#this is another character where most of the info about their gender boils down to “najimi is najimi” which is so valid

[do-you-know-this-queer-character]

Do you know this queer character?

Najimi is Genderqueer, Nonbinary, and/or Bigender and uses they/them, he/him, and she/her pronouns!

[cas-rivaille]

HELLO, DEAR!

Undertaker here! How are you today?

I was thinking the other day and I remembered an idea of mine I requested some time ago to another blog and I wanted to see your point of view as well, if you're comfortable with it ofc! I'll change it a bit because I have more ideas about it than before.

What if, hear me out, Obey me!MC was Sukuna's vessel??

I was thinking about a Female!MC but if you want you can keep them gender neutral (I don't mind!). So let's get into it, shall we?

Some facts about MC before the Devildom:

- They've already eaten all Sukuna's fingers

-But they are able to keep him calm inside themselves because over the year they've been together, MC decided to approach him more (Ya know if you have to die with/for someone, at least know them better)

-Sukuna took a liking to the MC, even though he would never admit it. (I mean- They always visit him in his domain to talk to him, read together, play cards (yes. You heard me. The king of curses loves Poker and UNO) or chess, they always ask him where would he like to go eat something, offer him some of their food to let him try new things, ect. Sometimes, but only SOMETIMES, they let him take control (not fully but they both can talk from the same mouth and he has control over one side, while MC has control over the other one))

- Having said that, Sukuna's still a stinky sassy bastard King. He's still rude, acts like he doesn't care about them and always finds a way to let them down when they're too happy. If they're sad though, he doesn't hurt them more. Sometimes MC even asks him advice whenever they're in doubt and after his bulling he actually gives pretty good advice (if you consider extreme violence a good advice that is)

Anyway, MC was going to get executed when suddenly they fell into Devildom. Their file didn't mention Sukuna at all and MC noticed that because when they arrived covered in talismans and chains the demons were confused about it. So, they kept the King a secret until lesson 16.

After Belphegor's crushing hug, while MC (the one from the original timeline) is in Mammon's arm, before Barbatos Thanoses the other timeline, Sukuna heals them and takes fully control of their body (the tattoos, the fangs, the long black claws, the other pairs of eyes and arms appear).

Now, HOW would the brothers, Diavolo and Barbatos react?

If it is too much or I did something wrong, feel free to ignore this! It's okay! Love you and have a good day!

OH MY GOD ?? THIS IS FANTASTIC THANK YOU OMG !

(i think i'm gonna do it hc style for the individual characters feelings but also some dialogue n stuff and each hc thing for each character is written as like in the game like they all like MC except belphie for obvious reasons)

tags: swearing, lesson uhhh smth spoilers ?? i think like 16 ?? (lmk if i need to tag anything else)

also hi ‘taker🥺🥺 i’m good today,, had a bit of a rough morning but i got to see my partner so i feel better !! how are you ? :D

and without further ado..

MC who is Sukuna's Vessel

- hold up

- hold the fuck up

- it was confusing enough when there were two MCs and one of them was near death in mammon's arms

- but now the injured MC gets healed and comes back to life ? but has another set of arms and eyes and is covered in strange tattoos ?

- then the other MC disappears ?

- when the demon MC starts talking, their voice is different and what-

--

"What the fuck did you to do MC?" Sukuna hastily spits out, checking the body for any other injuries. MC's voice is back and talking out of the same mouth.

"Sukuna, stand down," MC says.

"But he almost killed you ! Without me we wouldn't be standing here right now !" Sukuna argues back.

"I'm aware of that, but we have to be civil about this and talk to them," MC responds sternly.

"Then I want to be present for it. I'm not letting anything happen to you- I mean me. Yes me because I die if you die and I'm too godly to die," Sukuna rambles out before retracting the other set of arms but leaving the tattoos. He opens one of the eyes and forms a mouth on MC's right cheek to watch and participate in the conversation.

All the brothers and Divolo looked stunned at the scene that just happened.

"Questions ?" MC jokingly asks.

--

Lucifer -

- what ?

- questions ? is MC joking ?

- who the fuck is talking out of MCs body and what jurisdiction does he have

- isnt MC supposed to be human ??

- what does this mean for their relationship ?

- why did MC keep it from him ?

- he looks at dia and barbatos with the most confused face

- looks back at MC equally confused

- def hurts his pride that he didn't know

--

"Explain"

Lucifer's confusion turns to anger because that's the only way he knows how to cope/react to this.

Sukuna starts talking.

"Show a little more respect. I'm a king after all."

"Don't be an ass," MC shoots back. MC looks at Lucifer a little embarrassed.

"Uh, so this is Sukuna. He's the king of curses ? We kind of share a body because... uhh... it's a very long story but i mean the gist of it is I ate his thousand year old fingers ? There was 20 of them because he had two sets of arms like you saw before- it was very gross- but i had to because of the energy they posses ? When you brought me here and I was covered in seals and chains, was when I was about to be executed because I have all of Sukuna in me. So,, he can do stuff like heal my body and give me cool powers ? I don't really know what else to say." MC rambles using awkward hand motions and finishes by scratching the back of their head.

"Way to make me sound like a total fucking loser," Sukuna glares at MC.

"For the love of god stop talking-" MC shoots back.

--

Mammon

- huh ? someone has been sharing a body with his MC the whole time ?

- were they present the whole time ?

- did they see him acting like an idiot in love ?

- was sukuna there during e v e r y conversation he's ever had w them

- never felt more insecure and betrayed tbh

- why wouldn't you tell him ? he was your first

</3

- wants you all to himself

- doesn't want to share you with some four armed idiot

--

"So he's just, there all the time ?" Mammon asks.

"Not really? He has a headspace and he usually just chills in there but he can watch what's going on if he wants to." MC responds.

"That makes me sound lazy," Sukuna complains.

"Well if you don't like how I describe you then maybe you can talk about yourself. You're very good at it," MC smirks.

"Fine. I can do whatever I want. We can trade who has control over MC's body. I have a large supply of cursed energy and will beat the shit out of the next person who touches MC," Sukuna glares at Belphie.

"Yeah beat them in poker maybe. But not mariokart. You suck at video games in the headspace," MC laughs.

--

Leviathan

- was that how MC was so good at video games ?

- because they spent hours on end with this guy in their head playing video games ?

- why didn't MC come to him to play games ?

- why is MC okay with sharing a body with Sukuna ?

- why can he be the one to share a body with MC ?

- why was MC playing video games with literally anyone else ?

--

"So let me get this straight, you are his fingers and now you share a body ? How does that even work ? That sounds like something out of the manga 'My best friend ate some ancient object and now shares a body with an immortal warrior'" Levi questions MC.

"Okay so, Sukuna lived a really long time ago. When he died, the only thing that survived were his fingers. They each hold an incredible amount of cursed energy and it's only his fingers so from there you can imagine how powerful he was with the rest of his body," MC explains.

"Okay but that doesn't tell me why you ate the fingers ?" Levi raises an eyebrow.

"Oh. So I went to a high school for Jujutsu sorcerers, which are people who can manipulate cursed energy, and once I ate the first one to save my friend from dying, my choices were to die now or eat all of Sukuna and then be executed because he would die with me," MC says as if them dying was nothing.

--

Satan

- why has he never heard about Sukuna in any of the books he's read ?

- he historically doesn't exist in anything the devildom has book-wise

- so who is he ?

- needs to find out everything he can about him

- is there a way to separate MC and Sukuna ?

- his blood is boiling at the thought of MC sharing a body with someone

--

"So you've basically had super human powers this entire time and elected to not tell us ?" Satan glares at MC.

"Well, when you put it like that it sounds bad. I just didn't want you all to meet Sukuna because he has a lot of anger issues and is quite an asshole and I was trying to avoid this entire conversation that is happening," MC sighs.

"Rude," Sukuna says.

"Anger issues. You think we couldn't deal with this ? Are you serious right now ?" Satan asks.

MC shrugs their shoulders nervously.

"How much do you actually know about what sharing a body with him does to you ?" Satan asks while looking at the small mouth and glaring.

