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why-this-kolaveri-machi · 3 years

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please. i can’t do this alone.

Titans 3.01

thoughts! thoughts! thoughts! some red hot thoughts!

SPOILERS ahead.

1. one episode in, and this season already looks set to give me everything i want. its abandonment of plot and storytelling conventions as it goes from one point to the next at breakneck speed; its cheerful bastardisation of iconic storylines from the comics; the ‘as-you-know-bob’ clunky exposition on one end and extremely restrained, subtle explorations of complex character dynamics on the other; endless shots of neon bleeding into black and blue corridors, shadows and silhouettes; my delight in seeing it celebrate and deconstruct the dark nolan-y batman aesthetic at the same time; my bafflement that it’s so fucking goddamn obsessed with the batfam when it’s supposed to be about the TITANS; kory just... saving every overburdened, clunky scene that she’s in by her sparkling charisma. just... *chef’s kiss*. muah. my show is back, in all its glory.

MY SHOW IS BACK, Y’ALL!

1.5. i mean... this show is so artful and weird and not afraid to go absolutely bonkers in exploring its characters’ psyche, but can just about barely stage a passable comic book fight when every tom dick and harry and their new streaming services can deliver ones that are far more exciting. i love this show with every atom of my body.

(there’s something to be said about rooting for the underdog as well. a pleasure in finding something to love about what other people dismiss. but! enough navel gazing! i have fictional characters’ navels to look at! metaphorically! and maybe literally!)

2. i expected jason’s death to come about pretty early in the season as soon as i heard rumours that red hood was showing up, but for it to happen in the first five minutes of the first episode... that’s a record.

(well. “happen.” still don’t know what exactly went down there.)

2.25. GOD. jason is such a tortured and tragic character in this show, used and passed around by people with alleged good intentions, never really fitting in anywhere. he’s veritably bleeding vulnerability and the need to belong, the need to be known, and yet the tragedy is that his death proves that nobody in his life knew anything about him at all; that they only saw the flimsy walls he put up to protect his soft core, and thought that that was all there was. that they say they loved him, but blame him for his own death.

dick is flabbergasted that jason can read, though we know from last season, from what jason revealed to rose, that he has a love for plays and music. barbara is quick to dismiss his actions as ‘impulsive’. bruce has no idea that his supposed son was building his own little chemistry lab right under his nose, and beyond that, no idea that jason needed structure, stability and validation beyond being left alone in a huge house with a treasure trove of dangerous weapons. kory thought his decision to fight the joker was from not learning and growing when the guy tried to kill himself last season and nobody apart from dick even tried to talk to him about it! did you consider that he might still be suicidal? especially after the titans admitted to having “given up” on him because he was just “too hard”?

2.5. the one thing that’s been consistent across all three seasons (so far) of the show is the unreliable narrator trope. there’s a reason why the characters’ dismissals of jason’s actions as impulsive is so repetitive; why jason’s death is a mystery dick feels compelled to solve. it’s a flailing attempt to know his brother much too late--but with red hood, maybe he gets a second chance, just like he got one with the titans. this is what jason’s arc has been building up to. this is ‘death in the family’ but more fucked up in some ways. it didn’t linger on the death because the death wasn’t the point. the joker isn’t the point. everything that came before it is.

this way it will also make perfect sense that the red hood’s main enemy becomes the titans rather than batman.

2.75. goodness knows what’s going on with jason’s little chemistry project. at first i thought he was immunising himself to joker gas or something, but maybe it’s what passes for lazarus pit juice in this universe?

anyway, it’s pretty impressive that jason learnt all of that from a college chemistry textbook. STOP BRINGING UP THAT HE READ SOMETHING, DICK--

2.8. i’m glad that dick doesn’t immediately sink into self-loathing and guilt and tries to investigate jason’s death while also acknowledging how he failed him. it’s like he actually learned something from the last two years!

anyway. more about dick later.

3. oh how i love titans!bruce. a lot of characters had a lot of Opinions on his reaction to jason’s death in this episode, but again, i ask you to consider that they’re unreliable narrators, and this universe’s bruce is a product of how it shaped him. bruce wayne has become a phantom to himself--an artifice borne out of vigorous discipline and crushing self-denial.

bruce has been batman for a very long time, and without a robin for much longer. (dick must be... in his early thirties? so he was robin for about, say, 10-12 years according to the timeline of the show. that still makes bruce pretty old when he took on his first robin.) things have... calcified (possibly parts of his brain). the personal cost and the collateral from the mission he’s taken up for most of his life is too much to countenance; it has to be a war, and war requires sacrifice.

on some level bruce knows that’s a lie. he’s so goddamned alone. what’s he going to do? sit down and cry? who’s going to listen to him now? oh, is he going to just stop being batman? who’s going to stop gotham from consuming herself then? he’ll just have to forge ahead, do better next time, maybe he’ll be firmer with them, or kinder with them, or notice more things, or train them harder, or spend more time--

3.25. don’t get me wrong: titans!bruce is an asshole and a half. his roster of potential robins was honestly bone-chilling. the fact that there’s a twisted root of compassion makes it more disturbing.

3.5. alfred’s dead! it must’ve been pretty recent, because i could’ve sworn that dick tried to call alfred in the very first episode of season 1, or at least considered calling him...

what a devastating double-blow for bruce then, losing his father-figure and his, uh.... son-figure so close together.

4. i don’t know about barbara yet. i mean, i like her, but she had so much clunky expository dialogue to deliver this episode, and for an episode that was named after her, she only showed up halfway through it. but i like the weight of history behind her interactions with both bruce and dick and her compassion to bruce before he cruelly crossed a line. i also like the implication that she and dick have been in touch recently, and that she didn’t immediately try to guilt-trip dick about some perceived abandonment. it’d be too repetitive.

4.5. there’s also a sense that she ran interference for dick a lot whenever there was something Too Big and Emotional for him to confront directly, and i like and appreciate that character beat.

5. dick, my man! it really does feel like a substantial length of time has passed between the end of s2 and the beginning of s3... kory’s got a new costume, they’ve become celebrities in SF, working missions together, and dick’s actually smiling! genuinely enjoying his work and having fun with it for possibly the first time in the entire series! it’s really a far cry from the fractured, dysfunctional mess that they were at the end of the last season.

i just hope this doesn’t mean that they’ve magically reached a resolution off-screen to all of their fucked-upness from last season, and that the repercussions--for gar in particular--are actually addressed on screen.

5.25. i mentioned this briefly above, but it really is so refreshing that dick doesn’t wallow in guilt and self-loathing after jason’s death; he acknowledges his and the titans’ failure, is able to admit to barbara honestly that he’s not doing great, and is actively trying to reach out to bruce to make sure he’s ok, is trying to investigate what made jason seek out the joker on his own, and is probably the only person not immediately buying that it was jason’s recklessness that got him killed. i love that dick is finally beginning to trust his instincts or just employ them at all after years of guilt and paranoia and self-loathing. we love some positive character growth!

5.5. another thing i love? the bruce-dick interactions on this show. every scene they’re in together is so fraught with tension, both of them holding themselves back, their emotions on a whipcord-tight leash. dick wants to reach out to bruce, is even somewhat familiar with this brand of denial in the wake of grief, but wants barbara to make the first move because he genuinely does not know how to get bruce to open up. his instincts are right, and wonderful, and genuine, but his expression has been smothered by years of trauma, emotional and physical self-discipline, and what i suspect is poorly treated mental illness.

it takes a lot for him to finally explode at bruce at the end of the episode--in a way he hasn’t done even when his only opinion of bruce was ‘fuck him’--and it’s all the more startling for how subdued he’s been through the episode, how much he’s been holding back his emotions for bruce’s sake. love it.

5.75. it sort of hurts my heart to see the flying graysons poster in jason’s room. there are a few implications:

a) jason settled into dick’s old room despite living in a giant mansion with dozens of other rooms he could’ve used

b) he didn’t take down dick’s poster--not when he moved in and was idolising him, not when he moved out of the titans and was sort of hating him. i wonder if the reminder of what dick was before robin--that he was forged out of unspeakable tragedy--gave jason the connection to dick that he so desperately wanted in real life

c) dick moved right back into the room and slept on the bed that was now jason’s. grief can be so quiet and piecemeal sometimes.

6. i spy the beginnings of actual arcs for both gar and kory! i just hope that with the move to gotham their stories don’t fall to the wayside...

6.5. i’ve known tim drake for less than ten minutes but if anything were to happen to him i’d kill everybody

7. this review has gone on for too long and i am tiRED. however, before i leave: i miss some of the dedication-to-aesthetic that titans season 1 used to have. remember how the first few episodes didn’t really feel like a superhero show but something out of gothic horror? there was something gorgeous and raw about that, about open landscapes and the road and creepy buildings looming up at the end of it. moving to titans tower in s2 really ruined a lot of that for me, given its ripped-from-architectural-digest aesthetic, all smooth and clean and artificial.

i hope that we really explore gotham’s hellscape in interesting and innovative ways instead of camping out in the batcave all the time and indulging in the show’s unending love for long corridors, neon backlights and silhouettes.

8.....

9. wait, fuck, HOW CAN I FORGET ABOUT HOT PSYCHIATRIST GUY (TM)??? NONE of you prepared me for his return! NONE OF YOU! i gasped! i got up and did a happy dance!

listen, titans writers, if you’ve had a peek at my titans s3 wishlist, please go ahead and give the other items on the list a go too, thankyouverymuch.

#titans #titans spoilers #meta #jason todd #dick grayson #bruce wayne #barbara gordon #a tragic jalebi #a byronic cupcake

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terrific-togekiss · 3 years

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Rewriting Sonic Characters into other Continuities: Cosmo The Seedrian

With the 18th anniversary of Sonic X not too long ago, many fond memories of the anime started to resurface, as a question begun to ponder...

What if Cosmo The Seedrian was in other Sonic related media?

She was one of the most memorable parts of the show in my opinion, mostly due Season 3 of Sonic X being an original story. With that out of the way, let's get started!

These are just rough ideas and I would love to see some feedback!

Classic!Cosmo: About a month after the events of Sonic CD, Little Planet appears above Never Lake for its monthly visit to Earth. Sonic and Tails decide to visit and are surprised to find a growing population of plant people known as Seedrians.

As it turns out, Dr. Robotnik used the power of the Time Stones to reverse the Seedrians into the Miracle Planet flowers and seeds, before they had a chance to fight back.

Now that Dr. Robotnik is gone, they live in peace and praise the blue hedgehog that saved their people.

As Sonic is enjoying the festivities, Tails bumps into a shy Seedrian known as Cosmo. They become quick friends, bonding over sciences (Cosmo is more a botany genius in this continuity) and Tails even takes her for flight on the Tornado.

Sonic and Tails promise to visit her every time Little Planet comes back to Earth, to see their new friend.

This Cosmo is more quiet and keeps to herself, but the moment you get to know her she talks all the time.

Modern!Cosmo: The Cosmo of this era is a lot older and more independent, as she now leaves Little Planet on her to explore the Earth more, fascinated by this planet.

I'm addition to other Seedrians being NPCs in any open world Sonic games.

This becomes a running theme for Sonic games where she's off exploring and being in awe of the planet's flora, or just hanging with either Tails, Cream or Amy.

During Sonic Heroes, she would form a team with Might, Ray and herself. Since the three of them love nature so much and would be known as Team Naturals. Mighty being Power, Ray being Flight and Cosmo being Speed. The Team Blast involving the three of them homing attacking a series of giant seed bombs.

In Sonic Riders, she has an extreme gear board called "Mother Nature's Embrace", when you unlock her.

During Sonic Unleashed, her and Tails were testing Gaia energy on the local flora and fauna, to see if stopping Dark Gaia was the only cure to possessed people.

With small lovey dovey moments between her and Tails in the games, since we all know about the mandates. Or just a friendship if they're that strict and carry over to other characters.

During Sonic Generations, she's the NPC for the stage "Tidal Tempest" from Sonic CD and remarks if Sonic found the Time Stones again, if Classic Sonic saved her.

During Sonic Forces, she's in charge of food production in the Resistance, due to her power over plants.

The Cosmo of the Modern Sonic games is more akin to her in Sonic X, except with higher self esteem and doesn't have motion sickness. She can be rather clumsy, very kind, gentle and quiet, with a preference for not fighting unless necessary and a bit of a temper. She has a huge passion for botany and medicinal sciences, with gardening being a hobby of hers.

Unfortunately, she doesn't always know her own strength, as Seedrians are born with tremendous strength for housework and helping environments.

SatAM!Cosmo: A ship full of an alien species is soaring through the galaxy, with one mission in mind: find a new home.

They are known as Seedrians.

Once they arrive on a planet that reminds them of the a Mobius Strip in its composition, only to be attacked by robots.

Dr. Robotnik intercepted the space ship transmission and plans to roboticize these innocent aliens.

The Freedom Fighters intervene later on and are only able to save the kids, as the adults are all roboticized into robots. That destroy nature, ironically enough.

Cosmo becomes quick friends with the Freedom Fighters, relating on being orphans and absent parents that are now robotic slaves.

She doesn't really get out on the field like the rest of them, but she does help liven things up for the other kids at Knothole.

Underground!Cosmo: A forest spirit that takes a liking to music along with her sisters, as Sonic Underground makes their trek through Mobius.

I can see a single episode where Robotnik wants to use their powers as ornaments for a fancy gala... only for Sonic, Manic and Sonia to show up and save the day.

Fleetway!Cosmo: There is a legend of a race of warriors that travel across time itself collecting the finest flora, knowing of their extinction in the present day.

They are known as Seedrians.

These legends are found on Miracle Planet... a home to them for a couple of centuries.

Dr. Eggman of course desires this time travel technology for himself and for better use than "flower collecting."

Unlike the time Eggman gained control over all time via the Omni Viewer, he uses the time traveling alien technology to make up a fake history of him as an ancient, prophesied warrior to all of Mobius.

(It's also revealed that the Seedrians disappeared mysteriously and Cosmo has been working like crazy to carry on their work and find her people)

Only for Cosmo and the Freedom Fighters to put a stop to Eggman.

The Cosmo of this continuity is a lot more business oriented and moves from one task to the other, with little time for not following a structure. Underneath it all, is a scared girl that just wants to see her family again, that would never wish anything like that on others.

She bonds with Knuckles over losing your people and spends most visits with him.

Archie!Cosmo: In the Pre-Super Genesis Wave Universe, The Seedrians are seen as a myth to all of Mobius. Mostly due to Little Planet only appearing above Never Lake once a year every month.

The people Albion know of their existence, due to the Time Stones and The Seedrians both being a closely guarded of theirs.

The Seedrians of this continuity are more of a race of peace keepers and warriors, training under Nicholas O'Tyme and the mysterious Knights of Kronos.

Cosmo's father, Lucas develops a curiosity for Mobius and leaves with many other Seedrians to discuss alliances. With Lucas and his wife Earthia meeting the Acorn Kingdom.

Which goes as well as you would think.

Only for Dr. Robotnik to show up he seizes his grip over the planet.

Cosmo and her sister Galaxina go into hiding, along with many other children of the Seedrian adults. Earthia calls upon the powers of nature to to create an entire island, that exists outside of time.

Dr. Robotnik picks up the strange energy waves and attacks the island. With The Freedom Fighters showing up and turning the tide of battle on Robotnik.

Cosmo and Galaxina join the Freedom Fighters, with Cosmo becoming quick friends with Sally due to looking up her confidence and being in a similar situation, but choosing to stand for what's right.

Galaxina is more a mathematics genius and becomes good friends with Rotor and doesn't always get along with Antoine since he always wants play hero and she prefers a more grounded approach to things.

The Cosmo of this universe loves to explore, is a botany and medicinal genius and has a habit of casually mentioning random historical events, due to expose to the Time Stones. She's very kind to others and comes off as very quiet, but doesn't stop talking when you get to know her.

Due to her plant like nature and physiology, she loves Rock and Roll music, leading to her bonding with Sonic.

Her and Tails have a bit of thing going on, but are both shy around it and Tails doesn't have the best experience with relationships. The two of them hookup during Sonic's voyage/"death" in space with Tails' parents being in full support.

A rift is formed between her and her father, as him and many other Seedrians want to keep and redesign Robotnik's technology, while she sees it as ghosts of a rather scary past.

She also discovers the Krudzu and her kind nature surprising leads to her quelling the Krudzu, turning it on the side of the Freedom Fighters.

After the Super Genesis Wave, Cosmo is a resident of Little Planet that leaves to help the Freedom Fighters fight Dr. Eggman. Her personality is more or less the same as the old universe. Her parents stay back and organize Seedrian-Earth relations.

Nicole causes her to remember various events from the old universe like helping prepare for Bunnie and Antoine's wedding, the disagreements with her father, when she first kissed Tails, "befriending" the Krudzu and almost dying by saving most of Knothole and turning into a Chaos energy filled Tree.

#sonic the hedgehog #sonic x #cosmo the seedrian #classic sonic #modern sonic #satam sonic #archie sonic #sonic underground #taismo #tailsmo #miles tails prower #dark oak #the metarex #long post #terrific togekiss

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gin-and-luce · 4 years

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You killed our dog! Adriana of The Sopranos gave me strength to navigate life after a breakup during a global pandemic lockdown

I’m going through a breakup. It’s come at the worst time but also the best time. He ended things with me (more on that later) after three years in the most Beta-Male way...but this is what happens when your type can be boiled down to softboi. I can’t see my friends in the conventional way, so I made some new ones on screen to help me navigate the end during quarantine.

Over ten weeks ago I started watching The Sopranos. It doesn’t need justifying, everyone knows it’s the best television series of all time, but I’d never seen it, and I knew a global pandemic induced lockdown would provide optimum viewing circumstances. My favourite thing to do is completely throw myself into the female narrative and experience I’m watching on screen. I prefer a long deep drama over a film. I like being able to see my girls every night.

People have said to me before “you should start a blog”, but I could never escape the feeling that doing so is massively narcissistic because it *is*, unless you have something actually relevant to write about. Alternatively, the image of Gretchen Weiners leaning in and going “you let it out honey, put it in the book” floats across my conscience, and everything embarrassing that I’ve ever done, plays in a montage in my mind.

Who gives a fuck what I have to say about anything…….. especially about a cultural phenomena that is quite literally regarded as the best TV show of all time?

I’d been wanting to write this after I watched Long Term Parking. I lay in the dark for 45 minutes after the episode ended. I’d never felt like that watching a television show or film before. My throat had seized up but I didn’t cry, even though I felt like it. I knew it was coming from the moment Adriana met the agent. I wasn’t surprised, but I was heartbroken and absolutely fuming. I still am.

I’m not angry with Christopher, Tony, or Silvio, but just the general unbalance I’ve felt when I’m in a relationship. The loss of self, relationships being a series of compromises. From what I have found from my own experiences and my girlfriends’, women are just much more willing to compromise, but don’t consider it to be a compromise. Men can only take into consideration their own reality, an evolutionary selfishness that just doesn’t translate.

Just as lockdown began I texted my boyfriend to say I loved him and I missed him. He responded with “Can’t say I feel the same”. Nearly 3 years were over just like that. We had the obligatory phone call, where I was hysterical and he was smarmy and smug. Yet when it was over, I felt nothing. It’s allllll a big nothing.

My personal Gospel is Sex and The City (shout out to HBO!). This was my Berger moment. He essentially scribbled “I’m sorry, I can’t. Don’t hate me” on a post-it. The irony of the whole thing is that when we watched it together, he himself said he was most like Berger. Thinking about it makes me wince.

My life opened up in front of me, I was exposed to his weakness regarding the situation in full when his sister-in-law messaged me on Instagram a few days ago. He hadn’t told his family, nor had he told his flatmates (another shout out to my sleuths at the back, you know who you are!).

