one surnamed Wen is living in my home.”

“You see what I’m up against?” Nie Huaisang said, holding out his hands in appeal to his brother’s sworn brothers. “My da-ge doesn’t understand, he’s only good for swinging a saber! How cruel and heartless must a man be to stand in the way of true love?”

Lan Xichen covered his smile with his sleeve. Jin Guangyao pressed his lips together in such a way that made his cheeks especially round and quivering with suppressed laughter, like a mouse stuffing its face to bulging with rice.

“Er-ge, you wouldn’t be nearly this cruel if it were you, would you?” Nie Huaisang asked, reaching out and tugging said sleeve. “You’d be kind and generous about it – I bet you’d find them a nice little place to live, maybe next to those foothills you’re always saying you want someone to use but that you’re not willing to sell…”

“Were you planning on moving in with er-ge after your marriage, then?” Jin Guangyao asked. He looked much more amused and relaxed now – maybe he’d been stressing over this being some sort of scheme and was feeling much better now that he realized it was actually just Nie Huaisang’s nonsense. His paranoia had always been deeply endearing. “I don’t think your brother will like that.”

“Not me,” Nie Huaisang said, rolling his eyes at him. “But if it was Lan Zhan sweeping him away, er-ge would definitely support him. Right, er-ge?”

“I always support my brother,” Lan Xichen said with a smile.

“Good,” Nie Huaisang said, taking another swallow of wine. “Because he and Wei Wuxian just had a very intense conversation in a secluded corner that ended with them kissing and running off together, so it’s about to become your problem.”

Nie Mingjue choked, Jin Guangyao’s jaw dropped, and Lan Xichen’s eyes got really big.

“Not joking,” Nie Huaisang clarified cheerfully. “Totally serious.”

“Excuse me,” Lan Xichen said, getting up very quickly. “I need to – go see –”

He didn’t even bother finishing the sentence before rushing off.

“Go with him,” Nie Mingjue said to Jin Guangyao, who blinked owlishly at him. “It’s going to be a shitshow, isn’t it? Politically, I mean.”

“Uh,” Jin Guangyao said.

“Really, da-ge,” Nie Huaisang said. “The notorious ostracized-by-the-cultivation-world demonic cultivator Wei Wuxian, the Yiling Patriarch, is abruptly reintroduced to society as my intended bride, only to be stolen away by the Lan sect’s Second Jade, the second most desirable bachelor in the cultivation world, in the middle of a wedding party thrown by Lanling Jin? I have no idea why you think this would so much as raise an eyebrow.”

“That’s a lot of words to say ‘shitshow’, which is why I didn’t,” Nie Mingjue said. “Meng Yao – Jin Guangyao – oh, fuck it, A-Yao, someone is going to need to keep their head about them and think about the political implications long enough to keep Xichen from getting himself into serious trouble, and you’re better at it than I am. Go help him. I’ll cover for you two here.”

Jin Guangyao still looked torn.

“Don’t listen to da-ge, he’s worrying too much,” Nie Huaisang volunteered his own opinion. “How much trouble can the Lan sect really get into over a matter of love?”

“I’m going at once,” Jin Guangyao said, and ran after Lan Xichen.

A moment later, Nie Huaisang handed the jar of wine back to his brother.

“Well done,” he said, voice much more neutral than it had been a moment before. “Assuming your goal was to deprive Sect Leader Jin of san-ge’s assistance while we define the situation to make it come out the way we want.”

“Couldn’t have done it without your timely assist,” Nie Mingjue said, pinching the bridge of his nose. He did so hate politics, and he hated being good at it even more. Truly there was nothing better, in Nie Huaisang’s opinion, than forcing his brother to relent and give in to the sneaky bastard half of his heritage. “Anyway, Sect Leader Jin is drunk and his heir is the groom, and thus occupied. It’s only reasonable that I, as the person with the next highest status, take charge of dispersing the news.”

“And by ‘dispersing the news’ you mean rehabilitate Wei-xiong’s reputation, get him reinstated in the Jiang sect, and arrange an appropriate marriage between him and Lan Zhan before anyone can complain about an inappropriate elopement, of course.”

“It’s called being efficient, Huaisang,” Nie Mingjue said.

“It’s called creating a countervailing alliance to the Jiang-Jin sect connection, getting both the Jiang sect and the Yiling Patriarch to owe our sect a favor – not to mention the Lan sect, too! – and conveniently also undercutting Sect Leader Jin’s authority just at the moment he’s trying to install himself as the new ruler of the cultivation world.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Huaisang,” Nie Mingjue said, finishing off the jar and putting it down. “I’m far too stupid to be considering any of that. Only good for swinging a saber, remember?”

Nie Huaisang sniggered.

“Yes, I remember,” he said. “You won a whole war against a much stronger, more numerous, and more unified force on Baxia’s strength alone, no brains required. How can I help? You want me crying or excited?”

“Whatever you think is best, Huaisang.” His brother solidified his scowling angry face, just the sort of thing a dumb brute might wear when dealing with politics that he was far too ignorant to understand. “Let’s go right some injustices, shall we?”

#mdzs #nie huaisang #nie mingjue #jin guangyao #lan xichen #my fic #my fics #plus one #mentalcarebear

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gascon-en-exil · 3 years

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A Game of Thrones 10th Anniversary Season Ranking: Part 2

Link to Part 1

Time for the bottom half of the list. The four seasons here will surprise no one, but the order might.

#5 Season 6

You can tell what I most what to talk about here...but there's an order to these things.

S6 actually has a bunch of great ideas, but they drown beneath the most slapdash plotting and character work the show has seen yet in order to set the stage for the narrower conflicts of the last two seasons. It's notorious for bringing back characters who haven't been seen in a season or longer only to kill them off (Balon Greyjoy, Osha, Hodor, the Blackfish, Rickon, Walder Frey) or awkwardly graft them back into the main plot (Sandor Clegane, Bran). There are plot threads that ought to be compelling but are too rushed in execution, like the siege of Riverrun, Littlefinger's hand in the Battle of the Bastards, or Daenerys's time back among the Dothraki and then finally getting the hell out of Meereen. Arya hits on the only interesting part of her two-season sojourn in Braavos - a stage play, of all things - only for it to stumble at the end with a disappointing offscreen death and some incomprehensible philosophy ahead of the start of her murder tour of Westeros. There's also so much cutting off the branches, enough to be conspicuous; the final shot of Daenerys leading an armada of about half the remaining cast she assembled partially offscreen says that better than anything else. Well, not anything....

Highlight: Without exaggeration, the opening of S6E10 is easily my favorite sequence in all of GoT. The staging, the music, the mounting suspense even as it becomes increasingly obvious what's about to happen, the twisted religious references particularly in Cersei's mock confession to Unella, Tommen throwing himself out a window because he can't deal with the reality of how terrible his mother is, how Cersei gives absolutely no fucks whatsoever about murdering hundreds of people at once in a calculated act of vengeance largely prompted by her own poorly thought out actions - I love it all. It's the single most masterfully-executed act of villainy in the whole show - Daenerys torching King's Landing probably has a higher body count, but the presentation there is all muddled - and if I had any doubts about Cersei being my favorite multi-season major character they were silenced in this moment. The explosion of the Sept doesn't sit perfectly with me, because I liked the Tyrells and because of what I said about deaths like theirs and Renly's in the previous post under S2, but I think that unease only cements the strength of this sequence. It's an overused phrase in fandom these days, but GoT at its best is all about moral greyness that gives its audience room for multilayered reactions. Cersei nuking the Sept and making herself the sole power in King's Landing, which in a sense is just a more overt example of the kind of character/plot consolidation elsewhere represented by Daenerys's armada, is one of those events that's impossible to approach from a single angle if you care about any of the characters involved. And hey, it's not in the books (yet, presumably), so unlike Ned's death or the Red Wedding the GoT showrunners can take the credit for realizing this one.

Favorite death: Even leaving aside the Sept and related deaths there's a lot of good ones to choose from in S6. Ramsey is cathartic but too gory for me, Osha's was a clever callback but a little delayed, it's hard to pin down specific deaths when Daenerys incinerates the khals, and Arya only gets half credit for Walder Frey and his sons when she saves the rest of the house for the opening of S7. I'm thinking Hodor, not so much because I enjoy his character or the manner of his death but because it's a clever bit of playing with language (that must have been hell to render in other languages for dubbing) wrapped up in some entertainingly murky consent issues and some closed time loop weirdness. It's all very...extra? Is that the word for it?

Least favorite death: Offscreen deaths continue to be mostly letdowns, in this case Blackfish and the Waif. Way to botch the ending of Arya's already near-pointless Braavos arc, guys. Speaking of Arya, this spot goes to Lady Crane, whom the Waif somehow kills with a stool or something. It's a dumb way to send off an entertaining minor character.

#6 Season 8

I swear that I'm not putting S8 this high solely because of Jonmund kind of sort of happening. I've never been very interested in either of them and the sex would be far too bear-on-otter to suit my pornographic preferences, but even so the choice to close out the series with them is hilarious.

I really don't need to elaborate on why S8 is down here; everyone who's ever watched the show has done as much in the nearly two years since it wrapped up. I do however need to explain why I've ranked not one but two seasons below it. My biggest argument here is that I don't believe it's fair to critique S8 for problems it inherited from earlier seasons. A non-comprehensive list:

Mad Queen Daenerys: unevenly built up beginning from S1 and continuing in some form through every following season

The questionable racial optics of Dany's army: also seeded as early as S1 and solidified by S3 with the Slaver's Bay arc

Cersei only succeeding because she makes stupid decisions and then lucks out until she doesn't: apparent from S1, directly lampshaded by Tywin in S3, fully on display with the Faith Militant arc of S5-6

Jaime not getting a redemption arc or falling in love with Brienne: evident with his repeated returns to Cersei throughout the show as one of the most consistent elements of his character, particularly in S4 and during the siege of Riverrun in S6

Tyrion grabbing the idiot ball/becoming a flat audience surrogate mouthpiece: started in S5 around the time the showrunners ran out of book material for him and wanted to make him more of a PoV character and his arc less of a downward spiral, although I've seen arguments that changes from the books involving his Tysha story and Shae set him on this trajectory even earlier

The hardening of Sansa's character: began in earnest in S4 and never let up from there

The strange ordering of antagonists: set down by S7's equally strange plot structure - the Night King had to come first with that setup

CleganeBowl and the dumber twists: from what I've heard the whole thing of writing around fans on the internet guessing plot twists started pretty much when the book content ended, so S5-6 maybe?

Yes, there's plenty to criticize about S8 on its own merits...but just as much that was merely the writers doing what they could at that point with deeply flawed material.

Highlight: This may sound cheesy, but the better parts of S8 are almost all the cinematic ones, whether that's E2 being a bottle episode with tons of poignant character send-offs before the big battle, a handful of deaths with actual satisfying weight like Jorah's and Theon's, and an epilogue that incorporates both closure for individuals and the broader uncertainty of messy socio-political systems that GoT has always been known for before working its way back to the Starks at the very end for some tidy bookending. Even imperfect moments like the Lannister twins' death and the resolution of Sansa's character felt weighty and appropriate based on what had come before.

Favorite death: Forget about the audio commentary attempting to flatten Cersei's character; Cersei and Jaime Lannister have an excellent end. Cersei especially, as the scenes of her stumbling her way down into the catacombs as the Red Keep crashes down around her really show off how her world is abruptly falling apart and how she retreats into her own self-interest at the end in spite of her demise being at least partially of her own doing. There's some stupid moments associated with these scenes, like Jaime dueling Euron to the death and CleganeBowl, but I can excuse those when the twins end up dying exactly where you'd expect them to: in each other's arms, in a ruined monument to their family's grand ambitions that, like Casterly Rock itself, was taken from another family.

Least favorite death: Quite a few dumb ones in S8 have become forever infamous. Missandei sticks out, and for me Varys too just as much because of how the writing pushes him to do the dumbest thing he could possibly do purely for the sake of killing him off ten minutes into the penultimate episode. But no one belongs here more than Daenerys Targaryen, killed at the height of a rushed and uncertain villain reveal by a man who takes advantage of their romantic history (who is also her family, because Targaryens) to stab her in a moment of vulnerability - pretty much only because another man tells him that Daenerys is the final boss. Narratively speaking that might be the case, but even so this is the end result of multiple seasons of middling-to-bad buildup. Not even Drogon burning the symbolism can salvage that. Also Fire Emblem: Three Houses did this scene and did it better.

#7 Season 5

...Yeah, we're going to have to go there.

