#It's been a bit since I rewatched the Meet the Cores series but not long enough to forget my happiness at seeing him haha

[sysig]

(Requestober) Could you draw something with Virgil from Portal Stories: Mel?? I played the game recently and he was my absolute favorite- such a fun design and personality! Maybe something where he's hanging out with Wheatley or Mel or the rainbow core? I was SO mad they made the player leave him at the end, so just anything where he gets to have a friend, really.

Day 6 - Still together

[fencer-x]

Fencer’s Big Eva Review

Just got done watching the Eva finale, so it’s time to get out thoughts while they’re fresh! Caveat: Eva is difficult to understand for native speakers, and I’m definitely not a native speaker XD I feel like I got maybe half, and got the rough gist of like 10% of the rest, and the remaining was just no friggin’ clue. Would’ve gone better if there’d at least been JP subs, but you’ll have to deal with what I’ve got for now!

It should be obvious, but there’ll be HELLA MAJOR SPOILERS for the final Evangelion movie. Ready? Let’s go.

The movie very helpfully starts off with a ~2 min recap of the movies thus far. This was great because I didn’t have time to rewatch the previous three before going, and while I’ve seen them a few times, it took me a second the recall what had happened at the very end of Q, so I was glad to get a very brief recap.

The actual movie itself opens on...Paris! Or Paris post-Near-Third-Impact (Third Impact?), which is a red and black wasteland. It seems that Wille has been developing these things that look like Entry Plugs that they shove into the ground and restore everything to pre-all-impacts (so like, blue water and everything); couldn’t get HOW it managed that, but they had them and were attempting to restore Paris.

Would have been a walk in the park except for weird Eva-Angel-Machine hybrids that were trying to prevent them from activating the plugs. Lots of fighting happens, with Mari piloting her Eva to give them cover while the Wille staff set everything up. Eventually they manage it, and Euro Nerv is restored.

Then we switch over to right where Q left off: Asuka, Clone!Rei, and a catatonic Shinji wandering around trying to go who knows where. They eventually get picked up by...Touji! Yes, an older Touji now who lives in a commune of survivors, scraping out a semblance of a life in one of the areas protected by the aforementioned plugs (they had another name but I couldn’t get it).

In this community, Touji is the local doctor--and he’s married with a kid! He married Hikari, and they have an infant daughter named Tsubame. 

Now, let’s check in how our main three do when introduced to this relatively normal life they get to enjoy for a few weeks:

Asuka: Still in ‘fight mode’, ready to go at a moment’s notice. How she thinks she’s gonna fight when she has no Eva idk, but for this entire little bit, she’s either naked or in her plugsuit. She stays with Aida Kensuke, who’s kind of the handyman, and is generally just rude af.

Shinji: For 90% of this bit, he’s totally shut off. He’s incredibly fucked up from having JUST watched Kaworu die, essentially because of him, and Asuka has on a DSS choker, and every time he sees it, he collapses and begins vomiting violently. He stays with the Suzuharas at first but is quickly sent to stay with Asuka and Kensuke because they don’t really know how to deal with him. Kensuke manages to get him to open up a little bit, but eventually it’s Rei who gets him started on the path back to being himself. At one point he runs away and ‘lives’ alone for a while in what I think was either the building where he first met Kaworu playing the piano or one that looked a lot like it. He goes out to do odd jobs with Kensuke a lot, and on one occasion he’s taken to an ‘outdoor lab’ where some workers are experimenting with new gardening techniques. It’s here he’s meets...Kaji Ryouji. No, not that Kaji Ryouji. That Kaji DIED. This is the son he had with Misato (named after him).

Rei: Now, let me say I’ve never been super interested in Rei. I didn’t dislike her, like I did Asuka, but I wasn’t really interested in her either. She was just there. Guys.....I LOVED REI IN THIS MOVIE. I would have watched 2.5 hours of the Rei Learns To Be A Human show and been happy for the $20 I paid. Rei spends her time in the commune learning to be an individual. She stays with the Suzuharas and learns what different words mean, like “Good morning” and “Good night” and “Thank you” and “Goodbye”, she gets super close with a bunch of old ladies who essentially adopt her and teach her how to plant turnips and what a bath is, and she becomes her own person. When she first arrives, the Suzuharas think she’s “Ayanami Rei”, but she explains that she isn’t, so they call her “Sokkuri-san” instead (”Miss Spitting Image” essentially), and the old ladies find it amusing at first but then encourage her to choose her own name, and when she can’t think of one, they tell her to have someone choose one for her, so she asks the Uber-Depressed Shinji to choose one. These interactions are what eventually pull him back to himself, but ultimately he’s unable to come up with one, because “Ayanami is Ayanami”. She thanks him for trying anyway, returns his SD player to him..............................and then dissolves into a pile of LCL fluid, as apparently all clones eventually return to LCL. Fantastic, because Shinji didn’t need EVEN MORE TRAUMA.

Somehow, the above doesn’t break Shinji, and he resolves to go back to Wille and face his father I guess?? I’m not entirely clear on why (gotta go read some reports of my own I guess lol). Back on the ship with Misato et al., Shinji isn’t forced to wear a choker but he’s put in a cell with like explosives in it I guess. He starts having visions of Kaworu helping him accept things.

At this point it’s getting close to the climax, and Wille are going after Nerv/Gendo once and for all. During the final fight, Asuka tried to take out Unit 13′s core, and then she’s not managing it, she rips off her eyepatch, and we see that the patch was keeping the 9th angel bound within her eye, so she decides to throw away her humanity and let it take over to destroy Unit 13. Unfortunately, she’s killed in the end--how? She’s approached by a vision of her ‘original’. Yup, Asuka was a clone herself, like Rei, and she turns back into LCL and she and unit 02 are absorbed by Unit 13.

Eventually the fight comes down to Shinji vs. Gendo, who has thrown away his own humanity and bonded with Unit 13 in the hopes of completing the Human Instrumentality Project. He and Shinji go head to head as Shinji summons (???) Unit 01 from inside Unit 13, and there’s a really REALLY WEIRD final fight between the two that involves some weird animation choices. Lots of storyboards and overly CGI’d CGI, and some bits that seem to take them through the different incarnations of the Eva series.

We also get Gendo backstory by the boatload as he and Shinji have an actual goddamn conversation for once. Mari features prominently in Gendo’s flashbacks so she was definitely one of his classmates it seems, who introduced him to Fuyutsuki. I’m still not entirely clear on who she is/was.

However, through this conversation, Shinji gives the people he’s interacted with most closely/been closest with closure I guess? Gendo, Asuka...Kaworu.

So about Kaworu. Their conversation was VERY VERY WEIRD; it’s made clear that Shinji is also now aware of all the different iterations of their meeting. When they talk, it’s set at the beach where they first met in the TV series, and Shinji says he remembers all the times they’ve met before. Shinji mentions that Kaworu reminds him a lot of his father, and then there are some very strange flashbacks (????) of Kaworu’s that I feel like imply he’s to Gendo as Rei is to Yui. At one point, he’s seen talking to Fuyutsuki, trying to decide on a name for himself and settling on ‘Nagisa’ as it means ‘beach’, where the ocean meets the land. Fuyutsuki later addresses Kaworu, who’s sitting in Gendo’s desk, as “Commander Nagisa”. Kaworu reflects to Shinji that he failed so many times to make Shinji happy, but he’s realized now that that’s because he doesn’t know what would make Shinji happy and it was arrogant to think he knew better. He was looking for his own happiness all along.

In the end, after all these goodbyes, Shinji is left with the decision of what to do with, well, reality. He decides, in a conversation with Rei, that he’ll reset everything--create a ‘neon genesis’--to a world without Eva or Angels.

Our last shot is an older Shinji meeting his (presumed??) girlfriend Mari on a train platform. On the opposite platform waiting for their own train are Kaworu, Asuka, and Rei. Shinji and Mari hold hands and run, laughing, from the train station.

NEON GENESIS EVANGELION GOT A HAPPY ENDING. 2021 REALLY BE OUT HERE WILDING.

My final thoughts:

Okay I’ll say it: the fuck with Shinji/Mari endgame? Believe me, it was completely out of left field even in this movie. They just happened to be the only final survivors. Mari flirted a hell of a lot more with ASUKA and was distraught at her death than she did with Shinji. They were a kind of cute couple in the end, but very ????? 

I’m disappointed Shinji wasn’t the one to give Kaworu his happiness in the end, after Kaworu spent so long and so many lives and realities trying to make him happy and failing. I’m choosing to believe, since these multiple realities/resets are canon now, that he did it in one of them. They all deserve the happiness of their choosing, not just Shinji’s, and Kaworu showed us time and time again that his happiness definitively involves being with Shinji.

I’m sure I missed a lot, because yanno, Eva, and it was long enough as is, but gosh I wish I could’ve understood more of everything that was going on, cause there was SO MUCH WEIRD SHIT.

If I watch this movie again, I will 500% just be watching those “Rei learns to be human with the help of a bunch of old cackling biddies” bits :> Those were THE BEST PARTS OF THE MOVIE.

[anotherblblog]

Manner of Death Rewatch Episode 1

Rewatching and jotting down some thoughts and reactions for Manner of Death

Is Manner of Death bl, technically no Was it my 3rd favorite bl series until like last month, yes

So I got into Manner of Death by way of a friend of mine who liked MaxTul. After I had first seen and talked to friends about Gameboys, this friend introduced me to MaxTul. I think the MaxTul Together With Me series might have been my second or third BL. And then I was looked for more of their projects, I came across Manner of Death. I really enjoyed it. I felt like MaxTul had a lot of fun playing older, less university based characters. And I liked the gay murder mysteriness of it all. 

So that’s some context for how I came to Manner of Death, now let’s rewatch.

---

Inspector M is so hot, just wanna get that out of the way

You think all the ordinary towns get tired of being dragged in some protagonist’s soul searching narration?

They’re all so hot

Inspector M wants friends

Jane :(

reporter Pat >:{

the core personas in the murder mystery are good uses of like classic noir archetypes 

ahhhh the TanBun walk by/meet cute and it’s been a while since I’ve seen it, so I don’t remember if Tan remembered/recognized Bun yet or if he figures that out later

what’s a MaxTul first episode with Tul’s character getting slizzered and dancing 

it’s been a bit but I definitely remember that drunk on the dance floor and I see a hottie feeling

and have also had a few drunk bump into you kisses too...

they kiss and Bun passes out

you can take the Knock out a Tul’s character but you can’t take the, wait what..

two very necessary Tul shirtless scenes

“that guy I drunkenly kissed last night is now here and it’s daytime and I don’t know what to do”

the gay panic and gay fear I love it the “I know you know what I’m thinking cuz you’re thinking it too and I know”

and I absolutely love these two missing all the plot happening in the main venue because they’re flirting and feeling each other out

going to sleep in a button up long sleeves and khakis and a belt seems like torture and a big ass watch

whoever did the costuming is a pal for real

alas poor Jane

[littlemisssquiggles]

So….about that Tales of Arcadia Trilogy; particularly Wizards…

Recently I’ve been catching up on the Tales of Arcadia Trilogy. Over the past weekend, I wrapped up Trollhunters and its sequel series: 3Below. Between yesterday and today, I concluded Wizards---the third series in the Tales of Arcadia trilogy. And as to be expected---Wizards is now my favourite of the trilogy. Despite being the shortest series, I have to boldly admit that I loved every bit of it. So much so that I think DreamWorks and the Creators of this franchise did my boy Douxie---the main protagonist of Wizards-- dirty. 

Allow me to rant for couple of paragraphs here.

Why wasn't Wizards given 2 SEASONS instead of 1?

Not trying to imply that what we got wasn't good. Oh no no no! Wizards was GOOD guys. REAL GOOD. SO GOOD that despite enjoying its first and only season, I walked away from this series genuinely feeling like I could've gone for one more full season that fleshed Douxie a bit more.

I mean Wizards did really, really good on informing me of his personality and his general relationship with his master and mentor: Merlin but that being said, I honestly wish Wizards had gotten the same treatment as 3Below---wherein it got two seasons and the first season was spent introducing us to the main protagonists’ past while showing us how they balanced their daily living in Arcadia and interacting with some of the common from previous seasons.

In the first episode of Wizards, it was alluded to us that after Merlin "died", Douxie spent 9 centuries protecting the realm in his place and he somehow wound up in Arcadia where he lives the life of a "college student", working odd jobs to make ends meet while hiding his identity as a wizard and apprentice of Merlin. That alone right there could’ve been a premise for its own season leaving what we actually got as its second season.

I know I sound like I might be upset with this series but in all honestly, I’m just disappointed. Not disappointed in the sense that Wizards was terrible but disappointed in the fact that Wizards was good and its first season is all I’m going to get from this story about the Wizards.  To me, my feelings towards Wizards is akin to enjoying a full course meal; stuffing my face till I’m satisfied and full yet STILL feeling hungry afterwards; y’know what I mean?

I guess my main gripe with Wizards is that I wanted more time with its storyline and core characters. I wanted more time with the adventures of Hisiridoux Casparen; learning more about his life both during the times of Camelot with Merlin and living in Arcadia without Merlin. 

Not gonna lie here folks, I really, really like Douxie as a character and protagonist and I honestly feel like his story got the short end of the stick compared to the other protagonists of the Tales of Arcadia trilogy.

Needless to say, as I’ll say again, this doesn’t mean that Wizards was bad. On the contrary, it's the best in the trilogy; at least in my opinion. Others may differ. 

Don't get me wrong; 3Below was a most glorious and lively series that I enjoyed more than I pegged myself going in and Trollhunters was the awesome sauce that hooked me into this franchise in the first place.

But Wizards...Wizards got me. If I had to pick a favourite of the trilogy--Wizards is it for me.

What can I say? trolls and aliens---sorry extra-terrestrials are cool and all that but this squiggle meister is a sucker for good story about a magical world with a young wizard learning magic trying to prove themselves to their wise ole master wizard. And that's what Wizards gave me. I just...wanted MORE; dagnabbit! 

I would rather Douxie's story be continued in some way or at least have some kind of prequel series that revealed more about Douxie’s past and life living in Arcadia prior to the events of Wizards. But again, this is just my thoughts and views.

Overall I'm happy that at long last I'm all caught up with the Tales of Arcadia franchise. This one has been on my binge list for years since Trollhunters first dropped. Now all that's left is to look out for the final chapter in this franchise which is the movie--- Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans coming next year.

Why? Why couldn’t they make a movie about Douxie though? Yes I know the story began with Jim Lake Jr. and the Trollhunters and should rightfully end with him (and I do like Jim btw) but…I really, REALLY like Douxie okay!

Curse you Guillermo Del Toro for creating ANOTHER immortal magical wizard son for me to adopt! I hope Douxie returns in the movie. 

In the meantime, I’ll definitely be rewatching Wizards for sure. Other than that, that’s all I gotta say folks.

~LittleMissSquiggles (2020)

[more-gremlin-than-fae]

Yet another CQL canon-divergence

Episode 26 this time. @bladedweaponsandswishycoats reminded me of this post about the use of zhiji in CQL and it reminded me of the AU my brain spent hours and hours on when I hit that episode in my first rewatch of the series.

This one’s gonna be just as long as all the others, although I might actually write this one since it’s mostly altering a single scene rather than having to write actually new stuff.

What if: WWX doesn't get there in time to intercept LWJ's glass of wine?

I'm assuming here that Lan Xichen has never actually seen Lan Wangji drink alcohol and has assumed that he knows the “golden core burning off alcohol” trick but never actually taught it to him, maybe he assumed their uncle had. 

So, episode 26, all the same except at the banquet WWX gets there just after LWJ has been peer pressured into drinking the wine so he’s there instead just in time to catch LWJ before he falls face first into the soup with an oh so casual hand on his friend's shoulder. Cue the initial round of insults with Jin Zixun, but with the addition of a distracted WWX making 'come over here and pick up your passed out brother' faces at LXC when he thinks nobody’s looking.

(I'm assuming also LWJ tends to get past the initial passed out stage fairly quickly as in CQL here)

WWX and LWJ have just had the 'what am I to you/zhiji' conversation so that's at the absolute top of LWJ's mind when he wakes up drunk. He wants that with Wei Wuxian, even a Wei Wuxian who’s been weird and moody and emotionally distant. So. He wakes up drunk thinking about “how do I get that back? how do i prove that i feel the same way?” and drunk LWJ is just an LWJ without brakes.

So when WWX notices he’s awake and tries to take back the hand that has been oh so casually holding LWJ upright by the shoulder, LWJ just grabs it and holds on. 

And then the rest of the scene unfolds more or less as canon but now WWX is trying to get the information from Jin Zixun and deal with Jin Guanshan and Jin Guanao while being followed around by a drunk and slightly belligerent and needy LWJ who just wants people to stop pissing off his zhiji and give him a break, for once. And at the same time, WWX is also trying to keep LWJ from losing face/people knowing he's a lightweight and now super drunk off one cup of wine. And he absolutely cannot bring himself to not be soft with drunk LWJ, so he’s switching back and forth on a dime between being cheerfully soft at LWJ and being angry and intimidating at Jin Zixun and everybody else.

LXC watches this for a little bit before realizing something is very wrong with his brother and that WWX is being king and running interference to save him face, so he stands up and asks WWX very quietly what the fuck is going on with Wangji, did they drug him?

WWX (under his breath, while JGS is talking): “No, he’s drunk. This is what he’s like after one cup of wine. You seriously never -?”

LXC: “Let’s not get into that here.”

WWX turns to LWJ: “hey, buddy, you’re brother’s here, you should go with him” and tries to transfer the hand currently locked around his wrist (not so incidentally preventing him from so much as slightly threatening anybody with Chenqing) to LXC

LWJ: “No.”

LXC: “Wangji, we need to have that important sect business meeting back in our quarters right now.”

