#overall (attempted) theme of ‘family don’t end in blood and doesn’t start there either’

[quietwingsinthesky]

I would take five more seasons of Samuel and his shiny bald head over the men of letters is what I’m saying

[tommytranselo]

omg l interested in your strange opinion about Carlo 👀

basically...i feel like he doesn't have a very coherent sense of his own identity–i'll explain that more in a minute.  really, the main detail where i seem to differ in opinion from some other people is that i think he doesn't really have a lot of connection to his past/heritage–he seems very american to me and i think he thinks of himself that way (to an extent).  considers himself a businessman, i think, probably calls himself one too, and not in a winking "i'm a legitimate businessman" way either; i think he believes it in some sense.  he's a modernizer, he has no regard for tradition or old values, he's very "this is a business and we should run it like one."  he's narratively contrasted very hard against vinci & leo, who are old school–leo says of him in ch6, “he’s new blood, whereas don vinci is a man of honor, he respects the old ways,” and i don’t recall him being referred to as “don falcone” at any point (he might’ve been at some point idk)–i actually have a headcanon that people mostly call him “mr. falcone” in contrast to the other bosses.  additionally, carlo’s killing of moretti, another old school traditionalist, was symbolic of modernization in a way too.  he’s a lucky luciano type to his core, no time for old “outdated” traditions.  overall he strikes me much more as this like, “new american wiseguy” rather than having much of a connection to any kind of legacy, though i imagine that has to cause some level of internal strife.

now to get into the incoherency thing, he has a very specific image he seems to be going for; he's known for philanthropy, and there's a newspaper clipping from the potts files talking about his "cheerful attitude" and him being a donor to the empire bay press guild and how he's always getting slandered, so clearly he's good at PR, though the cheerful thing seems to be a facade just for the press.  overall i think he's trying to seem like a businessman, and he's trying to seem upper class and refined.  but he's new money.  he grew up a working class immigrant kid, and no amount of philanthropy and and charisma and opera-going is going to make any of the old money snobs see past that.  i get the vibe in his later years he’s kind of ashamed at having grown up poor, or at least he has this sense of “i’m never going back” (probably the same way vito does, but carlo…had what it took, i guess) that probably makes it difficult to reconcile the fact that he had some good times back then–he even expresses nostalgia for his prohibition days in the planetarium shootout.  hell, the existence of the maltese falcon bar kind of sums it up–it’s a nice restaurant themed after pulp detective novels, which were considered fairly lowbrow at the time (and hell, maybe even now).  it’s a contradiction.  i feel like, to an extent, he probably talks himself out of thinking those were the good old days, but i don’t think he can let go completely.

thirdly i think he had a lot of doubts about killing moretti and probably had to talk himself into it, convincing himself it was for the good of the family and he could do much better than the old man, and that the war just needed to end.  he doesn’t seem heartless to me either–he rewarded eddie and jack for their loyalty, he kept tony balls around after he survived the car bomb that killed moretti, he still regards eddie as a close friend despite secretly viewing him as a liability.  he seems personable enough and actually talks to his men even if, again, for PR reasons.  i think he probably went further off the rails as the stress of being boss got to him and there were multiple attempts on his life (rocco, frankie potts), he got paranoid and arrogant, and and he finally spiraled into “everyone who stands in my way has to go” and recklessly attacking everyone, but i don’t think he started that way.  he would’ve gone after the other families sooner if he had.  he certainly doesn’t seem to alienate people as fast as, say, clemente does.

honestly i think i kind of lost the plot trying to explain myself here and maybe i’ll make another post someday if i can figure out a better way to word things, but the long and short of it is that i think he’s a walking contradiction in many ways and it wears on him.  and to borrow a line from “red light” by wall of voodoo (which is a great song btw), his attitude is very much “this modern world deserves a modern attitude!”

[cynwritess]

My Outlining Technique As A Pantser

I despise outlining with every fiber of my soul. I don’t care how much people persist you need an outline, I will put it off to the very last minute and do it very half-assed. Even in school, its straight to the first draft. Outlining requires a very precise skill of breaking things down as small as possible and my mind simply does not function that way. It’s literally all or nothing. Unfortunately while this may work for writing school essays, it’s not exactly a good idea when it comes to a book. Writing a book requires structure and precision because you need to carefully place information, have an idea where your characters are going, tedious yet necessary things. Fortunately, I’ve come up with a way to outline without completely frying my brain.

Characters. 

I almost always start with the characters first and build the world, other characters, and plot around them. If you have a name in mine, perfect! Go ahead and use it! If you don’t have a name, don’t dread scouring through dozens of baby name websites. Give them a place holder name or better yet, give them a role/title. I’m going to use one of my current characters (steal anything about her and I’ll send demons after you). When I first created Selina I only had a vague aesthetic and the idea that I wanted her to somehow be attached to spirits. Her name didn’t come to me until 25k into the story, but I had to refer to her as something so I used a conjunction of a place holder name and calling her “Reaper of Souls”. This way I know exactly who I’m referring to. Also, this helps me know what path my character needs to go down. Reaper of Souls is who she’ll become, but its definitely not who she is when the story begins. It makes me thing: What steps do I need to take to get her there? This is where you can start brainstorming character arcs and give them trauma. 

Another essential part of creating characters in my opinion is giving them “role models”. Personally, if this is a brand new character I’m creating off the top of my head its hard to write them because I know nothing about them. I don’t know their sense of humor, who they would and wouldn’t get along with, their inner monologue, etc. Now you have to be careful with this and make sure to mold them into their own unique characters at the end of the day, but you can use other already existing characters to help begin the process. When creating Selina I knew vaguely she needed to be connected to spirits. What characters do I know like that? Jodie from Beyond Two Souls is a good one and Zelie is a bit of a different twist to it but still the same general idea. But wait! Selina’s vibe doesn’t match either of them. So in this case I might look at Jude Duarte for inspiration for her personality. Nitpick all your favorite things about different characters and use that to your advantage! It gives you the jolt you need to really begin to explore who your character is. 

Always do the main character first, then follow with the supporting character or villain. In my opinion, the main supporting character and villain should be foils of the main character in order to get the most out of each one, because you’ll be able to see different aspects and different arcs they could’ve/will have. Once you have those three characters you can create the others as you progress with your story.

Setting.

This can either be really simple or your worst fucking nightmare. For me, it’s a mixture of both. If your story is taking place in the real world then this can be relatively simple even if you’re creating your own town/city. If your town has a very specific location like a town square or maybe there’s a river running through it, then just google “towns with a river going through it” for a start. If you have a specific town in mind you can also google the map and start dissecting different aspects of the town and incorporating it into your own. You can even use your own town for inspiration! The town my story takes place in is made up, but my hometown actually resembles it quite a bit so I’ve been using it for references. So far, its been working out pretty good.

Now if you have a high fantasy setting... I wish you the best of luck. I’ve only written one high fantasy story when I was twelve and... well clearly its never seen the light of day for a reason (partially because I deleted it, partially because there was absolutely zero world-building). I’m sorry to say my skills have no improved much since then. I’ve dabbled with the idea of high fantasy worlds and honestly my only advice is to look at other fantasy maps and draw inspiration from that. Narnia, Ravka, the ACOTAR world, the shifting isles of Elfhame, the Avatar universe, Orisha, to name a few. You’ll also have to look at some basic geographical stuff like the climate, but overall you have pretty much free reign over how your world looks. This is the one part I feel like you can’t bullshit if you don’t want your story to seem halfway. Really go in with the details even if its just for you. The more fleshed out your world is, even if its set here in the normal world, the better.

The main issue. 

This is pretty much a given but you do need to have some sort of idea who the main antagonist is/what is the big issue your characters are fighting. If you’re writing a series then chances are book one will probably focus on an entirely different issue before the big one is revealed. There’s not really much advice I can give for this because it’ll be tailored specifically to your story. I don’t think your antagonist has to be fully fleshed out if you’re going to be introducing them very late, but do have a general idea who or what it is, their goal, and why your character feels the need to stop them.

Usually you’ll notice the problem in the beginning of the story isn’t the ultimate problem, its just a gateway to it. I wouldn’t necessarily call it a subplot but I guess technically that’s what it is. Think of Percy Jackson. The main issue of book one is him being accused of stealing the lightning bolt, but the ultimate issue was the war with the titans. Or The Cruel Prince. The main issue was Jude feeling helpless and wanting to create a place for herself in the faery world, but the ultimate issue was those attempting overthrowing the entire Greenbriar family from the thrown. 

This kind of goes without saying, but there has to be a strong motivation for the character to stop them or it just won’t work. You don’t see characters going after the antagonist because nothing in their life isn’t threatened. There’s always a motivation, something to fuel them even if done so reluctantly. For example, Zelie from Children of Blood and Bone was sick and tired of constantly fighting and being the hero, but she did it anyways because she was the only one who could truly help the maji. Or you can take a slightly antagonistic approach and look at Kaz from Six of Crows who did what he did out of greed for money, power, and revenge. Usually when I begin my stories, I only have a vague idea as to why my main character is joining the fight, which is perfectly fine. As long as you have some sort of idea and begin to build on it as you write, you’ll be probably be fine. 

Brainstorm.

I cannot for the life of me sit in front of my computer and write a bland summary of what it is that is going to happen in my book. Sorry, but I am simply not built that way but it also makes writing your books ten times harder as well. I’ve found a bit of a cheat. For one, brainstorm. Get a general idea what some of the main events you want to happen are. Do you want a character death? Does a specific location need to be mentioned? Is there subplots or character arcs you would like to explore? Is there any themes you’d like to explore? Jot them all down, along with your word count goal. You probably won’t be able to incorporate all of them in one book, but at least you’ll have an idea what path you’re going to head down in terms of your story.

And now onto my actual cheat. Because I’m a pantser who hates outlining, I usually jump into my stories without knowing what direction they are going. Recently I’ve discovered that I can outline the first five chapters, write them out, and give myself complete free reign. I’ll explore all sorts of character personalities, different beginnings, different writing styles, different scenarios, different relationships, anything I can realistically include in the first five chapters of my story. Then I’ll go back and edit it. Don’t completely delete anything, always save it in a separate file! I’ll go back and decide which characters are unnecessary at this point, what plot points can be introduced later on, what writing style suits this story, things like that. Then from there, I’ll go back to my outline and make any appropriate changes before proceeding to write the rest of the draft as normal (WITHOUT GOING BACK TO EDIT). The reason why I do this is because I need a solid base to begin my story, otherwise its so easy for me to go off track and begin to tell a completely different story. This way I’ll know exactly what I’m going after, I’ll be able to explore and get to know my characters and setting, and it’s enough chapters that I can even begin to incorporate the main issue at hand. 

[hamliet]

Hello! Have you seen TROS yet? [Spoiler alert] I was really devastated by the ending - coming out the theater feeling upset and disappointed. Do you have any thoughts on it? Or maybe any plan to write fix-it fic? Thank you!

I am seeing it tomorrow. That said, I’ve read the plot summary, and no good execution can save that. So I was planning on posting this after I watched it with amendments made as I hope to enjoy it, but I’ll just post it now and amend this as necessary based on the film as I see it. (I still believe I will enjoy the film, even if I don’t think it’s a good film. I do think that. I really do... I hope.)

BASED ON THE PLOT SUMMARIES ALONE (grains of salt everywhere!): 

I think it’s technically… messy writing at best and downright bad writing in other parts.* 10/10 it’s a blockuster-y, JJ Abrams-esque, (hopefully) fun, messy narrative movie that will be forgotten in 0.3 seconds.

Disclaimer before everyone comes after me: if you like it, AWESOME. If you think it’s good writing, great! Good writing and bad writing are inherently subjective; that said, there are general consensuses among literary studies about what constitutes bad and good writing. Hence, I’m relying on those consensuses when I call it messily written.