Sansa's rape is not a plot point that personally touches me much. It's terribly framed in the moment and the followup in later seasons is inconsistent at best, but it's not a kind of trauma I can relate to. On the other hand, in the very same episode Loras is tried and imprisoned for homosexuality, and Margery faces the same punishment for lying for her brother. That hits much closer to home, not just for the homophobia but also for the culture war undertones of the not!French Tyrells persecuted by a not!Anglo fanatic who later reveals himself to be the in-universe equivalent of a Protestant. The trial is just one part of Cersei's shortsighted scheming, just as Sansa being married off to Ramsey is part of Littlefinger's, and both of them get their comeuppance in the end...but it's unsettling all the same. I especially hate what the Faith Militant arc does to King's Landing in S5, swiftly converting it from my favorite setting in GoT to a tense theocratic nightmare that only remains interesting to me because Cersei is consistently awesome. What's more, pretty much everything about S5 that isn't viscerally uncomfortable is dragged out and dull instead: the Dorne arc, Daenerys's second season in Meereen, Arya in Braavos, Stannis and co. at Castle Black. The most any of these storylines can hope for is some kind of bombastic finale, and while several of them deliver it's not enough to make up for what comes before, or how disappointing everything here builds from S4. S4 has Oberyn, S5 has the Sand Snakes - I think that sums up the contrast well.

Highlight: S5 does get stronger near the end. As much as his character annoys me I did like the High Sparrow revealing his pseudo-Protestant bent to Cersei just before he imprisons her, and there's a cathartic rawness to Cersei's walk of atonement where you can both feel her pain and humiliation and understand that she's getting exactly what she deserves (and this is what leads into the climax of S6, so it deserves points just for that). The swiftness of Stannis's fall renders his death and that of his family a bit hollow, but it's brutal and final and fittingly ignominious for a character with such grand ambitions but so little relevance to the larger story. The fighting pits of Meereen sequence is cinematic if nothing else, and even the resolution to the Dorne arc salvages the whole thing a tiny bit by playing into the retributive cycles of vengeance idea (and Myrcella knows about the twincest and doesn't care, aww - no idea why that stuck with me, but it's cute all the same). Oh, and Hardhome...it's alright. Not great, not crap, but alright.

Favorite death: I don't know why, but Theon tossing Myranda to her death is always funny to me. Maybe because it's so unexpected?

Least favorite death: Arya's execution of Meryn Trant is meant to be another one of the season's big finale moments, but the scene is graphic and goes on forever and I can't help but be grossed out. This is different from, say, Shireen's death, which is supposed to be painful to witness.

#8 Season 7

I can't tell if S7's low ranking is as self-explanatory as S8's or not. At least one recent retrospective on GoT's ruined legacy I've come across outright asserts that S7 is judged less harshly in light of how bad S8 was. If it were not immediately obvious by where I've placed each of them, I don't share that opinion.

Because S7 is just a mess, and the drop-off in quality is so much more painful here than it is anywhere else in the series except maybe from S4 to S5 (and that's more about S4 being as good as it is). The pacing ramps up to uncomfortable levels to match the shortened seasons, the structure pivots awkwardly halfway through from Daenerys vs. Cersei to Jon/Dany caring about ice zombies, said pivot relies largely on characters (mostly Tyrion) making a series of catastrophically stupid tactical decisions, and very few of the smaller set pieces land with any real impact as the show's focus narrows to its endgame conflict. As with S6 there are still some good ideas, but they're botched in execution. The conflict between Sansa and Arya matches their characters, but the leadup to that conflict ending with Littlefinger's execution is missing some key steps. Daenerys's diverse armada pitted against Cersei weaponizing the xenophobia of the people of King's Landing could have been interesting, but there's little room to explore that when Cersei keeps winning only because Tyrion has such a firm grip on the idiot ball and when Euron gets so much screentime he barely warrants. Speaking of Tyrion's idiot ball, does anyone like the heist film-esque ice zombie retrieval plotline? Its stupidity is matched only by its utter futility, because Cersei isn't trustworthy and nobody seems to ever get that.

And how could I forget Sam's shit montage? Sums up S7 perfectly, really. To think that that is part of the only extended length of time the show ever spends in the Reach....

Highlight: A handful of character moments save this season from being irredeemable garbage. As you can guess from my screencap choice, Olenna's final scene is one of them, even if Highgarden itself is given insultingly short shrift. S7 also manages what I thought was previously impossible in that it makes me care somewhat about Ellaria Sand, courtesy of the awful death Cersei plans for her and her remaining daughter. The other Sand Snakes are killed with their own weapons, which shows off Euron's demented creativity if nothing else. I like the entertainingly twisted choice to cut the Jon/Dany sex scene with the reveal that they're related. And, uh...the Jonmund ship tease kind of makes the zombie retrieval team bearable? I'm really grasping at straws here.

Favorite death: It's more about her final dialogue with Jaime than her actual death, but again I'm going to have to highlight Olenna Tyrell here for lack of better options. She drops the bombshell about Joffrey that the audience figured out almost as soon as it happened but still, makes it plain what I've been saying about how Jaime's arc has never really been about redemption, and is just about the only person to ever call Cersei out for that whole mass murder thing. There's a reason "I want her to know it was me" became a meme format.

Least favorite death: There aren't any glaringly bad deaths in S7, just mediocre or unremarkable ones. I still think the decision to have Arya finish off House Frey in the season's opening rather than along with their father at the end of S6 was a strange one that doesn't add much of dramatic value.

#Game of Thrones #GoT

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mysticsparklewings · 4 years

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Daises on Strawberry Hill‪

Well, this looks a bit different from my usual content, doesn't it? Full disclosure that this art was made primarily as art inspired by one of my favorite books of all time (seriously, I have three different editions of this thing)--Looking for Alaska by John Green--as an excuse to talk about the new Hulu series of the same name that's based on the book. Because if you know me at all, you know I am notoriously hard on book-to-screen adaptions, particularly those based on books I love as if they were family members. And originally, this description was going to include a pretty blow-by-blow, lengthy review of my thoughts on the series. However, it's been quite a while since I first started trying to type out said review, and frankly, I've decided instead to, after I talk about the art, to just give some general, spoiler-free thoughts; the most important opinions I have on the series and leave it at that. I am still planning on completing and putting my full-length, in-depth thoughts out, but that'll be at some other time. Perhaps I'll put them in a journal/blog post instead of adding to the description here. Whatever happens, I'll update this description so that those who are interested in my deep-dive can find it when the time comes. That said, let's talk about the artwork now :) LfA isn't a fantasy or sci-fi book, so it doesn't have any cool dramatic scenes or neato devices/objects that have a lot of significance to the plot that would be fun to draw, which is why I never made any fan art or inspired-by-art for it before. But I really wanted an excuse to talk about the series, and so I pondered what symbols or imagery the series might have that I could make into art, even if none of it was terribly relevant to the plot or exciting on its own. This led me to the cheap wine that's mentioned a few times throughout the book: Strawberry Hill. Drawing just a bottle of wine seemed kind of boring and not very specific to the book/series, so I ended up adding in some white daisies since white flowers and daises specifically do have some significance to the plot. (In a way, they're a bit of a crux to it, at least for a key epiphany moment.) Originally, I was going to make this piece traditionally, and I did start with a traditional sketch of the wine bottle and one daisy to use as a template for more to follow. However, I pretty quickly got the idea for doing something more line-art heavy on a black background, as the cover for the book is black and the sort of chalkboard/blacklight look I was picturing in my head seemed fitting for the tone of the story, and despite my best efforts I couldn't think of a way/combination of media to accomplish what I wanted traditionally without also giving myself a major headache and making the project take infinitely longer than I wanted it to. So while I stalled in production, I ended up on my tablet for something else and figure I'd scan in my sketches and maybe make a line art to print off and manipulate into what I wanted traditionally later. But then, just as I started working on that, I figured, "You know what, if I'm going to go through all of the trouble to ink/line this digitally and I wanted it to be more line-focused anyway, I might as well take a crack at just doing the full artwork digitally. I'll get the lines done either way, and if it doesn't work out then at least I can say I tried, I know some of what not to do, and I end up with a digital mock-up for the final version." Fortunately, things ended up working out much better than I expected. I purposefully wasn't too fussy about the lines, partly because I just didn't have the patience at the time to be super precise about it, and also because for this specific project I kind of liked the idea of a more doodle-ish look (even though it's not super doodle-y in the final product). This also made things move a lot faster, which was nice and pretty satisfying. I started with the wine bottle from my sketch, including trying a new liquid drawing technique I half picked up from an art Youtuber I just recently started following that makes drawing liquid in a style similar to this look like a lot of fun. I knew I wanted the bottle to be mostly transparent/just lines, so the goal here was more about getting the wine bottle shape/structure familiar enough than it was about anything else. The label took a bit more though since in my mind, ever since I read the book, I had a pretty specific image of a pinkish bottle with a yellowish liquid and this cream-colored label with dark brown/sepia text, and I had not previously considered the label into that whole primarily line-focused image in my mind. So in the end, I decided the label would be solid so I could get the proper imagery across and the text and stuff could still be seen properly. Additionally, you'll notice I couldn't help myself being a little on-the-nose and sticking a tiny strawberry and mountain/hill on the label for good measure and to fill some space without having to look up wine bottle references just to stare at the labels for a ridiculous amount of time. The daises were also infinitely easier to do digitally since I could just copy, paste, and rotate first the petals to make one flower, and then copy, paste, rotate that one flower a few more times, instead of having to draw individual petals and flowers every time. This also gave me a little more freedom in that I could re-size the flowers pretty easily to make it more visually interesting than just a bunch of flowers that were all the same size. All that ended up being less line-focused than I originally intended, but I acknowledged that happening as I worked, and I'm not upset about the shift in focus. I think what I ended up with still has about the same visual impact I was hoping for, and that's all I really wanted anyway. And as sort of the icing on the cake, I ended up adding in that wisp/smoke trail in the background because of 1. It seemed kind of empty and unfinished with just the flowers and wine bottle and 2. When I tried adding a green vine to fix that issue, it just wasn't working for me. That's when I realized I could have a stronger reference to the book by putting something similar to smoke in the background since the original cover of the book has a smoke plume front-and-center. It took a few tries and some tweaking to get something I was happy with on that front, but I am so glad I stuck with the idea. It just adds something I can't quite place that the piece really needed before. The content is pretty different for me--I don't drink and I don't really endorse the idea--and the style is a little beyond my usual realms, but I do really like how it turned out. I feel like it's done well enough that you can appreciate the symbols and references if you know the book, but it also works as just a kitsch art piece if you're completely unfamiliar with the source material too. I don't think it's super accurate to when a bottle of the stuff shows up in the Hulu series, but it was on screen so briefly and my mind was focusing on other aspects while I was watching, so I didn't get a super good look at it. But I still think it'll suffice well enough despite that. I'm happy with how it turned out, and that's all that really matters, right? Now, then, as for the thoughts I have on the Hulu series that I think need to be shared sooner rather than later. I'll start by going on record to say, as someone that is notoriously hard on book-to-screen adaptions, that I did actually like the LfA series pretty good. I'd say it's about a 7 out of 10, which an exceptionally good score coming from me. It's not my most favorite show of all time, but it's notably better than "just okay," which is historically the highest praise I've ever been able to give a book-to-screen adaption. It had its faults and things I would've done differently if it were up to me, but fortunately, it did an infinitely better job than I was expecting. My main issues, as with all book-to-screen adaptions, come in the form of some of the changes that were made between the book and the screen. Fortunately, this time around the problems I do have are not egregious offenders. Most changes that were made still make sense within the story and while the overall message isn't quite the same as the book, it didn't totally squander what the book was trying to say. All of which are problems that most book-to-screen adaptions suffer from horribly. And while I won't talk too much at length about this (that's for the long-form review later ) I think this has a lot to do with the series being roughly 7-8 hours of content, as opposed to the either extremely rushed 2-hours-or-less a movie would've been, or the more-time-than-we-know-what-to-do-with 13+ hours of...certain book-to-screen adaptions that failed miserably at their job. (*cough* 13 Reasons Why *cough*) As I said, it's not perfect, but I do think as far as allotted time and time-management that they hit something of a sweet spot so that they'd have enough time to give the plot the room it needs to breathe without having so much time that they have to start making stuff up to fill it all. The other thing I'd like to point out is that, honestly, they did what 13 Reasons Why wanted to do way better than that series could ever hope to. They told the story of teenagers experiencing darker themes and elements of life so much more tactfully, and, in my opinion, more realistically. And they didn't wait for a controversy to spike and then do something about it--they didn't bank on the publicity of a controversy. Right from episode one, every episode starts with a warning that this series is meant for an adult audience (because of its themes) and viewer discretion is advised. And at the end of every episode, as the series does featuring smoking and drinking on more than one occasion, they provide resources to visit if you or someone you know has a problem with either of those things. I don't know if the people at Hulu saw what happened to Netflix with 13 RW and learned from their mistakes or if they just knew better, but either way, I'm so glad it was handled so much better, regardless of why or how it happened. As far as recommendations, if you're a John Green and/or Looking for Alaska book fan, I'd say it's definitely worth the watch. For outside viewers...I think you have to really be into the YA drama scene to appreciate it. Just be prepared for some more adult content than you might typically find in a YA movie. It's all done pretty tastefully and the majority isn't there senselessly; most of it serves some kind of purpose to the story, which is why it doesn't bother me (a very prude-ish person) all that much. I think that's everything I feel like needs to be said right now about the series until I can get the long-form review finished. (It's maybe 1/3 of the way done currently...and already getting on the long side ) I have to admit, this does make me more hopeful for the future of book-to-screen adaptions, at least those that end up being handled the way this one was. In fact, I'm actually really hoping that if Turtles All the Way Down, John Green's newest book, ever sees a screen adaption that it's handled in a series form and is done at least as well as LfA was. Time will tell, I suppose. In fact, I believe any day now, Let it Snow, a book that John Green wrote 1/3 of is supposed to have its movie adaption dropped on Netflix. I'm not super confident in Netflix's handling of adaptions for reasons mentioned earlier, but maybe just maybe it'll be okay? ____ Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings I do not own Looking for Alaska and/or associated content ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble | Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