LWJ looks at LXC, looks at WWX, looks daggers at Chenqing and then turns to his brother and says “No” again.

(This is how he’ll prove it, he’s decided. Since WWX insists on carrying Chenqing instead of Suibian then LWJ will just have to make sure he doesn’t need to use the demon flute and risk further corruption while LWJ is around.)

WWX is still under a time crunch here, he has to get the information and get back to Wen Qing before she gives up on him or ends up arrested for the crime of looking like a Wen in Jin territory. So while he keeps questioning Jin Zixun about the Wen prisoners, LXC and LWJ are having a low voiced argument about letting go of WWX until LWJ busts out of with  "no, he’s my zhiji, this is important to him so it's important to me" and ends up being the one who intimidates Jin Zixun into giving up the info. LXC’s only choice at this point is to help or get out of the way.

Bonus: Jiang Cheng hears the zhiji comment and is like "oh, man, I thought it was one-sided, this is so much worse" and forgets about politics for a single minute, which is long enough for him to get involved in this whole mess out of sheer jealousy that suddenly the Lans are standing with WWX and Lan Wangji is claiming this intimate relationship with HIS brother, excuse u very much, Lan Wangji.

So they get the info and decamp as a group to an empty courtyard where WWX has to explain to LXC and JC why he’s suddenly interested in the treatment of the Wen prisoners all while trying to gently detach a Lan Wangji who’s still stubbornly attached to him at the wrist.

He’s distracted enough to actually tell the truth about Wen Qing being in town and how the Jiangs owe her and Wen Ning for hiding them from her relatives (shut UP, JIang Cheng, they HELPED and they ended up in Wen Ruohan’s dungeon for it, if Meng Yao gets a pass for actively helping Wen Ruohan while being a spy then WQ and WN deserve a pass for hiding and healing the Yunmeng sibs and refusing to participate in the burning and sacking and killing of the other sects)

The upshot is that now LXC and JC know everything except the golden core thing and LWJ is now insisting that he will go along and help his zhiji "your debts are my debts" etc. And he’s functional enough, and stubborn enough, that no one involved can actually stop him without injuring him. 

So it shakes out that JC goes to get Wen Qing on his sword while LWJ more or less kidnaps WWX onto Bichen and they meet up at the camp.

This is definitely a “Wen Ning lives” fic because they get there much faster.

Anyway, fast forward to LWj waking up in a bedroll in a camp in the woods just past the Jin territory border with the Wen remnants and hazy memories but just rolls with it because he was absolutely not drunk what are you talking about and he is definitely going along with them to wherever they’re going, he’s the only one not starving and sleep deprived (he fell asleep at 9 while riding behind WWX on the horse).

That's as far as my brain managed to take it anyway.

Randomly: Wen Qing makes WWX tell LWJ about his core basically that morning because she refuses to conceal if he’s really all-in with them then he needs to know.

Actually this might be an "everybody lives" AU because giving WWX the opportunity and necessity of explaining to LXC and JC what he's actually doing and why before he gets more or less kidnapped onto Bichen to go rescue Wen Ning would likely throw off all the politics. And as much of an ass as JC canonically is about the Wens, there's no way he sees what's been happening at the work camp for himself and isn't absolutely appalled. So :waves hands: JGS' PR campaign against WWX doesn't work because there might not be a Geneva Convention but there are limits at least for some of the major sect leaders.

And also at the Qionqi Dao, drunk LWJ smacks WWX on the hand every time he tries to bring Chenqing anywhere near his face so he has impeccable testimony that he used no demonic cultivation in the whole incident. Wen Qing finds this hilarious and encourages him to do it always.  

[rachelillustrates]

An Exploration of Kiliel

OKAY, fandom thoughts on my art blog because of Story Study.

My Wife and I finally watched The Hobbit movies, so I’ve finally gotten to Kiliel (..... ❤ ) and I have some headcanons/thoughts about Tauriel’s introduction to the story, the flow of their romance, and what’s important.

(So this will be part meta, part headcanon as I sort that out.)

What’s striking me right away - other than the fact that I came into these movies ALREADY shipping them and am damn pleased about it, thanks Tumblr - is that we are given.... well, bupkis on Tauriel’s motivations and backstory. And the person I’m watching these movies with, who I love very much, was quick to point out that her introduction and immediate positioning as a Romantic Female Lead could read very shallow to the casual viewer.

(Which I am not, thank the Gods.)

So, what of Tauriel’s backstory and deeper life goals? Digging into the fandom, I found notes that her parents were killed by Orcs when she was young, and that Legolas took her under his wing afterward (making him her mentor, and thus making the idea of their romance even less attractive to me, since that means he would hold even MORE sway and authority over her and there would be very little equality for her there. Also, Gimli).

But that’s it. And we’re not given that in the main plot of the movie at all.

What we are given is the information that she’s conscious of the dangers to the outside world, and wants to protect her people by stopping those dangers at the source, despite contrary orders from her King.

So what I think the movie intended, with that scene where she talks to the Elvenking about her concerns and how she immediately chooses to go after the Dwarves later - motivated primarily by the thought of saving Kili - is that Tauriel has a deeper drive to help save the whole world from the threats she sees to it. Because of what happened to her parents, because she knows the spiders are coming from outside their borders, etc. The featurette “Tauriel: Daughter of the Forest” says of her “She has a great curiosity of other races, of the world outside - she literally hasn’t been anywhere...” (mentioned in part 2, part 1 is here). So, to me, her motivations for leaving Mirkwood include that - as well as saving this Dwarf she feels an inexplicably deep bond with already.

On that note, I wish they had gone a bit deeper into her and Kili's immediate connection than what we were shown. I do appreciate how she insisted on fending for herself, in their Battle Couple introduction, and how Kili immediately accepted her for who she is - the trousers joke was, admittedly, a little uncomfortable for me due to personal reasons, but I think it could be read as him meeting her aggression in battle with aggressive flirting, and in that light, her positive response to it (in what she said to Legolas, and in returning to check on him of her own volition) makes a lot more sense to me. And while I really enjoyed and understood the Feast of Starlight scene, those less romance-genre minded than myself may not have understood that as deep "enough” (for more of the intentions of the plot in that scene and the take the actors had on it, click here. Includes a hysterical Leoglas moment at the end!). 

Rewatching it, I do see and recognize how deep their connection is and how meaningful what they choose to share of themselves is - especially with the idea of Kili honoring and respecting (nay, being attracted to) her ferocity, and the fact that most of her kin probably don't automatically respect her for such things. The sexism among the Elves is not as bad as it is with humans, but it is still there. Who knows how much Tauriel has had to fight for her place as the Captain of the Guard, being a woman. And again, it probably wasn’t as bad for her as it was for, say, Eowyn - but no matter how much space there is for women to step up and be active agents of the story in the mythology of the world, Tolkien didn’t choose to make women part of the action, actively, most of the time. So the world still reads as a mostly Men-at-War, Women-at-Home place. And that has to have had an impact on Tauriel’s life. And in addition to how charming Kili is, just as himself, the fact that he sees that part of her, respects her and admires her FOR it, must hold a lot of weight.

Another part of what I've seen, in re-immersing myself in the fandom now, has been this idea that both Kili's culture and Tauriel's culture have an idea of soulmates, the One person who, when you meet them, shakes you to your core, and you are never the same again. I really think that's what the writing was going for (see Evangeline Lily’s comments in part 2 of “Tauriel: Daughter of the Forest,” particularly), but it wasn't given the space and depth that it needed to be apparent on surface level of casual viewing. 

So, from my fangirling perspective, I imagine that they both felt that right away, but were so surprised by it - because of the unexpectedness of their circumstances, and the animosity between their peoples- that they didn't know how to handle it, and fell into awkward humor, and slightly clumsy attempts to get to know each other as they tried to sort it out.

I imagine that Tauriel's outright denial of any connection to Legolas, and immediate acceptance of his father's racism toward her in that context, was also swayed by her newfound feelings. They (Tauriel and Kili) probably did talk more, as well, about their families and their deepest dreams after the Feast of Starlight scene cut off. We just aren’t given that information.

(Anyone else for a romantic adventure Kiliel-centric mini series?)

Then of course, we are given the healing scene. What I got from this, beyond their romance, was that Tauriel always looks to be helpful. When she takes the athelas from Bofur, she looks like she’s had a revelation. She realizes she can help, she can heal Kili, and that gives her an outlet of action for all the confusing feelings she’s having. She goes right into business mode about that - and Kili, all pained and fevered, barely realizes it’s her. But when he does, he looks at her in wonder (with a fever-dream angelic view of the magic around her, even! Sidenote - I LOVE how messy her hair was. Both beauty and realistic adventure life). And she looks back at him with such serious kindness, telling him to trust her, without words. Of course, he does....only to then believe that she wasn’t there at all, and spill his heart out to this apparition of the person he already knows he loves.

And in that, he is so sure that she’s beyond his reach, even though he knows he loves her already. Even though as he talks about how she’s on another level of existence than his, his action is still to reach for her hand, still reaching for her, despite the words he’s saying. He still wants to believe it is possible - that they are possible - even as he’s trying to accept that they can never be.

Which, of course, leads into the beach scene. After the whirlwind of surviving Smaug’s attack, too (extra shoutout to the writing there, regarding Tauriel and Bard’s children - she’s aware enough to realize that Bard’s son is the only one of the three of them that might have had any sliver of training for situations like this, because human misogyny, so she uses that to protect all of them - “Your sisters will die if we stay here,” etc. - but as soon as he runs off to help his father, she still makes the girls her priority, as well as the Dwarves. Headcanoning that if Kili had survived, and they married and moved into Erebor, she would have damn well taught those girls how to fight).

Anyway, back to the beach. I think my favorite part of that moment, other than the Heart Wrenching Perfection of what Kili says to her (and how it’s acted!), is that he has realized that she wasn’t a fever dream after all - that he did, in fact, say all those potentially embarrassing romantic feely-feels things right to her actual face - and instead of being embarrassed, he just GOES for it. He is that sure. Sure enough, that even when she can’t let herself reciprocate his feelings (even though she clearly does - and she doesn't say no, btw, she is interrupted by Legolas' arrival and thusly the reminder of her duty and her 'place') he then gives her the token from his mother, to let her know she’ll always be in his heart, no matter what she decides. And he almost doesn't, he almost leaves, but turns back in the last moment, in that desperate, loving attempt to try again. No matter how impossible it seems.

MY freaking heart.

Also, when Tauriel then learns of her banishment, she looks shaken at first - but quickly, almost relieved. See here, at about 39 seconds in. She has clearly been fighting against her own heart each moment since Kili came into her life - even though, as I mentioned before, he provides a grand excuse for her to go help other people beyond Mirkwood’s borders. And now, released from the obligations she has to her people, to her King, who doesn’t fully respect her anyway, she is free to do what she could not just moments ago. She is free to choose her own path - to follow her heart, and her ambitions to help the world.

Of course, she follows Legolas first - the path of least resistance being to follow her mentor and Prince. And I get from that that she’s shut herself off from her own emotions for so long - likely due to her parent’s death, early in her life - that she really doesn’t know what to do with herself, in that freedom, and in love. So, following her nearest authority figure, giving herself a moment to breathe and decide later, seems natural.

But, luckily, that path leads right back Erebor.

And unluckily, right into the tragic ending.

But first, she confronts the Elvenking (who has banished her, and therefore freed her, though that was not his intention) about his refusal to stay and help. His concern for his own people, again, will lead to them not being there to save the lives of others suffering in the world around them. And she’s not having that - in general, even if a large part of it is her love for Kili. The script focuses only on that love - with Thranduil refusing to accept that she really loves Kili, comparing what he imagines she feels to what he felt for his late wife, it seems - but there is so much in her whole narrative that has already pointed to her desire to help the whole world, even before she lets herself start feeling for Kili. And this moment plays right into that deeper motivation.

Of course, her story being a romance, finding and protecting Kili is her first priority. And sadly, that goes, as we know, badly.

It bothers me a LOT that she “had” to be damseled in the Big Fight. BUT. We at least get the strength of their connection before she gets trampled by Bolg (and the surety of her voice when she calls for him, and the focus that hearing her, and his calling back out to her, gives him - yes. It’s subtle, but its very strong and very there). And at least they get to see each other one last time - Kili knows, no matter what happens, she chose to come after him after all.

And all the emotion, in her watching him die, and him realizing what they’ve lost even though she did choose him.....ugh. My heart, again. They are both just so clearly broken - Tauriel so confused, not able to accept that its come to this, after she chose to find him, after everything. Kili so brokenhearted that after all his hoping - after she chose him back - they still can’t be together (not to mention the fact that he’s just lost his brother, too, the only other person we see him love as intensely as her). And then, in the last moments of (this part of) the fight, when Kili is gone and Tauriel is alone again, her pain is so great, her anger so clear, her love so deep, she is willing to use her own momentum and throw herself off the tower’s edge with Bolg, just to try and make for damn sure that he pays for what he’s done.

(I will forever maintain that the fact that that didn’t kill him - that SHE didn’t get to kill him - is a travesty. Especially with his murder of Kili, but also for the gross tongue thing. Very uncomfortable with what that implied.)

I’m gonna skip over the intervention of Legolas to save her life, cause that’s not important here, suffice to say that once again I am Pissed as Hell that they felt the need to damsel her so much. Sigh. I must assume, from a writing standpoint, that they chose to nerf her in this battle because she’s never been involved in war like this - fights to protect Mirkwood, yes, but not War Battle. HOWEVER, there are ways for them to have written through that and not made her look so weak. Especially considering that she is a seasoned warrior - AND had fought Orcs before, as we saw in “The Desolation of Smaug” - and between her and Kili, who one of Thorin’s strongest warriors, they should have at least been able to do better together. Crudmuffins! That, of course, would have messed with the outcome of the source material, but who of us would really be complaining? Hmm? (Sorry Tolkien.)

Their canon story ends, of course, with Tauriel having to come to terms with her feelings and Kili’s death all at once. As as much as I spent most of the movies harshing on Thranduil (except to honor how fabulous he is, stylistically and attitude-wise, and make as many Party Elk jokes as I could), i am glad they brought him back for this scene - not only that he gave Legolas a direction away from mooning over Tauriel, but that he got to help Tauriel accept what had happened (in his own blunt way). The way he watches her here, and looks at her, I feel like he’s really seeing her and accepting her as a person and not below him for the first time. I’m also headcanoning, since we know that Tauriel was orphaned and bonded with Legolas soon after (as her mentor - and honestly, I read their relationship as more of a broship/sibling situation), I feel like she was taken under the wing of his household - not because he approved, but because it was the Right Thing and probably looked good to his people, even if he couldn’t fully accept her due to her heritage. I also feel like the fact that she asks him to take the love away from her, since it hurts so much, also points to a more parental role than he would admit. If your heart was broken, who else would you ask to take those feelings from you - at that first heartbreak - than a parent?

But of course, he can’t - all he can do is finally admit, despite his earlier insistence otherwise, that her love for Kili IS real (I feel like he might have gone through something absolutely similar with his wife’s passing - finding her falling in battle, mourning over her body). And that smashes any hope she had that she could keep denying how she feels - it passes over her face, visibly and physically, that shock that he’s admitting it, then frustrated realization that if it’s real, she can’t deny her feelings anymore and can’t close her heart to it, and then just pure pain again as she realizes what she had and the full measure of what she’s lost.

And then she kisses him, as if she’s sealing that love and acceptance - the only time, super duper heart-stabbingly tragically, that she’ll ever get to you know, according to this version of the story.

I can only hope that afterward, Tauriel chose to honor herself and Kili’s memory by continuing to help the world at large, in her exile. And that she surprise and “oh shit”-ness of Thranduil’s expression upon realizing that an Elf could truly love a Dwarf means that he will be kinder to Legolas when he brings Gimli home.

Now, as far as the runestone goes, I initially wanted to believe that Tauriel would take it back after she gave it back to Kili in death, maybe to return it to his mother on a well-intentioned trip to meet her, to give them both closure. However, upon learning about what’s specifically written ON the stone, I have a different thought - Middle Earth News points out here that the runes on it translate to “Return to me.” Obviously, at its creation and initial giving, that was about Kili’s mother bidding her reckless son to come home safe. But when Kili gave the stone to Tauriel on the beach, he made it theirs as well. He bid Tauriel to return to him by giving it to her. And so now, in returning it to him upon his death, Tauriel bids Kili in turn to return to her, death be damned.

So while at first glance, that returning of the runestone may look like Tauriel denying her feelings again, its really a further, even more solid gesture of that acceptance. And honestly, to me, an expression of hope.

And I feel like hope is what really strikes me, about this ship. They have SO much potential, not only in how little we’ve been given of them in canon, but the potential they see in each other in those brief moments where they obviously imagine what their lives could be like, if they could be. One of my favorite shows says, early in its story, “Believing in even the possibility of a happy ending is a powerful thing.” And that is exactly what I see in them, and why they strike me as so wonderful. They are hope, and the belief in love despite all odds against them, despite all the darkness around them.

And no matter how shakily that might appear to be set up, that is gorgeous, at its heart and root.

And if you got this far in all my scattered ramblings, thank you!

