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panharmonium · 5 years

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a face like a wounded bear (i’ve just got a few things on my mind, that’s all)

back on my merlin rewatch rambles this week. i’m finishing up S1 now and just putting down some notes here for myself about 1.11 - specifically, how it ties back to/is informed by 1.10, because this is something that’s been on my mind for a long time.

these got a bit long so feel free to scroll past if this isn’t your cup of tea!

standard disclaimer for people who don’t know me and might stumble across this: i got into this show late and i have not finished season 5. i am GOING to finish season 5, hence this rewatch. so far i have remained unspoiled for the end of this show; i super appreciate everybody helping me stay that way. you have my permission to laugh at me for being ten years late to this show in the first place and also for taking a geological age to finish the last four episodes. i understand and fully support you in this; in my defense, i have been using the break to write fic, so i hope all can be forgiven in the end X)

with that out of the way, some thoughts!

i. a wounded bear

i really appreciate how much angrier merlin suddenly is at everything once we hit ‘the labyrinth of gedref.’

he’s still trying to help solve arthur’s problems, and he’s still rooting for arthur to succeed, but he’s also snappy and irritable and getting lost staring out windows, and his patience level with arthur in particular is set to absolute zero. it’s not a catastrophic change - it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t like arthur anymore or that he doesn’t still respect arthur for what arthur...could be, and for what he is, at moments; merlin obviously still deeply admires him for caring so much about the people of camelot and he obviously still believes that arthur is noble at heart and worth supporting. but he’s simultaneously sick and tired of arthur’s particular brand of princely BS, and in this episode it’s starting to show.

before this episode, merlin used to tolerate arthur’s dumbassery with a kind of...willingness to be amused as opposed to annoyed. arthur would go into his “insult merlin” routine or say something only a rich idiot would say and merlin would just laugh it off, or quip it away, or roll his eyes and get on with his day. he was kind of…gently entertained by the people he had to serve. he was having a little adventure right then, you know? and the nobles, arthur included, were colorful characters in this story he’d walked into. if they were occasionally insufferable, well, at least they were good for a laugh.

for example, that episode where arthur keeps asking merlin to cover for him so he can go have his little dates with sophia? merlin winds up in the stocks for it three times in a row, but the first time, he just shrugs it off with his typical cheery equanimity and wryly says, “i forgot how much fun this was!” and then when arthur asks him to cover for him a second time, merlin is just psyched that arthur is having such a good time with sophia, and he immediately agrees to do it, saying, “don’t worry, i’ll find a way to get you out of it!” and then he’s back in the stocks, but when he comes out of them, gaius is more annoyed at arthur than merlin is. and then after arthur runs off to “elope” with sophia, and merlin ends up in the stocks a THIRD time, it’s just the funny zinger at the end of the episode. he’s not upset about it. it’s just like, “meh! here i am again! classic merlin misadventure, what can you do? :)”

there is no chance that would fly in the back quarter of S1. none. zero.

merlin is completely fed up in 1.11. starting with the hunting party’s slaughter of the unicorn, and then branching out to other, smaller things - every dismissive thing arthur says to him, every time arthur ignores or denies the reality of their situation and tries to pin responsibility for camelot’s misfortune on sorcery rather than his own actions, every time arthur makes stupid comments like ‘merlin you’re less intelligent than a rat’ - in this episode, merlin doesn’t roll with those things. he snaps back, or raises his voice; he refuses to be talked over, he bites back “i’m THIRSTY” when arthur tells him to stop smacking his lips in the granary.

in another episode, that stuff might have been delivered in a jokey way - and it will be again, some day in the future, when they’re both back to having fun with it - but merlin’s not having fun with it in 1.11. he’s giving arthur challenging stares and resentful glares instead of friendly, this-is-just-how-we-tease-each-other looks. his tone isn’t amused or fondly exasperated, it’s frustrated or irritated or, sometimes, straight-up angry.

there’s a point in one of their arguments where merlin says he believes what anhora is saying, and arthur’s cold response is, “then you’re a fool. you cannot trust a single word a sorcerer says. you’d do well to remember that.”

and merlin gives him the most baleful glare. like he wants to just...strangle him with his eyes. like he has so many cutting things just sitting on the tip of his tongue and can’t decide which one he wishes he could say first.

ii. a few things on my mind

this, i think, is where it’s worth remembering that this episode takes place in a larger context than ‘arthur did a dumbass thing at the beginning of the episode and merlin’s upset about it.’

because merlin definitely is upset about the unicorn, but merlin’s also just upset, full stop, about things that have nothing to do with the unicorn or camelot’s curse or camelot to begin with, and it’s bleeding over into other areas of his life.

to clarify: i don’t think we can really understand merlin’s subtle attitude shift in 1.11 without understanding that 1.11 takes place immediately after 1.10.

1.11 is one of two S1 episodes whose positions in the timeline we can actually pinpoint relative to their neighbors (the first being 1.02, which is directly stated to take place on merlin’s “first day as arthur’s servant,” aka the day after 1.01). 1.11 likewise can be mapped accurately onto the timeline, because kanen comes thundering into ealdor bellowing “it’s harvest time!” in 1.10, and then in 1.11 camelot is bringing in their harvest, too (literally, gaius yells at the end, “they’re bringing in the harvest!”).

there’s really not any wiggle room there. the harvest season is only so many weeks long to begin with, and we know ealdor was pretty far along with their work in 1.10 - we see the evidence of their labor, and if the grain hadn’t already been harvested, kanen’s group wouldn’t have had anything to steal. ealdor is smaller, so it makes sense for them to finish faster than camelot, but it looks like camelot is just getting started in 1.11, given the state of their grain reserves and the fact that so much grain appears to be unharvested when the blight hits. and, that being the case, honestly, camelot had to have started like, immediately after 1.10 finished, or even while that arc was still going on. it’s already pushing the boundaries of disbelief that they wouldn’t have started by the time ealdor has gotten so much done. there’s no plausible way they could have waited any longer. harvest season is the same for everyone; it’s not some kind of rotating schedule. people only have about a month to get it done in the first place.

so these two episodes occur, at the absolute most, a couple weeks apart from one another, and that’s only by the most generous of estimates; it’s more likely that they’re closer together than that, given the information above. but honestly, it doesn’t matter whether it’s two weeks or two days - either way, merlin in 1.11 has something going on in his head that’s extremely recent and taking up kind of a lot of his energy.

i don’t know that this angle gets looked at often, because the understandable tendency is to mostly focus on merlin in relation to arthur, and this becomes especially true in episodes that contain arthur+merlin umm...idk, focus scenes like the one near the end of 1.11. but this is the angle that’s always on my mind when i watch the end of S1, because if there is one hill i’ve staked out for the digging of my future grave, it’s the following:

merlin’s life does not revolve around arthur pendragon.

this probably qualifies as an unpopular fandom opinion, but it’s something i absolutely refuse to budge on.

and of course it’s just my own read, obviously; you may have more fun coming at this episode from a different direction, and that’s totally cool! but for me, my understanding when i’m watching this season - merlin’s life does not revolve around arthur pendragon. especially not yet, especially not now, when merlin has only known arthur for a few months and he’s just coming back from being with people who have known him (and i mean known him, known everything, known him for real) for something like twenty years.

merlin’s life does NOT revolve around arthur pendragon. his relationship with arthur, at this point, is not the most important relationship in his life. arthur is not the best friend he’s ever had. arthur is barely merlin’s friend at all, right now. arthur likes him all right, yes, and merlin likes him back, most of the time, but arthur doesn’t even know him, really.

arthur doesn’t know.

and i love arthur and merlin, like - i’m as down for the mythic, destiny-laden, we-find-each-other-in-every-universe dimension of their dynamic as anybody, and when those two finally have an equal, healthy friendship going on, i’m going to be cheering for them. but it doesn’t change the fact that merlin had a life before he came to camelot, or the fact that by 1.11 he’s only been in camelot for a few months and doesn’t really know arthur all that well yet.

you can pick whatever example you want to illustrate this point; there are enough of them to choose from, but one of the clearest is in 1.11, when arthur passes his final test and drinks anhora’s fake poison. merlin thinks arthur is dead, at that point - he’s pretty well convinced that the poison was real and that arthur has just keeled over dead on the beach - but his reaction to arthur’s ‘death’ is....i don’t want to minimize it, exactly, because merlin's obviously upset about it, but at the same time the level of distress he displays is visibly, objectively different from what we see from him in other contexts. it looks nothing like his naked grief when will is slipping away from him in 1.10, or his desperation when his mother shows up deathly ill on his doorstep in 1.13. he doesn’t look at potentiallydead!arthur the same way, or talk to him the same way, or touch him the same way - of course he hustles right over and shakes him to see if he can wake him up, but it is just...you can watch these scenes next to each other and they are just not the same. it is not the same gentle way he leans over his mother, the way he takes her hand, strokes her forehead, folds gaius’ rabbit’s foot into her fingers. it is not the same way he cradles will in 1.10, when his fingers are in will’s hair and his hand is just - reflexively rubbing will’s head in a way that is just so...intimate and automatic and brokenly tender like -

of course it’s different with them! he loves them! watching them suffer is torture for him, and the idea of losing either of them is devastating to him on a scale i can’t possibly understand. he’s only ever had two people in his life. one parent. one friend. they were his whole world.

so, yeah, merlin is stressed about arthur’s apparent death. he’s upset. he likes arthur, he believes in arthur, he’s appalled that this is happening. but it’s not a personal grief. there aren’t any deathbed confessions. there aren’t any gentle touches. there aren’t any tears. his protest to anhora isn’t ‘i love this person and i don’t want them to leave me;’ it’s ‘i was meant to protect him!’ it’s about him failing at his “destiny;” it’s about the fact that someone told him he was born like this for a reason and now he’s failed at the job that gave him a sense of purpose, at the thing that made him feel like having magic was worth all this terrible trouble.

contrast this to when his mother shows up dying in 1.13, and gaius tries to prevent merlin from saving her by bringing up the importance of merlin’s “destiny.” on that occasion, merlin’s immediate incredulous retort is, “my destiny? this is my mother.”

arthur’s death and merlin’s distress over it all come back to merlin’s unfulfilled destiny, in 1.11. but merlin couldn’t care less about his destiny when it’s his mother’s life on the line. my destiny means nothing if i cannot save her.

merlin’s life does not revolve around arthur pendragon. not here, not now.

