#I think he’s hilarious and never done one genuinely serious and impactful thing ever

[ms-march]

Iykyk @tallmadgeandtea

#made literally for Amanda but this is for all of y’all #i am an active dogger of GW #I think he’s hilarious and never done one genuinely serious and impactful thing ever #like truly he better ride from the dead and thank George weems #clair rambles #general george washington #george washington #turn: washington's spies #turn amc #amrev #american revolution #history #turn washington's spies #Hamilton #gwash #history meme #little miss meme #18th century #18th century history #American history

[tiedyemillenialbullshit]

Hope is a Heartache

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Avenger!Reader

Summary: You and Bucky are a series of missed opportunities, but will that stop you both from being happy?

Word Count: 2.6k

Warnings: Mentions of alcohol, sexual situations, swearing, angst, LOTS of angst, fluff

A/N: I’m not sure when I became the kween of angst, but here we are. I think if I wrote smut, I’d die so maybe someday I’ll try that. For now here we are.

Written listening to: Hope is a Heartache by LEON

“How would I ever tell her that? What, that I think she’s the most stunning, hilarious, powerful, brave, most amazing woman I’ve ever met? She’d freak out, I’m like her best friend on the team, Steve.”

“I don’t know pal, but I can’t keep looking at you like this. Every time she walks by you stop breathing.”

Bucky never felt so sick to his stomach as he did when he thought about you and whatshisface. You had been on the team about as long as he had. You were both “freshmen” as Sam loved to joke, together. At first, you annoyed the shit out of him. Always going on about how he needed to try harder at this or move faster at that. Buck always confided in Steve about how much you pissed him off until finally one day Steve snapped. “DUDE. YOU. LOVE. Y/N. If you won’t admit it to me, at least admit it to yourself.”

Bucky remembers telling him exactly where he can shove it before stomping out of the Captain’s office to the gym. He had walked in on you taking some sort of frustration out on a punching bag. You didn’t hear him come in, so he stood in the shadow of the doorway and watched you. You stopped after a few moments to rip your gloves off, fix your ponytail, huff out a swear or four and decide to start punching again sans gloves.

Bucky knew in that instant he didn’t want a different partner on missions. He didn’t want you to want to go on morning runs with anyone else. He didn’t want to trust anyone else besides you.

You remember that day too. You were pissed at him, convinced he was trying to make you look bad because in Steve’s eyes, he could do no wrong. So who cares right? Oh you just wanted to hit him. That’s why you had elected to not place your boxing gloves back on and instead just rely on the tape wrapping your knuckles to not break your skin open.

You heard something behind you, and when you spun around you saw him watching you. At first, this wasn’t startling, the asshole had a serious staring problem, but he wasn’t mad. He was just watching you move. Nothing about his demeanor was menacing like it usually was. It was like Frosty had melted and standing before you was this man.

You decided then that you didn’t anyone else sparing with you in the gym, you didn’t want anyone else giving you a hard time because you couldn’t chug a beer as fast as Thor, and you didn’t want him to want anyone else as his partner.

It was like something clicked into place that day, a thread between the two of you pulled taught. You couldn’t place the feeling, you never had it before.

“Earth to Bucky. *white noise* Paging James Buchanan Barnes *white noise* Will the tin man please join us in this debriefing-“ Bucky finally recognized Sam was talking to him.

“Sorry, what?” Buck knew he was red in the face, but honestly didn’t care. Not after the sleepless night he had after witnessing you kiss your new boyfriend goodnight.

“We were discussing Wednesday’s mission, Bucky. You good?” Steve had a concerned look on his face for his best friend.

You were staring right back at Bucky as he sternly answered “I’m fine. Couldn’t sleep last night. Kept having a nightmare about some prick invading my space.”

The team exchanged glances, but that just confirmed to you that he did see you kiss Nick. You thought you heard someone shuffling inside quickly after giving your new boyfriend a lingering kiss goodnight. What was his fucking problem?

“I hate it when that happens. Maybe you should just try minding your own business in real life, then you wouldn’t have nightmares about it at night.” You shot back not breaking eye contact.

Bucky stood and left. The team knew better than to try and reason with a pissed off super soldier, so they let him leave the meeting early.

You practically ran out of the meeting as soon as it was concluded.

“What the fuck was that about?” Nat asked as she was following you uninvited into your room. Besides Bucky, she was your closest friend. Your closest friend, and your nosiest friend.

“Bucky saw me kissing Nick last night and took that as a signed permission slip to act like a fucking asshole, I don’t know. He never likes any of the guys I bring around. Honestly, that’s probably why they don’t last.” You really liked Nick, and you weren’t going to let Bucky scare this one off. Which would be a feat, seeing as your best friend was the former Winter Soldier.

“Y/N, do you think he ‘scares’ all of them off because he wishes he was them?” Nat looked at you without giving away too much of her thought process.

“What, like he wants to be my boyfriend? Come ON Nat, this is Bucky. It’s BUCKY. Even if he did have feelings for me, he’d never tell me. Because he’s BUCKY.” You weren’t sure why you were secretly hoping she argued with you about that. You always liked Bucky. But you were a professional, those feelings got pushed down a long, long time ago.

“I don’t know, Steve said-“

“OH. So now Bucky and I are the topic of your pillow talk, Nat? Great! Look, just because it worked out for you and Steve that way doesn’t mean it’ll work out for me and Buck like that.” You shot back.

“WOAH. I was going to say that Steve said he had been off lately, it probably doesn’t have anything to do with you, Y/N.”

“Oh, well, I mean, I knew that. Whatever, okay?” You stumbled. “It’s not going to happen. I’m with Nick and I’m happy for once. Whatever his issue is, he can talk to his therapist about it, I’m done being that too.”

One year later

“Y/N. Hi. Uh, I didn’t know you were going to be here,” Bucky stammers to you as he’s holding the hand of some innocent enough looking blonde.

“You mean in my own kitchen? Funny how that works out. I was just leaving.” You say to him. The thought crosses your mind to introduce yourself to his new play-thing, but that will just make it seem so much more permanent. You hope your self-dismissal makes her feel awkward enough to leave but you know that won’t happen.

After the disaster that was your relationship with Nick ended after 9 months, you swore off men, including Bucky. He had eventually apologized for his behavior during that debriefing and things seemed to go back to normal. You now realize “normal” is just your funny way of saying “compartmentalizing.” Things were okay between you two because you never talked about Nick and he never asked.

After it ended between you two, he didn’t even ask. You chucked it up to him giving you your space. But that was a few months ago, and now you see why he wasn’t asking you about it.

“Night, Y/N.” Bucky calls after you.

“At least one of us seems like we’ll have a goodnight,” you yell back at him as you retreat into the hallway.

You think you hear him mumble something to his date and then you hear footsteps behind you, so you slow your pace a bit.

“What’s your fucking problem? Amanda doesn’t deserve your wrath the first time she comes over.” Bucky hush yells at you.

“The first time?! Buck, our rooms are right next to each other or did you forget that?” You actually yell at him.

“Oh trust me, how could I forget? With all the sex you had for 9 fucking months straight, the sound of you moaning is literally engrained into my mind forever and you KNOW how hard that is to do.” Bucky is screaming at you now.

“FUCK YOU JAMES.” You yell as you turn and walk towards the stairs.

“DON’T FUCKING CALL ME THAT,” he screams.

Good. Now no sex for him.

You wait until you get to the stairwell to let loose the tears threatening to spill over. You didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of winning the fight. You two had fought so many times in your friendship. The other Avengers knew to just leave two be when you got into these kind of moods.

You and Nick didn’t work out for a lot of reasons, but the biggest one was your relationship with Bucky. He was so protective over you, and a few months ago when that stopped you realized you didn’t miss his protection, you missed how he looked at you. You missed the possibility that there was something there between the two of you. It was clear he had given up, and you hated that. He felt cold and distant. Shortly after that, Nick stopped coming around and you didn’t care.

Just as you sit down to let yourself unleash in between the second and third floors, you hear the first story doors open. You go completely quiet as to not want to alert anyone you were sitting on the stairs crying like a teenager experiencing their first heartbreak.

You think you hear whimpering or what could be shushed crying. You lean over the railing to look down at who it is. Sitting there with his head in his hands is Bucky. You don’t make a noise.

“Fucking collect yourself Barnes, she’s just being a bitch. Deal with her tomorrow.”

You didn’t realize you had that much of an impact on him, you only wanted to ruin his desire to have sex with her.

Satisfied and feeling slightly guilty, you walk back to your room for the night, not caring if he hears you.

Two months later

“Is this seat taken?” You turn to the side and look up to see Bucky looking down at you sheepishly.

“Where’s your hot date? I saved two seats for you and Amanda,” you say back to Bucky, genuinely interested in where his date was. After that awful night, you decided to put forth an effort to make things better with him. No one is kidding themselves that when you have personal stuff going on behind the scenes of work partners, it makes work in the field that much harder.

“Uh, she’s not going to make it,” he says with sad eyes.

“Oh, is she okay?”

“Uh yeah, we’re just not. We broke up this morning. Thanks for saving two seats though, that was nice of you Y/N.” Bucky sits down next to you and you wrap an arm around the back of his chair.

“I’m sorry Buck, I really did like her. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I am now,” he looks at you with a slight smile to his face. You hold his gaze for a few seconds longer than normal before ruffling his hair as the DJ comes over the music.

“Ladiesssss and gentlemeeennnn please welcome to the stage…”

“I can’t believe Sam dragged us all to a strip club for his birthday,” you whisper in Bucky’s ear as the music gets louder.

“I know, look at Steve I think he’s about to have a stroke.” You and Bucky share a laugh and for a second, it’s like you’re back in your early days on the team when it seemed like all you two had was each other.

Once the girls found out the Avengers were in their midst, it was game over. If Sam’s goal was to black out tonight, he accomplished that almost immediately. Liquor was free, dances were free, and unsurprisingly the team was having an amazing time. Besides the waitresses and a few dancers, no one came into your circle, and it ended up being a really fun night. You and Bucky were having so much fun, you couldn’t remember the last time you laughed as hard as you were.

You even noticed Bucky turning down a dance or two, redirecting the girl’s attention to Thor, or the much more enthused, Sam. You expected a newly single Buck to want the attention, but he was not having it.

As the night went on, you caught Bucky staring at you, and more and more you held his stare with a curve to your lips that was reserved just for him.

“Coincidentally” the strip club was next to Sam’s favorite bar. The team decided that was the logical next destination, but you were exhausted and it must’ve been showing on your face.

“Hey doll, why don’t you say we Irish exist these assholes and head home? I’m exhausted.”

“Fuck. Yes. PLEASE let’s go!” You exclaimed as if Bucky was reading your mind. You didn’t want to be the one to suggest it, but you were so happy he did.

You both stand in line with the team but disappear behind everyone as they all head in. Bucky throws an arm around your shoulders as you walk down the street.

“You know, I’m kind of glad it’s just us the rest of the night, that was too much togetherness for me,” Bucky says. You’re blushing and you know he means he’s happy to have a friend, but you find your stomach buzzing with the hope he means something else.

“Same here,” you laugh, “what do you want to do? Grab a cab and head home? Movie? Are you spent?”

“For you? Not at all.” He’s got that dumb grin on your face that makes you want to either kiss him or smack him so he stops distracting you.

“What’re you staring at sweetheart?” You realize it’s getting harder to hide your emotions. He just broke up with Amanda, and maybe it’s the alcohol or the atmosphere, but you can’t stop the word vomit.

You stop him on the sidewalk under the streetlight. There’s no one really out on this street.

“Are we ever going to get it right?” Ope, there it is.

“Get what right?” Bucky is looking at you confused and you’re hoping you can somehow telepathically tell him you mean the two of you. Together. Finally.

“Us.”

Bucky just keeps staring at you like he did that day at the gym. Neither of you say anything, he’s got a hand on your upper arm, resting there.

The regret starts to set in. Things were just getting back to a good place between the two of you, and you just ruined it.

“You know, Amanda and I didn’t work out for a few reasons, but the main one being... ugh, shit, the main reason is that she isn’t you, Y/N.” Bucky just spoke the words you’ve wanted to hear the most but it doesn’t register at first.

He must see that either on your face or through your lack of response. You feel him pulling you in, and right before he moves his lips over yours, it hits you like a train. You love him. Your stubborn, angry, beautiful, amazing Bucky.

You kiss him back with an intensity you didn’t know was in you. You break the kiss and start giggling against his mouth.

“What! I’m not that bad of a kisser!” He’s laughing now with you.

“Sorry, sorry, I just can’t believe this is finally happening. And on a secluded street, under a street lamp. Write a romance novel already, Barnes.”

Your lips to God’s ears, a group of people start walking your way. Bucky looks around and pulls you into a small walkway between two apartment buildings.

“Come here, I wasn’t done with you.” He’s kissing you up against the brick wall like a man starved and you don’t care if anyone sees you, you’ve never felt this happy in your life.

“Let’s just do this, you and me. I’m sick of pretending like you aren’t my person,” you say against his lips.

“Y/N, I want nothing else, ever.”

#bucky barnes #bucky x y/n #bucky x you #bucky x reader #marvel fanfiction #bucky angst

[the-musical-cc]

What's wrong with the Twilight Princess manga? (Genuinely curious because I often hear it's good)

No, I mean, it's good! What I've read isn't really terrible (And take in account that because they aren't selling it here just yet, I've only read what I've been able to find online.) This is most likely about me putting something in the tags about how most fans ignore it, referring specifically to Link's backstory, but like...Bruh I'm biased, don't pay mind to my rambles XD

...

*rambles anyway.

I mean, it IS good. I like it enough that I want to buy the whole thing once it's completed, available in my country (In english because the spanish names are a fucking joke) and have enough money that I don't regret buying like 12 tomes that are like 120 pesos each. It brought some ideas that are gold, such as Luda and Shad coming with Link in the adventure for a short time, Midna helping Link beat the Gorons in sumo (Though it does sacrifice one of the most hilarious parts of lore of the game.) and the questionability of Hyrule's attitude towards anything that isn't 'Pure' or 'Bright'. I just disagree with a lot of the choices made in it.

Link's backstory. I had thought it to be a matter of personal taste at first, where I saw him as someone who maybe came from outside but grew in Ordon and was just getting stupidly offended over differing opinions, but as it turns out I just didn't remember why I'd had that idea for years now. Ilia mentions having been kids together with Link, and hilarious as the thought that she's referring to one year prior to events in the game is, it most likely means he's been there for years. Honestly? My impression is they wanted Link to not have too deep a tie to Ordon for whatever reason, and I Hate That. I'm certain I'm not the only one to say 'That's bullshit' and just go with something else there, which is why I say most of us ignore it anyway.

They highkey stole an arc from Hyrule Warrior Legends. Though tbf they also put a very blatant 'Empire Strikes back' moment in there and as much as it annoyed me... it was pretty cool. Still, this is the one game where Shadow Link had no business to be and they put it in there for an entire fucking arc.

Twilight Princess' cast is fucking HUGE why on Hylia's green earth are you putting OCs in there??? It's not even like they're filling a role no one else could have had! They've done it before in their previous Zelda works, and other manga adaptations have as well, but I like most of them because they had something to bring to the table (Even if it was romantic drama, in Ganthy's case.) here it's little to nothing they can contribute with that couldn't have been done by putting an already existing character there. It may be my theatre brain speaking but it bothers me when you have a huge cast and do NOTHING with it and instead bring out another character out of NOWHERE to get things done. Just use what's already there, damn you!

Zelda and Midna's backstory. Hear me out... I love it... but it doesn't work. I've spoken before about how much it annoyed me when the narrative had Zelda and Link respectively blame themselves for the invasion (Even though the guy invading is RIGHT THERE???!?!) for having 'Touched' the dark and made it so it could invade their world, and that's part of it. The other is: Having Zelda sacrifice for Midna not because it was the right thing to do, not because it's the one thing she can do for her people, for the Twili, for Link and Midna herself, and instead making it 'You're my childhood inter-dimensional pen pal, I just realized, welp, time to die.' kind of cheapens the impact it had on Midna in the game and what it says about Zelda as a character (We barely get anything on her in the game, but what we do get is powerful.) It's beautiful, but it misses the point completely.

