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raven-at-the-writing-desk · 3 years

Note

Not a request, more of a question. How would the dorm heads react to when MC (main character) tells them that the great seven were just made up villains from animated movies from their wold and points out similarities between the heads and the villains? At least from your perspective. How would they handle that?

***Main story spoilers!***

Well, given that MC told Ace and Deuce something vaguely similar in chapter 5 and those two didn’t believe them... I’d venture the Dorm Leaders would react similarly, just being generally dismissive and unwilling to believe the protagonist. Some of them would probably think MC was telling a bad joke. I mean, if MC’s own friends (Ace and Deuce) don’t believe them right away, then the Dorm Leaders (who aren’t nearly as close to MC as Adeuce are) definitely won’t believe them.

I’d like to point out that MC saying there are similarities between the Dorm Leaders and the Great Seven means little, if anything at all, since the Dorm Leaders are chosen because they best embody the spirit of a particular dorm or a member of the Great Seven. There are also some discrepancies if you want to point out similarities between the G7 and the Dorm Leaders, like Leona’s Unique Magic not exactly aligning with Scar’s own abilities, or how Idia is an introvert whereas Hades was an extrovert.

Think about it. If you were in the Dorm Leaders’ shoes (or heck, any person from Twisted Wonderland), you’ve been raised your whole life to think the Great Seven are amazing and good people. They’ve done so much to contribute to your society, and they’re powerful magicians on top of that. You won’t just change your opinion of something that deeply ingrained in you just because a random person/foreigner told you this weird, outlandish theory that sounds like it came from a fever dream. You also won’t take kindly to someone telling you your whole existence is a lie and based on movie villains. It’s like a person in real life telling you we live in the Matrix, you’d think they were strange and just saying nonsense.

At this point in the story, MC only has words (not really any concrete proof) to back up their claim, so they would just sound like a conspiracy theorist to everyone in Twisted Wonderland. I’m not counting the Ghost Camera picture of Mickey here because that in of itself doesn’t directly link to the G7 and the Dorm Leaders, he’s only tangentially related because he happens to share dreams with MC. Sure, MC could take a picture of Mickey and show it to people, but it’s just a picture. It doesn’t prove for sure that they actually shared dreams with this mouse or that the Disney movies actually exist in the world of Twisted Wonderland. All it proves is just “hey, there’s a mouse in my mirror”. In a world of magic, that’s probably not too strange to hear about, all things considering. (We have the Mirror of Darkness, which everyone seems to accept.)

At the end of the day, a picture can’t vouch for anything, and just saying some things won’t change an entire culture or long-held belief. MC needs more tangible proof before anyone can really believe them.

#twst #twisted wonderland #Malleus Draconia #Leona Kingscholar #Idia Shroud #Vil Schoenheit #Riddle Rosehearts #Ace Trappola #Neige Leblanche #Deuce Spade #spoilers #question #notes from the writing raven #disney twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland mini theory

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s-serendipit-y · 3 years

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infp s/o - gundham, k1-b0, korekiyo, nagito

anonymous asked: Can I please ask for Gundham, Nagito, and Kiibo with an INFP s/o. // korekiyo x infp would be so swag

a/n: major spoilers for dr2 in nagitos part the rest are spoiler free

——— gundham tanaka

if there was one mortal he’d date

it was you (feel grateful)

no but in all honesty he did love enjoy being around you

when you confess to him he responds as obvious as ever.

“of course a mortal like you would like to be with me the dark lord! i accept your confession.”

cue him burying his face in his scarf

also he’ll let you hold the four dark deva’s

sonia is definitely jealous

if it’s during the killing game and people try to accuse you of being the blackened due to your “fake” personality he’s quick to defend you.

“mere mortal! how dare you suspect the dark lords sovereign!”

also you’re definitely the hopeless romantic in the relationship

which makes him blush all the time

whenever you get him gifts he’s quick to hide his face.

but he keeps them even though he insists that as the dark lord he could easily get this himself.

also he really likes that you appreciate his independence

even though your his lover he can’t be with you 24/7

also when class trials are happening you always makes sure everyone’s perspective is heard

even though he’d wishes the trail would go by faster

it does weed out the blackened quicker than just jumping straight to conclusions.

yet in your relationship you both do put in equal efforts but he knows it’s what you deserve

but when you do the same thing back to him he can’t help but get flustered.

he just loves you so much

——— kiibo

you had caught kiibo’s attention due to you being difficult to get to know

that’s how he learned about humans studying their personality and behaviors

but you seemed to prioritize others people’s needs and happiness over your own

which was odd for him, he never encountered people like that before

but when you two started to date, he has to be more protective over you

people tend to take over your generosity and you never seem to understand

you believe your emotions over the logic right in front of you.

“s/o you’ve been helping them a lot recently, i believe that they are taking over your kind nature for their own personal gain.”

“kiibo they’re my friend, they’ll never do that to me. they just need my help. that’s all”

kiibo also really enjoys how passionate you are

you really give your all to everything you do

if you two are together during the killing game, he really likes your open mindedness during trials.

when someone brings a new piece of evidence to the table or a different culprit that no one understands

you try to see it from the accusers perspective

which sometimes helps trials go by way faster

however he dislikes how self critical you are

you tend to question things you do

or you get disappointed in yourself way too easily

you’re amazing! he can see that and everyone else can too!

so... why can’t you?

——— korekiyo shinguji

you were by far his favorite person in hopes peak

you were beautiful. inside and out

not only were you very generous with your classmates

you were never quick to judge people based off their appearance or mannerisms

which how you two became close

when you two are in a relationship

he was definitely intrigued how you called him your “soulmate”

not that he was complaining

the concept of love lived inside you and he had seen you daydreaming about your perfect relationship

and korekiyo knows a lot about different cultures and their relationships

so he would do everything he can to give you that

but you reassure him that your relationship was already perfect ❤️

thank goodness he had the mask on so you can’t see his blushing face.

you both were hopeless romantics

buying gifts for each other or planning surprise dates

even though you both tell the other that it’s not needed it never stops

korekiyo also really admires that you support his decisions and try to help him improve himself

you guys had a really beneficial relationship built around trust and compassion

people at school are extremely jealous that he found someone like you

he was surprised that you wanted to be with him too

because you truly were, amazing <3

——— nagito komaeda

if he were to look up the definition of hope

you’d be right there

nagito worships the ground you walk on

and he would never understand why you chose to be with him

you were filled with so much hope he couldn’t help but want to be with you

even though he thought he didn’t deserve

he loves that your loyal to your values.

especially if one of the thing you value is hope

it’s his purpose in life

but to see it as his s/o’s too? *chefs kiss*

but as soon as he hears you being self critical about yourself

he’d be very angry

”don’t talk about yourself in that way s/o!”

he’s kinda a hypocrite during the subject

because he still tends to belittle himself whenever you do anything for him.

“trash like me doesn’t deserve this from you s/o.”

but you get angry at him for saying that too

“nagito you’re my soulmate! of course you deserve it, you’re perfect!”

during the killing game the rest of the participants hate when you contribute

because sometimes it makes nagito go on his crazy hope talk.

“s/o the ultimate _____ is filled with so much hope. what despair can’t you overcome?”

but when he found out that everyone but the traitor were the remants of despair

he was broken

you were so full of hope before the ultimate despair got her hands on you

there’s no way!

he sees the hope in you which is one of the things he loves about you.

it made him hesitate in his plans to kill everyone.

he loved you and maybe, just maybe that could restore the hope within you.

#danganronpa imagines #danganronpa x reader #danganronpa headcanons #v3 x reader #korekiyo x reader #nagito komeada x reader #gundham x reader #kiibo x reader

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brawltogethernow · 4 years

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So, I don't think I've ever asked you this... what IS the whole point of the Spider-Sense? It really seems like something that only exists for writers to ignore or work around when they want to inject Legit Tension into a story.

I’ve thought about this power so much, but never with an eye to defend its right to exist, so I needed to think about this. The results could be more concise.

Ironically, given the question, I have to say its main purpose is to ramp up tension. But it’s also a highly variable multitool that a skilled creative team can use for...pretty much anything. It does everything the writer wants it to, while for its wielder always falls just short of doing enough.

I went looking through my photos for a really generic, classic-looking example to use as an image to head this topic, but then I ran into the time Peter absolutely did not reimburse this man for his stolen McDonald’s, so have that instead.

A Scare Chord, But You Can Draw It

That one post that says the spider-sense is just super-anxiety isn’t, like, wrong. It’s a very anxious, dramatic storytelling tool originally designed for a very anxious, dramatic protagonist. I find it speaks to the overall tone of the franchise that some characters are functionally psychics, but with a psychic ability that only points out problems.

Spidey sense pinging? There’s danger, be stressed! Broken? Now the lead won’t even KNOW when there’s a problem, scary! Single character is immune to it? That’s an invisible knife in the dark oh my god what the fuck what the fU--

Like its counterpart in garden variety anxiety, the only time the spider-sense reduces tension is in the middle of a crisis. But in the wish fulfillmenty way that you want in an adventure story to justify exaggerated action sequences, the same way enhanced strength or durability does. Also like those, it would theoretically make someone much safer to have it, but it exists in the story to let your character navigate into and weather more dangerous situations.

For its basic role in a story, a danger sense is a snappy way to rile up both the reader and the protagonist that doesn’t offer much information beyond that it’s time to sit smart because shit is about to go down.

Spidey comic canon is all over the board in quality and genre, and it started needing to subvert its formulas before the creators got a handle on what those formulas even were, and basically no one has read anything approaching most of it at this point, so for consistent examples of a really bare bones use of this power in storytelling, I’d point to the property that’s done the best job yet of boiling down the mechanics of Spider-Man to their absolute most basic essentials for adaptation to a compelling monster of the week TV series.

Or as you probably know it, Danny Phantom. DON’T BOO, I’M RIGHT.

DP is Spider-Man with about 2/3 of the serial numbers filed off and no death (ironically), and Danny’s ghost sense is the most proof in the formula example of what the spidey sense is for: It’s a big sign held up for the viewer that says, “Something is wrong! Pay attention!” Effectively a visual scare chord. It’s about That Drama. And it works, which won it a consistent place in the show’s formula. We’re talking several times an episode here.

So why does it work?

It’s a little counterintuitive, but it’s strong storytelling to tell your audience that something bad is going to happen before it does. A vague, punchy spoiler transforms the ignorant calm before a conflict into a tense moment of anticipation. ...And it makes sure people don’t fail to absorb the beginning of said conflict because they weren’t prepared to shift gears when the scene did. Shock is a valuable tool, too, but treating it like a staple is how you burn out your audience instead of keeping them engaged. Not to go after an easy target, but you need to know how to manage your audience’s alarm if you don’t want to end up like Game of Thrones.

The limits of the spider-sense also keep you on your toes when handled by a smart writer. It tells Peter (everyone’s is a little different, so I’m going to cite the og) about threats to his person, but it doesn’t elaborate with any details when it’s not already obvious why, what kind, and from what. And it doesn’t warn him about anything else-- Which is a pretty critical gap when you zoom out and look at his hero career’s successes and failures and conclude that it’s definitely why he’s lived as long as he has acting the way he does, but was useless as he failed to save a string of people he’d have much rather had live on than him.

(Any long-running superhero mythos has these incidents, but with Peter they’re important to the core themes.)

And since this power is by plot for plot (or because it’s roughly agreed it only really blares about threats that check at least two boxes of being major, immediate, or physical), it always kicks in enough to register when the danger is bearing down...when it’s too late to actually do anything about it if “anything” is a more complex action than “dodge”.

Really? Not until the elevator doors started to open?

That Distinctive, Crunchy Spider Flavor

The spider-sense and its little pen squiggles go hand in hand with wallcrawling (and its unique and instantly identifiable associated body language) to make the Spider-Person powerset enduringly iconic and elevate characters with it from being generic mid-level super-bricks. Visually, but also in how it shapes the story.

I said it can share a narrative role with super strength. But when you end a fight and go home, super strength continues to make your character feel powerful, probably safer than they’d be otherwise, maybe dangerous.

The spider-sense just keeps blaring, “Something’s wrong! Something’s wrong! God, why aren’t you doing something about this!?”

Pretty morose thing to live with, for a safety net! Kind of a double edged sword you have there! Could be constantly being hyperattuned to problems would prime you for a negative outlook on life. Kind of seems like a power that would make it impossible for a moral person to take a day off, leading them into a beleaguered and resentful yet dutiful attitude about the whole superhero gig! Might build up to some of the core traits of this mythos, maybe! Might lead to a lot of fifteen minute retirement stories, or something. Might even be a built in ‘great responsibility’ alarm that gets you a main character who as a rule is not going to stop fighting until he physically cannot fight anymore.

Certainly not apropos of anything, just throwing this short lived barely-a-joke tagline up for fun.

One of my personal favorite things about stories with superpowers is keeping in mind how they cause the people who have them to act in unusual ways outside of fights, so when you tell me that these people have an entire extra sense that tells them when the gas in their house is leaking through a barely useful hot/cold warning system that never turns off, I’m like, eyes emojis, popcorn out, notebook open, listening intently, spectacles on, the whole deal.

It also contributes to Peter Parker’s personality in a way I really enjoy: It allows him to act like an irrational maniac. When you know exactly when a situation becomes dangerous and how much, normal levels of caution go out the window and absolutely nothing you do makes sense from an exterior standpoint anymore. That’s the good shit. I would like to see more exploration of how the non-Parker characters experiencing the world in this incredibly altered way bounce in response.

It’s also one of many tools in this franchise hauling the reader into relating more closely with the main character. The backbone of classic Spidey is probably being in on secrets only Peter and the reader know which completely reframe how one views the situation on the page. It’s just a big irony mine for the whole first decade. A convenient way to inform the reader and the lead that something is bad news that’s not perceivable to any other characters is youth-with-a-big-exciting-secret catnip.

Another point for tension, there, in that being aware of danger is not synonymous with being able to act on it. If there’s no visible reason for you to be acting strange, well...you’re just going to have to sit tight and sweat, aren’t you? Some gratuitous head wiggles never hurt when setting up that type of conflict.

Have I mentioned that they look cool? Simultaneously punchy and distinctive, with a respectable amount of leeway for artists to get creative with and still coming up with something easily recognizable? And pretty easy to intuit the meaning of even without the long-winded explanations common in the days when people wrote comics with the intent that someone could come in cold on any random issue and follow along okay, I think, although the mechanic has been deeply ingrained in popular culture for so long that I can’t really say for sure.

It was also useful back in the day when no artists drew the eyes on the Spider-Man mask as emoting and were conveying the lead’s expressions entirely through body language and panel composition. If you wiggle enough squiggles, you don’t need eyebrows.

Take This Handwave and Never Ask Me a Logistical Question Again

This ability patches plot holes faster than people can pick them open AND it can act as an excuse to get any plot rolling you can think of if paired with one meddling protagonist who doesn’t know how to mind their own business. Buy it now for only $19.99 (in four installments; that’s four installments of $19.99).

Why can a teenager win a six on one fight against other superhumans? Well, the spider-sense is the ultimate edge in combat, duh.

Why can Peter websling? Why doesn’t everyone websling? Well, the spider-sense is keeping him from eating flagpole when he violently flings himself across New York in a way neither man nor spider was ever meant to move.

How are we supposed to get him involved with the plot this week???? Well, that crate FELT dangerous, so he’s going to investigate it. Oh, dip, it was full of guns and radioactive snakes! Probably shouldn’t have opened that!

Yeah, okay, but why isn’t it fixing everything, then? Isn’t it supposed to be why Peter has never accidentally unmasked in front of somebody? ('Nother entry for this section, take a shot.) That’s crazy sensitive! How does he still have any problems!? Is everything bad that’s ever happened to characters with this powerset bad writing!? --Listen, I think as people with uncanny senses that can tell us whether we are in danger with accuracy that varies from incredible to approximate (I am talking about the five senses that most people have), we should all know better than to underestimate our ability to tune them out or interpret them wrong and fuck ourselves up anyway. I honestly find this part completely realistic.

*SLAPS ROOF OF SPIDER-SENSE* YOU CAN FIT SO MANY STORIES IN THIS THING

The spider-sense is a clean branch into...whatever. There is the exact right balance of structure and wishy-washiness to build off of. A sample selection of whatevers that have been built:

It’s sci-fi and spy gadgets when Peter builds technology that can interface with it.

It’s quasi-mystical when Kaine and Annie-May get stronger versions of it that give them literal psychic visions, or when you want to get mythological and start talking about all the spider-characters being part of a grand web of fate.

Kaine loses his and it becomes symbolic of a future newly unbound by constraints, entangled thematically with the improved physical health he picked up at the same time -- a loss presented as a gain.

