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lavendersies · 3 years

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Willuz prompts:

- Willow and her bumblebee Palisman grow an extravagant topiary of her and Luz, adorned with beautiful bouquets of flowers (as well as make delicious honey) for Luz to thank her for everything.

- Kind of a recap of Season 1's Luz and Willow adventures, but with the notable highlight that Willow gives Luz an appropriate flower bouquet as thanks of helping her out (can be combined with previous prompt if preferable)

- Amity and Hunter argue which of the two Luz loves the most, only to find Luz on a date/making out with Willow in a secluded, forested area, maybe with blossoming flowers (this is a non-serious fic as an allegory to the whole shipping war at the moment, but could come off as a bit mean :P)

- Luz practices with her Glyphs once more to make nice flowers and topiaries for Willow.

- Willow has a crush on Luz and can't help but feel a little jealous when she and Amity get close instead. Willow is too shy to confess her feelings for Luz, fearing rejection, and doesn't want to be in hot water with Amity again after they're finally getting along since their breach years ago. Willow wants to be happy for them, but Gus notices her depression.

- Boscha has thrashed Willow's beautiful plant garden, a passion project that's been taken years, and Willow is despaired by this, too depressed to continue and rebuild. Luz decides to fix the garden and improve it.

@Arendalphaeagle gave theses wonderful prompts so I have went with fourth one. The request was suppose to be uploaded on A03 but it didn't work out so until further notice all Willuz requests will be uploaded here. Feel free to drop ya'll request in my ask box. Enjoy.

A flower for Willow

Luz tapped the symbol emitting a green light and a single flower merge. She looks over at her spell book that specializes in plant magic for something new. She had committed her time to mastering a new glyph, hoping it would create the perfect gift for Willow. Luz didn't care if she spent the whole night out here and woke up with tired eyes caked with crust. Starting earlier this week would have been the wise thing to do but studying for her witch classes ate up the time. In a sluggish motion the sun disappeared behind the trees, allowing the moon to provide a dim light and usher in darkness. Luz casted a luminous orb as she read the instruction on how to evoke multiple flowers. She read the guide once more then traced the symbol on paper and activated it. A patch of lavender and lilac flowers bloom before her, this was just what she needed. Luz would allow her artistic skills to do the rest, she took her book and went inside.

She found Eda knocked out on the couch with an empty cup of apple blood dangling from her hand. A smile spread on her lips seeing the grey-haired witch in her apple blood coma. King was probably upstairs waiting for Luz's return so they could continue watching an anime series that she had downloaded on her phone. Upon entering the room Luz sees King scowling one of his stuffed animals.

When he noticed her presence. He stopped chiding the pink rabbit, "Oh hey Luz, are you ready to watch soul eater with me?" He asked, sitting on the sleeping mat.

"Not tonight love," She replied.

"Why not?!" King whined.

Luz faced the opposite direction and stripped from her outwear into pj's. She put them near the mat and got out her sketch pad.

"I have to finish a gift for Willow," she said, sitting down to begin sketching her friend's face.

"You can finish it tomorrow, I've been watching all week for us to watch soul eater!"

"Sorry King, I promise we will watch it together tomorrow" she assured.

The furry demon grumbled under his breath and joined her on the mat. "What are you drawing anyways?" He asked, peeking over her shoulder.

"A picture of Willow" she responded.

"What's the occasion?"

"None, I just want to do something nice for my friend," she said.

"Do you have anything else in mind?"

Luz had finished Willow's eyes and moved on to her nose, "Tomorrow I'm

going to create a plant statue with this picture".

"I want a plant statue of me!" King cried.

Luz chuckled.

"And you've been doing a lot for Willow lately, last week you went out of your way to get her that plant baby".

Luz's heart raced, she already knew the next words coming, "She sounds more than a friend" King commented.

"Friends do things for each other all the time" Luz struggled to tolerate her frisky heart, hoping the tone of her voice wasn't a dead give away.

"Eh, if you say so."

The room fell in silence and Luz worked diligently on Willow's portrait. The plant witch dominates her thoughts, now her heart flutters thinking of those olive green eyes behind the thin-rimmed glasses. The way her ear twitched at sudden noises. Willow had been nothing but a sweet-heart since day, she deserved the world and Luz was willing to give her it. Although these feelings bloomed, she didn't know if it was mutual on Willow's end, and she would keep them buried away. When Luz finally looked up from her sketch-pad King was fast asleep at the edge of her mat. She set aside the finished product and got some rest.

Later that night, Luz had woken up to relieve her heavy bladder, she carefully stepped over a sleeping King and visited the bathroom. After washing her hands, she found herself outside.

The moon's bright orbs brighten her path as she walks through the woods. Luz was a moth drawn to light, she felt compelled to keep moving. The orbs glowed rapidly like glistening gems, Luz could hear the vibration. She was led into the opening and a massive bush that resembled Willow's head came in view.

Woah...

"Thank you Luz!" It says

"Huh?"

Its large yellow luminous remind her of fireflies, she had accidentally swallowed one when she was seven.

"Thank you" it repeated.

"What for?" Luz asked.

She didn't get a response to her question,7 the bush thanked Luz on an endless loop. Suddenly, gravity reeled her forward and its mouth opened wide, swallowing her.

Luz was expecting to be engulfed in darkness, her eyes were squeezed shut. She felt warmth and a chubby body press against hers, opening her eyes. Luz realized it was Willow. She embraced the plant witch hug and gently ran her hand along Willow's turquoise hair.

"Luz!"

Everything faded. Luz woke up in her makeshift room with an annoyed little demon held prisoner in her arms. "Luz let go!" He whines struggling to break free.

"Sorry.." she said sheepishly.

Luz released him and King scurried off on all fours. She took care of her personal hygiene then returned to the room for her uniform. When Luz went downstairs, Eda was waiting at the door with her staff. She wore her pajamas. "Can we take the tub?”

“No, its for emergencies only”

“Please” Luz said, giving the grey haired woman pitiful eyes.

“I’m immune to those” Eda stated dismissively.

“But you can’t be the coolest witch without it,”

“Keep it up and you’ll be walking to school” Eda said heading out the door.

The schoolyard was still empty when Luz hopped off the staff. She watched Eda fly away, disappearing over the autumn colored trees. Luz took out her plant magic textbook and turned to the page about manipulation. After she got a good understanding, she pulled out the portrait of Willow and drew two symbols on them. Luz crossed her fingers and tapped the paper, a stem sprouted forth and the leaves took on the form of Willow's face. Two Lilac flowers blossomed on both sides, the topiary was the size of a miniature house plant. She had expected bigger but before Luz could sulk her crush arrived.

"Willow!" She quickly hid the plant behind her back.

"Hey" Willow smiled.

Luz felt butterflies tickling her stomach, she forced a skittish smile and revealed the topiary. Willow eyes widened with astonishment, she took the plant from Luz's hands.

"Aww thanks" Willow shifted the plant in her other arm and gave her a hug. Luz no longer had butterflies pestering her insides. The euphoria buttered her up, if Luz hadn't stopped herself she would have kissed Willow. For a brief moment, the turquoise haired witch stared at her. Luz was about to look away but Willow touched her cheek and gently kissed her lips. She led Luz by the hand towards the school building.

#the owl house #willow toh #willow park #willow the owl house #the owl house luz #luz noceda #willuz #eda the owl witch #toh eda #toh willow #toh luz

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takerfoxx · 3 years

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The Owl House, Season 2, Episode 5, "Through the Looking Glass Ruins," First Impressions!

=deep sigh=

Gus, my dude, I am so, so sorry.

Okay, I have much to talk about in this episode, but there is one glaring issue I have to address.

My boy Gus totally got the shaft.

Gus is what I like to term the Quirky Male Sidekick. You know, the supporting male character with the quick wit but lags behind the rest of the gang in terms of power. The Sokkas. The Xanders. The Bows. And one thing instrinsic about most of them is that their lack of skill or power in comparisons to the rest is usually highlighted in their own episode in which they learn of their true strength and overcome their insecurities. The Zeppo. Sokka's Master. And so on.

(Bow, it should be noted, didn't really have one of these episodes, as he knew that he was awesome from the get-go)

I have a tendency to empathize with these characters, and often get annoyed about how many of them have a sort of misogynist bent that they overcome. Fortunately stories have been moving away from this, but the other tropes remain.

Well, here Gus gets his Quirky Male Sidekick episode, where he finally realizes his true power and overcomes his insecurities.

And it just so happens to be the episode where the B-Plot contains the single biggest moment for the show's single biggest ship, thereby completely overshadowing Gus's entire character arc.

Gus, I am so sorry.

However, I am going to give my dude his due. His was the A-Plot, so I'm addressing him first!

Now, Gus has always kind of been the odd one out of our friend group. Luz met Willow and Amity first, Willow already had a connection to Amity, and Gus was around mainly just because he was Willow's friend. His fascination with human stuff did give him something to do, but let's face it: he was purely there as a support role. And now the fact that his proficiency is in illusion magic, something that doesn't have the same immediate practical value as other fields, to the point where he's now getting passed up by the magicless Luz, is really getting to him, and when he inadvertently gets Willow hurt, he goes into a deep depression and starts to wonder about his place in the world. And as someone with a lot of skill in something that is pretty cool but doesn't have a lot of immediate practical value, I get him, I really do.

However, he soon hooks up with a band of adventurers from another school, one looking for something called Galderstones, which are said to give anyone's magical ability a significant boost.

Except for illusion magic, because it doesn't have anything real to actually boost. Go figure.

And as it turns out, Gus's old rival Mattholomule is also part of the group, and he's still holding a grudge about Gus embarrassing him from before, so of course Gus has to come along to prove himself all over again (albeit with a few charms from Luz).

Now, I really have to ask: if people have been looking for these artifacts for years but no one has been successful, why were these kids able to find them so easily? I mean, they got to the ruins pretty quickly, and sure, the guardian's illusion was convincing, but surely someone else could have also figured out what's up.

Well, whatever. Point is, it's discovered that the Looking Glass Ruins is actually an illusionist graveyard, and now suddenly Gus has some real reservations about stealing from the graves of what are his people. To top it all off, the dreaded guardian of the stones also turns out to be an illusion, courtesy of a kooky old guy tasked with defending the place.

