#this is not even a meta post I just had Thoughts after rewatching the backstory the other day

[umbrace-rambles]

Not trying to justify or excuse Doflamingo in any way, I'm actually a big fan of his manslaughter and many awful crimes but as I was rewatching Dressrosa I noticed I believe a lot of people forget about the second smaller backstory flashback he gets? Which goes considerably deeper into why he is Like That despite being much shorter.

I'd guess most people only remember the main one he shares with Corazón and Law (understandable) but like.... he was very much groomed to be Like That, the same way he planned to do with Law.

Until before he killed his father, he was shown to be, at most, an extremely entitled and annoying child that very much embodied what he had learned from their lifestyle as a celestial dragon. You can see that mindset and behavior in literally all of his ex-peers (excluding later Homing and Mjorsgard, but they're exceptions)

After Homing decided to leave Mary Geoise with his family and during everything they endured after, Doflamingo was just very pissed and very much growing hateful towards his father (which is not that hard to understad given the situation) but never actually acted aggressive, or homicidal, he just kept giving the same celestial dragon tirade, because he didn't understand what was going on. He repeatedly asks his father why what he has known for his whole life is not working, he is confused.

Now, the second backstory flashbacks reveal some very much crucial things to what happened after all of this, including the fact that it was Trebol (and Diamante, Pica and Vergo, who were already together at the time) who gave Doffy both his fruit and the gun he uses to kill his father, stating that he was chosen by the heavens because they witnessed him using Conqueror's haki back when he and his family were tied up. This instantly draws Trebol's group to him and makes them realize that actually, this kid is very fucking powerful, we should weaponize that.

So Doflamingo kills his father (and this is the last time we see Rosinante with him so we can assume they split after this- Rosi likely being taken by Sengoku when they find him), brings his head to Mary Geoise to try and bargain rejoining the celestial dragons, which goes bad, and then he goes back to Trebol and his group. They comfort him and state that since he can't go back, he should join them, and they would give him everything he ever wanted. What follows is a long montage of them fueling his previous mindset that he is right, indeed chosen by the heavens, that he should rule over everything, and that they will act as his executioners on his every whim.

Now, I don't believe Doflamingo could ever be "normal" or that he would be able to rebuild his mindset from what he had learned from the celestial dragons the same way Rosinante was able to. I do, however, fully believe that he would be much different from what he is now, had he never been groomed by Trebol & co. Would he have been drawn to violence and destruction the same way? Perhaps he would end up there on his own anyway, but maybe not, maybe he would remain more similar to other celestial dragons, weak and fearful and using other people to do his dirty work for him.

I do think there's something fundamentally wrong with that man that would still surface in some way at some point of his life but who knows, things could've been different.

[musingsofanunorgainizedmind]

Top 10 Things I Love About Supernatural

It’s been almost half a year since the show ended and now that the dust has settlIed, I just want to list ten reasons I love this show. Despite it’s flaws, it’s been quite the ride.

1. Team Free Will

When I first got the idea to make this list, I originally planned on doing entirely separate entries for “Sam & Dean” and “Destiel”. Except then I wanted to pay tribute to “Sastiel”. And then I wanted to do an entry for “Team Free Dads”. By that point, I was already halfway through the list and I hadn’t even moved on from the main characters. A few months ago, I made a post about why I love every single pairing in this group. Obviously, Sam and Dean are a legendary duo. Obviously, Dean and Cas have an unparalleled story. Obviously, Sam and Cas are an underrated team. As for Team Free Dads, I’ve always had a soft spot for father/mentor figure characters and and all three tackle the role in different ways. I love Jack, too. I love how everyone in this bizarro family is “broken” in some way. We’ve got the Allistair’s prized pupil, the spawn of satan, the boy with demon blood, and the angel who nearly obliterated all of heaven. But they help each other heal by being supportive and seeing the good in each other. They all love each other so deeply and when together, nothing can stand in their way. Not Michael, not Lucifer, and not God himself. They tore up the book and wrote their own story. And it was a pleasure to watch it all unfold.

2. The Suppporting Characters

To list every single supporting character I have loved and lost in this show would take way too long. I don’t know if it’s the writing or acting performances, but I love pretty much every single supporting character on this show. Even villains like Azazel or Allistair are top-notch villains. Hell, I even like characters like Metatron, Lucifer, Mary, and John! Characters like Rufus, Charlie, Crowley, Rowena, Kevin, Ellen, Jo, Bobby, Gabriel, Balthazar, Mick...how am I not supposed to love them??? All of their stories were cut so short. I’d watch a show about any of these characters. The Wayward Sisters were robbed. So many ships were gone too soon (Sam/Rowena, Dean/Jo, Cas/Meg, Etc.). So many heartbreaking deaths. I want to be best friends with all these characters. Why be a “dean-girl” or a “sam-girl” when you can be a garth-girl? A kevin-girl? A claire-girl? A bela-girl? There are so many great characters with interesting and compelling backstories and so much untapped potential. I could go on forever on this, but I digress.This show has one of the best supporting casts I have ever had the pleasure of watching.

3. The Themes

It’s no accident that I got addicted to this show at the time that I did. Namely, my Senior Year of College and 2020. Graduating college and entering the “real world” felt like it’s own sort of apocalypse. 2020 definitely exacerbated my worst tendencies. Messages like “family don’t end in blood”, “you can write your own story”, and “always keep fighting” really resonated with me. I could definitely relate to the feelings of insecurity these character’s felt and the ways they suppressed/repressed their issues instead of facing them. I could relate to the feelings of not fitting in and I could definitely relate to the loneliness. This show helped remind me that I’m not alone. That it’s okay if my values and identity don’t line up with the what I envisioned for myself. And, most importantly, that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and that I should never give up. If Dean, Sam, and Cas can keep moving forward despite their demons and despite how bad it gets, so can I. Regardless of how the story ended, these themes resonated with me and I’ll still hold them with me. A single episode can’t take that away.

4. The Fun Episodes

This show has so many legendary standalone episodes. Changing Channels. Ghostfacers. The French Mistake. Fan Fiction. Tall Tales. Bad Day at Black Rock. When this show goes for the absurd, it goes all-in. It takes the risks it needs to take, it gets completely insane, and it pulls it off. So many of these episodes could have easily been the moment that the show “jumped the shark”. Yet, time after time, the show delivered on it’s potential. I don’t know how much I can say about these episodes except that they made me laugh out loud, made me fall even harder for these characters, and that they’re the episodes I remember best. If I were to rewatch any episode, it would be one of the fun ones. This show knew how to not take itself too seriously and how to poke fun at itself. I’ve always had a soft spot for shows that can make me laugh and cry (X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel, Doctor Who, etc.), and this show definitely nails the fun part. 

5. The Sad Episodes

Death’s Door. Hammer of the Gods. Despair. Carry On. Abandon All Hope. In My Time of Dying. Swan Song. When this show wants you to cry, it doesn’t pull the punches. It gets downright devastating. No character is safe. Literally every character you love will either be forgotten or will die. Or both. The amount of trauma Sam and Dean have to go through is insane. Both have literally been to hell and back. Both have killed countless people, including innocents. When this show decides it wants to wreck you, it’s overwhelming. I sobbed when Bobby died. I sobbed when every single member of Team Free Will died for the final time (I still can’t watch any of those scenes). I still wish Jo, Ellen, Charlie, Kevin, Mick, and Gabriel had been given more time to tell their stories. Being a hunter means a life of endless angst. Being an angel or demon doesn’t get you off the hook, either. I remember going into this show thinking it couldn’t hurt me. My favorite character type is “mentor/father figure”. But holy hell...I don’t think every single sad moment was necessarily good writing, but when it was? Damn. 

6. The Biblical Themes

I’m not a relgious person. But, despite this show being steeped in Christian mythology, it really touched on my feelings about the Old Testament in a profound way. Well, really just Ben Edlund and Robbie Thompson did. I’ve never seen a show really hit the overall feel of the bible the way this show does. The idea of Angels as mystical and terrifying creatures. The idea of God as a flawed father figure with a penchant for wrath. The sheer epicness of the biblical stories. The idea of family members constantly being turned on each other. Cain and Abel. Jacob and Essau. Moses and Ramses. Moses and Aaron. Abraham and Isaac. The bible is full of stories of family drama. This show doesn’t always give angels and demons weight. Sometimes it’s silly and stupid and cheesy. But when it hits right? It’s epic. This is more of a personal thing I love about the show, but definitely a plus!

7. The Music

The early seasons music is so good. I really miss the classic rock of the golden era of the show. I mean, there are still some great musical moments later on, but damn. I loved hearing songs I recognized and I loved learning new songs. I loved when the song and the scene hit perfectly in time (Death’s intro. Cas’s return in Season 13.). Also Supernatural wouldn’t be Supernatural without the ‘Carry On My Wayward Son’ song at the end of every season. Even at the end of a season I didn’t love, that recap would always get me pumped. Also Chuck singing Fare Thee Well? Dean and Lee singing together? Fan Fiction? All great. 

