#yes this is the 3rd time I've giffed this scene

[justafriend-ql]

This is the problem I will face for the rest of my life. NEVER LET ME GO Episode 10

[meimi-haneoka]

Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card Chapter 77: Comments + JP-ENG translation differences

Welcome back, once again, for my (endless) analysis post about the most recent chapter of Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card! This month we're here a tiny bit earlier due to Nakayoshi coming out on September 1st instead of the 3rd like every month, thus bringing forward the release of the chapter on Comic Days and CLAMP's Youtube channel of a couple of days! And boooooy, did I cry with this chapter! I think it's no surprise for anyone, right? 😂 after all, my preferences are very transparent and finally CLAMP-sensei gave me a crumble (more like an entire piece) of happiness in this chapter (immediately flooded with a surge of frustration, hahaha! When I say that they have fun torturing us, Kaito/Akiho fans....) Another puzzle piece in the enigma of Sakura's foretelling dreams also went to its right place, and we got more references of events and feelings that were expressed many, many chapters ago.

Let's not waste time and see what wrecked me this month and, most importantly, if we had any translation mistakes! (Spoilers, there are! Do you think we'd be safe from them, when there's a huge Kaito/Akiho scene?) But, wait, hold on! We're missing my usual silly "gif of the month" corner!! 😂

(don't be fooled by the appearances, this is Kaito 😂)

Aaaaand we proceed under the cut with the analysis of the color page and further!

The Color Page

Hahahahah, my god, sensei really is messing with my sanity starting from the color page, here... I've been asking forever for a Kaito/Akiho color page where they could finally be featured together and have all the attention on them, but no! They decided to troll me even further by featuring Akiho in chapter 76 and Kaito in chapter 77! 😂 YES, back-to-back, but STILL separated! 😂😂😂 I guess I'll have to live with this torture till the end.... Aaaaah, and what a color page we have for Kaito, here.... First of all, I have to say I'm mesmerized by the beautiful blue color spanning from the starry night sky to the clear waters below. Huge crystals are surrounding the main scene, emerging from the waters, but the real protagonists of this color page are undoubtedly two: the giant silver Moon on the background, and.....him, our great absentee for 7 chapters now - Yuna D. Kaito. Whoever knows me can well imagine what effect this color page had on me, especially after I had enough time to pause and consider his portrayal here, especially in relation to the content of the chapter. First of all, the JP text over it is the infamous threat the Association made to him and the words Sakura has been partially hearing in her dreams since long time ago: "If the Seal of D activates, you won't be able to come back". Standing outside the water, we see him dressed in his Association robes, giving his back to us. But reflected in the water, we can see him wearing his typical butler outfit, the one he always wore ever since he arrived in Japan with Akiho. And here, he's fully facing us. If I can dare giving an interpretation of this portrayal of Kaito (which is clearly meant to be interpreted figuratively, since the reflection doesn't correspond not only for the outfit, but also for the mismatch between back/front of Kaito), I'd daresay this is a clear representation of the duality living inside of Kaito right now, and the endless contrast originating from it. Inside Kaito there are two parts of him, constantly in conflict, and this conflict is mainly the reason why we got to this point in the story. Kaito really does have a hard time letting go of the past in the Association, which for better or for worse shaped him and gave him all the hidden traumas that contributed to his distorted, immature view of certain life matters. And he's got a hard time not because he enjoyed being one of them, not at all. We could see it clearly, he never enjoyed being a part of the Association, let alone felt like he belonged to it. But it's all he's ever known from a very young age till he decided to save Akiho, and the way he grew up in that den of criminals influenced him, making him feel like he really is a delinquent like the rest of them, undeserving of love and compassion. I can think immediately of one comment he made in chapter 67, that reveals clearly this mindset: in Clockland, when Momo told him "it's useless, even if you disguise yourself as the next head of the Li clan, it (your true nature) shows anyway" his sarcastic reply was "what, my wickedness?". Now that we know that he never really intended to cause intentionally any harm to anyone with his plan, but actually took care in ensuring that everyone would be safe, happy and minimally inconvenienced, his comment shows even more in what a distorted way he sees himself. This is the part of him that still thinks he's better off alone, undeserving of the bond with Akiho, especially for what he inadvertedly caused to her. Now that I think about it, those crystals emerging from the water really do remind me of the crystals storing the memories of the "characters" in Clockland, again from chapter 67.

But, inside Kaito there's also the "new him" (or should we say the real him?), how he changed after making that fateful decision, after interacting with Akiho and creating a bond with her along the years (even if he tried to fight it and ignore it, uselessly, for so long). It's the part of him that learned what's good in interacting with others, and what it means to have someone you love dearly and would do anything for. That part of him is represented here by the reflection in the water. And it's really no surprise that the two parts of him are facing opposite directions, a very nice representation of how they're in contrast with eachother, pulling him in different "directions". I take the "butler" part of Kaito facing us as a symbol of that being the part of himself he really wants to be, the true self, but is currently submerged under the traumas and skewed convictions about himself that his past self (represented by the Kaito in the Association robe) experienced. If Kaito wants to take another chance at life, a happy, worth living one, he needs to let go of the past and help the part of him that's underwater emerging and claiming it fully. That's what Momo has been praying he would realize all along. That he would notice, and accept, the part of him that learned what love means through his bond with Akiho. Of course, this color page affected me emotionally in a strong way, and I also missed seeing Kaito's face, so I really really love it.

The Aura of a Gentle Moon

Soooo, we left our kids in a pretty problematic situation last time, right? An attack, in the guise of a shower of arrows, was coming down on them, and the chapter starts exactly with something I imagined could've happened: the connection with the group waiting at Yukito's home is re-established, and they see the attack in live streaming! 😱

Sakura uses swiftly her Shield Card, and oh-la-la, what do we have here? A new design??? Must be because she used it with the Dream wand! 😀.....wait, then should we assume that maybe even the "wrong" design of the Sword Card was....intentional?? 😮

...Unfortunately for Sakura, the incoming attack effortlessly bypasses Shield, aiming at them once again! ...Thank god the group at Yukito's home is watching, since this allows Touya to....stop time!! Yesssss, it seems Kaito's re-writing of their reality didn't remove Touya's new ability, which shows it's truly innate in him! Touya's magic is effective in stopping the incoming attack, and exactly as it happened when the Squids+Association tried to attack Kaito back in chapter 33, we have someone who takes the chance of the stopped time to destroy the "arrows": Eriol, working remotely from the comfort of his home in England! Kero and Suppy are hilariously shocked, and Touya affirms he "just started being able to (stop time) all of the sudden" (JP), this pushes Nakuru to frantically ask Eriol if he knew (he says he had no idea) and then to Yukito (and he says "Yes! He told me it's just for a short while, though" and not "for a minute" like the ENG translation said, why do they have to make stuff up all the time????). Touya explains that it's just for 2 seconds, and he uses a word (体感で, taikan de) that expresses a feeling on the body: he's basically saying that what the human perceives of his time-freezing powers corresponds to 2 seconds. This is basically the same power he developed anew at the beginning of the Clear Card Arc, therefore I'm inclined to believe that this ability never left him, even with the re-writing of their world: as the general idea that I always had (judging by the words the character used), Momo's forbidden magic only changes the memories and some limited physical elements (the so-called "discrepancies"), but doesn't remove things that are rooted in people, like magic and, you guessed it, feelings. Now this leaves me wondering what happened to Yukito's pact with the Tsukimine Shrine, and his acquired Moon powers: judging from what we see afterwards, he doesn't seem to have them anymore, probably because that isn't an innate characteristic, but was something acquired with a contract.

In fact, since Touya's time-freezing powers last too short to be able to do anything concretely, Kaho steps in with a beautiful new Moon Bell!!! She explains that her Moon magic gets stronger when the moon is out, so she's going to support Touya's time-freezing magic, but she warns everyone that it's not going to last long. I really appreciated that CLAMP gave a more active role to Kaho, since she's been pretty much in a passive-listening role for the whole manga, so this is really nice to see! Especially cause sensei gave her a new, shiny Moon Bell! ✨ Talking to my friends, we also mentioned that it's nice to see this collaboration "between ex-partners", without any jealousy, any cold shoulder, it's really in tune with the rest of the story!

