#like it adds so much to the show if you view it through this lens! it's really good!

[anodymalion]

ok I am in fact using this as an excuse to make a long post about this thank you thank you asjksdjfaljdf

---

Interpreting Yuri as asexual is my very very favorite type of headcanon, which is one that 1. is compellingly coded in the source material (even if that wasn't the creator's intent), 2. is thematically relevant to what the piece of media is Trying To Do as a whole, and 3. just means a lot to me, personally, because I said so.

Coded in the source material

Yuri’s short program is “eros”, aka desire (you can interpret what “eros” means in various ways, but YOI itself explicitly refers to sexual love, at least in the English translations). Yuri struggles with this. Hard. He can’t come up with an answer when asked what eros means to him. His big revelatory moment about desire is that it’s how he feels about wanting to eat his favorite food (omg… boy). Even as the season goes on and the way he views the Eros program changes, the program doesn’t ever really embody the idea of eros as sexuality or romance (which was how the other characters expect him to interpret it) but rather as a desire to keep Victor in his life.

Like look. I’m obviously not going to say that the creator intended any kind of ace subtext to be there. I kind of doubt it was her intent. But goddamn is the subtext there.

2. Thematic relevance

The central theme throughout YOI is “love”, and especially loving people in a way that inspires you both to be your best selves: Yuri learning that the people in his life truly love and support him; Victor finding someone who makes him feel joy about skating again.

Like, Yuri’s whole skating theme for the Grand Prix is literally about him exploring what love looks like to him, even when it takes a form that other people don’t totally understand. Viewing all this through a lens of him being ace is really compelling. It adds depth to the idea of learning how to express the way you feel love even when it looks different than what other people expect. I think it’s a really delicious layer that adds even more nuance to what the show is getting at.

Besides, it’s an interesting way of viewing the criticism of the show that occurred for it not being 100% explicit about them being a couple (aka people getting mad because the kiss in ep 7 is blocked by Victor’s arm lmaooo). Like, ok, did you see the ending scene of ep 9? Did you see ep 10??? They definitely, definitely love each other, in whatever way that means for them. Their relationship takes a form that’s pretty different than the other way people in the show are going about romantic relationships, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t real for them. That is very much in line with the main themes of the show.

3. Means a lot to me

In the final scene of the penultimate episode, Yuri tells Victor that they should end their coaching relationship after the Grand Prix ends. This is because he thinks he’s holding Victor back, that Victor would be happier being free to go back to skating on his own instead of being Yuri’s coach. When I watched this (and, I’ll be honest, this is completely me projecting here) I REALLY interpreted this as an ace thing. I think it’s pretty easy to internalize the idea when you’re asexual that you just won’t be… enough, for other people. In my case I ended up a strong impulse to self-sabotage relationships because I would rather be the one to end things than to let someone else tell me that who I am as a person is fundamentally lacking. Yuri destroying a connection he desperately wants because he thinks there’s something about him that is holding Victor back from a life he’d be truly happy with? Oh yeah. I can fucking relate to that.

Also: YOI came out in 2016, which was the absolute peak of hostility to ace people I was seeing on this site. It was bad here. At the same time Tumblr was going wild over this show. Everyone was watching it. Seeing a whole site of people absolutely adore a character I very deeply in my heart believed to be ace? Extremely vindicating.

---

In conclusion Yuri is asexual because it is fun and interesting that way, and also because of this:

[indigovigilance]

A Nightingale Sang in 1941

This is my inaugural meta (yay!) Eventually I will learn how to add gifs and whatnot to make this more interesting but today, I give you a wall of text.

I need to give credit where credit is due to three existing metas that I’m drawing upon heavily here:

A speculative continuation of the 1941 story, which includes an almost-kiss while “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square” plays on the gramophone,

A behavioral analysis of Aziraphale during the S2E6 finale (will find ref later if possible)

A meta-analysis of the way in which “coffee” is used as a symbolic equivalent for liberty and freedom of choice, a running theme of this show (will find ref later if possible)

I’m going to expand upon meta #2 and #3 and explain why I think there is are very compelling reasons to believe that #1 will be canonized.

At the end of S1E6, an instrumental version of “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square” plays diegetically, but the lyrical version plays non-diegetically over the credits (we hear it but the protagonists don’t). So we the audience could plausibly say “that’s their song,” but as of the close of S1, we have no reason to believe that they know that it’s their song. Even Aziraphale’s S1E3 (1967) suggestion that they dine at the Ritz could be a reference that only he gets, or just a fancy restaurant suggestion.

So when I was watching S2E6 and Crowley said “no nightingales,” I was jarred. What does that even mean? We know it has something to do with dining at the Ritz, but what does it mean to them? The reference only works if they know it’s their song. But we’ve only ever seen them hear it together after the averted apocalypse; if this is the direct reference that Crowley is making, it leaves our 1967 reference contextless and twisting in the wind.

If we assume that there was a romantic story beat in 1941, wherein “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square” (which, incidentally, was written in 1939 and saw the height of its popularity at the end of 1940, so timeline-wise it’s spot-on) became their song, then a lot of events get renewed interpretations through this lens, in a way that makes this story much more cohesive and the “no nightingales” comment even more soul-shattering than it already was.

Let’s presume that immediately after this became their song and just as they were discovering their romantic potential, they were forced back into hiding. Forever after, references to the song serve as a macro for “I’d like to pick up where we left off that night.”

The 1967 suggestion of “dining at the Ritz” now becomes a directly romantic suggestion. It also gives better context for “you go too fast for me.”

Actually going to the Ritz in 2019 is not simply a celebration or even a callback to 1967, it’s a callback to their almost-romance of 1941.

When Crowley says “no nightingales” in 2023, this isn’t to say “we’re not going to eat together at the Ritz anymore.” It’s saying that the romance that began that night, the precious, fragile romance, is over.

I’ll give you a moment to dry your eyes before we move on to metas #2 and #3.

In light that this is what has been going on - they know they want a romantic relationship but have gotten so used to hiding and denying it that they are more comfortable keeping the status quo static and quo-y then trying to achieve their ideal - a lot of S2 behavior can get a fresh view.

Crowley’s reaction to Nina isn’t a realization that he’s in love - he knew that already. You can only ask someone to run away with you so many times before you are forced to admit some things to yourself. No, he’s realizing that trying to hide it (which was justified by survival), hasn’t been working, but despite failing at being stealth nothing bad has happened. He’s realizing that it may finally be safe to show it.

Crowley’s confession, then, is not a revelation. It’s making the subtext text. He’s not telling Aziraphale anything he didn’t already know. He’s saying it now because he thinks he’s safe to do so. Pin in that.

Lots of people have lots of theories about Aziraphale’s motivations in the S2 finale, which can more or less be divided into 4 camps: the genuinely held belief, the coffee theory, the lie theory, and the mutual trick theory (some version of the body-switching at the end of S1). Let me start by saying that I love all the fans and all their theories and I find their analyses to be insightful. The genuinely held belief theory, while I believe it to be erroneous, has been incredibly conducive to so many wonderful conversations and I love being in a community that has those conversations. But I’m going to explain why I think the lie theory finds the most support in canon.

Re-watch the finale (when you feel like you can) from 35:18 to 36:19 and then from 40:45 to the end, paying very close attention to Aziraphale’s words and his eyes. Michael Sheen is telling us a LOT with his eyes, and in the back half of the finale scene, with pacing.

For 60 seconds of footage, this setup is doing a lot of work. If Neil Gaiman wasn’t doing enough to beat us over the head with how evil the Metatron is, that glare at Crowley at the end with the non-diegetic ominous horns should convey the message. But again, focusing on Aziraphale. He initially refuses to talk to the Metatron; he’s made his position quite clear. There is no hint of regret or wavering; this is not someone who’s aching to return to the fold. The Metatron ignores his refusal and functionally forces him to accept a “cup of coffee.” The coffee isn’t spiked, but it is a metaphor. It is symbolic of choice. The Metatron is going to force Aziraphale to make a choice. Meta #3 does a great job of exploring the idea that a choice between anything and death is never really a choice. Hang onto that thought.

Notice I had you start up again 3 seconds before “The Conversation.” That’s because it’s important to note where the Metatron is right now. He is across the street, staring straight in through those giant windows to where our protagonists are about to have The Conversation. He is watching.

When Aziraphale returns, Crowley begins his “let me talk” riff. Aziraphale ought to be interested in what Crowley has to say, since the preamble is pretty compelling. You’ll notice that Aziraphale quickly turns to the window and back, through which he (but not we) can see the Metatron standing there, watching them. Aziraphale is then doing his best to get Crowley to STFU without raising the suspicion of the Metatron, eventually having to cut him off.

Because unfortunately, Crowley’s entire impetus for speaking up now is that it’s safe to do so. Only Aziraphale knows that they are in very real danger (or at least, Crowley is, but I’ll come back to that).

You might take something from the fact that he’s shaking his head while talking about “incredibly good news,” and seems to self-censor his criticism of Metatron (or more specifically, he takes ownership of any criticism of the Metatron, censoring out Crowley’s role in that, with the emphasis on I in “I might have misjudged him”).

Notice in the flashback that he begins the conversation reasonably relaxed. The Metatron also says a series of things about him that not only are false, but everyone, including the Metatron and Crowley, know are false: Aziraphale is not a leader, he’s a defector; he’s not honest, he lies all the time, in fact this entire season revolved around his one huge lie of hiding Gabriel. Not only does the justification not make sense coming from Metatron, but it shouldn’t make sense that Aziraphale would accept these reasons and it shouldn’t make sense to Crowley either. So is Aziraphale including these details in his recounting to Crowley so that he will get suspicious and figure out the jig? Maybe. Let’s continue.

Immediately upon being offered the job of Supreme Archangel, Aziraphale says “but I don’t want to go back to Heaven.” This is direct evidence against the genuinely held belief theory. If returning to Heaven and making a difference was a genuine motivation, we would have gotten a different response at this moment. But then we get something more.

“Where would I get my coffee?”

This is a beautiful response for a number of reasons; coffee should be trivial compared to the opportunity to be a Supreme Archangel, so it serves to highlight just how little interest Aziraphale has in returning. Taken at face value, it’s the Aziraphale equivalent of “not even at gunpoint.” But remember that coffee is a metaphor for liberty in this universe and this season. So what Aziraphale just said, in the language of Neil Gaiman metaphors, is:

I don’t want to go back to Heaven, I would rather have free will.