8. The Cast & Crew

I never care about the actors or actresses in a show. I definitely don’t bother with the names of specific writers and directors or their styles of writing/directing. They’re just random people who happen to write for or play these characters I love. They’re not actually the characters. But these guys? Well, for one, I’m pretty sure half this cast actually is their character. At least to some degree. They’re also just...really cool people? Who are all friends? They make a point to do community service, to interact with fans, and to promote positive ideas. Jared’s Always Keep Fighting campaign. Misha and GISH. The fact that they all participate in fundraising opportunities and encourage fan engagement. Do they all have issues? Definitely. Have they said stupid things? Yes. But the good far outweighs the bad. They’re an entertaining bunch whether onscreen or not and I hope they all do well in whatever their future endeavors may be.  

9. The Fandom

I joined this fandom late. To be honest, I thought this fandom was obnoxious before I found myself a part of it. Now that I’ve been in the trenches? It’s got it’s ups and downs like any fandom. There are some parts that are more toxic than others. A lot of people yelling that their opinion is the only opinion. But overall? The good outweighs the bad. And the good? The good is great. Some fanfictions I’ve read are better than actual books I’ve read and just as moving. The fanart? Incredible. I love reading all the metas about random aspects of the show I never would have noticed. I love the music videos and I love the analytical videos. In real life, I’ve made many friends through our mutual love of this show. Hell, even getting sucked into GISH once or twice has given me some solid memories and brought me closer to friends. I wish all fandoms were this much like family. I’m so glad I got to be a part of this fandom and I can’t wait to continue being a fan. After all, nothing ever stays dead in Supernatural.

10. The Chaos & Insanity

Season 16 has been a time. First, Destiel went canon. Then suddenly Sherlock was having a 5th season, Putin was retiring, and Georgia was going blue. Destiel going “canon” and Joe Biden winning the presidency will always be correlated in my mind now. Things in the fandom went from quiet to blaringly loud real fast. Carry On happened. The fandom went into a civil war. I can’t even remember half of what happened in Season 16, but it’s been a wild ride. There’s been ups (my personal favorite being the french dub and the Saileen wedding). There’s been downs (Jared’s controversial statements and the original scripts being leaked). At one point Misha Collins had sex with Bill Clinton???? It’s been a wild time. It’s honestly gotten me through the end of this pandemic. At least it’s entertaining. I would say that at least all the craziness is over, but is it ever really over? Every time I say that something else completely insane happens. But it’s been fun. I’m glad I started watching this show despite my reservations and here’s to whatever happens next. 

[inawickedlittletown]

Miranda Hamilton/Barlow - some thoughts

I need to talk about Miranda. In particular, since I just finished rewatching S1, I want to talk about Miranda in S1. I remember very clearly watching episode two and the way that the episode ends with Flint showing up at her house. And we get no information, we know nothing about her, but Flint arrives there and it is such a deep contrast to how episode one ended that the layers of his character just grow but so does the mystery of who is Miranda Barlow?

There’s domesticity in Miranda’s home. Flint both fits in and doesn’t all at once and the complications of their relationship are not made quite clear except that Miranda is someone that Flint shares everything with. She is one of the few to truly know him and her home is where he can just be. Knowing that does not give us as the viewers that information which makes the way that we discover more about her character a bigger and more interesting journey. And while Miranda may know everything about Flint and about his crew and about Flint’s plans, Flint keeps Miranda and what she means to him quiet. So much so that the whole presence of Miranda on the island has created myths around her. 

Miranda is called a witch, people fear her because they think she has Flint do her bidding. They talk about her as if she’s someone to fear and be scared of. Mrs. Barlow is a story made up to fill in all the gaps that Flint has left open. Flint tells Billy that the men cannot believe their Captain was with a puritan woman but that doesn’t stop Billy from continuing to wonder about her and her motives and the motives that Flint has as well.  

But the thing about Miranda that truly interested me in this rewatch was that Miranda isn’t happy. She’s lonely and she seems to long to be happy again. I think Miranda is pragmatic and that she absolutely sees merit to Flint’s plan but in part I think that’s because it’s their only option and because of how attached it is to Thomas’ memory. As soon as there’s another possibility, she jumps at the chance even when it means that she’s betraying Flint. And I honestly don’t blame her for wanting to return to society and for wanting herself and Flint to find a way forward. And I also completely understand that she can’t possibly see it as the betrayal that Flint sees it as. It is also interesting that she longs for a life with Flint and that she doesn’t want to leave him behind. 

In some ways, his anger is interesting to take in when he confronts her because within the scope of S1 we don’t know the real reason that Flint can hold so much disdain for England. One of my favorite scenes in S1 — one of the most heartbreaking — is seeing Flint show up to ask Miranda about her letter and she insists that of course they can go to Boston and have a life and he says: 

“They took everything from us and then they call ME a monster. The moment I sign that pardon, the moment I ask for one, I proclaim to the world that they were right. This ends when I grant them my forgiveness.” (And Toby Stephens...boy does he just nail the emotion in this scene so perfectly...this quote alone deserves it’s own post).

This quote obviously stands out, but it is the whole exchange from how Miranda mentions not having a life there and there not being love present there and how for her the time that’s passed has allowed her to move past the pain of losing Thomas and everything that occurred. Of course, we don’t know what actually happened yet, but it is on the rewatch that it just seems so absolutely obvious. And it makes me adore this show so much more because Flint’s backstory was planned from the very beginning and there are hints and subtle foreshadowing and after knowing everything it just paints such a fuller picture. 

Of course Flint feels it deeper, is still raw with it. Of course he is still angry. It isn’t just about an affair or an indiscretion. It isn’t even about being a pirate. It’s about love — it’s about a society that does not allow Flint to love who he wants to love, a society that condemns him for it and gets away with destroying Thomas and Miranda and James. Miranda can’t feel that, she can’t understand the depth to which Flint carries what happened with him. 

And that brings us to the sad sex. Which happens earlier in the season and was such an uncomfortable thing to watch. He’s just there and it’s all kinds of awkward and it feels like he’s not into it and yet they are having sex. Miranda is not just some random woman and we never see Flint show any interest in anyone else and yet there doesn’t seem to be any passion or perhaps even pleasure in it. It’s also the only sex scene Flint has — there’s scenes that obviously imply it in the flashbacks, but nothing fully portrayed. (Sex and this show also needs it’s own post). 

In comparison, we do see Miranda have sex with another person. Miranda’s only other form of companionship seems to be the priest that stops by all the time. Miranda might feel like he’s imposing, but she also seems to welcome him and see him as a friend. She also teases him. The first time we see them together she draws his attention to her breasts very deliberately. And then later on when he stops to see her one night, she calls him out on his desire for her without flinching and she just basically invites him to have sex with her right there on her porch. This was the instance where it becomes clear that Miranda is not all that simple and that she enjoys sex without shame. On the rewatch, it’s almost funny because of how Miranda also took it upon herself to seduce James. 

I think I enjoyed Miranda a lot more on rewatching mostly because so much of what we learn about her in S2 fills in what happens in S1 to form a much fuller picture and she truly is such a complex and well written character and I am fascinated by how smart she is and how someone in her position in society could be so willing to open up her marriage and have no shame about her own sexual exploits but also those of her husband. I love the part that she plays in this world and how much Flint cares about her and how her involvement in the world of piracy is more drawn back than the other characters and how much she represents Flint’s past. I do wish we had gotten to see more of her and Flint in the years in between them leaving England and where we pick up in S1, but overall I really do appreciate the complexities that Miranda brings along to the plot because Miranda fits right on in with all the other strong female characters in this show in such a very different yet complex way and we see more of that in S2 both in seeing her in the flashbacks and in the present.

-

Other Meta/Reviews 

[butterflydm]

The Untamed Rewatch (ep 1)

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Oh, yes, I was very correct about this all hitting me a lot harder after I’d seen the whole show. I am also watching it on viki.com this time and the subtitled translations are already a lot better than the ones on the tencent youtube channel. They flow much more naturally as lines of dialogue (there’s a new set of translated videos popping up, too, that I might check out on my… third viewing… that will probably happen after this one… I really like this story y’all).

Things that stood out to me on this viewing (note: I am going to be spoiling the rest of the story as well when talking about things, including the twists):

Okay, so in the drama, when Wei WuXian is brought back to life, it seems like he definitely does look like himself again from the start —he specifically questions Mo XuanYu’s cousin to see if the Mo family would recognize him and learns that they haven’t seen him without mask or heavy makeup since he left home for a while at thirteen. What I infer from the conversations is that their looks were similar enough that when Mo XuanYu called Wei WuXian’s spirit into his body and the magic reshaped it, his general shape didn’t change enough to be noticeable, plus the family didn’t really look at him much in any case. And Wei WuXian worries that the “Lans of Gusu” might know enough about how he looks to recognize him, even if they aren’t “him”. I mean, obviously the doylist/meta reason is that they hired Xiao Zhan for a reason and they’re gonna have him play the part, but yeah, thinking about it is interesting.

Wei WuXian playing wangxian on the piece of grass: fucked me up so much more now. This show does such an excellent job with this entire romance. The whole way they set up Wei WuXian both wanting and not wanting to see Lan WangJi again is a lovely representation of their push-pull dynamic in the drama as a whole.

