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jimmythejiver · 3 years

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For the first time in a long time I went to the movies in forever and then to Target. At Target I see some Godiva bars on discount yellow tags and I was ecstatic until I read 70% Cacao, Dark, Salted Caramel and was deflated.

Anyway that's how I felt about seeing The Green Knight. What you thought this was about chocolate?

No see since the pandemic I've been back on my perennial King Arthur kick. I've for a long time since I was a young preteen thought, someday I too will write my own King Arthur epic and it'll be gay, magical, gangster and culty too, but for now I'll make up my own stories for practice and then with every story I got attached too, it got too involved and convoluted to the point that when it came down to actually writing a novel, I threw it all away and made a space opera I only planned in two weeks and wrote in a month. Anyway...so now I've been writing this very gay, magical, gangster and culty take on Final Fantasy XV with my boyfriend and just fell in love with Somnus Lucis Caelum who nobody has any insight about him than to make him the Mordred to Ardyn's Arthur, which is a strange flex, but okay, I thought about what if I wrote a Dark Age prequel about Ardyn and Somnus, but Ardyn becomes king and Somnus his shogun and they play games of seduction and power because I'm twisted like that. Anyway...I was like I'm never going to write this and I have to keep making up characters based on FFXV characters and King Arthur tropes because there's not a lot of stories that take place during the Dark Ages, it's always some Roman Empire story, or High Middle Ages and FFXV gave no room for either society to happen after the fall of Solheim and the rise of King Somnus...so we left with Dark Ages, y'all, the King Arthur comparisons are obvious, but Ardyn is no Arthur and Somnus is no Mordred, Aera is only Guenevere if you make up an affair with Somnus, Gilgamesh is no Bedwyr/Bedivere, but uh...they both amputees and the oldest companions to their respective kings so...I guess. Anyway making an ancestor of Cor Leonis and deciding well he's Owain/Yvain, or am Ignis type as idk Sir Cai/Kay I guess, they both cook, but Cai's more like Seifer Almasy than any FF character... Anyway I'm losing people.

My plan was to just scrap the FFXV prequel, leave my Somnus ideas into Overtime (a gangster and gods story) and just plan an actual King Arthur adaptation. I'd have King Arthur the treasure hunter, leader of a warband turned founder of Camelot who fights giants, giant cats and dogheads, but also fights King Claudas of the Franks and King Aelle of the Saxons and Cerdic a Briton who puts in his lot with the Saxons, etc. It'd been a a glorified turf war, meanwhile Arthur's gotta make alliances with King Pelles, The Fisher King and his strange cult he's founded because, why yes I find the ends justifies the means prophecy of the Holy Grail Quest very culty because Christianity then does not resemble it now. Meanwhile you got the secondary plots of Mordred, Gawain, Lancelot, Percival, Tristam and other's going on because they matter and too many modern King Arthur stories sideline the knights.

So many have always sidelined Mordred as a final boss eldritch abomination in mortal flesh conceived of sin and give him no personality, or complex motives, or even just a relationship with Arthur. I also have noticed the general sidelining of Lancelot, or give him a chad villain upgrade if you must include him at all, and the villainizing of Gawain to the point that you don't even have to have Mordred, or Agravain as a catalyst shit stirrer in court, just slap Gawain's name on Liam Neeson in a top knot and you're good. Mordred can just be a child offscreen until last act...fuck that, while Morgan Le Fay can either be a villainess plotting her cabal through men, or a well-intentioned, ineffectual idiot. Fuck that.

Now Hollywood just be doing King Arthur first acts that suck ass, only for said director to get rewarded failing upwards by giving this same jerk the Aladdin remake. The tonally shitty, crammed in blockbuster mess of a cliche heroe's journey that sucks.

With that background I was excited for The Green Knight. I read an illustrative version as a kid, I read Tolkien's translation as a teenager, I read Simon Armitage's superior, but with liberties taken translation. I was prepped to go knowing that indie, or not they were going to make changes to weave the disjointed poem together. I'm excited that because this movie exists Project Guternberg's finally thrown Jessie Weston's prose rendition up on their website. I'll be reading that at some point when this blows over.

The movie adaptation makes a lot of...choices, many I wouldn't love, but would forgive had their been a payoff. There was none.

The journey was fine, the cinematography was a breath of fresh air after crappy slo mo, glossy action scenes ruined another. Guys, I don't think I want to see a Zack Snyder Excalibur, it'll marginally be better than Guy Ritchie, but that ain't saying anything. Leave Excalibur to the post-Star Wars 80s where it is impeccable for it's time. I liked Green Knight's breathable pacing, it's color palette's in the forests and mountains made up for the muddy grey of every Ridley Scott send up in the castles and villages in every other Dark Ages/Medieval story in the last I don’t know since the shitty 00′s. For all the dark tones when there was blues, greens, yellows or reds, they were vibrant in this movie to contrast the gloom of Britain. The soundtrack was good. This isn't all what makes a movie, but it enhances it so let's get to the story and what I did and didn't like.

Things I Liked: Gawain is still a novice in his career The Costume Dressing Everyone pronounces Gawain's name different. I pronounce it like Gwayne, or Guh Wayne, but here you got Gowen (like Owen), Gowan (like Rowan), or even Garlon who I'm pretty sure is the Fisher King's heir in some versions of that Arthurian story, so uh... The reference to Arthur slaying 960 men with his bare hands (Nennius for the win!) The Waste Land that is implied to be a site of a battle (an important aspect of the Arthurian landscape) The Fox companion No long grisly, drawn out hunting scenes. The Fox lives! No misogynist speeches

Things I'm Mixed: This being a dream, is the magic real? Are the giants? Is the Green Knight a figment of Gawain's imagination from a spell Morgan casted in him to hallucinate? Is Lord and Lady also figments? It's...a way to interpret the poem, but lazy and I don't see why it's got to all fantasy, or all dream...this movie makes it too vague you're stuck picking one camp than to accept it's a fantasy with dream and hallucinatory sequences.

Things I'm Meh: Morgan Le Fay as Gawain's mom. Look I fucking hate Morgause as a character and these two get merged and steal each other's aspects so much at this point the difference is who did they marry, King Urien or King Lot? Both are attributed to being Mordred's mom, Mordred is Gawain's brother...both practice magic depending on certain incarnations, both love and hate Arthur their brother and are in conflict with him. Saint Winifred. I actually liked this sequence, but I don't appreciate her as the tacked on wife in the later dream sequence as like...a contrast between the wife you should marry than the whore next door you don't respect anyway? I don't even know what lesson I'm supposed to get out of the damn dream sequence, or any of it? That Gawain should've married his girlfriend and then he'd be a just ruler? That he shouldn't be king? That he'd never have to make the same heartless, impartial choices? I don't know, he seemed like a king doing king shit because guess what? It never gets easier. Wars will be waged. The world didn't become better because he married the right woman, respected her and lived in obscurity. The world didn't become better because he made her his queen. We certainly don't know the world would be better Gawain had his head chopped off and dead XP They never reveal the Lord and the Green Knight as one and the same because of this shit.

Things I Hated: Arthur withdraws from the challenge because he's old. In poem he takes it on and Gawain takes it so he don't have to and he finds himself more disposable than the king. Gawain only takes the challenge because of arrogance. Arthur and Gawain had no prior personal relationship. I'd not have hated this so much if it wasn't compounded by it cancelling out the first two things. Gawain is portrayed as having no respect for his woman, or any woman, maybe his mother? He has to be pushed by Winifred to regain her head. Gawain is portrayed as arrogant, covetous and ready to pass the buck, or the bare minimum than have any honor or decency. It didn't matter the kid in the wasteland was shithead bandit, the way Gawain acted towards him, when he gets robbed, it almost feels like he deserved it and Gawain doesn't learn a damn lesson. I'll admit him taking the sword to cut his ropes and cutting his hands was a neat sequence, it shows him go from stupid, to almost clever and having will to survive...you know traits he had in the poem, but he stops showing these traits or growing. Basically Gawain has to be dragged kicking and screaming to help people and shows no fortitude when facing temptation, or when showing respect towards others, it's exhausting. You don't make this kind of journey story without character growth. Why are you skipping this? Also is it just me, or is this like when you take Frank Miller Batman and transport him onto a Bill Finger story? This is at best Thomas Malory Gawain (and this is charitable) transported on the earlier Pearl Poet's story. Stop it. It's not tonally correct and goes at odds with the story and the set up characterization you'd need to tell it. Speaking of which, you know how I get through the oof... of Liam Neeson Gawain in Excalibur? By pretending he Agravain instead. Here...I don't even think Gawain could pass as Mordred in spite of his covetous nature, lust and entitlement. Why? because I don't think even Mordred is this dumb to warrant this hubris. Essel being invented as a tacked on love interest just to be shit on utterly and for what? I don't think I have much commentary here as there is no Essel I'm aware of to compare, or stack up. I just notice this trope of like...usually if you include a sex worker in Hollywood she often has a heart of gold, she often has her own sense of values that goes at odds with society, but is more true and less hypocritical than a privileged lady’s. I thought that's what they would've done with the added trope of back at home sweetheart to contrast and pit her against the despicable femme fatale of Lady Bertilak and her adultery and her ladyship...and I'm glad they didn't...but you did nothing with Essel than to shit on her for existing when you made her exist, you know. Lady Bertilak being portrayed as the seductress devil incarnate. Look I know adultery is a touchy taboo, but uh her and Gawain hit it off in the poem, dammit! Her values and his values come to clash, but here it's played off as Gawain is stupid and covetous and Lady Bertilak wants to prove something because...? If my brother's theory that she's a figment of Morgan Le Fay's magic, then I'll take this as a lesson of Gawain is impulsive and covetous and his mom knows it, but he don't want to fuck his mom, but he wants her power, and Morgan wants to teach him a lesson... I guess. Hey we don't have misogynist speeches in this movie, but we'll make sure to have the movie drip with it with no point, or commentary. Pass. Lord guilting, extracting and initiating the same sex kiss and only once. Poem automatically better that Gawain don't have to keep being reminded to keep his part of the bargain and he does it willingly more than once. What he doesn't do is give up his belt...gods how did we get more homophobic as a society that the homoeroticism here is worse? Catholics of the middle ages officially had no issue doing same sex, passionate kissing until it lead to sex. The Ending: The gods damn ending. In the movie as is, Gawain waits to uphold his end of the bargain and get his head chopped off. He imagines, even though we don't get any fuzzy or distortion to indicate this is a dream, but I already knew this was coming, he runs away and comes home, is regarded a hero, he sees his lady, takes her from behind and if you saw Brokeback Mountain (I didn't, but DJ has) you know this is a sign of disrespect to women. He gets her knocked up, pays her off for the kid she wants to keep, he is crowned king, marries the ghostly saint lady he helped retrieve her head earlier from a lake in the movie (this right here is the damn tip off). There's no more dialogue by this point and everything is montaging, so you know by now it's a dream, though nothing is out of focus. He rules as a heartless king, his whore son dies from war he waged, he has a daughter, his wife dies. Gawain then takes off the belt that would've saved his life and his head falls off. This would've been the one good twist, except... In this sequence of events he never had his head cut off so uh... now we back in present day. He decides not to bitch out, Green Knight in a sexy way is like "now off with your head," movie cuts to credits with no resolve...uh what the fuck? What the fuck? This is not good. You wasted the one twist in your dream when idk, you could've...

How I'd fix it: No dream sequence at all. No Incident At Owl Creek twist. Gawain comes home a hero and survivor of this game and ordeal. He wears this belt of shame. He becomes a well-renowned knight, but he bears a shame. One day he goes to take off his belt and his head falls off because he cheated to get this belt and to survive this encounter. There. Done. Improved your high concept movie that couldn't play any of the lessons straight from the damn poem without making everyone an asshole for no reason! Ugh! But nope you had to end it on we don’t know if Gawain lives or dies...because...it's dream magic made from his momma's witchcraft...?

Last Thoughts So then post-credits scene because Marvel because Pirates Of The Caribbean existed. A white girl who looks nothing like Gawain's daughter we see who didn’t pay off, or any child I can remember through this whole movie picks up King Arthur's crown that dream Gawain inherited and puts it on her head. Who is this girl? Are we gonna have an indie equivalent of of the Marvel Movie Universe/Universal Horror Monsters thing with ancient British legends? We gonna get a Life Of Saint Patrick next that crosses over? I don't know. What is this?

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kendrixtermina · 4 years

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Thoughts regarding the Nolofinweans

One interesting thing to note, to me, has always been the slight contrast between Fingolfin and his kids.

They’re like him in the sense that they’re described as brave, valiant badasses - Fingon & Argon being huge war heroes for example, but unlike him, they are also explicitly adventurous, which their father is not; he was explicitly in the “stay” faction but went along out of obligation (both to the people, but also because he gave his word, and because revenge) - meanwhile Fingon & Aredhel couldn’t wait to be gone, the former is noted to have marched at the very front during the departure. From how he’s described as very impetuous & heroic, we can assume that Argon was probably the same as his sister and oldest brother.

The possible outlier here is Turgon, who is probably the most like his father out of the bunch. Pretty responsible & noble, tough not completely without some pride of their own. The way in which they go down is certainly very similar: “I have miscalculated & failed to protect those I was responsible for! Clearly all is lost and I must atone for my folly with my life, so let there be fireworks”

So, do the other three just happen to take after Anaire? They probably do in the sense of being very loyal friends like she was to Earwen (especially if you hc that Aredhel put her own adventure plans on hold to help her then-newly widowed brother with his kid)

However, I wish to float another idea:

Consider Fingolfin. What do we know about him? Though he’s the middle child, he seems to have been the most popular of the princes, at least in Tirion proper. That might well be because he was the one who was most often in Tirion, doing actual prince things, so the people of the city would have known him well - whereas Feanor was always traveling or working as an inventor; We’re told he had some influence with the scholars, but he probably wasn’t at the palace that often, and Finarfin noped out of everything & chilled out in Alqualonde - and why wouldn’t he, he was the youngest. It’s not specified what Findis did but it doesn’t seem to have been politics, it seems like the resonated more withthe Vanyar anyways, and Lalwen, like Finarfin, was one of the younger ones.

It’s easy to imagine that Fingolfin was very dedicated & dutiful; Maybe there was an element of trying to win his father’s approval to it. There’s a very formal vibe to him, both from the title he ends up using, & some of the dialogue he gets, like, when he talks to Finwe in front of the assembly he adresses him as “my father and king” - certainly this is also meant to show that Fingolfin is considering the politics here, and of course they’re nobility. Maybe they just talk like that. But in the same scene, Feanor refers to Finwe simply as “my father”. Could it be then that this is a reflection of Finwe being somewhat closer with Feanor? Not impossible, but, in that snippet of dialogue where Finwe is discussing the events with Miriel in Mandos (and guessing very wrong about what’s probably going on in his absence) he refers to Fingolfin simply as “Arakano” (or whatever his mother-name was supposed to be at the time)

So here’s my theory:

In his younger days, Fingolfin used to be about as adventurous, impetuous and not-the-best-judge-of-character-y as Fingon, Aredhel and Argon, complete with some charley-brown esque conviction that maybe this time, Feanor would not pull the football away; It’s easy to see how he’d get cured of that last illusion with time, but there’s more to that.

He used to love nothing more than to go riding his horse around the landscape with Lalwen and do cool tricks; After Finwe would tell them stories of the great journey, he would go drape a courtain around himself and pretend to be a great chieftain. He’d do all sorts of daring tricks that won him the friendship of many other noble brats and some enduring Big Brother Worship from Lalwen.

But then, as he grew older, it was inevitable that he’d hear people talking, that there’d be whispers behind their backs, or that he’d come across some documents where it’s referenced that his family was once the subject of legal dispute.

Much excellent writing has been made about what it must’ve been like for Feanor to have his very existence and the characters of his beloved parents be the subject of public debate, but the same would go for Indis’ kids, just in a different way - perhaps this is also part of the reason why Findis kept out of politics & the public eye. There were, after all, canonically people mumbling that they should never have been. At least Feanor would’ve been being a jerk to Indis on a regular basis.

So at one point, after some humiliating experience or another, a still fairly young Fingolfin - maybe the equivalent of a 14/15 year old human or so - decided that he would have to be the most ideal, impeccable prince to prove everybody wrong, to prove that he was worth the dodgy exception, so to speak. If he were a clear benefit to Tirion’s society, he thought, with a bit of juvenile pride, maybe then people would stop talking bad about his parents, and his siblings would not be subjected to the same scrutiny.

So from that point on he threw himself into his studies & his responsibilities (”Sorry Lalwen, duty calls. I’ll play with you tomorrow”) and did what he could to be a shining example, so no one would say that his parents were selfish for having him or whatever - and he was good at it, which ironially probably created something of a pridigial-son sort of situation. He was always there, suceeding & not giving anyone cause for worry (until things between him & Feanor started to get heated), so he wasn’t perceived to need attention; He probably felt a bit taken for granted now & then, like his efforts weren’t appreciated, or not good enough, though it was brobably just an occasional bit of subliminal resentment before Melkor came in.

There’s one snipped that didn’t make it into the final cut, where Finarfin is described as the gentlest of the brothers, but also very learned and also a good speaker... which I’d sort of assumed anyways, because, look at Finrod. But imagine being in Fingolfin’s shoes with two super handsome, super smart brothers. He’s super exceptional himself, but when he was young & had only his family to compare to...

Likewise, you might look at Finarfin’s super talented kids & conclude that he severely downplayed his own talents because he didn’t want to kick up more of a fuss & felt his father had enough “talented sons” to worry about.

We have to appreciate that the Melkor incident didn’t just result in a rift between Feanor & everyone else, but in strife & discord everywhere; Everyone’s marriages were wrecked, parents took different sides than their children (Finarfin: “We stay!” Angrod: “No we leave!” Orodreth:”No we stay!” ...But Orodreth did not turn back and had a thoroughly bad time in middle Earth more than anyone save Aredhel maybe.) - tough we’re told that at least his sons stayed civil enough to not outright criticse him in public. I think the partings between the children of Indis were probably messy too. Findis probably told the others to go to hell when they left, then Finarfin turned back, with some degree of bitterness over how all turned out - even the pair that was left in Aman might have taken some time to reconcile.

(As for Turgon, he either simply won the impulse control lottery (ie - he just takes after Indis), or got all responsible when he had Idril. )

#silmarillion #fingolfin #finarfin #lalwen #findis #i wish there was some handy collective term for the children of indis #nolofinweans

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homespork-review · 4 years

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Homespork Act 4, Part 1: Blight of the Paradox Clones

BRIGHT: Act 4 opens on a loading sequence titled ‘GATE 1’, and then there’s a short pan down through firefly-dotted clouds to a dim blue landscape called the Land of Wind and Shade. John manifests at ground-level and it’s time for another walk-around game!

The icon in the upper right corner opens a conversation with Nannasprite, who’s still back in the house. Apparently she can’t accompany John around the Land, but she can certainly give him puzzling half-answers to any questions he might have. John asks her point-blank if she was always cryptic and evasive or if that’s a sprite thing, but she predictably avoids answering.

John wanders around the Land, getting into fights with (oddly non-aggressive) imps for grist. The Land is very atmospheric, with glowing blue mushrooms and odd pipes everywhere. It’s also inhabited by large, excitable, bipedal orange salamanders who blow bubbles and dispense information about the Land. One of them has acquired John’s bedsheets and is now calling itself a wizard.

A salamander standing by one of the pipes explains that it’s called a Parcel Pyxis. If you need something, you can chisel a picture of whatever it is into a stone tablet and drop it into a Parcel Pyxis. If you find a tablet, and you have what’s carved into it, it’s polite to drop it into the Pyxis and the Breeze will take it where it needs to go. (Just what the Breeze is isn’t explained yet, but given the name of the Land, it’s fair to assume an explanation will be forthcoming in due time, and it’s thematically consistent.)

While wandering, John finds a telescope. Looking through it, he sees his house, perched waaaaaay at the top of a very tall, very narrow rocky crag. He also finds a very large pipe sunk into the ground. He can hear something very, very big breathing at the bottom.

There are definite pros and cons to these games, but on the whole I like them. They’re more immersive than the usual comic panels, and it’s nice to do some self-directed wandering. On the other hand, it’s easy to miss something in a walk-around game, which hardly ever happens with comic panels…

FAILURE ARTIST: The Salamanders crack me up. Good parody of NPC chatter.

CHEL: Comic panels of the walkaround are included later on, so if you really hate the games you can read it straightforwardly.

John is confused by now being below his house when he went through a portal above it; Nanna cryptically claims that “To ascend, you must first descend!”

BRIGHT: With the game out of the way (it doesn’t really have a defined end point), we return to normal comic panels — and also to the future. AR is embroiled in a shootout with the snakes from PM’s ship, which are now firing laser beams. A stray blast decapitates the frog temple. AR returns fire with a rocket launcher. His first shot takes out the snake. The second knocks WV flying. WV lands behind a rock, and the carved pumpkin lands on his head. AR lines up his next shot...and pauses.

The carved image of Bec’s head seems to mean something to AR, because he immediately ceases fire and comes down to start yelling at WV. This turns out to be a poor move on his part: PM still has her sword, and she is not pleased.

I really, really like PM as a character. She has no dialogue whatsoever and still projects massive amounts of integrity.

The comic returns to Jade. She’s retrieved Dave’s Sburb discs from the time capsule, which is clearly going to move the plot along...

Looks like the TIME CAPSULE has reset itself. It is sprouting a new bud. Presumably something else will come out when it blooms again in about 400 years. Too bad you won't be around to find out what it is!

...aaaaaaand we go into sylladex shenanigans again.

I will say this for sylladex tomfoolery: It absolutely can break up tension and provide some lighter stretches in the plot. The problem is that these don’t always feel natural. I find them less annoying now and can appreciate the humour, but they really bugged me the first time around.

Still, Jade’s use of her sylladex does at least speak to her character.