Okay, you know how this song and dance goes: Gus realizes how effective illusion magic can be and casts an illusion so realistic and so scary that it scares off the assholes. And while it's what you'd expect, the illusion itself kicked ass. I love it when kids' shows go full-on horror. It was like something from one of Mysterio's illusions.

Oh, and also? In doing so, he earned Mattholomule's respect, and they're friends now! So, good on him!

And they just casually mentioned that the guardian is a ghost, because of course he is.

Well, our Gus is growing up. He's got a new, deep voice, he learned to have faith in himself, he befriended his old rival, and he can do some pretty kickass stuff with his illusions. Neat.

All right. Now, it's time. It's time to talk about that moment.

GLORY GLORY HALLELUJAH, WE GOT AN ACTUAL KISS! LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOOOO!!!

Ahem.

In following up what she learned from Eda's mom about another human having been stranded on the Boiling Isles, whom we now know was named Philip Wittebane, Luz hears that his diary had fallen into the possession of the library, and heads over in part to see if she could find it, but also because she wants to see Amity, whom she is now very much crushing on.

Look, if you know then you know.

Anyway, after much stammering and blushing, Amity informs her that the journal is actually kept in...I forgot what it's called, but it's basically the Restricted Section. Did they called it the Restricted Section? Because it's basically the Restricted Section.

=checks wiki=

Forbidden Stacks. Same diff. Every magic library has one. But by God it looked cool!

However, while Amity could get Luz inside, if they get caught, then Amity would basically get fired.

Well, as you might imagine they find it, but unfortunately it had been partially devoured by a magic rat. Great job taking care of your priceless tomes, guys.

And Luz's growl of frustration gets them caught.

And Amity gets fired.

Shit.

But it's okay, because Luz literally endangered her life doing a bunch of dangerous tasks for the head librarian to earn Amity's job back, which is greatly appreciated!

So...let's talk about what's going on here.

First, let us note Edric and Emira. Now, when we first met them, they were funny and charming, but also kinda douchey in how they treated Amity. Nothing overly horrible, mostly in the form of big sibling bullying, but still bad. But ever since they've gotten a reality check, they've made up for it by becoming the ultimate wingmen. Like, they plainly see that their little sister and their human buddy are crushing on each other HARD, and are very much in support. And I really love these guys, how they continue to still kind of pick on Amity while also having her back. Like, we get confirmation that she has her dad's natural brown hair but dyes it green to appease their mother, and they help her dye it purple, thereby allowing her to forge her own identity instead of tying herself to either of her parents!

And again, they totally ship Lumity.

And we get to the kiss.

Now, it was just on the cheek, but it was still a kiss, there was still blushing, Amity had an adorable freakout, as did Luz, so this ship has left the harbor, and oh my God please hook them up soon! I know saving it for the finale is the tradition, but I want them as a couple for several episodes at least!

(oh yeah, and they managed to get the contents of the journal from the rat's memories, if anyone cares. Belos is still the number one suspect for being Philip, but even if he's not, there's almost certainly a connection)

But as much as I loved this episode, I do have one major complaint.

No Eda.

No Demon King.

No Golden Guard.

Like, c'mon! I'm not saying they were needed, but they were missed!

#the owl house #toh #gus porter #Mattholomule #luz noceda #amity blight #edric blight #emira blight #lumity #reaction

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thenerdintheattic · 4 years

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Doctor Who Rewatch Season 8

(spoiler alert, this is pretty much how I feel about this season)

8x01 Deep Breath - 3/5 : it's a good after regeneration episode. twelve doesn't quite feel like the doctor yet (i don't remember if he did push the droid guy or not) but i like his darker, more serious tone. the scene where he leaves clara behind and all that moment where she has to hold her breath is very well done. but this is super loooong and the bit with the dinosaur was completely unnecessary.

8x02 Into the Dalek - 2/5 : so yeah i don't give a horse sh*t about clara's life and danny's characterisation is as subtle as an elephant in a glass shop. as for the the real plot : interesting concept but sooo long, side characters are boring. twelve is still rough around the edges but he's definitely the doctor

8x03 Robots of Sherwood - 2/5 : some highlights : the doctor/robin hood comparison was quite well done and how the viewer can identify with clara, clara is not completely annoying in this episode. but this episode is soooo long, i got really bored

8x04 Listen - 1.5/5 : i could actually like danny pink : he'd kinda relatable and interesting but his characterisation has been made by a butcher and it feels so forced and unnatural. as for this episode ... clara's life feels more important than the actual plot (which could be cool if it wasn't for that fuckery that it was obviously clara all along, because of course she was there on gallifrey and of course, she played a huge part in what the doctor actually becomes)

8x05 Time Heist - 4/5 : i didn't remember that i liked this episode so much so this was a really good surprise. the side characters are actually written decently and interesting, the plot is good and twelve is baby, thank you.

8x06 The Caretaker - 0/5 : so yeah, here we are. i hate everything from this episode. this is not doctor who

8x07 Kill the Moon - 2.5/5 : the moon! going back to the moon, first woman on the moon, this is sooo close to us and so exciting, i really hope we will go back there while i'm alive, just out of curiosity and not because there's something going on. but apart from my nerdy hype, this was kinda disappointing, apart from the obvious fuckery of the moon being an egg. the side characters are invisible (what were the two guys names?), the woman was a bit more interesting, courtney is unbearable. yeah and clara, if the moon's gone there's a little bit more than the tides and the internet connexion that would change, just saying (also, how can Courtney, an english girl, be the president of the US?)

8x08 Mummy on the Orient-Express - 4/5 : another good episode : the mummy and the countdown were pretty cool, perkins, the train in space. twelve sends me huge one vibes which i like. the only thing are the other scientists are completely useless, they don't even have a line of dialogue, they just stay in the background and just do nothing, so yeah that could have been easily corrected. also we'll never know who/what gus was

8x09 Flatline - 3.5/5 : it's a fun episode, it's in Bristol. clara's still annoying me though

8x10 In the Forest of the Night - 1/5 : that's everything that I hate about this season : coal hill school, clara being such a jerk, the plot that makes no sense (fire proof trees????). Just one point for twelve being baby again and calling out clara's bs

8x11 Dark Water - 3/5 : the scene in the volcano is superb, that's great acting from jenna coleman and peter capaldi. missy and the end twist are brilliant. but i'm so not on board with the afterlife thing and the bits with danny were totally flat because his character has been butchered all season

8x12 Death in Heaven - 2.5/5 : still not on board with all the cybermen = dead people thing. that's really too disturbing for me. but i liked missy and i liked twelve realising is neither a good man nor a bad man, he's just an idiot. not so happy with him killing missy though, not even for clara.

Overall opinion : I really don't like this season. Apart from a couple of episodes, it didn't feel that i was watching doctor who and that's really a shame. one of my problem is danny. i know one of the themes of the season was to ask the question whether twelve (and the doctor in general) is a good man, the mirror with danny and how an external character can bring clara and the viewer to see the doctor for who he really is, the soldier/officer parallel (especially after the war doctor) were interesting ideas, and the way it culminates with the master giving the doctor an army because she wants him to be more like her was kinda cool. but as i said before, danny pink has been butchered, there's no subtlety you can see the strings pulling him together and that's bad. all of the good stuff he could have brought was drown into this relationship with clara and that's my biggest problem here. this is peter capaldi's first season, and yet it revolves more about clara and her normal life, and that i just can't accept. that's not why i watch doctor who, i don't care about her school and her attempts to date and her lies. she's more the doctor than the actual doctor and that's really not fair on peter capaldi who most of the time just appears as a grumpy, rude old man. also i really don't like this tendency that the doctor kinda comes when the companion calls because they want another adventure in the tardis. where is the doctor who accidentally kidnapped his companion? where is the doctor that brought rose back a year after she left with him? where is the doctor who took years to get Tegan to Heathrow? i miss companions that began as ordinary people and who got their whole life turned upside down, i miss companions who became extraordinary with the doctor, and i guess that's why i really don't like clara.

#doctor who #twelve #clara oswald #danny pink #missy #the master #dw season 8

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miniatureclover · 4 years

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Faraway Wanderers Reading Blog: Chapters 01-05

First post of my attempt at the May 2020 Asian Readathon with Faraway Wanderers!

Just some highlights here, the rest is on my wordpress blog because my ramblings got long.

Chapter 1: Tian Chuang

The first sentences use a common motif in Chinese literature and art to set the scene: our story begins at the end of winter, bridging into spring – the time when plum blossoms are seen blooming in the snow. Plum blossoms have come to symbolize resilience and perseverance as one of three plants that still flourish in the dead of winter.

Despite the emperor’s reluctance to let the last of his old friends go, he allows Zhou Zishu to accept the last nail that will seal his fate. It really is a gory self-inflicted punishment, I mean, it’s best not to think too hard on the fact that the main character is running around with seven nails punctured into his chest. Yeah. Let’s just try to ignore that going forward (also, don’t ask how, suspension of disbelief activated haha).

When I read this chapter a few months ago, I didn’t pay the setting much mind, but looking back on it those plum blossoms really set the scene – marking both a beginning and an end, enduring hardship and adversity to blossom.

Chapter 2: Chance Encounter

A short explanation is in order. Most wuxia stories are more grounded in realism and centered around martial arts, but the whole internal force, meridians, and acupuncture points are also an integral part of many wuxia stories. The internal force distinguishes the average fighter from a skilled martial artist – by disrupting that flow of internal energy, a person can be paralyzed or crippled. That’s more or less how the wuxia genre has been since it was popularized by Jin Yong’s works.

After some exposition on how Zhou Zishu walked out of there alive when most figuratively drop dead on the spot, we are brought along his new journey outside the spying life to…creep around people’s properties, drink wine, and bask in his newfound freedom. He also does a really bad impression of a beggar, despite the looks, because he’s not actually looking for handouts therefore puzzling all the people on the street except for a certain man who correctly guesses that Zhou Zishu is merely sunbathing.

An introspective piece reveals a bit more about our MC: ambitious and arrogant in his youth, but at the end of all his efforts there really isn’t much to show for it. He pretty much gave up his youth in service to his country, and “…anything he ever owned had to become compensation for the acts he committed”. The overarching theme according to reviews is atonement for past deeds, and two chapters into the story there have already been two references to this sort of karmic retribution (the emperor being all alone after ascending to the throne being the other).

