#But then when you have the context his relationship with Sara becomes important to the story and underlines it in a way you never thought

[allieinarden]

The generation that grows up with Over the Garden Wall will never understand how funny it was watching like 70% of the base flip from Team Beatrice to Team Sara when they watched it a second time.

[heliza24]

Let’s talk about parallels between Wilhelm and Sara in Season 3 of Young Royals

Because there are so many! This is a continuation of sorts of this meta that I wrote about them being A and B plot protagonists in season 1 and 2. I don’t know that I would describe them exactly that way in season 3, but I do think their plots, character arcs, and themes are meant to mirror each other very closely this season.

One of my favorite things about the parallels between Wilhelm and Sara this season is that comparing them really makes you hold Sara’s friendship with Felice on the same level as Wilhelm’s romantic relationship with Simon (and Sara’s with August) which I think is so important. Both Wilhelm and Sara go through breakups over the course of the season (I think Felice’s reaction especially frames her friendship breakup with Sara similarly to a romantic breakup, which I love). And both of their arcs are about mending those relationships.

Sara and Wilhelm both need to experience the world outside of Hillerska before they can mend those relationships. Sara is able to glimpse some independence, even just through getting her license. The whole world is open to her now, as Felice says in ep 6. I don’t know that she would have been able to make her decision not to go back to August without experiencing that freedom. And Wilhelm also needs to experience the full force of what life in the monarchy would be like before he is able to decide to leave it. Because of this they also act as our window into the two different worlds outside of Hillerska, the palace and Bjarstad. They create the larger context in which we understand Hillerska this season.

I love that both of their journeys of personal growth are symbolized through cars. Wilhelm is always getting trapped with his mom or a member of the court in a fancy car; it’s where almost all of the monarchy’s most onerous instructions on how to live are delivered to him. So it’s huge when he leaves his parents in the chauffeured car at the end of episode 6 and goes to find Simon, Felice and Sara in Sara’s beat up used car. Meanwhile, Sara has traded in horses for the car. This is stated pretty explicitly when her dad asks her if she would like to work with horses and she declines, saying that she has come to realize that horses are simply traded by rich people as status symbols, and her dad suggests she get her drivers license since it will help with any job she wants. In seasons 1 and 2 Rousseau is pretty heavily associated with August, along with the pressures put on August and the other elite kids at Hillerska to conform to expectations (@bluedalahorse has written the Bible on that here), so the fact that Sara swaps out the horse for a car that can take her anywhere feels like a step away from both August and the prescriptive norms of Hillerska.

Sara and Wilhelm both reject what they saw as their destined future. This is obviously really clear for Wilhelm; he assumed he would be prince and then king after Erik died, and his greatest moment of character growth is when he decides he doesn’t have to fulfill that assigned role if it will keep him from being happy and living authentically. I love the scene where Sara talks with her dad about her fears that she will fail in the same ways that he did because she also has autism and adhd. This is a less clear-cut assigned destiny, but that fear of becoming a self fulfilling prophecy is equally overwhelming, especially because Sara has already let down someone she cares about in a way that’s not dissimilar to how her father breaks promises. The fact that she’s able to come to terms with her dad’s influence in her life, but realize she really is in charge of her own future, is really powerful. (I also think it’s such smart writing about the way disability and internalized ableism can really affect your self image).

In order to break free of those predetermined destinies, both Sara and Wilhelm need to see a father/mentor figure as more than black and white. Wilhelm needs to acknowledge that Erik wasn’t perfect, and did help contribute to some of the abusive traditions of Hillerska. Sara needs to recognize that even though her dad isn’t a perfect parent, she still loves him for the care he is able to show to her and wants to have him in her life. I love that both Wilhelm and Sara learn to hold multiple conflicting emotions about their loved ones. They can be disappointed by some of Micke and Erik’s actions, but they can still value their relationships with those family members and recognize them as complex, complete people.

They also both go on a similar journey with how they see August. Wilhelm comes to recognize that August is both a perpetrator and victim of the class system and Hillerska’s systemized abuse. Sara similarly realizes that August is an adult who needs to be responsible for his own emotions. She’s no longer interested in saving him from his complex feelings of guilt, and recognizes his potential to find self healing. Both of those new assessments of August grant him more maturity and complexity than earlier in the show. (They also reflect the way that August grows, in fits and starts, over the course of season 3. If there was a season 4 of the show, I think we would really see August respond to Sara and Wilhelm’s new attitudes towards him in a way that would fuel future character growth).

Viewing Erik, Micke, and August more complexly also allows Sara and Wilhelm to forgive themselves for the ways they are similar to those people. They are able to acknowledge the shame they feel around their actions, but also forgive themselves in the same way that they forgive others.

Both Sara and Wilhelm have specifically let down Simon in pretty big ways (Sara by secretly dating August, Wilhelm by perpetuating the royal family restrictions onto Simon). But they are able to recognize those mistakes and reconcile with Simon.

Wilhelm and Sara both leave the monarchy (Wilhelm literally, Sara by refusing a relationship with August), but they also leave a kind of prescriptive romance behind. Wilhelm says no to having to monitor Simon, to having to roll out his relationship in a certain way to please the court, and to having their future together mapped out and their decision around children made for them. Sara says no to a smaller set of requirements, but the traditional ways that August sees romance are so influenced by the monarchy (which is in turn so influenced patriarchy) that they are similar in some ways. Sara says no to having to do August’s emotional labor, to managing him so that he will fit the image of a good heir. She says no to waiting for him to visit on weekends while he does military service. She says no to this grand plan that he has. (This was @bluedalahorse’s point originally that she shared with me, and honestly I think it's so smart). Wilhelm chooses a romantic relationship that he and Simon are free to create together without rules; Sara chooses a friendship based on honesty and support. Both are valid options that give the characters a sense of peace and freedom. And they would not have been able to make those choices without all of the growth they went through over the course of the season.

I think Sara and Wilhelm's arcs compliment each other so well, and it was one of my favorite things about season 3. I loved watching both of them get to grow so much and end up in such a happy place.

[voidcommascreamintothe]

Cassian is not going to die in the next acotar book, what are y’all on?

I’m talking about acotar again. I gotta. The thoughts must be let out!

Come, walk with me here.

I’ve seen a couple of tiktoks saying that Cassian is likely to die, or that he is fated to die. But I am convinced that media literacy is much lower than the experts thought, because some of the arguments are just… inaccurate interpretations of canon?

My arguments are as follows:

1. Elain saying it wouldn’t take much to kill him, was only in the context of the battle with Hybern. And i know this because acotar was supposed to be a trilogy!!! You dont even need to read between the lines here, you just have to read. It was supposed to end with Wings and Ruin. It was planned out and plotted as a trilogy; altho i am partly convinced that Maas never intended the books to continue past the first one (more on that another time). Elain either saw that Cassian dies and intervened because she saw that his death leads to Nesta’s death, or she warned him, to let him know that he is not infallible. His death means Nesta will probably die too, as is established when Nesta refuses to leave Cassian and covers his body with hers, so Elain warned him to not do anything stupid. Altho the fae people have long lives, they are not Deathless. They can still die. So that warning of Elain’s, only served as a reminder to Cassian.

2. We have canonical resurrections. Rhysand died and came back. All three Archeron sisters died and came back.

2.1. We also get a cop-out. Near the end of acosf, when Bryarlin is controling him, he turns the knife on himself and pretends to fall to his death, so that Nesta can unleash her power to its fullest. This fake “Cass dying” scenario happens like two or three times over the course of the books. It would be poor cheap writing on Mass’s part if it happens AGAIN. And poor and cheap writer she is not.

3. What would be the point?

No, i am serious here. Narratively, what purpose would a Major Character Death serve at this point in the story? When has an important character died, and stayed dead in these books?

I truly believe that Amren’s death would’ve served a narrative purpose. If she sacrificed herself - and stayed dead- for the sake of everyone else, it would’ve been definitive proof that she was more fae than cold blooded monster. She was not one for sentiments and warm hugs. This act would have been her showing just how much she changed, how much the love she received from her friends changed her for the better. But no, she gets scooped up from the magic cookware and becomes yet another powerful female character that looses her powers.

Side eye. Major side eye to Maas for that one.

And thats for Amren, a secondary character. I do not for one second believe that permadeath is in the cards for any of the acotar characters.

4. Maas got her start in writing Sailor Moon fanfics. Do you think that someone who writes Sailor Moon fanfics would NOT write a HEA?

Ok this is more of a meta-textual reading of the text, looking at the bigger picture and incorporating details from real life into the contextual interpretation of the text, but it is important still.

Maas’s stories are high fantasy with a hard magic system and also a focus on love and loving relationships between people. Throne of Glass specifically, but the Maasverse generally, follow this kind of pattern and genre. A Court of Thorns and Roses is much more of a Romantic Fantasy. Romantic not as in smut, but as in Princess Bride. Romantic as in the Romantic movement in literature. It is idealistic. It shows a world through pink lenses in the shape of love hearts. It is much more of a 80s or 90s fantasy movie than anything else.

Game of Thrones these books are not. GRRM, Sara is not. The tonal shift that would come with a Major Character Death would be jarring. It would be off putting to a lot of the core audiences, and if Maas doesn’t see this, then Bloomsberry does. Or someone on her team does. If they cut a threesome scene, citing messiness and over complicating character relationships, then they most likely advise to stick with the status quo: HEA.

Love and loving connections is a huge part of the plot in Sailor Moon. The meaning of love, life, bonds with other people, all of this warm fuzzy way of telling a story is the point of the immaculate conception of Maas’s world building. She will bot go against it. It is not within her style nor her pattern of storytelling.

4.1. My loves, Aelin made it out of the box. Aelin got her happy ending with Rowan by her side and a crown on her head. Her Majesty the Queen of Therassen, got out of the box and got her happy ending- without her powers (side eye) but that is for another post. We were worried for a second there, but it was a HEA at the end wasn’t it?

When Maas said that we should be worried for Hunt, (or Rhun really, both are in a bit of a pickle at the point the story left them), I am confident she meant we should worry for them in the same way we were worried for Aelin. Who went through hell, but came back. To her HEA. Do you see what in putting down?

4.2. I also don’t really have a way of saying this, but smutty romantasy books do not kill off their breeding pairs. The style/subgenre of smutty romantasy does not come with main girl/boy death. Side characters, maybe; parrents or siblings (often off-screen) definitely.

But not your breeding pair. Cmon. We’ve read enough of those books to see the established pattern right girls?

I am by no means an athority on ACoTaR lore. Im just a girl in the world, reading smut. But I do have reading comprehension skills. Well developed ones, in thanks to all that classic literature i read as assigned reading in school. If I can analyze the motivations and traits of Raskolnikov and the original Lady Marmalade, as well as accurately surmise the plot of War and Peace, a book that gave me no peace and gives me war flashbacks, then a book about hot people having hot skysex is not an issue babez, truly it is not.

Bonsoir.

[bluedalahorse]

17 and 18 from the Fanfic Writer Asks!

Before I start, the ask box game is linked here in case anyone else wants to ask me something.

17. What’s something you’ve learned about while doing research for a fic?

Two learnings! Food and fashion!

A food-related piece of information to start: somehow I ended up reading about kåldolmar (cabbage rolls) and how they are allegedly linked to time in the 18th century when Carl XII was staying in the Ottoman Empire. Apparently (according to what I read at least) they’re a Swedish adaptation of dolmas. Which is kinda cool to learn, especially since I’m someone who likes food from the eastern Mediterranean.

And now, fashion: Because I’m writing something set in 1809, I did end up reading about clothes closures, and the different ways that clothes were closed with pins and drawstrings and the like. I think spicy scenes in fanfic tend to fall back on buttons a lot, whether those fics are historical or contemporary. But strings! Laces! Pins! Imagine the ways they can be used to amplify the spiciness content, whether that’s through humor or through sensory surprises or whatever else. I’m just saying.

18. What’s one of your favorite lines you’ve written in a fic?

Oh gosh. I have a few lines I really like, but I like them so much I want readers to discover them in context. So instead I’m going to grandstandingly share a few passages from Heart and Homeland, one for each of the primary viewpoint characters I write, and say what I like about them.

So anyway, to preview… queer-and-questioning Felice! Poetry-influenced Sara! Unreliable August! Protestant Kristina!

Felice

“My father is not easy to discuss while dancing,” Simon was quiet for a moment, as if letting the air swallow the entire topic of fathers. Then a boyish smile, almost shy, came to his face. “But I heard you and Wilhelm have met before?” Ah, so the smile was for Wilhelm. “Tell me about that.”

“We were six years old,” said Felice. “Mamma has been eyeing us all night. I swear she wants me to marry him now.”

“Would you? Would you consider it a love match if your parents arranged it?”

What a strange question, Felice thought. “I’m not a foreign princess and Sweden needs an alliance. So I couldn’t.”

“I couldn’t marry Wilhelm either,” Simon said.

Although Simon and Felice both laughed at the latter comment, Felice felt Simon’s hand twitch suddenly in her own, as if he were startled. What did that mean? The music in the background did not change key or tempo, as if the orchestra itself was pressuring her not to ask. 

So instead Felice only said, “Such a droll remark, Mr. Eriksson.”

It left her heart feeling sad and a little rain-soaked, after she said it. She needed more of their secret language to say Wilhelm has a hold on you and I would like to understand it more, if you judged us friends enough to tell me about him. But she was still only a baby babbling syllables in a tongue where Simon was more fluent, and now the progression of the dance was forcing them apart from one another again. Felice’s feet grew heavy, even as her steps remained perfect.

Okay, something I like about this passage is that Felice and Simon are bonding, which is something canon should give us more of. I like being able to play with the politeness demanded of Felice by society at large, versus what Felice actually wants to say in a conversation, and how she negotiates that.

Felice is also on the verge of discovering her queerness here—something that Simon already understands about himself and has language for—but that Felice doesn’t quite have words for yet. She senses a kinship between herself and Simon, but she doesn’t quite know how to articulate it. In the passages and chapters that follow, Felice discovers more about herself and begins to embrace it. I was very conscious to make platonic friendships an important part of her queer self-acceptance journey. Felice’s choice to elevate friendships to the same level as the romantic relationship she eventually becomes part of… that’s important to me!

Queer friendship hits different and sometimes it makes me sad when queer texts over-emphasize the romantic aspects of being queer while downplaying the platonic stuff. So I decided to write what I wanted to see in the world.

Sara

When Sara and Simon were children, their Pappa told them about the whales he’d seen on his voyages. Pappa narrated grand bedtime stories about the creatures, moving his hands and changing the volume of his voice so that Sara could imagine the suddenness of a splash, the massive arc of a tail breaking through the waves. If you were patient, he said, you could see a whale coming up for air. Sara used to cling to Simon as she listened, half scared and half exhilarated. For Sara to be able to sleep at all, Simon had to remind her that the whales couldn’t get them on land.

Secrets, Sara later came to understand, swam under her skin like whales swam under the water. They moved with just as much magnitude. Sometimes, for a moment, she could forget about a secret and it wouldn’t bother her. Given enough time, however, a secret needed air. It too would force itself to the surface so that Sara could keep breathing.

Sara is probably the POV character I write who is the most influenced by the work I’ve done in poetry. My MFA advisor last fall really worked with me on images, and we spent a lot of time studying image systems in novels-in-verse. I’m pretty sure these two paragraphs were influenced by that study. Like, whales = secrets. Okay, Blue.

Sara’s memories play an important role for me in shaping her motivations and core emotions. I like including lots of glimpses of what her and Simon were like as little kids. I know we’re all hoping to get more Eriksson family backstory in season 3, and I hope for that too, so it’s something I try to include in my writing. As difficult and horrifying as things probably got with Micke at times, I think it’s also important to show moments where he’s taking care of Simon and Sara and being their father. These memories are now sad and bittersweet for Sara because of Micke’s abuse, and  they’re also an important part of understanding her and how she views herself.

August

He cast his gaze in another direction, where Sara Eriksson was curtseying to Prince Wilhelm and taking her leave. Thank goodness those two would not be dancing another set together. Now why was His Highness going off on his own again? Didn’t he understand that you could win over influential families by flirting with their daughters? And if Wilhelm was going to be king someday, August thought, he ought to have at least one mistress, for the sake of convention. Though August would never say such a thing to his cousin the queen, he could not understand why Wilhelm so insisted on cultivating a chaste appearance. It made no sense, given his position.

Anyhow! If everyone wanted to dismantle the social hierarchy this evening, why couldn’t August ask Sara Eriksson to dance and make Felice feel as slighted as he did? He wouldn’t of course, since Miss Eriksson had started the trouble between him and Felice in the first place, and August wanted to prove he could avoid such trouble. Flexing his fingers, he made his way through the crowd, toward the doors that opened onto the garden terrace. If he was going to let himself pine and rage, he might as well do it in the darkness. The English Lord Byron, with all his poetry of ill repute, could only approve of such a pose.

OH AUGUST. I wrote this passage as an homage to Susanna Clarke, whose descriptions of Lord Byron in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell had me in stitches. Clarke is divinely talented at writing self-important men and their warped perspectives of the world, so I find myself inspired by her a lot when I’m writing from August’s point of view.

August is not a reliable narrator, obviously, and I like playing with how his perceptions of events change with time. Like, no, Sara did not start the trouble between him and Felice; he started it and flirted with Sara. But of course, August is the most wounded ever, you guys. He is so brooding he could just write (bad) poetry about it. In the next few paragraphs (not shared here) August’s thoughts start to drift toward more in the direction of Freudian death drive ideations (maybe with some Freudian sex drive thrown in, I mean why the hell not.) I found it an interesting writing challenge in terms of transitioning over-the-top ridiculousness toward the more more serious stuff that sort of hints at the traumatized core of the character.

I highly encourage that every Young Royals fan (who can do so from a place of emotional safety) try writing from August’s perspective at least once. It is a solid exercise and you will learn a lot from it!

Kristina

As a devout monarch, Kristina knew that the world to come offered far more than the world she’d been placed in charge of. The Lord had brought so many of her dear family members home to heaven—her father, her husband Ludwig, her cousin Karl Johan, one unnamed daughter who only lived three days, and most recently Erik. Especially during the Easter season, Kristina could push through the hollowness of her grief and tell herself that at the end of life, salvation waited for those dear to her. If anything had happened to her Wilhelm last night, however, it would have shaken her faith the way cannonfire might shake the windows of a building.

Wilhelm was Kristina’s miracle; she had thought of him that way since he was very little, fighting through his sick spells. At that age, when he felt well enough, he would sit at her knee in the evenings and listen to her stories of what she’d done as queen during the day. He would often repeat back the details of a particular state visit or conflict between nobles, and would do so in such a way that Kristina felt more equipped to solve the problem at hand. Then at night, Wilhelm would sleep with his arms tucked around a pillow, looking so angelic that Kristina couldn’t help reaching out stroking her son’s silk-soft hair in a way she didn’t when he was awake. No, she did not want Wilhelm among the angels just yet. So she thanked God, and then thanked Him again, and then asked Him to guide Wilhelm as he got closer to taking the throne.

Sigh. Kristina. You do love your son, you are just… so bad at showing it. And in this universe you are so, so very Protestant. I like how I managed to tie all that together here, and give this little flashback into who Kristina has lost and how she thinks back on her life. I often access a core emotion when writing each of my POV characters, and Kristina’s emotion is grief. I also think you can tell Kristina sees the similarities between Wilhelm and herself. Sometimes that means she sees him as an extension of herself, which is I think where the conflicts between them start.

Similarly to August, I highly encourage every Young Royals fan (who can do so from a place of emotional safety) to write from Kristina’s perspective at least once. She’s worth the investment of your writing time!

Anyway I hope that was all a fun behind the scenes…

[evakuality]

Matteo - episode two

Social media - I feel like the social media doesn’t always work for me just because I often sleep at the wrong times of day for Germany and so when or why things happened sometimes feels difficult for me to judge.  For example, I feel like the Sara and Leonie and messing around with David at PE feels somehow out of place.  They didn’t seem to know each other much on Friday when Sara interrupted Matteo and David and yet here they are hanging out and playing together like long time friends on social media not long after.  It’s a lovely set up for Matteo finding out more about David as he reluctantly follows Sara’s social media, but the connection from one moment to the other is difficult to follow.  More than ever I wish we had more of a sense of David and what he was up to behind the scenes so to speak.  Also, Sara’s desperation around Matteo when she’s talking to Leonie is so painful.  By the end of this episode Leonie is all ‘you need to get over this asshole’ but Sara is still super invested in this thing she’s built up in her head.  She wants this to be real so much that she’s ignoring all the red flags.  It doesn’t help that Matteo is actively curating his social media presence to fit in - so he does a lot of stuff with Sara for her Instagram.  That it’s all the same sort of stuff he does with his friends seems to go over her head - he doesn’t see her the way she wants to be seen, but then he also does things like knee-jerk into an invite to his home when he sees David hugging Leonie.  What he does and why makes sense (we’ll get to that in the actual clip) but it doesn’t make it any easier for Sara.  Though, really, she should listen to Leonie who is the only one in this scenario who has her back and can clearly see what is happening.

clip one - I really like seeing characters peacefully chilling in their own space and just being relaxed.  Matteo’s not exactly happy, of course, but he seems content in this scene.  He has his game, he has his little stalker moment on David and there are no expectations on him.  But then of course Hans comes along.  Hans, bless him, doesn’t mean to be forcing expectations on Matteo, but unfortunately he’s hitting some sore spots for Matteo.  Matteo knows he’s into guys, is fairly obvious about his attractions, but there’s this very painful understanding that the guys he likes can’t or don’t see him the same way.  David is still something exciting at this point - they made a connection and while Matteo doesn’t know if he likes guys too, he also knows they have some kinship on some issues.  So his gut reaction is to hide the picture he’s been looking at despite it being on his girlfriend’s Instagram, because it feels incriminating to him.  Here he is fantasising over yet another guy who is probably straight and probably has a thing with Leonie (he is extrapolating HARD from the small bits of info he has and from Sara’s reactions).  It’s sweet that Hans literally comes to Matteo to get advice on his choices of guys, but it feels threatening to Matteo both in a ‘I can’t let on that I’m gay’ way and because it feels like someone expecting something of him which he isn’t capable of giving - it’s very obvious that the guys Hans is choosing from and the type of guy Matteo likes are poles apart and so he literally doesn’t know which of the guys Hans wants is best.  They really aren’t his type at all.  

I also have to say that Sara’s demands for instant answers is exhausting.  Why do we have this expectation?  She’s decided that he’s not being good to her because he’s not instantly responding, but it shouldn’t be such a norm that we reply right away.  In Matteo’s case, he’s trying to chill and relax and we have both Hans and Sara intruding on that space with expectations of him.  My introverted self shudders at this and I feel for Matteo.

clip two - this of course leads into clip two when Sara confronts Matteo again.  She is once again, the one trying to use words and communicate properly.  This is exactly what we tell people to do when trying to work with relationships but she’s not really forceful enough as yet and she chooses to do it in front of his friends which doesn’t really work.  For her, she thinks this will legitimise it and has perhaps subconsciously picked up that he’s far more willing to play along if he has an audience and so this works for her.  But for him, it’s even more awkward than usual because she’s showing up his lack of attention in front of his friends.  So while she probably thinks she got some sort of positive sign out of this, for him this was very uncomfortable and he’s really starting to find it difficult to keep this up.  The discussion of relationships and communication in relationships is also very interesting.  Abdi, who seems to be really off the wall and stupid here, is the one who actually hits on the reality of the situation.  We see how attempted communication works in relationships alongside Matteo and Sara, but we also hear about Carlos and his frustrations with Kiki and a lot is being set up for the future.  We’re already getting set up for Matteo feeling really shit when David won’t contact him, when he feels played and on and off, hot and cold.  This thing with Sara here comes back to bite him later when he’s on the receiving end and it allows him to find his moment of kinship with Sara later on.  Once he knows how this feels, he realises how shitty he was being here.  