[that said - it’s different, of course, later in the series. merlin’s reaction to arthur’s supposed death in 5.07 isn’t just “oh no i failed!”, it’s also a personal, particular anguish. they matter to each other, by then. (though even then i think there’s a lot to be said about the…unhealthy tragedy of merlin giving up on his own wants and needs and worth as a person who exists outside the context of this narrow mandate to protect someone who doesn’t know who merlin really is and wouldn’t love him if he did - but that’s just the situation merlin’s trapped himself in, by that point. it’s what he’s accepted for himself. it’s all he thinks he deserves.)]

[that’s a post for another day, though, so. back to the point.]

merlin’s life does not revolve around arthur pendragon. merlin had a life all his own before he came to camelot, and during the last quarter of season 1, every part of it that matters to him is falling apart.

i keep coming back to this, every time i think about this kid. there’s just no way to overstate the fact that merlin’s world up until this point has always been just two people. his whole life has been just two people. his whole life has been just one parent. his whole life has been just one friend.

and after 1.10, his one friend is dead.

i think we dramatically underestimate the impact of merlin having half of his world obliterated, just like that.

that’s not something he gets up and strolls away from. he can’t roll with that punch. he carries that for the rest of his life.

you know what i mean? it would be a disastrous enough thing on its own, without even getting into the fact that it unfolds in a way that is SO complicated and tied up with messy personal history and regret/guilt that it needs to be parsed in an essay of its own (which, yes, i might already have half-written; yes, i have too much extra time on my hands this month.) we’re also not getting into the fact that like - okay, the sort of grimly positive flip side to only having two significant relationships in your life is that you’ve also never personally experienced any significant bereavement. you don’t have any extended family to mourn, no friends to lose, et cetera. so to have your first experience with loss be something so huge, when you’ve had no practice dealing with grief, and to be trapped in a place where you aren’t allowed to discuss it honestly because if you told somebody what it all really meant you’d be executed?

i’d be in a bad mood, too.

merlin is such a good kid and he tries so hard to have a smile for everyone, but i can’t watch the last quarter of S1 without seeing the strain of this weighing on him. it affects how he reacts to the situation with gwen’s father in 1.12 (more on that another time), and it absolutely plays into the fact that he spends the season finale racing from one side of the kingdom to the other, desperate to sacrifice his life for someone else’s.

^^ regarding that last bit - i think about that a lot. merlin tries to die three separate times over the last three episodes of S1, and it’s not that he’s...running around trying to get someone to kill him, exactly, but there’s definitely a very real sense that he’s dumped any interest in self-preservation, at this point, that he doesn’t care what happens to him. if dying is what it takes to make sure nobody else is taken away from him, then that’s fine. he will do literally anything to not feel this again.

merlin is trying to process something so big for him and he’s trying, by necessity, to do it alone, because he left his mother behind and came back to camelot where nobody understands that the only person other than his mother who ever loved him just died lying for him. he is so stressed out in the last three episodes of this season and so desperately unhappy about things he isn’t allowed to even mention, and i just think it’s impossible to evaluate these episodes outside of that particular context.

“we haven’t done all the things we’re meant to do,” he protests in the finale - and you can feel that aching admission come welling right up out of his soul. it’s uttered in a new context, yes, but he’s been thinking it for weeks and weeks and weeks already, too late to change anything, too late to buy his friend any more time. he’s hurting. and he goes zipping around from life-sacrifice to life-sacrifice in the last three episodes in a desperate attempt to keep himself from hurting more.

iii. i’d never have a friend who could be such an ass

the point of all this is the following: the reason merlin sounds like he’s fed up with arthur in 1.11 is because he is fed up with arthur in 1.11. he’s fed up with everything. they all just got home from ealdor somewhere between a couple of days and a couple of weeks ago, and merlin is reeling. he feels like his head and his heart are still trapped on the other side of the border. he’s sick of looking at arthur’s arrogant, insensitive, infuriatingly alive face - and i say this while recognizing that, even at the same time, merlin also cares about arthur, and believes in him, and lionizes him; admires him; hero-worships him, even. these two things can be simultaneously true. merlin’s relationship with arthur is already so fraught with dissonance (how can you care about someone who thinks people like you are inherently evil? how can you respect someone who oppresses you?) - and merlin’s always carried two contradictory truths when he navigates their relationship, one in each hand. and right now it’s just that one hand is holding something too heavy. he’s not being bitchy, he’s busy - he’s trying to deal with something that is taking up 100% of his mental and emotional energy; he doesn’t have anything left over to accommodate arthur pendragon’s dumbassery.

and arthur pendragon IS a dumbass; let’s not pretend that he isn’t. i love him, and he has moments that are so admirable and glorious and shining that they take your breath away, when you can see why gwen says you are going to live to be the man i see inside you; i can see a king that the people will love and be proud to call their sovereign (that speech makes my eyes sting EVERY TIME, it gets me right there) - but arthur is STILL a dumbass. no question about it. he has so far to go, still. he’s dumb in all the generic ‘oblivious rich dude’ ways, and he’s also a jerk in his own specific ‘arrogant arthur pendragon TM’ ways, and merlin at this particular moment doesn’t have the energy to deal with it. he likes arthur, even at this early stage, despite all the mental gymnastics he has to do in order to like someone who hates magic-users. but merlin’s closest friend in the world is dead, and arthur is such an asshole sometimes and it’s like - this is what i got in exchange? this is the trade the universe made? what the hell makes arthur more deserving of being here than somebody who loved me without being told, without being taught, without needing to be constantly convinced that i should be allowed to exist and be safe and be loved on this earth?

are we really surprised that merlin wants to strangle arthur after that trademark ‘you cannot trust a single word a sorcerer says’ comment? merlin has enough reasons to resent that on his own behalf, but his own secret isn’t the problem, this time; the problem is that they literally just got home from their little jaunt to ealdor and the only reason arthur even made it back from ealdor in the first place was because (as far as arthur knows) a ‘sorcerer’ died saving his stupid life, and arthur knows that, and still, this is what he has to say?

and that’s on top of like - back in ealdor before they left, the fact that arthur really felt it was necessary to take time out of his day to come over and reproachfully chastise merlin about not disclosing will’s ‘magic,’ AT WILL’S FUCKING FUNERAL??? “you know how dangerous magic is. you shouldn’t have kept this from me.” AT WILL’S FUNERAL? RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIS BURNING CORPSE? LIKE???? HELLO????

can you imagine being in this scenario??? and thinking??? yeah this is appropriate. this is the time.

how is merlin supposed to respond to that? when arthur’s like ‘you know how dangerous magic is’ and merlin is just like ????!! we are AT HIS FUNERAL!!! we are literally WATCHING HIS BODY BURN!!!! you know how dangerous magic is FFS THAT ‘MAGIC-USER’ COULDN’T STAND YOU AND HE STILL SAVED YOUR UNGRATEFUL LIFE AND HE’S DEAD BECAUSE YOU’RE NOT AND WE’RE AT HIS FUNERAL OMG IS THIS THE TIME? IS IT EVER GOING TO BE THE TIME? SHUT! UP!

of course merlin wants to kill him.

so anyway. i really appreciate merlin’s sudden prickliness in this episode. it’s subtle enough not to be completely jarring, but it’s still clearly perceptible, and i’m glad for that, because this is something that should be perceptible, given the timeline, but at the same time merlin would never, ever mention what’s really bothering him out loud, because a) the sorcery element and arthur’s involvement in how things went down have made it an absolutely unbroachable, forbidden topic, and b) guilt has wired merlin’s jaw shut.

^^ re: that last thing - it’s a post for another day, and i won’t really get into it now, but suffice to say, once again, that merlin spends the last quarter of season 1 running around trying his absolute hardest to throw his life away for someone, and i just feel like...i think it says something about the kind of pain he is in, and the kind of apology he feels he needs to make.

he is having a very hard time. merlin in the back quarter of S1 is feeling very alone and very much like he doesn’t deserve to ever feel better.

so if he’s a little bitey with arthur’s trademark noble nonsense, i think we can cut him some slack.