The Sopranos is a show about life. The Mafia structure provides a vehicle for us to question morality and mortality. You take what you get from it. When I watch it again at a different stage of my life, I will get something else out of it.

For me now, while I stew in my own emotion during quarantine, Adriana represents emotional labour and the expectation for women to behave in a certain way in relationships.

At first when my ex’s family members were messaging me, I was confused. It is frankly humiliating to smile as if everything is normal, so as to protect someone that in the end would not do the same for me. I know he wouldn’t do the same because there was just no courtesy in what happened weeks ago. I am trying to move on but things like this stunt your personal growth.

The struggle with emotional labour hones a guilt that someday I’ll regret giving my early 20s to something that didn’t work out. I felt like I was on borrowed time.

These are obviously my own insecurities spurred on by the fact that I’ve read enough “10 things I wish I knew in my 20s” blogs to know that these are my selfish years. Still, it is ultimately devastating to see the last 3 years of your life conclude via a text that displays a failure to realise that there is no real clean cut for a long-term relationship.

I respect him for the blunt statement because it means I get to reference the Berger SATC breakup and say “casually cruel in the name of being honest” (Taylor Swift, 2012) a LOT, which softens the pity in the social scenarios that I invent in my head in the shower.

When Tony calls Adriana to tell her Christopher has tried to kill himself, that was like my final phone call too. This is the end. Her youthfulness was why I related to her most in the show, but at the same time having nothing to lose made her easily expendable. Youth makes you put 100% into something knowing it is a gamble.

I’m not comparing my ‘borrowed time’ to Adriana because she ends up dead, but there was a disregard for her life that was so harrowing because she did nothing but try and do the right thing. I watched Adriana put Christopher first willingly for 5 series. He supported her music management dreams but ultimately ended up making it all about him. He gave her the Crazy Horse but this ultimately was just another mob hangout. He sat on her dog, he continued to use heroin, shag other people, and so on.

“You could start writing again,” she tells him in her last episode, to which he responds “I could do my memoirs, finally,”. Here is Adriana still!! STILL!! catering to Christopher’s ego to give herself some confidence. Very me.

All the way through she was just too good for him. Her ties to the Famiglia aren’t as tight as Carmela and Co. No children, still young, there’s chance for Adriana to get out if she wanted to. Of course this makes her prime FBl bait, but shows she sticks by Christopher through everything purely out of love. In the end she dies on her knees, subservient, with Heart’s Barracuda the last song she hears. I know Adriana had to go. That’s the way it is in the Famiglia because Christopher took an oath. But in a way she also had the carpet ripped from underneath her, just like me.

There are lots of men writing on the internet about how Adriana is greedy and hypocritical. I just don’t understand where this reading is coming from other than obvious misogyny. I’ve read others that say if she was really that strong she would have simply left the relationship years ago. I believe that she believed things would improve for both of them, and that most people are just slut shaming her for her past.

Still, Drea DeMatteo won a Best Supporting Actress Emmy for the episode. Fuckin’ A.

I rooted for the woman. Before I was made redundant while working from home, I would spend half my life at my desk willing it to be 5:30pm, so I could slither back to the settee and spend the other half of my life in New Jersey. I’d phone my mum to discuss the episodes. She loves the show too, it’s always been a favourite in my household. We’d talk about the women like they were our friends and how we relate to them. The Sopranos is like a big mirror urging you to question everything. The answer to life is simply what are ya gonna do?

Men love making things black and white so it is easier for them, when really women are in the background sorting out the shades of grey.

Don’t get me wrong, Adriana’s significance is massive, albeit more so because of her death. You watch Christopher and Tony’s relationship start to crumble afterwards. It's shattering to see the disregard for Christopher’s sobriety and how despite his loyalty, he still sees him as a liability and weak.

On the other hand, for Adriana’s sake, I am still enraged that he couldn’t see the bigger picture at the time. She is collateral damage in his path to finding his precious arc - “Wives, girlfriends, they can complicate life in a major way” Tony expresses to Jennifer as he runs from his own guilt.

Christopher is desperate for Tony’s approval but is more than happy to use his blood connection as a protective leeway whenever he steps out of line. Again the irony is that he comes to tell Tony about Adriana first, just as the old Famiglia values say he should, but there is no real personal reward for doing so despite the personal sacrifice.

I think Christopher regretted it in the end, and rightly so. When he is faced with his potential alternate life at the gas station, we assume that this was what made him go to Tony. It’s a family with loads of kids. Adriana probably can’t even have kids??? What kind of male logic?! #justiceforadriana

I can’t help but feel for him when JT screams “Chris, you’re in the MAFIA!”. It’s the same kind of reality check that Chief Cubitoso gives Adriana, it’s an ultimatum and it’s the realisation that they are trapped in this life. Just ask Gene.

Carmela knew. I read her dreams as a testament to a woman’s intuition. She knows her friend isn’t what everyone is describing, she knows Adriana wouldn’t just disappear. She is all too aware of the emotional labour Mob women carry. When she sees Adriana with Cosette on the banks of the Seine, it is as sad as it is when we dream about people who have died.

There is a scene in an early episode where Carmela says “Don’t we all?” in response to Meadow squealing “She’s MARRYING a BABY?” at a painting of The Marriage of Saint Catherine. I thought about this again when Christopher dies. Carmela passes her instinct off as hysteria, she isn’t to know. “So quick to blame, what is the attraction in that?” she cries during the aftermath of the car crash. There is a critique in her own femininity here that just makes you want to shout “NO CARM!!!!!!!”. As she believes she mothers Tony, there is the double-edged sword whereby he protects her through keeping her in the dark. “Heaven only ever sees my love making a fool of me” sings Emmylou Harris at the start of season 5. Carm’s power is taken away but she doesn’t even know.

Carmela dedicates her life to being a mother but it’s not enough to save Meadow from her surname. We get some sense that AJ ‘Break Stuff by Limp Bizkit’ Soprano might be on a new path when he feels like the burning of his car among the autumn leaves of death was cathartic. As a man, he just has more freedom anyway.

Miss Meadow gained her independence by getting her driving license, but in the end we see that she is still held back in the final scene by her inability to parallel park. She slots right in, eventually. As she does, she slots into the Soprano cycle after years of doing the most to get out and pave her own way. After every breakup with someone without links to the Famiglia, no scrubs, she returns and dates someone closer to home. Her career path is left tenuous to us, it would be all too easy for her to become a kept woman, which feels like it is the only real option should she settle down into the lifestyle with Patrick Parisi. It isn’t what she envisioned for herself, so part of me wants to hope that her story ends up a little bit more like Elle Woods. Legally Italian.

I probably wouldn’t even have remembered her saying anything about parallel parking if I wasn’t terrible at parallel parking myself. It’s the pepperings of these subtle callbacks that make the show so beautiful. As the guitar solo plays on during the frustration, you’re invited to reminisce over Meadow’s journey. I fully wept watching her struggle to get the damn car parked because I’m trying to get my car parked too. Don’t stop believing, Meadow.

I admire all the women in The Sopranos. The show is feminist, and that is a hill I am prepared to die on. It’s definitely up for debate as it is obviously littered with gratuitous nudity and women are commoditised. We have to allow this for cultural context for the show, but real life is basically exactly the same too?

I read a post on Reddit where a dude is asking whether he should watch the show with his girlfriend. He types ‘“It’s a masterpiece of film but she probably wouldn’t get into it as I am”, and you don’t have to look much further to find more comments about how women and their puny minds just won’t get it. It’s an odd perspective to take given that Tony’s psychiatrist is a woman, but of course women could never grasp something so complex. It’s bullshit if you ask me, the female narrative prevails throughout all scenarios.

The Pine Barrens seems to be everyone’s favourite episode. It’s not my favourite but there are two major elements that resonated with me. The first is Meadow looking down at the three letter words Jackie Aprile Jr had placed on the Scrabble board, and the second is when Gloria says to Tony:

“What you said was that you didn’t wanna piss me off..which implies that you’d have to deal with me, which is more about sparing YOU than my fucking feelings”. Don’t need to elaborate on that. Rest in power, Gloria. Legend.

Of course I could write pages and pages of hot feminist takes on all of the women - Jennifer, Janice, Livia, Angie, Svetlana, Charmaine. Lord knows I could probably write a book on Tracee.“ 20 years old, this girl”, I bashed Living on a Thin Line by The Kinks for about a week after that episode. It is the male gaze of the show made me love the women more. Carmela is my mother and I’ll probably name my first born Meadow.

Carmela is the powerhouse and backbone of The Soprano household even though Tony provides. She represents stability, emotional labour, and putting on a brave face regardless. In some ways, it is as if Carmela represents the human emotion side and the fragility of organised crime. She is secure, but not enough, and her lack of ability to stand on her own two feet plagues her conscience through time. She is totally complicit, but must be to ensure her future with Tony as he pays anything to roll the dice just one more time. At the end of Long Term Parking, she and Tony stand looking at where she will build her spec-house. The forest looks the same as where we lost Ade, it’s a grim reflection that Carmela wouldn’t have this life if it wasn’t for the quick disposal of those like Adriana.

Yeah okay, what the hell is a show with a feminist underpinning trying to say about wider society about a woman who exercises her beauty, loyalty and ambition?? Is it that she is not to be trusted?? Adriana’s a rat, but before this she is already deemed “damaged goods” anyway. She dresses provocatively, but that’s because she just looks MINT always. You would dress like THAT if you looked like THAT. When you Google her, ‘Adriana Sopranos Tennis’ comes up. I roll my eyes. Fucking men, eh? To take it down to a basic Sixth-Form-Poet reading, Adriana is Curley’s Wife and Daisy Buchanan all in one. She loves a red manicure too, and it might have worked out better for her if she had played the complicit beautiful little fool.

This isn’t ‘Why The Sopranos is good!’, but a love letter to Adriana and her strength, because there is basically little or no content written on the women of the show when I have Googled. I needed there to be more things written about her that isn’t just “bitch had it coming” when in fact she is a martyr.

When Adriana was on screen, there was my mate. I knew her, she wanted what I wanted, but she sacrificed so much of herself for others and it was heartbreaking to watch. She barely gets a look-in in early episodes, but when she does she is usually wearing something animal print, which automatically made her the number one character on my radar. I am choosing to believe the theory that she is the cat in the final episode too.

Still, I have been struggling and questioning why an episode that aired 16 years ago, with no plot that links to my own circumstances, has had such a monumental impact on me.

I saw a tweet that said “have we ever sat down and thought about why relationships only work if the guy is more invested than the girl or is that just something we accept” (@anugov1). Adriana invested more in Christopher, even in the end, than she ever did herself.

As I navigate this transitional period in my life, I am Adriana driving in the vision we see when we think she is going to start her new chapter. We can’t leave the flat, I have no job. The Sopranos has provided the most cathartic escapism for me. As I enter into whatever new world follows this nightmare, I wanted my mate Adriana to find her new world too, turning the classic rock up to 11.

#the sopranos #adriana la cerva #christopher moltisanti #carmela soprano #feminism #cosette #breakup #woe is me #hbo #david chase #drea de matteo

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academiadaisies · 3 years

Text

my struggles with studying

I don’t expect a lot of people to read this, and I’ll probably end up embarrassed to have typed this all up and posted it by tomorrow, but I think it’s important for me to get this out and away from myself.

I appreciate anyone who reads this, and welcome completely anyone who is/has been in a similar situation to me and wants to talk about it or has some tips. I don’t have a lot of people to talk to about it, I definitely feel like anyone I’m close to will not be a lot of help, and I don’t want to be a mental burden, with them knowing my problem, wanting to help, but not knowing what to do, and blah blah blah... Just know, anyone is completely welcome to reach out to me. I know a lot of people say that online, but I’m just a little cancer moon, cancer rising ;). I’ve got ears and struggles too. Sometimes things are difficult. :)) <3

School has always been my demise. I was basically a corpse just going class to class, making little contribution and writing down what the powerpoint said. I would zone out - not realising at all, come back to myself and suddenly the whole class was doing work, and I would have to swallow my pride, interrupt the person next to me and ask what we were supposed to do.

But my nights were wasted too. I guess I was never really taught to study, and everything I had tried for myself never seemed to work. But I didn’t try often. I remember coming home and turning on my computer to watch the next episodes of my show of the week, my mind in a dull and empty buzz, and next thing I knew it was midnight.

Growing up there was no schedule or routine. No one was really checking I had done my homework, no one checking I was showered or that I had brushed hair. There were no rules either. No specific screen time, no food rules, no bedtime. I know why, my mum was a very hard worker, having a daughter, a job, and university, and I am so grateful for her. She was busy. But it just meant I never knew much discipline. There was no structure, but I wasn’t forgotten. There was no food in the house, but there was money, and I - having no sense of diet - would spend more than was good for me on junk; a six pack of crisps a day, frozen pizza... and today that has never ended, it’s something of an addiction now. The lack of restraint and discipline is apparent everywhere in my life.

In school is where it is at it’s absolute worst. It’s not even an issue of my intelligence. The absolute last thing I want to come across as is conceited, but I did better than I deserved my first two years of high school exams having never studied for them, except maybe a bit of rereading and desperate attempts to memorise the night before. I passed everything, bar one, and sometimes with A’s.

But last year was inarguably my worst year ever, and it has bled into this year too. My attendance was below 50%, I came in maybe two or three days a week, sometimes only finally getting the motivation to show up in the afternoon, and even then I would hide away in pupil support classes, still not doing any work. My mum phoning me and screaming down the line as soon as she got the absent text. Me not knowing how to explain that I just couldn’t physically force myself to get up and ready. I started with 5 subjects and finished with 2, both of which I initially failed, but those grades were redacted because people argued the SQA were not grading fairly, basing grades on location instead of merit, and so I scraped by with two C’s. I absolutely would not have passed if not for the pandemic.

This year is hard to tell where I would be in a normal situation. I like to believe it was going to be so much better. The idea of leaving high school and entering college*. It was a fresh start. I was supposed to get my work done the day it was handed out, I was supposed to be more extroverted, and become a leader like I always wanted. But, of course, it’s all online. I think a major benefit of it is I don’t have much excuse not to be in class anymore. I can (and usually do) wake up minutes before the class starts, and do it all from bed, so if I was left to my own devices to get myself there and back, I’d bet my attendance has skyrocketed from what I it would have been. Though, my college is quite far, and I think my mum seeing to that I was on a bus, or even not in the house when she has to leave, would have been enough to ensure I was there too. If it was in person I would have no where to hide too. I wouldn’t get to have my camera off and play games during classes and not take notes, the lecturers would see. I’d have to take notes and I don’t usually do that. I wish I had. But then that just begs the question of would it be a repeat of high school? Would I be a corpse that goes through college classes blankly instead of high school ones? I really don’t know what to think. But today my college work is suffering. I have seven vital pieces of work long overdue, and I think the weight of all of them on my brain stops me from doing even one.

*If you’re not familiar with the system here, college is basically a stage after high school but below university in Scotland, that not everybody goes to. I’m not sure the school systems everywhere in the world but it’s not the equivalent of sixth form college in England, or what’s called college in the US, which would be university here. I’m sorry if this sounds dumb because there’s probably this everywhere in the world but I just want to clarify what stage I’m at exactly. I’m taking a HNC which is kind of the equivalent of first year university.

And so it leads me to believe I have ADD/ADHD. I really am not about to self diagnose. Although it might be enough for some, I often worry I’m a bit of a paranoid person, and that I like to jump to the most “extreme” conclusions, but I don’t think my livelihood makes it totally unlikely.

I find myself devoting my time and what motivation I have to things that just don’t matter. I’ve memorised maps of the US, Europe, Scotland and Ireland. I took up interests in religion and astrology, buying crystals as if they were coming to save me like all the TikToks say. I’ve taught myself bits of piano, British Sign Language, chess, Teeline shorthand and Morse code, just to give up. I even made it to 100 days on Duolingo learning Scottish Gaelic before I stopped that too. Engrossed in wide varieties of things that I’d love to be great at, abandoning it because I’ve decided I’m bored.

But the worst waste of my time is always spent on my phone. I am a huge advocate for downtime, not every single second has to be productive. But it’s never good to have a 12 hour daily screen time average.

I can never concentrate either. I can’t force myself to. As I write this I have an essay due I’ve had for a month, and I’m going to have to do it all tomorrow. I don’t understand why I can’t physically force myself to get it done. I always think, “why am I on TikTok when I have an essay due?” And I never really have a reason. Even my driving instructor told me to get tested because, especially nearing the end of the lessons, my attention starts to waver, and I find her having to change gears for me sometimes, and warning me to stop looking at whatever might pass by.

I have a little list of priorities in my mind too. I keep reminding myself that I have this essay and this assignment to do, but I also have ideas of starting a blog or reading a book. The school work is first in the list of priorities, I know it needs to be done first and so I take it to the extreme and can’t seem to do anything meaningful at all until it’s gone. Of course, it never is gone, I never do it, and I find myself scrolling social medias all day, a perfectly anodyne time waster. No substance and no thoughts.

But I’m a perfectionist too, with very little confidence. I can tell part of me puts it off because it needs to be as good as it possibly can be, and another part tells me I’ll start it later, I’ll feel better about it later. I have big ideas, that if only I could force myself to do, would be great, but the idea of it not being good enough only puts me off. I’d not do the work until it’s at the point where the excuse is “it’s only bad because I didn’t give myself enough time to do it,” because of the fear of the possibility “it’s bad because I’m bad at it.”

Part of my inability to really do anything I think also had to do with depression. ADD/ADHD makes my life chaos. My room is a mess, there is no organisation or structure in my day, there is no motivation to fix it, no understanding of how to fix it. I’m a very intuitive person, because I have to be. Any decision I make is unknown to me until it’s happening really. I can’t plan when I’m starting work, sometimes I just have to hope I get the motivation to open my laptop. I think depression feeds off the ADD/ADHD symptoms. My room is messy because I can’t be organised, then my mindset worsens because I have such a terrible, unlivable space with no motivation to do anything about it, and it just stays that way. I can’t concentrate long enough to do work, then my mindset worsens because it means I have work overdue, that will have bad consequences, people disappointed in me, and etc, etc. I’m sorry, I don’t think I’m articulating myself well here. I’m intuitive in decisions but I’m also an overthinker. Or maybe just more of a worrier. I don’t do the work and so, every time my phone pings I jump and check cautiously because I fear it’s my lecturer messaging me that I’m off the course. The depression really took a terrible toll on my life. I won’t get too into it but I can hardly talk to friends, find the motivation to shower, or even go outside. All I find myself doing is lying in bed staring at a screen. I don’t know what else I can really do about it.

And the worst part is, in my mind, I have myself convinced that it’s not even that bad. That it’ll be okay tomorrow, I’ll change tomorrow, as if I’m not long past the point of this just being a little off day.

But one thing I do I know is a symptom of ADD/ADHD, which consumes my whole mind, is my hyperfixation. I won’t go too deep but basically for just over a year it’s been an honestly unsubstantial book I read. Loved by many, but nothing special, in comparison. I’ve only read it maybe twice all the way through but it never leaves my mind. I relish in any and all fan works, stalking the ao3 works, refreshing the tumblr tag. I can just stand and jump and pace, while listening to one song on repeat, thinking about the characters in all kinds of scenarios for hours on end. I can imagine the main character as me in everything I do; as I pick up a book from my bookshelf, as I walk my dog, as I lay down at night. I constantly compare myself to him too, feeling bad that I’m not as similar or good. I hate it. I don’t know if I even like the book anymore, I don’t think it’s possible to tell, I’m just obsessed with it.