But it's time to go back to explanations, because Eriol continues saying that the volley that was fired at Sakura and Syaoran was designed to hit automatically the one who would've broken the spell that was hidden behind the fake moon: as I expected (and hoped), this is not a direct attack from the Squids+Association at Sakura, but something that was left in place before, and activated automatically. I still don't think a direct confrontation would be fitting for the thematics of this story, especially now that they made clear that Sakura's power is not enough to beat them (Shield couldn't fend off the attack). Tomoyo correctly guesses that once the time starts moving again, the attacks will resume. Nakuru just says "well, you can just break them with a bit of effort like you did just now, right?" but Eriol warns her that things aren't as easy as they seem: of course that's his intention, but those arrows don't have any will of their own, because they were designed to keep incessantly attacking the person who broke the spell inside the fake moon (not general "invaders" like the ENG translation said). Basically this jutsu is already out of the original casters' (plural, Eriol knows they're many) will. The plushie guardians reflect on the fact that if they don't do anything about the source of this spell while time is still frozen, the arrows will keep attacking the kids out there. Akiho's anxiety, hearing that, understandably increases, but I can also see a desire to intervene in some way, from her.

In front of the fake moon, Syaoran and Sakura recognize Eriol's magic circle and understand that he came to their rescue, and seeing how everything is frozen in time around them, Syaoran wonders if Sakura did this. Of course she answers she didn't, but that's when she surprises us saying that she can feel her brother's "vibe" in there, so she believes this is all his doing. You can really see how Sakura's abilities keep growing and get refined more and more, since now she's also capable of recognizing Touya's magic (something she didn't seem to be feeling, before). And that's not all, she's able to feel Kaho's aura too, defining it a "gentle moon presence" (Kaho's powers have been defined "gentle moon powers" by Momo, before). Syaoran (or Sakura, here it's really hard to understand who talked) says that some other spell might activate soon, so they need to take the dragon out while they can (how rude, ENG translation!! "That thing"??? These kids aren't crude like you guys).

Sakura dispels the Shield Card and turns to talk to the dragon again, for this task that will reveal to be harder than she thought. Sakura's やっぱり gets translated in ENG as "Of course", but that's not what it means: she's saying that just as she thought, she's sure she knows him.

This panel kinda made me smile because, while I was talking to a friend last night, we joked about Sakura putting Kaito to trial 😂 She looks very serious here, and let me tell you, the vibe she gives off in this entire scene makes me think she starts to be a bit annoyed with him too 😂

And then, sensei decided to give a good squeeze to my heart, featuring some memories of Akiho back in chapter 49 😭that chapter is one of my favorite ones because it featured a rare Kaito, smiling genuinely and happily. What we saw back then, while Akiho was telling Sakura of her walk in the garden with Kaito, were panels with the flashbacks of that walk, while here we can see how Akiho looked like while she was recounting those events to her friend (understandably, since this is something the Record Card recorded, while what we saw back then was the memories in Akiho's heart). Akiho looks really really in love, in these panels.

Unfortunately, this beautiful moment is stained by an imprecise and incomplete translation in English, which of course irritated me greatly because damn, you can really see how, as soon as things turn about Akiho and Kaito, the quality of the translation suddenly drops, almost as if there were a bias. This is so unfair. Particularly because this scene had already been translated, and paradoxically it sounded better how they did it in chapter 49. Why changing it, why not using those same words? Anyway, I'm going to put both versions here so you can see the difference.

ENG: "We went for a walk last night. Out in the garden. Although I'm afraid I did most of the talking. Still...ever since our travels brought us to Japan...he's remembered everything. I treasure every moment I've spent with -san. I only hope he feels the same about the time he's spent with me."

JP: "We had a walk in the garden of our house. I did most of the talking, but... -san remembered it all. About the many countries we visited together, and our days here in Japan too. I treasure every single moment I've spent with -san, none excluded, so I hope it's the same for him. It doesn't need to be every moment, as long as he holds one dear"

Can you see how many concepts are missing from the ENG translation, how much has been skipped and summarized? The absurd thing is that a lot of what I've put in the JP paragraph comes from the original translation in ENG they did for chapter 49. Miraculously, they had done a very good job with that scene. So why? Why changing it now when she's saying exactly the same words, in this flashback (minus Kaito's name, of course)? It's completely missing the dualism between Akiho's "I cherish every single moment with him" (that 一つ残らず, "not even one left out", left a big impression on me ever since ch. 49) and "it's not necessary he treasures every single moment with me, even just one is fine" which had moved me so much back in ch. 49 because it revealed how Akiho is not loving Kaito out of an egoistic and greedy love, exactly like all the other characters in CCS. She doesn't demand to be reciprocated. She's content with knowing that she's got a tiny place in his heart. You might argue "why are you so hung up on this, especially since it's a repetition of an old scene", but here I tell you, the fans' memory is short and if we don't focus on the representation of the feelings of the characters in a shoujo manga, then what are we supposed to do? And those feelings should be portrayed and represented at best by the translations too.

The Hikikomori Dragon

Anyway. Moving on. Sakura affirms that despite his name and appearance had been erased from the records of the Record Card, the fact that Akiho had a very important person to her wasn't erased. While she passionately affirms so, we can see more flashbacks of Akiho (like the night-time talk she had with Kaito in chapter 61, and the double date).

Well, I tried to move on, but the fact is that once again I have to facepalm at the ENG translation, because apparently they really don't want to let Sakura say that Kaito looked at Akiho with lots of care and affectionate feelings. Yeah, remember the missed とても大切に that I complained about in last chapter? Sakura said it again, but they were capable of messing it up even this time.

ENG: "She was so happy when she spoke of you...and you took such good care of her. You are the one thing Akiho-chan never wanted to lose"

JP: "Akiho-chan was so happy when she spoke of you. And you, who looked at her with such care/affection, are the one she didn't want to lose."

I get quite peeved at how they managed again to not let Sakura say clearly that she could read in Kaito's affectionate stare towards Akiho how much she was important to him (I won't repeat the explanation of what 大切に means, please check the post of chapter 76). They steered it towards "you took good care of her" but this is not what Sakura was talking about. His job as her butler, or the fact that he took care of her isn't absolutely the topic, here. This is about how your feelings towards someone shine through your eyes. And it's a very important part because what Sakura is trying to tell Kaito here is "Even if you tried to erase it all, the fact that you were important for Akiho stayed, and I know you also considered her important by the way you looked at her and the impression it left on me. So get your sh*t together" What Sakura said here was so straightforward and powerful that I can't help but feel she backed Kaito into a corner (and I have to admit, I also thought "Stop right there Sakura, you're talking too much, these are things that Akiho is supposed to say to Kaito, not you"). However, I don't really like how the phrasing of the ENG translation reeks of "let's steer this towards the parental role he had towards her" because omg this is really not it. Kaito was never a parental figure for Akiho, let alone her legal guardian (what happened in chapter 40 should have cleared that enough already). And even if they were referring to his job as a butler, again, this is really not what Sakura is talking about, here. Aside from the fact that she shouldn't even remember about how he took care of her (she doesn't remember anything about him, only what she recovered from Record and those are still fragmented memories). I'm afraid they're digging their own grave, if they insist in going in this direction and sabotaging their lines in this way. Aside from the fact that it looks more and more deliberate.

But let's move on because the most emotional moment is yet to come. Sakura then asks the fatidic question (JP because I don't like how they phrased it in ENG): JP: "The reason why you won't move even though I have dispelled the magic that kept you trapped....is because you don't want to come out?"

The dragon closes his eyes and slightly bends his head forward, as if nodding. How wonderful, Mokona-sensei, and her ability to make a dragon that can't talk, got limited movement and almost no expression look so expressive. And this is not even the peak of his expressivity. Sakura understands his "reply", but while holding the precious pocket watch, she answers that she made a promise to Akiho, which is to try to bring him back. So she knows what she needs to do. There's only one person who can turn things around.