#meta #the once and future slowburn #no kings no masters #tl;dr: merlin in 1.11 is grieving #this is...a lot of meta about not-arthur for an episode with such a frequently giffed arthur+merlin scene lol #but i don't care #not everything in merlin's life is about arthur pendragon #some things are just his #and will is one of those things #it has been so desperately rare for merlin to experience love without fear #every other relationship he has is tainted with 'they don't love the real me. they will hate me when they know.'#the very very few people who give him a breath of relief from this - who let him Exist and know beyond a doubt that he is cared for -#we RESPECT those people in this house!!!#how crucially important they are to him #how essential to his existence #how fundamental to his survival #how much they mean to him and how deeply it changes him when they're torn away #will and lancelot and hunith and gaius are the real mvps folks

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drink-n-watch · 5 years

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Did you know that president Nixon had a speech prepared just in case the Apollo mission went wrong? It’s a pretty good speech but in the context of history it becomes downright haunting. I tear up every time I read it. You can sort of feel the weight of history and the searing pain of hope behind the simple words. If your interested, it’s at the bottom of this article here.

As I watched this week’s episode of Dr. Stone, that speech kept coming to my mind. I am not ashamed to say, I teared up yet again.

There shall be spoilers and if you haven’t seen the episode, you should watch it first. It’s worth experiencing unspoiled.

What I thought Would Happen

As the last episode left us on a flashback cliffhanger, it was easy to guess where the story was going. A sort of Robinson Crusoe adventure for the surviving astronauts.

I figured we would have learned the the crew of the international space station reproduced (since all the villagers look so much like them), left some wisdom and tech behind then disappeared. Leaving their ultimate fates nebulous and maybe even allowing for the possibility of Byakuya still being around somehow.

I also thought they would sort of split up the flash back, giving us parallel scenes of Senku coming up with inventions and something similar having been done by his dad millennial earlier for the rest of the series. A sort of running theme, tying past and present together and showing us the cycle of humanity.

What Did Happen

What should have happened. The only way this story could have logically evolved. Simply, without magic and artifice. It was obvious really and it took me completely by surprise.

Despite some serious complications, the crew do manage to make it back to earth in one piece and even find an island but that’s where their luck ran out. Soon enough, they had to come to grasp with the fact that they were the only humans left and had to start from scratch.

Which they did, slowly. Creating new families in the process. But in a world without modern comforts or even ancient medicines, life expectancy isn’t what it used to be. Disease picked off some of them, and the harsh elements a few more. Constant fights against depression and despair left them exhausted. These were all people who became astronauts. All of them capable of fully grasping the full extent of the situation and not used to simply idly accepting things.

In time, the few remaining started to turn their sights to the future. With the likelihood of undoing the personification within his lifetime getting smaller every day, Byakuya writes the 100 tales, which are really technical guidelines to help humanity survive and evolve, dressed up as fables. And happily, he does manage to finish them before his own time comes. His very last tale directly addressing his son Senku, who’s survival he never once doubted.

With the flashback over, we catch up to Senku who takes a minute to process everything before returning to the village where Gen let’s us all know that it’s finally time for the kingdom of might to make their entrance.

What About the Characters

There was no need to make me like the crew more. I already liked them all a lot. The episode gave us just enough to show that Shamil was a pretty good guy and Conni was vulnerable but doing her best. Yakov and Darya are prudent but unable to accept suffering of others. It wasn’t much in way of development really but it was just right. Just enough to make us care about these characters. Just enough to get the gut punched when Dr Stone decided to not sugar coat just how horrible their situation actually is. Just enough to miss them….

Once gain, Byakuya and Lillian took centre stage. Both of them were consistent to the people we had already gotten to know which is a great thing. Oddly, we found out that Byakuya and Senku are not blood relations, a fact that is insisted upon, but they sure could have fooled me. Senku is so much like an impatient and immature version of his dad. I guess nurture really is important.

In a way, despite seeing very little of him throughout the episode, this week was probably the most character development we got for Senku so far. I’ve mentioned it before but Senku has been essentially a static character since episode one. He is well established and quirky but he hasn’t changed at all and we’ve seen nothing to make us think he ever will. Until this week.

The mournful and shaken young man asking to be alone by his father’s grave is not a Senku we’ve ever seen before. For a second there, he looked so lonely and somehow, small. Like the child he really is is this huge stone world. Like the boy who misses his dad. Of course he already knew. The second he realized his dad had not been petrified, he knew he’d be long gone 3700 years later. But he didn’t want to admit it to himself. He hadn’t quite assimilated it. How sentimental and illogical.

What I Liked

I might have been too subtle. I liked almost everything. I liked that the show didn’t shy away from some harsher realities but didn’t glorify pain or sink into melodrama in the least.

I liked that the narrative balanced plot and atmosphere enough to deliver emotional moments and still move quite a bit forward.

I really liked that the shuttle landed in water prompting Byakuya to offer to swim to their rescue, fully clothed. It was a call back to all that effort he had made to pass the astronaut test, which he had dome for the sake of Senku. It sort of ties everything together in such a neat way.

I think that Byakuya turning his knowledge into stories and legends that can easily be past down through generations and calling that his scientific gift to his son was both inspired and inspiring. I’ve made no secret of my respect for dedicated teachers and stuff like this really speaks to me.

The pacing of the episode was fantastic, punctuating the flashback with glimpses of the present to give the narrative a rhythm that made the story just flow naturally.

These 100 tales and the mystery of why the village was named after Senku has been a long time coming. It’s a puzzle that was dangled in front of the audience for weeks now and they could easily have botched it. In my opinion this reveal was just wonderfully executed. Not only was it not what I was expecting in the least, it was also genuinely touching to me and proof that the writers can create a measured and emotional story.

What I Liked Less

I’m really going to have to scrape the bottom of the ol brain barrel here, let’s see…

Lilian’s singing got a bit cheesy at some point but then they interrupted it with a pretty powerful moment so I was fine with it.

Oh, like I said, they insisted on telling us twice and in detail that Senku and Byakuya aren’t blood relations. The fact that they are so alike is fine, and sweet even. I do like that a lot. Father’s aren’t sperm donors. But why did they have to make their character models so physically similar? Senku is pretty unique looking, with his hair and eyes being the main distinctive features and Byakuya is visibly similar in both of those. The could have made them a bit more different in design without it being too obvious.

The fact that they are not blood relations is treated as a big reveal but I’m not sure why it matters. Or rather, I’m afraid it matters only because the narrative is trying to avoid a future incest story line and well, that means romance.

Finally, this isn’t something I disliked, it’s just a mild worry. Tsukasa is bound to upset the group dynamic, especially if this means the return of Taiju and Yuzu. This worries me but this episode gives me hope.

Closing Thoughts

I don’t care what anyone says, I think this week’s episode was beautiful. I am so grateful that I didn’t let a couple of rocky episodes at the beginning discourage me. I have been having a great time with Dr Stone for months really, since the village arc started, and now this. Honestly, this episode would have been a worthy payoff even if the show hadn’t been consistently fun lately. As it is, it was a wonderful gift.

Mood: Delicately wistful

Dr. Stone Episode 17 – Good Things Come… Did you know that president Nixon had a speech prepared just in case the Apollo mission went wrong?

#action #anime #comedy #Dr. Stone #episodic #science!#shonen

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otherwoofsarch · 3 years

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just some ramblings about show paige winte /rbourne, nick sorre /ntino and lucas cor/ tez. spoilers for all of the show & book content under the cut if you’re currently in the progress of reading or watching and want to remain unspoiled

ok from the start i just wanna say that this might not make any sense and for that i apologise. this is just something i’ve had vague thoughts about for a while and am trying to solidify them in a very very rambly long form.

so lets start with page x nick, a ship that starts in s2 of bitten. this ship doesn’t happen in the books, in fact i’m not even sure nick and paige even have a single conversation in the books, which makes the ship funny in that aspect lol. but in pure context of the show, i get why they put those two together. like, paige and nick growing closer throughout season 2 does make sense. i do think it was a bit rushed with nick suddenly realising that he wants love, he wants something special like that, but i also get that they only had 10 episodes and since paige was dying, and then nick was faced with the possibility of being stuck in his wolf form forever, that makes these revelations come about a bit faster.

the part that i start to take issue with is the end of s2 in context of s3

nick has this great revelation that he wants to have love. but then, paige leaves him. now, i’m not blaming paige for this. from her perspective, it makes sense. her mother just died, she’s now the leader of the coven (though the show never really explained the coven. is it just paige and savannah now?) and she has a traumatised 13 year old to take care of.

she has so much to deal with, she can’t handle a relationship right now. nick respects her decision, because well, that’s just the decent thing to do lmao and nick is a good dude. so they part ways.

it doesn’t make it any less tragic, but it does make sense.

what DOESN’T make sense is in s3. it’s been around a year since s2, though i’m not quite sure on the exact time frame. rachel’s baby has been born and is at least a couple months old. she was only a few months pregnant in s2, so just around a year.