Also Midna just randomly showing up in Link's dreams in her true form is stupid. YEAH, I SAID IT! I get it they're probably thinking 'Well, what's the point in building up anticipation? You know this is what she looks like already.' but one of the reasons the ship is so heart-wrenchingly good is Link knew her inside and out despite her warped shape. In the end, it didn't matter what she looked like so long as it was her. Link fell in love with her gremlin ass transformation AND THAT IS PERFECT OK??? Imagine like if on 'Beauty and the Beast' Belle just randomly kept meeting the prince in dreams, like they're waving a carrot in front of her to get things done with so she can smooch that freaky Habsburg mug. It's fucking awkward! (And it sort of cheapens their actual chemistry, it feels a lot like 'Oh, he has to see she's hot or it wouldn't be believable that he fell in love.' Get outta here with that.)

Shad.

OK, fine, I'll elaborate. Shad has a dialogue in-game about following up on his dad's life work, it is also implied that he's passed away. What does the manga do? Ignore all that and make it so Shad's dad is a 'Serious' investigator who disapproves of his son's interests. 'Shut up dad! It's not a phase dad! You go clean your room, dad!'. Why? No reason. It's not even interesting!

Shad is the friendliest fucking guy ever, rambling to Link about his hyperfixation on first meeting. Calls him 'Old sport' and stuff like that, seemingly befriends him immediately. What'd the manga decide to do with him? They're RIVALSSSS, and snarky to one another because Shad may or may not have a little crush on Ilia. UGH.

Look, you can't be a real Resistance if the members can't even look after themselves, so making Shad kind of a loser (Because he's a nerd. Hahah. Get it? Nerds are losers.) really took the piss out of the Resistance, tbh. Might have been the point, though, seeing how they needed to make space for their OCs in the final battle at Hyrule Castle... and, look, I've said this before but if you need to make a character look horribly bad for no other purpose than making another look more competent, you're not half as good a writer as you think you are. Link didn't need Shad to look pathetic to look more heoric, that's just sad.

Also take one look at that guy and tell me he doesn't drink his respecting women juice every damn morning and sometimes for dinner... well, in the manga, he's apparently kind of a leecher.

Srsly how is he friends with Ashei if he's kind of a leecher, she'd break his fingers.

There's probably more but I really don't want to come off like I'm trying to discourage people from reading it because I'm not! Like I said, it's a good manga! It has some pretty neat battle sequences, it makes Hyrule feel MASSIVE, it has some pretty horrifying moments that make the stakes feel more real, it takes things that are a certain way in the game for the sake of the mechanics and tries to make them more organic (In the specific case of Ilia's memory, it succeeds.) and Akira Himekawa never fails to make Zelda and every female character look gorgeous. It's just not great in terms of being an adaptation, but that's not necessarily a terrible thing, it just depends on taste. Still, specifically where Link's backstory concerns... I think most fans just ignore it because, really, it doesn't make sense.

#twilight princess #cc rant #cc wtf #look I am capable of liking something and yet realizing 'Yeah this doesn't work I'll ignore it' #and Link's manga backstory... is one of those things #also his broody characterization gets on my nerves but that's taste srry srry #you know which manga I DO hate? The Skyward Sword prequel one #nahhh jk jk #I just get annoyed at fans that just blindly accept it and get pissy if someone wants to do their own thing

[phantaloon-books]

I finally read The Tyrant's Tomb and boi I loved this one so much, so here's some my opinion on it (they're not in chronological order)

warning, this is long af and sorry for cursing a bit, I can't help it

Apollo's character arc is lowkey one of the best Rick has written, I'm sorry if you don't agree, but he's gone from wanting others to solve his problems and relying on the halfbloods to intentionally avoiding others doing things for him, volunteering for the quests and saying it should be him that faces the terrible stuff so that demigods and other creatures don't suffer

something really interesting is how his perception of himself has changed, and it's almost worrying how genuinely self depreciating his inner dialogue is, because he no longer sees himself as mighty Apollo, he sees himself as worthless and useless Lester, and his narration is highkey depressing

Also, Apollo disliking and being somewhat disgusted of the god he used to be, realizing the horrible things he had done and how horrible he was and that he looked worse as the former Apollo than as Lester, regretting things he'd done, that's top tier development

(I'm sorry but I love the entire scene with the ravens, the part where he just screams "I'm sorry" it feels as if he isn't just apologizing to the ravens, but to everyone who's been affected by what he's done as a selfish god)

Reyna so openly turning down and laughing at Apollo for suggesting they be together is my favorite thing ever lmao I couldn't stop laughing, like she knew what gods can do if you turn them down (even if it was just mortal Lester) and she didn't give a damn, it was so fucking funny

people say Rick only includes diversity for the sake of including it and to gain popularity, but I still enjoy the fact that he does, because as a teacher he must have had all kinds of students of all religions, colors and sexualities, he includes diversity because he's seen diversity. anyway my point is I love that we have Lavinia, a Jewish lesbian from a Russian family, and she's not ashamed of being any of them

I'm sorry I just love Apollo so much, I've grown to respect him so much, and even if Hermes once said them gods often forget their oaths and promises, I have a feeling Apollo won't ever forget Jason's request that he never forgets what's it like to be mortal

Frank still admiring Apollo despite everything, and despite the fact that he looks like a messed up teen makes me go all uwu

Frank being portrayed as this clumsy and awkward kid but also this powerful and brave leader is my favorite thing ever because I think Frank is underrated and I dare to say that he's one of the strongest demigods we've ever met, even stronger than some of the nig three children

the whole thing about the undead army is honestly so creepy, especially when we see it from Apollo's perspective cause se him slowly succumb to the venom's effect, and that part in Tarquin's tomb where he "calls Lester to be part of his undead" was genuinely disturbing, at least to me

some books in the past have touched the part of the nature spirits not being given enough attention, but I really enjoyed how Apollo comes to realize that he only worries about demigods and gods when all lives are worth the same - mortals, halfbloods, nature spirits, gods, and even monsters

again, I love Apollo's arc, it's just AHH he's becoming so caring of life it just makes me happy

Reyna choosing herself to make herself happy is everything, and inspiring to every single woman who is told by others that they need someone to be happy, I just love it, because self love is the most important love of all

I haven't said anything about it, but man I love Meg and Apollo's friendship, they just care so much for each other, Meg who's so scared of losing her loved ones and Apollo who's so scared of not being able to be loved or to love, but they still love each other, and I'm glad it's not romantic, because yes fraternal love is also what people need, and their friendship is what they need

aurum and argentum being cute doggos rather than the steely (no pun intended) and cold dogs we met in HoO warms my heart. I don't understand why they're so cute and adorable, or maybe that's just how Apollo sees them, but they seem to act like actual dogs in this book

the fact that Reyna never confirmed nor denied being attracted to Thalia just makes me all hyped up, like we love Theyna

Apollo just gives off Eddie Brock vibes throughout the entire book and that's hilarious asf. ever since the start he's said to look like shit, feel like shit and be injured with deathly poison that will turn him to a zombie. if that isn't Venom vibes I don't know what is

I've said it once and I'll say it again, Frank Zhang is one of the strongest demigods Rick has ever introduced in a series, and him facing two immoral and godly in power emperors, burning one to death with his own life fire and injuring the other enough for Apollo to do the final kill is top tier

"If I'm going to burn, I might as well burn bright. This is for Jason." bitch actual goosebumps

We've seen countless deaths before, but something about Frank killing Caligula and Apollo killing Commodus seems so... mature I guess is the word, or well for a more mature audience. I can't describe how or why, but it feels more real, more like actual human death

I can't deal with how human Apollo seems in this book gosh I really am sorry I keep bringing this up, but I feel such warmth

the story of how Frank overcame his curse is actual BS and as much as I love Frank, it makes no sense that they spent all that time thinking of ways to keep the wood secure only for this. idk I mean id that were the case wouldn't the curse had vanished when he broke Thanatos free? he was willing to die then just like against Caligula, so why now but not then?

Don reincarnating into a laurel is peak bittersweet feeling and it actually hurt because in a camp where fauns were seen as dumb and useless, he helped Lavinia organize everything and destroy the canon things on the yachts

I'm still not over Jason's death, he really did deserve better. It makes sense, plotwise, because out of all of the huge characters from the past, Jason, Percy and Annabeth's deaths would impact others the harder, and push them to do better. And I understand that you gotta show, not even the main characters survive sometimes. Still, I'm hurt.

Thalia talking to Apollo during the funeral for the fallen campers made me actually weep. I'm not sure if it was because of Jason, or when Thalia talked about how much Artemis loves Apollo, or when Apollo "accepted" halfblood children of Zeus as his family

Also, you know who deserved better? Harpocrates, damn right he deserved better. I nearly cried when I read his death, cause he embraced it like one would an old friend in happiness. He and the Sybil deserved better. Dakota also deserved better

On the other hand, I tried so hard not to laugh at 2 am as I read Tarquin demand answers from a cat? he genuinely thought a cat would tell him where the Sybilline Books where and I couldn't handle that

This book is cruel but in a much more human way? The maiming of the pegasi wings? that's horrifying, but in such a human way, unlike what we've seen in any of the greek/roman gods series, and it's unsettling

Meg is braver than any of the other demigods were at that age (maybe excepting Nico), cause she's not embarking on a quest to retrieve an item or rescue someone or bring back their sister from the dead, she's facing her own abusive father while aiding a somewhat weak mortal in releasing the oracles and gaining godhood back. what's she getting from it all? absolutely nothing, she's gifted some seeds and she hangs out with unicorns more than other people and she's lost everything, but she's willing to lose more to help her friend. she's heroic like no one else is, because she's the first who doesn’t want anything more than being with her friend (Percy wanted whoever was taken back, Annabeth wanted to be able to be more, Nico wanted to bring back Bianca, even Bianca wanted freedom). the only other person who didn't have somewhat selfish (but kot wrong) interests while doing something heroic at a young age has been Hazel. What I mean is I love Meg and everything she does

Thalia being that chill over Jason's death bothers me so much, as if she wasn't the happiest when she found out the brother she lost 14 years ago was alive after all, and she had a part of her family back, and it was ripped from her, and Thalia is just not one to easily forget or move on from things, it's just unrealistic that she would only need a little furious session of throwing things to be okay with Jason's death as if her brother was not just taken from her all over again. it's impulsive Thalia we're talking about, who fought Percy when dealing with Annabeth going missing, it's just not her to be over his death that quickly. Sorry for Rick but I think differently

I also kinda don't like that Tyson went from being freaking General of the Cyclops, to the guy that has the Sybilline prophecies or whatever, it's important and all, but he would have been of great help during the battle and they had him waiting for help in the shrine hill like his potential went down the drain

but a thing I really loved was how different Camp Jupiter seems from Lester eyes compared from Percy's or Hazel's or Frank's perspective, it's hilarious. The other three see this place where everyone is serious and shit but Apollo just sees beyond the seriousness and it's actually refreshing, cause he's the first not to make CHB seem immature in comparison and like I said before I hated that in previous books

also Reyna laughing watered my plants, cured my depression, and made the world okay again, I just love her

all in all, this is my favorite book of ToA so far, and I'm really excited to see what's to come, and how Apollo and Meg will face Nero and Python, but more  than anything I'm looking forward to what will happen to Apollo, and whether if given the choice, he'd go back to being a selfish god or remain mortal for a while, with his newfound friends

Also I really miss Annabeth so can I please see Annabeth, I just want to see her cause she won't deal with Apollo's shit and I can't wait to see that, I miss my girl

#pjo #percy jackson and the olympians #hoo #heroes of olympus #toa #trials of apollo #apollo #lester papadopoulos #the tyrants tomb #the tyrant's tomb #meg mccaffrey #reyna avila ramirez arellano #the burning maze #jason grace #thalia grace #hazel levesque #frank zhang #lavinia asimov #tyson the cyclops #ella the harpy #new rome #camp jupiter #the tower of nero

[ordinaryschmuck]

Top 20 BEST Animated Series of the 2010s-13th place

What happens when you mix Looney Tunes' quality of animation with Spongebob Squarepants' weirdness and the creativity of a Dr. Suess book?

You get yet another underrated cartoon in the last decade. That’s what.

#13-Wander Over Yonder (2013-2016)

The Plot: A wandering weirdo named Wander and his best friend/protector/noble steed Sylvia travels the galaxy, sharing kindness and spreading the message that it never hurts to help everywhere they go. But in their quest, they must face dangerous villains such as Lord Hater and his army of watchdogs (The watchdogs aren’t what you think they are). Will the villainous Lord Hater destroy Wander and his attempts to spread happiness, or will Wonder make Hater his new pal? I don’t know. The show got canceled after a second season. Still, I think it’s the best bet on it being a yes.

The one thing about a show like Wander Over Yonder is that it is nothing like most shows you will find on this list. And I can sum up those reasons into four categories: story, comedy, characters, and animation.

Let’s start with the story because, until season two, there really isn’t one. It remains as a somewhat episodic show where the continuity is nearly non-existent. Occasionally a character will bring up an old event, or an old villain will reappear. But a viewer doesn’t need a full understanding of every episode to watch a single episode. Even when the show begins to have a story arc in season two, knowledge of previous events isn’t entirely essential to enjoy the episode you’re currently watching. Because while the prior information may add to the enjoyment, it never takes it away. In fact, Wander Over Yonder may just be the first show to change its technique of storytelling while still remaining true to its roots. Mainly since its roots focused more on comedy than anything else.

Let me make one thing clear: Wander Over Yonder, above anything else, is a comedy. It’s not a comedy that slowly becomes a drama. It’s a show that balances comedy and drama, and it is certainly not a show that will take itself too seriously. Even in the more “serious” episodes, Wander Over Yonder makes a point to have people laugh first and make them cry later. In fact, the drama has more of an impact because viewers can build a connection through laughing with the characters, thus caring when they meet a moment that’s tragic and heartbreaking. And laugh they will because this show can be pretty funny at times. Keep in mind that it has a very random sense of humor, so maybe don’t get too excited if that isn’t your cup of tea. And even if it is, there is a small problem you need to be aware of about the show’s comedy. When a joke isn’t funny, there will be another joke not far behind to make up for the lack. However, there are times when the show lingers on a specific gag or even repeats the same exact one throughout the entire episode. And it is always painful to watch. This doesn’t happen often, and it isn’t that bad when done well, but even then, it can get a little annoying to fans of the show.

Speaking of a little annoying, let’s talk about our main character Wander. Wander is a character who strives to do the right thing no matter what the cost. When done well, a personality like that is admirable but can come across as annoying when done wrong. Wander is no exception. On the one hand, I honestly find his determination to do the right thing makes him a good role model for kids. And it’s not like he doesn’t have a reason for why he goes out of his way to help others. He genuinely does the right thing because it actually makes him feel good to help. However, that doesn’t change when Wander’s kind attitude can get a little out of hand. There are moments when he actually puts friends and civilizations in danger to do a good deed. Everything all works out in the end, but that doesn’t change how close things can get. Even worse, Wander rarely changes his approach to doing good deeds because the writers goes out of their way to prove him right. Whenever Wander has his good nature challenged or even taken advantage of, he still does the exact same thing a couple episodes later. Thankfully, he at least has a couple of good characters to bounce off of in his antics.

There are two characters in the show that Wander interacts with the most: Sylvia and Hater. Sylvia is Wander’s best friend and acts as the muscle/voice of reason to his Wanderness. Their overall interactions are either hilarious or downright heartwarming to watch. I especially love how Sylvia goes out of her way to keep Wander safe, as it shows a friendship that goes beyond farther than other best buddies in most shows on this list. In fact, they're more like a family that’s a mix between mother and son/brother and sister dynamic. However, while I love seeing Wander and Sylvia interact, that is nothing compared to seeing Wander and Hater together. These two have a rivalry that seems to be Spongebob and Squidward’s dynamic, treated as Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd's. It is funny to watch these two whenever they share a screen together, and it’s this interaction that brings out the best of Wander. He doesn’t ever want to hurt Hater, but it’s just Hater who mostly hurts himself. Wander also fully understands that Lord Hater is a villain but is driven by the belief that there’s some good inside those bones. But what surprises me is the fact that Lord Hater works well as a character even without Wander.