Which brings me to how much I love that song. The wangxian love theme is absolutely beautiful, enough that even when they play it like ten times in one of the later episodes, I’m still like “aaaah, so pretty! <3”. The first time we hear it is when Wei Ying has the flashback to Lan Zhan in his Gusu robes when he’s talking to Lan SiZhui and it’s so subtle there but it starts building up the mood of their romance, piece by piece. And WWX is so overcome by the memory that he literally sinks down and sits on his heels.

I also really love Lan Zhan’s theme song, as well. Lan Zhan’s introduction is… a lot. I love that we don’t see his face until it’s WWX seeing his face again, too. And he’s just this floating ethereal being and WWX stares for a long while, transfixed… and then makes fun of the way he’s dressed, with a fond smile. There’s such a good job there of putting in a sense of familiarity and history with how Wei Ying reacts to seeing Lan Zhan again.

The set-up of the sixteen years ago, seeing that moment, and then when we come back to it 30+ episodes later as we see both that there was so much we didn’t know but also that the show didn’t at all ‘cheat’ about the emotions of the scene — the backstory information we get complicates the picture of that day that we start with but doesn’t undermine it.

Wei WuXian also comes back in a much better emotional place? Given the way resentful energy is presented in the drama as a corrupting force, I wonder if part of that is attributable to getting a ‘new start’ in Mo XuanYu’s body — his own original body had been put through so much physical trauma in addition to the emotional trauma. The removal of his golden core. Being thrown down into the burial mounds. Then years of resentful energy being held inside his body and built up over time. Even just getting a chance to wipe that out and start again in a body that hasn’t been through that trauma might be helpful. This fey, trickster Wei WuXian is reminiscent of how we meet him in the flashback.

Though, in the drama (as I understand it, his death happens differently in the novel), another element might be that we did see him reach a moment of peace right before he died — he saved Lan Zhan’s life. He was already able to break out of the stranglehold of his grief and pain long enough to do that before he died, so his mind already started the healing process (but then he died, so it was short-circuited — sort of? Wei Ying does make it clear he was aware of being dead and he even knows how long he’s been dead without anyone telling him). I’m not sure how much of that applies to the novel’s version of WWX, but that’s what I got out of the drama’s version.

I really love Wei Ying’s casual displays of power. Snapping his fingers to freeze Mo XuanYu’s cousin in place… it just comes so naturally to him. He just has this very spontaneous-feel to when he uses magic (is it still called cultivation in this context?) that makes it just part of who he is and it’s very charming.

We see the hints of Nie HuaiSang’s hand behind everything — he paid the storyteller to talk about the YiLing Patriarch for three solid days, probably to influence the timing of Mo XuanYu’s ritual. He makes sure he stays there to see the initial results through — which he does again in the final act of the story. I have much genuine love for Nie HuaiSang tbh. He gets his revenge thoroughly but doesn’t go incredibly overboard the way most of the revenge-based characters do in the series (though he is ruthless about it). He knows his own strengths and weaknesses — he’s not a fighter, but he knows where he can find one. He doesn’t have overweening ambition beyond what he can handle. If his big brother had never been murdered, I get the sense he would have happily stayed a decorative baby brother all his life.

The Lan juniors are the cutest lil beans in creation. I love the contrast between them, because we see that Lan SiZhui is much more polite and formal than Lan JingYi, but he’s also incredibly compassionate and his heart is very much present on his face at all times. He’s respectful but openly kind. The moments when his memory is getting tickled by the way Wei Ying is behaving is also… it means so much after having seeing the drama all the way through once. And I love Lan JingYi for many reasons, but also because I think his (tbh kind of straight-up bratty) attitude implies that the Cloud Recesses have calmed the fuck down a bit about their strictness in the past decade-plus. And he finds Wei Ying’s dramatics amusing for the most part, which is cute.

Lan SiZhui recognizing wangxian — I suspect he’s remembering Wei Ying playing it rather than it being a post-death memory of LWJ playing it, since Lan JingYi doesn’t remember it at all. And because if Lan WangJi played it for anyone after Wei Ying died, then I’m not sure he would have been so certain from the start that the person playing it had to be Wei Ying. Meanwhile, Wei Ying isn’t aware of the full emotional importance of the song to Lan Zhan, and he seems to play it a couple of times as a soothing action (self-soothing here, and then to calm down Wen Ning’s corpse in episode 2)? Likely because it reminds him of being cared for by someone (in this case, of course, Lan Zhan). Wei Ying keeps precious hold of things like this and is very sentimental from what we see, and it makes sense that he associates this song with affection in the same way that he associates lotus root and sparerib soup with affection.

I am… honestly not at all surprised that people (even apart from the Lans) are using all the cool shit that Wei WuXian created even while most of the cultivation world still condemns him. That was the way they behaved when he was alive, too. They wanted his cool shit but judged him for making it.

Wei WuXian standing up for Lan SiZhui and the rest of the juniors when Madame Mo is yelling at them: he’s such a natural defender, tbh (which, of course, ends up being a big part of why he and Jiang Cheng end up at odds because WWX doesn’t limit his caretaking nature to his family but extends it to literally anyone who needs it no matter the cost). He’s nurturing in a careless/teasing way at times but he’s also very protective. And that impulse to jump in to help other people is such a big moral thing that he shares with Lan Zhan.

Okay, so, thoughts on grief as presented in the drama: Lan WangJi is well-known and beloved by the young Lan disciples. His reputation is back to being spotless, because it’s been over a decade since he did anything wrong. so, I don’t think he was publicly still grieving, though I will note that the Lan junior disciples seem relatively open to the idea that the YiLing Patriarch was probably not the worst person ever and it wouldn’t suck if he really weren’t dead after all, kind of reminiscent of MianMian’s daughter talking about how the YiLing Patriarch only goes after bad people (Lan JingYi honestly sounds hilariously excited about the idea that the YiLing Patriarch might still be alive, tbh - what have you been telling these children, Lan Zhan? lol).

So while I don’t get the impression LWJ spent most of those years openly pining, I’m sure the subject of WWX has come up, as he’s still a popular monster-in-the-night for a lot of people, and LWJ probably did defend his memory, in his own quiet but solid way. But I also get the impression overall that LWJ put his deep grief for Wei Ying in the same box as his deep grief over his mother, and he did his duty.

Then, he realizes Wei Ying might be alive and everything changes. I love that they both instinctively think of each other by their given names, too. Even when Wei Ying isn’t sure whether or not he wants to see Lan Zhan, that’s still how he thinks of him first — as Lan Zhan. And Lan Zhan just stares at the sword while it’s giving off those black smoke trails, transfixed, and when he first wonders if Wei Ying is alive and there, it’s just... Peak Romance, y’all. Peak Romance.

It does crack me up that the second Wei Ying gets the chance, he dresses himself in his own colors of black & red and doesn’t stick with Mo XuanYu’s colors. The only effort he puts into his ‘undercover’ disguise is the mask. He deserves a “I don’t think you even tried at all” star tbh.

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[harlskeener]

Super random but. I agree so much with all your meta in the tags of tasm2 reblogs 😭 I thought Dane DeHaan was perfect casting for Harry and his whole premise in the movie had so much potential. Every time I rewatch tasm2 I enjoy him a lot up until literally the last 15 minutes where they relocate him to a plot device and destroy his character

omg, this was so cute to see :((( i hope you don’t mind me posting this, i just really wanted to talk about tasm 2 harry sdkjfsdf @electronicprince

i think james defranco did a great job with what he was given for harry, but i do feel that his portrayal affected the image and characterisation of harry so much that a lot of people were wary of dane’s casting because everyone was envisioning this suave, masculine, playboy version of harry (which isn’t really accurate of harry anyways, but!!!!!)? but truly, like. dane brings such a raw vulnerability to harry that i appreciated so, so much that i just can’t see anyone else doing justice the way he did. 

he pulls off the lonely rich kid stereotype so well while still playing someone who can go toe-to-toe against a board of directors. dane is a phenomenal actor, period. and while i personally have major flaws with tasm 2, i still think dane did a GREAT job.

generally speaking, i think what makes dane SUCH an amazing actor for harry is he’s able to utilise so many different emotions in a single moment, and it’s so satisfying? while i’m angry that they used norman’s death as an excuse to make harry be the green goblin, i do like the way we get to see it affecting harry. in the beginning, he’s so numb, but -- throughout the entirety of the film, he really comes alive and becomes so dynamic. 

he goes from this numb, boiling anger from the get go up until he sees peter, and -- not to be full parksborn BUT -- seeing him is literally his only relief? that one moment with peter is really the only time we see harry actually genuinely happy!!! we see him teasing, see him with his guard COMPLETELY down. after that, harry goes straight into desperation that only gets worse and worse with his illness. this only gets worse when he's LITERALLY framed for the testing being done on max to keep him quiet, and then that growing desperation just explodes? like the pure misery on his face as he realises he’s been played by menken (x)? 

also just i think truly one of the best scenes i’ve ever seen performed was dane’s harry breaking max out. the range of emotions exhibited in this scene literally makes me scream honestly? ?? dane and jamie did SUCH a great job in this moment. dane’s vocal inflections fluctuate throughout the entirety of the scene. this entire film we watched his harry undergo so much to the point that he’s willing to do whatever it takes to hurt the way he’s been hurt !! he changes from this cool, i wanna make you a deal, voice to his rasp when he says, think bigger max..., and back and forth between the two, and it’s so beautiful, it literally makes me go FERAL. he’s deliberately saying exactly what max wants to hear. but it’s only when harry’s screaming “i need you” (and don’t even get me started on the nuances of those, it’s fucking incredible) and “please” that max gets out and frees the both of them?