Chapter 3: Abandoned Shrine

In which we find out that Zhou Zishu is a bit of a child inside. More accurately, he’s a dying man with no fucks left to give, who wants to live out his final days enjoying life as he never had a chance to before. He’s a bit aimless, though, and flippant about death, even his own, which is only appropriate given his former occupation. Despite his childish way of provoking the fisherman for his entertainment and enjoying his newfound ability to curse whenever he wants to, he is naturally observant, picking up on the fact that the fisherman is likely hiding some shady business, otherwise he wouldn’t be so rude and scare off customers.

As is typical of these abandoned shrine sideplots, the three people are running from their pursuers – who are after the kid in the group, a kid who makes the impulsive decision to leap into battle like a suicidal lemming. Ah, youth.

Zhou Zishu thinks it a coincidence that he keeps running into the same people today, as this marks the third time he’s seeing the girl in purple who threatened to poison a guy who for all she knew was just a random beggar. Personally, I’d been kind of suspicious at this point but that’s just me.

Chapter 4: The Chivalrous

We really need to hit the names before this gets more confusing, but the girl in purple. Is she following an archetype so far? Yes, but I do love her flippant attitude and she can hold her own in a fight. Always stan kickass self-confident girls. She is definitely a prime example of ‘cool but maybe get far away before you get murdered on a whim’ kind of character though.

Anyways, Zhou Zishu was not looking for the start of an adventure, nor a babysitting gig, but it has come calling him in the form of a dying man’s plea to deliver the kid he’s escorting. And this is where it gets interesting. The fisherman tries to guilt trip him by pulling the ‘it’s for your descendants and reincarnation’ card.

I appreciate when characters have a belief system that matches the time period. It’s easy to force characters to adopt modern mindsets, but realistically most people raised and living in X culture for their whole life would share a similar set of values and beliefs. Even if the writer or reader doesn’t believe in reincarnation, the characters definitely would.

So, Zhou Zishu accepts the fisherman’s request and the man dies, at peace (and cursing him if he fails in his task lol). But then the girl in purple asks for his name and this awesome spymaster, master of disguise…gives her the name Zhou. Zhou Xu. Zhou Xu??? Hello, that’s 1) your real last name and 2) ‘xu’ is kinda similar to ‘shu’ (I think – I’m awful at Mandarin pronunciations so I could be misinterpreting). Anyway, what was he thinking?? I know that his real name was kept a secret all these years, but still. The girl already said her master knew he was suspicious.

Chapter 5: The Evils

Just a friendly reminder that Zhou Zishu is basically wandering around the world with a skintight mask on and nails embedded in his chest which cause him excruciating pain at night. Last chapter, we were also reminded that he basically has no internal energy left, which surprised Gu Xiang when he grabbed her wrist. In this chapter, we learn that he’s fading fast due to the nails acting up.

Also, slight spoiler: her master is the main love interest of the story, so the bit about him visiting an old lover to have a one night fling is actually kind of refreshing. A lot of stories make its main characters inexperienced in terms of romance and/or sex before getting together in the story, which is fine, except it’s so popular that it kind of sends an ick message. So, kudos.

In conclusion:

Zhou Zishu is not my favorite protagonist ever, but he doesn’t annoy me, and I like the theme of redemption for past deeds and his drive to leave his old life behind and atone for those sins to the point of severe personal harm. It’ll be interesting to see how this unfolds. And hopefully the next 5 chapters will have the main love interest in them lol.

#faraway wanderers #tianyake #reading blog

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nic-and-annie-in-france · 5 years

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Italy

We traveled around Italy for Spring Break. Since we will be heading back to the States soon, we wrote shorter, co-written accounts of our travels as we went along. Annie is typing, so any references to “I” or “me” below mean Annie.

We began our trip by taking an overnight bus from our home in the Alps all the way to Rome. This was not our first choice of transportation; I’ve heard horror stories about overnight buses. However, I waited too long to buy tickets for our Geneva-Naples flight and it sold out. Any other option was going to take an extra day of travel and a couple hundred more dollars than we were willing to pay. So we bit the bullet and booked the bus, knowing that for better or for worse it would be an adventure.

Our rear ends hurt, and our sleep was interrupted frequently, but our ride went about as well as we could have hoped for. The bathroom worked (we’ve been on long distance buses before where this was not the case), and when we decided to give up trying to sleep, we got to enjoy the sun rising on the Italian countryside.

Naples

Nicolas says he liked Naples better than I did. It was probably one of my least favorite places we have been in Europe. Even though I didn’t like it that much, I thought its aesthetic was fascinating. The buildings had a weathered look about them, the people hawking trinkets and souvenirs were quite aggressive, and cars and mopeds racing down narrow alleys forced the crowds of pedestrians to flatten themselves against the sides of buildings to avoid being hit. At street level, people walked slowly and took up the whole sidewalk, and up above, dozens of clotheslines with drying laundry obscured the sky from view. It was claustrophobic to say the least, but in a uniquely Neapolitan way.

Good food, though, covers a multitude of sins. We ordered two pizzas for 6€ apiece at a pizzeria as our first lunch. At that price, we thought they would be small, but each pizza was about 14” in diameter, their edges hanging off our plates. Luckily we were able to take our two unfinished halves of pizzas with us to our hostel. We also had our first Italian gelato (brownie flavored 😋).

Our hostel was more bohemian than others we have stayed at—not in a dirty way, but in a convivial, share-your-story-around-the-breakfast-table way. We met a French couple who were traveling for the first time since they put their kids through college, and an Irishman attempting to visit 100 cities around the world (Naples was number 73).

Mount Vesuvius and Pompeii

Mount Vesuvius is an Italian national park, and going there reminded us of our tour of the national parks in the American West. We rode a bus about 45 minutes up the mountain, celebrating the fact that we were not responsible for squeezing a rental car around tour buses on the blind hairpin curves. When we got off, it looked like a different planet. The ground was composed of purplish-black volcanic rock, and not much except scraggly brush was growing on the jagged ridges of the mountain. We walked up and around the rim of the volcano; fortunately, there’s not much to see in there except rock and some hot steam escaping through the cracks in the cone.

Nicolas said that because Pompeii was so big, and lots of it was still in good condition, it almost felt like a Roman-themed amusement park. It is an entire city, and not just a collection of artifacts, so it gives you a more complete sense of what Roman life was like than you might get in a museum. We began our tour of the city cautiously, asking each other, “Do you think we are allowed to go in there?” We quickly learned that you can walk anywhere that isn’t obviously blocked off. So we were free to explore the homes and public buildings belonging to people who lived 2000ish years ago. We found the bigger landmarks, like the forum, the palace, and the two amphitheaters. But we especially enjoyed looking for small houses away from the crowds, perhaps with a little mosaic of a dog decorating the floor, and deciding that that’s where we would have lived.

Rome

We arrived in Rome in the afternoon, so after dropping our bags off at our hostel, we did a little bit of sightseeing. That evening, we got caught in an unexpected rain shower without our rain jackets or umbrella, but since it was still warm, we didn’t mind too much. We were walking up a steep hill to see a pretty public square when the sun finally started to come back out. On our way up the hill, we came to a clearing where there was a beautiful view of the whole city. The rooftops, spires and domes were all glowing yellow-orange in the early evening sunlight, thrown into contrast by the dark blue rainclouds above them. And for a few minutes, a rainbow appeared, with one end of the arc landing straight in the middle of Rome. We were exactly in the right place at the right time to see such a thing.

Shortly afterwards, we walked back down the hill for dinner. The neighborhood was beautiful—creeping vines, colorful façades, wet cobblestones reflecting the sky. Our dinner spot was a confusing hybrid of an establishment, serving only bottles of wine, charcuterie boards, and takeout sandwiches. All the tables were taken when we arrived, so with a layout like this we were unsure if or how we could get our name on the list. There was a sign on the wall explaining that the restaurant technically didn’t have a restaurant license, so the employees couldn’t set the tables, take our orders at the table, or even hand out menus. After a short wait for our seats, we ordered a dinner-for-two charcuterie board (even though charcuterie is normally an appetizer, not a main dish) and a small bottle of prosecco. Nothing about it was a familiar experience for us, and normally we’d be stressed out and put off. But our dinner was nothing short of a feast. We were served several kinds of meat, fruits, cheeses, vegetables, and breads. It felt like a celebration where we weren’t celebrating anything in particular except the fact that we were in Rome, the eternal city, and it had just graced us with a rainbow.

I have a bit of a head cold, and on the morning we were supposed to see the Colosseum and the Roman Forum, I didn’t feel like doing much of anything. I let us sleep in a little longer than we were supposed to, and scrapped the non-highlights on the itinerary that day, thinking we’d go to the Forum and Colosseum and be back in our hostel by lunchtime. But that extra hour of sleep cost us dearly. When we showed up to the back entrance that “no one ever uses,” according to the travel guides, there was a long, long line down the block, and we waited in that line for an hour. Fortunately for us, we enjoy each other’s company, so the time passed pretty quickly. When we got to the ticket desk, they gave us our ticket and told us that our “appointment” for the Colosseum was in one hour. An hour was too long to stand around at the Colosseum, and too short to have a complete visit of the Roman Forum. So, we ended up using that hour to see the nearby non-highlights anyway. All the sidewalks in the area were congested with tourists, tour guides, and worst of all, the aggressive souvenir/water/sunglasses hawkers. It was like navigating the mall on Black Friday, if every single salesperson was working on commission like the salt scrub kiosk people. Over and over again, I regretted my extra hour of sleep. Eventually, after more queueing, standing, and being jostled, we did see the Colosseum and the Forum. By that time, I was pretty tired and having trouble appreciating the sights. But Nicolas the history nerd was having the time of his life, so I really enjoyed seeing him light up at finding such-and-such temple dedicated to such-and-such deity. Oddly, one of our favorite things about the day was drinking straight from the potable fountains in the Roman Forum. We didn’t look as dignified as the people who used them to fill up their water bottles, but the water was so tasty and cold. Refreshed by the fountains, we made our way to the top of the Palatine Hill and enjoyed the view of the city with the ruins in the foreground.

