#to like. do. both plotwise and thematically

[obligatory-name-change]

have finished scott pilgrim takes off!!! i have many thoughts

[tyrannuspitch]

thinking about the specifics of loki's sexuality for the first time in aaages and like... while i am personally not too fussed and tend to go with the flow here. i've decided i think it's fair to argue that the loki show is so far removed from the original character that you don't have to accept what it says on the subject.

obviously SOME people will be doing that maliciously, especially (but by no means exclusively) if their alternative is that he's cishet. it's def worth watching out for (and reflecting on a little in yourself.)

but at the same time - there are genuinely zero datapoints on mcu loki's orientation while he has his original characterisation. he's never visibly attracted to anyone, and he never expresses any personal feelings on sex or romance. (i mean, overtly. you can read anything into anything if you go looking for it, but nothing is canon.) loki is queercoded, but his queercoding in the first three films is entirely about gender presentation. so, if you accept that this era of canon is separable from the rest, then by the same logic it follows that loki's actual orientation is a blank slate.

so yeah. obviously if you like seeing loki as bi that's great, vive la bisexualité. but also. if you see loki as gay or aroace or whatever else, especially if you've been doing so since the 2010s, who are any of us to tell you you're wrong.

[liittleemiixeer]

I know this theory has already been thought but I wanna delve deeper into it. I think the man who appears at the end of s2 ep1 is Abel. I know there have been theories about him being a demon hunter, but some of the reasons I'm not that sure he is one are tied to the circumstances of his appearance and the context provided by the narrative.

[long rant ahead hehehe]

Both look unusually pale and have a similar face structure, and the contrast of white hair vs. black hair makes me believe he might be the abel to his cain lmao. The contrast suggests an obvious juxtaposition, as if they were meant to be two sides of the same coin.

We know Cain hasn’t visited Heaven in a long time, and his strained relationships with the other immortals hint at a larger, unresolved conflict (they basically gossip about him going against his own family). AND let's not forget the deeper context here. In the biblical narrative, they're the first children of Adam and Eve. Then, Cain kills Abel out of jealousy after God favors Abel's offering over his own. But what if in HSR Abel never truly died? What if he survived and is now on a mission to confront his brother, perhaps to stop him from causing further destruction or to seek vengeance for what he did to him?

If Abel somehow endured, it would make sense for him to appear now, especially after we’ve just learned about Cain’s alternative, more destructive form. Besides, the fact that Pileon, a demon, is the one who finds him is rather telling. If this character were a demon hunter, it seems unlikely that a demon would be the one to discover him in such a vulnerable state—bloodied, weakened, and seemingly at the end of a fierce battle. The timing of this man’s arrival—just as we uncover Cain's darker nature—is too precise to be coincidental.

As a philologist, plotwise, him being Abel would certainly make sense in the context of the story's themes—of survival, moral conflict, and the struggles between heavenly and demonic forces in a world devastated by apocalyptic events. His return could add a layer of depth to the ongoing narrative, representing a force of justice or redemption against Cain's darker tendencies.

Moreover, if this mysterious character were simply a demon hunter, his appearance might lack the same emotional and thematic weight. However, as Abel, his presence would be deeply significant and would make great storytelling. He would embody not just a force of opposition against Cain, but a figure who brings moral complexity and personal stakes to the narrative. He could even represent vengeance, adding layers to the conflict between good and evil in a world ravaged by apocalyptic forces.

With all that being said, if he ends up being a demon hunter or something completely different, I'd really like to see a compelling reason for it. Something that works as a plot device that deepens it even more. Since Alexandra is doing an amazing job with HSR, I don't doubt her, she'll excel at it!!!

[askaniritual]

i watched the first 10 episodes of rgu!! some thoughts:

i am extremely into this aesthetically/conceptually i loooove things that are more allegorical and rely on an almost fairytale logic to operate

it's interesting because even this far in i would say i understand what it's about thematically (systems of power and how they operate, memory and desire, personhood and objectification, performance and the line between theater and reality) but i wouldn't say i know what it's actually about plotwise. the last two episodes it seems like it's starting to pick up so i guess the back half will maybe be a bit more focused?

i feel like every time i see people posting abt this show it's a lot of anthy love which has been very interesting so far because she's sort of a noncharacter? like notable in her lack of agency and personhood so i am very interested to see what kind of interiority she possesses considering she's currently essentially an object for everybody else to lust after and abuse. like i think her interest in animals is really telling, right? she sees them as equals because her role in this system is to be owned, essentially to be a pet

i feel like this show is the exact kind of weird that people love to point to in order to talk about how wiiiild and crazy anime is. and like to be sure i would say the watching experience feels a bit delirious but it's also sort of like. consistent with the show's fairytale logic. idk i have a high tolerance for that kind of thing so it works for me. funnier than i was expecting too!

i desperately desperately wish that i knew enough japanese to get the full cultural context for the term "revolution" as they use it in the original. because obviously that is a word with a lot of very specific cultural contexts in english, and refers both to political change as well as physical motion. but i can't say for sure that that's true in japanese as well (altho obviously they use the english word revolution in certain places)

in general the subs were a little weird, particularly it was frustrating me when i could tell that the show was doing wordplay based on the fact that third person pronouns in japanese aren't gendered. like for a show that's clearly very About gender it was annoying when i could see that that concept was being played with but not accurately translated

anyway!! it was fun, im enjoying it, very excited to watch more!

[swallowtailed]

palisade 28!

first of all, the intro—loved it. honoring black screen, reclaiming rhythm, acknowledging that post-combustor it still doesn’t feel like anything’s changed, but pushing forward anyway… (also i am so curious about this pirate rap station. who are the other hosts?? what are their shows like??)

i know the particular game of the interview scene was that brnine couldn’t gain any rhetorical ground, but ali absolutely slayed. incredible rp. truly a horrifying situation and brnine still landed some fantastic lines.

also want to make some sort of comparison to fever-dream and nightmare sequences—not quite sure what to call it, but i’m thinking of the kind of scene where a delirious character seems to hallucinate old arguments. coming under judgment, past and present blurring. (and how do we understand what it means to leave palisade?)

“stolen cameo” is a cool ship name but it became much funnier when it was revealed that they had kidnapped brnine to put them on tv

the question i had during that sequence was what’s asepsis doing while brnine’s in prison, and by the end of the episode i still had that question but even more so. what… the fuck! (also, didn’t brnine have some drones with them? does asepsis know where they are???)

eclectic opposition is The keith character name lmao. that’s just all of them already

jokes aside this character rips and i’m so excited for more terrible sleuth energy. black sequined poncho. “eclectic, and easily.” i have such a soft spot for noir aesthetics pasted over another genre. also very excited to dig into why all these hooks are “leap says”.

brief reflection on crew dynamics in brnine’s absence: figure stepped up, thisbe stepped in. which is really cool to see for both of them. figure took the lead in the scene and called the meeting to order, which really speaks to their freedom and confidence post-clem. thisbe didn’t do that, despite being technically in command, but she redirected the conversational dynamic in the way brnine might’ve tried to (her telling cori that vaping is bad for you is maybe my new favorite thisbe line… okay, no, it’s still second to “spoilers, corn is a grass”, but it’s up there.) 

really excited for figure’s plotline! talking to gur, seeing ghosts everywhere, bringing partial palisade onboard—they’ve leveled up and i’m so here for it. (also thinking about the past bleeding into the present, or maybe it’s better to understand that as a sort of recognition of continuity—same people, only changed. (which appeared a few times in this episode.) anyway, no new life can free you from your past, etc etc.)

also: partial palisade!!!! coming back onscreen!!!!!! we LOVE to see it

my main feeling after the latest faction turn was that somehow, post-combustor, nothing had actually changed. the blue channel got a huge win! the hugest! and then the cause went directly back to reacting to (and losing to) the authority, rather than actually making moves (cf outro of 25). i’m hoping we see more of a shift on the blue channel side, at least—it seems like the table is still set for that. having partial palisade on board could be really powerful (plotwise/thematically but maybe also mechanically). who knows—things could take a while to develop. (but also let’s drop another pillar!!!)

[number-1-kuaidul-fanboy]

Yugioh Endings Worst to Best

Yeah, “worst to best” because some of these endings flat out suck. Gonna be talking about the currently completed seven shows at the time of writing this as Go Rush hasn’t ended yet.

Worst: Sevens, an unsatisfying and predictable mess to an otherwise fun subversive show

Yeah, I said it. Even on rewatch, I don’t think Arc V has the worst ending. Arc V’s ending surprised me and had some things it actually did well (which I’ll get to). This ending though. After an entire show of subverting the tired old Yugioh tropes, Sevens goes really hard into their worst trope: a fake out death, which the previous Yugioh also ended with except with VRAINS, it was much more believable that the death could’ve been permanent, which I’ll get to. Sevens though? The characters are all 11, and Rush Duels are the new, cool thing for younger players, it’s so obvious the show isn’t going to end on the note of the protagonist dying and rush duels disappearing and yet it’s played out for so long. There’s an entire two year timeskip during which rush duels and Yuga are gone but the former is somehow okay because the game is back in the hands of children, even though earlier in the show, they were criticising master duels for becoming too overly complicated for the original intended audience, children, to understand and enjoy, which is legitimately a good meta criticism that I dug (especially coming right off the curtails of VRAINS). This ending feels like they were last minute trying to apologise to the master duel fans without trying to make it make sense with what they’d already set up in prior episodes. So yeah, Sevens ending not good. Not awful by any means, just very ill-fitting and weird.

6 Arc V-Messy/confused

I’ve always had problems with this ending and rewatching the entire show recently did not do it any favours. I think the final 8 episodes themselves were a saving grace after how boring I found the Z-Arc duel and how much of a mess the fusion arc was. The final 8 are fun and return the show to its roots and remind us that this whole journey has been about a kid who just wanted to make others happy with his duelling. I love that rather than defeating Z-Arc, Yuya becomes the first person to actually understand him (realising how similar they are) and saves him by making him smile. That’s really touching, and brings the themes of the show full circle. So in that way, it is better than Sevens’s ending as it’s more thematically and tonally consistent with the rest of the show. Still, I don’t like where we end up with the ending: Yuya and Yuzu now both permanently having their counterparts inside them was weird and Layra being de-aged into a baby and a vessel for Z-Arc, when previously, their whole character arc was about being their own person and not being a vessel for others is downright destructive and wrong. The final duel is at least good though, that’s something this and Sevens have in common, Arc V just had the good themes to back it up.