Before we get into specifics, I’ll compare it to two other major pop culture endings: Game of Thrones and Avengers: Endgame.

TROS is similar to the GoT final season in that it attempts to incorporate every aspect of fan speculation ever. However, it’s more like Endgame in that it is still somewhat true to the themes and characters—but unfortunately also like Endgame, it is not transformative or particularly interesting as a story on its own. In fact, it’s rather boring and honestly… bad storytelling. It tries to rehash Return of the Jedi but it doesn’t succeed in any way because the world and the overall story has grown since the early 1980s, and so the same story doesn’t work anymore.

Showing a cyclical story remaining cyclical with no sign of that breaking–instead, the cycles are even reinforced–does not give optimism nor does it give hope.

Redemption=death needs to die already. If we really want to reach people and tell them that the message is that you can always make a better choice (as Daisy Ridley and JJ Abrams have said about Kylo’s arc), maybe don’t send the message in each and every story that you have to die to redeem yourself. Look outside of cultural secular Calvinism, for the love of God and the betterment of the world and stories as a whole.

Now let’s talk Rey’s parentage.

We know Rey Palpatine wasn’t planned from the beginning (Trevorrow, the original write/director of IX, who was thankfully fired, said that he never planned for Palpatine to return), which means Rey’s parentage was most likely retconned from TLJ and there was no real plan for the sequel trilogy’s overall character arcs (save for Kylo’s, according to the actors and writers).

Listen to me. You don’t have to have everything planned when you start a three-film saga, but you gotta know the major beats.

This is like a sad game of movie telephone. 

Yes, I know the OT Star Wars didn’t have a plan either and it’s like one of the only examples I can think of where no plan worked out–albeit not without hiccups (Leia kissing Luke, anyone?) If you expect lightning to strike twice in the same place, I’m sorry, but you are hopelessly naive.

Having Rey decide she wants to carry on the name Skywalker at the end is lame as shit. It’s a way to appease fans while being like nah she still isn’t related. Trying to please every fan is a sure way to guarantee that you will please no one. It might make for a perfectly pleasant film experience (I really hope it does), but not good, lasting storytelling (though not like, horrific either). It’s meh. It’s like… giving someone who is starving oatmeal. It will get the job done but will it satisfy and enthrall people? Not quite.

And let’s switch gears for a minute to Finn and Rose, my first and third favorite characters in this trilogy (Kylo is second, Rey is fourth). The sidelining of Rose is nothing short of a terrible attempt to please the white-supremacist-aligned Fandom Menace. Let’s not pretend it’s anything else. JJ’s lipservice about how wonderful it was that Kelly was cast at SW Celebration is, in hindsight, absolutely nauseating.

Shame on JJ. Shame on Disney.

But the main problem I have with this film is this:

Why did it need to exist?

The answer is money. Obviously. I know, I know stories exist to make money. That doesn’t mean I can’t criticize the fact that the story was sacrificed on the unholy altar of capitalism and Disney’s desire to own our souls. (Disney–the reason I like your movies is that a lot of them are good stories. I’m not interested in pandering soooooo.)

The Rise of Skywalker does not enhance the Star Wars narrative. Nothing about this film satisfies the Skywalker Saga nor the sequel trilogy, and it kind of all comes down to Kylo Ren’s death being the nail that sunk the entire world of Star Wars.

Keep in mind Kylo is not my favorite character when I’m saying this. Finn is. But I never spoke about Finn as much because the story didn’t utilize him properly. I never had concerns about Finn getting a happy ending while I was worried for Rey and Kylo’s arcs. (Finn’s arc, however, did have a ton more potential than was capitalized on; in particular, he would have been better if he was more conflicted over say, shooting other stormtroopers. His whole character humanized the usual red shirts, which when paired with Rose’s everywoman character, had so much potential I could shriek about it all day. That he didn’t lead other brainwashed stormtroopers into rebellion and freedom saddens me. Also, his ending again seems to bring about a good victim/bad victim dichotomy when it is compared with Kylo’s. The reason these two are my faves is that they were brainwashed as kids which, well, I can kinda sorta heavily relate to.)

Kylo Ren and Rey’s relationship doesn’t really get much better than it did in The Last Jedi. It actually rehashes that arc significantly. We already knew Kylo would fight for Rey and the galaxy, so… how was this different? Now, if he had lived, it would have been different, because it was the after the fight that proved that Kylo wasn’t ready to redeem himself in The Last Jedi. It was Kylo’s choice to stay at the expense of Rey and the Resistance that was literally the set up for conflict in the next film. This… turned it into nothing? Their conflict is rehashed and then whoo-hoo! Easy way out! Kill him so that they don’t have to deal with the “after” this time! They never have to deal with the conflict literally set up in The Last Jedi.

That’s bad writing, fam.

Life is infinitely more interesting. Leaving the story open with a living Skywalker instead of killing literally everyone involved with the Skywalkers except Rey who now adopts that name is… so unsatisfying I can’t even. Even if later material shows him showing up as a Force Ghost, like: cool saw that with Vader so this… adds nothing to the existing films. It doesn’t really reconcile anything.

It also… does not help the Rey=Mary Sue argument. She is NOT a Mary Sue, and that is a sexist term itself, but in no way is it a satisfying ending to her arc, because it isn’t a well-written ending which means it isn’t a well-written arc. The problem with Rey’s ending is a mirror of my problem with Kylo’s ending: it’s the very much a combination of her ending in The Last Jedi and her life before The Force Awakens.

She and Kylo are now separated (permanently this time).

She’s has her Resistance friends.

She’s alone on a desert planet.

But wait! Now she’s now happy!

Uh, why? The only reason I can think of is that the narrative demands it. Because honestly, what changes? The family she chose–the Skywalkers–are just as dead as her Palpatine birth family, soooooo. I suppose she reconciled with her heritage and come to peace with it and so that’s why she’s happy now, but… I can’t lie. It’s not hopeful. It’s not optimistic. It’s not Star Wars and it isn’t consistent for the message (especially if this is supposed to be the ending to the saga!) to be both:

life sucks for the Skywalkers and then they die–seriously, look at Shmi, Anakin, Padmé, Leia, Luke, Han, Kylo–it is LITERALLY ALL OF THEM; and

deciding to be a Skywalker means you’re at peace.

I can only assume Rey’s life will suck and then she’ll die, tbh, unless of course she is better off because of her blood… which negates the point of her being a Skywalker and is a really gross idea.

YOU CAN’T HAVE BOTH IN YOUR ENDING. PICK ONE.

Rejecting the Skywalkers would be anti-Star Wars, for sure, but marrying into them as a way of bridging the unfinished pain between Anakin and Padmé and Leia and her father? Much better. Or just leave it open. Honestly, leave it open for Kylo and Rey to both be alive and see each other again.

But you’re just upset your ship didn’t get a happy ending!

No, I’m upset about the storytelling, of which shipping is a part. A canonical part just as much as the lightsaber fights are. Anakin and Padmé. Leia and Han. Finn and Rose. Poe and Zorii. Rey and Ben.

The Force created Anakin, remember? All films–even the spin-offs–encourage our heroes to trust the force. “May the force be with us.” But the Force created an ENTIRE FAMILY THAT LIVED LIVES THAT SUCKED AND MADE LIFE SUCK FOR EVERYONE AROUND THEM AND THEN THEY DIED.

May the Force stay far the f*ck away from me, amen.

But seriously I can’t trust the world of a galaxy far far away or its narrative anymore. It’s a contradiction that causes all nine films to unravel. Why?

Again, let’s return to my earlier GoT comparison, because there is one thing TROS does that is more similar to GoT than to Endgame: Endgame drew together a bunch of unique distinctly separate stories into a crossover. TROS, just like GoT, relied on cliffhanger, incomplete endings to its films and therefore the ending matters a hell of a lot more than a stand-alone story.

I’m not dying to rewatch it like I am with stories where I realize I might learn more the second time. And by “rewatch it” I mean the entire nine-film saga. Knowing that canonically Leia, Luke, Han–they all die and their last descendent dies, the last descendent of Padmé and Anakin–for me, it’s personally gonna be hard to watch again. It’s gonna be hard to watch TROS going into it the first time.

And so the saga of bad endings continues.

Game of Thrones remains the worst at a -100 out of 10. It’s followed by Tokyo Ghoul:re which is still 2/10, and Star Wars is, on paper (meaning after I see it I am hoping it rises a few notches) now… 4/10. Endgame is a solid 6.5/10.

Banana Fish, sweetie, I’m sorry you were ranked down there. Your ending is a 7/10 but the rest of your story is like, 10/10 so you are sprung from this list.

Help me, Shingeki no Kyojin. You’re my only hope.

[ramblingguy54]

Amphibia’s Season 1 Finale: An Emotionally Charged Climax Of Brilliance

For those who haven’t watched Amphibia yet, or are only halfway through the series, I’d highly recommend not reading this post on the events of Season 1′s finale. This is an episode that should be experienced blind, rather than having it spoiled for yourself, unless you really don’t mind at all whatsoever.

No matter how many times I’ve re-watched Amphibia Season 1 on Disney+, I gotta say its finale was easily up on my list of top moments from animation back in the 2010′s. Amphibia starts off with some pretty simple straightforward slice of life stuff throwing in a nice mix of drama and comedy. Although, as the series has progressed, Amphibia’s storytelling makes it clear we’re in for a bigger shift with dramatic writing once Season 2 rolls around in the future. This last episode of Season 1, Reunion, gives me the impression it could very likely be transitioning into heavier stuff, like Gravity Falls did, when it’s second outing steps up to the plate eventually. Season 1′s finale has seriously impressed me with what it managed to accomplish in its themes that were set up as early as its first episode. We finally get more insight into what Anne’s daily routine with Sasha must’ve been like before she was suddenly dropped into this crazy lovable world of anthropomorphic frogs. What I really appreciate about this backstory is it reels us in just enough with seeing Anne and Sasha’s chemistry. It doesn’t do a big exposition dump about what good friends they are, rather Amphibia just simply shows us first hand. From the get go it’s made crystal clear that Anne and Sasha are very close, seeing how Sasha stands up for Anne when someone tries to steal her food on a special day no less.

Or else you can forget about coming to my awesome house party next week.

Happy Birthday, girl!

Like, extremely close given how happy these two are to see each other. Anne & Sasha’s interaction here is safe to say they go way back before their current school year. Almost as if, they’ve known each other since they were younger.

“Sasha’s been my friend since Kindergarten. If she says it’s fine. It’s fine.”

Anne’s piece of dialogue here makes it evident how much she cares/trusts about Sasha as an individual. Even enough to allow her in doing morally questionable stuff highlighted with this brief montage spotlighting Anne’s passive behavior towards Sasha’s dangerously impulsive attitude. Time and time again Anne willingly goes along with Sasha’s mentality of, “Do whatever we want.”,  because in her eyes that’s what being best friends is all about. Giving the other what they want regardless of the moral implications around whatever their actions are. Not to mention, when you take that into account that Anne has been around Sasha since preschool, it’s equivalent to putting your foot down on a family member. Anne doesn’t want to hurt Sasha, considering she’s like the sister Anne never had, being an only child and all. That further establishes emotional weight for something Anne fears to lose out on, which Sasha takes advantage of greatly.

Anne, this isn’t cute anymore. We’re meeting up with Marcy right now! End of discussion...

“Heh! She’s persuasive, right?”

Look, if a friend likes a pencil case, you get it for them. If your friend likes your new shoes, you give them to her. And if her friend wants you to steal a crazy music box from a thrift store, even if you really don’t want to, you do it okay? Because if you don’t, they might not want to be your friend anymore...