Wander Over Yonder does something I rarely see in which it has episodes that star both the heroes and the villains. Lord Hater is up there as one of the funniest incompetent villains within animated shows. His attempts to become the greatest in the galaxy never fails to make me laugh, as it pretty much lines up with Wile E Coyote's attempts to get the Road Runner. He will lose, and you know he’s going to no matter what, but it’s still hilarious to watch how. Hater gets even funnier when you compare him to Commander Peepers, who acts as Hater’s second in comand. Peepers is the logic to Hater’s fury and childishness, which presents a dynamic similar yet different to Wander and Sylvia’s. Which is another reason why I like how the show focuses on both the heroes and villains, as it makes the villains seem more like dynamic characters than most foes in other shows.

But none of this praise holds a candle to the show’s animation. Not only is it fluid and expressive, but the show has the underrated rubber hose style of animation that needs more love. Characters can pull random objects out of nowhere, survive the craziest of things, and seem to have their own form of gravity around them. In fact, it is Wander Over Yonder that showed me how rare this type of animation is. Most animated shows in the last decade seem to focus on looking realistic rather than looking like a cartoon. This is weird because one would think that more cartoons would aim to actually be more, well, cartoony. This is why Wander Over Yonder has some of the best animations out of most shows in the last decade, all because of it being unique. Even when the show goes through a noticeable downgrade in its second season, it is nowhere near as bad as Star V.S. the Forces of Evil. It’s still expressive and cartoony, but not just as fluid as it once was in season one.

However, despite all the praise I can give this show, you should remember it still got canceled. Was it because of bad writing? No. Was it because the animation was too expensive? Understandably so if it was, but no. Was it because of bad ratings? Well, it did get bad ratings, but apparently, that wasn’t the reason. Apparently, the reason was that Disney thought that only two seasons were enough. This is a shame because not only did it seem like the show was gaining ground by season two, but season three even promised to reveal some long-awaited backstories for the characters. Regardless, Disney still owns the show, and the decision to bring it back (that is, to say, if they’ll ever bring it back) is entirely up to them. 

Wander Over Yonder is not a perfect show. Compared to everything else in the last decade, I can see how most people won’t be as invested as others. But if you love episodic storytelling, random comedy, great dynamic characters, and some fantastic animation, then trust me when I say that it wouldn’t hurt to help to give this show a chance.

(Also, is it weird to anybody else that this isn’t on Disney+, yet? It’s on Hulu, but not Disney+ for some reason. It’s starting to get to the point where I think Disney’s ashamed of this show, which I don’t understand.)

#top 20 of 2010s #wander over yonder #what i thought about

[lornashore]

Confessions

Summary: This is an Arthur Fleck reader insert. You confess to Arthur the feelings you’ve been keeping to yourself for a long time. 

A/N: This is my first dabbling in fan fiction. It’s just an idea I came up with wondering what it would be like if someone had cared for him and tried to confess. Sorry for any mistakes I missed. I welcome constructive criticism from anyone! 

  High pitched laughter bounced off the walls in the otherwise quiet apartment as Arthur hunched forward. Involuntary exhales caused his torso to rapidly rise and fall, unable to breathe properly. The forgotten cigarette that was held between his joints burned to a tiny stub as the ashes accumulated on the floor. I cringed when he began to choke, desperately trying to cease his outburst as he massaged circles into his throat. His attempts failed as another fit painfully clawed through his fragile body. My fingertips drew small patterns on his curved back in hopes to soothe his agony, feeling his spine under his sweat dampened skin. The fresh tears that rolled down his hollow cheeks were indication enough of the pain he was currently enduring. My heart ached at the sight, wishing I knew some way to help ease his discomfort.

  Finally, after what seemed like a long and dreadful hour, his piercing cackles tapered off into low chuckles. He let his body fall back onto the lumpy cushions behind him, the rapid spasms of his bare rib cage slowly returned back to a somewhat normal pace. His head slowly turned towards me, bloodshot eyes taking in my form from the spot beside him on his old worn couch.

  “I just...I can’t believe I only imagined her.” He whispered despite the exhaustion evident in the rasp in his voice. I remained silent to let him work through his thoughts, not wanting to overwhelm him with my own. After a moment he noticed the stub in his digits that no longer burnt off that putrid nicotine smell. He leaned his lanky figure forward, twisting the butt into the ashtray before he opened a new pack to light up another. 

  “Everything was so clear, so detailed. How could something like that have possibly been fake?” He mumbled to himself, voice cracking with emotion. The odor from his cigarette wafted over to me as he took a long drag from it, exhaling a large white puff from his lungs. 

  “I feel like I’ll never truly find love. What have I done to deserve this?” He murmured, turning his head slightly to look at me with his large crystal eyes. A shadow of sorrow and self revulsion clouded his usually bright irises I always looked forward to seeing. With a sigh I scooted closer to him on the tattered cushions as he leaned into my side, resting his head on my shoulder. I ran my fingers through his tangled cocoa curls, the strands tickled the soft skin between my them. 

  “You’ve done nothing wrong Arthur. You deserve any desire you’ve ever had.” He sighed at this, his warm breath formed goosebumps on the sensitive skin of my neck.

  “Clearly fate has a different plan for me. Look at what’s happened. I lost my job, my mother is dead, I’m being evicted from this apartment because I can’t pay the rent, and now the woman I thought loved me doesn’t even recognize me.” The self loathing he held in his tone broke my heart. I placed my palm on his left arm and rubbed up and down, hoping to comfort him before he returned back to that downward spiral.

  “That doesn’t mean you deserve anything less than your desires. We just happen to live in a cruel world.” Stillness fell between us, the only sound being from the analogue clock that was mounted on the wall. 

  “I really loved her.” He conveyed, burying his face into the crook of my neck as he did. 

  “Well, maybe it’s better this way. There could be someone else out there that cares about you.” My cheeks flushed, biting my tongue from spilling my entire heart to him right then. He pulled away at my words and I immediately missed the warmth from his body. I kept my sight on the wall ahead of me as he lowered his cigarette leaving a trail of smoke as he snickered at my words. 

  “Like anyone would actually love me. Clearly I’m incapable of having a relationship that isn’t thought up in my head.” He said in a bitter, sarcastic tone, shooting the idea down immediately. My heart hammered in my rib cage, realizing that I could no longer keep things to myself. 

  “There is someone who cares for you Arthur. And they happen to be right here.” I mumbled the last part, nerves getting the better of me. He whipped his head in my direction, brunette curls bouncing from the sudden movement. He studied me as an unamused grin spread across his face as if waiting for the punchline to a hilarious joke.

  “Did you just say that you care for me?” He confirmed pointing to himself. The disbelief showed clear on his features, his mouth held slightly open as he emitted another snicker. I nodded sheepishly, not finding the courage to look at him directly. 

  “What is this to you, some kind of a comedy?” He sneered, shaking his head. I wrinkled my eyebrows, surprised by his harsh tone. 

  “This isn’t a joke. I’m being serious right now.” A puff of smoke left his mouth, the white cloud being directed at me as he stood. I coughed lightly, the fumes irritating my throat and sinuses. His bare feet padded across the floor as he began pacing back and forth. 

  “This is awfully strange timing, wouldn’t you think? If this is true, why would you wait until now to tell me? Or maybe you just wanted to add humor to my already fucked up life.” He was raising his voice now, arms flailing beside him as he continued in his march in the living space.

  “Please, just calm down and talk to me. I’m telling you the truth I mean it!” My gaze followed his thin frame, hoping that he’d see the desperation in them, and the longing they held just for him.

  “You think I believe that? You’re just trying to mock me. Make some kind of fool out of me and my situation. This isn’t funny.” I flinched at the sharp edge in his voice restraining myself from speaking too soon. He brushed his slender fingers through his messy locks, as he released a long sigh. But the pain he felt showed in his eyes as clear as day. It hurt my very core knowing he thought I was telling him a lie, or to poke fun of him in any way. 

  A lump formed in my throat as tears threatened to pour, my chin trembled almost noticeably before I swallowed hard, pushing the sensation aside. I stood from the old couch and stomped over to him and constrained his skinny wrists, halting his pacing immediately. He searched my face for any sign of betrayal, his thick eyebrows furrowed together in frustration.

  “Arthur, I’ve loved you for months now. I was going to tell you sooner but then you told me about Sophie, so I held back because I wanted you to be happy. How do you think I felt when you told me about her? That the man I fell so hard preferred someone else? It shattered my heart into a thousand pieces. But I buried that hurt deep inside because I respected you and wanted you to find happiness with her. I’ve wanted to tell you many times while you were with her, just so you’d know. But when you’d tell me all the stories of you and her, and the fact that you genuinely smiled, I refused to. I couldn’t ruin that for you. But now I have the strength to let you know this and I need you to trust me. I would never lie to you about something as serious as this.” My pulse raced, exhaustion settling in from having my innermost feelings pour out of my mouth in such a way. Yet a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders as I stared into those vast oceans of his, the anger within them from before transformed into something else. 

  “I know I can’t make you return my feelings, It’s just important to me that I tell you. So there it is. That’s all. I understand if you want me to leave.” I lowered my head, fearing that rejection would come next.

  A moment of silence passed between the two of us, neither of us knowing what to do or say next. Feeling a bit uncomfortable with his lack of response, I moved around him, as tears began to brim my eyes. Before I could make it to the door, slender fingers wrapped around my wrist, halting me in my stride. I turned my head to look over my shoulder at him, refusing to meet his gaze. 

  “Don’t go, not yet.” He pleaded in a whisper. That was all it took for me to remain. He pulled me towards him, eyes finally meeting as I stood before him. Our bodies close enough that our chests almost touched, neither of us making any moves to put some distance between.    

  My skin tingled as his calloused knuckles caressed my cheek. I leaned into his touch instinctively  while his free one held tightly onto my wrist. All signs of anger were gone now, his eyes shining clear and bright. His mouth turned upwards as he shook his head slightly, apprehension still reflecting on his wrinkled features. My face glowed pink at our close proximity, the odor of musky tobacco that lingered on him was oddly pleasing. I blushed deeper when his cobalt orbs studied my face.

  Being unable to control myself any longer, I wrapped my fingers around the back of his neck and pulled him towards me. Our lips connected much rougher than intended, a moan escaped his throat at the impact. His muscles tensed up immediately, uncertain of how to respond. I watched him for a moment with half lidded eyes, ever so curious what was going through her mind at this very moment. His face heated up like a ripe tomato in the most adorable way possible. I smiled when I felt his trembling hands on my waist, the warmth they offered caused butterflies to flutter in my stomach.

  “You’re so cute.” I giggled, pressing my forehead to his as I greedily sucked in some air. The corners of his mouth twitched up into a wide smile, face turning an impossible shade darker in response to my words. His eyelids remained closed as his chest expanded and retracted with much needed oxygen. Then, to my delighted surprise, he leaned in for more.

  My heart fluttered with excitement as I pressed myself against his rigid, boney torso, longing to feel closer to him. With a sigh, I relaxed my muscles as I curled my fist in his tangled locks while the other trailed down his breast and up to his neck. His warm skin beneath my fingertips tingled with electricity as raw emotions of desire and longing flickered to life. Excitement coiled in my stomach as our lips danced in rhythm together, savoring the oddly delicious taste of stale nicotine. 

  The passion and need he held felt as if we had deprived ourselves of this moment for much too long. The realization of how much he truly needed, wanted me now showed as he wrapped his arms tightly around my waist. Pools of twinkling waves gazed deeply into my own, the once restricted affection now poured freely out of his very being. I draped my arms around his neck, leaning my weight onto him, not trusting my weakened knees. 

  “Is this actually real?” He asked with a wide grin. My shoulders slumped, head rolling back at his disbelief, finding it rather irritating in this moment. 

  “Art, what do you want me to do? How can I prove to you that this is real? That I'm real?” I took a few steps back from him, finding myself at a loss for what to say. He held one of his hands out, reaching towards me but quickly lowering it to his side. His black eyebrows pinched together in what seemed like pain, as if he were fighting with his own mind. A long sigh left my lungs as I squeezed the bridge of my nose. I loved the man so deeply, yet hated the way he thought of himself, and how it was so unbelievable to him that someone could actually want to show him love and affection. My patience wore thin the longer he stood there, head turned down towards the carpet below his bare feet. 

  “Say something Arthur. Tell me what you want me to do.” I whispered, desperate for him to see, to truly know the depths of how I felt for him. I slowly approached him, halting inches in front of him. With a gentle nudge of my thumb, I guided his face back to mine. He lifted his arms slowly, carefully, as if he feared I would retreat from him. Tentatively, he enveloped my waist, drawing me nearer to him. I searched deep into his soul for any sign of something other than the ruthless opinions his mind conjured up about himself. He finally broke the silence after some time passed with a simple request, one that I would never have realized the weight they held in his mind and soul. 

  “Just...stay with me. Don’t leave me alone...please.” His gravelly voice faded to a shy whisper, pupils moving between me and whatever far off place they seemed to focus on. I tilted my head and gently scratched his scalp, the action easing his tense muscles. I hesitated, considering my words, hoping that they would be enough, yet somehow knowing otherwise. After consideration of my next words, I finally replied in the most convincing and loving voice I could muster: 

  “I could never leave....won't leave you. Not anymore. You have my word.”

#arthur #fleck #arthurfleck #joker #joker x reader #arthur fleck imagine #feelings #confession #frustrated arthur #2019 movie #joker 2019 #fan fic #joker imagine #joker reader insert #2019

[sieben9]

“her handsome hero” impressions

{Quick request to anyone reading: I’m watching OUaT for the first time, and I want to avoid spoilers. So, if you want to discuss something spoilery, I’d be grateful if you could start a new post for that. Thank you!}

We got another fun one! ::does a happy little fannish dance::

well, for a given amount of “fun”, anyway. my OTP are on speaking terms again, so that qualifies.

Which might come as a surprise, seeing how two characters I care about a great deal spent something like 40% of the episode sniping at each other, but more on that later. Really, this episode just had all the good things. Solid flashback parallel, a good amount of main story advancement in the B plot, and of course a

… OK, and it was Rumbelle centric. I will admit that I’m not entirely objective on those. I still liked it! More on that under the cut.

Just as a little warmup, I present to you the most bold-faced, shameless lie I have ever heard on this show.

“I don’t have issues”

I can’t even get sarcastic over this. I just start giggling helplessly. Emma, your issues have issues.

The side plot, as mentioned, was pretty decent. Didn’t drag unnecessarily, kept the tension high, and y’know. Ruby.

Always a good thing. ::cuddles the wolf girl:: And I will admit, I’m always a sucker for Swan Queen doing magic together. It’s just one of those things that never fail to make me smile.

have a picture.

The only annoying thing was that Emma was just about to talk about her fears of letting people go, and being abandoned and that maybe, just maybe, taking her entire family to hell with her wasn’t the best idea she ever had… and it just got handwaved with “no, we chose this, shut up”. I mean, yay for Snow supporting her daughter, good for her, but at the same time… These are serious issues. That Emma clearly has. Maybe let her work through them, and support her by listening? Just a thought.

Other stuff I liked: the flashback.

they switched gastons in the previouslies. they thought we wouldn’t notice, but we did!

Like I mentioned, good setup and parallel to the present-day plot. A good reminder that Belle was always one to see people (and ogres; still not sure where they fall on the sapience scale) for what they really are rather than what the world thinks of them.

Right, Gaston?

Knowing that this happened also has interesting consequences for the present-day plot. She knows that Gaston is like this. She has seen that he really is a “monster”, and she was still willing to help him move on. That’s… I mean, wow. Better person than me, is what I’ll say.

It’s also interesting that Belle was only willing to marry Gaston to save her people. So, literally the reason she went with Rumple later on. Poor girl probably thought she was in a frying-pan-to-fire situation. Good thing that turned out better for her.

slightly off-topic, but DAMN that was a kiss…

Yes, despite everything. Turbulent as this relationship has been, this episode was practically a 40-minute study in how Gaston would have been so much worse. At least Rumple and Belle actually love each other and want to be together because they… well, want to be together. I would not trust Gaston as far as Belle can throw him.

