#Not my favorite direction for his character but definitely a valid choice

[kingedmundsroyalmurder]

I am watching a new-to-me production of JCS on youtube, and I don't love their Judas so far, but I am loving the open animosity between Judas and Mary Magdalene, especially when Jesus isn't on stage with them. Very, 'What the *fuck* does my boyfriend see in you??' vibes from both of them.

It's a modern staging, very sparse in its sets, and never have I watched a JCS with such incredibly strong 'highest stakes drama in the queer anarchist polycule' vibes. I am... undecided if I like it or not.

[ducktracy]

If you met someone that got into Porky/Daffy shorts bc of their dynamic in LTC, what classic shorts would be the first you’d recommend to them? I think Porky Pig’s Feat, Fool Coverage and ofc The Daffy Doc would be good starting points

OH MANNNN… this is such an interesting question but i really have to think about because “all of them” is not a good answer HAHA OH GEEZ..

i was just thinking yesterday about how i think Duck Soup to Nuts is a very good “definitive” Porky and Daffy short. it’s not my absolute favorite (because there are too many great P+D shorts out there), but i think it strikes a VERY good balance and nuance in terms of humor and characterization especially. i’m a fan of the somewhat more antagonistic Porky and Daffy shorts, and this definitely scratches that itch but it’s not ENTIRELY antagonistic. Daffy is very very charismatic and charming rather than completely obnoxious, he manages to talk circles around Porky through actual cunningness (and Porky’s impressionable tendencies are always helpful too with that) rather than just annoying him into submission, and Porky puts up an equal fight which makes the short interesting—it’s not a guarantee that neither Daffy nor Porky are going to win. that’s one of my favorite aspects of their dynamic in that there is always room for versatility

that versatility can also be a bit of a vice too, in that there are SO MANY variations on their dynamic that you kinda need to know what you’re looking for! you have shorts where they’re enemies, shorts where they’re buddies, shorts where they’re some other third things, shorts where they’re a sidekick/leader duo… LTC tends to follow the formula of “Daffy drives Porky out of his mind by being obnoxious”, and if you like that particular dynamic then maybe i’d recommend shorts likeee My Favorite Duck, Daffy Duck Slept Here, Yankee Doodle Daffy, Fool Coverage.. honestly i think every Bob McKimson directed P+D short could apply here HAHAHA but that’s never a bad thing!!

my personal favorite P+D shorts are probably Baby Bottleneck, Porky Pig’s Feat, You Ought to Be in Pictures, Porky’s Last Stand, My Favorite Duck, Daffy Doodles, Riff Raffy Daffy, The Daffy Doc, Tom Turk and Daffy, Drip Along Daffy… SEE I AM GENUINELY STRUGGLING NOT TO LIST EVERY PORKY AND DAFFY SHORT EVER MADE LOL. i genuinely don’t think there’s a pig and duck cartoon that i don’t like in some form… not counting the 3 or so that revolve around racial stereotypes and even then 2 out of those 3 are essentially the same short. there are so many that can be recommended for a myriad of reasons—i like these particular shorts because i think they strike a great balance with everything i like about the characters. Baby Bottleneck is especially successful in that it has them both as partners and adversaries, and so you get to see both sides of that dynamic (and it ends in a “tie” so they’re on equal footing throughout the whole thing!), and i definitely agree that Porky Pig’s Feat is subjectively objectively one of the best Porky and Daffy shorts around

i could write dissertations on every single Porky and Daffy short and why you should watch them (and i aim to, i’d be lying if i said that wasn’t one of the reasons why i started my review blog), but i think it’s really just something you yourself have to dig into depending on your tastes! Porky’s Duck Hunt i think was the first Porky and Daffy short i saw as an adult because i was curious to see what Daffy’s first short was like—it’s not really a cartoon i would recommend as someone’s first classic exposure to the characters, but in my case it got me thinking about the history and chronology of the characters and… well, we all know how i turned out now!

and i do agree with your choices!! all of those shorts are shorts i love dearly. i love and have seen these shorts so many times that i have a hard time trying to put myself in the shoes of someone who has not/i realize “WATCH THEM ALL” is not a valid answer LOL. but i really do think that they are such a versatile and MALLEABLE pair of characters that there are so many nuances to their multiple dynamics it’s really just something you have to sort of parse out and see for yourself—watch them and see what shorts you tend to gravitate more towards and go from there. but i really would recommend most of them if i could HAHA

[greywindys]

As someone who's starting to write Gorillaz fan fiction (very late to the party, lol), may I ask for tips for a good characterization of the band?? What character traits do you like to see the most when you write/read?

OOo congrats, and good luck! And of course. I'll try to answer the best that I can, but I'll be honest with you - I don't read much Gorillaz fic because I've historically had trouble finding work that matches how I see the band, and I eventually stopped looking for Gorillaz fic altogether (though this doesn't mean I won't read them if someone recs me something with my interests in mind). I've always been under the impression that my characterizations and interpretations of band dynamics have been pretty unique, though I make it work somehow by having canon justifications for all the choices I make. So basically....feel free to disregard my suggestions because I may lead you down the path of what's less popular, I won't be offended lmao.

Anyhow, this kinda leads into my first pointer - it's good to have at least some canon justification for the choices you make. This may sound limiting, but it doesn't have to be! I think too many people stick to one particular way of portraying 2Doc and/or the band in general and miss out on a lot of interesting, new directions stories could go. For example, back around last Christmas, I had a discussion with friends about a joke Christmas Carol AU. Initially, people were like, “Murdoc is Scrooge.” This makes sense! But why couldn’t Russel or even Noodle get chance at being in this role? It’s not as intuitive, sure, but imo, it could definitely work. Familiarizing yourself with the canon and how that could translate to an AU or a new scenario can go a long way and make your story stick out, and you might be surprised at the kinds of interpretations you can defend.

I always like to re-read ROTO when I'm getting into the Gorillaz writing ~zone. It helps me sharpen up on the dialogue and speech patterns.

Researching home towns, local slang, important pop culture and significant events of the past and present, etc can help add more depth to your characterization. I remember researching Brooklyn in the 80s for a Russel fic I did a while back, and I received a lot of positive feedback about how realistic and relatable it made my depiction of Russel.

Don't be afraid to expand on canon within reason. One of my favorite self-indulgent hcs is nerdy 2D. Canon establishes him as a horror/zombie film enthusiast. I like to take it a step further and throw sci-fi and fantasy into the mix. He makes the occasionally LOTR or GOT reference, or be setting reminders on his phone so he doesn't miss the newest terrible SyFy Channel original movie when I'm writing him. It makes him more endearing to me for whatever reason.

As for character traits...this is very subjective, so go with your heart. Your unique perspective, whether it matches up with what's "popular" or not, is important. A lot of times, it make the story feel more genuine. All interpretations are valid, too, and just because it may not be one person’s preference, doesn’t mean someone else won’t enjoy it. Personal favorites of mine include: Murdoc with a vulnerable side, Murdoc with a talent for writing, Latino Murdoc, guarded/introverted Noodle, taxidermy enthusiast Russel, self-centered 2D, egotistical 2D, 2D with a backbone, sports fan 2D.

I hope this sort of helps. If you have any other questions, feel free to ask!

[katzkinder]

Strawberry Madeleine

Tsurugi used to use Mikuni’s old uniform as pajamas. 

He’s aware of how pathetic it is. How it sounds. How it probably would have been more subtle to shout that he missed him through a megaphone, for all of Tokyo to hear.

Of course, it doesn’t smell like his old roommate anymore. It hasn’t for a long time, especially not after having been washed and given to Mahiru to run around in for a whole week, over a year ago now. Especially not after it needed to be bleached, and deep cleaned, because of all the blood and dirt and dust that had been practically ground into the white fibers. 

Frankly, it’s a miracle that old thing is still around.

He never expected to get it back, but he did, and he’s only a little ashamed to admit that he held it the same way someone would hold a cherished stuffed toy, inhaling the smell of fabric softener chosen with Kuro’s delicate skin in mind. He had called himself creepy, and Yumikage… Had flicked his forehead. Called him an idiot.

The way he had explained it, it made such perfect sense. 

Mikuni... Was a familiar pain, like a bruise that never quite faded and you press your fingers to it just to remind yourself you’ve been hurt.

Yumikage, Junichiro, Freya, Mahiru, and Kuro are a comfort he never thought he deserved, and that old uniform, one of the only few possessions of his that had survived, the new softness of it and the new smell, are proof that whether he deserves them or not… They are his.

Anyone would cherish that, wouldn’t they?

***

One day his phone lights up in the evening twilight.

“I made too much. That offer to join us for dinner is still valid ☀︎”

Attached is a picture of a simmering pot of curry that makes his mouth water so much he nearly drools all down his front. There’s something familiar about it he can’t quite place, but it’s easily ignored and Tsurugi wipes his mouth on the back of his hand, thumbs flying eagerly over the screen.

“I’ll be there in ten minutes ☆” he replies, then, after adjusting his course accordingly, practically skips off down the sidewalk.

Two minutes from his destination, his phone buzzes again.

“I left the door unlocked for you. Come right in!”

Tsurugi... Tries really hard not to cry in the middle of the street as words half remembered while his soul was tangled with Mahiru’s filter back to him.

If the window is shut, we'll just go through the door.

***

Sometimes Tsurugi goes to Mahiru’s house to play.

It’s a childish way to put it, like they’re both in elementary school and he’s showing up at the front door to ask his friend’s uncle if Mahiru is home, but it’s also the only proper way to describe it, because he is playing.

He’s free now, or about as free as he can be with those debts looming over his head, and he wants to play. Kuro, meanwhile, wants to show him lots of different games, so if he has a day off, and the both of them are available… To the Shirota apartment he goes.

It’s always a mess.

Not the apartment, no, never the apartment. He doesn’t think even C3, with its white walls and white floors and white sheets and everything, everything, white, was even half so clean as that little apartment where three people lived.

What’s always a mess is himself.

This time, though… It’s Mahiru.

***

Tsurugi knows he’s a messy person. Tsurugi knows he’s not very good at cleaning up, though he often tries. It’s overwhelming though, sometimes, looking at it all, all the trash and garbage that had accumulated, all the things he didn’t need anymore, didn’t want, and maybe part of the problem was that his mind hardly ever stayed “adult” long enough to make any real headway.

It’s not like anyone went into his room to begin with, anyway, so why bother?

Mahiru, though, is different from him. Mahiru likes to clean up as he goes, so he supposes it shouldn’t be a shock that he gets frustrated with him and with Kuro, who have their little area in front of the TV set up with snacks, and drinks, and piles and piles of games to try out, and a third controller for Mahiru because sometimes instead of watching, Mahiru will join them, tempted by their cajoling and whining and Tsurugi’s bright, high pitched yelps.

This is not one of those times.

This is a time when Mahiru got frustrated and stormed off, and… Well, Tsurugi isn’t quite sure what to do.

A single look at Kuro shows he doesn’t either, wide eyes watching the hall his Eve disappeared down and slowly the umaibo he had been munching on disappears into his mouth.

“Should we… Clean up?” Tsurugi asks, hesitant. Their characters on screen continue to idle, the timer ticking down. Kuro hits pause. Stands, stretches, cracks his back and Tsurugi can’t help but wince because that can’t be healthy…

“...Yeah,” the Servamp finally says, and bends down with a muffled groan to start gathering chip bags and drink containers. “It’ll give him time to cool down.”

“Does this happen often?” Tsurugi stands, too, and casts his eyes about for something to pick up, but there really wasn’t much. Kuro’s already got it handled. 

It makes him feel just a little useless.

He was a grown up, wasn’t he? … Wasn’t he?

***

Giving Mahiru space to calm down seems to have been the right choice, because when they find him, curled up on his bed and looking just the slightest bit ashamed of his outburst, he looks ready to apologize at any moment.

But Tsurugi doesn’t want an apology.

He wants Mahiru to come play with them.

So he speaks first, apologizes, sincerely, and promises that he and Kuro will clean up after themselves properly, but when they are done.

“You don’t need to keep everything nice and neat all the time, y’know. Part of being a grown up is knowing when it’s time to play and when it’s time to put your toys up.”

Mahiru makes a face at him, buries his chin deeper into his knees. “Tsurugi-san, no offense, but I don’t wanna hear that from you of all people.”

“Ouch, haha.” He sits, plopping down gracelessly next to the still pouting teen, making him bounce and emit a startled noise, and Kuro shuffles forward, slides down on Mahiru’s other side. “...You’re right, though. I never really learned how to clean up and put my things away all nice and neat like you do. No one ever taught me.”

Mahiru shifts, glances at him curiously. Having seen Tsurugi’s room at C3, he definitely believes it. 

“...I guess,” he starts, slow and picking his words carefully. Kuro makes an encouraging noise beside him. “Because I never really felt like the apartment was ‘mine,’ I always ended up cleaning after every little activity. Because having it be messy... Made it feel more lived in than it was.”

“... Mm. That’s exactly it. The illusion of company...” A self deprecating little chuckle. “Guess we both learned to handle that feeling in different ways. If Kuro-chan and I make a mess, we... Might need your help to clean it up properly. But... Can you trust us to clean up when we’re done?”

“... I can try.”

“Good!”

Kuro finally speaks up, because this was a conversation for them, not him. But the moment has passed, and it feels safe to say something a little stupid, a little funny. “We’re serious about the needing your help on how it’s done, thing.” 

“Ugh, I believe you. Tsurugi-san, one time I put this guy in charge of loading up the washing machine and you know what happened?”

“Wait, Mahi, no—“

“Ohh, do tell~!”

“Bubbles. Bubbles, everywhere. My downstairs neighbor had no idea where all the suds dripping onto her balcony were coming from!”

“Pfffhahaha! Kuro-chan, seriously?! There are directions on the box!”

“And I followed them. Our washer is small, though, so it was too much...”

Kamiya Tsurugi was an adult.

Shirota Mahiru was a kid.

But, if they could teach each other the things they had missed out on…

Perhaps it was all for that reason, huh...

Tsurugi wonders if Mahiru will be able to make good on that promise for a cake this year.

***

The end of August comes again, and, just like he had hoped, Mahiru bakes him a cake. Covered in glistening, sweet strawberries, with loads of white, sweet cream, it’s almost too much, especially when paired with how Freya and Iduna had come by, are each sitting in Yumikage’s living room while Freya’s subclass play some noisy game with Takuto.

Some part of him didn’t think Mahiru would really do it. But not only did he keep his promise, he’s pressing a wrapped gift into his hand, a small one that rattles when it moves, this grin on his face as Tsurugi turns it over in his hands, this perfectly wrapped gift with yellow paper and citrus themed washi tape keeping it together. Mahiru’s Servamp lingers back, a noisemaker hanging unenthusiastically from between his lips. And yet, despite his carefully practiced indifference, there’s no denying that Kuro is also eager, just as eager as his Eve.

“Go on. Open it.”

So he does. It’s... A cellphone charm. “...Cinnamoroll...?”

Mahiru beams at him and shows off his own phone. Tsurugi snorts, a smile cracking at the sight of the Pompompurin character charm that dangles merrily from it.

“How’d you know my favorite~?”

“I asked around~”

“Thank you, Mahiru-kun,” Tsurugi answers him, feeling his throat close up, just the slightest bit. His eyes sting, and he holds that little charm close to his chest. “I love it.”

It's such a small gift. A tiny one, one perfectly suited to a high schooler’s budget, but it means so much. 

Because it didn't have to be given.

Mahiru takes his wrist and leads him back to the core of the party, where they are all immediately mobbed by Tsurugi’s own homegrown family.

Vampires, magicians, humans. Adults, children, immortals.

People his own age. People who aren’t.

Tsurugi is loved.

He’s happy he was born.