Sasha’s serious verbal abuse has made Anne completely twist around the very concept of what a healthy friendship basically is, overall. For whatever the reason at some point, be it the very school environment they both grew up in or personal family issues, Sasha has become an extremely toxic influence on Anne’s important decision making and it painfully shows here in her self-esteem. This kid has made it second nature for herself to never be honest when a friend is doing something that she internally deems highly questionable in moral terms, since she’s so afraid of permanently losing those who claim to care about her own well being. Anne believes it to be a “golden rule” that if you’re openly honest with your close friends, it will only lead to failure in a nutshell. This is honestly one of the strongest elements of Amphibia’s storytelling on how it explores the human condition of real friendship. It’s not sunshine and rainbows, but an honest reflection of who you are as a person. Those you choose to let into your life for better influencing yourself, also reveal your true nature as an individual. These particular lines from the episode, Flood, Sweat, and Tears, sets the mood into motion that vital theme its story centers itself around.

Sharing a room doesn’t make you best friends. Being honest with each other does! 

In fact, if you ask me, you’re better friends now than you were before.

Seeing how greatly Amphibia explored this statement means a lot to me, since I myself have struggled with passive aggressive behavior plenty with my own friends. There were social experiences I went through in my childhood that made me bottle up how I genuinely feel a lot, so being honest with my own circle of close friends was a serious challenge for me. While I have come a long way in the improvements of being more honest with my pals whenever something is bothering me, it’s still a never ending struggle I deal with on a daily basis, considering it’s much like second nature to me. This significant moment hit all the right chords for me in showing that beauty of human connections, by taking the good and bad people can experience in dealing with their own differences.  Anne’s journey to better understand what real friends are and stand up for herself is a very empowering one to see occur, as she continues to come out of her shell, while putting her foot down when more immoral shit starts to hit the fan. Another giant step forward for her own independence comes to light in the tenth episode, Toad Tax, when Anne wanted nothing more than to be respected by the towns folk, instead of being openly called a monster and getting severely alienated for it, too. Which, again, it really shows just how much Sasha’s manipulation has had a grip on Anne, given she first thought that by joining the Toad force that she’d garner their respect. However, that idea was nothing more than a deeply shallow belief, which would’ve made the town more afraid of her rather than love and accept her. 

All I wanted was this town’s respect, but just because these people treated me crumby, doesn’t mean I’m gonna do the same to them. I’m done with this. I don’t care if they’ve broken the law, you can’t treat people like this!

In a very jarring contrast to Anne, Sasha is a more two faced individual with her own motive for getting herself, Anne, and Marcy back home by any means necessary. To put it bluntly and harshly, Sasha is a real bitch hilariously to the point where she is the sole reason why Grimes minions become more competent, due to throwing out fake compliments to help their lack of motivation, since his intensity as their ruthless leader was backfiring greatly. It’s priceless to see a villain’s cold blooded behavior ironically be a big detriment to their rule of power, as other works of fiction have shown it to a “positive” influence on their minions, where a teenage cheerleader blonde archetype has to patch things up.

You lot are without a doubt the most useless group of toads I have ever seen!

Just try saying nice things for a change. Get them to love you and they’ll do anything for you.

That actually works?

Ooooh, it works alright. Trust me.

Sasha’s already cold and calculating manipulation is influenced in return by Grimes heartless nature. Sasha & Grimes combined make for a deadly combination for one Hell of antagonistic duo, but that’s not to say this series doesn’t add layers to this complicated girl. While she is a very toxic verbally abusive person, Sasha isn’t without her own humanity either. Besides lying about being the only human in the world of Amphibia, Sasha genuinely is concerned about reuniting with each of her friends and not just for keeping them underneath her thumb in a controlling fashion. The voice acting here from Sasha’s VA really helps elevate that idea there’s more to her than how she acts.

Hold on for a little longer girls. I’m coming for you and when I find you we’re gonna get home, but first I think we’re gonna have some fun with this place.

By the time Anne and Sasha reunite by the finale, both have changed. Anne for the better and Sasha for much worse. Anne has become more selfless and free to make her own choices that she feels morally comfortable with doing, while Sasha is out to kill Hop Pop, due to his vital actions in earlier episodes, for encouraging more Frogs to rebel against the Toad’s rule of power through fear and violence. Sasha doesn’t view Hop Pop as as an equal living thing, but another obstacle that’s keeping herself, Anne, and Marcy from their one way ticket home. She strongly believes that killing Hop Pop, to keep the other Frogs back in line from having a voice of their own, will allow them a better chance to get back home with help from Grimes. Sasha knows to an extent the terrible thing she’s trying to help Grimes commit, however she still only views Hop Pop as not an equivalent human being, but an already figurative dead frog for them to dissect in their biology class. 

So you’ve probably already noticed the Toads in this valley have one job. To rule over the Frogs. And lately those Frogs have been stepping out of line.

Sasha is a serious fucking jerk, but a well intent extremist on wanting to get everyone back home, who doesn’t fully grasp the full context of what horrible atrocities she’s helping Grimes commit through doing this attempted murder.

Anne, what are you doing? Are you really gonna risk your life for these...talking frogs? We don’t even belong here. Don’t you wanna get back home? See your family?

Yeah, but...

Then put your sword down, now!

END OF DISCUSSION...

There we go, that’s my girl.

There that wasn’t so hard was i-

WHAT THE HECK!?

For someone who’s Anne’s best friend, you sure don’t know her very well! She brave, she’s smart, and most of all she’s not gonna be pushed around by a bully like you!

I think I’ve had enough of you, squeaky toy.

Anne, what are you doing!?

Something I should’ve done a long time ago. Standing up to you!

Thanks for believing in me, Sprig.

Can I just say that I love how they don’t try to pin blame on Anne for being consistently manipulated by Sasha? While Anne most certainly needs to stand up and not allow Sasha to abuse her like this anymore, Sasha is the sole person responsible for making Anne feel so insecure, who needed to be put in her place. It was very important for them to make that clear who is at fault here in this situation more than anyone and Sprig was perfect for telling off Anne’s abusive friend. Can’t begin to describe how cathartic it was for seeing that bitch get hit in the face for trying to once again pull on Anne’s emotional baggage. That highly noteworthy moment aside, there is a really interesting exchange between Sasha and Grimes showing how warped Sasha’s definition of friendship has become over the years she’s grown up with Anne in school.

You’ve given me plenty of advice, now let me give you some. Stamp this out. Make her yield. Fail and nothing will ever be the same.

Not gonna happen...

So, taking into account everything that I’ve covered at this point, this makes for a wonderful climatic finale to a slow burn where previous episodes have emotionally prepared Anne for facing down the very person who’s been hurting her most of all. One of her closest friends, who’s been like a symbolic sister in the past to Anne, but has turned into this very hurtful person with a seriously warped idea of an “affectionate” friendship based on similar ideas of control as seen with Grimes. While Amphibia has plenty of comedic shenanigans in its storytelling, there’s always been this dramatic undertone centered around Anne and Sasha’s views of what relationships are all about for what each one has based their ideals on. This Disney series is centered around gaining new bonds, while looking at old ones in a much different perspective, as seen with Anne and Sasha’s falling out.

Anne, you don’t have to do this.

Yes I do...

Anne vs Sasha is an important key moment that the finale nails on every possible level, given each side here has something lose, if the other one wins this duel. These are old friends, or rather family in a sense, standing up for what they think is the right moral thing to do and you can feel this high stakes tension every second as its building up to their swords finally clashing again against one another. Reminds me a lot of the Star Wars battles where it’s not necessarily remembered so much for the fights themselves, but the emotional weight that is carried in every moment which is happening between its characters and I applaud Amphibia for taking inspiration in utilizing that trope of writing.

Much like how DuckTales (2017) handled its amazing Season 1 finale, Amphibia’s writers know the most crucial element to focus more than anything are the characters themselves and what they’re feeling, rather than making it a big flashy battle of epic proportions. Granted, that’s a nice icing on the cake and all, but the real meat should always be in how you’re executing the important themes you’ve introduced from the start. In Amphibia’s case, it’s the tragedy of friendship turning into something nasty with Sasha treating Anne poorly and breaking apart their once stable lives, due to that very nature which dropped them into this world where they have to now fend for themselves.

There’s so much powerful heartbreak emitting from this one pic here and hoo boi we haven’t even gotten to best part, yet. It’s delightfully angsty and shocked the Hell outta me when first watching this episode. Fuck, it still does quite frankly knowing the people behind this show had the guts to go that far dramatically.

They’re just slimy little frogs, Anne.

They don’t matter!

They’re not just Frogs. They’re my friends!

After Anne finally beats Sasha the entire castle starts exploding, due to Wally misinterpreting her on not blowing up Grimes base. Here’s where the most heart wrenching scene comes in as the cherry on top of this intense finale to Amphibia’s first season. As the castle is falling to pieces, Sasha almost falls to her death but Anne catches her in time, despite just fighting her tooth and nail seconds ago to save the family she was trying to kill for her selfish reasons. There’s a crap ton of symbolism here in this poignant moment of characterization for Anne & Sasha’s current state of friendship now. All of this is topped off by the music piece, Lean On Me, being poetically woven into it.

The Plantar family is doing everything in their power to hold Anne up equivalent to how they’ve made her into a better individual than she ever was around Sasha. While Sasha is putting all of them in danger as a figurative ball and chain that, besides holding them back from staying alive, is also keeping Anne from becoming the best version of herself she can be. In these last moments, I’d like to believe Sasha finally put it together in her mind just how much she’s royally screwed everything up. Not just what she attempted to do with Hop Pop and most likely the rest of his family, but how seriously disrespectful she was to Anne for who knows how many years of their friendship when Sasha started abusing her. Sasha was most likely feeling a ton of self-loathing and terrible guilt before making this shocking pivotal decision next in saving Anne and the Plantars’.

Hey Anne...

Maybe you’re better off without me...

Like, on one hand it can be simply viewed as Sasha simply saving these people from dying, too. However, I’d prefer to make it darker for the sake of heavy angst and say she was committing suicide, as well. Sasha realized in these last moments, before thinking that she was going to die a painful death, how shitty she was to Anne. Sasha’s abusive behavior is what started this whole story in the first place. If it wasn’t for Sasha, none of them would of ended up in the world Amphibia to begin with, but it needed to happen for Anne to become better about who her real friends are and maybe this rough experience would even help Sasha, too. We’ll just have to see what awaits for Sasha’s character arc in Season 2′s future. As it stands now, Anne may have a lost a dear friend, who was basically like a sister to her years back, but gained something even better.

A family and terrific friends who care deeply for her.

Hop Pop, you three are my family. I’d never let anyone hurt you.

Thanks for taking the time read this very lengthy post of me gushing about this powerfully bittersweet finale. Can’t wait for Season 2!

[upfrog]

So I finished reading Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

This isn’t so much a review, as an attempt to cement some of my thoughts, and to at least write something down, the better that I will not look back in a year and not be able to remember a thing of what I thought of HPMOR. But overall... that was quite a thing.

HPMOR is long. Longer (by word count, which isn’t a perfect method of judging this) than War and Peace, the normal benchmark for “really long books”. I don’t consider getting through it to be an accomplishment, in the sense of say, getting through Homestuck, though maybe that’s only because I have tried, and failed to do the latter several times. It may also be because the plot is, for all it’s time travel and scientific tangents, less complex than Homestuck. I do not expect it to stick in my mind the way the canonical books do. While I do not consider them to be high literature, the canonical Harry Potter books, in addition to being entirely an entirely decent story, had a certain... Depth, of sorts, to them. Some of this may come from the midi-chlorian effect; the workings of magic are never discussed greatly in the canonical books, but much of HPMOR Harry’s efforts are devoted to understanding magic from a scientific perspective. I think it is more likely that it is because HPMOR simply had a more limited scope.