Oh, and before someone mentions it: yes, Belle was very clearly pregnant, but it’s not like they could do something about that and they made a token effort to hide it, so I’m willing to honour the fiction there. It’s still hilarious in context of how desperate Maurice seemed to marry her off, but never mind all that *g*

Back in the present day…

Bickering!

So much bickering.

An almost unreasonable amount of bickering, really.

But here’s the thing about that: after all the heart-rending, world-ending, life-shattering drama these two went through it just felt so amazingly normal.

Because this happens sometimes, doesn’t it? You fight with a person you love, and you’re still angry, but you also still love them, and maybe you can’t avoid each other until you’ve calmed down, so you have to vent that anger somehow. That’s what this feels like: blowing off steam. But the bickering is still based on a very close relationship, which is why it didn’t feel nasty or vicious to me. Just… y’know. Annoyed and vaguely pissed off. Which is fair, really. These two have a lot to talk about and not that much time to do it.

mainly because people keep INTERRUPTING them whenever they start having a reasonable conversation!

The whole plot with Gaston in the Underworld was… yeah. Some people learn while they’re in the Underworld and grow into better versions of themselves, and some people are just committed to staying the asshat they were in life, I guess.

I did a giggle out of Belle’s first conversation with Hades, though. When he offers the deal and she basically goes “what do you think I am—an amateur?”, my heart grew three sizes. (I also got an unreasonable amount of joy out of Belle calling Rumple “my husband”, but that’s a whole other thing)

And Belle is just… so done, guys. She didn’t sign up for this Underworld nonsense. She just wanted to feed some babies and suddenly she’s having a baby, only not, because her husband technically signed it away before they’d ever met, and now people are shooting at her and this absolute creep is trying to tempt her to the Dark Side or some nonsense, and there’s Gaston, which is just never a good thing and… yeah. Belle is having just The Worst day and she’s this close to tearing someone’s face off if it means getting 1) her baby back and 2) some goddamn rest. Preferably, but not necessarily in that order. Someone fetch this woman a hot chocolate and a soft pillow before anybody dies.

Anybody else, I mean.

Yeah, that was rough. I won’t go deeply into the whole deal with That Damn Dagger™, because I don’t actively enjoy sounding like a broken record. One sentence version: The way the show treats that thing as a narrative shortcut without acknowledging the violation of autonomy that happens every time is annoying and frankly disturbing, but I think I’ve grown numb to it over time.

That said, I think Belle was sincere when she said “I always knew who you were” (see flashback) and also when she said “I love you”. I’m even pretty sure the kiss was genuine, if maybe a tad premature. It was just… a multi-purpose kiss.

Mainly though, this scene was heartbreaking for the simple reason that you could see a bit of Belle’s innocence dying. Some odd writing choices aside, she’s always been a very kind and optimistic person. Somebody who truly believed that it was wrong to hurt others, even if they’d proven themselves to be dangerous. She never meant to hurt Gaston, she only meant to protect Rumple. (And what a nice little parallel we had there, with Belle throwing herself in front of Gaston’s arrow to shield a “monster” from his attack both in the flashback and in the present.) But her actions still resulted in his second death, and that killed a bit of her, too, that she’s not going to get back.

yes, hello, show, please stop hurting these poor people. any time now would be good.

And please look at Rumple’s face here. He’s almost as heartbroken as she is. He never wanted that for her. He never wanted her to be in a position where she’d have to do something like this. It’s probably a vain hope, but I desperately want to have a scene where they talk this out. It doesn’t have to be the only thing going on—they can be running from some hell-hound or another, if that’s what it takes. Just please, let them have this…

By the way, Hades in this scene? Still not menacing, I’m afraid. The weird line delivery is really starting to impact the character by now. I did, however, feel a strong urge to tear off his head and fill it with snakes, so good work on that, I guess.

To close this out, please take this moment with me to appreciate Belle’s face when Hades starts talking about the smell of dead hope on that poor flower.

this is what they put in the dictionary next to “the fuck is wrong with you, mate?”

Interesting to note that the reason “nothing grows in the Underworld” is very clearly because Hades won’t let it. I don’t know how to put this, but have you considered that some of your problems may be your own fault?

Alright. To summarise: the Rumbambino (with thanks to @violetfaust) crisis is still not solved, and my spider sense is telling me that Ruby has a role in the next episode. Dunno why. Just a thought. Something to look forward to, at least. (::fingers crossed for more Mulan::)

#ouat #once upon a time #her handsome hero #sieben watches ouat #sieben talks #this is so long again #i don't know what's going on sometimes #the ellipses are out of control in this one #i apologise #but i didn't know how to get rid of them

[sinceileftyoublog]

Split Single Interview: The Grift Is On

Photo by Nathan Keay

BY JORDAN MAINZER

After five years, Jason Narducy’s got a lot to say. Amplificado (Inside Outside Records), the new third album from Split Single, his solo project with a rotating cast of musicians, was mostly written and recorded by June of 2019. Its themes of Trump-era urgent anger were only heightened by a global pandemic that exacerbated many of the issues that rose to the surface in an era of political turmoil. 

Since his second Split Single album, Metal Frames, came out, Narducy’s been nonstop touring and recording with Superchunk and Bob Mould, not to mention writing a musical, Verböten, named after and about his childhood punk rock band. Any free time’s been spent on canvassing for Democratic state legislature candidates, Narducy feeling like he needed to stay politically involved and motivated. There’s no more perfect soundtrack to his exhausted mind than Amplificado’s opener, titled and stylized “caPtAIN calamity’S crUde pRoCessiON”. The off-kilter, minute-long instrumental is less purposeful avant-garde experimentalism than 6th grade marching band practice with weird ringtones going off, as percussionist Dan Leu’s tempos change nonsensically and Narducy introduces tack piano and sound effects of cash registers. The song’s got a lot of hidden meaning, as Narducy would explain to me in a phone interview in early May, but from the surface, it’s most significant as a way to let the listener know that the rest of the record--for the most part quintessential Split Single power rock--was born from this place of confused chaos. 

Indeed, besides the opener and the honest, stark “Adrift”, Amplificado is big and burning. “Blood Break Ground” is a song about breaking out from oppression. “Condescension comes with a price / Tear away all lingering ties,” Narducy belts, with drummer Jon Wurster providing propulsive blasts and the other main bandmate here, none other than R.E.M.’s Mike Mills, on bass and backing vocals. “Stone Heart World” calls out GOP hypocrisy, self-described “pro-life” politicians who speak about “barefoot children holding on to desperate mothers” as “others” and “animals.” Lead single “(Nothing You Can Do) To End This Love” is just as pressing, but positive, a message of support for the LGBTQ+ community.

As much as Amplificado deals with serious issues, from the pandemic-addled depression and isolation-themed “Worry” to songs like “Blood Break Ground”--the guy behind “The Sexiest Elbows in Rock Music” hasn’t lost his sense of humor or storytelling. Narducy writes about a formative childhood experience with a music teacher on “Bitten by the Sound”, a character in dire straits on “Belly of Lead”, and a ditty about aging inspired by being yelled at by his dentist on “Mangled Tusk”. And maybe the funniest thing about the album is its bio, written by comedian Jon Glaser. (“It has always been a dream of mine to write a bio for the third album of a somewhat known indie band,” Glaser writes, as he then goes on to describe his lunch, nightmares, and video game playing that preceded him writing the actual few-sentence bio for the record.) If you’ve ever seen Narducy play, whether on one of his many lawn shows he did last summer through SPACE in Evanston or opening for Guided By Voices, you know he, too, is both earnest and genuinely hilarious.

Read my interview with Narducy about Amplificado below, edited for length and clarity. He’s got a sold out record release show tomorrow night at 7 PM at Sketchbook Brewing Co. in Skokie!

Since I Left You: When you were writing the lyrics to these songs, did they come instantly or were they workshopped? They feel very emotional and direct.

Jason Narducy: Sometimes they took a while. The song “Mangled Tusk”, the demo was called “Jangle Tusk” because the guitar part felt like jangle pop to me. It was just a working title. The drum beat on the demo, which we didn’t end up using on the record, was kind of like Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk. It reminded me what song it was, instead of calling it “Song Number 32″ or whatever. I was recording vocals, and “Jangle Tusk” was last, and the recording engineer at Electrical Audio, Taylor Hales, asked, “When do we get to work on ‘Jangle Tusk’?” And I responded, “I don’t know, I’m still working on lyrics on that one...you’ve never even heard it, why are you so excited to work on that one?” He said, “I love the title!” And I thought, “I’ll put some thought into that, but those two words aren’t conjuring that much imagery for me.” I really like the word “mangled,” and I had just gone through this ordeal with my teeth and having to wear a nightguard. [laughs] So I started writing lyrics about gnawing and the enamel chipping away. It’s a song about aging, in a way, but I got that stern talking-to from my dentist: “We made you a nightguard years ago and you didn’t wear it, we made you one four years ago and you didn’t wear it, we’ll make you another one and you have to wear this.” I said, “That’s all I have to hear! I’ll wear it every night.” Those lyrics just came based on an odd encouragement from the engineer that liked one other word. 

The process of writing is so strange. With “(Nothing You Can Do) To End This Love”, the lyrics came so fast, and I was just done. I might have written the bridge this year, but the verses and choruses are the heart of the song. There’s a song we recorded called “3/4″--again, a working title based on the time signature--but we couldn’t get lyrics to it, so it’s sitting on the curb, lonely, without words attached to it. Lyrics are last for me every time. “Belly of Lead”, I was recording the demo in my friend Grant [Sutton]’s house, Clampdown Studio. I didn’t have lyrics to the song, so I picked up a lyric book of Lead Belly’s songs, and I was reading random words off every page so I’d have something documented on the demo. From that, I came up with the word “Belly of Lead” and wrote a story based on someone who made poor decisions in their life, coming to the end, trying to write a letter to his son and others, saying goodbye.

SILY: Was this your first time working with Mike Mills?

JN: I had opened up a show for his group The Baseball Project. I met him a number of times, the first time at the 40 Watt Club in Athens in 2006, when Jon and I were playing with Robert Pollard from Guided By Voices. Mike Mills was at that show, and Jon knew him--Jon actually recorded with R.E.M. on one of their Christmas singles. But he introduced me back in ‘06, and throughout the years, we’d run into each other at shows, or Scott McCaughey would be coming through. Just a lot of mutual friends. We always got along great. I didn’t expect him to say yes when I asked him to record. I felt like it was a longshot. I’m really grateful. I like him as a person and am a huge fan of his work with R.E.M.

SILY: What are some of the Easter eggs in the opening track’s title and aesthetic?

JN: There are a lot of layers, for it being a 1-minute instrumental. This [album] is my re-entry into doing Split Single work, since the last one came out in 2016. I write pretty consistently, so there were some songs I had the ideas down for already. But because I was so frustrated with the direction our country was going in, I kept putting down the guitar and thinking, “I can’t do this right now, I need to get out and do something.” I became very involved in this group called Sister District [Project], and I was doing postcard parties where I’d gather friends and others from the community and started working on state senate races across the country. It was very rewarding work. It provided some camaraderie with others who were wondering what the hell we could do. It also had an impact. I canvassed with a state senate candidate in Michigan, I wrote postcards for state senate races all across the country. Thankfully--and I think this has to do with the technological vetting Sister District does--all the candidates we worked for won. That was rewarding. It felt like I had an impact. I was also working on a musical about my very first band Verböten, and that took up a lot of time. Between Verböten and activism, my focus wasn’t on making another Split Single record. Plus Superchunk and Bob Mould were very busy making and touring records.

Back to the song: I wondered if there was a short audible message that I could make that was a little bit of a set up song. “Blood Break Ground” is such a gut punch, so how could I set this up after four and a half years? The sound of that marching band is sort of what I was feeling and hearing during those years. “That’s not supposed to be there: Why is there a tack piano in the marching band? This tempo isn’t right. Why is it slowing down now?” I put in an old cash register sound, so [it’s like] the grift is on. This is all about making money. If you look at the title, if you look at the letters in the title that are capitalized, it spells “PAIN IS UR CON”.

SILY: Sequencing-wise, you have “Adrift” as the emotional and personal centerpiece. It’s not outwardly political like the other songs. It’s also very downtempo. Did you consciously try to mix the album up in terms of tempo, aesthetic, and subject matter?

JN: There’s a defiance in the first three songs [after the opener]. I thought “Adrift” was a really strong song that kind of sounds like an album closer, but I didn’t want to put it last because I felt like it was too important. It was very difficult to figure out what would come after it, since it was so different. “Bitten by the Sound” has that long intro that builds up, so I thought it was a good transition. You can hear thematically how “Belly of Lead” is a completely different, not personal story, and [the album] closes with “Worry” and “Satellite”, which are very personal. Overall, the up-tempo songs are the ones I’m excited to play live. Besides “Adrift”, you could play all of them that way.

SILY: On “Belly of Lead”, you sing, “My word will make no difference.” Your experience with Sister District Project was the antithesis of that sentiment, but was that line in any way referential to anxiety you had about speaking out?

JN: No, that was just the character [in the song]…in “95 Percent”, though, I addressed something I felt and that a lot of liberal-minded Americans feel, which is we’re very clear that we’re not 100% behind the ones we support. There are things I disagree with Barack Obama about. We’re not a part of a cult. I support equality and equity and true justice, not law and order justice, as the other side claims.

SILY: On “Bitten by the Sound”, you sing, “Sat in a classroom led by an old nun / Sister thought she knew all about rock n roll / But instant karma got the best of her / When she lied about holding Lennon’s hands in her own.” What’s the story behind that line?

JN: I had a music teacher that was a nun in 6th grade. She had a story about meeting John Lennon and holding his hands in hers and giving him advice. Even [as a] 6th grader, [I] looked around and thought, “She’s full of shit.” Now that I’m older, I think if you’re gonna want to impress people and make up some bullshit, why pick a famous person who just died who can’t back up the story? It was part of my childhood that affected my relationship with authority and trusting adults. Music was everything to me, so don’t fuck with that! Don’t make up a John Lennon story. In the song, I talk about that. I was 9 or 10 years old, and my mom lived on the South Side of Chicago, 53rd and Woodlawn, and we woke up one morning and looked out the window, and her car was sitting on brick. All 4 tires were stolen. I just didn’t even know that was a thing. Those are formidable years. You discover music and find solace and peace. Everything feels good with music when everything around you is shaken and uncertain.

SILY: I don’t know whether it’s the mixture of the Christianity and the rock history references, but I heard the line and could hear Craig Finn singing it.

JN: That’s funny. I should mention that I was not at a Catholic school, which is why it’s weird a nun was teaching a music class. That song not so much [musically]. I think the song “95 Percent” definitely has some Hold Steady in it. There’s something about The Hold Steady that’s unabashed, “We’re gonna play rock and roll.” It’s a cool thing. “Yeah, I’m gonna take a guitar solo here.” It’s not too-cool-for-school indie rock. “95 Percent” was influenced by Mac [McCaughan] from Superchunk, a little bit of Springsteen, a little Hold Steady. Just need to add a girl’s name, and it would be very Hold Steady.

SILY: Were there any other prominent or newfound influences on this record?

JN: “Adrift” is so different for me. I learned this from Bob Mould: He writes way more songs than the record needs. You never know. A number of times, he’ll have a song that he thinks should be a B-side, and I’ll raise my hand and say, “I think that should be on the record.” “Fire in the City” is an example of that. I was like, “This song is too good.” It ended up on Beauty & Ruin. We don’t always end up using it, but it’s a good influence. I went into this record and thought, “I have extra time--it can’t hurt to keep going.” I ended up going back to a power pop song that I don’t even know had a title. There was one part of it I really liked. I picked up an acoustic guitar and didn’t even have a pick near me. I strummed the chords with my thumb very quietly and slowly and “Adrift” just fell out. Words and everything, just super fast. I had never recorded a song that vulnerable, that personal, that dark. I don’t think I’ve recorded a song without a guitar pick either. You can hear my stomach growl at some point. 