(and then the movie ends THERE! thanks!)

skdfsd but no seriously, ultimately: i think it’s just so heartwrenching to see how dane plays harry’s spiral?? like it gets to the point that you almost kind of want him to win, that it’s almost deserved, after the shit his father put him through, after the shit oscorp put him through? the way dane’s harry hurts and hurts and that hurt turns to sheer anger is so fun to watch, and it makes you want to root for him. like here’s a boy who had a shit relationship with his dad have to come to terms with his dad’s passing after his dad dropped the shittiest news that he’s going to be dying too; be forced to take over his dad’s company where everyone hates him, and he hates them just as much; his only hope shrivels right in front of him when he has to come to terms with that his death IS imminent; finds out his dad’s company has LITERALLY been testing and experimenting on people and when he goes to confront them about it: they blame him and kick him out; like -- the way that dane presents these emotions in such a way that doesn’t feel overdramatised but instead: feels so natural and good like. he breathes life into the story without it feeling edgy. 

dane dehaan, in general, is SUCH a beautiful actor -- and i genuinely say that his performance as harry in tasm 2 was fucking fantastic, and i wish we got to see him portray harry more (and in a far better storyline, but that’s neither here nor there). and, because i would recommend his work to anyone, i say if you want to see more iconic acting on dane’s part, go watch metallica: through the never, where he literally plays a character who doesn’t speak at all, has no discernible backstory, and yet still manages to have such an array of emotions it’s so wild.

[gillian-ybabez]

"The Umbrella Academy" Episode Four Thoughts

Quick review:

Separate plotlines are beginning to bump into each other. More backstory reveals for Luther and Klaus. Overall I like the way backstory is being rationed out as each character moves in and out of the spotlight. Some might find it frustrating though.

We’re almost halfway through the season and I feel like the pacing of the plot has been slow but steady. There haven’t been any episodes yet that I would skip on a rewatch.

Spoiler thoughts under the read more:

I f*ing knew Leonard wasn’t just a good guy! He’s totally the big bad. I knew!

Luther’s ‘transformation’ was less intense than I thought it would be. I wish they had spent some time on how he adapted (or didn’t) to his body. I also wish we got more about why he was on the moon. Comic-wise going to space was his dream but here it feels like they’ve been hinting that Hargreaves sent Luther to the moon on a mission.

Hazel and Cha-Cha trying to torture Klaus was expected. The fact that he didn’t fall apart like a wet napkin was not. After seeing what his father did to him as a kid, it’s understandable where his hidden reserves came from. Plus he has Ben there too. Ben the real hero of this episode who helped him use his power to start to turn the tables on the two assassins.

I loved their high dance party while committing arson. Excellent use of multiple panels.

The prosthetics building burning up a big set back for No. Five’s investigation but (not to get too meta) it is still early in the season. It would have been too easy if No. Five made actual progress. I feel like the eye might not be important. Like maybe Luther gets it from police evidence because the building was burnt up because No. Five was looking for it. Time travel is a factor in the story so time loops aren’t out of the question.

I’m real pissed about Detective Eudora Patch. I had the thought when she showed up, “Please don’t kill her.” I’m not sure but I feel like when a character is changed from a man to a woman there’s a high chance she’s going to die. It becomes even more certain if she’s romanticly linked with a main character. That’s two women Diego had an emotional attachment to that have died. I don’t like that she died from a meta point of view but it does make sense in the story.

According to Cha-Cha, they’re supposed to keep the case with them at all times. They may be the best of the best (although Hazel may be slipping) but eventually, they’re going to get cornered or drop the case and someone is going to try to open it. So, I feel like setting up your briefcase time machine to activate when you try to open it is a real hazard.

Now the question is when did Klaus go? The future or the past? Maybe back to Hazel and Cha-Cha’s home base, whenever that is?

"“The Umbrella Academy” Episode Four Thoughts" was also posted on my website, Gillian's Notebook, home of my writing. Help support my writing by becoming a patron. Reblogs help to spread my writing to new readers.

[jokocraft]

[long meta] the hidden depths of voltron S1 E6

part 1: lance’s literal awakening and keith’s metaphorical one 

(if you already know where I’m going with this, you might find part 2: an entire subtextual plot in S1 E6? - in this same post - more interesting)

I’ve been rewatching season 1, and I got to episode 5 with the bonding moment and was like yeahh but then I got to the beginning of E6, with everyone waiting for lance to be released from the healing pod, and I was like wait. I never really thought twice about the scene before, but this time around I was like...hold the phone. 

what is keith’s reasoning for being impatient in this scene, anyway? like, if everyone else can wait a few ticks for lance to wake up, why can’t you? 

is this just your Personality, to be an impatient nuisance sometimes, haha queue comedic intro? well, while keith is often impatient, it’s usually during situations involving life or death decisions. and since lance isn’t about to die, and the timing of his release from the pod doesn’t put anyone else’s life at risk...

since i trust the vld writers enough at this point (at least with keith, i guess...?) to not make characters do shit for no good reason, i don’t think keith was being impatient for the hell of it, especially to do with someone he’s made a point of *Shrug* Not Really caring about -- that is, until shit went down in E5 and keith dropped that pretense like it was hot and didn’t hesitate to initiate the famed bonding moment.

my point here about this scene in E6, is that it’s directly linked to E5′s bonding moment, like 100%. maybe you’re like DUH OBVIOUSLY - and you’d be right, cause it’s obvious to me now and I was probably just being really slow on the uptake - but nevertheless, i don’t think we should hang up the the phone there...

i think that - well, with the “cradled you in my arms” line, we all kind of know - that keith took that bonding seriously to some extent. but to what extent? just seriously enough to be annoyed with lance’s response? personally, I think keith took it seriously enough that he truly believed a major shift had occurred between them - a shift, if my thoughts here are on the right track, he’d probably been hoping for (perhaps only subconsciously) since this scene: 

it’s from the tail end of S1E2, after they successfully form voltron for the first time. i referred to this frame as “first time keith realizes that lance is actually kind of cool”. the way I interpreted this was that now, keith can no longer see lance as >insert stereotypes here< and predictable, but rather as someone interesting and possibly full of surprises and definitely worth paying attention to after all. but in this episode, keith’s still too closed off emotionally to acknowledge at maybe his new perspective of lance is making him wish things between them were different - not so they could be BFFs like lance and hunk are, but something else....something he can’t yet put into words (space ranger partners). 

god they r all 3 uber-dorks okay

anyway

back to E6, I’m now imagining that keith has spent the last 24 hours secretly relishing the idea that he’s finally (for the first time in his life??) got himself a friend that is both a peer and someone that he feels instinctually closer to compared to other peers. (shiro is of course someone he feels instinctually closer to, but he is not quite a peer in age or maturity. the stuff can you do with a mentor/idol is definitely not the same stuff you can do with another shitting teenager like yourself).

buuuut we all know keith’s about to be disappointed when reality rears its ugly head and lance says some bullshit to allura again. “classic”. and so, from keith’s perspective, the reality is this: despite any shift between them that lance definitely felt (he saw it with his own eyes dammit), lance must have nevertheless interpreted it in a way did not put them the same page. fukin sux

poor keith. don’t we all hate when we hype something up in our minds and it turns out we were totally off the fucking mark all along? I imagine right now that he’s busy mentally burying his disappointment six feet deep. (note to remember for later: you can also see in the image above that shiro has the highest tolerance for lance’s shit.)

