#and this season had the potential to be 100x better if the show was still a drama and the writers didn't suck so bad

[chibivesicle]

Golden Kamuy chapters 263 & 264 - personal disappointment.

I left off at the end of chapter 262 when Boutarou got shot and I was curious how things were going to pan out.  Chapter 263 starts off with the action of the men being pursued by Hijikata.  And not shockingly at all, he single-handedly defeats all of them to determine that he was chasing a decoy bag of barley for the malting process in the brewery.  Honestly, this isn’t all that effective in the story but does feed the needs of Hijikata fans to watch him kick ass.

A more interesting action shot happens between Sugimoto and Kikuta.  In his usual form, Sugimoto swings at Kikuta with his rifle.

This catches Kikuta by surprise at the rifle swung at him.

He’s able to hit one of his hands where a Nagant revolver is sent flying.  Of course we even have Kikuta commenting at the loss of one of his babies off into the road.  Tsurumi turns to see Sugimoto and calls him out.  Of course he takes two shots at Sugimoto regardless of Kikuta in between the two of them.

We see that Sugimoto is trying to grab Kikuta’s other hand with his other current Nagant and Kikuta remarks that Tsurumi’s behavior is dangerous, since he’s in the line of fire.

The action then shifts back to the beer bottle mobile with a [sadly] dying Boutarou. Shiraishi asks Boutarou, what he was thinking and points out that he would have no problem letting Shiraishi get shot.  He rightly points out that it was uncharacteristic behavior for him.

Shiraishi despite stating this obvious fact does look gravely concerned.  Boutarou tells him that he messed up, and uses this as a time to make a dying wish/request of Shiraishi.  Unable to realize his dream of having his personal kingdom and lots of children, he passes his goal for memory to be achieved through Shiraishi and his future family instead. 

This leaves Shiraishi to only quietly reply with a soft and hesitant yeah.  Boutarou was an astute observer of people, he clearly had seen that Shiraishi is a decent guy who has matured since he last encountered him in prison.  I think this is also a sort of confidence in Shiraishi for the potential to be a good parent since he’s overall a good person.  We’ve learned that he ended up in the system because he was an abandoned child who never knew family but could change and grow as a person. 

Boutarou hands him the skins he took from Kadokura and tells him that he needs to make something of his life.  With a calm and serious expression he replies that he understands the dying man’s wish and he pulls him close to whisper something in Shiraishi’s ear.

The look of shock tells us, that what ever Boutarou said was a huge deal.  The next page is a single page panel of Shiraishi confirming that Boutarou got more information from the Ainu about where the gold started from.  Or more exactly, the place where all of the gold was gathered before Wilk stole it and moved it to the unknown location.

Of course, we didn’t hear that information so only Shiraishi knows the exact location. With that, Boutarou dies and Shiraishi tells him that he will not forget him and he drives the car off from the location.

As a reader, I’m more than disappointed by this event.  Shiraishi has watched another person he clearly had a friendship with die in front of him.  When Kiro died he was too far away to witness the exact event, but he buried his friend.  This time, his life was saved by Boutarou who, in part saved him, to keep his own dream alive through Shiraishi. 

Shiraishi is one of the more innocent cast members, who does small things that are questionable, but compared to many others does not kill people or act super greedy since his lame use for the gold would to do what he already does, which implies in part he’s content with his life.  I really wanted him to not have to watch another person die before him, but nope, Noda decided to make him suffer. 

Now, the fanbook had comments from Noda about how Boutarou would be important for how he’d impact other characters - clearly this is one aspect of that, but I was looking forward to more time with our pirate.  He was a more interesting convict and I wanted to see more from him.

The action shifts back to Sugimoto fighting Kikuta and Tsurumi has thankfully, returned to driving the fire engine and let Kikuta deal with Sugimoto.  Though he keeps his eyes on the two men, just to make sure he’s observing as much as possible.  This is clear for two pages as Sugimoto is working very hard to not have Kikuta shoot hi with the revolver.  Of course, he demands that he gives Asirpa back and about sending him to hell.

Smoothly and calmly, Kikuta smirks back and tells him to go ahead and kill him since ‘they’ll rolls out the red carpet’ for him.  This causes Sugimoto to pause has he goes from having murder eyes to normal eyes.  He has recognized Kikuta.  Something about him has caused Sugimoto to freeze and the next page shows him recognizing him fully.  As he asks him if he’s ‘Mr. Kikuta?’  This situation has caused him to snap out of his usual murder rage attack.

Then, Kikuta makes a connection, that Sugimoto is someone he refers to as a ‘vagrant boy’ implying they have crossed paths before, if he’s got a nickname for Sugimoto.

Now we know that Tsurumi has been watching them the entire time and he takes this pause as a chance to try to shoot Sugimoto.  Sugimoto is caught off guard by the shots and Kikuta takes this chance to literally give him the boot.  KIkuta does not look happy as he pulls his leg back before kicking Sugimoto off the fire engine and he flies off with his rifle.

Of course Sugimoto runs after the engine while screaming Asirpa’s name and she tries to yell back to Sugimoto while bound and gagged.  It is unclear where Asirpa is.  Is she on the fire engine?  Or is she with Tsukishima?  Still hard to tell at this point.  Koito then starts off by mentioning that they are currently not being chased and they head to the meeting point.

Suddenly, Koito’s horse is shot as he calls otu to Tsukishima as his horse collapses.  Next Sofia leaps from a roof onto Tsukishima on his horse.  And the chapter ends.

Overall, the pacing in this chapter was a bit odd.  We learned that Hijikata was following a dead end, Boutarou dramatically dies while telling some sort of secret info to Shiraishi, Kikuta and Sugimoto know each other and Sofia has made her move meaning she followed Tsukishima and Koito from Otaru to Sapporo.

The next chapter picks up wit the action. Sofia spurs Tsukishima’s horse on to separate him and his bag from Koito and Nikaido.  A smart plan as two of her men work to take out Nikaido’s horse as well and Koito quickly orders Nikaido what to do next, which again shows us that he’s improved in his management of others in the absence of Tsukishima.

Sofia moves quickly to cut the rope around the bag and pulls a revolver on Tsukishima.  Sofia’s eyes are pure white, never a good sign but Tsukishima thinks fast to headbutt her in the face and she misfires.

This entire fight scene between Tsukishima and Sofia is 100x better than our previous chapter’s Hijikata vs nameless lame members of the 27th.  The seasoned combat experience of both of them is incredible. Tsukishima grabs her wrist with the revolver while elbowing her in the face, but she shoots the horse bringing them to a dead stop and Tsukishima has a look of panic while she is behind him.

The bag then rolls forward and under the indication that it has Asirpa, Sofia throws herself out to protect the bag.  Unfortunately, she rolls headfirst into a telegraph pole (?) which would had to give her a concussion.  She opens the bag to reveal odds and ends that they had stuffed into the bag when changing into the firemen outfit/uniforms.  As she reaches for her revolver, Tsukishima kicks it away so she just punches him instead.  She charges to him when she suddenly collapses (likely due to the concussion).

Tsukishima is in shock at her tenacity as he sits up from the ground.  Meanwhile, Koito and Nikaido pursue the two other men.  The one Russian man says the other guy should call some of their compatriots or even most of them in Otaru. . .

Unfortunately, Tsurumi roles by and Kikuta lurks in the background revolvers already drawn.  Both Kikuta and Tsurumi make quick work of taking the other two men out and they meet up with Koito and Tsukishima.  Tsukishima makes it clear that she was speaking Russian, and Kikuta notes the other men are not Japanese and being the firearms nerd that he is, the rifles are Swiss made. 

Tsukishima also remarks how he saw her in Otaru near the hospital.  Koito then notices that Kiro’s knife is on the ground near her.  He asks if they were pursued all the way from Akou prison and he should damn well know that the knife was Kiro’s.

Shiraishi left it with Kiro when he buried him, but it is clear that Sofia took it from him and now has it as a part of her possessions.  Tsukishima noticed that she has a clear grudge against them and Nikaido states it would be good to kill her now.  Tsurumi instead decides to take her hostage, not yet knowing who she is.  He just knows that she’s associated with Kiro and definitely knows that he has more allies and they are nearby so it would be better to get information out of her.

Realizing they are at risk, Tsurumi changes their plans and we finally learn that Asirpa has been on the fire engine the entire time!  I guess they ditched Usami’s body back at the brewery and it will go up in smoke?

Sugimoto continues to run after the fire engine and stops to vomit in exhaustion as Shiraishi drives up to him with the car.  As expected, Sugimoto’s appreciation of Shiraishi quickly fades as he then insults his poor driving skills.  He tells him to drive faster and they get passed by a cat, which looks kind of like Edogai’s cat but Japanese twitter already figured out was a similar cat with a different black fur pattern.  I had wanted it to be Edogai’s cat to be in search of the fake skins as a plot point. . .

Sugimoto then shoves Shiraishi out of the way saying he’ll drive even though he has no idea and he then beats on it just like on the blimp as he hits the steering wheel.  Instead of Ogata looking at him oddly, Shiraishi describes how the clutch and throttle work since it is far to early for the invention of automatic.  Sugimoto crashes the car into some lumber and Boutarou’s body flies out.  Interestingly, Sugimoto apologies to the dead man while Shiraishi tells him to put his body in the back.

As they drive, Sugimoto asks Shiraishi if he recognized ‘the guy with the two pistols’.  Even though Sugimoto already confirmed Kikuta’s identity, he wonders if he remembers him.  Shiraishi didn’t recognize him from the group even though he was present in Karafuto.

Sugimoto then stays silent as he thinks about something that relates to Kikuta and changes the subject to if Boutarou said anything [of interest] in the end. So, desipte knowing more about Kikuta, he doesn’t share this information with Shiraishi.

Almost in response to Sugimoto’s question Shiraishi also doesn’t tell him all he knows.  He repeats the request to settle down and have kids so they can learn about Boutarou’s heroic actions.  He also adds in his own observation that despite the pirate’s less than ideal methods, he just wanted to have a family.

While Shiraishi is talking Sugimoto thinks back to Kikuta and we see him asking Sugimoto where he lives.  Kikuta is dressed in casual clothing and unfortunately, I lack the ability to try to identify the building in the background . . . .

All we can tell is that it is a more modern building and likely in a city - so Tokyo perhaps?  The fanbook tells us that Kikuta is from Saitama prefecture which like the Kanagawa prefecture are all in the Tokyo region, so maybe Kikuta was back visiting his family and he crossed paths with Sugimoto while he wandered around the area. 

It would be interesting to learn that Kikuta recruited Sugimoto to the army through his actions or advice. Sugimoto frowns before he replies.  Is he upset that Kikuta works for Tsurumi?  That he’s not getting enough information about Boutarou?  Or both?  He then asks Shiraishi further to confirm that he didn’t learn anything else from Boutarou.

It is clear that the car still isn’t going too fast as a dog runs along in the background.  The phrasing of their conversation is translated in such a way that is a little unclear to me as a reader.  Sugimoto is asking for him to confirm that he didn’t get any of the Ainu information out of him.

Shiraishi replies with a no and then he pauses that ‘he told me, all right’.  Is this a you didn’t get any information? with a no as a confirmation.  Or are we to read that Shiraishi should have said yes that he didn’t get any information out of him.  Or that he got information and he’s telling Sugimoto to relax and he knows the information. 

This is one of those moments where I wish I had a better understanding of Japanese, but it is a more fuzzy language than English to begin with.  I’ll go with the idea that Shiraishi is confirming that he got useful information, but he’s not telling Sugimoto in this exact moment.  I’m definitely overthinking this line of dialogue.

The action returns to a church at night where Kiro’s makkiri, as well as both of Asirpa’s knives are placed on what appears to be the lectern of the church.

Tsurumi gives out his current orders.  Koito, Tsukishima and Kikuta are sent out to collect the rest of their group, but they can’t return until they’ve prevented anyone from following them.  This means that Hijikata’s group won’t be a threat since they have already decided on a strategic retreat.  The only group still a threat are possible Russians and Sugimoto and Shiraishi.  But really, Sugimoto is in no shape to take them.

Asirpa and Sofia are on the pew and she tries to speak to her after Tsukishima searches her.  Koito is keeping an eye on the entrance and Tsurumi decides that they stay in hiding until they can get more men from Asahikawa.  Tsukishima then produces an item to Tsurumi.

It is the photo that Tsurumi took of Wilk, Kiro and Sofia.  He had thought that he destroyed all of his photos, but it is clear that Sofia grabbed the photo before the Russian secret police came for him.  In this moment, he’s confirmed Sofia’s identity and he knows that she very well may have been the person who shot and killed Fina and Olga.

Keep in mind that Kiro tried to tell her that she could never confirm that she was the person who killed them, but Tsurumi saw her grief and apology first hand.  The fact we don’t see his face but his odd brain leak, means that he very well likely blamed her for the death of his family.

And with that the chapter ends!

As I stated at the beginning, this wasn’t what I expected to happen. 

