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celticcatgirl2 · 5 months

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Gender and sexuality and how they can change over time can be such a funny thing so I had one friend as a kid who at the time had just came out as lesbian (tho now I think they may be transmasc of some sort ot another but I’m not 100% sure so I’m just using they/them) and I was at the time sorta trying to very awkwardly perform straight male identity^tm and like faking stuff I just wasn’t really actually experiencing to feel normal but I was also like not an asshole about gay people. So anywyas they had said soemthing when where hanging out at Barnes & noble and we where looking through calendars and there was one with some scantily clad women on it and this friend was Liek “oh I like that one…don’t judge I have needs you know!!!” And I to both try to I guess show support and also do the middle school performance of “yeah I’m totally doing the normal teenage boy things” was like “nah I get you it’s rhe same here ” even tho it WASN’T at the time like that at all a thing I was actually personally experiencing. Which feels also like an odd story cause now I DO have my own experiences of attraction and aesthic appreciation of women (albeit still probably not quite the same way due to the idiosyncrasies of my aspec stuff) that I could probably connect with more authentically.

I kinda wonder what happened to this person they where pretty cool and talked about like marvel stuff with me in elementary/early middle school we kinda lost contact and I don’t really have a way of getting back in touch r but I wish I did I kinda just in general have fond memories of hanging out as kids and kinda wonder how we might be able to relate now espically if them being trans in some way like I vaugely heard is true…

Heh this was just gonna be a funny story about childhood that’s even funnier with how the people involved’s identity’s changed over time but I I geninuely miss my old friend now….

I Remeber they were into My Chemical Romance and knew all about Umbrella Academy WAY before the Netflix show….they liked the teen titans cartoon and identified with Raven at the time (tho there’s a strong possibility this part may have changed) I hung out at their house and we watched like the 2000s X Men and Elektra movies and also scary movie I’m pretty sure, before they came out as lesbian out parents would tease us about “liking each other” but we where really just friends and it was just needlessly awkward.

At that bookstore some weirdo evangelicals tried to prostiyze to us and I was trying to comfort them after the fact and we ended up laughing at the whole concept.

We had a pretty cool music teacher we both liked allot in our small private K-8 cause liked all the DC Marvel stuff like we did (and in their case I think they knew more about like actual music stuff too lol)

I know this is a long shot I don’t even know if they’re ON tumblr but I’m gonna tag a bunch of relevant terms and see if they’re out there. If you’re NOT this person please reblog and boost this and increase the chances of them finding it…and if you ARE this person idk if you Remeber me but I’m Alex we went to High Point together, you probably changed allot from what I vaugely heard at the end and well I have too perhaps in similar ways I’d love to reconnect with you and catch up and see we’re where both at now. You were a pretty cool friend and I genuinely hope you’re thriving now I know you’ve had allot of difficulties over the years and I genuinely wish the best for you….

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rikusoma · 2 years

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It's really weird how most of the time people accuse bkdks of only reading with biased shipping lenses when their way of reading the story is... To literally ignore everything of relevant and theorize cliches.

Honestly i get why so many shonen wannabe cool nerds hate and think mha is bad, it's core isn't a bunch of power battles thrown around with some few nice messages, it's very character and emotion driven. Sympathy, understanding, forgiveness and companionship are pretty common themes.

I understand why so many dudebro Deku stans loved his vigilante arc so much, because he fitted the main character stereotype they wanted to see for a while, even if Deku was destroying himself and pulling away from people he loves, putting him in even more danger. Because isolating self reliance is great, right?

Seriously! It’s not our fault that the literal author is literally putting their relationship front and center to the story. If you take that away, the whole story falls apart, both narratively and emotionally. We aren’t digging for this stuff, it’s being shoved in our faces (affectionate).

I could go on a huge rant about how the shonen genre is rife with toxic masculinity, and because insecure people flock to these male power fantasies, it makes money and continues on as usual. My Hero Academia break this mold in so many ways, while still staying in a familiar enough shape to be accessible to those who want to latch on to the power fantasy, but are open to more emotion driven stories (or those who are convinced that it’s going to get darker and grittier and stay darker and grittier, and that them trying to relate to an underdog “chosen one” wasn’t a waste and that they’re feelings of being the loner because Life Is So Hard and they want people to chase them and make them feel pursued and wanted, are justified and good.

With mha, what they’re getting instead is the message that being a machismo jerk, doing things on your own, and pushing people away, are not good ways of fostering connections with people. They’re being told that being vulnerable, dropping your pride, and allowing others to help you are how you progress in life. But you can’t be the cool and broody guy if you do that, you open yourself up to being hurt if you do that, you have to put effort into understanding others and realizing you’re not The Main Character if you do that.

What’s worse for these poor dudebros is that the vigilante arc gave them hope that they were about to be vindicated, but the message that had been subtly pushed towards them since chapter 1 was now slapping them directly in the face. And the salt in the wound was that the character sent to comfort the MC wasn’t the motherly, pretty girl who would typically be the waifu endgame these dudebros could day dream about dating. It was the angry, gruff, abrasive jerk that a lot of the dudebros would typically latch onto, and he was being soft and vulnerable. Not to mention as things go on, it’s becoming more and more apparent that this dudebro character is ALSO the love interest. Both the characters these dudebros WANT to relate to are about to be confirmed as something a lot of these dudebros would consider to be the worst insult they could be given: gay (as an umbrella term, I have no doubt deku is bi, bakugou is deku-romantic) MHA is on track to change the future of shonen as we know it, and the genre will only be better for it.

#mha #bnha #my hero academia #boku no hero #bkdk #bakudeku #dudebros #i ended up going on a rant anyway... sigh #got lost in the sauce

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avengerchuck · 1 year

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I enjoy watching CEC videos, but I noticed that some CEC fans tend to bully others who don't like 2.0 [I've never seen the other way around, but I wouldn't doubt it happens.] I wish people could respect that not everyone likes 2.0 [as well as not everyone hates 2.0, though I still dislike 2.0].

This ask perplexes me because from what I’ve seen it’s the VAST majority of animatronic fans who hate 2.0s. Hell, IMO we should really be using the cec-sanctioned merger umbrella term (Showbiz Pizza Time) for clarity, but me even jumping to use “animatronic fans” as an identifier for this entire community is telling. I don’t know how long you’ve been around, but as recent as 2018/2019 #saveourshows was a HUGE thing and there were a bunch of kids making sad 2.0 content in the same vain as 2014 when the spooky bear game kids fell in love with the rock-afire and discovered concept unification and hated cec as a result. The people who are only into cec because they think bots are cool are obviously pressed. I know some people who work for cec and are indifferent, I suppose. I sincerely doubt you’re /lying/, I know how rampant needless bullying is in this community and I believe you wholeheartedly, but like…how did you even stumble into aggressive pro-2.0 territory? Saying this as someone who enjoys my local 2.0 (absolutely not to the level where I’d bully someone for disagreeing, but still): even for me, being fond of the remodel is a really new concept for most people. I was starkly against it when I made this tumblr blog. I guess what this whole elaborate ramble boils down to… it makes me kind of disappointed to see that people are already bullying other people over an opinion that’s THIS new and JUST starting to spread.

#asks

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weirdmageddon · 3 years

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my rheumatologist has done more for me towards getting a POTS diagnosis than my cardiologist thats kinda sad bro

i came in to the cardiologist the other day (finally after waiting MONTHS) hoping for a tilt table test to see how my heart rate and blood pressure react to orthostasis in a controlled setting. the doctor didnt actually do a thing to test me for it in-office, i was just told to schedule an echo (which is fine), holster (alright) and stress test (why). but i was also prescribed eastern medicine as a treatment....“superbrain yoga”? like i dont want to seem closeminded because she is an indian doctor and there are some things that western medicine hasn’t caught on to but i realy wish i was told why it is supposed to work. like i want to know physiologically how and why it supposedly works. get technical and mechanical with me bro i have le autism, thats my language if you wanna really convince me. if it’s about toning up the muscles in my legs to squeeze the blood into my core upon standing why dont i just do squats? why do i have to do all this really specific stuff like hold my tongue at the roof of my mouth and face east, crossing my arms (right arm must go over left) and maneuver my hands in a certain way to grab my earlobes while doing those squats? is that merely a concentration sort of thing to make your brain focus? if so, why not just let me know what the purpose to these specific movements are (and what does focusing my brain have to do with treating POTS symptoms anyway)?? i’m not a spiritual person so the spiritual aspects of it do nothing for me. but at least i wasn’t given intensive aerobic exercise because i cant do that lol. i was just prescribed core strength training with planks and crunches (fine with me) and “superbrain yoga” (the specifics still confuse me but i’m doing it anyway)

but i didnt even get a tilt table test while i was there, i asked about it and she said “we stopped doing tilt table tests a while ago” and i was like ????????? thats like the gold standard to test for POTS my guy. based on just my symptoms she said i had dysautonomia and i asked “what about POTS?” and she said “it could be” and i was like ? could be? bro you didnt even test for it?

the whole visit just felt really vague and dismissive to my issues (yet again). fucking even my rheumatologist said before this visit to the cardiologist that i “probably have POTS”

so when i left the cardiologist the other day i wrote this up because i was very upset, felt dismissed, and took matters into my own hands to show what kind of medical concepts i’m capable of comprehending and the kind of language i want doctors to talk to me about my conditions in. and today i read it to my rheumatologist during today’s appointment:

the cardiologist says i have dysautonomia, “caused by dysfunction of the small blood vessels”. in the clinic, the nurse measured my laying vs standing blood pressure (which increased rather than decreased) but they didn’t do my heart rate there for some reason. but on my own i’ve measured my heart rate to jump above 30 bpm within 10 minutes of standing, so with all the symptoms lining up exactly with what’s expected of POTS (heart rate increase greater than 30 bpm within 10 minutes of standing, no drop in blood pressure, lightheadedness, brain fog, palpitations, prolonged fatigue, heat intolerance, excessive sweating etc), i’m convinced that the type of dysautonomia i specifically have is POTS, not just the umbrella term “dysautonomia”, and the specific brand of POTS i have is the neuropathic POTS subtype which is thought to be caused by sympathetic denervation (partial autonomic neuropathy) in the lower extremities. this causes the blood vessels in my legs not to constrict as they should when standing, which in turn causes blood to pool in the legs and not return to the heart, causing the heart to have to source its blood supply from elsewhere in the meantime to compensate (with an overall lower venous return), driving up the heart rate and causing lightheadedness. my blood tests also showed i am also very slightly anemic by 0.1 point below the normal range (11.6 g/dL) the resulting denervation hypersensitivity from the sympathetic denervation what is thought to cause erythromelalgia—which i express all the hallmark symptoms of as well in my feet (redness, increased skin temperature, burning sensation (feels like walking on a hot pool deck), cold to touch and bluish purple when not actively flaring, flaring occurs at night, symptoms worsen with exposure to heat and exercise (including walking on feet while flaring) and are relieved with cooling and elevation). i have no response to the cold unlike with what is seen in raynauds. i actually consider cold exposure my savior; the heat is my worst enemy, it makes me feel faint and lightheaded dysautonomia-wise and it makes my feet flare up rheumatologically.

