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sleepy-moron · 2 years

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El, Superman, and how it relates to her and Will’s involvement in season five

Or really just a collection of parallels I am making and then using them to predict what will likely happen between Will el and vecna in season five!

Once again thinking about Superman’s logo being an alien symbol for hope and how that represents El as a character really well given her role of being the biggest hope against the upside down up until this point. Thinking about how the logo is over Superman’s heart and Mike being the heart in season four. Thinking about how the logo is red and yellow (aka Will and El’s colors) and how heart=hope aka Mike is Will’s hope and Will is the “new hope” to help defeat vecna….. but the Superman connections are stronger than that

El is already inspired by aliens landing on earth media such as E.T. and not only is Superman losing his powers something that has happened in comics, the fake out “death of Superman” storyline is said to have made death in comics meaningless just how El’s death at the end of season one started a precedent for characters having fake deaths in the show. Superman is even from the house of El on krypton. Also Superman being weak to magic is a modern comic thing it does fit with El being defeated by vecna who is a wizard in dnd.

So where does this leave Will as a parallel/Mirror of El? He’s Shazam aka billy batson a character designed to be a Superman expy for another comic publisher! Shazam has a red yellow and white costume with a lightning bolt on his chest, and billy is a young kid who transforms into an adult both with superpowers fitting Will’s lightning and time motifs. The most striking similarity though is how billy gets his powers. Billy stumbles into part of an abandoned subway system and meets a wizard who gives him powers by striking him with lightning after Billy says Shazam. So the upside down and vecna parallels are blatant and Will getting his powers through “magic” tracks with Will also having wizard motifs. But what about vecna?

So one of Superman’s most iconic villains is zod, who prior to the crisis on infinite earths storyline (which happens irl in 1985) is a kryptonian military general (5 star general)who has a grudge against Superman’s father and tries to take over krypton. As punishment zod was imprisoned in a dimension called the phantom zone and was later released and recaptured by Superman after he tried to take over the earth. Which is pretty much Vecna’s whole deal but how does this work to parallel Will/Shazam?

Shazam has a similar concept of a villain with the same powers as a hero in black Adam. Again since the crisis is a 1985 storyline I’m going primarily off pre-crisis versions of the characters. Adam was an earlier champion of the wizard that gave Shazam his powers, but he was ultimately corrupted by the power and transported 5,000 years of travel away from earth, where he finds out he was replaced as champion and becomes a Shazam villain. He gets an origin rework in 94 so that he is a champion of the wizard who gets charmed into becoming evil and gets his powers stored in a necklace, which would eventually be stolen by a descendent of Adam who uses it to become a supervillain and ties to fight Shazam, but the decedent gets his voice and memory taken away preventing him from transforming. The first origin is a match for Henry as an abuse victim who would go on to use his powers to kill his family, the second origin is sort of a reverse of what the mind flayer does to Will in season 2.

Ultimately what I think this predicts for season five is the fact that Henry always intended to just use El as a proxy to get his powers back so he could go on to do more murdering and she realizes Henry is not super trustworthy and punts him into the upside down. Henry realizes he needs another proxy to get out of the upside down and either specifically brings Will into the upside down or after he makes it to the upside down decides on making Will a new proxy to escape the upside down and either awakens latent powers Will has or gives him powers when Will gets affected by the mind flayer. Henry takes away Will’s voice and thus Will has to use Morse code to help the rest of the heroes defeat the mind flayer and close the gate. By the end of season four Henry opens up the gates and after he recovers will likely be capable of actually leaving the upside down and doing more murder. This leaves El and Will in a position where they have to band together because while El is strong you need a wizard to help take down another wizard and also to probably permanently freeze or unfreeze the upside down to kill Henry. Also still think there’s going to be a moment where Mike dies and all hope appears to be lost and Will uses upside down lightning to revive him so Mike’s role as the heart is to quite literally kick Will’s powers into overdrive. Also Vecna is probably going to pretend to be Will at some point and attack El in the hopes that she’ll fight Will but this is not really going to work and we get willel siblings supremacy instead.

#byler tumblr #byler #stranger things 4 #stranger things #ckbbzagate #this is the actual theory for that by the way….I do think the parallels are intentional although I might be wrong about what they mean #Will Byers is Shazam #I am so fucking confident about the Shazam thing getting mentioned in season five you guys #it’s too perfect

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k1rishiki · 3 years

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i am curious, as someone who’s only exposure to arthurania was reading jane yolen’s young merlin as a child, would you mind saying why hnoc is a bad adaptation? i’m super curious but no worries if not <3

this has been sitting in my inbox for months bc i kept telling myself i needed to write a full essay with proof from medieval lit to make myself feel smarter. however, since i’ve recently lost all credibility bc i can’t articulate points to save my life, and since i’ve realized that i could answer this in a just a couple paragraphs, now seems like the right time to answer this ask. sorry for the wait.

under a cut bc length

also warnings for mentions of racism bc this is hnoc we're talking abt and sexual assault bc this is med lit we're also talking abt

the basic problems are pendragon polycule itself, the story beats of the album, the fridging and lack of characterization of morgan le fay, the clear influence of pop culture arthuriana, and whatever the fuck happened with gawain/e.

pendragon polycule is... just not a good take. there’s a bit in the lancelot-grail abt arthur viewing lancelot like a son (and lancelot not giving a shit abt him). also arthur knew his parents for years before lancelot was even born. plus lancelot just Doesn’t care abt him and i can’t stress this part enough. arthur repeatedly tries to have guinnevere killed, mostly in the lancelot-grail, and guinn didn’t really have any say in marrying him bc she was a teenager. lancelot and guinnevere is a lot better but that’s not saying much. guinn doesn’t exactly treat lancelot too well... like at all, BUT it’s not intrinsic to their relationship and is completely caused by medieval misogyny and i’m all in favor of modern retellings saying fuck that. but also lancelot has multiple pseudo-canon boyfriends (this is med lit after all), and one pseudo-canon husband so like... there were better options. (also lancelot’s husband is basically in a lavender marriage with guinnevere’s maybe girlfriend who most authors just eventually forget abt as the story progresses).

this next one is a problem with a lot of modern arthurian works bc the inclusion of elayne of astolat is too much to ask apparently. the grail quest isn’t tied to the fall of camelot, it just happens to be one of the last grand adventures the knights of the round table have. the event that traditionally sets off the fall is the death of the maiden of astolat/the lady of shalott/elayne of escolat/she has a lot of names, her story has a few variations but usually she either is cursed to stay in a tower and weave and only be able to see the outside world through a mirror positioned across from her window, until lancelot rides by and she rushes to see him out of the actual window and her mirror shatters, setting off her death, or she lives with her father and brothers and takes care of lancelot bc he was injured for a time and she gets to go on adventures to find him and she’s friends with gawaine and she dies bc lancelot rejects her and this version’s a lot more fun but also more happens which makes it harder to explain. the way her story ends however, is that she dies after she makes arrangements for a glorious boat to drift from astolat to camelot carrying nothing but her dead body and a letter explaining that she died of love for lancelot du lac and the court mourns the death of such a beautiful and young maiden (her age varies a lot but i’ve always read her as a young teenager at most). but the important thing is, camelot is doomed from the moment she washes up on its shore bc she’s an omen of the end and has symbolic meaning and all that, the maiden of astolat washes up on camelot’s shores, the court mourns the loss of a maiden in her prime and she marks the end of camelot’s prime as well, morgan le fay reappears after being presumed dead and warns arthur of guinnevere and lancelot’s affair, aggravaine and modred conspire to bring lancelot and guinnevere’s affair to light, they succeed but lancelot escapes, guinnevere is to be burnt at the stake and lancelot rescues her, killing aggravaine, gaheris and gareth (gawaine’s brothers) in the process, gawaine drags his uncle and camelot to war bc he was driven mad due to the loss of his brothers, lancelot accidentally kills gawaine, his best friend and maybe boyfriend (i have RECEIPTS), and gawaine forgives him on his detahbed while lancelot and guinn rejoin arthur, meanwhile modred, who practically had the throne handed to him, usurps and invites the saxons in, camlann happens, and camelot is destroyed. no where in there is the grail quest.

morgan le fay is honestly the most questionable part of the album bc there’s not a single text where she dies. like.... at least with eurydice in udad she died in the original... there’s no basis for morgan dying. also she is NOT modred’s mother and anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar, she interacts with him once in the vulgate bc she had three of her nephews over and that’s IT. it’s a horrible take which originated in the mists of avalon by marion zimmer bradley who is an honest to god monster for reasons i don’t want to trigger tag this post for. also she’s one of the most dynamic and thought-out characters in the entire canon and they just made her a watered down morgause (modred’s actual mother, morgan’s sister, canonical milf)... there was no reason for it to be her apart from the fact that she’s more well known......

pop culture arthuriana is,,, one of my least favorite things. no, morgan wasn’t modred’s mother, no, morgause wasn’t abusive but her husband sure was implied to be, no, aggravaine didn’t kill his mother, that was gaheris, he loved his mother, you’re only saying that bc he has a reputation as the “evil” orkney, no, the once and future king is not a good descriptor for arthur, stop making me read it, no, morgause wasn’t the one to initiate the thing with arthur resulting in modred, no, lancelot and arthur weren’t friends, no, tristan wasn’t a self-centered asshole, tennyson is a fucking liar, no, galahad didn’t have sex or want to, he’s one of the first ever explicitly asexual characters out there, no, galahad’s conception was NOT consensual, lancelot was tricked, and no, elayne of astolat wasn’t galahad’s mother, she’s implied to be younger than him. those are just the big glaring ones, but i swear it’s bc of arthuriana’s reputation as a mythology and the connotations belonging to that word (no one true canon (which is true but there are still things that just AREN’T canon, not completely written down, passed by oral tradition) that causes ppl to see mediocre modern texts and go “oh. well this is abt as close to the original as i’m going to get” and don’t bother to look into so much as malory (who i only name bc he’s one of the most well known medieval authors with the most commonly used storylines, don’t read malory kids, he’s a mediocre-at-best writer even by medieval standards). the big perpetrators of modern arthurian tropes are the books the once and future king by th wh*te, who is a shitty person and lets it bleed into his writing (which isn’t like... nice to read or anything, seriously why do ppl love this book so much it doesn’t have redeeming qualities), and the mists of avalon by marion zimmer bradley (it’s poorly written, the story is a mess, and mzb is honestly a monster and one google search will tell you that), and unfortunately the writings of tennyson, which are mostly good but he clearly didn’t read the povest (a later text that’s also my favorite, known for significantly improving ppl’s opinions on tristan, isolde and co.) before deciding he hated both tristan and isolde and he has HORRIBLE takes on them. high noon over camelot is SEEPED in pop culture arthuriana and i think it would have been so much better if the band had read so much as a SUMMARY of the events of le morte. it’s evident in the song “the once and future king” bc it’s,,,, literally named after one of the worst books in existence. it’s shown in the morgan le fay thing, and it’s shown in the pendragon polycule thing. and hell, i think you can even explain away the lack of elayne of astolat with pop culture arthuriana, bc ppl have had bad takes on her ever since th wh*te combined her character with that of ela*ne of corbenic, and the band probably went “huh, let’s write lancelot’s abuser out of this” and they would’ve been right to do so if that’s who elayne of astolat was.

the final big issue is gawaine, the closest thing the genre has to a protagonist, he’s pretty much canon bi and, in some texts, arospec, he’s a dashing knight of great reknown and he derails every romance to steal hearts, commit murder, and make out with every knight and lady mentioned. and in hnoc he’s... racist. that’s it. it’s,,, almost completely unfounded by the arthurian canon and shows a major misunderstanding of his motivations (like i said earlier, he wants to avenge his brothers bc there’s a reoccuring motif of how much the orkneys value family). i say almost bc in one text it’s his motivations for killing palomydes but i’ve never heard it mentioned by name bc that’s just what it’s known for. most arthuriana fans just look away from it except when critiquing hnoc but that one text is an outlier, shouldn’t be counted, and i highly doubt the mechs made hnoc gawain how he is bc they found this text. it’s just a bad text.

hnoc has,,, quite a few more minor issues, such as villainized ladies of the lake (their ONLY crimes were sealing away merlin bc he tried to assault teenage nimue/ninniane (proto-nimue/vivianne from the vulgate), and that one time vivviane/ninniane kidnapped adopted baby lancelot), assigning brain to merlin (y’know,,, the predator who helped arrange the [redacted] of arthur’s mother and tried to assault a teenager,,,) although merlin is portrayed in a positive light throughout modern arthuriana so i don’t think they knew, giving a song to pellinore, who my perception of has been forever altered bc i was introduced to him through malory and the explanation of torre’s conception, which you can just look up “sir torre arthurian” to find out abt if you can’t just Guess, if they wanted a song abt the questing beast palomydes was Right There AND has been associated with the questing beast for longer, but once again i don’t think they knew.

also namedropping a bunch of knights in the fiction is... it Suggests a bigger world full of all these other stories but they just don’t work bc the world of hnoc wasn’t designed in a way where the appearance of half these characters would make sense. like,, tristan is referenced as dying in the grail quest in the same sentence as bedevere (one of the characters who is known for almost always surviving), but tristan Isn’t one of the knights who dies on the grail quest, his possible deaths (ignoring the potentially happy ending of the povest for a second) are either being murdered by his uncle, king mark (bc mark married tristan’s gf to try and get tristan killed and also to spite him), bc he was driven into a fury bc of tristan and isolde’s affair, or he’s injured and only isolde (the best healer in the world) can save him so he sends for her and if the ship he sent for her is supposed to fly white sails if she’s there, or black sails if she’s not, and the ship flies white sails but his wife (also named isolde) says it’s black sails (the why depends but usually comes down to jealousy), and so he gives up bc he thinks all hope is lost and usually succumbs to his injuries, either way isolde dies of a broken heart over his body. there’s no way for the tristan and isolde story to play out like it’s supposed to in the world of hnoc, just as there’s no way for any story with gawaine (and Oh Boy are there a lot of stories with gawaine) or pretty much anyone else, without severely altering the canon.

of course, there are still parts of hnoc i like a lot, most of the music i adore and i just like the idea of space cowboys and the secret good hnoc that lives in my head. and it has one of my favorite characterizations of galahad, even though galahad hnoc is nothing like galahad arthuriana. it’s not GOOD but i like it and it’s fun to turn my brain off too, and i’ll always value it as my introduction to arthuriana.

also there are modern arthurian tropes i do like such as characters being genre-savvy/knowing they’re fictional/knowing they’ve done this before (which hnoc does wonderfully!) and bedevere-as-the-storyteller (everyone say thank you lord tennyson).

WOW that was longer than expected, i feel very passionately abt this, when i was planning to write a fully sourced essay i meant to include a bit at the bottom with recommendations to get into better arthuriana and i think i’ll keep that in this post.

if you like hnoc for the arthurian music i’d like to suggest heather dale’s arthurian music to you, she does occasionally fall into the trap of modern arthuriana (some parts of lancelot and arthur being close, morgan as modred’s mother), sometimes she’s just wrong (galahad at lancelot’s trial, a lot of tristan and isolde), and her stuff is kinda straightwashed sometimes (sir gawain and the green knight, for example) but i’d be lying if it wasn’t catchy, and it’s not quite as bad as hnoc adaptation-wise. culwch and olwen is pretty accurate (albeit abridged bc culwch and olwen has SO many tangents), as is lily maid (it’s abt elayne of astolat!).

if you liked hnoc for king arthur... in space! then may i recommend to you my own fanfic? it's not posted yet but the second i finish writing the first chapter i'm going to make a Big Deal out of it that'll be impossible to miss!

if you want to learn abt arthuriana through tumblr-osmosis like i did at first, i’d like to recommend the love of my life @acegalahads, first and foremost (it’s me on a sideblog i’m just obsessed with myself), and i can’t recommend my arthuriana mutuals over there, @/gringolet, @/merlinenthusiast, @/jcbookworm, @/elayneofshalott, and @/elaineofascolat (the elayne urls have been popular recently), also i know for a fact that my mutual-in-law, @/itonje makes great arthuriana posts that i look forwards to whenever i open the tag.

here are a few good reference posts, a quick guide to the characters, a guide to characters of color, and a much more comprehensive intro to arthuriana post with even more texts linked to it.

if you want to ease into med lit, i’d like to introduce you to pre-raphaelite poetry, alfred lord tennyson and william morris are my favorites, although tennyson can’t be trusted with tristan and isolde. the poem the lady of shalott is basically a rite of passage for arthuriana fans, although when it comes to tennyson’s writings abt elayne of astolat, i prefer lancelot and elaine, which is part of his much larger story, idylls of the king. for morris, don’t trust what he says abt aggravaine killing his mother, but my favorites of his are sir galahad, a christmas mystery, which sounds like a shitty disney sequel, and palomyde’s quest, which i blame for my love of palomydes (that and the one bit of the povest where he asks tristan to be his greatest enemy and that he wants nothing more, gay ppl,,,,).

if you want to read abt lancelot and his husband, there’s the lancelot-grail cycle, which i believe was taken off of archive dot org and i think i found it on @/tobeisexhausting’s blog but don’t quote me on that.

the povest, which was a religious experience for me and i can’t reccomend enough if you want to like tristan and isolde, is here, i don’t know who scanned it but i think i found it on @/lanzelet’s blog

the dutch texts are just good in general, here’s a link to their section of a(n unfinished) site for hosting various texts by my former mutual @/reynier (who’s no longer on tumblr). i’d like to recommend lancelot and the white hart specifically bc it’s mainly just just gawaine being gay for lancelot.

if you want older works, here’s my scan of the history of the kings of britain, and here’s culwch and olwen and pa gur.

oh wow this is even longer than i thought it would be so i’m going to wrap this up by saying that i always love to talk abt arthuriana more than anything if you have any questions or just are curious!

