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retrieve-the-kraken · 11 months

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Let me tell you about the dream I had last night, starring Omar Rudberg.

So it started inexplicably enough, like most of my dreams, that for some reason I was living in a hospital. Not as a patient, I wasn’t ill or anything, but that hospital had become both my workplace and home, as well as for other people in my organization. One of the scientists that I work with, she was there, a guy from the travel office was there, and then a bunch of random people also living and working there. Anyway, we were told that we were going to have to leave, because the whole building was being evacuated, and I was told to take all my stuff with me because I wouldn’t be able to come back. My ten-year-old niece was with me, and she was helping me pack. I didn’t have a lot of things, so it was fine.

Then the dream became clearly the plot of a movie, in which Tom Holland was the protagonist. He was like a young James Bond/the guy from Mission Impossible-type character, a secret agent but at the moment he was just a random guy in a suit. The hospital was no longer a hospital but a huge bank. And there was a terrorist organization led by Gary Oldman playing the exact same character he played in Air Force One but without the Russian accent. He was in a suit, tho, and all the guys with him were in suits, and they were holding everyone hostage, and there was a bomb, and people were scared shitless, and I don’t know what their goal was, but Tom Holland was trying to figure out what to do, until he saw one of the guys, and it’s… Omar Rudberg.

Omar was Tom Holland’s love interest in the movie. Flashback (yes, my dreams have flashbacks and subtitles and everything, I have very sophisticated dreams) to when they were together. I didn’t see how they met, but they were together for a long time, and neither of them knew what the other actually did for a living. But they were IN LOVE. The flashbacks are of all these super domestic scenes of them waking up together, being super cutesy, waking each other up with kisses, eating breakfast together. Until one day, Tom Holland (sorry that I keep calling him Tom, but as sophisticated as my dream movie-scriptwriting skills may be, I didn’t come up with names for any of the actor’s characters) comes back from getting coffee from a shop near where he lives, and Omar is gone. No note, nothing. He doesn’t answer his phone, and Tom never sees him again.

Until now.

Tom is clearly shocked and heartbroken. His fucking exboyfriend was part of a terrorist organization this whole time. Omar is visibly shocked too. They really didn’t know what the other one did, he had no idea that he would be holding his old boyfriend hostage, and clearly didn’t want to.

By the way, after realizing that he was never going to see Omar again, Tom starts dating this girl, played by Margaret Qualley (very random), and she’s there too, because she actually works in the bank, and she’s also being held hostage. In no time, she realizes what’s going on, she knows that someone broke Tom’s heart before he started dating him, and now she knows who it was.

And by the way, Tom tried really hard to find Omar, he used his spy organization’s resources to try to locate him and everything, and was very surprised at not finding absolutely anything. And now he knows why.

Anyway, Gary Oldman is making threats and trying to negotiate. Clark Gregg, who plays Agent Coulson in Agents of SHIELD and the Marvel movies, is the mediator, he’s Tom’s boss, and he’s trying to convince Tom that, if things go sideways, he’s going to have to kill the terrorists, including Omar. Because they don’t negotiate with terrorists.

And where am I in this whole thing? I am the audience and omniscient narrator AND one of the hostages. I’m in the action. One moment I’m moving out of the hospital and suddenly I’m very aware that I’m a character in a movie… I’m close enough to know ‘shit those two are in love, what the fuck is gonna happen’. I somehow end up in an elevator because when shit finally goes down, Tom and Omar devise a plan to get rid of the bomb before it can blow up inside the building with everyone still inside. They have to get it to the top of the building, where it’s empty and it can do the least damage or something.

I don’t know why I was in the elevator, I was screaming my head off because the thing was going really fast up, and for some reason the building was unfinished, so there’s no actual structure on the top, half the building is still scaffolding and just an elevator chute, and the elevator itself has no roof (I don’t know how this is possible, it’s a dream, you know), so we can see the sky as we’re going up.

Tom is having a panic attack because he’s afraid of heights (of course he was, he had to have some kind of flaw that his character would eventually get over), and Omar kisses him to stop the panic attack. It works.

And I’m there thinking ‘oh they’re gonna make it work’. I don’t know what happened at the end, they obviously saved the day, but Omar has to get away because all the terrorists are being captured. Tom obviously helps him escape and… they never see each other again.

Or do they?

Fast-forward to that scene at the end of the Dark Knight Rises, when Alfred sees Bruce and Catwoman in a restaurant in Italy, except that it’s Agent Coulson and he sees Tom and Omar in the plaza outside the Louvre, with their arms around each other. They can’t be together for real, but they meet in secret, and continue to be in love. They made it work.

Anyway, that was my weird super action spy movie dream starring Tom Holland and Omar Rudberg.

I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t mind watching this horribly clichéd movie that I dreamed of last night. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think there’s any big blockbuster movie in which a protagonist of the caliber of Tom Holland is a secret agent action hero character with a male love interest. Someone please give it to me.

EDIT: I forgot to add that the building was supposed to be 75 stories high. So the top half of the building was still under construction, but inexplicably the bottom part was occupied and working. That’s why I was so terrified, we were going to the top of an unfinished 75-story high building and hopefully leaving a ticking bomb there and getting back down before it went off. The other thing was that the bomb had been activated and it was counting down, that was the urgency of getting rid of it, nobody could stop it and time was running out. The other detail was that the elevator was a clear glass elevator, not a construction elevator. But the building is not finished, why would it already have the glass structure? Because it was supposed to only work for the bottom half of the building which was ready and working. And the glass walls were covered with those thick quilted things that they use to protect elevator walls when moving furniture and construction materials. So I would insist on looking out through the edges of the quilted things and see how high up we were and scream my head off. I don’t mind heights, but I hate glass elevators and looking out whilst moving, it’s a horrible sensation. And it was the same reason why Tom Holland was paralyzed with fear.

#weird dream #omar rudberg #tom holland #super action spy movie dream

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itsclydebitches · 3 years

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None of them liked Ironwoods growingly tyrannical actions, it's the whole reason Ruby lies to him, he looked shady as hell. They are shown very clearly uncomfortable with what he's turned Atlas into in the First episode. It's just that at the end of Volime 7 he crossed the line.

The key words there are “first episode.” I’ve mentioned on other posts that if the plot had simply continued the forward momentum of the group being disgusted with Ironwood’s choices and working against him (hiding out in the city, gathering like-minded allies, etc.) then we would have been golden. Ironwood is Volume 7’s antagonist. There, done. The problem is what starts in the second episode. Our basic events are as follows:

The group (and audience) learn that Ironwood has arguably justified reasons for everything “shady as hell” that he’s done. The embargo? They are at war with Salem and people have been stealing resources since our introductory trailers (Blake). Soldiers in the streets? That first episode showed that grimm are attacking defenseless civilians and, if the soldiers hadn’t been there to fend the grimm off prior to Penny’s arrival, they likely would have died. Taking resources? That’s to re-establish global communications and enact a plan to stop Salem for good, freeing the world from the danger she presents.

However, they’re still morally gray choices which our group could have opposed… but they didn’t. They join Ironwood as public allies (standing with Clover and Penny against Robyn), as Inner Circle allies (they learn all of Ironwood’s plans—and we learn that he never lied to them), as huntsmen (it’s his power as general that gives them their licenses), and as fellow soldiers (they are indistinguishable from the Ace Ops in the missions they conduct). Now toss in a bunch of other connections like living in his academy, taking his weapon upgrades, and carrying the Relic. They might not like his actions, but they’re certainly doing everything possible to support and reap the benefits of them.

Ruby does lie to him… which two in the group oppose (however lackluster that was). Yang and Oscar both question the wisdom of doing the very thing they punished Ozpin for. Ren also develops a strong (if quiet) alliance with Ironwood that will carry into Volume 8... until his semblance changed and he forgot about it.

During all this there are efforts—mostly through Nora—to condemn Ironwood for his choices. How can you continue to hurt the people like this? Same answer as above: because he believes a short-term struggle is worth the long-term victory. Nora doesn’t agree… but Ruby, the leader, does. She pushes Ironwood to finish Amity somehow.

Which is an incredibly strange stance to take considering she knows that amassing a world-wide army will not defeat Salem. If the group wants Ironwood to stop hurting Mantle, all they have to do is tell him that Salem is immortal… but they don’t. They let him continue under this false belief, despite having more information about this war than he does and despite that information being the key to stopping the harm he’s enacting.

The arc of the volume is not the group choosing to trust Ironwood and then realizing he actually isn’t trustworthy, it’s the group (or rather, Ruby) deciding not to trust Ironwood and then realizing he is trustworthy. We get that climactic scene of Ruby and Oscar simultaneously realizing they should tell him about Salem and Oscar apologizing for keeping that secret in the first place.

Note that this occurs after they’ve talked him into telling Mantle about her. So not only is the group not made up of mindless subordinates being ordered about by a powerful general—it’s their advice Ironwood listens to—but now they’ve put an entire city in the position they were in during Volume 6. We’re told, via Ozpin’s arc, that telling people about Salem without including the issue of her immortality is a horrific thing to do. Those like Qrow have supposedly “wasted” their lives fighting an impossible war and the fandom has argued strongly that Ozpin has manipulated everyone involved in this fight by not giving them the full picture. Yet now, the group has spent months keeping that information from Ironwood when his questionable choices are based on that ignorance, and they’ve talked him into telling half his population that Salem exists and they should rise up to fight her… but not the pesky detail that she’s immortal. They did to Ironwood and all of Mantle exactly what Ozpin did to them.

Immediately after hearing that they’ve kept this secret from him the entire time they’ve been here (which he takes very well) Ironwood captures one of their main villains, loses his arm in the process, learns that two in the group have outright betrayed him to a political enemy, learns that despite all their best efforts Cinder has just waltzed into his office, learns that Salem herself is on her way and their defenses are already gone, knows that everyone is exhausted from a major battle… so when he decides to take all of Atlas, the majority of Mantle, and the Relics/Maiden they have to try and get out of Salem’s reach… Ruby says no. What’s her plan? She doesn’t have one. You’re just not allowed to leave.

The problem with the writing is it wants us to believe two contradictory things at once. Looking back, Ironwood is meant to be seen as an unambiguously bad guy in Volume 7, which we know because of scenes like Winter’s fight wherein she condemns him for everything he did in Volume 7, not just Volume 8 stuff like threatening to bomb Mantle. Yet at the same time, we’re simultaneously meant to believe that the group is made up of unambiguously good people who function as direct contrasts to Ironwood. Given what we got, these two things cannot coexist! Either Ironwood was a good man who the heroes backed for an entire volume and there’s no acknowledgment of that, or Ironwood was a bad man… who the heroes backed for an entire volume and there’s no acknowledgment of that either. If the group’s defense is, “We knew he was shady as hell. We knew what he was doing was wrong. We knew he was the bad guy here… but we still helped him maintain power, forward his plans, and reap the benefits of the flawed system for months on end”… that’s really bad. “I supported, assisted, and benefited from the guy who was shady as hell, but that’s fine because I felt uncomfortable about it the whole time” is not the hot take the fandom wants it to be. We cannot make these broad, sweeping statements about how the Atlas military—merged with its huntsmen—is an Evil Thing and then show scenes like, say, Jaune using his military grade huntsmen license to convince a bunch of civilians to follow his evacuation plan. The heroes cannot be Good and Pure while supporting the supposed villains and their systems; or, the villains cannot be purely Bad and Evil if they’re supported by the heroes.

The reality is that RWBY is badly written and this sort of simplistic, inconsistent writing doesn’t lend itself to a topic as complex as this one. To be frank, we don’t even know enough to make informed decisions about these actions because the world building is nearly nonexistent. What are these “resources” and how are the resources to patch a hole in the wall the same as the resources used to make Amity Tower into a world-wide communication device? How much power does Ironwood actually have and what other decisions has he made that impact Mantle? We never hear about any policies to explain things like the poor conditions, or the slum areas with the faunus. Why are the civilians so against the soldiers patrolling when we don’t see them abusing the public in any way, but we do see the grimm threatening them on the regular? Why does Ruby want Amity built so badly—willing to hurt Mantle to do it—when she knows a bigger army isn’t the answer/that telling people about Salem has almost always led to panic and betrayal? Is there really any difference between huntsmen and soldiers here? And if the answer is, “Yes. Huntsmen aren’t beholden to any power. That’s a good thing because following orders is Bad. They do what they think is best” than what are we supposed to make of someone like Rhodes who, apparently, did what he thought was best? If he’d been beholden to some superior there might have been a system in place to help Cinder. As it was, he was left to his own devices and a lot of fans are furious with the solution he, as one flawed individual, came up with. We simply don’t have a good picture of this world and when we do, things constantly contradict. It’s good for huntsmen to make their own choices, but only when Ruby does it, not Rhodes. It’s bad for heroes to keep the Salem secret and tell lies to their allies, but only when Ozpin does it, not Ruby. It’s bad for someone to try and save who they’ve got, but only when Ironwood does it, not Ruby, who apparently left Atlas after failing to create portals for her Uncle, Robyn, the Ace Ops, Pietro, Maria, and an entire army.

The way that the fandom gets around these problems—because too few are willing to just acknowledge that they are problems and RWBY is shoddily written—is by simplistically comparing RWBY’s military to a real world one. I cannot tell you how many posts I’ve come across that amount to, “Imagine thinking the teenage girls are the bad guys when a military general is right there, being a military general 😒 ” Those posts imply that fans like me are too stupid (too brainwashed, too close to “bootlickers”) to be critical of the military, but I assure you, that’s as far from true as can be. Those posts are trying to conflate real life politics with a fantasy story whose world looks nothing like our own. The is not a question of being critical of the military, it’s a question of being critical of RWBY as that fictional text… and that fiction never established any of the military problems we deal with in the real world. It might have (very easily), but it didn’t. Is Ironwood leveraging his people to conquer others or go after wealth? No, his world has literal, unambiguously evil monsters to fight. Does he amass power out of a desire to control the people? No, he lays out his exact thoughts on how these measures will help protect against those monsters and a witch. Does the military abandon its soldiers after war, leaving them with few resources and fewer prospects? No, we never see anyone struggling in that manner and one of the most prominent tragedies—Yang losing a limb—is answered by Ironwood personally sending a replacement to her home. Is the military at least built around propaganda, painting civilians an inaccurate picture of Freedom and Glory to convince them to fight? No, we see no propaganda, Ironwood—since Volume 2—has been focused on replacing people with robots and our entire story is built around one child’s desire to fight the exact same battle. Why do you want to be a huntress, Ruby? Because I want to help people! And that goal is never painted as a naïve outlook that Ruby becomes disillusioned with. Posts like the one mentioned above bank 100% on the reader mapping real life military criticism onto RWBY… rather than actually looking at the world RWBY built, what choices the characters make, the amount of information we’re given (little), and whether that in any way reflects our current, political problems. It doesn’t.

I’m never going to pretend there weren’t problems with Ironwood’s decisions. In fact, I love that this was actually a conflict in Volume 3 that gave both sides a fair shake: is it better to scare people and have an army at the ready to defend them, or is it better to keep them in the dark and potentially be defenseless? Ironwood’s kind heart bumping up against extreme measures is what made him compelling, especially when the story was having him grow in the “right” direction (AKA, listening to Ozpin). His treatment of Penny is another big issue, creating a whole ass person to serve as a military defense tool. That’s horrifying! So he’s absolutely had his problems long before the writing had him turn into a trigger-happy murderer, but part of the issue here is that the writing doesn’t acknowledge those problems in other characters. If Ironwood is “shady as hell” for forwarding a military agenda and using military resources… then so is Ruby, the leader who backed that for months. If Ironwood is “shady as hell” for funding the creation of a person to defend his kingdom… then so is Pietro, the scientist who not only built Penny, but came up with the idea in the first place. He’s not some defenseless victim who was forced by the evil Ironwood to create something morally reprehensible, he suggested it! The same way Winter wasn’t some defenseless victim who was forced by the evil Ironwood to go along with these plans. She supported them, agreed to be his Maiden, and was the first to suggest martial law! Yet Ruby, Pietro, Winter and their like are all presented as unambiguously Good People, whereas Ironwood is presented as the unambiguous Bad Guy—and when a lot of fans went, “But you’re not writing him like a Bad Guy? Especially when we compare him to the heroes?” we got his sudden, OOC murder streak in Volume 8. But it doesn’t work. Either the group is made up of morally gray/bad people because they did the things our antagonist Ironwood did, or Ironwood is not the morally gray/bad person the show insists he is (prior to Volume 8) because he did the same things as our heroes. You cannot give us that plot, those choices, that agency and insist on both at once. This problem has existed ever since we got an entire volume about how simplistically evil Ozpin is for keeping this secret… only for Ruby to immediately turn around and keep it herself, with no acknowledgement that either a) Ozpin wasn’t the bad guy then or b) Ruby is as bad as he is. But the show wants Ruby to be the Good Person in every situation, no matter how much she models her behavior after those she deems her enemies, and Ironwood’s arc only increased that problem tenfold.

