#especially because the last two often end up being flipped and portrayed as the person always seeing the good in others

[naynay5155]

C!Tommy’s Storyline With C!Dream Is A Very Concerning Depiction Of Abuse

Wild Title 

Okay, I’m sure that this probably isn’t too new information for anyone paying attention to the overall story of the DreamSMP, especially C!Tommy’s storyline, but I figured I’d give my two cents for this anyways. 

C!Tommy is an Abuse Victim who has gone through horrific stuff at the hands of C!Dream. This is not an arguable fact. regardless of if C!Dream had reasons for doing what he did, if C!Dream also later gets abused, or if ultimately the abuse portrayal could be considered in some ways flawed or unrealistic, that stuff doesn’t ultimately matter. Because we’ve seen what happened to C!Tommy during Exile, have seen the physical, emotional, and mental abuse he was put through. Just because they won’t call it Abuse doesn’t mean it isn’t Abuse.

Now, C!Tommy being an abuse victim is an interesting idea from a storytelling perspective. It has a lot of potential to lead to genuine character development, or to affect relationships and story beats in interesting ways. And it could be an interesting way to really say something about abuse and coping with it. 

And to an extent, an argument could be made that it has, though I’d argue the exact way those are handled in canon, but not the point. The point is, abuse is not just something that you get to gloss over. If you want to include themes of abuse in the story, a story you are making available to the public for millions to see, then there needs to be a clear and obvious message being portrayed with including abuse in the story. Preferably, that abuse is bad, and can have majorly negative effects on anyone, especially children. We don’t always get that lucky, but whatever. 

But, from my months of watching the story of the DreamSMP, and trust me I’ve been here a long while, I haven’t seen C!Tommy’s abuse being handled very... well. I could, of course, be wrong in some aspects, and maybe be misremembering stuff since this dumpster fire has been happening for a year now, and feel free to correct me or bring up more points if you know something I don’t. But, I still think that overall, I have a point of view that should be considered. 

So basically, C!Tommy is an abuse victim, right? this is easy to see, very obvious in the way he acts and behaves. Or... is it? 

Abuse is a complex topic and one that, in real life, presents itself in all sorts of forms. Many abuse victims were raised in unloving homes and ended up becoming more vulnerable to abuse later on in life as a result of that. Others never properly learned how to express emotions or turn people down and got taken advantage of. Others were abused from the start, and develop various ways of coping and dealing with that, even ways that they might not be fully conscious of themselves. Abuse is not a one-way street, it could hardly be considered a street at all given how diverse and differing the people who experience it end up developing into are. 

So I’m not saying that, if C!Tommy were a real person, that he isn’t “Being traumatized enough” or that “Why isn’t he more like what I expect him to be like?”. That is not what I’m saying at all.

What I am saying, is that C!Tommy is a fictional character who exists within a narrative, a story. And in a good story, consistency is half the battle. I, as the audience consuming the story, need to be able to look at C!Tommy and pick up on and understand the effects abuse has had on him. And these effects need to be consistent, otherwise, as an audience member, I’m going to get confused and start having questions about why he acts one way here but doesn’t somewhere else.

I also need to be able to clearly see and understand, by being given narrative stepping stones, if something is changing for his character.

As the saying goes, “Show don’t tell”. C!Tommy can’t just say he “Goes to Puffy for Therapy” offhandedly one time, as a means of handwaving away why he doesn’t really consistently act as traumatized as he used to even though it’s literally only been a few weeks, or months at most. To explain how he can jump back between being really sad and depressed about something, to joking about Women and Twitter. It seems weird if he’s able to just so seamlessly, so effortlessly, go back and forth. Almost as if he’s bouncing between OOC and IC, but that’s a whole other discussion. 

Sure, C!Tommy is representing real mental health issues, but he is, ultimately a Fictional Character existing in a story. I need to be given signs, proof, foreshadowing, to explain when he has certain reactions and behaviours in order to understand his character. And these need to be consistent, otherwise we get plotholes and general confusion.

I criticize the inconsistency and the offscreen handwaving because it’s generally not very good writing. It’s the same reason I disliked Eret’s basically off-screen-sort-of-redemption-arc. It’s the same reason people dislike it when Villains of previous seasons suddenly come back as fully reformed good guys for seemingly no reason. There is no arc, no development, no progress is shown to us. 

Because when you’re telling a story about a character having some major change or developing in some way, or having an important character trait, if I don’t see it on screen, then it didn’t happen. How am I supposed to root for C!Tommy’s progress, or understand what he’s doing to progress, if a never see his coping mechanisms? His therapy appointments? 

You can’t just say something, or inconsistently portray something, and expect me to jump through hoops to connect these nearly transparent dots that keep getting thrown around. 

Show don’t tell. Show me Tommy getting better, because otherwise you’re just telling me he made character development, and showing me this completely different character as proof. No, last I remembered C!Tommy was having panic attacks and yelling when C!Dream was even mentioned. You can’t tell me that a day later he can interact normally after days of being in the prison and a month of being dead.

Or, if you are gonna have him flip flop back and forth, don’t have it be so sudden and jarring, give an explanation. Is he faking being fine? Does he have memory issues? C!Tommy doesn’t read to me as the type who’s good at suppressing his emotions, he wears his heart on his sleeve. So you’re going to have to explain, clearly, in a way that isn’t ambiguous, what’s happening with C!Tommy here.

You’re not really saying anything about the abuse C!Tommy goes through, if all of that trauma is automatically wiped from the story when the writers get too lazy or too scared to keep it in. At best, you are showing abuse and trauma for the sole purpose of showing it, with no intention of properly dealing with and addressing it in the story. At worst, you are basically just doing torture porn. 

Pain, Hurt, Trauma for the sake of it. Not with any goal in mind. Just for the drama of it, or to hurt the audience. 

And then your audience is just supposed to take that content in uncritically, and they gain no true understanding of how abuse victims survive and cope after their traumatic treatment.

Exile Arc sure did a good job at making C!Tommy suffer. But as soon as that arc ended, a lot of the stuff that happened in it went completely glossed over and unaddressed for a long while. That might have been fine in the lead-up to Doomsday, since a lot of plot stuff had been going on and stopping to handle C!Tommy’s issues might (Might is heavily doubted cause it certainly isn’t impossible) mess with the pacing a bit. But then after Doomsday, there isn’t really any excuse to put it off. Because nothing was really happening for a good while, and nobody had anything to do plotwise. 

And this became even more true with C!Dream being locked in Prison. Nothing was really happening, so what was stopping the story from taking the time to properly discuss and deal with this stuff?

Well, nothing really. So, the Hotel Arc happened. And oh boy, was it a mess. 

So, C!Tommy being angry at C!Dream for the abuse and trauma he has suffered at Dream’s hand isn’t an issue. It’s an incredibly common thing for victims to feel angry at their abusers, and to even go so far as to wish for vengeance against them in some way. And that’s a totally valid and fine feeling. 

You’re hurting, you’re scared, you’re in pain. I get that. When we’re hurting, we don’t always act rationally or healthily.

But, ultimately, that rage, and hurt, and want for vengeance is not a healthy thing to hold onto. In many circumstances with an abuse victim wanting to inflict pain back on their abuser, we run into various problems. 

For one, getting vengeance on your abuser is quite frequently going to give you more emotional pain than it will fulfilment. Especially if you are young, or are letting this want for vengeance take over your entire livelihood. It does you no good ultimately, to attempt to bring pain to the person who hurt you, because not only will you often be unsuccessful, you frequently won’t find emotional healing and stability in that. 

(The only exception to this rule being if ignoring them or moving on from them isn’t an option for you right now.)

Actions have consequences, and if you invest more time in that person who hurt you, then you have no time to work on yourself or the relationships around you. You have no time to heal, and this can become self-destructive.

Spending time around an abuser, as a victim, is in all likelihood just going to upset you more. You’re retraumatizing yourself by spending time around them, and as you make attempts to give them their comeuppance, you could possibly end up internalizing the methods they used on you, and just end up perpetuating the cycle of abuse again. 

And even if you have no problem with doing that to this particular person, consider how fully internalizing these abusive behaviours could affect your friends or family. Frequently, even when they don’t mean to, abuse victims can internalize the things that they went through and then use those same behaviours against people in their life later on. Being shitty to your support system because of what you went through isn’t a good move, for you or them.

Basically just, an Abuse Victim has more to gain from working on themselves while finding ways to heal and overcome their trauma and abuse, than they do spending their time and energy on the abuser. Its frequently unhealthy, distressing, and self-destructive to indulge in that too much.

(Of course, I don’t speak for everyone, but from what iIve looked into and seen, this is the healthiest method of actually healing from your abuse. That doesn’t mean you just... leave your abuser alone and never address or talk about what they did, you don’t let them get away with it, of course not. It just means you don’t waste your mental well being and time obsessing over someone, especially someone who has hurt you so much.

You deserve better than that. You deserve to heal.)

Now, let’s get back to C!Tommy. 

C!Tommy, instead of finding a proper means of coping with his issues (proper therapy, diagnosis for his issues, forming and maintaining healthy support systems, focusing on things he loves, etc) is shown to repeatedly focus back on C!Dream. When he was making Big Innit Hotel, it did seem like he was to an extent finding ways to cope with his shit. He was still kinda shitty and his hotel was not exactly made and run by the most morally great standards, though I suppose I can’t expect too much when he is a very traumatized teen and doesn’t really know what he’s doing. 

But, ultimately, this all fell apart when he got locked in Pandora’s Vault with C!Dream. Arguably, it was already falling apart the moment he decided to keep pursuing C!Dream even when he was locked up.

See, the thing is, C!Tommy can never just… have trauma. Having trauma that he can healthily and methodically work through is something that for him as a Character, is basically impossible. His character is an angry one, one built on spite and childishness, and who holds the mantle, unfortunately, of “Spunky Male Protagonist In A YA Novel”. So, his mental health issues can never just be a struggle he has to cope with, especially not when the DreamSMP can never seem to have anything between “A lot is happening right now omg” or “Literally nothing is happening and nobody is playing on the server at all omg”.

Instead, his issues have to be seen as a battle, and they fuel the narrative of the story. Him having been abused by C!Dream cannot just exist as a thing that he as a person has to work through slowly with the help of others around him. It has to be seen as this Epic Triumph Against Evil, another battle of Tommyinnit VS Dream on the DreamSMP, a classic Villain versus Hero fight.

This, of course, isn’t too great. By C!Tommy’s abuse plotline being framed in this manner, it makes it so that C!Tommy is constantly obsessing over his abuser and recklessly throwing himself into dangerous and triggering situations is some attempt at an “Epic Battle With Evil”, rather than this being treated like the self-harm it actually is. And yes, it is self-harm, a form of it. 

C!Tommy uses his trauma and issues as fuel for the story, making it so that its impossible for him to truly progress and a character, and the moment he does start growing, he has to get retraumatized again so he goes right back to where he was.

C!Tommy does not become a better person when he’s around C!Dream, nor does he find any form of fulfilment in being around him. He gets shaky and panicky at just the sight of him. He regularly has violent and explosive outbursts at just the mention of him. When C!Dream talks to him, he gets nervous and basically can’t help but listen due to conditioning he still listens to. 

When C!Tommy went to go visit C!Dream the first time in Pandora’s Vault, he brought with him stacks of TnT. He did it because he wanted to mimic what C!Dream had done to him in Exile, where he would take all of C!Tommy’s newly gained items and blow them up underground for dramatic effect. 

C!Dream did this for control over C!Tommy, to manipulate him, for his suffering.

And C!Tommy wanted to do this to C!Dream, because he was feeling vindictive. 

When C!Tommy got into the prison, he mocked C!Dream, hit him repeatedly, and tried to boss him around. He made him write ridiculous books and verbally berated the man. He did this in a feeble attempt to gain some feeling of control over C!Dream. This, evidently, did not work. At best his success was momentary. And this sense of achievement he gained was gained through projecting his abuse trauma onto someone else.

He repeated the cycle. 

After he got brought back from the dead and let out of the prison, he was much much worse. C!Tommy was now paranoid, anxious, constantly thinking about C!Dream, and had his mindset solely on getting revenge on him, by killing him. 

It got so bad, he ended up doing lacklustre “Exposure Therapy” to help himself not panic when he went into Pandora’s Vault to kill C!Dream. It got so bad he dragged C!Tubbo and C!Ranboo into this, putting them in danger and putting more pressure on another two teenagers’ shoulders. 

It got so bad, that Ghostbur died, C!Sam closed off even more, and C!Wilbur came back. 

Objectively, C!Tommy leaving C!Dream alone would be the better thing for everyone. And yet he keeps repeating the cycle. Because C!Tommy is not meant to grow, learn and heal. He is made to suffer. 

The problem is not so much showing an unhealthy depiction of a mentally ill or traumatized person. Because trauma and mental illness and the effects of abuse are not always pretty, and they shouldn’t always have to be portrayed and pretty or sympathetic to be accurate. 

It becomes a problem when you get this depiction of C!Tommy’s coping being presented uncritically to an audience of a lot of underaged and young people. 

Nobody in canon, whether they be adults or fellow teens, has ever tried to question C!Tommy’s methods for coping. C!Ranboo and C!Tubbo just limply went along with his plans for Exposure Therapy with no consideration of if this was a good idea. No adults really offer to genuinely step in and help C!Tommy deal with his shit, and the ones that do leave him or get corrupted in some way, often leaving him with more trauma as they do. 

C!Puffy’s therapy methods are dubious at best, and the most we ever see of her actually helping C!Tommy is her humouring his toxic behaviours, and C!Tommy making offhanded mentions to vague therapists appointments we never see. 

C!Technoblade stopped giving a shit as soon as C!Tommy walked off the screen. C!Wilbur was dead, and now that he isn’t he certainly isn’t helping C!Tommy. C!Phil isn’t C!Tommy’s dad and has no obligation to do anything for him as a result. C!Ranboo has the backbone of a chocolate eclair. C!Tubbo is too busy repressing his own trauma to help C!Tommy with his. C!Sam is being ruled by the prison and C!Quackity. C!Quackity has become an Ancap. 

Nobody in this story is a reliable or trusted person to C!Tommy, who could properly tell him his methods are unhealthy and give him better alternatives. And as a result, nobody is able to tell the audience that C!Tommy is wrong 

Unreliable Narrators are only effective when the narrative in some way has their unreliableness pointed out or proven to the audience. If you go into a story with the assumption that everybody watching will be able to see past C!Tommy’s POV and not take him at face value, then you are naive. Especially when this fandom is made up of many teens and children. 

I only know C!Tommy’s methods are unhealthy because I care way too much and do my research. A vast majority of the world doesn’t have the same understanding and education on these topics, especially not children and teenagers. A good chunk of people, especially neurodivergent and mentally ill people, could very well take the story at face value and automatically assume that what Tommy’s doing is actually a good coping mechanism because they don’t know any better.

There is no clarification or safety net for preventing misinterpretation. And being of the opinion that “Well, they should know better than to trust a bunch of Minecraft Youtubers for this stuff” or “We can’t expect them to be psychologists! You expect too much” is just… not helping. 

Because I shouldn’t have to explain why children and teenagers, especially those that are using these people to cope, are not always going to make level-headed and common-sense decisions. They will be influenced by these Content Creators, whether we think it’s “Stupid” or not. 

And I can say with certainty that, while yes, this might be a bit much to expect from a bunch of British/American white guys who play Minecraft to handle, may I also point out that nobody fucking made them put this stuff in the story. There are ways to write a story without stepping outside of your realm of true understanding. Nobody begged these MCYTs to go and make torture porn for a 16 year old, nobody asked them to touch on topics they have no fucking clue about. 

They put that in themselves. And we have the right to point out the problems and flaws in it, and criticize them for not handling this stuff better. 

You don’t start applying for a job you don’t meet the requirements for. You don’t start an expensive project you can’t finish. 

You don’t include elements in a story you aren’t willing to fully go through with and address in a proper and sensitive way. 

#hope this makes sense #dreamsmp roleplay #dream smp critical #dreamsmp #dream smp #character analysis #c!tommy #c!dream #tw abuse discussion #tw abuse #negativity #dsmp critical #critical dsmp

[wits-writing]

What’s so Funny About Vengeance, the Night, and Batman? – Two Superhero Parodies in Conversation

Back in 2016, the first trailers for Director Chris McKay’s The Lego Batman Movie hit. A spinoff of the take on the iconic hero, voiced by Will Arnett, from 2014’s The Lego Movie. Those trailers spelled out a plot covering how Batman’s life of crimefighting is turned upside down when Robin unexpectedly enters the picture. It was a funny trailer, promising another insightful comedy from the crew behind The Lego Movie. A promise it handily delivered on when it came out in February 2017 with an animated feature steeped wall-to-wall jokes for the sake of mocking Bruce Wayne’s angst filled crusade that can only come from understanding what’s made the character withstand the test of time.

But there was a thought I and others had from seeing that trailer up to watching the actual movie:

“This seems… familiar.”

Holy Musical B@man! is a 2012 fan-made stage production parody of DC Comics’ biggest cash cow. It was produced as the fifth musical from YouTube-based cult phenomenon Starkid Productions, from a book by Matt and Nick Lang, music by Nick Gage and Scott Lamp with lyrics by Gage. The story of the musical details how Robin’s unexpected entrance ends up turning Batman’s (Joe Walker) life of crimefighting upside down. Among Starkids’ fandom derived projects in their early existence, as they’ve mainly moved on to well-received original material in recent years, Holy Musical B@man! is my personal favorite. I go back to it frequently, appreciating it as a fan of both superheroes and musicals. (Especially since good material that touches on both of those isn’t exactly easy to come by. Right, Spider-Man?)

While I glibly summarized the similarities between them by oversimplifying their plots, there’s a lot in the details, both major and minor, that separates how they explore themes like solitude, friendship, love, and what superhero stories mean. It’s something I’ve wanted to dig into for a while and I found a lot in both of them I hadn’t considered before by putting them in conversation. I definitely recommend watching both of them, because of how in-depth this piece goes including discussing their endings. However, nothing I can say will replace the experience of watching them and if I had included everything I could’ve commented on in both of them, this already massive piece would easily be twice as long minimum.

Up front, I want to say this isn’t about comparing The Lego Batman Movie and Holy Musical B@man in terms of quality. Not only are they shaped for vastly different mediums with different needs/expectations, animation versus stagecraft, but they also had different resources at their disposal. Even if both are in some ways riffing on the aesthetic of the 1990s Batman movies and the Adam West TV show, Lego Batman does it with the ability to make gorgeously animated frames packed to the brim with detail while Holy Musical often leans into its low-fi aesthetic of characters miming props and sets to add extra humor. They’re also for different audiences, Lego Batman clearly for all-ages while Holy Musical has the characters cursing for emphasis on a regular basis. On top of those factors, after picking through each of these for everything worth commenting on that I could find, I can’t say which I wholly prefer thanks in part to these fundamental differences.

This piece is more about digging through the details to explore the commonalities, differences, and what makes them effective mocking love letters to one of the biggest superheroes in existence.

(Also, since I’m going to be using the word “Batman” a lot, I’ll be calling Lego Batman just “Batman” and referring to the version from Holy Musical as “B@man”, with the exception of quoted dialogue.)

[Full Piece Under the Cut]

Setting the Tone

The beginning is, in fact, a very good place to start when discussing how these parodies frame their versions of the caped crusader. Each one uses a song about lavishing their respective Batmen with praise about how they are the best superheroes ever and play over sequences of the title hero kicking wholesale ass. A key distinction comes in who’s singing each song. Holy Musical B@man’s self-titled opening number is sung from the perspective of an omniscient narrator recounting B@man’s origin and later a chorus made up of the Gotham citizenry. Meanwhile, “Who’s the (Bat) Man” from Lego Batman is a brag-tacular song written by Batman about himself, even playing diegetically for all his villains to hear as he beats them up.

Holy Musical opens on a quick recap of Batman’s origin:

“One shot, Two shots in the night and they’re gone And he’s all left alone He’s just one boy Two dead at his feet and their blood stains the street And there’s nothing, no there’s nothing he can do!”