#med lit on main #asks #hnoc #the mechs #romeo.txt

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sailorbadger · 3 years

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Robin Hood episode ranking part 5 (10-1)

Finally, the top 10 of my Robin Hood episode ranking. The previous parts can be found here [link]. If you’ve enjoyed and/or hated my commentary or want to chime in with your own opinion, feel free to comment or send me an ask. So here it is, the top 10:

10. 3x4 – Sins of the Father

Watch 1x6 and then this one right after and tell me these aren’t the same episode. I fought so hard to get this episode to the top 10. At first I was shocked to find an episode in season 3 that I enjoyed this much, but here we are. This episode has the fun feeling of adventure that a lot of season 2 has. I didn’t remember much from this episode before my rewatch, and I was pleasantly surprised. Kate had a lot of potential at this point, and I don’t have much to complain about her besides her terrible braid. Tuck was a great therapist, and I enjoyed his scene with Edmund. The reason why I think this episode is a better version of 1x6 is because of the story of the guest characters. The biggest negative thing in this episode is the Much-Kate-Allan love triangle. But aside from that, I truly enjoyed this episode, and I don’t care what anyone thinks, this belongs in my top 10.

9. 2x7 – Show Me The Money

Marian finding out about her father’s death is one of the saddest things in the whole series. Allan and Robin’s fight is also amazing. Those two things are the highlights of this episode, and together with everything else in this episode they make this a great and fun adventure. Allan works so well as a bad guy, and it’s almost a shame he didn’t get to do this longer. I don’t have a lot to say about this episode other than that I really like it.

8. 1x4 – Parent Hood

In this episode we see for the first time someone dying for Robin. The episode is just very solid, and I originally had this on the number 5 spot on this list. The scene with Roy and his mother is heartbreaking. In this episode the Sheriff is finally becoming the unapologetic villain I love. I wish the fact that Gisborne had a bastard child he almost got killed had been brought up later on. Overall, this episode has always been one of my favorites, and it is the first one from season 1 I included in my rewatch.

7. 2x11 – Treasure of the Nation

I loved Prince John, so of course I’m going to love his mother. The queen is a delightful guest character, and she steals any scene she’s in. The real reason why this episode is this high on the list is Marian’s plotline. I love her and Allan’s interactions in this episode, and it’s great to get the Nightwatchman back after such a long time. It’s a shame that she had to give that role up, because as I said earlier, this is where a part of her character died. This episode also inspired us to have a conversation about how everyone would act like in an escape room, so it gets a few points for that.

6. 2x10 – Walkabout

I want to watch a play that is written, directed, and acted by the Sheriff. He is so wonderfully dramatic in this. Unlike in the season 3 finale, in this episode the idea of Nottingham being threatened is executed a lot better. I like how Allan tries to keep every option open for himself. The scene where Much finds out about Robin and Marian’s engagement is so sweet and touching. (In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I love Much and want happiness for him.) This episode also highlights well the differences between how each of the characters approach their cause. It’s obvious that John just wants to do good, but he is unable to view the larger picture. This episode has the right amount of tension, and with a little bit of tweaking, it could have been made into a two-part season finale.

5. 1x7 – Brothers in Arms

When we were watching this episode, my friend was so tired that after the episode finished, I had to answer the question “Wait, was one of them Allan’s brother?”. This episode is the first one where the heroes truly fail, and even though they manage to just save Marian, she still ends up engaged to Gisborne. The scene with Allan and Djaq (and Will, because even though he doesn’t speak, he’s there, and it says a lot about their dynamic) is sweet, and it adds a lot to her character. The necklace storyline is intense and keeps the story interesting until the very end. I had not expected this to end up being the best episode of season 1, but then again, there were many surprises when I was making this list.

4. 2x12 – A Good Day to Die

I love this episode. It’s rare to get an episode where the characters just sit down and talk about their feelings. Allan has his small crisis and ends up switching sides. It’s also great to once more see someone punch him in the face. I love the scene where the Sheriff is practicing his speech like any good villain. Will and Djaq are cute, even if their scene is very cheesy. I wish they had gotten together a few episodes earlier or stuck around for season 3, so that we could have seen more of them together and how it affects the rest of the gang. The highlight of this episode, however, is Much’s speech. The line “just because I love you doesn’t mean I can’t hate you too” is one of my favorite lines in the whole series. It’s a shame that Much gets sidelined in season 3. The characters have to face each other and themselves, and it makes this episode stand out.

3. 2x9 – Lardner’s Ring

I love this episode. It’s the best fun adventure episode this series has to offer. The Fool is a wonderful guest character. Where did he come from? What are his motives? It doesn’t matter, he’s here for comedy and chaos. He’s living my ideal life. Robin’s proposal is very in-character and sweet. There’s so much comedy in this episode, but it doesn’t overshadow the more serious scenes. This episode provided us with a great and frequently used “I hope you’re enjoying it, Allan. I couldn’t live with myself if I were you” WhatsApp-sticker (the line may not be completely accurate since I don’t remember how it goes in English). This episode has everything I could want from a Robin Hood -episode. The only reason why it is not on the first or second place is that there are two episodes that are even better.

2. 2x5 – Ducking and Diving

No placement in this list was as difficult to determine as deciding between the first and second place. After a very long conversation and going back and forth with it many times, this is the end result. Ducking and Diving is a perfect episode. Trying to find the spy is like a round of Among Us. Allan’s conversation with Djaq and final confrontation with Robin are amazing scenes. Robin’s plan of making it seem like the spy is Will confused me back when I first watched the episode, but looking at it now, it’s one of Robin’s better plans. Matilda is also one of the greatest guest characters this show has, I would watch a whole show about just her life. Everything in this episode ties together nicely, and the plot works both in the context of this episode and for the whole series.

1. 2x4 – Angel of Death

If I could only show one episode of this show to someone in order to convince them to watch the entire series, I would show them Angel of Death. And it is exactly what I did when we started this very chaotic viewing (and rewatch for me). This episode has everything. The plot is amazing, and the characters work well. Joseph is a good character. He reminds me of an academic who is really passionate about one thing in his field, only to find out someone has done research on his thesis topic and disproved his whole theory. I like that John is the one to come up with the cure for the poison. But really, Will is the character that shines in this episode. He didn’t get an episode for himself in season 1, so it’s good to see it happen here. He flips completely after seeing his father die, and even though Luke doesn’t get a lot of time in this episode, the relationship between the brothers is portrayed well. Allan’s betrayal also gets a body count, which sets up him having to be unmasked in the following episode. On top of all this, the sheriff is just plain evil, which is fun to watch. This episode is just perfect, and at this point I’ve seen it at least three times in the past few months, and I would still watch it again.

So there we go, the full ranking of all RH episodes. This rewatch was my favorite so far, because I got to watch the show with someone who had never seen it before. I’d like to thank anyone who read this 6000-word essay on a show that ended well over a decade ago. You didn’t need to, but you did anyway.

#robin hood bbc #bbc robin hood #rh episode ranking #this is a long one but I wanted top 10 in one post #I fought so hard to get number 10 into top 10 #idk what my next rh take will be #I kind of want to rant about s3 some more #anyway if someone's reading this send me your takes on my ranking #I'm starved for attention

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bigskydreaming · 3 years

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Could Jason and Chris Kent have become friends? I know nothing about Chris or the comics from Jason's Robin era. I heard that Chris is the erased eldest son of Superman? I'm intrigued, but that means even the children of the biggest superheroes ever can be erased?

Ugh, I love Chris Kent and miss him (the pre-Flashpoint version of his character) a ton. And y’know, there are a couple ways you could manuever him and Jason into a friendship, though I don’t think they ever met in continuity. I don’t know how well they would have gotten along if you just went with the versions of the characters that both existed at approximately the same time, but they do actually have a decent amount in common, like with some tweaks it could work. Ironically, character wise they probably would have gotten along really well when Jason was Robin, but continuity wise, Chris didn’t even debut until after UTRH, though he rapidly aged from a young kid to a young adult after just a couple of years.

But lemme back up a bit because Chris is, umm, complicated.

SO. Christopher Kent was born Lor-Zod, the son of General Zod and Ursa, while they were held captive in the Phantom Zone. They were abusive asshats to him, and he’s not a fan. But for some reason which had to do with blah blah blah invasion plot blah blah, Zod made a spaceship from inside the Phantom Zone that he sent Chris to Earth in, because due to being born while in the Zone, Chris was actually able to take physical form, unlike the Kryptonians trapped there as a prison.

When Chris crashed on Earth, he was taken by a government agency aimed at monitoring extraterrestial ‘threats’ and treated as such. Cue Clark finding out that there was another Kryptonian on Earth, he was a kid, and he was being treated as a prisoner and it was like, See Clark Run. See Clark Mad. See Clark Raze The Department of Extraterrestial Affairs From The Earth With His Searing Hot Eyebeams Of Rage and Also Destruction.

And then Clark took Chris home to the Kent farm, and eventually he and Lois ended up adopting Chris and raising him as their own. Lois was the one who gave him his Earth name of Chris, which he’s always been shown to vastly prefer over his birth name just like he can’t stand his birth parents, as they are abusive asshats. He used to call Lois “Mama Lois.” It was adorable.

There’s a lot of back and forth about calling him Clark and Lois’ adopted son versus foster son, depending on various wikis and even issues, but its the same kinda thing that happens with all the Batkids at various points, and like, I remember issues that actually called Ma and Pa Kent Clark’s foster parents, so just do what I do and groan and sigh and accept that DC habitually employs writers and editors who just flat out don’t understand how fostering and adoption works. And its not that there’s anything wrong or lesser about fostering, and its absolutely the better way to go for some, its just foster son and adopted son are not remotely interchangeable, they are two different things, and DC has GOT to stop playing take-backsies with adoption, like just don’t do that, don’t make that a thing.

Anyway, for awhile it was Clark, Lois and Chris and they were quite happy together. Chris existed well before Jon Kent and they were never raised as Kents at the same time, unfortunately, and he did have some cute scenes with Conner, though this was mostly when Conner was characterized as seeing Clark more as an older brother and never really raised by him. (Similar to YJ-verse, but I have a lot of issues with that in YJ-verse because of HOW that played out, that I don’t have in pre-Flashpoint comics, where it felt a little more natural for Clark and Conner to have a brotherly relationship, mostly due to the fact that I don’t recall Conner ever expressing a want for the relationship to be otherwise in the comics, and having a strong bond with Ma and Pa Kent himself. I could be wrong here though as I skipped a lot of Conner’s writing when Geoff Johns is behind the wheel because I just....really miss 90s Kon-El who was practically a totally different character BUT I DIGRESS).

But then because comics gotta comics, eventually Zod escaped from the Phantom Zone to fuck all that up, and invaded Earth because he’s like I’m Zod and invading Earth is like, my entire personality, its the only move I’ve got in the deck, what do you want from me. And Luthor eventually cooperated with the heroes to stop the invasion by configuring some sort of cosmic vaccuum cleaner to suck all the Kryptonians with a connection to the Phantom Zone back into the Phantom Zone, but then this didn’t seal the Zone up again once all the invaders were back in and Chris realized its because even though he was just born there, he was technically connected to the Zone too and it wouldn’t close up again as long as he was outside it. So he sacrificed himself to save his father (Clark took quite a beating from Zod in this) and the world and dove into the Phantom Zone, which sealed up behind him.

BUT he was saved at the last second (and without anyone else knowing for awhile) by someone named Thara. She was the security chief of Kandor, and she took Chris to protect him from the revenge of the Phantom Zoners who would have blamed him for their re-imprisonment. And off-page, during the years between Chris getting sacrificing himself to seal the Phantom Zone before his reapparance, Chris had a comic-book style growth spurt uncannily like the one Jon Kent got when Bendis started writing him, resulting in an uncannily similar dynamic between Chris and Clark and Lois when they reunited as Bendis wrote Jon having with Clark and Lois when they reunited. Why do I emphasize this, is it because I think Bendis is overhyped and I’ll never stop complaining about how all his biggest story beats are blatantly just recycled story beats from less well-known writers and characters, no that can’t be it, must be something else.

Anyway, Chris eventually returns to Earth, now a teenager, and now going by Nightwing while Thara went by Flamebird. This was around the time Bruce was lost in time and Dick was Batman, and there was never like, any crossover. Which sucked because Dick would’ve been fine with it as Chris had more of a claim to the name than even him (it wasn’t like with the Nightwings in the Ric Grayson arc, who became Nightwing BECAUSE of Dick’s persona, but rather that Chris and Thara were basing their personas purely on their own Kryptonian myths and what they represented to the Kandorians who were now living on Earth at the time. Totally different situation). But really it was just missed opportunities, IMO, as I think Chris and Dick also would have gotten along really well and their paths just never really crossed.

Somewhere in there Chris got another random growth spurt and ended up in his early 20s, he and Thara ended up in a relationship which was not my fave cuz of all the aging shenanigans but whatevs, Chris kept having random aging growth spurts which had Lois really worried about him and she tried to get the hero version of Dr. Light (Dr. Kimiyo Hoshi) to help him thinking maybe it had something to do with light or radiation, but they never really got around to trying to fix it because Lois’ douchebag dad General Lane showed up and tried to capture Chris, and he and Thara fled. And then they ran into Supergirl, who at first tried to kill Thara because she hated her because Kandorian Backstory I honestly do not remember, but then Chris revealed himself and was like Kara, its me, we’re cousins, and then they had adventures with Kara for a time, then there was this whole thing where Thara and Chris were both briefly possessed by and then merged with the actual Kryptonian gods/entities of Nightwing and Flamebird and then the entities left them and were like okay, we’re all done with whatever that was, as you were.

Chris thwarted his evil birth parents again, blew up some stuff, there was more Phantom Zone shenanigans and then General Lane and Lex Luthor turned the sun red to try and kill all Kryptonians, Thara fixed it by sacrificing herself, Chris tried to join her but then the Nightwing entity hijacked him and was like nope, and then not long after, Chris sacrificed himself again to push Zod back into the Phantom Zone AGAIN (seriously, it was like they were on a loop at this point, ugh) and he ended up in the Zone himself, but for real this time....and for some reason that turned him back into the age he should’ve been if he’d been aging normally this whole time, and the last we saw of Chris, he was like ten years old and in the Phantom Zone and being helped by Mon-El, and then the New 52 happened and rebooted everything and wherever that was going no longer mattered.

And then New 52 Lor-Zod showed up at one point as like, Zod’s loyal little son-minion, and DC has never shown a hint of intending to pursue an actual Chris Kent storyline in the New 52, and I hate that lots and lots because its like lol, this character was an abuse survivor in his original incarnation and you guys were like, lol no big deal, we’ll just make Zod the exact same asshat he’s always been but now this version of his son is just like him and likes it, why would that be a problem. WHATEVER.

Basically, New 52 Chris Kent doesn’t exist, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Which is a fucking shame, because Chris and Jon Kent as brothers being raised together WITHOUT ANY WEIRD AGING SHENANIGANS with their cousin once removed, Kara, and their older sorta brother sorta uncle Conner could have been like. So great.

So anyway. There’s LOTS of directions you can take Chris, and he’s really a great character. If you’re aiming to make him friends with Jason specifically, my go-to there would be to just have the events that led Chris to Earth originally just....happen a lot earlier in the continuity of your story. So have Chris arrive on Earth and be adopted by Clark and Lois roughly around the same time Jason steals the tires off the Bat-mobile, and you’re pretty much in business.

(BUT if you do go this route, keep in mind that Jason died before the Death of Superman storyline, which is where Kon-El debuted, so even if Kon/Conner’s still older than Chris here, Chris would already be an established part of Clark and Lois’ family by the time Kon-El arrives on the scene, which would change dynamics there, not just between Chris and Kon/Conner, but potentially between Kon/Conner and Clark and Lois as well).

OR you can keep Chris’ arrival as happening roughly when it did in canon (2006 was the year he debuted), and just have him do a little aging up, like, as a treat, and so be his older self when Jason returns and starts interacting with the cape community again, with their first interactions being when they’re both young adults who for completely different reasons missed out on large chunks of childhood. There’s some potentially interesting angles to explore there too.

Just depends on which way you want to go with that.

(PS, I think aging up is an overused trope most of the time in comics anyway, but its not so much aging Chris rapidly to a teenager and then young adult that I had an issue with, so much as doing it largely to put him in a relationship with someone who first met him when they were already an adult and he was ten. Its the initial age gap being an established part of the overall dynamic with an eventual love interest thats the issue, not that an age gap existed before two characters ever met - if for all other intents and purposes - their dynamic treats them as if they both were effectively always around the same age).

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ginger-snaps014 · 3 years

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Because I am trying to actually post my art again. Also I need to stop watching dc shows since this is getting out of hand.

Enjoy my random OC I created after rewatching young Justice and Titans. In whatever multiverse she lives in, Greyson is still robin but older (think junior/senior in high school pre-fallout with Batman). And most members of the team are young justice versions. She is a scholarship student at Gotham Academy and is roommates with the daughter of a former ambassador’s to bealya who does not like talking about her mum (spoiler not Queen Bee).

Personality: sarcastic with trust issues galore; she tend to lean into anger and humor as a defense. Despite her parentage (presumably because she never knew her parents), she has a strong moral code despite being able to quickly befriend villains. She likes to call out the hero’s when they are being self righteous picks (especially if she is saving their butts or saving an innocent). Prickly, but overall good.

Episode one: Diamonds are not a Girls Best Friend.

Opening- one year ago

You meet Gwen in school being harassed for her scholarship status and bored as hell. Use this scene to establish personality. Next meet her bubbly roommate who starts talking about being jealous of the Wayne Scholarship dinner that will be held at the Manor, clothing etc. makes Gwen borrow a nice dress because otherwise Gwen would go in casual black jeans (which is all wrong for a cocktail event per the roommate).