What does the Metatron do next?

He brings up Crowley.

Watch Aziraphale’s eyes before and after the mention of Crowley. He goes from confused to eye-flicking panic in the space of two syllables. Aziraphale already understands that his “no” is not being accepted, and that bringing Crowley into it can only possibly serve as a threat.

So the coffee, the choice, is a false choice. No one ever orders death. The Metatron has forced Aziraphale into a situation that looks an awful lot like a choice (it comes in a blue cup, after all) but it isn’t.

We definitely have some reliable narrator problems here. I’m going to presume for purposes of analysis that these cut-outs are accurate but incomplete, and that a more explicit threat about what would happen to Crowley if Aziraphale did not return to Heaven was made.

If we assume that Aziraphale has been made aware of a threat and is trying to hide that from Crowley, the rest of this scene reads very differently. Aziraphale cannot say, “you are in danger but you will be safe if you swear your allegiance to Heaven” or “I have to go, no matter what, and the only way we can be together is if you come with me,” but nonetheless he now has to convince Crowley to do the one thing he ought to know Crowley definitely doesn’t want to do all through subtext. Which we’ve spent an entire season establishing that they can’t communicate well when they are allowed to use their words. Disastrously, this is not a magic trick that Aziraphale can make work when it counts. Their failure to practice good communication means that, right now, when it counts most, they are not going to pull it off.

We see that Aziraphale is very hopeful that Crowley will pick up on his cues and play along. Obviously, he doesn’t.

If the whole riff about Hell being bad guys and Heaven being the side of truth and light is taken as genuine, it discards a massive amount of character development that we’ve witnessed in Job, Edinburgh, etc. (again, to all the genuine belief subscribers, I think it’s a compelling argument but it simply doesn’t account for the evidence). So if it’s not genuine, why say it? Again, to alert Crowley that something is Off, because Crowley should know that Aziraphale doesn’t actually believe that. They saved humanity from Heaven and Hell. They hid Gabriel from Heaven and Hell. Crowley knows that Aziraphale knows that Heaven and Hell are just two sides of the same coin. Notice again that Aziraphale glances out the window while he’s talking up Heaven; he knows the Metatron is watching, he can’t not defend the position of Heaven. I think it’s also worth noting that Aziraphale forcefully glances and gestures off to Crowley’s left (away from the window) when talking about Hell, and then turns his head to Crowley’s right (towards the window) to try to get him to realize that a representative of Heaven is literally standing right over there, just look out the window please dumbass!

When Crowley is asking Aziraphale if he said no, and we see the back of Aziraphale’s head, again we can see him turn his head to glance out the window. This is also when he changes strategies, and admits that Heaven could use a little reform. Because now there’s a problem almost as big as getting caught, which is that he won’t be able to get Crowley to go with him.

Which unfortunately makes the next part of this so much more heartbreaking. Because when Crowley begins his speech about being a team, Aziraphale wants to hear it. He can’t bring himself to shut down Crowley again, even though it could get them both in massive trouble. Notice that he glances out the window again during this, and the look of panic on his face. He begins to shake his head when Crowley mentions that Heaven and Hell are toxic; this can be taken a lot of ways but I’ll argue for the interpretation that he’s trying to get Crowley to STFU and stop saying shit that could get him destroyed.

After Crowley puts on his sunglasses we are in the “back half” and Sheen is doing a lot with phrasing here, specifically pregnant pauses.

“Come with me… to Heaven!”

“We can be together… as angels!”

Based on the pacing decision I am thoroughly convinced that the first half of each of these statements is intended to be the message to Crowley and the second half is always a qualifying statement to satisfy the Metatron.

Unfortunately, these pregnant pauses are completely backfiring in their effect on Crowley. The sentiment gives him hope and the qualifying statement crushes it again immediately. He is being taken on a horrible emotional rollercoaster with these declarations which are only further amping up his instinct to run away.

The only truly genuine, unaldulterated statement I think we get from Aziraphale is

“I need you!”

When it becomes clear to Aziraphale that there’s been an irreparable breakdown of communication between them and the subtext is not getting across, he says:

“I don’t think you understand what I’m offering you.”

He means this literally. Crowley has not understood that Aziraphale is offering him protection from whatever threat the Metatron has made.

Which makes this part extra-devastating and also absolutely in keeping with a major running theme of this season.

“I understand. I think I understand a whole lot better than you do.”

Your understanding and my understanding are different understandings.

Crowley views the offer to return to Heaven through the lens of his trauma. He understands what life in Heaven would be like. But he doesn’t understand that Aziraphale is offering him protection.

But Aziraphale just heard Crowley say that he understood everything, and he’s still going to leave. There might be a little suspense of disbelief here to believe that Aziraphale really interpreted the statement this way, but we know that Aziraphale isn’t always the brightest battery-operated candle in the drawer. So under the assumption that Crowley did understand him and is still rejecting the offer, rejecting him—

“Well, then there’s nothing more to say.”

Please pay very close attention to Aziraphale’s body language for the next part. He’s active, agitated, turning side to side, arms swinging. This is a very fidgety angel.

“No nightingales.”

Aziraphale is now completely still. He’s feeling that feeling. You know it. The one where your entire body is getting sucked into the pit of your stomach. The aching paralysis.

This is their song, the one that began their romance in 1941, the secret code for all other attempts at flirtation. Crowley has walked out on him before, Aziraphale has been stubborn and obstinate before. But they always came back together, sometimes with an apology dance or other rituals that belonged solely to them.

But now the song is over.

By saying this, Crowley has broken up with Aziraphale. We can see in Aziraphale’s sudden transition from fidgety to paralysis that he has understood it this way.

Then he turns away from the window so that the Metatron won’t see him cry.

The kiss was heart-wrenching already. But we’re not done with this analysis.

During the kiss, Aziraphale has a choice to make between two very compelling bad choices. This is the Job dilemma. But worse.

If he doesn’t kiss Crowley back, he will let Crowley think that he doesn’t love him. He will have missed out on this (maybe/probably their first kiss?) and regret it forever.

If he does kiss Crowley back, in full view of the Metatron, they are in deep trouble.

He seems to do his best to split the difference. I would even go so far to say that the awkward arm waving is Aziraphale acting for the Metatron’s benefit, to try to portray that he doesn’t want this even though he absolutely does (just not like this). The anguish when they break the kiss is absolutely real, and the first thing he does is glance out the window. Through all this he has remained painfully aware of their spectator.

He wants to say I love you. He mouths it. He breathes it.

But the Metatron is watching.

He can’t tell Crowley I love you. So he has to say the only other thing that has always unequivocally meant “I love you” when he said it to Crowley. He has to hope that Crowley understands him now, even though he never has before.

Spoiler alert: Crowley doesn’t.

My forgiveness and your forgiveness are not the same forgiveness.

One more point against the genuine belief fans (I love you): if the offer to let Crowley back in is what changed his mind, then Crowley declining removes that incentive. Aziraphale should/would have consequently retreated to his last stated position of “I don’t want to go back to Heaven, where would I get my Crowley—I mean, coffee?” [post-publication nod to @theonevoice for a great little meta] It simply doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.

I think a lot of fans were already making these assumptions about the use of the nightingale song so this meta may not feel revelatory, however, it isn’t canon (yet), and I’m sure I’ll find company that agree that canonization of this connection would strengthen a lot of these story points, as evidenced by how it is already assumed by many fans.

If you made it to the end - omg thank you! Please leave a note and tell me your thoughts!

Bonus: somebody already made the song connection here

~~~

if you liked this, you may also like:

Book of Life and what it means for Crowley

The Erasure of Human!Metatron

Baraqiel and Azazel

~~~

Recommended related (lie theory) metas by other people:

making the subtext text by @theonevoice

Aziraphale's Decision Matrix by @yowlthinks

Nothing Lasts Forever: META by @phoen1xr0se

[nalyra-dreaming]

Found an old interview, with a few juicy bits

(and a lot we knew already)

The blood tasted like "Sour Patch Kid" (lol):

The three of them had dancing lessons.... 👀

And Jacob wants to see Louis in the 80s!!! (And we know Sam got his wish^^)

Also kinda sad that Bailey won't be able to explore those hairstyles, but... anyways it's long , so the rest under the cut:

Interview with Jacob Anderson, Sam Reid and Bailey Bass

Posted on October 2, 2022 by TvMegasite Admin

TV Interview!

Interview with Jacob Anderson, Sam Reid and Bailey Bass of “Interview with The Vampire” on AMC and AMC+ by Suzanne 9/29/22

This was a fun roundtable with the three stars of this great new vampire show. If you love vampire shows, or the Anne Rice novels, you should love this show. It’s very well done, and these actors are great in it. Jacob plays Louie, and we see the story through his eyes as told to ailing reporter Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian, who’s outstanding as always). Sam Reid plays LeStat, the seductive vamp that turns Louie and becomes his friend, lover, mentor, etc. Bailey plays Claudia, the young woman that joins them. They were very kind and fun to interview.

Suzanne:   Hi, I’m Suzanne Lanoue from TVMEG.com, and I’ve watched the first episode. I didn’t get screeners till this morning, so I only got to watch the first one so far, but I’m really enjoying it. It just grabs you and drags you in. So, congratulations on being renewed for season two already, which is great. Do you know when you’ll be starting to film season two, or have you already started filming it?

JACOB ANDERSON:   We haven’t started. We haven’t started shooting, no.

SAM REID:   Probably, I don’t know if we can say anything. [Laughs]

Suzanne:   Have they told you yet?

JACOB ANDERSON:   They haven’t not told us anything.

Suzanne:  [Chuckles} OK, well, thank you!

Jamie from SCIFI VISION:  Hi, I’m Jamie Ruby from SciFi Vision. Thanks for talking to us today, I really enjoyed the first five episodes that we’ve seen. So, for the three of you, can you kind of talk about how you balanced what you pulled from the book versus what you added with your own spin on it?

SAM REID:   Hello, Jamie, I’ll answer that. No. But I would say that anything for myself and my character, my own spin probably came from my own interpretation of the books and Rolins’ work. So, I wasn’t really trying to put any of my own spin on it. It’s just how I imagined it to be, really.