“Several previous investigations have provided clues that patients with the postural tachycardia syndrome have peripheral autonomic dysfunction. Streeten et al. found that patients with orthostatic tachycardia had excessive venous pooling in the legs while standing and suggested that denervation of the legs was a mechanism of the syndrome. This hypothesis was supported by the finding of hypersensitivity to infusion of norepinephrine into the veins of the foot, despite high plasma catecholamine concentrations. [...] These stimuli increased norepinephrine spillover in the arms of both the patients with the postural tachycardia syndrome and the normal subjects, with similar increases in the two groups, but failed to increase norepinephrine spillover in the legs of the patients. [...] The reduced clearance of norepinephrine in the legs, without a similar reduction in the arms, may result from impairment of norepinephrine-reuptake mechanisms due to isolated damage to nerve terminals in the legs. [...] CONCLUSIONS: The neuropathic postural tachycardia syndrome results from partial sympathetic denervation, especially in the legs.” — (https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM200010053431404)

“The laser Doppler flowmetry signal after sympathetic stimulation of reflexes mediated through the central nervous system, was significantly diminished in patients with erythromelalgia as compared with healthy controls. [...] Vasoconstrictor responses involving central sympathetic reflexes were attenuated in erythromelalgia. Local neurogenic vasoconstrictor regulation, vasodilator response to local heating and hyperemic response to ischemia were maintained. [...] The finding of reduced skin perfusion before provocation is in accordance with the clinical observations that many erythromelalgia patients exhibit cold acral skin between attacks. [...] These results indicate that postganglionic sympathetic dysfunction and denervation hypersensitivity may play a pathogenetic role in primary erythromelalgia.” — (https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0022-202X(15)41629-X)

“Denervation hypersensitivity is a phenomenon peculiar to smooth muscle innervated by the general visceral efferent system. Following denervation there is increased sensitivity of the muscle to neurotransmitters. This is evident in smooth muscle innervated by sympathetic neurons when the postganglionic axon is affected. Such denervated muscle shows hypersensitivity to the application of epinephrine or to circulating epinephrine released during excitement.” — (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780721605616500198)

although my rheumatologist is in no position to give me a POTS diagnosis she very much agreed with the connections i made and said she thinks i am right on the mark with my conditions. she told me im a real academic patient and even that i’d be well suited for going into medicine lol. not only is it refreshing to have a doctor that doesn’t disregard their patient’s knowledge, but it’s good to see what i’ve learned about nerves from my biopsych classes (and in my own time for funsies) paying off in ways concerning my health. my mom who is a nurse also agrees that neuropathic POTS and erythromelalgia are what i have.

anyway the POTS symptoms have been a massive thing for me since puberty and the erythromelalgia developed a year or so after my POTS symptoms started. but i’ve always had freezing cold clammy hands and feet since i was a young child, they just hadn’t started changing colors and flaring until after i hit puberty. i’m not sure what destroyed the sympathetic nerve fibers in my legs (as most POTS happens in teenagers due to some viral illness but i’ve never had that?), i was also just tested for a bunch of autoimmune factors and disorders and my results came back negative. maybe it’s just a genetic factor, who knows, probably something caused by a hormone’s cascading effect gone awry at some point. it seems a lot of autistic afab people have POTS or some other type of dysautonomia for some reason and i’m curious as to why.

anyway i’m really stuck in a liminal space because i have no official diagnosis beyond “dysautonomia” but i’ve been sure of what it is for like over a year and it keeps getting clearer and clearer that i was right all along

#pots #dysautonomia #erythromelalgia #chronic illness

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leona-florianova · 3 years

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Can I get a rundown of the Locked Tomb Trilogy? I know I could read a summary on Google, but like, wanna hear it from someone corporeal

*googles the definition of "corporeal"* aw shoot and this is the thing i strive against...

Yeah anyway... so far I have only read Gideon the ninth and Harrow the ninth and there might be more but im not sure whats going on cause im not entirely invested in the fandom and whenever anything new from the series conveniently appears for free i will read it.

I dunno how to summarize the series without too many spoilers + im incredibly bad at puting thoughts together..

so im just gonna say that...first and second book are VERY DIFFERENT...and there is no point in summarizing the second one really if you havent read the first...

Gideon the Ninth is about a butch sword wielding lesbian jock (Gideon), who lived her whole life cloistered on a horrible death cultist space station on some terribly moribund planet (that might or might not be ex Pluto) and would like to leave... The only other teenager on the whole planet is a 17 year old nun necromancer supreme (the reverend daughter Harrowhark) And they hate each other with passion so very very much...for REASONS.

One day Harrowhark is asked to participate in some event that might result in saving the planet from its total moribundnes moribundussness...

N its required of her to bring a bodyguard, but because stuff happened with her original bodyguard, she has to do with Gideon, who lacks any manners whatsoever.

Anyway... the event is a fun treasure hunt inside an abandoned floating city... with murder mystery peppered in for extra tension

There is like 15 or how many other participants... Both necromancers and their bodyguards from... 7? other planets.. i cant count.. just bunch of people... And nobody really knows whats the point of the whole event, but there is definitelly something fucked up going on....

.....

...

Oh yeah and there is some wlw stuff.. which is cool but cause i rarely pay attention to relationshippy stuff I was more interested in the whole clusterfuck of fantasy/scifi laws and worlbuilding this series has going on...

in this universe:

- Necromancer is an umbrella term for person able to shape either body or soul... With no regard to laws of physiscs as we know it.

- The more sickly n moribund the necromancer is the stronger they are... or if more death n decay happended around them... So I imagine they all look kinda sh*t.

- One thing that took some getting used to while reading was the... use of recent expressions used in memes... Which is initially weird considering the scifi setting.. but hey... we also sometimes use whole sentences from classical literature, right? :y

- I dunno whats the general idea of how the characters n settings look cause I havent really looked at the cover art nor looked much at other fanart..

But I like to imagine its all very... both baroque and goth(ic) n still very sci-fi/fantasy... combination of the aesthetics of Darksouls and Event Horizon... art of Juan Giménez, H. R. Giger and Jan Blažej Santini (the author of the ossuary in Sedlec..)..and bunch of others

wow this is quite long...

anyway its interesting read

#also highly recommend if you like characters that are just..the worst #gideon the ninth #the locked tomb #thoughts #text post #long post #damn i cant think #like at all #my head is stuffed cuz im ill zzzz #their space ships work on power of death and shitty electronics just think about that...thats metal af #spoiler alert the treasure is the relationship with bodyguards the necromancers made along the way

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askmerriauthor · 3 years

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Star Wars: Visions thoughts and discussion

Been on a bit of a Star Wars binge lately. Getting ready for the Book of Fett and the return of The Mandalorian soon, just finished playing the Jedi: Fallen Order game, and recently "Star Wars: Visions" dropped on Disney+ (not to be confused with the, like, half-dozen other Star Wars properties that use "Visions" as their title). If you've got the streaming service and haven't watched the series yet, I can honestly suggest you should do so. The whole thing is a series of very short episodes and is entirely non-canon to the setting, so you don't even need a hard understanding of Star Wars to enjoy it.

In fact, it's actually better if you don't know anything about Star Wars going in. Spoilers and brief episode discussion after the jump.

Episode 1: The Duel As soon as I saw a lightsaber umbrella and a R2 droid in a hat, I knew this one was going to be a must-watch.

I REPEAT. LIGHTSABER. UMBRELLA.

Solid kick-off for the short series. Dig the aesthetic, dig the classic samurai vibe (even if it's more of an homage than a direct application of the style), dig the simple story. The particular animation style they chose here was a little wonky but I quickly got used to the visuals and loved a bunch of the design choices too much to care. This one was very action/style-focused and clearly chosen as the leading episode for that reason, which I don't fault them at all for.

Episode 2: Tatooine Rhapsody I'm sorry, I don't recall giving Star Wars permission to be this fucking adorable, how dare you.

The tale of a Padawan survivor of Order 66 who makes a new life for himself not with the power of the Force, but with the power of Rock and Roll and Friendship. Bitchin'. Super adorable, semi-chibi art style that's honestly ringing, like, a dozen different bells in my head for trying to figure out all the different styles it's drawing from. Good fun, if a bit bland in the end. The biggest problem is the music. The story relies on "using music to save the day", which is fine. But when you use that trope you need an absolutely face-melting banger of a performance, which this just doesn't have. An enjoyable entry all the same though. Not bad, not great, cute designs; the quirky story of how Jabba the Hutt got a new slave band to play at his den.

Episode 3: The Twins This entire episode is animated by the team who brought us Kill la Kill and that should really tell you everything you need to know.

You know how if you get a bunch of little kids together, they'll start playing make-believe games where they just invent stories and plot twists and super powers like "I have whatever you can do, but infinity plus 1 better!" shit like that? That's what this short is. It has only the vaguest allusions to the setting proper and immediately hurls every semblance of consistency, logic, and sense out the window with both hands. It is 1,000,000% style over substance.

Okay, y'know what, no, that's not enough to describe the utter insanity this episode is. All I can find online is pictures of the main villain character pulling a General Grievous impression or the protag snaring lightsaber whips on his lightsaber, but that is fucking tiddlywinks compared to where this episode goes.

There is a scene in this short where the protag, who is ghost-riding the hood of his X-Wing upside down in space without a space suit, super-charges his lightsaber into a giant rainbow of FUCK YOU GEORGE LUCAS with the power of familial love and fabulousness, using said rainbow super saber to CUT AN ENTIRE STAR DESTROYER IN HALF WHILE ACCELERATING TO HYPERSPEED, all to save his twin sister's life by making her explode in a somehow non-harmful manner.

This short is utterly nonsensical drivel and yes I would like more right the fuck now, please and thank you.

Episode 4: The Village Bride Wait, we're actually trying to tell a reasonable story in this series? Sorry, I was still on a sugar high from the previous episode. Lemme sit down.

The Village Bride is great. Excellent short that's just dripping with atmosphere and a slow, purposeful pace to its writing. It's short and sweet with little focus on the Force-using characters themselves, which actually serves to its credit. Even in the Star Wars universe, the Ainu people can't catch a fucking break. Easily one of my favorites in the whole run.

Episode 5: The Ninth Jedi The fact that two characters in this short have Sasuke's haircut was extremely distracting. But I actually really enjoyed this entry overall.

Despite playing extremely loose with the established lore around how lightsabers work, this episode over all others really embraces the original setting and tells a slow-burn story about the potential revival of the Jedi Order. A little meandering at times, but it's a solid piece and well worth exploring. Of all the shorts in the series, this one has the greatest potential to actually continue on as a standalone series or be folded into the canon franchise. Main protag is an adorable bean and I love her.

Episode 6: T0-B1 This episode is simultaneously a love letter to Astro Boy and a giant middle finger to Star Wars lore purists.

The tale of an imaginative Droid named T0-B1 who dreams of becoming a hero like the Jedi he's heard so many stories of. This short gets extra credit for being so unyieldingly stylish and charming. On the surface of its presentation and story choices it seems like it doesn't know anything about Star Wars lore, but it's actually packed full of some pretty deep cuts that show the folk behind it do know what they're talking about and just don't fucking care what purists have to say. The entire thing is just "Yeah, I'm ignoring your lore, but I'm doing it in a fun way that makes the setting more interesting, and I'm so genuine about it that you can't be mad at me". I can respect that. Plus the old dude in that screenshot is an armless Jedi who's retired to be a botanist and that's just fucking cool.

Episode 7: The Elder I'm Episode 1, but better.

This one. This shit right here. This is the good shit.

I'm sure y'all have heard before that Star Wars is directly inspired by Kurosawa and samurai films in general, but The Elder really digs into that hard. Where Episode 1 styles itself after a samurai tale, Episode 7 is a samurai tale. Subdued, methodical storytelling, slow-burn pace, charming dialogue amid believable characters, and a truly intimidating villain who provokes a brief but striking duel. This is my vibe. I crave more of this. Far and away the best short of the entire series.

Episode 8: Lop and Ocho Oh for fuck's sake, there's going to be so much porn of this bunny girl character, isn't there?

This entry is another that kind of meanders with the story it's trying to tell and plays very loose with the lore. It reimagines a lot of what we know of the Jedi/The Rebels and Sith/The Empire into a feudal faction-based conflict akin to what you'd see in a period samurai drama. Modernization and callous industry crushing the spirit of the people and breaking apart families. A decent work overall, but nothing really all that impressive in the end. It takes too long to get going and then peters out halfway through its pay-off for some reason.

Episode 9: Akakiri The fact that I had to look up this episode's name and scenes online and still could not remember anything about it should tell you a lot.

The series ends on a downer with the dramatic tale of a fallen Jedi who sacrifices himself and succumbs to the Dark Side. Turning evil for... the greater good? Wha? Had some pretty neat visuals, but I genuinely cannot remember a damn thing about this episode or its characters. Big swing and a miss in terms of impact.

#star wars #star wars visions #sw visions #animation #anime #spoilers

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itsthenovelteafactor · 3 years

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Vanya and the Phantom

I asked and y’all answered (special thanks to @schizoidwire and @the-aro-ace-arrow-ace and all the people who responded to my earlier post for encouraging me!), so it is time for how The Phantom of the Opera song introduction can be read as a look into Vanya’s self-narrative and also foreshadows future events in a really subtle and interesting way.

I’m channeling my inner Elliot and going into full conspiracy mode. This is gonna be a long one, y’all.

Part One: In Which I Expose Myself as a Former Theater Kid

So, for those who aren’t familiar with The Phantom of the Opera, it was originally a novel by French writer Gaston Leroux back in 1909. In 1986, Andrew Lloyd Webber rewrote it as a musical. For purposes of my analysis here, I am just going to be discussing the musical because 1) the score used in the opening scene is from it and 2) I’ve never read the book. (If anyone out there has read the book and wants to weigh in, please do!)

It’s a very aesthetic show, and draws on a lot of gothic themes and imagery. The plot follows an opera house, and specifically a young chorus girl named Christine Daaé. I’m not going to explain the whole show plot in detail because wikipedia exists, but I will do a quick overview here and point out some things as they relate to things I’ll be discussing later. Also there will be a test after and it will NOT be multiple choice.