Sakura, through her earcuff, calls Kero and Yue and asks them to come at the "moon", bringing Akiho along with them. I really loved how self-confident Sakura looks here, how she's got the situation under control. The guardians change into their full forms at once and Nakuru eagerly asks Eriol what she and Suppy should do in the meantime. He tells them to protect Touya, the "performer of the time magic". I loved how every single person of Sakura's entourage is involved in this, by now. Everyone wants to do their part, out of their own will. I think it's simply beautiful. They do it because they support Sakura, but also because they sincerely want to help Akiho, who's currently the one who's got the world crumbling under her feet the most, out of this situation. You don't need to be tightly involved with someone to want to help them. And so Kero tells Akiho to go, and she's absolutely not scared or unsure, but actually is oozing determination from every pore.

Back at the fake moon, the kids start realizing the environment around them is getting unstable: Syaoran explains that this is because magicians who are capable of manipulating time magic are just a handful to begin with, and then it's also necessary a huge amount of power to make it work. Touya and Kaho are doing their best, but the spell is already starting to crack. In this tense situation where there's need for time magic, Syaoran apologizes to Sakura because he isn't capable of using time magic yet. I've seen this specific line creating surprise and confusion in lots of the fans I've seen on my TL on Twitter, but things make sense: Syaoran using time magic is a thing of the anime only, as he only ever used the Time Clow Card (and Sakura Card, in ep. 14 of the Clear Card anime), while this card doesn't exist in the manga. We'll see how this line will be treated in the anime adaptation, especially considering the presence of the Time Card. Sakura, always being the loving girlfriend she is, reassures him that the mere fact he's there with her allows her to do her very best in this situation (there, they managed to sneak in a SyaoSaku moment too!). This is something she said in the old arcs too, especially at the end of the battle with Eriol, how the mere presence of Syaoran reassures her and gives her courage....it's so lovely to see it reiterated here!

And now my readers we enter the "core" of this chapter, the one that really wrecked me over (both in a happy and sad way), with the arrival of Akiho flying on Kero's back!! How cute!! This is one of those depictions you thought you'd never see, and yet!! Akiho immediately asks the two friends if they're hurt anywhere, but Sakura reassures her and thanks her for coming here (her good manners and kindness make me smile everytime...they're doing all of this for Akiho, and yet, she thanks her for coming, because she feels involved in this almost as much as her!) With the help of the Mirror Sakura Card, Sakura makes a third copy of Flight, and gives it to Akiho.

You're My Most Important Person

And here, the pages of the chapter leave to Mokona-sensei's skills the task to tell us, wordlessly, about the first reunion in forever in several months between Kaito and Akiho.

Sakura gently leads Akiho at the entrance of the fake moon, and the girl makes eye-contact with him. The dragon. The one we know actually being Kaito.

The dragon looks at her almost longingly, and the expected tears in Akiho's eyes pour out copiously, like a river in flood. The emotions are too powerful to be able to contain them. Especially because, when Sakura checks on her to make sure she's ok (seeing her crying like that all of the sudden alarmed her), Akiho answers that she doesn't even know why the tears are flowing from her eyes like that. This is all instinctive and on impulse, those tears come from something that's deep, deep inside. The mind doesn't remember, but the heart (and body) does. This concept that we've come to know especially in works like Tsubasa, and that became so iconic for CLAMP, is reiterated even in this arc of Cardcaptor Sakura.

Akiho might not remember anything, she might not know why those tears keep coming out, and yet....

JP, lit.: "This pain is telling me that...my most important person is right in front of me"

She knows. She recognized him by the pain that's crushing her heart. An insufferable pain she's been feeling all along, ever since he activated that damn forbidden magic and gave her that perfect, lovely life. A pain left by his absence, which only gets amplified now that he's in front of her. And what to say about the words she chose? As if her heart started leading her on its own, and couldn't wait any longer. We all know this is the CCS code for "The person I love the most is right in front of me". And, contrarily to the ENG translation that kept on the "safe side" translating it literally (couldn't have expected any different), the Spanish translation made her say almost precisely "the person I love the most". Basically, we could say Akiho confessed her feelings there and then, without filters, earnestly. So typical of her.

And Kaito's reaction, omg...I have to say that in my shrieking session while I was "reading" (more like trying to make out the pages among the tears), the part that wrecked me the most was seeing his eyes glistening at hearing that he's Akiho's most important person. God. How long he's wished to hear that, with such a powerful reaction? Kaito, the stoic Kaito, the one who always wore a smiling mask, the one who used to stop his hand to prevent any contact, any connection with her, is now on the verge of letting his emotion take a hold of him, moving him to tears. Because the person he's given all of himself for, just said that she loves him. As I also exposed in my analysis of the color page, Kaito thought all this time that he was undeserving of all of this, for many many reasons. Therefore, hearing her baring her heart to him and telling him with clear words what he means to her is something incredibly powerful to him. Remember when Sakura was talking to him before? She almost spilled the entire thing there, saying that "Akiho had someone very important", but he only looked at her, seemingly not having any reaction. It almost seems to me as if he wasn't believing her. Because, as soon as he heard those words from Akiho herself, his reaction was VERY different.

Sakura takes the watch out of her pocket, giving it back to Akiho. She seems to know that this item is extremely important and can give strength to Akiho for her mission. Especially because, as she informs her friend, the dragon doesn't want to come out of there. Akiho takes the pocket watch and clutches it tightly, while resolutely affirming that she's going inside, because there's something she needs to ask him, no matter what. Again, the ENG translation treated this part superficially and left behind that "no matter what" that indicated how hellbent Akiho is on this. And in my opinion it was very important to keep it, not only because it contributes to shake off that "passive" unjustified reputation she's got, but also because only someone assertive like her can hope to turn Kaito around. And, poor Akiho, I can only imagine what my girl wants to ask him. "Why? Why did you do this?" Imagine if she manages to make him that question, later on. He wasn't able to answer when Momo made that question in chapter 51, but now he'll be forced to realize it. But, in my opinion, this isn't the only thing she'll ask. Because yes, seeing all of them joining forces to bring him back is wonderful and all, but all of this got no meaning if Kaito himself doesn't want to come back. And I'm sure he wants to, but he has to realize it, first. And I absolutely cannot envision Akiho imposing on him her desire to have him back. Leaving aside the fact that there are still a couple of problematics to fix (shortened lifespan? Artifact?), the most important thing in this moment is that everyone knows where their heart is and what they want. Because they need to learn to do things correctly. And no one will decide someone else's happiness on their behalf in this manga, ever again.

Alas, as soon as Akiho moves to enter the fake moon, the dragon violently takes off and exits, soaring in the skies of Tomoeda.

(the chapter is special, so forgive me for the use of a second gif 😂) My reaction was way more......violent than the one above when I've seen the last page of this chapter, but one thing is for sure: Kaito/the Dragon literally ran away 😂 I mean, to see a hilarious side to the situation, Sakura and Syaoran have spent god knows how long to try to convince him to get out of there, and Akiho just had to move a step forward to prompt him to get out 😂😂😂😂 I've been saying it forever, the power this girl got over him...! 😂😂😂 Now, I've seen many people trying to give their interpretation of the reason why he had such a reaction, and I've seen many interpreting it as him not wanting for her to get inside such a dangerous place. Well, my interpretation is a bit different, and it's based on 3 aspects. First, Sakura successfully broke the spell inside the fake moon, the cage and clock parts completely disappeared, and the environment inside doesn't seem warped anymore (Sakura and Syaoran found the exit immediately), so I'm inclined to believe there isn't any more danger inside that space. The "jagged" parts we see near the entrance are just because the space surrounding them is becoming unstable, due to the time magic starting to wear off. So I don't see an immediate danger inside the fake moon for Akiho that would prompt Kaito to get out. Second, if it were only to protect her, he would've exited and stopped right outside the fake moon. Alas, we saw very well that he's heading far from them, and doesn't have intention to stop. Or to hear her out. So this leads me to point n. 3..... He's just heard Akiho baring her feelings like that, and he heard her saying she wants to ask him something, no matter what. God, that must've been terrifying for him. Especially cause I expect his guilt increased exponentially, if he's starting to realize that he royally f*cked up, with his activation of the forbidden magic. This is....simply too much for him to bear. Do you have a hard time seeing him like that, so fragile, so emotional? Then I should probably remind you that this is almost a precise re-enactment of the dynamic that occurred in that infamous scene of chapter 52 (the pudding one. Yea. You know, that one.). Akiho opens up, speaks her feelings for him out, he interrupts her and runs away with an excuse. He's just like that. It is very hard for him to deal with feelings. Doesn't he remind you of Syaoran? Get ready, because I feel like we're about to witness a game of tag in the skies of Tomoeda. 😂

Also, I can't forget mentioning an important thing: the circle is closing more and more, cause we finally see happening a scene that Sakura saw in her dreams in chapter 2, the very beginning of this journey! As usual, what we see in the beginning of a CLAMP manga defines its ending (as the end of a CLAMP story is always decided right at the beginning).