I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about it really. The NHS don’t diagnose ADHD in adults, and I’m only 18. I’ve been this way my whole life but no one ever paid much attention to it. When I told my mum I think I have depression, she laughed at me, then got really angry, saying I’m not depressed just lazy, before buying me flowers and telling me she was worried I was going to hurt myself. Now I feel like I can’t speak about anything serious like this rationally because she looks for every reason that there is no problem, and if there is it’s the worst possible case, and “oh I’ve been a terrible mum.”

I don’t understand my problem. I have big dreams and goals for my life, I know what I am doing now will never get me anywhere but still that knowledge is not enough to get me to do what I need to. I’ve even written this post over eight days, for all the distractions and lack of motivation I’ve had to finish it. It’s a never ending cycle, but I really hope having this out there now will spark something in me. I’m sure this will make someone feel better about their situation now too, and that’s totally okay! If it can help someone, right? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I’m sorry I probably brought up a lot of completely irrelevant stuff, and went into tangents at times, but I just wanted to stress how it all plays into each other. They’re all connected, which brings a lack of motivation and discipline to my life and my work. I just want to let it all go.

Again, I really don’t think many people will read this but anyone is completely welcome to message. If anyone has some tips for people who can just never concentrate, or also anyone who is in social sciencey type courses (psychology, sociology, politics esp) and has some tips for doing that too I’d be so grateful. :) <3 (also this is a repost because I tried posting last night but it wouldn’t go to the tag, hope it works this time)

#studyblr #study #studying #student

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brokasteltranslations · 4 years

Text

Fate/Requiem: Chapter 4

Several days had passed since I had been relieved of my duties as the Reaper. No more work had come in from my master, Caren Fujimura, since the Kundry case, and I no longer received information on a preferential basis over the municipal network. I had been barred from the critical point where the Akihabara district barrier was located, and my access to Kanda Shrine and Yushima Temple, where multiple ley lines converged, had also been restricted. Stripped of my rank and duties, I was nothing more than another truant – and one dragging a nameless, powerless, useless Servant in tow to boot. A lone wolf not even worth employing as a guard dog.

Fortunately, Akihabara was a prime tourist destination, and as long as I wore my usual swimwear and windbreaker I would more or less blend in with the usual clientele. However, that did nothing to help me feel less out-of-place. Whatever I did, I just felt like running away and hiding in a hole.

I had received no more information on the Command Seal Hunter. It was worrying that the case had not yet been publicly acknowledged. My gut told me that it had not been quietly solved and faded away. It was merely biding its time.

Whispers of the “Woman with the Missing Hand” circulated Shibuya. It had become something of an urban legend among students.

Don't you know better than to cut that out? Keep repeating it and it'll become real, and then who'll have to deal with it? It'll be... actually, I suppose it won't be me. Not any more.

----

As a consequence of my newly-imposed freedom, I had taken to wandering the town aimlessly with Pran on a daily basis. Wherever we went, we found faint traces of Chitose's presence. It crossed my mind more than once to quit Akihabara for one of the other wards.

–

There were many things that seemed to draw Pran's interest, but over time I started to notice a broad pattern. It was live experiences that he seemed to enjoy - street performers, buskers, speed painters and the like were what most often caught his eye.

Thinking back to the episode with Kuchime, I tried taking him along to a shop geared towards those 'otaku'. It was crammed to the rafters with endless figurines of buxom girls, male-oriented toys and all manner of merchandise, to the point where I was almost sick of looking at it. However, none of it particularly seemed to resonate with him.

Maybe it's because they're all manufactured goods. Perhaps it's originality that appeals to him?

He stood by, a little sleepily, gazing into the distance as though squinting into the sun, watching faraway strangers. Only when we passed a shop selling astronomical telescopes did he exhibit a different reaction. He squatted down in front of a poster of the planets – clearly not hand-made – and stayed there for well over a minute.

“Do you know Jupiter?”

“This eye... it follows me.”

“Eye? Oh, you mean the Great Red Spot?”

“This planet's so big. It's so big...”

He shivered, then pulled the goggles resting over his head down over his eyes, and peered at the poster once more.

“A planet, huh? I'm surprised you know that word.” Had he picked it up from when I read The Little Prince to him? He had initially talked about coming from somewhere far away – perhaps he wasn't just making it up? Or maybe... no, was that even possible?

I chose my words carefully. “That's a very old photograph. From before the war. The Great Red Spot on Jupiter isn't there any more. It got smaller and smaller, and then it disappeared.”

He smiled gently at the poster.

“Maybe it went to sleep. I hope someone comes to wake it up.”

–

Before I knew it, the day of the Grail Tournament had arrived. I hadn't exactly been waiting with bated breath, but still I found myself in front of the Colosseum.

The colossal stadium was located on the outskirts of Akihabara, bordering the ocean. Its enormous silhouette threatened to overwhelm the surrounding cityscape. Towering arches, each easily the size of a skyscraper, rose high in three, four levels to form the thick exterior of the cylindrical structure and enclose the arena within.

This was a place of pure competition. The poets once spoke of the ancient Roman emperors giving their people bread and circuses; here was the circus reborn for the modern age, the manifestation of the people's right to entertainment.

–

I had ended up accompanied to the Colosseum by Pran and Karin. Koharu had, to my great chagrin, seen fit to furnish me with not one, not two, but a whole four reserved tickets – two Master-Servant pairs. Technically Servants had no need for tickets – after all, they could just assume their spiritual forms – but no-one willing to come to see the Grail Tournament in person could reasonably be refused a seat, and they were provided in pairs as a matter of course. That being said...

“How long's it been?”

It had been twenty minutes since the stadium had opened, and we were still waiting.

Enormous lines snaked from each and every one of the Colosseum's myriad entrances. At this rate, the tournament would probably have started before we got to our seats. Personally I hardly minded, but it must have bothered Karin, because she suddenly yelled out at the top of her voice.

“All right, fine! Flake out on me, see if I care! We're going in, you hear?”

“You really want to go in? You sure you don't want to wait a bit longer?” I did my best to keep my voice neutral.

“Damn right I'm sure! Never should've invited you anyway, you lousy no-show son of a...”

None of her messages had prompted a response, it seemed.

–

The individual keeping us waiting was the weary-looking guitar player, Kuchime.

Unsure what exactly to do with my four tickets, I had decided to start by offering them to people I knew. Karin herself had snatched the chance with typical zeal, but her partner Kouyou had been reluctant to join us, leaving me with one left over. However, a few days later the two of us had happened to stumble across Kuchime in a side-street in Akihabara, strumming away with his usual gloomy air and being flatly ignored by every passer-by. Karin had called out, probably taking pity on him.

“Hey, Kuchime, was it? Ever thought of checking out the Grail Tournament? Maybe the halftime show'll give you some tips on how not to make your customers run a mile.”

“Ain't got no need for that, little missy. I'm happy as long as I'm getting' through to people with ears to hear.”

“Think you're some kinda auteur, huh? Keep dreaming, idiot. Why don't you just go the whole way and die young while you're at it!”

I had watched blankly as she exploded at him unprovoked. Her tirade had ended with her snatching the ticket from my hands and thrusting it squarely into his unshaven face. Had she done it in a spontaneous surge of pity for this dishevelled musician, or had she been planning it all along? I may have been the Reaper, but even I wasn't so insensitive as to probe any further.

However, in the end, the chance she had taken came to nothing. She stalked towards the arena, fuming. I followed her, leading Pran by the hand.

–

Eventually, we arrived at our designated seats. The interior of the Colosseum was spacious, tall, and delightfully modern.

I now understood why the queues today had been particularly bad: the staff were conducting unusually extensive baggage checks and body searches on all attendees. I had even seen staff members flagging down particular individuals for Command Seal checks, and it was hard not to notice the guns at the hips of a number of security personnel dotted around the stadium.

I'm glad they didn't try to check my Command Seals. Maybe the reservations got us through...

In any case, it was gratifying to see that my warning to Hannibal hadn't gone unheeded. Although there was always the possibility that the organisers had gotten wind of the serial killings themselves, and acted of their own accord.

“Yo! Sorry we took so long.” Karin reappeared with Pran in tow. Both of their arms were piles high with soft drinks, packets of peanuts and other junk food. She tossed me a freshly-grilled hot dog.

“So this is the bread part, huh? Shouldn't be long until the circu- Yeowch! Aah! My tongue!”

“Circus? You mean the halftime show, right? Oh yeah, there was a stall selling some kinda porridge too if you want some. I tapped out though, seemed pretty weird.”

“Porridge, huh? How odd... Hey, who gave you those?!”

I suddenly registered Pran was decked from head to toe in tournament merchandise, complete with a little paper cap and a megaphone. He was ready for the show.

I couldn't stop myself from bursting out laughing, and soon both me and Karin were clutching our sides. She was so engrossed in the tournament now that it was hard to imagine she had been furious not twenty minutes ago. I could probably learn a lot from how quickly she rebounded.

Next to our seats on the very front row was a space to be kept open in case of emergencies. Fortunately, it was just large enough for Kouyou to squeeze in. Accommodating larger Servants was probably half of the reason it was there.

–

After a minute or so, the music playing throughout the stadium increased in volume and a rousing melody began to play. It seemed we'd timed our arrival perfectly.

The music faded away, and for a moment, the entire arena fell silent. Then, as if on cue, a voice rang out across the stadium. Below us, eldritch lights began to dance across the very front row where the patricii would have sat in the original Colosseum. A diminutive figure strode down to the aisle, and unfurled a pair of feathered wings. At the same time, the main screen cut to a close-up of a girl - a woman? - dressed in a plain white Grecian tunic.

“Good evening, my lovely little piglets!” Her greeting echoed around the Colosseum at amplified volume. “Welcome, one and all, to the ocean stage of the Grail Tournament! That's right! We're all setting sail for Okeanos, and I, the great witch Circe, will be your guide!”

She stoked the crowd's excitement, and they answered with a deafening roar… although I did pick up some rather crude jeers mixed in with the cheering.

“Thank you, thank you, my little piglets! I love you too! Now, before we meet all our brave warriors, I'd like to introduce our commentary team!”

Two burly men strode down the aisle to join her, waving to the audience.

“First, for the Ottoman Corsairs, we have a scallywag among scallywags! The Gentleman of the Caribbean! The one and only Blackbeard, Edward Teach!”

“That's me!” Blackbeard was greeted by deafening boos. He did not seem to care a jot.

“Sounds like you know him well! Let's move swiftly on!”

“Wait, that's all I get?!”

“Next, for the Carthaginian Alliance, we have the king of admirals! The man who saved the Roman Empire from the Ptolemaic Dynasty! Friend and advisor to Emperor Augustus, I give you Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa!”

Agrippa! The commander who led the Romans to victory at the Battle of Actium!

I expected him to bask in the applause of the crowd, but instead he rounded on the emcee.

“What is this? I never agreed to this! First you invite me to attend nigh on midnight last night, and now you expect me to commentate?! Explain yourself!”

“About that... Honestly, we wanted Eukleides of Alexandria, but he cancelled at the last moment. What are Foreigners like, right?”

“Some nerve on you, girl! You expect a general of Rome to commentate on the Carthaginians? And you! Yes, you, the Servant with the easel! You think capturing my face is funny, do you?!”

The sight of the irate Agrippa slowly being talked down by the witch emcee, and eventually taking a reluctant seat at the commentator's desk, drew no small amount of laughter from the audience.

“All right, everyone, make sure you have your channels all set to your favourite team! If you're feeling peckish, why not try some delicious kykeon?”

–

“Well, that sure was something.”

Karin was grinning next to me. I, for my part, was aghast. This was grotesque, a vulgar display that made a mockery of Servants' pride and nobility. It was difficult to tell how much was real and how much was acted, but the tastelessness of the ambiguity only made me feel more disgusted. The tournament itself hadn't even begun yet, and I had a feeling it was only going to get worse.

I guess the least I can do is watch it through. I probably won't be getting another chance.

My reasons for being here were twofold. Firstly, I wanted to see what I could learn about Koharu's mysterious Possession ability. I had also been deeply impressed by the way that, despite being aware of her naivety, she disapproved wholeheartedly of any wrongdoing, and the evident admiration with which she viewed her companions.

My second reason was that I wanted to see for myself the incredible power that Servants were permitted to wield here. I felt both awe and terror for Noble Phantasms. It was baffling to me that abilities so destructive might be allowed to be used freely.

The citizens of Mosaic City were different to Masters in the true sense. They were no magi, with magic circuits passed down from previous generations or developed through special training, and it went without saying that none of them possessed a Magic Crest. The mana that powered their magecraft originated from the Holy Grail, and was distributed throughout the city via ley-lines. This mana was more than enough to sustain a Servant in everyday life with no discomfort. However Noble Phantasms, which employed magecraft on a much larger scale and consumed vast amounts of mana, were another matter entirely. Activating them was highly challenging, and they could kill a Master unless attempted with extreme care.

Broadly speaking, the most common foes I encountered in my work were Masters who fought with little regard for their own lives, because they had found something they valued more.

Had the combatants in this Colosseum all reined their latent magical abilities to extraordinary levels? Or had the footage I had seen simply been enhanced in some way after the fact? I had come to determine the truth.

“Oh, there you are, Kouyou.”

In the formerly empty space in the midst of the cheering crowd, the enormous bulk of the Ogress had appeared. She sat with her belly pressed to the ground, trying to make herself as small as possible. Occasionally her eyes glanced sideways to meet with Pran's.

–

Feeling a little relieved, I turned back to the arena. The battlefield was enormous: a huge rectangular arena, two hundred metres on the larger side. Above each of the spectator seats floated semi-transparent screens that provided a closer view of the action.

Finally, the battlefield began to change. Cracks ran across the centre, and the stage began to fold in on itself with mechanical precision, forming a deep, wide basin. Water swirled in to fill it, and rocks rose from beneath its surface to form a maze of crags in the open water. Two galleys burst from the canals at either side of the stage, defying the current. They hung in the air for a second, like salmon poised mid-leap above a waterfall, and then crashed down into the water below with a mighty splash. A host of smaller boats and schooners followed them out, and quickly organised themselves into two fleets.

There was no magic in this, only the most cutting-edge stage equipment... although perhaps it was best not to think about the enormous, ominous shadow circling beneath the water's surface.

–

“Now, my little piglets, I think we've kept you waiting long enough! Let's get this naumachia started! We know you're tired of the same-old same-old, so this year we thought we'd change things up a little with a large-scale team-on-team battle! Which of our brave teams in Akihabara today will be crowned the conquerors of the high seas?

“First, we have the Ottoman Corsairs! For these terrors of the Mediterranean Sea, this man once more takes up the rank of Pasha! Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the great pirate of Barbary, the Redbeard, Heyreddin Barbarossa!

“And that's not all! Next we have his second-in-command! There's not a man west of Austria who doesn't know his name: the Grand Master of the Knights Templar, Jacques de Molay!”

The witch introduced each of the competitors one by one, stoking the crowd's excitement. Illustrious admirals and infamous pirates lined up upon the deck.

“And now, last but not least, someone you know very well! The mightiest commander of the navies of the far east - can you say “Hassou-tobi”? Our favourite natural-born Heike-killer, Minamoto Kurou Yoshitsune!

“Could this samurai be the most dangerous competitor on the field today? I'm sure the other side won't be showing much quarter, so look forward to some spectacular acrobatics!”

–

The pretty young warrior looked a little uncomfortable in responding to chants of “Ushiwaka!”, but eventually gave in and began to wave to the crowd. The sight broke me from my trance, and a young girl standing nearby caught my attention; she hadn't been introduced.

Could that be Yoshitsune's Master?

She was dressed in elegant traditional Japanese robes and heavy facial makeup, matching Yoshitsune, but she herself appeared to be nothing more than an ordinary citizen. Behind or beside the other Servants stood similar unassuming figures. More than a couple of them were wearing masks that obscured their faces.

Eventually, the oriental arrangement of Mozart's Turkish March playing throughout the Colosseum drew to a close, and was replaced with an unsettling, savage, African-style drumbeat. The Grail Tournament was as tasteless as ever.

–

“Now swivel your heads the other way, my adorable piglets! Little corkscrew tails to the east, and snouts to the west! Please give it up for the mighty heroes of the Carthaginian Alliance!

“Cast your eyes upon Rome's worst nightmare! At his back, the souls of three war elephants with whom he crossed the Pyrenees and the Alps! Ladies and gentlemen, the Lightning Commander, Hannibal Barca!”

The sight of Hannibal, cross-armed on the deck in traditional battle garments, was so wildly different from the garrulous old tourist I had met in Cafe Borges that I could hardly believe it was the same man. The mighty cheer from the crowd put not so much as a crack in his stern expression, and he harboured a menacing aura.

“And not to be outdone, his second-in-command: The Firebrand of Castile, El Cid!”

The witch continued with her introductions, each one punctuated with thunderous applause. I tuned them out. My attention was absorbed by a small figure on the deck, with a white coat draped across her shoulders. I followed her with my augmented vision as she stared keenly into the enemy ranks.

He stood a short distance behind her, head askew, hands on his hips. He seemed devoid of tension, as though this were nothing more than a routine warmup.

“And taking up the rearguard is someone I'm sure you all remember! None other than the warrior who took the Newbie Tournament by storm! Our proud Knight of the Round Table, Sir Galahad!”

–

With the introductions concluded, the galleys began to slip forwards, and each team assembled into their respective formations. Karin rapped on my knee with her megaphone, unable to conceal her excitement.

“I told you it was gonna be awesome! Dunno much about the pirates, but even I know Yoshitsune!”

“You expecting me to be impressed or something? You could hardly call yourself Japanese if you didn’t.”

I could not imagine it would be easy for this collection of pirates, outlaws to the bone that they were, to assimilate cleanly into everyday life in Mosaic City - although, of course, there were exceptions. Perhaps it was for the best that there was a place for them here, where they could put their talents to use while also entertaining the populace. However...

“I know it's just a mock battle, but don't you think this seems really one-sided? The Ottomans are obviously better at sea. Hannibal's famous for his war elephants, but he can't even use them on the water.”

“Haven't been reading up, eh Eri? Here's a flyer for you. See? Says right here the field will change halfway through, and turn into a land battle. There's your Carthaginian advantage.”

“Ah. I get it.” This was never supposed to be a fair battle, but a dramatic turnaround against overwhelming odds. The perfect script to drive the audience wild. I myself had to confess, I was looking forward to seeing Yoshitsune and Galahad face off – so much so that a part of me wished this were a real Holy Grail War.

“Yeah. Now I see.” I gazed around at the nearby spectators with dawning realisation. I felt as though I'd grown a little closer to understanding how these competitors could wield such extraordinary power, and the system that supported them in doing so.

----

“Eh?”

The back of my neck prickled. Someone, somewhere, was watching me.

I slid my gaze slowly around myself, careful not to let my reaction be noticed, but my stalker was impossible to discern through the interference of the crowd around me.

I'm being watched. No doubt about it. There's something else, too. A familiar, maybe?

The Borgia siblings' warning came to mind. Someone I'd previously crossed, out for revenge. As I looked around warily, hoping to forestall some impending attack, I noticed something strange: dotted throughout the crowd were spectators standing motionless, seemingly blind to the excitement around them.

Victims of the Command Seal Hunter? No, that doesn't seem right...

I focused, filtering out the auditory noise, following the sense of wrongness back to its source... and happened to catch a snippet of conversation from the row in front.

“You serious? A fire in Shinjuku?”

“Where? Tsunohazu? Kashiwagi?”

“Seems like it's around Hanazono way.”

Hanazono?

My old house was in Hanazono. Which was to say, Chitose's house was in Hanazono. I leaned forward a little, and stared at the woman in front's phone from over her shoulder.

“Eri, the hell are you doing?”

On the screen was a video someone had uploaded to the municipal network.

“What on earth...?”

A video of a building on fire. In real time.