#rwby #mymetas #tempoaryblogformightyjensblog

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kitkatopinions · 3 years

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Team RWBY doesn’t have the moral high ground in their spat with Ironwood. RWBY crit under the keep reading. If you don’t want to see any Ironwood defense or people talking about RWBY being questionable, don’t read this.

First off, I want to start by saying that I’m against Ironwood murdering, attempting to kill a fifteen year old, and hacking into Penny. I think that was a bad choice from the writers, but I can explain that in another post if people are interested. However, since the only member of RWBY and co that knows about that (if I recall correctly) is Oscar, I’m going to frame all of this from only their main argument; Ruby wants to keep Atlas, the Relics, and the Maiden in Salem’s direct line of fire until they can evacuate the people of Mantle who are getting attacked by Grimm. And Ironwood wants to save the Relics, the Maiden, Atlas, and arguably the world, despite the fact that he would be leaving Mantle without proper defenses. The show frames Ironwood’s choice as absolutely wrong, cruel, proof that he’s untrustworthy, and proof that he’s a danger to everyone.

RWBY would rather stand and fight, making a stand against an immortal witch, because they can’t save everyone in Mantle yet (thus leaving both cities in danger.)

In season eight, didn’t all of Team RWBY, JNOR, and the Huntresses essentially give up on Atlas though? Essentially saying ‘it’s too late for Atlas’ and choosing between A. Helping Mantle or B. Launching Amity? One could argue that knowing Ironwood would be launching defenses himself, they didn’t think they needed to help, but we see tons of soldiers launching themselves into battle, we see Grimm in the city, possibly killing children, and Ironwood told them that he and his soldiers were all completely exhausted. It’s possible RWBY and co didn’t realize this would happen, but they still abandoned an entire very large city, knowing that Salem was attacking, and knowing that the Vale authorities and the Atlas authorities weren’t enough to stop the attack on Vale that Salem wasn’t even a part of. Either they were blind and foolish, or they knew the attack would be devastating and didn’t do much of anything to stop it. Let me correct that. They actively stopped people from stopping it.

The fact that Team RWBY and co disagreed with Ironwood’s choice to abandon Mantle wasn’t my main problem, I actually like that. But they pretty much immediately abandoned Atlas themselves, which is just as bad and destroys their message of ‘you have to work to save everyone.’ They split into two groups, and the group specifically sent to help Mantle... Oh yeah, abandons it. I understand that they were trying to save Oscar and they were teenagers who were emotional, but JRY officially no longer have any moral high ground. They were fine with completely abandoning one city to save another, and then they were fine with abandoning an entire city of people to save one person. Team RWBY took the stance of ‘it’s better to send out a confusing message to everyone to warn them of danger and ask people who mostly couldn’t make it to Atlas in time to come and help us.’ This shouldn’t have ever even been on the table because at the tail end of season seven, they established Amity wasn’t nearly finished, and then pretended it was in the next season. However, they did retcon that to give RWBY and co a win. But when they manage to launch Amity, instead of doing anything to help Mantle or Atlas, three of our main characters sit and wonder if they should bother. They officially have no moral high ground. You could say they were trying to help save the world by getting the message out, but of course, you could say Ironwood was trying to save the world by getting the Relics and Maiden away from Salem’s reach, only while Ironwood was sacrificing Mantle, RWBN + Penny was abandoning Atlas and Mantle, and then when they finished their task, they did nothing more to help either city.

This isn’t a story about unity, this isn’t a story about trust, because Ironwood trusted our main heroes and they betrayed him only for the story to then frame them as Right and him as Wrong despite the fact that they don’t actually have a moral high ground in that fight, and Ruby was proven ‘right’ for their own mistrust by having the show make Ironwood a full blown child murderer. They warn the whole world that he can’t be trusted because he was doing the same thing they were doing in a way that arguably would save more lives. It’s very possible that if they were working together with Ironwood, they would be able to save everyone like Ruby wanted. But again, their group doesn’t have the high ground, because the reasons he doesn’t trust them and the reasons he tried to have them arrested are directly based on actions they did. Ruby led everyone into lying to him, and Blake and Yang went behind his back and divulged secret plans to Robyn (and she apparently wouldn’t stop talking about it.) They didn’t realize what it would lead to, but it was their actions that made James distrust them. Yes, Ironwood is also partly responsible because he wasn’t listening to them, but he’d given them the benefit of the doubt before. He’d trusted them, brought them into his plans, gave them their licenses, considered himself lucky to have them, and then they lied to him and went behind his back. This is why I actually like Yang arguing with Ruby, and I actually would’ve liked more of that. If the story was, Yang was accusing Ruby and Ren was accusing Yang and Blake, and some of them were saying they should try to reason with Ironwood and others were saying he clearly won’t listen, and Ruby was struggling to hold her own team together, it could’ve been a great consequence to the actions they took. Maybe Yang wouldn’t be being fair (since she’s lied too and let Ruby lie to Ironwood,) and maybe Ren wouldn’t be being fair (Blake and Yang were only trying to help,) and maybe it’s clear to the audience that James isn’t being receptive. But I just think that would’ve actually been more interesting than just Yang saying Ruby wasn’t that good of a leader and then dropping it and defending their track record to Ren.

Personally, I would really prefer it if this arc was centered around Team RWBY and co being confronted with consequences, but still coming out on top because (presuming that the show didn’t have James go way too far) they actually manage to break through to Ironwood eventually, helping him through his clear mental breakdown and convincing him to let them in again and join together to fight Salem back. Ruby learning that she shouldn’t have lied promotes the show’s pushed message of trust and honesty and sets Ruby apart from Ozpin (who had great reason for being wary, but still insisted that he was right to keep things from them and didn’t seem open to changing that.) Ruby and her team not trying to divide the people against a leader who’s only trying to do what’s right (again, this James wouldn’t murder people when he could’ve just arrested them,) would promote the show’s supposed narrative of unity against evil, with Team RWBY not willing to have an ‘us versus them’ perspective. And Ruby managing to talk Ironwood around and help him, thus managing the unity, furthers the ‘victory is in a simple soul’ message that the show has always tried to have. Making Ruby actually win through her emotions like they want by having her act in compassion to James would help their message, instead of retconning things to make her have a win. Having her be a leader who steps up and takes responsibility, who does unify people against Salem, and who maybe even leads the attack would make her a much more active and good protagonist. Honestly, idk if those are even good ideas. I’m just disappointed.

Just to clarify in case it wasn’t clear, 1. I’m not trying to hate on the mains. Every good character has flaws and makes mistakes, I just don’t like how the show frames them as morally superior, in the right, and totally ready to lead while ignoring the flaws. 2. I’m not saying that James is perfect. He’s a deeply flawed character and I like his gray ‘ends justify the means’ character. But his obvious PTSD and paranoia are mental problems that should be treated with more sympathy. 3. I also am not saying his actions of senseless murder and hacking Penny are alright. I think they’re horrific and actually move him out of a position where he can be redeemed (unless they really go hard to make the actions a product of a semblance or subtle mind control or something.)

#rwde #rwby critical #rwby criticism #btw I'm open to discussion #but if you want my reasons for thinking James was mishandled I can address it later #in a different post but I won't address it here

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labarboteuse · 3 years

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Sonate au Clair de Lune (Richard “Dick” Winters x OC)

Hello everyone ! Here is a little something with our favorite ginger-head nobody asked for. I've been wanting to try something for a while now, so here it is, see you at the end of the chapter. Enjoy !x 💕

As always, there’s no disrespect towards the real men of the company. It’s only based on their portrayals in the mini serie

Taglist : @supervalcsi @ourmiraclealigner | Let me know if you want to be added. 😊

Warning : evocation of a dramatic war event

Sitting on a chair among the audience, Jeanne was stood straight as possible to see the scene where the orchestra was playing composition of Beethoven. As a linen maid in a Parisian hotel, she had spared money for months with her two friends and colleagues Gisèle and Solange to have the chance to afford an entrance for tonight’s performance at the Opera Garnier. Her family had never been rich, but she had received an education and music had been part of the instruction for the girls. She had quickly developed a passion for music but never had the financial means to learn to play an instrument or to attend performances.

The first notes of the “Moonlight Sonata” resounded in the Italian style theatre. Shivers came over her as she unconsciously played with the fabric of her little purse on her lap. Jeanne loved this piece that gave her a deep calm, whenever she felt bad, she would play the notes in her head to calm herself. As the composition was coming to an end, it provided to her a feeling of nostalgia, she thought to her parents she hadn’t seen for a while, her parents she had left few years ago to gain the capital city hoping it would be easier to find a job. Her parents had pushed her to leave the countryside in the Southwest of France where they were living, when she was 19 years old, convinced that she would have a better life by reaching Paris. No one had imagined that barely two years after her arrival war would be declared and that a little less than a year later the city would be under German occupation for the next four years. When Jeanne had arrived, she had to live for a few weeks on the meagre savings her parents had given her, then she finally found a small job as a linen maid in a hotel where she met Gisèle and Solange, the three of them having since become inseparable.

Her thoughts lulled by the music made her forget time and it was only when Solange gently pressed her arm that she came back to reality and realized that the performance was over. She gave her friend a friendly smile and stood up putting her brown coat back on before following her friends towards the exit.

She took advantage of each second passed in the building on her way out to admire the architectural beauty of the place she will not see again so soon. Once the three friends outside, they stopped at the foot of the stairs the time Gisèle lights her cigarette.

“C’était merveilleux!” - “It was wonderful!” exclaimed Solange. Jeanne laughed in front of the sparkling eyes of her friend, who had never had the chance to attend this kind of event either.

“Je suis d’accord, c’était magnifique, j’en ai eu des frissons.” - “I agree, it’s was beautiful, I got chills.” Jeanne passed her hands on her arms with a smile on her face.

Gisèle blew the smoke from her cigarette and nodded her head.

“C’est toi que nous devons remercier pour nous avoir persuadé de venir.” - “We have you to thank for convincing us to attend.” She said to Jeanne and made a small reverence to her friend which made the three of them laugh.

People would walk by and sometimes look at them with curiosity, sometimes with a haughty look. It was the kind of event that attracted the Parisian gratin, dressed in their most beautiful clothes and adorned with their finest jewellery. And sometimes among this worldliness were simple people who had saved months or even a year to afford a place among the least expensive. Needless to say, Jeanne and her friends made a splash among the crowd.

“Allons-nous en avant qu’ils n’appellent la Maréchaussée pour nous évacuer.” - “We should go before they called the police to evacuate us.” Gisèle mocked sarcastically.

The three girls laughed before leaving arm in arm. It was getting late but the city was far from sleeping, yet they had to return to their sinister little room on the top floor of an old building because they were starting their day very early. Gisèle and Solange separated from Jeanne once they arrived at their subway station to be able to return to their neighbourhood.

The young women kissed each other before saying good night. Once her two friends had left, Jeanne decided to walk along the Seine and enjoy the clear night and the beauty of the city before returning to her bed.

As she walked along the quays, she couldn't help but admire the people around her who were enjoying the evening on the terraces of the illuminated bars and restaurants, life went back to normal. Since the Liberation in August, she enjoyed wandering the streets of Paris, especially in the evenings when it was less crowded and it was easier to admire the architectural gems without being pushed around by passers-by. She took pleasure in rediscovering this City of Light that had lost its luster during the past four years. Four years under occupation, fear, constant surveillance, violence generated by the reprisals of German soldiers against the resistance movements of civilians, attacks, shortages and rationing that had led a large part of the population to turn to the black market to provide for their needs, which Jeanne had been a victim of. Her meager salary already did not allow her to live a decent life, she had believed that she would not survive this.

Like many inhabitants, she had been a witness of the arrests of the Vel' d'Hiv’ Roundup in 1942, an event that had deeply marked the population, many of whom had bitter memories. A deep sadness invaded her thinking of all these victims, which gave her a shiver and she tightened her coat around her.

And then came August of that year 1944, the city had been liberated and Jeanne still remembered the feeling of relief.

Lost in her thoughts and without looking where she was going, she didn’t see the silhouette which also didn't look where it was going and ran into it.

The shock made her drop her bag and the program of the evening that she was still holding in her hands as if to prove to herself that the evening had indeed taken place. She crouched down to pick up her things and her head hit the head of the person she had collided with. She held her hand to her forehead and grimaced, releasing a sound of pain. The man had also crouched down to pick up her belongings and stammered something in English that sounded like an apology.

She stood up at the same time as he did, his head down, he glanced at the program he had in his hands and a small smile stretched his lips before straightening his head towards her.

“Sonata No. 14?”

A shy smile was born on her lips and she gently nodded her head, she may not have been bilingual but the music with this universal aspect made her understand what he had said. He gently handed her the booklet and she gently grabbed it and they stood there for a few seconds without either of them letting go of the paper and looking into each other's eyes. Finally, almost embarrassed, he nodded his head without letting go of his little smile and moved aside, passing by her to get back on his way, without taking his eyes off her before finally turning around so as not to bump into someone again.

Jeanne lowered her head towards the program cover with her shy smile still clinging to her lips, a strange feeling in her chest.

She finally returned home without any further incident and went to bed that night-joyful, not really knowing if it was because of her evening or her brief encounter with that soldier.

___

The next day she hurried to the hotel where she worked to take her shift. When she arrived she saw that the girls had already arrived and she hastened to take off her coat and put on her black apron, she had lost a few minutes in the subway and this made her arrive slightly late. When she met Solange on the service staircase, she learned that Louise, the fourth girl on the team, was sick and that they had divided up the rooms she should have taken care of between them three.

Jeanne hurried to fetch the clean towels to prepare the rooms before new customers arrived. In her haste she forgot to go upstairs one floor more and opened the door of the second room on the third floor, thinking it was the fourth. She didn't even realize that the door hadn't been locked, so there must was already someone in. She walked towards the bed and bent down to put down the towels on it when she stopped and slowly turned her head over a brown uniform lying there. She was abruptly struck by her stupidity and suddenly straightened herself up, perhaps a little too much, as she stumbled over a pair of boots and was about to finish her fall on her buttocks when she was caught by an arm that slipped around her waist.

Surprised, she quickly deviated of it and apologized, her babbling doesn't really wanted to meant something. She retrieved the towels from the bed before turning around and coming face to face with the same man as the evening before. He was only wearing a white shirt and a black underwear, he was probably in the bathroom when she entered that’s why she didn’t noticed someone was there.

“Vous ?” - “You?”

It was the mysterious stranger she had bump the night before. The same red hair, the same blue-grey eyes and that embarrassed smile so touching.

“Are you following me?” He asked both embarrassed and amused at the same time.

“Pardon ? Non !” - “Sorry?No!”

She tried to add something but nothing came out of her mouth and she shook her confused head.

“I’m sorry I didn’t know this room was occupied.” She explained herself with a rather wobbly accent, which he found quite charming and which slightly stretched his smile.

“Don’t worry, it’s fine.”

Like the day before, they looked at each other in the whites of their eyes without saying anything, and then finally regaining the use of her limbs and speech, she walked towards the door, still stammering.

“I’m Dick.”

Even him was surprised of the words which came out of his mouth, what’s the point of telling her? He asked for himself. Also surprised of his words she turned towards him and it took her a moment before reacting.

“Jeanne.” She finally said calmly before rushing out, feeling her cheeks usually pale white turning into crimson red, so she hurried out before he noticed and that she looked ridiculous, at least more than she already did.

Dick looked at her in amusement and his gaze remained for a few seconds riveted on the door that had just closed.

“Jeanne.” He says soflty to himself, a smile on the corner of his lips.

____________________________________________

It's up to you! Do you think it's better to stop there? 🤔 Or how do you see a potential sequel? 😊

Throw me your ideas, they are the ones that will determine the rest of the story! Or not, it's up to you!🤷🏼‍♀️ It's your story!😉

#band of brothers #hbo war #dick winters #richard winters #band of brothers fanfic

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mst3kproject · 3 years

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The Navy vs the Night Monsters

Of course, it’s not like bad things stop happening now that 2020 is finally over… we just get to start counting again from zero. Kind of like how I’ve started counting thirty-six Episodes that Never Were per year, beginning with this one. It was co-directed by Wyott Ordung from Robot Monster and features familiar faces like Russ Bender and Mamie Van Doren, the latter for once not playing a teenage delinquent. It also has one really obscure MST3K connection: it was based on a story by Murray Leinster, which the sharp-eyed will remember as the name of the ship attacked by Evil Count Zarth Arn’s lava lamp weapon at the beginning of Starcrash!