#lookingforalaska #johngreen #hulu #hulu series #lfa #lfa hulu #book #book adaptation #fan art #art #digital art #photoshop #photoshopcc

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A retrospective on the first half of Volume 6

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I hated RWBY’s fifth volume. I felt it was a slog that started on the right foot but as time went on more and more cracks started to appear until the Battle of Haven episodes which were... unpleasant. I made my thoughts on them very clear over the summer. I will also note that I was very cynical regarding Volume 6 during the period between the V5 finale launching and RTX Austin, where we got Adam’s character short. Even with the short being good I remained only tentatively interested in Volume 6, since Volume 5 had good shorts too and look where that got the season proper. Volume 5 was a failure on many levels for RWBY, and while I’ve found things to enjoy about it, it’s ultimately my least favorite volume in the show. Coming off Volume 5, I felt concern that RWBY had peaked in Volume 3, and everything from there on in would just be a painful slide downwards in quality.

Thankfully, I’ve never been happier to be wrong.

ALL HAIL THE BRINGER OF END TIMES AS SHE BESTOWS THE FLAMING MERCY OF DEATH WITH A SMILE ON HER FACE

RWBY Volume 6 Chapter 7 is now out for First members, and as such, we’re now at the halfway mark of the volume. I have to say, going in with lowered expectations even in light of the Adam short, I have utterly adored this entire volume thus far, in fact it’s probably my favorite set of episodes in the entire show to date, and I’ve had very little to criticize in each episode beyond just “Give me more Mercury and Emerald.”

As such, this week at the perfect halfway mark of the volume, and to celebrate my third hundred post, I’m doing a retrospective of each episode of Volume 6 and see how the chapters do their best to avoid the slights that dragged down Volume 5. As well, I’ll be consulting comments made by Miles and Kerry pre-release of Volume 6, specifically concerning what they wanted to focus on this year. In particular, I’ll be cross-referencing Miles’ three points that the crew wanted to improve on for Volume 6. I’ll also look at most of the episodes and see how they handle elements that were previously condemned in Volume 5 (which also means some potshots at Volume 5 if that’s a thing you need to know). This gets long, forward warning, hope you enjoy.

0.5) Adam’s short

Adam’s short might have been thinly veiled damage control made with the intent of re-building Adam’s fear factor after the disaster that was his outing at Haven, but the short proved to be good damage control nonetheless. From an acting perspective, Garrett continues to grow his vocal talents and for fans of the gone-too-soon Sienna Khan, the short gave her some posthumous feats and showed her in the field. Really, none of my criticisms about the short were significant enough to lower my enjoyment- barring CRWBY’s continued love of the weapon spinning circle, both Adam’s solo fight and the fight that makes up the back half of the short were both enjoyable bouts. Adam’s short was the only short we got this year, but it proved to be an entertaining short that provided some fun battles and a killer song by Jeff- Lionized is already one of my favorite vocal songs in the show, I must have watched the first battle in the short like fifty times now just so I can hear the first verse.

You’ll see, I’m their hero, I’ll be Lionized!

All in all, a very solid short and a great way to win back some fans after Haven before the season started off.

1) Argus Limited, the beginning of the redemption arc.

Despite Adam’s short, my expectations were low for Volume 6, almost deliberately so. Volume 5 had burned me hard, and I wanted to avoid getting burned by my own hype. But you know what? Argus Limited might be the best premiere in the entire show. It’s damn near flawless in everything it sets out to do.

In the AMA, Miles set out three things that the CRWBY needed to improve on for Volume 6- more fights that better utilize abilities and weapons, giving Ruby more agency in the plot, and fixing the “tell don’t show” problem that plagued Volumes 4 and 5, especially whenever RNJR were stuck listening to exposition monologues. And for the most part, Argus Limited does take steps towards all three of these problems. RWBY get a great fight which sees Ruby and Weiss especially using a lot of their skill-set that had been left to the curb in Volume 5, which is my nice way of pointing out that Ruby never used her Semblance in Volume 5 and Weiss over-relied on her Summons, which was a huge point of contention among Weiss’s fans in the now-infamous “Weiss vs Vernal” debacle. Ruby’s also given a stronger sense of being a leader than she’s conveyed for much of the past few years, being quick to take command of the situation when Qrow and Dudley start getting into an argument and forcing the team to focus on the Grimm instead of Oz’s newest round of omitting the truth. While there is a fair bit of exposition in regards to the timeskip, we do get a lot of information shown to us- particularly the sendoffs of Sun and Ilia.

While I’m still bummed that Ilia didn’t join the team going to to Atlas since I feel her character would have greatly benefited that arc, alongside her interactions with Weiss, she still gets a touching sendoff. And my Sunny boi shines as he usually does when in the spotlight. Absence makes the heart go fonder and Christ I miss Sun already.

Argus Limited is unique in that barring Adam’s short scene at the beginning, it’s the only premiere entirely focused on the heroes. The even numbered volumes beforehand had started with Emerald and Mercury, with Volume 4 also formally introducing the rest of Team WTCH. Argus Limited focusing only on RWBY and JNR allows for each member of the team to contribute during the episode, and also allows for more time to be spent on JNR’s departure for the rest of the first half. Jaune and Ruby’s quick scene near the middle has a great dynamic to it.

And of course it goes without saying that the music is to die for. Be it the soft acoustic of Like Morning Follows Night as Sun bids Blake farewell, or the two new songs in Miracle and Rising, Jeff, Alex and Casey came out of the gate running musically. Argus Limited to conclude was a fantastic opening episode, so good that even notorious RWBY critic FatManFalling was impressed. And if that’s not a sign that even the most diehard of RWBY critics was impressed... I dunno what is.

2) Uncovered- the truth comes out

Uncovered is a setup episode for a lot of the remaining first half, but one that executes its set up well. We immediately open with confirmation that Cinder survived the Battle of Haven, which is as much the crew going “Look you know we didn’t kill her, she’s on the damn poster,” as it is an acceptance that everyone capable of narrative comprehension understood that she wasn’t dead. Cinder gets a new outfit, meets a board game villain, and displays shreds of character development that I hope are carried up on. Meanwhile with RWBY we get one last scene in the Dreaded House where Ozpin flat out lies and Nora undoes the bad will of “They really ARE magic!” with some fantastically funny lines.

“Can we ask for more wishes? CAN WE ASK FOR MORE WISHES?!”

I also love the camera shot of Ruby promising they’ll protect the Relic before cutting to her digging it out of the snow. I’m easily impressed with camera trickery like that.

Uncovered addresses a significant criticism of V5, specifically how RNJR’s plot devolved into them just sitting around and receiving exposition from Ozcar and Qrow. While we get another such scene in the House where Ozcar explains the Relic and its powers, it’s much more lively- the kids weigh in more and are much more dynamic, particularly Nora. They’re not just sitting in chairs in a circle, they actively move around or are on the floor packing. It’s the same vector of information delivery, but it’s much less passively received.

Ozpin’s debate with RWBY is also similarly well-executed. The kids were soundly mocked last year for just blindly accepting Ozpin at face value barring the one instance of Yang bringing up the birds. Here, Yang and Weiss are openly confrontational of Ozpin, and while his argument of not telling the team about the Relic attracting Grimm has a logical reason behind it, the girls are tired of being spoon-fed information, especially after Oz bluntly promised no more lies or half-truths (Yang really should have included “omissions” in that list too in hindsight). It’s an argument where both sides have their reasons and both have good points that are presented, with everyone getting to weigh in (barring Maria, who is super chill during all these shenanigans).

What’s that again? Oh. Good writing. Sorry, wasn’t used to it being there after “OZPIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN,” “Because you’re afraid of Salem!” and “This is bad.”

Regardless, Uncovered is a stellar setup episode that flows smoothly into...

3) The Lost Fable- OZPIN FUCKED

The longest episode barring the Volume 3 and 4 finales, Lost Fable is an episode I was cold on when I first watched it- after Volume 5, numerous times, spelled out that Ozpin was shady and not to be trusted, I was expected some deep skeletons in his closet- that he created the Grimm, that he caused Salem to become evil, something so horrifying that the Gods saw fit to curse him with eternal life.

I didn’t expect the secrets to be “Ozpin’s first life looked like an isekai protagonist, he died of herpes, got Thanos’d like six times, fucked Salem at least four times and fathered the spiritual predecessors to the Maidens, had a life where he looked like my Starbucks server and... isn’t actually the bad guy.”

That Ozpin wasn’t too evil- more his secrets are because of lifetimes of dying over and over, he just has severe trust issues to work through- was something that caught me off guard. That everything is the Gods of Light and Darkness’s fault rubbed me the wrong way at first, since it felt like revisionism, the show going “We can’t have Oz be too evil so let’s just put most of the blame on the Gods and Salem.” That said I do like how the God of Darkness is actually surprised and pleased when Salem came to him for help. It was a nice bit of character to the God that no one ever came to him for help, just punishment, so he basically gave Salem what she wanted on the spot just because of that. As he says to Light, “you may bask in the powers of creation but you do not own them.”

Granted, there is still one massive story flaw in the episode- the handling of the Faunus just showing up during Ozma’s vacation in purgatory and slavery having already been implemented. It just feels like an awkward last-minute addition and one I do not very much like. It’s pretty much the one thing I outright hate about the episode, the rest execution wise is spot on. Hats off to CRWBY for the technical side of this tale, and to Salem, Ozma and Jinn’s actors for carrying this as well as they did.

I’m still not sure where I sit exactly on Lost Fable- it’s no doubt a well executed episode and answers/raises a lot of questions about Remnant and its mythologies (like how the moon is shattered because Satan yeeted out too hard), and the animation is some of the best in the show, barring some slight irritation at the understandable reasons for not seeing Ozma vs Salem onscreen. It’s technically very proficient, my problems are just a few small preconceptions of my own holding me back.

This planet empty. YEEEET.

... also that plushy dog was the cutest fucking thing and if we learn Salem kept that toy after digging it out of the rubble I may actually cry.

I will buy this dog plush if you just make it RT, you are passing up my money for God’s sake!

Also just so we’re all clear, that holy war Ozma accidentally helped start was totally Remnant’s version of the Crusades, right?

Also also, no, the kids weren’t the first Maidens, they’re the spiritual successors. Let’s just get that clear while I’m on a soapbox.

4) So That’s How It Is- Best Kids Finally Show Up

Merc and Em were in this episode so I’m contractually obliged to love it. Good thing I really do love their scene. It was good to finally see what the villains at large were up to while RWBY processed the knowledge Jinn had bestowed... while Qrow bestowed his fist unto Oscar’s jaw. In all seriousness, it’s good to see that RWBY retain the dynamic nature in the short final argument with Ozcar. Volume 5′s nightmarish scenes of just sitting around and passively listening are a thing of the past.

Mercury as usual is relegated to short but sweet moments, namely “Back off, freak!” and his being the first to realize that Salem’s about to snap. Please RT, give him things to do, don’t waste Spider Man while you have him in the booth. Pacing wise I suppose this was really the earliest we could have gotten Em, Merc and WTH unless the first episode got a lot of additional padding, but it still hurts to see my favorite characters all of once in the entire first half of the season. Like I said, absence makes the heart go fonder, and I miss the kids.

Also props for making me give a shit about Hazel again. Turns out he’s not a bad dad when you ignore the whole... “OZPIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN” thing.