A row of old wooden houses in Shinjuku wreathed in smoke. A human figure appeared from the billowing grey curtain, aflame from head to toe. However, they did not run or drop to the ground, but continued calmly into the next building, and even as their blood boiled and their skin charred with the flames' caress, began to feed the flames.

The video cut short - interrupted by a new upload of a public train brought to a standstill, flames licking at its roof.

As I watched, a buzz of concern began to spread throughout the crowd. It was hardly surprising; there were probably no small number of spectators here from Shinjuku. I turned around to see that Karin, too, was transfixed by her phone.

“What's wrong?”

“They say there's been some kinda 'pedestrian accident' in front of Shibuya station. A tram derailed and went across the cross... Oh. Ew. I'm not looking at that. Trains are stopped too. The hell's going on?”

Simultaneous incidents, all across Mosaic City.

“Ugh...”

I gripped my arm as a dull pain blossomed inside it. The stench of death was agitating the spirits. Black blood oozed out from beneath my hand, as their ire turned on my own body.

Just when I thought I'd gotten them under control...

This arena was no longer a place I should be. I was the greatest threat here, to the tens of thousands of spectators present and the partners by their sides. Right now, these simultaneous incidents concerned me.

Security here was tight, and more to the point, greater warriors than I could ever hope to be now thronged the main stage. This was perhaps the safest place in all of Mosaic City. My place was not here – as much as I had wanted to see Koharu fight, I no longer had time to worry about that.

“Eri, wait.”

Karin must have guessed my intentions as soon as I stood up.

“You're going? Just like that? Without me, again?”

“Sorry. I know I invited you out here and everything, but... there's something I need you to do.”

“What is it?”

I stared back at Karin for a moment, then looked down to the boy by her side.

“Kouyou, do you think you could take care of Pran?”

The ogress looked to Karin questioningly, then gave a slow nod.

“Consider it done. Just leave it to us, Eri.” Karin flashed her newly-recovered Command Seals, alongside an irrepressible grin. Just as I made to leave, Karin's phone buzzed with a notification, and she pulled it out.

“Who's texting people at this kinda time?”

She checked the screen and sighed.

“It's that Kuchime asshole. He says “Sorry.””

“That's all?”

“That's all.” She smiled, resignedly and a little sadly.

----

I left the seats behind and made my way to the outer hall. While still indoors, this was an airy, open space, with high arches modelled meticulously after Roman architecture. It extended far away in both directions, curving gently to match the shape of the arena. Shops lined the outer wall, still milling with a fair number of late customers. Here and there people clustered around screens outside the storefronts, drinking as they watched the matches unfold.

What's even the point of coming here?, I thought. You could be doing that at home!

–

As I hurried towards the exit, I organised the idea I'd hit upon earlier in my head: to whit, that the competitors in the Holy Grail Tournament were taking their mana from the crowd itself. Tens of thousands of pseudo-magi, all pouring mana into the Servants doing battle below. That was my hypothesis.

This Colosseum was not a post-war addition to Akihabara. It had been a part of this town since long before the world was restructured, and it was far too large an anomaly to be permitted to exist without a reason. And in ancient Rome, the battles that took place in the colosseums had been sacred acts; offerings made to the gods.

Heroic Spirits take on all of our thoughts, hopes and dreams. They draw power from them.

The greater the mark a Servant had left upon history, and the more fame they had earned, the more power they drew. Such was their nature – and as an unintended and tragic consequence, Servants were occasionally summoned with the strange and cruel skill, “Innocent Monster”.

How much of this do the Riedenflaus family realise, I wonder?

I couldn't help but wonder just to what extent thaumaturgical systems might be entwined with the structure of the Colosseum itself.

An unexpected voice called me to a halt.

“Erice, we need to talk. It's important.”

It was the first time I had seen Ms. Fujimura in several days. I wheeled around to find her standing in the dimly-lit outer hall, dressed like a librarian as always.

Why is she here? What could she possibly want to talk about?

I strode towards her, with the intention of grilling her on the events in Shibuya and Shinjuku.

As I opened my mouth, I heard an odd sound from the broadcast. As the camera focused on the Carthaginian flagship, the witch performing the commentary had yelped in shock. I spun around to look. Ms. Fujimura, too, focused on the screen.

What I saw defied comprehension.

Regardless of the fact that the enemy was still distant, Hannibal, the Carthaginian commander, whipped his blade from the sheath at his belt, and without a moment's hesitation thrust it deep into the chest of his second-in-command, El Cid.

“Gah!”

El Cid's face froze in an expression of disbelief. His Master rounded on Hannibal in his confusion. The Carthaginian pulled his bloodstained sword from his ally's chest, and without a care for the man's protests, swung his sword crosswise in a vicious slash.

Both El Cid and his master collapsed. Two heads flew from the boat, to splash down unceremoniously into the artificial sea.

#Fate/Requiem #Fate #translation #light novel

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animebw · 4 years

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Binge-Watching: Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, Episodes 6-8

In which I consider why things don’t feel quite so compelling anymore, Mirai’s left jogging in place, and Mari takes center stage.

Grown-Up Girl

One of the most important tenants I follow while writing for this blog is to work from my reaction backward. There’s a million ways anime can succeed and fail, and no matter what rules you think should be followed to create a “good” piece of media, you can never know for sure how something’s gonna hit you until it hits you. So it’s not worth saying that an anime’s good or bad because it does X or Y with its narrative, structure, character arcs, or whatever. If a show makes me cry, it makes me cry, regardless of what techniques it used to get to that point. And it’s my job to reverse-engineer that reaction to figure out how the show made me cry, and how that influences my overall opinion. That’s the only way I can honestly approach the media I consume. So when I noticed that I wasn’t as invested in this stretch of Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 as I was for the show’s first half, I knew I had to trust that reaction. That’s not to say the show’s bad now; in fact, it’s still really damn good. But compared to how gripping and emotional those first five episodes were, it feels like these episodes are missing something. Something’s changed in the formula that’s lessening the impact for me. And looking back on these episodes now that I’m done, I think I’ve got some idea of what that is: Mirai’s character arc feels like it’s no longer the focus.

Look, this show’s biggest draw for me was always Mirai’s journey toward adulthood. You can see from how much I’ve gushed over her growth in my last couple posts, I’m really invested in her. Watching her learn to look outside herself and develop stronger empathy for the people around her was the backbone of Tokyo Magnitude’s first half, and the emotional heights that journey reached were some of the most compelling realistic drama I think I’ve ever gotten out of anime. But now that she’s come so far, it feels like the show doesn’t quite know where to go with her. She’s growing up, so now what? What challenges does she still have to undergo? What lessons does she still need to learn? What new and difficult conflicts must she contend with building off the progress she’s already made? So far, I don’t think we’ve really answered those questions. She’s more considerate of others than she used to be, she spends a lot of energy helping the people around her, she’s more open with her emotions, but she’s not pushing forward. She doesn’t feel like she’s going anywhere. I could track so many moments that contributed to her development in the show’s first half, but throughout these episodes, she kinda feels static.

And to be clear, these are good developments in her character! This is the growth she should be undergoing as a result of everything she’s learned. And it’s so fucking rewarding to see just how far she’s come. Her realization that fore as much as she argues with her parents, they probably care about her just as deeply as Mari cares about Hina? Great stuff. Recognizing that she wants to figure out what to do with her life after seeing Kenta’s passion for robots Compelling. How still and reserved she gets waiting for Yuki’s recovery, unable to do anything but wait and hope and bottle up all her fears? Gut-wrenching. The incredibly display of complicated emotions that plays across her face when she realizes Yuki’s okay, so many feelings cascading on top of each other that she can barely keep her composure? Christ, I almost lost my shit all over again. Their relationship is so fucking good, and the way they’ve become so comfortable talking with each other is absolutely wonderful. Even just the way she carries his heavy backpack for him, realizing how much weight he’s been carrying and realizing she should’ve been helping him carry it from the start, is such a great moment for her. I just wish I had a better sense of where the story’s gonna take her from here. The show’s single best source of forward momentum shouldn’t be jogging in place like this.

Role Reversal

That being said, there is a reason why Mirai’s arc kinda feels like it’s taking a backseat; this set of episodes is where Mari’s arc is pushed to the forefront. Best Mom’s always been a blast to have around, but in this set of episodes, we realize that she’s not as perfectly in-control as she wants the kids to believe. She hides a growing fever from them until it knocks her own, she’s understandably struggling from not knowing if her family’s alive, and the pressure of not having anyone around she can vent to is really starting to crack her. Like Mirai, she’s trying to take everything on her shoulders so no one else has to carry her, and it’s rapidly wearing her down. After all, she’s the adult in the room; if she can’t be strong and keep up good spirits, then what chance to the kids have of making it? But her friend Aya recognizes that she can’t keep this up all by herself. She’s got a daughter and mother to get back to, and she’s not gonna survive the journey back if the pressure only lands on her. And with Mirai growing mature enough that she can actually provide her that support, we’re essentially seeing these characters swap roles in relation to each other. Mirai had to learn that it was okay to rely on Mari when she couldn’t deal with the pressure alone. And now, Mari has to learn that it’s okay to rely on Mirai in the same way, because the guidance she’s given Mirai has helped her mature into someone capable of returning the kindness she was given.

That’s actually a really damn good path to take, showcasing how much Mirai’s grown by having her support the adult who supported her. And while I don’t think it was executed flawlessly, it still tracks emotionally enough that I remain invested. Mirai’s never seemed more mature than when she’s showing kindness to Mari in the same way she showed to her, thinking about how much she missed Hina and how desperate she must be to get home. And even though Mari’s committed to getting the kids back safely before she reunites with her family, Mirai can still give her a shoulder to cry on when her fear grows too heavy to hold inside. And Christ, Mari breaking down in tears just about ripped my heart out of my chest. How many times has she shouldered Mirai’s sobbing when the girl was overwhelmed and upset? And now, Mirai’s able to give her a space to cry right back? That’s just good fucking stuff right there. Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 might not be as solid as it used to be, but it’s still got more than enough to keep me excited to see it through to the end. Here’s hoping it can stick the landing.

Odds and Ends

-Okay, but that dog walking in the background was straight-up munching on a human hand, and that’s just grody.

-askdhaskdh oh my god they thought they were in The Last of Us didn’t they

-Mari’s muscles are making me feel some sort of way, man.

-JEEESUS THAT WAS WAY TOO CLOSE

-”I invited you! I can’t be going too fast!” D’aaaaw, motorcycle romance.

-Are... are rescue robots a thing in Japan? I’m just gonna assume they are.

-This show’s a little inconsistent with portraying illness. Yuki was lilting, then he was fine for that entire conversation with Kenta, now he’s collapsing from heat stroke. Weird.

-”Someone call an adult!” “I just did, you dummy!” aksdhakjshdad

-This guy’s just like, “You know, we’re using robots to keep people out of trouble, not get people into trouble because you project human feelings onto unfeeling machines.” I like him.

-”I was just thinking about how amazing you are.” And don’t you forget it.

-Okay, Mirai’s face turning from the light to the shadows as she realized Yuki collapsed was just plain evil.

-WHAT THE SHIT HOW MANY DREAMS DEEP ARE WE

One more session to go. See you next time for the grand finale!

#anime #the anime binge-watcher #tabw #tokyo magnitude 8.0

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thebestplltheories · 5 years

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PLL The Perfectionists - Season 1 Finale (and Season 1) Review

Here we go friends, season 1 of the spinoff is over and I have a lot to say. In this post I’m gonna review the finale but also season 1 in general.

Dare I say it, I think season 1 as a whole was flawless. Sure, some episodes were better than others, but no episode was down-right horrible, boring and without a purpose. All 10 episodes were great as the plot was constantly progressing. We started off with totally innocent characters, doing their best to be perfect in a high-pressure and competitive school. A person who loosely connects them is murdered and as the investigation unravels, the innocent people get pulled together by forces outside of their control. Consequently, they become best friends. Caitlin’s mother put it really well in episode 9: Caitlin got hit by a car, was dating someone who got murdered, is friends with a fugitive’s daughter and is hiding a bag of money. How did all this non-sense happen to someone who was so innocent and perfect 9 episodes ago? That’s what I love. That’s what’s entertaining for me. As Claire said, they’re trying to dig themselves out of a hole but they keep falling and the hole is getting deeper and darker. This whole plot about being almost strangers and then best friends is a plot that could have very easily been squished into the pilot, and at the time, that’s what I wanted. But now looking back, I really appreciate that they stretched this across 10 episodes. It feels organic that this friendship didn’t just happen the day after Nolan died. It happened after 10 episodes of chaos and that’s not forced. It’s realistic. So overall season 1 achieved everything a season 1 should achieve: it brought the characters together slowly over time and reinforced that bad things are going to happen to these previously perfect people.

Casting is spectacular. I’m absolutely sucked into the worlds of Caitlin, Dylan and Ava and whilst the addictive story is definitely contributing to these feelings, I need to give a shoutout to Sydney, Eli and Sofia. They’ve achieved the one thing PLL did that no other show has done for me since PLL ended: they created extremely loveable and addictive characters. Sure, I watch heaps of other shows, but there’s just something about the core cast on a PLL show that is different.

Some quick reactions from the finale:

This whole time we were wondering what they will call this new enemy, yet it was right in front of us this whole time in the episode title! Not only was “The Professor” right in front of us, but the title literally says ‘enter’. You know... say hello to the new A. That’s essentially what the title of the episode says. Now I feel dumb for not guessing that. More thoughts on The Professor later.

"Jealous much?” was a shocker! I love Mona’s confidence. Even when Claire says “that’s not how this works”, she insists, and gets what she wants.

I’m so glad Mona is here in this show. I love the new characters and I would be watching even without Ali and Mona, but Mona just fits in so well. Like PLL, this seems to be another game, and Mona is falling back into old habits. She not only wants to win, but she wants to know who is smart enough to create such a game, and why and how such a game is created. “Dying before I find out who you are bitch!” Loved that!

Mona’s red coat... her dolls in her apartment... I appreciate that!

Blowing up the RV was unnecessary. I think they did that just to put an action shot in the promo, to attract viewers. That’s not a complaint, just an observation.

PLL always succeeds at making the town feel like its own character. Rosewood was a town that kept attracting misery and murder, like a person. And now we have Beacon Heights; a town that demands perfection so much that you get kicked out when you fail to be perfect.

I think the storyline with Dylan and Luke was not necessary for this finale. It’s a fantastic story that should be told, just not in a finale. I wouldn’t say it’s a filler story, but it’s definitely not central to this professor story.

As someone studying psychology, and is in their final undergraduate year, I don’t think it’ll help as much as Alison thinks it will (in terms of working out who the Professor is). She can study psychology all she wants but that doesn’t really give insight into a person’s twisted game. Anyway.

I kinda ship Mona and Mason! You could see it on Mona’s face that it was hard for her to lie to Mason like that. I guess she’s extra motivated to solve this game now so that she can go back to Mason.

Add “your lips are moving but I have no idea what you’re talking about” to Ava’s list of iconic one-liners! Everyone loves insulting Booker and I live for it. Mona’s “yes you need a makeover” comes to mind too!

I hope Booker doesn’t go away. She lost this mini game but she’s a great villain.

I hope that’s the end of the story of Ava’s father. I’m just not compelled by this one story, sorry. All I really care about is that Ava stays at BHU (because she has the money to pay). I don’t really care about her relationship with her father. Maybe this is due to the casting of the father? I don’t know, but I’m not drawn into this story like the others and I can’t pinpoint why.

What a full circle moment, playing Poker Face in the final scene like they opened with Poker Face in the pilot! It’s a small detail but it just makes the show feel cohesive. Like a distinct beginning and end. Can’t explain it.

So season 1 is over and they STILL have not tapped into that amazing storyline they started in the pilot... “it’s exactly like you imagined it”. Surely the Professor will bring this up during the social experiment.

Beacon Guard is going to start to get annoying. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE this element that someone is always watching and listening, and that someone hijacked this system. But if they really need to find a safe spot every time they want to talk... surely the season 2 finale will be them destroying Beacon Guard!

The Professor! Wow. I’m... shook.

With A, we were never really sure if it’s just a sick twisted game that someone is having fun with, or, if A actually chose these Liars because of a personal vendetta. But with The Professor, it is clear from day 1 that this is a game. It’s a social experiment. I fucking LOVE that idea.

Again playing with that theme I touched on before: I love how previously innocent people are getting sucked into madness. 10 episodes ago, everyone was leading a seemingly perfect life and now they’re part of a social experiment that they’re forced participate in because they were recorded staging a crime scene and being involved in a shooting. That’s so twisted and it just really sucks to be them.

I lowkey want to cry for Ali and Mona. They went to hell and back in Rosewood and now here goes another potential 4 year mystery. Will they EVER live in peace? I mean, for the sake of this show, I hope the Professor makes this game as twisted as possible. It’s entertaining. But at the back of my mind I am crying for Ali and Mona.

When all their phones rang/vibrated at the same time, I felt at home?? At that exact moment I had a rush of nostalgia. It’s close enough to the original series to provide that nostalgia that we all want, but it’s distinct enough to be its own show. I love this Professor storyline because I think they’ve found that perfect middle-ground.

I hope they don’t give the Professor a black hoodie, but if they really want to make this as iconic as A, they absolutely need to give this villain an outfit.

Is the Professor a short/mini story arc? Or is this the series-defining story, like how A defined PLL? Will there be a Big Professor and Uber Professor (lack of better terms)? I’d love for this to be the series-defining story and enemy. I’m all for this social experiment.

Did anyone notice the Professor speaking in the third person? Is that the writers hinting that there is more than one person here; the Professor AND a helper? Kinda like an A-team? Or was speaking in the third person just the way of emphasising the new name for the enemy?

So many questions about the Professor!

Tonally, this finale felt like a premiere. It raised questions rather than answered questions. It told us that there IS an enemy, rather than tell us WHO the enemy is. That’s an odd structure, but I’m totally okay with it for 2 reasons. Firstly, because I’m simply just not hungry for answers. The mystery is still new and fresh. We didn’t get our first major answer on PLL (who is original A) for 2 years. I’m not expecting an answer as to who killed Nolan within 10 episodes. Secondly, it’s fitting because the entire first season was spent establishing that friendship. That needed to happen before such an enemy was introduced. It would be awkward watching strangers get sucked into this social experiment together. Now that they’re friends and they trust each other, it’ll be more entertaining to see them respond to the Professor.

There’s so much to theorise about now! But I need to say it again: this show is suffering from a major lack of a quantity of characters. Every scene revolves around Mona, Ali, Ava, Caitlin, Dylan, Taylor, Booker and Claire. That’s literally all there is. There’s the occasional side character like Mason and Zac, but no one is really key to the mystery like Noel, Jenna, etc were in season 1 of PLL from the get-go. I like that we met Luke, and I think season 2 really needs to prioritise ASAP increasing the quantity of characters. The lack of characters makes me think that we have not met the Professor yet. It’s obviously not Mona, Ali, Ava, Caitlin or Dylan. Maybe Taylor, she was missing. That’s a theory topic. Maybe Claire. Not Zac. Maybe Mason. And my list of suspects ends there? Again, season 2 needs to increase the quantity of characters.

Now I’m just gonna sound like a broken record, but in the extremely low chances that someone at Freeform catches this post (hey, the cast reacted to Tumblr posts the other month so we know they do snoop here)... I need to say it again: it’s no secret that the ratings are low, so you’ve got a lot of work to do for season 2 to get this show the recognition it deserves. Please consider reading this post. Do not give up on this show. It has really high potential. It just needs a few tweaks in terms of promo and supply system. The low ratings do NOT correlate to low quality.

Look at me, writing massive posts like this! I haven’t done this for a TV show since PLL ended. Only this show will get me intrigued enough to come online and talk. There’s something about the PLL universe that distinguishes it from other shows, in the best way possible!