Peter loses his and almost dies 782 times in one afternoon because that didn’t make the people he provoked when he had it stop trying to kill him, and also because he isn’t about to start “””taking the subway’’””’ “‘’“”to work”””’’” like some kind of loser who doesn’t get a heads up when he’s about to hit a pigeon at 50mph.

Peter’s starts tuning into his wife’s anxiety and it’s a tool in a relationship study.

It starts pinging whenever Peter’s near his boss who’s secretly been replaced by a shapeshifter and he IGNORES IT because his boss is enough of an asshole that that doesn’t strike him as weird; now it’s a comedy/irony tool.

Into the Spider-Verse made it this beautiful poetic thing connecting all the spider-heroes in the multiverse and stacked up a story on it about instant connection, loss, and incredibly unlikely strangers becoming a found family. It was also aesthetic as FUCK. Remember the scene where Miles just hears barely intelligible whispering that’s all lines people say later in the film and then his own voice very clearly says “look out” and then the room explodes?? Fuck!!!!

Venom becomes immune to it after hitchhiking to Earth in Peter’s bone juice and it makes him a unique threat while telling a more-homoerotic-than-I-assume-was-originally-intended story about violation and how close relationships can be dangerous when they go sour.

It doesn’t work on people you trust for maximum soap opera energy. Love the innate tragedy of this feature coming up.

IN CONCLUSION I don’t have much patience for writers who don’t take advantage of it, never mind feel they need to write around it.

#spiderman #peter parker #spiderverse #spidey #marvel #danny phantom #one day you'll see what i'm doing with it in the project i'm collabing on w/ my brother and then you'll all be sorry and hopefully impresse #mirrorfalls #asks answered #essays

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venomous-ko · 3 years

Text

Wine Drunk while watching Godzilla vs Kong

Some major spoilers up ahead!

Mans really just annoyed the shit out of his coworker until he left so he could hack shit, huh?...I love it! 🤣🤣

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You mean to tell me that the explanation for why Godzilla attacked the one tech company site by the dude who studied Kaiju communication and behavior for a living is just, “sometimes people (and creatures) change”???? Like some dumbass justifying a toxic person/relationship??? Like excuse me???? Why are the literal teenagers making more sense than you?????

Also, we’re all in agreement that this facility is either housing Ghidora’s dead head, Mecha Godzilla, or Mecha Ghidora, right?!?

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Lol! “Apex Cybernetics!” That’s not foreshadowing! 🤣

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Apparently, I didn’t get my fill of white nonsense from Falcon and Winter Soldier, bc someone decided to put this blonde-hair-blue-eyed little bitch in charge! That’s not ganna go wrong somehow. 🙃😑👀

Like this bitch literally wanted to send a fucking child into unexplored hollow earth territory without a second thought! 🙃🙃🙃🙃 I was literally like 🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕 for that entire convo.

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I’m sorry! This conspiracy man just met these teenagers, and his first impulse was, “yeah, theses seem like some good people to break into a tech conglomerate with!” 🤣🤣🤣🤣

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Why are these people surprised Kong knows sign language? These are people who study Kaiju (and presumably other animals in order to draw conclusions about certain behaviors) for a fucking living!!! We have primate species that recognize and communicate in sign language already! Why is this surprising???!?! Like...has NO ONE except this precious child tried this????

Also, nothing bad better happen to this child.

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That ship literally fucked around, and Godzilla let it find out! Lmao!

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Kong: Hey, Godzilla...look at me...

Godzilla: >:[

Kong: ...bitch.

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Precious girl: Thank you, friend 🧏🏽‍♀️

Kong: ☺️😴

THIS GIRL IS TOO PRECIOUS!!!!

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Bitch-ass White Man: How’s Kong with heights?

BITCH, you really ganna try that?!?! You really think you ganna find any aircraft(s) that are ganna be able to support all that weight?? Never mind any other problems with Kong trying to nope the fuck out of that situation and all kind of other hosts of problems!

And if you do somehow have one (or multiple) WHY TF DIDN’T YOU USE THAT BEFORE KNOWING FULL AND WELL YOU RAN THE RISK OF GODZILLA MERCING KONG’S ASS IF YOU TRAVELED VIA SHIP!?!?!?!

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Down the Hell Naw tunnel we go!

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“I think it’s romantic,”

I fucking love Millie Bobbie Brown’s character!! 🤣❤️🤣

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WHY IS THIS TEENAGER SMARTER THAN EVERYBODY OMG!!!!! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

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“This is page one in the ‘Playing God’ handbook, right?”

I’ve decided I love this character! 🤣

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WHY YOU GETTING INSIDE THAT THING—Oh god! 😨 Why y’all got eggs!?!? This is like if Weyland-Yutani succeeded in getting Xenomorphs! 😬

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Oop! Locked in! THIS IS WHY YOU DON’T HIDE OUT IN MYSTERIOUS ROOMS!!!!

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Oh shit! Apex Cybernetics think they on that Wakanda shit now!

Also, why was that one Apex Cybernetics bitch bitching about how one of those HEAV crafts could power Vagas for a week if y’all clearly have a whole network or transportation using this tech!

And I never understood how tech companies kept that shit to world domination shit! Build a public transportation system with that shit! Boss man said he likes ideas that make him rich! Pretty sure that would do the trick!

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WINE BREAK!!!

Saving the rest of the last bottle for coking Gumbo, so gotta open up a new bottle

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Aw, Kong is so sick of this bullshit! 😂😭

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“It’s not working”

Bruh! Give it more that two seconds!

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HOW DARE Y’ALL USE KONG’S LOSS AGAINST HIM!!!! HOW DARE Y’ALL!!!

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HEAV go Brrrrrrr Shoooooooooooom!!!!

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LMAO!!! Monarch has their own brand of bottled water!?!?! Idk why that amuses me so much!

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This hallow earth portal thing is some Pacific Rim bullshit right here, lol!

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NYOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMM

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Are we...are we really Ice Age: Dawn of Dinosaur-ing this shit rn??? 😂😂😂

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“It’s beautiful,”

Of course it’s beautiful! No hoomins have touched it! Lol

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Y’ALL GOT FUCKIN DRAGONS IN THIS BITCH!?!?!?!!! 8D YO!!! SIGN ME THE FUCK UP!!!!

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*marvels at the creature creation ideas*

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Kong’s first thought: *nom the dragon guts*

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THE ROCK HAND OMG IM GANNA CRY!!! 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 It’s the same gesture the Precious Girl did OMG!!!!

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“We going in?”

“Yeah”

The BALLS on this child!

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“AAAAHH 😐”

*fear*

LMAO!!!!! I’M FUCKIN WHEEZING!!!

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“Sacrifice Pit”

OMG 🤣🤣🤣

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I KNEW IT!!!! MECHA-GODZILLA MOTHERFUCKER!!!!!!!! 8DDDDD

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YO PACIFIC RIM RAN SO MECHA-GODZILLA COULD FUCKIN SPRINT!!!!!!!!

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YO IT’S A GOOD THING I AIN’T SEEING THIS IN THEATERS BC I’D BE FLIPPING MY SHIT!!!!

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“Humanity, once again, will be the apex species,”

THERE it is!

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Why Mecha-Godzilla so skeeny?!? He need ta be thicc if he ganna take down REAL Godzilla!

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*Ryan Bergera conspiracy voice* Is this the real reason Kong was contained!? So this douche could snatch up Skull Crawlers without Kong intervention???

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OH SHIT!!! I think this thing is emitting alpha waves (or whatever we’re calling it) and THAT’s what set Godzilla off!!! He fought Ghidorah, heard this shit and went, “Nu-uh, bitch! NOT AGAIN!!!”

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Monarch dude: Yo, Godzilla’s headed to Hong Kong for some reason?

FUCKIN CALLED IT!!!

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This look like the door to fuckin General Grievous’s lair,da fuq?!? 🤣🤣🤣

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I got waaay too emotional over that handprint, y’all! 😭😭😭

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Y’all, the fucking art history major in me is fuckin screaming at this temple scene! The fact that some of these Kaiju not only had the urge and drive and capacity to build a fucking temple around this power source or some shit and create weapons like the axe that Kong just fucking Excalibured the shit out of that one skull crawler’s skull fucking implies the fact that there is intelligent civilization amongst these fucking Kaiju and all that shit! I want to know more about this shit! Take that you fucking racist-ass white historian motherfuckers!

(Note: I definitely needed to use talk to text for much of this bit, because there was no way I was going to be able to contain all my excitement in just typing, alone, lmao)

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BRUH!!! Why y’all exiting g the HEAV without no breathing apparatus or lead suits or nothing!?!?! In previous movies, y’all implied that these Kaiju lived in environments in which their environments were hella radioactive compared to our own!!!

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Kong is s the true heir to the iron throne, Lmao!

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FUCKING CALLED IT!!!! THEY HAD GHIDORA’S REMAINS IN THERE SOMEWHERE!!!!

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OH FUCK!!!! Y’ALL AINT JUST SENDING OUT ALPHA VIBES WITH YOUR MECHA-GODZILLA!!!! YOU SOMEHOW USING GHIDORA’S HIVE MIND OR TELEPATHY SHIT TO DO IT!?!?!?! AAAWWWWW SHEEEEEET!!! Y’ALL ARE BONED NOW!!!! FUCKIN BONEROWNED!!!!

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Godzilla! My bruh! My dude! You didn’t HAVE TO get up right where that bridge was!!! 😂😂 Ya douche bag!!!

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At the same time, tho, I can just hear him going, “Ah! FUCK! NOT AGAIN!!! Sunova bitch!! Motherfuckin!! STOP BUILDING sHIT SO DAMN HIGH!!! Goddammit!”

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You know, with all the Bright twinkly lights in Hong Kong, I can’t help but think of the sequel to the original Gojira movie ( that I can’t remember the title of ,rn) where he was fucking triggered by fucking lights. And I wonder if this little scene where he’s stomping all through Hong Kong is a tribute to that or whatever. But I’m probably overthinking it.

[Sober Edit: it was Godzilla Raids Again]

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*GASP* HOLY SIHIIIT!!! The axe is made out of Godzilla skute!?!?! GOLY BALLS THAT’S NOT ONLY COOL BUT CONTRIBUTES MORE TO THE FACT THAT THESE KAIJU (likely Kong’s species, in particular) WERE REALLY FUCKING INTELLIGENT AMD TJOUGHT, “Imma beat this muthafucka with their own spiky thing! Bc that’s what screws us over, so, why WOULD’nt it hurt them!?!” I need SO MUCH MORE of this Kaiju/Kong culture studied and shit! HOLY FUCK!!!

It even fucking glows!! Like ... they managed to fucking piece together that its glow was a fucking warning sign like Sting or some shit!!!! Holy fuck!!!!

Also, how does that work? How are the skutes still connected even after dismemberment???

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NO FUCKIN WAY WRE YOU—AAAAAAAAHHH!!! Excalibur that shit my boi!!!!

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I FUCKIN LOVE YHIS MOVIE HOLY SHIT!!!

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“ that’s Apex property now,”

Excuse me bitch! Are we really not gonna listen to the scientist who saying “hey we don’t understand the shit out of this fucking power! Maybe we should hold off on taking some fucking samples!”

Are we really just gonna ignore that shit???????

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Kong said: TRY ME BITCH!!!!

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Oh thank the GODS this Serizawa dude is taking precautions like his old man! Also, what is his relation to Ken Watanabe’s Serizawa!?!?!

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UH OH!! SOLDIER DUDES GETTIN ATE!!!

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OH SHIT!!! PILOT JUST GOT ATE!!! FUCKIN DRAGON BASEMENT UP IN THIS SHIT!!!

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BITCH YOU REALLY GON THROW A ROCK AT IT!!! FUCKIN NONSENSE OF THIS BITCH!!!

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LOVE AND FITE ME ENERGY IS STORED IN THE ATOMIC BREATH

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“Shoot him!”

WHY!!!???!! He literally had NO problem with you before then!!!

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Why does white man who don’t know anything about this vehicle suddenly know how to pilot this shit!???!?!!!!!

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Y’all love had SO MUCH wine!

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The FUCK this dude got a flip flop phone for!!!?!????!!!?

Da fuq!?!?! 🤣🤣🤣🤣 yeah that’s the most unrealistic part of this entire fucking movie! Not the fuckin Kaiju robots. Not the fucking hollow earth bullshit! The fucking flip phone! LMFAO!!!!

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“Maintenance! I’M MAINTENANCE!!! This bitch ain’t buying it”

That made me laugh WAY FUCKIN harder that it should have!!!!

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Y’all really ganna try to shoot at a kid!?! REALLY!?!?!??!

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GAWD, I’m so glad I impulse bought these oatmeal bites from Dominos! 🤤😋

[Sober Edit: I have no idea how my autocorrect managed to convert “Parmesan” to “oatmeal,” but okay! 😆😅]

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Kong be like, “Hey, bitch!!! You lookin’ for me!?!?”

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Find you a partner that bites your neck like Godzilla does! Lmao!

Sorry, I’ll be crawling back into my hell hole, now.

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EAT YOUR FOOKIN VEGETABLES GODZILLA!!!!!

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Did Godzilla just axe throw with his fuckin teefs!!!????!?!?!

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THIS IS THE FOOKIN MONSTER VS MONSTER FIGHTS IVE BEEN CRAVING SINCE KING OF THE MONSTERS HOLY SHIT!!!!

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“Really? Groupies, again?”

First of all, again!?! What happened last time???

Secondly, where tf are YOUR grpupies, asshole! No need to judge! Ya cunt!

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“There can only be one alpha,”

Really! You really gotta bring your toxic masculinity into a fuckin monster fight, my dude!?!

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Kong said, “Yeet! YEET SELF!!!”

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I am living for the feral fight scenes!!!!

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Kong’s expression , tho! 🤣🤣🤣

Like, “Can you ducking NOT, Godzilla?!? Can you, like, fucking chill??!!? Aight, fine! ASDASHKLSDJKLDZJL ADKLKDZDJ!!!!!!”

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Awwwww! Godzilla let Kong go, bc he knows what it’s like to be the last of his species! 🥺🥺🥺🥺😭😭😭😭

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“This is how we [...] win!”

Oh, honey, you ‘bout to die! Lmao! 😂

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Oh god! I knew he was going to use the sign for “coward” at the most inappropriate time! Lmao! At least the Precious Girls is smart enough to know what Dumbass White Man means, lol

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Oh, thank god we do t see this dumbass in any sequels!

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Dammit, he escaped!

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This girl is too good!

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Did y’all really think you were ganna break into a semi-sentient Mecha-Godzilla by GUESSING ITS FUCKING PASSWORD!!?!?!?!!!!???? 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

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YEAH!!!! TEAM-UP COMING THROUGH!!!!!

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“I was hoping to die with adults, but that’s okay,”

🤣🤣🤣

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“I’VE GOT TO DIE WITB YOU AND SOBER!!?!?!”

GOD, I love this movie!!!!

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OOOOOOHHHH HOLY SHIT!!!!! 😱😱😱😱😱 He powering up the axe!!!!!

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YOOOOOO KONG WENT PREDATOR/YOUTJA ON MECHA-GODZILLA’s ASS!!!!

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Kong said, “I’m done, y’all! Imma take a nap!”

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“Dad. Uh...Bernie.”

I fucking love Bernie!!! 😂😂😂😂

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JIA NOOOO!!! Don’t go running between two disgruntled Kaiju bby!!

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Yo, why do monsters have less toxic masculinity than we do??? Lol!

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Yaaaaaay! Kong has a new home!!

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WELP!!! I fucking loved this movie, and I highly recommend it to everyone!!!

#SPOILERS #Godzilla #godzilla vs kong #King Kong #kaijuverse #my posts #my drunk ass #godzilla vs kong spoilers

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allthatglittersisnotgoldrush · 3 years

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Author Interview: Mythopoeia (by TolkienGirl)

1. What would you say to persuade an AU-skeptic reader to read THIS AU?

Oh hit me with the hard one right out of the gate, why don’t you! I think I would say we are three people with a long history and deep love for the source canon material, who are having fun without taking ourselves too seriously—while also taking the actual writing very seriously! We have a full adaptation of the entire Silmarillion (more or less) fully plotted out, so we shan’t leave you hanging with the series unfinished. We update, on average, 3 times a week, and we have for two years now, so you shall have a consistent influx of new content! And while fun with the Victorian/Western tropes and settings (and literary language) is hugely entertaining for me, at least, the real reason why I love what we are doing is that I love our takes on the characters. All the characters! We bring a few lesser-loved folk to the forefront (Gwindor! Indis! Arien???!!) and we put literally hours of discussion each week into our development of more popular and well-known favorites (Maedhros, of course, and Fingon—Finrod—Haleth—). I also love our multi-racial and multi-cultural cast; being half-Asian and part-Hawaiian myself, I have a special fondness for our biracial Luthien. I’d suggest any curious person read those gathered beneath (for mid19th-century fun!) and beneath the jealous mountains shall we mourn (for an example of how we use the AU to play with canon angst and drama!) and if you like any aspect of those two stories you should give the AU a try.

