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nat-20s · 3 years

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MEDIA THAT I RECOMMEND YOU CONSUME INSTEAD OF SUPERNATURAL FOR BOTH HEART AND HEALTH BROKEN DOWN BY TYPE OF MEDIA AND WHY YOU MIGHT LIKE IT IF AT ANY POINT YOU, LIKE MY POOR POOR SEVENTEEN YEAR OLD SELF, WERE INVESTED IN THIS ABSOLUTE GARBAGE FIRE OF A SHOW

with apologies to anyone on mobile who’s readmore function APPARENTLY doesn’t work

(I haven’t watched supernatural for at least five years and, given any sort of luck, I will never do so again, do not @ me)

hello babes. I am talking to you know bc I keep seeing supernatural, unironically, on my dash, and I think we can all do better. I see what’s happening and I think: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hU3i_o5Xd4g

Supernatural is fudge stripes. You are Megan. We can fix this.

So a list of alternate things that I think are overall better written/characterized/just generally more enjoyable that might scratch some of those itches:

TV SHOWS

Good Omens

okay look if u were on tumblr last year u probably already watched this show but like. If u haven’t, it’s only six episodes babe and there’s a large enough fandom that u can go down a fanart hole for days on end

Basic summary: the antichrist has reached that lovely young age where he’s supposed to bring about the apocalypse. An angel and a demon who have decided that actually they like the world as is, thank you very much, try to stop the end times. They’re not very good at it though, which makes for a comedy of errors.

Shared elements with supernatural that you might Vibe with: theologic (mostly christian) exploration/parody/imagery without inherently being a religious show. Fighting off the apocalypse narrative, which I think pretty much always goes hard as hell, but that’s just me. There’s a gay angel who’s socially awkward. There’s a fun very British demon. Touches on the hierarchies of heaven and hell, with framing Heaven as a bureaucracy and blurs the differences between angels and demons. Pining. Tenderness. A deep nostalgia for 80s music, though in this case it’s specifically queen, and who doesn’t love queen. Main character has a weirdly strong bond with his black vintage car. Satan is (sort of) fought.

Gravity Falls

sometimes...things that are kids shows...with a set story and a predetermined ending...are better

(also this isn’t relevant to any of what I’m talking about but I really appreciate that Gravity Falls specifically went against the thing that most begged me about ATLA aka that a 15 year old girl would be like yeah I’m into a 12 year old boy because the 12 year old boy has a crush on me and I apparently don’t get to really have a say in this. How does that make sense.)

Basic Summary: Twelve year old twins Dipper and Mabel go to stay with their Grunkle Stan for the summer in a small Oregon town called Gravity Falls. Turns out this town is filled with all sorts of strange phenomena that they often have to confront, work around, learn about, or befriend!

Shared elements with supernatural that you might Vibe with: The core focus of the show is a close sibling duo, but like It’s obvious that the siblings actually like and love each other and while they have their spats it’s still incredibly clear that they deeply care about each other even with their differences LIKE SORRY SUPERNATURAL YOU CAN’T JUST TELL ME THAT SIBLINGS CARE ABOUT EACH OTHER AND THEN THEY SPEND ALL THEIR TIME FIGHTING AND LYING TO EACH OTHER AND GENERALLY ACTING LIKE THEY CAN’T STAND EACH OTHER’S COMPANY BUT THEN OOOHHH YOU CRY ON TOP OF THE HOOD OF A CAR EVERY THREE EPISODE AND SUDDENLY THEY’RE SOULMATES OR WHATEVER

Anyway. Yeah. GF has a solid sibling dynamic. Monster of the week that builds up to greater over-arching plot. A little bit of body horror, you know, for humor. Fair amount of meta humor playing with the tropes of the genre. A Good Ol Big Bad that tries to pit the siblings against each other. Have to fight the apocalypse (you’ll see this point on like a good half of these recs, I really like ‘what are we gonna do about Armageddon’ media). Interesting creature design. Planned, satisfying ending (which supernatural absolutely does not have, but I still think if it had ended with the season 5 finale like it uhh pretty obviously was supposed to, that would sort of counted. Don’t revive shows that have clearly already told their stories kids.) Tie in media that gives you some fun extra stories when you miss the characters. (yes I read some of the supernatural novels when I was a c h i l d, yes I’m pretty sure there’s one or two of them still buried somewhere on my laptop, no I don’t wanna talk about it.) Older father figure (?) who owns a tbh kind of shitty shop. Both already in place and found family.

It’s a good show, and it’s two seasons. John Mulaney Voice: I dunno it’s 40 episodes

MINI REC ALERT! (mini recs are basically things that I’m not gonna go into detail about for whatever reason [probably either due to i’m not familiar enough with it OR I just don’t like. Have a bunch to say about it in regards to how it will scratch the itches presented to u by spn] but still seem like a Good Watch)

Mini Rec: Over The Garden Wall. Spooky Kids Media! Episodic! Miniseries so you can watch it in like 2 hours! Cool ass Animation! About two brothers encountering said spooky stuff! Big Bad tries to pit brothers against each other! Might haunt you for the rest of your life! Check it out!

The Haunting of Bly Manor

I think about this show every goddamn day of my life. (Also not relevant but Greg Sestero makes a brief cameo in it and I was like hi greg my friend greg!)

Basic Summary: An girl named Dani, while staying in London, decides to take on an Au Pair job for two young children, an older brother named Miles (age 10) and the younger sister Flora (age 8) at the spoooooky and mysteeerious Bly Manor, and she gets far more than she bargained for.

Shared elements with supernatural that you might Vibe with: Okay so supernatural doesn’t actually do this but I know I KNOW why we let ourselves be queerbaited in 2012. Four words for you: CENTRAL! GAY! TRAGIC! ROMANCE! You want some pining? Some tenderness? Some LOVE? Some dealing with internalized homophobia but no, like, actual violent onscreen homophobia? HAVE I GOT THE SHOW FOR YOU. If ur favorite episodes where the ones that make you sob (for me it was kevin’s death on god), I recommend this show. If you wished that supernatural literally ever had consequences or perma deaths or didn’t retcon major plot events like every five goddamn episodes so that there could be some exploration of like grief and trauma through the lens of/ higher stakes of horror, I recommend this show. If you really do stay up at night picturing a supernatural that wasn’t made by dumbass cishettie white men hack writers but was actually allowed to have Dean and Cas be in love over the course of the show so they could have like actual development and not the most homophobic gay reveal of all time, I recommend this show. Hell, if you just want a banger ghost story in general, I recommend this show.

As for what they actually have in common: horror setting/aesthetic without actually being all that scary most of the time. A strong sibling duo, though they’re not nearly as much of the focus of Bly Manor. Found family. Strong themes of grief. Questions of what turns someone into a monster (and done much better) An actual, much better noble sacrifice done out of love. Escalation of stakes until there’s a big final confrontation. Semi-big bad trying to tear this family apart. Found and pre-installed family. Sad orphans.

Watch this show. Vibe with me. Cry with me. Yell at me about Owen Sharma

MINI REC ALERT!

Haunting of Hill House- spiritual predecessor to Haunting of Bly Manor, though they’re not actually the same universe/story. However, it’s made by the same dude and has a shared aesthetic/sensibilities/some of the cast. This is only a mini rec bc I haven’t actually seen it, but I’ve heard good things and that it, while much more heavily leaning into family dynamics, has similar themes of exploring Grief and Trauma through ghooossstttsss.

Community

Okay I know that this may seem like a Wild rec considering community is a school sitcom with basically Zero paranormal elements but just like. Hear me out. And no this isn’t just because I think it’s a realy good show and I want more people to watch it, though that is a factor. If I was just recommending comedies that I think are good and more people should watch regardless of them serving as a replacement for supernatural I would demand you all go watch Galavant and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. I’m gonna demand it anyway. Everyone go watch Galavant and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Now back to your original program:

Basic Summary: A group of students at Greendale Community College form a Spanish study group, and things quickly go Off The Fucking Rails in the best way possible.

Shared elements with supernatural that you might Vibe with: All right I’m gonna be real honest this rec is for all of my (correct) bitches who’s favorite episodes of Supernatural were French Mistake, Changing Channels, and/or Mystery Spot. You think if Supernatural would’ve been fucking fantastic if it had been a committed comedy instead of a CW melodrama that occasionally landed some admittedly really fucking funny episodes/concepts, Community (and the movies on this list) will gently take you into its loving arms and give you everything you desire. It’s about the Meta comedy. It’s about the discussion, exploration, and subversion of common tropes within the format. It’s about the grand use of group/ found family dynamics in order to max both the goofs and the heart. It’s about fantastic callbacks. It’s about having one of the few “asshole with a heart of gold” leads I can actually stand because. You know. Growth. It’s about the INCREDIBLE genre and pop culture parody. Which genre do they parody, you ask. All of them. They parody all the genres. The glee parody episode is a fucking masterpiece of television. If you don’t want to watch a show that features a Halloween party where everyone turns into zombies and the ABBA discography blasts in the background, you can stop reading right now, because I can guarantee you won’t be interested in a damn thing I have to say.

MINI REC ALERT: The X-Files. I’ve also never seen this but a: everything I’ve seen out of context has been fantastically weird and delightful b: it appears that there’s a general consensus that Scully and Mulder are one of the only valid straight couples so it’s probably pretty fun and c: let’s all be honest. Supernatural was already basically an x-files rip off, it had like half of their original writers swiped from the x-files crew, I’m pretty sure if you liked especially the first couple of seasons of supernatural, you’re gonna like the X-files.

Subcategory: TV SHOWS ( A WHOLE TWO OF ‘EM, OR MORE LIKE ONE AND HALF IF YOU WANNA GET TECHNICAL) I’M SPECIFICALLY RECOMMENDING FOR THAT COCAINE HIT OF PURE UNADULTERATED UNCUT 2012 TUMBLR NOSTALGIA

BBC Merlin

Yes, I know the show ended in 2010. Yes, it still provides that 2012 Tumblr nostalgia. 2012 Tumblr is a feeling, not an actual time period.

I love this stupid show. I plan on rewatching it all over the month of January. I harbor a deep amount of fondness for it. It’s why every time I see literally any depiction of Merlin I get just so fucking excited, and why I’ve consumed as many ridiculous Arthurian adaptations as I have (side note: my two favorite other ridiculous Arthurian legend adaptation are Avalon High, a DEEPLY silly DCOM that is required viewing to level up friendship with me, and The Kid Who Would Be King, which is the only movie that I think truly understands the comedic potential of playing a King Arthur Adaptation mostly straight but everyone in it is 12. I’m not sure it intended to be as fucking funny as it was, but again, they’re all middle schoolers. I have never been more jealous of an actor than I was of the 22 year old that got to play a 16 year old dumbass Merlin who was sometimes also Patrick Stewart and did all of his magic with ridiculous hand gestures That should’ve been me that should’ve been me that should’ve been me. Also Sword in the Stone by TH White is pretty good, because Merlin knows germ theory in the fantasy 400’s and he just uses it to be petty mostly. Also listen to High Noon Over Camelot by The Mechanisms. Also Also I tend to prefer family friendly adaptations because they don’t have the uhhh. You know. Incest and sexual violence of the original legend. Love to Not have that shit!) Whether you watched it initially and are due for a rewatch, or you’re intrigued enough by the concept of the show to watch it for the first time, you should join me on this wild wild ride.

Basic Summary: You know who Guinevere, Arthur, and Merlin are, come on. BBC said let’s make em all YOUNG let’s make em SEXY let’s make em FAMILY FRIENDLY and let’s make magic REALLY SEEM LIKE A THINLY VEILED ALLEGORY FOR BEING GAY BUT TO THIS DAY IM NOT SURE IF THAT WAS INTENTIONAL OR NOT BUT IT SURE SEEMS LIKE IT WAS. @ THE BBC MERLIN CREATORS WHAT IS THE TRUTH BECAUSE THERE WAS SOME INTERVI-

Basic Summary but like a bit more helpful: A BABY version of Merlin (and by baby I mean like 20 year old.) is sent from his small town to the big city the Kingdom of Camelot to find his destiny. Staying with the town physician and friend of his mom’s, Gaius, he ends up as both his assistant and personal manservant to Prince Arthur. But in a kingdom where magic is punished with death and the prince seems hell bent on getting himself into situations that are going to kill him, the young sorcerer has his more than his share of work cut out for him.

Shared elements with supernatural that you might Vibe with: Primo supremo queerbaiting. Like, yeah, okay, it’s queerbaiting, you know it’s queerbaiting, but you watch some of the scenes and ur like okay. I know why I let this bait me. Obviously with a modern show, I would expect more, I would expect better, I would raise my standards, but I gotta admit. Some of these scenes are fuckin compelling as hell, and the subtext is like barely sub. Monster of the week shenanigans. Some awful CGI creatures but like a charming awful. Like the kind of awful that tells you their very limited budget was more focused on cool swords than realistic creatures. Episodic stories build into a more overarching plot, with things getting darker in season 4/5. Shitty father that end up eating shit and while the son of said father is rightfully conflicted and upset over the death it’s cathartic and victorious as all hell for the audience. Multiple hot evil women, and I love hot evil women. There’s also nice hot women, which is a bonus. These women don’t all immediately stupidly die, so that’s a nice change. Also like a LOT of sarcastic humor and shenanigans if u like Sass Merlin is there for u personally name a more iconic line than “Oh I’m sorry, how long have you been training to be a prat, my lord?” AND THAT’S IN THE FIRST FUCKIN EPISODE brilliant amazing fantastic show stopping. Also you know those like dumb hijink episodes where like Dean was possessed by the spirit of a dog or some shit? You bet your bottom fuckin dollar BBC Merlin has those kinds of storylines. Also I know some people go to spn bc it had that HUGE fanbase and like BBC Merlin’s fanbase is still SURPRISINGLY poppin even though it’s been a decade since there was new content so like. Have fun!

Doctor Who but Specifically the RTD Era

Look I’m not here to say that the first four seasons of reboot doctor who are the only good doctor who or inherently better than all the rest (though the RTD era is my favorite personally) BUT when ur seekin that sweet sweet superwholock frenzy nostalgia, this is the ‘who’ that is being referred to. Also like. Stan 9. We should all collectively stan the ninth doctor. Chris Eccleston, the Objectively Best Famous Chris, deserved better.

Basic Summary: An immortal alien that goes by “The Doctor” travels across time and space with a variety of different companions, often to try and save the day or fix a (sometimes self created) mess. It’s distilled campy sci-fi with a family friendly tone that has made me cry on several occasions.

Shared elements with supernatural that you might Vibe with: Monster of the week that, you guessed it, builds into bigger overarching plot style narrative. Fighting off the apocalypse, but like every couple of weeks because worlds are in danger a LOT. A semi-tragic romance that made people go absolutely buck fuckin wild bc pining n shit. Wamen, but they aren’t fridged. (actually for real though none of the main women die and I just think that’s really fun and flirty even though I could go on a COMPLETELY SEPARATE rant about the injustice of one of the character’s ending YES season 4 is my favorite season and one of my favorite pieces of media ever and I am currently actively recommending it to you YES im still fucking pissed over how it ended YES we exist) Specifically, a Wonderful and Very Excellent woman named Donna who goes on a spa trip that doesn’t end up going very well. That seems like a highly specific example, and it is, but it did happen in both shows. (Also, to anyone that continued watching SPN after like idk season 9 what happened to Donna? I always liked her and I know she became a recurring character so like DM whatever probably injustice was the end of her story line pls and thank you) I’m also extra specifically recommending for Supernatural Fans and also The World At Large: Season Four of Reboot Who. I rewatched it last year and it still goes so fucking hard. Donna Noble is the best character in existence. In regards to the appeal for SPN, personally I think the best part of SPN was when people who are soulmates went on adventures and tried to save the day and it was a good mix of banter and sincerity AND GUESS WHAT’S BASICALLY THE ENTIRETY OF SEASON 4 OF DOCTOR WHO. It’s so good y’all I wish Everything was about soulmates going on adventures and trying to save the day.

OKAY TV SHOWS DONE TIME FOR M O V I E S which I don’t have nearly as many recs for but uhh here goes

What We Do In The Shadows/ Shaun of the Dead

I’m lumping these two together bc my reasons for recommending them are largely the same, and I would call them tonally similar enough that if you like one you’ll probably like the other

Basic Summary (Shaun of The Dead): Uh-oh! London’s had a break out of some of that good ol’ zombieism. Shaun and friends decide to hunker down in a local bar, but they have to get there first. Will they survive? Will they fuck up some zom zoms? Who’s to say?

Basic Summary (What We Do In The Shadows): Some vampire roommates dick around. I think there’s technically, like, a plot, but it’s really just about some vampires Doin Their Thing. Vibin.

Shared elements with supernatural that you might Vibe with: This is kind of similar to the Community recommendation, in that supernatural had the opportunity to be one of those things that was both a parody of a genre but also just a really good example of the genre. WWDITS and SotD are both those things for vampire and zombly movies, respectively. Have the aesthetic and some of the themes of a horror but is not actually all that scary. Horror Comedy is a god tier genre and I don’t know why it’s not more widespread. Fun monsters/cast of characters in general, so at least one person in it is probably going to make you go “oh gender” ya know? With SotD you have the fantasy power trip that comes with like any piece of media that involves hunting monsters. With WWDITS I go “yep that’s how bisexuals dress” and I Will Not Clarify which character I’m talking about.

MINI REC ALERT: All of Taika Watiti’s filmography. Thor:Ragnarok is one of like 3 marvel movies that I consider genuinely fucking fantastic completely independent of the MCU and my own tendency to be like “hurr bdurr I love. Superheros”. For the one that is most tonally like Supernatural But Significantly Better and Written By Someone Competent I think I would say try out Hunt For The Wilderpeople. It’s got a reluctant curmudgeonly father figure and I KNOW some of you motherfuckers were so invested in spn when you were like 16 bc you had daddy issues. This is a callout post for my friend [REDACTED], who I should text to watch Hunt for the Wilderpeople, actually.

MINI REC ALERT X2!!!: Bram Stoker’s Dracula. I’ve never seen it but it has both Winona Ryder AND Keanu Reaves so like. Goth bi rights.

Happy Death Day (and Happy Death Day 2 U)

happy death day was one of those movies that I saw the trailer, went “eh”, heard other people say it was great, watched, and went holy fuck this slaps. Not nearly as much of a slasher film as the trailers implied if im remembering the trailer correctly

Basic Summary: Our main character Tree keeps waking up on the day she was murdered. The day resets every time that she dies. That’s right, it’s a time loop storey babey!!!!!!!!!!!

Shared elements with supernatural that you might Vibe with: If you were anything like me you were foolishly lulled into supernatural for way longer than you should’ve been on the promise that the characters would idk like grow and change and become better and learn lessons and some of that would be through the power of receiving love and kindness. You know. Like how good writers would do it especially if their main characters are kind of dicks that really should make some changes. Well, Happy Death Day fucking delivers on that promise in SPADES. It’s about growth! It’s about change! It’s about making the active decision to become a better person and putting effort into doing so! There’s heavy themes of like grief and trauma and acknowledging them and facing them head on in order to move on and the negative consequences of refusing to do so and just trying avoid it until it goes away. There’s a romance that makes my dumb little self do the pleading face emoji. Tree is also one of the only good asshole with a heart of gold characters. I also think media is improved by having at least one character that is a Good Good Boy (note: Good Good Boy character does not have to be a man.) and Happy Death Day has Carter. Oh on that note: Tree Voice: I’ve only had character for (the same repeating over and over) a day but if anything happens to him I’ll kill everyone here and then myself. Also the movie is funny so like hell yeah.

that’s all I got for relevant movies right now

BOOK RECS

jk i’m illiterate. Everyone should feel free to go ahead and add their own suggestions for this section The best I can do is uhhhh I think y’all would probably like Mira Grant’s novels, particularly the Newsflesh stories, bc sibling dynamics. Also the book The Haunting of Hill House is really good. Ballad of Black Tom slaps? There’s of course the Good Omens novel that the show was based on. I’m about to recommend some podcasts after this section which will include to Welcome to Nightvale because of course it will and the tie in novels for that slap, especially It Devours!, and I’m pretty sure they work as stories even if you know nothing about the podcast. Also also I think you should read “The Long Way to A Small, Angry Planet” by Becky Chambers It’s not thematically similar to supernatural at all but it’s one of my all time favorite sci fi novels and only like four people have read it which is a goddamn TRAVESTY.

Anyway yeah that’s it that’s all there is. Onto the medium that is like books but I can fold laundry or cook while consuming their narratives.

PODCAST RECS

Okay so this is getting uhhh wicked long so I’m gonna limit myself to only three full blown recs and a

mini rec

Alice Isn’t Dead

Fuck me running this show is so good. Literally hands down my all time favorite (and scariest!) horror podcast. Mamma mia, that’s a good fuckin story. The Book version is also good and has fewer Weird events but some further character development so I recommend them both.

Basic Summary: After her wife Alice disappears mysteriously, Keisha takes up a job as a long haul trucker, traveling all across America in order to find her, but ends up finding so much. Pursued by a deadly creature she calls The Thistle Man, the stakes of her journey are raised.

Shared elements with supernatural that you might Vibe with: okay so I have a lost of bullet points of things that appealed to me specifically about supernatural and how no other shows covers all of them which sucks bc it means I basically Yearn for a show that’s supernatural but good. Alice isn’t Dead, however, hits the most of these bullet points AND is so fucking good. It has monster hunting. It has stopping a cataclysmic event BUT also discussion of the cyclical nature of events such as these and how the fight never truly ends but you can make some fucking progress nonetheless. It has a central gay romance that’s actually a central gay romance. It’s the ONLY show on this list that really hits that the weird and dark underside of americana vibe but specifically the americana of not like suburbs and shit but that eerie haunted feeling you get when you’re hours into a late night drive on open roads with no civilization around and an expansive sky and it just Seems like something should be watching you. Have you ever been out for a walk at midnight and encountered a deer and you looked into each other’s eyes and it felt like it was telling you a message that you couldn’t possibly hope to parse? Have you ever felt an incredible sense of deja vu eating in a restaurant you couldn’t have possibly been in before, because you’ve been to a thousand diners a thousand times just like one, and there’s an incredibly sense of homogeneity even though you’re 2000 miles away from anyone and anything that could possibly know you? Have you ever traveled to an area that seems to be stuck in a bubble of time, the only thing that shows any evidence of having aged past 2006 being yourself, and you wonder how your cell phone even works around here? THAT’S the spooky americana I’m fuckin talking about! Messed up road trips! Too much goddamn space! America is scary because it’s big and Filled With Things but also Not Enough Things! Fuck yeah!!!!! That time bubble fuckin EXISTS in Wyoming the most recent song on the radio I heard was fuckin Hey Soul Sister!

Also has a thing where like are there even good guys and bad guys in a conflict or is it all just one umbrella nightmare that you’re trying to stand against in anyway possible (u kno..like how the overarching structures of both heaven and hell were kinda fucked in spn? No spoilers but similar shit be happenin in Alice Isn’t Dead). Exploration of what makes someone into a monster, like how do you go down that path? Also this is the only show on this whole damn list that southern gothic music really suits it so points for that.

The Magnus Archives

You know I had to do it to ‘em.

Basic Summary: Jonathan Sims has just become the Head Archivist at the Magnus Institute, a “research” “facility” that looks into paranormal/esoteric/unexplained phenomena.

John Mulaney Voice, Again: Nobody knows what the archivist is going to do next, least of all the archivist. He’s never been in an archives before, he’s just as confused as you are.

Shared elements with supernatural that you might Vibe with: Oh fuck this document is over 5k long I said I wasn’t gonna do this hhhhh so lipton lightning round: Slowburn Gay Romance but Actually Canon, Monster Hunting but Hey What Even Is A Monster Anyway, Acts Somewhat like a Loosely Connected Horror Anthology until it DOESNT, Little Things Build to Bigger Narrative, Characters Be Goin Through It (On God These People Need Therapy), Trying to Prevent/Fix The Apocalypse (X2!!!), Smug Asshole Big Bad, Horror as a Metaphor For Various Shit, Basically if you thought that the Men of Letter concept slapped and you think it should’ve been the whole damn show including being Deeply British you would probably really fuckin like TMA. Also if ur like the ideal piece of media is a horror tragedy but also like it’s a wacky sitcom but also also fuck cops. U will like tma.

Welcome to Nightvale

IF ANY 2012 TUMBLR FANDOM DESERVES TO MAKE A MASSIVE COMEBACK AND BE EVERYWHERE AGAIN AND ABSOLUTELY FLOOD MY DASH IT’S WELCOME TO NIGHTVALE WHY DID WE ABANDON THE SHOW THAT TREATED US THE MOST KINDLY DID YOU KNOW THAT EPISODES 108-110 ARE THE BEST FUCKING BUILT UP NARRATIVE REVEAL THAT I HAVE WITNESSED IN MY LIFE DID YOU KNOW THAT IT CONTINUED TO BE REALLY FUCKING GOOD AFTER MOST PEOPLE STOPPED LISTENING DID YOU KNOW CECIL AND CARLOS ARE MARRIED AND THEY HAVE A DOG AND A TODDLER NOW BECAUSE OF ALL THE GAY PODCAST PROTAGONISTS CECIL GERSHWIN PALMER LOVE OF MY LIFE ELDRITCHIAN CHEERLEADER AND CERTIFIED BIMBO KEEPS FUCKIN WINNIN BABY. DID YOU KNOW THAT CECIL THINKS PEANUT BUTTER IS A ROCK.