#pll #pretty little liars #pll the perfectionists #pretty little liars the perfectionists #the perfectionists #pll tp #plltp #freeform #tp #pll finale #the professor

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zachvillasource · 5 years

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interview | zach villa - schonmagazine.com

As the infamous Night Stalker, Iowa-born actor Zach Villa is a chaotic evil in the latest series of American Horror Story. Entitled AHS: 1984, the show plays off the hopes and tropes of the 1980s, incorporating elements from films like Friday the 13th and Halloween into a spine-tingling thrill ride. The chief villain of the series is Villa’s Richard Ramirez, a reality-based serial killer set on making the lead characters’ lives a living hell — quite literally.

In real life, however, Villa is an obvious contrast. A multihyphenate with a strong career across a range of disciplines, he first caught the attention of the mainstream from his collaboration with Evan Rachel Wood in the project Rebel and a Basketcase. Now, as AHS: 1984 keeps audiences around the world thoroughly spooked, Villa opens up to Schön! about growing up in Iowa, his willingness to collaborate with Taylor Swift, and the unexpected call that announced his role on American Horror Story.

How did you get your start in acting?

Well, I’ve been on stage since I was two, so the whole shebang started quite early. Acting, oddly, was an afterthought when I first started. I had been dancing and singing on stage for years, idolising great song-and-dance performers like Gene Kelly, Donald O’ Connor, and Sammy Davis Jr. when it occurred to me that I should probably focus on learning the craft of acting if I wanted to continue pursuing that particular path in the entertainment industry. I had focused intensely on two out of the three “triple threat” disciplines, so I guessed it was time that I figured out the third part. It was an accessory to being able to perform musical theatre roles more effectively, and I guess that backfired in a sense and became a more central focus as I developed.

Iowa isn’t the most common birthplace for a big-time actor. What does your family — and presumably other Midwestern relatives — think of your journey into Hollywood?

They are both thrilled and confused. Don’t get me wrong — my family is very happy for me, and while we have had our spats over the years about whether or not I should be pursuing a highly volatile, financial unstable career, they have ultimately come through and rooted for me and my success.

That being said, I think pursuing a career in the mainstream entertainment industry is a very singular experience. Unless you’ve lived it and hit the pavement in NYC, L.A., etc., it’s very hard to understand the day-to-day struggles of a performing artist. I think that certain regions of the country are — generally — a majority of media consumers as opposed to creators, and there is a disconnect between the public and those of us pursuing an arts career that propagates the fallacy of things being easy and breezy, since you don’t have to get up every day at 6 AM, go to the office, and then come home and make dinner. People see that lack of structure as undisciplined and fancy-free. Let me tell you, it’s anything but. Artists have to hit the pavement in a very different way that is highly varied from day to day, and that uncertainty introduces a unique kind of stress, in addition, to actually trying to be good at your job. I always say that booking work is my “job” as an actor, and when I actually book a gig, that’s where the job ends and the craft and career begins. Translating that to someone without firsthand experience can be infuriatingly difficult.

Where were you when you found out about landing AHS: 1984 and the scope of your role? What did you do?Who did you call first?

I was in the studio recording an audiobook — one of the many ways that this particular actor has been able to supplement their income, and it has been such a gift. I was waiting on the call, and I stopped narrating mid-sentence — much to the puzzlement of my audio engineer — and picked up. I got the news, opened the door of the vocal booth and leaned against the front wall, sliding down to a sitting fetal position, and started to tear up. I called a few close friends and family and walked around for the better part of an hour mildly freaking out. The studio staff secretly went and bought a bottle of champagne down the street, and after I finished my page quota for the day they surprised me with a toast. Then everything in my life became a blur.

Of course, without spoiling anything, what can you tell us about your role as Richard Ramirez in AHS: 1984?

Oh, that’s a very difficult question. Richard Ramirez was a real person. I am playing a character that shares his name and is informed by him and his history. Beyond that, you’ll just have to wait and see.

What was the most memorable moment from shooting the series?

I can’t say my absolute favourite without revealing secrets! But I’ll say that the encounter with the hiker in episode two was quite “fun” — if you can call pretending to murder someone “fun.” The makeup and FX team on the show is the best in the biz, and the blood rig that was used in that scene was just wild. It was messy and crazy, and [there was] high pressure to get it right in one take, and I loved it.

What’s your method for getting into character, both in the weeks and moments leading up to a shoot or performance?

I have to play these cards close to the chest. Some of it is instinct. I just feel as though I am inside the character’s head at some point after spending enough time with the material, but it’s different with each role.

Sometimes I need to know how they sound, sometimes it’s historical research. It’s ALWAYS spending an exorbitant amount of time with the script — that’s the golden rule for me. Whether its Shakespeare or the 200th episode of Friends, you have to start with the text as an actor, and the most minute differences in phrasing, punctuation, word choice, etc. are clues to how this person operates as a human being and in the world. I always come back to the text. Any other secret sauce that I do I’ll keep secret for now.

What’s been the most challenging part of playing a character like this?

I’ll modify the question to ask what’s the most important part of playing a character like this… and that, I think, is being able to let it go at the end of the day — which I don’t always succeed in doing. Sometimes after an intense shoot it takes me a minute to let go of the energy I was carrying around on set. I pride myself on being able to flip in and out, but that is challenging from time to time for me on this particular project.

If you could only watch one film and one television series for the rest of your life, which would you choose?

The Back to the Future Trilogy for movies and Battlestar Galactica for TV. Nerd alert.

Apart from acting (and dance) you’re also well-versed in music. How did you begin as a musician?

The same time that I started hearing it, so very, very early. Growing up with a dance studio attached to your house, you hear a lot of very diverse music over the years. That all seeped into my subconscious, and I was writing full-on symphonies in my head walking through the woods in Iowa when I was seven or eight years old. Mind you, I didn’t have the skills to put that into writing or notation — and still don’t, not for the symphonies anyway.

I learned how to read music by playing the violin in elementary school. I didn’t pick up a guitar or actually start producing original music in any tangible way until my junior year at Interlochen Arts Academy. There, my roommate Filip — a wildly talented self-taught metal guitarist and visual arts student from Macedonia — taught me things here and there, and I also taught myself by ear. The Internet, man.

Who are some other musicians with whom you’d like to collaborate?

St. Vincent. Top of the list. Blink 182 — a childhood dream. Jimmy Eat World. John Mayer but only if he lets me be in his next ridiculous green screen music video. Mac Ayers, Tears For Fears, Snail Mail, and oh, I dunno… Taylor Swift. Come at me.

Who are your biggest musical inspirations? And what have you been listening to lately?

Biggest? That’s tough because it changes with each project. Tower of Power is a huge influence for me. My first band was funk-based, and man, they are so groovy. If you don’t know, now you know go listen to them. St. Vincent. Jimmy Eat World. And, regardless of the drama surrounding this artist from time to time, John Mayer. He really is one of the great guitarists of our generation, and more importantly, the songwriting that he produces is top-notch. I’ve learned a lot from diving deep into his material over the years. Miles Davis, and jazz in general, is huge for me. Brain fuel. Listening lately to Sleater-Kinney’s new record, Knuckle Puck, and a lot of 2000s pop-punk.

What else can we look forward to from Zach Villa — be in 2019, 2020 or later?

World domination.

The track on the video content [for this shoot] is the first single — a tease if you will — of my new solo project. Go check it out. My band Sorry Kyle will be dropping a ton of music over the next few months if you’re into punk and emo.

And that’s just music. Acting-wise, post-AHS I’m waiting to see what comes down the pipe. I’m always creating. I want to be fluid in music, movement, film and TV, directing, etc. There’s no time like the present and the present is, well, now. So hang on tight.

#zach villa #ahs cast #american horror story #ahs 1984 #interview #photoshoots #*

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sheridanfalls · 4 years

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1x01

“Ana, Ana,” the desperate voice of her mother shook the young teenager out of her sleep.

“What?” Her voice hoarse from hours of singing the night before with Joel Riley, she sat up, pushing her blankets away.

Her mother threw the curtains open before turning to look at her youngest daughter, “Where is your sister?”

Ana rubbed her eyes, “I don’t know, the barn.” She shrugged pulling her pillow against her and laying back down.

“She ran away.” The words came out in a growl that instantly alerted the young teenager that sleep would not be anywhere on her agenda anytime soon.

“What, how do you know that, why would she?” The questions flew from her mouth as she watched the way her mother darted around the room.

Her mother ran a hand through her strawberry blonde hair, “She left a note. Your father is talking to the police. Did Willa say anything to you about running away, about leaving?”

Ana searched her mind for anything she could think of, “No, but have you checked her diary, she was always writing in it.”

“Yes, of course,” was the last thing her mother would say to her for weeks as she left Ana alone in the room, the morning sun starting to rinse the floor.

Tazia blinked as she woke up in the back of the limo, she could feel the chill throughout her body, she got this way whenever she remembered that dreadful morning when she was fourteen. Most days she could put her runaway sister behind her, but for some reason Willa had been in her dreams far more often, in one way or another.

“Don’t tell me you’re having more nightmares.” Her agent, Fletcher Curtis sighed as he looked up from his phone, “I told you to talk to Dr. Floyd about them and they would go away.”

Tazia rolled her eyes wrapping her gray cardigan around her body, “Dr. Floyd just wants to drug me up.”

“What you need is a vacation.” He continued to tap away at his phone, “Are you ready to perform today?”

“Yes.” It was one of the few things she still felt confident in, performing. She could get out on that little stage, in front of the studio audience, the harsh afternoon talk-show lighting and the cameras beaming her into the homes of people looking for some company in the middle of the day.

“Good, we’ll get you a coffee and then you’ll be good to go.”

Her body was still chilled as she looked out the window of the city traffic. A city full of strangers. Was Willa out here, was she living the life she wants, the one she had to escape Sheridan Falls for?

Over the years her mother Rosemary had gotten mad at her for not using her celebrity to bring Willa home. The last time she’d been at the family ranch had been about a decade before, not long after Joel had left her. It was a bad time all around and she could still smell the floral scents of her mother’s garden from the porch as she recalled it. The moment she told her mother that if Willa had wanted to come home, she would’ve.

“You know what you need, a vacation. I can get your schedule cleared for a couple of weeks. We’ll go to Hawaii; I can get that great house that you liked the last time we were there.”

“That sounds great.” It didn’t though, sure going to Hawaii sounded amazing, but another vacation with Fletcher sounded suffocating. Each year since Joel left her, her circle got smaller, and now it felt as though it was only Fletcher.

***

Keaton Hughes carried the suitcase out to the car parked in front of the house steps. His wife Isabelle was behind him with her purse as she followed behind, “Just make sure you have plenty of gas, that your phone is charged, I know service is spotty where you’re going, but check in once in a while.”

She smiled at her husband, his blue eyes full of love, “I will Keaton, it’s only a couple of nights. I left a lasagna for you tonight, and a bag in the freezer for you to dump in the slow cooker tomorrow.”

“You’re the best wife.” He pulled her close, breathing in the scent of her floral perfume before kissing her goodbye, slowly, memorably, knowing that life could change in a moment.

Isabelle pulled away, a smile on her face and her eyes closed before fluttering open again, “I love you Keaton, I’ll text you when I stop for gas.” She kissed his cheek as she clutched her keys in her hand, “I’ll see you Monday morning.”

He breathed in, “I know babe, I love you, Belle.”

She blew him a kiss before getting in her car, buckling in and driving away after the quick press of a button. She could see her husband in the rearview mirror, she loved him, he loved her, soon they would start to try for a family, but first she had to do something one last time. One final weekend away, time to close the door on her past, and fully embrace her future.

He stood by the steps, watching as she pulled out of the driveway, his eyes on her car until was down the street. He turned to go back into the house, he had a few repairs he planned to do while she was gone. He wanted to get her office painted, she’d been talking about setting up a permanent backdrop for her YouTube videos.

Making a stop in the kitchen he took the lasagna out of the freezer so it would thaw a bit before he threw it in the oven. He went out to the back yard and straight to the shed. He grabbed the can of paint he’d chosen, and the tools he needed. He pulled Spotify up on his phone, rolling his eyes when he saw the suggestion that he listen to the Best of Tazia.

He found what he wanted as he moved through the house to the office. The music filled the room as he started to move somethings out of the way to create the space, he believed his wife was craving. He paused the music and flipped phone into camera mode, “Hey YouTube, Keaton here. I know you’re like where is Belle. She’s on her yearly spa trip with her friends from college. I thought this would be the perfect time to redo her office. Since she’s the youtuber, not me I forgot to start filming before I started. Oops.” He chuckled, feeling awkward. He didn’t like the spotlight, that was for Belle and his sister, not for him.

He moved around the room taking footage, “I’ve started to move some stuff out of the way, but I wanted to give her a space special for her. So, I’m going to go and paint this wall back here, rearrange the furniture and maybe decorate a little.” He shrugged as he put the phone down across the room and started back to work.

Keaton was lost in the work when the doorbell rang, so much so that he didn’t hear it until it rang again. He moved through the house, his stomach starting to drop when he saw who was on the other side of the glass. He would recognize the figure of Detective Huff for as long as he lived. His hand shook as he opened the door, “Hello Detective, what can I do for you?”

***

“Great, I want to be able to open Memorial Day weekend. I need to be able to have those cabins installed by then.” Joel Riley spoke into his phone as he moved around his living room.

“I promise it will be done Joel.” The voice told him, “We’ve got the first three in production so far. That leaves six more. We’ll get these three out as soon as possible, we know it’s not the ideal time of year for an installation, but we’ll do all we can and at the very least get you ready to have the website and promotional material.”

“Thank you so much Bill, I appreciate it. I really want to see the Riley Ranch thrive and I wouldn’t be able to do this without you.”

The voice on the other end chuckled, “Well, thankfully you had a lot of good structures to start with. We’re just helping fill in a few gaps. I’ve got to run and pick up the kids from school but call on Monday and I’ll give you a progress report.”

“Great, thanks, bye.” Joel put his phone down on his baby grand piano, letting his fingers dance over the keys. He’d been stuck on the song he was writing; it was supposed to be for some pop star. Though the label wouldn’t tell him which one. They probably didn’t even know, it would get demoed around and then someone would fall for it, while others would regret not picking it.

Joel sighed, picking the up tv remote and turning on Afternoon America. Not really paying attention to the show he started to clean up and organize the papers from his meeting. He listened as the star of a sitcom discussed the very special episode that would air later in the evening—he hadn’t even realized they did special episodes.

Moving into the kitchen he started to sift through the cabinets trying to find something to eat. He grabbed a few things to start putting together a lunch when breaking news on the TV caught his attention.

***

Tazia took a deep breath as she walked onto the sound stage, the lights were low now during the commercial break. The live audience on the other side of the rotating stage. She wore light blue jeans, a Kelly-green t-shirt, and her long golden-brown hair pulled back into an easy ponytail. Simplicity was the look she was going for with this album, this song, back to basics what her idea for the upcoming tour. She didn’t want the pyrotechnics, she didn’t want the large set pieces, she wanted to perform and enjoy the energy from her audience.

“We’ve got breaking news this afternoon.” Tazia heard just as the stage had started to revolve towards the audience and cameras, as the show host did her best to play news anchor.

“This morning in Utah, Bennett Chase, the leader of the Fire Yoga movement was killed in a car accident along with his wife Willow”

Tazia looked towards the monitor that had the graphics that the audience at home saw on screen. She felt her stomach drop as soon as the picture came up. “Willow was really Willa Hughes, a Colorado teenager who ran away from her home in 2000. Her disappearance made national headlines as her mother Rosemary begged for her to come home.”

“Bennett Chase and his wife, are survived by a teenage daughter.”

Anything else that was said, Tazia couldn’t hear. Yes, they, searched for Willa, every day for 3 years. They finally had to stop when the post card arrived from her. It was her handwriting, the front said Greetings from Oregon, but the post mark was Alabama. She begged her parents to let her go, insisted she was happy.

That was the first time Tazia felt the shadow of her sister start to lift over her.

She always held on to the thought that Willa was alive. She was happy, wherever she was.

Now though, on the television monitor in front of her, she couldn’t hold on to that anymore. She couldn’t hold onto much as her body crashed to the ground.

***

“Oh shit.” Joel watched the report, Willa had been his babysitter when he was younger, the older sister of the first woman he’d ever loved. Then his eye caught what was happening in the background.

It couldn’t be, could it? Ana, or as the world knew her Tazia on TV finding out her long missing sister, was dead.

He could see her shaking as she reached out towards her sisters face on the monitor, and then as she collapsed to the ground, and the entire feed cut away.

He knew what headlines would be trending in a matter of minutes.

They would all be wrong.

People assuming that she was high on drugs.

She had always insisted that Willa wasn’t part of her story.

She had two lives, the one where she had an older sister, and the one where it was just her and her twin brother Keaton.

He picked up his phone, her number was still the first one in his contacts. He hadn’t spoken to her in well over a decade, but he was one of the few people in the world who knew, who cared, who know Ana and Tazia.

It probably wasn’t the same number anyways. He told himself as he hit the call button and took a deep breath. It rang several times before going to voice mail, “Hi, you’ve reached the private line of Tazia, please leave a message.”

“Ana, it’s Joel. I just heard about Willa. I’m sorry. I’m here for you if you need me.” He looked back at the television, excuses were already being made for her, “If you come back to Sheridan Falls, you can stay at my place. I know it’s not easy with your family, and I promise you’ll have privacy.”

Sighing he hung up, hoping she would be the one to hear the message, no once else. Though who knows, was he even listed in her phone anymore?

***

Isabelle finished filling her car with gas, she looked at her phone sitting in the cup holder and turned it off. If Keaton couldn’t get a call through to her this weekend, then he would believe she was off with her old sorority sisters.

Not that she was ever in a sorority. Her college didn’t have a Greek system. Keaton didn’t know that though.

He didn’t need to know where she was, who she was with.

She promised herself this would be the last time she did this.

Next year at this time she and Keaton would be pregnant, they would be expecting a child.

At least that was her plan.

For now, though she had to do this one more time.

She continued down the highway, listening to a podcast, but not really. She knew this route by heart as she took the left turn towards the cabin, she would spend the weekend in. The road seemed open around her, before the forest wrapped around her, deepening with its pine and juniper trees before arriving at the Woodward cabin.

It was quiet outside as she breathed in the clean air, whatever worries she had, were now gone. This was where she was meant to be.

She grabbed her bag and jogged up the stairs, she didn’t need to knock on the door as it opened. She gasped when she saw him, as if she hadn’t expected him to be here again. “Mitch!”

“Belle” He pulled her into arms, kissing her with the hunger of a year apart.

She was breathless against him as he pulled her into the cabin. His fingers in her hair, clinging to each other.

“I missed you.” He growled as he kicked the door closed before his lips tasted her neck.

Her eyes fluttered shut, “This isn’t fair.” She confessed, “I don’t feel alive unless I’m with you.”

“I know baby.” He cupped her face in his hands, his green eyes searching hers, “This weekend is ours, let me show you how much I missed you.”

She didn’t respond, she didn’t have to as she felt him lift her up as he kissed her, carrying her to the bedroom.

***

Keaton stared out the window. He couldn’t remember ever feeling as cold as he did right now. He hadn’t expected this kind of news. He was at the family ranch. Waiting for his parents to return, to hear anything from his sister.

The sun was setting, washing everything in orange. He saw the dust of a vehicle coming up the driveway.

He didn’t recognize it. It wasn’t anyone in the family, none of the ranch hands, it wasn’t one from a family friend he recognized.

Yet as it got closer his stomach grew heavy. He realized who it was.