A plane carrying specimens of Antarctic flora and fauna makes a rather rough and unexpected landing at a naval base on remote Gow Island in the south Pacific. There appears to be nobody on board except the pilot and a few penguins – the former is in a catatonic state, and the latter are... well, penguins... so what happened to the rest of the passengers and crew is a complete mystery. Did the pilot go mad and kill them? Did the penguins? Or did it have something to do with those mysterious ancient trees discovered growing around a geothermal spring in the heart of the frozen continent?

The first ten minutes of this movie are spent trying to be a comedy. Before we get anywhere near the plot, we first have to listen to the guys on the plane try to be funny about their lunch and their tastes in women. Then on the island, we watch a guy who can’t seem to figure out how to inflate a balloon, followed by a dude talking to his dog, and then a really icky bit where two women convince a man he had sex with both of them, which he buys because he was too drunk to remember. Only then do we finally establish what’s actually going on. The impression one gets from this beginning is that The Navy vs the Night Monsters is going to be peopled entirely by Jackass Comic Relief characters, and I actually turned the film off and sat on it for a couple of days to psych myself up to watch the rest.

When I finally turned it back on, to my relief the movie turned out not to be quite that bad, but it’s still pretty damned bad. The dull and unfunny opening is followed by an abrupt shift of tone, as a man maddened by terror jumps from the plane to his death! The only thing set up by the opening that turns out to be relevant is Spaulding the meteorologist’s crush on Nora the nurse, when she’s in love with the base’s second in command, Lieutenant Brown.

I complain frequently about useless love triangles in movies. This one is very useless, and all the more so because the script totally forgets to resolve it. Spaulding hates Gow Island but stays because he’s in love with Nora – he wants her to go back to Miami with him and marry him. When he puts this idea to her, however, it becomes obvious that Nora can’t stand him, and it’s clear enough why: Spaulding is an asshole and he treats Nora not as a partner but as a possession. Never does he show any sort of tenderness towards her. Every time they speak to each other, he seems to end up shouting, and his jealousy of Brown repeatedly leads to violence.

Brown, on the other hand, treats Nora with respect and actually shows vulnerability around her. He’s been left in charge while the base’s commander is on the mainland attending an important meeting, and he’s really feeling the pressure as the base is surrounded by tree monsters in the dark. He talks about his anxiety and Nora comforts him, and the audience rolls their eyes because it’s perfectly obvious which of these guys she’s going to pick. And sure enough, at the end she’s in Brown’s arms… but nothing about the whole situation is exactly resolved.

Brown and Spaulding did get in a fist fight, though it wasn’t explicitly over Nora, but nobody ever talks about the problem. Spaulding never realizes that he’s treated Nora badly, and it never seems to even occur to him that she might prefer Brown over him, or even that she has emotions or preferences at all. He definitely never seems to understand that he’s lost. Brown and Nora seem to feel a need to hide their love affair from the other base staff, but we’re never given a reason why (although I guess ‘Spaulding’s a dick’ is reason enough). Nora never tells Spaulding that she prefers Brown… maybe she’s afraid he’ll assault her? I hate everything about this situation, but nothing more than the fact that as the movie progresses we get hints that Nora may be warming up to Spaulding, as if she’s supposed to consider these two guys equal contenders for her affections! Fuck everybody who wrote this, seriously.

It’s kind of sad to see Mamie Van Doren in a role like this after meeting her in things like Untamed Youth and Girls Town. Those movies were gross and exploitative, but Mamie’s characters were central to their plots and she filled those shoes reasonably well. She wasn’t Oscar material but for what the films were, she was enough to carry them. The Navy vs the Night Monsters is a little closer to being a ‘real movie’, but in this respect it represents a step down for her, as she is relegated to being something for two men to fight over. Furthermore, Silver from Girls Town and Penny from Untamed Youth were both characters who required some range – Nora the nurse mainly spends the whole movie being annoyed with the men in her life. Van Doren could have done much more if anyone had bothered asking it of her.

Let’s see… what else do I hate about this movie? I hate Private Chandler, the guy who stays a Jackass Comic Relief character once that opening is over. Shockingly, The Navy vs the Night Monsters actually kills him off, but he’s not nearly as annoying as Dropo or the guy from Outlaw, so his death merely feels mean rather than having any entertainment value. The guy was just about to actually get laid by one of the women who’d made fun of him earlier – though she, like Spaulding, showed no sign of being sorry for past jerkitude.

I hate the monsters. Normally I have a soft spot for plant monsters. They’re a cliché in their own way, I guess, but they’re a fun idea. The ones in The Navy vs the Night Monsters kill and digest people with acidic sap, and a character theorizes about how and why such a thing would evolve, which is cool. The execution, however, sucks. While the poster for the film shows us a humanoid Treebeard-looking thing, the actual monsters in the film are dumb-looking stumps that waddle along like a couple of guys trying to move a piece of furniture corner-by-corner because it’s too heavy to lift. The result reminds me of The Creeping Terror, in that you have to want to get eaten by these things. At one point a guy walks right up to one, inspects it, and escapes its clutches merely by backing away slowly!

The trees reproduce using insect-like larvae that are, themselves, lethally venomous. This is also a neat idea which is, once again, ruined by the execution. The tiny ones are being pulled along the floor by a sometimes-visible string, and then they grow into stumps that look like they should be stools around a boy scout campfire, which move even slower than the adult trees! There’s a scene where the characters are holed up in the base under an onslaught of these, with planes arriving to napalm them just in time, and it is ludicrous in its attempt to feel threatening.

I do like that Gow Island is a bleak middle-of-nowhere rather than a tropical paradise. The landscapes kind of remind me of the Falkland Islands, though the weather on Gow is evidently better. You can see why some of the characters hate it here, surrounded by barren scrub inhabited mostly by ten thousand smelly, raucous seabirds. Unfortunately this backdrop makes the ‘comedy’ opening seem even more out of place, though it’s also kind of nice that they didn’t give us any stereotyped ‘natives’ as either comedy or monster fodder.

As for a theme… well, The Navy vs the Night Monsters is clearly about an invasive species. The biologist, in suggesting how the tree monsters evolved, points out that they are suited to the hostile environment of Antarctica in ways that make them nearly unstoppable anywhere else. We’re told that they devoured all the penguins the scientists were bringing back for study, and as well as eating the people, they wreak havoc among the Gow Island seabirds and reproduce out of control. The parallels to things like cane toads in Australia, or housecats just about anywhere, are obvious.

This isn’t something the characters care about, though, even the ones who profess to be scientists. At the end, enough of the trees are destroyed that the humans can safely evacuate, and what happens after that is clearly Gow Island’s problem, not humanity’s. I really would have liked to see the script go into this a little more, but then, The Navy vs the Night Monsters is not a movie that wants to go into anything, even stuff it sets up in some detail.

At the end, The Navy vs the Night Monsters feels pretty half-assed. Somebody wanted to make a movie, and then put in the bare minimum effort possible to have all the parts present. They clearly understood how movies work, but they didn’t have the money and didn’t want to go to the trouble. The result is deeply mediocre. There’s a few laughs out of the dumb stump creatures, but mostly it’s just bad.

#mst3k #reviews #episodes that never were #the navy vs the night monsters #tw: abuse #humanitarian vegetables #60s

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alexisn11233 · 3 years

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Blog 1-6

Get Out

As someone who cannot really watch horror without having nightmares and thinking about, Get Out is a film I admired and watched even before taking this course. Watching Get Out years ago when I always stay away from horror movies is a huge step for me and I definitely did not regret watching it then. However, after watching the sensational film, Get Out for the second time, I definitely noticed large symbols depicted in the film.

I didn’t have any knowledge on the momentous symbols portrayed throughout the film when I had watched the film for the first time a few years prior. Had I never taken this course I would have never known of the hidden meanings Jordan Peele imputed throughout the film. For instance, I had never even considered the sunken place of being a symbol for mass incarceration. However, I can’t stop thinking of how talented Jordan Peele and others that have worked on the film to bring such a powerful meaning to the movie that is a large issue with people of color.

Another large symbol that was shown in the film was the deer. In the scene where Chris and Rose are on the way to Rose’s family’s home, they hit a deer. Rose is not too interested in the deers wellbeing, whereas we see Chris strongly concerned. He then finds the deer dead, which causes Chris to tear up. We then saw the deer towards the end of the movie where another deer was hung up on the wall in front of Chris while he was trapped in the chair by Rose’s family. He then uses that same deer head to kill Rose’s father. Another theme I saw with the deer was how Chris had to get out of the car after hitting it and check on the deer. Chris’s actions during that scene stems from severe trauma he has endured with his mom being killed in a hit and run. The driving deer scene is not the only segment where Chris’s actions were determined by the event of losing his mother from a hit and run. We also see Chris doing the same thing towards the end of the movie with Georgina. He ran Georgina over in order to escape from being killed, however, he couldn’t bare to leave her alone and die. This is probably because he knew there was some life leftover from the real Georgina and he didn’t want to leave her alone to die just as his mother did. The event of the hit and run with his mother had a massive impact on Chris’s decisions throughout the film, one time being life or death for him.

To conclude, there are countless symbols in Jordan Peele’s movie that have been cleverly imputed and have spoken volumes, whether it’s racial themes that exist in today’s world or connections. However, these are the symbols that really stuck out to me having analyzed the film. I am grateful to learn all of this knowledge and look at the movie differently because of this course, it made me look at this great film very differently, and see things from a new perspective.

BLOG 2

After watching Jordan Peele’s second most popular film, Us and discussing it in class there was a plethora of symbols throughout the movie. In today’s blog I’d like to get into the themes and talk about the movie in depth.

In the beginning of the movie we are introduced to a little girl and her 2 parents at the pier which we later find out is Red. Red goes to the hall of mirrors where the tethered are and comes across Adelaide. After that we are not sure why the little girl is acting differently and her parents go to a psychologist. At this point in the movie the viewers don’t know what happened until the end of the movie which explains how Adelaide switched places with Red. We are then introduced to the main characters which are the Wilsons. The Wilsons are a middle class family who take a vacation to Santa Cruz with their friends who have kids the same age. We are first introduced to this white middle class family (the friends) when they meet at the beach. This is where the first theme is seen, isolation. We can see that the Wilsons are the only black family surrounded by white families, which creates a sense of loneliness. Even though the Wilsons experience the feeling of isolation, they are a privileged black family. They can afford to rent this beautiful house during their vacation and Gabe being able to buy a boat.

Another theme would be the Preparedness and Survival Mindset. When the Wilsons first encountered the tethered in front of their house Gabe’s first reaction was to handle the situation himself. When they learned the police wasn’t coming for a while Gabe quickly grabbed a baseball bat as a weapon and was preparing. Although they were more fearful when they first broke into the house after the scene where Red explained who they were by the fireplace, the Wilsons quickly went into survival mode. Whether it was tricking the tethered or running them over with their car the Wilsons quickly got into the survival mindset and were not willing to give up.

That being said there were many themes and symbols in the film, many were not listed. This movie was very well done and was very much so a plot twist that I didn't see coming at all. The themes of isolation, privilege, and survival mindset were the ones that stood out to me the most while watching the film and reviewing the lecture.

BLOG 3

Eve’s Bayou

Eve’s Bayou is about a little girl, Eve and her family. She has 2 siblings, a beautiful mother, and a father who is a doctor and they live in this small area. The dad is seen as some kind of superhero to everyone and is unfaithful to his wife. Eve just wants to be the apple of her father’s eye but is jealous from the attention her older sister and younger sister get. The movie starts out showing a party thrown by the family. In the scene we are shown the father dancing comfortably with another woman who is not Eve’s mother so we quickly suggest something more is going on. He later sleeps with that woman in the shed where Eve fell asleep in and catches his father doing the act. Eve is traumatized and doesn’t tell her mother, but she does tell her sister. Her sister who believes her father can do no wrong and is in denial convinces Eve she made a mistake in which she saw.

The most climactic moment of the film is when Eve’s sister, Sicily is acting completely different or depressed. They don’t know what’s wrong with her and she finally tells Eve what happened to her. That their father kissed Sicily then hit her. Eve is infuriated that her father abused her sister but is not allowed to tell anyone what Sicily told her in private. She decides to go to the “crazy” voodoo woman so she can kill her dad for what he did to her sister. The dad eventually dies not from the voodoo but from being shot by an angry husband whose wife Eve’s father was having an affair with. We then later learn after the father is dead, that Sicily was lying and twisting the story the whole time. Sicily was in love with her father and was rejected by him when she tried to kiss him. Eve is furious once she learns this and believes she is the one that killed her father for no reason.

In the film, we saw the themes of curses, voodoo, manipulation, and deception. Eve’s aunt Mozell loses her third husband in a car accident and everyone including herself believes she is cursed. We see the theme of voodoo with the woman with the face paint who has a stand at the marketplace who Eve goes to for help in killing her father. We also see manipulation from Sicily when she tries to convince Eve that she didn’t see anything happen in the shed because she was in love with her father. She also manipulated and deceived her sister into thinking that her father hit and abused her, when she twisted the story because she resented him for rejecting her love.

To conclude, Eve’s Bayou included many themes and is very different than other black horror films, which I really enjoyed. I wasn’t scared or waiting for something horrifying to happen, but I was very much intrigued.

BLOG 4

The Girl with All the Gifts

When you first watch the movie, we see a bunch of normal looking kids in a prison setting who are locked into chairs. We are then shown all of the kids in a classroom where there are guards watching them and they are strapped into their chairs. We are then introduced to the main character, Melanie and Ms. Justineau. Ms. Justineau is not like the rest who treat the kids like monsters and are disgusted by them. She sees them as children and is particularly fond of Melanie. She even nuzzles Melanie’s head in the same scene in which the guards barge in and forbid her to do that ever again and show what these “abortions” are capable of. We, the audience also learn more that these children are called abortions.

Abortions are half human half hungry but they are still considered alive. They are kept in this prison strapped into the chairs in order for the humans to be safe and in control of them. However, they are also experimented on and killed by Dr. Jean. The reason why they are experimenting on the kids is to create a vaccine. The rest of the world is filled with hungries that are trying to dominate the world and unless they find a vaccine the rest of the humans will become hungries.

Eventually they need to evacuate just as Melanie is about to be killed by the Dr. The hungries take over. The guards, Ms. Justineau, Melanie, and the Dr. venture out keeping Melanie in this mask like thing to control her urges at some extent. Throughout the journey Melanie helps them survive and they start to look at her differently, everyone but the Dr. who still sees her as a test subject that is the key to the vaccine. During the trip the Dr. gives some information to Melanie in which Melanie later remembers that causes everyone to become hungries. This is when Dr. Jean is almost about to die and gets Melanie alone and tries to manipulate her into letting her experiment and kill her for it will help Ms. Justineau. As Melanie is about to give in and is having a heated conversation with her she remembers what Dr. Jean told her about the growing spores they had seen. She asks the Dr. why it must be us sacrificing for you guys (humans). She then leaves the Dr. and runs to light the spore like tree on fire, which will either be destroyed or the disease that makes humans into hungries will be airborne, therefore, everyone will turn into hungries. Well, it doesn’t get destroyed and everyone is turned into hungries. During this time Sergeant Parks who was once disgusted with Melanie and her kind went out looking for Melanie to make sure she was alright. He was then exposed to the airborne spores and was turned into a hungry but did not want to end up as one so he told Melanie to kill and shoot him immediately, in which she did. This showed me that as soon as the Sergeant began to let his guard down and see Melanie as a caring child rather than a monster he ended up turning into something horrible. The ending was the most interesting for me. Ms. Justineau was in the enclosed pod teaching a class to the Hungries and Melanie only this time she was the one “locked up” and they were free. This showed the domination of Hungries being the new humans of the world.

BLOG 5

Candyman

Candyman is like the boogie man in which he is an urban legend. They say that his spirit can appear by someone who says Candyman fives times in the mirror. Once he is there he kills the person who summoned him using his hook that is attached to the bloody stump of his arm. Helen, who is a white woman, hears a rumor that someone was killed by him and that there have been tons of similar murders. Helen and her friend then decide to say Candyman in the mirror, however, no one appears and nothing happens. After, Helen writes about how people use Candyman as a way to deal with their problems. She and her friend then go to where a murder took place and notices offerings that were for Candyman.

Helen and her husband then go out with a Candyman expert, who tells them that Candyman was the son of a slave who was also an artist who painted portraits of rich white people with land, as well as their families. But then he fell in love and had a kid with one of the daughters of the white landowners. The expert then says that a lynch mob set up by the daughter’s father came after him where they cut off his right hand. Not only that, they took his cut hand and put honey so he could attract bees to sting him, so he can be stung to death. They then burned his corpse and scattered his ashes on the land that was now Cabrini Green.Helen is later attacked by someone who is in a gang and calls himself Candyman, all while carrying a hook. After she is assaulted and tells the police, they believe he is responsible for the murders. But then, Helen is approached by the real Candyman in a parking garage, he tells her she has discredited him. Helen then becomes unconscious and wakes up covered in blood. He then later breaks into Helen's apartment and cuts her neck, she then bleeds and passes out. Bernadette finds Helen at her apartment and is killed by Candyman and Helen is blamed for the murder, they then place her in a psychiatric hospital. She tries to prove she’s innocent when she speaks with her psychiatrist and summons Candyman, who then appears and kills the doctor. A lot happens after but basically Candyman was in love with Helen, but she died in the end.