Jade eventually settles on Pictionary modus, which means she has to draw a picture of whatever she wants to captchalogue. If she doesn’t have the drawn item to hand, her modus instead captures a “ghost image” of the item on a card, complete with alchemiter code. Handy! Unfortunately the modus has some trouble understanding Jade’s drawings, interpreting her picture of her eclectic bass as a regular electric bass.

Bec then catches up and teleports Jade back to her room. In a demonstration of unusual good sense, Jade promptly gets on with installing the Sburb Beta.

Back in the Land of Wind and Shade, John pesters Rose to ask if she’s here on the other side of the gate, in the “spooky glowy place with oily rivers and stuff”. She doesn’t respond. He does however get pestered by Jade, who is now awake and therefore fully aware of what Sburb is (much to John’s confusion). She tells him to go get his copy of the game so he can be her server player. John is convinced Jade is psychic, but she tells him that he has access to all the information she does, he just doesn’t know it yet.

Meanwhile, Dave is also trying to get in touch with Rose, also to no effect. Jade pesters him and they have a cute conversation in which Jade forgets how a reference goes, but Dave assures her she got it anyway. She tells him she’s setting up as his server player and shows him a picture of the meteor aimed at his house. There are no size comparison points available but Jade assures him that it’s really, really big.

TG: well as if like one the size of a bus wouldnt kill me anyway

FAILURE ARTIST: Dave describes his beating from his Guardian as “i got served like a dude on butler island” and Jade says it’s “(DRAMA DRAMA DRAMA)”. It’s hard to take the abuse seriously when none of the characters do.

ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 14

BRIGHT: In the Medium, John is getting pestered by carcinoGeneticist again. We now have a picture icon for CG. Look familiar? Yup, it’s the guy from the end of the Intermission.

So I guess this is the first time in the main comic that we get confirmed, visual proof that the trolls are aliens? It’s hard to point to, since the trolls get introduced gradually.

I’ve no idea how this was received in fandom when it first happened, but by the time I got to Homestuck, the fact that the trolls were grey folks with horns was probably the most famous feature of the canon, so...not so much of an impact. Still pretty cool though.

FAILURE ARTIST: I wish I could remember how the fandom took it.

The trolls in these early acts make a big deal all the time about how they are alien and the kids are human. It’s an amusing parody of the way aliens act in fiction but it is weird when the trolls become actual characters and we find out their psychology is surprisingly human most of the time.

CHEL: Hence the WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM count. That’ll spike later.

BRIGHT: CG is unexpectedly friendly this time. Apparently he’s been trolling John backwards through time, which is frustrating as each earlier John knows less and less, so CG keeps having to repeat himself. (Which...doesn’t make much sense? He’d have to explain more obvious stuff, sure, but John would remember things he was told in later-from-CG’s-perspective conversations, so...ugh, time travel!) Despite this frustration, however, John’s relentless friendliness apparently wore the trolls down and now they’re friends. Or at least CG thinks they are. John is less than convinced.

CHEL:

John asks if the trolls are in his land, but CG berates him for self-centredness:

CG: WE HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH YOUR DUMB LITTLE WINDY PLANET OR YOUR PETTY LITTLE QUESTS. CG: OR FOR THAT MATTER YOUR ENTIRE GAME SESSION. CG: YOU AREN'T THE ONLY ONES PLAYING THE GAME. CG: EVERY GROUP OF PLAYERS GETS THEIR OWN DISTINCT, BLANK SLATE SESSION. CG: AS WILL BE EXPLAINED TO YOU MANY TIMES.

He instructs John to relay an apology for the trolling to Jade and to tell her to GET HER GROSS AND TOTALLY UNATTRACTIVE HUMAN BUTT OFF HER UGLY HUMAN HIGH HORSE AND ANSWER MY MESSAGES. John says he’s a bit focused on his own quest right now, and sets off to find his father’s car.

TIER: While that's happening, we cut back to the gaggle of aliens having a grand old time around a campfire with some good food. A familiar pair of squiddles, now old, is visible as well.

FAILURE ARTIST: AR/PM/WV was a popular OT3 back in the day but you never see it anymore.

CHEL: Pity. It’s adorable.

FAILURE ARTIST: We cut to Dave’s place, where Jade is setting things up for the game. The air conditioning unit helps with the process, but the birds everywhere don’t. Dave drops the r-slur.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 16

Rose also talks with Dave as this is going on. She says this to him.

TT: I've done nothing but wait for boys to play this game with me all day. TT: First John lollygagging with the client, and then you with the server, downright filibustering my existence with unending fraternal melee. TT: And yet a girl, one who didn't even own the game, was able to connect with you minutes after you connected with me.

I’ve seen this quoted as Rose/Jade Lesbian Power but I wish we had more scenes where the two actually talked to each other.

CHEL: Being happy that one of your friends is competent means you’re in love with them now? And yet if someone used that as evidence for a het ship they’d be run out of the fandom. Anyway, Jade removes Dave’s bed to make room.

TT: And there she goes. TT: She HAS the karma.

FAILURE ARTIST: Rose has been talking to a troll, but she doesn’t know the gender so uses “he/she/it”. Funny to think there was a time when we didn’t know the trolls’ gender. Particularly the gender of Rose’s favorite troll...

Jade tries to tidy up the apartment using “a woman’s touch” a.k.a. a towel drenched in toilet water. Which begs the question of how her home is spotless.

CHEL: Because Hussie is again not thinking through the implications of the living situations as presented, and/or trying to present things as simultaneously a joke and serious. To be fair, considering the dreambot, she could have a super hi-tech cleaning system, or Bec could teleport the dirt away, but if so, we ought to see that.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 10 ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 15

FAILURE ARTIST: In doing so, she accidentally rips the toilet out and drops an F-bomb.

CHEL: We now get a video of Rose’s location, the LAND OF LIGHT AND RAIN. Her house is now perched on a tiny island surrounded by glimmering pastel oil-slick-looking water, a waterfall pouring down out of nowhere beside it, with golden clouds scattered around pouring rain. It’s very pretty!

We again see the carapaces finding things in the ruins, and WV brings PM to see inside the bunker. The blast earlier formed an entry into the third room which had been locked, which contains further devices, this one with more spirographs and a frog picture on it; WV doesn’t know what this one does and the power’s too low to use it anyway. Back in the room with the monitors, PM is impressed by WV’s drawings and he offers her the pack of chalk. AR, meanwhile, cooks food.

PM recognises the monitor as similar to the one in her own station, though hers was watching a girl. Here, we get the static panels of the runaround game, from PM’s point of view.

Back in LoLaR, a mysterious textbox in cursive addresses Rose as Seer, suggesting she explore. Recall that the book mentioned the Heir of Breath, the Seer of Light, the Witch of Space, and the Knight of Time. Since Jade is the one who’s been doing the Seer-ing so far, I’ve seen readers assume she was the Seer and Rose the Witch, but it seems not; further explanations of what those titles really mean are forthcoming.

Sudden cut back to John’s land, where the village is under attack! Huts are aflame, and much bigger and more powerful monsters have arrived.

In Dave’s apartment, Jade opens the cruxtruder by dropping the displaced toilet on it, splashing water everywhere, much to Dave’s aggravation since all that juice was going to come back to haunt me. He’s relieved to see the countdown gives him four hours, but Jade doesn’t know till what, and he realises she’s sleep-messaging him again. He orders her not to watch him pee, and dont put anything weird in the seizure kernel.

TG: the last thing i need is for your weird brain webcam to be snapping shots of my dong TG: your grandpa was a sick fuck why would he build a voyeurbot for a little girl CALL CPA PLEASE: 8

Well, he is kinda right. Anyway, Dave spends a couple of pages elaborately planning misuse of the apple juice bottle and tricking John into drinking from the alchemised bottle, but he dismisses it as too much trouble and goes in the shower, kicking out the puppet. Good thing it was only his bladder that was the problem, if you get my drift. Some fans have speculated that this puppet also had a camera in it, but I can’t see evidence of that; I guess if you squint the eyes might look like a camera lens? I feel if that was the case it would have been shown. Hussie didn’t shy away from the weird shit with Dave’s living situation earlier.

Jade is upset to find the bisected bird from earlier, and decides to help the bird by putting it in the Kernelsprite, angering Dave again. He figures she’ll be more helpful when she’s awake, so he instructs her to slap the air to her side; the dreambot mimics her movements and whacks the real Jade in the face, waking her up.

BRIGHT: I burst out laughing the first time I saw that panel. It’s pretty clever of Dave. (Though obviously not kind, but of a variety that’s in keeping with the story.)

CHEL: Cut to the carapace camp, where they’re burning empty crates for a campfire. AR decides to use the Squiddles to Win over that fine carapace in grey, which seems to distress WV and Serenity. PM takes a Squiddle, but rather than being won over is vaguely reminded of something.

TIER: We then jump back into the past, where we find a totalled car and what looks like AR?

CHEL: Yep, though here he’s going by Authority Regulator instead of Aimless Renegade.

TIER: Whatever the case, this dude is not happy with this traffic violation. Another thing he's not happy with? Unauthorized parcels. Which brings us to the Parcel Mistress, who's been looking for this particular package for a while apparently. Now how to get it?

With that we jump back to John! Who's doing decent enough in his clobbering of game enemies. Just when things ain't looking too hot though, a mysterious stranger shoots and kills them with extreme prejudice. He looks familiar ain't he?

And even if he's not, that gigantic book under his arm can only be the work of the ol’ Colonel Sassacre, which John helpfully points out.

CHEL: Meanwhile in some other time period, PM suddenly remembers she must deliver a message to John. Back in the present, Parcel Mistress, for it is she, finds a tablet carved (badly) by John, depicting the SBurb envelope. The prompt suggests PM ready her sword, but she has none, and claims she would never resort to violence. Instead, she tries asking politely. Despite their lands’ enmity, AR finds her attractive and doffs his hat so furiously you are in danger of starting a HAT FIRE. His civility does not extend to handing over contraband, though. The tablet is sufficient evidence for him to give her the envelope, but to get the green parcel she must ask his bosses. PM puts the envelope in a pyxis, trusting the Breeze to move it, and follows AR.

John plans to follow the man, who he does not yet recognise as Jade’s Grandpa, to get his book back, but first he must help put out the fire in the salamander village. He flings the BARBASOL BOMB he made earlier into the volcano.

The cooling lather should work its magic in no time…

OH GOD HOW CAN SHAVING CREAM BE SO FLAMMABLE

Yeah, that doesn’t work so well. Fortunately, just as all seems lost, A big gust of wind conveniently comes along and blows out all the fire. The salamanders declare John a hero, though he’s just confused.

FAILURE ARTIST: A prompt (PM) asks John if he still has the tablet and if he wants to carve something on it. So, in another time loop, he does that.

Back at LOLAR, a very elegant and mysterious prompt ask Rose to find Jaspersprite. Rose cannot find him, but she does find footprints leading to the mausoleum. The mausoleum isn’t there anymore, but the underground passage is still there. Rose takes it down to a pier where someone has recently taken a boat and left a martini. The mysterious prompt says “A mother will do whatever is best for her children.” Nobody ever said “a brother will do whatever is best for his siblings”.

In the future, WV becomes the Mayor of Exile Town. The peace is disturbed when a “huge eggy looking thing” appears in the sky.

Cut to Jade giving the punch card of an “eggy loking thign (sic)”. Guess someone on the forum had bad spelling?

CHEL: It’s a callback to Rose describing the other unfinished GameFAQs entries, which were typed in haste. One described their entry item that way.

FAILURE ARTIST: Dave creates a huge red bird with a huge red egg. When he tries to use the egg, the crow sprite takes it and puts it in a nest made of smuppets, swords, and Lil Cal.

Dave doesn’t have enough grist to do anything. He fusses around building what he can. That done, he goes inside and installs gristTorrent to steal grist from John. Who exactly made that software?

Meanwhile, in LOLAR, Rose has set up shop on the pier. The mysterious prompter tells her to consult with the Heir and in the pesterlog we see she’s chatting with John. They catch up on the trolls and various things. Unfortunately, Rose is harassed by a gallowsCalibrator who tells her in 133t speak that her mother hates her and left her forever. Amazing that GC eventually becomes a beloved character since they are such a little shit right now. GC has synesthesia and jokes about their species communicating through “CLOUDS OF FR4GR4NT G4S3S”. They want to be helpful, but they deny wanting to be friends, though later they say they are becoming something called “H4T3FR13NDS”.

CHEL: Rose asks if I'm being courted or trolled here, which with further reveals about the trolls will become somewhat ironic. Other trolls are jumping around in time but GC is ST4Y1NG L1N34R [...] C4US3 W31RD T1M3 STUFF G1V3S ME A H34D4CHE, though will jump forward in the timeline so they don’t have to wait too long between conversations.

BRIGHT: GC isn’t the only one...

FAILURE ARTIST: GC explains the voices in the players’ heads are from the Exiles on Earth. The ultimate goal is to create a new civilization with them. With that important information, GC bids adieu for now.

TT: So the exiles are on Earth? Does that mean our goal is to get back there too? To resurrect it somehow? GC: NO NO NO GC: S33 1RON1C4LLY TH3Y G3T TO DO TH4T GC: 4FT3R TH3YR3 DON3 H3LP1NG YOU TH4T 1S GC: YOUR JOB 1S OF GR34T3R CONS3QU3NC3 TO S4Y TH3 L34ST GC: BUT P4RT OF TH31R JOB 1S TO R3BU1LD L1F3 4ND C1V1L1Z4T1ON TH3R3 GC: 4ND 1F TH3YR3 SUCC3SSFUL 1N THOUS4NDS OR M1LL1ONS OF Y34RS TH3 T3CHNOLOGY 1S UN34RTH3D 4ND TH3 PL4N3T 1S R1P3 FOR S33D1NG 4LL OV3R 4G41N TT: You never answered the question. Where were they exiled from? GC: FROM TH3 TWO K1NGDOMS 1N TH3 1NC1P1SPH3R3 GC: 3XP4TR14T3D DUR1NG TH3 R3CKON1NG

CHEL: We now know who and what the Exiles are, so let’s lop off a point for that:

WHAT IS HAPPENING??: 8

FAILURE ARTIST: Back in the past, when John went by ghostyTrickster, he tries to have a conversation with Jade but it’s interrupted by CG warning her that her robot will explode. After CG leaves, Jade and John talk about the trolls. Seems blocking does no good. John drops the r-slur.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 17

We cut to CG being gray and angry in some mysterious grey room.

Then, back to Jade. Her package from her pen-pal appears again.

Cut to ghostyTrickster John. GC trolls him, outs herself as female and blind, and threatens to cut his throat “4ND L1ST3N TO YOU BL33D WH1L3 1 SM3LL YOU D13”. John is naturally unnerved by this, but he also takes inspiration from her taunt that he’s bad at ectobiology.

CHEL: He takes for his new username a term that the trolls introduced him to, and is surprised when they immediately find him? Maybe we DID need a Too Dumb To Live count.

FAILURE ARTIST: We cut to a troll like CG, but with red glasses and a Libra sign on her shirt. This is our first look at gallowsCallibrator.

CHEL: Okay, does the death threat qualify for SEND THEM TO THE SLAMMER? It’s a bit extreme considering at this point in his timeline John has done nothing to offend her. Then again, maybe not; the narrative doesn’t present this as being the right and proper thing to do.

Back in the present, PM arrives in enemy territory, with the parking citation as a ready excuse for her presence. Imps and agents she passes now have features from Jaspersprite; cat faces, princess hats, and we see a DD-like figure wearing a cat-ear headband. PM follows a red carpet, only to be confronted at the end by this eldritch-looking majesty:

PM is naturally trembling, but is merely instructed to speak to the Archagent, who we’ve met before; Jack Noir. We see a ring with four pearl-like orbs on the monarch’s hand; this will become important later.

Rose’s Exile voice bids her farewell, telling her to Find your sprite. Realise your purpose. No longer guided, Rose decides to start making her own decisions, beginning with a sip of martini.

In the desert, A WINDSWEPT QUESTANT suddenly appears, this being a tall white carapace with a feminine figure and narrow eyes, from the eggy lokin thign, with the unsound effect EGG! WV and AR appear disconcerted, while PM is busy telling John to put the carved tablet in the pyxis.

Back in Jack Noir’s office, PM attempts to grab the green box and leave, but Jack appears suddenly behind her, making her jump, and tells her she’d better have the ticket payment or you are wasting valuable time he could otherwise spend shirking his clerical duties. PM nervously explains she’s actually here for the package, and Jack points out she doesn’t have the right courier forms.

In spite of how he's supposed to be dressed now but isn't, he ain't nobody's fool.

However, instead, she could always do an errand for him. Specifically, following his HIT LIST, which is two pictures of white crowns recognisable as the tops of the king and queen chess pieces. He also gives her the enormous black sword we saw her future self use. PM, terrified, departs, and Jack wonders if she’s actually stupid enough to try it.

You make a policy of handing out a REGISWORD and a HITLIST to just about everyone who enters your office.

Curious, he opens the package, and stares into it in surprise.

At Dave’s apartment, Jade has put the Punch Designix in the hallway, making it rather hard to navigate, but regardless Dave’s busy alchemising. He plays with a few add-ons which temporarily render the machines unusable, but eventually manages to use a jumper shunty thing to consolidate all the machines into one. Jade draws some components, gets the captcha codes of their ghost images, and sends the codes to Dave, who plugs them into the machine. Useful, but could probably be compressed into fewer pages, especially when he follows it up by playing with the new machinery. This is adding to my conviction that the machines should have been simplified severely in the first place.

GET ON WITH IT!: 15

John finds the wrecked car with no dad, package, or game, and gets trolled by GC again. She offers to help him, claiming she wants to H3LP YOU 4DV4NC3 MOR3 QU1CKLY because she’s bored watching his long adventure and wants to help him skip ahead. John points out she could just skip forward on the timeline as she has before, and she admits that she just wants to see if she can change the timeline, as her friends don’t believe they can. She offers him a map, which he accepts.

John complains, naturally, and she relents and offers to guide him directly to the pipe which will help him skip to the next Gate. Honestly, he has reason to complain; her smellovision allows her to read text on a screen, yet not to draw?

Rose, back in LOLAR, battles monsters, doing surprisingly well considering she only has knitting needles for a weapon, culminating in an epic sequence in which she stabs both needles into an ogre’s eyes, flips onto its back, and uses her knitting as reins to ride it down the waterfall. Dave informs her he’s out of grist, but she finds the idea of killing the ogre for supplies when it’s unconscious to be distasteful. He’s interrupted by grimAuxiliatrix, The Troll Who Talks Like This, asking about Rose. The conversation is awkward as GA seems unable to read Dave’s sarcasm.

GA: She Perhaps Even Regards You With Uh GA: Endearment TG: you have no idea dude she is so in my grill TG: like a stray hotdog that rolled down there TG: and now its too much trouble to fish out with the tongs TG: so you just watch it like crack and turn black GA: Um Is This GA: A Common Sort Of Practice In Human Courtship GA: Watching Oblong Meat Products Tumble Into Places They Dont Belong

adiosToreador, meanwhile, does the same to Rose about Dave, with a similar lack of comprehension of Rose’s loquaciousness. GA contacts Rose again, and a confusing conversation about temporal mechanics ensues. Afterwards, we see GA, who proves to be a short-haired troll girl with pronged horns, a Virgo shirt symbol (my troll!), and cute little vampire teeth.

FAILURE ARTIST: It’s been too long for me to remember the fandom reaction, but I feel like the reveal that GA is a girl was framed like a surprise. Surprise! This troll is a lesbian! But I might be mistaken. Still, this isn’t like Dave’s (mock?) offended reaction to AT. Hussie, like many straight men, is more comfortable with lesbians than gay men.

We’ll see more of Rose’s and GA’s relationship as the comic goes on. Some non-Homestucks here might already be spoiled due to the numerous fanart of the two.

CHEL: I wasn’t surprised by her being a girl; maybe I’m stereotyping, but the prissy nature of her dialogue and quirk sounded feminine to me from the start, not to mention the “trix” ending of her username is a feminine one - if she was male, it would be “auxiliator”. Not sure how many people paid attention to that though. I was surprised by the later information that (SPOILER) she actually was interested in Rose, because facetious declarations of romantic intention are kind of a thing for the human kids at this point and her flustered reaction could be taken either way here.

Dave, meanwhile, is trolled by AT, with the most cringe-inducing text-rap I’ve ever seen (and text-rapping is pretty cringy to begin with). I gotta praise Hussie, it takes skill to make something this awful.

AT: oK, lET ME, AT: oRGANIZE MY NOTES HERE, AT: oKAYYY, AT: (tURN ON SOME STRICT BEATS MAYBE, iT WILL HELP TO LISTEN TO THEM WHILE i DESTROY YOU,) AT: wHEN THE POLICE MAN BUSTS ME, aND POPS THE TRUNK, AT: hE'S ALL SUPRISED TO FIND I'M TOTING SICK BILLY, AT: wHOSE, AT: gOAT IS THAT, hE ASKS, wHILE HE STOPS TO THUNK AT: aBOUT IT, aND i'S JUST SAY IT'S DAVE'S, yOU SILLY AT: gOOSE,

Since we’ll later find out trolls don’t have the concept of police in the same way humans do, and nor do they call animals by the same names we do, I think this is worth some WSP points. Did he watch Dave’s life closely enough to pick up those concepts?

BRIGHT: I get the distinct impression none of the trolls watched anything like enough of the kids’ lives to pick up the concept of the police, particularly since as we’ll see later they missed a few things that are rather more obvious -- such as, say, parents.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 11

CHEL: He also namedrops Prospit and Derse, which I’m not really spoiling anything by saying are the names of the two warring chess kingdoms, though I don’t think those names have been applied to them yet. I don’t know why, it’s not like keeping them secret makes a big difference - did Hussie only just think of them? The quality of his rhymes aside, AT appears very proud of himself; he’s a troll with enormous bull-like horns, a mohawk, and a Taurus symbol. I thought he was really creepy-looking the first time I saw him, but he rather grew on me.

Back on LOWAS, John is squirted out of a pipe with a gush of oil. Ew. The Con Air bunny goes flying and lands in an oil river, and he catches it with the Ghost Gauntlets. An adult and child pair of salamanders happen to be standing nearby, prompting a movie re-enactment, much to the salamanders’ confusion.