Boutarou’s death - I was totally bummed out by this event.  He was such an interesting character and I liked how he made Sugimoto squirm in awkwardness to his own acts.  I really liked his character, by no means would I want to be friends with him, but he was a more interesting convict; clever, observant and dynamic.  I wanted to see more of what he’d do and he ended up having a villain death like he was from ‘Gintama’.  I love Gintama, don’t get me wrong, but he had a typical death as a serious arc from that series would have.  Boutarou deserved better.

Sugimoto backstory - Sugimoto has more backstory that is going to come forth.  We got our first peek at it from Boutarou and it looks like it will now continue with Kikuta.  Who was Kikuta to Sugimoto?  A mentor?  Did he convince him to enlist as a senior enlisted man?  He likely crossed paths with him around/after Koito’s kidnapping in 1902. I for one, invite more Sugimoto backstory - we need to know what shaped his very rigid judgement of others and why he distrusts and hates others for unclear reasons.

This also makes it interesting that Kikuta will stumble upon Sugimoto again and try to talk to him as a representative of Central.  It would also force Sugimoto to explain to Shiraishi why this random guy from the 27th knows him.

Sofia and Tsurumi meet again - Sofia was watching what happened from afar.  How did she know what was going on?  Why did she think for sure that she was rescuing Asirpa?  It is clear that she was with only a small part of her group and hopefully, they will hang back to determine what to do next.  Like Kiro, she had very bad luck.  She fought Tsukishima who should never be underestimated, got a concussion and it was the only reason she couldn’t keep fighting.  Based on his reaction, he’s not going to be nice to her.  I have been curious how this ‘reunion’ was going to go down since the Karafuto arc and we will finally see what happens.

Shiraishi hesitates - I’ve read things to imply that Shiraishi may be picking up on Sugimoto’s missing information and he’s also reluctant to divulge Boutarou’s information to Sugimoto immediately.  Does this mean that his original gold theory that Sugimoto mocked is totally spot on and the additional information verifies what they had worked to before becoming distracted by Jack?

And all while this chaos unfolds, where is Ogata?  Where is Vasily?  Are they still having their sniper battle?  Was Vasily the intel for Sofia’s men?  Or Ogata since he can speak Russian and relay that information along to Sofia?  As usual we are still lacking information which would make for a clearer picture.

We’ll have to see what happens next, but I predict that Sugimoto and Shiraishi may have to retreat and regroup either alone or hold his nose and rejoin Hijikata.  As useful as the bottle car is, it is pretty obvious and I don’t see how they get away from it to evade detection by the 27th or Hijikata who many seek them out to bring them back to his group in retreat.

#golden kamuy #golden kamuy meta #sugimoto saichi #Shiraishi Yoshitake #asirpa #warrant officer kikuta #tsurumi tokushirou #tsukishima hajime #koito otonoshin #nikaido #kiroranke #sofia #wilk #boutarou the pirate #hijikata toshizo

[anti-catradora-receipts]

What really irks me about Catradora is the fact that the writers of the show did a great job (imo, coming from an abuse victim) at portraying a victim's complicated relationship with their abuser when it came to Shadow Weaver but did a shit job with catradora. the two are obviously angry at shadow weaver and they understand shes a big source for their misery but they cant help but feel affection for her anyway. very realistic and relatable. why couldnt they do this with catradora? (1/2?]

why couldnt adoras relationship to catra be like that? why did they have to pretend all was fine and dandy? "oh forget that catra potentially maimed adora with the claws capable of tearing metal, forget that catra tried to kill adora several times, forget catra belittled adora, catra said sowy!" its not realistic. nobody ever has clear skies with their abuser. this show wouldve been 100x better if glimmadora happened + the relationship between adora and catra written as complicated [2/2]

Dear anon,

Firstly, I just wanted to say I’m sorry for what you went through. I really hope you’re doing okay.

Secondly, I think you pretty much summed up my feelings on how the show portrayed the different types of abuse. But my answer to your question: “Why didn’t the show handle the topic of relationship abuse as well as the topic of parental abuse?” is I really don’t know. I wish I had a better answer for you. When I first started the show, I really thought they were going to portray the different types of abuse in a very realistic way. But then season 5 came, and I felt insulted and I felt betrayed. 

I completely agree that Glimmadora should have happened. And I would have loved to see more realistic interactions between Catra and Adora based on seasons 1 to 4. I still think it’s pretty weird that Catradora was the main focus of season 5, when Catra and Adora hardly interacted in season 4. The show ended up being a huge disappointment, which really just sucks because I loved the characters and the story of She-Ra.

But I have to say I’m really happy that the show gave me the scene below, which has truly changed me as a person.

For me, this iconic scene will forever serve as a reminder to never, ever, tolerate an abusive relationship. 

Again, I really hope you’re taking care of your well-being because that is what’s most important.

Thank you very much for sharing.

#spop salt #spop critical #anti c//a #anti catradora #anti-catradora-receipts #adora deserves better

[spiftynifty]

VLD Rewatch: Season 3

For a half-of-a-half season, season 3 packs quite a bit in and sets up a lot of plot. This shouldn't be surprising; Voltron was laid out as three 26-ep seasons, with each season bringing a new big bad and new theme. Season 3 is our beginning of the Lotor arc and there's a lot of setup and... a lot to unpack here.

For those who are still in "can't do it" mode about rewatching the series (which is fair), here's a quick summary to catch you up:

Shiro has been missing for (it's kind of implied) months. Without Shiro, Voltron and the group are fractured, especially with Keith's deep grief over losing Shiro preventing the recruitment a new Paladin.

Ultimately, Keith takes up the mantle of the Black Lion, Lance moves to Red, and Allura gets Blue. The group is clumsy and outmatched by Lotor and his generals who are definitely Up to Something. Keith tries to play leader and it's a bad look when he's making decisions via grief escapism. The team gets briefly trapped on a foggy wifi-less planet, discovers a bizarro alt-reality where Alteans rule the universe and Shiro is Swedish and doesn't mind Slav, and trails after Lotor and Co who have made off with the reality-breaking comet from Svavland.

Meanwhile Shiro escapes the Galra again, catches up with Voltron, shares a couple lowlit intimate moments with Keith while also awkwardly undermining his authority and jeopardizing the safety of the team, but no one suspects a thing.

Oh and there's a flashback episode about the OG paladins that I'll be honest I skipped since it turns out literally nothing that happened in the past is relevant to the present day and our only major revelations are that we (and Haggar) learn that she was once Honerva, Zarkon her husband was once kinda adorable, and turning evil swaps out your voice actor. Oh and Honerva had a cat who may or may not be as old as Haggar and potentially still kicking around.

Let's talk about season 3.

There's good and bad to be had with this season. Originally when I began my rewatch of the show I wanted to do it as though I were watching the season for the first time. Season 1 and 2 made that astonishingly easy; of all the seasons they seem the most confident about what the show is and what it's going for. Season 1 is for the mild setup and world building, season 2 is for the character building, relationship building, lion building, and problem resolving. Season 2 is arguably the show's strongest season overall so it's a tough act to follow. Season 3... makes an effort.

The good of this season is really good. Keith's grief over losing Shiro surprised and moved me the first time I saw the season and I was impressed with how long they held onto it given the show's habit of moving on pretty quick. Keith's grief holds the team back and endangers it; his early insistence on going after Lotor felt like a way to channel his anguish and maybe get a little revenge for his loss. Keith got one of his most significant character boosts in season 2, and following it through in this season sets up a complicated Keith that we will see for seasons to come.

The other good is Lotor. Lotor is handsome and charismatic and devastatingly cunning and is a polar opposite to his Saturday-morning-cartoon-villain dad. Zarkon was threatening, but Lotor is INTERESTING and his "wait and see" approach makes us the audience want to wait and see what he's up to. His band of generals are intriguing and colorful and I love the variation of their designs and personalities.

And of course, we can't talk about the good stuff in season 3 without discussing Shiro and Keith's relationship. Season 2 gave us some really fantastic growth and moments and entire episodes between them, but Season 3 brought a new level of intimacy that definitely bumped it up a notch. From the slow-moving reunion and closeups of only Shiro and Keith's faces, to their quiet moments alone in dimly lit rooms. This season gave us "as many times as it takes", which remains one of the most beautiful little exchanges between the pair in the whole series. The jury is still out on whether or not Sheith was a hopeful intention by the creatives on this show or just an incredibly happy accident, but looking at some of the decisions made in 3x05 and 3x06 especially lean more to the former. These scenes are more bittersweet now knowing how it all ends up.

There is a lot of setup for future things in general, and this is where it becomes difficult to separate what is in s3 with what will be by the end of s6 (and beyond) because some things we just can't unknow. It was really interesting to see how things that made me very hyped after this season now take on a bit of a disappointing and even bitter flavor because some roads really don't go anywhere. Lotor's mysterious plans for instance, only seem to get more mysterious, as do his allegiances. He spends most of this season clearly toying with the Paladins, clearly prepared to destroy them or let them destroy themselves, but later he sides with them and the Paladins seem pretty quick to forgive this and assume he's a good guy now. Lotor's "side" is never clearly established since his goals never are. The Lotor in s3 is interesting by virtue of the assumption that we will eventually learn all his secrets. But we never do, and that definitely for me taints him as a character.

Speaking of some mixed character motivations, s4 reveals that Narti was either a spy for Haggar the whole time or that Kova was, or both, and yet in season 3 Haggar sends a goon off to spy on Lotor. Even in Haggar's private moments she seems unsure of what Lotor is up to so this later reveal that she was aware the whole time is an odd one and still left very vague.

Similarly, major problems arise with Shiro in s3 but only via the hindsight of s4-6. Everything about the way Shiro is brought back into the fold in season 3 is highly suspicious. From a narrative standpoint I want to say it begins with Sven as foreshadowing, an alternate-reality Shiro who looks JUST LIKE SHIRO but is NOT SHIRO. Unfortunately I think this was less of an audience wink and more of an excuse to nod to the original Sven. But Shiro's Journey opens with scientists doing tests on him, Shiro's pupils dilating to the sound of camera lens adjustments, and Shiro literally seeing a dead-eyed copy of himself on a slab. The words "Operation Kuron" are repeated at least three times as the Galra let him escape. When Shiro meets the two aliens on the ice planet and they accuse him of being a traitor, Shiro protests, "I'm not a--" and never finishes. He does pilot logs into a Galra Cruiser as he tails Voltron. And that's just in one episode.

The next episode has him repeatedly undermining Keith's newfound leadership position (a position Shiro repeatedly encouraged Keith into in s1/2 to Keith's great reluctance), to the point of talking over him and shouting at him. He dismisses the safety of the team for the sake of the mission; something that goes expressly against the team Voltron way of doing things (Kolivan details this in s4) and is completely against Shiro's nature. It felt manipulative to me the first time and it still feels off when at the end of this he privately tells Keith "I'm sorry I had to step in back there", referring to Keith's failure (which was not a failure) and then in the next breath "you're good at this." This was the topic of many a heated debate when the episode came out but from my end there is just no way to see that the man presented here is Shiro and not an insidious clone.

There's a term for this that I forget where the storyteller essentially gaslights the audience for no real reason. Ultimately we will come to know that this is Shiro. A little more short-tempered but ultimately a good boy and not the potentially fully aware evil clone that season 3 hints at. It's bad writing; and the reason that it's bad writing is that the audience is privy to very little more than the characters are when it comes to Kuron and yet the characters are not in the slightest bit suspicious about the behaviour that we the audience sees as suspect. We end up gaslighting ourselves because of bad writing, only to learn that we were right the whole time. And genuinely, speaking as someone who loves all Shiros dearly, Kuron is a whole walking writing disaster. But more on that as we get further into the season.

I don't love the episode, but the Comet episode is a surprisingly adult-oriented one and presents an interesting flip to things and an intriguing hypothesis that I wish had been explored better, or longer, or something. As I've said 100x before, Galra aren't an inherently evil race; they're the result of a 10,000 yr universe takeover. This episode suggests that Alteans are no better, and the broader implications of this are massive and should have offered a much bigger fundamental shift in the characters and the way they viewed this war. In particular Allura, who previously immediately turned against Keith the moment his heritage was revealed, despite having become good friends with him. Her learning that her own people aren't immune to "absolute power corrupts absolutely" is a moment that is not given any real weight or consequence . This is a letdown especially since this potentially weightier-themed episode was self-aware enough of that weight to be the only episode outside of the Voldemort season to show imagery maybe a little too old for its younger audience (the repeated shot of the mummified Altean scientist).

From a production standpoint I noticed a lot of little things. There were a number of hookup issues; some hilariously drawn bg characters, some compositing that worked and some that decidedly didn't. Some of the editing was a little rough in places and some of the timing of things felt very off. There were some jokes that ran long and didn't land and threw the pacing off or stole time from other things. The editing on the Comet episode was particularly off and the characters were visually difficult to track at times. Also, there is definitely a different/longer version of the "As many times as it takes" scene even if it only exists in script or maybe board form. All of the Shiros in that scene were drawn by Ryu, who was often tapped for revisions (particularly for Shiro and Lotor). But the Keith in that scene is not a Ryu Keith; and Keith's "Well--" in "If you're feeling up to it" sounds like two lines spliced together. Ryu's fingerprints are all over 3x06 in interesting places; I definitely spotted his artwork in at least one shot of the Galra post leader and I think a Zethrid. He drew a few of the short haired Shiros as well. I think this episode underwent a number of changes; I remember too that Lance exclaiming "you're looking better" was originally Keith's line. At the same time we get little nice superfluous animations like the foreground gecko. Just a lot of inconsistencies.