Kara Greene, a true crime podcaster who had been obsessed with Willa’s story. About a year or so ago she had come to Sheridan Falls to investigate. Keaton had found her bothersome at the time. One thing he agreed with Ana about was that if Willa wanted to come home, she would.

He braced himself before going out to the porch, “Do I need to get the shot gun?”

“I just wanted to drop this off for your parents.” She was taking a casserole out of her car.

He sighed, “I’m sure they’ll appreciate it.” His mother would, his father probably not.

She brought it to the steps of the porch, reaching it out to him.

“Thank you, Kara.” He looked down at black sharpie directions for reheating. “I have no comment about anything today.”

“Not even the meltdown that popstar had when the news broke.”

“What are you talking about?”

Kara shrugged, “It was the weirdest thing, Tazia was about to perform this afternoon, and the news broke and since it was a live show she’s seen in the background, gravitating to the monitor before she collapsed.”

“Weird.” He gulped, “Goodbye Kara.”

“I’m not the enemy Keaton.”

“My parents had been doing okay until you came around, pulling Willa back out from the shadows. God my sister can’t even come home because she’s been in Willa’s shadow all these years.” He snorted, knowing it was insane considering she was a star in her own right.

“I just wanted to bring her home.” She shrugged her shoulders, as if it was that simple.

“She will be soon. But Kara, stay away. If Mom wants to go on your podcast to discuss this, she can. But wait for her to call you.”

She nodded as she went back to her car, “I’m sorry it had to be this way.”

“Me to.” As the words left his lips, he wasn’t exactly sure if he meant Willa dying, being found, or something else.

***

Fletcher sat by Tazia’s bedside and looked at her missed calls. Her brother Keaton had called about two dozen times, starting before she collapsed on live television. But he wasn’t the call that worried him.

Joel Riley.

He’d been just as famous as Tazia back when they were younger. He’d been engaged to her as well. Until Fletcher did what he could to be rid of the young man. A few well placed photographers and Tazia was convinced Joel cheated on her. She left him, and Fletcher brought the ring back to the young man and told him that Tazia was with him now.

For the next two years the music world watched as the two of them battled it out with appearances, songs, concerts.

Then Joel just went away.

No new music.

No new appearances.

No new albums.

He could be the subject of a YouTube remember when video.

Tazia made no mention of him ever, and since Fletcher usually had her phone, he knew they weren’t in contact.

“Willa?” Her voice broke as she woke up.

“Tazia, it’s Fletcher, are you okay?”

“Willa is gone.” She cried, in the haze of sleep and whatever drugs she’d been given.

“Willa?” Wasn’t that the name of the woman in the breaking news report?

Her breathing was uneven, “My sister.”

Fletcher stared at her. That couldn’t be. He knew everything about Tazia. Sure, her family didn’t really seem to like him, but he’d made her a star. No way did she have a sister he didn’t know about.

#Season One #Episode 1X01

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rebelsofshield · 5 years

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Star Wars Dooku: Jedi Lost- Review

The radio drama is as essential a part to Star Wars history as the novel, the comic, or even the movie. The early 1980’s saw the original trilogy bring Star Wars to the airwaves and today Del Rey and Lucasfilm continue that tradition with a new audio drama by Cavan Scott, Dooku: Jedi Lost, following the early days of the infamous Sith Lord. Unfortunately, while a nice experiment and an interesting new way to explore the Star Wars galaxy, Dooku: Jedi Lost proves to be a flawed and frustrating product.

(Review contains minor spoilers)

Mystery surrounds the new master of Asajj Ventress (Orlagh Cassady). Rescued from the fighting rings of Rattatak, the former Jedi Apprentice finds herself thrust into the dark and strange world of the Count of Serenno, Dooku (Euan Morton). His instruction is cruel and impersonal, and his motives are just as ethereal. However, when Dooku sends his new assassin to track down a missing member of his courtly family, Ventress begins to uncover secrets about his past with the Jedi Order and how he became the deadly man he is today.

Count Dooku has always been a bit of an enigma. Despite being the central villain to Attack of the Clones, his motivations and past are always kept at arms-length and he doesn’t even appear in the film until well over ninety minutes into its runtime. His hints of his past with the Jedi are spoken of in character asides and Christopher Lee’s performance casts a wide shadow, but the live action Dooku enters the screen with an air of mystery and confusion before quickly exiting in the opening moments of Revenge of the Sith. Since 2005 we have seen Dooku evolve into an intimidating (sleepwear rocking) villain in The Clone Wars animated series and his expansive connection to the larger Jedi Order has grown through glimpses in various novels and comics, including this year’s great Master and Apprentice. A story following Dooku’s early years as a Jedi and his eventual abandoning of the order is an intriguing subject matter and tying it to such an infamously complex point of view as Asajj Ventress seemed like an easy recipe for a standout novel.

There is a lot to like in Dooku: Jedi Lost. While it was billed as an audiobook, the finished product plays out more like a traditional audio drama. While Star Wars audiobooks have for years now featured bursts of music or sound effects to accompany the narrative, Jedi Lost takes this to a new level. Characters speak in bursts of dialogue and internal narration and the experience as a whole feels much more akin to the sort of spoken word stage play that we have seen a boom of in recent years in the podcast market. If you have listened to Marvel’s rather great Wolverine: The Long Night, you may have an idea of the sort of experience to expect.

The result is for the most part a well-produced aural experience. The voice acting is across the board fun and dramatic if occasionally on the hammy side. Cassady’s interpretation of Ventress adheres closely to the sinister, raspy whisper of Nika Futterman while creating her own identity befitting a much younger version of the character. Morton goes the opposite route and doesn’t even attempt to mimic Christopher Lee or even Corey Burton’s take on the malevolent count, and while the difference is at first jarring, Morton quickly makes the character his own and he becomes one of the stronger voice performances in the cast. Marc Thompson’s well-practiced Yoda is another standout, which proves only natural given the amount of work he has had with the character in past projects.

The general sound direction is for the most part strong as well. Jedi Lost often succeeds at creating a strong sense of atmosphere and place with a great sense for ambient noise. Hums of lightsabers, chattering crowds, and zipping speeders fill the spaces of each scene and help bring the setting of the galaxy far, far away to life. It doesn’t prove immaculate though. Some of the more action heavy scenes opt to loop sounds rather than choreographing them to Scott’s script or the character narration and the musical cues are often distracting or ill-fitting to the scene at hand. (I can’t count the number of times “Across the Stars” seemed to slip into decidedly not romantic moments in the story.) The overall presentation is still, for the most part, successful but there are enough chinks in the production of Jedi Lost that as a whole make this feel like an experiment that maybe should have been more tightly honed, especially considering that the stellar work being done in the podcast realm in similar media essentially for free.

Where Jedi Lost proves to be its most uneven, however, is in Cavan Scott’s script. Star Wars regulars will recognize Scott the most from his time writing for IDW’s rather delightful all-ages comic imprint Star Wars Adventures. While Scott has written his fair share of traditional novels in the past, his familiarity with dialogue heavy mediums such as comics make him well suited for an audio project like Jedi Lost. Unfortunately, the narrative that Scott creates for Dooku struggles in its overall structure.

The central concept of Asajj Ventress learning about Dooku’s past for a relevant mission is intriguing, but it ultimately boils down much of the “present time” action to her listening to or reading the writings of her new master. Narrative beats are frequently interrupted or paused so that a new diary entry can be found or presented and while it becomes an accepted part of the story after some time, it can’t help but feel like one of those found footage horror movies where characters have to keep explaining why they have a video camera on them.

Luckily, the actual narrative of Dooku’s upbringing proves much more successful if still flawed. The strongest portions of Scott’s script follow a younger Dooku through his early days as a Jedi initiate and later a Padawan. Scott injects Dooku and his friendship with other infamous Jedi Sifo-Dyas with a Harry Potter-like sense of youthful adventure and curiosity. Their explorations of Temple secrets and Jedi artifacts carry with them a YA flair that also brings an unexpected sense of tragedy and dramatic irony given the dark fates that will befall both of these young men in the decades to come. Scott crafts Dooku as a Jedi that is frequently distracted by emotional attachment and responsibility not only to the citizens he has sworn to protect but to a courtly family on Serenno that he reconnects to as an adolescent. How Dooku deals with his conflicting loyalties and also the mentorship he receives from atypical Jedi Lene Kostana make for some of the most intriguing character work in the story and it gives the first half of Scott’s book a sense of discovery and emotional immediacy.

However, as the narrative progresses the peaks into Dooku’s past become more scattered and episodic in nature. We are treated to only glimpses to his training under Yoda, his relationship with his first apprentice Rael Aveross (a standout in Claudia Gray’s Master and Apprentice but annoyingly one note here), and his education of Qui-Gon Jinn. Each of these could have easily filled a book of their own, but here they feel like frustratingly brief glimpses into other worthy stories.

Scott attempts to keep the relationship of Dooku and his birth family on Serenno as the emotional throughline of the narrative and for the most part this proves successful. It allows for a natural climax to Dooku’s contained arc in this aspect of the story while also providing another example of the larger Jedi Order’s failure to accommodate more renegade individuals in their ranks. However, in doing so, Scott misses one of the fundamental pieces of Dooku’s story, his actual seduction to the Dark Side. While Scott hides hints of the darkness brewing in him throughout the novel and plots his defection from the Jedi in believable detail, when exactly Dooku changed from a lost Jedi to lightning spewing Sith Lord is a beat that is glossed over almost in its entirety. Outside of the initial disappointment that we are not treated to Dooku’s Sith training or even the larger conspiracy regarding the creation of the clone army, this switch in teh character to such a malevolent place proves to be an essential plot point to the resolution of the book’s frame narrative. It may create a strong contrast showing how far the Count of Serenno has fallen, but the end result feels jarring and it can’t help but feel like the listener has simply been obscured from essential information.

The end result is a story that is often entertaining and occasionally thought provoking, but is just as frequently frustrating and stilted in its structure and execution. Dooku: Jedi Lost is an interesting project, but it feels like a product that could have used more refinement both in its conceptualization and in execution. Star Wars fans that are looking for a listen during a long trip may want to partake in this aural journey, but others may want to wait before uncovering the secrets of this Sith.

Score: C+

#Star Wars #Star Wars books #Star Wars novels #review #reviews #Cavan Scott #Count Dooku #Asajj Ventress

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postpunkpontypandyphantomthief · 5 years

Text

3rd Comedy Monologue

“Do any of you remember Rugrats?”

“The 90s cartoon about talking babies that went on adventures”

“Yeah well you know Angelica the whiny,spoiled character?”

“I actually kind of liked her maybe it’s because I related to her when I was little or maybe it’s because I liked how cool she was she was able to tell the babies about stuff they didn’t know about, playing a part in their imagination.”

Anyways speaking of children,they’re alright and they are usually one of the following

“Mummy Daddy why do they get to pick a sweet not me what did I do?”

“Waaaa I want that I want that”

“Hi there, do you want to play?

“Your good at art,I couldn’t draw like that”

“Thank you young soul you are too pure for this world”

Me on the other hand,was a whinging cowardly little sod

Now I’m not a child anymore but I am still mistaken as one

Yeah,that happens

17/18 years old,old enough to vote,old enough to drive,old enough to move house & old enough to realise my phases of being a tory “skeptic” were pointless

Yet sometimes people still think I’m someone who likes ice-cream,toys and video games

Well I mean I do like those things I’m sure some of you like those things too

We are children at heart but physically and mentally we evolve and learn with time

I’ll be an young adult,and I love it I might not have a place of my own yet but I love being able to learn new things and see new places I couldn’t see when I was a kid.

Then again my teenhood wasn’t that good either because I had a developmental condition that made me different than others mentally,my interests were very intense and I got panic feelings when around crowds or in difficult situations

My primary school classmates liked JLS,Partying and other things that I didn’t like or couldn’t do

While now I’m warming up to certain things I’m still happy I didn’t like JLS.

I on the other hand, liked the sims 3,dolls,the 1980s,old cartoons and films.

So...a game where you become God,plastic models,the age of neon graphic design, and innovative video games and...yeah that hasn’t changed has it?

Well I don’t play the sims anymore,my laptop has no cd rom drive,I used up the data on my old one, from downloads I’d buy from the exchange store

Sims also was one of the few things that got me into my “emo” phase

I’d be looking at sims videos on youtube they’d usually be very sad and in the background there’d be evanescence,my chemical romance or avril lavigne

I’d be sitting at the back of the living room at a gathering and I’d be listening to Sims 2 sad story part 1 because it had good music. I later learned the names and that I was a bit of a goth,a emo,a metalhead because I liked gothic and j-metal any of that.

Dolls…..

now this was embarrassing I’m sure we all have those songs where as soon as you hear them you feel a film reel of negative memories return. For me that was

Barbie Girl by Aqua, weird because aqua are a good band,but that song oh that song it was so annoying

Picture this

Someone in their final primary school years, who still collects dolls,

Now! Would you ignore that or would you use that outdated song as a way to mock them because they were still enjoying a thing, meant for children.

I received the latter,because of that when I’d hear people sing that song simply just because they liked it I’d get confused and offended a similar thing happened with my little pony

I used to sing and perform for people in the playgrounds other times I’d keep to myself

I loved my little pony before the new wave I loved rewatching episodes of the old 80s mlp series of goblins,witches and giants...oops that was a different show I was describing there

And one of the songs I’d perform was the original theme song

My Little Pony~ My Little Pony~

What will today’s adventure be?

My Little Pony…My Little Pony

Will there be exciting sights to see?

Nope to some of my primary school audience the lyrics were

“My little pony skinny and boney”

*sarcastic deadpan laugh*

Ha ha ha,

Then again I wasn’t much better

I used to make youtube videos with those “dolls”

They weren’t very good

They had bad editing and barely any plot beyond badly structured fourth wall jokes

Yet I wanted the whole internet to know about them even if they weren’t interested

I was a easy target and while I did get tired of that,change interests and go into a different fandom direction

Some things were still the same

I was still cowardly,weak and timid and that was a problem

I was always following others,I didn’t make my decisions often,because of the condition and my own loneliness I couldn’t do things other teenagers could.

I never had a sleepover,I never had a crush that wasn’t one-sided and I didn’t have much independence

Even when I did have “friends” those friends I would later learn were not nice making me believe I had wasted years that I couldn’t get back.

On...the topic of regrets, dance something I sometimes enjoy but when I studied performing Arts it was what I dreaded…

Note I’m ok with anyone who does like to dance,party or do any of those things

I would just try to take part like everyone else but many times I was put aside or embarrassed in front of the others because of either me having a meltdown or because “my timing was off”

Yes,he did teach me some cool moves and I am more supple now but that was the content and even if I was crap I knew it and tried to practice

Everyday I’d practice each technical exercise and routine but it was still not good enough.in fact it was because of that and other reasons that I couldn’t do that course anymore

All because of,of….Craig Revel Hor not him but he was like him.

Because of that I had to take saturday dance classes...those weren’t fun

The most fun I had was from the songs we danced to and the few positive examples of small talk I attempted with the people there.

Otherwise it was not good...me and little kids specifically loud hyper kids don’t always go well when in the same place..again my timing was off it wasn’t told but I could tell

One of the moments I hated the most was the headshot day

Now we were supposed to just be getting photos taken but the photographer noticed I was shorter than she thought.I laughed it off because I know I’m short but then what did she say in response…

“Your a wee bit vertically challenged”

EXCUSE ME

Now,I may be short but in a class of kids and teens of different ages and heights I was far from the shortest person there.

When I was a teenager I wasn’t a proper teenager the only things that made me a teenager was my age,my angsty attitude and the drama I got into involving political meme posters and anime roleplayers.

The less I say about that the better

So while all the “adults” were telling me to beware of the adult years because of

Oooh responsibilities...ooooh independence ooooh….education

Honestly it’s ok for me so far I’m a fairly organized person so studying is good,I did a assistant stage managing gig for a west side story production which was class by the way and I think i’ll feel a lot happier as a adult.

I have not much to mock about today my political jabs are sometimes good other times they’re like a bad Ben Elton joke on Saturday Live.

“Ha teresa may is like the wicked queen from snow white when she’s in disguise”

yeah? …..and You look like you could front the band Wings mate

(pause)

Speaking of a bad Ben Elton joke

“Oh I never really understood the whole “comedy” business I always prefered being a bit of a writer and I think now with Bohemian Rhapsody being out that those critics will think

We Will Rock You wasn’t that bad.”

Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a show that layered it’s satire of the mainstream establishment under a sitcom narrative about alternative young adult characters where the comedy was good

for once

Once in every life time

Comes a moment like this

Oh I need you, you need me,

Oh my darling can't you see.

Young Ones.

Darling we're The Young Ones.

The Young Ones.

That show,oh I only watched last year but I have so many words

The jokes,the satire,the characters,the setting,the fact it still holds up

I found that show at the right time

It was august 2017

I had finished my GCSE’s,I had left a manipulative friendship and I felt horrible

When I’d go to the cinema people were making noise and I would remember the panic more than the film itself *coughs* Spiderman homecoming

I felt like I didn’t know how to laugh anymore

Summertime sadness

When edgy me came across ben elton’s ronnie barker memorial lecture

Being a fan of Porridge and Open All hours I listened and after hearing about a certain sitcom I started watching...The Young Ones...and it was out of this world

I roared with laughter with each episode,I related to the characters and I felt a connection of some sort

Researching more about the “alternative comedy” genre and I saw a familiar name

I learned I had seen some of his work before,he was the andrex puppy,he was in that king Arthur cartoon and he was in that drop dead fred movie I didn’t watch just because internet critics said it was one of the biggest cinematic flops ever….

Yet I never knew his name until then and I’m still not over that

I looked up his other work,where he was richie,richie rich,lord flashheart and a b’stard of a conservative

(which I would later try to do an impression of, on my final girls brigade show.)

So many thoughts,so many emotions he changed my life

Many things and people have. He is one of them

his work was incredible and iconic and his mantras are very inspirational and useful. He made me realise a lot of things about life,my love of his work also resulted in me meeting most of the friends I have now.

It’s 2019 and I’m now the anarchist I always wanted to be,I’m out of my shell, a bat out of hell,I followed others for too long but I’m my own person now that’s who I will always be

Now say it with me Young Ones..

You shouldn't be afraid.

To live, love, there's a song to be sung.

Cause we may not

Be The Young Ones

very long.

Oh,Doctor Rik.Mayall we miss you,you bastard

The world wasn’t as much of a crap place when you were there to cheer us up

But your still here spiritually in her hearts

As you said yourself we still have your shows and poems

Now! all you punks,skins,rastas,emos,hipsters,creators,viewers,performers,entertainers,observers and fellow peoples poets

let’s gather round and hold our hands in sorrow for our fallen leader

Love is the answer! Goodnight

#monologue #comedy #original monologue

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theonyxpath · 5 years

Link

Figured that now would be a good time to take a look at how things are going with your favorite gaming company.

No, not them, I mean Onyx Path. Sheesh.

After all, we’re near the end of the year – at least the part before everything gets holiday crazy – and next week we start our They Came From Beneath the Sea! Kickstarter.

So let’s take advantage of the time period and have a little snapshot of where we are. We’ll do more of a “Year That Was” thing in a later blog, I think. (This one is long enough as it is – yeesh!)

2018 was a challenging year, but one where we were able to catch up – finally! – on a lot of projects and start delivering some delayed ones…as well as delivering a bunch of Kickstarter projects earlier than estimated!

If you recall from MMN blogs in the past, I started Onyx Path with a three-part plan for the sorts of projects we would take on, so let me divide my comments based on that.

1- Our Wholly Owned Games:

This category is perhaps our timeliest right now, with both books for Scion 2nd Edition and the Trinity Continuum Core and Aeon all having delivered their KS backer PDFs and in various stages of prepping for their traditional print-runs.