[haikyuu-appreciation-club]

Hey, I was hoping to get an emergency request? I’ve been depressed and had my heartbroken a bit, so I’m kinda staying up at night just having bursts of crying fits, and so I was wondering if I could have some hcs of how Tsukishima, Aone, Ushijima, and Daichi would treat their s/o if they spent the night with them when they were crying on and off through the night. Thanks, and feel free to delete this if it’s not something you wanna do x

hey there anon!

im so sorry to hear that love, remember that it is 100% okay to cry and that every single thing you’re feeling is valid <3

my messages are always open (and ask box is too if you prefer to stay anonymous) xoxo

I hope you enjoy our bbys showing you some much deserved love :)

•Tsukishima, Aone, Ushijima, and Daichi Comforting Their Crying S/O•

warnings: mentions of mental health issues

genre: comfort + fluff

characters: tsukishima, aone, ushijima, daichi

•Tsukishima•

tsukishima was usually very snarky and playful when it came to your relationship

back and forth bantering was how you two showed your affection for one another

but when tsukishima heard your soft cries from beside him he knew that this was a time where he had to be more cautious with his words,

“Hey, what's the matter with you?”

you turned to look at him, eyes puffy and red, with hot tears streaming down your cheeks

you swiped at your face and offered him a forced smile,

“I’m fine Kei, sorry for interrupting your beauty sleep.”

he didn’t miss the slight shake in your voice with your attempts to lighten the mood

he tsked and flicked your forehead,

“I’m not an idiot Y/N, why are you crying?”

you casted your eyes downward, too embarrassed to face your boyfriend

it’s not as if you didn’t think he’d care or you were too nervous to open up to him but you didn’t want him to view you as weak or troublesome,

“I guess I just haven’t been feeling the best lately. I’ve been getting sad more often than usual without a reason and I don't really know what to do.”

tsukishima looked at you as you tried to stop your lip from quivering

seeing you like this made his heart hurt

he always hated seeing you so upset but he wasn't always the best at reassuring you during your time of need

he sighed, more towards himself then you, and pulled you into him

“Kei wha-”

“Quiet,”

“But what are you-”

“Y/N, save me the embarrassment and just cuddle with me, will you?”

your eyes widened at his statement, it was very rare for tsukishima to initiate something like this 

but you didn’t complain, curling up next to him and wrapping your arms around his figure

soon after, the feeling of sadness washed over you once more as you tried to hold back your tears

you didn’t want to seem ungrateful by continuing your pity party

after all tsukishima practically leaped out of his comfort zone to help you 

however, as you shook lightly in tsukki’s hold you felt his arms that were encasing you give a soft squeeze,

“you can let it out, it’s just us Y/N.”

once those words met your ears tears began flowing down your cheeks all over again

tsukishima held you, running his slender fingers through your hair until you fell limp in his hold, slipping out of consciousness

once he knew you had fully drifted off to sleep he placed a kiss on your tear stained cheek,

“I love you.”

•Aone•

aone was a very light sleeper, so he didn’t miss the light whimpers that escaped your lips as you lied next to him

at first he didn’t really know what to think, maybe you were having a nightmare or something of the sort?

but when he heard a sob rack your body he knew that wasn’t the case

aone wasn’t one to freak out over things, he was very composed and calm even in difficult situations

so, as soon as he sensed something was wrong he didn’t hesitate to take initiative

sitting up and gently shaking your shoulder, he spoke in a soft voice,

“Y/N.”

you turned to face him and immediately he could make out the tears staining your cheeks

he was never one to use his words, choosing to stay quiet for a vast majority of the time, but you didn’t ever mind

his actions had always spoken so much louder then his words ever could

you knew how much he loved you, it was displayed with every single thing he did

and when he silently tugged at your hand, lifting you away from the covers and into his warm embrace, you felt his love all over again

he lightly rubbed your back as you continued to cry into his chest, your arms lazily returning the hug 

a part of you felt embarrassed being caught in such a vulnerable state but the way your boyfriend was caring for you washed away any feeling of unease

after a while, the soothing rhythm of aone’s large hand moving up and down your back brought you to a state of peace

however before the two of you drifted back off to sleep, aone tugged on your hand once more, pulling you out of the room

“Aone, where are we going?”

he didn’t answer you, just pointed in the direction of the front door

you were confused but figured it would just be simpler to comply with his unknown idea then to ask questions 

aone pushed open the door and the cool air met the exposed areas of your body

you shivered a bit as you watched your boyfriend sit down in front of you, staring up at the night sky

he looked back and patted the spot next to him, signaling for you to join him

as you sat down, aone wrapped an arm around your shoulder and pulled you close, letting his body heat warm you up

the two of you sat there watching the stars in each other’s company

it was nights like these where you were truly grateful to have someone like aone in your life

•Ushijima•

ushijima was never exactly good at understand emotions or comforting others

so when he woke up to hear you softly sobbing beside him, he didn’t know how to react

his first instinct was to ask your upfront what was wrong but he had been told many times before that he was too blunt and he didn’t want to make things worse for you

so, he lied there trying to figure the best way to approach the situation

that was until he heard you get quieter and quieter, and soon enough your whimpers grew silent

he was confused at first but he figured you just had a nightmare and decided to approach you about it in the morning

after squirming around a bit, trying to get comfortable, he finally settled by your side with his large arm draped around your mid section

he always loved these nights with you, it gave him the opportunity to be in your company without the constant worry of conversation

he knew you didn’t mind his silence but the nagging from his teammates had made him a bit insecure about his quiet nature

so, being able to just lay down and enjoy your presence was definitely a favorite moment for him

he began to drift off into sleep until he heard your quiet cries once more, the sound leaving a pang in his chest

although he was not the best when it came to feelings, he did not want you to go through your issues alone, so he sat up and turned to you,

“Y/N, what is wrong?”

you flinched at the sudden sound of his voice, not realizing you had woke him up,

“Oh, sorry Toshi. I just had a bad dream, that’s all. Don’t worry you can go back to sleep.”

“You had been crying earlier as well. Is there something bothering you?”

you had tried to hid your emotions from your boyfriend for so long, but iit wasn't as if you didn’t trust him or didn’t want to confide in him

you just didn’t want to worry him or make him feel awkward about the whole situation, which is why you had been trying your best to muffle your sobs

but seeming as the whole plan back fired, you had no other choice but to come clean,

“It’s just, I’ve been feeling kind of off lately. I don’t know exactly why but I just feel sad,” 

you peered up at ushijima through damp lashes and watch as his brows furrowed at your words

quickly you cut the conversation short, already feeling as if you were bothering him,

“I’ll be okay though so don’t worry, lets lay back down, okay?”

you leaned back to snuggle into the covers when you felt ushijima grab your wrist

“Come with me.”

“Huh?”

he didn’t give you an answer as he hauled you out of bed and towards the bathroom

you sat yourself down on the floor as he kneeled in front of the tub, turning on the water and grabbing some bubble bath from under the counter

you watched as he prepared a bath, humming your favorite song subconsciously as he did so

soon enough he had finished, wiping his hands on his pants and turning towards you,

“Undress please.”

your cheeks flushed at how straight forward he was with his words but you complied none the less

once you had stripped yourself bare, he lightly grabbed your hand and helped you into the tub

he spent his time kneading your body, earning groans of satisfaction from you as he released the tension in your sore muscles

as he massaged some shampoo into your scalp he spoke up,

“I am not good with my words, you know this. But when I am feeling unpleasant, I enjoy relaxing like this. I hope you do as well.”

your heart melted at his statement

he always tried his best in your relationship, even though he was unfamiliar with the concept

“It feels really nice Toshi, I’m definitely feeling a lot better.”

“I’m glad Y/N.”

he paused his actions for a moment as he peered directly into your eyes,

“I love you very much.”

you smiled up at him as you brushed your fingers across his cheek,

“I love you too Toshi.”

•Daichi•

daichi had noticed something was a bit off with you this past week

you seemed quieter and less cheerful then normal

so it wasn’t a huge surprise to him when he woke up to you crying into your pillow

despite his anticipation, it still broke his heart to hear your soft whimpers as you clutched the fabric beneath you

daichi wasn’t one to hesitate when it came to comforting you

whenever you had been down he was always right there, ready to pull you into a tight embrace or place gentle kisses on your forehead

and tonight wasn't any different as he grabbed your shoulder and turned you so he could see your face

his fingers gently swiped across your cheek, collecting the tears that you had shed,

“Y/N, what's the matter?”

when it came to your boyfriend you had always felt this sense of comfort, even when you’d try to hide your emotions or go through things by yourself, he was always right there with you

so when he asked you that question you felt compelled to let him know the truth

“I-I don’t know. I just feel so empty and broken, I don't know what to do. I’m sorry Daichi.”

“Hey, there’s no need to be sorry babe. Life can get the best of us sometimes and I understand that. But remember Y/N, you aren't alone in all this. I'll be right by your side, always.”

you looked up at him and smiled at his words, letting out a soft hiccup as he cupped your face in his hands

“Do you wanna talk about it some more?”

you shook your head slowly

daichi brushed his thumb across your cheek and pulled you close, pressing a chaste kiss against your forehead,

“Alright, do you wanna watch a movie?”

that suggestion received your immediate approval

you two always watched a movie at the end of your rough days, it was the perfect way to spend time with one another and get your minds off anything that had been bothering either one of you

you snugged up to daichi as the light from the laptop illuminated your faces

he wrapped his arms around you and placed a kiss to the top of your head,

“I love you Y/N.”

“I love you too Daichi.”

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

[sk1fanfiction]

the many faces of tom riddle, part 4

-attachment, orphanages, and yet more child psych: time to add yet another voice to the void-

FULL DISCLAIMER THAT THIS IS JUST MY OPINION OF A CHARACTER WHO DOESN’T HAVE THE STRONGEST CANON CHARACTERIZATION, AND THUS ALL THIS IS BASED ON MY CONCEPTUALIZATION.

I'm going to be super biased, because my favorite portrayal of Tom Riddle is actually Hero Fiennes-Tiffin as eleven-year-old Tom Riddle, in HBP and I get to chat about child psych in this one, sooo here we go.

First of all, I’m just so impressed that a kid could bring that much depth to such a complex character.

This is the portrayal, I feel, that brings us closest to Tom’s character. Yes, Coulson’s brought us pretty close, but by fifth year, the mask was on.

We don't really get to see Tom looking afraid very often, but it's fear that rules his life, so it's really poignant in our first (chronologically) introduction, he looks absolutely terrified.

The void being the fandom's loud opinions on a certain headmaster. I wouldn't call myself pro-Dumbledore, but I'm certainly not anti-Dumbledore, either. (Agnostic-Dumbledore??)

Since I'm not of the anti-Dumbledore persuasion, I decided to poke around in the tags and see what the arguments were, so I don't make comments out of ignorance.

Most of the tag seems to be more directed towards his treatment of Harry and Sirius, but a few people mentioned that Dumbledore should have treated Tom with ‘exceptional kindness’ and tried to ‘rehabilitate’ him.

As I said in Parts 2 and 3, I am 100% in favor of helping a traumatized kid learn to cope, and I don’t think Tom Riddle was solidly on the Path to Evil (TM) at birth, or even at eleven. Not even at fifteen.

Could unconditional love and kindness have helped Tom Riddle enough for the rise of Lord Voldemort to never happen? Possibly, but...

Yes, I'm about to drag up that Carl Jung quote, again.

“I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.”

The problem with this is that if you’re going to blame Dumbledore for this, you also have to blame every other adult in Tom’s life: his headmaster, Dippet, his Head of House, Slughorn, his ‘caretakers’ at the orphanage, Mrs. Cole and Martha, and possibly more. In fact, if we're going to blame any adult, let's blame Merope for r*ping and abusing Tom Riddle Senior, and having a kid she wasn't intending to take care of.

Furthermore, you cannot possibly hold anyone but Tom accountable for the murders he committed. (I should not have to sit here and explain why cold-blooded murder is wrong.) And if you like Tom Riddle's character, insinuating that his actions are completely at the whim of others is just a bit condescending towards him. He's not an automaton or a marionette, he's a very intelligent human being with a functioning brain, and at sixteen is fully capable of moral reasoning and critical analysis.

I've heard the theories about Dumbledore setting the Potters up to die, and I'm not going to discuss their validity right now; but he didn't put a wand in Tom's hand and force him to kill anyone. Tom did it all of his own accord.

And while yes, I have enormous sympathy for what happened to Tom as a child, at some point, he decided to murder Myrtle Warren, and that is where I lose my sympathy. Experiencing trauma does not give you the right to inflict harm on others. Yes, Tom was failed, but then, he spectacularly failed himself.

We also have no idea how Dumbledore treated Tom as a student.

In the movies, it’s Dumbledore who tells Tom he has to go back to the orphanage, but in the books, it’s Dippet. We know that Slughorn spent a lot of time around Tom at Slug Club and such, yet I don’t really see people clamoring for his head.

I regard the sentiment that Dumbledore turned Tom Riddle into Lord Voldemort with a lot of skepticism.

But let's hear from the character himself -- his impression of eleven-year-old Tom Riddle.

“Did I know that I had just met the most dangerous Dark wizard of all time?” said Dumbledore. “No, I had no idea that he was to grow up to be what he is. However, I was certainly intrigued by him. I returned to Hogwarts intending to keep an eye upon him, something I should have done in any case, given that he was alone and friendless, but which, already, I felt I ought to do for others’ sake as much as his."

Now, assuming that Dumbledore's telling the truth, I'm not seeing something glaringly wrong with this. No, he hasn't pigeonholed Tom as evil, yes, I'd be intrigued, too, and it's a very good idea to keep an eye on Tom, for his own sake.

“At Hogwarts,” Dumbledore went on, “we teach you not only to use magic, but to control it. You have — inadvertently, I am sure — been using your powers in a way that is neither taught nor tolerated at our school."

Again, it seems like he's at least somewhat sympathetic towards Tom, and is willing to at least give him a chance.

More evidence (again, assuming Dumbledore is a reliable narrator):

Harry: “Didn’t you tell them [the other professors], sir, what he’d been like when you met him at the orphanage?” Dumbledore: “No, I did not. Though he had shown no hint of remorse, it was possible that he felt sorry for how he had behaved before and was resolved to turn over a fresh leaf. I chose to give him that chance.”

Now, I think Dumbledore is pretty awful with kids, but I don't think that's malicious. Yeah, it's a flaw, but perfect people don't exist, and perfect characters are dead boring. I am not saying that he definitely handled Tom's case well, I'm just saying that there's little evidence that Dumbledore, however shaken and scandalized, wrote him off as 'evil snake boy.'

It's also worth taking into account that it's 1938, and the attitudes towards mental health back then.

Why is Tom looking at Dumbledore like that, anyway? Why is he so scared? What has he possibly been threatened with or heard whispers of?

"'Professor'?" repeated Riddle. He looked wary. "Is that like 'doctor'? What are you here for? Did she get you in to have a look at me?"

"I don't believe you," said Riddle. "She wants me looked at, doesn't she? Tell the truth!"

"You can't kid me! The asylum, that's where you're from, isn't it? 'Professor,' yes, of course -- well, I'm not going, see? That old cat's the one who should be in the asylum. I never did anything to little Amy Benson or Dennis Bishop, and you can ask them, they'll tell you!

Tom keeps insisting he's not mad until Dumbledore finally manages to calm him down.

I'm really upset this wasn't in the movie, because it's important context. Instead we got these throwaway cutscenes of some knick-knacks relating to the Cave he's got lying around, but I just would have preferred to see him freaking out like he does in the book.

There was extreme stigma and prejudice towards mental illness.

'Lunatic asylums,' as they were called in Tom's time, were terrible places. In the 1930s and 40s, he could look forward to being 'treated' with induced convulsions, via metrazol, insulin, electroshock, and malaria injections. And if he stuck around long enough, he could even look forward to a lobotomy!

So, if you think Dumbledore was judgmental towards Tom, imagine how flat-out prejudiced whatever doctors or 'experts' Mrs. Cole might have gotten in to 'look at him' must have been!

Moving on to the next few shots, he is sitting down and hunched over as if expecting punishment or at least some kind of bad news, Dumbledore is mostly out of the frame. He’s trapped visually, by Dumbledore on one side, and a wall on the other, because he’s still very much afraid. uncomfortable, as he tells Dumbledore a secret that he fears could get him committed to an asylum (which were fucking horrible places, as I said).

It brings to the scene that miserable sense of isolation and loneliness to that has defined Tom’s entire life up to that point (and, partially due to his own bad choices, continues to define it).

And, when Dumbledore accepts it, his posture changes. he becomes more confident and more at ease, as he describes the... utilities of his magical abilities. 

"All sorts," breathed Riddle. A flush of excitement was rising up his neck into his hollow cheeks; he looked fevered. "I can make things move without touching them. I can make animals do what I want them to do, without training them. I can make bad things happen to people who annoy me. I can make them hurt if I want to."

Riddle lifted his head. His face was transfigured: There was a wild happiness upon it, yet for some reason it did not make him better looking; on the contrary, his finely carved features seemed somehow rougher, his expression almost bestial.

I do think Harry, our narrator, is being a tad bit judgmental here. Magic is probably the only thing that brings Tom happiness in his grey, lonely world, and when I was Tom's age and being bullied, if I had magic powers, you'd better believe that I'd (a) be bloody ecstatic about it (b) use them. And, like Tom, I can't honestly say that I can't imagine getting a bit carried-away with it. Unfortunately, we can't all be as inherently good and kindhearted as Harry.

Reading HBP again, as a 'mature' person, it almost seems like the reader is being prompted to see Tom as evil just because he's got 'weird' facial expressions.

So... uh...

Nope, let's judge Tom on his actions, not looks of 'wild happiness.'