We then get a Bat-dance break as the music goes from slow and moody to energetic to reflect Batman turning that tragedy into the driving force behind his one-man war on crime. Assured by the narrator that he’s “the baddest man that there’s ever been!” and “Now there’s nothing, no there’s nothing he can’t do!” flipping the last lyric of the first verse. For the rest of the opening scene the lyrics matter less than what’s happening to establish both this fan-parody’s version of Batman and how the people of Gotham (“he’ll never refuse ‘em”) view him.

Lego Batman skips the origin recap, and in general talks around the death of the Waynes to keep the light tone going since it’s still a kids movie about a popular toy even if there are deeper themes at play. Instead, it continues a trend The Lego Movie began for this version of the character writing music about how he’s an edgy, dark, awesome, cool guy. While that movie kept it to Batman angry-whiteboy-rapping about “Darkness! NO PARENTS!”, this one expands to more elaborate boasts in the song “Who’s the (Bat) Man” by Patrick Stump:

“In the darkest night I make the bad guys fall There’s a million heroes But I’m the best of them all!”

Batman singing this song about himself, as opposed to having it sung by others aims the crosshairs of parody squarely on the hero’s ego. His abilities make fighting his villains effortless, like this opening battle is more an opportunity to perform the song than a life-or-death struggle. Even Joker’s aware of that as he shouts, “Stop him before he starts singing!” This Batman doesn’t see himself as missing out on anything in life, even if he still feels that deep down. Being Batman is the coolest thing in the world that anyone would envy. He’s Batman, therefore everyone should envy him.

The songs aren’t only part of the equation for how these two works’ opening scenes establish their leading hero. While both songs are about Batman being cool, they’re separated by the accompanying scenes. Lego Batman keep the opening within the Joker’s perspective until Batman shows up and the action kicks in. Once it does, we’re shown a Batman at the top of his solo-hero game. Meanwhile, Holy Musical’s opening is about B@man building his reputation and by the end of the song he has all the citizens of Gotham singing his praises with the titular lyrics. Both are about being in awe of the title hero, one framed by Joker’s frustration at Batman’s ease in foiling his schemes yet again and the other about the people of Gotham growing to love their city’s hero (probably against their better judgement.)

That’s woven into the fabric of what kind of schemes Batman is foiling in each of these. Joker’s plan to bomb Gotham with the help of every supervillain in Batman’s Rogues Gallery is hilariously high stakes and the type of plan most Batman stories, even parodies, would save for the climax. Neatly exemplified by how that’s almost the exact structure of Holy Musical’s final showdown. Starting with these stakes works as an extension of this Batman’s nature as a living children’s toy and therefore the embodiment of a child’s idea of what makes Batman cool, his ability to wipe the floor with anyone that gets in his way “because he’s Batman.” It also emphasizes Joker as the only member of the Rogues Gallery that matters to Lego Batman’s story, every other Bat-villain is either a purely visual cameo or only gets a couple lines maximum.

The crime’s being stopped by B@man are more in the “Year One” gangster/organized crime category rather than anything spectacle heavy. Though said crimes are comically exaggerated:

Gangster 1: Take these here drugs, put ‘em into them there guns, and then hand ‘em out to those gamblin’ prostitutes! Gangster 2: Should we really be doing these illegal activities? In a children’s hospital for orphans?

These fit into that model of crime the Dark Knight fights in his early days and add tiny humanizing moments between the crooks (“Oh, Matches! You make me laugh like nobody else!”) in turn making the arrival of B@man and the violence he deals out a stronger punchline. Further emphasized by the hero calling out the exact physical damage he does with each hit before warning them to never do crime again saying, “Support your families like the rest of us! Be born billionaires!” Later in the song his techniques get more extreme and violence more indiscriminate, as he uses his Bat-plane to patrol and gun down whoever he sees as a criminal, including a storeowner accidentally taking a single dollar from his own register. (“God’s not up here! Only Batman!”)

A commonality between these two openings is how Commissioner Jim Gordon gets portrayed. Both are hapless goofs at their core, playing more on the portrayal of the character in the 60s TV show and 90s Burton/Schumacher movies than the serious-minded character present in comics, Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy, and other adaptations. Lauren Lopez’s portrayal in Holy Musical gets overwhelmed by everything thrown at him, eventually giving up and getting out of B@man’s way (“I’m not gonna tell Batman what to do! He’s Batman!”) Hector Elizondo’s Gordon in Lego Batman clearly reached the “stay out of Batman’s way” point a long time ago, happy to have “the guy who flips on the Bat-signal” be his sole defining trait. While the characterizations are close, their roles do end up differing. Lopez’s Gordon sticks around to have a few more comedic scenes as the play goes on, where Elizondo’s exist to set up a contrast with his daughter Barbara and her way of approaching Batman when she becomes Police Commissioner.

These opening sequences both end in similar manners as well; the citizens of Gotham lavishing praise on their respective Batmen and a confrontation between Batman and the Joker. Praise from the citizenry in Holy Musical comes on the heels of a letter from B@man read out on the news about how much they and the city of Gotham suck. They praise B@man for his angsty nature as a “dark hero” and how they “wouldn’t want him any other way!”, establishing the motif of Gotham’s citizens in Holy Musical as stand-ins for the Batman fandom. Lego Batman uses the praise of the Gotham citizens after Batman’s victory in the opening scene as a lead in to contrast their certainty that Batman must have an exciting private life with the reality we’re shown. Which makes sense since Lego-Batman’s relationship to the people of Gotham is never presented as something at stake.

Greater contrast comes in how the confrontations with the Joker are handled, Lego Batman has an argument between the hero and villain that’s intentionally coded as relationship drama, Batman saying “There is no ‘us’” when Joker declares himself Batman’s greatest enemy. The confrontation in Holy Musical gets purposefully underplayed as an offstage encounter narrated to the audience as a Vicki Vale news report. This takes Joker off the board for the rest of the play in contrast to the Batman/Joker relationship drama that forms one of Lego Batman’s key pillars. While they take different forms, the respective citizenry praise and villain confrontation parts of these openings lead directly into the number one common thematic element between these Bat-parodies: Batman’s loneliness.

One is the Darkest, Saddest, Loneliest Number

Batman as an isolated hero forms one of the core tenants of the most popular understanding of the character. Each of these parodies picks at that beyond the broody posturing. There’s no dedicated segment in this piece about how these works’ versions of the title character function bleeds into every other aspect of them, but each starts from the idea of Batman as a man-child with trouble communicating his emotions. Time’s taken to give the audience a view of where their attitudes have left them early in the story.

Both heroes show their loneliness through interactions with their respective Alfreds. Holy Musical has the stalwart butler, played by Chris Allen, try to comfort B@man by asking if he has any friends he enjoys being around. When B@man cites Lucius Fox as a friend he calls him right away, only to discover Lucius Fox is Alfred’s true identity and Alfred Pennyworth was an elaborate ruse he came up with to protect Bruce on his father’s wishes. Ironically, finding out his closest friend was living a double life causes Bruce to push Alfred away (the play keeps referring to him as Alfred after this, so that’s what I’m going to do as well.) After he’s fired he immediately comes back in a new disguise as “O’Malley the Irish Butler” (same outfit he wore before but with a Party City Leprechaun hat.) That’s unfortunately the start of a running gag in Holy Musical that ends up at the worst joke in the play, when Alfred disguises himself as “Quon Li the Chinese Butler” doing an incredibly cringeworthy “substituting L’s for R’s” bit with his voice. It’s been my least favorite bit in the play since I first saw it in 2012 and legitimately makes me hesitate at times to recommend it. Even if it’s relatively small bit and the rest holds ups.

That disclaimer out of the way, that conversation between B@man and Alfred leads into the title hero reflecting on his sadness through the musical’s I Want Song, “Dark, Sad, Lonely Knight.” The song’s split into two halves, the first Alfred reflecting on whether he played a part in Bruce’s current condition and the second B@man longing for a connection. The song does a good job balancing between the sincerity over the hero’s sadness and getting good laughs out of it:

“Think of the children Next time you gun down the mama and papa Their only mama and papa Because they probably don’t have another mama and papa!”

The “I Want” portion of the song coming in the end with the repetition of the lryics “I want to be somebody’s buddy.”

Rather than another song number, Lego Batman covers Batman’s sadness through a pair of montages and visual humor. The first comes after the opening battle, where we see Batman taking off all his costume except for the mask hanging out alone in Wayne Manor, showing how little separation he puts between identities. Compared to Holy Musical where the equivalent scene is the first we see of Bruce without the mask on, which may come down to practicality since anyone who’s worn a mask like that knows they get hot and sweaty fast. Batman is constantly made to appear small among the giant empty rooms of his estate as he eats dinner, jams on his guitar, and watches romantic movies alone.

Ralph Fienne’s Alfred coming in at the end of this sequence witnessing Batman looking at a photo of himself as a boy with his parents for the last time. Alfred outlines Batman’s fear of being part of a family again only to be met with Batman denying he has any feelings ever. Pennyworth’s role as a surrogate father gets put into greater focus here than in Holy Musical, as we get glimpses of Alfred reading a book titled “How to Deal with Your Out-of-Control Child.” Also shown in smaller scenes of Alfred dealing with Batman’s insistent terminology for his crime fighting equipment, like calling his cowl an “armored face disguise.”

Batman’s denial of his pain contrasts how B@man wallows in it. Though he’s forced to confront it a little as the Joker’s plan ends up leaving him with no crimefighting to fall back on to ignore his issues. This montage gets set to the song “One” by Harry Nilsson and details Batman, unable to express his true feelings, eventually letting them out in the form of tempter tantrums. There’s also some humor through juxtaposition as Batman walks solemnly through the streets of Gotham City, rendered black and white, as the citizens chant “No more crime!” in celebration, while flipping over cars and firing guns into the air.

A disruption to their loneliness eventually comes in the form of a sensational character find.

Robin – The Son/BFF Wonder

Between both Bat-parodies, the two Robins’ characterizations are as close as anyone’s between them. Each is nominally Dick Grayson but are ultimately more representative of the idea of Robin as the original superhero sidekick and his influence on Batman’s life. The play and movie also both make the obvious jokes about Dick’s name and the classic Robin costume’s lack of pants at different points. Dick’s origin also gets sidestepped in each version to skip ahead to the part where he starts being an influence in Batman’s life.

Robin’s introduction to the comics in Detective Comics #38 in 1940, marking the start of Batman’s literal “Year Two” as a character, predating the introduction of Joker, Catwoman, and Alfred, among others. Making him Batman’s longest lasting ally in the character’s history. His presence and acrobatics shift the tone by adding a dash of swashbuckling to Batman’s adventures, inspired by the character’s namesake Robin Hood, though both parodies take a page out of Batman Forever and associate the name with the bird for the sake of a joke. Robin is as core to Batman as his origin, but more self-serious adaptations (i.e., the mainstream cinematic ones that were happening around the times both Holy Musical and Lego Batman came out) tend to avoid the character’s inclusion. These two works being parody, therefore anything but self-serious, give themselves permission to examine why Robin matters and how different characters react to his presence. Rejection of Robin as a character and concept comes out in some form in each of these works, from Batman himself in Lego Batman and the Gotham citizens in Holy Musical.

The chain of events that lead to Dick becoming Robin in Lego Batman are a string of consequences for Batman’s self-absorption. A scene of Bruce barely listening as Dick asks for advice on getting adopted escalating to absentmindedly signing the adoption paperwork. Batman doesn’t realize he has a son until after his sadness montage. Alfred forces Batman to start interacting with Dick against his will. The broody loner wanting nothing to do with the cheery kid, played to “golly gee gosh” perfection by Michael Cera, until he sees the utility of him. Batman doesn’t even have the idea to give Robin a costume or codename because he clearly views the sidekick’s presence as a temporary measure for breaking into Superman’s fortress, made clear by how he lists “expendable” as a quality Dick needs if he wants to go on a mission.

This makes Robin the catalyst for Batman’s shifting perspective throughout Lego Batman. When Robin succeeds in his first mission, the Dark Knight is hesitant to truly compliment him and chalks up his ward’s feats to “unbelievable obeying.” Other moments have Robin’s presence poke holes in Batman’s tough guy demeanor, like the first time Batman and Robin ride in the Bat-mobile together, Robin asks where the seatbelts are and Batman growls “Life doesn’t give you seatbelts!”, only for Batman to make a sudden stop causing Robin to hit his head on the windshield and Batman genuinely apologizes. They share more genuine moments together as the film goes, like Batman suggesting they beatbox together to keeps their spirits up after they’ve been imprisoned for breaking into Arkham Asylum. Robin’s representative of Batman gradually letting people in throughout these moments.

On the exact opposite end of the spectrum, B@man needs zero extra prompting to let Robin into his life. Nick Lang’s Robin (henceforth called “Rob!n” to keep with this arbitrary naming scheme I’ve concocted) does get brought into his life by Alfred thanks to a personal ad (“‘Dog for sale’? No… ‘Orphan for sale’! Even better!”) but it’s a short path to B@man deciding to let Dick fight alongside him. The briefest hesitance on the hero’s part, “To be Batman… is to be alone”, is quelled by Rob!n saying “We could be alone… together.” Their first scene together quickly establishing the absurd sincerity exemplified by this incarnation of the Dynamic Duo. An energy carried directly into the Act 1 closing number, “The Dynamic Duet”, a joyful ode between the heroes about how they’re “Long lost brothers who found each other” sung as they beat up supervillains (and the occasional random civilian.)

That song also ties into the contrast between the Batman/Robin dynamic and the B@man/Rob!n one. While Holy Musical is portraying a brotherly/BFF bond between the two heroes, Lego Batman leans into the surrogate son angle. While both are mainly about their stories’ Batman being able to connect with others, the son angle of Lego Batman adds an additional layer of “Batman needs to take responsibility for himself and others” and a parallel to Alfred as Batman’s own surrogate father. It also adds to the queer-coding of Batman in Lego Batman as Batman’s excuse to Robin for why he can go on missions is that Bruce and he are sharing custody, Robin even calling Batman’s dual identities “dads” before he knows the truth.

In the absence of the accepting personal responsibility through fatherhood element, the conflict Rob!n brings out in Holy Musical forms between B@man and the citizens of Gotham. “Citizens as stand-ins for fandom” is at it’s clearest here as the Act 2 opener is called “Robin Sucks!” featuring the citizens singing about how… well, you read the title. Their objections to Rob!n’s existence has nothing to do with what the young hero has done or failed to do, but come from arguments purely about the aesthetic of Rob!n fighting alongside B@man. Most blatantly shown by one of the citizens wearing a Heath Ledger Joker t-shirt saying Rob!n’s presence “ruins the gritty realism of a man who fights crime dressed as a bat.” It works as the Act 2 opener by establishing that B@man and the citizens conflicting opinions on his sidekick end up driving that half of the story, exemplified in B@man’s complete confusion about why people hate Rob!n (“Robin ruined Batman? But that’s not true… Robin make Batman happy.”)

Both Robins play into the internal conflict their respective mentors are going through, but what would a superhero story, even a parody, be without some colorful characters to provide that sweet external conflict.

Going Rogue

Both works have the threat comes from an army of villains assembled under a ringleader, Zach Galifianakis’s Joker in Lego Batman and Jeff Blim as Sweet Tooth in Holy Musical. Both lead the full ensemble of Batman’s classic (and not so classic) Rogues at different points. As mentioned before Joker starts Lego Batman with “assemble the Rogues, blow up Gotham” as his plan, while Sweet Tooth with his candy prop comedy becoming the ringleader of Gotham’s villains is a key turning point in Act 1 of the play. Part of this comes down to how their connections to their respective heroes and environments are framed, Sweet Tooth as a new player on the scene and Joker as Batman’s romantic foil.

Lego Batman demonstrates Batman and Joker are on “finishing each other’s sentences” levels of intimate that Batman refuses to acknowledge. Shown best in how Joker’s plan only works because he can predict exactly how Batman will act once he starts playing hard to get. When he surrenders the entire Rogues Gallery (without telling them) and himself to police custody, he describes it as him being “off the market.” He knows Batman won’t settle for things ending on these terms and tricks the hero into stealing Superman’s Phantom Zone projector so he can recruit a new, better team of villains for a take two of his masterplan from the start. Going through all this trouble to get Batman to say those three magic words; “I love hate you.” Joker as the significant other wanting his partner to finally reciprocate his feelings and commit works both as a play on how the Batman/Joker relationship often gets approached and an extension of the central theme. Batman is so closed off to interpersonal connections he can’t even properly hate his villains.

Sweet Tooth, while clearly being a riff Heath Ledger and Caesar Romero’s Jokers fused with a dash of Willy Wonka, doesn’t have that kind of connection with B@man. Though there are hints that B@man and his recently deceased Joker may have had one on that level. He laments “[Joker]’s in heaven with mom and dad. Making them laugh, I know it!” when recalling how the Clown Prince of Crime was the one person he enjoyed being around. This makes Joker’s death one of the key triggers to B@man reflecting on his solitude at the start of the play.

What Sweet Tooth provides the story is a threat to B@man’s new bond with Rob!n. Disrupting that connection forms the delicious center of the Candy King of Crime’s plan in Act 2. He holds Rob!n and Gotham’s people hostage and asks the citizens to decide via Facebook poll if the sidekick lives or dies (in reference to the infamous phone hotline vote from the comic book story A Death in the Family where readers could decide the Jason Todd Robin’s fate.)

With the rest of the villains under the leadership of the respective works’ main antagonists, there’s commentary on their perceived quality as threats. When Holy Musical has Superman talking to Green Lantern about how much B@man’s popularity frustrates him, he comes down especially hard on the Caped Crusader’s villains. Talking about how they all coast by on simple gimmicks with especially harsh attention given to Two Face’s being “the number two.” Saying they’re only famous because B@man screws up and they get to do more damage. Which he compares to his own relationship with his villains:

Superman: You ever heard of Mr. Mxyzptlk? Green Lantern: No. Superman: No, that’s right! That’s because I do my job!

Lego Batman has commentary on the other villains come from Joker, recognizing that even all together they can never beat Batman, because that’s how a Batman story goes. The other villains get portrayed as generally buffoonish, struggling to even build a couch together and described by Joker as “losers dressed in cosplay.” Tricking Batman into sending him to the Phantom Zone provides him the opportunity to gather villains from outside Batman’s mythos and outside DC Comics in general. Recruiting the likes of Sauron, King Kong, Daleks, Agent Smith from The Matrix, and the Wicked Witch of the West, among others. When I first saw and reviewed The Lego Batman Movie, this bugged me because it felt like a missed opportunity to feature lesser-known villains from other DC heroes’ Rogues Galleries. Now, considering the whole movie as meta-commentary on the status of this Batman as a children’s toy, it makes perfect sense that Joker would need to go outside of comics to break the rules of a typical Batman story and have a shot at winning.

The Rogues of Holy Musical get slightly more of a chance to shine, if only because their song “Rogues are We” is one of the catchier tracks from the play. They’re all still more cameo than character when all’s said and done, but Sweet Tooth entering the picture is about him recognizing their potential to operate as a unit, takeover Gotham, and kill B@man. The candy-pun flinging villain wants all of them together, no matter their perceived quality.

Sweet Tooth: “We need every villain in Gotham. Cool themes, lame themes, themes that don’t match their powers, even the villains that take their names from public domain stories.” (Two Face’s “broke ass” still being the exception.)

Both Joker and Sweet Tooth provide extensions of the shared theme of Batman dealing with the new connections in his life, especially with regards to Robin. However, Robin isn’t the only other ally (or potential ally) these Dark Knights have on their side.

Super Friends(?)

The internal crisis of these Caped Crusaders come as much from how they react to other heroic figures as it does from supervillainous machinations. In both cases how Batman views and is viewed by fellow heroes gets centered on a specific figure, Superman in Holy Musical and Commissioner Barbara Gordon (later Batgirl) in Lego Batman. Each serves a vastly different purpose in the larger picture of their stories and relationship to their respective Batmen. Superman reflecting B@man’s loneliness and Barbara symbolizing a new path forward for Batman’s hero work.