The new adaptation of Candyman has many differences. One being that the new one is set in the United States, instead of the UK. Candyman is black and is a victim of racism and the setting takes place at a black housing project, Cabrini Green. Helen, the lead white woman is attacked in this film by black thugs and Candyman is actually falling in love with her. Candyman can also be summoned by someone if they say his name five times in the mirror.

BLOG 6

Beloved

The movie Beloved is about a former slave, Sethe, who is living in Ohio post Civil War. However, her and her three children are terrorized by this demon-like creature that scares away two of her children. Years later, it’s just Sethe and her one daughter named Denver. Until one day a former friend of Sethe, Paul shows up. He decides to stay with Sethe and Denver. One day Denver finds Beloved and loves to have her around, but then finds out she is actually Sethe’s reincarnated daughter. Sethe’s daughter, Denver decides to keep this a secret from her mother. However, one night Beloved casts a spell on Paul and rapes him. Paul then wants to tell Sethe what happened but then professes that he wants to have a baby with her. But then when a confidant of Paul hears of this, he tells him the story of how Sethe was raped by the nephews of the schoolteacher. And how they whipped Sethe leaving nasty scars on her back. She was very pregnant with her child and she was trying to escape. She was then raped while searching for her husband in the barn. The nephews pinned her, raped, and took her breast milk.

When she managed to escape she met a white woman, Amy Denver who helped treat her and her injuries, as well as delivering Seth’s child (ther daughter is named after this woman). She then got to Baby Suggs house, but the schoolteacher came to collect Sethe and her kids. In a panic, Sethe slit her eldest daughter’s throat, as well tried to kill the other children. She said she rather her kids be dead than enslaved. But they stop her and leave disgusted. Paul now understands where the poltergeist comes from, and decides to leave. After, Sethe then discovers that Beloved is actually her dead daughter. She then spoils her, while forgetting Denver. But shortly after, Beloved causes chaos and things start to fall apart. Sethe is unable to work and Denver becomes depressed.

To solve the problem of Beloved, Sethe’s coworker performs an exorcism. It leads to the disappearance of Beloved and Sethe and her family are finally free. A few months later Denver and Paul run into each other in town and he sees a change in her that she’s grown up and matured. But when he comes back to the house, he finds Sethe to be very sick. She tells Paul that she lost the best thing, Beloved, where Paul tells her that she herself is the best thing.

#blackhorror

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jess-rewatches-prodigalson · 4 years

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Episode 5: The Trip

This episode is one of my favourites simply because we get high!Malcolm.

Here are my thoughts.

SPOILERS AHEAD

1:15 - Malcolm’s hair is attractive like this.

2:29 - Poor Malcolm is deteriorating fast. At least he knows he needs sleep? I guess that’s good?

3:00 - Malcolm’s startled self-deprecation here is upsetting. Does he really think that when it comes to relationships/non-murder related things he’s incapable of being right?

3:26 - When Malcolm isn’t doing well, but he’s actively trying to convince others that he’s fine, he ends up looking very manic.

4:20 - “Where are they going?” That look? That is desperation. The look in Gil’s eyes? That is pain. That is concern. I am living for it.

4:45 - The look Gil give Bright here breaks my heart. You can tell that Gil wants nothing more than to wrap Bright in a blanket and haul him off to some sort of safe place until Bright feels better.

5:00 - Confirmation that even if Malcolm’s dad wasn’t a serial killer he wouldn’t be a stereotypical sports loving guy.

5:50 - It’s upsetting that Malcolm looks happiest at crime scenes.

6:25 - “He’s literally covered in drugs.” hahaha JT is the best.

7:10 - Aww Malcolm, reign it in buddy. Dani seemed annoyed before you started profiling her.

7:34 - Gil’s face here is perfect. It’s a face that says “I work with children. I regret the life decisions that led me into this room.”

8:07 - Why doesn’t Malcolm know about this? It happened after the 90s. He met Gil in ‘98. Gil took him on stakeouts. Did Gil never tell him work stories!? Nah. I don’t buy it. This explanation was for the audience. Malcolm already knew.

8:08 - ...So the woman in the pew that we just saw. Is she really present for the whole drug/police convo that’s about to happen? Does it get her killed? Seems like a church should be evacuated before police and drug dealers discuss dangerous information in it. Maybe that’s just me?

8:10 - Gil blesses himself. Gil is catholic? Do you think he ever took Malcolm to church? Does he regularly attend church or is this a childhood habit that Gil has? Was Gil raised catholic but moved away from the church as an adult? I’m fascinated by this. I want information.

9:10 - Is Dani ok? I mean I know why she’s acting the way she is (because rewatch) but she seems really upset this whole episode. Is there something else going on with her?

9:50 - *sigh* He’s having hallucinations now too?! This is not good. Our boy needs help. ALSO - The looks that Malcolm get from JT and Gil are everything. They look so concerned. My heart is full.

11:09 - Last episode Malcolm had a desk. Now he’s working (with a pencil cup) in the case board room? Is this by choice? Because he wants to be able to look at the board or did he somehow lose desk privileges? Does he share the desk with someone else? I have questions.

11:40 - There’s something really beautiful about the way Dani and Malcolm interact. It’s when we see Malcolm at his most calm and rational. It’s when we see Dani at her most vulnerable. Dani is such a badass but when she interacts with Malcolm there’s a beautiful softness about her. There’s a vulnerability to both of them that’s too precious for this world. You can see how much they care about each other (as friends or more, I’m not getting into the Brightwell debate).

12:20 - You ever wonder if Malcolm experimented with street drugs as a teenager/college student? I do. I wonder if he was so desperate to numb his pain that he tried street drugs in addition to his prescriptions. Maybe when he was at Harvard?

12:40 - Malcolm looks to Gil for permission. Another instance where we see that Malcolm has a big heart. Yes Malcolm is manic and weird but he also cares about others. He has tact. It’s just that sometimes he chooses to be blunt, or to be insensitive when he’s desperate for information pertaining to a case/his past.

13:03 - Holy crap. That look on Malcolm’s face. He’s scared. For Dani. Well. My heart has melted.

13:40 - How many staff members does Jessica have? She lives alone. In a townhouse. She has no yard to maintain. So far there’s been Louisa, Aldolpho, and now Kimberly....Rich people live a weird life.

14:10 - How did Eve find out that Jessica was looking to donate money if she wasn’t invited to this luncheon? Who told Eve about it? Or was Eve spying on the Whitly family?

14:35 - I’ll be honest: I immediately didn’t/don’t like Eve. It seemed weird that she showed up uninvited to the Jessica’s place. Eve’s confidence is mixed with a sort of ambition that just rubs me the wrong way. Basically, she reminds me too much of someone I didn’t like in high school.

15:30 - Malcolm really doesn’t do undercover well does he? I mean he’s sooo overdressed. Couldn’t he have at least taken off his tie before going to this club? He sticks out like a sore thumb. Did Malcolm come to the club to talk to Estime or because he profiled that Dani would come to the club and he was worried about her?

16:18 - “That’s a bad guy window.” This line is cute. What’s cuter is how relaxed Malcolm is in this scene. It’s the most calm we’ve seen him all episode.

17:20 - Did Dani and Estime have a romantic relationship in the past? The way they’re interacting seems to imply it.

17:53 - And we’re right back to manic Malcolm. Look at his eyes. Yikes. This dude really obsesses over mysteries.

18:50 - Why did the gun wielding dude suddenly go away? Did he assume he made the kill he came there for? Did he know the cops were coming?

18:52 - Here comes angry Dad.

19:21 - and here is Concerned Dad.

19:32 - Ok. So Malcolm is high here (which is hilarious) but that little speech he gives to Gil is really touching and honestly completely on the mark. Do you think Gil and Malcolm ever discussed it when Malcolm was sober? Do you think Malcolm ever told that to Gil before this moment? I honestly think Gil needed to hear that. Even if it was from high!Bright. He looked really close to snapping at one (or both) of his children. He needed to remember why he loves them. Why they love him.

20:00 - Seriously. Gil is just the team Dad. I want to see a team dinner at Gil’s place. Where Gil asks everyone about their day and acts like a total Dad.

20:36 - How did Malcolm get into his weapon collecting hobby?

21:07 - It’s heartbreaking that Malcolm is the happiest we’ve ever seen him when he’s high as a kite.

21:38 - That’s unfiltered. That’s a man who lost all his friends when he was ten years old and was never able to make new ones. That is a man who desperately wants a friend. That is a woman who is terrified to trust. That is a woman who wants a friend. A woman who needs a friend.

22:21 - Why is it that Malcolm conveniently has food in his fridge right now? In subsequent episodes his fridge is bare. He’s admitted that most food makes him sick. Why does he have ingredients for grilled cheese tonight of all nights? I mean I know why (because the writers deemed it so) but it seems out of character?

22:40 - Dude. Malcolm has so much product in his shower. What are all of those bottles?!? And what are they for?!

23:11 - Malcolm’s pill bottles are on the counter. Dani can see them. Does she read the labels? Does she ask him about them later? ALSO WHY ARE THERE 3 HALF FULL WATTER GLASSES ON THE COUNTER?!? He lives alone. Is one of them Dani’s? Is that a boy thing? My 20 year old brother regularly has 2-3 half full glasses of water/juice in the kitchen. It drives me crazy.

23:18 - Anyone else desperate to know what’s at the top of the stairs in Malcolm’s loft? Where do those stairs GO?

23:28 - Props to Tom Payne. This is such a believable panic attack. It’s heart breaking but honest.

24:40 - This is it. Malcolm’s deepest fear. That he is just like his father. That he is capable of murder. That he would enjoy it. That he already has murdered someone as a child.

26:20 - Why didn’t Dani sleep on the couch? Did she leave Malcolm to sleep in the shower? Did she somehow move him to the bed? Apparently Dani did dishes though (or Malcolm when Dani was sleeping) because there is only 1 half empty glass on the counter now.

26:21 - Anyone want to talk about how attractive Tom Payne looks in this scene? Just me? Ok.

26:47 - I love this. The vulnerability. They trust each other enough to open up to each other. They need each other. They’re both in more pain than they pretend to be in.

27:34 - What was Dani’s drug of choice? ALSO I want a fic of Papa!Gil taking care of a detoxing Dani.

28:12 - Gil’s smile. His conversation with Dani. Dani’s apology. UgH. It’s perfect. He’s such a dad. He’s already forgiven her before she even tries to apologize. He’s happy to see her and he’s happy that Malcolm’s ok.

28:23 - You know. We give Malcolm a lot of shit in this fandom for not being able to take care of himself (and rightfully so). BUT. Can we for one minute appreciate how Dani, Gil, Malcolm, and JT are all really mature, good adults? Seriously. They take responsibility for their mistakes. They apologize when necessary. They have manners. They talk to each other when something is bothering them and the time is right (well, Malcolm’s not great at this but he’s doing it better than most adults I know).

28:48 - Ugh. Eve is back. She’s mining for information from Jessica. I can’t stand this.

30:00 - Does this mean that Malcolm’s childhood bedroom is still intact?!? I want to see it. I want the team to see it. I want that scene and I want it now.

30:40 - Ok. SO Eve and Malcolm have been making eyes at each other throughout this whole scene. BUT I have to wonder (April 11/2020) - was Eve ever really interested in Malcolm? I mean he just admitted to having drugs explode in his face. He walked into the room talking about barbiturates and he looks manic af right now. Even if she thought he was cute (which he is) the red flags from this conversation should have been enough for her to stay away from him. And yet - she pursues him. Makes me question how authentically she actually cares about him.

32:19 - Where did JT go?!? He’s been gone for the past like 20 minutes of this episode. Did he get sick? Is he on another case? I need answers.

33:19 - Ok. So JT’s pulling a warrant with Gil.

33:25 - That right there is an authentic smile. You can see how much Malcolm loves Gil here.

35:28 - I’ll be honest the “murder of the week” in this episode is boring to me.

40:05 - This little scene between Malcolm and Dani over tea is super sweet.

41:54 - You’re telling me that overbearing, intense Jessica didn’t look in that box before she sent it over to Malcolm. Nah. I’m not buying it. That woman has no boundaries when it comes to her children.

Well. Thanks for hanging out. I’ll be back soon.

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searchingforthestage · 4 years

Text

What I learned working tech for “Dracula”

It makes sense that the first production I work on at my new school is also, so far, the biggest production I have worked backstage for. There’s an actual backstage area! That’s so new to me - the first college I started at had just enough room behind the stage to hold a desk and a few other props, but Dracula had me running the entire length of the backstage to the green room several times.

First thing first: I should probably start with the mistakes, right? You learn more from mistakes, and if I’m going to be putting my experiences online I may as well put myself in a teacher mode. Learn from me! :p

First thing I learned is: if you want a particular job then you gotta fight for it.

I was eager to do a job unlike anything that I had ever done, and I knew that Dracula would require someone working blood and I was Very excited to try that! But on our first day when the director started handing out jobs, he said

“Who wants to do a job that’s difficult?”

When I volunteered I used pretty much those words to think about what I wanted to do, but when asked my instinct was to ask “can I handle something I haven’t explicitly planned for? Maybe if I wait he will explain more.” But just as I finished this thought, someone else raised their hand and the director said “Nice! You’re the Blood Mistress”.

In an instant I missed out on the job I wanted to try because I questioned if I could do anything that I hadn’t planned to do, and I learned that if I was really eager to spread my wings then I need to spend less time planning for hypotheticals, because then you likely won’t be able to do it.

I also learned that mistakes aren’t the end of the world, and making one isn’t going to soil my name and ruin my career.

Funny thing is - I’ve learned that lesson about 100 times before, and I’m probably going to forget next time I make a mistake.

My biggest job was being prop runner and setting the stage for act 1 and act 2, and for act 2 there’s this very tiny prop of a wishbone that Renfield uses to pick the lock on his jailcell and allows him to escape, and during the first show that prop got forgotten.

I was told this by an actor immediately at blackout, moments before the scene.

My instincts told me that I could run out and hand him the prop before the lights came back on.

I could not do that.

For the rest of the play I was convinced that everyone was FURIOUS that I was seen by the audience and thus ruined the magical of ~Live Theatre~

The stage manager had a chuckle and the director just told me to be careful not to repeat this mistake, and by the second show it was completely forgotten.

Things happen, props get forgotten and people make bad calls, and its not the end of the world.

One final thing I want to talk about is less of something that I concretely learned, but it was a funny situation.

For our production we used a lot of smoke. A LOT. We used so much smoke that the fire alarm for stage and the entire hall leading outside the theater had to be turned off, and during a few beginning rehearsals they were triggered and we had to do the usual fire safety stuff. But we were assured that it would it not happen during a performance and public safety knew what they needed to do.

What we didn’t think about is that there is a different weekend staff that we did not ask to turn off the fire alarms for.

During our first Saturday show the fire alarm went off, and the entire audience had to evacuate with the actors down the fire escape.

One of them got the cool idea of staying in character and doing a mini performance, and bless their hearts they did try, but the only actors that were with the audience and a few of the tech people (me) were the ones currently on stage. The rest of the actors had to escape through the other fire escape, so I think the biggest hardship to staying in character is the fact that these few actors didn’t have the rest of them there to help and they broke pretty fast.

But those were the most interesting stories! I plan on sharing other things I learned from other productions, and telling the other weird stories I picked up on from working theatre. If you read to the end than thank you so much!