Next major scene is in the limo with the other scholarship kids (only 1-3 per grade). Easter egg with atriums. Alfred and Greyson greet the kids at the door, and Greyson leads the group in a tour of the manor. During the tour near the entryway, they pass a large jewel that perfectly matches Gwen’s eyes and seems to slightly glow. Close up of Gwens schooled face looking like she saw a ghost. She asking dick about the gem as if disinterested and asking why it was in the Manor. Dick explaining someone had stole it last year from local gallery, and that Batman had just recently recovered it and handed it over to the gallery’s owner. Who in turn asked Bruce, an old friend, to secure it while the gallery’s security is being upgraded. Next scene is a vaguely uncomfortable dinner scene where Bruce has to leave within 5 minutes of being introduced to the group. He tells Dick to stay. While leaving Gwen realizes she left her phone at the table and leaves the limo to retrieve. She stares again at the jewel and tells herself “it is a coincidence.” She grabs her phone. The limo has already left. Dick finds her at the door and seems annoyed (and like he is in a rush). They call a cab and wait awkwardly in the entryway. Suddenly the windows burst. Smoke bombs and knockout gas are thrown in side. Blurry men in full tactical gear bust in as Gwen collapses. When she wakes up she tried up in a chair next to dick (also tied up and seemingly unconscious though a few panels will show his eyes partially open). Gwen struggles only to hear a familiar laugh. “Isn’t life funny, last we were all together,” motions to himself and and the stone (still in its glass case though the other masked men are trying to break in), “I killed you”. She looks up with disgust. “Missed you too sweetie”. The man lifts up his mask to reveal a teenage boy. And Gwen spits at him. Fun dialog show that they at least dated and she had something to do with the original theft. They finally get the stone and start to leave. “Oh right. lose ends” he aims a gun at her and it clicks. The barrel was empty. Laughing to himself the leader then tells one of the other men to get her up. Smiling. She is coming with us. One of the masked men speak. He sounds older and more mature. “That is an unnecessary risk. Leave her or kill her.” The leader throws a tantrum yelling that he hired the men. “Just shut up and do what you are fucking told”. Gwen has her hands tried behind her back and is forced up the stairs to the roof. She looks over her shoulder at Dick who looks asleep and cooperates.

Next Panel in the background his chair is empty. Gwen is on the roof watching a helicopter come closer. Suddenly one of the men is pulled backwards into the dark. Traditional Batman style fight with henchmen. Only the leader remains. He pulls Gwen to him and holds a knife to her throat. “Come any closer, you fucker, and I kill her!” Gwen smiles. “I’d like to see to see you try.” Suddenly she stomps on leader’s foot, and spins away unscathed. Notably, in the struggle the knife slashed Gwen but there was no blood, only blue sparks. She stands before the leader, her dress cut across the middle (clearly showing her skin … with no cuts). Leader pulls out a gun and Robin’s voice emerges from the shadows telling his to drop the gun… and likely making a joke. The leader starts firing at the shadows. We heard robin curse as if hit. Gwen jumps in and says his fight is with her. She walks slowly towards him and he fires repeatedly. The bullets bounce off with a flash of blue light. Her eyes are glowing. “You!!” He screams “It chose you!!” Gwen clocks him across the face and the leader collapses to the ground. She turns over her shoulder to ask the boy in the shadows if he is ok. He comes out. Intrigued. His leg is bleeding but he promises it was only a graze. She looks down at her dress. “Well this sucks.” Jokes about dry cleaners and coverups. Gwen mentions the Wayne ward passed out inside. And sees her cab coming towards the house. Thanks robin and jumps off the roof. We see her land and walk towards the cab.

Next scene is her getting a package early in the morning with a new dress the perfectly matches her roommates and her phone. And a joking note from robin. She see dick in a nearby classroom and asks how he is doing. He says fine but is clearly in pain. She can see some blood seeping through his pant’s leg where robin had been grazed. She says nothing. And the las scene just says “now. “ Showing robin and Gwen soaring on a roof.

Sad Origin or Juliet should have just Stayed Home: (Notably all covered in one issue as background info to avoid romanticizing pain and trauma) first thing to notice in the first panel. Gwen has brown eyes instead of the normal eerie blue). She thinks she is an orphan being raised by a loving aunt, only to have her home blown up by faulty gas lines (spoilers was not the gas lines). She ends up in the Narrows living in a group home with a hot boy (he is the leader that tried to steal the gem in the earlier episode). She is alone, without a safety net and traumatized. He starts dating her. And is a manipulative and emotionally abusive asshole. He tells her the mob has his missing birth father and will kill him if he does not get a certain stone (that just happens to be on display as of that morning in her dead AU ants gallery). The gem had been brought over by an anonymous buyer who what deemed in breach of the purchase agreement and lot rights to the gem. The aunt’s co-owner/ girlfriend had reviewed the jewel and set it up as displayed in the old 15th century painting, weird writing and all. While stealing the gem, Gwen cuts her hand as her boyfriend fucks around and reads the weird script. This accidentally starts an old ritual. After a clean get away, the boyfriend kisses her and pushes off a roof to her death. She accidentally grabs the gem while grabbing for something to safe her life. She wakes up two days later on the street where her body had landed after the fall, with blood stains in her clothing from nonexistent injuries. She feels strange and disconnected from her past as if looking at her entire history through water. She assumes it is shocks and sneaks back into the group home. She uses her aunts oversized jacket hide the blood. Her roommate try’s to get Gwen to fess up where she has been thinking it was a romantic runway. Gwen turns to go to the restroom and roommate says she likes the new contact lenses. Gwen looks up and realizes that her brown eyes have turned an unnatural blue. last panel "what the hell"

Bullet point of storyline notes:

The Halloween special issue. “Never Trust a Cat.” Gwen has her noticing Dicks Gymnastics and being forced by her roommate to go to a Halloween party. She dresses up as a cat. Roommate is kidnapped by guys in tactical gear and has something injected into her. Gwen runs after and with Dick’s help saves the roommate. Only to realize she has been injected with some neurotoxin that slowly makes her susceptible to suggestion that the JL has recently learned about. Obviously created by the light. He says the antidote is in the bat cave and he will take care of the roommate. “If you think I’m leaving her side, Dick Greyson, you are dumber than you look.” Dick tries to deflect. Gwen says fine. He awkwardly holds the roommate while racing through the street on his bike. He looks over his shoulder at Gwen who has not moved. A blue flash is in the sky. He goes through the waterfall. And administers the cure. Suddenly from behind “so this is what the bat cave looks like…. I’ll be honest. I did no expect the giant penny.”Gwen is floating in cloud of blue light that dissipates as she lands.

Batman started avoiding Gwen after only a few sessions

In the same episodes she learns her mother is alive and abandoned her for a life of crime, she learns that her aunt faked her death and left. Apparently, the aunt killed some guy that had been hitting her. He was part of the mob. “It’s not safe for you” crap.

Finds out mum is alive after seeing a picture of cat woman on the bat computer. Turns out Batman had only even given her the maybe scholarship after learning he could be her dad. He grew distant when he learned who was the dad. Oh the abandon meant issues and trust issues I mentioned above.

Turns out robin knew about her parents and had been lying to her for over year. He is also the only person to know her secret so she feel especially betrayed. Needless to say the budding relationship is crushed after their first kiss. She is pissed.

Mum is cat woman. Who had an unwanted pregnancy and gave birth under a fake name. She faked her death in a car accident. And never appeared to look back.

Gwens auburn hair is from her dads side of the family. That’s right cat woman and lex hate fucked after a successful mission. Lex doesn’t know about Gwen.

When Gwen learns who her father is and that Batman and robin have known since testing her DNA (without her consent) a few weeks after meeting her. She is pissed. So she gets drunk underage. Kidnapped by none other than her ex. He had hired Icicle Jr. to guard her. She just wants to avoid the bats at all costs and know she is off the grid. So she spends the next few hours joking with Jr and bonding.robin breaks in. As other henchmen are being beat up, Gwen asks jr if he wants to make a deal. Give me a place off the grid to crash and I will get you out of here. Screams. Jr shrugs and says the money wasn’t that good anyway. Gwen blasts the ceiling creating a hole and grabs jr to fly out. They crash at one of his hideouts and get take out. At some point a group of his friends (probably Easter eggs) come to try to get Jr to come partying. A little bit later. Gwen is at a club in central city with a bunch of villains and having the time of her life. She is flirting with one of the guys that came to Jr’s. And jr is dancing with his own man (is apparently gay in this universe go with it). Gwen is joking and being extremely vague about her “co-workers”. Suddenly green arrow and Artemis crash the party. Artemis says to put down the shot glass. Gwen stays she is just drinking and to chill (she is dealing with some shit and may not be perfectly sober). Artemis fires an arrow that breaks the glass. Small fight and Jr drags Gwen out. They arrive at the apartment laughing. A panel showing days of the week and then hanging out (video games, baseball, etc. just friend shit). Later the same friends at before some over with Jrs new man. They are all hanging out when the others start talking shop. Namely Batman has been captured and will be killed on live tv. They are laughing at how the hero’s won’t find him despite him being just a few bloating away. Gwen excuses herself. And leaves a note to jr thanking and apologizing to jr. she saves Batman. Fight scene. And tells him to never contact her again. It’s snowing when she leaves.

One of the Episodes right after robins betrayal. “Let’s Get Ready to Rumble”. Bus of kids with Gwen on it gets highjacked. Before highjacked, see a football player ruin gwens chem book. The kidnappers make their demands and decide to wait it out at there boss’s place…. Which also happens to host an illegal fighting league. The men joke that they will make someone fight. If you win the whole ransom amount we will let you go. Gwen volunteers. The men laugh. A football player volunteers and gather his friends money to place the bet. He gets knocked out in record time. The b Gwen worked on her school projects volunteers her money up so long as it gwen in the ring. The rules are simple. Step out of the ring, you lose. Get knocked out, you lose. Die, you lose. Gwen first fight is against a larger guy who comes swinging. She dodges and trips him. He lands out of the ring. She wins without throwing a punch. She sees lex in the box. She wins several rounds of increased difficulty. This includes a two on one and blockbuster. Gwen next fight is against bizaro.When he is flying she asks if that counts after stepping out of the ring. No, you have to touch the ground. Gwen does not want people to see her powers. Instead she tumble and flip jumps off the ring tops to reach the lowing rafters. She proceeds to fight and dodge bizaro before jumping on mercy greaves shoulders and asking Lexi if he could spare what he had hidden in his ring. Curious and intrigued he gives her the sliver of kryptonite, which she slide under Bizaro’s skin when she tackles his form. He collapsed in the ring. Comedic scene of her dragging her out of the ring slowly since he is so heavy but technically still awake. She removes the kryptonite as soon as his hand touches the ground outside the ring. It’s the final fight. Makes a joke how she has definitely repaid the ransoms after this this. At this point the kidnappers are impressed and joking with her. She jokes about chem book. They promise to give her 300 bucks for a new one if she beats the next guy. A cage comes down on the ring. A guy smaller than most she has fought is tried up with a hood covering his face. Kids wonder what monster could be worse than Bizaro. The announcer starts going on about this interloper trying to shut the fights down. It’s robin duh. Gwen turns to the kidnappers. “I’m supposed to fight robin. Fun” robin is half to see Gwen and tells her they just need to fake the fight for bit since KG and his other new teammate are there. Gwen says not a problem and punch the lying sidekick across the face and into the bars. She makes a cryptic joke how this will be over In a flash. Just give her five minutes. Cue fight. Robin is good at dodging. But gwen is coming for him. Crowd comments that she seems way more into this fight. Robin ends up tied up and hanging from the top of the cage like a Christmas turkey with one shoulder dislocated (but nothing permanent). He struggles and Gwen asks if he was looking for these. And pulls out his batarangs. Chaos occurs as the young hero’s make their move. An arrow is fired but Gwen blocks it with a batarang saying she still has 20 seconds on the clock. She waits as she counts down then jumps out of the ring as KF comes up. “What they hell” Gwen smirks. “We both know he deserved worse. After I didn’t cause any permanent damage.” She starts walking away. “By the way, don’t worry about taking me home with other hostages. I will find my own ride.” See her ride off on a bike. Artemis walks over to KF “isn’t that Robin’s bike”. “Yep”. Next scene Gwen in bat cave returning the bike when Alfred walks in. “I did not expect to see you here again for a while.” “I needed to return something after all. I’m not a thief.” Alfred looks at the bike and notices some stu wires. He raises an eyebrow. “You found the trackers” Gwen smiles “so will robin. I left them in some interesting places”. Alfred asks if she needs a ride home. She says she fine and has a few errands to run. A chem book to buy” “ miss Kyle, I believe most book stores will be closed at this hour.”

#Instagram

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twentiethcenturymoviesandtv · 3 years

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Growing Pains: The Characters

No matter what medium, characters are an integral part of storytelling. Whether it’s a book, stage play, movie, or a television show, the audience will likely not stick with it if they should happen to think the Eight Deadly Words:

“I don’t care what happens to these people.”

While it’s important to develop good characters in every form of storytelling, it is perhaps the most crucial to get them right on television.

While a film can distract from it’s lackluster characters with interesting visuals, a fast-paced storyline, and some neat twists and setpieces, television rarely has that luxury. Produced with a smaller runtime, on a smaller budget, television episodes tend to be character-based. With the exception of anthologies, most television shows have a set number of cast members that the audience follows through multiple episodes. This means that the characters in shows must be versatile enough to be interesting in multiple stories, and multiple types of stories, and be able to grow and change at a slow, but steady, rate. As a result, writing for characters on television can be hard.

Even when the said characters are a family from a Domestic Sitcom.

Like I said, characters are a vital ingredient in television. They are the people that we come back to every week, and often, they are the reason we keep watching. The characters make or break a television show, and as such, it’s incredibly important to create a main cast that the audience enjoys spending time with.

Luckily, the way to do it isn’t as hard as it might seem.

I’ve mentioned before that the secret to creating main characters (especially for television) is to mix two components: relatability and entertainment.

As with all fiction, television is an exaggerated version of reality. Even the slice-of-life sitcom scenarios have to be a little bigger, a little more extreme than our normal lives in order to be entertainment. But the audience tends not to buy it unless there’s that dose of reality, that relatability within the stories and characters in that we can see ourselves reacting in similar ways, or recognize elements in our own lives. This is true of writing for plots, but it’s also true of writing for characters.

Which brings us to our question:

Are the Seavers good television protagonists?

What a great question, I’m so glad I asked! Let’s take a look.

The Seavers are, to some degree, a family that any of us might know, or in some ways, be. They fight, make up, grow and learn as much as any family does, and as such, the audience identifies with their dynamic. They react to events, not as a unit, but as individuals within a family unit, and their separate personalities and interactions with one another make for engaging stories and development.

But, like I said, they are individuals, not a unit, and we have to look at them as such, starting with the patriarch of the family: Jason Seaver.

Jason is a psychiatrist, a dad, and a Reasonable Authority Figure. While not infallible, Jason does whatever he can to be fair with his kids, and, being exposed to them often, combined with his practice gives him an edge on knowing how to get them to behave. He’s interested in knowing the roots of the behaviors, and tries very hard to understand his family. He’s more likely to concoct an ‘outside the box’ method to reign in his kids, but he’s always respectful of their feelings, and tries to bring the family together. He is the heart, ready to take charge when necessary.

Of course, being a ‘grown-up’ does not automatically make him a complete person. Jason also grows and learns throughout the series, and comes with struggles of his own. There are plenty of episodes where he deals with decisions like whether to go back to work, or stay at home to support his wife’s career, or is forced to contend with things like his mother’s second marriage. As such, he’s a relatable character, more than just ‘The Dad’, but a person in his own right. This element is shared by his wife, Maggie Seaver.

Maggie is a reporter, a mom, and, surprisingly, another Reasonable Authority Figure. Again, not infallible, but in a different way than her husband. Maggie is a little more prone to laughing at her family’s antics, and being a little more quick to jump to action than Jason’s “Wait for the teachable moment” strategies. She’s more of the disciplinarian between the two, a devoted career woman, and is on the more cautious side.

She has her share of problems too, such as dealing with an unexpected pregnancy, harassment in the workplace, and her father’s death. Again, she is more than ‘The Mom’, and continues to grow throughout the series. She’s a more rounded character, a person for the audience to relate to.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the parents on the show is how they work together and interact. As it turns out, the show was originally going to be more focused on the parents, until Mike turned into the Breakout Character of the show. The ‘grown ups’ don’t always agree, and approach parenting in different ways, but they endeavor to work together as a team, with a genuine relationship. Sometimes they fight, but they are typically supportive of one another, and handle problems in a mature way that tends to more closely reflect real life rather than other ‘zany’ revenge or ‘lesson teaching’ plotlines of other Dom-Coms. They do genuinely want what’s best for their kids, and the audience gets to watch them watch their family grow up and expand in a way that’s resonant with how real parents deal with their own families.

As a result, Jason and Maggie work well as sitcom protagonists, being different enough from each other to spark conflict and struggle, but affectionate and loving enough to patch it up before it gets too ugly. Their relationship comes across as genuine, and they grow enough as individuals that it’s satisfying to watch them throughout all seven seasons of the show.

But, of course, there’s a lot more to the Seavers than the parents. Let’s talk about the kids.

We have to start with Mike.

The oldest kid and the Breakout Character (similar to Michael J. Fox’s character, Alex P. Keaton, on Family Ties, except a polar opposite personality), Mike Seaver is most parents’ mildly annoying nightmare. Not bad enough to be a ‘bad kid’, but nowheres near good, Mike was a middle-of-the-road teenager. He got into trouble, came home after curfew, lied, attempted to cheat, and was overall, kind of a self-centered brat early on, but he typically knew where to draw the line (see the drug episode, “Thank God it’s Friday”), and didn’t get away with the bad things that he did do.

As time went on, Mike grew up and out of a lot of his problematic behavior, becoming more responsible and mature. (Some of that was affected by actor Kirk Cameron’s conversion to Christianity during the show.) Even early on, there were signs that Mike not be so much of a troublemaker, where he did show a hidden heart of gold underneath the cocky, snarky exterior. Typically the funny-man of the kids, Mike was always ready with a quick-witted joke, (usually at someone else’s expense, especially his siblings) which made him a fan-favorite early on. The show is an excellent showcase of his development from problem-child to responsible adult, getting a job and moving out. But he wasn’t the only one of the kids to change.

Carol, second oldest, was the brain of the family, and she knew it. Bright, studious, hardworking, and just as much a Deadpan Snarker as Mike, Carol was typically the Only Sane Man of the kids, the most likely to realize when something was a bad idea. Occasionally suffering from self-esteem problems (being ‘nerdy’ in the 1980s was akin to having the Black Plague, according to teen media), Carol was more cautiously adventurous than her brothers, wanting to see the world and learn as much as she could.