"I mean, I get these marks because he had them when he was alive. He was also so powerful to the point he had four arms and another set of eyes, like you saw before. I get those when he takes over mostly, but I can kee him restrained. But the eye thing is why I've always had slits under my eyes because the eyes are the most common thing to show up. The arms don't really. But it's entirely painless so don't worry," MC somewhat calmly explains.

--

Asmodeus

- those marks make MC look so good wtf-

- not the time

- so this Sukuna person lived a thousand years ago ?

- what was this about jujutsu sorcery ?

- what even is that ?

- asmos not the brightest on the block but from the looks on his brothers faces none of them know what the fuck MC is talking about either.

- they've explained a little bit of it b there's still some missing info

- what is sharing a body really like

- how much of MCs body can change to be like Sukunas ?

--

"So how much of your body can he control ? What can he heal ? Could he bring you back from the dead ?" Asmo curiously asks.

"He can't control much because it's my body and I have a lot of raw power by myself. I don't know if he can bring us back from the dead. I don't think so though or else the Jujutsu school wouldn't have tried to execute me. He used to be able to bring us back when I hadn't eaten all of his fingers, but now I don't think he can," MC explains.

"So why do you let him live in your body if he can't do much for you ?" Asmo questions.

"Well one, I don't think there's a way to get him out-"

"I'm still here you know," Sukuna interrupts.

"You've made that clear," MC says before continuing, "And two he can do stuff for me. It's like a symbiotic relationship. I give him a host and he protects me."

--

Beelzebub

- protects MC ?

- that's his job

- why is someone else protecting MC ?

- overall confusion

- even tho MC has gone over it multiple times, he doesn't get how or why Sukuna is in MC's body

- maybe it's the shock

. was this why MC could challenge him to armwrestling and almost win ?

--

"So how long has he been in you ?" Beel asks.

"About a year," MC responds.

"Can he make you live longer aside from healing you ?" Beel asks hopefully.

"I'm sorry, I don't think so..." MC says while looking at the ground. They cross their arms. They look small, as if they aren't small enough compared to him already.

"So, what does this mean ? Now that your secret is out... are you going to stay in the devildom with us ? Or do you have to leave ?"

" If I leave I'll surely be executed when I go back to the human world. If I stay I don't know what will happen to me, but it's not up to me. It's up to you guys if you want me to stay. I understand if you want me to go, I was harboring a big secret and it's probably unnerving to know that you're never truly alone with me, but Sukuna actually cares about my boundaries even though he acts like he doesn't. There are some pluses and there are some drawbacks but ultimately you have to decide." MC responds, looking from brother to brother then at Dia and Barbatos

--

Belphie

- MC ? dead if you back to the human world ? doesn't bother him

- he doesn't care

- he hasn't known MC long enough to care

- diavolo may have told everyone that MC was a descendant of human Lilith and he told everyone the events that actually happened, but why should he have any attachment to MC

- MC isnt Lilith, and MC sure as hell doesn't like him after the events that happened today

- from what he's heard, MC dying would be good for the human world

--

"I say send MC back. What happens to them isnt our problem any more," Belphie says while under his magical restraints Diavolo put on him.

"Of course you would say that," Satan glares at him.

"Shut up Belphie !!" Mammon and Levi yell.

"You don't have any right to an opinion in this matter." Lucifer states.

"Belphie that's mean," Asmo says.

Beel frowns.

"I vote they stay. I like MC regardless, and if all I have to do is adjust to Sukuna then I'll do it," Beel says while looking Belphie dead in the eye.

There's a beat of silence.

"Me too," Mammon says.

"Hey ! I was going to say that !" Levi protests.

"Oooh~ Count me in !" Asmo says with a smile.

"I also think they should stay," Satan says and looks at MC.

"My personal preference is also that they stay, but Lord Diavolo it's up to you," Lucifer says and looks at Dia.

--

Diavolo

- he knew there was something off, but couldnt place his finger on it

- he also constantly got a powerful vibe from MC and this explains it

- he was very fond of MC and enjoyed their presence

- he knew what he was going to do

--

"Barbatos, what do you think ?" Dia asks him.

"The decision is up to you m'lord," Barbatos responds.

"Well Id also like the input of my trusty all knowing butler," Diavolo laughs.

"Then, I see no reason to send them back to the human world. They can live out their lives here and safe from the school that wants to execute them. It also wouldn't be an issue to get anyone from the human world here if MC so desired," Barbatos replied.

"Then it's settled ! Welcome to the devildom for the rest of your life MC!!" Diavolo smiled and welcomed MC with open arms.

MC smiled and accepted the hug.

--

Barbatos

- he didn't know all along, but he know when the timelines crossed and he had to erase the other

- MC was very near and dear to his heart though and he wasnt about to let them be killed

- just wants to keep MC safe

--

I HOPE I DID A GOOD JOB AND THANK YOU FOR THE REQUEST REMEMBER TO FRINK SOME WATER ILY TAKER <3

- mars :)

[love-takes-work]

Below, I’m sharing a long outline of what was discussed in this wonderful interview, for those who can’t or prefer not to listen but want to know the content. It is very long and I don’t feel like finding pictures so you’ll have to just enjoy it like it is. It’s not a transcript but it is, in my own words for the most part, a recitation of everything Susana and Rebecca talked about: musicals, the upcoming movie, animation influences, and quite a few things you did not already know.

Susana introduces the interview by saying that tons of attention is paid to the diversity and the characters and all this great stuff in the show, but she wants to talk about the science fiction aspects and the society and worldbuilding Rebecca and her team have put in. She begins by talking about how the show seems so planned considering aspects of the show's beginning feed so well into the end, and she asks Rebecca to talk about that.

Rebecca opens by saying it was conceived as a coming-of-age story, so a ton of stuff that the adults know, Steven doesn't know, allowing it to be a story about things that happened to adults but remain child-friendly. Rebecca brings up a college class on the sublime that she took, about what's going on and implied to be going on just outside the frame of the art, so she was really taken with that concept.

Rebecca claims that her planning is pretty dry, and it's just a bunch of charts. She had stuff like Fusion names and weapons from the beginning, and of course she couldn't use them in her pitch because it didn't make sense without knowing the characters. Susana mentions that CN wanted the show to be aired in no particular order, and Rebecca mentions how it was hard to work with because she DID want continuity. Planting seeds in episodes and giving puzzle pieces that'd come together later worked for a long time, while still making each episode work as a whole and be satisfying. Later, when CN came to them wanting like eight related episodes, there they had the barn arc to give them--they had already planned to make this story related. She felt it aired in a "bizarre" way, but they comforted themselves on the Crew knowing someday people would watch it how it was meant to be watched. As a lead-up to the movie, CN IS going to air "every Steven ever," so people will actually get to see it in marathon format.

Batman: The Animated Series comes up and they discuss how censorship limited what they could do on that show because of problems with glass breaking. Susana says she actually really appreciates it when stories can still be told well despite the constraints put on them, and asks Rebecca if that applies to SU. Rebecca agrees that it does, and also that she loves stuff like video games that managed to function with ridiculously small space requirements. Developers still offered up such creativity, she says. So because of the beauty that arises from those constraints, she thought she should have constraints in her show on purpose, even if it isn't applied from outside. The most obvious one for this show was that we're trapped into only knowing and seeing what Steven knows and sees. "The Test" is a good example of Steven actually seeing something he isn't supposed to see: the Gems having a private conversation about him. According to her, plenty of stuff is written about what the Gems are up to outside of what Steven knows about them, and they can only kind of hint at it.

Coming from Adventure Time, there were some similar aspects. Rebecca got to work with some of her heroes from independent comics, and she got a lot of inspiration from them. On Adventure Time, it's our world but far in the future, and Rebecca would have loved to do something similar with Steven because she loved that aspect. Quite a few of the Adventure Time crew had come over from Flapjack and they thought it would be funny if the Adventure Time characters found a tape of Flapjack. As much as it would have been cool to take that idea for her show, that was theirs, so Steven's is more like it's our Earth but in an alternate timeline where Gems invaded 6,000 years ago. She rattles off some known similarities and differences of our two worlds, and elaborates on how Hollywood is in Kansas because in that world Disney never left where they started. Laugh-O-Gram Studio took off like it didn't in our timeline. She has a ton of other info like that but it won't matter to reveal it until or unless it matters to Steven. (She also throws in that Harman-Ising could be Ising-Harman in her world if they never figured out how cute it would be to have it the other way.)