Ruby also gets a few short but sweet moments- she’s initially calm at the beginning, allowing Ozpin to explain his plan. She only gets more visibly angry after Ozpin admits that he has no plan, but doesn’t lose her cool like Yang does. She’s also the only member of the team to separate Ozpin from Oscar at this stage, taking the time to reassure him before they leave the train wreckage. It shows again that the crew are striving to make Ruby feel like a leader, by having her take charge and be there for everyone under her wing.

Meanwhile Yang’s only interaction with Oscar is to demand he bring Ozpin back. ... When you think about it Oscar must have so many issues that he refuses to talk about Jesus Christ someone give this kid a therapist.

I wrote about how much I loved how Salem conducted herself in the short clip released for RWBY Rewind, and while ultimately her temper did snap rather explosively, I love that she visibly tries to contain her rage, something the animators put a lot of painstaking work into.

On the hero’s side, this is largely a cooldown episode and a conclusion to the “arc” surrounding Jinn in the first half while getting the team in place for the Brunswick episodes. For the villains it’s a chance to check in, and also see what they’ll be up for the year. The villain scene alone makes this a delight, with Watts being snarky and Tyrian continuing to be a walking :D in every scene he’s in.

... also who flew the airship that MEH took to Evernight? We never see the pilot.

5) The Coming Storm-

Let’s get the obvious praise out of the way, Neo vs Cinder? One of the best fights in the entire damn show, like damn they knocked it out of the park!

Fun fact, I got an ask the day before this dropped asking if I thought Neo would be in this episode and I said no. This is where you all laugh at me.

Neo vs Cinder is a sterling example of the fights becoming more creative and better utilizing abilities. Neo’s Semblance shattering looks great in Maya (shame it came at the cost of her hair) and the fight flows smoothly. I was worried that if Neo came back, her fighting style wouldn’t be well-represented without Monty able to bring his magic, but the crew have managed to create a fight on par with Neo vs Yang in sheer spectacle. I especially loved the segment on the bar top where Neo used bowls as weapons. And if it wasn’t great enough, One Thing grants an additional look under the mirrors into Neo’s inner turmoil over Roman’s death- Casey finally got her wish of voicing Neo, at least.

Also between this and Lionized, why do the villains get the best songs?

The Brunswick segment may not be as dynamic, and I’m sure some people groaned when they saw RWBY would be in another house, but at least this time they use more than one room. Weiss and Ruby get a nice scene near the end and there’s a great unspoken moment of Weiss getting why Ruby doesn’t want Qrow to find the beer stash- since remember, her mother’s been a drunk for at least seven years.

I appreciate the continuity touch in the garage scene that Yang saw Adam in his Beacon outfit when she hallucinated him, as she hasn’t seen his newer outfit. Regarding the garage scene, I can’t help but feel like it was misread by... a lot of people who were looking more for romantic validation than they were actual character reasoning. I’m not a fan of how Blake has acted around Yang this year, she’s been almost... condescending to her. Rushing for her bag in chapter 1 when Yang already had, the whole “I’ll protect you” line. Blake doesn’t see Yang as the strong person who stared a Maiden down and won, she sees... damaged goods. And that’s the last thing Yang wants or needs to hear. Yang didn’t crawl her way into recovery and ride off to another continent just so the girl who ditched her the first time without even waiting for Yang to regain consciousness could provide empty platitudes about not leaving and then assume that Yang needs protection in a manner that felt very patronizing to me. I particularly disliked how Blake reached over Yang’s real hand to grasp the cybernetic one, and how that got spun hard. Yes, the gesture was well meaning from Blake but all it takes is one look at Yang's reaction and that moment is just... not great at all for them. Yang is still hurting and shut off when she made that good intentioned but horribly misunderstanding gesture. Blake is trying to be there for Yang like Sun had been for her, but she can't help her because Yang isn't communicating what's wrong. That's not romantic. It's so awfully, bitterly sad. Yang is hurting and Blake can't undo the damage that she did when she left during the Fall of Beacon. It's not development, it's insight into the poor state of their relationship (regardless of how you view it, I just mean friendship here myself) after the events and the distance they suffered. Barbara herself has said that Volume 6 would see Blake and Yang’s relationship would never return to the way it was pre-Beacon after Volume 6, and this may have been what she was referring to.

The Coming Storm has a great fight, so it’s already a great episode in my book, but it adds a cherry on top in some quietly good character moments as well.

And of course, Burrito Weiss is Best Girl.

6) Alone In The Woods- Ruby’s Redemption Arc

Right before Volume 6 started, I wrote a whole post about why the fandom had grown cold on Ruby in Volume 5. At the time I noted that part of me wanted to wait until Volume 6 just in case things either improved or Ruby’s character failed to develop for another season, giving me more citations regarding her developmental stump since Volume 3.

But thankfully, Volume 6 has been very good for Ruby so far, and this episode is the peak of that. Ruby takes initiative, drives the team forward, and actually gets angry at a few points. Lindsay sells this so well and I’m so glad she finally toned down Ruby’s squeak in the more serious moments, because this episode would have otherwise died on its feet if Ruby still had the Squeak. In fact, if this positive trend of Ruby development continues into the back half of Volume 6, I’m planning on a post talking in more detail about Ruby and her development.

The Apathy were terrifying, and are easily my new favorite Grimm. Funnily enough, in another case of me writing a post before Volume 6 that was partly addressed, I asked why the Grimm failed to scare the audience, and one of my ideas was just that with the protagonists being so strong, no Grimm can really pose a threat. Well the Apathy prove that such a thing is possible. Fans have been suggesting that the Grimm employ more psychological or emotional based attacks over sheer physicality for some time now, and it seems that all this time, the answer has just been waiting for the right moment. Miles revealed on Reddit that the Apathy was his “favorite Grimm” that he’s been working on getting into the show for a few years, and later added on Twitter that he’s been sitting on the idea of the Apathy since the start of the show’s creation, well over six years ago. It’s proof to me that Miles can have some stunning ideas when his heart and soul is dedicated into a project, and regardless of what some people on Tumblr, Twitter and/or Youtube may think, Miles cares about this. Add in the unsettling atmosphere and the amazing work that went into everyone’s eyes and making them dull and disturbing, and you have a stellar attempt at horror by relative newcomers to the genre. The Apathy worked at being terrifying for a large portion of the vocal audience, creating a villain that solved a problem that the Grimm have had since Volume 2, while also letting Ruby finally step up and gain the agency she’s needed for several years.

While Maria being a SEW was something most everyone guessed, it was good to finally see Maria gain plot prominence, since some people had been complaining about Maria joining RWBY feeling somewhat arbitrary. Regardless, she’ll serve as an important vector into getting SEW lore, which is one of the only major significant mysteries left now that we know about Salem, the Gods and the Moon.

I haven’t mentioned it in the prior segments, but I’ll stop here to give the writers praise for finally giving Qrow an arc. While it is a bit odd to go from Volumes 3 through 5, where Qrow’s alcoholism is played for comedy (in fact it’s the punchline of the first episode) to Volume 6 playing it very seriously, I will still take any development for Qrow. He was the hardest hit by Ozpin’s secrecy, learning Raven was at least partly right in leaving Ozpin and as a consequence, learning that Summer likely died for nothing. He fell into depression, becoming an invalid wreck of a man. The Apathy had little to do to make Qrow a desolate waste, had he been left in that bar he’d probably have drunk himself to death while his nieces died just feet away from him. It takes seeing the Apathy to finally break him out of the stupor that hung around his neck like a noose, and I wouldn’t be shocked if we see Qrow hanging up the flask for good by the end of the volume.

Alone In The Woods is probably the best episode of the season so far. Somewhat sloppy running animations aside it’s a stupendous attempt at horror in an action show, and signals our protagonist finally becoming our lead.

7) The Grimm Reaper- Tick tock, tick tock

I’ll be honest, when I saw the Haven vault in the Rewind for this episode, I expected Cinder to open the episode by kicking Vernal’s corpse into the water out of jealousy. I’m not sure if I’m impressed or not at how brazen Cinder’s loophole abuse is, but I am impressed at how both Cinder and Neo are visibly hesitant at different points in the scene to trust the other- the show is clearly setting up Neo backstabbing Cinder.

Maria’s flashback was amazing. I didn’t expect a new fight scene so soon after Neo vs Cinder but Maria hasn’t got time to waste on my opinions. She was such a badass in her youth. I loved her weapons (I still think they’re a reference to Darksiders 2, fight me) and as someone who’s wanted to see Gravity Dust in action for years, my expectations were more than met. Continuing the promise in the AMA of unique fights, we get Maria using Gravity Dust to whirl around the battlefield like a hurricane of sharp death, her weapons combining into a scythe was a cool moment. I loved how ferocious the fight felt, like there was barely any stopping for posing and everyone was moving. They even avoided using the Weapon Spinning Circles for much of the fight, which is always a nice touch. The ending was viscerally brutal too. I think it’s safe to say Maria vs Tock might break my top 10 favorite fights of the entire show, easily top 5 Maya era fights at least.

Tock continues the show’s trend of one-off villains having really cool first outings and making me wish they’d stop dying so quickly. Regardless, Tock was a great one-off villain. She got a fantastic fight, had cool weapons, a unique design, and she wasn’t a reference to Tracer you idiots go read Peter Pan. Anyway, Maria’s flashback was really cool and I loved every second of it.

Ruby got another great moment when after Maria destroyed herself and Qrow in the most vicious self-burn in recorded history, she tried to lift Maria’s spirits by asking her to teach Ruby to use the eyes. Ruby was said in 4 and 5 to be inspiring without much to back it up, and we see that now. Her bonds have grown closer with everyone on the team over the first half- even with Blake. Let me repeat, Ruby and Blake have interacted onscreen. I never thought this day would come.

I didn’t expect the show to reach Argus by the halfway mark, in all honesty. The city looks breathtaking, I love the San Francisco vibe to it and how the entire trip to Saphron’s house is in 3D environments, unlike the Mistral scenes in V5E1. I have to admit, I did miss JNR a little. Nora was in peak comedy this episode, Ren was... back to being the exposition guy, nothing much changed there but Jaune was pretty decent. Miles remains a criminally underrated voice actor, if he doesn’t go pro in the event he leaves RT, the VA community is worse off.

The handling of Saphron and Terra’s marriage was masterful, and I love the two of them already. V6′s new characters have been very consistently good I must say. I love how despite the first half of the episode being very dark and having someone lose their eyes onscreen, the back half is very cutesy. This time last volume we had the dinner scene, and the sandwich scene blows it out of the water. I love how everyone who talks to Oscar is far softer than they were to Ozpin, it’s good to see that the gang know the difference, and it’s good for the team to unwind before the next few storms hit their shores. Ruby and Qrow in particular were peak adorable.

I guess the baby was cute too but... look at them wiggling! :D :D

The Grimm Reaper was a great mid-season checkpoint. Getting another new fight was a surprise to be sure, but it being easy “standout fight of the year” material made it a welcome one. Argus looks like a fantastic location and I would kill for a spinoff here, it seems like such an interesting city.

8) Conclusion

Volume 6 had a lot of problems facing it on the onset- Volumes 4 and 5, 5 especially, had received lukewarm to poor reviews from the fans, and the pressure was on to prove that RWBY was a show worth watching. And judging by the first half of the Volume, Volume 6 is on its way to becoming the best volume in the entire damn show. We haven’t had a string of episodes this consistently good since Volume 3′s back half, and if Chapter 8 retains the quality, it’ll have exceeded that half numerically. Almost every major grievance I had with Volume 5- the protagonists being too passive, the excessive exposition, weak fights, the lackluster threat of the Grimm and Ruby’s placid lack of solid character growth- have all been addressed with gusto, as I hope I’ve explained above. At the very least, it does seem that the crew are meeting the three goals posted in the AMA with gusto. Add in some genuinely hilarious lines, spine-tingling horror and suspenseful action that rivals and at times exceeds what Monty was doing, and Volume 6 part 1 is this show’s redemption arc. While the second half could and likely will take a dip in quality, nothing short of a Battle of Haven level disaster can taint this volume, and I feel comfortable at this halfway mark saying we may be witnessing the new best volume of RWBY... if they gave Emerald and Mercury more screentime. But otherwise! New best volume.

I think it’s telling that while I roughly knew what to expect around this time last year for Volume 5, I have no idea where Volume 6′s back half could take us and that excites me. I’m being led along for the ride and loving every damn minute of it. Keep it up CRWBY, let’s make Volume 5 a distant memory in the rear-view mirror as the show and fans go onwards to greener pastures.

Or to put it in a more comedic way:

Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed the piece, please share it around, Tumblr’s current state means that I can never be sure what works and what doesn’t so outside sharing goes miles.