Basic Summary: Welcome to the sleepy desert town of Ņ̶̏ight V̶͚̰̮͗̔̊̊ale! Community radio how host Cé̵̟͚͕̗̞̙͂͑̽̄́c̵̤̼̞͈̪͓̍̽̋̚̕͜il Pǎ̵̧̨̢͚̻̈̂̄̇͐̇̊̀̆ͅl̶͚͎͕͉͖̬͓͑́̐̒̍̿̈́͢͜͝ͅm̸̧͙̟̖̠̳̬͋́͋́͌̚̚ͅȩ̙̖͎̖͂́̒͐͜͞r̢̢̛̰̻̮̺̩͙̼̈́͋̀͘ is here to k̠̠̰̦͙̯̥̎̄̆͌̎̀̿̔̌̚ê̷̢̬̥̞̩̯̘͒̽̈̓͐̂̔̍e̶̡̝̗̺̫̪̜͆̓̿̈͌͌̆͒͞ͅp̵̹̗̬̼̠̬͙̏͐͐̉̅͊͊́͟͞ͅͅ ỷ̛͙̞̦̦͖̑̉̌̎͞͡͡͝ͅo̧̧̥͎̻̥̲͇͋́́̔̈͌͞ǔ̸̬̯̫͇̦̮͕̤̲̯̽̔̀̔͆͋̈́͘̚ up to date all the local happenings, including w̸̢̢̢̧̡̡͍͖̻̳̹̼̼̰̬̭̱͔̲͙͍̰̠̥̺̝͖̺̖̼̮̼̞̳̞̜͉̤̯͇̖̳͖̠̙̺̲̤͇͈͚͓̮̭̱̭̩͚̟̥̬̟̻̝̼̖͚̘͐̆̅̂̃̈́͆͊̉̏͒́̈́̋͗͑̄̉́̐̌́̿̌͛̾̎̊̾̃̈́̉̔̍̐͛̕͘̚͜͜͠͠é̵̢̡̧̨̨̡̧̨̡̛̹̥̥̞̮̯͙͈̻̝͓͖͙̦̰͍̖̜̲̰̞͎͈̭̯̳͕̗͓͈̭̫̼̯̪̞̯̰̲̘̭͎̪̱̗̝̝̞̤̱͉͙̯͎̬͎̙̜̗͉̩̦͕̪̳͇͙̺̙̰̠͚͎̜̠͔̬͎̺̣͕̜̊̓̃̐̂́͂̎̐̾̔̽̀̉́̍̊̂̿̎͂͐̎̐̄̍̔̋̐̃͗̈́͂̀̒̊̎͘͘̕̚̕͜͝͝͝͠ͅͅa̸̡̧̡̡̨̡̨̛̛͙̣̘̳͎͖̥̝̟̱̩̥͙͉̝̲̙̮̩̩̹̱͔͎̥̹̻̜͚̭̬̳͚̤̙̖̯͎̱̫̞̪̻͖̱̞͔̭̻̺͚͚̯̬͓͓̳͇̳̦͓̞͈̮̤̭̣͉̲̞͚̘͗̆̃͌̅̍͊̓̈̇̌̒͊͑̊̏̊͌̈̓̿͗̒̏̒͊͒̏̃̎̒̀̅̾̍̀͘͘͜͝͠ͅt̵̢̡̨̧̧̛̛̛̯̤͓̘̻̤͓̪̰͔̪̝̫͎̻͔͈͎͔͙͕͈̰͓͍̀̏͒̆͋̈́̈́͂̔͋͆͂̅͗̍̆̍̆̔̑͊̏̈͒́̽͊́̿͂́̓͛̽͐͌̌̐̈̇̃̓̆̍̅̃̔̚̕͜͝͝͝ͅͅh̸̨̨̡̢̢̡̢̧̡̧̢̡̨̡̭̜̬̬̙͕̗̙̻̯̠̘͙̻̥͉͚̼̗͚͇͉̰͍̥͉̗͎̬̫͖͉͔̼̮̯̞̫̬̟̻͉̖̙̥̫͖̬͚̟̜̭͇͎̭̘̝̲̤͕͎̰̭̗̯̮̤̙̙̯͍̞̭͚͔͎̞̹̲̟͉̩̭̖̱̠͍̺͈̟̩̋̆̈́͆̍̆̄̏͜ͅͅȇ̸̢̢̨̨̧̛̜͍̺͎̬̪͙̻̝̣͓͈̺̩̳̟̲̠̣͈͎͎͈͉̙̪͖̳̺͇̹̊̍͊͑̿͊̌͛̿̓͊̾̀͂͛̉͆̾̽͆̈̏͛̊͛̍̈́̇͋̔͂̑͐̂̿͊̽͑͘̚͘͝͝͠͝ͅͅŕ̵̨̡̨̨̢̧̡̧̨̘̟͙̦̲̲̪̦̙̼̠̳͚̞̦̞͖͚͇̳͖̲̭͕̜̫̳̖̙͖͉͎̘̘̤̠͈̬͕̝̻͚̥͍͕̠̥͙̙̪̖̯͍̘̘̲̣̹̜̪̲̭̟̮̫̖̤̰͔̩̩͉̲͚̟̝̦̬̪̘̬̮̱͔̻̦̼̃̐̂͋̐̅̋͒̉͛́̅̈́̒̒͆̑̆͊̒͒̀̍̈́̍͌̍̏̔͋͌̒̍̌͛̓̈̂̐̕͘͘͜͜͝͝͝ͅͅͅ ̶̢̡̨̛̠͇̹̯͕͍̻̟̼̼̗̩̱̗̙̱̥̜̬̫̜͎͉̺̣͓̟̯̱͖̣̞̠̝̥͍̲̳̙̠͔̹̘̲̲̻̖̈́̊͋͜͜ą̵̡̧̟͕̬̳̜͈͈̳̝̜̣̬͔͈͈͎͉͍̯̟̞̺͎̝͇̰̥͖̬̯͙̤̬̼̲̦̯̭͓̠̺̳̱̰̮̎͋͆̈́͌͆̎̉̓̇̐͋͋́̃̉̈̄̏̓̉̿̅̒̉̒̉͂͛̄̀̇̒͊͛́͊̎́͆̌̆́̌͂̈́̽̋͛͗̑̊̀́̍͊̌͆͊͐͆̅̒̊̉̾̄͛̑̕͘͘͘͘͝͝͝͝͠͠͝n̸̡̛̛̛̛̛̙͎̬̦̠̼͓͈̝̾̍͑͛̅̒̾́̌̍͛̇̋̇̓̏͛̔͛̈́͆̿̌͐̿͊̿́͒̍̃̀̈͐̐̆͐̉̒̂̉̀̅̇̾͋̍͒̋̈̌̿͒͐̍́͗̀̌̌̚̕̕̕͘̚͘͘̚͜͠͝͝͝d̴̡̢̢̛̛̛̺̠̳̬͎̞̲̣̲̱̳̪̹͉̝̠̱̗̙̫̠̹̼̙̝͉̲̟̮̙̙̮̻̹͈̦̙̞͚̜̙̖̞͓̙̭͉̃̽̌̅̔̾̈́̒̽͑́̒͋̓̈́͆͋̽̒̃̽̋̐͌͂̍͑́̽̋̍͗̋͗͂̅̽̈̈̾͐̄̃̕̕͜͠͠͝͠͝ͅͅ ̵̡̡̢̛̛̗͚͍̺͇̲̳̯͓̰͍̙̮̙̜̟̞̣̼͕̝͔͙̺̫͈͈̠̻̘̱͍̦̭͔͈̤̺̗̮͕̦̞̘͍̯̻̝͓̤̳̫͔̩͉̬̈́͋̈́̐͒́̔́́̿̓̆͐̎͆̇͒̄̈̿̓̑̾̏̔̿͊̌͆͒̒͊̓̅̓́̔̅̀̀̀̃̿̂̑͂͆̅̎̾̏̓̂̈́͛͌̇̾͌͐̈̂̆͐̅̓̍̓̃̆͗̃͛̏̒̌̀̅͊́̽̐̆̿́̌͘͘̚̕͘̕̕͜͜͜͠͝͠͝͠t̷̢̥͓̄͗̾̄̅̚͜r̵̨̡̨̧̧̢̛̛̛̛̛͍͙͚̥̱̞̜̦̜̼̺͉̠̬͎̰̻̜̼̫̤͓͖͖̤͇̞̥̖̈́͊̆̓͊̑̑̋̒̈́̔̆͆́̐͛͑͊͋̇̈́̓̑̍̏͐͛̽̋̎͑̃̈́͒̇̂̇̌͂̀̍̊̇̓̋̈́̌̏̕͘̚̕̚͝͝͠ǎ̴̡͓͓̯̘̥̱̱͖̦̺͓̘͉͖̞̟̦͈̜̥̰̘̞͈̦̠̼̯̙̭̼͚̟̖̲̠̝̜̐̅͆̏̈́̍́͂̃̾͑̓͋̽̄̾́̾̆̾͒͋̎͂̈́͘̕̕̚͜ͅͅf̷̢̡̡̧̢̨̡̧̢̢̧̡̧̫͖̖͇̲̫̮͕͉͓̩̪̳̹̩͎̖̟̤̤̲̟̪̫̻̻̖̟̦͉̼͎͖̭͍͖͎̖̳̳͙̜͉̝̘̺̖͚̙͉͕͙̯͖̞͚̮̲̻͉͙̺̭͓͎̤͙̦̦̺̯͕̜̰͍̳̙̦͉̪̥́͋̓̅̀͋͐̀̄̊̆̉̒̐͒̀̏̈̇̊̉̆̐̏̾̀̀̓͛͆̍̾͗͌̀̄̔͒̀̍̈́͆̔̒̑̏̍̏͆́̾̐̂͋̂̔̂́̓̓̌͌̉͛́̒̐̽̏́̑͊́̌̆̂̑͋̇̈́͌̑̿̅͗̚̕͘̕̚͜͠͝͝͠͠f̴̨̨̛̹͌̂̓͌͛̀͑̾̓̍͗̽͆̉̊͗̇́̍͌̊͐̔̈́̊̇͆̄̃̑̕̕͘͘͘͠͝͝͝͠i̴̧̡̢̢̧̢̨̨̛̛͎̗̳̦̘̙͓̦̙͔̜̼̘͇͇̺̭͉̠̩̟̤̥̘͙̤̩͔̪̱̻͈̪̼̼̞̠͎̟̹͕̻̭̤̪̲͕̟̺̻̻͖͕͚̣͇̖̰̝̩͈̤͕͇͕̝͙̙̪͔̗̫͇͎̙̲̲̔̐̆͒̄̈́̀̎̃̃̅͆̌̈́̽̈́̅̈́̑̄̇͒͐̀̐̀̒̍̀̓͌͗̓̽́͗̓̎͂͛̅̑̔̀͛̈́̽̾̃̊͊͆̄̍͑̍̆̌̾͗̄̊̽̉̅̆̀̎̀͑̿̎̋̄̆̃͐̾̏͛͒̍̋̅͘̕̚̕̕͜͜͝͝͝͝͠ͅͅ��̧̧̧̗̘͉̲̣̤͎c̷̛̛͚̝̻̣̞̓́̃́̀̃̓͗͌̂͛́̒̊͑̓͆̇̈́͑̏̆̀͌̑͂͂̄͌̉̔̋́̎͒̿͗͒͛̇͛̿̎̍̕̕̕͝͝͝͝͝ ̴̢̧̢̡̨̢̡̨̡̢̢̛̺̘̹̯̤̩̘̯͔̞̟̬̠̣̟̻̥̜̤͔̥͕̠̥̞͎̗̩̱̮͉͔͎̲̯̱̙̜̥̳̮͔̦̣͖͔̜͉̗̪̳̹̦̤͇̣̙͕̯̫̖̝̼̹͍̠͎͓̗͎̦͓̲̯̱̠̰͇̮̹͔̝͉͙̹̜̹͈̹̥͖̣̳̲͖̓́͌̈́̈́̀͌̄͂̌̾́̍̔̊̓̿͋͂͋̈́̋́́̒̓̀̒̃͂̀͑̐͛̆̆͒̈́̅̿͊͌̍͗̌̌͆̂͌́̉̏̒̓͊̾̒̓̋̽͐̏̾͘̕͜͝͠͝ͅͅr̸̨̢̛̪̞̬͓͔̥̤̣͔̭̥̙͉̦̗̠̳̩͙̂̈́͑͑̿̋̓̀͋͆̋̕͝͝ë̴̢̡̨̬͈͉̖̞͔͎͓͖̼̘̬͕̰͈̥͈̝̩͎͉͉̫̜͚͕̤͔̟̯͓͎̟͙̜̭̩̗̮͎̗̤͇̝̩͎̜̺̯͕͇̝͎̯͙̖͙̮̗̮̘́̑͑͛̂̅̄̌̽̓̒̾̿͆̏̏͐͛̾̂̃͑͆̅̄̿͋̅͂̈́̽͋͒̎͐̒̓͆̌̉͑͊́̀̈̾͛̋͑̋̎̈̀̽̀͊̏͘͝͝͝͝͠͝ͅp̴̧̧̡̢̢̢̛̛̛͚̟͓̖̭̪̻̪̲̬̥̙̥̰̼̹͎͕̪̞̮̺̰̬̘̫̤͉̦͙̮̖̙̹̻͔̖̮̲̞̣̻̜̠͇̬͚̱̦̼̲̮̀̂͌̍̈̒̍̋̌̏͐̓͛̉̂̈̀͑̈́͊͗͋͗́̂̎̎̃͆͒̅̑̇́̈͐̾̀̔̒̉͑͒̅̓̈́̋͋̀̍̄̿̌̀̉͆̇̔̈́͗̋̄̓̇͗̎̉̆͊̒͗̚̕͘͘̕̕̚͜͜͝͝͠͠͠͠͠ͅͅͅơ̶̢̡̧̨̡̛̛͔̦̼̰̠̯̰̟̲̣̜͙̲͙̪̱̱͕̺̪͈͉̺̻̙̥̲̩̲̩͔̠͚̩͓̞̠̯̟̫̣̗̦̰͉͚͙̺͎̼͖̥̙͈̯̲̝̞͎̻͕̮͔̰̖͔̭͙̩̼͔̫̹̘͓͔̜̘͍̍̅̄͋͑̋̍̊̉̄̈̽̈͐̀͌͐̆͊͂̐̋̃̎͆͛̐̀̂̿̈́͂́̈̌͐̇̀̒͋͑͐́͌̐̇̊͆̀͂͋̏́͋͆̏͗͂͑̂̓̽͘͘̚̕̕̕̕̚͘͜͜͠͝͝ͅͅͅr̴̨̨̨̧̨̛̘͕͈͔͙̠̬̯̩̗̰̗̬̦͈̗̝̣͓͓̟͕͙͈̠̘̻͓̭̝̘̦̦͓̭̘͙̻̙̼̩̰̝͈̱̝̱̬͉͙̣̖̮̲͈̙̱̩̣͕̦̰̮͔͈͓̙̮͍̳̟̠̞͎̱̣̰͕̩̝̲̝͐́́̍̈͐͋̐̑̌͋̓̈́̈͗̿̈̈́͗̑̚͜͜͜͜͜͝ͅͅţ̴̢̨̧͇͉͎̣̬̣̝̗̬̹͇̮̞̈́̐̌̇̈́̌͊̐̅̂̌̂͒͌́̈͌̂̊͗̍̿͑͋̎̓͂̀̎̎͒̾̏̒͌̃̄͋̌̾̍̈́̐̏͑̊̍͑͆̉̓́̆̌̾̓͊̊̈̑͘̚̕͘͘̕͝͝͝͝͝s̴̢̢̡̛̬̹͚̻͉̦̦̣̦̠̜͕̤̳͓͙̟̬͕̘̦̿͗̉̏̒͆̓̄͊͌͛͂͑̒̃͛͘͜͝͝!

Shared elements with supernatural that you might Vibe with: Honestly, probably bc Nightvale and Alice are by the Same Dudes, a lot of these points are the same as Alice Isn’t Dead, but it’s less scawy and more funney. Also hits the “horror, but make it kind of a sitcom” vibes. Doesn’t have the same road trip vibes, but DOES capture the exact weirdness of South Western USA, so I’m still giving it “fucked up americana” credit. If you’ve never been to New Mexico ur like this is an exaggeration clearly no desert town is subject to like ACTUAL cosmic horror and unexplainable sights but I’m telling you New Mexico is just Like That. (I highly recommend visiting the land of enchantment if you ever get the oppurtunity it is a deeply odd and wonderfully unsettling experience.) Look man it’s gay it’s a horror comedy cecil has a wonderfully soothing voice and it hates capitalism so fucking much like oh my god so much what more could you want.

MINI REC ALERT: Wolf 359! I have nothing deep to say about this I just like it and my gut tells me that y’all would enjoy it too I know there isnt much for physical descriptions in the show but I know in my heart that the main character is so so pretty and so so stupid. I KNOW yall like some himbos that experience character growth.

Okay since It’s my party and I’ll speak if I want to rapid fire list of podcasts I just like and want more people to listen to even though I’m behind on like all of them shhhhh: The Penumbra Podcast, BomBARDed, Dungeons and Daddies, Stellar Firma, Wonderful!

SONG RECS

okay these aren’t like replacement recs or anything they’re just really good and I almost certainly would have put them on some sort of supernatural playlist in 2013 but I don’t, like, have a good playlist for them now so I’m subjecting y’all to them also they all have the youtube link for ease of access

Woah There Kimmy- Felix Hagan & the Family

Devil’s Backbone- The Civil Wars

Blood On My Name- The Brothers Bright

Awake O Sleeper- The Brothers Bright

The Bottom of the River- Delta Rae

Old Number 7- The Devil Makes Three

The Bullet- The Devil Makes Three

In Hell I’ll Be In Good Company- The Dead South

Bartholomew- The Silent Comedy

Pomegranate Seeds- Julian Moon

Curses- The Crane Wives

Tongues & Teeth -The Crane Wives

OKAY THAT’S IT! THAT’S ALL FOLKS! FUCK!

#long post #if you didn't want this blame of-mice-and-mentality for enabling me posting #supernatural

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dragonkeeper19600 · 4 years

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BATIM Lore from Dreams Come to Life

I ordered that Dreams Come to Life Bendy novel from Amazon. I’m a fast reader, and the book is clearly intended for a younger audience, so I was able to finished it in less than a day. I don’t see a lot of BATIM fans talking about this book, and it doesn’t come up all that often when people are formulating theories. This in spite of the fact that the book actually answers a lot of the mysteries surrounding the Ink Machine, the studio, the characters, etc. The novel is basically a prequel set in 1946 that tells the story of a recent hire to the studio and what he experiences there.

So, I’ve decided to make a quick compilation of what the book reveals about the game’s setting and characters.

Obviously spoilers below:

Thomas Connor and Allison Pendle are strongly implied to be a couple. Thomas shows up to a party with Allison on his arm, and the two are very intimate with each other in general.

Wally is the only janitor working in the whole building.

There are several women working in the studio - more than the young male protagonist expected - and a few are even in higher management positions. The then current head of the art department is a woman named Abby Lambert. Dot, a female writing intern, explains that many women were hired in the studio during WWII while the men were overseas. When the war ended, rather than fire the women and give the men their jobs back, Joey kept the women on staff. Some of the male employees were so irritated by this they walked.

That said, there are a few moments where Joey expresses sexist ideals, saying that “women don’t really understand business” when Abby Lambert objects to wasting art supplies and showing favoritism to Buddy, the protagonist, because he “reminds him of himself” (in other words, he’s a young, white-passing man).

For a long time, Bendy was held behind a locked door in the music department. It’s Buddy who lets him out. Buddy’s narration describes hearing an insistent whining sound, like that a dog that wants to get out would make, before he opens the door.

Susie is no longer working at the studio by 1946. Allison and Norman make a few comments about “poor Susie” but don’t elaborate on what happened to her.

Henry created Bendy, Boris, and Alice Angel. However, Alice Angel didn’t make her debut until after Henry left.

Joey is still really sore over Henry walking. He rants to Buddy about how “betrayal” is the biggest enemy to personal success. He also calls Buddy “Henry” as he’s saying this.

Linda is Henry’s wife. Henry quit because the long hours at the studio were too demanding for the relationship. (Henry’s reasoning was hinted at by Joey’s speech at the end of Chapter 5 of the game.)

Joey’s main MO is to hire talented people and then take credit for their accomplishments. He lets people think he created Bendy, obtained the patent from the Ink Machine from Thomas Connor, and got violently angry when Thomas tried to get it back.

Norman mentions that the studio did well for a while after Henry left, but Joey has been putting a strain on finances with frivolous spending on the Bendyland Park, the Ink Machine, throwing huge parties, etc.

Bendy’s heyday has already passed by the time Buddy starts working at the studio. Buddy vaguely recognizes Bendy’s image when he first arrives but can’t quite place him. Buddy partially blames this on his family’s economic status making them unable to afford movie tickets, but Joey seems deeply hurt that Buddy doesn’t know who Bendy is.

I’m gonna tell you how Buddy meets Sammy because it’s one of my favorite scenes. The book tries to play it for horror, but I couldn’t help laughing because it’s just Classic Sammy ™:

So, Buddy was hired by Joey kind of on impulse as a gofer. On his first day, he’s asked to deliver something to the music department. He gets lost and ends up in the recording studio. There’s nobody there except a single, creepy violinist.

All of a sudden, Sammy comes tearing into the room covered head-to-toe in ink. It is everywhere. He’s so slathered in it that Buddy can’t tell that he’s looking at a person at first. He responds to Buddy’s offer for help with “My eyes!” Because the ink is in his eyes.

It’s shortly revealed that one of the ink-filled pipes was running through the closet where they keep sheet music. Sammy apparently went to the closet and got drenched when the pipe burst on him. Sammy also pulls a shard of glass out of his own head, which leads me to think that maybe he banged his head into the pipe hard enough to shatter it.

The book also goes into some detail about what Sammy’s corruption process was like. Buddy mentions in his narration seeing black stains on Sammy’s gums after the burst pipe. It turns out Sammy accidentally swallowed some of the ink. In a very disturbing monologue toward the end of the book, Sammy mentions how he could “feel [the ink drops] moving around inside me.” The ink in his system triggered a craving for it, so he proceeds to slam down bottles of ink like cans of Fanta. I’m totally serious. Buddy actually catches him drinking a bottle while at his music stand. He fucking empties all the bottles in the closet and then begins pestering Thomas and Abby for some of theirs.

We don’t actually see him transform since he goes missing for several days. It turns out he’s been hiding in the studio all that time. When we run into him again in the climax, he looks like he does in-game.

The Ink Machine changes ordinary, store-bought ink into what Buddy calls “Bad Ink” that has a number of supernatural properties. Among these:

Pictures drawn with it will move across the page. I don’t mean like a Harry Potter-style moving image, I mean the drawings themselves will slide off the page as though being dragged by a mouse in Photoshop.

The ink will actively seek out people and attempt to flow into their orifices.

As we see with Sammy, getting some into your body will trigger a craving for more.

Sammy is convinced that the ink moves according to Bendy’s will. He believes that the ink sought him out and helped forge some kind of psychic bond with Bendy. However, as we see in the game, Sammy isn’t as good at predicting what Bendy wants as he seems to think.

Joey seems to believe that being submerged in ink long enough will cause a person to lose their soul. Joey only wants “good, real” souls (his own words) to reanimate through the Machine.

Henry isn’t the first person Sammy has tried to sacrifice to Bendy. Sammy grabs a few other employees, ties them up, and coats them in ink, apparently in order connect them to Bendy. Among the kidnapped employees: Norman Polk.

In addition to its constant production of Bad Ink, the Ink Machine can also reanimate the souls of the recently dead into living toons.

At the end of the novel, Buddy drowns in the ink, but Joey apparently got to him in time to resurrect him into Boris. It’s heavily implied that Buddy is the Boris Henry befriends at the end of Chapter 2 of the game.

Buddy implies on several occasions that he is now sharing a mind with Boris. When he first wakes up after being reanimated (tee-hee!), he is alarmed at first to find himself existing in three dimensions instead of two. Buddy has a hard time telling if certain basic needs, such as hunger, are coming from him or Boris and mentions that Boris “starts to whine” when Buddy “asks himself too much,” adding: “We don’t like it.”

Buddy’s senses are now enhanced to those of a wolf. He can smell better, hear better, and has better night vision. However, he is also incapable of speech. He can understand himself just fine, but all the human characters can hear is a series of growls and barking noises.

Buddy is apparently losing his mind to Boris’s. Boris’s mind isn’t in an antagonistic relationship with Buddy’s; he just seems along for the ride. Even so, Buddy finds that his memories are fading and his emotional needs are growing simpler. The book is framed as a memoir he’s writing while living in the studio, and there are a few occasions when he forgets what the book he’s writing is and has to remind himself. This is consist with Sammy’s dementia-like behavior during the Hot Topic Q&A, where he showed signs of memory loss and struggled to stay on-topic, sometimes forgetting what he was talking about mid-sentence.

Finally, appearances:

Allison Pendle is platinum blonde and as gorgeous as a movie star. Buddy can’t understand why she’s into voice work instead of being on camera.

Sammy is described as being bony and angular (like a bird). He also wore those same suspenders before his corruption.

Bertrum Piedmont is described as big and burly.

Norman has bushy eyebrows.

Buddy never really describes Thomas Connor, only mentions that he usually looks elegantly dressed. It is, however, implied that Thomas is POC in the following exchange:

Sammy: “Tom, come on, why would I want your ink?”

Tom: “It’s Mr. Connor.”

Sammy: “Why can’t I call you Tom?”

Tom: “Because we’re not friends. And you will give me the respect I deserve.”

[long pause]

Tom: “What’s wrong, Mr. Lawrence? Not used to giving someone like me respect?”

Sammy: “What’s that mean, ‘someone like you’?”

Tom: “You know what it means.”

#batim #bendy and the ink machine #dreams come to life #lore #spoilers #bendy #buddy lewek #sammy lawrence #joey drew #thomas connor #norman polk #boris the wolf #dot #henry stein #alice angel #adrienne kress

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feynavaley · 4 years

Text

Hetalia Miraculous Ladybug AU

(Or, I spent about 2 hours with an 11-year-old explaining me everything about this show so now you’re getting this.)

The characters aren’t completely like the ones from the show (which I haven’t even watched), I just thought about somebody who might cover a similar role, but their personalities are their own and presumably different from the ones of the canon characters. (Besides, keep in mind that all my knowledge comes from a brief look through the Wikia pages and the explanation of an 11-year-old. A very exhaustive explanation, but still.)

- Marinette/Ladybug: Michelle Bonnefoy (Seychelles). Daughter of a Parisian baker, Francis Bonnefoy (France) and a Seychellois woman (Angélique, an OC). She spent her early childhood in Seychelles and went back to Paris with her father after her mother’s death. Michelle has a great passion for fashion (inherited from her father, even if he eventually chose a different profession) and dreams of becoming a fashion designer. She’s optimistic, friendly, and lively, with a positive view of people and the world in general. She never turns back from somebody in need and is always eager to be helpful in any way she can. She can be a bit shy when she first meets somebody, but once she opens up, she’s an extrovert. She would like to do loads of things at once but sometimes she doubts her abilities, she needs some encouragements. She can also be quite clumsy, at times. As Ladybug, she displays more confidence (which lets her intelligence and quick thinking shine, since she doesn’t let her insecurities sway her) and is extremely dedicated to her job.

- Alya: Amelia Jones (Nyo!America). A new classmate of Michelle’s, has been in France for just a few years and still misses America. Energic, headstrong, and with a strong sense of justice, she wants to one day become an investigative reporter because she thinks it would be a good way to bring to light important stories and make her contribution to the world (and she thinks it would be exciting, too). She stands up for Michelle against bullies and they become best friends from there, she’s very supportive and protective. In fact, she’s very friendly and open in general, a total extrovert. She can also be a bit too obstinate and overconfident at times, though. And the fact she always says what she thinks can be both a blessing and a curse. On a different note, she’s also extremely athletic – she has done lots of sports, with her last interest being kickboxing. Once Ladybug appears, Amelia starts investigating on her not only to cover the story but also because she wants to help and become a superhero herself (she eventually does earn a miraculous too).

- Adrien/Chat Noir: Matthew Kirkland (Canada – his surname has been changed for plot reasons.) Only son of the owners of a famous fashion brand and also one of their main models (even if not by his own choice). He grew up sheltered and isolated, not being allowed to have contact with his peers except for a few selected ones. He has been brought up to excel – advanced curriculum, several foreign languages, playing piano, fencing, and above all, impeccable manners. His father’s expectations and detached demeanour, united with his mother’s subtly oppressive and controlling one, made him develop an awfully low self-esteem. He’s polite, quiet, and kind-hearted, but quite clumsy and always doubting himself in social interactions as he isn’t used to it and tends to miss some clues/convince himself he’s missing clues even though he actually isn’t. Due to his strict upbringing, he also has trouble standing up for himself and letting the dorkier parts of his personality show as they were deemed ‘undesirable’ and ‘undignified’ by his mother (she said it in a much sweeter and apparently supportive way, but that was the meaning). As Chat Noir, he lets his dorky side shine because he thinks that’s how a superhero’s supposed to act (and that it’s cool – he doesn’t realize it makes him look like he isn’t taking things seriously). Extremely dedicated to Ladybug. He’s actually a good tactician but he’s so focused in his role of protecting Ladybug (and not confident enough in his intellect, on top) that he ends up acting mainly on instinct just to do that instead of coming up with plans.

- Gabriel Agreste/Hawkmoth: Arthur Kirkland (England). Owner and executive manager of an extremely famous fashion brand. He’s not the designer himself, though – that was his wife Marianne (Nyo!France) before her ‘mysterious’ disappearance. Growing up with distant parents and insecure, Arthur doesn’t know how to connect with Matthew and had always left the job to his wife, whom he felt was a much better person than himself. After Marianne got sick and later slipped into a coma due to the damaged Peacock miraculous, he donned the Butterfly miraculous in order to retrieve the Cat and Ladybug ones and get Marianne back at the cost of his own life (erroneously convinced he can decide the price of the wish on his own). The fact he’s planning to sacrifice himself is also part of the reason he’s so cold and stern with Matthew – he doesn’t want Matthew to get too attached to him. Yet, his love for Matthew (and feeling on inadequacy as a paternal figure) translate in him being extremely protective and controlling in order to keep Matthew safe. In addition, he tries to micro-manage every aspect of Matthew’s life as he’s convinced it’s the best to make his life as good as possible in the long run.