HPMOR set out to be a puzzle, an encouragement of rational thought patterns, a demonstration of how they might be applied to great benefit. And it does this. While potential plot holes and inconsistencies exist, it does this fairly well on the whole. But there isn’t that much beneath it, at least not that I have seen. It’s a good enough story, and the way it chooses to fill in the unfinished coloring book of Rowling’s world creates a compellingly interesting universe, albeit not a pleasant one. It has some good humor at some parts (more on that later), many clever moments, and some moments that are, frankly, just plain awesome, though these often contribute to the monstrously overpowered being that Harry is. Both versions shared the core theme of (spoiler warning: the rest of this paragraph. If you’re interested, I’d really advise you to just read it so that you don’t have the dramatic tension reduced) Harry ultimately triumphing by virtue of who he is. Triumphing by being, as we would describe it, a better human being than his opponent. The difference is that in the canonical books, this is a much more theological process. By the final book, Rowling is pretty much bashing us over the head with a crucifix. I still maintain that, unless the hill you wish to die on is unmarried teen snogging, declaring Harry Potter as heresy for the simple fact that it includes magic is to foolishly ignore the veritable flood of Christian messaging the books contain. I thought I’d made a post about that, but apparently not, so I’ll divert myself to that briefly. 

Spoilers for the whole canonical Harry Potter main series in the following paragraph:

The entire story is based on an innocent child who was permitted to live because of the intensely real power and protection offered by the selfless sacrifice of another to protect said child. So there, straight off the bat, right in the premise. And then in the 7th book, Harry does the exact same thing, but more so, and pretty much pulls an Aslan, “dying” willingly to protect others, but not by this being truly killed. And it’s not like the Christian messaging in Narnia is obscure. And at the end of the first Harry Potter book, Dumbledore, the most “good guy” character that the series has to offer goes off explaining how “to the well organized mind, death is but the next great adventure”. Then, in no particular order, having not done anything like a read through specifically looking out for these: the primacy of the soul over the physical, the specifically soul-corrupting nature of evil and killing, the power of redemption and forgiveness, the ultimate triumph of good over evil, the concept of powers that, while attainable, will damage your soul forever, and the existence of life after death. Anyway, back to the main matter.

HPMOR lacks any semblance of this depth (not that this is the deepest thing in the world mind), at least that I have been able to detect, and this makes it a lesser story to me.

The first ten or so chapters of HPMOR were pretty great as comedy. Harry constantly befuddling the wizarding world, and being befuddled by it, makes for some great laughs. Later on it undergoes a pretty significant tone change, and I had a very hard time adjusting to it, and enjoying the latter portion (which makes up most of the fic) for what it is. I did ultimately reach that point, but it was jarring.

This fic has some pretty obscure references. Have any of y’all read “Negima!?”? The author of this fic has. ( or at least, he’s watched some of the show.) It also had an offhanded reference to Madoka Magica, which is less obscure, but I still appreciate it. 

HPMOR Harry just keeps on getting more and more powers. (potential spoilers ahead, less severe): It seems like every month he’s making some discovery of how to do something that the entire wizarding world “knows” is totally impossible. It makes a certain sense, in context, but it certainly does contribute to some Mary Sue-like feeling. But on the other hand, Harry routinely oversteps his cleverness, failing to think things through enough, missing obvious points that would have counter-indicated his action. And some of the consequences are rather severe, so I don’t knock too many points off for it. Harry is powerful, but he is also rather a child genius in this telling, and all things considered, most of his discoveries don’t seem too ridiculous. 

I earlier mentioned that the world HPMOR painted was rather interesting. It (mostly) doesn’t directly contradict the wizarding world as portrayed in the common, but it does color in many of the blanks, and this author paints in dark colors. Wizarding britain, as portrayed in HPMOR, would be considered barbaric to most of the people reading this. Or perhaps it would merely be considered “medieval”. It certainly has some things going for it. It is portrayed as a place with relatively little history of institutional sexism, or racism amongst wizards. Even the stodgiest pure bloods find it silly to discriminate based on skin color. Wizarding Britain sees little wrong with homosexuality, and it is entirely un-taboo. But things get worse from there.

It is implied, or at least, I took away the message from my last reading some years ago, that the Wizarding power structure in the canonical books is... incompetent. That the benchmark of being a “fully qualified” witch or wizard does not in fact entail very much true competency, and many of the more powerful figures are somewhat dumb. HPMOR confirms this, and brings it into the light, offering more examples of just how useless most wizards are in matters non-magical. Wizarding Britain is controlled by an incompetent government, which is primarily controlled by one or several “Noble and Most Ancient House(s)”. The extent of Lucius Malfoy’s influence is brought up often in the canonical books, and the same is true here. This is a world where (minor spoiler for something before chapter 10-ish) a young noble raping a girl, and yes, girl is the proper noun here, repeatedly, and getting away with it indefinitely, is an open secret. Where this young noble’s security is secured by: a) the victim and her families’ fear of his familial power, b) memory charms, and c) a court system where the interests of the Noble Houses are often a primary concern. 

Wizarding news is minimal, and it seems to primarily toe the ministry (which is to say, aristocratic) line, save for the Quibbler, which... on the whole, isn’t great news either. There is no particular concept of a fair trial at play in this world, especially if your crime was committed against a noble house. Less than three days investigation is considered enough to go from crime to a sentence of ten years in Azkaban. And then there’s Azkaban itself. For all it is a prominent feature in the books, and Dumbledore’s opposition to it is often mentioned, Azkaban doesn’t get much light shone on it in the canonical books. This is likely in part because it is such an incredibly, ridiculously cruel place that it becomes very difficult for many of us muggles to imagine it being an appropriate punishment for anyone. I won’t go into great detail, but there are very few crimes capable of causing enough pain that, even working from a perspective of vengeance, instead of justice or rehabilitation, it becomes very difficult to mathematically justify Azkaban. 

To clarify, by mathematically justify, I mean, what percent of the pain a criminal inflicts by his misdeed can fairly be unleashed upon the criminal as punishment. Is a beating a proper punishment for beating someone? What about two beatings? Or three? At what point does the severity of the punishment become so much greater than that of the crime that it stops being sensible? If you slapped me, would I, absent any concerns about self defense or ensuring my future safety, be justified in immediately shooting you? Or boiling you? Or beating you to death? The murders who are so successful that we stop calling them murders and start calling them statesmen might have a shot at a mathematically (if not necessarily ethically) justifiable cell in Azkaban. For everyone else, it’s pretty difficult. And in both versions of the story, wizarding justice is NOT perfect. Innocent people go to Azkaban, and are exposed to this as well. Azkaban is pretty terrible, and most of the wizarding world just sort of... accepts it.

Anyway, I probably have more to say, but I really need to wrap this up. This probably wasn’t very coherent, so sorry about that. 

[aftermathdb]

DEATH BATTLE Review: Gray vs. Esdeath

First Sub-Zero vs. Glacius, then Weiss vs. Mitsuru, and now this. Ice seems to be a cool power to give to fighters for there to be three-ze of n-icely themed episodes around them.

Okay, I’ll stop.

So, it’s been noted on TvTropes that Gray actually fills a lot (if not all) of the requirements to be Esdeath’s ideal lover, so this should be interesting.

Gray′s Preview.

So, in keeping with the theme of Natsu dying, being brought back to life, then abandoned by his adopted dad; Erza being a slave ad losing her best friend and an eye, Gray’s childhood was pretty traumatic.

This kid was one of the few survivors of a demon that killed his whole family and wanted revenge, so a stripper named Ur basically adopted him and taught him Ice Magic.

But the revenge story gets a bit worse, because he recklessly decided to take on the demon…

And then “Stripper Mom”, as Boomstick put it, died killing the demon.

Speaking of stripping, we get into our first Wiz and Boomstick segment.

Well, Gray has also gotten a nice group of friends after joining the Fairy Tail guild.

And he also met this admirer in Juvia.

Don’t feel bad about shipping them. Everyone does it. Even the characters.

Speaking of, as someone who recently started watching Fairy Tail, uh… When Juvia vs. Lapis (Steven Universe)?

and we have feats!

Gray also has access to “Demon Slayer Magic” which, similar to Dragon Slayer Magic, lets Gray eat his element to power up. And it probably would’ve been useful when he fought that demon.

And the guy scales to other Ice Mages that can make a snowstorm over the entire kingdom of Fiore.

All of which comes out to over 27 Gigatonns of TNT.

And speaking of scaling, Gray can also scale to Natsu dodging lightning

Or Erza busting up a meteor.

Shame that this wasn’t available to Erza when the research for her fight was being done, right? Timing!

But, since he’s in a world where fighting for your friends, Gray isn’t one to give up so easily.

Esdeath′s Preview.

So, apparently, Esdeath is flipping insane! Subscribing to a “Survival of the Fittest” mentality

When her dad died, she had the mentality of “Dad’s weak. He deserved it.”

Which, as a Raven Branwen fan, hurts me. Speaking of, Raven Branwen vs. Raven Darkholme when?

Back on topic…

The fact that he name is inspired by the Japanese phrase “I am a sadist” really drives home how insane she is. This is about as subtle as Wario being inspired by Warui.

Anyways, after proving herself, she got a Teigu, or an Imperial Arm.

From swords, to lances, to… Giant Scissors… These things are made from what are essentially boss monsters.

Esdeath chose blood. And since she’s totally sane…

she… Drank it.

After the side effects, she got Ice Magic!

She’s got a limit, but what she can do is insane.

For the record, this goes on for a while where Boomstick shows that he’s into being the “M” part of BDSM and complains about the generic anime protagonist almost winning her over.

Anyways, Esdeath can use ZA WARUDO! and freeze time… Like, literally freeze time.

It’s a once per day thing, but she’s still really strong. Either way, it’s already stronger than Gray’s Last-Resort move (Sorry for not having a shot of that, I work in a grocery store and I’m essential, so I didn’t have time to get it).

We got feats!

She once made an entire snowstorm over a continent.

Now, in fairness, she had to consume her ice army to pull this off, but she’s still strong.

She’s taken on opponents who can take on these giant things called Primus Imperators.

Which are insanely powerful.

And despite her death, she’s still proven just how powerful and dangerous she is.

The Battle Itself.

Zack and Luis are heads on animation, Gray will be voiced by Mark Allen Jr. and Esdeath will be voiced by Emma Breezy. Lost Ice Storm by Brandon Yates, and audio led by Andrew Scott.

So, the fight starts because Esdeath is attempting to conquer, and Gray isn’t having any of it.

And, as per tradition, Gray strips.

If I wasn’t A: Scared of Juvia, and B: Scared of Juvia, I’d totally ask Gray out on a date. But Esdeath isn’t exactly… impressed.

And Gray even acknowledges Esdeath’s similarities to Juvia.

I guess the script said to make Esdeath sound like as much of a dominatrix as possible. Regardless, it’s clear that Gray has versatility as his stuff keeps catching Esdeath by surprise. Speed is about equal, as neither has any real issue landing and dodging hits. So it’s going to come down to power.

So the two end up making an entire snowstorm. And it’s so intense that I bet even Mitsuru would shiver.

But, similar to how Ace made a massive inferno and Natsu ate it, Gray uses his Demon Slayer magic to eat the snowstorm.

So after eating it, Esdeath gets a bit more conservative with her own Ice Magic.

And Gray even lands a major blow.

So, we are getting to the finishing blow…

5…

4…

3…

2…

1…

Verdict + Explanation.

So, right off the bat, speed is equal.

So that means that the other edges are going to be major factors.

Let’s face it: covering an entire country with an ice storm is way more impressive than doing the same to a kingdom.

(Yeah, can’t wait for the Fairy Tail sequel series to come out with something that gives Gray an edge. Same thing happened with Erza, it’ll probably happen here. To be honest, I’m mainly basing this assumption off the trend of the DEATH BATTLE curse).

Now, since Esdeath needed some extra help to pull that off by using her ice generals as betteries, they divided her power output by about 3 to determine how much ice she can output per day.