JACOB ANDERSON:   Yeah. I second that. It’s like, you will always view a character through your own lens to an extent and then it’s just kind of, I mean, I guess with anything, it’s like, do other do the other creative people like that, and do they want to discuss it? But you don’t want to mess with this. Like the combination of Anne Rice’s writing and Rolins’ writing, you don’t really want to touch it, you don’t want to just sort of throw your own stuff in just for the sake of it.

SAM REID:   They’re so dense already the characters that it sort of would be a shame to try and deviate too much of thing.

JACOB ANDERSON:   What could you possibly add?

SAM REID:   Yeah.

BAILEY BASS:   I feel the exact same way. It’s really, yes, we were cast because there’s something special in us that Rolin and the entire team really enjoyed when we were doing our auditions. But other than that, it’s really just doing the research and the book, reading the scripts, doing our own technique, and then just coming and creating in this world.

Jamie:  Okay, great. Thank you so much.

Jamie from STARRY MAG:  This is Jamie Steinberg, with Starry Constellation Magazine. Jacob, this is another deeply tortured soul for you to portray. Is there something about these kinds of characters that really draw you to them? Or is this them finding their way to you? Or is it something you see in them that really resonates with you and makes you want to portray them?

JACOB ANDERSON:   I think it’s a combination of both. We find each other. I think I’m slightly less like Grey Worm than I am like Louis. But yeah, I mean, I think you normally want to be like very boundaried when you talk about things and be like, “Oh, well, I’m so removed from the character, and I’m brilliant at acting and blah blah blah blah blah”. But to be honest, yeah, I feel very, very connected to Louis. It’s the thing that bothered me about how Anne Rice wrote him, and also how Rolin wrote him as well. Yeah, I’m drawn to characters who are searching. And I’d ask him questions, not just about the world, but about their place in it and what they contribute or don’t contribute to it. But yeah, I also I felt like it would be like, narcissistic of me to be like, “I am the only person who can play Louis.” But namely, because there is somebody else that’s done it, as well. Many people.

Jamie:  Well, I think you brings such a unique take on it, though, because of the artistry you have. Both of these characters that you mentioned, have just been wonderfully nuanced, I think through your portrayal. So it might be just a little bit time for you to pat yourself on the back for what you’ve brought to the role on your own.

JACOB ANDERSON:   This one’s for you, Bailey.

QUESTION:   Question for Jacob and Sam, one of the really interesting things about this particular adaptation is the romance that we kind of finally get to see between Louis and Lestat. Can you speak to that a little bit? What does it mean to you to be able to portray that relationship in that way?

SAM REID:   Well, I think AMC has the rights to the entire Vampire Chronicles, and so it’s very important to make sure that relationship is established early on. Particularly as the books progress, it becomes much more clear that they are in a very intense romantic relationship. So, I think it’s it’s great to make sure that we’re serving the story correctly. And it wouldn’t be Anne Rice’s Interview With The Vampire if it wasn’t there. So, yeah.

QUESTION:   I was wondering, and this is kind of specifically for Bailey and Sam, the show doesn’t shy away from race or that being a factor at all for their very long life experience. Was that important to you? And were you afraid of any ignorant backlash, because previously, the characters were paid by white actors?

BAILEY BASS:   I was really excited to play Claudia. It’s really a dream to play such a complex character that’s very loud and unapologetic. I honestly didn’t think twice about anything else. I just knew that Rolin was very intentional about the actors that he wanted to cast in the show, and I’m very fortunate that I was one of them. I just dove into all the research. I read the book. I would cross reference the book and the script and see the quotes that Rolin took from the book and was very intentional about adding them into the script. After doing all the research, I mean, I became Claudia and it was fun to play her.

JACOB ANDERSON:   Yeah, I think something that Rolin’s done, which is – I’m almost loath to call it important, but like it creates a richness is that this isn’t a colorblind casting situation. Louis’ central question is about his humanity and his place in humanity. I think that if you were to cast a black actor or black actors for Louis and Claudia, and to not address that, you’d take a lot away from that question of their humanity. I’m glad that we don’t shy away from it. And in terms of backlash, I just don’t want to give it energy anymore. Like I just – people are going to – I think people need to be seen. Sometimes they’ll say anything to be seen or recognized, and it’s sad, but it’s the internet.

QUESTION:   I would love for you to talk a little bit about what it’s like just being vampires, being able to play vampires when biting people and having these kinds of scenes. What goes into that and how much fun is that to play? How difficult is that to play?

SAM REID:  

It’s very fun. It’s very fun. Yeah, you know, because we’ve got a lot of elements that come into every scene. So, they’re very beautiful, sort of rich dialogue-heavy scenes, but we also have this whole element of the vampire, you know, he kills, so we’ll be pausing for the blood to be put in. We had all these different types of blood that we’d been drinking and tasting, and they made us hibicus flavored blood when we had to drink large amounts of it.

JACOB ANDERSON:  

It did not taste like hibiscus. It tasted like it was like a Sour Patch Kid.

SAM REID:   Yeah.

JACOB ANDERSON:   But in liquid form.

SAM REID:   But there’s a lot of thought and consideration [that had] gone into this. But yeah, it’s so much fun, really. Vampires are, I think, the best type of monster, because they have so much humanity. They’re so articulate. They experience a huge amount. Anne Rice is responsible for our shift in vampires, because she puts the perspective into the eyes of the monster, and you have empathy for them. So, it’s very fun to do these really extreme, horrific things, but also with a level of understanding and empathy and bringing that into the character. So, it’s a fun thing to do.

JACOB ANDERSON:   It’s the best! It’s the best. The best monsters.

Jamie from SCIFI VISION:  So, obviously, you guys do go to some really dark places, though, with your characters. Can you sort of talk about getting into that headspace, and how you sort of, I guess, get back out of it? Is it hard to sort of go there? For all three of you.

BAILEY BASS:   Yeah, it’s hard. We had such long days that it kind of, for me personally, it was hard for me to differ[entiate], like, who’s Claudia and who’s Bailey. So, I kind of had to, like really sit with myself and reflect, but it’s hard. But then also, this is what I love to do, and playing such an extreme character, that’s what makes it fun is that I get to relive and be in these spaces that I would never normally be in if I didn’t get to play Claudia. But the dark, even though it’s dark and everything, I definitely enjoyed it. And I had Sam and Jacob, which they were incredible scene partners, and we all had each other. We made sure that throughout the whole process, our mental health, even though we’re like hysterically crying sometimes that afterwards, our mental health was still good,

SAM REID:   I think to Bailey’s point, like, sometimes the darkest jobs or the darkest sets where the material is the most bleak are the most fun, because, we instinctively know how to just kind of like, help ourselves through that. So, we’ll be making a lot of jokes. You know, it is ridiculous, sometimes what we’re doing, and you have to step back and think [laughs] You know, we’re suspended in the air, covered in blood, so we just kept it light. It was a fun thing to do.

JACOB ANDERSON:   Yeah, I agree. I mean, it’s dense. It’s dense, so you need to focus on the language as well. Like, aside from, yeah, we had a lot of fun, but when you’re doing the scene, you focus on what you’re doing. And I think if you let yourself get dragged into it too much, then hard to to do your job, I think.

Jamie from STARRY MAG:  Bailey, this is such a beautiful costume you have. Talk about when you first saw what you’d be wearing for the series, and if you had any input, and if it takes really putting on that costume to embody your character.

BAILEY BASS:   Costume is one of my favorite things in my job, being able to speak with the costume designer and be able to talk about what she saw when she read the script, because it’s not just me, it’s a big collaboration of an incredible crew that helps make us look good, basically. And to be able to talk to hair, makeup, and costume and get to know what their first ideas were when they read the script, and then being able to collaborate with them and say what I thought, was really, really fun. And the costume designer for this show, Carol, was just so collaborative. I came in and we were talking about posture. That’s a very big thing for Claudia, because in the beginning, she’s like fourteen years old, and she’s excited being a vampire. She would shrug a lot and just walked like, however and had terrible posture. So, the costume designer would think about that when she was making the costumes. And then also I have to look like a little girl. So, she created these beautiful bows along with making sure that the shape of my costumes hid any curves possible. So, when I put them on, I really felt like a little girl. So, when I was doing the scenes where Claudia is struggling, she wants to be a woman, and I’m sitting in this pink dress that it’s not flattering to anything that’s me as Bailey, it was really easy to feel what Claudia would be feeling at that moment.

Suzanne:   I really enjoyed the wedding scene and your dancing, Jacob; that was great. Was that actually you dancing? And did you have to train for that, or did you already know how, and will there be any more singing or dancing in the show?

JACOB ANDERSON:   That was me and Steven Norfleet, who plays Paul, and we had about a month to train, to practice. I don’t know if you’ve ever done tap dancing, but it’s like learning how to walk again, like how to walk for the first time, like to get your brain to coordinate in that way and to like shift the weight of your body is really confusing. And to add to that we did a lot of our lessons on Sikkim (???). And it’s all like, it’s all sound. You like making music with your feet, but with the lag of, of like, you know, doing it online. But you just drill; you just drill it every day. You drill it every day, and just you have to listen. It’s less about like being mechanical about your body and just like listening to the sound. But there is there is more dancing in the show.

Suzanne:   Oh, good.

JACOB ANDERSON:   Yeah. It was in the trailer, right?

SAM REID:   Yeah, the three of us did dancing lessons.

JACOB ANDERSON:   Yeah, we did.

QUESTION:   I’m curious to just have any of you or all of you talk a little bit about what you love most about the dynamic between all three of your characters, either once Claudia comes in, or kind of as that progresses.

JACOB ANDERSON:   I find it, I think from Louis’ point of view, he’s trying to recreate a kind of family dynamic that he is grieving for in his human life. I think it’s probably the thing that he misses most in some ways. It’s like a grounding thing, is his brother and his sister and his mom, maybe to a lesser extent, but maybe not. So, I find the way that it kind of goes for them, and for him, it’s kind of unexpected. I think he wanted, he was hoping that in bringing somebody else into their family, I think he thought that Claudia might be like him. [laughs] So, it’s interesting. I feel like an outcast, but to also be a part of – I mean, I’ll let Bailey talk more about about that part of it, but really, Claudia ends up being sort of forgotten about a little bit, and their dynamic, which is sad.