- Nathalie: Sakura Honda (Nyo!Japan). Arthur’s assistant. Always detached, formal, and extremely efficient, but she’s actually very fond of her boss (she admires his dedication) and ended up falling in love with him. She would go to great lengths to ensure his well-being and success, she doesn’t even hold back from using the Peacock miraculous (and damaging her own health) in order to help Arthur. Sakura also ended up becoming equally fond of Matthew; even if she isn’t able to express it outwardly (or even fully admit it to herself), she cares for him as if he were her own son, at this point.

- Nino: Carlos Machado (Cuba). Another classmate of Michelle’s – actually, he was one of the first people who welcomed her when she moved to Paris and they’re still good friends. He can’t stand any perceived injustice and is quick to anger in that sense, but unless he gets provoked, he’s very laid-back and welcoming. He sees the nervous wreck Matthew is and befriends him immediately because the poor dude deserves somebody being kind to him. Later, he basically adopts Matthew and gently tries to coax him into understanding that being his real self – even if it isn’t the perfect and flawless picture he tries to project in order to make his father proud – isn’t a bad thing. (Carlos has a very low opinion of Matthew’s father.) From day one, he’s also very supportive of the new superheroes and helps from the sidelines (which is the reason he eventually earns a miraculous himself).

- Chloé: Lavinia Vargas (Nyo!Romano). This one is probably very different from the show. Lavinia’s the spoiled eldest daughter of the major who uses her influence to bully other people – in particular, those she’s jealous of. Because Lavinia’s mother is one of Arthur’s senior designers but also self-centred to the point of narcissism – she doesn’t care for anybody but herself or those who could serve her. And Lavinia, who doesn’t have any artistic talent, doesn’t. The one who, instead, is artistically talented is Lavinia’s younger twin sister, Felicia (Nyo!Italy), who is, instead, very sweet and good-natured but doesn’t dare to go against Lavinia as she’s looking for her approval. (Lavinia has never made a mystery of her jealousy – masked as disdain – towards her twin.) Moreover, their mother has dragged Felicia around the world a lot to display her talent so she hasn’t had enough time to create strong bonds with other people – and instead ended up cementing Lavinia’s resentment towards Felicia and everybody else. The only person Lavinia’s kind to is Matthew, whom she has known since childhood and bonded with due to both of them being lonely and isolated.

- Kagami: Natalya Nikolaevna Arlovskaya (Belarus). Niece of one of Arthur’s major investors, Ivan Igorovich Braginsky (Russia). Since her father died before she was even born, she was raised by her mother Iryna (Ukraine) along with her uncle (Iryna’s younger brother), who instead isn’t married and has always been very close to his sister. Iryna is very sweet and maternal, but Natalya prefers following her uncle’s footsteps. She’s cold and competitive, always pushing herself to reach the top. Along with being academically gifted, she plays the violin, does ballet, and fencing (along with Matthew). Low-key convinced that friendship and social interactions are a waste of time unless she can get something out of them, she tries to pursue Matthew romantically because of the favourable connection that match would make (Matthew’s the heir to a fashion empire, after all). Yet, she ends up becoming genuinely fond of him once she realizes the determination and strength of character hidden behind his kindness.

I want to go more in-depth into some aspects but this post is already horribly long, so I’ll do it under a read more.

- Michelle initially doesn’t feel up to being Ladybug and tries to refuse it, but after some time, she starts growing into the role and gaining a bigger confidence that also bleeds into her daily life. Ladybug also helps her become more mindful of the consequences of her actions – one of Michelle’s flaws is that she tends not to be very far-sighted.

- The interaction between Michelle and Matthew could be similar to those of Marinette and Adrien – Michelle gets a crush on Matthew (due to his kind-hearted nature) but is convinced it’s not reciprocated so she doesn’t want to confess to him. Instead, she works on becoming his friend first and they eventually get quite close.

- On his part, Matthew is completely oblivious as his self-esteem is so low he doesn’t think anybody could truly like him as a person – those who claim they like him are actually only attracted to his popularity as a model (or money).

- About this, Matthew’s actually very insecure about his appearance. Because he looks like a model – so, while he’s athletic, he’s more on the skinny and delicate side. Only a ‘pretty boy’, while he would like to be a ‘real man’.

- Apparently, Chat Noir’s a flirt but I really cannot see Matthew doing that. He certainly lets go of some of his inhibitions while he’s behind the mask so he ends up being a dork (and the fact he’s a manga nerd, which shapes his perceptions of what’s cool, doesn’t help at all). He is smitten with Ladybug, this much is true, but he ends up acting starry-eyed and clumsy instead (when he isn’t focused on the job and they’re interacting more casually).

- Matthew isn’t so confident in being a superhero, either, but since he’s unable to say no, he immediately sets to do his best instead of complaining. As time goes on, he starts liking more and more being Chat Noir for the freedom it offers him and, in a way, the lack of expectations. (Yes, he has to save Paris, but nobody knows who he is behind the mask so it feels less personal than the criticism he receives when he’s himself. Moreover, the public eye tends to be more focused on Ladybug.)

- In her effort to be Michelle’s wingwoman, Amelia gets very close to Matthew as well. Maybe she manages to spend a lot of time with him using an excuse (research for an article or something) in order to try to steer him towards Michelle, but as she starts knowing him better, she becomes very fond of him herself. In particular, Amelia recognizes his kind-hearted nature and his inability to stand up for himself and basically appoints herself as his protector and older sister. (And they find common ground in their love for video-games and manga, too.)

- Amelia and Carlos actually don’t get along, but they’re in some sort of truce for the sake of Matthew and Michelle. They still keep bickering and teasing each other, but with time, they start growing fond of each other. (They don’t end up dating, though – more like a best frenemies.)

- Carlos is one of the first people who get to akumatized as he’s easy to anger. After that experience, he starts working on his quick temper and learns to channel his anger in a more positive way. He puts a lot of effort into it and improves a lot.

- Matthew is a lot closer to Lavinia than to Felicia because Felicia was always around the world following her mother. Felicia finally gets into school the same year as Matthew – and she finds herself isolated from her peers because of her connection to Lavinia. She loathes how Lavinia behaves but isn’t strong enough to stands up against her, which makes other people think she approves of Lavinia’s actions. (Moreover, they were already ill-disposed towards her as they thought Lavinia’s twin sister couldn’t be any better.)

- Lavinia eventually starts working through her trauma and insecurities as Matthew and Felicia start criticizing her behaviour. She does get the Bee miraculous – but she also goes through a positive growth. She never completely sheds her caustic and sarcastic exterior, but she does end up behaving a lot better.

- Natalya also starts loosening up after being touched not only by Matthew but also by Michelle’s, Amelia’s, and Carlos’s kindness/welcoming demeanour. She despises them at first, but after a bit, she starts becoming fond of them and appreciating them. In the end, she loses a bit of her pessimistic view on relationships and becomes their friend as well.

- Over the course of the school year, Matthew starts hanging around Michelle’s house and Francis basically adopts him because he can see the kid’s in desperate need of some human warmth and affection. Also, Francis builds a very negative picture of Arthur in his head based on Matthew’s defeated demeanour. And he doesn’t hold his tongue in the few cases he meets Arthur in person, managing to get under Arthur’s skin better than mostly everybody else (Matthew’s upbringing is a very delicate topic for Arthur – partly because it almost feels like somebody’s criticizing Marianne’s actions, and partly because he has no idea of how to do it. And he doesn’t like it at all). They loathe each other for some time.

- On the other hand, once Michelle becomes more comfortable around Matthew, she’s invited to some photoshoots (since she’s interested in fashion) and then she gets noticed by Arthur, who, in spite of not being a designer himself, has been around enough of them to recognize her talent. Besides, he doesn’t disapprove of her personality so he lets her hang around their house and Matthew and even personally interacts with her a few times. Michelle ends up forming the opinion (not completely wrong) that Arthur isn’t actually a bad father – he cares a lot for Matthew, but he’s out of his depths and doesn’t know how to express it.

- The ‘Final Boss’ – the one behind everything – is actually Marianne, not Arthur. Marianne was a talented fashion designer who dreamed of fame and power, and once she met Arthur – who came from a rich family and had the financial ability to realize her dream, but was very frail and in dire need of some affection – she manipulated him into falling in love with her and used his financial assets to establish her company. She was genuinely fond of Arthur, in part – but it was secondary to her goals. And even once she got rich and famous, she wasn’t satisfied. She came across some legends about the Miraculous and decided to investigate into the matter. She eventually came into possession of the Peacock and Butterfly ones and tried using them for her own gains. Her greed was so strong that she didn’t stop even after she realized the damaged Peacock was draining her health, but kept pushing herself until she fell into a coma. And Arthur, who had just lost his anchor and emotional stability (Marianne was very careful that Arthur, instead of developing healthy relationships and healing from his childhood, would remain completely dependent on her) decided to do everything to bring her back. And that’s how Hawkmoth was born.

- Arthur doesn’t enjoy fighting two children (Ladybug and Chat Noir) nor hurting people (that’s also why he never uses real traumas to create akumas but only mundane annoyances), but he thinks he doesn’t have any other option if he wants to bring back Marianne. Moreover, he’s fully aware that Ladybug’s powers always fix everything, which helps convince him that, given his goal, his actions are justified.

- Marianne was actually a very poor mother for Matthew, too. He has good memories of her, but only because that’s all he knows. She isolated him and was possessive, overbearing, and constantly resorted to emotional manipulation – she was happy and affectionated as long as Matthew behaved exactly the way she wanted, but the moment he would stray even of an inch, she would act overdramatic and disappointed, making him feel awful. Essentially, she destroyed Matthew’s self-esteem. (And Arthur didn’t notice because he, instead, had grown up with distant and more openly abusive parents. So, he thought that as long as Marianne was affectionate, she was a good mother. Moreover, he didn’t witness how capricious she was or how she would guilt-trip Matthew because she would only behave like that when Arthur wasn’t around.) Marianne did care deeply for Matthew, in her own way, but she was just a horrible person. She treated him as an extension of herself and her property instead of his own person.

- Eventually, Arthur does get the Cat and Ladybug miraculouses – even if Matthew and Michelle escape and he doesn’t see their identities (nor do Matthew and Michelle discover who they are – because they had sworn they wouldn’t. So, they walk side-to-side as they try to plan what to do and don’t look.) Arthur wishes Marianne back, fully intentioned to return the Cat and Ladybug miraculouses to their rightful owners afterwards.

...But Marianne comes back and not only Arthur doesn’t die – there’s something wrong with Marianne. She wants to keep the Cat and Ladybug miraculouses (which Arthur and Sakura wrestle away from her and manage to give back, but barely), she’s undeniably hungry for power. Arthur starts thinking that something went wrong with the wish, but he loves Marianne too much to go against her. He – along with Sakura – instead pretends to be on her side while at the same time trying to help Ladybug and Chat Noir fight against her and trying to find a cure to fix her. (It’s a long time before Arthur realizes that that was Marianne all along – she doesn’t need fixing because she has always been like that, she only became more unhinged and less subtle after recovering.)

- One of the turning points in Arthur’s realization is seeing how Marianne treats Matthew. Arthur had granted him many liberties, and while he was sceptical at first, (also thanks to Sakura’s insight) he eventually had to admit that Matthew thrived in the company of his peers. Maybe the dangers are higher (Arthur’s overprotective, and what happened to Marianne doesn’t help) but they’re outweighed by how much happier Matthew is. But Marianne wants to take everything back, and she doesn’t hold back any punches. (When Matthew wants to spend time with his friends, she complains that he doesn’t love her anymore, acts all heartbroken because he isn’t truly happy she’s back – if he were, he would spend all his time with her, wouldn’t he? – says he doesn’t respect her opinion anymore when he wants to go back to school, etc.) Matthew is a wreck, he’s torn and he doesn’t know what to do or what to think anymore. (He is happy that is mother’s back, yet, he can’t help but realize that he was happier before, when he could spend time with his friends and go to school, which leaves him feeling horribly guilty and selfish.) He stops smiling, can’t sleep, stops eating when not prompted... he becomes a ghost of himself. He looks even worse than Arthur did when he was still living with his parents. And that’s when Arthur comes to the realization it’s just wrong. He still doesn’t want to blame everything on Marianne (he tries to convince himself her instability is due to her prolonged coma and she’ll get better) but he starts pulling his weight and argue with her to defend Matthew’s freedom. He even gets to swallowing his pride and revealing the situation to Francis in order to make sure Matthew has a safe place he can stay at when his mother goes overboard (and that’s how a tentative friendship starts forming between Arthur and Francis).

- This isn’t all there is about Matthew, though. Arthur thinks the wish comes without a price, in the end (or maybe, that the price is Marianne’s sanity, for how much he doesn’t like to admit it). But Arthur doesn’t see Matthew collapse in a faint just after the wish is granted. Matthew wakes up not long later and resumes fighting as if nothing’s wrong – and even if he’s very exhausted afterwards, he thinks nothing of it. But over the following weeks, he starts feeling worse and worse. It’s small, at first – just lingering exhaustion and weakness. But it never gets better, developing instead in more and more frequent dizzy spells. It’s particularly bad after he transforms – he starts passing out once it’s over. He now gets sick very easily, too. If he has to hold the transformation for a bit longer than usual, he gets flu-like symptoms afterwards – it eventually gets to the point he’s too sick and weak to leave the bed for days. His miraculous isn’t damaged, but the price of the wish is paid with Matthew developing the same illness that affected his mother.

- Once Arthur realizes this, all the pretences are dropped. He realizes the person Marianne is and lets her go, focusing instead on trying to find a cure for Matthew and defeat Marianne alongside Ladybug and Chat Noir (whom he doesn’t know is Matthew, yet, but he does realize it after Chat Noir displays symptoms too similar to Matthew’s. It really doesn’t help with how guilty Arthur’s feeling). (Sakura keeps staying by Arthur’s side, too, and Arthur eventually admits he reciprocates her feelings.)

...

And that’s it. This was long. 😅 I don’t know how much of it makes sense but... I just couldn’t help thinking about this as I walking home tonight.

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letterboxd · 4 years

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Screen Time.

Can the data about actors’ time on screen help bust open Oscars category fraud? Jack Moulton talks to stopwatch-wielding Academy Awards fan Matthew Stewart about his hours (and hours, and hours) of timing Academy-nominated performances down to the second. Pictured above are the longest on-screen appearances for winning lead and supporting performances: Charlton Heston, Vivien Leigh, Tatum O’Neal and Mahershala Ali.

“It’s a shameful practice and in order to argue against it, there has to be evidence.” —Matthew Stewart

The Oscar categories for Supporting Actress and Supporting Actor were introduced at the 9th Academy Awards in 1937 to recognize those who excelled in roles that were less-than-leading, but no less important to the story. It’s a category in which emerging actors, fantastic character performers and non-famous industry veterans have found their way to Oscar glory.

Except that in recent decades, there’s so much more to an Oscar-winning performance than what we see on screen. It’s often a deliberate campaign, using every publicity trick in the book: red carpet walks, ‘surprise’ Q&A appearances, press coverage about the sacrifices involved in playing the part, narratives about previous ‘awards snubs’.

And then there’s category fraud—a strategy where studios split two stars across two categories, in order to nudge both towards the Academy’s podium. Example: for their equally leading roles in Carol, Cate Blanchett won the leading actress nomination, while Rooney Mara was nominated for supporting actress.

The problem, as Anne Thompson writes in her recent Thompson on Hollywood column assessing this year’s likely category-shifts, is “when lead actors (or actresses) decide they have a better chance in supporting, they take a slot away from another deserving performer”.

As history moves on and the politics fade away, measuring screen time is perhaps one of the few objective, quantifiable and finite pieces of information the director passes along to the audience and Oscar voters about an actor’s contribution to a film.

Enter Matthew Stewart: a 28-year-old Oscar buff and Letterboxd member from North Carolina who’s been following the Academy Awards for fourteen years. Curious as to why Frances McDormand and William H. Macy were nominated for Lead Actress and Supporting Actor respectively for Fargo, he set out to investigate how egregious their category placements were, by comparing their time on screen. Turns out Macy is on screen for 38 seconds longer than McDormand.

Matthew is our type of completist. Over the past twelve years, he has made it his mission to time all of the Academy Award nominated performances; tracking actors’ seconds on screen (whether seen or heard), keeping track of the time in his notepad, and then summing it all up. He certainly knows more than the Academy, who broadcasted incorrect trivia on last year’s Oscar game that Matthew was quick to put right.

His motivation is largely to debunk myths, such as the commonly repeated ‘fun fact’ of Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs having the shortest Best Actor Oscar-winning performance. The shortest, in fact, is David Niven’s appearance in Separate Tables, which is exactly one minute and thirteen seconds shorter than Hopkins’ Hannibal Lecter.

Of course, screen time does not reflect quality by any means. Having a character on screen for longer does not mean the role is better acted or more well-written. In many ways, it can be more impressive when an iconic or powerful character is technically on screen for half an hour or less.

We spoke to Matthew about his hobby, his opinions on category fraud, and the data he has on this year’s nominees. He shares his results on Twitter, his Letterboxd profile and his website, Screentime Central.

Vivien Leigh in ‘Gone with the Wind’ (1939).

Let’s get to those stats. In Academy Award history, what is the longest performance to be nominated for an Oscar? Matthew Stewart: By length, 1940 Best Actress winner Vivien Leigh is seen on screen in Gone with the Wind for two hours, 23 minutes and 32 seconds. By percentage, 1976 Best Actor nominee James Whitmore is on screen in Give ’em Hell, Harry! for 96.52 percent of the film’s runtime.

And the shortest? Both by length and percentage, 1960 Best Supporting Actress nominee Hermione Baddeley is on screen in Room at the Top for only two minutes and 19 seconds, which is just 1.98 percent of the film’s runtime.

You’ve done the math: what was the most egregious category fraud of all-time? And also—the worst failed attempt at category fraud? The most egregious case of category fraud is Richard Burton’s supporting nomination for My Cousin Rachel. Others come close, but that is the worst. He’s the main focus of the film and is in 85 percent of it, making it one of the 25 longest performances nominated in any category. And his co-star, Olivia de Havilland, is only in 44 percent of the film, so there’s no explaining it.

One of the most serious cases of fraud I can think of that didn’t result in a nomination is Jacob Tremblay being campaigned as supporting for Room. It’s a shame that that kind of bias against child actors still exists. And then there are cases where a definitive decision on placement wasn’t made, resulting in no nomination at all, like Lesley Manville in Another Year.

How does your husband feel about your time-consuming hobby? I actually didn’t tell anyone about my hobby for the first four years or so. I wanted to avoid the judgment of people thinking it was odd.

My husband was interested as soon as I told him and showed him my work up to that point. He’s always been willing to listen to my Oscar-related ramblings, so I shouldn’t have been worried!

Why do you think it’s important to keep such scientific track of category fraud? I think it’s important to because it’s a shameful practice and in order to argue against it, there has to be evidence. And the evidence is stacking up just about every year. I want to provide as much screen-time data as possible as a way to support correct category placements, and of course I hope that someday the Academy will catch on.

Now we have the data, has category fraud gotten worse over the years? Can you tell if the recent absence of Weinstein has helped ease fraud? Category fraud seems to have gotten worse in recent years, with cases like Rooney Mara [in Carol] and Alicia Vikander [winner of Best Supporting Actress for The Danish Girl] in 2016 and the cast of The Favourite last year. But really, it’s not any worse now than it’s been since the introduction of the supporting categories.

The worst thing about it now is how blatantly greedy some studios are in terms of winning as many Oscars as possible. It’s sad that we’ll never again see two leading actors or actresses nominated for the same film out of fear of them cancelling each other out and neither winning. Campaigning one of them as supporting makes for two potential wins.

I think Weinstein intensified the trend so long ago that his absence doesn’t change much. Some studios have campaigned that way for so long that I don’t think it will get better any time soon.

Which is the most significant difference between a nominated lead and supporting performance in the same film? [See Matthew’s list: Who’s Supporting Who?] The worst case is Timothy Hutton [supporting] over Mary Tyler Moore [leading] in Ordinary People. Hutton is onscreen for 32 minutes and eighteen seconds more than Moore! I would personally classify both of those performances as leading, as well as Donald Sutherland’s performance in the same film.

Meryl Streep in ‘Kramer vs. Kramer’, the first—and longest—of her three Oscar-winning roles, from a record 21 nominations.

Have you timed which actor or actress has the most Oscar nominated minutes ever? Or, let me rephrase: how many minutes do Meryl Streep’s 21 Oscar nominated performances add up to? Meryl Streep’s Oscar-nominated performances add up to 21 hours, 19 minutes, and 39 seconds, which gives her an average of about 61 minutes per performance.

And the runners up? After Streep, it’s Katharine Hepburn (12:45:10), Jack Nicholson (12:32:27), Bette Davis (12:09:13), and Laurence Olivier (10:54:22).

Which were the hardest and easiest films to time? Naturally, the harder it is to see the actor on screen, the harder it is to time them. So I really despise drawn-out battle scenes or scenes with huge crowds. Timing Charlton Heston’s performance in Ben-Hur during the chariot racing scene wasn’t that hard, because you know where he is, but timing Hugh Griffith’s performance in the same scene was much harder because he’s part of that enormous crowd.

The easiest one I’ve ever done is James Whitmore in Give ’em Hell, Harry!, since it’s a filmed one-man stage show. Sleuth and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? were easy too, because there are so few actors in the cast.

What results surprised you the most? I remember being shocked to find out that Robert Strauss’s supporting performance in Stalag 17 is nineteen minutes longer than William Holden’s leading one. But still, in that case, I don’t have a problem with the category placement. More recently, I was surprised by the shortness of Sam Elliott’s performance in A Star Is Born [eight minutes, 45 seconds!], and the fact that Scarlett Johansson’s performance in Marriage Story is 20 minutes shorter than Adam Driver’s.

Of those you’ve timed so far, what are the screen times for this year’s nominees? [Actors are ranked below by screen time as a percentage of each film’s total runtime.]

Best Actor in a Leading Role: Joaquin Phoenix (Joker) – 1:43:44 / 85.3% Adam Driver (Marriage Story) – 1:25:03 / 62.1% Jonathan Pryce (The Two Popes) – 1:12:42 / 57.7% Antonio Banderas (Pain and Glory) – 59:31 / 52.5% Leonardo DiCaprio (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) – 1:01:12 / 37.9%

Best Actress in a Leading Role: Renee Zellweger (Judy) – 1:27:29 / 74.0% Cynthia Erivo (Harriet) – 1:25:12 / 68.2% Saoirse Ronan (Little Women) – 1:15:01 / 47.7% Scarlett Johansson (Marriage Story) – 1:05:19 / 47.7% Charlize Theron (Bombshell) – 37:16 / 34.3%

Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Anthony Hopkins (The Two Popes) – 55:14 / 43.9% Brad Pitt (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) – 55:12 / 34.2% Al Pacino (The Irishman) – 53:58 / 25.8% Tom Hanks (A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood) – 44:56 / 41.4% Joe Pesci (The Irishman) – 43:22 / 20.7%

Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Florence Pugh (Little Women) – 42:06 / 31.2% Margot Robbie (Bombshell) – 26:16 / 24.2% Kathy Bates (Richard Jewell) – 25:06 / 19.2% Laura Dern (Marriage Story) – 18:36 / 13.6% Scarlett Johansson (Jojo Rabbit) – 15:36 / 14.4%

It looks like the more time on screen, the better the chances of a win, judging by some of the frontrunners this year. Is that an identifiable trend in your data? Looking at the data from the last ten years, Oscar wins do tend to favor longer performances across all categories. The shortest Best Actor or Actress nominee of the year has only won once since 2010—Olivia Colman last year for The Favourite.

The average winning leading performance since 2010 is 75 minutes long (63 percent of screen time), with none under 50 minutes (when the previous decade had eight under 50, and five under 40 percent). The average winning supporting performance since 2010 is 36 minutes long (28 percent of screen time), with only one under 20 minutes (which was Allison Janney in I, Tonya).

Have you noticed any fun stats for this year’s nominees? The only screen-time-related stat I’ve noticed is that this year’s Supporting Actor nominees have either the highest or second-highest average length of all time in the category. I can’t say for sure until after I time Tom Hanks, nominated for A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.

With an average age of 71.6, this year’s Supporting Actor Oscar nominees are the oldest group ever nominated in any acting category. This is the fourth time this decade that the Supporting Actors have broken the long-standing record of 61.3 held by the 1965 Supporting Actress group.

Also, all of this year’s acting nominees make up the second-oldest group ever nominated, with an average age of 51.8. The record is still 53.1 for 2017—the third time the record was broken this decade after previously being held by (again) the 1965 group (49.3).

So far, this year’s nominees haven’t broken any records. Phoenix’s performance could be the overall longest Oscar-winning performance of the decade, but that’s about it.

Mahershala Ali as Don Shirley in ‘Green Book’ (2018).

What nominees in the past decade broke records? I think one thing worth mentioning is that Mahershala Ali just broke the record for longest Supporting Actor winning performance last year [for Green Book], previously held by Christoph Waltz in 2013 [for Django Unchained], who took the record from Timothy Hutton.

And the female percentage record was broken twice this decade after being held since 1991 by Meryl Streep [for Postcards from the Edge]; by Marion Cotillard in 2015 [for Two Days, One Night] and then by Charlotte Rampling in 2016 [for 45 Years].

Three of the ten longest Best Supporting Actress-nominated performances of all time (by minutes) are from 2016 (Mara, Vikander, Leigh). Mara and Vikander also make the percentage top ten, along with Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit), Emma Stone (The Favourite) and Julia Roberts (August: Osage County)—so exactly half of that top ten are from this decade alone.

2019 was the first time ever that two performances under ten minutes were nominated for Best Supporting Actor in the same year—Sam Elliott, and Sam Rockwell in Vice.

And what about performances you timed from 2019 that were snubbed? (More from other years are here.)

Awkwafina (The Farewell) – 1:00:19 / 60.4% Zhao Shuzhen (The Farewell) – 37:33 / 37.6% Constance Wu (Hustlers) – 1:02:31/ 56.8% Jennifer Lopez (Hustlers) – 53:09 / 48.3% Robert De Niro (The Irishman) – 2:14:19 / 64.1% Lupita Nyong’o (Us) – 57:21 / 49.3% Robert Pattinson (The Lighthouse) – 1:23:18 / 76.4% Willem Dafoe (The Lighthouse) – 56:02 / 51.4% Margot Robbie (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) – 17:00 / 10.5%

You’ve watched more nominees than most people (let’s face it, maybe all people). Forgetting screen time, what are the most underrated nominated performances you think people should check out? Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne in The Guardsman (I can’t separate them, sorry!), Mickey Rooney in The Bold and the Brave, and Norma Shearer in Marie Antoinette.

How about greatest snubs. Who are you dying to see get nominated for an Oscar? When I think of who the Academy has snubbed the most, I immediately think of John Goodman. He’s everyone’s go-to answer, but it’s true. After him, I’d say Emily Blunt, Steve Buscemi and Alfred Molina.

What Oscar win are you rooting for the most on Sunday? My favorite Oscar-nominated performance of the year is Joaquin Phoenix in Joker. I know the film is polarizing, but he’s undeniable, and I hope he wins. As for upsets in below-the-line categories, I’d love it if The Lighthouse won Best Cinematography, and it’d be so cool if Parasite won Best Film Editing.

The 92nd Academy Awards take place on Sunday, February 9, at 5:00pm PST. See also: The Best Best Picture Lineups and All the 2020 Oscar Nominees.