#my writing #tech #techblr #dracula #personal #what i learned #theatre

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thisguyatthemovies · 4 years

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A man and his ‘Killdozer’

“Tread” (documentary; in theaters and on disc/streaming Feb. 28, 2020; not rated; directed by Paul Solet; run time 1 hours, 29 minutes) is the real-life story of Marvin Heemeyer, who – depending on your perspective and a variety of other factors, like how you feel about guns, government and religion – was either a hero or a delusional sociopath. Director Paul Solet doesn’t make that decision for us. Instead he lays out both sides of the “this actually happened?” story, through Heemeyer’s manifesto cassette tapes, recent interviews with those involved, and home footage/photos and dramatic recreations of the events that transpired. Heemeyer was a military veteran and accomplished welder who moved from South Dakota to Granby, Colorado in the early 1990s. Those who knew him, including a woman he was romantically involved with, described him as a likable guy, a man’s man who enjoyed classic muscle cars, snowmobiles and guns. His former girlfriend says he was larger than life and that she felt safe with him. That would change. Heemeyer, wanting to open his own muffler shop, purchased industrial land in Granby for $40,000 at an auction. According to him, that rankled a man who was wanting the lot for a concrete batch plant. The man, Cody Docheff, had connections with the most powerful men in the small (population less than 2,000) town. What ensued was a drawn-out feud with officials over zoning decisions, one that escalated when Docheff purchased an adjoining tract and built his concrete plant. At each turn, Heemeyer felt victimized and denied his God-given rights. He says, on one of his tapes, that he had an epiphany one night while sitting alone in his hot tub – God wanted him to get revenge on those who had wronged him. God’s plan was for Heemeyer to purchase a behemoth of a bulldozer at an auction in California, bring it back to Granby and spend about 18 months turning it into a tank (later dubbed “Killdozer” in the media), fortified with thick steel and concrete and equipped with high-powered rifles and a camera system so he could see out of the thing. Heemeyer was convinced this was what God wanted because the tank fit through his garage door by mere inches. On June 4, 2004, Heemeyer didn’t use that garage door to exit the building with his monstrosity – he plowed right through the walls. He then went on a well-planned rampage of destruction, starting with Docheff’s plant. Other targets includes businesses owned by town board members and town hall, which just so happened to be above the library, where kids were enjoying activities before local law enforcement was able to evacuate the building (a tank covered in steel and concrete doesn’t move quickly). Remarkably, no one died, though Heemeyer fired upon police officers and tried to shoot large propane tanks. His bulldozer, as it was starting to overheat, got stuck on the edge of the basement at the town’s hardware store. Heemeyer killed himself inside his contraption. The scenes of the bulldozer plowing through anything in its path are chilling. You can feel the frustration, even 16 years later, in the voices of police officers who were given the impossible task of trying to disable Heemeyer’s tank. Much of the movie is about what transpired leading up to that June day, and it’s sad to listen to Heemeyer descend into what most would consider madness, though among certain groups of people he is seen as heroic even today. His targets try to paint themselves as innocent victims in their interviews, and collectively they seem believable, but even if they aren’t, were Heemeyer’s actions justified? The entire situation seems like a pointless fight to be the alpha male, waged by big fishes in a little pond, and Heemeyer was convinced God wanted him to be the biggest fish. Heemeyer had a chance to sell his property for $400,000, but he decided this time it was personal. One wishes a voice of reason had gotten inside his head. “Tread” ends rather abruptly, only a few minutes after the story of the rampage ends with Heemeyer’s suicide. I wanted to see more about how the incident changed the town, or some input from a mental health expert or local religious leader. Solet’s film does a solid job of telling a remarkable story. He tells it without judgement, though he leaves that as a possibility for his audience. My rating: 79 out of 100.

#movies #movie reviews #movie recommendation #documentary #tread #marvin heemeyer #paul solet #killdozer #mental health

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teamoliv-archive · 4 years

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I don’t have much for unpopular opinions, but I’ll try this instead: what’s your take on the whole situation regarding RWBY and their recent decisions in the latest season? (Frcstbxte)

send me controversial or unpopular opinions and I’ll tell you if I agree or disagree 🐸 ☕️

Hoo boy. People are going to unfollow me for this one guaranteed due to how may super strong opinions people have about this. This one’s getting a cut to avoid drama.

I do want to stress that I don’t want to devalue or invalidate anyone’s complaints regarding the show. Enjoyment is a highly personal thing and if you’re frustrated, upset, disappointed, or otherwise had negative feelings don’t let this convince you that you’re not allowed to feel the way you do about the volume.. My gripes are more on the mechanical and storytelling aspects of things and with the arguments used to criticize the volume. I only hope I can make my case on why the commonly complained about parts of the show don’t warrant the vitriol in my opinion. I likely won’t convince too many people, but I’d like to make my case here anyway.

I honestly believe a lot of the complaints about the latest season from a writing standpoint are short-sighted, lack scope, and/or just miss the point of what we’re looking at. From an overall storytelling perspective this was definitely the most well put together season the show has had so far and a lot of the complaints only address individual concerns that some fans had regarding things not happening the way they wanted to without a regard for the overall plot. This is why I think a lot of the complaints don’t measure up and where my actual gripes with the part lie.

1. Theme

You cannot consider yourself to have analyzed a work without first looking at its overall theme. RWBY’s structure doubles up on this as not only does the show as a whole have its overarching themes and plot, but each individual volume has their own to deal with as well. Here the theme is trust, as directly stated in the opening lyrics and it’s a common source of problems and solutions throughout the the show.

From an overarching standpoint, we have Salem doing her darnedest to break apart any alliances that could be formed against her. I do not believe this is because she fears humanity in terms of tactical numbers. This simply isn’t that kind of show. The writers have said in interviews that they take most of their story and theme cues from the magical girl genre. You know, the same “love and friendship conquers all” magical girl genre that all those shows not named Madoka Magicka use as the basis for their protagonists. The silver eye power seems fueled by that exact sentiment and I think that’s going to be a huge factor close to the end. This is not a setting where pragmatism and strategic thinking will carry the day- keep that in mind.

2. RWBY vs. Ironwood

This is the part everyone’s been talking about and I think a lot of the hard-line side-taking in either direction is missing the point entirely. This conflict was always going to happen and both sides have fault to bear.

The two sides can be seen as having their own character arcs on a macro scale. Individual character motivations weren’t nearly as important as they were in previous volumes and it helps to see them mostly through the lens of Ruby and Ironwood. The basic core of the problem throughout the series is this, Team RWBY has decided to go along with Ironwood’s plan for lack of one themselves, but don’t trust him with the whole truth until they know how he’ll react to it. This is a man with an army and a paranoid streak after all. This, of course, is a decision that winds up instrumental in triggering Ironwood’s paranoid shitstorm later in the volume.

That said, I don’t believe the problem is Ruby’s decision making- It’s the narrative. The whole reason this comes across as weird and contrived is that we are never told the reason Ruby and co. don’t trust Ironwood with the information from the lamp. By all accounts up until this point there was no visible reason for them to do so and we’re simply never told WHY. Answering this simple question would have made the entire rest of the narrative make a lot more sense were she just given a believable reason to hold the info back, let alone any reason at all.

Now let’s bounce back to Ironwood. I’m going to just go out and say I grew tired of the “Ironwood did no wrong.” discourse pretty quickly because, again, people are missing the point. For this one, we have to look back into the theme- trust. When Ironwood has his breakdown, he not only turns his back on Ruby and her team for lying to him, but he goes right into his martial law plan also betraying the trust of the council, Robyn, and the people of Mantle who are now going to be sacrificed for the sake of salvaging his original plan. Despite Ruby and co’s actions making the situation worse, we aren’t meant to see Ironwood’s new solution as a better alternative purely on the moral cost of what he’s doing. This is what is called in screenwriting the “Moral Line” defined as a vision of right and wrong as told through the protagonists. We’re meant to sympathize with Ruby owning up to lying to Ironwood and trying to move forward despite the setbacks, not cheer for Ironwood calling them out and forcing out a more pragmatic path.

To me, I think this stems from a common sentiment shared in a lot of popular media and deconstruction of tropes that idealism is a naive and childish flaw and that proper strategic logic is what solves problems. Again, I predict that due to the genre inspirations of this story, this won’t be the case at all. Ironwood is going to fail because he turned his back on moral idealism, trust, and friendship in favor of planning and decisive action no matter the cost, not despite it. Harriet summarized the entire philosophy well during her fight with Ruby:

“It’s not excessive if it’s necessary!”

This line feels, to me, like a reflection of everything that Team RWBY is now fighting against and we should be able to understand as an audience from a moral standpoint why this is the way it is.

As a small aside, let’s cap this off with the RWBY vs. ACE-Ops fight. A lot of people called foul because the ACE-Ops lost and I just don’t understand why. The moment the fight started, I knew what the outcome was going to be purely because the story as it was set up simply couldn’t progress otherwise. Much like Mercury and Emerald in volume 5, RWBY matching and defeating the ACE-Ops shows the progression of the main characters. Them choosing to fight also shows RWBY the final stakes moving forward and symbolically shows them that the might of the entire Atlas army is now their enemy moving forward.

With this in mind, I want to go back to Ironwood’s martial law plan and defend some aspects of his character that should be. Up until the point of Ironwood’s breakdown it was seriously and soberly treated as a last resort option with a clear understanding by Ironwood, Winter, and the ACE-Ops that they knew exactly what was it was going to imply. This does not make them evil and it’s important to understand that. However the Tin Man needs a heart and this brings us to Ironwood’s fatal flaw. The real bad decision was that the martial law plan was enacted despite already having the unity of the people of Mantle behind them. He lost far more than the stands to gain with his decision, thinking only from a tactical and strategic standpoint regardless of what he has to sacrifice to get there. Those sacrifices have already all but left him facing Salem alone. If he survives next volume, I’ll be surprised.

3. Qrow and Clover

For a few moments, I do want to discuss Clover and Qrow’s dynamic because it’s very important to Qrow’s story throughout the part. Regardless of how you choose to interpret their exchanges, the important takeaway here is that for the first time in possibly decades Qrow had a friend he can talk to as an equal and not have Ozpin’s plans or a generational gap in the way.

Ever since we were introduced to Qrow, he’s shown himself to be a dysfunctional loner who is only just recently trying to seriously pick himself back up off his feet. I believe the fact that he was finally shown that he can actually have friends is a huge factor in this. His life has always been dominated by his feelings and doomsaying. He spends every interaction waiting for the other shoe to drop and uses his own semblance as an excuse to perpetuate that worldview.

And this is why I think Qrow’s fight with Clover makes total sense to have happened. He’s one of Oz’s main team and also has a fatal flaw.

The cowardly lion needed courage and he died for his cowardice.

The tin man needs a heart and lost all his allies in the pursuit of his goals.

The scarecrow needs a brain and his emotional decision-making cost him his friend’s life.

This is a genuine tragedy, literary-speaking in fact. Qrow’s awful situation was one of his own making and he knows it, but I can’t imagine him doing anything else. One thing that I’ve seen throughout the show about Qrow is that he’s never given up trying to stop Salem- he’s an idealist like Ruby and in my opinion has been subverting the mentor archetype beautifully. However, every time he’s made a major decision in the series, he’s done it on an emotional or practical level. No real thinking ever goes into what he does. When Clover calmly announces to Qrow what was just ordered and Robyn summarily attacks him, his first instinct is to try and stop the fight.

I’m going to break here to discuss Robyn’s actions at this moment- another common complaint. Would we really expect someone like her to have done anything different with the news that the city she’s worked so hard to work with all those years was just cast aside? This would have been seen to anyone in her position as nothing less than a double-cross given how just a few hours ago everything for the evacuation was moving apace. From a characters standpoint, I don’t get why anyone would fault Robyn for being furious at this aside from “It’s not the smart thing to do right now.” No, it’s not, but I’m also very tired of seeing people complain about characters making non-optimal decisions. Not everyone things with perfect logic, strategy, or sense at every given moment. This is a perfectly human response to finding out your loved ones were just given a death sentence. She lashed out at Clover over lack of Ironwood face to punch.

With this in mind, Qrow’s decision to fight Clover is a bit more personal. He’s treating it more or less the same way that he treated Raven joining with Cinder a few parts ago. Qrow is clearly very much against the idea of leaving what’s left of Mantle to die and now has a lot of aggression to take out seeing how calmly and without complaint Clover takes the order. The only friend Qrow’s had in a long time chose his duty over him and he doesn’t know how to take that- so they fight. It’s safe to assume that Qrow is likely in a highly emotional state and, as we’ve established before, not thinking about what he’s doing. Robyn is passed out in the wreckage, Tyrian is left unattended, and they’re miles away from any real contact from anyone. Bluntly, he screwed up, he screwed up big time, but his character leads me to believe he wouldn’t really have done anything else.

Then we see Qrow in engage in a little something we in the literary community call “seriously fucking up.” In the heat of the moment, he decides to trust Tyrian at his word and it ends about as well as to be expected. Qrow made a mistake, one of the biggest mistakes in the entire series and one that looks plainly obvious and avoidable to the audience, but only when you consider it through the lens of someone who’s making calm and rational decisions. Yes, Qrow fucked up, I’m not defending his decision making; I’m defending the scene and why that faulty decision making was the only thing that could really happen.

4. Winter and Penny

The biggest complaint regarding these two is Penny leaving Winter behind at the end of the part. Frankly, for this one I’ve got nothing so I’m not going to pretend I have an answer to the complaints. Much like Ruby early on, the show just outright refuses to give us the reason she left. Winter getting the maiden powers might have been part of the plan, but I don’t think Ironwood would be so inflexible as to not settle for Penny getting it instead. The only thing I can imagine that could be going through her head is that she still wants to try and save Mantle and live up to her title, trusting Winter can handle herself. However, again like with Ruby, I don’t believe that the character is to blame here, but the narrative just refusing to give us an explanation and leaving us to sit there in frustrated confusion. We might get it next part, but I don’t like that...

5. Can I Talk About Watts Now?

With that out of the way, I do have one really bizarre complaint regarding the part that no one else seems to talk talk about.

I am very disappointed with Watts. This is mostly just be griping about lost potential so bear with a small rant.

There was a lot of setup regarding Watts as a threat and when he got the codes. We’re told that given time he could control literally all of Atlas (because apparently two-factor authentication and dead man’s switches don’t exist but that’s a logical gripe for another day). My question is why this wasn’t capitalized on. I wanted a repeat of the mechanical soldiers turning on the Vale citizens. We could have had automated vehicles wreaking havoc, fights between people and robots, and all sorts of fun stuff. You can argue that Watts was distracted by Ironwood’s trap and didn’t have the time to really cut loose and I’ll accept that, but I just wish we could have seen more. Any Watts RPers out there who want some ideas, you’re free to steal this one.

#ooc #munday asks #discourse #RWBY vol 7 #Anonymous

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itsclydebitches · 3 years

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RWBY+‘s actions are indefensible, because the outcome of their decisions are BAD. Amity failed, no one showed up. They forgot about the knowledge relic and TOOK CREATION FOR NO REASON, ensuring Atlas will crush Mantle so the people can’t go back. Sending people to Vacuo was already bad because people dressed heavy to not freeze to death are sent to a DESERT, then Grimm start killing with only 3 to protect a crowd of MILLIONS. None of this matters, because Salem’s 2/4 away from killing everyone.

Personally, I don't think the problem is that the outcomes were bad — as RWBY has often shown us, you can be put into situations where there are no good outcomes — but rather because their choices were informed and, in making those choices, they continually chose what they knew was most likely to enact the most harm. It's like offering someone a mallet and a feather with the goal, "We want to bop someone on the head and do the least damage possible." Team RWBY keeps choosing the mallet.

Amity — Warning the world sounds great on paper, but RWBY's history (of which the characters are aware) shows that revealing the Salem secret has a very high chance of ending badly. The counter here — but we'll receive help — is very easily dismissed with the basic knowledge that there's no time for others to get to Atlas, combined with the fact that Atlas is the only one left with a stable fighting force. So not only did they choose the highest chance of panic (which equals death because grimm) against the lowest chance of help, but they implemented this plan through a hasty, unscripted message that neither clarified what was going on, nor presented that information in a way that would help to keep the people calm.

The Lamp — Ruby and co., unlike Ironwood, were well aware that the Relic still had a question left and thus should not be left out in the open. Their entire Volume 6 efforts were put towards getting this thing into a vault. Then, not only do they agree to keep it vulnerable, but they give it to the weakest member of their team. Yet they're surprised when it's eventually stolen?

The Staff — Same thing here. The group knows what the Staff is capable of, knows (as far as we're currently aware) that it has no limit on how many things it can create, and knows that Salem is trying to get the Relics for herself, bring them together to destroy the world if Oscar shared that very important bit of info off screen. They also know that the vaults exist to protect the Relics, that Penny is the only one able to open the Winter vault, that Penny is currently with them on her way to Vacuo... so they take the Staff out of the vault because...? They had the perfect recipe for keeping it safe and rejected that for unestablished "because plot" reasons.

The Destruction of Atlas and Mantle — This is a more complicated one because I agree with the logic in theory. Resources aside, a people will always be more important than the cities they're living in, so the concept of sacrificing a place to save the people is fine. The problem is, RWBY decides to do this when it's the least necessary. They know that Salem is currently out of commission. They know that her goons are scattered. They know that Ironwood has successfully been taken out. Depending on how we read the animation, they know huge swaths of her grimm were destroyed by Oscar. Yet they decide to evacuate everyone now? The flipside to this is refusing to take that course of action when it was far more justified, AKA, when Salem first arrived. Ozpin and Oscar always knew how the Staff worked, Penny has been with them since the beginning of Volume 8, Ironwood was not threatening to drop bombs until two days later, they know Salem is right outside and (they believe) poised to destroy them all, so why not implement this magical evacuation then? Obviously, from a meta perspective, because then we'd lose a filler volume, but in-world the characters come across as incredibly stupid. They insisted on fighting the immortal witch when they had no ideas how to beat her (that's inevitable death, as far as they knew) and then decided to escape when they'd succeeded in taking out her, her grimm, many of her followers, and an ally-turned enemy. Destroying a whole kingdom is no longer a tragic, but heroic sacrifice when you... no longer needed to do that... and had time to think up something else... or you could have done this from the get-go when it was actually necessary...