BAILEY BASS:   I think what’s wonderful though, is that there’s really no protagonist or antagonist. It changes through every scene in every episode, because these characters are so specific and complex, and Rolin Jones, the writer of the show, did an incredible job of explaining in depth why we do what we do. There’s a reason why we kill the people that we do, why we hurt each other. And because of that, the viewer kind of feels bad for the person hurting the other, but then also feels bad for the person being hurt.

QUESTION:   So, obviously, as vampires, your characters live very long lives. Which era would you like to see, be able to play your character in?

JACOB ANDERSON:   80s 80s 80s. I want the pastels. I want the hair. Let’s go, 80s.

SAM REID:   I’d probably do the 1700s. I think Lestat really that is where he’s from, and that’s the era in which he was born into, so I’d quite like to see him in that in that era.

BAILEY BASS:   I just want to get to the 50s. Like, I just want Claudia to get to the 50s so I can wear all those skirts and just explore more hairstyles, because we evolved. Doing the prep work, there wasn’t a lot of hairstyles – we had a horrible of time looking for photos of black girls in that time period with very versatile hair, which we know they existed, just no one took pictures of them. So, to be able to expand that more and show women who have curly hair, that this is what they look like in that time. I’d love to expand that and go into the 40s and 50s.

Transcribed by Jamie Ruby of ScifiVision

[canadianlucifer]

Yeah okay I'll finally make a post on my latest Takizawa headcanon bc ever since I made the connection I couldn't stop thinking about it.

In short, I think he probably has npd, or narcissistic personality disorder.

Now I wanna make it clear I'm not a professional, I'm not giving any diagnosis or anything here, this is just what I've observed through his behaviour and how I think it fits the criteria.

I'm going to be mostly focused on his human character, might bring up a point or two from :re, but it's just gonna be the good brown haired boy for the most part.

Going through the list in the DSM-V, first is: a grandiose sense of self-importance (exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)

We first see this when he criticises Juuzou for eating in the meeting room and not listening to him because he's older. He's not proven himself to be actually superior, but he believes he is.

And again later when he's jealous Juuzou gets to go on the Aogiri raid and he's left behind to do paperwork.

Second piece is preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love.

Now, we don't exactly ever see him like, just sitting there thinking about being promoted or whatever, but it is known that he desperately wants one.

Third is believing that they are "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)

I don't have any solid proof or screenshots for this one, but it stands to reason that this is likely why he joined the CCG in the first place. Investigators are strong and "special", and we never see him interact with people who aren't investigators outside of Hide, who he really only seems to vent to, someone he probably doesn't see as an "equal"

Fourth, requiring excessive admiration.

Again, no solid proof, but he often seems desperate for praise for his work and to be recognized.

Fifth is a sense of entitlement (unreasonable expectations of especially favourable treatment or automatic compliance with their expectations)

See point 1, he feels entitled to Juuzou's compliance and to go on the raid.

Now, point six, being interpersonally exploitative (taking advantage of others to achieve their own ends), I don't think I've seen. At least, not as a human. In :re I can totally see him using Aogiri to eventually regain the CCG's trust as an example though.

Seven, lacking empathy (unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others), is a hard one.

The way I see it is that he sort of has empathy, but only for the attention. In one of the screenshots I added earlier he says he wants to get promoted so he can help people, but if we look at that statement through another lens, it could become "I want to help people so they thank and congratulate me"

Eight though, often being envious of others or believing that others are envious of them, hoo boy is he a jealous guy.

Like, I don't even need to say anything here, do I?

He is jealous of anyone better than him in anything and everyone around him knows it.

And finally, nine, showing arrogant, haughty behaviours or attitudes.

Again, when he wanted to go on the Aogiri raid, but this is most clearly seen as a ghoul to be honest. Especially :re volume 3, he's destroying squads with little apparent effort, fights Haise while making snarky remarks, and that monolouge he gives to those two investigators reads so much like "I'm better than you for having figured this out"

A few other things outside of the diagnostic criteria I would like to add is how he clearly has a strong hierarchy, like he views any investigators his rank or lower as below him and any investigators ranked above him as great

Something else is that narcissistic people often don't have high self esteem

And though he may talk big, it's clear he's not very confident about facing the Owl

These are just a few of my thoughts, definitely not everything, and it's not like he perfectly fits the criteria, but I just saw more traits in him than I didn't.

Just another headcanon of mine to add to the list

[unhinged-comics-screaming]

⁺˚⋆｡°✩₊ Weekly Bravern Madness Post ₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺

Episode 11 Spoilers ahead, naturally

I'm actually on my second watch since we found out our water heater is leaking so that was a whole thing so not quite first impressions but that's literally me screencapping every scene and screaming so probably better this way

Okay important things about me to consider for my lens as I go through this

I think Isami is so so so cute. I'll probably make a cute Isami screencaps post as a separate thing. His gap moe is so cute. I love his stern face. I think Smith is great too but I love the focus reshifting to Isami. Anyway. He's so cute

In terms of Smith as Bravern I guess I view it as the reverse too? I don't really know how to explain it but I guess in Japanese there's tags for Smith + Isami (Sumiisa) and Bravern + Isami (Braisa?) and in my head it's all Sumiisa. Like he may look like a giant robot but he's still Smith, if that makes sense.

Second watch bonuses: realizing why she reacts this way at his mention ;-;

Right away, I guess I got my beach episode! I love that Isami and Lulu have Bravern brand summer clothes. I hope they come out as merch. It comes up rarely eg. the boxing shoes from ep 5 have the (Burn?) Bravern specific emblem on them and I just think it's so cute. Like yeah Bravern probably printed them just for these instances and I wish we got enough show to see it in action.

I actually got so emotional at the end of episode 9 when the OP starts playing without the lyrics and this showing up with the ED music is phenomenal. Extra delicious that it starts with part of the full version of the ED that's not in the normal ending.

I also love this because the other two emotional moments where it's like, starting something but not completing it are the after boxing scene and when Isami is crying into Lewis' shirt (okay this can easily be assumed to fill out as "I wanted the two of us to save the world together" but what else did you want to do with hiiiiim). The shipper mind wants to fill it in with some love confession and then!!!

After the like, back and forth name stuff (which parallels the Lulu + Superbia fusion) I was like, pre-emptively bracing for some kind of goofy baiting/played for laughs thing but no he goes for it!!

I actually have a collection of any instance of Isami with any amount of coloring on his cheeks and I've been lamenting that the only full blush moments are when he gets the asian flush drinking but aaaaah so cute. Also he looks so young here! He's 24 he should be falling in love!

Also I'm like, actually really impressed about this scene technically because It's just a really good looking turnaround animation. With Bravern he's 3D so whatever but isami looks good from every angle!

The artist who adds the extra effects like bloom and color tweaks on scenes occasionally tweets out their before and afters and I really hope we get this scene where they point out they added plush, kissable lips onto Bravern.

I reblogged a post about it but I do really love that Isami isn't like, disgusted or pushing him away or anything. Not even grateful Lulu interrupted it. Maybe he's actually disappointed she interrupted.

I know it sets ups the symbolic washing away of it but in case there was any ambiguity to the nature of this love:

There's some discussion across japanese twitter about how you're not supposed to do some line in the middle but based on some cursory stuff I'm not sure how common that thought process is. Also Bravern isn't that much of a pro in Japanese culture (even a lot of JP twitter was confused at his proud "This is OMIAI!").

If you aren't involved in Twitter, a comment people like to point out is that they specifically hired a Food Coordinator for this episode lol. I took a bunch of caps of it but between this and Isami's "we need to eat to be strong enough to save everyone" talk I need to do my Dunmeshi + Bravern food as strength and love post.

Anyway I'm obsessed with the fact that Bravern doesn't need to eat but actually has a mouth which reminds me of this tweet my sister brought to me

Naturally, his mouth is for kissing, Among other things.

Okay honestly the food bit is so weird I was kind of worried the entire first half of the episode turns out to be a dream sequence.

I need to set this as my desktop background or something. I think it's really cute that they added/implied that Isami and Bravern are now a cutesy couple rather than Isami being all weird about the love confession.

THIS! Is the point in the post I realize that watching while typing these up leads to me just doing a play by play which isn't really much of anything. I promise the rest of the post isn't just as long even though we're only halfway through the episode.

(Hey, timeskip OP here. This might be a lie)

Lulu + Superbia symbol! It's cute and has a really nice mix of being similar but opposite in it's own way.

I am obsessed with Segnitas being too lazy to fight and honestly I think he's so cute. The interrupting the fusion is kinda expected for a a show with every bit being in universe but it's still a good gag. I'm glad he is around to make commentary until his true death.

I kind of expected the Bravern + Superbia fight to be an episode 2 thing but I guess we won't have the time for that given the end of this episode. Triple shoutout to my Wednesday post by having the "You can get fulfillment from living!", seeing a callback to Lulu's kick and basically having an awesome fight.

Okay ending time. I have a lot of thoughts but one of the ones as I was watching was just.. He can't eat but he can bleed (and cry)? Actually considering that he explodes it's probably oil or something. Like obvs he isn't going to explode into purple triangles like everyone else but oofda. I am all sorts of sad about this but one thing that gets me is that Bravern doesn't even die fighting! It was a stealth attack!

There's some theories that Isami has a change of heart too fast and this might be another time loop, which I think would be on brand but man his reaction to Bravern dying is too much there's at least no way it's because of a Bravern dying bad end. Actually, I wonder if the damage to Bravern's core is worse than we can tell? Lulu bad end looks way worse though. Or maybe hypothetical Isami time travel route is -> they don't fight Superbia -> defeat one more death drive -> Superbia realizes he doesn't get his warrior death -> he takes on the last Deathdrive 1v1, dies -> remaining DD dies somehow but Superbia is still gone -> Isami goes back to save him for Lulu (they can't risk double time looping her?) -> doesn't ever experience Bravern dying so this is new and terrible.

In this case, Ira is acting unpredictably specifically because they do the no-kill route with Superbia. He's evidently super disgusted and I wonder if it's because its the peaceful resolution between the two? Otherwise I'm curious why else. Actually in general I'm curious why everyone is so personal with Bravern but I think we've all been asking that.

I think some people mentioned it on Twitter but Lulu very casually mentions her time travel lived experiences so it would be weird if they didn't know Bravern himself enabled it. Like I mentioned in my other post. He literally can't take on two giant mechs without Bravern and he knows for sure Superbia can't take on someone.