nick calls paige in for help and they end up having THIS conversation.

paige is moving to portland, and she’s in a relationship with a lawyer.

this is just a clear reference to lucas cortez, from the books. paige’s book love interest, her husband. he’s a laywer, and paige and lucas move to portland together. now the situations around this clearly didn’t happen in the show. lucas is a sorcerer - a male spellcaster. in the show, male spellcasters are kind of a no no. so i don’t know how they met, how they ended up together, anything like that.

so it’s been roughly a year since paige told nick that “i will become coven leader and any chance of this will be gone. but for a happy moment, you showed me what love is.”

and she’s moving to portland with her ‘lawyer’

and i really really need to say that i am NOT blaming paige for this. what i am often questioning is the writing choice. why give nick this plot point of wanting to have love, and yet do nothing with it?

why make paige say ‘hey you’re pretty great and i think i would have fallen in love with you, but i can’t really do this whole relationship thing.’ and then make her be moving in with someone roughly a year later.

it’s one of those things that i try to look at from a writing perspective and try to work it out. is the reference to lucas nice? sure! but lucas literally doesn’t fit into the lore of the show, and most of the viewers who made it to s3 haven’t read the books (ok this is an assumption, i’m sure many did, but i saw a lot of posts back in my tag deep dive saying that they gave up after s1)

so did they fuck up the writing of a ship for a reference to the book character that a decent chunk of their viewers wouldn’t even know existed?

and why even make them break up in the first place? if they didn’t know if they could get paige’s actress back for s3, then i KINDA get it, but... they did. and even then, even if they couldn’t, they could have just had nick mention her as if they talk often. long distance relationship while paige sorts coven stuff out. then since she did come back, just go more into their relationship. or if they had to break up, then they could possibly get back together in s3.

and this also isn’t be dunking on the ship itself, or on the show, it’s just one of those things that has baffled me. i don’t understand why they made this choice. i do think part of the reason they gave paige a random show version of lucas was because they were hinting at nick and rachel getting together, so showing that paige had moved on would.... make it okay for nick and rachel to get together.

except apart from hinting, they never actually did anything with that either (which i’m not complaining about lol. i don’t like the idea of a nick & rachel relationship) so i’m just left here, confused, trying to piece the reasoning together.

#ooc // i'll probably be awake to 3am for no reason #kira rambles #it's one of those things i'll probably always be ????????? about #lmao

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ghostbustermelanieking · 8 years

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14, 28 :)

14. Favorite episode(s)? Why?

beyond the sea: i love this episode because it's the first badass scully episode and it is fucking amazing. i love any episodes that switches m&s's roles, and this one does it beautifully. boggs is an excellent villain. the early msr is the fucking best (and upon rewatching, it mystifies me to think that they weren't actually writing towards a romance at that point in the show). it's a very great storyline/casefile, and everytime i rewatch it, i'm bowled over it with i can't believe how good this storyline is!!

but a lot of my love for beyond the sea comes from nostalgia. the first time i watched beyond the sea came with what remains my favorite experience of watching txf. i was mid-driver’s ed when i started the show - which is complete hell, i’m not even kidding - so i had a saturday to myself to clean, study, and watch tv. like i remember cleaning my guinea pig’s cage while i watched eve, making my bed while i watched fire. and then i started beyond the sea. and i was immediately hooked, which usually took me a while when watching an episode. i figured that something had happened to cap scully, which was why scully was seeing his ghost, but i was hoping he wouldn’t die. i think i squealed when mulder called scully dana. i had some heart palpitations when mulder got shot. if the first few episodes of the show were like gentle taps with a baseball bat, beyond the sea whacked me hard over the head and made me scream “i’m paying attention!” it hooked me good, and i was glued to the tv for the rest of the day. s1 was pretty much the only part of the show where i was completely unspoiled, an innocent and hopeful x files fan who was looking forward to the moment when mulder and scully would give in to their undying love, so i miss that part of my experience as an x files fan a lot and beyond the sea represents that for me.

bad blood: all the way, motherfuckers.

in all seriousness, i love how funny and FUN this episode is. like the case is kind of a one-of, but it’s so cool to see it from the different perspectives. like several of my other favorites, bad blood gives us insight into mulder and scully’s partnership - and it gives us their inner irritation with each other. it’s very telling, honestly, to see the bad sides of their opinions of each other, even if they’re over-exaggerated. i love how mulder manages to be subtly jealous of hartwell without it being too over-dramatic. i love all the little funny moments. it’s just a feel good episode, honestly, and the first one i ever watched for a second time.

pusher: it’s kind of an obvious one, if not THE obvious one, but i love everything about this episode. pusher/modell is an awesome villain and i wish his return had been better. (like, why not have had a bunch of unexplained crimes and then they figure out that modell can control people from his coma but it’s like a twist and then they can’t prove it?? like that would’ve been better than kitsunegari.) also all the little msr moments. the stakeout scene. (there’s a fic about that stakeout that is absolutely amazing.) the handhold scene. and of course, the russian roulette scene. i feel like that’s a very telling scene in terms of msr in general... which is kind of obvious but still. it’s kind of amazing. one of the most fucked up romantic scenes ever (because honestly, who knew i’d love a scene where someone almost kills the woman he loves so much?) it’s bizarre that it’s so good, and telling about the x files that it works so well. scully loves mulder so well that she follows him into a dangerous zone even though she knows she might not be able to save him and probably expects to find him dead. mulder loves scully so much that he can hold back from shooting her even though he can’t hold back from shooting himself, and scully loves mulder so much to not leave until she saves him. i mean, come on.

redux ii: it should be explained that part of the reason i love this episode so much is because of what preceded it. i freaked at the gethsemane cliffhanger, because unlike every other plot point in the show (at this point i knew every damn thing that happened thanks to the mulder and scully tag on tumblr and some very compelling gifsets... thanks tumblr!!), i had NO IDEA IT WAS COMING. i mean, i obviously knew mulder wasn’t dead, but i thought scully didn’t know that. (i’d seen gifs of the scene from the truth where scully is hugging mulder and crying and saying “my god where have you been… where have you been hiding” and i thought that might be from the s5 premiere since i had absolutely no context past that [that would make a cool fic actually] but in retrospect i should’ve figured it out by the hair alone.) so i freaked, wrote a big philosophical piece in my s4 review about mulder’s fake death and scullys probable guilt over his fake death, and then watched redux i and felt very stupid. also i didn’t think much of redux i (it was so freaking boring!!). however, when i watched redux ii later that night, i spent the entire episode inwardly screaming at all the touching. like i kept expecting it to dial down on the plot points (because at this point i expected like two big things per episode) but it didn’t and i was so damn hooked! like i freaked at the fake samantha even though i knew it wasn’t real. i freaked at all the hand holding. i freaked at the bill scully scenes. it was such an experience and i love it to death.

field trip: this is actually a more recent find, although i tried to rewatch a couple times. i rewatched it over christmas break, during a period where i felt like i was “rediscovering the x files” and was like “goddamn how did i not remember how good this is?!” it’s basically another study of their partnership, but it’s like the alternate, angstier bad blood - it shows how mulder and scully need each other. more specifically in their set roles for each other - believer and skeptic, yada yada yada. they start the episode fighting about those roles, and then, like all good tear-your-heart out seshes, they’re “proved right” - in scully’s case, in the worst way possible. (i mean, think about it. in scully’s hallucination, she thinks the last thing she ever said to mulder was a fight.) and the most telling thing is that they get that something is wrong as soon as they’re told they are right. they want to be challenged! they want to be proven wrong! they’re yin-yang - they need the opposite of themselves for balance. they complete each other in the best way possible. (i have a lot of feelings about this okay.)

28. IWTB or FTF? Why?

ftf, because it’s 10x better than iwtb, because the msr is very on point (the kiss scene and antarctica scenes kill me every time), because rob bowman is an amazing director, because ftf had a cohesive storyline, because it manages to entertain me for the entirety of the movie.

(x files ask)

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ciathyzareposts · 4 years

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Missed Classic: Moonmist – Representation Blues

Written by Joe Pranevich

I intended to wrap up Moonmist this week by closing out on the three remaining cases then moving quickly to the final rating. I did not make it. When playing and reviewing, I try to come to these games as unspoiled as I can. I learn what I need to discuss the history and place the game in context, but I avoid spoiling the plots and puzzles as much as I can. Usually that works, but in this case I missed one of the things that Moonmist is most remembered for: it is (supposedly) the first computer game to feature LGBT characters. I disagree with that assessment, but we’ll get there soon enough. It seems poor form for me to review this game, in Pride Month of all times, without giving space to discuss this important aspect of gaming history.

This week, I’m looking at the “blue” variant of Moonmist, the second one listed in the manual. (I finished “red” last week.) To the best of my knowledge, this is the only version that includes a LGBT-related plotline, but I have not played the others yet. I will take a quick look at LGBT representation in media more broadly into the 1980s and then dive into whether or not this game deserves its spot as the “first”. Of course, I’ll also be playing and solving the mystery itself! I hope that the final two variations don’t have more surprises that lead to hours of research and introspection. Read on for more.