That goes without saying, I literally cannot wait for next chapter, especially to see how many seconds Akiho will let pass before bolting after Kaito, helped by Flight (we know that Card can be very very speedy! 😂)

This chapter was a storm of feelings for me, so I'll go resting now and make a list of all the songs I had imagined for this finale, and that indeed turned out to be so fitting! I'll dump them on my twitter account in the next days 😂 Chapter 78 is expected for October 1st on CLAMP's YT channel (CLAMP haven't taken a break ever since chapter 65, they really are holding out till the end).

Well, we've reached the end of this post, so as usual, I await for your comments and asks in my inbox! See you!!

[airenyah]

hi!! i'm the struggling with trying to get my point across in english anon!

SO i just woke up and read your answer on gillian's blog thank you so much???? i feel SEEN you totally get what i mean, "because how do i say "anspielen" in english?" that's exactly it!!! my first language is actually spanish but that's literally how i feel when i try to write anything

there's always that one thing i really want to say but i struggle with because even though i'm writing in english and thinking in english this very specific word or this very specific feeling is in spanish for me, the very core of it, and so the whole sentence in my head doesn't make sense, there's actually not a sentence anymore. it can be really overwhelming because thoughts keep piling up but there's nowhere/no way to put them out there!

what you said about trying to describe it feels like a good idea honestly, it can be chaotic but at the same time maybe it ends up making even more sense than i originally planned

(you talking about all this with your mom is the cutest thing! actually TALKING about this, not just writing about it has to be so cool!)

you have no idea how much your words and advice helped me and just how much sense they make to me, you seem like such an articulate person, if those were your thoughts spilling out as they came to you well you are really good at this! would love to read more about them and all the interesting things you have to say about acting!

i'll try to share my thoughts for it to become a habit, baby steps, short sentences in the tags feels like a good place to start

thank you again <3

heyyyy anon!! sorry i'm replying only now, i was out with a friend all day yesterday and when i came back in the evening i had no energy for any more socializing...

aaaaanyway, glad to hear my thoughts helped!! i was a little worried no one would read my addition since it's so long, but i'm really happy to hear that this was exactly what you needed <3

(this is getting long again, so read more it is hahaha)

re: english is hard

yes, expressing oneself is really difficult, isn't it? in my experience, i've learned that sometimes i just have to accept that i simply can't say this one thing in that exact moment or at least i can't say it exactly in the way i want to...

it's really sad, depressing, and frustrating but!! as i said, sometimes you can get around it by simply explaining what you mean and giving examples. it takes much more effort that way, of course, but at least you'll get your point across!! you can make people understand this way!!

and sometimes there are words that are similar enough so you can use those instead. a little bit of what you REALLY want to say is likely to get lost this way, but again, at least you're communicating something

this is actually done in translation sometimes. when there is a word or a concept where there is no equivalent in the target language then translators might go either with the closest one there is (for example, in german there is no word that has the exact same vibe as the word "awkward". so depending on the context a tranlsator might go with the word "unangenehm" instead which actually means "uncomfortable", or the word "peinlich" which means "embarrassing"). or if that doesn't work then a translator might simply just explain the word/the concept (i know this bc i study translation at uni and my profs have talked about this hahaha)

and as i said in the other post, i promise it will get easier over time! it's just important that you actively keep trying

and yeah, i think the tags are a great place to start! you can reblog a gifset and you can start with saying specific things like "i like [insert aspect] of this scene because [insert reason]" or "this line is making me feel [insert emotion]" or "[character]'s expression in the 3rd gif looks like they're thinking [insert thought]" or "this scene reminds me of [parallel scene] because [insert reasons]"

and another thing that is important: keep your eyes and ears open! pay attention to the words/concepts that you struggle to express in english and keep a look-out for how other people would talk about this thing in english. this is why it's also important to also keep reading other people's things, because some day you might stumble across a word or a phrase that will make you go ohhhhh so THIS is how i can express this thought

as i also mentioned in the other posts, sometimes you can take a shortcut 😆 but that only works if it's a specific topic that you don't know how to talk about in a different language... then you can go look for "parallel texts": at my uni that means if i have to write an article about the topic of car-free cities for an exam but i don't know how to talk about car-free cities in italian then i'll go read articles on car-free cities in italian so i can see exactly what words and phrases they use and i make a list (yes i had an exam about this topic last month and yes i ended up with a six a4-page word list for italian hahaha), "parallel text" basically means you look for the exact text type that you want to write/say (can be an oral text as well) but in your target language so you can compare and find out what the most common words/phrases are to express specific thoughts and concepts of this topic. which is the exact thing i need to do in order to solve my problem of not being able to talk about acting in english, actually.... (someone get me off my lazy butt and make me go read about acting in english 😩)

plus if all comes to worse: your native language is spanish, right? many people speak spanish in the world, not just as native speakers but also as a 2nd language! so why not simply make the post in spanish? sure, it might reach less people but there will definitely be a few that will understand what you're saying (and you might end up making good friends and some of them might be able to help you figure out how to express certain topics in english)

re: talking about bl with my mom

yeees, it's a thing we do! sometimes i'll make my mom sit down and make her watch a drama with me and then sometimes she'll sit me down and make me watch a drama with her

it actually started in like 2018 or so? i happened to watch a japanese drama i stumbled across on netflix and i happened to watch it in the living room via our projector and my mom came home and walked past and was like "what are you watching?" and i was like "wanna join?" bc i was only about 4 eps or so in and my mom did join and was really intrigued bc the japanese had a different acting style from what she was used to in western media

and so a while later netflix recced a chinese drama to her and so she got curious and that's how my mom got into chinese drama 😆 at some point i also managed to get her into kpop (despite not listening to kpop myself -- this is a whole other long story hahaha) and so she also got into kdramas and then lockdown happened and i got super obsessed with why r u (my very first thai drama rip) and my mom was like "i want to watch this show you're obsessed with, i want to know how the thais do it in comparison to the other asian countries" and so in the end i did watch it with her and since then thai drama has been on that list too 😂

and since i had started drama school about half a year before the pandemic happened i was starting to really understand how acting works and so it's been super interesting taking apart dramas with her. my mom has an insane eye for things and i've learned incredibly much, in fact i'm STILL learning from her, it's amazing

and yes, it's fantastic being able to actually talk about it!! it's so much fun (and hilarious sometimes, because we'll be sitting on the couch, completely tearing apart a drama and my brother will walk past and he'll be all confused and go "why are you even watching it if you hate it so much????" and we'll be like "cause it's GOOD!!!!".... it happened with the eclipse, for example. there were many things that just weren't working out in the show, especially the longer it went on and so we'd thoroughly discussed these things and my brother happened to only ever walk past when we were talking about the bad things and was never around when we talked about the good things, like for example anything that first kanaphan does😆😆😆)

re: me talking about acting

okkkk yes, i understand that you would love to hear my thoughts on acting! i think a lot of people would like to hear them! but to be honest, i wasn't telling the entire truth when i said that not having the words in english was the reason why i don't talk about it

yes, not being able to properly express my thoughts is a big part of it but there are other reasons too why i avoid talking about acting publicly in fandom spaces...