5 Zexal-Unoriginal/confusing

Throwback to the very first Yugioh ending I ever felt disappointed by. Nowadays, I find myself mostly mixed on this ending, and went a bit back and forth between it and Arc V’s endings. I think Zexal is the better show by a long shot and I actually like where nearly all the characters and the story end up by the end. The Don Thousand and Nasch duels are really great, even if the ending of the latter could be seen as rushed (I’m willing to accept it on account of just how good Yuma and Shark’s friendship was throughout the series). It’s the final duel that I take issue with. Yuma vs Astral… as a duel, it’s pretty good and exciting but plotwise, it’s just a rehash of Yugi vs Atem, with the whole “partners duelling with the conclusion of splitting up” and Judai vs Yugi with the whole “protagonist needs to learn to have fun with duelling again.” The second one in particular feels out of nowhere because even though it’s true that Yuma hasn’t been duelling for fun due to the war, his character hasn’t seemed all that different for it, unlike Judai who spent the majority of the final season isolating himself from everyone and acting very different to how he was prior to the events of season 3. Also, Astral lying that he’ll destroy the Barian world is jarring, it’s flat out jarring and weird that he’d do something like that and feels especially wrong for him to be doing in his final appearance of the show. Still, Astral and Yuma’s final scene is a good one (though definitely the least powerful of the three “partner farewell” scenes) and the final scene is pretty nice and cozy. So definitely very flawed but I’ve softened on it with time.

4 VRAINS-Conclusive, except when it wanted to advertise Duel Links

I'm conflicted on VRAINS's ending. The general reception I saw of it when I first watched it was that it was good, much better than the mess that was Arc V's ending and… yeah I can definitely agree it's better than both Arc V and Zexal's endings but I still have one glaring issue: it ends on a cliffhanger. Sure, Zexal does too but that was more of a casual "we're going to help Astral," and implies they're just going to do that now when there's a major issue. Plus all the characters seemed happy so answering this cliffhanger wasn't as much of a pressing matter. The VRAINS ending on the other hand… Yusaku has been gone for three months, endlessly searching for Ai who for all we know before the final shot, could be permanently dead considering the fact that the show was willing to permanently kill the other Ignis and Roboppi. Ai perma-dying was something I dreaded would happen before the finale. But he doesn't. Ai is alive and Yusaku doesn't know that but is looking for him anyway. What kind of ending note is that for an entire series?! It's definitely better than if Ai had permanently died (because that would've REALLY ruined the themes of VRAINS, full rant here: ) but it just… feels so obvious this wasn't the original intended ending, and it just doesn't feel like an ending to a series, it feels like they're trying to get us to watch the continuation, which in this case is Duel Links. Which I have played. Even now that this cliffhanger has been answered, I still don't like that the show ends on it. (Though to be fair, VRAINS was cut short due to behind the scenes troubles and had its ending changed somewhere during production so this may not entirely be the show’s fault.) Other than that though, the ending is actually pretty solid. It leaves everyone outside of Ai and Yusaku in a really good place and Ai and Yusaku's final scene is honestly great. It's probably the single most emotional scene in any of these series for me and I wouldn't change a thing about it, as much as it absolutely tears me apart. I just… wish what came after it didn’t feel so sequel-baity.

3 DM-Really good

Finally, an ending I can unequivocally call good. DM is far from my favourite YGO show (though I still really love it, don’t get me wrong) but even on rewatch, Atem’s farewell still makes me shed a few tears. Atem’s saved the world, he can finally rest in the spirit world and see all his old friends again, but that doesn’t mean his new friends won’t miss him. It’s simple, but it’s effective. The dub screws up the ending a little by cutting off so abruptly but I’ve seen the sub ending, it’s nice and cosy and has some nice closure for everyone. So not too big a deal personally.

2 5Ds-Extremely satisfying

Yeah, despite all the bumps in the road (some of them causing horrible crashes in quality), I think the ending of 5Ds was stellar and more than worth picking it up again to see. It ends kinda where the series began: a duel between Jack and Yusei only this time, they're duelling to figure out their futures. Yusei wants to stay in New Domino City while the others all have varying reasons that are pushing them to leave the city to pursue and in the end, that's what they decide on. The friendship between them absolutely still matters and will stand the test of time, their lives are just going in new directions and… that sentiment is honestly really touching to me. That bit where they're all driving together one final time, and Yusei stops just outside the city to high five them all as they pass and go on literal separate paths on the road moved me to tears. I'm getting teary-eyed writing about it honestly. The final episode isn’t perfect by any means but that final scene and the places it leaves its characters in the end honestly are, I really don’t have any complaints. The only reason it’s not number one is because GX is-

1 GX-Conclusive and mad fun

Yeah, yeah, the final duel is total fan service but like hell if Judai vs Yugi isn’t one of the most fun in any of these shows despite that. Or maybe because of that, I don’t know. I can personally assure you I’m not blinded by DM nostalgia here, I consider DM easily the weakest series. I just think it’s awesome as hell to see two duelling experts evenly trading blows and countering every move with such swift yet strangely simple precision. The duel itself is simple by today’s standards but at the time, it was mind-blowing to me and it’s still damn fun on rewatch, which is exactly what Judai needs at this point: a fun duel to remind him why he loved the game in the first place, after all the hardship and all the trauma he endured as a result of it. Now for the first time in a long time, he can have fun with a duel and regain his passion and his inner child. And lemme tell ya, if I loved the sentiments of the 5Ds ending, I absolutely adore the sentiments of this ending, primarily with Judai: still my absolutely favourite character in all of Yugioh (at the very least tied with Ai). That final scene of him running through the desert, talking about how he’s gonna keep moving forward and looking to the future, and looking hopeful and lively for the first time in so many episodes gives me so many good feels and so much genuine hope for my own future. It’s the kind of scene, and the kind of episode, that makes me happy to be alive. I love it so much. And Judai isn’t the only character who’s amazingly handled. All the major characters, Sho, Manjome, Asuka, they all graduate and begin working toward their futures. It’s the same sentiment as the 5Ds ending, how their lives are going in different directions but they’ll face the future with courage and their bonds will last forever. And as much as I do love how 5Ds did it, GX did this idea first and better. And in a slightly more relatable way as the characters of GX are essentially graduating high school in this finale, can you imagine how a senior in high school/college or a recent graduate would react to seeing their anxieties represented and worked through on-screen by characters they had come to love over the course of almost 200 episodes?

I don’t have to, because that was my experience with this ending. I started GX when I was finishing up my last year of school and finished it about a month after I’d graduated. So as you can imagine, this final season, and the ending especially, hit really hard and will always stick with me for that reason.

[oughtnots]

i am truly begging for more info on terror/ghost quartet 👀👀

ah thank you for asking!! i'm still piecing it together a bit since there aren't necessarily direct counterparts but some thoughts:

ghost quartet is about cycles of violence. since the pushing of pearl (onto the train tracks. into the river to drown) is so important, i was immediately put in mind of franklin being pushed down the ice hole. but for that we need a rose red equivalent and a thematic motivation. i know it's not sisterhood/brotherhood, but the two captains of the expedition, at odds...?

basically in this au crozier (a crozier in a worse mental state/at the end of his rope) takes the place of rose red and snaps when franklin refuses to send out the rescue expedition. he goes to tuunbaq (who is a more known entity, with silna as its shaman) to ask it to kill franklin, thus starting the "one pot of honey / one piece of stardust / one secret baptism / and a photo of a ghost" circular narrative/quest. but as you know, in the end the bear does not uphold its end of the bargain, and crozier has to take matters into his own hands...

i'm not adhering strictly to all of the cycles of rose being crozier because it doesn't really fit with the terror perfectly and also i want to get more than four characters in here haha. but that's my central idea for now

other miscellaneous thoughts:

- collins as starchild. secret baptism / never have a holy land. struggling to transcend a place of displacement and fear. definitely have some art planned about this.

- goodsir as photographer. there when franklin is pushed. photos of a ghost repeating--daguerreotypes of the murdered. "the photographer has a drink", goodsir drinking the poison.

- fitzjames as astronomer. crozier wants fitzjames's approval/camaraderie but fitzjames sides with franklin to look down on him instead (and yes i could pepper some fitzier in here if i so desired). also the astronomer's song is all about wanting to be a thing of beauty, wanting to do something great and incredible, but "i don't have the time/i don't practice enough" and that insecurity reads very fitzjames to me.

- i really really want to explore silna as tuunbaq's shaman (this is not so much a ghost quartet specific thing but relates to her role here). thinking of how in the book tuunbaq basically breathes through her/uses her as an instrument (yeah i know that scene is actually gross but i'm cutting out all that d*n s*mmons stuff). silna who has cut her tongue out to take her father's place but when tuunbaq wishes to speak through her, it still can. silna/tuunbaq both taking the place of "the bear", together.

- potentially separating the character of the pusher from the man on the platform. plotwise i've set crozier up to be the pusher but "screaming about the apocalypse/screaming that the day of revelation is at hand/reveal it to me right now!" feels like hickey to me. (then again, crozier IS the one ringing alarm bells about the expedition, which is a bit like screaming about the apocalypse.)

- i want to do something with the dead room / house of usher / "we are living in the tomb"

anyway this is all vague and not particularly coherent as of now but i have a lot of thoughts and i'm very excited to do more art about it! i already have some stuff that i haven't posted yet hee hee

[dimonds456]

Totally random question, but I need to ask this to people and you seem very smart when it comes to these things and I want to ask: do you think people should consume media critically? Like, be aware of all its flaws?

Oh yeah, absolutely. I think you should definitely be aware of a story's flaws- both plotwise and thematically- so you can better enjoy the story and engage with it, but that's not to say that media should be only consumed critically. It's entertainment, and if it's bad, then there is still value in it from a purely escapist perspective. But, you should be aware of flaws to learn from and understand in order to really engage with it.