#academy awards #oscars #oscar #oscars 2020 #awards #acting #actors #time on screen #matthew stewart #leading actor #leading actress #supporting actor #supporting actress #letterboxd

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mostlymovieswithmax · 5 years

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Midsommar [spoiler review]

Ari Aster has released his second feature film, Midsommar for which he writes and directs and it is a vast, expansive experience that threw me through a kaleidoscope of emotions, which amazingly is something I can’t say for a large number of horror movies coming out these days. That being said however, I’m not entirely sure that I could confidently class Midsommar as a horror. I don’t know if I’d really class it as any specific genre at all. It is certainly its own beast and for that, I would commend it highly. As something that is so dense with detail I will probably be jumping back and forth to moments in the story, giving this review a somewhat non-chronological structure. I can’t possibly touch on everything, especially as I’ve only seen it once. I believe it is something that needs multiple experiences to fully appreciate and is a movie I’d love to experience again.

The talent on display in regards to basically every technical aspect of the film is to be praised tremendously. I loved the cinematography and the look of the movie; the colours and the sets were all gorgeous. Mostly set in broad daylight, this stylistic choice is not something I’d immediately associate with a movie that was going for this type of vibe. Mixed with the set designs, the look of the movie made for a visual feast I couldn’t keep my eyes off of. What made the aesthetic qualities of the movie pop that little bit extra for me was the camera work and how it moved; I think of shots like when Dani goes into the bathroom in the first act and the camera pans over the door frame and twists to show her standing in the toilet of the plane. Or when they’re driving across Sweden and the camera flies over the car and turns to end up in an upside down position, perhaps foreshadowing what the characters are in for on this journey. It’s details like this that cracked a huge smile from me as I was watching, not to mention it separates Midsommar from so many other movies that try to depict suspense and terror. Furthermore, a feature that I found to be intensely thoughtful to accompany the fantastic visual display was the editing, or more specifically the cutting of shots. Often I see movies follow a certain formula when it comes to this facet; conversations cut together with a shot of one character and then a reverse shot to show another character; wide angles to establish locations or buildings, then cutting to the inside of the buildings themselves. There’s seldom ever much of a flare to the editing of a movie but I saw Midsommar capture that charmingly to add tension or even to highlight a joke. Accompanied by the score, a lot of these shots gave off an eerie tone that made me feel pleasantly uncomfortable. I loved the low, stretched out notes of the music that went that extra step further in order to make me feel slightly distressed. The sound design was incredible and generally it isn’t a facet I’d pick up on unless it was either done very well or very poorly. There were sections where even items like cutlery or people walking would catch my ear in a noticeably pleasing way. It shouldn’t be undervalued at all; great sound design can elevate a movie so much and I’m both glad and impressed at how well it was executed here.

Midsommar’s first act may have unfortunately contained a lot of my favourite moments. It introduced the main characters and worked to convey the relationships between Dani and Christian, as well as with Christian and his friends and how they all felt about Dani. I appreciated the time put into the dynamic between Christian and his friends and how they viewed Dani, although this was sort of thrown away once they got to Sweden; I never saw any sort of resentment from them towards Dani after that. Pelle obviously felt a lot differently about Dani, going as far as to kiss her during the latter stages of the movie. I’m not sure why it was necessary to have Pelle feel this way and I don’t understand what it added to the story besides forcing some conflict into Dani’s relationship with Christian, which was being achieved on his end regardless. Along with this, we are also shown the unfortunate and upsetting demise of Dani’s family which acts as a plot point in helping Dani to decide upon accompanying Christian and his friends to Europe. Seeing what happens to Dani’s family may have been the most affecting part of the movie for me. To top it off, her reaction was absolutely chilling; I love how Aster gets such raw and believable performances in his films. Dani’s loud, pained cries made me feel for her so much and forced a deep discomfort into me that carried through as the credits and title came on screen. Something that intrigued me quite a bit during this first act is how conversations were filmed through mirrors. We would see a couple of instances of characters talking to other characters that were reflected in a mirror. These static shots that carried on for a short while added to the tense atmosphere and the conversations or arguments that were taking place, imposing a kind of separation between those we could see outside the mirror and those we see inside the mirror. The main cast we’re introduced to in America are all good and give believable and compelling performances. Florence Pugh was fantastic as Dani; William Jackson Harper was decent; Will Poulter was great and one of the stand-outs from my experience. Vilhelm Blomgren portrayed quite an interesting character in Pelle. Christian seemed to be the only one that rubbed me the wrong way because he was such a massive dick the entire time and he was never redeemed. Not to say Jack Reynor’s acting was bad (quite the opposite in fact), I just didn’t sympathise with the character. There are aspects to the characters and the decisions they make that wound me up a bit but in terms of the acting, they were more or less solid.

The secondary characters, or mainly the Swedish locals didn’t stand out as individuals to me, possibly because they were portrayed more as a collective, which is fine but I would’ve liked to have seen some character development from at least a couple of them. Now, I say it’s unfortunate that I derived the most entertainment out of this first act because after that, Midsommar suffers quite a bit from some pacing issues. This movie is almost two and a half hours long and it didn’t feel like it needed to be, especially with a plot that only allows for so much exploration. The plot itself is quite basic, but it is displayed as something so grandiose in scope that it comes across as being eminently pretentious. Could it be the insanely short production time that went into making Midsommar that makes it feel fairly lacking in a few areas? Or is this genuinely the cut that Aster wanted? Results from a quick search of the movie told me that around half an hour of its running time was cut due to the content it presented. Consequently, this will make the home video release different to some degree than the cinema release as it may come to our TV screens as a director’s cut. If this is in fact the case (and I do intend to buy the blu-ray upon its release) then could it be that we’ve not even seen the movie that Ari Aster wanted us to see? Will a director’s cut make it better, worse, or simply just longer? I for one am assuredly excited to see what the end result is.

A big problem I had with Midsommar is how early it peaked in regards to the horror. One of the first things the main characters are presented with upon arriving at this rural community is the idea of people being separated into groups depending on their age: the concept that they didn’t consider themselves adults until a certain age; that they didn’t work until they were old enough to; that they died when they reached a specific year of their life. They’re then told that a ceremony will be held the next day and while our main characters ask what it is, we see William Jackson Harper’s character, Josh smiling in a sly “I know what it is” kind of way. His friends try to ask what he knows, to which he does not divulge anything. What follows this is a scene wherein two elderly people sacrifice themselves by falling off of a cliff in front of the other members of the community. To me, this scene was beautifully unsettling for a number of reasons. Despite expecting them to jump initially, I was still shocked at how well it was executed both in relation to the story and in a technical sense. At first, the woman jumps off of the cliff, dying instantly with a bloodcurdling crunch. Of course the characters from America and the characters we are introduced to earlier from England are understandably shocked. Even Josh reels back in surprise which I found to be a little strange considering how he acted as though he knew what was going on beforehand. What did he think was going to happen if not that? We’re never told. As the old man approaches the edge of the cliff and the English and Americans clue in to what is happening, they react as I’m sure we all would to what happens as he prepares to jump. He lands in a much more awkward fashion with a smaller sound that is no less distressing. Only this time, he doesn’t die... The scene is then racked up a notch as he screams out in pain at having his leg torn off and his body broken on impact. The rest of the Swedish onlookers scream in pain with him and it is terrifying to hear. I imagine this painted a picture to most viewers that the locals we are presented with in this rural Swedish village are all somewhat spiritually connected; are able to empathise with one another's emotions in a way that makes them able to feel the sensations of those they’re close to. Undoubtedly the torment doesn’t stop there and Aster has to quite literally hammer home what this ceremony is all about. In order to put the old man out of his misery, a group of people take it in turns to smash his head in with a large mallet, causing further stress to the main characters, but stopping all of the Swedish inhabitants from screaming in agony. That whole scene… was awesome! I loved it and it stands to be maybe my favourite sequence from the movie. The unfortunate part is that after this happens, I expected everything to amp up a bit and start showing me more uncomfortable and fucked up things but sadly this wasn’t the case. In a sense, it was as if the movie blew its load on this earlier scene and didn’t focus on too many other stand-out plot beats which was pretty disappointing. For some reason, Will Poulter’s character ‘Mark’ had slept through this ceremony and as a result, hadn’t experienced what his friends had. Whether this was done for a specific reason I’m not picking up on or simply so that he could continue to crack jokes is beyond me. I will give credit where credit is due: this movie made me laugh when it wanted me to. The inclusion of comedy in Midsommar was expertly handled and never made it come across as a lame horror-comedy.

Prior to this and upon arriving in the green fields of rural Sweden, the protagonists all get high and lie around in the grass. While the comedy kicks in here, it is also notable for the reaction of Dani as she starts to feel the grief of losing her family once more and urgently tries to get rid of it. I liked this scene and how it played slightly with the visuals which foreshadowed the inclusion of drugs and their effects later on in the movie. Sadly with what happens to Dani’s family in the first act, I’m not sure it was that purposeful overall, despite liking how it was depicted. Yes, this event does explain how Dani acts for sections of the film and yes I did like seeing it act as a catalyst for why she goes to Sweden in the first place, but I’m not sure it was hugely purposeful when referring to the movie as a whole. It never came back in a way that affected the narrative or the story that was being told. It was just something that happened to the protagonist that caused her a great deal of upset. Almost as if they could have died in any number of terrible circumstances and it wouldn’t have made a difference. While I really liked the characters’ first drug trip sequence, I got worried early on that Midsommar was going to take an approach that put the trips and the drugs at the forefront of the movie, akin to something like Shrooms (which was just awful) and sure, they played a big part but it did more to enhance what was actually happening rather than fabricate a story that didn’t really take place, just to have them wake up in a field exclaiming how crazy their collective trip was.

As the characters start to become more and more under the influence through the drugs that they’re given, we see the world warp around them. Trees ripple and form faces; the food would shift; flowers would pulse in accordance to Dani’s breathing; characters’ facial features would distort. Dani starts seeing grass sprouting from her hands and feet, or vines mimicking her movements to show how she’s progressively becoming part of this society. Characters like Christian however start experiencing the drugs in a negative and more aggressive way, as if they’re being attacked by senses! There is unease and terror in how Christian experiences the festival, whereas Dani’s experience is comparatively happier. The contrast of how Dani was being accepted and Christian was being rejected was thrilling to see, markedly in how Dani’s demeanour changed as she found herself integrating with everyone else. Although I must say I’m not sure why they kept drinking that drugged water that looked like muddy urine. Christian almost refuses to drink it until he’s told “it’s spring water with special properties” which was all the information he needed apparently! What properties were they? Doesn’t matter; he drank it anyway. The moronic decisions manage to manifest more throughout the movie, however. Regrettably we don’t get to see much of Mark and Josh’s experience with the hallucinogens or even much of the festival because their time is cut short in a manner I didn’t find all too entertaining. Mark is the first to go from the original team. Due to urinating on a sacred tree, he is murdered off-screen and has his face cut off. This could’ve made for a superb scene if it were done right but the way it was handled came across as hollow. Elements akin to this could have worked to convey unease and terror, but they are implied rather than shown which can work in some circumstances but I would’ve liked to have seen something more memorable and haunting instead of seeing an after-product and thinking “okay well I guess that happened”. Show him being mutilated, you cowards! You don’t even have to show it; just possibly what happens in the lead up! It would’ve made for a far more compelling story beat! All that happens is a girl comes up to him as he’s eating with everyone and asks to show him something. His response is just “she’s gonna show me” and leaves. He doesn’t question what he’s about to be shown; he just gets up and wanders off with a girl he doesn’t know in a foreign country, going purely off of Pelle’s word that everyone there is great! What a way to force that in! Josh is next on the kill list because he took some pictures of a sacred book when he knew he wasn’t supposed to because either he’s just insensitive to other peoples’ cultures, or he thinks it’s okay as long as it’s for his thesis. After this happened I kind of dropped off. With most of my favourite characters gone and the remaining characters questioning everything less and less, not only was there not much left to ground the film in a world that would consider the things that were happening to be deeply disturbing, but also from the protagonists’ perspectives as well.

I’ll acknowledge I’ve been railing on this film a considerable amount... with good reason. But despite being heavy on the criticisms, I still consider Midsommar to be a good, even great movie! I adore films that beg me to revisit them and learn more about them with each watch. Sprinkled throughout Midsommar are a tonne of small details and I’m sure I didn’t pick up on everything; in fact I hope I didn’t. Along with strange “what the hell?” moments like putting scissors under the baby’s pillow (I think that’s what it was anyway) that I still don’t understand, there also exists things that maybe don’t need to be thought about but are still nice to see included, such as goats and cows that took the immersion into this countryside village a notch higher. Or to draw from more obvious details that add depth to the people: going back to how they would all scream in unison, for instance to empathise with another’s emotions; when Dani sees Christian cheating on her, all the girls she is with cry and scream with her, possibly to experience what she’s feeling and/or to show her that they consider her to be part of their people, which also manages to contrast with earlier in the movie wherein she’s with Christian in her apartment but she’s the only one experiencing the intense pain as Christian tries to comfort her.

Upon entering the third act I started to wonder what the actual point in Midsommar was. Could it possibly be one big metaphor for grief and how we can choose to deal with it? There didn’t seem to be that grand of a point being made, either in the relationship between Dani and Christian, the relationship between America and Europe, or just the presence or influence of cults and religion in different parts of the world; those ideas seemed somewhat surface level. So I can’t help but think it was trying to convey a more metaphorical meaning. Either that or its meaning was just “Europe’s weird, man”. In this way, the finale didn’t leave much of an impact besides leaving me feeling quite hollow and disappointed, wondering what all that had been in service to. I can’t say Midsommar blew me away with much of what it showed me. There were a few decisions made which weren’t all that original in how they were executed and there were some dumb moments that had me questioning why they were included at all. Yet I would never say it isn’t unique in what it achieves; I can’t disregard all of the jaw-dropping technical showmanship and the interesting, creepy ideas that managed to meld horror and suspense and mystery and comedy into something I simply don’t know how to categorise. I could talk for ages about this film and still not touch on absolutely everything about it. Ari Aster is clearly a talented guy and I can’t wait to pick up the blu-ray and watch it a million more times. Along with that, I am for sure going to see whatever he puts out next. These are the kind of movies I love seeing and supporting and I honestly can’t recommend Midsommar enough because it’s something I feel will resonate with different people in different ways, evoking more than a few interpretations of it. It is so worth the watch.

★★★½

#midsommar #midsommar spoilers #dir: ari aster #movie #review

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miss-musings · 6 years

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The Good & Bad of NBC: or, Why “The Blacklist” is everything that’s wrong with TV, and “The Good Place” is everything that’s right (SPOILER EDITION)

(Written Oct. 2018… pre-S6 of TBL and mid-S3 of the Good Place.)

NOTE: THERE WILL BE MAJOR SPOILERS OF BOTH SHOWS. DO NOT PROCEED UNLESS YOU HAVE SEEN THEM BOTH!!!!!!!

In case you haven’t, there is a spoiler-free version of this post here.

(Author’s note: So, if you’re reading this you may or may not have read the other version first. If you have, I’m basically going to be going over the same material with the same structure, with some of the text basically copy/pasted from the first version. But, where I held back on the spoiler-y details before, I’m now going to be going all out. I’ll reiterate: PLEASE DO NOT READ THIS VERSION UNLESS YOU HAVE SEEN BOTH SHOWS!!! Thank you.)

For any of you unfamiliar with my content, I’ve been analyzing different aspects of The Blacklist for the past few years, including calling attention to what I believe are flaws in its plotlines and characterizations.

This April, I happened upon The Good Place on Netflix and absolutely gobbled it up. I watched all of S1 in pretty much a single day; S2, in a similarly short time frame. Now, I’ve probably seen every S1 and S2 episode at least four times, and I’m watching the S3 episodes as they air on NBC before The Blacklist returns in January for its sixth season.

Now, it’s definitely not fair to compare The Blacklist and The Good Place. The former is an hour-long (44 minutes/episode) crime drama procedural that has had 22 or 23 episodes per season in five seasons. The latter is a half-hour (22 minutes/episode) ‘genre’ comedy set in the afterlife that has 13 episodes per season in three (ongoing) seasons.

So, TBL has an approximate 4,840 minute run-time, and TGP’s is approximately 858 minutes (including all of S3).

That means that The Blacklist’s overall runtime is almost SIX times the length of The Good Place.

Even so, both of these feature prominent TV actors, including Emmy Award winners James Spader and Ted Danson, respectively; both center on a relationship between a 30-something white woman and an older white man(whether that relationship is romantic, platonic or pseudo-familial is debated by fandoms of both shows); and both of these are NBC shows.

So, while it might not be exactly fair to compare these two shows, I’m going to do so anyway, because I feel like where the Blacklist struggles, The Good Place shines as a quality television program.

Now, don’t think for an instant that The Blacklist is a completely worthless show or that The Good Place doesn’t have its flaws. There are good and bad aspects of both shows, but I’m going to be comparing the two by focusing on three key things that make a TV show compelling:

Plot Progression

Character Interactions

Character Development

1. PLOT PROGRESSION

I think anyone who’s seen the Blacklist will tell you that this show’s plot is convoluted AF. In S1, it seemed like the show was setting Berlin up to be the show’s overarching Big Bad. But, then he gets killed off in S2 while the Cabal takes the forefront. The Cabal kinda hangs out until the end of S3, really, and then gets mostly forgotten until Ressler kills Hitchen in S4. And, Mr. Kaplan becomes Red’s enemy because she was once Liz’s nanny????

This show is so fucking weird.

It continues to frustrate me that all of the show’s major plot developments/revelations come during a mid-season or season finale, or a season or mid-season premiere. The Blacklist’s plot structure continually revolves around the idea of ‘sweeps week,’ when the network tries to boost its ratings by promising major reveals and developments during certain time frames.

Why not space some of these things out more instead of giving us what is essentially filler? We go along for the ride week after week, hoping to get clues or developments to the overarching story, only to be frustrated at the world’s slowest drip ever.

I feel like the first part of S5b really fell into this trap. It reveals to the audience shortly after Keen’s return that Ian Garvey is a dirty cop. And then we wait like 4-6 episodes (I don’t remember exactly how long) until Liz realizes this too. Jeez. Why drag it out so long?!?!

Now, I will say that the decision to kill Garvey in 5x19, rather than the season finale was a good idea. As it breaks the mold of having to wait until the (mid)season finale for the Arc’s Big Bad to finally bite it.

But, while that might’ve been a small victory, it still doesn’t make up for all the times this show has thought it was pulling the rug out when all it was doing was being predictable AF.

Between Liz “dying,” Kaplan helping her, Kirk being her stepdad, Mr. Kaplan being the one coming after Red, Tom dying, Liz trying to trick Red into revealing his secret by playing like she’s in danger and needs him to rescue her, the bones being the Real Reddington, etc... it continually frustrates me that folks here on Tumblr predict everything that’s going to happen with pinpoint accuracy. It makes the show boring and rote. (Not the folks on Tumblr; more the fact that this show’s plots are so predictable.)

Conversely, the Good Place – per the show’s creator Mike Schur – centers on the idea of subverting expectations. Based on the pilot’s premise, you might assume that the finale will be Eleanor revealing that she doesn’t belong in the neighborhood. But, Schur and his writing team have said multiple times that they focus on trying to make each episode end with a cliffhanger, and doing those big reveals or developments earlier in the season than the audience expects.

As Schur (or maybe some other writer or exec) recently said on the Good Place podcast, 2x09 “Best Self – where the crew leaves the Good Place to head to Bad Place HQ – feels a little like a season finale, despite the fact that there were three more episodes left in S2.

The Blacklist, IMO, also suffers from overdramatic promotions that sometimes make it seem like each episode is going to have some shocking development, when in fact, you could probably skip it and not really miss much (unless it’s a premiere or finale).

I feel like I remember the S2a promos about Liz hiding Tom in the boat, which of course, everyone predicted, really hyped up that reveal so that it was a real let-down whenever we finally got the truth.

TGP, on the other hand, doesn’t really have episodic promos like The Blacklist does, which might work in its favor. (Although, I will say that I was pissed the NBC Thursday night comedy line-up promos ruined the 3x01 Trevor reveal before the actual episode ended.)

I mean, compare how TBL handled the Boat Door Reveal in S2 versus how TGP handled the Michael-sacrifices-himself-to-save-Eleanor development. If TGP had done it like TBL’s, we would’ve known a week or two in advance that someone was going to sacrifice themselves to save Eleanor. It would’ve been these dramatic promos going like “Who! Will! It! Be?!?!!” with like pictures of all the cast members flashing by. And, of course, everyone would predict it would be Michael and/or Chidi, we would all be right and subsequently disappointed.

Also, while I feel like TBL tends to play things safe – very rarely breaking away from the crime drama procedural vibe – TGP doesn’t mind taking chances, so long as whatever they’re taking a chance on fits within the ‘world’ of the show.

If you haven’t seen my rant about TBL’s S5b, I was so excited after Liz woke from a coma to see how the show might tackle that plotline. Would Liz be traumatized? Would she be reluctant to rejoin the Task Force? What if she decided to give up her life with the FBI altogether and raise Agnes? What if she had PTSD? etc.

And, the show went the very predictable route of not showing much, if any, of Liz’s physical therapy or psychological trauma, and having her get back ‘out in the field’ (proverbially speaking) pretty much right away. She pawned Agnes off to Scottie and then kicked it in the woods for an episode.

Whereas, with The Good Place, we got to see major glimpses of Eleanor’s year after her near-death experience in 2x12. Granted, not much of it, but given the show’s time constraints and break-neck speed (in terms of plot development as opposed to TBL), it was nice that we got to see Eleanor become a better person, backslide, and then make a decision on whether she wanted to try to make progress again or whether she was going to stay in her rut forever.

Clearly, you can seen how one’s plot progression is preferable – as a viewer – to the other. It’s also helpful, I imagine, as a writer, to let the plots unfold organically, as fast or as slow as they need to… instead of having to either rush them or drag them out to reach a certain point in the season’s schedule.

2. CHARACTER INTERACTIONS

As said above, both shows focus on the connections between its male protagonist and female protagonists. While ultimately it’s the female protagonist’s journey, the male protagonist is a guiding force in her journey, helping her along and pushing her to make decisions (whether good or bad).

(Although, I guess you could argue that Chidi is really TGP’s male protagonist, but considering that Ted Danson is more heavily promoted, I’d argue Michael is really TGP’s male protagonist.)

And, for both shows, its two main protagonists are part of a six-person main cast.

For The Good Place, the cast is Eleanor and Chidi, Tahani and Jason (two other residents in Eleanor’s neighborhood), Janet (the neighborhood’s anthropomorphized mainframe/help desk), and Michael.

The Blacklist’s cast, as of the end of S5, is Reddington and Keen, her fellow agents Donald Ressler, Samar Navabi and Aram Mojtabai, and their task force director Harold Cooper.

Now, the Blacklist primarily focuses on the relationship between Reddington and Keen; he doesn’t interact with the other cast members very frequently and Keen’s interactions with them are pretty basic and often work-focused. There aren’t very many crucial interactions between non-Reddington/Keen pairings, especially in more recent seasons of the show. While S1 and S2 tried its best to have Keen interact with Ressler, Ressler interact with Reddington, Cooper interact with Reddington, Keen interact with Navabi, etc., S3-5 have more focused on the Reddington/Keen dynamic at the expense of everyone else.

Granted, I like the Reddington/Keen dynamic (in some respects), but giving it more weight in the runtime unfortunately means that the remainder of the cast has to tackle the more procedural aspects by trying to track down the Bad Guy of the Week while Reddington and Keen get to have more of the character-driven serialized moments and developments.

Compare this, though, with TGP and its interactions outside of the Eleanor/Michael dynamic.

Throughout different points in S1 and S2, we got significant interaction between almost every single possible pairing of characters on this show. (And I mean pairing in a non-romantic sense.)

We see Eleanor fall in love with Chidi, become ‘mates’ with Tahani, become bros with Jason, and try to kill Janet and then later give her relationship advice. Meanwhile, Michael has his falling out with and subsequent heartfelt apology to Chidi; he admits to Janet that she’s his most loyal friend; in S1, he seeks out Tahani’s help; and in S2, he seeks out Jason’s feedback. Tahani and Jason’s romantic connection is explored, as is Jason and Janet’s. Chidi and Tahani have an important bonding moment in S1, and even the dynamic between Chidi and Jason is touched on some.

So, while TBL’s cast feels a little separated and almost cliquish, TGP’s six castmembers feel like a cohesive team where any two or three characters can be trusted to carry a scene and have an emotional connection/interaction. The former comes off as weak writing and show structuring, while the other is far preferable to watch.

3. CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

As I’ve said in several other TBL posts, THIS is probably my biggest grievance with the show … even more so than the weird-ass plot structure.

Despite supposedly being major characters, Ressler, Cooper, Samar and Aram get very little in the way of growth or development. I can barely describe them, their personalities, their desires, their moral codes, etc. in maybe a paragraph for each character. And these are people who have been on this show for FIVE FUCKING YEARS!!! How is that possible that they’ve gotten so little development in so much screentime?

Again, remember, TBL’s runtime is SIX TIMES that of TGP. And yet, I feel like any and all of The Good Place’s major characters get way more development simply in the first season than TBL’s peeps do in five.

I could definitely describe Jason, Tahani, Chidi and Janet’s personalities, desires, moral codes, etc. in like a page for each character.

Now, granted, I suppose the show’s structure lends itself better to that. The characters have to do a lot of soul-searching, so to speak, in almost every episode. Whereas, the Blacklist’s cast has to chase down the week’s bad guys, which takes up at least 20-30 minutes per episode.

Okay, okay. Maybe it’s not fair, considering that TBL clearly doesn’t care about its non-Reddington/non-Keen characters. So, let’s focus on both shows’ two leads and their character arcs.

Let’s look at Reddington’s character development versus Michael’s.

Despite having much more screentime and weight within the show, Reddington’s arc PALES in comparison to Michael’s. Granted, Michael started out as a literal demon whose entire purpose was to torture people. But, over time, we saw his genuine curiosity about humans transform into a genuine desire to understand them and want to be one of them. Yes, he only seeks them out after 802 reboots because he feels he has no other options (thanks to Vicky threatening to blackmail him). But, as he learns ethics alongside the humans, he realizes he needs to become a better ‘person’ (read: demon) to better care of them. Because he OWES IT TO THEM.

Reddington’s character development, meanwhile, seemed to come more in the latter half of S4 when he was trying to deal with Mr. Kaplan coming after him and he was trying to confront this spectre of death that seemed to be looming over him.

Yet, even after all that bullshit with Mr. Kaplan, where he called him out for keeping secrets from Elizabeth that she had the right to know, he still held all the cards and kept his secrets to himself and killed anyone who got in the way.

If Red had really grown, the way Michael did in S2, he would’ve confessed to Elizabeth at some point that he wasn’t the real Reddington, that he stole her father’s identity, and he’d been keeping it from her all this time because of “x.”

While Michael has learned and grown as an individual, Reddington has stayed relatively static in terms of personal growth. Not to say we haven’t seen different sides of him, what he would do when he faced difficult scenarios, like Liz’s death or losing his criminal empire… but the Reddington in the S5 finale is too much like Reddington in the pilot episode. Which is absolutely ridiculous, given how much screentime and emphasis he’s gotten over FIVE SEASONS!!!

Michael has learned to admit when he’s been wrong, apologize and become a better friend to his humans, while Red still has yet to do Liz (a woman he loves immensely in some capacity or other) the basic kindness of telling her that he stole her dad’s identity.

Alright. Now let’s look at Elizabeth Keen versus Eleanor Shellstrop.

Both characters have suffered from character regression, where they start at Point A, then develop and grow over time to reach Point B, and then – for whatever reason – regress to Point A again.

Elizabeth Keen started out happy and bubbly in S1a, went to dark and gritty in S1b-3a, then went back to happy and bubbly in S3b to S5a, then back to dark and gritty again in S5b.