1. insulting fandom faves is like opening a can of worms

i don't like conflict and i like the thoughts of arguing with strangers on the internet even less. however, while there are many positive things to say about the acting in dramas (whether it's bl or not, whether it's the main cast or not) there are also many, many negative things to say about it. and you know, sharing anything negative about someone's faves in fandom spaces..... that's not gonna go well 😅 so i'm a little scared of getting murdered if i dare saying one negative thing about some of the most popular actors. plus, i don't want to ruin other's enjoyment of the dramas and so i think especially on a platform like tumblr where people come to have fun my criticism on acting may not be the right place for it (no one likes negativity in the tags of their fave show, do they...). (yes, i have considered making a youtube channel hahaha)

2. for some concepts you need experience and a trained eye

ok the 2nd reason why else i don't talk about acting is just... it's a whole thing that you actively need to study! where you need to make your own experiences! and if you don't have experience then it can be really difficult to understand what the hell i'm going on about. which is why it's so fantastic that i have my mom, because i can just go up to her and show her a scene and say a single sentence like "this scene isn't working out because [actor] is always doing the same thing, nothing changes". or i can say "did you see all the pictures [actor] has managed to create in the span of two seconds, isn't that amazing????". or i can say "this moment was bad bc the actor is missing the thought that inspired this line". and my mom will understand, you know? (in fact, i don't even have to say that something is bad or good, i can just say things like "nothing changes here" or "look at the pictures" or "the thought is missing" and my mom will immediately understand whether it's a good or bad thing just from that 😆)

and yes, i can try to explain these concepts to a non-experienced person! but this is just really hard to do via a simple tumblr post....

i can explain when i can sit you down next to me and i can talk to you and i can pull up different scenes on my laptop and discuss them in detail, when i can show you different examples to really showcase what i mean. i could pull up good examples and bad examples of a specific concept to make you understand what it means (what "having a thought" means for example)

i actually currently have an analysis project going on with a friend where i'm showing her a sequence of scenes of a korean drama and then that very same sequence of scenes of its taiwanese remake. one has good acting and one has bad acting and so i've been making her look at both sequences and think about how they make her feel and why they make her feel like that and what she can take away from those sequences. my friend has already realized that one version is less fun to watch than the other version and exactly why that is and what the one actors are doing better than the others is what i'll be telling her next time we hang out 😆

but yes, i have an easier time giving her that crash course on acting because we can actually hang out and i can show her so many things. last time i was explaining the concept of "Dringlichkeit" (in english i would call this something like "urgency") to her and she didn't understand and so i was able to show her myself, in person, what it looks like when someone talks with low urgency and what it looks like when someone talks with a lot of urgency and how that has different effects

or when one of my acting teachers explained the concept of "sending" to us he did it by going to the far end of the room, standing in front of the wall with his back turned to us and talking to us, his face turned towards the wall. and at one point he talked to us while sending and at one point talked to us without sending and it was an eye-opening experience

but yeah, i just can't do that on a tumblr post, unfortunately

in conclusion:

so yeah, not having the right words in english, struggling with explainig the concepts to non-experienced people, and not wanting to insult anyone's fave and getting angry anons about it are the three reasons why i don't talk about acting publicly (or at least only rarely)

i have considered making a reaction youtube channel where i talk about these things together with my mom, but the big problem is just our lack of the right vocabulary (and my mom doesn't have much practice in speaking english, so she would struggle even more) and of course, copyright laws. i'd have to figure out how to deal with those first, as well...

if you're still curious about my opinions on acting, if there's anything specific you want to know you can of course come ask me about it, though!! however, i would prefer you do that off anon and come directly into my dms

i don't really mind talking about acting in general, in fact, it's one of my favorite things to do! and i certainly wouldn't mind trying, you know! but as i said, i just don't want to do it publicly. i don't want just anyone being able to see my opinions and get offended. i prefer doing it in the privacy of a private chat with selected people where i know they won't immediately get offended and can take my negative criticism about their faves

[haeyeongs]

can you plase share a tutorial of how you made the pinned vincenzo gifset? TT thank you <3

Hi! Yes, of course! I'm sorry this took me so long to finally reply but here's my tutorial on how I made the blended gifs in this gifset!

1. The base

The process is very similar for each of the 3 gifs. First, you need to pick which scene will the base of your gif. You can crop your gif the way you want but keep in mind that you need space somewhere to put a second scene! Try not to pick busy shots because those will be harder to work with. Negative space and plain background are your best friends! The tricky part is that the other scene you will add on top of the base gif will only be nicely blended if it's put on a very dark or a very light area. Below are the shots I've chosen to be my base and, as you will notice, there is negative space around the main subject. Those dark areas will be where I'll add my new layers later.

Vincenzo's shoulder on the first gif makes a perfect area for blending layers because it is not only black but also is very plain! Chayoung's face adds a lot of contrast against this dark space

On the 2nd gif, there isn't a lot of space around her but there's enough on the right for what I have in mind so it's fine

Same with the 3rd gif. I cropped it so her face would be on the left, which leaves a bit of space on the right to add my new layers later

Our base gifs aren't done yet, we have to make the background cleaner so our blending results will look better. I will pick black because the background colors of the scenes I've selected are closer to black than white. However, if you're doing this with brighter shots, you should use white or any bright color! Add a new layer, select the brush tool (make sure it's set as a soft brush) and paint on top of the area you'll add your blended layers later.

This isn't a mandatory step but, in most cases, it is very useful! As an exemple, my 2nd gif needed it. As you can see on the previous picture, Chayoung is standing outside and the street lights are visible behind her on the right. Because this is where I will insert Vincenzo later, I need to clean up this area to end up with a plain and dark background. Here's the result after I added soft brush layers:

You can color your base gif now if you want to or do it later, it's up to you!

2. Blending

You're done with your base layer, which means it's now time to work on the gif you'll be blending! Finding the right scenes to blend is the hardest part of the process and you'll probably need to try this several times before you feel satisfied with your result. Don't feel bad about it, I'm also struggling and it's ok! It takes some practice to understand how blending works so be patient!

Put your gifs on the same file

Before blending our gifs together, we need to have them both on the same file. First, just open the gif you've selected to be blended and make sure you're working with timeline and not layers for all of your gifs (here's where to convert to timeline if you need help). Select all the layers from your future blended gif and put them all in one folder. Now, they are ready to join the base gif! Just select the folder and drag it to your base gif. Place it roughly where you want it to be and resize it if it needs to be.

Now that you have both gifs on the same file, you may need to adjust the length of your gif. Indeed, it is very likely that your base gif and your blended gif don't have the same number of frames, which means that one of your gif may run longer than the other. This is what happened with the first gif of my gifset. As you can see on the timeline below, the gif I wanted to blend was shorter than my base gif.

To fix this, just clic on the right handle on top of the timeline and slide it where your shorter gif ends. Your final gif will now end when the shortest gif ends!

Blending mode

It's now time to change the folder's blending mode! Since I'm making dark gifs, I will be selecting the folder and setting its blending mode to lighten. Below is the before and after of my middle gif. You can try using different blending modes as the result will be really different from one gif to another. Sometimes, screen gives a nice result as well. However, if you're working with light backgrounds, lighten will not work at all and you'll have to set it as darken instead. I really suggest you to experiment with different modes and colors to understand how it works!

Here, changing the blending mode helps making a smooth transition between Chayoung and Vincenzo but it's not enough for the rest of the gif because the edges of Vincenzo's gif are still visible, as well as the lights in the background. It's fine, let's just apply a layer mask!

Layer mask

To use a layer mask, make sure you've selected the folder you've set the blending mode to lighten and click on this icon. The layer mask will help us hide what we don't want to show! Select the eraser and make it as soft as possible. Now, erase the parts you want to hide. Don't worry, it won't actually erase your layers, it will simply hide those parts! If you erased too much, just pick the brush tool and paint on top of the areas you want to be visible.

Here's my result. Looks better, right?

I'm almost done with the blending process of this gif but I feel like Vincenzo's part needs more contrasts... When you're blending gifs, contrasts are important because they can drastically change your result. I haven't applied any coloring layer to Vincenzo's gif yet so I will increase the blacks and whites using a levels layer. But... if I create a new layer, it will also apply to Chayoung, right? So how do we do? It's actually simple: we will be creating a clipping mask!

Clipping mask

I need to add a levels layer so this is what I will be clipping but the clipping mask technique can be used with any kind of layer! I create a levels layer and make sure this layer is placed right above the blended folder. Then, we right-click on it and select "create clipping mask". It's done! Now, the layer will only apply for what is inside the folder (it doesn't have to be a folder, you can also clip a layer to another layer).

You're done with blending!