When Susana asks about how she took so many details and managed to make a pilot with enough of them that she could get a show with it, Rebecca takes a turn into discussing working on Hotel Transylvania (for just a month!) with Genndy Tartakovsky. She had been planning to have a month off, but then Genndy asked, so she of course couldn't say no and felt she learned a ton. (She wrote the Steven Universe theme song in the car during that commute, by the way, given that she had a lot of time to sing and be alone.) When she hit Genndy with some of her ideas, he advised her to slim the details down and just boil it into its essence--who are the people and what is their relationship to each other? She still uses that advice, trying to condense things from macro to micro. She has succeeded since in figuring out how to keep the complexity and still assert the simplicity. Ultimately, you can keep those details but you don't have to emphasize them if they're not feeding into the main point. They'll drag the piece down. They discuss Genndy's role as the Animation Director on her pilot, which happened when she was asking if he knew anyone and he ended up saying he'd do it himself. She was so shocked that he agreed to direct her pilot that she was dazed and ran into a pole in the parking lot. The whistling of the wind through the resulting dent always made her giddy because she was thinking she would be working with Genndy.

Susana then turns to discussing Rebecca's influences and brings up Revolutionary Girl Utena. Rebecca mentions that she initially saw Utena because a person named Connie lent it to her in high school, so that's where SU's Connie's name comes from. Rebecca points out how hilarious Utena is in addition to being beautiful. She felt it was formative because Utena was "gender expansive and bisexual." Rebecca saw the movie first (which she doesn't recommend doing), then saw the series and then the movie again. She wanted to understand why the characters were turning into cars. (Chronicler's note: I was equally baffled by the Utena movie's car chase and car transformation stuff in the early 2000s. I did not know what to make of it.)

Rebecca elaborates on Utena and art influences, saying she loves to trace artists' influences to see where their pieces were coming from. She saw that Utena is very influenced by Princess Knight, and she was thrilled to visit places in Japan that influenced Osamu Tezuka. The Takurazuka Theatre is in Tezuka's town, and Rebecca describes how every show there is performed only by women. She felt that having this theater there influencing Tezuka certainly inspired him to include gender expansiveness in his work. The influences are so obvious when you look at the sources, and now all of this that came through Tezuka's work then through Utena then to Rebecca is so incredible.

When Susana brings up trends and how magical girl stuff influenced today's creators, Rebecca says she prefers not to think of it as a trend really because some of what's roaring out in popularity now was always around but was actively prevented from being made in the past. She talks about watching Tenchi Universe (the "Universe" part of SU came from Tenchi!) and Sailor Moon on CN, knowing it wasn't American, but she didn't really realize it "didn't belong" on the network, and felt that her access to influences was really unusually open--especially since her dad was an animation nerd and had a bunch of unusual stuff that influenced her, especially stuff that gave her a peek into how animation actually worked and knowledge that she could be one of the people making it. If she could call anything a trend now, it's that that sort of access is now available to more people because of the interconnectedness of the Internet and how we're so much more capable of influencing each other now.

They then discuss some anime stuff they had been exposed to and how Rebecca helped with an intro to Whisper of the Heart which is her favorite movie. She discusses how that movie (and Kiki's Delivery Service) are good representations of creative processes and sometimes what happens if an artist is blocked. She thinks the actual craft and work associated with the process is more important (and more interesting) than talent. Rebecca adores artists who take notes and figure out how to make their stuff good versus a specific moment of inspiration or an artist just "bleeding" their talent on everything. Art is a craft! You can study it! This is front and center in Whisper of the Heart. Rebecca discusses the Russian movie Film Film Film (which influenced the Zircons' design), and it has a writer character who is afraid that his process will destroy something inspired by a muse. She thinks it's a really interesting look at process.

Next they discuss a science fiction story in another format: the book The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin. Kat Morris lent Rebecca the book while they were roommates at the very beginning of when the show was starting. She loved seeing how the world worked in the book through the way they treated the main character. They also discuss the artist Jules Feiffer, who Rebecca had a relationship with because she carpooled with his nephews. They gave her a book of his called A Barrel of Laughs, A Vale of Tears. She loved it so much, especially how it deconstructed fairy tale tropes. One story was about a prince whose special ability made people close to him laugh themselves senseless, so he really couldn't have a relationship with anyone. She considers this an influence on Pink Diamond as a character. The SU character Sadie was named after this book's character Plain Sadie.

Next, Susana asks about musical influences for the show. Rebecca names Patti LuPone first. She saw Patti as Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd and remembers seeing her playing the tuba in this weird arrangement where the cast was also the orchestra. She was so impressed. When she later wrote to Patti asking her to be Yellow Diamond, she referenced learning from her that a person could be so dramatic that it's funny and vice versa. She also has a "chills" moment from a different show, during "Everything's Coming Up Roses," where the character she's playing is imagining an audience going wild but the actual audience IS going wild.

As they discuss how the upcoming movie is a musical, Rebecca talks about going home with Ian after work and putting on musicals or movies based on TV shows so they can "study" for what they're doing. She'd take notes about what works and what doesn't and why. She loves these old movies that dissolve into total weirdness by the third act. She references Ziegfeld Girl and Busby Berkeley movies, which were an influence on Homeworld's style. She subscribes to a philosophy attributed to Bob Fosse that characters have to be feeling something strongly if they're compelled to sing. She makes a reference to A Goofy Movie as a movie that moved from a TV show to a movie. She wished that movie had more songs.

Susana and Rebecca discuss the movie, some intense moments, the history of Goofy and how different some of the old versions of him are, and how a description of Goofy by Art Babbitt was influential on her. She loves that cartoons can be so many things, and she adores studying moments from them and incorporating them. There are some really horrifying discoveries you can make, but you can also reinterpret some of the beautiful moments and stir them together to get new brilliance.

Susana says many songs in Steven Universe become the centerpiece of an episode, but in "Mr. Greg" it's more like a typical musical even though it's an episode of a cartoon show. Rebecca agrees that it was great practice for the movie. She was more moved by that episode coming back than any other so far by that point. She also felt that "For Just One Day Let's Only Think About (Love)," the song, was a great practice musical song--especially since there's all that chatting in between singing. That song was really influenced by A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum's song "Comedy Tonight." She finds those kinds of musicals so much fun. She was influenced in "Mr. Greg" by Victor/Victoria--specifically the song "Crazy World" when the camera is panning around the protagonist (who's wearing a suit). They're of course dated, but they contain beautiful moments. She took home some of the Pearl drawings from "It's Over, Isn't It" when she went to the studio in Korea. (Yes, Steven Universe is animated on paper, though the color is digital.) Elaborating on "Mr. Greg," she says the episode became much simpler and sweeter--originally there was some intense stuff in there, like Pearl picking up cars and throwing them at Greg.

Back to the movie, Susana points out that Rebecca's been studying how to make a conversion to a cinematic story versus a really long TV episode. What makes something feel like a movie? Rebecca struggles to figure out how to talk about it without saying too much. She figures you have to dig into the fundamentals of the show--make a movie about something new, but something basic. She loved the Dexter movie and it was so smart. Rebecca has a weird connection to the Beavis and Butt-Head movie too (some of her crew worked on the movie!), but she thinks even that movie is smart because they're all about watching TV and in the movie their TV is taken.