The show begins when the opera house is sold to new owners who 1) just want to make money and 2) do not respect the opera house’s resident ghost (who isn’t really a ghost, but we’ll get to that later.) When the Phantom makes his presence known, and freaks out the resident prima donna singer (who will be relevant later) Carlotta, who says she won’t sing under these conditions. It is then that Christine appears. She’s quiet and humble and has always lived in the background, but is incredibly talented. The woman who runs the chorus (also owner of the opera house’s resident braincell) suggests Christine sing the part. She does, and is amazing. Everyone is blown away, and she’s catapulted into instant fame and success.

We later learn that Christine has been studying under the Phantom, who appears to her in mirrors. She calls him the Angel of Music, and thinks that he was sent to teach her by her recently deceased father. He isn’t. He’s actually pretty malicious, and is obsessed with Christine, wants to control her voice, and doesn’t like her dating anyone. Which is a bit awkward when her childhood friend shows up and promptly falls in love with her.

Anyways, Carlotta is jealous of the attention Christine has been getting and threatens to leave prompting the new owners to cut Christine from the program. The Phantom doesn’t like it at all, sends a bunch of letters, things escalate, people are murdered, and the whole first act ends with the chandelier falling from the ceiling and crashing onto the stage (which is done with really cool effects, oftentimes beginning the show hanging over the audience. It’s a BIG MOMENT and one of the most iconic ones from the show. This will also be relevant later.)

Act two takes place a few months later, wherein no one has seen the Phantom. Shock of all shocks, though, he’s not dead. He’s been writing an opera and he wants Christine to star in it. More stuff happens, you learn the backstory of the Phantom (which is pretty sad, ngl, but in no way makes him less of a creep) and the story ends with the Phantom kidnapping Christine and giving her an ultimatum: stay with him forever, or he kills Raoul (aka childhood friend/romantic interest guy). She agrees to stay with him and he’s so moved by her compassion that he lets them both go and disappears forever.

Part Two: Casting the Characters

That’s interesting, Rosie (note sarcasm) but you said this was about The Umbrella Academy? I did, in fact. So, we meet Vanya when she’s playing a medley of songs from The Phantom of the Opera. Since it’s primarily the melodies and not one of the orchestral pieces from her performance later (I don’t think), we can assume she’s just playing it for herself (which is nice! good on you, Vanya).

Maybe she’s never seen the play and just likes the score, but for purposes here, let’s assume she’s familiar with it.

You can tell a lot about a person by the stories they connect with (for example, I like TUA because I like fun sibling dynamics, found family, music, and being sad). And I think that it makes sense that The Phantom of the Opera would be a story that resonates with Vanya. The overlooked chorus girl finds power in music, and, after years in the background, is finally given a chance to show how special she is.

So, yeah. I don’t think it’s outside the realm of possibility that Vanya sees herself as Christine. There are some discrepancies, sure, but this is Vanya’s self-narrative, which we learn pretty much immediately is unreliable. (Love her, but it’s true.) And if Vanya is Christine, then we can try and tap into her perspective to look at some other characters.

Anyways remember Carlotta (the prima donna opera singer who always got the spotlight and tried to destroy everything good that happened to Christine because she felt threatened that someone might be as good/better than her whose entire personality and role in the story I just summarized, rendering my plot recap useless)? Carlotta is how Vanya views Allison. (Kind of all her siblings, but her relationship with Allison is the most important here.)

Think about the scene in the cabin?

“You couldn’t risk me threatening your place in the house! You couldn’t handle the fact that Dad might find me special!” - Vanya, having a mental breakdown.

This always struck me as an interesting accusation to throw, since prior to this moment, I don’t think there was any indication that Allison had ever felt threatened by Vanya. She excluded her, sure, and wasn’t super friendly at times, but the idea that Allison has been pulling strings to keep Vanya out of her spotlight is new. But that is exactly the role Carlotta plays in Phantom.

Fun fact! At one point in the musical, the Phantom enchants Carlotta so that she loses her voice right before coming on stage.

Part Three: The Phantom of the Opera is there

So based on everything I’ve said so far, the most straightforward reading is then, that Leonard Peabody/Harold Jenkins (who for purposes here I’ll call Leonard) is the stand in for the Phantom, which works... really well. Both in helping to understand Vanya and also because it foreshadows the twist of season one in a really cool way.

So, the Phantom appears to Christine first not as an enemy, but as a friend and teacher, who encourages her to be more confident in her abilities. He trains her to develop her singing ability. While the teacher-student dynamic is actually inverted initially with Vanya and Leonard, from the get go, he is showering her with compliments, encouraging her to be confident in her abilities, and, at least on the surface, supporting her in a way she hasn’t been supported before (he’s a trash human but an expert manipulator).

But, in the play, the Phantom is also very possessive over Christine and her power (er, I mean voice). He also is perfectly willing to kill and/or hurt people who he views as standing in the way of Christine and her success (see the aforementioned Carlotta incident). Which is exactly what Leonard does to Vanya. He kills the first chair violinist to help her get it, and orchestrates a whole master plan to get her to reveal her powers on his terms.

Even the part where he starts “training” her to use her powers kind of resembles the second act of the play. The Phantom wrote a play for Christine and she’s going to star in it, whether she wants to or not.

(One could even make the argument of the parallels between Christine believing the Phantom was sent by her father to teach her and Leonard showing up because of his revenge scheme against Vanya’s father, but I honestly don’t have much support for that.)

Part Three: Two Conflicting Narratives

So, as you might’ve noticed, I sort of have two different threads of analysis going on right now. 1) The Phantom of the Opera parallel is part of Vanya’s self-narrative and in it she mischaracterizes Allison, making her more suspicious of her motivations and 2) Leonard Peabody is clearly the Phantom and doesn’t bother being subtle about it. I hope that I’ve been convincing (or at least intriguing) for you to get to this point, because here is where they come together.

Vanya has this parallel going, but she doesn’t see Leonard as the Phantom. In the beginning at least, he’s her Raoul. If I had to guess, I’d say Reginald Hargreeves is the Phantom in Vanya’s self-narrative (says he’ll train her but wants to manipulate her and keep her locked away for himself, strict teacher who doesn’t really care about her well being, wearing a mask to appear more normal/human... she wouldn’t exactly be wrong). Leonard, on the other hand, is Vanya’s supporter. He validates her, and believes in her, and taker her side when Carlotta and the opera house owners (er, the rest of the Hargreeves children) gang up on her and conspire to keep her out.

This is all building to, of course, the final confrontation. The Phantom says Christine has to pick one or the other. When Allison comes to talk to Vanya, Vanya feels as if she’s been given an ultimatum and lashes out.

And that’s where everything (including this parallel) starts to crumble.

(I honestly don’t know a lot about the other characters and how they fit in. I suppose we could have Five = Raoul if we ignore romance plot and focus on the childhood friend that hasn’t been seen in a while angle? And maybe also Pogo = Madame Giry. Vanya doesn’t really have any friends to be Meg.)

Part Four: It’s All About the Moon

So that is kind of the gist of The Phantom of the Opera as a window into Vanya’s self-narrative theory, but there are a couple of other loosely related ideas I thought I might as well bring up since this thing is already ridiculously long.

Remember how I mentioned the chandelier is like, THE scene from The Phantom of the Opera back in part one, and said it’d be relevant later? Bringing that back now, because I’m going to pull a Luther and connect everything to the moon.

So, to get the obvious out of the way, the moon exploding and the chandelier coming crashing to the stage are similar because something falls, breaks into a bunch of pieces, destroys a bunch of stuff, and creates a powerful and memorable image to close off before an act/season break (the next installment of which begins with a time jump).

Additionally, it’s worth mentioning that The Phantom of the Opera is told out of order. The opening scene shows a grown up Raoul at an auction for the items left behind after the opera house closes, and it switches to the past as the remains of the chandelier rise upwards to the ceiling, Phantom’s theme swelling (it’s a really cool moment, tbh). Following the prologue of The Umbrella Academy, we switch to the present with two images: Vanya alone on the stage, and then Luther alone on the moon. Which has a kind of symmetry that might mean nothing, but is still kind of cool.

(Also the item that Raoul buys from the auction is a music box with a monkey crashing symbols on top of it. Which might mean nothing.)

Part Five: How is she STILL talking about this? (AKA Conclusion)

To be honest, this is more a very tangled “things I noticed and thought were interesting” discussion than a formal essay with any clear thesis. While there is a chance that this was all coincidental and I’ve gone full Pepe Sylvia, the music selection in The Umbrella Academy is one of the things that they seem to be really deliberate about.

I would love to chat with anyone about this theory, so feel free to reach out in the notes or message me! My inbox is always open. Much love, and thank you for reading, if you got this far! ❤️

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plush-anon · 3 years

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You worked at joanns? 😍 dream job

In all fairness, a large part (and I do mean a LARGE part) of why I enjoyed working at Joanns were the managers.

The store manager was a guy named Richard, one of maybe two or three men who worked there total, and this man was practically a saint as far as retail goes.

This was a man who would, with no hesitation, get on the floor to help customers, or hop on the registers to check customers' purchases out, or pop on to the cutting counter to cut fabric. He remembered the names of regulars, would chat and smile while getting shit done, and was the type of guy to speak slowly and softly when we had shitstains explode at us measly peons for not giving them the full cost of an item back in a return (ex $200) when they used a coupon to purchase an item to begin with and only paid a portion of the cost (ex. $150). No joke, this actually happened to me on Black Friday with a man who stood at about 6 foot with a crewcut and a snarl (the military Karen, if you would)

Richard, of course, stood at about 6 foot 5 inches, and reminded me of a ginger grizzly bear in some ways. Very few customers continued to be assholes when they asked to speak to the manager and Richard came over, smiling wide. He encouraged us to chat with the customers while we worked the cutting counter - it was a good way to learn about what they were making, encouraged general conversation and lent itself to a better environment for everyone, worker and customer alike, so we weren't just awkwardly standing in silence the whole time.

The assistant store manager (aka his second in command - we had two other assistant managers, but she wielded more power than both of them) was Farrah, and she was basically Cool Wine Aunt, but with weed. She was open about smoking it (but not in a pressure-the-underlings kind of way, but more of a 'yeah, it calms me down' kind of way) but never on the clock, and was just really chill in general. She was also a 'jump on the registers' type of manager, and on occasion would take the closing staff out to get a drink from the texmex place next to us in the shopping center, and cover one for each of us - particularly during the Holiday Clusterfuck of October, November, and December (their Frozen Kahlua Mudlslide was my alcoholic drink of choice - they also had these spicy chicken strips that were amazing with it, but I digress).

Both of them were amazing people who would support and back us up without hesitation (if they weren't dealing with corporate or stock trucks coming in), and both routinely worked 15 to 20 hours UNPAID overtime during the Holiday Clusterfuck so that we the underlings could get more hours without Corporate jumping up our ass about going over budget.

They were also refreshingly upfront in our monthly meetings about profits and meeting them, as well as why company policy was the way it was, and how to work within the boundaries so we got more hours. One of my favorite moments was when they said the fabric sales essentially covered their own cost (production and delivery); the rest of the cheap crap in the store was what covered our paycheck and electricity, so hawk it as much as you can if you want extra in the bank (paraphrasing here, but that's not that far off what they actually said tbh).

With some Karen-y exceptions, the customers were honestly pretty chill. There were two women from a nearby church who bought well over 200 yards of cut fleece to make no-sew fleece blankets for children and the poor in December (it took forever to do, but they were so cheerful about it and told some funny anecdotes in between, kept the counter clear as soon as they were cut, etc. Took them three carts to haul everything to the register XD).

There was the slew of quilters making everything from baby blankets to anniversary gifts to quilts for their grandkids attending the local university that they could wear to football games in the colder weather, while still showing team pride. They always bought quarters and eighths and the end of the bolt for half price, digging thru our remnants bin for something they might have missed they could get for half price. They always talked about what they were working on, and spoke in great detail on their kids or cousins or niblings or grandkids. I saw so many pictures on phones, in wallets, and they loved them to absolute pieces.

There were cosplayers making their first costume to comicon, halloween goers trying their hand at making their own outfits, and a few furries making custom suits for order or just updating their own personal outfit. There were the usual school and church Christmas plays that needed costumes, and folks making custom table runners and place settings for family holiday meals.

One notable young man bought out 30+ yards of our 65" inch wide bolt felt for JEWELRY projects he was making as a part of his business and as a part of his art program (you can major in art with a concentration in jewelry making, and he was using it for that). He didn't leave a card, but the pictures he showed us were STUNNING.

We had a few elderly mothers come in with their daughters, to pick out fabrics so they could make their own wedding dresses, or quinceanera outfits, or veils; they showed us the patterns they had, or the pictures they were basing the designs off of, and all of them were STUNNING. (One came back in with the finished dress in the bag, this intricately beaded poofy dress that had to have taken days, hot pink and shiny).