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CG is unimpressed, though he agrees with John that Con Air sounds entertaining. CG claims to have been watching the whole of John’s life and Con Air is supposed to be one of John’s favourite movies; how come CG hasn’t seen any of it before, especially since he says he has seen a movie John hates?

CG: OK I DON'T SEE HOW WE'RE SUPPOSED TO BE BECOMING FRIENDS IF YOU RECOIL FROM MY OLIVE BRANCH LIKE I'M WIGGLING A GNARLED TREE MONSTER'S DICK IN YOUR DIRECTION.

Lovely. Though I gotta say the dialogue and ridiculous extended metaphors are one of the best parts of Homestuck. Wish I could pull those off. However, one point here; if they’re aliens, it seems odd that they would use human idioms such as “olive branch” with the same meaning we do. There is a possible explanation later on, but since they only ever use American/Western phrases like this and it’s clear from other things they say that they didn’t pick up anything much about human culture from watching the kids, I’m upping the count anyway.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 12

BRIGHT: We also discover that troll movies are titled very differently to human movies, such as the classic

CG: WHEREIN NUMEROUS VIGILANTES CONFRONT PERIL; ONE OF THEM BETRAYS THE OTHERS;(BUT IT TURNS OUT TO BE PART OF THE PLAN ALL ALONG); CG: SEVERAL ATTRACTIVE FEMALE LEADS PROVOKE ROMANTIC TENSION; FOUR MAJOR CHARACTERS WEAR UNUSUAL HATS; ONE HOLDS PLOT-CRITICAL SECRET; CG: 47 ON-SCREEN EXPLOSIONS, ONE RESULTING IN DEMISE OF KEY-ADVERSARY;6 TO 20 LINES THAT COULD BE CONSTRUED AS HUMOROUS; EB: wait... EB: this is the title? CG: IT GOES ON.

Apparently after thousands of years of film history, you start running out of movie titles.

Also, note that despite their being aliens, quite possibly with different gender roles, the romantic tension is explicitly provided by attractive female leads.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 13

CG thinks that Earth civilisation’s lack of maturity might explain why the players are (apparently) doing so badly. John retorts that GC is helping him, so they can’t be doing THAT badly. Apparently this wasn’t in the plan; CG goes to talk to GC about it, and she punches him. Seems she’s talking to a future John at the moment, and he asked her to. CG gives John a message to pass on to GC in reply.

CG: TELL HER TO POLISH MY HEAVING BONE BULGE AND SET A TABLE FOR FUCKING TWO ON IT. CG: IT’S FOR OUR CANDLELIT HATE DATE.

John comments that it’s like they’re trolling each other through him now, and asks if CG has talked to Jade. CG is surprised that he’d want to talk to her. John offers to paste the chatlog; CG refuses, and John heads off to talk to GC.

CHEL: Precisely what a bone bulge is is never explained. Context makes it clear it’s an unsavoury body part, and it sounds like a term for one’s dick, even though the boner does not in fact contain bones in humans. The assumption early in the fandom was that the trolls had primarily human anatomy, which seems odd to me considering Kanaya’s complete obliviousness to her Oblong Meat Products comment - most teenagers familiar with human penises would be on that instantly. Anyway, there soon came a phase of experimentation, and by now we seem to have settled on the “functional-hermaphrodites with tentacle dicks” theory. Which is weird, because a tentacle doesn’t sound like something which would be referred to with the word “bone”, does it?

GC’s laughing mouth is reflected in John’s glasses as they speak in what I desperately hope is a shoutout to the Corinthian. She calls John STUP1DLY 4DOR4BLE (minor typo on the comic’s part as the E in her quirk should be a 3) and laughs at CG’s frustration. John relays an approximation of CG’s message:

EB: he wants you to touch his bone lump or something. GC: WH4T!!! EB: and that he's pretty much basically in love with you.

GC asks him to copy-paste the convo for proof but John refuses, saying it was a private conversation, and informs GC that she’s going to punch CG soon. In other news, referring to these characters with only their handle initials when I know their actual names is hard.

On GC’s instructions, John turns around, to discover this hard-to-miss landmark:

This, according to GC, is the D3N1Z3NS P4L4C3, in which the Denizen sleeps on a grist hoard so big their alchemising could never make a dent in it.

GC: USU4LLY HOW 1TS SUPPOS3D TO GO 1S GC: OV3R TH3 COURS3 OF YOUR QU3ST GC: YOU W1LL W4K3 TH3 D3N1Z3N GC: 4ND TH3N F1N4LLY YOU GO THROUGH TH3 S3V3NTH G4T3 GC: WH1CH 1S TH3 ONLY W4Y 1NTO TH3 P4L4C3 GC: TH3N YOU GO DOWN 4ND F1GHT TH3 D3N1Z3N GC: 4ND K1LL 1T GC: R3L3AS1NG TH3 HO4RD EB: so what's my advantage? GC: YOU WONT BOTH3R W4K1NG 1T GC: W3 W1LL SK1P R1GHT TO TH3 S3V3NTH G4T3 GC: F1ND 1TS L41R GC: 4ND K1LL 1T 1N 1TS SL33P

The grist hoard, GC claims, is for the ULT1M4T3 4LCH3MY, but she won’t explain what this is yet, and she leads John to a R3TURN NOD3 which takes him back to his home to prepare.

In the desert, AR and WV hammer some metal to make a gift for the Windswept Questant, which proves to be a crown. PM is shocked to see this, and emerges from the bunker, sword in hand.

Meanwhile, in a long-discarded memory… A PARCEL MISTRESS seeks audience with royalty.

It seems Windswept Questant is in fact, of course, the White Queen.

PM explains recent events and seeks her queen’s advice, showing her the hit list requesting the white monarchs’ crowns. WQ is wearing a ring similar to that of the monarch we met earlier, the Black Queen. Four orbs are attached to it, two light and two dark. On removing it, WQ loses all her elaborate prototyping accoutrements and becomes the normal-looking carapace we saw in her Windswept Questant identity. WQ seems to have a plan; instead of requiring PM to kill her to finish her fetch quest, she simply hands over her crown and ring, and instructs PM to find the White King on the battlefield. Flashing forward to the desert, WQ places her new crown on PM’s head, much to the astonishment of their companions.

On LOLAR, beneath waterfalls pouring from hovering pink turtle shells, Rose frustratedly consults with Jaspersprite, who will apparently only meow. However, when asked a direct question, Jaspersprite is able to respond. He is attempting to fish with his tentacles, but there are no fish, because her Denizen ate everything in the ocean and got so full that it took a long nap. Being as cryptic as Nannasprite, he won’t, however, explain what the message he gave to young Rose meant, saying she’ll understand when she wakes up.

JASPERSPRITE: Rose im just a cat and i dont know much but i know that youre important and also you are what some people around here call the Seer of Light. JASPERSPRITE: And you dont know what that means but you will see its all tied together! JASPERSPRITE: All the life in the ocean and all the shiny rain and the songs in your head and the letters they make. JASPERSPRITE: A beam of light i think is like a drop of rain or a long piece of yarn that dances around when you play with it and make it look enticing! JASPERSPRITE: And the way that it shakes is the same as what makes notes in a song! JASPERSPRITE: And a song i think can be written down as letters. JASPERSPRITE: So if you play the right song and it makes all the right letters then those letters could be all the letters that make life possible. JASPERSPRITE: So all you have to do is wake up and learn to play the rain!

FAILURE ARTIST: Hussie is very good at writing the dialogue of a kitten turned into a game NPC, you’ve got to hand it to him.

CHEL: It’s also worth noting that his colours have stopped flashing pink and purple, and he’s settled on pink.

Rose asks Jade for further information, and learns that all four of the kids have a dream self which must awaken; Rose deduces Jade’s has been awake as long as they’ve known each other. Jade is in fact asleep now, and can only message at the moment because of her robot. Rose’s dream self is dreaming troubled dreams, causing the real Rose to suffer nightmares all her life, and to stop this she must discover how to wake her dream self.

GG: maybe the stuff you wrote on your walls can give you a clue? TT: What stuff? GG: the.... GG: er GG: didnt dave tell you?

Utterly heartwarming moment; we see in John’s dream tower, and Jade has drawn over the LAME KID messages and creepy clown faces on John’s walls with a big bright yellow heart and the message wake up john!!! you can do it!!!

Rose wants to know what’s going on, but Dave is unavailable. The meteor is about to land and he’s scrambling his way up the tower to his kernelsprite’s nest to retrieve the entry egg.

Back at John’s house, he finds the useless rocket-pack-combined-with-junk he experimentally alchemised earlier; GC tells him that the trolls’ resident hacker, who we haven’t met yet, can use its code to create a usable jetpack. Said hacker doesn’t want to talk to them but WONT B3 4BL3 TO R3S1ST TH3 CH4LL3NG3.

John sends the mishmash code…

GC: OK B3 B4CK IN L3SS TH4N ON3 S3COND GC: PCHOOOOO EB: hello? GC: WH4T EB: it thought you said you'd be back in less than a second? GC: 1 W4S GC: 1 G4V3 YOU TH3 COD3 GC: 1TS PCHOOOOO

Hee. The misunderstanding leads into a brief argument, GC claiming that 3V3N YOU 4ND YOUR UND3RD3V3LOP3D BON3 NOOK W1LL B3 4BL3 TO F1GUR3 OUT WH4T TO DO. Once again, we don’t know what a bone nook is. Context could imply either an obscene body part or a brain-related one. Common fanon holds that it’s the vagina, others have objected and said it surely must mean anus; neither of those sound like a “bone” anything to me, and in fact bone would be horribly counterproductive for organs which have to perform peristalsis. Someone did point out to me that it could mean a place to put the metaphorical bone, but that wasn’t what I immediately thought.

FAILURE ARTIST: I don’t think the phrase “bone nook” ever comes up again, though the word “nook” by itself does and it can be replaced with the word “ass” in those cases. Basically, trolls aren’t a fictional species crafted with any care. Hussie wanted some annoying alien characters with a visual callback to “Little Monsters” and it somehow got out of control.

CHEL: Actually, I believe it does come up in Hiveswap Act 1! But we’ll get to that.

John answers a message from Dave, who now claims to be in the Medium, saying it took him four hours. He asks for advice, saying his sprite wants him to prototype it again, and Rose is randomly asleep.

TG: ok fine but TG: it seems to be suggesting something here TG: and TG: i guess im kinda weirded out by its suggestion EB: i don't know, just do what it says! EB: it knows stuff about the game, so it probably knows better than i do...

Not a good sign. John decides to Take dear, sweet Casey (the baby salamander) into protective custody by captchaloguing her, and blasts off for the gate.

Cut to an animated sequence in The Land of Heat and Clockwork, a nightmarish lava-scape covered in machinery (convection schmonvection), where Dave is being extremely badass and surprisingly successful for someone with only half a sword. In fact, multiple Daves appear to be present. We also see, unfortunately, exactly what he prototyped:

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Calsprite is even less helpful than the other two, providing a constant soundtrack of creepy laughter while Dave begs him to shut up. According to Dave’s ensuing convo with Rose, this has been going on for four months. That’s… pretty terrifying even before we hear everything that went wrong. John was unsurprisingly instantly slain by his Denizen, and thus couldn’t save Jade from her meteor. Dave, however, has now mastered the art of time travel via the magical turntables he’s created, and intends to go back and prevent all that from happening, now that they’ve spent four months gathering information their past selves can use. Rose is afraid of ceasing to exist; Dave assures her that their dream selves exist outside the standard passage of time, and this will help her dream self wake sooner.

FAILURE ARTIST: The trolls also stopped “trolling” Dave and Rose after John died. This isn’t the end of the trolls, of course.

Dave uses his turntables to go to the past. We cut to a conversation we just saw, where Dave has just entered the Medium and John is about to go pchooooo, except this time from Dave’s roof.

GET ON WITH IT!: 16

Except at the end, Dave tells John not to go. See, Dave from the future just arrived on Dave from the present’s roof. John refuses to believe that this is happening, thinking it’s just a prank. Not even putting future!Dave on the line convinces John. So, future!Dave unloads everything he has in a stack and flips back into the Crowsprite to become a new characters: Davesprite.

CHEL: Note that, instead of Dave’s theme colour of red, Davesprite is orange. I did wonder if this was potentially supposed to show that Bro (whose theme colour is orange) is overwriting/overshadowing Dave’s real self, but since the sprites of the others aren’t the theme colours of their respective kids (Nannasprite is teal to John’s dark blue and Jaspersprite pink to Rose’s purple) I don’t think this is really a reliable sign. Pin in the colours, though, that’ll come up later.

FAILURE ARTIST: Meanwhile, John blasts off with the words “THIS IS STUPID”.

Present!Rose tries to pester Dave, and we get another repeated conversation.

GET ON WITH IT!: 17

Present!Rose decides to nap, and at that moment, Future Dream Rose ceases to exist and becomes absorbed by Present!Rose. I think.

WHAT IS HAPPENING??: 9

Davesprite pesters GC to tell her not to talk to John anymore. GC first reacts by saying “YOU SM3LL L1K3 OR4NG3 CR34MS1CL3S” but then finds out she killed John. She had assumed since she could talk to John in the future, he hadn’t died, but she guessed there was a chance he could die. She’s a little put-out and wants to apologize, but she’s not as sad as you’d expect someone who accidentally killed someone to be. Davesprite asks who is in charge of timeline management.

GC: SH3 DO3SNT W4NT TO T4LK TO 4NY OF YOU GC: 4ND H4S M1SG1V1NGS 4BOUT TH1S WHOL3 TH1NG GC: NOT 4LL OF US 4R3 TH4T 3NTHUS1AST1C 4BOUT TROLL1NG YOU GUYS GC: 4ND TH3 ON3S WHO 4R3 SORT OF SUCK 4T 1T >:|

We do get to meet her, but not until the next act when we meet all the trolls.

Davesprite gives GC permission to talk to John if she cuts out her “coy bullshit antics”. GC mocks his threatening tone and points out she’s higher on the echeladder, from the future, and blind. Davesprite says his self-prototyping gave him great powers and GC says that was a bad idea. They then engage in some banter over GC posting screencaps of Wheeler from Captain Planet (which she calls a “soap opera”). Davesprite and GC end the conversation with mutual respect. Which is honestly really weird after all future!Dave had to go through because of GC.

CHEL: Does this count for SLAMMER points? I think it does. Here’s the first of our new count, then!

SEND THEM TO THE SLAMMER: 1

This will go up whenever a character does something awful and neither the narrative nor the other characters seem to care.

This also brings us into another point. We’ve seen only hints of it, but alternate timelines are a big theme of this comic. Davesprite in particular is a major focus of said theme, specifically the nature of his personhood separately from the focal or “alpha” Dave. However, as we see here, not even the Dave from the dead John’s timeline particularly seems to mind that John just died in an alternate timeline. At the moment, they appear to feel that because there is an alive John, everything is okay. Let’s see how that progresses.

FAILURE ARTIST: Davesprite and present!Dave (who I guess we can just call Dave at this point) talk. Davespite says as a sprite he has lots of knowledge but is obligated to put it in riddles. However, he says he doesn’t feel like it so he’ll answer Dave straight.

DAVE: alright DAVE: here goes DAVE: why are we so fucking awesome DAVESPRITE: thats the best fucking question anybody ever asked

After that best fucking question, Dave asks if John will be alright. Davesprite says that’s up to John, and if John doesn’t listen they’ll just bail him out again. Davesprite says the gear he piled up will help Dave get to the next gate. The two versions of Dave decide to collaborate on a SBaHJ comic and fist “bunp”.

Meanwhile, “hundreds of pages ago”, John gets his bunny from Dave. We see Dave’s note and it’s cool how each of the kids have their own style of handwriting. There’s a very prophetic sentence in this sweet note:

one day your gooberish ways are gonna land you in a jam and i know im going to have to get you off the hook but its cool i got your back bro.

We cut to the present, where John is blasting off. The human emotion of friendship causes him to reconsider his action. John pesters Dave and tells him he’s just flying around and not going to the gate. Crisis averted.

This might seem like a cul de sac, but it created a new character (Davesprite) and introduced many concepts, so it really isn’t.

CHEL: Primarily, it introduced the theme of jumping around in time in the literal sense as well as just hopping between apparently-disconnected scenes. The latter’s not a generally well-advised style of writing, but considering the time travel motif of the comic, I think it actually works fine here. Also, as a webcomic, if one spends too long on one group of characters then by the time you get back to the other ones the readers will probably not remember what happened, so shorter scenes for each group are probably more acceptable than in a novel or movie.

CG trolls John again, and after a discussion of their becoming reverse anti-mutual friends, John complains that CG hasn’t really answered his questions.

CG: SO GO AHEAD, ASK ME ANYTHING. EB: ok... EB: what's the point of the game. CG: ASK SOMETHING ELSE. CG: ALREADY TOLD YOU THAT.

John asks where they are now in their Medium, and CG explains they’re HIDING IN THE VEIL, a meteor belt between the two planets. To clarify the layout for our readers, Skaia the big ball of sky is in the centre, with Prospit the golden planet orbiting it closely enough for its moon to enter Skaia during the “eclipse” where Jade gets her visions. Then there are the players’ Lands, their little adventure planets where the consorts live, the consorts being the little NPC creatures (in John’s case, the salamanders). Every player has a Land of Something and Something. Beyond the Lands is the Veil, and beyond that is the Furthest Ring, the orbit of Derse, the dark planet.

CG: OK, THERE COMES A TIME WHEN BLACK INEVITABLY BEATS WHITE CG: ON THE BATTLEFIELD IN THE CENTER OF SKAIA CG: THE WHITE KING IS CAPTURED OR KILLED OR SOMETHING CG: THAT'S WHEN THE RECKONING STARTS. EB: ok... CG: THE RULERS OF DERSE CG: THE BLACK KING AND QUEEN CG: GET THE POWER TO SEND THE VEIL TOWARD SKAIA CG: TO DESTROY IT CG: THAT KIND OF STARTS YOUR BIG "COUNTDOWN" CG: WHEN SHIT GETS SERIOUS. EB: so then it's up to us to save it? CG: YEAH, YOU HAVE THAT LONG TO KILL THE BLACK QUEEN AND KING CG: AND SKAIA ITSELF SORT OF BUYS YOU SOME TIME CG: BY ACTIVATING ITS DEFENSE PORTALS CG: TO CATCH SOME OF THE METEORS

Ordinarily, the players would have plenty of time before this happens, but something done by the human players has caused things to go wrong, and now they’ve not only ruined their own chance of winning, but somehow affected the trolls’ game too. CG refuses to explain how, because he’s already told him again.

John asks if they’re hiding in a crater or something, but no, CG explains there are buildings in the Veil. It’s considered neutral ground, and both sides have laboratories there where they genetically engineer new soldiers and agents. John asks CG to tell GC “nice try”, but he refuses.

Now comes the mid-point animation of the act, “[S] Jack: Ascend”. I thought it was an ending animation, but no, there’s still more. If you don’t want to or can’t watch video I’ll explain the content, but I do recommend it.

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Pan over the Skaian system, from LOWAS to the Veil to the purple towers of Derse. Four towers are close together, topped by orbs. On three of them, we see the silhouettes of the sprites, while the fourth is dark. Jack Noir sits at his desk, doing paperwork, a pink princess dress on a stand next to it. He doodles on a parking ticket, declaring the Black Queen to be a HUGE BITCH. Closeup on BQ’s hips as she approaches, because we totally needed gratuitous sex appeal. She’s remarkably curvy for a probably-non-mammal. Still, we’ll forgive the standard scifi tropes. Jack watches on the Fenestrated Wall, until BQ appears and hacks it in half. She waves the dress and a pink pointed hat at him; apparently, now that the princess doll has been prototyped, the carapaces must represent it in their clothing as well as the jester. Jack is understandably displeased, and after a quick-fire montage of various outfits representing the sprites’ themes, he tears the final colourful tunic up.

Meanwhile, Rose’s dreamself has awoken, and discovers what she wrote on her walls; the word MEOW and other arrangements of the letters M, E, O, and W, over and over again, over every inch of the walls except the part covered by her bed. She finally remembers what Jaspers said to her, which was, of course, MEOW. This seems like nonsense, but as she looks, the letters switch to G, C, A, and T, the letters used to denote DNA nucleotides. It’s a genetic code.

The guardians, meanwhile, are battling enormous monsters; Mom and Dad respectively punch out a three-eyed spider-like giant and a rock cyclops, Dad pausing afterwards to carve a hat on a pyxis tablet, and Bro swordfights against a lava-dwelling tentacle beast.

Back to Jack, matters have got worse; not only are the carapaces required to dress like the sprites, but Davesprite still has the sword sticking through his torso, so now so must Jack. Considering what else we’ve seen carapaces survive, he’d probably be fine, but he’s still understandably hesitant. BQ offers him a sword, but he slices off her ring-bearing finger, which… causes her to explode? Jack puts on the ring, which causes Derse to glow white and him to sprout the features of the sprites; a sword grows from him without him having to fall on it, and wings and tentacles emerge. End scene.

So, approximately, human children have possibly caused the destruction of an alien civilisation’s last hope by putting a cat in a princess dress. Whatever else you think of Homestuck, you can’t say it’s not inventive.

BRIGHT: It is that, among other things.

COUNTS ALL THE LUCK: 0 ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 15 CALL CPA PLEASE: 8 CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 17 GET ON WITH IT!: 17 GORE GALORE: 9 HOW NOT TO WRITE A WEBCOMIC: 15 HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING: 6 IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 0 RELATIONSHIP GOALS?: 1 SEND THEM TO THE SLAMMER: 1 SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS: 0 WHAT IS HAPPENING??: 9 WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 13 TOTAL: 111

#homestuck #homestuck review #homestuck meta #homestuck reread #let's read homestuck

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praphit · 4 years

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Horse Girl: What happened to white Darren?!