It's interesting that Bravern has different final words in this timeline than Lulu bad end but he also probably never had that stargazing scene in that route. Actually, you know what, I think Lulu bad end he does know it's Lulu because I don't think Isami was there for the specific curry scene we saw. He's still crying, naked in Bravern during that. Unless he just talks about Japanese curry all the time where we don't see.

Smith's last words are specifically "Brave Bang" (yuuki bakuhatsu) vs Bravern's "Brave Burn" and I'm basically Pepe Silvia-ing it up trying to figure out what it means. It's not really a direct confession about being Smith (because he's still a coward in that regard) but maybe it's a secret move/activation considering the moves are in English?

I think any kind of extra finale speculation requires its own post but that's my thoughts!

hm. Sorry. Maybe I should get into writing fanfic so you at least get something out of this

[cursed-40k-thoughts]

Speaking about in-universe and reader perspectives as with the "daemon" thing, do you have other examples of confusing those, that people end up falling into?

Also hey, love your blog

Not off the top of my head. Terminology isn't the most prevalent misunderstanding I see when it comes to people reading Warhammer (or any) fiction. Usually the most common one is people allowing character perspective bias to colour they way they reflect on narrative information.

Now, granted, the point of perspective bias is being able to perceive events, characters and information through a specific lens for narrative effect. Sometimes this will be to demonstrate differences between how characters see things. Sometimes it will be to show how starkly a character doesn't understand what's going on, or to add an emotional layer to a situation, or simply to just help characterise the way an individual thinks and acts. It's a very fundamental part of storytelling.

The important thing for a reader, though, is to understand that this is a thing. People perceive things differently, whether it be as part of a greater narrative, or simply just because that's what people do. Usually, too, they do so for reasons that may or may not be established in a wider setting (in Warhammer's case, factional perspectives are fairly well established at this point).

This all sounds like obvious stuff, maybe, but there are a lot of people who will read the way a character or a group views something, and then not apply it to a wider perspective of the story, thus inadvertently latching themselves to a specific lens. Granted, this is not necessarily the reader's fault (or is sometimes intended) and there are plenty of books where the authors can and will fumble distribution of relevant context to the reader, but regardless, it's something I've seen happen quite a bit when it comes to people who read Warhammer stuff.

As an aside, they'll also let the things people say on wikis and loretube channels (some of whom regurgitate wikis) colour their perspectives on the setting. Try not to do that either. Read as much as you can and form your own opinions. Get all the information relating to the thing!

Also hey, thanks!

[itsaspectrumcomic]

hii :) first of all, your comics are so relatable and wonderfully drawn, you’re such a good artist!

but i guess i’m just wondering if you could help try and answer some questions i have, it’s alright if not though of course :]

i’m like 99% sure i have autism, i relate a crap ton to people with autism and just experiences commonly had by autistic people

but what i’m wondering about is 1, i don’t think i’ve shown or felt any signs of it up until i turned around 12 maybe, and i’m thirteen now

the only thing i can think of is most definitely having special interests, like i cannot be interested in something casually and it’s been that way my whole life

but now, the past year, i’ve been having so many signs of it, i’ve had meltdowns and go nonverbal when i’m stressed and have been stimming and stuff (i’m tired so my descriptions aren’t going to be good sorry lmao)

and the second thing is that i can understand sarcasm and things pretty perfectly, of course there’s the occasional misunderstanding but i don’t think i’ve ever really taken things too literally, if anything the opposite because i’m very sarcastic and figurative myself i feel

of course it’s a spectrum but pretty much everything i’ve heard about autism is that almost everyone has some level of difficulty with taking things literally and sarcasm

idk man i got <5 hours of sleep last night

sincerely,

sleep deprived confused child

Hi sleep deprived confused child! 😁 Don't worry I understand!

I also didn't think I showed autistic traits as a child at first, until I started talking to my mum about how I used to act, reading old reports, and viewing my memories through an autistic lens. A lot of the stuff I thought was 'normal' turned out not to be. For example, I thought everyone found crowds terrifying and music at events painfully loud, and I didn't realise tapping my fingers constantly could be a stim, and although I thought I was sarcastic (turns out saying things plainly/bluntly can come across as sarcasm) I didn't always get it when other people were.

Also, your traits can get more obvious as you get older and have to deal with more complicated problems. At age 12 there's the weird transition from child to teenager, maybe changing schools, or more complicated homework, or more responsibilities at home, different types of relationships etc, which can all add stress and force you to find ways to cope you might not have needed before.

THAT SAID, there's a lot of overlap between autistic traits and other things like ADHD (eg you might have hyperfixations rather than special interests - they're similar but change more often), or PTSD. While autism and ADHD are generally only diagnosed if you've had the traits from a very young age, things like PTSD and other mental health issues can show up later. And they can all be comorbid to make things extra complicated.

Obviously I am not in a position to diagnose you with any of these! I am definitely not qualified so please talk to a professional about any concerns or suspicions.

Sidenote: have you tried taking the RAADS-R or AQ50 tests? They're generally considered reliable and are often part of assessments, so hopefully they can help answer your questions!

I hope you have a good day and continue to be less sleep deprived :)

[blueskittlesart]

You just gave me brand new demons because honest to god I never considered how deeply Zora longevity (specifically Miphas) affects the way they understand the world and the people in it who have so much shorter live spans.

I will be thinking about this forever now thank you

yes yes yesss!! i think looking at mipha through the lens of zora longevity adds a lot of nuance to her character that's hard to pick up on otherwise. one of the most interesting things about her is the disconnect between her mental and physical age. I place her at around 14-16 in human years, but physically around 70-80 years old. (calculation went into that estimate i promise im not just making up numbers.) and you can sort of see that disconnect in the way that she's treated by people of other races vs the zora. The zora view her as a very young girl who wasn't ready to take on something as big as a divine beast. in the champion's ballad quest we see dorephan outright state that he feels mipha is too young and inexperienced to take on that responsibility, and after her death she's generally seen as the poor young princess, gone too soon. But when she interacts with other races, she's almost always treated as an equal or a senior to adult members of those races. and that makes sense, from the perspective of those other races. if you met someone who was eighty years old, regardless of how they looked, you'd likely instinctively treat them as a senior, especially if you're young by your own species' standards as well. and it's likely that mipha's age DOES show when she's interacting with other races, but paradoxically the things that would be indicative of seniority to races with less longevity than zora would be indicative of INEXPERIENCE to zora. for example she might have some outdated speech patterns from 50 or so years ago, which to a hylian would likely be outside of their own lifetime, but to a zora it would be like. "why the hell are you using that newfangled slang. back in my day we talked like it was 200 BC." you know. so this leads to her being caught between perceptions of herself. and neither of those perceptions is necessarily WRONG. she has been alive for almost twice the amount of time as any of her non-zora friends. but she is also a very young teenager still growing into herself by the standards of her own race. the internal struggle must've been INSANE.

[narutocharacterpolls]

Now that the semi-finals polls ended, would you like to share your opinion on Kakashi's character? :)

Pie splat deserved

I think it’s obvious that I take in the story broadly through a Sasuke lens and so the biggest reason I hate Kakashi is because of the way he treats Sasuke. There are other reason sprinkled throughout but that’s why I mainly dislike him.

However firstly, I think it’s obvious based on the group of characters I’ve made clear are some of my favourites, but I’m very anti-Konoha and don’t like bootlickers. So that immediately makes me criticize Kakashi and knocks some respect I could have for him off.

Anyways, Kakashi is incapable of treating team 7, most specifically Sasuke but it does affect all of them, normally because he cannot stop projecting team Minato onto his team, and that heavily affects the ways that he interacts and treats his team. He obviously projects himself onto Sasuke and as a result treats him really weirdly imo due to his own self loathing. He teaches Sasuke (a severely traumatized child) the chidori in an attempt to alleviate his own guilt from creating the jutsu that killed his best friend. I really don’t see much, if any, reason that Kakashi did this outside of his own selfishness and he most certainly didn’t think it through in the context of Sasuke. Again, because he views Sasuke as a reflection of himself rather than being his own unique person. He then goes on to literally tie Sasuke to a tree and scorn him for using the chidori (and may I add— while I’m aware Sasuke asked for the fight against Naruto, Sasuke only raised the chidori in defence when Naruto raised his rasengan) and seeking revenge against Itachi (y’know, the man that killed his entire clan, manipulated him, and tortured him by making him watch Itachi killing his family for 72 hours straight), then he LEFT HIM THERE TIED UP TO THE TREE. Not to mention he once again reflects himself onto Sasuke by saying he personally didn’t seek revenge and chose to move on. They are not in the same situation. At all. Sorry but that just rubs on me very unpleasantly.

A lot of my distaste was actually from him in Shippuuden though because his treatment and attitude towards Sasuke just gets worse. When Sakura tries to go to kill Sasuke and he shows up he decides that getting Sakura and getting out isn’t the right thing to do, but decides it’s his turn to try to kill him….. Ehem….. Alright….. Claims that Sasuke has turned to some kind of dark side but claims Obito to still be a hero of Konoha later on….. What a man. Still on the topic of Sakura trying to kill Sasuke, he criticizes Sasuke not once, but twice (later on during a war…. There are bigger things to focus on here) about how crazy and messed up it was for Sasuke to attack Sakura…. When he didn’t just attack her, he acted in self defence after she tried to kill him. But does Kakashi critique Sakura outside of saying she knows she wouldn’t be able to beat Sasuke? No, he doesn’t.

With Sakura on the mind, literally during war arc (once again, more important things to focus on here) he tells Sasuke that Sakura suffers from loving him and that no one needs a reason to love someone, just to hate someone. This is such disgusting behaviour to me as he once again is discarding Sasukes feelings and what Sasuke has stated he wants. Sasuke had literally just told Kakashi how he feels but Kakashi does not care about what Sasuke desires. But it doesn’t matter to Kakashi because to him Sasuke is a reflection of himself and since Kakashi doesn’t view it that way Sasuke isn’t allowed to. It’s a really gross sentiment.