((((((( also eye-narrow worthy, but....perhaps...meaningless........hm: 

when coran presents the ticker when the topic of ticks vs seconds comes up, hunk and pidge come over to look instantly. allura is shown walking over to the group moments later at 22:00 into the episode. shiro is shown watching from where he stands a few feet away. and keith is just ... ... ... absent from this exchange for 4 seconds before he’s briefly shown finally walking into the frame at 22:04. for four whole seconds he was just...what? staring, I guess? at lance, waiting, probably feeling determined to Be There when lance woke up. but not so determined that he’d risk someone calling him out for it. (but shiro is likely an exception for him: shiro doesn’t have his back turned, and so keith must trust him not to raise an eyebrow if keith kinda wanted to, you now, Be There.) )))))))

anywaaaaaay

we know that burying disappointment not so simple as pushing it away and never feeling it again. because like keith, when present reality doesn’t match our perceived reality, we’re like, “wtf? where did i go wrong? how did i misinterpret this? was I delusional?” and sometimes we’re like, “no, fuck you reality, I was not delusional, not this time, I was not wrong.” And voila, here you see keith in all that frustration: he’s planted himself as much in lance’s line of sight as he can without just straight up taking the yellow mouse’s seat right in front of the bowl of goo. keith clearly intends to be acknowledged. or at the very least, to glean some clue from lance’s behavior as to why he’s being Capital-I Ignored. 

keith stays quiet during the conversation at the table until lance make a quip about the mice besting them all, and keith makes his salt known:

BITCH WHAT HTE FUCK? DID U NOT SEE HOW VALIANT I WAS PROTECTING YOUR ASS? I WAS THE SHIT! NOW STOP SPOONFEEDING THOSE FUCKING MICE I SWEAR TO

lance goes onto totally dismiss what keith did and this is....honestly not what keith expected

lance isn’t even making a dumb joke, he’s just being an asshole, plain and simple. keith now is like *softly* bitch what the fuck. “We had a bonding moment. I cradled you in my arms!” keith says, trying to look indignant, because alternative emotions are supposed be buried six feet deep.

but it’s no use, he’s stonewalled and subject-changed. and while we the audience know that the overly-defensive tone of lance’s stonewalling practically confirms that he remembers, we can only hope that lance realizes this too and is able to feel a pinch of salty relief. 

it’s my conclusion that the whole point of these beginning scenes is not just to have some character interaction and a bit of thrown-in development, but to provide legit exposition and rising action to the fully-fledged subtextual plot of ep6. Read part 2 below, an elaboration of what I mean by this. 

part 2: an entire subtextual plot in S1 E6? 

(apologies to anyone else may have posted similar conclusions and I just totally missed them)

so here i get into are more circumstantial stuff. maybe my reasoning is clouded by ship-goggles, or maybe it’s the opposite, when armed with the interpretation lens that season 3 is all but dreamworks-signed confirmation that Keith and Lance’s relationship is intended to be something more than BFF friendship, and always has been, and everything about their relationship from S1E1 to S3E7 is very deliberate in order to make their future endgame as believable, nuanced, and in depth as is possible for a younger audience show. 

assuming that this interpretation of S3 is not totally mistaken, then I contend that S1E6, in its entirety, is a far more momentous step in their relationship than all previous S1 episodes combined, including the bonding moment. 

basically, hunk wants to fulfill his promise to save his girlfriend shay, but allura decides a new incoming distress beacon needs to be looked into first. they arrive, and very unlike shay’s introduction (S1E5), characterized by dull colors, distrust, and caution....

E6′s introduction to rolo and nyma is characterized by brightness colors, camaraderie, and repose. some quality irony here. tbh, It’s a fantastic way of fLipPing The ScrIPT if you ask me Hunk.

also I suppose it should be mentioned that shay is meant to be noted for her tattered clothes, androgyny, and lack of traditional beauty (but we aren’t fooled, shay is perfect) while rolo and nyma are clearly typed to be MUTHAFUCKIN SEX BEASTS. nyma is very overtly feminine and rolo is equally masculine.

as expected, lance swoons and does his gig. even says “Name’s Lance” which uh, de ja vu anyone ahem episode uno?  as the episode progresses, it becomes clear that lance is going hella overboard, b/c even shiro (who, remember, has the highest tolerance for lance’s shit) is like for the love of fuck-

that night, there’s a bonfire, and rolo starts getting into his backstory. it’s worth noting that that besides space parents shiro and allura, keith is the only other paladin there listening. anyway rolo mentions sendak, immediately acknowledging him as a major threat. the point of that: considering just earlier in the episode, keith mentioned sendak’s threat to lance and lance promptly didn’t give a shit.....

even from profile view, keith’s expression in this frame ^ is distinctly similar to his expression from before (last frame from part 1), e.g. wide eyes revealing vulnerability, small frown, etc. i would take a gander that this is the moment that keith decides to...let things play out, rather than support hunk’s suspicions. 

(why? maybe because he sees lance being a dipshit and if hunk’s right, and these people are liars and cheats, then lance is going to get what he deserves. but, i admit, such a theory has no basis in canon.) 

meanwhile lance is being a dipshit and lets nyma inside the castle while the others aren’t looking. she plays him like a fiddle to get to the lions specifically, and at this point, the keen viewer is really starting to wonder why he’s being so dumb. 

and this is important: I do not believe the writers were making him dumb because that’s his Personality. Just like keith’s impatience with the healing pod, there’s gotta be a reason behind his behavior beyond “that’s just how he is, that’s just what’s happening right now, don’t look into it too hard”. 

I believe - going off of lance’s highly defensive refusal to acknowledge the bonding moment with keith earlier - he’s in a rather delicate emotional state right now, whether he consciously realizes it or not.

regardless of what keith might believe at this point, I think the reality is that lance sure as hell did remember. and although lance’s interpretation was probably different, it was different in the opposite way keith probably imagined (i.e. an even more dramatic and sentimental interpretation than keith’s). but the real divide between them at the beginning of E6 is their reactions to their own interpretations of the bonding moment: 

keith reaction: omg a real friend?? for me?? maybe jesus does love me

lance reaction: lies jesus lies i have never had a gay thot in my entire life nope

one of the big reasons I’m fairly confident I’m not just making lance’s reaction up totally with ship-goggles is because of this slap-in-the-face parallel: 

of ALL the things that could have been done, nyma is cradling lance in her arms, the very thing lance wants to deny even to himself ever happened with a certain someone else. 

if you’re followin my theory, i think it could go like this: 

because of the bonding moment, keith’s mind promoted his relationship with lance from we’re-both-in-voltron to F IS FOR FRIENDS, but i think from what can be seen of lance’s vastly exaggerated womanizing behaivor all E6, lance’s mind promoted his relationship with keith from grumpy-voltron-frenemy to ... 

...

...

... something he can’t yet bring himself to put into words (space ranger partners, italicized coughcough)

honestly, the frame of lance in nyma’s arms is a little depressing when put in context with the beginning of the episode. what is lance thinking, in this moment? or trying not to think about? is he telling himself on repeat: this is what I want, this is what I wanted, this is how it’s supposed to go, this is who it’s supposed to be -- he’s 100% blushing when she asks him to take her on a ride around moon, holding him like this. 

this post is cancelled if keith’s explicitly mentioned cradling is somehow not intended to be totally parallel to this scene right here with lance blushing. 

(sorry little baby cuban, but it is not mindless bromance that is in your future.)

immediately after this, lance seems to check back into reality, and shows some resistance to nyma’s request. but then: 

TRIGGERED

chances are, nyma made an educated guess that lance - like any hopeless romantic douche (psa i still love lance with my whole soul) - would react stupidly and competitively when threatened to be bested by another suitor. but there is a smidgen of possibility that she’s smart as FUCK (which there’s plenty of evidence of) and she knew that there could be only ONE1 reason lance could be overcompensating so obsessively. and out of other TeenPaladins, keith’s the hottest. i wouldn’t put it past this chick to put 2 and 2 and 5 together to get 69 and be correct. 

bonus: she mentions how the minerals of the kinetic spring “reflect off the water, making a rainbow”. Also, I’m almost certain someone has pointed this out before, but I guess I’ll do it again - the bisexual flag colors are pink, lavender, and blue, and this background..!.............but that’s just whiteboard conspiracy silliness, surely.    surely. 

necessary? i think not

((((((( also on a related note, i’ve watched this clip below like eight times because I have a feeling that this sequence is some kind of subtle parallel or reference to something as well. on the surface, lance appears to be surprised and blush when nyma rests her head against his armpit side and starts laughing.

it just caught me off guard like, why would this bit be included? we already know that lance is infatuated with her, so what’s the point? why waste time and frames to keep making the same point? ... oR is there some other point that’s trying to be made and I am blind to see it? right now I can’t come up with anything, but if you have any ideas, definitely let me know. )))))))

meanwhile...

keith stap.

and so lance’s massive fuck up comes to a peak, and he’s so desperate for this thing with nyma to work (so desperate to prove to himself that nothing’s changed, he’s still the same, a beautiful girl is still what he wants, what he needs) that for one sad moment he’s actually willing to believe nyma’s a dominatrix before he’s willing to believe that she’d been playing him all along...

(how can I be mad at this boy?) 

the others start the pursuit to save lance, and i think that it’s clever how keith was given the spotlight in the blue lion’s recovery via navigating the asteroid belt. that pursuit scene was very flexible in its requirements for how it needed to go, technically keith’s role doing that was interchangeable, and so the whole sequence could have been designed in a way to cater to another lion’s strengths. but. 

“This kid can flat-out fly,” says rolo. the title of this episode is “Taking Flight”. why would the title of this episode, in which, tbh, keith hardly does anything for a majority of it, be dedicated to this relatively predictable space car chase?

A: because it enables keith to say that he got is lion back. I saved your ass AGAIN and this time you can’t deny it! 

and because of this experience, lance now has come to understand (to at least some extent) that there’s no point in wishing that he’d had his Magical Moment of Connection™ with some cool and pretty girl like he’d always imagined.

maybe, very very deep down, he’s begun to realize that the moment was only magical in the first place because it was with keith. 

keith, who keeps coming through for him when it matters most. 

the episode comes full circle, and - going along with my theory so far - the real conflict has been resolved. One might argue all that this “subtext” was just a subplot to the main plot of learning their lesson with the bounty hunters and always listening to hunk because he’s right and shay is 1000% more pure than rolo and nyma combined, tattered clothes be damned. 