Superman’s role in Holy Musical runs more parallel to Lego Batman’s Joker than Barbara. Brian Holden’s performance as the Man of Tomorrow plays into a projected confidence covering anxiety that nobody likes him. Besting the Bat-plane in a race during B@man’s Key to the City ceremony establishes a one upmanship between the two heroes, like Joker’s description of his relationship with Batman at the end of Lego Batman’s opening battle. Though instead of that romantically coded relationship from Lego Batman, this relationship is more connected to childish jealousy. (But if you do want to read the former into Holy Musical B@man, neither hero has an onstage relationship with any woman and part of their eventual fight consist of spanking each other.)

B@man and Superman’s first real interaction is arguing over who’s the cooler hero until it degrades into yelling “Fuck you!” at each other. B@man storming off in the aftermath of that gets topped off by Superman suggesting he should get the Key to the City instead, citing his strength and longer tenure as a hero (“The first hero, by the way”) as justifications. This only results in the Gotham citizens turning on him for suggesting their city’s hero is anything less than the best, which serves both as a Sam Raimi Spider-Man reference (“You mess with one of us! You mess with all of us!”) and another example of the citizens as stand-ins for fandom. Superman’s veil of cocksureness comes off quickly after that and stays off for the rest of the play. Starting with his conversation with Green Lantern where a civilian comes across them, but barely acts like Superman’s there.

One of the play’s running gags is Superman calling B@man’s number and leaving messages, showing a desperation to reach out and connect with his fellow hero despite initial smugness. Even before the first phone call scene, we see Superman joining B@man to sing “I want to be somebody’s buddy” during “Dark, Sad, Lonely Knight” hinting at what’s to come. The note it consistently comes back to is that Superman’s jealousy stems from Batman’s popularity over him. This is a complete flip of what Lego Batman does with the glimpse at a Batman/Superman dynamic we see when Batman goes to the Superman’s fortress to steal the Phantom Zone projector. The rivalry dynamic there exists solely in Batman’s head, Lego-Superman quickly saying “I would crush you” when Batman suggests the idea of them fighting. Superman’s status among the other DC heroes is also night and day between these works. Where Lego-Superman’s only scene in the movie shows him hosting the Justice League Anniversary Party and explaining he “forgot” to invite Batman, Superman in Holy Musical consistently lies about having friends over (“All night long I’m busy partying with my friends at the Fortress… of Solitude.”)

Superman’s relationship to B@man in Holy Musical develops into larger antagonism thanks to lack of communication with B@man brushing off Supes’ invitations to hang out and fight bad guys (“Where were you for the Solomon Grundy thing? Ended up smaller than I thought, just a couple of cool guys. Me and… Solomon Grundy.”) His own loneliness gets put into stronger focus when he sees the news of Rob!n’s debut as a crimefighter, which makes him reflect on how he misses having Krypto the Super-Dog around. (The explanation for why he doesn’t have his dog anymore is one of my favorite jokes in the play and I won’t ruin it here.)

Where Superman’s a reflection of B@man’s loneliness, Rosario Dawson as Barbara in Lego Batman is a confrontation of Batman’s go it alone attitude. Her job in the story is to be the one poking holes in the foundation of Batman as an idea, starting with her speech at Jim Gordon’s retirement banquet and her instatement as commissioner. She has a by-the-book outlook on crimefighting with the omnicompetence to back it up, thanks to her training at “Harvard for Police.” Babs sees Batman’s current way of operating as ineffectual and wants him to be an official agent of the law. An idea that dumps a bucket of cold water on Batman’s crush he developed immediately upon seeing her, though that never fully goes away.

Her main point is that Batman “karate chopping poor people” hasn’t made Gotham better in his 80 years of operating. A contrast to Holy Musical’s Jim Gordon announcing that B@man has brought Gotham’s crime rates to an all-time low (“Still the highest in the world, but we’re working on it.”) She wants to see a Batman willing to work with other people. A hope dashed constantly dealing with his childish stubbornness as he tries to foil Joker’s schemes on his own, culminating in her arresting Batman and Robin for breaking into Arkham to send Joker to the Phantom Zone.

Barbara’s role as the one bringing grown-up attitudes and reality into Batman’s world does leave her in the role of comedic straight woman. Humor in her scenes comes from how she reacts to everyone else’s absurdity rather than anything she does to be funny. This works for the role she plays in Lego Batman, since she’s not there to have an arc the way Superman does in Holy Musical. She’s another catalyst for Batman’s to start letting people in as another character he grows to care about. Which starts after she lets the Dynamic Duo out of prison to fight Joker’s new army of Phantom Zone villains on the condition that he plays it by her rules. Leading to a stronger bond between Batman, Robin, Alfred, and her as they start working together.

The two Batmen’s relationships to other heroes, their villains, Robin, and their own solitude each culminate in their own way as their stories reach their conclusions.

Dark Knights & Dawning Realizations

As everything comes down to the final showdowns in these Bat-parodies, the two Caped Crusaders each confront their failures to be there for others and allow themselves to be vulnerable to someone they’ve been antagonizing throughout the story. Each climax has all of Gotham threatened by a bomb and the main villains’ plans coming to fruition only to come undone.

Holy Musical has Sweet Tooth’s kidnapping of Rob!n and forcing Gotham to choose themselves or the sidekick they hate sends B@man into his most exaggerated state in the entire play. It’s the classic superhero movie climax conundrum, duty as a hero versus personal attachment. Alfred, having revealed himself as the “other butlers”, even lampshades how these stories usually go only for that possibility to get shot down by Bruce:

Alfred: A true hero, Master Wayne, finds a way to choose both. B@man: You’re right, Alfred. I know what I have to do… Fuck Gotham, I’m saving Robin!

B@man’s selfishness effectively makes him the real villain of Holy Musical’s second act. Lego Batman has shades of that aspect as well, where Batman gets sent to the Phantom Zone by Joker for his repeated refusal to acknowledge their relationship. Where the AI running the interdimensional prison, Phyllis voiced by Ellie Kemper, confronts him with the way he’s treated Robin, Alfred, Barbara, and even Joker:

Phyllis: You’re not a traditional bad guy, but you’re not exactly a good guy either. You even abandoned your friends. Batman: No! I was trying to protect them! Phyllis: By pushing them away? Batman: Well… yeah. Phyllis: Are they really the ones you’re protecting?

Batman watches what’s happening back in Gotham and sees Robin emulate his grim and gritty tendencies to save the day in his absence makes him desperately scream, “Don’t do what I would do!” It’s the universe rubbing what a jerk he’s been in his face. He’s forced to take a look at himself and make a change. B@man’s not made to do that kind of self-reflection until after he’s defeated Sweet Tooth but failed to stop the villain’s bomb. He’s ready to give up on Gotham forever and leave with Rob!n, until his sidekick pulls up Sweet Tooth’s poll and it shows the unanimous result in favor of saving the Boy Wonder. Despite everything they said at the start of Act 2, the people want to help their hero in return for all the times he helped them. All of them calling back to the Raimi Spider-Man reference from Act 1, “You mess with one of us. You mess with all of us.”

Both heroes’ chance at redemption and self-improvement comes from opening themselves up to the people they pushed out and dismissed earlier in their stories. Batman takes on the role he reduced the Commissioner down to at the beginning of the movie and flips on signals for Barbara, Alfred, and Robin to show how he’s truly prepared to work as a team, not just with his friends and family but with the villains of Gotham the Joker pushed aside as well. Teamwork makes the dream work and they’re all able to work together to get Joker’s army back into the Phantom Zone but like in Holy Musical they fail to stop the bomb threatening Gotham. Which he can only prevent from destroying the city by confessing his true feeling to Joker

Batman: If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have learned how connected I am with all of these people and you. So, if you help me save Gotham, you’ll help me save us. Joker: You just said “us?” Batman: Yeah, Batman and the Joker. So, what do you say? Joker: You had me at “shut up!”

The equivalent moment from Holy Musical comes from B@man needing to put aside his pride and encourage a disheartened Superman to save Gotham for him. This happens in the aftermath of a fight the two heroes had where Superman tried to stop B@man before he faced Sweet Tooth, B@man winning out through use of kryptonite. That fight doesn’t fit into any direct parallel with Lego Batman, but it is important context for how Superman’s feeling about B@man before Superman finally gets his long-awaited phone call from the Dark Knight. Also, the song accompanying the fight, “To Be a Man”, is one of the funniest scenes in the play. What this speech from B@man does is bring the idea of Holy Musical B@man as a commentary on fandom full circle:

B@man: I forgot what it means to be a superhero. But we’re really not that different, you and me, at our heart. I mean really all superheroes are pretty much the same… Something bad happened to us once when we were young, so we dedicated our whole lives to doing a little bit of good. That’s why we got into this crazy superhero business. Not to be the most popular, or even the most powerful. Because if that were the case, hell, you’d have the rest of us put out of a job!

This speech extends into an exchange between the heroes about how superheroes are cool, not despite anything superficially silly but because of it. Bringing it back to the “Robin Sucks!” theme that started Act 2, saying “Some people think Robin is stupid. But those people are pretentious douchebags. Because, literally, the only difference between Robin and me is our costumes.” The speech culminates in what I genuinely think is one of the best Batman lines ever written, as B@man’s final plea to Superman is “Where’s that man who’s faster than a gun?” calling back to the trauma that created Batman across all versions and what he can see in someone like Superman. So, B@man sacrificing his pride and fully trusting in another hero saves Gotham, the way Batman letting Joker know what their relationship means to him did in Lego Batman.

Each of these parodies ends by delivering a Batman willing to open himself up to a new team of heroes fighting at his side, the newly minted Bat-Family in Lego Batman and the league for justice known as the Super Friends in Holy Musical. Putting them side by side like this shows how creators don’t need the resources of a Hollywood studio to make something exactly as meaningful and how the best parodies come from love of the material no matter who’s behind them.

If you like what you’ve read here, please like/reblog or share elsewhere online, follow me on Twitter (@WC_WIT), and consider throwing some support my way at either Ko-Fi.com or Patreon.com at the extension “/witswriting”

#batman #holy musical b@man #the lego batman movie #wit's writing #movie review #misc writing #musicals #animation #starkid #team starkid #starkid productions #superhero movies #robin #joker #dc comics #comics #chris mckay #matt lang #nick lang #joe walker #will arnett #michael cera #superheroes #superhero animation

[jennibeultimate]

I don’t know a whole lot about the technical side of figure skating, usually I choose favorite skaters just on whose performances I enjoy the most, but I’m curious since a lot of people seem to really dislike her: what do you think of Evgenia Medvedeva? since you seem to know a lot and be very invested in the figure skating world, I’m interested to know your opinion

Oh wow. I am very honored to have someone want my opinion 👀

First of all I am by no means an expert on the technical sides of figure skating - still learning - but I give it a try and your observation is correct that I am very invested in this sport and I know how (shitty) the fandom can be. And to warn you you're in for a long read. 😅

I will give my opinion on both, the aspects of her skating and the person Evgenia Medvedeva. And on why I think ppl may dislike her/hate on her.

1. About Evgenia Medvedeva - the skater

I hope you understand at least the basic terms of the technical aspects in figure skating as I will refer to them a lot in this part.

Jumps - Zhenya is a better edge than toe jumper. Her 3Loop and her 3Salchow are one of the best in the field and imo extremely pretty. Her 2Axel is usually her biggest problem, she muscles the jump. Her toe jumps have issues too. Zhenya has a wrong edge on the Lutz, called a "Flutz", she is working on it but it's still the wrong edge. She mostly didn't get an edge call on it though by the judges. The other aspect ppl often talk about is the "prerotation" in her toe jumps, especially the Flip. She does prerotate more than some other skaters. She is often criticized for it. But to make it short imo the rules about prerotation are a bit blurry (at what point is prerotation normal and when is it excessive prerotation?) and in fact judges doesn't seem to penalize prerotation at all. Some fans like to nitpick on this matter a lot. For some it's almost some sort of crime. Let's just say it's not easy to fix it and I think Zhenya improved on this matter with time. I think Zhenya definitely has some issues on her toe jumps and Axel, but I don't think just because someone has a flawed technique the person is a bad skater. So there are things you can rightfully criticize but also things to love in her jumps like not only are Salchow and Loop beautiful, but also her leg extension on landing is good and she usually has good flow in her jumps. The Tanos (one arm over the head while jumping) aren't my cup of tea but they have a positive influence the GOEs.

Her Salchow:

Her Loop:

Spins - I think she has beautiful spins, but they are not the fastest. And I think her spins were better in the early senior years. The back that is bothering her is making the Bielmann spin not doable for her anymore, which is a shame.

Programs and performance - I think Zhenya does portray characters exceptionally well. Yes some ppl don't like the excessive pantomime in her earlier programs and I also think less is more, but she always captures the audience with her charm and personality on ice and her programs always have a concept she can bring across (even sometimes with questionable theme). She has some very beautiful programs, I recommend her "Anna Karenina" 2017-2018 program and her "Memoirs of a Geisha" 2019-2020 program. What stands out of Zhenya and also has been a reason she has earned high PCS - especially in her first senior years - is that her programs are full of difficult transitions between the elements. I don't want to pick all of the PCS categories apart, just that I think she is selling her skating exceptionally well. (She doesn't have thousands of fans for no reason. 😉)

Scoring - I think this is actually the main point why some skating fans didn't like her in the first place. She emerged to a scene with extremely high scores for being a first year senior, scores that matched past heroes of skating like Yuna Kim and Mao Asada. Even though Zhenya never skated against Yuna and shared only few competitions with Mao, ppl always referred to the old scores of them. (which were former world records) Zhenya's consistency made her get world record after world record and flaws in jumps have often been overlooked like not calling the Flutz and her PCS seemed super high in comparison to other skaters of the same level. Even though the scoring is hardly her fault, she got the flack for it and tbh the way she was scored was also turning me off for a while but Zhenya captured me with her performance. Her high scores also have some justification. Zhenya had the most difficulty in her programs in 2015-2017. She was the skater to start the trend to backload the jumps to the 2nd half to get the bonus points (rules have been changed after 2018 because of this). Her PCS being high can also be justified to some extent, like she does have a lot of transitions and her skating is clear (turns and steps are recognizable and mostly of high quality) etc. I still do think especially after her coaching change to Brian Orser that her scores have been worth a discussion and I think that in comparison her scores were too high, but I don't think there is any doubt that she deserved the world titles she got. (Just look at those comps and tell me who was better?) Also her consistency between 2015 and 2017 is unmatched and is admirable. I think Zhenya has been overscored in her career a lot, but not to the extent that made her "unrightfully" claiming the titles and again that's hardly her fault.

I actually like Zhenya's skating a lot. I wasn’t a fan the first time I saw her but she grew on me a lot, especially in the last two years. She can create magic. 😊

If you want to know more about Zhenya and the technical aspects of her skating you can go through the Evgenia Medvedeva tag on @the-real-xmonster (the blog is not active anymore but has tons of technical explanations)

About the person Evgenia Medvedeva

I personally admire Zhenya for her guts to keep competing in a country where a lot of ppl think she is "too old" for the sport. I also admired her for the coaching change to Brian to go a different way (I hate how she had to return to Eteri because of the pandemic). I like that she is speaking up towards online bullying she and others received. She keeps on sharing on Instagram though she has been harassed there a lot. I think in her interviews she is thoughtful (she is speaking her mind, which I like), but she can also be goofy and funny and her love for anime and being an "Otaku" is making her relatable.

Her Sailor Moon exhibition is such a fun program I can recommend to everyone.

(GIF by @the-real-xmonster)

About the "hate" towards Zhenya:

Some of the criticism Zhenya is receiving is understandable in my opinion. For example lately traveling during a pandemic to another country is something worth talking about or her mother letting a fan into TCC or some of the statements towards media can be criticised. But some "critic" is not criticism but hate for example when she changed to Brian Orser, calling her a traitor, badmouthing her for being ungrateful or being an attention seeker or making assumptions about her relationships with other skaters to the extent she deleted all the pictures with Yuzuru Hanyu from her Instagram etc. (especially when Eteribots or some Fanyus are involved things can turn ugly in the fandom) I also don't think ppl should put all some media is reporting as truth and stalking her Instagram backgrounds to see if she violated her quarantine is crossing personal boundaries. I think these are things that are not ok at all. (and to hate someone for their scores is really stupid imo)

However I think part of the problem why ppl dislike/hate her is her popularity (She has 700k followers on Instagram) . If she would be a no name skater her actions or scores wouldn't be discussed across the fandom. But actually most of the time you can follow the hate back to a few accounts...

Just to be clear it's totally fine to not get into Zhenya's skating, to point out flaws in scoring and in her technique, to not like some of her actions or criticize them, but I don't think it's fair to hate on her or make fun of her injuries or bad performances, she is human and deserves respect. The tone is important. Be kind and respectful! We don't know any of those skaters personally, so what does it cost to be a bit kind? Figure skating is a small fandom and believe me skaters see what ppl write. And it can hurt an actual human being. So please be considerate.

I am not sure if this is the kind of answer you were looking for anon, but here are some of my opinions on Zhenya 😊 You're welcome to ask more if something is unclear or you want to know something about another skater.

Anyone who read 'til the end should have a cookie! Have a good day! Thanks for reading!

Let's end this long read with a happy Zhenya!

#evgenia medvedeva #figure skating #anon #replies #i can't do short answers sorry #the reason i hate Twitter i can't keep it short 😅

[mcustorm]

45 M/M Gay Movies, Ranked

The other day I bit the bullet and decided to watch Brokeback Mountain for the first time. All I knew about that movie was that it was basically the CMBYN of yesteryear and somebody got killed with a tire iron. Anyways, so I finish the movie and realize that I’ve seen a *lot* of gay movies, especially in the last couple of years. So here are my rankings according to nothing but my personal preference. I won’t write about all of them, but you can ask about something if I leave it out.

I wish I could give you a rubric for this. The reality is, there are some radically different movies on this list with different tones and intentions. There’s buddy comedies, tearjerkers, small indie features, big theater releases. So trying to rank them all is TUFF.

The Way He Looks - Such a beautiful coming-of-age movie. Maybe the 2nd one I saw on this list? Perfect length, perfect characterization, simple yet compelling, clever. And nothing feels better than reaching a happy ending (for once, because some of these movies’ endings-- SHEESH) that’s been earned. It just hasn’t been topped.

2. God’s Own Country

3. Pride

4. Kanarie - Yea, we don’t talk about this movie enough. It’s one of the most recent that I’ve seen. Beautiful. The way that it references apartheid and the war to reflect the protagonist’s feelings? Flawless.

5. Jongens - The first movie that I saw on this list, gets many a bonus point for that.

6. Moonlight - Yes, I am black. Yes, I understand this movie may be too low. Moonlight kind of scares me. In general, there’s not nearly enough discourse surrounding this one for me. But while it’s not exactly a popcorn-muncher, to me it’s the most personal movie on the list. When I look at Chiron and all that he’s been through, I can’t help but draw parallels to my own story up to this point. It holds a mirror up to me in a way that no other movie on this list does. That makes me uncomfortable.

But it is so poetic. Have you guys seen the script for this? The directing, the SOUNDTRACK, the acting. Phenomenal. 

7. Weekend

8. Call Me By Your Name - Yes, I am aware of people’s beef with this one. Yes, I understand a lot of people may feel this one is overrated. While I do think this one gets worse on rewatch, the truth is, it’s not really *that* overrated because hot take: most (meaning over half) of the movies on this list range somewhere from “just okay” to “painstakingly bad”.

It’s the score, the cinematography, the subtext in most all of the dialogue, the acting, the way that you can smell the apricots through the fucking screen. People who say this movie is a vacation ad are fucking CORRECT. One of my biggest gripes however is that it’s too fucking long. And uh, that age difference...

And Armie Hammer’s a weirdo...