Boston Pride in the mid-1980s.

I am not an expert on LGBT issues in pop culture and I encourage our commenters to tell me all of the details that I am sure to be missing. As a child of the 1980s, I grew up steeped in the stereotypes that pervaded America when this game was written. Jim Lawrence and Stu Galley are older still and grew up with the stereotypes that they picked up from the media of their day. Those attitudes stemmed from even earlier depictions in books and film. Attitudes are far from unchanging, but each successive generation carries a bit of the baggage of the previous.

At least in the United States, one of the ways in which pop culture shaped attitudes towards homosexuality is through the “Hays Code”, or more properly the “Motion Picture Production Code”. That is not to say that discrimination didn’t exist before– that code itself was a product of generational attitudes– but it codified (for film) a set of rules that was followed from the 1930s through the 1960s and persisted even later through the threat of boycotts and self-censorship. Similar codes existed in other media, but it is undeniable that the Hays Code helped to reinforce the way “average” Americans felt about certain issues. This is not limited to homosexuality! These rules banned depictions of inter-racial relationships, criticism of religion, pre-marital sex, and many other things. You could not portray a criminal as sympathetic. You had to show respect for law enforcement. Homosexuality, considered a “sexual perversion”, could be depicted only as a trait of a villain. LGBT characters in these films were murders and sadists brought to justice, or emotionally challenged individuals prone to suicide. Gay character traits became associated with villany. Long after the Hays Code fell out of favor, these tropes remained in use, burned into society’s collective unconscious.

It was Mr. Green with the (suggestive) pipe!

To take one small example, I looked last week at the film Clue and how it may have inspired Moonmist by featuring multiple endings. In that film, Mr. Green is depicted as a gay man who lives in constant fear of being discovered and losing his job at the State Department. This makes him an easy target for extortion. He’s a bumbling fool, although perhaps not much more than others in this comedy-mystery. It is only in the “real” ending of the film that Mr. Green is revealed to be a hero: he’s an undercover FBI agent who was working to expose the crimes of Mr. Boddy and the rest of the houseguests, all of whom had murdered someone over the course of the night. (Communism was a “red herring”!) But in that crowning moment of awesomeness, Mr. Green’s gayness was stripped away. As the police arrest the guests, Green speaks the final line of the film: “OK Chief, take them away! I’m gonna go home and sleep with my wife!” Even forty years later, LGBT representation in media often falls into established patterns. Gay characters are still often driven to suicide. If they don’t do it to themselves, they could be killed by something else, and may be the first in line to be killed in such a way.

I will spoil the ending a bit to say that this Moonmist variant falls right back on these tropes. In the “blue” mystery, Deirdre and Vivien are revealed to have been lovers. Deirdre is bisexual and torn between her love for a man (Lord Jack) and Vivien. Ultimately, she surrenders to suicide by jumping in the well in the basement of the castle. In comic book fashion, Vivien swears revenge on the man that took her love away. It is perhaps progressive by including gay characters at all, but these are the same “murderer” and “suicide” options that were all the rage during the Hays Code days.

I love a good Mac adventure.

After all that, was Moonmist really the first video game to include LGBT characters? Unfortunately not. We already saw one example in this very series! Leather Goddesses of Phobos includes a scene where the player character can choose to have sex with one of the titular Goddesses just before the end of the game. Unique across all of the sexual interactions you can have, this is the only one that is not gendered: the Goddesses are female whether you play as a man or a woman. If you choose to go that route, you can prove that your player character is not only bi-curious, but the villains are bisexual as well. They are still murderers and sadists, of course, fitting the evil gay trope exactly, but the game did come out a few months prior to Moonmist.

Another set of examples come from Europe, admittedly in games that most Americans would not have played. Two games by Froggy Software, written in French, feature gay villains:

Le crime du parking (1985) – In “The Parking Lot Crime”, the villain is a gay drug dealer.

Le mur de Berlin va sauter (1985) – In “The Berlin Wall Will Blow Up”, the villain is a gay terrorist who wants to destroy the Berlin Wall. Maybe he wasn’t all bad?

Not a single one of these games includes a positive depiction of LGBT characters!

To find a positive depiction, we have to turn the clock forward to 1989 and the graphical adventure Caper in the Castro by C. M. Ralph. Following indirectly in the footsteps of ICOM games such as Déjà Vu (1985), it features an on-the-nose detective named Tracker McDyke as she investigates the disappearance of a drag queen friend. She will have to search San Francisco’s famous Castro District, one of the most famous and earliest gay neighbothoods in the country, to solve the case. Ralph released the game to help raise money for AIDS-related charities; she also produced a “straight” variant (Murder on Mainstreet) that she expected would garner wider distribution. Once believed lost, this game has been recovered thanks to the efforts of the Internet Archive and Strong Museum of Play. I have added it to my personal “to play” list and hope to dive into it at some point in the future.

Where were we? Oh right, this is supposed to be a post about Moonmist.

I’m blue da ba dee da ba daa.

Playing the Blues

After finishing the first variant last week, I have no idea how the rest of them will go. Will they be mostly the same? Mostly different? How bored will I get if I must explore everything again? For this version, I’m choosing a female character again (“Ms. Blueish”), but I’ll use a male one and a “not specified” one for the final two just to see what is different. I will not recap everything that happens; please check out the previous two posts if you need a refresher.

After starting the game and picking my color, the game proceeds as before. The first change comes when I ask Tamara about the ghost. She tells me that she saw the ghost again, this time outside the office brandishing a sword. Tamaram fled back inside and locked the door. After a time, the ghost disappeared and was not seen again.

Just as before, Tamara leads me from room to room to introduce me to the guests. Most of the responses are unmemorable, but Vivien’s stand out. Let me quote them in full:

> ask vivien about ghost

She is somber as she replies, “I dare say it was morbid of me but one night I went to the basement, just to try to imagine the horrible scene where poor Deirdre suffered her… tragic accident. Suddenly I heard somebody calling my name softly. I turned ‘round and there was Deirdre herself standing by the stairs! I went absolutely numb! She smiled faintly, then fled up the stairs. I started to follow, but then I knew it was no use. Deirdre is dead and gone, and chasing her ghost won’t bring her back to me.

> ask vivien about Deirdre

The artist shrugs with a sad, wistful smile. “What can I say? Deirdre was a most unusual girl… utterly unworldly… almost fey. She grew up in a cottage not far from here, you know. Her drowning was a terrible tragedy… and yet… sometimes I’m not sure she WANTED to go on living.” She turns her face away to hide a tear.

“Chasing her ghost won’t bring her back to me.” Does that sound like I think it sounds? Were Vivien and Deirdre together!? That would be an amazing twist, if so. We know that Deirdre was engaged to Jack in all of the versions since it is in the manual text. Was she only with Jack to hide a secret love affair? Or was this something simpler, like a childhood dalliance? And how could a socialite like Deirdre even meet a poor woman that grew up in a nearby cottage? Perhaps her art inspired her to fraternize with the locals? It seems like they would have had quite different social circles.

Something like this?

We are eventually brought to our room to freshen up. Just as before, Bolitho, the butler, stops by for a chat. He also spied the White Lady in this version, except now she was in the New Great Hall and searching on the floor like she needed glasses! The butler also seems to be hinting about how to open the secret passage in my room. The language is exactly the same as before, but I suspect that I just didn’t catch on until I learned more about how the passages work. A nice little detail!

I dress and head downstairs for dinner. I get there a few minutes early so I have time to search the New Great Hall on the way. Somehow managing to remain untrampled, I discover a contact lens on the floor. The ghost really did need glasses! Who could it belong to?

The dinner party proceeds as before with the butler leaving a note about the staff leaving, Jack announcing his engagement, and Lionel’s recorded voice from beyond the grave surprising his guests with a “scavenger hunt”. The first clue is still hidden under the punch bowl, but this time it is a picture of a skeleton in a Chinese Mandarian costume. What could that mean? The second clue is given to Jack this time and it is a rhyming poem with some words missing:

Three fellows argued about life:

1. ‘Using this motto, no chap can go wrong:

Leave the wench and the grape, and go with a _____!

2. ‘On the seas of my life is a ship that is laden

Not with bottles or tunes, but with innocent ____s!

3. ‘Women and singing are both very fine,

But for me there is nothing to equal good _____!

The answers are simple, especially since the topics are reiterated in all three stanzas: “song”, “maiden”, and “wine”. Thanks to my exploration last time, I know there is a wine cellar in the basement, an iron maiden in the dungeon, and a piano in the sitting room. Plaything through multiple times has advantages!

Since everyone is together, I ask about glasses and the lost contact lens. Would anyone be dumb enough to admit it? Dr. Wendish wears glasses but says that he cannot stand contacts. Hyde wears a monocle. Vivien claims that she cannot tolerate contacts but wears glasses for close-up work in her art. No immediate clues there.

The party moves to the sitting room. I grab the maid’s note off the desk and it’s the same as before but ends with a strange warning:

Me Dad always says that the first sign of a nut case is when a person starts talking to hisself. Well, if you was to ask me, there is more than ne way to talk to himself. Some does it on paper, and that is the type person to watch out for.