It just so happened I got a text from Alison Chesley who was in Verbow with me, and I asked, “Can I send you a song? Can you put some cellos on here?” She came back with this beautiful arrangement and even a piano part. I think it really elevated it and made it a much more engaging song. That’s the first time Alison and I had recorded in 22 years.

SILY: I thought maybe the experience of looking back with Verböten inspired you to reach out to her. It’s funny that it was just a random text from her that started it.

JN: I think the musical influenced this record in two ways. Not that one. I wrote so many punk rock songs for Verböten, that it reminded me that I like it when I write up-tempo songs. I definitely pushed more high energy songs for the record. [And the other is] “Blood Break Ground” happened because I had to do so much revisiting of emotions from my childhood [for Verböten] that there were other parts of my childhood that I hadn’t addressed yet.

SILY: How did the album’s bio come about? Did you want Jon Glaser to write a legitimate bio, and he came back with something absurd instead?

JN: I mean, he’s a comedian. I know it’s the job of the publicist and the journalist to have as much information presented as possible, but I also think there’s value in not taking it too seriously.

SILY: What’s the inspiration behind the record title?

JN: The trauma of the Trump years combined with the incredible trauma of the pandemic, which will take a very long time for many of us to recover from. I feel like everything’s amplified. I thought about calling the record Amplified but found that there were a lot of other albums called that, and it was also a pretty basic word. So I thought, “What’s a little twist we can put on that?” A friend of mine, Alberto, is fluent in Spanish, so I asked him for the proper version of that word for this situation.

SILY: What about the cover art?

JN: That’s a Chicago artist named Yvonne Doll. I follow her on Instagram and have been friends with her for years. She’s a musician and a painter. That particular piece came up, and I couldn’t stop looking at it, so I asked whether we could use it for the artwork. Thankfully, she was cool with that. When I presented that and some other photos, the designer, [Chris Tillman], ran with that red theme.

SILY: How was the experience of playing lawn shows during the pandemic?

JN: It was incredible. I was so thankful to Jake [Samuels, Managing Partner and Talent Buyer] and SPACE for coming up with the concept and thankful that people were enthusiastic about doing them. I did about 53 of them last year. It sort of emotionally and financially saved me. I loved how creative it was. I could tell you so many crazy stories about different situations like planning for a rainstorm to come, a small crowd, a huge crowd where the cops showed up. It was great. I’m excited to do more of those. 

On Saturday, I played at Thalia Hall to a private show of 20 people. It was honestly euphoric. It was the first rock club show I had done since January 3, 2020 with Superchunk at the Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro. So many things that I hadn’t thought about, like setting up on a stage and the camaraderie with the crew and talking about different lighting setups and sound options, walking to the dressing room. It was incredible. It felt so good. Even for 20 people. And they were there to party. They weren’t just sitting down drinking wine. They were standing up, dancing, leaning up on the stage and screaming. It’s gonna take time, and it needs to be safe, but certainly with the outdoor shows, there are a lot of options being explored, and hopefully by the fall, there will be many more people vaccinated.

SILY: The album’s really up-tempo, as you’ve said. Have you thought about adapting these songs to a solo style of play?

JN: I think any of the songs besides the marching band one I could do live.

SILY: Anything you’ve been listening to, watching, or reading that’s caught your attention?

JN: Oh my god, there are so many new bands I’ve been listening to. New Pagans. There’s this band called Kestrels. It’s very 90′s, like if Built to Spill or Dinosaur Jr. had a baby. CONTROL TOP. I like the new Real Estate record. Sinai Vessel. I love that English band Shame. I think their new record’s really cool. Miss Grit. I get really inspired by newer artists. It’s something I spend a lot of time with.

#interviews #split single #nathan keay #jon wurster #jon glaser #space #electrical audio #taylor hales #grant sutton #sister district project #sketchbook brewing co. #bob mould #yvonne doll #jake samuels #amplificado #jason narducy #inside outside records #metal frames #superchunk #verböten #dan leu #r.e.m. #mike mills #guided by voices #fleetwood mac #tusk #clampdown studio #lead belly #the baseball project #40 watt club

[jolteonjordansh]

Thoughts on Digimon Adventure tri.: “Our Future”

So… I really needed some time to ready myself for writing this last post. This is going to be a tough one, folks. Probably one of the tougher “Final Thoughts” posts that I’ll be writing. But I wrote one for the last five movies. It’d be a crime for me to skip out on the finale just because there’s a lot of tough things to deal with here. This is all my opinion, as all of my final thoughts posts are. So take it as that and nothing more.

I’ll also be more or less putting together my overall thoughts on Digimon Adventure tri in this post too, as well as its potential future. But that’ll be towards the end. For now, let’s get to talking about the last of the Digimon Adventure tri movies, from the beginning…

So if you’ve been around me long enough since I’ve started re-watching Digimon as a whole (and really getting a better introduction to it than I ever did in the past), you probably have a vague idea of the things I do and don’t like. One of these things I have not liked has been Kari Kamiya, the 8th DigiDestined in Digimon Adventure and also in Digimon Adventure 02. Her character always felt extremely artificial and barebones to me. She often was merely used as a plot device in the series and a Purity Sue. And somehow, she was even worse in Adventure 02. Despite having a whole series, she pretty much has no actual development as a character to me, and don’t even get me started on the Dagomon episode that decided to introduce that wretched Dark Ocean nonsense that never seems to die.

But if there was anything I felt Digimon Adventure tri did generally right, they actually made Kari a genuine character. An actual believable character with actual personality. Sure, she remained soft-spoken at times, but she had actually started to become more social and talk to her friends and keep legitimate conversation with them, she often set them straight many times throughout the series, such as with Tai and especially Joe, and she stood up to fucking Homeostasis. Yeah, that Digital World god-like entity that has possessed her several times now? She finally had something to say in protest. If that’s not one of the greatest moments we’ve had from her ever, I don’t know what is. And by the end of “Coexistence”, we got to see her crack. She was silent, but traumatized and filled with despair. Basically, she got to express actual human emotions besides her usual generic nonsense. I addressed all of this in my final thoughts on “Coexistence” (which I’m just putting down here for the sake of review), and I’m still bitter that said movie really didn’t give her an actual focus and it all turned into the Meiko show again, but I’ll get to some of that later.

We do get some make-up for that. While it’s still not as much as I wanted, Kari deals with a lot of despair throughout this movie with Tai’s “death” and feeling at fault for it. And Dark Gennai rubs it in her face later on, really hammering it in for her. To see this character I just could not care for actually be given a human personality was just incredibly rewarding to me. I know some people have complained that a lot of it is just her going “Oni-chaaaaaaan~!”, but you have to keep in mind that her brother is basically her world. We’ve seen very little of her social life (the only things I can recall are the birthday party in Our War Game and some moments in Adventure 02), but it’s always been clear that Tai has been a very important part of her life. It’s not even just the fact that she potentially lost her brother that’s upsetting her either. It’s the fact that she truly believes that it’s her fault. And that’s probably the hardest part about it to her, as Dark Gennai rubs in. So even if Kari didn’t really get as much as I wanted, she got enough of that development for it to be satisfying. And I really began to feel that her relationship with Gatomon was more than just the whole destiny schmuck they forced down our throats in the Myotismon arc of Digimon Adventure.

After Kari breaking from the start though, it almost feels like there’s some serious nonsense filler throughout the movie despite that a lot needs to be addressed in this final movie. Ordinemon is shown to be stupidly OP by taking out six Mega level Digimon in one hit and reduce them back to In-Training forms, there’s more Meiko crying, a lot of exchanges of “We should do something!” and “Should we do something?” and the military trying to fight Ordinemon. Because, you know, it’s worked so well in every other past Digimon series. It’s a shame the Adventure universe doesn’t have their own Hypnos to even stand a chance.

There is, however, a really good scene with Matt and Gabumon. Matt is clearly dealing with the loss of his boyfriend best friend Tai and how to be a leader for the rest of the DigiDestined, and Gabumon comes in to give an extremely supportive talk with him, as well as a wonderful bond moment with him. This kind of harkens back to Matt’s darker moments towards the end of the Dark Masters arc and even sort of rhymes with the scene of Patamon and T.K. in “Confession”. I found it extremely effective and honestly a necessary moment for Matt. I feel like if there had been more moments like this, T.K. and Patamon’s coping scene, Joe and Gomamon’s argument, and Tai and Agumon’s own coping scene for all of the DigiDestined throughout these movies, there would have been a stronger impact from them overall. But I guess they all can’t be as strong as one another.

Now, I’ve said both Matt and Kari are both dealing with the loss of Tai in this movie, as well as a bunch of the other DigiDestined (Sora has a moment, and it leads to a hilarious scene of Piyomon thinking Matt made her cry and basically I just love protective Piyomon in general what a good birb), but… You all know it. I know it. Everyone knows it. And we all knew it before this movie was even announced and the moment Tai “died”. Tai never died, and he was never going to die. One of the biggest problems was how much they played up Tai’s death (or return if you’re Agumon), when you know damn well he’s fine between things like trailers and even elements as simple as the movie poster. This wouldn’t be as much of a problem if this whole thing didn’t last for nearly the entire movie. It takes well over 30+ minutes for us to see that Tai is alive and well, and the Adventure crew doesn’t even see that Tai is, in fact, alive until the last 20 or so minutes of the movie. It makes the whole thing so dragged out and forcing unnecessary tension. It’s wasting time because we already know what the outcome is going to be like, and all of that wasted time could be used for making tri a better story, which spoiler alert: it isn’t.

When we do get finally see Tai though, we get two things: 1. Nishijima’s inevitable death, because he was one of the good characters in tri imo and of course they have to kill him off to explain why he wasn’t in the Adventure 02 epilogue (for some reason I guess), and speaking of Adventure 02… 2. The fate of the 02 kids. Even to people who hated Digimon Adventure 02, almost completely ignoring their existence throughout the series was absolutely maddening for just about everyone watching this series. And what’s their excuse for their absence? It’s about as disappointing as you would expect. The scene from the beginning of tri where it looks like they’re being killed? That was Alphamon defeating them as the 02 kids apparently found out what Yggdrasil was up to, so they were “silenced” and then put into some pods in a sort of cryogenic sleep to keep them from getting in the way.

The whole execution of this is just… so lazy, put-together and insulting on so many levels. Even when we find these damn kids, we don’t get to see them do anything, let alone actually get to see them! They’re silhouetted still for whatever reason, are sent to the hospital immediately after being brought back to the real world, and for some reason aren’t even around in the flash-forward towards the end of the movie with the rest of the DigiDestined three months later. Maybe whatever they went through warranted them being in the hospital for three months, but I really find that to be a flimsy excuse at best. We don’t even know where their Digimon are or what happened to them! They’re probably fine, but it’s called explaining Toei! It’d be nice if your writers could try it in this series rather than just constantly piling up more mysteries than this plot ever needed! And just so I can say my piece for all of the needless speculation going on in the fandom: No, that 5th silhouette is not Ryo. It’s clearly the actual Gennai since he has the ponytail. But then again, I can’t entirely blame the fandom because the writers of tri literally explain next to nothing and it leads to all of this freaking speculation when they could just easily answer it! God, and I thought we were done with The Problem with Ryo…

I get the whole 02 kids debacle has been talked about and discussed to death, and what I’m going to say really isn’t going to add to anything that someone else has probably already said, but I just don’t understand why we couldn’t have the 02 kids involved. I mean, I have a good idea of why, and I’ll get to that at the end, but was it really so hard to have an Adventure series where both the original Adventure and Adventure 02 kids got to go on, dare I say, an adventure together? Not with the original cast in the background like in Adventure 02, not like in tri where the 02 cast was pretty much nonexistent, I mean actually having them work together like a freaking team for a change? Or how about using any Adventure 02 elements in general? Even T.K. and Kari utilizing their Armor Digivolutions like Pegasusmon and Nerfertimon would have been neat! What the hell was stopping them? It’s not like the Armor Digivolutions are completely useless. As someone who enjoyed Adventure a lot and can accept Adventure 02 as a passable follow-up, I just don’t understand why we can’t have the whole Adventure universe. It either has to be the original Adventure, or Adventure 02. It can’t be both. It’s just really disappointing that both have to feel so segmented when tri would have been the perfect chance to make those series feel cohesive for once. But I guess Revenge of Diablomon was our only chance at anything like that.

Alright, so the 02 kids were handled poorly, blah blah blah, this has been talked about to death by everyone watching tri ever… How about along with the fact that Nishijima was killed off, Himekawa was nowhere to be seen in this movie? Her fate is left open after what happened in “Coexistence”. It’s possible she is still alive and it was left open on purpose, but at this point I’m going to personally maintain the belief that she died in the Dark Ocean because none of these writers can leave that stupid plot element alone for five seconds. But color me disappointed when we didn’t get to see anymore of insane Himekawa. What a tease. And you know who else doesn’t appear in tri? Alphamon, who seems to have just fucked right off after “Coexistence”. At this point, his only purpose in tri was just a plot obstacle for the main cast, which is just a really lame way to utilize him. He didn’t even get to talk for crying out loud!

Yggdrasil gets no real physical form in the Adventure universe, which honestly just left me empty. I get that Yggdrasil is a digital being, but it’s really hard to fear Yggdrasil as an antagonist when he basically ends up being all talk and no real action in this series. Dark Gennai, Alphamon and by extension Meicoomon did everything for him. Why should we be scared of a guy who we see no real action from? At least in Digimon X-Evolution and Digimon Savers, we get to see how much he has a true grasp of control over the Royal Knights and eventually that amazing climactic battle in Savers. In tri? Everyone just talks about him and what he wants to do. We see no action from him. Sure, Homeostasis is never seen either, but it has always been established as a sort of mysterious being with a lack of physical form—more like a force that keeps the stability of the Digital World. Yggdrasil is just an antagonistic force that we know pretty much next to nothing about. It’s all just extremely disappointing how much is built up and how little payoff we get in return for it all. If Yggdrasil is meant to be a sort of exact opposite force to Homeostasis, then establish that! But they don’t do that either. Really, it feels like both Yggdrasil and Homeostasis are similar beings and it’s almost hard to distinguish them in this series when it really shouldn’t be.

On the note of Homeostasis, Ordinemon’s destruction starts to get so terrible that Homeostasis wants to do another reboot. But now it requires a reboot of the actual real world. At first, I thought there would be an actual more complex way of describing this; hell, maybe it was even timeline/worldline jumping to a more stable version of the universe. Nope, they literally want to reboot the real world in more or less the same way (and try to explain it with science, but we all know when Digimon tries to use actual science, it comes across as incredibly stupid). This would basically mean all manmade technology would be rebooted from the start and cause a huge catastrophe for mankind with them being so reliant on technology. This basically comes down to Hackmon responding with “Tough shit,” and Izzy naturally being upset and wanting to find a more proper solution.

Okay, to be fair, Hackmon is actually a little more complex about this than I describe. While he is carrying the will of Homeostasis as a sort of agent, he has his own agenda in mind, actually believing the bond between humans and Digimon to be extremely important and the key to survival for both worlds, more or less. He describes this in a conversation with Meiko, and honestly… it actually makes him one of the more interesting characters, especially for a lone Digimon with no human partner on hand. But much like Alphamon, after he actually convinces Homeostasis to stop the second reboot and lays a devastating blow on Ordinemon as Jesmon, he also fucks right off immediately afterward. But hey, at least he actually did something.