You're now free to color your gif the way you want! Remember you can create clipping masks if you need to color the scenes separately. Here's my final result:

I've used to same blending process for the other gifs as well. You can blend as many scenes as you want. For instance, I've used 3 different scenes for the last gif but the process was the same!

My final step was to add the quote on each gif. The main font I've used is Blastrick (which isn't a free font but I was able to get it for free a while ago when it was part of Creative Market's weekly free goods). I've used Algerian for the word "mine" on the last gif and I believe this font was actually pre-installed in Windows so you might have it too on your computer!

Thank you so much for reading and I hope this will inspire you to try this technique!

[irandomblogfulb]

FATE: What happens when you get a bunch of middle aged white guys to adapt a cartoon for girls

Well, I just went through 6 hours of fate and I have a lot of opinions on it. Yeah, this is going to be long (slightly under 3k words) so putting it under read more and obvious spoilers.

PSA before delving right in:

1) Yes, I will be comparing to the original. Any comparisons are not through rose-tinted nostalgia glasses. There are parts here and there that I genuinely think were done better in the cartoon on a writing standpoint.

2) This is purely my opinion and overall negative. Don't like it? Don't read. I'm all up for discussion but I don't want another person crying to me about how I “ruined” their experience of the show.

3) If you like Fate then good for you. This isn’t me bashing people who like it. 

I've spit it up into sub sections just for my own convince.

1. The problem with the 'I'm not like other girls' trope

This pertains to the entire Bloom-Sky-Stella love triangle. I wasn't as pressed about it compared to other winxers (and I loved Stella's and Brandon's relationship on my rewatch). In fact, I was okay with it. But then I sat down and watched the show and there's a lot of underlying problems with the love triangle. Particularly pitting Bloom and Stella against each other for Sky's affection.

Now this part of the love triangle I already didn't like. Correct me if I'm wrong, since I dropped the OG Winx after season 5 but the Winx while they did have their conflicts and arguments, never fought over a boy. I really appreciated that from the cartoon so seeing that live action would fall into that trap – I was mildly annoyed at that. Then it hit me. It's Bloom and Stella.

The seemingly ordinary girl vs the pristine princess of Solaria. If the title didn't give it away, you should get the point by now. Others have already called it by now but the "I'm not like other girl's" trope in itself, while seemingly feminist is actually misogynist. Saying the more masculine type of girl is better than the feminine is inherently misogynist. Stella, the prime princess, girly and feminine, is villainized by the love triangle. Sky's and Stella's relationship is toxic and Stella's overt co-dependence and jealousy are already big fat red signs - but Sky's and Bloom's relationship is built on how she's "different". Bloom isn't like Stella, she's "real".

2. Am I supposed to like Riven?

As the title puts it, wtf am I supposed to feel about Riven. Is he supposed to be a good guy? Do I root for him? Is he morally ambiguous? Because holy shit compared to OG!Riven, this guy is diabolical and much much worse! OG!Riven is an asshole and he teams up with the trix but his arc was very simple and easy to understand. He joins the bad guys, distances himself from the good guys, the trix betray his ass, he self-reflects in the dungeon - escapes and redeems himself. Net!Riven is so bad to the point where you can't redeem him and the writers don't even try. Freddie Thorp is good in his role. (however, he definitely doesn't pass for a 17-year-old. He's 26 and it shows) and he actually makes the cringe dialogue work. But he's way too diabolical and downright predatory. The scene where he forces Dane to gulp down his spiked drink - it’s worse seeing it than reading it. That grossed me out more than the gore.

What makes it worse, nobody properly calls him out. Beatrix kinda does on his homophobia – “Homophobic bashing by GIF” - and Sky does chastise him, but they still tolerate him. It is kinda funny in a way Sky has a whole ass arc about how he's enabling Stella's problematic behaviour by still dating her after she blinded her friend but doesn't realize he's doing the same for Riven.

The only person that really puts her foot down with Riven is Terra and nobody takes her seriously about anything she says.

Everyone is very laissez-faire around him and that's not how you respond to your friend being problematic. (Hey, kinda like the other girls sans Aisha are with Bloom!) Everyone surrounding Riven is so disgusting and the notion of him supposedly being a good guy is very hard to buy into. His whole relationship with Dane has a section of it’s own because there’s just a lot to unpack.

3. Stella I am so sorry

I'm also in the majority hating how they've tarnished Stella. Basically, they turned her into the stereotypical rich bully with mommy issues.

I get that Stella has an abusive mom but that’s no excuse to be a total bitch to her roommates. And no, her roommates shouldn't accept her back with open arms. And she doesn't even redeem herself - the girls just accept her back after her mom pulls her from Alfea.

And this is also another issue with the writing were the characters suddenly just change their opinions on a whim. Suddenly Stella likes the winx, suddenly Terra misses Stella even though having that girl literally gives her anxiety. Suddenly Aisha's on Bloom's side in the end.

This isn't me simping for the cartoon out of nostalgia. I was mostly okay with the idea of Stella and Sky hooking up. But Looking at it from a creative standpoint - looking at the source material, and the many paths you can take this character, the best thing Brian Young and co. can think of for her was turning her into the stereotypical rich bully that we've seen time and time again? No deconstruction no meta take, it's played out exactly how you’d expect it.

Again, this isn't me simping for the show. Purely from a creative standpoint Stella was such a major let down. There's so much to the character and Brian Young took the easiest, saturated path.

4. That one scene with Bloom's parents

You know the one. Mike unhinges Bloom's bedroom doors and Vanessa cusses out and insults her child like a petty teen bully. Forgetting how utterly cringey that scene was, you can't have her mom go batshit insane on her child, then act like she's this loving parent that cares so deeply about her daughter. Screw that! Vanessa deserved those 3rd degree burns! She invaded her daughter's privacy. Bloom didn't even do anything wrong!

I can't buy into this narrative of Vanessa and Mike being loving parents when they do something like that. Seriously who thought that was okay?

5. Pity Parties for everyone.

I already discussed this in Stella’s section but I don’t like the “it’s okay for me be a shitty person because my life sucks :)” narrative Fate tries to pull. They did it with Stella, Bloom, Riven.

What I liked about the first season of Winx Club is Bloom’s arc and her character as a whole. Because while she went through shit, from the Trix, to finding out she was adopted, her existential crisis, not feeling like she belonged, losing the dragon flame, she went through a lot. She didn’t throw a pity party. She didn’t whine, bitch and complain. She allowed herself to feel upset, took it as it is and tried to make lemonade out of lemons. And I respect that.

Net!Bloom is agrevating. She does some dumb, reckless stuff but it’s excused because she’s the protagonist? She let the war criminal out, the school gets taken over by the bad guys because of Bloom. Faragonda fucking dies because she let the war criminal out! The burned ones attacked the school because she let the war criminal out!!! But no, Aisha’s villainized for calling Bloom out because Bloom’s existential crisis is more important then anything else.

Getting to Sky, he isn’t as bad as the others. He doesn’t become a shitty person because of his problems. (Though lowkey flirting with Bloom while he hooks up with Stella is uh not good.) But he does come across incredibly whiny. Because of the cringey dialogue and the unnecessary swearing  I can’t take his speech on opening up to Bloom seriously. I laughed throughout the whole thing and Bloom leaving his unconscious body there was the icing on the cake.

One of the few characters that deserved a pity party is Terra. She’s very much like OG!Bloom in a way. She is bullied by Dane and Riven, has body insecurities, anxiety, nobody listens to her and at most only tolerates her. Despite all the crap that is thrown her way she still reminds humble, kind, and respectful. And she is one of the few characters that deserves more support than what she got out of the season.

5. Bloom, Aisha, Tokenism and their awful relationship

I’m going to be upfront, their relationship sucks. The core of their dynamic is what Aisha can do for Bloom. It’s very one-sided. Bloom only goes to Aisha to help solve her problems, which Aisha gladly does – but when Aisha disagrees with Bloom or says something Bloom doesn’t like, Bloom suddenly goes off and Aisha’s made to be the bad guy. Even though she’s right? And Aisha has her own problems as well, shown to also struggle with her powers. But nope, that’s pushed to the back burner because Bloom needs help.