I still hate the face accented speech. I also have no idea what this means, except that I should be on the lookout for a villain that leaves Post-Its around the mansion documenting his or her crimes.

Armor or Armour? You decide.

Since I am here, I check the piano. Instead of music from A Prairie Home Companion, the piano now has Beethoven’s Suite #9 ready to be played. Someone has circled the “SUIT” in the title. That must be a clue! I immediately check the suit of armor in the hall and am rewarded with yet another clue. This is going very quickly! Unfortunately, it isn’t quite as self-explanatory as the others:

My al___ has no glamour;

Its ‘___e’ tones do clam___.

Can you find me?

I have no idea what that means so I head down to the wine cellar instead. As expected, I locate a bottle of wine with “OUR” circled on the label. I get cocky and guess that the iron maiden will have an “ARM” label on it someplace, but I am disappointed. Two out of three isn’t bad! I’m certain that the clue is just telling me to search the armor, so it is no longer necessary. While exploring, I notice that this time it is Vivien and not Jack who is scouring the house for treasure. Jack is content to let someone else find his family’s priceless heirloom? I still do not understand the rules of this scavenger hunt.

It takes only a few minutes of searching to discover a fossil skill hidden in the bell on the roof of the castle. My hint was that the word “clamour” would have rhymed with “glamour” and that was the only clamorous object I could remember. I have no idea what the other blanks are supposed to mean, but it hardly seems to matter now.

A fancy contact lens case from the 1980s.

It’s only 9:45 PM! I am making excellent time through the game, but I still need to figure out who the ghost is. With Vivien busy searching the castle, I sneak into her room and search. Inside her art supply box, I discover a contact lens case with a missing contact. Score! Vivien is the ghost, but why? I grab the box and show it to her, but she claims that I planted it in her room to frame her. I try a more direct approach by hiding in the secret passages until the ghost appears. That worked last time and it works again! This time, the White Lady appears armed with a blowgun. I quickly fire the butler’s aerosol can at her and she falls to the floor unconscious. I search her to confirm that yes, it is Vivien. Worse, her blowgun contained a real poisoned dart. She was out to kill someone tonight… but who?

I wake Vivien but instead of admitting it all, she sort of sleepwalks to her room. What was in that spray? Once there, she still doesn’t admit anything. I show her the ghost costume and she accuses me of planting it! I just caught you in the secret passage! The nerve of some people.

The step that I missed ends up being simple: if I had looked in Vivien’s art supply box again after removing the contact lens case, I would have discovered her diary. Reading that reveals a tear-stained page:

O Deirdre, sweet Deirdre! Jack will pay dearly for your cruel death by losing his new sweetheart…

That gives us our motive and we can finally accuse her of being the ghost. Bolitho appears and takes her away. The narrator reveals what really happened:

Vivien was intensely attached to Deirdre, and she jealously hated Lord Jack for coming between them. When Deirdre accidentally fell down the well, Vivien was convinced that she had committed suicide because she felt abandoned by Jack.

So Vivien began her vengeful ghostly masquerade — to find proof that Jack was responsible for Deirdre’s death, to prick his guilty conscience and make him confess, and to terrorize Tamara, who replaced Deirdre in Jack’s affections.

This time around, Vivien didn’t actually kill anyone. Deirdre’s death was an accident rather than a suicide– although I’m not sure I believe that– and Vivien wanted revenge on Jack for it. It’s all rather complicated. It also means that the maid must have read her diary which also just comes off as creepy, although not as creepy as dressing in a glow-in-the-dark ghost costume. (Yes, you can use it as a light source!) In this version, either Lionel’s death was natural or Jack was much better about hiding it.

It actually doesn’t seem impossible that, other than the ghost, the stories aren’t mutually exclusive. Jack could still have killed Lionel and Deirdre, just as in the “red” version, but this time Deirdre is either really dead or has no interest in coming back to either of her two lovers. Will the rest of the cases fit together as well? We’ll have to play them to see.

With luck, next week will really be the Final Rating. Thanks for humoring me through this special look at the “blue” version. Happy Pride!

Time Played: 1 hr 20 min Total Time: 6 hr 45 min

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/missed-classic-moonmist-representation-blues/

#retro games #dos games #retro #crpg #adventure #amiga #oldcomputers #8bit #16bit #blog #repost

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canvaswolfdoll · 7 years

Text

CanvasWatches: Haibane-Renmei

Should I start doing the (Re)Watches thing again, or is that a superfluous detail? On one hand, it provides information that it’s a review not based on my very first impressions, but on the other, is it really necessary?

Anyways, I rewatched Haibane-Renmei. I like it? It’s… it’s a nice little thing. Arty, imaginative, and dark without being outright pretentious about it. Class act. You should go watch it.

Seriously, it’s the type of show that… well, it doesn’t live or die by being unspoiled, but it’d be difficult to discuss without both participants having the context of seeing it. It’s one of those shows that’s more about aesthetic and tone than actual story.

It’s on Funimation at least, and I’m not even being sponsored to carefully, yet firmly shove you in it’s general direction! I just really like dubs and want to support them.[1] Also, it’s on Youtube, legally.

Go watch it. I’ll wait for you. After the page break.

So, one of the lessons one should study from the show is world building by suggestion instead of explicit dialogue. The show is a rare example of pretty much the entire cast knowing very little about what’s up with the fantastical elements, and those who might know something aren’t talking.

Heck, the guys likely to know something use a sign language just to avoid people requesting exposition. The jerks.

As a consequence of this, based on the piece by itself, I can’t conclusively tell you what The Deal with everything is, merely speculate based on imagery and random details.

I mean, the Haibane have a lot of Angel Imagery about them, and they’re… hatched? Born knowing how to walk and talk, and though they have no memory, and yet, based on Rakka’s experience, they feel as if they should remember something, but come up blank.

So I think it’s probably a purgatory thing, much like Angel Beats! wherein the residents have emotional baggage holding them back.

Except the Haibane don’t remember what traumas they might have, so it might be a more inner peace sort of thing?

I could also be totally off base, which is also exciting.

It’s that very aspect that makes this an important lesson: Haibane-Renmei works with being vague about its world because that’s what the story calls for. Other narratives, where you can’t take the fantastical elements with casualness, require exposition.

Basically, Haibane-Renmei is a benchmark for one end of the exposition scale. Stare at it, and hopefully I can find it’s partner at the other end.[2]

There are things about the world you can deduce and interpret, and admittedly ascribe. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter too much, as the actual central narrative is first about Rakka learning about the world she’s suddenly born into, then Reki overcoming her internal struggles with the help of Rakka.

Which is probably a metaphor about depression.

Look, I’ve always held the philosophy of ‘It’s nothing without a good surface story’ and despise when media tries to push vaguely defined symbolism and “Hidden Meaning” as the focus. If I can’t understand it on a first viewing, you have failed.

Haibane-Renmei does that correctly. On the first viewing, I had lingering curiosities, but I was mostly invested in exploring the world and solving what Reki’s big problem is.

And, now that I know those things, I am willing and able to enjoy a second viewing where I can analyze whatever bizarre elements are in the borders, because the creator put in the work of making a strong focal story that isn’t desperate to discard Unworthy Viewers.

Someone I’m particularly drawn to is The Communicator, who is sort of community leader for the Haibane, and thus the person probably most informed by what is going on, but at the same time is of the ‘vague lessons’ school that The Sphinx satirized.

He’s what the professor of a story analysis class I accidentally[4] took might call ‘The System Character’: a character that represents a system the protagonist is (supposedly) fighting against.[5]

The Communicator’s actually a very compassionate but reserved man, who clearly cares for his charges while trying to remain emotionally distant from these beings who, by their very nature, are destined to leave. He is the chief executor of the laws and customs that govern the Haibane, but will allow them to be broken or stretched whenever they’d be hindering. For example, he’s notably lax about Haibane speaking within the temple, which is supposedly forbidden, and eventually gives Rakka a job maintaining the structure Haibane must never touch.

And I think that’s because, over the last five years, The Communicator has realized that being overly restrictive may have doomed Reki, and built a divide that makes him incapable of helping her.

So, now, he needs to use Rakka to save the artist’s soul, but mindfully so as not to accidentally condemn Rakka. It’s subtle, but The Communicator keeps a close tab on at least Old Home and its going-ons, and when the more naive Rakka begins going through the same struggles as Reki is suffering, The Communicator identifies how Reki’s found a kindred spirit, and now can teach and help this New Feather, then aim her to help the Haibane he fears he’s going to lose.

It’s also implied that he, too, has failed to take flight, and wishes the pain of this failure on no one.

Then again, this might be things I’m just ascribing. But it doesn’t matter, because that’s not the point of the show. Its point is to bring the viewer into a new world and tell a pleasant story within it.

I’ve always had an odd fascination with Death Mythology stories. From Anthropomorphic Personifications to what comes after, if you make Death a character or show me what comes next (even just portionally) you’ll have my attention.[7] And it shouldn’t be surprising, since death’s such a scary thing that looms over everyone, with some many unknowable questions, that of course humanity would try to answer these questions.