Also some of the story is told from Huan’s POV. Who doesn’t want that?

2. What villain's characterization do you believe represents the most innovative "spin" on canon?

The glee I felt when @thelonelybrilliance suggested how we bring Ancalagon into the series was a very unique sort of delight, haha. A wonderfully wicked and intelligent female character, who owns a coal empire and wields huge influence on Western society? I think that’s definitely the most original spin, and bold reimagining of a canon antagonist. I am most proud, however, of our Morgoth.

3. Which 3 characters OTHER than Fingon have your favorite dynamic with Maedhros?

UmmmmMmmm: Gwindor, Maglor, and . . . Celegorm (sob). I always really like any little glimpses we get of Mae and his relationship with Finwe, too. They had a really interesting and important dynamic we have not explored at length but which has colored a lot of who he is as a person now.

4. What is your favorite AU location to write about/that you would like to write about?

Am I allowed to say San Francisco? I really look forward to writing more Old San Fran, since the setting allows us to lean more gratuitously into the 1800’s historical fiction side of things, and also I’ve visited the city a few times and enjoyed exploring the older areas and know I’ll have a lot of fun describing things. It’s like how Dickens makes London its own character in Oliver Twist, and Victor Hugo makes Paris a character in Les Mis; I look forward to getting to write the character of San Francisco interacting with some important Silm characters. If only original locations are allowed, however—no spoilers, but Himring is going to be good.

5. Without spoiling anything, which two characters—who have never met—would you love to see interact? (And tell us how it would go)

I had to think about this a long time! I think I would say Rumil and Estrela. He would have been an absolutely perfect father figure for her, both in their cartography interests and in how he could have guided her and helped her navigate her trauma and how to recover from it. She would have confided in him easily, and they would have helped each other with lot, I think.

If we limit this only to cast still living, then I’ll pick Gwindor and Nerdanel. She would be so grateful for how he has taken care of her eldest boy. And I just think they would communicate well and Gwindor would really benefit from getting to talk with her and confide in her and be reassured by her. And Maedhros would love to have two of his favorite people in the world be friends.

BONUS: If you could undo only ONE Angband atrocity, what would it be?

That first haircut obviously, you monster.

(Just kidding. Maybe.)

For a more (maybe) serious answer: this might not seem like the worst thing at first look, but I would have spared Maedhros having to see his father’s skull: that whole knowledge of knowing Morgoth despoiled Feanor’s grave and desecrated the body, and the entire scene around Morgoth forcing that revelation on him. Was this scene actually part of my contribution to the whole Angband arc? Yes. But it really is horrific and desperately sad, and I do feel bad about it. Sorry, Maitimo.

#author interviews #gold rush AU #the silmarillion #q&a #admin mythopoeia

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danwhobrowses · 4 years

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Why ‘The Karate Kid Part II’ Deserves More Respect

So guess what film I finished watching today? Of course, the Karate Kid franchise is considered iconic mainly for its first entry; Wax on Wax off, Skeleton fights, Sweep the Leg and the Crane Kick all cemented its legacy that allowed Cobra Kai to also be such a success. But imagine my shock when the approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes for Part II is 45% - 21% lower than the Jaden Smith ‘The Karate Kung Fu Kid’ version (and Part III is scored 15%, which is also super harsh but hard to debate outside of the magnificence of Terry Silver). Originally this was just gonna be a general post of how much I enjoyed retreading Part II, but upon seeing that score I had to give it my ‘Deserves More Respect’ posts.

It is an off-chance, but if you haven’t watched this film there will be spoilers within, I encourage you to watch it before reading, and maybe watch it again if you have so it’s fresh in the mind

Let’s start with a controversial point shall we? There are several parts where Part II is actually better than the original. Now I know! There’s a lot about the original which is iconic, but nostalgia does blind you to other shortcomings and while it’s easy to sell the first part because of its mystique, a sequel has the added pressure of rising above and developing on old and new themes set by the predecessor. The Premise In case you decided against refreshing your memory. Karate Kid Part II starts with a recap of Part I, a bit of content that was meant to be Part I’s final scene (in the script, not for filming) and then a timeskip. Ali with an i is gone - brutally dumping Daniel for some Football Player before Senior Prom and after crashing his car, Daniel’s mother is in Fresno for work and Miyagi has received a letter from his home Okinawa in news of his father’s fading health. The stage is set for Daniel and the audience to learn more about the iconic Mr. Miyagi and the life he left behind. Okay, so there is bad in this film Part II deserves respect, but it’s not perfect. It definitely gets messy near the end with Daniel’s antagonist Chozen, he mainly took beats from Johnny Lawrence in physically confronting Daniel when he could with a bunch of no-named goons and he fought pretty similarly to Johnny in catch counters and leg strikes. The opening recap did take a lot of time too, while the ending remained somewhat abrupt having just beaten up Chozen to embrace Kumiko (who had a delayed recovery after being punched once). While not bad, a fair amount of retreaded content felt like downgrades of the original; Chozen and Sato lacked the charisma of Johnny and Kreese, the crane kick was far more impressive than the drum technique and the Tournament setting was grander than the O-Bon festival. But, there are Iconic Moments in this film too Part I may have the Crane Kick and the Skeletons and the Training and Sweep the Leg. But people may forget that Part II had awesome moments too.

Like Daniel chopping through 6 Sheets of Ice! If that isn’t one hell of a power play I don’t know what is. It is a moment genuinely impressive in and outside of the 80s cheese universe of Karate Kid, and it gets referenced in Season 2 of Cobra Kai.

Also referenced in Season 2 is Miyagi vs Kreese. While this is the intended ending for Part I, it certainly acted better at the start of Part II, especially given that is foreshadows the situation Daniel finds himself in at the end of the movie. This moment is equally iconic as it completely encapsulates the character of both senseis - Kreese the confident brute brought to a sniveling mouse when size and power failed him and Miyagi the cool-headed and vastly more intelligent fighter still with the cheeky prankster lightness to him as he honks the scared shitless Kreese on the nose. Perfect.

While I did want to cite the Tea Ceremony as well I think the more iconic moment for Part II had to be Miyagi chopping the log during the storm. The storm itself is a very well-done scene which unmasks several characters in the face of adversity. True tension, worry and stakes are sold as the village are in danger of the cruel whims of nature, an act which is all too real for Sato when the house he’s in collapses on him in the calm before his scheduled deathmatch with Miyagi. Not only is this again some great foreshadowing by the rule of three (Daniel asking if Miyagi can chop a log like Sato is doing with a banner and then Miyagi and Sato meeting and seeing Sato fail to chop a log) it proves a pivotal point where Sato turns from aggrieved antagonist to repenting ally. A great show of power and friendship as Miyagi metaphorically breaks the rift between their friendship that weighs Sato down. Okay, we hear you, but how is it better? I do have to preface that I do still love Part I, I have to because in pointing out where Part II is better I have to pick at Part I’s faults. While the ending is messy Part II definitely has much better pacing, until the skeletons scene Part I doesn’t really pick up because it has to set up, Part II while it does recap doesn’t need to worry about it. Giving Miyagi the main plot was definitely Part II’s strongest suit. Part I profited from Miyagi being the ‘mysterious old teacher’ but learning a lot more about his humanity and history was engrossing and it allowed positive development for Miyagi and Daniel, especially their bond as a surrogate father and son when Daniel personally goes out of his way to support Miyagi on a very personal matter. The main characters maintain their charm as well, still a lovely array of life lessons in Part II more than just finding balance, Miyagi teaches Daniel through words and action on taking time to breathe, to refocus when imbalanced, to forgive rather than to harbour hate, mercy, selflessness and humbleness

“never put passion before principle. Even if win, you lose.” - Mr. Miyagi

The scenes involving Miyagi and his father were some of the most deep and emotive of the series up until Cobra Kai, some still haven’t been topped such as Miyagi’s dad’s first words to his son or when Daniel talked about when his father died. And say what you will about Chozen, he does have a lot of Johnny vibes but a lot of the character we believed was Johnny due to nostalgia goggles was more fitting of Chozen’s manner. The story did a great job in making sure Chozen was always an asshole, at times Johnny did at least display honour and grace but Chozen was always sore about stuff and quick to claim dishonour even when he was in the wrong. Contrary to Johnny it’s more about his family than it is about a girl, which allowed a lot more freedom in the plot. Whether you felt Elizabeth Shue’s Ali with an i was prettier than Tamlyn Tomita’s Kumiko is up to personal preference, but the messy-haired Kumiko definitely had a slightly improved presence in Part II than Ali did, with actual focus on her own feelings outside of attraction to Daniel, her ambition to become a dancer directly linking to the O-Bon Festival - which in turn related to the Drum technique - as well as the delicately beautiful Tea Ceremony scene and actually contributing to the final fight (granted Ali wouldn’t be allowed to). Also Daniel didn’t try to eat her face which is a general improvement to the romantic subplot, extra applause has to go to Tomita here too because this was legitimately her first role - Shue had her second so that’s impressive too - and both women had good careers going forward. The increased stakes definitely worked in the favour of Part II as well, as sequel culture is forced to do, but by moving to Okinawa (actually filmed in Hawaii) we opened the door to better suit Miyagi’s world while keeping Daniel the fish out of water. I can’t speak too much for appropriation because there is still kinda some ‘white saviour’ undertones but I didn’t feel like Japan was treated negatively in this light, its culture of the O-Bon Festival and the Tea Ceremony was treated with the utmost respect and explained without pandering, the flute music had definitely stepped up its game for the soundtrack as did the imagery. Can also appreciate that Daniel does go for the Crane kick when fighting Chozen but is parried. Added hat tip has to go to costuming too. A lot of costumes would have to have distinct Kamon such as Sato’s twin fish and Miyagi’s bonsai on a lot of their clothing

Between Sato and Miyagi the colours of their clothes often code their emotions towards each other, with Sato usually in grey and Miyagi in white or cream, when Sato and Miyagi prepare for death they are in black and when Sato wants forgiveness he moves to a lighter shade. While Part I also used black and white to differ Johnny and Daniel, Part II put Chozen and Daniel in the more Japanese-themed Red and Blue. While both men wear red, blue and whites at time, Chozen’s clothes almost devolve from the white he debuts in as his darker side comes out before flat out embracing yellow after his chance to prove his honour in the storm is refused (and he’s in white then), while Daniel often moves to Red or red tones even in his blue shirt. Kumiko also moves from white to blue, sometimes even purple, in set up to the final fight to have the primary colours stand out in the colourful crowd of the O-Bon festival, but even in the blue Kumiko had red to pair her connection with Daniel. Also her Yukata at the festival is just stunning, the Great Wave off Kanagawa print is a nice touch.

Anything else we should know? It might not be much else about the film itself I can tell you, but I do appreciate something I’m starting to call ‘The Rocky Connection’ when it comes to Karate Kid. Like Part I’s ‘You’re the Best (Around)’ was shortlisted for Rocky III, Part II’s song ‘Glory of Love’ was shortlisted for Rocky IV’s theme, losing to ‘Hearts on Fire’, Bill Conti also chose to score this film instead of Rocky IV. I like to pair this with Daniel’s Rocky-esque character, he has that same kind of swagger but a lot more naive and childlike. Martin Kove also gets a nod because those bleeding hands were legit, he had an accident on-set and the footage was kept for the final cut. Tamlyn Tomita wasn’t the only film debut for Part II, B.D. Wong of...well, several famous roles including but not limited to Shang in the animated Mulan, Dr. Wu in the Jurassic Park franchise, Hugo Strange in Gotham and many more, also had his debut here in a minor speaking role when he’s handing out flyers for the dance party to Kumiko and Daniel before the Ice Chopping Scene. So, why does it deserve respect A film that adds to a beloved character in a respectful fashion without having really any god awful moments does not deserve a 4.5/10 rating. It may not have as emphatic an ending or as great a villain but it has a captivating plot and a good pace, better stakes and much more emotionally driven and responsive scenes. A lot of effort and dedication went into this film to explore new dimensions of the main characters in a fashion which was enjoyable and at times heartwarming. And characters are given human moments, even Miyagi confesses himself not to be perfect and it keeps each character grounded. Even to this day parts of Part II are remembered fondly rather than the campness that Part III had outside of Terry Silver and his magnificent ponytail, the fondness also continues to reflect in Cobra Kai with homages and fan theories of Daniel going to Okinawa again and even re-encountering Chozen. Not to mention it grossed $113m on a $13m budget and got nominated for a Best Original Song Oscar (losing to Top Gun) Part II was a good and enjoyable film which deserves far more credit than to be rated this low, for that it deserves respect.

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falkenscreen · 4 years

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Star Trek: Voyager

Yes this show ended some time ago; that doesn’t mean that it’s not still underrated.

A relative late convert to Star Trek, this author committed to traversing the Delta Quadrant having finished The Original Series, The Next Generation, Discovery & Picard to date. Deep Space Nine is next; like the Doctor I don’t know anything about this ‘Dominion’ but they seem important and we’ll get there.

Having now finished Voyager, here’s the (spoiler-filled) thoughts of someone who came to the bridge afresh and savoured the light-hearted nature of the show. Yes TNG demanded more attention and the episodes herein that do are generally better, but for relaxed, semi-serialised adventure Voyager is a high point.

We’ll start with the negative and get to the fun stuff.

From the get-go there was a jarring disconnect between the premise and goals of the show. If a ship more advanced than any in the region is travelling really fast in one direction they’re not going to keep running into the same people; better begetting a saga poised for episodic rather than serialised fiction. The writers and audience were evidently a little tired at this point of TNG’s slavish devotion to wrapping everything up in 40-odd minutes so wanted to try variations on a theme; it was the right approach for the time accompanied by a smart premise that didn’t match.

And a stellar premise it was only set to be buoyed by the Federation-Marquis dynamic. Also partly squandered, corresponding grounds for strong tension and stories were left by the wayside – characterised by Chakotay’s ill-established, apparently immediate and seemingly endless trust in Janeway; together major failings of the show.

On continuity, and just so it’s out of the way; no they don’t show it but it’s clear the crew just manufactured more photon torpedoes like they did so much else.

Commencing with one of the best episodes, there is rarely a subsequent moment as character-defining as Janeway destroying the array. Don’t get me wrong, Kate Mulgrew is great, but she alike Kirk and Picard are, as fleshed out as they become, for stretches bare variations on a tired theme; young headstrong hotshot dedicates their life to the stars to become a reasoned, seasoned Commander. ‘Tapestry’ did it best and there was no need to explore this further.

Voyager had a general problem with characters that took several seasons to grow; it was a long time before Neelix stopped being grating and his earnestness became endearing. There is too very little you can relay about Tuvak beyond his being a Vulcan and a little sardonic, or Harry besides his yearning for advancement or Chakotay aside his membership of the Marquis and focus on his cultural background.

The stand-out worst episode of the entire show was Chakotay finding out that the Sky Spirits central to his people’s religion were actually from the Delta Quadrant; you can garner Robert Beltran’s clear ambivalence (at best) to such material. This author is aware of the significant tension between the actor and others on set; I can understand the frustration at a lead cast member belittling the series in public but the directions and emphasis the character took in later seasons was something else, as were the music cues whenever his or some others’ cultures came up.

Star Trek, and notably The Original Series, is often (but not always) shrewd for both telling stories addressing the place of culture, religion and community in people’s lives while not overly if at all drawing attention to particular characters’ backgrounds. To Beltran’s credit, he only made the disaffection perceptible on screen in the episodes that were of poor taste, as opposed to the ones that were just bad. There are many lousy episodes of The Original Series but what near always makes it enjoyable is Shatner et al’s absolute commitment to the bit. One of the very worst episodes of Voyager is the one where Harry is lead to believe that he’s actually from a planet in the Delta Quadrant full of attractive women; yet no one in Star Trek ever needs to look bored reading their lines. There are good ones and bad ones and we’re along for the whole ride.

There’s also that one where Tom and the Captain turn into salamanders, start life on a random planet and somehow transform back into their usual selves with these shenanigans never brought up again. Yeah that was awful but it was preceded by a generally decent few acts centred on exceeding warp limits; reputation aside it wasn’t quite down there.

On Alpha Quadrant folks being in the Delta Quadrant, as much as I missed the Klingons they did not need to rock up latently and near the very end; there were plenty of better ways to give B’Elanna an arc. One of the more interesting characters, she offered a variation on Worf’s overwhelming pride as a Klingon, though she barely got enough episodes to shine and these were predominantly featured much later on. And when the show stopped pretending Tom was the cocky pilot we’ve seen dozens of times before he too managed to get a whole lot more interesting.