We bought fresh pasta for lunch one afternoon and took it to a park to eat. We found a place secluded from the other people (and the pushy rose salesmen) and scarfed down our pasta so fast that we forgot to take a picture of it until we had only a couple of bites left. It was delicious and the park was beautiful. In the middle of a city of taxis and Vespas, we cherished the smells of grass and budding flowers (or at least Nicolas did because his nose wasn't stopped up).

After succumbing to the long lines for the Colosseum, we weren’t making the same mistake when we visited the Vatican City. We didn’t get there right at 7am when it was supposed to open, but we still arrived in Saint Peter’s Square before 8am. Once we were there, though, we couldn’t find a way to enter the basilica. There were tables and a podium set up at the front of the basilica, with hundreds of chairs set up facing them. There were lots of tourists and tour groups sitting and waiting patiently in these chairs. We sat there for a while, but it was unclear what we were waiting for. Is this some kind of queueing system for entering the basilica? A Mass that we didn’t know about? Some other sort of event? When was it supposed to start? We saw a few people entering a side door, and asked the official who let them by if we could go in. He didn’t speak much English and simply said, “Private.” We sat back down. 8:00 and 8:30 came and went. Nicolas eventually went to ask someone else when the basilica would open, and he found out it wouldn’t open until one in the afternoon.

We decided to go back outside the city to the Vatican Museums, which were located at a side entrance to the Vatican City. On our way there, we were stopped by a man with a badge, who asked us if we had a ticket. We didn’t. He pulled out a map to show us where the entrance was, but then suggested that we take a skip-the-line guided tour which would let us see the museums and the Sistine Chapel and the Basilica, all for a lower price than the normal admission. As he was gesturing to his map during the sales pitch, I looked closer at the credentials on the map and on his badge. He was working for a third-party tour agency, not for the Vatican Museums themselves. We told him we weren’t interested in the guided tour, we just wanted to find the line for the normal entrance. He said, “But I’m offering you a better deal. Why aren’t you taking it?” Then he offered to show us the end of the line, apparently to show us how unreasonable we were being. He took us to where we could see the line, and after we said a second time that we just want to join the line, he walked off. But in the time it took us to actually walk to the end of the line, we were approached by half a dozen other people selling other tours. We got to the line, where another man asked us if we had a ticket. We said no, we’re just waiting in line for a ticket. He said, “This isn’t the line, this is a tour group. If you want a ticket, you have to go to this office…” and started in on his sales pitch. We crossed the street to get away from him, nearly ready to give up and return to the hostel. We decided to locate the physical entryway to determine where the line really was. We did so, and found someone behind the barrier who surely must be trustworthy. He verified that the line we had just left was the real line, so we made our way to the back again. As we waited, another six or so men selling tours tried to approach us. Eventually we made it to the front of the line, and I was glad that we persevered and finally found the place we needed to go. The whole ordeal felt like a parable to me. “The gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” See that no one leads you astray!

Inside the museums, we had a great time. The museums’ collections were diverse, featuring ancient Greek, Roman, and Etruscan artifacts as well as modern art by Chagall and Matisse. Naturally, there was tons of religious art. We played our name-that-saint game, and got better at it as we went along. We learned to recognize Saint Francis by his brown habit and the signs of the stigmata. Saint Jerome often has a lion and always has a big red hat. And whether he is depicted as a child or as an adult, John the Baptist wears camel skin and has his staff with a cross. We saw several works by Raphael, including The School of Athens, which is basically a painting of the ancient philosophers’ hall of fame. Since we’re philosophy enthusiasts (Nicolas more so than me), this was probably our favorite work in the whole museum. That’s not counting the Sistine Chapel, which surely is in a league of its own. We strained our necks from looking at the ceiling for so long.

On our last morning in Rome, we went to the Scala Sancta, which are believed to be stairs that Jesus ascended during the Passion (transported from Jerusalem to Rome in the 4th century). If you want to climb the stairs, you have to do so on your knees. Normally, the marble stairs are covered by wooden stairs as a protective measure, but the wood was removed and the original marble was exposed just a week or so before our trip. We felt a little bit like impostors because many of the other people there were clearly Catholic and making the climb as part of a pilgrimage. We were definitely just on vacation, but at the same time, the stairs did have spiritual importance for us, too. We can’t say we had any kind of grand epiphany while we prayed our way up the stairs, but we were both grateful for the opportunity to do something unlike any other spiritual experience we’ve had.

Florence

Florence is the home of the Italian Renaissance, but our real reason for wanting to visit there was to have a home base from which we could get a glimpse of the Tuscan countryside. Our stay there was short, but sufficient for what we wanted to see in and around this smaller city.

On our first half-day in Florence, we walked around the historic part of the city. By the time we paid for our super-late lunch, the churches on our itinerary were already closed, so we only saw this historic district from the outside. But what we saw, we really enjoyed. There were several huge public squares which were much more pleasant than the ones in Rome because the pushy salespeople were replaced by art vendors and street performers. We were able to find a park bench in a couple of these squares and people-watch without fear of being repeatedly asked to buy sunglasses. We watched children terrorize pigeons, saw young women sit for caricatures, and admired the pink and green stone of the Duomo di Firenze.

Our only full day in Florence was spent on a bike tour of Tuscany, the event we were simultaneously most excited for and most worried about. I haven’t ridden a bike in ages, so when I booked the tour I was really counting on bike-riding being “like riding a bike,” as the saying goes. Thanks to my time as a pedestrian in Lexington, I also have a fear of cycling on a road I’m sharing with cars. But I figured that people less capable than us surely must have taken the tour and lived to tell the tale, so we were cautiously optimistic about the day. It turned out to be one of the most fun and memorable things we’ve done in our time in Europe. We had no trouble riding the bikes, and sharing the road wasn’t as scary as we expected. We had to tear our eyes away from the rolling hills and vineyards in order to watch where we were going. The countryside was beautiful, but it was also uncannily similar to Kentucky. We agreed that if you replaced the vineyards and olive trees with tobacco and horse farms, it would look a lot like the Bluegrass.

During our tour, we also got to visit a hybrid castle/winery/olive oil-ery and taste its wares. Only in Italy can you be given a free glass of wine and then be asked to hop on a bicycle with no questions asked! For lunch, we stopped at a traditional Italian restaurant and had a three-course meal. Our tour continued after lunch, but at that point everyone was allowed to go at their own pace. Nicolas enjoyed zooming down big hills, but when I got pretty far ahead on a long, slight incline, he asked, “Can we slow down? I’m full of pasta and I’ve got nothing to prove.” He had a point. We took it easy after that.

On our last day in Florence, we visited the Uffizi art gallery. We had heard of the museum only because it is mentioned in Civilization V, a strategy computer game we both play. Though we had heard of it, we had no idea what was inside. It turns out that its collection is mostly composed of Renaissance art. It was huge, and we didn’t have a ton of time to spend there, so we looked at the map and decided where we wanted to spend most of our time. Most of the rooms were either named for one particular artist who created everything in the room, or the region/time period the works belonged to. We focused on the names we had heard of—Botticelli, Caravaggio, Titian—and the Florentine rooms. Renaissance means “rebirth” in French, and right away, it was evident how art was “reborn” during that time period. Compared with the medieval art we’ve seen, these paintings demonstrate the Renaissance artists’ heightened awareness and control of perspective, light, and human anatomy. We happened upon a couple of iconic masterpieces that we weren’t expecting to see, like Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus. We entered with virtually no opinion one way or another on Renaissance art, and left with a lot of appreciation of and curiosity about it.

Venice

Prior to beginning our trip, we were least excited about Venice. Amsterdam put a bad taste in our mouths for amphibious cities, and I had heard that Venetians resented the throngs of tourists for ruining their city. It was also the leg of our trip that I never got around to planning. So for our first day there, we decided to just walk around the neighborhoods that we heard were picturesque, and we booked a free walking tour that was advertised as a first introduction to the city.

The hostel we stayed in is part of a franchise, and we had stayed at another one in the franchise in Vienna, so we knew basically what to expect from our stay. This one was located on the mainland, and appeared to be very recently built. Apart from our ninth-floor room being a little bit stuffy, everything about it was modern, sleek, and comfortable. Nicolas said it was one of the most hotel-like places we had stayed in Europe. Something about it, maybe its spaciousness, felt very American. There was also a big-box grocery store around the corner that we went to. It was simply gargantuan by European standards, but it felt like home to us.

Since the hostel was on the mainland, we had to take a fifteen-minute bus ride each day into Venice proper. This was the least pleasant part of our whole stay. We usually waited at the bus stop with about 15 other sightseers, but only 3-6 people could cram themselves onto each bus that arrived. The crowded bus took us into the crowded city center of Venice. Past that point, no buses, cars, or bikes were allowed on the islands, leaving walking and boating as the only possible modes of transportation. We followed one of the main roads for a while, buffeted along by the crowds, then turned onto a narrow alleyway. Almost immediately, all the noise died away and we were alone in a quiet neighborhood. We wound our way around these streets, which thankfully were nothing like the ones in Amsterdam. I was most struck by the city’s color palette: all shades of yellow (though goldenrod was my favorite) for the façades, though sometimes they were salmon pink, with either emerald green or navy blue shutters. I talked Nicolas’ ear off, pointing it out each time I saw something pretty and dreaming out loud about how I’d decorate our future home with the same color palette. A yellow kitchen with emerald accents—mark my words!

In the afternoon, we went on our walking tour. Our guide taught us about the history and culture of Venice, from the biggest events to the smallest details of architecture. She took us to a sumptuous Jesuit church, whose interior was jaw-dropping. It was made almost entirely of marble, with white and green marble cut so that it resembled damask wallpaper. Even a “curtain” around a pulpit on the side was actually made of marble.

The next day, we visited St. Mark’s Basilica and the Doge’s Palace. The basilica was unlike any we had ever seen. The walls and ceilings were covered in gold mosaics, and though the interior was barely lit, every surface glittered. Biblical people and scenes were hidden everywhere, even in places like the underside of arches that are barely visible. We also saw some Bible stories depicted that usually don’t make it onto church walls, like Joseph’s dream about the skinny cows eating the fat cows. The Doge’s Palace was the seat of government of the Venetian Republic. There, we learned about the government of Venice, as well as the art that covered nearly every flat surface in the building. We saw several more paintings by Tintoretto and Veronese. In one room, we saw one of the world’s largest painting on canvas, Il Paradiso by Tintoretto. We learned that the room had caught fire in the 1500s and had sustained heavy damage. The painting that hung where Il Paradiso now hangs was lost, so the doge held a contest for painters to design a new painting to go in its place. Tintoretto won the contest, and now his masterpiece is the largest canvas painting in the world. In light of the burning of the Notre Dame de Paris, I thought this was a good example of the way new creative life can be breathed into a place that has suffered tragedy.