(The art above is my own, btw. For more of my own star-crossed inter-fantasy-racial height-difference queer fae, click here 💕 )

~~~

Patreon ~ Etsy ~ Ko-fi

[doomonfilm]

Review : Tenet (2020)

In a perfect, pandemic free world, my fall would have been more than likely centered around the release of Tenet.  Christopher Nolan has earned his spot as a filmmaker who releases event-level films, and the anticipation for Tenet was through the roof, even before COVID-19 shifted the way of the world away from the theater experience.  I was bummed to miss the film in the theater, but after a long and patient wait, it hit streaming services, which finally gave me the opportunity to experience what looked like a brain-bender of a film.

After being captured during a siege on a Kyiv opera house, a CIA agent (John David Washington) attempts to commit suicide via a cyanide pill, only to be awakened by his CIA superior Fay (Martin Donovan).  Our revived agent, now going by the title Protagonist, is briefed on an organization known as Tenet and assigned a role in stopping an upcoming war threatening to destroy the past through “inversion”, a practice in which the entropy of object is reversed, causing them to look as if they are moving backwards through time.  The Protagonist is educated on inversion by a CIA scientist (Clémence Poésy) before visiting arms dealer Priya Singh (Dimple Kapadia) with the aide of his new partner Neil (Robert Pattinson).  The meeting puts them on the track of art appraiser Kat (Elizabeth Debicki), who has a dangerously contentious relationship with Russian figurehead Sator (Kenneth Branagh).  As the duo investigates deeper, they are thrown into a whirlwind of time, pitting them against numerous unknown enemies and situations.

The way that Christopher Nolan is able to take a specific genre and infuse high-level thinking and abstract ideas is a unique gift, especially when it comes to Hollywood fare.  Tenet takes the spy genre and uses it to reflect on the way we view time, life, and in many ways, cinema itself.  The whole idea of inversion therapy shakes up our understanding of causality, fracturing it in such a manner that he can then move sections of his narrative around and present them in one of the most temporal-shifting ways since Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction… specifically, the story tells a bit of itself, shows you key information from later in the run of events, brings them together, and then explodes out the view of the world, making a sort of ‘folded string’ style of experiencing time.  Aspects of parallel experiences, time paradoxes and world-breaking events fall right in line with the danger of nuclear holocaust and the real danger of military level combat.

Inversion and entropy also lend themselves to many, many visually stunning sequences, and quite a few of them, while making logical sense, are very hard to process the first time they are seen.  The fight scenes have so much going on in terms of choreography and coordination that they hide a major narrative reveal, and they serve as an introductory point of understanding that makes the madness and chaos of the final sequence easier to comprehend, which allows the viewer to keep track of the many moving parts in the run up to the story’s resolution.  The action and motion-based aspects of time work emotionally as well, with many characters finding richer connections as their level of familiarity wavers through temporal peaks and valleys.  Most any film that takes a deep dive into how time works will be confusing on some level, but Nolan handles his lofty concepts with the calm assurance of a seasoned storyteller, giving us enough context visually and expositionally to suspend disbelief and immerse ourselves into his world.

The immersion is incredibly easy in the case of Tenet, and this is chiefly due to Nolan’s affinity for using practical effects as much as possible.  On top of this practice, the inversion concept seemingly forced Nolan to take your common aspects of spy films, such as car chases, explosions, gunplay, hand to hand combat and life or death races against time, and infuse them with fresh ideas that are new or rare to the screen.  The scope of the story is broadened by the use of real locations and a vast array of actors that represent many different nationalities.  The score pulls you in deeper with its pulsing sense of life, and it also serves to inform the viewer as it chooses times to run forwards and backwards, generally in league with the action on the screen.  The screenplay is extremely tight and rewarding at its conclusion, with so much eventually revealed that it ends up lending the film to rewatches in hopes of catching tiny details that may have been overlooked.

Many people criticized John David Washington for a flat performance, but in my opinion, he serves as a steadying force in an initially confusing series of events and exposition, allowing us a clear logical and emotional focal point as our understanding of events unfolds.  Elizabeth Debicki, by contrast, brings an innocent victimhood to the table that slowly gives way to a caged animal looking for the opportunity to land a retaliatory strike.  Robert Pattinson brings the sly assurance of a seasoned veteran to the table, as if he is running off of the knowledge of knowing what lies in wait.  Kenneth Branagh leans all the way into the worst aspects of his antagonist character, being equally despicable in terms of his wife, his property and any advantage he may happen upon.  Dimple Kapadia presents an air of class in a world full of unscrupulous individuals.  These actors make up the core cast, with Martin Donovan, Fiona Dourif, Yuri Kolokolnikov, Himesh Patel, Clémence Poésy and more adding to the textured world of Tenet. 

In many ways, I feel that Tenet was one of the biggest victims of COIVD-19 changing the way that we absorb film.  Much like social media, anything given the time and opportunity to scrutinize will fall victim to nitpicks and negative observations, but in the realm of a theater experience where one is disconnected from reality (even if briefly), I feel the viewer would find themselves too locked into the ride to pick it apart.  While not the best Christopher Nolan film, I must recognize it as the stunning achievement it is, and give it its props as one of the best of 2020.  

[butterflydm]

The Untamed Rewatch (ep 1)

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Oh, yes, I was very correct about this all hitting me a lot harder after I’d seen the whole show. I am also watching it on viki.com this time and the subtitled translations are already a lot better than the ones on the tencent youtube channel. They flow much more naturally as lines of dialogue (there’s a new set of translated videos popping up, too, that I might check out on my… third viewing… that will probably happen after this one… I really like this story y’all).

Things that stood out to me on this viewing (note: I am going to be spoiling the rest of the story as well when talking about things, including the twists):

Okay, so in the drama, when Wei WuXian is brought back to life, it seems like he definitely does look like himself again from the start —he specifically questions Mo XuanYu’s cousin to see if the Mo family would recognize him and learns that they haven’t seen him without mask or heavy makeup since he left home for a while at thirteen. What I infer from the conversations is that their looks were similar enough that when Mo XuanYu called Wei WuXian’s spirit into his body and the magic reshaped it, his general shape didn’t change enough to be noticeable, plus the family didn’t really look at him much in any case. And Wei WuXian worries that the “Lans of Gusu” might know enough about how he looks to recognize him, even if they aren’t “him”. I mean, obviously the doylist/meta reason is that they hired Xiao Zhan for a reason and they’re gonna have him play the part, but yeah, thinking about it is interesting.

Wei WuXian playing wangxian on the piece of grass: fucked me up so much more now. This show does such an excellent job with this entire romance. The whole way they set up Wei WuXian both wanting and not wanting to see Lan WangJi again is a lovely representation of their push-pull dynamic in the drama as a whole.

Which brings me to how much I love that song. The wangxian love theme is absolutely beautiful, enough that even when they play it like ten times in one of the later episodes, I’m still like “aaaah, so pretty! <3”. The first time we hear it is when Wei Ying has the flashback to Lan Zhan in his Gusu robes when he’s talking to Lan SiZhui and it’s so subtle there but it starts building up the mood of their romance, piece by piece. And WWX is so overcome by the memory that he literally sinks down and sits on his heels.

I also really love Lan Zhan’s theme song, as well. Lan Zhan’s introduction is… a lot. I love that we don’t see his face until it’s WWX seeing his face again, too. And he’s just this floating ethereal being and WWX stares for a long while, transfixed… and then makes fun of the way he’s dressed, with a fond smile. There’s such a good job there of putting in a sense of familiarity and history with how Wei Ying reacts to seeing Lan Zhan again.

The set-up of the sixteen years ago, seeing that moment, and then when we come back to it 30+ episodes later as we see both that there was so much we didn’t know but also that the show didn’t at all ‘cheat’ about the emotions of the scene — the backstory information we get complicates the picture of that day that we start with but doesn’t undermine it.

Wei WuXian also comes back in a much better emotional place? Given the way resentful energy is presented in the drama as a corrupting force, I wonder if part of that is attributable to getting a ‘new start’ in Mo XuanYu’s body — his own original body had been put through so much physical trauma in addition to the emotional trauma. The removal of his golden core. Being thrown down into the burial mounds. Then years of resentful energy being held inside his body and built up over time. Even just getting a chance to wipe that out and start again in a body that hasn’t been through that trauma might be helpful. This fey, trickster Wei WuXian is reminiscent of how we meet him in the flashback.

Though, in the drama (as I understand it, his death happens differently in the novel), another element might be that we did see him reach a moment of peace right before he died — he saved Lan Zhan’s life. He was already able to break out of the stranglehold of his grief and pain long enough to do that before he died, so his mind already started the healing process (but then he died, so it was short-circuited — sort of? Wei Ying does make it clear he was aware of being dead and he even knows how long he’s been dead without anyone telling him). I’m not sure how much of that applies to the novel’s version of WWX, but that’s what I got out of the drama’s version.

I really love Wei Ying’s casual displays of power. Snapping his fingers to freeze Mo XuanYu’s cousin in place… it just comes so naturally to him. He just has this very spontaneous-feel to when he uses magic (is it still called cultivation in this context?) that makes it just part of who he is and it’s very charming.

We see the hints of Nie HuaiSang’s hand behind everything — he paid the storyteller to talk about the YiLing Patriarch for three solid days, probably to influence the timing of Mo XuanYu’s ritual. He makes sure he stays there to see the initial results through — which he does again in the final act of the story. I have much genuine love for Nie HuaiSang tbh. He gets his revenge thoroughly but doesn’t go incredibly overboard the way most of the revenge-based characters do in the series (though he is ruthless about it). He knows his own strengths and weaknesses — he’s not a fighter, but he knows where he can find one. He doesn’t have overweening ambition beyond what he can handle. If his big brother had never been murdered, I get the sense he would have happily stayed a decorative baby brother all his life.

The Lan juniors are the cutest lil beans in creation. I love the contrast between them, because we see that Lan SiZhui is much more polite and formal than Lan JingYi, but he’s also incredibly compassionate and his heart is very much present on his face at all times. He’s respectful but openly kind. The moments when his memory is getting tickled by the way Wei Ying is behaving is also… it means so much after having seeing the drama all the way through once. And I love Lan JingYi for many reasons, but also because I think his (tbh kind of straight-up bratty) attitude implies that the Cloud Recesses have calmed the fuck down a bit about their strictness in the past decade-plus. And he finds Wei Ying’s dramatics amusing for the most part, which is cute.

Lan SiZhui recognizing wangxian — I suspect he’s remembering Wei Ying playing it rather than it being a post-death memory of LWJ playing it, since Lan JingYi doesn’t remember it at all. And because if Lan WangJi played it for anyone after Wei Ying died, then I’m not sure he would have been so certain from the start that the person playing it had to be Wei Ying. Meanwhile, Wei Ying isn’t aware of the full emotional importance of the song to Lan Zhan, and he seems to play it a couple of times as a soothing action (self-soothing here, and then to calm down Wen Ning’s corpse in episode 2)? Likely because it reminds him of being cared for by someone (in this case, of course, Lan Zhan). Wei Ying keeps precious hold of things like this and is very sentimental from what we see, and it makes sense that he associates this song with affection in the same way that he associates lotus root and sparerib soup with affection.

I am… honestly not at all surprised that people (even apart from the Lans) are using all the cool shit that Wei WuXian created even while most of the cultivation world still condemns him. That was the way they behaved when he was alive, too. They wanted his cool shit but judged him for making it.

Wei WuXian standing up for Lan SiZhui and the rest of the juniors when Madame Mo is yelling at them: he’s such a natural defender, tbh (which, of course, ends up being a big part of why he and Jiang Cheng end up at odds because WWX doesn’t limit his caretaking nature to his family but extends it to literally anyone who needs it no matter the cost). He’s nurturing in a careless/teasing way at times but he’s also very protective. And that impulse to jump in to help other people is such a big moral thing that he shares with Lan Zhan.

Okay, so, thoughts on grief as presented in the drama: Lan WangJi is well-known and beloved by the young Lan disciples. His reputation is back to being spotless, because it’s been over a decade since he did anything wrong. so, I don’t think he was publicly still grieving, though I will note that the Lan junior disciples seem relatively open to the idea that the YiLing Patriarch was probably not the worst person ever and it wouldn’t suck if he really weren’t dead after all, kind of reminiscent of MianMian’s daughter talking about how the YiLing Patriarch only goes after bad people (Lan JingYi honestly sounds hilariously excited about the idea that the YiLing Patriarch might still be alive, tbh - what have you been telling these children, Lan Zhan? lol).

So while I don’t get the impression LWJ spent most of those years openly pining, I’m sure the subject of WWX has come up, as he’s still a popular monster-in-the-night for a lot of people, and LWJ probably did defend his memory, in his own quiet but solid way. But I also get the impression overall that LWJ put his deep grief for Wei Ying in the same box as his deep grief over his mother, and he did his duty.

Then, he realizes Wei Ying might be alive and everything changes. I love that they both instinctively think of each other by their given names, too. Even when Wei Ying isn’t sure whether or not he wants to see Lan Zhan, that’s still how he thinks of him first — as Lan Zhan. And Lan Zhan just stares at the sword while it’s giving off those black smoke trails, transfixed, and when he first wonders if Wei Ying is alive and there, it’s just... Peak Romance, y’all. Peak Romance.

It does crack me up that the second Wei Ying gets the chance, he dresses himself in his own colors of black & red and doesn’t stick with Mo XuanYu’s colors. The only effort he puts into his ‘undercover’ disguise is the mask. He deserves a “I don’t think you even tried at all” star tbh.

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[har-rison-s]

back home

A/N: Not requested and totally at the top of my head, this one. I watched the Pacific and am now rewatching it, and I love it, and I love Eugene. Wow. Joe is truly one masterpiece of an actor. I admire him so much. And I love the Pacific, it’s such a good mini-series. Eugene’s character is very complex and I like those kinds of characters with many hidden characteristics you really find out if you look close enough. I really analysed him bit by bit so I could write something about him, and so here it goes. This is pure fiction, and I do not own any of the actors, plotlines or the mini-series in general. I wanted to write this, and there’s so little content of Eugene Sledge here, I hope there’ll be more. This will have a part two, I promise. Happy reading!

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Eugene was always that one kid who was quiet out of the whole class. The one who knew all the answers, aced his tests, but didn't raise his hand when the teacher asked questions. Never really talked to anyone, was the last to get chosen for teams in P.E. and sat alone at lunch. Sidney could crack him up half-way, and he was a shy and reserved person. Only I was the one who he really opened up around.

Deep down inside, Gene was witty, sarcastic and emotional. He even secluded from his parents, his ma more than his father. Although they saw quite enough of his emotional side and weaknesses. But when he came back from serving in Japan, he isolated himself even more than before. Even from me.

I have known Eugene since around third grade, when I started going to public school. My parents didn't want me to, but my grandparents talked some sense into them to let me out in the world and socialise. It did me quite a good job cause, look at me now - talkin' and chattin' with anyone interesting I see. That's how me and Gene became friends. I ain't afraid to talk to anyone, even if they're afraid of talkin' to me. Gene was, at first, but then he discovered I'm reliable and a true person to the very core. And he let himself loose around me.

Eugene is jealous, caring, empathetic, kind, passionate and friendly. He's all those things and more, feeling every emotion any person could. Even though he's like the rest of us, he's unique. One of a kind. Ain't no one like him in the entire world, and I'm very sure of that. He makes me smile with the weirdest things and most interesting words, makes me laugh with his dark-humored jokes and picks my interest with every minute that I spend with him.

I didn't really know the right things I was feelin' towards him until he left for the Pacific War. My ma riddled it out for me finally, and at first I was denying, of course. I didn't believe that Eugene was responsible for the butterflies in my stomach or the slight jealousy I felt towards any girl he'd accidentally had a conversation with. For all I knew, it could've been because of Sid, but it wasn't. Sid was a catch for the eye for other girls in our school, and he really ain't my type at all. I've known that for a very long time.

Four years, I think, I spent in waiting, longing and a head full of doubts. Waiting for Eugene to return. I volunteered at any job that could bring me closer to him, but there weren't any slots open for women at the time. At least, not on the islands surrounding Japan. I visited his parents very often, went with Deacon outside for walks and playing. His ma even said it felt like a part of him was at home when I came over. It made me feel quite special.

Now, it's a summer afternoon at the Sledge's residence, and I'm sitting in Eugene's bed, going through his photo albums. There are pictures of us two, pictures of him younger, of him and Sid, his parents in their younger years, and many, many more. Being so caught up in all the memories and reminiscing, I don't even hear a car drive by. Or a closing of the front door or the happy cries of his ma downstairs. The only thing that brings me out of my nostalgic trance is the bedroom door opening. I turn around, expecting to see Dr. Sledge or Mary, but... my jaw drops once I see who it is. It's Gene. Alive and breathing, standing in the doorway in a uniform and his suitcase in hand. 

At first, I smile wide at him and immediately drop the album on the nightstand, hurrying around the bed to walk towards Eugene. His face shows shock and gladness he never thought he'd experience again. It's me. In his room. Probably waiting for him, he guesses.

He drops his case and I slowly put my arms around him, afraid of how he'll react. Anything could have happened during his serving days, and I don't want to cause an uproar of a buried trauma by doing something wrong. I rest my cheek on his shoulder, hugging him tight to me. An embrace I thought I'd never feel again, and I can tell he felt the same way. His arms are around my frame, as well, and we hold each other like that for a long, long time.

Then, my tears come, and I don't really want them to, but I can't help it. They're tears of joy and they're tears of weeping for what he must have been through, what he had to go through in War. I sob against him while smiling and he just keeps on holding tight to me, knowing how I feel. 

I hold onto Gene's arms and pull back a little so I can see his face. My hand traces over his cheek, making sure that he's really here, it's really him. I smile wider and my cheeks start to hurt from doing that already. Gene gives me his true smile that I always seem to pull out of him, and I'm ever so glad to see him. Our eyes lock and I sigh shakily.

“Eugene...” I whisper his name and he nods, closing his eyes. A deep sigh leaves his lips, and I can tell he feels exactly as he says next.