9. Dating Amber* - Dating Amber has one of those “Duh” premises that sounds like it could’ve been done like 30 times before yet I can’t think of any other examples of it. So what you’d think would be a wacky premise actually turns out to be a frankly poignant movie with an emotional story arc for the main two characters.

10. Hello Stranger: The Movie* - This movie, which is the first sequel (sorta) on the list, frankly had no business being as good as it was. Even though the web series is required viewing, I felt the movie fixed like all of the series’ issues: pacing, lack of compelling drama, the awkward quarantine format. The drama and stakes are there without us having to visit Angst City. And the theme and the ending reprise is HEAT.

11. Uncle Frank* -  Uncle Frank is like The Help of gay movies. Like The Help, it’s *overall* a short, sweet and fluffy movie set decades ago. Like The Help, you’ll still come out of it feeling pretty good even though it has some dark moments. Also like The Help, you’ll wonder after the fact if the central white girl absolutely needed to be so...well, central for this story to be told. Bonus points for Paul Bettany and Character Actress Margo Martindale.

12. Brokeback Mountain - Tragic.

13. Moffie - Set during the South African border war, same as Kanarie. You even hear the word “moffie” throughout Kanarie. Anyways, this is a war movie for the gays, and a very intense watch. I liked that it was a much more realistic view of what a soldier endured during that period, and of course on the flip side I thought it was more thorough in its depiction of the rampant racism. I gotta find a good book on this era.

14. A Moment In the Reeds

15. Get Real - Maybe the most out of place movie on the list. I need to rewatch it. I do recall absolutely loving the score, however. Like, I fucks with this:

16. Freier Fall - When I finished Brokeback I was like, “Wait, wasn’t that just Free Fall with extra steps?” And yea, it kinda is. But even discount Brokeback is still pretty good.

17. Beautiful Thing - There are few things to like about this one, the relationship between the two guys, the mother’s love for her son even though it’s not all rainbows, that nice little final scene. I did not care for the dark-skinned woman being portrayed as, you know, the drug abusing, school dropout, gossipy, butt of jokes neighbor. But that guy really looks like Tom Holland tho.

18. Love, Simon - It’s at this point that I move from “Yea, that movie is good, you should watch it!” to “Look, you may like it, you may not.”

19. The 10 Year Plan - This movie is so fucking cheesy that there was cheddar coming though my speakers. But when I think of “Hallmark/Lifetime, but for the gays” this is the crown jewel. There’s some other movies on this list that could’ve taken some notes.

20. The Christmas Setup* - The trend of fluffy-white-gay-cable-network-movie continues and in good form. It’s not deep. It’s not really thought provoking. It’s cute. Fran Drescher is there. You should watch it.

21. Giant Little Ones

22. Hidden Kisses

23. Alex Strangelove - In a unique twist, the emotional core of this one is arguably between Alex and his girlfriend. All that ends up happening, however, is we the viewer keep wanting more Alex/Elliott scenes; those are the most electric in the whole movie. The end result is a hot yet endearing mess.

24. Fair Haven

25. The Thing About Harry - Freeform’s attempt at making a cheesy rom-com for the gays. It’s...okay. I personally feel like the main character’s friend is highkey trifling but it’s whatever.

26. Your Name Engraved Herein* - So I guess I’ve decided I officially hate angst. I mean, I get how it’s often necessary to tell an effective story, but I’m just not here for 2 hour indie angst fests that get passed off as “high art” anymore. I cannot do it. Somehow this is Brokeback’s fault...there just has to be a better way to tell gay stories in the 2020′s. Anyways, the last song was fuego.

27. The Perfect Wedding - Easily the most bizarre movie on this list. It’s so bad, I liked it a lot.

28. Naz and Maalik - The first half of the movie with the two leads just riffing is some pretty great stuff. The back half starts throwing plot developments that are just less than interesting.

29. My Best Friend

30. The Curiosity of Chance

31. Being 17 - Boring. Angsty.

32. And Then We Danced

33. Center of My World - Has some of the most trifling characters EVER. I was so angry. This movie for me has *0* rewatchability.

34. Just Friends

35. 4th Man Out - This movie was basically “a bro/Hangover-style movie, but for the gays.” I absolutely love the intention, but the execution was a little shoddy. One day we’re gonna get a flawless movie that nails what this movie was going for. I hope we remember this movie whenever that day comes.

36. Latter Days - So fucking preachy. 

37. GBF - Another bizarre one, but at least this movie gets how wacky it is.

38. Beach Rats

39. Shelter - I’ve noticed a lot of people like this one. To that I say...yikes. Remember that scene from Family Guy where Peter says he doesn’t care for The Godfather? I did not care for Shelter. It insists upon itself (not really, but still).

40. Handsome Devil

41. Esteros - It’s at this point of the list that we shift from “Movies that are the definition of ‘ight’ “ to “These movies are bad. Bad. BAAAAAD.”

42. Monster Pies

43. Were the World Mine - I couldn’t even finish it. Wanna watch a better musical? Go watch Kanarie. Wanna watch a better Shakespeare adaptation? The Lion King is the movie for you, or even fucking She’s the Man.

44. North Sea Texas - So boring. I actually think this one may need a rewatch, because I swear it shouldn’t have been as terrible as it was.

45. Salvation Army - I have no idea what this movie was going for. I understand that it is autobiographical, however...it simultaneously barely has any plot or character developments. This one has shades of Beach Rats, but it’s significantly worse, and I didn’t even like Beach Rats that much.

So that’s it, thanks if you made it down this far. I guess I’ll update the list as I inevitably watch more of these. I would love movie recommendations! 

#lgbtcinema #the way he looks #cmbyn #love simon #thanks for reading #thanks profusely to the gif-makers #i couldn't finish maurice...i'm so sorry #half of these are breaking glass or wolfe #argue with yo mama

[veronicamarsconfessions]

I was hugely excited by the announcement that a fourth season of teen noir show Veronica Mars was going to be made, nearly fifteen years after the show’s initial air date (and cancellation after three seasons), and five years after the crowdfunded movie came out. As soon as the show dropped on Hulu (or Stan, if you’re in Australia like me) – a week earlier than initially slated, I rushed to watch it. And I was so distraught by the ending that it genuinely took two days for my mood to return to something even vaguely resembling ‘okay’.

For those of you who haven’t seen it *SPOILERS FROM HERE ON*,

season four has Veronica (Kristen Bell) chasing down a serial bomber who seems to be trying to destroy the Spring Break business in Neptune. It turns out that the first bomb was set by property developer ‘Big’ Dick Casablancas, trying to destroy the Spring Break business in order to buy the waterfront properties cheaply, and the subsequent bombs were set by a pizza delivery man, Penn Epner (Patton Oswalt), who fancies himself a detective and is out to find glory after he is initially ridiculed for his public accusation of an incorrect suspect. The season itself had several issues (one of them being some seriously murky motivations behind Epner’s behaviour, like, if he really was that much of a genius, why was he a pizza delivery man?, and that the people ultimately behind the crimes are more or less ‘hidden in plain sight’ all along, which is a disappointing departure from the way the initial seasons cleverly hid the villain until quite late in proceedings). However, the issue for which there is not enough therapy in the world to appease me is the season’s last-minute killing off of reformed bad-boy and Veronica’s long-time boyfriend, Logan Echolls (Jason Dohring), right after they finally got married.

Series creator and showrunner, Rob Thomas, justified this decision by saying ‘I know this seems crazy or harsh but Veronica is at her best when she’s an underdog and I don’t know that there’s much to root for if she’s now got a perfect relationship. I need to keep her fighting and I need to keep her a little bit uncomfortable in order to have a show. There’s nothing funny or interesting about perfection.’

Except that’s a deeply flawed understanding of how relationships function, and a deeply messed up thing to push on to people.

It’s fair to acknowledge that once the ‘will-they-won’t-they’ is resolved, TV shows often decline in quality, or at the very least, significantly depart from the original formula which made them into such beloved hits at their beginning. But there are two significant issues with this: First, the assumption that TV shows must remain the same in order to be good. There are some interesting observations that the job of the sitcom episode (in particular) is to return all characters to more or less their original starting points. While that is broadly true, TV shows, like life, need to evolve in order to stay interesting, and as across seasons, audiences grow alongside the characters they watch evolve and mature.

Nevertheless, it was fair for Thomas to note that the characterisation of Veronica is someone who is embittered and cynical about people’s fidelity and inherent goodness  – after all, when we first meet her at the age of sixteen, her best friend has been brutally murdered, she’s been raped, her alcoholic mother has upped and left, and her adored father and moral compass has been socially ostracised for a) doing his job and b) being not super wealthy. It’s a lot. Veronica’s very understandable trust issues are compounded by the moonlighting she does as a P.I where, to she regularly sees people cheating on one another and generally behaving in unpleasant ways. So it’s reasonable to point out that for Veronica, the notion of the ‘happily ever after’ is a deeply uncomfortable one. But to keep her in the same mindset as she was at aged 16 is to deny her the capacity to grow as a character.

It’s fair that there was a desire to avoid repeating the pattern previously established (withdrawn/bitter etc), but – and here is my ultimate point – that could have been avoided.

Some of the most complex and interesting storylines come from couples who get together and have to navigate relationships; compromising to fit together, find a way to make it work. Think about the evolution of Niles and Daphne’s relationship in Frasier (and leave aside some of the aspects to his earlier infatuation with her that seem distinctly distasteful in a post-#metoo world). While much of the humour between them in earlier seasons was because of his unrealised ardour for her, after they became a couple, the hardships they navigated through being a couple, and the deepening richness of their relationship that was both romantic and based in friendship, produced some truly hilarious moments. Similarly, one of my (and our fabulous Chief Nerd, Elise’s) favourite TV shows, Chuck, *SPOILER* has the two leads get together in season 3. The show was no lesser for that fact because as Chuck and Sarah’s relationship deepened, they explored facets of themselves that they hadn’t previously shown – it provided more material for the writers, not less.

One of my favourite articles on the ending of Veronica Mars, season four, pointed out that Logan has the most interesting character development because he works to better himself – he has come a long way from the miscreant teenager who organised ‘bum fights’, and he had the potential to become an even more interesting character. How this interacted with Veronica’s cynicism could have provided significant fodder for more story.

But, giving full credit to Rob Thomas for a moment here, the show is called Veronica Mars, not Logan Echolls. So the decision to axe Logan was made to push Veronica’s character development forward, especially given the shows position as a gender-flipped noir which so often has the embittered, cynical detective dealing with the ongoing pain of a tragically killed love.

But the problem is that I can’t actually see how this is going to do anything but ossify Veronica’s primary characteristics: bitter, a hardnosed and reckless desire to catch the bad guy at any cost. Moreover, in most of the noir detective stories, this love has died before we meet the hard-bitten detective.

Thomas said to The Hollywood Reporter, “Moving forward, we’re going to really build around [the idea that] the case is the thing and less of the soap opera of Veronica’s life.” Except Veronica Mars is all about character. Her interactions with her father, Keith (Enrico Colantoni) and the genuine bond of affection between them evokes some of the show’s most poignant interactions. Her internal struggle when the pursuit of justice comes up against questions of morality is inherent grounded in her character. One of its most interest aspects across the years is that Veronica is often wrong. She falsely accuses people (including Logan himself), she behaves badly, she takes her friends for granted, and she can be reckless to the point where she endangers herself and someone has to come in and rescue her (case in point: wandering into the base of an Irish gang that had a particular grudge against her father). So to strip away the elements to the story that allow for depiction and consideration of those complexities would be to lose much of the show’s point.

There’s also a part of me that feels the way in which Logan was killed feels personal. Logan and Veronica were never initially meant to get together, but in the first episodes, the chemistry between the characters, and Kristen Bell and Jason Dohring was so profound that it was written in. I might be putting on my tin foil hat to say this, but it feels as though Thomas resented the manner in which LoVe became such a pivotal part of the Veronica Mars ‘brand’. What really underpins that for me is that the way the series sent off other characters was considered, and gave them a certain ‘exit’. The way in which Logan was killed off feels almost like an afterthought, made more so by some of the questions that arise from the manner. How did he know that she would be in it when it actually blew up? Moreover, the convenience of him leaving a voicemail for his therapist about why he wanted to marry Veronica (why exactly would he call his therapist to tell him about his epiphany? Who has that kind of relationship with their therapist?), and this woman’s decision to keep it from Veronica for a year seems weirdly contrived. Because it was.

However, to be fair, one could claim that the season mistreated some of its other characters, too. Tina Majorino who plays Cindy ‘Mac’ Mackenzie specifically noted that she did not want to return because she did not want her character to be sidelined. Similarly, the complexity to Eli ‘Weevil’ Navaro’s character was stripped away, as was the depth of his relationship with Veronica. What’s worse is that this could have been a really interesting storyline; why he decided to walk away from the court case which would have seen him awarded with compensation for what happened to him in the movie. While we are told that his wife left him along with his child, prompting him to return to his old gang-running ways, the depth of his grief and the reputable life he lost were never really portrayed. Honestly, I would have preferred that rather than the convoluted storyline that involved Mexican cartel hitmen.

But beyond my argument as a writer as to why Logan’s death was a totally unnecessary element to bring in, it also feels like a real slap in the face to fans. I’ve previously talked about the relationship this show has with its fans. Realistically, season 4…hell, the movie, only existed because of the love and support fans showed the show.

Any narrative material exists to interact with fans. Obviously, there is a fine line that can cross into blatant pandering, and there is also a trend that offers a ‘gritty’ or ‘sad’ end (ie the tragic death of the lover), but it’s a balance.

The Veronica Mars movie was very much fan service – it was, after all, fan funded. Much of the movie’s contents and storyline were determined by what Thomas was seeing from fan comments on social media, noting “I did have an idea of things people wanted to see, characters I wanted to get an appearance in, whether it felt extraneous or not.” He added, “there’s no way in the world we would have had a fan-funded movie and I would have killed Logan,” he added.

In the same interview, he said, “I fear that leaning into the high school soap that the show started out as is a losing proposition, that it will start feeling nostalgic rather than vital. If Kristen [Bell] and I want to make more of these Veronica Mars mysteries, I think it’s going to survive best as a true mystery show with a badass PI at the center of it, and I think that works better if the PI doesn’t have a boyfriend.”

Yet for a show whose who schtick was challenging the noir detective genre, it seems the prospect that someone fundamentally gritty and damaged can also have a relationship that the struggle to be healthy was simply a bridge too far.

And at the crux of it, what really frustrates me – as a fan, and as a writer – is that for Thomas, it simply felt too hard to give Logan and Veronica an enduring relationship, and it if wasn’t too difficult, then he perceived it destroyed some fundamental part of the show by making it emotionally sappy. If that’s the dichotomy in which Thomas thinks, then Veronica Mars is no longer the show which attracted its die-hard following of fans and may as well be a different show with a similar premise.

#Veronica Mars #Rob Thomas #Kristen Bell #Logan Echolls #Jason Dohring #news

[elixir448]

Good Girls 3x02 Thoughts

The Opening Scene

I think we all knew that Rio was knocking on Rhea’s door, rather than Beth’s. Even so, this opening scene was a gift. Of course, it is meant to mislead the audience into thinking that we are going to see Beth and Rio come face to face for the first time since she shot him but there’s so much more to talk about!

First of all, this season is really setting up Beth and Rio’s relationship as the major driver of the plot and, arguably, this has always been the case. The show is definitely about the girls but Beth and Rio’s relationship (both personal and professional) pushes the story forward. In my opinion, it’s second only to the girls’ changing motivations for being in crime, in terms of plot progression. Manny referred to Beth as Rio’s “archnemesis” in a recent interview and I know a lot of people disagree with this and think it’s funny. While I think the terminology is perhaps a bit off, I think the idea is there and what I love about it is that Beth and Rio’s relationship is so difficult to define, which I touched upon in my 3x01 thoughts post, and it’s impossible to encompass what they are to each other with one word. They have been so many things at so many different times and, gosh, now they have history. A painful, spiteful, kind of tragic, extremely messy history. I love that this season seems to be gearing these two up for what looks like a major confrontation at some point. I can really see things exploding between them later in the season, on a level beyond the alley scene in 2x07.

I’m digressing but the point is that this scene really sets them up as antagonists again, which they have been on and off for the past two seasons. In fact, I’d argue that the term never really departed from their relationship at all and it looks like we’ll be going back to the facade of one-dimensional antagonism for a little while but with the weight of the history they now share, it seems unlikely that they’ll be fooling anyone.

I think it was @foxmagpie who pointed out that Beth is staring into the mirror that Rio smashed in her fantasy in 2x05 and I practically had a stroke when I read that. The way the scene is set up, with Beth and Rio both looking in mirrors is so symbolic of their relationship and what they are to each other. While I would hesitate to call them mirror images, I certainly think that Beth and Rio are similar in the fundamental ways that shape a person but they are so different in others, particularly in the ways that they occupy the worlds that they live in and the lives they have lived.

While Beth is staring in the mirror, we hear Dean say “well, how much did you get for it?!” and it’s quite startling and almost intrusive. Beth and Rio aren’t even in the same room but they’re basically having a moment. And of course Dean has to intrude. Even though Dean is Beth’s husband and despite everything he did in season 2 to keep her, it really represents to me that Dean has been the outsider ever since Beth and Rio met. And, despite Dean’s belief that Rio has been forcing his way into Beth’s life, the reality is that he is the one who has been intruding into their relationship.

Rio has a new car! It’s a G-wagon, it’s loud and kind of pretentious. I do miss the Cadillac but I love that his new car lines up so well with how he’s been this season, which is loud! He had Agent Turner and several other FBI agents killed in the first episode alone. If that’s not loud, I don’t know what is.

Marcus and Rio’s reunion was the sweetest thing ever. I thought my heart was going to explode and release like a ton of rainbows and sunshine and unicorns. The way that Rio held Marcus really said everything about how much he missed his son. Rhea seemed a little ticked off about his sudden reappearance but happy and accepting overall, which really just adds to what we have already learned about the breakdown of their relationship and Rio’s presence in Marcus’ life. I know I said it last week but I have to say it again. I love how much this detail further humanizes Rio, beyond what the introduction of Marcus in 2x01 achieved. He’s not infallible and he has his own, very personal, flaws that affect his family. Just like Beth.

I’ve been seeing a lot of speculation that Rhea knows more than she has been letting on to Beth. Again, I don’t think that’s true. I think Rhea really just saw her relationship with Beth as a genuine friendship and I don’t think she knows anything else. Towards the end of the episode, Beth of course speaks to Rhea and I think that once Rio realised who Rhea’s soccer mum friend was, he filled Rhea in enough for her to realise that Beth intentionally sought her out and cultivated a friendship. This could mean that he told her everything but I doubt that very much. I think he probably told her just enough for Rhea to feel a great deal of hurt over Beth’s actions.

I am a little disappointed that we never got to see the scene where Rio clocks on to the fact that it’s Beth that Rhea is talking about. We’ve been robbed! But honestly I loved the episode so much that it’s fine I guess.

Annie, Sadie, Gregg and Nancy

I really love, love, loved the writers including how difficult transitioning can be because of people around you not keeping up, even if they are fully accepting. I’m not surprised though because the writers have handled Ben’s arc so well.

As for Gregg and Nancy attending couples therapy, I’m not exactly surprised. I do wish that they had parted ways but I do recognise that it’s such a difficult situation to handle with a newborn baby and I do appreciate the realism of it. I personally grew up with a mum who put up with way too much and lived a life that she was way above but she didn’t walk away because of me and my brother. I also see what people mean when they talk about wanting to see Beth take control and walk away from Dean for good because staying together for the sake of the kids is overrated, and I also see how this relates to wanting Nancy to walk away from Gregg. Believe me, I really want to see Beth and Dean part ways, with regards to their marriage. But I also really empathise with the situations Beth and Nancy are both in, for different reasons. Nancy can, of course, financially support herself and her child but Dakota is a newborn baby and I can see why parting ways with Gregg at such a time would be so difficult when they both want to raise their child and be around at all times as he grows up. For Beth, it’s really about financial security and stability and it’s so interesting to me that she continues to chase this with Dean, as he clearly has sunk the family business multiple times before (as discussed by Beth and Annie in 2x04). I think it’s become a bit of a habit at this point, which I am keen to see broken this season!