Susana then asks about the movie length format and how it felt from going from a very short TV format to a movie. Rebecca's word to describe it is "terrifying." The episode "Change Your Mind" was 44 minutes and that was a ridiculously long format for them--but it carried the extra baggage of tying up so much of what they'd dumped into the show. Rebecca said they couldn't really even "feel good" about finishing it because the immediate next step was something that was so much more of everything hard about "Change Your Mind." Rebecca elaborates on the elements that were ramped up for the movie and concludes "What I'm trying to say is I'm really tired." She's really, really excited for us to see it. It's so different than a bunch of episodes tied together, even if it was eight "Mr. Greg" episodes. All the pieces have to be awesome and then tied together have all the pieces inform each other. She remembers being impressed by anime as a kid because it usually told interconnected stories, and she thought that would be really hard; turns out self-contained episodes are even harder, and she has to kind of do both on her show. She thinks of her songs like that too--they must be good on their own, but they enhance each other by all being part of the same work and building something better together.

Finally, Susana asks what comes next after Steven Universe--one day, when the show does end, what does Rebecca want to do? Well, take time off, write some guitar songs, write poetry no one will ever see, and so on. Rebecca says that her head is really in SU now though, and there's so much more to do--yes, there is more to tell that comes after the movie, and she wants us to know there are also stories that belong in that two-year gap between the end of "Change Your Mind" and the beginning of the movie, but she feels this is a good place to stop talking. She's so excited about everything we have yet to see.

[alywats]

January 2021 Reading Wrap-Up

Here are all the books I read in January, a month of getting back into my routine after the holiday break and trying to make time for reading. Reading is my favorite hobby, but it is really hard to make time and space for it when I use all my focus and strain my eyes at the computer during the working hours of the day. So audiobooks have really been my saving grace this month. I only read a few of these books with my eyes, and the rest of them were listened to while I was cooking or driving or doing my laundry or taking a walk around the lake, and that is something that has been really valuable to me. Even though I only had “time” to sit down and read three or four books this month, I was able to read 12 with the help of audiobooks! Woohoo! Now on to my reviews for these books!

1. The Big Sleep  -Raymond Chandler (231 pgs) 3

A classic "hard-boiled detective" novel which I enjoyed because of its significance in the genre. What I did not enjoy was the homophobia which, it being a product of its time, was extreme and hard to read through. First book of 2021 and we are not off to a great start!

2. Get A Life, Chloe Brown -Talia Hibbert (373pgs) 3.5

Mostly cute. There were like two or three things that made me suuuuuuper annoyed but I think they are more my issues than the book's, so I'll let it slide. Probably won't continue this series!

3. The Year of Less -Cait Flanders (189 pgs) 1.5

Okay this is the whiniest book ever, and I don't say that lightly. Ugh, I just wanted to read more about simple living and this book was 200 pages of complaining, Flanders not really consuming less, and no actual info about simple living or being a sustainable consumer.

4. The Invention of Sound -Chuck Palahniuk (240 pgs) 3

The first half was so good... and then I got kinda lost. At this point the real question is how many Palahniuk books will I read and think are mediocre before I finally read Fight Club...

5. Writers & Lovers -Lily King (320 pgs) 4

This book is really good for a lot of writer-y things and a lot of lover-y things. But my fav part? When there is a math band in the cafeteria called "The Cosines".

6. Wild -Cheryl Strayed (315 pgs) 4

I loved A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson, so it's no surprise that I was into this book too. It is a bit cliche to be inspired by this book, but it's cliche for a reason, this journey is inspiring, the personal growth and discovery is inspiring. I also just loved the descriptions of Ashland, Crater Lake, Mt. Hood, and the Columbia from Strayed's perspective. These are places and landmarks that I have grown up with, and to be reminded of how special Oregon is was definitely something I enjoyed.

7. Brave New World -Aldous Huxley (288 pgs) 3

Honestly, I don’t have a lot to say about this. There were some things that worked and some things that were not great, but mostly I was indifferent. I could not find any investment in this story or the characters, but I also didn’t ~hate~ what I was reading, so it was really a neutral reading experience for me.

8. The Man Who Loved Only Numbers -Paul Hoffman (303 pgs) 3.5

This was a biography of Erdős, notorious Hungarian mathematician, as well as a general history of some of his contemporaries and their mathematical highlights. Overall I found this book to be engaging, well-researched, and at the right level of detail, but what made this one hard for me was my immediate and intense dislike of Erdős. As a baby mathematician, I have been told that Erdős was an amazing and prolific mathematician who changed the course of mathematics, and we (mathematicians) should be aspiring to be like him. And he *was* amazing and prolific as a mathematician, but outside of mathematics, Erdős was annoying and demanding and full of entitlement, something that surprised me. The reason this bothered me, if I’m being honest, is that I feel this attitude of superiority in the mathematics community way too much. You are not of superior intelligence if you do math, you should not forget to be a well-adjusted human because you are too focused on math, and this should not be what mathematicians are striving for (I think many mathematicians would disagree with me, and that is my point). Erdős’s attitude and ethos were unhealthy at best, as they are for many ‘great’ mathematicians, and it’s hard for me to get behind the romanticized nature of “The Man Who Loved Only Numbers”, as if abandoning all other parts of life is the best/truest way to be a mathematician. It’s hard for me to care about Erdős numbers (think 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon but for math) when the idea of mathematical name-dropping is just another way to feel superior, and I leave this book feeling disconnected by the communal obsession with Erdős among mathematicians.

9. The Shining -Stephen King (659 pgs) 5

I don't think it's revolutionary to say that this is King's best work, but in case you need me to tell you, The Shining is probably Stephen King's best work. Jack Torrance freaks me out like no other, the Overlook hotel is written in such a unique and ~creepy~ way, and the supernatural elements are woven in with character study and plot development in a way that makes them feel entirely real but not the central motivation for the story.

I think a problem with a lot of sci-fi/fantasy tropes like mind-reading is that 1. it is the *only* plot device the author uses to continue the narrative so it completely overshadows characterization and the plot arc, or 2. it isn't fleshed out enough so the reader doesn't get to feel totally immersed in or believe in the supernatural world that the story is taking place in.

The Shining is the balance of these two issues, King writes the characters and the plot in a way that is simply enhanced by the supernatural elements, and he writes the supernatural elements in a way that is enhanced by Danny's character and his circumstances.

This was my second time reading The Shining, since the first time I read it I was in 7th grade. There were definitely things I picked up on the second time around, and I am really glad I read it again.

10. Ancillary Justice -Ann Leckie (416 pgs) 3

One thing I really appreciate about this book is that it is a woman's voice and commentary on gender in the sci-fi world, which is rare and valuable. Sci-fi space opera has been a genre ruled by the white man for a long time, and that means that the stories are often very reflective of that. So yeah, I am happy to have read a book in this space written by a woman.

My criticism is simply that I was bored through parts of it, and I think that's because it's not a plot or characters that resonated with me. And that's just my personal taste coming through.

11. The Bass Rock -Evie Wyld (368 pgs) 4

The Bass Rock is the interweaving tale through different periods of time in Scotland, and the way society controlled and abused these women. They accused smart women of being witches, then they lobotomized women with opinions, and on and on. This book is a commentary on violence, and oppression as violence against women, which makes it somewhat difficult to read, but the way the stories of the women overlap both in plot and in theme is so beautifully done.

12. Hamnet -Maggie O'Farrell (372 pgs) 5

Shakespeare, that mysterious bard, had a son named Hamnet who died. Is it a coincidence then, that his most emo play is of the same name? (Hamnet = Hamlet in 1590s England I guess). This novel mostly shoves William off-stage, focusing more on his wife Agnes and her experience being a daughter, a mother, a wife, and a mourner. It is a glimpse into life in the 1590s, where plague was ravaging the cities, and although 1590s life often feels very different to our 2021 life, there are a few striking similarities to be found here: grief, lockdown, the closing of theaters. This was beautifully written, and in the spirit of being dramatic, I'll say the ending took my breath away.

And I'll end with this thought: Shakespeare wrote during a time where the Black Death could not be ignored, he (probably) lost his son to it, but the plague is at most an undertone in his body of work. Instead he wrote about corruption, the failure of rulers, deception, grief, and the lust for power. Take a look into 2020s USA, and I think you'll find that Shakespeare just got a little bit more relatable.

[comeondowntosouthparkrpg-blog]

Damien Thorn

Welcome back, prince of darkness.