There are also two “returning” characters I’d like to bring up since they’re serious elephants in the room for a lot of people. Let’s get our favorite dead buddy out of the way—No, not Leomon. I’m talking about our good friend Wizardmon who appears in this movie for a maximum ten seconds tops. Now, to be fair, literally the only thing we had to go off of was his hat being sneakily hidden in the last movie poster in a corner. However, my counterargument: You cannot bring back such a cult favorite character only to not only be so brief but also be so utterly pointless. Kari needed Wizardmon to bring her attention to Gatomon? Why not have her hear Gatomon’s voice calling out to her to bring in that attention? It’s not a reach for a character like Kari at all, who seems to have serious intuition and is sensitive to supernatural events in general. This is the kind of bringing back of a character that falls into the lowest levels of pandering. Even if it hadn’t been teased on the poster and fans had not hyped this up, I still think this as a “surprise” would have been just as disappointing.  Having Wizardmon show up for something so brief and so little to do with him means nothing in the end, and comes out as a cute nod at absolute best, but also an outright disappointing inclusion at worst. Remember Wizardmon’s appearance in Digimon Adventure 02? It actually meant something because he guided the characters towards a destination in the plot. Here? He just appears and fulfills a purpose that could have easily been done in any other way. And when Adventure 02 has shown technical better writing skills considering the mess it can be, you have really, really screwed up.

Now the other “returning” character? Devimon. But of course, it’s not the same Devimon we know from the original Digimon Adventure, which is exactly what I expected. It was an easy but also cheap attempt at bringing in viewers and nostalgia pandering through trailers. It’s an easy way to garner up hype culture, which many people know I tend to dislike as it is. But honestly? This Devimon being a different Devimon isn’t really my problem. What is my problem is how it affected everyone else involved. T.K. has the briefest among briefest reactions to Devimon—the same kid who was absolutely traumatized over losing Patamon to him during Adventure 02. I get that T.K. has already had his character arc in tri and he has probably grown more or less out of his fear of Devimon especially, but I would have expected a bigger reaction than what we got. And on top of this, Devimon—a Champion level Digimon—beats MagnaAngemon—an Ultimate level Digimon—down to an absolute pulp. I have mentioned how I like that Digimon levels do not always necessarily matter in battles with the right amount of training, but this was just inexcusable and insulting. Look back at Adventure, where Angemon was able to beat a Devimon fairly early into the series (even if it was at the expense of dying), and Angemon could even stand up to Ultimate level Digimon himself at times, while MagnaAngemon was able to finish of Piedmon. Adventure 02 was very inconsistent about how powerful Patamon was in general, but whatever. Here? This was honestly absolutely pathetic to watch. I would have been fine with an actual decent one-on-one battle where both actually put up a good fight, and maybe MagnaAngemon does end up losing, but MagnaAngemon gets kicked around like nothing more than a freaking soccer ball. I feel like, if anything, that should have definitely gotten a huge reaction out of T.K., but it was nothing out of the usual. The whole moment was just so poorly executed and felt like cheap and horribly done fanservice, much like Wizardmon.

Speaking of characters being overly hyped due to trailers, a lot of fans were ridiculously excited over Magnadramon as Gatomon’s official Mega (the 02 movie is still not canon). And while I’m personally a fan of Ophanimon because I think it just fits the line better, I personally didn’t mind Magndramon being there. However, the moment they revealed Omegamon form #34—Omegamon Merciful Mode—I immediately knew that Magndramon would easily get overshadowed and have her thunder stolen away by Omegamon. And surprise! That’s exactly what happens. Magndramon gets her Digivolution animation and a total attack scene count of one before Omegamon uses the powers of the other Megas (And Meiko I guess) to achieve Merciful Mode.

And really… I’m not too keen on it. Don’t get me wrong, Omegamon is a cool Digimon, but not only do I just think there are cooler Mega level and even Ultra level Digimon out there, Omegamon is just kind of overrated to me in the same vein Mewtwo can be in Pokémon. Not to mention, it just feels like Adventure’s version of Gallantmon Crimson Mode, which just makes Omegamon needlessly more powerful and once again, continues to ignore Adventure 02 where they had Imperialdramon Paladin Mode. It also just shows how unbalanced the fights were in this movie when Ordinemon was so overpowered that Omegamon needed a new mode to actually defeat it.

But I guess before I get to some of my biggest gripes with the movie itself and what it did rather than some of what it didn’t do, I should cover the technical aspects. I don’t have much to say on the music—it was all fine and good. A lot of it was reused from earlier movies, but there was that really awesome guitar cover of Butterfly when Gatomon Digivolved and finally achieved her Mega form. And of course, there is the Butterfly cover done by all of the DigiDestined and their Digimon as the final ending theme. And I think I did like it, but at the same time it didn’t really break me to tears like I was hoping it would in a similar way the use of Butterfly did at the very end of the original Digimon Adventure. I think a lot of that has to do with me being sort of bitter towards tri and how it ended overall, but I don’t want to get into the rest of those details until the end.

When I watched “Coexistence”, I expected all of the series’ best animation to be saved for “Our Future”, but ironically… it almost seemed like the opposite. Now, “Our Future” did not have the worst animation of the movies—there were actually some really good moments, such as pretty much every moment with Magnadramon and a few of the fights and some of the shots with the Digimon. But at the same time, “Our Future” really began to show just how flawed some of the animation in Digimon Adventure tri is. I certainly don’t think it’s the lowest tier of animation in all of anime, as there are definitely so many worse examples out there. But there are moments where the cheap budget of it can stick out. Still shots, choppy animation, off-model characters, or just weird scaling were all present throughout the movie. There was also the reuse of animation, specifically for Digivolution scenes, but those don’t really bother me. I mean, if every other Digimon series does it, what’s wrong with tri doing it? I only wish MetalGarurumon got his Digivolution shot in fullscreen—he sadly never did. Though I can agree by a certain point, having Warp Digivolution scenes for the Digimon would have certainly sped things up and given time for other moments, though at least they learned to box the animations together. Otherwise, I feel tri’s animation is average enough, but I do wish it had really excelled in this last movie rather than just being more average. Oh yeah, did I mention that “Our Future” is filled with ass shots of Ordinemon throughout the whole movie? And I mean filled with ass shots of Ordinemon (What, were you guys expecting me to actually deliberately search and hotlink examples? Hell no).

Now, getting to the worst parts of the movie unfortunately involves me talking about my favorite characters in this whole series. Who’s ready for me to talk even more about Meiko and Meicoomon? No one? Too bad! This whole damn series revolves around them! I specifically avoided talking about them because I know plenty of people complain about Meiko and Meicoomon (moreso Meiko), and a fraction of people do like them, so if you want to get out of me talking about everything wrong with them in this movie and how much they hurt this series as a whole, you best step out now. Otherwise, I have a lot to say, so buckle up.

So remember how the Digimon lost their memories after the reboot in “Confession”? Some of you might have forgotten, because by “Coexistence”, it almost feels like the reboot had no other effect on them. They don’t really focus on how much the memory loss affects their relationships, or at least how much it hurts. They kind of just blankly mention “Oh, you don’t remember this,” but that’s about it. But regardless, when the memories were lost, I was worried about multiple things: A. The Digimon never getting their memories back or B. The Digimon getting their memories back, but in a really convenient way. When moments like this happen in storytelling, I’m the kind of cheap person who wants my happy ending. But at the same time, I want that happy ending to be warranted. I don’t want it to be cheaply earned—it has to be worked for. So, what did I say in my final thoughts of “Confession”, in quotes?”

Whether the Digimon actually retrieve their memories or not, I think that either way, the writers are going to have to handle things very carefully from here on out. They can’t just pretend that everything is the same once the DigiDestined form new bonds with their Digimon, and they can’t just give the Digimon their memories back without some good explanation.

Meiko only continues to feel further shoved into this entire world, and Meicoomon somehow retaining memories unlike the other Digimon partners definitely gives the “special snowflake” feel, unless they have a damn good explanation for it. 

Well, Past JJ, I have great news for you! Not only is Meicoomon still an absolute special snowflake, there is no actual good explanation for the Digimon retrieving their memories or how Meicoomon kept hers! It’s about as forced, contrived and convenient as you can imagine! In fact, maybe even worse than you ever imagined! You wanna know why? Because it all relies upon those gosh darn wonderful special snowflakes of Meiko and Meicoomon!

Turns out, the memories were never erased at all! In the reboot, the memories of literally every Digimon were somehow stored within Meicoomon (except Hackmon and Alphamon I guess, because fuck, let’s make them special snowflakes too) and are locked inside Meiko’s Digivice! And if they can figure out a password Meicoomon would have for these memories, they can restore every Digimon’s memories! And of course, what else would that password be but “DanDan”/“Ta much” which was that first thing Meicoomon said in the first movie? Meanwhile, Izzy is a kid genius who can crack codes, develop his own servers and technology such as ways to actually preserve the Digimon’s memories himself, but could not brute-force a ten character password? But who cares about logic? Once that password is in, everyone’s memories are back! Man, I sure feel like that loss in “Confession” was worth all of this strife only for the memories having been right in front of their faces to easily just put back all along! Everything about this was so rightfully earned back! /s

Yeah, let’s put that overly optimistic sarcasm aside for five minutes. Because I hate, and I mean absolutely hate that such an important loss from the third movie—one that was made absolutely touching, heartbreaking and built up to such a degree could be easily put back into place with just a simple phrase, like all they needed to say was freaking Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo. I get that Digimon has always had its own fair share of plot contrivances, but after going through three movies of this and executing this tragedy in such a way that takes the viewer on such an emotional ride, I just feel cheated. Like what I felt basically was for nothing and I cried and worried over nothing. You know how when you have seemingly devastating situations in real life, like you lose an important item or document that could mean a life-changing moment for you, like earning a job? So you panic and cry over losing it and potentially ruining your own life, but then it turns out, whatever you lost was in the backseat of your car the whole time, so your crying was for nothing and you feel like a big idiot for panicking over something that had a very simple solution? That’s more or less what this whole situation feels like, except there is really nothing to laugh off because I feel like I was cheated out of a good story just for a throwaway character to have her spotlight.

“But Meicoomon’s not a throwaway character if they spent all six movies focusing on her and Meiko!” maybe you might think. Except she absolutely is a throwaway character by the end of the movie. You know how Meicoomon was basically the cause of all of this grief for all of her going berserk? And how everyone knew that they could kill her to stop all of this, and back in “Coexistence” Meiko even begged for the DigiDestined to do it, but they couldn’t because “she’s our fwiend!!!!”. Guess what they do by the end of the movie? They kill off Meicoomon with Omegamon Merciful Mode, literally the whole reason they made up that new form.

Now, part of me is trying to do my absolute best to understand what the writers were trying to express with this. The whole message seems to be that “sometimes you have to make hard decisions”, and honestly? That’s not a bad message. But I have two major problems with this being in Digimon Adventure tri, as there are a number of moments this whole message is contradicted. When the kids lost their Digimon’s original memories to the reboot, they thought they had to make the hard decision of moving on with their lives and letting go of an important part of their childhood. But in the end, they didn’t, because they realized they could still hold onto that childhood if they wanted to, but they had to hold onto it. They couldn’t give up on it.

My second problem is that this whole conflict of “not killing our fwiends!!!!!” with the DigiDestined just feels wasted and pointless if they were going to end up killing her anyway. Yes, people do have to make decisions like that, but to have to develop that for five full-length movies for over two years? The execution is just awful. And this is so much worse when, again, the DigiDestined have only known Meiko and Meicoomon for only a few months at best, giving them all of the care and catering in the world, meanwhile they couldn’t care less about the 02 cast whom they experienced whole adventures with and have known for three years at this point. Once again, the logic and execution here flies straight out the window. This all hurts this decision even more when the scene does come up, it feels extremely out of character. Sure, Tai has his new resolve, yet Kari immediately goes into the spiel of “You can’t kill Meicoomon or I’ll never forgive you!” but then ultimately decides she’s going to help in killing Meicoomon. I get the logic behind it, that she’s essentially bearing the sin of doing this with the rest of the DigiDestined, but going from “not killing our fwiends!!!!” for five movies to ultimately making this dark decision makes it feel out of character for not even Kari, but just about everyone. No one else really disagrees with it in the end. They just accept it so easily despite having fought over it for the course of several movies. It feels like all the struggle the DigiDestined went through of not killing friends, especially when the infection was rampant in “Confession”, was wasted.

So Meicoomon is killed off, they make a farewell scene for her and Meiko, yada yada, and I find myself trying so hard to care about this in the moment. I was genuinely trying to feel bad for Meiko, despite how much I have come to hate her character as well as Meicoomon’s. But by the time it came to all of this, I was just outright empty. I couldn’t feel anything for them. I simply didn’t care. If there was anything I thought? It was simply “Good. Fucking. Riddance.” And while I realize me hating Meiko is simply my opinion, watching “Our Future” made me seriously realize something about Meiko. Not just that she’s a poorly written character, I easily came to that conclusion by the time I watched “Confession”, but she’s honestly a terrible person. No, not just a terrible character. I mean, a really, really terrible person when you consider so much of her behavior.

There’s the saying that a bad person can make a great character, but the problem here is that the writers are trying to convince you that Meiko is a good person. Yet she is anything but a good person based on all of her behavior. She has her social awkwardness, sure, but that’s just her Mary Sue flaw (which is only so much of a flaw with these kinds of characters). She is honestly an extremely selfish, pitiful person with hardly any ability to feel empathy for anyone but herself. She has a legitimately messed up mentality. Don’t believe me? Let’s go over some of her actions.

So after Meicoomon Digivolves into Meicrackmon Vicious Mode, she’s obviously in despair. Fair enough. I think anyone with a Digimon partner would feel that way, even to the unhealthy degree that Meiko does. But let’s flash-forward to the point where T.K. confesses that Patamon is infected. He trusted her with that information because she would understand it better than anyone. She should be supportive to him for such a tough situation, right? She is… for a couple of seconds. Immediately after, she quickly starts to throw her own pity party how about it’s her fault that it happened, which naturally makes T.K., being the nice guy he is, start tending to her instead of himself when he is in a damn tough position. She forces him out of his own grief to tend to the sudden mood swing of her own, and leaves him to feel sorry about it when she runs off. In the same film, when T.K. tries to convince her to go to the Digital World to meet Meicoomon, she has a hissy fit about not wanting to see Meicoomon and actually being glad the reboot happened so she doesn’t have to worry about Meicoomon and the Digimon anymore. I mean, fuck how the rest of the DigiDestined not just among the original eight, but the rest of the world feel, right? I addressed this in my final thoughts on “Confession” and I think to be fair they kind of point out her behavior is wrong by dragging her to the Digital World in “Loss” with an unexplained distortion, but this still is a display of her extremely unhealthy character.

This doesn’t even stop there. While “Loss” might have been the best display of her character where she actually tries to do things on her own and even stands up to a stupidly bratty Meicoomon, she’s coddled by the other DigiDestined and she immediately regresses back in “Coexistence”. The whole movie ends up being her own pity party over Meicoomon (again, fuck how everyone else is feeling), and in “Our Future”, she has yet another instance of directing grief away from someone else and towards herself. When Kari starts blaming herself for Tai’s death, it doesn’t take long at all for Meiko to immediately start pushing the blame on herself and for the other DigiDestined to feel pity for her over it. Also, compare their reactions to both of them. Kari, who has every right to feel as upset as she is about losing her brother, the most important individual in her life is taking on the blame of the situation, and everyone quietly feels sorry for her, as if knowing coddling will not help the situation. Cut to Meiko doing the exact same thing, except having honestly much less reason to be feeling the kind of position Kari is in, and everyone coddles Meiko and tries to reassure her that it isn’t her fault. When you break it down, Meiko is an extremely unhealthy individual who is always desperate for attention when she feels bad over something. Sure, you might argue that she sometimes locks herself away so not to get this attention and the writers probably didn’t do this intentionally, but there are some legitimately bad implications going on here. It’s like the writers didn’t even read their second or even first drafts.

On top of all of this, Meiko never truly develops as a character. If anything, Meicoomon’s death is the only thing that actually changes her because she finally stops crying over her every five seconds. But she never gets to advocate for herself because the other DigiDestined are constantly diving in to save her (again, “Loss” was pretty much the highest point she ever had and it wasn’t even anything incredible), she never gets over Meicoomon or stops thinking about her until finally making peace at the end of this movie, and her general behavior never really changes otherwise. No one even calls her out on her behavior because she’s perfect and can do no wrong in everyone else’s eyes. Honestly, when you really think about it, everyone should be mad at Meiko in some form. Maybe not hate her, but not once does anyone deal with any frustration with her. It’s almost like because Kari was made an actual character in tri, in exchange they had to make an awful clone of her. There is truly nothing to compare Meiko to other than a horribly written Mary Sue self-insert fanfiction, all perfectly topped with the writers trying to pull off ship teases with her and Tai. Awwww, I think I’m gonna be sick.