Let me explain. Spoilers for Doki Doki Literature Club and Bendy and the Ink Machine / Dark Revival. Also mentioned is HTTYD: RTTE, Twilight, HP, and Little Nightmares.

I believe that your first watch / playthrough / read of a story should 100% be to enjoy the story and characters, engaging with the worldbuilding and just letting it take you for a ride. Now, some stories will have foreshadowing you pick up on and can figure out, but some stories will be pretty unpredictable going into them, but either way, you're letting a story tell itself.

For example, Doki Doki Literature Club (2017) is a dating sim horror game. For the first hour or so, you might forget the "disturbing imagery" warning at the front of the game, but the further you go on Sayori's path, the more you realize she's been struggling. Depression hits her hard, and she's barely holding on. As the Player, most felt bad for her and wanted to help her in some way, but it was already too late.

By the time you find out what happened, Sayori is dead. For both spoiler purposes and to make sure people who don't know this game and don't want to know what happened to her, I'm not going to say how she dies.

But, the game resets, this time without her in it. She's the heart of the group, and without her, things go to shit, even if the other Club members don't realize something is missing. There's an argument in both timelines, an argument Sayori is able to resolve peacefully in her timeline, but one that tears a deep gash in Yuri and Natsuki's relationship without her. This moment really hits if you engage with the story.

At the end of the game, which I won't say here (again, go play it and engage with the story yourself), you're left to make a pretty massive decision, which you could only figure out that that's what you need to do because of the game's meta look at itself by this point.

When I was first watching a playthrough of the game (I think through Jacksepticeye) I remember it helped me a lot since I was struggling just like Sayori was, and it turned me off from doing harm to myself for a long time. And understanding why goes into thinking about it critically.

Sayori's depression was almost word for word what mine was back when I first heard her talk about it. So, when she [REDACTED], it genuinely scared me. That could be me, I thought. It made me sure that I didn't want to go down the same path, and even helped me talk about my depression a bit more than I had been up to that point.

Does the game have flaws? Hell yes. A lot of the conversations go on a little long (but it's a dating sim, you signed up for dialogue lol), sometimes the scary bits can feel a bit out of place, there's a couple lines of dialogue that feel a bit off, ect.

However, I love DDLC despite its flaws simply because I love the story, it helped me, and it's just a good story with a powerful message. Critically, there are a few flaws, which I take in stride when I replay the game, but it doesn't hurt my experience.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, we have Bendy and the Ink Machine (2017). I remember being absolutely obsessed with Bendy, but looking back, the game is (subjectively) Not Good. So, why did I love it so much?

Well, for starters, the game released in 5 chapters from early 2017 to late 2018. This gave the fandom huge lengths of time to theorize, to fall in love with the characters, and engage with each other. By the time Chapter 2 came out, people already had an idea of what the story was going to be in its entirety because they filled in the blanks. And, we were half right, half wrong throughout the game, because the creators started centering plot points around things the fandom came up with rather than what they themselves came up with.

The primary example is Alice Angel from Chapter 3. In Chapter 2, all there was was one voice log explaining that there was a voice actress who liked playing the role, and a singular poster in which she starred in a short called "Sent from Above." That was it. But, the fans had her design, and without any knowledge of the character herself, suddenly there was fanart, shipping, character dynamics, and emotional attachment. So, the devs behind the game went and made her the focus of Chapter 3 simply because they thought that that's what the fandom wanted.

That was why I loved the game so much. It wasn't the game I loved, but the fandom and the fan stories created about the game.

However, I still have a soft spot for BATIM. I was hyperfixated on it for two whole years, and even had a fan story of my own called Demons Inside, which is still one of my better stories even if there are a lot of major flaws. And, despite how all over the place the game turned out, I still love it.

That's why, back in February, I got the idea to make a BATIM Rewritten video. I'd do something similar to what The Closer Look did for the Star Wars sequels and make a video explaining what went wrong, only to propose my own story and how they should have handled it.

However, that never came to pass. Bendy and the Dark Revival (2022) dropped not too long ago, and because the devs decided to release all the chapters at once instead of separately, there were no fandom points to go off of for this game. They had complete creative control, and used it well. When not doing what the fandom wants, these guys can create a genuinely good game. BATDR did a lot of what I wanted to do with the original, so making that Rewritten video is kinda a moot point now.

Back to BATIM, though, that game has a lot of flaws. Pacing, character inconsistency, introductions, set up, payoff, the whole thing. The voice acting, music, artwork, designs and stuff were all on-point, it was just mostly the story that was a mess lol. But despite that, BATIM and its fandom are like comfort food to me. I still go back and listen to BATIM fan songs constantly, and rewatching old comic dubs is like stepping into an old house. I still like BATIM, even if I constantly joke with my friends about how bad it is.

No piece of media will be perfect. You're allowed to like the Star Wars prequels and sequels, even if I cannot join you on that opinion (I think, it's been a literal decade since I've seen the prequels). You're allowed to like Twilight so long as you recognize that every single relationship in that series is toxic and you should not idolize any of them.

H*rry P*tter is nostalgic to a lot of us and I know I still love it, even if I cannot enjoy it because of what the creator is doing. HP is an exception because J. K. R*wling is an awful human being.

Even my favorite video game ever, Undertale, has its flaws. Quite a few of them, actually. People have complained that the battles get repetitive and it's annoying that they appear suddenly, and you can't choose whether you want to engage with them or not. People have complained about some of the characters, that there's individual character arcs that are bad (most commonly criticized is Alphys' and I strongly disagree, and I will defend her place in this story with my entire online existence), and stuff along those lines.

But, when Undertale made me cry that hard, when it said so many things I needed to hear, when it made me fall in love with so many of its characters, when it made me completely change my ENTIRE worldview... what else was I supposed to do but enjoy it?

Not to say that to enjoy a story, it must impact you, no. You can enjoy any piece of media without it impacting you. But, you should be able to connect with the characters, world, and story no matter what, despite its flaws. The mark of an enjoyable story is one that does that with you specifically. Now whether that's because you're crying or laughing at it is still up to you, but entertainment value ≠ objectively good.

You should be aware of flaws. You should be able to say "yeah they should have introduced Viggo Grimborne much earlier in Race to the Edge than they did, since he would be a much more looming threat" while still being able to enjoy Dragons: Race to the Edge. Recognizing flaws in a piece of media is pretty key to really connecting with it from an analytic standpoint, which I recommend doing with any story to really see how it works as a story.

But you don't have to.

Entertainment is escapism. You should watch or engage with it to let go of reality for a little while. I recommend being aware of flaws so you can learn from them and talk about the story to other people, but you don't have to do that. I've played Little Nightmares... never, but I've watched a bunch of playthroughs and it's a great game. I'm sure it has flaws, but I can't think of any off the top of my head. It's a great game with a lot of atmosphere, and it's told pretty much exclusively through worldbuilding, which is awesome, but I don't know everything there is to know and that's okay.

Enjoy a story however you want to. Everything has flaws, and although they should be taken into account, that doesn't define the experience.

[ocean-stuck]

A very long ??? post (+ some Arthur stuff)

Thinking ‘bout the scant information we have on ???, and what that might tell us about what it is plotwise and thematically.

So. ??? has exactly 3 appearances in the entire series. The Ghost flashback, the opening of Freaking Out, and...

well, you know.

These are all pretty brief, and they don’t really give any insight into its motivation (if it’s even sapient enough to have one), but its mechanics are readily apparent and there is the faintest scrap of backstory implied in Future, more on that later.

For now, let’s talk possession.

??? seems to gravitate toward the emotionally distressed. Envy may or may not be a preferred one, given Arthur’s mental state in the Ghost flashback and the association of green with envy (with the release of nearly every video, I’d spot at least a few not-very-sharp-eyed casuals who dismissed the green of Arthur’s possession as symbolic and failed to realize ??? existed at all; Future is the only one where this hasn’t happened, since at this point it’s literally impossible to miss). More notably, it also appears drawn to interpersonal distress, to people whose relationships are deteriorating. Both of its (sapient) targets, Arthur and Mystery, are at points of social turmoil when it enters them, and both, for varying reasons, opted to bottle their issues rather than discuss them.

(Also, this bat no one cares about. Presumably non-sapient stuff is easier by nature. I mean, it commands that hand just fine.)

This also speaks to how ??? manages to overwhelm Mystery so easily, compared to Arthur who lasted long enough for Mystery to forcibly excise it and was aware throughout, despite the former being an ancient and powerful nine-tailed kitsune and the latter a normal human. Arthur is lonely from being the third wheel and not wanting to hurt anyone’s feelings by talking about it. Mystery is bleeding out, has just watched his ex-partner possibly die (or so he believes) at the hands of his ward, who herself has just been seriously injured by said ex, and in trying and failing to prevent that same nightmare scenario has left the guys unattended, who last he saw one was trying to murder the other. Like not to invalidate Arthur but there’s a bit of a gap in severity here.

(image by artsy)

That still leaves some questions, though. How did it reach Mystery from such a long distance? Last we saw it, it was loitering outside the cavern. It could’ve followed Shiro, if not for the fact that it’d’ve had to keep pace with a high speed car chase while moving entirely on foot (hand?). Why is it still attached to the hand at all when it could surely find some random animal with less awkward means of locomotion? What was it doing at the cavern in the first place?

I’ve seen people speculate that remaining in the arm lets it remain connected to Arthur via his prosthesis, and while there’s definitely something fucky about that thing this seems strange to me as an explanation. The prosthesis consistently sparks yellow, Arthur’s own color, rather than green, with the only exception being while in direct contact with Lewis (pink). Speaking of, the prosthesis seems drawn to Lewis when active, which would be odd if ??? was trying to do harm through it since...what could it possibly do to a near-invulnerable ghost with power over fire and lifelike illusions using the body of a relatively fit but still normal human?

It could be that Mystery sealed it in the arm to prevent it from doing further harm, and this binding slipped as he became physically and emotionally vulnerable, while also giving ??? a magical line to Mystery for it to exploit. It’d answer the distance question as well.