“You can't imagine how tired I am.” He tells me and I chuckle. “But I'm more glad to see you.” He admits and I smile. He leans his forehead against mine and we both close our eyes. “So glad.” I nod.

“I waited for ages.” I say and exhale. “I thought you'd never come back.” I tear up again, sobbing, and Eugene tightens his grip on my waist, feeling many emotions in one moment. “But I ain't gonna spend the day crying, now am I?” 

Eugene nods and I laugh. “Can we lay down?” He suggests and I nod, moving away from him. I take his suitcase and put it on the window sill, opening it. I turn back to Eugene and smile. He's laying in his bed, and the photo album I went through just a mere two minutes ago is in his hands and he glances at me. At first, there's this curious look in his eyes and a mischiveous raise of an eyebrow, but then he pats the other side of the bed next to him, signalling for me to lay with him. And I do, oh, I do. I've wanted nothing more for years. 

I skip over to his bed and bunch the down part of my dress in my hand, holding it around my legs as I lay down. I sigh once my back is on the soft mattress. It hasn't been used since Eugene left. And it will definitely need some welcome-back using. 

I look over at Eugene and he's got the most tired of all tired smiles on his face, and it makes me feel warm. He's glad I'm here, and he's glad to be back home. He closes the photo album and puts it back on the nightstand before settling back down on his back next to me and taking my hand between his.

There's a conversation between us that actually lasts for hours, and I tell him everything that he's missed here. My family's summer parties, Deacon's last days and his funeral and tributes, school, applying for works, lake in the summer and winter. I tell him everything. Because I know he needs a big distraction from where he's just come and doesn't want to talk about what he's done or seen or where he's been. I know that, and I can feel it from him because he's so close to me. 

During the conversation, he mentioned about Mary Frank making a welcome-home dinner for him and his brother. And though we'd rather stay here all day and night, his family needs him and they're my family, as well. So we joined them downstairs. 

I hesitate to tell him my true feelings. It'd be too much for him today. Maybe some other day... I don't want to excite or worry him more than he already is. It's overwhelming—everyone is happy for him to be home and wants to tell him what he's missed, it's his first day home, in a real bed and he's met his best friend again. Well, two of them, actually. He told me Sid waited for him at the station. At that, I groaned and grumbled “traitor” and Gene laughed, telling me I can tell that to Sid when I meet him soon. I'll have to tell Eugene about my feelings soon, I know I need to. Sid has suspected something's up with me, we've been meeting up occasionally since he got home. And he knew that I was at the Sledges' house today, so I guess he wanted to give me and Eugene quite the pleasant surprise.

Eugene might reject me, he might not feel the same way, or he actually might do the opposite. I know how he feels about relationships, I know him very well. I might as well freak him out with my feelings, and I don't really want to. But, whatever the aftermath may be, I ought to tell him. I can't live the rest of my life without him knowing the truest truth. It would kill me.

We sit beside each other at the dinner, shy smiles on both our faces as his relatives ask questions and tell stories. He's overwhelmed, I can feel that from him and I take his hand in mine underneath the table. Just a comforting gesture I can offer him at a time like this. He smiles at me, appreciating the hand holding and squeezing my hand ever so slightly. It makes me feel flutters in my stomach and I try to hide the blush, turning my face away from him. It confuses Eugene a little, so I look back. His eyes seem to be asking the question that burns hot in his mind, but I shake my head, a way of telling him that it's nothing. Eugene nods, but he'll be sure to ask me about it later.

When the dinner's over and I've helped Mary clean everything up, I head upstairs to join Eugene in his bedroom. His eyes skim over the pages of his small bible, he sits on the window sill. He has unpacked his clothes, and his suitcase now lies empty on the top of his wardrobe. Gene looks so peaceful there, the moonlight perfectly shining down on him and casting a painting-like shadow on the wooden floor. I smile.

My feet carry me over to where he sits and and I lean against the wide window's frame. Gene looks up at me. “What have you got there?” I ask, nodding at his bible. He sighs and closes it, throwing it over on his bed.

“Just my notes.” He answers. “I counted days at our locations. Wrote down some other things, as well.” 

“Hmm.” I respond and then take his hand in mine again. 

“What happened at the dinner table?” He asks me and I furrow my eyebrows, trying to catch onto what he's talking about. Then I remember.

“Ah,” I say once I realise, “nothing, hon.” I say to him, shaking my head with a smile on my face. “Do you want me to leave you? Go to bed?” I ask and Eugene's eyes travel to mine and there's a nervous glimmer in them.

He shakes his head suddenly. “No,” he responds, “no, please stay.” His grip on my hand tightens and it takes me a bit by surprise. I nod, understanding that he wants me to spend the night. Here.

“Alright, I will.” I say, still nodding. I lean closer to Eugene, noticing his nervous facial expression hasn't gone away, and caress his cheek. “I will, sweetheart. I'll stay with you.” Forever, I want to add, but I don't, fearing what he might say to that. Or maybe it'd give him comfort. “I'll stay with you for however long you want me to.” Eugene nods and closes his eyes, the anxiety-filled brown orbs invisible to me now. “I promise.” I say and our foreheads touch. I pull him towards me in a warm embrace, and he grips my sides, needing the comfort I give, craving it.

Soon, I feel my dress wetting in spots just next to his cheeks and I sigh. Those are tears. I caress my fingers through his brown locks and I feel his figure contorting in gasps and sobs now and then. “I'm here, I'm here.” I whisper to him over and over, hoping it'd sooth him. 

After I told the Sledges that I'm staying the night and Mary Frank gave me a robe for sleeping and a robe to wrap around myself if it gets cold. We're both worried about Eugene's first night here, but she's glad I'm here. She always has been, and we both have the same worries about Eugene. 

We're peacefully sleeping under his covers, hands still faintly holding on to the other's. When we sleep in the same place, our hands are always intertwined, and most times they even stay locked until the morning. Now's the occasion that the grip has loosened due to sleeping, but at one point, I feel a horribly tight grasp around my knuckles. It's so intense that I think my bones are gonna break any second if the holder keeps holding on.

I snap my eyes open and hear tossing in the dark. I look at Eugene and he's moaning and whimpering, thrashing around next to me. I struggle to get my hand out of his grasp and stand up on the floor after getting out of bed next to him. He has his eyes squeezed shut and turns from side to side, muttering words and names and pleas, whimpering. My heart breaks at the sight, and I can't bear watching him suffer. He's obviously having a nightmare, a very intense and horrible one. I have to tell his parents. 

I wrap the robe for cold occasions around myself and jag out his bedroom door. I turn on the light in the hallway and run down to his parents' room, but I notice their light is already on. They're awake. I lean against the doorframe, seeing they're sitting up in their bed, and try to calm my breaths down. His father already gets up from the bed and I can't help the tears that gather in my eyes or the sob that gets past my lips. 

“He-He's—“ I start to say, but I can't finish my sentence, “he's having a... a nightmare.” I look at his father as he's standing in front of me. He gives me an embrace and I relax against his chest. He's like a second father to me.

“We heard.” He says and I nod. My sobs truly break out and I can't control them. Mr Sledge pets my hair as I cry, and I feel so hopeless. 

I sit against the wall of the hallway that borders his bedroom, knees against my chest and my chin rested on my folded arms, until I can't keep myself awake anymore. I settle for the guest room's bed in the early morning hours, exhausted from not sleeping, and have a deep slumber there until the next day. 

Permanent taglist:

@v0idbella @inlovewithmiddleagedcelebs @works-of-fanfiction @destiel-stucky4ever-loki-queen @stfxlou @ur-gunna-h8-ths @one-taylor-one-vision@empressdreams @betweenloveandfire @but-legendsneverdie @deardeacy @fvckyeahbenhardy

[entamewitchlulu]

Lulu’s Flash Reviews [Winter 2020]

Been a while since I posted one of these! I posted these to my twitter earlier but I figured I could put them here too.  And if you will excuse the plug, consider checking out my side Twitter I use specifically for livetweeting anime, @/LulusLivetweets!

And w/o further ado, I have some thoughts about anime under the cut!

Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!

Eizouken was an absolutely INCREDIBLE little show. I hadn't initially planned on watching it, but I'm so glad I did. The main cast is so strong and their personalities mesh and bounce into perfect, hilarious dynamics - and the core themes about creativity and how to make anime wrt all the work that REALLY goes into it were so much fun to watch play out. Everytime Kanamori went off on her own plans, I was hooked! Everytime Asakusa and Mizusaki started playing some imagination game, I got emotional, because that was me in high school! 

And of course, the animation was spot on; the way you watched them physically build their "greatest world" through sketchy environments and voice acted sound effects, it was immersive and inspiring. An instant classic imo!   

Overall: 10/10

Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun

Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun was one that was on my radar from the beginning due to the voice talent of Megumi Ogata playing the titular character. But her excellent va work wasn't the only awesome thing about it! the animation was absolutely gorgeous, using a very unique style visually and cinematically. i really loved the way they decided to design each episode's mood and tone and the creative framing techniques. the characters were all quite fun, complex, and endearing, and there was just enough mystery to really keep you hooked. and i'm a sucker for that rumors-create-reality plot! the only minus i can give this is that Nene's obsession with boys started to wear on me lol

Overall: 9/10

Asteroid in Love

A slow-paced slice of life, but still overall enjoyable! There was little substance and any time it edged on real conflict it hurriedly pulled back, but that was ok because we all knew we were here for cute girls being cute without any more depth.  The relationship between Ao and Mira was sweet and lovely, and the quirks of the other characters never became so overwhelming that it got annoying, even the tsundere-types. And I learned a little bit about space! Bonus points! overall, it was a sweet and welcome escape to simply slip into a story without conflict, where you could simply sit back and smile as you watched these sweet girls pursue their deeply held dreams, no matter what might stand in their way.

Overall: 7/10

In/Spectre

For my thoughts on In/Spectre....well...I finished it? There are elements to this series that I found interesting enough to continue til the end. This one also taps into the Rumors-Become-Reality trope that I love, but unlike Hanako-kun it...leaves character to the wayside. The animation is pretty solid, sound design is good, character designs are pretty decent if a little unmemorable, but...for most of this show it's talking heads. They talk in circles and weave stories in a way that just...doesn't do the visual medium justice.

and the characters are just...boring. I never bought into what was meant to be the main romantic subplot. Iwanaga is extremely annoying when she's not devising Sherlock-esque concepts. rather than develop the characters and their relationships, they devoted 90% of screentime to watching Iwanaga come up with ridiculous fictions in Sherlock-esque fashions, as though just to show off how clever the show is rather than let me become invested in the characters. if there's ever a season 2, i don't think i have the emotional investment to look into it.

Overall: 6/10

Natsunagu

Natsunagu isn't really a traditional anime per say, it's a series of shorts developed for a revitalization effort after the Kumamoto earthquake, I believe. Each episode is only 3 minutes long, so the story isn't particularly fleshed out, but for what it was, it was rather sweet. The story of a girl trying to find her online friend after their usual message service is shut down and meeting the people of a place still in recovery was I think written with exactly as much sensitivity as it needed to for the story and the people it was telling it for.

Overall: 6/10

Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story: Magia Record

Magia Record blew every expectation I had out of the fucking water. It was absolutely fucking incredible. Building expertly off of the foundation laid by the original Madoka, in some respects it absolutely overshadowed it. The aesthetic and atmosphere hit every fucking note perfectly. Without having to worry about building up uncertainty the way the original did, MR was able to barrel straight into the uncanny valley, where you already know that something is wrong but you have no idea how MUCH.

yet another Rumor-Creates-Reality show (seriously this is a theme here), the Rumors on display here are markedly more hostile, and built with all of the eerie charm of Madoka's signature surreality. Characters are not left to the wayside, either. For the number of cast members they introduce and the old ones they bring back, it somehow manages to balance all of them, give most of them arcs and depth, and invest you into all of them in a very short span of time.

I'm still shivering with just how intense every bit of it was. I want to rewatch it already. I'm already pounding my fists on the table for season 2! The original Madoka was and still is a favorite of mine, but this spin off avoided every pitfall I could have thought of creating something that both wove intricately into its source material while creating something brand new at the same time. Even knowing that these events will retroactively be undone with the events of Madoka, I still care immensely, and that's a major feat. cannot wait for s2!

overall: 10/10

And before I sign off on this, I also wanted to share my own personal awards for Winter 2020′s season!

Best Girl

4. Iroha Tamaki (Magia Record)

3. Hinata Hiramitsu (Healin’ Good Precure)

2. Midori Asakusa (Eizouken)

1. Sayaka Kanamori (Eizouken)

For Best Girl, the ultimate award goes toooo.....Kanamori from Eizouken! An atypical character in both personality and design, she is always an immense amount of fun every time she's on screen. Honorable mentions go to Asakusa, Hinata, and Iroha!

Best Boy

2. Daruizen (Healin’ Good Precure)

1. Hanako-kun (Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun)

For Best Boy of Winter 2020, the award goes toooo.....Hanako-kun! Simultaneously a little shit AND in need of a hug, Hanako balances that shitlord side of himself with his moments of vulnerability in a super endearing way. Honorable mention to Daruizen because I'm me.

Best Couple

3. Iroha/Nanami (Magia Record)

2. Hanako/Nene (Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun)

1. Mira/Ao (Asteroid in Love)

the award for Best Couple goes tooo....Mira/Ao! This sweet pair not only have devoted their lives to their shared dream, but they've also moved in together, spent long nights stargazing, and chased each other across the country! Honorable mentions to Iroha/Yachiyo and Hanako/Nene

Best OP: Easy Breezy by Chelmico (Eizouken)

This OP is just so much fun to watch, and the song is fun to listen to on its own!

Best ED: Aletheia by ClariS (Magia Record)

Best ED goes tooo....Aletheia by ClariS!  It's beautifully animated, and one of the few EDs I actually liked listening to all the way through the end. Plus, ClariS is always good!

Best Music: Magia Record

Best Music Award goes to Magia Record! Yuki Kajiura is ALWAYS a treat to listen to, as always.  And a secondary mention to Healin Good! The theme that plays during the main attack is really good and reminds me of You Say Run a little.

Best Animation: Magia Record

Best Animation also goes to Magia Record! Madoka properties really know how to meld unique styles of animation, and to get the most out of every frame. A special shoutout to the design of Hanako-kun and the creativity of Eizouken, though!

Best Overall:

And finally, for Best Overall...I actually have to give it a tie;;;; Eizouken + Magia Record were both incredible , for extremely different reasons - but their combined unique animation styles, attention to aesthetic/theme, and overall stellar performance were a joy this season!

And that’s enough of me talking! Looking forward to Spring 2020′s season, lot of good stuff coming up!  Did anyone watch anything this season that I didn’t talk about that you highly recommend?

[els-writes]

Some unrequested, unoriginal, and possibly unpopular Kingdom Hearts 3 thoughts - putting them here because I need to vent, sorry if this isn’t the content you’re looking for from me! XD

After sitting on this game for nearly two months now, I think I’ve finally sorted my feelings into intelligible thoughts. So here we go.

Sorry again this is so long and not my usual post, but I needed to vent, and I’m kinda interested to see what other people think! I know the DLC is hinted to expand on the endgame, but that feels like a cheap way of fixing the criticism.

I love Kingdom Hearts. Like love it. I’ve been playing these games for years - I got a PSP purely so I could play Birth By Sleep. I gave UnionX a shot back when it was Unchained, and I even forced myself to watch through all of DDD, even though that game ignites a kind of hatred I didn’t even know I was capable of feeling.

Kingdom Hearts 3 was great. I enjoyed playing it. It was so much fun, and I’ve never wanted to complete a game more. But it wasn’t the game I hoped for. Perhaps I expected too much, or perhaps the game devs built too many plots and overestimated how easily they could put into a single game and tie it all together with a neat bow, but it wasn’t the game I waited years for.

To clear up my thoughts before I get to my main point: 

Gameplay: great. 

Combat: great, if a little easy, but it was fun as hell. 

Pixar levels: holy shit amazing. 

Graphics: so beautiful no game plays the same. 

Music: still got the OST on repeat.

Gummi ships: burn in hell. 

Tangled world: kind dull but pretty. 

Frozen world: why the fuck are they singing. 

Pirates world: I have no idea what’s happening, if I wanted to play Assassins Creed black flag I would have.

But even the negative aspects weren’t bad enough to make me dislike the game (even if I cried in anger at one point during Pirates and I had to leave the room during the songs...)

There were two key problems that kind of ruined the game for me, in a way. 

The pacing, and the treatment of the characters. 

And that’s not a new opinion on the internet from what I’ve seen, but if the pacing had been fixed, if they hadn’t tried to summarise ALL the tiny plots together, if they hadn’t tried to rush through bringing everyone back at once, I think it would have been everything I wanted. Hell, I would rather they had split it into more games! Yeah, I said it! Give me more, fleshed out, singular plot driven spectacular games like BBS and we would’ve been great. They didn’t need to set up the black box plot here. Maybe teased at it, but not had it so thrown in everywhere, only to go no where. Waste of time, and waste of our old villains. Most of the bad guys didn’t really serve a purpose in the Disney worlds - honestly, most of the Disney worlds felt like they only served to level grinding to me - they had no real impact on the overall plot. Disney worlds are always a little thrown in, granted, but no game has had them serve no real purpose whatsoever to the main plot. 

Hard core KH fans have followed these characters through a ridiculous number of titles for this series. These characters are amazing and loved and so incredible. All I wanted was for there to be some decent emotional pay off for them. And honestly? I think they did most of them a massive disservice. 

To start with: I didn’t necessarily want everyone to come back. Some characters (like Roxas, Xion, and Namine) had returned to their ‘whole selves’, and as much as I loved them, I could understand. I was happy that Sora’s story was focused on bringing Roxas back, it felt sweet, like a very in-character thing to do, and I was looking forward to seeing how they would do it. But most of the time, they didn’t have Sora do anything to move towards that goal? He just ran around Disney worlds, and sometimes mentioned Roxas in the cutscenes inbetween? 

The plot barely moved for 30+ hours of my gameplay through the Disney worlds as I tried to complete each one before moving on. As we reached the Keyblade Graveyard, I was excited that things were starting to move forward, thinking it was mid-game. Nope. It was the start of a 2 hour mad dash to the finish line. It was messy, it was rushed, it left me feeling completely unsatisfied and unable to savour the return of most of my favourite characters. 