Cinque Terre

The last leg of our trip was spent in Cinque Terre, a series of five little pastel-colored towns on the western coast of Italy. We loved the variety of the things to do and see in this area. There were mountains, winding streets, rocky coasts, beaches, and terrace farms, all within walking distance of each other. We didn’t have much on the itinerary there except to explore the five towns and do whatever struck our fancy along the way. After two weeks of squeezing as many activities as possible into each day, it felt like we were on “island time,” even though there were no islands involved.

Nicolas’ favorite thing to do was watch the electric blue waves crash against the rocky coastline. My favorite thing was walking by the gardens and farms, seeing and smelling everything in bloom. We saw orange, lemon, lime, kumquats, and fig trees, and I desperately wanted a fruit to fall where I could reach it. I felt like the fox in the Aesop fable jumping for the grapes.

Unfortunately, Cinque Terre doesn’t have the infrastructure it needs to accommodate the masses of people it attracts. The villages don’t allow normal car or motorcycle traffic, so the most direct ways to hop from town to town are a train and a long hiking path. There is only one section of the path (between towns #4 and #5) that is still open—the rest have been so badly worn down that they are impassible. The trains typically run 30 minutes late, and so many people accumulate on the platforms that there is hardly room to breathe. We fully realize that we are part of the problem! It’s just a sad paradox: a place that attracts tons of people because of its small-town charm becomes less attractive precisely because it attracts so many people.

We hiked the one accessible leg of the trail, and having done so, we think it will probably close soon too. We enjoyed seeing the mountains and the Mediterranean, but sections of it were too narrow to allow two-way traffic. We’d often have to stop in order to let a dozen people going the opposite way pass us, and in doing so, blocked about a dozen people behind us from advancing too. There was even a section where all but eight inches of the path had fallen away in a small mudslide. We were thankful for the opportunity to do the hike, but don’t think that opportunity will be around much longer.

We took advantage of our proximity to the sea and ate a lot of fresh seafood. Nicolas discovered that he likes fried calamari and anchovies, while I discovered that I prefer plain old fish and chips. And of course, we ended our last full day in Italy in the proper fashion: with two scoops of gelato to share.

Bonus: traveling back home

We walked, trained, and bussed home from about 7am to 7pm. Along the way, we got to see some stunning Swiss mountains from the dirty window of our train. We even saw the real life Orient Express in the same station as us!

#annie #nic #nicolas #travel

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callie-the-snarky-geek-blog · 5 years

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RvB16 Episode 15 (Season Finale) Review: Paradox

(Old Blog Repost)

Fifteen weeks ago, RvB16 began and all that we know going in was that it involved pizza quests, Donut the God, and time travel. Over these many weeks we’ve had sex adventures throughout time, the return of O’Malley, an in-universe Red vs Blue movie, the adventured of Grif and a sentient lens flare, Gus the Cyclops, Alien Gods who are actually AI, and buckets full of feels. Well, after all of that and so much more, it has all come down to this. Hoping to save Wash from his brain damage, the remaining Reds and Blues venture back to save him, but we discover that doing this will spark the end of time itself. So the question that remains is: what the FUCK are we in for?!

I got to see this yesterday as Rooster Teeth livestreamed it early. It… it… well I’ll be discussing it down below. Before I get to it though, I want to say thank you to Joe, Miles, Kyle, Josh, the animator team, David Levy and Trocadero, the voice cast, and everyone involved in this season if Red vs Blue. It has been an incredibly fun ride form start to finish and I’ve enjoyed it immensely. A lot of work went into this and I can’t even imagine how exhausting it all had to have been. But I.think that I speak for many of us when I say that we greatly appreciate every second that was put into everything, and again thank you for one Hell of a season.

Alright, well… lets do this everyone. Be afraid. Very afraid.

Overview

We begin with the Reds and Blues already back in the past inside the underwater base, going over the plan. They have 18 minutes before Wash gets shot and they are going to do their damnest to be careful and NOT cause anymore serious damage to the timeline. As they go over their plan, they get caught by a random Blue, provoking both Carolina and Tucker to beat him up. While Carolina does get seen on the security camera, the gang continues to stick to the plan. But their plan may have another potential snag as DOnut returns to Chrovos, The Hammer in hand.

As the guys move forward, they end up at a locked door and are forced to go around. Before they can however they’re forced to hide due to Locus, Carolina, and a delirious Wash about to pass by. Before he hides though, Grif smells something that alarms him. Once Carolina gets a delirious Wash to continue on his way, the guys get ready to resume before Grif calls their attention to the scent. He recognizes it as a Sammie Raphaello’s pizza. Why is this important? Well remember that by this point the restaurant had been destroyed, pizza got wiped out existence, and the Blues and Reds only ever had fish. All of these factors cause Grif to realize that another time traveler is there and he decides to go after whoever it is while the others focus on the mission. Simmons is reluctant, but Grif says that they don’t have time to debate and runs off. Simmons can only watch him go (anyone else have Season 15 flashbacks?) as he and the others press on.

The Reds and Blues make it to what they assumed was an empty hangar, but lo and behold it’s covered in guards. They have only two choices, go ahead and fight them off or chance waiting for them to leave and end up running into their past selves. Fortunately they get a little help when Simmons form a few minutes into the future contacts them. In the meantime, Chrovos tries to have Donut give him The Hammer, and as he talks about the guys being mean to him again, it looks like that Donut is indeed about to do as told. Back at the base, Grif follows the pizza scent and finds the mystery time traveler: Genkins. Grif aims his gun at him, even fighting off being tempted by the pizza, but Genkins says that he’s not here to fight and simply brought the pizza over as an apology. it better be for killing Huggins (even if I still refuse to believe it) you sick fuck!

Back with the others, future Simmons gives the guys advice: to use what they learned and that they’re going to do great. Carolina is confused, but Simmons tells her to let them handle things from here. Back with Grif, he pieces together that Genkins was responsible for Kalirama attacking them at Sammie Raphaello’s and was the one who wiped pizza out of existence. Genkins confirms this, trying to again tempt Grif with the pizza but he simply says that he doesn’t care and presses him to explain why he set them up. Genkins answer? Simple, he’s bored. That’s right guys, Genkins is Chaotic Evil. The Reds and Blues meanwhile fight off the guards. Highlights include Sarge luring two into a portal and onto Iris where they’re faced with the Female Gus Cyclops, Tucker dropping horses on them via the portal gun, and Simmons telling Caboose that the guards stole his penny to anger him enough to clobber them with the golf club. I’m so proud of my boys! So proud! They press on, but not before Simmons contacts his past self to set everything into motion.

Back with Donut, he hesitates and asks about Chrovos why he saved him. He says that he simply took pity on someone in trouble, again asking for The Hammer. He also explains that once freed, he’ll gain power that’ll allow him to kill the Cosmic Powers but promises to still spare the Reds and Blues. Donut points out how his friends are jerks to him more often than not… but that they are still his friends and that Chrovos was both responsible for what happened to him and has only been using him He decides to instead use The Hammer to reinforce the prison, but he’s stopped by O’Malley. They struggle and with Donut continuing to refuse to listen to him anymore, Chrovos orders O’Malley to kill him. It leads to one HELL of a fight scene across time. Due to it being a fight, I won’t go into details but guys it is AMAZING. The animation and choreography are perfect. It goes from on top of airliners, to Blood Gulch, to the moon, to a wrestling rink, and finally to a city. O’Malley tries to act as Doc to make Donut back down, but Donut doesn’t buy it. So how does Donut defeat O’Malley? Well during the Blood Gulch portion, he threw a grenade at him and seemed to miss. In the city however, he opens a portal and the grenade flies out, landing before O’Malley and blasting him away. Donut takes The Hammer and teleports away to take care of Chrovos.

All throughout this, Genkins reveals to Grif his motives. He’s grown tired of their current universe, finding that it has gotten boring as of late. So wanting to spice things up, he agreed to help Chrovos when offered power and wishes to become an actual God to change up the universe as he sees fit. Oh God, is Genkins one of those RvB fans who keeps sayin that the show has gone stale and wants to change everything?! Grif says that by now, the others are already in position to save Wash… to which Genkins responses positively. It causes Grif to realize that Genkins isn’t there to stop them, but to ensure that they succeed. If Wash doesn’t get shot, neither he nor Locus will leave and they’ll be able to take down Temple before he turns the time machine on. If it isn’t turned on, then Donut never gets zapped by Chrovos and therefore none of the events that caused the time travel to begin with will commence. Therefore creating a paradox, one that will have enough power to shatter the already weakened timeline.

Grif runs to reach the others and at the same time, Donut makes it to Chrovos and lifts The Hammer to trap him once more. But unfortunately… it’s too little too late. Grif arrives just as Carolina shoots down the soldier that hit Wash, causing time to freeze. Everything soon fades to white, the Reds and Blues realizing far too late what they have done. They all too begin to fade away, Tucker trying to talk to Sister one final time as Sarge tells them all, especially Grif and Simmons, that it has been an honor. Soon, everyone is gone and the screen cuts to black.

As a new Trocadero track begins to play (I believe that David Levy said that the title was Rush in the livesteam chat, love it by the way!) we soon get a panning shot of some grassy-like area before we see our new location: Blood Gulch. From what I’ve seen more Halo-savvy people say, they are now using the Halo 2 Anniversary engine. So why are we in Blood Gulch? Hell if I know, but we see Sarge calling Grif and Simmons, Grif asking if it’s because they wont he war. Sound familiar? Like that being the same dialogue from Episode 2 of the very first season familiar?! Yeah… from how it looks, time has reset and has sent the Reds and Blues back to the very beginning of their journey, their memories wiped.