So, I had someone else pick the movie. Whenever others are involved, you gotta have them pick, so that if it's bad, you can blame them. That's how we come to "Horse Girl"!

I went into it cold. All I knew was that Alison Brie is in it, and I'm here for all things Alison Brie.

With a name like "Horse Girl", I thought there was a slim chance that it might end up being a superhero flick. Alison is finally getting her own solo comic book hero franchise. Perhaps she'll have powers similar to Aquaman, but instead of sea creatures, she talks to horses.

I thought that perhaps she'd have the power to turn into a horse; kinda like that movie "Tusk". Have any of y'all ever watched "Tusk"?

Yeah, don't watch that movie; it's awful.

In retrospect, I still don't know why this movie is called "Horse Girl". There is a horse in the movie, but... idk. Plus, shouldn't it really be "Horse Woman"? I do believe that Alison Brie is around my age. But, maybe it's a PR move. Spider-Man, in many adaptations, is really a teenager, but referring to himself as a man. Which is good, cuz I don't want to be rescued by a "Spider-Boy"; having a teenage boy flick things out of his body in order to save me? - I can't get behind that.

"Horse Girl", I can work with, cuz I'm thinking she's fresh to the hero game, unjaded, and has a real future in front of her... maybe one that involves a better code name.

(Look how happy she is... a real go-getter. I question her horse selection though, but she’ll learn. That horse has def been into the stuff.”

"Horse Woman" has already made her bad choices. She's used up. Frankly, I don't have a whole lot of confidence in her.

The beginning of this movie is very girlie. Do I mean that in a bad way? - not necessarily; it's just a fact. Kinda like, um... "Jane the Virgin".

Nothing wrong with that show (I guess... I’ve never seen it), but I can't imagine a group of men getting together to watch it. "Yo, y'all ready to watch a lil Jane the V?! Maybe she gonna pop that cherry tonight, man! She might just pop it! Yeah!"

Is that what the show is about? Her trying desperately each week for love or lust, and neither ever coming her way? What a sad show. But, I hear it's good, just girlie.

Meanwhile, I'm enduring the girliness of Alison Brie's fabric store, zumba sessions, bracelet making time, crying in the shower time, and upbeat convos with girl friends. I'm thinking to myself "When is she going to have her superhero origin moment?" Where's the vat of toxic waste that she falls into?

Have a radioactive horse gnaw on her! Where's the villain?! Where's the fight?! Let's go!

She does have a bitchy roommate and her tool of a boyfriend. Apparently, her roommate thinks that Alison's life style is pathetic: working at a fabric store and home to watch her favorite supernatural cop show (every day). Every now and then, she pesters some horse, its caretakers, and some young girl who rides the horse (I know what you're thinking - “Maybe this young girl will end up being the legendary “HORSE GIRL". Nope. Again, I don't understand the choice of title for this movie). Her bitchy roommate's judgmental pestering does lead to a fling for Alison. A man by the name of "Darren".

He looks more like a "Dave" to me. Or a “Ken”. I wish he had a different name; he probably wishes the same. White Darrens... just... no.

A nice guy, but he's one of those people who should really end their thoughts in convo a few paragraphs earlier. Socially, he’s like a quicksand of blah. A cake with “meh” icing - I blame his name, mostly for this. And his dancing... goodness gracious! He dances like he’s being attacked by hornets.

Though Alison's dancing isn't anything to brag about either. She dances like she’s riding a bull.

But, you can't be a white Darren and dance like that; you've either got to get lessons or make a promise to humanity to never dance. Alison's beautiful. Pretty women can get away with being horrible dancers. In fact, I think it might make them more attractive.

"You know, Alison, you're a 10. I didn't think I had a chance with you, until I saw you dance."

So far, I don't know what type of movie this is. Is it a romantic comedy? - not really, though it has funny moments in it. Superhero flick (I know that was a long shot)? Nope.

It's too quirky to be a drama.

Horror? There are some moments where Alison is sleep walking. I kept hoping that we'd get a scene where she's in the shadows holding an ax. Yes, Alison! Kill! Kill them! - but again, no.

The movie starts going in a mental illness direction. Alison Brie's character slowly starts to lose her mind. We learn that it's possibly something that runs in the family. Those of you who know me, know that I'm a big advocate for mental health care & mental illness awareness. I probably would have really connected with this movie on that level, if it was directed better. There's just too much artsy, wackiness smeared over this movie. I love the idea of this film and I love what the director was going for in many parts, but... idk.

There's a great cast here. Not only Alison Brie, but Molly Shannon... or do I have those two fist names backwards? You know her... "Superstar".

Wait... that’ not right - that’s what popped up though. To my knowledge she has never played Jesus Christ in a musical. Back in the day, she starred in a comedy from... wait a sec...

- you know what?? - it doesn’t matter. Maybe you don't know her anyway. She's good in this; though it's a minor role.

Aaaah, there she is.

Got my man Paul what's-his-face up in here! That’s my main man!

Who... um... y’all probably don’t know either. To be honest, I barely know these people. What am I doing?

I’m trying to say that the acting talent is here! - regardless if you know peeps like Paul what’s-his-face or not. And the bitchy roommate and her annoying boyfriend really made me hate them, so that's points for their acting, I suppose.

This could have been a thoughtful drama about mental illness, with comedy sprinkled in, and making a point. The movie/Tv landscape needs more stuff like that (especially these days, with people losing it, during this pandemic).

It seems like the director was going more for "creative genius" acclaim. Unfortunately, he missed the mark, by a lot. Again, I saw what he (I'm assuming it's a he - I don't actually know) was going for, and there are some really creative parts here, but... the message is a bit muddy, and the pacing is rough at best (not unlike this post).

. You know what, I'm going to go ahead and say it's a man who directed this, because there's a nude scene from Alison Brie that doesn't really need to be there. The director is trying to show the mental collapse of this woman, and... you know... when people lose their minds, they tend to walk through their place of business naked. I'm sure that most male directors would have all main actresses have a similar scene, if they thought that they could get away with it. Picture "The Avengers" director -

"I really think that Scarjo needs to be nude in this scene.”

“Maybe she's in the shower, when her team calls for help. She's so dedicated that she doesn't have time to put on clothes. It'll be a powerful scene. Trust me. Really zoom-in. Annnnd ACTION!"

That scene with Alison Brie is not terrible. Maybe I'm nitpicking.

It would have been a better use of Alison Brie's acting chops to have her walk in looking rough (maybe scantily clad... or in her underwear, if you must), but here could have been some of those artsy shots while she's walking around the store in a bit of a fugue state (if you do that butt-neked, it'll seem gratuitous). But, maybe have her say and do some things that have been building up through the movie, for an Oscar-Nudging climax, and emotional scene of her losing her grip on reality. But, far be it from me to be a backseat director. I'm just a rambling praphit. Just have her jiggle in, cry, and jiggle out. That's better.

Grade: an interesting D

I'm glad that I watched it, because there are a lot of good ideas here, but... you know.

Of course, maybe she's not crazy after all. Things go super wacky towards the end. Something about aliens and clones. Oh, and she does technically get a superhero outfit.

Looking like a Power Ranger for some reason.

There’s also a scene where she (as a Pink Power Ranger) gets it on with white Darren... like out of nowhere. But, did that even happen? Idk.

Was it all in her head? Was the reality of the sitch, that she broke into white Darren’s place, wrapped in pink fabric, and tried to dry-hump white Darren, while he was sleeping? Then, IN HER HEAD, he thinks that’s hot. She only THINKS that they got it on. In reality, he refused her crazy advances, and as a result, she kills him. She beheads him... with a spoon or something. The director is strange, so why not?? Or maybe she takes him (or his head) away as some alien sacrifice. It’s really weird, because after their “ sexy time” the movie just kinda moves on from him. It’s very awkward.

What happened to white Darren?! What was real?! Who knows??

Things get crazier and crazier, until... I don't even know what happened. I guess they're leaving it up to the audience to decide whether or not it's all true or she’s crazy. It's hard to tell, sometimes, whether you've got a clever ending on your hands or a lazy director, who decides "Hey, let's do something really weird in the last scene

and then just... kinda... end."

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fursasaida · 4 years

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Care to share your thoughts on what reality is and what makes life life?

I’m thinking a lot about consequences and loss after the events of the last few days, so it seems like the right time to come back to this. The first time I tried to answer it was overly explanatory: I was trying to walk you through every idea I’ve read and internalized that brought me to the perspective I have. I think that’s probably more trouble than it’s worth (for you the reader, not just for me), so I’ll just provide the names of some texts at the end for anyone who’s interested.

The short version is this. What does it mean for something to happen? Why do things exist the way they are and not other ways? How are these existing things related to each other? My understanding is that things come to exist through happenings, and that these happenings can only be defined by having some sort of consequence. That is, a mark must be made, or something must be divided from something else, or transformed, etc. An apple becomes part of my body because I eat it, and we can know that I ate it because my stomach is fuller and the apple is smaller. In turn, the event that produced these tangible marks defines my relationship with the apple; this includes not only the eating but my ideas about apples as food and the processes by which the apple becomes available to me (that is, how the apple is produced). I think a lot about Cole about 2/3 of the way through 12 Monkeys, when he starts to accept the premise that maybe he’s insane (rather than that he’s a time traveler) because moving between different points in time has destroyed his sense of sequence, causality, and consequence. It’s not just that time as we currently imagine it is linear and orderly (time is actually much more complex than this). It’s that if events have no consequences–if they make no marks, if they can’t be understood to affect anything–then they are not parseable as events.

This does not translate into clockwork determinism, though, where everything is inevitable because it’s all just endless chains of cause and effect. The past is fundamentally inaccessible (in exactly the same way that the future is). All we have is memory and material traces of the past, which exist in the present. We constantly reproduce and remake the past on the basis of these traces and memories, now, in the present. Therefore the past can be changed. But it cannot be erased or undone, because the very things we have to work with–our means of changing the past–are the marks and traces and memories that show that there ever was a past at all.

If I put this on a metaphorical level I think it’s pretty easy to understand. We change our minds about what traces of the past mean all the time. Take a monument, like say an obelisk. When it was built it meant something very specific to the religious-political elites who made it in Ancient Egypt, and to its audience; obelisks were, among other things, tools of communication. Over time, obelisks became ruins and mysterious monuments bearing unreadable marks. Later, as Europe became fascinated by Ancient Egypt, obelisks became symbols of wealth and power, used to imply continuity between French and British Empires and the Ancient Egyptian empire. When an obelisk was placed at the center of the Place de la Concorde in Paris, it was because it was seen as an apolitical symbol in the context of French political strife (though this of course ignored that the French colonization of Egypt was…..political). Meanwhile the study of heiroglyphics proceeds such that obelisks become, instead of tools of contemporary communication, part of that category called archaeological evidence. And meanwhile Egyptian politics and nationhood develop to the point that obelisks become part of the category of objects called “heritage.” The object remains the same, though it weathers and it travels; the actions that produced it as itself endure, literally as marks in stone. Its meaning changes over time and with context as different narratives and ideologies reshape it for their own purposes. The history of these reshapings can be traced as what we call “historiography,” or the writing of history; that is, history has a history of its own.

The point I want to make very clear is that the “remaking of the past” is not only symbolic or ideological. It’s not just about interpreting things differently; it is more than historiography. No one can make it so that the obelisk was never carved. But what the obelisk is, not only what it means, does change. Normally I would get into quantum physics here (the quantum eraser experiment and quantum discord), but I’m trying to keep it simple, so just consider it noted that this phenomenon appears even at the molecular level. You can decide in the present whether the light you measured (i.e., used to make marks) in the past was composed of particles or was a wave. But when you make that decision, the marks from your last decision do not go away. The past has a past. The traces of that meta-past cannot be undone even when you change what the past is.

If the past could be erased or undone, this would mean that, say, toppling a monument means it was never put up–that that event didn’t happen. It is tempting and easy here to retreat to the metaphorical/historiographic level and say, well, in a way that’s what toppling it is doing; it’s announcing the end of somebody’s power, trying to erase that power in the landscape. But making people ignorant of the past is not the same as undoing it, because whatever happened in the past–by virtue of the fact that it happened at all–had material consequences that are not reversible. The toppled monument may become covered in soil and overgrown, but it was still carved out of rock and nothing undoes that. The stone does not magically reappear as part of the rock it came from. That people forget does not make it something that never happened. Instead it becomes the mark of a past version of the past. Whether we remember that past version doesn’t change the fact that it happened; it just means we have remade the past in the present. If you’re familiar with Walter Benjamin’s notion of debris and the Angel of History, my version of it would be that we are surrounded by all the traces of all past pasts; indeed, part of what makes it possible to remake the past is the fact that these traces endure to coexist with us in the present, and not all of them fit together.

This matters to my feelings about what reality is and what makes life life because, as I said early on, if you could undo the marks of the past–and of the past’s past–then there would be no events. There would quite possibly be no things at all. To move this to an ethical register, to live a life in which you always have a do-over button is, for me, impossible to imagine. It requires that the other people around you be essentially simulations (assuming they, too, have do-over buttons, and therefore are proceeding through their own playground universes), or else be puppets to your whims. It means you will never be responsible for anything or to anyone; it means always being able to declare “I didn’t mean it” and have that make everything okay because no one else will ever know what you did–because you didn’t do it. The minds, feelings, and pain of others need not ever be real to you, only your desire to avoid being made to feel bad by their reactions, which you need not even understand; you can just redo stuff by trial and error until you get “changes” you want to “save,” and move on. It is a life of being sorry only to get caught, so to speak. You need never make any mark on the world you don’t intend or like, which is–I mean like, materially–just literally not what existing is. I exist because of the other things and beings that constitute me and that I help constitute in turn. If I can pick and choose, if I can curate what all of those marks and relationships look like–well, for one thing, I’d never have time to do anything else (perhaps I don’t wish to disturb these carpet fibers in this particular way), but also I am simply not operating in the domain of what existence is? I think Russian Doll illustrates this pretty well. Nadia and Alan do live this kind of do-over existence, but the universe doesn’t just accept it. Even after reboots, their actions have consequences, entropy proceeds, things start to decohere.

That life is hard because there are no do-overs is true. It’s not that I have no sympathy for this fact; trust me, I feel it acutely all the time. Nothing I’m saying here is intended to come across like “grow up and join the real world, snowflake!” But without this fact there is also no life, because nothing happens; there are no meaningful relationships or responsibilities. It might be pleasant to be able to return back to your last save and redo things better, but it would also mean living in a world where nothing is real. Responsibility is many things. Two of them are a) the ability to respond to others, and b) the ability to allow others to respond. Even a puppetmaster must contend with the fact that their puppets sometimes break; they have to look after them. But this shouldn’t be seen as only restrictive, a burden to be borne. The forms of responsibility enabled by the indelible past are also what allow us to remake it–to respond differently. We are only here because we inherit the past, and in that sense we owe it a debt; but we have also received from it the gift of being here at all.

References!

At Multiverse Impasse, a New Theory of Scale

Walter Benjamin, “On the Concept of History”

Laurent Olivier, The Dark Abyss of Time (review/summary here)

Gastón Gordillo, Rubble: The Afterlife of Destruction (which you can hear something about on this podcast)

On 12 Monkeys:

“12 Monkeys Is the Apocalypse Film We Need Right Now”

The film Looper, if you haven’t seen it, is itself a comment on 12 Monkeys and extends its ideas in the direction of responsibility.

Karen Barad, “Temporality, Materiality, Justice To-Come” and Meeting the Universe Halfway (you can find a pdf if you google)

(It was hard to find anything both readable and open-access on this, but if you’re really interested, get into quantum discord and quantum illumination)

Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past

Paul Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting

Jacques Derrida, Spectres of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, and the New International

Derek McCormack, “Remotely Sensing Affective Afterlives”

#anonymous #happy new year i guess #time #responsibility i suppose

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mobius-prime · 4 years

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70. Knuckles the Echidna #2

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The Dark Legion (Book Two): Sins of the Fathers

Writers: Ken Penders and Kent Taylor Pencils: Manny Galan and Andrew Pepoy Colors: Karl Bollers

The intro page for this issue highlights how Knuckles life has, up until very recently, been mostly a simple one, living in the wilderness of his island and looking after its inhabitants in relative peace. Now, however, he suddenly faced with the reality that he's not the only echidna left in the world (besides Athair, of course) and not only that, but it appears the others of his kind are, well, assholes.

Anyway, even though the last issue ended with them awake and alert, this issue begins with a soldier throwing water on an unconscious Knuckles sitting against a rock in the enemy camp while his friends watch, leading me to believe that at some point between then and now Knuckles decided to try to fight the entirety of the army on his own and got knocked out - which, honestly, is pretty in character for him. What isn't in character is this ridiculous cheesy faux-action-hero sass that he always seems to spout whenever Kenders is the one writing him seriously Kenders why do you do this.

Anyway, the soldiers lead him off to Kragok's tent for a little chat now that he's awake. He whines about his handcuffs, so Kragok orders him freed so they can chat more comfortably. I'm sure Knuckles won't take advantage of that at all, right?

We continue with the intermittent flashbacks in this issue. Apparently the fire ants are just as concerned about the echidna situation as the echidnas themselves, so the queen (because of course they're led by a queen) volunteers one ant, Christopheles (you see what I mean about these names?!) to guide Edmund, the new echidna guardian, in his role.

Christopheles warns Edmund about the danger Steppenwolf is currently in, prompting Edmund to rush off to rescue his son on a freaking horse he just acquired from nowhere. You might notice this also establishes the precedent of the guardians being guided by fire ants, as Archimedes now does for Knuckles.

Anyway, as we all knew would happen, the minute Knuckles is released from his cuffs he immediately tackles Kragok in anger. Kragok attempts to question him while his lackeys hold him down, but Knuckles just gives some sass back, which leads to honestly one of my favorite dramatic pages in this entire extended comic so far:

Idk, something about that line and delivery is so cool to me. "I'll just do as you suggest! Beat him!"? Damn, that's some legitimately badass villainous wordplay there. I have to steal that for myself sometime.

Anyway, Kragok here has made that classic villain mistake of walking away to let his lackeys do the beating instead of supervising it himself. Knuckles easily overpowers both attackers and steals one of their robes, meaning we get to see the now robeless echidna lying on the ground, and he looks absolutely messed up, covered in cybernetics and machinery. I'm honestly surprised Knuckles doesn't mention it, instead making some quip about being glad the robes fit him due to all echidnas being the same size. I think you're forgetting that they're all just clones of you at this point, Knux…

In the flashback, Edmund has arrived at the scene of his son's crash, where some members of the fledgling Dark Legion are searching for a body to confirm Steppenwolf's death. Edmund easily takes the two in front of him out, but tragically, forgets to check his six.

As the murderers leave the scene, Steppenwolf, alive and unhurt, runs up to his father's body, sobbing. Christopheles then appears in a puff of smoke, offering his help moving forward.

Back in the here and now, Knuckles heads back to where his friends are being guarded and frees them, before they begin eyeing a nearby tank. Oh, boy…

Meanwhile, someone interesting has decided to make his appearance! First of all, when alarms begin going off once more Knuckles' father refers to his base as "Haven," marking the first time we've seen it being given a name. When he investigates, he finds none other than Athair waiting for him, being mysterious as always.

Oh yeah, remember that incredibly fiery greeting Knuckles gave him a few issues ago? Well, his father's response is more icy, but either way it's pretty clear Knuckles learned to dislike his great-grandfather through his father's example, despite never having met him before. Athair, however, blows off his grandson's anger and shows a quick vision of the three Ancient Walkers' masks before calling it "a warning" and disappearing once more, leaving Knuckles' father and Archimedes, who's been with him this entire time, scratching their heads and worried.

We get to see Haven in the past, too. With Edmund a little too dead to teach his son how to be a guardian, that task falls to Christopheles instead. Steppenwolf hones his abilities with a lot of practice, and eventually is shown by the fire ant to his new sanctuary from where to conduct his business. Hey, doesn't that landscape look a little familiar…?

You guessed it - not only is that the same place that Knuckles' father first left his son behind when he was a kid, it's also the same desert where Knuckles and Archimedes found that mysterious oasis in the Knuckles miniseries. Guess we found out what really happened when daddy-o jumped into the wall of fire, huh?

Oh, hey, speaking of a wall of fire…

Boy, villains in this series really do love taking a scorched earth approach to everything, don't they? We end on the cliffhanger of Knuckles and the Chaotix trapped between a wall of flame and panicking, fleeing Mobians on one side, and the Dark Legion on the other.

#nala reads archie sonic preboot #archie sonic #archie sonic preboot #sonic the hedgehog #kte 2 #era 2 the freedom fight #writer: ken penders #writer: kent taylor #pencils: manny galan #pencils: andrew pepoy #colors: karl bollers

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purplerose244 · 5 years

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MY THOUGHTS ON EPISODE 98!!!

SPOILERS ALERT!!!

And adding this to the pilot episodes, which are four in two episodes, we finally reached 100 episodes of Ninjagooooo!!! 🎊🎊🎊 YAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! 🎉🎉🎉

I can't believe we really achieved this, like, I remember getting interested because of that elevator gag with Jay in season 1, now look at this!!! 😍😍 I love this show, I love how much I have grown during it, and I can't wait to see what the future has in store for it!

And after getting all hyped with this, let's get to the episode! 😎

I wanna start by saying that, back when I watched it, I really liked Day of the Departed, but I would've LOVED IT if it was a season. Like, it's clear that a lot could've been done, and it came out really freaking cool but not mindblowing (and I kinda expect that from my favorite show, not sorry 😙)

My opinion on March of the Oni is similar, I definitely enjoyed more than DotD because it was basically a season of four episodes, it's just that some parts went by a little fast.

But you're asking if I liked it, right?

OF COURSE I DID! ❤❤

And let me tell, with the amount of parts coming from pilots and first season, I can die happily 😆 That's what I love about Ninjago, even when I think it's not perfect, there are still moments that I fall in love with immediately!

LET'S GO THEN!