It would have made a lot more sense for McNeill to just directly continue his character from TNG’s ‘The First Duty;’ alas.

Also welcome were the insights into the Borg; even if they became a lot less eerie it was great to learn that much more about them, though nothing, save the introduction of Seven, bettered the recuperating drones who were the ship’s first Borg encounter. The Borg children were also very funny (the related Voyager pick-ups in Picard were excellent) and should have stayed on the ship longer so Seven could say more things like “fun will now commence;” she can only say “Naomi Wildman” deadpan, as good as it was, so many times.

Heralded by such a superb actress, Seven and the Doctor thrillingly shared dual arcs akin but distinct to Data’s and each other’s, permitting us to relish their gradual growth and revel in their leaps forward. Seven’s narrowing down of eligible crewmen, unlike Chakotay’s later courting, was a particular highlight, as was her month of isolation when the crew were in stasis and the one where the Doctor overtook her node.

The Doctor however emerges the best character, far and above all others save the near as interesting Seven. Picardo’s charisma and stage presence, well-befitting an exaggeratedly humanistic, bombastic piece of programming, only propelled the most relatable arcs in the series; his desire to fit in and, as any, make a contribution. The Doctor’s opening number in ‘Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy,’ but one occasion where Picardo’s vocal abilities were graciously integrated into the series, by this author’s judgement is the funniest sequence in seven seasons.

‘Message in a Bottle’ with the Doctor centre was too among the very best of the series. Mining any opportunity for comedy we can nonetheless be grateful, alike TNG, that they kept the bald jokes to about one per season.

As asides, it was lovely to see Reginald Barclay return and realise his aspirations in one of the best and most heart-warming episodes of the saga, while the singular and very obvious inspiration one episode draws from Predator proved amusing for just being so unabashed.

‘Scorpion’ was amazing as was anything to do with Species 8472. Captain Proton, acknowledging the entire franchise’s schlocky roots, was a definite recurring highlight, with Mulgrew in one installment clearly having no end of fun alike the cast’s enjoyable turns in late 90’s Los Angeles alongside Sarah Silverman. Speaking of guest stars, seeing The Rock was a nice surprise though with hindsight they may never have cast him given Star Trek shrewdly chose to not have celebrity appearances overshadow the show. But hey, they can’t see the future; at least cleverly opting to obscure Jason Alexander in piles of costuming.

‘Year of Hell’ is good, but the premise befitted an entire season and alike the lacklustre finale nothing really matters (with some well-executed exceptions) if you can just go back in or erase time. There were many, many episodes that shouldn’t have been contained within forty minutes and deserved longer-form devotion, ala ‘30 Days.’ ‘Timeless’was a much better (and unusually technically-focused) variation on the aforementioned themes and it was fun to catch Geordi, as it was Deanna and especially Sulu. ‘The Omega Directive’ was cool; ‘The Thaw’ was great.

The fable-esque nature of the franchise has always been enjoyable and digestible given the show is partially aimed at kids, though there are episodes where it’s just a little too direct, and characters take a little too much pause. ‘Alice,’ the one where Tom almost cheats with his ship as an overly obvious parallel about why you shouldn’t have sex with other people if you have a girlfriend, if a good lesson, in execution was a tad much.

On reflection this author was surprised to discover some of the least generally favoured episodes, among them the Fairhaven double. It may be my great personal affection for Ireland but it makes perfect sense that given the time available this sort of world would be created and characters might pursue holo-relationships, a theme underexplored in Voyager yet still covered to great effect. The established technical deficiencies of holo-technology in such regular use should not come as a surprise when they recur.

The one where Kes comes back was actually a later highlight; her character was never very well handled and no it wasn’t that blast off into the sunset but sometimes old friends lose their way and it’s the job of old friends to set them on the right path.

Most surprising was the dislike directed at ‘Tuvix.’ The difference between Voyager and much heavier sci-fi is that herein characters make a lot of decisions that are hard, not ones that are difficult. The destruction of the array was devastating but not morally questionable within the confines of the show. As a tangent, you could argue that had Janeway made the decision to return to the Alpha Quadrant at the beginning of the series that it would have been the morally correct decision given that, as we see in ‘Hope and Fear,’ another highlight, the ship would not otherwise have been a factor in much disorder and destruction. The show was not however so expansive philosophically as to greatly tread such ground as the franchise otherwise managed in the likes of ‘City on the Edge of Forever.’

In ‘Tuvix’ Janeway, a figure, like Chakotay, who often shifted characterisation to fit the requirements of any given story, was faced with a difficult decision with no easy moral out nor ethically unquestionable approach. It was a refreshing change and correspondingly dark denouement to boot apparent in the likes of ‘Latent Image,’ another fine instalment with the Doctor.

‘Eye of the Needle,’ the only episode this author has watched twice to date and a deeply empathetic early high point, save ‘Balance of Terror’ is the best treatment of the guarded but necessarily relatable Romulans (I haven’t seen all the movies!). ‘The Void’ bookends the show as a later stand out while the in respects not dissimilar ‘Night’ bears one of the darkest challenges and finest, most resonant endings.

This brings us to the ‘best episode;’ one featured regularly in top ten lists but seemingly not a very favourite.

‘Blink of an Eye’ is everything that is exceptional and aspirational about Star Trek. Stranded in the stratosphere of a planet where time passes with greater rapidity, the curious presence of Voyager in the skies begins to influence the society to the point where the inhabitants develop space travel to face the spectre.

A commentary on the Prime Directive as deft as any and a relatively novel variation on both the time travel and petri dish tropes resplendent throughout sci-fi and Star Trek, the episode is also a fabulous meta-commentary on the place of the franchise in popular culture much less crude than Janeway bemoaning the Doctor’s fleeting interplanetary fans’ obsession with every aspect of his personal life. Incorporating a fair bit more science than is typically par, the astronaut’s moving decision to help them, as with his staring into the heavens as Voyager finally departs, speaks to the selfless ethos and sense of overwhelming curiosity so intrinsic to the most basic lore of Star Trek, the most beloved episodes and all that Gene Roddenberry best achieved.

It’s also an amazing meditation on first contact principles and pitfalls which unlike many episodes doesn’t borrow story bones from TNG.

A more than welcome reprieve from a pandemic, I didn’t spend as long in the Delta Quadrant as the crew but for what I did I was glad to relish with them.

Star Trek: Voyager is now streaming on Netflix

#xl #film/tv #voyager #star trek #star Trek: voyager #gene roddenberry #jeri ryan #kate mulgrew #roxann dawson #robert duncan mcneill #robert beltran #ethan phillips #tim russ #jennifer lien

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hippomanblog · 5 years

Text

Three Houses Characters, Ranked On Their Likelihood To Dab: Part III: Golden Deer and Church

Everyone, I have done it. They tried to hunt me down, planted explosives in my dab lab and bees in my car, but I escaped the bombs and befriended the bees and now I’m here, here to present you with the final installment in my magnum opus, a comprehensive ranking of how likely each playable character in FE3H is to perform The Dab. Perhaps you thought I would stop at the Leicester Alliance and its students, surely finishing on the upbeat note of lighthearted Claude and pals, but much like von Riegan himself, von Hippoman has a scheme. Like a [SPOILER REDACTED] fired from [SPOILER REDACTED], I’m gonna blow your minds with all the Church of Seiros aligned characters too. Because you deserve to know. Let’s save Fodlan together.

Minor Spoilers For Post-Timeskip Will Follow!

The list, as always, is Canon. Thank you.

Claude: 14/10: The Master Tactician, the Golden Deer, the Schemer, the Dabmaster. There are many challengers to the throne, but Claude von Riegan sits comfortably upon it, arm bent, face in elbow, unleashing the one and only God-Shattering Dab.

(gravityemblem314 suggested a ranking of 69/10 for Claude, but please, this is science,not NICE science. @camelpimp mentioned that Claude likely instituted a mandatory pre-battle dab for the Golden Deer, that’s also canon.)

Alois: 12/10: The kids...they love to dab. Alois wants to be hip and cool with the kids, and if his jokes aren’t enough to do it, surely his sweet dabs will do it! Especially if he mixes them together. He can frequently be seen in the dining hall, asking for some extra sauce on his meals. When the students ask how much, he replies “Oh, just a...DAB” and he JUST FUCKIN’ LETS LOOSE.

Hilda: 10/10: Claude’s faithful (if not dependable) sidekick and friend shares in his affinity for the dab, but not quite to the same degree. Claude’s sick dabs require a level of effort frankly beyond the Goneril scion, so she’s more into casual usage. That said, it’s A LOT of usage. Raphael: 9/10: The big man of the Golden Deer loves to dab. He’s absolutely jacked, so the sheer power contained in those moves could shatter stone, and once did, resulting in a renovation of Raph’s dorm room and a migraine for Seteth. Despite his enthusiasm, he’s very, very bad at them, but nobody wants to point it out. He’s just so happy.

Flayn: 8/10: Flayn is absolutely in for this. She is totally, 100%, definitely a Young Human after all and this is what Young Humans do, they dab. Flayn does it all the time, often in a big circle with Annette, Caspar, and Claude. Seteth is yearning for the sweet embrace of death.

Catherine: 7/10: She’s usually pretty jazzed about something, and all that excess energy has to go somewhere. One time she impaled a man with Thunderbrand mid-dab but she doesn’t like to talk about it.

Manuela: 7/10: Manuela is at a crossroads. On one hand, it’s not the classiest thing in the world, and she’s a pretty classy lady with some standards, you know? But on the other hand, the students love it and they do say it makes her look younger. The debate is meaningless because when she gets drunk she just lets loose anyway.

Leonie: 6/10: High energy Leonie is always ready for a challenge, and this counts. She’d never seen a “dab” before coming to Garreg Mach, but it’s so much more fun than the usual high society shit people try to foist on her so hey, why not? Plus, she heard from Byleth that Jeralt knows how to hit the dab too. He was just covering a cough, though. He can’t convince her of that.

(thanks to kokorikopi for assisting in this fascinating Eisner Family Trivia)

Ignatz: 5/10: Sure, Ignatz never really had any interest in dabbing. It seemed sorta silly to him. But Raphael kept begging him to try it, and he wasn’t going to turn down such a pleasant request. So he did, and wait a minute. You could do something artsy with this, right? Ignatz is in search of a dab that is truly effervescent, an aesthetically pleasing pose to delight the senses and advance the culture of Fodlan through its grace. Godspeed, you young visionary.

(Raphael and Ignatz ideas contributed by gardenvarietyfox!)

Seteth: 5/10: Seteth got caught sneezing by Caspar once and he started chanting “DAB SETETH DAB”. It became a monastery meme for a while and Seteth could not leave his office without being hounded to perform the accursed dance. Flayn likes it, though, so he doesn’t mind. Too much. Okay he minds a lot.

Lorenz: 4/10: At first Lorenz Hellman Gloucester would rather have been eviscerated by a weedwhacker than do something so base as dab. However, through his experiences with his classmates, he came to realize that the dab is a powerful diplomatic tool. It speaks much with little effort and helps to connect with commoners across Fodlan. He still sucks at it but he’s trying.

Cyril: 4/10: Cyril wasn’t born in Fodlan, and frankly he finds their trends weird and doesn’t really care for them. But they’ll usually start cheering and get out of his way to let him get to cleaning if he does it, so hey, when in Rome...

Lysithea: 3/10: Lysithea is already extremely short, meaning her arms have little dab power. Whenever she dabs, someone calls it “cute” and it absolutely infuriates her. So dabbing is for fools, obviously. That said...after defeating a certain mounted masked marauder...she may have let herself indulge a little bit. Don’t tell anyone.

Hanneman: 2/10: Ain’t no Crest of Dabbylad now is there?

Marianne: 2/10: Oh, poor Marianne. She’s having a bad day, and a bad week, and a pretty crummy year. She doesn’t feel like she has anything to dab about, and if she does, everyone will probably just laugh at her and point their fingers at the bad dabber. Thankfully, the other Deer are there for her, and they gave her time. Eventually, slowly and carefully, she did it. It was terrible, but only one person told her that. Hilda Goneril was later seen tossing a mysterious sack into the Garreg Mach pond.

Shamir: 1/10: Catherine won’t stop doing it. She just will not stop doing it, and she’s so absolutely sick of it. She’s this close to shooting an arrow through one of her partner’s arms the next time she does it. Seiros hasn’t done anything about it yet and that’s why Shamir is an atheist.

Gilbert: 1/10: Dab? What is that? Does my daughter do that? Hmm. Didn’t get it from me. I ABANDONED HER. And so we reach the end. Through a comprehensive knowledge of the cast’s dabability, surely they can find a way to put aside their differences and work together to make a brighter future for Fodlan. By reading these posts, you have unlocked the Golden Ending. I had it all along. Thank you and goodnight.

#fe3h #fe16 #three houses #fire emblem #fe #dabs #claude #hilda #marianne #lysithea #lorenz #raphael #ignatz #leonie #cyril #alois #catherine #shamir #seteth #flayn #gilbert #manuela #hanneman

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baldwin-montclair · 5 years

Text

Baldwin’s Nightingale (Part 9)

Characters: Baldwin Montclair/OC

Timeframe: After the S1 Finale, TV Show canon MOSTLY (some S2 and Shadow of Night).

Spoilers: Shadow of Night, Book of Life and Time’s Convert

Summary: Baldwin and Alisha attend a charity silent auction where she gets to meet his other nephew, Gallowglass and a strange young witch with interesting abilities.

Tag requests: @christi14 @poemfreak306 @pookie-cleary

———

PART 1

PART 2

PART 3

PART 4

PART 5

PART 6

PART 7

PART 8

———

The drive was passed in relative silence but Alisha sensed Baldwin trying to think of something to say, deciding against it, then rewording, and then abandoning his train of thought, the entire time keeping his eyes on the road.

No small feat to render the world’s oldest politician speechless.

“You decided to drive yourself!” She pointed out, thinking of something to encourage him to speak.

“Seemed safer.” He answered, still intent on the task at hand, even more so than the night of their ‘date’.

Something had definitely changed in his demeanour, he was more alert to every source of movement.

“You don’t trust your driver?”

“I trust myself more.” He glanced across at her, “be careful tonight, do not go anywhere alone. Do you understand?”

“You really think a bunch of vampires and witches are going to crash a formal event?” She teased.

He sighed and shot her a warning glance.

“Okay,” she held up her hands in mock surrender, “at your command, my lord!”

Finally, he cracked a smile at this.

“Marcus is right, I think I might like hearing you say that a bit too much!”

“Good.” She noticed his bare wrist.

“Did you forget your watch?”

In what could only be described as instinct, he placed his hand over where it should be.

“Fuck! How did I forget that?”

“Are you alright?” She regarded the usually unflappable vampire with concern.

“Honestly, I’m not sure,” he admitted, “this is an unusual situation.”

“You’ve never gone to one of these fancy events with a plus one before?”

“I have, more times than I can count.”

“Wow, I feel so special now.” She teased.

“No, that’s...that’s not what I meant.”

“I know, I was just messing with you.”

“Are you up for this? Truly? If you don’t want to do this tonight, we don’t have to, I’ll think of something else.”

“No, I want to, I’m curious. Usually end up in the corner with the rest of the orchestra at these things, will be interesting to see it as a guest. Besides, you told me the congregation are worried you’ve kidnapped me or whatever. Seeing us at an event together will put out that fire.”

He glanced across at her.

“What?” She asked, sensing the question he was unsure about asking.

“How are you, really?”

“I’m sad,” she admitted with a shrug, “I miss Michael. I’m also fucking furious at this Gerbert bastard who’s the cause of what happened to him. But, at least I can say that now because I’m not hyper focused on being terrified, thanks to you.”

“I didn’t do anything.” He reiterated.

“You know that you don’t have to do anything beyond just be there? Not everything needs a response or a fix. Besides, I’ve been living your space for a couple of days, you bought me this probably insanely expensive dress and this terrifyingly heavy jewellery to go with it.”

“That’s nothing and you’re staying with me until it’s safe.”

“You think that’s not doing anything? Just be you, it’s helping.”

“‘Me’ can be kind of an asshole.”

“Don’t you dare talk about you like that!” She ribbed gently, making him laugh.

“I’ll try.”

“Feel a bit less uptight?”

“Yes,” he nodded, “the last time you did that we hadn’t even spoken yet.”

“What do you mean?”

“The first time I heard you play, I was so close to firing the entire trading floor. You saved a lot of people their jobs.”

“I knew there was a vampire there that night, your stare is kind of intense. Then, it actually softened, I thought I was imagining it.”