She too grew up. Throughout the series, Carol learned that academics wasn’t everything, and grew into a more rounded individual, taking risks, exploring, and becoming a responsible adult, changing through experiences both good and bad. Occasionally self-righteous, sensitive, and intelligent, Carol was a fine, and relatively realistic example of the high-school smart-kid in the real world.

That leaves only Ben, the youngest.

From a young age, Ben was rowdy, rambunctious, rascally, and (I’m almost out of R words, help) a royal pain to his siblings. Initially rather gullible and apparently insistent on taking lessons the wrong way, the trouble Ben got into in the beginning was mostly due to the fact that he was just naive (Inviting a homeless kid in for Christmas Eve, calling a porn hotline repeatedly, etc.), but as time went on, Ben became more of a problem than Mike had been, getting himself into bigger trouble. As the youngest and the most perpetually childish, more and more lessons were milked out of Ben than any of the other siblings, and as such, he had to screw up more than they did.

He got more than his share of focus episodes too. Episodes like “Birth of a Seaver” included large subplots where Ben had his own big moments, dealing with the death of a stranger, and then the new life of a family member, in a rather interesting way. Other episodes focused more on his learning hard truths, such as the unfortunately accurate Aesop: Sometimes, cheaters prosper, but honesty is better for the long run.

It’s difficult to say that the kids ‘got along’, because for the most part, they didn’t. They fought, squabbled, tattled, and got each other into trouble quite often. By the same token, they also knew when to help each other.

Like I said earlier, the one thing you can say about the Seavers is that they felt absolutely genuine. They deconstructed character types and sitcom plots regularly, and the family’s interactions felt real. They weren’t totally saccharine, and they weren’t unbelievably nasty to one another either. They were different from one another, (different enough to get different stories out of them for seven years) but came together when they needed it. At the end of the day, despite the personality conflicts, disobedient kids, and unfortunate events, the Seavers loved each other, and felt like a family.

And that’s what made the show really work.

The characters had to grow and change, albeit slowly, because that’s how life works. Growing Pains was a sitcom depicting exaggerated family life, and as such, the characters had to be memorable, as well as learn and grow. By the end of the show, these are not the same people that we started out with. Out of necessity, they had to grow up. And that’s a good thing.

Thanks to the familiar format and personalities, the audience enjoyed tuning in every week to watch and laugh along with a family that we related to, that we understood. Almost everyone can find at least a part of themselves in at least one character, and we recognize the interactions in our own lives and families.

In the end, the Seavers are good sitcom protagonists, because they hit that combination of entertainment and relatability nearly perfectly, with just the right consistency to tell stories full of heart, comedy, and tragedy, and to make it work for seven years. They felt real, and after all, that’s the point of good characters.

Thank you guys so much for reading! Join us next time as we discuss Growing Pains and the culture. If you have anything you’d like to say, don’t forget to leave an ask! I hope to see you all in the next article.

#Television #TV #TV-G #Growing Pains #80s #Comedy #Family #Alan Thicke #Joanna Kerns #Kirk Cameron #Tracey Gold #Jeremy Miller

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timeagainreviews · 4 years

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Are you there Xoanon? It’s me, Leela.

At the time of writing this article, many of you will have in your possession the season 14 Blu-Ray box set for Doctor Who. Within it are classics like "The Deadly Assassin," "The Robots of Death," and the controversial, but still much loved "The Talons of Weng-Chiang." However, today I would like to talk about an often overlooked gem in the form of "The Face of Evil." While the serial does introduce the companion Leela and showcases some classic Fourth Doctor moments, it has also received a fair bit of ire from certain fans over the years. I’ve found myself defending it in the past, to people whose opinions I value. My hope is that by the end of this review, some of you may come away with a new appreciation for what is one of my favourite classic Doctor Who stories.

For a little bit of background, when devising the character of Leela, producer Philip Hinchcliffe and script editor Robert Holmes were looking to do something new with the companion. They wanted a female lead that could also do heroics. The initial concept for Leela was a mix of Eliza Doolittle, Emma Peel, and Loana from "One Million Years B.C." The decision to make the companion more of an action star was one that was met with resistance from Tom Baker, who in this humble writer’s opinion would have been happiest acting alongside a sock puppet. While he claimed not to like the violence of Leela, I often wonder if it wasn’t because such a dashing co-star would pull focus from the main event- the Doctor.

The writer tasked with bringing Leela to life was Chris Boucher, an avowed atheist. And remember this fact, as it will remain relevant throughout this entire review. Right away, Boucher’s knack for comprehensive dialogue is laid out as we meet Leela, a young tribal woman, being cast out by the rest of her tribe, the Sevateem, for heresy. However, it is her own father that offers to take her place in the "test." Leela’s tone changes from defiance to pleas of mercy for the life of her feeble, but proud father. Right away we’re struck with a series of science fiction tropes, and it’s one wonderful pulpy delight after another. Also telling is the presence of anachronistic technology. Such as the gasket turned into a chest-piece adorning the tribe’s local zealot and shaman- Neeva.

In his element, the Doctor arrives at this frontier world by himself. However, as much as Baker would have relished travelling solo, it becomes immediately apparent why this would be a bad idea. Having no companion to sound off with, he resorts to directing his comments toward you and I, the audience. While I love the Fourth Doctor and his penchant for breaking the fourth wall, it’s not a sustainable recipe for good storytelling. The Doctor needs a companion, if for no other reason than to have someone to explain the plot to.

The Doctor walks through this wilderness without a care in the world as little critters scurry past in a Star Wars or Dark Crystal fashion. It reminded me of moments like when the First Doctor and his companions come across petrified creatures on the surface of Skaro. I wish modern Doctor Who would do more of this- tiny creatures that have no greater bearing on the storyline other than world-building. Leela, having been exiled finds herself walking deep into the jungle. However, it seems that exile wasn’t enough, as she soon finds herself being hunted by her former tribesmen. It would appear that allowing her form of heresy to live is not something Neeva, or his god "Xoanon," are willing to let happen.

Leela dispatches one of her would-be assassins, while another is taken care of by a sympathetic friend named Tomas, who followed the killers after overhearing Neeva’s scheme. While they never touch on it, I wonder if Tomas didn’t have feelings for Leela. It would make sense as she is fierce, intelligent, beautiful, and around the same age as him. Had things gone differently, perhaps they could have had a life together. However, Leela is past the point of no return, and his boyish crush. She pridefully tells him to turn back but warns him not to trust Calib, a man she sees as having more ambition than sense.

Leela walks past what is known by the Sevateem as a great protective barrier. Finding herself pursued by invisible monsters, she runs for her life but falls to the ground at the feet of a man unknown to her. Upon following her gaze up to the feet’s owner, she is shocked and terrified to see the Doctor, a face she of which she is surprisingly familiar. Despite the fact that the Doctor resembles the "Evil One," the Sevateem’s own version of Satan, Leela doesn’t know what to make of his friendly demeanour. This is a moment of great internal conflict for her as only a few scenes ago she was telling her tribal leaders that their god Xoanon was a lie. Now here she stands, looking the devil in the face and he’s offering her sweets.

I’ve always maintained that the story arc for Leela is one of atheism but in the most Doctor Who of manners. Much in the same way that the Doctor will go into a haunted house and prove that it’s actually an ancient alien force, the show has widely maintained the stance that the spiritual is just science we don’t yet understand. Leela’s first lesson comes in the form of the Doctor deftly dealing with their invisible predator. After discovering that a protective boundary is a machine that projects a sonic disruption, the Doctor deduces that the creatures must be blind and sense things by vibration. Using an egg timer, the Doctor distracts the monsters, while he and Leela make a break for it. It’s a great special effect, as even now I can’t figure out how they managed to crush a clock with what looks like nothing.

Back with the tribe, we learn that Neeva speaks with Xoanon through a transmitter that he believes is a magic relic that allows only the holiest to speak to God. Xoanon commands Neeva to go to war with their enemies the Tesh. But the chief of the Sevateem, Andor, wonders why their God would have them go into battle on empty stomachs. A reasonable concern which is met by Neeva’s assertion that Xoanon will feed those of true faith. The tribe gears up for war, but on their way past the boundary, discover the Doctor.

The men shoot a couple of warning shots across the Doctor’s brow, embedding themselves into a tree. While the men deal with the fact that they are now looking eye to eye with their version of the Devil, Leela slips away. Upon seeing the Doctor, the men do a sort of "Sign of the Cross," gesture with their hands touching their neck, their shoulder and their waist. The Doctor notes this is interesting as it’s also the method one would use to check the seals on a spacesuit. Using his newfound infamy to his advantage, the Doctor holds one of the tribesmen hostages with a "deadly," Jelly Baby. But the men call his bluff and the Doctor is taken to meet Neeva and Andor.

Seeing this as an opportunity to prove their faith, Neeva declares they should kill the Doctor without haste. However, Calib, an atheist in his own right, sees this as an opportunity to make Neeva look bad in front of the whole tribe. He suggests they put the Doctor through the "test." Knowing that if the Doctor dies, it will prove that he wasn’t a god, and if he lives, Neeva will look just as bad, as the belief is that only mortals can survive the test.

Knowing her father to have died from this test, an eavesdropping Leela sneaks her way in to stop the Doctor from being killed. Leela uses local Janis thorns on one of the captors, paralysing him in a rigid posture with no hope of revival. The Doctor is appalled by this and commands her never to use Janis thorns ever again. After making a break for it, the Doctor and Leela make it past the boundary where the Doctor learns why his face is so infamous. Out across the horizon sits a giant mountain with his own visage carved into its precipice.

Meanwhile, the rest of the warriors continue toward the mountain for their attack. I was genuinely surprised as I had never noticed the inclusion of a single female warrior with black braids in her hair. Initially, I had thought Leela was the only female in the entire story, but there comes braids looking like a badass. I instantly want to know more about her and to see her in extended media. Sadly, braids and a bunch of other Sevateem are cut down by beams of light before they can meet the impenetrable time barrier. Clearly, something about this was a trap put on by Xoanon, but why?

The Doctor decides that the only way to understand what is happening is by going back to the tribe, despite the death sentence. Upon returning, most of the camp is still deserted, allowing him and Leela a chance to snoop around. Upon discovering the room of "relics," kept by Neeva, the Doctor reveals them to be nothing more than the scientific instruments of the human colonists from whom the Sevateem and Tesh descend. The Doctor finds the helmet Neeva uses to speak to Xoanon and realises that Xoanon speaks with his own voice. Furthermore, Xoanon seems to think the Doctor and he are one.

Being one of the first to return from battle, Calib discovers the Doctor and Leela. Afraid they will ruin his plans to make Neeva look a fool, he poisons Leela with a Janis thorn. With little time, the Doctor demonstrates to Calib that the equipment they've been worshipping for years is actually capable or analysing and concocting a cure for Janis thorn poison. Leela is revived but slightly incapacitated, which makes her and the Doctor easy to capture when more, including Neeva, return from battle.

Now, remember the little critter I mentioned earlier? Well, it would appear that they're a carnivorous bunch known as the horda. Much like piranhas, they are able to strip a body of its flesh when in large numbers. The Doctor is made to stand above a pit of them while a rock tied to a rope slowly lowers, opening the pit more and more with every inch. Leela tries to give the Doctor a pointer, which causes one of the Sevateem to strike her. The Doctor's response is to kick a horda at him which causes him to run in fear. I mention this because any time the Doctor is violent is cause to pause.

One of the things I find irritating with modern Doctor Who is the insistence that the Doctor is never violent. The Third Doctor used Venusian Aikido. The Fourth Doctor practically breaks a guy's neck in "The Seeds of Doom." Hell, even in modern Doctor Who we see it. Like when the Ninth Doctor punched that guy, or when the Twelfth Doctor punched that guy. Or how about the Eleventh Doctor teleporting a bomb onto Solomon's ship in "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship," written by Chris "I don't understand the Doctor's morality" Chibnall? My point is, that the Doctor isn't violent unless he needs to be. The Doctor is non-violent up until the point where either A) it's the only option left, or B) he's mad. In this case, it's B, he's mad.

What does it mean that the Doctor chose this moment to break his rule? I would venture to say he was punishing unnecessary cruelty in kind. But think even more about the theme of the episode. At this moment, the Doctor's morality isn't what's in question, it's his mortality. It's as if Boucher is taking this moment to compare the actions of a man to the expectations of a god. Before the Doctor shoots the rope with perfect precision, he's revealed himself to be a person subject to the whims of his own emotions. In this way, Boucher is asking the viewer to look at the vengeful nature of our own gods and to see the inherent humanity entangled within. Or in the Doctor's own words- "You can't expect perfection, even from me!"

With the Doctor somewhat exonerated by being able to pass this asinine test, he is given a bit more freedom to move about. But this doesn't mean an end to the unrest. The Doctor reveals that the Sevateem are actually descendants of a survey team (creating a portmanteau), and heads back to the mountain to discover the secrets of the Tesh. Meanwhile, Xoanon removes the barrier surrounding the Sevateem, allowing the invisible creatures free roam to terrorise the simple tribe. The Sevateem are quickly overtaken by invisible beings, which kill Andor and many others. The Doctor takes his leave to climb up the mountain into his own face.

The Doctor discovers a spacesuited man within the mouth of the carving. He also discovers a derelict rocket for the Mordee expedition. It's about this time that the Doctor begins to remember having come to this planet in the past. In an attempt to fix the AI, Xoanon, the Doctor linked his mind. Only instead of repairing it, he created a duality that drove the AI to madness. Thus creating a desire in Xoanon to reconcile these two aspects in itself. Its solution for this quandary was to influence the two groups of humans into two very different evolutions and see who would come out on top. The primitive yet cunning Sevateem, or the brilliant yet passionless Tesh?

At this point, the story takes a somewhat extreme turn as the Tesh are found to be rather advanced in every way by comparison to the Sevateem. The Tesh, being descendants of the technicians of the colonists, are more intelligent. They dress like the Great Gazoo if he went through a harlequin phase. They caper and cavort about in an almost jovial sense, but their belief in Xoanon is no less zealous than their primitive counterparts. They seem peaceful at first until the Doctor discovers they plan to atomise Leela. After showing his disapproval, the Tesh turn on the Doctor, subduing him with their mental powers which looks a lot like staring super hard at the guy until he collapses.

I absolutely love that with two reviews in a row I'm able to talk about two separate James Bond type laser scenes where our heroes are incapacitated in some way and are forced to escape the laser with a mirror. This isn't me calling out the show for overusing a trope. There were eleven years between these two episodes, and it's completely by chance that I decided to review them back to back, but how funny is that? And their titles both have to do with faces! I swear I didn't plan this.

As I said, the Doctor and Leela escape with a simple mirror. The Doctor uses the technology to imitate Xonanon and communicate with Neeva. However, Neeva surprises the Doctor when he calls the Doctor by name, showing that even the most fanatical is not so forgone as to be unreachable. The Doctor tells Neeva to instruct Calib to lead the men to the mouth of the mountain where the invisible beings cannot reach. Soon, the Doctor and Leela find themselves running from the Tesh through corridors. It's classic Doctor Who with the bad guys giving chase through endless corridors which are actually the same corridor. After a scuffle, the Doctor once more is forced to use violence as one of the Tesh comes at him and gets kicked into an electrified wall. The Doctor notes that the man appeared to be hypnotised, as if under the influence of Xoanon.

Leela is given a laser gun to fight off the Tesh, which I find to be the perfect metaphor for this entire story. The cave girl gives up her crossbow for a laser gun. It is as if her transition from a primitive to the scientist is coming full circle. It's as though she is claiming the birthright of her ancestors. She's gone from a person questioning her faith, to a person functioning within this new paradigm. Even though she still finds herself cowering when she hears the supposed voice of God, her confidence is growing.

Leela continues trading fire with the Tesh, while the Doctor seeks out Xoanon within the "Sacred Heart," a large computer complex. An array of large screens project the Doctor's face. But as the Doctor enters the room, Xonanon experiences an identity crisis, causing it to repeat the question "Who am I?" The panic creates a psychic assault on the Doctor, causing him to drop to the ground. As the question repeats, Xoanon's voice fluctuates between the Doctor, a man, a woman, and a child. The child's voice is a particularly chilling juxtaposition with the Doctor's frantic orange face screaming in a panicked frenzy. Fun fact: the child's voice is provided by Anthony Frieze who won a competition at his local school to be in the episode. For a kid that won a contest, it's surprising how much he nailed that take. It's quite easily one of the most effective moments in the entire serial.

The fourth episode of this serial is easily one of the weakest as it degenerates into a lot of your common science fiction tropes. As I said, once they enter the mountain, the tone of the entire story shifts. This is really my biggest criticism of the entire story. But it's also a bit of a further metaphor for the whole atheism argument. Man leaves the primitive world into the world of technology. But with false gods present, man still struggles to find an identity beyond their god. In their own way, the Tesh are no more advanced than the Sevateem. It would appear that Xoanon's little experiment in eugenics was all a bust.

The Sevateem arrive and fight back the Tesh. They also bring the Tesh's weapons into the fight against the invisible monsters, which turn out to be manifestations of Xonanon's id. This explains why the one time we do see them, they just look like a giant apparition of the Doctor's face. Having saved the Doctor from Xoanon's psychic assault, Leela and the Doctor continue trying to stop Xoanon. Because of this, Xoanon, in a last-ditch effort to stop the Doctor, takes over Leela and the rest of the Sevateem to kill the Doctor. However, having been broken from his own religious spell, the unlikeliest of heroes appears in the form of Neeva. Neeva shoots Xoanon long enough to stop the link and save the Doctor but loses his own life in the process.

The Doctor finally repairs Xoanon but gets knocked unconscious in doing so. Upon waking, he discovers he had been out cold for two whole days. A casual Leela sits beside him eating chocolate in peace. The Doctor assumes this means his plan worked and that Xoanon was stopped. The Tesh and the Sevateem are living together in a sort of shaky truce. The invisible monsters are gone, and Xoanon is now at peace. To prove so, Xoanon offers the Tesh and Sevateem the option to destroy it at the push of a button. They discuss needing new leadership and decide Calib is not the right man. Instead, the people (see: Tomas) want Leela to lead. However, Leela turns down the offer to travel with the Doctor, much to his chagrin. Leela has seen enough of this primitive planet. It's time to see the stars.