For the start, Faith's story. I'm so sorry for the poor dragon hunters, can't even have the time to fully redeem themselves that darkness arises 😅

To be honest, when the ninja arrived and Wu was smiling at them like waiting for good news, I was too worried for Cole and was grieving like all of the ninja 😢 Then it reminded me of that one scene in Kung fu Panda with Shifu being all "ah yeah, I really need good news" with his messanger and it turns out it's fricking Tai Lung coming for him 😂😂

But yeah, that was heavy. And Garmy was still merciless with his brother, as much as with his wife (weird that I kinda enjoyed that part? He never went all bad against her, not even as Lord Garmadon. He is full beast now)

And oh man. WU'S REACTION.

One of his first pupil, the first leader of the team; not only that, Cole was always there when Wu turned into a baby and grew up, he basically became a second father for him in a weird but cute way. Can you imagine the grief? It would be really sad if he got to remember him being to affectionate with his infant version, singing for him 😭😭 (woa, fanfiction idea!)

Well played, I must say, Ninjago crew. I'm already on feels mode 👏 But don't think you can fool me again writers, I'm not that easy to impress for y-

*throw away the pizza she had for dinner* NO PRIMARY NEEDS WILL COME BEFORE THIS, KAI FREAKING SMITH IS BACK OMG YAS YAS YAAAAAASSSS!!!!! 🔥🔥🔥❤❤❤

... I screamed at that part. A LOT.

It's been AGES! He wore it two pilot episodes, period, he looks so young 😍 From this point of few I appreciate that he changed design, it's like he really grew up from before. And he looked so worried, or disappointed? Maybe because he gave up on being blacksmith a long time ago for doing something he's actually good at, and going back again it's like saying he didn't improve at all...

... or maybe I just overthink Kai all day all night

MY FLAME BABE 😍

Well, forge happens, no Ray and Maya but it was kinda hopeless anyway 😅 I really want them to come back, come on Tommy!

And bam, golden weapons. BAM 👊

They made me feel way more excited than I thought, I really squeaked all over while they were fighting! ☺ Back then there was nothing more important and powerful, and now they are back. But I think the golden power in them is weak? I guess they forged in a different way the first time, or maybe they need to be charged by golden power user. I don't know but good job anyway, my hot blacksmith 😚

Meanwhile, in another dark place...

I screamed again 😅

I was just super happy to see Cole fully alive and not frozen and stuff. I thought it had a deeper meaning him moving, but then I guess he woke up in time? And wasn't in the middle of the toxic darkness, thank lord 😵😵

Or maybe they'll explain it better next season and it's important? You never know

Kirby did his best at talking to himself 😂 Rocky you gotta stop loving your best bud that much, you were panicking just like him 💙 Also the part when he was so close to despair, man if I wanted nothing more but broke my phone screen and give him a hug 😢

Luckily, cuteness came to my rescue

"WE THOUGHT WE LOST YOU, YOU... YOU... YOU JERK!!"

My bruise heart is beating faster? My bruise heart is beating faster 🖤💙🖤💙 Sorry, can't help it, moving on!

I missed some full team fighting action! I wanted more, especially with the new golden weapons and how amazing the landscape look now near the monastery ☺ But it was cool, and I love Nya and Lloyd fighting back to back since they don't have golden weapons! Also Wu is getting so active in season 9 and 10 😊 And Faith is a queen 🖤

While we're at it, my idea is that Garmadon's doubts about his evilness are meaningful, but not for now. I like that they didn't push him into full redemption, it would've been too early. He clearly wants to know more about himself and his family. I think that the next adventure will be important for him, even if I still don't know how, maybe a full life-changing field trip (if so, my warlord, I have a half burnt prince from the Fire Nation to recommend 🔥)

... I did enough serious stuff for him, right? Well then...

... OKAY I CAN'T 😂😂😂😂

Like, I get the point and everything about him being almost full oni and stuff, but I can't look at his face 😂 I think it's the only part I really don't think it fits, the rest is pretty cool. I like the staff, looks all sorcery. They even used the design of the oni masks, nice touch.

... still, the face is weird, happy it didn't last 😙

Back to the monastery, everyone's scared, it might be the end, I actually liked the situation very much for the yang proposal. Jay stopped overthinking and went for it, it's hard for someone like him 😂

And of course Nya was ecstatic, and when our goddess is happy I am 💙💙💙

THEY HAVE THE MEDALIONS ON THEIR CHEST IT'S SUCH A CUTE AND ROMANTIC SYMBOL!!! 😍😍😍

I'm a sucker for romance, I'm sorry 😅

I'm also a sucker for references from past seasons, so...

*inhale*

THE FREAKING TORNADO OF CREATION!!!! FINALLY, AFTER THE FERRISWHEEL IN THE UNDERGROUND, THE ULTRA SONIC RAIDER AND ALL THE GAMES THAT HAD IT FEATURED, IT'S BAAAAACK!!!! THANK YOU NINJAGO FOR THIS GLORIOUS DAY!!! NINJAAAAAAAA-GOOOOOOOO!!!

*exhale*

They played it as they didn't use it again because it was kinda a miracle... I guess I can buy that, even if the Hagemans explained that they didn't expect Ninjago to continue and put the ultimate power immediately in the pilots... regretting it 😅 So I'm not hard on the writers in general, I'm happy to see this old friend back 💛

They all used spinjitzu, and the new design is so good, I was so happy!!! 🤩🤩🤩 Well I was, but then... boy... 😳

Now... let me tell you... how FREAKING nervewrecking... the last minutes of the episode... have been for me

First of all, the transition in black and soundless was so sudden that it got me thinking "okay this is new, got a weird feeling about it". Lloyd wakes up into such a heavenly beautiful place with a paradisiac great view. And I was already on what the frisk mode, because the others are gone and there's a beautiful golden dragon right there. And I freaking love those (I WANT ONE), so I got distracted.

Then a voice. Good Garmadon? I guess it could be, but why now and here? The heck?

Then of course I recognized him...

Because he still gives his back to the camera 😂 Also he freaking called him Lloyd MONTGOMERY Garmadon, I can't even 👏👏 This compensate the fact that I kinda wanted green bean to just go and call him granpa 😘

And while I thought it was super cool and over the top and reminded me again of Kung fu Panda, the third movie this time, I was still thinking from time to time:

"This looks like afterlife."

"The first Spinjitzu Master is gone."

"This can't be happening."

"This can't... can't..."

And after making sure to remind us that yes, first Spinjitzu Master-san is indeed Wu's dad, with his wise words because...

... he said that. THAT. Come back to your friends, or come with me. Go back being the green ninja, or reach the light once and for all. And darn it. I could feel my heart pulsing in my head. It ached when Lloyd extended his hand, and suddenly everything went white.

Back to the monastery. Guys are fine, Jaya is still beatiful and my poor sweetie flame got under a colomn thanks Cole I bet lavashippers appreciated

Then the worry. All of then running to him, checking, my flame so scared, "come on buddy, wake up". Wu following, he's the only hope, he can manage...

He can... can...

"There is nothing to be done."

I sobbed. Like, I didn't even dare to look at the time, I was too scared. I just didn't want it to be real.

Gotta say, when it comes to grieving, Ninjago makes me feel the most. Jay stuttering, asking Wu to help him. Nya sobbing calling his name. Kai slowly shaking his head, so desperate, like it wasn't enough they lost Cole even if not for long, and then going to comfort Wu because Garmy is not his brother right now and he's not showing emotion at all (although he was backing off, I wonder if he was trying to keep the distance from such a strong scene)

... and then Lloyd came back

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! 💚💚💚💚💚

I CRIED FOR HAPPINESS, THE TOUGHEST SECONDS OF MY LIFE!!! MY GREEN BEAN, MY SUNSHINE BOY, MY SWEET ANGEL IS HERE AND HERE TO STAY!!! 💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜

Also Kai and Cole hugging, it was really sweet 🖤❤🖤❤

Oh man, OH MAN 😵

They put everything into that last fragment, now did they? Very nice, loved every part of it and it's really cool how we now kinda know what could be waiting on the afterlife 🤩 I wonder if there is more of that world...

This is why I said I wanted a longer special/season, we had two beautiful moments of pure sadness, really impactful and intense, that could've been even stronger if we had more time to struggle. But you know what? I died inside twice, came back to life twice as well, and nobody died!! 😊 ... except the oni I guess. I think... they died, didn't they?

Well whatever, going for the end!

Okay can I call upon myself the frame meme of Gravity Falls without actually showing it? I can't put more pictures 😅

"Oh, this."

"This is beautiful."

It's both extremely funny for the claw lego thingy, and meaningful. Only they could do that. Only those that really follow Ninjago could recognize this. I just like it a lot, the Tornado of Creation in its on way ❤💚💙🖤💦💎

(give me white and gray hearts emoji you COWARDS)

And of course, reunion for the finale

Sky you have no idea how happy I am to see you, girl I missed you a lot 😘 Also dat wink, Kai you might be the next to the yang proposal 😙 Cyrus is okay, I'm happy, and random Ronin because why not? He has better things to do than being caught up with all this drama 🤣

AND THE POSTMAN IS THERE 😎 Of course, our greatest ruler appear! 💪💪💪

While at the end that little moment between Wu and Garmy, I wonder what's waiting for the two sons of mister too shy for facing the camera 😜

And of course our Ninjago alphabet, THE END, with mama dragon who seems to be okay, good 😊 Pretty cool

Well guys, this is it. I enjoyed, no matter how it could've gone as a full season or other formats, it's refreshing knowing that they still remember stuff from the very beginning (MONTGOMERY 🤣🤣🤣). I think we had a good ending for a good beginning to a new fragment of Ninjago, involving what, I have no idea 😅 Also I really appreciate what they did with my Kai, the hotheaded, cocky but selfless warrior that I love so much. Thanks a lot ❤❤

Guess we'll find out sooner or later what's in store for this show, for now I'm done! Thank you guys a lot for all the notes in the last post, you guys are amazing! 😁

Nothing else to say, see ya around! 💜

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captainmazzic · 5 years

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I decided that I could use 10-15% of my tax return on something frivolous and indulgent, so I went down to my local comic book shop and purchased a few Star Wars anthologies. I got Captain Phasma’s comic (quite good), both volumes of Vader’s newest series (excellent), and the Infinities collection.

I was not expecting the Infinities collection to be my absolute favourite out of all of those, but here we are. SPOILERS below the cut, because this comic series is FANTASTIC and I want to highlight my favourite points about it.

Okay so first of all, the Infinities collection is essentially a series of AU stories set in the Original Trilogy timeline. There are four story arcs total, one each dealing with an alternate timeline for each movie, and a fourth one that is simply a comic book adaptation of the original rough draft. Each one is better than the last, but I’mma breeze over the first three just so you can get a taste of this smorgasbord of awesome before I hyperfocus on my favourite one.

So the first story deals with the “what if” storyline of if Luke had missed his shot on the first Death Star. Essentially, it detonates too early on its way down, the rebel fleet is routed, Han and Chewie hightail it out there to save their own skins, Leia gets captured, and Luke goes straight to Dagobah. In this one, we get such treats as Imperial!Leia, Blaster-wielding Imperial!C-3PO, a restored Imperial Senate, Yoda actually getting off his ass and leaving Dagobah to confront... Tarkin?, an Imperial Guard fight scene, and the whole-ass fucking Death Star ramming into goddamned-fucking-Coruscant. It’s a glorious hot mess and once I breezed by Yoda’s typical pontificating, I loved every single panel.

The second story answers what would have happened if Luke had died in the snow on Hoth. Despite the pretty sobering premise, there’s an ongoing humor point of Han thinking HE’S the next chosen one and has to train to be a Jedi, but it’s clearly Leia. Insert hilarious misunderstandings here. Boba Fett shows up unmasked in this one, and because of a single scene I’m not hopelessly shipping him with Lando. In this story, we have things like Jedi!Leia, lots of beautiful shots of Dagobah landscapes, Cloud City falling, Vader interacting directly with Jabba, Vader interacting directly with C-3PO, a trippy inside-Vader’s-head sequence, and the epic conclusion happening in Dagobah’s swamps. Leia is a constant treasure throughout this one, and it makes me sorely disappointed that we never got lightsaber-wielding Leia in the actual movies.

The third story asks what would have happened if Han Solo’s rescue from Jabba the Hutt had failed, and is by far the best of the “what if” stories. In this one, Jabba has an early demise in a massive explosion that takes his entire palace out with him. But Fett still has Solo, so our friends set off on a long chase to hunt him down. In the meantime, Yoda is whining about how magical-Force-fate isn’t doing it right, and Luke should have come back by now to complete his training. He dies mid-whine, the Emperor feels his death, and sends Vader to Dagobah. Luke also feels his death, and also ends up going to Dagobah. The rest of our heroes find Fett, Leia steals Slave I along with Solo-the-still-carbonitecicle, but by the time they thaw him out he’s permanently blind. Meanwhile Luke’s been captured by Vader, we have a ton of father-son angst and attempts at bonding, and Leia tries to go and rescue him. SHE gets captured as well, and they’re both taken before the Emperor on Death Star 2.0. There’s a scuffle, but Vader can’t bring himself to kill his kids. He loses an arm (again) and as the rebel fleet attacks all around, the Emperor disappears into the shadows and Leia insists on taking wounded Vader with them. Luke happily agrees, and they flee the scene. The next time we see our intrepid heroes, they are joined by Vader, still very Vader, but dressed in a white version of his suit. Together they plan on discovering the location of the Emperor and finishing their fight. It’s... honestly glorious. Vader has no major moment-of-regret or tear-filled turn-around, he simply thanks Leia for saving him. He just wants to be with his kids, and if that means he’s helping the rebellion then WELP looks like he’s a rebel now. It’s delightful.

But even as awesome as that story was, my favourite is still “The Star Wars”. It’s adapted directly from the very first rough-draft screenplay by Lucas, and even though it is certainly familiar, it’s definitely NOT the same story. Lightsabers are everywhere, and generic characters have white-blue ones while Important People like the main characters all have red ones. The Galactic Empire is literally just an empire that supplanted a PREVIOUS Empire. The Jedi-Bendu and the Knights of Sith are also very literally just rival warrior clans that have nothing to do with quasi-religious drivel and while they have mysterious powers the only reference we have to the Force is when they stay “May the force of others be with you all”. I just... I LOVE this aspect of this story. It makes it so much more enjoyable.

Luke Skywalker is a grizzled old Jedi who used to be a top general and then war advisor, with little in the way of posh diplomacy, and who is not shy about saying things like “War is by business”. He’s buddies with one Kane Starkiller, whose son Annikin is a teenage-ish Jedi warrior-in-training that Skywalker takes on as his Padawan. Leia is the spoiled and scrappy princess that he ends up having to protect, and while she’s kind of a disappointment in the story many of the other characters are definitely not. C-3PO and R2-D2 are in this one as well, but AJKFLSFHDS HOLY SHIT R2 TALKS, that threw me for a fucking LOOP I’ll tell you. Han Solo is a massive green alien who reminds me a little of a scaly version of Khem Val except Solo is old buddies with Skywalker. Solo gets a red lightsaber too. He big. He hot. Sarc like.

Anyway. Darth Vader’s in this one, but he has no face-covering helmet and is instead a rather engaging man with one red eye. He’s not a Sith, though. That role goes to one Prince Valorum, who is an unfairly pretty man in black with a breath mask (most of the time).

(apologies for picture quality, I took these with my phone). It didn’t take me long to ship Vader with Valorum, but honestly Val’s got better things to do in this story. Namely, saving Annikin’s ass and breaking him out of interrogation. They even have that little “we’re not so different” moment, but it’s literally just... rather lighthearted banter while they plow their way through stormtroopers and find the princess. They rescue Leia (again) together, and end up... in a garbage masher.

(I clearly have a thing for Valorum he is my favourite in this, okay.) Their banter is adorable, they think they’re about to die, but a clan of massive Wookiees that look like hairy versions of Garrazeb Orrelios show up, the day is saved, big explosions happen, and our suave Sith Prince Valorum is standing right along with our more well-known heroes celebrating Annikin’s new status as Lord Protector.

It’s... it’s so charming. The whole story. It’s deep enough that you can get into the gritty wartime tragedies happening all around, there’s family bonding and humor and decent people confronting shitty-ass people, but it doesn’t get in over its own head and the characters are just... people. On different sides. Doing their best and doing their thing. Sometimes they’re swapping sides when it makes more sense, and there’s zero angst about it. It’s... refreshing, honestly. The romance subplot between Annikin and Leia is really contrived and kind of painful to watch, but it takes up so little of the story it can easily be ignored. It’s beautifully and expressively drawn, moves fast, and is pretty solidly put together. I really like it. I think I’m gonna go read it all again. XD

#sarc does star wars stuff #sarc reads star wars comics #long post #star wars infinities spoilers #the star wars spoilers #star wars comics #star wars infinities #the star wars

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lindburgsreviews · 5 years

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My Top 3 Favorite Quentin Tarantino Films Hey everyone. It’s been awhile since I’ve shared much of anything on here. If you follow me on Instagram, you have seen a few before/after movie reviews I’ve done over the past year. If you’ve watched any of those, you would also know this was my first year teaching high school, and that doesn’t exactly lend much time for me to share my thoughts on movies. There’s a couple weeks until school starts, so the reviews may be few and far between once again. But there’s been one movie I have seen this summer that inspired me to dust off the keyboard and talk about said movie’s director and his other works that I really love. That movie is Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and the director is the one and only Quentin Tarantino. I’ll be talking about my top three favorite movies directed by him. Just to be clear, there is no criteria that these movies have met that gives them an undisputed assessment of their quality. They are simply three great movies made by one of the most unique minds working in film today. #3- Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) Granted I’ve only seen this movie once, it is by far my favorite movie of the summer and it may end up being the best one I see this year. The story is set in late 60’s Hollywood and follows Rick Dalton, a TV star played by Leonardo Di Caprio whose popularity is quickly fading. Rick isn’t taking it well, confiding often in his best friend and stunt double Cliff Booth, played by Brad Pitt. Tarantino is known for not playing by the rules as far as traditional movie making goes, but Hollywood is very different even by his standards. There isn’t much a of plot, as almost the entire movie focuses on following these two characters around as Rick comes to grips with the changing Hollywood landscape. There isn’t even that much violence until the final 20 minutes or so. It really is a movie that only a handful of directors pull off, and Tarantino happens to be one of them. Both Leo and Brad Pitt are fantastic in their respective roles and are especially great when they share the screen together. One of my favorite things a movie can do is recreate a very specific era in American culture, and everything from the sets and music to the costumes and dialogue transports you back to 1969 Hollywood. Even though it runs nearly three hours long, I was hooked every minute. And although Hollywood doesn’t have the same tension and violence that have become Tarantino staples, the threat of the Manson murders looming over the story (Margot Robbie plays Sharon Tate, whom happens to be Rick Dalton’s neighbor) simmers and finally comes to an exhilarating head in the final act. A few repeat viewings might bump this movie down or possibly even up in my list, but as of right now Once Upon a Time in Hollywood definitely has earned a spot in my top three. #2- Inglorious Basterds (2009) If you love moments of tension in your movies as much as I do and haven’t seen Basterds, I recommend you stop reading right now and watch one of the best movies of the past 20 years, (It is streaming on Netflix after all) and then finish reading. Like the last entry, the story that this movie tells could only come from the mind of Quentin Tarantino. As World War II rages in Europe, a ruthless yet charming Nazi colonel by the name of Hans Landa (played by Christoph Waltz in one of my favorite performances on film) is hunting down the remaining Jews hiding out in France. Meanwhile, a ragtag group of Jewish American soldiers led by Alado “The Apache” Rayne (again Brad Pitt) are also tearing through France, terrorizing Nazi troops with brutal surprise attacks. On top of that, a young Jewish woman that had escaped Landa before (Melanie Laurent) also owns a small movie theater in Paris. The top leaders of the Third Reich decide her theater would be the perfect location to debut a new propaganda film. Unbeknownst to them, both the theater owner and the Basterds are planning a daring attempt to take out some of the most evil people in history as they gather to watch the new film. What really makes this movie for me is how unique it is. Again, I’m not sure any other director could pull off a story like this. Three storylines are taking place simultaneously that are all entertaining. Moreover, most of the movie isn’t even in English. Over half of the script is spoken in French or German. Like all of his other movies, Tarantino’s dialogue here is top notch, but what makes it brilliant is how it builds edge-of-your-seat tension almost entirely through spoken words. Alfred Hitchcock’s explanation of how to create tension in filmmaking is perfectly showcased in multiple scenes, most famously in the opening act. Much like Hollywood, Basterds is two and a half hour long movie that is so gripping that it feels like it goes by in 30 minutes. It’s hard to write a detailed explanation about what makes this movie so great without just telling to just see it yourself. Brad Pitt is hilarious, Christoph Waltz is vilely suave, and too many other people to count are brilliant in their roles too. Just go watch Inglorious Basterds. I promise you’ve never seen anything like it, and you won’t see anything like it again. #1- Pulp Fiction (1994) Ezekiel 25:17. Royale with Cheese. “SAY WHAT AGAIN!”. The Jack Rabbit Slim’s Twist Contest. Mention these phrases to anybody that loves film and they will know exactly what you’re talking about. Sure, Tarantino had a solid debut with his first feature film, Reservoir Dogs (which would probably be number four on this list) but Pulp Fiction is the movie that announced to the world that he is here to stay. It may have been released a year before I was even born, but even I know that it was a cultural phenomenon and a cinematic gamechanger. Tarantino’s signature dark humor, pop culture references, nonlinear narratives, and even his first casting of Samuel L. Jackson were introduced with this movie. Even more so than in his other works, Pulp Fiction has an incredibly unique plot that’s pretty difficult to summarize second hand. Three different storylines that interweave to varying degrees throughout the movie are presented out of order. The main story focuses on two hitmen played by Sam Jackson and John Travolta that are out trying to recover a mysterious briefcase for a mob boss played by Ving Rhames. The other story focuses on a boxer played by Bruce Willis whom refuses to throw a fight despite being pressured by the same mobster. The movie opens and closes with the last story throughline about a British couple of bank robbers that decide to hold up the Denny’s style diner they happen to be in one morning. As unusual as this sounds, Pulp Fiction is yet again a movie that is wildly entertaining just through the dialogue alone. Anybody that knows me well can attest that I love quoting movies, and this one happens to be a favorite of mine to pull from. There definitely are some weaker scenes even with repeat viewings (mainly Bruce Willis and his French(?) girlfriend) but the rest of the movie more than makes up for it. There are a lot of deep themes that can be explored with this movie, and some amazing character arcs that can lead to hours of debate and discussion. Motifs like redemption, free will versus fate, hypocrisy, and basic ethics can be found throughout and will linger in your mind along with the great writing and memorable characters. I remember the first time I watched this movie was about five years ago. Once the credits rolled, I had no idea what I had watched. I wasn’t sure what to make of it. But after watching it a second time, and then a third time, I realized its brilliance. I now consider it one of my all time favorites. Even more so than with Basterds, this movie is so different than anything else out there and needs to be watched rather than having somebody on the internet try to explain to you why it’s so great. It definitely isn’t for everyone with the graphic violence and coarse language, but if you haven’t seen Pulp Fiction, it’s also streaming on Netflix I’d highly recommend giving it a watch as it happens to be my favorite movie written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. What do you think of my list? What are your top three Tarantino movies? What should my next editorial, analysis, or review be about?