It’s not long before we see that things aren’t quite the same however. When we cut to the Blues, we see Tucker with a cobalt-clad soldier… but the second he talks, it is very clearly not Church. For one he’s in a good mood and sees rather optimistic, so definitely not Church. He even offers to let Tucker hold the sniper rifle, to which Tucker days that he doesn’t like them. Yeah, things are NOT right Anyways, Not-Church (there’s speculation if this is Jimmy, Temple, or even Genkins currently) mentions that they’re getting ‘new recruits’ (unassumingly Caboose and maybe Sister) and maybe even a tank. Back with the Reds, we see Grif and Simmons on top of the base as we did back in the beginning so long ago. Grif starts to ask the “do you ever wonder why we’re here?” line… but stops due to the sense of deja vu, asking Simmons about it. When Simmons starts to comment about it being one of life’s great mysteries, he too pauses at the feeling. But they simply go back to standing and doing nothing, the camera panning down and giving us one more glimpse of the Red Base before cutting to the credits.

My friends, Season 16 has oficially ended. Ad ther eis only one proper way to express how I feel about it...

Review

HOLY

SHIT

I was in shock when I watched this the first time. This was my fifth time watching it and I am STILL in shock. This finale was incredibly well done. I think that we all knew, or at least thought about, that Wash was probably going to be saved and that in doing so, a paradox would happen. But even knowing it, I wasn’t ready for it. There’s a lot of questions. What happened to the timeline? What happened to Donut? Why is everyone back at Blood Gulch? Does Freelancer still exist since Church isn’t there? Who is Not-Church? Will the guys regain their memories? Joe left SO MANY things open, and we’re going to have to wait a year to find out the answers. Boy is hiatus time going to be fun…

I’m going to have a section devoted to speculation for the next season, but before we do lets discuss the finale. We’re going to do the Reds and Blues first, then Donut’s scenes, then Grif confronting Genkins, and finally a bit about the ending. SO beginning with the Reds and Blues, it was SO GOOD to see them working as one unit. It really shows us how far they have come since the Blood Gulch days. Everyone has their focus on the task ahead, Carolina remains calm and properly leads the team, Simmons essentially assumes second-in-command (a HUGE step for him) and handles it like a champ, being the one to put the plan to fight the guards into motion and unassumingly coordinates everyone’s efforts. While succeeding ended up a bad thin,t he fact that they DID succeed so flawlessly really shows how effective they all have become and how in-sync they truly are. I wasn’t kidding when I said that I was proud of them despite what ended up happening. It still shows how much they’ve progressed, and for that I am very happy.

Donut though is very much the MVP of this episode. Despite having every reason to not give a shit about the others, and even he point sit out, ultimately he realizes on his own that he’s being used and that his friends are still his friends. Before this season, Donut was easily my least favorite Blood Gulch Crew member and my least favorite Red. The past few episodes made me feel bad for him for the first time, and this one turned EVERYTHING around. Joe did such a good job at giving Donut a personality beyond just being a walking fountain of innuendos. He is smart. He is more than capable of holding his own. He can be hurt and does recognize how the guys treat him, simply wanting them to be nice to him. These are all things that a LOT of people have wanted to see out of the character for years, and Joe seemed to have listened and decided to do so. I’m really glad that he did. Donut feels like a much more layered character, keeping the comedic elements but having those traits that the audience can relate to and ultimately made him sympathetic and his actions understandable without overdoing it or making him look bad.

And int he end, Donut decided to be the better person and to stand up to Chrovos. Which led to the oh so AMAZING fight scene. It was done SO WELL. Like the animators experience with doing the fights over in RWBY really shines here. The usage of the portals was very clever and all the settings were used to both Donut and O’Malley’s advantage. They all felt unique and both parties were evenly matched. But Donut won by using his experience with the gun and cleverness with the portals, resulting in by far his best grenade throw since originally grenaded Tex. O’Malley was certainly no slouch though, even trying to revert back to Doc to try and throw Donut off. It failed, but that was still a clever move. It is one of the best fights in the series in my opinion and was well done by everyone involved. You can tell that Matt and Dan gave it their all with the performances (Matt sounded like he was having a LOT of fun doing O’Malley for that long again), and they did an excellent job.

Onto Grif now. I have made it no secret that Grif is my favorite character and imo the best done character in this season. That continued to shine through here. First, him being obsessed with food and his desire for pizza actually proved useful when eh deducted just through he scent that something wasn’t right. Like he pieced everything together all by himself, and even moreso when he discovered Genkins. And while going alone wasn’t the best option,t he fact that he was willing to do so to give the others time to carry out the mission shows just how far he’s come. Especially when he only gets tempted by the pizza for like three seconds before forcing himself to focus and outright telling Genkins that he doesn’t care. Yes, the one thing that Grif wanted all season? He doesn't are about it anymore. He cares about helping his friends and getting the job done. Despite their falling out, Huggins influence on him really shined through and shows us just how capable that Grif is when he actually does try. He’s smart, brave, and unwilling to back down no matter tempts him or what gets in his way. I could not be more proud of him.

Genkins plan was definitely brilliant. He set forth the events like destroying Sammie’s by telling Kalirama where the guys were and wiping pizza out of history to provoke Grif and Doc to try and remake it, provoking the events that resurfaced O’Malley and everything following. As he said, time traveling and changing history will weaken time, leaving it more than vulnerable to being shattered by a paradox. It was all clearly planned to happen, just as Jax said back in Episode 9. And because of how eccentric he is, the Cosmic Powers didn’t suspect anything even when Genkins outright said that he was the traitor back in Episode 5. He is absolutely Chaotic Evil, and for all intents and purposes he won. He distracted Grif long enough for the others to carry out the plan (which makes it interesting that he called away Grif specifically to ensure that happened since if he didn’t show up at all, chances are it still would have happened) and now time is screwed. If Chrovos keeps his word, Genkins can shape the universe into who knows what.

So yeah… that ending. I just remember everything fading to white and being in total shock. Chat was losing their collective minds throughout all of it, that I DO remember, I didn’t know how to process it, and I still don’t. As nice as it is to see Blood Gulch again, there’s that feeling that it’s just… wrong. Especially when we see the Blues and realize that Church isn’t there and that Tucker isn’t acting right. And when we got to :Do you ever wonder hwy we’re here”… I was gone. Every time that I’ve watched that part, I have cried. It is the one time that I didn’t want to hear it and just further emphasized how wrong things feel. It was an evil move by Joe, and he NAILED IT. I’ve never felt so weirdly satisfied but broken inside. Not even RWBY Volume 3 did that, and that broke me for days. SO yeah… the emotional blows all very much connected and waiting for April is going to be HARD. IDK if even RWBY V6 is going to help make the wait anymore bearable. But I’m positive that the wait will be worth it.

RvB17 Speculations

With this being the finale, and one Hell of a finale, I have a LOT of thoughts about what might happen next. So as we saw, things have been reset back to Blood Gulch. Going off the ‘deja vu’ bit, the guys memories are likely being suppressed and I assume that they’ll be triggered more and more next season. I guess in a weird way, it’s like in Season 9 with the Epsilon Unit int hat the’re going to relive Blood Gulch, but the events won’t be quite the same. This time it’s not because of Epsilon going through memories to meet Tex again though, plus this time no one remembers anything. It also raises the question about how the characters will behave. Likely the Reds are back to their old personalities (Sarge is murderous over the Blues and Simmons is an insecure kissass) but what about Caboose? With Church gone, the events that made him how we know him now won’t happen. Will he be like he was in Season 1 again? What about characters like Sister, Carolina, and Wash? And Donut? He was still in Chrovos’ domain, so will his memory be intact? Or since the Reds don’t mention a rookie, will he be there at all?

There’s a lot of questions, and we have a lot of time to think them over. So here is where I stand so far. There’s been a LOT of talk about who Non-Church is… but currently I’m going to say it’s Genkins. If only because the inflections int he voice sound very much like Genkins voice actor, plus it would mean that for now Genkins needs to keep the Reds and Blues in check while Chrovos does whatever he’s going to do. As for how the guys will remember… it’s hard to say. Enough similar-looking events may happen that it triggers their memories, or maybe Genkins will restore them to spice things up. It’s also possible that if Donut is at Blood Gulch, having been at Chrovos domain he may still have his memory and has to try and get everyone else to remember. If not, if I had to guess who’s gong to remember first… it’s probably gonna be Grif. I think that Joe built it up enough that we can assume that Grif is our main protagonist, plus he’s the only one who knows the true details over what happened. There’s also still that time loop theory due to Grif’s deja vu in Episode 14.

Which brings me to my next theory. I don’t think that the timeline necessarily reset. I think that Chrovos got free and placed the Reds and Blues in an alternate timeline, suppressing their memories since they would be the only ones who could interfere with him. This also means that Wash isn’t there since we last saw him in Chorus, so he’s back in the regular timeline. I think that the timeline is currently frozen outside maybe the Cosmic Powers, who Chrovos is going to try to kill as the timeline slowly shatters apart. Of we go with my theory of Grif eventually regaining his memory, he’ll figure out that Not-Church is Genkins (or even have a confrontation happen when memory-less that make sit impossible for him to ignore the deja vu so Genkins, wanting to see his reaction, grants him back his memory), confront him, and Genkins will shoot him into a Black Hole the same way that he did Huggins, which will lead to them reuniting and reconciling to fix everything. I don’t knwo how they’d escape, but it would lead them back to the broken timeline and Grif has to go through it to prevent the paradox from happening. Which will lead Chrovos to sending his forces, which if the Shisno thing still stand may include the Reds and Blues, to stop him. Bonus if Donut escapes and goes to help, and if the Cosmic Powers are alive they’ll likely also get involved if they see that Huggins survived.

But this is very much a long-shot and going off what we’ve seen so far and how the paradoxes work. I had a theory that all the scenarios may happen, which it looks possible. Chrovos creating an alternate timeline confirms that theory and if time hasn’t been fully destroyed yet, it creates a buffer period with the explanation that the process is still on-going. If all of them go back, it doesn’t change too much of the theory, it just means more people. Likely the mroe I watch the finale and speculate, the more that this will change. But for now, that’s all I’ve got. Will I be proven right? Probably not, but we won’t know until at least April so.. we’ve got time! Unlike the Reds and Blues, haha… and I made myself sad.