I think there’s more, though.

I’ll save myself a paragraph or two and just plug this edit of a certain Future shot for the nth time.

Each stream seems to correspond to some form of harm done to a person significant to Mystery. We know or can intuit half of them (though this doesn’t seem to be the first time Vivi/Mushi or Shiro have been seriously harmed); the others, while not explained, match the rest of the cast’s secondary colors (which itself raises questions)...except green, which isn’t linked to any of the major characters except ???.

Has there been some deeper history between ??? and Mystery (haha rhyme) that we haven’t been let on until now?

Loved ones appear to be connected in essence as well as emotionally, at least when supernatural beings are involved. This essence can be drawn on and tracked.

Shiro uses this to locate people, though still has to physically travel in order to reach them. But ??? is a different sort of entity; it may be that it has more direct access to Mystery’s soul as an incorporeal being.

After all, one can affect someone at a distance with their essence on hand.

(??? being familiar with Mystery would also recontextualize this little surprised reaction it has to Shiro; it knows who she is, rather than just being wary of her as a stronger entity.)

This possibly points to a deliberateness to its actions in the Ghost flashback, to what happened being more than happenstance. But there’s still too little information to discern why, if so. Revenge for something? Power? Possessiveness? Was possessing Mystery the endgame the whole time? If so...now what? Why did it still linger around the cavern after the fact when everyone except Lewis had gtfo’d?

There’s not really anything to go on vis a vis motivations, so I’m not really gonna pursue this line further.

Some Funky Fresh Thematic Stuff

If Ghost can be said to be a cautionary tale about failing to communicate one’s emotional needs, ??? could be thought of as the interpersonal havoc that results from letting such issues stew too long.

Arthur keeps quiet about his loneliness and ends up vulnerable to ???. Mystery intervenes to prevent ??? from doing further harm, but by then the damage is done. What was once a typical relationship hurdle has become a full-blown traumatic event that creates a rift between the gang, particularly between Arthur and Mystery and between everyone and Lewis.

Furthermore, sealing ??? doesn’t stop things from collapsing, only prolongs it. Lewis is hurt and pissed and literally comes back with a vengeance. Shiro, one of Mystery’s failed pacts, is drawn into it trying to force him into whatever relationship they used to have. The mistakes of the past catch up, and Mystery’s loved ones nearly eat each other alive.

And at the end of it...??? is back.

I think if the gang wants to make it out of this one, it’ll take them confronting their pains and the ways they’ve failed each other in order to reconcile. By extension, I think saving Mystery is gonna be an everyone deal (including Shiro, who seems to be slowly waking up to her mistake when Vivi vibe checks her), though I think one in particular is likely to shine.

Arthur, the least assuming one of the main cast, the last person to have fallen under ???’s spell, who inadvertently enabled the plot through his insecurity, and also the one who’s bent backwards the hardest trying to fix what’s been broken since.

It’s like...poetic or something.

Also, I want an excuse for Arthur to do electric magic.

[acesydneysage]

18 and 30 for the va asks?

All the questions

18. What character would you want a spin off of?

I think the POV character would be Jill, and the rest of the Palm Springs gang could have some roles, so I can have more of my beloved Melrose family. She grew a lot during Bloodlines but her character got really sidelined and I think there's still a lot to explore with her. She went through a lot of trauma, and she was just coming into her own and accepting her new role.

Her relationship with Lissa could be fascinating, they definitely have a lot to work through. Lissa sees her as symbol of her idolized father's imperfection. Jill resents being used as a political pawn. They both will have a hell of a lot going on and won't be able to go on bonding trips or anything like that, since Lissa is queen and Jill is the Dragomir princess and will have a vote on the council once she turns 18. Jill wasn't raised as a royal, so she has a very different perspective even to royals who are sympathetic to non-royals' plight.

I really love Eddie and I want to see him happy. Being the main love interest could give him more of a spotlight. I didn't care much about Jeddie in canon (the age gap is a bit uncomfortable and we didn't get any deep insight into their relationship), but I think they have a lot of potential as grown ups. Their knight and princess dynamic could be very sweet, but it could also cause a lot of trouble.

Eddie has his thing about not even knowing who his dad is, while Jill is a princess, so above him. But Jill actually never knew her biological dad either, she was a bastard hidden like a shameful secret, and as I mentioned she's resentful of her worth being determined by her lineage, and her importance to other people's political schemes. And she got killed over it, she has every right to.

Eddie genuinely does see Jill's worth outside of her bloodline, he admires her will to fight and her grace, and how she learns to handle difficult situations. But he still internalized their society's hierarchy enough to let it fuel his inferiority complex. That could be an interesting conflict, he needs to consider himself her equal, and she needs to know he sees her as a person not a princess. Besides all the angst coming from the fact that he feels like he failed her twice before.

Jill and Eddie could have stayed together all this time, but I can easily see them breaking up and then meeting again. Eddie is living far alway form her, and he's dedicated to Sydney, Adrian and Declan. Then they would eventually have to actually decide to get together again when they're not hidden in a human school far away from their society's prejudices and expectations, but smack in the middle of them. Young dhampirs and Moroi, even royals, dating in school is seen as normal. The adult, politically active crown princess is a whole different story.

Thematically, it would be very good to have the Dragomir princess say that royal blood is not actually more important than anybody else's, including dhampirs, and she wants to be with a guardian and maybe eventually have little dhampirs thank you very much. Lissa was raised from birth to belive in her duty to carry on the Dragomir bloodline and pop out royal babies, but Jill wasn't and she's more likely to be able to see that that's messed up.

I understand that it's important in-world, but expecting me to actually find it important to continue a royal line is too much for me, sorry. It's a surname, congrats, I do not care. And if Eddie actually confronted what's wrong with guardian idology and that "they come first" nonsense I'd be so grateful. I don't think that was sufficiently taken down in canon, Rose kind of goes back to believing it in the end.

Jill also has shadowkissed problems to deal with. She's interested in self defense. If she had to put that into practice and ended up killing someone she'd have to deal with ghosts like Rose did. And Jill has a connection to Declan, through Adrian and Sydney, and she knows his secret, which could come in handy plotwise.

Declan and his super special spirit magic blood are probably gonna be very important, both because it could be the key in mass producing the Strigoi vaccine, and because the possibility of dhampirs having children with each other undermines their society's excuses for its Moroi supremacist structure.

If Adrian stops taking his meds for some reason, or even changes to a medication that has a similar effect to Lissa's and doesn't completely block the bond Jill could see into his head. So she can see what's going on with Declan and also cute sydrian moments and Eddie being an adorable uncle.

Maybe we'd even get Eddie's POV like we did with Adrian?

I think Angeline could be interesting. She'd start out hunting Strigoi with Trey like they said they would do. I'd really love if eventually she became an ambassador for the Keepers, just because I think it would take a lot of character development for her to become a diplomat.

I'm really into the idea of an Alchemist Revolution, and Zoe might actually be a good point of view character for that.

30. What moments do you remember laughing out loud at?

The tattoo parlor scene really killed me the first time around, and I still love it:

“Yeah? Can you draw a skeleton riding a motorcycle with flames coming out of it? And I want a pirate hat on the skeleton. And a parrot on his shoulder. A skeleton parrot. Or maybe a ninja skeleton parrot? No, that would be overkill. But it’d be cool if the biker skeleton could be shooting some ninja throwing stars. That are on fire.” [...] “Wait!” exclaimed Adrian. There was an anxious note to his voice, like he was trying to get someone’s attention. I had the uneasy feeling that the two guys who worked here were headed back behind the counter to investigate. “I need to know something else about the tattoo. Can the parrot also be wearing a pirate’s hat? Like a miniature one?”

I also loved said, “Mmm. O positive, my favorite.” Adrian scaring Keith in general is great, here's the full trilogy. And when Sydney is finally being rescued and she says "Are you wearing a suit? You didn't have to dress up for me." It was very unexpected. I love her!

And little Rose throwing a book at a teacher and calling her a fascist!

[icharchivist]

I have finished winter troupe debut episode! It was very dramatic lmao. Was enjoyable though. Winter troupe all had very interesting characters and It's nice to see a troupe that is all adults.

Since I complained about spring troupe issues being solved by not talking about it. I have to talk about how winter troupes issues were solved by literal outside forces trapping them or letting them read peoples minds.

I'm guessing they did this because unlike the teens who are more willing to be open about themselves and pester others,,,, adults are a lot less likely. (Before winter the adults were, sakyo, and itaru? cause the uni students aren't really adults yet. sakyo opens up to Izumi because he knows and trusts her. Itaru. Hasn't really opened up yet but he's getting there.) Whereas winter troupe is a group of strangers and the two who know each other literally are in the middle of massive misunderstanding/fight?/idk mutual disappointment.

(Also misumi just getting trapped in random time loops???? Holy shit is he ok???? Like he was able to figure it was tsumugi and tasuku this time but what if he doesn't know the people? I have so many questions)

Ok rant over. I have accepted that magic exists in a3 and all it wants is for people to get along and understand each other. But yeah once I crawl through the events and next act I have to rewatch spring hahaha. I definitely wasn't fair to them.

Homare oh my god. Just. Holds gently. I want to protect him. No one deserves to be called a broken cyborg :(

Gahhh all of winter troupe I just want to protect.

Also I saw fuyupoly is a thing? Because I'm excited to see the troupe develop more.

(you said you had a Google drive of the inbetween acts events :eyes: should I message you or something?)

tHEY’RE SO DRAMATIC I LOVE THEM SO MUCH.....

And yeah tbh when you talked about Spring having communication problems my first thought was “oh BOY you haven’t seen Winter yet” DLKFJDLFKJDFLKJDFLK

I. think about Winter much more than i should but yeah, pretty much it’s the fact they’re adults and strangers and just. are extremely conflict avoidant, all of them, for various reasons. Tsumugi because of his crushed confidence, Tasuku because he struggles to convey his feelings and he lost Tsumugi in the past, Hisoka because he litterally has no past and it freaks him out (Homare was spot on when he said Hisoka knew he couldn’t defend himself), Homare because he’s scared he’ll mess up again, and Azuma because he spent his life keeping people at armlength.  They’re all adult and agreeable people, and they are also all pretty understanding in some way, so they let some conflict pass by hoping it will be over soon. Some of them like Tsumugi, Azuma and Homare are also pretty analytic of people on a psychological way so they can try to navigate with what they know. 