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eddycurrents · 5 years

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BPRD: 1947 - Chapter Three

Story: Mike Mignola & Joshua Dysart | Art: Gabriel Bá & Fabio Moon | Colours: Dave Stewart | Letters: Clem Robins

Originally published by Dark Horse in BPRD: 1947 #3 | September 2009

Collected in BPRD - Volume 13: 1947 | BPRD: 1946 - 1948

Plot Summary:

Stegner, Ruiz, and Russell become a tasty snack to the residents of the chateau. Meanwhile, at the gathering of vampires, Baron Konig is confronted by the others as to his actions and Hecate rises.

Reading Notes:

(Note: Pagination is in reference to the chapter itself and is not indicative of anything found in the issue or collections.)

pg. 1 - I find it funny at the beginning that the agents almost psych themselves out like a bunch of Ghost Adventurers.

pg. 2 - And after all that commotion the coffins are empty.

pg. 4 - Of course it’s not as simple as a couple of empty coffins. That the vampires attack as soon as the agents let their guard down is priceless. Gorgeous full-page spread from Bá, Moon, and Stewart.

pg. 5 - The action and chaos here is just incredible. It’s neat how a relatively slow, moody story suddenly turns into a bloodbath at the drop of a hat.

pg. 7 - Three inexperience vampire hunters against a swarm, you’ve got to feel sorry for them, even getting as far as they did.

pg. 8 - Gabriel’s death is pretty harrowing.

pg. 9 - Overall, a very impressive sequence, really changing the landscape of the present in the story.

pg. 10 - And we’re back to the Festival. I like the dimmer colour wash for these sequences. Also, the runes/script that the witches/whatever these women are invoking Hecate kind of look like Enochian.

pg. 13 - We’ve seen this kind of argument between vampires in fiction before, notably in 30 Days of Night and in the Vampire: The Masquerade role-playing game, of castes and clans of vampires fighting over whether or not they should make themselves known to humanity, but it’s interesting to see it here.

Also, other than just the neat designs of these vampire elders, I kind of like that there’s no explanation as to who they are. You want to learn more about them and their own stories, just from that exclusion.

pg. 14 - There’s definitely a Lucifer vibe to Baron Konig. Jealousy of humans and a wish to treat them like chattel. Between this story and 1946, he’s really hung up on Giurescu and Hitler. From a logical perspective, you’d think he’d make a better argument of the monstrosities that the Nazi experiments caused to vampirekind.

pg. 15 - Instead he seems to approach humanity as an infestation. Which seems to go over with a resounding thud.

pg. 16 - Countess Ilona Kákosy is a vampire that we’ve met before (though later in the timeline), when Hellboy hunted her down in “The Vârcolac“.

pg. 17 - None of the assembled vampire lords appear to be buying in to Konig’s pitch. Also, we’re left wondering whether Simon’s affliction is tied to what’s happening to Konig or the impending arrival of Hecate.

pg. 19 - I think it’s interesting as to how quickly Konig’s uprising is put down. Also, the sisters do seem to be doting still on Simon.

pg. 20 - And this reveal of Hecate is just awesome.

pg. 21 - Again, I like that there are no explanations here. The vampire gathering, including a confused goat and a giant dancing frog, are just whisked away. I like that the creative team are kind of just leaving it up to the imagination right now.

pg. 23 - Stegner checking in with Bruttenholm just seems grim.

pg. 24 - And we get another loss weighing heavy on the Professor.

Final Thoughts:

There appears to be a recurring theme emerging in these early BPRD stories that everyone dies. Horribly. In this one it happens even sooner in the series than in 1946, though there are a number of more loose ends here still to be sewn up in the next two chapters.

I’d wager it’s partially meant to represent not only how dangerous the enemies are coming up against the Bureau, but in these early days everyone’s relatively untrained. They’re just military personnel transferred over to the Bureau to help fill out Bruttenholm’s manpower requests. Though the military does continue to be fodder into the present, it just goes to show you that you can’t brute force the supernatural antagonists, you’re going to die every time if you do.

You’d think it would make Bruttenholm reassess how and who he sends people out on missions, and give them a better understanding of the dangers and types of threats they’re going to come up against. Stegner, Ruiz, and Russell thought that their mission in France was a joke, and two of them paid for it with their lives.

d. emerson eddy wonders if he’d even be a tasty snack for a vampire. His blood has killed mosquitoes before. They’ve bitten him and he watched them fall from the sky dead.

#Give 'em Hellboy #Hellboy #BPRD #1947 #Mike Mignola #Joshua Dysart #Gabriel Bá #Fabio Moon #RaisingHellboy #129

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filmista · 6 years

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The Piano (1993)

“What a death! What a chance! What a surprise! My will has chosen life! Still it has had me spooked and many others besides!”

Jane Campion’s The Piano is well known for being the first and until recently one of the only films that has won a woman a Palme D’or for best director at Cannes. It’s still one of New Zealand’s best known pictures and a steady reference, when discussing female directors.

The only thing I knew about it however was, how successful it was at Cannes and that it was at the time (and perhaps still) regarded as a very controversial film, of which it has been heavily debated whether it is or isn’t a feminist picture in nature. It’s kind of sad that in large part today it lives on through its reputation of “difficult”, because it’s truly a stunning film.

When I first watched it (I have seen it twice since) I was swept away and fell in love instantly, it quickly got a spot amidst my favorite period dramas. It felt thoroughly modern and at the same time timeless to me.

I love it when a film and its maker alike, are brave and it isn’t afraid to sometimes shock or provoke a little. And not out a need to just shock necessarily, but more about a passion to let their vision go uncompromised.

The piano certainly is that kind of film. It wasn’t difficult to imagine that not everyone liked this and that some people might have felt shocked or even appaled.

I think this is in part due to the fact that it doesn’t offer us any clearly defined or initially even likeable human beings in it. They’re all far from perfect, but that makes the film all the more grittier and emotionally rawer, which might be why it has endured in time.

What made it for me so special and masterful, and what fuelled a desire to watch it again almost immediately after, is the fact that the film is so clashingly different from what you usually expect of a film of the same kind.

It’s at times a living contradiction, it embraces conventions, and then dances around them. It might be a period drama, but its the first period drama in a while; that had me in genuine suspense, shocked and surprised pleasantly at every turn while its story was unfolding.

I had a vague idea that this was a period drama, and read that it involved two men, I just thought it might be extremely pretty to look at melodrama. I like period dramas, but only when they manage to do something unexpected.

Something that surprises me and The Piano certainly succeeded at that. Visually it does justice to the time period it’s supposed to take place in, the clothes and artifacts and attitudes of the people match and are what is supposed to be expected, initially...

Yet as I said, at its heart it clashes with these traditions and expectations of the genre and subverts them. And that’s what’s so exhilarating about it for me, it’s a powerful film, in that it gently imposes its feeling and emotions onto you.

If it reminds me of any other film, it’s only in one thing of Picnic At Hanging Rock

in that it takes “proper victorian society, and puts everything upside down. Letting it run wild, letting it be led completely by instinct, and at the same time show the perversion of its repression and properness.

The Piano is an incredibly beaufiul film in terms of visuals. Like many or at least good period dramas it painstakingly recreates the period its supposed to take place in. However it is as I said also visually a gem.

The cinematography is sumptuous and lush, alternatingly light and dark according to the mood of a scene and often of a character. The colors of the landscape heightened, to put emphasis on both the beauty and wild unpredictableness of it.

It’s been criticsed a few times for its editing being too abrupt or grainy in quality. But personally I love it, the cinematography and the sound, don’t follow any sets of rule any more rules than its story.

Again what surprised me about it, is that for a period drama it was surprisingly untame and erotic, yet at times brutal while still elegant, like only a female touch seems able to bring to a film sometimes.

The Piano opens with Scottish mail order bride Ada (a magnificent Holly Hunter) being sent to New Zealand by her father alongside of her young and preccocious daughter Flora (Anna Paquin in one of the best child performances I’ve seen), to marry Stewart a local farmer and settler.

As soon as we see this, we know what kind of world to expect, and how the society in it functions. Women were still regarded as little better than cattle, to be sold off and bought, with the other only purpose of bearing children.

You best weren’t too temperamnental or strong willed. All things the film’s protagonist is not. We discover another curiosity about her: she hasn’t spoken since she was 6 years old. We don’t know why this is; it’s ever since her last husband was struck by lightning when they were singing in a forest during a thunderstorm once, according to her daughter.

During another moment she tells someone that it’s because her mother says that people talk rubbish anyway, and that it isn’t neccessary to listen. It’s probably a bit of a combination of different things, she very likely has been emotionally traumatized at one point in her life. We don’t know whether something happened as a child, or with the man that gave her, her daughter and who he was.

Very likely her muteness is equal parts brought on by trauma, as selective. It gives her a tranquility, she doesn’t have to answer, if somehting displeases her. Yet all the while in her mind she can think whatever she wants, and no one will read her. It’s also a trait that would make it perfectly socially acceptable to be a bit withdrawn sometimes.

With her daughter she communicates through sign language, and her daughter translates them for her whenever the need arises.. Their dynamic with each other works, until of course going to New Zealand.

Things start off bleak immediately, her husband isn’t there on time to meet her and her daughter. So the two are forced to sleep in an improvised tent, made out of her underskirt, and sleep outside on the beach.

The next day he arrives, but rather than apologize,instantly complains to someone about how small she is. Prior we see he had written her a card sayng he didn’t mind her being mute, as god loves even dumb creatures.

Through the tone of the voiceover we can instantly tell how she feels about him, not positvely at all. Ada has one thing in her life that allows her to feel like she can speak and feel alive, her piano.

However her new husband, even though she empathically, desperately makes lcear how important it is to her, he could care less, and tells her it is too heavy, the piano is now exposed to the elements on the beach.

No affection, love or lust grows between her and her husband. And initially her daughter refuses to call him papa. Stewart grows frustraed, especially since she also doesn’t talk, she looks at him with an icy expression at all times.

He doesn’t seem to understand that this is because he never tries to see her fully, try to understand her and show kind of tenderness that’s unforced and from within him.

Ada is eventually so melancholy by the separation from that she sneaks off to the beach to play it. There a neighbour hears it and is so moved by Ada’s playing that he offers her husband a deak, land in exchange for letting his wife come over to teach him how to play piano.

We quickly find out his plan is not enitely act out of love of music, but also a strong sexual attraction to Ada, he isntinctually gets that her piano is a way to come closer to her.

And here is where the film takes its often controversial trun, into nasty romance territory. The film becomes about sexual power play, and how the power can shift from one person to another. Though here that grows into genuine affection on both sides.

Banes makes Ada a rather crude offer, small sexual favors, in turn she gets to play her piano. There’s 88 keys, acts like taking off her jacket might equal one, while raising her skirt would be five. Each act is assigned a number of keys.

Initially she seems bothered by the offer, but accepts in order to play. Had a man directed the film, we might have been shown this in a much more impersonal and aggressive way, there’s never anything grauitious about it.

But we really get to see the perspectuve off both. Both people are lonley and long for a real human connection. Ada knows this of Baes, and quickly realizes her power: he desires her company, and is affected when she pretens to not care.

Meanwhile she has the power to negotiate the sexual acts in the direction that she lies, increasing the number of keys required for a certain action.

While this offer is undeniably crude and borders on prostutituon. Campion did take a surprsingly affecting trun. Both people find warmth in each other. And by the time they make love, they are eactually in love.

And surprsingly for a that takes place in the time it does, he checks in with Ada, sees if she’s okay with it. And unselfishly proceeds to focusing on her pleasure, something she likley hadn’t experienced.

There’s even a scene in which he lifts her hoopskirt to perform oral sex (wild!) there’s a genuine affection and passion; and it is with him that she finally speaks, whispering something in his ear during the act, he seems overjoyed by her reaction.

And while it’s a powerful moment, it’s one of a great many in the film. It shows them connecting a personal level. However Ada’s husband, saw the two of them, only discoering the betrayal because her daughter Ada had told her stepdad, who she has finally come to like.

After sleeping with each other, Banes tells her they should not see each other again, as he was already suspicious and mean towards her. Thus sacrificing what he feels for her.

Howver after the incident events take a turn for the worse. And George snaps completely, actually locking her in the house, by setting wooden boards around points of exit. His stepdaughter voluntarily helps him. Campion never explicitly places blame on the child though.

She was likely, dangerously acting out childhish jelaous, as she is ni longer her mother’s only source of happiness and thing she pays constant attention to. But she is eventually horrified, when Stewart in his mad jealousy goes even further.

Ada whilst not in love with her husband, knows exactly what he wants. And starts to play right into it, finally approaching him physically, so that he thinks she’s warming up to him or even falling in love. Finally he trusts her and allows her to go outside, however she can’t really do much because her daugher is still there.

So she decides to write Banes a declararion of love. Asking her daughter to deliver it to him. However she brings it to her stepad, who opens and reads it. And finally fully loses it.

Previously he had already tried to rape her (after catching her in the act), but he now drags her outside towards a choping block cuts off one of her fingers, that he sends to Banes with the threat “come near her again, and I’ll cut off the others”. There’s a moment in the film, in which certain characters attend a play of the Blue Beard story, perhaps this foreshadowed his violence in the end.

There’s a look that Ada gives her husband after it happens, it’s one of pure disgust and hatred. The way a person would look at their shoe after having stepped in dog poop.

Something interesting happened at this moment, the veneer of “respectiful Victorian society cracks. Stewart turns out to be more insensitve and ulimately a bigger brute than the man who had “gone native”.

The difference is that Banes has long ceased to give a shit about the ways of societt, and what anyone thinks. And that he is therefore free to see and treat Ada as a fully layered and equal human being.

By which she reveals sides, she hadn’t shown anyone and thus feels appreciated and falls for him. And he falls for her in spite of her, what would at the time have been deemed an unseemingly strong will for a woman. I’s very likely why he fell for her to begin with.

Yet Stewart, regarded her almost as somehthing inhuman, and sees her as somehthing he’s entitled to as a man, and expects that she will automatically submit to his authority.

Ada however doesn’t. Like Banes, she seems to care very little for societal norms as well. If Stewart had been kinder to her maybe the relationship would have evolved different, but since his actions at the beginning of the film, he condemmned himself by his unwillingmess to “listen”.

Finally stewart realizes tat Ada will never love him, and allows her to doo what she had wnated: run off with Banes, we don’t know if it’s entirely selffles, if he in the end realizes his mistakes and wants her happiness, or if he has given up.

Regardless it sets about a change and Ada is now with Banes, who has fashioned her a metal finger. When they go away with each other, he takes her piano, knowing how important it is. She however no longer wants it and demands it to be thrown in the water. Where she ends up with it.

The piano at least I think so, represents her past, her bad memories and a means of communication. Or rather that with which she escaped having her “voice” oppresed as a woman. Briefly she seems to contemplate dying with it, but then fights to the surface and joins Banes, to embark on a new life.

The figure of her lover, is a controversial one. Some reduce him to a rapist, since they say that Ada had no choice or agency. But that would mean denying things, first that Ada isn’t as demure and innocent looking as she seems.

She read the situation, and played into all the while realizing, her power, it’’s ultimately she that sets the pace and decides what happens when. But more importantly, this interpreatation dismisses Ada as sexual; it denies the possibiluty that she could have desires and enjoy pleasures, or have a kinky side that enjoyed the seductive game they played initially.

There’s a moment where the tone shifts completely, Banes gently makes a hole in her stockings, and caresses the skin underneath it. We see Ada’s face, she responds with a visible gasp of enjoyment, that makes it clear she’s excited by what’s happening and wants it.

That’s another thing that’s great in the film, it subtly and accurately shows feamle desire and pleasure. The Piano could be at times considered quite steamy, but not because you see all that much but rather how what you see is shown.

Focused on the emotions , and often the joy of the moment. That moment in which Banes lifts Ada’s skirt to pleasure her is signifcant, there’s urgency and laughs, at just how difficult it is to lift.

It recognises that sometimes sex isn’t always perfectly in sync and sometimes just funny, but more importantly here fun. One of my problems, with the sex scenes in some films, is that there’s always taken so terribly seriously...

And it’s quite surprising that given the film’s age, that scene still feels so incredible refreshing. It is just like Holly Hunter’s performance, that makes the film, literally quitely brilliant.

Hunter learned to play the piano herself, so whenever she plays it (sometimes only as backgorund music) it sounds genuinely beautiful and moving, and like someone with actual passion for music is playing.

For an actress playing someone mute, must be hard but Hunter handles it beutifully, never laying it on to thick. But rather knows how to sublty convye emotion through her face and body at each moment, we can read from her face what she is feeling or how she is interpreting a certain situation, it’s fascinating to watch.

The character of Ada is not simple one. She seems like a quiet, calm and reserved woman and seems to enjoy a certain isolation. Or rather is revealed to perhaps enjoy the company of those she likes, and doesn’t have to pretend to.

As soon as someone does something she doesn’t like, she clearly lets this be known, indicating a fierce pride. And Hunter shows that beautifully, just with one look Ada can seem to shimmer with rage and indignation. The Piano is ultimately a fascinating look at gender and societal norms, and a beautiful ode to the priceless freedom of loving passionately and who we chose.

“Ada, I'm unhappy. 'Cause I want you. 'Cause my mind has seized on you and can think of nothing else. This is why I've suffered. I am sick with longing. I don't eat, I don't sleep.”

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itsbenedict · 6 years

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No Driver’s License: Session 34

No Driver’s License is a Madoka Magica game I’m running for five players, using a homebrew of Yaruki Zero’s Magical Burst system. It follows five magical girls as they deal with an upheaval in the world’s magic system caused by some strange new three-eyed Incubators. They have to figure out what’s going on, who to trust, and how to put a stop to the cycle of despair.

I post session logs and omakes weekly sporadically, both as a reference for the players and for anyone who wants to follow along with the party’s misadventures.

[adventure log- read from the beginning]

[session 33 - omake 33.1]

So! Last time on No Driver’s License, the team got Sakura back and did a little talking before venturing out into the sun. Honoka Midarezaki has witched, and... well, that’s nearly a victory- they have to actually beat the witch, first. Looking like it’s final boss time!

So, one big question, before they set out, is... is Emiko going to be an ally here?

It’s more or less established that they won’t be attacking each other, for now- they’ve got a common goal in getting Kimiko un-witched, so until the witch is actually defeated, and her soul seed is in question, they’ll be on the same side.

Fumi-chan is here, by the way, which is never something you want.

Apparently, they were all mostly involved in the old-school magical girl scene as civilians- they had friends in the game, hunting grief seeds and trying to kill each other and get each other to witch. Kyubey was there, playing them against each other. The surviving cannibal team here are the first of that scene to contract under Tama-chan’s new system.

Fumi-chan tries to shut down that conversation, assisted by two things. Thing 1:

Thing 2: the room is suddenly lit up by a blinding pink light that blasts a hole in the wall.

(Oh, also- since Sakura witched and revived, that means she’s leveled up. Her single final ability, an upgrade of either the armor or the taffy, is...

This is, uh... well, it’s as creepy as she makes it, and how creepy she makes it is...

Very. Very, is how much. Anyway, the giant explosion:)

So, the pink laser doesn’t do all that much damage, since they were protected by the mansion, but it still stings- and Yukari is familiar with that light.

It’s Honoka- except like, some kind of shriveled sun-baked undead monster thing. It talks- and it talks shit, but in kind of an uncreative way. It declares itself to be Honoka Midarezaki, and that she’s going to kill them all. It also isn’t super responsive to... anything that contradicts its narrative of being stronger than the party.

They just unload a handful of totally normal attacks on her, and her head gets blasted off. It seems like it was just a familiar, not the witch. So that’s some damage done, right?

The party concludes that this is basically a zombie apocalypse scenario, and they bust out their Antimatter Wands to form a defensive perimeter- after all, these things are pretty weak individually, maybe they can win by attrition. (Emiko has questions about where they got those wands, and where they got the Dis Astranagants, and what the deal is with the Devil- but those questions are going to have to wait.)

So... well, thing is, they notice the shriveled Honokas aren’t really swarming them at all. They seem to be gathering in the shade of the statues dotting the landscape, actually- and the team rolls some Real to try and figure out what they’re doing.

Worried that this might turn into a giant mech battle, Sakura has a proposal:

After some discussion, in which Ibara claims that giant robots are lame and everyone else absolutely loses their shit at her, not the least Emiko... they conclude they need to deal with these statues before taking on the sun directly.

Thankfully, they’ve got some options for beating the heat outside. The team’s got loads of armor options thanks to Sakura and their artifacts, and enough healing to make up the difference. Going outside is going to be unpleasant, but not especially dangerous if they stay on top of armor and healing. Sakura additionally does some on-the-fly artificing to produce a couple candy umbrellas to block the light.

Hang on, though- it seems they’re forgetting something.