Or like me, one could argue that all that non-subtextual stuff (not counting the interspersed, juxtaposed scenes of Overarching Plot, Starring Your Hosts Haggar and Zarkon) was just an external plot chalk full of thematic parallels tailor-made to accommodate the true purpose of the episode: for lance and keith to come to terms with each other in the aftermath of the subtle but major shift that’s occurred between them. 

lance took a big step in this one episode by going from total denial to verbal acceptance (for everyone to hear) of a bonding moment, in fact, existing.

and keith did good by accepting lance as he is and choosing not to continue resenting him for how he first reacted. its safe to say that keith progressed in character even more than lance, which I think is why he wins the focus of the episode title, because what he learned was that if he wants a deeper friendship with lance, fate’s not going to hand it to him in a healing pod. he has to do his part developing it. he has to work for it. 

knowing keith, that’s a pretty tall order. but at least this time, keith got to Be There for lance after all.

Here is a follow up post: link 

[fanfic-inator795]

Old WoY fics that I’m still proud of (+ commentary)

So yeah, it’s been a while since I’ve written really anything for WoY. Admittedly once the series ended, the tag slowed down, and new things like the Lego Batman Movie came out, I sorta lost interest. Though, after rewatching a few episodes (thank you Disney XD marathon ^v^), I’ve got WoY back on the brain. Hopefully I’ll be able to write fics for this show again soon, once I’ve finished some of my other planned fic projects/stuff I have to write for possible jobs. But until then, I just wanna take some time to look back on old WoY fics that I’m still really proud of and enjoy rereading ^v^ And, if you haven’t read these fics, consider this a personal recommendation list.

First up: Post Finale fics. Fics that focus on elements or ideas either based on stuff from ‘The End of the Galaxy’, or just take place after the finale epi.

Can’t Run - I really do love Hater’s “I can’t run if I want to be number one!” quote. Without that line from the first S2 episode, Hater’s dramatic turn around in the finale may seem like plot convenience or just something that came out of nowhere. But, similar to Wander, I firmly believe that with enough determination, Hater is able to accomplish anything. He’s certainly got the power and even intellect for it, he just needs that big push of either determination or genuine confidence. So yeah, I wanted to write this just to sorta fill in the gap between TEoTG’s opening scene and Hater’s big dramatic speech. I also wanted to write some more Hater and Peeps interaction, since it’s still a fun dynamic even if it’s not my favorite in the show. Rereading it, I feel like I could have maybe written Hater a bit better towards the end - maybe have him hesitate more before revealing what he was feeling - but otherwise I still like how it turned out.

Better - Another Post-Finale Hater fic, following the idea that after saving the Galaxy, Hater tries to do good (even if he’s reluctant to have the ‘good guy’ title). I like the idea of him struggling with this new identity as well as new goals, and who better to relate to this than a former bad guy? It really is too bad we couldn’t have more Syl and Hater interactions. I feel like they could not only be enjoyable to watch, but also interesting just to see. But yeah, writing their dynamic is fun, and after they pretty much saved each other in the finale, I can’t imagine that they wouldn’t have at least one sit-down talk/positive interaction with each other.

Conventional Rerun - Aaaaand another Hater-focused fic, though more focused on his possible reformation than the finale itself. ...Can you guys tell which character I enjoy writing most? Lol. But yeah, I remember this idea hitting me pretty randomly one day while I was abroad. Basically I wanted to write a bunch of jokes around both conventions and Hater’s cartoon. Of course Hater just hates the thing, though I was able to imagine multiple reasons why, as well as figure how that hate could possible become a ‘love-hate’ relationship with his cartoon. Again, it sorta connects to Hater having fans and being considered a ‘good’ force in the Galaxy now, and basically not knowing how to take it. Hater may seem simple at times, but I really do feel like he’s got plenty of layers - both in how he thinks as well as how/what he feels. Also, a lot of show continuity and meta jokes in this one, also fun to write ^v^

Long Time No See - My reason for writing this? WHY DIDN’T WANDER AND JEFF INTERACT IN THE FINALE?! Lol, but yeah, the idea of exploring the feelings of a character like Jeff - someone who both had been ‘wanderized’ for a while and who had to deal with his new friend eventually leaving - was too interesting to pass up. Maybe not the most exciting fic, and I do kinda wish I could have done just a bit more with it, but still pretty fun to write ^v^

There’s also By Any Other Name which, while not really an episode based on the finale, still takes place after it, and explores an element I think any WoY fan’s interested in: Wander’s name. I was really hoping this fic wouldn’t turn out too long winded or exposition heavy or ‘deep’, which is why I made the set up for all the more thinky/exposition filled and emotional stuff so grounded (and relateable, considering I was also traveling while I planned out this fic). But I’m so proud of how it turned out in the end, having just the right amount of emotion and story, as well as some humor ^v^

Similarly, there’s Reset the Clock, though that one connects more to ‘The Waste of Time’ than the finale. Definitely not my favorite of the bunch even if it’s fairly well written, though I still like reading it occasionally simply because I like filling in the gaps between scenes/time in episodes like this one. 

Alright, next up: Minor Character Focused Fics! Because darn it, there are too many characters to love from this series! 

One Last Bite - This one I definitely have to put first, because the more I watched ‘The Fancy Party’, the more interested I was in Entozoa and Wander’s pasts. Once it was revealed that Wander was possibly immortal, the fact that Entozoa specifically wanted to take over his body just made even more sense. So, I wrote a fic focused on the two of them, both because I thought it’d be interesting to explore the relationship between two practically immortal characters, but because I couldn’t get the image of Possessed-by-Entozoa!Wander fighting the others and speaking like Malachite from SU out of my head. The latter half of this fic was so much fun to write ^v^ I also feel like I did a decent job writing Wander’s final conversation with Entozoa (and considering that I sometimes struggle with dialogue, any time I can do it well I consider a success). 

Tiger in Kitten’s Clothing - I LOVE LITTLE BITS! ...Then again I pretty much love every minor character from this show but still, she’s one of my favorites ^v^ Her rivalry with Syl and the sort of irony that can come from it can also be interesting and fun to think about. I also really love the imagery I was able to do with this one. So yeah, maybe just a simple character piece with not a ton of story but eh, I still love it ^v^

Breakout and Blindly Looking Out - Two Ryder stories that, despite the first one being more Syl focused, still very much connect with each other. Maybe this is just me totally falling for Ryder’s charm, but I firmly believe that he isn’t a terrible person, despite doing some pretty terrible things. So, this was just my attempt at fleshing him out and giving some motive for his actions, as well as giving some backstory for his relationship with Syl. I like how both of them turned out, but I feel like Blindly Looking Out is the stronger one. 

Freezing Warmth and Helmet and Sword - Another pair of fics, this time focusing on Hater, Prince Cashmere and Peepers. It’s always a fun challenge to write interactions for characters who have never really interacted before. Pretty sure this one was both inspired by RPs/conversations between me and Tessa as well as Hater and Cash’s brief interactions in ‘The Rager’. Adding in elements like Hater learning swordfighting and Peepers being sort of jealous just made it all the more enjoyable to write and reread. Again, I enjoy the latter story of this duo more, but I still really like how Freezing Warmth turned out ^v^ 

Crashing Waves - AKA the first fic in the Awesome Arc series. Like Ryder, I really do love Awesome despite his jerkiness. Though, if there was a downside to this character, it was that he never really got a ton of development or was super interesting (though still pretty fun to watch) until ‘The Rival’. So, this was my attempt to sorta fill in that possible character development, as well as just use the excuse to put a bunch of my Awesome headcanons in a story. Peepers and Hater also get a bit of the spotlight in these stories, which I don’t mind at all ^v^ If anything, it just makes the series feel more whole. I really do hope I can finish this series one day.  Maybe it’s a bit too dramatic or angsty at times but eh, with something like PTSD and changing your whole identity, that’s sorta to be expected. 

Peace - A quick look at Ripov, as well as a bit at Beeza and their possible relationship with each other. Maybe a bit rambley in places but, eh, I still like it ^v^ (and still ship it, lol) 

Don’t Fence Me In - Another Jeff fic! Again, sorta focusing on being kind of left behind after being ‘wanderized’, though thankfully it turned out more bittersweet than angsty. To this day, I still consider it the best Jeff-focused fic I’ve ever written.

There’s also Admirable Interstella that focuses on The King of Sherblorg 7 and Stella Starbella that... I don’t hate persay but, I don’t love either. If anything, I’m more just proud that I was able to write something for such a strange idea and actually have it make sense and flow decently. Though, I do wish I could have managed to make it shorter. 