Overall it's still an alright season but knowing what's coming means I just don't love this season the way I used to. The little moments that rock still rock but a lot of plot pawns were pushed forward that were ultimately just discarded. I can't wait to see if finishing the next 3 seasons will retroactively bump this season back up to where it once was in my heart. 

#voltron #vld #vld rewatch

[callie-the-snarky-geek-blog]

RvB16 Episode 7 Review: It Just Winked At Me

Last time on Red vs Blue: O’Malley came back bitches. That’s it. That’s all you need to know. No need to go into how Grif is all alone with only a talking lens flare and all the potential angst that writers can dig up from that. Or that Atlus is a dork who obliterated Tucker and Sister into subatomic particles. None of that’s important at all. Only O’Malley matters.

Alright, so this episode has been hyped for awhile. Joe hyped it up. Kyle Taylor (the Machinima director) hyped it up. Even Gus hyped it up. Any of this can mean anything. So as we enter the shortest episode so far (only 7 minutes… I guess Joe couldn’t make the episodes longer unless he’s holding them back for later), what has all the talk been leading up to? Well… I can say it was like nothing I’ve seen before!

Overview

So good news, Tucker and Sister are alive! Yay… yeah I knew that was coming. There is no way that they’d kill a long-time character and a fan favorite character they finally made a main like that. Also it looks like the blast sobered them up. So there’s your lesson kids: if you are drunk off your ass, being blasted by God is how you sober back up! Atlus tries to kill them a couple more times before finally realizing that ‘his’ protection is making that impossible. Also we find out that Kalirama is his sister, which explains her being the Queen of the Cosmic Powers. So goign into some speculating, Kalirama mentioned being the Daughter of Time. My guess has been that the villain is Chronos, the Personification of Time. It can also refer to Cronus, the King of the Titans and father of Zeus. If Joe made Chronos and Cronus the same person who Atlus overthrew and he and Kalirama and his kids trying to keep him locked up… wow and I thought the Church and Grif families were fucked up.

Since Atlus can’t obliterate Tucker and Sister, he goes with the option of ‘let my mindless minions do it’. So he summons up a cyclopes… I am NOT joking. Some may find this too bizarre, but as someone who likes mythical shenanigans I do NOT give a shit! Plus it fits the myth theme since cyclopes’ are part of both Greek and Roman mythology. So the cyclopes obviously isn’t a Halo character, so what did they do? They… put Gus in a costume/a ton of makeup and made him do it. Yes, you read that right. The cyclopes was RvB’s very own Gustavo Sorola. It is also, I believe, RvB’s first implementation of live-action within the show, at least on this level. It’s pretty good! I mean the cyclopes is butt ugly, but I’m pretty sure that was the point… sorry Gus.

So Atlus sicks… Grugh, I think? Screw it, I’m calling him Gus. My blog, my rules. Atlus sicks Gus on the two Blues. They understandably, make a run for it. At least until Sister quips that Tucker could prove how great a fighter she is. Which she meant as sarcasm… but Tucker of course has to decide to be Mr. Macho and face Gus. The result? Both the time gun and the sword get knocked away from him. I should also point out that Gus is about 100X larger than Tucker. So he can easily crush him… yyyyeah… not your best plan Tucker.

Back in the 6th Century (not the 16th like I wrote last week, Past Callie is stupid), Huggins is trying to figure out what to do now that O’Malley has gotten away and both she and Grif are stranded. Grif is currently… I guess looking for mushrooms since he mentions eating them later. Guess since he can’t talk Italian, that’s the only way he can survive, I mean it worked on the moon! Anyways, Huggins contemplates her options. Now because she’s talking fast, it’s hard to make out everything and for whatever reason,t he RT site doesn’t have a subtitle option that I REALLY hope they fix soon. But anyways, Huggins comes u with three potential solutions:

Wait it out and let time move along until she’s back in present day. This is ruled out because it would take far too long. This one is declared a ‘maybe’.

MURDER! Kill Grif and prevent at least one dirty shisno from fucking everything up! This is also ruled out as it goes against Huggins’ code and it’s also forbidden. Oh, but Atlus can obliterate people? I sense abuse of power!

Talk to Grif and convince him to team up so that they can find a way out of the 6th Century. But if she does this, thee penalty is getting tortured int he Underworld for all eternity. But this is the only option that could work, so… ye, she risks it.

Alright, so reasoning! Huggins goes to Grif, who is pretty much refusing to believe anything that is happening. Huggins tries to convince him to help her since otherwise hey’re both gonna die. Grif doesn’t buy any of it, especially when Huggins reveals that the Gods sent her to spy on them. SO he just walks away and Huggins is probably re-considering the murder option now.

Alright, back to the moon! Tucker tries to shoot Gus… and of course fails. Stupid guns! Sister retrieves both the time gun and Tucker’s sword as Tucker himself ducks inside the base. He tries to think of what to do… and sees his old armor set, giving him an idea. Gus reaches in and grabs what looks like Tucker, eating his head. Eww, Gus! That’ll ruin your teeth!  Also is this an Attack on Titans reference? I’m positive that it’s an Attack on Titans reference. But of course it was really the empty armor which Tucker stuffed with grenades. Which go off, distracting Gus and Tucker drives in with the Warthog, driving it straight into hos face. It finally knocks Gus down and Tucker along with him.

So it looks like Tucker wins, right? Haha… yeah… about that. Sister points out that normally when you beat the boss, they come back twice as powerful. You’d think that Tucker, living in a video game, would know this but meh. SO yeah, Gus gets back up and he is not happy. Hey Tucker, tell him that they should go to Vegas! That’ll make him REALLY angry I bet! Tucker runs into the caves and seems safe since Gus’ hand is too big… until Tucker says he needs to do it one finger at a time. And Gus can understand English, so… yeah…

Fortunately before Tucker can get grabbed, Sister channels her inner Xena and attempts to use the sword, jump down form the cliffs, and stab Gus in the head. But Tucker informs her too late that the sword only works for him. SO she gets smacked away and when Tucker exits the cave to help, he gets knocked over to her. Sister points out that cyclopes’ have a fatal weakness, so Tucker goe sin and… attacks Gus’ groin. I… don’t think that’s what she meant Tucker… but it works as Gus finally hits the ground. Well… not the defeat I was expecting, but it was a defeat!

Unfortunately, Atlus decides to sick Gus’ wife on them who is rather peeved that due to this, they can’t do hanky panky and have kids. Having had enough, Tucker and Sister FINALLY do what they should have done before: open a time portal and get the fuck out of there. Where do they end up? Well remember the medieval scene from Episode 1? Well they FINALLY connected it to the main narrative as the two end up on the same tower as medieval Grif and Simmons. And the two get arrested… WELP.

Review

This episode has had a lot of mixed reception so far. I haven’t seen anyone hate it, but many were disappointing. It’s understandable why. After all the hype, it was really just about a dumb joke. A very well shot dumb joke, but a dumb joke. There’s still so little about he plot we know, nothing advanced any further here, the episode was incredibly short, and it’s still unclear what all of this is leading us to. We’re on Episode 7 and no progress has been made. I think so far Joe has the opposite problem he had last year. Last year, he rushed it because he only ha done season. This year he has more than one, but due to it he slowed down. A little too much maybe. This coming off the heels of last week’s O’Malley plot bomb and… yeah I don’t blame people in being disappointed and viewing this as completely pointless.

I didn’t know how to feel during the first viewing… but when watching ti again to write this review, I was laughing so much. I got a LOT more enjoyment out of it. To be fair, I am always like that. I always like stuff on the second watch than the first one since I knwo what’s coming and I can better process it. And watching ti again… I don’t think that this was pointless at ll. There’s no major progression with the plot, and I agree that it’s been long enough. But… I got a lot out of this episode, even form Grif’s brief scene. Not just with plot, but the work on this episode is truly impressive imo.

Before we talk about that, lets do Grif’s scene. It’s only about a minute long and the only machinimated scene. Yeah, 95% of the episode was CGI animated. But Grif’s scene, while brief, was good. I wish we saw a bit mroe follow-up on how he’s doing after O’Malley left him stranded, but him living off mushrooms I can buy. Him also goign into denial over everything I can also buy. So not as much as I was hoping for with him, but good stuff that matches his character.

The scene’s actual importance is mainly setup for what’ll happen later. It also FINALLY gave us some time with Huggins’ since Episode 1. And OMG, I absolutely love her. Her rapid fire dialogue is kind of hard to make out, but her actress did a good job at it. Huggins is cheerful, but serious about her job. She understands the importance of what’s coming, but has to resort to breaking law since she’s in a position where otherwise, everyone is doomed. She’s cute, but also sassy as evident with her response when Grif calls her Tinkerbell (is that gonna be his nickname for her when he warms up to her? I want it to be!) Seriously I am already loving the interactions between Grif and Huggins and I am really excited to see more of it! Now how they’ll get out of the 6th Century IDK, but we’ll just have to wait.

Okay, back to the res tof the episode. As I said, pretty much the entire episode is CGI animated. it’s the first major CGI fight in the season, and it was awesome. Okay it was mostly running, but it was fun to watch. Tucker plowing the Warthog into Gus was freakin’ badass. The voice acting was also on point. I have never laughed harder at Jason Saldana’s performance than I have today and Becca continues to crush it as Sister. Seriously, going all Xena with the ‘alalala!’ war-cry had me dying. An ProZD as Atus… OMG ProZD. He was fantastic in this episode and it added so much to Atlus as a character. Like he is just enjoying the show and is so unimpressed with Tucker and Sister even when they win. His animation where he’s just celebrating watching Gus winning was also so freakin’ fantastic and again, dds to the character. Seriously, I wasn’t sure what to think of Atlus before, but he has already become one of my fav RvB villain ever after this episode alone.

So onto Gus… I have no idea how Joe talked him into this. I mean he’s done worst and IDT anything will be as bad as when he did the Baby Gus RT Short. That short man… anyways! I think Gus did really well! It felt like he was truly interacting with the environment. He didn’t have to do much acting aside form grunting and going around wildly, but it felt like he was playing a monstrous cyclopes. Credit also to Joe and his directing. I don’t knwo what inspired him to do this, but OMG I am so glad he did. I mean it looks weird and it’s ridiculous.., but it’s RvB. It’s always been weird and ridiculous. Plus using live action again sells the effect that the cyclopes is a monster compared to what we’re used to with the machinima. It sold the effect really well. So kudos to Joe and to Gus because shooting this and then editing it in had to be a nightmare.

It’s why I don’t think the episode was at all pointless. I mean we DO have some minor things. We find out that Kalirama is Atlus’ sister, the villain si indeed a locked up time God, get a taste of how powerful the Cosmic Powers forces are, have some characterization for Atlus, setup for Grif and Huggins’ plot, an actual fight scene after so long, and it FINALLY ties in the medieval scene. It’s also huge on a cinematic scale, which is probably why it’s only 7 minutes. I mena Joe and his team had to fully animate the episode, shoot Gus’ scenes where he’s pretty much just interacting with air, combined the footage together, likely do re-shoots if the live action was even slightly off, edit it all together with the machinima, and… yeah. This was likely a huge pain it he ass to do for everyone involved. But I appreciate that they did. Joe is going above and beyond what he has to do. he could just do solely machinima and it would be fine. But he’s trying new things, implementing more CGI, and taking the show to the next level. Is it a hit? That’s for one to decide on their own. I think it worked here, but I don’t think they should regularly implement live action as they did. Special occasions are fine though. But I still appreciate Joe trying things and putting in the effort when he doesn’t have to. He wants to make the show as good as he can, and I can absolutely respect that.

Final Thoughts

Did they hype this one too much? Maybe a little. It was not what I was expecting at all. But I don’t thin that’s a bad thing. Again, I appreciate them going out of their way to do this. Plus the animation, dialogue, and voice acting were really good. Can I understand why people don’t like this episode and are getting weary of the season? Absolutely yes. I do hoe that Joe starts to speed up the plot soon. But I still had a fun time watching the episode, and in the end that’s what matters: having a good time. It was weird and ridiculous and I wouldn’t have it nay other way.

#rvb #rvb16 #rvb reviews #old blog repost

[calliecat93]

RvB16 Episode 7 Review: It Just Winked At Me

Last time on Red vs Blue: O’Malley came back bitches. That’s it. That's all you need to know. No need to go into how Grif is all alone with only a talking lens flare and all the potential angst that writers can dig up from that. Or that Atlus is a dork who obliterated Tucker and Sister into subatomic particles. None of that’s important at all. Only O’Malley matters.

Alright, so this episode has been hyped for awhile. Joe hyped it up. Kyle Taylor (the Machinima director) hyped it up. Even Gus hyped it up. Any of this can mean anything. So as we enter the shortest episode so far (only 7 minutes... I guess Joe couldn't make the episodes longer unless he’s holding them back for later), what has all the talk been leading up to? Well... I can say it was like nothing I’ve seen before!