And… I don’t know what else to say about “Our Future”. Honestly, as many complaints as I have about this movie, it has its good moments. It’s not even the worst of the Digimon Adventure tri movies. It just that it has its good moments, but also so many bad moments that it honestly makes it hard to enjoy. And really, I think that sums up tri for me in general. I don’t think it’s the worst thing ever. I don’t even think it’s the worst Digimon series ever. I would still consider others I’ve watched like Digimon Frontier were written worse overall. I want to enjoy Digimon Adventure tri, but the team working on it makes it extremely difficult to enjoy tri. It certainly has its good moments. And when it has its good moments, they’re really good moments, but the opposite is also true. When its bad moments are bad, they are really bad. They can be downright awful even, and it’s really a shame that the second half of tri really dropped off after it hit such a high with “Confession”. Do I regret watching it? No, not really. But… it was definitely hard to sit through at times. I can say I will definitely look back at it for the good it brought to the table, but the bad will certainly stink like rotten food in the fridge for a long time to come.

Now, comes the inevitable question and topic… the sequel hook of Digimon Adventure tri. By the end, Dark Gennai disappears into the Digital World and babbles on about bringing in Daemon or maybe Diablomon, and we hear the Digivice beep at the end of the film, much like the end of the original Digimon Adventure. And on top of this, the tri Twitter account posted an announcement of a new project, as well as the English Toei Animation Twitter. The wording of it implies something related to the Digimon Adventure universe.

From my perspective, based on all of the open ended plot points like Dark Gennai still running around, Alphamon, Himekawa’s missing status, the Four Sovereigns being ignored after the reboot since they’re a pretty important part of the Digital World, the whole “Digimon who died in the real world are brought back to life after the reboot” nonsense that was just dropped in out of nowhere (Was that a mistranslation? Because at this point its lack of mention or being addressed makes me wonder if that was ever a plot point that existed and if I just accidentally made it up), and the 02 kids just being ignored in general… makes me believe we’ll be getting a sequel focused more on the elements of Adventure 02. And with all that’s happened… I’m really torn on it.

On one hand, I really want these plot points to actually be resolved. I want the 02 kids to get a true chance to actually develop as characters. I want to see their Digimon again. And honestly? I would love for each 02 kid to have a full Digivolution line for their own Digimon, all the way to Mega form. But at the same time… Digimon Adventure tri has really tired me out. If we were to get a sequel, I want the writers to actually be competent. I want them to write an actual series that can stand on its own without relying on future sequels.  Hell, maybe even a new team of competent writers if necessary, because at times it really feels like the writers for tri just didn’t have a proper grasp of Digimon Adventure and its canon. And part of me wants Digimon to just move to a Digimon Tamers sequel after the recent drama CD and Chiaki Konaka’s interest in writing a sequel series. And knowing the depth of Tamers, I know it could be pulled off extremely well with the right treatment. So I’m truly, legitimately torn. I guess for now, I’ll just wait and see where Digimon moves from here, and enjoy what we have of the franchise. After all, I really need to get to the Digimon video games.

So ultimately, if I had to grade the Digimon Adventure tri movies in order:

Confession > Determination > Reunion > Loss > Our Future > Coexistence

And with that, this finally closes the doors on Digimon Adventure tri… I mean, I wish I could say that with true satisfaction, but its open-ended nature and reliance on a sequel really leaves a bitter taste in my mouth… Maybe, we can at least get a better sequel in the end. If you guys want to bring up something I didn’t mention or have a discussion, feel free to send an ask I guess? Because I wouldn’t be surprised if I missed something about tri, good or bad. And hey, at least Digimon Adventure tri gave me this adorable shot of the Digimon as a parting gift.

#Shut Up JJ #Final Thoughts #Digimon #Digimon Adventure tri #Our Future

[avelera]

Some next day thoughts about Thor 3: Ragnarok:

(cut for spoilers)

- At first I was a little jarred by the ending’s abruptness. But then I thought about it a bit more. Yes, as a movie ending, I still think it’s a bit too abrupt, I would have liked 5-10 more minutes to cover some of the dangling plotlines I’ll discuss further down. But then I realized that with all the Marvel movies out there, they’re likely going to be binge watched. So this format makes sense when you realize that this movie is only going to end there for about 1 year in its lifecycle. For the rest of its existence, viewers are just going to immediately go to or cue up either Black Panther or Infinity War, so it’s actually more like a very long TV or Netflix episode than a standalone movie in the traditional sense.

Nevertheless, some things I would like to have seen more resolution are:

- Bruce - They made a pretty big deal of the fact that if he ever switched back to the Hulk again, Bruce Banner may never come back. Now, most likely it’s not a dark enough movie series for that to be true. But still, the fact it was never brought up again after he transformed nags at me, I would have liked to see some concern from Thor & his crew over whether Banner is ok. Though I suppose some of that could be explained by Valkyrie knowing Hulk better, Thor “preferring” Hulk, and the fact that Hulk has now had enough time out in the world to actually be quite stable. It almost implies that Hulk was an infant, or an overly-caged animal so his unmanageability was purely because he wasn’t getting enough time to grow up or exercise. That being said, you’d think Loki would be a little more freaked out. And dammit, I’m worried for Bruce.

- Loki - Has shown a pathological inability to play well with others, pretty much since he learned he was adopted and from the stories of Thor 3 even before that. He is the ultimate little shit. The fact that he was shown peacefully going along with the good guys for even 5 minutes without stabbing Thor again or just causing mischief or fucking off from there gave me a weird feeling of cognitive dissonance. Like, this status quo has already lasted 5 minutes without someone actively trying to kill them, no way Loki is this patient. Then again, this was somewhat resolved by the post-credit scene of the other big ship appearing, since Loki will sometimes go along with things if a team up is required for survival, at least until he figures out how to join the other side.

Some other thoughts:

- Apparently Asgard has fewer people in it than your average shopping mall? Also none of them have the same superpowers as their royal or valkyrie elites? Apparently it is an anime land where if you don’t have a cool character design you don’t have powers, sorry guys, you’re all cannon fodder with as little ability to defend yourself as the average human and maybe less considering you have advanced magic and science sometimes but most of the time you don’t even have guns.

- Hela looks hella like Loki. I’m beginning to wonder if Thor is the adopted one here. Also wondering if, in a more serious moment, what impact Hela having once been Odin’s favorite child would have on Loki given their similarities? Some reflection by him on that point would be interesting.

- Also, wtf, are they gods, are they random aliens with delusions of grandeur, how do they embody concepts...? Thor’s lighting powers were SICK AS HELL AND I LOVED EVERY SECOND OF THAT FIGHT AND HOLY SHIT HE LOOKS AMAZING WITH THE ONE EYE GODDAMN but I’m just really confused from a lore/cosmology angle of what the fuck Asgardians are in the larger cosmos and as relates to Earth.

Some other good/GREAT things about the movie:

- Seeing that level of diversity was such a fucking relief like I didn’t need to brace myself or roll my eyes whenever anyone who wasn’t the Designated POC was shown as always white and usually male, it was actually wonderfully diverse and awesome wow thank you Taika. 

- (A little mad though that we didn’t get to see the Valkyrie bisexual scene, Disney is still really bad with dealing with LGBTQA+ stuff and this is another reason I fear the consolidation of all IP under The Mouse)

- Anyway, just in general, the directing, holy shit Taika Waititi is a master. 

- Like, the movie was 95% laughs and it’s really hard to transition an audience that was just laughing its asses off to a serious moment but every single serious moment hit like a punch in the gut. Like immediately. Holy shit. Odin’s death, Valkyrie’s flashback, the tiny micro-expressions of Loki and Thor dancing around what they really mean to each other these days, Banner’s identity crisis... my only complaint about any of those is that they didn’t last a little longer, but they were so efficiently done that I can’t really be mad about that. Their brevity matched the pacing of the film, and it’s only my fangirl heart that would have loved some long lingering over all the horrible Feels everyone is going through. Ah well, that’s what fanfic is for.

- That being said, it did feel like there was a couple moments and themes that could have used a little more attention, though the complaint here is minor. There is some serious fridge horror in Banner losing 2 years of his life. What about the people he killed under Hulk’s influence? What about the feeling he’s going to lose himself forever if he ever changes again, and him doing it anyway to help his friends? That was one theme that felt a little under served to me given the seriousness of the implications. 

- Hela was amazing omg. Like, it is hard to introduce a new villain that’s just magically better than everyone at everything and is also a stone cold badass woman. Somehow, somehow they managed it most likely through the immortal talent of Cate Blanchett. She was genuinely terrifying and genuinely felt like a member of their family, unlike some missing family member villains who just feel tacked on. 

- Though I will say I was a little surprised by the reluctant villainy of Karl Urban’s character. I expected him to be a more willing ally of Hela, his story was interesting in how he was basically just an opportunistic but otherwise loyal Asgardian trying to survive and I could have used a few more minutes of focus on him just to sort of pull his story together as more than just someone for Hela to talk to while shit is going down.

- Btw, SPEAKING OF HELA I’ve been saying for AGES that we should be reexamining what Thor being “worthy” is all about because it’s not necessarily the modern concept of good vs. evil. Given that Odin slaughtered his way across 9 realms then turned on the child who helped gain it for him, being “worthy” could literally just mean “able to kill the largest number of people efficiently” according to Odin.

- Uh, do any of our heroes have their powers anymore if they drew them from Asgard which is now a pile of rubble?

- But OMG WE’RE GETTING ASGARD ON EARTH YEEEESSSSSSS. Ok so one of my number one writerly influences, J. Michael Straczynski who also wrote Babylon 5 and Sense8, wrote a Thor comic about Asgard being reestablished on Earth and IT IS HILARIOUS AND WONDERFUL GUYS I am SO EXCITED to see Asgard planted in the middle of the goddamn MIDWEST this is going to be GREAT. Also Dr. Strange must be losing his shit right now HE ASKED THEM TO PLEASE LEAVE NOT BRING THEIR WHOLE PLANET HERE

- Oh, and on a total badwrong side note, I still ship the fuck out of Thor and Loki and I am sorry. I hate incest in general, blech, as a plot device but Loki definitely does not see Thor as a brother also they’re kinda not even human so for some reason that sneaks by my radar. But I’d dearly love to see some Thorki where they’re as snarky and antagonistic and sort of tragically doomed to always be messing with one another as was in Thor 3, and not like... wide-eyed tragic uke Loki or some such (not that that isn’t valid for writers to explore, I just DESPERATELY want some obnoxious-conniving-little-shit Loki and exasperated but actually able to keep the upper hand and occasionally tragically upset and annoyed that Loki just can’t stop being such a conniving little shit for five minutes and sit at the dinner table like a normal person goddamnit why can’t i quit you Thor... just saying). 

Honestly, that movie was just so much fucking fun, I need to see it again.

#thor 3 #maggie watches thor 3 #thor ragnarok #thor spoilers #spoilers #thor ragnarok spoilers

[empresstress13]

All of Zevran, Alistair, and Morrigan for Elraen Mahariel?

Super late answering these! Sorry! XD

Ah! Elraen!!! Sure Thing ♥

Zevran

1. How did your Warden react to Zevran’s failed attempt on their life? Were they amused? Angry?

Oh man… .I would not say she was amused at the attempt (though she did chuckle at  Zevran’s lines), but not really angry either. Or there was a quick flash of anger followed by a prolonged heavy internal sigh of *being done with this*. The whole thing was kind of a wild ride for Elraen starting with the cave that she was not excited to go into ( she HATES being underground and is claustrophobic… yeah. The deep-roads was next level nightmare for her). By the time she has this ambush assassination attempt it’s more a feeling of bemusement and frustration. Everything else in the past weeks has been strange and dangerous: that’s apparently just life now.  She is very good at picking up silver linings when she can get them though, so… .when he starts with the witty lines and offering to help - she’s all for letting him join (of course she’ll be keeping an eye on him for awhile). Her group is all alive, and hey! they have an funny, assassin friend now! - that’s a win in Elraen’s books. 

2. Did your Warden match Zevran’s lighthearted attitude or were they more serious? What sort of relationship did they have?

She’s waaaay more on the lighthearted side of things. If she completely has to, then she can be serious, but life is hard and short. May as well enjoy what you can! I think she is actually a bit more genuinely optimistic than Zevran, but overall they both are practical individuals. Elraen is on friendly terms with Zevran. 

3. What did your Warden know of the Crows before meeting Zevran? What did they think of the Crows afterward?

Elraen hadn’t heard of the Crows at all before meeting Zevran. And she’s not particularly impressed by what she’s heard of them from Zevran. She doesn’t necessarily have a huge issue with assassination though it’s not her first choice either. The whole political assassination and intrigue mess… she kind of grasps it on one level, but also thinks it’s an absolute waste of time and effort. She does take quite a bit of issue with their “recruitment” and how they treat their members. 

4. Did Zevran betray your Warden? How did they feel in the aftermath of Zevran’s decision?

Zevran did not betray Elraen. Elraen didn’t ever really think Zevran would either. They were close friends, and Elraen is a rather forthright person who by that point in their journey had started trusting Zevran. He did not betray that trust. Elraen is happy to have Zevran along and asked him to stay with the group.

5. How well did your Warden keep in contact with Zevran after the Blight? Did they ever see him again?

Elraen would have tried to keep in some form of contact for sure! I think they were both doing separate things, but would have stayed in contact and possibly met up at some point in the future.

Alistair 

1. What sort of attachment did your Warden form with Alistair, if any at all? Were they close due to their shared experiences as Grey Wardens?

They were friends, though they had occasional rough patches. Elraen has very similar humor to Alistair (she is some weird point between Alistair and Zevran in humor: absolute silliness but with more sex), but is too forthright in her opinions to never clash with him. I think the shared experience of Ostagar and being the only two surviving Grey Wardens was a definite help towards starting them out; they probably would have been fine anyways, but I doubt they’d have been as close otherwise.

2. Did Alistair’s parentage surprise your Warden? How did your Warden’s feelings on the nobility affect their relationship with Alistair?

Elraen was surprised but it kind of got shuffled into “my life is now strange” chest (kind of like failed assassination attempts that turn into party members). Her relationship with Alistair didn’t really change, and at first wasn’t even really cognizant of the full implications and impacts of Alistair’s parentage. Eventually, Elraen did recognized that his parentage could effect their situation, but Alistair was still Alistair. 

3. Was Alistair reunited with his sister, Goldanna? What did your Warden think of her? Did they relate to Alistair with their own familial struggles?

Alistair was reunited with Goldanna. Elraen … .found Goldanna rather confusing at best. Elraen has lost all of her previous family and community, and the idea of someone refusing family straight off is baffling to her. Elraen is also really horrible with monetary funds/ fiances so … .that aspect also just completely baffles her. That’s ok. She’ll be Alistair’s new sister now. Goldanna can suck it. :P 

4. How did your Warden respond to Alistair’s dislike of Loghain? Did they share Alistair’s sentiments or disagree?

Elraen dislikes Loghain, but less passionately than Alistair. She was less taken aback by Loghain’s betrayal than Alistair. Shemlen lords backstabbing? That happens. She also wasn’t as close to Duncan; he seemed like a good man, but there wasn’t the strong bond that Alistair had. She was rather put out about being put on a hit list, and had some serious concerns about some of his choices (and in particular was enraged by the selling of elves).

5. What became of Alistair after the Landsmeet? How did your Warden feel about their decision of Alistair’s future?

Alistair became King and married Anora. Elraen had some reservations about it… but she didn’t know Anora well enough to trust her with the throne, but she did trust Alistair. 

Morrigan

1. What was your Warden’s first impression of Morrigan? Did they trust her or were they cautious around her?

Elraen feels like mages who successfully thrive in the Korcari Wilds (espcially with phrases like “witches of the wilds” flying around) deserve a healthy amount of respect. She’s plenty cautious - just as she would be of any strangers in the wilds - but doesn’t have the same level of mistrust as Alistair or the others.  