To his great surprise, however, Dumbledore drew his wand from an inside pocket of his suit jacket, pointed it at the shabby wardrobe in the corner, and gave the wand a casual flick. The wardrobe burst into flames. Riddle jumped to his feet; Harry could hardly blame him for howling in shock and rage; all his worldly possessions must be in there. But even as Riddle rounded on Dumbledore, the flames vanished, leaving the wardrobe completely undamaged.

Okay, one thing I dislike is Tom's lack of emotional affect when Dumbledore burned the wardrobe, in the books, he jumped up and started screaming, instead of looking passively (in shock, perhaps?) at the fire. Incidentally, I can't really tell if he's impressed or in shock, to be honest. I think they really tried to make Tom 'creepier' in the movie.

This is one of the incidents where Dumbledore's inability to deal with children crops up.

I think he was trying to teach Tom that magic can be dangerous, and he wouldn't like it to be used against him, but burning the wardrobe that contains everything he owns was a terrible move on Dumbledore's part. Tom already has very limited trust in other people, and now, he's not going to trust Dumbledore at all -- now, he's put Tom on the defensive/offensive for the rest of their interaction, and perhaps for the rest of their teacher-student relationship.

Riddle stared from the wardrobe to Dumbledore; then, his expression greedy, he pointed at the wand. "Where can I get one of them?"

"Where do you buy spellbooks?" interrupted Riddle, who had taken the heavy money bag without thanking Dumbledore, and was now examining a fat gold Galleon.

But I'm not surprised Tom is 'greedy.' He's grown up in an environment where if he wants something, whether that's affection, food, money, toys, he's got to take it. There's no one looking after his needs specifically. I'm not surprised that he's a thief and a hoarder, and I don't think that counts as a moral failing necessarily, and more of a maladaptive way of seeking comfort. It would be bizarre if he came out of Wool's Orphanage a complete saint.

Additionally, I think given that the Gaunt family has a history of 'mental instability,' Tom is a sensitive child, and the trauma of growing up institutionalized and possibly being treated badly due to his magical abilities or personality disorder deeply affected him.

And there are points where it seems that Dumbledore is quick to judge Tom.

"He was already using magic against other people, to frighten, to punish, to control."

"Yes, indeed; a rare ability, and one supposedly connected with the Dark Arts, although as we know, there are Parselmouths among the great and the good too. In fact, his ability to speak to serpents did not make me nearly as uneasy as his obvious instincts for cruelty, secrecy, and domination."

"I trust that you also noticed that Tom Riddle was already highly self-sufficient, secretive, and, apparently, friendless?..."

And while this is all empirically true, these are (a) a product of Tom's harsh environment, and (b) do not necessarily make him evil. But the point remains that child psych didn't exist as a field of its own, and psychology as a proper science was in its infancy, so I'd be shocked if Dumbledore was insightful about Tom's situation.

But I've gone a ton of paragraphs without citing anything, so I've got to rectify that.

Let's talk about Harry Harlow's monkey experiments in the 1950-70s.

If you're not a fan of animal research, since I know some people are uncomfortable with it, feel free to scroll past.

Here's the TL;DR: Children need to be hugged and shown affection too, not just fed and clothed, please don't leave babies to 'cry out' and ignore their needs because it's backwards and fucking inhumane. HUG AND COMFORT AND CODDLE CHILDREN AND SPOIL THEM WITH AFFECTION!

I will put more red writing when the section is over.

This is still an interesting experiment to have in mind while we explore the whole 'no one taught Tom Riddle how to love' thing and whether or not it's actually a good argument.

Andddd let's go all the way back to the initial 1958 experiment, featured in Harlow's paper, the Nature of Love. (If you're familiar with Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, him and Harlow actually collaborated for a time).

To give you an idea of our starting point, until Harlow's experiment, which happened twenty years after Dumbledore meets Tom for the first time, no one in science had really been interested in studying love and affection.

"Psychologists, at least psychologists who write textbooks, not only show no interest in the origin and development of love or affection, but they seem to be unaware of its very existence."

I'm going to link some videos of Harry Harlow showing the actual experiment, which animal rights activists would probably consider 'horrifying.' It's nothing gory or anything, but if you are particularly soft-hearted (and I do not mean that as an insult), be warned. It's mostly just baby monkeys being very upset and Harlow discussing it in a callous manner. Yes, today it would be considered unethical, but it's still incredibly important work and if you think you can handle it, I would recommend watching at least the first one to get an idea of how dramatic this effect is.

Dependency when frightened

The full experiment

The TL;DW:

This experiment was conducted with rhesus macaques; they're still used in psychology/neuroscience research when you want very human-like subjects, because they are very intelligent (unnervingly so, actually). I'd say that adult ones remind me of a three-year old child.

Harlow separated newborn monkeys from their mothers, and cared for their physical needs. They had ample nutrition, bedding, warmth, et cetera. However, the researchers noticed that the monkeys:

(a) were absolutely miserable. And not just that, but although all their physical needs were taken care of, they weren't surviving well past the first few days of life. (This has also been documented in human babies, and it's called failure to thrive and I'll talk about it a bit later).

(b) showed a strong attachment to the gauze pads used to cover the floor, and decided to investigate.

So, they decided to provide a surrogate 'mother.' Two, actually. Mother #1 was basically a heated fuzzy doll that was nice for the monkeys to cuddle with. Mother #2 was the same, but not fuzzy and made of wire. Both provided milk. The result? The monkeys spent all their time cuddling and feeding from the fuzzy 'mother.' Perhaps not surprising.

What Harlow decided next, is that one of the hallmarks being attached to your caregiver is seeking hugs and reassurance from them when frightened. So, when the monkeys were presented with something scary, they'd go straight to the cloth mother and ignore the wire one. Not only that, but when placed in an unfamiliar environment, if the cloth mother was present, the monkeys would be much calmer.

In a follow-up experiment, Harlow decided to see if there was some sort of sensitive period by introducing both 'mothers' to monkeys who had been raised in isolation for 250 days. Guess what?

The initial reaction of the monkeys to the alterations was one of extreme disturbance. All the infants screamed violently and made repeated attempts to escape the cage whenever the door was opened. They kept a maximum distance from the mother surrogates and exhibited a considerable amount of rocking and crouching behavior, indicative of emotionality.

Yikes. So, at first Harlow thought that they'd passed some kind of sensitive period for socialization. But after a day or two they calmed down and started chilling out with the cloth mother like the other monkeys did. But here's a weird thing:

That the control monkeys develop affection or love for the cloth mother when she is introduced into the cage at 250 days of age cannot be questioned. There is every reason to believe, however, that this interval of delay depresses the intensity of the affectional response below that of the infant monkeys that were surrogate-mothered from birth onward

All these things... attachment, affection, love, seeking comfort ... are mostly learned behaviours.

Over.

Orphanages, institutionalized childcare, and why affection is a need, not an extra.

His face is lit the exact same was as Coulson’s was in COS (half-light, half-dark), and I said I was going to talk about this in Part 3. I think perhaps it's intended to make Fiennes-Tiffin look more evil or menacing, but I'm going to quite deliberately misinterpret it.

Now, for some context, Dumbledore has just (kind of) burned his wardrobe, ratted out his stealing habit, and (in the books only, they really took a pair of scissors to this scene) told him he needs to go apologize and return everything and Dumbledore will know if he doesn't, and, well, Tom's not exactly a happy bugger about it.

But interestingly, in the books, this is when we start to see Tom's 'persona,' aka his mask, start to come into play. Whereas before, he was screaming, howling, and generally freaking out, here, he starts to hide his emotions -- in essence, obscure his true self under a shadow. So this scene is really the reverse of Coulson's in COS.

And perhaps I'm reading wayyy too much into this, but I can't help but notice that Coulson's hair is parted opposite to Fiennes-Tiffin's, and the opposite sides of their faces are shadowed, too.

Riddle threw Dumbledore a long, clear, calculating look. "Yes, I suppose so, sir," he said finally, in an expressionless voice.

Riddle did not look remotely abashed; he was still staring coldly and appraisingly at Dumbledore. At last he said in a colorless voice, "Yes, sir."

Here's an article from The Atlantic on Romanian orphanages in the 1980s, when the dictator, Ceausescu, basically forced people to have as many children as possible and funnel them into institutionalized 'childcare', and it's absolutely heartbreaking.

There's not a whole lot of information out there on British orphanages in the 30s' and 40s', but given that people back then thought you just had to keep children on a strict schedule and feed them, it wouldn't have a whole lot better.

The only thing I've found is this, and it's not super promising.

The most important study informing the criteria for contemporary nosologies, was a study by Barbara Tizard and her colleagues of young children being raised in residential nurseries in London (Tizard, 1977). These nurseries had lower child to caregiver ratios than many previous studies of institutionalized children. Also, the children were raised in mixed aged groups and had adequate books and toys available. Nevertheless, caregivers were explicitly discouraged from forming attachments to the children in their care.

Here's a fairly recent paper that I think gives a good summary: Link

Here, they describe the responses to the Strange Situation test (which tests a child's attachment to their caregiver).

We found that 100% of the community sample received a score of “5,” indicating fully formed attachments, whereas only 3% of the infants living in institutions demonstrated fully formed attachments. The remaining 97% showed absent, incomplete, or odd and abnormal attachment behaviors.

Bowlby and Ainsworth, who did the initial study, thought that children would always attach to their caregivers, regardless of neglect or abuse. But some infants don't attach (discussed along with RAD in Part 2).

Here's a really good review paper on attachment disorders in currently or formerly institutionalized children : Link

Core features of RAD in young children include the absence of focused attachment behaviors directed towards a preferred caregiver, failure to seek and respond to comforting when distressed, reduced social and emotional reciprocity, and disturbances of emotion regulation, including reduced positive affect and unexplained fearfulness or irritability.

Which all sounds a lot like Tom in this scene. The paper also discusses neurological effects, like atypical EEG power distribution (aka brain waves), which can correlate with 'indiscriminate' behavior and poor inhibitory control; which makes sense for a kid who, oh, I don't know, hung another kid's rabbit because they were angry.

Furthermore...

...those children with more prolonged institutional rearing showed reduced amygdala discrimination and more indiscriminate behavior.

This again, makes a ton of sense for Tom's psychological profile, because the amygdala (which is part of the limbic system, which regulates emotions) plays a major role in fear, anger, anxiety, and aggression, especially with respect to learning, motivation and memory.

So, I agree completely that Tom needed a lot of help, especially given the fact that he spent eleven years in an orphanage (longer than the Bucharest study I was referring to), and Dumbledore wasn't exactly understanding of his situation, and probably didn't realise what a dramatic effect the orphanage had on Tom, and given the way he talks to Tom, probably treated him as if he were a kid who grew up in a healthy environment.

In case you are still unconvinced that hugging is that important, there's a famous 1944 study conducted on 40 newborn human infants to see what would happen if their physical needs (fed, bathed, diapers changed) were provided for with no affection. The study had to be stopped because half the babies died after four months. Affection leads to the production of hormones and boosts the immune system, which increases survival, and that is why we hug children and babies should not be in orphanages. They are supposed to be hugged, all the time. I can't find the citation right now, I'll add it later if I find it.

But I think it's vastly unrealistic to say that Dumbledore, who grew up during the Victorian Era, would have any grasp of this and I don't think he was actively malicious towards Tom.

Was Tom Riddle failed by institutional childcare? Absolutely.

Were the adults in his life oblivious to his situation? Probably.

Do the shitty things that happened to Tom excuse the murders he committed, and are they anyone's fault but his own? No. At the end of the day, Tom made all the wrong choices.

And, for what it's worth, I think (film) Dumbledore (although he expresses the same sentiment in more words in the books) wishes he could go back in time and have helped Tom.

"Draco. Years ago, I knew a boy, who made all the wrong choices. Please, let me help you."

[sigynpenniman]

Julian Bashir Playlist Time!!

Apple Music playlist (if you're a heathen and subscribe to apple music like me) here

I know that there's plenty of people making playlists, but I really feel like this is an under-utilized brand of fan content. Instead of attempting to create a list of songs that Julian would listen to, or a playlist of songs which were all lyrically directly applicable (though there certainly some of those in here) regardless of genre, I tried to create something which captured, above all, his vibes instead, by choosing songs that balance at least somewhat relevant lyrical content with the energy or feel that I associate with the character. What it means matters, but not as much as how it makes you feel. That said, I signed up for apple music and read a TON of those overwrought iTunes store album review descriptions while I was making this, so I have a whole lot to say about all my choices here. In depth explanation of my symbolism and methodology behind each song under the keep reading. (I love tumblr. I want to write 1,000 words of analysis about why I picked songs to represent Julian Bashir and some of you are gonna read it. This is where I get to pretend to be one of those iTunes music writers. I feel joy.)

Good Morning - Two Door Cinema Club TDCC's Gameshow is high on my favorite albums of all time list for nebulous reasons I myself don't really understand. It was this album, though not this song (but one that will pop up later) that actually inspired me to make this playlist to begin with, as for some reason, from the color scheme of the album cover, to the overall vibe, to the ever-present references to illness, injury, surgery and healers in the lyrics, the whole thing feels inescapably Julian to me. And with an opening like I'm a sinner/I'm the victim/I'm an alien when I'm myself/I'm a healer/I'm a fixer/I'm a present danger to my health/I'm so strong/Doing what I'm supposed to do/ There's something wrong/With somebody like me, it's hard NOT to think about Julian when you hear this song, and I can't think of a better way to start this off.

Sweater Weather - The Neighbourhood I think there's a joke somewhere about bisexual people all liking Sweater Weather, and yeah, I resemble that remark. Sweater Weather is just good. You'll notice there's a sort of chill-indie-alt-electronic thing going here, and that is very much the vibe I'm sticking with. Sweater Weather slots in beautifully, both sonically and thematically. As the singer looks to warm and protect the person he's with from the cold, you can't help but feel a loving coziness coming off of this one. It always makes me feel cozy, at least, so it's here.

Gooey - Glass Animals I have nothing to analyze here because the artists themselves have said that the lyrics of this song have no meaning, they're just meant to capture a vibe, and capture it they do. Close your eyes and ride the vibes of this one. The energy is right, I love it, it belongs here.

Blue - Mika I could probably write a couple hundred words on Blue alone, in any context. This might be my beloved Mika's magnum Opus. Opening the song with the inherently counterintuitive lyric Blue is a feminine color, Mika manages to pack it ALL into this 3 minute song: questions about gender; concepts of sadness, joy, and their intersections; of the perception of melancholy as a flaw and loving people despite, or maybe because of, those "flaws" and anything else about them; a powerful first person reassurance that made me start weeping in my car the first time I heard it; just the phrase "why are humans cruel to you." And oh boy, ARE there questions of gender. Why is blue NOT considered a feminine color? Is that a good thing, a bad thing? In 3 minutes of artful poetry, Mika manages to wrap up sadness, love, joy, pain, the feminine that exists within the masculine and the masculine that exists within the feminine, in the simple color of blue and then, in one lyric, validates it all. And on a much simpler and more obvious note, this is in fact all a philosophic musing on the symbolic meaning of the color we see Julian wearing almost all the time (when he's not in uniform, almost all his civvies are also shades of blue.) I feel like this is one of those songs that's hard to analyze because it does what music and poetry does best - communicate something that cannot be communicated any other way. With these broad themes of loving others around the things they can't love about themselves, you can decide for yourself if this one is coming FROM Julian or directed AT him, either works. I find myself struggling for exactly the words to explain this one, but listen to it; you'll understand.

Little Dark Age - MGMT Another choice with no obvious lyrical relevance, but the tonal fit was just too good to pass up. The vibes pass.

The City - The 1975 This song is one of several present because it leans on medical symbolism to get its point across, though I would be lying if I said I fully understood what that point was. But the entire second verse, apparently about the song's subject suffering from some kind of illness and reassuring him that the next one's the M.D./You'll be feeling just fine, seems somehow to transmit the discomfort of illness directly to the listener. I don't know how or why, but the effectiveness of the empathy the second half of this song elicits, in me at least, puts it squarely in the "odd medical vibes" category.

Surgery - Two Door Cinema Club THIS is the song that inspired this whole playlist, mostly because of its title and general vibe. Another example (of many) of medical/anatomical references in this album (another of the songs is called Fever, etc), this song just feels like Julian to me.

The Other Side Of Paradise - Glass Animals I really like Glass Animals. That is probably becoming obvious. Aside from its delightfully cohesive vibes, this song opens with what's simultaneously the slyest and most brazen gay lyric I have heard on the radio recently, as the male singer says When I was young and stupid my love left to be a rock and roll star/HE told me... The song seems to be about a man whose male lover left him in pursuit of fame and fortune, and eventually ends up with a woman, leaving the singer behind. It's got simultaneously subtle and obvious gay themes, it's got confused love affairs, it's got so much bisexual energy. I cannot think of anything that could be more Julian.