Eleanor started off as an Arizona dirtbag, then became a good person to the point where she decided to sacrifice herself by going to the Bad Place... then got rebooted 802 times... then started as an Arizona dirtbag again, progressed to the point where she was the only one of the four humans who passed her test from The Judge ... then was sent back to earth and was saved from death, so she decided to change her life, backslided and now is AGAIN trying to become a better person.

Now, while Eleanor’s character regression fits within the confines of the show, Keen’s makes no sense. She’s confronted and overcome so many challenges over the show’s the five seasons… so, why hasn’t she learned from them? Why is she still relatively the same, especially considering that x-number of seasons ago, she was so completely different?

Why is she back to being all angry and hateful and dark, etc., when it’s like... she has a young daughter who’s lost her father, she lost 10 months with her after being in a coma.... and she just wants to go beat up dirty cops??? I feel like if they wanted us to see an Elizabeth Keen that had learned from her experience, she would’ve given up her life with the FBI, saying that it’s put her in danger, severed ties with Red (or tried to) because he’s also endangered her (via the bones), and spent time with her daughter, whom she claims is more important than anything else in the world.

And, whereas Eleanor was not a very likable protagonist at the outset but she becomes more likable over time, Keen started out as somewhat likable but has become more annoying as her character continually regresses.

All in all, to quote (or at least paraphrase) some other Tumblr user, “I can’t believe The Good Place literally invented character development.”

TL;DR

Again, just to reiterate, I think there’s good and bad in both shows. But, there’s a reason why I’ve seen every episode of the Good Place at least four times and why TGP S1-2 is currently #4 on my list of All-Time Favorite TV Shows.

The Good Place pushes the envelope by subverting expectations and having major developments earlier in the season than expected; it makes sure that almost every character has significant moments with every other character; and it ensures that each of them has a major character arc that works within the confines of the show.

The Blacklist, in comparison, does what too many other shows on TV do: it treads water plot-wise; it focuses too much on some characters at the expense of others; and even the characters it focuses on don’t show any significant or organic growth.

And, that’s why, IMO, The Blacklist represents everything that’s wrong with television now; and The Good Place represents everything that’s right.

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consmcchill · 5 years

Text

Avatar the Last Airbender movie FIXED

I did it. TLDR: I fixed the movie The Last Airbender. Feel free to skip this rambling intro and scroll down to the good stuff.

For the rest of you, my name is Conor McCahill, I’m an actor and wannabee screenwriter living in Chicago.

I wanted to post this on the internet for three reasons:

One: Avatar the Last Airbender means a lot to me. My high school friends would meet every week at my house to watch each premier live. Those memories are among my happiest. I was beyond excited for the movie, but, everything I found out about it pushed me further from it and when it finally came out I resolved never to see it. And I didn’t, until I was in a show with Francis Guinan, who played Master Pakku, and when he told me he was in it, I thought, “Hey, why not?” Watching this movie was one of the most disappointing experiences of my life. Fast forward to now and I’m reading Save The Cat, which is a book about screenwriting and one of the homework pieces is to fix a bad movie and make it a good movie. Obviously, the worst movie I can think of is The Last Airbender, so I chose it to fix it.

Two: Fans scare me. True deeply loving fans are like tiger mothers. You have high standards, and good for you! I can’t think of anyone who would enjoy this project more than a diehard fan and my goal is to impress you.

Three: Though I started this before the Netflix announcement of the Avatar the Last Airbender live action series, I’d still like to think that this could help get the movie remade. However, even if it doesn’t, maybe this can help you find closure that in some universe, a better movie exists.

I wrote this as if it was a wikipedia article describing the movie. I tried to avoid dialogue as much as possible, but sometimes, it’s just clearer. I used screenshots from the show to aid the reader though sometimes the pictures aren’t perfect, and other times I used real pictures or art. I linked to the websites where I did that.

The process:

I watched all of season one again, with an eye for character and story development. It was a real treat and I graphed each character’s development over the season, who was the main character of each episode, and how they grew in each episode. I painted a picture of tracking information about the characters, which characters know it, and when it is revealed to a character or the audience. I also tracked tokens, my word for props of importance like Aang’s staff and the water scroll. Adapting this cartoon to a movie was a huge challenge that I was not fully prepared for. The biggest challenge faced is reduction of the source material into roughly an hour and a half to two hours. Season one is very filler heavy, we get to meet our characters and watch them interact, and the first season takes its time and lets the characters be kids in a really nice way. Each episode is roughly twenty-two minutes long, making the season about seven and a half hours long which means inevitably something is going to be lost in translation because we’re losing six hours of content. Episodically is a great way to tell a story with lots of characters with multiple plot lines and over longer periods of time. Movies are better equipped to tell stories as an immediate chronological sequence of events with few characters. This just comes down to time and how much we have to tell the story and how the audience processes a story in “real time.” If you want the movie to be exactly the same story, well, that’s impossible and you should just watch the cartoon. It’s gonna change, there’s no way around it. After finishing the cartoon, I decided it would be a good idea to at least watch the movie again.

Overall and if you squint, Shyamalan got the story of the first season in the movie pretty accurately. His movie goes, southern water tribe, southern air temple, earth kingdom, northern air temple, and northern water tribe. The problem is that we don’t really get to enjoy any one thing for too long because we’re being whisked off to the next one. I didn’t want to make the same mistake, so I chose to limit my main settings to the number of my acts, for simplicity. I picked the southern water tribe, the southern air temple, and the northern water tribe capital.

Shyamalan decided to write each movie one at a time and I really think that doomed the project. I think he decided to do it that way, Nickelodeon went along with it, and by the time he realized his mistake, production has already started, and he couldn’t hold it up because it’s millions of dollars and our young actors are rapidly aging. Any kind of delay will hurt a project starring kids more than other movies. If you want to do it right, you need to be ready to pump out each movie so the kids can age naturally and not suddenly be adults, (see: Harry Potter.) Keeping his decision in mind, I decided to approach this project as if it were a trilogy. That helped me eliminate characters and plotlines for movie one, because they can appear later. I whittled my main characters down to seven, which is more than plenty; Aang, Katara, Sokka, Zhao, Zuko, Iroh, and Yue.

Let’s talk about Yue. Her sacrifice is the emotional apex of the first season of ATLA and is therefore the most important part of the movie. We need to care about Yue because the more we care, the more effective her sacrifice is and the more satisfying the emotional catharsis. In visual media, the way we make you care is we give you screen time. In the show, she gets three full episodes, but the development of her relationship with Sokka feels rushed. It still feels better than the Shyamalan movie, where she comes in at the last thirty minutes, and by all accounts gets half as much time as the cartoon. Considering her sacrifice, Yue needs to come into the movie early. Save the Cat talks about act two as the love act. Often in movies, it is when our protagonists meet a new character(s) who will nurture them through the end. It does not have to be true love or romantic love, it is often friend love. That seems like a perfect place for Yue.

I didn’t want to change the canon, but I had to get Yue into contact with Katara, Sokka, and Aang. I decided that the most important thing, at least in adapting, is not necessarily what happens to our characters, but that they grow in the same way. That freed me up to consider other, more exciting possibilities. Like, what if we bring Yue to the south, on a quest? Aside from Yue, the most necessary element of the north is the spirit oasis, so Zhao can kill the moon. So, I thought to place the spirit oasis in the ruins of the southern tribe capital, so we’re not suddenly robbed of a whole world crossing adventure where lots of stuff must happen. We can grow with our characters (Aang, Katara, and Sokka) in the illusion of real time, and not cut to weeks later at the northern tribe. That evolved into a portal to the northern water tribe, something heavily plot relevant, canon from The Legend of Korra, and it gives something new to longtime fans.

The Yue I came up with differs from the show Yue in very exciting ways. I develop her relationships with Aang and Katara and give Sokka a stronger interest, a love that could actually be returned and is hopeful. The best part is, I make her more active instead of passive. Since this will be her only movie, she should be there more, not to mention there are five main males and only one main female without her. All my own changes made me sympathetic to the way Shyamalan had to alter the plot and characters and it was the choice to boost Yue’s role that really lead to this entire piece.

Thanks to Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino for their work that continues to inspire me to this day. Thank you to all the long-time fans who run the Avatar the Last Airbender wiki. Your work was essential. I lifted some passages directly from the episode descriptions that match what I see as the movie, but where I did, I tried to mark with a *. Also, I used some art and photos and I provided a link to those artists. And, I dunno, thanks to Jim Henson who thought it was important and healthy for children to feel fear.

How I would open the movie:

Open on the fire nation palace: an imposing tower of red crowned with gold spires slices a sunny blue sky in two and looms over a vast courtyard. The front doors are open and we zoom into the darkness. Inside the palace, the air is thick and stuffy and ornate tapestries line every wall lit by braziers that fume and pop and crackle.

In a gallery filled with portraits of proud and angry men and women cloaked in red and holding fire in their bare hands, a teenage boy sits at a table, playing a tile game with an older man.

The boy squirms, agonizing over his next move. The older man is toying with him, but plants seeds of wisdom on how defeat a superior opponent. The boy tentatively places a tile, lingering his finger on the it before whipping it away. The old man examines the board.

With one decisive move, he places a lotus tile in the center of the field, winning the game leaving the young man in disbelief. The older man laughs as the younger man passionately demands a rematch, but they are interrupted by the sound of footsteps and they stiffen. A messenger comes. He bows low, and begs forgiveness from Prince Zuko for interrupting him, but he has come to escort General Iroh to a war meeting. The older man smirks and asks the younger man if he forgives the messenger. Zuko rolls his eyes and says he does but asks his uncle if he can join him in the war meeting. His uncle denies him, but the young prince pleads. He wants to be a good king someday, why not learn as soon as possible? Iroh relents and warns Zuko not to speak out of turn.

Iroh leads Zuko into the hall before the throne room. As the firebending generals go in, each makes a flame in their hand and adds it to a fiery bowl on a pedestal in the center of the hall. Iroh explains to Zuko, as he follows suit, that the ritual serves to show that no firebender will use fire bending in the throne room or face extreme consequences. Even the fire lord is honor bound to uphold his promise, he just never has to symbolically prove himself. Iroh puts his fire in the bowl. Zuko steps up after him and does the same, his face lit up by the flames.

The inside of the throne room is darker than the rest of the palace. Zuko is both frightened and exhilarated. As a particularly old and decrepit general drones on, Zuko admires the long war table, painted to display the entire world and littered with pieces that make war seem like a big game. This will all be his someday. His eyes draw him down past the far end of the table, to the wall of fire beyond which a dark figure, the fire lord, sits on an ornate throne obscured by the dancing smoke.

Zuko stares at the man beyond the flames and their crackle fills his ears. He feels the eyes of his father staring back. Zuko snaps to attention, just as the old infirm general outlines a plan to send fresh recruits into combat against a heavily garrisoned earth kingdom fort. The prince asks the general how he expects the recruits to survive, his interruption sending a wave of murmurs down the table. The general clarifies, he doesn’t. Their sacrifice will be enough to weaken the earth kingdom army, so they can be wiped out by a second wave of more seasoned elite fire nation soldiers. The mutters of agreement wash over the room. The prince is horrified. He cannot believe what he is hearing and stands and speaks, in defense of the new recruits and their lives. To send loyal soldiers to their doom is nothing short of treasonous. The color drains from Iroh’s face as the wall of flames flares up. He clutches Zuko’s robes and advises Zuko to apologize or be honor bound to settle the matter in an Agni Kai.

Zuko sizes up the old general. What could this old man, so near to death, possibly do to him? His uncle hisses at him to be quick, but Zuko is not afraid and accepts the fire duel. The wall of fire burns high beyond him.

High above the Agni Kai arena, the crowd that lines the stands chant ceremoniously. Zuko kneels, his back to his opponent and the chanting ends. He breathes deep, spins and rises, and throws off his cloak to face… his father, the fire lord.

Zuko doesn’t understand, the general he spoke against is in the audience, smirking, next to a teenage girl and his uncle.

The Firelord fumes at him, it was his plan Zuko spoke against and it was he, the fire lord, Zuko disrespected. His booming voice echoes in the vast chamber. Zuko falls to his knees, he won’t fight his father. The fire lord demands that he stand and fight, but Zuko refuses. The fire lord will give him one more chance but Zuko bows further, touching his forehead to the hard stone floor. The Firelord calls upon the crowd to witness his son’s cowardly refusal to fight. Only a permanent lesson is appropriate for such shameful weakness, he growls as he approaches his grovelling son.

Slowly, Zuko lifts his head and begs his father for mercy, but there is none.

In the reflection of his left eye, a fireball heads towards Zuko’s tear-stricken face. A girl’s voiceover begins. “Long ago the four nations lived together in harmony, then, everything changed when the fire nation attacked.” The fireball grows larger and larger in his eye until the whole frame is filled with fire.

https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-illustration-yurt-vector-drawing-portable-round-tent-covered-skins-felt-isolated-white-backdrop-freehand-outline-black-ink-hand-image80545151

The fire in Zuko’s eyes becomes a campfire in a yurt. “Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them, but when the world needed him most, he vanished.”

Reveal, a pretty and bright water tribe girl, Katara, telling the story of the Avatar to the young children she babysits.

The kids beg Katara to waterbend for them. She’s not supposed to, and they moan and whine. To appease them, she waterbends the soup in the pot in a swirl. They beg for more and, though it is difficult for her, she manages to suspend an undulating ball of steaming water in the air. It is a magical moment, even for Katara, and they all watch in awe until she lowers it back down. The kids go nuts and all take turns trying to waterbend the soup, but it soon becomes clear that she’s the only one who can. As she watches them all around her, there is a sense of how lonely and isolated she really is.

The flaps fly open and a teenage boy on the brink of manhood barges in and asks what the ruckus is about. Katara blurts out Sokka’s name in surprise and passes the commotion off as just childish playing. She turns the conversation to his hunt. He pretends to be downcast, then reveals three small fish triumphantly. Katara squeals with joy and embraces him.

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Later, as the sun sets, the fish roast over the fire. Katara, Sokka, and an older woman, their grandmother, eat with appreciation as if a feast as meager as this is rare. Sokka finishes first and as he gets up, he rips his pants, again. He criticizes Katara, her stitching is still terrible, and since Grangran can’t do it anymore, it’s up to her. He reaches for his other pair of pants but stops when Katara admits that she hasn’t mended them yet. Sokka gets cross with her for not finishing her chores. Katara retorts that if he wasn’t so clumsy, he wouldn’t tear his pants. Sokka scolds Katara for just playing around and waterbending. Their grandmother drops her bowl. Quickly, Katara denies waterbending, but Sokka saw her. Grangran comes down on Katara: It is forbidden, but Katara can’t forbid who she is! Grangran snaps that waterbending will get them all killed. There is silence. Sokka brings the pants over to Katara. He puts food on the table, the least she could do is contribute. Defeated, Katara fetches her needle and thread but hesitates before she begins to work. She’s about to speak when Sokka pushes that his pants aren’t going to mend themselves.

Katara pops off that he can repair his own stupid pants and throws them in Sokka’s face and storms out into the night. Sokka sticks his head out and calls after her but Katara breaks into a sprint. She runs past her neighbors, out of the village and runs and runs and runs until she can run no more, collapsing at the top of a snow-white cliff, overlooking a frozen bay.

The cold light of the nearly full moon beams down upon her. She looks up, with tears in her eyes and screams out her frustration. She pounds her fists to the ground. The ice cracks inches from her fists and shatter the side of the icy cliff down down down into the middle of the bay. The ground shakes and Katara is avalanched over with the side of the cliff and is buried in the ice and snow.

She pushes a mound of snow off her with her waterbending. As she cleans herself off, she notices a soft glow emanating from the fissure in the ice. As she investigates, the light intensifies, rising, until the source, a glowing ice sphere, bursts through the floe before her.

Cracks splinter throughout the sphere causing the light inside to escape. The light is too much and Katara shields her eyes. The sphere goes dark for a second then a pillar of light erupts out the top.

Back in the village, Sokka mutters to himself as he struggles with a needle and thread. The light rips through the night sky and through the flap of the tent. His eyes widen. He whispers Katara’s name and grabs his spear.

A dazzling aurora fills the sky. The broken bay has frozen again by some mysterious power, leaving the landscape jagged and strange. A cloud of snow and swirling mists ebb and flow about the remains of the sphere. Katara approaches and sees in the remains a boy tattooed with arrows and a white six-legged bison, both fast asleep. She kneels beside the tattooed boy and touches his face. He dreamily opens his eyes and then closes them again as he mutters about how beautiful she is.

Katara is amused. The boy snaps awake, he’s not dreaming. He jumps out of Katara’s arms and admires his surroundings. With his hands on his hips, he announces that he has made it to the south pole as planned and immediately requests a snowball fight and before Katara can protest she’s pelted as he laughs. She pulls the snow off as the boy exclaims that she’s a waterbender, and that it is officially on! Katara puts on her game face and snowballs begin to fly back and forth. Katara hides behind a snowbank. She peeks out and sees the boy scooping snow into a ball, she turns back and uses her bending to mold her own. She peeks out again, but he has disappeared. Out of nowhere he lands behind her and unleashes an impossible number of snowballs. Katara screams as she’s hit. Sokka hears her scream and breaks into a sprint. He yells her name and runs towards the boy with his spear who dodges the thrust and the following swing. Katara, covered in snow, tries in vain to stop Sokka. Sokka thrusts again. The boy lands on the spearhead, faceplanting Sokka into the snow and bringing him to his knees. Katara, wipes the snow from her eyes and gets a full view of Sokka’s undercarriage. She shrieks, “Where are your pants!?” The boy helps him up. Sokka didn’t have time to put on pants, he thought she was in trouble. Katara is touched.

https://www.deviantart.com/akreon/art/Appa-132703919

A low grumble escapes the large, furry, six-legged creature lying motionless nearby. The boy climbs onto it and enthusiastically rouses it. Sokka asks, unsure, what the thing is, and the boy replies that it is Appa, his flying bison. Sokka expresses disbelief over the purported ability of the large bison to fly. The boy, looking around at his surroundings, asks if they live nearby, which triggers Sokka to tell Katara not to answer, as he is convinced that the mystery boy is a Fire Nation spy, a notion that Katara rejects sarcastically. The boy introduces himself as Aang, an airbender. Sokka tells him no one has seen an airbender in a hundred years. Aang laughs, they are very good at hiding. *

Aang offers to fly them back to their village if he can get shelter for the night. Katara happily agrees and climbs on with Aang, while Sokka refuses, convinced that Aang and Katara are crazy. Aang says, "Yip-yip!", and Appa leaps into the air, though immediately comes crashing down, while Sokka crows sarcastically about Appa's inability to fly, Aang decides Appa is still too tired to fly just yet. He looks over his shoulder and leans out to stare at Katara with a huge smile on his face, causing her, after a few long, awkward seconds, to ask, "Why are you smiling at me like that?" He replies, "Oh, I was smiling?" Sokka lifts his head back, groaning, while Katara, at first smiling at Aang's response, frowns back at Sokka. *

In the moonlight, they walk back to the village. A curious Katara asks Aang if he knows the fate of the Avatar; being an airbender, she knows that the Avatar was supposed to be an Air Nomad. Aang awkwardly states that he knew people that knew the Avatar but did not know the actual Avatar himself. A disappointed Katara drops the subject, leaving Aang looking guilty. *

Underneath the setting sun, a scout blows a horn atop a fire nation fort located at the foot of the southern air temple mount. The commander of the base, a fierce looking full-grown man, greets Iroh and Zuko in the courtyard, he makes sure to highlight Zuko’s scar to confirm that it’s him. Iroh shows his respect to Admiral Zhao, who asks what brings the exiled prince and his uncle before him.

Zuko demands access south, to the Antarctic seas, Zhao’s domain. This amuses Zhao and arouses his interest. Even if he had seen or heard any sign of the Avatar, he wouldn’t tell Zuko. Iroh reasons with him, then, that there would be no harm in letting them search. Zhao deflects and muses if Zuko’s quest to restore his honor will ever truly end. He continues that when he marries Zuko’s sister, Princess Azula, they will let him come live in the palace dungeon. Zuko retorts that Zhao is a fool if he thinks he can ask the fire lord for Azula’s hand in marriage. Zhao is confident, that when his mission is complete, the fire lord will offer his daughter’s hand. He denies Zuko’s request, his mission is too important, and sends Zuko back to his ship.

Later that night, Iroh finds Zuko glowering over the vast southern sea. He presses the prince to sleep, telling him that if he doesn't rest, he will, like his ancestors, fail to capture the Avatar even if they do find him. The prince refuses to his uncle’s wisdom, he will succeed because he seeks to regain his honor through the endeavor, a trait none of his ancestors shared with him. Iroh casts doubt on Zuko’s assumption that the avatar is in the southern water tribe. Zuko reveals his logic, that the old airbender has likely died, and a young waterbender would be next in line to be the avatar. If it was a northern child, the proud northerners would have announced it, like they did their runaway princess. Iroh still doubts, Zuko snaps at him if he has a better idea. The night sky lights up, the same pillar of light from when Aang was released, and the aurora casts a green glow all on the southern hemisphere. *

Zuko observes it through the end of his telescope, his eyes narrow.

From high above the fire nation fort, on a cliff side, a mysterious figure in leather armor watches Zuko’s ship leave and turn south in the dead of night. The figure stands, a beautiful young woman who’s white hair shimmers in the moonlight.

Back in the village, Katara leads Aang into a stable. They don’t have much room, so he’ll have to sleep in here with Appa. She gets him a blanket. As she hands it to him, there is a moment where they share eye contact. Katara breaks it off and leaves, but not before stealing one last glance at Aang.

That night, Aang has a dream that he and Appa fly through a terrible storm. They are buffeted by the full fury of the gale, struggle in vain to escape and eventually are forced under the waves. *

In his dream, Aang’s eyes and tattoos began to glow and he creates a giant bubble around himself and Appa. The bubble freezes over, encasing their figures in light which grows brighter and brighter.

In his sleep, Aang stirs and his tattoos dance luminously. The lights wax and wane in the slit of the stable door casting a strange light on the sleeping village.

The sun rises over an icy expanse the next morning. Aang throws open the flap to the yurt, but it is empty. Sokka and Katara and Grangran are already doing their duties. As he explores, the elderly villagers look upon him with suspicion. Aang bows to the villagers respectfully, eliciting a response of fear from them, and they hurriedly take a few steps away from the airbender. *

He hears Katara calling his name. Eager to impress her, he jumps high in the air and lands in front of her and her wards. The kids go nuts. They goad him into showing off, which he obliges.

Aang attracts quite a crowd, almost the entire village. He finishes his trick. Everyone is stunned. One villager erupts in applause, the others glare her into silence. The kids tackle Aang and climb all over him. His airbending is even cooler than Katara’s waterbending.

A stir in the crowd. Katara is a waterbender? Katara feels the eyes of the villagers on her. Grangran assures the other villagers that Katara is not a waterbender, as the crowd whisper amongst themselves and go about their business. She gives the younger children the evil eye and they scamper off screaming and grabs Katara and Aang to throw them both into the tent. She looks Aang square in the face and tells him that it would be uncustomary to kick him out without breakfast but that the airbender is no longer welcome here. She goes to find Sokka. There is quiet. Aang timidly asks Katara why she refuses to waterbend. She tells him it is forbidden. Aang doesn’t understand why. The waterbenders get taken away, by firebenders. There’s a war. Aang didn’t know of any war.

Just then, Grangran and Sokka return. Sokka has checked the morning traps and has brought oysters. He passes them out, they each pry them open and slurp theirs down, except Aang, who holds it awkwardly. Sokka apologizes and opens it for him. Aang makes a face, “Do you have anything vegetarian?” he asks. Sokka aghast, scoots away from him. Aang realizes he’s made a faux pas. He corrects himself. “Can I please have something vegetarian?” Grangran and Katara share a glance. Sokka doesn’t have any vegetarian options except for sea prunes for Grangran and they are nasty.

Grangran throws a shell at Sokka and thrusts a bowl of sea prunes into Aang’s hands. His stomach growls, and he eats one. He likes them!

Sokka does not get Aang. He and Katara share a look of disgust as Aang gorges himself. Katara leans over to Sokka and whispers in his ear that Aang doesn’t know about the war. Sokka asks how that is possible: the war has been going on for a hundred years.

Meanwhile, Zuko spies the village through a telescope. Everything is going according to plan. Just then, from around an iceberg, an armada of three of Zhao’s fastest destroyers cut Zuko’s Battleship off and he is forced to change course to avoid them.

Zhao boards Zuko’s ship. Zuko greets him, amazed he found the time to chase him and hopes his all-important mission wasn't jeopardized by this detour. Zhao admits it was easy to catch up with them, the battleship was built like a tank to hold a fully realized Avatar, which makes it slow, but necessary for his capture, which is why Zhao is commandeering Zuko’s ship. Zuko protests, the Avatar is his. Zhao reminds Zuko that he ignored a direct order and is trespassing in his domain. Zuko spits out that he doesn't take orders from anyone, especially a low born upstart rat like Zhao. Zhao's smile fades as he orders his men to take the prince into custody. Two guards grab Zuko arms, but he throws them off easily. He points at Zhao and challenges him to an Agni Kai, winner gets the ship. Zhao laughs, and asks how Zuko plans to survive stranded on an iceberg without a ship, doesn't he remember the last time he did an Agni Kai? Zuko will never forget.

Outside their village, Grangran leads Appa with a rope as Aang, Katara, and Sokka head out with her. Aang tells them that it was very nice to meet them, and he’ll come visit the South Pole again soon. Sokka explains to Aang they aren’t actually in the south pole, they are much further north, less than a day to the southern air temple. Katara extrapolates: There’s nothing left at the south pole.

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https://www.masterfile.com/image/en/679-07608205/moon-rising-over-trees-and-buildings-at-night

The tribes used to be connected by the moon gate.

Under the light of the full moon, the portal would open and northerners and southerners could walk between the poles via the spirit world to mingle and trade and visit family and make the pilgrimage to the spirit oasis. The moon gate connected the north and south cultures. Until the fire nation destroyed everything in south and the portal was destroyed.

Flashback: Fiery projectiles rain down on the southern capital and reduce it to rubble.

Everybody who was trapped in the south had no choice but to move away from the ruins because there was no food. The north pole is floating ice, and the waterbenders can fish beneath the ice year-round, but south pole is above frozen ground and there you can’t grow food in frozen ground. Grangran interrupts and tells the airbender that it’s time for him to go. As he turns to leave, Aang asks if they are sure the south pole is really destroyed. Sokka assures him sarcastically, that yeah, they're sure, and glares at Aang. Aang posits that the monks at the southern air temple would have told him, they tell him a lot of things, after all, they told him that he was the- he doesn’t finish his sentence. He climbs on Appa and they trot off. Katara calls for him to wait. As she approaches, she tells him the only thing they have at the southern air temple anymore is a fire nation fort. Aang looks at her with a twinkle in his eye and assures her, there are air nomad monks.

He extends his hand to her. Grangran yells that she’s taking too long and though Katara takes a breath, she doesn’t look back as she takes Aang’s hand and climbs aboard. Grangran pushes Sokka to stop her. Katara wraps her arms around Aang as he tells her to hang on. “Appa, Yip yip!” Appa grumbles and begins to move just as Sokka reaches them. He grabs Appa’s fur and tries to pull them back but ends up getting pulled himself and has to run to keep up. Aang leads them straight towards the edge of the cliff and Sokka screams that they are all going to die! He shuts his eyes and holds tight as Appa leaps and they disappear over the edge. Grangran cries out for them and falls to her knees. Appa and the gang reappear, flying. Sokka freaks as he clutches Appa's fur. Aang tells Sokka that when he says let go, to let go. Sokka protests but Aang leads Appa into a barrel roll and yells at Sokka to let go which he does out of instinct. The momentum flips Sokka up and over and plomp, directly seated behind Katara on Appa’s back. The daring move has made Katara cling to Aang close and she blushes.