This is very satisfying to be able to say, because as our KS backers know, a large part of the delay in getting these two lines to this point was needing to create a system for them that wouldn’t fall apart at higher power play, and which, frankly, was designed with an eye towards the last couple of decades worth of how games are played.

And while still being a recognizable dice pool system for our fantastic fans of the first editions who kept these games alive all these years!

Just today, our old friend and long-time writer and developer Bruce Baugh posted a long and informative “review” of Storypath on his Facebook page and RPG.net, and I’m taking the liberty of posting some of his thoughts here:

I mean to say, if, on the other hand, you tell players that all active approaches are good – that every one solves some problems well and makes for entertaining drama in trying to solve ones it’s not so great for – the choice moves from “should I risk it?” to “_how_ should I risk it?”, because of course they’re taking the kind of risk and get to decide how. Presuming here that players want to have an adventurous good time, the game’s stepping up to point out the scenic attractions and give them a hand where the footing’s tricky. I love it.

Or take a situation where the character’s pursuing someone, using the Athletics skill. The Forceful character uses Might, running fast, bursting through barriers, maybe throwing things to bring down the pursued, and so on. The Finesse character uses Dexterity, perhaps engaging in impromptu (or prepared!) parkour and acrobatics. The Resilience character uses Stamina, and might look for shortcuts that involve kind of long falls, knowing they’ll be able to take the blow, shake it off, and keep going. Every option is good, every option invites the player and Storyguide to look for opportunities to engage with the setting.

Meanwhile, as those two lines move to printing, we have Scarred Lands, which seems to be living up to its name. After a decent start, we had to go back to square one and reconsider how to publish this classic White Wolf-created D20 game after the death of Stewart Wieck, who was originally my partner in publishing it.

I’m glad to say that we indeed have a plan for how to “reactivate” Scarred Lands and you can look for a Kickstarter for the 5e version of the famous Creature Collection early next year. We’re teaming up with a brand new design studio to bring you a gorgeous and exciting new version of SL‘s classic monster manual as the start of more Scarred Lands greatness.

If you’re looking for a Scarred Lands actual play, Travis Legge runs one on Twitch: They play Mondays from 2-4 PM CST at twitch.tv/plasticageplays and archive episodes on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzVwM7FjhlU&list=PLmiXCaSrrCIjmCJQQ7oLwLNahmDbdn_2J and release it in podcast form via anchor at https://anchor.fm/mythsandmatchmakers

They Came From Beneath the Sea! art by Larry Blamire

And for the fourth of our Onyx-owned projects, the aforementioned They Came From Beneath the Sea! Kickstarter emerges from the waves next week on December 18th. Here’s a link to the teaser trailer, created by film legend Larry Blamire (Thanks, Larry!) and we’ll be revealing an Actual Play vid later this week across our social media:

Matthew and I will go into some more detail on what led up to this most unusual tabletop RPG next week!

We have some possible new game ideas percolating away right now, but I’m not in too much of a hurry to launch a new one right away, there are still great expansions and ideas to explore for the ones we already have!

#2- Creator-owned partner games:

Headed up by Cavaliers of Mars and Realms of Pugmire (which includes Pugmire, Monarchies of Mau, FetchQuest, and the upcoming Pirates of Pugmire).

These are different than a straight-up license, in that the creators are generally deeply involved with the project. Often they do a large percentage of the writing, or bring in teams they run for it. Depending on how we conceptualize the deal, they may have a lot of input on the art or just work on the concepts and let our art and layout folks do the voodoo that they do so well.

Scarred Lands was originally structured far more like this.

So, basically, I look for creative partners that have a very strong vision for the game world, and who I like and want to work with. From there, if the game line exists in the main book and some Stretch Goals, that’s cool. We made the thing and with the magic of the eternal shelf on DTRPG, that’s all it needs to be a success in my thinking.

If the line keeps gathering interest, we’ll try out more projects if the creator is cool with that. That’s the key, we don’t do anything if they aren’t OK with it.

For Cavaliers of Mars, we have just got the books selling into stores, and we’re going to see how things go. If you haven’t heard Rose talk about Cavs on the Onyx Pathcast interview that went live last Friday, it’s a great listen, and she gives advice on how to get started with Cavs as a bonus!

Here is the link to that: https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/e/episode-29-rose-on-mars/

Roll of Good Dogs and Cats art by Shen Fei

Realms of Pugmire is the umbrella brand for Pugmire and Monarchies of Mau projects, and we still have a wide range of projects that came out of both Kickstarters. Here’s Eddy interviewed at PAX Unplugged by Gamerati: https://twitter.com/gamerati/status/1070095836233646081

I currently have two creators talking to me about teaming up for their projects, and again, I’m pretty good with our current slate here, but if the opportunity suggests itself I am open to adding more.

#3- Licensed games:

Which of course start with our WW-owned World of Darkness, Chronicles of Darkness, and Exalted gamelines, but which also include Dystopia Rising: Evolution, and Legendlore.

No doubt about it, this has been a challenging year with our White Wolf licenses. To give you an idea of the complexity, Matthew’s oversight is primarily “just” the WoD projects, and Dixie covers CofD and Exalted. Eddy covers all the rest, with Matt overseeing a bunch of our fiction projects.

The transition to Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition, and getting Mage, Wraith, and Changeling 20th projects to final stages at the same time was a huge effort, but seeing the success of the V5 Chicago By Night Kickstarter has justified it. We felt it to be important for Onyx Path to be able to show what we could do with V5 books, as we had a few pundits insist we could only do “old” Vampire.

Chicago By Night put the stake in that!

We’re moving along really well on Exalted 3rd projects as well, with Dragon-Blooded looking to release its Backer PDF several months before estimate, and Lunars looking good for having its complete text ready for an early 2019 Kickstarter. Meanwhile, there have been monthly PDF releases all year, and smaller EX3 books working their way through the production progress list.

I can’t say enough good things about the entire EX3 creative team, and I’ve just been impressed as hell with co-developers Robert Vance and Eric Minton. They work with their writing teams and with Dixie to maintain their vision for the line while incorporating the creativity of the team.

The Chronicles of Darkness game lines continue to come on line in terms getting their projects finished up in reasonable time frames, and Dixie is still working with the creative teams to emphasize their strengths, and bolster the areas that give them trouble. We’ve had some real movement VtR2, and the Night Horrors books, and then Mage2 is getting back on track as well.

As you can see in the project progress list below, we have some fantastic WW game line projects already rolling into next year, and a bunch of pitches at WW we are waiting to hear back on.

We ran the Dystopia Rising: Evolution Kickstarter this last year, and it was enough to seed several added projects as Stretch Goals to the line. I don’t think we actually reached as many of DR‘s fans as we could have, judging by the comments we’ve received after the KS was done, so it will be interesting to see how sales go once it is in stores.

We picked up this license for a few reasons. First, DR‘s top folk, Michael and Ashley, are extremely smart and creative folks who have innovated a lot in the LARP area, and we like people who can teach us stuff. Second, a new kind of zombie mythos that we, the horror “experts” hadn’t had a chance to play with.

Third: zombies meet Mad Max. Love that woohoo concept. Finally, and really most importantly, it gave us a chance to try the Storypath System in a world that was both grittier and more horrific than baseline Scion or Trinity Continuum. This was really important, and from I’ve heard it works really well for this sort of genre.

For Legendlore, well, apply what I’ve been saying about finding licenses that we can apply our aesthetics to, not visual aesthetics as we’re flexible about those, but design and thematic ones. For now, I’ll leave it at that, as the book has just appeared in the project process queue, and we’ll say a lot more about it next year.

Will we be adding more licenses this year? Well, discussions continue on several properties, so we’ll see. Basically, a license has to be either one that we feel we can create compelling worlds from, even if it is an already existing game, and that works well with our publishing model, or that pays us oodles of cash for very little work (riiiight, and if you find one of those, let me know!).

Trinity Continuum Core art by Pat McEvoy

We’re thrilled to be able to publish so many immersive worlds where players can find deep meaning in their game play. That’s a testament to the amazing writing and visuals that take us to all these places, and to an in-house team that has filled-in, rejuvenated, cajoled, encouraged, and relentlessly supported our out-of-house creative teams.

Mighty Matt and Mirthful Mike, and our trio of Dixie, Matthew, and Eddy, have pushed, prodded, pleaded, and practically puked to get our vast array of projects finished with love and care this whole year, and their efforts are paying off big time as noted above!

In fact, you can listen to the Terrific Trio every Friday on the Onyx Pathcast and often get some clues as to where the projects they are responsible for are headed, and the sorts of challenges they surmount every week.

This Friday, they flash back to the conventions we attended a couple of weeks ago and tell each other about their favorite characters!

Truly, this post has been all about our:

Many Worlds, One Path!

BLURBS!

KICKSTARTER:

Next up, we’re working on the Kickstarter for They Came From Beneath the Sea! (TCFBtS!), which has some very different additions to the Storypath mechanics we’ll be explaining during the KS. They take an excellent 50’s action and investigation genre game and turn it to 11!

Check out the teaser above!

Looking to start on Dec 18th at 1pm EST but run it extra long into January!

ELECTRONIC GAMING:

As we find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is now live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is both rolling and rocking!

ON AMAZON AND BARNES & NOBLE:

You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble).

If you enjoy these or any other of our books, please help us by writing reviews on the site of the sales venue you bought it from. Reviews really, really help us with getting folks interested in our amazing fiction!

Our selection includes these fiction books:

OUR SALES PARTNERS:

We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the Screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there!

https://ift.tt/2w0aaEW

And we’ve added Prince’s Gambit to our Studio2 catalog: https://studio2publishing.com/products/prince-s-gambit-card-game

Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Try this link! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/

Here’s the link to the press release we put out about how Onyx Path is now selling through Indie Press Revolution: http://theonyxpath.com/press-release-onyx-path-limited-editions-now-available-through-indie-press-revolution/

And you can now order Pugmire: the book, the screen, and the dice! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/manufacturers.php?manufacturerid=296

DRIVETHRURPG.COM:

This week, in celebration of both Monarchies of Mau and Cavaliers of Mars being live for retailers in Studio2, we have new themed merchandise on our RedBubble store: postcards and mugs and all sorts of stuff!

CONVENTIONS

Start getting ready for our appearance at MidWinter this January in Milwaukee! So many demos, playtests, secret playtests, and Onyx Path Q&As you could plotz!

And now, the new project status updates!

DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM FAST EDDY WEBB (projects in bold have changed status since last week):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)

C20 Novel (Jackie Cassada) (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

M20 The Technocracy Reloaded (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

M20 Victorian Mage (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)

Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition core rulebook (Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition)

Scion Jumpstart (Scion 2nd Edition)

Geist2e Fiction Anthology (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition)

Pirates of Pugmire (Realms of Pugmire)

Distant Worlds (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Dragon-Blooded Novella #1 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Across the Eight Directions (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Exalted Essay Collection (Exalted)

Legendlore core book (Legendlore)

Creatures of the World Bestiary (Scion 2nd Edition)

Redlines

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

Witch-Queen of the Shadowed Citadel (Cavaliers of Mars)

Scion Companion: Mysteries of the World (Scion 2nd Edition)

Memento Mori: the GtSE 2e Companion (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition)

Second Draft

Tales of Good Dogs – Pugmire Fiction Anthology (Pugmire)

Night Horrors: Nameless and Accursed (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)

Heirs to the Shogunate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Scion Ready Made Characters (Scion 2nd Edition)

Development

Hunter: the Vigil 2e core (Hunter: the Vigil 2nd Edition)

CofD Contagion Chronicle (Chronicles of Darkness)

Lunars: Fangs at the Gate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

WoD Ghost Hunters (World of Darkness)

Oak, Ash, and Thorn: Changeling: The Lost 2nd Companion (Changeling: The Lost 2nd)

CofD Dark Eras 2 (Chronicles of Darkness)

Manuscript Approval:

Wr20 Book of Oblivion (Wraith: The Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition)

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant core (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Editing:

Signs of Sorcery (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)

Aeon Aexpansion (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Dystopia Rising: Evolution (Dystopia Rising: Evolution)

M20 Book of the Fallen (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Adventures for Curious Cats (Monarchies of Mau)

In Media Res (Trinity Continuum: Core)

Tales of Excellent Cats (Monarchies of Mau)

V5 Chicago By Night (Vampire: The Masquerade)

Spilled Blood (Vampire: The Requiem 2nd Edition)

Night Horrors: Shunned by the Moon (Werewolf: The Forsaken 2nd Edition)

Post-Editing Development:

C20 Players’ Guide (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

Indexing:

ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE:

In Art Direction

Dystopia Rising: Evolution – Finals coming in.

Geist 2e

The Realm

Ex3 Monthly Stuff

Chicago By Night – Contracting next bits.

C20 Player’s Guide – Still sketches and more sketches.

Aeon Aexpansion

They Came From Beneath the Sea! – KS prep.

EX3 Lunars – Sketches coming in, some finals already.

Signs of Sorcery

In Media Res

Marketing Stuff

In Layout

Ex3 Dragon Blooded – 2nd proof.

Ex Novel 2 (Aaron Rosenberg)

Proofing

Scion Hero – Page XXs and then Indexing.

Scion Origin – Page XXs and then Indexing.

CtL2 Jumpstart – At WW for approval.

M20: Gods and Monsters – With Phil.

Pugmire Roll of Good Dogs and Cats

Trinity Core – Waiting for errata from Backer PDF.

Trinity Aeon – Waiting for errata from Backer PDF.

At Press

Wraith 20th – Waiting for new cover proof. Everything else good to go though.

Wraith 20 Screen – Printing.

Scion Dice – At Studio2.

Lost 2e Screen – Printing.

Scion Screen – Printing.

Changeling: The Lost 2e – Soon shipping from printer to shipper. PoD proof ordered.

Fetch Quest – Proof sent back to manufacturer, printing starting.

Exalted 3rd Novel – Prepping for release.

PtC Tormented – PoD proof ordered.

TODAY’S REASON TO CELEBRATE:

It’s 7th Sea creator John Wick’s birthday today. I’m sure he doesn’t feel a day older than YARRR!

#Onyx Path Publishing

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shoushatohaisha · 6 years

Text

review: hajimari no kyojin (osaka 6/1)

so. hello. i usually write up my butai thoughts as, um, 100+ tweet threads in the immediate wake of whatever i just saw, but this time around i thought i'd work them out into a proper report, of a sort. if you, too, have seen this show already and want to talk about it... please. any time. always.

about reviewing: this is my very favorite 2.5D franchise, ever. but this is also a review, not a cheerleading exercise, so not every single thing i have to say is unrelentingly positive. having said that, i respect kinoshita, wada, suga-zachou, and the staff at large more than just about any creative team in this corner of japanese theater fandom so like. i'm not here to drag, lol.

about spoilers: i talk about the plot elements covered but try to avoid spoiling any of the fun production surprises. :) happy to do a more spoilery play-by-play later if folks are curious.

about length: i just checked and it's 2400 words im so sorry.

without further ado...

first of all, i admit that based on the preview clips i doubted, and i was swiftly taken to task for doubting. IM SORRY WORRY-SAN i trust u implicitly and i should have known better. after the major changes in shinka no natsu, i was concerned that bringing back the revolving stage and the original opening theme would feel stale/regressive. it did not. while they did bring back the revolving element they also extended the stage backward and added a second level behind a full stage height projection screen – the second level was used to do some neat staging for flashbacks/parallels and the screen was used to, how shall we say this, up their projection game in a major way, which i frankly did not think was possible. i will not spoil the details but it was pretty great, on a purely technical level.

i also realized that a lot of the repetition – opening with the bike scene, bringing back the original opening credits music, the staging, etc – is the "look back" over the last couple years that i'd expected to come this fall. they are very obviously already preparing for the end – you could think of this as part one of their last show, with the fall as part two. the show opens with a restaging of sixth grader hinata seeing the little giant on tv for the first time – then the current karasuno team take the place of the tv and hinata joins them for a team jog. "karasuno, fight!" "oh!" "fight!" "oh!" only then each character calls out their signature line from the show so far. "uchi no renchuu wa chanto tsuyoi" / "mou tobenai karasu nante yobasenai" / "murabito b mo tatakaemasu!"

and haha. let me tell you. BOY, DID I FEEL THINGS. a lot of things. i think yachi got me the worst but they were all real bad. (i have so many feelings about yachi's story and what a beautiful job saitou ami did with her character on stage. god. ;_;)

the theme of this play was the role of captain – what makes a good captain, what a captain does for the team, and how to step into those shoes when the captain is gone. the johzenji match is fun, but here, in a sense, it exists more or less to set up the wakutani match – (re)establishing daichi's importance so that his absence feels like the gut punch it is. and fully settling the weight of that responsibility on ennoshita's shoulders, as both daichi's substitute on the court and the captain-in-waiting.

with that in mind, the rival schools: imo it wasn't strictly necessary to cast full teams for each school – each match got its own dedicated act, and unlike, for example, nekoma/datekou in karasuno fukkatsu (which had a similar story structure), there aren't really any individual characters on these rival schools who have a role as such other than terushima and takeru. (you know, the captains. see above. XD) so in theory one could get this done with, like, one actor for each captain and then an ensemble cast playing the rest of the team across both matches. HOWEVER, having all those bodies allows them to do super cool stuff visually, and why force yourself to create the illusion of a full team if you don't have to? i.e., /i/ sure am not complaining, isn't it nice to have $$$ to achieve the max vision of your choreographer. XD

i also have no doubt that the kids playing these other characters are doing whatever they can to create a character within the ensemble, and i suspect there's plenty for repeat viewers to pick up on, esp during say the johzenji match (see below). however for the first time viewer following the main flow of the story it's more or less a very large ensemble cast.

the johzenji chaos was well expressed, haha, there was so damn much going on all the time that i hardly knew where to look. (i've also seen opinions on j-twitter that that diluted the impact and i can see that too – it worked for me as a "funny" match that didn't cross the line into comic relief, but ymmv.) i thought the final scene with misaki would pack more of a punch, but i fully expect them to cry at daisenshuuraku so that might fill in the last 10% that's missing rn.

wakutani are another Good Dance Team. one did get a sense, stylistically, of fukurodani- and nekoma-lite with johzenji and wakunan, respectively – i assume that was intentional. mirroring the cats vs owls match, as it were. yanagihara rin's takeru was like… scary?? i had to rewatch those episodes this weekend to see if i'd just forgotten something, but no, stage takeru is not so much reliable middle brother as scowly quiet tough guy. he looked like a kyoutani tbh, and looking at the kid actually cast for kyoutani, one wonders if someone in casting mixed up some paperwork or something. having said that, yanagihara was great at being the character he was, i enjoyed what he did on stage. i'm just not sure that character was takeru. XD (edit: ok having just rewatched, i have to revise this somewhat, i think a big part of my impression was due to being too far back to properly see his expressions the first time around -- up close he was much smilier, and bc i was thinking about it i noticed some nice details like him going over for a family hug afterward.) otoh big post-match scene – all of wakutani, actually – was really good. v effective, i heard sniffles around me.

during this match, johzenji reappeared dressed as takeru's family: FUCKING HILARIOUS omg, everyone involved has clearly learned how to do this right wrt blocking, the very fine line between comic relief and intrusion, etc, after the, er, shaky shousha to haisha experiment of kuroken doubling as oikawa's fangirls. seichou shita na, errone.

also, some great wire work for hinata and takeru – you could tell kenta is really comfortable up there these days. the first time the wires came into play one of the women behind me went "UWO!" which, when a japanese theatergoer makes a noise out loud, that's a true sign something's impressive. XD

nekoma vs fukurodani: Yeah, That Happened. it is a testament to how well done karasuno vs wakunan was that i didn't just spend the entire time screeching BRING BACK CATS VS OWLS because fjkdajfkdlsfjd KYAA. another good staging moment – they used mirrors to create the effect of two full teams playing at a crowded gymnasium, it was brill. i won't spoil some of the fun details but vvjakdlfjdf. and tbh i think the best performance of the four was probably shouri's?? not that this is news but istg idk how someone so soft offstage does THAT on stage. is it this "acting" thing you speak of.

new bokuaka: i mean it was clear some of this material was meant for yoshimoto kouki and i did kinda miss him – i appreciate higashi-san's pinch hitting and he did a solid job. but. ah well. HAVING SAID THAT. fucking "michi wo tsukurimasu yo" i mean we should all be grateful it wasn't kouki and yuuki or it would have just been a fucking fanfic on stage. it was still bad and i don't even go here. XD

and last but not least, arita ushiwaka kenji: not exactly the world's most natural line delivery but that's fine because, i mean, he's ushiwaka. and his physical presence was perfect. which was about all he was called on to do in this particular show, ahaha.

now, for karasuno. and specifically, for my son, kawahara kazuma. remember what i said approximately a thousand words ago, about captains and captains in waiting and stepping up to the plate? (or onto the court, as it were.) ennoshita's story was the heart of the wakutani match and kazuma carried the second act. he was. so. good. he had good material to work with, of course, but he made it even better. i was saying to a friend that in retrospect i think this is one of the very very few parts of the series that actually played better and more emotionally affecting on stage than in the source material (as opposed to differently good/differently affecting). in the manga/anime, you can only see what the paneling or the frame shows you, and those initial paneling/framing choices are focused on the drama of CAPTAIN DOWN. but on the stage, daichi goes down… and off to the side you see ennoshita freeze. and from that moment on, for kazuma, it's go time. he doesn't let up until the end of post-match scene in (here) the locker room – which, jesus, that scene. it packs ten times the punch it does in the anime. because of kazuma.

sorry if i sound like a crazy person here ahaha. but like. like, imagine you have been acting since childhood, you've studied dance with famous choreographers and innovators, you had a main role in The Franchise That Changed 2.5D as a teenager, you've done a solo album, you have a serious history in performing arts... and you get cast in what was initially the smallest role of the entire karasuno team. and you take it! and pull your weight! kazuma was a team player for three years and he deserved this chance to let his actual skills shine so much. ;_; because i don't necessarily think he would have been better in any of the other roles than his actual teammates – but i do think he is a much better actor than several of his actual teammates. and he finally got the opportunity to show that.

anyway, when it came time for curtain calls, the applause swelled noticeably for kazuma – a louder ovation than anyone except kagechan and kenta. and one of those people clapping her hands off, say in row 20, just a random row choice, was definitely tearing up at the same time.