But in the end without communication it’s not going very far, but they don’t really know how to do it when all of them are adults who have got used to it. 

so yeah, like you said it’s really that they’re adults and that unlike the youngest ones i think it’s just. they’re all used to compromise and compromise a part of themselves as well. 

but yeah the magic being the thing solving it cracks me up all the time i’m just. Like. okay. Okay cool okay. Normal. Like. Thematically wise i think it’s because Winter is a season that’s so cold and sad but there’s a bit of magic in it (like the magic of christmas) and i think that’s what it is meant to echo but that’s. so out of the blue DLKFJDKLFJDLKFJLDF that said once that just accepted i really love the way the three magical events reflects the characters (Tasuku and Tsumugi needed to reconnect and find back the comfort they had with one another and plushies are considered comfort items that helps transition into a safer place, it’s also linked to childhood and those two are childhood friends. Homare and the loupe are pretty straight forward, he needed to see closer, deeper. Azuma and Hisoka both were locked into a room, isolated, just like their past (or in Hisoka’s case what his flashbacks implies) make them feel isolated, having experienced loss).). I am FASCINATED with Winter. i just. akjhfkdhfkdjfmldjfmd?? sljhfjldk.

but aah i’m glad you enjoyed the ride so much i’m so happy!!

and god yeah please someone check on Misumi i worry for him wtf

and Homare’s arc yeah!! yeah!!! his arc is one of my fav arc i just. really love how it all plays out. It’s really rare to see a story goes “here’s a character with low empathy: and he’s the most loving and kind character you can imagine”. The way he struggles from it, how sad it makes him, this way to see himself, everything makes me want to cry for hours. I want to hold him so bad.

Fuyupoly is definitly a thing yeah. Fuyupoly my beloved. I adore Fuyupoly so much 😭 but Winter is honestly a slow burn, especially in comparaison to the rest of the teams. 

I actually didn’t think much of them at first read (Azuma and Hisoka were already my favs though, i’m so soft for them)(also i say that but i know i found back screenshot of me crying about fuyu on first read so i did feel a lot but it didn’t hit me until late, how much i actually cared), and now i legit can’t stop thinking about all of them. I don’t know how much it says about their slowburn or what it says about me but; Winter.

ANYWAY congratz on finishing the main story of act 1 :3c and yeah, i’d prefer if i could share it in private (bc it’s, a lot of content and if i provide it in public this is clearly piracy and DLKFJDF i know a3 tends to take down some of this content and i’m trying to be stealthy).

Though if you don’t want to come off anon, you can tell me in another anon’s ask, i’ll link you my drive, then you’ll need to send me an ask to tell me you got it so i can delete the post, if you prefer?

anyway the drive is up and ready anytime. i just didn’t update some of the latest act 2′s events but act 1 is filled and that’s the priority. so you know also this drive includes 1) Story events, 2) the songs linked to each plays (which tells the story of the plays, def recommand it), 3) All the backstages from limited time cards i could get. Backstages linked to specific events are inside their specific event files, else the cards which didn’t come in an event are in the “Scouting file”.  What’s important to read plotwise is the Event stories. The backstages are very good and i def recommand it but it may be overwhelming so you can skip them and come back later for them DLKJFLDKFJFD it’s really just the main plot of each event that you should watch.

(also i should mention only the first two events are fully voiced, the rest are just with some voicelines here and there, but i still recommand watching it bc of the mood with the music and the sprites and all)

so yeah ready to send it anytime you want  !! :3c

[monkey-network]

Eizouken v. Ratatouille: Dawn of the Creative Drive

WARNING: This critique will contain spoilers for Eizouken episodes 1-4 and the film Ratatouille. Also this is long. And yes, I had to make this or else I would’ve exploded. Enjoy.

Youtube’s TheRealJims made a video review of pixar’s Ratatouille not long ago, check it out by the way, and one thing about it caught me deep. He described Ratatouille as “a progressive kind of film, not in the political sense, but a very forward looking movie.” This line stuck with me as I begun to watch Keep Your Hands Off the Eizouken, an anime about a high schooler, inspired as a child, working her way to create anime with her friends. It wasn’t until episode 4 where mind threads started to knot, where that line about the pixar flic started to click with this anime in a way I’ve never thought of before. As such, I found that these two have a great thematic link, a connected warp between the creative minds of adults and children. Eizouken and Ratatouille do the remarkable in giving us the bouts and beauties to having a creative, “progressive” drive, and I wanted to explore how they stack up differently and similarly. And with that,,,,

The Ignition

The beginning scene of Eizouken where Midori see her inspiring anime for the first time is personally my favorite moment of the anime so far, borderline perfect. Like Remy, we already see her have this extrinsic passion for drawing once she arrives at her jungle gym of a newfound home; crude as they look, we see her seedling talent in jotting the details of her world onto paper. It’s then when she watches Future Boy Conan where her passion becomes etched in stone intrinsically. Miyazaki was her Gusteau, the bonafide inspiration that, taking it all in, made a simple hobby into a driven pursuit. Ratatouille more or less streamlines this whole moment with narration (makes sense cuz it’s a film) but they nonetheless bring home how a talent can be solidified if given the right push. Even if you didn’t have a desire to have a fulfilling career from it, you can’t deny that there was a moment in your life where something (be it a show, game, book, etc.) was the foundation to your biggest hobby, which then allowed you to explore it more as you grew up.

One thing to note is how Ratatouille handles Remy’s character with his interest. In spite of his palette gift, he doesn’t become a snob or too good towards his rat family; there’s not a moment where he claims he knows better than his skeptic father, they just idealistically disagree and their connection remains intact throughout the film. He has taste and knowledge, but isn’t smug about it. Midori is rounded the same way, she doesn’t push Kanamori or anyone to accept that anime is the best thing ever, and there’s that layer of anxiety to her love of anime that humanizes her aspirations a little more than Remy. It was a lot easier for Remy to be a cook than it was for Midori to make anything beyond concept art, or be sociable about it for that matter. At the same time, both remain humble in their ignited desires and understandably had to deal with an initial drawback to pursuing their dreams which is where...

The Helping Hands

Now, I’m not saying Midori is puppeting Tsubame or that Tsubame is a subversion of the whole rags to riches trope. I say like Linguini, Tsubame is one of the bridges for Midori to live out her desire, with the added bonus of being just as on board in scaffolding Asakusa’s passion to its most palpable form with her own dream of being an animator. Midori and Remy, be it their figurative or literal limitations, needed the likes of Linguini and Mizusaki to make things come to fruition. Even when Linguini doesn’t desirably wanna be a top chef himself, he witnesses Remy’s skill and is willing to put himself out there to work together and make the best cooking at the restaurant. Likewise, Tsubame is more than willing to work with Midori if it means not being forced into doing what her parents want and sharing that pathos of anime with a similar mind. And unlike Ratatouille, it helps that Tsubame is already adept in animating; I’ll talk to more on this later, but I’m glad Ōwara didn’t force us a character that wants to be somebody but has done nothing for herself. That’s what I noticed with both of these features, there’s a great semblance of support when passion is there but can’t progress singularly. There can/will be people out here to help you and they will come when you least expect it. Linguini and Tsubame both work well as the muscle of the cast, the character that does the heavy lifting in bringing the meal or anime to life. As such, we essentially have our director and the more hands on conductor of the project, but this all can’t be done without the producer.

Colette and Kanamori serve well as the anchor for our respective characters; we can’t just have the four characters go nuts with whatever, there needs to be some stability, a reality to the ambitious madness that can come with creating. Kanamori isn’t teaching the two any ground rules of anime, but she understands the analytics and guidelines to keeping things on track. Colette helps Linguini, by extension Remy, on the known etiquette to being productive in the kitchen, the same can be said for Kanamori in helping Tsubame and Midori in getting the film done clean and timely. While making a meal isn’t the same as making a whole cartoon, the ins and outs of getting things done have a parallel organized track. There’s especially more to making animation, especially on a deadline, and I’m glad Eizouken doesn’t shy away from giving you the thought process in what might go on behind the scenes; it practically gives you the ropes on what could happen if you were in each of the trio’s shoes. 

Additionally, these two are the most resolute of the three characters; they stick to the mission understanding where Remy and Midori are philosophically, and Tsubame and Linguini are fundamentally, coming from. She and Kanamori exhibit the practical outsider, the one to truly stick their neck out, don’t put up with bullshitting, to push the creative drive further. Both see the weight that comes to production and while Colette has her fallback in the 3rd act, they make sure everything goes as planned. They truly practice what they preach and are the glue that holds things together. The only disadvantage Colette has is that she lacks a relationship with Remy, it’s mostly indirect at the end while Asakusa and Kanamori are initially on better terms since they were already close friends. But with our characters on the move, there’s hardly such thing as a perfect run,,,,

The Fallback

This part is where Eizouken and Ratatouille truly divide because the problems that arises for our characters come in differently. Ratatouille has more outside factors coming in with the fact that Remy is a rat and is pulled between his connection with humans vs his own kind. Eizouken is more in-fighting between the three where Tsubame and Midori’s ambitions have to face off against Kanamori’s more realistic shut downs and options. Eizouken also presents the compromises that can come with being a creator where Ratatouille reasonably montages through the hardships that can come with human puppetry and becoming an instant hit in the kitchen. Success is portrayed more consistently in Ratatouille than in Eizouken, which focuses more on the progress. It’s obvious given that, again, making food is not as time and energy consuming as making a feature; we see that animation is a lot more than just drawing all your ideas onto the equivalent to a flip book.