Overview

So good news, Tucker and Sister are alive! Yay... yeah I knew that was coming. There is no way that they’d kill a long-time character and a fan favorite character they finally made a main like that. Also it looks like the blast sobered them up. So there’s your lesson kids: if you are drunk off your ass, being blasted by God is how you sober back up! Atlus tries to kill them a couple more times before finally realizing that ‘his’ protection is making that impossible. Also we find out that Kalirama is his sister, which explains her being the Queen of the Cosmic Powers. So... I made a post a few days ago about Kalirama’s titles and she mentioned being the Daughter of Time. My guess has been that the villain is Chronos, the Personification of Time. It can also refer to Cronus, the King of the Titans and father of Zeus. If Joe made Chronos and Cronus the same person who Atlus overthrew and he and Kalirama and his kids trying to keep him locked up... wow and I thought the Church and Grif families were fucked up.

Since Atlus can’t obliterate Tucker and Sister, he goes with the option of ‘let my mindless minions do it’. So he summons up a cyclopes... I am NOT joking. Some may find this too bizarre, but as someone who likes mythical shenanigans I do NOT give a shit! Plus it fits the myth theme since cyclopes’ are part of both Greek and Roman mythology. So the cyclopes obviously isn’t a Halo character, so what did they do? They... put Gus in a costume/a ton of makeup and made him do it. Yes, you read that right. The cyclopes was RvB’s very own Gustavo Sorola. It is also, I believe, RvB’s first implementation of live-action within the show, at least on this level. It’s pretty good! I mean the cyclopes is butt ugly, but I’m pretty sure that was the point... sorry Gus.

So Atlus sicks... Grugh, I think? Screw it, I’m calling him Gus. My blog, my rules. Atlus sicks Gus on the two Blues. They understandably, make a run for it. At least until Sister quips that Tucker could prove how great a fighter she is. Which she meant as sarcasm... but Tucker, of course, has to decide to be Mr. Macho and face Gus. The result? Both the time gun and the sword get knocked away from him. I should also point out that Gus is about 100X larger than Tucker. So he can easily crush him... yyyyeah... not your best plan Tucker.

Back in the 6th Century (not the 16th like I wrote last week, Past Callie is stupid), Huggins is trying to figure out what to do now that O’Malley has gotten away and both she and Grif are stranded. Grif is currently... I guess looking for mushrooms since he mentions eating them later. Guess since he can't talk Italian, that’s the only way he can survive, I mean it worked on the moon! Anyways, Huggins contemplates her options. Now because she’s talking fast, it’s hard to make out everything and for whatever reason,t he RT site doesn't have a subtitle option that I REALLY hope they fix soon. But anyways, Huggins comes u with three potential solutions:

Wait it out and let time move along until she’s back in present day. This is ruled out because the Reds and Blues will still be time traveling, evil time God goes free, and the universe dies. This one is declared a ‘maybe’.

MURDER! Kill Grif and prevent at least one dirty shisno from fucking everything up! This is also ruled out as it goes against Huggins’ code and it’s also forbidden. Oh, but Atlus can obliterate people? I sense abuse of power!

Talk to Grif and convince him to team up so that they can find a way out of the 6th Century. But if she does this, thee penalty is getting tortured int he Underworld for all eternity. But this is the only option that could work, so... ye, she risks it.

Alright, so reasoning! Huggins goes to Grif, who is pretty much refusing to believe anything that is happening. Huggins tries to convince him to help her since otherwise they're both gonna die. Grif doesn't buy any of it, especially when Huggins reveals that the Gods sent her to spy on them. SO he just walks away and Huggins is probably re-considering the murder option now.

Alright, back to the moon! Tucker tries to shoot Gus... and of course, fails. Stupid guns! Sister retrieves both the time gun and Tucker’s sword as Tucker himself ducks inside the base. He tries to think of what to do... and sees his old armor set, giving him an idea. Gus reaches in and grabs what looks like Tucker, eating his head. Eww, Gus! That’ll ruin your teeth!  Also is this an Attack on Titans reference? I’m positive that it’s an Attack on Titans reference. But of course, it was really the empty armor which Tucker stuffed with grenades. Which go off, distracting Gus and Tucker drives in with the Warthog, driving it straight into his face. It finally knocks Gus down and Tucker along with him.

So it looks like Tucker wins, right? Haha... yeah... about that. Sister points out that normally when you beat the boss, they come back twice as powerful. You’d think that Tucker, living in a video game, would know this but meh. SO yeah, Gus gets back up and he is not happy. Hey Tucker, tell him that they should go to Vegas! That’ll make him REALLY angry I bet! Tucker runs into the caves and seems safe since Gus’ hand is too big... until Tucker says he needs to do it one finger at a time. And Gus can understand English, so... yeah...

Fortunately, before Tucker can get grabbed, Sister channels her inner Xena and attempts to use the sword, jump down from the cliffs, and stab Gus in the head. But Tucker informs her too late that the sword only works for him. SO she gets smacked away and when Tucker exits the cave to help, he gets knocked over to her. Sister points out that cyclopes’ have a fatal weakness, so Tucker goe sin and... attacks Gus’ groin. I... don’t think that’s what she meant Tucker... but it works as Gus finally hits the ground. Well... not the defeat I was expecting, but it was a defeat! 

Unfortunately, Atlus decides to sick Gus’ wife on them who is rather peeved that due to this, they can't do hanky panky and have kids. Having had enough, Tucker and Sister FINALLY do what they should have done before: open a time portal and get the fuck out of there. Where do they end up? Remember the medieval scene from Episode 1? Well, they FINALLY connected it to the main narrative as the two end up on the same tower as medieval Grif and Simmons. And the two get arrested... WELP.

Review

This episode has had a lot of mixed reception so far. I haven’t seen anyone hate it, but many were disappointing. It’s understandable why. After all the hype, it was really just about a dumb joke. A very well shot dumb joke, but a dumb joke. There’s still so little about the plot we know, nothing advanced any further here, the episode was incredibly short, and it’s still unclear what all of this is leading us to. We’re on Episode 7 and no progress has been made. I think so far Joe has the opposite problem he had last year. Last year, he rushed it because he only has done season. This year he has more than one, but due to it he slowed down. A little too much maybe. This coming off the heels of last week’s O’Malley plot bomb and... yeah I don’t blame people in being disappointed and viewing this as completely pointless.

I didn’t know how to feel during the first viewing... but when watching ti again to write this review, I was laughing so much. I got a LOT more enjoyment out of it. To be fair, I am always like that. I always like stuff on the second watch than the first one since I know what’s coming and I can better process it. And watching ti again... I don’t think that this was pointless at ll. There’s no major progression with the plot, and I agree that it’s been long enough. But... I got a lot out of this episode, even form Grif’s brief scene. Not just with the plot, but the work on this episode is truly impressive imo.

Before we talk about that, let's do Grif’s scene. It’s only about a minute long and the only machinimated scene. Yeah, 95% of the episode was CGI animated. But Grif’s scene, while brief, was good. I wish we saw a bit more follow-up on how he’s doing after O’Malley left him stranded, but him living off mushrooms I can buy. Him also going into denial over everything I can also buy. So not as much as I was hoping for with him, but good stuff that matches his character.

The scene’s actual importance is mainly setup for what’ll happen later. It also FINALLY gave us some time with Huggins’ since Episode 1. And OMG, I absolutely love her. Her rapid-fire dialogue is kind of hard to make out, but her actress did a good job at it. Huggins is cheerful, but serious about her job. She understands the importance of what’s coming but has to resort to breaking law since she’s in a position where otherwise, everyone is doomed. She’s cute, but also sassy as evident with her response when Grif calls her Tinkerbell (is that gonna be his nickname for her when he warms up to her? I want it to be!) Seriously I am already loving the interactions between Grif and Huggins and I am really excited to see more of it! Now how they’ll get out of the 6th Century IDK, but we’ll just have to wait.

Okay, back to the res tof the episode. As I said, pretty much the entire episode is CGI animated. it’s the first major CGI fight in the season, and it was awesome. Okay it was mostly running, but it was fun to watch. Tucker plowing the Warthog into Gus was freakin’ badass. The voice acting was also on point. I have never laughed harder at Jason Saldana’s performance than I have today and Becca continues to crush it as Sister. Seriously, going all Xena with the ‘alalala!’ war-cry had me dying. An ProZD as Atus... OMG ProZD. He was fantastic in this episode and it added so much to Atlus as a character. Like he is just enjoying the show and is so unimpressed with Tucker and Sister even when they win. His animation where he’s just celebrating watching Gus winning was also so freakin’ fantastic and again, dds to the character. Seriously, I wasn’t sure what to think of Atlus before, but he has already become one of my fav RvB villain ever after this episode alone.

So onto Gus... I have no idea how Joe talked him into this. I mean he’s done worst and IDT anything will be as bad as when he did the Baby Gus RT Short. That short man... anyways! I think Gus did really well! It felt like he was truly interacting with the environment. He didn’t have to do much acting aside form grunting and going around wildly, but it felt like he was playing a monstrous cyclops. Credit also to Joe and his directing. I don’t know what inspired him to do this, but OMG I am so glad he did. I mean it looks weird and it’s ridiculous.., but it’s RvB. It’s always been weird and ridiculous. Plus using live action again sells the effect that the cyclops is a monster compared to what we’re used to with the machinima. It sold the effect really well. So kudos to Joe and to Gus because shooting this and then editing it in had to be a nightmare. 

It’s why I don’t think the episode was at all pointless. I mean we DO have some minor things. We find out that Kalirama is Atlus’ sister, the villain is indeed a locked up time God, get a taste of how powerful the Cosmic Powers forces are, have some characterization for Atlus, setup for Grif and Huggins’ plot, an actual fight scene after so long, and it FINALLY ties in the medieval scene. It’s also huge on a cinematic scale, which is probably why it’s only 7 minutes. I mean Joe and his team had to fully animate the episode, shoot Gus’ scenes where he’s pretty much just interacting with air, combined the footage together, likely do re-shoots if the live action was even slightly off, edit it all together with the machinima, and... yeah. This was likely a huge pain in the ass to do for everyone involved. But I appreciate that they did. Joe is going above and beyond what he has to do. he could just do solely machinima and it would be fine. But he’s trying new things, implementing more CGI, and taking the show to the next level. Is it a hit? That's for one to decide on their own. I think it worked here, but I don’t think they should regularly implement live action as they did. Special occasions are fine though. But I still appreciate Joe trying things and putting in the effort when he doesn't have to. He wants to make the show as good as he can, and I can absolutely respect that.

Final Thoughts

Did they hype this one too much? Maybe a little. It was not what I was expecting at all. But I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Again, I appreciate them going out of their way to do this. Plus the animation, dialogue, and voice acting were really good. Can I understand why people don’t like this episode and are getting weary of the season? Absolutely yes. I do hope that Joe starts to speed up the plot soon. But I still had a fun time watching the episode, and in the end, that’s what matters: having a good time. It was weird and ridiculous and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

#rvb #rvb16 #rvb16 spoilers #rvb reviews

[mysynthfetish]

Um, Yeah.

Well it's damn near March already. What the hell? Where does the time go?

The whole world is in a huff about COVID-19, and here in Japan too, obviously, but people are in full-on freakout mode. First thing they did was go on a panic-buying-spree of masks, like surgical masks, you know, the ones everyone here wears when it's either flu or hay fever season. So, there's a shortage of masks now. "ONE BOX PER CUSTOMER!!" signs at the shops with any remaining stock. For me, the funniest thing is that masks do not prevent the wearer from catching a virus. The seal around the face is not perfect, so guess what, shit don't work. Unless you strap on a military grade chemical warfare motherfucker of a mask, like with the filter cans and shit? Nope. I mean, even the homepage of the WHO where you can find a coronavirus FAQ says so ("BUT THE WHO IS CONTROLLED BY THE UN AND THEY'RE SECRETLY OUT TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD SO YOU CAN'T TRUST THAT!!!!" yeah yeah yeah. Shame. On. You). But nahhhh who cares about actually using your head and thinking about how viruses spread. See, the masks work (sorta) when worn by people already infected, as they trap most of the fun stuff ejected by a sneeze or a cough. Not all of it. We can still hope for some fun to be shared among the general populace can we not? Ahhh but it's easier to be a total idiot and follow the herd mentality and panic-buy useless shit. Then there was the fiasco with the cruise ship and not letting passengers disembark, and then it turns out a number were let off without having to go through screening, but the Chinese are still being confined to quarters blah blah blah. Jeeezus Fucking Christ EVERYTHING is made in China anyway, from rubber dog shit to the (probably) fake ICs in your military hardware to your beloved smartphones and related devices, shit, even the incessant machine-diarrhea geyser of clone synths too, so what the hell is the big deal about a potentially pandemic-level megavirus every few years? Chinavirus. Next in the ongoing series. Personally, I don't really care where the viruses originate, and to tell the truth, I get a warm feeling inside when people lose their shit over stuff like this, and even warmer when the death toll rises and rises. Can't think of a better species to get a good culling than the old homo sapiens. Heh. Mister Misanthrope at your service! But anyway.....