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undertheinfluencerd · 3 years

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Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

Marvel’s latest, Shang-Chi & the Legend of the Ten Rings, has dozens of MCU Easter eggs hidden throughout; here they are broken down. Created as the “Master of Kung Fu,” Shang-Chi is a somewhat unusual character in the Marvel Universe in that he traditionally doesn’t possess any superpowers at all. Rather, he’s simply a martial artist so skilled he can go toe-to-toe with gods and monsters. The MCU’s Shang-Chi is very different from the comics, where he’s not connected to the Mandarin at all, but rather to another crime lord, Fu Manchu, who Marvel don’t have the rights to – and probably wouldn’t use if they could, because he’s a problematic racist trope.

Marvel has toyed with introducing Shang-Chi to the big screen for over 20 years. He was one of the 10 properties Marvel originally planned to build the MCU upon, although he was dropped when the studio reacquired the film rights to Iron Man and headed in a very different direction. Still, for all that’s the case, there’s a sense in which Shang-Chi answers mysteries that have been there in the MCU from the beginning; it reveals the truth about the Ten Rings, a terrorist organization from the Iron Man films, and even features the real Mandarin after the fake version in Iron Man 3.

Related: Shang-Chi 2 News & Updates: Everything We Know

Like all MCU films, Shang-Chi is packed with Easter eggs and cameos. Some of them are easy to spot, others are a lot more subtle – here’s every Marvel Easter egg and notable pop culture reference in the movie.

Let’s start with one of the more amusing, tongue-in-cheek nods – in one scene Katy remembers her first meeting with Shang-Chi, when he expressed a vocal objection to being considered a Korean. This is a nod to Kim’s Convenience, where Simu Liu played a Korean character named Jung. Liu has suggested this was something of a challenge; as he observed on Twitter back in 2016, “everyone is Korean except for me, and I’m trying very hard to fit in.“

Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame were the two most spectacular events in the MCU; in the first film, the Mad Titan Thanos snapped his fingers and erased half the lives in the universe, and in the second, the Avengers brought everyone back. The five-year period between these two events has been dubbed “the Blip” in the MCU, and the Marvel Disney+ TV series have been exploring the chaos of the aftermath, with WandaVision focusing on the personal cost and The Falcon & the Winter Soldier on the geopolitical issues arising from the Blip. The Blip is referenced twice in Shang-Chi, once when Katy points out they live in a world where half the people on Earth can disappear. It’s referenced again more subtly on a poster outside her home. “Post-Blip anxiety? You are not alone,” the poster declares, suggesting there’s understandably still a lot of trauma in the world.

The Ten Rings have been an established part of the MCU from the beginning, as the terrorist cell that captured Tony Stark in Iron Man was one of them. They were fleshed out as the trilogy continued, appearing numerous times in tie-ins such as the Iron Man 3 Prelude comic book that revealed War Machine was dealing with a particularly nasty terrorist plot on the other side of the world when the Chitauri invaded New York in The Avengers in 2012, explaining why he didn’t help out. They were subverted in Iron Man 3, but Shang-Chi serves as something of a course-correction on that, playing them straight and liberally using the logo.

Related: Shang-Chi Cast & Character Guide: All New & Returning MCU Actors

The Ten Rings catch up with Shang-Chi on the bus, and their initial confrontation is observed by a familiar face. Played by Zach Cherry in Shang-Chi‘s cameo, the vlogger Klev first appeared in Spider-Man: Homecoming, when he asked Spider-Man to perform stunts as he filmed them, and he returns in Shang-Chi when a fight breaks out on his bus. “Yo, whaddup y’all, it’s your boy Klev, coming at you live on the bus,” he declares, before stating his intention to rate Shang-Chi’s martial arts as he apparently practiced when he was younger. It’s really something of a shame Klev doesn’t appear more, because he gets some great comedic lines in this welcome cameo.

In the comics, Razor Fist is a low-level thug who typically works for more prominent villains – including the likes of the Mandarin and the Hood. He’s gone head-to-head with a wide range of superheroes, such as Shang-Chi, Wolverine, and Deadpool, but – although he was initially treated as a dangerous threat – he’s increasingly been seen as light comic relief compared to more deadly foes. Shang-Chi‘s version is a little different, with only one of his hands replaced by a razor-stump, which is frankly a lot more practical; the comic book character has often been mocked with questions about just how he gets dressed when both his hands are blades. Amusingly, it’s soon clear the character still likes to call himself “Razor Fist,” with that name sprayed on his car.

Shang-Chi is heavily inspired by Jackie Chan and Chinese wuxia films, and it wears its love of these martial movies on its sleeve – literally. The opening bus fight between Shang-Chi and members of the Ten Rings features a tremendous moment in which the hero uses his jacket as a weapon, a move that will be familiar to any Jackie Chan fans. All in all, Shang-Chi boasts some of the best fight choreography in the entire MCU to date, appropriate for the character who – in the comics – is called the Master of Kung Fu.

Shang-Chi’s origin story has completely changed from the comics, but certain elements of it still link to his first appearance in Special Marvel Edition #15. There, he was brought up by the crime lord Fu Manchu as an assassin but believing his father to be a humanitarian who only killed evil people. He did indeed complete his first mission for his father – before being told the truth about Fu Manchu being evil, and going rogue. The similarities end there, though, because Shang-Chi’s first mission in the MCU was a lot more personal.

Related: Shang-Chi Ending Explained: 6 Biggest Questions, Answered

Shang-Chi seeks out his sister Xialing at the Golden Daggers Club in Macau, unaware it is a superhuman fight club or that Xialing owns it. In the comics, the Golden Daggers were a criminal organization led by Shang-Chi’s sister (named Leiko in the comics), who established them as a rival empire to her father’s. Shang-Chi originally thought they were working for Fu Manchu, but gradually learned he was caught between two rival criminal gangs.

Keep a close eye on the Golden Daggers fight club, because it includes a number of cool Easter eggs. One particularly interesting fight is between an Extremis-powered soldier from Iron Man 3 and a Black Widow, giving a sense of the superhuman scraps that take place there. The Black Widow is a character named Helen, played by stunt performer (and World Wushu Champion) Jade Xu, and it seems she has found her way to Macau after being freed from the Red Room’s control in Black Widow. The Extremis soldier is particularly curious, as they were all supposedly killed, so it’s possible someone has begun experimenting with Extremis again.

Of course, the star attraction of the Golden Daggers is the Abomination, a classic Hulk villain who’s changed substantially since The Incredible Hulk. Tim Roth’s Emil Blonsky was exposed to Gamma radiation in The Incredible Hulk, transforming him into a monster who rampaged through Harlem, but according to the Marvel One-Shot The Consultant he was viewed as a hero by the military, with the World Security Council even wanting him to get involved with the Avengers Initiative. SHIELD knew better, and manipulated events so as to ensure the Abomination was dropped from their potential Avengers roster, and (with the exception of one episode of Agents of SHIELD), he hasn’t been seen or referenced since – until now. The Abomination now sports a much more comic-book-accurate appearance, clearly having mutated significantly over the last decade. It’s difficult to say for certain, but when he is teleported away he appears to be going to the Raft, a prison for superhumans introduced in Captain America: Civil War. Blonsky will return in the She-Hulk Disney+ TV series.

The Abomination’s opponent in the Golden Daggers is Wong, one of the more prominent members of the Masters of the Mystic Arts. It’s unclear why Wong is at a fight club, but he appears to be a regular and has a friendly relationship with the Abomination. Wong is playing a major role in Phase 4, likely because he’s operating from Kamar-Taj, meaning he’s responsible for overseeing mystical events across the entire world – while Doctor Strange appears to have become the guardian of the Sanctum Sanctorum in New York, thus being geographically limited. Wong returns in a delightful cameo in Shang-Chi‘s mid-credits scene.

Related: Shang-Chi End-Credits Scenes Set Up 6 MCU Movies & Shows

It’s easy to miss, but the Madripoor flag is painted on the walls in Xialing’s fight club. In the comics, Madripoor is basically the Mos Eisley Cantina of the Marvel Universe, a notoriously corrupt and crime-ridden island nation. It made its MCU debut in The Falcon & the Winter Soldier when the titular heroes traveled to Madripoor and learned Sokovia Accord fugitive Sharon Carter had made her home there. Interestingly, Marvel set up a promotional Welcome to Madripoor website that did initially feature Ten Rings Easter eggs; they were swiftly removed.

In the comics, Li Ching-Lin was an MI6 agent who secretly worked for Shang-Chi’s father, Fu Manchu. A skilled and brutal warrior, he was anointed Death-Dealer by Fu Manchu and became one of his most prominent henchmen, clashing with Shang-Chi on countless occasions. The MCU has completely reinvented Death-Dealer, who is apparently a key member of the Ten Rings, responsible for training them. He was a harsh mentor to Shang-Chi but did not train his sister Xialing, as she was a girl and women were not allowed to be members of the Ten Rings.

A captured Shang-Chi and his friends are taken to Wenwu’s fortress in China’s mountainous Hunan province. This is based on Fu Manchu’s home in Special Marvel Edition #15, which was indeed situated in Hunan, and it has returned in recent Shang-Chi comics. Recent Marvel comics have rewritten Shang-Chi’s history, naming this as the House of the Deadly Hand, but these retcons were carried out while the film was in production so are unlikely to be important at this stage.

Shang-Chi introduces viewers to Wenwu, the true leader of the Ten Rings, whose identity was appropriated by actor Trevor Slattery in Iron Man 3 when he dreamed up the character of the Mandarin. Slattery’s Mandarin was a composite of a hundred legends, but Wenwu is the real deal, a complex figure who has been tortured by grief over the loss of his wife years ago. The film spends a surprising amount of time explaining the Mandarin twist, with Wenwu even discussing it at length, mocking the citizens of the United States for being so terrified of “the Mandarin” – amused so many people were afraid of him.

Related: Shang-Chi Confirms The MCU Timeline Is Completely Broken Post-Endgame

According to Wenwu, he has been known by many names over the millennia; the Warrior King, Master Khan, and the Most Dangerous Man on Earth. The second of these titles is the most important, because in the comics “Master Khan” is indeed an alias of the Mandarin. In the comics, it denoted a connection between the Mandarin and Genghis Khan, but in the MCU the timeline may instead hint Genghis Khan was himself Wenwu.

Down-on-his-luck actor Trevor Slattery returns from Iron Man 3, once again played by Ben Kingsley. As seen in the Marvel One-Shot All Hail the King, Slattery was broken out of prison by the Ten Rings, with Wenwu intending to kill him for the audacity of appropriating his identity in this way. Slattery apparently forestalled the execution by launching into a terrified performance of Macbeth, and was thus spared death, instead becoming Wenwu’s jester. Trevor plays a surprisingly important role in Shang-Chi, helping the heroes get to the mystical realm of Ta Lo before Wenwu, and he even survives the battle with the Dweller-In-Darkness in hilarious fashion.

Ta Lo exists in the comics, where it is a small pocket dimension numbered among the so-called “God Realms.” This is a seriously deep cut into Marvel lore, with Ta Lo only appearing in a single issue – Thor #301 – and actually explored more in Marvel handbooks than in the comics themselves. According to these handbooks, there are five interdimensional nexuses that lead to Ta Lo, each found at the foot of a sacred mountain. It is home to the Xian, a race akin to the Asgardians who have inspired China’s Taoist gods; Shang-Chi wisely ditches this idea, aware it would be culturally insensitive.

As noted by Mateo, Wenwu claims the gate to Ta Lo opens only on Qingming Jie, allowing viewers to precisely date Shang-Chi in the MCU timeline. Because this happens after Avengers: Endgame, Shang-Chi must be in 2024, and this Chinese festival day will happen on April 4 that year. The events probably take place from approx. March 29 through to April 5, which means the timeline for MCU content post-Endgame currently looks something like this:

Loki

Marvel’s What If…?

WandaVision

Shang-Chi & the Legend of the Ten Rings

The Falcon & the Winter Soldier

Spider-Man: Far From Home

Shang-Chi features a wealth of mythical Chinese creatures, including:

The unicorn-like qílín, the horned creature with the body of a deer and the tail of an ox, which lives in places of peace and serenity and only appears in the real world to presage the emergence of a great, benevolent ruler. Ta Lo is presumably supposed to be the origin of the qílín.

There’s also a glimpse of the fènghuáng, an immortal bird sometimes incorrectly called the Chinese Phoenix, another auspicious creature. Interestingly, both the qílín and the fènghuáng are symbols of balance, incorporating both the male and female elements; balance is very much the theme of Shang-Chi, so the presence of these two mythological animals is very appropriate indeed. Both the qílín and the fènghuáng are associated with Ta Lo in the comics.

The beautiful húlijīng, a mythical nine-tailed fox that has absorbed the natural energy of the world over many years.

There are also shíshī, the Chinese guardian lions, sometimes called foo dogs, who assist the residents of Ta Lo in their battle against the Ten Rings.