The ‘when they don’t talk to you, they want to sleep with you’ stuff is fascinating because a) that’s definitely not what’s happening with Matteo - he absolutely doesn’t want to sleep with Sara, but b) also it kind of IS what happens with David later.  He wants things to progress with Matteo but doing that means he has to come out and so he has to retreat.  Totally different reasons, but the idea is the same.  ‘You have a lot to learn’ the boys tell Matteo, and they’re right even if not in the way they mean.  Most of what Matteo needs to learn and figure out in relationships is actually touched on in this clip.  Of course, to really ram this point home, we get the deeply awkward Matteo and David meeting by the lockers.  David appears to be invested as well - coming up to Matteo, making the first contact here in a way.  It’s awkward for sure, but in a very different way to Sara and Matteo.  Here, they both want to actually connect but are still feeling out how to approach each other.  Of course, they are again interrupted before this can develop better, and again Matteo’s response to a romantic advice question is ‘I don’t know’ - it’s his way to slide out of having to be committed to something, but also both questions (Hans’ and Leonie’s) veer quite close to things he doesn’t want to be open about - interest in guys on the one hand and specifically David’s relationship status on the other.  So he hides behind these words and in both cases the person fills in their own gaps and assumes he’s helped them.

The bit with Amira and the weed is so close to the original that there’s not a lot to say, except that I do like that she gets to make her own defence with Matteo as a back up more than the one speaking for her the whole time as Isak does.  I’m also highly amused that they never attempt to make this exchange again and the weed just gets used by the girls.  Neither Matteo nor Abdi seems worried about it after this point.  For Matteo that makes sense - David starts to become much more important, but for Abdi it’s just funny.  Maybe he got some more weed somewhere and just decides it’s not worth pursuing anymore.

clip three - this clip is just sad all around.  Matteo clearly does care about Sara and he’d make a good friend for her but she has these expectations of him that don’t work for either of them but in totally different ways and they talk at cross purposes throughout the whole thing.  We find out later everything that’s going on with Sara here and why she wants distracting, but she’s chosen the wrong person or at least the wrong way.  And this whole idea that she can force sex on him when he’s very very clearly not ready is so uncomfortable.  Even if this was a very normal relationship in which both parties genuinely had feelings for each other, him pulling back and not being ready isn’t a bad thing and should be respected.  That Sara uses this as evidence later that he’s a shitty boyfriend is unfair.  He is a shitty boyfriend in many many ways but this isn’t one of them.  @sun-undone made a wonderful series of videos on this season and mentioned how awkward and uncomfortable the extreme close ups are in this scene (and many of the others between these two).  It works to make a claustrophobic and trapped feeling for Matteo.  We’re so tight on his face that he has no way to escape and what’s really interesting about it is that often when Sara is in reverse shot to these close ups the camera is further away allowing her to feel more comfortable.  Which sums up visually everything about this relationship really.

I want to touch briefly on the food thing - in this scene Matteo brings food for Sara, and food is usually used to show nurturing and caring etc etc.  And then he places it as far from her as he can.  Contrast this with how he uses food with David, making it playful and literally bringing him into its production and they eat together.  It’s very clear that while he cares about Sara and wants to connect with her, he’s not willing to properly nurture her in any of the ways she needs.  He also makes it very clear that it’s from her mother and not him.

clip four - in this context, clip four is very sad.  It’s just a short moment where Matteo watches David and sees him smile at Leonie and hug her.  It immediately makes him sad (sadder than usual, which is fairly sad at this point) and we just saw how little interest Matteo has in sex, but that sight and all the things it brings up for him (which have been set up through the previous episode) results in him deciding to just get it over with and try to sleep with Sara.  Of course, for her this means a whole different thing to him.  The emojis etc that he uses are really playful and happy but the Matteo we see on screen as he does that is so far from that it’s super painful to watch.  More examples of how his social media presence does not reflect his genuine lived experience.  She sees this as a final acceptance of what’s happening between them and how he now wants to be with her.  For him, it’s a final desperate attempt to stop being so invested in these guys who don’t want him and to focus on someone he knows actually does.  But it doesn’t make him happy, and he in fact looks much sadder at the end than he does at the start.

clip five - A continuation of the previous one really.  He’s decided this has to happen, has actively set up the date for the end of the week and is now trying to find a way to make it work for him.  But he looks SO depressed and out of sorts when he does so, made more so when the responses he reads are things like ‘why would you want to sleep with someone if you’re not into her’ which is a question he has no good answer to.  Of course we also get the moment when he finds David’s Instagram and the picture he’s posted and the way he responds to that is much more genuine and authentic than anything he’s done with Sara.  I do like how often we get subtle moments of comparison between how Matteo reacts to Sara vs how he reacts to David.  Once again the social media is nice in this part.  Hans and Linn and their conversations and the way Matteo is then drawn in and included.  I like that they chose to document such a small and insignificant moment, eating food together, in such a way.  It makes the ‘big’ stuff that’s scattered through feel more authentic when it’s mixed in with such normal social media behaviour.  

clip six - The cross dressing in this clip makes me feel really awkward, partly because cross dressing in general feels weird (just... dress however you like whenever you like, you know?) but obviously also because of David.  How horrible this must feel for him (and as an aside, the school must have known why he changed to them so late and how traumatic it has been for him - why did they approve the topic????), but consequently how good it must be for him that Matteo doesn’t engage with the dressing up.  On another note, Sara talking over Matteo is again a great representation of the whole way their relationship works (and how she thinks one should work maybe?)  She speaks for him and makes assumptions about what he wants in many of their interactions and it’s no different here.  I guess she’s so desperate for this to be something real that she can’t let anyone speak who may ruin that - up to and including her supposed boyfriend.  He looks so checked out and irritated with this whole situation when she’s talking for him and it doesn’t get any better after she leaves and the boys go right back to sex talk.  This whole episode is a good representation of how little presence Matteo has in his own life, particularly when he’s outside his own space and/or with other people.  The one person who sparks any sort of difference is David.  In this whole clip, Matteo doesn’t speak a word (he tries to but Sara leaps right in as if she owns his home, which.... hmmmmm) which is a huge contrast with the final clip:

clip seven - this is such a great clip and it’s fascinating that it’s so long compared to the rest given that not a lot actually happens in it.  But that’s part of its charm - this is Matteo’s and our chance to meet and get to know David properly which is allowed time to breathe and relax into it.  And over the course of the nine or so minutes, the two of them do get more and more relaxed and easy with each other.  Also, here’s to the random ticket collector who facilitated the start of this.  If he hadn’t come along and David hadn’t decided to step in to save Matteo from the consequences of his own actions, they’d probably still be staring awkwardly at each other to this day.  But also, Matteo’s flirting when he genuinely wants to do it appears to be ‘hey do you want to smoke?’ and despite David clearly not being all that into it, it works presumably because David is also besotted already and happy to go along with literally anything Matteo might suggest (like some terrible sandwich toppings).  

But honestly, the heart of this clip is literally this developing bond between the two boys and I was trying to work out why the montage ‘getting to know you’ sequence works better here than it does for Mia and Alex and I think in the end it comes down to baggage and also timing.  David is not dragging baggage behind him; we don’t have the same sense of ‘why does s/he fall for him?’ with David that we do with Alex.  In Alex’s case, Mia had been very open about how much she hated Alex and how he was treating Kiki and also just how awful she felt about being bribed into going on a date with him.  Given how important that was, we needed to see more of their bonding so we too could see Alex’s personality.  Instead we’re told that Mia starts to like him without being shown any real proof.  Whereas with David, we don’t know him just like Matteo doesn’t know him, so having some conversation filled with compliments and small moments of bonding and developing trust interspersed with the montage actually works.  We have a real sense of the sorts of things they’re talking about and the way they’re talking and we’re shown in montage that there’s more happening behind that.  In this case it works to show the development where for me it fell flat with Mia because of how long we were told and shown Alex was an asshole for.  

The upshot of this is that they have both shown vulnerability on screen by the end of the episode and have both shown themselves to be careful and considerate of the boundaries around those vulnerabilities (Matteo respects David’s wish to keep certain pages of his art book private and David doesn’t mock or scorn Matteo’s fears about not knowing what he wants to do after school).  It means that when David tells Matteo what his favourite movie is, Matteo is able to admit that he doesn’t know it.  There’s a long pause before he says it, almost like he’s weighing it up whether he wants to admit that or not.  But in the end he does say it, allows himself to show more vulnerability.  Unlike Isak, who tries to bluster his way through knowing what Even finds interesting, Matteo is willing to be real and genuine with David.  

Basically, this clip serves as a nice contrast to the rest of the episode, where people speak over Matteo and don’t allow him the space tp be himself.  Both boys here are able to be open and show themselves in a way that we repeatedly see Matteo at least unable to do so far.  So it’s not surprise that when reminded that Sara is coming he tries to remove himself from that situation.  The long look he gives David while Sara’s message is on screen really shows just how different these two people feel to him and honestly, she needed to take Leonie’s advice after this.  Matteo has made it very clear that Sara’s needs are not at the front of his mind and she really really should take that hint.  

[hanijunk]

Alright boys, girls, and nonbinary folks of the world. It’s 5:36am (1/30 when I first started) as I decide to give up on my attempt to continue to focus on learning statistics, avoid studying for my two upcoming midterms, and put off my two actual essays for two different classes.

Instead we’re going into a dive about ✨ KazuFuuma ✨ . Is this me telling you you gotta ship it? No of course not, you’re entitled to your own ships! You don’t really gotta care about it as a ship. But I do want people to recognize it’s THERE canonically, and how disregarding it is extremely unfair to Kazuki as a character particularly. Also, I’m working on the assumption anyone clicking this at least knows the bare bones about what KazuFuuma (ex. You know they are a ship of Kazuki/Fuuma from Dolce, you know they are childhood friends, you know who Dolce is, you know about Honeyworks, etc.) I’ll be making references to specific things, but I won’t always go into heavy detail. Might just hope you know it or take my word for what it is, and go into analyzing it. Some I’ll put direct references to find, but some I’ll trust you can find it yourself. If you somehow read this MAMMOTH and want reference to a specific thing mentioned, hmu I can help you find it!!

Also I hate tumblr formatting sm if you legit wanna read this 7 page essay but hate tumblr format lmk I'll add it as a google doc link instead too. anYWHO

Before actually getting into the meat of things lemme preface some stuff.

Again it’s like almost 6am so this will be disorganized and very train of thought (and likely long due to the fact when I fly by the seat of my pants I’m known to get unnecessarily extensive). It’s definitely gonna be in large part why it’s important to recognize as a romantic relationship foundation and what about it shapes Kazuki’s character in particular. Maybe a bit of how it’s been built up and its general focus and implications. Dunno yet. We’ll see LMAOO

I say f*ck. Not a lot, just a handful of times. This ain’t something scholarly this is for my own enjoyment so if you don’t like that might not wanna read. And it’s not like spitefully I just curse a lot if you haven’t...read my tags before lol

Again this is through the lens of a Kazuki stan. Of COURSE I’m going to have some level of bias, but if anything that bias may help more than hurt because that means I become FIXATED and think a lot about Kazuki. Which plays into establishing just how important it is that Kazufuuma’s relationship is recognized, especially in a romantic light at this point. Lmfao. 

I’ll have a few more prefaces about the actual content below but to keep this from getting too long if you wanna read come below the cut owo

I have extremely limited knowledge of Japanese just taking a few classes in highschool (so like 3 yrs ago) and live in America. This means a lot of my knowledge is gathered through the english translations of the super duper incredible and lovely people in the Honeyworks fandom who provide translations (delaix and takanenene esp have provided so much for me being able to understand Dolce) and my own limited Japanese paired with Google Translate for things that remain untranslated.

This only will be drawing on information I have come in contact with and have access to and making assumptions based on that, most (if not all) of which is in the public domain. So things like the Dolce Manga Volumes released via Animate, exclusive 4komas, and Light Novels are out of my area for the most part (apart from again snippets of translations thanks to this fandom’s godlike and generous translators).

I will not be drawing on anything from the first Dolce album with the exception of Nade Nade. From a meta standpoint, I consider those songs as songs made as performance media as opposed to character explorations. Nade Nade is the exception because (1) it was released a whole year before the album and (2) you can tell it’s explicitly an exploration of Fuuma and Kazuki’s interpersonal relationship even if it’s in a slightly more performance based context than the songs that came out with the Dolce LNs. Easiest parallel I can make to show this is if you held Non-Fantasy, Yume Fanfare, and Samishigariya up against each other, you could tell the difference in intended audience and intended purpose the same way the Dolce 1st album, Nade Nade, and the songs of the LNs do respectively. Even if there is some basis to ground Kazufuuma, for the purposes of this essay I’ll be acting under the assumption the 1st album falls under the Non-Fantasy equivalent category.

THAT WAS A LOT OF PREFACING CONSIDERING LIKE 2 PPL WILL PROBABLY READ IT I just have a tendency to anytime I do anything analytical lay down ground acknowledgements for myself to work on just...cuz it makes me feel less guilty for any accidental misinformation even if I’m writing towards my future self to read lolll IM SORRY WITHOUT FURTHER TO DO HERE’S THE BRAIN DUMP

First let’s go ahead and establish why it needs to be recognized as an important relationship. Again, I’m a Kazuki stan. He’s my favorite character not only of Dolce but also of the entire Honeyworks series, and as much as I love him for reasons outside the ship, whether you like it or not Kazufuuma is an essential aspect of his character and narrative. Of course there’s the fact that him and Fuuma are childhood friends, so that’s going to in part define their characters and interactions with each other and those around them. They’re both going to be relevant to one another and important to one another’s stories to an even greater extent than the rest of the members of Dolce. But on Kazuki’s side at least, it’s an EXTREME amount. A running plotpoint in Dolce Diary is the sheer amount of dedication Kazuki has to Fuuma and how much his thoughts and decisions are influenced by Fuuma, whether it be how he feels happiest spending time with Fuuma, how he decided to get his piercing to represent he wanted to protect Fuuma, how he doesn’t want to dislike food so he can eat what Fuuma dislikes, etc. Not to mention running jokes about his borderline overprotectiveness and downright possessiveness of Fuuma, how proud he is when Fuuma gets praised, or that one 4koma that literally explicitly states he can read Fuuma’s mind when he thinks motherfucking ‘dirty thoughts’ about his childhood friend (Fuuma). I still don’t know what the fuck to make of that last bit. Genuinely. Or the fact it’s a fucking running joke. As in it’s not a one off. It’s been brought up multiple times. Kazuki what the fuck. 

That’s not to say that he doesn’t have character outside of Fuuma or he doesn’t interact with people other than Fuuma. He’s great friends with Sara, Girisha, and Kippei and is shown time and time again to have fun interactions with all of them, generally acting as the best support friend for every member of the group, not Fuuma alone. For instance how he helps Kippei with his self confidence issues or stays over at Sara’s to protect him from a cockroach (which he fails at lol). Nor is that to say all his interactions involving Fuuma focus solely on his devotion to Fuuma, especially in instances where the manga focuses on Dolce as a group dynamic (though even in that setting there are times where jokes about his devotion are thrown in). He’s kind, he’s stupid, he’s friendly, he’s an amazing character in his own right, and I love him for all those reasons. But that doesn’t change the fact a major part of his character and his character interactions are rooted in Fuuma, and arguably some of his most interesting, eccentric, and notable behaviors and traits revolve around Fuuma (again the mind reading for example).

Hell let’s take it one step further. If you look at the character bios of the Dolce members, you get everyone’s motives for being an idol and interests. Of them, Kazuki is the only one to have another character mentioned directly, not to mention that supporting Fuuma is explicitly stated to be his primary motive as to why he became an idol. Not even Fuuma’s sister is mentioned, though two arguments can be made for this. The first would be that Fuuma’s backstory about wanting to fulfill his dream for himself and his sister was decided later to explain Fuuma’s choice to crossdress though it can be argued it was intentionally done to leave it as a reveal at a later date, to which I would argue I don’t think this backstory was a choice in post. While Fuuma’s dedicated Dolce Diary extra exploring that backstory was released a little less than a year after Dolce was revealed, the preview to set up Fuuma’s backstory was actually the first thing released after the character bios on the Dolce Official Twitter page if you exclude a drawing of Dolce from Yamako. The second argument could be that information about his sister was intentionally withheld to set up the reveal when Fuuma’s extra released to explore it. However, going by that logic (which I do agree with), that would also mean that Fuuma’s inclusion and importance in Kazuki’s character bio also set up his dedicated extra, which I don’t think would be incorrect to assume considering what his actual extra turned out being.

Which brings me to the thing that makes it inexplicable to write off the romantic implications behind Kazufuuma: Kazuki’s dedicated Dolce Diary extra, Suki. I shipped Kazufuuma before even knowing of Suki, sure. But the fact that Suki even exists is a shock to me and drove into me the fact that Kazufuuma wasn’t just my own projection. Again, it’s not a surprise that Fuuma shapes Kazuki’s life. They’re childhood friends, of course they’re going to be important to each other. But this extra explicitly brought Kazuki’s feelings towards Fuuma under a direct spotlight. At first I was thinking oh, this extra was just to acknowledge the fact that Kazuki and Fuuma’s relationship can have romantic implications, but the end of it the conclusion that we got was that it didn’t matter what type of “like” he felt for Fuuma. Originally, I thought it wasn’t anything more than saying there are all types of like, and it doesn’t always need to be explicitly defined, but I appreciated the fact they were aware that they were writing Kazuki in a way that conveyed romantic implications. 

Then I thought about it because, again, I love Kazuki of course I’m going to think about his character extra, and realized...that’s not how these character extras have worked. There are only three character extras out as far as I know and have read: Fuuma, Kippei, and Kazuki. If we look at Fuuma and Kippei’s, each extra had a conclusion, sure, but they didn’t have a resolution. Rather, they were simply setting up explicitly what each character’s primary character arc and conflict were. Fuuma’s extra brought attention to the fact that he’s particularly a crossdressing idol by exploring the motives behind it. His choice to be a crossdressing idol is constantly under fire both by himself and the world around him. He’s not immune to those who consider his crossdressing strange, and a part of his story is both finding people who accept his decision to crossdress and to succeed for himself as a crossdressing idol. It’s an essential part of how we understand and define him as a character and it’s a central part of how he interacts with the world around him. For Kippei, it lays the severity of his insecurity under the spotlight and his journey and motives for improving himself. Again, this isn’t something isolated and resolved in the extra; his extreme insecurity and negativity is constantly affecting how he interacts with practically everyone from his fellow Dolce members to his fans despite the fact in all honesty? He’s fucking insanely talented in his own right, his own brother mentioning how smart he is and how he has amazing reflexes. For Kippei, his negativity is an essential part of how we understand and define him and central to how he interacts with the world as much as Fuuma’s decision to crossdress is to him.

Which brings us back to Kazuki, of course. In his dedicated extra, in the chapter that’s supposed to explore and establish and bring attention to an essential part of his character, the aspect of himself under investigation is how he feels about Fuuma. It’s not just how he behaves around Fuuma, it’s explicitly an exploration of his feelings, on top of the fact it’s explicitly an exploration about whether or not he likes Fuuma r o m a n t i c a l l y. Literally the conflict is spurred on by someone outright asking “Do you like him?” and having to clarify “I mean romantically.” What they decided to focus on for Kazuki’s character and emphasize and establish is that Kazuki’s like towards Fuuma toes the line between friendship and romance. His ambiguous feelings towards Fuuma (if we leave them inconclusive as Suki did) are just like Fuuma’s crossdressing and Kippei’s insecurity in the sense the weight of whatever those feelings may be are seen in how he interacts with the world around him and influences his behaviors. It would be another story if they introduced the potential and shut it down all within the extra, because then his central conflict would to me be less directly open to romantic potential and more simply about how his arc was meant to explore the dynamic of the behavior of an extremely dedicated best friend. The fact that he may be romantically attracted to Fuuma or may be only platonically dedicated to Fuuma is instead something that looms over Kazuki in the same way Fuuma’s decision to crossdress constantly looms over him. It’s what Dolce wanted to point to and say this is Kazuki’s central character conflict and central arc: exploring what type of feelings he has towards Fuuma. 

Sure, it can be argued that there’s only three Dolce Diary character extras, there’s not enough to be sure about that being the purpose of the extras unless we get the other two’s extras. First, at this point I honestly don’t know if or when they’re going to release an extra revolving around Sara and Girisha just because not only has it been over a year and a half since the latest Dolce Diary Character Extra (Kazuki’s) was released despite the gap between the first and latest Dolce Diary Character Extra (Fuuma’s and Kazuki’s) were within a year of release but also because the Dolce 4komas and comics they’ve been posting to Twitter have decreased (last one being over half a year ago) potentially due to them deciding to focus on releasing Dolce manga content through the purchasable volumes instead. (This is not particularly related to the Kazufuuma argument, just wanted to put out there my two cents on what Sara and Girisha’s extra/focal arc would be. Based on a large part of the Dolce Diary in conjuncture with Can’t an Idol Fall in Love, I’d argue Sara’s would be his journey to regain his passion for performing, and if it’s not that I’d say it’d be coming out of his self-imposed isolation and opening up to people again. As for Girisha, I have less of a concrete idea but I’m assuming it’d be something pertaining to how people often misconceive him whether it be in tandem with his determination, his optimism and sociability, or his stupidity/ability to ignore those misconceptions and work past them. But Girisha is treated like the comedic relief 90% of the time so I’m not entirely sure, but his primary conflict is definitely rooted in misconceptions of him being his roadblock imo. #MoreGirishaContentPlz) That being said, I personally feel like the three are already enough evidence, especially considering it would be honestly even more cruel for Kazuki’s character-centric extra to be focusing on something that wasn’t essential to his character and character arc, anyway. And though it’s not explicitly stated that these chapters are extras exploring a central character, you can kind of tell based on how they are (to my knowledge) the only Dolce Diary updates with cover/title cards each which include their focal character front and center. So working off that fact, the Kazuki-centric chapter established that a pillar to his narrative was his feelings towards Fuuma and that those feelings are still open to romantic potential. 

But if you follow me, this is why up until Can’t an Idol Fall in Love With Another Idol’s release, I was terrified of them writing that off. I would have been ok if it was just an arc that was given attention then continued to actively work in the background, as all the character arcs have been over all of Dolce’s content. The fact that they might be giving Fuuma a love interest and giving Fuuma a love arc while Kazuki’s feelings were still up in the air and were still the primary highlighted narrative for him would have been fucking scuffed. To me, it would be like… why would they make him so Fuuma-centric to the point that even his dedicated chapter was not just focused on Fuuma but focused on the ambiguity and potential of him having romantic feelings for Fuuma, yet reduce him to being Fuuma's designated right-hand man. Don’t get me wrong, friendships are just as important as romantic relationships. But again, rather than conclude Kazuki’s answer in Suki to be that his feelings were of friendship, they left it open ended and allow audience members to be actively aware that Kazuki’s feelings towards Fuuma still had potential to be romantically coded. It would just be so weird to quickly close off that narrative by giving Fuuma a love interest as opposed to letting Kazuki conclude it himself. It would be fucking beyond frustrating for me, at least Eventually, I kept trying to drive my hopes that they would explore Kazuki’s narrative at all down to the ground because it was a Fuuma-centric novel; maybe if anything they’d explore those feelings in his own novel after the fact. But then they kept having little drops here and there of Kazuki being even the slightest bit relevant and I’d go back to questioning “Are??? They??? Is this on purpose??? Do they know what they’re doing or are they just doing this because Kazuki’s just so important to Fuuma as his best friend that he’s there as his right-hand I genuinely can’t tell???” And um. Welp.