Vacuo — Exact same thing as above. Sending people to the very dangerous desert when it's the only way to escape the witch hell-bent on killing them is the best option out of two shitty options. Sending people to the very dangerous desert when the witch has been atomized, her forces scattered, and the cold apparently isn't killing anyone is just absurd. We could have easily had a "This is the best scenario we've got" if this evacuation had happened at the beginning of Volume 8. Instead, Team RWBY forced everyone to stay — forcibly kept them in danger — and then evacuated them to the hostile, grimm-invested desert when they were in the least danger since this whole crisis began. They know that Salem isn't after Mantle! She couldn't care less about the hole filled with people or the subway system! So why is evacuating them to the more hostile environment still a priority? It's all about what information the characters have at the time and whether they made smart, empathetic decisions based on that. They didn't.

Team RWBY knows everything at this point. They know about the war, Ironwood's plans, what happened inside the whale, they have a turned enemy in their group, they've got the Maiden, they had the Relic, they got another Relic... They are not ignorant heroes making decisions based on bad intel, or even heroes forced to make decisions with only bad options available to them (two roles that Ironwood fit instead). Sometimes shit just happens and it's no one's fault... but in this case, there are too many places we can't point to and go, "No, Team RWBY absolutely had a hand in that." They knew their options, they knew the risks, they had all the available resources, and they still chose to do the worst thing at the worst time, with the story trying to paint that as a victory rather than a failure. I've got no problem with a hero's decisions having a bad outcome (that's good writing!), but I do have a problem with that bad outcome occurring in large part because they rejected other options and then the story trying to convince me that this was the best plan, actually. If you give your audience all the information the characters have, don't be surprised if they go, "Hey, why are you having the characters ignore these very obvious options and make the worst possible decision here?"

#rwby #mymetas

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itsbenedict · 5 years

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Kingdoms and Koopas: Ep. 7

K&K is a Fate Accelerated campaign set in the Mario universe, which I’m running for three players:

Bee @thebeeskneesocks, playing Kandace Koopa

Jovian @jovian12, playing Cozmo Naut

Malky @sleepdepravity, playing Dr. Chevy Chain

Last time | Archive | Next time

Previously on Kingdoms and Koopas, the party journeyed to the Magic Kingdom in search of... well, a client, on Dr. Chain’s part, and the next Music Key on Kandace and Cozmo’s part. They arrived, got shot out of cannons, met the princess of the kingdom, and, oops, got entered in a kart-racing competition on Rainbow Road.

...Okay, some of them are on infirmary duty.

Dr. Chevy Chain arrives at the infirmary for the racers, where she learns a behind-the-scenes secret about how these things operate: since kart racing involves so much spectacular violence, they need a way to get racers who’ve been severely injured back onto the track to finish the race. The league’s solution, at least here in the Magic Kingdom, at the very deadliest course in the sport, is to hire a team of time magicians who can stop time and evacuate injured racers to the infirmary, where the doctors can keep an eye on them.

Unfortunately, while the time-stoppers are fine, it seems most of the usual pit crew doctors have, uh, quit. Over intolerable working conditions, apparently. Too many injuries too quickly, they said! Couldn’t handle that much carnage at once, they said! This probably bodes well.

The only remaining doctor- besides the recently-hired Chevy- is one Doctor Moneybags, a well-dressed koopa who sings the praises of what he calls his revolutionary technique of Monetary Medicine. You see, people like to get richer, so when you give them coins, they recover health! It’s very simple, a well-documented phenomenon, he claims. Even the famous Super Mario swears by it!

Chevy is suspicious.

Meanwhile, Kandace and Cozmo take their karts down to the starting line, and meet the other racers. There’s a few nobodies in the running, but there’s also some other racers who are not nobodies.

Bowser Jr. is here- the prince of the place they live, whoops. Probably not great to get on his bad side. The weird hooded figure with the pink beak and white gloves that apparently works for Kammy is here- apparently meaning to get his hands on that magical music orb that they’re offering as the prize. A masked vigilante is here- a mustachioed man calling himself “Mr. L”, racing “for the sake of freedom”. There’s also, just, a Yoshi, who doesn’t have a kart, and seems to intend to just run it as a footrace.

Kandace and the hooded figure get in a little argument over who’s going to win- it’s going to be the hooded figure! No, it’s going to be Kandace! NO, says one of the other racers, it’s gonna be HIM! He’s the CHAMP!

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That’s right- the RAWK is here! Well-versed in being the champion of things, there’s no doubt he’s going to be the winner! Look at his championship belt- proof he’s the favorite to win! His hordes of adoring fans in the audience ain’t gonna be disappointed!

So, before the race starts: here’s how we handled things mechanically.

The race is two laps around the course. Each turn, everyone picks an action, and then moves a default number of spaces, representing basic driving competency. Various opportunities to pick up speed, impede foes, and careen wildly out of control and fall off the map exist. Each colored section of track represents a new set of obstacles, and the blue lines represent rows of item boxes. Whenever you enter a new zone on your turn, you take on the associated challenge- steering around sharp turns, tricking off ramps, using boost pads without falling off, etc.

By default, the players’ karts and the named characters move 3 spaces per turn, with the last-place fodder moving two per turn. If your kart has high top speed, like Cozmo’s magical muscle car, you move +1 space as long as you didn’t crash or get hit the previous turn. If it has high acceleration, like Kandace’s broom, you move +1 space when you do get hit or crash or fall off, since you recover faster from setbacks. (There’s also +handling, which helps on sharp turns and hazard rolls, but neither of them sprung for that one.)

With that in mind... let’s start the race!

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Kandace shoots out ahead to an early lead on the straightaway with a high Quick roll- but she’s trailed by Rawk Hawk, whose kart seems to break regulations- it’s equipped with a huge engine from another speed class. Where the heck’s the ref, huh? This guy’s cheating!

Unfortunately, right after the straightaway, there’s some sharp turns. And... well, Kandace and Cozmo both have Careful as their dump stat, and that’s the stat you need to roll to be good at not falling off the course. So, naturally, they both roll terribly and fall right off. (Kandace tries a cool stunt she learned from watching Cozmo, but watching isn’t the same as doing, and she totally wipes out.) One of the trackside safety assistants, a lakitu with a ponytail named Lakilulu, rescues Kandace and berates her for trying something so stupid, which doesn’t go over well. How come she’s gotta be so rude about saving her life?

Rawk Hawk’s pulled into the lead. Up next is a series of narrow boost pads on a narrow section of the course- it’s risky to go for them, since it ups your chances of falling off, but if you can manage it, that’s a ton of extra distance. They both go for it, and... also fail, again. Rawk Hawk’s lead would be crazy at this point, but thankfully Mr. L manages to snipe him with a green shell.

(Bringing up the rear is Yoshi, who moves one space per turn and is just here to have a good time.)

Bowser Jr. is coming up behind them, and Kandace wants to shake him- so she convinces her stuffy shadow, Carbonado, that winning this race is an important school assignment, since the prize is the headmistress’s magic orb. He assists by shifting into the appearance of Bowser, and scolding Bowser Jr. for playing hooky to race go-karts.

As people start to catch up, Rawk Hawk pulls out a bob-omb! Except... he’s been in first place this whole time, so how’d he even get that? Cheating again! He tosses it and knocks down a track marker, causing an iron beam to fall into the track and obstruct the racers.

Thankfully, Kandace picked up an item of her own- she lucked into grabbing the lightning, and deploys it now- everyone shrinks except her. She actually pulls off Cozmo’s stunt this time, and jumps the beam on her broom-bike- while Cozmo, shrunken, manages to drive right underneath. They’re hot on the birdman’s heels now!

The next section is Cozmo’s time to shine: it’s a wide-open area with loads of ramps to trick off of, and he’s been training for this his entire life. He gets some sick air- and Kandace does pretty well, too! With the extra speed from the jumps, they manage to catch up to Rawk Hawk.

Cozmo, too, grabbed an item- he manages to hit Rawk Hawk with a green shell, and the hooded figure tosses a red shell at same. The Rawk is stopped dead, and Cozmo and Kandace shoot out into the lead! (Even Yoshi manages to make up some ground, using a bullet bill ride item.)

Here’s the problem with being in first place, though: this is Mario Kart.

So as soon as Kandace makes it up through the star slingshot, what’s waiting for her is a big blue surprise.

Time stops, and Kandace- plus Mr. L and Bowser Jr., who both took some pretty nasty hits- are rushed to the infirmary by Lakitu. Oh, also one of the last-placers, a boo, is there.

Chevy and Dr. Moneybags have to divide up the work. Chevy opts to treat Bowser Jr. and the boo- the boo because it’s an interesting medical challenge, and Bowser Jr. because it’s always good to have the prince in your debt. Bowser Jr. is thankful both for the treatment and the apparent respect she gives him, and he says he’ll put in a good word with his dad. The boo... well, she tries her best. Apparently too much light exposure from a particularly bright fireball- she treats him by stuffing him under a bed, where it’s dark. Sure.

Meanwhile, Doctor Moneybags is mumbling something to himself as he gets out some coins to treat Kandace’s explosion burns. Chevy tries to listen in, but can’t make it out. Dang it!

Once everyone’s back on the racetrack, time resumes- there’s more sharp turns, which slows them down, but Cozmo takes the lead, clearing the last section of obstacles. It’s an incredibly steep slope dotted with pits and bumps. There’s a lot of ways to handle it, but Cozmo does so by being quick enough to take a shortcut around most of the hazards early on. As he blasts ahead on the straightaway, Kandace is neck-and-neck with Rawk Hawk and the hooded figure, fighting for second.

The hooded figure wipes out on the downhill jam to the finish, and Kandace and Rawk Hawk keep moving. Kandace grabs a fake item box right before the sharp turns, and... she thinks she might use her magic to try and do them right, this time. She’s not sure if it’d be against the rules to use magic, though- she eventually decides to play it safe, and tries the turns on her own. Her move pays off- she clears them and pulls ahead of Rawk Hawk as he wipes out on the turns. Kandace deploys the fake item box, which gets him again when he recovers, slowing him down even more. Our heroes have developed a comfortable lead- so you know what that means.

Cozmo eats blue shell, and gets sent to the infirmary. There’s also a random toad there, and... well. Chevy has a plan, this time. First, she volunteers to treat Cozmo- and then, she tells him the plan.

Chevy asks Doctor Moneybags to swap patients- and he acquiesces, taking Cozmo to his table. Cozmo’s task is to listen very closely to what exactly Moneybags is muttering as he treats him- and since X-Nauts are genetically-engineered to be loyal soldiers who listen closely to orders, his excellent hearing lets him hear it exactly. And a lucky roll on remembering things... means he knows what the magic spell he hears Moneybags casting is.

He heard about it while waiting outside one of Kandace’s classrooms for her to come out and do some more of the magical experiments she likes to do on him- apparently, this is a healing spell that responsible mages recommend you not use. The incantation imparts healing energy to an object- but the side-effect is that the patient develops a powerful addiction to that object for some time. When used on coins, this manifests as uncontrollable greed.

Cozmo tells Chevy about this, and Chevy reports this to one of the timestop Wizzerds, who agrees to keep an eye out for some way this could unfairly affect the race.

...I wonder how, though? Not a lot of money on the track... and why’s Moneybags doing this, anyway?

Aaaaanyway, the race continues!

Cozmo’s still got a bit of a lead, but the sharp turns are coming up, and he’s no good at those. Still- he manages it, just barely, and keeps out in front!

Meanwhile, Kandace is fighting to maintain second place. As she does so, she hits an item box- and gets a special item! Specifically, her special item, Double Dash style. Her special item is... a permission slip?

The permission slip permits her to use her own magic, once, to interfere with the match. So... good thing she decided not to use it earlier, without the permission slip! She uses her magic, in this case, to transmogrify the wheels on Rawk Hawk’s cart- into squares, with a turn-round-things-square spell. RH screeches to a halt, his wheels no longer cooperating.

Cozmo, meanwhile, is headed into the final downhill jam on his way to the finish line! But... what’s this?

Rawk Hawk’s many adoring fans are in the stands by the finish line, and they’re... dumping something onto the track! It’s money- loads and loads of money! An embarrassment of coins!

And Cozmo and Kandace, who Chevy let Moneybags treat, feel an overpowering urge to stop their karts, get out, and start scooping up as much money as they possibly can.

Cozmo, by a feat of willpower, and possibly by a feat of going way too fast to slow down in time, manages to resist bailing and going for the coins- and that’s all it takes for him to cross the finish line, and come in first place!

And after that, thanks to Chevy warning the Wizzerd, time stops and the racetrack staff clean the coins off the track, clearing the hazard. Rawk Hawk’s plan- bribe the doctors to leave, replace them with his own doctor, have that doctor enchant everyone to crave coins, have his fans dump money on the track, watch as his competition abandons the race to gather pennies- has been summarily foiled!

Kandace- attempting again to pull off Cozmo’s sick stunts- flies into the air, over the pits, and with an incredible burst of speed manages to follow Cozmo across the finish line to steal second! The hooded figure, muttering something about cheaters, takes third- and Rawk Hawk is overtaken by the Yoshi and takes dead last, as his square wheels refuse to move.

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Shortly thereafter, Kandace, Cozmo, and the hooded figure are escorted to the victory ceremony! Cozmo accepts the first-place trophy from Opal- who then gives Kandace the silver trophy and tells her that she knew she could do it!

The third-place winner, the tall hooded figure whose pink beak sticks out of the magical darkness of the hood... mutters something. He says “Waaaa... everybody cheated but me!”

Actually, maybe that’s a nose, not a beak...?

Kandace doesn’t care, though, because the prize is being brought out- and, uh. Well. It’s, um... it’s a large hovering sphere of intricate brasswork, housing a complicated magical mechanism that plays music on its own. It’s clearly very fancy and expensive-looking, and the crowd gasps when they see it. To Cozmo Naut goes the Orb of Orchestration!

Which, if you recall, is not even slightly the magical music orb they came up here to find.

Kandace turns on her magic-sensing, and notes that the Music Key is still hovering somewhere over Rainbow Road, invisible. She takes off from the victory podium and just... sorta flies in its direction for a bit, until she CLANGs into something large and invisible, well before reaching it.

Opal, concerned, follows her- and casts a spell to dispel the invisibility effect on whatever it is that’s hovering over the course.

From down in the crowds, one Oneiro Naut, who was definitely just here studying dreams with Princess Opal and not anything more nefarious than that, screams “OUR COVER IS BLOWN!”, and various toads in the audience- who reveal themselves to be X-Nauts and alien bunnies wearing papier-mache toad disguises- begin pointing ray guns and taking hostages.

(Y’all, remember that prophecy about how “a dream is a nightmare waiting to happen?)

From the giant UFO roughly the size of the entire racetrack, hovering over everything, comes a booming voice that is horrifyingly familiar to our newly-crowned Rainbow Road champion: the voice of one Sir Grodus, ordering his troops to commence the invasion of the Magic Kingdom.

SO GET READY FOR THAT TO HAPPEN NEXT TIME???

Last time | Archive | Next time

#kingdoms and koopas #mario

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sunlitroom · 5 years

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Gotham – s5e01 – Year Zero

As I watched it, and some random observations here and there.

Previously on Gotham:

Ra's saw a vision. Selina was shot. Jeremiah’s obsession with Bruce reached heights where even Hannibal might suggest some restraint. Bombs! Kaboom The government declared the city off limits. The city is now a battleground - each man for himself. Ed and Lee stabbed each other in as sexual a way as possible. Oswald got revenge for Gertrud’s murder.

Jeremiah told Bruce that as Gotham falls - we rise. There go the bridges. Babs and Bruce killed Ra's. Everyone stares aghast at Jeremiah’s destruction.

As always, long post will be long. There are likely to be rambling digressions. Gobblepot might appear (although I welcome all shippers and non-shippers alike :)). There will be naked favouritism and naked not-favouritism. Broader comments at the end on plotlines and parallels and general direction.

We open on the city on fire, smoke billowing.

We can hear sirens,helicopters, gunshots and....

In a wood-panelled library, we hear a record being played – Dame Vera Lynn’s We'll Meet Again.

I’m not sure if this song is as meaningful for an American audience – but for a British audience this song is inextricably linked with World War Two, Blitz Spirit, Our Finest Hour – doing without, self-sacrifice, and coming together to defeat the worst foe. Does it have the same associations for you guys? Just trying to get a sense of their purpose in using it here. Ed pulling on leather gloves, taking an ace of diamonds and putting it in his breast pocket. He smiles in the mirror and leaves with a shotgun.