We had local restaurant owners pop in for re-upholstery projects and curtains and vinyl; same with teachers and deck dads and furniture restoration workers that would gush about the design, what they had planned. Some would bicker with their spouses on the pattern, but it felt good-natured on the whole.

We had some elderly men come in to peer over our sewing machines - "How much it run for? My wife's birthday is coming up and her old machine's about done, and I want to surprise her. She had a Singer, but she hates the electronic screens on some of these newer ones, they hurt her eyes." - and moms coming in to sew some custom bed sheets for their kids - "My son really likes the new My Little Pony show, but he's a little shy about it. Do you think the blue's okay? Only he like yellow more, but they don't have any back there and he doesn't MIND blue really but - Actually scratch that, how wide is the fabric? My pattern says it needs to be at LEAST 22 inches wide, does it say on the box?" - and people coming up with some WILD craft ideas that were always a delight to hear them gush about - "So this MAY seem crazy, but I can turn these plastic pumpkin trick-or-treat pails into SNOWMEN heads with felt like this. We fill them with treats for the kids since we don't have a fireplace and they like it fine, but someone said I should sell these on Etsy and people really like them! But I've run out of pumpkins, and you have NO idea how happy I am that you guys still have some left."

The group we had to work with was also pretty crafty; a few were chronic call-outs, some a bit lazy, some perpetually done-with-this-nonsense, but we were mostly on the same page on shift, and all of us were crafty as heck. The employee discount was a blessing AND a curse, lemme tell you.

Stock was the best part, for me. Hours before the store opened at 9 AM, we would rip open the boxes and stuff everything onto the shelves, organizing anything the closing shift missed the night before along the way, updating new stickers or shuffling pegs over for new product arrangement, etc. We could listen to music or podcasts as we worked, and I ended up impressing some of them bc of how fast I tore through everything some mornings (the music definitely helped out there).

I was actually about to be promoted to assistant manager after 6 months, but then I got my job with the university, and they had federal health benefits AND dental, so... yeah, no contest there. Richard actually laughed when I told him I'd been hired at the university and was giving my two week notice, since it meant he didn't have to do the slew of paperwork that accompanied new assistant manager hires. He congratulated me on the job, especially the health benefits - he said that was a perk worth leaving any job here for. I nearly cried with relief that he wasn't mad.

He and Farrah chipped in and got me a small music box that plays Man of La Mancha's Dream the Impossible Dream on my last day. It still sits on my desk at work.

It was honestly my favorite retail job out of the bunch I've suffered through. Surprising at first, since I initially received a rejection email bare HOURS after my interview with Farrah, but about a month later (as I trawled endlessly through interview after interview, desperate for anything those first few months ), I got a call back from them asking if I was still interested (which I was, bc hey a job!). They remembered me specifically bc I had missed my bus to the interview, called ahead to let them know I would be late, then walked the whole way there in the rain to get there. (It was only about a mile and a half away, so not a terrible journey, but flooding is an issue in our flat-ass city; I looked like a drenched afghan hound holding a useless umbrella, so enjoy that imagery).

They were particularly impressed by the calling-ahead part.

Unfortunately, both of them ended up moving on to different paths over the year after I left - apparently they had been friends with benefits (? I say hesitantly, since I ran into one of my coworkers at an art show later on and she spilled the beans there - she was a bit flighty in nature though, and got caught up in gossip a LOT, so who knows. Lovely brocade custom projects though), and his ex girlfriend had called corporate on them and got both fired.

I think Farrah came back some time later, but the damage was done after that - the new manager came in and operated SOLELY to corporate policy. A LOT went to pieces in terms of store cleanliness, order, and general camaraderie after that - the new fabric counter folks look and sound dead inside, and barely interact with customers (not even a 'whatcha making' in passing, which is kind of sad - the stories I got helped to pass the time, and kept me from using up all of my Set Conversation Phrases for customers that actually WOULD leave us standing in silence). Corporate also stopped some of the smaller store policies that made our job easier and gave the customers a little something extra (the 'end-of-the-bolt' discount - if, after the customer orders say, 2 yards of fabric on the bolt, and there's say, a half yard "remnant" left on the bolt, we can sell them the remnant for half-price. A LOT of quilters LOVED this, and we did too, since it saved us from filling out the remnant tag and printing a sticker later on).

Just goes to show how important good management is in a business; especially when it can kick a store previously part of the top 50 stores in the NATION (while being a medium store at that - smaller place, NOT Hobby Lobby size like the Large stores) to something much less pleasant. I could be rose-goggling the situation thought - retail is still retail, no matter how nice some aspects are - but it still sticks with me as to how good he experience was even taking into account that it WAS minimum wage retail.

Food for thought, lads, food for thought.

#plush gets personal #joanns #joann fabrics #employment #retail hell #or well #not so much hell for this one #retail... purgatory? yeah that'll work

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skye-huntress · 3 years

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RWBY V8 Finale “The Final Word” Reactions

Thus concludes the first Volume I get to watch as it airs week by week, and react to it

MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW! SERIOUSLY IF YOU HAVE NOT WATCHED THE EPISODE YET AND FOR WHATEVER REASON STILL SEE THIS EVEN WITH THE SPOILER TAG, CONSIDER THIS YOUR LAST WARNING

Sooo, I cannot not talk about this big one first because it gives me personal feelings. Penny is a character that is very precious to me, always has been. I binged the show up to Volume 7 last year so I didn’t have to go through years of new episodes knowing she was gone and then when she came back and throughout Volume 8, she cemented herself as one of my favourites, right up there with Ruby and Weiss. I even warmed up to Frosen Steel. I honestly did not think nor did I want to think that the show would kill her again, even knowing this was going to be a rough volume for her being the central figure in the whole conflict. The only consolation I have is that she died on her own terms.

While we’re on this note, my sympathies to Jaune for having to be the one to send her on her way. My sympathies to a lot of characters because whether or not Nuts and Dolts is platonic or romantic, she was particularly special to Ruby who once again was not there to save her.

Penny finally got her song, and it hurts

I could tell from the beginning that the Ace Ops were overrated. They seemed cool on the surface and as individual fighters they were probably up there, but I’m also sceptical of the ones that everyone (including themselves) called the “best” at anything. The reality is that they were a mess, they told to bury their feelings, and told to always accept their Jimmy’s judgment over even their own. Clover died a meaningless death because he ignored his own better judgment. That said, for Vine, the least expressive of the whole bunch to not only talk Harriet down but make a sacrifice for his team friends was not something I would have called. And yet I remember how he tried to comfort Elm, and how when Marrow was nearly killed how expressive he was in his shock and fear. Honestly, I should know better, as someone who isn’t able to express the full depth of my emotions very well, I should have known that Vine was probably the one who cared for his friends more than they ever realised.

Qrow was actually lucky for once. I have a theory. If Ren’s semblance can evolve from masking emotions to sensing them, maybe Qrow’s semblance could evolve so that he could change his or others’ fortunes for the better and not just for the worst. At the very least, rubbing the pin made him believe he could in fact be lucky, maybe that’s all he needed.

Harriet has a lot of issues to sort through, but maybe now without the toxicity of the military and Jimmy, she and her remaining friends can allow themselves to feel, grieve, heal and grow.

So we have Robyn, Qrow, Harriet, Elm and Marrow on a transport leaving Solitas through conventional travel. They probably can’t fly their transport straight to Vacuo so they may have to make some stops on the way, probably at Argus or Vale.

As for Ironwood, what a fitting end. He always saw himself as the hero of Remnant, the one with all the answers, the one who was always right, and who would save the day. But in the end, he wasn’t anyone even worth killing. To the villains, he was always a joke, someone to be used, and right when he is finally face to face with his greatest enemy, she never even looked at him once. In the end, neither he nor his precious Atlas proved to be very relevant or impressive.

Neo thought she was clever but she was a fool. That’s what happens when you let anger and vengeance consume you, it warps your judgment. Cinder was always using her, to get what she wanted, and as a means to get her own vengeance on Ruby.

Speaking of not letting not letting vengeance consume you, Blake. She saw how close she was to losing everyone else she cared about she switched tacts. I’m proud of her. And she risked the fall to save Ruby, unfortunately this risk was too great for her.

My WhiteRose heart cheered when Weiss went to back up Ruby. I assume Blake knew the partners could assist each other better than she could. It hurt that she had to watch the rest of her team family fall, to be the last one standing, using Gambol Shroud. And then she fell right in front of her sister.

Ruby really needs more practice with her eyes before she faces Cinder again. It was impressive though how she goaded Neo and knocked her over the edge. Unfortunately, there was more than one person there who really wanted her dead.

As for Ruby’s mental state, she never really had time to process anything that had happened, she was in survival mode the entire time. Falling into the same place as Yang did might give her hope that her sister is still alive and if she fell with Blake, all the better, then she won’t be alone. But like I said, Penny was very important to her, and this is the second time she has lost her. Just imagine though, if Penny’s body falls into the void with them and Ruby finds it, that’d be all the worse than just hearing about it from Weiss or Jaune.

Now, Winter, she is the MVP of this episode. Winter is now the Winter Maiden, not because Ironwood chose her to be or because she actually chose it herself but because Penny chose her. Penny believed in her friend. My love of Penny gives me a lot of conflicting feelings for this and the implications but it was satisfying to see Winter own Ironwood and hold her own against Cinder. And now she is the champion for Atlas’ refugees, but failing Weiss and Penny is going to have a significant impact on her. At least she’ll allow herself to feel and she still has some family left.

Now for the weapons. When Crescent Rose fell, it was like watching an entirely separate character fall as well. Gambol Shroud and Neo’s umbrella fell on their own, too. And Jaune’s weapon that was reforged with Pyrrha’s ruined weapon was destroyed by none other than Cinder. So basically the only ones still completely armed are Weiss and Yang, but of course the latter also has a concussion.

It wasn’t the complete victory she wanted but it was decisive. I figured a victory for Cinder would be getting both relics and she did. But I knew she wouldn’t get the Maiden powers, that’s always the part she fails at again and again. She tries to syphon a Maiden’s magic only to be interrupted. Every. Single. Time. Seriously, Cinder will just never learn from this mistake and its why she will likely never have more than one Maiden’s power at the rate she is going. But as decisive as this victory was, it will cost her in the long run. She needed help from Jinn, Neo and Watts in order to beat Team RWBY but they’ll come back stronger, smarter and more pissed off and Cinder won’t have all of that help next time. If anything, she might have put herself back on top of Neo’s shitlist.

Watts’ end is also rather fitting and also completely expected. Like Jimmy and Jaques, he represented a lot of what was wrong with Atlas, particularly the elite. How annoyed would Ambrosius be with Cinder though? “More fire, that’s it? This is my cosmic karma for being annoyed about being used by the same kids twice in a row.”

Atlas fell as I always knew it would, after all the relics exist to help humanity and a flying city did nothing but fuelled the egos of those who lived on that floating rock. Mantle was something to be proud of, but Atlas was a lie. Now Remnant’s “greatest kingdom in the world” reduced to ruin and it’s people refugees in a land their ancestors made a wasteland. This will have dire consequences.

So in the end, no help came for Atlas. Not surprising in retrospect. Atlesians didn’t have the best reputation to begin with, then Ironwood made a series of terrible decisions (that everyone around him strongly advised against), destroying Atlas’ relations with the other Kingdoms. Then came Ruby’s broadcast out of nowhere where she dropped some insane bombshells and then her message was cut off and global comms went down again. Few can vouch for Ruby’s character and even fewer can verify anything of what she said. I still believe it had an impact and we’ll see it as we visit other Kingdoms again, but the full pay off won’t be for quite some time. As I said before, the message was just the first of many, many small steps to uniting the world against Salem

So now for the detour, and that cursed image of Crescent Rose alone, slammed into the ground. It’s likely Volume 9 will focus mostly on our girls, Jaune and Neo, surviving in this strange environment and finding a way home.

Was that everything? Probably not. Now the mourning period begins as I try to process all of that.

#rwby #rwby8 #rwby8 spoilers

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westofessos · 4 years

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What I’ve Watched During Quarantine (so far):

TV Shows:

The Last Kingdom - holy shit I love this show and I cannot wait for a new season. Æthelflaed is a badass bitch. But I miss Alfred.

After Life - the most heartbreaking show in the world, with Ricky Gervais being funny between making me cry.

Community - maybe my favourite sitcom. I fucking love this show. I’m containing myself because if I don’t, I’ll go on forever.

Hunters - I love love love love love this weird-ass, terrifying, mind-bending, incredible show. What a ride. Sister Harriet is my favourite even though I don’t trust her.

Tiger King - Yes, along with everyone else I watched this fuckery. What is there to say? I was entertained, that’s it.