Found this ancient beast sitting forgotten and forlorn in a closet at work. It's a Luxman 38FD "High Fidelity Stereo Integrated Amplifier" made around 1970 (like me!). It is in near fucking mint condition. HEAVY. AS. FUCK. And the winningest part of the whole thing besides it being destined for the Big Garbage pile and as a result free for the taking? IT WORKS. Oh, and even better...

IT'S A VACUUM TUBE AMP!!! Those are the main tubes, 50CA10, pretty much but not totally unobtanium. Yeah, they fucking glow a warm orangey red, and after a bit you can see blue vapor inside. Well, if you turn off all the lights and take the top cover off. It runs hot as fuck too. I was just shocked the thing worked. It's sitting comfortably atop the desk in the lair, where you'd normally park a printer, with a pair of Yamaha NS-100X speakers on risers above it. Sounds great. There's considerably more noise (hiss?) than a modern amp, but with the volume knob raised to about 10 o'clock, it's already loud enough that the hiss isn't even a consideration anymore, and any louder would be asking for trouble with the neighbors. I can't believe it because the amp is supposed to be a mere 30 watts per channel. I guess 30 watts from vacuum tubes is a hell of a lot different from even triple that from a modern amp. LOUD!!! So yay me.

Oh and speaking of viruses....

I was watching this one on the auction for about a month and a half. The opening bid started out at around $1700 but nobody bid, and the auction ended, and one option here on the yahoo auction is for an automatic re-listing with the opening bid discounted by a certain percent. I watched for a while, then just when I'd forgotten about it, it came up in the look-at-me feed and the price was down to a grand so I bid on it and won. I had one of these before and regretted selling it, thus the TI Polar in my arsenal now, but the 61-key TI has THE BEST keys ever. Feels so good to play. Fatar! I thought yeah ok I'll just say see ya to the Polar and call it even. But... Hmm... Wait... One thing led to another and in the end I decided to keep both the viruses and... and...... and...... sell the ION. Say WHAT?!?! After all the work and repairs and maintenance and customizing LEDs and and and and.... Yeah. It's a hell of a synth, no doubt about it, but I think anything with the Alesis logo on it has a very definite shelf-life. The pots are gonna go, a few are acting up already, and those are unobtanium unless you wanna shell out the dosh and buy from syntaur. You can't get NOS pots either. So... After some serious deep-thinking and careful consideration and deliberation I had to say to myself, "self, it's a wonderful machine capable of some great sounds, but it's only 8-voice polyphonic, there are barely any effects to mention, ok sure the mod matrix and plethora of filter models and waveshaping are fantastic, but you know how ridiculously MORE powerful the Virus TI is almost every respect!" And I admitted defeat. To myself. Weird, I know. But there you go. I don't think I know anyone with two Virus TI (or TI2) synths in their collection. Maybe Anthony Rother. I know he has two IONs. 

Ahhhh but this 61-key virus wasn't without problems. Uh, well, OK one BIG problem. The power supply shat itself when I turned it on for the first time. The LCD sorta flashed, there was a brief sign of life with some of the LEDs, but then blip! Nothing. Aaaaargh! Unseat the power cable, reseat it, try again. Nothing, just a high-pitched whine that was getting louder. I put my head up against the front panel, listening for where the whine was coming from, and figured out it was the far right side. That's where the PSU is. Then suddenly the sound changed to a higher pitch that swept downwards over the course of a few seconds, all the while sputtering like it had a downward sawtooth filter on it, then POP! No more sound. When I opened the case up, I immediately remembered that for whatever reason, Access decided to go with a PSU like you'd use with a laptop computer, the big brick-like deals, and that they'd carefully bracketed the brick in so that the eyeglass-socket for the plug lined up with the hole in the rear panel. OK so all I needed to do was find a same-rating PSU and then go about modding the bracket so cosmetically it would look from-the-factory. Incidentally, I contacted Access and asked about parts, but the rep said they don't have any more PSUs for the TI series, only ones for the TI2 series, and that they aren't the same size so when they do the repair, they put a DC jack on the rear panel and the PSU gets left out—goes from internal to external if you catch my drift. Well, no thank you, I do not care for that approach, no sir, I didn't wanna go that route at all. So, thanks to having access to a drill press and diamond-saw dremel tools at work, I made the necessary mods to the bracket, padded it a bit so it would securely hold the new PSU in place, and in the end you can't tell it isn't a factory PSU (from the outside). Yay me, part two.

This is the bracket, post choppy-grindy. Yeah so I "secured" the cabling with Scotch 33+... Hey, from the factory it was held down with hot glue!

Yeah that's where it attached to the PCB. CHEEKY!!!!!!!

Not bad, right? You'd never know. But I've told you, so now you know. Oh and the PSU was $22 from a local parts chain (Marutsu). I think Access wants about $50 but I think that includes free shipping anywhere in the world. I'm just glad it's working fine now.

Other goings on... I've sold the Timeline and Space pedals, and used part of the proceeds to pick up a Sony DPS-D7 delay and a DPS-R7 reverb to use in their place. But the D7 had a wonky input knob that actually broke off in my fucking hand the second time I went to use it. That pot is super unobtanium, so I thought I'd just epoxy the broke-off-bit and not worry about separately controlling the input levels for the L and R channels (does anyone even DO that?)... Here's the pot.

Even after it was epoxied back together, it was fucking bent as fuck. Red line shows the angle, blue arrow shows where the epoxy ghetto fix went down. I saw another D7 listed as-is for $10 and nobody bid so I won it, and I had intended to just cannibalize the pot, but it turns out that it has a newer OS and it works fucking fine, so that was kind of a head-scratcher. People are weird. This delay is stupid deep. There's a multi-tap algorithm that has like 40 separately programmable taps, each with its own level, pan, feedback, and all that. The reverb (R7) is just as insane with parameters... Dudes, and dudettes, seriously, you need some deep-sea rated scuba gear to really get to grips with these Sony DPS motherfuckers. DEEEEEEEEEEEP AS FUCK. I've owned these before too. Had the F7 Filter too. That thing had a 40-band vocoder and a multi-part digital drum synth in it!? Man I think the engineers at Sony had access to some GOOD drugs back when they were working on this line of effects processors. Seriously. I mean, I love programming, but even I was intimidated by the sheer amount of programmability in these things. The ones I had before were a bit noisy, but these aren't at all. Strange. Fun shit though. Oh and there's this:

Ah fuck, looks a bit out of focus. That right there is a TOA DE-1000 delay. Rare as shit, and this one is in NEW condition. Insane! I've had this one on my radar for a while. Why? Because it's fucking WEIRD!!!! So the max delay time is 255ms or something really not that long at all, but you've got three to control: Left, Center and Right. Individual times (LEDs) and levels (white sliders), plus global wet/dry and feedback, AND modulation time and depth sliders. SLIDERS!!?? Ok it only has four memory slots, and no MIDI, but you can get up to some good mischief with this thing. Last two goodies to blab about:

Top: SONICWARE ELZ_1. What a weirdo synth. I heard that it's a raspberry pi under the hood but really? Who cares. It can do some off the wall shit. A handful of wacky synth engines, topped off by four effects processors at the end. And it has a speaker. My only complaint is no DIN MIDI, just USB and you have to buy a class compliant dealie. I suppose I should do so before I forget. Sounds pretty damn good though, and it does things that I've not heard other synths do. Built well. Fun to play and fun to program. Runs on batteries. Worth looking into. I was so impressed with this that I backed their next project (a groove box type thing it seems). Bottom: KORG AM8000R. This fucker does some WEIRD SHIT! I had one before (and its delay counterpart, the DL8000R) and for whatever reason didn't hold on to them. I think I was looking for more bread and butter, set it and forget it type effects. This was really cheap and it's in great shape. I don't think so many people know about these. Relatively easy to program, and you can get some really good, usable stuff as well as some super far out WTF stuff. The WARP! knob is good fun too.

Oh I suppose it's worth mentioning that I had an album released by Anti Gravity Device out of Tokyo a few weeks ago. Let's see if I can find a link...

https://anti-gravity-device.bandcamp.com/album/black-rainbows-agd036

Have a listen. It's stuff I recorded from about November through December last year, maybe even the first week of January this year. Live jam format, no master sequencer, wish I was an octopus because two arms and ten fingers just wasn't enough type stuff. All hardware. Fun!

So, my invisible tumblrpeeps, it's been a busy 2020 so far here. More things in the works. Keep your eyes peeled. Stay well. Watch out for number one, and don't step in number two. (thanks, Carlin!)

#fucktrump #synth DIY #Virus TI #Luxman #38FD #50CA10 #DPS-D7 #DPS-R7 #TOA DE-1000 #sonicware #elz_1 #KORG AM8000R #wackolooniness #asshattery

[words-writ-in-starlight]

So your rant on Supernatural? Also I fell in love with the story you're talking about and basically want to know more. Sorry.

My buddy, you have made An Error, but let’s do this shit.  To any SPN fans who have wound up herethrough Ye Olde Search Function, I encourage you to stop reading now.

I watched up to about halfway through Season Five before Idecided that I could Do It Better (I think this is the novel you’re talkingabout, anon, unless it’s Earth is where the trouble comes from), and draggedmyself up to about halfway through Season Seven before I packed it in and gaveup, resigned that the parts of the show I loved were about four to five seasonsdead.  So like that’s the information I’mworking on here.

So, obviously, lots of people have lots of legitimatecomplaints about Supernatural,including treatment of queer characters, characters of color, and women, aswell as their fairly rampant history of queerbaiting.  And lots of people have covered this in morecompetent detail than I could ever manage, so like google “sexism in Supernatural” or something and you cando your own reading there.  Hell, if youwant to do it the lazy way, you can knock out two of the above with this onearticle in friendly, easy-to-read Buzzfeed format.  To the nominal credit of the people involved,I will add that the cast seems acutely aware of these problems and finds itdistasteful, HOWEVER the problems persist and therefore that credit is minimal.  Anyway. These things are covered much more thoroughly by many other people whoare far more cogent than I could hope to be, so I’m going to leave those alone.

Instead, my rant is mostly summed up as “YOU CALL THIS SHITSTORYTELLING.”

So there are four basic parts to this rant, or rather fourbasic flaws that form the fundamentally weak foundation of Supernatural as a narrative.

Failure to commit to a single cohesive narrativearc, also known as “SOME OF THAT AND SOME OF THAT AND SOME OF THAT AND SOME OFTHOSE” syndrome

The persistent and erroneous belief thatcharacter death = character development and narrative progression

Inability to commit to a major change ofparadigm, also known as out and out narrative cowardice, which I personallycall “flinching during Plot Roulette”

Total incapacity to put their characterizationwhere their script is regarding the Winchester brothers and the other major players

*cracks knuckles*

POINT THE FIRST

Right, so first it’s the story of Sam having strange powersand their dad being MIA, which segues pretty naturally into the story of Sampotentially being the Antichrist, and then there’s Dean’s sacrifice of his soul,which at very least holds up even ifit sort of acts like the previous plotline about their dad’s soul didn’t happen.  Upuntil this point, I was pretty comfy.  Ihad some complaints covered below, but I was copacetic.  Season Three is largely about getting rid ofthe contract on Dean’s soul.  Okay, seemslegit, you have a tangible problem with potentially serious consequences.  Now, having had not one but TWO seasons whichwere easily summed up with ‘so Sam is mebbe the Antichrist or at very leastAntichrist-adjacent,’ I made what I thought was a logical leap and went “well,gee, if I was mebbe at the very leastAntichrist-adjacent, I would leverage the fuck out of that to do somethingabout my apparently beloved brother’s soul.” Even when they didn’t go withthat (news flash: I wrote that novel mydamn self and amazingly it worked out 100x better, narratively speaking,because it’s fucking logical), I wasstill kind of like “gosh sure is a good thing they remembered that they spenttwo entire seasons building up to Sam mebbe being Antichrist-adjacent.”  And there’s the whole drama with Ruby which Ijust…am very uncomfortable with for a lot of reasons, not least of which isthat it’s a very thinly veiled endeavor to rehash the same ‘Sam being afraid oflosing touch with humanity’ plotline as Seasons One and Two but without havingto worry about really altering the paradigm, see Point The Third, and alsobecause it’s really intensely literal about the concept of having a femalecharacter exclusively as a prop for consumption.  And Castiel shows up and a thousand ships arelaunched, blah blah blah, and then after the end of Season Four…we never hearfrom Sam’s powers again for more than a couple lines.  