Final Thoughts

The finale was insane in all of the good ways. It had a great fight sequence, great character moments, and one mindscrew of an ending that I don’t think that anyone will ever forget. If I had to guess, we’ll probably start next season kind of like in Season 9, with some similar event splaying out and as they do, the guys memories will potentially be triggered. All we can do is wait for April to come and find out. But all in all, it was a great finale and I loved every second of it.

With that, I want to take this time to say thank you to everyone who has read these reviews. This is only the second season of RvB that I watched regularly and the first one that I reviewed as it was coming out. I had a lot of fun doing it and I’m glad that people really liked my silly ramblings! There will be one final review for the season coming up, an overall review of everything I liked and disliked about it, that should hopefully be out this time next week. After that, that’ll be a wrap for RvB16. If any of you guys are RWBY fans, I’ll be reviewing Volume 6 in the same format when it starts this Fall and I may also be doing Gen;Lock if I like it. I’m also going to be doing reviews of the other RvB seasons during the hiatus, so I’ll have plenty of RvB-related material until next season rolls around. Again, thank you all for reading and I will be back again to do RvB17 next year. So I hope to see all of you then!

#rvb #rvb16 #rvb reviews #old blog repost

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restlessmaknae · 7 years

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Disastrous [pt.3]

Chapters: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8

Genre: fluff, comedy, romcom

Main Characters: Kim Namjoon; Gu Dasom (OC)

Setting: friends to lovers AU; holiday AU

I knew that this holiday will be difficult with Namjoon by my side but I never thought that it would be this difficult.

An arranged holiday with my best friend to a breath-taking island? What could actually go wrong? In my case, the question is, what didn’t go wrong?

The banana boat trip took place at the Jiari beach which was said to be the best beach in Haikou. I know you’ve probably never heard about Haikou and neither have I before we arranged our trip but it’s one of the most beautiful places I’d ever seen.

I wasn’t a traveller kind of girl since my parents usually didn’t drag me to a family holiday, they were rather fond of spending romantic weekends at exotic places with only the two of them. They went to India, Japan, China and even Malaysia, but I never accompanied them, so I wasn’t used to travelling long distances. I’d only visited Daegu when Namjoon’s friend, Yoongi invited us to spend some days at their house during Chuseok. And that wasn’t even abroad! I lived my whole life in Goyang and that’s why I was so eager to finally go on a real holiday with my friends. Although I ended up organising it on my own, I didn’t really mind being in charge of the planning.

When Namjoon suggested visiting Hainan Island in China, I didn’t think much of it. I didn’t really know where it was or what was so special about it but I made a little research and found out that it was the perfect destination for us. We were both keen on sight-seeing and we both loved nature. Hainan was famous for its mind-blowing sceneries and picturesque attractions, so we could do anything that we wanted. Not to mention that there was a wide range of activities which we could try out for the first time such as the famous banana boat trips.

“You can swim, right?” I asked nosily while we were walking on the beach, just to be sure and snickered when a deep groan left Namjoon’s throat. It was odd that we had been best friends for 15 years and I still couldn’t recall a time when we swam together. We weren’t that kind of best friends.

“I may not be a man who’s capable of everything but I can swim.”

“I was just curious,” I raised my arms in defeat but I knew that he wasn’t any serious about it either. He was perfectly aware of the fact that he wasn’t the safest man to be alive; therefore I was proud of him. He knew his own flaws and still accepted himself the way he was. He was a guy who I can look up to and a friend who made me believe in myself. He was such a wonderful person.

“I think this is going to be fun!” Namjoon clapped his hands in excitement and ruffled his blondish curls. Blonde looked much better on him than most of the colours but my favourite was his black hair. He was so badass in black.

“I hope we won’t throw up,” I joked around but I really wanted this trip to be perfectly satisfying without further problems. We ate before the trip and maybe it wasn’t the most sensible idea but we were so hungry after our flight! We had to eat before any of us would faint!

“Oh, I hope so! But you know what I’ve said,” he stole a glance at me while we were still walking towards the banana boat crew who were already waiting for us beside the sea. “This holiday is the holiday of our lives. Nothing can go wrong, Dasom,” he reminded me of his hopeful saying which had to be our motto for the holiday. Sadly, he wasn’t right but at least one of us tried to be optimistic.

When we finally arrived at the base of the banana boat club which was a tiny tree house on the seaside, the instructors welcomed us with a bear hug. We couldn’t really speak Chinese and their broken English was actually way cuter than comprehensible, so we spoke in a weird English-Chinese mixture. We had a hard time explaining to them that we weren’t together with Namjoon because the taller guy – Minghao or something like that – insisted that we looked so good together.

“Beautiful together. You, he, love,” he darted his eyes between me and my best friend but I merely gave him an awkward cough in response. Namjoonie starched the back of his neck and didn’t really find the right words to say. Everyone said that we looked like a couple, even Yoongi was of the same mind, so I started suspecting something. Could we ever be a couple?

After talking for a while, we got on the boat and our adventure started. I adored the strong wind from the very first second; the way it was blowing through my hair was both refreshing and energising. The sun was also shining brightly and water splashes constantly kissed my skin since I was at the front and my best friend sat behind me. We were almost flying and I was having so much fun that I couldn’t even control my emotions, I let out excited screams and giggles until we flipped and fell into the water.

When I reached the surface again, I laughed even more. It was absolutely exhilarating. We did it for like three times and I was quite sad when we headed back to the base because our ride was over. It was definitely the highlight of our holiday so far and I felt lucky because I could share this wonderful moment with Namjoon. We did it together, so it was even better.

We hopped off the boat, bid our goodbye and started walking beside the sea. We were tired and already wet but didn’t feel like walking in the city centre, more like taking a promenade along the sea. The more we walked, the worse I felt. First, I thought that it was just because of the thrill experience that my stomach churned. Later, I assumed that it was because of the spicy food that I had eaten. Then, I realised that it was probably a result of going on a banana boat trip after eating.

“Namjoon, I don’t feel well,” I blurted out nervously and put a hand on my stomach. I didn’t even know why I felt a need to do so but I always felt like I could calm down my stomach if I put my hand on it. Weird habit, I know.

“Is it one of those days? You know…” he started hesitantly but I shook my head.

“No, no. I think I just shouldn’t have eaten before swimming.”

“Oh no!” his hand flew up to his mouth in shock. “You mean, you’re going to throw up?” he asked, his voice full of concern and his eyes full of worry.

“Maybe,” I bit my lip as I suddenly felt nauseated. The world seemed a little bit shaky and I didn’t even feel confident while walking. I felt like I could throw up any time.

“That’s not good,” Namjoon mumbled and looked around to search for god knows what. He was monitoring the area, then, gently grabbed my wrist and pulled me with him. “It’s going to be alright, Dasom. Just breathe and think about something else. I’ll find a toilette for you,” he promised while looking in my eyes and waited until I bobbed my head. He started walking towards the little boutiques on the seaside, so I followed him.

I felt worse and worse as time went by and whenever I had to sneeze or take a deeper breath, I believed that I would throw up for real. Toilettes were impossible to find on this beach and I didn’t even know how Namjoon found one but he did and after giving money to the lady at the entrance, he hurried to the woman’s room with me. He pressed my hand a little, to reassure me that it’ll be all alright but I couldn’t really appreciate his efforts then. I just felt so bad.

I almost ripped the cabin’s door open because the cramps were unbearable by then and still didn’t let his hands go when my stomach felt that it needed to empty itself. Luckily, I didn’t make a mess because he grabbed my hair with his other hand to make sure that I wouldn’t dirty my curls.

“Is it better now?” he craned his neck to see if I had felt any better. I had to admit that I was never more relieved in my whole life than after getting rid of my lunch.

“Yeah, it is,” I spluttered and he picked up on my hesitance, so we stayed there until I was completely sure that I didn’t have to throw up anymore. I don’t know how much time had passed while we were there because I only remember how affectionately he held my hand when we left the toilette. A woman threw a disgusted flinch at his direction but I couldn’t have done it without him, so I was prominently grateful that he dared to go into the women’s room with me.

“Alright, I don’t ask if you would like to eat dinner now,” Namjoon said half-jokingly while we were walking back to the city centre. I had no idea where exactly did he want to take me but he soon answered my question. “But let’s get you some bananas! They say that it’s the best after vomiting,” he patted the back of my hand and looked at me so caringly that I was sure that I couldn’t have asked for a better travelling companion than him.

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healthnotion · 5 years

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Books So Good I’ve Read Them 2X (Or More!)

Given the fact that there are over 130 million books in existence, it’s easy to despair of ever having the chance to read even the smallest fraction of them. And given how little headway you’ll ultimately make on that number, even if you’re a regular reader and live to a ripe old age, it can be hard to justify reading the same book, not just once, but twice (and even multiple times!).

But I think there are several good reasons to do so.

The first is that each time you read the same book, you come away with new insights. You get different things out of a book when you read it at 36 than you did at 16 (and you’ll find different things at age 76, too).

Second, even when you’ve learned and affirmed the principles of a personal development or philosophical-type book, you have to revisit them regularly to keep them at the forefront of your mind. Humans are slothful, forgetful creatures; even when a book’s insights initially made your spirit soar and unlocked a new dimension in your thinking, without regular reminders, you’ll be taking them for granted in a very short time!

Third, sometimes re-reading the same book can become a special tradition (e.g., you look forward to re-reading A Christmas Carol every December), and even a cathartic ritual (see my note about The Road below). When you read the same thing on a cyclical basis, you find that rather than suffering “the horror of the Same Old Thing,” the practice can actually help you overcome it.

Finally, favorite fiction books become like old friends. When you open one up, you feel like you’re reconnecting with a beloved cast of characters who you’ve missed and are glad to be reacquainted with all over again.

Plus, few of the millions of books you could be reading for the first time are any good — and it can be more beneficial to re-read quality than to read mediocre slop anew! (I read 125+ new books a year in addition to my perennial favorites, so it’s not an either/or equation; as I know someone will ask, I have to read so many books for my work on the Art of Manliness, but you can read, or re-read more books too, using the tips I’ve outlined here.)