Making a Murderer - I was on a roll after Tiger King and wanted something crazy, and I got it. What a bunch of fucked up shit. I can’t believe this is real. Also Kathleen Zellner is a badass bitch and I love her.

Good Omens - I broke down and watched it. And this was the weirdest shit I’ve ever seen but I loved it. Crowley and Aziraphale are a delight. And my history nerd heart couldn’t handle it.

The Boys - wow this was the most disturbing, wonderful show. Truly terrifying but great. Billy Butcher is incredible.

Peaky Blinders - when I say I am in love with Thomas Shelby. Wow. What a fantastic show. I didn’t expect to like it, but I finished all five seasons in less than a week because I’m absolutely addicted. Damn you Thomas Shelby and your pretty eyes.

The Umbrella Academy (S2) - wow wow wow wow what an amazing season. I don’t want to spoil anything but it was absolutely fantastic.

Rewatches:

Lost - my favourite show of all time, and my favourite series finale of all time. Fuck what people say, Lost is brilliant and I would die for this beautiful show.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine - what an all around great time. I just love it so much.

Roseanne - ah, old school Roseanne. My actual favourite sitcom. Y’know, the one that was my entire childhood, basically made me who I am today, only for me to find out that the actress that played my actual idol was a racist. Yeah, that one. It was nice to ignore that though and love my favourite show regardless.

Scrubs - I just watched it for the first time just before quarantine, and decided to watch it again during. What a brilliant show. It means so much to me. Also, Perry Cox is one of the greatest, most complex characters to ever exist. And Carla Espinosa is an underrated queen. I’m also listening to Fake Doctors, Real Friends, which is Zach Braff and Donald Faison’s Scrubs rewatch podcast, and it’s great.

Friends - I missed this show, really. It’s still so great. Chandler Bing is amazing and I forgot how adorable he and Monica are.

Movies:

The Philadelphia Story - again, Cary Grant is lovely. Also, Katherine Hepburn is incredible and I love her.

Rocky 1-4 (haven’t gotten hold of 5 yet) - oh, yes, yes, yes. These movies. I love love love these movies. Rocky and Adrian are the couple.

Cocktail - this one wasn’t bad, considering I hate Tom Cruise. I’d watch it again.

Anastasia - I’ve been wanting to watch this one for a while, and it was awesome. I love Meg Ryan so much.

Rebel Without a Cause - this is such a great teen movie. I was surprised about how much I related to it. Also, as if everyone didn’t already know, James Dean is gorgeous.

Thelma & Louise - what a beautiful story about friendship and badass ladies. This is exactly my shit. Yes.

Steel Magnolias - this was such a lovely, sad movie. Oh, I love it.

The Wedding Planner - this one set me on a JLo kick, because this was such an adorable movie. Her and McConaughey were adorable.

Maid in Manhattan - ah, JLo, you did it again. I loved this one so much. Loved it.

Save the Last Dance - I hadn’t heard of this one, but I saw Julia Stiles and immediately clicked. That was the right choice. This movie was so cute, oh, I loved it.

All the President’s Men - me geeking out over journalism, politics, and history for two hours? Yes please. Also Robert Redford is gorgeous and I never found him that attractive before.

Terms of Endearment - oh, break my goddamn heart why don’t you. Fuck, this was so heartbreaking. I loved it.

Taxi Driver - a garbage movie for garbage people. Imagine if Fight Club just like, wasn’t a good movie. That was the vibe of this one. God, don’t waste your time.

Singin’ in the Rain - what a lovely, fun movie. All three main characters were great, the songs were awesome, the relationships were fun, what more can I say? Oh yeah, Gene Kelly? Damn.

His Girl Friday - overall an okay movie, but it was pretty funny, and Cary Grant. Dear god, I love me some Cary Grant.

Good Will Hunting - oh, fuck me, this movie. How dare you make me feel such things, Matt Damon. What an incredible movie. It made me, a person who hates Ben Affleck, not hate Ben Affleck for two whole hours. It made me cry, of course. Robin Williams, dammit. Wow. And Matt fucking Damon was so brilliant, and so was Minnie Driver, and they were so good together, and I could gush about this movie for days.

Set it Up - as of now, I’ve watched this movie, oh, nine thousand times?? How perfect is this movie? All of the actors are great, and I’d watch two hours of just Charlie looking at Harper. Ugh. The way he looks at her gets me every time.

The Old Guard - I’m not usually a fan of action movies but this one was so good !! I loved the plot and just the idea in general, and all of the characters were so awesome. It was a really great movie.

Rewatches:

Tombstone - I could watch this movie every single day. Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday might be my favourite performance ever. I can quote almost this entire movie, and I don’t even like westerns.

Gladiator - I hadn’t watched this in a long time, and I knew it was good, but it was so, so, so good. Wow.

Memento - maybe my favourite movie ever. Definitely my favourite mind-fuck movie. So cool, and just. . . god, it’s such a good movie. Hats off to you, Chris Nolan.

The Usual Suspects - this is one of my favourite movies of all time. Everyone is so good in it and that ending is incredible. I could gush about this movie forever. Dean Keaton deserved better.

This is the End - such a funny movie, wow. Anything with Seth Rogen and James Franco is good. Jay Baruchel, wow. I adore Jay Baruchel.

You’ve Got Mail - in my books, the best romantic movie ever. I watch this shit constantly. Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks are so adorable together. Add in Dave Chappelle, and it’s perfect.

Unbreakable, Split, and Glass - M. Night Shyamalan is always good and I’ll fight anyone on that. These three expecially. He’s the absolute master.

Back to the Future 1-3 - if I’m being honest, they’re not the greatest movies, but fuck, aren’t they, though? They’re cheesy as hell, but absolutely iconic and I still love the hell out of them.

The Neverending Story - this is the weirdest goddamn movie I’ve ever seen but the nostalgia hit me harddd. This movie was my whole childhood and even though it’s absolutely disturbing, it’s still great.

Talk to me about any of these!! I’m desperate to rant about my favourite movies and tv shows, and if you are too, feel free to reply to this post or message me privately! I’m always ready to talk and gush about things I love.

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randomvarious · 3 years

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Today’s compilation:

Electric Kingdom: Episode One 1999 Nu Skool Breaks / Breakbeat / Electro

Allow me to start this post off with this one extended thought that was rattling around in my head as I was listening to this comp: literally no one knows what they're talking about when it comes to defining the terms breakbeat, breakbeat hardcore, and breaks, and that includes yours truly. You go on different websites that consider themselves to be authorities on the definitions of electronic music genres and they all happen to differ from each other. As it turns out, the consensus is that there really is no consensus and it's something that happens to be really annoying and frustrating.

And websites like Discogs contradict themselves internally, too. Like, they define breakbeat as a specific type of jungle-adjacent rave music that was popular between 1990 and 1993, but then you look at Discogs' top releases for that style and a lot of them don't match the website's own definition of breakbeat at all.

So, I've come up with a way to delineate all of this. And I know I'm just someone on tumblr whose case to be made only ends up adding even more to all of the convolution, but I think I have a logically foolproof method for categorizing all of this stuff. But it takes some pained explaining, so strap in.

Let's start with where most of the confusion is probably derived from in the first place: the musical term, "break," which is also referred to as a "breakbeat" or a "drum break." The break is the foundational element of a song that unites all of these styles of music that I'm about to try and describe to you all. It's a sampled piece of music, usually from a 60s or 70s funk, soul, jazz, or R&B record, that acts as the rhythmic base for the entirety of a track or at least a significant portion of it. In this context, a "break" and a "breakbeat" mean pretty much the same exact thing, but a "drum break" is a more specific type of break, in that it consists of either only drums or mostly drums. Some of the most famous drum breaks are the "Amen" break, the "Funky Drummer" break, and the "Apache" break.

The genres of breakbeat, breakbeat hardcore, and breaks all use a break in their music. But here's how I see these three genres differing from each other:

Breakbeat is the umbrella term for any form of electronic dance music that uses a break as a foundational rhythmic element. But it differs from jungle and drum n bass in that the break in a breakbeat song isn't necessarily the focal point of the production. Jungle and dnb like to tinker around with, combine, and layer drum breaks as their main draw, but breakbeat isn't so much concerned with that.

Within breakbeat then are a bunch of subgenres, the two most prominent of which are breakbeat hardcore and big beat. I would classify breakbeat hardcore as being that early 90s jungle-adjacent rave music that Discogs simply just wants to call breakbeat instead. Big beat, on the other hand, is a form of breakbeat that broke through to the mainstream in the late 90s and early aughts with acts like Fatboy Slim and the Chemical Brothers. It sounds poppier than traditional breakbeat and it uses a lot more rock samples, too.

Another confusing thing here is that The Prodigy are both one of the biggest and greatest breakbeat hardcore and big beat acts of all time. The way you differentiate them though is between their early work, like their Experience album, which is breakbeat hardcore, and their later material, like The Fat of the Land, which is big beat.

And that leaves us with one genre left to define, which is breaks. Discogs defines breaks as all forms of break-driven electronic music that isn’t jungle or drum n bass and also doesn't meet their definition of breakbeat, which again, is that early 90s jungle-adjacent rave stuff. Contrarily, Rate Your Music considers breaks to be a word that's merely interchangeable with breakbeat.

But I see breaks as a whole other thing entirely, which is a style of music that actually falls under the hip hop umbrella. To me, breaks is a style of music that gained popularity between the mid-90s and early aughts that simply cuts and pastes and splices together numerous breaks and samples in order to create one, continuous track. And it doesn't really use much in the way of synthesizers or drum machines; it's just a well-put-together string of old samples. And I don't mean The Avalanches, who use literally thousands of samples in their records; I mean those hip hop-minded breakdance-types of DJs and producers who were trying to find a way to make the cardboard-mat-mentality of the 70s and 80s relevant again. A lot of people already call this kind of music breaks, but they tend not to differentiate it from big beat or breakbeat, and it's really different from both of those things. You can find breaks songs in things like Fatboy Slim's own DJ mixes from the late 90s and early aughts, for example, as he alternates between breaks and big beat tunes, and you can also find them in a fantastic compilation called Revenge of the B-Boy.

*deep breath*

Now, here's where all of what I just carefully laid out gets fucking torpedoed, and it's because of one guy named Rennie Pilgrem. Rennie Pilgrem is a British dude who heralded in a new type of breakbeat in the late 90s. This style fuses drum breaks with elements of electro, it tends to be more technical and minimal, and it's much less loud than other forms of historically popular breakbeat. And what'd Pilgrem decide to call his new subgenre? Fucking nu skool breaks, of course. And because he coined this style of music that he happened to pioneer himself, the name is universally accepted. This motherfucker. I was trying to make this all less complicated and he made it even more complicated. Whatever. Nu skool breaks is breakbeat and it's not related to breaks. There, problem solved.

***

Electric Kingdom: Episode One is a compilation that encapsulates what was then a new frontier of nu skool breaks in 1999 rather well. It's not really my cup of tea, but some tracks on it are pretty cool, and it has a 4.3 rating on Discogs, meaning nu skool breaks heads like it a lot. The opener comes from Rennie Pilgrem himself and it kind of sounds like the intro music from if that street racing video game series, Midnight Club, came out a few years earlier for N64 and PlayStation. I tend to dig the heavier, darker-sounding kind of stuff with the super fuzzy basslines though, like the back-to-back pairing of "Rocweiller" by Sons of Mecha and "Electro Bitch" by Thomas Krome. Not so much a fan of the lighter fare on here.