To sidetrack a bit, I came to agree with Jim that Monsters University is the antithesis to Ratatouille where the hard work that one puts into their dreams doesn’t mean imminent or easily delivered success. It’s a bizarro film in that, while not breaking new ground plotwise, MU is grimly realistic in that your passionate drive won’t always lead to getting the spoils you exactly want. Eizouken cleverly sits the middle of the two, where success is achievable if you put the effort in, but that effort realistically won’t go exactly how you want. Mizusaki wants everything hand-drawn and Asakusa wants a story, but come to understand that shortcuts need to happen if they want to get it done by the  council meet. Kanamori isn’t crushing their aspirations for the hell of it, she makes it clear that time and the student body are not on their side. As opposed to Ratatouille, the final boss that are the critic(s) are notably secondary to getting the project done somehow. As mentioned before, I’m glad Ōwara made Tsubame already apt in animating because we can focus less on her being able to do it, more on the limitations that come with doing it. She has the skill, but has to bargain on her capabilities with what’s necessary as we see the tolls that come with the job.

Where I say these two collide somehow is the facet of the outsider putting the effort in for their goals. Remy and Midori are gifted and near encyclopedic in their trades, but are reasonably setback by both internal conflicting question of how far are they willing to go in exercising their drives. Remy more external than Midori since he could literally be killed if the truth was out too soon, but there is that self doubt in both of them where it can be hard to imagine that anyone can cook or that creating the great world is possible. It’s near the end of the arcs where they truly stand up for their beliefs and I appreciate that both handle the determined directing of our MCs in a respectable, pretty relatable way. They finally get to call the shots. They never sacrifice what could’ve been for what could be dauntingly realistic either; both offer an organic sense of optimism. But, with this optimism, comes the endgame that truly puts it all to the test in...

The Moment of Truth

Mr. Anton Ego, Skinner, and the Student Council are undoubtedly the final piece to these puzzles. It’s smart that they’re only present by the end of the arcs, only mentioned initially as the antagonistic force Remy and the Eizouken need to convince; they didn’t need to shoehorn their looming gavels any further. Naturally Skinner parallels the council president, a disingenuous hothead that antagonizes our MCs in a more unfair light while secretary Sakaki represents Ego, an intellectually honest person with actual standards and can see the forest for the trees. Eizouken’s episode 4 perfectly conceives why Kanamori is the boss, as she effortlessly confronts the allegations against them; not so much bluffing as she is spotlighting the council’s rash judgement. Unfortunately Kanamori can only debunk them so far, which leads to Midori overcoming her anxiety to demand that they’re given a chance. It’s great that Asakusa can suffer in silence for only so long before pushing herself to say something. This falls in line with Remy’s dad showing his son the grim realistic front of humans and rats before coming back to help him when he realizes Remy’s determinism. It’s like the rat says, the only way to go, “With luck, forward.”

Like the scene where Ego eats the titular dish, the moment we finally see the anime in full is almost disgustingly perfect. It’s fitting that a riot was going on before the presentation only for the action packed film to essentially come to life and throw chaos right back at everybody with powerful air waves, tank shells, and the tank itself jumping off the screen, literally blowing the audience away. Eizouken has literally more louder of a scene than Ratatouille’s, but both offer that climatic impart equally hard in their respective moments. They don’t shy away from grasping that immersive feeling of what you loved the most about food and/or animation, those invested in the film/series are basically with Ego and the student audience as those moments happen. It kinda hurts the brain how perfect these two moments are. Eizouken and Ratatouille, in a meta sense, weren’t successful only because they poke at our nostalgia or love, but of how they go the mile to convey it significantly. Ratatouille by the end, thanks to Ego, provides the apt idea of open-mindedness; that greatness can come from anywhere. Eizouken does this but adds the step that being open-minded can come with seeing what the efforts of that determined greatness can lead to. And with this, we see how it ends, or how it begins...

The Step Forward

I mentioned this before, but I loved that immediately after their demo reel finished, they weren’t worrying about any approval from the council or audience but discussing about what to improve on next. We see the soon boundless enthusiasm of the trio when, regardless of , they want to improve and do more as a team, all while the secretary approves the club in the hopes to see the fruitful potential. Compare this to Ratatouille for while Remy succeeds in convincing his family and Ego of his talent, they don’t sacrifice realism too much. Gusteau’s is naturally shut down, rats and humans aren’t suddenly living together by the end. At the same time, the movie wasn’t really about that, but about achieving small victories, optimistically grasping that palpable progress. Like Eizouken, Ratatouille leaves us with the progressive prospect that there’s the potential for more, for better.

To quote Jim once more, I say what makes both Eizouken and Ratatouille work fundamentally is that they keep the finger on the pulse of their respective message(s) while still creating enjoyable moments; they don’t sacrifice the fun of getting things right for pushing why it matters. They don’t sellout the bonds between our characters for irreverent romps in the kitchen or studio. Both offer a meaningfulness to their respective crafts, blending its many flavors into a well made dish that explores what it means to create and the steps that come with it. What it means to have passion and utilize that to its capable extent. What it means to enjoy a meal while watching an impressively finished production. They’re also very well animated; thanks Yuasa and Bird. 

[bpdkyle]

Hey!!! When you get the time... I would love to hear you talk about Mastermind!Kaito. You mentioned it goes well with his character thematically and... That piques my interest through the r o o f. Give me that sweet analysis of a sweet AU

Ahhhh thank you! You have no idea how sweet it is to hear that people like hearing me talk about Kaito! And mastermind!Kaito is… wonderful, and I’m always up for talking about that ^u^

The first thing about this AU that comes to mind is how it would fit into the main motif of the game, namely truth and lies. With lies as a main motif, a twist where the protagonist’s best friend turns out to be the mastermind would be a fitting twist. It also hasn’t happened in a dr game before with the mastermind characters being already set up as villains or as rather insignificant seeming characters. Having the mastermind be someone the player is supposed to get really attached to would be really shocking and impactful (and really sad). 

Also plotwise I feel like it could be integrated into the canon plot really well? Like, chapter five plays out mostly the same, but the execution was staged and once the chapter six reveal happens Kaito says what really happened in the hangar. Probably that Kokichi thinks his plan is going perfectly, but Kaito just laughs at him like, “Ya know, I know you’re not the mastermind. Because I am.” And Kokichi dies knowing he fell completely into the mastermind’s trap (because DESPAIR and there’s no way in hell Kaito would let Kokichi die with out knowing that he beat him). Figuring out that pretty much everything you though about chapter 5 was a lie fits the game’s theme pretty well too.

As for why such a super high school level sweetheart would be the mastermind, I can think of two main motivations in addition to just working for Team Danganronpa. The first is that he likes the power. He likes having complete control over everyone’s personalities and backstories because it lets him create a story where he gets to play the hero. And was NOT happy about Kokichi trying to screw that up. In fact, he probably ‘wrote’ Kokichi to be such a campy, evil villain to make his over the top heroisms look cooler. And of course he ‘wrote’ Shuichi and Maki to be the perfect, shonen anime-esque sidekick and love interest respectively. (Also I like to imagine that the occult-stuff went way further than he intended and his fear was legitimate, mainly because I think it’s funnier that way, and lets Kork unknowingly pull one over on the mastermind.)

Another motivation would be that he thinks the characters he creates for Danganronpa give people in the outside world something to believe in. After all, the outside world is so peaceful, there’s no need for heroes outside of fiction… With heroes from Danganronpa to believe in, people will be inspired to do their best, and make the impossible possible (thanks to him)! Unlike Mugi, I don’t think he’d be fine with hope or despair as long as it got ratings. He’d be very into to the idea of hope overcoming everything.

And during the trial… oh boy. He’d ABSOLUTELY keep referring to Shuichi as bro/partner/his first name and Maki as Maki Roll/Harumaki. Not completely tauntingly either. He’d legitimately still see them as his best friends, though he may take a moment to wax poetic about how sad it is that to get such wonderful friends he had to create them himself. He’d get over it quickly though because I mean come on, it’s Kaito. Always looking on the bright side, no despair for this mastermind :) Even while Shuichi and Maki are are actively fighting against him, he’d probably interrupt the debate to say stuff like “God, you guys are so much more confident than when I met you! I’m so proud!” And it catches them off guard because, yes, he’s the mastermind, but he’s still Kaito, and part of them both still want him to be proud of them. And they’re both still, on some level, happy to see him alive even if they do feel completely betrayed. He also feels somewhat entitled to them since he created their characters to be his sidekicks, and when the others try to snap them out of their despair and conflicted-ness, Kaito would get very very jealous >:3

I still see him as being terminally ill in this AU. Maybe that’s why he wanted to work for Team Danganronpa? Because Danganronpa gave him something to believe in while constantly in the hospital as a kid. And since death has always been following him, for lack of better wording, he’s pretty desensitized to working with it. And since he knows he’s going to die soon, he wants to live life to the fullest as a hero in Ultimate Real Fiction! Basically he’s a sickly delusional kid who wants to play heroes with his friends forever and ever no matter who has to die for it. Oh, and in his real execution, he would get trapped instead of crushed by the rubble and succumb to his illness. Just like chapter 5, it’s not his execution that killed him, but this time he wishes it was.

Good lord I did not expect to write that much, but the plot bunny got me. I’m really happy with it though! Thank you so much for prompting me to do this btw! I always smile when I see your messages :D

[spectershaped]

Now I’m thinking about plot twists in fiction

Beyond the obvious criticism of the Mandatory Twist that is liable to either be very obvious from the get-go, inconsistent with the story or both, I think there’s another layer of analysis that can be done about plot twists, including ones that are actually very well done. Which is: does it make the work satisfying?

A few months ago Scott Benson’s twitter thread on treating narratives as puzzles to be solved rather than something you interpret and analyze in a less absolute went viral, and it’s a VERY good thread that got me thinking about stories and how I engage with them... It was talking mostly about the consumption of stories, but now I’m thinking about their creation as dictated by that puzzle-box approach. I think that, when you have a very solid plot twist, it still shouldn’t serve as the pivot around which the entire structure and elements of the work revolve. I know some people like plot-heavy stuff, it’s all good, but I do believe that approach has the potential side effect of making your story as satisfying, when all is said is done, as solving a brain teaser.

Let’s talk about an experience of mine from not that long ago.