Aang cheers and Grangran watches as they fly towards the sun.

The sun is directly overhead as the Agni Kai begins.

Admiral Zhao and Prince Zuko crouch, back to back on the deck of the battleship. Shedding their capes, they turn to face each other. Iroh counsels Zuko to remember his basics, as they are his greatest assets, but Zuko seems not to heed his uncle's wisdom, instead stating, simply and forcefully, that he will not allow himself to lose. As he assumes his stance, Zhao, doing the same, taunts Zuko, saying: "This will be over quickly." *

The two opponents stare fiercely into each other's unblinking eyes for a brief moment, waiting for the other to strike; it is Zuko who begins the duel with a series of fire blasts from his hands and feet. *

Zhao seems more than a match for Zuko, effortlessly avoiding and nullifying all of his fire blasts. As the prince catches his breath, Iroh continues to advise Zuko to remember his basics. Zhao throws his own volley of fire blasts; Zuko is able to block each attack, but he is slowly forced back with every parry he makes. For the final blast, Zhao, using both fists, sends a ball of fire that connects solidly with Zuko, knocking him to the ground. Pressing his advantage, Zhao leaps into the air, covers the distance separating him and Zuko, and prepares a finishing blast aimed directly for the prince's exposed face. An instant before contact, Zuko rolls out of the way, rises with a kicking flourish, and knocks Zhao out of his stance. *

With new-found vigor, Zuko releases a series of low attacks that cause Zhao to retreat, finishing him with a jet of fire from a full body kick. Prone, Zhao tells Zuko to do it, to give him a scar like his own, but Zuko aims beside his face instead. As the victorious prince walks away, a beaten and furious Zhao sends a jet of fire at Zuko's back. Iroh intervenes, however, stopping the attack with his bare hand and throwing the admiral to the ground. As Iroh stands over Zhao, Zuko tries to attack Zhao once more, but his uncle tells him not to taint his victory by retaliating. Iroh lectures Zhao about the dishonor he has brought upon himself through his actions and states that his nephew, even in exile, has proven himself to be more honorable. *

From the crow's nest, a scout shouts. They all crane their necks to see a flying bison with a water tribe girl and boy and air nomad fly far above them.

Up on Appa, Sokka refuses to open his eyes as he clutches Katara's garments. Katara lets him know that he's missing the sights. Aang spies the fire navy ships below. The fear deep inside him grows. He’s never seen fire navy ships this far south.

Both Zhao and Zuko blink in their telescopes. Iroh suggests they try working together as the bison disappears into the clouds.

Aang and Sokka and Katara fly through clouds and above mists and fog. Sokka asks if they are they yet. Aang spots the temple at the top of a mountain and they fly closer. Katara remarks on how beautiful it is.

From a window, the white-haired girl watches them all land in a sky bison pen and jump off. She disappears into the shadows. Appa grazes happily.

Sokka wishes he could eat, that ride took longer than he thought. Katara shushes him. Aang calls out to his people, but nobody answers. The temple appears to be abandoned. They walk up the temple steps. Sokka asks Aang if the airbenders have any food and is berated by Katara for being one of the first outsiders to see an airbender temple and he can only think with his stomach. She apologizes for Sokka. Aang insists the airbenders are simply hiding. There are lots of hiding places. They walk through a large archway into a great hall beyond. In the rafters above, the white-haired girl shifts into position. As Aang, Katara, and Sokka pass beneath her, she drops a net down upon them. The girl lands and knocks them off their feet and they fall to the ground in a pile.

She brandishes a staff at the subdued trio. “Are you firebenders?” She barks. They tell her they are not. “That’s just what a firebender would say!” They assure her they are not firebenders. They are water tribe, and Aang is an airbender. She releases them and introduces herself as Princess Yue of the northern water tribe. Sokka is impressed and bows, “your majesty,” Katara does a stiff movement she would call a curtsey. Aang recognizes the staff and grabs it but Yue holds fast. It’s a sacred air nomad staff, it’s not to be touched by outsiders. Yue is nonplussed. Sokka tells Aang that he can’t speak to a princess like that. Aang takes a deep breath and bellows, “LET IT GO!” His voice echoes in the halls. Yue lets go of the staff. Aang apologizes for yelling and inspects the staff. Yue never got the names of the other two, Sokka and Katara. Yue is incredulous, “You are Sokka and Katara!? Your father saved my life! Hakoda’s ship arrived at our capital a year ago and he was granted audience before me and my father. My father refused to help, and, I had to make a choice. I ran away and boarded your father’s ship in secret with the moon scroll.”

“We’re going to reopen the moon portal!”

But where is their father now? “He was taken prisoner by the fire nation. The last thing he said was he’d be a boomerang, but, I never got to ask him what that means.” “Means he’ll be back,” Sokka explains. He shows her the boomerang his father gave him when he left. Aang asks her how she got here. Yue continues, “I was found by a fisherman and made my way south. I got marooned here about a month ago after my ship sank. Been looking for a way off ever since, but there’s so many fire nation... We could fly to the south pole on a sky bison, though.” Someone’s stomach growls. Katara admonishes Sokka. It wasn’t him, it was Aang! Yue calculates that there is enough time to eat.

https://www.mostphotos.com/fi-fi/2720912/plum-orchard

The air temple orchard is overgrown, though a thousand years of tending have given a sense of order to the older trees. Aang hopes they like mountain peaches as he hops high in the air and grabs one. He lands and hands a peach to Katara and jumps back into the air. Sokka, asks her for it, salivating, and Katara licks it all over, much to Sokka’s chagrin. Aang lands with an armful of peaches and one in his mouth. He hands them out. They sit and enjoy a moment of peace.

Yue asks how the boomerang works. Sokka hands it to her and instructs her how to throw it. She does her best, but it is a terrible throw. She puts her hands up to her mouth and yells “Come back!” Sokka offers to go get it, but she should, she threw it, and they both end up going together. When they find it, Sokka throws it to demonstrate. Yue commends him on the throw. Sokka smiles goofily and gets lost in her eyes. They smile at each other and the boomerang runs smack into the side of Sokka’s head and he yelps in pain. Aang and Katara come running. Though he’s bleeding and wincing, Yue laughs and says it’s nothing a waterbender couldn’t heal. Katara isn’t sure what she means. Yue furthers, waterbenders can heal, she thought everybody knew that, especially waterbenders.

Yue pours some water into Katara’s hands. Katara is unsure what to do so she waterbends the water onto Sokka’s cut. Nothing happens. She closes her eyes and concentrates. The water releases a soft glow. Katara gasps and her eyes pop open. The wound has closed and there is no scar. Yue tells Katara that she just did some high-level bending. Aang lights up, he knows where the airbenders are.

Aang leads them to an intricately carved door. If the airbenders are hiding, it will be here. They have storerooms and water reserves deep in the temple. It’s his last hope. Only high level airbending can open this door, he reveals, and he bends two focused currents of air into the large doors' ornate locking mechanism, and a strange hauntingly beautiful tone resonates. The locks disengage, and the doors open slowly. Aang walks into the darkened room as Katara, Sokka, and Yue follow him.

Aang calls out to the airbenders. The room is pitch black and his footsteps echo. Katap. Katap. Katap. Skrit. He steps on something. It is a wooden medallion. He picks it up and flashes back to a happy looking older airbender monk: Gyatso, wearing medallion on a necklace.

Monk Gyatso is Aang’s sensei. Aang in the flashback has no tattoos yet and runs up to him calling his name and they embrace. Gyatso leads Aang out of the wind lock doors and onto the terrace before it.

Flying bison of all sizes fill the sky above. Gyatso tells Aang to call to him. “Appa!” Aang yells. Appa roars and dives down to Aang leaving his siblings and his much larger mother behind. Appa nuzzles and licks Aang as he laughs and laughs and laughs.

https://fineartamerica.com/featured/bison-skull-sean-griffin.html

The memory fades as Aang’s eyes adjust to the shadows. He sees a sky bison skull among bones and piles of soot and ashes, all over the room. Firebenders were here. Katara gasps. “Oh no.”

Aang falls to his knees. He is not alright. His eyes and tattoos light up. Wind begins to circle around him. Sokka freaks, “Is he glowing? How is he glowing?!” Katara calls for Aang. The winds get faster and faster, lifting Aang into the air. Yue makes them take cover. The soot and bones in the room get caught up in the whirlwind, disintegrating into brown and black dust and debris. Aang’s eyes, emanating white light, widen. The swirling blackness closes in on him. He shuts his eyes and pushes the darkness away, forcing all the ashes out the temple. Aang stops glowing and he drifts to the ground.

Outside, the ash cloud drifts away.

Yue, Katara, and Sokka cough around the corner. Katara runs to Aang and takes him into her lap. He stirs. It really has been one hundred years. She cradles his head and opens up to him that she and Sokka lost their mother to the fire nation. Even though his people are gone, he has found a new family: herself and Sokka. He looks Katara in the eyes and tells her with conviction that he will never firebend. Never ever. He sits up and hugs Katara as she mulls his statement.

From their ships, the firebenders notice the ash cloud drifting down from the temple as they pull into the harbor of the fort. Something must be going on. They form a squad of male and female fire nation soldiers fresh from the base. Zhao tells Iroh that he is too old and slow for this mission and Zuko is free to stay behind as well, if he doesn’t think he can make the climb. Zuko is ready. Iroh warns Zuko that Zhao is not to be trusted. Zuko assures his uncle, he can handle Zhao. From the battlements, Iroh watches the troops begin the hike. He puts on a cloak and sneaks out after them.

Later, the sun sets over the mountain peaks. Aang and the others bring flowers to a stone alter. The medallion sits in the middle of it. They pile the flowers around it. Aang sets a peach down with the flowers and steps back. Peaches were Gyatso’s favorite, he tells them. He closes his eyes. They all do. Aang gives the airbender prayer of mourning. The sound of wings. They open their eyes and a winged lemur eats the peach on the altar.

Aang laughs, a long clear laugh as he takes the lemur, lazily eating the peach, into his hands and names him Momo. The wind blows through the flowers.

Night falls. In a clearing in the orchard, Aang strokes the sleeping lemur as Sokka builds a fire and Yue puts peaches on the ends of sticks. She pokes fun at his fire building technique. Sokka has been building fires his whole life. Yue retorts that she’s only been doing it for the last year and she’s already better then him. They race to light the fire and Yue wins, but just barely. “Best two out of three?” Yue asks Sokka with a cheeky smile. Katara returns with a bucket filled with well water.

The peaches roast on the sticks as the fire casts an amber yellow on the kids’ faces. “So, are we going to talk about what happened?” Sokka asks. Yue and Katara avoid his line of questioning. Sokka extrapolates, “Aang was glowing. I haven’t heard of a glowing person before.” Aang is silent. Yue speaks up, “I have.”

“When I was born I was very sick and very weak. Most babies cry when they're born, but I was born as if I was asleep, my eyes closed. They told my mother and father I was going to die. That night, beneath the full moon, he brought me to the spirit oasis and placed me in the pond and pleaded with the spirits to save me. I began to glow and my hair turned white. I opened my eyes and began to cry, and they knew I would live. That's why my mother named me Yue. For the moon.”

Yue explains that Aang must be filled with immense spiritual power. Aang is silent. Sokka pipes up that it was the same light from when Aang came out of the iceberg. Still Aang is silent. Katara scoots closer to him and prods him why he told her he would never firebend. She asks him if he is the avatar. Aang stands, surprising the lemur and it scurries away. He never wanted to be the Avatar. He only ever wanted to be normal and play airball with the other kids. He didn't ask to be the avatar! They were going to send him away, to the eastern temple where he would be safer. Which means he was in danger. Avatars aren't supposed to know they are the avatar until they are 16 because: what if they told you, you were supposed to save the world at twelve years old? That’s why he ran away. He was going to come back but ran into a storm and somehow he lost 100 years.

Sokka is confused, if he's the avatar, how come he can’t bend the other elements? Aang doesn't know how yet.

Yue smiles. Out of her pack she produces the moon scroll.

In it is more than just how to open the moon gate, but also advanced waterbender techniques as well. She gives it to Aang and suggests Katara give him his first lesson. Sheepishly, Katara unravels the scroll. There’s writing, but she doesn't know how to read. Aang and Yue are taken aback by this, but Sokka doesn’t know how to read either. They have chores all day, there wouldn't be any time for reading, even if they had books. Yue sadly remarks that everyone in the Northern tribe knows how to read and apologizes that life in the south has gotten so hard. Aang comes closer and reads the scroll to Katara. Water is the element of versatility. It is a liquid, a solid, a gas. Gifted waterbenders can even be healers. He smiles and Katara blushes and Sokka touches his head where the wound would have been. Water is Tui and La, Push and Pull, and the earliest waterbenders learned how to push and pull the ocean like the moon with its tides. The moon is the source of power for all waterbenders and they are strongest when the moon is full.

They look up at the moon above. Aang remarks that they will be really strong tonight. Yue informs Aang, it's almost full. It's waxing, it will be full tomorrow. Katara admits that from studying the drawings, she doesn't know any of these moves. Aang asks her what she does know. She smiles. She takes him by the hand down to the well. Katara thrusts her hand out over the edge of the well and instructs Aang to do the same. She moves her hand up and down. Aang isn't sure but she tells him to feel the water, even though it’s not attached to his body. Splashes echo out of the deep. Katara says “Ok, I'll pull it and you push it.” Splash. “Ok, now you pull it and I push it.” Splishy splash. He feels it! Katara asks Aang to pull the water up with her. Aang is surprised on how it's almost like air, but heavy.

Together, they lift a large ball of water high into the air. Aang chuckles and starts pushing it over Katara's head, he lets go. Katara closes her eyes and shrieks but opens them when she realizes she's holding up the water by herself.

She celebrates and loses her concentration and drops the water and gets soaked. Aang laughs and she douses him with the puddle around her. Aang laughs again and dries himself off with a whirlwind. Katara, drenched, asks if he could dry her off too. He tries. Her hair is swept back and poofs out. They both laugh. They gaze into each other’s eyes. Between their faces, the light of the campfire sparkles in the distance.

The campfire suddenly flares up a pillar of fire 10 feet high. Sokka yelps. Aang and Katara turn to face the flames. A rustle behind them. Fire nation soldiers! They throw their spears. Aang whisks Katara down behind the well with him. Katara begins to panic. Aang tells her to use the water.

They lift a spout out of the well and repel the foot soldiers. They run towards the campsite. Yue and Sokka are held captive by elite firebenders while Zhao taunts her. He’s been looking for the princess’s hiding place. Zuko concludes she’s the reason he’s locked down the southern sea. Zhao nods.

Katara and Aang come running to a stop. Zhao is immediately taken by the air nomad boy. Where did he come from? Where are the other air nomads? Zuko wastes no time in taking Katara prisoner. He advises her not to struggle. Zhao stares at Aang while confirming with Zuko that the girl is indeed the Avatar. She's the one from the village, the one waterbender in all the south, therefore, she must be the avatar. Aang shouts that she's not the avatar. Zuko sizes up the air nomad boy. Then who is? Katara tries to stop him but Aang tells them that he is. Zuko retorts that he couldn't possibly be the avatar, he’s just a child! Zhao isn't so sure. The avatar would be over a hundred years old, Zuko reminds Zhao, they have the princess, they have the avatar, but if he wants to waste his time with an air nomad liar, he is welcome to. Zhao willing to be convinced, leaves Aang.

Soldiers take Katara, Yue and Sokka and form ranks.

Aang drops out of the sky in front of the squadron. He declares himself the avatar and points his staff at the firebenders. They laugh at him. He calls for Appa. From above, Appa roars, then dives and the solders duck and cower. Aang makes an air scooter and zips through all the solders like a pinball. Appa lands where Aang was standing and charges the soldiers with his horns, they scramble to their feet to fend off Appa. Some run. The distraction gives Yue the chance to escape. She knocks her captor in the gut and off of her and throws him into Sokka's guard. Aang takes out the bender holding Katara, and they struggle to get the chains off.

Zhao calls for the men to form rank. Someone yells, “the prisoners are escaping!” Zuko and Zhao leap into the chaos. They arrive to hear Aang give up on getting the chains off of Katara and that they need get to Appa to escape. Zhao is a clever man, he turns and runs to Appa, manifesting a fiery whip in each hand. Zuko fire charges into the group and separates Katara from the rest. Aang spins in and spins Katara out into Yue and Sokka’s arms. Aang and Zuko duel. Katara won’t leave Aang so Sokka picks her up and puts her over his shoulder. Katara begs Sokka to stop, but then changes her mind and tells Sokka to take her to the well. Yue tells them she will get the key to the shackles and joins Aang against Zuko. Appa runs about the courtyard chasing a hapless soldier in circles until Zhao faces off against the beast.

Aang dodges Zuko’s fireball as Appa wails in fear from afar. In his distracted moment Zuko gets past Aang but runs right into Yue. Aang is torn, does he run to help Appa or Yue? Yue tells him that she’s got this, and he goes to rescue Appa from Zhao’s torment. Yue gets in close, Zuko is on the defensive. He dodges past her, and she doesn’t follow. She has pickpocketed the key.

Sokka and Katara are at the well and Katara is bringing up all the water she can with her hands behind her back. Zuko comes racing towards them. Sokka screams and Katara throws the water at Zuko, and completely misses him. Katara asks if she got him. Zuko didn’t even get wet. Sokka throws the boomerang and Zuko has to duck. Zuko rises to his feet and the boomerang comes back knocking Zuko’s helmet. The water pools by Zuko’s feet as he fixes his helmet and with menacing rage makes fire daggers in his hands. Katara closes her eyes. She spreads her fingers then clenches her fists with a quick breath out and the water freezes and Zuko feet are frozen to the ground. Yue slides by Zuko on the ice twirling the key on her finger.

Yue unlocks Katara’s shackles as, in the distance, a blast of fire. Appa roars and flees into the air. Aang screams his name as he runs after him, but Appa won’t come back.

Zhao turns to Aang with a sadistic look in his eyes and a fiery whip in each hand. Katara, Sokka, and Yue come running. They try to convince Aang he has no other choice, he has to run. If he’s captured, who will save them? Fire nation soldiers begin to compose themselves surrounding the group. Zuko, fuming melts his feet. Aang pops the wings out of the staff. It’s also is a glider. He runs and takes flight on the orchard path. Zhao barks a command and all the firebending infantry call out and punch the sky sending fireballs into the air above and beyond and all around Aang. The fireballs arc in the sky and land all over the temple. The peach trees left and right burn and Aang lands among them. The sight of temple burning sends him into a rage. Aang glows. The wind picks up and blows all the fires out. Zhao and Zuko see. He is the avatar. With the fires out, the avatar spirit leaves Aang and the light of his tattoos fade and he lands. Zhao and Zuko race towards him; the chase is on.

http://kidskunst.info/linked/history-of-stairs-ancient-stairs-686973746f7279.htm

Aang runs through a large archway and into a great stone rotunda with a corkscrew staircase in the center. He runs at the speed of wind up the staircase to the top. Zuko and Zhao are hot on his heels. At the top of the stairs there’s a hallway and at the end of the hallway Aang finds the door to the jump room locked. Zhao leisurely jogs, beast like, up the stairs. Zuko fire leaps up the sides to just beneath the top. Zuko grabs the edge of the top with the tips of his fingers. He pulls himself up. Desperate, Aang hits the lock with the staff and it breaks open. The door swings off the hinges to a launch pad at the top of the mountain just above the tree line. With freedom before him, he turns around and faces Zuko as the prince rises to his feet.

Zuko promises Aang that if he comes with Zuko now, he and his friends will be unharmed. Aang asks how he can trust Zuko. The fire nation invaded and killed his people. Zuko retorts it was the airbenders’ aggression and illegal settlements on Fire nation land that brought this upon them. Aang claims the airbenders are pacifist. Zuko clarifies then, that Aang won’t just windblast him off and takes a step forward. Aang also takes a step forward. The people who lived here were mostly children. He accuses the fire nation of genocide. Zuko doesn’t want to believe it, but Aang’s conviction has awoken what he knows to be true, and he falters. Aang is still very vulnerable and emotional. His tattoos light up, his eyes glow, the wind rustles around his clothing: the avatar state emerges.

Zhao comes around the corner, not even out of breath. He sees Aang’s glow and smiles his crazy smile and charges Aang. Under the state of the Avatar, Aang is stiffer, more confident. He sends a blast of air with his staff down the hallway at Zhao, knocking him off the stairs. Zuko jumps after him and catches Zhao’s hand and saves him from falling. Zhao glares menacingly at Zuko as he pulls him up. The Avatar spirit fades as Aang realizes he just attempted murder. His actions horrify and confuse him. Tears stream down his face.

Zhao kneels, winded from the air blast. Aang turns to flee. Zuko takes off after him. Aang activates his glider and throws it out the window and leaps out after it, catching it and the wind. For a second, it seems like he’ll get away but then Zuko jumps after him at full speed and grabs hold of his legs, causing them to spiral and crash in the clearing below. Zhao approaches the edge and looks down. He jumps off. Aang and Zuko lie in a crumple before him. Aang tries to get up, but he can’t. Zuko is also injured. Zhao gags Aang and shackles his hands and feet. He goes to Zuko and helps him up. Zhao compliments him on his willingness to sacrifice everything, maybe they aren’t so different. Zhao throws Zuko towards the edge of the cliff and fireballs him off.

Aang watches, in a daze, as Zuko disappears into the forest below. From afar, Iroh is lit up by the light of the fireball. Zhao lumbers back from the edge and picks Aang up and over his shoulder as Aang passes out. Darkness.

A knock on a heavy iron battleship door. Iroh opens it and stands in the doorway. A messenger tells Iroh to hurry, there’s been an accident with the Prince. Iroh pushes through the crowd to the deck of the boat where Zhao meets him. Zhao proclaims to Iroh that the avatar threw the prince off a cliff. A search party is to be sent immediately to find his body for proper burial. Iroh spits and claims he never liked the sullen prince who had no respect for his elders and they can leave the body on the mountain for all he cares. He asks if the Avatar is in custody. Aang, gagged and bound, is carried by two large soldiers. Iroh leads them into the bowels of the ship. The battleship is a marvel of engineering and the prison for the avatar is state of the art. Even so, Zhao expected more. Iroh states that it’s mobile, self-sufficient, heavily guarded, and the safest place for the avatar to be.

In the avatar’s cell, Zhao has Aang’s arms chained up and his legs chained down. Iroh gets into Aang’s face, “So this is the great Avatar. Master of all the elements. I don't know how you've managed to elude the Fire Nation for a hundred years, but your little game of hide and seek is over.”

Zhao ungags Aang and asks him how it feels to be the only airbender left. “Do you miss your people? Don't worry, you won't be killed like they were.” Zhao turns to leave. Aang takes a deep inhale and breath blasts Zhao, knocking him to the floor. Zhao is triggered, and fiery. Iroh helps bring him under control. Zhao tells Aang, “Blow all the wind you want, but your situation is futile. See, if you die you will just be reborn and the Fire Nation would have to start searching all over again. So, I'll keep you alive, but just barely.” Zhao leaves in a huff. Uncle Iroh glares at the remaining guards and asks for a minute alone with the thing that killed his nephew. They oblige.

Iroh approaches Aang. Aang shies away, but Iroh lays a gentle hand on his shoulder and assures him he is not like the others. He reveals that he knows Aang didn't kill Zuko but that it doesn't matter because no one will believe Aang anyway. Aang asks what's going to happen to him. Iroh assures Aang that when the time comes, he will help Aang escape, but first, he needs Aang's help. He needs to know about the waterbending girl.

In the prison hold, Katara sits comforting Grangran. Grangran is babbling on about how the fire nation came not long after they left and rounded up the villagers onto their ships but Katara's eyes fix on Sokka. He’s worried about Yue. Katara thinks they should be worried about all of them. A guard rattles the door and tells them to shut up. Iroh enters, carrying a bucket of water. The guard tries to stop him from entering the cell but Iroh tells him the orders are from Zhao. The prisoners haven’t been watered all day. Besides, Iroh asks the guard if he thinks the dragon of the west can’t handle one young waterbending girl. The guard apologizes and opens the door. Iroh enters the cell, kneels, and takes out a ladle and invites the villagers to drink. They do not move. He drinks some water himself. Sokka takes the bucket and gently helps Katara quench their grandmother’s thirst. The bucket is passed around and Katara brings the empty bucket and the ladle to Iroh. He tells her, “Katara, I have spoken with Aang. He needs you to come with me.”

Iroh takes Katara into his cabin. On the bed, Zuko lies suffering, his stomach wrapped in bandages from Zhao’s fireball. Iroh asks Katara to heal him. Katara doesn’t want to, Zuko put shackles on her and he is after Aang. Iroh understands why she wouldn’t want to. Zuko attacked her, he’s an angry young man, he’s fire nation, but he’s the only good thing in Iroh’s life. Maybe she can see past the anger and the pain and see that he has suffered at the hands of the fire nation, too. Katara eyes the scar on Zuko’s face.

Reluctantly, Katara dips her hand in a bucket by the bedside. Water clings to her hands and she brings them to Zuko’s bandages. The water glows for a few moments and Zuko is soothed. Katara asks to be taken back to the cell. Iroh sneaks Katara through the ship. He takes her back into the prison hold and in with the rest of the villagers. As he locks them in, Sokka asks him about Yue. Iroh tells him, she is with Zhao.

In Zuko’s former quarters, Zhao sits beneath a rack of twin swords, eating a feast alone. Yue is escorted in. She has been bathed and dressed in her gown from the night she left the north. She is seated in front of Zhao. He invites her to eat. He tells her about the captain who found the dress of the northern water tribe princess on a water tribe boat headed for the south pole. Yue asks what Zhao wants. Zhao wants peace, a permanent peace with the water nation. The southerners have wasted their land, like the earthbending savages and the airbenders before them. The north will be safe, it’s water, the fire nation doesn’t want water. The southerners can move to the north. Yue doesn’t understand. Zhao tells her, he’s going to help her open the moon gate. Isn’t that what she wants? Yue asks about the avatar. Zhao tells her she can either leave here and return home with her people or join him in prison. Yue wants to know where her people are. Zhao will take her there.

The prison hold door is flung open. Zhao leads Yue to the southern people. She sees them locked in a crowded cell. She announces that they will all be taken to the North Pole as her new subjects. Zhao will allow them to open the moon gate to let the water tribe members through to their sister tribe. However, the southerners will never return to the south. This news is upsetting, the south is their home. Yue assures them, this is their only option. Zhao tells the Princess its time for her to return, Yue asks to stay. Zhao locks her up in with the rest of the tribe. A soldier enters the hold and tells Zhao they have the beast.

On the deck of the ship, fire nation soldiers struggle to restrain Appa with ropes. Zhao appears. Appa wails and struggles harder. Zhao delights in his fear and what a fine present Appa will be for his bride to be. They take Appa below deck and set sail. Momo watches from the walls of the fort. He glides down and reaches the battleship and crawls through a vent in the side of the ship. He hears familiar voices, Sokka and Yue huddled close. Sokka asks her what the north is like. Yue tells him that it’s different. She has responsibilities, she’s betrothed. Sokka doesn’t understand she’s to be married.

Yue asks if she can do something she’s wanted to do since she first saw Sokka. He nods and she kisses him. She curls into his little spoon as he holds her. Momo gags and continues through the vents.

Momo passes by Iroh and Zuko in his cabin. Zuko is feeling much better after being healed. Iroh tells Zuko that Zhao captured the bison and maybe they can use him to gain the Avatar’s trust. Zuko bets that if the Avatar escapes under Zhao’s command, it will be a huge blow to his plans. There is a knock at the door. Zuko hides in the closet. Iroh answers, it is Zhao. Zhao wants Iroh to know that he grieves for the prince and they will want to get word to the fire lord, but first, Iroh is invited to the north pole, as Zhao’s advisor. Iroh asks if Zhao meant the south pole and Zhao smiles and leaves. Zuko peeks out of the closet as Iroh shuts the door.