If you can't tell by now, the aspect I liked so much about this story was its delving into atheism and theology. It may seem like a heavy subject, but at its core, it's something that represents the show as a whole. The perspective that all problems, at their core, can be met with logic and reason. Furthermore, I greatly admire the way in which they continue this story arc for Leela over the remainder of her tenure as a companion. This idea of a woman raised out of ignorance into the realm of greater knowledge continues to build in her character until she becomes someone capable of living among the Time Lords themselves.

That is not to say this serial is not without its faults. For some, it may not be a fascinating storyline. They may not be as enthralled by its themes as I was. Which is fair. There are also some silly moments, such as the invisible monsters leaving footprints, despite being the projections of a giant head. The use of the word savage is also a bit dated, as is the whole concept of the "noble savage." Also, Xoanon got off a bit light. It was like at the end of The Dark Crystal when urSkeks leave like "Peace out, sorry about all the genociiiiide..." What kind of society are the Doctor and Leela leaving behind? Can the Tesh and Sevateem find common ground, or will it be war in perpetuity?

Truth be told, I rather like that it ends on a bit of an open-ended question. I don't believe it's always the Doctor's job to handhold and change the diapers of every developing society. The most the Doctor can hope for is that things have found some sort of balance, free from meddling or outside influence like aliens, robots, or in this case, himself. Furthermore, I love the concept of the Doctor taking a companion on reluctantly. It's almost a form of penance for the Doctor. You created this madwoman with a knife and Janis thorns, and now you've got to tote her around the universe. In many ways, I find Leela very sympathetic. Having come from a religious background, I know the struggles inherent in losing faith, how it shakes your foundation. This type of representation happens so seldom in fiction, and it's rarely a positive thing.

"I too used to believe in magic, but the Doctor taught me about science. It is better to believe in science." –Leela, from "The Horror of Fang Rock"

#Doctor Who #Fourth Doctor #Tom Baker #Leela #Louise Jameson #The Face of Evil #Xoanon #leela of the sevateem #sevateem #tesh #bbc #TARDIS #chris boucher

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soraegeeks · 5 years

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Review: Fire in the Mountains

Fire in the Mountains by EllaBesmirched (El_Bell) AU: Fantasy Main relationships: Bakugou Katsuki x Todoroki Shouto; Katsuki and his multiple spouses Status: Completed Rating: Explicit

Official summary:

“I’ll do it.”

Enji froze, fingers curling into a fist at his side, and didn’t turn around.

Shouto froze too, feeling his own eyes widen in shock at the words that had come out of his mouth, at the fact that he had actually stood up, followed his father out of the room, and dashed after him all just to say… he’d do it? He would do it? Him. Shouto Todoroki. He would--

Enji finally turned around and fixed Shouto with an expression so scathing, Shouto had to fight to keep his chin raised. “You’ll marry the Barbarian King.”

Shouto blinked. “Yes.”

I came across this story earlier in the year and almost didn’t give it a chance because it centered around TodoBaku. I am so glad that I did though. It is so well written and captivating.

The setting is a marriage for diplomatic ties. Shouto is a 20-year-old prince of the Endeavor kingdom and Katsuki is the 28-year-old King of the Outlands’ unified tribes. Shouto volunteers to go in his sister Fuyumi’s place as Katsuki’s spouse. He’s worried about what the “barbarian” would do to her in general and afraid that she couldn’t carry out their father’s spy mission. Because ya know why would Enji ever NOT be a conniving asshole?!

Shouto A recurring theme is that Shouto doesn’t understand why the Outlanders’ customs are so different from his. He was raised to live his life in such a regimented way that it confuses and stresses him out to lose the predictability.

He doesn’t like people in his space and doesn’t like to be touched. A defense mechanism from his childhood that is constantly tested because the Outlanders are a VERY touchy feely people. It’s hard for Shouto and the Outlanders to understand this difference and Shouto snaps a lot early in the story.

Something I love about this story, though, is that it is a story of Shouto’s personal growth. He learns to open up to people, that he’s worth more than his father ever allowed, that he’s worthy of love and friendships and that it’s ok to be FREE.

Shouto & Katsuki When Shouto first meets Kastuki he THINKS that Katsuki is just like his father, evil and cruel. Immediately, the barbarians threw him for a loop when Katsuki flew in on an effing DRAGON and then they all get excited when Shouto loses his shit and lashes out with his magic. Over time he realizes that Katsuki just pretends to be cruel but is a caring man.

Shouto discovers that he is Katsuki’s FOURTH spouse and the others (Kirishima, Mina and Denki) he married for love and not political gain. Shouto struggles to figure out how to fit in when he feels no love for Katsuki and has to live in a shared room with everyone. Katsuki treats him with kind acts but Shouto is so convinced that he’s being conniving. He’s never known a kind act without a trick at the end and very few pure kind acts.

It’s interesting contrasting Shouto’s “civilized” world and the barbarians’. The way Katsuki twists Shouto’s thoughts on his head:

The Outlanders celebrate loudly because life is hard and the only thing they have is to be grateful for live;

Their clothing is actually more convenient than the Flatlanders’;

Shouto was taught to not acknowledge servants and not thank them. Katsuki calls him and his people out, “you’ve got pretty formal clothes and your pretty, stupid fucking ceremony and you all use it to cover up how fucking rude and cold and condesending you are.” DAMN! Shouto had never heard it expressed that way.

Shouto and Katsuki spend a lot of time together early in the story antagonizing each other. They both expect the worst and then live up to it. Little by little, though, they start revealing their true selves:

Shouto’s welcoming celebration. Shouto challenges Katsuki to fight him. Shouto gets so enraged because he thinks he hates Katsuki and gets a chance to go all out with his magic like he’s never been able to before. He knows that Katsuki can take it and doesn’t hold back. Katsuki learns that Shouto isn’t some pretty pretty little princess and Katsuki leaves a great quote that describes Shouto, “thought you were spoiled but you were really just caged, huh?” Shouto earns Katsuki’s respect in the end and maybe Katsuki gets a little of Shouto’s;

The fight against Dabi and Tomura. Shouto is badly injured while still recovering from injuries from the previous fight and new injuries. He instinctively protects Kiri with his life. After the fight Katsuki antagonizes Shouto to keep him moving during their hour long trek to Katsuki’s home village for help;

Katsuki repeatedly tells Shouto that he doesn’t have to do anything that he doesn’t want to and never forces himself on Shouto;

The Winter Solstice celebration. Katsuki surprised Shouto with an Outlander version of a stuffed sweet potato treat that Shouto had mentioned in passing. And they danced. Oh did they dance and maybe Shouto became a little aroused. Oh;

The nickname “Princess”. Katsuki starts off calling Shouto “Princess” as an insult but it soon becomes an affectionate nickname.

And the two of them letting down their walls a bit when Katsuki asks Shouto to use his ice magic for fun by making an ice slide. “You want me to. Use my magic. To make you an enormous. Toy.”

Katsuki and Shouto hide their feelings for each other and finally admit everything when faced with Enji coming to take Shouto back home. Enji’s ass with his deceptions and manipulating plans. Shouto doesn’t want to leave and knows that he loves Katsuki. He’s angry with himself for waiting so long, for waiting until they may be separated and never see each other again. But Katsuki finds a way. He keeps Shouto in the kingdom, even conceding some in the new treaty to keep Shouto by his side.

Family & Relationships Running parallel is the fuckshit mess that is the Todoroki family. Touya (in this fic Dabi is the eldest Todoroki son) was executed for trying to kill their mother. He was brought back by a necromancer. Natsuo and Fuyumi were just trying to fulfill their roles as royal children and keep their mother safe. Queen Rei is locked up in a tower due to her mental illness and there are suspicions that it was unnaturally caused. And then we have Enji’s ass throwing his weight around everywhere as is he was the rightful ruler. How could Shouto NOT be emotionally stunted when Enji kept him locked up as a tool?! All he was was something “pretty” for the nobility to look at and try to take advantage of. Sigh.

Touya, as Dabi now, remembers some of his past and keeps hinting at a family secret involving their mother but Shouto can’t figure it out. It torments him to see his brother like this. His brother that he WITNESSED being burned alive 10 years prior. Again, how did Shouto make it to 20 with his sanity intact??!!!

And here’s where we get to the complicated part. Are you with me? Good. Like I mentioned before, Katsuki has four spouses. He fiercely loves and protects them. The first three sleep with Katsuki and sometimes play with each other and the others. Shouto absolutely loses his mind the moment he finds out. Shouto knows nothing about intimacy so he really thinks they’re all faking it and it takes him a while to realize that there’s really love there. And then he starts hearing sounds at night. He’s disgusted and a little turned on and he doesn’t understand why. His puritanical upbringing clouds his mind and makes him feel so guilty for his thoughts. He’s barely touched himself, let alone had fantasies. He’s so uncomfortable even talking about sex. Each of the spouses tries to help Shouto break out of his shell. They gave him thoughtful wedding gifts and tried to engage him in one-on-one conversation.

Kiri is such a loving and generous soul. Oh, did I forget to mention that he’s actually a dragon who can take human form?! Yeah. So anyway, he took Shouto on an outing to an old dragon’s nest where they talked, ate and kissed a little. They had a discussion about love and intimacy and it opened Shouto’s mind to the fact that there are many types/levels of “love.” Mina for her part can’t understand why Shouto isn’t interested in sex and not with Katsuki of all people. And Denki is just a FLIRT! Taking advantage of how “pretty” Shouto looked at the Winter Solstice celebration and giving Shouto his first kiss.

But there is a hole in the family. Everyone dances around it at the beginning of the story. After visiting Katsuki’s home village, though, we learn that the hole was left by Izuku. Katsuki and Izuku used to be together in the early days but something tore them apart. Katsuki has so much animosity towards him it’s scary. There’s so much bad blood but also longing. And Shouto has an interesting reaction. With Katsuki, he was wary and slowly realized that Katsuki’s savageness just did something to him deep in his core that Shouto wanted to pretend wasn't true. But with Izuku, his inherent gentleness made Shouto want to be near him and let him in. It’s a heartbreaking situation because Izuku misses Katsuki and he sees that Katsuki is falling for Shouto. At the same time Izuku feels something for Shouto but doesn’t want to make things worse with Katsuki. It all comes to a head after Shouto and Katsuki’s joining ceremony when they ALL admit to having feelings for each other and it’s off to the races, kids! Cause Izuku’s gentle giant persona QUICKLY fades in bed and Katsuki easily falls back into his submissive role that only Izuku had seen before. Inexperienced Shouto is in for the ride of his life. That second to the last chapter in the story was HOT!! All aboard the TodoBakuDeku train. LOL Shouto “needed them both. Izuku to ground him. Katsuki to make him bold.”

The storyline with the necromancer (hello League of Villains) is interesting. But of course we don’t know WHY and WHAT is the group’s motive. We end the story with a cliffhanger of the fall of the Endeavor kingdom but what’s the end goal??!!! And why did Tomura keep mentioning to Katsuki that it wasn’t time for him, yet? So many questions and so little answers!!!! I’m so glad that the story is continued in “Fire in the Blood” that delves more into the aftermath of the displacement of the Todoroki family and Shouto’s continued personal growth.

#todobaku #tdbk #mha #bnha #So Rae Geeks Reviews #fic: Fire in the Mountains #EllaBesmirched #fanfic review

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stahlop · 5 years

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Once Upon a Time 1x17 “Hat Trick” Review

Reviews 1x01 1x02 1x03 1x04 1x05 1x06 1x07 1x08 1x09 1x10 1x11 1x12 1x13 1x14 1x15 1x16

Have I ever voiced my opinion on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and how much I love it? And not only do I love it, but I love most alternative versions of it as well (The Looking Glass Wars book series, the Alice version the SyFy channel put out, not the awful Johnny Depp version), so this episode is definitely up my alley. Especially because it introduced me to Sebastian Stan!! (And I’ve only seen the first Captain America and really know very little about the rest of the Marvel Universe). And fun fact, Jennifer Morrison and Sebastian Stan started dating sometime after this episode, but then broke up a year later. So on with the actual review.

Summary: While looking for an escaped Mary Margaret, Emma finds herself kidnapped in the home of an eccentric man who claims to believe in the curse. In the EF, the Evil Queen tasks a man with a special hat to help her retrieve something from Wonderland.

Opening: Large mushrooms

New Characters:

Jefferson/Mad Hatter: I will refer to Jefferson as the Mad Hatter in the EF storyline just for clarification purposes, because otherwise it will get too confusing.

In Storybrooke, Jefferson is a broken man. Regina has made it so that he’ll want for nothing, just like she promised his daughter in the EF, but he doesn’t have his daughter to share it with. Jefferson has a unique curse put upon him. He knows he and the town are cursed but until Emma made time start moving, was only able to observe it from his house above the town. Now that time is moving and things are changing, Jefferson is determined to have Emma work her ‘magic’ and make him another portal hat so he can take his daughter, Grace, and go back home. Now, from what we gather in the EF storyline, it seems Jefferson was not always a good man, so it makes sense that he will do something sinister like kidnap both Emma and Mary Margaret to get what he wants. He’s also pretty desperate. And as we know, desperate souls will do anything to get what they want when there’s nothing to lose. Eventually, Emma and Mary Margaret get the jump on him, but he disappears before Emma can arrest him or take him to the hospital for the amount of times he gets hit and beaten up on.

We find out much more about the Mad Hatter (though not mad yet) in the EF. He is apparently widowed with a little girl, Grace, who is his whole world. They make money by foraging for mushrooms and selling them at the market. We see that the Mad Hatter loves his daughter more than anything and would do anything to make it an easier life for her. From the conversation he has with the Evil Queen, he lost Grace’s mother due to what he used to do with the hat. He doesn’t want Grace to lose her father as well. He tells the Evil Queen that there is nothing more important than family. Unfortunately, he loses his resolve pretty quickly after Grace wants to buy a stuffed bunny at the market and the Mad Hatter can’t afford it. Grace says it’s fine because she just wants her father, but he can’t see that, he just sees what he can’t give her. So, even though Grace begs him not to (listen to your kid Mad Hatter), he sends her to the neighbors so he can work with the Evil Queen. He pulls out a large hat box. At the Evil Queen’s castle, the Mad Hatter brings out the hat and spins it, it creates a portal which he and the Evil Queen jump into together. They go to a doorway that looks like a looking glass. The Mad Hatter remind the Evil Queen of the rules that they both have to enter together and leave together. Same number in as out. He hates Wonderland. For what it’s worth, with the Evil Queen there, she and the Mad Hatter get through to the center of the maze pretty quickly, but of course are caught by the Queen of Heart’s guards right after Regina retrieves the box she is there for. They manage to out maneuver and out magic the guards and head back to the door. Unfortunately, the Evil Queen’s father was in the box, and she makes him big again with a piece of mushroom. This means the Mad Hatter can’t go back though because there are now too many people. He is devastated when the Evil Queen and Henry, Sr. leave him behind. So devastated he doesn’t even try to run away when the guards come to capture him. He just lets them drag him to the Queen of Hearts. It’s a very creepy court with most people wearing masks and the Queen of Hearts wearing a veil over her face. She wants to know how the Mad Hatter got to Wonderland, he just wants to go back home to his daughter. She orders ‘Off with his head!’. Except in Wonderland, you don’t die when your head is cut off. Freaky! The Queen’s right-hand man says if he wants to go home he needs to make another hat. And that’s how he becomes the Mad Hatter.

Character Observations:

Evil Queen/Regina: Well the Evil Queen certainly lives up to her name in this episode. She purposefully brings the Mad Hatter to Wonderland knowing full well if she gets what she came for that he won’t be able to come back because of the rules of the hat. And she manipulates him terribly to get what she wants. The Mad Hatter does not want to work for the Evil Queen again, but she puts doubt in his mind about Grace’s happiness. She disguises herself as a toy seller and deliberately won’t sell the Mad Hatter a stuffed bunny Grace wants, which makes him feel like he can’t provide for her well, regardless of Grace saying all that matters is him. But, at the same time, the Evil Queen is trying to get her family back, so we see her confliction when the Mad Hatter is begging her not to leave him there to get back to his Grace. She throws back his earlier statement that you don’t abandon family and also says if he really cared for Grace he never would have left her. I think someone is doth protesting a little too much.

Only a little bit with Regina this time. She is in cahoots with Gold and wanted Mary Margaret to escape. For what reason, we don’t know. She looked so happy when she didn’t see Emma’s car at the sheriff’s station and then absolutely shocked when Mary Margaret is just casually reading the newspaper in her cell.