IN OTHER KARASANEWS. kt-san. LIVE IN PERSON KT-SAN BACK IN THE ROLE HE WAS MEANT FOR cries into my hands i love him daichi-saaaaaaaaaan. very occasionally his delivery reminded me he's a model not an actor, if you know what i mean, but like, for the vast part it didn't matter because he is naturally such a perfect fit. have i mentioned i love him.

new suga: mmmmm. he looked and moved fine but his line delivery did not convince me. tbf it's not like suga has a huge role to play in these matches so 1) it's not a huge deal 2) he didn't get much chance to get into the character. either he'll get better or he won't, and if he doesn't it's not going to sink the next play or anything. he seems like a nice enough kid, i wish him well!

kageyama tatsuya: still can't yell and enunciate at the same time. loved that they brought back the archer analogy from shinka no natsu though!! it was one of my favorite things about his kageyama, and it's nice that it's something he "owns" instead of imitating/inheriting from tatsunari.

tsukishima & yamaguchi: miura kairi continues to get even better, i'm so pleased. <3 also, i love love love that they still use the musical motif from shousha to haisha for yamaguchi's jump float serve. it was the same in shinka no natsu, it's the same here. THE TSUKKIYAMA WAS REAL CUTE, great detail work before and after the serve as well as after tsukki's block(s). as for tsukishima, much as they brought back kageyama's archer imagery, they brought back tsukki's fancy katana kill block. (they didn't waste kondou shouri, either, i'll leave it at that.)

last but not least, MY ACTUAL SON AND FEELINGS TWIN, SUGA KENTA: ok like. to set the scene here. i have mad respect for this kid and also love him to death as a human. i think he puts more thought into this production than anyone else in the cast – he is practically worry-san's AD. and he clearly has a lot of real deep thoughts and feelings about the source material. so deep in fact that it took a while for me to come around to his hinata because while, for example, tatsunari's kageyama could have walked straight off my television screen, kenta went down to the manga and built hinata up from there. he didn't have a choice – he's nothing like murase ayumu's voice. all too often we, and i include myself here, think of the two dimensions in 2.5D as anime, rather than manga... but just as there's a big gap between the two dimensions of animation and the three dimensions of live theater, there's as big a gap again between static black-and-white drawing, and movement and color and sound. and when i looked at kenta's hinata as something created solely from furudate's art style, it all slotted into place for me. (naturally, ymmv.)

it also took kenta longer than some of the others, i think, to portray all of what he wanted to. shoen hinata was pretty yelly, and pretty single-register yelly. hinata is a yelly character, of course, but the balance between that hinata and Serious Match Hinata was out of whack at first. this got better and better with every show. and then—

his encounter with ushiwaka here. was IT. it was what i was looking for all this time. his delivery of hinata's big line there was like – i think maybe i clapped my hands over my mouth, unclear, bc it was like the final missing piece and i was so happy. kentaaaaa. ;____;

part of me wonders if this is what kenta's always had in his head but maybe couldn't get his face/voice to express the way he wanted it? OR, IT'S KENTA, SO MAYBE IT WAS ON PURPOSE and his previous Serious Hinata was meant to be like, just a feral hunger child whereas this is the kid who experienced the heartbreak of losing to seijou. i would love to ask him tbh. XD

anyway, my son, after five plays continues to grow in his portrayal of this character. kenta is the heart of gekidan haikyuu in so many ways, and i will be at their graduation show if it kills me.

(breathes out) i think that's. everything. a best setter award to anyone who read this far, and feel free to ask if there's anything specific you want to know about? i will be seeing it again this weekend for daisenshuuraku and will be sure to report back on who cried, etc. all hail volleyball stage the end. 🏐

#review #engeki haikyuu #hajimari no kyojin #im sorry i have so many feelings #AND THIS IS THE EDITED VERSION #i spared you my intensive theories on how kazuma ended up in this role in the first place #i just #look #i love this production so much

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elizadoolittlethings · 6 years

Photo

Mark Gatiss: ‘There’s nothing quite like the sheer bloody terror of theatre’

Mark Shenton

- Sep 29, 2016

By a strange sort of coincidence, October sees Mark Gatiss, Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton all appearing on the London stage.

No sooner does Gatiss open next Tuesday in The Boys in the Band at the Park Theatre, than the very next night Shearsmith begins previews for a West End revival of Ronald Harwood’s The Dresser, and three weeks later Pemberton leads the cast of Dead Funny. The three men were, of couse, all co-founders (with Jeremy Dyson) and stars of The League of Gentlemen, a TV comedy troupe that was born as a stage act (and won the Perrier comedy award at Edinburgh in 1997), before making three TV series between 1999 and 2002 and then a feature film in 2005.

“This is a sort of two-yearly story now, when we all seem to be doing plays at the same time,” says Gatiss, talking in a lunch break from rehearsals a couple of Saturdays before previews begun. “But we’re just working really.”

Today he tells me frankly: “I owe everything to the League – and we’re talking about doing something else now, as it has been 10 years since we worked together and we’d love to again.” Yet it also keeps reappearing in his life anyway: “It goes in cycles of rebirth. People come up to me and say they loved it when they were kids, which makes me feel ancient; but then kids come up to me who’ve just found it, too. It goes round and round.”

During those League years – “we were together for 11 years” – he and the others made a total commitment to it. “We made a pact that we wouldn’t get distracted. We’d seen a few of our contemporaries go off and do other things, but we didn’t want to lose sight of what we were doing, so if we did anything else it would be only short things that we could fit in.”

If the League will forever be a marker for him, another has become Sherlock, the modern version of Sherlock Holmes that he has written with Steven Moffat, and for which they’ve just completed a fourth series of three episodes.

“That takes it to 13 we’ve done in six years. People ask why we don’t do 10 a year, but it’s hard enough doing three every 18 months. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing, like bottled lightning; it just came together, the idea of doing a modern version, the writing, the casting and the timing of it. Conan Doyle spent all his life trying to work out why people liked Sherlock Holmes; Steven and I just go, ‘fine’. It’s been astonishing; it sells to more places than there are countries, which is something to do with oil rigs and other territories. And Benedict [Cumberbatch] and Martin [Freeman] have become superstars through it.”

Gatiss is himself far too modest and self-effacing to consider himself a star, though as an actor earlier this year he won his first Olivier award for best actor in a supporting role for his appearance in Three Days in the Country at the National Theatre, and said in a post-award red carpet interview: “I’m over the moon, I really am. It’s a thrill, I’ve always wanted one and I am really pleased.”

https://youtu.be/0cAIHJ6f6zQ

He had every reason to be; as Kate Kellaway put it in her review in The Observer: “Mark Gatiss, as the ‘maestro of misdiagnosis’ Shpigelsky, gives a comic tour de force, and his immodest proposal to middle-aged Lizaveta brings the house down. He sinks to his knees to propose, but lumbago prevents him from rising and he crawls, in a most undignified style, across the stage, bottom up. It’s funny, but it is the more subtle aspects of Gatiss’ performance that fascinate most: the way he holds a smile, lets it go beyond its sell-by date: there is Shpigelsky’s vanity and misplaced confidence in it.”

He tells me he never had confidence in that comic routine himself: “Una Stubbs once told me that when she was doing a play at the Donmar Warehouse a friend told her how she loved that thing she was doing with her hands, and she never got a laugh from it again after that. It’s the old saw about a good review being as dangerous as a bad one. With the entire back routine in Three Days in the Country, I couldn’t remember what I had done about three months in; I lived in mortal dread of it going away, but it was also good because it kept it fresh.”

He keeps himself fresh by combining two careers, one as a writer, the other as an actor. “I’ve always done both. In an ideal year, I do half and half. Sherlock takes a long time to write, then four months to film; I then like to spend three months on a play.”

Theatre has become a mainstay for Gatiss. “I usually do a play a year, sometimes two,” with credits that stretch from the National (where as well as Three Days in the Country he also starred in Alan Ayckbourn’s Season’s Greetings) to the Donmar (The Recruiting Officer, Josie Rourke’s first show at the helm), Hampstead Theatre (Howard Brenton’s 55 Days), and London’s Old Vic (All About My Mother). “I can write while I’m in a play, too, and I like that – it gives structure to the day – but I always forget, like the amnesia of childbirth, how tired I get. When you do a play you shift into a different pattern, and become more of a night owl, although I’m very much a morning person. When you’re in the theatre, you eat late and sleep later so that has an effect on the day.”

Theatre has also always been in his blood, ever since he first attended a drama club at school and an after-hours youth theatre, before going to study at Bretton Hall in Yorkshire, where he first met the other Leaguers and they formed The League of Gentlemen. “It’s such a different experience to sitting in a caravan waiting to film something. There’s nothing quite like the sheer bloody terror of theatre – and the smell of a freshly painted set is exactly the same wet paint smell I remember from drama club at school. It gives me the same tingle of anticipation and nerves and excitement.”

Being in a play is like a holiday romance – it’s very intense, then it dissipates

Of course, one of the joys of working in the theatre is that it is much more social than the solitary act of writing. “Sometimes I feel like I’ve been chained to a desk for months, so there’s nothing nicer than joining a new group of friends and everything that comes with it. It’s like a holiday romance – it’s very intense, then it dissipates.”

There’s no room for holiday romances, or ‘showmances’ as I’ve heard them dubbed, though: for the first time, he is working on stage with his actor husband Ian Hallard, whom he married seven years ago. “We’ll be like Michael Denison and Dulcie Gray now,” he quips. The ceremony was held at Middle Temple, the ancient Inn of Court in central London, and he can’t resist telling me: “The ceremony took place beneath the portrait of Edward Carson, the man who prosecuted Oscar Wilde. Who’d have thought? He’d be turning in his grave.”

Doing The Boys in the Band, Mart Crowley’s 1960s play about a group of gay men, together now was prompted partly by Hallard’s involvement in a rehearsed reading of the play four years ago, which Gatiss saw and tells me how much it resonated.

“One line that stood out was: ‘If we could only not hate ourselves quite so much.’ I thought it was brilliant. And then [producers] Tom O’Connell and James Seabright got a production together and the Park Theatre said yes, and I had a gap, so I joined, too. Ian was doing Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at Theatr Clwyd in the first three months of the year, and then I went straight off to do four months of Sherlock, so this is a good way of seeing each other now.”

There are other perks, too: “Jack Derges is utterly delightful – being kissed by him every day is all right. But Ian gets kissed by him first,” he hastens to add. The Park is also local to them – they live in nearby Islington – and he says: “I love this theatre. It has an indie feeling to it, and has a really loyal, local audience. But I’ve also wanted to play this part since I saw the film when I was 12 or 13. It’s an important play – it’s fascinating to see where we were, where we’ve got to, and between that, where we think things have changed or not at all. You know that a play is good when you stage it at different times and it means something different each time.”

Continues…

Q&A: Mark Gatiss

What was your first non-theatre job? I worked as a gardener in a hospital across the road from where my dad worked.

What was your first professional theatre job? Working at Darlington Arts Centre, now sadly gone, which in its day was second only to the Barbican in terms of size. I was a deputy stage manager.

What is your next job? I’ve got a lot of things to write, most of them secret at the moment.

What do you wish someone had told you when you were starting out? Don’t sweat the small stuff.

Who or what was your biggest influence? My greatest inspiration is Alan Bennett – I’ve never worked with him, but he is it. My acting hero is James Mason, who as a screen actor was unsurpassable; on stage, it is Mark Rylance – his Richard II was a life-changing experience for me, it was breathtaking.

What’s your best advice for auditions? Don’t go, leave them to me! But apart from that, whenever I’m involved in producing things, I try to get actor friends to come in and read in for those auditioning. It’s very unusual for actors to sit on the other side of the table, and they always find it revelatory. At the end of the day, they realise it is very rarely about not being good, but about the fit, and that’s reassuring to know. So my advice would be that if you can, try to get to sit on the other side of the table sometime – it will make you feel so much better when you don’t get a job.

If you hadn’t been an actor and writer, what would you have been? I’m very blessed to do this as I can’t do anything else. The only other thing I really wanted to was be a pantologist, but I didn’t have Latin.

Do you have any theatrical superstitions or rituals? I try not to as I’m quite a rational person, but in the face of the terror, I can’t tell you how many times I find myself whistling in the dressing room and having to go out in the corridor and turn around three times and blow a raspberry, hoping no one notices.

He goes on: “There is a lot of stuff in this play about self-loathing that is very relevant. The idea that that has gone away is a fallacy. The levels of mental illness and suicide in young gay men particularly is awful. I was talking to a friend recently who told me about a friend of his who struggled to come out. We imagine, living in our metropolitan bubble, that it is easy, but he had gone through hell – it sounded like something from the 1950s, but was to do with what was going on in his own head.”

The play premiered in 1968, a year ahead of Stonewall and the new age of gay liberation that ushered in, but it was a landmark play for portraying gay lives on a mainstream stage so unashamedly, and maybe critically. Some activists have resisted its portrait of these gay lives as too hostile and unhappy; but as Gatiss points out: “I hate the notion of things having to wear the weight of everything on their shoulders. This is actually a particular view of nine particular men, written from a very autobiographical standpoint by Mart Crowley. I feel very like I’m on a soapbox about this, but why should this play have to shoulder everyone’s stories? Obviously it was different when there were very few gay plays, but it’s not like that now that there’s a multiplicity of them, so we can look at it in its context.”

Photos: Tristram Kenton1 of 4

That context is also, of course, pre-Aids – though it’s a sad fact of that disease that it claimed no fewer than four of the play’s original New York cast. During the 1980s, the play duly fell off the gay theatre syllabus entirely; as Gatiss puts it: “There was a period when clearly this was the wrong thing to put on, when we were absolutely under siege. But the last time it was done in New York, Ben Brantley wrote in The New York Times that it was apparently all right to like Boys in the Band again. As time passes and things shift, it is not just ripe for revival, but also still relevant. It’s a false assumption that all battles have been won. There’s a massive debate in the gay community about masculinity, for instance. And what really interests me is the notion how, in any community or cause, when you start to achieve victories, the things that give you common cause start to fray and then you start to turn in on yourself. It’s a bit like the Labour Party is doing now. But so much has been achieved.”

Yet the gay community is facing new challenges now, such as the disturbing rise in chemical drug addictions. “A friend has a really interesting theory about the perhaps subconscious feeling among gay people that we are somehow ‘other’. There’s that wonderful line in Inherit the Wind that you invent the telephone but lose the charm of distance; so for everything you gain, you lose something, too. And maybe the rise of chem-sex is a way for men to say, ‘Yes, I can marry and adopt children now, but I’m still not like you.’ And that’s really interesting.” Addictions are a way to try to cure, or at least temporarily relieve, pain, “whether it’s drugs or sex or booze, which this play is about. And from the outside, all looks fine now – you have Craig Revel Horwood and Bruno [Tonioli] on the TV, and Ian and I were on Graham Norton [on BBC Radio 2] this morning, so visibility is not an issue. Obviously huge steps have been made, but it’s folly to think that everything is rosy now.”

Continues…

Mark Gatiss’ top tip for an aspiring writer and actor

• As Churchill said, keep buggering on, that’s the only thing you can do. For writing, there’s no such thing as a would-be writer. You do it or you don’t, so just get on with it. People are scared, they think they’ll be judged – but the only person doing that is yourself.

Some may still resist the portrait of these bitching, unhappy gay men all over again, but Gatiss is ready with his answer to them: “If someone says that’s not me, it’s not supposed to be. I find repellent the closing down and over-policing of things; it suffocates debate.” That’s a debate he wants to have. And apart from working with his husband, the play has an added resonance for him, too: in it, he plays Harold, whose birthday party provides the setting for the story, and he tells me, “I’ll turn 50 during the run, though we don’t have a show that night.”

After the run finishes, he plans to take a holiday at last: “I’m going to try to have an actual month off, to see if I can do it. People ask me if I’m a workaholic – I don’t think I am, but I love to work. Noel Coward once said work is more fun than fun, and I finished a script the other day and gave myself a day off work and I went off for a massage. But I was quite bored by the end of the day.”

CV: Mark Gatiss

Born: 1966, Sedgefield, County Durham Training: Bretton Hall College Landmark productions: All About My Mother, Old Vic, London (2007), Season’s Greetings, National Theatre (2010), The Recruiting Officer, Donmar Warehouse, London (2012), 55 Days, Hampstead Theatre, London (2012), Coriolanus, Donmar Warehouse, London, with Tom Hiddleston (2013), Three Days in the Country, National Theatre (2015) Awards: Perrier award for comedy for The League of Gentlemen at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (1997), BAFTA for The League of Gentlemen TV series (2000), Royal Television Society award for The League of Gentlemen TV series (2000), Golden Rose of Montreux for The League of Gentlemen TV series (1999), Writers Guild award for best short-form TV drama for Sherlock (2012), Olivier award for best supporting actor for Three Days in the Country (2016). Agents: Sarah Spear/Grace Clissold at Curtis Brown

The Boys in the Band runs at the Park Theatre, London, until October 30

#MG #mark gatiss #the boys in the band #the league of gentlemen #theatre acting #interview #the stage

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