Jangly East European music. Oswald is being made-up by his people. They slide his glasses on, and he takes his gun.

Harvey’s in what I think is what’s left of Scottie’s bar, also looking fondly at a gun. Vaguely western music plays. I think it was western, anyway. Was it supposed to be Irish?

In his office at GCPD. Jim puts on his badge. He’s also carrying a big gun.

Tl;dr – guns! The perfect accessory.

Oswald walks downstairs with his gun. Harvey put on a hat and heads out with his gun. Jim strides out in a bullet-proof vest. They’re joined by Ed. Then Oswald steps out from somewhere and flanks Jim.

They line up at a huge barricade. Jim growls out

Fire on my command. For Gotham!

The one thing they can all agree on

They start shooting, and what looks like the army fires back.

But we’re not quite at this point yet, and so we cut away to the title screen

Day 87

In GCPD, Jim is having a frustrated conversation with some government official. Jim is trying to outline the situation to the official, and giving a helpful catch-up in the process.

The city is now up for grabs. Oswald has taken city hall. He’s stockpiled weapons and is manufacturing ammunition.

(An aside – which in itself would require supplies, I imagine?)

We go to see Oswald. His place is all cold greys and blue – chilly looking. His tailoring, too, is very hard-edged – none of his usual flair or ornamentation. Even his hair is rigid.

He shoots his gun up at the ceiling

Some acolytes, all thin and worn looking, clad in shapeless grey uniforms, applaud him – clearly terrified.

(An aside – Gotham, you know I love you. I wreck my wrists to type out recaps. But that leaden reference to totalitarian regimes? That's just plain old tacky. It was heavy-handed and unnecessary and tasteless, and just felt uncomfortable to watch.

In short, no.)

Jim continues his helpful catch-up. Oswald’s control of weapons has made him unassailable.

Meanwhile, Barbara runs her own portion of town from Sirens – which is the only part of town which is good for food and booze. She mostly trades information.

(An aside - What information is unclear. It’s not like the situation is massively complex. I don’t feel like this would have a lot of mileage. Pssst – we’re still all fucked!)

Men can apparently buy ‘windows of time’ at Sirens. Barbara is said to enforce her rule with an iron hand.

In the west - Jonathan is doing fuck knows what. It seems to involve crucifixion and making your own ragged leather outfit.

Victor and Firefly are warring further north. Jeremiah has not been seen since the bridges exploded.

Jim continues.

Then there's us - GCPD controls a ten block area round the precinct. We’re feeding 150 civilians: families, children, the poor and sick.

Basically – the weaselly official is having none of it. Gotham isn’t the government’s responsibility. He refers to Jim as Mr Gordon – and he tersely corrects him to Captain.

Jim asks him to evacuate children at least. Weaselly official says they’ll form a committee. A weary Jim tries to convince him that the government has a duty of care. Again – there’s wriggling, and Jim eventually asks him to just admit that they’re on their own. The silence he receives in return says it all.

Selina lies in a hospital bed, facing away from other people in room: Bruce, Alfred and a doctor. Her face is flat and bleak.

We hear the doctor tell Bruce and Alfred that paralysis aside, they need to operate before her spine collapses. Alfred said they tried to evacuate her but couldn’t make it on time. Bruce asks if they can operate there and the doctor says they have no choice.

Bruce approaches Selina and softly says her name. This makes Selina start to cry silently. He crouches down and tells her the dr wants to operate. She flatly says fine – whatever.

Bruce crouches down

I’m going to be here the whole time

Poor Selina’s face twists, and she continues to cry

Back on GCPD turf, Harvey argues with an angry hungry man who’s getting mouthy and accusing the police of taking extra food for themselves. Lucius appears and says everyone gets the same share or else supplies run out.

Jim approaches, looking over from higher on a staircase and calls out.

That's enough.

They all look over at him. Jim, it seems, commands obedience and respect these days.

He looks at the argumentative man

You don't like the rules? Leave

Shouty man backtracks - just sayin’

Harvey tells him to say it walking - putz

We hear discontented murmuring from the crowd.

Jim asks how they’re doing – to which Lucius responds that they only have a month of food left. Harvey fulminates about the lack of support and says he’s never paying taxes again. Jim thinks the government will eventually do the right thing – they just need to keep everyone alive long enough for that to happen. Harvey replies that they’re almost out of ammunition. Anyone makes a move, and they’re sitting ducks.

A snoring, dishevelled Ed wakes up on an old sofa on a rooftop, sporting Sharleen Spiteri’s 90s hairstyle. A dog barks at him while weird, discordant music plays.

We see him now in an untidier version of the library we saw at the beginning. He’s talking into a recorder. He seems to be having black-outs and losing time. Someone get him to draw a clock!

He looks angrily in the mirror

Show yourself - I know it's you inside there, Ed

Apparently, Idiot Ed still won't appear. Ed yells coward at himself, and says he knows that it’s him controlling him when he’s asleep

He stares back at the map spread out on the table where he seems to be keeping track of the spots where he wakes up – trying to find a pattern.

On the precinct roof, Jim stands next to the spotlight. Bruce tells him he could ask someone else to do it – but Jim says he likes it. Bruce asks if it’s because it reminds people that in darkness there’s still light – and Jim says it reminds him too.

He adds that they’re low on supplies. The government refuses to evacuate people, and is ignoring their suffering. Jim looks tired.

Bruce says that he gave Lucius permission to scavenge Wayne Enterprises Research and Development – it’s not much, but it’s something. He then says he has to go – the doctors are going to operate on Selina. Her condition is getting worse.

Jim listens, and then asks him to let him know how it goes.

A troubled-looking Bruce turns to leave. Jim calls after him

Are you sorry you stayed?

Bruce thinks. His face looks determined.

No. You?

Jim replies

Hell no

Bruce smiles and leaves. Jim stares out over the city.

At Sirens, Mr Penn places a bullet on Barbara’s desk. She regards it. He makes an offer

Mr Cobblepot offers 1000 rounds of ammunition in return for 1000lbs of steak

Barbara smugly says the cupboard is bare in Penguin Land, but Penn says Oswald just wanted red meat. Mr Penn’s neck is noticeably narrower than his collar. Was he always this thin, or is this to underline the idea that Oswald isn’t feeding his employees well?

Tabitha watches all this from the corner of the room.

Barbara continues, saying that Oswald wants to get fat on steak while his minions starve.

An impatient Tabitha cuts in, and asks if Oswald too scared to leave his citadel, knowing that she wants to plant a knife in his neck.

Barbara says Tabitha is still raw about the business with Butch – so they’ll want 2000lbs of ammo in return.

An infuriated Tabitha turns to Barbara and says not they’re not giving that bastard anything – he killed Butch

(An aside - does Tabitha really think Barbara would have let Butch live on Sirens’ turf? For how long, before she got jealous and irritated and decided to put another bullet in him?)

Barbara wants to trade with Oswald, but Tabitha says no. Barbara says she’s not asking her to forget – but they need ammo to protect the women who come there.

(An aside - A quick glance round suggests that Sirens can offer food and protection if you’re a good-looking woman of probably 18-40. The older woman we saw earlier in the crowd of refugees at GCPD? The young girls? The mothers who won’t leave their families? Yeah – didn’t think so. As @rhavewellyarnbag suggested elsewhere – it seems likely that Sirens is pretty much a brothel by any other name)

Barbara promises her that Penguin's time will come. Tabitha puts Penn’s sample bullet in her gun and tells him that Oswald will regret giving her this, and leaves.

Barb smiles at Penn, and tells him to make it 3000lbs

(Is ammunition measured in lbs? Is this a usual thing?)

On GCPD turf - an anxious policeman stares out through the barricade and says he saw something move. His friend laughs it off – but we see a shadow. Jonathan suddenly appears, and sprays the man with his serum through the space in the door

Would you like me to make it stop? Open this door

The other cop tries to stop him – but the infected man desperately opens the door, and is promptly scythed down by Jonathan. He tells his silly acolytes to split up, steal, and kill anyone who gets in their way.

Inside, Jim talks to Harper, telling her to reinforce the barriers round Oswald's turf. The lights suddenly go out. Jim tells Harper to find Lucius and tell him to meet at the generator.

At the hospital, Selina's operation is underway. Bruce and Alfred are watching from the corridor outside when the power goes off. Alfred says hospital has back-up generator, so it’s fine – it’ll all be

Ship-shape and Bristol fashion

Bruce is not convinced, though. Vindicating this, a nurse puts her head around the corner and says men in the basement stealing medicine. Bruce goes to investigate and tells Alfred to stay with Selina.

Careful

Jim is at the generator, which is sparking and making fzzzt noises. He hears a sound, and draws his gun. Jonathan appears and scythes at him, before riffing on Dirty Harry.

I know what you're thinking….

He remarks that Jim has so few bullets – is shooting Jonathan really worth it?

I mean – he’s controlling part of the city, randomly crucifying people, and now he’s looting and murdering. I’d say yes? Jim disagrees though

No - it's not

He picks up an iron bar instead

He asks why he’s here – not for the generator?

Jonathan doesn't want light - fear lives in darkness

Oh, do shut up, Jonathan. Everyone’s trying to survive and you’re dicking about in a stupid coat with a bunch of teenage edgelord prats.

Jim concludes that he came for supplies. Jonathan adds that he’ll also take his life. They fight. Jonathan asks how long it’s been since he’s tasted his toxin. That super-scary toxin that is seemingly rendered useless by water, iirc.

He asks Jim what he’s scared of now.

Not you

Harvey chases some of the other looters down – but they manage to steal some food.

Back at the hospital, Bruce uses the night vision goggles Lucius found in R&D to watch Jonathan’s acolytes roam around the basement. He swoops in and out, knocking them out. One follower realises something isn’t going well and calls out for – now, I might have this wrong: Scad? Is that a name? Is this why he joined this group – embittered at being christened Scad?

Bruce swoops in again to take him out. Unfortunately, the lights come on and – momentarily blinded – Bruce is shoved back while they escape with the precious supplies.

Back at GCPD, there’s understandable discontent that supplies have been lost. They only have a week’s worth of food left. Jim tells Lucius to drop to half rations. Lucius tells them they’re already at half rations – but Jim tells him to halve them again. Lucius says that gives them two weeks at most.

Harvey starts to rant a little, frustrated. Bruce appears from nowhere and says that help is coming: he’s going to fly in supplies. Jim reiterates the government line on no contact. Bruce says he won’t ask for permission.

Harvey comments that it’s nice to have a billionaire around. Jim’s less happy – and says that it’s only a one-time solution. Bruce says medicine has also been stolen, and there are people in pain. His eyes wander – and he’s clearly thinking of Selina.

Jim watches him, and tells Harvey to go tell the people that help is on the way.

Once he and Bruce are alone, Jim asks how Selina is. Bruce looks troubled. Jim tells him that Selina is strong, and she’ll pull through.

Back at the hospital, where Bruce sits by Selina’s bed. She flatly tells him the surgery was a success – but adds she’ll never be able to walk again.

That's a bummer

Bruce says there’s only limited resources – but there’s hope once they rejoin the mainland. Selina shrugs this off. Bruce says he knows that she’s in pain, but there’s medicine on the way.

Selina regards him coolly and says it’s funny –

Jeremiah shot me to get to you. After all the things I've done, what did me in was being your friend

Turning away from him, she says she wishes Jeremiah had killed her.

A pained-looking Bruce leaves.

As he’s exiting the ward, a nurse whispers over to him urgently

Doctors can't help her - she needs the witch

Bruce stares.

Back at GCPD, Jim asks Harvey what the mood is. He replies that they love their Jim Gordon – but that the chopper needs to come.

Back at Oswald's place, a full plate is placed on Oswald’s desk. Soviet-ish style music plays in the background – just in case I missed the North Korea stuff earlier. Yes – I get it, show. Now stop it.

We hear a creak of leather and see Oswald testing some kind of leg brace. I’ve given up guessing at the precise nature of Oswald’s leg injury - the show is not exactly consistent with injury and illness – but whatever this is seems to help. He’s pleased and says it feels good, striding about while the man who presumably made it – again, one of his thin, worn minions – watches. Oswald tells him to add a knife on it.

Penn enters – there’s another shutdown at the factory. A weak, starved worker fell into a press. Oswald insincerely says he feels for all his workers, but cannot give what he doesn't have

He takes a bite of the steak from the plate on his desk, and pulls a face. It’s apparently overcooked. We hear a whine. It comes from a bulldog Oswald has christened Edward – to whom Oswald offers praise, and then feeds the steak.

Penn visibly struggles at the sight of this. He says quality is suffering at the factory due to conditions. Oswald irritably interrupts him, and shoots at the ceiling to demonstrate the quality of the product. The dog whines in fright. Oswald then tells Penn he upset the dog, and shoots again in temper. This time, the gun doesn’t fire properly, and Oswald seems to hurt his hand. Penn cuts in again about better quality products, but Oswald shushes him

Do you hear that?

At Sirens, Barbara and Tabitha are arguing. Barbara says Oswald is locked in city hall with a small army

(A random aside - Barbara's hair looks fried)

Barbara says she knows Tabitha misses Butch. Tabitha stubbornly says she needs to make it right. Barbara asks how she’s going to do that without being killed. Tabitha’s not really listening. Barbara tries again

I need you too

Tabitha is now distracted by the sound of a chopper

Barbara tries again - wide-eyed.

Tabby - do you hear me?

On the roof, Jim and Bruce spot the chopper. The pilot says he’ll meet them at the rendez-vous point. As he flies down the street, though, someone shoots at it – and it starts to crash.

Heading out, Jim says the chopper is down in Low Boys’ territory – they’ll need to fight their way in and out. Harper asks for ammo – but Harvey tells her to be grateful for what they’ve got. Jim asks Alfred if Bruce is about, and they have a confusing little back and forth about whether Jim has given Bruce permission to be there – which Alfred seems to think he wins. That was just a bit baffling, to be honest.

The downed helicopter is being raided when Oswald arrives in a big shiny car. He introduces himself. The leader says this isn’t his turf. Oswald says he’s going to claim it anyway. The leader remonstrates, but Oswald’s men shoot them.

GCPD arrives. Jim gets out of his car

Oswald!

Jim! I thought you might show up. so good to see you, old friend. How are you faring in these troubled times?

Jim tells him to step away from the chopper, but Oswald refuses.

Sorry - mouths to feed - and you know all about that - I hear you’re up to your ears in refugees

Jim says they’re protecting children and families

You shouldn't have shot it down, Oswald.

Oswald frowns. He says he didn't shoot it down - he didn't know that the chopper was coming. He’s still taking everything, though.

Jim says it must have been him – who else has that kind of weaponry? Oswald says that’s a fair point, but it still wasn’t him. He would just admit it, if he had: it’s not like he can be arrested. He also tells Jim to skedaddle while he can

Jim and Oswald stare tensely at each other in their annual new season tiff

Harvey tells Jim they’re outgunned – which is maybe the most redundant observation ever made – but presumably to stop Jim reacting stupidly because his pride has been nettled. Oswald tells Jim to listen to Harvey. After all they’ve been through, he doesn’t want to kill him. Not like this.

Before the situation can progress, we see arrows through Oswald's men – and a glimpse of Tabitha. The cops raise their guns – and Tabitha grabs Oswald, a gun to his throat.

Listen to me – I know you’re upset about Butch

Tabitha yells that Butch thought Oswald was his friend

(An aside. Really? Because the last I saw of Butch, he spent a lot of last season shoving Oswald around and threatening him. Oswald offered their old working relationship, and Butch rejected it in favour of choking him for a bit. But anyway.)

This infuriates Oswald. He sounds sincere, and his voice breaks slightly as he says

I was his friend - you put a knife in my mother's back - his blood is on your hands!

Tabitha asks him if he thinks that she expected to come here and kill him and walk away. Poor Barbara. Given the choice, Tabitha opted for Butch again.

Hilariously, Oswald falls back on what he knows best

Jim! are you going to let her kill me like this in cold blood?

I promise it’s not shipper goggles – but Jim does an infinitesimally slight shake of his head. Oh Jim. Never play poker.

Oswald continues

You are not only the one keeping Gotham from the abyss - I am too: I supply stability

Tabitha turns Oswald to face her. He reiterates the cold, hard truth:

I may have pulled the trigger - but you killed Butch

Tabitha has no real response for that

Shut up and die

She pulls the trigger – but the gun doesn’t fire properly. Oswald is saved by his defective stock. He laughs maniacally – and quickly pulls his knife on her. They struggle. He taunts her a little.

If that was one of my bullets, I’ll be having a word with the foreman – unacceptable quality!

He then tells her to say hello to Butch, and overpowers her – stabbing her in the chest.

There’s a scream – Barbara, who runs out from hiding to stare.

Jim watches the scene unfold. Tabitha falls to her knees as Oswald watches. She manages a couple of words – presumably advice to Barbara about the futility of ongoing revenge.