Momo continues on through the vents. Finally, he finds Aang’s cell. Aang is delighted to see Momo. Momo gnaws at the shackles at Aang’s feet, to no avail. He curls up around Aang’s neck, giving him comfort deep in the bowels of the battleship.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/adventure/outdoors/a19228/ice-breakers-coast-guard-great-lakes/

Late day, over the icy seas, icebreaker ships take the battleship as far south as they can. The firebenders load sleds and snowmobiles with their prisoners for the south pole. Katara is lead out, the only prisoner in full shackles and even a muzzle. Iroh walks down the gangplank after the last of the prisoners. He passes a soldier, there is a familiar scar beneath the helm. The two nod to each other and Iroh joins Zhao on his sled. The fire nation troops take off, roaring into the distance.

On the ship, a soldier stands guard outside of Zuko’s former room. There is a clanging at the end of the hallway. The soldier investigates and is incapacitated by a masked man. The man enters Zuko’s old quarters and stares at the twin swords on the mantle. The door is left ajar and the swords above the mantle are gone.

Down in the prison hold, four guards play a game in front of Appa’s cell. One of them asks why they need so many men to guard this beast. Another guard tells him, that he’s a gift for Princess Azula from Zhao just as Aang will be a gift to the fire lord. There is a bang down the hall. The guards all jump at the noise.

The helmet of a Fire Nation soldier rolls down the hallway toward them. When one guard investigates alone, the other three suddenly see a flame erupt from the hallway and hear the muffled sounds of combat and of chains being strung up. When two more guards follow after him, they find their companion strung up with his hands to the ceiling. The masked man, clinging to the ceiling, wraps a chain around a hand of each guard and drops down, simultaneously pulling the guards up. The last guard standing in front of Appa’s cell, having heard the scuffle, takes his horn to sound the alarm, though before he could blow the instrument, it is knocked out of his hands by a well-aimed knife. Noticing a figure running toward him, he firebends, though the masked man extinguishes the fire by throwing water and proceeds to sweep the legs from underneath the guard with the bucket. *

Appa groans in interest as the masked man offers him some hay.

Inside his cell, Aang hears a commotion and eyes the door with apprehension. Momo hisses at the door as the lock is being turned. Aang gasps as a masked figure enters with dual broadswords. Momo attacks the figure and is easily subdued when the figure reveals Appa in the hallway. The man unlocks Aang’s chains and retreats to Appa without saying a word. Aang asks him who he is, what is going on, and wonders if the man is there to rescue him. The figure does not respond, and they are interrupted by the sound of the alarm. He signals for the Avatar to follow him. *

Aang, Momo, and the masked figure ride Appa through the halls of the ship. They burst through the door to the deck and are surrounded by soldiers. The masked man draws his swords but Aang yells, “yip-yip,” and they take to the sky. Firebenders all around them shoot projectiles the sky bison dodges or are deflected by the swords. The soldiers’ last hope is artillery that they point at the escapees. FIRE! A rocket heads directly towards the bison. The masked figure taps Aang on the shoulder, but Aang is concentrating. The figure shakes him. Aang sees the rocket but doesn’t know what it is. The figure unsheathes his swords and throws them at the rocket causing it to explode and sending the riders tumbling through the sky in the resulting shockwave. The firebenders below argue about who’s idea it was to shoot the rocket. Gaining his senses after the blast, Aang whirlwinds himself onto Appa’s back. They dive and catch the masked man in Aang’s arms. Momo lands on Aang’s shoulders as the mask falls off the man, revealing him to be an unconscious prince Zuko.

At the south pole, the ruins of the former southern capital are jagged and jut harshly from the surrounding icy waste. Zhao investigates the moon scroll as firebenders race to cut blocks of ice. They stack ice block onto ice block to rebuild the portal according to the scroll. When it is finished, it looks like a tunnel that leads into the side of a wall.

Aang lands Appa on the icy terrain. The tracks of snowmobiles run deep and are easy to follow, but that’s not his issue. Zuko lies motionless on the ground. Aang’s gaze follows the tracks into the distance, then returns to the unconscious Zuko. He can’t just leave him here.

At the south pole, Zhao watches the sun set. He orders Princess Yue to open the moon gate. She can’t. Only a waterbender can. All eyes turn towards Katara. They unshackle and unmuzzle her.

Katara approaches the rebuilt portal. It looks rough and raw in the twilight. She waves her hands over the ice. No change. She does again, but nothing happens. Zhao’s face darkens. He barks an order. The water tribe villagers are pushed to their knees as firebender soldiers brandish flames at them. She tries again and again to use her powers on the portal, but still, it does not respond.

Katara cowers. Zhao approaches her, his fury palpable. He suggests she try again. She doesn’t know if she can open the portal. He sneers that he hopes, for her family’s sake, that she is wrong. He snaps his fingers twice and Grangran is dragged forward. Zhao commands her to open the gate, and though Katara tries, she still can’t do it. Zhao scowls. He looks over at the villagers and spies Sokka. He orders Grangran returned to the others and Sokka to be dragged forward next. Katara begs Zhao. He orders her to open the gate. Sokka tells her that it’s okay, and that he loves her. Grangran yells that she believes in Katara. Yue joins them. The whole village shouts encouragements. The sun disappears over the horizon. The light of the moon is the only light in the sky. Katara closes her eyes and waves her hands once again. Nothing happens. Zhao makes a fireball in his fist and approaches Sokka.

A villager shouts and Zhao turns. A soft light creeps over each ice block until the entire arch is shining. The shining abruptly stops and the blocks have fused together. Zhao investigates.

In the darkness of the tunnel, one can see the moon, hanging in blackness, illuminating a path to a distant archway. Zhao laughs, an evil laugh. Yue stands and bids the southerners to follow her to the north, but Zhao stops them. Elite firebenders take hold of Yue, while others put Katara back into shackles and muzzle and lump her in with the villagers. Yue spits at Zhao for turning against his word. Zhao takes her personally into custody and leaves the rest of the water tribe with the elite guard as he and a small team, including Iroh, lead Yue through the portal.

As they walk the moon’s path, Admiral Zhao sinisterly tells General Iroh that they are in the process of writing history, as they will be destroying the last of the Water Tribe civilization. Yue is aghast at Zhao’s machinations, and Zhao has her gagged. Iroh warns Zhao that history is not always kind to its subjects, Zhao condescendingly assures him that this will not be like Iroh's legendary failure at Ba Sing Se; Iroh ominously tells Zhao he hopes not, for Zhao's sake. The firebenders and Yue reach the end of the path and find themselves in the throne room of the northern water tribe. *

Iroh confirms their location and inquires if it is wise to attack during the full moon, as waterbenders draw strength from the moon. Zhao states that he is aware of the problem, and that he is working on a solution. As he reveals a secret door behind the throne, Zhao explains that years earlier, while serving as a young officer in the Earth Kingdom, he stumbled on the secret of the Moon and Ocean Spirit's mortal forms in an underground library. When he declares it is his destiny to kill the moon spirit, Iroh angrily informs him that the spirits are not to be trifled with. Condescendingly, Zhao tells Iroh he has heard tales of his journey into the Spirit World and assures him that the Moon and Ocean Spirits, having made the decision to give up their immortality to be part of the human world, will face the consequences of that decision. *

They descend down the passageway behind the throne to the spirit oasis: a small bamboo forested pool in a glacial atrium. A low voice is heard up ahead. Zhao puts his fingers to his lips and the firebenders sneak in the shadows. Chief Arnook, Yue’s father, prays to the moon for his daughter and his people. The light of the full moon shines brightly above. When he finishes, he asks an older man, Master Pakku, to escort him back. Zhao reveals himself and his prisoner, Princess Yue. Pakku squares up but Arnook orders him to stand down.

Zhao commends the chief for his wisdom and releases Yue to him. Arnook ungags her and Yue tells him that Zhao means to destroy the water tribe by killing the moon spirit. Arnook and Pakku share a look.

Arnook is incredulous that Zhao could kill the moon, whose bed is the sky and the horizon, but Zhao assures him confidently, that the spirits are close, closer than he thinks. He gestures to the pool, two koi fish swim around each other. Yue is in disbelief that Zhao thinks the fish are the spirits, but Arnook and Pakku are silent with secret knowledge.

Meanwhile, at the south pole, Katara breaths through her muzzle, now hoary with frost. A firebender yelps and points at the sky, it’s Aang riding Appa. The firebenders form a defensive perimeter. Katara takes her chance, she ices the locks to the point that they break and she frees herself from her bonds. She begins taking out firebenders as Aang does the same. The firebenders run to their snowmobiles and sleds and retreat. Katara throws off the muzzle and hugs Aang as Sokka inspects the gate. He runs through it, after Yue. The rest of the southerners follow with trepidation. In the palace, Sokka begins to call out. He sees the door ajar behind the throne. Sokka finds it out of place and passes through it. Katara and Aang ensure all the remaining southerners go through the portal. Aang shows her Zuko on Appa and they decide to leave him in the south.

Suddenly, as if he had been conscious for a while, Zuko makes his move and attacks. Katara trounces him. She freezes him in a block of ice and she and Aang and Momo try to pull Appa through the moon portal. Appa resists; after being cooped up in the ship, he is not interested in going through a small door again.

Sokka sneaks down the path to the spirit oasis. Zhao arrogantly applauds his own efforts to fulfill his "destiny", speculating as to which names by which future generations will call him. From the shadows, Sokka makes eye contact with Yue. He retreats to get help.

A water tribe scout on an ice tower watches the fire navy ship’s blockade. It’s nothing unusual.

Katara and Aang desperately pull Appa with a rope onto the moon path. Zuko the ice block begins to steam.

Zhao takes a burlap sack and charges into the water. After a moment, he rises with the fish in the bag. As he hoists it over his head in triumph, the full moon above transforms, turning from white to blood-red. *

The scout sees the red moon. His waterbender comrade in arms reacts: he can no longer waterbend.

On the moon path, the moon and path are red in the blackness. Katara feels weak. She collapses. Aang releases Appa’s rope and helps her up. Appa pulls back into the open air on the south side. Aang hobbles Katara over to the north side and lays her down in the throne room. He tells Momo to watch over her, he has to go back for Appa. The path beneath him cracks and Katara tells him to hurry. Aang runs through the gate to the other side. Before he can make it to the south, a shadow appears in the doorway and fireblasts him back. Prince Zuko who corners Aang in the disintegrating moon path.

Yue begs Zhao to release the moon spirit. The chief holds her and comforts her. Iroh pleads with Zhao to consider his actions: they will bring harm to all, not just those in the Water Tribe. Reinforcing the point, Iroh promises Zhao, "Whatever you do to that spirit, I'll unleash on you ten-fold." Zhao confirms what he knew all along, that Iroh is a traitor. To save the moon spirit, Arnook offers Zhao the unconditional surrender of the northern water tribe.

Water tribe warriors swarm into the throne room and surround the villagers coming through the portal. Sokka appears in the door behind the throne and bids them to follow him. The arch of the moon gate begins to crack and Katara yells for Aang. Zuko’s firebending keeps Aang on the pathway guarding the south door as it splinters here and there.

Zhao confirms with Arnook, that he has his unconditional surrender and releases the fish back into the water. The moon turns white. Everyone, the water tribe scouts, fire navy sailors, Sokka, Katara, Aang, Iroh, and even Zuko is relieved. The floor beneath Aang and Zuko solidifies again and Zuko takes a defensive stance.

Zhao watches the fish swim. Something dark and unsatisfied crosses his mind. Without a hesitation, he fire blasts the white fish.

Iroh watches the fire bolt hit the moon spirit in horror.

On the moon path, the full moon above Aang goes out like a light. The path beneath Aang and Zuko disappears and Aang falls into darkness. Zuko jumps to the southern portal and pulls himself through as the pathway vanishes behind him leaving an empty black tunnel.

Katara yells for Aang, and approaches the portal, but the portal in the north now ends in an icy wall. Momo scratches desperately at the wall.

The scout blinks in the darkness. He is at a loss. One by one, on the horizon, the fire navy blockade lights their trebuchets. They fling fiery projectiles in waves. The scout blows his horn.

Appa huffs at the gate. Zuko tries again and again to jump through the threshold, but without the moon, the gate is shut. Zuko lights the sky up with his fire blasts.

Iroh bellows and lunges on Zhao. The elite squad do their best to protect Zhao but are subdued by Iroh’s fury. Zhao realizes he might be in trouble and flees up the ice wall, his fingers sinking like molten rods into the ice to climb his way out through the opening above. Iroh falls to his knees and mourns the spirit with the chief and Pakku and Yue. Sokka returns with warriors and villagers. The first round of trebuchet projectiles hit the palace and bits of icy debris fall from the ceiling. Grangran pulls Katara wailing for Aang to the safety of the path to the spirit oasis and down to join the others. The northern water tribe capital is in chaos. The dead white fish is prodded by the living black fish.

Aang floats in darkness thick as water. A giant black koi fish finds him and swallows him.

Katara clutches Momo as a ripple in the water breaks the stillness of the spirit oasis. Aang rises out of the water in the avatar state.

Katara is filled with joy, but Aang does not respond. He rises into the sky. Ice and snow from the land and sky begin to swirl around him and envelope him the form of a giant snow-white koi fish. The fish swims through the air out over the bay and dives into the water between fire navy ships. They are hit with a minor wave, but the sailors braced themselves. The snow fish becomes slush and the fish shape decompresses, filling the seas. Then the shape recollects and rises pulling all the water with it. The ships try to flee but are caught up in the gargantuan shape. The rocky bay beneath is revealed as some ships are beached on the seafloor. The water pillar takes a vaguely humanoid fish shape.

It collapses, and the navy ships are tsunamied away.

Back at the spirit oasis, Iroh notices, with astonishment, that Yue has been touched by the Moon Spirit, and that as a result, some of its life force is within her; Yue affirms the conjecture, then decides that she should try to restore the spirit to life by giving hers to it. Her father, upset by this idea, protests, but she is unmoved by him. Sokka takes her hands into his own and assures her there has to be another way. She calmly replies, "I have to try," and places her hands on the dead fish. *

The fish glows as Yue’s spirit leaves her body, she closes her eyes, exhales one last time, and collapses into Sokka's arms, dead. *

Moments later, Yue's body evaporates, and the fish, suddenly filled with life, swims into the oasis, looking for its partner. Floating, Yue appears above the water as a spirit, clothed in a flowing white dress. She tells Sokka that she will always be with him, kissing him one last time before disappearing; as she vanishes, the moon reappears in the sky, restoring the waterbenders' abilities. *

On the walls of the palace, Zhao sees the moon’s return and screams his frustration.

Aang fused with the Ocean spirit, in the meantime, has laid waste to the Fire Nation's navy but ceases as the moon reappears. The Ocean Spirit acknowledges the moon's restoration and, ending its violent vendetta, places Aang atop the outer wall of the city as it melts into the ocean water. *

Zhao finds a hole in the ceiling of the palace as jumps down. He has no choice but to escape through the moon portal. Except a figure blocks his way, Prince Zuko. They begin to fight. Iroh returns to the throne room and catches their duel. As Zhao and Zuko weave in and out of moonbeams let in by breaks in the ceiling. The beams seem to bend and sway as if attracted to Zhao. They wrap around him like a web of fine hair and he is stuck. Tentacles of light pull him into the air. Zuko, forgetting the duel, tries to help Zhao, reaching out a hand to him, but Zhao stubbornly refuses to take it, and he is pulled through the hole in the roof, where he vanishes in the light of the moon. Iroh puts his arm around Zuko and leads the teen back through the moon portal to the south.

Zuko is already planning, they will camp in the south and wait for the Avatar to return for his bison. Iroh looks at him sadly as Zuko begins to make camp with Appa tied up nearby. With a decisive move, Iroh unleashes a fireball that destroys the moon portal in the south. Zuko is speechless as Iroh retrieves Appa and mounts him and pulls Zuko aboard. Zuko says “uh… yip-yip” and the three lift off.

Back in the north, a drained Aang makes his way to the throne room as the rest return as well. Aang looks distraught at the closed portal’s dead end and whispers Appa’s name. The water tribe surrounds and embraces him as a group, with Katara, Sokka, Grangran, Arnook and Pakku in the center. The fire navy ships retreat out of the north and the moon glows high in the sky.

Post credit scene

In the Fire Nation, Fire Lord Ozai imparts the knowledge of Iroh's treasonous behavior and Zuko's failure to his daughter, Azula, and entrusts her with a special task as she looks up at him, a smile on her face. *

#movies #tv #atla #avatar the last airbender #fanfic #fandom #fix

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mellonjin · 7 years

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The mistreatment of Jin - a BigHit callout post

A lot of people seem to think that BigHit could never do wrong and know what’s best for BTS. They think BigHit and BTS are a “family”. Well it’s time to wake up..! BigHit isn’t any better when compared to big companies like SM or YG for example. They’re just as problematic like K-Pop companies often tend to be. The perfect example of this is how they’ve been treating Jin these past 4 years.

!! - a few of these facts are just borderline emotional abuse..

okay, let’s get started:

- Apparently Bang-PD walked around calling Jin fat???? wtf (this was 2013, before their debut and around the same time Jin went on a diet no one talks about where he only ate chicken breast for A YEAR.)

- And guess what? Bang-PD isn’t the only one who has called Jin fat: even his manager did. Fortunately they fired him because he was mistreating Jungkook.

- Jin majored in acting but in the House of ARMY, he got all the insignificant roles with basically zero dialogue. Yoongi even said Seokjin had texted him, shocked that he didn’t have any dialogue in the script. In the Making of-video he was clearly pissed: when the camera man said they’ll be filming Jin next he said “Oh, wow. Do I get to appear alone?” asdfghjkl. Jin was salty, but tried so hard to be positive. (he even avoided looking straight into the camera while they were interviewing him.. on the inside he was definitely feeling wronged.)

- Let’s be honest. BigHit could easily push him in the OST direction or debut him as an actor if they wanted, but no.

- Jin was once forced to perform even though he had hurt his neck in Kcon Paris. BigHit never made an official report about his condition... (it’s funny how they made a report about namjoon’s toe and suga’s ear but not this.)

- Now let’s talk about his LINES. Remember Blood, Sweat and Tears where he had to share his few lines with Jimin? That was the most unnecessary thing ever. (later in the japanese ver. they made jin’s voice stand out more than jimin’s. lol I guess even BigShit felt a bit guilty??) I’ve seen people trying to defend this by saying that it’s okay because Jin was the ~Main Character~ in the MV. But honestly, where is the logic in that? BTS are a K-pop group! Their voices are the most important thing about them!

- Jin is the only one who didn't get a single line in any of the year end 2016 special stages (rainism: jungkook, as i told you: jimin, v, jungkook & class idea: namjoon, hoseok, jungkook... suga wasn’t there because of his ear injury.) He was just a backup dancer and nothing else.

- Remember when people were hyping up Spring Day because apparently this was supposed to be the song where Jin would shine... even V said Jin would surprise us all and umm.. well he didn’t.

- BigHit removed Jin from the thumbnail of Not Today MV because ????

- Speaking of Not Today. Let’s talk about this fuck up...

- *coughs* This was his only solo shot and it lasted about 2 seconds. Really. BTS filmed for almost 24 hours in cold weather and you’re telling me this is the only shot of Jin that was “good enough”. I don’t think so, because we saw the Behind the scenes-video and they were filming Jin quite a lot. They just didn’t use the clips.

- They keep telling Jin his voice is suited for ballads, but Butterfly was a ballad and he was once again the vocal who had the least amount of lines. (and some of them were not even lines like repeating “untrue” is.. not really a line)

- ... so basically the ballad comment was just some bs excuse, let’s be real no one fits only 1 type of music. Plus here are some Bangtan’s slower/not hiphop songs I think Jin's voice could easily be fitted in but he still got the least amount of lines: Spring Day Studio Version, Miss Right, YNWA, Just One Day, Outro: Propose, House of Cards, Coffee...

- Now the most recent fuck up is BTS’ cover of Seo Taiji’s song ‘Come Back Home’ and people are still debating whether Jin has ANY lines at all. The MV for the song was uploaded to CJENMMUSIC’s official youtube and their header was changed to a... group photo... of BTS... except Jin was nowhere to be seen. The fact that they forgot Jin is unbelievable and just plain disrespectful. No product should ever be released without approval and double check. None. And while we don’t know if BigHit had anything to do with the header, whose fault it is that even these other companies tend to forget Jin because they aren’t promoting him enough? This was not a simple mistake. It means that design and marketing teams from HUGE companies like CJEN don't see him.

- Awake: Jin’s first solo song he wrote and produced. He is talking about his own experience in this song. It’s a sad song. He's saying that maybe he can't fly as high as those petals (=other BTS members) but he's still going to accept it and keep struggling. He wants to hold those 6 petals close and keep them safe so he's going to make sacrifices. If this isn’t the most heartbreaking thing I don’t know what is...

- Jin had actually wrote a few songs and lyrics for their songs before ‘Awake’ but they were all turned down by the producers. (the fact that he didn’t give up on writing music still amazes me..)

- Despite all this there are some Antis who believe Jin is okay with his lack of lines and spotlight, because they think BTS handle the line distribution which is not the case. For example, Namjoon once even said that he was originally supposed to do Suga’s part in 21st Century Girls but Bighit changed it. It’s always the company who gets to decide things like this.

He wants to sing. Jin has said multiple times he wants ARMY to hear more of his voice. Doesn’t this prove he wants more attention and isn’t happy with how things are right now? This is from the new concept book interview:

Q: For the next album or promotions do you have any personal greed for bigger importance? Jin: Of course I do have those thoughts... but each member have their own color. If the song suits it, there’ll be more parts and if not, there’ll unavoidably be lesser.

Q: Aren’t you anxious? Jin: Being anxious doesn’t solve anything. If I do my best at where I am, some day there’ll be a song that suits me.

“Some day”, he said. But when is that day going to be? It’s been 4 years. Fire was a step in the right direction but then BST, Spring Day and Not Today came out.

Like I said before, BigHit has convinced Jin that his “voice color” doesn’t fit BTS and has put the blame on him. Shouldn’t it be the company’s fault that they can’t make a song that fits all 7 members? There are K-pop groups with more than 7 members and they still have better line distribution? BigHit’s line distribution is obviously shit and they’re favoring only certain members.

“Of course they are favoring members like Jungkook, he has a better and more stable voice than Jin.” - maknae line solo stan

While I do agree that Jungkook has a super stable, golden voice, so does Jin. It’s unfair when they give Jungkook 80% of the vocals in every song.

Almost every song the vocal line from most lines to least lines looks like this:

Jungkook - Jimin - V - Jin

Why does it have to be like this every time? Why does BigHit hate variety and trying out new things? Would it be the end of the world if Jin and V got the most and the second most lines?

It’s not Jungkook’s fault. Even he suffers when he has to sing all of these songs live.. BigHit puts so much pressure on him. Have you ever thought about how tiring it must be for him? When you have the most lines in every song and everyone expects you to always sing flawlessly? I’m sure even Jungkook has noticed that BigHit depends too much on him. In Spring Day they gave some of Jungkook’s lines to Jin in the live version which was one of their best decisions, but.. I still can’t stop wondering why Jin can’t have these lines in the studio version too? The version people are going to buy and listen?

So.. why the heck is Jin still part of BTS? They don’t let him sing or dance in the front lines. He is supposed to be ~the visual~ but in their latest comeback he didn’t even get a lot of solo shots in their MVs. I’m scared that it’ll just keep getting worse. We all know there are some fake ARMYs who would definitely hype up a song even if Jin didn’t have any lines, even if the line distribution was the most unfair thing ever.

BigHit is completely wasting Jin’s potential. He could be so much more. His looks are so powerful SM tried to scout him, BigHit scouted him because of them.. Strangers wanted pictures with him predebut. He even trended on twitter because he looked so stunning when he stepped out of a car. Jin had no previous dance or singing experience before BTS and had to learn everything and try his best to keep up with the other members. Now Jin’s voice is super stable and beautiful. He can do high notes, his voice doesn’t only suit ballads, but other genres as well. Jin is extremely hardworking and a kind person. He can be the oldest hyung and the secret maknae. He loves BTS and ARMY. He blows kisses, makes lame jokes and never misses an opportunity to show his love. Remember his Heart Events? Let's not forget that the clothes Jin wears to airports are usually fan gifts. A lot of them don’t match with each other, but he doesn’t seem to care because he just wants to show them off.

Over the years he has come up with his own ways to make a name for himself (eatjin, dad jokes, worldwide handsome, hand kisses) even though it’s BigHit’s job to do so..

Jin is just too nice.. He’s been patient with BigHit for 4 years and hardly ever complains. He has told us that he tends to hold all the emotions inside. That’s why ARMY needs to have his back. We need appreciate him and his efforts and make him feel happy to be part of BTS. In Bon Voyage 2, he calmly said: “The most important thing in my life is convincing myself that I'm happy. Being happy is making others smile.” Now... you know when you have to CONVINCE yourself to be happy there's obviously something wrong.

We don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes but we do know that Jin is the type of person to not show his negative emotions. Jin is mentally very strong, but has difficulties standing up for himself so we need to help him. If the next comeback he doesn’t have any lines again, PLEASE DON’T STAY QUIET ABOUT IT. Let BigHit know we are sick and disgusted of how they’re treating the oldest member. It’s OT7, right?

A reminder that Jin doesn't need to be your bias for you to acknowledge the fact that he deserves a bigger role in BTS!

While we wait for a comeback, there are things you can do for Jin. You can make tweets (people have been trying to trend #WeWantSeokjin for a while now), gifs and posts about him, listen to Jin’s solo and covers x / x, comment on his twitter posts (we all know they read them) and if he does a vlive you can support him by watching it and by showering him with hearts.

Please make him a more popular member, so that BigHit can’t ignore him anymore. After all we are here to stan the 7 boys of BTS, not Bang-PD, Pdogg or BigHit.

Thank you for reading!

#bts #bangtan #bangtan boys #jin #seokjin #kim seokjin #bighit #my edits

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alightwhendarknessfell · 7 years

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My American Satan Review

So I will place any spoilers below the read more line for those that have either already seen the film or don’t plan on seeing it.

I have been waiting for this movie to come out since it was announced. Clearly, I am a bit bias by the fact that I’m a huge Black Veil Brides fan, but I really was interested in the plot. I went and saw the film last night (in cosplay), and I have to say I enjoyed every second of it. It’s got its faults, and it’s clearly and indie film but it’s one of the best indie films I’ve ever seen.

I’ve decided to make a list of the pros and cons of the movie, so here we go.

Pros

The storyline is absolutely incredible. There is so much thought put into even the smallest of details. It’s one of those films where each time you watch it you pick up another little detail. The concept of rock bands/musicians making deals with Satan is a very popular one and it’s honestly shocking this movie hasn’t been made before. It follows the story of Job where the devil and God fight it out over who Job will ultimately follow. Andy’s character ‘Johnny’ is clearly based off Job. Clearly it also follos the story of Faust (aka why the main character is Johnny Faust) who makes a deal with the devil in exchange for knowledge and success.

There are actually plot twists that I didn’t see coming (see spoilers)

Booboo Stewart is a gorgeous man.. like seriously

I like that there are clearly things that happen or aspects of the film that are based off of Andy’s actual experiences moving out to Hollywood

There are some really funny parts to the film, but also some VERY dark parts.

Ben Bruce is actually an incredible actor

My expectations for Andy’s acting weren’t too high and there were some parts where it was kind of poor but overall he channeled the character and the character’s emotions very well

The ending leaves open the possibility that the story isn’t over

Remington was a PERFECT choice for vocals, the soundtrack and songs made for the movie are amazing. Seriously if you watch it the song ‘Let Him Burn’ gets a whole new meaning

Since there are actual musicians in the film, it really does paint a very accurate picture of what the life of a rock star is really like. The film doesn’t shy away from the pretty horrific side of it.