Safe to say Can’t An Idol Fall in Love sold me on the fact that they know what they’re doing LOL. And to anyone who thinks that Kazuki’s feelings can still be read as ambiguous in CAIFILWAI as opposed to explicitly romantic - whether it be due to a fear they may pull the “I like him as a friend” card or due to the disbelief that they have an explicit mlm main character in the Honeyworks series - I’d like to cover any bases that may make you think this way. If you think it’s just Kazuki acting like a protective friend, why do you think he calls Yui a rival? If you’ve only seen the MV and think it’s ambiguous or can be taken as the "likfe" for friend, then does that mean you think Yui’s feelings toward Fuuma are also ambiguous or as a friend? With the way Yui responds, she is trying to rival Kazuki’s feelings towards Fuuma. She and Kazuki recognize whatever feeling it is that they hold towards Fuuma, both of their feelings are the same type. I don’t think most people would argue that Yui’s confession about Fuuma was one of pure respect and friendship. Plus, if anything I’d argue of the three characters in the MV, Fuuma is the one whose feelings are left the most ambiguous despite him being the central character. It’s heavily implied that he may be forming feelings for Yui, but nowhere is it established either in the song or in the MV, especially if you compare it to Kazuki and Yui’s declarations or if you compare it to Sara’s feelings for Uru in Can’t An Idol Fall in Love. Fuuma’s romantic narrative here is trying to figure out how he feels for Yui, while for Kazuki and Yui they’ve established a rivalry because they both have mutually established they like Fuuma romantically.

If the MV isn’t enough for you and Suki isn’t enough for you for...some reason…??? You can check out the snippets of the light novel which the wonderful takanenene translated: one which revisits the conflict set up in Suki and one that covers the confession scene in the MV in more detail. If the fact that the conflict set up in Suki (aka the lurking feeling of not knowing if all he felt for Fuuma was only platonic or more than platonic) was specifically reestablished in the LN for anyone who didn’t keep up with Dolce Diary didn’t tip you off that it was something important, his behavior in the confession scene as depicted by the LN definitely should have. He’s possessive about his spot by Fuuma’s side. He doesn’t want that spot to be taken by anyone else. Even if he knows that they can help Fuuma, he wants it to be him. And this line: “Kazuki then trails off his words, quietly saying ‘That’s why…’ and then gave Yui a slightly painful smile, his cheeks turning red,” before he declares Yui a rival and states he likes Fuuma. If you can tell me you read that line and are still on the fence about Kazuki’s “like” towards Fuuma being romantic, please message me and I will see how I can get through to you. Like it wasn’t even just a romantically coded confession. It’s just a romantic confession. That “like” is romantic. And I’m so proud that he’s not only come to understand for himself how he feels, but that he’s confident enough to ask the person he sees as a romantic rival to speak in private and not only clarify her feelings for Fuuma but before she can even do that firmly establishes that he loves Fuuma with conviction. Kazuki my boy I’m so proud of you. *sniffs*

And that’s it for establishing Kazufuuma as at least canonically one-sidedly canon and why there’s not only no reason to deny it but also why denying it is a fucking disrespectful move towards Kazuki. He’s a character, sure, but that doesn’t change the fact you shouldn’t write off his struggle to come to be convicted enough to say it out loud. This has been something weighing on him at least a year, if not more (all I know is it started when both he and Fuuma were in some year in middle school). And as a character in a piece of media, I’ve been saying this the entire time, but brushing it off as non-romantic is literally chucking a fucking pillar of his character’s story into the gutter. And to those who may be saying Kazuki’s confession came out of nowhere and is pandering reread this entire fucking essay again I dare you to do it and tell me to my face it’s pandering. Again. Writing off the buildup as pandering is disrespectful to him, disrespectful to his character and narrative, and disrespectful to the wonderful people who have been creating Dolce so diligently and have crafted this narrative for us. Saying his “supposed feelings” and “ambiguous confession” is pandering is like saying Fuuma’s crossdressing is pandering which. If you say either of those I will find you and I will shank you in the fucking gut. Even if you’re not fully into Dolce, recognize these characters are actually very well developed and executed amazingly, as per every Honeyworks character that has come to exist. I don’t blame you if you weren’t aware of the weight of Kazufuuma, but now that you read this I hope you are. That’s mainly what I needed to get out there, but as follows will be me more exploring how Kazufuuma has been built up and generally waving my hand off at where it may be going. If you want you can dip, thanks for reading up to here because I know I repeated a lot because it’s just. So important to drill into your head and has been something I’ve been hung up about constantly. LOL

As for where exactly they’re taking it from this point on, I honestly don’t know. In all honesty, I didn’t even expect them to take it the direction they did. But honestly, I think the direction they went with it is really interesting and better than I could have imagined, in my opinion at least. Honeyworks never ceases to amaze me with their storytelling and narrative choices, and I don’t think there’s any that stand out to me as being severely questionable that they haven’t reapproached at some point down the line. And, again, I think they’re treating this with a lot of care and deserved respect. So I’m just gonna be gushing about how smart they set it up and how smart they’ve been executing it and maybe my own hopes on the direction it could go.

Whether they make Kazufuuma reciprocated I have no real clue or bearings, but to me my gut reaction is they will. Of course, I’m biased, but again if you trace things all the way back to 2018 and step through Dolce’s content and growth from there, I’d say even if they didn’t know if they could execute it like this and see it to fruition, I’d argue that Kazufuuma has been at least heavily implied since the beginning as a relationship they wanted to explore from both sides of the relationship. Obviously I brought up Kazuki’s character bio already, but if you look at the *goes to count* 5th Dolce Diary update already has a joke jabbing at the fact that Kazuki is technically Fuuma’s type (and the way Kippei and Kazuki excitedly react is so cute). The fifth update. And as stated before there are tons of Kazufuuma moments in Dolce Diary, whether it’s played for comedic effect or played straight (and this is post Suki but oh my god I’ve said it before I’ll say it again get yourself someone who looks at you the way Kazuki looks at Fuuma oh my jesus). But song-wise, I mentioned the one Dolce album song I would bring up is Nade Nade and this is where it comes! 

Not only is Nade Nade specifically focused on Kazuki and Fuuma’s relationship as opposed to the whole of Dolce despite being the first song, it included the setup/preview of the Fuuma-centric extra prior to the full release of the Fuuma-centric extra itself and was released early as fuck. Literally between the 6th and 7th update to Dolce Diary. Sure, it could be to isolate them as a duo for marketing purposes (they’re very often the two promoted idols together if the whole of the group aren’t included), but the way it’s established as a perspective song as opposed to a general idol duet is what fascinates me. Anyone who didn’t know about Dolce prior and only followed Honeyworks for music would be first introduced to these characters through this song alone, and maybe this is where my Kazufuuma bias comes from but I was one of those people LOL. I thought it was just a cute one-off relationship that they had set up for the purpose of a song and that it was an implied friends-to-lovers story that would never get a conclusion. Also I mistakenly thought Fuuma was a girl oop-. In the full context of Dolce, this song in part helped establish Fuuma and Kazuki more solidly as a unique duo out of all of Dolce, but it also specifically explored through Fuuma’s eyes just how much Fuuma recognizes and appreciates the unwavering support Kazuki gives him to follow his dreams as he wishes. For Fuuma, he loves Kazuki too, though whether it holds any romantic potential in the same way Kazuki loves him has never been explored to nearly the same extent. But Fuuma appreciates how Kazuki’s remained by his side and does everything he can to support him, so Nade Nade explores how his way of expressing his love and thankfulness to Kazuki is by never saying that he needs Kazuki by his side. He’s glad Kazuki’s always been there for him, and his reciprocation takes on the form of being ready to unwaveringly support Kazuki and not ask for more than he already has, even if it meant Kazuki would be leaving his side, despite the fact that he really does wish they could remain together forever just as Kazuki does. The one point he lets himself say something vaguely close to always wanting to stay together, he gets a surprised expression out of Kazuki and says an ambiguous “suki dayo.” Of course, this it much less romantically coded than what we get from Kazuki in Suki and CAIFILWAI, but there is an interesting emphasis put on it nonetheless. Keep in mind, this is all established through the song, which released long before not only Fuuma’s character-centric extra released but also Kazuki’s character-centric extra released, so there is at least a substantial setup for Fuuma’s feelings towards Kazuki’s being strong as well and possibly grow to be reciprocated one day.

I think for me the most fascinating part about Nade Nade is how they tied it back around to Can’t An Idol Fall In Love with Another Idol. Again, without remembering Nade Nade, I still thought CAIFILWAI was brilliantly explored and executed, even if some people would have preferred no love triangle. But honestly, revisiting Nade Nade makes me trust even more the direction they’re taking with this. Whether or not they make Kazufuuma canon mutually (which. Even if they for some inexplicable reason didn’t I’m going down with this ship.), I’m sure they’re putting a lot of thought into the story, because the last bit of Nade Nade directly parallels the misunderstanding that arose from Fuuma mishearing the Kazuki and Yui. Fuuma is resolved to support Kazuki in any area he’s given the chance, and that explicitly includes if Kazuki had some girl he liked, which is what he assumes is going on. The fact that they tied this back around in the form of a misunderstanding was really really smart and Honeyworks is always so good at parallels and references back to their older songs, but for some reason I didn’t expect this. I don’t know how to say why, but the fact that the song that started it all, kicked off both Dolce and Kazufuuma, was directly referenced both visually in the MV with a cameo at the start and narratively despite the central dynamic being predominantly explored in this story in particular was that of Fuuma and another potential love interest and involves said potential love interest for some reason makes me think that (sorry Yui) this is all planned out for Kazufuuma in the grand scheme of things. That being said, I don’t know if me thinking it was planned all along is just me with shipper goggles, but the idea it’s come full circle nearly 3 years later is not shipper goggles and a very very well done parallel in my opinion, whether this trajectory was their plan for Kazufuuma from the beginning or not. Just wanted to gush about that some more. 

There’s more I could go into especially if I went into specific details about interactions or specific implications established in Honeyworks' Dolce content about different characters that would be fascinating to explore in relation to and under the lens of Kazufuuma, but I think this is uh...plenty long enough. Plus, I doubt you'll stop seeing Kazufuuma posts from me so those ideas will probably just be miniposts or somethin.

Back to the overarching point of this segment, idk what they’ll do with this story in the end, but do I think Kazufuuma will canon? I’m used to looking at ships that aren’t explicitly apparent with a sliver of skepticism, but all things considered (as I stated before) yeah. I don’t see reason why they wouldn’t now that they’ve explicitly identified there is a romantic dimension to it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Like to me, the setup isn’t something that would be written off as unrequited? And this doesn’t have to play into why I don’t think it will canon, my personal opinion on the Fuuyui relationship (again albeit through the lens of a hard Kazufuuma shipper lmao) has it’s own merits and is really cute, I find it cute in the way I found Koyuhina cute. I personally never really shipped Koyuhina, and especially since they slipped Kotarou into Ima Suki Ni Naru I was more curious about who this kid was and how he played into things I didn’t really see Koyuhina as something that would come to fruition. Similarly, there’s more importance in the overall sense on Kazuki than there is Yui (considering he’s one of the 5 original and focal members of this generation of idols, this would be natural), as well as the fact there’s just way more foundation and exploration in Fuuma and Kazuki’s relationship than there is Fuuma and Yui. As for how much of a balance there is inside the LN itself, the fact that they seem to have spent a substantial amount relaying the foundation of Fuuma and Kazuki’s relationship and re-exploring it (at least in Kazuki’s perspective) at all on top of how much content there is covering their relationship prior to the LN ever since Dolce’s origin just feels like that relationship holds more weight. Pretty much Kazufuuma feels more established as a priority in general. The way I personally hope Fuuyui plays out is whether they wind up holding mutual feelings or not or whether Fuuma doesn’t feel that way towards Yui is they get a relationship akin to Kotarou and Arisa. Albeit, Kotarou and Arisa never viewed each other in a romantic light, but they had mutual respect and solidarity. That’s the type of friendship I hope comes out of Fuyui. And considering there hasn’t been a break-up in any Honeyworks’ canon relationships (nor do I expect there to be… they’re all perfect for each other LMAO) it would actually be interesting if Fuuyui get together but don’t endgame and Kazufuuma is established as the inseparable endgame after some realization or another, though I don’t expect them to go that route nor do I know if that’d be the best way to go about it anyway. Also final point, Honeyworks seems to have a thing for childhood friends trope anyway soooooo owo All in all, don’t know where they’re taking it, just excited to see where it goes. 

TL;DR of this *counts* 7 page essay, stan Kazufuuma. Not gonna proof this. Maybe I’ll edit and repost but yall are getting a confusing clusterfuck of ramblings over 2-3 hr periods of me writing across 3 different days at around 5am each day. Uh. If you got this far like and subscribe and-- jk plz reply to this mammoth anywhere you see fit or tell me if you have stuffs to add or counter or whatnot I like hearing people talk about Kazufuuma ;w; I am Kazuki and Kazufuuma brainrot can you tell after reading this? No? Lemme just remind you I’m K--

[ayuuria]

Yashahime Translation: Da Vinci Magazine December 2020 Edition

Please do not repost this translation without my consent! This includes screenshots. If you wish to share this translation, simply link to this post.

“Hanyou No Yashahime” Tripartite Cast Talk

Matsumoto Sara X Komatsu Mikako X Tadokoro Azusa

Inuyasha and Kagome’s daughter and Sesshomaru’s two daughters play an active role in “Hanyou No Yashahime”. As an original anime with no original work (translator’s note: As in not an adaptation of something like a manga or light novel), the subject is the next generation of “Inuyasha” done in the same style. Being “Inuyasha” fans themselves, we had the three lead voice actresses talk about the charm of the series.

The main character design was done by Takahashi Rumiko!

Towa

A 14-year-old middle school girl. 10 years ago, she time traveled from the Feudal Era to the Modern Era and became the adopted daughter of Kagome’s little brother, Souta. Upon reuniting with her younger twin sister, Setsuna, after she time travels to the Modern Era with Moroha, Towa decides to return to the Feudal Era. She is Sesshomaru’s daughter.

Setsuna

14 years old. Towa’s younger twin sister. A member of the demon slayers led by Kohaku. She has lost her memories of her childhood and is unable to fall asleep. She has the gold rainbow pearl in her left eye. While she does not believe Towa is her older twin sister, she travels with her as she tries to take back Setsuna’s memories and sleep.

The 3 of you reacted shocked with “What you mean daughters?!”

Moroha

Commonly known as “Monster Killer Moroha”. A 14-year-old bounty hunter. When she puts on rouge stored in a shell with the red rainbow pearl on it, she becomes “The Country Destroying Beniyasha” and goes on a rampage. While she is Inuyasha and Kagome’s daughter, she does not know her parents and has lived mostly on her own apparently.

Komatsu: When the work was announced, the world was shocked like “Sesshomaru has a daughter?!” and we were the same. When I opened the audition documents, it was written that the setting takes place over 10 years after the conclusion of the original work and that Setsuna, who I was auditioning for, is Sesshomaru’s daughter. I thought “What does this mean?” and reflexively grabbed the last volume of the manga.

Matsumoto: I was handed Takahashi Rumiko-sensei’s character design and a simple correlation diagram. In regards to Towa, who I auditioned for, it was also written that all that was known was that she is Sesshomaru’s daughter. I was given lines without knowing the context or anything so I wondered what to do. However, at the same time, I was so happy to the point that I was like “The “Inuyasha” world is coming back!”

Tadokoro: I completely freaked out (laughs). Also, my manager knew I was big fan of “Inuyasha” and calmly told me before I looked at the audition documents “Azusa, you absolutely can’t miss out on this. This a huge opportunity.”

Komatsu: A lot of pressure!

Tadokoro: Then when I looked at the documents, I saw that Moroha, who I was auditioning for, was the daughter of Inuyasha and Kagome. After getting excited like “They had a child~!”, I saw Towa and Setsuna and screamed “I will be upset if they’re not XX’s children!” (translator’s note: they’re referring to the mother)

Komatsu and Matsumoto: I know!

Tadokoro: As a fan, I worried endlessly but as a voice actress, I thought I couldn’t miss out on this. However, when I went to the studio audition, I was told “Keep the base but try to say these lines a little more like a middle-aged man”. I became flustered like “Even though she’s a 14-year-old girl?” … I felt like I didn’t respond properly and was really down going home.

Komatsu: Me too. Maybe it was because I was pulling too strongly from Sesshomaru’s image but I was told “Not only coolness but we would also like for you to show the cuteness of a 14-year-old” and I couldn’t make the switch the very well. I didn’t get the reaction that I got the part at all.

Matsumoto: I over considered the setting of (Towa) wearing a boy’s uniform and I was told “Don’t make her a boy”. After that no matter how many retries I did, the direction I took didn’t match up… I cried a lot when I got home like “I totally bombed it”. That moment, I realized that I had really wanted the part and was surprised. “Inuyasha” was a work that was more special to me than I thought.

Overcoming different boundaries, their feelings melt together

Komatsu: For me, “Inuyasha” was also a textbook on love. Especially the relationship between Inuyasha, Kagome, and Kikyou. It’s a little hard for kids to understand and I thought, “Why does Kikyou always get in the way?” and “Inuyasha too, make up your mind” but in a certain scene, Kagome asks Inuyasha “I… What exactly am I to you?”. In between the feelings of it can’t be helped that he overlaps her face with Kikyou’s and this has nothing to do with her, she properly checked what her existence meant to him. Seeing that, I realized. Not only in love but that’s important in life in general as well.

Tadokoro: It’s so cool isn’t it? She acknowledged all her feelings of jealousy and hate towards Kikyou and still saved her on top of that. She showed us her resolve to properly face her heart and Kikyou and accept them. It was so cool that I cried. Then when I became an adult, I came to understand Kikyou’s feelings and it hurt.

Matsumoto: Well she was also a victim… I think when you read “Inuyasha”, you become emotionally attached to each individual character because depictions that give you a sense that they’re “alive” are inlaid in all sorts of places. For example, the scene in volume 1 where Kagome offers food to Inuyasha whom she had just met. While Inuyasha makes his wariness known, he takes a bite of the radish in the next frame. I always laugh like “Even though you say it’s annoying, you’re still eating it!” but at the same time I feel that it’s really “like” him. From those ordinary depictions, over time we accept “something” without realizing it. That accumulation turns into a big emotion that overflows when you get to the important scenes.

Komatsu: At times when those complexly wrapped emotions sublimate, even sad endings become beautiful. For example, Kagura. Even though she was born from Naraku, she was guided to good through Inuyasha and the others who were supposed to be her enemy. Kagome and Kikyou’s relationship too but ally or enemy, good or evil, all sorts of borders are crossed and seeing drawings of humans and demons coming together I think is the charm of “Inuyasha”.

We haven’t been told the answers to the mysteries

Matsumoto: Continuing onward to “Hanyou no Yashahime”, the character I play, Towa, passed through space-time and got sent to the Modern Era at age 4. However, possibly because she was raised by Kagome’s little brother, Souta, even though she is Sesshomaru’s daughter, I feel like she’s also similar to Kagome.

Komatsu: While blood inheritance is important, the person who raised you has a big influence as well. Also, what environment you were raised in. Setsuna lost her childhood memories due to certain circumstances. So of course, she doesn’t remember her older twin sister, Towa, whom she got separated from at 4 years old. Due to that hole and being raised in an environment where you could be killed by anyone at any time, she gives off an air of not allowing others to get close to her. But just when you think that, there are times where you can feel that she’s actually kind and that makes it heartrending.

Matsumoto: Feeling she (Towa) needs to fill in the 10-year void with Setsuna who became like that, the highlight is seeing their relationship change as Towa closes the gap between them. Add Moroha in and there’s a lot of chattering.

Tadokoro: Moroha speaks in a vulgar manner (translator’s note: it actually translates to abusive language but abusive didn’t sound right to me) but in reality, I have a feeling that she truly enjoys traveling with the two of them. To her, those two are probably the first friends she has ever had. That form is so precious and I feel lonely when I wonder what sort of environment she grew up in. I wonder why she’s desperately earning money by slaying demons. We were only told who she was raised by but at this time, we have not been told things like happened to Inuyasha and Kagome.

Matsumoto: This includes who Towa and Setsuna’s mother is. This is something fans have been wondering the most but the answers will be revealed eventually and I have faith that this work will properly continue on what was drawn in “Inuyasha”.

Tadokoro: That’s why we would like everyone to watch over them until the very end and love the 3 Yashahimes as they survive with each of their individual strengths.

Komatsu: While there are a lot of cheerful episodes, there will be times when the inlaid depictions within those episodes will be collected in an instant which I think people will enjoy. For that, we will give it our all!

We Asked Takahashi-sensei!

Q: What did you especially focus on when doing the character design?

A: Series composition writer Sumisawa (Katsuyuki) requested me to draw the image of Towa as a white Sesshomaru and Setsuna as a black Sesshomaru. Upon reading the scenario, I designed them incorporating their father’s facial look. Moroha was the same, being Inuyasha and Kagome’s child. As such, I made it so that Inuyasha’s mischievousness came through.

[aarongoldenwrites]

My statement:  I am sick to fucking death of people misquoting my holy book to justify their bigotry. Stop. Stop doing it. You don't know what the fuck you're talking about. A response: Honestly I would be interested in learning about this as I have no religious view point so I like to learn about them, (but) I don’t know where to start. My response:  Okay. Well.

Judaism first sprang into existence about six thousand years ago; we've got our own calendar that we use to track these things. We got our start when a dude named Avram wrecked his father's business and changed his name to Abraham while touring the middle-east with his sister, Sarah. Their family history was chronicled in what we call the Old Testament, which is a collection of stories, fables, and legal doctrine that informs the Jewish people as to what they are and how to behave, but a good chunk of it is dedicated to doubting what you think you know and finding out what is true. It's based around taking responsibility for yourself and your community and living to a high ethical standard, and trying to figure out what that means in relationship to yourself and your community. The first five books of the Old Testament are called Torah and are collected in massive scrolls that Jews consider to be literally living documents, and we're supposed to argue the meaning of the text within context to the time it was written and the times we live in. It's fabulously progressive for its time, and features a commentary track (Talmud) and in-depth expansion (Midrash) that we use to give things further context.

A lot of it boils down to "try to leave the world better than you found it, take care of the people around you, don't expect people to live to the standards you set for yourself, take responsibility for yourself and your community."

Now, the Old Testament was written in a language called Aramaic, which features no written vowels, is supposed to be sung on a six-note scale, and translates well into nothing else. It was eventually translated into Greek, then Latin, and then the various romance languages.

Here's where things get weird: when a Torah is penned, it's transcribed by one guy using a special ink and pen. A single mistake means the Torah is given an actual funeral and buried. We do not want mistakes being made about this.

About 2000 years ago, there might have been a Jew named Yeshua. The Romans (who kept meticulous records about EVERYTHING) have no records of this particular guy, but there were Jewish revolutionaries fucking around to find out during the Roman occupation every five minutes or so (it got so bad that the Romans eventually said "fuck these people in particular" and spread the Jews all across the empire, which is the start of what we call the Jewish diaspora and led to about two thousand years of shit-kicking and scapegoating).Now, if Yeshua existed, he was a rabbi (a Jewish priest) who pissed off the Romans and got himself killed. A dude who admits to never having met him led a splinter sect of Jews into a death cult that believed Yeshua was going to return from the dead next week and defeat the Romans. 

This is the start of Christianity.

A big part of faith is doubt, I think. You need to know on some level that you could be wrong, and inflicting your beliefs on others isn't a great thing to do. We're all doing the best we can, but insisting you're right and everyone else is wrong to the detriment of others is, well, bad.

And that brings us to the crux of my issues with Christianity.

The core of the Christian doctrine is that Jesus (a mistranslation of the name Yeshua, not that many Christians know that - and let it sink in that they do not know the name of the god they are worshiping, or how the name changed) was the literal son of God and also somehow God and maybe also a third thing called the Holy Ghost that is a mysterious mixture between the two of them, and that he died for the sins of humanity.

See, Christians believe that when Eve got Adam to eat the apple in Eden that GOD CURSED THEM BOTH AND ALL THEIR DESCENDANTS TO HELL TO SUFFER FOR ALL ETERNITY, and then they have the audacity to say that the Old Testament God is the mean one.

So, basically, until Jesus dies, every human ever born is condemned to hell where, again, they will suffer for all eternity. Once Jesus dies, though, he goes to hell and reclaims good people provided they are willing to swear allegiance to him. Keep in mind there is no proof that any of this has happened, and the person telling the story admits full-stop that he never met Jesus and didn't believe Jesus was real until thirty years after Jesus' death when he was riding a camel through the desert and fell off due to heat exhaustion.