The whole thing of how Kakashi treated Tobi revealing the truth of the Uchiha genocide and the way he reacted to it is also incredibly upsetting. And that revelation still didn’t change the way Kakashi viewed Sasuke at all. He still felt it was right to try to immediately kill Sasuke rather than… Approach him in a similar way to Naruto. But whatever, I don’t feel like getting much into this whole thing though.

There’s other random things, he’s hypocritical within his view of Sasuke’s revenge, I find him overrated as a “powerful fighter”, I personally find him having the sharingan uncomfortable and undeserved, he did not show care for Sakura in the way he did to the other two in classic, bootlicker Hokage, ect., but I’m not going to delve into anything else because I don’t feel like it lol.

All in all I don’t care about people that do like Kakashi, but it annoys be that he’s so often portrayed as someone that he isn’t. I know there’s some good to Kakashi, I find his back story rather interesting as well, he has handled some things well, but the negatives heavily outweigh the positives for me. To Kakashi lovers that decided to read this, you are valid and it’s okay to like him. I just don’t.

[starburstfloat]

The Inescapable (and Comforting!) Queer Lens of Moonlight Chicken and The Eighth Sense

I've watched quite a few BL series over the last few years, but something that's struck me (and others I've noticed from tumblr discourse!) is how two recent series Moonlight Chicken (Thai BL) and The Eighth Sense (Korean BL) both embody not only characters and a plot that centralize on real queer experiences, but also a distinctive lens that makes them so achingly and relatably queer that it would be a disservice to not dissect and analyze!

(Please bear with me as we tackle some foundational background info *cracks knuckles* so--) The lens is a really cool means to understand a piece of media because it's an artistic approach from the filmmakers to show us the world through a controlled perspective. The lens has a certain focus (also dubbed focalization). In Looking in: the art of viewing, narrative theorist Mieke Bal describes focalization as the relationship between point of view in a story alongside the vision/meaning that the observer consumes of said pov. So not only does the lens convey certain emotions, but it's the observers (aka audience watching the show) who add additional meaning to it.

This relationship gets really interesting to look at when you consider that traditionally a lot of BL has been created for straight women as a sort of fetishization of gay men (I'm generalizing here, but consider a lot of BL that feels like a straight couple dynamic).

But with these two recent series, the lens feels different. It feels like it's been filmed not only in a way that conveys queerness, but for a queer audience. This focalization creates a really special dynamic between the media and its relatability. It's one of those things where I feel like you just have to be gay to understand it, and that's probably why so many of us have found solace in these two series!

For these two works in particular, there's an undeniable focused aesthetic examination of how queer people see the world and interact with it. There's an artistic emphasis on how one's queerness is inescapable and omnipresent, and how it paints our character's world.

Let me stop rambling and try to show what I mean.

In Moonlight Chicken, this omnipresence is observable in the way the characters Wen and Jim meet in episode one. Wen gets drunk at Jim's restaurant, trying to stall on going home to his ex. The way the camera work plays out during this scene perfectly captures how queer people find and recognize one another without having to overtly express their queerness. Consider the first conversation they have after closing hours of the restaurant: the lens is focused on how subtly they are drawn to each other. There's the wide shot of both of them sitting and talking, something that may be dismissed as nothing more than a two-person shot, yet the way their bodies take up so much of the frame welcomes us to notice their body language and how open they are to one another. This, coupled with the alleyway shots later that cut to individual close ups of their faces, sometimes briefly scanning the other's, a mixture of hesitancy and recognition shaping their reactions, is so queer coded!!! Like!!!!! Hello??? I love how it all culminates to Jim saying "I don't have a wife yet...I'm sure you know my preference" like LMAOOO my dude.....it's been more than obvious but I'm glad you're saying it out loud.

I guess what I'm getting at here is that the way this has been filmed is so beautiful and comforting because it depicts how queerness is inextricably tied to how we process our world. It's in the way we instinctively tag others as being in or out of the community and find solace in that recognition, all while teetering the boundaries of our attractions and carefully assessing a situation to see whether the feelings are mutual, misinterpreted, or if it's safe to express who we are.

Moonlight Chicken manages to embody all of that in the most mind blowingly subtle ways across ALL OF ITS CHARACTERS!!!! I've never encountered any other show like it - it's simply stunning, and it's set the bar way too high now.

We also witness this comforting queer lens in The Eighth Sense. So far only two episodes are out, but the way this show has been filmed is already so much more mature, graceful, and emotionally relatable than most other BL shows I've seen. And again, I think this is because the filmmakers have utilized a lens that conveys how queer people see and interact with their world in a way that other BLs have failed to accomplish. The narrative focus is so strongly centered on our protagonists living in a straight world while they navigate and (in Jae Won's case) want to hide their queerness.

Here, the queer lens resides in the way the camerawork establishes a sense of evaluation and hesitancy. It's the way the camera lingers on how Ji Hyun shrinks a bit when the surf instructor lady jokes "you came here cause of the pretty girl on the poster didn't you?" or the way we get close up shots of Jae Won's annoyed face as he demands his friends stop asking why he broke up with his ex girlfriend. As a queer audience, these subtle clues are just so relatable. It's a reflection of our own lived experiences, of bottling up our inner selves and constantly having to monitor our reactions and behaviors in a straight landscape.

These shows aren't just giving us gay characters who Meet Cute and fall in Love and deal with some turmoil and live happily ever after - they are filmed in a way that forces us to see and be seen.

And I can't get enough.

[pynkhues]

I don’t know if you’ve seen the cut lines from the S4 script yet (where Stewy references some semi-ominous sounding games he remembers from when he and Kendall were growing up like Punch-Chess and Dinners for Winners) but this kind of made me think back on the games throughline (motif?) with Logan. We get to see how insane Boar on the Floor was in real time and we’ve gotten a pretty good sense throughout the series that Logan has a penchant for framing violence through the lens of games (not dishonestly might I add – I think there’s a reasonable read of Logan whereby he himself doesn’t view his games as a means for violence at all but just as tools or in some cases, truly just games).  

Recently I’ve seen some discussion that kind of lumps together games the kids played (Bitey, Dog Pound) with Logan’s games (Boar on the Floor, Dinners for Winners) and that struck me as kind of odd. Rightly or wrongly, I’ve been mentally distinguishing between the games the siblings play with each other as different from the games Logan concocts. It might just be me, but Bitey and Dog Pound read to me as within the realm of reasonable kids games (noting that a ton of kids play kind of insane games lol). I also just feel like the power structure is…different when it’s just the siblings? Does that make sense? Whereas when Logan invests games for his kids, there’s something more…uneven and off-kilter about it to me. Idk – do you think they’re all part of the same motif or that there’s some level of distinction?  Maybe I just to think about it more haha – I guess this is a super long round-about way of asking: how do you view the use of games (“games”?) within the context of the show?

Oh, yeah, I totally agree that the games the kids play with each other are very different from the games that Logan concocts, anon, but I’m not surprised to hear that people consider them in the same sort of discourse. After all, the games that the kids play with each other, now that they’re all adults, are viewed through the prism of the power dynamics in the current family unit.

In other words, even games that are on paper the sort that any kid plays (Dog Pound being a good example – my five and seven year old nephews actually play a pretty similar game at the moment called Puppy and Person, although I think their game involves more patting and cuddling than Roman and Kendall’s probably did, haha), because we’re encountering it with Kendall and Roman in their late-thirties and through the lens of undealt with sibling resentments and adult competition, they can be mistaken for the same sorts of games that Logan played / still plays with the kids.

In that sense, I think the clearest point of distinction is the fact that Logan is never really a player in the games, he’s the overseer of them – the judge, jury and executioner – and we’ve seen that twice. The first time with the baseball game in the pilot, and the second, of course, with Boar on the Floor. Interestingly, the only time we’ve actually seen him participate in a game as a player was in I Went Shopping in the Thanksgiving episode back in S1, and well, we all know how that ended.

Games are integral to the show, and it’s interesting because I don’t think they have any one particular meaning. I think the writers like them as a shorthand to convey certain themes and relationship dynamics, I think they’re an efficient and compelling way to move plot forwards, and I think the writers like to use them to trojan horse the history of abuse within the Roy family, which is exactly what that new excerpt from the script of 4.04 demonstrates.

Critically though, I also think they’re significant thematically in depicting both childhood and masculinity, and I think that’s really where the distinction comes in when it comes to the games the kids play together (yes, even Dog Pound, as much as that game [and Kendall] wants to pretend to be about masculinity, I personally don't think it is at all), and the ones Logan does.

So, let’s talk about childhood.

Games are integral to childhood, there’s no getting around that. Games are what teach children social skills and curiosity, strategy and the ability to both win and to lose, which is, of course, also the skill to enjoy success and sometimes embrace failure too. One of my current jobs is in a company that does play-based theatre for children, with a special focus on traumatised children, so I could talk a lot about this and the evidence behind it, and how crucial games are in empowering children and helping them develop agency away from the family unit, but that’s kind of where this story stops, because while games should help children to grow into playful, empathetic and inquisitive adults, the Roy children do not play games with outsiders.

The Roy children have lived in a completely insular world – a playground their father has built them, as Marcia so aptly put it – and so these games don’t evolve. Instead, these games like Bitey and Dog Pound and even Kendall’s LEGO become manifestations of current anxieties, insecurities and resentments, and an encapsulation of Shiv, Roman and Kendall’s arrested development.

(Maybe interestingly, I consider Connor slightly less arrested than his little siblings, and I do think a part of that is from his parentification, but also a proxy result of effectively having been raised in those formative childhood years as an only child, especially if he was, as Alan Ruck has said, about fifteen when Kendall was born).

Of course, Logan encourages this.

Logan’s inability to face his own mortality or seal off his own legacy requires him to keep his children, well, children. He needs them under his thumb, sure, but he also, I think, needs to keep them young so that he can feel young. Needs the promise of his own future reflected in the length of their own, and his frequent infantilisation of all four of them is a part of what keeps them regressed and reading meaning into games they played and places they lived when they were too young to know any better.

Let’s talk about masculinity.

Funnily enough, I actually talked a little about this in the context of Tom and Greg back when s3 was airing here, but a few years ago, I read Anna Krien’s Night Games which is one of my favourite non-fiction books of the last decade.

The book itself is about masculinity, sport and sexual assault, in particular patterns of gang rape by teams in Australian football and cricket, but she goes a lot broader in terms of games and male intimacy, and in particular how team sports give men a sense of community which, as a result of toxic masculinity, is generally reinforced by ‘othering’ outsiders of the team / environment, whether that be players on the opposite team, perceived interlopers, women, or even members of their own team who don’t participate in the right way with the group.