Damien has been accepted! Please send in your blog link, and a picture or name of a face claim to be featured on the main blog!

Name/Alias: Valeri

Pronouns: They / Them / she

Age: 17

Join Our Discord: Yes

Timezone: CTS

Activity: 6 / 10

Triggers: None really.

Password: Jimmy can fast pass my

Character that you’re applying for: Damien Thorn

Favourite ships for your character: ANYTHING. Just.. Chemistry ok. But I LOVE dip

in character info

Full name: Damien ‘Lucifer’ Thorn JR.

Birthday: January 1st, 2000

Sexuality, gender, pronouns: Demi-panromantic / homosexual // masculine-Nonbinary ( he / him )

Age and grade: 19 // Senior Appearance:  Damien Thorn sits at a rather normal height of a teenager at a good 5’7, though a bit short for his build he doesn’t seem to mind. He sits at a good 190 Pounds, and has a good head of curly black locks that sit untamed, and frame around a pair of large doesh ears that fold back into the dark coils of hair, and are decorated with a number of gothic piercings. Poking from the knots, and near the start of the ears, on his temples and folding in are a pair of small curling horns of jet black, with an almost iridescent gleam to them under certain light.

His outfit is very simplistic, resembling his personality almost to a tee. A boring black sweater that’s adorned via a few thin red stripes near the bottom, the sweater is loose around his wrists, and his neck. Each hand of his is adorned with black painted nails, sharp and almost like claws. He usually can be found wearing simple bands around his fingers, decorated with carvings, or even just plain. Besides that, Damien wears a rather bland pair of jeans, a belt of silver holding them fast to his waist, and red suspenders hanging off either side, crossing in the back to form an ‘X’, and stopping around his upper knee. Behind him, and peeking out from above the waistband of his pants is an almost cartoonish, spade tipped black tail, slender yet long, with the ability to skirt the ground. Mostly hidden from prying eyes, but it’s there.

The final stage of the rather bland gettup the raven adorns is the combat boots, black, with red and white patterned laces, to which his pants are tucked into, to avoid obstructing the view of such meticulously crafted shoes.

Personality: Damien is a very cynical, and straight forward individual, he doesn’t skirt around issues, and tells it how he sees it. Why these aren’t necessarily bad traits, but how Damien himself twists them, and wields them, comes off as such. Damien has much of a personality of a snake, a sly beast with a silver tongue and killer intelligence. With these abilities manipulation comes easy, and is a sport of fun for the satan spawn. Using it more as a game, toying with people’s trust, and sort of sanity for the enjoyment of himself.

Akin with these other traits, Damien is quite short tempered, and honestly nobody is safe from his wrath. Many conclude it a side effect of being spoiled, or even just for being the heir to the throne of hell, but nobody truthfully knows, Damien can get rather touchy, and short tempered when poked and prodded at for a short period of time, and isn’t hesitant when it comes to harming another teenager.

Under all the cold and rude displays, Damien is a rather understanding and chilled person, sleepy, clingy, and albeit a bit attention starved, Damien isn’t all that cold, but he holds himself well. Only letting the crude, and destructive persona fall around those he trusts, and finds worthy to see their ‘soon to be ruler’ in such a state weak and vulnerable.

History: Though he was raised in hell most of his life, Damien found that experience and routine boring, and mundane, being raised to be heir was something he never really fancied as a child. Even after the exposure to the youth of the human domain, he found no joy in the idea of torturing the souls who brought quite an amount of annoyance to his existence.

Through the number of times Kenny has graced himself in hell, Damien and he slowly started to bond, the prince of hell being told story upon story of life upon the overworld slowly brought out a childish interest deep inside his chest, and the raven decided to attempt to live among humans once more, After making up a rather cock-and-bull story to trick his father he was shipped up to the rural land of colorado, South Park.

Many new faces, and many old. Most who didn’t recognize the demonic child of so many years past ( thank god ) greeted him, and to Damien’s surprise, kindly.. Well, this would be a lot different than last time.

Sample paragraph: Music had an effect on the cold hearted beast that the raven considered himself to be. A hound at the gates, teeth bared as the morph paced, begging to be let in. One day they’d let their guards down, and the ravenous animal would take this as it’s time to strike. His hands slightly tighten around the device, nails attempting to dig into it for a purchase, though none came. No, instead this king, this wolf at the gates found himself staring at his phone with such intensity that he could have sworn he could burn holes through it with just his eyes alone.

None of these songs were worth his time, he found himself skipping one after another, tapping upon the screen with rising annoyance. This was getting him nothing but angry. What a waste this was, damien could be ruining someone’s day, or causing some sort of chaos that would last the week at least! But instead, he was following the gentle and soft orders of one blonde brit, instructing him to find music to help with a sort of rage that boiled down within his chest like primal urge. He grimaced at the memory, the gentle tone reminding and suggesting him on finding a better outlet for his rage, to destructive and harmful for those around the beast. The monster. A roll of his eyes followed suit as he skipped another song, hesitantly being forced to halt the skips, being given a message from the screen in a cheery, and taunting font ‘ only six skips an hour!’

That’s where this led Damien Thorn to be sprawled out on the floor, staring at his phone, past the hour listening to a type of genre he had never previously heard about. A calm tone of music that slowed his heart rate and breathing, lulling him into a sort of peace with heavy beats, and jazzy undertones, eyes focused upon the title printed in bold Japanese. Far from the app he had originally started on, he now found sanctuary on a site titled ‘Plaza’. Lofi Beats.. Vaporwave.. Nightcore. All music of the same genre, but different names decorating them. It brought peace to the usually enraged teenager, hands relaxed on his device for once instead of causing his knuckles to flush white with annoyance and rage.

  Headcanons:

Damien is bad at expressing affection. Watch this boy hit you and just be like ‘ u have a nice face’

He has sharp teeth he uses for tearing and biting..

He LOVES meat, this boy is a carnivore, and can be found eating things raw, don’t worry it doesn’t affect him.

Ok this boy is nocturnal as HELL. he is almost always sleeping in class, or just not at school, but if you see him at night, he has so much energy, either playing video games, texting people, or just walking around town. He’s the definition of ‘night owl’

Functions off coffee & cigarettes.

Damien has small horns, very tiny, and more in a nub stage, budding and slowly growing, By the time they are fully grown, they will be shaped in a form of a ram, curling around his doeish ears.

Due to having some powers as the heir to hell, damien uses them, but minorly, he mostly uses them to do dangerous / illegal stunts, aging himself up to get away with fighting, drinking, or other things he might not get away with at the age of 19.

Can see dead people / ghosts

Knows of Kenny’s numerous deaths.

Anything else: Eric Andre voice: Let me IN– LET ME INNNNNNNN!

[pass-the-bechdel]

La Femme Nikita season one full review

How many episodes pass the Bechdel test?

86.36% (nineteen of twenty-two)

What is the average percentage per episode of female characters with names and lines?

30.89%

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 40% female?

Three: episode one, “Nikita” (50%); episode two, “Friend” (42.86%) and episode fifteen, “Obsessed” (42.86%). 

How many episodes have a cast that is less than 20% female?

Three: episode four, “Charity” (18.18%); episode nine, “Gray” (18.18%); and episode eighteen, “Missing” (14.29%). 

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Twenty-four. Three who appear in more than one episode, two who appear in at least half the episodes, and one who appears in every episode.

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Seventy-three. Six who appear in more than one episode, four who appear in at least half the episodes, and one who appears in every episode.

Positive Content Status:

A perfect example of why “can beat you up in a fight” should never be treated as the be-all-end-all of writing good female characters (average rating of 2.41).

General Season Quality:

Middling. It has solid episodes, but the trend is towards mediocrity which cannot be entirely explained by the show’s age.  Interestingly, the earlier half of the season—the one where they were still, presumably, figuring things out—fares slightly better than the second half. 