2. Did your Warden agree to help Morrigan kill Flemeth? Why or why not?

Actually… at first Elraen does feel pretty conflicted about this. She wants to help Morrigan, but as already stated: feels a bit cautious of going after any mage doing well for themselves out in the wilderness. Also… she sort of feels like she owes Flemeth for saving her life. However, Elraen likes Morrigan, and has been fighting and surviving with her now. So knowing that Flemeth is a danger to Morrigan, she agrees.

3. How close was your Warden to Morrigan? Did your Warden respect her abilities as a witch of the wilds?

As said before - mages who successfully thrive in the Korcari Wilds (espcially with phrases like “witches of the wilds” flying around) deserve a healthy amount of respect. Elraen has no issues with magic! She finds it to be quite useful. Elraen actually really liked Morrigan - thought she was (unintentionally) hilarious. Morrigan. .  .I think was probably a bit annoyed with Elraen at first (like I said: her humor can be almost as silly as Alistair’s), but eventually they became friends. 

4. Did your Warden attempt to find Morrigan after the Blight? Did they ever succeed in meeting her again?

Yes! She tried to, and was a bit miffed at Morrigan stealing from a different clan… but not completely surprised. She figures Witches of the Wild are a bit like cats - doing only as they please. 

5. Was Morrigan’s ritual completed? What persuaded your Warden to go through with it or what caused them to refuse it?

Yes! Elraen likes living. She likes Alistair, and assumes he enjoys living as well. 

Thanks for the ask! 

#elraen mahariel #my ocs #dragon age

[exitpursuedbyasloth]

shaselma replied to your post “Some Thoughts On Supernatural 12x11, “Regarding Wasted Potential”

I disagree about the comedy/angst contrast, I thought it worked well, but HOLY SHIT that pseudo-rape joke scene was uncomfortable as fuck. Why is it played as funny that she'd even care if she'd taken advantage of him? That is the right attitude to have, and they shrug it off like she's an overly-concerned SJW. And really, no, he hadn't actually been roofied, but he'd still been drinking, and assuming she wasn't because she was working... That's STILL fucked up. SQUICK.

See, it’s funny because SPN thinks men getting raped/sexually assaulted is funny (or hot, depending on how hard they have to No Homo that week). So the idea that a person, a young woman (also a joke in many SPN episodes) thinking she may have unintentionally taken advantage of a man who was roofied, is a hilarious farce.  I mean, like Dean would even care if she had, ahhaha.

Or maybe it’s just a personal jab at those silly audience members who complain when SPN does things like normalize and LOL at sexual assault, or when the writers make jokes about the sexual abuse of characters. Silly little SJW tumblr girls, all not appreciating SPN’s glorious rape culture bullshit.

The show (especially since Bucklemming came back in S6) is littered with “LOLrape” jokes when the man is the victim. Whether it’s Dean and fairies in s6, or “Season Seven, Time For A What The Shit Am I Watching” bullshit with Becky and Sam, or 9x03 (which was mocked again in 9x09), Girls Girls Girls, just everything about Dean + Amara, Sam and that British Lady of Letters hallucirape, men getting sexually exploited and abused is funny and/or hot. 

But, to be fair, they often makes jokes about women getting sexually assaulted too. Equal opportunity terribleness.

(And I’m not saying the show didn’t have rape culture bullshit in the earlier seasons, it most certainly did. But the earlier seasons would occasionally treat rape like it was a bad thing, even when it happened to men. However, ever since Bucklemming returned in S6, there’s been a noticeable increase in the amount of sexual assault, and an increased trend in normalizing it. Bucklemming and Klein were some of the worst offenders, but Dabb and Berens and many of the other writers are also guilty. Robbie Thompson and Misha and about half-a-dozen of the recurring actresses are the only ones to have ever actually acknowledged SPN has a problem with this.)

We may not agree on the episode’s merits as a whole, but we are bang up in line about the unfunny and uncomfortable as fuck psedo-rape joke scene.

Let me expand upon my issues with the execution of this episode, that aren’t about SPN’s deeply troubling issues with sexual abuse.

Comedy/Angst contrast works amazingly well when done correctly, when it’s balanced, when the humor is genuine, when the serious moments are thoughtfully and the humor doesn’t undercut them, when the emotional moments cut to the quick, when they mean something, and when it’s a well constructed narrative. When done well, the comedy will enhance the emotional impact/drama, and visa versa. And in this case, I feel the episode failed on pretty much all these fronts. Not unlike the writers previous episode, “That Fucking Hitler One (Who Thought This Was A Good Idea?)”

It was not balanced. The episode was 95% vaguely insulting humor at Dean’s expense, 3% serious, 1% gross rape joke, 1% painful montage.

The humor wasn’t funny, for the most part (even excluding the rape joke). I could tell the episode wanted me to laugh, but I didn’t get why I was supposed to be laughing. A couple lines here and there weren’t bad (Like, paraphrasing, “Our best friend is an angel?! That’s awesome!”). But a lot of it was “LOL, Dean is kinda gross and dumb, he eats like a pig, he’s a womanizer, look him stumblr about”. I am so fucking tired of their overcompensating dudebro retcon of Dean. I am tired of Dean’s trauma being used for laughs. I mean, like the food for example; they forget that they wrote Dean not having enough food as a child because of John’s neglect. In earlier seasons, when his food habits were focused around eating a lot, using it as comfort, wolfing it down, being super protective of his food, and wanting to feed other people (just not from his plate), that all residue effects of his childhood hunger. His focus on pies was because he remembered his mom giving him some, and it was one of his only memories of her. It was a character quirk that actually reveled something deeper about the character. Unfortunately, in the post-Edlund era, Dean’s eating habits have become a punchline, its there for other characters to raise an exasperated eyebrow at.

I mean, compare it with “Bad Day At Black Rock” where much of the humor was based on the increasingly ridiculous things that kept happening to Sam due to his bad luck curse. Both Sam and Dean get cursed with something that WILL harm them, but  I think the humor worked in BDABR because there’s no real life equivalent to his curse, other than those days where it seems like everything is going wrong, that the universe is out to get us. But in Sam’s case, that isn’t just him being dramatic, the universe really IS out to get him. However with Dean, there IS a real-life equivalent to his memory curse, and it’s dementia/Alzheimer’s. So it’s hard to laugh at the flippant humor that doesn’t seem to acknowledge that this is an actual serious thing people go through. There can be humor in dark places, but with something like that, your humor should punch up (or at least across), and not down as this episode did. The punchline of so many jokes was “LOL, he has Alzheimer’s!”. 

I’m not even sure if that one emotional gut-punch moment  (the mirror scene with Dean) was even intended to be serious, a moment of terrifying realization at just what was happening. Had Jensen delivered it differently, it could have been more funny than horrifying (well not actually funny, but the writers attempt at funny). I mean, being helpless to stop your memories from fading away, yourself fading away, is some Yellow Wallpaper quiet horror. And it’s not like there’s not real life tragedies to draw from, dementia and Alzheimer’s. But there was so little of that, compared to so much “LOL, lookit Dean bumble around!”

(The brother moment at the end was just the same rehashing of stuff the show does over and over and over. There was not a thing new about it, because this show is terrified of growing and changing.)

I also just don’t think this episode was well-written on a fundamental level. The memory loss spell didn’t seem to follow any rules. I mean, it’s vaguely suggestive of dementia (in which case most the humor was just in bad taste), but as the episode went on, it seemed more apparent that how the spell progressed was based entirely around “What can we make a joke about/what funny thing can Dean do”, that’s what the pathology centered around. First Dean has some short-term memory loss, can’t remember the previous night. Then he randomly forgets how to do certain tasks, what the names of things are (at this point I was still with them, because this can be how dementia presents itself). Then Dean’s personal memories began flickering in and out. Then Dean’s personality seemed to go, and also that was supposed to be happy Dean? The forgetting tasks and names gets dropped, because Dean still knows how to read, operate a gun (is this more of the ‘Dean is a natural born killer’ Bucklemming BS rearing it’s ugly head?). And then the witches out of fucking nowhere, that Rowena just HAPPENS to know very well (of course....why was that even a part of the episode?). And that fucking montage...I love shows that don’t take themselves too seriously all the time, but this felt unearned and trying too hard. A slo-mo of Dean riding the bull would have worked much better on it’s own. And of course, the rape joke. All in all, it wasn’t particularly polished, it was like a rough first draft.

It was a good idea that could have actually been done really well. But again, if there’s anything SPN will never fail to do, it’s waste some perfectly good potential.

#shaselma #Trashnatural #Dean Winchester #SPN meta #Supernatural #SPN 12x11 #rape culture bullshit #rape tw

[mathematicianadda]

The Overwhelming Historical Evidence that Galileo was a Hack

Not long ago, Discover magazine ranked the ten greatest scientists of all time. Galileo came in at #6. That’s pretty standard: Albert Einstein (who earned #1), dubbed him “the father of modern science.” An Italian contemporary declared that “God and Nature have joined hands and created the intellect of Galileo.”

If only they’d heard my new favorite podcast, they’d know better.

In the shade-throwing first season of Opinionated History of Mathematics, historian of mathematics Viktor Blåsjö gives an anti-Galilean polemic of genuine scholarship and unblinking savagery. His arguments range from the speculative to the devastating, and from the sassy to the hilariously sassy.

Embrace even a fraction of what he says, and you’ll find your image of Galileo shattered. I suggest you listen to the whole thing, but here’s an episode-by-episode teaser:

  Episode #1: Galileo Bad, Archimedes Good

A classic math problem is to find the area of the cycloid. Blåsjö lays out what happened when Galileo attempted it: he floundered, failed, turned to crude trial-and-error, and still got the answer wrong. (Several of his contemporaries, meanwhile, calculated the precise answer.)

This, Blåsjö says, is typical of the fellow from Galilei:

He was not a pioneer of scientific method. He was not the father of modern science. He was not a heroic knight defeating dogmas and superstitions with the light of empirical truth…. Galileo was, first and foremost, a failed mathematician….

Galileo’s contribution to the history of thought is to cut off mathematical reasoning at the training-wheels stage; to air in public what true mathematicians considered unworthy scratch work at best. He experiments because he cannot think.

Episode #2: Mathematics Versus Philosophy, Then and Now

Galileo’s major works are, in effect, refutations of Aristotle. They’re dialogues between a foolish Aristotelian and a wise Galilean.

But according to Blåsjö, Aristotle was a straw man, whose shortcomings serious mathematicians had always known. Refuting Aristotle is shooting fish in a barrel, and impresses only those who don’t know any better.

Galileo’s books are “Science for Dummies”. He drones on and on about elementary principles of scientific method….

Galileo needs us to assume that… no one had ever heard of Archimedes. Only then do his so-called accomplishments come off looking any good.

Ask yourself: Who is inclined to go along with such an assumption? I’ll tell you who: Someone who doesn’t know any Archimedes but is very comfortable with Aristotle and other philosophers. People from the humanities, in other words.

So Galileo is in luck…. Modern academia is set up in his favour.

Episode #3: Galilean Science in Antiquity?

Millennia before Galileo, were “Galilean” ideas already in circulation? Blåsjö’s says yes.

Either you are a cultural relativist and you think Galileo was a revolutionary… or you think mathematical thought is the same for you, me and everybody who ever lived, and then you think Galileo was just doing common-sense stuff.

(A possible counterargument: shouldn’t we credit Galileo for bringing these “common-sense” ideas to wider audiences? In my view, Blåsjö is too dismissive of popularization. But if the argument turns from “Galileo is the father of modern science” to “Galileo had a big impact as a popularizer,” then I think Blåsjö has already won.)

Episode #4: The Case Against Galileo on the Law of Fall

Among Galileo’s finest achievements: debunking Aristotle’s claim that heavier objects fall faster. (He may have done this by dropping stones from the Tower of Pisa.)

But was it really such an accomplishment? Aristotle makes the claim only once, in a paragraph-long aside; it does not seem central to his thinking. And isn’t the experimental verification a pretty straightforward idea?

Of course one can drop some rocks and see if it works…. In fact, Philoponus—an unoriginal commentator—had clearly and explicitly rejected Aristotle’s law of fall by precisely such an experiment more than a thousand years before Galileo…

So wow, what a hero, the great Galileo. He managed to improve on a two-thousand-year-old claim, made by a non-mathematician, which not a single mathematician ever believed.

Episode #5: Galileo’s Errors on Projectile Motion and Inertia

Galileo gets a lot of credit for articulating a law of inertia that’s halfway to Newton’s. But he made several big errors; for example, he applied the rule only to objects whose initial motion was horizontal, waffling on whether it applied more broadly.

Calling this “halfway to Newton” is too generous, Blåsjö argues. Even poor, benighted Aristotle articulated a similar idea!

So take your pick. Here are the [two] options:

Option 1. Galileo’s understanding of inertia was very poor.

Option 2. Galileo’s understanding of inertia was pretty good, but so was Aristotle’s….

I, of course, advocate the first solution: throw Galileo under the bus. He and Aristotle were both stupid. Problem solved.

Episode #6: Why Galileo is Like Nostradamus

Galileo made a lot of striking errors. His gravitational constant is way off, because he inexplicably used made-up data. His theory of planetary speeds (that the planets “fell” into the solar system from a tremendous distance) fails the most basic mathematical test. And his “proof” that objects could never fly off the spinning earth is totally wrong (because if the earth spun fast enough, they absolutely could). He even tries to pass off one of his miscalculations as a “joke”!

Why so many mistakes? Blåsjö pulls no punches:

Galileo is another Nostradamus. He too threw a thousand guesses out there and hoped that one or two would stick. Like Nostradamus, Galileo’s reputation rests on his admirers having selective amnesia, and remembering only the rare occasions when he got something right.

Episode #7: Galileo’s Theory of Tides

Galileo rejected the true explanation of tides (which his contemporaries embraced) as “childish” and “occult.” His alternative theory contradicted all the data, as well as Galileo’s own scientific principles. Blåsjö explains:

Galileo’s theory implies that high and low [tides] should be twelve hours apart rather than six… The fact that everyone could observe two high and two low tides per day Galileo thus wrote off as purely coincidental….

Galileo even has some fake data to prove his erroneous point: namely that tides twelve hours apart are “daily observed in Lisbon,” he believes, even though that is completely false.

Episode #8: Heliocentrism in Antiquity

Galileo doesn’t just refute Aristotle. He also refutes the geocentric astronomy of Ptolemy.

But did Ptolemy really speak for all Greeks? Blåsjö argues otherwise, speculating that Archimedes’ pal Aristarchus had a well-reasoned heliocentric model.

Nowadays we are stuck with Ptolemy as the canonical source for Greek astronomy. But Ptolemy lived hundreds of years after the golden age of Greek science. It is likely that he was not the pinnacle of Greek astronomy, but rather a regressive later author who perhaps took astronomy backwards more than anything else.

Episode #9: Heliocentrism Before the Telescope

Galileo is remembered today as the greatest champion of Copernicus. But while other scientists filled the margins of Copernicus’s book with calculations and annotations, Galileo’s copy is bizarrely blank, as if he had not given the text a serious reading at all.

Blåsjö quotes another historian:

“…when I saw the copy in Florence, my reaction was one of scepticism that it was actually Galileo’s copy, since there were so few annotations in it. … This copy had no technical marginalia, in fact, no penned evidence that Galileo had actually read any substantial part of it. … Eventually, … I realized that my scepticism was unfounded and that it really was Galileo’s copy.”

There is no need for surprise, of course. Galileo was a poor mathematician. He had neither the patience nor the ability to understand serious mathematical astronomy, let alone make any contribution to it.

***

More episodes are coming. (In an email, Blåsjö told me he’s barely halfway through his Galileo material!) I’m especially eager to hear the next one, which will tackle the discoveries Galileo made with his telescope.

Was Galileo a great scientist? A skilled popularizer? A talentless hack? I don’t honestly know. But the fact that we’re asking the question feels pretty darn radical to me.

from Math with Bad Drawings https://ift.tt/2U0BC5w from Blogger https://ift.tt/2HxdVfd

#Blogger