Which comes out to…

93 Petatons. And we all know that a Petaton is a whole lot bigger than a gigaton.

And Esdeath’s a renowned general. So she’s not going to fall for the same trick twice, so Gray only really gets to use his Ice eating trick once.

And Esdeath’s Time Freeze is a lot more reliable than Gray’s “Encase the enemy in ice” attack.

And while the whole “Ice Demon Slayer” thing would reasonably let Gray kinda resist the Time Freeze, it doesn’t necessarily mean an auto-win. Resistances didn’t help the generic anime protagonist much, so it won’t really help Gray.

Overall impression.

Okay, credit where it’s due, this episode made me actually start watching Fairy Tail, so props for that, but Sasuke vs. Hiei got me to binge Yu Yu Hakusho with more enthusiasm than this. Incidentally, Krillin vs. Kuwabara is a better and more appropriate matchup than Krillin vs. Saitama.

Back on topic, this fight was really great. Check the comments of the music, Brandon has the lyrics of the song in the description. The fight animation is pretty good, but really, once you hear that Esdeath is in the Petaton range, it kinda becomes a forgone conclusion. It’s easy to see that Esdeath wins.

The Wiz and Boomstick segments have gotten better though. Boomstick’s smile isn’t as nightmare-inducing as they used to be, but maybe that’s because I’ve seen it enough times.

Regardless, the voice acting is top-notch, and the math is really solid.

Now if only we didn’t keep learning these new… interests about Boomstick. Like, I want a dominatrix to step on me too, but still. TMI. Just once per episode’s enough.

7.8/10.

Next Time…

… I swear, if the Pokédex entry about moving mountains is actually used as a determining factor…

Well, it’s time for Poké Kombat! I wanna be the very best! So I’ll fatality my foes! To beat them is my real test, to rip out spines is my cause~!

Is there a fight that you want me to review? - Send an ask/request, and I’ll look into it!

Do you want to read my fanfic based around DEATH BATTLE itself? click here!

Thank you for reading, and I hope to see you next time for…

A forearm four-armed fight.

[gaslightgallows]

Spooptober Housekeeping

(cross-posted from Patreon)

Sorry, October Housekeeping. My husband won’t stop adding “spoop—” as a prefix to everything – he’s even using it as a verb now – and it’s infected me.

Anyway. There’s been a lot going on this month.

Master Vogelspinner (NaNoWriMo 2019 project)

1) To my personal astonishment, the NaNo prep reading is going very well! I’ve finished THREE of the six books I want to read before November: The Bloody Chamber, White as Milk, Red as Blood, and From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death. I'm definitely not going to get through the rest by the end of next week but I think I'm at least going to finish the ones I've never read before!

Next on the list is Deathless, by Catherynne M. Valente. I’m a little nervous about this one. I’ve started this book three times and only ever make it about halfway through before I am overcome by her command of language and imagery. Valente’s writing makes me despair of my own… which isn’t fair, either to her or to me, so Attempt #4 it is.

2) After a year of working on this book, I’m delighted to announce that I finally know what the plot is. That’s the plot, mind you, not the story. I’ve always known what the story is. The story’s the part that comes from the characters. The plot is what’s happening around the characters and what they are reacting to, i.e., the problem. I also now know what the overall theme is: the modernization of death care and the shift from taking care of the dead at home to having professionals to deal with them.

This realization on my part ended up being… unfortunately, very topical.

Sad Family Stuff

While Brian and I were on vacation in New Hampshire last week, we received word that his father had passed away in Texas. A neighbor has paid for the funeral services out-of-pocket, and we’re now working on raising funds to reimburse this very kind man, because he did not need to do that, but he did and that, that’s a Good Damn Neighbor right there. And we’d like to repay him.

Thanks to a number of very generous and deeply-beloved friends, as of this writing, we’re a little over halfway to our goal of $731. If anyone would like to/is able to contribute to these efforts, you may donate directly at paypal.me/eroivas, or you can purchase something from Brian’s Redbubble store (since I still don’t have any of my own merch).

We'll be closing our call for donations on Sunday, 10/27. Any proceeds in excess of the funeral expenses will be sent to Brian’s stepmother.

Annoying Patreon Stuff

Continuing on the delicate and uncomfortable subject of funds, I’ve noticed one or two patrons whose payments were declined last month. Folks, Patreon is a useful service but it doesn’t love any of us, not really, so please remember to check your accounts regularly to make sure you’re still supporting the people you want to support.

I’ve also had a few people recently who needed to reduce or cancel their patronage altogether, and to those people, I would just like to say: I’m sorry to see you go but I completely respect whatever reasons you had for leaving – or, in the case of reduced payments, thank you for sticking around in spite of whatever caused you to change your subscription amount!

Because while I do love money, I value your presence and encouragement far more. Thank you for continuing to support me.

…However.

The Lavender video

Due to these changes, I’m now once again $8/month shy of my first Patreon goal, a video about the Vanishing Hitchhiker legend of Ramapo, New York, which I just barely reached a couple of months ago. I’ve talked with my camera guy (i.e., Brian) and because we’ve already started the preliminary work, we’re going to go ahead with the project. But there’s still other stuff we’d like to do that won’t happen until we can cross that goal. So, if you’re able, please consider supporting me. Or supporting him! He also has a Patreon! It’s full of graveyards! And cosplay! And sometimes naked people!

In the meantime, I’m working on the script, he’s working on getting the equipment together, we’re both working on learning how to edit (Beware, patrons, for you may well be subjected to my terrible bumbling practice videos.), and we’ll be shooting some location footage at the relevant cemetery and street, shortly after Thanksgiving.

Et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseum

Let’s see, what else… Randomly-Generated Fiction installments will return in December. For the rest of this month and next, they’re being replaced by further chapters of The Egg of the Damned, the regrettable not-quite-a-novella I wrote in high school and am currently in the presence of retyping and rewriting so that I can make it 100% less racist (seriously, 17 y/o me, what the hell) and 3000% more queer.

I’d love to have it done and ready for publishing by April but I’m afraid that might be just a tad unrealistic.

And lastly – I’m thinking about going back to having reward tiers. Just having a single tier hasn’t encouraged people nearly as much as I’d hoped, so it seems I have to make more offerings unto ye readers.

So what would you like? I’m open to suggestions. Like, wide open. ‘Where are your manners, were you brought up in a barn?!’ kinda open. Stickers? Monthly postcards? The chance to prompt a short story? A cameo in a novel? Dev editing? (Fair warning, that would be a higher tier.) A Discord for discussion? I do not understand the Discord but if y’all want one I will learn to Discord.

Related: ever since I started this Patreon, I’ve been talking about eventually having merchandise of some sort for sale… but idefk how to merch. What do you want? What tickles your fancy?

Let me know in the comments on the post, or reach out to me on Twitter or at my author Tumblr @aflinley​ (yes, I have an author Tumblr, yes, it’s neglected) or, hell, email me at aprilflinley@gmail.com.

I want to knooooooooooow!

[megareviews]

Spring 2019 First Impressions

The Spring list is late as usual (is it usual if it’s only the second instance?), but at least I’m closer to the beginning than last year. I’ve reached 50% completion on the doing this for an entire year consistently, so nice.

Aikatsu Friends!: Kagayaki no Jewel (Aikatsu Friends!: Jewel of Radiance): Aikatsu is relatively low on my priority list of magical girl megaseries.

Bakugan Battle Planet: This show actually premiered last semester, but in English, and this season is when the Japanese dub started. Either way it’s somewhere deep in the Bakugan series, which is based off of what are probably my least played children’s toys.

BAKUMATSU Crisis: Second season of an otome game adaption that looked okay when I started it, but I still haven’t watched past the first episode.

Bokutachi wa Benkyou ga Dekinai (Bokuben / We Never Learn): The main show that I know the source material of, and it is just about meeting my expectations. An average guy who has to study rigorously to maintain his average grades is put in charge of tutoring the two smartest people in his school. This might not make sense until it’s explained that he has to tutor them in their worst subjects, because those subjects are the ones they want to major in for college. It’s a nice theme of working hard for what you enjoy situated in a rom-com with some haremy aspects and an unusually high density of goofy faces, so watch it if you like those aspects.

Bungou Stray Dogs 3: I still need to see what they did with HP Lovecraft in season 2

Carole & Tuesday: What happens when a runaway rich girl and a poor orphan girl meet up on Mars? They form a band of course. A tale of two lonely souls finding each other and become a little less lonely in a big world, making music together. It looks great and it sounds amazing, so this is definitely a priority watch.

Chou Kadou Girl 1/6 (Amazing Stranger): Imagine Buzz Lightyear from the original Toy Story except in a 20 -something guy’s house and then failing the don’t move when humans are around rule almost immediately. That’s what this show is.

Cinderella Girls Gekijou CLIMAX SEASON (Cinderella Girls Theater CLIMAX SEASON): For somebody who doesn’t watch idol shows, the theater shorts are pretty fun, though I’m not nearly caught up in this one to say how this season is going.

Diamond no Ace Act II: Oh boy there’s so much baseball this season and a lot of it is sequels.

Fairy Gone: There’s a lot of things going on in this show but I think I can simplify it to military use of fairies to give soldiers super powers. The protagonist has been taking jobs as a mercenary to find her sister who was split from her after their village was burnt down. Then at an auction that she works as a guard, things start going wrong and the thief who appears is none other than that sister. The first episode ends with the end of a three way fight between security and the girls, so I’m not sure where the show’s going at all. Maybe if the show didn’t flash back to the protagonist’s village burning down three times, there would be a little more time to give direction.

Fruits Basket (2019): I never know how to deal with reboots for shows that I can remember, but haven’t seen the original. I know there’s people who turn into animals and a “do the carpets match the drapes” joke, and that’s about it from the 2001 anime.

Gunjou no Magmel (Magmel of the Blue Sea): After a new continent appears in the world, explorers flock to it, not always as prepared as they should be for venturing into the unknown. The main character works at a company to rescue explorers from mishaps along with a few others. The worldbuilding is interesting and the main character’s black lightning is pretty cool looking, but his attitude and decision making abilities kinda put me off for now. That and the comprehensibility of the subtitles I was watching fell off a cliff halfway through the episode.

Hachigatsu no Cinderella Nine (Cinderella Nine in August): So far it looks like a pretty standard club building show based around women’s baseball. It looks nice and we have 4 club members as of the first episode, so they should make it to at least full team of nine pretty quickly. It looks nice outside of an odd montage near the end of the episode when the club plays a game with some local kids, and the character designs are a bit more memorable than the usual baseball cast. I appreciate the fact that they’re playing hardball, but I’m not the type of person to watch anything sports ever.

Hangyaku-sei Million Arthur 2 (Operation Han-Gyaku-Sei Million Arthur): All I know about this show is that there’s a bunch of characters named Arthur and that it’s a sequel.

Hitoribocchi no Marumaru Seikatsu (Hitori Bocchi's ○○ Lifestyle): When one of the most socially anxious kids in elementary school gets separated by her only friend when they go to different middle schools, her friend gives her a quest: to become friends with everybody in her new class. She’s got a real go-getter attitude, but from feeling physical pain from trying to talk to a stranger to fainting when somebody actually responds to her, she’s got a rough path ahead of her. It’s a really fun show that gets you rooting for the main character in her attempts of communicating with others in a normal manner.

Isekai Quartet: Four of the biggest isekai series in one short mash-up is a recipe for confusion. Especially since they’re all put together in a school setting where no fighting is allowed, even if there are holy gods and undead abominations in the same class. Anything can happen with all these people taken from their original normal lives, tossed into various fantasy worlds, and then slam dunked back into a relatively normal setting.

Jimoto ga Japan (I’m From Japan): I cannot find a trace of the anime anywhere online and I am glad of this having read the manga. It is just a really dumb comedy about Japanese prefectures that I struggled to read a few chapters of before giving up.