Barbara - don't….

Oswald runs for cover as Barbara roars and fires blindly

We get a close-up of Tabitha's body as Barbara shoots and a gunfight breaks out. Oswald calls out that it’s sounding a bit quiet from Jim’s end – they’re out of bullets.

Outside – we see Bruce break into a van with a propagandistic image of Oswald on it. He beats the guards easily and steals some ammunition. He delivers this to a grateful Harvey and Jim.

Barbara reloads and runs out into the room. Oswald appears, and shoots her in the shoulder. He looks down at her.

For the record – that is not how I wanted things to go

Barbara screams that she'll rip out his heart

Oswald tells her to be quiet - talk like that will force my hand!

(An aside. See - the thing is - Oswald is pretty much lawful evil here. Tabitha already had it coming for Gertrud. Oswald took Butch instead. She then tried to shoot him in the heart. What is he supposed to do? He doesn’t actually want to kill Barbara – unless he’s pushed – as is evidenced by what he says next.)

Oswald looks at her

For old times’ sake – I will give you a chance. Can we move past this? Say the whole Tabitha/Butch chapter is over?

For what it’s worth, he sounds sincere. And it’s consistent with past actions from him. Oswald will tend to want to even scores. But he’s also as likely to want to shake hands and move on when he’s truly done with something. This is likely why both Victor and Penn and Butch still ended up working with him after various betrayals and conflicts.

Barbara screams at him. She’ll feed his guts to the rats - you beaky-nosed freak.

(An aside. As I said, I am biased. But beaky-nosed freak compared to you stabbed my mother in the back is just my problem with this plot encapsulated. The worst Barbara can come up with in the heat of the moment is that Oswald looks odd. Tabitha got off listening to an old lady crying, and then stabbed her in the back. Who’s uglier?)

Oswald looks genuinely...sad for a moment. Credit to RLT for managing to give this writing nuance - because he’s Oswald’s been forced to pantomime villainy for most of this episode.

He then flips back to sass. So, no – then?

Barbara smirks at him.

Jim walks out. He says he wants to make a deal. They can split 50/50 if he lets Barbara go.

Barbara shrieks that he does not get to limp out alive. And, again, yes, they’ve tried to be as unflattering as possible with Oswald in the first half of this episode – make a monster of him. But Barbara’s frequent resorting to freak and physical insults – it just leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

Oswald smacks her in the face to silence her.

He offers another deal for Jim. He kills Barbara and takes everything. Jim gets to stay alive – and go home to reflect long and hard on his generosity

Jim asks what happens when the government finds out he killed the only cops in Gotham. What? He basically just said you were all getting to leave. There’s more than one line in this episode that actively makes no sense.

Oswald tells him nothing would happen – and that Jim has nothing to offer.

Now they have extra ammunition, Harvey shoots. Jim shoots Oswald’s bad knee. Oswald screams. Jim says that’s not true anymore. He was never going to make a deal: he needs all those supplies. One of Oswald’s men ushers him away.

Back at GCPD, supplies arrive.

Harvey asks Jim if Oswald is going to pull through. Jim says probably – and that this will at least put him out of commission for a while.

Harvey says he could have put him down, but Jim makes noises about regulations and laws and shooting a man without warning.

Harvey says they’re fighting for survival and asks again why he didn’t do it.

Jim looks away. Harvey tells him

You win or you die - next time shoot to kill

Jim gives the tiny headshake again as Harvey walks away. I honestly promise I’m not fibbing – go back and look.

Bruce approaches Jim and says he’s going to see Selina. Jim asks again for Bruce to let him know how she is. As Bruce leaves, he calls after him

You want to help - just ask. You’ve earned a place

Bruce smiles and leaves.

Up at Jim’s radio desk, a woman removes a mask. It’s Ecco. She looks over his map – and listen as the radio crackles.

Captain Gordon, come in.

She watches from shadow as Jim approaches and answers. The voice at the other end replies.

You have allies across the river. We will find a way to help you

Jim listens – face serious. He turns sharply, feeling watched – but there’s no one there. When he glances back to the map, he sees one of Jerome’s ‘ha ha ha’ tags on his map.

A man searches dumpsters in an alley. We see Ed burst out of one, angry.

Really? A dumpster?

Back at the library, he pounds the map table.

What are you doing to me?! Show yourself!

What is happening to me?

At Sirens, we see Tabitha's corpse laid out on a table. Barbara kisses her, turns to her acolytes, and looks straight out to us. She’s dressed and made-up more softly than earlier.

I promise - if it's the last thing I do, I will kill him!

Her scream of rage merges into Oswald’s screams of pain. He’s seated, dressed in white linen/cotton old-fashioned underwear, as someone digs for the bullet in his leg.

My leg - he shot my leg! I just fixed this!

He spits as he screams. Wouldn't his mouth be dry from pain? Whatever – for some reason, they’re insistent in reinforcing physical loathsomeness for Oswald.

Penn asks him to hold still. Oswald grabs at his shoulder. He tells him that there’s 1000 rounds to whoever kills Jim - he wants his head.

The bullet is finally removed. Oswald stares at it, wide-eyed, breathing hard.

At the hospital, a nurse is in Selina’s ward. She leaves her trolley for a moment. Selina sees a scalpel on it and hurls herself out of bed to get it.

As Bruce approaches, he hears screams from the ward. The doctor and nurse are restraining Selina as she weeps and screams. They inject her with something, and lay her on the bed. She’s insisting that she has no reason – they should have let her do it.

Bruce is confused – but the dr tells him she was trying to kill herself, and they’ll need restraints for when she wakes. Bruce reaches down and touches her face.

(An aside – this was honestly the strongest and most emotional moment in the whole episode. I teared up when we heard Selina screaming and crying.)

The nurse hisses at him again

I told you - the witch!

Bruce asks where he can find the witch.

Back on GCPD turf, Harvey refers to Jim as

St Jim of Gotham

(A quick aside – I would have maybe expected to see some kind of church presence in Gotham – trying to help.)

Jim tells Harvey he wants new refugees questioned about Jeremiah. Lucius approaches, and says they now have 6 weeks of supplies. As they talk – a small boy is brought up to them, who was apparently found at the Thompson St. barricade. Jim crouches down.

What happened, son?

The boy can’t say much

My brothers and sisters - they’re killing us. You have to help us

The boy wobbles on his feet. Jim tells them to get him to the clinic

He looks around to the cops who have gathered round him

I know you’re all asking why we’re here when the government won't help us. It’s simple. We’re supposed to give people hope: if they’re in danger, someone will come. We will come. Suit up

So. We’re back

General Observations

The big picture

Some things aren’t making much sense. I know we’re supposed to think Jim represents law and order, while everyone else presents selfish lawlessness. But the backstory we have with these characters means this doesn’t quite work.

We know Jim will ally with criminals when he has to (at the drop of a hat, actually). Both Oswald and Barbara are amenable to him. Both Oswald and Barbara see Gotham as home. The Oswald we saw last season (not this ooc mess) couldn’t imagine anything worse than citizens being killed by Jerome’s stupid blimp. If Jim is as desperate as suggested, then why hasn’t he tried to communicate with them before the impromptu get-together at the downed chopper? The worst they could have done is say no, or make wildly unreasonable demands. If he’s not willing to cede anything to them – then fair enough, walk away – but to not even have tried to talk seems bizarre. I would guess he’d want to know he’d exhausted every option to help the people.

St Jim of Gotham

Jim’s had a bit of a character shift. He’s squarely law and order and selflessness here. He tries to hold out hope that the government will help. Even smaller things amount to a shift in character. He listens quietly to people when they talk. He repeatedly asks Bruce to update him on Selina’s progress. He’s generally quieter and softer.

As for his shooting Oswald, @rhavewellyarnbag convincingly explained elsewhere that shooting an injured limb isn’t actually doing Oswald any favours at all. In-universe, though – I think that possibly in the context of a show where mangled hands magically heal and people recover fast from life-threatening injuries with no consequences, and Harvey tells Jim off for being merciful (and we’ve just seen Oswald shoot Barbara non-fatally) – we’re supposed to regard it as a merciful alternative – building on this new character shift for Jim.

Whether or not he’ll maintain this shift of character is another question.

The whole business by the downed helicopter.

Well, gosh. It’s almost like actions have consequences. Barbara should know that herself, given that Tabitha murdered her a couple of seasons ago in retaliation for shooting Butch. Sorry – but if this is supposed to make me hate Oswald and root for Barbara, then it’s a mess. Oswald has ample cause to hate Tabitha and want her dead – and she forced the issue here by trying to murder him in front of a bunch of people, where he cannot lose face.

Come to that, he’s got reason to have gotten rid of Barbara before now, if he’d wanted: she was heavily involved in Ed’s attempt to drive him mad, humiliate him, and murder him. Yet here he still wants to move on. You can’t sell Oswald’s actions here to me as an example of villainy that’s somehow worse and more wanton than anything that other characters have perpetrated. Especially when the characters directly affected – Tabitha and Barbara – themselves have a reputation for casual sadism and violence.

Oswald’s empire

Oswald was at his cleverest and most daring back in season one, when he was trying to make his way. We can assume that this has been the case in subsequent seasons, too – although we never got to see it. He managed to claw back power after his stint in Arkham, and later capitalise on the post-Tetch-virus landscape. When he’s actually in power, things don’t tend to go as well for him.

However, that’s not usually because he’s being outright dumb. Oswald wheedles and manipulates – reading people and their motivations so that he can gain from them. But now he’s OK with blithely alienating people and inviting resentment and rebellion? Doesn’t see any potential problems with that scheme?

What’s more, this is out-of-character. Yes, Oswald craves power. But he also wants – at the very least – loyalty and popularity. Remember how infuriated he was when Selina wanted to know what she would get in return for helping him? At most, he wants to be adored. Remember how he teared up at Ed’s stunt with the little girl during his mayoral campaign? How genuinely shaken he was when he won - proof that the people liked him? Wanted him? Trusted him? Remember how Ed’s crude commedia dell’arte mocked Oswald’s need for the love of this people? Oderint dum metuant doesn’t really do it for Oswald.

Intellectually and emotionally for him, then, this just doesn’t fit. Not only does he have an emotional need to believe that he’s loved – he knows that starved, angry people are less likely to be loyal, and way more willing to sell him out for a better situation, or rebel outright.

Barbara

I’m guessing this is the beginning of some sort of redemption arc for Barbara – we’ll be invited to feel sympathy for her now, then root for her revenge, she’ll become more of an ally to Jim, and then she’ll be pregnant. I liked season one Barbara, was still interested in her in season two but since then, to be honest, she’d been so flattened as a character that it was hard to care much about her. The fact that her redemption storyline is being enabled by trying to make Oswald as unsympathetic as possible – and while giving her a lot of season one Oswald’s characteristics – really just sticks in my craw, to be honest.

I suspect that it’s also a bit problematic that her redemptive arc can start now that Tabitha is removed from the picture.

Selina and Bruce

There’s not much to say other than it’s painful. Poor Selina.

Yet to be seen: Lee, Zsasz, Strange, Jervis, and Jeremiah. It sounds like Ivy is the Witch.

#gotham commentary #year zero #gotham s5e1

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foruneyti · 5 years

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who did you think was right in civil war? tony or steve?

This is an almost impossible question, but I’ll try to write down how I feel about it! ;)

My personal opinion: I don’t think there is a clear distinction between right or wrong since there are too many aspects to take into consideration - and since I am not knowledgeable on all of them my opinion isn’t too reliable. I’ll try to make sense of it but I apologise if this reply turns into incoherent rambling.

Steve, who found out that the government he used to serve so diligently was actually hiding/making super weapons (and then turned out to be infiltrated by Hydra), wouldn’t trust those accords for a second. And why would he? He has been lied to from the very start, has been used and abused for their own secretive plans, and now they threaten to lock him up if he decides not to be controlled by them. Of course he won’t allow them to decide who to save and who to leave behind; it would mean losing what he stands for.

Now, a thing that Steve has learnt to deal with is collateral damage. He has seen his comrades die, has seen his own actions cause the accidental deaths of innocent people, but it has all been in service of the greater goal: losing ten lives of bystanders is nothing compared to the thousands or millions of lives that would have been lost if he hadn’t acted. He tells Tony they have to learn how to deal with it or they themselves will be crippled by guilt and will be unable to save the world from greater danger again - because he doesn’t trust the government(s) to protect it. Of course he would prefer there to be as few deaths as possible, but he is willing to make those sacrifices if it means saving everyone else.

He thinks it is bullshit to have a third party (which has shown to be incapable of protecting as many lives as possible) govern them and tell them what to do. Take for example the battle of NY: if they had been governed by a third party, the whole city would have been nuked to the ground without evacuating. Not to mention that often enough time is of the essence, and to wait for the government’s green light could mean the loss of many, many lives more. The Avengers can act immediately, their quick response a way of preventing even more damage If the third party/government/military had been competent enough to deal with threats themselves then the Avengers wouldn’t even have been needed in the first place.

Then there is the whole ordeal with Bucky being blamed for shit he didn’t do, and Steve wants to protect him and prove him innocent - which the accords wouldn’t allow him to do.

Now as for Tony, his arguments mostly stem from his own guilt after making Ultron. If Tony and Banner had been kept in check and hadn’t gone off on their own to try and create something that would ‘keep the world safe’, they wouldn’t have been able to make Ultron - and so the lives that Ultron took would not have been lost, the battles would not have been fought, and the danger would not even have existed. This is the main thing that Tony is afraid of: that, without regulation, more innocent people will die. He, too, wants to protect as many lives as possible.

His arguments make us, the audience, see how the actions of heroes have many negative consequences that are usually overlooked, because heroes are known for saving the day. To have the heroes ungoverned allows them to do however they please, and whether or not they learn from the consequences of their actions is one thing, but having them act out their own morals in the first place is something completely different - and very dangerous indeed.

If we in real life imagine some kind of person going about their day killing neo-nazis, your first instinct would be to say ‘good! kill them all! the government isn’t doing it anyway, and killing the neo-nazis will protect the innocent’. Now imagine that person running around unchecked throwing bombs at those neo-nazis, blowing up innocent and unknowing bystanders as well - suddenly the whole scenario is a lot more complicated. We don’t want innocent people to die, but we don’t want the neo-nazis to live. Are we willing to sacrifice the bystanders just to make sure the evil is eradicated?

Tony’s answer, in short, is no. He sees the accords as a means to regulate that person and to have them eradicate evil in a more controlled way that keeps the bystanders from getting hurt, because something needs to change. His own experiences are proof enough. There need to be consequences for the destruction and the death caused by powerful individuals, and it shouldn’t be up to those very individuals to decide on those consequences for themselves - hence the third party accountability.

Steve and Tony both have a different way of dealing with the accords. Where Steve wants to negotiate the terms of agreement first, to have safeguards so he won’t be used against his will or be kept from doing the right thing, Tony wants to agree to the accords first before making changes, since it puts them in a better position to negotiate.

Both men want to protect as many people as possible, yet their own personal experiences, emotions, and traumas differ too greatly for them to agree on how to achieve that safety. Tony doesn’t trust himself because of his mistakes and so he projects this onto others - if he can’t be trusted to govern himself then none of the Avengers can. Steve is the direct opposite: he trusts himself far more to do the right thing than that he trusts others to make that decision for him, and he projects this onto the Avengers: if he can think for himself and do the right thing without needing a third party, then all of the Avengers can. But the fact is that it’s just too complicated of a situation to generalise like this.

So, long story short:

Steve:

Thinks that a third-party regulation will negatively affect their ability to save people. It would take time to get a yes or a no, and in that time innocent people will die.

Doesn’t want to be limited to someone else’s opinion on who is worth saving or not. He doesn’t want to risk being sent to places he does not want to go, or to be kept away from places that need his help.

Doesn’t trust the government/third party to make the right decisions because of past experiences, and he trusts himself far more - therefore believing that none of the Avengers need (a form of) governing.

Wants to help Bucky, which he can’t do if he signs the accords

Tony:

Thinks that a third-party regulation will help protect more innocent lives that up until now have been caught in the crossfire, because there will be regulations and consequences to the actions of superpowered humans.

Doesn’t trust himself to make the right decisions because of past experiences, and so he trusts others more - therefore believing that all of the Avengers need (a form of) governing.

Knows that not agreeing to the accords will make it almost impossible to protect innocent lives and save people, and so to prevent something worse he tries to convince them it’s necessary to sign.

Thinks that agreeing to the accords will allow them to have more of a say when it comes to changing it.

Whether or not the accords themselves are good or bad is a wholly different conversation, but yeah; when it comes to Steve and Tony I’d say they’re both right and both wrong, and neither right and neither wrong. It’s complicated.

#anon #ask #replies #responses #civil war #me #the sokovia accords #steve rogers #tony stark

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