The longma is a legendary winged horse with dragon scales, another creature whose presence is symbolic of the rise of a sage ruler.

The most prominent creature in Shang-Chi is Trevor Slattery’s Maurice, a dìjiāng – often seen to represent cosmic confusion. It makes sense a dijiang would associate itself with Trevor.

Related: Every Marvel Cinematic Universe Movie, Ranked Worst To Best (Including Shang-Chi)

Dragons do exist in Marvel Comics, the most famous being the alien Makluan dragon creature Fin Fang Foom; however, the Great Protector seen in Shang-Chi is nothing like a Makluan. Rather, the creature is based on Chinese mythology, where dragons – or lóng – serve as protectors rather than destroyers, and the dragon has become a symbol of status and power. Shang-Chi is likely set in the year 2024, which seems amusingly appropriate, given that is the Year of the Dragon in the Chinese Zodiac.

The Dweller-in-Darkness is lifted from the comics, although he’s been adapted quite significantly. In the comics, he is one of the universe’s Fear Lords, beings who gain sustenance from the fear of creatures on other planes, and he considers the more famous comic book Fear Lord, Nightmare, to be his cousin. Dweller-in-Darkness was a terrible threat to the Earth millennia ago, in the days of ancient Atlantis, and derived great pleasure from the conflict between the Eternals and the Deviants that led to the sinking of that continent. He grew too powerful, however, and caught the attention of the Atlantean sorceress Zhered-Na, who cast the Dweller-In-Darkness into an eternal slumber from which he only awoke in the modern era – only to find himself contested now by Doctor Strange. The MCU’s Dweller-in-Darkness has been changed a lot, and is now some sort of demon, blended with the Chinese myths of the Wangliang, a malevolent spirit in Chinese folklore. The Soul Eaters serving the Dweller-in-Darkness in Shang-Chi do exist in the comics, but they too have been heavily modified. In the comics, a Soul-Eater attaches itself to a victim and preys upon them for a lengthy period of time, consuming their soul little by little. The process of soul extraction is vastly accelerated in Shang-Chi.

Shang-Chi‘s post-credits scene reveals the superhero holo-conferences conducted by Black Widow during the Blip (as seen in Avengers: Endgame) are still ongoing. This is the first time there’s been a hint Earth’s protectors are still organized in Phase 4, and it’s likely Wong only called in the people he wanted involved in discussions about Shang-Chi’s Ten Rings; Captain Marvel, with her knowledge of alien worlds and civilizations, and the scientific mind of Bruce Banner. Neither has ever seen anything like this before, with Banner confirming they’re not Vibranium.

Something has clearly happened to Bruce Banner between Avengers: Endgame and the events of Shang-Chi; the last time he was seen, the Banner and Hulk personas had combined into “Professor Hulk,” and he was stuck in that form permanently, but now he’s back as a human being. This will probably either be explained by the upcoming She-Hulk Disney+ TV series, or else it will be setup for it, explaining why Banner’s blood is used in a transfusion for his cousin Jennifer Walters. His right arm is still in a sling, meaning the injury he sustained when he used the Infinity Gauntlet hasn’t been healed. It seems Marvel are honoring the Russo brothers’ wishes for the Hulk to have a permanent injury; “It’s permanent damage,” Joe Russo explained in one interview. “The same way it was permanent damage with Thanos. It’s irreversible damage.“

Related: Every Upcoming Marvel Movie Release Date (2021 To 2023)

Wong references Kamar-Taj during the holo-conference, revealing the Masters of the Mystic Arts were able to detect whatever “signal” was emitted from the Ten Rings at the moment control of them passed over to Shang-Chi. This is pretty impressive, given Ta Lo was described as being in an entirely different universe, meaning the energy surge generated by them must have traveled through the entire Multiverse.

The MCU has always loved to incorporate classic music into its films, and the Eagles’ “Hotel California” crops up throughout Shang-Chi. The theme of the song works perfectly for the movie, as Shang-Chi has attempted to “check out” of the family drama, but he can never leave. The mid-credits scene of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings puts a more positive spin on this, though, because now Shang-Chi has checked in to the world of superheroes, and his life will never be the same again.

More: Where Was Doctor Strange During Shang-Chi?

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bizmiss1-blog · 6 years

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Handling Negative Feedback

Ah, feedback. Feedback is when someone criticizes your work and can be either be positive or negative. To be honest, most times that someone will give you feedback, it will be negative. No one actually enjoys feedback, so why do we give it? Is it to tear you down for your hard work? No, although it might feel like it. We get feedback to give us the opportunity to grow into better employees. Although it may not seem like it, feedback is constructive and meant to help you produce better work. Yes, different people deliver feedback in different ways. For example, my mom does not give feedback in a loving way. Her tone can sometimes come off harsh and uncaring, which is the complete opposite of my dad. They could both be saying the same feedback to me, but they would come across very differently depending on who was speaking. It’s definitely important to realize that at its core, feedback is just a way to deliver information. Some people have different ways of speaking, so focus on the tangible feedback rather than their tone of voice.

My internship is very big on feedback. However, my boss made it a point to talk with me before I started any project. She told me that any criticism or feedback that I received is meant in the best way possible. This job is just a job and feedback should not be personal. Her words have stuck with me. It has always been difficult for me to separate my feelings from my work. If someone does not like the work that I do, I worry too much rather than focusing on doing better the next time. However, her words made me stop and realize that by overanalyzing I was harming my potential. I’ve put together a list of the top ways that I’ve started looking at feedback. These tips have helped me calm myself down and take the feedback as solely something to help me get better. Here ya go:

1. Ask questions about your feedback if you are confused I’m not sure why this one bugs me so much. One of the other interns at the place that I work never asks any questions but will always complain that he has no idea what to do! The answer is simple, buddy. Just ask. It is the 3rd day of his project and he still does not know what he is supposed to be doing. Your boss has no idea that you are confused until YOU let them know. Just like in a relationship, you cannot expect your boss to be able to read your mind and know what you are thinking. I know that it can seem daunting and make it seem like you are confused, but, well, you ARE so you might as well own up to it and get some help. To you, it might seem as though you are unable to perform well, but to your boss it can be a relief. It shows them that not only did you want to make sure you were on the right track, but that you cared enough to double check. Why waste valuable time by being confused? You are still going to be just as confused in the next half hour when you could have clarified and moved on right away.

2. Take your feedback with a smile The worst kind of person is one that gets offended from constructive criticism. Even if you think you are hiding your emotions well, chances are that you aren’t. By making sure to breathe and smile, you are less likely to show your negative emotions on your face. Although it is not the best feeling to get criticized, take it maturely. By showing your boss that you are able to put your own feelings aside to better your work, it will make a difference. Smiling makes you look friendly and encouraging. Trust me, it can be hard for your boss to give you feedback too. Smiling not only gives the message that you have received their feedback constructively, but it shows that you are not upset with them. Bosses sometimes worry if they have been too harsh on you; it’s not just a one-way street. By smiling, it lets them know that their criticism has not harmed your relationship. In fact, when I smile and show my appreciation for their feedback, I feel as though my boss is more relieved and grateful for my positive attitude. The absolute LAST thing that you want to do is talk back to your boss. You thought talking back to your mom was bad? You haven’t seen anything yet. Talking back to your boss, even if you mean to defend yourself, is incredibly unprofessional and rude. They hold power over you, even if they seem like they are just your friend. They are your boss first and friend second, never forget that. It’s alright to let loose a bit with your boss and not be so formal, but ALWAYS remain professional.

3. Think differently than you did the first time that you attempted the project You might be reading this and thinking, ‘well, duh’. But I don’t think that this point is as obvious as we like to think that it is. As soon as you finish anything and don’t do as well as you thought you would, be honest, when you try it again don’t you start by doing what you had done before? For example, the first couple weeks at my internship, if my boss didn’t like some of the mock ups that I had made, I would start over with the same baseline idea. My designs would be tweaked a bit, but not by much. Honestly, now that I think about it, that doesn’t make much sense. Why would you do something similar and expect different results? When you receive negative feedback, take some time to reflect on what the core component of the feedback is. Once you figure out the main reason for the feedback, sit back and brainstorm. If you try and fix it right away, you will not have put enough time and reflection before your second attempt. One of my coworkers at my job is notorious for this. She will create a blog post and when my boss gives her feedback that it’s not what he wanted, she will resubmit something to him not even a half hour later. Doing this tells your boss that you did not take their feedback to heart and just wanted this project to be done. Take their feedback into consideration and create a new plan. By new, I mean a COMPLETELY new plan that goes a different direction than what you had originally submitted. Don’t get too attached to your ideas.

4. If you need to, take your frustrations out elsewhere This one is pretty self-explanatory, but my favorite way to take out my frustrations is going for a run. First of all, I don’t even like running so it’s pretty obvious when I’m frustrated. There’s just something so soothing about your feet rhythmically hitting the pavement. The little town that I live in is great because I am able to run downtown or in nature, whatever my heart desires. Whenever I am frustrated I prefer to run in nature because of how soothing it is to be completely and utterly alone. However, there are many other ways to let out your frustrations. For example, my friend loves to lay in her bed and listen to music. She can do this for hours before getting bored. Another popular example is cleaning. I wish that this was what soothed me, my house needs a good scrub down. Whatever activity that helps get your mind off of work and gives you the ability to relax is perfect. Our brains are constantly running while we’re at work, never really allowing us down time. The human body needs time to decompress, especially when we are tense and frustrated from the day. Take time for yourself and let your body destress in whatever way feels the most natural for you. There is no ‘right way’ to destress yourself. Listen to what your mind and body want and do what is best for YOU.

Like most people, I’m not a big fan of feedback. It makes me feel like I did something wrong and that I messed up. However, I’m beginning to look at feedback as a chance to grow and get better, which has changed my outlook on life. There is so much more to this life than getting hung up on feedback from one person. Acknowledge and try your best to do better the next time but remember that it is not that big of a deal. Surround yourself with positive energy and your body and mind will thank you.

Alright ladies and gents, thank you so much for keeping up with my blog. I’ve loved expressing myself in this way. I hope that you could take something out of this. And with that, let’s get down to BizMiss…

#mkt400uwl

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celticnoise · 5 years

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Celtic’s last minute winner might have slapped some whitewash on what was an otherwise dreadful and unconvincing performance, but it has had the predictable effects on some of the people who you’d expect to be fuming after such a late display.

Two of the most notorious can be found at BBC Scotland, and they were at their whinging worst on Sunday following the match. I refer, of course, to Chick Young and to Tom English, both of whom found separate reasons to complain, neither of which matched their obvious hurt.

First off was English himself, with a Twitter rant about Lennon’s celebrations at full time. He tried, in vain, to make a case that it was not dissimilar to the kind of touchline jubilation we have mocked from the Ibrox club at certain points this season and last.

Of course, this is purely idiotic. For openers, Lennon and his backroom team celebrated on their own; there was no impromptu pitch invasion from our supporters to greet the goal, and it was that as much as anything which Celtic fans wanted to highlight about the NewCo scenes.

With everything going on at the present time, you’d have thought encroachment onto the playing field was something the media would take seriously, instead of ignoring its implications and instead trying to use it as a smokescreen.

For another thing, this was a victory that virtually wrapped up the SPL title by giving Celtic a solid 10-point lead going into the game at Parkhead next weekend. We sniggered at the Ibrox lot for getting overexcited at results which in the grand scheme of things mean the sum total of nil. Yes, they may have kept a flicker of hope burning but that hope only existed in their febrile imaginations anyway. Three points is not an achievement. Eight in a row is.

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Finally, as English knows full well, as he is completely aware, Lennon was celebrating the chance at keeping the Celtic job full time. That goal is one in the win column, and he needs to put almost every point in that column if he’s going to convince a lot of the fans never mind the Celtic board.

I may not believe he should get it, but I wholly understand his reasons for dancing on the touchline in such delirium. His passion for our club is readily apparent, and in the eyes of many people he took a step closer to being confirmed as the next manager.

I’m awfully sorry the sight of someone who might be on the brink of a major leap forward in his career so offends Tom English, who’s own career has plateaued and who, as a consequence, is forced to cover a sport he doesn’t even like, and who’s comments demonstrate over and over again is one that he really doesn’t understand terribly well either.

Which brings me to Chick Young, and his ranting and raving and foaming at the mouth over the six minutes of injury time the officials added, in which we won the game.

Now, really, I don’t know what Chick’s particular problem with that was.

Isn’t he a St Mirren fan?

Cause that goal did his team one almighty big favour. You’d have thought he’d have been grateful for it, with just one point separating his team from Dundee. If his club wins their game in hand they are out of the automatic relegation spot.

A little more love was expected, Chick, it really was.