Joushikausei: A silent anime, as in there’s no spoken words, about a few high school girls. It’s an interesting concept, but I found it a bit uncomfortable to watch, mostly due to the whimpering and other nonverbal noises the girls were making.

Kedama no Gonjirou (Gonjiro the Yarn Ball): A children’s show that hasn’t been licensed and no group is fansubbing it, how unusual… It actually looks interesting though so I might search for the raws to check it out.

Kenja no Mago (The Magi’s Grandson): A child raised by a powerful wizard in the country reaches an age where he can move out to the city and attend a magical high school. Unfortunately for him, his parental figures only taught him combat and magic, so he doesn’t really know how to sustain himself in the reals world. It is a decent concept but there’s a 50/50 chance of any scene looking nice or looking awful, and the scene transitions all look like they were made in Powerpoint.

Kimetsu no Yaiba (Demon Slaying Blade): A happy family of coal sellers is destroyed in a night when a demon strikes. The eldest son was out due to a combination of work and a blizzard, and when he returns he finds all but one of his family members completely cold and covered in blood. This last member is rushed down the mountainside for medical aid, only to turn into a demon on the way down. A meeting with a demon slayer turns tricky as he tries to protect his demonized sister who’s fighting between killing instincts and her love of her brother. The opening promises some beautiful animations and the overall show isn’t slacking either, so overall it’s a very promising show.

KING OF PRISM -Shiny Seven Stars-: It’s the TV version of a boy band movie tetralogy which is also a sequel I think?

Kiratto Pri☆chan Season 2: A sequel to a idol anime that I reviewed last year. I think this is one of the first times a sequel has shown up that I also reviewed the first season of, though unfortunately it was for  a show that I didn’t watch fully.

Kono Oto Tomare! (Stop this Sound!): One more club building show for this season, this one about a Japanese instrument called a koto. After all the upperclassmen of the club graduated in the previous year, only the main character is left in the club, and needs more members before the club gets closed, the usual. The first new member is a seemingly delinquent 1st year who is surprisingly diligent. There wasn’t too much interesting or unique other than the topic of the club, so music fans might find this more watchable than I.

Kono Yo no Hate de Koi wo Utau Shoujo YU-NO (YU-NO: A Girl Who Chants Love at the Bound of this World): The first episode for this kind of front-loaded introducing characters and pulled out its premise of parallel dimensions and a device to navigate them towards the end, which means I’d probably have to watch another episode to figure out how I feel about it. It’s nice to not have a giant exposition dump take up the first episode of a show, especially since it will have two cours to tell a story, but I didn’t feel any particular gravitation towards the characters by this point, so I won’t be prioritizing any follow-up on it.

Mayonaka no Occult Koumuin (Midnight Occult Civil Servants): With a job at a place called the Nocturnal Community Relations Division, the first thought of the type of people dealt with is most likely not going to be fairies. Our main character is taken from a world of the ordinary to being able to see and talk to the supernatural creatures that live locally, called Anothers. His co-workers are equipped with magically enchanted police tape and other trinkets to help solve issues that occasionally arise between Anothers. I like the modern fantasy setting, and the fairly low level fights with the supernatural so far, so there’s promise in where the show goes.

Midara na Ao-chan wa Benkyou ga Dekinai (Ao Can’t Study): While the name Ao is usually blue, or sometimes even moth, in this case, it stands for Adult Only, the 18+ rating in Japan. This is due to her father’s profession, an erotic writer, and surprisingly, the main character hates her father for naming her that and spends her entire life studying to get into a college far enough away from him. This is thwarted by a guy confessing to her and filling her mind with romance and lewder thoughts, with the help of her father. I hate this as a concept and don’t watch this.

Mix: A semi-sequel baseball anime. I say semi, because from what I’ve gathered it is recommended but not necessary to watch the original first.

Nande Koko ni Sensei ga!? (Why is my Teacher Here!?): It’s about a male student and his teacher, ending up in awkward situations together, like being trapped together in a men’s bathroom stall. A show of pure fanservice through and through, so there’s not much else to say.

Namu Amida Butsu!: Rendai Utena: What started out as an action about cleansing impurities from the world gives us a quick bait ‘n switch to a slice of life about gods bumbling about in the human world attempting to be competent humans. I found it irritating to watch, and it was very clearly based off of a gacha game, which do not have a good track record of making good shows.

Nobunaga-sensei no Osanazuma (Nobunaga’s Young Bride): A modern age middle school teacher way down the ancestral tree of Oda Nobunaga meets the bride of the man himself, who traveled to the present from the day of the original Nobunaga’s death. She’s no older than when she left her original time, which leaves her at 14 years old, with no knowledge of modern day Japan so she’s stuck with the main character’s family and decides to be the new Nobunaga’s bride anyways, which… is weird.

One Punch Man 2: A big sequel of the season, and one where people have been waiting with wary anticipation due to the change in animation studio and director. It definitely looks a lot stiffer than the first season, for action and non-fight scenes, but the story is a bit more interesting in my opinion, as the show starts working on fleshing out other heroes and why they fight.

RobiHachi: the first episode of this really is a springboard for setting up what the plot and cast will be, just about starting right at the very end.  We’ve got an ultra gullible man in debt, a genius teen with no sense of purpose, a robot rabbit helper, and their spaceship that blares its own theme song when it transforms into a mech. They set off to find a legendary planet that grants happiness after a couple of hijinks on their starting planet. It’s a very busy show, both visually and plot wise, but still an enjoyable experience if you can keep up.

Sarazanmai: 50% connecting with other people through oversharing with them, 50% kappas stealing souls from other people’s butts. It’s hard to describe the show but I’m having a good time, and the art is gorgeous, and special care is taken with little details in the show. I’d say watch the first episode definitely, and then decide whether or not to follow up on the rest of the show.

Senryuu Shoujo (Senryuu Girl): The focus of the show is on the Japanese poetry type of Senryuu, mostly because the main character can only communicate with others through writing these poems. Thankfully, she’s got some good friends and is in her school’s Literature Club, so she has plenty of practice and is around people who appreciate her work.

Sewayaki Kitsune no Senko-san (Meddlesome Fox Senko): The fox gods of the world have a duty to protect humans, and are becoming more proactive in seeking out humans with negative emotions before those emotions go out of control. In comes the male lead of the show, an overworked businessman who has basically just been going through the motions of life by this point. One of the fox gods appears in his house, doing the cooking, cleaning, and other tasks to help relieve the main guy’s stress. It’s comfy and there’s some funny moments, but I feel like the show would be better off as a more episodic show featuring various humans rather than just the one that it looks like the show will focus on. I’m also worried about the romance genre tag that the show has.

Shingeki no Kyojin 3 Part 2 (Attack on Titan 3 Part 2): I’m still on episode 5 of the original series, with no particular motivation to make it any further. More people die in bloody explosions probably.

Shoumetsu Toshi (Lost City): As the title of the show would imply there is a city that has been lost to humanity, as in, it just disappeared one day. The main female character is the only one who survived the city disappearing, and is targeted by a mysterious group due to that, and she tries to return to where the lost city used to be due to a message by her father who went missing with the city. In addition there was a monk with super powers who was standing on a motorcycle’s handlebars facing off against the main girl who could summon her Lost bodyguard with a bunch of guns but that was kinda just thrown in at the end.

Strike Witches 501 Butai Hasshin Shimasu! (Strike Witches 501st Join Fighter Wing Takes Off!): Oh god it’s been so long since I’ve consumed Strike Witches content. This is a slice of life spin off of the original series, so the context is recommended, but not necessary. The animation is also very much on the rough side for a ten minute long short. 

Yatogame-chan Kansatsu Nikki (Yatogame’s Observation Diary): After briefly being disappointed in the lack of heavy Nagoya dialects encountered in Nagoya, the main character runs into a classmate who happens to have one. In addition, all of her favorite foods and animals are popular or famous in Nagoya, so he sticks around with her for meeting his ideals of what a Nagoyan should be. They then travel the city as part of the photography club to see all the sights of the city.

Youkai Watch!: Despite what it looks like from the title, this is pretty deep in a line of sequels of Youkai Watch.

[tinkdw]

13x15: the moral of the story

I am so happy because I was struggling with the point of some of the negative stuff going on this season so far... So, this episode was just one big confirmation of my meta of 13x14 and how it was addressing morality very heavily this season with their choices leading either to an upwards or downwards finale and addressing the underlying theme of morality since the pilot. 

To have it addressed as a point purposefully made and a whole episode dedicated to it to make us think about it is frankly a relief! 

It’s on purpose, it’s for a reason! 

Good :)

Morality has always been an underlying foundation of the show. The themes, the plots are family, love, faith etc but under it all, as with most stories we have the foundation of morality, that good things happen to good people, that doing things for the right reasons is important.

It’s been consistent that when they do things for others they win, when they do things that put others in danger out of desperation for each other (ie 8x23 and 10x23) bad things happen.

This is consistent and this is a very common narrative, see this post where I mention very quickly the hugely blatant ones of Star Wars, Harry Potter and Buffy just off the top of my head, because stories don’t just exist in a random void, there is always a moral to a story, usually that it’s always better to be good and heroes are selfless.

Anyway, this episode gave us many meta points. In itself I wasn’t totally enamoured with the semi-noir genre attempt, I was very interested by the boys’ interaction with the story but I was a bit bored by way too much going into peripheral people’s stories etc and it could have been done in a more fun, blatantly emotive way, but the meta side and the side that was clearly making a point I loved.

1. Dean is worried for Cas dodging bullets in Syria. Now I have to watch what I say here as I already had antis using my mentioning Syria as an excuse to send me shit, but there’s a reason they chose Syria as Cas’ location out of any country in that region which could be relevant to the spell’s ingredients. I didn’t do this. The show did. For a reason. Syria is a place where currently immoral awful things are happening to good people. It is a horrific situation. Some people are doing awful things to other people in the name of religion. People are doing bad things for bad reasons and framing it as good reasons, this does not take away from the fact that it is incomprehensibly immoral and abhorrent. This was not an accident given the theme of morality in this same episode.

2. Separately to this, Dean is worried about Cas (as usual). Dean is shown as using two established coping mechanisms in this worry. Food (the pizza) and a Woman (the girl in the coffee shop). This is the same old coping mechanism when Cas is in danger / missing / dead.

3. Sam doesn’t know Dean. This is something that we see a lot in the earlier seasons and then sporadically since, but I love that this is coming back given we’ve had quite a few moments so far this season (and last) that have shown Dean is tired of keeping up the facade:

Dean: “you’re like a Boy Scout, always prepared!” Sam: “you’re like... I don’t know what you’re like.”

No shit Sam! The idea that Sam doesn’t actually know who Dean really is (because Dean sublimates and hides so much, particularly around Sam) is consistent and I can’t wait to have this explored textually.

4. Father Lucca giving us some lovely Dean/Cas faith material:

On the skull: “It means everything to my congregation. Imagine you woke up one morning and this thing you loved (...) was just gone, what would you do?”

Sam: “try to get it back”, looks at Dean.

*insert gif of Dean trying to get Cas back whilst saying he’s everything*

I mean?!

5. Father Lucca giving us some lovely morality lessons and exactly referencing Dean’s earlier comment and saying this is bad:

Dean: “Look this isn’t a perfect world we’re trying to save okay? And if I’m not perfect trying to save it, so be it”

Father Lucca: “Change it (...) the world’s not perfect but do you use that as an excuse? Do us use that to excuse your own sins? The world will never be perfect. If good men do good things it can be better” 

Dean looks awkward but Sam is convinced to help him.

I mean this is a blatant No, Dean, that’s not what good men do, you need to find yourself again, this isn’t you or what you really stand for (see every time Dean wants to focus on saving one person with less regard of the bigger picture because it’s the right thing to do since the pilot).