Now, a big part of Christian doctrine is that living a good life is meaningless - the only way to get into heaven is to swear your soul to Jesus, who is watching you at all times. If you're bad and believe in Jesus, you'll spend time in a place called Purgatory, which is hell-light, until Jesus can swing by and pick you up. If you're the best person ever and you don't believe in Jesus, you are still going to hell for all eternity.

What this means is that, if you are a good Christian, the kindest thing you can do is convert non-believers to save them from an ETERNITY IN HELL, and provided you have sworn your soul to Jesus any sin you commit will be forgiven and you will go to heaven. This leads to things like the Spanish Inquisition, enforced conversions against, well, everyone, and more atrocities than you can shake a pointed stick at.

Politically, this is useful because you can't just say you believe in Jesus, you have to believe in Jesus the *right way.* This is originally the Catholic Church, but other people argue with them about the right way to believe in Jesus and so we now have a bunch of different flavors that spout the same ideology and conversion practices, but each of them claim that they're the special ones that got it right and everyone else is going to hell for all eternity or maybe purgatory until they figure out the right way to praise Jesus.

And people can and will do anything to prove their faith, and see a lack of evidence as proof of concept, and obey whatever the it leaders tell them because they've been conditioned to ignore the world around them in favor of our mistranslated holy book.

The thing is, according to Christian theology, Jesus was a Jew and the whole thing starts with the Old Testament. So they twist the Old Testament to fit their narrative, building upon things lacking in the original text, installing bits that go against Jewish faith, and ignoring/killing/converting Jews that point out that they have no business doing what they're doing (see Jenn Sara, above, for the lightest version of this practice).Because spreading the good word is so important and any sin can be forgiven provided you're following Jesus in the right way, Christians have historically co-opted the holidays and religious practices of others in order to further their own agenda (see: Christmas trees, the Easter bunny, et al). Also, because they are a strict hierarchy - the Church determines who is praising Jesus right and no one can fight them - they ended up becoming a politically powerful presence that has controlled much of Europe and Russia and informed the structures that ruled those places, including (but not limited to): the Romani pogroms, the Inquisition, the witch trials, the crusades, the Russian pogroms, the Atlantic slave industry, native genocide, save-the-man-kill-the-indian, the holocaust...The list goes on.

When people in the west say "Religion is the root of all evil," they are often talking about their own experiences with religion (Christianity, because none of the other ones count). This also applies to Christian atheism, which is when a Christian assumes all religion is basically Christianity decides they don't believe in religion, and the religion they don't believe in is the only religion (Christianity again).It's incredibly frustrating and tends to result in a lot of people dying.

Shall I continue?

[hellyeahomeland]

[This is our last Director’s Chair post and the final post of “regular” coverage for the finale. Compiling this all now, almost a month later, has brought back a surge of conflicting emotions for me: pride, catharsis, relief, anxiety, sadness, emptiness. We love to put these posts together and we’re so grateful you all have enjoyed reading them. Thank you. --Sara]

“Prisoners of War” | Directed by Lesli Linka Glatter, Cinematography by David Klein

Sara: It was not scripted that Brody’s infamous tape would open the episode as Carrie drives back from the meeting where Yevgeny told her to kill Saul. And yet it works. All season they’ve charted Carrie on a similar path to Brody. Finally, the subtext becomes text. 

In more ways than one, we end at the beginning. Not only did Brody’s tape open the finale of the show’s first season, but this opening scene of the episode was the last shot of the series. 

Ashley: I wasn’t aware that it wasn’t scripted, but I wasn’t surprised to see it. We knew for a long time prior to season eight that Carrie was following a path echoing Brody’s; it was interesting for me that it was never explicitly referenced or referred to. Until right now.

Gail: Brody filmed this video before he put on the suicide vest but with all of the intentions of putting it on and going through with the ultimate betrayal of his country. The audience doesn’t know it at the time, but Carrie has already put a plan in place for the betrayal of her country and Saul with all of the intentions of going through with it. As we hear Brody speak, we get a sense (and foreshadowing) of Carrie’s mindset. She knows people will say she was broken, she was brainwashed, people will say that she was turned and taught to hate her country. But like Brody, she loves her country and swore an oath to defend the United States of America against enemies both foreign and domestic. For Carrie in this moment, she is looking straight ahead because there is no turning back for her now.

Sara: I love this slow push on Carrie as she arrives at Saul’s empty house. There is an air of defiance to her expression--the refusal both to do what Yevgeny’s asked of her and also to believe she’s in this position to begin with. It adds context to her admission later that she blames Yevgeny. Though he was pushing her along, every decision that Carrie made was hers and hers alone. 

Gail: I agree, and I also sense her relief. The weight of her plans is bearing down on her. Saul trusts her so implicitly that he has invited her to stay in his home and receive his full protection. Here she is, letting herself into his house with a key he surely gave her. I’m not sure betrayal is a strong enough word for what Carrie is about to do to him.

Ashley: I remember laughing over Max’s very Max statement that the black box was actually orange. I don’t think I ever considered how important that information was; he risked his life, over and over again for it, and it’s all entirely distinctive.

Gail: When I first watched this scene, I had hopes that somehow Anna could steal the flight recorder or download the information from it. Even on rewatch, I’m struck by how many different ways the outcome could’ve been different. This whole season has been shaped by a series of misconceptions. It’s a scary proposition that truth isn’t truth anymore.

Sara: Chekhov’s flight recorder returns! I have to eat my words on this one. About midway through the season I was rather dejected thinking about how the last half of the show’s final season would be about … what? This stupid flight recorder? But they did it. Who knew the quest for an inanimate object could be so compelling? I mean, I guess JRR Tolkien and plenty of other people but still.

Gail: It is no coincidence that Anna is wearing similar colors to Carrie, and my guess is that their likeness that Sara pointed out in the last Director’s Chair isn’t either. These are the two most important women in Saul’s career (life?) and both have sacrificed so much for what they believe in.

Sara: I love Tatyana Mukha as Anna. What a weighty, pivotal role in the last two episodes and she totally nailed the feigned devotion. Outside, she’s robotic and emotionless; inside, a warrior. 

Ashley: How interesting for her to be a translator — her job literally was to take information from one person and convey it to another. That’s what she did always. Her role as Saul’s asset was just an extension of it.

Sara: Gail, here’s your red/white/blue shot. I’ll note too that Charlotte, in addition to the royal blue suit, is wearing the white pearls and red lipstick and also that the colors of Russia’s flag are… red, white, and blue. 

Gail: Thanks Sara! I spoke about this on part one of our finale podcast, but the red, white and blue imagery here while Carrie’s plan is set in motion to betray Saul and her country are striking.

Ashley: God, what a smarmy little shit.

Gail: Hugh Dancy’s weirdo evil beard deserves an Emmy of its own.

Sara: This twisted little smile from Hugh Dancy emanates filth. What a despicable character John Zabel is. There must be twenty of him walking around the real-life West Wing today.

Sara: That said, his repeated trolling of Saul was wonderful to watch. This petulant shrug here is a mood. 

Ashley: This shot is great. Zabel and Saul are literally arms-length apart from one another in this cavernous office. 

Gail: It says so much about what kind of President that Hayes has become that his chair sits empty during this very important meeting (in the Oval Office FFS!) with his National Security Advisor and an escalating nuclear war looming.

Sara: I loved that Carrie and Saul’s sisters both showed up in this episode. While neither really understand their sibling, they both ultimately respect their wishes. Their appearance feels especially significant in an episode where Carrie and Saul--each other’s found family--are “cleaved apart” (Gansa’s words).

Gail: I think Maggie respects Saul, but I also think it must have taken a lot for Maggie to go to Saul’s house in search of Carrie. Maggie has made no secret of her feelings toward the situations that she feels Saul has put Carrie in. Maggie doesn’t call Saul, she goes to his house to see for herself. Carrie isn’t the only Mathison sister with agency. Maggie has quite a bit of it herself. As the two people who know Carrie best, it’s fitting that Maggie’s appearance at Saul’s house confirms what Saul must already suspect about Carrie’s involvement in the price for the flight recorder. It’s also a reminder of what Carrie stands to lose. Carrie isn’t just betraying Saul and her country, she is betraying Maggie and Franny, turning her back on all of them.

Ashley: It felt important to me that Maggie met Saul. These people are Carrie’s ONLY family, and she is never going to talk to them again.

Sara: Love the stock footage of Maggie’s home from earlier seasons! And the American flag flying in the breeze. 

Gail: The Brody family home had a flag flying too... the irony of a typical American home with a tyranny of secrets inside is quite the metaphor.

Ashley: I love that Carrie has a go bag stashed with thousands of dollars (at minimum) and she’s still probably got that wicked credit card debt. 

Gail: Pills, passports, and a plethora of unmarked bills in a variety of currencies put Saul’s go bag of diamonds to shame.

Sara: Oh my GOD I looked at this picture the wrong way for a second and thought the fuzzy pink pillow was Carrie’s WRINKLY HAND and I had a momentary freakout. Anyway, my point about this is that I love all the go bags we’ve seen from Carrie over the years.

Ashley: At what point do you think they’ll take that photo of Carrie off Franny’s dresser? She is never going to see her mother. Why remind her of that?

Gail: It’s heartbreaking that the only picture of Carrie in a frame in Franny’s room is of Carrie alone. Franny probably doesn’t have many memories of Carrie being with her on a daily basis, which is even more heartwrenching to think about. Is Homeland trying to tell us they are better off apart by showing us a happy Franny and a happy Carrie separately? The “Franny of it all” absolutely breaks my heart.

Sara: The way they incorporated Franny into this episode is very clever. We never see her but her presence--or, really, lack thereof--in Carrie’s life punctures every moment. 

Sara: Carrie slowly making her way up Saul’s house, lit from inside, is such an outstanding shot. It’s like she’s walking into the lion’s den. This show doesn’t use non-scored music all that often, so the Mozart that plays over this part is especially distinctive. It’s so very Saul, and I love how it contrasts to Carrie’s jazz at the end of the episode. Saul remains old school, traditional, classic. 

Gail: Saul’s house looks so warm and inviting. His street looks like every other suburban street after dinner--minus the Russian kill team waiting for Carrie’s signal.

Ashley: Saul left the porch light on for her. :(

Sara: I love how Saul stays seated while Carrie hovers over him. It gives the impression of Carrie having the power or “high ground” in the situation when it’s the complete opposite.

Ashley: This is such Carrie posture, her face is tense, she knows this will be the end. Look how wide her fingers are spread — she is desperately hoping he’ll throw her a rope and let her off the hook and mixed metaphors, mixed metaphors, poor Carrie. 

Gail: Saul’s ability to stay calm and play his cards close to the vest has always been impressive, but never more so than during this scene with Carrie. He may be sitting casually, shirt unbuttoned and having a drink, but there is nothing casual about his demeanor. In their typical relationship fashion, Saul knows more than he says and Carrie isn’t playing by the rules. The only difference is that for the first time in the series, they are no longer on the same team.

Sara: Saul finally rises to look Carrie square on. This scene is the culmination of eight seasons of their relationship. Lesli Linka Glatter has said many times that the quintessential Homeland scene is one where two characters are having an argument and expressing completely different viewpoints and they’re both right. This scene between Carrie and Saul, as they argue not just about the likelihood of war but the morality of it, is simply perfect. They’re both right and wrong at the same time. After so many years of it being Carrie and Saul versus the world, it was only fitting that the show concludes with it being Carrie versus Saul. 

Ashley: Is Saul standing in front of his shelf of red books? Physically and figuratively protecting his asset? I literally can’t tell. 

Gail: Saul isn’t standing in front of his red books, Carrie is. The only thing standing between him and protecting his asset is Carrie. Literally.

Ashley: The books Carrie is standing in front of don’t look red????

Gail: There is another shelf behind her at a different angle we can’t see here.

Sara: The shelf of red books is parallel to the bar setup. So actually neither of them are standing in front of them.

Sara: It’s really interesting that the focus in this frame stays on Carrie, eyes wide, nearly in disbelief at what she’s just done. 

Gail: Neither can believe what she’s just done.

Sara: Again, Carrie stays above Saul. But this shot and the way it uses point of view really reminds me of the bathtub scene in “Trylon and Perisphere.” Both scenes center Carrie in the frame in the midst of a potentially life-altering, life-ruining decision. I’ve quoted this analysis from Libby Hill countless times over the years, and it is strangely fitting even now:

“Actions that seem only selfish can often look selfless from the other side, no matter how warped that viewpoint is. Consider this: Homeland rarely utilizes point-of-view filmmaking, meant to place us literally inside a character’s head. But it does here. Carrie looks down at her baby. What would it be to be the mother of this child? And, then, as her daughter slips beneath the water, we switch to the infant’s point of view. What would it be to be the child of this mother? Homeland is all but daring us to identify with Carrie’s decision, to push our empathy so far it nearly snaps. And then it reminds us of the horrors present in her choice, lets us see how she might consider she is doing to be somehow merciful.”

Gail: I still can’t believe she called the hunky Russian kill team. Before this episode aired, if you would’ve seen this screenshot, you would’ve thought Saul had a stroke or something and Carrie had just found him. And you would have thought that because, like Saul, we trust Carrie implicitly, to a fault. (P.S. Where can I get that floor lamp?)

Sara: Carrie is literally on hands and knees pleading with Saul, begging him to tell her his asset’s name. We can feel all her urgency, her desperation, her exasperation. And Saul, in stunning contrast, is still as ever. 

Sara: Again, Carrie hovers over him. I love that Saul is forced to look at her. 

Gail: In season four when Carrie goes to get Saul in the prisoner exchange, she gives him back his glasses to put on, which in essence gives his power back to him. Without his glasses throughout the series, Saul has found himself powerless, just like he is here. A prisoner in his own home in his most private space.

Gail: Carrie’s last card to play with Saul isn’t an empty threat, it is a plea. With the only power he has left, she needs him to speak the name of his asset. But the bridge has already been burned and his last words to her solidify it.

Sara: The last thing Saul ever says to Carrie on Homeland is “go fuck yourself,” and that hits deep. Mandy Patinkin is exquisite here. He’s unable to move his face or body; all his emotion and feeling are funneled through his eyes. The look in his eyes here is haunting. It is pure betrayal.  

Ashley: The “go fuck yourself” hits doubly hard, because he hasn’t said a word to her since the serum kicked in. Carrie made it a point to ask whether he’d be able to speak after she dosed him — this is all he said.

Sara: While Saul stares her down, she can’t even look at him. I thought Claire played this so perfectly. She has to cycle through a half dozen emotions--disappointment, shame, denial, to name a few--in a matter of seconds. She makes it look easy. God, it’s been such a gift to see these two act on our screens weekly for the last eight years. 

Gail: Carrie isn’t just turning away from Saul here, she’s turning away from life as she knew it. And like Sara said, the range of emotions that we see Carrie cycle through in a matter of seconds is a master class in acting by Claire Danes.

Sara: And now Carrie goes to see Saul’s sister, a mirror of the scene with Maggie earlier in the episode. It was so unexpected to bring back Dorit for the final episode, and it totally works. Really inspired writing. 

Ashley: I’m kind of disappointed that Saul and Dorit were together in the flash-forward. I would have liked for Dorit’s only interaction to be with Carrie, as Maggie’s was with Saul.

Gail: I’m not disappointed that Saul was reunited with Dorit. I find it fitting. Life has moved on. Saul was given an opportunity to repair his fractured relationship with his sister and he took it. Carrie made choices that will forever keep her from repairing her relationship with Maggie. It’s another reminder of the price Carrie paid and will continue to pay for as long as she lives.

Ashley: Okay, good point.

Sara: I’m fucked up about this all over again. 

Sara: The brilliant irony of the entire second act of the episode is that while Carrie does have to literally pretend Saul is dead, in a very real and true way he has died for her. Again, the best lies are 95% true. Her relationship with Saul at that point, having crossed the line she did the previous night, is potentially destroyed forever. She grieves for him here in a very real way. 

Sara: I only included this because the woman young Saul Berenson is holding is Mandy Patinkin’s actual wife, Kathryn Grody. If you haven’t checked out their quarantine content, get on that. 

Sara: I love how an envelope with Carrie’s name on it has played such a pivotal role in three of this show’s eight season finales. 

Gail: We need a side-by-side of this envelope and Quinn’s letter. The similarities aren’t only between the way her name is written and the handwriting itself. They also contain intensely personal messages for Carrie, who Saul and Quinn both trusted with their lives and cared for dearly. There is probably also a parallel to the ways in which they both saw her and in the ways she betrayed them both (real or imagined).

Sara: Someone’s gonna request that gifset in 3, 2, 1... 

Gail: Dorit is the last person Carrie sees from her “old” life. I think Carrie is grieving that as much as she is grieving Saul here.

Sara: In this moment, Dorit is Carrie’s last link to Saul. There is hesitation here when she hugs her, and then she just gives in and lets the grief of losing Saul wash over her. 

Sara: IJLTP.

Ashley: I like the shot of her creeping in, face only half-visible… it feels like a 24 (drink!) type shot, not a Homeland shot, and the contrast of her coming in to this beautiful bright room from a drab hallway is great.

Gail: Carrie holds all of the power and this time, she doesn’t put the gun down or drop her guard. No needles to the neck this time, Yevgeny!

Sara: I love the complete contrast to the way Carrie approaches Yevgeny in this act versus what we saw from her in the middle third of the season.

Gail: Saul didn’t speak Anna’s name and neither did Carrie. Maybe she couldn’t bring herself to do it. But standing in front of Dorit’s door reiterates just how much choice and power Carrie had. She wasn’t backed into a corner. She didn’t have to give up the asset. She chose to. 

Sara: This is such an excellent shot. Yevgeny’s stance! The gun pointed straight at him. The piece of paper with Anna’s name crumpled on the floor between them. 

Ashley: The paper crumpled on the floor between them is interesting, because this is so important to him — Carrie blew up her entire world to get this name — and it’s just tossed on the floor like a piece of trash.

Sara: Similar to the video call with Yevgeny last week, the camera pushes closer on Saul as the video progresses. And it finally goes to a close-up when he reveals that Anna has been “risking everything for us, everyday.” His words, dripping with irony, are like daggers. 

Gail: The close-ups have been used as a way to see what the character is genuinely thinking or feeling at any moment. This close-up of Saul (with glasses!) shows us just how much he trusted Carrie, and based on the timeline, it was relatively early in their relationship.

Sara: And, again, Carrie can hardly look him in the eye. He’s not physically present, but she still can’t face him. There are a lot of profile shots of Carrie in the second act. I’m not sure if there is symbolic significance to that, maybe that she’s literally been split in two by this ground-shifting decision she’s made. She’s pulled between her patriotism and sense of duty for her country and her loyalty to Saul.

Gail: Carrie feels like there is a gun to her head and puts a metaphorical gun to Saul’s head, and yet Anna is the only one with an actual gun to her head. Everyone feels like they don’t have a choice. The two most important people in Saul’s career seem to have many things in common, including taking matters into their own hands.

Ashley: And look at that dated hardware! She’s surrounded by things that have outlived their usefulness.

Sara: The entire sequence where Anna and Scott Ryan temporarily escape the GRU team is excruciating to watch. Anna is shot here from behind the fence in the basement room. It’s overt and literal imagery illustrating how trapped she is. And yet, despite that, she finds a way to be free, to end the mission on her own terms. We can understand here why Saul wants to protect her so badly. 

Gail: Saul is still without his glasses and without the power to protect Anna.

Sara: Sometimes I forget that in these phone call scenes, someone off-camera is literally just reading the other character’s lines. Mandy and Claire are both tremendous phone call (and green screen) actors. Saul jumping and wincing in pain when he hears the gunshot is heartbreaking. 

Sara: And here, this silent cry. In the span of less than 24 hours he’s lost the two people most important in his life. It gets a little lost in the shuffle of the (admittedly exhilarating) last act of the episode, but there is so much loss peppered throughout this episode. 

Ashley: This moment reminds me of the instant Haqqani shoots Aayan and Carrie jumps. You’re never prepared for that moment, whether you know it’s coming or not.

Gail: The red books are blurry in the background and just out of reach.

Sara: Another profile shot of Carrie. Here, as she watches the fruits of her labor all season long. It’s bittersweet of course. She did “stop a war,” as she earlier claimed she was trying to do. But, in the process, she lost her last remaining “ballasts,” as Claire would say: Saul, and her country. She can never go home again.

Sara: Lots of people turning off TVs this week. Earlier in the episode Carrie turns off the TV in Saul’s kitchen. We don’t need to explain the ~symbolism~ of that. 

Gail: Full disclosure: I did a deep dive on the painting on the mantle. I narrowed it down to something from the medieval times and was feeling discouraged when I took another look at this still from the finale. The menorah, just off to the right of the painting, looks fully lit. The menorah symbolizes light over darkness, something that feels fitting to the end of Carrie’s journey and complements the stained glass religious symbolism of Saul’s house.

Sara: The show has been pulling a Carrie/Brody parallel thread with Carrie and Yevgeny all season long and this scene here really reminds me of Carrie and Brody’s fight in the safe house in “The Star.” Of course, Carrie is now in Brody’s shoes. Just as Carrie couldn’t understand that you can’t redeem one murder by committing another, Yevgeny doesn’t grasp the monumental loss that Carrie is facing now that her relationship with Saul is destroyed. Carrie’s words echo here: 

Carrie: You were asked to do a mission on behalf of your country and you did it? Brody: Is that what you tell yourself? Carrie: That’s what I believe!

Gail: Carrie has done the once-unthinkable: she gave up her daughter so children like this could grow up in a world that isn’t ravaged by nuclear war. Watching them play as if nothing has happened also illustrates that the world still goes round, whether Carrie stops a war or not.

Sara: Carrie watching the young boys play soccer in the street is reminiscent of Carrie watching the two young girls in Kabul in “Designated Driver.” The effect is the same: she’s done it for them, so that they may not grow up in a world decimated by war. But what loss she faces in the process. 

Ashley: Also a reference to Issa playing soccer with Brody; Carrie has given herself mostly over to the… I guess “enemy” is the right word, but I don’t like it. 

Sara: Another profile shot. The single tear dripping from Carrie’s lip reminds me of this quote from James Poniewozik on Claire in “Q&A” (y’all I’m just pulling out ALL the quotes this time):

“As for Danes, she has the less showy part here, but it’s impressively complicated. She demonstrates Carrie in control (her shutting off the cameras shows both sympathy and power), leading Brody through his cover story, taking it apart and then bringing down the hammer—Dana—before walking him to a place where it’s OK for him to confess, telling him that she knows he’s a good man. At the same time, she shows Carrie’s delicate state in the moment, drawing on the feelings for Brody that she has, or at least once had. If she’s fooling Brody with her sympathy now, she’s fooling me too. There’s an almost sexual intimacy to the way these one-time lovers work through the confession: one tear rolling down Brody’s face, a drip of moisture from Carrie’s nose—her nose!—as Brody lies down like he wants to sleep forever.”

Sara: Another TV being turned off!

Sara: Hugh Dancy was so deliciously evil as Zabel, who was a real weasel. His expression here is one of true disappointment that he wasn’t able to wage more war in the Middle East. We don’t see Zabel in the “two years later” coda, but I’m sure he’s a lead contributor at Fox News. 

Gail: Oh for sure, and currently writing his second tell-all book. Maybe he’ll finally bump into Carrie on their book tours.

Sara: I would like to see it.

Sara: I will never this slow pan across Carrie in “two years later” land to reveal her applying mascara. Just… *chef’s kiss*

Sara: First, Yevgeny is leaning, just as always. Second, this apartment! Holy shit! It’s what she deserves dot gif. 

Gail: Hell yes! It’s also what we deserve!

Sara: There is an obvious parallel here to Lynne Reed in season one. Lynne also received a necklace from her ~beau. The irony, of course, is that Lynne was a true victim, and Carrie refuses to be. 

Gail: The first indicator for me that there was something else going on here was this look from Carrie as Yevgeny put the necklace on her. My tin foil hat was DANCING with all of the Lynne Reed parallels!

Ashley: Let’s not consider that parallel, given that Lynne’s necklace was also given to her in good faith by her paramour, and somebody else killed her for it. FOR TERRORISM.