The scene with Lea/Axel commenting on how confusing everything was was funny, but it felt like the devs making an excuse to not spend time making the most of Ventus and Aqua’s return. I could kind of forgive them for that, since they were in a rush to save the others, and they did try to give the pair a little bit of time. But Terra? Roxas? Xion? NAMINE? They appeared last minute - some of them, Xion and Roxas especially, not even making sense when you think about plot holes. When they did appear, we didn’t get the emotional payoff and reunion of our trios and old friends that I was waiting for, we got quick comments and ‘ironing out plot points’ off screen? Even Roxas and Ventus meeting was completely anticlimactic (yes, I know they were in the middle of a fight, and they probably didn’t have time, but they’re literally twins, a bit more than just a confused glance and then forgetting it was surely needed). 

So overall: 

Roxas: my favourite, appeared without real explanation, barely got time with Axel. And then we still played Sora to fight? When really, Roxas deserved that fight.

Xion: how did she come back? She was in Sora again? Like... explain?

Terra: had to rewatch a few times before I understood what it was all about, but his return was half decent once I understood it. Also Lingering Will? Hello? 

Namine: she doesn’t even speak (aside from in star form) and is just introduced in the ending? I might forgive this, as she wasn’t really needed, if they hadn’t rushed the reintroduction of EVERYONE. 

Seasalt Trio: a momentary hug, the only thing that made me cry in the game, that was cut short and then dealt with off screen. 

Wayfinder Trio: No where near enough emotional payoff. None. 

Kairi: Wow. Nomura must really hate her? 

So, yeah. That’s all I have for now. The more I type it, the more it annoys me to think about. I’m disappointed in how it all played out in the end. It was rushed, hurried through, gave no payoff, and didn’t make sense a lot of the time. 

The game was incredible. Truly. Wonderful game. But the story? As an end to the massive series that I’ve invested so much time into? It wasn’t enough. 

Also no to the ending. Just no. 

[paulisweeabootrash]

Retrospective Review: Rewatching Azumanga Daioh as an Adult

This may seem hard to believe if you are a younger reader or one who got into anime only recently, but there was once a time when recommendations spread by word of mouth, it was absolutely commonplace for anime seasons to last longer than 13 episodes, and the vocabulary of the anime fandom wasn’t nearly as full of internet-originated in-jokes.  A time when the internet-savvy congregated on forums dedicated to specific topics instead of social networking sites, and the imageboards that generate so much of the internet meme landscape were just starting to take off among lonely nerds as an obscure haven for perverts, racists, and assholes instead of the role they have today as… uh… well... a well-known haven for perverts, racists, and assholes.  A time when there was no such term as “weeaboo trash” because that Perry Bible Fellowship comic hadn’t been published yet, let alone used for that meaning.  It wasn’t some golden age, but it was different, and today I’m taking a self-indulgent trip back to the end of that period, when I was in high school in the mid-2000s.

Azumanga Daioh (2002).

1. Why is this show important to me?

My introduction to anime consisted mostly of Pokémon and Sailor Moon, and took off with scattered episodes of several other shows that aired on WB and Cartoon Network, which were generally driven by action and combat.  I can’t remember the circumstances or even who did it, but someone who owned, or perhaps pirated, a copy of Azumanga Daioh must have shown me a few episodes at some point.

Here was a show that had been on the leading edge of the moe trend a few years earlier, and although certainly available, such things were not yet common.  Moe has, of course, taken over a large chunk of anime since, to mixed reception since it can range from innocently delightful to extraordinarily creepy.  Azumanga is close to the innocent end of the spectrum, and absolutely delightful (as, BTW, is the author’s current ongoing manga series Yotsuba&!), with a softer, cuter art style than I was accustomed to and instantly-lovable characters.

It was clearly in a different genre and had a different sensibility about how to make a show, too.  It had few repeated or filler elements, unlike any of the shows following the “monster of the week” formula.  It was broken up into several vignettes per episode — a practice that I was familiar with from the format of many Nicktoons, but while American shows with that format told multiple self-contained stories, the short segments here were typically parts of larger episode-long stories, often focusing on different parts of the same event or different anecdotes about the same character.  It showed us, the foreign audience, something about life in Japan, and at least for me was the first time I’d heard of distinctly Japanese school practices like applications for public high schools, students cleaning classrooms, or the particular kinds of seasonal festivals they have.  It lacked story arcs driven by overcoming some enemy and instead was driven by character relationships themselves and the instantly-relatable experience of school.  It was an encounter with something utterly different — and it made an excellent first impression.

Eventually, I bought a copy of the complete series of the manga it’s based on.  Azumanga Daioh was originally, well, a manga, written by Azuma Kiyohiko and originally published in the form of a 4-panel comic strip that ran in the magazine Dengeki Daioh.  See, it’s Azuma’s manga in Dengeki Daioh.  Azuma manga, Dengeki Daioh.  Azumanga Daioh.  Ha.  Clever.  Anyway, in there, I encountered largely the same characters and interactions, a mix of believable school life and quick gags, just presented in a different format.  I eventually got the DVD box set of the show, too, and I’ve rewatched a few favorite episodes several times, but this review is the first time I’ve revisited the whole series in years.

2. Who are all these people?

Rather than focusing on a small core friend group like Three Leaves, Three Colors, another much more recent adorable high school slice-of-life I greatly enjoy (and should maybe review?), Azumanga has a pretty large ensemble.  Most of them are students and the “story arc” such as it is follows them through three years, from entering to graduating from high school, over a single 26-episode season.  So rather than cover a plot synopsis, I think it would make more sense to dive into specific characters and their relationships.  The show its at its funniest and sweetest with the dynamics of certain combinations of the main characters, and there are a lot of combinations available.  Covering all of the recurring named characters approximately in the order we meet them (except a few characters who show up only in an episode or two each and another classmate named Chihiro who shows up on the periphery as a friend of Kaorin), let’s look at the relationships that stand out:

Yukari and Nyamo: Yukari Tanizaki, the English teacher who is the homeroom teacher to most of the cast, is unprofessional and insensitive from the first moment we see her, traits which are elaborated in later episodes into a sort of impulsive over-the-top-ness that clashes with the fact that she actually is a pretty good teacher.  Emphasizing her less-serious attitude, students even refer to or address her by her given name (although the subtitles exaggerate this a bit by consistently calling her “Miss Yukari” when she’s usually just addressed as “teacher”).  Minamo Kurasawa, the gym teacher, is a long-time friend of Yukari.  She and Yukari (who calls her “Nyamo”) were even classmates at the same high school they currently teach at.  In addition to being central to the gym class/sports-related episodes, she’s also Yukari’s more caring, approachable, and professional foil, which sets up interactions where Nyamo tries to be helpful and manage situations in the face of Yukari being antagonistic (and, outside of school hours, drunk) towards her and the students.  Yukari in particular prods at Nyamo’s sore spots: being single and having done embarrassing things in high school.

Tomo and Yomi: Tomo Takino is 100% genki girl.  I mean, come on, she’s the illustration for the TV Tropes article by that name.  She’s not only enthusiastic, but loud, intrusive, and pointlessly competitive to the point of being just plain mean.  She’s the kind of person who might mature into a less competent Yukari if she burnt out a bit.  Koyomi Mizuhara, on the other hand, is much more serious and self-conscious, and although she still genuinely is Tomo’s friend and goes along with some of her silliness, she barely puts up with Tomo’s teasing and flurry of bad ideas.  She is the Nyamo to Tomo’s Yukari, complete with Tomo enforcing a nickname on her, so she’s almost always called “Yomi” throughout.  Yomi is much more considerate than Tomo, too.  This often comes out in Yomi scolding Tomo’s insensitivity, but it’s also seen less directly when they are giving Chiyo (more on her below) birthday presents — Tomo offers first a joke that doesn’t go over well, then a magic wand she apparently expects Chiyo to believe will make her grow taller, which Chiyo dismisses, while Yomi offers a book which Chiyo enthusiastically accepts and says she expects to enjoy.

Osaka, Tomo, and Kagura: Ayumu Kasuga is a distractible and soft-spoken transfer student from Osaka whom Yukari, Tomo, and Yomi pester with misinformed questions and assumptions about her home city.  Tomo, naturally, saddles her with the nickname “Osaka” as if that is her entire identity.  The nickname quickly catches on, with even Yukari calling her that instead of her actual name in class.  She is accepted as a friend by the other students who still consider her eccentric and baffling, but not annoying or embarrassing like you might expect.  (In fact, the other girls react more and more to Tomo as the annoying and embarrassing one.)  During the second year of school,  she bonds with Tomo and Kagura (introduced as a star athlete from Nyamo’s homeroom during the first year, she becomes a major character in the second year) over their similar incredible forgetfulness and poor academics.  Yomi calls them “bonkura”, translated as “knuckleheads”, and the three of them adopt the name for themselves as they study together — an idea which is doomed from the outset.  The three of them together, or any two of them, play off each other wonderfully.

Chiyo and Osaka: Chiyo Mihama, a child prodigy who is only 10 years old at the beginning of the series, is so academically gifted it can upset and embarrass her classmates, but on the other hand is naive, and not just because she’s a child.  She is in fact clueless about the outside world.  She fails in the first summer break trip (ep. 5) to understand that the other characters’ families are nowhere near as rich as hers, and in the second summer break (ep. 14), even after a year and a half of being around high schoolers, she entirely fails to understand Nyamo’s off-screen explanation of “adult relationships” (kids innocently being oblivious to what sex is seems to be a common basis for jokes in Japanese media).  Chiyo being five years younger than her classmates — and on the other side of puberty from them — also makes her lag far behind them in athletics.  On the one hand, this makes her very self-conscious and afraid of being a burden on her classmates in team activities, and on the other, it sets up a running gag of Chiyo and Osaka teaming up to be by far the worst pair of athletes across the board.  Oh, and Osaka’s dream about Chiyo’s pigtails in the New Year’s episode is one of the weirdest and most authentically dreamlike dream sequences I’ve ever seen.  Although maybe that just says more about my own dreams than about the show.

Sakaki and Nobody (or, Multiple Kinds of Unrequited Feelings): Sakaki is considered effortlessly cool and somewhat intimidating — Kagura calls her a “silent lone wolf” — but she’s not big on that reputation.  Students openly admire her, especially for her athletic talent, and treat her with distance and respect by almost universally calling her “Miss Sakaki” (since this is apparently her family name, not given name).  She does not enjoy this treatment, but is also too private (and perhaps too insecure) to complain about or discuss it.  She is indifferent to sports despite excelling at them, and doesn’t even recognize Kagura when she proclaims herself Sakaki’s rival, presumably because the first-year sports festival just didn’t stick out in her memory the way it did in Kagura’s.  Despite calling it rivalry, however, Kagura quickly inserts herself into Sakaki’s life in a friendship that Sakaki responds to more with quiet tolerance than reciprocation.

Kaorin, meanwhile, mistakes Kagura’s one-sided friendly rivalry for a very different kind of attention, and accordingly treats her one-sidedly as a romantic rival (although she does eventually calm down about it).  Kaori (family name not mentioned), usually addressed by the more affectionate “Kaorin”, is shown at first to ambiguously admire Sakaki, but it quickly becomes clear that she is infatuated with her.  And, despite the insistence of many fanfic writers since, Sakaki never catches on to this, even with Kaorin gazing dreamily at her while dancing with her, or clinging to her arm while posing for a picture together.  I'm sure, given how over-the-top she is, that Kaorin’s unrequited feelings are supposed to be funny, but I find it sweet and sad and end up rooting for her.

Sakaki and Cute Animals: Sakaki is not unfriendly, or even very socially inept, though.  She gets along well with the main cast, especially Chiyo.  But she is aloof, not just because of shyness but because she has a secret love of all things cute, especially cats and dogs, and gets caught up in her own thoughts about cute things.  Although she loves animals, they don’t necessarily love her back.  There is a series-spanning running gag with a cat in the neighborhood whom she repeatedly tries to pet, no matter how many times it bites her for doing so.  In fact, in that very same episode where Kagura declares her rivalry, the strongest emotional reactions we see from Sakaki are horror directed at Kagura for scaring that cat away and, later, being moved to tears by a story she’s constructing in her head about another cat while Kagura is trying to talk to her.  Sakaki’s thoughts on cute animals also yield a second running gag: "Chiyo's dad".  An orange cat-like doll (evidently some kind of character or mascot in-universe?) that appears numerous times in the background early in the show appears in Sakaki’s New Year’s dream and introduces himself to her as Chiyo’s father, so Sakaki refers to the doll as “Chiyo’s dad” for the rest of the series without explanation, much to the confusion of the other characters.  While he’s an inanimate object in the background before the dream, afterwards he appears as alive and magical, sometimes in Sakaki’s imagination and sometimes intruding into the real world as short transition clips between scenes.

Kimura vs. Everyone (mostly Kaorin): Last and certainly least, let’s consider Mr. Kimura, the literature teacher.  Within a minute of the first time we the audience see him, Tomo asks him why he became a teacher and he blurts out that it’s because he likes high school girls.  Which a group of creepy boys in the class call “brave”.  Ugh.  This presages chronic inappropriateness of varying levels from Kimura — from unsolicited suggestions for cheerleading uniforms to hanging out during gym class to watch the girls swim to heaping unwanted “favors” on Kaorin, to whom he is obviously attracted.  Beyond the increasing variety of his inappropriateness, he doesn’t really develop as a character.  He is, interestingly, shown as an otherwise decent person outside of school, but this is not portrayed as excusing him.  Rather, it’s made clear that his creepiness is contextual, and his role throughout the series is consistently as a grotesque comic relief, not a sympathetic character.  Kaorin even consciously tries to improve her opinion of Kimura because his wife is so nice, leading her to believe that this means Kimura himself must have good points to deserve someone like that, only to be immediately shown otherwise.  We the audience are laughing at him, not with him, and at some points are genuinely upset at him on the girls’ behalf.  Or at least, I hope that’s how the rest of the audience takes him.

3. Yeah, but there's some kind of progression, right, even if it's not really a story arc?

Again, it's not the kind of show that has an overarching goal or conflict.  The goal, such as it is, is the characters' graduation from high school.  The topic of what they'll each do after graduating comes up several times, as you might expect, but isn't that much of a plot point.  Not all of the main characters even have clear plans laid out that we know of, but the plans we do know about match their established personalities well.  Tomo changes her mind repeatedly between several half-baked ideas.  Osaka decides at the last minute to try to become a teacher based on Chiyo straining to think of something fitting Osaka's... unique way of looking at things.  Chiyo is perhaps overconfident, planning to study abroad in America despite being only 13 when she graduates.  Sakaki anonymously showed interest in veterinary school early on, but didn't discuss it with her friends until much later, after she started showing her weakness for cuteness in front of them.

The main progression that happens is some evolution in the characters' relationships and attitudes.  There is of course the progression from strangers to friends among the main cast, but also some character development growing out of things that started as gags.  Osaka, for example, begins as the butt monkey of the class, but by the end of the first year, she is very well accepted by her classmates, and she even gets along particularly well with Tomo, who was originally shown teasing and stereotyping her the most but has now toned it down a bit.  Nyamo’s miserable singlehood, previously a running joke, leads her to open up to the idea of trying matchmaking instead of dating.  Sakaki becomes more willing to express her love of cute animals in front of the other girls, starting with Chiyo, and her running gag experiences with the hostile cat play out to a resolution when she adopts, of all things, an endangered wildcat which is the only cat that doesn’t bite her, then has a final encounter with the hostile cat where she tries to make amends.  Chiyo's academic talents were met with light irritation and mockery at first, but by the end, her new friends are grateful for her help and rise in applause when she is recognized for her grades during the graduation ceremony.  Kagura relaxes her Tomo-like tendencies more and more, and shows a degree of gratitude and sentimentality towards her new friend group that would’ve been shocking when she was first introduced.  Even Tomo, usually the show's last bastion of immaturity, shows tiny bits of improvement: self-reflection and regret during a serious conversation with Yomi over what American audiences would call "finding your passion", and later leading the applause for Chiyo.  To compare Azumanga to Three Leaves, Three Colors again, it’s true that this show doesn't go into as much depth in character relationships as that one despite running for more than twice the number of episodes, but I don’t think that’s a flaw in Azumanga so much as a combination of Azumanga’s larger main cast, gag comedy focus, and choice of a different “zoom level” on the main cast’s lives.

The show itself evolves a little bit, too.  As it goes on, more episodes have segments that flow together and they contain more references to events in previous episodes.  By the last few episodes, with graduation looming, it almost feels like it has become a conventional plot-driven show.  The shift from shorter to longer segments, shorter to longer jokes, etc., is seamless — and pretty typical of comic strips where perhaps the author hasn’t “figured out” their own characters at the beginning.  Surreal elements also get more common, like the “Chiyo’s dad” running gag and increasingly-elaborate looks into what characters are imagining.  As I recall, these changes reflect the stylistic evolution of the original manga, but... uh... my copy of the manga is with my parents at the moment so I didn’t check myself on that.

4. How is it different in retrospect?

As I said, I first saw this in high school, so I was about the age of the main cast.  Perhaps this was one of the things that made it so enjoyable.  The characters seemed relatable, and I lacked the aversion to depictions of ordinary life that some people had because I didn’t have a particularly negative high school experience despite being decidedly uncool.  (I was, in fact, neither interested in being cool nor in being self-consciously uncool, and was content with the set of people I got along with.  I was never really an angsty teenager so much as a sad one.)  My experience of the show is, if anything, even greater appreciation now.  Some of that difference comes from knowledge and some from aging.

I’ve become a bit less of a poser and/or snob about some things since then.  I’d seen a lot of obviously-atrocious dubs growing up, and they really put me off the idea that anyone actually cared about dubbing into English well.  Since then, I’ve lightened up a bit, partly because it seems like nowadays distributors do a lot less 4Kids-style butchery of shows when they’re translated and partly because I’ve realized that there is plenty of bad Japanese voice acting, too, so sometimes the English version is just plain easier on the ears.  So I’ve watched this mostly in the English dub this time around (some episodes in both to check the different versions of specific jokes) and I really enjoy it.  The voices are character-appropriate and the English lines fit the lip movements better than the original Japanese voice track while only rarely resulting in rhythms and stresses that sound unnatural in English, which really impresses me.