And Purgatories are bizarrely compelling because the implied existence of a transition world, where you go from an impermanent life to an equally impermanent realm. Heck, Dante’s own depiction portrayed it as climbing a mountain as you overcome your sins before finally being granted access to Paradise.[8] To go through the trial of life, only to find yourself before yet another trial is fascinating.

And the town of Haibane Renmei, Glie, is fascinating as far as Purgatories go, since not only can you die there conventionally, but there’s assumably mortal humans residing there, working jobs, living life, having babies, but also all forbidden from exiting the walls that surround the town, which explicitly has an outside world that is travelled by nomads known as Togas (who might be failed Haibane).

It’s also stated, explicitly, that Haibane that fail to take their day of flight will lose their halo and wings, and will grow old and die.

What does it mean to die in the afterlife? Where do you go? And what are the townspeople? Are they also deceased, but following a different path to salvation? Or are they mortals, and Glie is somewhere in the real world, like Baum’s Oz?

These are the sorts of Death World-building questions that excite me, and don’t have answers or are particularly addressed, and I’m not dissatisfied about that. Partly because, again, there’s a focal narrative, and partially because I appreciate having world elements just because that’s how the creator wants it to be, without any meaning behind it.

It’s okay to just have blue curtains.

Still, this is an Anime about Death and Depression, even if no one says so on screen.

We witness two characters pass on and go beyond the wall, and depression wreck our protagonists.

Kuu’s Day of Flight is viewed by most as good and right, and they move on. Rakka, of course, wasn’t properly informed about it, so was taken by surprise and fell into depression.

But the actions Kuu takes leading up to it…

So, I’m not a medical practitioner, and I’m not sure if I suffer (or have suffered) depression, so I’m basing this next bit of analysis on the word of mouth information that gets passed around. However…

Kuu’s shown to be upbeat as she goes about, tying up loose ends, granting vague good-byes to others in her life, and gives away her possessions (highlighted by Kuu giving her favorite coat to Rakka). While the upbeat personality didn’t come suddenly, this is still frightfully similar to suicide warning signs you’re supposed to keep an eye out for. This is the healthy “Death” of the series.

I’m sure the similarities were accidental, but it’s still intriguing.

In contrast, there’s Reki’s depression and suicide attempt.

The lead up shows her being more isolating, moving out of what was once her room and into her studio, where she desperately paints, trying to remember her cocoon dream, and no one but Rakka takes much notice, as only Rakka and Nemu know about Reki being sin-bound, and Rakka’s the only one to go through it personally.[9]

The sequence and final episode is emotional. Even as Reki prepares to be crushed by her train, she doesn’t really want to leave, and she even identifies what she needs to do to get out of it (ask for help), but still finds herself unable. Even when Rakka arrives to try and help, presenting Reki with her true name, Reki still rejects it (probably not helped by the fact that the Communicator’s first story amounts to ‘Well, your lot is to end in pain. Shrug Ascii.’) and Reki says things she knows will hurt Rakka, things that Reki tells her are true, that Reki never cared for Rakka, she just needed someone for one last attempt at being normal.

And so, Rakka leaves, and finds Reki’s diary to confirm that, no, Reki’s not actually that self-serving, and the depressed artist does still care.

So, Rakka returns, but it’s nearing too late, and Rakka is unable to help until, finally, moments before the end, Reki finally asks for help.

And gets it. So that’s nice.

However, Reki still leaves that same night, narrated by the Communicator’s revised story, as Reki’s True Name has changed to what she’d been using the whole time.

Because Reki, by putting on a mask and going through the motions for selfish reasons, was still doing good for others and living life. She kept trying, and eventually she ceased being her true self and was absorbed into her mask, which was also happened to be a healthier person.

Really, the one change I’d make is to delay Reki’s day of flight by at least a couple days, let the girl finally enjoy sunlight unhampered, and go around making amends for the wrongs she did and the wongs she received.

Have her meet with the Communicator first, both of them seeking repentance from the other, then have the Communicator tell his revised story over images of Reki returning to Abandoned Factory and making amends, playing with young feathers at Old Home, spending some time with Nemu, then a few scenes of her closing loose ends like Kuu before taking her day of flight.

I just didn’t like Reki surviving her suicide attempt, only to die that night anyways. I know life’s like that, but I think we could allow a little more fantasy in our town inhabited by angels.

I wish I could transition through my flippant ‘well, I could be wrong, art’s mysterious’ but I hate that mentality. I try to be open to being wrong and corrected, but I don’t like being indifferent, and I’m always annoyed by artists that embrace Death of the Author. It’s your work, your art, your creation. It has a part of you in it, that’s how art is created. You have authority over your story, don’t shrug that off. Embrace it.

Which… I think Haibane-Renmei doesn’t do that. Obviously, there’s a translation barrier, and I’m going off of TV Tropes, but when ABe (sic) says he’s keeping explanations vague to allow viewer interpretation, it feels less flippant than… cuss it, I’m naming names… less like Adventure Zone (Balance Arc) and Runewriters,[10] which have more concrete worlds and tones more towards telling a complete story, yet the creators have gone on record saying any peripheral material they produce or say has the same weight as any fan theory made by the audience.[11]

Haibane-Renmei, as a story and a piece of art, thrives off those vagueties. Rakka’s not sure exactly what’s going on, because her fellows are also working off an incomplete picture, because no one’s given a complete portrait. As such, the viewers are also kept unsure, because that’s what our viewpoint character is always feeling.

It’s set in a town literally closed off from the rest of the world, whatever that world is, because no one is allowed past those walls.

ABe gets to be vague because revealing concrete details would make this particular art weaker.

The work earned it.

I… really should do an essay on Death of the Author, and its use by modern critics and artists. Because I so hate it.

Well… that was my Rewatch of Haibane-Renmei, and harsh criticism of two Literary Criticism theories.

I really love this series. It’s an anime I think everyone should see, for it’s message and artistry.

I’d be happy to hear your thoughts or questions, because I like going off on weird tangents. Maybe, while you’re here, consider checking out my other works, and if you like what I’m doing, I’ve got a Patreon. Local businesses won’t accept the pages out of my notebooks as payment, after all.

Kataal kataal.

[1] Then again, Funimation, if you’d like to… the My Hero Academica Review got, like, three notes! Eh? [2] Needs to be exposition heavy, but still narratively satisfying.[3] [3] I hope it’s not Tolkien. I hate Tolkien. [4] I thought I was signing up for a storytelling class. But, no, it was an ego stroking class on the teacher’s personal analysis method, that was ultimately horribly reductionist. The useful stuff can be found on TV Tropes (better executed) and the rest was chaft. Lady literally thought she could graph comedy, and was too proud to play Pac-Man. [5] The fact that Rakka happily works within the system, and Reki’s problems spawn from rebelling is a good example why the professor of Footnote 4 is wrong.[6] [6] I have a lot of lingering resentment, and must now try not to spend this review tearing apart an unknown literary theory. [7] Though you still have to keep it. Watched an amount of Soul Eater while I was home sick from school, but I feel no draw to return to it. [8] I strongly recommend Overly Sarcastic Productions video on Purgatorio for those interested in finding out about The Divine Comedy’s Empire without actually reading it. [9] Also, they take medicine to hide the signs, though the black wings still remain. [10] Sorry, Shazzbaa. We cool? [11] Any further thoughts probably deserve an essay onto itself.

#CanvasWatches #haibane renmei #CanvasReviews #anime

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flauntpage · 7 years

Text

Golden State InfoWarriors: Among The Conspiracy Theorists At Oracle Arena

Conspiracy.

You'd think that a fan-base with a barely two-year-old NBA championship to its name, a bevy of superstars and a commanding series lead coming into the game wouldn't feel victimized.

But goodness me, I heard that word a lot around the Bay Area in the days before the NBA Finals came back to Oakland on Monday night. Conspiracy. Rigging. Money trumping everything. The innocent Bay, unspoiled by cynicism or avarice and blessedly untouched by the disgusting hand of the oligarchs of the world, was sure that their Warriors were going to lose Game 5. The global forces of capital demanded another game, and another game's worth of television revenues. It was the blameless, hard-working Warriors, like Steve Kerr (averaging a salary of $5 million a year) and Kevin Durant (guaranteed more than $54,000,000 between this year and next year), who would pay the price.

This was the hum I heard in the Stella Artois club at Oracle Arena, where people were poured $13 Bud Lites and were charged $120 for a jersey. The conversation in the air was one of fear, but not the usual "man we're gonna get roughed up by the refs" fear of a team that did not want to slog through another series against LeBron James. Rich, powerful men were convinced that they were about to be robbed. This was chili-tilted, Alex Jones-level muttering, a fan base humming with paranoia about—if stopping just short of accusing—the globalists cruelly using their influence to change the fate of the $1.6 billion Golden State Warriors, who make around $168 million a year. Or at least push the series to a sixth game, anyway.

Moneyballs

It's time for some game theory.