Below you’ll find a list of some of the books I’ve re-read at least twice, and often many times more. While I read books for both work and pleasure, and many of the books below I’ve read for both, I only re-read the books that have provided fodder for articles, that have also given me personal enjoyment.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey

I first read The Seven Habits of Highly of Effective People back in high school and was blown away by Covey’s ability to create fresh, compelling angles on common sense principles — put first things first; begin with the end in mind — and show how they can be implemented to create a flourishing life. Since then, I’ve re-read The Seven Habits every few years to remind myself of these important fundamentals that I already know, but that are so easy to lose sight of.

For my distillation and take on the 7 habits, read this series that covers each one.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The first time I read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Great American Novel, I was a sophomore in high school. But it didn’t really resonate with me then. That changed when I took a class in college called “American History Through the American Novel” with Professor Danney Goble. He made that book come alive for me by subtly illuminating its rich metaphors and highlighting Fitzgerald’s superb style. Since then, while I haven’t read The Great Gatsby as many times as literary critic Maureen Corrigan (who’s read it 67 times; you can listen to my podcast interview with her about that here), I have re-read it so many times I’ve lost count of the number. And every time I re-read it, I uncover a new symbol or metaphor that I never noticed before, and welcome the chance the re-contemplate the theme of wanting vs. liking. This book never gets old.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

The Road has been called by some a love story between father and son, and nothing could better describe it. The book powerfully puts the beauty and sorrow of fatherhood in stark perspective, revealing paternal love intensely close to the bone.

The first time I started it, I read it all in a single flight coming home from a vacation. While I didn’t have kids at the time, and was surrounded by strangers, I was blubbering like a baby by the time the wheels hit the tarmac in Tulsa.

When Gus was born, I decided to re-read The Road again since I figured it would have more meaning now that I was a dad. Indeed, it made me cry even harder the second time. Since then, I’ve made it a personal tradition to read The Road once a year. It’s a cathartic ritual: I read it, cry as my heart gets squeezed in a vise of emotion, and then hug and kiss my kids while they wonder what’s wrong with Dad.

The Road makes me re-evaluate how I’m doing as a father. It forces me to ask if I’m preparing my kids so they can survive without me — not only physically, but spiritually.

It forces me to ask myself “Am I teaching my children to carry the fire?”

As the answer is always, “I could do a little better,” it’s a question worth reflecting on annually.

After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre

In After Virtue, Scottish philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre argues that we’ve lost the idea of having a telos — an ultimate aim — as well as the language needed to talk about the virtues required to achieve it. One of the results is that our discourse on morality has become increasingly shrill.

After Virtue is a really hard book to read and fully understand, but it’s the enjoyable kind of hard. When you put in the effort to grasp what MacIntyre is arguing, you’re rewarded with fresh insights about our current age. And because he’s writing about such a broad and deep topic, every time I read After Virtue, I walk away with some new idea to contemplate.

The Odyssey by Homer

I’ve read Homer’s The Iliad multiple times, but I did so for school and work. It’s mighty good, but it doesn’t grasp me by the heartstrings. It’s a different, ahem, story with The Odyssey, which I’ve read dozens of times for pure pleasure. There are a couple of reasons I turn to one of these ancient tales much more than the other.

First, The Odyssey is just a grade A adventure story. Just a plain fun book to read.

Second, and more importantly, the character of Odysseus is a lot more relatable than Achilles. Achilles is a demigod; Odysseus is fully mortal. Achilles doesn’t seem to miss his family, of whom we learn little about; Odysseus just wants to get back to his family — in fact, he gives up spending eternity with an ageless sex nymph so he can return to his mortal wife Penelope. Achilles only wants glory; Odysseus wants that too, but he wants to survive and make it back home more.

A mortal dude who’s just trying to survive in a crazy, topsy-turvy world so he can spend time with his family? I can relate to that.

The book has taken on different meanings for me when I read it after getting married, after having kids, and now that I’m approaching middle age.

Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nassim Nicholas Taleb is a former trader and current intellectual provocateur (see his Twitter and Medium accounts) who writes about philosophy and probability. He’s the guy that popularized the idea of “Black Swan” events in history. Wikipedia succinctly describes a Black Swan event as one “that comes as a surprise, has a major effect, and is often inappropriately rationalized after the fact with the benefit of hindsight.” The Great Depression. The Great Recession. Both World Wars. These are examples of Black Swan events.

In his book Antifragile, Taleb offers heuristics for businesses and individuals on how to not only survive a Black Swan, but thrive in it.

I’ve read all of Taleb’s books and they’re all great, but Antifragile is the one that I go back to over and over again. Taleb’s ideas are often counterintuitive and iconoclastic, but he makes great cases for them. I think the biggest reason I keep re-reading Antifragile, though, is that it’s just so damn fun to read. Taleb’s pugnacious and doesn’t suffer fools. The literary punches he throws at those he deems “imbeciles” not only crack me up, but the way he presents his ideas as a debate between a street smart spokesman (Fat Tony) and his traditionally smart, yet clueless rival (Dr. John), helps make the ideas more understandable. I also enjoy the occasional digressions he takes throughout the book. They’re fun, and always illuminating.

Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle

Thanks to famous entrepreneurs and digital influencers, Stoicism has become the ancient philosophy of choice for many young people today. But there’s an ancient philosophy that I think is even more useful and life affirming than Stoicism: Aristotelian virtue ethics. I think part of the reason Stoicism is seen as the “cool” philosophy and Aristotelian virtue gets overlooked is that Aristotle’s writing doesn’t really have any pithy, quotable maxims like the writing of the Stoics does. But it’s richly rewarding for those who dig into it.

Aristotle’s answer to the question how to live a good life is “it depends.” In his Nicomachean Ethics, he lays out how to live a life of eudaimonia, or flourishing. It requires a person to use their practical wisdom to figure out what the right thing to do is in whatever situation they find themselves in. There are no iron-clad rules, which makes deciding how to act more challenging, but I think more wise.

Should you get angry at a business rival who copied your idea? The Stoics would say “Don’t get angry because that disrupts tranquility and could lead to poor decisions.” Aristotle would say “Well, maybe you should get angry because it’s just to do so, it will spur you to take action, and if the rival is directly confronted, he’ll back down. Or maybe in this particular instance, direct confrontation will end up damaging you and it’s better to hide your emotions and quietly best the rival from behind the scenes. Use your judgement.”

I love Aristotle because he understood that life is complex and there is no one right answer for the situations we find ourselves in. His Nicomachean Ethics provides a flexible framework for navigating these complexities, which is why I’ve re-read it multiple times.

Roman Honor by Carlin Barton

Roman Honor is a book quite unlike any other I’ve read. It’s one part history, one part philosophy, and one part insight into the modern age. Altogether it adds up to quite possibly the most interesting and incisive book I’ve come across. Even the footnotes are utterly fascinating.

Barton traces the way Rome’s honor culture dissolved as it moved from a Republic to an Empire, and how its original definition of dishonor transformed into the new definition of honor along the way. That is, whereas Rome’s traditional honor culture elevated being fiery, passionate, thin-skinned, and competitive, and disdained being independent, immovable, and callous — someone who didn’t care what anyone else thought and was literally shameless — honor in the Empire became the exact reverse, where only personal integrity mattered, having a rock-like disposition was celebrated, and the philosophy of Stoicism rose in popularity. It’s a fascinating lens by which to see how the same factors that led to the dissolution of traditional honor and the rise of Stoicism in Rome, have led to parallel trends in our own time.

The book has greatly influenced my perspective on the world, and I’ve re-read it multiple times both for pleasure and for work; I’ve gotten more than half a dozen article ideas from it, and as we’ve only covered a couple so far, look out for more in the years to come!

The Way of Men by Jack Donovan

I’ve read a lot of books about the anthropology, psychology, and biology of manhood written by top rate experts in their field. The Way of Men by Jack Donovan distills all of that into a highly potent and highly readable ode to sweaty, muscular masculinity. Do I entirely agree with the philosophy of manhood laid out in the book? Nope, which is why I like re-reading it so much. The Way of Men challenges your assumptions and makes you think hard about what it means to be a man.

While media pundits, and academics, and pop culture influencers debate and endlessly dither on about what it really means to be a man, and a hundred disparate definitions of manhood get thrown around, this book cuts through the noise to locate the central core of masculinity.

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

Just because I’m not all-in on Stoicism and have some critiques of the philosophy, certainly doesn’t mean that I find nothing redeemable or useful about it. While I don’t think the philosophy is one you should center your whole life around (I think Aristotelianism is better suited to that purpose), I do think it is extremely useful, and even indispensable, when strategically employed as a tool in certain situations. I see Stoicism as proto-cognitive behavioral therapy — a way to challenge incorrect, detrimental thinking about the world, and to find peace in circumstances you truly can’t control.

My favorite book of Stoic philosophy is Meditations by the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. It’s short so it lends itself well to re-reading, and it’s packed with pithy maxims you can use as practical heuristics in navigating life. And because the book is basically Aurelius’ private journal, Meditations gives you a firsthand look at a prominent figure in history trying his damndest to be stoic and grappling with the tensions that come with seeking to mold your life to an ideal.

Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

I read Man’s Search for Meaning after seeing a reference to it in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I was 16 or 17 years old. This book blew me away the first time I read it and was my gateway into existential philosophy. I printed off quotes from this book, framed them, and gave them as gifts to friends.

The big takeaway from Man’s Search for Meaning is arguably life’s most important lesson: there is one freedom that no one can ever take away from you, and that’s the freedom to choose how to respond in any given circumstance. If a man can choose to be happy while imprisoned in a concentration camp, as Frankl did and was, then a man can choose to be happy in any situation. This radical autonomy is what makes us human.

I’ll re-read this book whenever I feel helpless and need a reminder that I do in fact have control over my life.

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

Lonesome Dove is the greatest cowboy story ever told, and my hands-down favorite book of all time. It’s the American Odyssey. The story follows two long-time friends on a cattle drive from the Rio Grande to Montana. Along the way they encounter outlaws, Indians, and old flames. I love this book so much, I even named my son Gus after one of the protagonists, Gus McCrae.

Despite being over 700 pages long, I’ve read this book four times in the past 10 years or so. It never gets old. Each time I start it again, it feels like I’m catching up with old friends. I still laugh out loud and cry at the same parts.

Are there lessons on life from Lonesome Dove? Sure, but I can’t say I re-read it for them. I read it over and over again because I like it. A whole heck of a lot.

Click here for more of AoM’s book lists and reading recommendations.

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