I am all for creative freedom. I can stomach Stella x actual Sky. I can stomach turning Stella into a rich mean girl. I can stomach the dark academia aesthetic but what Brian Young and co. did to Aisha is just plain racist. Screw the “it’s an adaptation” excuse. Turning this character who had a rich storyline and was a princess into a white girl’s magical negro who fixes all her problems is racist and by definition tokenism. And by whitewashing the other two characters of color, making Aisha the only poc in the group – that’s the worst thing you can do to her.

And frankly we need more black princesses on screen.

6. Dane and the homophobia of the show

Towards the show’s climax it’s revealed Dane is helping Beatrix because she accepts he’s “different”. Not only does this go back to my pity party rant but like bruh,

1)      Beatrix never really did anything for Dane? She hung out and smoked with him a bit, but that’s all. You’re telling me Terra wouldn’t accept Dane? Beatrix never helped him and he never really opened up to her about his struggles.

2)      Nobody else, not even background characters bully or harass Dane for being “different”. It’s only Riven, the guy he’s crushing on. The whole falling in love with the bad boy/abuser trope is bad in a hetero relationship and that still stands for a gay one. And I know damn well if Dane was a woman half of the shit Riven did to Dane wouldn’t slide.

It makes no sense for Dane to side with the bad guys when Riven’s the one bullying him and Beatrix is complacent in the bullying. Oh, and having your second black* character who’s also lgbt+/potentially questioning be a villain? Not good.

I’m all for gay and poly rep, but not like this. If Stella and Sky’s toxic relationship is going to be called out for what it is, why not Dane’s?

*Idk if Theo Graham is light-skinned black or biracial so I’ll just refer to him as black.

7. The plot

It’s very predictable. Personally, wasn’t fond of the ‘twist of a twist of a twist’ style of writing. The story tries to be nuanced and deep but it’s not. Common sense is treated like a big revelation. Not trusting the war criminal you barely know isn’t as big of a take that the writers try to make it out to be.

8.  Everything else

·       Beatrix is fine. No Icy but did like the gothic bookworm aesthetic.

·       Sam is just there to be Musa’s love interest and provide some dumb drama between Musa and Terra. I thought they’d go the Edward/Bella root – Musa’s drawn to Sam because she can’t sense his emotions for some reason. Nope, they just get together for the obligatory make out sessions. Don’t care much for the relationship or the character.

·       Since the powers are all elemental shouldn’t there be classes purely for an elemental? Classes purely for fire fairies, etc?

·       Musa’s powers are confusing. If she has no control over them and they are “always on”, shouldn’t her eyes constantly be glowing purple?  Very wishy washy. Sometimes they overwhelm her and other times she has complete control. Her character is just there for plot stuff.

·       Terra is one of the better characters but can’t enjoy her knowing about the whitewashing. Why can’t we have a plus sized character just exist and not have body issues?

·       Sky doesn’t feel like a prince. Characters treat him like his dad is a war hero and not the King of Eraklyon. There was a point where I thought I misheard and thought his dad was just a war hero and not a king.

·       Why try to justify Rosalind’s war crime if she’s going to be the big bad anyways?

·       The way the characters treat death/act around death is very weird. Musa and Terra see a pile of dead bodies and they’re unreasonable calm. Especially Bloom an “ordinary teenage girl from earth”, reacts very nonchalant when death and war crimes are brought up. Doesn’t help the show tries to push this “they’re kids fighting a war” narrative.

·       Can’t buy into the girls’ friendship. The Aisha/Bloom dynamic is centred on what Aisha can do for Bloom. Bloom only cares about herself and only goes to her friends to help with her problems. Most of Musa’s and Terra’s interaction centre around Sam. Stella didn’t care for the girls until her mom showed up and pulled a 180. The girls were quick to turn on Aisha when she sided with the adults.

·       I have no problem with technology existing but why do they have Instagram, Tiktok and Tumblr? The otherworld is a completely separated from Earth, why do they have the same technology?  

9. Brian Young, what do you mean by mature?

I grew up on the 4kids dub before transitioning to the Nick dub for season 4 and 5 then dropping the cartoon for good. So naturally on my rewatch of the cartoon I decided to go watch the RAI dub since I heard it’s more accurate and 4Kids are infamous for their horrid localisations straying too much to the source material. Upon finishing season 1 and currently watching season 2, a few things took me by surprise. For one, the cartoon is surprisingly dark. The schools are at war with the Trix and their army of Darkness, Sky almost dies in Season 2, Riven almost dies and the Trix thinks he suicided, it’s heavily implied in Season 2 Darkar murdered some of the pixies, the paedophilic undertones of Bloom and Avalon’s relationship, the list goes on.

When the interview with Brian Young came out, he said Fate would be a mature take on the cartoon. And I wondered, what did he meant by mature? Was he going to delve deeper into the darker aspects of the show, or did he mean he was going to have the girls swear and have sex? Watching Fate, I found my answer.

If you take out the gore, swearing, drug and alcohol usage from the live action, the maturity is on par with the RAI dub. The difference is in the presentation. This is what sucks about the mentality surrounding live action remakes. Because the OG!Winx was colourful with glittery transformations , was super girly and overall had a positive upbeat tone (not forgetting 2D animated) - it can’t be taken seriously. You have to strip all that, the colour, the kindness, the femininity in order to be deemed mature.

10. Wrapping up

I went into Fate expecting the worst and honestly, it wasn’t that bad. There were things I liked about it. The show looks pretty, and I did like what they were trying to do with Sky’s arc. The actors did what they could with the material. Freddie Thorp made the cringe dialogue work and Abigail Cowen proves she can carry a show as the lead.

Fate is your generic, YA, dark academia show. It follows all the tropes of the YA genre to a T. If that’s your niche, then you’ll love Fate and I’m not bashing anyone who liked it.

For me, as a creative, it doesn’t capitalise on the strengths of the source material. I’m not asking for Winx Club again, as I’ve reiterated, I’m all for creative freedom. But Brian Young, Iginio Straffi, whoever worked on this – they could’ve created something new, innovative, something that stood out from the hordes of other YA shows. They had good material in their hands! But what I got -  I’ve seen before, and I’ve seen it done better. That’s a major disappointment.

As a winx club fan, don’t bother watching this. It’s a very diluted version of the Winx. In trying to capture the interest of the adult fans who grew up with the franchise – Iginio showed how out of touch he is if he thinks this is what they wanted.

[meetmeatthecoda]

I've got this folder on my hard drive where I copied my all-time favorite episodes of The Blacklist to rewatch when I'm feeling down / when I want to rewatch TBL but don't have time for all 170+ episodes.

A week ago or so I've started the umpteenth rewatch and, so, by now, I'm rewatching the first episodes of the 5th season... and I was suddenly punched in the gut with how the way Liz looks at Red changes over the time: from defiant but so very sexually attracted look of the 1st season (especially, first episodes) to giggly school crush of the 3rd (that scene from Eli Matchett when they find this warehouse or something that's got a keypad lock and Liz says that they won't be able to unlock it because there are thousands of possible combinations and Red just... makes it work, by throwing sand at the keypad and finding the four digits most used and Liz gives him that Look that just can't be described as anything other than crushed and "Wow, can't believe this man is mine!") to the look of incredible fondness – mind you, not the daughterly fondness but that's-my-baby (or, sometimes, that's-my-idiot, let's be honest) married kind of fondness – of the 5th season and that transition is just... such a telling argument both for Lizzington (physical attraction to emotional attraction to marriage viewing the other as your s/o is a rather healthy evolution of a relationship, don't you agree? not to mention Red's attracted gazes that get more and more... accompanied by the lovestruck, openly adoring ones as the show progresses) and Megan's good acting.

Oh, and, just to be clear, I don't mean that those looks get replaced by one another – the attracted one is still there but the giggly school crush is just added to the mix, as well as the fond one.