My friend Colin is a ticket hound, and regularly gets into games for a few hundred dollars that would usually cost thousands. He does this by gaming the system using a series of apps to play the same digital mind-games that touts play with fans. As he'd told me many times before, the system usually worked on the prospect of driving up pricing right until tip-off. Usually, the ticket hoarders drive up their prices to varying levels of obscenity—over $2,000 for one lower-level seat where you can vaguely make out an ass, but not a specific ass, up to $5,432 (which I heard referred to as "a hell of a deal) for a courtside club seat near the hoop, where you could specifically identify any number of sports-asses, but not really see the game so well.

The bottom line, I quickly understood, was that I would need to put aside my preconceived sense of the value of a sports ticket. It is obscene, almost insulting to the suffering communities of the Bay Area that aren't San Francisco, just to see these numbers discussed. It is easy to imagine a way this could all be a lot less gross; there are an infinite number of better uses for Ticketmaster gouge-fees than being funneled back into the Ticketmaster machine, and the Warriors have a great deal more leverage on this than they appear willing to use. Anyway, the conversation among the people who had been gouged on those fees for this game was about referee rigging.

Would you pay $10,000 for a chance to sit near motivational speaker Tony Robbins? Photo by Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports

The Uber For Touting

Usually, if you watch the right apps, you can see the moment when ticket-holders start shitting their pants. Sometime just before the game, people that bought tickets in advance with the intention of making a profit will realize that they are screwed. Prices are meant to drop, but they didn't on Monday.

Before the game, Colin showed me Row 10, eight rows behind me, at $3,400 a seat with taxes and fees. That was more than I'd paid; the seat directly in front of me was selling, or not selling, for $5,102.50. My favorite, and my dude if you are reading this I hope you're a season ticket holder doing Tout Irony, was by the 115 section corner on the Warriors' side, which listed $10,800 for a couple of seats. God bless this hopeful seller. This was less than a pair of $9,000 on-the-floor "VIP" seats, which offered a view both of the game and of Chris Rock and other celebrities checking their phones.

At 5:30 PM PT, there were still lots of expensive seats available.

At 6 p.m. I was ready for some football—"uh, this is basketball," the man in front of me told me sternly when I made this joke out loud—and tickets were either withdrawn, unsold, or left at the same price. Just before tipoff a lucky buyer could have gotten a steal (?) of a deal on a $3,965 front-row dead center Cavs-side ticket, or scored one for $3,108 for the same on the Warriors' side. The disparity was not an accident; people wanted to be on "the right side" of the arena despite there being precious few Cavaliers fans in the actual house.

I kept watch for the hour or so in which you can still buy tickets through the Gametime app as the game begins, as well as the Warriors' featured "you can upgrade your current seat using our app for $100-$1000 a ticket" app (which allows you to do so from 4PM to 30 minutes after tip-off.) At 15 minutes in there were still at least 25 seats on sale, all of them priced to the purest obscenity. I was delighted to see that the $10k "why am I sitting here" corner seats disappeared around then. I hope they sold to the biggest, dumbest startup idiot alive. I'm not even going to comment on the $22,954 courtside club seat far off in the bottom corner of the Cavs' side.

Prices just kept on rising, with a few disappearing and more appearing, then at about 6:45 PM the wheels came off of the market. Tickets dropped off rapidly, some withdrawn and some sold; you could see as they'd flash yellow if they were sold (which was much rarer), and those were mostly fairly (in context) higher-level 200's seats of people saying "hey, $800 ain't bad to see the Warriors win." I watched as the $5,232 seat quite literally in front of me (102, row 1), the $8,260 corner Courtside Club seat—by the by, the demarcation between courtside and sideline club is different seat and stair color, and you can get drink service—and the $2,238 section 108 (close enough to say with some certainty "that's Steph Curry's ass!" but not the action) seats sat inert. Colin himself remarked that it was weird.

By 7:01 PM all that remained were two staunch, sad seats—lower baseline ($1,127 for a view of some yellow and reddish ants) and $1,400 (217, row 17, a better view, off to the left). They never sold.

At game time, several expensive seats remained unsold. Photo by Cary Edmondson-USA TODAY Sports

Infowarriors

During the game, I went out to grab a beer and was confronted by some sort of touch-screen beer thing. You'd slide a card, you'd choose a beer, and then the thing would dispense the beer. A woman grabbed me by the arm and yelled that I'd "LITERALLY [emphasis hers] ignored the ENTIRE line." The line was long, to be fair, but I had misunderstood the process. The process was that you had to line up behind 50 people in order to get a punch card, in order to buy beers from a totally automated machine.

Take a look y'all:

Look at this crazy beer tech! Photo by author

The people in this line were mumbling about "biased" refs, too. "It's bullshit," said one guy in line at the bar as he gulped down a beer that he'd finish before he got to the machine that would sell him another beer. "They let us get this far so they could make money, now it'll go to Game 7, because they want to make money." I asked how he thought they'd do this, what system was in place, and he looked at me and said "look, man, they've got cameras everywhere. They know when to call shit." I still don't know what this means.

Near my seat I chatted with a guy who'd had season tickets since the 1990's, and who also shared the conspiracy. "Three phantom calls!" he bellowed in the first minute when the Warriors were called for fouls like "he touched him" or "shoe was too squeaky, distraction on the play."

"It's crooked," he grunted at me as the refs failed to call LeBron for the foul of "scoring points on The Warriors."

Of course this isn't unusual in sports, and Warriors fans are no less petty than any team claiming the referee's a wanker, or wants the other side to win. But they were not quite talking about the refs, or not just talking about the refs. They kept saying it was about the NBA wanting to rig this for an extra game. Perhaps it was more that the Warriors kept trying to do flashy triple-passes or were being outshot from three by a percentage of 36.8% to the Cavs' 45.8%. Or maybe a belief somehow persists that the NBA is just hurting for cash, and must conspire to make more. Like all conspiracy theories, the truth said out loud is absurd—the fans I asked said they "beat the shit" out of the Cavs the first three games, but Game 4 was "stolen." This one was "rigged" too. If someone glanced harshly at Steph Curry, someone in our section would cry foul.

When David West and Tristan Thompson got angry after Kyrie Irving yelled (I think) "Westworld fuckin' sucked!" a fight began. The woman behind me, in the same tone that I've heard really nasty shit said, yelled "THEY'RE FUCKIN' ANIMALS," and "OUR BOYS ARE CLASSY."

Snoop Dogg and Stephen A. Smith shake hands prior to Game 5 because sure why not? Photo by Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

Conspiracy or not, the Warriors carried a lead over an exhausted opponent. My nephew and I could see the tiredness in LeBron's eyes—he had conviction, and some evident fury at his team's failures, but he mostly skipped the Warriors' truculent, endless complaining. The Warriors played whimsical and fancified at times; they seemed almost to be having too much fun.

Yet people kept saying there was a conspiracy. "Refs are in the pocket of the NBA" came from the top of the stands. "It's fuckin'RIGGED," they yelled at every foul, even with a 10-point lead and the Cavaliers approaching exhaustion. Whenever they missed a shot, a man in his late fifties, on his own, would throw the bird and yell "FUCK YOU LEBRON" at the Cavs bench. No matter the Warriors lead, there remained a cacophony of queasy dipshittery.

Yet it really was a great game. Both teams played all out until the end, but the dominance the Warriors hold over the NBA is brutal and stunning to behold. It's simple and stunning how powerless every opponent was when it came to preventing Durant from doing what he wanted; Curry's speed and vision seemed supernatural. If there was coaching happening on either side, I didn't see it. I just saw two teams locked in a game that, however imbalanced, was incredibly entertaining.

In those last 58 seconds, I could still hear chatter behind me about how "we're lucky to have won, 'cause the refs wanted seven games. The NBA just wants our money, man." Twenty seconds remained and one guy yelled "FUCK, WHAT WAS THAT?" for some reason. If you were wondering who was booing when Adam Silver was introduced to hand Durant the Bill Russell NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Award, wonder no more.

My brother and his girlfriend later confirmed that things were no different in their seats. People were wailing about the conspiracy against the Warriors despite a dominant performance. "It doesn't matter we're leading, they're just gonna take it from us," with they being the NBA. The Warriors fans—and I suppose I should add that I'm a Warriors fan, and that I live in Oakland—were worse than just sore winners. They were tantrum-throwing children, seething over their expensive toys.

Hearing "NEVERTHELESS, THEY PERSISTED" as the Warriors led by 10 to 14 points was inarguably my second-worst moment of the game. The next was when the announcer said "and thanks to the players of the Cleveland Cavaliers" and the arena erupted in boos. Sure, it's normal sports bullshit, the human nature of us versus them. But after crying that the NBA was beating up your multi-million superteam and then giving Cleveland hell isn't just unsportsmanlike, it just felt pathetic.

It also felt like the Bay, circa now. What happens if the Warriors decline, as they eventually must? Will it be a conspiracy, then? Will it be bad coaching, then? Will Steve Kerr Have To Go despite two championships in three years? There are a lot of wins ahead for this team, but it's hard to imagine that there are enough for the people I saw fuming through this victory. We don't just have a tech bubble. We've got a Warriors bubble. And when it bursts, it'll be painful.

Golden State InfoWarriors: Among The Conspiracy Theorists At Oracle Arena published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

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