As for Annie attending therapy. I love it! I think Annie’s at the beginning of a really interesting, introspective path this season and we really saw it doubled down in this episode, with her being called out by Ben once again and comparing her life to a major road traffic accident. I really hope the writers continue with these random introspective moments for Annie, sinceI’m really enjoying them. Her scene with the kid prior to the therapy appointment was A+++, so funny! I wonder if that kid is going to turn up again, especially since he was in quite a few bts pics during hiatus. He’s such an amazing little actor too!

I’m really interested in seeing where her arc goes. We know that she develops an inappropriate crush in 3x04 and I think we all think it’ll be on her therapist; if this is the case, I’m really curious to see whether her therapist finds out and if he reciprocates because it would be incredibly unprofessional and unethical if he pursued something with his own patient.  

Also, Annie is the manager! I straight up hollered during that scene. Mae’s line delivery continues to be hilarious and totally spot-on.

(Side-note here but I love that Beth was drinking a slushie again and that she answers the phone call from Ruby with “hey lady.”)

Judith, Beth and Dean

I really loved Judith and Beth’s scenes in this episode and the depiction of the archetypal mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relationship. I particularly loved how it emphasised that Dean cannot defend Beth at all; not once in the entire flipping episode did he say a word to help her.

Throughout the episode, we see that Judith is a lot like Dean when it comes to Beth. They don’t listen to her and they don’t see her. Beth had to repeatedly explain that her workplace sells “not just cards” and this is strikingly similar to Dean’s blatant disregard for Beth’s opinions and thoughts.

I think the writers and Jessica Walter did a fantastic job of capturing the complexity of a character like Judith. I’m quite passionate about this kind of thing because I grew up in a family where it was commonplace to see a sort of bitterness develop in women who had suffered a lifetime of simultaneous oppression and complete disregard from men and who had, as a result, developed a kind of internalised misogyny. More so, I love that the writers portray Judith as a character who is very much aware of this bitterness and yet she still personifies what those very men expected of her and she now expects the same from her daughter-in-law.

And yes! I wished that the writers would touch on mental health again and I got it! The discussion about post-partum depression is SO IMPORTANT. Women aren’t just mothers once they have kids; yes, it’s often a crucial part of their identity but it’s certainly not everything. Not even close to everything.

Judith sacrified her working life to raise Dean because her husband made more money than she did and it was expected of her to raise a child; she did not feel like she could have both. She patronises Beth in this scene, acting as though Beth should know better by now. What I love most about this is Beth saying that Judith’s happiness was important and that she shouldn’t have quit. It represents so much growth to me because we’ve seen Beth back-slide into the misshapen family she has with Dean. This really represents to me that, internally, she’s moving forwards and she won’t let herself be held back by Dean.

(Another side-note but I love that Beth affectionately calls Kenny “KB” and that his full name is Kenneth Irving Boland.)

Beth

We talk about it all the time but Beth is veeerrryy good at compartmentalising. We’ve seen it numerous times. With relation to this scene, I love that she clearly feels weird about Turner’s death and that the girls seem to appreciate the possibility that she might be upset over it, as her and Agent Turner did have a weird kind of relationship that she enjoyed sometimes. I think, in her own way, she resented him but also respected his ability to see through her and match her. She definitely really enjoyed the high she got from one-upping him.

Despite this, Beth lays down the flowers and is all about business again. She processes her emotions and moves on and we’ve seen her do that a lot. She did it with Dean in 1x01, when she wrecked his study with a sledgehammer and yanked the pig off of Boland Motors but then went straight back to sorting out financial matters with him and being civil. She resented Mary Pat for extorting them but she seemed to come to terms with how similar they were in season 1. She was tearful over Dean’s cancer diagnosis but she processed it and came up with the idea to launder money through stores. We’ve seen it now with Agent Turner, her processing his death and moving on. I love how perturbed the girls were by Beth’s reaction; they really have clocked on to this side of Beth that they never saw before the events of seasons 1 and 2, how she can’t quite get enough crime and they are maybe now realising that Beth has always exhibited a kind of ruthless pragmatism.

The only person we arguably haven’t seen her do this with is Rio; she’s never been able to process her relationship with him. Following the ‘breakup’ scene in 1x09, she was clearly grieving something and she couldn’t move on like she had with any of her other relationships. Instead, by having him arrested (even if it was only for a short time), she ensured Rio could not turn his back on her.

As I said before, Rio’s shadow hangs over Beth’s arc and Beth’s shadow hangs over Rio’s scenes. Beth continues to learn from what she saw of Rio and she continues to try and emulate him. What I love most of all is that this is rarely successful, compared to what she manages to achieve in this episode by playing on her own, personal strengths, for example the scene where she speaks to the manager and lists all of the community positions she holds. Despite this, she has a lot to learn and she really needs to stop and think sometimes (gosh, I don’t know if she’s ever going to do that haha) before barrelling into a situation. Annie is absolutely right; Beth will never be Rio, no matter how much she tries to think like him or act like him, because they have their own strengths and the world regards them differently.

I do love that she has clearly learnt a couple of things from Rio, such as outsourcing in order to launder the counterfeit cash and, my personal favourite, she’s finally realised that there are consequences for screwing up. In this episode, she teaches Annie a lesson about how, if they continue to be taken advantage of by criminals attempting to renegotiate deals, eventually everyone will know and exploit it. It really reminded me of Rio’s rotten egg lesson in 1x07. Say what you want but these two definitely have some good teaching moments haha.

Don’t even get me started on Beth completely zoning Dean out and thinking about crimeing. She’s just always thinking about crimeing, so much so that she lets her mother-in-law come into her house and belittle her, solely because Judith is cleaning up after the kids and Dean (and ironing Dean’s boxers, eewwwwww); clearly, Beth’s priorities have shifted alot over the timeskip. That scene where she just goes full mum Bethie mode, serving lemonade and walking like an absolute queen to the truck, to get what she wants from the movers. That hair, those big blue eyes, that sweater and that French music! Perfection! AND SHE HAS A CHINESE SYMBOL TATTOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! ON HER HIP!!!!! OMG!!!!!!!!!!!! I NEED RIO TO REFER TO THAT AT SOME POINT THIS SEASON!

Ahem. Anyway, my second favourite scene in this episode was the scene between Beth and the mover in her backyard. Gosh, it was amazing. And I loved her blouse. The music, the intensity, the power play, the staring. Oh my god. I have watched it about 100 times already. It was genuinely a stunning scene and both actors killed it.

Dean and Gayle

I think there are two potential ways this is gonna go. Either Dean cheats with Gayle, after attempting to resist the temptation and grounding himself in Beth and their family, or he experiences some attention at work that he doesn’t necessarily appreciate, paralleling the attention he paid his female employees who were in a vulnerable position. Maybe it’ll be both?

Regardless, I think that this arc is really going to further separate Beth and Dean and their respective interests. I mean, so far Beth and Dean’s arcs have been entangled; even in season 2, Dean is drawn into Beth’s crimeing with Rio and the family business he inherited was used to launder money. Now, Beth and Dean have very different and separate storylines with regards to their work. Beth is crimeing and Dean is unaware of what she is up to, as she has absolutely no interest in confiding in him (I mean, she suspiciously asks him why he needs money from her; she clearly doesn’t see him as anything more than just Dean at this point). The only link they seem to share now isn’t the dealership, work or crime. It’s really only their kids. I think we’re going to see their paths diverge further this season, particularly following the kiss (which I think will be in 3x04 based on Beth’s flowery blouse in the released pictures but she’s worn it numerous times before and has already worn it in this episode, so who knows!)

Also, classic Dean paying too much gross attention to a woman’s body, even as a tattoo, making inappropriate comments and judging the movers for being ex-convicts. God, Dean is such a prick.

Ruby and Stan

The scene where Ruby felt that she and Stan were not being seen by the sales assistant was also really important. Gosh, I love how this show incorporates things that are not just relevant today but have always been relevant, you feel me. I also really loved that Stan defended his passivity in this situation with some very legitimate reasons. Fighting for what you believe in is great but it’s also okay to feel exhausted and just want to get something done. I really felt that and I feel like everyone can relate to that on some level.

I know nobody needs to hear me say this again but I’m so scared for Stan this season. Like, Manny has me scared by saying that he’s most excited for Stan’s storyline.

And yesssssss. Ruby confided in Stan. I’m so happy! What a stark contrast from Beth and Dean. These two really are the ideal relationship and couple.

That Ending!

It was basically painful to see Beth following up with Rhea throughout this episode, knowing that Rio had put the pieces together and was gearing up to reveal himself to Beth. I also love how genuine the phone call was between Beth and Rhea and it kind of broke my heart but it really is deserved. Gosh Beth, you are a whole ass mess and you and Rio really deserve eachother.

I have considered how this was going to play out so many times and I have thought of so many different ways it could have happened. We haven’t even seen it all yet but I genuinely think Rio revealing that he’s alive to Beth happened perfectly. I love the way we hear his voice first (just like Beth heard his voice first when she met him in 1x01), the way that the camera keeps Beth in frame and pans to Rio slipping into the chair next to her, not taking his eyes off of her and savouring her reaction. You can just tell that he’s thought about this moment so many times! I’ve said it before but there’s something in the way Rio moves, this kind of elegance and grace that I’ve never really seen before.

Him slipping into that chair is straight up perfection though. To me, it represents all the ways that Rio continues to just casually slip into all the parts of Beth’s life, just like he always has since the beginning of their relationship; it doesn’t even feel like an invasion, if that makes sense. That side shot we get of Beth’s face really captures how wide her eyes become, they’re practically swallowing her face she’s in so much shock.

The ringing in her ears, the way all the noise disappears from the room but we can hear the thunk of the chair as Rio sits in it and the sound of his hands clasping together, everything else becomes unimportant. THE WAY HIS HEAD IS TILTED. HOW MANY FREAKING TIMES HAS HE THOUGHT ABOUT THIS?!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Don’t even get me started on Rio’s extra AF ass kissing the bullets she shot him with as he lays them down in front of her and lists the organs that she injured in the 3x03 promo. We see how close he leans in but doesn’t touch her. I am so curious to see how he leans in and how quickly it happens. The faux gentleness in his eyes and face and voice, referring to her as “his girl”. Where is the lie?! Beth really is his mess to clean up. I am really loving the dimension that is added to their relationship with this. Like, I hate you and I want to kill you and I’m planning to kill you so nobody else can do it. It has to be me. And then when Rio realises that he can’t kill Beth, because of the bombshell she drops, I can’t wait to see that shift into something like I hate you but I guess I have to deal with you and nobody else can touch you.

As for what I think the bombshell will be. Lemme just get this out there. I don’t think it will be pregnancy for so many reasons, which have already been discussed in the fandom. It may have something to do with Beth’s operation, maybe it’s something that she does in 3x03 that we haven’t even seen yet or maybe we just won’t know until we watch the episode lol.

Anyway, I’m super excited for 3x03 and can’t wait discuss it and them speculate on 3x04 afterwards.

#nbc good girls

[infinitelytheheartexpands]

Now I would like to ask you, in turn: Favorite acts/scenes from ten operas you love?

Thank you!!! You have no idea how much it makes me smile to see an ask in my inbox!!! Here goes, in no particular order:

Don Carlo: Ahhhhh well, I guess I have to choose something...maybe Act IV, Scene 1. You have Filippo’s big scene (ALL THE FEELS), the bass/bass showdown that is absolutely legendary, you have Elisabetta calling EVERYBODY out and being the strong, amazing woman she is, that phenomenal quartet, that scene for Elisabetta and Éboli that rips my heart out every time (seriously, I physically cannot listen to the line ‘Io...io stessa...avea...comm’esso!’ without crumpling. it’s bad.), and of course, you have perhaps the greatest mezzo aria of all time, ‘O don fatale’, to close it out. It’s just one phenomenal piece after another, and I love how much it focuses in on the characters and allows us to get to know them (ESPECIALLY the more morally dubious ones) a lot better.

Les Huguenots: As much as part of me is begging me to say Act IV, my heart is saying the last two scenes together (Act V, Scenes 2 and 3, which are often combined as Act V, Scene 2 or even as just Act V). This is for a lot of the same reasons as Act IV, Scene 1 of Don Carlo: (for the most part) this is essentially a huge trio in several movements with occasional interventions from the chorus and a couple other characters and I feel like every part just gets better and more intense and more heartbreaking...and I emotionally die in the middle every time. (Specifically, if not earlier, at the line ‘Ils ne chantent plus.’) Anyway the music slaps HARD (and I CANNOT with all the repetitions of ‘A Mighty Fortress Is Our God’), and once again, I just love how much this focuses in on our leading trio and lets us, the audience, get to know them that much better only to be like ‘okay now they’re gonna die’ DAMMIT THAT’S NOT GOOD FOR ANYBODY BUT I LOVE IT SO MUCH anyway I need to stop writing so much for each of these because if I do it’ll take forever

La bohème: Act II, for a combination of sentimental reasons and the fact that it is just so good! You get the street scene with all those amazing choruses but you also get hijinks and love and happiness and it’s Puccini so you get great tunes. And of course, we all know that a) Musetta’s Waltz is an absolute BOP and b) we all secretly want to be Musetta. At least I do.

Dialogues des Carmélites: I am legally obligated to say the Salve Regina because a) it’s the scene that got me hooked on this opera, b) it’s an amazing piece of music, and c) THE FEELS I DIE EVERY SINGLE TIME. Even though I SHOULD know that the guillotine is going to happen it ALWAYS throws me off whenever it comes in for the first time and I’m like WTF WTF NOOOOOOOO and the part where Blanche comes back? kill me. just...kill me.

Un ballo in maschera: Act III, Scene 1! Once again this is a lot like Don Carlo, Act IV, Scene 1 because it’s a super-intimate scene and the music SLAPS from start to finish. Amelia and Renato/Anckarström’s arias are both incredible and make me feel ALL THE FEELS, and they’re also great at showing parts of their lives that we don’t really get to see much of elsewhere, respectively the mother and the lover. Then there’s the whole conspiracy trio-turned-quartet, which is amazing, AND THE LOT-DRAWING SCENE. It’s so creepy and extra and the music is just perfect for the scene. And of course, we top it off with Oscar coming in and being his delightful self while everyone else is either angsting or plotting and it’s all in one quintet that works??? so??? well??? like??? how???

Die tote Stadt: ‘Glück, das mir verblieb’ AND its return in the final scene. First off, it’s some of the most gorgeous, cinematic, heartbreaking music in all opera. Seriously, drop what you’re doing and go listen to it (especially the one with Carol Neblett and René Kollo). But also, it’s just this amazing, seemingly-simple little song that’s about grief and what it’s like to lose someone you love and it HURTS. Also, it’s like the one time in the entire opera when Paul and Marietta are actually getting along because pretty much everywhere else their relationship is INCREDIBLY messed up. And then the last verse coming back in the final scene, when Paul sings it alone as he finally works up the courage to move on, leave Bruges, and start over...I die every time.

Falstaff: While perhaps my favorite individual part of this opera is the finale, ‘Tutto nel mondo è burla’, my favorite scene is Act II, Scene 2, which is absolutely comedy GOLD from start to finish. It’s late Verdi so you know the music is going to be amazing, and it is, and it’s all so light and fizzy and just plain FUN. I also just love all the women working together to outsmart a creepy old guy, all the men being Clueless, Nannetta and Fenton just trying to get a moment together...and I love how much this scene makes fun of opera tropes, especially the “we’re going to stand around and sing about how we need to do something while not actually doing that thing” trope. Also, thank you Shakespeare, Verdi, and Boito for the laundry basket stuff. That is absolutely priceless.

Tosca: This could be a veritable coin flip between the finales to Acts I and II (if nothing else, you have to acknowledge that Puccini knew how to end an act. he did.), but I’ll go with the finale to Act II. Obviously I love MURDER TIME and everything Tosca is screaming at Scarpia (and yes, ‘Questo è il bacio di Tosca!’ is arguably the best line ever) and the music for that part is so amazing, but my favorite thing is actually what happens afterwards...the one melody that keeps coming back (the daa-daa-daa-da-da-da-da-DAAAAA) is so awesome, I love the line ‘E avanti a lui tremava tutta Roma!’, and pulled off well, this can tell you so much about Tosca and everything she’s going through. I love it.

Die Zauberflöte: Anytime Papageno is onstage (yes he is also my favorite character) OR ‘Der Hölle Rache’. I love Papageno for a lot of the same reasons you do; he’s fun, he’s a sweetheart, he doesn’t really want to get involved in all this Masonic mess, he just wants true love and happiness. And all his music is amazing. And then of course, Der Hölle Rache is just absolutely iconic and terrifying as hell and I NEVER get tired of hearing sopranos hit those high Fs. I love.

Faust: The Cathedral Scene (depending on the version, this could be Scene 1, Scene 2, OR Scene 3 of Act IV because Act IV of this opera, and directors’ stagings of it, are weird). This is one of those rare soprano/bass or bass-baritone duets in opera and the music is absolutely incredible (THE PIPE ORGAN). Even more than that, I love it because it’s so great at portraying psychological trauma/disintegration because no matter where this scene is placed Marguérite has experienced some Extremely Bad Things and has an incredible amount of shame and Catholic Guilt and she’s trying to keep things together but Mephistopheles is just taunting her about how terrible of a person she must be and Marguérite is just trying to hold it all together and she’s praying and trying not to lose her mind but everything just seems like it’s condemning her and she just. can’t. deal. with. it. I mean...damn it’s an intense scene.

[dabistits]

in the blood: connecting the backstories

With the arc concluded and what I imagine is pt 1, the pre-AFO bits, of Tomura’s backstory revealed, I thought I’d finally sum up one of the major points of this plot. Scattered throughout the arc were three major backstories—Himiko, Twice, Tomura—that could use some piecing together. It doesn’t seem like they were chosen at random or were primarily subordinated to good timing, and instead were written because they parallel and reinforce certain themes in Tenko’s past.

Here’s my typical disclaimer that these connections may not have been intentional at all, but, y’know. We’ll pretend Horikoshi is a competent writer and etc. etc. Of course, there’s also the question of what conclusion all these narrative threads points us towards, and I’m chronically afraid of making a wrong prediction so I won’t do that on this post lols (it’s also not 100% clear, which I’ll address). Nevertheless, I think it adds significance to consider Tomura’s past with the addition of framing it through the other two backstories, considering what they say about Quirks, society, and the characters’ internal processes about where they fit in the overall scheme of things.

(note: some screenshots below the cut contain mild gore!)

I. Quirk repression

We encounter this for the first time in the MLA arc through Himiko. Although we’re not privy to Himiko’s thoughts during the flashback, Curious makes an assertion that Redestro later repeats: that Quirks can, to some degree, influence a person’s disposition. Transform elicited in Himiko a desire to drink blood (in order to develop a bond of closeness), which was largely viewed as deviant, and she was pressured to suppress not only her impulse, but her Quirk as well. This idea of Quirk=disposition is also repeated with Tomura, who Redestro asserts is only capable of destruction.

Without being told Himiko’s perspective in the flashbacks, we don’t know how her experience with suppressing her desires went, nor whether she experienced any adverse physical effects from doing so. Tomura, however, is clearly stated (by AFO, so it’s worth taking with a grain of salt) to experience unbearable itchiness whenever he represses his urge to destroy, a sensation which only seems to abate when he uses Decay. So for the moment, the message seems quite clear: suppressing one’s Quirk is akin to suppressing one’s self, and even more drastically, there may be physical consequences to doing so.

On the flip side of Quirk repression, then, there’s Quirk liberation. That’s what the Metahuman Liberation Army is going for, of course, but the three characters discussed here also found relief through their Quirks: Himiko in finally shattering her mask, Twice creating his crime gang, and Tenko eliminating that which he hated. Embracing their Quirks is portrayed as a way in which they achieved not only emotional pleasure and fulfillment, but agency as well—an increase in control over their own lives and fates—finally allowing themselves to do what they were “meant” to. This is, supposedly, a move which empowers oneself.