Just from the sort of vocabulary one picks up by being weeaboo trash, I occasionally notice differences in meaning between the dialogue and subtitles when watching the sub version.  And I even picked up on an interesting translation choice for a joke I hadn’t noticed before.  When Yomi tells Osaka that Chiyo is a child prodigy in ep. 2, Osaka responds comparing Chiyo to a boy she knew growing up, resulting in her expressing a different misunderstanding in each version about how the boy was described by adults.  In the English dub, Osaka says something about him “smarting off”, the joke being she thinks that means he’s smart.  In the English subtitles, she says he was “precocious”, to which Yomi says she doesn’t think that meant he was smart by calling him that.  This time around, I finally caught that the Japanese dialogue there clearly uses the phrase “otoko no ko”, insinuating that the boy is a crossdresser and/or gay.  Even though I don’t understand the full Japanese joke, the implication is clearer than it was in English (because I, um, also didn’t think of the double entendre on the word “precocious” until now), as is the degree of the misunderstanding.

I appreciate now how many scenes are psychologically-savvy.  Just in the episode in which the main cast of students move up to their second year of high school, we see two scenes that just click with me as “yes, people do this, and I don’t know why we don’t seem to notice it!”.  I mentioned above Kagura wanting to compete more because of the sports festival while Sakaki thinks nothing of it at all, which hinges on the simple difference in the sports festival having been a memorable event in Kagura’s life but not Sakaki’s.  That episode also features a scene in which Tomo eggs on her classmates to eat their lunches early because it’s a thing that (according to her) second-years do, which sets up Mr. Kimura to arrive the room for literature class, see everyone eating, and therefore assume he must be the one who has the time wrong and go back to the faculty lounge for his own lunch.  This tendency to defer to others in decisions in our own lives, not through peer pressure per se but through assuming that something done commonly or confidently must be correct, is just something I don’t see portrayed or acknowledged much in Japanese or American media.  And I love it.  For those two scenes alone, this is one of my favorite episodes in the whole series.

As far as the characters, I still find the students charming and relatable, and I’m willing to bet that everyone knows someone like most of them in real life.  They fit Japanese character archetypes to a certain extent, but are also developed enough especially in their interactions with each other that they come off as realistic to me.  So they hold up well.  But mainly, I find I have much more appreciation for the teacher characters as an adult.  I can think of times when I’ve been the Yukari in a situation, whether that means being overbearing and inconsiderate when I think I’m being funny or whether it means or digging through a messy desk swearing that I know exactly where something is before creating a landslide.  And I can think of times when I’ve been the Nyamo accidentally antagonizing the Yukari by trying to be helpful.  I even appreciate Kimura, not because I think he’s relatable or a good guy, but because he’s distressingly realistic.  His creepiness comes at the same time as genuine competence and, as far as we are aware, a normal and functional home life.  It is widely-acknowledged yet never stopped by the administration, even though it ranges from unprofessional obnoxiousness to genuinely alarming sexual harassment.  Kimura is unfortunately plausible and all-around frustratingly topical.

Revisiting these characters, I’ve also realized something about myself.  When I first watched this show (and read the manga), I got a serious crush on Osaka.  She would go solidly in the “endearingly pathetic” column if I were to evaluate her that way, and she also reminded me at the time of a few different confidently strange and spacy people I went to high school with.  And then, getting older, I realized…  She’s endlessly distractible by trivial things.  She asks weird hypotheticals and follows odd tangents to other topics.  She often misunderstands people.  She’s hopelessly unathletic and clumsy.  Oh no.  I'm the Osaka of my circle of friends.  So, uh, that’s a thing that happened, and I have no idea what to make of it.

Azumanga is relaxed, wholesome, and hilarious, and its characters and major events are believable even when highly stylized for comedic effect.  When it's not in hyper-simple comedy mode, the art can be downright beautiful.  It’s clearly an artifact of its time given, for example, the lack of cell phones (even basic ones) and persistence of film cameras, but that kind of aging happens to any show.  The situations are still relatable despite not being topical, which makes me think — or at least hope — that this can last well into the future as something new audiences find worth watching.

—–

W/A/S Scores: 8 / 3? / 3

Weeb: There are lots of little things that will seem odd if you go in believing that Japanese school schedules and activities are the same as American ones, but anime is so saturated with high school comedies nowadays that it is much less weeb now than it was then to expect that background knowledge.  Many non-school things like flower-gazing or the fact that seasonal fairs in Japan have different activities and expected clothing than in American ones will seem distinctly foreign but understandable to a naive audience, while a few episodes might need some looking up to “get” because they expect audience familiarity with things still obscure to most Western audiences, like lucky dreams in the New Year’s episode or the yōkai in the second culture festival episode.  Mostly, familiarity with the conventions of other anime or of Japanese culture will enhance enjoyment but aren’t strictly required to enjoy it.  The art style sometimes shifts for specific gags to a particular style of minimal-movement chibi characters on very simple backgrounds which is more at home in the 4-panel comic world in which Azumanga originated (and in pre-moe-era comedy anime, or at least the few I've seen) than in other manga formats or newer anime, creating an additional small hurdle even for those with different Japanese media exposure.

The show runs into more of a barrier with hard-to-translate jokes than anything else, leaving the viewer the choice between replacement jokes with similar general ideas in the dub vs. the occasional feeling that there should be a joke but you’re not quite getting it in the sub.  One particular joke that they made no attempt to adapt ended up being utter nonsense in both the sub and dub unless you get that "Mr. Yukichi" refers to 19th Century Westernization advocate Fukuzawa Yukichi, who is on the ¥10,000 bill, and I gave the show an entire extra point on the Weeb scale just because I had to look that up.

Ass: Unless you’re Mr. Kimura, probably no “ass” score at all as far as sexualizing the characters, but there is the occasional sexual joke or implication.  Even the obligatory beach episodes aren’t fanservicey in the way or to the degree that a contemporary moe high school show often is.  Probably the single most sexual-looking thing is characters holding their skirts down in the intro, which is tame by comparison to anything released in the last decade.  Kimura, however, does make the show unsuitable for audiences… well… younger than the show’s main cast, probably.

Shit (writing): I have very little problem with the bulk of the content.  I think the show works and the characters are relatable and delightful.  But I do have some gripes about translation, mostly in the dub.  Although I still maintain the dub is unusually good in acting and synchronization, they do take more liberties than I’d like with changing jokes, and the dub and sub both lose some subtlety in how characters address each other, as mentioned before.

On top of that, there are some odd localization choices in the dub.  For example, the way Yukari, their English teacher in the original Japanese, is not portrayed as teaching a foreign language at all in the dub, while still making a big deal of her foreign language skills outside of class, or how characters repeatedly say “taiyaki pastry” in the dub instead of just establishing once for the English-speaking audience that taiyaki is the name of a specific style of pastry and using the name “taiyaki” from then on.  Also, I know this is very small and specific, but I noticed a place in ep. 17 where they inserted a strained pun in the dub where there was intentional awkward silence in the sub, so that’s just… weird.

Shit (other): The animation is often sparse, and although this is usually fine, it does sometimes come off as cheap.  The biggest problem visually is that the DVDs I’m watching have noticeable and pretty frequent combing, which I was able to reduce but not eliminate by fiddling with video player settings.  On the other hand, kudos to the director for hitting a sweet spot on shots that are lingered on or actions that are repeated for “too long” (e.g., Nyamo demonstrating chopstick use, or any of the scenes of Chiyo and Osaka failing at sports, or Osaka trying to wake up Yukari) because they end up hilarious when they could have been tedious.

Oh, and I love the soundtrack.  Some people may also find the frequent use of recorders annoying, but those people are (1) wrong and (2) not writing this blog.  The soundtrack is appropriately lighthearted and/or relaxing.  The opening theme “Soramimi Cake” is catchy and accompanied by an opening credits sequence that decently shows who the main characters are.  But “Raspberry Heaven”, the ending theme… ah… the sequence accompanying it is a beautiful dream and the music is movingly bittersweet for reasons I lack the music theory background to articulate.  Like, this is a really weird example, but it conveys my feelings: have you seen Soylent Green?  You know the scene where Sol is listening to a medley of classical music while he’s being euthanized?  If the last thing I ever heard were “Raspberry Heaven”, I would die totally content.

Content Warning: Kimura.

—–

Stray observations:

- I think Kaorin may have been the first unambiguously gay character I saw in any anime.  Sailor Moon or Cardcaptor Sakura would’ve beaten Azumanga to the punch with representation, but I grew up on the butchered-for-pearl-clutching-audiences versions of those shows.

- Kimura has, incidentally, produced one piece of lasting weeb culture.  While trying to save his illustration for a proposed magical girl cheerleading outfit, he drops a picture of a woman.  Tomo picks it up and wonders out loud who it is.  Kimura responds, in heavily-accented English, “my waifu”.  So… yup.  We have him to thank for the whole waifu/hasubando phenomenon.  Or, well, the terminology, since attraction to fictional characters is probably a phenomenon as old as fiction itself.

- More of a fun fact than a stray observation, Kuricorder Orchestra, who collaborated with Oranges & Lemons on the Azumanga soundtrack, recorded two Yotsuba-inspired concept albums, which are also adorable.  They’re hard to come by in official copies, but I can’t help but notice that nobody seems to be stopping anyone from uploading them to YouTube...

- The background music in the cheerleading scene in ep. 6 is the “Grandpa Polka”, a.k.a. “The Clarinet Polka”, which fans of various other weird geeky media may recognize as the melody for the Candy Mountain song in “Charlie the Unicorn” and/or as the song between “Love Shack” and “Pump Up the Jam” in Weird Al’s medley “Polka Your Eyes Out”.

- My junior high, oddly, did have sports festivals somewhat like those depicted in anime, but I don’t hear much about other American schools doing similar things.

[onimiman]

Halloween 2018 Film Retrospective (no major spoilers ahead)

Throughout the entirety of the month of October 2018, I had watched a movie everyday that was, in at least some tangential way, related to Halloween. I can't really call all of them horror films (and to find out why, please see below), although I will say that many of them were unfortunately films that ranged from mediocre to downright unwatchable; had I not been forcing myself to watch these movies for the month, I would have given up ten minutes or so in. And I know I'm a bit late to the party since I'm only posting this on November 3rd, but fuck it, here's the list anyway. So without further ado, let's begin this retrospective with not the first film I watched this October, but the last film I watched for September, which I will call Film #0.

#0: The Babysitter (2017)

The plot: A twelve-year-old boy still hangs out with his babysitter when his parents are away, and just as he is developing deeper feelings for her, he learns a dark secret about her and her friends. This prompts him to undergo a night of survival that forces him to grow up and move on from his own feelings of inadequacy.

My thoughts: This movie feels like it was somehow a holdover script from the 1990s; when the film brings up an element from 1996's hit movie Independence Day, a movie that no one gives a shit about anymore (see how its sequel, 2016's Independence Day: Resurgence, flopped hard at the box office), it serves as only one piece of evidence for that claim. However, I did find the movie to be quite fun nonetheless, even if not all of the jokes in this horror comedy quite landed the way they intended to, but to me, it did have a stable story structure and everything storywise paid off with what was established early on. It's an easy less than 90 minutes to kill on Netflix and I recommend it even if you're not a horror fan.

#1: Leatherface (2017)

The plot: In this prequel to Tobe Hooper's seminal 1974 horror classic The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, we see the birth of the cannibalistic Sawyer family's iconic member turn into this film's titular villain.

My thoughts: By all means, this was a stupid and unnecessary film that shouldn't have been made. But I went into this expecting to simply be entertained by the violence and gore that was to come about. And was I? Yes, I was, and admittedly, the film did make me feel stupid in misleading me as to who Leatherface was going to be, even though there was a piece of evidence in the movie that did make me think, “Naw, it couldn't be.” So, for that, I can't completely shit on this film. If you're not a fan of gore, you'll despise this movie, but for me, it's a guilty pleasure by far.

#2: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

The plot: In this remake of Tobe Hooper's seminal 1974 horror classic The Texas Chain Saw Massacre... pretty much the same shit from that film occurs in this one with only a few slight differences.

My thoughts: Having watched this not long after watching Leatherface, I knew that I was going to get something significantly more conventional, and boy did I get it. It's as boring and unmemorable as most other horror films from the 2000s are, and if I wasn't doing this retrospective, I would have forgotten this one altogether. And moreover, the kills in this are so much more disappointing than in Leatherface, with little to no gore here, so I can't even watch this from the POV of basic primal enjoyment. Skip this one whether you're a horror fan or not.

#3: Goosebumps (2015)

The plot: What starts off as a boy-meets-girl story turns into a spooktacular tale of adventure that involves stopping an army of monsters that come directly from the mind of children's horror author R.L. Stine.

My thoughts: This is a movie that I imagined that I would have enjoyed watching as a kid every now and then, especially during Halloween, but as it stands, it's a little too dull for me and it makes me question what kind of threat do any of these monsters pose to our characters if they never actually kill anyone. It's still fun, if even in a standard way, and Jack Black as R.L. Stine, while incredibly hokey in the role, is obviously having a lot of fun here, so for that, I guess I can recommend this one if you have kids. There's nothing in here that'll actually scare them (unless they're a young Justin Bieber type who'll have nightmares over fucking Scooby-Doo) so you won't have anything to worry about showing them this.

#4: Silent Hill (2006)

The plot: When a young woman takes her adopted daughter to a ghost town called Silent Hill to solve the mystery of the girl's nightmares, they are quickly separated from one another and plunged into a dark demented world with hints of a core secret that must be solved.

My thoughts: I heard about how bad this one was for years, but as I was watching it once the characters actually reached Silent Hill, I found myself enjoying it and finding it to be a legitimately scary movie. The problem? The payoff at the end. I don't know if this is the payoff in the game, but the solution somehow felt a little too mundane and I kind of eye-rolled at the film's jabs at religion (and I speak as someone who's not religious at all). Decent movie for the most part, but I can't really recommend it on account of where it all leads.

#5: Venom (2018)

The plot: When disgraced San Francisco journalist Eddie Brock sneaks into the lab owned by the business magnate who ruined his career, he is bonded to an alien parasite who gives him extraordinary abilities and the antihero persona of Venom. Together, Eddie and Venom must work together if they are to take down business magnate Carlton Drake and the symbiote that he bonded to, Riot, before they can unleash a symbiote invasion upon Earth.

My thoughts: Okay, I know this is kind of cheating because it's not really a horror film in a conventional sense, but since the movie deals with a man being bonded to something that can kill him from the inside if they are both not properly fed, I thought I'd include this movie in this retrospective. Now, with that being said, I found this movie to be pretty standard for a superhero film, and in the year that films like Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, and Deadpool 2 came out, Venom looks kind of subpar in comparison. However, as standard as the story and action scenes were, I still enjoyed it for what it was, and as cliched as it is to say this now, Tom Hardy as both Eddie and Venom have some magnificent chemistry that makes me want to see more of them in a sequel. I'd recommend it, but with this stipulation: Only if you're not too versed in superhero films.

#6: Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)

The plot: A pair of mysterious death leads a medical doctor and the daughter of one of the victims to investigate a conspiracy in a Halloween mask-producing factory that can have far-reaching consequences.

My thoughts: I regret seeing this movie for only one reason: That this wasn't the film I saw for October 31st, because this is, by far, the most Halloweeniest movie I have ever seen. Otherwise, I enjoyed this movie more than I did the original 1978 Halloween or any of its sequels or remakes (which I'll get to later in this retrospective). While not exactly having the best atmosphere, Halloween III: Season of the Witch is a very interesting movie that is draped in its titular holiday, with a unique premise to boot, that is kind of suspenseful, even if it doesn't have a real resolution. It's a film I wouldn't mind rewatching for next year, especially if it's a rainy day.

#7: Final Girl (2015)

The plot: A teenage girl is trained in rigorous self-defense techniques by a mysterious man for the purpose of combating those who seek to wrong others.

My thoughts: As trite as that premise may sound, it's still very interesting in execution, especially if one is familiar with horror movie tropes like the defenseless teenage girl who wins at the end despite all odds against her. It's decently acted and directed, it runs at just the right length, and if I have any complaints about it, I just wish we went into this movie with our killers believing that this was just going to be another of their victims so that we could be surprised at the turn of events. Other than that mil critique, it's a quaint, simple film that you could watch on Netflix on a rainy day like the previous movie above.

#8: ThanksKilling (2008)

The plot: A 500-year-old talking turkey is brought back to life via dog urine on his grave and intends to kill the nearest people nearby.

My thoughts: This movie was an abominable piece of shit that's as unbelievable in every way as the premise that I laid out above. I'm not even joking about the dog piss thing either; that's how the killer comes back. The filmmaking here is student-level amateurish, the acting in it is jaw-droppingly bad, and this film's attempts at trying to be humorous make me want to punch a cat. Never watch this movie ever.

#9: Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)

The plot: Ten years after his killing spree in 1978's Halloween and 1981's Halloween II, Michael Myers has returned (as the title would indicate). With his sister Laurie Strode having died in a car accident in between films, Michael's new target is his niece, Jamie Lloyd, and his titular return renews the carnage that his psychiatrist, Dr. Sam Loomis, must stop.

My thoughts: A fairly dull film that's only half as decent as the first two films and nowhere near as entertaining as the third. The acting on the parts of Donald Pleasance as Dr. Loomis and Danielle Harris's turn as Jamie Lloyd were the bright spots in this film, and the ending is famous for being one of the most shocking things in this series that is never followed up on. Unfortunately, I can't recommend anyone watch this, whether you're a normie or a Halloween fan, especially considering what follows...

#10: Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989)

The plot: Pretty much the same shit as the last movie only with more self-aware corniness this time around and a shittier Michael Myers mask.

My thoughts: Ditto from what the plot described. I feel bad for Pleasance and Harris here, they are way too good for this movie.

#11: Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)