Instead what we got was the bitter ranting of a man who had seen defeat snatched from the jaws of a modest victory.

Since only one other club – aside from St Mirren, who he clearly wasn’t terribly concerned with – was impacted here, you have to wonder if his anguish wasn’t for the Ibrox side … which is kind of silly, isn’t it, as we all know that Chick doesn’t have any affection for them, right?

Honestly, you don’t have to be a genius to figure out what really galls these people. The number of folk who bought into the Going For 55 hype; whatever planet they were living on, it just ran out of oxygen and the realisation of that is clearly hurting.

You know what makes this all the more bizarre?

We weren’t the ones standing outside in the pouring rain this weekend complaining about “biased coverage.”

We don’t get any love from Auntie either it seems to me.

It’s a tough old world, isn’t it?

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theky2aqw-blog · 5 years

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Dies Irae - Me vs AnimeFeminist

Hey Sorry for the wait. I was watching Dies Irae and thought should I need to go for the funniest thing to exist by searching a triggered feminazi/sjw talking an article about Dies Irae.

But Before that

wow I am quite getting good with this huh?

Dies Irae is an anime adaptation of the Visual Novel with the same name. It contains themes of Nazis, Magic, Immortals, Witches, and Harem because why not.

We will be focusing on Episode 00, the Episode designed for VN viewers to relate with the anime, which highly focuses on the Theresia(Rea) route without the Hentai parts and combines some moments for Marie, Kasumi, and Kei routes. Sadly it removes the interesting bits of Rusalka and her slight romantic and really well defined sexual interest for him in the Theresia(Rea) route.

So what is episode 0 all about?

Episode 0 is actually talking the times of the start of 1939 Germany where the Villain Reinhard Heydrich has a secret meeting with the Obsidian Round Table. Of course the interesting bits of how the Nazi officers were debating and talking back and forth on things they are interested in talking about. And it also slowly ends with the current day Japan where episode 1 will begin.

So what is with AnimeFeminist I mean FemiNazi,

well they are fully triggered over everything especially the depiction of Nazis in Anime, so why not dissect it and the funny claims in their article. so yeah I loved mocking this article to death. Time for us to go with the debunking part. (Yay another reason for me to kill my sanity once more):

1. “ Under normal circumstances, it would be hard to choose the worst part of Dies Irae. The show is a Kickstarted adaption of a 2007 visual novel that’s notorious for originally being released unfinished, among other… qualities. This episode technically wasn’t the start of the story, but a prologue “Episode 0,” serving to set up the villains before the main story begins. ”

- Unfinished? Prologue? What?

- It was unfinished in its early days and that is thanks to both Sony and Nintendo not really giving them the liberty to do so and that the project was already at its deadline making delays and unfinished content.

- It did finish it all after the release of the first part of the series by extensions and additional content packs for play station gamers to play it and also the PC ports was Japan exclusive so it took many years untiil reached the West. Also its not a prologue just a part of the VN itself.

2. “ this episode was about Nazis. Not “serial numbers filed off,” Marvel’s Hydra-style pseudo-Nazis, but actual, factual Nazis. Sure, the swastika on their armbands is replaced with a vague, meaningless fantasy symbol, but that doesn’t do much to cancel out that this episode focuses on real historical figure Reinhard Heydrich. Yes, that blue-eyed, blond-haired bishounen that background characters call an “example of the master race” (shudder) ”

-At least you made some clarifications in your 2017 article, but still funny how you get easily triggered by this

-Yeah it focuses on the old medieval man named Karl Kraft(before becoming Heydrich) in his time in Germany as one of the generals for Hitler, and the fact that nobody cares if they are nazis or what.

- and Master race? yeah you get afraid when it is said because it clearly talks about people like you who act like actual facists without realizing it.

3. “In the year 2017, with fascism rising at alarming rates worldwide, someone decided it would be cool to make an anime with a bishie-fied fantasy version of the man who systematically murdered tens of millions of people. Heydrich is one of history’s greatest monsters and his atrocities are still in living memory and they made an anime focusing on him and making him look cool. I don’t give a fuck if he’s a bad guy. It’s frankly irresponsible these days depicting Nazis as anything but repugnant.

I’m actually shaking a little as I type this.”

-I am going to laugh, well I did, laugh so badly when I read this part. You are so triggered that you have to type it on the keyboard.

-And who caused Fascism rise anyways, well its puritans like you who did it in the first place. Obviously when you act like your opponent in every manner, you will end up being the enemy outside of your delusion.

-Irresponsible? When how and where? Tell me the details, I love to hear what is it all about. They did not make him look cool, its just Heydrich being Heydrich.

- also why is it repugnant to talk or make something about the nazis when you yourself act like the very nazi you hate. Hello not everyone thinks nazis are completely evil.

4. “ Dies Irae could have the most gorgeous animation (it doesn’t), witty writing (it doesn’t), and likable supporting cast (it doesn’t) full of empowered women (they aren’t), and it wouldn’t matter because they’re fucking nazis. ”

- Your sarcasm ends here huh? ok just because they are Nazis, you really get super triggered that you made an article about it. Hahahahaha even I can make something more sarcastic things without the need to put open close tenses just to say they aren’t. duh.

5. The animation is thoroughly blah. The character designs are bland and the movement is jerky and limited, even in the action scenes. It doesn’t help that most of the episode takes place at night, so everything is muddy.

- Muddy or Moody? also I do have to slightly agree with you that the animation is not really the best but at the same time it does the job it wants to propose.

6. “I have only the vaguest sense of what happened. There was a lot of jumping from one weirdo to another without any sense of transition. The episode concluded with Heydrich making a long speech about how bored he was with everything, with incoherent writing that could only come from a visual novel. The flow of the episode seemed mostly about quickly introducing a big group of characters designed to make the VN fans point and say, “Hey, I know that guy!””

-well the episode just follows what the VN did, so what else does it says.

Now comes the funny part. Brace your seats before you lose your sides from the very words the writer has to say about it.

7. “ One of the Nazis goes on a violent rant about how an androgynous character is “disgusting” for not clearly presenting as a man or a woman, which is going to be flat-out triggering for some viewers. ”

-Ku- Kuhahahahahahaha......I lost myself laughing at this. Why would anyone be triggered because androgynous characters are disgusting except when you are offended this badly. Some Viewers? Maybe just you and your fellow mental patients. Hahahahaha

8. “The female characters might, under different circumstances, be interesting… too bad they’re fucking Nazis.”

- Here we go with the Nazis and shit thing again. This is the funniest thing I had read for my entire life coming from you. Kuhahahahaha! At least you admit Rusalka and the other females were interesting. But Noooooo, because Nazis.

9. “ There’s nothing good about Dies Irae. I can’t even recommend it in good conscience for a hatewatch because of the shocking insensitivity toward historical figures and events. Throw Dies Irae in the dumpster and find a better trashy action-spectacle series to watch this season. ”

- Thanks for throwing good trash to us. Because you are only a pansy who can’t understand others

ok now for the comment that I laughed the most

10. “ Are the Japanese just flat out ignorant as a culture about Nazi's? Considering their country was allied with them during the war and had their own issues with how they treated fellow east countries I really can't understand why anyone let along a publishing company would think a series about damn Nazi's is a good idea. The only reason I can fanthom any admiration a Japanese person could have for them is their own issues with what's a "true scotsman" or maintaining the myth that theyre a ethnically monolitic country. (including but not limited to Unit 731 where they straight up tortured POW's and civilians in some of the most disgusting ways imaginable). ”

-first probably since almost every nation outside the west talks about Nazism that much. So generally every Asian has little to no Knowledge about the Nazis and also they are not insensitive it is just that you westerners are too sensitive about that topic. well if we do not include the Koreans and Chinese who hated Japan the most.

-Yeah because Nazis are interesting to look at and think about you american thot.

well looks like I might end up making myself pissed off on how much they do not understand the world they live in and the fact that they go full on racists when the topic is about Nazis and nations that has some positive outlook on them.

Well I will let you all watch the anime, its fun to watch and sometimes boring. But hey at least we get to know some interesting things that they will never know.

#dies irae #anime #review #anime review #feminazis #feminists #anime feminist #Visual Novel #debunking #dies irae anime #nazi #fascism

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titoslondon-blog · 7 years

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New Post has been published on Titos London

#Blog New Post has been published on http://www.titoslondon.co.uk/anya-hindmarch-moves-into-the-home-category-with-her-first-fragrance/

Anya Hindmarch moves into the home category with her first fragrance

1/3 Anya Hindmarch

Image: Sandra Waibl

Anya Hindmarch and Francesco Giannaccari

Image: Sandra Waibl

Anya Hindmarch's home line

Image: Sandra Waibl

Anya Hindmarch has spent 30 years injecting irreverence into the handbag category, bypassing muted tones and subtle shapes in favour of electric blue Tony the Tiger totes—part of a Kellogg’s collaboration—and crisp packet-shaped clutches, one of which went flying in the notorious Solange and Jay-Z elevator altercation. (Shortly afterwards, Hindmarch posted a mocked-up advert on her eponymous label’s social media channels: “The crisp packet clutch: worth fighting for,” read the tagline.) Her bags exhibit the same wry humour that imbues her latest offering: three scented candles created in collaboration with perfumer Lyn Harris titled, “Anya Hindmarch Smells!”

“I came up with the name myself,” says Hindmarch, sitting at a table in her Battersea office, flanked by newly minted chief executive Francesco Giannaccari, who joined the company from Etro in March. The candles are on display beside her. Cartoon-like faces emblazon their boxes, and their casings are embellished with pairs of shifty, googly eyes. “And now every screen that I pass is people working on the graphics ‘Anya Smells!’”

Inspired by the scents of coffee, sun lotion and baby powder, the candles are Hindmarch’s first foray into the lifestyle accessories sector, and signal a shift in her brand’s wider strategy. “It’s very much the beginning,” she says. “We have lots of really quite odd ideas that will come out.” Both she and Giannaccari remain tight-lipped as to the specifics, but they have been at least partly enabled by Qatari investment firm Mayhoola. The firm has owned a chunk of the company since 2012, and recently pumped in an additional £10 million to thrust its expansion into other countries, categories and projects like this one.

Born in Essex, Hindmarch launched her business when she was just 19, selling idiosyncratic bags replete with her tiny trademark bow to Princess Diana and Elle MacPherson out of her Walton Street store. Although three decades have now passed, during which she has opened shops all over the world and was awarded an MBE, Hindmarch is no less entrepreneurial, and seems to delight in rolling out quirky innovations. In 2001, she launched Be a Bag, enabling customers to print pictures on her products. Then there was the ubiquitous £5 ‘I’m not a Plastic Bag’ canvas shopper, and, more recently, the introduction of the Bespoke service, which sees craftsmen embossing personalised inscriptions onto products, often in the customer’s handwriting.

In 2011, Hindmarch demoted herself (“thank God,” she says), hiring a CEO so she could shift her focus back to the creative aspects of the business. Whilst edging into the lifestyle sector is a smart way to engage with emerging markets, and millennial customers with less cash, Hindmarch is swift to point out she is an intuitive designer first: “I always do things more organically, and do what I love, as opposed to what is a business opportunity.” The first factor catalyses the second, she says, citing the success of her enormously popular sticker range as an example. An array of emoji-like symbols and gaudily-coloured initials, the stickers retail from £35, and generated £12 million in their first year of sales. “That was something I just felt was really fun. And actually it turns out that retrospectively they are the lipstick to the brand.”

The expansion of Anya Hindmarch is shadowed by a slumping pound, and the hazy implications of Brexit. Previously a donor to the Conservative’s, and 2008 chair of the party’s Black and White ball, publically, Hindmarch is certainly not an apolitical figure. How does she think the prevailing political uncertainty will impact her business? A self-defined Thatcherite, her answer is fittingly pragmatic. “There’s some good and some bad. I would say that the good is that people are flooding into London. The pound is cheaper,” she says. “Everyone is feeling a bit uncertain. It’s not what I wanted. But I have to say I am sort of thinking there will be some positive things to it. And either way, it’s going to happen, so let’s make the best of it.”

“The world is so big,” adds Giannaccari, just back from a trip to China. “I don’t think we will be impacted by Brexit, per se. We are looking East. We are looking at China.”

Rather than leaving the EU, it’s the internet that the duo see to be simultaneously the biggest obstacle and opportunity for their industry. They are determined to capitalise on the sweeping changes it has induced. “I actually think fashion is being unbelievably old-fashioned right now,” says Hindmarch. “Think about how Apple reinvented the music business. I actually think we have got to think really differently.”