Before I started playing Remember11: The Age of Infinity, I had an inkling about the kind of game it was. Having played Ever17 not too long prior and also being aware that R11 was infamous for having a lot of non-explicitly-solved mysteries, I decided to get myself a notebook and write down anything that seemed peculiar or mysterious so I could put the pieces together as I played. And boy did I fail!! Only by checking out the Infinity series timeline online did I manage to understand HALF of what was going on. I kept playing over and over and getting all the endings (not without the help of a good guide, mind you) and this goddamn game basically became my white whale. At the end of it all, not only did I fail to fully understand what was going on plotwise, but... something about the game as a whole felt hollow to me. There were characters, and they had feelings and thoughts and some emotional scenes, and there’s a big theme of innocence as ignorance that doesn’t quite fit with the rest of the plot I guess but overall I just... couldn’t manage to feel satisfied. The entire work swirled shapelessly around its bizarre time travel plot and it just didn’t feel like much of it was worth anything to me in the end as a piece of fiction.

Mind you, I wasn’t necessarily mad that some things were very ambiguous, but that there wasn’t really any thematic reason for that ambiguity; I could scarcely even think of a possible way to interpret it because I felt whatever I could come up with would be a solution, maybe, but not one that made me feel like it was worthwhile to play. I didn’t even hate it, it just became this THING that I spent weeks trying to figure out and feeling kinda dumb for not doing so. (For all its faults, I thing there are some bits in NDRV3 that play a lot better with the idea of ambiguity and not being sure what’s true or not.)

Now, a positive example (imho) of how a plot twist can feel integrated into the narrative rather than sucking all of it like a black hole would be Super Dangan Ronpa 2. The twists at the end not only gel with the rest of the plot, but they affect the characters and put aspects of them in a new light, as well as connect to the themes of the game and the series (uncertainty about the future, the nature of hope, the haves and have-nots). The story doesn’t exist FOR the intricacy of the plot; there is room to breathe, for characters and players alike.

I dunno, this is long enough as it is, but I do think making your story into this big Rubik’s cube of plot elements ends up being to its detriment

[promin-blog]

The New Shadow – Morgoth and Human Sacrifice?

Regarding Tolkien's unfinished story The New Shadow, Christopher Tolkien wrote: "it will never be known what Borlas found in his dark and silent house, nor what part Saelon was playing and what his intentions were."

I offer my (textually-backed up) speculations on the possible development of The New Shadow. Also, I discuss some of the philosophical implication of this story and its thematic connections with (or better said ‘fractalic reiterations’ of) other parts of Tolkien's opus, mainly the Ainulindalë.

The New Shadow was published for the first time in HoME 12. It is unfinished and has two fairly short fragments that don't differ greatly in content.

For those less familiar with this story, I will give a quick recap. It takes place during the Forth Age, in Gondor, during the reign of Aragon’s son, Eldarion. Borlas, an old man, is sitting in his garden with Saelon, a young man who is a friend of his son.

While sitting there they have a discussion on the nature of Evil in the world, or more precisely, on both the re-appearing nature of this Evil:

 ‘Deep indeed run the roots of Evil,' said Borlas, 'and the black sap is strong in them. That tree will never be slain. Let men hew it as often as they may, it will thrust up shoots again as soon as they turn aside. (HoME 12)

 and it's omnipresence:

 For a man may have a garden with strong walls, Saelon, and yet find no peace or content there. There are some enemies that such walls will not keep out; for his garden is only part of a guarded realm after all. It is to the walls of the realm that he must look for his real defence.

Both of those ‘characteristics’ can be traced back to the Music of the Ainur and Melkor’s discords, which the story actually insinuates by mentioning the Great Theme:

I do not doubt that many of those we spoke of would use words as solemn as yours, and speak reverently of the Great Theme and such things - in your presence.

as well as the discords of Melkor, and Eru creatively ‘overgrowing' them:

My judgement as one of them you know already. The evils of the world were not at first in the great Theme, but entered with the discords of Melkor. Men did not come with these discords; they entered afterwards as a new thing direct from Eru, the One, and therefore they are called His children

It seems that the new identifiable spurt from this ‘tree of Evil’, that is, Melkor’s discords which are both “nowhere absent” (HoME 10, p422, while talking about ‘the Melkor-ingredient’ in matter) and reiterating, is someone named Herumor:

'Why!' said Saelon. 'We have hardly begun. It was not of your orchard, nor your apples, nor of me, that you were thinking when you spoke of the re-arising of the dark tree. What you were thinking of, Master Borlas, I can guess nonetheless. I have eyes and ears, and other senses, Master.' (…) 'You have heard then the name?' With hardly more than breath he formed it. 'Of Herumor?'

 Borlas's and Saelon's discussion could be considered as a kind of an reenactment of the Music on the micro-level, with Borlas and Saelon offering their arguments 'one atop of the other', like in a singing duel. Saelon is even "humming softly” during their discussion.

Plotwise, Saelon insinuates that he is in some way in contact with Herumor and/or those dissatisfied with the way things are in Gondor after ‘the King’ (meaning Aragorn) has died. We are led to believe by Saelon that these men make Herumor's following. Saelon offers Borlas to come with him tonight if the wants to 'learn more'.

Let's now take a look at what Tolkien said about the plot of The New Shadow:

I did begin a story placed about 100 years after the Downfall [of Sauron], but it proved both sinister and depressing. Since we are dealing with Men it is inevitable that we should be concerned with the most regrettable feature of their nature: their quick satiety with good. So that the people of Gondor in times of peace, justice and prosperity, would become discontented and restless - while the dynasts descended from Aragorn would become just kings and governors - like Denethor or worse. I found that even so early there was an outcrop of revolutionary plots, about a centre of secret Satanistic religion; while Gondorian boys were playing at being Orcs and going round doing damage." (HoME 12)

My speculations:

1) Herumor and his 'cult' are practicing human sacrifice, which would make them ‘satanists’, by Tolkien’s definition. Morgoth accepting human sacrifice as the proper way of worship goes back to the Tale of Adanel:

Then in fear lest he (Morgoth) should hear them and punish us all, we slew them (those who spoke against worshiping Morgoth), if we could; and those that fled we hunted; and if any were caught, our masters, his friends, commanded that they should be taken to the House and there done to death by fire. That pleased him greatly, his friends said; and indeed for a while it seemed that our afflictions were lightened. (HoME 10)

2) Herumor would turn out to be a Sauron-type evil leader, but human, claiming to be Sauron reincarnated, like Sauron claimed to be Morgoth reincarnated, after the fall of his master:

"At least in the Elder Days, and before he was bereft of his lord and fell into the folly of imitating him, and endeavoring to become himself supreme Lord of Middle-earth." (HoME 10)

The connection with Sauron could also be deduced from the title of the story - The New Shadow. Throughout LOTR Sauron is referred to as ‘the Shadow’, and the chapter of Fellowship in which Sauron is for the first time mentioned in LOTR is titled ‘The Shadow of the Past’. Sauron is even mentioned as ‘the Shadow’ in-story, by Saelon:

I do not mean of wild men only, or those who grew "under the Shadow", as they say.

Why do I think Herumor is human, and not Sauron returned?

There are two reasons why. Firstly, if Sauron (or Morgoth) was to return in this story, Tolkien would not, according to C.Tolkien, talk in this way:

‘I could have written a "thriller" about the plot and its discovery and overthrow - but it would be just that. Not worth doing.' (HoME 12)

The second, stronger, reason is this:

Sauron was a problem that Men had to deal with finally: the first of the many concentrations of Evil into definite power-points that they would have to combat as it was also the last of those in "mythological" personalized (but non-human) form.' (HoME10)

Sauron was the last ‘non-human power-point of Evil’ Men would fight against. From that follows that Herumor must be a human Evil power-point.

In accordance with the Sauron-model, Herumor would probably be presiding over human sacrifices in a manner of an ‘evil priest’, like Sauron did in Númenor (therefore we definitely have here also some shades of the Akallabêth).

3) Borlas gets sacrificed, or more probably, almost gets sacrificed 

Why Borlas would not join Saelon, you ask? Perhaps Borlas would turn out to be a Morgoth worshiper, in the end. I don’t think so, and there are two reasons for that: the first one is that Borlas held fast to his arguments in his philosophical discussion with Saelon and the second one is that Saelon is described in very sinister tones, treats Borlas with almost open contempt and has a grudge against the old man because Borlas berated him when he and some other boys picked unripe fruit to play with.

Just look at Saelon talking about that presumably very humiliating event and how he wants Borlas to have a taste of the ‘Orc-work’:

It was a mistake, Master Borlas. For I had heard tales of the Orcs and their doings, but I had not been interested till then. You turned my mind to them. I grew out of petty thefts (my father was not too easy), but I did not forget the Orcs. I began to feel hatred and think of the sweetness of revenge. We played at Orcs, I and my friends, and sometimes I thought: "Shall I gather my band and go and cut down his trees? Then he will think that the Orcs have really returned.”

Saelon would not want to work together with Borlas. He still wants revenge for the perceived mistreatment. Even Borlas picks up on this one:

(...) there was something disquieting in the young man's tone, something that made him wonder whether deep down, as deep as the roots of the dark trees, the childish resentment did not still linger. Yes, even in the heart of Saelon, the friend of his own son, and the young man who had in the last few years shown him much kindness in his loneliness. At any rate he resolved to say no more of his own thoughts to him.

No, Saelon probably doesn’t want to convert Borlas to Morgoth worship. But an old man would surely make an easy victim for a human sacrifice. Moreover, Borlas would make a very appropriate victim, since he is an ‘orthodox’ believer, in a sense, like those first human sacrifices made to Morgoth in The Tale of Adanel had been. And like the Faithful of Numenor, who were also deemed by Sauron as 'appropriate' human sacrifices.

Even Borlas seems to think he might end up sacrificed because of his beliefs:

And yet - why invite me to go with him? Not to convert old Borlas! Useless. Useless to try: no one would hope to win over a man who remembered the Evil of old, however far off.