Sit Next To Me - Foster The People Kind of like Sweater Weather, this whole song is built around a rather cute and sweet "sit next to me," and you can't help but feel a bit warm and cozy when you listen to it. I think it pairs with sweater weather well, and slides in with the rest of the picks very nicely.

Nothing Better - The Postal Service (the original band of the lead singer of Death Cab For Cutie) Another example of heavy surgical symbolism, the very first lyric of this song is Will someone please call a surgeon. This is actually a duet, and the singers speak of their real hearts to represent their emotional ones. Something about Your heart won't heal right if you keep tearing out the sutures always gets me and always will. And it vibes good. It vibes so, so good.

&Run - Sir Sly Sir Sly's &Run is my favorite song for driving too fast. It does an amazing job of musical onomatopoeia, talking about running while making you want to run. It's a song about running out of plans and running as far as you can instead, which is all very "I'm illegal by definition so I went to the farthest possible reaches of space." And like everything else here, it just feels good. It's also one of the only highlights here that I can actually see Julian listening to.

Cosmic Love - Florence and the Machine It's no coincidence that it seems like most of us who are invested in Julian Bashir are some flavor of genderqueer, be it trans, nonbinary, questioning, or something else entirely - the man's got a Gender with a capital G, and there's a whole lot going on in there. Between the words that were written for him on the page, and the words that were actually spoken, and the way he carries himself, Julian always seems caught between the white, western, and frequently toxic masculinity that the writers often seemed to want to imbue him with, and the very different, racially and culturally distinct masculinity Sid actually brought. But there's an undeniable element of the feminine in Julian too, at least by a traditional definition. The presence of this part of him at all, much less the fact that, in-universe, it's the more traditionally "feminine" parts of himself - the caregiving and nurturing aspects - that Julian seems proudest of or to like most about himself, is a large part of what makes his character so interesting, at least to me. So there was no way I was getting out of this without acknowledging that somehow, and I can't think of a better way to acknowledge a complicated relationship with the feminine side of one's own gender than with this world's own Celtic divine feminine, Florence Welch. I can't think of any better artist, at least that I know of, to represent femininity as a nonspecific ethereal goddess-concept. I basically spun the wheel of Florence here, as anything would have worked, but Cosmic Love felt very appropriate for a character who does in fact live in space. There could even be some Garashir in here, I think.

Dream Sweet In Sea Major - ミラクルミュージカル, or Miracle Musical, a sister act made up of members of Tally Hall I also couldn't leave off without acknowledging Julian's affection for classic lounge music, especially since it's the only thing about his taste in music that we actually know. But instead of tacking on some rat pack, instead I'm polishing this off with the incredibly chaotic and somehow also perfectly cohesive and calm Dream Sweet in Sea Major. It's got all of the vibes of a lounge singer but gone completely off the rails, which just seems perfect somehow. And it's also a very nice feeling to be left with, so it seems only right to put it at the end.

and if you've read all of this, I love you. Y'all didn't know I was this into music did you. but I am. oh boy. I AM.

[bigskydreaming]

You're asked to choose one and only one or DC's future stops existing immediately. your choices:

1. Jason Todd the anti-hero who seldom works with only a couple of the bats he doesn't hate, for example Dick and Cass VS. Jason Todd who came back with healed body but broken spirit, folded back into the Gotham gang and learns to be part of the society again.

2. Tim Drake who makes all of his mistakes as canon but realizes he's been wrong and apologizes to people VS. Tim Drake back in his first iteration, a cute little brother character who is a reader insert and a fun teenager.

3. JayKyle VS DickKyle.

4. Jason Todd with a sword VS. Damian Wayne with a sword.

5. Chris Kent VS. Jon kent.

Okay but which DC future? Its omniversal future? Its hypertime future? Its multiversal future? Its Elseworlds future? Its dark multiverse future? Mwahahaha your threat is useless because the sheer wtf of DC's continuities, timelines and conflicting declarations of what to even call their multiomnihyperverse makes it impossible to target simply A future! DC's overly unnecessarily complicated nature renders it functionally immortal and impossible to ever truly destroy, take that Darkseid.

I mean. But anyway. Whatevs:

1) I honestly do prefer the idea of Jason someday fully reuniting/reintigrating into the Batfam as a whole, because fuck it, the found family I'm here for is the one where they actually act like a family....I just think it takes actual work to get to that point and I get irey when people are like we're here! We found it! And its like meanwhile, abusive dynamics still abound. Mmm. No thank you. But even though I've been on a huge Jason and Dick and Cass kick for like, forever, I do still aim for him having a dynamic of his own with the rest of the family.

Like the thing is, I hate playing the favorites card in families, and I think the emphasis on so and so being Bruce's favorite child or so and so being this kid's favorite sibling, etc, like it really does feel like to the detriment of the whole family, because once you start validating the idea of favorites, ESPECIALLY in a found family that is CONTINUOUSLY growing....I think you're kinda shooting yourself in the foot because you're kinda creating a situation where either no future new additions to the family can EVER be Bruce or one of the kids' 'favorite' or else you're innately positing that said fave status is conditional and even a current fave of Bruce or a sibling can be bumped down the ladder by the addition of a later arrival....

Which is LITERALLY the entire essence of the eternal conflict between Dick and Damian and Tim fans. Its not even that Damian is Dick's favorite, allegedly, its that prior to Damian's very EXISTENCE, fans felt comfortable declaring Tim unilaterally to be Dick's 'favorite'.....and then all it took was the addition of a single family member who had specific NEEDS in regards to Dick's attention and focus, largely because of his age and needing a legal guardian while Tim was old enough to literally jet set around the world on his own.....and like, everything went up in flames in large corners of fandom.

So I'm just like, death to the fave family member myth, its just incredibly counter productive to the idea of found family as a whole especially when it usually only exists to prop up a preferred character as better than others via the proof of see, these other characters say he's their fave or whatever...but also like, its not even necessary?

Because the thing is, you can have Jason reintegrated into the whole family overall, and still prioritize your personal narrative FOCUS on characters you like more than others, like say Dick and Cass.....because of course its natural for even people in the same family to have entirely different DYNAMICS with different family members....and these dynamics don't have to come with a ranking system in order to prioritize which ones you just focus on more in a story. Because its not necessarily that Dick has to be Jason's fave brother, y'know, just for Jason to prefer spending time with Dick simply because he's more comfortable with him due to knowing him longer or being more secure in the idea that Dick doesn't judge him based on their greater shared history.

This doesn't mean that Jason doesn't care for his other siblings, that he can't have strong dynamics with them as well, its just about finding a reason for why these two specifically might be in a story without the others that doesn't demand putting a definitive ranking on which one Jason considers his FAVE. Just like Damian doesn't have to be Dick's FAVE just for them to have the super close canon relationship they have, even relative to the other siblings, because there's everything needed in canon already to establish that the mere fact of Dick essentially RAISING Damian for a year, and being the first one in the family to really take a chance on Damian, like, this lends itself naturally to them maybe more naturally gravitating towards each other than other siblings due to comfort level and familiarity, etc, but it doesn't have to be like....oh but yeah, I just like Damian more than you, Tim, y'know?

So my answer on this one is a total cop out of both, both is good. Jason totally reintegrated back into the family, but with dynamics that still lend themselves fairly easily towards story lineups where its just him running missions with Dick or Duke or any other one or two specific family members even if for no other reason than they gel together best in the field, y'know?

2) Hmm. I honestly really do love and miss 90s Tim Drake and just....don't see him in a lot of what I read these days. I'm like no, why did he have to go, he was doing so well! BUT I'm also on a big accountability kick, and like, I'm so steeped in fics where Dick GROVELS for forgiveness for every little slight he's ever done real or imagined, with every character but Tim in particular, so its like.....I'm not gonna lie, I really have a preference these days for seeing stuff where its literally anyone actually owning up to shit they've done to Dick and apologizing or groveling or making it to HIM, like, completely unconditionally. In the same manner we usually see Dick apologizing, glossing over any reasons he might have had for doing what he did or feeling the way he did, and saying oh it doesn't matter, putting the entirety of his focus on what HE did and why it was wrong no matter what and he's sorry.....that's what I would kill to see from more fics, just in reverse.

Because so often even in the all too rare fics where we DO see other characters apologizing to Dick for shit, its watered down with Dick volunteering that oh he messed up too, it was a two way street, and its like no! This is Pettiness Hours! I want the unconditional apologies! Give me the groveling! From anyone, I don't care at this point, lol, just show me characters actually PUTTING IN THE WORK to make it up to Dick for harm they've caused him, even if completely unintentionally or via neglecting his feelings or considering the repercussions their actions or words would have on him. Aaaaaaand, frankly, Tim's a good place to start there, because of how one sided all the takes on their conflicts have been for so many years. I mean, if people need a place to start, Batman and Robin Eternal gets enough praise it can't be pretended that people in fandom don't know that story exists, so how about some stories where Tim says he's fucking sorry for punching Dick in issue #4 or #5 of that one, and it was uncalled for and he was clearly just looking for an excuse to unleash some more of his resentment and upset for the Spyral/Forever Evil stuff, and family deciding that its totally okay to punch Dick whenever they're mad at him and need to work off some aggression so they can then finally forgive him (for now) is a trend that needs to die in a fire post-haste? I mean just as an example.

But the thing that kills me about fanfic trends is like....the sameness of so much of it. There's SO much room for variety and diverse takes, and like....I don't actually hate Tim! I'm just cranky because of the imbalanced nature of most content out there for literal years at this point. Push the pendulum BACK in the other direction, create some balance by showing the flip side of things.....and that leaves a lot more room for me and others of like minds to then be more amenable to - and even interested in - other stories that don't scratch this particular itch, but don't need to, because other stories are doing the scratching by then, y'know?

And THEN like, at that point, I would be ALL FOR more stories that are just callbacks to classic 90s Tim who I adore, with his skateboarding and his EARNESTNESS and his go-get-em spirit and also the gumption. All the gumption. I like that Tim. I do miss that Tim. But like, for the moment, like, I want accountable Tim because I am tiiiiiiiired of groveling Dick and tbh at this point its not enough for me to just see people move past putting Dick in that position and just have mutually respective and doting brothers Dick and Tim having adventures together......nah, first I want some reciprocation. Ngl. Gimme the apologies for actual mistakes actually made.

3) DickKyle. Easy question, c'mon, you gotta know that. LOL. ;)

But yeah, I've been shipping these two off their like, two shared pages from way back in the Obsidian Age story years before Jason even returned, let alone was in Countdown together with Kyle, so like, its no contest. I don't mind JayKyle, I certainly prefer it to JayRoy tbh, but there's not a ton of appeal in it for me, particularly in how its usually depicted, because like....the entire basis of JayKyle is that they DO have stories together and spent a whole year worth of weekly issues traveling the multiverse together in Countdown.....but there's like, practically no trace of their actual dynamics from that series or any specifics of literally any issue from that entire comic in most fics I’ve read, so its like.....idk, it tends to come across as more generic, not in the sense that it cant still be interesting, but more in the sense that it feels like just someone paired with Jason just because history between them EXISTS without any interest in exploring what that history actually IS....and at that point, its like, well there's no reason TO prioritize that ship over DickKyle for me personally, when like, I have a shit ton of headcanon reasons for why those two in a pairing specifically. *Shrugs* My logic. Its not for everyone, but it works for me.

4) Jason with a sword or Damian with a sword? I don't understand the question. Both. Both is good. All the characters should have swords. Swords are awesome.

5) Chris Kent vs Jon Kent - oof. I adore Jon, I really do. I love his dynamic with Damian, I love a lot of their specific stories, the parallels between them as friends and Bruce and Clark as friends....its all very bien. But I gotta give this one to Chris, because I'm always gonna have a soft spot for him because I'm a sucker for all abused kid heroes, and I just miss that funky little dude so much. There's so many stories we didn't get with him and were just ripe for the picking, but nooooo, DC's like lol you can't have nice things, here we just rebooted the entire multiverse and now Clark and Lois never adopted the son of Clark's worst Kryptonian rival and raised him with tender love and care awww does that make you sad, were you invested in him, WELL TOO BAD, HE'S GONE NOW AND BASICALLY NEVER EXISTED, NOW GIVE US YOUR MONEY ANYWAY MWAHAHAHAHAH.

Yeah. I'm still not over that. Probably will never be tbh, so I with great grudge-bearing do affirm that I'm gonna go with Chris on this one and like, he is a Priority for me and I'm still very keen on the idea of him and Duke being besties for random reasons that might not make sense to anyone but me, but eh, whatever.

[darthkruge]

heyy Megan, I'm trying to do a character study on Anakin but im finding very limited information online. what do you think are some of his worst and best traits? his personality, humor and like his values? thank you so much,, hope you have a good day/night

omg hi!! thank you for asking me!!

*cracks knuckles* let’s get into it 

anakin skywalker character analysis

best traits:

intelligence, overall skill, curiosity 

anakin was building droids from scraps when he was a child. he spoke huttese and basic from a young age, as well. he’s an insane battle strategist, wonderfully skilled in battle/with a lightsaber, and incredible pilot! he can pick up new skills quickly, as well. i’m just gonna link this post by @chokemeanakin bc it just sums it up real nice.. but yes smart boy love him

compassion, capacity for emotions, empathy, understanding

anakin feels things deeply. i’ve talked about this a lot before lol. but yeah he is frequently in conflict over the sheer weight of the emotions he carries. further, as a jedi, this is not something his peers could relate to. but he always tries to be there for his friends and would do anything to ease their pain. and i think that anakin seeks to understand others. he’s spent so much of his life feeling alone and like no one related to him; he wants to know how other people work, feel, and think.

loyalty, friendship, caring

anakin is so fucking loyal to those he loves. and, tying into my previous point, he loves deeply. he cares, he always has. he treats droids as humans and forms attachments, even though they may be forbidden. he held onto that need for love, for connection even after he joined the order. and he would defend those he loves til the very end... 

selflessness, protectiveness, bravery

anakin would literally dive headfirst into danger to save someone he loves. he doesn’t care about hurting himself or honestly whatever happens to him, as long as those he cares for are safe. 

worst traits:

impulsivity, recklessness

i think we’ve all seen anakin be a bit impulsive at times... sometimes, he just doesn’t think everything through. this is especially clear when someone he loves is in danger. anakin’s lost so many people that when he’s faced with the threat of losing another, his judgment can become clouded. 

insecurity, jealousy, fear

anakin is frequently jealous, which stems from his insecurities. he was probably conflicted a lot; brought into the order as a young child and told he was the chosen one. the weight of the galaxy was placed on his shoulders and, yet, he was held back in classes as a padawan, he didn’t make rank (canonically). i think these things are what allowed palpatine to manipulate him; palpatine knew anakin was afraid, insecure, and, yet, arrogant (my next point dw). he tapped into this and because anakin and the council did not have much mutual trust (aside from like obi-wan), it was easier to get to him. especially because palpatine used anakin’s fear of losing padme and his unborn children to do so. fuck palpatine bro- 

arrogance

yes, anakin was insecure. yes, he was also arrogant. let me explain myself. he occassionally rushes into things without thinking, thinking he can handle them. i think a lot of this stems from being told he was the chosen one from such a young age. that title combined with his skill?! it makes sense he’d internalize it. i am now going to stop myself before i rant about how the gifted education system is a fuckfest. this is coming from someone who spent years in that program. anyway-

personality/overall rant about his life/motivations:

i think i summed up a lot of his personality within the best and worst traits because i got ahead of myself but im going to say some more!! i think a lot of anakin’s personality is dependent on his deep capacity for emotions. you can see that throughout ROTS, he was conflicted almost all the time. he grew up as a slave and all he wanted was to protect his mother. he built droids to help her and competed in podraces to tryand get them anything that could help. 

then, he was taken to the order. suddenly, all these amazing traits he has make sense!! but then the person who’s supposed to train him (qui-gon) dies after anakin’s only known him for a short period of time. anakin’s attachment issues are abundant (i don’t think i need to explain that one) so of course he grows close to obi-wan! but obi-wan was trying to be strong for anakin. even though obi-wan struggled himself with attachment, he tried to be strong and put up a front as a “good” jedi for anakin to look up to. while this was helpful, anakin probably just felt more conflicted, as no one in his life could relate to the bredth of emotions he felt. this caused him to be more introverted and withdrawn (i talk about that in this post)

then, he loses his mother, she dies in his arms. the only person he’d wanted to protect from a young age, who he left to join the jedi, dies in his arms. he blames himself for this, thinking he should have gotten there faster, should have done something more. he probably also blamed the jedi, to at least some extent. why do these powers matter if they can’t save the people he loves? i believe he acted out of anger, killing the tuskens, because (at least to some degree) of the jedi. instead of teaching him how to express his emotions (pain, fear, loss, grief, etc.), they train him. to some degree, he might think all he’s good for is these skills. so he acts out of anger, slaughtering them. 