“Agility is very important now,” continues Giannaccari. “The pace is so quick that you really need to be more proactive than reactive.” Take, for example, the recent ramping up of their footwear and ready-to-wear offering. A few years ago, Hindmarch sent models down the catwalk in skeleton suits. For her last show, they wore kitsch, ’70s-style pastel coats, whilst her website sells a selection of sneakers, extravagantly furry slides, and clothes, including zany roll-necks and sweaters stitched with whimsical cloud motifs. Consequently, there have been mutterings that the label is looking to fan out fully into fashion.

This does not chime with their strategy, though, which is based on something of a paradox. To expand, Anya Hindmarch needs to stay small and lithe, so it can nimbly navigate a new order, where brands take on a less didactic role, focusing instead on immediacy, the internet and communicating with their customers. “It doesn’t need to be ready-to-wear. It can be three coats,” says Hindmarch. “Why not? Give customers what they want.”

Their vision, then, is bold. Alongside selling the traditional leather accessories, they are dabbling with small batches of novel products—sneakers, clothes, stickers, candles-which can morph from one-off experiments to longer-term projects. “We feel going forward, digital is going to be more important than bricks-and-mortar,” assesses Giannaccari. “Combined with the fact that the digital world allows you to speak to the customer, it’s quite a revolution.”

This a fluid, explicitly modern way of working, undoubtedly abetted by the balance the brand has struck between the strength of its niche, upbeat identity, and its size. It can take risks, fast, because it’s lean enough to skirt the sluggish chains of bureaucracy that might stifle larger brands. Three decades of working, and Hindmarch is very much astride the wave of the zeitgeist. “I am about fun and invention and discovery and playfulness. And I think in some ways this less traditional route gives you more agility. You can surprise and delight your customer, and do something a bit off the wall. You’re not tied into these huge structures. Which is kind of cool, actually.”

The post Anya Hindmarch moves into the home category with her first fragrance appeared first on VOGUE India.

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trendingnewsb · 7 years

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The 6 Most WTF Hollywood Depictions Of Donald Trump

Before he became the inciting incident in the post-apocalyptic thriller that is our age, Donald Trump spent most of his life cultivating the image of a disgustingly wealthy businessman and cameo-worthy celebrity. He was the rich bully of his time, inspiring many movies and TV shows to feature barely fictionalized versions of him as villainous characters meant to symbolize the greed and cynicism of 1980s capitalism. Interestingly, none of the following examples ever went so far as to imagine a future in which this character would become president.

A Trumpian New York City Developer Starts A Hate Campaign Against The Ninja Turtles

It was only a matter of time before the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles squared off against the most quintessential of all New York City foes: rising property values.

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In the fourth season of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles show, the Turtles are beleaguered by real estate magnate and rotund blowhard Fenton Q. Hackenbrush, who runs the not so subtly named Donald J. Lofty Enterprises. Hackenbrush wants to demolish the sewers completely and turn them into Donald J. Lofty luxury condos. For that, he needs the Turtles to disappear. (If Hackenbrush is anything like the real Trump, he probably thinks the Turtles are the wrong color to live in one of his buildings.)

In an interview with April O’Neil, Hackenbrush sells his greedy plans to the public on the basis that his sewer reconstruction will “flush out the worst menace in the city: the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.” Of course, the people of New York don’t have any problems with the Turtles, so Hackenbrush forces a group of employees to dress up in those bad Turtle Halloween costumes we all used to wear and go commit crimes.

Then an evil turtle named Slash arrives in the city, and Hackenbrush immediately mocks him as “some kind of foreigner,” but then bribes him into sowing mayhem, fanning the flames of turtle racism.

Hackenbrush is eventually exposed by some ace reporting by O’Neil (New York Times, pay attention). As punishment, he is loudly fired by the actual owner of the company, Mr. Lofty — who looks surprisingly a lot like Fred Trump, Donald’s father. We’re not saying TMNT intentionally created a world in which Fred Trump would repeatedly yell “You’re fired” at his heir, but that’s immediately the best Trump origin story we’ve ever heard.

The Devil’s Advocate Features A Rich Murderer Who Owns Trump Tower

In The Devil’s Advocate, Al Pacino is the titular Devil (not a spoiler; you don’t cast Pacino in a movie about Satan and make him the lovable dad), who has set up a law firm in New York in order to subvert justice and release evil into society. And who is Satan’s favorite client? The guy who lives atop Trump Tower.

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Though it is slightly inaccurate, since he never claims to have the best murders ever, just fantastic.

Alexander Cullen, played by a suitably balding Craig T. Nelson, is a Trump-esque real estate mogul accused of murdering his wife, stepson, and maid — dire straits for a guy based on someone who once bragged he could shoot a person in the middle of the street and get away with it. His arrest immediately prompts Pacino’s law firm of Fire, Brimstone & Ham to send their new ace attorney, Kevin Lomax (Keanu Reeves wearing his dad’s suit), to defend Cullen. Why? Because, oddly, he’s Lucifer’s best client, having racked up “16,242” billable hours in one year. That’s a lot of shady business.

Warner Bros. Pictures 1.85 years of shady business, to be exact.

But being a hated New York business tycoon and employing a massive team of evil lawyers doesn’t necessarily mean Cullen is a Trump clone, right? Luckily, for the sake of subtlety, when we finally arrive at Cullen’s home, we see that it’s literally Trump’s apartment in Trump Tower. The filmmakers managed to rent it out, preserving its natural appearance as Liberace’s mind palace.

Warner Bros. Pictures

Warner Bros. Pictures “Try not to touch anything — you’ll get metal poisoning.”

In the end, Cullen is found not guilty, despite Lomax knowing that he murdered those people, thereby finally giving in to his true nature as the son of Satan. That’s right, the Devil’s son loses his innocence by defending Trump. Burn.

A Sci-Fi TV Show Villain Morphs Into Donald Trump … Played By Donald Trump

Night Man was a late ’90s low-budget TV show based on the Malibu Comics series about a San Franciscan saxophone player who can sense evil and wears a laser eye. Despite that, it somehow managed to run for two seasons, possibly because of its reliance on magnificently bizarre cameos — none of which were more utterly mystifying than Donald J. Trump in technically the only real acting credit to his name.

In this episode, Night Man is chasing a face-changing villain called Face to Face, who decides to engage in some quick identity theft to make a large withdrawal from the bank. Who better to transform into than the self-proclaimed richest man in the universe, Donald Trump? (No really, please suggest someone better.) In one of the most perfect sequences in the history of the medium, Face to Face slowly morphs into The Donald, dazzling audiences with peak mid ’90s CGI while simultaneously reinforcing the idea that Trumps looks like a melting Claire Danes.

Donald Trump — remember, this is the real Donald Trump playing a man who has shapeshifted into Donald Trump — walks into a delightfully green-screened bank, and then sits down with the bank manager to illegally withdraw $10,000. Sadly, the nuanced layers of a real man pretending to be a fake man pretending to be him do not translate to Trump’s performance:

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Could they not find a real bank that would allow Trump to walk in?

Weirdly, in his utter boredom and bad acting, something spectacular happens: Trump seems … nice. He’s subdued, polite, even charming. It seems that all you need to do to make Trump likable is carefully control what he says and make sure he’s not physically in the same room with any human beings.

A Disney Show Paired Donald Trump With A Dead Pirate

Before Disney found a way to become rich off Johnny Depp wearing a lot of eyeliner, it first got its pirate feet wet with The 100 Lives Of Black Jack Savage, a lighthearted romp wherein the undead spirit of a mass murderer teams up with a fictional Donald Trump analogue to save both of their souls from burning forever in hell.

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Luckily, Disney would never reuse “Jack Savage,” or his ship the Black Bird, or anything like it ever again.

When Daniel Tarberry, a rich real estate mogul from New York, has to flee the country because of legal troubles, he buys a luxurious Caribbean mansion to lie low in, but doing so summons the ghost of Black Jack Savage, who was hanged on the island for his crimes. The two are now forced to save the lives of 100 people in order to save themselves from eternal damnation.

Tarberry is a greedy shark who insists on hanging a portrait of himself in every hotel room he owns and constantly tries to weasel out of paying his contractors a dime. He’s not very respectful to women, referring to every lady who talks back to him as “the poster girl for PMS.” He’s also a straight up racist, first assuming Black Jack is his cabin boy, then loudly exclaiming that he wants to change all the locks because he “found a black man in my kitchen.”

The writers had intended to start Tarberry off as a real piece of Trump, only to eventually learn from his mistakes and become a better man. He even occasionally refrains from treating Black Jack like some weird Jim Crow genie.

But the show never got to the redemption part, as the network pulled it after only seven poorly rated episodes. Believing that people are interested in seeing a Trump redemption story might have been the most misjudged part of The 100 Lives Of Black Jack Savage — a Disney show that opens with a black man being lynched.

Gremlins 2 Had Trump Fight Gremlins

Nobody really expected Gremlins to get a sequel, especially not its creators. And when it did, no one could have predicted that the real villain wouldn’t be gremlins, but the world’s most notorious New York City mogul.

Director Joe Dante wanted to have the Gremlins run amok in a fancy New York skyscraper. But the movie still needed a villain, a rich guy so obnoxious that audiences wouldn’t feel bad about watching midnight demons tear him several new assholes. And then it hit Dante: “At that time in New York City, there was one major character who was Mr. Billion.”

At the time, Trump was known for being “overbearing and obviously kind of goofy,” said the film’s writer, Charles S. Haas. “He was an emblem of what was going on in the ’80s and ’90s with greed and money and crassness, and [the idea of] the whole world being for sale.” And so they created powerful millionaire Daniel Clamp, a Trumpian mogul (with a dash of Ted Turner) who also happens to be running violent animal experiments in his tower Clamp Center.

Actor John Glover modeled his performance of Clamp on the director, whom he saw as “incredibly gentle, supporting and encouraging,” rather than on Trump, which is why Clamp can say weirdly racist nonsense like “Let’s lose the elm trees. People see elm, they think Dutch. [pause] Disease” and still sound like a swell boss. It’s also why we unreservedly root for Clamp when he shoves a Gremlin into a paper shredder.

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And also because he seems to be the only one who realizes gremlins aren’t that difficult to kill.

Consequently, Gremlins 2: The New Batch offers a peek at an alternate universe in which Nice Trump helps us fight small-minded rage goblins, as opposed to the universe we live in, where those goblins got him elected president.

Sesame Street Thinks Donald Trump Is Garbage

Over its nearly 50-year history, Sesame Street has striven to be not just entertainment, but also a tool to teach children. And many times over, it has tried to teach them that Donald Trump is the king of the trash people.

The first time we encounter Sesame‘s Trump is in ’88, as a grouch named Ronald Grump. Grump is trying to con fellow grouch Oscar into letting him build a three-trash-can-high Grump Tower on his spot in return for a “duplex can-dominium.” Oscar simply adores Grump at first, because he exemplifies grouch values, as “his name is on every piece of trash in town.” Grump is also grouch-famous for building “a swamp in a day,” a line so apt that the Sesame Street writers should get a retroactive Emmy for it.

“What about dumpsters?”

However, Grump immediately tries to evict Oscar for keeping pets in his fantastic, just the best tower. This forces all the Sesame Street residents to band together to buy Grump off with their garbage, making the first lesson most American kids learned about Donald Trump was that they need to pay him to go away before he ruins everything.

Donald Grump returns during the show’s 2005 parody of The Apprentice, in which lesser grouches are fighting for the privilege to assist Grump in peddling his trash all across town. After a series of pointless tasks, Elmo, whose hard work and positive attitude wins the day, immediately gets fired by Grump, who exclaims, “I can’t have a good helper! I got my reputation to think of.”

However, the Trump animosity really boiled over during the Street‘s 25th anniversary show in 1993. The entire special episode revolves around the residents of Sesame Street fighting Grump (this time expertly portrayed by human forehead vein Joe Pesci), who’s trying to convert the entire block into a garish Grump Tower. At first he sweetly attempts to convince them that having their street become an overpriced boutique is a good thing. But when the residents don’t agree, Grump starts threatening Muppets like they’re in Goodfellas.

Fortunately, Grump’s plans fall apart because Oscar and his trash heap (which are on city property) keep Grump from selling a single condo. Furious, he rips up his plans and screams that Sesame Street didn’t deserve a Grump Tower anyway. So that’s charm, bully, and now abandonment. If the show had ended with Grump taking Oscar to court for loss of potential revenue, Sesame Street would have achieved the quadfecta of the Trump negotiation style long before Nancy Pelosi coined it.

Since he became president, Trump has not been shy about his desire to gut PBS, the public station that was home to Sesame Street until 2016. We can’t help but think that Ronald Grump has something to do with that.

Cedric will never stop politicizing Muppets. The best way to boycott his leftist agenda is by following him on Twitter but then never interacting with him in any shape or form. That’ll show him.

Why should you have to deal with the Trump presidency alone? Make your cats miserable too with this Donald Trump cat costume.

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