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) under the cut:

Let’s talk first about the good. Season one of La Femme Nikita, while trafficking in familiar tropes and characters, still manages to feel distinct.  Dystopian fiction is a tricky genre to pull off, but the series, at its best, manages to sells the bleakness of the Section, and Nikita’s circumstances, with conviction, and that matters quite a lot. Genre spy fiction, at least on TV, is rarely this dark, and the story of Nikita as she is progressively brainwashed by the Section—and that is the season’s core story—still has punch. Additionally, the series occasionally—not often, but often enough—offers some truly inspired set pieces, and some episodes that, while not fantastic, are at least perfectly enjoyable in ways that I have not seen replicated elsewhere. Had the series been interested in utilizing its assets to their best effect consistently, it might have been something worth watching in 2017, despite its flaws. Instead, we get a work that is more rewarding to dissect than it is to actually experience.

Perhaps the most damning thing I can say about this season is that even after twenty-two episodes, I still can’t get a read on the show’s main character. The most consistent thing about Peta Wilson’s Nikita may be the applicability of the phrase “…except when she isn’t”: She’s defiant except when she isn’t. She’s clever except when she isn’t. She’s suicidal except when she isn’t.  She’s loyal except when she isn’t. She hates Michael except when she doesn’t.  And while Nikita being conflicted about the various elements that now make up her existence is a good thing, narratively speaking, the way the show handles these things suggest not that she possesses a complex internal life, but rather, that she’s a blank slate that can be overwritten to fit an episode’s particular plot.  It’s one thing for her to feel ambivalent about the Section; it’s another thing entirely for her to decide at the end of an episode that she’s done with the assassin life, only for the next episode to portray her as a compliant and loyal soldier, with no indication of how she got from A to B, or that A even existed.  With neither the progressive, cumulative storytelling of a serial plot-driven series or the stable character dynamics of a procedural, the character is left adrift, unable to do anything about the status quo while at the same time being incapable of carving a space for herself within it or uniting all the various elements that make up her psyche.  The premise demands contradiction, but it gives us inconsistency. These are not at all the same thing. 

One could conclude, given the series’ trappings and their statements, that the showrunners believe that they’ve created a female parallel to the male action star, and in some ways that’s true. But really: would a male Nikita ever look like this? Ignore, for a moment, the gendered presentation of the character—she’s “the fatal femme you can’t take your eyes from”—and the story complications that come specifically because Nikita is a woman. Would a male action hero be made to lose so completely and consistently as Nikita is?  Even the closest male parallel I can identify—the protagonist from the 60’s series The Prisoner (a show which LFN showrunners have credited as an inspiration)—ends most episodes in a draw.  This is not the case with Nikita, whose victories are, with very few exceptions, those that benefit her captors: is this the only way the writers believe they can write a believable female superspy?  That says quite a lot, if so, as does the fact—I don’t recall if I’ve mentioned this—that the show reverses the original film’s power dynamics in order to make Nikita the less dominant figure. Would the same have occurred, if she had been a he?

Not helping things one bit is the dearth of other female characters with positive outcomes, or even positive depictions. We have a handful of female villains, many of which are uninspiring, all of which end up defeated with ease (Julie from 1.02; Helen from 1.05; Karyn from 1.13; Chan from 1.20; Griffin from 1.21, who is killed before she can utter a word), a handful of victims (Annie from 1.14, Lisa from 1.15, Maria from 1.21), some sacrificial lambs (Simone from 1.03, Angie from 1.11), and some outright messes like Karyn (1.13).  The few female characters who go on to live happy lives, like Carla, Casey from 1.10, and Belinda from 1.12, are tertiary at best.  Women are consistently found wanting, lacking either emotional fortitude, smarts, or survival instincts. Male characters may not be living lives that are sunshine and puppies, but they do occasionally get outcomes that are neutral, or even positive—hello, Mijovich (1.02, 1.21), Bauer (1.06) Gray (1.09, 1.10), Mick (1.09), Petrosian (1.11), Rudy (1.12), Simon (1.16) and Steven (1.18). Among the regular cast, Birkoff, Walter, and Operations don’t seem to have much to complain about, either.

Given all this, it becomes impossible for the series to develop any healthy relationships between women—not that there’s many of them around to do so. The friendship between Nikita and Carla, while nice, is weightless. It’s there to add a splash of color—both tonally and racially—but neither Nikita nor the show is really invested in it.  And while I quite like the dynamic between Nikita and Madeline, its potential, at this point, is largely untapped; they could be doing so much more with it.  And of course, it’s hard to call a relationship which ultimately results in helping keep Nikita pliable and submissive “positive”. 

(Speaking of Madeline, she’s the closest the series comes to consistently achieving its pretensions of complexity, and is therefore the show’s best character. Unfortunately, her general awesomeness feels less like the result of the writers understanding that women can be complex, and more like she gets to be complex because the writers code her as Not Like Other Women. In any case, one decent female character can’t make up for everything else.  Not even if she’s the person responsible for most of the series’ Bechdel passes.)

And yet, even a show with these—let’s say skewed—dynamics can be worthwhile if it has something interesting to say. I’m not sure the show does, and what it does end up saying is largely dismaying.  Dystopian fiction tends to be alarmist: it says “this is what our world is, or could be, and care needs to be taken in order to create a better one.” If a similar sense of alarm exists in La Femme Nikita, it coexists uneasily with the sense that we’re meant to feel the show’s status quo is actually quite cool.  After all, it’s only Nikita and the occasional guest star who express consistent discomfort with the Section; Michael, Birkoff, Walter, Madeline, and Operations all appear to be at ease inside it, and if they had concerns, they’ve long since come to terms with them. And these are characters we’re meant to like.  And while the series will sometimes establish ungraceful parallels between the Section and the people they fight, those parallels become more scarce the more down-to-earth the villains are.  Michael has a lot in common with wife beaters, but when one actually becomes an antagonist, those comparisons are nowhere to be found.  That is a problem. If the Section isn’t meant to tell us about the real world, what is the point? It’s not as its depiction is in any way plausible or consistent.    

In my post for the season finale, I asked three questions about the show, which all boiled down to one: who is the show for? La Femme Nikita was apparently quite popular in its time—Wikipedia describes it as “the highest-rated drama on American basic cable during its first two seasons,” which is so qualified that it may actually mean nothing in real terms, but at least implies a bigger audience than the latter CW series ever got.  That success baffles me, though. The series feels too demanding for a casual audience, and it seems to me that people looking for conventionally attractive women in sexy outfits, or attractive hetero couples to ship, could easily have looked elsewhere. At the same time, I imagine people searching for nuance or a satisfying exploration of the show’s premise and apparent themes would quickly find themselves disappointed. And I can’t imagine the show being aimed at people starved for female action heroes, given Nikita’s tendency to lose. Or is this a case where what we see here is better than the 1997 norm, or, if not better, simply different enough to draw attention? Or was it all about the aesthetic, which I genuinely love?

It’s not as if I can’t imagine the series having no appeal. I can imagine Nikita’s imprisonment and her inability to extricate herself from her prison resonating with a lot of people. I just wish they’d gotten a better show, because the wasted potential of this one hurts. 