Emma: She is desperate to find Mary Margaret before anyone finds out she is missing. Regardless of whether Mary Margaret is guilty or not she will be a fugitive of the law. Gold reminds her that Mary Margaret needs to be back in her cell by her arraignment the next morning, so Emma is now working on a timeline. When Gold calls her out for putting her job in jeopardy, Emma says she’d rather lose her job than with her friend. She is so distracted out in the woods searching for Mary Margaret that she accidentally makes Jefferson dive off the road so she doesn’t hit him. Of course she lies to him about why she’s out in the woods, but drives him home because now he’s limping. Emma seems quite impressed by his mansion and comments that he must have a large family, but he tells her it’s just him. Emma looks sad when he says it’s just him. Maybe that’s why she helps him inside and takes the tea he offers. Don’t take food from strangers, Emma! Because, of course, Emma gets drugged. She’s lucky, that Jefferson is shit with picking up after himself, because that drugged teacup is still on the carpet. So Emma uses her ex-con skills, breaks the teacup and uses a jagged piece to break her ties. That must have been some pretty flimsy duct tape there. She attempts to see if she can get out a window, but they don’t open. She finds Jefferson’s telescope and sees that it is pointed directly at the sheriff’s station, so he knew she was coming to the woods. She hears a noise and finds Jefferson sharpening a very large pair of scissors. Emma attempts to sneak out of the house, but hits a squeaky floor panel, and of course the room she decides to hide in holds an also kidnapped Mary Margaret. Seriously, with the amount of rooms this house has, what are the odds she ends up in the one that Mary Margaret is in? So this is the point where Mary Margaret decides to tell Emma about the key in her cell and while they’re distracted trying to figure out who put it there, Emma only looks one way out the door of the room, completely missing the fact that Jefferson is in the opposite hallway with a gun. Emma claims to have called backup (who the hell else works at the sheriff’s station?) but Jefferson knows she’s lying and makes her tie Mary Margaret back up. Emma threatens Jefferson if he hurts Mary Margaret and he says he was just protecting her from trying to cross the town line because of the curse. Emma is, understandably, confused and asks if he’s been reading Henry’s book. Now Jefferson is confused. He thinks Emma is talking about the Evil Queen’s father, but she informs him that she’s talking about the mayor’s son. Jefferson is pissed off at Emma for ignoring the stories. He tells her she brought magic to Storybrooke and he wants her to get his hat to work again. Emma realizes he thinks he’s the Mad Hatter and they go into a debate about what kind of stories are real (they talk about the Civil War which is funny now because later on Sebastian Stan will be in Captain America: Civil War). He also says that people always want a magical solution to their problems but refuse to believe in magic. Jefferson tells Emma she’s arrogant to think that our world is the only world to exist and tells her about the infinite worlds that are out there. Emma is frustrated trying to make a hat for Jefferson. She wants to know what’s so cursed about his life. He explains about Grace/Paige. Emma thinks he should reach out to her but he doesn’t want her to hold the same burden he does. Emma tells him she knows what it’s like to feel like you’re losing your mind, but he’s not having it, he’s not crazy. Emma almost seems like she’s starting to believe him and mentions that if she believes then Mary Margaret is her mother. She says she’ll try to get the hat to work, but it’s just a distraction. Emma grabs the telescope and whacks Jefferson over the head and then goes to rescue Mary Margaret. Of course Jefferson isn’t down for the count yet. They fight and Mary Margaret shoves him out the window, where he promptly disappears. Emma gives Mary Margaret the keys to her bug to give her the choice whether to leave or not. She tells her she’s family and she can’t lose her (then she backtracks and calls her her friend instead). Emma goes to visit Henry and meets Paige. She asks Henry if she can look at the book and looks up the Mad Hatter’s story. She wants to keep the book for a little bit. Maybe this is her way of believing a little bit.

Mar Margaret: So she has escaped from her jail cell using the key that someone left for her. How does she think this is a good idea. Mary Margaret is a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them. Yes, she uses bad judgement sometimes (David), but all in all, the way Mary Margaret is under the curse, she would not take matters into her own hands. So she’s running around in the woods trying to escape. She is apparently attacked by Jefferson and brought to his house where Emma finds her tied up. And, because they decide to talk about why Mary Margaret ran instead of paying attention while trying to escape, they are caught by Jefferson and Mary Margaret gets tied back up. Eventually, Emma escapes again and partially rescues Mary Margaret before Jefferson comes back to attack them again. Mary Margaret’s quick thinking has her hit Jefferson with a croquet mallet before using some cool ninja move to kick him out the window (prompting Emma to ask if she’s been taking kickboxing). Emma gives Mary Margaret the option to keep running, but she eventually decides to go face the music when Emma calls her family. Somehow, she ends up back in her cell before Regina gets to the sheriff’s station acting as though she’d been there all night.

Gold: He and Regina made some sort of deal that made him put the key in Mary Margaret’s bed. He seems to have a great distaste for Regina, and only made this deal to get something from her. We don’t know what the deal is or what anyone gets from it.

Questions:

Emma claims she called for back up to Jefferson. Where is there back up? Isn’t Emma the only person who works in the sheriff’s office?

Why is Emma only wearing a tank top and leather jacket? Mary Margaret is in a button up shirt, sweater and peacoat. It’s cold out there as it’s either still winter or closing in on spring (based on the Valentine’s Day episode). It’s not warm enough for tank tops, Emma.

If Jefferson has a clear shot of the sheriff's station from his house with the telescope, how has Emma never noticed the mansion before? It would have to be clear enough that no trees were in the way covering it for Jefferson to have two telescopes set up on two different places in town.

How did Jefferson get caught up in the curse if he was in Wonderland? Did the Evil Queen manage to get him out right before the curse hit?

This is another storyline that leaves a lot up to chance. Even if Jefferson seized and opportunity, how did he know Mary Margaret would come anywhere near his part of the woods? How did he know Emma would come searching there as well? Is there only one drivable road in the woods for Jefferson to have been waiting on? How did he know Emma would offer him a ride? How did Jefferson know she would come inside the house or drink the tea? How long would he have kept Emma and Mary Margaret to try and make the hat work?

Where did Jefferson go? Did the hat work or did he just manage to run off really fast before Emma and Mary Margaret could look out the window?

How did Mary Margaret make it back to the jail so fast? She didn’t even look out of breath when Regina arrived.

Observations:

At least one of the other doors in the hat goes to Oz.

The door to Wonderland has rules. Only the same amount of people who enter can leave. No more, no less.

The Evil Queen says she has a history with the Queen of Hearts.

The wall of boxes that the Evil Queen retrieves her father from looks very much like Regina’s wall of hearts in her crypt in Storybrooke.

Paige’s family in Storybrooke are the neighbors the Mad Hatter sent Grace to when he went off to Wonderland.

I’m thinking the reason the Queen of Hearts wears a veil is either because they haven’t cast the person in the role permanently yet, or they don’t want the audience to know who she is yet.

Jefferson has a scar around his neck from where his head was caught off in Wonderland.

Mary Margaret uses a croquet mallet to hit Jefferson. Croquet is the game the Queen of Hearts likes to play in the original Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Although she uses flamingos for mallets.

There is a distinct sucking sound about the time Jefferson should land on the ground after Mary Margaret kicks him out the window.

The Storybrooke Daily Mirror headline reads: Heartless! School teacher jailed for murder charge.

Names:

Both Jefferson and Grace are named from the band Jefferson Airplane (later Starship) whose lead singer was named Grace Slick. They had a hit song called White Rabbit which references the mushrooms from Wonderland that make you grow bigger and smaller.

I liked this episode, even though we were introduced to a new character so late in the season. Hopefully, we’ll see more of Jefferson because he was kind of cool when he wasn’t drugging Emma or trying to shoot her. Maybe he’ll have more chill once the curse is broken and he and Grace are reunited. I do wonder what Regina’s end game is with this whole Kathryn thing. Why give Mary Margaret a chance to escape when she obviously wants her locked away for a long time. Was it because she knows Mary Margaret can’t actually leave town? Emma seems to be having a bit more faith after everything, so hopefully she will start to believe soon.

Please leave comments and reblog!

@searchingwardrobes @thisonesatellite @justbecauseyoubelievesomething @laschatzi @profdanglaisstuff @mariakov81

#once upon a time #once upon a time rewatch #once upon a time 1x17 #once upon a time hat trick

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kariachi · 5 years

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Storyline thoughts for the earlier mentioned Morningstar Vengeance Mode (because I’m a digimon nerd that’s why). Warning, shit’s fucking long.

Okay, so, we start with Mike introduction as usual and it goes a lot different. Not completely different, but despite him and Kevin clearly not liking each other from the word go there’s a lot of changes. He doesn’t have eyes and teeth on Gwen for one thing- she and Ben are just a means to the Ruin Max Tennyson end and he’s going to make full use of them, can’t do that if one’s a half-dead thrall

Still flirts? Still flirts. It’s his default way of communicating with people in his age range who aren’t other Ossys or Elena. So he’s flirting with Gwen and Ben and sniping and snapping back and forth with Kevin because they’re too young to be thinking in terms of mating options but just old enough to be growly over territory.

The only other person who fights with him over it is Manny and he doesn’t even want the territory he just doesn’t want Mike to win. The others are either too far removed from their roots to want territory, are Erinaen and therefor non-territorial, live outside of territory range, or are Cooper and have accepted that the others are more dominant forces than him

Mike joins the team, everyone is happy except Kevin

Ken rescues happen, Max is found, mentions being happy about how well Mike is holding up among all his other ‘hi kids’ shit, Mike is notably colder than normal, is surprisingly affected by Max’s death

He is so fucking pissed, though that doesn’t come out until later. How dare he fucking die before Mike could ruin him. How. Fucking. Dare.

For a while Kevin is the glue holding the team together despite himself while Gwen is a wreck, Mike is a more put together wreck, and Ben is trying to pretend he’s not a wreck. It takes a while for everything to even back out.

(Not sure if I want to modify What little Girls Are Made Of... Like, on the one hand I’ve been writing Mike as having the Spark for a while now, but on the other what would having him be verified an Anodite do for the story besides encourage Gwike?)

Eventually this version’s version of Darkstar Rising comes along- earlier, probably, and with a lot more shit with the Plumbers Helpers before it happens- and we don’t have Magister Dumbshit (I can’t remember his name, this works) talking about vigilantism and crap, but about the fact that Max authorized a bunch of underage civilians to get involved is illegal, alongside a whole host of other things that are brought up that basically boil down to both “sit down, the professionals will handle things from here” and “holy shit your grandpa was a piece of shit”

The Tennysons are freaking out, because some of the shit brought up is stuff nobody would’ve known to look into if they hadn’t heard about it from family, and eventually it comes out that Mike is the one who made the call.

This is where we get the backstory- Max was involved in his father’s death (how? I don’t know yet. I don’t even know how he went yet. Also how bitter Mike is and just how he ended up going this far may vary depending on if I decide to keep Devin a thing. I kinda don’t want Kevin one of the Plumber Kids for this... Devin was thing but not Kevin’s father? Or his father but nobody knows/knew it? Eva seems the type to get knocked up by a one night stand and roll with it.) Max was involved in Mike’s father’s death, it was classed as an accident or his involvement was small enough that it wasn’t considered or he was just there, who knows, whatever the situation Mike put the blame on him and has been working with the Tennysons to take advantage of Ben’s hero worship to gather dirt. He was going to ruin his life, but with him dead the least he can do is ruin his good reputation.

Ben and Gwen of course flip and cut all ties with him while Kevin is torn between “Can’t blame him too much” and “Yeah, fuck him, territory thief” (Kevin no, he was here first, stop). With Kevin’s help they’re able to fake some shit to restore Max’s good name, managing to both get Magister Dumbshit to let them keep helping with the Highbreed Stuff but also managing to get Mike in trouble with the law (only half on purpose, because damnit don’t attack their family and make them consider how shit their grandfather might actually be)

That last one’s fun, making sure Mike will want to return to start more shit while also giving us a bit of darkness for the Tennysons to grapple with and try to reconcile. It doesn’t become a theme, but they do have to actually stop and consider that they just got an innocent guy in trouble with the law, partly by accident and partly because they were angry. (Kevin, meanwhile, sits sagely. He knows the feel, been there so very often.)

We still get the team-up for the Highbreed Finale, which stays mostly the same, with just minor edits to fit the new canon. Mike’s involvement ends with him and Kevin glaring each other down and silently parting ways, both too tired after all that to start shit.

From that point Mike is a regularly recurring villain across the series with a few different story types- 1) Out for Max’s blood, 2) Out for Ben and Gwen’s blood, 3) Fuck Off Levin This Neighborhood Is Mine, and 4) Miscellaneous

He loses the first 2 types, of course, but sometimes manages a win in Type 3 episodes. Makes it a nice power struggle between him and Kevin as they try to ‘take over’ Bellwood and Undertown.

I’m not sure whether or not I’d keep the Dominus Librum inccident... On the one hand without Mike being all half-starved I don’t know that it completely fits, but on the other we could have him finally taking drastic action to stop being so fucking hungry. Could maybe tie it in with a modified In Charms Way...

The boys lose their powers as a result of the artifact and for a while get along great without them, mostly because they’re celebrating being normal for the first times in their lives and hey, who else are they gonna celebrate with. But the effects turn out not to last long and between that and Mike’s continued hate for the Tennysons, well...

Then, we get a different In Charms Way where there’s no fucking pseudo-romance angle, purely platonic manipulation, and have it happening at the same time as Dominus Librum. How might things have gone if friendships had truly blossomed? Will we ever know? *shrug*

Mike’s involvement in the Ultimate Kevin arc stays the same, this time being brought in despite everyone’s best interests because he’s the leading expert that isn’t half-eaten and also they’re hoping he’s as interested in powering down Kevin as Gwen is

He really is. Has been avoiding that fucker like the plague, has no intention of ending up gristle between his teeth

While all this shit is going down, he notices the similarities between his and Gwen’s powers and begins looking into magic- even winning a few fights with Kevin through it (seriously, please picture both of them having big maps of Bellwood with their territories marked off on it that they just growl over occasionally)- which leads into the next altered episode

Couples Retreat is entirely different, like the episode idea I offered a while back. Charm opens her door to a battered and tired teenager laying on the charm and asking to be taught magic. She’s surprised, a little confused, and Gwen is visibly against the idea, so she says yes. The rest of the episode consists of the Tennysons trying to get her to change her mind while Kevin celebrates in the background because a Mike in a different dimension is a Mike without claims to Bellwood.

Charmcaster does not change her mind and the last we see of the two in UA is them in Charm’s library, going over the basics.

During OV half the time Mike is seen it’s with Charmcaster. His magic improves and he continues to hold a fucking grudge. They make a good team, she treats him like an annoying younger brother when she isn’t treating him like a student, it’s a fun team-up and the way she keeps correcting his form is hilarious. For the most part things seem normal, though sometimes Charm seems off.

Eventually though she starts acting too off and Mike goes to Cooper for help with whatever the problem is because he doesn’t exactly have many friends and Cooper is the best of moral grey. Cooper then goes to Kevin, and Kevin gets the Tennysons involved. This becomes a multi-episode arc where the old team get together again- Ben, Gwen, Kevin, Mike, with added Rook- to figure out what’s wrong with Charmcaster and fix it. They do. The final scene has Charm and Mike leave on shaky but maybe better ground with the Tennysons, a silent promise that maybe things could truly improve between the groups.

The flash forward episode has Charmcaster in the background

Mike is mentioned as not coming because even nearly 20 years later still Fuck Maxwell with a Pineapple.

#mike morningstar #darkstar #ben 10

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3amflailing · 5 years

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THE OA PART 2 TRAILER BREAKDOWN- VISUAL/AUDIBLE ELEMENTS

· Buckle up, because this is only part 1 of the breakdown! so this is my notes from the trailer, where I try to clarify on the shots and also put in any really really strong associations. I’m going to do a part 2 (either tonight or tomorrow depending on when i finish my homework) where I break down the important bits and their significance, what I think the storyline will be, and questions that arise. I hope the format isn’t too messed up, I don’t really want to rewrite this all. over 2000 words y’all, and we’re not done yet! please add any notes/thoughts you have, i’m only one person and I’m gonna miss stuff 100%. thanks!!!!!

Trailer starts in hospital, similar parallel to first season in which we find Prairie in the hospital

· Coherence check: fingers, year, president (OA is there but in a new dimension, where everyone, including Barack Obama, is no longer the same person in the previous dimension)

· “I Did It” (dimension jump)

· Boat scene- curious that Nina is travelling on water (water symbolism)

o Seems to be affected by an unseen force, likely OA’s consciousness travelling into her body

o Looking over Golden Gate Bridge- we see this bridge from another angle later

· Hospital scene cont’d

o We see OA check her chest, where the bullet should have been. There isn’t a would, she is perfectly fine, so it is her mind/consciousness that is travelling through to another body, not her entire self jumping

o “I jumped” OA

o Sobbing in happiness afterwards

· Port of san Francisco

o Is there another scene/shot of this location in s1? It has a different vibe to it

§ Red/white/orange colours, interesting that Nina was wearing orange upon jump

o “nothing happens the way I imagined”

· Nina’s Apartment

o Does he say “let me in, Ms. Azarova”???? butler

o Old fashioned key, very fancy, expensive Parisian apartment

o Nina Azarova is RICH- a butler/personal driver?? A personal maid??

o The key looks old fashioned but we hear beeping- indicating that it is actually technology?? Disguising the old as new

o She wears lots of white here, symbolism

o “I live here?” OA

o Furniture

§ Birdcage

§ Portrait of father

§ Painting over chair

§ Various Russian pictures? Hard to see

§ Gauzy curtains, plants

§ Furniture items in front become a gateway into house

§ Glass tables of varying heights- this is really impractical, but could it be symbolism for dimensions?

§ Very circular- white couch, candles and its white table, fireplace things, table, plant pots

§ Things in fireplace, what are they?

§ The rug almost seems to be a distortion of the floor print, it looks just like it but raised a little

§ Four pictures frames each look alike but the art within is different (at least sized), dimension symbolism

· Hap + Captives

o “we travelled into another dimension, into other versions of ourselves” -Hap

o They all had bindings on them- wrists and mouth? At least Rachel’s mouth was bound (interesting given her NDE power of singing) which connected them all together

o Pentagon shape

o Colour symbolism- renata and homer in light clothes, Rachel and Hap in grey, Scott in black

o Do the Movements in an empty field- does he take them there?

o Field pentagon goes right into building pentagon

o Building pentagon

§ Looks like a group therapy session almost, very clinical and clean

o Hap in office

§ Once again looks like Hap is a scientist

§ Lots of things on board- standouts are the human brain, something to the left of it (can’t tell what), picture of a clock(?), maybe stars?, wavelengths?

§ Two busts, one bald and white, the other brown/yellow with hair

§ Clock on desk

§ Weird hanging lamps

o Different haircuts and facial hairs-

§ Hap has a beard and longer hair

§ Homer has a beard

§ Scott has no beard and clinical fringe

§ Rachel has clinical fringe

o Hap laughs joyfully and grabs on to Homer (he doesn’t see them as experiments but as coworkers- does Homer feel this way too?) Homer appears to start grabbing Hap’s arms also

o Woman in background- nurse? Attendant? Who is she?

o Shot of eye, in which the pupil contains constellations and galaxies flickering in and out

o “do you understand what we’re on the edge of here?” -Hap

· Tunnel

o Red lighting

o Karim Washington

· Circle shot

o Looks like an eye

o Something bright in centre, with beds circled all around it in 3

o Beds appear to have children on them- can see stuffed animals

o Inner circle has 8 beds, 3 attendants(?) (though there are 4 spots), one child appears to be moving to/off their bed

o Attendants appear to be holding something- maybe a computer? A typewriter?

o 2nd circle has 12 beds- room for exits at the front and bottom of the shot, looks like every 2 beds also has an attendant

o 3rd circle can be seen on the edges of the shot

o Hap voiceover: “it’s godlike, prairie”

· Tunnel cont’d

o Karim looks down through window/vent in tunnel with confusion on his face- is he looking at the earlier circle shot?