But speaking of ships... Iiiiiiii have a lot of shipping fics, lol. Much more than I could list and still keep this post at a reasonable length. Most of them are for Wander x Hater but I have written plenty for Syl x Peeps, Hater x Syl, canon characters and OCs, etc. Surprisingly, even the old ones or the ones for pairings I don’t ship much anymore I’m still pretty proud of. So, I’m just gonna leave a link to my story list and anyone who’s interested can check it out: https://fanfic-inator795.tumblr.com/fanfics  (scroll down to the Wander Over Yonder section)

Now, before I end this post, there’s still one fic I want to mention. My longest WoY project to date (and probably ever): Rockin’ Over Yonder

This fic... Ohhhhh boy this fic. Even without it having the personal baggage/behind the scenes stuff that I don’t really want to go into, I’d STILL probably have a love/hate relationship with this fic. For one, it was written before Season 2, so there are just soooooooo many elements that I could either rewrite or add in if I cared to. There’s also plenty of pretty cheesy or cliche moments in it that came from just me still being pretty new to writing fics as well as getting used to writing the WoY characters in general. So yeah, there’s a lot to not like...

But at the same time, there’s a lot I can’t help but love. Some scenes I really like, with some scenes that I can’t help but look at and think “Wow... I actually managed to write something like that?” There are some scenes and lines that I just absolutely loved writing, scenes that I can STILL perfectly picture in my head even after all these years. Maybe I missed out on including Dom and other S2 characters, but I still managed to fit in plenty of great S1 characters. And finally, what I love about this story the most is that I actually managed to do a good job writing and slowly developing the romantic relationships between the various characters/pairings. 

So, despite the stuff I dislike about Rockin’ Over Yonder, the stuff I may be embarrassed about or the semi-related bad memories that may pop up when I think of this fic, I still can’t help but be proud of it, with part of me wanting to remember it. So if you’re interested and you’re willing to read through some of the more cheesy parts, feel free to check it out ^v^

Honestly, along with Phineas and Ferb and maybe Regular Show, Wander Over Yonder probably inspired me the most in terms of ideas and fanfics - especially towards the end of it’s run. I’m grateful to WoY for inspiring me to write and think and analyse so much (along with all the other things it did for me, including introducing me to my best friend). The show may be over and I may be writing for other fandoms, but I don’t think I’ll ever truly forget these fics or the show they were inspired by ^v^

[murasaki-murasame]

Yuri on Ice Rewatch: Episode 3

Time for episode three! I remember this being when I got even more invested in the show than I already was before, so this will be fun to revisit.

Thoughts under the cut.

Not much to say before I sit down and watch the episode itself, other than that this was the episode that fully hooked me into the show, as I said above, but I’ll get more into that later in this post. I can’t remember exactly what my feelings and expectations were going into this the first time around, but I imagine that I was pretty curious to see how the whole Onsen on Ice competition would play out, and how it’d handle the already-emerging themes of love. 

This was also around when I got really into the fandom, or at least when the fandom really took off, especially in terms of discussion and analysis and whatnot.

Anyway, time to sit down and watch this.

----

I imagine that most of this post will be me talking about Yuri and his Eros performance, so I may as well talk about the other parts of the episode first.

As yet another part of the show taking on a whole new tone once you get to the ep10 twist, I can’t help but laugh at the entire concept of Yuri saying that his eros is katsudon, and Viktor then doing out to drink until dawn that same night. That must have been a bit of a whiplash-y moment for him. But he took it in stride.

It’s interesting to look back at Viktor saying that to him, agape is ‘just a feeling that he doesn’t know how to put into words’, and in general being kinda flippant about it, considering how depressed and listless we now know he was. I wonder if agape was a difficult concept for him to truly engage with and understand, at the time.

I still quite like the part where Viktor says that his role is mostly to help Yuri with his self-confidence, since he’s already a perfectly good skater who’s just hampered by his emotions. It’s a really important part of their dynamic as coach and student. I’ve always found it interesting how, even among the anti-YoI crowd, I’ve never seen anyone genuinely complain about their relationship on the basis of the power imbalance they have as coach and student, and I think this is a major part of it. They might be coach and student, but their dynamic is much different, and much more balanced, than that of a ‘regular coach and student’, for lack of a better term. For one thing they’re both adults, so that erases like half of the problems that come with most ‘power imbalance’ relationships like this, and most of all, they’re at a similar level of knowledge and skill. Viktor isn’t really teaching him anything about skating itself, in terms of skills and abilities, he’s just there to mostly be an emotional support for Yuri. So their relationship as a whole has basically none of the bad parts you usually get out of stuff like ‘teacher-student romances’ or whatever. And I really think it’s a testament to how well the show’s written, and how much it sells the idea of them being on more or less equal ground as people, that even the antis don’t complain about it. Also, if you’ve ever seen that one interview quote from Otsuka, the CEO of Mappa [I think it was him] where he was like ‘Yuri and Viktor are coach and student, but they’re also partners’, that’s basically the gist of what he meant. They might have a relationship that’s technically defined by a fundamental power difference, but they’re still equal partners. And of course this is also all further supported as the show goes on by the fact that not only is Yuri emotionally supported by Viktor, the reverse is also true, so even on an emotional level they have a two-way relationship.

It’s also interesting, in hindsight, to look at everything he says about the Eros routine, and how he made it. To put it pretty simply, it’s a fairly common fan theory that aspects of the Eros choreography, if not the entire concept of it, were based on Yuri’s whole pole-dancing routine at the banquet. In general, the whole context of Eros, and Viktor’s desire to see Yuri’s true Eros, changes a lot, and becomes more clear, when you understand that Viktor has already seen his Eros, in all it’s champagne-fueled glory, and is actively seeking it out again.

Oh, and while I remember, on the general topic of Viktor, I still love and adore the post-credits episode preview where he says that he’d be happy to see Yuri naked on the ice. It’s so great. Although part of why I love it, beyond the obvious part of how incredibly gay it is, is that I have no goddamn clue what the context for it is meant to be. Like, where did it even come from? Nobody ever suggested Yuri be naked on the ice, so him talking about it comes out of absolutely nowhere. So it just exists as a canon conversation in the show even though it has no real reason for being there, and that’s amazing. It feels almost like it was meant to be a reference to a part of the episode’s script that got cut before the episode aired, but they kept this part in even though it didn’t make sense anymore. I can imagine how the concept of Yuri being naked on the ice COULD have come up in this episode, but it didn’t. I might sound like I’m criticizing it, but I’m really not. I genuinely love this damn conversation and how completely out of nowhere it is. Yamamoto didn’t need to have Viktor canonically say that he’d love to see Yuri be naked on the ice, but she did that, for all of us.

I don’t think I have a whole lot to say about Yurio in this episode, but I actually really like his scenes in this episode, since he’s at his most introspective, isolated, and vulnerable. That’s basically when his character’s at it’s best. Which is part of why I’m really sad that the show leans more into validating his cocky attitude rather than knocking him down a peg. The whole ‘tell him that I’m gonna be the one to win at the GPF!’ line comes across kinda weirdly when you know in hindsight that he DOES win the GPF. It feels like he was meant to sound petty and defeated when he said it, and that tone gets kinda warped when it turns out he was right about it.

I really do love his relationship with his grandpa, though. It’s a consistently heartwarming and adorable aspect to his character, and it goes a long way to make him sympathetic. I kinda wish we got more insight into his childhood and home life in general, but there wasn’t time for it, and I’m honestly glad that the show cut out a lot of his backstory in order to focus on more relevant and important things. I know we’ve learned a few details about his backstory via staff interviews and such, but I only have a vague memory of it since I don’t really seek out extra info on his character, and I don’t usually care enough to remember, if I’m being blunt, but I think that his mother is some sort of a famous singer, or at least was one, and that she doesn’t have much time for her family, which is vaguely alluded to in this episode.

His whole thing of being frustrated with himself during his agape performance because he’s putting too much energy toward performing the physical actions of the routine, and being unable to focus on the emotional side because of it, was also nice. It’s good to see him at least striving to improve upon himself.

Anyway, time to talk about the real star of the episode, Yuri! I dunno if this’ll actually be the biggest part of this post since I talked a bit more about Viktor than I thought I would, but still. I’ll try.

I should probably say in advance that I kinda struggle at times to talk about my positive feelings toward something I like, because I feel embarrassed about the idea of seeming overly obsessive or dramatic or obnoxiously pushy with my raving, so I tend to hold myself back and talk about things from the most analytical and ‘objective’ perspective I can, which I think leads to me seeming overly critical at times, and it also kinda sometimes leads to me not talking much about the things I like about something. So I just wanna make it absolutely clear, while we’re still relatively early in this rewatch series, that I fucking ADORE Yuri Katsuki. So much so that I would honestly call him my favourite fictional character of all time. He means the absolute world to me. Which means that I might end up not talking much about him or his scenes because I don’t want to spent Literal Hours [tm] raving about this wonderful, incredible man. But I still love him to pieces, and even though I loved him from the start, this was the episode where I began to feel truly invested and connected to him to a degree that I hadn’t been expecting.