[coshayphinelove]

just some thinky thoughts after i wrote a tag essay that got way bigger than the tags.  feel free to read if you want, but forewarning... i have more questions after writing than before so..

so before i start anything i’d like to clarify that i love ob.  most of my issues with it are bc i got my hopes too high and held the creators to the standards i hold myself, which is not fair in art.  also, i’m only talking about the ob team and the characters, not the fans.  don’t get all in a twist, this is just me... thinkin.

so ep 5 was great.  2013 me would have loved it.  but 2017 me is like.. hard into communication and explicitly labelled representation.  and cophine is neither of those things.  like... i can understand that there’s not enough time to linger on stuff the way i would want to.  i get it.  but like... there was enough time to linger on alison.  for five seasons.  the first time she ever did anything main plot-moving was this season, she was always almost completely seperate.  she got flashbacks out the wazoo to explain her entire life story.  we met her mom.  her monitor is redeemed.  

i just am very unhappy with the doling of screen time.  like... it’s not even about shipping anymore.  it’s about plot holes and i am genuinely confused about the story at this point.  like delphine and donnie are easily comparable characters.  donnie monitored alison for close to a decade.  lied to her for a decade.  once he found out about the clones started doing things without alison’s knowledge or consent.  he is forgiven.  almost immediately.  for everything. 

delphine lasted as a monitor about... a month?  she was so bad at lying that cosima caught her.  she immediately came clean.  then in the flashback begged cosima to believe that she would always protect her.  and yet?  the conflict surrounding delphine for the entire show is ~is she good or bad???~.  and at every turn she is keeping that promise while making and keeping other promises.  and everybody, including her love interest keeps throwing her mistakes in her face.

donnie gets side plots and new dynamics to explore.  delphine has to have all of her characterization as a subset of cosima’s screen time.  donnie gets a seat at the bubbles table, delphine does not.  she has to leave and get shot (a whole different rant of equal length).

on another note, alison and cosima are also easily comparable characters: side characters used to provide info for sarah to react to.  cosima’s safety is always at risk, she’s been boiled down to her love interest for several plots, and she doesn’t ever get to acknowledge her Very Obvious PTSD and abandonment issues.  alison has low stakes conflict (up until this season, but that’s already over), she is never boiled down to donnie’s wife, and we got to watch her parse through her issues in s2 in great detail.  

like even the flashbacks.  like alison got half her episode told in flashbacks and it was gorgeous.  i by no means wanted that when there’s so much going on but i thought we would get at least a little more.  

we met alison’s parent.  we hear about her in a natural and very not forced way.  cosima gets one very long line about her family very late in the game in a clunky and almost pointless way.  (like... why was it in there?  what purpose did it serve?)

i think the problem is subtext.  everybody is always talking about the subtext.  but the problem is there are several issues that the writer’s address almost explicitly.  like alison’s drinking problem.  we learned all about that and we cheered for her when she went to rehab and we we sad when she relapsed. with cosima it’s.... two instances of smash cuts of bad memories and her reacting to them.  ......*gestures with flailing arms* ISN’T THAT ALSO IMPORTANT???  

like.  i’m going to keep talking about delphine but.. that’s just where my head is rn..

but from s1 to s2 her arc was learning what her role would be in clone club and then how to do that.  and she made some big huge strides there.  and then she comes back for s3 and it’s gone.  she’s just.. not doing that anymore?  like they took the time to film her telling cosima immediately after she messed up that she had, in fact, messed up.  and then, what, a few days later she Can’t Tell Cosima Anything Anymore?  and don’t get on me about screen time here.  it could’ve been like.. 2 more lines.  “it’s not safe, they’ll hurt you.”  “b-but delphine??” “i’m sorry.”  LIKE?  they just wanted the drama of cosima not knowing.   which i can see wanting, but it didn’t end up working.  because then you had scenes showing delphine doing things for clone club.  so then... it was just.... confusing?  and imo drawn out for too long.  

but even to this day I, a delphine stan, am still kind of iffy.  she literally made an ultimatum (promise me, everyone.  you will never make an ultimatum in your romantic/sexual/platonic relationships.  that’s a manipulation tactic that a lot of abusers use.  slippery slope please don’t do it.)(i’m also not saying that delphine is an abuser or that you’re an abuser but just.. it’s a thing to be careful of.)  

“accept our toxic relationship as is or leave.”

IN WHAT WORLD IS THAT OKAY??? like i get the sentiment behind it.  like she was saying, ‘hey cosima i know i’ve been bad but like you don’t have to stay if you don’t want.  i’ll stop kissing you and everything.’  but then....  have her say that?  everything delphine ever says to cosima is wrapped in 3 levels of subtext.  or alternatively, cut the kissies in half and let them have a few lines about a new promise or something.  idk if that’s just her being extra or if that’s just.... the writers.

bc the creators... bless them.. they’re trying.  but when it comes down to it they were predominantly straight men.  and they did add tatiana as an executive producer which is like.. the head idea guy who tell the writers what to write.  which was awesome!  but like.. she’s straight (as far as we know).  so like.. i really don’t want to pull the sexuality card here.  but i think i am.  

bc it’s one thing if you don’t give romantic, mental health, or communication plot lines very much time.  it’s another if you give a straight couple plenty and a wlw couple scraps.  it’s one thing if the straight couple gets to delve into things multiple times and the wlw couple gets ten seconds before the plot needs to keep going.

i get that the cosima-centric ep was very plot heavy, stuff was happening, i get it.  but like... if you cared about giving good rep as much as you claim you do wouldn’t you... re-structure so that they have more than 10 seconds?  wouldn’t you sacrifice some of that oh so dearly beloved body horror to let them just... talk for a hot sec?  or let them be in the same room?

i know it’s hard work.  the longest original work i’ve ever finished is a 30 page script.  and even then it’s a lot of ‘is this dialogue working?’  ‘would that character say that?’ ‘that’s a plot hole’  ‘wait where is he going again?’  i get that there’s a lot to keep track of so like... knowing who cosima’s parents are wasn’t on a post-it note on the beat board.  but i just...  one of the questions i always ask myself is ‘is this healthy?’  so like... i always make sure that if the dynamic isn’t then i either address it somewhere else or change it so it is.

i don’t think they were asking themselves that.

bc straight guys are used to power balances in their relationships.  they’re used to ultimatums.  whether it’s in their life or in fiction, that’s what they see.  and they’re socialized to see that as normal.  so when they’re made aware that the media they’re making is feminist/progressive, these guys seemed like they did research and tried to make it more so.  but... they missed the mark.  bc straight men will never know what it’s like to be a wlw or a woman.  that’s just how it works.

and then.. like... they were so hyperaware of the fans and what they wanted.  and i think the thing they understood the best was that they wanted cophine kisses.  bc a lot of ppl wanted that and like...ppl who are cophine critical sometimes also want cophine kisses.  so that’s the loudest thing they heard/saw. and instead of doing the emotional work and the plot work they thought every scene had to have kisses.

and they also knew that they could always fill in the gaps at panels.  WHICH.  not canon if you say it at a panel y’all.  they knew the fans would spread their patches all over the place.  so instead of doing the work and explicitly taking a stand they just.. let people ask them questions so they knew what people were wondering about and then...... answered.

i don’t think they did any of this maliciously but like.. the whole drama surrounding sarah’s sexuality, the great debate of whether it was problematic or not.  like... knowing now that they didn’t intend it to come off as her lashing out and having a mental breakdown helps, but.... that’s still what it looked like at first glance.  and if i’m just a DVR viewer who doesn’t meticulously stalk everything ob online, i wouldn’t know that.  and they do that with delphine’s intentions a lot.  they do it with sexuality a lot.  they do it with gender a lot.  and it’s like.... it’s representation but... label-less to the masses.  like my dad was in the room when sarah was kissing a girl and he made some snide comment about it.  and it’s like... they were just too aware of fans that they gave them what they wanted (sarah kissing a girl/cophine kisses) without thinking about if was the healthy thing for the moment.  they didn’t think about the ramifications.

and it’s just so frustrating.  bc i love this show, i do.  there’s so much to talk about and so many themes and allegories and cool stuff.  but they just... do a lot of stuff that..... really grinds my gears.  like this isn’t even a comprehensive list.

[thejpfdude-blog]

The Week in Anime (Week of 1/23/16)

Hello and welcome to another edition of TWiA! Another week passes, and that means another batch of episodes to rant talk about! So let’s begin with those rankings, all up to date!

Rankings:

1 (0). Demi-chan wa Kataritai (9/10) [3/?]

2 (0). Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo! 2 (great/10) [2/10]

3 (0). Gabriel DropOut (great/10) [2/12]

4 (0). Kuzu no Honkai (good/10) [2/?]

5 (+2). Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon (decent/10) [2/?]

6 (-1). Nobunaga no Shinobi (7/10) [16/?]

7 (+1). Little Witch Academia (TV) (6/10) [2-3/25]

8 (+1). Rewrite: Moon and Terra (decent/10) [2/?]

9 (+1). Sengoku Choujuu Giga: Otsu (meh/10) [2/13]

10 (-4). Masamune-kun no Revenge (meh/10) [3/?]