What is also interesting here is that we have some justification for Borlas tolerating Saelon’s insolent tone throughout their discussion - “the young man (...) in the last few years (has) shown him much kindness in his loneliness”, much like Melkor did in Valinor, for some fifty years (see Annals of Aman in HoME 10, p106), after his own humiliation ‘at the feet of Manwë ’:

But fair-seeming were all the words and deeds of Melkor in that time, and both the Valar and the Eldar had profit from his aid and counsel, if they sought it (...) it seemed to Manwë that the evil of Melkor was cured. (Silmarillion)

I dare say that we get a glimpse at Melkor’s ‘psychology’ through these Saelon’s words:

Even then you were not content to let ill alone: to deter me with a beating, or to strengthen your fences. No. You were grieved and wanted to improve me. You had me into your house and talked to me.

Well, Manwë certainly took Melkor into his house and wanted to improve him. And Melkor definitely saw this as a humiliation and wanted revenge for this ‘slight’.

So, that is why Saelon gives off a sinister vibe - he is Melkor under the magnifying glass - that is, some of the previous ‘mythological’ events (like ‘the song of the Ainur’ or ‘the unchaining of Melkor’) get reiterated on the smaller level in The New Shadow, also shedding some ‘new light’ onto those past mythological events, fleshing them out, so to say, furthering our understanding of them.

EDIT: @feanorus-rex : Yeah, I didn't really address the actual cliffhanger, lol, that is, I didn't try to identify the 'intruder' in Borlas's house. But I don't think anything really crucial was about to happen at that point of the story.

Remember, it is already established at that point that Borlas is really shaken by his conversation with Saelon:

For some while after Saelon had gone Borlas stood still, covering his eyes and resting his brow against the cool bark of a tree beside the path. As he stood he searched back in his mind to discover how this strange and alarming conversation had begun.

It even takes some time for him to recover and get back to the house. I think that his mind is somewhat susceptible to play tricks on him at that point, so that he, kind of, convinces himself that he actually smells that ‘old Evil’, the Orcs:

Suddenly he smelt it, or so it seemed, though it came as it were from within outwards to the sense: he smelt the old Evil and knew it for what it was.

He also becomes afraid that he might end up dead himself:

He was to be lured to some place where he could disappear, like the Shipmen?

However, he does find the doors of his house open. If the doors weren't forced open, it might be his son, Berelach, that came home. But I think that the real danger was supposed to come a little later, at full dark, when Saelon returns. I was more intrigued by where Saelon might take Borlas.

[musefulstranger]

5x09 review-One Fettered Slave

I can’t believe we’ve come to this point.

One episode before the final epilogue and it feels so surreal-i can’t even begin to imagine  how it must’ve been for the people that have sticked to this show for 4 years.

Ep 9 was what i imagined it to be: quick paced, action packed and extremely emotional.

I was scared about the analogy between the Helena moments and the general mythology arc cause they had to show a lot of things- especially after Siobhan’s death- but they balanced it well.

let’s analyze the different thematics:

The Funeral

Siobhan’s funeral  started with Sarah speaking . In an episode that is focused on another character i think the writers did a good choice not showing Sarah’s vulnerability.

She’s suddenly the pillar of the family and eveyone is expecting directions from her. She has to be the strong one there’s no other way. Her grief and feelings are not her priority right now  so she won’t break down. Not in front of Kira, not in front of everyone.

Sarah’s grown so much.This moment says it all

what am i supposed to do?

she can’t afford losing her child as well. She’s the reason she’s keeping it together after all. So she stays with her and comforts her. Something Ms S had done all those years when Sarah was absent.

I also adored the symbolism of her wearing her mother’s jacket.

Sarah taking responsibility, lifting the weights of this family

also congrats for letting Tatiana without make up in her  portrayal of Sarah (or rather the “no make up” makeup ya know) cause it made her emotional chaos more humane… her eyes said it all..

also about her breaking down- i believe we’re gonna see her grieve the way she’s supposed to after everything is finally over. Last episode is Sarah centric so it totally fits to have her moment in the epilogue.

What i didn’t like from the funeral scene was the singing at the beginning, which i found anticlimactic..it would be much better if we could just hear Sara and Felix speaking with no other sound in the background..

Also the fact that 4 days after S’s death they could walk and talk in a house that is a murder scene was totally unrealistic..Police had to be all over the place investigating and all…

Unless Art handled the situation in a way..but still a plot hole is a plot hole

Team working together

Cosima,Felix, Art, Hellwizard, Scott, Rachel ok what a pleasant suprise to see everyone working together. I loved the fact that supporting actors got the chance to actually help the ledas and be useful. Each one helped in their own field.

Cosima helped with the Dyad information and Scotty-Hell with the security system (even if it was kinda weak to hack the security system with such convienience-i’m bypassing that lol)

Even Rachel helped!! Rachel!!! My only complaint was Alison’s minimum participation in this but i get that given the circumstances her involvement  would be extremely difficult

Should i talk about Art??

Cause everything

screams

SACRIFICE

and all this time i ‘ve been crazy rambling about how his chances of surving are veeeery  low…. ep 9 built his exodus cause the final episode will be Leda/Sarah Centric…so be prepared guys…

i get Ebro’s schedule..i trully do..and i was fine with Sardinia..i was fine with Geneva as well cause there was a reason behind it plotwise but we’ve come to the point where there isn’t even an explanation about this…

they didn’t clarify the reason she left… cause it doesn’t make sense when Siobhan’s funeral was 4 days after the gallery party…there wasn’t a reason good enough to justify her absence that’s why the writers didn’t give one…they prefered to let the fans decide which reason was good enough…let’s be real though that was sloppy..and as much as i love orphan black i’m gonna point out  it’s weakening points as well.

Coady+ Mark

So Mark died absolutely clueless…his death matched Ira’s death, both manipulated by their creators, hoping for a cure that never existed in the first place.Too bad that there wasn’t any building up to bring tension and to make us care about those characters… so this scene felt kinda flat at least for me…i believe the reason behind this was cause ob writers didn’t want to make Coady a grey character…. well i for once celebrated her death after this scene

wait it is confirmed that Coady is dead right? I mean Helena beat the shit out of her so it would be  impossible to zombie out ?? or should i be worried??

PT + Rachel!Sarah

oh god PT without his wig is like a bulb with ears lmao

anyway so i loved these 2 together…this is the first time Sarah meets John am i right?

also congrats to the props team and the level of detail they use in each scene…i liked that Sarah didn’t wear the same patch Rachel wears…

a++ to the dialogue about PT perving out on Rachel because in that way Sarah put herself on Rachel’s shoes and actually saw for the first time how they were monitoring her sister and what actually means complete lack of privacy…

also both Susan and PT seem to have a perplexed image as to what a father/mother figure looks like

you don’t fuck your ‘son’/ or watch you ‘daughter’ masturbate and then call them “son/daughter” lol

but it gave me pleasure that Rachel never actually called PT “father” and that’s how Sarah got exposed..

the moment she cut him with the knife i was like “yaaaas finish him lol”

HELENA

FLASHBACKS

omg??

don’t get me wrong the kid was very good/ super talented and all

but how could they do this???

i mean it was SO.FUCKING.OBVIOUS that this isn’t the face of a leda clone you couldn’t concentrate on anything else!

at least i couldn’t! Especially when 2 episodes before they used canonically Cynthia!

i mean

??????

it defies logic?? there’s no excuse??

they could have dubbed the ukranian parts i don’t care if little Cynthia couldn’t play that good that was so wrong in so many levels… it had the “Spongebob takes a bath in the sea” logic lol

and it was really such a shame cause the flashbacks were so amazing..

first of all i loved the whole “pleasures of the flesh are unacceptable in a religious environment” thematic cause it adresses real social issues like the austerity and fake puritanism of social institutions.

the reason behind Helena’s bleached hair was a nice touch even though little Helena should also have some  burn marks after this…we got to know why she has those pink shades under her eyes as well so that was good..

as far as to why her hair is still blonde after all this time…well i choose to patch this plot hole by believing that Helena did this to herself again and again..she bleached/dyed them as a sign of punishment, self harm  and guilt cause that was the way she was raised- a mouthpiece and killing machine of others..

the art department did a brilliant job with the dollhouse and the correlation between Helena’s fixation with dolls back in her Rachel assassination attempt

Tomas took her and hide her the fact  that she’s a copy..she grew up in the illusion that she was special..that she was the original..in fact Rachel and Helena fantasized about the same thing and it is so fascinating to see how they are 2 different sides of the same coin…

Most Heartbreaking moment

Oh god this moment…

what kind of mother could you possibly make?

jesus Tatiana each time you give more and more, i haven’t seen an actor as committed and devoted as you are, you deserve all the praise girl woah

Coady found Helena’s weakness and it is not how she smells, looks or talks…it’s about her capacity of giving a future more bright and beautiful to her children than the one her younger self  had to endure…

and at the end of the day she’s willing to take the bait..  it’s either freedom or death…exactly like Rachel..there’s no middle ground..she won’t leave her children become experiments so that’s why i find super important that we finally get a Rachel Helena scene…there’s a high probability Rachel won’t make it in the finale so at least lets have a last glorious scene with the 3 of them as they try to escape…or so i hope…

THE TWINS

YEEEEEESSSSS

all this crazy rambling about this being a Sarah-Helena season finally came true! Everything came full circle and this moment was SO important like you guys don’t understand…

Sarah finally made up for Helena..she gave her her blood to keep her alive…she put each and everyone of her friends and family searching for her, she made her a priority- drowning her grief -cause she couldn’t lose another one..especially Helena.

And now she will help her give birth..she will be there for her, protect her, give her life even..even tho after the obspoilers fiasco my theory now is that Art is gonna save Sarah…because it is super symbolic .. it would be his second chance and his redemption after losing Beth.. now he’s gonna do it right. Idk it is so foreshadowing… i wonder what Rachel’s role is gonna be..i sure hope she’s the one that’s gonna kill PT but who knows at this point.

Ep 9 set the mood for a very powerful ob series finale..Helena’s inner world was raw and pure and it’s going to  parallel  Sarah’s  final  gut-wrenching episode.The twins are going to set the epilogue and i trully hope their journey will be as magical and  satisfying as this show was  for all of us.