II. Quirk trauma

But that’s not entirely true.

Just as Quirks can be liberating, they're shown to be harmful when used without restraint, turning against their wielder and instilling suffering. Twice’s clones eventually went out of control and began to fight each other for claim to the original, and Tenko’s Quirk awakening killed his entire family. Both experienced trauma involving the people closest to them, Twice being confronted with “his own” betrayal, while Tenko witnessed the deaths of his family at his own hands—in the aftermath, they’re both left completely and utterly alone, abandoned by those they believed they could rely on, with uncertain recollection about how events actually transpired.

Then it’s no coincidence either that Twice’s and Tomura’s chapters focus on arriving at the truth of their traumas. Twice, after having spent an indeterminate length of time trapped in the uncertainty of his own realness, is forced into confronting his fear of disappearing after Skeptic orders his arms broken; in surviving this, he’s able to confirm that he’s the original Twice, once and for all. Tomura is likewise pushed into recalling his repressed memories (let’s assume right now that they’re the real memories) as his last connections to his family—their hands—are destroyed one by one.

It’s through the discovery of this truth after being confronted with their greatest fears or insecurities that they’re able to embrace the full strength of their Quirks, returning to a default, ‘pre-trauma’ state. Twice is able to create doubles of himself once more, and Tomura becomes able to unleash a stronger version of Decay. While Himiko’s case is much less drastic, the new characteristic of Transform also seems to be linked to her reaffirmation of her ‘truth’ as well. Those ‘truths’ may sound positive or negative, motivated most obviously by self-preservation in Himiko’s case, self-actualization(?) in Tomura’s case, or protective instinct in Twice’s.

Personally, I place a lot of (if not most) importance on Twice’s motivation in this arc, because his past and desires most strongly encapsulate the themes we see repeated across all of these backstories:

III. Alienation and belonging

Perhaps the strongest thread that pervades these three stories (and Spinner’s too, which we have less to go on at the moment) is the feeling of alienation. The four of them found themselves constantly rejected by those around them: Spinner due to prejudice, Twice never getting support nor sympathy after being orphaned, and Himiko and Tenko in particular being denied by their own families, both of them compelled to stifle their own desires, whether it be to pursue her instincts or to voice his dreams. They were positioned as outsiders, set apart from everyone else.

That’s why I believe it’s significant that one of the primary purposes of this arc seems to be to bring the LOV more closely together, from Spinner’s questioning and renewed loyalty, to a central conflict of this arc plot being a rescue (among other schemes from the MLA, of course), to giving the LOV a way out of the aimlessness from the beginning of the arc. Of course, past alienation and present cohesiveness also contrast each other as narrative foils, and this is most clearly exemplified in Twice’s chapters because he’s babey, which more extensively linger on his feelings towards his current situation and friends, who he sees as a remedy to the loneliness of his past.

The other characters haven’t offered the same reflection towards the LOV, but it’s not a stretch to say that the group provides them with something that wider society could not. People who accept Himiko’s “normal,” who enable her to pursue her love (for good or ill); who take Spinner seriously despite being a mutant with a “useless” Quirk; and to some degree, even Tomura seems to have achieved what he once wanted. Tenko was a child who made friends with lonely kids, who wanted to be a hero, presumably to save others, but was rejected by his family at every turn and had no one save him at a time when he needed it most. And even though his life as Shimura Tenko is long gone, Tomura currently finds himself as the leader of a group of outcasts who are looking out for him, fighting through a small army to save one of their own. The irony is poetic.

IV. Tragedy or Agency?

Which begs the question: what do we do with this information and how do we interpret these characters? Are they just cruel and unrepentant villains, or should we sympathize with them as people rejected by a prejudiced society? Really, this arc offers room for both readings.

At one end, we have Himiko and Tomura, who view their decisions to become ‘villains’ as liberatory. Whether or not certain painful events in their lives affected their choices seems to matter very little to them, or perhaps those events were even a blessing for leading to the choices they made. They decided to embrace their natures even if those traits were violent, distrusted, and societally shunned, and they do not consider this eventuality as particularly unfortunate. Himiko rejects Curious’ interpretation of her life as pitiable, and Tomura likewise asserts to himself that he’s untroubled by the deaths of his family. They both represent their pasts as not a tragedy.

On the other hand, we have Twice, whose backstory chapter bears the maxim that also appears on the cover page of vol 24, and thus has the privilege of setting the tone for a major portion of this arc: “All it takes is one bad day.” Twice’s backstory (ironically enough) reads uniquely more self-aware than the others’, both about his own decisions, and about the conditions surrounding him (i.e. how other people’s decisions affected him). He was aware of the way others viewed him and how that caused his alienation—best exemplified by how disposable he was at his workplace—and of his reasons for pursuing a “solution” that only dug a deeper hole.

Thus, we have the “one bad day” part of the narrative. Twice, who was orphaned early on and isolated from his peers, got into a motorcycle accident with one of his firm’s clients. His boss hits him and fires him, leaving Twice aimless until he comes up with the idea to Double himself. Twice’s backstory interprets "one bad day” as a truism about instability, particularly in a society which appears to have few safety nets and a lot of prejudice—essentially, the chapter posits that one incident of bad luck can put someone on a worse path, especially when people act in their own interest instead of in sympathy or aid. Okay. See where this is going?

We’re presented with two narratives here: that ‘bad paths’ are either predetermined by an individual’s disposition and are liberating to embrace, or they are often the result of an individual’s circumstances and influenced by other people. Nature versus nurture. The arc does not definitively come down on either side, so I’ll stick to observations and limit on drawing conclusions.

Tenko’s backstory also fixates on a day. The turning point in his life was the day his parents’ rejection of his aspirations culminated in physical violence from his father, setting off the chain of events that led to Decay’s awakening and killing his family; in the aftermath, he was also further alienated in a busy city where no one stopped to help him until he was conveniently ‘found’ by AFO. The “one bad day” lies in the fact that Tenko was entirely salvageable; neither his hatred nor his fractured relationship with his family were conclusive in a five year old’s state of mind, and they both could have been remedied if they had the chance.

So that leaves us with two different takeaways. Can Tenko be thought of as having taken a turn for a better, more self-actualized existence—a not-tragedy—or was it indeed a set of circumstances that should rightfully be considered unfortunate because it was fixable? The resolution of this arc seems to come down pretty firmly on the side of the first interpretation: by embracing his destructive ‘nature,’ Tomura has awakened the full scope of Decay’s power, subdued the Meta Liberation Army, and gained their resources—he’s more influential than ever before, and he’s put himself at an advantageous position to take down hero society. So, clearly his internal monologue must be self-aware, because the narrative is rewarding him for embracing his purpose.

V. The League of Villains and Self-Destruction

But I do have a caveat to add, and it has to do with self-destruction. I’ve talked about Tomura and self-destruction, but that’s not really just a tendency limited to him. It proliferates in most (if not all?) of the LOV members, in more or less obvious ways. Spinner’s crisis of self-worth and subsequent seclusion was arguably self-destructive, as is Mr. Compress’ tendencies to run away from conflict. These are more metaphorical and without much elaboration yet. On the other hand, for a more literal take, there is Dabi, who burns himself alive whenever he uses his Quirk.

Himiko’s is somewhat a mix of both figurative and literal. Transform lets her take on someone else’s appearance, and she has an obsession with ‘becoming’ her objects of affection; it follows that if taken to the extreme and if she’s successful in 'becoming,’ she erases her own identity in the process. It’s no different than the ‘mask’ she assumed until middle school; she trades one mask for another, more appealing one, and her own ‘self’ is what gets destroyed. 

Then there’s Twice. Double first started off as something that gave him comfort when he found himself utterly alone, but from there only lead to even more mistakes. Using his doubles to commit crimes as an ‘easy out,’ every decision Twice made thereafter piled on to conclude in his doubles’ murderfest. What began as comfort became the conduit for his own, literal, self-destruction as his doubles turned on each other.

Similarly, by the end of 239, Tomura has fully unleashed Decay. Like the first time he used it, he found it liberating, a release for all the emotions he experienced and repressed. Much like the rest who embraced their Quirks, it was a source of pleasure and comfort, but not without consequences: as shown by the damage one to his right arm, his body can’t sustain that kind of use. Decay too much, and there will be blowback in the form of starting to injure himself. It is, again, a form of literal self-destruction.

VI. To conclude:

The arc ends on a firm note about Tomura’s growth, and the direction thereof, concluding that Quirks affect innate drives which our antagonists have accepted and been rewarded for; however it follows on the heels of contradicting points about how that very acceptance and overindulgence ends in self-destruction. Our antagonists have been strongly linked together via backstory, highlighting the similar sources of conflict they’ve experienced. Familial strife, instinctive drives, the price of overindulgence, and the indifference of society are all elements that deeply influenced these characters, and their stories are continuations of how they conceptualize these elements with respect to their own senses of self. Again, assuming that we’re dealing with a competent writer, we can assume that these themes will be revisited as the story continues; namely, addressing to what degree a Quirk determines a person’s future (ideally, there should be a convergence of the messages brought up in this arc with those brought up with Shinsou and Monoma), coming to a resolution about the disputes of personal versus societal responsibility, and deciding how the narrative itself feels and wishes to convey about our antagonists and their struggles.

#shigaraki tomura #bubaigawara jin #toga himiko #shimura tenko #tomura shigaraki #jin bubaigawara #himiko toga #bnha meta #for those who want to know what to expect #2.4k words and 6 parts lulz...

[tomyo]

The 10 year change of JK and Anime style

My latest watch in my quarantine marathon has been KyouSougigi, a 2011 anime that's bombastic and quirky. The world was so hyperactive, I thought it was a gainax (the trigger part) project.

But as the main character Koto had pulled out her weapon decorated with two big plush mascot straps, I was suddenly catapulted into a hyperstate of nostalgia. I never thought a phone strap would be nostalgic.

I'd like to pause a minute just to show off my beloved phone that I used at that time:

Granted, I didn't use these accessories yet. I desperately wanted anime phone straps since 2005 but bizarrely I didn't get one until 2011 when my pucho included a small dragonfruit character who didn't make it very long. However, in 2012, I was a new city living college student with no limitations and I. Went. Ham. Fake food, squishy bread, and stuffed plush, I had it all. My phone was now properly twice it's weight in charms. I was living to the then dream of every JK Gal wannabe.

The world changes so unexpectedly in only 7 or 8 years.

Life does, that's not a boomer complaint. But the 180 in Japanase High Schoolers is something I don't think an 18 year old me would have considered. The image I had grown alongside was that of was short skirts, bleached hair, tons of accessories, bright colors, cardigans, long statement nails and as previously talked about, excessively decorated (flip) phones. Excessive is a good word for it. Even though the looming influence of smartphones phased away the strap loop, bags were still prime keychain holders and decoden phone cases where a trending style. Things did change with tech changes but this had been a general look for nearly 15 years. And yet, here we are now.

First of all I'd like to point out there's very few High School centric anime out right now. Especially not many in the last 3 years (albeit I refreshed myself by skimming Crunchyroll). This isn't so much that anime doesn't use high school age protagonists going into high school, but that school has little in effect of the story. The only notable example of HS anime in 2020 have been Fruits Basket, A Certain Scientific Railgun, Kaguya-Sama, and Eikouken, the first two happen to also be visually cemented in previous eras. So let's look at the other two as well as BNHA since it technically is also a school anime. Character design isn't uniform but it's pretty subdued. In all three of these, nearly every character wears their uniform to dress code standard. Out of the whole BHN cast, Bakugo is the only one to wear his uniform differently, aside from that I'd only consider Denki and Kirashina to have flashy hair. Now this isn't to say that characters don't personalize themselves but rarely is it in focal ways. Style seems to has been delagated to exclusively footwear, backpacks, and sometimes headwear. Again, no one really does a flashy design for hair. There isn't a lot of curling or dyed hair (even if it's colorful, it may still be their natural hair color) and styling is kept to simple ponytails. Every so often a character my wear an alternative pair of shoes or tights instead of knee highs but the only really expression is their backpacks. In some ways that's funny because it was previously one of the uniform elements. The school standard duffle seems to have been replaced by stylish bags, something that could be overlooked depending on how often they're worn (not that often).

If I had to describe how high school life is portrayed now, it's mature. Minimalism is, well, a big thing. When I see JK life, it tends to have a clean look, class president like almost, the appeal seems to be a contrast in the white of the blouse against a dark blue or black. Shows don't seem to want to break a jewelish natural pallette. Also track, track seems really big right now in high school stories, don't ask me why. I think another part of this is that the shoujo norm of light hearted stories focused on fashion and boyfriends seems to now be more about bittersweet dramas. The full blown pastel romantic comedy has a lot of niche focus, wotakei for example. Where naming all the 'I'm a high school girl with one major quirk and this is my wild romance with my boyfriend with wacky hijinks and extreme reactions' shows would be hard to do during the era I was in high school, it's hard to think of many now.

In a similar way, I feel the atmosphere of animation has evolved. Let me start by saying anime is gorgeous now. Backgrounds are paintings, sakuga is everywhere and it's been so long since wispy hair detail meant garrish lines. That being said, my one boomer comment is maybe that it's too good. The statement that "Anime looks amazing but also seems to always be in the same style." could be applied to both ends of the 2010s. Kyoto animation had been the studio, popularizing school girls doing cute things, their style of moe character design, and a style of referential that had to be seen (this also was something brought to further focus by makoto shinkai). Anime almost seemed to suddenly elevate with more carefully drawn backgrounds and honed use of lighting effects. After effects in the digital of anime used to go absolutely unused or where extremely forefront. You can really feel the differences in series like Toradora, Gurren Laggan, Anohana. They were just so polished. Unfortunately, we kept trying to polish. Every major series sans shonen has gone deep into polish but it's removed a lot of the edges in the process. Fruits Basket had a distinctive style that was kept through to it's first anime but is completely gone in the remake for something that's more generic.

I'm applying some tunnel vision to this but anime has veered more mature and graceful. Like the inverse of the JK girl from the flashy gal look to the mature and uniform, anime has flipped from bombastic and expressive to gorgeous but retrained. It wasn't just the plush straps that was so nostalgic in Kyousougiga (remember when this was the whole point?) But the cartoonish designs and secure personality of the characters. It's hard to fully put my finger fully on what it is but that loud personality doesn't seem to be around much anymore. The spectrum seems stuck to very distinct flavours of Deep Introspection or Comedic Dumbassery in terms of personality. The majority of the former can almost be stressful, the character is almost always troubled by the state of their situation. The early 2010s almost felt unburdened in their burdens. For instance, Koto is trapped in a magical world, all she wants is to get home and the world is kinda hostile to her. Even still, she is smiling, goofing, and even has a friendly relationship with her foes. It's a 'This sucks!' not as much as 'This isn't good..'. Studio Trigger, the part of Gainax that popularized that rouge-ish goofy cast has been somewhat of the only one to keep that up. Even then they lost that energy a little bit with Kiznaiver and Darling in the Franxx. Of course, this is also all processed through my experience now as an adult who has a lot more concerns. The taste of nostalgia is so sweet, I can almost feel youth flow back into me at the sight of a feature phone. Even as I try to finish this long detour from my anime watch, the urge to recapture that feeling of being 17 is a powerful drug. Its a mixture of a lot of senses, the feeling of wearing my mock school uniform and using a big purse like a school duffle, learning pixiv, becoming a little more stylish but still keeping an eye on Japanese fashion, becoming a little more independent and active in my interests, and the untroubled comfort of my desires. It's funny that 17, a defining year in my life, happens to be the same year this came out. All in that year, I took piano classes, learned how to use a DSLR camera, started to cosplay, and began to learn Japanese. It was the year I stopped being an outcast without trying to be someone, the year I saw my first concert, the year I learned about Boba and BB cream, the year I was really infatuated with this guy but probably also my female friend, the year I became to determined to get dual citizenship (goodbye to that chance), the year I started on tumblr, it was just a year that I knew who I wanted to be. I've actually come near around to that feeling again recently so I won't let the nostalgia haunt me too much. But man, I'm really for late 00s fashion to come back. I want the cute accessories back, the cheesy photos you'd take and share for fun, and for thrown together looks.

[littlemisssquiggles]

So I'm currently head-over-heels for The Dragon Prince and I don't think anything will pull me out of this obsession for a long time. While I'm crying over this show, what did you personally enjoy about the quality of the plot and the characters in general? I'd love to hear your opinion from your amazing writing while I (im)patiently wait for season 3.

Hey there Snowflake. Sorry for the late response. That’sactually a really good question. Admittedly, what first drew me into The Dragon Prince series was the fact that it was created by the one of the originalHead Writers for Avatar:The Last Airbender.

A:TLA will always remain a gem inmy all time favourite animated series list so knowing that one of the men responsiblefor shaping its story branched out and made his own thing immediately peaked myintrigue. It was basically the same sentiment Ihad when I first heard about RWBY being a fan of Monty since his fan made animations like Dead Fantasy.

It’s kind of hard for me to describeexactly what it is that appeals to me the most about the writing for The Dragon Prince. I guess if I’m being completely honest here, what I love mostabout this series are itscharacters. More importantly I love how theseries writes its characters and treats them.

This might be an odd question to ask but have you ever been invested in a series where you got the sense that atsome point the show-runners just forgot how to write for their own establishedcharacters? So instead we get moments where characters behave out of characterbased on what the series has established as their personality and you get thesense that they are only acting this way for the sake of pushing the plot regardless of whether or not the characters’ actions makes sensein the context of who they are as…well…a character?

I’ll give you an example soallow me to deviate here for a sec. Are you familiar with a series calledMiraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir? In case you don’t know, it is aFrench 3D animated series following the heroic conquests of Ladybug and ChatNoir---two teenage heroes tasked with protecting the city of Paris from thenefarious masked villain known as Hawkmoth who uses butterfly-type monstersknown as Akuma to infest unsuspecting citizens; feeding into their negativeemotions to transform them into supervillains who Hawkmoth then task to stealLadybug and Chat Noir’s miraculouses which are the source of their power.

There’s also the titbit where Ladybugand Chat Noir are each other’s love interests, both in and out of costume. Ladybug isactually a young girl named MarinetteDupain-Cheng, who in her civilian form is in love witha boy in her class named Adrien Agreste. However unbeknownst to Marinette, hercrush Adrien is actually Chat Noir---her partner in crime-fighting and as Chat Noir, Adrien is inlove with Marinette as Ladybug.

The whole point of the series is that thesetwo knucklehead teen superheroes are in love with each other but as each other’s counterparts while being completely oblivious to the truth abouttheir respective identities. It’s a brilliant concept and if all of that sounds like something very interestingto you then it is.

Despite what I’m about to say, keep inmind that Miraculous is a really goodshow . In spite of my current misgivingsabout it as someone who has been with its since its first season, I would still recommend it to anyone curious about giving it a watch.

It’s a delightful cute show. I justhave some things to say about it but this is only myopinion . Even if you might appreciate mythoughts and views on certain things, my opinionis NOT law.  My opinion is only a representation of mythoughts and feelings toward a piece of medium I indulge in. It’s not a reflection of the overall quality of the medium. Those views are up to you. 

Forgive me if I sound like I’m ramblingnow but I genuinely feel it important to give that small disclaimer since wekind of live in an era of free speech where others use their opinions to lambastothers on why their opinions are right or wrong; based on their opinion.

I am not one of those people. You areallowed to like or dislike something regardless of whether or not you agreewith my opinion of it and vice versa. All I ask is for respect of my views and I shall give that of yours in return.

That being said, let’s talk Miraculous. Andin regards to how on earth this ties into TheDragon Prince, we’ll get to that surely.

At the start, Miraculous was one of my favourite animated series especially as a fan of 3D art and animation.I also couldn’t get enough of the whole Ladybug and Chat Noir love story especiallywith all the multiple pairings that branched out from this one couple---Ladynoir, Adrinette, Marichat and Ladrien. It was silly but adorable all the same and I ate up the fluff like the hopeless romantic I am. 