Nope, can’t see her. She was crying in the corner, but is now missing. They all roll Real to see if they spotted her in the chaos of the familiar attack- Seina and Yukari barely pass, noting that she indeed got up and started moving somewhere during the attack, but the others completely fail, and no one rolled high enough to know exactly where she went.

They immediately check the upstairs of the stone mansion, and... well, find her right away, cowering in a different corner, because that’s where she went. Good guessing!

She doesn’t seem to be responding, and seems distraught about something- and then Seina uses her telepathy-sight and notices that Fumi-chan is having a private telepathic conversation with her. She doesn’t roll high enough to listen in, though, so they need to do some sorcery to try and get Fumi to stop. They attempt to create a magical jam radio to break the telepathy, and... uh, both rolls are crits.

Ibara eventually resorts to just smashing the damn thing on the spot, freeing everyone from the horrible noise, but wasting the effort.

...Until it isn’t, because Emiko took off without the rest of the party and took Fumi-chan with her, out of range. Whoops. Sakura offers Nobody one of her sun-blocking umbrellas, since they kind of have to get going quick if they don’t want Emiko to beat them to the witch.

They don’t really have time to resolve this to their satisfaction, though- and shortly, they’re off.

They get to the statue- it’s one of some masked magical girl with a needle and surrounded by satellite dishes- and take out a few Honoka shrivels at the base. Ibara delivers a Shear Force attack to one of the statue’s legs, in hopes of cracking it and knocking the whole thing over. It’s moderately successful, and it’ll only take one more big hit to do the job.

They eventually learn where Emiko is, because Seelenfaust drops from the sky and breaks off one of the statue’s hands- apparently Emiko was fighting inside the statue, and just now decided to call in reinforcements.

Yukari’s approach... is to not fight the Honokas outside at all. She can just teleport- and teleport she does, straight into the center of the statue.

What happens is... well, the needle vanishes, and the room gets smaller. And so do all the Honokas. And so does the statue. And- okay, yeah, basically the whole team is twice as big now, and their power and damage reduction have been doubled.

Ibara’s able to take the statue down entirely, and the remaining Honokas get mopped up. Meanwhile... it seems like a lot of the other statues have doubled in size, too, though some are still small. And- they see a few of the un-hugened ones get hugened as they watch. Huh?

The team splits up a bit to handle more statues, since the Honokas didn’t offer much resistance and they figure they can cover more ground that way. Seina and Ibara head for one, Emiko and Makoto go for another, and Yukari and Sakura take a third.

When Seina and Ibara arrive at their destination, they find a plaque by the statue’s feet.

(Mayushi is a character from Zero’s old megucas adventure, so I defer to him there:)

Sakura finishes the job by, uh, making her brain come out of her head and engulf it and crush it to pieces.

So- after these statue missions, their strength and DR multiplier is 16x.

That thing where she can home in on her goddess, and also has Fly as a basic talent? Yeah, she can just fly herself to the moon, is the thing.

Nobody also has magical flying- and both of them have specific advantages for following particular people, so getting here wasn’t too hard for them.

So- with that, we break for the week- next time, we fast-forward over some samey statue dungeon-crawling, and get on with the actual witch fight!

#no driver's license

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movieswithkevin27 · 6 years

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Ready Player One

Ready Player One is an odd film. It has everything I hate about modern cinema - too many quips (here it is largely done via references), loud action instead of more restrained action so the film winds up being hunks of metal clashing against one another, and an unabashed love of pop culture to the point it distracts from whatever story the film is telling which was cliche and hokey anyways - yet it is also good. It is also a film in which an evil businessman wants to control a massive virtual reality game played by everyone on Earth in order to cover 80% of the screen with advertisements, all while the film itself is presented by blatant product placements bought by Pizza Hut, Doritos, and Twitch. In essence, a message of, “Ugh, all of these advertisements are the worst. Want to stream Twitch, order Pizza Hut, and snack on some Doritos instead?” Hell, even setting barely makes any sense. So there are “bandwidth riots” and some kind of war which have led to society living in “stacks” in 2045. That is fine, but then why do they have nostalgia for the 1980s? 1980s nostalgia films like Back to the Future and Peggy Sue Got Married worshipped at the altar of the 1950s. Even American Graffiti, from the 1970s, worshipped the same period. Modern nostalgia films like IT or the series Stranger Things worship 1980s films. Thus, would it not make sense for Ready Player One’s characters to worship 2000s/2010s movies like Avengers, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, or something? There is one brief shot of Avatar, which makes sense, but perhaps the oddest bit of the film is how nostalgia did not change even though so much in society did change in the 30 years between now and the film’s setting. This perplexing film only comes together for a few reasons. Its ideas are quite well done, its adventure plot is greatly realized, its special effects are great, Tye Sheridan and Olivia Cooke are great, and it is directed by Steven Spielberg who keeps the lid on author Ernest Cline’s nostalgia porn of a story.

Ready Player One is pretty much known for its references to the films and video games that Cline himself loved, so it is natural that the film itself is full of references. Whether it is Freddy Krueger, Chucky, The Iron Giant, Back to the Future, The Shining, Goldeneye, old Atari games, King Kong, Godzilla, or the films of John Hughes, Ready Player One is almost always distracting. The bits of old songs (especially in the climactic battle) are distracting due to the dialogue or attention dedicated to them, while the references to Hughes (as well as Animal House and Fast Times at Ridgemont High) hardly help as the film seems to just spend as much time possible mentioning as many facts as it can in order to pander to lovers of those films or any of the aforementioned referenced films/songs/games. However, the references are not necessarily all bad. As they are contained within the Oasis, they do make sense as people who loves these games and movies would likely reference and incorporate them into a game they created. That said, they are as distracting as one would expect, especially when they are shoehorned in as with Parzival / Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) telling someone that they are “like Rosebud”, in an overt reference to Citizen Kane. However, when it comes to The Shining or King Kong or the old Atari game at the end, Spielberg and Ready Player One are quite smart. The inclusion of King Kong as the final boss for the first key or with The Shining as the setting for the showdown for the second key, the film can be incredibly fun and beyond the typical “yeah I get these references” way as Spielberg does not go merely for the reference or the homage. Instead, he utilizes them and plays with the characters abilities or the Overlook Hotel setting in a way that not just fits the film, but is a fun twist on them. In particular, The Shining sequence is a real standout for the film as the characters come face-to-face with threats from the film while it is blended with a reference to a game made by the creator of the Oasis James Halliday (Mark Rylance), while being thrilling and emotional in all the right ways.

This is what ultimately saves and elevates the film as, throughout, Ready Player One is definitely quintessential Spielberg in terms of the sense of adventure and the thrills. It is almost like a futuristic Indiana Jones in which the hero must find keys/artifacts, fight against some wicked group who wants to control or destroy the world, and winds up having a young Asian sidekick. The end result is a film that, for all of its references, can often stand on its own two feet. Telling the story of a game creator named Halliday who left control of his Oasis game to whoever can find the three keys he has hidden throughout the game, the film details the efforts of multiple factions racing towards the keys. Though he starts solo, Parzival eventually brings along his friend Aech (Lena Waithe), who brings along two friends of their own Sho (Philip Zhao) and Daito (Win Moriaski). While playing and trying to find the first key, Parzival falls into movie love with gamer Art3mis (Olivia Cooke), who luckily serves far more of a role than the cliche “love interest” character though she does slip into being a damsel in distress towards the end. Meanwhile, the comically evil bad guy is Nolan Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn), who once interned for Halliday and now leads the biggest competitor to the Oasis. Thus, he desperately wants control of the Oasis in order to increase his power and profit. This is all, obviously, quite cliche. However, in the hands of Spielberg, it does work incredibly well. There are some inconsistencies such as the need for whoever wins to have all three keys in their possession, yet Nolan and his company continue to progress through the levels without any indication as to how they were able to get either the first or second keys. One could argue they learned how to complete the level from the “High Five” clan led by Parzival, but the film is also very clear that they told nobody but those in their close circle of friends about how to complete the levels. Thus, it makes very little sense that Sorrento’s company 101 could be in position to win. However, this issue is not particularly distracting as Ready Player One accomplishes its greatest goal: it is incredibly fun. This is a film that is fast-paced, moves through its 140 minutes with relative ease, and creates endearing and charming characters along the way that are anchored by terrific performances. This is not a film that will change the landscape of cinema for the next 40 years, but it will be a film that is fondly remembered and turn into nostalgia itself for those who do watch the film.

Spielberg’s direction of action has never been in question and that is certainly present here, as in the climactic battle sequence. Grand in scope and with brimming with brilliant special effects, the inventive additions of references and of advanced technology do bolster the scene considerably, making it both thrilling and wholly enjoyable. In this line, what the film further benefits from is not quite world building, rather it is world exploration as well as character development. For the former, as everyone tries to find the clues and keys, it brings the characters to consistently engaging and brilliantly designed areas of the Oasis that make the film consistently engaging to watch unfold. This is a world with considerable depth and creativity behind it and, luckily, the film’s plot brings the characters through this colorful and often quite bombastic world. This may be a film that possesses the problems of blockbuster cinema, but it also possesses what can make blockbusters so great to watch, which is creativity and an immense scale. Ready Player One possesses this in spades, making it a world that is fun to experience and will be fun to eventually return to on future rewatches. This world being brought to life with stunning visual effects and production design only further benefits the final product, as it is a film that uses modern technology to its great benefit as it is a film that demands to be seen on the big-screen, while utilizing that modern technology to help bring to life this futuristic world of Columbus.

What does hold back Ready Player One from being better, however, are its cliches, plot devices/contrivances, and Spielberg’s sentimentality. For the plot issues, beyond the logic issue that 101 is able to continue without ever getting the keys, Ready Player One tips its hand early on when Parzival is walking through a store and is told the “Cataclysm” would destroy the game and everything, so no one should ever buy it to prevent the destruction of the Oasis. This Chekov’s gun, naturally, comes back right at the climax, only to not actually do as promised. This is explained as being due to a plot convenience in which, despite not wanting it, Parzival accidentally had an “extra life” coin given to him by the curator of Halliday’s life records. These plot conveniences also show up when Art3mis/Samantha Cook is able to escape from 101 after her capture. Using the 101 war room to play in the Oasis and help Parzival/Wade, she winds up narrowly missing Nolan Sorrento who has been going through all of his employees and ripping off their masks to find Samantha. Not only is the timing perfect, but a commander comes over and tells her to go to the “re-spawn” room after she gets kicked out of the game, though the film has shown 101 gamers being kicked out of the game throughout the film with the commander never approaching any of them. Ready Player One also heavily relies upon foreshadowing, such as the password for Nolan’s rig (which is also convenient) being captured in a close-up while it just sits on the armrest, waiting for it to be stolen. Plot devices/contrivances further show up for the final key as Parzival plays an old Atari game. A 101 gamer had tried that game, but failed the challenge as he won the game instead of looking for the noted Easter Egg in the game. A girl working at 101 had suggested the game as a likely answer to the final clue, but was cut off before being able to explain that winning the game will not help them. Finally, Spielberg’s usage of the aforementioned cliches is only outdone by his typically tacky sentimentalism at the end of the film. As Parzival urges everyone in the game to come help him fight Nolan, nobody comes at first so Nolan smugly smirks and walks off before literally everyone in the game shows up to fight Nolan in a moment intended to be emotional and show the support that Parzival has in the game. Later, as the group celebrates their victory, Nolan is conveniently arrested while Wade declares he will not miss the chance on love like Halliday did as he wraps up Samantha for a kiss the film had been building up to throughout. This sentimental finale with the already cliche bad guy getting his “just desserts” in the most cliche and hokey way possible really takes the air out of the film right as it is set to end.

Thematically, as with many modern films, Ready Player One is definitively anti-corporation. This is, as per usual, quite ironic given the film’s own celebration of consumerism, its status as the product of a corporation, and its own aforementioned product placements. Nonetheless, Ready Player One is smart in how it is not necessarily fully anti-corporation, but rather it is pro-creative. The Oasis itself is a tool to be used by people in order to showcase their creativity and to create a world they find interesting. This is exactly what Halliday did in creating the game, hence the film loves him and celebrates all those who do create things. What it decries are the corporations who see the game or product and seek only to monetize it and help their bottom line even if it means ruining what people love about the game. This is a major problem with video games now and even with film as those in control of them seek to do whatever they can to maximize their pay-off with little concern for the product itself or the work put into it by the creatives. These same corporations also ignore that the game, such as the Oasis, is popular as is while being incredibly profitable for Halliday as it stood. Thus, why would one ruin it rather than just sit back and rake in the cash? This is the type of corporate strategy that Ready Player One takes full issue with, decrying the meddling of those who do not understand the product or consumer just because they think they can squeeze out a few more cents from a consumer. In this, as expected, Spielberg hails those who stand up and defend creativity or are creative in their own right. They are the ones who bring joy to millions and, as such, should be celebrated for being a benefit to society.

However, Ready Player One also urges limits. This is an especially important message given the target audience of a film styled like a video games with nostalgic references to games and films strewn throughout. One can love entertainment, but not at the expense of life. Halliday loved his games at the expense of living his life, winding up alone and watching the woman he loved marry his business partner and die of cancer from afar. His life was in the game he created and the movies he watched. His refusal to lead an actual existence beyond media proves to be his greatest regret and it plays a major role in the search for the keys, while Parzival eventually changes the Oasis so that it turns off for two days a week so that people will actually live life. Not only had Wade/Parzival cast aside his own life in favor of the Oasis, but he saw how his Aunt’s abusive boyfriend had done the same and even bet all of his savings on the game. The people in the “stacks” all play during the day, rather than finding a way to get out of their poverty. Thus, by focusing some effort on the real world, Wade is able to find love with Samantha and hopes that those who play his game will be able to do the same with the added emphasis on a life/play balance.

A thrilling, adventure-filled, and wholly entertaining romp through the nostalgia of Ernest Cline as directed by Steven Spielberg, Ready Player One is a better film than it has right to be in large part due to Spielberg and his leads. Tye Sheridan and Olivia Cooke continue to prove that they are two of the brightest young stars in Hollywood with their turns in this film, while also being a dynamite romantic pairing with great chemistry between them. Though the film is brought down by cliches, sentimentalism, and shoehorned references, Ready Player One nonetheless manages to be one of the better blockbusters in recent memory and serves as further proof that Spielberg knows how to entertain an audience unlike any other filmmaker.

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dontcallmecarrie · 7 years

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Live Through The Rain

On a bit of a WtNV kick lately, despite not being completely caught up yet. Add in dubious amounts of sleep and caffeine, a bout of Maria Stark feels, plus my knee-jerk reaction to stress, and I think you guys can tell where I’m going with this.

Fandoms: Marvel Cinematic Universe [films], Welcome To Night Vale [podcast]

Warnings: for everything Night Vale related [Librarian-caliber gore, cosmic horror, dystopian themes, etc.] plus unreliable narrator [because of different priorities, skewed ideas as to what’s normal, etc] and large amounts of crack because reasons. Under the cut, also because reasons.

Here’s a fic idea/minific-I-might-expand-later-on from some premises I kinda want to play with, with bonus Maria Stark backstory because turns out she’s a pretty major influence and butterfly effect ftw:

In which Maria Stark’s hometown was Night Vale.

Maria Carbonell grew up in a small, quaint town with good schools, [literally] breathtaking infrastructure, and left a legacy that had everyone warily looking over their shoulders and in the rafters before speaking her name.

She may or may not have been part of the reason the town referred to an incident only as the Time of Knives, featuring a teenage Maria and a truly terrifying number of Librarians, and had been taking classes at the community college and interning at the local radio station when an errand to investigate the appearance of mysterious portals ended up leaving her stranded in New York.

She didn’t have much to go back to; her father had entered the Blood-Space War when she wasn’t quite eight, and his letters always reached her regardless of where she was. Her mother was bitten by an antique years ago, and she’d been an only child. Besides, she could hear the radio just fine, so the homesickness wasn’t that bad.

So Maria Carbonell did what any Night Vale citizen did: she rolled with it, and settled into this new world with what she had in her pockets, and little else. Turns out, it was just enough, especially paired with her skills from when she’d earned her Undercover Operations badge, back when she’d been in Girl Scouts.

Time passed, and she fell in love with Howard Stark, and you guys know the rest of the story.

He thinks she’s got some odd quirks, but didn’t everyone?

And Howard…changes, over the years. Hardens, becomes colder. Becomes more secretive. In another life, Maria might’ve been dismayed, by that.

But in this one, she’s reminded of home more than ever before, because…really. Besides,it’s not like she doesn’t have her own secrets, like the bloodstones she’s carried in her pocket since leaving Night Vale, and she’s so proud of his progress in making a Vague Yet Menacing Government Agency. [Really, his attempts at secrecy are adorable.]

He’s gone for more and more time, searching for Captain America, and Maria’s left holding down the fort, smiling prettily for the cameras and unnerving literally everyone else, because the spies who work with Howard are seeing her skills with counterintelligence and information-gathering and debating about whether she’s a deep-cover agent or something else. [Howard, for his part, gets very offended by any implications of his wife being a spy, plus he researched her background himself, thus their reluctance to say anything otherwise.] Plus her skill with anything with blades? Ditto. Jarvis is slightly wary at first, but they become friends soon enough, bonding over watching Howard’s back and sharing recipes [even if Jarvis had to modify some, because apparently people around here didn’t like adding crushed pumice to brownies. Weird].

Just…Maria Stark’s content to be in the background, but is kicking ass and taking names because she was born and raised in a small town that regularly deals with eldritch abominations and temporal disparities and it’s hard not to be a badass after having earned merit badges in Concealed Weaponry and Advanced Knife Fighting Techniques before puberty.

She loves quietly but fiercely, and takes on the world with a bright [vicious] smile and a knife tucked out of sight. [Turns out it’s genetic.]

I could go on, but this got off-track as is, so…

Tony’s birth signifies a change.

[Of course it does.]

Suddenly, the differences between Night Vale and the rest of the world are so, very vivid.

For instance, her pregnancy had been very interesting.

She was just happy Tony had ten fingers and toes, really. And didn’t mind that he’d taken after his father in looks, because her side of the family had tentacles in their family history, and while Maria didn’t see what all the fuss was about, these people were surprisingly squeamish about extra appendages. [Weird.]

Time passes, and Howard’s still out and the mansion’s mostly vacant, excluding Jarvis, so nobody should be surprised at just how large a role she played in raising him, really.

In canon, Tony was always closer to his mother than his father, but here? Well…he’s got Night Vale in his blood.

Here, Tony’s childhood is unusual, and it’s not even because of the genius thing.

His bedtime stories are of flying police cars and Hooded Figures and Radon Canyon. Howard’s not home very often, but his grandfather’s letters arrive like clockwork, so there’s that. [It was only when Tony got older that he realized the irony of it, really.] The Sumerian lessons, and the self-defense against Librarians, and the best way to handle assault rifles, were all part of his fondest childhood memories. Even if they had to be kept secret, because he noticed how some people looked at his mother, like she was an alien in human skin. [Or a Librarian, or…]

Time passes, he gets older, and Jarvis is despairing in the back because Tony inherited his mother’s taste, and explaining just why there was motor oil in the cereal bowl had been a trip and a half.

Tony’s growing up, and while he’s blowing through classes, and being a prodigy just like in canon, here, when he’s at home he’s learning how to make hot chocolate just the way his mother makes it, with a dash of chili powder and just a hint of antifreeze. The stories now include the Void and Street Cleaning Day and monsters great and terrible [Librarians, what can you do? Plus the Woman From Italy] and whenever the signal’s good, they hear the broadcasts together.

[Part of Tony knows it should be impossible, but then, so’s the bloodstone circle chants, and the small bits of dark magic his mother knew and taught him because she’d earned a merit badge for Combat Incantations. He’s not good at it, but it’s enough for a pinch, so whatever.]

Sometimes, he wants to visit, but life in the spotlight, plus it being practically impossible to find sometimes, meant it’d be something for the bucket list instead.

Time passes, and he gets older.

He’s learned from his mother how to smile for the cameras, and he’s not even a year into MIT but he’s already sick of hearing everyone comparing him to Howard because sure, they had a family picture every so often, but really the last time he saw his father had before the man had left for yet another expedition, nearly five months ago.

Maria’s still done her best to bridge the gap, but here there’s also the Family Secret to contend with; Tony’s got Night Vale in the blood, after all. That’s not a small thing.

The car crash still happens, and Maria still dies.

Except here, Tony chalks it up to time-traveling assassins from the Society For A Blood-Space War, because he’s heard of them before and it would’ve taken a lot more than a mere car crash to end Maria Stark neé Carbonell.

The Winter Soldier, meanwhile, had to fight for his life and only narrowly made it out because the target’s wife put up unexpected resistance. The scene had to be set on fire to get rid of all the biological evidence, and HYDRA had to do some emergency surgery even though nobody’s quite sure as to where the machete wounds, or third-degree burns, even came from.

Maria had taught Tony how to handle assassins from an early age. She thought it’d be his grandfather, or his father, that’d be the reason for trouble, but just in case…

Tony’s grieving, of course, but he’s a bit more at peace than in canon. [It helps that he recognized the lingering scent of dark magic, and knew she’d fought back, when he goes to the scene.] But he’s got Night Vale in the blood; death and fire are like a second skin, to him.

Time passes, and canon ensues, for the most part.

He still becomes the Merchant of Death, still sells weapons that devastate landscapes and smiles for the camera. [It’s Tony Stark, of course.]

The changes are more minute than not, here; they’re in how Jarvis lived a few months longer than what the doctors had expected, after having been diagnosed with cancer [bloodstone chants for the win], they’re in how Tony actually likes DUM-E’s smoothies, because the tang of motor oil’s a very good counterpoint to the mellow notes in the alfalfa, they’re in how he sometimes turns off the music and puts on the radio, when it’s late at night and he’s alone in the workshop. [Rhodey, Happy, and Pepper get clued into his unique background, of course, and roll with it..]

Canon ensues, and shit goes down.

He’s still captured on a bright day, not a cloud in the sky and the sun scorching down on him.