Sara: I really can’t get over how unexpected it is for Carrie to be happy in this moment. The ultimate fakeout. Claire wished for relief for Carrie for years and she finally fucking got it. We all did.

Ashley: I know, and the look on Carrie’s face is so genuine and she might as well have heart eyes.

Gail: I still can’t believe it and it’s almost been a month since the finale aired.

Gail: What a view. So many windows reiterating just how out in the open her life with Yevgeny really is. You know what they say about people in glass houses...

Sara: Look at all the edible food on the countertops! I spy some vinegars, apples, oranges, salt and pepper. Yevgeny probably cooks for Carrie every night. Also, of course, the apartment is stunning. Gotta love that GRU money. I wonder how much Carrie’s book advance was. 

Ashley: Sara, just write the fic already.

Sara: I love the Franny photo showing up again. We know Alex Gansa loves symmetry and this is one of the better moments of symmetry in the series. It is heartbreaking, though. This was Carrie’s daily reminder as she was writing in her office of why she was doing it. 

We also need to note the books on Carrie’s desk, which are all actually Alex Gansa’s and were used throughout the series’ run for research.

Gail: I love that Carrie’s curtains are open and you can see the outside from her office. The skyline looks busy and beautiful. Her work is no longer hidden in closets or illegally in her living room. She is letting the world in on her secrets, but not quite into her office. All of the seats but hers are filled with her work. If this office is a sneak peek at her mindset, she is thriving (she has PLANTS--PLURAL!), she is organized, and she is most certainly keeping herself busy. Front and center on her desk is Franny, who I’m sure is always at the forefront of her mind.

Sara: The production design in this office is incredible. First, it looks like an office Carrie would have. All the papers and books scattered about, and yet somehow organized (everything is in mostly neat piles). 

I love the Russian doll at the far right of Carrie’s desk. It is a perfect metaphor for Carrie. A person inside a person inside a person inside a person. 

Ashley: It would have been criminal not to see one more Carrie wall. I would have sued.

Gail: This is the CIA wall where Carrie was finally able to get Brody the recognition she felt he deserved. Quinn too. Carrie has spent the last four seasons trying to answer for all of the blood on her hands, and in writing her book, maybe she can finally atone for some of it.

Sara: This is a searing, unforgettable image. The black ghost on the poster that reads “LEGACY OF TORTURE” stands out among the ocean of white paper. And what a legacy Carrie confronts here. The wall itself is filled with ghosts of all kinds: Warner, Brody, Dante, Quinn, Keane. And then there’s her real-life counterpart Ed Snowden, rendered in the ironically patriotic colors of America’s flag (or, again, is it Russia’s?) staring right back at her. 

Sara: So many details. Thanks to Lesli Linka Glatter, we know that the post-its on the window are the chapter titles of Carrie’s book and actual episode titles throughout the series. All the attention to detail here is mesmerizing. 

Gail: Sara gets her pretty, happy Carrie and I get my Spy Carrie. The post-it notes and easter eggs are the cherry on top of an already amazing series finale. Carrie taking a moment to look around the room at her old life while her new one is literally right outside her door waiting is so poignant.

Sara: We had it on the bingo card and it finally happened! The closing score from “The Star” plays over this scene, and if there’s one piece of music in Homeland that can easily conjure the emotions of loss, it’s this. At the end of “The Star,” Carrie is forced to pay tribute to Brody in her own private way. Now, she’s about to tell her own story to the entire world. 

Gail: By the end of “The Star” Brody had lost everything, including his life, and by the end of “Prisoners of War,” so has Carrie, albeit only metaphorically. When she drew Brody’s star on the wall at the CIA it was an act of defiance, of doing what she felt was right in her heart. Here she is again, defying the CIA and doing what she feels is right. The symmetry of it is breathtaking, especially with that gorgeous score from Sean Callery playing throughout.

Sara: One final Saul over-the-shoulder shot of the season (I mean series... sob)!

Sara: I love the little moments in the last act that give meaning and color to their life together. Her raised-eyebrow look at him as he’s grooving to the jazz is perfect. Carrie finally found a man who loves jazz as much as she does and that’s beautiful. 

Gail: Sharing her love of jazz music with Yevgeny seems symbolic of how much she’s let him into her life and into who she really is.

Sara: Never in 400,000 years would I think Homeland would feature a live musical performance on its show. Kamasi Washington was incredible. It’s such a perfect callback and tribute to the bones and DNA of the show. 

Gail: Russian hearts are breaking all over Moscow tonight.

Sara: Legendaric. 

Sara: The way the light hits Carrie here is gorgeous. There is symbolism to the fact that Yevgeny is completely in the dark. She looks at him, searching. 

Ashley: This shot is just really really really really really really (really to the power of infinity) beautiful.

Gail: “Somewhere down there, there’s a tiny sliver of green just taking its time. This is how everything works. You wait. You lay low. And then you come to life.”

Sara: GAIL.

Sara: This was probably unintentional, but I was struck by the symmetry of Carrie ascending and descending the staircase in the theater just as she did in the first act of the episode, repeatedly, in Saul’s house. It feels very fitting to me. In the beginning, she’s destroying her relationship with Saul. Now, she’s attempting to rebuild it. 

Gail: Carrie beginning to rebuild her relationship with Saul in a place like this, surrounded by religious symbolism, feels right. She leaves the shadows of her place in the audience and steps into the light.

Gail: The last time we saw Carrie look into a mirror she didn’t have time to shower or put any effort into her appearance. Now Carrie seems to have all the time in the world because girlfriend looks AMAZING.

Sara: More Lynne Reed parallels, this time with the purse swap, which bears a striking resemblance to the compact swap in “Grace.” I love that both Carrie and Saul have consistent means of communication with their assets. Saul’s is so perfectly him and Carrie’s is so perfectly her. 

Sara: This image of Carrie is haunting and arresting. The camerawork is brilliant here; Saul angles the book slightly upward, and we’re looking over Saul’s shoulder. The effect is that Carrie is staring straight back at Saul and straight back at the audience, piercing us. This is me, this is my story, her face seems to say.

Gail: I’m sure they were going for a similar look to Snowden’s book, but I love the black and white image of Carrie that they used, stripped of all color and (seemingly) of all allegiance.

Sara: The title, of course, is perfection. That they came up with the idea of this book in a day is quite miraculous as it seems so fitting and right for it to have been this. The subtitle “Why I Had to Betray My Country” is biting and direct and exactly Carrie. You can totally picture this in a bookstore (in the bestseller section, natch).

Sara: This dedication to Franny is simple but gutting. Above all else, it tells us that Carrie’s book and the story told within are real. She extends a hand to Saul with the note in the spine. And she extends a hand to her daughter with this short sentiment. I’m struck by how much of this show has been about Carrie’s struggle to be understood, to be believed. It’s heartbreaking that at the end she has to fight for this from her own child. This is one of the real tragedies of her story, but it makes her “finishing” feel all the more cathartic. This is Carrie’s truth.

Sara: The book is both the mechanism by which Carrie delivers her first piece of intelligence to Saul and a vehicle for her to tell her story, which includes betraying him. The irony and contradiction in that is Homelandian as hell, and completely fitting. So many things in this episode just make sense. They feel exactly as they should. What a rare gift they gave us. 

Gail: When Carrie and Saul get gifts, so do we!

Gail: I love that while everything was packed and emptied, his secret spy gear was still hidden inside his desk drawer.

Sara: Saul’s hand shaking as he reads the message is a specific detail that I really love.

Sara: Carrie’s final words to Saul, and to the audience, are “Stay tuned.” It’s masterful. 

Gail: “Hopeful-ish.”

Sara: Magic.

Gail: Pure magic.

Gail: Finally, a smile on Homeland where everything doesn’t immediately go to shit after!

Sara: In this moment the notes of jazz are repeating over and over, in higher and higher pitches. There is a sense of being trapped or repeating old patterns. Then the saxophone stutters. It wails, finally free. Carrie can’t help but smile. A secret only she knows. 

Sara: Saul grins, exhilarated. Somehow, improbably, Carrie has found a way to surprise him one final time. Earlier in this episode, Carrie’s burned it all down. Now, the light comes in. The white light streaming in from the windows, illuminating Saul from behind, gives this moment a feeling of near-religious importance. How extraordinary to believe again. 

Sara: Carrie’s contented sigh here reminds me of other moments she’s had that, like Saul’s, seem almost religious in nature. Bathed in the soft blue light and ensconced in the warmth of her music, we feel her sense of true belonging. We feel her catharsis, her relief. This is exactly where she should be.

Gail: I spoke about this in the finale podcast, but there is something to be said about watching a television series every week over eight seasons. There is an intimacy to television that builds week-to-week as the show is watched in people’s homes. We’ve gotten to know these characters, and for better or worse, we have taken a piece of ownership over them. In order for a television show to really work, that transference needs to happen and it needs to be authentic. The trick is for that balance to stay intact. Very few shows have achieved that balance long-term and even fewer have maintained it through their conclusions. Homeland didn’t kill off characters for the sake of doing so but instead gave us an ending that stayed true to the show and the characters we have come to love--an ending that was filled with loss but somehow still gave us hope. It was pure magic. It’s something I’ll never forget and something I will forever use to compare all other shows to. 

This last image of Carrie, bathed in the light of a new beginning, is a new beginning for us as viewers too. In ending the show, they didn’t take Carrie away from us, they gave her to us. Beautiful and as whole as she’s ever been. And like Sara said... what a thing it is to believe again... Thank you, Homeland. Ashley: This was a good television show.

Sara: The most shocking thing this show ever did was not killing off a half dozen beloved characters but centering its protagonist and heroine in its final moments in a moment of, dare we say, happiness and hope. Despite the utter unexpectedness of that decision, it never feels anything but honest and true. Carrie fought, she struggled, she stumbled, she lost. She lost so, so much. 

She smiles here, on the other side of it, able to finally see it all. The saxophones and keys and drums and voices drown out everything, they whir into an unmistakable commotion. And we feel this, her final, confounding truth... 

In the chaos, her peace. 

[murasaki-murasame]

Thoughts on Sarazanmai Episode 11 [Finale]: “I Want To Connect, So Sarazanmai”

Do you ever just watch an anime episode that’s So Much in so many different ways that it makes you immediately want to lay down and sleep for a hundred years, but in like a good and hopeful way?

Yeah.

It’s very fitting that the final episode title is technically self-referential nonsense that in practice makes complete emotional sense and leaves everything feeling neatly tied together. It just Works [tm].

Thoughts under the cut.

Even though they were in like 5% of this episode I just wanna immediately point out that Reo and Mabu are ALIVE and IN LOVE and my SKIN IS CLEARED. It didn’t exactly happen in the way I expected, but I was hoping that they’d get revived, and here we are. The finale gave absolutely no shits about actually explaining any of the lingering mysteries about them, but I can’t fault them for it when they gave them such an unambiguously happy ending together. And in practice it perfectly fit the dreamy, surreal, intensely emotionally-driven vibe of the whole finale. Seeing their connected rings morph into them flying through the air while holding hands and the sheer power of their gay love literally paving the way for the main trio to finally connect was one of those moments where you just gotta sit back and accept that Ikuhara’s throwing at you, lmao.

Realistically I thought they might get left off on a pretty bittersweet note like a lot of Ikuhara characters, but nah, they’re just straight up back to being alive and happy and they pretty much got to attend their daughter’s magical furry wedding, lmao. They didn’t even get their memories erased like I thought might happen, so the whole confession scene from ep10 is still perfectly intact and now that the whole otter thing’s dealt with, we can probably safely assume that the two of them made up and are back to being The Ultimate Couple. It also looks like the two of them and even Sara and Keppi are still hanging out in the human world, which is kinda unexpected. I thought that even in the best case scenario they’d all just head back to the kappa kingdom, but I guess since that doesn’t really exist anymore they’re just gonna stay in the human world. Reo and Mabu seem to be working as rickshaw drivers now, which makes it even more clear that they’re probably back to being more or less regular people and being part of regular human society, and they’ve probably given up their jobs as cops, which is nice.

None of this answers the still lingering question of ‘how the fuck does the manga even fit into the timeline aaaaaaa’, but I don’t care as much about finding out the answer to that after this finale, so it’s not a big deal. I guess we’re meant to think that it happened before the anime, though. My best guess is that Sara was intentionally sent into the human world as a baby to protect her from the kappa/otter war, or something, and then Reo and Mabu raised her, she magically turned into her teenage/adult self [in an instantaneous fairy tale-y kind of way], then she went back to the kappa kingdom for a bit, and I guess she arranged things with Keppi and had them get recruited into the kappa kingdom? I still think they’re humans that got roped into this like the main trio, so I think that makes sense to me.

Even more so than with the main trio, I think that those two getting a 100% happily ever after with no caveats or drawbacks really spells out how fundamentally optimistic and hopeful this series is, and how they were one way or another victims of a harsh system that didn’t deserve the shit they went through, and so they got given a happy ending. It’d be understandable if people feel upset that they got such a happy ending after having done undeniably awful things, but I don’t mind.

And on the topic of the main trio, hoo boy they sure were the main focus of this episode, lol. And by ‘them’ I mean ‘Toi’ because let’s be honest he was basically the actual main character of the show by the end, and the finale was like 99% focused on his character development specifically. Which isn’t a bad thing. Kazuki’s whole deal had already been more or less resolved by the end of ep6, so it makes sense that the second half in general focused more on Toi.

On the flip side, Enta kinda got the short end of the stick in terms of screen-time and development, and things end in a sorta wishy-washy way in regards to his feelings for Kazuki. It makes enough sense that his whole ending was about choosing not to drown himself in fruitless delusions, even if it feels kinda lame and disappointing compared to the more climactic and intense resolutions that Kazuki and Toi got.

Though tbh a big part of why I don’t feel too negatively about how Enta’s crush on Kazuki kinda fizzled into irrelevancy is because Reo and Mabu got their happy ending that preserved all of their character development, with the obvious implication that they’re back to being in a happy and stable romantic relationship. The fact that there’s at least one happy gay couple at the end of all this makes me much more willing to forgive Enta’s story being handled a bit differently. I mean, that’s part of the whole reason why diversity in storytelling is so important. When you include multiple different gay characters/relationships in your stories, you have the freedom to do different things with them, instead of having all the narrative burdens and expectations being placed on just one character/relationship. It’s annoying when the ONLY gay character in a show ends up having to repress and move on from their feelings, but it’s fine when there are other gay characters who get to have their own happy relationships.

Anyway, I really liked how Toi’s story wrapped up here. A lot of what actually happened in the finale was full on bizarre dream logic nonsense, but the emotional undercurrent of Toi being faced with the prospect of effectively committing suicide in order to free himself from the pain of human connection once and for all, and him coming to the realization on his own terms that he doesn’t want to let go of those connections, got through perfectly clearly. They actually went a lot further with his story than I expected. Literally further, in that we had a whole timeskip epilogue detailing how after the main story ended he went to juvie for a few years and then reunited with Kazuki and Enta when he returned. I’m going to assume that he turned himself in, since there shouldn’t have been any concrete evidence tying him to any of his crimes, except for maybe him shooting Reo [though even then, Reo’s corpse immediately transformed into one of those rings so I don’t think that counts as lasting forensic evidence, lmao]. It was definitely the most brushed-over part of the finale, but it didn’t need to be focused on that much, since the more important part was him reuniting with the other two afterward.

And in terms of timeskips and whatnot, I really loved the whole potential future flashforward sequence showing a what-if scenario of the three of them becoming professional soccer players and being slowly torn apart by interpersonal drama, while the different episode title cards are re-used in this new context to show how their emotional issues and hang-ups might lead to that sort of negative outcome. It did a really nice job of illustrating how they’re willing to face the possibility of future pain in order to hold onto their connections with each other. Which is what the entire show had been building up to, really. It was all about them becoming able to face the harsh realities of being known in order to lead fulfilling lives with meaningful personal relationships.

I do kinda wish their older selves looked a bit more distinct from their base designs, though. Aside from the difference in outfits you can barely tell that they’ve grown up, lol.

I was initially planning on rewatching episode 1 after this, but honestly after what actually happened I don’t really think I’d actually get anything new out of episode 1 now. The very first scene of the show is still a bit of a mystery, even though it’s obviously based around a lot of visual imagery and cinematography from the finale, and the whole deal with the ‘A’ signs is still up for interpretation. But I don’t really think it’s super important one way or another.

I’m actually very happy that the ending didn’t involve any sort of time travel, and that that’s not what the first scene of the show was hinting at. Especially with how this finale really hammered in the importance of living with the consequences of your actions and accepting the future for what it is, it would have felt very cheap if anything got reset in the end.

I guess it’s also worth noting that, at least with the main trio, there weren’t any romantic developments, which I think was fine. With how the story had been building up to this point I think it was fairly obvious that their ending was gonna be more about friendship alone. Which might disappoint some people [and the whole topic of Enta’s unrequited crush on Kazuki is it’s own whole thing], but at the very least, Reo and Mabu got their happy romantic ending together, so I don’t feel like I’m missing out, lol.

Part of me wants to be disappointed that we didn’t really learn anything new about Sara, and that she didn’t exactly, uh, DO anything even in this final episode, but honestly I feel like that’s kinda ‘the joke’. Like, she and Keppi come across as a super tongue in cheek joke about the fairy tale concept of princes and princesses. Sorta like how the Utena movie made the ‘prince’ into a complete joke, Sara and Keppi are just there to be funny plot devices, and their big ending is that they have a big fat furry wedding and that’s that. And honestly that’s fine by me. I feel like Ikuhara’s whole artistic career has involved him becoming more and more flippant and dismissive about the concepts of princes and princesses and how much importance is placed on them in fiction, and that’s valid. It reminds me a bit of how all of the actual major characters are all queer dudes and their relationships with each other are the actually important part of the narrative, whereas straight characters like Sara and Keppi and all the different faceless kappa zombie dudes are mostly just joke characters. There’s something both deeply amusing and deeply vindicating about how this show turns the tables like that, with how it frames different types of love and relationships.

The main trio’s story ended up being not super tied into what the show has to say about sexuality in general [and overall the show is less specifically ‘about’ that than Yuri Kuma Arashi was, from what I understand], but there was definitely a whole lot of social commentary about homophobia going on with Reo and Mabu, and thankfully that part of the narrative came to a satisfying and genuinely subversive ending, with them overcoming the death imposed upon them and regaining their happy lives together. 

Now I’m hoping that Ikuhara will ‘complete the set’, so to say, and have his next anime be about trans/non-binary characters, especially after how Kazuki’s whole cross-dressing thing ended up being kinda unimportant and not about gender identity to begin with. Which is still kinda disappointing to me, but oh well.

Overall, this ending was almost aggressively happy and optimistic compared to what I was bracing myself for, so thankfully it’s left me feeling warm and fuzzy and content. All in all, it was a surprisingly straightforward story in terms of it’s central messages, in spite of it’s over the top and abstract framing, and I think it really benefited from that inherent simplicity, especially in this finale, which was so singularly focused on it’s central trio [and mostly just Toi’s perspective alone]. I was a bit worried the finale might turn into one of those things where a deeply personal conflict gets blown up and tied into literally world-ending stakes, but thankfully they didn’t go unnecessarily far with it. Even the kappa/otter war resolution barely involved the main trio themselves.

At least in hindsight, I think the anime was very tightly woven and was paced surprisingly well for it’s short episode count, and it’s hard to imagine how they could have spent much more time on the main trio, but now that we have a better idea of the timeline of the series, I really think that episode 6 should have been followed up by an episode that basically adapted the ReoMabu manga, plus parts of the twitter account, and the short chapter from the first light novel volume about how they met. That way it would have ended up with a nice round 12-episode length, and I don’t think it would have ‘spoiled the surprise’ of the later reveals and developments with Reo and Mabu. I just think it would have been really good to actually cover that in the anime itself, especially since even in the finale, the whole fact that they literally raised Sara as a baby never got addressed, so it feels like anime-only viewers are missing out on a big chunk of their story. But it’s not a huge deal.

I guess at the end of the day my feelings about the finale boil down to ‘Reo and Mabu are alive and happy and that’s literally all that matters to me’, lol.

I was really worried about how I’d be left feeling after this, but I’m happy that I’ve been following this series ever since it was first announced. This is the only time I’ve watched an Ikuhara show as it’s come out, and oh boy has it been an emotional roller-coaster. The fact that it ended in a satisfying way makes it all feel worth it, though.

I probably won’t get to it immediately since I think my brain needs time to recover from this one, but sometime soon I want to finally get around to watching Penguindrum and then Yuri Kuma Arashi. I don’t think I’ll liveblog them like I’ve been doing with Sarazanmai, though, if only since I’ve already been spoiled on bits and pieces of what happens in them, but we’ll see how it goes.

[softlywithhissong]

I’m calling bullshit on your hate.

STOP STEREOTYPING SANGWOO FANS!

I am a Sangwoo fan. I am also a Bum fan. A strange dichotomy, I know.

Both of these characters exhibit problematic behavior, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be a fan of them, either individually or simultaneously. Does being a fan of either of these characters mean that you support these damaging behaviors in real life? NO. Calling out people who support REAL LIFE crimes is fine, but calling out people who are trying to enjoy being a fan of a FICTIONAL character IS NOT OKAY. You are clearly not helping real life people by doing so. You are being judgemental and self-righteous, shaming people to feel superior and patting yourself on the back for it. You not only contradict yourself several times, but you also act entitled to hate real people for liking something you personally don’t, have the arrogance to proclaim what the author “better not” do, and wish ill on real people. The hypocrisy is appalling. Do you not see the irony? You are not protecting people from real life abuse BY HATING ON REAL LIFE FANS of a fictional character. You are in fact engaging in verbally abusing real life people. It doesn’t matter what the character does; it’s fiction. Are there real people existing out in the big wide world who do crimes or support criminals? Yes, but to generalize, stereotype, and basically accuse FANS of being as bad as the people who do this or to conflate us and lump us together is disgusting, illogical, and highly offensive.

How can we “still stan his ass / this ship”? We can because the beauty of fandom is that you get to pick and choose what you like. You get to twist it up, turn it inside out, and make it into an AU parody of itself. ART IS SUBJECTIVE. It’s about what individual thing each and every one of us found gut wrenching or what pulled at our heartstrings. Don’t invalidate what other people found or resonated with just because it’s not the same thing you did. People fear different things. People emphasize, magnify, and conversely minimize different things based on what concerns each of us individually. That’s okay and people shouldn’t be shamed for having a different opinion. After all, being a fan is a form of opinion. And opinions are not facts. Don’t confuse the two; you holding an opinion does not make your opinion a fact.

Fiction is about emotional catharsis. It doesn’t matter that stealing a car or killing a dog are not crimes worthy of the death penalty in real life - I wanted to see John Wick kill all those fuckers for killing that little puppy.

And NOT ALL MEDIA should have a healthy or happy ending. Was Romeo and Juliet’s double suicide a healthy ending? NO. It was a tragedy! Tragedies have an important place in media. They often serve as cautionary tales. If you want another cliched boring “bad guy dies/goes to jail” ending, WHY ARE YOU SHAMING FANS WHO WANT SOMETHING DIFFERENT? You have an endless supply of your preferred ending. Go watch one of the thousand CSI/detective/cop procedural shows. They are everywhere. While I enjoy psychological thrillers (AS RARE AS THEY ARE), I am also a fan of some great detective shows and murder mysteries. I could recommend so many fantastic ones. But some of us want a unique ending for Killing Stalking, even if that means something “unhealthy” by real life moral standards. It was labeled a psychological thriller, after all. Not a mystery. Not a detective story. It was also labeled BL, and even if it gets a twisted/unhealthy ending because of the psychological thriller genre, it still qualifies because twisted BL is still BL.