Mr. Capricorn plays an amazing devil holy shit, he was the perfect choice

The casting was done very well, everyone’s character is very believable

Cons

There is WAY to much story packed into two hours. The film follows the band from their start then over their 2 years rise to fame. It would often times get confusing as to how much time had passed. There weren’t dates included in different scenes so it was hard to follow the progression. Especially when it came to the drugs, rehab, court dates, etc. It didn’t feel like two years had passed.

There were some major plot holes where it felt like things were left out. For instance (minor spoiler) the band knows automatically that Mr. Capricorn is the devil right after meeting him. To me, it would take a bit more than just one talk with someone to go from not believing in the devil to thinking that you’re sitting with him.

Gretchen’s character and Johnny’s mom weren’t that good

There were some parts that were not believable, won’t get into them but some things would happen and I would go “yeah right”

The news interviews were kind of cheesy

Johnny’s rehab scene was incredibly unbelievable (more in spoilers)

All in all, though the film was very well done. The acting was, for the most part, good and the movie LOOKED good. I would recommend it if you’re into the emo/rock/metal scene or like Asking Alexandria/Black Veil Brides. It’s not so much horror/thriller but darker. I would also recommend it if you like films with deeply religious themes or important lessons.The film makes you think which I like. My mom went to see it with me (she also liked it) and we’ve both spent the whole day just going over parts of the plot. I liked that the ending isn’t exactly ‘happy ever after’ as well. And what really won me over was just the amazing plot and writing. I plan on maybe even seeing it again and I’m for sure going to buy it when it comes out on DVD. I do feel like if this film was done by a major movie company it would become a cult classic.

I’m giving the film two ratings before I go into spoilers. One from the perspective on an indie film and one for overall.

Overall: 3.5/5 Indie: 4.25/5

Spoilers below

So here are my spoilers that I just wanted to give my opinion on. I’m just going to do points and talk about them.

The ‘Let Him Burn’ Scene: This is hands down one of my favorite scenes from the movie. When the band makes a human sacrifice by burning the local asshole (forgot his name) alive in a van, it was really well done. Instantly you know that Johnny has chosen the devil. He, of course, changes his mind and frees the guy who then is electrocuted but the hesitance in that decision really shows that he has evil in him. This is the evil that Mr. Capricorn exploits. The rest of the band stands by and lets Johnny take the lead. It sets up the film perfectly because while the rest of the band members sort of keeping their souls, for the most part, Johnny completely loses his. Later on in the fight scene at the country bar where Andy once again kills is another amazing scene.

Is Lilly Mr. Capricorn?: About halfway through the film, I started to suspect that Lilly may, in fact, be the devil/Mr. Capricorn. She’s deeply involved in satanic imagery (Satanic brothel hello). She’s the one who gets Johnny to start doing heroin then fucks him and answers the phone so that Johnny’s girlfriend hears the whole thing. Also, she insists that HE be the one to shoot up, which follows with the whole the devil doesn’t make you do things, he encourages you to do them yourself. She is also never around when Mr. Capricorn is. The band even says “should we tell Lilly?”. Another important point was that she was not around during the conversation with Mr. Capricorn in the bar nor at the human sacrifice. She constantly leads Johnny into danger and temptation. In the final kill scene, Mr. Capricorn tells Johnny that he is in fact who Johnny has been fucking (also fucking his mom). The question of whether he is actually Lilly is left open. Personally, I think Mr. Capricorn does take different forms, Lilly being one of them. Which means the whole time Johnny has been literally fucking the devil (which is a pretty bad ass plot twist).

Gabriel/Mr. Capricorn: The older black man that Andy keeps running into throughout the film is Gabriel. He and Mr. Capricorn seem to take turns trying to steer Johnny in their direction. This goes back to the whole story of Job. He kept warning Johnny throughout the film but Johnny doesn’t listen. In the very beginning of the movie when he asks Johnny to watch his stuff while he goes into the liquor/convenience store I feel that it was a test. Johnny doesn’t leave the man’s stuff or steal it and instead waits for him to come back. When Johnny looks in Gabriel’s bag there is no liquor in it, just food. To me, this signifies the ability to resist temptation exists. Gabriel also gives Johnny an apple before leaving (the forbidden fruit). Gabriel also makes a comment in the final performance of how they’re both on this stage but got there different ways.

The Heroin Scene: This was another favorite scene of mine. It was pretty graphic of a scene but then again doing heroin is no joke. I felt like this was a very important moment in the film because it signify’s Johnny going off the deep end. In my opinion, I do think that Lilly and Mr. Capricorn are the same people. So that means that Johnny literally shoots up heroin and has sex with the devil.

The CNN Interview: This to me the funniest part of the movie. Vic is tripping on acid during the band’s interview with CNN and I just thought it was a beautifully done scene.

Johnny’s Rehab: This was my least favorite part of the film. Heroin is one of the HARDEST drugs to kick. It was very hard to believe (with no time frame given) that all Johnny had to do was go to this monk(?) rehab facility and meditate and then boom he’s clean. In fact, even the dope sick scene where he can’t go on stage isn’t very realistic. I’ve seen people dope sick they often are violently ill and I felt like it could have been portrayed better. Johnny was just sitting on the floor and coughed a few times then they shoot him up and boom all better.

The Ending: The ending kind of confused me. So he’s in jail for murdering Mr. Capricorn on stage but it was self-defense? Then the dad of the kid they killed, in the beginning, offers to get him off? I was paying pretty close attention but I still feel like I missed something. Is he going back to the band? He gives this kind of evil smirk at the end which makes me think that in fact, the devil is still working in his favor. He’s once again going to get away with murder. Johnny says that the devil will keep coming back, and in my opinion, I think the lawyer may be the new reincarnation of him.

And finally, I have my own kind of Andley inspired comments.

Parallels to Ashley Purdy: I have no way of knowing if this was on purpose or if I’m just reading a lot into it but I noticed a lot of parallels to Andy and Ashley’s relationship with Johnny and Lilly/Mr. Capricorn. First off Lilly is the bassist in the band. Mr. Capricorn/the devil tricks the naive Johnny into signing a contract with him essentially. Of course, it’s come out that Ashley had Andy sign a contract splitting the ownership of the band back when they first met. Lilly also tempts Johnny into doing heroin (Ashley has a past with this) and then ends up having sex with him.

#american satan #andy biersack #bvb #black veil brides #ben bruce #asking alexandria #andy black #andy six #booboo stewart #movie review

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oneinathousandwords-blog · 6 years

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Maiden vs Priestess

(11/27/2017)

Hello everyone! Here we are again, back to the un-climbable wall of Yu-Gi-Oh! reincarnation! From now on, I have decided to date all theories, just so you all can see a good timeline of when each theory and revelation have come about. Today, I’m focusing on something that started bothering me when I really started thinking about my Maiden with Eyes of Blue/Kisara theory: is the Priestess with Eyes of Blue an older version of Kisara/Maiden? Because, if she is, my earlier theory is garbage. Kisara’s spirit is just a Duel Monster, and the reason why she isn’t in Mausoleum of White is because she’s the Priestess, not the Maiden. There are difficulties either way, but let’s go through our options one by one.

Priestess is Kisara. {A future self, or a possible self?}

Priestess is not Kisara. {Are they related? What relationship do the ‘With Eyes of Blue’ archetype have with each other?}

The Yu-Gi-Oh! wiki page is actually not very helpful in this case, which is unusual. All we do know, for certain, is that Maiden and Priestess both have a special necklace that has the letters ‘B E‘ on it. But the size of their necklaces is noticeably different, as is the way the letters are inscribed on them. {However, I haven’t been able to get a clear look at their necklaces to compare them well. Every picture of Maiden I find gets very blurry as I zoom in on it, so I’ll try to get a good image and say, definitely, for sure, if their necklaces are identical. As far as I can tell, they only appear similar.}

When analyzing these cards, we have two main factors that we can use, appearance and effects. So what are their effects?

Well, just like every other ‘With Eyes of Blue‘ except Maiden, Priestess’ effect lets her offer a sacrifice (send 1 Effect monster to the Graveyard) so she can get the power of Blue-Eyes. Unlike the rest of the archetype, she doesn’t actually summon a Blue-Eyes, but adds a couple of them to the hand.

Maiden’s effect is the only one that lets her summon a Blue-Eyes without ‘offering a sacrifice’. This is very important. Obviously, she has the closest bond to the Blue-Eyes White Dragon, as she can summon it, and it alone, while all the others can only summon by offering a sacrifice, but can summon any Blue-Eyes monster.

However, they both have only 0 attack and defense points. But as these two are the only female monsters in the archetype, perhaps this is just something all ‘With Eyes of Blue‘ females have in common. {This is sort of hard to say as something either for or against, as the archetype has few members.}

Based on their effects, I’m going to say that this round goes to the ‘Priestess is not Kisara‘, as Maiden’s ability to summon without sacrifice is very, very important. It’s her distinctive characteristic.

Now, let’s move on to appearance, which is obviously a big criteria. At first glance, the two do appear similar. But couldn’t that be said of any manga woman with blue eyes and white hair? Manga primarily uses the eyes and the hair’s color/style to distinguish between characters, as well as height, build, and style of dressing. The fine lines of the face, shape of the ears, etc. that distinguish real humans are eliminated or simplified. Priestess and Maiden both have blue eyes and long white hair, but that’s not enough to say they’re the same person. For example:

Priestess has a prominent widow’s peak and a different hair style

Maiden’s eyes are rounded, while Priestess’ are more narrow {something that could occur with age, however}

Maiden’s nose is more prominent

Priestess’ hair is more of a blue-white, while Maiden’s is more of a pure white

Priestess is notably more busty, with a shorter torso {again, could have happened with age, but a Kisara was about 16 or so when she died. Even if Priestess is her future self, she was still about the age when she was done developing. I doubt her cup size would increase that much.}

The way the Priestess is dressed is also very important, as well as the BEWD-style Kagura suzu she is holding. She’s wearing a specialized version of a Miko priestess’ Kagura garb. Kagura is a special ritual dance done for the gods, performed by Miko (priestesses). The Kagura suzu were a special type of bells used by the Miko. I did some more research on the Miko, and here’s what I found.

The Miko were typically virgins who showed signs of being vessels for the gods and spirits, although the role could also be hereditary, passing through family to family. The ‘signs‘ that showed ability were usually fainting, unusual behavior, fits, and hysteria. After years of training and preparation, the Miko went through a special ritual where they were chosen by a particular god. Afterwards, they went through a marriage ceremony with the god who had chosen them.

Miko were usually chosen for training about the time they hit puberty. Assuming that the Priestess is a Miko, it becomes even more unlikely that she could be Kisara, as Miko were supposed to be chosen when they were about fourteen. Kisara’s life wasn’t spent in training or preparation, and she never became a priestess or religious figure in any way. She never understood the power of the godlike dragon within her, and merely drifted through her own life, tired of pain and struggle, but willing to love and be loved.

There are a few other differences between them as well as similarities. Both wear very similar BEWD gauntlets. Maiden has the design of a BEWD’s head and wings on her dress, while Priestess has a more detailed design of just the wings. Priestess has thicker hair, and only three, thicker braids. Maiden has looser hair, and about 5 braids.

Their effects being different was the biggest kicker for me, really. I mean, why would Kisara have lost her ability to summon BEWD without a sacrifice as she got older? It wouldn’t make any sense for her to lose that.

@techno-sorcerer I’m gonna tag you, because I want to make sure you see this. (I put a lot of research into this one!) I also want you to suggest that you date all your theory posts from now on as well, just to make it easier for people.

I’m sure that there’s probably even more depths people could go to, and if you have some more stuff to add, then go ahead and reblog this with everything else you can find! I’d love to see some more of you guys getting your lives sucked down the drain put in those research hours!

Any ideas for my next theory? Questions and concerns? Just ask aaway, and I’ll get back to you on that.

#yugioh #ygorecarn #kisara #yugioh theory #reincarnation #duel monsters #maiden #maiden with eyes of blue #with eyes of blue #priestess #miko #kagura #archetype

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iftherebethornsrp · 6 years

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EVENT 13 - AU WEEK!

23 December 2017 - 03 January 2018

Beginning on 12:00am CST on Saturday, our roleplay will be taking a pause moving forward. This is both so that the roleplay as a whole can enjoy an alternative universe and so pressure is off during the holidays and we can all have a bunch of fun into the new year!

For those of you new to this idea, an alternative universe week is when you are able to break away from what your character might normally do and assume a different story for your character. Read below for more information! At the end of reading all of this, if there are any questions, please ask! What I think makes sense might not be what actually makes sense.

There will be a post at midnight on Saturday letting you know starters are free to be posted!

Also, to give everyone the same information, I’d love for people to write in and give a brief 1-2 sentence explanation of where their character is in the two open AUs. For example, “Tilden Toots has survived the war as a neutral observer, but his marriage to Daisy Hookum did not last the stress of the war and he now is a Radio Talk Show host living alone in the outskirts of London.”

OOC INFORMATION!

There are three different ways to be involved in this AU week and a half. As a whole roleplay, there will be two scenarios you can post open starters to (this is your time for Happy Everyone Survives Time!) Then, you have the choice to post closed starters that you have planned with someone else. You can be involved in all three, two, or just one! The choice is yours. Read more below!

1. One group AU is starting in September of 1991. Harry Potter and the gang will be starting their first year of Hogwarts. Voldemort has been defeated as far as anyone knows. The night he went to murder the Potters, Lily and James’s intent to sacrifice themselves for Harry backfired on Voldemort same as it did in canon. After that moment, many of his followers were captured and sentenced to Azkaban. Where has your character been since that night? Was your character found at fault for following the Dark Lord? Did they manage to claim Imperius curse? Have they been living it up in some swanky job at the Ministry, or did the war ruin them? Is Hogwarts their new place of employment or do they have children attending? Endless possibilities! Come actually have happy future for once! (TL;DR: Everything is the same except Lily and James didn’t die, and yes, characters who may have died may still live, of course!) Please tag all starters with Thorns91.

2. The second group AU is starting in September 1980, only a month after the downfall of Voldemort. In this AU, a large fight broke out between the Death Eaters and the Order. Heavy losses were taken on both sides. The group sacrifice had a chain reaction and as Voldemort attacked, a bright light appeared and he was no longer there. The suddenness of it all meant the Oder was able to defeat the Death Eaters swiftly, shocking everyone. The world, both magical and muggle, is still rebuilding. Names of Voldemort’s followers are still coming to lights. Those who fought in the Order and on the Order’s side have received Order of Merlin awards, but not everyone feels like they deserved it. Heavy losses were taken on both sides and everyone still needs to heal. Both in the fright of the height of the war as well as the joy of Voldemort’s downfall, engagements and weddings have been popping up left and right as well as news of pregnancies and other exciting events. How will you celebrate the downfall of the Dark Lord? (Once again, characters who died may live, etc) Please tag all starters with Thorns80.

3. This is not a group AU. This is your opportunity to do whatever AU you want. The main rule is that all of these starters have to be closed. So, anything you do here needs to be discussed with another player and just between you and that player (or you and a couple of players if you want a three/four/five way thread.) In other words, should you want to play out Antonin Dolohov and Dolores Umbridge as leaders of the free world, the Antonin and Dolores players would have to decide this on their own and make a closed starter for it that only the two of them can write. With these, there are no limits to what you can make the AU. Mermaids, werewolves, high school, childhood, New York City, Broadway, drug lords, military, and anything else you can think of. All I ask is that starters are pre-planned and closed since you can post open starters for the two group AUs that still stick to the main verse. Feel free to do this plotting via IM, OOC, inbox, whatever you find easiest. I don’t mind the OOC flooding with “Does anyone want to do a Star Wars AU?” post and letting multiple people reply!

WHERE ARE THEY NOW - 1991:

Alice Longbottom - After the war, Alice went to St. Mungo’s to train as a healer, which had always been her personal goal. She and Frank welcomed two more children to the family and spend their free time together at their family home.

Augustus Rookwood - He’s finally settled down, and Mr Skeeter-Rookwood couldn’t be any happier. After spending years watching from afar as Rita took the backseat in her own life, he was more than willing to let her chase her dreams (and her scoops) when she made her way back to him. Now, Rita works, and Augustus stays home with Astor while Gabriel is off at school after having retired young from his post in the Dept. of Ministries.

Andromeda Tonks - Now that Nymphadora is older, Andromeda has gone back to St Mungo’s and resumed her career as a healer. The years have been rough at times, but nothing has ever been more important to Andromeda than family, and family dinners have never been dull- not with the Blackinnon, Jily, and sometimes Skeetwood, families around.

Caradoc Dearborn - Caradoc found happiness. He works as a muggle vet and also lives in the forest in a cabin he built himself. He lives off the land and still protests for world peace. He’s also running a successful home company of brewing Rum. Gladys is back to be his long-term room mate now she has returned from her travels, as opposed to going back and forth as she had for the last several years.

Charity Burbage - After spending the past few years avoiding her parents and living a quiet life in a small muggle town, Charity seems to have finally found her place in the world. She is back at Hogwarts, the one place she truly felt at home, and is the brand new Professor of Muggle Studies. She couldn’t imagine anything better than getting to ramble on and on about her favorite topic: muggles. She seems to think that she brings a fresh take on them, especially after living among them for so long. Although, Charity does have issues with some of the children.

Gladys Gudgeon - Barely a year after the war was over, Gladys returned to Egypt. While there, she lived out her dream of being a curse breaker. She had her flings and fun, but nothing ever stuck. After a while, she began to feel unfulfilled. When her team returned from Egypt, she came back with them. She’s hoping to potentially apply as a teachers assistant at Hogwarts, but is currently back to being Caradoc’s full time roommate (whereas she was going back and forth between his place and Egypt) while she figures out her next step.

Glenda Chittock - Glenda is currently in a relationship with another woman and she is now a broadcast producer, still working for the WWN and hosts her own 1 hour programme every evening called The Witching Hour. Her siblings are now older, grown up, her younger sister Stella still lives with her- although now they live in a nicer area and larger house. She has also adopted two children from the magical orphanage as she discovered that she couldn’t have children after a curse in 1979.

Gwenog Jones - Although she remains unmarried, Gwen has two children by different fathers and the eldest is going off to Hogwarts. She is a renowned Quidditch star and is the front-runner to become the Harpies’ new Captain.

James Potter - It simply did not seem possible that Harry was old enough to go to Hogwarts this year, but James couldn’t be more excited. He’s been instilling the idea in all four of his children that they’re going to be Gryffindors when they go away to school, and he has dreams of them all playing quidditch someday, just like him. It’s gotten harder, being on the road and playing quidditch professionally with his children growing up, and Lily and James have begun to discuss his retirement from the sport within the next year.

Lily Potter - Still happily married to James, and the mother of four, Lily is still a whiz at Potions and keeping her skills from growing rusty, as she plans to take over for Slughorn in the next year or so. Life is never boring at the Potters’, though, and as she chases her children (aged 11, 9, 6, and 4) and Sirius, Ruby, and Scarlett around the house, there’s always joy and laughter. With Harry going off to Hogwarts this year to join Gabriel and Nymphadora, Lily is ready to tackle new adventures with James (as soon as he’s done being the Quidditch god she’s so proud of) and their ever growing brood.

Lucius Malfoy - The Malfoys got busy and now have five children. Lucius spends his time raising them with Narcissa but still makes sure he is caught up on politics with visits to the Ministry every other week.

Lucy Karoonda - Lucy and Benjy managed to get along well enough to a point where the two were able to give living under one roof a chance for the sake of their son. With Quidditch no longer in the picture, she has taken a position as editor of the Sports section of the Daily Prophet.

Marlene McKinnon - In a place where she never thought she’d be, Marlene is amazingly married to Sirius with their daughters, Scarlett and Ruby. While she never fulfilled her original dream of running the auror department, she works part time as an assistant to the Minister for Magic. Her knowledge of the muggle and magical world as well as the pureblooded world served the minister well. Once Ruby is in school, Marlene intends to take on the position full time and keep rising.

Narcissa Malfoy - After they managed to make it through the fall of the Dark Lord in one piece, Narcissa focused on rearing her children and supporting her husband. She enjoys a place in the upper echelons of pureblood society and frequently hosts balls and parties at Malfoy Manor.

Remus Lupin - Regardless of how hard he tries, Remus has been unable to get a job at the Ministry. Countless failures have left him feeling as though he is wasting his potential, sticking to the occasional odd job instead of fully applying himself to anything in the magical community.

Rita Skeeter - Rita is happily married to Augustus. She now runs The Daily Prophet and writes for a few muggle tabloids. She’s a working mum, leaving the now two boys at home. She’s also about to see her son off for his 3rd year.

Severus Snape - Ironically, Severus does end up at Hogwarts again. Now the Healer in charge of the Hospital wing channeling his own personal "saving people thing" into something much less stressful than war. With a long white apron and hair kept neatly back in a braid, he is a happier and more mellowed out version of his former self. Still, the children are all doxy egg-eating dunderheads and he is quick to tell them so.

Sirius Black - Marlene and Sirius are now married and living together with their daughters Scarlett and Ruby. She’s about to head off to Hogwarts. Sirius now works for the Auror office but also fixes motorcycles and cars in his spare time for his neighbours and town. He lives next door to Jily and their kids, he and James never being able to separate.

Ted Tonks - Ted landed a position on the Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee and is quite proud of it. He hopes to save up enough for him and Andie to take a brief vacation while Nymphadora is at school.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW - 1980:

Alice Longbottom - Alice and Frank somehow escaped the war - not completely unscathed or unharmed, but together and alive. Now that the Dark Lord is gone, they’re focusing on rebuilding their lives and pouring all their love into little Neville.

Andromeda Tonks - She’s a Healer at St Mungo’s, but lately, she’s been considering that it might be time to take a sabbatical and focus on raising her daughter, Nymphadora. Andromeda never wanted her child to feel unloved, and with everything that’s happened to their family, Andromeda wants Dora to know how cared for she is.

Augustus Rookwood - He’s been hard at work in the Dept of Mysteries practically since the moment he graduated, though he did take a little time out of his busy schedule to father a secret lovechild with Rita. She’s married, though, and he knows the story, so this is a fact that he’s kept to himself. Still, knowing that Rita, and his son Gabriel, are out there on the otherside of the world, the guilt of what he had done ate at him until he came clean. About 6 months earlier, Augustus went to Dumbledore to trade amnesty for information; he cleared his conscience, and along the way, gave the Order plenty of information on the Death Eaters. SInce he never took the mark, it was easier for Dumbledore to vouch for him, and now he’s in the clear.

Caradoc Dearborn - Caradoc was affected by the war. He found himself drawn in, fighting for his loved ones. Now, he’s lost and troubled, unsure on just what he was supposed to do. He currently has no job. His plans being put on hold since the war. He currently has no partner.

Charity Burbage - Charity had been working in the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office for the past 6 months, which is a job she hoped she would have loved. As it turns out, she dislikes it more and more each day and has seriously been contemplating quitting. This would most likely mean moving back in with her parents, which is something she would like to avoid at all costs.

Gladys Gudgeon - During the war, Gladys was in Egypt working as a cursebreaker. Although she knew someone was taking the information she learned back to the height of the war and using it against Voldemort, she was not in the loop and was not an integral part of the war. With the war over, she has returned home for a little while to check on her family.

Glenda Chittock - With the war freshly over, Glenda is working for the WWN. She had been a news correspondent, reporting from the front line, keeping the wizarding world informed on what was happening- especially with The Prophet being afraid to speak up. She also helped the Order, despite her siblings protests. With her gained independence, she won the rights of custody for her two younger siblings Stella and Matthew. She now lives with them in Battersea in a small flat.

Gwenog Jones - Gwen avoided getting embroiled in the war effort and instead joined the Holyhead Harpies as a Beater. With the defeat of Voldemort, she is looking forward to putting together a new life in a time of peace.

James Potter - Fathering a newborn is definitely not an easy job, but James is definitely glad to now be the only job that he has going on now. While the end of the war definitely came as a bit of a surprise, he can’t deny that it wasn’t a welcome one. Now, James is just excited to be able to raise his son in a world where he doesn’t have to worry about dark wizards, and spend time with his wife. Though, he can’t deny that Quidditch is starting to call his name once more.

Lily Potter - Mother to a newborn Harry, relieved is not a strong enough word to describe Lily’s feelings about the war’s end. She is happily married to James, and with their best friends next door, she finally feels like she can breathe again. If only she could get some sleep. Who would have known that babies were such hard work?

Lucius Malfoy - Having a newborn son left Lucius doing as was expected of him for the cause and nothing else to avoid getting his hands dirty since his family is more important. He retreated just before things got rough and nearly broke down when the Ministry took an interest in his involvement. Having been forced into it by his father left Luius able to give a convincing lie about having been acting under the imperious curse. With a son already in the picture it was made clear that he regretted anything he may have done under the curse.

Lucy Karoonda - A one night stand after a Quidditch victory against England left Lucy with an unexpected pregnancy that forced her into giving up her career. She has a gut feeling the baby's father is Benjy but has yet to get the nerve to mention the pregnancy.

Marlene McKinnon - For the next two years after graduation, she struggled with the war and her family. For the first time, she was able to be proud of her family when her father refused to financially support the war. The pride was short lived when they also refused to support the Order, claiming the entire war was foolish. During the final battle, Marlene admitted her feelings to Sirius after being separated since graduation. The excitement of surviving left them in a night together and, in the most cliche result Marlene could think of, left them pregnant. As she is just now finding out, Marlene has to decide what she wants the rest of her life to look like with no job and no promise of how Sirius will want to move forward.

Narcissa Malfoy - Narcissa Malfoy came through the war unscathed, with one baby and a second on the way. Her main priorities now are to keep her family safe and out of trouble.

Remus Lupin - Feelings of guilt have left Remus silent. He rarely speaks and has been trying to hand back his Order of Merlin award due to feeling unworthy of it. The damage done by the Order has left him realizing the monster inside him appeared without the full moon being present.

Rita Skeeter - Rita has come home for the first time since the birth of her son Gabriel in 1978 She previously moved to NY. Married into a wealthy publishing family. At the height of the war, being called back to see her family safe the pressure of her high profile marriage and the rules being thrust upon her drove her into Augustus’s arms- as a result Gabriel was conceived. She’s a trophy wife, her career on hold to supply children. She’s not happy.

Severus Snape - Severus Snape spied for the order for a few short but harrowing months. Now without the crushing guilt of Lily Potter's death, he does not feel beholden to Dumbledore and resists being forced into a teaching position at Hogwarts. Free to pursue his own interests, Severus has taken a Healing apprenticeship. He still makes a hobby of supplying his friends (the ones not in Azakaban) with potions he brews in his grotty London flat.

Sirius Black - With the war over, Sirius is currently in a predicament with Marlene. After splitting up after graduation and spending the past couple years fighting for survival- he now finds himself facing a brand new challenge. Admitting his feelings to Marlene which ended up with them sleeping together. They know have a baby on the way but he’s still trying to find his place in a world he truly thought was over for him. He doesn’t have a job, but the Ministry have offered to fast track him into the Auror programme.

Ted Tonks - An explosion the Death Eaters took credit for in muggle London took his brother Nolan's life and left his mother and Eli severely injured. Ted has closed off to everyone but his family and a select few, spending most of his time visiting his family in the hospital and doting on Nymphadora.

Questions asked and Answered:

Q. In the open AUs, is everything else the same? A. Yes, up until now, everything that has happened in the roleplay has still happened! Amycus still secretly stole everyone’s art work, the star gazing event happened, the Christmas parties... all of it. This is your chance to change the future - to live out that happily ever after your character might not’ve gotten! Perhaps they proposed during the war, afraid it was their last time to speak to their loved one? Maybe they ran and now are coming back a coward? It’s basically “canon” with a happier ending, if that makes sense. Not to say that your character can’t have suffered losses! They did just fight a war.

#thornsevent #thornsau

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