“Your playing is amazing, I would love to hear it again, when you’re ready.”

“Well,” she grinned, “if you’re good, I might treat you to a private concert later!”

Alisha had entered this building possibly hundreds of times in her life, the New York Public Library. Between returning books for Michael or as part of an orchestra for an expensive wedding reception, she thought she knew it well enough.

It was much different being on the other side of the complimentary champagne, especially when Baldwin seemed to be the guest of honour.

“I feel like I’m on a date with Bruce Wayne.” She whispered to him as they made their way through the obviously wealthy crowd.

“Who?” He asked, then smiled when she gave him a shocked look.

“Hilarious.” She retorted.

“Baldwin Montclair,” a man she recognised as the mayor approached, “I always invite you in the vain hope you’ll attend. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate your contributions. That said, I was surprised to receive your bid for this one. It’s not a collection you’re usually interested in.”

He turned his attention to Alisha.

“Do I have you to thank for this Miss...” he held out his hand in greeting.

“Black, Alisha Black,” she accepted the handshake, “Mr Mayor, I don’t believe anyone could influence his mind on anything.”

“That’s not true, I believe both myself and Mr Montclair here share the same weakness. Beauty, my dear.”

Baldwin cleared his throat.

“Speaking of which, I haven’t see your lovely wife, is she quite well?” The forced look of innocence on Baldwin’s face as he asked the question was something to behold.

“Uh, no...dear thing she is quite poorly this evening. If you’ll excuse me!” He hurried off.

“What was that about?”

“Mayor Family Values is sleeping with his intern,” he nodded towards the twenty-year-old he was approaching, “the reason his patient wife is not here.”

“How do you even know that?”

“Vampire senses, sometimes we pick up things we wish we hadn’t.”

“And I though daemons cornered the market on gossip, that must be really quite handy for you.”

“How so?”

“Blackmail, spying, that sort of thing.”

“This from the woman who introduces herself like she’s 007, Black, Alisha Black.”

“I knew it!”

“What?”

“You might not follow popular culture but I knew you’d like James Bond!”

“Perhaps my particular talents have helped me in some cases.”

“Baldwin the spy, that’s interesting.”

“I was never the spy, that’s Matthew’s domain.”

“What’s yours?”

“Tactics, discovering the chinks in the armour, the break in the ranks. Finding weaknesses and exploiting them.”

“What if there’s no weakness?”

“There always is.”

“Ah, you’re the General.”

“I suppose.”

“So what’s the General’s weakness?” She asked playfully but the way his eyes flit from hers to survey the room told her she may have overstepped.

“Sir,” a waiter stood with a silver tray on which rested a crystal whiskey glass, “and for the lady?” He asked when Baldwin lifted the glass.

Baldwin saved her by handing her the glass.

“I’ll have the same again.” He told the waiter.

“Thank you, I had no idea what I was supposed to ask for.” She told him before taking a drink.

“You ask for whatever you want,” he told her pointedly, “always ask for whatever you want!”

Alisha felt the flitting sensation of cold from across the room as an alarmingly tall but genial enough looking vampire approached them both.

Even if he did have an expression of surprise.

“Uncle, I really did not think you would be here.” The blonde greeted with the same respectful tone Marcus used.

“You’re Gallowglass, right?” Alisha asked.

“Yes,” the vampire’s expression lightened, “he’s been telling you about me!”

“Not exactly,” Baldwin scowled, “this is-“

“Alisha, I know,” Gallowglass gave her a polite nod, “Marcus has already shared the gossip with me about the beautiful violinist who has utterly enthralled our dear Uncle Baldwin!”

“Tell him it was nice to meet him, he left before I had a chance to say so myself. I doubt your dear Uncle Baldwin will pass that on.” She answered to receive a hearty laugh before he went back to looking around with a slightly nervous air.

“Why are you here, you despise these events?” Baldwin asked.

“That’s not true, I-“

“Gallowglass, there you are.” At his side was a smaller young woman, still taller than Alisha and with an athletic bearing. Stunningly beautiful with long, dark, curled hair and piercing blue eyes.

“Becca, you can’t be here right-“

“Nonsense!” She responded with some excitement.

Baldwin’s attention was elsewhere, he did not see the amused and familiar gaze the young woman was giving him.

“Apologies, Gallowglass, keep Alisha entertained for a moment.” Baldwin stated distractedly.

“I’m kind in the middle-“ Gallowglass protested.

“That wasn’t a request!”

“Yes Seur!” Gallowglass responded like an army private given an order by a superior officer.

“I’m sorry about that,” Alisha told Gallowglass when Baldwin left, “he’s-“

“No need, I know my Uncle,” Gallowglass answered with a comforting smile, “where are my manners, Alisha, this is Rebecca.”

“Becca.” The girl held her hand out and Alisha accepted the gesture, a witch, possibly.

It was difficult to tell.

“Are you a friend of the family?” Alisha asked her, eliciting a giggle.

“That’s an interesting way to put it.” She checked her watch.

It was an odd selection for such a stylish young woman. Antique, brown leather straps with a custom hole to fit her slender wrist and a large clock face with multiple dials, most likely a man’s timepiece, like an old fashioned pilot’s watch from the 40’s.

It was definitely an antique.

“You stay, I’ll deal with that small problem,” Becca told him, turning back to Alisha, “It’s nice to meet you.”

Gallowglass frowned at her statement but she was gone before he could voice his displeasure.

“She’s strange! I like her!” Alisha told him with a smile.

“We’ll see!” He answered just as cryptically.

“Apologies.” Baldwin returned.

“I should have known!” Gallowglass rolled his eyes.

“What?” Alisha looked between them.

“I’ll tell you, when the bid is successful.” Baldwin answered.

“What’d you bid on?” She asked him.

“You know that Matthew has one in his tower? Just ask him for it...when he gets back.” Gallowglass suggested.

“We have a winner of our Lot One. A recently uncovered Guarneri Violin. Created by Bartolomeo Giuseppe Guarneri, del Gesu circa 1725. Congratulations to our anonymous benefactor Bidder 45, and thanks on behalf of the arts of this great city.” The mayor announced to a round of applause.

“That is at least seventeen million.” Alisha told them both.

“Is that all?” Gallowglass grinned.

“I don’t understand, how’s anyone supposed to know who won, or what bid won?” She asked as the Mayor proceeded to announce the winners of the other lots.

“That’s kind of the point, the lots are worth a fortune. For security and privacy the bidders are kept confidential.” Gallowglass explained.

“That makes sense. I saw a necklace that had to be at least a million dollars.”

“If it’s the one I think you mean, times that by at least five!” The blonde laughed.

“I’m sorry, I think I just had a stroke, what did you say?” She stared, stunned.

“Marie Antionette owned it, for a time.” Baldwin chimed in.

“Yikes.”

“Exactly.”

“So, did you win?” She asked Baldwin.

He retrieved his phone from his pocket, reminding her that she still needed to replace the one Christina broke.

“I’ll let you both get back to it, I have to go see what kind of trouble that Lass got herself into. I’ll catch up later. Alisha, you have put me on equal gossip footing with Marcus,” he put his hand over his heart, “I thank you.”

“I’m glad to have met you Gallowglass.”

“The witch? Be careful.” Baldwin told him sternly.

“Uncle, you have no idea!” He left them and Baldwin turned his attention to his phone before standing behind her.

“Baldwin, what are you-“

“Shh,” he whispered lightly in her ear, “I have a gift for you, close your eyes.”

Excitedly, she did as he told her as he took the glass from her and put the phone in her hands.

“This had better not be that necklace.” She warned him jokingly.

“Open them.”

The words on the phone didn’t register initially until she realised what she was seeing.

Baldwin Montclair - Bidder 45

She dragged in a breath that seemed to stick there.

“You can’t.”

“I did, it’s already paid for.”

“It’s far too much, seventeen million dollars.”

“There was some light competition, so it was actually twenty-two million.”

“But-“

“You don’t like it.”

“Like it? I’m terrified to look at it in case just doing that decreases the value.”

“At that price you’ll do more than look at it.”

“You’re not suggesting-“

“It was created to be loved by someone and it deserves that person to be you.”

“I really want to say thank you but that is so not enough.” She turned to look at him, oblivious to the judgemental eyes around them.

“Words can be inadequate, for what matters. We sometimes have to let our actions speak for us.” He agreed, tucking her hair behind her ear, his faint smile thoughtful.

“Do you understand?”

It wasn’t the expense, or even the before-believed-unreachable-prize, but what it meant and what he was saying with it that moved her to lean forward, close enough so that only he could hear.

“I love you too.” She told him and started to pull back to see his reaction, with slight trepidation, hoping she hadn’t misread his non-verbal statement.

Instead he held her close

“We need to go home, now,” he told her, his voice just above a growl, “or there’s a danger that I take you right here in front of these people.

“What makes you think I’d try and stop you?” She hit back, the change in his voice and his possessive words igniting her own arousal.

“Tempting, but I don’t think so. I want you, to myself, in my bed and gasping my name because you’re hoarse from screaming it!” He took her hand and led her quickly out of the hall and towards the valet.

All she could do was marvel at his ability to claim the last word as there was nothing she could say to follow his detailed plans for the rest of the evening.

———

Rebecca watched Baldwin and Alisha drive off from her place on the balcony of the building as Gallowglass joined her.

“You don’t know who she is, do you?” He asked her.

“Of course I know who she is.” She looked him in the eye as she answered, completely truthfully.

“Aye, but you’ve never met her before!”

“You know I can’t tell you about the future I’m from.”

“I remember that from when your parents tracked me down the first time, dear cousin. For them that’ll be happening now! Time-walking is a guaranteed headache!”

“She’s his mate, isn’t she?” She asked him and he gave a nod.

“All things considered, I wish she wasn’t.”

Rebecca gave him a questioning look.

“I’ve always gotten along with your father more than I have our Uncle, but to find and lose his mate in so short a time, I wouldn’t wish that on him.”

“I didn’t say-“ she started.

“Just because I’m pretty, doesn’t mean I’m dumb!” He joked.

“Who knows, maybe all this time messing we’ve been doing will change something!”

“Becca!”

“I’ll see you...soon!” She grinned and gave the vampire a hug.

“It’ll be a while before you can talk and even longer, I imagine, that you stop!”

“No, otherwise how would I get a word in with you around!”

“Oh, so I am still around am I?”

“Merde!” She swore.

“You are your father’s daughter!”

———

PART 10

#baldwin montclair #baldwin de clermont #adow spoilers #baldwin’s nightingale #adow fic #adow #a discovery of witches

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reconditarmonia · 4 years

Text

Dear Chocolate Box Author

Hi! Thank you for writing for me! I’m reconditarmonia here and on AO3. I have anon messaging off, but mods should be able to contact me if you have any questions.

Dishonored | Fullmetal Alchemist | Machineries of Empire | The Penumbra Podcast | Simoun

General likes:

– Relationships that aren’t built on romance or attraction. They can be romantic or sexual as well, but my favorite ships are all ones where it would still be interesting or compelling if the romantic component never materialized.

– Loyalty kink! Trust, affectionate or loving use of titles, gestures of loyalty, replacing one’s situational or ethical judgment with someone else’s, risking oneself (physically or otherwise) for someone else, not doing so on their orders. Can be commander-subordinate or comrades-in-arms.

– Heists, or other stories where there’s a lot of planning and then we see how the plan goes.

– Femslash, complicated or intense relationships between women, and female-centric gen. Women doing “male” stuff (possibly while crossdressing).

– Stories whose emotional climax or resolution isn’t the sex scene, if there is one.

– Uniforms/costumes/clothing.

– Stories, history, and performance. What gets told and how, what doesn’t get told or written down, behavior in a society where everyone’s consuming media and aware of its tropes, how people create their personas and script their own lines.

Smut Likes: clothing, uniforms, sexual tension, breasts, manual sex, cunnilingus, grinding, informal d/s elements, intensity; stories whose resolution isn’t the sex scene.

A note: if we matched on an / ship, I generally don't require you to include a kiss, sex, or overt romantic language if you feel that you'd have to shoehorn it in. I'll trust that you wrote it with shippy intent.

General DNW: rape/dubcon, torture, other creative gore; unrequested AUs, including “same setting, different rules” AUs such as soulmates/soulbonds; PWP; food sex; embarrassment; focus on pregnancy; Christmas/Christian themes; focus on unrequested canon or non-canon ships.

—

Fandom: Dishonored

Ship(s): Delilah Copperspoon/Billie Lurk; Breanna Ashworth & Kirin Jindosh; Emily Kaldwin & Delilah Copperspoon

I find Delilah such a fantastic and fascinating villain, and I'd love to read more about her relationships with Billie or Emily. I’d love to know more about Billie’s time in Delilah’s gang - what does she see in Delilah, or Delilah in her, beyond using each other to get ahead, what do they want from each other? I imagine it might fascinate and please Delilah to have Billie’s submission and maybe even some level of trust - to do what? It'd be neat to read an AU of the end of KoD where Billie stays in Dunwall, whether she's won or lost against Daud - or even of the end of Brigmore Witches, if you want to AU Delilah's plot into something that doesn't put her into a child's body. Something addressing clothing (given the iconic costumes of both the Witches and the Whalers) and/or nudity? Something in the timeskip or DH2 timeframe? With regard to Emily, I'm specifically interested in adult Emily here - what happens if Emily doesn't escape at the beginning of DH2? (Or is captured at some point, I guess.) Delilah seems happy enough to keep her alive - does she make her a witch, want her in court as her niece? How does Emily feel about any of this as she learns about Delilah's past? Or, does Emily maintain a relationship with her aunt after the end of DH2, whether because there's a way to visit or communicate with her or in an AU where she's defeated differently and sticks around? How might Delilah's art fit into any of these scenarios? The differences in how they fight?

I would also love fic about Breanna and Jindosh's terrible friendship/working relationship. Is their distaste for everyone else enough to overcome their distaste for each other? Put them at a fancy party (Luca's or otherwise) kvetching about other people. Tell me more about the lead-up to the seance, or mutual projects where Breanna contributed more of the magic and Jindosh more of the science - or vice versa! Breanna's got a very scientific mind and career herself and Jindosh isn't above dabbling in Void shit. Get them drunk together one night. If you can futz with the numbers enough for it to make sense, write me an AU where they're in an arranged marriage and end up as a (secretly? idk) platonic power couple. (If you go with this version I'd prefer that you write Jindosh as gay or asexual.)

Fandom-Specific DNW/Exception: Please do not touch on Jindosh's nonlethal option in any way whatsoever. With regard to Delilah/Billie, I have dubcon in my general DNWs but with Delilah’s...everything it seems potentially unreasonable to categorically DNW it here. Billie going along with things because she feels like she should or must is fine (although I’d also be very game for fic about her desiring and wanting Delilah/this), but I still don’t want to read anything involving altered or removed ability to consent such as mind-altering magic, sex pollen, drugs, etc. Additionally, Delilah/Breanna is an exception to my unrequested ships DNW - feel free to include it in any of these requests.

—

Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist

Ship(s): Scar & Original Ishvalan Character(s); Scar & Miles; Olivier Mira Armstrong & Miles & Briggs Soldiers

One of the things that really hit close to home about canon was the Ishval plot; I like that it’s important and not just backstory or setup for other stuff, and that there are multiple characters who are Ishvalan or of Ishvalan descent, rather than a genocide plot being a convenient reason to have one or no Ishvalan perspectives in the story. I’d really be interested in reading anything about, well, what do you do during or in the wake of a genocide: Miles’s seemingly increasing identification with his Ishvalan background; one or both of them in the post-canon rebuilding; what is is to be Amestrian *and* Ishvalan; what Scar (or OCs) are able to keep from their culture and community and what was lost (and what evolves), whether that’s in “Amestrian” cities and towns during or after canon, or in post-canon Ishval; saving the testimonies or the culture. Doesn’t need to be angsty if that’s not what you’re into; indeed, surviving/building a new life/finding joy/celebrating one’s culture and heritage after that kind of thing are meaningful too.

Or, Briggs and its mixture of heartwarming and id-satisfying loyalty kink. (The watch! Buccaneer handing Olivier a clean pair of gloves after she kills Raven! Constant and deeply sincere saluting! And Olivier's lack of patience for anyone's shit.) Either ordinary or extraordinary circumstances - daily life in the fort, a battle with Drachma where they work together seamlessly, surviving a storm or the typical winter cold - would make me happy, but I especially love those shows of loyalty. Entire Briggs Is Gay would also non-ironically be neat, as would other ways of exploring the idea of Briggs being a united wall made up of people with a lot of secrets and/or racial and gender differences.

Fandom-Specific DNW: Please don’t give Scar a name; I personally am fine eliding any narration issues with “how would he refer to himself in his own POV?” in my brain. I would also prefer that Ishvalan culture be worldbuilt rather than borrowed wholesale from a real-life culture.