I don’t know if any of the writers would’ve read Night Games (it’s an Australian sports journalism book after all, haha), but I think they do understand deeply the way masculinity operates in these circles and the ways games of any sort can be utilised as a shorthand to exert power and solidify connection. Boar on the Floor is, of course, the clearest example of this, where Logan utilises the context of the game to dig out his betrayers, and while the first round has everyone as an unwilling participant, once a smaller group of 'others' are picked in Tom, Greg and Karl, the safety of being on the right team makes everyone becomes complicit in the second round.

This is something Logan’s a master of and what he does routinely with his children in general, but also in the rules of the games Stewy talks about in the 4.04 script. Those games are about the othering of a person and the increased intimacy of the rest of the team. If Dinners for Winners has the loser acting like the help, the winners are the rest of the family celebrating their renewed bond as, well, winners.

I don’t think the kids are immune from this in their own behaviour. In fact, I think the biggest examples we see of the kids engaging in this particular type of game play is in Roman’s treatment of the child during the baseball game in the pilot (and I actually am reading the scripts [albeit very slowly, haha] at the moment and read 2.01 last night and was pretty fascinated to discover that the boy’s father is one of the landscapers at The Summer Palace), and in the sequence throwing back to Kendall’s bachelor party with the tattooing of the homeless man’s head with Kendall’s initials.

These aren’t complete games, and interestingly they don’t create the same sense of shared compliance and group intimacy in the way Logan’s games do – no one’s fully on board with Roman’s behaviour, and Roman betrays the group bond in terms of Kendall’s bachelor party by telling Gerri and trying to use it against Kendall – but I view that as more a reflection of Roman and Kendall’s failures in masculinity and authority than in anything else.

It’s that failure there though which, in many ways, further separates the games Logan plays with them to the games they play together. Roman and Kendall continue to fail to imitate their father in his particular brand of games, because Logan knows how to divide and conquer, which they simply don't.

That also though is a direct contrast to the games the kids play together, because those games, whether they be Bitey or Monopoly or even Dog Pound, those games are about shared connection. After all, Kendall wasn't the one who sent Roman away, Kendall was just playing a game with his brother, no matter what they both have inferred in it over time.

[fantasyinvader]

The knowing where you stand in society aspect I've been mentioning, that's actually brought up in Houses. It's actually an infamous scene based on how the Japanese text was misunderstood, leading to the “Kingdom suffers toxic masculinity” takes. Dimitri refers to Byleth in a very casual, friendly way before properly addressing Byleth in an appropriate manner due to their position as teacher.

But, that's just the hook. I think, looking at it through that lens, we do get insight into Dimitri's arc during Azure Moon. Dimitri isn't paying attention to his role in society. His beliefs lead him to believe he needs to avenge the dead, dishing out punishment to all those who are involved with Duscur. Him viewing this as his “duty” to his parents and those who gave their lives for him is him putting himself underneath the dead in terms of hierarchy. It's why he needs to realize that he his responsibilities are to the living.

Dimitri isn't being benevolent to his people. He's talking about how he'll use them while he makes a suicide charge at Edelgard. This leads to the Kingdom losing the war in SS and VW. This is him being the “monster” he is often framed is by stuff like Cipher and Heroes, but giving up that belief is what turns him “human.” It leads to him being a benevolent ruler in contrast to Edelgard.

And then we look at Ferdie's comment in VW post-Gronder, making it out that Edelgard is the same as the monster Dimitri and running amok. This also tracks with how Edelgard's path is referred to as the Animal Path in the Japanese version of Flower by Dimitri himself, implying that Edelgard is so caught up in her ignorance/delusions that she doesn't realize what she's really doing. It ties into how her path is meant to be the opposite of enlightenment, which we see in Moon when her ideals, the poison to her character, are actually addressed. The most telling moment of that was Edelgard saying that if the weak don't benefit from the society she's creating, it's their fault and this is in spite of her claiming to be acting on the behalf of the weak. It's these ideals that ultimately lead Edelgard into abandoning her humanity entirely, becoming the demonic Hegemon Husk.

Edelgard's ideals have completely destroyed her, going by how some translations add the word corpse, and all that's left is a shell of a person devoted to those very same ideals. Edelgard has become a beast unit, whereas Dimitri being free from his delusions becomes the Savior King of Fodlan. Considering that Edelgard is said to be ignoring the realities of her war, the suffering she's causing, it ultimately is that the one-eyed man sees things more clearly than she does.

Edelgard's duty should not have been to the ideals she's trying to force on Fodlan, that's just her being selfish. Her duty should have been to looking after the people. The same people she's manipulated, or allowed to be experimented on. Her willingness to sacrifice others isn't a good thing. Hell, it's why her army suffered so much at Gronder to the point the Church faction can take them out all on it's own.

Berning man and her being the one lord not to lead the charge is intentional in showing this.

[lilac-udon]

oh no I’m clowning myself again

As a basil defender

Most people stand w sunny and how often I see online is “basil ruins Sunny’s life ” . Would argue sunny ruined his life unintentionally, and basil actively chose to jump into the water with him. I can imagine basil never think that far into the consequences of his actions but the first instinct is to help Sunny. I can’t understand why basil did what he did ,and for me I do felt it’s overkill. My explanation is the writer needs it to be this extreme to connect the plot(and shock value . If sunny and mari are both basils friends, I cannot think of why he would throw Mari into the bus like that(I’m saying, thinking mari is already dead, need to save Sunny, but not in the point or any idea of, saving mari. He see Sunny action , but on the other hand he accepts mari is dead already too quickly in my taste)(I mean I don’t understand basil a lot a lot, I just don’t make sense but also he probably get push to do something because he think he is the only one to rely on when Sunny is suffering at that moment,add the point of he never really have parents supervise him, I guess that add a possibility of him not seeking others (parental figure) help but trying to fix stuff on its own. I have theory of he mostly solve stuff on his own, and no one helps or guides him, and he might be the one taking care of his grandma more than his grandma taking care of him

(((no , I will tell u this, a lot of people don’t like to think about any reason for basil bc they “hate basil” . I read other ship involving sunny and see how many write basil should get hate by his actions))))(((not that u can’t hate a character but , write it from another character lens(besides hero), ok cool?) (ah I know I ask too much, cute ship fluff no canon involved because it’s too much sure whatever)

I want to point out how much he valued to “help ”Sunny in that moment than anything else. Even it’s a very very awful idea. But I also want to say, as passive as Sunny is, didn’t he also ruined basil life. And the lack of people see it this way just annoys me, what did you mean basil deserved it, where if basil never met sunny he could at least had a normal childhood ; but for Sunny , sunny still needs to face the reality of mari is gone, wether or not basil is there to help him “cover up ”?

I always see both of them are in the wrong, even though so many people see them as cute little meow meows , nooo . Especially sunny, sunny is passive, but he is not entirely blank(I don’t know how to explain but I always use “cute” to explain?) this is more of my taste I guess, but I really like to put Omori characters into sunny as well, I see omori as what he is thinking, sunny just has the issue to showing all those thoughts he have. They are good kids but sunny has this attitude (read Omori note) removing it from him making him so cute and eepy as soft is just not how I imagine sunny I guess; ; ( where is his dark thoughts and edginess?

Basil being overall kind ? Huh, there is also this very weird thing of Basil literally shut off himself to only interact with sunny a tiny bit. After the incident he cut off from most of his friends. I think I don’t know how to think about him because there is too little information then from Omori point of view of dream basil (I can believe omocat probably don’t know too or probably very simple but I or the fandom over complicated him) I just always felt he do favor sunny, but that also can be explained he doesn’t know what to do and can only open with sunny because sunny literally causes them both in the dumpster. Or can think as he IS really this kind, waiting for sunny to do something than just snitching sunny, you know if he hate sunny or anything, he can twist the story or just tell it before sunny think through his trauma but he didn’t

Also to point out, sunny at the end of the game did somehow get a conclusion of his thoughts but not basil, just pointing out, we don’t know how he feels, he probably has unresolved trauma +the guilt of hurting sunny, also we are not sure if he is ok sunny just spell the beans like that, he might just want to talk with sunny but haven’t prepared to share it w his friends yet so yeah, I hope they are on the same page (someone reminded me that his something disappeared , so they are both fine)

Add

So sunny eye, I always see it as an apology of ruining basils life, but most people think it’s too much

[aollosjustlurking]

"folklore" by taylor swift is a great album to listen to when you can't seem to get the situation of virgil leaving the dark sides (and maybe an anxceit breakup) out of your head. i've already talked about my tears ricochet, and now here's exile. i mean an angsty duet is perfect for the two of them, is it not?

I can see you standing, honey

it's important to note that janus only started showing up and being seen after virgil was accepted. this line specifically makes me think of "can lying be good?" as janus was hidden for most of the episode. besides his pro-thomas lying agenda, he was also observing the group.

With his arms around your body

Laughin', but the joke's not funny at all

Now you can choose to view this through a virgil x light side ship or through a purely platonic lens. the overall idea still is janus resentfully seeing virgil hanging out with the light sides.

And it took you five whole minutes

To pack us up and leave me with it

Holdin' all this love out here in the hall

compared to episodes now, accepting anxiety pt 2 is actually pretty short. it did not take long for virgil to open up to the light sides and effectively leave the dark sides. obviously this would be a sore topic for janus as we've seen in the series he seems to not be over virgil's departure.

I think I've seen this film before

And I didn't like the ending

You're not my homeland anymore

So what am I defending now?

janus seems to be a sort of leader of the dark sides, whether he's just making himself be perceived that way or actually is we don't know. we do know he has power over remus to some extent, spray bottle with soap, and it's not too much to assume he had a level of control or at least leadership over virgil. if you are to subscribe to the idea of past anxceit, or even past platonic relations, this would probably lead to the two of them being close at one point. now that virgil has moved away from the dark sides, janus is lost on what to defend.

You were my town

Now I'm in exile, seein' you out

I think I've seen this film before

again, the two of them we probably close before virgil's acceptance. the dark sides are almost treated as though they are exiled, as if the light sides would ban them if they could. one could view this as a explicit mention to janus being a dark side or something along the lines of him not having felt like an true outcast until virgil left.