Highlights:

Rennie Pilgrem & The Thursday Choir - "Some Place Funky (Back To The Future Mix)" Sons Of Mecha [VR Boy & DJ Erb] - "Rocweiller" Thomas Krome - "Electro Bitch"

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dankovskaya · 3 years

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ok proper re7 vs re8 post that i should probably make after ive beat the game a second time but im not going to wait that long:

i think re7 definitely beats out re8 in terms of um. having a concise contained and easily understandable narrative in that the entire story can be summarized as “childlike bioweapon desperate for parents escapes containment and forcibly integrates into a louisiana family.” whereas re8 is definitely a lot more convoluted right from the beginning (i guess you could try to say “deranged cult leader kidnaps ethan’s child in an attempt to ressurrect her own” but even that feels incomplete and doesnt account for 4/5 main antagonists or chris’ role in the story at all or why it had to be rose specifically) and even by the very end there were a lot of questions that went unanswered unless i happened to miss a bunch of notes somehow (why the fuck would ethan and mia get relocated so close to that village in the first place? why didnt chris tell ethan even the most basic information about what was going on? how did miranda even find out about ethan and mia and rose? at what point did miranda switch out with mia? who are the people on chris’ team and is he still working with the reformed umbrella? why didnt mia tell ethan or anyone else that he has been a molded this entire time and why did she have no qualms about having a child with him while having absolutely no idea what that would result in for the potential kid? how did she know that he was one in the first place? why couldnt he have been cured in the same way that mia was? what kind of experiments was miranda performing on mia while she was captive? etc etc etc).

like usually in re games everything sort of falls into place by the end and yeah there’s the part where you go into miranda’s laboratory and get proper explanations of the lords and see her connection to spencer but. i still felt like i wasnt really Getting It by the end i think im still unable to really reconcile why and how the story was even happening lmao. like it was all very “alright, i guess” at every turn.

also i said this before but the bakers are the superior antagonists BY FAR. i like the 4 lords a lot, their concepts and designs are all very cool, but i think they’re a little bit too separated for me. besides the “trial” at the beginning they dont really interact and you barely get a sense for how any of them feel about each other despite referring to each other as siblings, and they dont even react to each others deaths at all if i recall. you just kill them and its over and you move on to the next one. it just cannot beat the deranged familial relationship of the bakers, even if the bakers are less visually compelling. overall the lords were a little unexpectedly shallow to me, i mean its pretty standard for re villains but i think specifically because of re7 i was expecting them to have a little more depth or connection. ESPECIALLY mother miranda given how much build up there is to her, i really could not make myself interested in her at all cause it’s like she’s barely there the whole story and then shes the final boss.

the major area where re8 wins out though is visually. the village is beautiful, castle dimitrescu is GORGEOUSSSS so gorgeous it makes me insane, house beneviento manages to look both cozy and eerie on the upper floors at least, even the reservoir and factory areas which i found more comparatively bland were at least distinct from each other and visually interesting with the windmills and the complex monumental machinery. the variety of very different locations helps the game never feel very monotonous especially with the additional like secret areas and stuff. i also think mechanically switching to a more re4-like style was a very good choice even if it was obviously with the purpose of streamlining re4make LMAO. and clearly the enemy variety is a lot better in re8.

also in terms of like...emotionality like depth of story i guess, re7 is good at making you feel very bad for the antagonists, whereas re8 is very good at making you feel very bad for ethan himself. i still think re7 wins here but the last couple hours of re8 (and the first one for that matter) made me attached to ethan in a way that i definitely was not after re7 LOL. the entire duration of re7 is like Poor bakers :((( but the end of re8 is like EETTHHHAAAANNNNNNNNN 😭😭😭

i have to assume there are going to be at least a couple dlc add ons at some point given how many re7 got so we’ll have to see what those add to the narrative but for now these are my thots

#re8 spoilers #long post #i didnt want to make another billion tiny posts so i tried to fit as much as i could into one long one LOL

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itsbenedict · 3 years

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Two-Faced Jewel: Session 8

Welcome to the Hotel On-The-Floor, Yeah

A half-elf conwoman (and the moth tasked with keeping her out of trouble) travel the Jewel in search of, uh, whatever a fashionable accessory is pointing them at. [Campaign log]

Last time, the party identified the culprit behind the murders in Barley and Wheat, but... well, it's complicated. The culprit was apparently being coerced by a dragon, and they managed to talk him down rather than fight. If they want that to stick, though, they'll need some kind of plan to get rid of that dragon. And... is it really worth bailing this guy out, anyway?

Saelhen, Oyobi, and Vayen all start discussing their plans in Elvish, which it doesn't seem like Arnie understands. Oyobi advocates for just killing the guy, but is a little less keen on the idea once Vayen advocates for the same. Saelhen would rather give the guy a chance, and points out that there's not much point to killing him as long as the dragon is still around- they'll need an answer for that, and the answer to a dragon is probably just as good an answer to Arnie.

Looseleaf, oblivious to their Elvish chatter, describes the basic plan to Arnie.

Arnie: "So you're, what... you're gonna get the church involved somehow? What're you gonna tell 'em?" Looseleaf: "Well, probably also Deathseekers," Looseleaf thinks, out loud. "We'll tell them there's a dragon conducting sacrificial rituals at the site of an altar to the god of pain. We'll get the church involved by virtue of proving to them that there's a dragon fucking around with divine shit, and we'll get the deathseekers involved by convincing them that there's a dragon stacked to the gills with cool magic items, which we'll prove by bringing them one of said items." "The important thing is to get going as soon as possible, right? There's a time-limit here measured in, uh... human... corpses..." Arnie: "Wait, how are you gonna get one of its magic items?" Looseleaf: "How do you think, mister 'I work for the dragon so he gave me a bunch of magic items to serve his dread will'?" "We'll bring the deathseekers that magic cloak you said you had." Arnie: "Uh, that's..." "Mine, though."

Eventually, after a persuasion roll or two, Arnie agrees to loan them the cloak, as long as it comes back in one piece. He also tells them how to safely retrieve it from the laundry room- as long as they exchange some dirty laundry for the clean cloak, they'll be happy and won't attack. He's got plenty lying around downstairs, which he heads down to grab.

While he's downstairs, the party confers, and decides to all go together to the nearest city- Cauterdale- to ask the local Deathseekers for aid. They figure Arnie's not a flight risk, since he doesn't have anywhere to run and a draconic boss who'll hunt him down if he tries.

(As they prepare to leave, a natural 20 on a perception roll alerts Looseleaf that Vayen has ransacked Lumiere's personal library, stealing- specifically- Lumiere's books on gods and divine magic, for some reason. She doesn't make any objection to this, though- Vayen's a creep, but it's not like they weren't all on board with looting the dead guy's tower.)

With Arnie's bloodstained laundry in hand, Looseleaf heads upstairs and retrieves the cloak without incident. She tries it out, and...

The result of her crit failing her Wisdom saving throw on the magic item is... nothing, apparently. That's always good to hear! The cloak appears to work exactly as intended! She's wearing a very fancy outfit.

Further experimentation reveals a few limitations- first, the cloak's shape is illusory, so it can't become armor or anything with particular utility. Second, it can get overly literal if you ask it to copy an outfit outright- you have to use your imagination properly. Third, it seems to get tired the more you ask it to change, so there's some limit on how often you can update your wardrobe. Those appear to be the only drawbacks!

So, with Arnie temporarily kept from murdering people, the party gets back on the road.

Saelhen du Fishercrown: For caution's sake, Saelhen calligraphs a piece of paper to say WE HAVE NOT BEEN TORTURED TO DEATH, and sticks it on the door on the way out.

As they make their way northeast, they make some Animal Handling checks to keep hold of their giraffes, as something seems to spook them. Looseleaf gets a critical success and is able to calm her giraffe right away... but the party ranger, who is proficient in neither Animal Handling nor Nature nor even Survival, because what kind of monster hunter needs to know that boring crap, has no idea how to handle an overexcited giraffe and is thrown from her mount with a critical failure.

Benedict I. (GM):There's a small sign by the road, heading off west towards what appears to be an actual forest. The prairie is giving way to a somewhat hillier and more forested terrain here, but the forest is thicker than anything you've seen on your way there. And as you're approaching the crossroads marked by that sign, your giraffes all try to bolt for it. Looseleaf is able to realize that they've been forced to graze on grass for miles, and when they see the trees, they get overexcited. Vayen and Oyobi get completely thrown from their mounts, and you have to follow them down the road a bit to catch up with them and rein them in. Looseleaf: Haha, oh, well, hopefully they don't try and spend the rest of the whole day grazing a pit-stop is within tolerances but we really do have to make it to Cauterdale sooner rather than later. Many lives are on the line! Saelhen du Fishercrown: Good thing Looseleaf can radiate peace at them! Benedict I. (GM): Looseleaf is able to beckon them back before they completely get out of reach, and pretty soon you've got them calmed down- but you've lost some time. There's a choice to make here, now: continue on to Cauterdale, but make the last hour or so of the journey in the dark- or rest at the location marked on the map near here.

On the map, where the sign marked "Umbrella Village" points (shut up, I don't even play Resident Evil, don't worry about it), is simply a warning that reads "EVIL WITCHES- AVOID!!!"

Oyobi and Orluthe inform the others that "witches" usually means "druids"- and Zero cashes in something from character creation. Looseleaf's background as an academic provided her with a book on some historical topic, which was never allocated because at character creation he didn't know enough about the world to decide on something interesting. Here he declares it's a book on the history of druids!

Benedict I. (GM): Druids, from what you've read, are sort of like clerics. They channel a divinity of some sort- which is typically revered as Mother Nature, or Gaia, or... every druid you meet is going to have a different name for it, because while it needs to have a thing to call it by, it is emphatically not a god. Druids have a complicated relationship with Ccorde, who's ostensibly the goddess of environmentalism and hippy communing with nature type stuff- but most druidic traditions regard this as a false claim on a divine domain. Nature is untamed and wild and exists on its own terms, a vital force that is not to be tamed with rules- people must forge their own relationships with Nature. The author of the tome you acquired was herself a cleric of Ccorde, and the tone of the book is defensive on that subject. The author's curiosity outweighed that defensiveness, though, and there's a long section dedicated to the theoretical differences between the channeling of Nature and the channeling of Ccorde- in particular, there's no common dispositional element with druids. Whatever Nature is, it's willing to act through anyone who puts in the effort. The author didn't seem to know anything about animism, but you suspect druidic practice might be related in some way- that their nature-spirit-channeling abilities may be a form of animism. The book is unfortunately light on the practical details of druidcraft, as the author prefers that the reader eschew the practice in favor of fealty to Ccorde.

Okay! So, they head down the road to stay at the druid village for the night- and notice something odd on the way, after some Nature checks. They notice that the dirt road they're going down seems to divide the forest in two- between a sparse, ivy-choked pine forest to the northeast, and a dense, healthy-looking deciduous forest to the southwest. You usually don't get such a sharp delineation between forests like that.

And Looseleaf notices... that their map doesn't show a forest on the southwest side of the road. The road is supposed to just go along the edge of the pine forest. Also, Looseleaf can see the trees' spirits there, and there's something... not quite right.

Benedict I. (GM):The left side of the woods- there does seem to be some ambient magic. Your Sight Unseen ability doesn't exactly detect magic, so much as it lets you see spirits, including the spirits of spells- but what's going on here isn't a spell effect. It's just that the spirits of these healthy-looking deciduous trees don't quite match their physical forms. Their spirits seem... sickly? Frail? Like they're not full trees, not trees that grew in their places from fallen seeds. There's something false about them.

Looseleaf: When you said 'the left side of the road is full of healthy-looking deciduous trees and the right side is full of misshaped thorny things' you know what the first thing i thought was it was, 'the left side is the dangerous side.' i didn't say it out loud but i was totally thinking that, and i am glad to have been vindicated.

The weird forest doesn't seem to be attacking them, though, so they head onward towards Umbrella Village, which seems to be built entirely on the pine side of the road. It's kind of cool-looking- every inch of available space, on the lawns, roofs, and walls, is covered in fruiting vines and various plants. The whole village is a carefully-cultivated ecosystem.

The villagers seem surprised to have visitors- apparently it's not a common occurrence. They seem normal enough, though- while they don't have an inn, they direct the party to visit the village elder, who might know where the best place for them to spend the night is.

(Oyobi once again crit-fails her Animal Handling check, and is unable to prevent her giraffe from ripping a tomato plant off the side of someone's house, which gets her scolded. Why are you a ranger, Oyobi?)

They head down to the village elder's house, which is unique in not being overgrown with crops- and knock on the door.

The door is answered by a little lizardfolk girl, who doesn't have any idea what she's supposed to do about there being... people... here? People she's never seen before? Who don't live in the village? What???

Benedict I. (GM): "...Who...?" "GRANDMAAAAA," she calls back into the room. Which she didn't really need to do so loudly, because there's an elderly lizardfolk woman sitting right there next to a small fire.

Looseleaf: Oh, and Looseleaf was about to ask if the little girl was the elder. Never let external appearances color your preconceptions, and all that. Benedict I. (GM): "Eh?" "Gramma there's Mysterious People!" "They don't exist!" The old woman gets up. "Who's... oh, visitors?" The little girl looks confused. "Vizza-what?" Looseleaf:"Indeed, we are emissaries from the Faraway Phantom Lands of Nonexistence," Looseleaf says in deadpan to the girl. "Behold as my incorporeal voice from out of the thin air astonishes you!" To the old lady, Looseleaf says. "Excuse us. You must be the elder?"

They inquire about a place to stay for the night, and the elder... checks the weather. Looseleaf, who has Druidcraft as a racial ability, also checks the weather, using a fancy little snowglobe spell!