· C and H Pure Cane Sugar

o Red/white/orange colours again, yellow

o “my name’s Karim Washington. I’m a private investigator”

· Karim

o On a street, looking into the Cane Sugar place perhaps?

o Binoculars

o We see him show his badge/certifications to OA

§ Looks like they’re in the same clinical place where the pentagon travelled to

o “I’m looking into the disappearance of a teenager staying at this house”

o Karim crouches down and looks at a hideout?

o There’s a vent or something in the wall, it either could have a red fabric stuffed into it or be a weird art piece of a rose

o Mishmash patterns of blankets, though this shot looks to be inside? Maybe in a basement?

o Very big house, dark colours, shot paints it to be very dark, ominous and looming

o “Is this the missing person?” OA asks to Karim

§ OA and Karim, they appear to be at a restaurant or coffee shop at the side of a road

§ Meeting for breakfast- OA has pancakes, untouched

§ Karim appears to be holding something up to his face- did he get punched? Is that ice? Definitely something held in a napkin

o “why, what, you look like you’ve seen a ghost” Karim replies

§ Puts down his pack of ice(?)

o “the image just… reminds me of a young man I knew in Michigan” OA

§ OA is visibly disturbed, this is one of the Crestwood 5 boys

· OA writing

o She’s writing her personal timeline

o It all leads back to the bus crash- without it she remained Nina Azarova, went to Paris, her father lived, she went to college

o The bus crash is where her identities split and become separate people

o “it’s all connected” OA

· BOAT SHOT

o We see someone walking down the causeway of a dock

o This is not OA, this person has dark hair

o There is one boat missing, and boats at various lengths away from the causeway

o Water symbolism

o “we can get to the bottom of it” OA

· �� Underground tunnel

o OA and Karim hurrying towards a light

o “you’re tougher than you look” Karim

o “you’re kinder than you seem” OA

o Humour within those words- almost as if its black comedy, prepping themselves for something difficult

o Karim reaches to open a metal door or vault or something

o Harsh green light- likely still under in tunnel

o OA turns around suddenly- is someone behind? Is she on the lookout?

· Homer

o This shot mirrors the last shot of season 1, except it’s inverse: the light is dark, OA looks like she’s about to crumble/is devastated, her voice ticks downwards

o “Homer” OA

· Flashback to her and homer touching hands through the glass of their cages

· Shot of Rachel and scott and OA- likely touching for the first time, Renata at the window smoking with the golden gate bridge in the background

o “Rachel, Scott, and Renata” OA

o This is the other shot of the bridge!!!

· Crestwood 5 shot-

o BBA swimming, French, Buck, Steve, Jesse, and Angie all watching her

o Does Angie replace OA as young female in group? What does she know- what have they told her?

o “BBA and the boys” OA (does she not know about Angie then?)

o Shot of all except BBA running towards beach/ocean- water symbolism

§ BBA and another blonde woman come in behind

§ Steve and Buck are looking right (viewer’s right)

§ Jesse and French looking left, with BBA and other woman

§ Angie is looking straight? Or eyes closed

· OA talking

o “I asked you to believe in impossible things”

o Flashback to Prairie in the sun when Hap lets her upstairs, OA on Steve’s bike

o Shot of a door, a window, or something- is this from s1 or s2?

o Karim looks through a small window, confused, what is he seeing?

o NO ONE SURVIVES text

o “you never once looked at me like I was crazy” OA

o OA fighting in hospital, likely trying to escape

§ This shot has a fence through the window- where is this? It almost looks like a weird private hospital or a home

o OA covers her eyes in hospital, wearing nail polish and two rings with a hospital band

o ALONE text

o Rachel and OA touch heads

· The House

o “everyone who goes inside this house comes out cracked up or doesn’t come out at all”

o Appears to be Karim and OA inside the house mentioned

o They are carrying old-fashioned fire torches?

o OA looks closely at a single picture on the wall, wearing the Red Dress

o OA has a lighter for light and touches her fingers to a hole in the wall

o Karim is in a mirror room with red candlelight- he appears panicked, as if he doesn’t know what’s happening or where to go

· Outside shots

o “you gotta open your eyes” scott

o Shot of OA in wolf top and Young Nina watching what appears to be Rachel in a floating glass/ice box- ties in with Snow White, episode title of “Mirror Mirror”

§ Rachel opens her eyes (brown) and then it suddenly turns to OA

o Forest with lightning (?) running through it

o Flashback to steve running after OA in ambulance

o “I cannot give up on you” OA??? Rachel???

o Homer appears outside, bearded, wearing normal clothing and what appears to be a ring (resembles the one in s1), looks frustrated, putting his hands to his head

o Crater shot

§ 4 people in craters- it’s hard to tell who they are

§ Pits dug all around, some look as if they were made from something launched at them, others by regular digging

§ Then the next crater shot appears to be Angie and Jessie in one hole (?) pulling Karim (?) towards them while 2 unidentifiable people try to do the same (separate holes) and another person is to the right corner, watching perhaps?

§ “this is not a time to be brave” Karim

· The House cont’d

o OA goes with her lighter, Karim with the fire torch, to the door of the house, Karim looks through the window

o The light is on inside

o “this is a time to be smart” Karim

· Tree shot

o OA and Karim appear to be putting together a puzzle which highly resembles the cut of a tree trunk- each puzzle piece is hexagonal

o The tree is huge

· Renata speaks(?)- [I can’t tell if this is Renata or not but both women have brown hair, an accent]

o “all this beauty, this energy, what holds it all together?” Renata

o Hap and Renata appear to be at a concert or some fancy event

o Shot of forest, OA looks up and closes her eyes (same location as with her and Young Nina)

o Karim and OA are underground in a (Russian?) strip club, there are dancers in only underwear hanging from the celing

§ This looks to be the same place as the underground tunnel

o Steve, Angie, and French all in swimgear running to the ocean

o Jesse looks on

o Shot of the sunset of the beach, then of the sunset of the city with a bridge in view (unclear if GG Bridge), two traincars passing each other

o OA and Nina underwater

§ Nina pounding at glass again- new shot of from s1?

o Shot of entire world

o “what keeps it all from dissolving into noise?” renata

o Hap burns something in a pit (pit looks like what we see in the craters before)

§ Can’t tell if this is a body or clothes

o Clinical building of pentagon shot- scott and Renata(? Very long hair, completely different from s1) are locked away in separate rooms

§ Highly suspect that this is an asylum or mental health facility

§ Scott is #348

· Assorted shots

o Sun rising up

o Steve shaving his head (Asheville?)

o A man underwater holding his head- maybe Steve but the body looks less fit than him, maybe Homer? Unclear

o Karim coming down steps holding a body/someone- this doesn’t look like OA in clothes and everything

o OA being thrown into the earth/hole and coming out of a massive tree trunk which appears to float in the air, likely representation of a portal

o Shot of a keyhole-shaped tunnel of neon light, as seen in the press photo being released of P2

o TEXT The left side of the A in OA appears to be distorted by the light, not straight, same with the left side of the O

§ Another OA comes behind it

· Ending

o OA in Red Dress and unknown man walk through the neon tunnel, OA turns to him, there is a single chair in front of a red curtain visible

o “cue spots in 5, 4, 3 [distorted], 2, 1, “

o Shot of a mouth- perhaps Karim’s?

o Shots of switches- labelled ENRY #1, ENTRY #2, there is a label that says “ARMED”

o OA’s hand is tied to the chair, circular marks up her arm are visible

o The neon lights in the tunnel start going off

o Karim looks upon something

o Black and white camera of OA looking very unsettled, her Red Dress now looks white and the patch is clearly visible- reminiscent of a shot wound where blood spreads

#the oa #the oa theory #the oa trailer breakdown #the oa part 2 #the oa season 2 #the oa trailer #the oa theories #oa spoilers #oaspoilers

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renaramblesaboutcomics · 7 years

Text

Wednesday Roundup 4.10.2017

This week ended up being a relatively light reading week for yours truly, but that doesn’t lessen the quality of my enjoyment whatsoever. In fact, I had enough love to share that I wanted to go over all of the available Marvel Legacy Primers for this week as well, even if they’re just short blurbs!

So without further ado let’s jump into it.

Marvel’s America, Marvel’s Black Panther, Marvel’s Incredible Hulk, Marvel’s Invincible Iron Man, Marvel’s Jean Grey, Marvel’s Monsters Unleashed, Dark Horse’s Usagi Yojimbo, Lion Forge’s Voltron Legendary Defender, Viz’s Yona of the Dawn

Marvel’s America - Marvel Legacy Primer Pages (2017-present) Robbie Thompson, David Lopez

As interested as I am in America, I haven’t had the opportunity to really follow her outside of the Young Avengers run she is in. So I think, oddly enough, for me this is one of the most necessary “Primers” of any of the ones I’ve read so far, and the information was very good to have. It really helped to frame her history, her relationship with her mothers, and her confidence in herself in a new light that is really appreciated. And the art from David Lopez is as beautiful as any of his issues on All-New Wolverine.

Marvel’s Black Panther - Marvel Legacy Primer Pages (2016-present) Robbie Thompson, Wilfredo Torres

There’s honestly not going to be that much more to say on most of these Primer pages. They’re fun, quick run throughs of relevant histories of the characters and teams that they showcase and depending on your interest and engagement may influence whether or not you want to hop in on the next storyline that they’re promoting.

I do like the sense of unity and legacy that is built into the Black Panther title already, having it be a responsibility tied to kingship that T’Challa knows and the all-important bond it has between him and the memory of his father.

It really puts a spin on the importance of Legacy that this event seems intent on hammering home.

Marvel’s Captain Marvel - Marvel Legacy Primer Pages (2016-present) Robbie Thompson, Brent Schoonover

Carol Danvers is one of those characters I desperately want to lie on every feasible surface level, but whose books have never quite got me on board and whose guest appearances always leave me a bit more confused about her than I had been before her said appearance. And yet there was still not a whole lot added here. I appreciate it, and young Carol is adorable, but there was nothing here that didn’t make me feel like... well, like she’s Hal Jordan. And ‘m not a fan of Hal Jordan.

Marvel’s Incredible Hulk - Marvel Legacy Primer Pages (2017-present) Robbie Thompson, Joe Bennett

Everything I have read so far with Amadeus Cho, both in Totally Awesome Hulk and in his guest appearances or team-ups in Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur to Champions has really connected to me on a level that Bruce Banner hadn’t exactly managed over the years. So it was nice to see a little blurb that went over their mutual histories and explored what was there.

It almost makes people forget that Marvel unnecessarily killed Bruce Banner for... no reason. Almost. Not quite. Though he might be alive by now. I am obviously not current.

Marvel’s Invincible Iron Man - Marvel Legacy Primer Pages (2016-present) Robbie Thompson, Valerio Schiti

Gah, reading this overview of Tony and Riri’s history really reminded me how much I really loved reading Invincible Iron Man when it first came out and just how much I positively adored Riri’s character and her banter with Tony. You know. Before they completely undid the relationship within the first storyline and then Bendis went all Bendis on us and it became obvious that Tony was coming back sooner than later and then Secret Empire destroyed the world... somewhat literally.

I’d love to read a Riri-centric book in better circumstances. Or at least once the next trade is out. We’ll see.

Marvel’s Jean Grey - Marvel Legacy Primer Pages (2017-present) Robbie Thompson, Mark Bagley

I was actually just recently talking to my good friend @shobogan about how much more interested I would be in Young Jean Grey if only Marvel had the guts to either give us a romantic relationship with her and Laura (or her, Laura, and Scott OT3 hullo) or have Older Jean Grey return to mentor her younger self and others at the school since she’s the only X-Man kept dead for this long who was considered a Top Tier X-Man. And since we’re finally getting the latter, it seems, now I have to look at what we know of Young Jean and consider my feelings all over again. And this primer gave me the opportunity to do just that!

While I’m not following Jean’s book at the moment, I’m obviously a pretty big X-fan so I have a general sense of where all the moving pieces are at the moment. And I have to say, with Older Jean returning it’s going to be a pretty awesome time for comparing and contrasting their characters and relationships. After all, this younger Jean is far, far less experienced than her counterpart, but has a peripheral knowledge of her own fate, and as much as she tries to not be defined by it, it’s been defining her in the opposite direction in a sense. And more than that, she’s a Jean who sees the Phoenix Force not as an asset or a tool, but sees it as an honest to god enemy, which I’m not sure how that will work. And I’m even more interested in Jean’s return now because of the possibilities of their interactions with the Force together.

Guess we’ll wait and see!

Marvel’s Monsters Unleashed - Marvel Legacy Primer Pages (2017-present) Robbie Thompson, David Baldeón

I have actually been planning for a little while now to pick up the trade of Monsters Unleashed because I had fun with the miniseries earlier this year and I have been craving more Elsa Bloodstone (as well as the entirety of the Nextwave crew) and this seems like one of the more interesting powers to come from the Inhuman collision.

.... Actually it’s completely stolen from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic and later adapted TV episode dedicated to Jack Kirby who had the power of creativity to draw and create anything he drew and also had a a penchant for creating monsters and different worlds and so on. So I mean. There’s that unavoidable fact. But Kei’s cute so I’d be willing to overlook it for the sake of seeing what Marvel plans on doing with this very wild and unruly power.

Dark Horse’s Usagi Yojimbo (1984-present) #162 Stan Sakai, Tom Luth

The conclusion of Usagi and Inspector Ishida’s investigation about the doctors’ murders has come and the hilarity of Kitsune and Kiyoko bumbling along with them and incidentally becoming crucial to the entire investigation does not lose its edge either.

Story: The conclusion of this particular caper is interesting mostly in how the framing by coincidence is not ultimately a linchpin to the story, having been solved almost immediately in the story’s first issue. The inventiveness of Sakai’s work, overall, is simple subterfuge which continues to make each new adventure feel unique and uncertain. In this instance, it would be in the assistance that Kitsune and Kiyoko end up providing by revealing the true murderer almost by accident.

That being said, as simple as individual stories are for Usagi Yojimbo, the complexity really rests in the margins for long time fans, and that shows most clearly in the way a quiet buildup of several arcs seem to flow together for coming to a head. Perhaps the most famous and arguably best all around example of this would be in “Grasscutter” and how years of storytelling and slow vignettes linking together culminated in one of the greatest comic storylines of all time. We seem to be getting something similar in the backgrounds of more recent adventures with this guild of assassins which Usagi has unknowingly crossed the path of and caused ire to several times at this point.

I’m excited to see where that story is taking us, and likewise interested in how little details, like Kiyoko successfully pickpocketing Inspector Ishida, will pay off down the road.

Lion Forge’s Voltron Legendary Defender Vol. 2 (2017) #1 Tim Hendrick, Mitch Iverson, Jung Gwan Yoo, Ji-in Choi

Egghhhhh. Are you ever really rooting for something against your own common sense and get bit in the butt regardless? I feel like that happens to me on an inconceivably high average and almost all of it can be blamed on the fact that for some reason I am still expecting comics to play fairly with me. If anything my standards should be lower by now. But, well, let’s see if I’m being a bit too harsh on Lion Forge’s second effort in making a Voltron comic.

Story: I would argue that one of the reasons that I had unreasonably high expectations for this comic is in part because the first comic produced by Lion Forge had actuallymanaged to not only be a fairly solid effort as a comic but managed to capture the spirit of the current Dreamworks Netflix series in a wa that was welcoming to fans new and old, and importantly of all ages. So I was hoping for more of the same with this comic project.

In more or less words... I did not exactly receive that. Where there was a solid read of the characterizations in the last comic, this issue showed a severely flattened to the point of parody version of the paladins, especially poor Hunk here who had the already obnoxious and unnecessary fat jokes and food jokes from the series amped up to the point of being his only characteristic in this comic. To the point that at one point he doesn’t even form a full sentence, just grabs a pie successfully from a training maze and says “Hunk win”. Which... I guess is somewhat better faring than the other paladins who didn’t even have dialogue that really fit them. Save for Pidge who was likewise flattened to “the smart one.”

The storyline itself of a new planet where Voltron is needed but the species they end up helping... they actually fail initially, I won’t lie, is a pretty solid premise for Voltron overall, and would be something I’d love to see the show tackle similarly, but the fairly generic wolf-furry aliens didn’t receive a whole lot of depth in this first issue.

Depth trended on being the biggest problem for this issue overall. There wasn’t an examination of the characters and their interactions, how they treated each other and how they tackled problems differently. The sort of things you’d want from an ensemble cast like Voltron. Which is surprising since again the first series by Lion Forge managed all that and was written on a much younger reading level at the same time. Each issue tackled exactly those very things -- individual characters, how they functioned in the group, and how they tackled obstacles differently to find a solution together. I would expect the same here but it didn’t seem to be on the menu.

Hopefully all of this will be addressed and fixed as the comic progresses, but as for now I’m apprehensively putting this series on my three issue trial run.

Art: The art was not a great improvement on the previous comic but it also wasn’t bad in the least. In fact I think the art popped very well, adjusting colors and textures about as well as you’d expect from a television show adaptation for kids. I do wish that the face models for the paladins would keep more consistent and overall there was a rushed feeling to the comic that seemed fairly unnecessary considering it’s the first issue.

Viz’s Yona of the Dawn (2009-present) Vol. 8 Mizuho Kusanagi

You know, I keep hearing over and over again from friends and trusted sources that Yona of the Dawn is a series that will continuously subvert my every expectation and make me continue guessing and yet every volume I really do manage to be caught off guard by something which the story chooses to do which is shockingly poignant and new even to its fairy tale epic adventure structure.

Story: So the Yellow Dragon joining the group was hilariously and purposefully anti-climactic but what we got as a result of that choice is the new direction for the series that ties directly into Yona’s own self-realization. She doesn’t simply want to rule and she doesn’t simply want to conquer. What she wants is to know her people and to save them from the crises that were overlooked by her father before her and by Su-Won now. She wants to take up arms to protect the entire country not just with the power of the loyal followers she has gained but with her own hands. She is something that neither of the kings -- her father or her cousin -- could have ever dreamed of being.