I do not excuse Sangwoo’s abusive treatment of Bum. I’m often disappointed and angry on Bum’s behalf. And while I find it difficult to believe canon Bum would be in a healthy relationship with anyone (and I would love to make a post about how I see his fondness for frogs as symbolism for his relationships), I still have the ability to enjoy the possibilities of a healthy fanon-based relationship or even appreciate the grim take of a tragic and/or twisted unhealthy ending. This is how I still ship Sangbum in certain contexts, but not always, because context matters and it depends. I know that sentence sounds ridiculous, but that’s how it works! Because it’s OKAY TO SHIP FICTIONAL UNHEALTHY SHIPS. Because it’s fiction. And if people can vent their issues through the written word in order to not do so in real life, good. Many people find reading/writing therapeutic. Some authors write a lot of problematic behavior as angst. Do they deserve hate? NO. There are plenty of instances when I have shipped a healthy ship but not shipped it (and in fact wanted them not to end up together) in certain fics because I felt the fic had portrayed an unhealthy relationship. But did I send hate to the author of that fic when that ship ended up together anyway? NO. Just because it ended in a way I didn’t like didn’t give me or anyone else the right to spread hate or shame over a fictional story.

Also, as a Bum fan, I do not appreciate seeing any victim blaming of Bum. There’s some out there (including your despicable “Bum better not” comment), but at least this hate is not anywhere near the amount of Sangwoo hate. As a fan of both characters, I can see that there is clearly so much more Sangwoo hate out there. And it’s fine to criticize, dislike, or even hate Sangwoo as a character, but it’s NOT OKAY to hate on his fans. He is a fictional character, but his fans are real people.

I am a fan of Sangwoo because he is an intriguing, complex, and well-written character. He’s got flaws. All characters do. And I understand his flaws are pretty damn big. But I understand that he’s a fictional character. I would never support a real person committing such crimes or abuse. So, frankly, while you may find my being a fan “annoying” - I will not be shamed or hated upon.

To quote my sister, “In the safety of fiction, we can deconstruct the complexities of what’s morally gray.”

In other words, exploration through FICTION, discussion, and debate are welcome. Hateful posts are not.

This is a long post, so I’ll put my further calling bullshit on arguments made by haters behind a “Keep Reading” link:

Also, the criticisms for being a fan because of “fetishizing gay men” are bullshit. Firstly, anything anyone finds hot could be labeled “fetishizing” which is ridiculous. Secondly, some fans are gay men who are not “fetishizing” - they are simply enjoying the story even if it is twisted. (It’s okay to be a fan of a story that portrays an unhealthy relationship; not every story is meant to be a moral standard.) But also, this bullshit argument is just reducing people down to a ridiculous stereotype used to stifle women in fandom. This has been used through the ages and it is wrong. Are there possibly straight women out there objectifying gay men the way straight men would objectify gay women? Yeah, there’s probably some. But I’ve been in fandom a LONG time and this is not representative of fans in general, let alone all female fans. How about you let women consume all forms of media they find identifiable, cathartic, containing unique storyline with complex flawed characters, or even (gasp) entertaining? Stop shaming people. And maybe especially - don’t resort to misogynistic tropes to do so. I think it’s safe to say that fans (including female fans) generally tend to be a fan for more than just a character’s appearance and body parts. There’s usually character traits, personality quirks, things that draw you to go beyond casual reading/watching into becoming a fan.

Personally, I identify with stories portraying gay relationships equally as much if not more than with stories portraying heterosexual relationships. Maybe that’s because I’m bisexual, but I don’t think so. I believe that straight people can also find themselves identifying with the story and the struggles portrayed - no matter what the sexual orientation of the pairing portrayed.

You think I only like portrayals of gay men rather than women? No, I like both. Killing Eve is a fantastic example of a fandom that I would love to see grow! I despair at how small the fandom is compared to my usual fandoms, but it’s new! It can grow and I can’t wait for season 2. The harsh reality, though, is that f/f ships tend to be smaller fandoms. This may be due to so few well-written female characters in general throughout media - though, this is improving and having more female writers in media helps. Killing Eve has great characters and really great writing, so hopefully they can buck this trend and grow a decently large fandom featuring f/f ships. Sara Lance/Ava Sharpe from Legends of Tomorrow are a pretty big ship, which is heartening, and Xena/Gabrielle from Xena Warrior Princess were an absolute juggernaut back in the day (kudos to anyone who recognized Xena from my main tumblr’s icon).

You think I only like hot men? Or that I excuse the actions of killers who are hot men? NO. I watched The Fall with Gillian Anderson and Jamie Dornan, where Jamie Dornan played the serial killer and NO - I was not a fan of his character, let alone attempted to excuse any actions by his character whatsoever, even after they explained his tragic backstory. And You on Netflix is just too obnoxious in my personal opinion for me to even watch. But I’d never take time out of my day to hate on any fan who enjoys it.

Calling out problematic stuff in media is fine, but don’t use it as an excuse to spit vitriol and hate at fans who you disagree with.

P.S. Seriously, ask me for recs of good detective shows/murder mysteries. I’ve got so many I could recommend that are way better written than most. Want a female detective? I’ve got plenty. Want a gay male detective? Got it. Want a murder mystery twist where the murderer wins? Got that.

[nothingunrealistic]

👀 okay I'm starting to get into billions (bc of will). Can you recommend some essential episodes or something to get an understanding for what's happening? (And also I really like Asia Kate Dillon so like important episodes with them too)

the tricky thing about billions is that those of us who are into it aren’t, for the most part, actually watching the episodes in full or trying to understand all the plotlines. so if you want to know what’s happening with Everyone on the show (which is a dizzying number of characters), i can’t really pare it down to what’s important because i refuse to care about like half of them. but if, as it seems, you’re primarily here for winston and taylor (will’s and asia’s characters respectively), then good news - that’s almost all we care about too

the essential episodes for understanding winston are easy enough because he’s only shown up in five so far (3x03, 3x09, 3x11, 4x03, 4x08, and 4x11) for a couple minutes each, and all footage of him has been lovingly collated and posted on here. his first several appearances, and the context for them, are collected here; his moments from the most recent episode, which we were yelling about all day on sunday, are here. (he’ll be in this coming sunday’s episode too, which is also the season finale, so expect even more yelling about that.)

narrowing down the Essential Taylor is a little trickier because they’ve been in nearly every episode of seasons 2 3 and 4, of which i have watched exactly one episode. if billions had a decent fan wiki or anything similar, i would direct you to that, but they don’t, because they suck. the main way i keep up with the episodes/figure out what happened in previous seasons is via fan-run sites (which are superior to the recaps on Professional Media Websites usually), as follows:

fanfunwithdamianlewis has multiple recaps of every episode (including some from people who actually understand and can explain the financial stuff going on), as well as lists of all the locations shown, transcripts of cast interviews, and other fun stuff, all thoroughly tagged with actor and character names

gingesbecray has a recap of every episode as well (including gifs), always very detailed and entertainingly opinionated in ways we generally agree with

the billions companion collects and explains all the references that characters make (which is half the dialogue), sorted by episode, character, and keyword, as well as listing a wide array of other helpful sites

from these sites, the decent number of clips floating around youtube, and a collection of all taylor’s dialogue in seasons 2 & 3, we’ve pieced together the basic arc taylor’s had in the show so far. here’s my best approach at a season-by-season highlights reel (with links to relevant clips in bold) under the cut  because it’s ridiculously long

season 2: taylor arrives at axe capital as an intern. axe recognizes their talent and convinces them to stay, and they gain experience, status, and respect at axe cap over the course of the season, becoming the chief investment officer by season’s end.

2x01: taylor is an intern working for mafee (an executing trader at axe cap), and mafee wants them to stay once their internship is over.

2x02: taylor meets axe and impresses him with their insight. though taylor knows they don’t fit in at axe cap and plans to leave for grad school, axe later convinces them to stay, with a salary of a million dollars for a year.

2x03: taylor gets invited to play at a charity poker tournament (a real thing!), to the chagrin of others at axe cap. taylor has reservations but ultimately agrees to play; they win the tournament by outthinking their opponent, but are reminded of how out of place they are in hedge fund culture.

2x07: taylor is involved in figuring out what to do about a struggling small town that axe cap is heavily invested in.

2x08: taylor notices that mafee has been struggling at his job ever since he introduced them to axe, and asks wendy (who’s married to chuck [one of the main Legal Side characters], the performance coach at axe cap, and one of axe’s closest friends) if they should do anything about it. (ultimately taylor decides to assuage the guilt by giving mafee a signed wrestling poster. that’s the world of finance for you!)

2x09: axe’s birthday party, which everyone is expected to attend, is in conflict with taylor’s personal life, so they talk to him about what they should do and why they’re conflicted.

2x10: taylor is questioned by connerty (another of the characters on the legal side of things, who we don’t care about otherwise) about what happens at axe cap.

2x11: taylor is warned by connerty that this line of work might endanger their soul. they’re also given the responsibility of assessing all the analysts at axe cap and firing one - and told that it can’t be based solely on the numbers - and decide not to fire rudy, who is the worst performing analyst but is dedicated to succeeding.

2x12: axe is arrested/indicted/somehow penalized for insider trading and other hedge fund shenanigans, and he puts taylor in charge of axe cap’s investments.

season 3: taylor keeps axe capital running and thriving in axe’s absence, but once he returns, he overrules their decisions and undercuts their trust, leading them to start their own hedge fund (taylor mason capital, or tmc) by season’s end.

3x01: taylor calls a meeting at axe cap and tasks everyone with preparing for an Idea Dinner where they’ll impress other hedge funds with a new and exciting plan for making money. ultimately taylor comes up with a plan that involves reverse engineering microchips, and it goes over well.

3x02: taylor struggles with making the right choices of investments after a tsunami hits brazil, confronts axe when he shows up at the office despite being banned from trading, and talks with him later about how the day has gone and how to move forward.

3x03: taylor interviews quantitative analysts (”quants”) for axe cap, much to the chagrin of analysts who are worried about losing their jobs and traders who don’t trust computers. ultimately none are hired because wags (the COO of axe cap and the epitome of everything absolutely wild about billions), who conducted the interview with taylor, doesn’t trust quants either and sabotaged the process. (this is also where winston first appears! hi winston!)

3x04: taylor expects a space mission led by weird off brand elon musk to fail and invests accordingly. they’re rooting for him anyway and are horrified when he dies in an explosion after launch. they also deal with attempts to get them to invest in a charitable organization brought to axe’s attention by oscar langstraat, a venture philanthropist, and wind up with significant distaste for oscar.

3x05: taylor encounters oscar again in silicon valley where they’re hearing pitches, and though they’re hostile to him at first, a conversation about star wars makes taylor regret that they made other plans for dinner, and playing an obscure board game is enough for them to sleep with him. (like i said: enemies to lovers speedrun!)

3x06: taylor is “rattled” (their word) by something related to axe’s legal troubles in this episode. oscar flies in from silicon valley unannounced to keep taylor company while they’re working on their quant project because he’s That invested. no clips of any of this online though

3x07: axe and wendy are planning to convince mafee to take the blame for some shady investing they did at the end of last season, and taylor inadvertently enables them to do it by giving them information about how mafee thinks and what he believes in.

3x08: axe returns to axe cap free to trade again, and immediately undoes all of taylor’s work (including the quant project), though he also invites them to join the team that will raise money for axe cap. taylor wants a fund of their own to manage (still affiliated with axe cap but separate), but axe won’t give them as much money for it as he’s promising.

3x09: axe needs money and tries to take some from grigor andolov, a russian oil oligarch, which taylor thinks is a terrible idea. they also restart the quant project again, in secret, which means winston’s back! winston & taylor’s meeting in a room with a chalkboard and taylor’s introduction of the quants to the quant headquarters are both from this episode.

3x10: taylor and oscar are celebrating a deal that oscar’s about to make, but when taylor mentions it to axe in asking for his help with getting a dinner reservation, axe, who’s searching for more sources of money, makes the deal before oscar can, which crushes taylor and ends their relationship. 

3x11: taylor discovers that winston has driven off the other quants, but asks him to work on The Algorithm instead of firing him. it’s also comp time - axe won’t give taylor as much of a bonus as they want and also removes them from the capital raise team; this decision is later reversed when taylor talks to wendy and wendy talks to axe. winston completes The Algorithm, and taylor emerges from the quant basement into the offices of taylor mason capital to talk to grigor.

3x12: taylor meets with grigor and convinces him to invest in tmc, arrives (late) to the capital raise event and impresses the investors there, swipes a good portion of that capital for tmc, and leaves axe cap for good, having successfully convinced mafee (and failing to convince ben kim) to join them. axe and taylor argue about taylor’s betrayal and what comes next. taylor also tries and fails to bring wendy to tmc.

season 4: taylor strives to keep tmc successful while fending off axe’s repeated attacks and dealing with their own interpersonal relationships interfering with business. how will it end? we don’t yet know [UPDATE: it ends with taylor making deals with both axe and chuck, but truly being on no one’s side except their own.]

4x01: taylor, mafee, and sara (taylor’s COO) struggle to hire employees due to axe paying off tmc’s headhunter (though they don’t initially know that’s the case). taylor disguises themself as a cis woman to get money from a sovereign wealth fund that axe cap is also seeking money from. (the full episode is available on youtube.)

4x02: taylor can’t get funding because axe has persuaded all the banks to cut them off. grigor brings in a pair of shady brothers to invest in tmc; taylor would really rather not depend on the brothers’ money, so they trick the banker the brothers are using into cutting off their credit lines and ask grigor to use his influence to get independent funding for tmc.

4x03: axe cap has managed to get a hold of tmc’s trading patterns, and they start front running tmc (making trades based on what they expect tmc to do) to throw taylor off. (this is where winston comes in again! and declares himself cassandra!) taylor’s dad, douglas, shows up and spends nearly all of his screentime either persistently misgendering taylor or helping them create a mathematical equation, which includes a mistake added by taylor as a message to axe (who of course is watching) for a meeting. when they meet, taylor asks axe for a truce, and he declines.

4x04: grigor brings down axe cap’s whole computer system, allowing tmc to profit off a natural gas crisis that axe cap was hoping to benefit from. taylor also agrees to support douglas’s aerospace project, a “lattice grid fin,” now that he’s actually respecting them as a person. but the climax of this episode is chuck talking about his and wendy’s sex life in front of the press, and taylor calls wendy afterward to offer sympathy. (and chuck, who subsequently wins his election, gets grigor deported and his money frozen.)

4x05: taylor is #Stressed about the loss of grigor’s money, which endangers tmc overall and douglas’s project especially. sara brings in lauren, an investor relations expert, to help out; lauren gets taylor a meeting with the new york firefighters’ fund, who used to invest only with axe but are looking elsewhere, and taylor gains their support.

4x06: taylor is working with douglas and a couple other companies on getting his lattice fin project off the ground, while trying to avoid axe cap’s spying (not that successfully), and douglas is mad that he isn’t being treated like the smartest person in the room. taylor and wendy also meet up repeatedly, in a seemingly friendly way, but wendy mines their conversations and her patient files on taylor to figure out how to force taylor to destroy douglas’s project. 

4x07: rebecca, axe’s girlfriend (though tmc doesn’t know that) and a business mogul herself, offers to buy douglas’s project (as a way for axe to access and destroy it), which taylor turns down. taylor has also enlisted wendy’s help to furnish a new apartment for their parents. then taylor gets the news that douglas’s project has been found to be a threat to national security (thanks to axe) - and though they initially choose to hold onto his project despite the ensuing loss of funds, wendy comes over to commiserate and inadvertently gives away that she’s been playing taylor this whole time. taylor sells the project to the government to save tmc, at the cost of their relationship with douglas.

4x08: taylor wants financial revenge for being manipulated, and first taunts, then argues with axe on live television. at mafee and dollar bill’s charity boxing match, taylor first is confronted by wendy about reporting her for malpractice (which sara did without taylor’s knowledge), then reveals that they tricked axe into getting fracking legalized so they could profit from buying water rights where fracking happens.

4x09: taylor is going to great lengths to destroy rebecca’s new position as ceo of a department store (saler’s), including buying out three of the largest shareholders and planning to meet up with a fourth who already hates axe. the plan doesn’t work in the end, but taylor finds out that axe will make huge sacrifices for rebecca - and starts a relationship with lauren, who helped them get a meeting with the fourth shareholder’s son.

4x10: taylor is preparing for wendy’s malpractice hearing, buying an appliance manufacturer closely tied to saler’s in order to have power over rebecca, and doing a terrible job of hiding their relationship with lauren. wendy comes to see them at tmc, and taylor claims they won’t go to the hearing, for wendy’s benefit.

4x11: taylor indeed doesn’t go to the hearing, and wendy fesses up to her wrongdoing. it’s comp time at tmc (winston’s most recent appearance! we’ve only just recently stopped shouting about it!), and everyone defers their bonus except lauren, who says she’d be too heartbroken to stick around if she and taylor broke up. rebecca, who’s tired of taylor making her life difficult, offers taylor a business deal related to saler’s, and taylor, who’s tired of being at war, accepts.

4x12: here is imdb’s summary of this episode: “Axe makes a big decision. Connerty gets closer to the truth. Tensions rise, and dynamics shift.” real specific. [UPDATE: taylor apologizes to their employees and promises to focus on running tmc The Right Way. and then axe sinks tmc by effectively killing saler’s, and sends a former axe cap employee who tried to get a job at tmc to try and bait taylor into engaging in insider trading; he hopes that chuck will then arrest them and blackmail them to work for axe again. taylor doesn’t take the bait, but chuck arrests them anyway, and makes a deal with them to work together to take axe down. secretly taylor plans to set up chuck and axe to destroy each other, and then get out of the way. the episode ends with taylor and their tmc team walking into axe cap and being “welcomed home.”]

[kiss-my-freckle]

Families, biological and chosen, both central to the series.  

“This is about the children.” - Ranko Zamani, 1x1

I was gonna do a gif set for Guillermo Rizal, but Cooper’s conversation with Liz at the end of the episode offered too much bounce back and required my added input about the scenes themselves and their dialogues. 

Forewarning - this is a lengthy post. 

Tom, Liz, and Agnes: Chosen family.  

Liz [6x20]: Before we had Agnes, I thought Tom and I were gonna adopt, that family had nothing to do with biology.

Pointing out the fact that Agnes’ foreshadow with the unicorn first came with this bit of conversation. A storyline that’s been brewing since season three.

And because it’s been brewing since then, I’d like to point out Red’s dialogues because they support an issue of paternity where Agnes is concerned. 

"We" is an ambiguous pronoun.

In 3x12, we had these dialogues.

Red: I assume Tom is the father. Liz: I haven’t told him. Uh. He’s still figuring his life out.

In 3x14, we had these dialogues.

Liz: You and Tom agree on something. Red: He wants you to keep the baby?

In 3x16, we had these dialogues.

Red: How are you feeling? Liz: We’ve decided to keep the baby. Red: We? Liz: I’ve accepted Tom’s proposal. We’re gonna get married. Red: Right.

For someone like Red, with his previous dialogues and knowledge of how adoption works, his question of "we" offers two scenarios. Either he suspected Liz was in a relationship with someone other than Tom, or suspected someone else to be the father of Agnes. To assume Tom is the father, and be told Tom wants Liz to keep the baby, it's an obvious "we." Or is it?

Back to Red’s 3x14 dialogue. 

Cooper [6x20]: The parents of Rizal’s children. No one would blame them for walking away from those kids.

The non-biological, chosen family. 

Ressler: According to the report, the two of you are not genetically related to your daughter. Ben Mitchell: What? Sara Mitchell: No. Ressler: I’m sorry, but we ran the test several times. - Liz: It isn’t just you. Neither you nor the Mitchells are biologically related to either of the girls. Mark Walker: You’re telling us what - that we got some other couple’s eggs by mistake?

Opposite parallel. Because Tom isn’t the father of Agnes. 

Liz: You and Tom agree on something. Red: He wants you to keep the baby? 

Pushing us to Red’s dialogue in 3x17.

The focus to Liz’s baby bump was purposeful. 

Red: You were wrong about him once. What makes you so sure you’re not wrong this time? Do you really want your child to pay the price for that mistake for the rest of his or her life?

Liz: I am attempting to build a life with [the father of my child.] A normal life with two parents who love one another. With everything you know about me, can’t you see that? Can’t you see how important that is to me? To my child?

The father of her child is back at the church.

The foreshadow of danger to come. 

In the context of Brimley's dialogue, he was speaking of parent and child. 

Brimley [6x20]: So much for making this a family business. Hand it over. Hood, hive, the works. You want something done right, you gotta do it yourself. Nothing hurts so bad as when a child disappoints. Like being impaled by a unicorn.

This means Agnes will be impaling Liz with a "disappointment" unicorn. 

Back to 3x17 and its dialogues. 

Liz: What am I doing? Cooper: You’re trusting Tom. Taking a leap of faith. One you know could end in disappointment. But it’s because you love him.

“So much for making this a family business.”

Liz and Red.

Tom and Scottie. 

“Family. Business.”

Back to Cooper’s conversation, which bounces back heavy. 

Challenges. 

Cooper [6x20]: Every family has challenges. God knows yours with Reddington has more than most. 

Cooper [3x17]: Now, each choice brings with it blessings as well as hardships. Choosing a partner means choosing that person’s life to become your life. Their joy becomes your joy, as do their burdens.

Walking away.

Cooper [6x20]: No one would blame you if you chose to walk away from them, but you never will. And not because you can’t. Because you don’t want to. Because in spite of his -

Tom [3x17]: But there are things that I did, and - and - and I might be done with those things, but I can’t promise you that those things are done with me. And I can’t promise you that it’s not gonna happen tomorrow or next week or - or five years from now. And I would understand, frankly, if you didn’t want to deal with any of -

Faith.  Cooper [6x20]: In spite of everything, he’s committed to you, he loves you, and he has faith in you. And I think you have the same for him.

Cooper [3x17]: You’re trusting Tom. Taking a leap of faith. One you know could end in disappointment. But it’s because you love him.

Furthered by Mr. Kaplan’s dialogue, which offers a double interpretation. 

Kate [4x18]: Please, do what your mother never had the courage to do until it was too late. Walk away from Raymond.

Again, “walking away.”

Cooper [6x20]: No one would blame you if you chose to walk away from them, but you never will.

Red is not the real Raymond Reddington, he’s Katarina Rostova. Kate’s bit of dialogue places Tom at the center despite its double interpretation. 

Please, do what your mother never had the courage to do until it was too late. Walk away from Raymond. (herself)

The danger of oneself, furthered by Kate’s dialogue in 3x23. 

Kate: I didn’t betray you. I did what I’ve always done - protected you - this time, from yourself.

Furthered even more by Red’s dialogue in 5x9.

Liz: I killed some men. Doesn’t matter that they were bad. That it was them or me. What matters is that I did it and I was good at it. And I didn’t lose any sleep over it. Red: You will. One of these nights you will. It’s just a matter of when. Liz: Maybe. Later. After I’ve crossed the abyss. But from the side I’m on now, all that matters is that I’m healed and I’m back. And I’m coming for Tom’s killers. Like I said, I couldn’t keep my promise. Can you forgive me? Red: Yes. Will you be able to forgive yourself?

The second interpretation, its very context. Raymond wasn’t Katarina’s parent, he was her lover. Again, placing Tom at the very center. I could list any number of times Red warned Liz about Tom, but I won’t. I’ll just take it back to 4x17. 

Red: As I feared would happen, elements from Katarina’s past are circling Elizabeth like a pack of wolves in the night. I put Tom Keen in her life to keep an eye on her, and he married her. Kate: This isn’t about Tom Keen. It’s about your need for control. Red: Indeed. I need to control the danger to Elizabeth. I’ve built a vast criminal network predicated on that very principal. It’s time to live up to my mission statement.

Kate will be wrong about Tom. 

Red, Liz, and Agnes: Biological family. 

Agnes’ foreshadow with the unicorn continued in Liz’s scene with Red. Her conversation with Cooper bounces back to their 4x22 motel scene. 

Liz [6x20]: Family? Is that what we are? I’m not so sure.

Liz [4x22]: But anger and fear and a certain amount of hatred are all normal in a family. And that’s what we are.

“Means” Several dialogues for this bit, I’ll just be adding two. 

Liz [6x20]: I’ve been thinking about it a lot recently, and, uh - I don’t think I know what “family” even means.

Liz [5x1]: Well, you are my father and - Oh, my God, that sentence and all that it means.