Hey there, anon!! 😄 Firstly, I love that you have a personal TBL depository, I think that's awesome 😂 Secondly, omg... yesssss 😭 The evolution of Lizzie Looks™ over the course of the show is... really something, especially when they trend in the positive direction as you so accurately describe!! God, the journey from sexually-attracted-but-wary to giggly-school-girl-crush to incredible-that's-my-baby/idiot-married-fondness is beautiful to see. you-know-what-that-is?-growth.gif 🤌 And omg, yes, I so agree with you, anon!! This visible progression is an absolutely solid & valid argument for Megan's good acting AND for the healthy - if understated & eventually thwarted - development of Lizzington. It's such a shame it all goes downhill from there 😠😒😭 Anyway, I love this ask, anon, thank you for sharing your accurate & beautiful Lizzington re-watch observations!! There's nothing better than reliving the glory days, cause that's all we have 🥲 Thanks again & much love to you, anon!! ❤️

[verobatto]

Destiel Chronicles

(Vol. XVIII)

It was a love story from the very beginning.

Offended (part II)

(6x03/6x06/6x07)

Hello my friends! This is another volume from my Destiel Chronicles. The second part of "Offended".

I want to give special thanks to my dearest friend @agusvedder , this time she couldn't make the gifs, but she helped me with the discussion! Thank you girl!

Ok, now... Let's go straight to the point.

Castiel in angel soldier mode

Coming back to episode 6x03, Dean is witness of Castiel's soldier mode behavior.

The angel moves fast appearing and disappearing (we need to recall this chapter was written by Edlund, and he loves to write angels as dynamic forces, and make Dean yelling FREAKING ANGELS! Everytime he is in the middle of this) So Cas was moving around, fighting with some angels, and being very risky with a kid, touching his soul for information. That was an alert alarm for Dean.

Sam is soulless, so, he can't understand the concern about hurting a kid, and he is more on line with Castiel's soldier mode behavior. In the middle is Dean that can't believe CAS is doing such a thing to a boy.

Cas is so accelerated that Dean needs to stop him somehow. The angel gave just a little of information to their friends.

CASTIEL: It is simple: Raphael and his followers, they want him to rule Heaven. I -- and many others -- the last thing we want is to let him take over. It would be catastrophic.

SAM: You're talking civil war.

CASTIEL: Technically, yes. Which is why we have to find Balthazar and his weapons before Raphael does. Whoever has the weapons wins the war.

So he didn't explain the details, but it was enough there...

Pointing here the fact that Dean is seeing Cas in his soldier mode, is a behavior he will have the whole season, and he will repeat I'M AT WAR a lot of times, as an excuse.

And I'm not forgetting this manner...

CASTIEL: If the angel we seek truly bought this boy's soul, when a claim is laid on a living soul, it leaves a mark, a brand.

Now... This topic had been analyzed a lot here, it would explain the handprint in Dean's shoulder and it also would explain why Sam was pulled out from Hell without a soul by Cas... He couldn't claim his soul (bc it was very difficult to do it by himself). Just a Destiel observation.

Let's jump now to the next episode.

Dean is mad at Castiel bc he doesn't pay attention to their problems

In episode 6x06 "You Can't Handle The Truth", we had just one scene with Castiel but with a huge intensity.

First of all... The episode begins with Bobby and Dean and this question...

BOBBY: Did you call Cas?

DEAN: 'Course I called Cas. He's not answering. Screw him. I can't wait anymore.

Dean is worried about Sam's behavior. He doesn't know what is going on with his brother and he just saw him how he waits for him to be turned into a vampire by a monster. So he had been calling Castiel. And Cas doesn't answer.

This is new for him, bc till now, Cas was there for them. And he was helping them. But since he returned to Heaven, things changed. And Dean felt he was let behind. And he can't understand why Castiel isn't there for him. Or why he isn't worried about Sam. He's so mad at Castiel bc of that. Bc he isn't there for him. Remember season 4? When they first met as I wrote in one of the first chronicles... Dean was pushing Castiel the whole time asking him for help, and he got mad when CAS didn't help him. And they just met! So this time is worst, bc they already are best friends, and Cas isn't there! So yes, Dean is mad at him.

And when Castiel finally appears... It shows...

DEAN (drains a glass of whiskey.) Castiel? Hello? Possible loose nuke down here, angelic weapon. Kinda your department. You hear that, Cas?

The way Dean is calling Cas is like if he wouldn't expect for the angel to show... But Castiel appeared... Bc Dean named an angelic weapon. Useful to the war.

CASTIEL appears. Hello, Dean.

DEAN: Are you kidding me? I have been on red alert about Sam, and you come for some stupid horn?!

CASTIEL: You asked me to be here, and I came.

DEAN: I -- I've been asking you to be here for days, you dick!

Look how mad is Dean. And Castiel's answer doesn't helps. The hunter feels like Cas is avoiding him about Sam's soul but, by the other hand, he mentions an angelic weapon and Cas is there. And Dean is calling Cas dick! He is very, very angry with him.

Now... It comes the excuse...

CASTIEL, abashed. I didn't come about Sam because I have nothing to offer about Sam.

DEAN: Well, that's great, because for all we know, he's just gift wrap for Lucifer.

Ok, we have one important matter here... Cas had pulled Sam out of hell... But the boys don't know that, so... Cas is avoiding this bc he is lying to them. (Yeah.. beautiful Gamble's plot... Transforming an ALWAYS HONEST CHARACTER into a LIAR ONE).

So... Now Cas is seeing how distressful Dean is about his brother's behavior and about him not paying attention to his prayers... And he decides do something to calm him down...

He refills Dean's glass with whiskey while he explains Dean's biggest fears about his brother being Lucifer is imposible.

And why am I so sure about this gesture was made with that intention? Because we will have the parallel in episode 6x09 "Clap your hands if you believe" (Edlund's) in which after being kidnapped, Dean returns to find his brother with a woman in the bed. So he was so mad at him, that Sam decides to give him a glass of whiskey.

The difference here is the huge sexual tension between Dean and Cas.

Dean misses HIS CAS

When Dean was more calm, he tries to talk with CAS...

DEAN: What happened to you, Cas? You used to be human, or at least like one.

CASTIEL: I'm at war. Certain... regrettable things are now required of me.

Is obvious Dean misses HIS CAS. The one that was there just for him.

And the excuse "I'm at war" is there again. And then... Castiel disappears again!

This made Dean get mad again...

But Cas appears again. And he sees Dean is mad at him. So he tries another strategy.

He promise he will help him.

This was a lovers fight, my friend, right in front of our eyes... Because you'll see... Dean is the husband that reclaims more attention from his husband and Cas is trying to please him with flowers and chocolates...

"Sorry babe, I know I wasn't at home these days, the work is demanding me more hours but I will take you for dinner next Sunday! It's a Promise!"

Is so hilarious but so accurate...

But it seems that Cas didn't take Dean for dinner and this is what we had in episode 6x07...

Dean bossy with Cas

In episode 6x07 "Family Matters" Cas is trying to make a diagnosis about Sam, and he discovers he's soulless...

But we will talk about the Destiel fight here...

Dean is being so bossy with Cas... Like if he was his servant or something. And Cas is being submissive, of course... because he didn't take Dean out for dinner... And Dean is mad again.

Not just this but... When they went to see Samuel, their grandfather, this scene...

SAMUEL: This Castiel? You're scrawnier than I pictured.

CASTIEL: This is a vessel. My true form is approximately the size of your Chrysler building.

DEAN: All right, all right, quit bragging. So, you were dead, and...

Dean is cutting Castiel out, and is hilarious... But after this... Castiel has to come back to Heaven, because "he's at war", and Dean gave him a last order... In a bad way...

Cas is being sarcastic here... And we have another parallel with Bobby in episode 6x04. Bobby scolded the boys because they put their problems first. And is exactly what Cas is saying here.

So... Another lovers fight. And Dean being a jiltter offended husband.

And I'm keeping the "taking off my belt while liking my lips and watching you SUGGESTIVELY" scene for another chronicle...

To conclude

Dean was mad at Cas because he was putting the war over his problems.

He misses HIS CAS, the one that was always there for him. And he is disappointed about the way Cas is behaving.

Castiel tries hard to be in two sides at the same time and to please Dean helping him when he can, but he's also aware about Dean's selfishness.

I hope you like this meta! C-u in the next one!

If you want to be tagged just let me know.

If you want to read the previous Chronicles, here's the links...

Vol. XV/Vol. XVI/Vol. XVII

Buenos Aires July 3rd 2019 10:31 PM

Tagging @metafest @magnificent-winged-beast

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