I can see you starin', honey

in the episode "can lying be good?" virgil does eventually realize that janus has taken patton's place and has been there the whole time.

Like he's just your understudy

Like you'd get your knuckles bloody for me

in the end care of "embarrassing phases: the nightmare instead of christmas", janus says in a taunting tone, "who knows? someday you might be rid of us all." it gives the impression that janus does not believe virgil will be able to be with the light sides forever, or at least be away from the dark sides forever. that entire conversation janus is questioning whether virgil's growth is really that monumental. he might see the light sides as simply an "understudy".

Second, third, and hundredth chances

Balancin' on breaking branches

Those eyes add insult to injury

i don't feel as though leaving the dark sides was a spur of the moment decision, i mean it's virgil he doesn't really make spur of the moment decisions. janus and virgil's motives and personalities do clash a bit and it's not impossible to think that their relationship was crumbling even before virgil left.

I think I've seen this film before

And I didn't like the ending

I'm not your problem anymore

So who am I offending now?

it's very typical of virgil to refer to himself as a problem, i think we know that at this point. who virgil is "offending" is an interesting question as when he was a dark side he was most likely not offending janus but rather the light sides as we saw with pre-accepting anxiety episodes. now he is closer to "offending" janus, though he still buts heads with the others. him questioning who he is offending and having insecurities based around it would make sense.

You were my crown

Now I'm in exile, seein' you out

virgil, in the literal sense i mentioned earlier, is no longer in exile, he is apart of the light sides. however, he can be seen as "in exile" in two ways. one being that he still has issues fitting into the group as we see in episodes such as "fitting in" and more recently "embarrassing phases: the nightmare instead of christmas". the second could be feeling exile from the dark sides and more specifically janus.

I think I've seen this film before

So I'm leavin' out the side door

this can specifically refer to virgil leaving the dark sides and being accepted by the main group.

So step right out, there is no amount

Of crying I can do for you

janus has not appeared to be sad about virgil but rather scornful and resentful. he is not begging virgil to stay, like i feel other sides if put in the same situation would, but he is not happy about it.

All this time

We always walked a very thin line

as i mentioned before, this relationship had to always be a rocky one. we know how virgil feels about lies and how they affect his anxiety, and this is bound to cause tension between the two even without other circumstances.

You didn't even hear me out (you didn't even hear me out)

this again makes me think of their differing perceptions of deception. it could also be applied to the period of time in early sander sides when virgil was beginning to have a more positive view of the light sides. any disagreement could be referenced here.

You never gave a warning sign (I gave so many signs)

there was plenty of foreshadowing that virgil was going to join the light sides eventually. the quote "i'm not always the bad guy" is great evidence of this. janus should've been able to predict that vigil was going to leave, but he may have been lying to himself and ignoring the signs.

All this time

I never learned to read your mind (never learned to read my mind)

I couldn't turn things around (you never turned things around)

this outlines the end of their relationship. the disagreements and hurt that linger today probably started from situations like this.

'Cause you never gave a warning sign (I gave so many signs)

So many signs, so many signs

You didn't even see the signs

I think I've seen this film before

And I didn't like the ending

You're not my homeland anymore

So what am I defending now?

You were my town

Now I'm in exile, seein' you out

I think I've seen this film before

So I'm leavin' out the side door

So step right out, there is no amount

Of crying I can do for you

All this time

We always walked a very thin line

You didn't even hear me out (didn't even hear me out)

You never gave a warning sign (I gave so many signs)

All this time

I never learned to read your mind (never learned to read my mind)

I couldn't turn things around (you never turned things around)

'Cause you never gave a warning sign (I gave so many signs)

All this time (so many signs)

I never learned to read your mind (so many signs)

I couldn't turn things around (I couldn't turn things around)

obviously there is not much to add towards the end here as it's mainly repetition. we do see a lyric change here with the second speaker, in our case virgil, saying "i couldn't turn things around" rather than "you never turning things around". i do think that virgil blames janus mostly for how they ended up; however, he knows he is not completely blameless. he left the dark sides rather than trying to work with them or bring them with him. he, to some degree, abandoned them.

'Cause you never gave a warning sign (you never gave a warning sign)

You never gave a warning sign

more sander sides x taylor swift content soon :)

[marley-manson]

In Love and War

-- Potter sucked lol, straight up says he didn't tell Hawkeye about Kyung Soon's circumstances and let him go off about rich people because as a colonel he doesn't need to explain orders. Then topped it off by being condescending while stating the 'love during a war sucks' theme. Oh ALSO not a fan of his explanation for transfering the nurse who Donald hit on comparing her and Margaret to a car and a horse respectively. Minor in the grand scheme of things, but like, it's very Potter.

-- Loretta Swit was so fucking funny in the shower scene

-- the Kyung Soon + BJ goodbye scene parallels are so strong lol, kudos for that

-- headcanon that Hawkeye is not a lit guy heavily reinforced \o/ I only remembered like one line, but his interactions with Kyung Soon were actually full of not getting her lit and poetry references, and he even made a self-depricating joke about quoting the Divine Comedy from a comic book version - a joke I think is exaggerated, I do assume he's probably at least read some of it for school, but it does tell us that Hawkeye doesn't see himself as a literature knower

-- Hawkeye trying and failing to hammer a board, Kyung Soon takes the hammer from him and tells him his hands are for surgery. that's my guy

-- love Hawk and Margaret commiserating together at the end, sans explanation. it's a little odd this early, but not so odd that it feels implausible, so it strikes a good balance evocative of a burgeoning friendship.

-- Kyung Soon was a pretty solid character for a single episode love interest. kudos for that.

-- I've seen posts that interpret this episode as a critique of American imperialism so I was watching the ep with an eye out for it, but I don't see it as an intended theme. I think you can pick it up essentially as a side effect of the show trying to realistically portray a downer romance between an American draftee and a Korean civilian, but the ep is very on the nose about its theme (romance and war don't mix) and everything that points in that more specific and political 'critique of imperialism' direction is either a) undermined shortly later (eg Hawkeye suggesting they eat dinner in a bombed out restaurant initially seemed potentially insensitive and out of touch, but Kyung Soon and the narrative finds it romantic), b) furthering the more general war sux theme (eg the bombed out restaurant, or Hawkeye's class A uniform at the funeral, as foreboding symbols of the war poised to separate them), and/or c) something I wouldn't expect a mainstream 70s audience to understand as a critique of imperialism without further explicit contextualization (eg Hawkeye's uniform again).

Plus, rather than being critiqued as an American, Hawkeye is pointedly portrayed as ~one of the good ones~ with the way Kyung Soon explicitly says she likes him because he "cares about [her] people," and his response to Charles' racism. Maybe a little naive in a way that can be taken politically, but not in a way I believe is intended to be a political statement - it's Hawkeye's idealistic romanticism imo, since it's contrasted to Potter's world-weary realism.

Basically I can see the anti-imperialism lens the way you can view most of Mash through it, but I'm not inclined to give the show credit for a thoughtful anti-imperialism sentiment here. They've done anti-imperialism episodes and they tend to be more clumsy lol and much more overt. Imo the tragedy in this episode is the war, not the American presence in the war.

-- That said, I think the lack of intentional messaging and the focus on sad realism works in this episode's favour, because it's overall pretty good. I mean it's still a rushed one-ep romance which never actually works, but within the bounds of its format, it's successful imo. And the realistic touches do add up to an implicit, if accidental, critique of imperialism if you're inclined to see it. It's a solid lens to view the episode through, just not one I'd praise the writers for.

[imwritesometimes]

What do you mean, it's an Indy line?! 🤩 (you know I love that blorbo too, I forever will, but don’t answer this if you don’t want to of course!)

my Indy nerd ass opening this ask like

Put most of it under a cut cause, well, it got stupid long and if no one actually reads this I won't blame them lol - My blog tittle is 'fortune & glory' which is a line from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. I think it's maybe one of my favorite lines in the series because it, to me, displays how Indy wants to be seen, and shows the growth he goes through.

I think a lot of people forget/don't know that Temple of Doom is actually a prequel to Raiders. So when they watch it they go, "Oh wow this scoundrel never learned a thing opening God's Most Special Box and watching all those Nazi faces melt and he just left Marion again! What a cad!" But that's not true at all cause, in terms of story time-line, none of that has happened to him yet! So when Temple of Doom starts he is a brash, cocky, over-confident man.

He tells Short-Round at one point early in the film that everything they're doing, everything he's about, is for 'fortune & glory'. I think even his relationship with Short-Round early on is a great plot device demonstrating how much he changes as a result of the things that happen in the film. At first he seems kinda nonchalant, 'idk I picked this kid up, it's whatever, he's sorta useful' to literally risking his life to save him because he realizes they are important to one another.

But that's very much how he wants to be perceived. A swashbuckling, bravado machine, unburdened by the frivolity of emotional baggage. Which becomes even more poignant when we learn that his Mom left him at an early age and his Dad was largely uninterested in having a child. You could also argue that he is in search of his 'fortune & glory' to get the attention of his Dad.

But, by the end of the film, after he's gone through unimaginable horrors, he is changed. He has learned that there is far more to life, and to the field in which he has decided to dedicate his life, than his precious 'fortune & glory', and ultimately becomes a better person and I think establishes more of the growth we see from Indy in the other films. We still see him put on his mask of 'fortune & glory' but ultimately we know more and more that it's a mask and one he isn't so good at hiding behind anymore.

I feel like they did a very good job carrying that narrative through all the films, even DoD, which sees Indy again shifting into the swashbuckling, bravado machine but we know he is processing the loss of his son and ultimately still Loves Marion deeply and it hurts him to be separated from her.

just to add: There are, of course, criticisms to made about Temple of Doom, both culturally and thematically. A lot of people are put off by how 'dark' the subject matter is, and it ultimately did help usher in the PG-13 rating. I would not ever try to defend some the cultural aspects of the film, but thematically it's also interesting to know Spielberg went into making ToD after an accident on the set of Twilight Zone killed two people, including a child. (I have not listed their names here as I do not wish to have this come up if people serarch for them on this site as it would be disrespectful imo because this post in general is not about them) The themes we see in ToD about children being endangered and then, ultimately rescued, becomes a little clearer I think when viewed through that lens.