The plot: Michael Myers finally kills his niece Jamie Lloyd, but now must go after her child as per instructions from the Cult of Thorn. But not if Dr. Loomis, Kara Strode, and Tommy Doyle have anything to say about it!

My thoughts: If you thought that how I delivered this plot wasn't exactly all that Halloweeny, believe me, this movie doesn't deserve to be treated with that kind of respect. I honestly don't want to say anything more about this movie except for these two things: what an awful last movie for Donald Pleasance to go out on before he died, and for a first movie, who woulda thought that Paul Rudd could be so damn boring?

#12: Halloween II (2009)

The plot: Director Rob Zombie takes one last shit on the Halloween franchise after his 2007 remake of the first movie debacle. Is it sad that this movie gets less of a respectful plot synopsis than the last three Halloween movies discussed on this list?

My thoughts: I saw Rob Zombie's 2007 Halloween remake in the theater, and it was one of the worst movies I'd seen on the big screen. I'm so glad I missed out on this one when this came out in theaters because holy fuck, this one makes Zombie's first Halloween look like a masterpiece in comparison. I could go on to explain why for those of you haven't seen these movies, but all I have to do is point you to Phelan Porteus's reviews of Rob Zombie's Halloween movies; he'll explain it all.

#13: A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

The plot: Deranged child murderer Fred Krueger returns from the dead in the form of a dream demon to kill the teenage offspring of the people who murdered him through those teenagers' dreams.

My thoughts: Finally, a legitimately good movie on this list that I don't have to dismiss as just mindless fun or even scary but with a bad payoff at the end like with Silent Hill. This movie is good even if you're not a horror fan; I whole-heartedly recommend this. And if nothing else, it's interesting to see how young Johnny Depp was, what with this being his first movie, and I could see just what the ladies saw in him back then.

#14: A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985)

The plot: Freddy's back! And this time, he intends to enter the real world through the form of a troubled teenage boy who may or may not have some repressed feelings about himself...

My thoughts: This movie is about as subtle in its homo-eroticism as a series of Michael Bay explosions (not that I'm against homo-eroticism, since I'm a bisexual myself, I just think that this movie was a little too on the nose with that kind of stuff). And while I did find this movie to be surface-level enjoyable for the creative kills, I can't help but think that this was kind of dull, especially in comparison to the first film and as we move forward with the other sequels. The worst part about this is that I find myself scratching my head as to why this is a Nightmare on Elm Street movie when, in spite of the use of dreams here, this doesn't really feel like the Freddy Krueger we know from the first movie nor does this hold up with the character we see in the subsequent sequels. I don't know how to explain it, but somehow, Freddy's characterization seems off in this one. In spite of this film's inclusion of homo-eroticism, something we seldom see in movies like this, I have no problem saying that you can skip this one.

#15: A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)

The plot: Nancy Thompson, the sole survivor of the first Nightmare on Elm Street, returns with Freddy Krueger this movie, and this time, she intends to help his intended victims fight back. In a sanitarium for suicidal teens with sleep disorders, Freddy intends to kill the last of the Elm Street children. But Nancy intends to utilize the help of one of the teens, Kristen Parker, who has the special ability to unite people into a single dream space and allow them to develop their own dream powers to counter Freddy.  But Freddy isn't as easy to defeat as one may think.

My thoughts: Honestly, this is as good of a sequel as the first Nightmare on Elm Street deserved, as it's a unique take that manages to continue the story of the first in a natural yet unorthodox way, not unlike what Aliens did with Alien. The horror of the first film may be toned down significantly here, but at least the story was interesting, the characters were fun to watch, and Freddy is so much fun here. I recommend it for how Inception-y this movie can get, even if this doesn't have the same level of intelligence as that movie did.

#16: A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988)

The plot: Despite his defeat at the end of the previous film, Freddy Krueger is resurrected and he finally accomplishes his goal of murdering the last of the Elm Street children, accomplishing his goal once and for all. However, Freddy isn't so satisfied; he wants more children and teens to kill, and he will get more, through Kristen Parker's friend, Alice Johnson, to whom Kristen gave her dream-sharing ability. So unless Alice can find a way to stop Freddy, the latter's fun could continue...

My thoughts: I think it's safe to say this is the point in the franchise when all the horror in Freddy Krueger is pretty much gone and replaced with fun schlocky Freddy. And you know what? I'm okay with that, because it's always great to see Robert Englund have fun in this role. And in spite of the writing not being as strong as it was in the first and third films, I still find myself caring about our characters like Alice, and I was genuinely saddened when the last of the Dream Warriors died. It's rare when I can actually feel that kind of sadness for dead meat characters like these. Fun watch, would recommend, but be prepared to look at Freddy in a different light. And stay around after the credits, as Freddy sings a hilarious rap that just made me smile.

#17: A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989)

The plot: Freddy just can't stay dead, for now he has a new dream master to kill people through: Alice Johnson's unborn child, who spends 70% of his life in a dream state in his mother's womb. So how can Alice defeat Freddy this time without having to sacrifice her dream child in the process?

My thoughts: “Faster than a bastard maniac! More powerful than a loco-madman! It's Super-Freddy!” If you don't know what that scene is, I urge you to look it up, as it's the best scene of the whole movie and it really capitalizes on just how much of a joke Freddy Krueger has become at this point in the series. However, unlike the bastardization of a character like Michael Myers in, say, one of Rob Zombie's Halloween movies, Freddy is still an enjoyable enough character where even one who despises the Nightmare sequels overall can still find little jewels like the aforementioned line. Give it a watch if only for just that one scene.

#18: Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)

The plot: Freddy Krueger has all but run out of kills in his hometown, and now he wants to expand nationally. But not if his daughter has anything to say about it!

My thoughts: This has become pure comedy at this point. But my God this is golden. When one of this movie's kills is an extended scene of a guy jumping around with cartoonish sound effects to boot while dreaming that he's in a video game being played by Freddy, you know that the filmmakers know what kind of movie they're making. And I enjoyed this as one of the most guilty pleasure films I'd ever seen. I do think that the film ended on a somewhat anticlimactic note, but alas, the film was an interesting end to Freddy's evolution as a character of horror to a character of dark comedy, and for that, I recommend this one.

#19: Halloween (2018)

The plot: Forty years after he terrorized Haddonfield, Michael Myers has once again escaped from Smith's Grove Hospital to return to where his reign of terror all started. But this time, the one who got away, Laurie Strode, is ready for him... but her daughter and granddaughter may not be.

My thoughts: Aside from Jamie Lee Curtis's fantastic performance in this film, I thought this was just a run-of-the-mill horror film that's competent enough and has its moments but is otherwise forgettable if you forget that this is a Halloween film. If you're a Halloween fan, I think you'll be satisfied; it's certainly better than the majority of its sequels (especially The Curse of Michael Myers and Resurrection) but that's all.

#20: Meet the Blacks (2016)

The plot: During the Purge, the Black family (yes, that's their last name, and yes, the film does make several racially inappropriate jokes about it) move into an upper class white neighborhood where they are confronted by their patriarch's past in the forms of those he's financially wronged in some way or another.

My thoughts: This is only the second worst movie I've seen for this retrospective (yes, ThanksKilling is number one). Aside from all the racist jokes going on here, this movie is just a failure of a comedy and as a spoof/satire of the Purge franchise. It doesn't say anything new or fresh or in any interesting ways, and in fact, some of the “comedy” here just doesn't make any sense (then again, I just might be missing out on a reference, as if that's supposed to justify bad comedy). This movie may have been less than 90 minutes, but my God, it felt like an eternity having to slog through this piece of shit. Do I honestly even need to say skip this one?

#21: The Rezort (2015)

The plot: Years after the cancellation of the zombie apocalypse, the remaining zombies have been rounded up to an island owned by a private company where people can come and pay as tourists to shoot zombies. But when a conscientious objector sabotages the island's systems, the zombies quickly take over and many people die. So a small group of tourist survivors must reach a rendezvous point at the end of the island if they are to escape not only the zombies but also a strafing bombardment meant to eliminate the zombie outbreak.

My thoughts: For a movie that was obviously conceptualized as Jurassic Park (or Jurassic World since this park is actually running) but with zombies instead of dinosaurs, this movie ain't half-bad. The characters are nothing to write home about, although there is a Dirty Harry-type I was routing for the entire movie, and the action and plot are pretty standard for a zombie flick. Still, it's a mildly fun time and I recommend you give it a go.

#22: Scream (1996)

The plot: A mysterious serial killer who is savvy in the ways of the slasher subgenre of horror is gradually killing off various people around high schooler Sidney Prescott. So who could it be?

My thoughts: Talk about a standard slasher flick elevated by the principle of being meta. I enjoyed it, yes, and with the way the film is constructed as a whodunit, it certainly manages to stand out as above average overall. I could see how this was revolutionary back in the 1990s, but now, with pretty much every single genre movie being self-aware in some way or another, I just kind of shrug my shoulders at it as an experience. I think it helps if you're familiar with the slasher subgenre if you're to watch this, but I think it's a good enough film to stand on its own to someone who hasn't seen a slasher flick their whole lives, if only for the story.

#23: Hush (2016)

The plot: A woman with an instinctive writer's mind who is both deaf and mute in a cabin in the woods is thrust into a deadly cat-and-mouse game with a deranged serial killer who wants to toy with her before he kills her.

My thoughts: This is a movie that squeezes every bit of tension and suspense it can in the eighty-something minutes it has, and it makes good use of that tension and suspense in conjunction with its expert pacing. At no point did I think anything was dragged out; everything here was just as long as it needed to be, and it was all resolved in a satisfactory (and quite bloody) way that left me feeling, “Yep, that was a good time.”

#24: The Bye Bye Man (2017)

The plot: There is a demonic entity known as the Bye Bye Man who will psychologically torture you before he kills you if you think or say his name. And he's doing that to three young adults who are all living together in a haunted house. Yeah...

My thoughts: A very forgettable, subpar horror film with an antagonist with an awful name and no memorable appearance. Skip.

#25: Scream 2 (1997)

The plot: One year after the Woodsboro killings, Sidney Prescott is once again haunted by the return of Ghostface as she is attending college this time around. But who could Ghostface be this time? And what meta-commentaries could this movie bring forth about the slasher genre and sequels both?

My thoughts: This is a film that feels like it was planned out from the beginning as a companion piece to the first film; by that, I mean that it feels like writer Kevin Williamson always intended to have this movie be made after Scream had come out. And considering that this movie was released only a year after its predecessor, I think that theory may be true (then again, I haven't done any research for this movie, so for all I know, Williamson and Wes Craven didn't even intend for there to be a sequel in the first place). Regardless, this feels like a natural progression of the first film and while not necessarily surpassing it in terms of quality, I feel like it lives up to the first Scream in a satisfactory way.

#26: Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993)

The plot: After years of killing horny teenage counselors at Camp Crystal Lake, Jason Voorhees is finally blown away into literal bits and pieces by the FBI. However, his spirit lives on as his essence is passed on from person to person until he can find a permanent new body through a living blood relative, and all the while, his killing spree resumes.

My thoughts: As a movie that was intended to be the finale to Jason Voorhees, this did have some silly moments in it like Freddy's Dead but not nearly as over-the-top. And it is a little disappointing to not have Jason in his prime form like he was in Friday the 13th Part VI to VIII and, again, it was a little bit more disappointing than Freddy's Dead (which is far more entertaining), especially since this movie retcons so much of Jason's mythology that it feels like no one who worked on this movie has ever seen a Jason movie. So, yeah, I can't recommend this one unless you're a Friday the 13th fan (and even then, I don't think you'll like it).      

#27: Terrifier (2016)

The plot: A mute man in a creepy clown costume stalks multiple victims in a condemned apartment complex with ruthless killing methods that make him worthy of the moniker Terrifier.

My thoughts: Holy shit, this movie was fucking creepy... and I fucking loved it. Of course, I can't recommend it to everyone, as this movie was also ridiculously over-the-top with its violence and gore. I don't want to give anything away, but as an example, there is a scene that involves our killer, Art the Clown, with a saw and a woman's who's upside down that's one of the most shocking things I've seen... and, again, I fucking loved it. It was an unnerving film that's worthy of having been watched for this month.

#28: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016)

The plot: Take Jane Austin's feminist classic Pride and Prejudice and then shoe-horn a half-baked zombie plot into it. Okay...

My thoughts: I'm not familiar with Pride and Prejudice, so I went into this completely blind. But with that being said, I still thought that this was one of the most pointless, unfunny and unexciting parodies I've seen. The action scenes aren't all that good and it makes me wonder why this was adapted to the big screen. And as for the parts that are actually in Pride and Prejudice (at least as far as I can guess), I thought they were competently done, but they're just not for me. I guess someone who really Pride and Prejudice might like it, but that's only if they have a taste for zombie violence, too. Otherwise, skip this one; it's just dull.

#29: Zombeavers (2014)

The plot: A container of radioactive waste falls from a truck and floats down a river to infect a number of beavers that are nearby a cabin where a bunch of horny teenagers are. And those beavers become zombie beavers, or zombeavers.

My thoughts: I thought I was going into a movie that was going to be on the same level of bad as ThanksKilling, but thankfully, while the comedy isn't anything to write home about, the acting is at least competent and I was amused by the events that were going on. It was interesting to see what would happen if a zombeaver infected a human, and there were decent amount of subverting of expectations as to who was going to die first and who would live (and not in a Rian Johnson way either). I could see this movie not working for everyone, but it's fun enough as a creature feature with a supernatural element to it.

#30: Event Horizon (1997)

The plot: In 2047, a spaceship dubbed the Event Horizon mysteriously reappears near the edge of Earth's solar system and a salvage team is sent to investigate what happened. But as they arrive, they find that the ship may be more than just a ship now...

My thoughts: As much as I'd love to see what this movie would have looked like had the filmmakers not toned back on the violence and gore, I was still satisfied by what we got here. Sam Neill delivers a deliciously evil performance once Dr. Weir goes to the dark side that it practically borders on Tim Curry territory, and I thought the movie was a good space horror film that was just original enough to be its own thing and not be a knockoff of, say, Alien. Give it a watch; the violence you do see here ain't that bad.

#31: Halloweed (2016)

The plot: A couple of stoners move to a small town so that one of them can get away from the reputation of being the son of a now-dead serial killer. But what these stoners don't know is that they've arrived just in time for a slew of killings to start as Halloween approaches.

My thoughts: I'm mentally kicking myself for having this be the movie I ended the month of October on. This was one of the lamest comedies I've ever seen in my life; I can't remember laughing at all in this bland turd. And it could hardly qualify as a slasher film since the slasher killings don't start until there's about 49 minutes left in the film, and even then, it's barely focused on for the rest of the movie until it's resolved at the end. Skip this and don't let it be anywhere on your viewing block for next Halloween.

And that's it. Those were all 31 of the films I'd seen for the month of Halloween, one for each day. It was quite a venture, but one worth the time if only for bragging rights if not for entertainment (especially since very few of these movies were any real good). So please leave a comment, let me know if you saw any of these movies, if not for this past Halloween, then if you have seen any of these at all, and if so, let me know if you agree or disagree. Until then, here's to better films next Halloween!

*This post has been paid for and sponsored by Silver Shamrock, Inc. When you want quality masks at affordable prices, and a guarantee that they won't unleash killer insects and snakes that will trigger a potential apocalypse, look no further for a Happy Happy Halloween, Silver Shamrock!

[kitten1618x]

Why as a Jonsa shipper I'm not threatened by Targcest and you shouldn't be either.

So last night in the wee hours of morn, my GoT soul sistah @everythingjonsa and I were fangirling and flailing -you know, the shipping norm. Somewhere between all that, we had some serious discussion. Some of it has been already been proposed, but with a possible Targbowl on the very near horizon, let's recap anyway.

Let me start by saying this isn't an anti-Dany post. I happen to LOVE The Mother of Dragons with the burning heat of a thousand suns! She started at rock bottom -literally as nothing more than chattel -a piece of property to be sold by her own brother for personal gain, to a man that started out as her rapist (because while I love Khal Drogo -facts are facts, my babies -and yes, rape can exist in a marriage). But before I delve too deep into that, let me rewind a bit.

This is going to be long and convoluted (because that's how me and my scattered thoughts roll), so if you've got the patience for my rambling, read on!

So, a lot of people have their own theories and interpretations of what the song of ice and fire is to them. From season one, we've seemed to have been following along the parallel journey of two heroes. Both underdogs (and who doesn't root for the underdogs???), both making mistakes and learning hard life lessons along the way, both whom never seem to be able to grasp onto any modicum of happiness for very long, and both losing their first loves tragically. Yet, we've watched them both grow stronger and more self-aware. Seems like TPTB (the powers that be) are purposely paralleling these two characters for a reason.

One of ice. One of fire.

They seem destined to meet up eventually - This "song" of ice and fire. And here's where this ship was born.

So before we fast forward, let's hit the rewind button a bit more, and head back to season 1 Dany, and her evolution from bullied baby sis, to "the next time you raise a hand at me will be the last time you have hands." Her time among the Dothraki have made her more confident, and the love she's sewn with Drogo has fledged her out into a full blown Khaleesi. And when Visereys meets his miserable end, it seems pretty damn justifiable. In fact, any time that one of Dany's foes meets a horrible end (especially in the earlier seasons) -it almost always does seem deserved, as they have usually revealed themselves to be miserable shits. Her brother, Mirri Maz Durr (the witch responsible for Drogo's death and who cursed Dany), the King of Qarth and Doreah (the whore), the Master of the Unsullied, etc. There may be some I'm leaving out, but you get the point.