11 (0). Nyanbo (4/10) [16/26]

Awards:

Best “Is It Me Or Is It The Others Who Are Wrong” Award: Little Witch Academia

This show was hyped up to the max on /r/anime, to the point where there were daily posts with the number of days until the first episode would air. I didn’t really buy into the hype after watching the original OVA and leaving it feeling a bit underwhelmed. And after two episodes, I knew what I was getting myself into: it’s not anything amazing, but it’s not horrible either. It’s right in that middle ground of enjoyment, enough for me to continue with it even though it’s two cour. Yet there’s still a thought inside of me, wondering why I’m not enjoying it as much as other people seem to be. And after much thought, there’s two reasons that people are loving this show that I narrowed down: the great animation and the Disney-like story. Those two things are pretty much the reason for my lack of enjoyment for this series.

Good animation is nice, but it’s not anything that’s going to significantly raise the score of a show for me. And as for the second point, the show is Disney-like in the sense that it portrays the message of “if you believe, you’ll surely accomplish it”. It was prominent with the OVA, and so far with the first two episodes it’s been a thing as well. Unfortunately, I’m not really about the whole “with the power of believing/friendship/whatever we can surely win/accomplish this task/etc.”: it’s the main reason why I generally don’t watch shounens/sports shows, and it’s the reason why I don’t particularly like some CGDCTs with that message as well, such as Yuru Yuri sometimes or what GochiUsa’s second season is starting to look like from the episodes I’ve watched.

What it really boils down to is basically “it’s not for me”. It’s basically the same situation with Flying Witch: I’m not saying the show is bad or that I hate the show. In fact, I appreciate what Flying Witch contributed towards the iyashikei genre (healing show in a sense), and I appreciate the whole backstory with LWA and how it got Kickstarted. But in the end, I rate based on how I enjoyed a show, and for me at this point, LWA hasn’t been amazing, but is still okay. We’ll see how it progresses later because things can change dramatically, but so far this is how I feel about it.

Best “Random Action Scene” Award: Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon

Sasuga KyoAni. In a comedy/slice-of-life show, we get a pretty dang good action scene featuring the two dragons that have been introduced so far. I’m not watching very many action shows this season, so I’m not going to so far as to say that this scene was the best action scene of the young season. Instead I’ll just say that this scene is a good example of the versatility of this show. We got the laughs for sure, but it can go farther than that as there were actually some nice heartwarming moments as well with the kid dragon’s exile scene. I’m curious to see how the other characters will fit into the dynamic of the show, based on what I saw from the OP/ED sequences. We’ll see I guess.

Most Fucked Up Shit Award: Kuzu no Honkai

(Honestly it isn’t that bad, but compared to the rest of the shows I’m watching, this is like some horror stuff)

I try to keep myself from swearing in these posts because I’m trying to limit my cuss word usage, but no euphemism is accurately going to describe this award. Straight up, this is some fucked up shit. On the one hand, this show has been a really interesting take on romance in a genre which usually is filled with annoying tropes and disappointing nothings. On the other hand, the relationships themselves are really really messed up. You have both Hanabi and Mugi pretending that the other person is their actual love during the more intimate scenes, you have the main relationship itself which I’m sure is going to end up self-destructing at some point during the season, and now you introduce more characters into the love polygon, with no expenses towards the gender of the person. It’s messy, but really fun to watch. I don’t know if that makes me a bad person, but I already knew that from the start anyway so I’m ready for the rest of this messed up ride.

Most Oregairu-like Show: Masamune-kun no Revenge

I’m seeing some similarities with this show and Oregairu, specifically in the characters. The most obvious one is Yukino and Aki: both ice queens with long black-ish hair. Then there’s the less obvious Yui and Futaba, both sort of the cheerful genki-type characters (with similar figures...). And then there’s the traps.

But really, that’s it for the similarities. And even then, these similarities aren’t really that good when you look deeper. Let’s start with the traps. Well, first let me start off by saying I don’t like traps. They usually have absolutely no point other than “oh look it’s a trap character”. That’s the case for Re:Zero and that’s the case for Masamune-kun: basically they just added the trap because they could, although they could have put a non-trap character and it wouldn’t have made a difference. Yet with Oregairu, Totsuka (the trap) actually has a purpose, and it’s the reason why I actually like him unlike the other traps out there. He basically acts as the main source of comedic moments with 8man, and him being a trap is essential to those comedic moments. In that way, him being a trap served a purpose, and so I was fine with it.

Going further, the comparison between Yui and Futaba is ruined by the fact that Yui is a main character in her show while Futaba isn’t, meaning we get a rejection in the second episode and her time on screen very much cut down. Unfortunate because I liked her the most out of all of the characters so far. And then there’s Aki and Yukino, both characters of an archetype I don’t really like: the tsundere. It’s obviously too early to tell, but from the first three episodes Aki just seems like a worse version of Yukino: she flip-flops too much between tsun and dere mode, which I think is more frustrating than just sticking with the tsun and slowly moving towards the dere like Yukino does.

So overall, Masamune-kun so far has been hit-and-miss so far. It’s had its moments and misses, but overall it’s a decent to average show. Time will tell as to how this continues, but with how it’s progressing, I’m honestly not too excited to see. Oh well, I’m in this ride for now.

The “Landfill Info Dump” Show Award: Rewrite (Moon and Terra)

First off, I have to say that this season of Rewrite so far has been much better than the first season. Unfortunately, that also leads us to this award, which was sort of a given with how unorganized the first season was. Because of the amount of stuff they glossed over, they now have to explain all of the stuff they missed, leading to a lot of information being dumped to the viewer. Now I’m not sure if this is because I’ve already read the VN or something else, but the info dump made the episodes go so slowly, and just made the show boring to watch. That might also just be the slow pacing of the show though, so I can’t really tell if it’s the same for an anime-only viewer. Well, hopefully this continues to be a decent adaptation.

The “Nisekoi” Award: Demi-chan wa Kataritai

Now before I get into my spiel, let me say that this show is some really good stuff. It’s so good that I already bought volume 1 of the manga, which tells you something given that I almost never get manga. Having said that, this episode revealed some things that I didn’t really like, namely the harem-y feels I’m getting (hence the Nisekoi award). From Machi’s crush on the sensei to Sato-sensei’s crush on the sensei to Hikari’s ambiguous crush on the sensei, I’m a bit wary. I have been told that nothing actually happens romantically, so I am optimistic that it’s just me being super pessimistic. Still, it’s something that’s been bothering me with this show, and is really the only complaint I have for it. But really, it’s a minor minor issue compared to the great things this show is doing. Still the best anime of the season so far.

The “Red Flags Dropped Show of the Week” Award: Fuuka

This last episode was the breaking point. Well actually, every episode was the breaking point, but this episode just pushed it over the edge. Firstly, why is the MC such a basic biatch? Secondly, how the heck did he end up in the position he was when he fell on Fuuka? Thirdly, how did I end up watching four episodes of this? For the time I was watching this, I think I had to pause at least five times per episode because I had to recollect myself and prevent myself from facedesking too hard. There were so many stupid decisions and turns that were made during this show, and watching it was probably bad for my health. It’s not even worth it anymore for “that point”, and so I say no more.

Best Episode of the Week Award: KonoSuba S2

Okay, this episode was significantly better in the face department. No noticeable derp, and the derp that was there was purposeful and added to the humor. And speaking of that, this episode was even better than the first episode, making me laugh more than any show from last season combined. It’s stupid, yes, but it uses its stupidity in a humorous way, parodying cliches and such to turn scenes in unexpected directions. I’m interested to see if the bad derp and good derp alternate, because apparently the animation directors for episodes alternate between odd and even numbered episodes. Would be interesting if that was the case. Still, this show was the best comedy last year, and it’s making a strong case for this year as well.

And that’s all for this week: thanks for reading! Random side note: there’s a certain show on my radar that’s been recommended to me, so I’ll give that a shot and see if it’s worth watching. If you know of Youjo Senki, well that’s it. We’ll see if it’s any good considering the genre isn’t really my thing.

So until next time, I’ll see you in the next post!