Looseleaf: "I'unno, does this help?" Benedict I. (GM): "Oh, goodness. I thought you were from outside- do they..." "That's very well-done, really, and you smell delicious, but..." Saelhen du Fishercrown: uh Benedict I. (GM): "Well, it ought to be fine." Saelhen du Fishercrown: "...hmm," says Saelhen. Benedict I. (GM): "Just put your bedrolls out anywhere- we're not doing rain tonight." "Well, anywhere in town, anyway." "You shouldn't set foot in the Mysterious Woods." Saelhen du Fishercrown: "Ma'am, rest assured that we have less than no interest in Mysterious Woods."

So the party beds down in some soft pine needles, making use of Looseleaf's recently-acquired Extremely Comfy Pillow and a few bedrolls. They have a druid elder's assurance that the elements won't be a problem, so... nothing wrong with camping!

And as they're going to bed, Looseleaf rolls a 21 on Perception.

Luckily, Looseleaf fails her unarmed strike roll, which would do no damage even if it hit because her strength mod is -1. So she does not do any damage to...

Benedict I. (GM): So, you kick out at the mouth full of sharp teeth. Saelhen du Fishercrown: Fwff, goes Looseleaf's puffy moth footsie. Benedict I. (GM): The mouth full of sharp teeth goes "Eeek!" and recoils before you make impact, and you see the little lizardfolk girl scamper away into the darkness. Looseleaf: "What." "Wh- how dare you bite me! I am an emissary of the Phantom Lands and all that or whatever." "Come back here and explain yourself to My Imperial Nonexistingness!"

The little girl, affronted, explains that if she's not real, then it's not bad if she bites her!

Vayen: Vayen stirs. "...Shouldn't kill a child," he mumbles. Saelhen du Fishercrown: "...this is a new dream," remarks Saelhen. "Better than the dreams about dad." "Vayen's even deciding not to kill someone. This is super neat, subconscious, keep going."

Saelhen argues that maybe Gramma doesn't know what things taste good, because sometimes grammas think things that taste bad taste good, like bell peppers! The child has no defense against this devastating logic bomb, and scampers off into the darkness, indignant.

Next time: the journey to Cauterdale, and the menace of the bobbledragon.

#twofaced jewel #tfj log

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ranma-rewatch · 4 years

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Episode 7: Enter Ryoga, the Eternal ‘Lost Boy’

Hey, it’s Ranma Rewatch, I’m on episode 7, and I don’t want to waste too much time with the preamble. I am super excited for this episode, my boi is here, I really hope it holds up, see you after I watch it again!

That wasn’t exactly how I remembered it, but not in a bad way. The episode starts with a short scene that has become pretty freaking iconic, and has been sampled in dozens, if not hundreds, of AMV’s: A man cloaked from head to toe, walking through a desert, his eyes barely visible under goggles. It is a really cool shot that catches the eye right away.

We cut from that to that same person approaching a small village, deciding to throw off his concealing clothes to reveal his typical yellow and green outfit, with a bandanna around his head and an umbrella on his back, which he takes out to slow down his descent when he jumps off a cliff. This village happens to be being attacked by a huge wild boar, wrecking everything in its way, but this fellow is able to stop the animal with little effort and send it flying. When the grateful villagers approach, he only has one question for them: where is Furinkan High School?

At first they don’t understand the question, until they look at what he has for a map and realize it’s of Tokyo. The problem is, this young man is on Shikoku, a completely different island in the archipelago. They point him in the right general direction, and he reveals before the scene ends that he is specifically trying to find Ranma Saotome.

Speaking of the show’s titular character, we get a small scene of him in his cursed form being blackmailed by Nabiki into wearing women’s clothes because all of his stuff is in the wash. After that, we get another scene of the mysterious umbrella-wielding stranger asking someone for directions to Furinkan High School, but this time he’s in Hokkaido. Once again a completely different island, only this time on the opposite end. Fun fact: Hokkaido was the inspiration for Sinnoh in Pokemon!

We get another small cut-away to Ranma in various outfits, then another of our new character somehow ending up back in that village he was in earlier. The point is being made clear to us: he is terrible at getting where he wants to go, but is also so inhumanly strong and resilient that he has no trouble surviving in the wilderness in the process.

What seems to be the next day, he finally gets to where he’s going, just as school is letting out for the day. Ranma is being chased by Akane for something, though we don’t know exactly what. (Of course, we know their dynamic well enough by now to know it’s almost certainly something Ranma did to annoy her.) The newcomer slams into the ground where Ranma is landing at the same time, leaving a crater in the cement from the force of his landing, all while screaming how Ranma has to die.

The problem is, Ranma has no clue who this guy is, which pisses him off to know end. Even after he brings up that his vendetta has something to do with Ranma never showing up for a duel, Ranma still struggles (and fails) to remember this guys name, but luckily he gives it to Ranma anyway: Ryoga Hibiki. They went to Junior High together, and they’d agreed upon a duel, but it never happened because Ranma wasn’t there when Ryoga arrived.

Now, Ranma protests that he waited in the agreed upon empty lot for three days before taking off for China with his dad, which is honestly more time than most people would have waited. As we already know though, Ryoga can’t seem to get anywhere quickly, so he got there on the fourth day. Oh, and the lot was right behind his house.

The crowd of students who only moments before considered him with awe over his fantastic martial arts abilities are now looking at him like a buffoon, and Ryoga is ready to get his revenge on Ranma already. But Ranma puts a pause on that, runs out, and comes back with a bunch of different kinds of bread. Why? Because bread was the reason for their duel in the first place. Their school was only for boys, and getting food at lunch was a nightmare. Ranma ended up snatching the last piece of bread just before Ryoga could get it time and time again, and all the bread he brought was one of each type he’d taken years before.

But Ryoga doesn’t care about that, making it clear that the bread isn’t something he cares about anymore, that Ranma has put him through hell, even if Ranma has no clue what he’s talking about. But before they can get a proper fight going, Ranma runs away, losing Ryoga enough that when he starts busting up the school looking for him, he ends up going the wrong way and out of the area entirely, leaving Ranma and Akane to wonder where he went. We do get to see where before the episode ends: once again back in that village that had the boar problem, where he gets a meal before running out into the evening to find Ranma once more.

Like I said before, this episode wasn’t entirely how I remembered it. Namely, there was a lot more humor than I remembered. For the most part, that’s not a bad thing, there was actually some really good comedy, and I don’t feel like it trampled over the more serious parts of the episode.

If it isn’t clear, I am going to say right now that I did still love this episode. The animation was really on-point, some of the visuals of Ranma darting around people or the brief combat he gets with Ryoga just looks beautiful. Also, even though we don’t get a fight between the two just yet, it’s already solidly communicated, through Ryoga easily beating the boar, barreling through steel barriers, and hitting the ground so hard it destroys concrete, that he is strong as hell.

As much as I love the opening desert shot, I actually think my favorite part of the episode is some of the conversation between Ranma, Akane, and Ryoga. Ranma straining his brain to remember who Ryoga is killed me. It was weirdly relatable too, I’m sure many of us have run into someone who obviously knows us, while we can’t even remember how we know them, let alone their name. The fact Ranma actually specifically bought one of each bread he’d taken from Ryoga before was kind of cute, more than I expected of the usually flippant martial artist.

There’s also an exchange I’ve seen on Tumblr a few times in screencaps and gifs, and there’s a reason people love to share it. When Ryoga says he’s going to destroy Ranma’s happiness, there’s this shot of him freaking out, only to turn to Akane and blankly ask if he is happy, to which Akane doesn’t understand why he’s asking her. They take such a trope-y line from a character seeking revenge and turn it around into a really good joke.

There was also a really interesting thing I noted in terms of translation. After hearing about the string of times Ranma stole bread from Ryoga, Akane makes an analogy to why it mattered so much, but it’s different from dub to sub. In the English Dub, she says the straws broke the camel’s back, a common phrase that seems to fit the situation. But in the English Sub, she says (loosely remembering) “enough dust can make a mountain”, and I think that actually fits much better. After all, we soon learned that the bread isn’t really why Ryoga is angry, but once you do know everything that happened that led to Ryoga’s rage, that analogy fits perfect: it isn’t so much one specific event, as a collection of small events that collected into an enormous vendetta.

All my compliments aside, I did have some issues with the episode. Some of the comedy didn’t really work for me, and that was most true with the early scenes of the Tendo girls trying to dress Ranma in Akane’s clothes. Some parts did make me chuckle, but on the whole the mini-plot made me uncomfortable. Primarily because, as I’ve said before, I feel like the best way to look at Ranma’s cursed form is as a trans man. Even though his body has changed, his gender hasn’t, he’s still a man. The scene has Ranma protesting again and again that he is a man, even as they try to dress him as a woman. The idea of some cisgender folks trying to force a trans man into women’s clothes just...isn’t very funny to me. It’s kind of terrible, at least from a more queer perspective. That complaint done, let’s do the character spotlight.

Oh come on, who else did you think I was going to do? If it isn’t clear yet, Ryoga Hibiki is my favorite character in the series, and he has been since I was a teenager. Who knows if that will remain true this entire watch-through, but so far I’m not liking him any less. I’ll get into why, but first let’s talk about his voice actors.

The voice actor I’m more familiar with, his English one, is Michael Donovan. Like most of the actors for this dub, he’s someone who worked with the Ocean Group for a lot of series around this time period. That said, if you’re a fan of the Fate franchise, he has done some voices in Ufotable’s recent anime adaptations, playing Risei Kotomine and Zouken Matou. In Japanese, his voice actor is one Kōichi Yamadera, and he continued the pattern of voice actors who are well-known in Japan for dubbing English works. He’s most well-known for dubbing over Jim Carrey in a lot of movies, but he’s done a ton of others as well. In anime, some of his notable roles include Spike Spiegel, Beerus in all the recent Dragon Ball movies and anime, and Gentle Criminal in My Hero Academia. Seriously, diving into this guy’s list of roles is like swimming in an ocean of great roles.

So, how do they do? Well, so far I’d say I like both of them a lot, but they do play Ryoga differently. At his core, Ryoga is actually kind of a perfect microcosm of the tone of the series itself. Ranma 1/2 is simultaneously a shonen battle anime, a romantic harem series, and a wacky comedy. Ryoga is someone who takes himself very, very seriously. His desire for vengeance against Ranma isn’t a joke, and neither is his ability as a martial artist. But he’s also a doofus who ends up crossing the length of Japan several times because he can’t follow directions properly and the reasons (so far) for his hatred of Ranma are completely laughable.

I wouldn’t say that Michael Donovan’s performance lacks seriousness, in fact when he wants Ryoga to sound menacing I think he does it well, but on the whole he leans more heavily towards the comedic parts of the character. Meanwhile, Yamadera’s Ryoga hasn’t really sounded silly once to me. He plays the character dead straight, and let’s the comedy come through in the contrast between that demeanor and the circumstances around him. We’ll have to see as we go, but I actually might be preferring the Japanese performance so far, a rarity for me.

Okay, so, why do I love Ryoga so much? There are SO many reasons, many of which I won’t go into just yet because I’ll save them for when they appear in-series. But there is still a lot shown in this episode that I feel I can discuss. To start with, I adore his design. I don’t mean the cloak and goggles, though those are absolutely awesome, I’m referring to his standard mode of dress. The yellow and green as a color scheme, with accents of black to top it off, is something really unique. I don’t know enough about art to really articulate why, but I just love every touch of his design. My favorite small touch has to be the yellow strands wrapping around his lower legs, clashing with his otherwise dark green lower half. I have no clue what they’re supposed to be for, but they just add something, almost making him look more rooted to the spot of wherever he’s standing, more solid.

That is a good word to use for Ryoga in general. Even though we haven’t gotten to see him in a proper fight just yet, we’ve seen quite a lot of evidence of his main attributes. In Dungeons & Dragons terms, Ryoga is making out his Strength and Constitution. He hits like a truck and he can be hit by a truck without slowing down. I love that because it contrasts so perfectly with Ranma’s strength: his speed and precision. I adore it when rival characters actually have qualities that make the fights between them more interesting from the contrast, and Ryoga fits the bill there quite well. He’s also a good foil in terms of personality: Ranma is easy going, likes screwing with people, and is quite quick-witted; Ryoga has a hot temper and a long memory for grudges, hates it when people trick him, and tends to let his emotions do the thinking for him.

I will say it feels like his character has some classic Early Installment Weirdness, as he uses his umbrella quite a bit in this episode. If I remember correctly, after his introductory arc, he doesn’t use his umbrella much at all for the rest of the show, preferring to rely on his fists. It definitely feels like they hadn’t quite nailed the character completely yet, if that makes any sense.

Ryoga is also doing that thing where he’s seeking revenge and really angry, but refuses to talk about why, drawing out the mystery as long as possible. While that trope can become annoying, I don’t really mind it in this case. This isn’t a situation like Godot from Ace Attorney, where Ryoga is purposefully hiding it for some grand plan or something, or to teach a lesson. Ryoga doesn’t go into specifics because A) he thinks Ranma should already know; B) Ryoga is very mad; and C) he doesn’t want anyone else to know his secret. I’m not saying it isn’t stupid that he doesn’t tell Ranma why he’s mad, but I am saying that it’s in-character.