It wasn't until later seasons that we see a cold cruelness begin to emerge from her -a sort of enjoyment in killing people -like the Master she had her Dragons burn alive in the crypts (and seemed to enjoy toying with the others watching while it happened), and the Khals in the temple. The Master she burned alive may have been innocent, but Dany didn't care, she played judge, jury and executioner right on the spot -just as when she had other Masters crucified (even ones who spoke out about crucifying children, as Hizdahr zo Loraq pointed out). The killing of the Khals I can place in a more ambiguous light, because they were kind of dicks, although they didn't start insulting/threatening her until she disrespected them and said they weren't fit to lead the Dothraki and that she would take them for herself.

But here's thing -if you were actually paying attention -go back to the beginning and rewatch ANY of the times someone has died at the hands of or indirectly by Dany, she has this crazed satisfied look on her face. It's almost as if she enjoys killing people. 

I'm not negating the good things she's done or tried to do. Her inherent need to abolish slavery isn't wrong -it's her methods of achieving it that I take issue with. And God forbid if you disagree with her methods? No one can argue that disagreeing with what the Dragon Queen perceives as wrong, usually puts you at the top of her flaming hit list. Sounds quite tyrannical, no?

Despite everything I've just said, I really do think that Dany constantly struggles to do the right thing -because she wants to be a good and just ruler, but it's that damn dragon temper that gets in her way sometimes. Luckily, she's always had level-headed advisers around her -Jorah, Ser Barristan and now Tyrion, and she does usually listen to them. But, what would've happened if they weren't around?

On the other hand, we have Ser Ice himself, the honorable Jon Snow, who lives by the same code as the man who raised him, Ned Stark. And without making this meta impossibly longer (because I could drone on about Jon's faults and wonderful qualities forever), two very stark (har dee har har, pun intended) differences I see between Dany and Jon are: while Jon has done plenty of his own killing in the series, he certainly doesn't enjoy it. Even when he was executing the men who had murdered him - you could see by the look on his face vs. hers (burning the Khals).

He who passed the sentence, swung the sword, but this was painful for him -and prior to cutting the rope, he even let Ser Alistair have his last words. Jon is just and fair. Jon doesn't want to be a leader, but he just keeps getting thrust into the position. Yes, he makes mistakes, but he does this whole leadership thing pretty well (aside from not listening to Sansa when he should). ;)

On the other hand .... we have Dany threatening to take back what’s hers with blood and fire. What makes it hers?

Baby girl ....you is the usurper, now!

So, the (hopelessly longwinded) point I'm actually trying to make is that I think they purposefully walked the line on this darker side of Dany, while always putting her in am ambiguous light because they WANTED us to root for her right alongside of Jon. They wanted us to think they were the song of ice and fire together, until ....They finally revealed to us that R+L=J

So if Jon's the son of Rhaegar Targaryen (fire) and Lyanna Stark (ice) then Jon, and Jon alone is the song.

Dany is only fire. So where does she fit in? Despite all my rambling, I'm not necessarily sure that Dany will be the villain here. I certainly think she'll be switching to an antagonist POV, though. Clearly, her and her Dragons have an important role to play in the war against the WW. I personally think she will have a huge part in saving Westeros at the cost of her own life.

Despite Jon having Targ blood, Jon is and always will be a STARK at heart. It's who he is at his core -honorable and just, exactly like Ned.

So that's what we came up with -maybe the huge twist is that Dany isn't the hero we've all been following along and rooting for since season 1. Or maybe she is -just not in the way a lot of people are expecting. GRRM certainly loved to blur the lines between good and bad. Maybe she's both?

So the point to all this? It's why I don't ship them. It's why whether or not boatbang or Targcest (or whatever any of you want to call it) actually proves to be true and happens --it doesn't threaten our ship in the slightest. So everyone take a collective chill and Jonsa on, mmmkay?

[rcrantz]

Reviewing Doctor Who: What Have We Learned, Class?

Now that I’ve watched every Doctor Who there is to watch, you may be surprised to learn that I have some opinions! So, since you’re all here, I suppose I may as well share.

The Classic Era. You know that old cliche about the one constant characteristic of Doctor Who being change? It’s absolutely correct. It started its life as a low-budget show about a grumpy old man with a very inaccurate time machine and became . . . a lot of different things over the years. But it started to feel like Doctor Who pretty early on in its run--much like the character of the Doctor, the themes and faces change, but there is a core idea that never quite goes away.

As such, it’s hard to give the classic era one defining trait--each Doctor is very different from most of the others--but I think it’s safe to say that characters are handled differently. In the classic era, character arcs are less of a thing. We seldom meet the friends and family of our companions, and there are very few character-driven stories. That’s not to say there aren’t excellent characters and excellent character dynamics, but the focus is generally elsewhere. (There are, of course, exceptions.)

The interesting thing is how casual this makes some of the companions’ departures. Modern Who won’t let a companion leave without giving them a whole climactic episode (and Moffat won’t let a companion leave without having them pretend to leave six times, then have them seem to leave forever only to come back and travel through space and time with some random interstellar badass); in contrast, many of the companion departures in classic Who are fairly abrupt. The Doctor ditches Susan so she can get married to the dude she was hanging out with; he leaves Sarah Jane Smith in the wrong city because humans aren’t allowed on Gallifrey and he’s been summoned; Nyssa decides that she’d rather stay and help plague victims than keep traveling; and so on. Sometimes they decide to leave, sometimes the Doctor leaves them behind, but the show seldom dwells.

On the one hand, if you don’t like a companion this is fantastic. Classic Who relies much less on continuity (due, I think, largely to the format): if a character is gone, chances are we won’t hear about them again. But it does mean that some interesting character dynamics aren’t fully explored.

All told, I had a lot of fun with the classic era, and I think a lot of it is worth revisiting. Due to the episodic nature it’s pretty easy to just drop in wherever; you’ll probably figure out what’s going on without too much trouble. (I think Romana is the only companion who benefits from a bit of explanation, and even then all you need to say is “Romana is also a Time Lord.”)

The Davies Era. When I started watching, of course, Davies was all there was. I think I picked it up right after the End of Time had aired, before Moffat’s era started. Davies loves his character drama (see also my “rose is sad” tag), and lingers a lot on the effect the Doctor has on the lives he touches--and on the lives of their family and friends. Though this sometimes goes spectacularly badly (see: Father’s Day), for the most part I appreciate it. The companions feel more real, and it adds a layer of complexity to the Doctor’s character and his relationship with his companions.

He also likes big explosive finales where the fate of the world/universe is in balance, and meta-arcs which aren’t so much story arcs as they are a series of references that make you go “ah-ha” when you finally hit the finale. I actually like that, for the most part: if the finale is bad, you don’t feel that the whole arc is ruined; if it’s good, it adds a little bit of extra satisfaction to the resolution.

Early on in Davies’ run, the Doctor was usually an unknown character. He later starts running into people he’s encountered before, and of course the Daleks have a personal vendetta, but only once (during a Moffat-penned episode) during the Davies era does the Doctor save the day by just saying “I’m the Doctor, look me up.”

The Davies era is still firmly in the classic style: the Doctor and his companions live on the TARDIS. In the modern era they now visit their homes with some regularity, but they’re still primarily travelers. On some level, even if they’re expecting to be able to go home again, they give up their lives to travel with the Doctor.

The Moffat Era. I was actually pretty stoked to hear Moffat was the new showrunner when time rolled around, because his episodes thus far had all been top-notch. And while doing this rewatch I did not dislike it nearly as much as I’d remembered. So why was it frustrating my first time through?

I think most of it is that Moffat likes to set up interesting mysteries without having a good resolution in mind. Sometimes he simply fails to resolve them, sometimes the resolution is a cheap cop-out, and sometimes it’s just unsatisfying. And the seasons are now woven into the meta-plot to some degree or other, making it harder to extricate.

Moffat’s meta-plots are more involved than Davies’ were, which also means they’re less subtle. They will regularly feature brief segments, usually at the end of an episode, where the ongoing mystery happens: In Series 5, it would be a shot of a Crack in Time; in Series 8, we had Missy; etc., etc. I didn’t like most of these meta-plots, as you can probably see from the fact that I gave most of their conclusions relatively poor grades.

Moffat is also much more focused on the Doctor as a character, and especially early on it’s focused on the Doctor as the Most Important Being In The Universe. This leads to some really goofy situations (the Pandorica Opens), and there’s a lot more reliance on “I’m the Doctor, look me up” as a resolution to plot devices. (There’s also a lot more reliance on “time travel!!!” as a resolution, which Doctor Who actually usually tries to avoid, I think because it’s usually not as clever as Moffat thinks it is.) He tries to back away from this later on, but there are still some lingering traces. (He literally makes the Doctor the President of Earth. This is wrong on so many levels.)

It also seems Moffat does not particularly like two-part episodes. So, so many of these stories I’ve had the thought on initially watching them that “if this had a second part, it would have been great.” The pacing feels rushed. Worse, often when we do have two-parters, they frequently follow the “part one is a completely different story from part two” formula. This is fine occasionally, but often it makes it feel like, rather than resolving the cliffhanger from the previous episode, we’re just assuming that was resolved off camera and we’ve got a new, related story going on. 45-ish minutes is not a very long time to tell a good story; it’s doable, but many of the stories want us to care about characters we’ve hardly had time to get to know.

For some reason partway through Amy and Rory’s time on the TARDIS, Moffat decided that his companions now lived primarily at home, and the Doctor only stops by occasionally for Adventure Purposes. I don’t think this decision made anything better.

Still, though I have many critiques of the Moffat era, it’s still Doctor Who. It produced some fantastic episodes, and Twelve is probably my second favorite modern Doctor (despite a seriously rocky start).

Stray Thoughts. Doctor Who experiments. I think that’s at the heart of the show. Sometimes those experiments fall flat, and sometimes they accomplish great things, but despite being a show with a strong formula, it’s never afraid to innovate. It’s true we’d probably have missed out on some of the less enjoyable stories if the show had been more conservative, but we also wouldn’t have stories like Midnight. (Hell, we probably wouldn’t even be here. I don’t know if I would have made the decision to have the Doctor transform from a grumpy old man into a bumbling clown way back in the day, and I think that change, more than anything else, helped bring us to the modern era.) It’s a show with the spirit of an explorer, and even when it falls flat it doesn’t diminish the effort.

By the time this gets published, it’ll only be a few months til the Christmas special airs, which will be the end of the Moffat era and the end of Twelve, and very probably will be our first “official” glimpse at Jodie Whittaker as the Thirteenth Doctor. The show’s about to change--that’s what it does. That’s why it’s still here, fifty-odd years later. I, for one, am looking forward to it.

[flytothsky-blog]

Aside from the Doctor himself, Steven Moffat’s creation, River Song (Alex Kingston), has been one of the most enigmatic characters on the show. Thankfully, as the show went on, viewers were able to learn more about her at the same time the Doctor did, and as of now, Moffat has finally been able to come full circle and conclude River’s story on screen with “The Husbands of River Song”, in a fun and satisfying manner. Now that River’s story is done (with a few Big Finish Productions audio dramas here and there), we can now talk about the enigmatic woman with space hair, who always comes with a spoiler warning.

River Song was created by outgoing “Doctor Who” show runner Steven Moffat, and made her debut appearance in the Series 4 episode “Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead”. Of course, as that episode ended with a bang, many were left wanting to know more about this enigmatic character who seemed to know a lot about the Doctor than he ever did, which bothered the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) a lot, and that she, somehow, was a time traveler. And it was seen written all over his  face, especially when it was revealed that she knew his real name.

Viewers didn’t have to wait long to learn more about River, though, as Moffat took the opportunity during his tenure to slowly reveal who River is, and what her relationship to the Doctor really was.

Of course, as these two characters “never meet in the same order”, many viewers scratched their heads in puzzlement as they tried to figure out River’s timeline.

In preparing for this post, I actually went back and watched River’s timeline in order. Once you understand her timeline, you get to fully appreciate more how much depth and story Moffat gave to River, and everything makes a little bit more sense than it did before. I will be sharing an infographic on her timeline and the watch list order after the spoiler warning that is coming up.

Kingston, who was the primary actress for the character, gave stellar performances every time she stepped on the screen, and gave the character enough depth and nuances each time, even though she sometimes fully didn’t know everything that her character had gone through yet. However, Kingston never upstaged the Doctor during their scenes together, whether the Doctor be Tennant, Matt Smith, or Peter Capaldi.

As I cannot really talk much more about River Song without spoiling a lot of things…..here is your warning.

(I used the TARDIS wikia for this timeline and watching order).

If you ever want to watch River’s entire timeline, this is the best way to do it.

Doing a rewatch of River’s timeline, in order, allowed me to see events as they happened to her, and it also allowed me to see a better progression when it came to her character. Also, I was able to pinpoint the fact that “A Good Man Goes To War” is the moment in which both the Doctor and River are finally in sync, and he knows more than her in the progression of his own personal timeline;  and that she knows more than him from “The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang” onwards, with the exception of the knowledge of the circumstances of her death, and the Twelfth Doctor.

At this point, we know that River Song is Mels and Melody Pond, the daughter of Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) and Rory Williams (Arthur Darvill); and the Doctor’s actual wife. This, of course, means that during Series 5, 6 and 7, the Doctor had actually been traveling with his in-laws. However, when the “parents” are sleeping, the Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith), and River often go out on dates that, more often than not, are adventures that most of the time, doesn’t go as planned. Also, we do know that she is part Time Lord as the Silence and Madame Kovarian probably enhanced the existing Time Lord genes that were there due to the fact that she was conceived on the TARDIS and in the Time Vortex.

However, the two only actually were truly a married couple during the twenty four year night she and the Twelfth Doctor (Peter Capaldi) had on Darillium.

The biggest loophole that many scratched their heads about was the fact that the older version of River didn’t really recognize who the astronaut was in “The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon” at first, and went so far as to fire her pistol  at it.

Later on, in “The Wedding of River Song”, the Doctor mentions to her younger self that her older self probably doesn’t really remember that part of her past. I think, though, that this can be explained by looking at the fact that the War Doctor (John Hurt), and the Tenth Doctor didn’t remember the events that happened during “The Day of the Doctor”, and even the Eleventh Doctor had a hazy memory of it, until the event actually happened.

My guess is that since there were two versions of herself present, the same principal worked, and she later on figured out that it had been her younger version, when she said “Of course”, after emptying her gun at her younger self, and completely missed.

Acting wise, all of the actresses that portrayed Melody/Mels/River, did a great job in portraying her at each particular stage of her life.

Kudos however, goes to Kingston, especially as she was able to give such history between her and the Doctor during her first ever appearance, even though the actress herself didn’t know the entire story yet. And yet, when you do the watch through in order, the performance still works.

As a character, River inherited a lot of the dominant traits of her parents. River was stubborn, determined, feisty, faith in the Doctor,and daring like her mother; and had the strength, devotion,  and the resilience of her father.

Little Melody was a strong survivor, who was also very practical. Mels, on the other hand, was a little bit more headstrong, reckless, and had a penchant for always getting into trouble. The younger version of River was more selfish, feisty, daring, and would do everything and anything to save the Doctor.

After the events of “The Wedding of River Song”, River still maintained her sense of adventure and feistiness, but had already learned from the Doctor the importance of saving others as well. This version of River began to show her quiet strength and resilience more and more, as I am pretty sure that it was hard to keep on lying to her parents and the Doctor all the time.

“The Angels Take Manhattan”, I think showcased this the most, because she was the one who encouraged her mother, Amy, to take that risk of being zapped by the Weeping Angel so that she can spend the rest of her days with Rory in the past.

However, these events hardened her a little bit, because she had to be the stronger one especially as she had to be able to rein in and keep her husband in check.

At this point, she had also been on many different adventures without him, so by the time “The Husbands of River Song” came around, we saw a River who was more mercenary than before, even though she was doing it for a good cause.

I have always thought of River’s days with Smith as the “dating phase”, and Kingston and Smith played off well against each other, especially when they were really flirting with each other.

However, I thought that she and Capaldi were just magical together in “The Husbands of River Song”, and that phase on Darillium is what I call “the married years”. During that period of time, they were able to actually live with each other as a married couple, and were able to hash out all the little problems they have as well.

So, by the time she met the Tenth Doctor at the Library, she is more empathic, more mature, and better at hiding her emotions so that she can focus on the task at hand, up to realizing that she had to sacrifice herself to save him, as he still has a lot to experience with her younger self.

I loved the fact that he was able to save her, and it is just a head cannon of both me and a friend of mine that when the Twelfth Doctor gave her the sonic screwdriver and demonstrated it by scanning her, he had actually done that to save a data copy of her so that the Tenth Doctor could save her in the data core in the Library.

As usual, I also made a playlist for River, and in doing so, I realized that most of the tracks that Murray Gold made that had a connection to River, whether it be her theme or not, were always tinged with hints of melancholy.

Here is the playlist:

https://open.spotify.com/embed/user/12142470663/playlist/2kqnWQ49DycLNrpMW4Y0fp

Of all of Moffat’s original characters, River Song is definitely one enigma that many are glad was given the chance to be fully developed, and many are glad that her story has finally come full circle. Aside from this, her love story with the Doctor is probably one of the greatest love stories ever told on the show. We will definitely miss River and Kingston, and many are glad that we are still getting Big Finish stories to fill in the rest, but as we all know, stories do come to an end, and we are glad to have been witness to the story that was River Song.

What did you think of River Song? Are you looking forward to the Big Finish audio dramas? What were your favorite and least favorite River moments? Let me know what you think in the comments below!

She had us at her very first "Hello, Sweetie". It's time to talk about River Song! Aside from the Doctor himself, Steven Moffat's creation, River Song (Alex Kingston), has been one of the most enigmatic characters on the show.