As of about Season Four, the focus of the show abandons Samand shifts tangibly onto Dean, who is now The Interesting Character because hehas Been Through Hell (literally). Furthermore, we are now given Dean’s POV on any quandry between him andSam, which is a personal complaint because I honestly just think it’ssloppy.  Season Four is mostly dealingwith angels being assholes, which is really not as original as SPN likes tothink (Good Omens did it first and Good Omens did it better, get out of myface), plus Dean being the Righteous Man and the question of the oncomingApocalypse (sure is interesting how we spent two seasons building up to Sambeing Antichrist-adjacent).  The Apocalypseis less oncoming and implied to be more ongoing by the end of Season Four.  So Lucifer escapes and Season Five is prettymuch About That, involving the fairly unhelpful description that Dean isMichael’s ‘sword’ and they’re the true vessels of Michael and Lucifer,culminating in Sam being locked in the Cage because presumably someone realizedthat, hey, we have two maincharacters and we must make them both Interesting Characters.  Season Six is 50% about finding Sam’s souland figuring out how he got out of the Cage (sure would be helpful if we’dspent two seasons building up to Sam having inhuman powers and beingAntichrist-adjacent) and 50% a wickedinexplicable plot about the Mother-of-All and some kind of fucking jigsawmonsters and…Alpha monsters?  But thatnever really gets explained in a pertinent way except that they needed to anteup because they beat the Devil at theend of Season Five.  Oh, and a bonus 50% of some bullshit withCastiel and Crowley and ~Scheming~.  Andthen Castiel gets possessed by Leviathans (?) from Purgatory, which he openedwith Crowley (??) who he then betrayed (???), and Castiel decides He’s God Nowand also dies (????), and somehow these metaphysical more-powerful-than-angelsbadder-than-Lucifer things are sensitive to fuckingBorax.  

And it was at this point that I stopped the show in themiddle of a fight scene like 1/3 through Season Seven and actually said outloud “Gosh it’s almost like you needsomeone who’s Antichrist-adjacent to help you out here” before turning off the TV. And then I stopped watching and got better taste in TV and blew throughwriting a 250K novel in 18 months of being a full-time student because I waspowered by pure bitter spite.

Now, here are the two major things that matter about thiswhole deal.  First of all, the firstplotline is the most reliably coherent, although some degree of cogence lastedup until about Season Five—we understand why Lucifer wants out of Hell, weunderstand to some extent why Dean and Sam matter on the cosmic scale, we getpretty bored of watching Castiel do heel-face and face-heel turns like he’s ona Lazy Susan but like logistically it all makes a reasonable degree of sense.  That being said, the whole plotline ofSeasons Four onward would make a lot moresense, would it not, if they remembered that they’d spent a good solid twoseasons and change (Season Three, intermittent, Season Four, major) designingan Antichrist-like character who is now the last survivor of that batch ofexperiments.  Then, instead of having Samand Dean just be Inexplicably Special, you have Dean (who can still be theRighteous Man!) acting as the foil for Sam being forced into increasingly darkchoices, and Sam who’s a viable candidate for Lucifer-puppet because he’s partdemon.  Or, alternatively, Sam whomaintains his stance as the gentler of the two despite his demon blood, which would add a lot more depth to Supernatural’s fanatical hardon for theAngelic Asshole trope.  Honestly Irewrote the entirety of this show one time, predicated on the assumption thatthey actually went with the idea of Sam as the Boy King, and I think it wouldbe much less haphazard.  (Basically: hey,what if Sam actually used his status to strong-arm Dean’s deal into beingdissolved, as it’s implied that he’s totally capable of doing that and totallywilling to sacrifice his own humanity for his brother, and then Heaven sentCastiel to kill Sam, which would add a fuckton of legitimacy to Castiel’s LazySusan and Dean’s antagonism.  But no. Instead there’s monsters whose only vulnerability is fucking Borax.)

Second, and far more critical, is the total failure tocommit to a single plotline.  Okay, Sam’sstatus as the possible Boy King is a major plot point for two seasons, not somuch for the third season (he literally…a demon straight up tells Sam that he could have an army if he took up hisposition and it never occurs to himthat he could use that to help Dean), more so in the fourth season, and then itnever comes up again.  Even when it is unarguably pertinent to thesituation—Lucifer!  Fucking Luciferpossesses Sam and drags him to Hell and he comes back soulless and yet none of the writers ever, not once, went “Gosh, maybe we should remember those seasonswe spent developing Sam into sort of the Antichrist?  Maybe including at least a minor nod to thator somehow wrapping up the plotline would help cohere our current trainwreck ofa plotline?”  Nope, it’s just left as aloose thread, flapping in the breeze with all the subtlety of a limp dick.  It’s like Supernaturalis actually a Frankenshow of two shows with the same characters but totallyunrelated plotlines—maybe when Lucifer escapes he shunts them all sideways intoan alternate universe and there’s another show somewhere with a Dean whosebrother has never been even a little bit demonic and died through normal huntershenanigans suddenly having to deal with Sam the possible Antichrist, andthat’s the show that an alternate me is still watching.

And this is an ongoing problem.  Sam’s powers are just the major point that Ialways latch onto, because, first, I always think the phenomenon of “well fuckme sideways I might be obligated to end the world and ain’t that a messy thing”is pretty great (I really, reallylike Hellboy), and second, IT’S FOURSEASONS OF WORK YOU CAN’T JUST ABANDON IT.  But seriously.  Just. Throw a dart, you’ll hit a loose end. Because Supernatural is theequivalent of that one fucker we all hate in sitcoms—you know, the guy who’sdating a great girl he totally doesn’t deserve, but he can’t ~commit~ sothere’s all this ongoing Drama™.  Exceptthat in Supernatural, not only canthey not commit, they accidentally defeated their biggest gun—the literal Devil—less than halfwaythrough their series!  Whoops!  Quick, someone call up Satan’s cousin twiceremoved who’s even worse and more evil than he is!  And sensitive to Borax!  

No, no, I’m kidding. We all know that Satan’s cousin twice removed, who’s even worse and moreevil than he is, is actually named Metatron.

Fuckin’ Supernatural.

POINT THE SECOND

I know this is going to come as a shock, but rampantcharacter death does not actuallyqualify as a legitimate way to progress your narrative or develop yourcharacters.  In order, the major players(nominally on the Winchesters’ side) who die or seem to die in the first fiveseasons are Sam’s girlfriend, John Winchester, Ash, Sam, Bela, Dean, (Deanseveral times in Mystery Spot), Ruby,Castiel, Jo, Ellen, Sam, Anna, Sam, Dean, Gabriel, Castiel, Bobby, and sort of Sam with the whole Cagething.  And those are just the peoplewith arcs that extend over more than a season (except for Sam’sgirlfriend).  It’s entirely possible,even probable, that I missed some.  Thatdoes not include the one- ortwo-episode characters whose deaths we’re supposed to observe as emotionallywringing, nor does it include the frankly vast numbers of civiliancasualties.  So, for the ease of reading,we’re going to divide ‘character death’ into ‘reversible character death,’which is largely the prerogative of the primary trio, and ‘permanent characterdeath,’ and we’re going to talk about why there are real problems with the way Supernatural treats both of them.

First of all, the problems with reversible character deathare obvious—there are no fucking stakes! Like, arguably the stakes are ‘the whole world,’ but obviously not (seePoint The Third), so practically speaking the stakes should be life or death, because the show tells you that the stakes are life or death.  Now, sometimes resurrection is an importantplot point, I get that, in my spite novel there is, in fact, aresurrection.  But here’s the thing.  Either you have to straight up establish arevolving door policy and change your stakes (example: the show Forever, where the point is that the MCis immortal and would very much like to not be immortal anymore), or you can only use that resurrection once.  You use it once, and you still get theemotional gut punch of “Oh God, they’re dead”and the flood of relief when it proves that they’re not dead after all.  You use it more than that, and the audiencebecomes complacent that, well, you won’t reallykill them.  By the time you’re on a levelwith Supernatural, it just…doesn’tmatter?  A major character dies, but youraudience has already hit compassion fatigue because of the death rate, whichI’m about to cover, so there’s not really any oomph to it.

The problems with permanent character death aresignificantly different.  Now, I myselfam a Happy Ending person (like…the world sucks …let me have my happy fiction),but even I recognize that a certain percentage of the characters in a story orshow like this one are basically just cannon fodder (it would be great if itwasn’t so consistently the women, POC, orLGBT folks, but whatever).  Theproblem is that it’s constant.  And not just “well that person’s a corpsebecause that’s what vampires do to people” or “some kid pissed off the localspirit and now they’re six feet under,” it would be totally fine and reasonableif that situation was an every episode thing (it…kind of is, that’s kind of thepoint).  But every few episodes, we’reexpected to get attached to a one-off character and then be deeply affectedwhen they die.  Take, say, Season Three:you have the hunters Isaac and Tamara in the first episode, Casey and FatherGil in the fourth episode (some flexibility as they’re demons, but we’resupposed to be shocked and horrified that Sam kills them both), Callie in thefifth episode, Gordon in the seventh episode (again, we’re supposed to behorrorstricken that Sam kills him, even though it’s clearly self-defense), all the civilians in the twelfthepisode, Corbett in the thirteenth episode, and finally Bela, who admittedlyhas had some nominal presence for a while. This does not include any Winchester trauma, which you’re always supposed to be deeply affectedby.  I’m sorry, but after a season or twoof being expected to work up that kind of emotional upset between five and tentimes over the course of thirteen to twenty episodes, your audience is going toburn out and start to lose emotional engagement.  

So, basic summary: the Anyone Can Die trope does not playwell with main characters who are on a Revolving Door of Death, because itmeans that minor characters don’t matter because Anyone Can Die, while majordamage or trauma to the main characters doesn’t matter either because they’reon a Revolving Door.  You can’t kill yourmain characters once (or more!) a season and expect people to still…worry aboutthem.

On a more strictly structural note, using character death asthe primary way to drive character development is just fucking lazy.  It’s just an indicator that the writers don’tactually know how to progress their character development in any other way,which is a major problem because, since they only develop the charactersthrough the deaths of others, they have to hit the Personality Reset buttonfairly regularly to make it look like things are actually happening to thepeople who are supposed to be developing. Which, in case you were curious, is why you feel that overwhelming senseof déjà vu when the Winchesters getinto a huge blowout fight about ‘don’t sacrifice yourself’ in about thethird-to-last episode, followed by one of them sneaking out to sacrificethemselves, followed by the other onebeing angry about it.  It’s the samegoddamn script, it’s just that Sam’s hair is probably longer and Dean isprobably scruffier.  Furthermore, thefixation on developing characters with the deaths of others means thatbasically every character is fair game but NO ONE’S DEATH HOLDS MEANING,because of the above, which means that SPN’s ‘character development’ turns intothis recursive self-congratulating circlejerk of killing someone, developingSam and Dean accordingly, and then somehow regressing them so that the writerscan do it over again and be proud of themselves for Such Dynamic Characters,Much Develop, So Change, Wow.

And I feel like the reasons that character death =/=narrative progression should be pretty clear from the rest of this rant, butbasically if you’re killing someone to progress your plot, it needs to be asolveable death (emotional payoff is what makes walking away from a booksatisfying, such as catching a murderer) or a terrible tragedy that drives thecharacters to great acts or both.  Supernatural is basically a horror/fantasymurder mystery, so it would be fine if they stuck with that model, but theykeep trying to sell the deaths of any number of major players and many many minor players as this greatand terrible tragedy that’s pushing the Winchesters forward.  And like, I’m sorry, but if you commit withinthe first episode to a dead mother anda dead girlfriend and a missingpotentially dead father, you’ve already pretty well maxed out your terribletragedies.  Find a different motivator,or else it looks like your characters just leave huge amounts of collateraldamage and refuse to take responsibility. Or, alternatively, it looks like the individual deaths don’t matter toyour main characters, which is NOT going to help with making your audience giveeven a single fractional fuck.

TL;DR: Character death is a powerful tool that rapidly losesits weight and import if you overuse it, and can make your audiencedisinterested and emotionally detached if they’re expected to care every time.  Slow your motherfucking roll, stick to aMAXIMUM of one resurrection per character unless their immortality is anexplicitly discussed plot point (at which point their deaths need to not mattermuch anymore), and remember that you can progress your plot in literally anyother way before you go for a shock-value death.

POINT THE THIRD

Don’t be a little bitch in your writing.  Honestly it’s that simple.  I’m gonna get into it some more, but that’sthe gist of it.  If you already know whatI mean, great, skip to the next point, because the TL;DR is “don’t be aninfant.”

This is something that plenty of shows are guilty of(Merlin, anyone?), but SPN is terrifiedof actually changing the paradigm.  Theshow must always include a certainlist of things:

The Winchesters in the Impala, which, sure, I’llgrant you that

A home base, also totally reasonable

Monsters to fight, fair enough

A masquerade (meaning ‘civilians do not knowabout magic’), which should honestly have broken down after, like, Season Twowhen they accidentally release massive numbers of demons into the world

A world to have the show happening in, which isa problem since they started theApocalypse in Season Four

Now…listen.

It’s fine, even necessary, to have some fixed points in anarrative.  It offers a way to anchoryour characters against the ongoing changes that the plot demands.  That, however, is very different from beingtoo much of a coward to alter the paradigm of your story when the major driving force is a change ofparadigm.