—

Fandom: Machineries of Empire

Ship(s): Ajewen Cheris & Garach Jedao Shkan; Ajewen Cheris & Original Mwennin Characters; Ajewen Cheris/Neshte Khiruev; Moroish Nija/Shuos Feiyed; Vauhan Mikodez & Zehun

I've just recently gotten into this fandom, and I love the loyalty kink and the worldbuilding so much - I just want more! I'm partway through Revenant Gun now, so my prompts are somewhat unspecific, but I expect to be done with Glass Cannon by the time of reveals, so don't worry about spoilers.

Anyway, as I said, I love loyalty kink, including platonic loyalty kink - trust, gestures of loyalty, the times that trust or willingness to follow/lead is put under severe situational strain and holds, or the places where these things get thorny instead of straightforward because one character has to betray or hurt the other for the larger goal that they both believe in and work towards, or to keep the other safe. Some of the things I like in canon along these lines are Mikodez's showing Zehun the contingency plans in Raven Stratagem, and everything with "I'm your gun" (which I'm vaguely aware that I'm going to love even more by the time I'm caught up). Any story for Cheris & Jedao, Cheris/Khiruev, or Mikodez & Zehun that involved these tropes would be wonderful.

I'm also interested in the Mwennin subplot. I would love to know more about Cheris, Mwennin culture, and other Mwennin at any point before, during, or after canon. I also like the idea of Nija and Feiyed staying in touch after Feiyed rescues/recruits Nija, and Feiyed gradually learning about Mwennin culture as they start/continue a relationship - we know it can be adoptive, so does she even at any point start to consider herself part of it? (Or have them work together on a covert mission, no reason we shouldn't get loyalty kink in here too.)

Fandom-Specific DNW: I have dubcon in my general DNWs and would like to reiterate that I don't want to read formation instinct playing a part in a Cheris/Khiruev relationship.

—

Fandom: The Penumbra Podcast

Ship(s): Miasma/The Proctor

What can I say? Criminal older female academics would be a GREAT ship. I'd love to see their first meeting at some conference or academic event (or criminal thing), or their first date, or the two of them working together on some scheme - does Miasma "consult" the Proctor, or does the Proctor want to create an exam based on Miasma's field of expertise, or are they both going for the same goal? What do they like about each other, or find frustrating about each other? (If you need to fudge the timelines to make it work, that's fine, but I'm definitely interested in the characters as middle-aged or older. Also fine by me if you want to somehow AU their fates to get them together in the "present" timeline.)

—

Fandom: Simoun

Ship(s): Any (Aaeru & Neviril & Paraietta & Rodoreamon & Floef & Vyuraf; Aaeru/Neviril; Mamiina & Neviril; Mamiina/Neviril; Neviril/Aaeru & Neviril/Paraietta; Paraietta & Neviril; Paraietta/Rodoreamon)

This is a perennial request for me and anything (other than, I guess, the slice-of-lifeiest slice-of-life) would make me very happy, but I'm particularly interested in the military side of the canon - how the war changes all the characters and their relationships with one another, how Everything is Beautiful and Then Shit Gets Real but amidst the war-is-hell there’s still the creation of bonds of trust and loyalty and chances to do what’s right (the bits with the Plumbish priestesses, for instance). Every character gets a chance to develop and make choices that are all brave in different ways. I'd love loyalty kink here, but I'm also up for Magic, for an exploration of the characters' adult lives on the other end of the series's coming-of-age, or nearly anything.

Some ideas - what happens post-canon if Neviril and Aeru make it back to the main world when war is brewing again, but Neviril has no one from the old cohort to lead because they can’t fly anymore? What does she do, or see her role as being - a leader for peace, for war? How do she and Aaeru interact with Paraietta, Rodoreamon, Floef, and Vyuraf?

What happens if due to magic or time weirdness, Mamiina is brought back? What happens between her and Neviril late in canon or post-canon? How do they see or value each other as fighters and leaders?

What's Paraietta and Rodoreamon's post-canon relationship like? They're building a life together and finding purpose in helping the war orphans, but they're also both veterans and neither of them is the other's lost love. Or I'd also love to see a during- or post-canon look at a situation where Neviril has relationships with both Paraietta and Aaeru, how she maybe needs different things from them, and how they also work together differently on the battlefield - or just a story about the relationship of Neviril and her long-loyal second-in-command Paraietta.

#dear author letters #dishonored #fma #machineries of empire #juno steel #simoun

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comp6841 · 5 years

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Lectures - Week 8

Exam Movie & Accident

The movie ‘The China Syndrome’ is going to be needed for one of the questions in the final exam. It’s going to be shown in the security theatre in week 9, but my memory isn’t that great so I might have to get it from elsewhere closer to the actual exam date. Without going into spoilers, it basically involves a cameraman and a reporter who witness a SCRAM event in a nuclear power plant in California. They manage to initiate the emergency shutdown procedure to prevent a catastrophe, but the plant manager still suspects it isn’t safe and wants to bring it to the attention of the public.

There also is going to be a generic question on either: Chernobyl, Bhopal or Challenger. I know Chernobyl pretty well as I’ve watched a heap of documentaries on it and similarly with Challenger, except with a more detailed writeup on my blog. Maybe I’ll do some more research on the Bhopal disaster in the next couple weeks, as I don’t know too much about that.

Root Cause Analysis

Often when something goes wrong with a system we resort to a process known as root cause analysis; this means tracing back the flow of events to try and discover the factors which contributed to an accident. The problem is that in a lot of circumstances when it is applied, we like to assign blame to one individual in particular; we like things to be simple, but this is unrealistic. The one thing that is common to every single cause is that it involved human error to some extent - whether it be an inspector, someone who manufactured the part 5 years, someone who designed the computing systems or a person who installed the component.

In aviation for example, “last touch” is almost a running joke in the sense (not that people may have died obviously) that the last person to touch a part in a plane responsible for an accident almost always gets the boot. When the issue that led to an incident resides throughout an organisation, this typically requires a larger overhaul - a complete chance of organisational culture. They need to try and re-education everyone and being able to do this successfully is hard.

Human Weaknesses

I think by now everyone knows that humans are bad at telling the truth; when they do this depends on social judgement. For example, if they know they can gain an advantage without getting caught and face no social judgement, they are usually okay with doing it. However, if there are potential repercussions then they usually carefully weigh up the consequences for dishonesty with the possible reward and make a judgement.

When we looked at magic tricks earlier in the term, I think they clearly demonstrated how easy for us to get distracted or misdirected. It’s essentially a form of social engineering - we just love to focus on what is psychologically salient as opposed to what is logically important.

Another idea of satisficing links fairly nicely with truthfulness in humans; basically we’re only willing to lie to the extent that we know we can get away with. Or more appropriately, in a uni course you might decide to do the bare minimum just to get a credit - you might value other aspects of your life more and decide to do the bare minimum in certain areas. Some other inherent humans flaws are:

Bounded irrationality - decision making is limited by the information you have, the limits of your mind and the time you have to make a choice

Preferences for positivity - we want to accept the most positive outcome

Group-think syndrome - often have a preference to ‘keep the peace’ within groups for fear of social exclusion; can result in bad decision-making processes

Confirmation bias - only caring about the evidence that supports what you believe

Heuristics

Humans often rely on heuristics when determining the outcomes of situations and the associated risks. A number of types were mentioned:

Similarity matching - thinking of a similar situation that occurred in the past and applying it to the current circumstances

Frequency gambling - if many patterns match, you pick the one you are a most familiar with (a ‘natural reaction’); relies on the logic that what ‘worked in the past’ must ‘work in the future’

Availability heuristic - relies on how easily something can be brought to a person’s mind; people estimate the how frequent an event is based on how easily it can be brought to mind

Designing Code

Just some general ideas to think about when designing code:

Minimise complexity - no one component should be too complex; higher risk of errors

Coupling of components - try to avoid this because if one component is broken then the other will probably break

Cohesion - this is a good idea and involves nearby components making use of each other, while more distant ones don’t tend to

Following these rules makes it easy to build and maintain a system which is resilient to attack; if everything is tightly coupled it is hard to provide defense in depth.

3 Mile Island

We were told to watch ‘Chernobyl’ for homework again; yay I’ve already done that - love it when you’ve already inherently done the homework! I don’t think its really necessary to know the details of 3-mile island except for the fact that a cooling malfunction meant that part of the core in reactor 2 melted. This resulted in them having to release some radioactive gas a couple days after the accident.

I think the whole point of this discussion was to highlight the issues associated with highly complex systems. In the case of nuclear reactors, this makes them highly coupled such that small changes in one area of a system can lead to massive changes in other areas.

Extended Seminar: Privacy

I totally agreed with the first point of this presentation - it’s definitely all about a sacrifice of privacy for convenience. I’m pretty sure I would have great privacy if I wasn’t connected to the internet and lived on a remote deserted island, but it wouldn’t exactly be the most interesting or exciting existence. The main concern an individual might have with regards to information being online is it being used as blackmail against them; anything for a ‘quick buck’ these days it seems right? They went over some techniques you can use to protect your privacy online including:

Incognito mode - doesn’t store browsing history or cookies but not very effective against other forms of tracking

Privacy-oriented browsers - you could use search engines like ‘Duck Duck Go’ which don’t track you like Google, however if anyone in your household isn’t as concerned about their privacy as you, Google could probably still link you back up

Protecting your accounts - logout when you can, don’t like your accounts and lie about personal details

VPN (Virtual Private Network) - intermediate body between you and the internet server, so the external entity sees them (not you); traffic is encrypted

Onion routing (i.e. ) - encrypt data N times and obfuscate the origin through forwarding through a series of nodes; each of the N nodes peels back a layer of the decryption on the way to the destination

Can make yourself vulnerable by logging into accounts or through timing attacks

There was an interesting discussion regarding the “nothing to hide” argument presented by people who don’t care about widespread surveillance. Now the first counter-argument against this is the fact that you “haven’t thought of anything yet”. Also a single piece of data may not seem important but once you combine them all together you can learn extraordinary amounts about an individual - and who knows how this information could be used!

Extended Seminar: Digital Forensics

This branch of forensics is basically concerned with recovery of material on digital devices. There are 3 main stages in a digital forensics investigation usually:

(1) Acquisition / imaging

Capturing an image of a drive

Following the ‘paper trail’

Hashing

(2) Analysis

Keyword searches

Recover deleted files

Special tools used

(3) Reporting

Evidence used to construct events / actions

Layman report written

Some of the different types of forensics:

Computer forensics

Memory

Data

Mobile device

Phone

Network forensics

Router

Switches

Packet captures

Database forensics

Video / audio forensics

Movie files

Audio recorded

Steganography

The basic idea behind data forensics involves trying to re-establish the headers for files - when a file is deleted, the OS simply deletes the point to the file and marks the space under the FAT or FMT as available. Even if you overwrite the data, the overwrite is not perfect and still leaves traces of the original data. You usually need to overwrite tens of times at a minimum and test it to have any degree of certainty. I’m guessing the activity is probably going to have the flag steganographically written into the least significant bits or something...

#week8 #lectures #reflection

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theostry · 6 years

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TW Script liveblog - Season 1 Episode 1: Wolf Moon

Or, as it is otherwise known:

Teen Wolf Scripts!

Check it out, Wolfiends. This is a loooooong post consisting of screenshots of the Teen Wolf script alongside my own rambling commentary. I'm not here to review the show; finer minds than myself have got that covered. Nor is it a photo-recap; that has been done by crazier bastards than myself. What I am here for is scraping the bottom of the barrel so hard I'm eating splinters, give me that Teenage Lupine content, give me ALL OF THE CONTENT--

*ahem*

Excerpts have been selected based on the following criteria: 1) It did not make the final cut; 2) It substantially altered; 3) It offers extra detail not apparent from the show, such as description and direction; and 4) I felt like including it.

Fun times (and, obviously, a hell of a lot of spoilers) below the cut.

(What the heckie do these colours mean? We may never know)

So let's get started.

Answering the real questions here: Scott's shirtlessness was script mandated, not just a case of Posey being slightly allergic to clothes. Let's all take a moment to think about Scott's lithe frame and then go to jail reminisce over how it felt when we had no idea what he would come to mean to us. Sigh.

Aaaaand paydirt! Here is a lovely little scene we never saw on screen.

Doesn't really tell us anything we didn't learn soon enough, but any McCall family time is time well spent. And I'm not sorry they deleted the casual clumsiness from Scott's intro, so I can keep my headcanon that he had mad lacrosse skills from all his practising but just couldn't play due to asthma.

A wild Stiles appears!

And it is the perfect intro to his character, easy to see why they didn't change a thing. DOB nailed it.

Before long, we are introduced to--

-- Wait, hold up, who? Looks like Stiles's dad got a promotion sometime between "Double Buff" and filming. Congrats, John Michael Noah!

Seriously, though, consider the extra layer of politics and secrecy that would have been going on if he was just a deputy rather than Sheriff. What a different show it would have been, especially in later seasons.

WHY, JEFF DAVIS? WHY ARE YOU COMMENTING ON THE ‘BEAUTY’ OF A GHASTLY SEVERED CORPSE? HOW IS THIS WOMAN'S ATTRACTIVENESS OR OTHERWISE RELEVANT TO THE SITUATION? DID SCOTT PAUSE MID-PANIC TO THINK "WOW SHE IS HOT (ALSO DEAD AND BISECTED)"? /end rant

But now it's time for--

--and that means

Back to school time!

Setting the scene. Californians, is this a fair representation of your high school experience? Asking for research purposes.

Also, petition for girls and girls also to be able to hold hands. Down with the patriarchy.

It's everyone's favourite juice enthusiast! Looks like the Sheriff wasn't the only one who moved up in the world over the course of the script revision process - Jackson only had a BMW here instead of his Porsche.

As with Stiles's intro, we achieve Peak Jackson in his very first scene:

*snort*

And while we're doing intros--

But wait, this is a game changer -- you think you know how it does, right? Breezing past Stiles as if he wasn't even there, completely ignoring him? Well THINK AGAIN!

Yeah I lied.

So this is new - Scott's hearing was going to be much stronger here, perceiving the caller's voice as well from that distance! What secrets shall be revealed from the other half of this conversation?

Huh. Yeah, that contributed nothing, and would have had absurd implications for werewolf hearing. Also would have been a totally banal first glimpse of Victoria Argent, which is just unacceptable.

Did this happen? I don't recall it. Would have been a cool shot.

*Curiosity is piqued*

I confuse. Is this an editing fail? Two versions of the scene that got smooshed together? Or does Lydia swoop twice (possible Banshee prefiguring)?

I like the book-spilling version. It establishes Allison as kind.

But this bit --

-- I do not like. It seems to suggest that there was always something about Allison that helped Scott control his shift, or even suppressed it? Rather than it being his feelings for her that reminded him of his humanity and strengthened his will. Nopity nope.

Now for another intro:

It's Harley!

Yeah, I didn’t know either. I guess she got shafted for some reason…which is a pity, because the girl has got snark.

SHOTS FIRED.

Meanwhile…is Harley into Scott? Were we going to have a triangle of luuurve? Not sorry we didn't, triangles are an overrated romantical shape (unless they're equilateral ones, but for some reason teen shows are all about the isosceles and I am over it), but Harley could have been an actual character. RIP, girl I could have liked.

Also RIP Harley's heart, because

Thus far we have had character intros that were Peak Stiles, Peak Jackson and Peak Lydia ('s queen bitch façade). Now we have one that is a massive understatement:

Oh, sweet summer children. We ain't seen nothing yet.

Do you sometimes forget how mutually toxic Lydia and Jackson's relationship was? Ugh.

Excellent priorities, Scott. But so far so canon.

A FIGURE

Who's it gonna be, ohmigosh mysterious figure--

Ohmigosh, is it--

*ahem* sorry

Okay I think I'm beginning to understand why we absolutely had to know about the ravishing beauty of corpse-lady: Jeff Davis is simply incapable of giving a description of anyone without reminding us how attractive they are. HEY EVERYONE! THIS IS A SHOW FOR HOT PEOPLE! EYE CANDY OVER HERE!

…waitaminute, back the truck up.

WhaaAAAAAT?

*thinking forward to skeevy Kate plotline, Hale fire was 6 years ago, runnin' the numbers, doin' the math*

19 minus 6 equals …KATE you EFFING PEDO GET in the BIN RIGHT NOW--

--nah just kidding, they obviously decided to age him up sometime after this edit. Also, as has been observed, Jeff Davis inhabits a world blissfully innocent of such things as calendars.

Now I hope I have sufficiently distracted my audience with squicks and figures, because I want to sneak this one through without getting crucified.