However; as the seasons went by, itultimately became rather difficult for me to remain truly invested in seeing these two characters achieve their goals since I couldn’t relate to them anymore. 

It’s glaringlybothersome to me now how everything is just always handed to Marinette/Ladybug, our so-calledbeloved protagonist; even when her actions of the day might prove that she doesn’t deserve it. And it certainly doesn’t help when this is done at time at the expense of Chat Noir/Adrien who is often kept in the dark when he’s supposed to be the deuteragonist who shares relevance to the plot as our main heroine.  

It’s hard for me to care aboutthe relationship between Adrien and Marinette/ Ladybug and Chat Noir anymorewhen the show constantly contradicts itself on wanting to show their relationshipmoving forward while also backpedaling in other episodes (for example: episodes such as Animaestro and Oblivio from the current third season).

This makes any progression the plotattempts to pull for their development feel pointless in the end and after three seasons of this tango, as a Miraculer, I’vesadly lost interest in wanting to see our two heroes get together.  This is sad because that’s technically the backbone ofthe show. Fans know that Ladybug and Chat Noir are going to get together because theplot has established that from the get-go and constantly reminds the audiencethat this is going to be a sure endgame. But where it ultimately fell short for me iskeeping me invested in the pairing. While I’ll admit that I was fully on board forthis ride when it first started, now after three seasons, I’m tired. The whole ‘Oooh! Will Ladybug and Chat Noir fall in love both as superheroes and civilians? Will they learn each other’s true identities’ song and dance has become stale for me and even the introduction of imposter love interests doesn’t help.

It only serves to kind of sour the pot for me. Why bother developing these fake relationships when you’ve done the equivalent of nothing to help progress Marinette and Adrien’s relationship both as themselves and as heroes. Season 2 started us off with something that could’ve been potentially great if furthered in its current season but so far, Season 3 hasn’t done much to service the development left behind from that last season.

All things considered, I still like Miraculous andI’m still going to keep tuning in for future episodes since thereare other aspects and characters within the show that I liked enough to keep medevoted.

I still like Adrien very much as one ofthe supposed main two characters (even when the show might make you thinkotherwise). But in regards to LB and CN’s whole song and dance with their so-calledlove story, it’s hard to cheer for a relationship between two characters whenthe show constantly flip flops on what their relationship is supposed to be.

One minute they are destined partners; made for each other because they are meant to be important to eachother. Therefore, their strong dynamic is meant to be proof of what makesthem work as both a team and potential lovers. Next minute Ladybug is a ‘strong, independent heroine who doesn’t needChat Noir’ and he’s painted as more of a liabilityto her than an asset---the loveable yet fumbling bumbling idiot sidekick whosesole purpose is to be a dude inthe distress for the sake of pumping up Ladybug’salready plot-inflated ego all the while gullibly kissing her ass even duringmoments when she treats him terribly.

I humbly apologize in advance if thereare any fellow miraculers reading this response post who might feel veryoffended by my comments toward Miraculous. I’ll admit. My words are indeed harsh. Sorry. But... I still wishto stand by them because they are a blunt representation of my current stancetoward the current state of writing within the show.

I used to reallylike how Miraculous portrayed itscharacters. Loved it even. For three years, Miraculous was my top favourite show and fandom. But following the end of itssecond season, I don’t know how to feel about it anymore. I still like it but its characters man---my interest in their growth is dwindling. 

I guess the biggest gripe for me with Miraculous atthe moment is that I don’t feel as if the characters have really grown at allsince the show first started. Even after two full seasons going into its thirdrun; despite the plot thrusting them into scenarios that one would assume would help them to change (for better or worse), these characters---at least our main ones feel thesame. I know the show has done things to show progression for its charactersespecially in terms of relationships. However it all feels meaningless in the end.

And the flip flopping doesn’t help thiscase. At times, I felt as if Miraculous was being written by two different typesof writers. One who wants to show these characters growing from the people theyused to be because they are meant to while another just wants to keep thesecharacters in the same tropes they started off with. I’m not sure if any other Miraculershares the same opinion but that’s how I feel.

That being said and getting back ontrack, it’s the complete opposite with TheDragon Prince. In this show, I can tell that theplot actually does affect the characters and they react to them in ways you might expecttheir character to react to it given their established personalities. I also lovehow the Dragon Prince has this nice balance to it.  It knows how to juggle its more and heart-wrenching serious moments with its comedy in a way that rarely feels jarring. At least to me.

In TDP, I get the stronger sense that thesecharacters shapes the story in the world around with their adventures and individual experiences being veyr important to the narrative as opposed to the contrary where the story is this and these characters are molded to fit whatever story the writers feel to thrust them into; if that makes sense. And this all boils back to just how much I lovethe characters of this show. I don’t think there is a single character in theTDP cast that I don’t like.

I even have a soft spot in my heart forthe supporting side characters who our Dragonic Trio occasionally interact with during their travels. This is why I was so relieved to see Grenfinally be freed in Book 2. It’s about time my beautiful strawberry man gotfreed.

The DragonPrince is so great that I even care about itsvillain characters as much as the heroes. Even though Lord Viren and hischildren: Claudia and Soren are painted as the antagonists to our Dragonic Trio, I like that there is so much more to them than just that. On the contrary, there are aspects ofthese three that makes me think they’re not villains. Particularly Lord Viren. The guy isn’t just the classic mustache twirling bad guy. He has layers. Depth. 

I understand that Lord Viren is supposedto the bad guy however; he’s not entirely bad. There is a good side to him and its evidence in his relationship with the royal family. You cantell that Viren genuinely cared for King Harrow and had great respect for Queen Sarai since she saved his life. 

I guess what I’m trying to say is thatthe characters of TDP feel real to me. They don’t feel like just characters in a story. They feel like peoplewith experiences that their audience can relate to. Connect with. The Dragon Writers know and understand their characters as people and know how to write for their characters and because of howwell they’ve portrayed them, it makes me as the viewer more interested in theirstories as the main plot carries on.

I pray that the Dragon Writers keepthis up going forward with the remaining books. Sometimes show-runners start to suffer from writer’s fatigue and/or forget how to write for the verycharacters they created the longer the plot is stretched to the point that the series comes to feel like it lost direction at some point (coughsVoltroncoughs). 

I hope this won’t be the case for the Dragon Writers.Two seasons in and these guys continue to keep me loving their world and Icannot wait to see these characters be fleshed out further in the upcoming book. The Dragon Prince Book 3 cannot come any quicker.

I can’t wait to see what Rayla and Callum’s adventures with Zym across Xadia will be like. I still can’t believe they separated the Dragonic Trio. Usually you have to wait like…what…three-four seasons to get the squad ripped apart but nah…The Dragon Prince did that in season two.

Still in shock over that. But as much as I’m going tomiss Ezran in the party, I’d by totally lying if my Rayllum shipping heart isn’t beyondecstatic to see what these two duo adventures together will belike. Particularly following Rayla’s near confession.

I’m curious to see how that will affectthe way Rayla interacts with Callum from now on. I’m mostly just excited to see blushingRayla awkward about her crush on Callum. As of Book2, I think it’s safe to say that Callummight be over his crush on Claudia. Or perhaps his resentment over hers and Soren’s betrayal currently outweighsany former romantic feelings he might still have for her. Feels bad m’dude. I don’t ship Callum with Claudia at all but that doesn’t mean I want Callum to hate her.I really like Claudia as a character and I want the best for her and Soren too.My children are going down a dark path and I don’t like it. Especially Claudia. I still stand with my theory where I don’t think Book 2 will be the last timeClaudia will use the extreme form of dark magic to aid with Soren’s paralysis.I still think Soren is still permanently paralyzed and that Claudia’s spell isonly a temporary fix meaning that Claudia may have to keep performing Viren levels ofdraining magic from other magical beings to keep her brother stable…which is going taint herso much. I just hope that in the end, Soren will be the one to save his sisterfrom her own damnation.

At the end of the day, Soren and Claudia love each other and will do anythingfor each other. If there is anyone I trust to save Claudia should she ever loseherself to dark magic (which let’s just face it, will tragically happen down the line); it’s Soren--- thevery person she’s doing this for. Damn! The Writing for these two is so good! Megaprops to the Dragon Writers for writing such an engaging, strong brother andsister dynamic and sibling love and loyalty to one another without making it borderline…well…incestuous.  

I don’t want to see Claudia fallto the dark side, guys. Despite being a firm user ofdark magic like her father, Claudia is actually the opposite of her chosen element. I feel as if Claudia was willing to theput in the effort to awakening her arcana as Callum did, she could possibilitybe another Sky Mage like Callum or perhaps an Ocean Mage. Or maybe an Earth Mage? Who knows. It’s all just theories and speculation of mine for now.

Speaking of which; next up is Ezran. I’m excited to see what his travels will be like. Ezran is so young yet he’s sodown to earth and possesses a level headed maturity and outlook on the world around him that one can appreciate.Ezran will make a great king some day and if Book3 is the kick-starter to that part ofhis arc towards that goal then bring it.

I am ready to follow Prince Ezran on his own separate journey back home with Smexy Dreadlock Man (I’m sorry his name escapes me at the moment but his handsomeness doesn’t).

This also makes me curious if Ezranwill ever get to meet the young queen---the daughter of the Two Queens who gavetheir lives along with Ezran’s mom. I’m actually really, really interested inseeing Prince Ezran meeting QueenAanya.

I kind of low-key ship Aanya and Ezran. Yes, I know they haven’t met at all and we have zero idea of howthese two would get along should they encounter each other. Nonetheless, theidea of Ezran and Aanya coming together intrigues me because of how perfect itwould be should it happen.

I love the idea of Ezran someday possibly marrying Aanya with thetwo joining their kingdoms. After all, theQueens of Duran sought out King Harrow during their crisis in the winter andKing Harrow was willing to open his kingdom to the People of Duran.

Sure Viren tried to fight against it atfirst but Harrow stuck to his guns. Both Ezran and Aanya are currently the very young heirs to their respective thrones expected to lead their people. Aanyahas already begun her ruling and now Ezran is on his way to reclaim his throne. Bothlost their mothers who sacrificed their lives for their people. If Ezran andAanya meet, I think they can hit it off and make great friends. While I doubt romance willbe a thing for them since they are still children, I still want these two tomeet and form a close long-lastingfriendship that could one day potentially lead toa union that unites two kingdoms like their parents did long ago. But that’sjust me with my theories.

I’m hoping that Ezran’s adventures withSmexy Dreadlock Man will lead to him possibly passing through Duran while alsoencountering BirdHarrow along the way. That’s a reunion I’malso looking forward to.

And yeah, that’s pretty much all I haveto say for now on The Dragon Prince and its upcoming season. 

Fair notSnowflake, you’re not the only one excited for Book 3. Maybe you should follow Tim Kamiski on Twitter. I believe he’s an Art Director at Wonderstorm working on TheDragon Prince Game. He released a poster art for Book 3 that looks hype.

It’s a shame we’ll possibly have towait till early next year for Book 3. But until such a time, I hope my response toyour question was a good enough one to help you ride the Wonderstorm till the next season, fam.

~LittleMissSquiggles(2019)

#squiggles answers: the dragon prince #the dragon prince #the dragon prince season 3 #the dragon prince theories #mtloacn #stuck-up-snowflake

[aftermathdb]

DEATH BATTLE Review: Optimus Prime vs. Gundam

Giant Robots. Y’know what?- I dig giant robots.

Anyone remember that?- god, it feels like it’s been forever since I’ve seen a good giant robot battle show.

The second time that either combatants’ franchises are entering the arena. With the last time a transformer being used was back when Starscream fought against Rainbow Dash, and the last time someone that piloted a Gundam was when Zechs Merquise fought Tommy Oliver, this is bound to be a fun matchup.

During the introduction, they mention that the Transformers were originally Japanese toys, meaning that this isn’t an East vs. West battle. It’s more like… East vs. Adopted East.

Optimus Prime′s Preview.

So, Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots.

I think most people who grew up in that time period knows who this guy is. 

(Yeesh, with experience like that, Amuro is going to need a crapton of firepower to get past that).

We get a history on the Autobot Decepticon War, and how the ‘Cons are basically a bunch of people who love military dictatorships. And how they gunned down a guy named Orion Pax. And as Boomstick said, Robot Gandalf rebuilt Orion into the much more iconic Optimus Prime.

And we get to see his Vehicle Mode get a card too! After all, Optimus is in fact a

Robot in disguise.

So that.

And a nice little notecard tells us what happens to the trailer when Optimus transforms.

(The question has finally been answered!)

And for those of you wondering what’s up with that Action Master and Powermaster stuff that’s under his Transformations tab, here’s what’s up (more or less):

(Man, this got really complicated).

Regardless, they go on to explain a lot of Optimus’ feats and stats. Like his arsenal of weapons…

Oh, and the Matrix is given it’s own explanation. Unfortunately, it doesn’t get it’s own page, but what’s there to know?- It’s a piece of Robot God.

And it appears that Optimus has a sense of honor. Which could lead to a weakness, as he does not like sacrificing others.

(But desecrating their bodies?- That’s nothing).

Optimus’ feats gives him a massive edge too. Overall, it just feels like there’s a lot going for Robot Jesus.

And you know that scene in the original movie where Optimus is all “One shall stand. One shall fall.”?- That’s the end quote. And I gotta say:

That makes me want to DARE! Dare to believe we can survive! DARE! Dare to keep all my dreams alive!

………

Optimus is a badass, and that was another movie reference.

Amuro Ray′s Preview.

If they were trying to get people invested in the Gundam series, then I’d say that they did a pretty good job. After all, it’s a show that uses giant robots to fight Nazis. Who doesn’t like seeing Nazis getting their asses kicked?

But… If they were trying to simplify things, then they didn’t do that great of a job.

(This is an average of at least 4 models per medium).

But thankfully, they are only covering the OG Gundam, and any model that it could scale to.

(I think the size advantage is what prompts people to think that Gundam would win).

Regardless, Amuro Ray’s backstory is… actually quite intense. He’s a civilian who got drafted into a war?- That’s rough. Almost as rough as being a civilian who got gunned down and turned into a commander- Oh!- Another Optimus comparison.

Amuro gets his own page, and he has an… interesting set of codenames. Going over his own skills is also impressive too.

He gets a system that’s similar to the Epyon, only significantly less intense and PTSD-inducing.

The arsenal is also impressive. Especially the Beam Rifle. Like Boomstick said, it’s like a hundred tanks in the form of a single pistol. Unfortunately, like a pistol, the Beam Rifle has limited Ammo. So Amuro might want to be careful when using it.

(Here’s hoping that Amuro doesn’t have to use this feature).

And Amuro’s psychic powers are given a rundown. and given that so far we’ve seen a radioactive spiderbite, a floating head in a tube granting teenagers their abilities, and special fruit giving people powers, I have to agree that the reasons behind why Newtypes have theirs is really really dumb. Couldn’t have been cosmic radiation, I guess.

But that last part is really really funny.

I want to know who was behind this, because I want to give them props.

Amuro’s Newtype powers would certainly close any speed gap, similar to Naruto’s sage powers or Kenshiro’s Toki.

And the feats are a sight to behold. Though, when comparing it to the stuff Optimus has blown up or survived… It’s not looking good for Amuro.

Especially since the suit has no real defenses against intense heat, outside of a one-time use shield.

I have no real way of judging the end line. It doesn’t feel as impressive as Optimus’.

The Battle Itself.

Since Torrian is moving over to RoosterTeeth to do Gen:Lock, this battle is primarily being animated by Kristina and several other animators. Optimus will be voiced by Richard Barcenas, while Gundam RX-78-2′s pilot Amuro Ray will be voiced by David Matranga. Sayla Mass will be voiced by Lindsay Jones (Watch your cheese puffs, Amuro). Audio led by Chris Kokkinos and Music by Therewolf, and is called Wings of Iron.

So, the battle starts with Amuro breaking into the Ark (because the Transformers series is known for their subtlety (Optimus constantly dying and coming back to life, and the ARK?- Seriously? How about they add some more bible references while they’re at it?)), and Optimus attacks Amuro.

And partway into the fight, we find out why Optimus attacked: He mistook Amuro for a Decepticon. Makes sense. Amuro mistook Optimus for an enemy robot suit. So there’s a good reason for each of them to be fighting each other- They mistook the opponent for an enemy.

The battle starts in space, where both of them are firing at each other, and using their melee weapons against the other. With Amuro using his totally-not-a-lightsaber beam sword against Optimus, and Prime using his energy axe right back.

Amuro is constantly using his Newtype powers to keep up with Optimus, as he does claim that Optimus holds the speed advantage.

And we get this beautiful clash between the two combatants. It gives me goosebumps.

It helps that the music, Wings of Iron, give the battle a very 80s vibe. It really helps the overall fight sequence and makes it feel like a clash between icons.

Plus, Prime constantly transforming throughout the battle just reeks of fanservice. But, in the good way. It’s not often that the Transformers use their vehicle modes when combating an opponent, and it’s just really nice to see it in action.

Optimus even cuts through Amuro’s shield in the battle, and renders Amuro defenseless.

And the battle finds its way to earth (because what battle in space doesn’t find its way to earth?), and the battle rages on.

And if you’re worried about Torrian’s absence will mean no flips, then don’t worry! They have flips.

(Ahh, flips. It doesn’t feel like a 3D DEATH BATTLE without ‘em).

And after a brutal clash (And a good ol’ Optimus one liner), we get to the final clash.

Finishing blow in

5…

4…

3…

2…

1…

Well, Amuro… Just tell Death that Optimus sent you. Those two are basically drinking buddies, so Death should have a a beer that he’d be willing to share with you.

Verdict + Explanation.

So, Optimus held the experience advantage, obviously. But, there were many other advantages. And Optimus’s stats are just…

GodDAMN! That is just… Absurd. And they go out of their way to disprove the Refinery feat being an outlier, by referencing the cartoon, and another bot of similar power.

And as for being able to fire into space from the ground…

There’s a notecard for that too. It looks like Optimus Just had the Touch! He had the power!

YEAH!

Overall impression.

For this being a few new animators first time being the primary animator on this project, I originally felt the need to go easy when it came to the animation. Turns out, I didn’t need to. The animation is really solid, and it feels like two robots battling it out instead of just two humans with CGI robots over their bodies.

The music is really awesome, and the explanations that they give for their math feel really solid. I was prepared for Optimus to lose, and to have to make a morbid joke about it, but it actually feels like there was some awesome math behind it all.

The rundowns are fun to watch and listen to, and as a person who can’t really hate Rodimus, I have to commemorate them for not making a cheap shot at the guy (I blame Hasbro for Optimus’ death, not Hot Rod).

Solid animation, plus awesome music, add in a fun rundown, and a pinch of awesome statistics, and you get a good rating of 9.2/10.

Next Time…

This battle is a long time coming. And with the new media surrounding the two, I’d say the way the battle’s going to be portrayed will be really great.

(Ignore Optimus’ hand please).

Because it’s going to be live action!

Is there a fight that you want me to review? - Send an ask/request, and I’ll look into it!

Do you want to read my fanfic based around DEATH BATTLE itself? click here!

Thank you for reading, and I hope to see you next time for…

Blüdhaven Bird vs. The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.

#Death Battle #Deathbattle #review #screwattack

[rottenwoodandwiltedsunflowers]

Waffle Recapish (Turned Into A Full-On Recap) Show #86 5/19/18 Late

*Alright folks! You all wanted more recaps so here goes. This is long but that is how I do recaps. I had a terrific run of shows but I am headed back to the real world so who knows if I will get any more done. -Waffle

Today I was sitting in my hotel room thinking about the last few shows this past weekend when I realized it was absolutely beautiful in New York today and so I decided to take advantage of the spring weather and head to the Highline to work on a recap. Let’s see how successful I am!