Ilya: It is a mystery, right? So, we give them the answer. Katarina: What does that mean?

Bloodlines. Again, back to 4x22. 

Liz: Before we had Agnes, I thought Tom and I were gonna adopt, that family had nothing to do with biology. Cooper: If this case taught us anything, it’s that it doesn’t. Family isn’t about bloodlines. 

Liz [4x22]: Why didn’t you just tell me who you were? Why keep it a secret? Come into my life, give up everything, go broke trying to protect me, and not tell me you’re my -

Liz [4x22]: I’m angry at you, at who I am, at the fact that I want to help you despite everything you’ve done to me and to yourself.

Everything Red’s done to himself. Katarina “becoming Reddington.”

Liz [4x22]: What was it you said? A father who’s a career criminal [and a mother who died of weakness and shame.]

Add in their Bloodstream soundtrack for bloodlines. 

♪ Wake up and look me in the eyes again ♪ 

Windows to the soul. That’s why they often do close-ups of Red’s eyes. Why he wears special glasses to avoid the retinal scan at the airport in 3x21.  ♪ I need to feel your hand upon my face ♪

Red [1x14]: I can - I can still smell the nape of her neck, [feel her little fingers on my cheek], her whisper in my ear.

♪ And then the silence surrounds you ♪

The silence of secrets. The silence Liz found when she was seeking answers about her mother back in season two. The Sound of Silence soundtrack in 5x8 only adding to that. 

♪ Two minds and all the places they have been ♪

Two minds. Their Never Tear Us Apart soundtrack in 6x19.  “Two worlds collided.” Raymond and Katarina. 

♪ I think I might’ve inhaled you ♪

Red [3x1]: She’s as much a part of you as the air you breathe.

Furthered by Liz’s dialogue. 

Liz [6x20]: You won’t stay angry with me. I know you think you will, but you won’t. Parents don’t stay angry with their children. Or their grandchildren. And that’s who you are to us. It doesn’t matter who you were. This is who you are and who you’ll always be.

It doesn’t matter who Red was. He can change his face, but not his DNA. He’ll always be Liz’s biological parent and Agnes’ biological grandparent. 

Back to Cooper’s dialogue. 

Challenges. 

Cooper [6x20]: Every family has challenges. God knows yours with Reddington has more than most.   

Liz [4x18]: Finding out truths about who you really are is never easy.

Walking away. 

Cooper [6x20]: No one would blame you if you chose to walk away from them, but you never will. 

Liz [4x22]: Walk away? Are you serious? How can you be so smart and so clueless? Yes, I’m terrified. I’m angry. I’m angry at you, at who I am, at the fact that I want to help you despite everything you’ve done to me and to yourself. But anger and fear and a certain amount of hatred are all normal in a family. And that’s what we are. And I’m not gonna walk away from that.   Faith. 

Cooper [6x20]: And not because you can’t. Because you don’t want to. Because in spite of his - In spite of everything, he’s committed to you, he loves you, and he has faith in you. And I think you have the same for him.

Red [4x6]: I just wanted to thank you for trusting me, trusting the plan. I understand what a - a leap of faith it must have been.

“Not really, considering what was at stake.” - Liz, 4x6

Tom [5x8]: Could we just put a stake in it? You go first. Who’s in the suitcase?

Back to that danger foreshadowed. 

Liz [6x20]: I left Agnes with Scottie because I was afraid of who you were. But I’m not anymore. Scottie won’t have to train Agnes. Because Agnes won’t be with her. I’m bringing her home.

“Training” Agnes. 

Liz [5x9]: She loves Cheerios, and Thomas the Train in the morning.

Kat [6x22]: Scottie wanted me to tell you she’ll bring over the rest of her things in the morning.

Liz believing Red is Ilya. That’s the issue. 

Stranger: And she believed him? Red: She did. So much so that she’s decided it’s safe to bring her daughter home.

Ilya is of danger to Agnes.

Red: I want this done before Masha’s daughter comes home.

That’s why he wants it done before she comes home. 

Red: Your mother was not as bad as - If she were here, I’m sure she’d tell you she made so many mistakes. She was scared and uncertain and just trying to do the best she could. Bring Agnes home, Elizabeth. Liz: If there’s any risk - Red: There isn’t. Bring her home.

Katarina isn’t of danger. Ilya is. That’s why there’s no danger to Masha. Also why Red went to Paris. "Raymond” is Katarina, "Katarina” is Ilya. This falls to Tom’s side of Agnes’ family tree - while adding in the issue of paternity. This will break Liz’s second memory wipe wide open. The first tap of my Tom-Domino theory. Liz finding out Tom isn’t the father of Agnes will most certainly cause her to question who is and why she can’t remember having sex with him. I also believe this will tie in Red’s plan with Dr. Stark, as I believe he was planning to donate to Agnes. 

Agnes’ paternity issue taking us back to Kirk’s arc. 

Kirk, Liz, and Agnes: Chosen family. 

Tying in both chosen and biological with Rederina and Keenler baby.

Liz [4x7]: The test results showed something else. I’m not your daughter.

Kirk [4x8]: Mistake? It wasn’t a mistake. No. It was altered by Reddington.

He’s right. They were altered by Reddington, who is Katarina. 

Kirk: I had proof that she was my daughter. A DNA test. Red: You saw what Katarina wanted you to see.

Fabrications. 

Liz: You know, I really believed he was my father. Red: You had every reason to.

Liz had every reason to believe Kirk was her father. Memories at the Summer Palace. Kirk’s marriage to her mother. A fabricated DNA report. 

Because of Krilov, memories are just as easy to fabricate as DNA reports. That’s why Liz has every reason to believe Tom is the father of Agnes.

Silver linings. Hope in dark clouds. Because a storm is coming.

♪ And everyone thinks I dodged a bullet But I think I shot the gun ♪

The chosen family. Keenler baby.

Kirk [4x8] -

Liz: Kirk? Red: Gone. Liz: Dead? Red: Gone.

Tom [3x14] -

Liz: You and Tom agree on something. Red: He wants you to keep the baby?

Guillermo Rizal [6x20] -

Cooper: The parents of Rizal’s children. No one would blame them for walking away from those kids. 

The biological family. Rederina. 

Kirk [4x8] -

Red: Yes, Elizabeth is my daughter.

Tom [4x8 & 6x19] -

Tom: So it worked? Red: Yes.

Imposter Red: Yes. It worked.

Guillermo Rizal [6x20] -

Liz: You won’t stay angry with me. I know you think you will, but you won’t. Parents don’t stay angry with their children. Or their grandchildren. And that’s who you are to us. It doesn’t matter who you were. This is who you are and who you’ll always be.

Secret accounts.

Katarina & Raymond.

Katarina: Don’t you understand? He was my asset. I’d been siphoning intel off of him for years. You don’t think we had plans in place to destroy him if he ever found out that he was sleeping with the enemy? Ilya: Of course they did. Katarina: Money in secret accounts. Paper trails of payoffs. Passports in safety-deposit boxes - evidence that I didn’t steal his secrets, but that he shared them with me. Ilya: Alternate history.

The Travel Agency. 

Liz: After the accident, somehow, somewhere, there was a slip-up, and she picked up on it. - Eleanor: I was at the bank, trying to figure out how to keep up with the medical bills - your medical bills - when the bank manager asked me why I hadn’t dipped into your personal account. Calvin: What account? Eleanor, I don’t understand. Eleanor: That’s exactly what I said. - Liz: She stumbled onto his finances. - Eleanor: I was able to connect the dots by following the money. Your travels were like a map.

Tom & Liz. 

[Medical bills]

Liz: Do you know what Tom was talking about? When he said he figured it out? Red: Tom was a man of [many truths]. Which of those he was going to divulge, I can’t say.

Insert Dr. Krilov. 

Impalement, disappointment.

Katarina & Masha.

Red: But I let my hopes convince me that - you’d never betray me like that.

Samar & Aram.

[The Keenler-Saram/Liz-Samar parallel] 

Ressler: She’s alive, but she went a long time without oxygen. I mean, that was after she was somehow impaled. Cooper: Did they say how long she would be on a respirator? Ressler: All they said was that she can’t breathe on her own. And they don’t know if she ever will.

Red: What I really can’t get is how you used Agent Mojtabai, how you manipulated him into telling you about Samar’s condition. He told you so as to protect her, but because of you, he has to live with the fact that he betrayed her, that his words put a target on her back, that he is the reason that they will never be together again. Aram trusted you, and because of that trust, his life has been devastated.

Liz & Agnes. 

Being impaled by a unicorn. 

Liz: Anxious isn’t really the right word. It’s more like heightened. Like, I can feel every breath. I’m not used to that.

[“All they said was that she can’t breathe on her own.”]

With Ressler by her side, she’s not breathing on her own. 

Soundtrack. The Lumineers, This Must Be The Place.

The lyrics were written by David Byrne of Talking Heads.

Family & Home. 

♪ I'm just an animal looking for a home and Share the same space for a minute or two And you love me till my heart stops Love me till I'm dead ♪

For the chosen family of Tom, Liz, and Agnes.

Tom: I never knew my parents either. I think that’s what made Liz and I work. You know, it was the first time either of us felt like ... family.

Tom: Just go to the house. Meet me there, and when it’s safe, babe, I’m gonna explain everything.

For the biological family of Red, Liz, and Agnes.

Red: When I look at you, that’s what I see. I see my way home. 

Masha: When are you coming home? Katarina: It’s gonna take a while. Mama has some work to do.

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #207

“it’s late, and you’re still staring at the light; to call it an addiction’s impolite.”

Nevermind what gender you ARE, what gender do you WANT to be? Happy being a girl. Do you ever feel ashamed revealing your age? When it's to people who are aware of how behind I am in the adult world in any context, yes. Very. If they know nothing about me, then I don't care. Are you confident enough to reveal your height and weight? Height, I don't care. Weight, fuck no. What do your parents call you? Both usually say "Britt," but Dad's more likely to use terms of endearment like "sweetie" and such. Well, Mom does use "hunny" a lot too. How old were you when you first got to go on the computer? Idr. About the "normal" age for little kids that played Neopets, probably. Would you say you’re an emotional person? Way too emotional. What’s a color that suits you the best? Black. And a color you just can’t pull off/don’t want to? Probably most... I wouldn't know, almost every single thing I wear is black. I have literally one light purple shirt, and I think that's the only non-black shirt I own. Describe yourself when you were 6 years old? Very talkative, extremely imaginative, outgoing, I was definitely weird, tomboyish, very happy... Man, I miss being that kid sometimes. A type of personality you just can't stand? The older and older I get, the more I cannot STAND a closed mind. I like people who accept they're far from always right, and sometimes, your "right" isn't such for someone else, and that is fine. You don't have to see the same way to still get along perfectly (though of course, there's no need to respect an opinion that spits upon, invalidates, or is just plain hateful towards another person/group). Like just as an example 'cuz I feel like I explained that poorly; I'm really not into the idea of polygamy at all, but I'm not against it for people it works with. You do you. Your appearance in one word would be? "Abilify." :^) City type of person or country? I like the live in a more country-ish area, but I found through Chicago I LOVE /visiting/ cities. What’s something you’re obsessed about right now? When am I not obsessed with Mark, meerkats, Silent Hill, opossums (a newer addition), WoW, etc. etc.? My whole life runs on obsessing over something, fren. Your reaction if someone told you you look 10 years older than your age? ZOINKS that would suck ass. Do you really badly want anything right now? For the past couple weeks, I've become more and more antsy to get up to Sara's again. When I land a job, fancyin' up my tattoo just because as I've said again and again it is SO important to me and must be perfect, then I'm saving up to go back up there. What’s something that makes you really stressed out? With all this job searching and such going on, it's like all I can think about, so why not mention what fucked me up at my previous ones: Putting me in a position of responsibility and expected knowledge. Ex., when I was a sales associate and was asked "Oh, do you have this?"/"Where is this?", it was CONSTANT PANIC MODE because I never knew and had to ask somebody, when I was expected to be a knowledgeable employee to the customer, and then comes the horror of feeling like I'm inconveniencing and annoying them. Have any particular standard look you look for in a significant other? I don't have a "standard look," no, but I am more likely to be drawn to a gothic appearance. But I don't actively search for someone that meets that criteria or anything. Do you listen to Wiz Khalifa? No. What are your opinions on marijuana legalization? Please legalize medicinal use already. Recreationally, idk. Do you date outside your own race? I'd have no reservations against it. I dated a Hispanic... less than a day, but still, you get the point that I don't have a problem with it. What are some of your turn-offs? SEXIST/MISOGYNISTIC, too old-fashioned, racist and/or homophobic, raunchy, arrogant/self-centered, lack of sincere interest and enthusiasm in conversation, poor hygiene, I'm gonna get SHIT ON for saying "too slutty," not taking dating seriously... that kinda stuff. I'm so picky. Are you gay, straight, bi, or trans? Bisexual. Are you vegetarian? If not, would you ever consider becoming one? I'm not now, but I hope to return to it after I get to my goal weight... In my few months of vegetarianism, it was proven that my immense pickiness with food was making the diet unhealthy for me, as I was strongly lacking in certain vitamins and such. I'm going to have to somehow overcome that if I want to return to it, which I REALLY do want to do the more and more I get into animal welfare and care. Are you in love? Yes. Are you more of a pessimist or an optimist? Pessimist, I think, out of the two. But I like to see myself as a realist. How much money is in your wallet? Literally just $11 lmao. What’s your favorite sex position? Only experienced in these with a man, so answering with that in mind. I like sitting on his lap, facing him, with my legs around his back. What do you ultimately wish for in life? Happiness and peace. Have you ever been pregnant? No. What do you think about tipping at restaurants? Tip your goddamn waiter/waitress, assholes. I do believe in tipping based on the quality of service, BUT at least give them SOMETHING for working. Do you have your driver’s license? No jkajdsklfaj;wer. I haaaave to practice more. Whenever I'm in the car, I always strongly prefer to listen to my music, controlling it from the passenger's seat, and at least right now, I can't drive with loud music, barely any at all really, so I have a hard time giving up blaring my music while Mom drives lmao. Have you ever passed out from drinking? No. What’s your favorite carnival food? Idk, I don't go nearly enough. Who did you last kiss? Romantically, Sara. Platonically, either my niece or nephew when leaving. Have you seen the final Harry Potter movie? I haven't even see one. Ever been called a slut? No. Would you ever have sex with someone not of your preferred sex? I'm bisexual so like- Would you ever get back together with any of your exes? No. Do you take any meds on a daily basis? Yep. What did you do today? Watched LPs as always; did some job searching; played WoW, way shorter than usual though; took a nap; made a new icon; took a shower; listened to music; did some social media scrolling. The usual stuff. What do you wear to bed at home? A tank top and pj pants. What do you wear to bed when you're somewhere else? The same, but with a bra. Is there a place you keep any prized/secret things whilst you’re away? No. Do you have any phobias? What? Why do you think you have this/them? I'll just talk about the unordinary ones, 'cuz I have a lot. The ones I'd consider "weird" are vomiting, whale sharks, and pregnancy. Vomiting is because it's just incredibly unpleasant, but also because I know what goes down is not supposed to come back up. Like no one likes puking, no shit, but I'm legit afraid of it and lock up on what to do when I feel it coming, like I don't know what to do. Whale sharks... ahaha. It literally came from World of Warcraft. The design of their mouths is fucking horrifying, and I hate hate hate how they sometimes phase in-and-out of the Vashj'ir map so just like pOP UP. NAH, SON. It's just their damn mouths, even though I know their esophagus is far too small to swallow a human. As for pregnancy, just... ew. I'm afraid of parasites, and it's a parasitic relationship. Something should NOT be growing inside of you. What skill do you possess that you are most proud of? I'm very compassionate, especially when it comes to others enduring emotional struggles. I really feel for hurting people. What is your greatest strength (e.g. honest, loyal, brave)? I have strong morals and stick to them. I'll always stand up for what I feel is right. What’s your greatest shortcoming or flaw (e.g. cowardly, alcoholic)? Ah jeez, there's a lot... but probably my anxiety. It's held me back and manipulated my actions since middle school. I struggle not followings its rules, but I'm sure trying. Who do you most admire? Mark, my mom, Sara, Sara's dad, Steve Irwin... man, there's too many great people. Who do you most love? Sara, my mom, and my pets, Teddy especially. What three things do you look for most in a partner? EXPRESSING OF THEIR EMOTIONS/TRULY FEELING!!!!!!!!, compassion, and a cool head. If you could ask God (to atheists - IF there was one) one question, what? Hm. Good question... There's a lot, but mostly little wonders; I feel like I have a decent understanding of the god I personally see, so don't have any magnificent questions. Perhaps regarding why they created our world. That'd be interesting. Rate yourself on these traits from 0 to 10: 0 - do not possess this trait. 10 - you have great amounts of this trait. Calm temper: 7. Charm: *big shrug* Cheerfulness: 3-4. Confidence: 0-3. Courtesy: 8-10. Curiosity: 6-10. Forgiveness: 9-10. Generosity: 8-10. Greed: 0-3. Helpfulness: Well, I like to try to help, but I don't feel I'm very successful at that, so idk. Honesty: 5-9, depending on who I'm talking to and what the subject is, I guess. Loyalty: This is very flexible, and I don't feel like I can put a number on it. It depends on how deserving you are of the trait, and yes, you can lose my loyalty in a heartbeat if you give me reason to take it away. Optimism: 0-4. Patience: This can go from a whopping 0 to a 10, lmao. Very dependent on the situation. Self-sacrifice: 8-9. Wit: -10. Briefly describe your family. Kinda broken. Tight bonds scattered between certain people, no bonds with others. What is the worst thing that has ever happened to you? The breakup. I wouldn't wish that night upon Satan himself. How did it affect you? We know. Have you ever had any recurring nightmares or themes in nightmares? Speaking of that... Jason is in most nightmares I remember. The common theme is it's either after the breakup and we have an awkward running in with each other, or it's long before when everything was "perfect." All things considered, I'd call even that a nightmare. Those fuck with me the most. Do you currently have a boyfriend/girlfriend? Yeah. Do you have any close friends? I can count those on maybe two fingers. Of what are you most proud? Letting Jason go. Of what are you most ashamed? I've talked about the Joel situation multiple times. What is your religion? Theist. Where do you stand on abortion? Mostly pro-choice. Where do you stand on the death penalty? Sometimes justifiable and one's deserving end. Felons are lucky enough it's done humanely. Where do you stand on wearing fur? If you're not surviving out in the arctic, fuck you and all you stand for. Could you kill somebody? I'm perfectly aware I could in defense situations. For what reason would you kill somebody? Defending myself or loved ones. Hell, probably even strangers. I'd kill a rapist with zero fucking hesitation, even if they were assaulting someone I'd never seen before. Would you SERIOUSLY CONSIDER killing anybody right now? No. Do you trust easily, or not? NOPE. What, if anything, would you sacrifice your life for? Defending peace, gay rights, or if it was to protect most of those I love. What are your dreams/ambitions/goals? Be a successful photographer, reach financial stability, come to a point where I'm actually proud of what I've done, play a roll in wildlife conservation, be happily married, and just overall be content and satisfied with my life. How do you plan to reach them? Working my goddamn ass off and not taking "no" for an answer (not about the marriage part tho lmao). Do you ever want to have a family someday? With children? No. Who would you want to start this family with, or do you not yet know? I just want a pet family with Sara. What do you see yourself doing next year? Man, I don't have a clue... What do you see yourself doing in twenty years? I don't want to think of that. That's too far ahead. I'll be 43... I've gotta work on too many things now. Would you ever have an affair? I'm very curious as to who would actually answer "yes" to this. Would you ever have a one night stand? No. Lmaoooo actually this is sad as fuck, but I think I've said in a previous survey just knowing myself, if we were both single and clicked, I'd be doomed if it was Markiplier. My morals would sadly go out the window. If you had a month of nothing (no work, no obligations) what would you do? That's literally been the story of my life for years now, especially the past two. And it's torture. Would you ever choose a career or job where your life was at risk? No. Well, actually, I do want to do wildlife photography, and it can be pretty dangerous. Were you present at any major historical events (e.g. 9/11)? No. Do you have any famous relatives? No. Ancestors, yeah, but not close relatives. Are you a loyal member of any organizations? No. What type of criminal would you be? With how forgetful I am, I'm certain I'd be a very clumsy one that gets caught very quickly, lol. What are you listening to right now? "Voices" by Motionless In White. If you had to choose a stripper name, what would it be? Um idk. If your phone started ringing, who would you hope is calling? Someone for a job interview. Do you drink? Rarely and/or for some special occasions. Never enough to get drunk. Do you smoke? No. What is the first thing you notice in someone? I guess posture? How they carry themselves? Do you get attached easily? BOY! DO I!!!!!!!!!!! Do you like your eye color? I wish they were more blue. Would you go bungee jumping/sky diving if given the chance? Definitely not bungee jumping, I know how I react to that kind of up/down movement, and probably not skydiving, either. Have you ever been to a psychiatrist/therapist? Both regularly since middle school. Are looks important in a relationship? Not very. What is your favorite thing to do? Binge a new song I fell in love with for like days lmao. What was the last thing you downloaded onto your computer? PhotoScape. It's easier to move watermarks for photos on there, and I was working on the ones I took a few days back. Do you like to gossip? No, I feel super guilty. What kind of computer do you have? An Acer. Do you know all the words to your national anthem? I think? Have you ever failed a grade? No. Have you ever made the opposite sex cry? Yes. Have you ever had a crush on a teacher? Nah. Have you ever slapped someone in the face? No. Do you own a designer purse? Hell no. Waste of money for a goddamn purse that's just gonna get dirty and scratched. What’s the weirdest rumor you’ve ever heard about yourself? Jason and I magically had a baby over summer vacation when I was very obviously never pregnant. Do you say the "h" in the word “herb”? No, though I did for a super long time 'cuz I had no idea it was wrong. Do you speak any languages besides English? Not fluently. Can you run in high heels? I wouldn't really know, but boy do I doubt it. Do you have to take stairs or an elevator to get to your house? No. What do you usually order at Subway? Ummm I think white bread, ham, American cheese, bacon, jalapenos, banana peppers, and Chipotle sauce. I think that's it. Did an alarm wake you up this morning? No. How long is your mother’s hair? Past her shoulderblades, near the middle of her back. Is there any particular place you’d like to vacation to next? Surprisingly, I'd love to go somewhere tropical, like Hawaii or some shit like that. Somewhere with clear water and unique, beautiful wildlife and nature. What is your beer of choice, if any? Never tried beer, never want to. The smell is bad enough. That and I associate it with when Dad was an alcoholic. Did you share a bed with anyone last night? No. Well, other than with my cat. Do you know anyone who volunteers regularly? Yes. Have you ever ruined a nice pair of shoes, and how? Maybe, playing in puddles or biking through them and mud as a kid or something. Who were the last friends you went to hang out with? Sara. How many chairs are in the room you’re currently in? None. Have you texted a relative in the past week? Not besides immediate family. Are you doing anything important today? No. If I were to bring you any type of food right now, what would you pick? If I was actually hungry, I have been craving hotdogs on the grill like CRAZY lately. No clue why. When did you move into the house you’re currently living in? April-ish 2017. Do you ever sleep with the light on? No, I can't. Do you pray to Jesus? 20+ years of that did nothing. No. What was the last thing you ordered at Starbucks? N/A Do you have a bonfire pit in your yard? No. Would you consider being homeless if it meant you could travel the world? I don't know; there's lots of factors to consider. Would I be willing to leave my pets (but Teddy, probably; I'd want him with me) with my mom? Would I have something like a camper? Where am I getting this money to travel and provide for myself? Do you know your next-door neighbor? Mom knows one, but I personally don't. What’s something you have never done? Lots of things? As an example, uhhh... I've never done a cartwheel, despite childhood efforts? Name someone you know who is a true risk-taker, adventurer, and free spirit. Do you admire that person? Idk. Do you wish you were more of a free spirit? I think I already am, but it'd be cool to be more of one. Are you allergic to any medications? No. How do you feel when someone says something you’ve experienced doesn’t exist? Tell me depression isn't real, my PTSD isn't genuine, I can "get over" my anxiety if I want to hard enough, stuff like that, and I will not fucking associate with you. These are things that have massively affected my life; I dare someone to tell me these experiences aren't real issues. What worldview do you have? A realistic one, I think. I'm positive in some areas, negative in others. Hm... I'm probably more pessimistic about the world's future, though. Do you have friends who have different religious beliefs than you? Duh? If applicable, who was the first person you “came out” to? Sara. What’s one thing you’d like to do more? Travel. What was your style in high school? Some emo/metalhead hybrid that wished with all her heart to be capable of affording a goth wardrobe and bitch I still do. What’s one thing you are jealous that other people got to do but you didn’t? Have a healthy teenage experience. Have you ever taken birth control pills continuously? I have for years for my cycle. I had just about debilitating cramps and sometimes periods that lasted over a week. Who is your personality twin? Sara is probably the closest. What’s a common name that you hate? Edward, above all. Not a big fan of William, Robert, or Allen, either. Who do you wish you were best friends with? If you don't count my girlfriend as "best friend," maybeeee... Alon still? Or Baylee. I need to talk more to her, she's awesome. Do you own a camera tripod? Yes. Did you ever believe in mermaids? I don't believe so. …in fairies? I believed in the Tooth Fairy. …in Santa? Yes. Have you ever purchased alcohol? Yes. What is your newest hobby? Hm, I don't think I've found a new one for a long while... What gives your life meaning? I don't know. What motivates you to do what you do? The pursuit of happiness. What was the weather like the last time you went out? Too fucking hot. Do you go for walks often? No, though I really want to around a lake at a local, small park. Problems consist of no way to get there myself, it's WAY too fucking hot with my sweating issue, and my knees just wouldn't have it; I know I couldn't walk the full lap around it. Also expect some art installations around the path and probably the gazebo are PokeStops for Pokemon Go and really wish I could play it, so that's bait to do it lmao. What color shirt are you wearing? Pink. What is your favorite type of YouTube video to watch? It really depends on who I'm watching. Favorite on the face of the planet are Mark's ego projects, then my second fave are probably Shane's conspiracy videos, then I love let's plays. Do you need any new clothes right now? I seriously need more pants. And new bras. Do you collect anything? If so, what? Silent Hill merch and meerkat stuff. ^and if not, what would you like to collect? When I can buy shit myself, ya girl is gonna have way too much Markiplier merch. YouTuber stuff in general, actually. Too shy to ask for that kinda stuff now lol. Have you ever experienced a miracle? I don't think so. What was the last thing you ate? A burger. Do you ever eat food that’s intended for kids? ...? Like, baby food? No. Or maybe you mean shit like Lunchables? In cases like that, sometimes? What was the last stupid thing you did? Oh boy, who knows. Do you get embarrassed easily? You. Have. No. Idea. What are your top three names you like for a daughter? Alessandra, then uhhhh... I like Chloe and Adrian. Would you ever film a vlog of yourself giving birth? Hell no. I'd never wanna see it, I'd never want my hypothetical child to have to witness that, etc. Do you like getting caught in the rain? No. Wet clothes are no. Do you think your hair looks best straight, wavy, or curly? Straight, I guess? Though my hair does swoop to the right, so it's kinda a wave? What was the last craft project you completed? Oh, yeesh. I don't do crafts. The closest thing was I guess Sara's Valentine's Day gift for last year? Name 3 YouTubers you would like to meet in person: Markiplier is literally the only one that matters lmao and it's not "would like to meet in person," he will be forced to endure meeting me ok. Meeting Shane Dawson would be amazing, he's such a relatable sweetie, aaaaand #3 would probably be Rhett and/or Link, as similar to Mark, they deserve a tear-filled thanks as well as back-breaking hugs for seriously helping in keeping me alive through my suicidal year. I mean it when I say they genuinely helped me keep going. What color are your nails painted currently? They’re never painted. Do you use a pill box? No. List 3 people you know who were loving and then turned cold: Jason, Jason, and Jason. Have you ever felt threatened for your life? No. Which did you like better: high school or college? My college experience was horrid. High school had great memories, but of course negative ones, too. Which year of your life stands out to you as the most significant so far? 2017. …and why? It was my year of recovery from the breakup. What was the last store you shopped at? I went to Wal-Mart with Mom. I think that was the most recent, anyway. Do you have a favorite pharmacist? No. Do you have a favorite cashier at the grocery store? No. What’s something you discovered recently? I'm a Billie Eilish fan. What makes you more creative? Music. What’s the last magical thing you experienced? YO okay so when my brother and nephew were here, we went to the science museum and into a 360 VR-esque show about astronauts. I got SO nauseous and dizzy, but it was nevertheless extremely cool. What is the theme of your bedroom? It doesn't have a theme. Have you ever lived in a dorm? No. When was the last time you stepped outside of your comfort zone? Just tonight! I ordered at a drive-thru myself. Would you rather ride a camel or an elephant? An elephant! Do you want to lose weight? You have no fucking idea. Which insects scare you, if any? Lmao most. Especially rhinoceros beetles, big beetles in general honestly, cockroaches, earwigs, centipedes... like a lot okay. I like observing praying mantises, but I would probably have a fucking heart attack if one was on me. Do you think it’s silly to be afraid of a tiny insect? Well, yeah, though I get the likely survival reason, that being we know many are venomous, so we're naturally averse to them, especially if we don't recognize the type. Were you raised religious? Yes. Have you ever been abused? No, thankfully. Is there a coffee shop you like better than Starbucks? N/A If you could afford to get your hair professionally done, what would you get? Man, I have SO many color combination ideas. If I could get it done in the safest manageable way by a pro, I saw this look once with totally bleached/pure white hair that fades to blood-red tips, and BOY would I get that in a heartbeat. If you had a lot of money, do you think you would use it wisely? I hope so. I think so. The only thing I imagine myself being weak with are tattoos. Do you know any rich people who are very irresponsible? I don't think so... List five careers that you’d like to have: Meerkat biologist, paleontologist, artist, poet, something in wildlife conservation/protection. List five far-out things that you’d like to do before you die: Scuba-dive, I'd LIKE to ride a rollercoaster (far-out for me, trust me), but I know I never will, and uh... idk. Riding a motorcycle would be cool, but that's another thing I hiiighly doubt I'll do. What was your first imaginary friend’s name? I never had one. What was the name of the first pet that you loved? Chance, a cat my mom rescued. She was our very first family pet. She was absolutely incredible. Do you like to go barefoot? Unless I'm in a house, no. Do you like the same colors now that you did as a kid? Yeah. Do you have a YouTube channel? Yeah. Is there someone who stopped talking to you for no reason? Oh, who to begin with? Did you ever get called horrible names like whore, skank or bitch? "Bitch" more than once. Where did you sleep last night? My bed. Have you ever slow danced with anyone? With Jason, yeah. And I don't think so, but maybe Sara briefly? Have you ever cried in public? Yeah. What would you do if you were pregnant? I don't have a fucking clue. Do you like cuddling? With someone I love. Have you ever cried in school? Yes, but I think I kept it private. Who’s the last person to send you a message on Facebook? A woman whose wedding I'm shooting this Saturday. Have you ever witnessed someone else engaging in a sexual act? Just making out. Where did you get drunk last? N/A What’s your relationship with the last person you texted? She's my girlfriend. If someone went through your pictures, would they find a dirty one? No. How did you do on the last test you took? I haven't been in school for a long time. How come you’re not going out with the person you love? I am.