Are you surprised that I adore this episode? You shouldn’t be, I’ve been gushing about it this whole time. Even with the parts I found more rough to watch, this is still my favorite episode of the series thus far, putting the rankings at:

Episode 7: Enter Ryoga, the Eternal ‘Lost Boy’

Episode 2: School is No Place for Horsing Around

Episode 6: Akane's Lost Love... These Things Happen, You Know

Episode 4: Ranma and...Ranma? If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Another

Episode 5: Love Me to the Bone! The Compound Fracture of Akane's Heart

Episode 1: Here’s Ranma

Episode 3: A Sudden Storm of Love

The big question is: will the next episode of this four episode Ryoga arc be even better? We’ll find out next time with Episode 8: “School is a Battlefield! Ranma vs. Ryoga”. See you then!

#episode 7 #Enter Ryoga the Eternal ‘Lost Boy’#ranma 1/2 #ranma saotome #ryoga hibiki #anime analysis #anime rewatch

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imaginethebeautifulworld · 4 years

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could i get axis, allies, spain, romano, prussia, canada & hong kong finding out their best friend is ace? this might be a weird request but my dad didnt take it well when i came out earlier tonught and its ok if you dont want to write this one

Updated because I forgot Toni! D:

America:

Alfred lets out a single, surprised "Dude." He then gives you the biggest, brightest smile you have ever seen, warming you from the inside out. "That is so cool!" He has questions, of course, most of them revolving around "How did you find out?" and "Wait, are you telling me you don't think Chris Evans is hot?" Overall, he is a big ball of positivity, though he's much more serious when asking if you wanted to meet up with the local PFLAG sometime. He often attends meetings anyway; there's usually free food, and he's heard some really awesome presentations. Overall though, he is your biggest, most enthusiastic ally, in this and every adventure you two have ahead.

Canada:

Matthew doesn't really have time to process your words, whispered in a sudden rush just as the opening credits for the film were starting, but then he catches on. He quickly shoves aside his surprise at not realizing before; he wants to take the remote from you, barricaded as it is within the depths of your blanket fort, but you have a firm grip on it, gaze riveted to the television. He takes a moment to study your tense frame, notices how nervous you were to tell him. With a soft sigh of fond exasperation, he slides closer to you, lightly elbowing you in the side. When he knows he's caught your attention, he offers a wide smile, a silent affirmation that has you dropping your head into his chest in relief, a soft: "Thanks, Mattie," escaping in a contented hum.

China:

Yao is- in a word- confused. In some ways, he is very much the old man he pretends not to be, and his lack of knowledge about queer history is an indicator of that. At first, he would ask if you meant to become a monk; is this some form of abstinence? When did you decide this? Were you vegan, too? It would take patience to explain it to him in full, and there will be some slip-ups. But he absolutely adores you; with a little time, a lot of patience, and maybe a few conveniently misplaced books, he'll understand. And even in that time before- He's always going to be there for you.

England:

Arthur is surprised. Sometimes your jokes are dirtier than his, and Lord knows you have an eye for attractive people. But thinking back, he's never seen you hold more than a passing fancy in anyone, and every date you were on never lasted longer than a few hours. He can tell you're nervous about having told him, anxiously turning away from him to put all your energy into glaring at the canal water. Gently, he steps closer to you, placing a hand on your shoulder, the acceptance in his gestures. He doesn't bother with words; your sigh of relief is confirmation enough that he doesn't need any anyway.

France:

Francis is flattered that you're confiding in him, and he offers immediate, enthusiastic support. He's touched that you trusted him enough to tell him. He's had several partners in the past who have also fallen on the spectrum, and it made him perhaps one of the more understanding nations. He would ask you if there was anything he could do to support you further, and thanks you for telling him. No matter what, he will always love you for who you are, and treasures your friendship just as much as before.

Germany:

Ludvig was startled when you flopped onto the couch beside him, top of your head just missing his thigh, your admission groaned in a series of hypothetical questions that were all too pointed to be anything but truthful. Gently closing his book to set it aside, he placed his hand on your back, lightly brushing it back-and-forth in what he hoped to be a comforting gesture. He wasn't really surprised; seeing your interactions with others all hinted at it. But, he could tell it was bothering you and makes certain to reassure you, a firm, unwavering presence always by your side.

Hong Kong:

Leon has suspected for a while now. It wasn't necessarily clear from your words or your mannerisms, but there was just something about your vibe that gave him hints. When you brought up the courage to confide in him, confirming his suspicions, he feels an overwhelming sense of humility. He thanks you for confiding in him, fully aware of how hard coming out can be. While he may not personally understand it, he easily accepts it as just another part of who you are. And in his opinion? You're always gonna be a badass, and he has a dozen more pranks he wants to play with you.

Japan:

Kiku is a bit relieved, truth be told. He tries not to show how happy he is to have one of his closest friends also fall on the spectrum, instead focusing that energy into a smile of gratitude, thanking you for telling him. He has never really felt the need to come out himself, having long ago just accepted it as part of who he is. He can't really repress his contentment as you turn back to your otome game, your eyes furrowed in concentration. He makes a note to subtly recommend some ace-positive manga to you, knowing that even a little representation can be a constant reassurance.

Prussia:

Gilbert is honestly confused at first; what on earth is that? He's familiar enough with the meanings for LGBT, but he hasn't heard the term "asexual" before. He's quick to reassure you that he's not trying to be a dick; he's genuinely confused. As you start to explain, he feels his confusion morph into surprise and a bit of relief. He didn't realize there was actually a word for how he felt, let alone a whole community. He gives you a smile, declares that you're still awesome enough to be graced with the honour of his presence before he resumes his game, mentally making a note to do more research on his own.

Romano:

Lovino is... To be honest, he's torn. He's long ago familiarized him with a bunch of orientations- between Felice and Cello he really didn't have much choice in the matter- but oddly enough asexuality hadn't been one of them. The concept is kind of hard to wrap his head around. You aren't interested in sex? Are you serious? He doesn't get it, not really. But, he knows how hard it can be to be open with others, and he appreciates how much you trust him enough to confide in him. He takes your hand across the table- nearly spilling your drinks in the process- and assures you that he's always got your back, no matter what.

Russia:

Ivan is wholeheartedly supportive, taking you mildly by surprise. You had expected him to be a little leery of the concept, perhaps even opposed to it. He won't lie; he's kind of hurt at the assumption and is quick to reassure you that nothing comes in the way of how much he loves you. You're his friend- his closest confidant- and all he cares about is knowing that you're happy and safe, that helping you embrace who you are to feel comfortable in your own skin is his top priority. If there is any sort of fallback to fear, it's his threat to expect an increase of illegal memes, all of them based on ace puns and pride.

Spain:

Antonio is very nonchalant about the whole situation. He takes it in stride as easily as if you were to say it was going to partially cloudy tomorrow, never ceasing the swinging of your hands as you continue wandering the Gothic Quarter. He is very casual with his questions: How long have you known? Have you told anyone else? Upon confirmation to these and the dozen or so other questions he has for you, he simply gives your hand a small squeeze, twirling you as soon as there's enough space in the alley. He wants to make sure you feel comfortable around him, and it's his small way of assuring you that you can always tell him anything.

Veneziano:

Feliciano starts to panic, just a little. Had he overstepped your boundaries? Had he ever made you uncomfortable? You're quick to reassure him, his worrying ironically making the conversation a lot easier. He has dozens of questions for you- all of them revolving more about the specifics. Are you still interested in romance? Are you under the general ace umbrella, or were you possible demi or grey? Did you want him to cancel the blind date he set up for you? If anything, Feli is immediately invested, only wanting to make sure that you always felt loved and safe with him, and promising that you can always tell him anything.

Anon,

I'm sorry it didn't go well with your dad. I know from firsthand experience how hard it can be to come out to someone, and unfortunately, I also know how much it hurts not finding the love and acceptance you had been hoping for.

Please know that you are always accepted for who you are here. My inbox is always open if you ever want to talk, and my ask is always open in case you would prefer to remain anonymous.

Please take care, Lovely. Don't lose hope. <3

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rkira · 4 years

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Spoilers season 2.

Is it just me or was umbrella season 2 underwhelming? Like the first two or three episodes built up interest, but then it seemed to plateau.

Like episode one we start off with the worse case scenario, another apocalypse. But everyone is using their powers better than we've ever seen. So you think "oh, in their different times away they developed their powers more.

Vanya at least seemed to have control and not against the team. This mostly made true except assuming in that timeline she was still the cause since Ben was still not double dead. With her I'm actually glad she got to display some emotion this season and seeing her help someone that has problems expressing their emotions, it seemed that helped her controls hers a bit better. Probably the best character development and still my favorite.

Luther starts episode one by taking a rocket to the back, but bullets pierce him no problem. Seemed he might have built his durability, maybe through his fighting matches, maybe he could have had something else going on, idk, but the handler took them out too easy. (Maybe there's science behind why a bullet can pierce but an explosion wouldn't do anything.) It's good to be able to also see him live a normal-ish life for a bit, but for both him and Diego, they seem to be much more dumb this season.

Klaus also a bad amazing (redundant to say since they all are) in the opening, we only ever see Ben materialize in the first season, since he didn't know he could do that, but a whole squad or what ever the term may be at once. If he was going for world domination with his cult, it'd be fairly easy. Not only that but he seems to have Ben in a more permanent materialized form. Not permanent permanent, but he doesn't seem to be focusing on him and he's slightly off doing his own thing.

Ben's dead so there's not much he could probably develope with his powers or if he could if he were alive anyway, but we get a flashback to 16 year old Bens funeral. How's a ghost age? We can have 5 at what ever age he's at but can't have 16 year old Ben? They also make possession seem like his power but I'm sure Klaus could have helped him possess someone else.

Prior to the season my roommate and I were questioning Allison's rumor ability and what's the limit? Could she rumor something more impossible or multiple people at once? We never see it first season but I had assumed not on the first part. But there we are blowing people up with a rumor. So not only will she have gone from not using to maybe even using it for equal rights that whole time, that'd be cool, maybe not killing anyone until that one scene where the cops are being, well cops unfortunately. But nope. Still doesn't use it, till that point then gets easily convinced to use it to go shopping. Something I think she should have been doing the whole time. I didn't have a problem telling her kid to go to bed with a rumor, certainly wouldn't mind seeing a bunch of racist assholes actually learning not to hate. Although historically speaking would that take away from things actually accomplished? It's fiction but how much liberty can they take.

Then Diego. Did not know he could redirect bullets/maybe all projectiles? This is the only development that actually happens again at the farm, granted a lot less gracefully and a lot.more bullets. I already said he seemed less intelligent but who knows, maybe some drugs from the asylum could have caused that?

The final battle was so underwhelming. An army of commission agents show up and you think, may not be in the city so a lot less casualties to worry about, but an army is an army and we're going to get a similar scene from the beginning. Nah, simple energy wave, shouldn't of killed anyone, and I feel like a lot of them could have just got back up. The others on the team all just hide and run away, would even think Klaus could get an army of dead cowboys or what ever to come, but all they do is catch him. Almost some promise of a good fight when Lila reveals her powers but even then, no real excitement or development comes from that.

The handler should have just been dead, hazel and chachas replacement are the worst characters, they are just so boring and gross. Hargreaves knows he let those alien light things out so he shouldn't be surprised when super powered humans show up.

However, trying to find information from the comics shows that they didn't really delve into the other 36 kids. Sure some may have died in childbirth, underwhelming but possible. Maybe their powers weren't controllable and died that way, like opening a black whole and getting sucked in. My main theory is even if they were born the same way, Hargreaves only trained the seven . Maybe there was something about his instruction or maybe he developed them with some special formula as infants, like the lights are just one half of the equation. But then Lila really shouldn't have powers the same way, unless the handler got that second half of the Krabby patty formula and have it to her after the kidnapping. Maybe that will be delved into in season 3 with the sparrow academy.

Last complaint, they showed up April 2nd 2019, day after Vanya ripped the house down and ended the earth, everything standing. But they don't question any of that. Just "why is there a picture of Ben" nothing should be standing on this date. Could have time traveled, gotten the book from the dumpster, killed dick bag Harold Jenkins right there and bam.

But the rest was alright. Not a terrible season but if I were to give the first season a 10, I'd say a 6 or 7 by comparison. (main complaint about season one is they could have used mcr nanana in that one future scene)

#☂️#the umbrella academy #the umbrella academy season two #complaints #spoilers #vanya #diego #klaus #allison #5 #luther #pogo #Hargreaves

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