Our weekend started Saturday with the Lost Supper at The Attic. It exceeded expectations and I didn’t feel cheated out of my $175 ticket price which was my main concern going in. Huge Kudos to Lily Ockwell- if that is what kind of shenanigans her mind comes up with to share, I would love to see what else is lurking in there. Beyond that, I am not going to say much because it is still running for several more weeks and I don’t want to spoil any of the fabulous surprises for anyone going in the upcoming weeks. I do have some photos that I will share when the experience closes.

After that, it was on to the late Friday show. THE CAST DID NOT DISAPPOINT! 

We attended a quick show last weekend but other than that, this was my first return to the hotel since January. There has been a cast changeover which always brings interesting, new residents in and often showcases old residents in new roles. While I am intrigued by the prospect of discovering new residents, my bucket list was admittedly filled with some new roles for old residents. Two things on the top of my bucket list, Evelyn’s Lady Macbeth and Colin’s Matron were in the cast Friday. I spent significant time watching both. 

I arrived in the ballroom to excitedly find Evelyn’s Lady M. I was intent on following it until I saw several fellow friends follow her out. They were actually all people who I would ordinarily follow characters with. All respectful, fun following buddies. I just knew I was in a mood that seeing familiar faces (no pun intended) would take me out of the performances so I made the decision to catch her later knowing the crowds would be a bit bigger but hoping to disappear into anonymity in my distracted mind at least. So I went to my go-to follow, Sexy Witch. Marissa was on and she is always a solid performance with flirty and fun vibes. As I made my way over to exit to the lobby with Boy and Sexy, so did about 15 other white masks. Nope nope nope. Nope nope nope. I got to the bottom of the staircase, saw the mob, and backed up into the corner to let them get by me. The best-laid plans. Am I right? Back down to the ballroom where I found Jenna’s sexy with one other audience member (that I knew but hey, you can’t win them all). Jenna is a FUCKING powerhouse! If I have to take 3rd fiddle in my original plans, it’s great to take a 3rd fiddle that is really the 1st fiddle any other night. 

Jenna’s ballroom solo was stunning! The way she seizes Macduff and stops him dead in his tracks, manipulating his every move while effortlessly avoiding his advances is a beautiful tribute to the character of Bald witch. She does the Bald witch reveal as well as anyone even with the hair. I’m so glad I was forced back to the ballroom. Her attitude while taking Boy witch out of the box is clearly, “Let’s have some fun...but not too much fun because we have work to do. She is expecting us. LET’S GO!” The rave was high energy. I tried to watch but Tori’s Hecate always siphons off my attention. When I did turn back, I got the absolute best visual of Tyler Phillips boy witch launching (for lack of a better word) himself over the bar. Air for days! He just used the top as a glorious springboard using one hand. It was awesome. 

Post-rave, I followed Jenna back to the apothecary where she singled me out to dry her back in the most gloriously Bald witch way possible. A look full of leering and uncomfortable smirking on her part. I think when you become as accustomed to the show as I am, you become very desensitized to the nudity. While it is very jarring and uncomfortable at first, it becomes more commonplace and less shocking. A great Bald witch will make you feel super uncomfortable about the fact that you are in her space and she is topless and staring you down. Mission accomplished. I was sufficiently uncomfortable. I think it is something about the way they pose themselves, crouched over, legs spread, slowly drying their chest while simultaneously maintaining creepy eye contact. She finished her routine and before exiting, grabbed me by the back of the neck, pulling me in and hissing out an ominous warning to “Beware the Thane of Fife!” She left to head to the banquet and I headed up.

I arrived at the Matron’s hut to find Colin drawing on the window jam. Bucket list happiness! He drew crosses then connected the dots to form what looked like the hut window or door or perhaps hut itself. He has a bit of Fulton to his Matron at one point climbing on a chair to place a horseshoe over the window. Clearly, he is disturbed and frightened by the possibilities that lay outside the forest. I have to be honest with the fact that I was highly skeptical going into this performance. Usually, I am very open to new interpretations and am not the type of person who is picky about how my favorite roles are played. I like my Matron a certain way though, mainly female. I’m sexist, sue me. I was very pleasantly surprised. His pairing with Andrea was solid. I believed his trepidation about what was going on outside his world was felt. His 1:1 was surprisingly terrifying. I was genuinely caught off guard when the moment came. I’m glad I gave him a shot.

Then there was the star of the show for me, Evelyn Chen’s Lady Macbeth. it is a new thing and a rare thing (as of now) so I headed back to find her. I found her in her room post ballroom. I braved the Macbeth crowds and she didn’t disappoint. Her dancing was bold and beautiful and passionate. It has been quite awhile since I have done this loop so it was full of little surprises for me. She was engaging beyond belief and I found myself being thankful that I knew the building so well because I ended up needing to use alternative routes for much of the moving between scenes due to the sea of people following her. 

Her Out Spot dance was particularly moving. The way her pain played out in her ferocious dancing. Throwing herself from corner to corner. Flipping over the bed from one end to the other. The mental anguish and struggle to remain grounded and her ultimate slipping sanity portrayed perfectly through her physical movements. Upon winding down physically, she slinked back into the corner pulling the sheet over her head and hiding in a ball in the corner for several moments. When she emerged, she looked much calmer. A peaceful demeanor set in for just a moment. Just enough time for the audience to digest the total breakdown and think the storm was over. Then you saw it. It was perfectly executed. I didn’t see any signs that something was amiss or that there was cause for concern until there was. Her face portrayed tiered, calm, and thoughtful but her nose started to bleed. It was a very unsettling sight, Lady Macbeth’s quiet face and still mind while the blood slowly trickled down her lip. Everything was fine until it wasn’t. She reached up and hesitantly touched it setting off an instantaneous second violent storm. She raced to the bathtub absolutely panicked. Frantically trying to rid her self and the tub of any remnants of her part in the plan.

There was no turning back though. What is done cannot be undone. Her walk down High Street was full of audience interactions. She fell to the floor upon entering the space before looking up at me and extending her hand. I helped her up, she handed me her necklace and bowed her head. After placing the necklace on her we were headed down the street together. She was broken and mumbling the whole way. Macbeth showed up and the relief on her face was immediate. They were off to the banquet. 

I love the banquet. It is one of the most beautifully executed pieces of choreography I have ever seen hands down. No matter who I follow, one moment in particular that almost always holds my attention is when Lady Macbeth is seated and begins to turn in her chair in slow motion. I am a sucker for silhouettes in that building and the picturesque moment created when she extends her arm straight out pointing behind her with her head resting on her shoulder seemingly frozen in time is everything. 

I followed as she exited the ballroom but found myself overwhelmed by the swell of audience members trying to jam themselves into the stairwells. Cue my gratitude for knowledge of the building. I hightailed it over to the opposite stairwell and up to 5. Apparently, I was feeling especially athletically inclined that evening. More than likely I was just excited to play out the rest of the loop. Thank you congestion on the stairs! I beat Lady M up to 5 and watched her come down the hall into the room with the beds. After all the horror stories we all hear and witness with audience behavior, I am always genuinely surprised when the residents put themselves out there in extra vulnerable scenes. I watched Evelyn extend her hand and have an audience member help her out of the tub. She then had me lay her robe over her shoulders. On a side note, am I the only one who gets extremely nervous when instructed to do things like this. I always feel like I am doing a horrible job. I’m sorry I put it on slightly askew. I think my nervousness about being extra respectful often results in me performing the task awfully. Sorry. We headed back down and it was like the last hour never happened. All the memories of nightmares were wiped clean and the story was back at page 1. She went back to manipulating Danvers and Macbeth with blissful ignorance of what awaited her.

I took a little break in the bar and was back down to the ballroom early to get a good spot for the finale. I realized I had never had a Lady Macbeth walkout before. I am never watching from the front of the stage but tonight I wanted Evelyn’s walkout. I had such a great night with her character and I will confess that I was hoping to thank her for the experience. Turns out it wasn’t even a problem as it seemed the audience was a bit frightened of the stage. I wasn’t even that close but I felt like I was practically standing on it because as the ballroom filled in, the audience flicked to the back. It was one of those weird situations where I thought I would be in the front but I ended up being aways in front of the audience. I actually took a step back because I felt a bit like an island. Lady Macbeth exited the stage and immediately came to my side. She grabbed my hand and watched her husband's fate play out while clinging to my arm. We proceeded to the Manderley and I got the opportunity to thank her for a brilliant performance!

It was Tyler Phillips last show and I didn’t follow him because like someone else has said, I didn’t have a strong connection to him or the character of Boy witch in general. One thing I will mention (that I didn’t see but KaeLyn and every other Boy witch fan did) is that Tyler wins the award for most dramatic exit of a resident. HANDS DOWN! Apparently while performing his last cabaret in the hotel lobby, He pulled out a pair of scissors, mid-song, and cut off his hair! Who does that?!?! Brilliance! I can actually imagine him standing on stage with scissors in one hand, a fist full of hair in the other, crying and lip-syncing to “Is that All There Is?” I do wish I has seen it. Bravo and you sir will be missed!

#Sleep No More #mckittrick hotel #recap

[maybeleas]

Drama Review: While You Were Sleeping

Imagine knowing your future, knowing everything that will happen in your life all from a dream. Would you do anything to change it, or would you let fate take it’s role? While You Were Sleeping was a deep, insightful and powerfully moving drama that took my breath away from the very first episode. Before I started watching it, I decided to watch it because the two main actors in this drama were my two favourites, Lee Jongsuk and Bae Suzy. I didn’t think that it would’ve been this amazing, but this drama exceeded every expectation and did so much more. It was a beautiful and emotional drama, not the weepy crying type of drama, but more of the deep and sorrowful type. Certain scenes really left me thinking, and it gave me a big impact. This drama had everything right, the plot, the plot twists, the characters and their development, and the ending, it was all perfectly placed. In all honesty, this was truly the best drama of the lower half of 2017. At the end of watching this amazing work of art of a drama, it taught me that life goes on. No matter what fate throws at you, sometimes all you need to do is look past everything bad and move on. It showed me that better days were coming. Everyone had a big role to play in another person’s life, even though we might not realise it. Bad days exist, but they do not last. They showed me challenges and hurdles every episode, but during the finale, everything was wrapped up and it was a pure and happy episode. Happy days last. Certain things happen, and sometimes we blame ourselves, for days, months, even years. We think about them repeatedly, constantly flipping them over like stones in our hands. But you are not your mistakes, you are not your faults. This drama showed how after everything, sometimes it’s time for us to put that stone down and look ahead. Life is so much more than our past mistakes.

1)    The Plot:

·     *  The plot of this drama was the biggest centrepiece to this drama. It wasn’t the icing on top of the cake, it was the cake itself. The plot was perfect. This drama had a subplot and a current existing plot moving alongside it, and at the end of the 32nd episode, they managed to tie everything up so GOOD I really was blown away by it. Both plots ended in a perfect loop, and every character and scene that happened in both plots were equally important. I can’t write on how much I loved the plot of this drama so much. They focused so much on the details and little changes that altered the plot a lot. That, in my opinion is the mark of a truly good drama. 

·      What I could see a lot in this drama was the constant struggle between the good and the bad. In a world where money and fame were all that is important, we can see a struggling prosecutor trying to protect justice against a corrupted lawyer, an honest and strong-willed reporter willing to do anything for the truth, and how love prevails in any situation. It was awe inspiring to see how the prosecution works. I had major respect for all the prosecutors in this drama, they worked to defend everyone from injustice, and they worked damn hard. The court trial cases were especially my favourite scenes. They were strong and moving, and some of the cases really had a big effect on me. Social injustice was a major theme in this drama, and with every corruption, the prosecution battled it strongly. The plot always showed two roads to one problem, and it was so interesting to see which road they take, whether they’ll save everyone or not. It showed how the world worked like a tipping scale, one wrong move, and everything was on the line.

·      In this drama, the plot was complicated and intricated as we progress on. It started being a puzzle game for the viewers, with each episode, we get to have one piece of the overall picture. Sooner the pieces become smaller and harder to see. The writers did a brilliant job at writing out this story, and no words I could ever write would ever describe how GOOD this drama’s plot is. They hit everything right. It was a strong, moving, emotional and beautiful plot to witness as it unfolded, and I felt very honoured to watch a masterpiece.

·       THE PLOT TWISTS. They had plot twists in almost every alternate episode, and it changed the storyline a complete 360 sometimes. Writers can’t just throw plot twists like flowers, they have to make sure it’ll all make sense at the end. AND THEY DID. It was so good to see a drama that was always changing it’s direction and making the audience follow, there was never a boring episode.

2)    The characters:

·       Jung Jae Chan: A strong, positive and struggling prosecutor facing a world of corruption. An honest, kind and soft-hearted ray of sunshine who does everything to help the innocent and condemn the guilty. He doesn’t disregard any case as a light case as most, instead he works hard on each case, making sure everything he does is correct. His character was such an ease to look at. I melted at his strong regard for justice, and didn’t take any answer easily. He fought, against his seniors, Yu Beom, everyone against him, just to prove someone’s innocence. A scene that particularly hit me was when Prosecutor Shin advised him not to acquit the defendant because if he did, he would’ve gotten rained hard by the hatred and rage of the entire nation. The defendant was innocent, he didn’t do anything wrong. If it was anyone else, sentencing him to prison would’ve been easier as everyone was so focused on the fact that he was guilty. Although he knew the backlashed he was about to receive from his actions, he didn’t’ want to throw an innocent man in prison. He stuck with his principles, an innocent man belongs on the streets and a guilty man belongs in prison. He continued, and I had major respect for him in that moment. He has such a strong sense of justice, that most people would’ve not been able to possess so easily. He was young and clumsy sometimes, but he was focused in whatever he did, be it a case in court or being with Hong Joo. He was a character that was human and as kind as possible, and sometimes that’s the type of people we need in this world.

·       Hong Joo: A funny, brave, and a girl that wasn’t afraid to speak her mind. She was a daring reporter, a caring daughter, and definitely a supportive girlfriend/wife. She reminded me a lot of Noh Eul, Suzy’s previous character from Uncontrollably Fond, but this was more of a sophisticated and grown up version. She spoke her mind, and that sometimes got her into trouble.  She wasn’t afraid, she wasn’t afraid of anyone or anything that got in her way. She was a good pair for Jae Chan, because she was a reporter who only wanted to tell the truth for the public. A scene that really in my opinion captured Hong Joo’s essence was when she was arguing with her captain about SBC’s mistake in their reports. Their captain didn’t want to do another segment, just to tell them the audience that they reported wrongly. But she was stubborn about it, she believed in the truth and nothing else. She acknowledged their mistakes, and delivered the news, the truth. That really hit me, it’s rare to find such honest people in this world. She was intelligent, sexy and unbothered by the people around her. She truly was a femme fatale woman, and a complete 10/10 of a gal.

·       Lee Yu Beom: Although there were about 5-6 cases and criminals through out this drama, I honestly believed the biggest snake and villain was Yu Beom. He was a manipulative, corrupted, and a snake. He was worse than all the other criminals combined. He was so influential, and power in the wrong hands was a bad idea. He was the back bone of most cases, and often crawled in between Jae Chan’s way like a snake he is. Although the negative, the only thing I’d have to dreadfully admit is that Lee Yu Beom is an excellent lawyer, a smart and strong opponent in the court room. He could change the smallest fact around so easily, and looked as if he barely lifted a finger. He was skilled, and you’d know why the prosecutors were sometime afraid to go up against him in court. He was malicious and completely unforgiving in the court, turning it into HIS court. He was a character you couldn’t take your eyes off, and his presence was strong through out the entire drama. A 10/10 ‘villain’.

·       Woo Tak: A sweet and completely heart eyes character. He was such a prominent helping aid for both Jae Chan and Hong Joo through out the drama, he was JC’s right hand. It was sad to see what happened to him in the end. He didn’t deserve what happened to him, but it was also a good turn of events in the last episode. He was a colour blinded policeman, a unique character. He was warm and kind, I think I never saw him not smile. I loved his character a lot, and the actor did a brilliant job! He never confronted or fought for Hong Joo like what dramas would do, put the two male characters together for the female lead. He saw that Jae Chan loved Hong Joo, so he stepped aside and only loved and supported her from afar… which left me in awe.. not a lot of people can do that. He remained their friend, and continued loving them both without an ounce of jealousy for their happiness. A friend.

3)    The actors.

·       All the actors were amazing. They portrayed and became their characters, in every scene. Suzy’s acting was remarkable and definitely improved from her UF days. She didn’t drop her character as much, she looked so much more natural and confident being Hong Joo. I saw massive difference from her as Noh Eul to her being Hong Joo. So props to Suzy, her acting was incredible and she definitely deserves more recognition. She WAS Hong Joo, and I loved her so much for it.

·       Jongsuk also did an incredible job. His screen presence was stronger this time around, he was clumsy in the scenes where he needed to be clumsy, but a confident prosecutor in court. His moving speeches in courts blew me away. He really did a beautiful job, he made me tear up a lot, especially during trials, like the final trial for Yu Beom. He stood strong, and confident. Jongsuk’s acting was also full of expressions and fluidity, and he nailed everything! Such a good actor.

·       Lee Sang Yeob played Yu Beom, and he did such a marvellous job on his character. His presence was overbearing and strong, and I liked it. Yu Beom was a strong character to master and harder to make it natural, but Yang Seob managed it. His acting was so GOOD and natural. His body language screamed arrogance and poise, exactly like how Yu Beom is. 10/10!

Another thing I personally liked of this drama was how the characters were arranged. In my opinion, all the characters were given their own screen time and story, making them as important as the main characters. It almost made me feel like they were main characters. They didn’t show Jae Chan and Hong Joo’s wedding, instead Prosecutor Son and Prosecutor Lee’s wedding was the one shown. All the characters got a backstory of their own, and weren’t ever left behind. Mr Choi, all four prosecutors, Hong Joo’s mom, even Jae Chan’s brother. Everyone was involved and important to the story line. I’ve never seen such an equal distribution of the characters in a drama before, so this was something new for me. But they balanced it well!

Episodes 21-24 were my favourite episodes. In my opinion, those were the most emotional and vulnerable episodes. The case was a sensitive one, and it left me crying. You’ll know why.  When Prosecutor Son explained why she herself would’ve chosen to do the autopsy instead of the organ transplantation, it was such a prominent scene. I cried badly, that scene left me in shambles. One son is lost, yet another is given new life. Life is hard, and no matter how much we try to save everyone, sometimes we have to choose.

Another favourite was the parallels they showed in the final episode, 31 and 32. Between Lawyer Lee and Mr Choi, in the parallel we got to see Mr Choi seeing himself as his younger version and he envisioned Yu Beom as his dead younger brother. It was a strong statement to the corruption and faults Yu Beom had done. Mr Choi didn’t want Yu Beom to end up like his brother.

The other parallel was in episode 32. In the past, it was the teenager version, Jae Chan was the one who sought after Hong Joo and comforted her during the funeral. Now they’re showing this parallel, but it’s flipped. As adults, Hong Joo sees Jae Chan is upset, and is the one that ends up finding him crying and comforting him. This showed how Hong Joo and Jae Chan both depend on each other equally, and how one was not incomplete without the other. It was a symbol of their entire relationship, where you are, I will be. You will never face things alone, I will not let you. We will walk this road together, be it a hard or easy road. We have each other. The cute moments between JC and HJ were so soft to watch, but to me, their relationship wasn’t defined by those. It was defined by the moments where HJ needed JC, and when JC needed HJ. They didn’t let each other go through the pain alone, and that is a beautiful relationship. They learned to lean onto each other and adapt to each other slowly and being each other’s anchors. A beautiful relationship to see. <3

Overall, I highly recommend this drama to everyone, and you should take your time with it so you’ll be able to absorb it’s complicated storyline. Take time to enjoy the beauty and deep meaning of this drama, and appreciate this work of art. A drama that left me speechless and happy. I’ve been missing Hong Joo and Jae Chan a lot ever since I left :’)

#wyws #while you were sleeping #hong joo #jae chan #jung jae chan #nam hong joo #lee jongsuk #bae suzy #suzy