The first major change of paradigm they cop out on is Sam’spowers.  If Sam was the Boy King, thishypothetically Antichrist-esque position in the cosmic dichotomy, that would radically alter the dynamic.  Sam would automatically be the most powerfulbeing in any given room unless he was in a room with a respectably high-rankedangel or demon, and he would certainly be able to go toe-to-toe with most oftheir targets on their own terms. Telekinesis is an exceptionally goodpower, guys, like, as powers go—even disregarding his position in thehierarchy, Sam would be pretty strong in his own right.  Which, I’d like to point out, can be a reallythrilling change to a narrative, because it means that you have this additionallayer of ‘well, how do we deal with the fact that Sam doesn’t like being this strong, how do we dealwith the way demons and monsters have started to view him as more us than them’ and would give a much more legitimate basis for the questionof humanity that they shoehorn in later with the Ruby plotline.  Buffyhas its flaws, but at least it frequently brings up ‘hey, Buffy might be ostensiblyhuman, but she operates on the level of her enemies more than on the level ofher allies’ as an issue that she thinks about. But they don’t do that in Supernatural,they bail completely on the Sam plotline because they panic about theimplications of having such a powerful character.  And then they bring in fucking Castiel likethat’s not exactly the same problemcloaked in ‘well, noninterference.’  Like, please, that ship has fucking sailed,choke down your anxiety and figure out how the rules of your powerful characterwork, and then let them be powerful. It’s gonna be okay.  Deepbreaths.  If you make an OP character,that’s fine, you just have toactually deal with it rather than having their powers be an asspull every timethe main characters are in Real Trouble (*angry sigh* Merlin).

The second one they balk at is the unveiling of thesupernatural world and oh my God it is constant.  But let’s deal with the biggest and mostimprobable of these here: Season GoddamnTwo, where they bust open the doors of Hell and unleash some thousands ofdemons into the world.  Like, is that asmany demons as it could be, in comparison to your six to seven billionhumans?  No.  But it’s still a huge population and is implied to be accompanied by a huge uptickin various other supernatural happenings and is furthermore really visible.  The Devil’s Trap is suggested to pass throughat least a couple towns and it’s a big flashy event, so like…sure, maybe peoplewrite it off as swamp gas or what have you, but sooner or later people who havehad demons exorcised or seen some vampire/werewolf/etc shenanigans and lived totell about it are going to start running into each other.  They start hearing people say “it’s likeshe’s a totally different person” and they take that seriously rather thanwriting it off.  They were maybe saved bya hunter who confirmed that the supernatural exists and they maybe tell thatperson that, hey, something like that happened to them, maybe they could cometake a look around.  Maybe they couldcall the person who helped them out.  Andyou end up with this fucking Ponzi scheme of The Great Truth, where each personwho’s in the know finds one or two more people who’ve seen evidence and brings them into the loop, and then they find one or two more people who’veseen evidence.  And for every personwho’s determined to call it bullshit or think they’re insane, you’re going toget one who saw that person turn intoa hairy monster and murder someone, or who waspossessed by a demon, or who witnessedblack smoke merge with their spouse and turn them into a killer.  So you get this whole rickety network ofamateurs who’ve…kind of learned the thing. And like any Ponzi scheme, sooner or later it collapses.

Basically the point is: there is a limit to the parts permillion of The Great Truth that can be present before that shit becomes commonknowledge.  Look at any availablegovernment conspiracy for confirmation. The more people you tell, the looser the rules of ‘secret’ become, so ifyou have a big flashy visible disaster that involves drastically increasing the number of uninitiated civilians who areaware of The Great Truth…you’d better be ready to deal with that.  What I’m saying here is that by Season Seven,you’ve not only had this whole demon situation for a while, and increased those numbers several times with variousdisasters, but you’ve also had at least one big flashy disaster in a city.  So the Winchesters should pretty much be ableto walk into a given town and wander into the church or the bar or somethingand go “So, I heard there’ve been some weird murders” and have at least oneperson come up to them later and be like “Yeah it’s a ghost here’s all theinformation but I have no idea how to get rid of them.”  And when the Winchesters go *gasp* “How do you know The Thing” theperson should look at them like a fucking moron and go “It literally rainedblood last year, everyone in this time zone knows The Thing and also it’sevident that the end is pretty seriously nigh, so get on that.”  Commit to your big flashy disasters, youcowards, or at least have the decency to make it an ongoing Sunnydale joke.

Far more crucial is the fact that they bail on the end ofthe world…let’s see.  End of Season Fouris when the Apocalypse properly gets underway, so they balk at the end ofSeason Five (Lucifer and the Cage), end of Season Six (Mother of All andPurgatory), and like minimum once bythe middle of Season Seven (Godstiel) as well as at the end of Season Seven (Leviathans, I am now past where I kept watching),end of Season Eight (Metatron, angel tablets, falling angels), presumably endof Season Nine from what I understand of the summaries online (some…war onHeaven nonsense), and based on the trend I’m guessing that Seasons Ten throughThirteen keep to the model, do youunderstand my point here.  Thesearen’t even all the near-Apocalypses that they avert.  Off the cuff, I can think of the Croatoanvirus (…twice?  Three times?), as well asthree out of four Horsemen within episodes of each other.  They’re probably averting the Very Seriousand Catastrophic End of Days two or three times a season by Season Five, and that number only goes up.  This is very similar to the character deaththing: quite simply, if the audience is expected to get that worked up multipletimes a season, and brace for thatkind of disaster multiple times a season,you are inevitably going to bore them.  Yourplot has to be intensely recursive sothat you can ‘reset’ and avoid a new Apocalypse the next season, which getsboring, because it feels like you’ve been there before, similar to how usingcharacter death to advance character development demands that you hit thePersonality Reset button on the regular.

Furthermore, repeating the same level of disaster over and over and OVER again means that it starts to lack emotional weight, and yourcharacters start to seem really, really stupid if they don’t start to treatthings accordingly.  One of the things Ithought of constantly during thelast, say, season and a half that I watched of Supernatural was a quote from Buffy,specifically from Riley who I usually very much dislike but who NAILED thisparticular thing.  “When I saw you stopthe world from, you know, ending, I just assumed that was a big week for you.It turns out I suddenly find myself needing to know the plural ofapocalypse.”  And that’s the running jokein Buffy!  That they literallydeal with an Apocalypse every few episodes, and they lampshade it, and thecharacters respond accordingly—Buffy and the Scooby gang start to act cavalier,almost unimpressed, about each new disaster. Like “well, we saved the world, I say we party.”  That’s a direct quote from Buffy (IN SEASON ONE NO LESS), and Supernatural could stand to take a pageout of their book with that one.  BySeason Seven, the Winchesters seem like they have somehow missed out on thelast decade of their own lives because they always act so shocked and horrifiedthat somehow someone could try to endthe world.  Like!  Yes, yes they could and yes they would,welcome to the party boys!  Please try toget in touch with your own history on this subject!

So the highlights here are: don’t be a fucking baby aboutyour writing.  If you’re writing toward abig paradigm shift, you need to recognize that you’re playing Plot RussianRoulette, and you have to pull the trigger. Change the paradigm of your narrative and deal with the fallout like afucking adult, you tepid fools, you limp-necked cowards, you ink-stainedwalnuts.

POINT THE FOURTH

Listen very carefully. Do you hear that?  It’s the soundof the Winchesters promising eternal brotherly devotion and saying things like“you’re my brother, man” and vowing to always have each other’s backs.  

Now wait a moment longer, and listen very carefully.  Do you hear that?  It’s the inevitablesound of the Winchesters stabbing each other in the back and/or throwing eachother to the wolves because they’re feeling pissy, and then getting a whole(static! See Point The Second!) “character arc” about how distraught they are.

All right, y’all, I don’t have siblings so maybe I’m wrong, but I do write a lot and I think I’m right, and you should probably put yourcharacterization where your script is. If your primary relationship that you expect people to care about isfraternal devotion, you should maybe nothave those people cheerfully feed each other into metaphoricalwoodchippers.  Like.  Okay, maybe you get ONE chance to have adramatic falling out.  ONE.  And then when they repair the relationship,they need to actually sort their shit out and not keep having the exact same dramatic falling out because thatshit gets boring and is a sign of lazy writing and—shocker!—lack of character development.  Next time they fight, it has to be aboutsomething demonstrably different, notjust the same issue with a new set of tits (c’mon y’all, this is Supernatural, it’s always a set oftits).

Let’s do a real fast recap. There’s a one episode plot in Season One about the two of them fallingout over the question of whether they should follow their father’s orders.  Dean spends a good percentage of Season Twotaking his guilt over their dad’s death out on Sam, but we’ll give a passbecause they explicitly acknowledge it and take steps to resolve theproblem.  A major plotline develops inSeason Two that hunters have started trying to kill Sam, and Dean reliably,consistently has his back.  Props.  Season Three is kind of a mess (if you have a big visible semi-Apocalypseyou should probably deal with it, see Point The Third), but whatever.  Pertinently, Dean’s big ongoing concern isthat Sam isn’t acting like himself, because he’s being much more ruthless(something Dean has consistently told him to do), while Sam’s ongoing concernis that Dean is being reckless (justified, he has a death sentence onhim).  Season Four is when things startto break down.  Castiel shows up and Deanresponds with aggression, Sam gets his rehashed ‘humanity’ plotline with Ruby,there are a lot of really incredibly poor decisions made and a lot of lies toldwith minimal regard for the trouble that’s gotten them into before (@Sam).  There’s a fight that includes Dean callingSam a monster, which has been canonically identified as the thing Sam is mostafraid of, and acting like this whole demon blood thing is a terribletremendous shock, despite the fact that Dean…knew and totally failed to reactin any way except to penalize Sam (for trying to save him!  Much like Dean sold his soul for Sam!  And got pissy about Sam being pissed offabout!).  Cue Lucifer.  Apocalypse, possession, Horsemen, etc, etc,more Lazy Susan Castiel, infighting about who should say yes to what in orderto save whom, whatever.  

And then Sam apparently dies in the Cage and Dean…goes offto get a nice white picket fence? Um…this is not consistent with the characterization of a dude who soldhis soul to resurrect Sam literally just three years ago.  Their falling out has never been intenseenough nor consistent enough to justify this. Even if you say that Dean’s honoring his brother’s final wishes by nottrying to resurrect Sam or anything, Dean should be drinking himself to deathor something similarly dramatic, because allthe drama in this show comes from the relationship between the Winchesterbrothers.  

Basically, here’s the problem: the show spends a lot of time and effort on telling youthat the Winchesters would die for each other. And while they do use that trope a lot (John dies for Dean, who dies forSam, who sacrifices his humanity for Dean, who risks his life for Sam, whojumps into the Cage for Dean…), they seem to have forgotten that, generally,you’re only willing to die for people who you actually like.  Like, peopleto whom you are genuinely emotionally attached,not just people who are your family because Blood Is Thicker or whateverbullshit you’re trying to pull there. And by Season Five, I’m just…not convinced the Winchester brothersactually like each other anymore.  Andthat never gets dealt with, they just expect you to believe that the Winchsterslove each other because the show says so,and listen, I hate the saying of ‘show, don’t tell’ as much as the nextperson who’s suffered through a college writing class, but honestly.  Supernaturalneeds to stop telling its viewers that Sam and Dean care about each other andactually…demonstrate that shit on a regular basis.  

Example: there’s the incident at some point where someoneplants a phone call on (I think) Sam’s phone, apparently from Dean, telling himthat he’s a monster and he should go do an incredibly stupid and dangerousthing because the world and Dean would be better off if he was dead.  Which Sam then believes and listens to.  This seems totally justified based on therelationship they’ve had for the past season. Pro tip, kids.  If your majordynamic includes two people who readily and easily believe that the other isliterally calling them an inhuman abomination and telling them they should justdie, that…that is not a Loving Affectionate and Devoted Familial Relationship.  And if you’re pitching it as one, A, you needsome therapy, probably urgently, and, B, your audience is only going to stickit out for so long before they give it up as a lost cause.

The point of this whole thing is that you better be ready toput your money where your fucking mouth is, and keep your characterizationsconsistent with what you’re telling the audience.

ANYWAY.  

The ultimate TL;DR here is that Supernatural’s storytelling is approximately as competent as thenovel I wrote when I was eleven, which I have hidden in a deep dark hole neverto be seen or discussed ever again.  Less competent, even, because at least Icommitted to a single individual plotline and dealt with the fallout of majorchanges to the universe.  And it’sfucking tragic, because this was a show with some real potential buried underall the chaos.  If you ever want my fullrewrite, please do ask and I will tell you, but this is now over 6K words andon its tenth page, so I’m going to stop now.

Long story short?  Supernatural: What The Fuck.

#right so i've been formulating this for four years #sorry folks #you are the unfortunate casualties of my exasperation #sorry it took so long to answer this my dude this is a very lengthy answer though so i hope that makes up for it #i'm pretty annoyed #rant tag #i spend a lot of time thinking about what makes a story work and shocker it is not these things #these things are a problem #i can do a post about my actual rewrite if anyone's interested #starlight writes stuff #the inevitable supernatural tirade #the graveyard of shows with potential and terrible execution #anonymous #asked and answered

[lizthefangirl]

Danny Rand: An opinion.