And then my expectations were really taken for a loop by us then in turn following Su-Won as he travels to the Earth Tribe and earns the respect and allegiance of the chieftan general there through a series of manipulations, tactical conceits, and ultimately quiet and subtle intimidation mostly by the fleeting moments in which he dropped his ditzy and well-meaning act to show his true intentions. But as fascinating as it was and as surprising as it was, for me at least, that this complete shift of POV for a few chapters actually managed to keep me on board when I’m not one to often fully appreciate the “villain’s side of things”, probably the most interesting part of any and all of this is actually how much tension is underlying Su-Won’s leadership. HIs appeal to the Fire and Earth Tribes is less in the leadership that he promotes and more in this current of possible warmongering that appeases the more warlike fractions of Kohka.

It’s all fascinating and offers a sense of danger in Yona’s new quest to help the people of fher country feel a new sense of danger, knowing that our group is ultimately pretty unprepared for helping parts of the country which would not be as receptive to their quest or the offer of Yona’s leadership.

That being said... the final chapter driving home Yona’s relationship with Hak and everyone’s strange obsession with protecting Yona but rejecting her attempts to grow her own strength and independence. Lik eI guess we’re just all going to overlook the way she killed the slave trader mob boss in teh previous volume. But beyond all of that, my real concern is just... I cannot stand the way Hak’s character is portrayed in his “over protectiveness” of Yona. It’s far from romantic to me to continuously have a character obsess over someone to the point of “jokingly” considering locking them away for the world to see.

It’s not the best issue of the series by far, but it has some great moments, especially for Yona.

Art: I actually do think that the further we’ve come in this comic, the more consistent and confident the at has gotten. There are still lots of soft tones and all the markings of a usual shoujo, but the real stand out this time around is that we’re beginning to see more and more the variation in ethnicities in the people of the country, which is honestly relieving even if for now the Earth Tribe, which drives that point home, consists mostly of Su-Won’s supporters and may carry with them some more unfortunate stereotypes being fed that I might not be aware of as a non-native to Japan.

So far as single issues this week are concerned there’s really no competition for Usagi Yojimbo in a regular week but especially not in a fairly light week. Yona is still a fantastic book and if there were other trades to compare it to I’d probably lavish on it more, but since we’re on singles I have to give this one to the unending quality that is Stan Sakai’s anthromorphic feudal epic.

And, once more, I am in a bit of a financial crunch for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which being the medical bills I’m paying for my dog, Eve, who experienced a catastrophic dog fight and underwent surgery recently. On top of that, I have exactly a month and a half to pack up everything I own and move halfway across the country again which is not helping those financial crunches I mentioned before either.

As such, I really would appreciate if you enjoy my content or are interested in helping me out, please check out either my Patreon or PayPal. Every bit helps and I couldn’t thank you enough for enjoying and supporting my content.

You could also support me by going to my main blog, @renaroo, where I’ll soon be listing prices and more for art and writing commissions.

RenaRoo Ko-Fi

RenaRoo Patreon

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#Rena Roundups #Wednesday Spoilers #SPOILERS #Usagi Yojimbo (1984 )#America (2017 )#Black Panther (2016 )#Captain Marvel (2016 )#Incredible Hulk (2017 )#Invincible Iron Man (2016 )#Jean Grey (2017 )#Monsters Unleashed (2017 )#Voltron Legendary Defender Vol. 2 #Yona of the Dawn (2009 )

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anatolysergievsky · 7 years

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Okay so ever since I was little my mom always played chess in the car and I just grew up hearing it. So the most I know about the story line is what I picked up off listening to the music. What is the actual differences between the American and other production? Is the storyline any different?

Hi anon!! Thank you forthe question!

First of all, let me saythat the storyline is VERY different between the In-Concert version and theBroadway version! Also, there isn’t just one official American version—to myknowledge, there’s two. Not counting whatever little changes colleges/amateurcompanies might make, there’s the original Broadway storyline and then there’sthe similar but much worse American tour version.

Anyway, the storylines between the two are:

Broadway:Anatoly, the Russian, is a disenchanted chess world champion who is tied to anextensive, controlling team. Among this team are Molokov and Nikolai, twosecret agents for the Soviet government. Freddie, the American, is hischallenger in the 1979 (don’t quote me on the year because I think Broadwaymight have changed it) world championship. His team is smaller than Anatoly’s—Ibelieve he only has one backup second and then Walter, his media agent who alsoworks for the government, and Florence, his ex and primary second (and manager?Every production has issues with blurring her job title). The plot begins tomove when, at the first game they play, Freddie threatens to throw thechampionship because he thinks Anatoly is cheating by receiving signals on howto play via the flavor of yogurt he’s brought by his team as a snack. This wasreally just a tactic he was using to demand more money for every match heplayed. This leads to Florence and Molokov agreeing to have a reconciliatorydinner in town with both the players so they can discuss how the match willproceed. Freddie doesn’t show. Because of this, Anatoly has the opportunity toflirt with Florence and they end up hitting it off even though, when Freddiefinally shows up, she won’t commit immediately to leaving with Anatoly orstaying with Freddie. Eventually, though, they end up making their relationshipofficial when Anatoly defects from the Soviet Union and nearly gets killed inthe process so that he can be with her. As a consequence, the match is put on aslight hold and is planned to reconvene in a few weeks. Act two begins aseveryone arrives in Budapest to complete the championship. Anatoly’s wife,Svetlana, also arrives, and that’s only the first thing that begins to put astrain on Anatoly. Anatoly also finds out that Molokov is threatening hisbrother back in Russia. As the final nail in the coffin, Molokov and Walterbegin to work together to essentially exchange Anatoly (from Walter) forprisoners in Russia (from Molokov). Among these prisoners is Florence’s father,or so Molokov says. All of this makes Anatoly lose matches distractedly untilhe’s tied with Freddie. Freddie has a breakdown on television where he opens upabout his childhood—his absent dad and his neglectful mom. In the end, Anatoly decidesto forfeit the championship because he was offered the deal of that in exchangefor Florence being reunited with her father. Freddie becomes the champion andit is revealed that Florence’s father likely isn’t alive.

In-Concert:Here, Freddie is the incumbent champion and Anatoly is the up-and-comingchallenger to his title. The team structures remain largely the same with theexception of Walter and Nikolai. In this version, Walter runs Global Televisionand is a reporter while also working in the CIA. Nikolai doesn’t exist in thisversion but Viigand does and he is Anatoly’s second. So, really, the teamsaren’t that much the same but the dynamics remain, is what I mean. Freddiebadmouths Anatoly for months leading up to the championship and earns himself ahorrible reputation, leading most people to think he should just resign andalso leading the match to begin with a very sour sort of feeling (which, given,it was already going to because of Cold War tensions). This leads Molokov tobelieve Freddie has lost it and that the match will be an easy win for Anatolybut Anatoly doesn’t believe Freddie has actually lost his spark. Here, it alsobecomes clear that Anatoly and Molokov have quite a bit of tension and thatAnatoly resists Molokov’s thoughts and suggestions frequently. Cut to the firstgame and Freddie once again forfeits the match in order to demand more money,this time from Global Television and this time by flipping the board ontoAnatoly and saying he demands an apology from Anatoly. A meeting is once againarranged although Freddie doesn’t show up. Once again, Anatoly and Florenceunexpectedly find themselves attracted to each other and hit it off beforeFreddie arrives. This distraction causes Freddie to lose until he’s 1 win to 5losses to Anatoly. It’s at this point that he blames Florence for this, causinga fight between them that leads to her quitting. After this, Freddie surrendershis title without ever officially losing the 6th game. As the newworld champion, Anatoly’s next move is to defect from the Soviet Union (onescene that is much less dramatized than it is in the Broadway version). Thesecond act is when the true differences between the Broadway and In Concertversion come to light. Act two happens a year later when the next worldchampionship is beginning. This time the competitors are Anatoly and Viigand,his prior second. Anatoly is playing for London and Viigand, of course, for theSoviet Union. Freddie now works as a reporter for Global Television but hisreal purpose for attending this match is to get revenge on Anatoly. Quite a fewthings happen in act two but I’ll summarize them quickly. Anatoly is given aninterview with Freddie in which Freddie humiliates him on live television.Svetlana arrives and is told by Molokov that she is to put pressure on Anatolyto come home or Molokov will make sure that her and her children suffer. Walterand Molokov strike a deal for Anatoly in exchange for several Americanprisoners and Florence’s dad. Svetlana tells Anatoly to come home and thendrives home the point of his earlier reflection: that no matter how much hewins, he will always end up back where he started and just as unhappy as healways has been (he gives no definitive answer). Walter approaches Florencewith a deal that she can have her dad back if she convinces Anatoly to lose thematch and go home (no deal). Freddie approaches Anatoly and tries to convincehim to throw the match for Florence’s sake (no deal). Freddie approachesFlorence and says to come back to him because he loves her and Anatoly wouldnever sacrifice his career to help her (no deal). Freddie reflects privately onhis childhood and on who it has made him. All of this stress causes Anatoly tolose matches against Viigand until they are tied and are continuing to pull outdraws for three weeks. Svetlana and Florence meet each other and discuss theirrelationships with Anatoly and how neither of them ended up being what theythink he needs (I have opinions about this BUT). Freddie unexpectedly comes upto Anatoly in the park before the deciding match and gives Anatoly advice on aflawed tactic of Viigand’s that Anatoly could exploit to win the championship.Freddie tells him that since Anatoly has already let down all the people heloves, he should at least do justice to the game and to himself by winningsince he is, in essence, a much better player than Viigand. Although thespecifics of the ending and why it occurs are more complicated than Anatolysimply choosing to win, I have other posts talking about that so it’s enough tosay that he wins and agrees to go home in exchange for Florence’s father.Florence then finds out that she has lost Anatoly for nothing—her father isn’teven guaranteed to be alive.

So! Those are thesummaries of the different plotlines. It’s obvious that the two versions reallybranch away from each other when act two begins but it isn’t just in storylinethat the productions differ.

Characterizationbetween the two is very unique as well. Where Broadway tries to make Freddiemore likeable and funny, In Concert goes for a slightly more serious take onhim. That’s not to say that Freddie isn’t supposed to be funny in In Concertbut it is kind of clear that Broadway had more joke lines with him (all of thejoint press conference, the conversation about all the ways they’re milking hisfame for money, arguably “No Contest” and even “Freddie Goes Metal”). Anatoly’scharacterization is also unique in each version. Notably, Broadway makes himmuch more romantic and sweet and sensitive. In Concert plays up his bittercharacteristics more, especially in “Where I Want To Be” and “Endgame.” One ofthe main differences in Broadway’s Florence is the extended depth she isgiven—more songs, more backstory, more explored character traits…

And,necessarily, the soundtracks between the two productions are very different.Broadway cuts out a great deal of songs while adding others. It cuts: “PressConference,” “Commie Newspapers,” “Molokov and Anatoly,” and mixes around theordering of the songs. It adds: “Argument” (a repurposing of the song from the1984 concept album), “Hungarian Folk Song,” different versions of “You and I,” “FreddieGoes Metal,” “Let’s Work Together,” “Father’s Lullaby,” and “No Contest.” It alsoMAJORLY restructures “Endgame.”

So theseare the basic differences but there’s always more to be said about how thesechanges, like the ones in characterization and tracklisting, influence theshow! Let me know if you have any more questions ilysm!

#as a note #i did this all from memory so there might be a few mistakes here and there #chess #anatoly #freddie #florence #walter #molokov #vigand #nikolai

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nyangibun · 7 years

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keep seing the Sansa-Persephone parallels posts. What do they mean exactly? I've read the Greek myths, of course, but still... How can the pomergranate seeds forshadow anything in asoiaf? And what does Jon have to do with it all? People are writing stuff as if it were obvious, but for me it's not that obvious at all))

Oh god… I honestly haven’t personally thought that much about this. I’ve seen some metas about it, but it was not something I kept at the forefront of my mind when thinking about Sansa. But for you, dearest Anonny, I’m going to try my best to break this down.

First, let’s begin with who Persephone is. She’s the Goddess of the Underworld, Springtime, Flowers and Vegetation. She represents fertility and rebirth, as well as death. But we’ll get back to this later.

The story goes that Persephone was beloved by her mother Demeter (Goddess of Harvest), so much so that she was kept away from the other gods and goddesses because she was so beautiful.

In comparison, you could say that Sansa was as well kept from the other lords and ladies by virtue of being born in Winterfell, which is as far removed from the high society of King’s Landing as you can be. Her parents initially didn’t want her to be betrothed to Joffrey and go south.

Hades, God of the Underworld, however, saw Persephone and fell in “love” with her. Now there are different accounts, but most state that Hades went to his brother Zeus (her father) and asked him how he could get her. Together, they conspired to trick Persephone. So one day, as she was playing with her companions in the fields, she gets lured away by the perfume of the Narcissus flower. As she’s pulling at the flower to unroot it, the ground opens up and she falls down to the Underworld, or in other cases, she’s captured by Hades.

In comparison, Sansa is attracted to what Joffrey and King’s Landing represents. Her naivety lures her into their trap. You could say it’s narcissism as well to want ‘more than anything’ to be queen and be praised as a beautiful, proper young lady. But once she’s there and starts pulling at the thread of politics in King’s Landing, Sansa ends up falling into a deep pit that she cannot escape from (ie. under the Lannisters’ control in KL).

Other metas I’ve seen compare Hades to Littlefinger as he lusts after her and has a hand in manipulating and trapping Sansa. This is true as he had a huge hand in causing Ned’s death, which ultimately imprisoned Sansa in KL. He’s also the reason she was sold to the Boltons. I’ll actually come back to this point in a moment.

Once Persephone is in the Underworld, she is forced to become Hade’s fiance and rule it with him as his queen. However, up top, her mother Demeter is so distraught by the disappearance of her child, she refuses to let anything grow on the earth, creating barren lands and causing men to starve. Actually, some versions say that Demeter did it out of anger at Zeus after she found out from Helios (the all-seeing Sun God) that he was complicit in the abduction of her daughter.

Now, looking at Sansa’s storyline in the show, she was obviously never married to LF, but she was forced to comply with everything LF did at the Vale to survive. But then she actually was forced to marry Ramsay and was abused by him during that time. Her marriage allowed Ramsay to sit at Winterfell as its lord and in essence rain destruction down upon the North. The consequence of this marriage brought devastation to the lands and Sansa was powerless to do anything to stop it, just like Persephone was powerless to escape the Underworld.

Once Demeter confronted Zeus and he realised how much anguish Demeter was causing to the world of men because she refused to let anything grow, he went to Hades and demanded that Persephone be returned to her mother, so Hades tricked Persephone into eating four pomegranate seeds (although the number varies between mythological tellings) and it was law that if you ate food from the Underworld you had to stay. Since Persephone only ate four seeds, she was decreed to return to the Underworld as its queen four months out of the year. And in protest, Demeter would make those four months barren. Persephone’s return from the Underworld signaled the rebirth of crops and thus bringing in Spring/Summer. And that’s basically how Greek mythology explained the changing of the seasons.

In comparison, this is where it gets a little tricky because Sansa’s confinement in KL, the Vale and in Winterfell with Ramsay all happened during Summer. But when it comes to the Starks, GRRM turned the symbolism of the seasons upside down on its head. There is a reason after all why ‘Winter is Coming’ is House Stark’s motto – and why Jon’s resurrection occurred right on the precipice of summer and winter. For House Stark, ‘Winter is Coming’ isn’t just a motto, it’s a battle cry. It’s the time for wolves; a time for the North; a time for the Starks. Sansa escaping Ramsay during summer but returning to Winterfell during Winter signifies her rebirth and the rebirth of the North. For the first time since Robb, they’re now uniting again under the Stark banner. Yes, there are 2 wars on the horizon and the wights are coming, but I believe the Starks will prevail in some form or another. They are, as GRRM said, the heart of this story.

Now, pomegranate seeds have a lot of symbolism. In Greek mythology, they are most commonly known as “the fruit of the dead.“ And while some believe it also represents the indissolubility of marriage because by eating the pomegranate seeds, Persephone ties herself to Hades, I believe that it actually represents Persephone being stripped of her agency to be his wife for 4 months out of the year. After all, Hade’s abduction of Persephone was also commonly coined ‘The Rape of Persephone’, and many people have interpreted Hades tricking Persephone to eat the seeds as his taking of her virginity (as seeds = fertility = virginity isn’t a stretch symbolically).

So, how does this relate to Sansa? Well, like I said earlier, if Littlefinger represents Hades then this scene is very telling:

Petyr cut a pomegranate in two with his dagger, offering half to Sansa.“You should try and eat, my lady.”

“Thank you, my lord.” Pomegranate seeds were so messy; Sansa chose a pear instead, and took a small delicate bite. It was very ripe. The juice ran down her chin.

Sansa’s refusal of the pomegranate is a poignant moment. She is keeping her wits about her around Littlefinger and retaining her agency. Although the pear she chooses is still ripe and messy, it was her choice rather than accepting the offer of Littlefinger’s pomegranate. She is in control of herself and she will not be manipulated by him.

I will go one step further with the symbolism of the pomegranate. It’s not merely a “fruit of the dead”, but it also acts similar to the “forbidden fruit” in the Biblical-verse. In the myth, Persephone refuses to eat or drink anything while in the Underworld. Whether she knows of the law is unclear, but let’s say she doesn’t, it’s a form of protest for her, the only thing she can do while being imprisoned there. Her choosing to eat the pomegranate seeds offered by Hades is her being unable to resist temptation and the vices of the body.

Littlefinger offers Sansa half of his pomegranate. He doesn’t offer her a whole but only half of his. It’s a symbolic proposal, urging and tempting her to side with him and his plans; be his accomplice, his wife, his toy. Sansa refuses that. She refuses temptation and his proposal.

I hope that answers your question and makes the parallels a little clearer. If not, then… sorry. I tried lol.

#sansa stark #sansa meta #game of thrones #got meta #sansa x persephone parallel #anonymous #asioaf #sansa stark meta #asks #long post #super long post #idek if it makes sense #im tired though so here we go

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