The change here is, Yinsen’s feeling tendrils of darkness where there’s supposed to be a heart. The difference here is, Tony first wakes in the middle of his impromptu surgery to a doctor who’s looking at him with horrified awe, and the arc reactor goes in anyway because turns out that physiological quirks aside, his heart still doesn’t like getting shredded, protection around it or no.

Tony left his bloodstones back home, and he was never quite as good at magic, so he goes with what he knows, to break out. Except here, he also has the shadows to help him, and their captors become increasingly drawn and tired as the days pass by. Yinsen doesn’t breathe a word, but watches with fascination as this all goes down.

They break out, of course.

Not sure if Yinsen makes it, in this one. Hmm…details, details.

Tony crash-lands, and it might’ve killed a normal human, but…well. He’s not normal, now, is he?

Canon ensues, with a few tweaks.

When he meets Nick Fury for the first time, Tony doesn’t get why the man twitches like that when he offers him a drink. [Fury’d seen Maria cheerfully add Tabasco sauce to her tea, like hell he was going to drink anything her spawn offered him!] And that talk of a bigger universe? Adorable. Why’d he’d booked it shortly afterwards, he did not get, either.

The palladium tastes like grape-flavored cough syrup, so of course it had to go. [The headaches he got from it were secondary, really.] Natasha gets hired, because he recognizes the gleam in her eyes. He hasn’t seen it outside of the mirror for decades now, like hell he wasn’t hiring her. [It’s months later that he finds out she’d been born five minutes away from Nulogorsk. Nice.]

The Avengers assemble, of course.

Except here, there’s a lot more weirdness to contend with; Steve is so, very not prepared for the chaos that is Tony Stark. [Nobody is, really.]

The fight with the Chitauri’s the first time people start to twig that he’s Not Normal, though. Kinda hard not to, when he’s so very nonchalant about fighting alien armies [his laser knife fighting skills were very rusty, but decent enough in a pinch]. When he diverts the warhead from its intended target, he remembers all the warnings about the Void, but curiosity killed the cat so he glimpsed it anyway.

Wasn’t much of a Void, really; the aliens are mildly alarming, to be sure, but this still isn’t the cosmic horror of the Things That Should Remain Unseen that he’d been expecting. [Overall, 4/10, for being a disappointment.]

[Loki, though, he saw the Void, Tony knew. It was obvious, from the look in his eyes even if the others didn’t quite recognize it.]

Time passes, and he carries on.

Thanos is a threat, to be sure, but Tony’s already been quietly preparing for the Blood-Space War, so it’s a minor issue. Even if the others don’t quite agree.

Tony talks in Russian with Natasha, sometimes, and alarms the team as his more private quirks start to show the longer he sticks around. Steve’s horror at his not blinking at the soap in his smoothies is pretty entertaining, to be sure. The less said about Clint’s finding his homemade chocolate stash, the better, and Tony only knew a few phrases in Triple Spanish but it was still enough to get the room’s attention.

Wanda tries to get the drop on him, but turns out his worst nightmare’s a scorching sun with a Smiling God in a desert so it’s pretty much impossible to manipulate that into anything she can work with. That Tony threw a fireball right back at her didn’t exactly help, either.

Ultron still happens, except here, JARVIS has some…quirks, because Computer and Fire Science is a department in Night Vale Community College and that implies a closer relationship between the two than one would expect. [Ultron doesn’t happen, is what I’m saying.]

Civil War, if it were to happen, would be…fun. I mean, it probably wouldn’t even happen, because no Sokovia, and without the time crunch Tony’s able to hit everyone upside the head with the paperwork and broker something that’s approaching functional.

Thanos…well. If Infinity Wars were to happen, Tony would go ‘screw it, time for the big guns. JARVIS, help me find Night Vale, time for that vacation’, and…well. Thanos is formidable, sure, but Tony can get his hands on Librarians and he’s the son of Maria Stark neé Carbonell, so really, who’s the scariest here?

Not mentioned: HYDRA’s got some ties with Desert Bluffs, Phil Coulson’s from Red Mesa [thus the nonchalance at all this shit going down], if I wanted even more crack I could easily try shipping Thanos with the Woman From Italy, and I could probably—uh-oh.

…this is going to be its own AU, isn’t it. Dammit, brain!

I mean, this is pretty rough considering it’s off the top of my head, but…oh no. Brain, don’t do it.

#fic idea #fic ideas #crossover #brain don't do it #gdi brain #my brain did a thing #welcome to night vale #marvel #naught rambles

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logh-icebergs · 7 years

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Episode 26: Farewell, Distant Days

Dear Icebergs readers—as we’ve reached the first season finale of LoGH, we’ve inevitably arrived at some pretty serious spoilers, so if you haven’t already seen all of LoGH season one, I would advise against reading any further. Instead, you can find our FAQs here and our very first post here, and we hope to see you back here soon!

Everyone else: When you're ready, please proceed to our episode 26 post, below. —the editors

September-October 797/488. Ansbach’s assassination attempt on Reinhard is thwarted by Kircheis—first by knocking his gun out of the way, and then by taking fire himself from yet another concealed weapon, this time in Ansbach’s ring. Ansbach shoots through Kircheis’s chest and neck, then bites a poison pill to commit suicide. Reinhard’s admirals scramble, but it’s too late to save Kircheis, who dies while Reinhard holds his hand and looks on in bewilderment. Beyond devastated, Reinhard shuts himself away with Kircheis’s body for days on end. Oberstein convinces the admirals to cast former ally Lichtenlade as a scapegoat for Ansbach’s crime, and, grateful for something to do, the entire fleet storms Odin. Meanwhile, Oberstein informs Annerose of Kircheis’s death, Reuental receives an unexpected invitation, and Reinhard hardens his heart.

Reinhard and Kircheis

The first time I watched episode 26 of Legend of Galactic Heroes, there was a moment when, literally sitting on the edge of my seat, I wondered if this show was about to disappoint me horribly. Kircheis was, clearly, dying. The admirals were fluttering around him trying and failing to stop the bleeding, giving up on leaving to go get a doctor—too quickly, it seemed. And where was Reinhard? Why wasn’t he there?

As a queer consumer of media, I’m used to this kind of disappointment. Seeing my experiences reflected onscreen at all remains rare, and when a piece of media does deign to include a queer character or two, more often than not they’re killed off unceremoniously in as homophobically moralizing a way as possible. The death scenes of queer characters tend to leave me with a sick feeling not because I’m grieving the character but because I hate that I’ve had to give up on expecting queer characters and their relationships to be given a fraction of the respect afforded their straight counterparts.

The first 25 episodes of LoGH had surprised me with their nuanced and respectful depiction of queerness, in particular of Reinhard and Kircheis’s relationship. But as a seasoned veteran of queer media consumption, as Kircheis bled out on the floor while Reinhard did who knows what across the room, I didn’t know how else to interpret what I was seeing other than “Kircheis is about to die alone.” My stomach hurt. And then, this happened:

Given that it’s animated, LoGH has so far been remarkable in its commitment to realism. Without exception, what has been shown to us onscreen has been presented as an accurate depiction of events; the closest to a diversion from that has been the show’s frequent use of flashbacks, but even those are always anchored to a specific character’s experience of remembering the past.

As Reinhard steps painstakingly down the stairs toward where Kircheis lays in a pool of his own blood, the creators of LoGH throw away their own established set of rules. What we are seeing is no longer what is literally happening; instead, we are with Reinhard—and for him, nothing in the world exists at that moment except Kircheis and himself. With this scene, the LoGH creative team show us that they will do whatever they have to in order to respect their characters: If there are too many people around for Reinhard and Kircheis to get the intimate last goodbyes they and their relationship deserve, well, everyone else will simply have to be removed.

Even the lack of voiceover accompanying Reinhard’s quick series of flashbacks here reinforces the extent to which reality has been skewed for the duration of this scene.

For me, this was when LoGH went from being a great show to being (as you may have noticed) my favorite show—and not just because of how kindly it treats its characters, even while they experience gut-wrenching tragedy. Kircheis’s death changes Reinhard and, as I’ll obviously be exploring at length as we move into season 2, that changes the entire landscape of the show. Though from the beginning it has always been deeply personal and human, especially for a war epic of such massive scale, the question of what Reinhard will do now, without Kircheis, turns LoGH psychologically dark in ways that have only been hinted at so far.

Back in episode 4, we were first introduced to Reinhard’s plan to gain enough power to rescue Annerose from the clutches of Kaiser Friedrich IV. Friedrich IV has since died of natural causes, freeing Annerose without Reinhard’s help. In episode 8, we learn that Reinhard’s ambitions extend to overthrowing the Goldenbaum empire, and then achieving supremacy over the entire universe—very specifically with Kircheis at his side. By the end of episode 26, Reinhard rules the empire in everything but name (the six-year-old Erwin Josef II still sits on the throne as Kaiser), but Kircheis is dead, rendering Reinhard’s longtime goal of joint conquest impossible.

For practical purposes, this barely matters: Above, Kircheis uses some of his last remaining energy to beg Reinhard to follow through with the plan they made together, in effect guaranteeing that he will continue on the same path after Kircheis dies. But in more abstract terms, both of Reinhard’s main reasons for seeking political power are now gone. And with a promise to the dead Kircheis as Reinhard’s driving force, Empire-side LoGH has suddenly become a very different show—one that is no longer about a man trying to conquer the universe, but is rather about a man searching for something to hold onto in a universe that, without Kircheis in it, seems to have very little to offer.

Annerose

But Reinhard shouldn’t feel entirely alone in the universe. After all, he has his sister, right? Well, not exactly. As Reinhard learns after Oberstein breaks the news of Kircheis’s death to Annerose (against Reinhard’s wishes), Annerose has decided now is the perfect time to do something really, really cruel: cut off contact with her grieving brother.

Reinhard’s Family

That the season 1 arc of Reinhard and Annerose’s relationship ends on a bad note is frankly an understatement, but to really dig into how things stand between them in episode 26, we must first get a handle on all the moving parts that brought them to this point.

Over the course of my season 1 posts, I’ve mapped out much of the dynamic between Reinhard and Annerose: Reinhard, who both idealizes and idolizes his sister, does so (unwittingly) at the expense of her personhood; Annerose, whose agency has been violently denied her since an early age, projects a portion of her (natural) resentment onto her brother, who moves freely about the universe steadily gaining power while her life remains stagnant. One aspect of their relationship that I haven’t examined, however, is the extent to which Annerose has played a parental role in Reinhard’s life.

In this scene from the episode 4 flashback, Reinhard assigns to Annerose the kind of responsibility for his behavior that would ordinarily be reserved for a parent or guardian.

And then, after Reinhard and Kircheis have conspired to keep Reinhard’s misdeeds from his sister, Annerose puts their wet clothes in the laundry and dotes on them with hot chocolate and freshly baked pie. This is maybe the most archetypal depiction of motherhood I’ve ever seen, despite the fact that Annerose is both 1. actually Reinhard’s sister and 2. only five years his senior.

Reinhard’s father, who sold Annerose into sexual slavery at the age of fifteen, is obviously awful. And Reinhard’s mother, who hasn’t even ever been mentioned, clearly never had much of a presence in Reinhard’s life. Annerose is the only person (besides, eventually, Kircheis) we ever see taking responsibility and caring for Reinhard.

Reinhard’s family, as it is presented to us, is comprised of three people: himself, Annerose, and Kircheis. Though Kircheis is literally never (not once in all of LoGH!) referred to as being “like a brother” to Reinhard, their constant companionship since a young age means that their interactions often blur the line between surrogate-familial and romantic. The fact that Reinhard always brings Kircheis with him on visits to Annerose, for example, indicates that he at least views the three of them as a tight-knit unit.

But in Reinhard’s chosen family, there is a clear delineation of roles between Annerose and himself/Kircheis. In the gif above, Reinhard and Kircheis sit across the table from Annerose, who acts like a parent not just to Reinhard but to Kircheis as well; the difference in age and maturity between them is underlined by both Annerose’s matter-of-fact competence and Reinhard and Kircheis’s unashamed (and matching) nudity.

The photo that Kircheis gazes at in episode 25 (which eventually shows up in Reinhard’s locket, discussed later in this post) also draws a solid line between Annerose—who is more than a full head taller than the boys—and Reinhard/Kircheis. Kircheis’s sideways gaze at Reinhard serves to emphasize even further that they are a discrete pair.

Reinhard’s behavior towards Annerose starts to make more sense once you realize that he basically considers her his mother. Just as children tend not to understand—sometimes well into adulthood—that their parents are fully formed, flawed human beings with rich inner lives, so Reinhard has kept Annerose on a pedestal, treating her more like a symbol than a complex person. This also explains how Reinhard can, for example, be so blasé about teasing Kircheis in front of Annerose for his love of her cooking: Naïve as he is, the idea that Annerose might have feelings for Kircheis that go beyond platonic and motherly would never occur to Reinhard in a million years—unless something were to happen that brought Annerose’s feelings into stark relief.

Annerose Makes Up Her Mind

Which brings us back to the scene at hand, Kircheis’s death being the exact sort of cataclysmic event that might throw a wrench into Reinhard’s precarious relationship with his sister. And the second Annerose opens her mouth to speak, Reinhard knows something is wrong:

Annerose’s tone of voice here is as cold and distant as what she’s actually saying; rather than sharing in or sympathizing with Reinhard’s grief, she isolates him in it, trivializing his feelings of loss while also—by implying Kircheis was the only person Reinhard could ever care about losing—calling into question the authenticity of his devotion to her.

If Reinhard had been aware of all the little signs of Annerose’s resentment towards him that have been building up over the course of the last 25 episodes, this conversation might have gone differently—not because Annerose would have done a better job playing the part of the soothing sister/mother, but because Reinhard might not have been expecting her to. But Reinhard is naïve, especially about Annerose, so her abrupt switch from passive aggression (which Reinhard of course never picked up on) to overt hostility shocks Reinhard into a realization.

Above, Reinhard first protests Annerose’s disingenuous declaration that he has nothing left to lose, and then looks on in horror as it becomes clear that she intends to make it a true statement. But even while Reinhard listens, and responds, the gears are (visibly!) turning in his head, trying desperately to figure out what the fuck is going on. So let’s join him: What the fuck is going on?

First and foremost, I think, is Annerose’s desire for freedom. With Kircheis gone, she must realize that Reinhard’s need for her emotional support will increase astronomically. It’s one thing for her to live quietly in Reinhard’s mansion when he’s usually off gallivanting around space with his boyfriend; it’s quite another thing to share a home with someone who is grieving the loss of, as Mittermeyer so eloquently put it, half of his own self.

Because Reinhard may view Annerose as a mother, but that isn’t how Annerose views Annerose. We don’t actually know how she views herself—as I said back in episode 1, our entire characterization of Annerose is a reflection of how the world sees her—but we do know how she came to be Reinhard’s mother figure and, like her sale to Kaiser Friedrich IV, it wasn’t through any choice of her own.

In fact, this choice, the one to tell her grieving brother to fuck off so that she can finally get some time and space to herself, is the first choice we’ve ever seen Annerose make. So despite episode 26 ending on a catastrophic note for Reinhard’s relationship with Annerose, it ends on something of a triumphant note for Annerose herself: In choosing not to allow her well-meaning brother to use her as his personal grief counselor, she has finally, if perversely, reclaimed her agency.

Meanwhile, Reinhard has come to a completely different realization about Annerose’s motives:

My much earlier promise of a love triangle between Reinhard, Kircheis, and Annerose has finally come to fruition in true LoGH fashion, i.e. as morbidly as possible.

Make no mistake: The reason Reinhard asks this question of Annerose now is because it has never occurred to him before, and the reason it has occurred to him now is because Annerose is behaving in a way that he interprets as some mixture of jealous, vindictive, and heartbroken—none of which align with his image of his sister. Faced with her unambiguous and uncharacteristic cruelty, Reinhard searches around for an explanation and comes up with what would have sounded outlandish to him until this moment: romantic love.

But was Annerose in love with Kircheis? I don’t know. Frankly, I doubt Annerose knows (and we never get to see her answer, if she even gives one). Remember, Kircheis was ten years old to Annerose’s fifteen when she became the Kaiser’s concubine, meaning for most of the time they actually spent together, Annerose was basically Kircheis’s babysitter. It’s certainly possible that she developed romantic feelings for him over the years, or at least projected some romantic ideal onto him that she experienced as love. Given that he was probably the only male figure in her life besides her brother who was ever kind to her, it wouldn’t be surprising.

As a rival to Reinhard, though, my guess is that Annerose never considered herself in the running—and if anything, that would have made Kircheis an even safer object of affection for someone whose real-life experience with men was limited to a decade of blatant sexual exploitation. But that certainly doesn’t preclude jealousy or heartbreak; in that sense, Reinhard might be partially right about why Annerose chooses to act the way she does.

The accuracy of Reinhard’s suspicions, however, isn’t particularly important. What matters is that Reinhard has had this realization at all: In yet another twisted triumph for Annerose, and at immense cost, her brother has finally realized that she’s human.

Queerness

Given the reasons for the existence of this blog, it’s only fitting that we end our first season with a discussion of how LoGH treats queerness. Conveniently, this coincides with the creative team’s decision to convert a substantial portion of the show’s queer subtext into explicit text, done via multiple perspectives and narrative techniques throughout the season finale.

Our first open acknowledgement of the romantic nature of Reinhard and Kircheis’s relationship comes, unfortunately, from Kircheis’s murderer, Ansbach. The phrase “other half,” unlike much of the language used thus far to describe Reinhard and Kircheis, doesn’t have a heteronormative surface reading.

Incidentally, Ansbach’s easy familiarity with the concept of a romantic partnership between two men has always been one of the things that made me wonder about his feelings for Braunschweig—along with the fact that immediately after this, Ansbach tells Braunschweig to “wait for him in Valhalla” before killing himself.

Kircheis’s last words, too, work to remove a layer of heteronormativity from LoGH’s surface reading, albeit more subtly:

In this final, stunning example of a Reinhard-Bechdel Test failure, Kircheis uses his last breath to ask Reinhard to tell Annerose... that he kept his promise to be a good friend to Reinhard.

In a heteronormative piece of media, when a male character brings up a female character’s name in his dying breath, one would probably expect him to declare his undying love for her. That Kircheis starts his last sentence with “Please tell Lady Annerose...” and finishes it with a positive allusion to his relationship with Reinhard is an incredible subversion of heteroromantic tropes. It even goes so far as to “straight-bait,” dangling the possibility of Kircheis’s romantic feelings for Annerose in front of the viewer before categorically dismissing it.

Later, while Reinhard mourns, Mittermeyer uses similar language to Ansbach’s, above, to explain to Müller why Reinhard is in such an inconsolable state:

Like Ansbach’s usage of “other half,” Mittermeyer’s “half of his own self” doesn’t have a non-romantic interpretation to bolster LoGH’s increasingly shaky heteronormative surface reading. Also like (maybe) Ansbach, Mittermeyer is a character who (as we’ll see much more of soon) can speak from his personal experiences with queer romance, making him perfect for delivering this unambiguous message not just to other characters, but also to the viewer.

The last scene of the episode and the season finds Reinhard at Kircheis’s grave which, yet again, emphasizes his romantic relationship with Reinhard, and not just because of the inscription’s use of the singular possessive “my”:

Though the German “Mein Freund” directly translates to “my friend,” that isn’t actually how the phrase is used in Germany, where “Mein Freund” most frequently refers to a male romantic partner. The only ambiguity about Kircheis’s inscription is in how it’s translated: as わが友 in Japanese or, literally, “my friend,” obscuring the German usage and allowing it to continue to pass as heteronormative.

After placing flowers on Kircheis’s grave, Reinhard sits back, revealing that he has started wearing a locket. Opening it, he shows us that it contains a photo we’ve seen before of Reinhard with his chosen family, and a lock of Kircheis’s hair:

Season one of Legend of Galactic Heroes ends on a deeply personal note, and it also ends on a series of questions: What, or who, will Reinhard find to fill the gaping hole in his life left by Kircheis’s death? Will it be his rivalry with Yang? Other, darker questions are left unspoken, but their presence is felt nonetheless: Will Reinhard find something to “quench the thirst in his heart”? And, if not, what then?

Stray Tidbits

During this post, as usual, I’ve used gifs from the LD (original) versions of LoGH instead of their redrawn versions. Episode 26 was almost entirely redrawn, and many of the “remastered” scenes are dramatically different from their original versions, so I’m gonna give a few sample comparisons here. Kircheis’s death scene, for example, was changed to make his physical process of dying appear significantly less grisly. Below, on the left, the redrawn Kircheis’s body is still and his eyes are focused on Reinhard; on the right, the original Kircheis’s breaths are visibly laborious and painful, and his eyes are unfocused:

Below, Reinhard’s facial expressions and reactions during his conversation with Annerose were changed so drastically that he might as well be a different character. In the redraw (left), Reinhard is practically throwing a tantrum; in the original (right), Reinhard is still shocked, but keeps his composure as he struggles to process his sister’s unexpected cruelty, placing the emphasis squarely on his thoughts rather than on his feelings:

On a lighter note, the redraw team seems to have been confused (or, less charitably, offended) by this public display of intimacy between Reuental and Mittermeyer—in the redraw (left), Reuental stops Mittermeyer from standing by either touching his hand or just making a motion as if to touch his hand, keeping a respectful distance; in the original (right), Reuental physically impedes Mittermeyer from standing up by placing his hand on *draws a diagram* his very inner thigh, and leaving it there:

A small worldbuilding note: The dates on Kircheis’s grave are wrong! He was actually born in 467, not 468, according to every other marker of time in the LoGH universe.

And now for something extremely disturbing: An official LoGH-branded Kircheis roomba exists. When it’s low on batteries, it says, “I won’t be able to serve you anymore, Reinhard-sama.” Sadly, this is real and I’m not making it up.

#Legend of Galactic Heroes #Legend of the Galactic Heroes #author: Elizabeth #Empire #Reinhard #Kircheis #Annerose #Reinhard-Bechdel Test #queerness #family #holding hands #redraws #quote unquote friends #ow

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