The Eros sub-plot/theme/whatever-you-want-to-call-it is where we really start to get a deeper look into Yuri’s feelings, and it’s also where the show begins to really get into the overarching themes and concepts that it’s going to explore over the course of the story. It’s no wonder that this is where there was a bit of an explosion of meta and analysis and speculation within the fandom. This episode provides us with ideas and frameworks that are explored throughout the rest of the show, and at the time, they really got the fandom thinking about how it was going to go. From the very start people had their apprehensions about Viktor, mostly because in the early episodes he has an aloof and emotionally distant playboy vibe to him, and the whole playboy/beautiful woman story presented in this episode really ignited people’s fears and concerns, and sparked a lot of discussion in general. Especially since the Eros story explicitly mentions the idea of the playboy abandoning the beautiful women once he’s done with her [which, yet again, gains new context when you realize what happened during and after the banquet. Not that Yuri himself could have known about it]. I still kinda wish the show could have explicitly brought up the Eros story again later in the show, but oh well.

But we can’t talk about the Eros story without also talking about how Yuri actively subverts it by choosing to adopt the role of the beautiful woman and spin it into a seductive force that can go up against the playboy. It’s no surprise that this was around where it really dawned on us all that this show had a lot of things to say about romantic narratives and interpersonal dynamics. A lot of it is explored somewhat implicitly, in the ways that Yuri and Viktor’s relationship naturally plays out, and how it subverts expectations and narratives and tropes, but there’s still some explicit discussions of and references to these concepts, like in this episode. I definitely think it was very intentional on Yamamoto’s part that this show explored and subverted a lot of romantic narrative and tropes, which I’ll get into as I get through this rewatch. This is a good time to recommend her earlier anime, The Woman Called Fujiko Mine, which very actively and VERY explicitly discusses and subverts the way that we create narratives about women, and how damaging they can be. The wonderful Vrai Kaiser has their own series of posts about each episode of that show on their blog, where they go over the themes in that show much better than I ever could. Their posts are made with the entire series in mind, though, so don’t read it if you haven’t watched it all. They also have a really good essay about one of the characters in that show, and how, through that character, the show explores the negative and stifling ways that we create [or don’t create] narratives about gay men. The latter in particular being a topic that I think is very interesting to explore in the context of Yuri on Ice. I’d love to make my own essay post about the concept of ‘how we write stories about gay men’ in relation to Yuri on Ice, and how Yuri on Ice compares and contrasts to The Woman Called Fujiko Mine in that area, but that’ll be it’s own separate post I do later.

That was kinda off-topic and half of it was just me giving a shout out to Vrai because I love their posts and want to have more people read them, but the other half of it is that it supports what I mean about how Yamamoto seems very intentional about how she writes about the idea of narratives, especially narratives to do with gender and sexuality. I’ve also heard similar things about Michiko and Hatchin [the first anime she directed], but I haven’t seen that so I can’t comment on it.

The basic idea of how it’s subversive for Yuri to both adopt the feminine persona in that narrative and to also frame it as an active, dominant sort of role, is pretty obvious. I don’t think I even need to go too deeply into it. But I do like the way that the show as a whole explores and embraces the idea of men, well, exploring and embracing their feminine side. We also see in this same episode how Yuri’s Eros outfit, which was itself previously worn by Viktor, was intentionally designed to evoke both male and female genders. I think it’s a really wonderful and positive message to send. Framing femininity as something that can be empowering is great, and fits in nicely with Yamamoto’s other works and their messages [from what I’ve seen at least]. But, as I’ll get into in episode six’s post, it’s sort of a crutch, or a stepping stone, for Yuri in this episode. He steps into a very actively and aggressively feminine role in this episode, to the point of using the pretty much exclusively-feminine pronoun ‘atashi’ during his performance, and later on he dials back on it a bit and reaches more of a middle ground that reflects his more true self. It’s a part of the story that I truly love, and I’ll have a lot to say about it during episode six. [In general I’m probably gonna have a lot to say about episode six, and I want to give it a lot of attention, especially because it’s by far one of the most under-appreciated episodes in the show, which is still sad to me, since it has one of my most beloved scenes in it]

It’s also worth noting, in terms of what the fandom was talking about back then, this episode sparked a whole lot of headcanons about Yuri [and to a lesser extent Viktor] being a trans woman, or nonbinary to some degree. I think that headcanon kinda died out as the show went on, though, to the point where I feel like more people at this point headcanon Yuri as a trans man. Either way I don’t really think it’s my place as a cis guy to comment on this much, so I’ll just move on.

I really love Yuri’s entire Eros routine here, and his confident and sexy attitude in it. I remember the fandom as a whole being really surprised to see that sort of a seductive side to him as well. In general a lot of the fandom experience as the show was ongoing involved people being continually surprised by Yuri’s many layers as a character, and the escalating ways in which he gets more and more seductive. I still love the little kiss he blows Viktor at the start of it, and Viktor’s wolf whistle that he does in response. It’s great.

I don’t really want to get too deep into movie speculation until my episode twelve post, at least [I’ll probably make a separate post afterward about my speculation for it], but I’m really interested in seeing it again, at least if the movie covers what I think it will and thus he’ll be doing the same routines. Each new Eros performance we got in the show was different in some way to the last, and reflected certain aspects of Yuri’s growth throughout the show, so I can’t help but be curious about how it’d go in the movie. Not gonna lie, I kinda desperately hope that at least one time he just straight-up kisses Viktor and leaves him blushing and breathless before he does an Eros routine. Even if it’s a bit of a pipe dream. At least we got an indirect kiss of sorts during episode 11′s Eros routine, lol.

I also really like how Yuri asked Minako for guidance, and employed his history in ballet, in order to figure out how to go about performing Eros. It ties in nicely with what I said above about him connecting with his feminine side.

I know I basically haven’t said anything at all about the whole katsudon topic in this episode, and that’s just because I don’t have a whole lot to say about it. It’s another aspect of how he explores certain ideas on his road to understanding his true eros, which comes to a head in episode six, but I feel like the aspect of him connecting with a feminine role is more interesting to talk about. The katsudon thing is more of a running gag than any serious plot point worth discussing. Though it does kinda highlight how much Yuri hasn’t really thought about sexuality before, and is really clumsy about figuring out how to explore and express his own sexuality. But I also mostly feel like Hot Topic’s aggressive approach to plastering the ‘I’m a sexy pork cutlet bowl’ line on like 90% of their Yuri on Ice merch has kinda left me burned on the whole thing to some degree. [They didn’t even use the ‘katsudon fatale’ line! That’s, like, the one genuinely interesting and discussion-worthy part of the whole katsudon thing!]

Anyway, since I’m running out of things to say, I’ll just comment on the whole resolution of the Onsen on Ice competition. It caused a whole lot of discourse in the fandom about whether or not it was a case of favouritism, with the competition being rigged against Yurio because Viktor already had a vested interest in Yuri. I think I mentioned this in the last post, but this discourse still comes up from time to time, but thankfully not as much as it used to, especially after the minor resurgence it got after ep10 when it became even more clear how much Viktor was into Yuri by this point in the show. Either way, my stance is that it wasn’t rigged, and that if Yuri had truly been unable to find and express his Eros, Viktor probably would have packed up his bags and left, though he obviously wouldn’t have been happy about it. I think that, mostly, Viktor wanted to make sure that he wasn’t mistaken about that inner flame of passion and Eros that he’d seen in Yuri. He wanted to know that he’d made a good choice in disrupting his career so much in order to pursue it. So if he had ended up feeling that he wasn’t going to be able to find it, and that Yuri wasn’t going to be able to give him what he wanted, he would have been fine with leaving, though I doubt he would have actually left unless an option like Onsen on Ice came up, even if Yuri hadn’t been able to express his Eros. I’m not entirely sure about it, but I imagine that he would have stuck to his word and continued to coach Yuri for the rest of the season.

I guess my way of phrasing it might come across badly, but I don’t think that Viktor was being, like, shallow or manipulative in wanting to rediscover Yuri’s Eros, and basically creating a scenario for it to happen in. I think it was fine. I can’t blame him for being kinda desperate about finding passion and love and happiness.

Oh, and that reminds me, the scene in the rink where Viktor gets up in Yuri’s personal space with his thumb against Yuri’s lips and says that he wants to see Yuri’s Eros is kinda interesting, since it was used at the end of either the first or second PVs, and was one of the main, if not the only, ‘fanservice-y’ scenes used in the PVs. I still feel like the framing of it is kinda weird, like they were trying to make it seem sorta uncomfortable and almost predatory, and so it’s still a bit weird to me that it’s the main fanservice-y scene they used in the PVs. It kinda created a bit of a misleading atmosphere that made me think that the show was going to be more weird and exploitative about it’s portrayal of sexuality. I’m glad that wasn’t the case. Either way, I feel like it’s the sort of scene that really illustrates the gap that existed between them at the start of the show, and how so much of it was about Viktor being aggressive with his flirting while Yuri didn’t know how to respond. It kinda superficially plays into stereotypes and tropes, but it’s one of the things that gets subverted and flipped on it’s head as the show goes on, so I can’t help but wonder if it was intentional, in terms of showing these trope-y and kinda unhealthy and unbalanced scenes at the start, to contrast them with how their relationship develops as the show goes on.

Anyway, next week we’ll be getting to episode four, which is a real turning point in Yuri and Viktor’s relationship, and is the beginning of them truly connecting as equals. So that’ll be nice to revisit.