Good men doing good things - not doing bad things for the right reasons, doing good things for the right reasons. Ie. in this episode’s instance getting the skull back for the priest is the right thing to do.

Father Lucca to Dean about Sam later: “ All good things beget good things and what you’re brother is doing is a good thing”

Now morally without knowing the outcome yet I thought hey! this should lead to something good for the boys as this is always the case, they did the right thing even though it didn’t benefit them and they should be rewarded, because it’s the standard heroes reward in every story.

Oh, look, in the end Father Lucca turns out to be the Holy Man that they were after the blood of in the first place so they get the reward by doing the right thing! Such accident! Much coincidence!

*Tink stares into the camera*

As an aside, @amwritingmeta reminded me of just how many Disney / fairytale stories they’ve been referencing recently too and these always have a moral to the story. Just saying.

Now, Sam clearly is fully on this path of wanting to do the right thing (he said it clearly in 11x01 that they had to change and he’s been trying hard ever since). Dean has been also doing this (eg 11x23) but he is very iffy in this episode and has been all season, see Dean being framed as bad when he threatened Kaia to save Mary for example, in this episode he has a real reticence re the main plot and not wanting to give up their goal to help Lucca for nothing, but also that whole I would murder someone who stole the impala bit, that wasn’t for jokes, that is... ick. This is supposed to be bad. Sam know’s it’s bad, his reaction is telling us we should see this as troublesome. Cas also last episode showed he is shady, unfortunately set on doing bad things for the right reasons etc and I know, I KNOW this was the “lesser of evils” concept but look my dudes it’s framed as bad, it’s framed as morally questionable and then this episode came straight afterwards begging us to consider these things. That is NO accident. Of course it’s not saying Dean and Cas are evil, it’s just, well, are they soon going to decide to take the ends don’t justify the means attitude or will it be after they’ve fucked up and released the next big bad, ie. opened the rift most likely. No matter what, it’ll end well, obviously, they’re heroes, it’s just a case of timing and dragging out the story. Whatever happens short term, clearly this theme is hella important.

Anyway, the final scene is just one big metaphor of morality.

Father Lucca is moral, he refuses to lie and still distracts the guy enough. He tries throughout the episode to do the right thing and ends up “miraculously” only being grazed instead of likely killed if the shot was 5cm to the left.

Bad: Margaret is greedy. She dies. The others are all greedy, avaricious, immoral and end up shooting each other. All the baddies end up killing each other in a huge lesson of repercussions of your shitty actions.

Good: Meanwhile, as per the above, the boys did the right thing for the right reason, they took the moral high ground and helped Father Lucca because it was the right thing to do even though it went against their own aims and they got rewarded for it by getting what they sought in the first place and getting it in a positive way.

Grey are: Not assuming that anyone is good or bad or anything until they prove themselves either way. Just because the bad guys all seemed OK to start with doesn’t mean they’re not all morally reprehensible, just because Lucca seemed bad to start with doesn’t mean he’s not the good guy and the most Holy Man etc. etc. etc.

=> Don’t judge a book by it’s cover. Don’t go headstrong into a plan without thinking about the consequences on others. Do good things for good reasons and get rewarded for them.

*Tink couldn't stare into the camera any more than I am already*

Bonus: Dean now has faith and is helping Sam with his in a direct flip of earlier in the season. I wonder what changed! We just don’t know!

So yeah, honestly it wasn’t fun, uplighting, romantic or particularly characterful, but as an episode helping me, who had read the past episodes as very morally iffy and thinking about why they decided to frame these questions and make us think about it, why there was such a twitter/tumblr wank fest over Cas’ choices last episode, as to why they are doing this overall throughout the season and where this is leading...for all that, this episode was fantastic.

It told us so much about the structure of the season, why it’s been like this, what their point is, where it is going, why it is going that way and that is just great :)

[justtheendoftheday]

鬼婆  [Onibaba] (1964)

“What do you do for food? You don’t seem to grow anything. What do you do? ...you steal?”

It’s 14th century Japan during a time of civil war and scarcity called the Nanboku-chō Period.

After her son was conscripted to fight in the war, an older woman and her daughter-in-law have been forced to become murderers and thieves in order to survive. However, when their former neighbor returns after having escaped the war he creates a fracture between the two women. As the pressure between the three of them increases the mother decides to take exceedingly extreme measures to try and keep her family together.

Fright: 1/5  -  Sketchy friends of your kid

There’s a level of spooky campfire-story style creepiness at play throughout. It is a black and white movie from the 60s though, so the creepiness is muted by time. Although if you live near some tall grass or a corn field or something, it might hit home a bit harder.

Gore: 1.2/5  -  Raptor-style Assassinations

Some people are murdered, but the film doesn’t really have any real interest in gore. There’s some stabbings and you see a character with a heavily scarred face, but that’s about it.

Jump Scares: Almost none

There are a handful of small startle moments, but nothing so extreme as a real jump scare.

Thoughts:

In Japanese an “Oni” [鬼]  is a type of supernatural creature that are kind of similar to trolls or ogres. While “Baba” [婆] is a term for an old woman or sometimes more insultingly as a “hag.” So the title of Onibaba is sometimes translated rather literally as “Demon Hag,” which in English is rather harsh and slightly misleading. In Japanese the term “onibaba” has more of a connotation with a cruel or spiteful old woman than a real demon. But seeing as that the film actually does talk a little about oni, I would guess that the title is having a bit of fun with wordplay by sharing both ideas.

Which just goes to show that foreign works can never fully be translated, because the context behind a concept can only be approximated.

Aren’t foreign films fun!

I debated a lot on whether or not this film actually counts as a spooky movie or if it was just an eerie sort of psychological noir drama. And while it doesn’t go in for a lot of the traditional elements of Horror, overall it has this wonderful campfire-story style of creepiness to it that I just can’t ignore.

The story is based on an old Buddhist parable about a mother who tried to use an oni mask to scare her daughter from going to the temple to pray and in turn was punished by Buddha. However, from that premise it is able to create something so much deeper. And you know what? It’s really well done.

The most striking thing about the film for me was that it doesn’t focus on the mask at all. It’s a story about women and (like most horror movies) about survival. And the choice to make the whole thing be about a woman and her daughter-in-law is such an interesting one. The two characters are bound together not by blood or friendship, but through the son Kishi and through time. And when they learn that Kishi is probably dead they have to reevaluate what’s really keeping them together.

If the only reason they stay together is because it takes at least two people to properly rob their victims, then isn’t Hachi just as useful as the mother? Plus he can serve as a romantic partner as well...I mean, you’d have to be awfully thirsty to even consider that option, because he is super gross, but the potential is certainly there.

Although it struck me as terribly odd that the daughter-in-law is so willing to contemplate ditching her mother-in-law in spite of the fact that those two had been surviving together—by themselves—for years. At no point is there ever a real bond or friendship depicted between the two women. Because of this when their relationship begins to fall apart, the mother never appeals to their own personal bond. Which is kind of odd isn’t it? You’d think some sort of relationship or familial love would have been created between them. Since the movie was written/directed by a man in the 1960s I have to wonder if some of this isn’t necessarily thematic, but just a result of a male POV.

And more to that point, I also found it interesting that only the male characters in the film are named. The son is Kishi, the neighbor is Hachi, even the swindling blackmarket operator is named Ushi. But the two women—the two main characters of the movie—are both unnamed. And while it certainly could be an intentional move, I could also see it simply being because the writer/director didn’t consider giving them a specific identity important. After all, Hachi is given more depth of character and backstory than the two women are.

Or maybe it’s all a thematic element attempting to show how women are so often overlooked while simultaneously depicting the hardships they had to go through because the entire nation didn’t care what happened to them…although the lack of relationship between the mother and daughter-in-law seems to be a hard point against that theory…

But what about the corpse hole? The movie opens and ends with the image of this hole that the women use to dispose of their victims corpses. Is that a yonic symbol in the movie? The women are not afraid of it and use it to their advantage, but it is always a dangerous presence to the men in the movie. Hachi himself is shown to be wary of it, because he’s afraid of overlooking it and falling to his death...just like how all these samurai who overlooked these women and met their demise. Talk about some imagery rife for writing a research paper about, amiright?

But who can say? And when it comes down to it, isn’t that half the fun of analyzing fiction?

What can’t be argued is that here is a film where some badass ladies have been outsmarting friggin’ samurai for years! They are super competent and by working together they are able to outplay all the men who are always trying to either fuck them or fuck them over.

There’s a part when Hachi first shows up and he’s bragging about killing some dude and how hard it is and it’s like, Hachi...you complete bag of rocks. Do you not realize who you are talking to? These ladies are twice the killers you could ever hope to be, you doofus. Are you seriously mansplaining murder to them?

The cinematography of the film is really quite interesting and has some shot compositions that I really loved. It’s a really well made film that’s full of interesting themes and ideas. While certainly a slow-paced movie that is unlikely to keep you up at night, it still has a great air of subtle creepiness to it. So while it might not be a great movie to fear-cuddle up with a cutie to, it is a great movie to watch and have a fun intellectual discussion with a cutie about. So cheers to that!

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Directed by: Kaneto Shindo

Written by: Kaneto Shindo

County of Origin: Japan

Language: Japanese

Setting: Not explicitly stated. [but they filmed in in Japan’s Chiba prefecture]

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Content Warnings: A dog is killed and eaten. In their defense it was a wild dog and food was scarce. But still!

After-credits Scene?: None

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Context Corner:

The film takes place in 14th century Japan during a time of civil war called the Nanboku-chō Period [The Northern and Southern Courts period] that spanned from 1336 to 1392. And like most civil wars it was more of power battle between bigwigs than it was something a poor farmer gave any shits about. Very long story made somewhat short: the Southern court was where the emperor was based, but the Shogunate (basically the organization of the samurai that was led by the shogun) was based up in the North. So in a power play the Shogunate establishes their own emperor in the North and this leads to war. In the end the North won (thanks military power!), but the Southern emperor got to keep his title. Although now he was really more of an “emperor” because the shogun had all the real power (which is why only 75 years after this war ended, another war [the Onin War] started over who the next shogun would be).

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“If my son’s dead, she’s all I’ve got! I can’t get along alone. I couldn’t even kill! Take her and I’ll starve!”

[sheikah]

Hello! I have recently been exposed to a lot of jonerys. I don't have anything against it but I'm not sure how I feel. Could you convince me?

Hi there! So honored to have you here! What a great and exciting ask. Sorry for my delayed response but I wanted to be sure to do it justice haha. 

Alright so there are a lot of reasons to love Jonerys. I’ve talked before about why I think they will be compatible, and I’ll probably recycle that answer a bit because I have a bunch of new followers since then. But before I get sappy I want to talk about the realm as a whole. 

I think that Jon and Dany as a pairing is the best and healthiest outcome for the realm.

Jon Snow’s arc has been focused on the themes of equality and personal freedom. Starting in Winterfell we see that Jon was marginalized and did not receive equal treatment due to the circumstances of his birth. This molded him into an insular and bitter young man. 

When he first arrived at The Wall he behaved petulantly because he resented the feeling that he was deceived by Benjen and others when he discovered that the NW is not made of chivalrous men from noble houses, but commoners and many criminals. But befriending these men, starting with Sam, began Jon’s personal journey to help and uplift people who are looked down in society.

Of course his time with Ygritte and the other Free Folk contributed to this worldview and eventually as Lord Commander he made history by allowing them South of the Wall. So we know that as a leader Jon is someone who would value equality and freedom for all people which would help everyone to thrive. 