and then finally he finds someone who loves him in the way he wants to be loved. padme stays by his side, even after he killed the tuskens. she sees the good in him and treats him as a man, not a prophecy. but once again, this motif of fear remains! he has to hide this love, one of the only pure and good things in his life! he has to live in fear every second of every day because, if the council finds out that he found happiness and love, everything is ruined. 

but then he starts getting the vision’s that padme will die. and not just padme, now his unborn children could die, too. the one thing he has that is good and purely his could now be ripped away. he knew he was helpless, knew there was nothing he could do to stop it by himself. the council isn’t that helpful, telling him to learn to let it go with the force. while that might help any other jedi, it just pushed anakin away. he would never be able to just surrender and let go to the force, not when the life of his entire family is at risk! 

and he finds palpatine, someonoe who has spent years trying to manipulate him. but palpatine is smart, he’s cunning. anakin didn’t know what the real intentions were and, truly, he probably didn’t want to know. he was blinded by his fear and if anything could save padme, he would do it. then the council try to get him to spy on palpatine. again, conflict. anakin’s loyalty is repeatedly questioned and pushed and prodded, he was probably so confused! he didn’t know who to trust. but, when you combine the current situation with his backstory with who he is and what he cares about, it makes sense why it all happened. 

this is what i mean when i say conflict. he was pulled in a million directions constantly. and we all know how his story ends and i don’t want to cry so i’m not gonna detail it...

also: i’m not saying any of this excuses all of his choices, but it does explain them.  

humor:

lowkey a dork

he is. and i love that about him. you can see this in the way he flirts with padme sometimes... like floating the pear to her and the whole “i don’t like sand” thing. he’s a fucking dork. can’t exactly blame him nor do i hold it against him! he didn’t have many close friends growing up and he was like pining for padme for years so it’s not like he spent that time creating a playbook

he’s also witty!

i think this comes with his intelligence; he’s witty and he’s quick. example: “general grievous, you’re shorter than i expected.” i mean he’s no sass-king obi-wan kenobi but anakin definitely can hold his own in a verbal sparring match! 

also i headcanon him as having horrible puns but loving them!

values:

love, friendship, connections

at his core, anakin just wants to find someone who understands him and his emotions. who can relate to him. he wants those connections; in fact, he actively seeks them out. love is a key part of his identity. i talk about this in this post about his love languages so imma just link it there!

success, validation

tying into his determination, anakin wants to do well! he pushes himself and i think he’s a perfectionist, too. you can see this in the way he holds himself as a general; he doesn’t slack off, doesn’t not care. he understands the responsibility he has in that role and he takes it seriously! and just in his overall skill level, even though he was a bit of a child-prodigy, he clearly spent a long time training. he probably also had some imposter syndrome going on and was constantly trying to prove his worth. 

----

uhh yeah i think i got everything?? yes?? he’s so complex and i legit love him immensely. doing character analysis for anakin is my favorite thing in the entire universe! if anyone has anything they want to add, please feel free!!

[hamaon]

audio drama natterings

- i love hearing this voice-acted jin guangyao because there is often NO correlation between his tone of voice, actions, and intentions. he can be saying one thing and doing another and you just need to do the math, with the benefit of hindsight, to figure out what third thing he was actually thinking at the time

there are also many times he is just being genuine, but picking those up probably needs, again, the benefit of hindsight

- su minshan has an amazing voice. whiny nasal baby, i love him

- no comment on the audio drama actor, but there were some clips with interviews with the voice actors from the animation included in the files, and holy shit, lan xichen. a voice to make love to

- yi city is an interesting self-contained tragedy, but it’s slim enough that i doubt that there is any alternate reality where that’s the part of the story that caught my particular attention. but still, if that had happened, most likely i would have hatched into a xiao xingchen fan

- nie deputy meng yao singing a distressed abandoned baby to sleep before continuing to sort out a battlefield, is there anything this man can’t do

i’m losing my mind over this a little to be perfectly honest, there was never any doubt in my mind that “gentle dad” is one of jin guangyao’s most dominant personality traits, but to have it validated so

- meng yao finally, after years and years of abuse and dead ends, decides to take matters into his own hands, hard work isn’t getting him anywhere, and nie fucking mingjue, who lives several realms away, just happens to walk in on him the one time he kills a man for personal gain

what were the ODDS

i’m also trying to figure out the logistics of this:

like. how. i guess no one had quite as much faith in jin guangyao’s abilities as nie mingjue

(also love how in the audio drama meng yao just keeps getting shit from every direction, so it’s absolutely not a question of whether he’s just exaggerating how bad it is for him 24/7)

this is the drop in the relationship. up to this point nie mingjue has been one of the only people who don’t (seem to) care about his background, but this is where his own version of meng yao starts overwriting reality. the moment there’s a crack in the presentation, it’s over for good.

he still appears very considerate (and in his own mind he is definitely being extremely reasonable! for nie mingjue he IS being extremely reasonable!) about meng yao’s incoming punishment and will leave it to the jin, but meng yao’s own estimation of his situation is that he will be executed.

dude relax, he didn’t even hurt you.

it’s an interesting pattern though, jin guangyao’s primary motivation is almost never harming others, and he often goes out of his way to avoid it, too. this is the first time he could have killed nie mingjue easily, made it look like an attack from the wen like he was doing with the jin guy.

fun contrast with the temple, where things are looking dire until you start unpacking what’s actually going on

- one of nie mingjue’s most dominant personality traits is concerning himself with the quality of character of people who are not him

- it is very commendable of nie mingjue to not let corrupt people in charge keep getting away with this shit, and to continue hounding the jin about xue yang. the eternal question, though: why is he taking this up with jin guangyao instead of someone who, you know, is in charge

- lan xichen really, really, really wanting to be sworn brothers, c’mon mingjue-xiong aren’t you ready to be nicer to a-yao, please please please, and now that we’ve all agreed to it and don’t need an auspicious date, we can do it the first thing tomorrow (almost literally what he says)

- lan xichen fucks on the first date and gets married on the second

then stays married to that person for fifty years, perfectly monogamous

(- one of lan xichen’s most dominant personality traits is being the teacher you can actually talk to)

- i like how nie mingjue’s attitude toward jin guangyao varies even when their relationship is at its tensest point, he can be civil and almost light-hearted with him and then soon enough take a swing at him, it’s... uncomfortably realistic, honestly.

- corrupted cleansing, very good here also. rip nie mingjue before your time but it’s just a nice tune. though here the quality is partially improved by the fact that it actually sounds like the original cleansing, just a little off sideways

- the paperman extra, i’m in awe. jin guangyao has noticed lan xichen isn’t feeling too good, distracts nie huaisang (who is getting a lecture) from bothering er-ge and gets him to lavish er-ge’s paintings with praise instead. wow.

- there’s something sadly poetic about lan xichen being stressed mostly because of jin guangyao, who is also the one who notices and immediately starts working on alleviating that discomfort

- things jin guangyao feeds lan xichen: only the best perfectly selected tea for the lan, let’s try it wangji. his favorite fruits, already waiting for him inside. that peppy tone of voice when they meet in the present day for the first time. imagine being the man someone of jin guangyao’s caliber of caregiving gives his full devotion to. zewu-jun luckiest motherfucker in the world. (he deserves it)

- lan xichen getting that laser-focused intimate care his family is completely unable to provide

- the cl- the clothes washing extra. i genuinely think lan xichen is just inexperienced, if it was just lol lan muscle he couldn’t interact with the world without destroying everything around himself. he shows signs of being interested to learn. let him hone his house spouse skills. he deserves it

- i thought i was desensitized to this backstory, but the brothel flashback actually made me cry, what the hell

- scenarios where meng shi who has any choice chooses the same profession make me uncomfortable. this is a woman suffering in sex slavery who was destroyed and killed by it, and she always wanted out. for positive representation, how about sisi instead. or literally anyone else

- it’s almost funny looking at the temple scenes in hindsight, because. the sound direction, the sense of threat. and what is implied to be the source of that threat? the question of what jin guangyao is going to do, how dangerous is that thing he is digging for, what will he use it for

and the answers are: he was running away, it was his mom’s corpse he wanted to take with him because he adored her even when the rest of the world thought she was garbage. also, no one was ever in any danger besides jin guangyao himself and his sect and allies.

i will fight people about this btw, everyone comes out of the temple as unharmed as they were always intended to be. he has ample opportunities to kill every single one of them and he never acts in a way that shows he has the slightest inclination to actually do so. he threatens people into behaving and then tries to leave. and in every adaptation so far when he is leaving he's going to leave the captives behind, untouched.

[bearpillowmonster]

Neo: The World Ends With You

I'm invested in the original game and its characters, I'm invested in this game and its characters. I've had a lot of time for the original game to marinate and I can say that I enjoy pretty much every character and their arc and while I don't exactly feel the same with this one, that's not disappointing to me and this was my most anticipated game of 2021 so I mean that. This is a sequel, I expected as much and it didn't let me down, it's even better than I thought.

This is a NONSPOILER review because I think it's best experienced by actually experiencing it so I'll keep a lot of character, story, and even gameplay details out other than how the very VERY beginning of the game starts out with Rindo and Fret.

Let me give credit where credit is due, Rindo is voiced by Paul Castro Jr. who is a new voice actor and I was honestly impressed by his voice more than anyone else in the game, I love his voice and while Rindo has some pretty big shoes to fill as the main, I think he does it. Rindo seems to act pretty accordingly to the situation he's put in. He's not as edgy as Neku but he has enough push to him to where he would be considered the "negative" of the group but I would rather call it "rational" because he brings up some valid points, stuff that I myself was asking. Putting yourself in his shoes, that seems pretty accurate.

Fret on the other hand is a bit of the opposite, an optimist if you will. He's not really a "bad" character, just in comparison to the others, he's not my favorite. I think that there needs to be someone in his position who tries to uplift the team, but he's just a little annoying about it sometimes. Also get ready to hear "Galaxy Brain, ACTIVATE!!" literally hundreds of times, as much as he talks, you'd think he'd add more variety.

IMPROVEMENTS:

I'm not going to complain about certain gameplay elements or limitations that carried over from the last game except one. The camera. It's fixed to where you have no control over it in the city areas and therefore can't get a proper look at everything, whether that works in its favor, I'm not sure because you get used to it but it's just a small peeve you start out with.

The combat is pretty loyal to the first game which is surprising. I personally didn't like the original gameplay because it was so limited on the DS, a lot of room for error, but having it on console expands the system and lets you use buttons rather than mashing a touch screen, improving on almost, if not all, gameplay fronts. However, because it's based on a game from 2007, the system may seem a little outdated to some, it's really up to you, it made a fan out of me, making it more fun.

I played the original in bites, not because of lack of enjoyment but because I felt like it was a game I could only get into for so long at a time but with this game it's the complete opposite. Maybe it was the DS hardware that hampered the original but I say it's a decent success on this game's part. I also felt that Persona 5 seemed a bit formulaic in its story context and gameplay layout with each castle but this game, while having patterns, it changes before you get the chance to really catch on. I could predict P5 but I couldn't predict this, each day was a mystery, I knew you'd fight people but I didn't always know who or when which is crazy considering that P5 had all the choices!

A small improvement that I'll suggest for combat is having short rhythm based moves or even QTEs, like how in the original Shiki had the directional pad moves which were annoying but still varied from the rest of the gameplay. There are definitely new things that you can do, but there are a few aspects worth complaining about. You can unlock certain abilities and once you enable them, you can't disable them. The only one that it personally applies with is the ability to enable individual health bars for enemies, rather than an overall one. Which sounds good but-

I personally don't like that it's always floating above their heads, if it was on the side screen, that'd be one thing but constantly above their heads? No deal. I actually had to go back and load up an old save to get rid of it. But with unlocking certain abilities comes with quality of life aspects so if you're not in love with the gameplay at first, give it a little bit because you might be able to unlock whatever piece you're missing.

There's also "soundsurfing" that adds to your groove meter that you can use when running around and it said that you press (in my case "X" on PS4) to the beat of the song which is a cool concept but it really isn't clear how to use it because I try matching the beat and I get nothing and have more success just button mashing. The groove meter can drop when it's not supposed to, like when you literally can't attack during the buffering of a special or switching between battles in a chain (The "Get Ready" screen) And if you're in a proper boss battle, you HAVE to fight, it's like a trainer battle in Pokémon which is especially annoying when you accidentally press "retry". It has no reason to be there when I already know that I'm not prepared for the boss and can't back out.

Do the trailers spoil it?

Originally, I only saw the first and or second trailer and knew I wanted it so there was no reason to see any more but it was kind of overwhelming with all the characters they were showing off in just a single trailer. I don't think they needed to go that far but I understand why they did. I understand why they showed a lot of things that they did but I think it's a bit easier to SWALLOW when it's introduced in-game. I even found myself doing all the side-quests and being engaged in the side-stuff in-game. But I knew about people pointing out spoilers so after I finished it, I went back and looked at the other trailers and OH BOY. The final trailer shows some stuff and I'm SO glad I didn't watch it. They straight up show some out of context death scenes as well as different alliances and betrayals, not to mention parts of the freaking ending. The launch trailer is no better, it's just like that trailer but cut down. You may not have context but you can draw some hefty conclusions and that alone makes me question, why? I'm not sure if there are many reveals that they DIDN'T tease, it's like they went out of their way to hit every single one. Whether it's Square or Nintendo, they need to figure out how to cut a trailer, heck, hire me, I at least have the editing skills and know what's interesting enough to show and what's too spoilery not to show, come on!

Is it newcomer friendly?

I heard a lot of things like "it drops you in without mercy so pay very close attention" (in terms of story, that is) so only people who played the original game will be able to get it. But I beg to differ, I think it does a pretty good job of filling you in while putting you in the shoes of a new player (both in the game and out) AND keeping the mystery of whatever happened since the last game coming in small pieces. Most of the dialogue text boxes are voice acted so it's not really a slog to read. To prove my point further, the premise starts out very similar so it should be easy to clue in what exactly happened in the last game. Of course you're going to get more enjoyment out of it if you played the original but I don't think you'd be totally lost if you started with this one and played to right before the ending because then it kinda has to do stuff without preface, so you're going to be confused by much of the emotional weight that it carries. But it still gives you plenty of time to catch up on the original, whether through the game, videos, or lore, this game has you ask the questions, so fill in the blank. It has a nice length to it so you'll have until the ending to figure it out. Also, Final Remix teased stuff that this game makes clarity on but I wouldn't call FR mandatory. (Except maybe no numbers on the hand? Maybe even I missed something there.)

[duhragonball]

Krillin for the character ask :)

Give me a character and I will answer:

Why I like them: It’d be easy for me to say “he’s just a good dude” and leave it at that.   I think people would agree with that statement, but I think it runs deeper than that.   The thing that stuck with me about Krillin was when I was checking out the bonus features on the Movie 6 DVD I bought in 2002 or whenever, and they had an interview with Sonny Strait where he explained that Krillin only got into martial arts to impress girls, and that was the same reason Sonny got into voice acting.    Maybe I’m misremembering that, but it always stuck with me.   

Krillin wants things out of life, and unlike a lot of the other characters, he’s not looking to get them by wishing on a magic dragon.   He wants to become worthy of the things he wants, and he may not always be sure of how to get there, he knows that he has to become more than he is.  

Recently, I’ve been seeing excerpts from Barack Obama’s book, where he talks about reading up on subjects to try, unsuccessfully, to get girls to like him in college.    I think the idea was that he was trying to be self-effacing, but it hasn’t gone over very well.  I’m not sure if the problem was that he wasn’t being self-effacing enough, or if there’s something more sinister about reading Karl Marx just in case it helps your odds of getting noticed.    I’m not going to wade into that controversy, except to say that it reminded me of Krillin.  

Is it shallow to have self-serving reasons to improve yourself?   Did I just answer my own question?   The point I’m making here is that it’s a useful motivator.    Krillin has self-esteem issues, and he joined the Orin Temple and then Kame House to try to overcome them.   He thought “If I just get really good at this one thing, then people will like me.”   And we can say “Oh, no, it doesn’t work that way, Krillin, people like you because you’re a such a good person, and besides, it doesn’t matter how good you are at martial arts.”  

Okay, fine, let’s assume that’s true, and Krillin deceived himself by training in martial arts.    Oh no!   He put in all that work, and all he got out of it was... being the strongest human on Earth.   Shoot.    He made himself a better person for nothing.