Disclaimer: I did not watch The Iron Fist, nor do I know of his lore beyond what is presented in The Defenders; so mind my ignorance on that front. I wanted to go in seeing him somewhat developed and as part of a unit. The following input is simply my expression of what I gathered from my viewing of Defenders, in hopes to contribute to a larger discussion—it’s just discourse about a fictional character in a fictional show on my blog. Genuinely not a huge deal. Please be respectful in response. Spoilers for The Defenders, ahoy! (Highly recommend it, by the way).

When the first Iron Fist reviews started hitting the web, it was so disappointing. I fully intended to see the origins of the final member of the team seamlessly slide into place, and like a lot of people, was confounded at how Marvel could only execute 3/4 of the protagonists to such a high standard—and fall flat on the one who turns out to be particularly integral to The Defenders’ plot.

First and foremost: Finn Jones is not the issue. I don’t think he’s ever been the principal issue when issues were present. He is a very talented actor; he was excellent on Game of Thrones (which is so unerringly good that I consider it to be one of the ultimate tests of a performer), and plays a similarly caddish character here—though that’s where the resemblance ends. So Finn Jones is fine. Solid American accent, great stunt work; anyone who has to train to play a superhuman is already pretty cool. He can’t help defective writing and politics, poor guy. I don’t blame him for any former shortcomings (including his original haircut).

Now for an analysis of Danny Rand, as played in The Defenders:

. . . I gather that he’s had a rough time. I also suspect that he has evolved in a dramatic way; I saw someone say he was ‘100x more likable in this series’ and found myself baffled at how he might have been portrayed in his own to earn that statement. I think that his primary saving grace in both Iron Fist and Defenders is Colleen Wing, plain and simple. I’m not the first person to say that, but it’s a fact. She fought and vouched for him when I didn’t immediately, and it made me look him closer and ask, What else is here?

I think there are a lot of positive aspects of his character—in this new environment, at least. Like most, I do think his treatment by the others is particularly funny, just because they have no idea how to handle this person and his weird stories, combined with his flippant attitude and high profile. I love that the writers allowed Luke to address Danny’s privilege outright (in addition to showing them both in the odd position of getting their behinds kicked by one another). I like that he’s portrayed as having PTSD early on and that you can see tears in his eyes on multiple occasions; emotional vulnerability in “strong” male characters is something I have longed to see more of in film. He also does end up having some good conversations, especially with Luke and Matt, that really do challenge him.

I also like that he initiated the “team” mindset; he doesn’t see an issue with it at all. It’s like a group project for him; he hasn’t always simmered in solidarity quite like most of the others have. And despite how irking his blind confidence can be at moments, I think it’s kind of great that he just walked into that boardroom and went all “I am the special immortal metal hand” on those folks, and expected to just kind of. . . deal with it. Like that’s cute, sweetie. Good for you, honey.

Here is why I respect him more than I thought I would: He really does try, in the end—and not just for himself and Colleen. You get the sense in his conversation with Elektra (or I did) that at one point in time, he would have 110% given in and opened that door, based on verbal persuasion alone. You also see Guo trying to twist him around, and he tells her she cannot manipulate him anymore. That’s solid development. Also, he offers to use his resources to help the others, and seems almost sheepish about his status. It’s endearing. 

Within their debut seasons, his teammates all managed to: a) come to terms with their abilities, b) defeat at least one [branch] of a big bad, and c) ultimately come out as more of a victor than the opposite—despite losing people they cared about (or in Jessica’s case, really kind of losing all sense of self, security, or control, which is just as awful).

I don’t think Danny completed this arc, though. He lost. Like he straight up did not win his first boss battle. We picked up with him following a vague lead on the Hand (because Bakuto got away). A whole city that he was meant to command died on his watch (which we learn was Elektra’s doing, a person who he couldn’t consider killing because of Matt). He never seemed to find real closure about his parents (Guo slipped out of his reach at the last moment). And above all? We hear frequently that he is nowhere near his full potential mentally or physically. So here’s my big question that I am grappling with, as a writer and a fan: Why should this be such a problem for me? 

I have always believed that characters should be allowed to screw up and be messy—to fail. I find that manner of explicit humanity far more interesting. . . and yet I approached this series discrediting this character. He really is not in the same boat as the rest of them; he has been directly handed (no pun intended) a legacy, a duty, a title. He had an ancient army at his feet. He was trained his whole life to be more than human.

Look at the others: Matt is the most similar (by a long shot); though his abilities were the result of the chemicals that blinded him, he received formal training via Stick. We know little of Jessica’s past besides her accident and corresponding PTSD; she had no training of her powers. If anything, she does her best to mar them. Luke grew up in a city where violence and injustice were prevalent, given his abilities deliberately and without his consent during his adult life. Again, no formal training, just brute strength and a good heart. Now here comes Danny Rand! Twenty-something Caucasian bajillionaire! Batman-like fortune and parental demises! He’s homeless with a side of memory-loss (cough Oliver Queen cough)! Who is he! Teach him kung fu with a pretty, determined Asian lady! He is still rich! Have some Asian culture! A blatant chest tattoo! A glowing fist he can only summon in very selective circumstances! . . . It’s easy to mock, in context.

It’s different, because it’s a riches to rags story. And now more than ever, that’s not a conventional formula people seem interested in, especially with a white guy at the helm (and directly following not only the 2016 presidential election, but progressive stories like Jessica Jones and especially Luke Cage). A lot of people didn’t want to like him. I didn’t think I would like him.

Look. What ends up redeeming this dude for me is the fact that he is still actively developing after nearly twenty episodes he’s been featured in—all within a five month window. Matt is the only one who has had subsequent seasons released yet! Danny’s unusually compact timeframe is the reason I am okay with his sluggish development—because I’m starting to suspect it is at least partially intentional; the pace of his progression is to counteract the abrupt amount of his story unveiled. 

Here is my verdict on Danny Rand and his arc within this new installment: I am tentatively leaning in, reluctantly intrigued. Kind of like Luke prior to his rescue (“I owe him that much”). I almost—almost—empathized with him in his final scene, when he said he felt like he had found a home. . . Then again, Colleen was there, too  I’m mostly kidding.

I can’t say for certain if I’ll go back and watch season one of Iron Fist. I almost like it better having him introduced now—as if this was his pilot. Either way, I hope by the time the second chapter of Defenders debuts (probably around 2045), I’ll actually watch for his individual arc, too, rather than tagging along with his story to see how the others’ got on.

P. S. – The shot when he legit throws thirty people meters away with a punch and triggers one of the coolest fight sequences I’ve ever seen. . . Points for that.

#the defenders #danny rand #marvel #the iron fist #netflix #i spent... an obscene amount of time on this #this is my life #this is what happens when i'm not at college #it's a result of stress i know it is

[flauntpage]

With Kawhi and Paul George Off to the Clippers, the Sixers Have a Clear Path to the Finals

The NBA is simply glorious. When the East Coast went to bed, Kawhi Leonard’s free agent decision loomed over the city of Toronto, nay the entirety of Canada. Leonard’s now former teammate Danny Green was waiting with baited breath to see where his fellow NBA champion would land. The Bucks and Sixers were likely the most interested, aside from the Toronto Raptors. The oddsmakers were up in the air on which teams would fill out the top three in the Eastern Conference. Then it happened. A signing and a trade that dramatically altered the NBA landscape.

Kawhi signs with the Clippers

In a surprise to few, Kawhi chose to go to his long-rumored destination in Los Angeles.

Free agent forward Kawhi Leonard has informed runners-up teams of his plans: He's signing with the Clippers, league sources tell ESPN.

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) July 6, 2019

Instead of finishing an unprecedented trio of MVP contenders with LeBron James and Anthony Davis on the Lakers, Leonard opted to team up with former Sixer Landry Shamet. Okay, I got the Sixers Twitter fanboy line of the day out of the way. Leonard isn’t stupid. He knew that before he could commit himself to a max deal with the Clippers, he’d need another star to shift the competitive balance of the Western Conference. Boy did he get one.

Along Came Paul-G

It was a year ago when I openly begged the Sixers to make a move for Paul George. Despite the owner of this site claiming PG13 is one of the most overrated players of this generation, George was widely considered to be a Top-2 or Top-3 MVP candidate for two-thirds of the season, until a shoulder injury rendered him nearly unable to shoot (and unlike a former #1 overall pick, this was a real injury… I digress). After George opted to sign an extension with the small market, Russell-Westbrook-led Oklahoma City Thunder, it seemed unlikely he’d be going anywhere. In fact, most analysts expected the Thunder to deal one of Steven Adams or Westbrook if for no reason other than to clear salary and get under the luxury tax threshold.

No one expected PG13 to get dealt. That was until the reigning Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard stepped in and out GM’d LeBron James.

After Leonard pushed George to find a way to get to the Clippers, Paul George approached the team and requested a trade, league sources tell ESPN. OKC was left with no choice and made the best out of a difficult situation, per sources.

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) July 6, 2019

Winners and losers and what this all means for the Sixers after the jump:

Winners

LA Clippers

The Clippers went from being the forgotten child of the West Coast to the preeminent team in Los Angeles. They’re going to be a must-watch squad with Leonard, George, and Patrick Beverley hounding teams on the wings. More importantly, Clippers owner Steve Ballmer has full reign to drink the tears of every Lakers executive who mocked him.

Oklahoma City Thunder

The return is insane. Not only did OKC get back a player the Clippers didn’t want to part with in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, but Danilo Gallinari, two pick swaps (2023 & 2025), and FIVE first-round picks:

2021 via Miami

2022 via LAC

2023 via Miami

2024 via LAC

2026 via LAC

That’s a remarkable haul. It’s better than what the Lakers got for Anthony Davis. It’s 100x better than what San Antonio got for Kawhi. It might be one of the most loaded packages ever sent out in North American sports history. Yes, I get that some of those firsts will be late in the round if all goes according to plan, but still.

The Philadelphia 76ers

Kawhi’s departure leaves a wide-open door to the Finals available to the Sixers should they choose to walk through it. Milwaukee has arguably gotten weaker through the departures of Malcolm Brogdon and Nikola Mirotic. Toronto is a shell of their championship squad. Boston replaced Kyrie with a lesser Kyrie in Kemba Walker. Indiana added the aforementioned Brogdon, but let’s not kid ourselves. Brooklyn upgraded by swapping out D’Angelo Russell for Irving, but Kevin Durant will miss the upcoming season as he rehabs from a torn Achilles. Orlando is lower playoff seed paying close to the luxury tax. Does anyone really believe Detroit is a threat? Atlanta will be a real nuisance in the next two or three years. Charlotte is dead in the water without Kemba to keep them relevant. Maybe Jimmy Butler and the Miami Heat could… nah.

There will be growing pains with this team, but exceeding 50 wins shouldn’t take much, especially with Al Horford poised to provide Joel Embiid some much-needed relief at the center position.

Losers

Chris Broussard

Kawhi Update: Raptors had strong meeting yesterday. Drake heavily involved. Talked of having Kawhi involved w/his OVO record label. Kawhi in deep soul searching. Wants Lakers but wants to make sure Big 3 will fit/work. Clippers out. It’s btwn Lakers & Raptors. Very close.

— Chris Broussard (@Chris_Broussard) July 4, 2019

This dude has had nearly all of his professional credibility shredded with his ‘throw it against a wall and see if it sticks’ methodology. It’s been a wicked-fast fall from his ESPN days.

LA Lakers

LeBron James once again failed to get a superstar free agent to sign on with his team. The Lakers’ dysfunction proved to be an obstacle. Anthony Davis must feel like a complete boob for waiving his $4.095 million trade kicker in an effort to clear max cap space for a guy of Leonard’s ilk. Instead, he saw his new team re-sign Kentavious Caldwell-Pope to a two-year, $16 million deal and JaVale McGee to a two-year, $8.2 million deal. The only good thing the team did is sign Danny Green to a two-year deal, though $15 million annually seems a bit high. All of these two year deals seems to signal another thing: the Lakers intend on selling 2021 to their fans. It’ll be fun to watch Lakers fans and Knicks fans wallowing in sorrow after failing to woo Giannis.

Russell Westbrook

Westbrook is now left with a small market team that has lost any chance to contend. Steven Adams is going to eat up nearly $25 million against the cap next season and Westbrook reportedly missed out on a potential superteam-forming trade that would’ve landed him in Toronto alongside Leonard and George. Alas, he’ll get the chance to jack up 35 shots per game in OKC or maybe New York if the Knicks decide to delve further into chaos.

Brett Brown/Sixers Twitter

There’s no excuse. If Brett Brown fails to implement a system that best utilizes one of the most talented starting fives in the entire league, there will be no one to hold back Sixers Twitter. On the flip side, if Brown is able to make better in-game adjustments -especially with a great locker room addition in Horford and removal of Jimmy Butler- his detractors will have to go into hiding… for a bit at least. It’s Finals or bust for Brown. The chips have been pushed in. Is he the man to lead this team to their first title since 1983? We shall see.

For more Sixers coverage, check out Crossing Broadcast with Kevin Kinkead and Russ Joy. Please subscribe to the show ([Apple Podcasts] [Spotify][Google Play] [Stitcher] [iHeartRadio] [RSS]), leave a 5 star review, and follow them on Twitter: @Kevin_Kinkead @JoyOnBroad 

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