Okay we're done here, on to--

Really, there's nothing--

One million hardcore Sterek shippers: *collectively lose their shit*

One innocent liveblogger: *hides*

All twelve Scerek shippers: *are validated*

Someone sensible: It's just one line of direction in a first meeting, it doesn't mean--

One desperate liveblogger: OKAY, MOVING ON

This is such a great scene -- the terror of all those panicking cats, Scott wanting to calm them but, realising he is the problem, freaks out himself -- and it just got even better, because there's something missing here that we saw on-screen.

While it could have come in a later revision, I choose to believe that singing "hey, kitties!" in greeting was just Tyler Posey's natural instinct upon walking into a room full of feline friends.

But now Allison is here, and Scott has passed off the panic baton to her.

Woooo Scott is getting his wolf on! But he doesn't seem to know it yet. I wonder from whose perspective Scott's calm is supposed to be 'odd', because I wouldn't have expected him to get worked up about an injured dog given his job. And how many wolves has Jeff Davis met? I don't think their eyes typically glow, outside of tapetum lucidum reflections. But what do I know, I'm not a zoologist.

Also -- they were supposed to have an umbrella? Budget cuts are brutal.

Do you ever forget how adorable Scallison were before things got complicated? Can I get an "Awww"?

It's also nice that they gave Allison reasons to be interested in Scott beyond 'he's cute' and 'he noticed me'. She admires him for his competence and gentleness here, she's seen him excelling at sports without being a douche about it, and their first interaction was one of generosity. This is why it's disappointing that they cut the bit where Allison helps a stranger with her books -- it's a pity they didn't show us Scott's reasons for liking Allison beyond 'she's pretty'. A sadly typical imbalance in Hollywood: boys are admirable for what they do, girls for how they look. Thank all the gods and little fishes that Allison subverts the hell out of this trope later on.

Is this or is this not the cutest interaction? It gets better:

Cats are one thing, Scotty, but you gotta think about your choices when dogs are judging you.

Now who’s being judgemental

'Litigious', Scott? And before the word-a-day calendar regime, too. Insert comment about American litigation culture here.

Scott is definitely talking about the dog not at all about himself why would you say that--

Okay so Scott's having his weird woodsy sleepwalking dream now, and I have to go back and check because -- white? Why are the Alpha's eyes white? Sure enough:

Did they retcon the Alpha red eyes thing after the Pilot/Wolf Moon was shot Even in the earlier scene where Scott was bitten:

White eyes. What gives, Jeff?

While we're here, let's just take a second to appreciate Peter the Cartoon CGI Gorilla-Wolf. LOL.

Get back to the scripts woman, the photo recap thing has been covered, stay in your lane

AWKWARD. Anyway that's the same as in canon, but I initially read that as 'mysterious smile' and freaked because was that pool owner person supposed to be significant??, but no, never mind, carry on.

Meanwhile, this ep is just FULL of iconic moments.

All together now,

*sighs happily*

Was it as good for you as it was for me?

Later, at the lacrosse scrimmage:

I checked the episode, and…nope. No Derek stalking around on the field in this scene. That we saw.

Oh good, we hadn't seen a naked torso in a while, I was starting to worry

Who can get enough of Melissa--Scott moments? Not me, that's for sure. But wait--

Voices becoming TINNY what is happening

Someone's creeping

*sings* ‘Who can it BEEE no-ow?’

*snort*

In other news, Jackson is not the only one who got a vehicular upgrade. I don’t know enough about cars to discern the mystical significance of these changes. Experts please?

Ah, can't believe they cut this! Is he just embarrassed to have an inhaler in front of Allison, or does he realise on some level that his asthmatic days are over?

Oh yikes, is this another scene of which we were ROBBED? I want my absolute and agonizing awkward teen silence!

ROBBED, I say! Robbed of canon confirmation of Scott's dorky music taste!

Awww.

I liked Scallison well enough, but if these scenes had been included I would have been 200% sold on it from ep 1.

Confused Scydia moment! I wonder if Lydia greeted Stiles like that too, and if so how hard he flailed.

Harley again! In the version that made it to screen she and Stiles both ask Scott if he's okay. That girl should have stayed a character. *grumpy face*

"Deep black eyes"? "Strangely hypnotic"? Preeeeetty sure he was just standing there with his regular (insanely pretty) ambiguously green-hazel eyes; and while that was a fair attempt at a charming smile (for Derek), "hypnotic" it wasn't.

That would have been a cool visual.

“Powerfully muscular”; “strangely seductive”; “He's given into it”

I'll tell you who's into it, Jeff Davis is into it And you know what?

So am I.

*Curiosity intensifies*

A nice little moment of realisation we never got to see

This is changed up a bit -- in the show the dialogue comes before the wrestling, there's no throat-gripping (Derek holds Scott down with a hand on his chest), and we have yet to see those shiny blue eyes.

Also, demonic. *shivers*

That's interesting - obviously was going to be more support to the false lead of Derek being the Alpha, but they walked it back.

A bit of added urgency here

"Steps out of the darkness" -- from what we saw, Derek was just standing there next to Scott, no added drama. Add this to the 'hypnotic deep black eyes' we never saw -- can it be that the creeper-wolf that graced our screens was actually the less spooky version??

I guess they forgot to talk to the sun’s manager about their filming schedule.

Well that answers my question about how Stiles knew where to find Scott. Sort of.

Also: Aaaaaaaangst.

Aww, my heart. The bromance.

I love how it's "instantly recognisable," but in the final cut they can’t help throwing in a flashback to all of three minutes ago just to make sure we recognise him. Thanks for the vote of confidence, Teen Wolf.

Yes, apparently that is Chris Argent's idea of a 'friendly smile'.

Also, sworn enemy. Lol.

Great ending to a great pilot episode! And what extra-delicious and not-at-all mouth-perforating splinters of teeny wolfy goodness does our script-reading scrape up for us?

Well, we have extra delightful domestic scenes with the McCalls; extra adorable baby flirting between our star-crossed lovers (not that they know the heavens hate them yet, shhh); a wonderful character who could have been in Harley (will she show up more in future scripts? At what point did they decide to consign her to the trash can of oblivion? Or did she just disappear because she realised she had no chance with Scott now that Allison is here?); and honestly, it ws worth it for Jackson’s favourite word alone.

But clearly the most important thing we leaned from the Teen Wolf Pilot script (Double Buff edition) is that the

we know and love is NOT, in fact, the creepiest, most melodramatic, most stalkerish version of himself. He could have been worse. Watching Scott at practice earlier than we knew eavesdropping on him shirtlessly discussing sex with him mum, using strangely hypontic deep black eyes on unsuspecting teenage girls, emerging theatrically from the shadows -- just imagine, if he'd been behaving like that from the get-go, no way would Scott have trusted him. Good job toning it down, Jeff Davis!

Exeunt.

#teen wolf #tw season 1 #pilot #wolf moon #liveblog #long post #teen wolf scripts #theostry liveblogs the TW scripts

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theartfulmegalodon · 6 years

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Some Thoughts on Coco...

First of all, the movie was fantastic, and beautiful, and moving, and everything all the reviewers have said. Go see it, it’s amazing.

But I’m me, so I can’t help but have a few nitpicks. I wouldn’t dream of putting spoilers out in the open here, so if you’ve seen the film already and want to read my comments, they’re past the cut. (And, um, they’re long. Sorry.)

So... okay, I think most everybody who’s seen the film and given it some actual thought afterward has realized that there are some seriously troubling rules in place about the Mexican afterlife. It’s all fluffy and fairy tale-like at first glance, you know, older family telling the sweet story to the kids about how a picture on an altar keeps the memory of their departed family members alive... except of course in this case, it means keeping them LITERALLY alive, in the afterlife.

We’re shown that you NEED a picture of the person. Actually they only say “photo” throughout the entire film, making me wonder what happens if you don’t have any photos, or you were too poor to commission a painted portrait back in the day. Why wouldn’t, say, written letters count? Or family heirlooms, like jewelry or a comb? What if the family simply lost the photos in a fire or something? What if they didn’t manage to make an altar? Say someone’s the last of their line, keeping all their (photographed) ancestors alive, but right around DdlM they get hit by a car and are in traction for a week or more, unable to light a stupid candle next to some photos? The dead relatives are just SOL? Are poor people’s relatives also SOL, when the living simply doesn’t have the resources to do this ritual? And heck, if you’re an orphan with no family when you die, that means what? NO AFTERLIFE FOR YOU? Does it HAVE to be family that remembers you for it to count?

And then there’s the rule that you can only keep existing in the afterlife so long as your memory is maintained by someone who knew you in life. Hector confirmed this when Miguel tried to insist he could go back and remember these new dead folks now that he’s met them in the afterlife, so they wouldn’t fade away. But nope, “It doesn’t work like that.”

Except...

That can’t be true, because at the end of the movie, we see grandma Coco has died, and all of the extended dead family is still there, safe and sound. But Coco was the only one who’d remembered her parents, and especially Hector. So we see that Hector, and presumably anyone, can totally live on even after everyone who knew them in life is dead as well.

So... that’s a bit of a contradiction there. And then there’s the whole De La Cruz storyline about fame. Whether he chose to be famous at all costs just because he wanted the spotlight, or even on the off chance that he was trying to secure his immortality in the afterlife, it’s sort of implied that simply by being famous, he’ll never be forgotten, and as long as he has fans who put his picture on their altars (or his? not sure how that goes) he’s set.

So really, I have no idea how one stays alive in the afterlife, for sure. But Hector did say about fading away: “It happens to everyone eventually”, which... yeah, okay, makes sense. Which means, basically, that your afterlife is a whole new life, but you spend it knowing that your very existence depends on others to remember you and prove it with a ritual. If you’re not one of the very lucky ones (and the movie made it seem like there are relatively few unlucky ones, because kids movie) you’d spend your borrowed existence wracked with anxiety that any moment your luck will run out. Not to mention, your eventual second death (their “FINAL death”, as they call it) will likely be way worse than your first one. When they’re dying their final death, they do it with the knowledge that there really is nothing left for them AND that they’ve been entirely forgotten by the living world. The entirety of their existence is over, and there’s not even some comforting Grim Reaper type to send them off.

Sigh.

This isn’t really what I wanted to pick at, believe it or not. I’ve got more real issues with the actually family dynamics. Because family, as was made super clear, is basically the most important thing in life AND death, and without family, life is meaningless (or possibly OVER FOREVER). And that’s... kinda problematic for me. I know it’s culturally accurate, from what I know of Latin cultures and many others. But I really dislike the whole notion that your BLOOD relatives are always a good thing to keep in your life.

Miguel’s family was cartoonishly restrictive when it came to music, his one passion.

(And can we mention for a moment the absurdity of shielding an entire family line from ALL MUSIC? How exactly does that work? We don’t know for sure what time period this is. From the look of De La Cruz’s movies, and counting the generations hence, we could assume this is modern day. (In a really underdeveloped part of Mexico.) But trying to eliminate all music from someone’s life is only slightly possible if they’re a child, and you can control exactly what they do and where they go. But did Miguel never go to school? People sing songs and play music in schools. And did the adults in the family never go anywhere outside of their shoe shop and the cemetery? People in the world MAKE MUSIC. All over. All the time. It’s a deeply ingrained facet of human nature. Yet this family can’t even hum to themselves? It’s just... too absurd.)

ANYWAY.

Miguel’s family is ridiculous, and based on one (deceased) matriarch’s marching orders, this kid is forced to hide away his one joy in life and feel like a criminal among his own relatives for loving something that the rest of the world loves. The moment where they present him with his shoe-making apron and cheer about promoting him to official Shoe Maker, I swear in my head I just heard, “Oh! You finally had the noodle dream!” And when the grandma discovered his stash of music-related treasures and smashes them all in the street in front of him, I just saw Triton destroying Ariel’s human treasures, leaving the poor child in tears, of course.

In this case, the family was MOST DEFINITELY in the wrong. And yet Miguel is punished the second he tries to rebel. He gets cursed into the afterlife (a curse that was NEVER explained, btw) and then the family matirarch who started the whole mess basically holds his life hostage until he agrees to never pursue music again. The family blessing was paramount. They looked this little boy in the eyes and forced him to choose between a life without the thing he loves most or NO LIFE AT ALL.

Yes, yes, I know that the point was that they were in the wrong and that it all worked out in the end because past crimes came to light, and some hearts were melted, and the family came around. But the fact that Miguel and Hector had to beat the odds, escape capture, expose a murder plot, and tear down the reputation of the biggest celeb in the afterlife just so this old bitch (sorry, I really did like this movie!) would let her great grandson go back to being alive... That’s beyond unreasonable. Miguel was fantastically lucky, and running into Hector was the most unlikely coincidence in the movie.

EDIT: I’ve been reminded that Dante the spirit dog was involved in leading Miguel to meeting Hector, but that... doesn’t really solve my issue there. That’s writing in a band-aid for a plot hole. Can’t think up a reason your two long lost relatives would have a one-in-a-billion meeting? Spirits did it. And honestly for me (maybe because I’m not a little kid any more) the slapstick antics of the dog weren’t especially entertaining or amusing, nor was he written as an actual character instead of a plot device. So I’m not surprised in retrospect that I forgot most of his contributions to the story.

OKAY. Let me make the only real point I wanted to make here:

I was genuinely surprised by the reveal that Hector was Miguel’s real ancestor and that De La Cruz had murdered him. I think I was surprised because I was unconsciously expecting/hoping for De La Cruz to actually be his ancestor, but that he was simply a shallow, fame-loving, selfish dipshit, and that the Riveras were right to erase his memory from their family tree. Miguel would have learned that not all family is worth treating like family. And there would be Hector, someone who protected him, guided him, and mentored him, someone who was worthy of including on their family altar. He’d learn that sometimes family can be the people you choose to be your family.

I mean, I get it, the story that they actually set up and carried out. I liked the twist, really, and the touching backstory with Coco was, of course, very moving. There were tears.

But in the end, I guess I don’t like the convenience of the good guy he just happened to meet being part of his family after all, and the bad guy just being a bad guy, no grey area, no need to feel conflicted over anything. Also, he never bonded with anyone in the afterlife outside of his personal family, which is, again, kind of a shame. The entire crux of the movie, the matriarch’s elimination of music from the Rivera line, was based entirely on a misunderstanding, and only by luck (and spirit animals!) did it happen to resolve itself in the end. It still made a boy go through some ten years of cringing and hiding and emotional abuse over nothing he could control, all while framing it with the insistence that “your family loves you!” They love you... but you have to be unhappy, son. The end. No arguments.

Oops! Sorry, we guess that grudge we were holding over a guy we never met for a great-grammy who’s long gone was our mistake. You go play your guitar. We love you!

Oh, and if this is the modern era, they should really think about making some photocopies of that picture...