The reality is that I don’t think he would be as well-liked if he hadn’t gone down this road, simply because people wouldn’t have gotten to know him.   That’s really what it’s about.   It’s easy to say that you’re liked for “who you are on the inside”, but what people really want is to be noticed long enough to be liked for who they are.    And sometimes you gotta take a long look at yourself and say “I need to do something to grab people’s attention.”

And sometimes, in order to motivate yourself into that kind of work, you have to play that trick on yourself.    “Just think, if I put in those extra reps in the gym, the ladies’ll be all over me!”   And it never actually happens, but it gets you through that workout, and the next, and the next, and the next.  

I think we can all relate to that.   I’m writing this because three people asked me to, and I’m sort of hoping a few more will see it and like what I wrote.   I try to get better, because I like the rush of validation that comes with it.   And if I don’t get it, well, boo-hoo, I wrote a few hundred words about Krillin, a subject I enjoy writing about.   It’s a no-lose situation, and there’s some non-zero chance that attractive single women might see this and decide to slide into my DMs.    It’s a tiny chance, hardly worth mentioning, but it’s a lot higher than if I just sit in my apartment and stare at the wall.   

Why I don’t: Ocean Dub Krillin really rubbed me the wrong way, because they wrote and voice directed the character to be really nebbishy.   That wouldn’t necessarily make him a bad character, but it definitely conflicted with what you see on the screen, where he’s stepping to Nappa, Vegeta, Dodoria, and everything else he has to deal with.    Once Sonny got the role, everything turned out cool.  Mondo cool, if you will.

I suppose I should point out the flip side of what I wrote above.  Krillin’s so focused on being worthy that he fails to recognize his achievements.   That’s admirable in its way, but it also makes you worry about the guy.    Like, he knows 18 is crazy about him, right?   Wait, does Obama know people like him?   Do I?  Oh I might have made myself sad there for a minute, excuse me.

Favorite episode (scene if movie):

Probably the moment he tries to take on Super Buu all by himself.   One of the cool things about Krillin is that he’s taken on every major villain from Piccolo Junior to Buu, despite being outclassed.    I think the Super Buu thing is the best one, though, because in that situation there’s literally no chance of anyone jumping in to save him.    His entire plan is to hold off Buu for a few seconds and maybe buy a few minutes for the others. He’s doomed and he knows it won’t even work as a diversion, but he still jumps in anyway.    It proves that this is who he is.    When there’s literally no one left to impress, and nothing left to gain, he’ll still play things out the same way.  

Favorite season/movie: The Androids/Cell Saga is probably his best material overall, just because of his conflicted feelings regarding 18, and the difficult choices he makes because of that.   You can make a strong case for the Namek Saga, where it’s literally just Krillin and Bulma and Gohan, so he has to take the lead by default, but I’m just not that into the Namek Saga.

Favorite line:

This is really more from one of the video games.   I think Budokai 3, but I’m not sure.   Piccolo demands custody of Gohan and Krillin’s like “No way, you’re probably gonna eat him or something!” and I’m pretty sure this wasn’t in the Ocean Dub, so it completely caught me off-guard, like it was the last thing I expected Krillin to say.   And then Piccolo comes back with “I’m not going to eat him!”  like he’s offended at the very suggestion.   As a runner-up, I dig that part in DBZA 54, where Trunks and Vegeta are both reeling from their losses to Perfect Cell, and Krillin reminds them that they don’t have to posture around him, because it’s just him... “Krillin.    Everyone’s friend.”

Favorite outfit: That’s easy.

Yeah, the Frieza Soldier armor looked mighty good on this dude, and the cop uniform does too, and the classic Turtle Hermit outfit is a signature look, but this, right here, is the Krillin for me.    My man’s got the blue shirt under his orange shirt.    No more of the Yamcha slipppers.   Those look great on Yamcha, don’t get me wrong, but Krillin needs those big chunky Goku boots, because they’re perfect for stomping those pesky girlfriend-exploding remotes.   Fellas, this is the ideal male body.    You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like.   

OTP: Maron HAHAHAHAHAHA oh wow.   No. It’s 18, obviously.

Brotp: Clearly Goku is his bro, but it’s not surprising at all how effortlessly he gets along with just about everyone else.   He’s bros with the entire world.

Head Canon: I’m pretty sure the Maron/Marron thing was just a coincidence in real life.   Maron the girlfriend was a filler character, and Marron the daughter was introduced in the manga some time later, and both used the same naming convention to end up in the same place.   However, I choose to believe that Krillin actually named his kid after his ex, and he somehow convinced 18 to go along with that idea.   

By that, I don’t mean he had to sweet talk her into it or promise a bunch of stuff in exchange.    I mean he must have discussed what to name their kid, and 18 was like “Your ex-girlfriend?   Seriously?” and he was like “Yeah, I know she’s a ditz, but you gotta understand I was in a really low place and she helped me through it.”   Or something like that, where once he lays out the whole reason 18′s like “Yeah, you know what?   Okay.” 

Or maybe Maron helped deliver the baby or something.   Or she was the surrogate mother?   Holy shit I might be onto something.

Unpopular opinion: Krillin clanks when he walks, due to the solid brass balls he’s got.

A wish: They should do a movie where Krillin just fights Frieza and wins.   Decisively, undisputably, irrevocably.   Krillin is stronger than Frieza from that point forward.    I don’t care if that means nerfing Frieza or godmodding Krillin, but I just want it made plain that if they use Frieza from here on, it has to be with the understanding that Krillin can whip his ass at any time.  

That might sound silly, and I guess it is, but you see what this accomplishes, right?   It forces Frieza into a new character dynamic, so it’s not just the same old shit with him.    Or Toei collectively admits that they can’t use him anymore, which was what they should have decided in 1995.   I’m fine either way.

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen: Don’t grow his hair back, okay? 

5 words to best describe them: Qualified to sell real estate.

My nickname for them: The Kriller.

[snowdropsandtigers]

Post-Season One Rewatch Miscellany

Okay I think details are already fading even though I finished in three days, so let’s try to get some thoughts down.

- Vic’s initial coping mechanism is art. After that scares her father, and with her meeting with Manx looming ahead, that’s when she chooses to cope via drinking to forget. Later on, it’s similar; she’s helpless to do anything when she thinks her only way to fight is gone, so she turns to drinking and stops trying to make her family relationships okay. She doesn’t cope well with being helpless, and the drastically worse situation she’s in when Manx becomes aware of her existence pushes her into the things she was trying to avoid. It’s also something she can do with Craig, who she always valued, but earlier thought of as too busy with weed for her. He’s her only real, unconditional support at the time, as she’s become more isolated due to her family crumbling and her boyfriend inadvertently pushing her away.

- On that note; normally I get at least a little unhappy when you have a story in which the main girl doesn’t want someone who’s pining for her and then realizes he’s great, and on my initial watch it did surprise me a little. This time around I still feel a little pang over Drew, mostly over how it foreshadows what she’ll lose later, but I really do like how there’s no judgment in any of it. There’s nothing to say she needed to choose differently at the start, or that she should be judged based on her ability to select a man. She just wanted to be with someone who was there for her at the right time, who she valued, and who wouldn’t abandon her the way everyone else had one way or another. Also, he was a genuinely nice guy who never gave her a hard time over his feelings. I felt for him all right during my first watch, but now I really like him in much the same way as I really like Lou.

- It’s just so awful to watch Vic’s hopes and dreams crumble throughout the season. She tried so hard for everyone that in the end she couldn’t see herself following up on that for her own sake. Of course she didn’t feel like she could go to art school, given the responsibility she felt she had already failed in to protect people, and the baby that was all she had left of her best friend. She didn’t feel like the same person who wanted to go, and she’d feel like the person she was trying to escape becoming—a disappointment to her loved ones (Craig in not saving him), and pregnant before she could find a life of her own. All of that would build up over the years until by next season, unable to find and save kids from Christmasland for years, she feels she’s just as ruined and hopeless as Charlie says she is.

- Relatedly, as on my first watch, I continue to appreciate the irony in how much Charlie ruins and damages what he claims to love and want to protect. He destroyed families and stole children’s futures, and we watch him traumatize Vic long before he decides he’s going to hurt her. We watch him watch her suffering over Maggie and it doesn’t get through to him whatsoever, anymore than Jolene could get through when she actually tried. We watch an episode where Bing, who he hires to hurt people, abducts and sexually assaults her while Charlie discusses her purity with a guy who, even with his own misogyny, seems more clearheaded in his lack of a madonna/whore complex. (Sure, he didn’t ask for that to happen, but that’s the kind of thing he did encourage Bing to do, and he even validates it later. It’s a natural consequence of his words and actions.) Given everything in the season, it looks like Vic would have been well on her way to escaping Haverhill like she wanted, without having ever tasted alcohol or weed first, if not for his effect on her life. It may not be a certainty, and of course none of that made her a bad person like he said, but he did definitely push her in that direction at an important turning point in her life. I haven’t gotten that far into the book, but I keep remembering the line “what Charlie Manx couldn’t do, she did to herself.” (Or something almost exactly that.) This holds true for the show, and it’s also so true of the man himself. We see that with him and Jolene too, with her desperately wanting to believe in him, him being unable to give her a reason to, and the way he doubled down on it by trying to kill her right after. We’ll see more of that in season two. There are immensely sympathetic reasons for him to be messed up and do the wrong thing , just as with Vic,* but we can also see how his opportunities to have the things he wanted become lost, as with her. I love how he and Vic are narrative foils in this story about both how suffering can inform you and limit your choices—taking into account that limits which “only” exist in your head are still very real—and how your choices are your own. It’s very satisfying to me. A good pair of foils is just…neat.

- Speaking of! Vic has so many foils. Her father, her mother, as a parent. Her own son as the victim Charlie does successfully (if temporarily) take away, where he failed with her. Maggie, as the girl who was hunting Charlie before Vic wanted to, and the girl who wants to try for a normal life just when Vic is newly determined and desperate to hunt him with her. Jolene, who got to meet him before he showed himself as who he chose to be and had to do the hunting on her own. Bing, who we meet as someone who shares her desire to escape his current life circumstances. And Millie. The other daddy’s girl. All throughout the season we watch Vic lose faith in her father, and I couldn’t help thinking, when the calls from Christmasland started, of how Millie would go through the same thing next season. They barely interact and they don’t have a relationship, but I am absolutely fascinated by the fact that Millie goes down a similar path, that her own connection to her mother got her calling on Vic for help and gave Vic help in return, and that she must be feeling some things about how her father let her walk into the world alone, but also what she did led to his death. Not wholly unlike how at the same time, Vic is still disillusioned with her own father and watches him be murdered before she can offer him forgiveness or the hope of reconciliation. That is a wonderful mess of feeling and potential narrative fodder.

- When I heard this wasn’t getting renewed, I tried to look on the bright side. At least it wouldn’t get awful, which it still had the potential to do, and it could remain a story I loved. But damn, I rarely vibe with a show the way I do with this one; not even with shows I love do I tend to feel as on the same wavelength as I felt with NOS4A2. So many other things have gotten renewed that are less good, that don’t try to do as much with their characters, or that I just plain don’t care about as much. Whether or not things would’ve gone badly in the end, this show deserved the chance to keep trying. It’s hard to explain, but as a whole it felt unique, unlike much of the television I’ve seen over the years. The show it reminds me the most of is Buffy; mainly in their protagonists, which is the thing I love best about both shows, but also the blend of the personal and the supernatural, the grounding of the supernatural in real life. (After making this observation on my own when watching the first time, I discovered that Vic’s original creator, Joe Hill, said he thought of her as a Buffy in a different time of her life. I love finding connections between my favorite stories, but finding that it was also a connection the writer was making, and the influence is there, was very pleasing.) But it’s very much its own thing. I would’ve loved to see more of it. In the unlikely event that someone has gotten this far and not seen it because it was cancelled, or left it unfinished for the same reason—I’ve seen a couple say that over the last six months or so—I’d encourage you to not let that be a factor! It’s very complete as it is, and rewarding in how it unites characters with themes. I could’ve done with so much more of it.

*I truly appreciate how sympathetic this show is with everyone. Everyone. Every major character is framed as someone to feel empathy for at one point or another, and this is true for most, if not all, of the minor characters too, if I remember this right. We’re asked to carry that empathy when we look at them, when we look at the story as a whole. This show is so stressful and yet so kind, so empathetic. In my opinion, it is so stressful in part because it’s kind and empathetic, because you feel so much for the people who are suffering. I could feel that, and that’s part of my love for it.

[syncogon]

[QZGS meta] what’s in an OP? dawning glory (pt 3)

(part 1) (part 2) 

This is the third and last post in my little series analyzing the opening theme of The King’s Avatar Season 2! Honestly, this whole thing became way longer than I was expecting. I guess this is what happens when all my immense amount of love for this series, accumulated over years of no-donghua-updates, overlaps with my immense amount of love for anime openings. 

Watched the first and second episodes yesterday, and they really sparked a lot of joy. :D I missed Blue River so much :D

Yesterday, they released the OST for Season 2, which includes the TV cut and full versions of the OP and ED, as well as two insert songs, and the instrumental versions of all of the above. I’ve yet to find anywhere that lets me download the audio files (hoping they’ll be reuploaded to youtube or bilibili soon), but in the meantime you can listen here. They’re really good songs!  https: //www. kuwo. cn/album_detail/15792659

Anyway, let’s finish up this OP analysis!

Now here, we reach the true climax as we enter the chorus section. This next segment is definitely the highest-energy part of the entire opening. It’s a montage of Happy’s characters showing off their moves, timed to the music; there’s not too much deeper meaning, but damn if it doesn’t look fantastic. The animation flows from one character and scene to the next so smoothly, so beautifully, it’s just incredibly hype to see. This is what you get when you specifically choreograph/animate sequences for the opening instead of just reusing shots from the main show! (Parts of some of these shots appeared in episode 1, but I do honestly think that it’s more likely that the show reused shots from the opening than the other way around, just because of how perfectly the OP fits together. I also don’t think it’s super noticeable in-show; I’ve just been watching this obsessively.)

In particular I love the line that kicks this all off: “just put on your battle armor and step onto the road to the unknown.” Specifically, though, the rhythm of the lyric is, “jiu pi shang zhan jia ta shang wei zhi qian fang,” with emphasizing accents on the -ang sounds. This isn’t how you would divide the phrase naturally, but because the (syncopated!!) melody accents these notes/syllables, the rhyming effect really stands out and it feels as clever and satisfying as a rap lyric. Moreover, the emphasis times juuust right with the attacks of Soft Mist, Steamed Bun Invasion, and Windward Formation, a perfect example of how music and visuals mutually reinforce each other for maximum cool effect. 

It’s generally easier to rhyme in Chinese than English, because of a smaller phonetic vocabulary. From the chorus onward, the key rhyme is on the “-ang” sound (think “ahng” or “ong”, not “aang” like the Avatar), which is a good choice - powerful, reverberant. The asymmetry of the syllable’s use in this section - the song’s lines are all different lengths at this part, so you’re kept on your toes as to when the pattern will reappear - helps add to the engaging excitement of the song. This is also the syllable used for most of the rhymes in the second half of the first OP. 

jiu pi shang zhan jia ta shang wei zhi qian fang

hui qi shou zhong wo jin de na shu guang

you ni men zai lu shang__

shi li liang

I really love One Inch Ash’s design. Concealed Light had a big redesign for this season, and honestly I like it as well. And notice here that he’s holding a book - exactly how we left Luo Ji when we saw him last! 

“Waving the light clenched tightly in our hand” - that is to say, brandishing our light as our weapon, no matter what form it may take - a sword, a book, our hope and determination. 

On a purely musical note (ha), right at this point, specifically the measure beginning with “那束光,” you can hear a three-note “ooo” harmony line in the background, and wow it’s so subtle but I love it so much! A similar three-note line actually appears earlier too (during the “crossing the frozen finish line,” right as the music is building up), also to great effect.  

We follow Concealed Light’s gaze upward to the building to see Deception running along the wall, from which he does a flip and slashes downward with twin blades. I love that transition a lot, but my favorite transition of this entire sequence has to be the following one:

Yes! Deception’s cross slash resolves perfectly into the cross held by Little Cold Hands. It’s so fast and so natural you don’t even notice it, and that’s the absolute beauty of it. The first time I saw this, I was in awe - the animators really brought their A-game to this, far better than I ever would have dared hope for this series.

And Little Cold Hands is so pretty! When we got our first art of her official design, the comments were filled with people simping for her, and honestly, valid. I’m surprised her hair is purple instead of pink, but that’s just a minor thing. 