[lightlyscathing]

SOMETHING IS UP WITH BUTCH HARTMAN...

...And it might not be what you think it is.

(VERY long post/sort of essay, a lot more beneath the cut.)

TLDR: Butch is not the devil, he is flawed, and there’s almost certainly someone else behind a lot of what’s happening right now.

I’d like to start this off with saying that even though this blog is Pretty Empty and doesn’t have any other content from Butch Hartman’s shows (Danny Phantom, Fairly Odd Parents, etc.) on it, I watched his work as a kid and loved it. I’ve been a fan of Danny Phantom for years, and I’ve seen a lot of Butch hate.

Today I’d like to offer you another perspective on what might be happening with Butch, and why we should, I don’t know. Maybe lay off on the hate just a little...? He is by no means a perfect person, and has made mistakes, but the same can be said of any person.

After a friend of mine (@sarasanddollar) mentioned having mixed feelings about recent events (specifically, the OAXIS controversy), we had a conversation about it. She was coming from the perspective of someone who has defended Butch in the past, and I asked her about that as someone who has disliked Butch for a long time. I was curious to see what she had to say.

She made several good points, which I will summarize. You can also view the most important snippets of that conversation HERE.

One of the reasons many Danny Phantom fans (or Phans) dislike Butch so intensely is because of the terrible writing and overall execution of Season 3 of the show, especially the finale (Phantom Planet). 

Many Phans attribute this directly to Butch himself. And it’s true that he had a much heavier hand in Season 3 than the first two seasons! But he’s not the only one at fault here. As far as either of us could see, Nickelodeon basically axed his show (as they have with many shows), leaving Butch without most of his skilled team while creating the third season.

Butch is by no means the BEST creator or writer out there. His greatest skill seems to be in coming up with creative pitches for shows, and the execution of these ideas is best left to a team who knows what they’re doing. But that’s the thing: Butch had a team. Can you imagine suddenly losing the team you’re working with and trying to handle an entire animated show almost entirely on your own? No wonder it was a mess, that sounds terrifying.

Many people believe that Butch is anti-LGBT, and most of those people frame it as an intentional thing. That honestly seems unlikely, though.

Butch’s work has many scenes or even entire episodes that have sexist undertones or demonstrate a lot of toxic masculinity. Often, this is even the joke in and of itself. 

This seems to be more the product of the way he himself was raised than anything else, though. As far as either of us are aware, he’s never outright said anything for or against the LGBT community. Honestly, he’s not LGBT, so why should he?

Butch also seems pretty ignorant or uncomfortable when it comes to things he hasn’t directly experienced for himself, leading to comments like the one he made about introversion.

Beyond that, he allegedly kicked any people posting/liking LGBT content off of his Danny Phantom forums. The thing is, back then, almost ALL slash ship content was Pompous Pep (Danny Fenton/Vlad Masters). Making no comment on my personal feelings about the ship, it should be noted that this depicts an explicit sexual relationship between a 14-year-old boy and a man in his 40s. It’s understandable that Butch wouldn’t want explicit content of a pedophilic slash ship being associated with his show.

His way of dealing with it may have been excessive, but almost all of the LGBT content he was seeing was also pedophilia.

It’s also worth noting that almost all details about the Forum Days of the Danny Phantom fandom are now being passed around via word of mouth. Even in text form, people’s biases do change the tone of a situation.

Given recent events, many people are spreading around anything connecting Butch to religion. This deserves a closer look too, though.

Here’s something I didn’t know until Sara told me: Butch Hartman was not always a Christian. He wasn’t raised into it, “brainwashed” as a child and blindly following those values as an adult. He allegedly converted a year or two into the production of Fairly Odd Parents, well into his adult life. Before that, he was apparently an atheist. 

This man has one show about magic and another about scientists and ghosts. His shows have sexual jokes, witchcraft, violence, and all sorts of things you’d expect a super-conservative Christian to avoid. So why do we all act like he’s always BEEN that super-conservative Christian?

It may have something to do with how people tend to associate Christianity with the corrupt or incompetent white men who run a significant portion of the planet. The exact reasons are probably different from person to person.

This, of course, DOES NOT give Butch any reason to act like Christians are oppressed. He is not the “living embodiment of ‘one of these things is not like the other’” as he put it. 

That being said, it seems as if his shows are largely detached from religion (until now). They have morals, sure, but all Nickelodeon shows have lessons for kids, many of which also happen to be mentioned in some form somewhere in the Bible.

So it seems kind of fishy that Religious Values are suddenly such a huge deal for him... which leads me to the point of this entire thing.

When it comes to the OAXIS scam, we might not be the only ones who are being played.

It seems very likely that Butch Hartman himself is also being played.

Hear me out.

With the context of Giving The Children Jesus, some of the more confusing parts of the way OAXIS was pitched make more sense. But at the same time, I find it very difficult to understand how this man created so much content for children (and RAISED a child) with such a fundamental lack of understanding when it comes to how families and society work.

After thinking about it, I realized that this feels very familiar.

Someone I was once very close with had a similar experience about a year ago. For both of them, it seems to have gone something like this:

The person in question starts off not knowing/caring about a cause. At some point, they are introduced to this cause and join, but it does very little to change their work or public life. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, they have a radical change in lifestyle and behavior, while screaming an extreme or radical version of that cause’s message from the metaphorical rooftops.

For the person I used to be close with, this “cause” was Isogenix. (For more information on operations like this one, consider watching this video.) For Butch, it seems like that cause is... saving young people with religious lessons and “pure” media.

With the person I knew, this whole process started when a group of people who were already working with Isogenix befriended her and gained her trust, then told her repeatedly how good Isogenix would be for her. When she started considering it, they told her it was about self-empowerment and pursuing her true self. This kept going until they’d pushed her into dismantling her circle of friends (anyone who wasn’t working with Isogenix), and the last I’ve heard about it is that she left her husband and children to dedicate herself to “self-exploration” and being a Good Example of Isogenix’s successes.

With Butch, it seems likely that something similar is in the process of happening, though with different results. I wouldn’t be surprised if he met and befriended someone (or several people) who believe that modern mass media is corrupting the youth, and that limiting their media intake to Christian-approved content will fix a lot of the issues in modern society.

I mentioned earlier that Butch seems to have a pretty limited understanding of things outside his own little sphere (based mostly on his unintentional sexism in shows, lack of understanding of healthy male friendships/physical contact, and complete misunderstanding of the 16-50% of the world that is made up of introverts). Considering this, it seems like he’d probably buy into this mentality pretty easily, especially if these people “spoke his language”.

While I personally have a lot of resentment for the people who fall for this sort of tactic, it’s not really the victim’s fault when they become the Face or Voice of the cause. The recruiters often know exactly what they’re doing. Most of them seek out people who are lost, desperate, low on self esteem, or somewhat narcissistic. People who want to make a future for themselves, and sometimes others, usually as “their own boss.” Sound familiar?

Some people are more than one of those things. Butch, given that he recently left Nickelodeon after working there for literal decades, could understandable be a bit lost on what his next step should be. And honestly, he’s shown narcissistic tendencies in the past (have you SEEN his self-insert from Fairly Odd Parents?).

So, as easy as it is to stay mad at Butch Hartman, there’s almost certainly someone else involved... which would also explain some things about his Kickstarter.

The way these things are pitched is designed to make the “victim” believe that it’s all their own idea. THEY took control of their life to make these changes, THEY are the brave example of the Future of the industry, THEY are a self-made person. And most of all, showing other people how they can succeed by joining the organization/school of thought is THE BEST THING EVER.

Which... to me, that seems like it’s a logical reason for Butch’s Kickstarter not actually mentioning anyone else, when he insists other people are involved. Someone likely took his already self-absorbed and narcissistic tendencies and intentionally built them up to make him into the Face and Voice of this project. 

Bonus points to them: they also picked the perfect person to use.

Butch is a well-off, reasonably well-known person. He has a pretty large following that is almost exclusively made up of young adults, teenagers, and even children (a detail many people cited as the reason his Kickstarter shouldn’t have worked at all). Many of those young people grew up watching his shows and seeing his content on social media, assuming that the loyal followers we’re talking about are the several hundred thousand people following him on social media platforms. Many of them would take his word as something more important than some random person they’ve never heard of, or so the theory goes.

With this context, his line makes perfect sense:

“You trusted me with your childhood, won’t you trust me with your future?”

He probably does honestly care about what happens, and he’s not trying to maliciously brainwash children with Jesus. It’s far more likely that someone else convinced him that he’s the person perfect for saving “lost” young people, given that many of them trusted him as children. He’s obviously the best person to show them Pure and Good content, away from the “poisonous” aspects of mainstream media.

Butch Hartman isn’t a demon. He’s not evil. He’s not... Trump, or anything like that. He’s a naive man with very little actual understanding of how the world works, who believes that he’s helping. 

Which is not to say he’s perfect at all. He’s made lots of mistakes, and he’ll continue to make them. 

I just seriously doubt he’s actually the “mastermind” behind this whole operation. He’s little more than a figurehead, probably. And from how he’s acted in the past, he seems to crave the attention and trust of young people. He needs to be someone important to them.

And the worst part of all this might be that he’s not going to get out of this without a disaster. I pity the guy, as much of a mess as all of this already is.

You don’t get out of this kind of position unless it falls out from under you. And when you fully believe and trust in what you’re doing, you’re not prepared for the fall. 

You hit the ground hard.

~Ren

[aeon-wolf]

Legends of Tomorrow | 4x05 Thoughts and Feelings

Probably one of my favorite Legends episodes this season!!!

Loved this episode so much to be honest. I think, for me, who usually watches shows for ships that’s a testament to the awesomeness that is Legends that Sara and Ava can have literally no scenes together in an episode and that episode can be amazing. And in fact, one of my favorite of the season so far. 

So much happened in one episode, probably due largely to the fact the season only has 16 episodes, so they have to cram a bunch of story into single episodes, which I have mixed feelings about. Obviously I wish there were like 21-22 episodes in the season like other Arrowverse shows, but I also like stuff happening each episode to make the character development and plot move forward and not have filler episodes. 

So I guess we’ll start off with my favorite part. NORA FUCKING DARHK. I’ve made it quite apparent in my previous recaps that Nora is one of, if not my absolute, favorite villain(ish) character of any Legends season. And I’m glad it's her that’s getting the full redemption arc. I’m glad they’re still having her grapple with her father’s death because although Damien was an awful, awful person, she still loved him in her own way and for her to still be grieving, especially because she recognizes that despite everything, he loved her enough to sacrifice himself to give her a second chance. And that staying out of trouble and taking the second chance he (and Ray to some extent) gave her, she’s respecting his memory and grieving her loss. 

Then to have Ray basically beg her to save Constantine and her being really not into the idea in the beginning, not because she didn’t necessarily want to, but because she thought she was cursed to only have dark magic and that it couldn’t be used to help anyone. And if she used it, that she would be tempted back to the darkness. But both Ray and Constantine helped her realize that her magic is what she wants it to be, she’s not controlled by it. And in the end, Ray offering her the chance to run away (again) and instead, she turned herself in because in realizing that she’s not cursed to forever be a villain, she realized that she does have to atone for the wrongs she committed. Like Constantine said, she had to do that for herself. Not for Ray. Not for Constantine. For her. And that’s why I think this arc will go well. She’s not doing this because she’s in love with Ray. She’s not doing this because she’s selfish (as far as we know) and wanting to lay low, get free and then do evil things again. She truly knows that this is the only way for her to be free of her past. Other shows *cough* Supergirl *cough* can’t relate to a redemption arc written this well, even within the first episode of said arc. (We obviously don’t know if there will be betrayal or anything down the road, but so far, I can’t really see a justifiable reason for it. Though bear in mind, it’s early. Plus the writers and actors have never even hinted at that idea. It seems to be Charlie’s arc, not Nora’s). This is everything I want in a redemption arc. Recognition that past actions were wrong, full stop. Wanting to change and be better for themselves, not for anyone else. And doing the right thing without prompting from other characters (bonus points for going against said other character’s urgings to save themselves). I very much wanted her to stay on the Waverider and join the Legends, but seeing her turn herself into the Bureau and tell Ray that she needs to stop running and face judgment and repent for her past sins, I’m very much okay with this plotline and can’t wait for it to continue. I just hope there comes a point where she is released into the custody of the Legends or something similar and we get to see her more often. I even find myself interested in Ray/Nora ship, even though Ray is my least favorite Legend. 

Ahhhh, Nora is probably going to join my regular blog content. 

Ok, so let’s talk about the magical aspect of the episode. It was good. I think it was one of the better ones actually. It got a little bit away from the fugitive storyline and set precedent that not all magical encounters the Legends face will be fugitives that broke free from prison. Which I think is good. It gives them more freedom to play with magical artifacts and things like that. It also gave us some gems of Sara and Charlie bonding, as well as Zari and Mick. 

Sara and Charlie was one of the dynamics I was most interested in. Obviously, Charlie is sort of a rebel character while Sara, despite being the coolest captain in the Arrowverse, does want her people to listen to her (rightly so). But I think she’s hasn’t really added true new members (I don’t really count Constantine as a new member. He’s a Legend, but he and Sara have a different understanding than the others) in a while and Sara has been used to her team listening to her without any real question. And here comes Charlie, kind of similar to Zari in S3 who doesn’t have that same respect for Sara’s leadership and Sara has to learn how to work with Charlie and integrate her into the team. Sharing a drink at the end of the episode and Charlie seeming to start warming up to Sara was an encouraging sign. And if we end up with a betrayal somewhere down the line, I’m going to be so sad. 

Then Zari and Mick. I’m glad there’s a callback to the time loop episode where Zari finds out Mick is a talented writer and that, ultimately, is what saves the day. There’s not a whole bunch to say about it, beyond in true Legends fashion, they’re really leaning into being absolutely weird as fuck and having it completely work. 

Note, Zari and Charlie’s sexual tension in this episode was off the charts. 

I also appreciate that they, briefly, talked about Hiroshima and the atomic bombs. I think in history, we talk about that, largely in America, with such a detachment because America was the one to drop the bomb that we often neglect how the Japanese felt during that period of time. And for Legends to take a serious moment to talk about it and give the other side a real examination, as brief as it was, is important. Legends is largely silly, but they definitely can have their serious moments and pull them off well. 

Then Ava and Nate and the Time Bureau piece. Ava, my child. I am glad that, even though it's a short time period (probably), Ava is in a headspace where she can crack jokes about her parents and being a clone. It’s kind of a coping thing I’ve found when things are kind of traumatic. There are times where it really overwhelms you, like in the last episode. And there are times where you joke about it, like this episode. And those things can exist at the same time. 

So it seems we’ll be seeing more of Mona now that she’ll probably become a part of the Time Bureau considering she has such an intricate knowledge of magical creatures. I’m curious to where that will lead. And although I ship Constantine and Gary, I think Gary and Mona is equally as cute. 

And then we start getting a glimpse of the (likely) overarching point of conflict that will be a theme throughout the season. Project Hades. It seems, from the very brief conversation we saw between Hank and, likely, another government official, the Department of Defense has a secret project that involves utilizing magical creatures as weapons or something similar. He wants them controlled and used. And as these storylines go in other shows, it’s the evil government agency exploiting the supernatural to bolster their firepower in some way. And I think in coming episodes, that’s going to throw in a direct deviation between Hank and the government and the Time Bureau itself, probably specifically Nate, Gary, and Ava, (very likely Mona as well). I think the one that will probably grapple with it the most is Ava, followed closely by Nate. Ava is and always has been a stickler for rules and protocol and likely going against the government will be difficult for her and may even lose her the Director position. Though I think when push came to shove and she was faced with that choice, she would leave the Bureau of her own free will and join the Legends to stop whatever Project Hades is. And then Nate who very much wants to have a better relationship with his father but when his father is the antagonist, that’s going to full at him. Again, I’d fully expect him to side with the Legends (if indeed that’s where this plotline is going. It’s early). But it will be a struggle I’m sure. This is all speculation on literally a 30 second conversation so take it with a grain of salt, but that’s my prediction at this point. Will definitely be revised as we get more information in future episodes. 

All in all, amazing episode. I’m super hyped that we’re bringing in Mona and Nora to have more appearances, seeing a bit more of Charlie’s interactions with the Legends, and getting more context to the Bureau and the stuff that goes on there. They were always sort of, again, this largely antagonistic entity for a lot of season 3. And seeing more of the inner workings and politics of it, I think gives a lot more context to it and helps humanize the agency to the audience. 

I know the next episode is Hank basically coming on the Waverider and observing the Legends in action because apparently, the Department of Defense is questioning their efficiency? Which, I’m not pretending to know, but doesn’t the Legends basically do this freelance? Like they aren’t funded by the government/Bureau. As far as I’m aware, they don’t really get paid at all. Oh well, I’m sure that question will be answered in the next episode, which I’m looking forward to.