#movies #movie critique #long post #coco #pixar coco

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coolartistdesigner · 5 years

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Earthship Book one, Reviews

Reviews for EARTHSHIPS

1. I’ve read a lot of books with dystopian themes, and many also paint a very bleak picture in terms of how weather and humanity is faring (spoiler- it’s not good). And I do have a big interest in global warming and what the dangers and ramifications are for our future and our planet, so this book “Earthships” by Bonnie Jane Hall was very intriguing to me. I’ve never read anything by her before, but I’m always on the lookout for new talent, so I was curious to see what it was all about. While it’s certainly not perfect (needs better editing and pacing at times), Ms. Hall is unarguably a talented writer who has a lot of important ideas to share, but more than that she also created solid world-building of this ‘alternative’ life –here on Earth, but different type of ‘reality”— and with a great cast of characters. The focus is mostly on Laurel and how her life and her family’s and the rest of the world is suffering from this ‘shift’ and how to survive on a planet that is dying and how and why it happened, as well as some survival preparations for the hostile environment. It is both creative, and well-researched with a lot of facts and details about the causes and effects of global warming, and how it ravages different countries, and in different ways. Laurel’s character was so intriguing because she has Asperger’s so she processes things a little differently and it was interesting to see her perspective. As mentioned, it is not without its flaws, but it does deliver a powerful lesson that is definitely worth reading. (4-5 stars) Curtis Lehman, senior reviewer – Indie Book Reviewers

2. I was impressed with just how many elements come into play in this novel “Earthships” from family and (sweet) romance, to having a main character with High-Functioning Asperger’s (first I’ve read with this) the political and cultural influences of contributing to global warming, some family life and even AI… it’s a dystopian of sorts but still a realistic look at life and the dire consequences we are all facing. All too often I read works that feel clearly derivative of recycled plots or overused themes, but even though I had some problems with some of the execution, Bonnie Jane was able to take her story and wrap it around a very important message (destruction of climate change) and present it in a new light to give it a new feel. I finished it in less than two nights, and even though I thought the beginning was a little slow to get through because of the narrative set up and backstory, and it takes some time for the action to kick in, by the 20% mark I was all in. This is the first of a series so its just getting started! I recommend it for teens on up and it is suitable for everyone to read. (4 stars) Tammy Howe – Indie Book Reviewers

3. This was a really good book even though “cli-fi” isn’t usually one of my more preferred genres (don’t dislike it, just don’t generally gravitate). But I liked the fact that it had a strong environmental theme as that is something I am very passionate about, and haven’t really read much in the way of ‘fiction’ novels that cover it. It was interesting right off the bat and wastes no time at all getting to the threats of climate change and what is happening to the Earth in the future (because of how we are today). Our narrator is Laurel Campbell, an 18 year old girl with hi-functioning autism and she has her own unique gifts to share as well. We see how it all affects different parts of the world, and the story takes on several topics, from political to ecological and environmental… and even trying to be sustainable with Laurel’s creation of Earthships. I really liked the interesting story-world Hall created here – familiar and with relatable themes and concepts, yet still very unique and most of all, important. This isn’t some irrelevant, trendy dystopian melodrama but one where many social issues and repercussions from climate change are very real. The narrative is strong, detailed and descriptive and there is a lot of action spaced throughout, but also plenty of ‘downtime’ where ideas are being discussed. I surprised at some things that happened-especially more toward the end-, and really never knew where the story was headed, which I liked. Overall an entertaining ride that also makes you think and feel. Recommend for almost all ages to enjoy, and I’m looking forward to reading book #2. (5 stars) Heather Brewer, senior reviewer – Indie Book Reviewers

4. This book is just as much about ‘ideas’ as it is action – and I liked how epic it all felt – even though it’s a little on the scary side. We see what is happening all over the world in 2030… which is a blink of an eye from now, but things are in chaos. Droughts, water, earthquakes, food riots and people starving, economic and social collapse. and so on and so on. It is a book that will hopefully make you think about things differently and in a gritty harsh light if things don’t get better and we make drastic changes. Could benefit from another round of proofreading, but I truly do appreciate the concept and like that it has substance that actually matters. Looking forward to reading more from this series and from Bonnie Jane Hall (3-4 stars) Anthony Alcott, senior reviewer – Indie Book Reviewers

5. Creatively complex, yet straightforward and easy to understand, “Earthships” is a great book for fans of dystopian, science/climate fiction, and speculative fiction… in fact it’s a great book for anyone who lives on this planet to read because it matters to us all, no matter age, race, gender… and affects all other life forms as well. It is an interesting combination of real global and social issues infused with a compellingly realistic ‘alternative’ worldbuilding and plot structure. But there were some times where I felt it could have used some trimming down, as there were frequent places where there was needless information, scenes, or too much telling narrative (instead of showing us through dialogue and action). However, I feel Bonnie Jane Hall did a splendid job of bringing in a passionate, powerful voice and making the story wholly her own, and giving it a fresh feel. I certainly didn’t feel like I’ve read this a million times before, even if it has a somewhat familiar premise. It has a lot of information that you can tell Ms. Hall really did her research and that this subject is near and dear to her heart. Her passionate knowledge is infectious. It does take some time to really develop the tension I like for an engrossing novel (versus a nonfiction), but it does get there and the ending will make you want to read the next one asap!! Shocking situations and a terrifying future reality that is more ‘science’ than it is ‘fiction, and a lovely cast of characters to take you along for this intense, and eye-opening journey. Recommend. (4 stars) Ellen Pennino, senior reviewer – Indie Book Reviewers

6. I honestly had no idea what to expect when starting this, as I didn’t really read the description and had never heard of the author before – I do that sometimes, just read a book ‘blind’ and see where it takes me. Sometimes it works, sometimes I put the book down and call it a day. Well, I was in no way prepared for how totally addicting this novel would be, and the sheer magnitude of the brutality we inflict on this planet and just how badly it WILL come back to haunt us. Yet so many people are still so apathetic and think that they don’t need to really or that they are safe. Wrong. This novel by Bonnie Jane Hall tackles the very real consequences of climate change head-on and serves up a heaping dose of facts and intellectual, scientific evidence that supports her main ideas. But in addition, she has created a host of sympathetic characters we are fond of, and a charming heroine in Laurel, with whom it is refreshing to read from her special viewpoint. She’s very smart and ‘visionary’ – she and this book are not afraid to break the mold to serve a greater purpose for the future of mankind. I think books like this are very important because I definitely think there needs to be something huge to create the necessary paradigm shift how this country and world views it’s energy sources and the direct effect on climate change – even by eating meat. So, it’s vital to read speculative fiction that examines different contingencies and causes and the possibilities… so that we can stop it from becoming a reality. (5 stars) Shahade Faizal, senior reviewer – Indie Book Reviewers

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wbwest · 7 years

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New Post has been published on WilliamBruceWest.com

New Post has been published on http://www.williambrucewest.com/2017/04/12/comical-thoughts-one-our-hero-read-30-marvel-comics-one-night/

Comical Thoughts - The One Where Our Hero Read 30 Marvel Comics In One Night

So, a lot of people have thoughts on the recent remarks that Marvel Editor in Chief Axel Alonso made regarding diversity. Ultimately, he said that retailers and consumers didn’t seem to flock to the diversity push that Marvel was doing in their books. Fans came out in droves to dispute this, saying that there are other reasons that Marvel’s losing sales. Well, I’m not gonna contribute to that conversation – at least, not directly. You see, I’m about 6 months behind on Marvel books, so I’ve missed a lot of this diversity push. I mean, I go to the shop every Wednesday, and I’m buying a TON of books, but there are only so many hours in the week, so I just haven’t had the chance to read all of them. Oddly enough, I’m fairly current with a lot of the DC books I buy, mainly because they seemed to serve as better jumping-on points. I know everything happening in the Superman books and Teen Titans, but I only just read Civil War II, like, two weeks ago. Usually my Friday nights are consumed with me going on toy runs or napping, but the other day I said to myself, “Will, it’s time to read some Marvel.” I had a few thoughts on what I read, so I thought I’d share them here for anyone who’s curious.

First up, I read the full run of The Unbelievable Gwenpool to date. I read #1 when it came out, and then the book just went to the bottom of a large stack. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy that first issue. I mean, it’s written by Christopher Hastings of the hilarious The Adventures of Dr. McNinja, so I already knew that I loved his style. The Gwenpool concept, on the surface, just sounds like a cash grab. Creating a Deadpool series used to be the equivalent of printing money (not so much anymore, looking at the sales for Deadpool and the Mercs for Money). Meanwhile, everyone and their mom seemed to love the idea of Spider-Gwen when she spun out of Spider-Verse. So, it was natural to put peanut butter in your chocolate by mixing the two.

Gwen Poole actually hails from our world, where all of the Marvel characters are just characters in comics books. By some mysterious means, she transports herself into the Marvel Universe, with her wealth of comic knowledge at her disposal. So, she knows everyone’s identities, all their power sets, etc. This is similar to the Deadpool thing where he thinks of himself as a character in a comic book. Once she gets to the MU, she sets herself up as a mercenary even though she’s not necessarily good at killing. She has limited hand to hand skills, and she’s not a great shot. But she’s pretty good at blowing shit up, which is what she does. The funny thing, though, is that they’ve never really explained why she’s a killer. Maybe it’s because she knows none of it is “real”, so it doesn’t matter if she kills somebody or not. After all, they’re just fictional characters to her. Anyway, after a botched mission, she finds herself working for M.O.D.O.K (Mental Organism Designed Only For Killing) and his gang of mercenaries, which includes Captain America foe Batroc The Leaper.

Anyway, I LOVE THIS BOOK! I’m quick to talk about things I don’t like, so I have to give equal credit to the things that I do like. I love the Gwenpool character, who’s really just a perky teenage girl who likes blowing stuff up. It’s kind of refreshing to meet a female character with an encyclopedic knowledge of comic book trivia, and it’s cool to see how she employs that in her series. I’ve been a big fan of Dr McNinja for years, so I knew Hastings wouldn’t disappoint and he surely didn’t! It’s a fun comic that really gives credence to the slang term “funnybook”. If you’re looking for fun in your comic reading, then definitely check this out. The sales on it aren’t so hot, making it seem like she should’ve been left to do cameos for a while before getting her own series. That said, she’s had 13 issues by now which, sadly, is an achievement in today’s comic landscape. Don’t let them cancel my Gwenpool! Buy this book today!

Next up, I finished the whatever volume it is for Invincible Iron Man. Ya know, the Bendis one, but the one before Civil War II. This series was kind of a waste, as it went nowhere. I’m not sure if plans got derailed because of CWII or what, but it’s odd that so many issues were devoted to one story that just dead ends. Madame Masque is caught stealing items from various Stark facilities, and when Tony goes after her, he finds she’s being chased by a group of cyber ninjas. That’s pretty much it. In the end, he never finds her and never solves that mystery. They do introduce a new cyberhacker Inhuman, though. Yay. Meanwhile, there’s a B-story of Stark trying to convince Mary Jane Watson to be his assistant/life coach. I’ve had my issues with Bendis, but I’ve got to say that this is him at his worst. Sure, there’s snappy dialogue, but not much else.

So, knowing that I needed to plod through my Iron Man backlog, I begrudgingly jumped into International Iron Man. This series made up for everything that was wrong with Invincible Iron Man. My only quibble is that, at 7 issues, it should have been an arc in Invincible Iron Man instead of its own standalone series. In the previous Iron Man series (the one after Superior Iron Man, but before the Bendis Invincible Iron Man), Tony discovered that Howard and Maria Stark were not his birth parents. In this series, Tony sets out to find his real parents, interspersed with flashbacks to the story of his first love, Cassandra, who was the daughter of arms dealers who were also business rivals of his father. Cassandra was in Tony’s life around the time that Howard died, so he finds it odd that she resurfaces, now an arms dealer herself, at the same time he’s searching for his birth parents. He thinks she knows something, but she’s not talking. In the end, Tony finds his mom, Amanda Armstrong, who’s basically Annie Lenox. No, I swear Maleev used Lenox as the model for Armstrong. The last two issues tell the story of Tony’s parents’ love affair, and it’s some damn good writing. This is Bendis at his best. I want an Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. arc of just this story (it’s good, but it’s not summer theatrical blockbuster good), but there’s no way they’d cover Stark stuff on TV. At the end, it says that the story will be continued in the next volume of Invincible Iron Man – ya know, the one starring Riri/Ironheart. So, I’m not quite sure how that’s gonna work. Is Amanda Armstrong going to be a supporting character in the book while her son spoiler alert is in a coma in S.H.I.E.L.D. custody? I haven’t read the Riri series yet (it’s in the pile), so don’t tell me what happens. Where Invincible left me disappointed, International proved to me that Bendis understands Tony Stark.

The interesting takeaway I had from the series, however, is that Tony Stark is a result of Nurture and not Nature. I mean, it was always assumed he was a genius because his father was a genius, and it was in his blood. Now that we know his real parents were just undercover S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, it becomes clear that Tony was a product of his environment and upbringing, rather than possessing some inherited genius. I’m curious to see if they’ll do anything with that going forward. Ya know, when he “wakes up”.

Ya can’t love everything, though, and that’s where America comes in. I HATED that comic. I hate the character. I don’t really know where she came from, as I wasn’t reading Young Avengers at that point, but I find her obnoxious to no end. If you’re not familiar, Miss America, AKA America Chavez, is from another dimension where she had two moms who sacrificed themselves to save creation. She has the power to punch star-shaped portals between dimensions, and she’s strong, and fast, and can fly. Basically, she can do everything but project energy. Oh, and she’s a bad ass motherfucker. She can do ALL the things, and that’s kinda why I hate her. This is about to get dicey, so strap in. Ya see, a lot of people are going to say that I don’t like her just because she’s queer. There aren’t a lot of prominent queer characters in comics, so I understand her importance to representation. That said, she’s guilty of what I call the “Queer Eye-ification of Pop Culture”.

Let’s take a trip back to 2003, shall we? Bravo introduced the reality show Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, where 5 queer men (don’t say “gay”, because a couple of them were bi) gave schlubs makeovers. Carson changed their clothes, Kyan changed their hair, Ted changed their food, Tom changed their furnishings, and Jay…well, Jay taught them how to open CDs. No, that really happed. The principal underlying theme, however, was basically “Look, queer people are better than you in every single way! They dress better, they cook better, they have better hair, and better décor. What’s wrong with you, straight people? Why do you suck so much?“ For a while, that approach kinda worked. The show was a hit. Then I think folks got tired of the formula. We got it. They were all great at shit, but they stopped being relatable. After all, they were experts, and not just regular guys.

That’s my problem with America. She’s too good. She does it all. What are her weaknesses, her faults, her fears? I didn’t get that from her. Instead, she seems to have this false bravado of being the baddest bitch on the block, and that just doesn’t appeal to me. Is that what queer readers want? Do they want a character who seems to suffer from doing-too-much-itis? Or do they want a relatable character, like a queer Peter Parker who’s an amazing hero, but still has everyday problems? As a cis, straight male, I can’t answer that. I know what I think I would want, and this ain’t it. The market will dictate whether or not I’m wrong. Instead of the whole “Queer people are the awesomest”, maybe the more realistic approach is “Queer people are just like everyone.” I know I’m veering dangerously close to the camp of folks who say things like “Well, why isn’t there a White History Month?” I’m not trying to take anything from queer identity, but the way it’s expressed here contributes to why I don’t like that character. I fear this overcompensation is a trope commonly used as a “foot in the door” technique to get some folks to accept uncomfortable ideas, but I feel it does the queer community a disservice by reinforcing stereotypes/setting up unreal expectations.

Following this thinking leads me to the new Champions comic, which is downright irresponsible in its storytelling. Back during Civil War II, the young members of the Avengers became disenchanted with the elder members because they didn’t feel the team was doing enough to really change the world, instead spending more time in-fighting in the hero community. So, they quit the team before that story even wrapped up. As Champions picks up, Ms. Marvel reaches out to Nova (Sam Alexander – gotta specify, since there are two now) and Spider-Man (Miles Morales – gotta specify since there are two now) to convince them that they should be out doing the stuff that the Avengers refuse to do. They go on a mini recruitment drive, which results in the Hulk (Amadeus Cho – gotta specify since…you get it by now), and Viv Vision joining the team.

Champions is the wrong name for this book. Honestly, it should be the New Warriors, because they are TOTAL social justice warriors. I normally don’t even dip my toe into those labeled waters, but that’s exactly what this book is about. Ms. Marvel has created a team of other teens who do nothing but seek social justice. When older Marvel fans say that they’re tired of the diversity push, I have to believe that this is the book they’re talking about.

I say they’re irresponsible because they tackle concepts that can’t be solved by punching, yet that’s exactly how they try to solve them. They went to the Middle East to stop an extremist Muslim group from killing women who were just trying to learn. They went to a small town to face off against a racist sheriff who bombed the local mosque. Instead of facing villains, all of their “foes” are systemic issues that aren’t easy fixes. Somehow, though, they manage to “fix” things in 22 pages. To use old slang, these kids are cruising for a bruising. There’s a reason the Avengers don’t handle these sorts of things, mainly because they’re old and wise enough to know there are no easy fixes. Racism ain’t Galactus. There’s nothing to punch. The only reason I would stick with the book is that there’s GOT to be a reckoning coming to teach them a lesson. The last time a team of teens was this irresponsible resulted in the destruction of the town of Stamford, Connecticut. I HAVE to believe the Champions exist only to set up some post-Secret Empire event.

The sad thing about all of this is that I like these characters. I’ve been a Miles Morales booster since day one, and I loved Sam Alexander’s Nova from the outset. I was late to the Kamala Khan party, but she’s cool, too. I don’t like how Amadeus Cho’s Hulk is painted as a green Bro in the book, but I’m really behind on his title, so maybe that’s who he is now. And I haven’t read The Visions yet, so I don’t know anything about Viv. All that said, I’d hate to see anything bad happen to any of these guys, but that seems to be the path they’re on. It just seems like such mishandling of some great concepts. From when I was reading Captain America: Sam Wilson, the big takeaway was that there are some things you can’t fight head-on, but it seems like the Champions are gonna have to learn that the hard way.

So, I guess I did have thoughts about Marvel’s diversity after all. Is it killing books? Not necessarily. It’s just not being done well. Feels tokeny. There are a lot of great female-led books right now, like the afore-mentioned Gwenpool and Jessica Jones (which I’ll talk about another time since this has already gotten way longer than I initially expected). But the minority portrayals aren’t that strong. I’ve still got a LOT more to read, though, so maybe it gets better? We’ll just have to see.

#Comical Thoughts #Comics #DC #Marvel #Music #Politics #Pop #Race #Television

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