There’s something especially powerful about how she raises her cross in time with the lyric “having you all here [with me] on this road,” and then the cross flashing brilliantly with “it’s power.” More than any other role, the healer is a team player. And this theme of team togetherness is particularly important for An Wenyi, who is deeply moved by the team’s perhaps illogical faith in him. Remember that analogy Ye Xiu tells him, of the straw tied to the deluxe mitten crab? 

An aside: listening to this, I always thought the line should be 有你们在身旁 instead of 有你们在路上, because it still fits the rhyme, because my past experience has somewhat conditioned me to expect that phrase, and because the full message of “having you by my side is power” just makes me wanna tear up like what a good line! So it felt like a missed opportunity that they didn’t use that. But as it turns out, the final iteration of this chorus in the full version of the OP does, in fact, use “by my side”! And I think making this tiny tweak to the lyric the final time you here it just makes it that much stronger :’)

I’m also just a big fan of the “it’s power” melodic flourish in general, since it comes as a surprise. You kind of expect the melody to end with the previous phrase, but the extra notes here add a really nice emphatic beat to finish off the line. 

So to recap the transitions: we see Soft Mist falling from the sky and get a close up of her face as she stabs her spear; this takes us to a closeup of Steamed Bun’s face facing roughly the same direction before we zoom out to his torso and he slashes from lower left of the screen to upper right; following the motion of that slash we see Windward Formation’s torso rotate in that direction as the camera zooms out farther; we follow the rays of his attack to see One Inch Ash drawing his sword; we zoom in on the flashing blade and zoom out on Concealed Light’s glowing book; we follow his gaze upward to see Deception running along the building behind him; Deception leaps and slashes and the slash becomes Little Cold Hands’ cross, which raises up and triggers an explosion. It’s just so dynamic and smooth even without taking place in one continuous setting, and it just really, really gets you hyped. 

Also, starting from Happy’s team picture at the start of the chorus, which is during the day, it feels like Soft Mist and Steamed Bun’s moves are at late afternoon, Windward Formation and One Inch Ash take us to nighttime, and then you can see the first rays of morning in Concealed Light and Deception’s segments. This continuity also definitely helps with the feeling of natural flow through these scenes. 

Anyway, this entire action segment is just so beautiful, I could watch it on loop. But we still have the final segment of this OP to analyze, so let’s keep going.

After the action sequences of the climax, we settle down a bit now as we approach the end. Here we see the Excellent Era team picture, in the same style as the team pics we saw earlier, but presented separately. It makes sense, as the role they play in the story is different from the roles of all the other teams. 

Sun Xiang, Liu Hao, and Cui Li are at the bottom. Because we’re panning up, these three are the first we see. At first glance, the way they’re positioned is fairly consistent with the team pics we’ve seen already: Captain Sun Xiang at center-right, the largest figure; vice-captain Liu Hao, manager Cui Li in the background. 

Sun Xiang’s position and expression is really the only one that fits the healthy pattern of the teams we’ve seen already - looking toward the camera, a confident (though arrogant) smile. He might be misguided, but there’s hope for him yet. Notice how Liu Hao isn’t even looking at the camera, which as we’ve seen before is somewhat of an indication of how unified and focused the team is toward its goal; instead, Liu Hao is doing his own thing, determined to prioritize his own desires over what’s best for the team. And manager Cui Li is in this image too, despite not even being a player. His sinister presence reflects the unhealthy interference of the business side in the gaming side. Excellent Era’s downfall comes about because of its prioritization of profit over victory.

As we pan up, Excellent Era’s logo comes into view. It’s larger than any of the other team logos we’ve seen so far, spanning around three-quarters of the screen whereas the others looked to span no more than half. Excellent Era’s legacy is a weighty one, to date the only team to have ever won three championships, and consecutively to boot. 

It’s this immense, shining logo that seems to be casting Tao Xuan on the left into shadow. He cuts a large figure, reflecting the deep impact his actions have had upon the main plot of this story, even though he’s only now appearing for the first time in the donghua.

However, he’s also turned away from the camera, such that we can barely even see his closed eye. Because of that, it’s difficult to read his expression, but the impression given by this pose is not one of vindictive pride, but one of shame, as though he can’t quite bear to face what he’s done. On some level, no matter how he might try to rationalize it as necessary, Tao Xuan knows that his profit-driven betrayal of Ye Xiu was a pretty awful thing to do. It might be this amount of guilt that leads him to offer Ye Xiu a wish granted, a tribute to their years of friendship and partnership before their ties are severed completely.

In the end, Tao Xuan’s greed leaves him with nothing really to show for it. What had he gained? What had he lost? Those realizations are still a ways off in the story, but I like how this OP is already hinting at the depth of his character. Tao Xuan isn’t some glasses-flashing, evil-laughing, one-dimensional antagonist; he is in fact very realistic for the setting. We can condemn his actions and priorities, but at the same time we can understand how he ended up here.

As for Su Mucheng, her eyes are closed as well. She’s brightly illuminated, but pointedly turned away from all of the others in Excellent Era; she knows the direction of her future, and that it no longer lies with Excellent Era. Her loyalty was always to Ye Xiu, and as soon as he was banished, her relationship to the team was professional and nothing more. 

“This light hidden in my heart is burning” - there are many ways to read this lyric and what exactly the light referenced here is, but because the line is paired with this image, I naturally think about Su Mucheng’s situation. Despite her pretty-vase, sweet-girl appearance, she holds a deep, profound anger at everything that happened regarding Excellent Era. It’s a testament to her immense strength of character that she lasted the remaining one and a half years of her contract in this hostile environment. 

Yet even as she resolves to cut ties, there’s a sadness in her expression. She was here from the very beginning as well, when Excellent Era was no more than an internet cafe, and it pains her immensely that the powerhouse, championship team that they and her brother had built from the ground up would ultimately meet this tragic end.

It’s interesting to note that both of the “redeemable” characters here (namely Su Mucheng and Sun Xiang) are on the right, more brightly-lit side of the screen, so there’s a nice little dividing line you can draw there. Sun Xiang’s eyes are still looking toward the left, though, revealing how his character development still has yet to play out.

From there we cut to Ye Xiu holding Lord Grim’s account card. He’s standing back on top of the roof from the beginning of the OP, now in full daylight.

As mentioned… the animators really went ham on the bangs animation.

Ye Xiu turns away from the railing, the camera cuts to an image of Happy’s logo on a flag waving in the wind, and then we zoom out to see the current members of Team Happy gathered together in uniform, standing proud in the light of day. Left to right, Steamed Bun, Tang Rou, Luo Ji, Ye Xiu, An Wenyi, Wei Chen, Chen Guo. Presumably, this will be Happy’s lineup by the end of the season. 

Up until now, we’ve only seen the real players separate from each other - they’ve all been in different places, never even in the same frame together. (This, of course, also contrasts the pro team pics that we have, which show everyone together.) Halfway through the OP, we got the group shot of them meeting in game with their characters. And now, they’ve finally met up in the real world as well. 

One thing I like about this final pose is how it compares to the final pose of the OVA OP. It’s the same kind of power-pose vibe, but there we only had Ye Xiu, Chen Guo, and Tang Rou. Look at how we’ve grown since then! They’re well on their way to being a proper pro team! 

And that’s a wrap! With this final image of Team Happy gathered together, we’re ready to enter the episode proper. 

So let’s talk about the OP as a whole. Generally, an OP serves a couple of main roles: a) tells you a bit about what the show is about, b) gives you an overall feeling / mood for the show, c) gets you hyped and ready to watch the upcoming episode.

How well does this opening achieve those goals? Pretty well, as we’ve seen. Past OPs did a pretty good job of setting the mood, but they honestly just put some pretty visuals on the screen, only vaguely aligned to the music, and called it a day. This OP, however, has a cohesive storyline to tell, framed around Team Happy’s coming together (following the tagline of this season). Even in such a short span of time, it manages to convey so much information about its story and characters, both overt and implicit (as I hope this series of posts has managed to convince you). Paired with the music, which has its own deeper meanings encoded in the lyrics, the OP becomes incredibly effective and memorable as it makes its statement.

I mentioned an “interest curve” earlier (interest in the sense of interesting, not the money); this is part of the standard formula for anime opening songs, in my experience. I’m a little too lazy to draw a graph myself, so take a look at this image:

(source: https: //www. researchgate. net/figure/Example-of-an-interest-curve-for-a-successful-entertainment-experience_fig1_333917625 )

Although not all of the relative heights and segment lengths are accurate in this specific case, hopefully the general shape of the interest curve is enough to demonstrate my point. You’ve got the A-B peak at the opening instrumental segment, the C-D peak/arc over verse 1, the D-E-F peak/arc over verse 2, then the sharp F-G-H peak over the chorus before dropping off for a smooth landing right into the episode. This general pattern is effective at holding the viewer’s focus and managing their excitement over the course of this one and a half minutes. 

Visually, the OP is just such a treat for the eyes. I’ve already talked about many of the little details I love - lighting, character designs, animations, transitions, etc. - but all in all the new animation studio is doing a really good job here. An OP is how you hook people, and I’d definitely feel comfortable using this to try and bait people into watching this show. 

One comment I want to add is about the incorporation of the credits, which we didn’t see until the episode premiere. I don’t think there’s anything too exciting to say (and I also don’t have access to any images right now since the OP was only shown in episode 2), but the fonts and styling were a nice choice - it gave a gaming vibe, but if I recall it still used a serif font, so it didn’t feel overly modern - and the text positioning generally complements instead of distracting. I also liked how they showed the lyrics! I didn’t really expect them to include them onscreen, or if they did, I thought they would just be plain subs like they were in this video. But in the actual OP that plays at the beginning of the episode, they’re as much a part of the art as the credits!

If I had to make any criticism, my biggest complaint about the OP is, I think, the singers. I think having two different singers trade off can work nicely, but in this case, the switches are jarring because their voices are so different. The first singer has a lower, gravely voice, while the second singer’s voice sounds much brighter and more nasally. Furthermore, the first switch doesn’t come until we’re fully halfway through the song, which means that by that point we’re already used to this first singer. It’s also strange that they’d switch back to the first voice at the climax of the song, when I think the second voice would suit the high-energy segment much better. Switching from second to first right at this point feels like we’re actually taking a step down in energy, which is the opposite of what should be happening here. 

Still, my main problem isn’t with the voice switching but with the voices themselves, and I think the voices are something I could get used to. The third switch, going from the first voice back to the second voice during the shot of Excellent Era, is much less jarring than the others - I actually like how it feels like the solo is passing naturally from one person to the next, emphasizing the ideals of this not being a single-player game and all that. For that transition in particular, I think (because of the added “it’s power” flourish) it happens too quickly for one person to sing it comfortably, so having another person pick up the line works best. And I do like how the voices sound when they overlay together for the final lines of the song. 

So, overall? Overall, this OP is really damn good. It’s everything I could have asked for and more. After such a long wait, the OP, at least, does not disappoint, and I’m extremely excited to see what the series has in store for us. 

If you’ve read to this point, thank you! I like this series a lot, as you can probably see, and I’m treating it as my glory :)

[mindctrlaltdel]

Random Reviews: Mulholland Drive

This movie is BASIC INSTINCT, written and directed by Salvador Dali.

***

Recently, I watched MULHOLLAND DRIVE for the first time for my friend Shawn Eastridge's podcast, MISSING FRAMES (www.thenerdparty.com/missingframes/episode-103-mulholland-drive).

As I watched this odd, funny, disturbing, interesting flick, I took the following notes. Is it, as some critics say, the BEST FILM OF THE 21ST CENTURY? Here's an inside look at my viewing experience as I mulled over MULHOLLAND DRIVE...

[PRESS PLAY]

I love how the first five minutes is basically a bad late 90's Gap commercial, all swing dancing, no point...

The Mulholland Drive sign is calling to us. The street, Mulholland Drive, is Bali Hai for perverts.

Justin Theroux gets top billing over Naomi Watts??

I gotta admit, I saw one of the movie's original posters and thought "Naomi Watts AND the lady from the first MEN IN BLACK is in this? It's the triumphant return of Linda Fiorentino." When I DIDN'T see her name in the opening credits, I was disappointed. She's NO Linda Fiorentino... for this role, she's even better. AND she's a countess (seriously, look it up). Oh, and Robert Forster shows up for 10 minutes.

Not-Linda Fiorentino has some hustle in her for someone who just survived a horrible head on collision.

I like how the street signs kind of tell us where we are and what kind of world we're in. It's like a surreal, dramatic version of that Californians SNL sketch.

You mean to tell me that the red-headed older woman didn't see not-Linda Fiorentino under her kitchen table? UnbeLIEVable.

Holy crap, the wide-eyed guy in Winky's - he plays Jimmy Barrett, the comedian in MAD MEN... and MAD MEN is an interesting connection here, because everyone talks in this measured, paced deliberate way throughout that series, kind of similar to how the characters usually speak in the David Lynch productions I've seen... When I started watching MAD MEN, I thought the actors were purposely directed to speak that way, so everything to seem more "real" as opposed to that fast-talking, old-Hollywood style that you'd expect to see from outspoken, big idea-types. I imagined that Matt Weiner wanted people to seem - at least to modern audiences - the way people actually were - particularly, the inhabitants of the intelligent and cerebral world of ad men, working behind the scenes, on the fringes of show business. But then Jimmy Barrett, an old-timey comedian ALSO spoke that way. And it just didn't seem authentic to me. Anyway, back to THIS movie...

OH and that dingy woman behind the dumpster! She's like if Captain Howdy moved out West and got all LA on us. Is that Cloris Leachman covered in mud? And the music... for some reason, there's nothing scarier than the sound of an HVAC vent on full blast. (According to this article, www.vulture.com/2014/10/mulholland-drives-evil-hobo-breaks-her-silencio.html,the actress who played Evil Hobo #1 said of her audition process: "I don’t mean to brag, but David Lynch said he was looking for the most incredible face he could find. I actually met him at a Twin Peaks party, and he was like, 'Look at that face!'")

I love the X-Files-style synth strings that play over Naomi Watts (Betty) and gram-gram (Irene) as they walk through the hotel, I mean the airport... Aw, these two old people love Betty. What a different life she's living than that countess who's not Linda Fiorentino who's squatting in that redhead's apartment that Betty's about to move into.

Even then, Naomi had a good American accent. (Although I learned she's technically British but split her time between England and Australia), those Australians are great at spitting out neutral American sounds. But once I learned that Betty is supposed to be Canadian, I was very disappointed. It's not THAT authentic. Where are her "Aboots"? And she didn't put maple syrup on anything in this whole movie.

Oh my God, are Irene and her husband, riding in this towncar, ALSO going to get held up, like not-Linda Fiorentino at the beginning of the movie? Oh okay, they're not. We just followed them for no reason other than to see that they look happier than an old couple in a Cialis commercial. I guess meeting Betty really improved their sex life or something.

Coco - of course she's a fading hollywood starlet... AHHH, Coco is played by Ann Miller - good for her. She's basically that kooky old landlady from SEINFELD, the one who worked with the Three Stooges that Kramer met when he went to LA. Look at all these connections!

"Prize-fighting kangaroo who shits all over the courtyard" - do you think Naomi Watts is going to come out and say, "as an Australian, I was actually offended by this line, but I was scared into silence by that power-hungry monster, David Lynch."

The countess - who now goes by "Rita" - does kind of look like Rita Hayworth. I like the connections to old Hollywood and to noirs and how it's all wrapped together. Rita Hayworth is also a redhead, like Betty's aunt. She's of Spanish descent as well... and the actress playing Rita in this movie is of Mexican descent... Connections, connections.

I love that this casting session is basically run by a deep state shadow organization with a weird waiter in a red blazer... This is how Disney cast WandaVision.

HAHAHAH "That is one of the finest espressos in the world sir!" - this is DEFINITELY how Disney casts their movies. And Justin Theroux is the only man with integrity in this room! Does anyone have any class in this town!? They don't even validate his parking.

This is my favorite movie about making movies since BOWFINGER. And I may not be lying. And somehow less weird than THE ARTIST.

Is everyone gonna start killing each other over Ed's famous black book? This is oddly funny.

"Something bit me bad!" This incredibly long fight scene between the blond guy and secretary... it reminds me of the Uma Thurman/Daryl Hannah trailer fight in KILL BILL VOL. 2 but with less snakes.

These closeups of lingering looks on Rita's cash-filled purse are great... She's pulling wads of cash out of that purse one at a time, like Leslie Nielsen pulling eggs out of that blond lady in AIRPLANE!

I want to know what direction David Lynch gave that braless woman who's following the blond assassin around. It's like she's doing an acting exercise... like you know, when you're told to fill the space... "walk around the room, and clear your head. And now you're walking really fast. And now you're slow. NOW, imagine what it would be like to walk with your nose as the furthest point in front of you. Lead with your nose..." And David Lynch did that and told the braless woman to lead with her chest.