Meanwhile Daenerys was on a parallel journey. As an exiled young girl she had even less agency and autonomy than Jon did and was more or less sold into sexual slavery to Drogo. She saw how women were treated in that culture and how the poor, sick, and elderly were treated in a society that put so much value on physical strength. When her dragons were born she adopted the unwanted dothraki, the weakest among them, as her khalasar and protected them.  Her liberation of Slaver’s Bay parallels Jon’s liberation of the wildlings because like Jon, Dany knows what it’s like to be looked down on and sneered at. So instead of sailing for Westeros to fulfill her personal destiny when she had the chance, she stayed until Meereen was stable so that its people could live freely and equally and so that each and every person there could follow their personal destiny, too. 

So Dany and Jon come from similar backgrounds and have similar feelings about people and the world, and they both stand poised to rule. Jon has the loyalty of the North; Dany has the loyalty of the largest fighting force. 

If these two come together, not only can they save the realm from the WW (which is the most important thing of all) but they can also oppose rulers like Cersei and Euron who would only continue to let the realm wither under their oppression. 

But in addition to what they could do for the realm, think of what they could do for each other! Dany’s entire family was murdered and while she wasn’t around to feel the pain of most of their deaths, she still feels the pain of being alone without a family to take care of her. She also had to watch her brother, someone she loved in spite of his cruelty, die because he was such a threat to her and the life of her unborn child. Top this all off with the fact that in spite of Drogo raping her, she seems to have genuinely loved him over time and she had to end his life to put him out of his catatonic misery. Jon’s family was also murdered. He doesn’t know about Rhaegar and Lyanna, but like Dany, his father was murdered during Robert’s Rebellion and his mother died from childbirth. Ned was murdered, Robb was murdered, and like Dany having to witness the death of Viserys, Jon watched Rickon murdered right before his eyes. Finally, Just as Dany lost Drogo, Jon lost Ygritte and she died in his arms tragically. So they are both pretty much alone in the world. Together they are the last Targaryens, though neither of them knows about the other yet. Each of them doesn’t really have a home. I think it was telling in Sunday’s episode when Jon said that Sansa “is” the only Stark in Winterfell. He didn’t say, will be after he leaves. In other words, no matter how far he has come, no matter how welcoming and kind Sansa has been to him, Jon still believes that he is not a true Stark and still feels like a Snow–a bastard. 

Meanwhile, Dany’s homecoming in Dragonstone was not all she’d hoped it would be. She realizes that a piece of land and a castle do not equal a home. Because home is being with people you love. And Jon and Dany are going to be that for one another. I don’t think that either of them can find another person who will relate so well to everything they’ve been through. Because yes, there are other people who have suffered on the show. But Jon and Dany have both suffered and been left alone while also living as rulers. They both bear the burden and responsibility of the people who are loyal to them. For the first time they will find a person who actually understands what that is like.I think that’s going to be so beautiful. They can be truly happy together, even if that will be ruined by the war and violence and everything else.And while I know the incest freaks some people out, I’ve discussed why I don’t think it will be a problem here. But in addition to that, I was recently reminded that both Jonnel and Edric Stark married their neices, in addition to countless Targaryen intermarriages. I think the fact that Jon and Dany are both Targaryens matters. Because out of all the families, the Targaryens practiced this the most and it was by no means expected for incest to produce children who were physically or mentally affected by that. Aerys II does not represent all Targaryens or the supposed side effects of Targaryen incest. In fact, I believe that since Targaryens are the blood of Old Valyria, where intermarriage was also practiced, and since Valyrian blood is clearly magical (dragon taming, Dany’s invulnerability to fire, etc), we can’t really compare their unions to those of normal humans. And it’s possible that their magical blood actually makes them attracted to one another. It would help to explain how so many Targaryens practiced incest for so long. Even some of Aegon V’s children wed incestuously in secret despite his attempts to keep them apart. So I think that Targaryens possibly have a special bond with one another and that Jon and Dany might, too. I also talked about their overall compatibility this in response to a similar ask so there is some overlap but also some stuff I didn’t cover here if you’re still interested. I hope I helped to convince you some! Thanks for sending this and welcome to our fandom

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How a couple seconds of bench shot gave me some positivity

Ok, so I know I’m supposed to be writing for the Great Meta Scavenger Hunt and that’s going but I just really need to talk about this bench. This thing has bugged me since I saw it in 12.01 and honestly, it’s one of the reasons I’m so positive about the season. I absolutely love this shot and I love what it could represent even more. Even if it means some potentially sad things too. Then again, it could also mean nothing but if that’s the case, I question the director here. Look at how dang distinct that bench and it’s God Rays/Slow Reveal is!  (The gif won’t work >.> Pretend it’s pivoting or find the clip.)

Commence me using a couple secs of footage to try and predict the end of the season. It’s worked before heh. While Dean is speaking to Mary after she’s been resurrected and the sun is up, the camera slowly pans to the right to reveal a bench bathed in very pointed  lighting. This framing is almost like a reaction shot, it’s framed as important, a slow reveal. In western cinematography, moving to the right represents positive progress. A shot like this often reveals a character or thing of relief. This is the “I was here all along” shot. Shots like this also often accompany a path reveal or road reveal to give direction and depth to the scene. Close shots like this with accompanied depth often tell the audience where the characters are going to go. This one even has a big swath of shadow between them and the bench, further highlighting it and could be symbolic of crossing a threshold of darkness before finding the light. This season’s gonna be a ride if this shot is to be believed. Now, why the bench and why here? I’ve been racking my brain since I first saw this to try and figure out what this bench is for. I thought about the other benches in the series and how they are often used to depict character relationships of power dynamics and feelings in a given situation. Mary and Dean are here on one bench in the foreground, discussing their pasts and trying to make sense of each other. However, in comparison to the other bench, they are bathed in shadow and relative darkness. They don’t understand each other here but are looking forward towards the right, the direction of progress in western film. Towards the right, the future, the sunrise. They are lit with almost a reverse key, away from the camera while the bench in the background is lit from above with an almost holy motif.

At this time, I think the bench on the other side is something we will see again at the end of the season. I truly think in some way or another we will come back here with a greater understanding than before and sit in the other bench, looking back on the past uncertainty. Looking back at where Dean and Mary once were and what that journey has meant. I could see this going a number of ways but here’s two that stuck out:  Either Mary dies before hand and TFW comes here to pay their respects to her once again, stops at the bench and discusses their future and their time with her. This time with a left pivoting camera, showing us where we started and the past. TFW mourning her loss while sitting on the side of a brighter future. Or Mary comes back here with them for whatever reason, perhaps to visit her own grave and to contemplate how far she’s come. This season makes me very positive about the overall trajectory for the show and its approach to understanding, family and letting go to let others in. Even if the ending may be sad. I think TFW will understand Mary by the end of the season and hopefully understand each other better as well. There is one other way my brain went with this but it’s more shippery. Dive under the cut if you want to climb around that rabbit hole with me. 

Benches in SPN have symbolism on their own but even deeper than that is the symbolism of chairs in general. Chairs in film can tell you a lot about a setting, a character, tone and who the work is about. They are also generally meant to be filled. Empty chairs in film highlight something missing. If you focus on a chair with no one in it, like say here: 

You’re highlighting absence. Someone is meant for that chair and they’re missing. Cas is probably the most associated with absence of any character in the show besides Mary previously. He would often whoosh off from the Winchesters, not be able to or wouldn’t answer calls, run off on his own to do his thing, appear and disappear from scenes and my favorite besides the chair: 

There’ll be peace when you are done too, Cas. He’s specifically absent from the stage with Mary and Adam. He is being sang to as well. That gap is massive. It’s possible it’s just an angle PoV thing to get the reaction but I’m gonna love it anyway. The yellow and blue set decorations will back me up, right guys? There was that one time in Season 4 when we even saw Dean and Cas on benches. Benches are meant for more than one person, that’s why they’re benches, but there was a rift of purpose and ideology between them in season 4. They wouldn’t have sat on the same bench back then.

Generally we’ve seen this season that Mary and Cas have a lot of parallels going about their belonging in this world. How they relate to the definition of family and even how they refer to themselves with in it (as uncomfortable and confused as it may make her, Mary still insists the Winchesters call her ‘mom’). @k-vichan​ had an excellent post going around chronicling their re-watch of the currently aired season 12 episodes and their depictions of family. I think they’re on point. I think family and how those definitions are designated and addressed will be the main focus this season and is a huge subject of the series.. in regards to the parallels, Mary is blood and Cas is not, she belongs automatically and yet, she has trouble accepting easy mode. She needs time alone to figure out how she feels. Cas has been told he belongs but is not blood and is a Supernatural being, something we’ve been historically taught is not how the Winchesters would lean. Both of these characters are completely understandable in their thought processes and it makes sense that they may need time to figure out who they are and who they can be on their own after all that’s happened for them. I’ve said before that Cas seems to be dissatisfied with his and Dean’s conversation in 11.23 and how that scene; with it’s dutch angles and stilted, cut off dialogue acts more as a setup for further discussion rather than a definitive answer. Cas wants to know who he is to the Winchesters as definitively as possible and so does Mary. They were both soldiers in their time, both devoted to their causes as revealed for Mary in 12.06. Both sure of themselves and their convictions even if they were also both privy to the possibility of another option and were tempted through their lives to explore it outside of their family’s influence.  Which brings us back to the bench. I believe that bench is meant for two people on a return trip to the graveyard. A place for two people to stop and chat while the third goes on ahead. Sad as it is, I do think Mary will join Billie one way or another at the end of the season as the closing of the old ways and to usher in the new order of things. I think Cas will sit with Dean at the end of their journey this season and have a sort of scene similar to Dean and Mary’s or at least with similar undertones. This will be a time of mourning and rebirth. Mary’s definitive exit and Cas’ definitive entrance however they choose to define it. His sunrise, just like in the original bench scene. A new place to start as was given Mary. An understanding between Cas and Dean, however they decide to define it. I’m sure Sam will be around somewhere as well and would have likely made his peace much sooner. He’d probably be at Mary’s grave, waiting for Dean and Cas to meet him and pay their respects. I think Sam’s journey will likely be more personal this time around as he attempts to construct his Independence more cleanly. His journey with Dean will probably still be ongoing to a more healthy relationship but I hope the end of the season is progress for them as they both start to branch out. They will likely have their own form of heart to heart but I can see it being more likely at the grave site after everyone else has gone off to do their own thing.

I think the “family doesn’t end in blood” theme will reach a sticking point or at least start to this season in the form of something big, something bigger than Jody, Claire or any other character.. because they are human. Their presence isn’t loud enough and they seem to want to make their theme as loud as possible. I think this is the season the Winchesters (and by extension humanity in the context of the show) will start to embrace those aspects of themselves they wish to deny, they wish to crush and flee from, the things that scare them or make them feel other themselves. I think this is the season we’ll see them start to embrace the Supernatural and unknown and that requires something loud to counter the history we’ve been given. I think both Dean and Sam will start to explore their independence more and while it will probably result in distrust at first, it’s something needed for them and should lead to a healthier dynamic. I doubt that will mean spending a lot of time apart but I think it will involve them finding further outlets outside each other.

I think what we’re seeing in that bench is a glimpse into the future, a brighter future, a future with less fear and more defined, healthy relationships all around. It’s also very possible that the bench at the end is reserved for Sam and Dean but while Sam and Mary share similar goals, personality and methods, Mary is heavily, /heavily/ paralleled to Cas. The conversation Sam and Dean would have should Mary die again would likely be a retread and unless they decide to out and out destroy the co-dependency there, I don’t think there’s a conversation they could have other than general mourning and memories that would mirror Mary and Deans. I also think their story arc with each other will likely extend past this season. Their relationship is very deep seeded, it’s gonna take a lot for them to come out healthy and still loving on the other side. As should be obvious, this is all just me musing about how I interpret what’s going on. I could be completely or varying levels of wrong. I don’t mean to get anyone’s hopes up for disappointment but if it doesn’t happen, it’s not the end. We have a whole ‘nother season. This is just something that keeps me hopeful.  I hope whatever interpretations you come up with make you happy too.