Justin Theroux is basically Robert Downey Jr.'s character from BOWFINGER, except NOW, he's the protagonist.

Betty is loving Rita's amnesia a bit too much. If this were my life, Rita would be the most interesting thing to happen to me too. Hell, if I was from Ontario, getting off at LAX would rock my world.

When Justin Theroux enters his glass-walled home to find his wife with another man, well... Justin Theroux may never star in something like HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN, but I can definitely picture him in YUPPIE WITH A GOLF CLUB.

That slinky theme song playing in Justin Theroux's/Laraine's house is a song that I actually listen to in my tiki, lounge playlist - to give you a hint of my music tastes. What I listen to for fun, Billy Ray Cyrus puts on to drown out his love-making.

By the way, BILLY RAY CYRUS!!! WHAT? Is this how Miley was conceived??? I think yes.

Pink paint in a jewelry box! This is much better than the usual throwing-all-his-belongings-out-a-second-story-apartment-window-scene that happens in every other movie.

I wouldn't be THAT excited if I learned MY name was Diane Selwin. BUT the sexxxual tension with the waitress Diane at the diner is palpable!

So, not-Linda Fiorentino has amnesia. How does she know that answering machine is NOT her voice!?

Justin Theroux/Adam Kesher's wife is very aggressive with the large man who's so dedicated to finding Adam Kesher that he keeps calling Adam's name in vain like the secretary in my doctor's office.

I watched this movie in pieces, the first half late at night. The second half the next morning. In between, while sleeping, I had a dream where Betty and Rita were looking over a map and any time one of their hands brushed over another, their hands would turn gold. As if this was a stylistic choice made by the filmmaker directing my dream to show that there's some kind of deeper relationship between these two women. So I've started dreaming in Lynch.

I like how this film is so utterly connected to not only Lynch's subconscious, but the audience's as well. Lynch is TAPPED IN. I don't always love when a film goes all in with a surreal style, because sometimes that's just a cover for something lacking in the storytelling department. But I do feel there's more to it here, in MULHOLLAND DRIVE.

The hooded woman, Louise... I feel like I've run into her on the streets of New York. A Louise will ALWAYS find a way to give you a portent of doom that ruins your day. Friggin’ Louise.

This movie is so moody, you really have to be in the mood to watch it.

There's something magical and prophetic about the cowboy, like he's the seer that the old general sees on the eve of battle... Also, I love how the lead female role in Justin Theroux's movie is his sword of destiny. There's a glitz and gleam and nostalgia to Old Hollywood that naturally gives this movie, set in "modern" Hollywood," a total fantasy vibe.

Hahaha that "You're still here?" scene rehearsal between Betty and Rita is an excellent transition.

James Karen - the real estate guy from POLTERGEIST - is handling casting! "He moved the headshots but he didn't cast the bodies!!"

The casting direction: "Don't play it for real until it gets real." It's interesting how the characters, who work in the "business," seem to control their reality. Betty seems unsure of where the scene is going, then she gets into it. And it really speaks to her conversion from a bright-eyed new arrival to someone who surrenders to the darker impulses of the city.

HEAVY BREATHING.

Ugh friggin' Bob...

I love how Lynnie, the casting director, pulls the rug out from under that scene. There's always a jaded casting person who totally wrecks any good feelings about every audition. It's a thing.

David Lynch uses nostalgia and a latent love for Hollywood to draw the characters (and us) into his world and then subverts our expectations. A lot.

Why is the screen test just a lip-synching contest? ...I think it feeds into the nostalgia element for the movie at large but it seems like a waste of studio resources here. Early-aughties Hollywood spending, amirite?

Rita's reaction to finding the body is played very much like the reaction a character would have in an older film... The horror! The fear! The silent gaping terror while possessed with the inability to scream. I was watching the original KING KONG before this (which is may be a sign from the universe that I had to watch this Naomi Watts vehicle, as she starred in the remake), and specifically remember the scene where the director Carl Denham is coaching Ann Darrow/Fay Wray on how to act in a horror film - "now look up, and you see it, you see it in all its horror. And your jaw drops and you try to scream but you're so frozen in terror that you can't!" - I imagine that's what Lynch is doing to not-Linda Fiorentino off-camera as they filmed this scene.

Uh-oh, Rita is single-white femal'ing Betty now... She doesn't have a personality of her own, so she's going to take Betty's.... And now we're just getting NUDE with each other. This erotic thriller immediately turned from skintillating to Skinemax.

"I'm in love with you" - is Betty just saying that to convince herself? It feels more lusty than real. Betty's so bright-eyed and bushy tailed. Rita is gonna chew her up and spit her out!

I like the shot when they're sleeping together and, as they rest, their faces overlap thanks to the perspective of the framing. How much of the same person are they becoming? Where does one personality start and the other end?

The weird 2am theater. How'd Rita and Betty find this place? I love how this pop-up slam-poetry reading in this opera house is as terrifying to Rita and Betty as finding the dead body.

So Betty starts convulsing in her seat and then the poet disappears in a kind of old-style, cinematic I'm disappearing effect. I dig it.

Wait... is this a mysterious, magical show that just appears in LA, like Hamunaptra, the City of the Dead, that town in THE MUMMY that only shows up at sunrise on the third day or something like that? Or is this just a poorly attended Spanish-language talent show that could only afford to book this theater at 2am on a Thursday?

I love that Betty and Rita are tearing up over Rebekah Del Rio's performance (Rebekah Del Rio is a real person, by the way). Then, Rebekah faints as her voice keeps singing - is NOTHING real? Has Betty totally given into this weird world to the point that she doesn't really know what's authentic and what's fake anymore OR was Betty fake before she got to LA so it was easy for her to get acclimated.

This movie is like THE MATRIX, from the perspective of characters who only took the blue pill and didn't look back.

OOOH, Betty has the box and Rita has the key! But the box is empty except maybe its the Gom Jabbar pain-box from DUNE. Is David Lynch using MULHOLLAND DRIVE as an excuse to make good on his promise to produce a good version of DUNE.

WAIT A SECOND, the cowboy knows the dead girl? Does this even matter?

Now, wait ANOTHER second. Is Betty performing or DREAMING when she's Diane or is something else going one??

What's the BLUE KEY doing there?

"Two Detectives"??? Is she talking about Betty and Rita OR Robert Forster and the pudgy guy? OR someone else entirely - the two guy's from Winky's???

The movie became more interesting the moment the perspective shifted to "Diane" and "Camilla." When that happened, Naomi Watts really amped up her performance... reaching a level of intensity we hadn't seen since Betty's audition... it does take 2 hours to reach that point.... But then, when Betty and Rita are topless on the couch, I couldn't tell who they were supposed to be until Rita/Camilla called her "Diane."

Wait, now Rita's acting?? OH, so Rita was an actress? And Diane wasn't? Or Betty looks exactly like Diane?

The weird shifts in focus. The sad masturbating. This is the most depressing soft-core ever made!

Did Betty get killed and have amnesia too?

They take a shortcut to Eddie's house which looks EXACTLY like where Rita/Camilla was taken at the beginning of the movie by the hitmen in the towncar before that wild accident with those teenagers made her life weirder... OR less weird. You be the judge.

IS this a flashback or the future. Eddie and Camilla are having an affair?

MY MOTHER? COCO - what's real and what isn't????

The jitterbug competition.... Diane/Naomi wanted the lead so bad, Camilla got the part but in Mulholland Drive, Naomi is the star.

Then, Camilla is kissing that other blond actress who Betty watched screen test...

MULHOLLAND DRIVE is just David Lynch telling us that LA is a place for lust and jealousy and no matter what, purity gets ruined.

WHAT, the blond waitress is BETTY? And Diane hires the blond guy, who's officially labeled as a hitman.

Diane is also from Canada...

Are Diane and Betty just different versions of the same people in nearby parallel universes? I certainly HOPE so. This is too much insanity for ONE universe to handle.

The blue key will be found where the blond guy told Diane. Okay, that makes sense. But if this were to mirror real life, the key was in her hand the WHOLE time!

OH, and hobo-Cloris Leachman comes back... AND she's holding the blue box/Gom Jabbar... WHY the hell did those two old people wander out of that paper bag??? Do they represent longstanding guilt? Seems like it. Because they've just crept into Diane's apartment.

MULHOLLAND DRIVE is almost silly to the point of pretentiousness at points - at least with the last word to be uttered on screen - "silencio." That said, it does evoke the HAMLET line: "And the rest is silence," so THAT's poetic.

Sadly, Robert Forster was barely in this movie...

Oh, and Lee Grant played Louise - the old-Hollywood connections keep coming!

I can't believe this movie was intended to be a pilot?

***

Now, some final notes:

On the swapping of characters and relationships in the last 30 minutes -- my first thought was that Betty/Diane and Rita/Camilla look similar and/or they're connected by a parallel universe, and the diner is like the central hub between worlds, and hobo-Cloris Leachman is the gatekeeper between the two worlds... I buy the "dream world" explanation that some critics espouse, that's something I considered myself as I watched. But I'm not sure I believed Betty is Diane's dream version of herself. Also, I think David Lynch has a feeling about how everything fits together, yet I don't know if he's even settled on an explanation for everything. He just trusted his subconscious and he's so confident in his latent abilities, that we trust him to show us everything we need to see and take us everywhere we need to go.

I enjoy how it's a surrealist answer to SUNSET BOULEVARD. I hope in 2050, someone makes "The 405" really tying all these movies and Los Angeles roads together.

MULHOLLAND DRIVE is weird but good. Still, I don't know if, to me, it's more weird than good. It's also funny. But is it funny because it's weird or because it's actually, genuinely funny? Are these questions David Lynch actually wants me to ask or does he make it weird on impulse to cover for the fact that the film is simply just weird and based entirely on impulse? MULHOLLAND DRIVE is almost like a parody of a film noir, made by an inter-dimensional alien life-form who studied a bunch of movies from the 40's through the 90's but doesn't have a full grasp on human behavior, and DESPITE THAT, it's more of an emotional experience than a logical one. It's somewhere in between. It's self-indulgent in a way but also very giving. It's a paradox wrapped in an oxymoron wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a coffee-stained napkin covered in cigarette ash locked in a small, blue box.

***

Summing it up: I don't think there's a world where this movie would get a perfect score from me. Because ultimately, for all it's interesting and exciting moments, it's more of a passion project for David Lynch than a piece of entertainment for the audience, no matter how entertaining it may be. To me, it's a vision board more than it is a complete film. And yet, it IS a complete EXPERIENCE. And there's nothing wrong with that.

All of that said, I know David Lynch doesn't really like to give viewers a clear cut, traditional narrative. So, I had a feeling the mystery was just that, a mystery. Or even moreso, the FEELING of a mystery. It's not about where we're going, it's about the journey to the destination. And while the general atmosphere is moody and evocative and often powerful, MULHOLLAND DRIVE plays more like a 2.5 hour piece of music than a cohesive narrative. Maybe that's the best thing about it.

In the distant future, when our way of speaking has become as archaic as the words of Shakespeare are to us, it's the feeling and emotions and images of movies like MULHOLLAND DRIVE that will still have a timeless impact on the future audiences who view them.

[monotonous-minutia]

my brain will not let me do my reading until I put this out there, so:

my thoughts on the ending of the SFO 2015 Nozze

(note: relates to thoughts on the 3rd Beaumarchais play, so if you’re not prepared to get your heart broken multiple times, I advice you skip this. Under the line to make that easier.)

(also contains spoilers for that production, so don’t read if you haven’t seen it yet, unless you want to know before you do, or don’t plan on seeing it)

For those of you who may not know much about the 3rd Beaumarchais play(and if you don’t, I advise you keep it that way; stop reading and go about your day), it takes place many years after the events of Nozze (or Le Mariage de Figaro in the original French). Susanna and Figaro have been married for several years, and the Count and Countess have each had children by different people. Yeah, I know. Most of the plot is that these two children fall in love (because of course they do, it’s Beaumarchais). There’s this whole long convoluted plot about that involving the author’s signature insane plot twists and Figaro being all clever and the Count being an utter d-bag. Aside from the fact that none of it is as clever as the first two, I think the play’s rarity is defined by 1) the fact that even though the lovers don’t share the exact same parentage, they’re still technically siblings so it’s kinda weird even for Beaumarchais, and 2) the reason the play is entitled The Guilty Mother (La Mère coupable). The father of the Countess’s illegitimate child is Cherubino.

I know--what was Beaumarchais thinking?

To top it all off, after the events that result in the Countess’s pregnancy, Cherubino becomes depressed and suicidal and lets himself be killed in battle (because yes, the Count stood by his word and sent the kid to war, as promised, even after the concluding events of Nozze).

so, yeah, I think we can all agree on two things: it is a very good thing this play is never performed, and it also does not exist.

However, though it’s pretty rare, it’s a little hard to avoid if you’re invested in the Figaro canon and want to learn more about the original plays and look them up and see there’s a third one and read the synopsis because you’re curious and want to know why you haven’t heard of it and then you read the synopsis and throw the book across the floor and try not to scream because you’re in the library and then go into the stacks where no one cans see you crying. (this is just an example; it may have happened differently for you, idk, this was just one that I thought of, just giving some random person’s reaction as an example).

or maybe you’ve found out about it by reading this, in which case, I’m sorry to be the bearer of your misfortune.

Anyway, equipped with this knowledge, watching Nozze can have a bit of a different aftertaste. Most productions I’ve seen don’t make reference to the future events. It’s trickier to foreshadow an entire play than it would be, say, to make references to Barbiere in a Nozze production. But some directors are motivated (and evil) and find away.

With this, I am going to break your heart with one picture:

yes, that is the Countess going back to the Count after he has been a terrible person and a terrible husband; and yes, that is Cherubino staring at her with a tragic expression on his face. In this production, he appears to be the only who is not happy with this development. He sees how the Count treats her, and he doesn’t want her to go back to that, to continue to deal with the abuse.

When I first watched this, I thought: Yeah, Lindsey has obviously read the third play.

Barbarina tries to go to him, but he’s wrapped up in his concern for the Countess:

even as everyone else is celebrating, he can’t bring himself to smile--

He tries to go to her but she walks away with her asshole husband. To top it all off, note how Cherubino is the only one not with someone right now. Even Basilio and Curzio are getting chummy (pretty sure they are an item, but that’s another story).

and as the curtain goes down and everyone else is walking away happily, Cherubino literally falls to his knees in despair, still looking after the Countess:

and at this point I am thinking: the director has definitely read the third play too.

I’m not going to blame them for it. If you’re going to encapsulate, interpret, and portray a character onstage, you’re probably going to want to do as much research on that character as you have available. Unfortunately, in the case of this child, that includes La mère coupable.

As you have probably gathered, if you’ve known me for any length of time, I am very, very particular with how Nozze is staged. And the biggest factor for me is that you gotta be nice to Cherubino.

Granted, I have seen worse things happen to this child at the end of the opera (DO NOT WATCH THE SALZBURG 2006 NOZZE), but this is still very painful for me.

Why can’t we have nice things? Why can’t we give Cherubino all the love in the world?

This isn’t (to me) in the same vein as my Idomeneo critique from earlier; that was a device that made reference to events that had occurred in the canon of the opera at hand. For Nozze, something like this makes reference to a part of the story that has yet to occur, and currently doesn’t have a place (literally speaking, but imo metaphorically too) on the current stage.

I am frustrated at how difficult it is to find a performance that is not mean or damaging for Cherubino. That’s one of the big reasons I love the Garsington 2017 one so much: it’s the only one I’ve seen where no one is mean to Cherubino (except the Count, but that’s written into the story). Even my favorite Cherubino (in the ‘98 Met production) gets pushed around more than I want him to.

One could argue that such an interpretation--a nice ending for Cherubino--is idyllic and unrealistic. But given the majority of the opera fandom agrees (as far as I’m aware) that the third Figaro play does not exist, I feel like I can be very angry at productions that insinuate otherwise.

I won’t begrudge the director for making a dramatic choice that is in reference to canonical events. On principle, that’s still much better than portraying interpretations that have nothing to do with canon, if said interpretations don’t add something meaningful. (Whereas the ax in Idomeneo, while it is not in the stage directions, and is disturbing, highlights a very valid part of the current story. So, it’s a very different concept for me.)

So nothing against the director or the production in general. But I am still an emotional wreck after seeing this and wish it could have been staged differently. Up until the very last 3 minutes, this was seeming like one the the sweetest, most cheerful, and overall one of the best-quality productions I’ve seen. It still is, but some of the sweetness and cheerfulness dies along with my heart when Lindsey gives us a tragic preview into what is going to happen to Cherubino, a few years down the line.

anyways Beaumarchais can suck it, sorry (not sorry). How dare you hurt this child.